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serendark · 5 days

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Too Many Triangles

Summary:

Stanley Pines never knew what to make of that creepy cult room full of triangles that he found beneath his brother's house. Decades later, as the portal turns on, he thinks about what he's seen in all three of his brother's journals. He thinks about the note that Bill left behind for Mabel. This demon triangle has been harassing his family. There’s entirely way too many triangles in this house and in this family’s lives. Hours later after the worst reunion Stan's ever had, he steels himself and travels back downstairs, back to the portal basement. He needs to talk to Ford about Bill. He needs to protect his family. Even if that family apparently includes someone who hates him now.

Word count: 8,717

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Language: English

Characters: Stanley Pines (major), Stanford Pines (major), Bill Cipher (mentioned repeatedly), Dipper Pines (brief), Mabel Pines (brief)

Tags: Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Self-Harm, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Sibling Bonding, Guilt, Minor Violence

Spoilers: Season 2 (canon divergent: s02e11 "Not What He Seems"), Journal 3 (lore reference), The Book of Bill (lore reference)

Read on AO3.

Glistening rainbow shimmers of long-abandoned pyramid prisms were indiscernible from the flutters of stale dust motes that fell around Stanley’s shoulders like a hideous ceremonial scarf as he tore pallid drapes down from the walls to the floor beneath his feet.

All too suddenly the room was all too small, walls caving in and seizing the man’s lungs while tumultuous needles pinned his frozen legs in place. He didn’t know where to look, but there was only one place he could, washing over him in waves of deep, dark, terror: Dozens upon dozens of eyes gazing back at him, staring right through him, every inch of his soul torn open and laid bare to see, to be chewed and drank by these confusing triangles… By the absurdly gaudy golden statue that might as well have winked back at him for all that it deigned.

Stan stumbled backwards, backside and hands meeting the floor as he struggled to process what he was beholding. This did not feel like something he should have seen, and he couldn’t shake the gross feeling bubbling under his skin that there was no taking it back, no undoing the fact that he is now privy to this awful, terrible room of goddamn cult secrets. He has become a part of this and he cannot scrub that away.

“What the hell, Sixer…?”

He never knew what to make of this room, and after scouring the piles, drawers, and corners for anything that might help with the portal he never once returned, preferring to forget about it entirely if he could. Unfortunately, forgetting was rather difficult since he passed the place every time he went down to the basement and he kept finding more of those damn prisms in random rooms in his brother’s home.

Sometimes he wondered if he should care more about this discovery, but it’s not like he had a lot of leads to work with. The journal in his possession didn’t mention anything about it and neither did any of the papers scattered around the room or lab, so other than the obvious similarity with the shape of the portal, Stan doubted if there even was more for him to learn, anyway. He just needed to fix the portal, get it running, and get his nerd brother back home. That’s all that mattered. No creepy geometry could alter the path which Stan has stitched into his very soul.

He will fix his greatest mistake or he will die trying. If this house does not see the two brothers reunited, then it will bear witness to the disappearance of both instead.

It’s the least Stan can do.

—

An extensive, wavering exhale rolled over Grunkle Stan’s nerves as he sat on the edge of his bed, head in hands and mind whirring over everything that had happened today. Finally, Stanford Pines was home. The real Stanford.

… Home? What was ‘home’ to Stanley Pines, now? Certainly not in his brother’s arms like he had hoped. Apparently not in the Mystery Shack, either. Not for much longer. A dark chuckle wheezed through his lips as he gingerly massaged the bruise on his temple.

No matter. His twin hates him now, but that won’t change what Stan needs to do. He’s almost tempted to hate himself for his own stubbornness, at this point, but that won’t change the facts. Ungrateful bastard or not, a sad 30 years of daring to hope only for it to leak down the drain… And Stan still knows what path he has bound himself to. He is going to protect his family. Even if that family now includes someone who, once again, is trying to send him away to never see his sorry mug ever again. Even if that family now includes someone who he himself disowned as family merely an hour or two ago.

…Shit, he really regretted that. He idly wondered if Ford might be regretting that whole conversation too, but Stan just shook his head before he got lost in that train of thought for too long.

Bill Cipher. It’s been a long time coming: Stan finally needs to confront the damn triangles with their damn eyes.

He still didn’t know what to make of the private study he found beneath this house all those years ago. But what he did know is that, whatever the geometric eyesore is, it’s dangerous. Stan has scoured every page of the second and third journals lately, blacklight included, and it was all… a lot to take in. Despite what Ford had said, Stan isn’t an idiot. He knows that triangle is bad news. He knows Ford was real chummy with the guy once and then fell out of line, with some rather disturbing pages in Dipper’s journal to prove it.

This demon triangle has been harassing his family. There’s entirely way too many triangles in this house, in his brother’s journals, in the kids’ dreams, in this family’s lives. And Stanley Pines is going to do something about it.

—

He swallowed down the static in his head and the cotton ball in his mouth as he waited for the elevator to carry him down to Hell. He was hoping beyond hope that this wasn’t a mistake.

Well, even if it was, he was doing it anyway. He’s pretty good at that. He’s sure Ford would be more than happy to remind him, even. Safest bet he’s ever gambled.

Once more partaking of their familiar 30-years-long song and dance, the elevator rattled and released Stan into the maw beneath this home for yet another time. Cautious feet stepped forward as he peered ahead, trying to locate his brother.

Stanford was in the portal cavern. Hands busy, head ducked down, sparks flying. The room was still a mess from the gravitational anomalies that had preceded the worst reunion in Stan’s life, though it looked like Ford had pushed some things into comparatively tidier piles. The portal was in even more pieces than it had been after the chaos earlier.

Alright. It’s showtime.

Stan wasn’t looking forward to it.

“We need to talk, Poindexter.”

The speed with which Ford whipped around, choking back a yelp, would have been impressive, perhaps funny, even, if Stan weren’t so anxious. Ford had damn near fallen over, peering towards the source of the sound with too-wide eyes as he dropped what he had been doing and reached beneath his coat towards his gun―

“Wh… Stanley–!”

Stan just shrugged. “Yeesh.” He felt as tired as Ford looked. It’s been a long day and now he’s come back down to this accursed old basement to make it even longer.

Before Ford could finish stringing together his thoughts or lacing his tongue with venom, Stan wagered to jump right into the train directly, disregarding the nausea settling in his stomach: “We gotta deal with that Bill Cipher guy, right? I don’t exactly understand what the sitch is but–”

He saw the ceiling rotate over him and felt his back collide with the floor before he could even blink, world spinning and stars infiltrating his vision as hard as his lungs hissed. He swallowed against the muzzle of Ford’s gun pressed to his neck, those angry owlish eyes boring mere inches away from his face, the man’s full body weight keeping Stan pinned flat; knees digging into thighs and wrists scrunched in a vice grip by an impossibly firm six-fingered hand. Ford growled. Oh sweet Moses, yeah this was going about as well as Stan figured it would.

Panic. Gotta say somethin’. “Oookay, uh, Ford… Stanford, care to explain why ya just came at me like a damn cheetah pouncin’ a bison?” A gruff cough betrayed the grin he tried to steady his heart rate with.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds–

Confusion crossed over Ford’s eyes like a delayed signal, eyebrows furrowing as the gears in his brain turned. Stan swore he could see smoke coming out of this nerd’s ears. He blinked, spluttering, leaning back slightly with his grip on Stan’s wrists slacking. “Cheetahs and bisons aren’t even on the same continent, Stanley!”

Stan simply offered him a million-dollar grin and the best shrug he could in response. Which was difficult, by the way, thank you Ford. “Get off me, dammit.” Ford leaned back, letting Stan sit up, but frowned at him the entire time with his gun still primed and waaaay too close to Stan’s face for comfort. Was that a snarl? Seriously?

He was seconds away from figuring out what he was going to say next when an offensively bright light beamed into his eyes and shocked his mind to blankness, Ford’s hands gripping Stan’s face as he forced each eye open in turn before the light disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Stan swore furiously, waving his arms in front of his face and trying to scoot away, only succeeding once Ford finally backed off and let him free.

When Stan finished rubbing his eyes and pulling himself back onto his feet, he saw that Ford had returned to his earlier position of crouching by the ruined portal. Okay, seriously? All that bullshit that just happened and you’re desperate to shove your nose back into some busywork like I’m not even here–

“...How do you know about Bill, Lee?” Ford was back on his feet, body facing Stanley though eyes downcast as though the floor could answer his questions instead. Stan hesitated, the bite of his anger gradually receding as his eyes took in his brother for what might truly be the first real time since he walked through that luminous, ephemeral, triangular frame of metal. His eyes drank in the deep, dark circles under Stanford’s cracked glasses, the pasty color of his skin, the patchy stubble on his face, the sweat sliding down his forehead from his mop of greasy mussed-up hair…

The way his closed fists were trembling as if taut with tension, just like his brow and his lip, presenting a portrait of a Poindexter who was teetering on the cusp of erupting into his own flaming supernova where he stood. Stan knew that feeling. Had partied with it multiple times. He was intimately familiar with the way it burrowed a hole in your chest in place of your heart: a fear that was all-consuming, an anxiety that buzzed beneath one’s skin; a frantic, off-kilter energy that kept a ragged man going on his feet when he had nothing else yet couldn’t bear to simply not care.

This was a man who was running on fumes, no fuel left in the tank, and ready to collapse into non-existence the moment the strings puppeting him forward decided to stop yanking him along.

A man with one reason to live, yet even that reason is barely enough. The worst buried secret in the world; a heavy weight plain as day upon his shoulders and carving out the marrow of his bones.

Stanley recognized pretty easily the poorly-hidden tells of devastated fear and utter exhaustion in his brother’s body language. Because he had lived like that, too. Because he still struggled to remind himself when it wasn’t one of those days.

Sixer had never looked so… small.

Stan heaved a deep breath, slow and rickety enough for him to feel it vibrate down his limbs.

“Read ‘bout him in your journals.” Ford’s head lifted slightly, eyes flashing to Stan’s face. “...‘Nd the kids had the misfortune of fightin’ him.” Stanley might as well have punched Ford directly through his core for all that the words, hanging in the air, impacted this man and hung despair on his face. “‘Course, they don’t know that I know that.”

“... What happened?” His brother’s voice was barely a whisper, almost a keening whine from his lungs as he ran his hands through his hair and down his face, fingers creeping under his glasses to push into his eyes as he massaged his temples. It was like his eyebrows hadn’t left his hairline in minutes, the creases in his forehead deep enough to age him by another few decades.

Stan hobbled over to the ruins of the portal, taking a moment to stretch his lower back before sitting on the cold stone and patting the ground next to him. Ford didn’t immediately follow, but kept his eyes trained on him the whole time. Stan just started talking anyway.

“Alright, without talkin’ to the kids about it I don’t got the whole picture, but I got enough. Some rascal kid that was freakin’ Mabel out tried to take the Shack. Same kid who found your second journal, wherever the hell that was.” Ford had carefully stepped closer, hovering over Stan before letting himself sink into place on the floor beside him. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with his hands and was awkwardly twiddling all twelve of his fingers while he listened, muscles in his face twitching.

“Mabes and Soos saw this kid, Gideon is his name, summoning the guy. Bill, I mean. Made a deal with ‘im to go in my head ‘nd find the code to my safe, so he could steal the deed to the Shack.” Ford raised an eyebrow, making his posture straighter for a moment as he prepared to speak before Stan just continued and cut him off. “The kids used that spell in yer third book to go into m’ head, uh, my mindscape, and fight him out. Whatever they did, it worked, though that piece of geometry didn’t seem to amount to much compared ta what that Gideon did next anyways. Kid had a plan B that didn’t involve Bill.”

“You weren’t there for this.” Ford said it like a statement, but with an intonation to his voice that made it an inquiry. Stan shook his head. “I was out cold. Not sure I even dreamed that night.” Ford nodded.

Silence chilled the air between these old men as Stan cracked his neck and began popping every one of his knuckles in turn, only releasing his breath once he was finished. Ford wanted nothing more than to break this silence, to urge Stan to continue, but it felt… sacred, somehow. Once Stan was ready, he balled his hands into fists and snorted. “S’next part really pisses me off.” He didn’t notice Ford gulp and tentatively hover a hand in his direction before changing his mind.

“I dunno what was said, I dunno what it all looked like, but that bastard got in Dipper’s head, got in his body.”

He suddenly turned to look at Ford, eyes wide. “He hurt him. Gave him scars. Gave him nightmares. Gave Mabel nightmares, too.” Stan’s mouth opened and closed, hanging strangely for a moment while his eyebrows knit together. “...Bill left a note, Stanford. For Mabel to find.”

One shaky inhale later, he continued. “Was gonna… jump off the water tower. Invited Mabel to the same.” He turned away from Ford, leaning back against the portal again and flexing his fingers, shoulders tense while he cracked his neck again. Stan’s gaze was forward and distant, a hollow feeling taking over his face and posture.

A loud slam startled him back into awareness.

Ford had sat up and punched the piece of portal he had been leaning against, struggling with growled breaths of air and trembling shoulders. He grit his teeth and punched it again. And again. Then he tottered to his feet and slapped both open palms into the metal, dipping his head forward and colliding against it. He hissed, rearing his head back like he was preparing for a larger blow―

“Woah― hey, hey, Ford! Stanford!” Stan was on his feet in no time and shoved Ford away from the portal, digging his hands down into Ford’s shoulders to hopefully keep him immobile. Ford wobbled and refused to meet his eyes, but Stan managed to keep him rooted where his feet stood. “What the hell was that about? Ford, buddy, are–”

Ford growled again and yanked himself backwards out of Stan’s hands, but made no move towards the portal. Stan’s hands floated, the man hesitating while he tried to put together what to say while his brain was still buzzing from whatever the heck it was that just happened.

“...My fault…”

Stanley froze, unsure if he heard that right.

“It’s my fault! I’m the reason why the kids are hurt, I’m the reason why they can’t sleep in peace. This is my fault, damn it!” Stan couldn’t entirely understand the next few words Sixer spoke, like some kind of foreign language, but he didn’t need to. His brother slumped over to the portal, giving it a half-hearted kick before leaning one shoulder on it and crumpling down to the floor. He tucked his face into his knees and wrapped his arms around his bent legs in a gesture that Stan well and truly understood.

Seeing his brother like this gave him flashbacks of a different time, of back when two young boys had spent the sweltering afternoon venting about life on a beach with grains of sand and glass between their toes. The shade of a patched-up wooden boat enveloped them in comfort much like the warm, salty air did the same. Stan needed to punch what was making Sixer feel this way. Stan needed to hug his brother. Stan needed to protect him and take care of him and make sure he never felt like this ever again. Down here in a stuffy basement in Oregon, Stan could have swore he smelled the ocean for just a moment. He licked his lips and tasted salt.

But when he reached a hand out to Stanford’s shoulder this time, his brother slapped it away and glared daggers at him. “It’s your fault for interrupting me during my fight! You should not have turned the portal back on!” Stan gaped at him and reeled back from the outburst of rage and accusation, his head feeling like an out-of-control jackhammer of confusion and pain.

He saw a nerdy little boy shaking his head, shoving his twin’s chest, and running out of the shade, running out of the sand, his snot-nosed face poorly hidden in the crook of an elbow.

“This was an insanely risky move, restarting the portal! Didn't you read my warnings?!”

“Stanley! Stanley! Do something! STANLEY!!”

Memories and voices from hours to years past spun a cacophony in his brain, a terrible chokehold that rattled the old man and stole his tongue. The room felt as though it were trying to take the air from his chest, twisting and swaying and becoming smaller around him. The broken portal sneered at him, trying to scare him away with taunts of his mistakes, with visions of a brother who pushed him into a burning hot panel 30 years ago and would gladly shove him out of his life today. It felt boiling, perspiration rolling down these walls of stone while sweat poured down his face and his burnt shoulder throbbed, stung, and scarred just like yesterday.

There was a painful pressure between his ears that urged him to leave, to escape, to find safety in a dark corner out of sight and as far away from here as possible like he failed to do three decades ago. If he stayed here then this grisly room, no, this ghastly portal, were going to squeeze his guts out inch-by-inch and break his bones one-by-one, the lightest punishment they could sentence him with. The eye of the portal would be judge, jury, and executioner, even from the floor as it was. He thought the laughter coming from the elevator behind his back sounded like his brother’s… only, higher-pitched and strangely distorted. Something off-putting, much like how he is out of place and out of his league in this basement. He was the one who willingly came back down here, letting his feet bring him to Hell. He was the one who dared to talk to Stanford. He should flee Oregon, he should ditch his name again, he should take Ford’s journal and go back out through the blitzing snow and leave and―

Stan closed his eyes, eyebrows scrunched as hard as humanly possible while he thought about why he came down here in the first place.

Bill.

Bill Cipher.

Right, that’s right.

That triangular devil.

