#even though my brain just wants to scream and bang pots together and sleep

[starbuck]

having one of those Times where on one hand everything is completely fine but, on the other hand, i am drowning and there’s so much to do and i’m at my wit’s end and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[yikesharringrove]

Agitation (or disturbance of the mind)

Here is my piece for the Harringrove Big Bang!! I’m so so proud of how this piece turned out and I’m so excited to share it! @harringrovebigbang

Read on Ao3 (highly recommended. It’s over 16k).

Special thanks to my beta readers @thinger-strang @crispysteve without whom this story would’ve been scrapped in many fits of emotions.

Art for this story to be linked soon by @thedogsled

Check out this amazing moodboard by @memes-saved-me !!

Enjoy!

-

Steve Harrington is a liar. 

He always has been. 

Nearly everything about him is a perfectly crafted facade. 

From the story of his family’s move to Hawkins when he was eight, to the smile that slides easily onto his face when he tells Robin I’m fine. 

Steve is a liar. 

But it's all out of necessity. All for the greater of some good he isn’t all that clear on anymore. 

It was always about protection. 

Protecting his friends and everyone in Hawkins from the truth about Hawkins National Laboratory. 

Then it was about protecting himself from his powers. 

From the way his words had a knack of worming their way into someone’s brain. Of setting up shop inside and clanging around until they could do nothing but bow to his suggestion. 

Just because he could get his way with the right inflection and the telltale shiver down his spine, didn’t mean that that was okay. 

It was drilled into him the first night he arrived in Hawkins. 

After his file was stamped with a large red mark that read defective, he was given to one of the scientists and her husband. 

The Harringtons. 

A normal new family from Eastern Oklahoma. 

That’s what they told everyone. 

That’s what they made sure Steve parroted to everyone in his brand new school. 

His new father took a cigar to the tattoo on his wrist, welting the flesh with an ugly burn. He ignored Steve’s screams and tears. 

You have to fit in here, Steven, he had said, the cigar smoldering between his fingers, Steve clutching his wrist, eyes shining with tears. You have to fit in and be normal. 

So Steve lied. 

He smiled and told everyone he came from a normal family from normal Oklahoma. He said that he lived in a normal house, and read normal books, and played normal sports. 

And he tried, and failed, to convince himself the lab was a dream.

-

“We should do something after this.”

Steve was careful to keep his voice casual. He didn’t want to let Robin in on how much he was dreading returning to his empty house tonight. 

Robin didn’t acknowledge him. She was sorting the returned movies, placing them in piles of genre so they could easily be returned to their proper section. 

Steve quietly lifted his leg, and lightly kicked her hip. 

She glared at him. 

“Quit ignorin’ me. Just say yes, or no.” It’s not like if she said no it would crush him or anything. No. It’s fine. 

“I just have a bunch of homework that’s all, like, due tomorrow,” she said it slowly, as though telling him a beloved relative had died. 

Was it that obvious how lonely he is?

“Don’t worry about it, Buck.” Robin took school real serious. She had perfect grades every year and had already applied to sixteen colleges and universities, including four Ivy League options. 

So Steve didn’t blame her for not skulking around with him. 

With college-less, nowhere bound Steve. 

“I’m really sorry,” she began, getting that sad look in her eye like that night in the mall bathroom when Steve spilled his drugged-out guts. Literally, and metaphorically. 

“Nah, I was just lookin’ for something to do. It’s okay, Robin. Really.”

And it was. 

Almost. 

It’s just that, Steve’s not got a lot going for him right now. 

He’s got a big empty house, and a brain that likes to give him excessive nightmares, and one age-appropriate friend in the whole place. 

But he doesn’t wanna talk about all that shit. 

And Robin looked like there was something on the tip of her tongue. Something her teeth were barely holding back. 

So Steve just scooped up the stack of neatly ordered Action films, and made his way over to the far shelf, taking himself out of the situation before it would get to a place that would only make him lie more and more. 

Robin means well. He knows she does. 

It just feels like a lot of her well-meaning chats end up with Steve lying through his fucking teeth and Robin nearly in tears of frustration at his lack of openness with her. 

She feels like being tortured and drugged together gives them a close kind of kinship very few share. 

Steve feels like he’s got just too much fucked-up baggage to dump on her. 

Not when they’re trying to put the Upside Down behind them. 

Not that Steve could ever put it behind him. 

He felt something build in his gut. Something hot and heavy. Something that always meant his powers were scraping at the walls of the neat little cave he had shut them in. Something that meant his skin would burn until he unleashed some of his pent-up energy. 

He took a deep breath, blowing out the air slowly through his nose. 

He had rules to his power. Rules he had given himself, mostly. Things he’d never use his powers for. 

He tried to avoid his powers at all costs, but he had seen what could happen if he tried to tamp them down. It was less dangerous to open the lid of the box just a tiny bit. 

Especially if he did it right. 

He made his way back over to Robin, finding that spot in his brain that made a shudder zip down his spine. The spot that was made of cold and electric heat. 

It was always too simple when he let the power take over. 

Locate her feeling. Let him consume him. 

And then just, twist it as much as he wants. 

“Robin,” he spoke slowly, honing his suggestion. “You don’t have to feel bad about not spending time with me tonight.”

He felt her sadness and guilt about the evening recede about as fast as the tide. 

She really shouldn’t feel bad about ditching him, especially not when her education is the main priority. 

He matched her lazy grin, wiping his nose discreetly, only a small drop of blood smeared against his hand. 

