#SUSAN SHES PUTTING HER FEELINGS OUT THERE AND UR LIKE

[oneawkwardwriter]

Hi i love ur writing. Sorry this is long but could you do a Caspian x pevensie!reader whose susan’s twin and like he chose her over susan and like they meet in prince caspian and fall in love and he “proposes” but then she can’t come back to narnia.

BUT THEN… she goes back with E Lucy and Eustace(whose kinda her enemy in a funny way) for some reason and she’s with Caspian and it’s just them on the Dawn Treader and Lucy tells caspian how sad she’s been the year they were back.

Can it just be really angsty and fluffy at the same time🤭🤭

Sorry this is long i just love ur writing💋💋

Prove Her Wrong

pairing: Dawn Treader!King Caspian x Pevensie!fem!reader warnings: angst obviously, dw it's also fluffy, mentions of drowning (no one actually does, but it feels like it for a moment), amicable banter, pining, regretting decisions, use of y/n (I'm so sorry) summary: both you and caspian have been miserable a/n: aahh, I love this idea so much! Also, thank you for giving me an excuse to watch the movies again, really needed that. I did kind of twist the plot to make it fit better, but I hope you like it nonetheless. Sorry it took this long to write it, my schedule's been packed for the last couple of weeks, I hope the fic makes up for it. wc: 2.6k

It had all happened too fast to comprehend. One second, you're standing in your cousin's room looking at a painting. The next, you're engulfed in a massive ocean trying to keep your head above the surface.

Too busy looking for the younger children, you hadn't even noticed the change in the atmosphere. Everything had gotten a little brighter, the air more fresh, the sky more clear. But you were preoccupied trying to make it out alive as the currents tried to pull you below the surface.

"Lucy!? Edmund!?" You yell out with what little breath you had left. "Eustace!? Anyone, where are you!?"

Somewhere to your right (or left, seeing as you had no sense of direction anymore), you heard a faint voice you recognised as your younger sister calling out for you.

"Lucy!" You manage to get out as you try to swim towards her. As you come closer, you were able to make out the two boys as well.

"What happened, where are we?" Eustace calls out, arms flailing around him as he tries to keep his head above water.

You share a fleeting look with your younger brother and sister, and something in your gut tells you you know exactly where you are.

"We're back, aren't we?" Edmund asks, confirming your suspiscion. But before you can answer his question, a ship dooms up, and it was approaching you rapidly.

"Swim!" You shouted, trying to put a safe distance between you and the ship while also trying to keep the others closeby.

You heard a few loud plunges into the water, and when you turned around for a moment, you saw some of the crewmembers swimming towards you. A moment later, you felt a pair of strong hands wrap around your waist.

"It's alright, I've got you." An all too familiar voice reassures you. You turned around, only to be met with a slightly older version of the man you had been forced to leave behind the last time you had left Narnia.

"Caspian..." You say breathlessly as you look into his eyes.

"Y/n..." He responds, equally out of breathe and clearly both surprised and confused to see you here.

Together with the other crewmates, he helps you onto the ship, even Eustace who is screaming fire and demanding to back to England. Someone hands you a warm blanket, which you gladly accept and drape around your shoulders. You glance at Caspian, and for a moment your gazes lock, before he is pulled away by Edmund.

"Did you call for us?" He asks, to which Caspian shakes his head.

"No, I didn't. Not this time, at least," Caspian answers, glancing over to you once more as he does.

You're interrupted by a shrieking Eustace, who is swatting away a large mouse sitting on his chest.

"Get this filthy animal off of me!" He screeches as he scrambles backwards.

"Pretty sure that mouse is far cleaner than you are, Eustace," You say as you roll your eyes and shake your head. "It's good to see you again, Reepicheep."

"It is a delight to see you as well, Your Majesties," He responds, bowing down for a moment.

Caspian walks up to the stairs that lead to the quarterdeck and addresses the crew. "Men, behold our castaways: Edmund the Just, Lucy the Valient and Y/n the Righteous; High King and Queens of Narnia."

All the men on the ship went down on their knees and bowed deeply in respect of you. No matter how many times you had been called Queen, it always sent shivers down your spine.

Caspian led the three of you towards the King's quarters, which doubled as his study, leaving Eustace in the care of the crew, who had fainted when he had seen Tavros the minotaur. You had been given some dry clothes that fit you like a glove, although your shirt was a little big and had a vaguely familiar scent to it.

In the middle of the room, a huge map of Narnia was sprawled out across the table. You scanned over it, your finger absently tracing the coastal lines as you lightly smiled to yourself. You wouldn't admit it out loud, but you had missed being here when you were back in England.

With Peter and Susan off to America, you been left to stay at your aunt and uncle's house with your younger siblings. At first, you had thought it wildly unfair to be stuck in England whilst your older brother and twin-sister got to live with your parents across the Atlantic ocean.

Eventually, you had calmed down and accepted your fate. Most of the time, you could be found lightly fidgeting with the one possession you had been able to take back with you from your last adventure in Narnia; a simple silver ring you kept on a piece of string around your neck. It reminded you of a time where you didn't feel like the second option, a feeling that haunted you often when being compared to your twin.

"It has been three years since we won Narnia back from my uncle," Caspian explains as he points towards the map, "There is peace in the entire country now."

"And have you found yourself a Queen in those three years?" Lucy asks, making you look up from the map. She truly didn't mean any harm with the question, but Edmund lightly nudges her side and gives her a stern look.

"No," Caspian says with a light chuckle to alleviate the tension, "not one to compare with your sister..."

"Hang on," Edmund interrupts, "But if there's no wars to fight, and no one's in trouble... then why are we here?"

"That's a good question. I've been asking myself the same thing," Caspian answers. "Before I tried to take the throne back from my uncle, he went after my father's closest advisors, the seven Lords of Telmar. They fled to the Lone Islands, but no one has heard from them since."

"So you think something's happened to them?"

"Well, if it has, it's my duty to find out," Caspian says rather solemnly. He looks over at you, trying to get a read on you, but your eyes are glued to the map in front of you.

"What's east of the Lone Islands?" Lucy asks, pointing towards the map where it just says The Great Eastern Ocean.

"Unchartered waters," Drinian, the captain, answers. "Things you could barely imagine. Tales of sea serpents and worse..."

"Sea serpents?" Edmund asks, his face lighting up at the sound of something dangerous to battle against.

"Alright, Captain, that's enough of your tall tales," Caspian interrupts. "You are free to go wherever you want on this ship, it is as much yours as it is mine."

It's a silent cue for Edmund and Lucy to go with the captain and explore the ship, while you stay in the quarters, leaning against the table, your eyes still locked on the parchment. After the door shuts, Caspian speaks up once again.

"Can you at least look at me?" He asks, his voice much softer and hesitant now. "Please?"

You lightly sigh as you look up at him, your eyes instantly finding his. "I'm sorry I left," You say truthfully, even though you sound rather defeated.

"Don't apologise, I- I shouldn't have asked you to stay." This time, it's Caspian who lets his head fall and gaze upon the map. "I knew you couldn't, yet I asked you anyway. I am sorry, for putting you in that position, that was selfish."

"It's alright," You somewhat reassure him, "Aslan knows I would have been just as selfish had roles been reversed. But we can't change the past, and we mustn't let it stand in the way of our future." You take a deep breath as you take a step closer to him. "You deserve a bright future filled with happiness, Caspian. Don't let me stand in the way of that by holding onto something that can't be."

It's the right thing to say, the logical thing to say. You're from a different world, there's no way of knowing if you'll be able to stay in this one after the adventure is over. It guts you to the core to walk out of the King's quarters, it tears your heart apart, but you try to shake it off as you go out onto the main deck.

Luckily for you, you're able to take your mind off of it when you notice your cousin Eustace talking to a regular seagull.

"What on Earth are you doing talking to a bird?" You say, a somewhat smug tone laced in your voice. You're called the Righteous, not the Humble, and for good reason.

"I just assumed that-" Eustace begins, his face turning a light shade of pink.

"That just because a mouse can talk, so must a bird?" Maybe it's a coping mechanism for the shattered heart in your chest, but you let out a light chuckle. "Oh cousin, you have a lot to learn about how things work here. Good to know you can't claim to be the smartest person in every realm." You shake your head and hear a few crewmen chuckle along.

The sky gets darker as the evening falls, and the crew celebrates the your arrival with festive spirits. Sea shanties are sung, dancing goes hand in hand with a lot of laughter and a couple of bottles of liquor are brought out.

Despite the gloomy thoughts that have been haunting you for the day (and the days before that), you laugh and leap along with the crewmen. Even Eustace loosens up a little, although keeping it modest. The only one who seems unaffected by the joyious celebrations is the king, who sits on the staircase and watches the others, or rather, watches you.

At some point, he is joined by Lucy, who due to her young age can't participate in the drinking and adult activities. She sits down next to him and keeps quiet for a little while, before speaking up.

"What's bothering you, Caspian?" She asks softly. "Is it the Lords?"

"For the first time in a long time, it actually isn't, my friend," He says truthfully, letting out a sigh. "It feels like even when she is this close, she is still worlds away."

He didn't have to say your name in order for Lucy to understand. It's the same way you didn't need to mention his whenever she would find you staring mindlessly at the wall or out the window back in England. You would always have that same tragic look in your eyes while you fidgeted with the ring around your neck, no matter how hard you would try to mask it whenever Lucy got your attention.

"You know, she feels the same way right now," Lucy responds, feeling incredibly sorry for both your misery.

"She's evidently better at coping with it than I am." The words came out more bitter than intended, but Lucy couldn't really blame him.

"Out here, maybe. But back in England," She refrained from saying 'back at home', never having been able to call it home when she had missed Narnia too much. "Back in England, she was a mess. A beautiful, poised and collected mess, but crumbling down on the inside."

Caspian didn't speak up, but simply looked sorry and felt even more remorseful than he already had.

"She kept the ring, you know," Lucy continues, "Oh, she would never say it out loud, but it was obvious she regretted leaving Narnia, leaving you most of all. I'm pretty sure she would give anything to stay this time around, if you'd ask her again."

"She told me to let go of a future with her, said she didn't want to stand in the way of my happiness," Caspian argues solemnly, "Sounded a lot like she wanted to move on from all of this."

"That's what she thinks is the right thing to do, because it makes more sense," Lucy counters. "Prove to her that it isn't."

With that, she stands up from the stairs and walks out into the crowd. Turning around one last time, she says:

"Oh, and maybe do something about the beard, it might remind her of the man she fell in love with."

Caspian lightly rolls his eyes at her comment, but decides to take her up on it nonetheless when he retired to the barracks below deck. For the sake of privacy, he had given his quarters to you and Lucy to stay in while you were on the ship.

Later that night, when everyone was passed out in their beds, Caspian went onto the deck to get some fresh air, where he soon notices you, leaning on the railing while you looked up at the stars.

"Still having trouble sleeping?" He asks as he stands next to you.

"Insomnia doesn't go away so easily, it seems," You softly chuckle, having to do a double take when you notice he has shaved. "I was almost getting used to that beard, but I'm glad you shaved it off any way."

"What is it with the hostility against my facial hair?" Caspian comments as he raises an eyebrow at you. "I thought it made me look ruggedly handsome."

"Who'd you have to look ruggedly handsome for before we showed up today?" You ask in a mocking way, making you lightly snicker when Caspian takes on a defensive tone. "Oh, stop it, I was merely teasing."

"Teasing, are you now?" He asks, a mischievous glint sparking up in his eyes as he leans in just a little. "That's not very Queen-like behaviour, now is it?"

You lightly sigh, letting your head fall for a moment before you speak up. "Perhaps I've gotten a bit rusty," You note, "I haven't been a Queen for a while now, you know?"

"Oh, don't worry, it's like riding a horse," Caspian assures you, "It's not something you can unlearn, even if you don't practice anymore."

"Well, maybe it's a good thing. Might make the next time I leave more easy..."

"You're still planning on leaving after this adventure?" Caspian asks, his voice growing a little more quiet. "You can stay, you do know that, right? You did the first time, surely you can-"

"Caspian, please," You interrupt him, pushing away from the railing and taking a few steps back, "It's too difficult, you know that. I can't just leave my family behind, and I can't ask them to stay."

"You don't have to do that. I am certain there's a way for you to move freely between realms," Caspian suggests, "And if there isn't, we'll find a way. Somehow, things like this have a way of working out."

He takes a step towards you, reaching out but refraining from touching you just yet. "Besides," He continues, "Time goes by much slower there than it does here right? We can figure this out and they won't even notice you're not there."

He searches for your eyes as he takes another step towards you, a silent longing in his eyes as he does. "You don't have to come with an answer right now. Whether it's tomorrow, next week or at the very last second, I don't care as long as you're certain that whatever you choose is something you actually want, not what you think is right."

You close your eyes for a moment and take a deep breath. "Okay," You say after a while. Your eyes are still closed, but a small creeps up on your lips.

"Okay?" Caspian echoes, his eyes sparking up, even though he's not sure he heard you correctly.

"Yeah," You say, opening your eyes to look into his. "Okay, I'll stay. But I might change my mind if you don't come here and kiss me, because-"

Luckily, he cuts you off mid-sentence by pulling you in and effectively using his lips to shut you up. You can feel him smile against your lips, and you can't help but reciprocate the gesture while your hands run up into his hair.

© This work belongs to @oneawkwardwriter, please do not copy this work to any other site or claim it as your own. Reblogs are allowed and appreciated!

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[rindragon-from-twewy]

Everyone focusing so hard on all the inconsistencies and unanswered questions about Ruby and Mrs. Flood that I've yet to see a single person properly lay out exactly why the who Sutekh thing is so... just... wrong? Like sure I've seen plenty of Day of The Doctor, The Doctor's Wife and Jack and Clara discussion but there's more then just that, I think.

Whole rant below, feel free to add ur own takes to it:

I mean, just imagine all the strange situations the Tardis has been put in before;

- Growing in size in The Name of The Doctor. Why did Sutekh decide to enact his plan right now and not, say, after the doctor was burried in Trenzalore?

- Why didn't Sutekh do anything when The Master had the Tardis and turned it in to the paradox machine? Two powerful villains joining forces to bring death to the universe mayhaps???

- Multiple Tardises (Tardi?) In one place on multiple occasions, being abandoned and/or lost on multiple occasions. How did Sutekh know that the doctor would come back for it? Why didn't he just bring the dust of death without the doctor present to inevitably save the day? (In 73 Yards and Heven Sent especially-)

- The Tardis being given a woman's body while it's shell is controlled by an evil planet- how come she didn't mention it in The Doctor's Wife? Why didn't House make any comments about it in the exact same episode?

- In Utopia, the Tardis tries to shake Jack off but why not the giant death god? In The Time of The Doctor, Clara clinging to the outside slows the Tardis down for literal decades on The Doctor's end! So does this mean the Tardis will somehow travel faster??? How would they even implement that?

- And I've yet to see anyone mention that the Tardis that we're currently with is a DUPLICATE made by the Toymaker's hammer! Did Sutekh decide to hop from one Tardis to another?? Did he get duplicated too? I saw a theory a while back that the duplication is what summoned Sutekh to begin with before all the finale stuff happened but I've seen nothing since.

- Also, The Doctor managed to pick up on there being multiple Claras after only two encounters- he even managed to make that connection based on her voice alone so why did it take him so long to recognise all the Susan Triads?!

And what's annoying is that none of this will ever be explained cuz Sutekh is (allegedly) dead now so it just doesn't matter anymore!

I know the real answer is that nobody thought it'd go this way until a couple years ago when it was first written so no hints could be placed until the 60th specials (with the first Susan Triad appearance) but doesn't think knowledge fundamentally change the way we view the Tardis in every single episode after Pyramids of Mars in a way that's just... a little bit unsatisfying?

[slicznymartwy]

Hello, can I request Billy Lenz with an s/o who is also a murderer? Like one of the members of the sorority had snapped and started killing or maybe Billy accidentally witnesses a murder when he's out of the house and develops an obsession? Love your writing!!!

fish .. ur so genius as always. i loved writing this so much, like genuinely i want to expand on this more one day .. just 2 very sick people against the world ueueue warning: brief mention of suicide/self harm, bullying, the sorority sisters are kind of mean in this one im sorry T T u guys know i love all of them, minor oc character death (she deserves it)

☾⋆⁺₊ billy lenz x gn!reader

The puddle shimmers under the dim light coming from your bedside lamp; it’s a mix of glitter and little shards of glass that get swept up in the spreading fluid. The base of the snow globe lays in the rubble, the little Bambi figurine is broken too. You can see his decapitated head lonely on the floor.

“Oops,” Susan says. You can’t stand to look at her, but it sounds like she’s smiling. This must be really funny to her, you think to yourself, still watching the snow globe’s blood spread. 

Your hands tighten into fists. Your breath shudders. Your ears are still ringing from the sound of your most precious treasure shattering on the floor.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to cry,” Susan goads, but your eyes feel dry. You used to cry when her bullying began. She would stand on the other side of the bathroom door and let you hear how hilarious she thought you were being. You hate her laugh. It’s ugly, like a braying horse spooked in its stable. No one else seems to mind it, though. None of your sorority sisters ask her to stop, even when she’s laughing so hard that she cries too.

Your father bought you that snow globe. He used to shake it up for you then put it in your hands, making you promise to be careful with it. He died when you were ten. The glitter in Bambi’s eyes makes it look like he’s weeping for you.

“It’s just a piece of shit toy, anyways. You’re too old for a stupid Bambi snow globe, aren’t you? I mean, that’s probably why no one wants to date you. Everyone can tell you’re just a weird loser freak. I don’t even know how you got into this sorority. I’d ask if you slept with someone to get here, but I don’t think there’s a single person on Earth that would take you up on that.”

You keep watching the puddle. It turns the wood dark as it flows into the cracks. Susan laughs and laughs, you can see her holding onto her stomach like she’s making herself sick. 

“Hello? Are you ignoring me now?”

You look up at her. Her smile is ugly and mean.

She follows behind you as you walk downstairs.

“Where the fuck are you going? Are you leaving? Don’t you know it’s rude to ignore someone who’s talking to you? Hello!”

She’s in your ear like a gnat. You don’t know why she can’t just leave you alone. You walk into the kitchen, and you rip your arm out of her attempt to hold you back.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, huh? Are you broken or something? You can’t just ignore me!”

You pull a knife out from the storage block. She guffaws, rolling her eyes.

“Seriously? You fucking bitch. Is that for me, or are you finally going to off yourself already? Everyone’s placing bets, you know,” she says, still laughing. “Go ahead and do it. Slit your wrists, I won’t save you if you do.”

You’re not laughing. You stare at her. The knife is surprisingly heavy in your hand. You lift it up by your head.

Her laughter dies down.

“You can’t be serious. It was a joke!” she says. She stumbles back, but you follow her. “Stop it! What the fuck is wrong with you!”

She runs up the stairs and you follow her. In the long straight hallway, you lunge and drive the knife into her back. Susan screams as she falls, and you follow her down. She’s screaming and writhing in pain, but you sit on her hips and drive the knife down again and again. She’s leaking like the snow globe, her fluids spreading across her shirt. Once she’s quiet, you sit back on top of her.

Sniffling, you lay down the knife on top of her back. You feel numb inside still; part of you had hoped that doing this would snap you out of it, but it didn’t. You don’t react when you hear someone climbing down from the attic. You only barely glance at him when he kneels down next to you.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur to him.

“It’s okay,” he whispers back. “You didn’t mean it.”

“I think I did,” you admit.

“Bitch whore deserved it. Fucking cunt.” There’s so much animosity in his voice. You wonder why you’re spared from it. You wonder who this stranger is.

Still, you don’t respond to him. You keep watching the blood grow.

“I can help,” he says after a moment. His voice is quiet and nervous, like he’s never said those words before and wasn’t sure how to pronounce them. He gestures you to climb off of her and you do, standing up shakily beside him.

“How?” you ask. He doesn’t answer you, just hands you the knife and takes a hold of your dead sister. He holds her wrists and hauls her towards the attic ladder. Her blood smears like jelly on hardwood toast. 

“Fuck. Fuck,” you mutter to yourself. You need to clean the mess before it stains. You hurry to the bathroom, running the hot water and putting on gloves. When you get back to the hallway, all that’s left is blood. You clean diligently, and it’s all mostly out. What’s left might be unnoticeable to someone who doesn’t know where to look.

The man comes back down, his sweater covered in blood. You frown.

“I have to wash that before it stains,” you say. You take him to the bathroom, and he sits shirtless on the floor next to you as you rub out the stains in the tub.

He keeps looking at you, you can feel his eyes on the side of your face. You don’t look back at him.

“I can help,” he says suddenly. He sounds more sure now.

“It’s almost out,” you say, shaking your head.

“I can kill the rest,” he says. Your hands stop moving in the freezing cold water.

“You don’t have to,” you murmur, still not looking at him. 

“You’re so pretty.”

“They’re not all like her,” you tell him gently, ignoring his comment.

“They’re pig sluts. Disgusting shit-smelling whores,” he spits. You look at him then.

“What about me?” you ask him quietly. He looks into your eyes.

“You’re so pretty. I like Bambi,” he says. 

You couldn’t cry before, but now you mourn your snow globe. Your face crumples, and the stranger hugs you.

“They’re so mean sometimes,” you whimper. “I don’t know why they hate me.”

“I can help,” he says into your ear. “Billy wants to help Bambi.”

You know there’s no saving Bambi, though. His head is cut off and he’s crying in his own blood. All that’s left are shards of glass.