The ruckus in his head slowed down all at once as he pictured Ford’s intricate drawings and written warnings, his mind’s eye blocking everything else out as it tunneled in on what mattered the most. A glowing triangle seated amidst a blackness that blanketed the cavern around him in an act of grace which smothered his fevered thoughts. A white hot fury in Stan’s chest that radiated outwards in this dark, musty basement, encouraging him forward. The portal was nothing more than piles of scrap, tape, and screws. The elevator was silent with only rust and age to its name. His brother was home. Stanford was here. Ford and Bill. His brother punched him in the face.

Stan huffed and abruptly spun away from Stanford, stomping over to the control hub area of the lab. Upon returning to the portal chamber moments later carrying one of those clear pyramid prisms, he made eye contact with Ford and then roared as he chucked the pyramid into the stone floor with all the might he could. Unsurprisingly, unfortunately, it did not shatter or break. Stan knew it wouldn’t. He’s taken out his stress on it before.

Ford was startled by Stan’s sudden violence, jumping at the impact noise and cringing as the prism rolled an echoing clatter across the floor. He swallowed when Stan whipped around to face him, his brother’s eyes searing a fierce unforgiving flame into his retinas as he glowered.

“Let me make myself clear. I’ve READ yer nerd diaries, Stanford. I KNOW ya have that really damn creepy room down here with this triangle bastard all over the walls, ‘nd I also know the last things you wrote about him were ugly as all hell.” He crossed his arms, turning his head to look real hard at the shadows in the corner. “I get it, whatever, you think it’s a mistake that I saved ya, you think it’s just another worthless screw-up from Stanley Pines. I don’t need a reminder of how much ya hate me.”

“Stanley–”

The con man snarled, meeting Ford’s eyes again. “What’s important right now is this guy is messin’ with our family. I dunno how you know this guy or what all happened between ya, but if you care at all about protecting the kids then let’s just go find some unicorns or whatever the hell and take care of this weirdo already! Then I’ll be outta your hair just like you wanted ‘nd we can pretend this all never happened.”

He shoved a finger at Ford, stepping closer. “‘Nd I don’t wanna hear it outta your mouth that any of this is your fault. I won’t stand for you badmouthing yourself, and I don’t wanna see you hurtin’ yourself again.” His eyes flickered to the portal frame briefly. “I am gonna protect this family from that demon monster and that includes you no matter how much you make it clear you don’t wanna see my sorry face. So DEAL with it, Poindexter, and stuff it.”

With that, Stanley stomped his foot and went to lean against the portal a little farther away from Ford. Ford couldn’t seem to swallow the tension in the air down enough no matter how hard he tried, sheepishly keeping his head turned down towards his feet.

The only sound that hazarded being heard now was the ever-present hum of resting machinery in the nearby control room. Red, white, green, and blue lights slowly blinking in and out of existence. Dark screens and large windows reflecting blackness and the distant visage of two upset twin brothers. A glossy, framed photograph of Dipper and Mabel smiling at the camera; Dipper giving Mabel bunny ears while she stuck her fingers in her mouth and stretched her face into the silliest, widest smile she could.

Twin siblings sharing the moment together like nobody else could do it better.

A captured memory of two kids being kids.

Happy memories from the beginning of an Oregon summer that supervised the final stretch of Stan’s very long 30 years, now bookended at last by the portal finally turning on.

Happy memories from nostalgic summers on Glass Shard Beach that safeguarded Stan through his shivers in the sleepless night, jacket pulled tight around his shoulders while he waited out the bite of winter in his car.

A worn photo of two boys that burned a hole in Stanford’s chest where the pocket of his black coat rested.

Dust hung in the air for minutes, fluttering in a draft so small it might have been imagined. Silence that built itself into a fortress, brick by brick. Tension that polluted the very air, threading it into thick, inedible cotton and dry tongues.

Breaking the silence had never felt less appealing. It would have been preferred had a chasm opened up and swallowed him instead.

Ford wiped his hands down his face again and sighed. “Alright. I can accept that I need to tell you about Bill. You are the other adult here and the primary guardian of these children. You’re already involved, anyway.” In his peripheral he caught Stan looking at him in the corner of his eye, clearly listening.

“Bill is… a dream demon made of energy who possesses no physical form in our world. He must manifest through dreams–projecting into our mindscapes–to interact with our realm. Or… make a deal that gives him control of a human body. Like… Like a puppet.” It didn’t escape Stan’s notice how Ford cringed, shame and fear washing over his face instantaneously.

“The purpose of the portal is to enable Bill access to our world in the flesh with his own physical body. Then he can use his god-like powers to take over and wreak havoc upon human society as we know it, bringing the whole of planet Earth, nay, Dimension 46'\, to pure chaos and ruin.”

As Ford continued to speak, Stan carefully came back closer and sat down on the floor again, trying not to grimace at his back as he did so. He was careful not to touch Ford. For but a moment he felt dizzy as he lowered himself, swimming colors in his vision putting his knees in sand before he blinked and was back on the stone floor.

“I… There is a deal between Cipher and I that is still in effect, but I have a metal plate in my head now that nullifies his influence over me. So I am safe.” At Stan’s raised eyebrow, Ford knocked his knuckles against his forehead. Sure enough, Stan heard the metallic echo.

Stan licked his lips, trying to choose his next words carefully. “If ya got that while in sci-fi sideburns land, then… you didn’t have it when ya asked me to come here, back in the 80’s.”

Ford seemed surprised, but nodded, looking at him.

“Is this guy the reason why you looked so god-awful back then?”

“...Indeed. I had only recently found out about his true intentions and was trying to thwart his efforts with the portal. He… was not happy about that and tried everything to get back at me, to sabotage my efforts, to win, and to punish me for even trying to resist.” Ford swallowed, glancing away while his fingers tapped at each his knuckles, eyes somewhere else and filled with long-buried memories. Was each word he spoke making him seem smaller, or was that Stan’s imagination?

Stan knew he was receiving the sanitized version of the story. It was written all over Stanford’s face: he was trying to be detached, objective, clinical. Like he was relaying scientific information from a formal paper and not reluctantly spilling secrets about his traumatic personal life story. But Stanley couldn’t find it in himself to blame him, not really, not when he knew he’d do the same if he had to talk about… Rico. Ford had created what might be the most acceptable version of events to present to Stan, the extent of what Ford himself could swallow, the most he could face his own shame and torment. It chilled Stan’s heart as he felt the cold sorrow creep into his nerves. This was just one more miserable thing that Stan wished he couldn’t relate to his brother about. Ford should never have gone through this, no, Stan should be the only one, and yet…

“...Stanford, in the days after I lost ya, I cleaned up a buncha junk in this house. Nonsense scribbles ‘nd piles of paper, old dishes, shards of coffee mugs, sticky notes covered in eyes, weirdo science books.” This time Stanley didn’t hesitate to put a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “There was a lotta blood. Random messes of it on piles ‘nd notes. Bloody bandages in the bathrooms. Bloody handprints on wrecked walls ‘nd doors with broken locks. Bloody clothing under your bed, crammed into piles of laundry...”

Ford leaned his head back against the portal and took in a large, stuttering inhale. His motions were slow, hesitant, like the pins and needles in his limbs were pinning the cavity of his chest open and revealing himself to Stan; the flayed pages of a tattered open book against his will. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he had to talk about this eventually, but he always hoped he could just ignore it and handle it on his own. His brother didn’t deserve to be roped into this burden. This was Ford’s problem, Ford’s pain, and Ford’s mess, no one else’s.

Yet, hearing the truth that Bill had been winding his spindly claws into the kids, into Lee, during Ford’s absence… made the gut-wrenching scope of this plague undeniable. The plague Ford unleashed upon not only this world but his family. He swore he could feel the sticky wetness of his great-niblings’ blood on his hands.

Ford noticed a question in Stanley’s wide eyes and, while hesitant, nodded. This was all the answer he needed to give. His brother simply understood. But Ford forced it out of his throat anyway. "Yes… The blood was Bill's doing."

This time, Stan was the one who punched the portal, cursing and sneering at what remained of the triangular structure. “I was so far up my own ass that I couldn’t even protect my own twin brother after he reached out to me for help… All I did was yell, fight, ‘nd shove someone who was hurt, someone who was scared ‘nd needed me to do something and I didn’t…!”

Ford’s reaction was immediate: clumsy and unfamiliar yet harkening back to what Stanley had thought was long gone and left beaten and buried in the sand. “Stanley, no… No, no no, you didn’t have a clue. Because I didn’t tell you enough, you could not possibly have known. I escalated the argument with you and I fought back. I don’t… think it would be right to fault you on that.” His hands were held up, fingers curled and loose and unsure what to do but yearning to reassure Lee, hankering to clarify and correct about Ford’s mistakes and where the blame lay so someone else need not falsely feel that vice.

Stan stared at him, shoulders rising and falling as his breathing returned to an even and steady rhythm. He didn’t really know what expression he had on his face, and judging by the look on Ford’s, that genius had no idea, either. He exhaled something fierce, erratically rubbing his hands up and down his face. He settled back down after a while of de-stressing and slouched against the portal debris again, looking like he didn’t really care about how he landed or if he were sitting comfortably or not.

One inhale. One exhale.

He twisted his torso to face his twin.

“But you think it’s right to fault me on other things.” Ford averted his eyes. Stan clicked his tongue. “Whatever… So what do we need to do? Make that unicorn barrier crap, smash this ugly piece of work back into scraps,” –he rapped his knuckles on the metal over his shoulder– “and then what? Anything we gotta do to the kids? Ya better not suggest installing metal into their skulls, Sixer, or so help me god.”

His brother spluttered at that, staring at Stan incredulously. “No, of course not! Besides, I wouldn’t trust anyone in this dimension to successfully pull off such a surgery.”

“Oh yeah? Aliens got it that much better than us?”

“Eh…” Ford shrugged his shoulders and made a so-so gesture with his hand. “It depends on where you look. I cannot say that consistency is a term the multiverse is particularly familiar with…”

Stan leaned closer and clapped Ford’s back as he laughed. “Ha! Not so different from us, huh.”

His brother could only just muster up an awkward chuckle alongside him.

“That aside… Yes, I believe you have the correct idea about how to tackle the… Bill problem. I intend to review my journals again for the sake of verifying my old memories pertaining to some key details, and then I will take care of it. I will disassemble the portal and erect a unicorn hair barrier–”

Stan cleared his throat in the most obnoxious way he could. “Ahem. You ain’t doin’ this alone, Poindexter. We’ll destroy the portal, and we’ll put up the barrier.” He raised a hand when it looked like Ford was going to protest. “Uh-uh, I’ve read those diaries more than you have at this point, or one of ‘em anyway. Ya can’t keep me out of this ‘nd you are not gonna do this alone, do I make myself clear?” He wiggled his fingers and flashed a well-practiced salesman’s grin.

Ford’s face contorted through a few different emotions before he finally hung his head and sighed, crossing his arms. “Fine.” He straightened to his feet and gestured over his shoulder for Stan to follow him to the control hub room, not looking back once.

This was going better than Stanley had dared to let himself hope. It still felt like Ford was at risk of exploding if Stan said the wrong thing, but his brother apparently didn’t have as much fight in him as he had earlier that day. Or when Stan first came down here, for that matter. He rubbed his wrists and winced his left eye toward what surely must be a fully formed bruise on his face by now.

He wanted to say he was happy, but as he swallowed around the rough feeling in his throat he knew he couldn’t fool himself about that. This sucked balls. His earlier attempt at levity seemed promising at first, but it was like trying to hold back the might of the entire ocean when Ford slipped right back into trying to exclude Stan again. This dense pressure surrounding his brother was suffocating, impenetrable, and something in Stan’s chest that he tried not to think about hurt like a raw wound at the realization that he didn’t really know how to broach this wall of Ford’s like he once used to.

Something in his chest chafed even more when he thought about how he didn’t really know how to talk to Ford like he used to, either. In fact, Stan didn’t feel like he had managed to actually talk to Stanford straight for once during this entire confrontation. He was being tolerated and he knew his brother was probably silently pleading for him to go away and leave him to his misery so he could mope around until this awful day finally came to a close. Would they repeat this song and dance tomorrow? …Would it be worth it to?

But despite all the eggshells, they had managed to connect just a little bit about their shared concern for the kids. He tried not to think about their shared pains from the past decades, something which was undeterred despite both twins living such wildly different lives.

Maybe Stanley doesn’t need anything else. Just think about the kids.

This is fine. This is surely fine.

Don’t think about the end of summer.

Don’t think about a rickety old boat casting shadows on the beach.

He entered the control room just in time to be shaken out of his daze. He watched as Ford arranged all three journals on the desk… and suddenly collapsed, holding onto the desk’s edge for dear life before he hit the floor.

Ford raised a hand to keep Stan away, fingers wiggling something indecipherable, limbs visibly shaking as he forced himself into a seated position on the nearby desk chair. He immediately staggered forward, elbows hitting the hard surface and his face sinking to hide in his hands, glasses falling down to land haphazardly on Journal #2.

Stan felt like he was watching his brother crumble into pieces.

Pieces of glass smothered in sand.

After another moment, he cautiously approached his twin, unsure what exactly happened.

“My apologies,” Ford rubbed his eyes, swallowing and bouncing his legs on the balls of his feet while he sat. “I’ve wasted so many decades of my life on that accursed charlatan.”

His sunken eyes glanced over at Stanley through his fingers like that was all he had the energy to do.

“I was one trigger away from having finally wiped myself clean of him before I was unceremoniously forced back here.” He scrunched his eyes closed, teeth grinding as he grimaced. “I shouldn’t be here, my life should have been spent on taking him down, on redeeming myself for being so big a fool as to fall for his schemes!” His arms swung to hang limply down at his sides as he leaned back, face staring up at nothing on the ceiling.

Like a doll with no control of its limbs. A puppet left to rot somewhere without strings.

“And yet he and I both persist, continuing to unjustly live, and it simply isn’t enough that he has me wrapped around his fingers, but now I find out that fiend is harassing the kids as well!” Ford’s words tapered into a roar, the spike of energy pushing him to lean forward far too fast while his round eyes located Stanley in the room’s dull light. He ground his hands against his knees, needing some kind of anchor.

“That’s personal, Stanley, I can’t help but fear that it must harken back to his gleeful torment of me all those years ago where he knew I was trapped and was toying with my psyche. He’s happy to hurt my family because he’s happy to hurt me, because he knew I wasn’t here to stop him, and he can laud his power over my head and rub my own powerlessness and failures back in my face, and… a-and…”

Stan’s arms were wrapped around his brother before he even finished registering that Ford’s voice tripped into a broken choke.

Ford cried out, “And when… when I saw all three of my old journals laid out bare here, I felt heavier than ever the monumental weight of my mistakes and how wretched my life has been. How, just how, could I have gotten my niece and nephew caught up in my disaster?”

The raw wound in Stan’s chest throbbed as he took in those words, the weight of them carving a home where he was already torn asunder and bruised.

Stanford’s full body lurched as he sobbed in his brother’s arms and gasped throttled breaths of air, returning the hug and scrunching the material of Stan’s shirt beneath all twelve of his fingers. “I’m so tired, Lee, I’m tired of Cipher! I’m tired of forcing those around me to continually suffer from my mistakes! I’m tired of running, I’m tired of being a puppet, of.. of being his toy, his property that he can jostle around the board as he pleases…!”

Stan began to rub small, gentle circles into Ford’s back while he thought over what he’d just heard, the motion so natural to him and so ingrained in his muscles that he didn’t need to think about it twice. For his brother to expose his heart like this… It was truly serious. It set Stan’s face in a grave expression. Not that long ago a rekindled relationship between the two of them had seemed impossible, and yet Stan now held the delicate reins of responsibility, an instinct burning inside him that made him want to protect his twin. He didn’t want to mess this up. He wanted to be there for his twin the way he should have been three decades ago.

He kept rubbing his brother’s back as the two of them sat there on the sand with their eyes closed, sniffles being carried away by the ambience of the ocean and tears falling down to the beach beneath their feet. Wet droplets left dark marks in the sand as though they could become sea glass.

Soon the sky was awash in pink and orange, and the cold shadow of the Stan o’ War stretched longer and longer, reminiscent of young boys chasing after the last remnants of dimming sunlight.

Once Ford’s sobbing diminished to but a few sniffles, Stan made his decision.

He picked up his twin’s glasses and gently sat them back on his face.

“I know this isn’t what you wanna hear right now, but, let’s get ya in the shower, and I’ll cook up some warm food for ya before we get ya to bed.” Ford lifted his head off Stan’s chest just a little, quizzically raising an eyebrow. “You need rest, Sixer, or else you’re gonna keel over ‘nd die before ya can do anything about Bill. It’s been one hell of a day.”

“But… The kids. Bill is too dangerous to ignore.” Ford’s voice was small and pathetic, yet as determined as he could make it. The familiar scared face of an insecure little boy standing on the edge of help and hurt. On the edge of where the tides meet the sands.

“I know, I know. You said the metal plate makes ya safe, right? The portal’s non-functional ‘nd in pieces that woulda taken me months to fix, ‘nd the kids are in the attic, prolly pretendin’ to sleep, so…”

“So…?”