The rest of the shift passed without incident, and the roaring feeling in Steve’s gut had been sated enough for the time being. 

So he pushed it back out of his mind, and returned to his empty house. 

He was saving up to get his own place. He really was. But it was easier this way. He didn’t pay any bills, had lots of space to himself, and a pool in the backyard (that he never used). 

And it’s hard for him to explain, but there’s something tugging him back into this house all the time. 

He doesn’t know if it’s because it’s the only home he ever knew after the pain and fear that was his childhood in the lab, or if it’s something else that makes him feel tethered to the too-big house. 

Sometimes he thought there was a sense of safety in the old place. 

With parents that spent excessive amounts of time doing research for things he didn’t understand but was sure were important, it was largely an emotion-free place. 

Which was good for Steve. 

High emotion situations made his power boil up and spill over the edge like a pot of water on the stove. 

A place like his empty house, he could keep everything in check. Not get his feelings tangled with those around him. Not catch thoughts that were just beginning to be molded into something brand new. 

He clambered into bed, punching his pillows around in a way that was decidedly not petulant. 

There was a steady silence in the old house. A silence that was as depressing as it was easy on his brain. 

And there wasn’t silence. 

Creaks. 

Creaks issuing from downstairs. From the floorboards in the hallway. 

Footsteps. 

Steve was out of bed in a second, bat held aloft in as close to ready position as he could maintain while bolting down the stairs in his socks and faded green gym shorts. 

He knew how to navigate the house without a sound. Practice of tip-toeing around a volatile not-father kinda ended up giving him something useful. 

The creaks were still progressing, moving up the hallway from the back of the house, where his parents’ empty bedroom sat still. 

The person was getting closer, lumbering slowly as if they were trying to be quiet themselves. 

Steve adjusted his grip on the bat, taking proper batting stance, ready for the intruder to round the corner into his section of the hall. 

First sign of a person, and Steve would swing. 

No questions asked. 

The floorboard before the bend in the hall gave a loud sound, and he could’ve sworn he heard someone curse under their breath. 

He closed his eyes, and swung. 

His bat sailed through the air, and connected with, not an intruder. 

And then he was filled with an overwhelming sense of fear. A completely feral state of fight or flight made him nearly bare his teeth in an animalistic growl. He felt fear, and dread, and pure stubborn, stupid resolve. 

It nearly blinded him, the emotions were so thick and clear. 

And then there whooshed out of him, as though being sucked up by a feelings vacuum, leaving him empty and confused. 

His top lip was covered in blood. 

He had a lot of fucking questions as he stared at the bat, hanging by it’s long nails in the hallway wall, the ominous creaking moving past him towards the stairs. 

The footsteps that were caused by no one. 

It’s official. 

Steve’s lost it. 

He’s fucking crazy. 

He’s hearing footsteps and voices swearing quietly, and he’s going mad and completely batshit and should be tucked away in a padded room for the rest of his life. 

He didn’t even bother to wrench the bat out of the wall as he stumbled after the imagined footsteps. 

He clearly needed to get a good night’s sleep, and to forget that anything happened at all tonight. 

-

Billy hates Harrington’s house. 

He doesn’t, really. It’s given him excellent shelter while he pulled himself together, and it’s out of town enough to serve as a good base for the little gang of Lost Boys he had accumulated. 

It’s just that, the old house likes to make a lot of noise. 

It keeps him on edge. 

Every squealing door hinge, and every creaky floorboard sets his teeth on edge and makes him whip around in a frenzy, expecting to see a demogorgon snarling at him from the sitting room. 

He nearly had a heart attack when he heard the thuds coming from upstairs. 

He generally liked to avoid the top floor of the house. 

Harrington’s bedroom was up there, and it wigged him out something fierce. He’d only been in the dilapidated version of it one time, his first night in the house he had claimed for safety. 

He didn’t intend to stay the night in there, he had just stumbled upon it, and curled up in the bed. 

He remembers not sleeping the entire night. He was so scared after coming to in the library, something slimy and disgusting slipping its way out of his throat. 

The whole place had been screaming, as though the Upside Down itself was alive. Alive and being horrifically murdered. 

He didn’t know what it was called then, all he knew was that Harrington’s house was the first one he came across, and that Harrington’s room was depressingly empty and impersonal. 

But, there was a thudding coming from that general area, and if some kinda shitty creature was making its way into the house, he needed to hedge it off before it did any damage. 

He took hold of his ax, never far from his side these days, and slipped out of his cot. 

The floorboards in the hallway were creaky, and he tried to walk slowly, muffling his footsteps as much as he could in his heavy boots, not wanting to warn the monster he was coming for it. 

He cataloged the crew in his head: Hopper had his troop of three in the basement where they were resting up for the supply run tomorrow. Timothy was on nightwatch with his team of five. Billy was in a pack with four others; Heather Holloway, her mother, Janet, and the two boys they found skulking around the library the same night everyone seemed to wake up. One of the boys was called Andrew. The other hadn’t spoken a single word the entire time they’d been trapped. 

Billy liked to call him by different names each time he referred to the kid. Trying to get him to laugh. He couldn’t’ve been more than seven years old, and he was trapped in this fucking hellscape with the rest of them. 

Andrew was thirteen. Billy didn’t like to look at him much. Andrew reminded him of Max. Which made Billy feel empty and achy in a way he didn’t think was very productive for survival.

But Andrew took a shine to Janet Holloway. Probably missing his mother and needing more comfort than his thirteen-year-old self was willing to admit.