© slicznymartwy 2023, please do not repost or copy.

a/n: reblogs and replies are really appreciated <;3

[findafight]

i apologize in advance for the loooooong ask lol (and no pressure about replying if u dont wanna haha) but i saw ur post in the billy hargrove tag and thought it was an interesting character analysis! im a billy fan but im inclined to agree with most of what u said, and i think it's also interesting to compare him and max to zuko and azula. one thing i wanted to comment on tho is when u said "He's also just a racist asshole that has all the means to not be one and doesn't use them or ever feel bad about it."

i just wanted to offer an argument for that point, bc we see that billy's been abused since he was a kid and watched his mom be abused before him, and we also see neil throw slurs at billy, so it's not farfetched to believe his dad spouted racist shit around him too. he also still lives with his dad, and we see in their argument before billy goes to fetch max that billy's safety at home can depend largely on agreeing with and repeating what his dad says.

seeing as how his mom left, how susan doesnt stick up for him (doesnt she even avert her eyes when neil backs him up against his wall?), and how other older women seem to objectify and sexualize him, it also seems like he doesnt have any other adult support in his life--especially not at home where he's supposed to be safe. i would say all of that points to him not having *any* means at all to not be racist, esp considering that his safety might depend on whether or not his dad hears the wrong thing about who he (and max, since his dad seems to put the onus of her actions onto billy's shoulders) might be hanging out with.

he's not in an environment to recognize that racism is bad, and in fact i think it's an environment that teaches him by implicit threat that being racist might actually be something that could help him feel safe, if only bc it means his dad wont have one more thing to come after him about. what means does he have to stop being racist, when he doesnt seem to have external adult support? why would he feel bad about being racist when that mindset might offer him some form of safety? considering all that, i think it's actually surprising he doesnt throw any slurs at lucas (im not applauding this, just observing), esp when put together with how billy himself gets called the f-slur by his father. the importance of words and what you choose to say and what not to say, etc etc.

obviously racism is bad, and im not arguing against his actions *being* racist, i just think that saying he has the means to not be racist isnt entirely accurate. it would be like saying azula has the means to be a good sister but she doesnt use them or ever feel bad about it. that would be an unfair statement when considering how both she and zuko were raised to be pitted against each other, and she had something more to lose by being seen as the more powerful/superior/better sibling by their father. furthermore, the only kind adults in her life have left her with her father for various reasons (her mother & iroh). i dont think she had the means to be a better sister/person, nor would she ever have the need to feel bad about it, because she wasnt raised to look for the means or question why she would want them, if she even knew they existed. the same can be said about billy & his racism. i dont think he could even *start* to have those means, let alone use them, until he starts properly healing in a place he feels safe.

idk, just something to think about i guess. i hope this doesnt come off rude, this is meant as genuine discussion. 😅 people tend to look at billy's scene with lucas, pronounce him racist, and call it a day without considering the context he grew up in, and the fact that racism doesnt come from nowhere--it is always, always something you learn. billy literally says this to max: "i'm older than you, and something you *learn* is that there are a certain type of people in this world that you stay away from." sure he mightve just picked up racism from school or society or something, but with the context of his father at home and how aggressive billy gets with lucas in a similar way to how his dad just got aggressive with him, it makes you wonder how billy might have *really* learned that lesson.

anyways, i dont think he has the means to stop being racist all of a sudden, all by himself, and it seems unfair to blame him (from a narrative standpoint; lucas & his friends, however, have every right to go off lol) for something he cant necessarily choose to improve in his life when he's still living with his bigoted abuser. we dont know if he ever feels bad about it or not--we never see it on-screen but things between him and max certainly change enough for her to try desperately to save him in s3 where she's still (sorta-kinda) dating lucas, so i assume there was some kind of calm-down there, plus billy and max's relationship got to a point where max grieved him *so hard* she got targeted by vecna--but he definitely doesnt really have the means to choose not to be racist. i dont think he thinks he *can* choose this, nevermind discussing whether or not he could and chooses not to.

that being said, i do agree about how he didnt really have a proper redemption arc, or any chance at healing at all. sorry again for the long ask; im sending it cuz im genuinely interested in a good faith discussion. you said you didnt necessarily like billy but found his relationship with max interesting, and you said so on a post about healing & redemption. ive always found that billy's healing & redemption are intrinsically tied to his upbringing and his abuse at home, and i find that his racism is an extension of that in a way people dont acknowledge when making their broader points--instead saying that either the people who sympathize with his home life are excusing the racism, or the people who are naysaying his racism are excusing the abuse. theyre tied together, and i found that most of your post looked at billy fairly except for that one point about his racism being something he can choose--like his racism is something separate from his home life--so i thought id just. give it a genuine go. 😅 anyways, hope ur havin a good day!

Hi! So you've got some good points and in that post I didn't really touch on his racism more than the other things because that would be, to me, one of the things easiest for Billy to begin to rectify. Saying he has all the means wasn't correct though because he doesn't, and unlearning bigotry is not an easy thing, especially without support, but not an impossible thing. People can and do change their perspectives or beliefs even in environments where it is punished.

Reading your thoughts I think you are right in that it likely very much is linked to his abuse, in the way his father treats him and Susan's non-action. Him telling max that "you learn" s also interesting and I think does show that Neil encouraged racism and bigotry in general. The only positive interactions with older women he has is grown women sexualizing him, which is unfortunately never examined further in the show, and the only man we only see him interact with is Neil. So. He obviously doesn't have adult support in his life, we don't see him with any teachers but there's only so much they can do too.

However having adult support isn't fully necessary for him to realize his actions were wrong. I think I was sort of looking at how Max has also been in that house with Neil and Billy, and that Billy often does, like you said, emulate Neil or act as an extension of him possibly for his own safety, leading to his abuse of Max and his seeking of power and control in other areas while max pushes against that.

From the flashbacks in S3 showing Billy and max meeting, they look significantly younger, I'd say max was likely eight or so? And Billy about twelve. So Max has been in this situation for possibly about four to six years (considering she consistently calls him her brother, implying she is used to him as her brother not her mom's BF's son), and while we don't know how her mother treated her or allowed her to be treated, it would not be far to say that Max could have also acted and believed the same things as Billy as a form of self preservation like him. But she doesn't? And it could be that her bio dad still influenced her when they were in California, or that Susan did put more effort into protecting Max, or Max's own experiences at school enforcing that Neil was wrong. Idk.

For me, Max threatening Billy into not coming near her friends again could have been a point where he took a long hard look at himself and reevaluated what he was doing. Even without support he could go through that realization, and attempt to be better. He could have realized that max was not his enemy but in fact another frightened and abused kid. That could have been his gateway into breaking the cycle of abuse with max, and we don't see that. Very unfortunate.

And you're right! We don't know what happened between them during the interim of S2/3. For the most part, and I haven't rewatched billy s3 scenes in a while, he seems relatively the same as the start of s2 though. I don't think we ever see them interact until the sauna test and by then Billy is flayed and out of control. So we do not see if any repairs to their relationship were made, or if billy did work to change. I think if he did, the show would have tried to show us that his and Max's relationship was better, even if it was still rocky and that Billy clearly still had some issues(like those with older women). But it did not, and so we are left to assume he didn't change all that much between seasons.

Max has a lot of conflicting feelings for Billy, because she is scared of him but also sees him as her brother. She wants to have a brother she can rely on but doesn't. I don't think her desperately not wanting Billy to be a mind flayer puppet indicates their relationship was better, but that Max does care for him either way. He's her brother, whether or not they get along, and she does not want him to be involved or being manipulated.

When he dies, and max feels guilt for it, I sort of have the opposite interpretation as you. I see her immense guilt and grief from it stemming from the fact that Billy had abused Max, and at some point she likely wished he was gone, out of her life, possibly dead. Because she was a scared abused child. And when he died trying to save her all those feelings of guilt for wishing she never had to see him again compounded with a possible sense of relief that she wouldn't, because now he was gone.

I also think she wanted a positive relationship with him. She wanted to have a brother she could trust, who she didn't want to wish away. So her confusion and relief and guilt for his death are what leave her vulnerable to vecna.

To just touch on billy not saying a slur to Lucas, I am pretty sure it was in the script at some point before being pulled. Possibly because Caleb was young and I thiiiiink it was during the scene he shoves Lucas into the wall, so someone realized doing that combined with calling him a racial slur maybe traumatic especially for a child actor and they cut it.

[thebentleyao3]

no I REFUSE to give you asks for ur aus.... Anyways

how did the squad (alisusan+lawrusso+fifth wheel) form? :D

if this is daniel i REFUSE to answer this ask about my aus...but anyways - so when the cobras, ali, susan and barbara are 16, they all pitch in and buy this old, rundown cabin by a lake for real cheap. the plan was to fix it up and have summer trips as a group once they all graduated - after ali and johnny split up and their friend group with it, they all kind of forgot about it. it wasn't like they spent that much on the piece of junk, no big deal - fast forward a couple years though: it's summer after highschool, and after YEARS of pining, susan has tentatively entered a relationship with her best friend ali mills!! woohoo!! only ali still isn't sure of her identity, and neither of them have gotten the courage to put ANY kind of label on whatever they have. ali's going off to UCLA soon, and susan's getting anxious about them not figuring things out before then. - she then gets a great idea. what if the two of them spend a romantic weekend together at the lake, and while theyre there susan can actually start the "what are we" talk and maybe, if all goes well, bring up the idea of them being roommates in college, so they don't have to do the long distance thing. suze could apply for spring semester at UCLA, even. all ali would have to do was say yes. the weeekend was gonna be perfect. - except for the fact that johnny lawrence and daniel larusso seemed to have a similar idea. - after making out at prom, johnny and daniel spent a couple weeks dancing around eachother before finally (finally!) admitting to having real feelings for eachother. they'd been dating for a couple months, and johnny's kind of been stressing over how to tell the rest of the cobras that they aren't just really close friends now - and thats when he gets a GREAT IDEA. bobby's his best friend, and he's always kind of been the mom of the group. if he tells him about daniel first, surely it'll make telling tommy, jimmy and dutch way easier afterwards. so he plans for him, daniel and bobby to take a trip up to the old cabin for a couple days. that way, he and daniel can break the news to him then, AND it'll get him more used to the idea of seeing them together. foolproof. - what are the odds of both alisusan and lawrusso ending up at the same unused cabin on the same weekend? turns out, high enough. love that for them!

[theuniverseawakens347]

We’re of age.. so it’s not child porn now 🤷🏽‍♀️🖕🏽

AT NOAH DUMBASS DECORSI.. let’s get the aired OUT PERSONALLY .. me n Tristan ALREADY WHILPED YO ASS VERBALLY TOGETHER BUT YOU STILL WANA PLAY MICKEY.

1. Nigga we me n you met in 5th grade TCS, YOU FELL HARD, I was like “ooo a nigga at a white school I just came from the hood 🤷🏽‍♀️🖕🏽”

2. Astro camp 5th grade YOU PRESSURED ME TO KISS YOU .. I ain’t even lean in my nigga.. and YOU COOPED A BUTT FEEL W/ O PERMISSION, rape 🤷🏽‍♀️

3. AINT SHIT HAPPEN WHEN WE GOT OUT THE POOL.. I Flirted w you cause you gave me attention AND WAS A BLACK BOY AT BASICALLY A WHITE SCHOOL AND I JUST CAME FROM 54th..

4. THIS WHEN YOU MET WHITE TRISTAN AND WAS TELLING HIM IN 5th GRADE ME N YOU SMASHING, LYING FUCKING ASS. AINT LOSE MINE TIL A WEEK BEFORE ALEXIS WALLACE WAS KILT.. 16 TO FUCK ASS DUMBASS JUSTIN INFWE

5. I MAN HANDLED RHE FUCK OUT YOUR ASS AFTER ASTRO CAMP CAUSE I REALIZED YOU WAS A PUNK BULLYING THE OTHER KIDS IE AT MALCOM MUHAMMAD ASKARI KID

6. YOU SHOWED MY ART JOURNAL WHERE I WROTE I WAS GOING TO FUCK MILADA UO FOR BULLYING ME DURING SOCCER AND HAVING HER DAD YELL AT ME.. LEE ASKED YOU TO SNITCH TO THE PRINCIPAL OLIVIA PAUL SINGER MOTHER.. TURNS OUT SON BRYANT IS MY BROTHER ..

6. YOU HAD KINDERGARTENS SING “I found you miss new booty” to me AND ALWAYS HARASSED ME TO FUCK HANG KISS OR JUST BE W YOU.. weirdo SUSAN TRYING FOR AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE OFF OF EITHER YOU SAM OR CJ OSARIO PLANNED BY LEE GARLINGTON

7. WE DRIFTED AFTER 6th grade cause TCS went had not started 7th yet .. and I went to IMMAC.. SHERE TOU MET LAURN REESE AND SHE LIKES ANYTHING IM INTERESTED IN AT LEE GARLINGTON REQUEST OF OWNING SLAVES OFF YOU “ILLUMINATI” PARENTS

7. MIDDLE SCHOOL TO ABOUT SOPHOMORE YR HIGH SCHOOL WE AINT REALLY TALK.. liked some photos here n there hit a few “hi how you doing” THATS IT .. i “missed” you simply bc I WENT TO A MOSTLY WHITE ALL GIRL SCHOOL.. IM A FUCKING TOMBOY, I ISED TO FIGHT YOU AND SAM EVERYDAY ON THE SCHOOL YARD .. but and idc for the energy of STUCK UP “I THINK IM BETTER THAN BC IM SHALLOW AS FUCK girls” Lee had me around ..

8. 16 I made a tumblr.. YOU WERE DATING SOME Polynesian BITCH WHO DIDNT LIKE THAT YOU WERE SO CLEARLY OBSESSED W ME .. SHE HAD YOU BLOCK ME NUMEROUS TIMES BUT TOUD UNBLOCK WHEN YOU SEEN I POSTED PHOTOS OF ME TO MY TUMBLR .. AR HOW MY HALF SHAVED HEAD AND SUPERMAN UNDIES GOT ON YOUR NASTY LIL BOY SIGHT AT CHRISTOPHER FUCKING WEIRDO TOO WHO I SENT PICS TO JUNIOR SUMMER WHILE FLINGING IT ..

9. YALL FUCKING WEIRD PERVERTS FOR SOME MONEY.. and doing this shit WILLINGLY AS KIDS AND CONTINUING IT TO DRUGGING MOFOS AND RAPING ..

10. YOU HIT ONE FUCKING TIME MY NIGGA AND THATS CAUSE WALKER WASNT AVAILABLE TO HIT OUR YEARLY SMASH AND CATCH UP SINCE 2014.. you hit 2018 last week I had my Chevy Cruze LIKE I SAID PICKED U UP FUCKED YOU AND DROPPED YO ASS OFF. .. YOU CAME TO CSUN WHILE I ATTENDED EXPECTING TO CATCH UP ON MY END CAUSS I WAS HEAVILY INVOLVED WITH PUNK ASS IAN AND HIS “free Mason” BULLSHIT I AINT FUCK YOU.. YOU WANTED AND TRIED AND I SAID MY NIGGA WOULD KILL YOU AND YOU STILL CAME BACK A SECOND TIME AND SNUCK A FUCKING KISS IN .. rape , THEN LIED ABOUT MY HUSBAD TRISTAN GETTING JUMPED AND YOU SAVING HIM.. and then TRIED TO FUCK ME N THE CAR.. I SAID NO GLOVE NO LOVE ( Ian and I OFFICIALLY DONE) TOOK ME BACK TO CAMPUS AINT SHIT HAPPEN.. ian and I wasn’t together for him to ask me about you.. NIGHA WAS HOPPING AROUND W GOLDEN tracc star and “twin” ON THAT NASTY SIGHT.. and ALISSA DUMBASS FUCK ANYTHING MORRIS AND TLO3sum head ass with “twin” NICOLE mole on lip..

11. YOU STEADY OVER THE YEARS TOOK PHOTOS OFF MY TUMBLR AND PUT LASSED THEM AROUND SAYING INWAS UR MAIN SIDE PIECE BOO THANG, LYING LITTLE DICK NIGGA .. you can eat the box but that’s bout it’s PENCIL DICK HEADASS BITCH.

12. YOU BROUGHT ME MY NIGGA TRISTAN Jan/ Feb 2017 .. I was looking for a dealer and YOU TOLD HIM I WAS LOOKING FOR A HOOKUP / BOO.. no friend wasn’t on that Type of time, yet ( cut to fuck ass Daniel Gonzales FROM CSUN.. talking like March - JUN then dating ..while he hoing ThANKS TO LEE GARLINGTON WEIRDO SEXXX RING AT VIVICCA WHITSET )

13. 2019 I SMOKED W YOU ONCE WHEN YOU WAS BACK FROM HAWIAII.. LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO TAKE UR BLACK CAT ..AINT AHIT HAPPEN AND TOLD YOU I HAD A NIGGA.. FUCK ASS DUMBASS JAMAL RON HENDERSON.. end of July 2020 YOU WANTED TO HANG AND I WANTED TO BANG.. TOU BROUGHT MY NIGGA TRISTAN TO DEAL AND OFF AOGHT WE FELL IN LOVE AND I AINT NEVA BUT I DEFINITELY DID RIGHT THERE SWITCH TF UP .. BOTH YAL NIGGAS FELT IT AND LOWKEY TALKED ABOUT IT AS I WALKED BACK TO THE CAR W MY SISTER 🤷🏽‍♀️🖕🏽 ME YOU AND NEITHER HARRELL BROTHER HAD A FUCKING 3sum TOGETHER.. NIGGA YOU GAY AND FUCKED JARED AND JASON ON YOUR LIL BOYZ TRIP.. DRUG AND RAPE OF JARED H 🖕🏽🙂

14. THE SATURDAY NIGHT YOU CAME THRU TO SMOKE W ME N MY SISTER NIGGA YOU WAS DRUNK AND HIGH AS FUCK .. GOT TO A CHECKPOINT SAID YOU FUCKED THE OFFICERS DAUGHTER AND THEN.. we went to smoke.. KNEW YO ASS WAS GOING TO TRY SOME FUCK SHIT SO I LEFT MY SISTER IN MY CAR AND WE WENT TO URS TALKIN BOUT SOME “get in the back seat” I SAID NO. You tell me I’m not gon do nothing just smoke “I’m like okay” .. nigga smoke session over I’m talking bout some “what’s up w TRISTAN” and you try and pin me to eat the box 🤯 RAPIST . SHUT THAT SHIT DOWN REAL QUICK AND HIT TRISTAN OVED DM REAL QUICK IN FRONT OF YOU .. then that Monday, INSEPARABLE.. BUT YO FUCK ASS PER SUSAN AND THRU LEE VIVICCA WAS ASKED TO KEEP TRISTAN AWAY FROM ME “distracted w bitches” SO TOU DRUGGED HIM AND PUT HIM AROUND QUESTIONABLE PPL.. ie GAY JASON CAN ATTEST AT DUMBASS DAISY FLOREZ TOO THINKING “they dated” RAPE. .. but niggas just pillow talked ABOUT YOU BEING GAY AND FUCKING JASON AND CREW IN MILAN AND TALKING BOUT WEIRD SHIT TO TRISTAN AND JUSTICE OVER FT MAKING IT KNOWN YOU N JASON CREW FUCKED ..

15. ME N TRISTAN PRESSED YOU ABOUT BEING A FUCKTARD AND LYING ON MY NAME AND EVENTUALLY TRISTAN OUT HANDS ON YOU FOR REALLY DRUGGING HIM AND FUCKING US UP BC THIS LITTLE P DIDDY SEX RING YOUR APART OF THRU UR MODELING AGENCY .. BUT LIKE YOU SAT THERE AND LIKE A BITCH DENIED EVERYTHING SO THEN TURNED TO REVENGE PORN AND FUCKED DAISY TO GET BACK AT TRISTAN.. who doesn’t even care about the bitch, SHE A DEATH PET LIKE YOU TO ME N MY BIRTH FAMILY AND HIS FAMILY 🖕🏽🤷🏽‍♀️🙂

Also Daisy.. HOW WAS THE CHLAMYDIA TURNED GONORRHEAONORREA FROM GAY BOY NOAH GOVEN MY JASON AND BUTT SEX FRANCE CREW 🙂 .. DAISY FATASS FUCKED JUSTICE ( forced rape) THOUGHT IT WAS MY COOCHIE COMING THRU WHEN HE BROKE THE COUCH .. so Daisy, FEDERAL. AND NOAH.

NOAH YOU AINT NEVER FUCKED TRISTAN BUT YOU DEFINITELY DID JERK IT A FEE TIMES TO HIM AND TRY TO WATCH ME N HIM 🖕🏽🤷🏽‍♀️

DAISY YA RIDDE W STDS MY NIGGA AINT STICCIN HIS DICK IN THAT .. did a lil trance 1 2 AND RETURNED UR POISONED BACK TO YOU.. #MAGIC and for THE RECORD NOAH ONCE I GOT BACK FROM CLARITY I WAS FUCKING TRISTAN EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY AT YOUR CALABASHES SPOT WHILE HE WAS LYING ABOUT IT BEING DAISY.

[borinhoran]

rewatching dickinson and it’s kind of a lot watching sue like push emily away so much knowing s3 is gonna come around and she’s gonna be like: bestie come love me and like be my person pls!

[writerwhowritesao3]

fellow writer friend! if ur feeling it, pls share the most ridiculous idea and/or most horrifying idea u've ever had!

Hiii!!! I actually had this nugget of an idea that was going to be a chapter in Talk To A Green Tree, but I decided not to write it.

Basically, Billy comes home earlier than usual and Steve is with him (like Steve came home with him to hang out after school), and Susan is home. And she very clearly just had sex with someone who was not Neil.

Like, Billy and Steve don't hear anything overtly sexual. But they're loud when they come into the house—because they're teenage boys—and they hear someone in Susan and Neil's bedroom mutter "shit" and then the sounds of quick, hurried motion.

Maybe Billy calls out a confused "Mom?"