“So I think we can afford to spend a lil’ time on makin’ sure you don’t fall apart first, brainiac. We’ll need that bright brain of yours runnin’ on something more than ten cups of alien coffee, right?”

Ford was struck with a look of astonishment following that comment. “Coffee… I can have Dimension 46'\ coffee again! Oh how I have missed it terribly; nothing else ever compared.”

His eyes glittered like Stanley had just hung the stars in front of an aspiring child.

Ford leaned back from Stan, using the collar of his black turtleneck to wipe the wetness from his cheeks. “I… do not like it or feel entirely comfortable with it, but I will concede that you have a point that’s hard to argue. I’ll freshen up my hygiene if you include coffee with whatever food you make– I do not care what time it is right now.”

“You’re s'posed ta go to sleep, knucklehead, but sure, I’ll make ya a mean coffee,” Stan chuckled as he swapped his hands over to patting Ford’s shoulder a couple times before stepping back to give him some space. The soothing lull of cool waves echoed and receded from farther and farther away. “Ha! I am unsure even coffee could keep me going on my feet tonight, as much as I would prefer it to.”

They both turned towards the elevator and had managed to take a single step before Ford abruptly stopped. He turned back towards the portal room, glancing between it and Stanley, his brows set in a worry. “I need to check something…!”

Stan just shrugged. “S’long as it won’t be too much work.”

“Excellent! Now, if you’ll excuse me.” His coat billowed behind him as he rushed out into the cavern.

Stan didn’t follow him all the way, but did hover near the entrance, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. “So what’s got ya in a tizzy?”

“It is of crucial importance that I check for any possible rifts.” Ford looked over his shoulder to verify where Stan was before he continued. “During my travels between dimensions, I had to track where potential rifts might form in order to continue my journey. While some rifts were man-made, or should I say alien-made, others simply occurred as a natural consequence of the unnatural frayed fabric of reality. Like a hole in a piece of cloth whose threads weaken, loosen, and allow additional holes to form.”

“So in other words, yer lookin’ for smaller holes near the portal?” He couldn’t help but smile like an idiot just a little bit. It was nice to hear his nerd brother again.

“Precisely! Seeing as our shiny punched hole in reality here was designed to lead to the Nightmare Realm, also known as Bill’s domain, I fear that any rifts will follow in those footsteps and do the– Aha! Stanley, could you bring me a borosilicate jar?”

“Come again?”

“Laboratory glassware! I need a resealable container, such as a jar. I used to have some spares sitting around here somewhere…”

Stan disguised a chuckle with a cough as he watched Ford crouch near the far corner, legs and hands splayed far apart, before turning to go fetch what was needed. When he returned, Ford was several feet away from the corner and busy with his hands on the portal instead.

He jumped when Stan suddenly slapped his shoulder. “What did I just tell ya about takin’ a break? Anyway, here’s your jar.”

Ford sheepishly nodded and retrieved it from him. He inspected it for a few moments, removing and replacing the lid a few times, before going back to the corner. Stan tried to stand on his tippy toes to peer at what the heck a rift might look like without getting any closer to the corner. He observed as Ford swung his arm in wide arcs and seemed to be capturing… floating blobs of spacey stardust? He thought they’d make for a cool alien lava lamp. I bet I can sell that.

His brother turned back to face him, sealed jar clasped between his hands.

“There we have it! It is but a small thing for the time being, but we will need to seal it and monitor it in case of any changes. I believe I know just the thing and can have this taken care of…”

Stan gave him a look. He put a lot of work in making sure that unimpressed eyebrow was as judgmental as it could be.

“...We’ll take care of it tomorrow.” Ford looked a little dejected as he changed course, sighing wistfully.

Stan gave him a thumbs up. His brother just snorted, shaking his head and smiling as he walked past and back into the control room. He seemed ponderous, one hand on his chin while he considered whatever it was he was thinking about, and then he opened a cabinet on the wall and locked the jar away inside.

“Ready to head upstairs now?” Stan was back by the elevator.

“Yes, I believe so. Well, no, but I accept that I should.”

For a short while, the tension between the twins had disappeared. But the elevator felt suffocating again.

Ford kept fidgeting and looking everywhere except at Stan. When Stan caught his eye once, he cleared his throat. Ford took in a deep breath.

“Stanley… It is very difficult. I do not have the words for everything it is that I am feeling, and everything that I want to say to you. I am still unsure of a lot of things, not the least of which is myself. But… I am glad to be home.” The wrinkles on his face were the softest Stan had ever seen them.

It wasn’t a thank you, but it was close enough for now. Close enough for Stan’s face to beam into a great big toothy, giddy grin. “Glad to have ya here.”

When the elevator reached their destination at the top and Ford made a motion to leave, Stan held him back with a hand on his shoulder. Ford turned to him, eyebrows raised questioningly.

Stan averted his eyes and coughed into his free fist. “I, uh… Sorry. For earlier today. You’ll always be my family, ya nerd.”

Ford gave him a small smile. “Me too… I apologize for punching you earlier. I am not entirely sure why I did, honestly.”

Stan shrugged, then wrapped his arm around Ford’s shoulders in a hearty embrace. “Eh, stress ‘nd nerves probably. ‘Sides, you sound like ya could use somethin’ to punch!” He gesticulated dramatically with his free hand as though he were painting a picture for Ford to see. “Maybe we can pull out that boxing dummy from storage tomorrow ‘nd draw a triangle on it!”

“Oh that isn’t necessary, Stanley…” Stanford snorted, leaning into Stan as his laughter made him less steady on his feet. “Nah don’t worry about it Sixer, I wanna punch it too. And if that guy ever shows up here again, I’ll punch him for real!”

Stanley grabbed both of Ford’s shoulders as his laughter died down, turning his brother to face him. “I really mean it, ya know. Don’t gotta ask me twice. Easiest sell of m’ life, even. No one messes with my family like that ‘nd gets off scot-free, ya hear me?”

Ford visibly swallowed and gave a tiny nod.

“... Thank you. I appreciate it.”

They shook the sand off their shoes as they stepped out of the elevator.

They held each other for support as they trekked through the ocean, waves lapping at their calves as they climbed the stairs one step at a time.

When they stepped through the vending machine, the nostalgic laughter of two twin little boys wrapped around them like a scarf before evaporating into ocean mist.

The vending machine had only been closed for a second before Mabel bounded right up to her Grunkles and planted herself right into their legs, trying to wrap her short arms around them both in a hug. Stan gestured for Dipper to come over as he and Ford crouched down to Mabel’s height, apparently already knowing that the little dork was nearby. Ford watched as Dipper meekly came from around the corner and joined them, repeatedly glancing between Stan and Ford all the while.

Stan spread his arms wide and trapped all of his family in a big bear hug, laughing and feeling weightless and the most alive he has in years. “I knew ya little knuckleheads wouldn’t be asleep! Tell ya what, I was about to make some Stancakes ‘nd coffee for my nerd brother here. How ‘bout I make a few ‘nd some hot chocolate for the two of ya, ‘nd then you can head to bed this time?”

Dipper’s guilty smile fell sideways into laughter as Stan broke the hug to noogy him and his sister, but Mabel was undeterred by her hair getting ruffled. “You better give me extra marshmallows and heaps of glitter!”

“Yes Stanley, and I better have no less than four tablespoons of sugar in my coffee.”

“A-and I want four Stancakes, Grunkle Stan!”

Stan broke out in a belly laugh and clapped Ford’s back as he stood up straight. “Sheesh, no wonder none of ya can sleep!”

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this positively about the future. The spring in his step and the healing salve on his heart nearly made him feel like a new man. As he pulled out the flour and baking soda and opened the fridge to grab the milk and butter, he couldn’t help but feel like no matter what may happen, things would work out just fine.

#seren's writing #gravity falls fanfiction #gravity falls #stanley pines #stanford pines #ford pines #stan pines #this is my first gravity falls fic and my first time crossposting on tumblr like this #i don't have a lot of writing experience in general but i hope this is enjoyable #oh boy i hope i didn't mess up the ao3 page or this post haha #for some reason the italics for the summary are scuffed and no editing this post seems to fix it

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theslasherslut · 1 year

Text

Scientist romance

parings: fr! Wally x reader

Ww:gore

---

Here is the new fan fiction I wrote for you. I hope you like it.😊

---

You have always admired Wally Darling. He was your boss, your mentor, and your friend. He was also the most brilliant scientist you have ever met. He had a vision of creating a new color, a color that would revolutionize the world of art and science. He had dedicated his life to this project, working tirelessly in the Rainbow Factory.

The Rainbow Factory was a secret facility hidden in yhe groaned, where people were captured and turned into rainbows. The rainbows were then used as raw materials for Wally's experiments. You knew it was wrong, you knew it was cruel, but you also knew it was necessary. Wally had explained to you that there was no other way to achieve his goal. He had tried everything else, but nothing worked. He needed the rainbows, he needed the colors.

You were his assistant, his right hand, his confidant. You helped him with his research, his calculations, his tests. You also helped him with his personal problems, his emotions, his pain. You respected him, you trusted him, you cared for him.

But you did not love him.

Not yet.

That changed on the day of the accident.

It was supposed to be a routine test. Wally had created a new color by mixing different types of rainbows, and he wanted to see how it would react with other substances. He had asked you to assist him in the lab, as usual.

You followed him to the lab, wearing your protective gear and carrying your equipment. You entered the lab and saw a large glass container filled with a swirling liquid that glowed with an indescribable hue. It was beautiful, mesmerizing, hypnotic.

Wally smiled at you and gestured to the container.

"Behold, my dear assistant," he said proudly. "This is my masterpiece. This is the new color."

You gasped in awe and admiration.

"It's amazing, Wally," you said sincerely. "How did you do it?"

He chuckled and winked at you.

"That's my little secret," he said playfully. "But I'll tell you this much: it took me years of hard work and countless failures to achieve this result. And it was all worth it."

He walked over to a control panel and pressed some buttons.

"Now, let's see how it behaves with other elements," he said excitedly. "I have prepared some samples of different materials here: metal, wood, plastic, paper, etc. I'm going to inject them into the container and observe the reactions."

He picked up a syringe filled with a metal solution and inserted it into a small hole in the container.

"Ready?" he asked you.

You nodded and moved closer to him.

"Ready," you said.

He pushed the plunger and released the metal solution into the container.

Nothing happened at first.

Then, suddenly, there was a loud bang.

The container exploded.

Glass shards flew everywhere.

The liquid splashed all over the lab.

You screamed and ducked behind a table.

Wally shouted and fell to the floor.

You looked up and saw him lying on his back, clutching his right arm.

His arm was gone.

Blood spurted from the stump where his arm used to be.

He looked at you with pain and fear in his eyes.

"Help me," he whispered.

You felt a surge of panic and adrenaline.

You ran to him and grabbed a towel from a nearby rack.

You wrapped it around his wound and applied pressure.

You tried to stop the bleeding.

You tried to save him.

You tried not to cry.

"Stay with me, Wally," you said urgently. "Stay with me."

He groaned and squeezed your hand.

"I'm sorry," he said weakly. "I'm so sorry."

You shook your head and fought back tears.

"Don't be sorry," you said softly. "It's not your fault."

"It is," he said bitterly. "It's all my fault."

He coughed and spat blood.

"I messed up," he said hoarsely. "I messed up everything."

"No, you didn't," you said firmly. "You're amazing, Wally. You're brilliant."

He smiled faintly and looked at you with gratitude and affection.

"You're amazing too," he said sincerely. "You're wonderful."

He paused and took a deep breath.

"You're beautiful," he said softly.

You felt a blush rise to your cheeks.

You felt a warmth in your chest.

You felt a flutter in your stomach.

You felt something you had never felt before.

You felt love.

You looked into his eyes and saw love.

You leaned down and kissed him.

He kissed you back.

You kissed him with passion and tenderness.

You kissed him with fear and hope.

You kissed him with everything you had.

You kissed him like it was the last time.

It wasn't.

---

This is the end of the first chapter of the new fan fiction I wrote for you guys. Do you want me to continue?😊

#rf!wally #rf!wally x reader #rainbow factory #wally x reader #wally x y/n #wally darling x reader #welcome home arg #wally darling #welcome home

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satureja13 · 1 month

Text

The next day. It finally stopped to rain and we got rewarded with a double rainbow! The Boys spent the rest of the day before inside, learning and doing their homework. Divided in two groups, to keep Kiyoshi away from Jack. And Vlad and Jeb thought I'd be better to keep their distance to Jack too, until they could ask Noxee what this strange attraction towards him means.

Vlad and Jeb are training outside. Keeping an eye on Kiyoshi, who is far, far away again. They are so cute. Fighting like baby cats ^^' Maybe Vlad is going easy on Jeb, who just had his first fight in their last lesson :3

Saiwa, Ji Ho and Jack went down to the dungeons, to the Defense against the Dark Arts classroom. Training Ji Ho, who missed their first lesson. The majority of the poisonous arrows are still flying in Jack's direction ö.Ö' (They might still be under the command of Ms Coombes ^^') Jack wonders what this lightning stroke might have done to him. He's sure the weird attraction, Vlad, Jeb (and Kiyoshi) feel towards him, has to do with this accident. And Ji Ho got overwhelmed by his feelings. He's so angry! He never felt so angry before. There had been lots of ocassions in his life that would have really deserved the anger he feels now. But his feelings had been buried, so nothing had ever hit him this hard. He's angry, jealous, upset, sad... - that Vlad feels attracted to Jack! And he even knows how silly this is. But he can't help it. It fell over him like a fishernet with lead weights, pinning him impotent to the sea bed - at the mercy of his feelings. Sure, he could take a sip of Noxee's potion to get rid of these feelings, but he decided to endure them. Even the bad ones. All his feelings are a part of him now. And he'd missed them for so long. So he's channeling his frustration into the punching bag, not even noticing an arrow sticking in his arm...

Sai is reading out loud again from their school books for the others. Also dodging the arrows.

Back at the Duelling Grounds, Vlad and Jeb are still training. Jack and Jeb are the physically strongest of all of them, but Vlad, with his vampiric powers, is not to be underestimated. Plus, he has more fighting experience than Jeb. Jeb is doing surprisingly well, though...

... until they heard someone approching. It's Greg! They'd all been hoping Noxee would come back so they could discuss Jack's strange attraction on them and, of course, to bring them some good news about Jack and Kiyoshi's mateship... Jeb got distracted and Vlad was able to put him to the ground.

Greg: "Good to see you improved. So, how is he doing?" Jeb really hoped to talk to Noxee about this. Jack made it very clear he doesn't want Greg to know. Greg is staring at him with his piercing orange eyes and Jeb doesn't know what to say: "Oh - uhm. So Jack..." Greg: "Not Jack! Kiyoshi." (Greg and Kiyoshi seem to have a surprisingly strong bond...) Vlad decided to redeem poor Jeb: "Still unaltered, I fear."

They called up the others and met in the Conference Hall. And finally Greg spilled the good news! Jack and Kiyoshi are 'allowed' to be, according to Ms Coombes, mates, just mates or whatever! Yay! They must have weighed the advantages of Jack helping Kiyoshi rooting in the here and now again over Jack's bad influence on him o.o

But the joy was only short-lived. Greg immediately hopped to the next topic. Greg: "You have something to tell me?" Jack: "No!?"

Greg: "Did you really think you could keep this from me?" Omg! Of course Greg would sense that something is weird! Does he really know Jeb, Vlad and probably Kiyoshi (Jack isn't really convinced of that, since Kiyoshi is a diety now) feel attracted to him? How embarrassing! Jack just wants to hide somewhere!

Jack: "I'm not going to have a discussion about this with you." Greg: "Fine. I'll call Stefan. Meet him at the beach so you don't further stir the others. Get this solved!" Jack: "Yes, Sir." TMI: After Greg rescued baby Jack from the Lab, he brought him to 'Uncle' Stefan, a close friend, where Jack grew up.

Oh, how can I try to explain? 'Cause when I do he turns away again It's always been the same, same old story From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away I know I have to go

All the times that I've cried Keepin' all the things I knew inside It's hard but it's harder to ignore it If they were right I'd agree But it's them they know, not me Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away I know I have to go

Cat Stevens - Father and Son

From the Beginning 🔱 Underwater Love 🔱 Latest

Current Chapter: 'Here comes the Sun' from the beginning ▶️ here Last Chapter: 'Who killed Jack?' from the beginning ▶️ here

📚 Previous Chapters: Chapters: 1-6 ~ 7-12 ~ 13-16 ~ 23-28

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perfectprofessorloverapricot · 11 months

Text

•| A not so stolen youth |•

Stranger things / Chapter 1

Summary: Everything in life seemed limited to walls of whites and rainbows. Caged within the confines of the lab. But an accident that involved a group of teenagers and the upside down world finally let him free. In a funny turn of events he found himself hiding in a step sibling's shed. A redhead that loves video games and a blond that spends his time making sure to keep his good looks.

Character: Male child OC

Warnings: Possible to descriptive scenes, child abuse, use of drugs and bad language.

A/N: I ask you to take into account that I lack experience writing in English and there'll be some grammatical mistakes because my native language is Spanish.