The Holloway women were a hell of a lot feistier than Bill originally gave them credit for, saving his ass in a scrap just as often as he had been there for theirs. Heather and Janet were equal parts caring and soft, with the right amounts of clever and bossy to take point on their team. 

Billy let himself be the muscle. 

He let himself be the watchdog and attack dog. He took nightwatches and never let his weapons out of his grasp.

Everyone had a role. 

And that was perfectly okay.

They had to keep together in this world. They wouldn’t survive it otherwise. 

They’d all lost enough people to understand that. 

One of the boards gave a hefty creak under his left foot, and he breathed a quiet fuck through his bandana, listening for more of the thudding. 

It had stopped about forty seconds before, Billy had counted, and he couldn’t hear any other sounds of something forcing its way inside. Plus, the nightwatch hadn’t sounded any alarms. 

He took another step, ax held ready and aloft in case he came face to ugly face with one of the horrible creatures that prowled the night. 

He rounded the corner, and there was a loud bang on the wall next to his head. 

He jumped as paint chipped off the wall and flew all over him. 

He was hit with a feeling of intense fear, and adrenaline rush that caused all the blood in his ears to rush. He looked wildly around, seeing, nothing. 

Billy bared his teeth, ready to go down fucking swinging. 

As long as he took the fucker down with him, that’s all that matters. 

Save the rest. 

And he stood, ready to fight, ready to die. 

And there was nothing.

Nothing in the hallway. He was all alone. 

None of this shit made any sense. He hadn’t dreamed the wall cracked beside his head, and looking back, there were holes in the wall, and a big dent that had splinted the white paint and drywall beneath it. 

There was some fucked up shit going on, and Billy didn’t like it one bit. 

He continued down the hall, creeping to the stairs to check the original source of the noises that had woken him up. 

Harrington’s room was pretty much just as he remembered it from that first night in the house. 

It was sparse and sad-looking. The covers on the bed were all jostled and thrown around, the horrible spindle-like vines covering nearly every surface in the room. 

They had cleared the tendrils in other rooms, cutting them and burning them back, ensuring the vines didn’t start creeping over them when they weren’t looking. 

Billy didn’t fancy being covered and tethered by the slimy black vines. He was pretty much over all this Upside Down shit. 

He took a cursory look around Harrington’s room, not noticing any signs of forced entry from a creature, really nothing was out of place. 

The meager school trophies on the bookshelf next to the closet looked rotted and tarnished, just like everything else in this absolute hell called a parallel universe. There were few pictures in this room, much like the whole house. It had taken Billy a long time to notice the lack of inhabitancy the house had. The way it seemed to feel so cold and empty, it would be that way in the real world too. 

His eyes swept over the dilapidated dresser, cataloging the room quickly for anything that should worry him. 

Billy deemed the whole scene safe, and made sure to close the door tightly as he retreated back downstairs. 

-

Steve’s going fucking crazy. 

He was still in bed, his alarm clock ringing angrily at him as it had for the past six minutes. 

He hadn’t slept at all last night. 

Something just felt. Off. 

The feelings in his chest were scrambled, and they felt foreign to him. Like he had taken in somebody else’s emotions. 

But proximity was the key to his power, and he was alone. Alone alone. 

Like, the closest person was Mrs. Gardfeld in the next house, all the way across their combined, much too big, yards. 

It felt like. It felt like someone was in the house with him. Someone was in the house with him, and they were scared, and stubborn, and tired, and a flurry of things that made Steve feel ill. 

And he couldn’t push them out. 

He couldn’t find the chasm between this slew of someone else’s shit, and his own messy cocktail of feelings. 

The other feelings were like those awful vines in the tunnel. Snaking around under his feet, wiggling up his ankles and keeping him stuck in the mud. Wrapping around his own emotions and squeezing until they just merged into one. 

He’s lost the metaphor. 

Doesn’t matter. 

His feelings are fucked and his brain is fucked and his day is fucked. 

And he has to work a double at Family Fuckin’ Video. 

He found his way out of bed. Not going very far, just standing next to his warm nest of blankets, debating getting back in and hiding for the rest of his life. 

He was going to be late for work. 

He didn’t really give a fuck. 

Keith would be all smug and probably make some remarks about Steve not even being worth the less-than-minimum wage he was making. 

He took a shower, not so much cleaning himself as letting the lukewarm water cascade down on him and hope it got rid of the stench of sweat and anxiety and bad sleep that was clinging angrily to his skin. 

His brain was empty. 

Empty save for the pounding otherness that were these horrible fucking feelings. 

Robin didn’t even have the heart to call him out for being nearly half an hour late.

“You look like shit.”

No, she just called him out for looking like shit. 

“Y’know, it’s really wonderful to have such a caring and thoughtful friend in these trying times.”

She rolled her eyes. He always told her one day she was gonna get stuck like that. With her eyes permanently fixed towards the ceiling in exasperation. 

“Drop the attitude, Steve Harrington. Just because you didn’t sleep doesn’t mean I have to suffer.” 

Sometimes it was hard to tell if she was joking. Steve just clenched his jaw and stared at her blankly. Either she would get mad at him, or sigh and roll her eyes. 

She sighed and rolled her eyes. 

Bingo. 

She wasn’t actually mad at him. 

“You okay?”

“Jus’, some weirdness. Bad vibes.”

He couldn’t give her more than that. Couldn’t say I can feel someone else in my house and I don’t know if someone is hiding in my house or if I’m going crazy, oh and by the way, I was one of those freaky lab kids and I can manipulate and feel people’s thoughts and emotions, by the way.