(Because Billy calls her "Mom" now, ok?? don't @ me)

Anyway, some man who is not Billy’s father comes out of the bedroom. Clearly freaked out, but trying to play it off all cool and casual. Has the presence of mind to identify Billy as Susan’s kid since there are some photos with Billy in them around the house.

“Oh hey, buddy,” he says to Billy, like Billy ten years old, not sixteen. “I was just, uh, helping your mom move some furniture.”

“Uh huh,” Billy says. Obviously he doesn’t believe him. 

It’s an awkward situation to say the very least. Billy is staring this guy down and trying not to burst out laughing, the guy is staring back at him and shifting his weight awkwardly, Steve is focused on drinking a glass of water, and Susan is in the hallway, keeping her distance and watching the scene in absolute horror. 

“Yeah,” the guy doubles down. “Your mom and I are friends.”

“So you were moving furniture and somehow your shirt turned inside out?” Billy asks. 

The guy says nothing as he realizes that he put his shirt on wrong. Time for Billy to go for the kill. 

“Are you gonna be my new daddy?” he asks with a shit-eating grin.

Steve chokes on his water.

Anyway. The guy leaves. Billy assures Susan that he’s not going to tell his dad (or Max) about this. 

It’s such a half-baked idea lmao

[dastardlydandelion]

So...what kind of horror movie would you write featuring the Hargrove/ Mayfield family? (That you haven't written already lol)

oh boy, u may regret asking me this bc i am indecisive af and i can’t pick just one!

two that i'm actually writing are max as (g is for) ghostface killer in the abcs of neil’s death and also the max + tory nichols werewolf movie fic outlined here. also some more misc gorror junk bc i’m a demon and esp horny for susan wearing blood splatter. but more ideas commence below:

horror movie #1: another creature feature! awhile back @lucdarling sent me an ask abt max + billy hiding smth from susan and her like, playing along, pretending she doesn't know, and one of the scenarios that popped in my head was them keeping a baby bat as a pet. max finds it and she’s only like six or seven, and she thinks it’s going to turn into a vampire. so here is that scenario except horror edition: baby bat is actually a vampire type creature. not rly a vampire like, what’s prolly popping into ur head, like an undead human like dracula or smth, but like a bat monster that sucks blood.

billy being a lil older doesn’t actually think the bat is going to turn into a vampire. he makes fun of max for believing this, but he helps her take care of it anyway bc he thinks it’s cool. susan, like in the non-horror version, knows abt the bat but plays dumb bc she’s feeling a lot of guilt abt max’s difficulty adjusting to the blended fam (as of rn tho, neil has yet to reveal his abusive nature. the red flags are not yet red, more of a brownish maroon, and he is on his best behavior almost all the time, showering susan + max with affection and keeping the swears out of his mouth when he scolds billy in front of them) and knows the lil furry baby makes her happy. she tacitly cleans up after the bat whenever the kids miss a spot (bats poop a lot, dude) and distracts neil, deterring him from discovering it whenever he gets close.

baby bat gets rly big rly fast. and the older it gets, the more it starts to look monstrous. it still has bat features but it’s just like, different. its fangs grow suspiciously long, its hooks grow suspiciously long. its feet are elongated. a dorsal ridge emerges from its spine, spikes at first just flesh but soft fur rather like peach fuzz eventually sprouting. billy catches on that smth is strange abt this animal when it's as long as his forearm after two wks and still growing. he nearly shits a brick when the bat is clinging to his sweater one day and he steps in front of a mirror and only his reflection looks back at him— no bat.

max laughs at him all like, “stupid brother, ofc there’s no reflection. nosferatu is a vampire, vampires don’t have reflections.” 😂

susan catches a glimpse of the thing when nosferatu crawls out of the home max built it in her closet the same wk billy realizes it doesn’t have a reflection, and also almost shits a brick. she doesn’t know what it is, but it’s NOT a fucking bat. not a normal one, anyway! cue a comedy scene where she’s chasing it around the house with a butterfly net and it’s always one flap *ba dum tss* ahead of her, flying just out of reach. she suddenly regrets not getting rid of it sooner, scolding herself for ever allowing her daughter to keep a wild animal.

she can’t catch it. max comes home, susan tells her she needs to get rid of it. max cries, flips her the bird, refuses. billy tho…billy has mixed feelings. he loves nosferatu but he’s worried it’s going to get dangerous. he loves his dad and his dad is dangerous too. he’s stressed out enough, always on edge, knowing that one way or the other, neil is going to hurt him again. he’s already waiting for his dad to hurt him, he doesn’t need the added stress of waiting for nosferatu to hurt him too. and while max is 100% nosferatu’s favorite, it likes billy too. billy’s been handling it since it could fit in the palm of his hand, it trusts him much more than it trusts susan and doesn’t know any different when billy takes it out of the closet when max isn’t around.

billy frees nosferatu at an abandoned farm. there are always bats flying out of the old silo adjacent to the dilapidated barn. while he knows nosferatu isn’t a *normal* bat, it’s still bat like enough that he thinks it might make friends and be happy here…

yeah, that doesn’t stick. before long, nosferatu is feasting on that colony. leeches the blood out of a couple bats nightly. the number of bats increases with nosferatu’s size. meanwhile, max mourns her missing friend. she’s sullen af and won’t speak to susan at all. she thinks susan is the one who got rid of nosferatu. billy never fesses up and susan doesn’t contradict max’s assumption bc she wants the step-siblings to get along.

neil, meanwhile, is getting more comfortable. those maroon flags are slowly but surely brightening to scarlet. he starts sabotaging susan’s plans with her friends, trying to keep her around the house more and more, quietly but steadily eroding her relationships with other people. he’s getting more visibly aggressive when he disciplines billy. he curses him out with a virulent venom that dunks susan’s stomach in ice water and scares max so badly, she runs to susan and hides behind her even though she’s still so mad that susan got rid of her beloved baby vampire.

nosferatu’s appetite surpasses what the bat colony can offer. it’s like the size of a ten yr old human child now. fucker’s big. it doesn’t just have fangs on top, but tusks on bottom. it can’t go out in the sunlight anymore, the sun sears its flesh. it misses max a lot and before, it wasn’t strong enough to fly back to her house. but now it is. it’s extremely strong, actually.

so bc it's hungry, nosferatu grabs a snack along the way. some nameless rando, it swoops down and sucks dry. nourished and much happier, nosferatu makes its way back home. patiently waits outside of max’s bedroom in the moonlight, tapping its hook against the window until she wakes up. initially max is a lil startled— nosferatu looks so different, there’s a beat before she recognizes it— him?? yk, ig it’s male, the og nosferatu was a guy. sure, why not, nosferatu is a boy now.

once she realizes who it is, she is so! happy! max opens the window and embraces her friend. she isn’t freaked out by the blood on its fangs. she’s always known nosferatu is a vampire, albeit, she was thinking he’d look more like dracula than this bat-monster-thingy.

nosferatu moves back into max’s closet. it hangs upside-down from her rod by its weird, elongated feet. we get more shots of nosferatu sucking rando ppl dry at night, tho he remains gentle with max. when max drags billy in to show her he came back, nosferatu is less friendly with him. he’s not aggressive with billy, but he is standoffish. nosferatu’s thought process is somewhere between human and animal. he doesn’t quite cognitively understand that billy took him to the farm with the intent of getting rid of him, but he does understand that the last time he clung to billy, billy left him alone and never came back. max puts two and two together, and realizes it was billy who “stole” her friend. she yells at him a lot, he yells back, she then ices him out.

billy acts out bc he’s upset. runs away, thinks he’s going to find his mom…the cops find him first and call neil. neil is rly embarrassed and pissed abt the whole thing. he breaks down and beats billy in front of the mayfields for the first time. nosferatu smells the blood and it’s time for the main event! we love dead!neil, yes, we do.

nosferatu flies out the closet and right into the living room where billy’s bleeding and teary but biting his lip so they don’t actually fall. susan’s covering max’s eyes but so shocked and tbh, FRIGHTENED, she doesn’t move a muscle beyond that. neil’s got the belt raised, preparing to bring it down again, and nosferatu smashes right into him. neil stumbles, turns back to see this freaky monster looking thing. proceeds to whip the belt at nosferatu. tries to fight him off with the belt and it doesn’t accomplish much beyond pissing him off more— nosferatu, like most classic vampire types, has a healing factor!

max rips her mom’s hands off her face in time to see her pet sink its fangs into her stepdad’s throat. nosferatu sucks neil dry. billy’s a little dazed, not quite frightened. susan is just dead ass frozen, too scared to scream, even. nosferatu crawls over to billy and nudges at him, making sure he’s in once piece and forgiving him in the same go. max darts over and that snaps susan out of her stupor, but she isn’t as fast as our blood-sucking bat monster.

nosferatu stretches his wings out and with a truly impressive wingspan, hugs both of the kids. <3

horror movie #2: a haunting! this one opens with a bang. it’s a tragic horror, beware. we’re in hawkins post s3. billy died at starcourt mall. neil’s obvi had a longstanding abusive mindset and abusive behavior, but he rly takes his grief out on susan and max. mostly susan. she does her best to protect max however she can, whether that means shielding her w her body, sending her out of the house, getting neil’s goat to inspire his ire in max’s place, etc. but sue simply isn’t around all the time and when she isn’t, but max is, well. yk.

one day neil comes home early (bc he lost his job for a violent outburst, tbh) and discovers susan packing a suitcase.

sue fights hard. she rly does. but neil is bigger, heavier, crueler, and to boot, he caught her completely unawares. he kills her. and no, no it’s not some accidental thing where neil makes one bad move rage-blind. he strangles her with his belt. she’s clawing at his arms and making these horrible choked, trapped animal noises. thrashes and twists her body with everything she has trying to get him off but he’s so strong, his grip is unrelenting, and she's growing weaker, lightheaded with the lack of oxygen. strangulation can induce incontinence and when susan blacks out, her piss streams to the hardwood— neil hears that as much as he felt the clawing and heard the noises, even now he could stop, but he doesn’t. he just. doesn’t think his wife has the right to leave him, esp not after his son just did.

neil burns the body and the suitcase in the woods while max is at school. max has been spending as much time as she can (and often with sue’s prompting) outside of the house, so it actually takes her about two days to realize her mother isn’t around. neil tells a pretty convincing story about how susan abandoned them, voice saturated with apology and sorrow. he takes her out for a fancy dinner and promises he’s going to be a better father-- that being a better father is the least he can do now that her mother abandoned her and they are alone in their grief.

max doesn’t know what to think. she’s been preoccupied with her own grief and pain. she finds it hard to believe her mother would just leave her to neil’s wrath. she has a lot of hangups with susan and anger toward her for marrying neil and not getting them out sooner, but she’s also old enough to realize there would be risks involved with that. it’s hard to reconcile the memory of her mother just last wk pinning max to the wall to protect her from neil’s blows with her own bod just abruptly taking off without a word in the middle of the night. but hey, maybe that’s why susan left. maybe she got sick of protecting her, maybe the pain got to be too much and she turned tail.

but also…it’s early october now, abt three months after billy’s death but still fairly warm outside. yet neil is wearing long sleeves. neil never used to button his collared shirts all the way up, and yet. every collar is buttoned. also, mom’s car is still here. why would mom leave without her car?

that ceramic pelican she loved so much is still here too, on the mantle in the living room. it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing she would leave behind, she's had it since max was a baby.

max almost wants to believe neil because she’d rather her mother abandoned her than be dead somewhere, rotting in a storage locker or a hole in the ground. under the earth with the worms, just like billy. max has the worst feeling low in the pit of her gut. she thinks she knows the truth. she thinks abt going to hopper and hesitates bc she’s not sure she could handle it if he actually found smth. or what would happen to her if he did, where she would be sent, who she would end up with.

this movie would be more on the ambiguous end of things. an arthouse horror, if u will.

the days turn into wks and neil is crawling in his skin. the viewer isn’t sure if the shadows he’s seeing, always, always susan-shaped shadows, are of a ghostly nature or if he’s just hallucinating out of guilt. but the signs gradually point to the former— that smth paranormal is indeed going on. bc those scratches and bite marks susan left in his skin?

they do not heal. they do not get infected. they do not become necrotic. but they do not heal, either. days turn into wks and the wounds still look fresh, like she just left them moments ago. neil can’t wear light colors anymore because his wounds weep red into the fabric. he isn’t just seeing susan’s shadows either, he’s smelling her.

he washes his sheets and pillowcases a dozen times and the scent of her shampoo, her lotion, it’s like it’s woven into the fibers. he walks into the hallway and chokes on the aroma of susan’s perfume. he wonders if max is screwing with him, if max figured it out and she’s trying to torture him into a confession. one day he stomps off to max's bedroom, furious, adamant on confronting her. he grabs her doorknob, prepared to yank it open and then lets out a yelp, jerking his hand back with a sudden sharp pain.

it feels like a bee sting (which would be esp bad for this fucker in anything i write, bc i headcanon him as being allergic). but there’s no stinger. no injury. nothing. neil is freaked out enough that he backs down.

max, on the other hand, is getting gentler signs. when she turns the radio dial in the camaro, it’s somehow always her mom’s favorite songs that come thru the speakers. when she goes to pull clothes out of her drawers in the morning, she discovers that the things she’d just shoved inside in wrinkled balls are perfectly folded, neat as a pin, exactly like how susan always folded. susan was always fond of cardinals and suddenly max is seeing cardinals, pretty red cardinals, in just abt erry tree and shrub.

neil wakes up one night to his wife’s voice whispering “boo” right in his ear. he throws the covers off and discovers ashes in the bed. he doesn’t smell susan’s shampoo or lotion anymore, he smells the kerosine he’d poured all over her body.

his wounds still won’t heal. whenever he looks in the mirror, he catches a glimpse of susan walking past behind him, peering at him from her peripheral. he whips around, heart hammering, but there’s never any tangible person there.

max is almost certain her mother is dead at this point. neil’s been so bizarrely nice to her lately. she never believed in ghosts but her experiences with the upside-down broadened her perception of reality. she doesn’t know how else to explain the songs, the cardinals, the folded clothes. the way that these days, whenever she does feel fear toward neil, it just fades away. her fear melts like popsicles in the sun, immediately replaced by the sensation of a warm, maternal hug, as if arms she can’t see are trying to reassure her she truly doesn’t need to be afraid of him anymore.

in fact, max feels so unafraid of neil and brave, that one night she calls him out on it. he’s grizzled and unshaven in his recliner, beer in hand. she steps in front of the television he’s vacantly fixated on and folds her arms across her chest.

“you killed my mom, didn’t you?”

quick as a flash, neil leaps to his feet. he brings his arm back like he’s going to strike her and susan’s ceramic pelican on the mantle explodes into shards. the lights flicker, the television program cuts to snow with a static roar. every other knickknack on the mantle rattles and framed photos tumble off the wall.

neil very wisely lowers his hand. he slumps, boneless. he doesn’t say a word. max sees the answer in his eyes. it’s the dead of night and she snatches the camaro keys off the hook, marching out of the house, slamming the door behind her. it’s the dead of night and she doesn’t care. she’s going to blow past every stop sign and pound on the chief’s door until he opens up. and fuck, i just realized if this is post s3 he’s supposed to be in russia. shit. i don’t watch this show, but i know abt russia bc i DID watch the clips of that demogorgon that i rly hope isn’t stuck in captivity!! okay, but let’s pretend that didn’t happen?

it’s an au?? i mean, errything i write is always technically an au anyway, bc when i write stuff susan has an actual personality and billy isn’t *completely* abhorrent. okay, so it’s an au and mr. hopper didn’t blow up and un-blow up in russia. he’s still here. so max drives to his house.

she pounds on the door so hard this guy snaps outta bed, thinking someone’s trying to bust it down. she tells him neil confessed to killing her mom. it isn’t true, exactly, but he didn’t have to. so it’s a helluva grim drive back to cherry lane, this time in the cop car.

but when they go inside, chief prepared to arrest neil, no need. neil’s hanging from the belt he strangled susan with, shirtless for the first time since that night, erry seemingly fresh furrow and bite mark on full display. below his dangling feet is a map, the area he burned susan’s corpse in circled in red marker. did he kill himself or did the ghost do it?

up to u, we soundlessly cut to credits without a concrete answer to that question.

horror movie #3: crossover special! stranger things meets the chilling adventures of sabrina. sequel to that fic i wrote where susan makes out with lilith, queen of hell, and lilith kills neil for her. sue officially joins the church of lilith. bc in this ‘verse the church of lilith actually happens after caos s2 instead of the nonsense that was s3 and the inconceivably godawful migraine-inducing shit-fest that was s4.

killing neil was lilith’s only freebee. susan isn’t a witch, she’s a mortal, so in order to reap the other rewards of worshipping the one and only mother of demons, she has to fornicate with the witches and participate in the sacrifices!!!

this is, uh, well. it’s p much a porno, dude, sorry. 😅

this is just an excuse for susan to have sex with lilith, zelda, marie, hilda, big witch orgies + susan. witches bathing in the blood of their sacrifices, susan so nervous and timid but unable to deny her desire. the witch’s dressing her in their gothic garb.

how does the rest of the fam get it on this?

max joins the church too. she has more age-appropriate conduct with sabrina and the weird sisters, and what have you. just smooches and over-the-clothes groping, and whatnot, even tho the weird sisters, at least, would be interested in going further if given the opportunity.

billy dies in starcourt again, so he gets revived in the cain pit! hilda is the one who goes to him after bc she’s been in the cain pit many a time (i am still BIG side-eyeing zelda for repeatedly murdering her sister since childhood). hilda understands how jarring it can be to come back. suddenly alive!billy is freaking tf out but she brings him inside the mortuary, wraps him up in a big blanket burrito and they have a talk. hilda explains that he’s going to be okay and rubs his back while he tentatively sips the hot chocolate she made.

after billy’s calmed down, she brings max and susan in. max and susan can’t do as much magic as the caos witches— they’re mortals, after all, it’s not in their nature —but they’ve gained some abilities thru being in the church, following the rituals, and being carnally involved with the immortal witches. max happily shows him some of her new magic tricks.

horror movie #4: another crossover with caos. heavily inspired by creepshow episode s2e1, model kid (which i already v blatantly referenced in the last axe snafu update and i’m not ashamed, bc it’s a good series i love v much).

billy picks max up from the byers’ place rly late one night. it’s dark and the weather is bad and okay, yeh, he might be a little high. and a little concussed. he pissed neil off pretty bad the other day and okay, actually he’s defo concussed bc he doesn’t even remember what he did wrong!

needless to say, they take a wrong turn somewhere. they end up in greendale. at first max is pissed. she yells at him a lot! yells so loud hilda can hear them thru the walls of dr. cerberus’s comic shop/diner. she goes outside to see what all the fuss is abt, hilda never rly ignores youth in need. we love hilda, she deserved so much better…i’m getting distracted, okay, back to the story.

hilda ushers them inside. max is like, “ooh, comics? horror junk and comics? nvm, i’m not mad anymore.” she pats billy’s arm and wanders away to go check stuff out! hilda makes billy sit down. caos canon established that she’s psychic, at least when she wants to be. she smells the weed but she also sees his life, his trauma. billy doesn’t remember what he did to piss neil off or the abuse that followed, but hilda sees it clear as day.

he’s rude and cranky w her when she probes a little too much for his liking. hilda gently but firmly reprimands him and gets him a milkshake on this house. then she goes to check on max. she steers max to a v particular section of the shop, the one that sells model kits. now, max isn’t *huge* into model kits BUT they are p neat and she enjoys them well enough. more so when the weather is nasty and she can’t go outside. or when she needs smth to do with her hands (a trait she shares w susan) to distract herself and ease some of the anxiety when she hears her brother being beaten or her mother being shouted at.

max is actually rly impressed by the array of models. vintage ones and newer ones. monsters, slashers, final girls, tiny accessories like knives and bloodied heads. but when she gets to the paint-your-own shelf, her jaw drops to the floor.

there’s one that looks just like neil. unpainted, plain gray vinyl, but undoubtedly her stepdad. the expression on the five inch figurine is one frozen in fear.

“i think that one’s calling to you,” hilda prompts her, with the softest smile.

max blinks away her bewilderment altho she still can’t speak. she turns to hilda and turns her empty pockets inside out. hilda just waves her hand. she tells her it’s on the house. that it wouldn’t be fair if she gave billy smth on the house, but not max.

speaking of billy, when he finishes his milkshake, he’s suddenly totally sober and healed!! no more high buzzing in his blood. no more pounding headache or concussion fogging his mind. he doesn’t feel his bruises anymore, rolls his sleeve up, and realizes they simply aren’t there anymore. like they dissolved off his skin.

albeit it’s muttered under his breath, but billy does thank hilda. then he and max are on their way. max shows him the suspiciously familiar figurine in the box. this night cannot get weirder.

max knows what to do with the model kit. she does. she isn’t sure how she knows, but she does. she grapples with it for a long time. neil’s the closest thing she has to a dad these days. and things aren’t bad all the time, ofc.

sometimes neil gives max a ride when mom and billy aren’t available. sometimes he brings her ice cream entirely unprompted. neil’s the one who picks max up off the sidewalk when she wipes out super bad on her skateboard, carries her inside and then later to the car when her cut doesn’t stop bleeding and she ends up needing stitches.

but most of the time he sucks. she can’t rly be herself around him. he's indifferent to her interest at best, scornful at worst. he would hate all her friends. he scares the shit out of her when he’s angry. he doesn’t have a problem belittling her mother in front of her, tearing susan to shreds and making her out like she’s lower than dirt, the most worthless person on the planet. doesn’t have a problem beating billy in front of her or glaring at her with the promise that she’ll be next if she dares to voice her dissent.

max doesn’t always want to do what she knows she’s meant to do with the model. bc she's kind at heart and bc on the good days, she genuinely does have mixed feelings toward neil. never enough to hope he'll be better, he's proven he won't...but maybe enough to hope he won't get worse, either.

then comes the night neil breaks ribs. bad, like we’re talking, a-sharp-spear-of-broken-rib-punctures-billy’s-lung-and-he’s-coughing-up-blood-bad. that’s a trip to the emergency room. in the days that follow, at her next dnd meeting w the party, max places the fully and attentively painted model of her stepdad on the table. normally her pals would protest her derailing the intended game, but they can sense it, yk, that smth is different.

max takes over as dungeon master to the protest of no one, all other mouths sealed as if bewitched and spellbound. she narrators a scene where the demogorgon devours neil and uses the demogorgon piece and the model for demonstration.

when max returns home, neil is strewn across the house in gory chunks and torn wallpaper curls around massive claw marks.