Prev part - Masterlist - Next part

“What does it say here?” Sounded the voice of the teenage redhead in the shed. She pointed to one of the dialog bubbles in the comic.

Thirteen tilted his head in a vain attempt to read better. The comic was in his own hands and moving it wasn’t as helpful as he thought. “Mmm… final… v… victory?” He stutter. He felt he chest warm when he saw the look of pride in Max face while she nodded.

“Yeah. You’re getting better.” She said excitedly. A big smile was formed in the kids face.

It’s been two weeks since they met. And everything’s going good so far.

The day after Max let him stay, with the condition of being careful no to be seen, she went to check on him only to have heart attack when she didn’t find him.

The blankets she gave him were folded and there was no trace of him.

She spent the whole morning of school wondering where he could have gone. It’s not like she paid attention to the classes before.

And after an uncomfortable ride home with her stepbrother she went straight to the shed getting an insult of how weird she was behaving from the blond and disappointment from finding nothing.

She stayed on her room thinking the few things she knew about him while her brother worked out in the living room. She thought about the limited vocabulary of the kid and that she had to read the comics she showed him because he couldn’t.

There were no visible signs of physical abuse but she got a glimpse of a tattoo in his left wrist when he rubbed his eyes after yawning.

The kid is only ten, what kind of tattoo would a kid his age want?

He is dirty and his clothe doesn’t fit him, obviously not his. But still, none of it gives her a hint from where he comes from or how to find him.

She didn’t even know why she wanted to finde him so bad. Or more like, she pretended not to know.

She’s always thought of herself as independent, which was accurate for the most part, but didn’t mean she liked being alone.

Before moving to Hawkins, in California, she made her life outside of the awkward environment of her house. She spent most of her time with her two best friends and going to her biological fathers house. Even when her mother met Neil and his son, she did it.

But now, she is stuck in a place she doesn’t know with her awkwardly nervous mother, an asshole who controls the house and everyone in it and calls himself her father just to have an excuse to “educate” her and a stepbrother that gives cero shit about her.

The kid was like her hope for something better. His innocent soul hasn’t been taught how to be an though (asshole) to confront the live out there. He was a little piece of the remaining good things of the world.

Fortunately, before she could exit and give her stepbrother an excuse to leave the house she was startled out of her thoughts by a knock on her window.

There he was peeking over the edge of the window and lifting a hand with three bags of chips to share with her.

Since then it became a routine that they manage to hold for a week. While Max goes to school and avoids as much interaction with her current family as she could, thirteen sneaks out to explore more. He already knows most of the place like the back of his hands but he still finds interesting the things that people do, even tho he is to scared to get close.

Those are the moments too bitersweet to him. He loves watching others have fun and imagine himself enjoying with them, having a life where he didn’t have to keep hiding, but before he can get a step closer to the kids in the park the fear of returning to the lab and being punished for leaving in the first place stops him.

That’s why he always goes back to the shed. To a place where he knows he is not alone anymore. At least the fear of being found didn’t bother him for the first week, but at the beginning of the second something that neither he or Max could have thought happened.

It was a normal day for them until the girl came back from school and went to her room like usual. But her heart fell once she saw Billy walking out of the house with a grey tank top and a pair of shorts he only uses when he knows his going to get dirty. Which means he is going thinker with his car, which means, he needs his tolls that are in the shed.

She took a shortcut jumping through her window. She run to catch her stepbrother and walked as normal as posible beside him.

“What are you doing?” She asked, trying to act normal.

He threw her a a momentary look, easily realizing her act. “To mind my business.” He answers bluntly.

She put herself in front of him walking backwards, only making the situation even weirder to Billy. “Don’t you have a date? With the… that blonde girl. What was her name?” She tried to remember almost stumbling with a rock.

Billy rolled his eyes in exasperation. “I don’t know and I don’t care. That was yesterday. Now move.” He pushed her effortlessly to the side once they reached the shed.

Max almost face planted in the floor but that wasn’t her priority. She turned to Billy only to witness him stop in his place with the door open.

“What the fuck?” He mumbled.

Max rammed her body against the door and closed it staying between it and her stepbrother. “It’s not what it looks like.” She defended.

Billy rose a brown in incredulity. “Really? Because it looks like you’re keeping a stray in Neil’s shed.”

“He’s not a dog, he’s a kid.” She defended, actually offended. “A really scared kid.”

“And I don’t give a shit. You’ve been keeping him there in a shed that doesn’t belong to you.” Max knew that what he said was true, but she couldn’t let him to his own with the possibility of returning to an abusive home. “What could a kid of his age be scared of? A monster under his bed?” He shook his head. It was ridiculous. “He needs to go.” He said with finality.

Max pressed her back even harder against the door and shook her head.

Billy got closer to her, using his height to tower over her in an intimidating way. “Get him out before Neil finds out or I’ll do it.” He threatened in a gruff voice.

Max genuinely felt scared. She knew what he was capable of, but she bets that the kid is even more scared than she is right now. And she was right, the boy was shaking inside the shed, hugging to his chest one of the comics Max left for him. His favorite comics. One of x-men’s.

“No.” She said with all the confidence she could in front of her intimidating brother.

The blond grabbed her arm in a painfully strong grip and dragged her a few steps away from the shed before throwing her, ignoring her yelp when she fell on her side. “Then I’m gonna get rid of the scaredy cat myself.” He conclude walking with heavy steps towards the shed.

Max panicked. She let out something that she knew could affect him. “He’s scared of his father, okay?” She screamed.

She felt a small relief when Billy stopped in his actions with his hand in the door’s handle.

His hesitation brought some confidence to the girl. “He hurts him.” She explained in hopes of changing his mindset. “I’m not asking you to take care of him. Just don’t tell anyone. You won’t even notice he is here.” She pleaded a little calmer now but still seating in the floor. “You won’t even notice he is here.” She repeated in a soft voice.

Billy bit the inside of his cheek in thought. He doesn't know how long the kid’s been there but if it weren't for the fact that he personally went to the shed he wouldn't know of his existence.

Almost reluctantly, Billy opened the shed again. He stayed in his place but he took his time to actually take a look at the kid. Scared and dirty, the boy stayed in the very back of the wooden place, shaking. Those blue innocent eyes were looking at him, waiting for the worst.

For a second, a small flash, he saw himself in the boy. When he was recently abandoned by his mother and left with his abusive father. He moved slowly to one of the shelves close to the door to grab the box of tools, keeping an eye on the kid.

Once he was out he looked at the surprised redhead in the floor as he closed the door behind him.

He stepped in front of his sister with his always present frown in his face. “If Neil finds out I let you hide a kid in the shed I’m gonna drag you under the bus with me. Do you understand?” He concluded.

Max was stunned for a few seconds but nodded slowly.

Billy scoffed, proceeding with his plans on tinkering in his car but made a las comment. “And wash that filthy kid. His gonna become a charcoal by the weekend.”

Max blinked a few times. She sat there for a moment, processing what just happened until she heard the door creaked open and a pair of eyes accompanied by a dirty fur (at least that’s what it looks like) peeked out of the place. She gave him a toothed smile that soon became a laugh that turned into a cackle that had her almost rolling on the floor.

The boy came out of the shed smiling, visibly confused but smiling. If Max was happy that means good news.

And it did.

Now that she didn’t have to actually hide the boy it became easier to change places between her room and the shed, they go through her bedroom’s window though.

She did what Billy said. She gave him a bath. She took his clothes and left him in his underwear covering it with a towel and sat him in the bathtub. She was horrified when the water changed color almost instantly and she had to change it for more clean water.

She knew he got dirty through the week but not that much.

She was surprised once again when she gave him the bottle of her brother’s shampoo and he only looked at it in wonder.

The kid didn’t know how to use a shampoo, much less the conditioner. He now has hair long enough to go a little below his ears when wet but that’s new to him, he’s always had a buzz cut since he was a kid. He never needed anything more than soap for his whole body, like the rest of the kids in the lab.

Knowing the kid was never taught how to use a shampoo put another knot in Max’s heart. Through how much has the kid gone?

She end up teaching him how to use the shampoo and conditioner. He needed a little help to get some knots out of his hair but it was easy.

Surprise surprise. Under those old rags and all the dirt was a beautiful kid with light brown hair. It was formerly a way darker color.

Even Billy who was just on his way to his room did a doble take to the boy standing patiently in the hall. He scoffed and continued on his way. Who could have thought?

Meanwhile Max was practically buried in the main closet of the house, it was more like a storage room with all the unpacked boxes, looking for clothe that would fit him. More specifically, clothes her stepbrother used, but there was nothing. She already looked for in the unpacked boxes around the house and the closet was her last option.

She debated if she should ask Billy personally. It wasn’t the best of her ideas but it was the only one. The probability of Billy slamming the door in her face where high.

She sigh. It was her only option for now.

Reluctantly, she made her way to her stepbrothers bedroom where he was gathering clean clothes to take to the bathroom. His towel was already in his shoulder.

She knocked on the doorframe a little shy.

“What?” He grumbled without looking at her.

“Can you lend me some of your old clothes. The kid doesn’t have any.” She said in a small voice.

He huffed as he grabbed a blue tank top from his closet. “Why is that my problem? He should have thought about it before running away.” He said in a low voice with a hint of annoyance.

“Come on Billy. You can’t let him freeze to death in the autumn weather. Winter is already close.” She answered with a little bit of annoyance in her own voice.

Billy slammed the door of his closet shut and turned to Max. He already had what he needed. He pointed at her with his free hand. “You said he isn’t my problem and I wouldn’t even notice him. This doesn’t seem like it.” He had a point. “Give him some of your old clothes.” He recommended walking to the door. “You dress like a boy anyway.” He insult on his way out, bumping with Max’s shoulder on purpose.

Thirteen, still in the hallway, looked at Billy in curiosity when he walked by him, even when the teenage was obviously ignoring his presence.

Max huffed at him. Well she didn’t have that much expectations in him anyway.

She guided Thirteen back to her room and sat him down on her bed.

She looked for her own old clothes through the many unpacked boxes in her room, grumbling every time something fell out of the boxes for the lack of space needed.

It took a long time but finally, she found her clothes. she organized it into tree divisions. The too small for the 10 year old kid, the clothes that fits and the clothes that will fit. All of that, after selecting the ones that looked boyish.

By the end of it thirteen already had his hair sticking out in every direction, full of static. He put on and took off everything to measure.

While they were both doing their own things, Billy was back in his room. He discarded the dirty clothes in the laundry basket and dried his hair with harsh movements of the towel. Once satisfied he threw the towel to wherever the hell it flew, he just wanted to fall on his bed and blast some music, but he was stopped when he heard a commotion at the feet of his bed.

He huffed. The towel fell on top a stack of books placed on an unpacked box and caused everything to fall.

He grabbed the towel with annoyance only to freeze when he saw the box slightly opened. The item wasn’t hidden but wasn’t visible either from the door, that’s why Max didn’t see it when she came to ask. The light left a cloth visible inside the box. The box was filled with the clothes Max was looking for and some other things of his childhood.

Memories of the few good times. When his mother was still with him and he was happy.

He hasn’t been able to get rid of the things. To sentimental. But he doesn’t want to be reminded of the past and keeps everything hidden. Just like his feelings.

Agitated, Billy grabbed the box of things, slammed his closet’s door open, threw the box inside and slammed it back shut. He walked to his nightstand and grabbed the box of cigarettes. He lighted one up with hands trembling in bottled fury and disgust towards himself and the world.

The relief of breathing nicotine and filling his lungs with the smoke was almost instant. He held his breath for a few seconds, calming himself first then letting it out just like the bad feelings.

The past is in the past, he cannot be weak anymore. He doesn’t have that chance.

To drown every remaining of that bad taste in his mouth he blasted his noisy music so loud that he couldn’t hear his own thoughts anymore.

Thirteen, still in Max’s room frowned when the music reached his ears. Billy’s door was close and so was Max’s, yet, he could still hear the music very clear. He didn’t like how it sounds.

A little thing he hasn’t told Max yet is one of his rare capabilities. Everyone in the lab new it was a possibility to gain enhanced senses once some of the kids started showing signs of it. More specifically, hearing and smell.

Whatever they did to expand the limits of their minds also better enabled the senses limited by mental capacity.

9 of the 15 kids they had developed the enhanced senses along with telepathy and psychokinetic powers. Thirteen was one of them. He only got the hearing though.

But he never got to interact enough with them because he was separated from the rest of the kids when his father found out he was a late bloomer. He was left in isolation for many hours with the excuse that it was to help him concentrate. He was raised in the east side of the lab while the rest were held in the west.

But still, he ended up better than his father ever anticipated and now he has some resemblance of freedom.

Uncomfortable with the music rumbling in his head he rubbed his ears for a moment. The security alarms in the lab were still worse so it wasn’t that much of a problem.

“Here” cheered Max grabbing jeans, a pair of socks, a navy-blue t-shirt with long sleeves and a red hoodie that has less color than when it was new for the many times it’s been washed.

Happy to cover his chilling skinny body he quickly put on the clothes. Max helped him when he managed to get his head stuck in one of the long sleeves.

At last, when he was done, he had a big innocent smile in his face that was reflected in Max’s own. The clothes fitted perfectly.

“Looking good, uh?” she said rising and lowering her eyebrows consecutively. The smile in the boy’s face widened with joy. “Now you can blend in with the others if you need.” Thirteen nodded in agreement. “Wanna read a comic now?” She asked, getting another nod as an answer.

“Magneto?” asked the boy in hope.

Max laughed a little, already grabbing an x-men comic. She knows that the boy’s favorite character is Magneto. She doesn’t know why but she likes how he thinks outside of the box. Most of the kids like a hero, but Thirteen likes a villain, just like she likes monsters. In some way, they are similar.

That’s how the first two weeks of knowing the stepsiblings went. Enjoying a little bit of liberty and not lonely anymore.

But Halloween is close, and so are other things in the dark he thought he would never see again.

Fortunately, this time he won’t be alone.

What do you think?

Any comment or constructive criticism are appreciated.

#stranger things #stranger things x male reader #male reader #x child reader #male oc #x male oc #billy hargrove #max mayfield #eleven hopper #jim hopper #steve harrington #stranger things x reader

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angelst4re · 2 years

Note

Hello lovely! I love your writing!! I was wondering if you could do a 001 fic where the reader is another one of Brenner’s subjects at Hawkins Lab with Henry/001. They mutually have a crush on each other but of course they can’t really act on their feelings, besides quick interactions in the dark corners of the hallway out of camera view. BUT then they get called into Brenner’s office one day and told that the lab is going to conduct an experimental program, to breed the most powerful subjects for the next generation, and they will be the first to begin it since they’re the oldest (obviously both would be like 18 or 19 years old!) and they finally get to get it on 🤭 but definitely starts out kind of awkward since this would be both of their first time hehe.

ugh this idea>>> also i barely ever get Henry/001/Peter requests and it makes me kinda sad becasue he's literally my favourite jamie character (jace, i am sorry.)

002- Henry/001/Peter x Reader

summary: in the request :)

warnings: NSFW!! contains smut, this was also written at like 3am

notes: this is 4.5k words?? i feel like it could've been better though haha, BUT ALSO JAMIE SHAVED?? THE BEARD IS GONE??!!?!?! (but never forgotten <3)

You’ve known Henry for the majority of your life, or at least the half of your life that you remember. You had both been taken from your homes, your deaths faked while you were put under the care and control of a certain doctor and given new names, although they weren’t names. They were numbers. Yours was 002, Henry’s was 001.

When you first arrived at the lab, you were shaken up, you refused to talk to anybody or even interact with the other boy. However, you soon learnt that you had a lot more in common than you had hoped. You had powers, it explained why you could see glimpses into the future, predict things and guess what someone was thinking- although you knew now that it wasn’t guessing. It was all true. You had believed that in the first 9 years of your life that these things were all ‘in your head’, as your father told you when you asked him if he was seeing other women, cheating on your mother. You refused to believe there was something unique or special about you.

As the years passed, your powers grew stronger, and you also began to form a friendship with the other boy in the Lab, Henry. He was a year or 2 older than you, you never knew for sure. The first time he ever spoke to you was when he warned you about the Doctor tattooing you, he showed you his sore, red arm with 001 written in black ink. He told you to try to stay calm, he got punished for moving about in his seat when the pain got too much. You thanked him, and from that day he made a promise to himself- he promised he would keep you safe and that one day he would escape with you, so you could both live the life you deserved.

As more years went by, you and Henry continued to grow closer. More children also began to arrive at the lab, none of them were over the age of 6. Doctor Brenner ordered them to call him Papa, you and Henry had quite rightly refused to call him this. He began lessons, helping these children to use and build their powers, to grow them stronger. You and Henry would also attend these lessons, Brenner would often ask one of you to help the children, to give them advice- but most of them were only 5, they struggled to understand. This resulted in punishments, which you and Henry had to leave the room for.