That’s too much for a slow shift on a Saturday morning. 

That’s too much for really any time of any day.

No, Steve fully plans to take all that shit to the grave. Like a real man, his dad would say. 

“Well, if you could take your bad vibes back to rewind duty, that would leave all the good vibes up here to me.” She shooed him off with her hand, landing a quick slap square on his left asscheck when he groaned and dragged his feet dramatically on his way to the back room. 

Not that Steve would ever actually complain about rewind duty. Steve preferred doing it to anything else in the place. Especially re-shelving. That was just asking for someone to come ask him for a movie recommendation. Steve only watched the same five campy old westerns and when he recommends any of those, people seem to wanna get out of his face right quick. 

No, rewinding was dull and monotonous and solitary, all the shit that Steve really needed on a day like today. 

There was a strict routine and he didn’t have to think or do anything. 

Just sit. New tape. Rewind. Put in case. Put in re-shelve bucket. New tape. Rewind. Put in case. And again and again and again until all the tapes were ready to go. 

Hawkins tended to take out a lot of movies on the weekend. Not much else to do when you aren’t sixteen and ready to hit up any party you could possibly weasel your way into. 

So, Steve had about fifty some odd tapes to rewind from the past few days and he was feeling benignly excited about sitting in the small room for most of his shift. 

It was easy to pass the shift like that. 

Sitting with the quiet whirring of the tapes being tracked back to the beginning. Not having to deal with anyone’s thoughts except his own tedious ones about when he should take his lunch break and reminding himself to check the TV Guide for anything good tonight. 

It was an odd emptiness that took hold of him throughout the day. And he almost felt, well. 

Lonely. 

He almost felt lonely. 

Which is fucking bonkers because that horrible feeling of someone else had well and truly fucked him over last night, and well into this morning, but he kind. Missed. The other presence. 

He’s officially crazy. 

Someone find this boy a padded fucking cell because Steve Harrington has officially gone all kinds of batshit bananas wacky. 

He’s feeling lonely because the horrible not his feelings of fear and anger and betrayal and desperation aren’t clogging up his little brain sink. Even when they were, the brain sink was threatening to burst and leak all over his brain kitchen. 

Or something to that effect. 

He let his eyes unfocus, watching Jaws at double speed and backward for the fourth time that day. 

There was something about the foreign feelings he just couldn’t quite wrap his head around. 

Something twinging in the back of his brain, screaming at him to open his eyes and pay attention. 

But that’s never been Steve’s strong suit. 

-

“Stupid. Fucking. Vines .”

Hopper muttered to himself a lot. 

It was usually too muffled underneath his own bandana face covering and the hefty beard he had been sporting to discern whatever he was thinking, but it’s not like hating the awful black tendrils of gross plant/monster/everything-that-made-up-the-Upside-Down hybrid of vine-ish tentacles was something that just Hopper experienced. 

It was a sentiment they all shared as they hacked away at the new growth in the dilapidated Bradley’s Big Buys. 

They had already ransacked the general store five times over, and took as much as they could salvage from the wreckage of the other-dimensional mall. 

Supplies were needed, and they had to be smart about it. 

Things had been quiet lately. 

Not many beasties out and about since the night they all seemed to come to. 

Hopper had said something about the gate closing and the brain being cut off from the body. 

Billy hadn’t listened. 

He’d been scared off his ass and all that had really registered was clear for now. 

So, they made supply runs. And poked around town for any survivors left to take back to Basecamp Harrington. Only Billy called it that. 

They had the runs down to a system. 

Pry away any vines they could, burning them back as they went, making enough room to slip into the bargain store, gather as much canned food and grimy medical supplies as they could manage, and book it back to the relative safety of the big house on the edge of the forest. 

Nobody talked about what they’d do when they ran out of supplies. When they’d exhausted their resources and were stuck with nothing but the vines on the ground and the spores in the air. 

Billy got it. 

It’s not like he wants to hear he’ll probably die of starvation and/or a gangrenous infection before he’s eighteen. 

They just. Make do. 

Ration food and keep each other safe. 

Always thinking about the minute they’re in and the minute coming up. Not looking too far forward. 

There’s nothing to see too far in the future. 

Billy crashed the blunt end of his ax through the sliding door at the front of the store, clearing away as much as he could. 

Janet and Andrew would slip inside first go, taking as much as they could carry with them. Next round, Heather would take the little one and gather anything left. 

Billy would keep watch. 

He always kept watch. 

Things had been too good for too long. 

After the first wave of those who didn’t make it, the whole broken side of the Earth was too kind to them. Not sending horrible fleshy monsters to nearly suck out their very souls. 

Billy didn’t think this could last for much longer. 

Heather took the little one by the hand, rushing past her mother and Andrew as they returned with their supplies. Billy did a quick scan of them, noting no new injuries. Nothing out of the norm. 

Supply runs were choreographed down to the minute. 

Should the group not return in forty-five minutes, a search team was sent out. 

The small group trudged back to the Harrington safehouse, keeping in the shadows, not a single one of them daring to speak. Billy walked slightly behind the others, never letting himself relax for a single second. 

Things were too quiet.

-

The feeling hit Steve over the head like a sack of bricks being whacked against his skull. 

Walking into his home was like walking into a stinking den of fear and anxiety. The air was clogged with so many emotions Steve felt like he was choking on them, slowly being crushed under their weight. 