[ashdumpsterpile]

what are ur thoughts on edmund pevensie

aah I'm so glad someone asked!! thank uuu <3

My thoughts on Edmund Pevensie? Mr. redemption arc boy? My sassy bean? Sulky little shit boy? Oh my god where do I start.

(putting under the cut because this gets unnecessarily long and my mutuals are tired of me)

Edmund Pevensie is a horrible little gremlin who turns into a delightful little gremlin over the course of one book/movie and ends up being one of the best characters in the series. I don't know whether to rant about book!Edmund or Movie!Edmund, but I supposed I could do both?

So pre-redemption, Edmund is a generally awful person. I really like that. Whenever we get a redemption arc in modern media, it's usually 70% defending why Character A is actually a sad emo child who was neglected and actually you know what? It's everyone else's fault that this person does shitty things (i.e. k*lo ren, vanya hargreeves, mcu wanda, etc).

Edmund is a truly hateful person and canon DOES NOT APOLOGIZE OR VALIDATE IT. Even in the movies (where they make him more sympathetic by drawing attention to the fact that Edmund is a child being manipulated by an abuser) they recognize the fact that he was a nasty person before the White Witch ever came into play.

I LOVE that. I love a redemption arc. And the only way a redemption arc really, truly works is when the character being redeemed is a Bad Person. It makes it so, so much more satisfying when the character finally comes to their senses and Does The Thing that starts/completes their arc.

AND EDMUND'S IS TOP TIER. In the books, it's a bit less explicit, but by the time he finally reaches Aslan's camp and talks to Aslan, he's pretty much made a full 180. He is immediately forgiven by his siblings and the Narnians and when the White Witch turns up, he is unafraid. He has full confidence that Aslan knows what he's doing. In the Battle of Beruna, he's the only person smart enough to realize that going after the White Witch's wand is the best tactical move. There is no clear "heroes redeemed journey" (as i'm calling it). Edmund realizes that he was wrong, accepts Aslan, and helps defeat the White Witch.

The movie makes Edmund work a bit more. He's forgiven by his sisters', but not quite by his brother. It's vague whether or not the rest of Narnia has forgiven him. When the White Witch arrives, he shows visible fear. It's only after he breaks the White Witch's wand and dies/nearly dies doing so, that he's allowed to be fully redeemed and forgiven by his brother.

I have conflicting feelings about how both of these narratives are different and the indicators thereof of said differences, but that's a whole other meta post I don't have room for. What I can definitely say I do love about Movie!Edmund's redemption arc is how they conclude it. In the book, you don't actually see the moment where Edmund breaks the White Witch's wand and it's more inferred than directly stated that she's the one who wounded him. He also doesn't come as close to actual death in the books.

In the movie everything is absolutely fucking perfect. They start out the battle with Edmund looking unsure of anything except Peter and they end it with Edmund dying (?) in front of him. The moment where Edmund decides to defy Peter one last time and break the wand? 14 year old me was losing her SHIT. They literally could not have concluded his arc better. 10/10 Disney.

Prince Caspian--books and films--gives us a clearer picture of who Edmund is after his redemption arc. He's still kind of snarky, but 100% a ride or die for his siblings. He believes Lucy when she says she sees Aslan, supports Peter and Caspian in their quest to get Caspian on the throne, and is the most level-headed character in the book. He is also incredibly sulky in the books and 1000% done with Trumpkin's shit. It's delightful. They translate this in movieverse for him being 1000% done with Peter's shit which is even better. He does not really have an arc or plotline, but as a supportive character he's a 10/10.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has my favorite Edmund. This is an Edmund without his older siblings. This is an Edmund who gets to bond with Lucy, Caspian, and Eustace and have wacky sea adventures. The Lucy/Edmund dynamic is STRONG and I am living for it. Both of them banding together to hate Eustace for half the book? 11/10. Both of them banding together to love Eustace for the other half of the book? 14/10.

Also, this is the book where we find out Edmund reads detective novels. Which is adorable and so in character for him.

Oh my god let's talk about Eustace and Edmund. After Eustace tells Edmund about what happened with him and Aslan and apologizes for being a dick? Edmund is immediately there to reassure him that all is forgiven, and actually? Edmund was a worse person his first visit to Narnia. (Pls get some self esteem Edmund.) Let's talk about Eustace and Edmund being protective over Lucy (who doesn't really appreciate it, but it's adorable just the same).

Movie!Edmund in this story is also a snarky delight, but the main thing that jumps out to me is HE AND CASPIAN ARE SO GAY FOR EACH OTHER HOLY SHIT. LIKE THEY TRIED TO PUSH LUCY/CASPIAN FOR A HOT SECOND AND THEN GAVE UP BECAUSE CASSMUND IS LIVING THEIR BEST GAY PIRATE LIFE.

Oh we should probably talk about Edmund in the Horse and His Boy. Yeah, this one is a real delight because we actually get to see grown up Edmund. There are so really awesome moments here, especially with him and Susan. My favorite is where he basically tells her, "yeah if you married that dick prince I would have totally hated you for it. thanks for making a good choice on that." Lmao. It's really interesting to see him more measured and mature in this book.

So anyway, to cut this rambling reply short. Edmund Pevensie has been my favorite character since I was 11 and first read the Narnia books and he continues to be in each adaption of the series. Can't wait for the Netflix adaption.

(ask me about book vs. movie meta, cassmund analysis, the problem of susan, or anything else narnia related for more ramblings <3)

[isolemnlyswearpevensie]

Glory and Gore | Peter Pevensie x Reader

Warnings: none

Time/Era: Prince Caspian

Word Count: 1.1k

Summary: Peter comforts Y/N when he fights Miraz. 

Request: Hi I was wondering if I can get a Peter Pevensie x reader imagine where it takes place during Prince Caspian where mans duels miraz (probs spelled his name wrong) and him and the readers with Ed watching but she gets very concerned about him and Peter tells her it’s gonna be okay possibly by a kiss and maybe angst and fluff 🤷‍♀️ btw love ur acc 💚

A/N: Thank you! First Peter imagine woohoo! I’ve never written for Peter before, so I apologize if this isn’t really the best imagine in the world... hope you still enjoy! It sorta turned into more fluff than angst. 

masterlist  | read on ao3

“He’ll be here in an hour. Suit up, Pete.” Edmund says, walking into the room. Peter stood from Y/N’s side and strapped on his chest plate. His hands worked quickly on the buckle, his long fingers pulling the leather straps taught against his abs. Y/N watched and bit at her lips nervously. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea, love?” Her back pressed uncomfortably against the stone slab as she looked up at him. He was now pulling on a pair of leather fingerless gloves. 

“We have to buy Lucy some time,” Peter smiled his best comforting smile at his worried girlfriend. The king stood straight and began to stretch out his back. His face twisted in the most beautiful way as he lifted his hands above his head. Y/N bit her lip again and stood, placing a hesitant hand on his chest. 

“You’re going to get hurt, Peter. Miraz is strong.”

“I’m strong too. Don’t you believe in me?” He took her hand off of his chest, kissed it, and placed it delicately at her side. Peter was always so gentle and caring with Y/N, no matter who was around or what they were doing. He was so in love with his girl. 

“Of course I believe in you, this just seems like you’re fighting just to fight.” 

“I told you, we have to buy Lucy some time.” He looked over at his brother who was studying the couple. Edmund scrunched his eyebrows and looked at Peter. “You believe in me, right, Ed?”

Edmund nods, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword subconsciously. “Miraz is an old man, you can take him. I’d be careful, though. He’s going to have tricks up his sleeve.” 

A pang of fear burst through Y/N’s body and her eyes grew wide. She herself had never met Miraz, having never been to the castle nor in battle with them, but the way the Pevensies described him was a coward. He was just an old man who liked to abuse his power and hide behind his extensive army. Y/N had no idea he was actually a direct threat in battle. “Tricks? What tricks?!” Peter sent Edmund a pointed look and turned to Y/N with a grin on his face. “No tricks, sunshine. Ed is just talking nonsense.” “I’m just saying-” Edmund was genuinely confused. 

“Complete nonsense, Ed.” Peter could practically feel the worry radiating from Y/N’s body. He took her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “I’ve fought in wars and many one on one fights. I am positive that I will be fine.”

~

Peter was not fine. 

He was currently slouched on the ground gripping Y/N’s hand. “I think it’s dislocated,” Edmund said aloud, grasping Peter’s arm and pulling it forward. All of the air from Peter’s lungs escaped his body and he squeezed Y/N’s hand insanely tight. Y/N pulled off his helmet and brushed his sweaty hair off of his forehead. Even if Y/N didn’t want to admit it, watching Peter fight was very hot. His face always looked so determined and focused; Peter’s jaw locked and he grunted with nearly every swing of his sword. Y/N liked to watch how his body moved. He was always light on his feet like he was dancing, and his sword was raised at all times. The fighting techniques aren’t simple either. Peter was an amazing soldier who used everything he could as a weapon; his body, including head, shield, sword, and anything he would find on the ground. Y/N was pretty good at sword fighting, but nowhere near Peter’s skill level. The boy basically worshiped his craft and worked on it whenever he had any spare time. “You can’t go back out there, you’re hurt.” Y/N’s gaze was laced with concern and one of her hands rested on his pauldron. Peter shrugged it off. 

“I’m fine, stop worrying.” He stood up and pulled his girlfriend up with him. 

“Keep smiling, they’re watching.” Edmund reminds the High King and Peter raises his sword. The crowd of Narnians screamed in delight; Y/N turned her back on them. 

The Telmarines on the other side of the courtyard were whispering in harsh whispers. They kept gesturing to a crossbow in one of the men’s hands. The arrows loaded looked exactly like the arrows Susan and the other Narnian archers used. “Pete, I think they’re planning on shooting you with an arrow,” She whispered to her boyfriend. His hair was dripping sweat into his eyes as he looks over. 

“If they did that, it would be a forfeit.” “I wouldn’t put it past them.” Edmund interrupted.

Peter sighed, digesting the words his worried girlfriend said. “What do you think happens back home if you die in Narnia?” “We won’t find out,” Edmund answers, but Peter’s words hit everyone within earshot like a ton of bricks. Finding no answer in Edmund’s words, he turns towards Y/N. “You know I love you right?” Peter’s features softened for the first time that day, vulnerability filling his gaze. “Of course. And I love you.” Y/N answered, letting go of his hand and placing hers on his cheek. “I never thank you for what you do...you do so much for me and I never thank you. I’m sorry.” A sad smile graces Y/N’s face. “You don’t have to thank me, I should be the one thanking you. You’re the one that brought me to this wonderful place. I would have never known Narnia existed if you didn’t invite me over that day. And for that, I thank you.” 

“Narnia is so much better with you in it. I hope I live to see it again.” Peter leaned into Y/N’s hand ever so slightly. Shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath, he pulled Y/N close to him and pressed his lips firmly to hers. The kiss was filled with every unsaid emotion the couple felt.

“Is this a fight or a marriage?!” Miraz called from his side. Peter pulled away and looked deep into Y/N’s eyes. 

“I love you, Y/N. Thank you for making me the best version of myself.”

“I love you, Peter. I will see you after the fight.” Peter took one last look at his love and turned to finish what he started. 

For Narnia.

[batmansymbol]

hello!! i would love to know — what books are u reading? have u read? would recommend? want to read? no need to answer all, but would love to know what’s on ur radar

dear anon! i cherish this question. currently i’m reading:

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk: strong contender for my favorite title of all time. like, whew. this is a genre-busting dark comedy/murder mystery by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Flights (also on my TBR), translated from the Polish. great so far.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow: portal fantasy about portals. loads of people adore this, and Harrow can really put a beautiful sentence together, but i think it’s just not a Me book. i’d still recommend for those who love whimsical fantasies and especially historical fantasy.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff: fascinating, enlightening, bleak as fuck. Zuboff tracks the history of data collection as we know it, and how the data market has sprung to life completely free of democratic oversight. she shows that the use of our data doesn’t just cause the destruction of privacy - the process ultimately begins to predetermine the pathways of our lives going forward. terrifying.

here are a dozen-odd favorites from the past year and a half:

I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell: a memoir told in seventeen near-death experiences. an encounter with a murderer, an almost fatal childhood illness, an airplane engine failure ... you really start to feel the bizarre intimacy that O’Farrell has with death, and the way that that relationship remakes life into something more brittle and more remarkable. helps that O’Farrell is an exquisite prose stylist (she's a novelist by trade).

The Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante: an account of two young girls who grow up in an impoverished neighborhood of Naples. immersive doesn’t begin to cover it. read these women’s lives front to back, early childhood to late middle age, and feel like you’re turning through the entire texture of midcentury Italy. but the bedrock of it is the girls’ friendship, which at this point is probably destined to go down in history as one of the great literary friendships.

Outline by Rachel Cusk (and its sequels, Transit and Kudos): i still don’t know how this book gets away with it. how?! the conceit is that the first-person narrator is nearly invisible. most of what we see on the page is other people confessing to her, monologuing at her, having one-sided conversations with her. and yet - though she’s all but bulldozed by others’ forceful personalities - we feel her as a person in negative space. we perceive someone in pain with an extraordinary capacity to listen and observe.

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi: reminded me why I love YA. hard-edged, alienated, foulmouthed Shirin is a 16-year-old Muslim girl, and it’s 2002, and she just wants to keep her head down to survive all the Islamophobic garbage around her - but her walls are threatened by a sweet possibility of romance and a burgeoning love for breakdancing. imo, a perfect coming-of-age story.

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi: “#MeToo book” plus “unreliable narrator” sort of sounds like a recipe for disaster, but this book slaps. it's about a cohort of prematurely mature arts-school teenagers in the orbit of a charismatic drama teacher. at least, it begins that way. with a serious structural twist - about halfway through, i whispered “what?!” into the pages of the book, then didn’t put it down until i’d finished - it becomes an uneasy, ever-shifting interrogation of whose trauma gets told and whose gets internalized, who gets judged and who gets absolved, who gets closure and who gets nothing. (i’m being intentionally vague because of the twists, but i’ll say outright that the book has no interest in abuse apologia and the unreliable narration isn’t about that.)

Normal People and Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney: i group them together because they have the same texture in my mind. the writing is emotionally claustrophobic yet hilarious. the characters are ironic and self-aware yet trapped in painful holding patterns. so much has been written about Rooney at this point - i’ll just say i think she deserves every ounce of her success.

soon on my TBR:

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton: my favorite sub-sub-subgenre roars back to life with this Groundhog Day plus murder mystery book! i’m excited.

Autumn by Ali Smith: the first in a quartet named for each season. lots of claims out there that smith is one of the best novelists working today. seems more experimental than i’m really used to, but we’ll see.

The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee: why have i not read this book yet? it’s just been sitting there on my shelf for a year. i’m a clown and i need this in my veins immediately.

Kindred by Octavia Butler: a time-travel narrative about a modern Black woman drawn repeatedly, unwillingly into the antebellum South. this will actually be my first book by Butler! i doubt it will be the last, though!

Beowulf: a New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley: this was brought to my attention because it translates the opening interjection of the epic poem, Hwæt!, usually translated along the lines of “Hear ye!” or “Hark!” as “Bro!” i can’t wait.

[vanchlo]

The Partner / Chapter Twelve, "The Resolute"

Word Count: 8.4k /  Story Masterlist /  Read The Assistant /  Read on Wattpad / Song: Hold Me While You Wait by Lewis Capaldi (click to listen) / Warning: Sensitive and upsetting topics, such as death, grief, and miscarriage

"I never know when I will miss you. I can't ever predict just what will grip my heart with the reminder that you are gone. It could be anything. Anytime. Anywhere. You are everywhere and nowhere all at once. When the days are bright, I am blinded by your presence and even when the world is dark I still manage to find you. In laughter, I hear the echo of losing you. Your presence is overflowing in the tears that fall. Now that your body is gone, everything holds your being. I miss you in the cold depths of winter and I long for you in the thick summer breeze. You are my first rising thought in the morning and my last notion as I sink into the heaviness of the night. I thought we ran out of moments together, but every moment seems to belong to you. How can you be everywhere when you are nowhere to be seen? I used to worry about facing the world because I didn't know what would trigger my heartache. I used to be afraid of every feeling, every memory, every moment because I didn't know which ones held you. Now I know you are everywhere and I think that I know why. You're everywhere because you're somewhere inside of who I am. I am the bearer of your life and your memory. I am the keeper of your existence. Even though you're gone, I never really have to search for you. I never know where I'll find you but you are always there. I never know when I will miss you and it happens all the time"

- Rachel Whalen

I had lost count of how many times I had fallen back asleep since he had left for another day of work, the second time in the last few days. I’d be telling a lie if I said that I didn’t miss him, because like he’d confessed when he thought I was sleeping, I missed him all of the time too. The difference was that I felt it now when he was gone. I wasn’t sure why I’d bitten his head off that night about going back to work. I did but couldn’t think about it after the way he broke down in front of me and I just stood there. I didn’t do a thing. Instead, I shook my head and pushed him away. God, how could I do that to him? I thought he’d moved on . . . That’s how it went. I’d wake up to an empty, cold bed and the guilt would come in crashing waves. The hot tears would follow and eventually, I’d fall back into another fitful sleep. Nightmares were almost always guaranteed, but for the first time in our relationship, I comforted myself back to sleep. Somehow, they didn’t wake him like before, but last night when he woke with a gasp that melted into tears, I think I knew because he was busy with his own.

At first, I thought I’d been imagining it, or maybe that was just my coping mechanism by now. Denial and pretending. No, it really was and it went around like a circle. Denying the denial. But when the knocking on the door turned into the dinging of the doorbell, I knew that it was real. It didn’t stop after a few times, like the mailman would. No, this person was persistent, and I definitely was not. I couldn’t even find the strength to move to look at the alarm clock to see the time. By then, it had stopped. He’d only been gone an hour now and I missed him deeply, finding it hard to not pick up the phone to ask him to come home. I did but in my own way, and not one he’d understand, despite how he knew every page of my book.

I hope work is going well

Only a few minutes passed before a reply came in with a silent vibration.

thanks it is, just meetings again and an interview

Sounds boring. I know how you hate both. New hire?

possibly. i forgot to tell u gwen left. i hope ur getting some rest

No, you hadn’t but that’s ok. I think I only talked to her like 5 times. I’m trying.

ya she was good, just kept 2 herself. want me 2 pick up anything for lunch? anything soundin good? Starbucks? pizza? u can have whatever u want

You can pick

At that, I heard my phone lock before placing it face down onto the bedside table, not able to continue a conversation about food any longer. Another wave of irrational tears came at missing him and wanting normalcy back, but the fitful sleep didn’t follow. I wasn’t sure if I was regretful or not when I peeled back the covers, shocked by the sudden cold.

The chilling silence filling the house hit me in the face when I stepped out into the hallway. It had been choking at times, mostly at night when things were at their worst. During the day, like now, it was never this quiet. Something on the tv was always playing, and I soon found myself in front of it, watching the end of a Marvel movie Harry and I once watched.

Its sequel was nearing the halfway point by the time the doorbell rang again. It was on its fourth time now and the person still hadn’t stopped. The surprise on their face was just as strong as that of mine when I found myself at the door, in front of Harry’s grandmother.

“Hi, Becky,” she said softly, a warm cadence to her words like always. I may have been biased towards grandmas, but Harry’s checked all of the points and more. I couldn’t help the squeeze of my heart at the mere sight of her, a melancholy smile spreading on her lips.

“Claire. Um, hi. Harry isn’t here right now, he had to go into work this morning,” I rush, unsure of why I’m telling her this, except for I know why. I hadn’t spoken to another human being that wasn’t Harry or my doctor since . . since it had happened. Sure, texts to Skye, my dad, and Robbie. It was the only way to placate them from telling them I didn’t want to see them. Can I blame them, though?

“Oh, that’s okay. I was uh, hoping I could come in,” she suggests. I stand there, taken aback by her request. I had come to love this woman like she was my own grandmother, and yet here I am, not opening the door for her. “Maybe we could wait for him together with some brookies.”

Dropping my eyes, I watch as she lifts a saran wrapped plate of chocolatey looking cookies. I didn’t need to look any longer to know what they were. Her famous brownie cookies that Harry had compared any cookie or brownie of mine to over the years, and I eventually had found out why.

“You know I can’t turn those down,” I mumble, feeling the first hints of a smile. She grins for me instead, following me into the house that somehow feels even emptier when we step inside. Awkwardly, I closed the door behind her, pulling my hands back into the oversized King’s College crewneck of Harry’s I’d stolen long ago. “Can I . . Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Water? Tea?” I stumble, watching as she takes a seat at the island, setting down one of those cloth bags beside her.

“Coffee would be fine, honey,” she says, and always with a smile. I welcome the distraction, feeling as if I’d forgotten how to talk to another person. No, I know that I have. I hadn’t even been able to carry on a conversation with Harry, nonetheless his grandmother.