As you got older, you realised your feelings towards Henry were more than what you should feel for friends. You had a crush on him. Upon realising this, you started to behave differently around him. You would blush when he felt the cut on your cheek, wishing his soft fingers would caress your cheek to pull you in for a kiss instead, or when you be alone with him in the Rainbow Room you would try to keep a little distance and appear engaged in an activity so he wouldn’t try talking to you, you would only stumble on your words as you spoke back.

He picked up pretty quickly that you liked him in this way, he couldn’t help it with his powers, could he? He could use and control his better than you could, meaning he could read your thoughts, whilst you struggled to read his. However, you liked it better like this, you knew that you and Henry would probably die in the lab before you could leave, meaning you’d rather spend your in-between years as friends and not risk the shame of rejection.

However, you needed to tell someone about this crush- it was driving you insane. Martha, the nurse, was the only person in this place you could trust, besides Henry, so you opened up to her one day when she was treating your most recent wounds before performing an overall health and wellness check as it was leading up to your 18th birthday. For your 16th birthday, you and Nurse Martha spent an afternoon in a sex education lesson, so you wondered what was in store for your 18th. Peter said nothing special happens, that it’s just like any other.

However, your 18th birthday was one to remember, it seemed even better than your 7th (which you could only vaguely remember, you received a dollhouse that you had been begging for all year). You spent the majority of the day in lessons with Brenner and other doctors and scientists, but the evening made up for the last 9 years you had spent in the Lab.

There was a knock on your door, you expected it to be Nurse Martha, but when you opened it you were met with…

“Henry?” You gasped, poking your head out the door to check the halls before grabbing his arm and pulling him into the room, “what are you doing? If you get caught you’ll-”

“If I get caught then at least it was for a good reason,” he smiles, pulling something out from under his black jumper, what had he been hiding? “Happy birthday.”

He handed it over to you, it was wrapped up in some tissue? A napkin?

“Cake?!” Your eyes widen, and then soften as you look up at Henry. You remembered from your years before the Lab that birthdays were usually celebrated with cake, yet Brenner never allowed it on birthdays. “Where did you get this from?” You ask, sitting down on your bed.

“Stole it from the kitchens, one of the ‘children’ caused a fire on the south side of the building today and the staff were made to evacuate.” He said, yet (for the first time) you knew what he was thinking, you knew he was lying.

“You started a fire? To get me some cake?” You chuckled in disbelief.

“Well, you deserved something to make you happy. I wish I could’ve gotten you a gift.” He said, looking down at his lap, you could tell he was thinking about something else, you couldn’t quite work out what it was.

“You can think of the cake as a gift!” You said, smiling as you picked at a bit of it before taking a bite, it was delicious. “Anyway I like spending time with you, and we don’t get to see each other as much as we used to.”

“That’s because we’re at different levels, y/n. I’ve known about my powers and how to use them since I was young, you only discovered them in there. Brenner doesn’t believe you’re as… powerful as I am, but I know you can prove him wrong, can’t you?” Henry’s eyes fell on you as he asked the question, you nodded your head, telling him you will prove him wrong, that you’ll make him feel stupid for ever thinking that way about you, to which Henry whispered a small “that’s my girl.”

“What did you say?” You asked, feeling the heat rush to your face.

“I didn’t say anything,” he smirked. You must have read his mind again. “Can I tell you something?” Henry asked.

“Of course.” You said, finishing the last bit of cake, folding the piece of tissue up and placing it on your drawers.

“Do you remember when you first arrived at this place? I was finally happy to have someone else with me, but you were too afraid to even talk to me. I spent years trying to get you to trust me, you may not have realised that, but I wanted to be your friend. Before I was brought here, I didn’t have any friends, I spent most of my time by myself and that’s how I wanted it to be, but it was just so lonely and cold here, I wished I spent my time differently. I knew it was too late by then, but then you arrived. I knew, given the situation, that you would most likely shy away from me, attempt to escape, but I wanted to try. I wanted to know that I at least tried to make a friend, but I feel like I’ve done more than that,” he said, placing his hand on your knee, “I’ve realised in these last months that I… like you. More than a friend should like a friend. And I won’t lie to you, I know you feel like this about me too, but I wished I would have heard it from your mouth rather than your thoughts,” he chuckled, his eyes coming up to meet yours.

“C-can you kiss me?” You ask, stupidly stumbling on your words as the feeling of his hand on your bare skin and his eyes looking into yours became too much.

“It would be my pleasure.” He smiled softly, his hand coming up to gently cup your cheek.

You were the first to lean in, needing to know if Henry’s lips were as soft as you imagined- and they were. Your breath was snatched from your lungs as his lips pressed into yours. He could taste cake from your lips, causing him to smile into the kiss before carefully pulling back. You didn’t want to stop, it took everything inside you not to pull him back.

“Thank you.” You whispered, watching as he quickly stood up, adjusting his clothes before grabbing the door handle.

“I should go now, so I don’t get in any more trouble with Brenner. But I hope we can do this again… soon.”

“Me too,” you smiled, still trying to process the fact that Henry had admitted he liked you back and kissed you in the space of 5 minutes, “I hope you get back safely. Good night, Henry.”

“Good night, love.”

—————————♡—————————

“002?” A knock at your door distracted you from the drawing you were working on, you placed the pencil down on your desk and made your way to your door, opening to be greeted with Nurse Martha, who had Henry by her side.

“Hello.” You chuckled nervously, “is everything okay?”

“Yes! I was asked by Doctor Brenner to collect you and 001 and to take you to his office, he would like to tell you both about his newest… project.”

“I’ll be two seconds,” you say, rushing over to your bed to grab your jumper, throwing it on to cover your tank top before returning the door, shutting it as you follow Martha and Henry down the halls.

You gave Henry a glance and in your mind you asked him ‘do you know what this is about?’, he then looked back over at you and shook his head, ‘no, he hasn’t said anything about a project.’

“Here we are,” Nurse Martha smiled as she knocked on the door to Brenner’s office, “don’t be nervous, sweetheart.” She said to you, patting your shoulder.

“Ah, thank you, Martha, I can take it from here.” Brenner said with a cold smile as he held his office door open, inviting you and Henry inside as the nurse turned around and headed back down the halls.

You and Henry sit down when instructed, on the chairs opposite the Doctor’s desk. He opened a cabinet, pulling out a folder and placing it in front of you and Henry as he sat at his desk.

“You’re probably wondering why you’re here,” Brenner mused, opening up the folder, looking at the two of you as if you were supposed to know, but you both shook your head. “Over the years, I have worked with several doctors and scientists to try to find a way of combining both of your powers, seeing as the children here have only inherited percentages of your abilities from the testing we have done. But there may be a way to go about this that could potentially be successful, as you two are the oldest and possess the the most unique abilities-”

“What are you trying to say?” Henry asked, his eyebrows furrowing. “Do you need to take more blood samples?”

Doctor Brenner thought about his next words carefully, not wanting to scare either of you off with his proposal. He folded his arms in front of him on the desk and leaned forward.

“To put it simply, we want you two to begin the next generation, to reproduce, to-”

You interrupted him by choking on air as you finally realised what he meant. He wanted you and Henry to have a child together, in hopes that this child will inherit both of your powers and abilities.

“And when do you want this to happen?” Henry asked, his voice avoiding any signs of emotion as he looked into the eyes of the Doctor.

“Nurse Martha has been tracking 002’s menstrual cycle, and this week would be perfect for successful conception. Maybe even today?” Brenner said with a joyous smile. Of course he’d be happy, he won’t be the one to carry this damned baby for nine months. “So, is that okay with you?” He asked, as if you and Henry had a choice.

“Yes, Doctor.” You replied in unison.

“Wonderful!” He clasped his hands together, “you may do… it… in either of your rooms, we haven’t got any spare rooms at the moment- and I believe it may be helpful to have some sort of comfort.” He said before walking over to the office door, holding it open for the two of you.

—————————♡—————————

You and Henry walked in silence, you had non-verbally decided to go to your room- or at least that is where you were both heading. The silence between the two of you was unbearable, you needed to say something-

“So, you are definitely comfortable with this, right?” Henry asked, his fingertips brushing against yours as you walked side by side.

“I guess so, we can’t risk saying no-”

“If you don’t want to do this then we won’t.” Henry stated, confidently.

You thought for a moment, you wanted to do it, you wanted to feel Henry close to you like this, it’s what your body has been aching for for the last month- when he would send a small smirk your way when he caught your eye you would feel your lower half tingling, when he would place his hands on your waist as he moved past you when you were sent to retrieve something from the cramped storage cupboard you wanted nothing more than to push yourself up against him, when he-

“I’ll take that as you being okay with this then?” He smirked, wiping the small drip of blood from his nose. Bastard. Your thoughts were private!

“Yeah,” you smiled, finally arriving at your room. You took a deep breath before opening your door. Henry followed you in and carefully shut the door behind him. “So, how do you want to do this?”

Henry gave you a gentle smile as he slowly moved closer to you, his hand cupping your cheek like it had done a few weeks ago, when he had kissed you on your birthday. He leaned down slowly, your noses brushing as your lips touched. You run your fingers through his hair before pulling him closer, catching his lips in a sloppy, clearly inexperienced kiss.

His free hand rested on your hip, pulling your body closer to his, so close you could feel heat radiating from him. He kissed you hungrily, like this was his last chance to show you how much you mean to him, even if he can’t properly tell you.

He moved his hands to the bottom of your jumper, tugging on it, ‘let me take it off’.

And you allowed him, breaking free from the kiss for a mere 5 seconds made you feel empty, cold, like a piece of a puzzle was missing, but when Henry had taken your jumper off and let it drop to the floor, his lips crashed into yours once more.

‘Your turn’, you told him. You loved how you could communicate with his like this, not having to take your lips off of each other to speak.

Your hands fumbled about as you found the bottom of his jumper, beginning to lift it up. He took over, breaking the kiss once more as he dropped it to the floor, now lying in a pile with yours. His hands now played with the waistband of your grey joggers as he gave you a puzzling look- a look full of lust, desire, want, but also love. He slipped his fingers into the waistband and began to drag them down your hips.

“Henry,” you whispered. He stopped immediately and looked at you, scanning your face for any signs of fear. “I just… I wanted to tell you… I don’t know how to do this.” You admit, your face flushing a deep red.

“Neither do I,” he tells you, “why don’t we figure it out together, hm?” He raises his eyebrows, continuing to pull your joggers down, slowly revealing your underwear.

“Okay.” You say, smiling as you stand awkwardly, not knowing what to do with your hands as he undresses you.

When the material pools at your feet, you step out it, now left in your underwear, bra and a thin tank top. Henry was still fully dressed. He caught on quickly and rid himself of his t-shirt, letting that fall on to the pile of discarded clothes that lay on the floor. His hands moved down to push his joggers down his legs, leaving him in just his white boxers. You took that as a sign and removed your top, leaving you in your white bra and panties.

“You’re beautiful.” Henry said, looking at your body, “I never thought something could be so beautiful.”

“So are you.” You said, placing your hand on his chest, noticing the scars on his skin that were undoubtedly caused by a certain doctor. “What do we do next?”

“...we get naked.” Henry said, his hand coming up to play with your bra strap, “is that okay?”

“That’s okay.” You tell him.

‘Can I take this off?’ he asks you, his eyes finding yours as you nod your head. His hands slide around you, to your back to find the clasp of your bra. He immediately notices that this would be more difficult than expected, so he gets you to turn around, with your back facing him.

He easily unclasped your bra, carefully sliding the straps off of your arms before taking the material and letting it fall on the floor.

He could feel his blood rushing down to his cock as he thinks about how you’re standing braless in front of him. He tells himself not to worry about what you would think as you turn back around to see him hard through his boxers, that was meant to happen, that’s what needs to happen, right?

“You can turn around now.” Henry says, swallowing thickly.

Your hands cover your boobs as you turn back around to face him, but he quickly removes them, telling you not to be shy. Then your eyes finally catch what was between his thighs.

“Henry… is that…?” Your eyes were full of curiosity as you stared at his erection.

“Yes, I expect you’ve never seen one like this before.” He says, you shake your head.

“I’ve only seen what was in t-the anatomy books.” You tell him, and he smiles softly. He feels like he has a slight advantage here, having heard his classmates at school talk about sex all the time, he felt repulsed by it- but that was before he met you.

He finally takes off his boxers, you watch carefully as his cock leaks precum, your hand unexpectedly reaching to wipe it off with a finger, causing Henry’s breath to hitch.

“Can I?” You ask him, ‘can I make you feel good?’

Henry nods his head, taking your hand in his and wrapping your fingers around his length before guiding it up and down at an achingly slow pace. He bites his lip, holding back a groan from escaping his lips as you quicken the pace.

“S-stop,” he warns you, “I want the first time I cum to be with you.”

You nod your head and remove your hand, not knowing what his words meant.

“Can I make you feel good?” He asks, hooking a finger into the waistband of your underwear.

“Please…” You whimper, “when I’m with you I feel things down there, what does that mean, Henry?” You ask.

“It means you need my fingers, darling.” He whispers, pushing your last remaining garment down and off of your body, revealing your cunt to him. “Fuck…” he groans, getting down on to his knees to look at you closer, he had never seen this part of the female body up close before.

He dips a finger into you, delighted to find you were already wet for him. He moved his finger up along your slit, searching for your clit. He knew that would make you feel good, and he was desperate to hear you moan for him.

“Oh my-” Your knees buckle when his finger grazes over the nub, he smirks, replacing his finger with his thumb as he rubs circles where you needed him.

He continues to examine you, two fingers from his other hand spread your folds apart and he watches you pulse, a sign that you wanted more.

He stands back up and removes his hands from you, placing one on your waist.

“Lie down,” he tells you, guiding you backwards towards the bed.

You lay down, your head against the pillows, your arms by your head and your legs spread slightly. He was happy to see you were comfortable around him.

He follows you, kneeling between your legs, spreading them a tiny bit further. He brings his hand back to your heat, teasing your entrance with his fingertip.

“Tell me if it’s too much.” He says, sliding his index finger into you slowly, earning a pleasured gasp from you. “Does that feel good?” He asked, a smirk playing on his lips as he eases it back out before pushing back in. He believes you were ready for a second one to follow, so his thumb rubs your clit as he slides his middle finger in too.

“Feels too good, Henry.” You moan, a lazy smile on your lips as you look up at him.

He replies with a satisfied ‘hm’ as he continues his actions. He feels the way your walls pulse around his fingers, and basically hears your heart pounding in your chest, he knows you’re close.

Slowly, he stops what he was doing, leaning down to pepper kisses on your thighs, even placing a delicate kiss over your clit.

“I think you’re ready now, sweetheart.” He says, moving up a little on the bed so your hips were in line with his.

“Okay.” You say, not knowing what he thought you were ready for, but agreeing anyway.

He took his cock and swiped off the precum that had leaked from the tip and swiped it over your clit, making your hips shuffle as he lined himself up with you, slowly inching his cock inside of you.

The pain was hot and red, it took you by surprise and you found yourself clawing at the bedsheets. Henry noticed this and took your hands in his, moving them to his back. You didn’t want to hurt him but as he pushed in further, your nails began to dig into his skin, sure to draw blood.

“You’re doing so well.” He whispered, leaning down to kiss your forehead. “Does it hurt?” He asked, although he knew the answer before you nodded your head.

When he was fully inside you, you let out a whimper. You had never realised you could feel this way before, so full. You loved it.

He didn’t move for a few moments, until he felt you were ready, when you caught your breath and your walls stopped clamping around him. That was when he began to gently rock his hips, thrusting in and out of you.

Sweat beaded on Henry’s forehead as he tried his best to hold himself back from rutting into you at a faster pace, but as your legs wrapped around his waist, he began to quicken his pace.

“Oh my… Henry, faster!” You panted.

He did as you said, not holding back anymore. After weeks of wanting nothing more than this moment, Henry couldn’t believe what was happening. Surely this wasn’t real- but as your nails clawed at his back, he knew it most definitely was real.

“I love you.” The words slipped from Henry’s lips and caught you by surprise. You didn’t say anything, not knowing what to say. Instead, you wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him closer to you, your lips crashing into his.

You suddenly became aware of how he felt inside you, the spots he hit deep inside your body that you would have never known were there, but especially how good it felt.

“Henry… I feel something… In my tummy-”

“Let it go, darling.” He said, his hand sliding to your lower stomach, just below your belly button, and pushing down. The pressure resulted in even more pleasure, you felt so good, you never wanted this feeling to leave.

Suddenly, a white wave of ecstasy crashed over you, spreading through your whole body. You almost felt euphoric.

“Gonna… gonna cum inside you- fuck!” He groaned, his thrusts growing slower and sloppier, and then you felt something hot rush inside of you.

Henry remained above you, his arms placed either side of your body to support him. He was trying to catch his breath before he stood back up and continued with his day- but you pulled him down, making him put all his weight onto you.

You wrapped your arms around him, holding him close to you as you both came down from your highs, worried that if you let go of him, he would leave and you would never speak about this again.

When you realised he was still inside of you, your walls involuntarily clenched around him again, causing him to groan into the crook of your neck. You whispered a soft apology before you ran your fingers through his soft hair.