Whoever was emitting all these, Steve felt sorry for them. He can’t imagine living with this much bad energy taking up space in someone’s brain. He could barely cope with his own terrible bullshit. He doesn’t know how someone could cope with this. 

He tried to move through his evening to the best of his ability. 

He nearly set the house on fire when he left the tin foil covering on his frozen meal, causing the microwave to spark angrily at him, the potatoes underneath the corner of foil that had nearly caught fire to smolder and blacken. 

Even in the shower, the water as hot and steamy as he could stand, he felt that prickle he couldn’t get rid of. 

Like if he could just close his eyes and reach out far enough, his fingers would brush someone else. Someone nearby. 

He’s felt it before. That there was a person just out of reach. A person he could feel clear as a bell, but couldn’t alter. Couldn’t manipulate. Just had to experience everything that was going on inside and try to hold on for the ride. 

He wore headphones to bed, blasting a mixtape Robin had made for him last month. Something with a lot of heavy guitars and girls wailing about society. 

He doesn’t think it was all that good, but it helped. Helped him feel like maybe the person wasn’t seeping into his own soul. 

And the whining synth of Patti Smith finally let him get some goddamn sleep. 

  “Hello?”

It was his house. 

But it wasn’t his house. 

It was a blank void. It was nothing. It was nowhere. 

But for some reason, his brain kept telling him it was his house. 

“Harrington?”

It was Billy. Hargrove. 

But it wasn’t Billy. 

He was dirty, covered in soot and horrible black sludge that made Steve’s stomach churn. 

“Why are you in my house?”

Billy looked around the blank void all around them. Water sloshed on the floor, lapping at Billy’s black boots. Steve observed his own toes. 

He was barefoot, but he couldn’t feel the water. 

“This is your house?”

Steve didn’t want to explain. 

“You’re dead.”

“Could be soon.”

Nothing Billy said made any sense. But then, Billy never made much sense when he was alive, either. 

He was an enigma to Steve. A big question mark all wrapped up with a gorgeous face and perfect body.

“Where is this to you?”

Why was Steve’s brain so adamant on declaring this place his house?

“Somewhere safe.”

-

So. 

That’s something. 

Dreaming about Harrington. 

Not necessarily something that Billy wanted to have happen to him while he was experiencing the worst possible time in his life. 

Or maybe he did. 

He’d said it in the dream. 

Somewhere safe. 

It’s what he felt in that blackness. 

Safety. Warmth. Hope. 

All the shit he hasn’t felt since he opened his eyes in the rank-ass library. 

That darkness was like a harness, keeping him grounded to something real. Tucking him in gently at night and kissing him on the head. 

It made waking up that much shittier. 

Knowing he’d be on nightwatch with Heather and Janet tonight, he used resting up as an excuse to lay on his cot, hardly moving in the clouded air. 

He needed to process. 

There was something so fucking weird about that dream. 

It felt real in the moment, and he didn’t question anything that had happened. 

Why there was water on the ground at his feet? Why Harrington was there wearing pajamas Billy could only describe as skanky? All of this made perfect fucking sense to dream Billy. 

Awake Billy, had some fuckin’ questions. 

Mostly, those previously listed. As well as: what the fuck?

He blames seeing Steve specifically on being in his house. That makes sense. You tend to think about a guy quite a lot when you’re living in the broken shell of his family home. He blames seeing Steve in those itsy-bitsy shorts and a homemade cropped t-shirt on the well repressed sexual interest he refused to admit he felt towards the guy. 

All that made sense. 

But everything else. 

Steve said he was dead. 

Was he dead?

Was this Hell?

Purgatory?

He’s read The Divine Comedy, and this doesn’t quite match up with any of the shit Dante waxed on about. 

And dream Billy didn’t think that was a weird thing to say to someone. To accuse them of being dead. He just said could be soon and then acted like that was a normal fucking response. 

His head was spinning out of control. 

The only thing that made sense was when Billy said they were somewhere safe. 

Because, they were. 

Even in the void place, he knew they were safe. 

There was a small tapping sound on the wall next to the open door frame. 

The door had long since rotted right through. 

“Miss Janet sent me to see if you’re alright.”

Andrew was always calling Janet Holloway Miss Janet. 

It makes Billy wonder if manners like that were beaten into him by a father like Neil. 

He hopes not. 

He likes Andrew too much for that. 

Andrew hovered around while Billy swung himself out of his cot. 

He changed out the bandana over his mouth and nose. 

Most of them slept fully dressed, even with their shoes and socks still firmly on their feet. 

You had to be ready to go at the slightest sound of Bad in this place. 

Plus, everything was so goddamn dirty, what’s a little mud in the sheets in the grand scheme of things? And the rancid rotting smell of the Upside Down did wonders to cover the smell of body odor.

Billy followed Andrew down the L-shaped hallway, to the sitting room where he found Janet and Heather huddled together on one couch, the little one between them. 

“Apparently something happened on the run last night.” 

Billy’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t make out Janet’s expression under her face covering. The little one got up from his spot on the couch, standing in Billy’s shadow. He liked to do that. Billy figured he felt safe behind someone so much bigger and stronger than him. Someone with a big fuckin’ weapon that was never too far away. 

“Who’d we lose?”

“No one. Everyone’s okay. Hopper just called all of us for a discussion, then went to the basement.”

The basement was Hopper’s domain with his little chunk of the crew. 