At times, I still felt uncomfortable around his parents, especially his dad. If there was one of them that I felt the easiest around, it was Claire. I’m reminded of the bouquet of black eyed susans probably now wilting on the table when she notes the array of flowers taking up space over there. I nod at her words while closing the lid of the instant coffee machine, placing a tall mug underneath the spout. The compassionate words scribbled in her cursive with its accompanying card come back to me, and suddenly, the steaming coffee grows blurry before my eyes. Sometimes, I wondered if she had a feeling about things like me, because as the first tear fell, she speaks an apology.

“I’m sorry for coming unannounced. I had let Harry know I was in town and would stop by today, but he must have forgotten to mention it to you,” she begins in a low volume, a Harry-like molasses shining in her voice. I mumble an ‘it’s okay’ while watching the coffee continue to fill the mug. It’s almost done, but then what will I do to distract myself? “Harry had said your fridge was quite full, but I couldn’t help but make a few of your favorites to bring you both. Times like these, cooking feels like the last thing you want to do.”

“A lot of things do,” I find myself saying, surprising her I’m sure and especially myself. I hadn’t even been able to find it in myself to put that feeling into words and say them to Harry. It was a blessing and a curse how we could read each other so well, but I know I’d closed myself off from him a long time ago. On accident and then, on purpose.

Ripples form across the surface of the liquid as the last few drops plummet into the dark abyss. I wait, staring at the steam rising from the mug, unsure as to why. A silence had embedded itself into these walls so long ago I couldn’t remember, and it sat between us now too. I still didn’t know how to broach it, and there was no nudging the switch that would let me talk about her. I truly didn’t know how to, not even to her father. Sometimes, I wanted to forget her so I’d stop hurting, but that felt like an impossibility and then a crime. Gulping, I wipe at my cheeks and thread my fingers through the ceramic handle.

“Those are a beautiful assortment of flowers,” she comments again when I set the drink down in front of her. A forced ‘thank you’ leaves my lips when I turn around and walk towards the fridge. “You and Harry are so loved, and so was your baby.”

I’d opened this fridge how many times over the years, and now as the handle sits in my palm, I can’t find it in myself to do it. The forgotten coupons, lists, photographs, drawings from Harper and Ollie, and magnets grew hazy before my eyes. The hum of the coffee machine cooling down wasn’t enough to mask the whimper that escaped my lips, no matter how desperately I tried to shove it down. After breathing in and out a few times, it still didn’t help, but I was able to open the door and grab what I’d needed.

Keeping my head down, I set the coffee creamer in front of her, not spending a second more facing her with the damage on my cheeks. As the spoon clinks against the sides of her mug, I distract myself by finding room in the fridge for the filled tupperware containers she’d taken from the bag. Scribbled labels adorn the top of each one, but I look past them as I stack them on a shelf. From the corner of my eye, I saw her stand from her seat to look at the flowers, thumbing at the typed messages. It’s not until the last one is snug against a container of yogurt and strawberries that somebody says something.

“They always say the same things, don’t they?” she murmurs with an out of place scoff, sounding like a hum from her lips. The tears had dried up as I thought about how to fit a container of beef stroganoff amongst tater tot casserole, but when I turned around, her face still falls. “It was the same with Steven too. They all say that they understand, but there’s no way that they can. They hadn’t lost their spouse, or . . their baby.” This roots me to the spot and we spend the next few moments looking at each other as her Soft Rose lipsticked lips fall.

“I didn’t want to come, Becky, because I know that when I lost my loves, I wanted to be alone. But that was where my demons lied in wait, and I don’t want you to go through the same thing I did when I lost my baby,” she continues. I couldn’t tell if it was the light or the way my eyes deceive me with a returning wetness, but a similar glint appears in hers. It holds my attention for a mere moment until my heart starts to pound against my ribs. “Steven and I were a little younger than you and Harry when we lost our baby at four months.”

There could be no saving my throat nor my eyes as I gulp against the dryness, feeling all of the wetness detour down my face. Her words ricochet inside of me, bouncing off walls. For the first time in too long, they sink in and make me feel something. I resist at first, not wanting to let my chest shake or my heart race, but there’s no stopping it. Staring back at her, she quietly sits back down and takes a sip from her coffee. Looking back to me, a corner of her mouth twitches as a gleaming droplet beads at her chin.

“What has it been now? Fifty five years and I still miss them . . my little baby,” the blood pounds in my ears as I stare at her in what, amazement? Horror? Complete and utter surprise? Probably, all of them.

“Gran, I-I never knew,” a voice says from behind me. Turning, another wave of shock courses through me at the sight of Harry with his hand on the door to the garage.

“I never told anybody, except for my immediate family when it had happened . . The thing was, the taboo around miscarriages and infertility hasn’t changed a whole lot since then. It disappoints me really . . Back then, you didn’t talk about it. Now, sometimes you talk about it, but it’s just the same. It’s near to impossible to speak about. Friends and family want to say something, but they don’t know how to without hurting you. So, instead of mentioning the loved one you lost, people don’t when they think of them, and they’re forgotten. That’s always been my worst fear, and I don’t want either of you to go through that- I cried when your mother told me what had happened, Harry. My heart breaks for the both of you, knowing that you’re going through the same nightmare that my Steven and I did.”

A puff leaves his lips and I can almost hear him gulp as sound evades us. Words haven’t been a friend to my lips in what feels like months, and right now isn’t an exception.

“I’m so sorry, Gran.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Harry. I’m so sorry that you lost your baby . . I heard it was a girl, your daughter,” her words are ginger and slow. Somehow, another piece joins the puzzle, but it still leaves me staring at the floor as tidal waves crash inside of me. “It was a long time ago, but I still miss them and wonder who they’d be. I’m sorry to say that never goes away, and that the whole b-s of ‘time heals all wounds’ isn’t entirely true. You just build up scar tissue to it, but some days are worse than others. I miss Steven terribly some days, like the day you announced your engagement, and your pregnancy. When your mother told me over the phone three weeks ago, I wished he could’ve been there too, for you to talk to about fathers losing a child. Men are still pressured to not show emotions but it was just as hard on him to lose our baby, and sometimes fathers are forgotten.”

A mess of emotions roils inside of me, flipping my stomach upside down. My heart too, arguably. The last sound that I make out is a sniffle of his before I’m bringing my hands to my eyes, and sobbing against them. It felt like I stood there for minutes before escaping down the hall, when it was only a few seconds in reality.

I wasn’t certain if they knew what I did. That I could hear them from the bedroom down the hall, the place I’d come to retreat to instead of Harry’s arms. I felt him coming towards me just moments ago, but I couldn’t do it. I think I’d almost forgotten what his touch felt like. If they thought I could hear them, they probably had mistaken me for being asleep or for not listening. I think they tried to keep their voices down, but despite Harry being a closet musician, there wasn’t much for treatment to these walls. He’d joked before about having sex one night his mom stayed here but I pushed him away, chalking it up to thin walls.

Now, the memory wasn’t that funny to me as I heard their conversation. I almost felt guilty, as if I was cheating by hearing them, but this was the only way I could take part in a conversation I know I should be part of. I didn’t think that I could even speak if I had wanted to, because of the hiccuped sobs that filled my chest, making it hard to speak. I know that I made the right decision when my head rests against the door upon hearing about what they say next, about me.

“I can hardly get her to have a conversation with me, Gran. Let alone about . . about the baby.”

“Oh, Harry. You just have to give her time.”

“I know and I have, but it’s becoming all the harder to feel as time passes. She’s getting worse and I’m barely staying put together. It scares me so much, because I don’t want to lose her too. If I did, I’d lose everything I have to live for.”

At last, the sound of my choked sobs drowned out that of their voices. By the time my lungs calmed down and my heart hardened once more, it was quiet. I missed his voice despite how it had almost betrayed me to another, and made me hurt. My rumbling stomach ultimately won the race and it was what led me down the hall, and without knowing, back to her. I blamed it on the appetizing smell wafting from the kitchen.

I’d already seen her and had decided to keep going, but upon passing the island where she sat again, I heard her intake of breath. Harry wasn’t anywhere to be seen, despite the wiped clean plate in the sink with the large fork and an empty can. He was the only one who used them and who drank the sparkling waters that I thought tasted like bug spray.

“I’m so sorry, Becky. The last thing I wanted was to upset you, honey.”

“You don’t have to apologize. Frankly, I’m rather tired of people saying those two words, but thank you,” I return, a steadiness arriving in my voice that I didn’t know I’d missed. “Can I-?”

“Of course, it’s all yours,” she insists with a smile. Nodding, I pick up the serving spoon and a plate, feeling my stomach grow happy at the sight and smell of her famous homemade lasagna. “There’s garlic bread in the oven and salad in the fridge. I’m just going to use the little girl’s room.”

I almost smile, realizing that I’ve missed her and just maybe, I feel okay enough to talk about it. I’d found a seat at the island beside her empty cup of coffee, already digging into the lasagna. An almost embarrassing moan left my lips at the taste of the layers of cheese, pasta, and bolognese sauce.

“Leave it to Claire to find the way to your heart,” somebody comments. Turning, I find Harry walking towards me with a tilt to his lips. He unrolls the hem of a Queen Bohemian Rhapsody shirt, looking more like himself now that he’s out of a suit. Sometimes, I still catch myself thinking that it was always the opposite, seeing how I’d know him to always be in suits for so long.

To my surprise, I don’t flinch or pull back when his hand arrives on my shoulder as I wipe my mouth with a napkin.

“You don’t know how happy it makes me to see you eating, and enjoying it . . I’m surprised you haven’t broken into that plate of brookies yet,” he comments. Something happy buds on my lips when his lips sponge a kiss to my temple.

“So am I,” I reply, cutting myself another bite of the food. To my happiness, his arm comes around my shoulder and stays there. I welcome it and feel a warmth grow in my gut upon finding the courage to meet his eyes. They hold something that I learn to be mischief when he plucks one of the cookies off the plate. “Hey, save some for me.”

“Don’t worry, they’re all yours. Well, except a few for me. Maybe we could split them down the middle. Half for me and half for you,” he suggests with a cocky shrug to his broad shoulders. It surprises us both when my lips spill a few second giggle. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed that sound.”

“I’ve missed you,” it’s but a squeak and still, I know he hears it by the sad curl of his lips. “I’m going to try.”

“Thank you, my lovebug. That’s all I can ask for,” he smiles, stealing a quick peck from my lips. It catches me off guard and I find myself staring at him while he manages to take a bite that’s half of the cookie. He winks at me and I turn away, shoveling a large bite of cheesy pasta past my lips.

Another bite had donned my fork by the time Claire found her seat beside us. I’d made a dent in my garlic bread by now as Harry worked on his second cookie.

Swallowing, I loaded my fork with a scrap of melted cheese and bolognese sauce. “Claire. How . . How did you do it? Be okay again after losing your baby? It . . It feels impossible,” the words seem to come from nowhere at first.

After a few moments, I know where they stem from, and just how much importance they hold. It looks back at me in Harry’s eyes when I peer up at him, smiling back when he thumbs away a tear below my eye. As her response hits our ears, I reach my arm out and across his back, holding tightly onto his side. I didn’t let go once as we cried together with his grandma about our lost babies, and neither did he.

I went to bed with a hope in my heart, thinking that tomorrow would be different. Alas, I woke up to an empty bed and it wasn’t. I wasn’t surprised but sure, I was let down. I knew that somebody else would be much more disappointed than I was, if that were possible.

It wasn’t long after my waking realization that there was a knock on the door anda creak, “Hey, buggie. I’m making french toast. How many pieces do you want?” The rest of the night had been uneventful, for once. His grandma stayed for another hour or two as we ate cookies and I finally talked about it. Her. Now, lying with my back to Harry, I didn’t know how to do that again. To talk. “Wakey wakey, it’s nearly noon.”

His voice was closer now as his hands settled on my shoulders from behind. The feeling of his thumbs kneading the tissue made me want to let him drive away the intrusive thoughts. To let him win, but I didn’t know how. Yesterday had seemed like a fluke, as I looked back on it. Even if he was her father, how could I explain to him the hollowness that had filled me when I remembered that my child had died inside of me? No, that wasn’t something he could understand, nor could he hear how much I wished he had been there that morning. That the fact he wasn’t there had changed everything. I couldn’t tell him that and I never wanted to, but I’d gotten close. At the times his nagging and hovering drove me up the wall, my tongue itched to deal the worst blows just to get him off my back. I knew it was wrong, so much of it was but I didn’t know how to stop. All I knew how to do was to drown myself in my regret afterwards. Sometimes, I was mad that we couldn’t keep alcohol around, but at others, I was glad for it.

His molasses voice murmurs my name once more, another time that I ignore, until I can’t. “No thanks.”

“I can bring it in here for you. There’s bacon and strawberries too. Orange juice, as well.”

Shaking my head, I bury my face deeper into the pillow, finding that it has his smell. At one time, he had been my safety blanket, but now it was his smell that could calm me down. I wanted to feel guilty about it but I didn’t have the energy to feel guilt because of anything else as it was all focused on one thing.

“I’ll have a little bit,” I surrender, listening to his hopeful response before leaving. For once, he let me eat alone in the bedroom. But he still inspected my plate, and I could tell that he was biting back a remark as he read the paper at the island.

“Can we talk?”

“What about?” I replied, bending over to place my dishes in the dishwasher. Standing back up, I fail at readying myself for his next onslaught of questions. The ones that I can’t answer.

“You know . . About Phoebe,” he answers. I hear it, the way he has to shove the words past his lips in order to get them out. I only know because I’ve done it a thousand times, and often with him. You do it when it’s too hard to say, but you know that it has to be done regardless.

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Becks,” he sighs, annoyance clear in his voice. “I thought you said that you were going to try. Last night went so well and you did great, I-.”

“I just can’t do it today. Okay, Harry?” I retort tearfully, catching the sagging of his features when I lock eyes with him. Sighing, I forget the cookie I’d picked up, placing the saran wrap back over it.

“So what, we need to schedule a fricken time to talk about it?”

I’d begun my retreat, but I wasn’t far enough yet. No, if I was in earshot of Harry, it wasn’t over yet. It had always been that way, ever since the beginning.

“Harry, please,” my words start, decorated with tears that drag my words underwater.

“We got pregnant and we . . we had a miscarriage, Becks. It’s nearly been a month now, but what comes next? When do we get back to normal?”

I hadn’t even been facing him and the words felt like a slap in the face. The look on mine must have felt similar to him, because when I turn around to look at him through blurry eyes, he melts into a puddle of regret.

“I didn’t mean it that way, Becks. Not-.”

“Not what way, Harry? That we should just forget about it and move on with our lives? God, you’re sounding like the doctor the other day who said that we can start trying again whenever we want. But I don’t want to try again yet, Harry, because I’m too scared that we’d lose another one- I mean, what if I can’t have kids? And- I don’t want to forget her or replace her,” but he didn’t hear the last part and I hadn’t decided if I’d wanted him to.

“You don’t know that, Becks, and that’s not what I meant at all. I promise,” he interrupts. The legs of his oversized sweatpants sag down to his ankles when he stands. “I didn’t say we had to get pregnant again right away. I’m fucking scared too. I just mean that I want us to get better. Collectively and on our own. I hate seeing you so upset all of the time, and just want you to be happy. We’re supposed to get married sometime this year and I still don’t know when that’s going to happen. The house is going to be ready in a few months, and I wanted to bring you there one day to look at the progress.”

I had begun to shake my head long before he’d stopped talking. It brought an edge to his words and an annoyance that I didn’t like, despite inciting it. A loud puff passes his lips and he returns to the chair, raking a hand through his hair. That either meant annoyance or boredom, or both. Like I tend to do, I take it personally and figure he’s both annoyed and bored of me, not that it was anything new lately.

“I can’t do that, Harry. I-I can’t,” fumbling with my words, my hand gets caught in my hair as I avoid his eyes. It doesn’t stop him from retorting an inquisitive ‘why not?’ “How am I supposed to go and see the house we’re building that has five extra bedrooms, Harry? How do you expect me to look at the rooms we planned out for o-our kids, and one for . . for Phoebe’s nursery when she’s not coming anymore?”

“Becks,” the nickname leaves his lips like that one breath that’s knocked out of you when you fall. The wrinkles that are rarely there above his eyes return as his eyebrows fall deeply. “I didn’t . . I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry.”

“And so am I, but . . I just can’t do that right now, o-or talk about her. I’m sorry,” I say with haste to my words and in my actions. The sad sound from his lips follows me to the couch where I perch, pretending to watch the tv. He doesn’t join me and after a while of pretending, my eyes start to droop.

The image of Shrek and Fiona making animal balloons falls away until a sound wakes me. Time had passed because now Fiona stands in front of Lord Farquad and Shrek is nowhere to be seen.

“I’m going to run an errand. Is there um, anything you need, bug?” he murmurs, the jangling of keys adorning his words.

“No thanks.”

“Okay, I won’t be long- Becks?” he speaks up, clearing his throat at last. I call back a question and wait as he idles. “I really am sorry about earlier, I didn’t mean anything insensitively or to upset you. I’d never want to do that.”

“I know, Harry. It’s okay,” are the last words that pass between us before he bids me a goodbye. I welcome the lack of silence but curl into the couch more, pulling the blanket around me as the movie continues.

My head throbbed when I stood up, but it had been happening a lot lately. I knew it was because I hadn’t been eating much, and as I think about that, my feet lead me to the fridge.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt full after eating, and still wanting a cookie afterwards. Like I do now. Licking the crumbs from my fingers after the last bite, the wooden floor is cold against my bare feet. For a reason I don’t know, I soon am staring up the staircase, and in that direction. It pulls at me to climb the stairs, but something deep down throbs in denial.

Instead, my attention is stolen when my ringtone blares from the couch. I lose my phone half of the time these days and so calls went unanswered. Assuming it was Harry with a grocery question, I picked it up without looking at who it was.

“Hi, Boops.”

“Dad,” I almost sigh, but I was unsure as to why. Was it the bombardment of talking to my dad on the phone for the first time in almost a month? Most likely. Or was it the homesickness that grew in my gut at the sound of his voice. “Daddy.”

“Hi, honey. I was hoping you’d answer. I’ve missed your voice.”

Sinking onto the couch, my bottom lip quivers as I try to breathe in slowly, but my heart won’t listen. It hasn’t for a while now.

“I’ve missed yours, Daddy.”

“Oh, baby girl,” he says in an exhale. Already, I know that he hears what my voice is dipped in, but I don’t hide it. It was too late for that. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“I’m getting really sick of that word, but thanks, Dad.”

His classical chuckle begins its opening but it falters there, and so did any chance at mine. Silence had rarely been uncomfortable with my Dad. That was only when I’d gotten into trouble or when I was trying to tell him about something that had happened with my Mom, which usually went hand in hand. Over the years, I could hardly count the times silence had grown awkward between us, until it did now.

“What are you doing?” he decides to say, lifting my eyes to the tv screen where it appears Fiona and Farquaad will get their Happily Ever After. I knew without needing to think what would happen next. They wouldn’t, because it never really happens that way. No, it’s not that easy or immediate.

“Watching Shrek on the couch.”

“Is Harry there?” he murmurs a question.

“No, he went to do something not long ago. I don’t know what,” I answer, wrapping the tassels of the blanket around my finger until it hurts. “I think he’s mad at me. I can’t tell anymore, it seems like he always is.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, honey.”

Shaking my head for nobody to see, I taste blood when pressing my lips together to hold back the whimpering. Sniffling, I breathe in raggedly before speaking, “I think it is . . I can’t blame him, because I’ve been so horrible to him, Dad. H-He was supposed to be a Daddy and I’ve forgotten that he’s g-going through all of this too. I’ve been in my own little world being sad a-about the baby, and I forgot about him, Dad. I’m supposed to marry him soon, and I don’t even wear my ring anymore, and I can’t go upstairs, and-,” he doesn’t cut me off. I leave that honor for myself as I watch the color drain from my finger when I unwrap the tassel. I’d slowly come to hate the color red, even refusing to eat strawberries at first. It’d become the color I’d hated most after . . after that morning.

“I’m sure that he understands, Ree, or he’s at least trying to. I’ve spoken to him a few times now, and he’s not mad at you. He’s just frustrated and overwhelmed. Harry hates to see you unhappy, it’s always been that way with you too, and vice versa. He wants to fix everything, but I told him that’s not always possible. You can’t fix another person . . . and neither can you, Boops. You’re doing your best and so is he, and after a while-.”

“But I’m not, Dad. I’m hardly trying, only when I feel like it. I . . I don’t know how to do any of this and I don’t want to. I don’t want her to be gone. I was supposed to be a Mom. Her Mom,” I weep, pressing the handful of blanket against my eyes, catching my tears.

“I wish I could make it all better for you too, honey. Ever since you were little, I wanted to kiss the owies better and tell off the kids who were mean to you, but . . . you have to do it yourself and when you can, Becky. You can’t rush this. Grief, it doesn’t have a timetable or a road map- and, honey, you are a Mom. You’re Phoebe’s Mom. Nothing will ever change that,” somehow, I cry harder at his last words, melting into the couch.

“Thank you, Daddy,” I cry into the phone, wishing it was his shoulder, instead. It’s a few moments filled with the sound of my tears and his own sniffles, before I speak again. “But how do I . . how do I let Harry back in? I pushed him away without meaning to and now we’re so far apart, Dad.”

“I think that you need to remember that he’s grieving the loss of a child too. Your child together, Ree, and that he’s feeling the exact same feelings that you are. He’s devastated at not getting to be a father to Phoebe, to meet her, watch her grow up into a person, and do all of the things that you’re grieving the loss of too. You’re a team, honey, and you need to give each other some grace too. There aren’t any rules to this and maybe I shouldn’t talk because I’m divorced, but the first reason you’re there with each other is because you love each other. You have to remember that too, honey. Hey, I’m sorry, I think I’m burning my dinner in the oven. Can I call you back later, sweetie?”