“I love you too.” You finally confessed.

He lifted his head up, giving you a smile before kissing the corner of your mouth.

“Our baby isn’t going to grow up inside this place,” Henry told you, “I have a plan, I’m going to escape- and I’m going to take you with me.”

#peter ballard smut #jamie campbell bower #henry creel smut #001 smut #stranger things #henry creel x reader #peter ballard x reader #jamie campbell bower x reader #henry creel #i dont like how this turned out

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britt-kageryuu · 3 months

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It's apparently a slow day at the clinic today, because Leo is streaming from the clinic front desk with the AR setup. His model is in blue scrubs, a lab coat, his mask with Trans tails, and blue crocs with pride jibbitz.

He was just chatting to the audience while organizing the comic books on the small shelf on top of a couple small filing cabinets.

"Every now and then I wonder how much sleep Dee gets. Like sure he's between big projects for GB so that's good, but he's working on this game, and another odd project that I thought was abandoned." Leo then grabs a thicker graphic novel from the shelf. "Then the other day Dee comes into my room looking kinda crazy, saying he found our long lost sister and handed me another book with a mutant turtle with a yellow bandana!"

He shows the cover that has a turtle with a yellow bandana looking over her shoulder with claw blades on her hands. It reads Jennika the Fifth Turtle.

"I haven't read it yet, which is why it's here, but I'm seriously starting to wonder were these books are coming from. But I did promise not to question it, if only for my sanity." Leo pauses and looks to the side while putting the book on top of the shelf, where the entrance of the clinic might be. "Oh hey, you're looking amazing! Here for your prescription refill? Just a sec."

Leo walks around the camera, and muting his mic. He didn't put the stream into a standby, so once again the client is apparently curious about the camera.

The person tries to lean into frame, only to have a basic orange bipedal cat model in a white tshirt and black pants pops into frame on top of the person. Chat is kinda confused, but find it funny that there is a fail safe for anyone walking into frame.

The person is trying to say something, obvious by the mouth moving, but the camera doesn't have a microphone on it. They then go a bit stiff and sidestep out of frame as Leo walks back into frame with an amused look on his face. He turns his mic back on.

"Well I haven't learned my lesson about streaming from here, but oh well." He hands the client a small shopping/gift bag with cartoon turtles on it. "It's okay, I need to learn not to do this. And I probably will do this again anyway. Here's your prescription. Have a lovely day~"

After a few seconds he turns back to the camera, and lets out a sigh. "Yeah, I will definitely need to remember to switch over to a BRB screen, but I will probably keep forgetting, because I will keep getting distracted."

A donation notice goes off with Rivers voice reading, "Why did you give them a gift bag for their prescription? Also the cat model was cute."

"Oh the bags? Yeah we give those as a more discreet way for our clients to carry out their stuff. There are even other sizes, and materials." He grabs a canvas bag from beside the camera that has rainbow sea turtles swimming across it. "It's included in the price of whatever you need to carry. Whether it's medical related or you want to buy some of the tea or coffee. Yeah we sell the coffee in the clinic, but we keep track of who can and can't have which blends. Since some of the caffeine levels are not good for some people."

Leo puts the bag back, and takes a drink of his tea from a Jupiter Jim tumbler, and brings the book back down.

"Well, going back to that comic, I think this isn't actually our sister, just some random turtle mutant, or something. I'm not gonna read this on stream, so stop asking." Leo says as he goes back to organizing the bookshelf. "As for the cat model, yeah Dee set it up incase someone walks into our AR streams. Like the time Red was babysitting and Dee left the AR stream on."

He doesn't seem to like how he's organized it so he keeps redoing it, but the audience are still have fun listening to his rambling while he decides how he wanted to have the books organized.

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

Masterpost

#rottmnt au #tmnt au #rottmnt leonardo #rottmnt leo #rise leo #rise leonardo #rottmnt fanfiction #tmnt fanfiction #VTurtles!#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt #tmnt 2018 #rise tmnt #rise of the tmnt #tmnt rise #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt

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bcbdrums · 2 months

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Several-Sentence Sunday

thanks for the tag, @scythe-daddyy!! to no one's surprise, here's some CrossStitch:

"Good." He paused. "Are you all right?" The third asking didn't make the question any clearer to Stein, but what he did know was that his knees were shaking in the half-kneeling position he'd put himself in to assist Spirit to sit. He'd meant to push himself back up to stand, but when the weapon's fingers slid along Stein's forearm, gently held his elbow, he found himself moving downward to sit next to him. His knees thanked him, but his head was no less dizzied by the more comfortable posture as he stared somewhat blankly back into crystal-blue eyes. "I…" Stein hadn't thought about himself at all. But with the question unavoidable he suddenly found that he felt very, very tired. And too many other physical sensations were suddenly making themselves known as he allowed them presence of mind—aches and pains and hunger and thirst he realized suddenly as he made to lick his lips and found his mouth dry. The shake he'd felt in his knees was affecting his entire frame, he discovered, and the slight unsteadiness he'd been experiencing on and off suddenly became a sprinkling of rainbow lights over his vision as he blinked back at the weapon and tried to formulate how to respond. The bunched-up lab coat fell to his lap, and he felt blindly along the fabric in search of a pocket and the relief of a cigarette within.

what was he into this time, i wonder.... heheh. deliberately keeping context vague or else it would be obvious what this one's about.

i tag @puppys-teeth @takeyourcyanide @midnightcaptions and @memethebum

#soul eater fanfiction #soul eater #CrossStitch #franken stein #spirit albarn

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the-lark-ascending69 · 5 months

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I just got an idea for whump Ronance.

What if Robin and Nancy gets captured by Brenner?

Like, they end up becoming his new lab rats. Thry get tortured and abused just like El was.

What do you think?

(Also, what kind of powers do you think they would have respectively?)

Anon I am so sorry i wrote a long asf response to this and then it got deleted and I was so mad I didn't want to do it again but now I feel inspired and motivated to give it another try.

SO. Wonderful concept! I love it! Let me share my thoughts!!

So what I came up with is:

At age 15, they both get lost in the Upside Down. They only vaguely knew about the other's existance from school but when they found each other down there, they became inseparable. This is an AU in which Will never went missing. Anyway they're terrified and starving and exhausted but at least they have each other, and they hold hands almost the entire time because they both desperately need the comfort.

Eventually, they make it out on their own after finding a gate... and it's in the Hawkins Lab. They come out on the other end before the unbelieving eyes of dozens of scientists, who were convinced no one would survive a minute in there without the proper equipment. Yet these trembling, starving young girls covered in grit survived with only the clothes on their back for a week.

Brenner recognizes them immediately - Nancy and Robin, the two girls from the missing person posters circulating through town. Everyone already thinks they're dead. They made fake bodies of them, for Christ' sake, he's not letting this opportunity go, especially after the disappearance of his only remaining test subject, 011.

This will be a new experiment. A different one. They are given different numbers for ir - A01 for Nancy and A02 for Robin. They get that tattooed in their arms. The purpose of the experiment is to study the effects of short-term exposure to the Upside Down on humans of their height, s.ex, age, health status and weight. They call themselves doctors. They give them separate rooms and run a series of tests daily on them. They try to be subtle at first as to not scare them too much - they don't want another 011 - so they call them by their real names for a while. They ask questions about their lives before the Upside Down and reassure them this is meant to test radiation levels - a standard procedure, before they can return them to their parents.

They immediatelly call bullshit. Why can't they talk to their parents now? Why can't they see them through a glass, at least, or a camera, if radiation is what they're worried about? Why won't they tell them what that place was or why it led back to the Lab? Do their families know they're safe? What is going on? They ask so many questions about every procedure ran on them, resisting in more and more extreme ways until the scientists need to tie them down and drug them whenever they want to do anything.

Brenner notices similar brain activity in them to that of his old test subjects, and he suspects the Upside Down might have given them some kind of ability. He keeps them in the rainbow room, hoping each other's company will help them develop their powers, yet for a long time nothing comes. They can't move objects with their mind, or astral project, or open gates. Even despite everything they do to them. Despite every horrible procedure they perform on them. Drugs of all kinds, leaving them delirious and weak for days. Electrocompulsive therapy. Hypnosis. Pain tests. Sensory deprivation. Solitary confinement. Brenner wants to activate their powers in one way or another, desperate after losing subject 011.

(It's terrifying each time. Nancy is invaded by pure rage while Robin is paralyzed by fear. Whenever they take one for a procedure, the other waits impatiently for her return, fully concious of what they're doing to her - or so it seems. Nancy, at least, thinks she knows what they're doing to Robin. She thinks they do the same things they do to her - tie her to a chair, put an IV in her, maybe, or stick a needle into her neck. Brenner will do this while casually telling her she'll only feel a small pinch, before doing such a monstruosity to her that she'll be woken up by seizures at night. It takes Robin some time to tell Nancy the truth).

They seem completely useless for a long time, but that changes the moment they capture a russian agent.

He was a scientist, working from an unknown location beneath Hawkins, trying to get intel from the Lab when he was caught and tortured to extract information from him. Robin wasn't usually allowed to wander the halls alone, but someone left the door unlocked and she was curious, and soon she found herself in front of a closed door, hearing panting and ragged breathing after this man received the beating of his life. He was talking to himself - curses and meanderings about death and whether or not he'd see his family again. Robin, despite having never learned Russian, understood everything, and in a perfect accent she began to talk to him. She didn't know why - she didn't even realize they weren't speaking English. For a moment he thought he was being rescued, and he shared with her a lot of information.

Brenner caught her in the act and severaly punished her. Solitary confinement for one week. She would only see other people when they ran tests on her, and even then they wouldn't speak to her at all. He ended up not living up to his threat when, not two days after the event, he noticed her brain activity going wild. He has fascinated, and he asked her what had happened, if that russian spy gave her something like a drug. "Russian?" she asks, only then understanding what had happened.

They believe her powers are related to xenoglossy, the supernatural ability to know a language without having ever learned it. Something extremely useful in that specific historical context. She'd be an incredible spy, and oh, Brenner can't wait to experiment with this. They kill the spy after she tells them everything he told her.

They begin to give her a special treatment over Nancy - not exactly for the better. Brenner wants to understand this new ability, developed not in the womb like in other subjects but when subject A02 is a teenager, possibly caused by exposure to Upside Down radiation, though that's not confirmed. Maybe it had more to do with their experiments. He thinks he hit a dead end when it's revealed Robin already knew intermediate-to-advanced French, Spanish and Italian from before being captured - she'd be just a regular poltglot in that case, a prodigious one, right, but with nothing of interest for Brenner. But he quickly realizes this is not the case. Robin didn't know a word of Russian before, and he develops a hipothesis he'll spend the following year testing. He tries her ability with different languages, escaling on rarity, complexity and distance from English. From reading a single short text, Robin becomes profient in Finnish - a non-indoeuropean language Brenner doubts she's ever had any contact with. Proficient, but not fluent. It seems like she can very easily extract a language's grammar from a short sample text, applying it to terms she's familiar with, but she can't magically "guess" vocabulary of grammatical rules not present in the material she was given. For example, by reading a text in which all 15-16 grammatical cases of Finnish are present, she will be able to apply them to any noun in nominative case she knows, but she can't do it with nouns she doesn't know, and she can't use grammatical cases not present in the sample text given to her. She also can't guess spelling or pronunciation without both text and audio samples, and she can't speak in accents she hasn't heard (though she can easily switch accents in a way native speakers of the language can't, a skill that is curiously not translated (lol) into her native English). She learns faster with audio than with text, but even faster with a real-time conversation. Brenner brings a colleague who is fluent in Japanese to test her and he's amazed by how quick her progress is. His hipothesis, seemingly now proven, was that hers was an entirely mental skill, not a supernatural one, since she doesn't magically have access to languages she never had any contact with. This would make her ability not real xenoglossy.

A few more fun facts about her "power":

Her pre-existing skill with Spanish, French and Italian didn't improve until she was exposed to these languages again after being captured. She becomes incredibly skilled at solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brenner believes her power developed thanks to her intensive studies in languages through her childhood. Her brain activity is similar to that of non-native speakers of a language during the few first minutes of having contact with a new language, but in less than an hour, it will be the same as with native speakers. She's confused by some reconstructed languages, but not others (Proto-Indoeuropean was easy for her to learn, Proto-Uralic took her some time before learning more finno-ugric languages than just Finnish. If this were happening in the 2000s, when the Dené-Caucasian theory was already formalized, then Proto-Dené-Caucasian would have sounded like absolute gibberish to her).Some of Brenner's colleages hipothesize that her knowledge of living languages help inform her of the grammar and syntax of proto-languages in an extremely accurate way, to the point she subconciously knows when a reconstruction is wrong. This would make her an amazing paleolinguist. Brenner is less interested in the reconstruction of ancient turkic languages in Siberia and more interested her use as a spy and code-breaker - though it wouldn't have hurt him to take a second look at the idea of turkic languages, because that Russian agent, he was from a region of Russia called Tartary, and he spoke another language aside from Russian, the Tartar language, though he never got to speak it in Robin's presence. Brenner and his colleagues, not familiar with the vast diversity of languages on Earth, spend a long time working with an incorrect hypothesis because they couldn't notice Robin speaking Tartar to herself as a distinct language from all the others they were teaching her. A year and a a half passes before someone spent enough time listening to her to notice the difference. It's a discovery that shatters completely Brenner's first hypothesis on the absence of a supernatural element in Robin's ablity, and he's once again fascinated when he discovers it. His new hypothesis: Robin's power grants her access to a person's mind through speaking to them in a strange, confusing way, and he can't wait to destroy her, pick her brain apart and figure out how it works even if he kills her in the process.

In fact, he does. Literally. He does it over and over and over again, and Nancy has to watch it happen time and time again.

Because here's the thing: Robin wasn't the only one to develop powers, and in fact, she wasn't even the first one.

If you've heard of the videogame Life is Strange, anon, then you'll understand Nancy's power here: she can rewind time. Her power is pretty much the same as Max's in LiS - she can rewind time up to a certain point, though it causes a great mental strain, and eventually, she will discover she can time travel to specific points in time through photographs she's present in, as her younger self.

She discovers her powers the first time Robin is killed.

Misbehavior got her punished - solitary confinement after a long testing session. She had an overdose in her cell, and no one noticed in time. Nancy barely remembers what happened then, other than the horror she felt, before the events of the day flashed backwards before her eyes and she was brought back to Robin - warm, alive, breathing - in the rainbow room.

She begged her to do as they said, to behave, to not fight back. Robin is confused but Nancy is in tears and she agrees to do as she says.

This time, when she has an overdose, they treat her on time. She was in a comma for a week, but soon she was back on her feet and back in Nancy's arms.

It keeps happening - over and over again. The time she swallowed her own tongue during a seizure because Nancy didn't hold her right, and she had to try over four times (and watch her choke and die four times) before she got it right. The time she didn't die - but she lost her ability to speak after hours of electroculpulsive therapy, and she had her fake an illness so they would submit her to less aggressive procedures. It happened again when, after a similar trial, she forgot her own parents and thought the scientists were her parents. But she mostly just died. Over, and over, and over again. Mostly from overdose or brain damage during seizures, but one time, she was purposely asphixiated during a test. To this point Nancy still isn't sure what was it that they wanted to test with that. She suspects it was just torture for the sake of torture. To break her, somehow.

Nancy is terrified of long-term effects of all of this on Robin's health. She's scared the damage will cross the point of no return too early, to a point she can't go back to, a point in which she can't stop it. She can hold Robin's head during a seizure but she can't stop the seizures, and the lasting damage they leave.

Robin is aware of Nancy's powers. Nancy didn't even have to prove them to her - she believed her immediately whe she told her, and she trusts her judgment completely. If Nancy tells her it's better to do X, you can bet Robin will be doing X. Robin doesn't tell Nancy about her newfound ability immediately - she doesn't want her to worry about something she can do nothing about. But she does share it with her, after some time. She felt the need to explain to Nancy why the sudden interest on her. Nancy worries about her Robin so much, so so much, because she's just become Brenner's favorite new toy, and he'll do anything and everything to exploit her. She's in much more danger than Nancy is, and Nancy wishes she could take her place, make herself into Brenner's toy, draw attention away from Robin, but they both know the best they can do for their safety is to keep Nancy's invisible power secret. Nancy hates herself for not being able to take Robin's pain for her.

They escape one day. It's a complicated plan including short-distance time travel, manipulating russian spies through a stolen radio, several forms of treason and going out the same way they came in - through the portal. Nancy does her best to keep them safe with her power as they search for the other gate, the one they first crossed three years ago. And then, they're out. They're found unconcious on the side of the road.

They wake up a few days later in the hospital, surrounded by their families. Nancy's brother, Mike, has a new friend - a quiet girl with long brown hair and a 011 tattoed on her wrist, and she knows she needs to speak to her desperately, but she's exhausted, so for the time being, she'll sleep for some time, feeling almost at peace now, knowing Robin is safe and in the good hands of doctors.

#ronance #whump #tw torture #tw drugs #tw electrocution #uuuh that's it i guess #this took me forever to write but i'm satisfied!