He had found some busted up H.A.M. radio from somewhere he refused to explain, and spent all the time he wasn’t watching over his shoulder for threats or gathering supplies from smashed grocery stores, trying to fix it up, tuning it to different crackling stations, and yelling into it. 

El. El, I need you to copy if you can hear me. El!

-

The pillow was a mess of blood the next morning. 

It was congealed and cracked and tacky against his face and made the pillowcase stick to his cheek and his bloody upper lip in a way that kinda made Steve wanna puke a little bit. 

His nose had bled in the night. 

He never got nosebleeds. 

Unless he used his power. 

And that dream. 

That blank void space and that mucky scraggly Billy lookin’ like the hunky star of some apocalypse movie.

Wait.

Blood forgotten, smeared on his face and neck, Steve tossed himself towards the phone on his nightstand, smacking his shoulder against the wooden corner and tumbling to the floor, his legs still tangled in his sheets on the bed. 

He couldn’t deal with anything, snatching the phone up and punching in the only number that was grinding through his head. 

“ Pick up pick up pick up pick up pick up, ” he muttered into the receiver. 

His upper body was still flopped over to the plush carpet, legs twitching and shaking on the bed with his anxiety. 

He’s had some massive fucking realizations and he needs backup. 

“This is the Byers.”

“Put El on the phone.”

-

“Oh. Steve’s covered in blood again. The Upside Down must really be back,” Dustin said in complete monotone as Steve opened the door. 

Steve couldn’t give less of a fuck right now. 

He felt like he was on the verge of a major breakthrough, all coming in the neat package of a major breakdown. 

He felt manic and shaky and so what if he forgot he was covered in the aftermath of a superpower-nosebleed-explosion?

“Shut up. Just get in.”

El had rallied the old troops from St. Paul, calling everyone at the ass-crack o’fuck in the morning and saying something about catching some weird Hawkins vibes all the way from Minnesota. 

It was a fucking weak excuse, but explaining the whole Steve situation was just not really in the cards today. 

He’s got an agenda and they need to stick to it. 

Robin said she’d gather Max on the way to Steve’s place, and Nancy was probably hauling Mike and Lucas over faster than a speeding gun or whatever that expression is, so all Steve had to do was get his story straight. 

“And maybe you should think about putting on a clean shirt? At the very least. I’d say, maybe just start over. Take a shower. Powerwash your face, even.”

“When the fuck did you become sarcastic ?”

“Right after you became friends with the coolest chick on the planet and then decided you’re too good for her.”

“ Chick. Don’t call Robin a chick. And I’ve told you, we’re just friends. I’m not too good for her.”

Really, Steve thought she was too good for him. 

Well, that, and there’s the whole part where she’s super totally not into guys at all. 

“So, what’s this all about, anyway? Mike said on the phone that El called him and left a really cryptic message.”

“Look. She called me to explain and ask if everyone could meet here,” Steve lied. “I’ll give you guys a recap once the rest of the gang shows.”

“But she thinks there’s something going on with the Upside Down? Again ?”

“I think she knows there’s something going on with the Upside Down.”

The more Steve sat with the memory of how Billy looked in that dream, the more he was certain of where he was. 

Billy had been ratty. His normally perfect hair was long and limp, greasy on top and matted around his face. He was sporting a patchy beard, nothing like the fuckin’ pornstache the guy had been rocking all last summer. 

And he was filthy. Covered in grime and dirt, and Steve’s sure if he’d looked harder, he would’ve seen traces of that viscous black goo that only meant bad news. 

There was a squeal of tires, an alarm signaling the arrival of Nancy in her mother’s station wagon, toting her brother and Lucas. 

“I’m in this now, Lucas Sinclair!” came Erica’s voice from the entryway. 

Steve was tapping his foot impatiently.

“Erica, you accidentally found out about all this!”

“So did you!”

The Sinclair siblings’ bickering was only cut by the sound of the Wheeler siblings snapping at one another in turn.

“Am I the only one that thinks it doesn’t make sense to meet up this early? El and Will are like, seven hours away!”

“Mike! It doesn’t matter. We all have to talk and figure out what’s going on.”

The sounds of arguments all quieted abruptly as the four people rounded the corner and caught sight of Steve.

“Oh, Jesus. Who kicked your ass this time?” Mike snipped at Steve. 

Oh, yeah. He keeps forgetting he’s covered in his own nose blood. 

“What? It’s nothing. I kicked my own ass. Just take a seat.”

“I told you to-”

Steve didn’t wanna hear it. 

He loves all these people, but his head kinda felt like it was full of mushy jelly and runny pudding and all the loud talking wasn’t doing much to help. 

He stepped out onto the porch, snagging the pack of cigarettes he kept stowed in the flower box next to the door. 

It took two to finally tame his nerves any. 

Sitting there with all the people in his house waiting for an explanation, he kinda felt like his haphazard plan was shit and going to fall through immediately. 

Just tell them El called. Tell them she saw Billy in the nowhere place and she thinks he’s alive. Easy as pie. 

The tell-tale sound of a skateboard making its way closer and closer announced Max before he saw her. 

Robin was pedaling next to her, helmet lopsided on her head and not buckled underneath her chin. 

They were talking animatedly to one another, their laughter dying as soon as they saw Steve waiting for them.

“Fuck. So this is real.”

“Why does everyone think I got the shit beat outta me?”

“Your ass gets creamed every time some spooky shit goes down in this place, Harrington,” Max informed him. 

She was a little Billy replica, all the way down to the way the corner of her mouth twitched up when she said his name. 

It would’ve been sad. The way she tried to become her brother after losing him so violently last summer. 