“Yeah, Dad. Of course. Um, thank you. That really helped me,” I reply, swiping at my tears with the dry side of the blanket.

“I’m glad to hear it. I love you, Boops.”

“I love you too, Daddy,” and he’s gone. All I hear is the silence of the dead call and Shrek’s voice on the tv as he yells at Lord Farquaad. It’s what fills my ears and distracts my mind when I lay my head on the pillow, resting my hand on my belly without thinking. But unlike every other time I’d found myself doing it since . . since I was actually holding my baby, I let it stay there, wildly wishing she could be here watching Shrek with me.

I heard him come in when the credits of the movie are switching to the opening of its sequel. It was arguably the best, in my opinion, but it was something Harry and I had always disagreed upon. The memory sparks an invitation for him on my tongue, but upon raising my head, I watch him disappear down the hallway.

My ears aren’t sure what to focus on, the sound of his parting footsteps, the racing of my heart, or guitar strings soon being plucked from down the hall. It wasn’t much of a choice, because my feet were already leading me towards his study. A place where he had been spending a lot of time recently. I find myself gravitating towards the sound and wanting to hear more, but I stop outside the door nervously. My heart pulls me forward, despite the way it gallops, making me feel sick to my stomach. Standing there, I wonder why this is something I’m nervous about, but nothing is the same anymore. I hadn’t felt this way for what had it been now, years? There hadn’t been a time since the beginning that I was nervous to talk to Harry, and yet, here I stood doing just that.

His playing stopped and I perked up, making out the scribbling of pen on paper. Was he writing a song, I wondered quietly and wished I could ask. I didn’t know how to, and that was something I’d thought too many times lately. How to get out of bed. To eat a whole plate of food. Talk to my family and friends. I hardly even knew how to talk to Harry anymore. That’s what was holding me back, wasn’t it? Sure, if you wanted to sum it up.

“I know you’re standing outside the door . . Did you need something?” Harry murmurs, an edge to his voice. It was one that had appeared out of the blue and refused to leave. I only knew because I’d felt my voice change like that too.

There’s the creaking of the floor before I press the ajar door open enough for me to fit through. I find him sitting back down on his office chair, but he faces away from me, a guitar propped on his lap.

“How’d you know?” I ask softly, still awkwardly standing in the doorway. His eyes flit to mine and I’m unsure of why I look away, except that I can’t face him. No, not when mine are still wet and I’m sure they aren't going to dry up anytime soon. Not after what I’m about to say.

“You forget how long I’ve known you,” he mumbles, peering down at the moleskin journal he scribbles in. “Four years, give or take. You learn their cues and the sounds they make when you come to know somebody for that long. That’s how I heard you at the door, it was your footsteps.”

“Oh,” I respond flatly, feeling dumb. His tone doesn’t imply it and nor do his words, but the embarrassment has run rampant already.

Watching him write and escape to his own little world had always been one of my favorite things to observe. Even his handwriting was something that brought me . . comfort. I blamed it on the familiarity, but as it pours from his pen, it makes my heart slow down a few ticks.

“My Dad called and we talked for a little bit.”

Harry hums a reply, crossing something out on the piece of paper. Scratching his head, he sighs whilst staring at the writing. I can’t make it out from here, but once again, the silence finds its old spot. Remembering his initial question when he heard me at the door, I worry that I’m bothering him. Gulping past the nervousness and doubt, I pedal forward.

“Was that yours?” I ask warily, noting his head rising so he can meet my eyes for a split second. They hold a question in them, perhaps dozens. “The song. It . . It was really pretty.”

“Yeah . . It’s just something I’ve been playing around with,” his answer comes out in a pillowy tone. It has changed ever since . . since I’d run away from him, and I hear it now as he speaks his reply.

“I really . . really like it,” I comment, looking towards the ceiling when his grandfather’s Gibson acoustic grows hazy in my eyes.

“Thank . . you. Hey, what is it? Did your dad say something that upset you?” it had been so long since I’d heard that steely edge absent from his voice. I don’t know why I mourned it, because it was my fault it had ever arrived in the first place. Wasn’t it? “Becks.”

“Yeah, he said a lot of things th-that made sense, actually,” I confess, dropping my head to stare at my fingers that I wring. I’m unable to ignore the feeling of my lips trembling against each other, despite busying myself with adjusting my rings. They stop when I arrive at the one that speaks volumes, and how deeply I’d ignored it.

Braving the storm, I finally look at him. His greens are patient and soft, something neither of our eyes have been for the other for awhile now. Without breaking eye contact, he settles his guitar onto its stand and discards the pad of paper.

“Harry, c-can I have a hug?” slowly, the overdue question comes.

“Of course,” he responds, a corner of his mouth quirking up. Already, he’s holding his arms out towards me. “You’ve never needed to ask, buggie.”

“Thank you,” I murmur, feeling the air whoosh out of me when my body touches his. Somehow, my chest shakes harder with a new sob. It only worsens when his hands come under my thighs, lifting me up to sit on his lap.

“It’s been so long since we’ve hugged,” I know he doesn’t mean to, but it feels like a chasm through my chest when he says that. The guilt that had arrived at my dad’s words increases by tenfold.

“I’m sorry,” it’s but a whisper against his neck, my favorite place for hide and seek. But it was always him seeking me, it had been for months now, and I hadn’t let him win. Not once.

“What?”

“I’m so sorry for everything, Harry,” I repeat, pulling back to find his greens swarmed by tears. Swiping my thumb under them, I catch the way that they leak with sadness. “For how horribly I’ve treated you this last month, and how . . how I forgot that you- you lost our baby too.”

“Oh, honey. You don’t have to-,” he begins, adamant in his apology. One that I won’t accept.

“No, but I do have to apologize,” I sob, surprised at the way I’m shocked by the rough feeling of his cheeks. It had been so long since I’d touched him like this, despite watching him grow his beard out. “My dad, he . . he put it into perspective for me. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before, I hate myself for that, for-.”

“Hey, don’t hate yourself for anything. This last month has been a Hell we never thought we’d have to endure. Something we shouldn’t have to deal with, and one that isn’t our fault,” he insists, thumbing at the place where a dimple would usually fall in my left cheek. I’d forgotten it was there, just like I’d done the same to him.

“But all you’ve been doing is trying to take care of me, and I made that so hard for you,” comes my cry against his palm, feeling the way he holds me together from breaking for the thousandth time. No, that would imply I’d have been put back together, but that wasn’t something I’d done. “You tried to make me eat and I fought you on it until you stopped talking about it. I argued with you and ignored you when you were just trying to keep the world going, but you never stopped, even though I did. You didn’t stop living and loving me when I stopped.”

“Becks, it’s okay,” he repeats, the words sliding into my ears as my hand wanders to his neck. A hoodie with cartoons from our childhoods dons his upper half, tattoos peeking out from the color. I found the charm of his necklace instantaneously, something I could do in the dark.

“But it’s not, Harry. It’s not okay how I treated you. I forgot you and that you’ve been mourning the loss of your child too. Our b-baby,” I whimper, sniffling when I inhale uneasily. My fingers shake before me until he takes hold of my hand, surrounding it with his own before pressing it to his lips. “I’m so sorry.”

“I forgive you, Becks. I always will,” Harry says, tucking his chin over my head when I melt against him. “I meant it that first night after we came home and you disappeared on me . . We lost our baby, our child, and I can’t . . I can’t lose you too, Rebecca. I have, time and time again, and I can’t do it again. I’ve hardly stayed pieced together lately being so far away from each other like we have . . God, the only thing that kept me going was just thinking, ‘one more day’ for so many days.”

Hiccuping, my hands brace themselves against his taut back, feeling his own drift along my spine. Shaking my head against the crook of his neck, I struggle to breathe, let alone speak, “I’m so sorry, Harry. I can’t believe how awful I was to you. We’re supposed to get married soon, and I can’t even live up to that in sickness and health part of the vows.”

He continued to murmur assurances that everything was okay, and for the first time in a long while, I found myself believing him. Crying against his neck, I heard his own shed tears onto mine as my hands rubbed circles into his shoulders.

“I’m sorry I got mad at you that day for going to work, even though you asked me and I said it was okay . . And-.”

“Shhh, it’s okay. You don’t have to do that, Becks,” he assures me, pressing a kiss to my head. Again, I believe him, and it feels easier to breathe. Just in the slightest.

“I was such a bitch to you.”

Something sparks inside of my chest at the sound I hear next, one that had been lost along the way. His laugh. His song.

“I’ve been known to be quite the dick on one or two occasions, as well,” I savor the glint that appears in his eyes upon pulling away. It had been one of the first times I was able to lift my head since before all of this had happened, because it had been better just to hide. No, not now.

The quirk to his lips is a full on tilt now, and through them, I’m reminded of what drew me to this man in the first place. It was those eyes and that smile that made me melt upon impact. Well, then there’s the sunshine they share, and how I taste it when his lips meet mine for really the first time in what, a month. Emotion pulls at me from somewhere underneath at the thought, but he makes me forget rather quickly. He’s always been good at that.

His peppermint chapstick sticks to my lips after he’s pulled away several seconds later, trying to catch his breath. The cobwebs have been dusted away in more ways than one, and it feels weird at first, wrong almost, but I laugh. It catches him by surprise too and his eyes focus on me, and only grow brighter.

“I’ve missed kissing you, and laughing with you,” Harry grins, pressing one more to my lips before brushing his nose against mine.

“So have I. I’m s-.”

“I swear, if you say that word one more time,” he tuts, shaking his head with his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to figure out something,” he says, sighing for the dramatic effect. I giggle along with him a moment later, remembering the flecks of gold hidden in his eyes. I remember a lot, too much almost, and the gold is gone as my eyes flood once more. “I know it’s hard, Becks. Something has never been this difficult for me . . for you either. But we have to talk, and I’ve been aching for ages now to talk to you . . I don’t want to ignore it, because they shouldn’t be forgotten. Our daughter. We need to talk about them, about her,” I’m nodding before he can finish, feeling his warm lips against my forehead as I focus on my breaths. “In and out, bug. In and out. We can do this. We’ll start slow.”

I haven’t stopped nodding, but once my lungs start to work again, I pull away and find his eyes once more. It comes to me and I can’t hold it back in anymore, knowing I need to say it first. To tell him.

“Okay, let’s talk about o-our daughter,” I begin, cringing at the sound of my voice breaking already. He nods, cupping my face in his palm, the sweetest of looks on his face.

[meowdymista]

Van der Driscoll Pt9

Part 8 - Masterlist

"I didn’t know they did table service here," teases Tilly, sitting down with you and Hosea to eat.

The man chuckles in response. “Could you imagine them selling this stuff in a restaurant? Stew du jour?”

You let them chatter as you pull apart a bread roll. Right now, you would rather be tucking into spitroast turkey than the bowl of mulch Hosea so kindly provided you, but you don’t complain. Your ears are straining to translate Charles' hushed conversation with Dutch.

You and Charles had begun to relay your findings to Dutch and Hosea when you had wobbled. Calling Miss Tilly to take you to the round table south of camp, Hosea had soon followed you to make sure you put food into your stomach for “the two of you”. You haven’t been back long, and Charles was still talking with Dutch. Your grip tightened around the spoon. Every minute they spent talking about it was another lost on a search for Arthur.

Voices sound on the other side of the tents. The three of you stop eating and look over.

“Miss Jackson, would you mind checking on the commotion?” asks Hosea casually, his hand outstretched to stop you jumping to your feet, but Dutch striding out of his tent, arms outstretched is plenty confirmation enough.

Relief hits you so hard, you feel as though you’ve been sedated. Meeting the old man’s crinkled brown eyes, you let out a huge sigh.

“Looks like he’s back,” he smiles. “Let him get Dutch up to speed before we go over. You still need to finish that bowl before I excuse you.”

“Miss Grimshaw, I need help!” Dutch’s voice cracks as it carries over the camp. Hosea is no longer looking at you, but looking out at the commotion. “Reverend Swanson?”

You spot Tilly running back over looking unusually worried.

“What’s happening?” asks Hosea as soon as she’s within earshot.

“Swanson!” cries Dutch again.

“It’s Arthur!” she pants. “He fell off his horse an-”

Arthur’s cry is almost a scream. By the time you make it over, Pearson and Dutch have all but dragged him over the grass and onto his bed. “You are safe now, Arthur… you’re safe now…”

“That’s pretty, Dutch.” He rasps out a half crazed chuckle. "That’s reeeaaal pretty.”

“What the hell happened?” demands Hosea.

“Colm happened,” Dutch growls.

“Colm? How could Colm happen? You said he was right behind you!”

“He was!” he argues fiercely, as you push past him to kneel at the head of the bed, brushing the hair from the sweat condensed on his forehead. “Those O’Driscoll rats must have grabbed him afterwards, while he was wandering-”

“Mr Morgan needs medical attention,” Miss Grimshaw announces with a glare at the arguing elders of the group. “Now! Where’s Strauss? Someone bring me his medical supplies!”

Dutch is ushered from under the cover of the tent, leaving Hosea to help Susan divvy up the responsibilities - he sends Karen to get clean water, Mary Beth to get it on the boil, and Tilly to grab whatever herbs and medicines she can find. Bill takes over the watch in case Arthur’s been followed into camp, and Charles rides out to town to locate the Austrian.

Within an hour, Strauss is climbing off the back of Taima, shaking his head as Miss Grimshaw gushes questions. You move away, watching from the foot of the bed as he inspects the wound as best he can with a nearby lantern.

“It’s too dark to work on this yet, Miss Grimshaw,” he announces, his beady eyes concerned as they survey the suffering fever of Arthur’s face. “He’s going into shock from the wound, regardless. I wouldn’t want to upset it further.”

“What does that mean?” you ask, but they are communicating silently, despairingly, even as they prop his feet into the air. You jump as a hand grips your shoulder, patting it clumsily.

“It’s going to be a long night,” the Reverend slurs, flattening his crazed hair, his bloodshot eyes layered with fear and regret. “He won’t be alone if you’d rather not stay.”

“God’s sake, Reverend! We don’t need you drinking right now!” snaps Miss Grimshaw, raking her cheeks with the back of her hands.

“Is he going to be ok?” Your voice is barely audible over the rattling of Arthur’s shaky breathing.

“It isn’t looking all that good, Miss,” the Reverend replies when no one else will. “I have my… supply… if he needs it.”

“It could ease his suffering,” muses Strauss. “Perhaps levy some of the fever. Bring it all.”

“All?” repeats the Reverend, but Miss Grimshaw is barking again, smacking him out of the tent as she reels off favours Arthur has pulled to help him out. (“And bring back a chair for Miss LN! I don’t need to be tending to swollen ankles on top of everything else right now!”)

“Isn’t there something we can do?” Your voice cracks as you stroke his hair. He’s awfully pale, his breathing shallow and barely moving the stubble around his lips.

“We can wait.” Strauss packs away his instruments and puts them aside. “Wait to see if he pulls through. If he makes it to the morning, we will be able to get a better idea of what we’re dealing with and how bad the infection is. Perhaps then we will be able to treat it. For now, however...”

“What if he doesn’t?” A flash of pity peeks over the small lenses of his glasses. The world spins as your inner organs dissolve. Before you can stagger, Miss Grimshaw has pushed a chair under you. You catch a glimpse of Dutch as darkness encroaches. His arms are at his side, and as you try to call out on Arthur’s behalf, he turns around and walks away.

*****

Pain. A deep ache in his bones, in his muscles, in his hips and shoulders and neck.

Movement makes stars erupt before his eyes, the grunt that slips through bringing his attention to how dry his mouth and throat are. He all but has to crack his tongue to his lips, to no avail.

His cough is dry - the air moves without friction through his throat and out of his mouth. No phlegm, no mucus, just air moving through a dry windpipe. The jolt of life crunches his ribs and sparks blinding, deafening pain in his left shoulder. Copper licks drily at his hand, calming him, bringing him out of the fog and back into reality.

Opening his eyes is difficult. They’re thick with rest, his eyeballs rolling in their sockets trying to move aside the cloudiness that’s coated them overnight. Light burns through the cracks at every attempt, nothing quite discernable, no texture beyond moggy fuzz.

His ears twitch at the familiar voice:-

“-still you have not told me…. He… Heathcliff. How C... Cath… Catherine is left be… behind? Behind!

“I had Cathy by the hand, and was… ur... urging her on, when all at once she fell down. ‘Run, Heathcliff, run!’ she… she whisp- she whispered. ‘They have let the bull dog… lose? Loose!, and he holds me.’ The dog was… was pulled off. His huge, purple - ton… ton… tongue? His purple tongue hanging half a foot out of his mouth. The man took Cathy up. She was sick. Not from fear, I’m… I’m certain, but from pain.”

Arthur tries to open his eyes again, but still can’t see clearly. He’s struggling to place the name through the swirling memories of red hair and the green bowler hat that accompany the voice.

“Morgan?”

A loud gasp sounds right beside his head, making him flinch with surprise. Copper’s wet nose turns into fingers and hands pulling at his arm, making him yelp out muddled expletives as stars flash brighter than before.

“Arthur? Arthur?”

“W-Where am I?”

“Arthur!” You release his hand, wringing out the cloth suspended in the basin of water and using it to wipe his eyes. Eventually they stay open long enough for the blue and greens of his irises to drink in your face.

“Y/N…” He raises his left arm to touch you, but grunts and lowers it back down. You shush him, pushing his arm back onto the cot and leaning your weight against it to stop him trying again.

“Arthur!” A laugh escapes your stomach, sounding shrill from the lack of use. “Arthur! Are you ok? I can’t believe you’re awake!”

“I can’t believe…” He coughs again, prompting you to wet his lips with the cup of water on his bedside. “Is that Sean reading from an actual book?”

“I told yer, din’t I? Didn’t I tell you, Y/N? I said bet ya anything Morgan cracks his eyes open while I’m readin’ to youse.”

“Are you alright? Can I get you anything?”

He gives you a soft and tired smile, patting your hands with his good arm. “Knock me out again before he talks me into my grave.”

Arthur smirks at the horror on your face, but Sean is stood up behind you, jabbing his finger in his direction as he replants the green bowler hat on his head.

“I’ve been doin’ yer job for yer whilst you’ve been snoozing! Might not ‘ave been readin’ the same story the author intended, like, but-”

Arthur frowns, confused and growing defensive. “You been hittin’ on my woman, Macguire?”

“Pfft! As if she’d let me! Y/N needed a gentleman’s voice to soothe the wain inside her, and since you was otherwise engaged, gettin’ kidnapped an’ all, I figured I’d best step in. You owe me a pretty penny for me labours, Mr Morgan!” He tips his hat, nodding when you ask him to let Hosea and Miss Grimshaw know Arthur’s awake.

“What he say? The baby’s kickin’?”

You laugh breathily, unable to keep the smile from your face as you trace the lines of his face. “I might have twisted the truth,” you admit, pride pricking your chest. “I started a little while back. I know Lenny wants him to practice his reading, so I mentioned you were reading to me and the baby…” Arthur frowns, trying to recall your claims. Your smirk widens. “And since I can’t read myself…”

“I’m sure I’ve seen you readin’ the paper before?”

You laugh loudly before you can stop yourself. “Well Sean hasn’t, so don’t go snitching on me!”

A dull twinkle sparkles in the back of his eyes as he groans, stretching the parts of his body he can move without further injury. “Winnin’ over Dutch’s Boys one by one, eh?”

“If only Mrs Adler could be so easily persuaded,” you sigh. Arthur throws you a questioning look, but Miss Grimshaw marches in before you can elaborate.

“Mr Morgan! Good to see you back with us!”

“How long I been out?”

“Long enough that we thought we was gonna lose you.” You move down the bed, releasing Arthur’s hand but maintaining contact with his leg at all times. You still need to feel the warmth of his skin and the subtle movements of muscle to keep you assured that he’s still here, and still alive. Miss Grimshaw’s checks are brief, and you both get lectured for not finishing the water on the side, but Arthur is already drifting off again by the time she leaves.

“Stay wi’me?” he mumbles, searching feebly for your hand. You move it into his path and smile as he grips it with his remaining strength.

“Always, Arthur.”

***

The following six weeks are the quietest you’ve had in over six months. Everybody gives you space to be together, recognising the time frame for Arthur’s rehabilitation into his outlaw ways and also out of respect for your expanding stomach.

Naturally, his feet get itchy with all the sitting around, so you push his journal onto him. Within a week, he has delicate detailed studies of everyone in camp, including several of you (not all of them with clothing). When he gets some of his strength back, you begin to take walks along the shore, talking about old memories and catching him up on what he’s missed. You reflect on what it could be like if you got out of this life - not that you would. Arthur had his roots deep in this gang, woven into so many of the men and some of the women here, you know that no matter how far you travelled, he would still come back to them somehow, some day.

Eventually Arthur asks you how you’ve been getting on with everybody whilst he’s been resting or unconscious. You admit you spent most of the time at his side, only eating when Hosea or Abigail brought you some dinner and something to drink. You’ve played a lot of dominoes with both of them, read every book in camp, been scorned repeatedly for neglecting your chores (though a part of you feels like Miss Grimshaw was relieved Arthur had someone constantly at his side). Whilst Lenny and Charles have warmed to you a little, Sadie, Javier, and Bill have remained suspicious, most likely because of your quiet escapade to look for Arthur. You’ve overheard whispers around camp that Arthur returned so soon after you because you made a deal with Colm. That some O’Driscoll boys grabbed him, so you could prove yourself trustworthy and get in closer to hand Dutch off to Colm directly.

You don’t mention this to Arthur because you know he doesn’t need to be worked up more after the truth of the ordeal. He has already told you what really happened after he left Dutch and Micah. Colm knew Dutch wouldn’t go walking into an open air parlay without his best shot, so he had created the entire folly to catch Arthur with the intention of enraging Dutch into being careless. 