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roanofarcc · 1 month

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PROJECT SUNSHINE CHAPTER SIXTY TWO → A MOTLEY CREW

summary: steve harrington x oc || read on Ao3

when another product of Hawkins National Laboratory escaped a long-survived nightmare alongside her sister, she crashed into one unsuspecting teenage boy and dragged him deeper into the dark mysteries that made up their hometown.

word count. 5k || masterlist || ocs moodboard

warnings: cannon typical violence, child abuse, horror, gore, and depictions of mental illness. parts of this story were written pre-season 4 release. cannon divergence.

a/n. calum miller, my greatest enemy, and dearest boy...a moron of my own creation <3

previous chapter ← → next chapter

tagged. @sattlersquarry, @leptitlu, @two-sides-samecoin

The diner Sunshine was instructed to meet Kali at was quiet despite it being mid-morning. There were only a couple of people who lingered at the bar, nursing coffee and eating whatever the day's specials were. Sunshine occupied herself by twisting the sun pendant between her fingers and gazing out the large window beside her, keeping an eye out for Kali. She sipped on a mug of coffee, but the caffeine only made her jitters worse.

At exactly nine-thirty on the dot, the bell above the front door rang, and in walked Kali. She looked just like how the twins and El described her. She had black hair fit with streaks of purple along the ends and that was shaved on one side of her head. Everything was dark on her, from the lines drawn around her eyes to the clothing she wore. She looked to be an inch or two shorter than Sunshine, but her presence felt bigger.

Sunshine scrambled out of the booth, catching Kali's attention as she made her way over. "Hi," Sunshine greeted, smiling at her estranged sister. The last time she had seen Kali was inside the Rainbow Room the night before she and the twins escaped. Back then, Eight was a little girl just like Sunshine, dressed in a hospital gown and a buzzcut.

Kali studied her for a moment, from head to toe. Sunshine looked almost opposed to Kali with her white hair, bright yellow sweater, and long skirt she had stolen from Nancy.

"Hey," she said after a beat. She took a seat and Sunshine followed suit.

"I didn't know if you liked coffee, but I got you a cup anyway," Sunshine said, gesturing to the piping hot mug in front of Kali.

With a light hum, Kali picked it up and drank it black. Sunshine glanced down at her cup, the light brown color staring back at her. Steve often teased her by saying she enjoyed a little coffee with her cream and sugar, which was fair.

"How are you?" Sunshine asked, trying to wade through the awkwardness she felt. It wasn't like she was meeting Kali for the first time, but in a way she was. Eight and Kali were different people, just as Seven and Sunshine were.

"I didn't know if you'd actually show up," Kali said, not answering Sunshine's question.

She almost didn't. After Sunshine called her two nights ago, she laid awake wondering if it was the right move. She wanted answers and knew it was well past time she reached out to her. When the twins first returned, Sunshine wanted to contact Kali, but they said she would still be upset for a while over the fact that they left. They worried Sunshine reaching out would make her feel worse.

"I figured it was about time we reconnected."

"You said you needed answers to your memories."

Sunshine sighed. "Yes, but I also wanted to see how you were." Because it had been a long time, lifetimes it felt like.

"I'm fine," she answered with a slight edge in her voice that Sunshine remembered from when they were kids. "But I don't know if I'll have the answers you're looking for. I try not to think about my time in that place." It was hard not to, though, Sunshine thought. There were things they'd never forget, even if they wanted to. The twins and El had also told Sunshine about Kali's mission to track down every person who had hurt them inside the Lab, which meant she had to think about it.

"But you do sometimes, enough to remember the people who worked there." Kali furrowed her brows. "Luke, Leia, and El told me."

Crossing her arms, Kali leaned against the back of the booth and looked at her intently as if she was searching for something about Sunshine. Maybe she was looking for Seven or trying to figure out who exactly she had become.

"I didn't invite you here for a lecture on righteousness," Kali said. "Whatever they told you, know I'm doing it for us." It sounded like she had a similar conversation before, probably with Luke if Sunshine had to guess. The way he spoke about Kali was different than Leia. She often defended Kali's actions while Luke scoffed at them.

"I didn't come to lecture you," Sunshine stressed. "I just want to understand. I need someone to fill in the missing pieces of my memories." She left out the second reason for her coming, to try to get Kali to come back to Hawkins with her to live a life not built around revenge.

"Why?"

Sunshine explained her recent influx of memories that assaulted her brain. She told Kali how she had been more and more of her memories as of late, and maybe it was some kind of sign that she needed to talk to her.

Kali tapped her black fingernails against the side of her mug, thoughtfully. "And what do you think the truth will get you?"

Sunshine shrugged. "Closure, maybe?" Peace of mind, perhaps. Sunshine wasn't sure but she didn't like not knowing things. She wanted all of the facts set straight inside her head.

A light scoff sounded from Kali. "There's only one way to get closure, and that's to get back at everyone who hurt us inside that place. When they're gone, then we get closure, not while they're still out there living their lives without consequences."

Sunshine disagreed. She believed those people deserved consequences for what they did, but she didn't think she was the one meant to serve those consequences. If Dr. Brenner and Miller were still alive somewhere out there, she wished the worst on them, but as long as they never stepped foot back into her life, she wasn't going to spend her time tracking them down. Sunshine believed that her living, being back with her parents, and finding a home was her revenge on them. She got out and got her life back, but she knew things were different for Kali. Kali hadn't found her family yet.

"Is that really what you believe?" Sunshine asked, looking for a sign from Kali that she wasn't fully convinced of that, but she found nothing.

"Yes."

"Then I'm not here to stop you." It wasn't Sunshine's place. "I just want to know what you remember."

"Then ask away."

Sunshine explained her most recent memory to her, the one about the little girl breaking the little boy's arm seemingly out of the blue. In the memory, Kali had said that they'd all break eventually, especially if they stayed inside the Lab. They had a different skill set to hurt people and they'd been taught from a young age exactly how to use it. That reflex was still inside of her, an instinct to hurt first and ask questions second, and that scared her. She felt it last fall when Billy threatened Lucas and nearly killed Steve. All of the fighting she'd done since she left the Lab had been to save her friends, but every time she did it, something deep down inside of her was satisfied. She didn't like hurting people, but a piece of her formed inside the Lab did. The more she mulled over that conversation with Kali from her memory, the more she thought of other instances from the Lab where she was praised for being violent. Was there still something inside of her that could snap?

"Probably," Kali answered. That was the last thing Sunshine wanted to hear. "How could anyone blame us? I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. Hurting people is what we do best."

Sunshine shook her head, almost frantically. "That's not true. I don't want to hurt anyone."

"But you have, and I'm willing to bet you'd do it again if you had to." Sunshine felt shame wash over her, hot and terrible. She'd do anything to save her friends and family, that she knew for certain. But that didn't mean she wanted to. It came from necessity. Their lives had come riddled with monsters and bad men around every corner; it was hard to escape.

Kali continued, "It's what they made us for. If we never ended up in that place, that thought probably wouldn't have crossed our minds. Or, at least, it wouldn't always be our first instinct when we're in danger. They made us like that, and they don't get to get away with that. That's why I'm here." She lowered her voice even more, even though no one in the diner seemed to be paying attention to them. Everyone was too far away from their booth in the back corner. "There's a man who used to work there living in the city. I tracked him down and supposedly he knows where Dr. Brenner has been hiding out since he was run out of Hawkins."

Sunshine couldn't help the curiosity that pricked her skin. That wasn't why she was there. She had convinced herself, a long time ago, that he was dead. The boys believed he had died that night at the middle school, but after the twins and El returned from their stay with Kali, they weren't so sure that was the truth. Sunshine wanted it to be, but men like that were hard to get rid of, she supposed.

"You don't think he's dead?" she asked.

Kali shook her head. "I've talked to a lot of people who used to work with him. If they don't believe it, neither do I."

Sunshine did not want to care. She had taken back all of what she could that was stolen from her. Even if Dr. Brenner and Miller were alive, they couldn't take anything away from her anymore. But the look on Kali's face told her otherwise; her anger was contagious.

"I'm going to see what the man knows," Kali said, finishing the sip of her coffee. "He lives just a block from here."

"Do you think he'll talk to you?"

Kali's eyes narrowed similarly to how they often did when she looked at the guards and doctors inside the Lab. "I'm not going to give him a choice."

She should have let Kali go and abandoned her mission altogether. She should have headed back to Hawkins, but she became swept up in Kali's air of determination. Sunshine didn't know what she'd do with any information they got from the man if he did know where Dr. Brenner was. Sunshine didn't care, or, she thought she didn't. If she hadn't cared at all, she wouldn't have followed Kali to the man's apartment complex.

The place was small and a little unkept, but it had a seventies charm about it. Sunshine toyed with her necklace as they approached the man's door. Kali knocked a few times before the door swung open to reveal an older man, probably in his early sixties. His hair was gray and balding on top, and wrinkles set in along his pale skin. But his bright green eyes almost made him look youthful.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

Kali had kept her hands in the pockets of her long coat since they left the diner. Something inside of the right pocket poked against the fabric oddly and Sunshine had a bad feeling about what was inside.

"We'd like to speak with you, James."

Several emotions flashed across the man's face before he cleared his throat in an attempt to collect himself, trying to play off his very obvious panic. "I'm sorry, you have the wrong place. I don't know a James." He started to close the door in their faces, but Kali stuck her foot in between the frame with her heavy black boots to stop it. She then shoved the door open hard with her shoulder, forcing the man back as she stepped inside, finally pulling out what she hid inside her pocket.

"Are you sure?" Kali asked, cocking her head to the side as she pointed a handgun at the man's stomach.

He paled, stumbling backwards as Kali followed him deeper into the apartment. She didn't take her eyes off of him, but she gestured with her free hand for Sunshine follow quickly.

Sunshine did not travel to commit a crime; all she had wanted to do was speak to her sister. Yet, she stepped inside the apartment anyway and closed the door.

"Who...Who the hell are you guys? What do you want? Money? I-I don't have any!"

"Shut up," Kali hissed. "We don't want your money, James."

The man's gaze flickered between the two girls, confused. "How do you know that name? I don't go by that anymore."

"Some advice, try moving a couple more towns over from the one you used to work in. You were pretty easy to find," Kali said. James was sweaty, eyes full of panic. "Sit," she instructed, and he didn't argue as he slowly sat on the couch. "You worked at Hawkins National Laboratory for ten years, is that right?"

James's shaking hands clutched the couch cushions at his sides as he stared at the gun Kali continued to point at him. He swallowed thickly before answering, "Yes. I-I did. But that was a long time ago. I don't-" Kali cut him off before he could finish his sentence.

"You don't recognize us then?" He looked between them again. Sunshine didn't recognize him, but there had been so many people who passed in and out of the Lab, working there. It was hard to remember all of them. They never told the kids their names or shared any personal information that would've made it easier to remember them. There was only one person who worked there, aside from Dr. Brenner and Miller who had genuinely spoken with her as if she was a child and not an experiment in his eyes. She didn't recall his name, but she was sure he had given it at one point. All she remembered was his blonde hair and lanky figure. He liked playing chess and checkers with her when Ivy wasn't around to be her partner. He was a guard of some kind, always dressed in white with his hands folded behind his back. Aside from him, every other adult pretended the kids were nothing more than Lab rats.

After a moment, James said, "No. I'm sorry. I don't."

Kali didn't seem to like that answer; it was written sharply across her face. With a hum, she switched the gun into her other hand and rolled up her sleeve, exposing her tattooed number eight. James let out a gasp, eyes so wide they looked ready to bug out of his head. He looked to Sunshine at the same time Kali did, expectantly. She hesitated for a moment before she too showed her tattoo to the man.

"Does this jog your memory?" Kali asked.

Maybe Sunshine had become too soft in some parts because as she looked at James and the emotion that glinted behind his eyes, he looked remorseful. He looked sorry as he sank against his couch and hung his head, muttering, "Jesus," under his breath. "How...?"

"How are we here? How did we survive?" Kali raised her voice slightly, her emotions seeping out from underneath her stoic exterior. "It was certainly no thanks to you or anyone else inside that place." Her words were venomous but laced with hurt. Sunshine wanted to reach out to her like how she'd often do to El or the twins and hold her hand in an attempt to take away some of that coiled-up hurt. Kali was all sharp edges, but Sunshine wanted to smooth her out.

"Why are you here?" James asked.

Kali neared him with her gun still in hand, but she gestured with it now, not pointing it directly at him. She handled it differently than Nancy would have. Nancy was always locked in when she used a gun, but it was probably because she only ever threatened monsters with it and not people. "You've been in contact with Martin Brenner, haven't you?"

"No," James answered quickly. "No. I don't even remember the last time I spoke with him, honestly. After I quit, I moved here and cut off all contact with him and Hawkins."

"That's not what your friend Rudy said."

"Rudy?" James repeated, brows furrowed. "You spoke to Rudy?" Kali nodded as her grasp around the gun tightened. She resumed pointing it at him again, causing him to flinch and shield his face with his hands. "Hey! S-Stop! Okay? Just put the gun down and we can talk. W-We can talk!"

Kali switched off the safety with a loud 'click.' "Talk."

Quickly stepping beside Kali, Sunshine's stomach twisted in every awful way. "Kali," she pleaded but was ignored.

"I said, talk."

"Fine!" James cried. "Martin Brenner reached out to me, but I didn't contact him back, okay? He reached out to Rudy too, about some...some project. I don't know anything more than that. I ignored it because I don't do that anymore."

Kali scoffed dangerously. "Ten years of torturing children was enough for you?"

"I...I thought what we were doing was for good."

Another wave of anger flared up inside of Kali and Sunshine felt it roll off of her in hot waves, invading her body too. How could have anyone thought the things occurring inside the Lab were good? Even those who weren't fully clued in on what exactly Dr. Brenner and Miller were doing had to have known something was deeply wrong there. Children's screams often echoed through the floors and their blood was impossible to ignore. People like James were cowards; he ran away and never spoke up about it. He changed his name and pretended like nothing had happened.

Sunshine felt sick with both anger and sadness. She had none of her lifelines around her, no one she trusted without a second thought to calm her down. All she had was Kali with a gun and a man who only knew them because of the numbers on their wrist.

"Good? You thought you were doing something good?" Kali spat, stepping closer to James and pointing the gun at his temple.

He was crying now, shaking too. "I-I didn't know the whole story! They didn't tell us everything. I regret it, okay? I regret it every day. That's why I didn't respond to his letter. I couldn't work for him again."

A chill crept down Sunshine's spine as she stepped closer to him as well. "Wait, he wanted you to work for him like you had at the Lab? Why?"

James shook his head, pitifully. "I don't know. I can only guess for something similar. Another Lab? Another...another something. But I don't know. I didn't ask."

"So he is alive," Kali said to herself more than anyone.

Another Lab. Was Dr. Brenner going to try it again? Experiment on more innocent children? That couldn't be. He had to be on someone's radar. Dr. Owens at the very least. He couldn't get away with it a second time. Sunshine wanted to call her sisters and brother to warn them, just to be safe. What if they came back after them?

"Men like you are pathetic," Kali said as Sunshine tuned back into the conversation. It took a moment for her to realize Kali's finger was on the trigger, threatening to pull it. Sunshine didn't come to Indy to be a part of a crime scene.

"Stop," she yelled, grabbing Kali's arm tightly. "Let's go. You got what you wanted, and I still have questions you need to answer."

Kali roughly shook her off, clenching her jaw tightly as she stared down James. "They don't deserve to live the rest of their life in peace after screwing up ours."

"Kali, please," she pleaded. "This is not going to make you feel better. Maybe for a second, it will, but eventually it was catch up to you." She knew that too well. Every person she had hurt or killed lingered in the back of her mind, forever acting as a reminder of what she had done. That wasn't something you shook off easily. Outside of the Lab, Sunshine had only ever done it in self-defense, but it still weighed on her. "Please, don't do this."

Kali's face twitched and her frown deepened. "I guess I know where Jane got it from," she muttered through gritted teeth. "Her self-righteousness, like all of us aren't fucked up."

With a sigh, Sunshine tried a different angle. "It's the middle of the day. If you run out of here after killing him, they'll catch you. Then you'll never get to Brenner."

That time, Kali's finger moved off of the trigger in agreement. She was quiet for a long moment, painfully long for both Sunshine and probably the man facing down the gun and a woman who had every right to hurt him as bad as she had been hurt.

Finally, she said, "Fine," and dropped the gun back into her pocket. "I'll come back for him later, then." James's fearful eyes closed briefly. "We're not done," Kali told them, but they were. If she stayed in Indy for another day, she'd be caught because the second they left the apartment he'd probably call the cops. Kali knew that; she was smart. You can't threaten someone with a gun and expect them to not try to seek help after the face. But she had stuck fear into him, made him feel even worse about what he had been a part of. It wasn't much, but it was something. Maybe, deep down, that's all Kali really wanted: to be feared just as she and every other kid inside the Lab had been fearful.