But something like relief settled into his bones, strong and real and wait ‘til I tell her Billy’s not dead and he was laughing. Curling in on himself cackling so hard his stomach had already begun to get sore

“Fuck. He’s lost it,” Robin sighed, ditching her bike next to Dustin’s and heaving Steve up, both hands underneath his armpits.

-

Nobody dared speak. 

“And you’re sure? You’re positive you heard one of those things?”

Janet had her arms twisted over her chest, her jaw tight as she watched Hopper’s every move. 

“It’s not really a sound you forget.”

Billy’s hand was shaking, he was gripping the ax so hard. 

“So, we’re fucked,” Angela said harshly. Her cold voice sent ice down Billy’s spine. “If those things are back, we don’t stand a fucking chance.”

Hopper scrubbed his hand over his brow, sighing through the cloth over his mouth and nose.

“It just means I have to try harder. I can get to El, I know I can.”

Hopper said that a lot. But he never explained what getting to El meant. 

Heather had explained she met El once, but she said it was weird and she only saw her like some kind of shadow, a figment in this dark empty place. Somewhere as cold and broken as the Upside Down felt. 

The little one was leaned up against Billy, his left hand balled in the edge of Billy’s leather jacket. He stood like that a lot. It was grounding for Billy. Kinda like holding Max’s hand when she was young and still thought he was the coolest person she’d ever met. 

“But, you only heard something, right? So it very well could be nothing.” Timothy was good at keeping mediator. He always kept a level head and talked slowly and calmly. They needed someone like him in this nightmare.

“They make this noise. This kind of wet chirping. Like this gurgle that just sounds like they’re watching you, ready to pounce out at any time, shrieking and attacking. It’s not a sound you forget.” Hopper had this horrible haunted look on his face, and Billy fucking believed him. 

“Then we up nightwatch. Stick together,” Billy offered. He never usually piped up with strategy, but that’s the best he’s got, and frankly, he thinks it’s the only way they’d all be able to make it through. 

“Exactly. We move in a pack now. Keep track of everyone together, and stay aware of what’s around us. I think we should do a major run and then lock up for a few days to see what goes down.” 

Hopper leaned back in the ratty armchair he was taking up, looking around to see if anyone challenged his ideas. 

Billy had given up his alpha male attitude the second Hopper yanked his upper arm and nearly screamed at him, asking Billy if he was ‘one of the flayed’ all while aggressively checking him over for injuries. 

First time any of Neil’s lessons actually sunk in. 

Respect and responsibility. 

If that fucker could see Billy now, doing nothing but respecting authority and taking responsibility for all these peoples’ lives. 

“We should rest up. Take a run tonight. Get a lay of the land,” Timothy said with an air of finality. Nobody argued. 

Hopper nodded. 

Everyone broke out from the Harringtons’ living room, milling around to get prepared for tonight’s run. Taking stock of what they needed to keep going for the next few days. 

Billy was itching to slide back into his cot and try to seek out that space if he can. The empty space where Harrington and that warm feeling of safe existed. 

The little one stayed clinging to his jacket, and Billy took a loose hold of his wrist, trying to provide some kind of basic comfort to the tiny kid. 

“You wanna go raid the cabinet?” The kid stared up at Billy with big eyes. Billy could never tell what color they were in the gloom. He thinks maybe green. 

The cabinet was a large door, built into the wall of the sitting room, and clearly where the Harringtons kept their games. 

They had these excruciating couple thousand-piece puzzles, the pictures peeling and faded on the pieces. They had Trivial Pursuit and backgammon, and all kindsa shit. 

The little one went and pulled out the checkers board. That was the only game Billy knew how to play anyhow. 

He and Max used to sit for hours, playing with this dinosaur-themed checker game Max’s dad got for her one birthday. 

It helped, playing a game. Helped pass the time. Help bait the anxiety. 

Helped them all feel a little bit closer to human.

-

“I don’t. Get it.”

Apparently, Nancy was not the only one, if the blank stares Steve was receiving from around his living room were anything to go by. 

“Yeah, why did she call you ?” Mike’s snitty tone was really grating on Steve’s fragile nerves.

“She said, she called to make sure everyone could come over here before she told you all to just show up this early on a Sunday morning and then she kinda explained what happened.”

Max was white as a sheet, tracking Steve like he was playing a horrible joke on her. 

“And she saw Billy. Billy Hargrove .” 

Steve nodded at Dustin. 

“Why does she think he’s in the Upside Down?” Robin asked, perched on the coffee table, sitting closest to where he was standing nervously. 

“She just knows .”

It was frustrating, trying to impart the seriousness of the situation without just spilling his guts. 

He rubbed absentmindedly at the cigar burn on his wrist. 

“I just don’t believe this. I talked to her three days ago, and she’s still having trouble with her powers. She can barely move a book, and hasn’t been able to get to the void since July, and you’re saying she accidentally saw Billy Hargrove, who we all saw murder a bunch of people and then get killed -”

“Shut up! He wasn’t himself!” Max shrieked out over Mike, the only time she’d even opened her mouth since Steve had mentioned her stepbrother’s name.

“Even if he is alive, El couldn’t have seen him! It doesn’t make sense!” Mike’s voice rose over Max’s, and Steve has a fucking headache and he’s over it.

“It was me! I had a dream. I went to the void. I saw Billy in the Upside Down. I called El to say she saw him.” 

Everyone went dead silent, staring at him.

“Steve,” Robin began, searching his face.