Your stomach sinks as you remember the image of Dutch walking away from Arthur’s lucid body and the way he fought so hard against any mention of a rescue mission. You keep your lips pressed together. The leader has shown you more leniency and acted less bitter about your presence of late. Funnily enough, your trust in him has waned further - if it weren’t Arthur’s unwavering faith in the man, you would be dragging him out now whilst he was still weak.

One evening, whilst Arthur is getting dressed into dry clothes after your swim, you pass just as Miss Grimshaw stops to greet Uncle and a couple of other men around the fire.

“How you gentlemen keeping?” she asks pleasantly

“Fine, Miss Grimshaw, and you?”

“Just fine, sir, just fine.”

“I must say,” says Uncle. “All this adventuring and wandering over mountain passes, being chased and running for our lives… Surely agrees with you.” He chuckles as thoughtfully as the old man is able. “If I didn’t know, I would think you was the same age as them silly girls.”

“Oh! Away with you, silly man!” she scorns, clearly flattered.

“Oh no, no. Well, if I was five years younger and a thousand dollars richer, well I’d marry you… Make a dishonest woman of you, I would. And that would be the best decision I ever took! You’re a fine woman. You keep it hidden under that sour vinegar face and nasty acid tongue, but I know that’s just a rose’s thorns.”

She tuts. “You’re a silver-tongued flatterer and no mistake.”

“Oh, now I tell the truth, ma’am!”

“I must get back to my work,” she scowls, marching off in the direction of Miss Tilly and Mrs Adler.

With your eyebrows lost in your hairline, you hurry back to the tent, pushing Arthur back through the flaps.

“You will never believe what I just heard!” you hiss. Immediate concern clouds his gaze, but you’re already recalling Miss Grimshaw’s reaction to Uncle’s flirting. He laughs, relaxing as he pulls you into a hug.

“She ain’t interested in him,” he assures you.

“I bet you ten bucks if he asks her out, she’ll say yes!”

“Huh, you’re on!” He’s still smirking as he shakes your hand. “You didn’t see her twenty years ago. There’s no way she’d go from Dutch all the way down to Uncle. She’ll give Micah the time of day until he twists it into some insult, but still, there’s Micah and then there’s Uncle.”

Nevertheless, a few days later, you and Arthur are talking quietly by the stew, sipping on coffee, pondering what to do with your day - perhaps some hunting, perhaps some light pickpocketing - when suddenly Uncle calls to Miss Grimshaw across camp.

“There you are!”

“Me?”

“You.”

“Me?” repeats Miss Grimshaw, clearly as confused as the pair of you.

“Yes, you!” Uncle strolls up to her. “When you gonna let me take you out for an evening, into town, you know, to a - like a magic lantern show or some such?”

“Well, I don’t- I think-” She moves past him to sit on the nearby crate. “I’m getting a little long in the tooth for-!”

“Oh, nonsense! How about tomorrow?”

“Well, let me think.”

“So… that’s a yes?” asks Uncle, leaning forward hopefully. Miss Grimshaw looks at him again, hesitantly, until her shoulders relax, bearing a little vulnerability.

“Okay,” she says finally, her usually hard features softening.

“Well… now, if I’m gonna go out with you, I’m gonna have to look my best, so… Can I borrow ten dollars?”

You and Arthur are too stunned to even snort. Miss Grimshaw stare is icy.

“Can I borrow a few dollars?” tries Uncle. “I’m good for it.”

She turns her head to the pair of you gawping over your morning coffee. A part of you has frozen with regret - in the same second of her showing her softer side she’s immediately been smited with poor etiquette from the stinkiest member of the gang.

“Borrow money?” she asks, voice shaking. You see the rage building behind her eyes as she looks back at Uncle with disgust. “Oh, you horrible man!” she snarls, marching away as Uncle shrugs at you and Arthur.

“Can’t blame a feller for trying,” he chuckles, shuffling off in search of another bottle.

“That’s low, Uncle,” calls Arthur despairingly.

“I’m a bit short right now!” he replies, daring to sound surprised and a little hurt.

“You sure know how to impress the ladies,” he comments, nudging you towards the shore. “Alright, well, we should be getting on.”

“Alright then!”

You gawp at Arthur unable to keep the laugh of disbelief inside. “That what you expected?”

“I don’t even know what to expect no more,” he chuckles despite himself, pressing a cup of coffee into your hand. “Guess I owe you a few bucks.”

“I’m almost disappointed,” you admit as you take a sip, taking Arthur’s arm as he leads you through the tents and caravans. “Never would have thought it, but… If it weren’t for that I woulda pegged them for an alright couple.”

“God forbid she whip him into shape, or he loosen her standards. Might give the girls a bit of relief if Miss Grimshaw got some though.”

“Is that what everyone thinks of you, Mr Morgan?” you tease.

“Well, it came with complications in the end, din’t it?” he retorts, a secret smile in his eyes just for you. “Though Hosea reckons I’d gotten soft before the big O’Driscoll reveal.”

“Softer now you can’t shoot, that’s for sure.” You plant a kiss on the side of his shoulder, taking care not to knock the healing wound.

“Ah, for now.” He takes a deep breath as you reach the water’s edge, watching over the horizon. “Think I’d be itching more without you here to distract me.”

“Now you know how I feel!” You kick off your boots, your stockings coming off with them as you hoist your skirts up your calf to keep them dry as you wade in. “It’s hard going from key outlaw to hand maiden, isn’t it?”

“I’m a maiden now, huh?” He catches your hand and tugs you back into his chest, eyes sparkling with mischief. You giggle as he catches your lips with his. “The help ain’t supposed to help themselves to each other, though, are they?”

“I can make an exception, Mr Morgan.”

He hums appreciatively, kissing you again, forehead resting against yours. “I love you, Miss LN. I mean that.”

There’s nothing you can do to stop the heat from filling your cheeks, so you let them glow with colour. “I love you too, Arthur Morgan.”

Suddenly you catch Miss Grimshaw’s shouts over the camp. You sigh miserably as Arthur chuckles to himself.

“Can’t catch a break,” you groan.

Arthur stoops to steal another kiss from you before you begin wading back to shore. “Be careful! She’s gonna be extra fierce after that show!”

Miss Grimshaw works you harder than the other girls, but whether it’s for your witnessing her embarrassment or because she knows Arthur will do at least half the work is anyone’s guess. When Arthur is well enough, you accompany him out hunting for some turkeys and a couple of deer, and the recovery of the gang’s best shot doesn’t go unnoticed by the other men.

Dutch tells him to go find Bill, Micah, and Sean in Rhodes - something about the Greys needing security. Vague, but for a lead from Bill is not surprising. You wish him luck, remind him you love him and to stay safe, and busy yourself with chores to keep your mind occupied. Your stomach is dropping with dread, but you tell yourself he’ll be fine - after all, how many jobs has he been on before the Micah and Dutch fiasco?

You surprise even yourself with how quickly you finish everything Miss Grimshaw asks you too, but you make the most of it, taking the extra free time to go for a swim. Something about being in the water helps your forever aching back and makes you feel like your usual self again instead of some sort of heavy wall even though the curve of your stomach is barely protruding.

You see Jack playing on the shore and promise Abigail you’ll keep an eye on him whilst she finishes her own worklist. You don’t try to teach him how to swim - Arthur had already tried that and almost ripped the few stitches Strauss had managed to put into his shoulder.

You swim a couple of lengths, watching Jack as he follows the shoreline, collecting interesting pebbles and leaves as he goes. Everything looks ok, until you surface and he is nowhere to be found.

“Jack?” You swim towards where you last saw the boy, and notice his small pile of rocks where he’s been building a house of some sort. Your eyes scour the water’s surface, but you can’t see any bubbles or any other hints of movement other than the fish.

Somewhere in the trees, you can hear unfamiliar voices talking calmly, followed by the little boy’s squeak of a voice -

“Jack!” You whistle your horse, cursing the added weight of your drenched underclothes. Sadie comes running through the trees and catches the reins of your horse, pulling him back.

“And where the hell d’you think you’re going?” she cries, her arms over the saddle in an attempt to stop you from mounting. “We got a runaway O’Driscoll over here!” she calls back.

The voices are fading - you need to go now. She ignores your arguments, still struggling with you and shouting for help. With a deep breath, you punch her in the face, making use of the distraction to gallop away despite the screaming and swearing from behind.

“Jack!” you shout. “Jack!”

You can hear hooves following up behind you, so you dig your heels into the stallion’s flanks urging it on faster. You can’t lose his trail.

Red dirt clouds billow behind you as you try to keep an ear out for voices, but with Sadie screaming threats behind you, it’s difficult. You fly by Kieran who’s on foot with a fishing rod resting on his shoulder. He looks confused as hell, but there’s no time for him to ask as you’re gone before he’s properly opened his mouth.

Raking the treeline to no avail, nausea hits you like a freight train. Who the hell would take a little boy from his family? Was Colm really that desperate to trip Dutch Van der Linde? Your horse almost throws you when Sadie cuts you off, forcing you to a halt. Her eyes are wild, blood drying around her nose and across her cheek where she’s smeared it in the struggle.

“Get the hell back to camp,” she spits, cocking her revolver. “If it weren’t for Arthur I would have shot you already.”

“Sadie, move!” You try to get your horse to sidestep her, but she moves her own, blocking your path easily. “It’s Jack!”

“What’s Jack?”

“I don’t know! He was there and then he wasn’t - if Colm’s got him-!”

She falters, looking around as if expecting the boy to jump out from behind a tree, “How’d you know it’s not John or someone taking him for a ride?”

“They wouldn’t just take him, Sadie! They weren’t familiar voices talking to him and-” You choke back the panic, trying to sidestep her horse again. “He’s a boy, Sadie! He’s a fucking little boy! You think what he did to Arthur was bad?”

She purses her lips but turns her horse. “Which way?”

You try to listen out, but the voices have gone. “I don’t know. We should double back and try to track them.”

“We should get some back up-”

“There’s no time, Mrs Adler!” you hiss. “Go back if you want, but I gotta keep going! I gotta find him!” She tries to protest, but your voice breaks as you shout - “Do you really think I can go back to camp without him?”

****

Returning to camp, heavy with grief and the prospect of informing you of Sean’s fate in Rhodes, Arthur isn’t all that surprised to find a group forming outside Dutch’s tent. What does take him by surprise is Dutch asking him if he’s seen Jack, of all things, followed by a distraught Abigail shouting and making threats if her son is not returned to her immediately.

A missing boy shakes up his priorities, and there is no hesitation as he rides out to Braithwaite Manor with the other men in camp. If anything, a small part of him is relieved to delay telling you about your best friend. Your very first friend after Arthur, you two had been close and Arthur knew having Sean made riding with the Van der Lindes bearable. In all truth, the dread in Arthur’s stomach was whether you would want to stay without someone else watching your back.

He puts it out of his mind, and with the manor fully ablaze, returns to camp with the gang, still focused on a plan of action. The sun is rising and the flaps to the tent are closed. He leaves you to sleep as he talks with Abigail, John, Dutch and Hosea about a game plan to recover Jack from this Angelo Bronte figure Mrs Braithwaite had confessed about.

The Pinkertons walking straight into camp and threatening to return with an army puts another delay on his talking with you. What good is checking in on you if you’re all dead? When Dutch sends him out with John to check Shady Belle is clear for the gang to set up camp, he seizes the opportunity whilst promising himself this will be the very last delay. Whilst trying to comfort John, he can’t help but let his mind wander to you. With Sean dead and buried and the camp being packed up in such a hurry, you must be feeling pressured, if not completely overwhelmed. Swallowing his guilt, he remembers you telling him that the gang will always come first. It makes him itch. You should be his priority - you are his whole world, and if he lost you because he was looking out for everyone else…

For the first time, he considers leaving the gang. When Hosea had asked whether he was thinking of getting out of the life on their ride to hunt a legendary grizzly bear, he was honest when he said of course not. Mostly because even though he could feel himself falling in love with you after a few coincidental meetings in Valentine, he never dreamed his feelings would be requited. Even after recognising you through your O’Driscoll get up, even after trying to ship you out of harm’s way and finding out your relationship was developing its own personality inside you, leaving his life as an outlaw wasn’t on the table.

Now, something was changing. How could he be the man you deserved if he was chasing after other people? Of course he wants Jack home safe as much as John or Abigail, but the guilt won’t excuse him for not talking to you yet. They needed him, but so did you.

“Welcome home, all of ya,” he shouts up the drive as the caravans and wagons roll up to the front door of the abandoned plantation house. “To my humble abode! Ignore the corpses and the alligators, it’s paradise…”

“I love it!” cries Dutch, arms outstretched and his grin stretched wider. “Miss Grimshaw, Mr Pearson, would you two kindly… work your magic? Arthur, take a ride with me?”

“Sure, just give me a minute?” It doesn’t escape Dutch’s notice that Arthur is counting the faces. “I should talk to Y/N, make sure she’s alright.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” bluffs Dutch, but Arthur is craning his neck.

“Where is she? You leave her behind?”

“Of course not, Arthur, she’s with Sadie.”

“With Sadie?” Arthur’s lips thin, eyes darkening with suspicion. “Why the hell she with Sadie?”

Hosea walks up, already poker faced. “They just needed to finish up a little something. Nothing serious.”

“I’m sure, but Sadie?” He looks between them, concern creeping into the lines of his face. “Mrs Adler ain’t too friendly with her for her running with the O’Driscolls.”

“Dutch!” Molly comes running up between the wagons as Hosea ushers Arthur onto his horse. “Can I have a word with ye?”

“Not now! Come on, Arthur.”

Reluctantly, Arthur follows Dutch out of camp, only half listening to him as he curses her request to “talk”, talking about their future, the plan to recover Jack, the possibility of a life away from America. When they ride up to the bridge, what’s left of Arthur’s stomach flops with dismay.

“Big cities… they’re…”

“Always repellent?” Arthur nods his head. “I’ll find you in there.” He pulls The Count off onto another path, leaving Arthur on the bridge. “Go see what you can figure out.”

“Yes,” murmurs Arthur, bracing himself as he trots his horse through the slums. “If you find me before nightfall, that is.”

[retvenkos]

ahhhh congrats on 2.5k! i am in fact using this as an excuse to put sommat in ur ask box (bc i certainly haven’t always wanted to but been too scared nO) 🔥- mayhaps.... a ship for Harry Potter, a series of unfortunate events and the marauders era (also Harry Potter lol). idm what gender the person is btw. I love to read, write about anything that comes to mind, write poetry, I love musical theatre, and my fav genre of music is songs that make you want to throw urself into a bog in the best kinda way. im smart, quite anxious, low-key a train wreck, I’m so sarcastic it’s bad, m pretty well-liked and kind sometimes. and i don’t like when ppl cross boundaries that have been clearly set out, or those foam banana sweets. other stuff is that I’m a Ravenclaw, intj, secretly a 7 year old. thank you!!! and well done again on 2.5k! (that’s a crazy number homie. not surprised they follow u but it’s a lot 😳)

I don’t write for “A Series of Unfortunate Events” so I can’t do a ship for that show, sorry!

HP Golden Trio:

I ship you with Ginny Weasley!

okay, quick side note but you would be best friends with michael corner, you cannot convince me otherwise. in my mind, michael corner is the most sarcastic ravenclaw and generally a disaster, and the two of you together would be peak friendship.

first of all, you’re both hella intelligent, even if it’s not the first thing people recognize, and you both have strong wills - you are a power couple if i’ve ever seen one.

i 100% believe that ginny is shocked by your sarcasm at first. you’re introverted and a little shy when you first meet people, so she wasn’t expecting you to come out with the big guns, but when you do she loves it. the two of you can rip apart anyone you come up against.

but, what’s also good about you guys is that you are also kind and pretty charismatic, when you want to be. you both are softer underneath your intense independence, and so in the vulnerable moments, the two of you can lean on each other for help.

ginny is a music lover, but i don’t imagine she’s too into musicals, so the two of you definitely do some music hunting together, finding songs that both of you adore. due to your natural curiosity, you’re open to new music, which is good because ginny has some that are very near and dear to her, and she can be just a little stubborn when it comes to her tried and trues.

we all know that ginny is the biggest extrovert we’ve ever met, and you’re more of an introvert, which is going to be interesting, to say the least. the redeeming quality here, though, is that you are fairly versatile and so is ginny, so both of you are willing to try out what the other loves.

i imagine that you were friends for a long while before you got together - and that happened kind of naturally, with ginny telling you, once she realized it - so you’ve definitely figured out activities that the two of you do well together.

but, both of you value your independence and are totally fine for the other to do something without you - as long as they bring you food after, or at the very least, a good story.

i think that ginny loves your way with words - your writing and poetry is something she finds very sweet and interesting. she’s never been one to pour her heart on on a page, and to see you do that is something really special.

(don’t @ me, ginny send harry that poem when she was in her first year and then never did so again. she probably got a really bad taste in her mouth for writing down the her feelings - the diary, anyone?)

at least once, you have convinced ginny to try and write poetry, but she insists that it comes out all wrong - she’d much rather use something like songs - ideas already written down - to profess her love for you.

there’s a lot of dancing in the living room in your relationship, the music on full blast.

HP Marauder Era:

I ship you with Remus Lupin!

i kind of went in the opposite direction, but stick with me.

alright, so we all know that remus is an awkward mess when he’s first meeting people, but then he has the (quiet) confidence to rival his fellow marauders once he’s warmed up to you. i imagine you are much the same way, so i’m going to say that the two of you end up meeting because you have a class together and end up being partners after the marauders get split up. maybe charms? either way, the two of you meet and over the course of the week that you work together, you become comfortable and get to know each other alright.

but then, because i am a cruel writer, you don’t properly talk again until you are in the same apparition class. the two of you definitely see each other in the halls or you pass in the library and you’re kind to one another, but you don’t have drawn out conversations until you are learning to apparate, and you are terrified that you are going to get splinched.

(which is a valid fear, tbh, remember how susan bones legit lost a leg? and poor ron?)

remus is, again, assigned to be your partner (no doubt mcgonagall told the instructor to split up the marauders) and having been well versed in coping with paralyzing fear, he help you calm down and over the course of the class, gets you to apparate multiple times (enough to get your license) without having a single accident.

it’s also during this time that the two of you start hanging out more. a couple times the two of you skip lunch (which is right after your class) and head to the library or courtyard to work on homework or studying. you’re very clever and very creative in the way that you study, so you are a big help to remus, who is perpetually behind in school work.

and on your little study dates (which are not dates, it’s not like remus has had a crush on you for years or anything) you both realize that together your sarcasm is unparalleled. it’s enough to shock lily evans, who is known for her sharp tongue.

and you realize you really like this side of remus - you love all of his soft kindness, of course, but this? this is legendary. remus doesn’t hold back and his comments never fail to make you scoff and laugh in disbelief. he can be so savage in his remarks - it now makes sense why he is friends with the marauders.

eventually, you hear the marauders teasing him mercilessly about his crush on you - “ever since you were charms partners in 3rd year, moony!” - and he doesn’t even deny it.

and so you bring it up in some roundabout way the next time you’re walking to the quidditch pitch (you often keep him company when he has to support james’ matches) and remus stumbles over his confession, but you kiss him right as the game starts (and james is too busy rooting for remus that he gets hit with a bludger)

i can 100% see you and remus hanging out in the ravenclaw tower (it’s one of the few places he can go to escape his friends), reading or working on homework while listening to music. 

he especially loves musicals, and the two of you debate over what song in the show is the best, and whether contemporary musicals are better than golden age musicals. a lot of the time he’ll play devil’s advocate just because he loves the fervor with which you defend your opinions. 

[joaquinwhorres]

Dangerous (Steve Harrington x Mayfield!Reader)

Summary: Ever since you were little, people tended to underestimate just how badass you were. You never expected that moving to Hawkins, Indiana would be the thing to convince people that you were more than just a pretty face. Read the sequel. And the final installment.

Request:hello lovely!! first off just wanted to say i love all your stories, they're so well written and just wonderful to read. i was wondering if u would pls be able to write a steve fic and the reader is max's older sister but she's super feminine and always wears really cool outfits that r a bit impractical and steve kind of undermines her because of that but she is actually such a badass and max tries to tell everyone but they dont rly buy it until she idk saves from a demogorgon or?? up to u xxx also ( i just sent u a request about a mayfield!reader) and the idea kind of came to me because i feel like often times badass and strong and independent female characters cant also be feminine and girly you know??? anyway feel free if u want to write it like obvs u dont have to (can u tell i have never requested a fic before lmao) to do whatever i trust u and ur capabilities haha xxxx

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Mayfield!Reader (Friends)

Word Count: 5,005

Author's Note:  This one stumped me. I can usually sit down and write in one or two sittings. But I kept coming back and chipping away at this one. Many thanks to @hargroovin for looking over this and making sure it was ready for posting. Hopefully, Sweet Requester, you like it.

Warnings: Language. Some minor violence at the end.

Whenever she was asked about her two daughters, your mother liked to launch into a pair of stories to describe you. At this point, it was almost a performance piece, what with the way she had nailed down the timing and the intonations and the facial expressions she would use at certain points. She had given the monologue so many times that you could clearly visualize it in your head, and pretty soon, you'd be able to take over for her.

She would start with a story about Max.

"Maxine is my youngest. You've probably seen her on her skateboard, zooming around town." (The skateboard was a relatively new addition to the story within the past four years. Before that it was roller skates, and before that she was simply running.)