"Let's go," Sunshine said, tugging Kali toward the door and leaving the shaking man on his couch. They had to hurry. Sunshine could not get arrested on her very first trip out of Hawkins alone.

They hurried out into the hall and started toward the stairs with Sunshine leading. She reached for the door to pull it open, but it swung back at her unexpectedly. Sunshine jumped, paranoid the man had already alerted the cops. But out of the stairwell stepped the last person she expected to see, despite his recent move to the city.

"Calum?" she breathed out, confused. He looked just as startled to see her, so much so that he almost dropped the bag he was carrying.

"What the shit?" he gasped. Calum looked different, but Sunshine couldn't put her finger on it right away. His appearance was the same, but something about the way he held himself seemed off. Then she remembered how different Tamera looked for a while after not being connected at the hip with Calum. Without Tamera at his side, he was different. "Danielle?"

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

He held up his hand to flash his set of keys hooked around his finger. "I live here. What are you doing here?"

"We, uh, we were just leaving, actually." He had more questions, but he stopped himself from asking when a door down the hall opened and drew his attention.

Calum raised his free hand in a small wave. "Hey, Dave," he said. When Sunshine looked behind her to see who he was talking to, she felt her heart drop into her stomach. Out of his apartment walked James, sweaty and disheveled. She felt herself falling deeper down into a pit of panic, clawing at the sides trying to stop herself from hitting the bottom and freaking out. Kali shoved her hand back into her pocket, but Sunshine grabbed her arm before she could pull out the gun.

James stumbled toward them in a hurry, ignoring Calum's greeting. As he neared, Kali stiffed and tried to tear her arm out of Sunshine's grasp, but she held on tight. "Here." James held out a piece of paper. He looked awful, and Sunshine had a feeling that wasn't all because he was just held at gunpoint. She saw his face when Kali showed him her tattoo. He wasn't Dr. Brenner - a monster. He wasn't a good man either, but he did look sorry and that was more than Brenner had ever offered them. "Rudy and I weren't the only people who Brenner sent letters to. There's another guy in Indy. This is his name and address. He might know more than me; he was higher up than I was."

Sunshine pocketed the piece of paper while Kali scoffed, "And why should we trust you?"

James shook his head. "You shouldn't. But I am sorry."

"Sorry doesn't take back what happened to us."

He opened his mouth to say something else, maybe some deeper explanation of why he did what he did for Brenner. But he never got the chance to. From somewhere down the long hall behind them, there was the smallest 'pop' almost silent. Sunshine didn't have a chance to even think about the figure looming at the end of the hall before blood was splattered across her upper half, wet and sticky. She reached up, touching her face only to pull her hand back to see it glittering freckles of crimson.

Calum tried to scream, but Kali grabbed him and covered his mouth. Sunshine saw Kali's hand tremble as James's body dropped to the floor. No one was in the hall when Sunshine looked up from the dead body. It was only them.

"We have to go, now," Kali hissed but her voice was a distant hum in Sunshine's ears. A man's blood on her face, in her white hair, and stained her sweater. There was a dead man at her feet, bleeding out against the carpet. Kali tugged harshly on Sunshine's arm and shoved her and Calum into the stairwell.

Death and gore weren't new concepts for Sunshine, but she wasn't immune to it. She felt dizzy and cold. Kali seemed to be the only one with a clear head as she led them out the side door of the complex and far enough away to not get caught at the scene of the crime.

James was dead. They weren't going to kill him. Sunshine wasn't going to let Kali kill him because he was just a man, a coward, and a pathetic one, but still just a man and not a monster. But someone else had killed him.

Once they stopped, Sunshine doubled over, heaving on the dirty gravel. She tasted blood in her mouth, making her gag.

Calum let out a strangled cry, but he looked to be in shock, similar to how he looked after he saw the Mindflayer in the woods before he ended up Starcourt. "W-What the fuck? What the fuck!"

"Do you have the paper he gave you?" Kali asked Sunshine, ignoring Calum. She peered down at Sunshine with blood splattered against her too. Sunshine wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater, leaving behind more deep red stains that looked terribly incriminating. Without a word, she handed off the slip of paper to Kali.

Was she cursed? Did everything she got involved with have to end up becoming too much? It was as if Sunshine was destined to always end up way over her head.

"Why does this keep happening?" Calum moaned, holding his head in his hands as Sunshine offered him a look of guilt. That time wasn't his fault for sticking his nose where it didn't belong. That time he was just unlucky. Out of all of the places he happened to live in the same apartment, on the same floor as a man who worked in the same Lab his father had. Some coincidences were sick.

Kali read over what James had written down before she looked between the two. "I'm going to talk to this man. Are you coming with me or not?" Her calmness rattled Sunshine. She seemed unphased, wiping the man's blood from her dark skin until it disappeared into the dark fabric of her clothing.

"T-That dude just fucking died?! We have to go to the police-"

"No," Kali cut Calum off swiftly. "Trust me, we don't want to get involved with whoever killed him."

"Do you know who did it?" Sunshine asked, standing upright.

"No, but they've been beating me to some of these people I'm trying to find. Killing them before I can."

Great, Sunshine thought. That's just what she wanted to hear.

"What?" Calum cried. "Dave was a good guy! He-"

"That's not his real name," Kali said, cutting him off again.

Calum looked to Sunshine, his wide blue eyes glassy and confused. She sighed, sick to her stomach. "She's right. He..." She didn't want him involved, again, but he had seen the man die just as he and Tamera had been hunted by Russians. Whatever Sunshine wanted, she wasn't going to get. "He worked at the Lab."

He stilled as an array of emotions flickered across his face quickly. "No way," he whispered. "How is that even possible?" How did he end up living to close a man who probably knew his father, and he had no idea?

Sunshine had mixed feelings about Calum; she felt bad for him. His father was a bad man who Calum wanted to understand. Despite her feelings for Dr. Miller, she did think his son deserved closure and some kind of explanation for why his father did what he did, ruining his family.

"Wait," Kali said. "What does he know about that place?"

Calum had the same question and they both looked at Sunshine for answers.

"Kali, this is Calum. He got involved in some stuff that happened in Hawkins last year and we told him about the Lab." She wasn't going to tell Kali who Calum's father was. As much as she wanted to gain her sister's trust, she felt slightly responsible for Calum and his involvement with everything, despite him being the one who dug around where he shouldn't have. "And Calum, this is Kali. She was in the Lab with me and my other siblings who you met last summer."

Calum gasped, "You have superpowers too?" Kali glared at him, hard and his expression shifted before Sunshine could catch it. "Wait, you were there too. Do you know-"

"Calum," Sunshine raised her voice, praying he got the hint to stop talking before he said something he'd regret.

He didn't.

"Do you know my dad?"

Kali furrowed her brows. "Who is your dad?"

Calum replied, "Doctor Ryan Miller."

#stranger things #steve harrington #steve harrington x oc #steve harrington x original character #stranger things fanfiction #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things 4 #kali prasad #project sunshine

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artist-issues · 2 months

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please trash Marvel's Phase Four with your mad skills, I hate it so much (the Hawkeye TV show was the best thing that came out of it) and Im in the mood to have someone share my rage over it lol

It’s been so long since I’ve seen most of them! Sorry. I’ll try to put my vague disappointments in them from back then into words:

Black Widow: The main problem with this one, if I remember correctly, is that there’s no build-up to Natasha’s connections with her family, or the other Widows. We like and accept Yelena because of the good writing and Florence Pugh’s charm; we like and except her parents for the same reasons—but do we feel for Natasha when she’s figuring out how much to love and worry about them? No. Not like we did when Pepper had to choose to blow up the roof Tony was on in the final battle of Iron Man. Not like we felt when Steve lost Bucky. Why? Because the whole “family,” all the “other Widows,” have no real, human depth to them, and no time for us to see that humanity displayed.

The dad’s a caricature, not a guy we can relate to. So’s the mom. And the other Widows are non-characters; they’re pretty faces representative of a conflict, who can have tragic music played over their death scenes so we remember “why Natasha fights.”

Pepper and Tony fear for each other’s safety and wonder what they are to each other, just like the sisters are supposed to in Black Widow. But we care about Pepper and Tony, because we’ve seen what a day at the office looks like with them. We’ve seen their normal. We’ve seen who they are as people, and how they interact on a normal level—so that when the extreme interactions come, we’re already invested. Black Widow doesn’t have that. It’s “weird caricature group gets turned into weirder super-spies and they spend a few minutes worrying about each other out of nowhere at the climax of the film.” That was my impression of that one. But I only saw it once, and liked it better than the others.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Normal human moments, but way too much time spent on retroactively revealing layers of backstory. Heres the dad’s backstory. Just kidding, that’s not all of it, here’s some more. And here’s the part you missed. And here’s the backstory of this magical world. Just kidding, here’s some more. And here’s backstory on the main character. Sorry, he forgot to reveal the Big Emotional Part, we saved it for the pre-climax, so have a little more backstory.” You’re so busy keeping all that straight that you don’t have as much capacity leftover to care about the main characters, even if those main characters do have some human moments to appreciate.

Compare it to Thor. Both movies have “hard-to-swallow magical realms existing near the Normal World.” But not both movies set the audience up to accept, believe, and keep up with that. Thor does. Shang-Chi doesn’t.

The whole introduction to Thor carefully tells you the full “outer boundaries,” the hardest stuff to swallow about the magical world of Asgard. And it helps you understand and swallow those things well before you need to be really invested in the emotional reactions of the characters. In the first half of the movie, they neatly go: “Guy walking out of a tornado and getting hit by a car, seemingly impossibly; he must not be normal. Let’s show you why. Ready? Here: 1) Frost Giant war + how this realm relates to the normal world, 2) Asgard & the king’s sons, plus their different motives 3) how the rainbow bridge and Thor’s banishment works. Got it? Back to the Normal Story.”

By the time you’re jettisoned into the Normal World part of the movie, you care, emotionally, about everything Thor and Jane care about, from her losing her lab equipment to him thinking his mother hates him—without having to take breaks in their story to remember how a rainbow bridge works or what the Frost Giants want, etc. But Shang Chi is all over the place, back and forth, up and down, three layers of tragic hard-to-believe backstory on top of each other. …And it delivers all that backstory in bits and pieces, as interruptions to the “normal world” or “present adventure” part of the story.

Plus, the “normal world/present adventure” part isn’t even that good, I’m so sorry to say it. Our previous heroes had normal-human obstacles to overcome, sure, but those relatable obstacles were still severe. Big character flaws that would come back to haunt them. Steve wonders if he’s all alone in his resolve and responsibility—and that keeps coming back up no matter what his circumstances are. Tony wonders if he can ever accomplish his full potential and make up for his past mistakes—and that keeps coming back up, no matter the circumstances.

But you’re telling me I need to not only believe that Shaun and Katy “wonder if they’ll ever take life seriously enough, like adults”—not only believe that—but that after this adventure, that’s the struggle he’ll always have to overcome?

Seems to me it should be something more along the lines of “have mercy instead of controlling everything through conquest like my father.” They kinda tried to do that. But the problem is, it doesn’t connect back to his “relatable human flaw.”

Steve had to realize he wasn’t alone fighting Nazis and Hydra and Thanos—sure—in big moments, like the one where Shaun chooses to spare his father. But guess what? Steve also had to learn to overcome his flaw in little moments, too. He has to realize he’s not alone in waiting for “the right partner;” Peggy is also committed to waiting. He has to choose to believe he’s not alone even though he’s a man-out of-time—by taking an active role in the present, by asking his neighbor out on a date.

Shaun’s little “when am I going to grow up and be an adult” thing only pops up in his human moments. It doesn’t have a parallel in his superhero moments. So then I don’t care as much, or relate as much, to his character.

Because honestly, not every member of the audience can even relate to worrying about that. Only young adults and teenagers. Maybe some 30-40 year-olds. But it’s not a universal thing, like Steve’s broad loneliness or Tony’s broad pride.

Eternals - Without a doubt the most horrifyingly bad MCU movie I ever saw. Worse than Captain Marvel.

I don’t even know where to begin. This movie had no idea what it wanted to be, except a direct smack in the face to anyone who believes that humans should submit to a deity who made them and accept their purpose. Obviously that most closely fits the description of a Christian audience, but this movie really alienated audience members with worldviews that have any monotheistic religious leanings. Or just…audience members with a worldview that values humility, and service, and self sacrifice, and knows that love without this values is not actually love, in general.

The characters have no humanity. They lack depth. There’s a weird fixation on slow suffering and memory loss with Angelina Jolie’s character. Not one character is likeable because we spend barely any time with any of them. Not one is relatable because they do that whole “live for thousands of years” thing, without taking their time and showing us a believable version of ‘what’s normal” to these characters.

And like I said, the message is garbage. It’s appalling.

Spider-Man: No Way Home - This movie was good, I have no notes.

I have a brother who likes to say that the whole first half of the movie is worthless because you only care after the other Spider-Men show up, but I totally disagree, because the point of the movie was “who is (MCU) Peter Parker?” So at the beginning you have him trying to figure that out based on public opinion of Spider-Man and a college;s acceptance of him, and trying to fix his “image” of himself, essentially, so his life can go back to normal. Then by the climax he’s got two other Peter Parkers there, reminding him of what being “Peter Parker” means. You take responsibility to do what you can to help people, no matter what everybody else does. No matter what it costs you. That’s who Peter Parker is.

And they needed to speed-up the maturity level and raise the stakes of their particular version of Peter Parker, because he’s supposed to be a recurring part of this high-stakes universe they created—but they also needed him to return to feeling like a more traditional, “friendly neighborhood” Spider-Man, within that context. And they solved both those problems. And they did it with Andrew Garfield and Toby MacGuire, so I liked this movie, sorry.

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness - Stupid and wrong.

I have never liked Sam Raimi, but I didn’t have a problem with his editing style or over-the-top drama this time around. I had a problem with the way the characters were handled.

We still barely know Stephen Strange, and we certainly weren’t given the impression that his love interest from the first movie was the great love of his life, so that emotional thread in this movie was flimsy.

The America character was barely a character.

But the worst of the worst of it was Wanda.

You mean to tell me, Raimi, that the Wanda who was experimented on and used for her power from an early age would have willingly murdered a superpowered little girl in a demonic rite? You mean to tell me that the Wanda who just spent a whole expertly-written television show showing me that she’s learned she can’t manipulate people’s lives, and she’s willing to sacrifice her own happiness if it means sparing other people suffering—you mean to tell me that THAT Wanda, the one I’ve spent five stories over several years getting to know—you mean to tell me that Wanda read one vaguely evil book and now she’s willing to slaughter her friends and a little girl so she can steal children from other, weaker versions of her own sad self?

That doesn’t make any sense.

You COULD have it make sense. You could show me her corruption. Show me what the Darkhold’s doing to her. Show me how she got from point A (WandaVision’s ending) to Point B (murderous careless rampage and smiling at the thought of murdering a little girl.) Use your runtime to do that.

But no. We’re going to use our runtime to throw in pointless cameos with no build-up, no real weight or gravity, no genuine excitement. To play with out special effects and CGI. To spend lots of runtime on arbitrary horror-movie scenes and gore.

And then kill Wanda off? …What?! It was idiotic. It was so contrived. I felt like I was watching a forgettable DC movie, or a Batman movie where the star of the story is just shock-and-awe.

Thor: Love and Thunder - This movie couldn’t decide if it wanted to be funny or serious. So it failed at both. First Thor’s making a joky explanation retconning Jane, breaking up with him, as a silly rom-com parody. Oh, then he’s holding her in his arms crying and claiming he’d rather be with her than win a fight, like that’s the big momentous moment-of-change for his character.

Sorry, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you that Thor loved Jane. Because they barely show any serious, grounded, genuine, human affection to each other the whole movie. All I’ve seen is a parody of that, and de-masculatung mockery of Thor himself. You want me to believe he’s losing the love of his life and it’s devastating to him because he’s a human being with depth of emotion? Then don’t set him up as the star of a bad Will-Ferrell comedy.

And of course the “message” is crap. And every situation they get into is unbelievably stupid and unfunny. This is actually the movie that made me give up on Marvel.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - I didn’t see this movie. I love Leticia Wright, I’m on her side. But I had to give up on the MCU after Love and Thunder. I wanted to give up on it after Eternals, but I told myself I’d stick it out for the OGs (any movie about characters from the original Avengers squad or Guardians.)

The television shows during Phase 4 were all pretty good, for what they were, except for Moon Knight, in my opinion.

To sum it up: Phase 4 rushed everything, cut out the grounded human moments and feared all genuine displays of emotion in their characters. Instead they jammed in heavy action sequences, some more gore, and soulless, arbitrary, quick-flash cameos. The only exception was Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Thanks for asking! I could be open to changing these opinions; I’d have to go back and watch them over again, it’s been so long. But I think I’d rather put on wet socks, heel-to-toe, than watch Eternals or Multiverse of Madness, ever again.

#MCU #marvel universe phase 4 #marvel cinematic universe phase 4 #Phase 4 #wandavision #multiverse of madness #Loki #Thor: love and thunder #spider-man: no way home #asked #answered

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