"She's always been like that–always on the move, can't stay still for more than fifteen seconds. I swear," here your mother would lay a hand over her heart, "she goes by Max because she doesn't want to stick around long enough for the second half of her name." This would be followed by polite laughter and maybe some nodding. "You know, that reminds me of this one story. When Max was about seven and a half months old, she went missing. One morning I came into her room to check in on her since she had usually woken me up by then, and she was gone. I ran back to Jerry and woke him up in a panic, and he said that he had woken up in the middle of the night to check on her but he had put her back in the crib and she was fine. Anyway, we ran out into the hallway calling for her, hoping she would make some sound, and then all of the sudden we heard these little footsteps and I looked up to see Max toddling out of Y/N's room. Seven and a half month's old and she was walking! Independently!" There would be gasps here and some form of "No."

"I swear," your mother would hold up a hand. "She walked straight towards me and threw her little hands up at me to be picked up since I could walk much faster." She would drop her hand and lean back in her seat with a smile. "After that our house constantly looked as if it'd been hit by an earthquake." Your mother and the other person would laugh politely.

"Seems like you've got a little trouble maker on your hands," the person would inevitably say.

"Ohhhh, yes, but Maxine's the least of my problems." Your mother would look at you in your pink dress with white stockings and Mary Janes (or, as you got older, your floral leggings, frilly sweater,  and oversized blazer). "Y/N is the dangerous one."

"I'm sure that's not true," the other person would shoot you a smile, pinching a dimpled cheek or tugging on a braid or patting your knee. Then they would cast a dubious look at Max with her mop of wildly curly red hair and consider the fact that she had not been still for a single moment since they entered this conversation with your mother while you sat quietly by her side, legs neatly crossed.

"Don't let her looks deceive you," your mother would shake her head. "Let me tell you about this one time, Y/N was six years old at the time, so that would make Max about two. I had just gotten back from food shopping, and the neighbor who was watching them told me that the girls were playing in Y/N's room and that they had been well behaved and she hadn't heard a peep out of them. Well, of course, it's never a good sign when my girls are quiet, so I beelined straight for Y/N's room. And I found them," at this point she was digging through her purse. Of course, this was for show. The picture was tucked safely away in an inside pocket, and she would produce it with a small, triumphant "Aha!" and hand it to the other person.

In the picture, you and Max were sitting on the floor next to your bed. Next to you, three nail polish containers were pouring out various shades of pink onto the carpet. Your mother's make up bag sat in between you, but it had to have been completely empty as every form of make up, brush, and beauty tool was scattered around the two of you. For your part, you were grinning up at your mother, pink cheeked with bright red lips and what looked like almost a lipstick mustache because of how poorly you applied it. You had smudged heaps of purple eyeshadow onto your eyelids, reaching up to your eyebrows. Pinched between your dark pink and light pink little nails was your mother's mascara wand. Across from you, Max was gaping open mouthed at your mother, her lips a similar bright red, but the entire left side of her face was pink and she had green eyeshadow which was delicately blended in with her fair eyebrows. Except, her right eye had dark black smudges across it from where you tried to apply mascara. In her hair, you had had clipped about a half dozen of your mom's curlers.

Reactions ranged from a simple "Oh my!" and stifled giggle to laughing so hard tears fell from their eyes.

"For the life of me, I don't know how she convinced Max to sit still for that long. Or how either of them the reached my make up bag on top of my dresser," your mother would laugh, taking back the picture and zipping it up into its pockets. "But those are my girls for you."

You may have aged twelve years and moved across the country, but you had to admit, the story was still classic you.

After all, you woke up every day an hour earlier than you had to just so you could do your make up and coax your hair into the perfect side pony. And you needed at least 30 minutes to play around with your wardrobe to make sure you had a unique outfit to wear that day. There were 365 days in a year, and you refused to wear the same exact outfit on any single one of them.

Ok, so at around day 300 you had to start getting creative with what counted as the same and what didn't, but the fact remained that you did not repeat outfits. And it wasn't like you had thirty different shirts or forty pairs of pants. Your wardrobe was reasonable. You just had a knack for pairing things that other people may not have considered and what your mother deemed "a natural talent at accessorizing."

Today for instance, you had tied a neon blue bow into your hair (in addition to your black sequined scrunchy), stacked about thirty five jelly bracelets up your arm, and secured yourself into your clothes with two belts.

You were looking totally glam. You had to be. It was the first day at your new school.

"What the fuck are you wearing?" Billy asked looking over at you from his eggs. You rolled your eyes and flipped him off, lifting your spoon to your mouth.

"Why do you care?" Max glared at him over her cereal.

"It's fine, Max," you murmured.

"I have to be seen with you getting out of my car," Billy's lip curled as he looked over at you again. "You should change."

Max opened up her mouth to say something, but was cut off.

"Who needs to change?" your mother asked, lightly, breezing back into the kitchen from the bathroom.

"Billy was worried about his denim on denim look," you looked up at your mom, shooting a brief, tight lipped, smile. "I told him it's very fashion forward."  

"I think you all look great." Your mother bent down and kissed your temple. "Thank you," she whispered in your ear. You just shot another tight lipped smile at Billy.

She moved around the table and kissed Max's head. You guess based on Max's scowl what she whispered—be nice.

Your mother continued around the table and stopped behind Billy, hovering for a second. She patted his shoulder lightly, and Billy's whole body tenses up, his knuckles going white on his grip on his fork. Your mother walked away, but Billy didn't relax. He glared over at you.

"You should probably head out soon," your mother advised. "Don't want to be late to your first day."

Billy shoveled the rest of his eggs into his mouth and then shoved away from the table.

"Your plate, Billy," your mother lightly reminded.

Billy paused, plastering on a smile so fake you wouldn't see it on a Barbie. "Sorry, Susan." His words were a wooden sort of cheery. Billy walked back over, scooping his plate up from the table and dropping it in the sink where it let out a loud clattering sound.

Max muttered something under her breath, and you saved yours, settling for rolling your eyes.

"Thank you, Billy," your mother's voice was at a whisper. Your stomach tightened and your fingernails dug into your hand.

Max looked over at you before standing up and stacking your plate on top of hers, gently placing them both onto Billy's, as the front door banged open, Billy walking out to his car.

"Bye Mom," Max said quietly, following Billy out.

"Bye Mom," you echoed, stopping by her and planting a kiss on her cheek before leaving to go to school.

The first thing you noticed about Hawkins High School was all of the jeans.

The second thing you noticed was all of the sweaters.

At least in California there's been a mix of bad fashion. You'd had the kids who insisted on neon spandex. All. The. Time. And the punk kids. And yeah there were also jeans and t-shirts kids, but at least they had cool slogans.

The kids in Hawkins looked at you, casting derisive and surprised looks. You ignored them, searching the halls for cute boys or a girl who was also familiar with the color pink. Whichever came first.  

Your eyes landed on an attractive boy. He was tall and relatively well dressed in the grand scheme of Hawkins. For one thing, he was definitely pulling off the sunglasses indoors thing, and his hair. His hair was killer.

"Hi, excuse me," you asked, pitching your voice even higher than normal. It was the unspoken way of signaling that you meant no harm, wouldn't be asking if you had someone else to ask, but yes, you were open to being friends.

"Uh," the boy looked over at you, giving you a once over. "Hi."

"Do you know where Mr. Roth's class is? I'm new and can't quite figure my way out around the school."

"Yeah, it's down by Kramer," the boy said, gesturing vaguely down the hall. You had a sinking feeling you'd chosen an attractive asshole rather than the chivalrous attractive.

"And Kramer is...." you trailed off, your voice rising a little bit, edging closer to the "Danger Tone" as Max called it.

"Down the hall, second left. It's one of the doors on the right hand side," he sighed. He looked over at you as you blinked. "Get any of that?"

You gave him your signature tight lipped smile and nodded. Watching as he widened his eyes and sucked in a breath, shaking his head as he turned away.

You wished you could tell him exactly what you thought of him in that moment. But instead you stood there gaping as he walked away. You wished Max was here. She'd have the words to match your one finger raised high.

You saw the attractive asshole again at lunch. You had squeaked when the lunch lady scooped sludge on your tray, earning looks from everyone in line. The Asshole was a few people ahead of you in line and at your sound had looked back at you. His eyes met yours and he scoffed, rolling his eyes. In the back of your mind a small plan formed to trip next to his seat and spill your sludge all over. But as you watched him walk away and sit next to the one girl who had bothered to be nice to you today and help you catch up in math, you decided to give him a pass.

"What the fuck happened to my car?" Billy asked staring at his Camaro. On the driver's side door was a long thin scratch.

You looked over at it as you walked around to the passenger side door. "Piss someone off already, Billy?" you asked in a sweet voice. His eyes shot to you, his gaze darkening.

"You fuckin' bitch," he growled.

"Every time she's been near this car, it's been right behind you. Don't you think you would have seen her key your car?" Max asked, opening the back seat door and climbing in. You followed suit, both of you slamming your doors shut at the same time.

Billy weighed this and decided he was attentive enough that he would have noticed. He wasn't because he didn't.

He hadn't said one word to you when you got out of his car that morning, walked around the back under the guise of letting Max out, and then took out your house key and run it along the side of the car. How he hadn't heard was beyond you. The mullet must have muffled it. Oh well.

You had decided you did like Hawkins ok.  Not as much as your siblings, though. Max seemed to be taking to it fairly well. At first she practically lived at the arcade, but eventually she made friends and even met up with them to go trick or treating. And Billy. Billy had been dubbed the fucking king at that party. It had taken you close to two hours to find any cute boys willing to dance with you. And you had thought your fairy outfit was appropriately sexy meets the Indiana cold. And while word had gotten around that you were a talented kisser and that you had made your debut kissing the popular Todd Collins, you were finally welcomed into a semi-popular group. After several shopping trips and three sleepovers, you convinced your newfound friends of the fun of nail polish and glory of leggings. They had a road ahead of them, but progress.

The most surprising turn was that you and Billy had a common enemy: Steve Harrington. The attractive asshole. Although it was probably more accurate to say that you and Steve had a common antagonist in Billy. Or maybe the boys had a shared distaste of you. Whatever it was, the three of you didn't like each other and you found yourself occasionally admiring the jabs Steve made at Billy's expense and hearing about how Billy had thrown Steve on his ass.

But while you, Max, and Billy had all made friends, none of you expected to hear the doorbell ring on a Friday after school.  

As you were currently shut up in your room painting your nails, and Billy was playing macho-man, lifting weights in the front of the house, You elected to have him answer it.

"Max are you getting that, or what?" Billy shouted out. You should have expected as much. You rolled your eyes taking a deep breath in.

"OK!" Max answered, and you breathed out in relief, thankful for your little sister. You still had three nails left.

The doorbell rang again. Five more times.

"I swear to God, Max!" Billy shouted, and you heard Max storm out of her room, and the doorbell stopped.

You had finished up the last of your nails before Max came back in. You could hear a brief exchange between her and Billy before Max slammed back into her room. You got up from your desk chair, slipping out of your room and knocking on Max's door twice before going in.

"Max!" you gasped, looking at your wide-eyed little sister who was half way in her room and half way out the window.

"Y/N!" Max answered in an equally shocked voice. Her eyes darted over your shoulder. "Close the door!" she hissed.

You hurried into the room, pushing the door shut behind you.

"What—Where—" you stuttered, as Max remained frozen. "Get out of the window!" you finally settled. She acquiesced.

"Max?" A boy's voice drifted up through the open window. Max's eyes grew even wider. She looked as if she's just been caught stealing your mother's car keys.

"Who is that Max?" you asked, lowly. You had a sinking feeling you knew as you crossed to the window.

Lucas Sinclair.

His eyes grew as wide as Max's as he looked up at you.

You turned to Max. "You know I'm a sucker for a good romantic cliche, Max, but are you serious right now?"

"It's not romantic," Max mumbled, her face flushing.

"Look, it's a matter of life or death!" Lucas called up.

"Shhhhh," you hissed. "If Billy hears you, we're all in trouble."

"If it's not romantic, why are you sneaking out your window?"

"He said he has proof that there's some sort of alternate dimension and creepy conspiracy in town," Max looked up at you.

You blanched.

"Max!" Lucas cried out, and you both hushed him.

"Look, you are not sneaking out on your own to hunt down conspiracies about alternate dimensions," you shook your head.

"Y/N," Max started, pleading.

"I'm coming with you," you announced. Max lit up.

"No way," Lucas shook his head. You looked down at him and could see it in the way he looked at your neon pink shirt and thick belt with an admittedly clunky belt buckle. You huffed in a breath.

"Please," Max scoffed. "If you're telling the truth, we need my sister. She's the most bad ass person in this town." You shot a half smile at her and she returned it.

"Fine, just come on. We have to go!" This boy was one antsy little sucker.

"Max, go with him. I'll grab my skates."

It was surprisingly easy to sneak out of the house. All you had to do was walk straight out the door and tell him Dana was here and you were going shopping.

He hardly even looked up to notice you were walking out of the house with your backpack on.

It had been slightly harder to keep up with Lucas Sinclair on your way to the mystery destination because that boy could pedal.

The three of you stopped at the top of a hill, leading to a junk yard. Below you saw a small boy with a red, white, and blue hat and…

"Shit," you swore as Lucas called out to his friends. Max looked up at you, and pulled a face as if you were crazy. "It's the asshole," you muttered to her, as she turned back to look with you at Steve Harrington. You descended down the hill, trailing behind Lucas and Max as you came up to the boys. Hat-boy was looking between Lucas and Max with a mixture of shock and disappointment. It was a look you were all too familiar with, and your heart went out to him.

Even if he was hanging out with the likes of Steve Harrington.

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked, looking at you skeptically. He crossed his arms, and you matched him. You noticed the Hat-boy pulling Lucas away behind a car.

"I'm here to make sure nothing happens to my sister," you bit back.

"What afraid she'll break a nail?" Steve asked with a smug little smirk on his face. You rolled your eyes.

"Please, only time Y/N's ever broken a nail is when she had to climb out of the window to–" You shot a look at Max, cutting her off.

"That's a story I want to hear more of," Steve encouraged.

"What are we doing here?" you ignored him, casting a look around the junkyard. "And what does it have to do with conspiracies and alternate dimensions."

"Apparently there's a cat-eating space lizard on the loose." Steve's hands moved to his hips as if he was some sort of demented super hero. "And it's up to us to stop it."

You snorted. "Yeah, ok. How do we do that?"

"Pile up as much as you can to fortify the bus," Steve jerked his head towards a large old rusted bus. "Once night comes, hopefully that thing will be lured out to the meat pile, we set it on fire from the safety of the bus, and Hawkins is saved. Easy. Well, except for the heavy lifting."

"I think I can manage." You rolled your eyes, pulling off your skates and exchanging them with the sneakers you had stashed in your backpack.

"Not afraid of getting a little dirt under your nails. Maybe messing up your outfit?" Steve poked, smiling.

You glared up at him from where you were tying your shoes. You stood up, stepping closer to him. "What's your fucking problem?"

Max's eyes widened and she backed up, turning to start the work on the bus.

"No problem," Steve shook his head, holding his hands up defensively.

"Than cut the commentary. I dress well. I like pink. I'm a girl, and I really like being a girl, ok?" Your voice was firmly in the Danger Tone.

"Yeah, I noticed. Everyone in Hawkins High notices you prancing around in your little outfits expecting people to go out of their way to help the princess," Steve scoffed, shaking his head. "It's bullshit," he muttered.

"That accusation is bullshit," you shot back, pulling in deep breaths. They were supposed to calm you. They didn't.

"Oh is it?" Steve asked, stepping closer to you. "You pulled that little stunt on me. First time I met you."

"You think I was—" you stopped yourself, shaking your head. "I was trying to make friends, you dickhead!"

"You know what," Steve made made a sweeping motion with his hands. "Let's just stop talking and work in silence."

"Fine," you bit back.

"Good," he nodded.

You stormed away from Steve, going to hunt down things you could use to fortify the bus. You had only made it a few yards, so you could hear Max perfectly clearly when she walked by Steve and paused next to him:

"Don't make her mad," your sister warned. "She gets dangerous."

You smiled to yourself, and finding a thin but solid looking pipe, you picked it up and stashed it on the bus. Just in case.

The five of you crowded onto the bus as the sun fell, Steve insisting he be the last one on to close and block up the door. Quickly thereafter, Lucas had offered to go up to the bus' roof and keep watch, and after a brief exchange with Dustin (that was Hat-boy's name apparently), in which you had almost stepped in to tell the little sucker off, your sister had gone up to join him. Leaving you alone with Steve Harrington who was flicking a lighter open and closed, and Dustin, who was pouting.

A blood curdling howl echoed outside the bus, and you nearly jumped out of your skin, letting out a small squeak.

Steve turned to you, eyebrow raised. "Easy, princess," he said, pushing himself up off the floor and looking out the window. You flicked him off even though both he and Dustin had their noses pressed up against the glass. You walked over to stand next to Dustin, peering out the bus' window.

There was nothing but mist. "This is really creepy," you murmured, and the boys, thankfully, ignored you.

"You see him?"

"No."

You could feel a bitter taste it he back of your throat. The same taste you got in your mouth when your mom sat you down after a particularly bad fight with your dad.

"Lucas, what's going on?" Dustin shouted next to your ear, and you flinched away, shooting him a glare. He probably couldn't see it in the dark.

"Hold on!" Lucas called back down. You waited one second. Two seconds Three– "I've got eyes. 10 o'clock. 10 o'clock!" his voice squeaked.

"There," Steve said, and your eyes followed his gaze.

Out of the mist crept a creature about the size of a dog. And that was where the similarities to any animal you'd ever seen before in your life ended.

It had no face. Just a hole which it inhaled the raw meat into.

The skin was odd, and it seemed more like it should be a frog's skin than a dog's even though it was clearly muscular.

"Eww," you murmured, unable to take your eyes off of it. Steve and Dustin snorted at you.

"What's he doing?" Dustin wondered.

"I don't know," Steve answered. Suddenly you wanted Max right by your side.

"He's not taking the bait. Why's he not taking the bait?" Steve's voice was frustratingly calm, even when his words weren't.

"Maybe he's not hungry," Dustin posed.

"Maybe the menu's not to his tastes," you joked. And then a thought hit you. Maybe the menu wasn't to his tastes. He ate cat. He ate cow. Maybe he was looking for something less hairy. Less tough. A little prettier. You bent over and picked up Steve's nail ridden bat.

"Woah, woah, woah, what do you think you're doing?" Steve asked, turning and grabbing your wrist.

"I'm expanding the menu," you replied, flippantly, attempting to yank your wrist back, but Steve's grip was too strong.

"Yeah, I don't think so. You'll get hurt," Steve pulled the bat from your grasp and released you.

"And what? You won't? Pretty sure neither of us are particularly prepared to go up against some gross space dog."

"It's not a space dog, it's interdimensional," Dustin corrected. Another howl echoed out and Steve looked out of the bus at the dog.

"You're staying here," Steve ordered, "Just, get ready." He tossed the lighter to you and left the bus.

Asshole.

"What's he doing?" Max asked, joining you and Dustin by the window. You wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Expanding the menu," Dustin murmured, stealing your joke. You shot another glare at him, and this time he had the decency to duck his head.

"Steve! Watch out!" Lucas' voice called from the top of the bus. You heard Steve call back a reply when a movement caught your eye, and your breath caught in your throat.

"3 o'clock! 3 o'clock!" Lucas squeaked out and you noticed as more interdimensional dogs crept closer to Steve. And then one lunged, and you gasped out, pulling away from the window as Steve swung his bat and flung himself over the hood of an old car. Dustin ran to the bus' door, pushing past you and screaming for Steve

"Abort! Abort! Steve, hurry!"

Steve was running back towards the bus and those things were hot on his tail, and even though he was an asshole, you couldn't help but scream for him to "RUN FASTER DICKHEAD!" Steve scrambled back onto the bus, pulling the doors closed, and then you heard glass shattering and you were screaming and Max was screaming. Lucas had climbed back down. You don't remember when that happened, but the three kids huddled by the ladder and away from the door. Good. Something hit the back of the bus, and a mouth snapped in. You pushed the kids out of your way, picking the pipe up from under the seat, and swung it, a nasty crack emitting from where you whacked the thing on the head. It pulled back.

The bus shook and then slowly, heavy footprints echoed down from the roof of the bus. You looked up and saw Max standing their wide-eyed looking up at the gaping hole in your fortifications. You flung yourself forward, scrambling up the ladder, pipe in hand.

"Y/N, no!" Max cried, but Lucas pulled her back, and Steve had just turned his head when you were already halfway up. The dog like creature hovered over you, opening its mouth, and a totally inappropriate thought entered your mind— aside from all of the teeth it looked a little bit like a flower.

"Y/N!" Steve called out to you, but you had already thrust your hand and pipe forward into its mouth and up, and the creature let out a screech as you pulled the pipe back, the end now wet. You shoved it forward again at the creature which was somehow still moving and then another howl echoed out and it turned its head, your pipe knocking into it and shoving the creature back a few steps. It scampered off and you remained, one hand gripping tight to the other and the other still holding the pipe high.

"Holy shit," Dustin swore, looking up at you.

"You took a few shaky steps down the ladder and turned to face the group, lowering the pipe.

"When the hell did you pick up a pipe?" Steve was looking at you wide-eyed, and you shook your head, brushing some hair that had fallen out of your ponytail back behind your ear.

You pushed over to the window and the group parted, letting you go. "We should follow them," you said. "Who knows what'll happen if they're heading into town." There was a general murmuring of assent as the group of you hurried off of the bus. Steve moved to the front of the kids, and you joined him, walking side by side: him walking with his bat sticking out of his backpack, and you with your pipe sticking out of yours.

He looked over to you as you passed the pile of uneaten meat.

"You're kind of a badass, aren't you?" Steve asked, quietly. You smiled at the slight awe in his voice and shrugged a shoulder.

"I told you," Max crossed her arms, smirking. "She's dangerous."

Read the Sequel

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