It was like all the wind that had been filling up his sails, powering his energy ship, had suddenly quit blowing. 

Steve was tired. 

He sank to the floor, crossing his legs where he sat.

“I need you all to shut the fuck up for a moment and let me explain, because I only wanna say all this shit once.” He covered his bloody face with his hands. “I’m like El.”

That statement hung in the air for a moment. 

And then there was a roar of noise.

“How could you keep this a secret?” Dustin shouted.

“Not in a million years !” Lucas decided. Erica yelled something back at him, vaguely defending Steve, which was nice.

“You mean you came from the lab?” Mike had a look on his face like he’d swallowed a particularly bitter lemon. 

“Everybody, shut the fuck up!” Max roared, glowering at each person until they were silent again. 

In all this Robin hadn’t said a word. She was pale, staring at Steve.

“Look, I don’t wanna go into it because it fucking sucks to think about,” Steve still hadn’t uncovered his face. “But yeah. I was in the lab. I got out because they decided I was a failed experiment. My mom worked at the lab and she took me and we pretended like the three of us moved here from Oklahoma and my dad told me never to tell anyone. And I haven’t. Didn’t even tell El. She recognized me from then. Don’t even know how, I left when she was like, three. Doesn’t matter. I’m a freaky lab kid and last night I fell asleep and saw Billy in that-what’d you call it? The void? Yeah, I saw him, and he’s covered in dirt and gross black Upside Down shit, and he’s fucking stuck there, and now we’re here.”

There was another silence. 

Steve didn’t dare to look at any of them.

He didn’t want them to laugh in his face. Tell him he was making all this shit up and leave him alone to deal with Billy trapped somewhere else. 

He wanted them to take his word for it. To quietly believe this crazy fucking shit of a story because the scared other feeling was back and clawing at his spine and making him want to burrow into the ground and find somewhere safe and secure and-

“Okay.”

Of course it was Robin. 

It was always Robin. 

Steve let himself look at her. 

She was pale, but she was smiling at him. 

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Steve nodded once.

“Okay. Uh, great.”

“Wait, if you’re defective, no offense, then how did you see Billy?” 

Steve stared at Max weighing his answer carefully. 

“Because, well, the defective thing, that was all, I didn’t mean to, that was before I really understood what I could do. Don’t get me wrong, it really worked out, but it was an accident.”

“Spit it out, Sailor Man.”

“ Erica .”

Erica just rolled her eyes at Lucas. 

“Okay. Uh, before I explain, just, just keep in mind that I have rules, and I don’t use my powers if I can avoid them, and I’d never use them to be a creep, but-”

“Steve!”

“Fine!” The words were right there, ready to tumble out of his mouth and ruin his life forever. 

There was no going back after this. 

The second they knew, everything would be different.

“I can feel other peoples’ emotions and, like, change them.”

Another silence.

“I don’t understand.”

Nancy was the last person he’d ever want to have this conversation with. 

He knows what she’s thinking. He knows that the great anger brewing inside her is because she assumes he made her like him. Made her attracted to him. 

Made her want him. 

“I don’t use it like that. I would never, put something there that shouldn’t be there. It’s just, When someone feels something near me, I can tap into it. Let it become my own feelings. And then I just, change it. Just a little.” He cast around for a harmless example because so far, everyone was staring at him like a goddamn creep. “Robin!”

She startled slightly when he yelled at her.

“Okay, so Robin. I’d never, ever make you feel something not true to you. Like, I’d never make it so you were into me when you’re totally not, right?” He cast a glance at Nancy. “But, like, the other day, when you felt really shitty when I invited you over and you were studying, I just, I made it so you wouldn’t feel bad. I felt all this guilt you had for leaving me alone when you thought I was having a shitty day, and I made it so you didn’t feel guilty because you shouldn’t. That’s the kinda level I allow myself to work on.”

The look Robin was giving him was breaking his fucking heart. 

Worse still, was the feeling of betrayal that began eating away at her. 

“So, right now. You can tell what we’re all feeling?” Even Lucas, ever the level-headed one, couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I don’t want to. I don’t try to, but I can’t really avoid it. I just try to ignore it. But sometimes, sometimes if I bottle it all up for a while, it comes crashing out of me, and that’s when bad shit happens. If I don’t use it occasionally, it only wakes things worse, and I-”

“I can’t hear this.”

Robin’s anger crashed through Steve like a wave, nearly knocking him over. She stood, towering over him. 

“When we were in that bathroom, all drugged out of our minds. I-” she sniffed, rage tears pooling in her eyes. Steve likes her eyes. So crystal blue. “Are we even really friends?”

Her last question was nothing more than a whisper. 

And it made Steve wish he was never born.

He gaped at her like a dead fish.

“Rob, of course we are! I would never-”

“Because I hated you. And then one summer. Two whole months where we’re close enough that you can get all up in my brain, and suddenly I’m telling you shit I’ve never told anyone before.”

“It wasn’t, Robin I swear, that whole time, I never once used-”

She held up her hand, cutting him off. 

A sob caught in his throat as she turned on her heel. 

She slammed the door closed behind her. 

Another fucking silence. 

Steve couldn’t look anyone in the eye.

Their feelings were enough for him now, betrayal and anger and disappointment rushing into his lungs, drowning him. Choking him. 

“You’ve used them on all of us.”

It wasn’t a question. 

It was just a statement. The coldest he’s ever heard Dustin sound. 

“I just want everyone to be happy.”

“Jesus, Steve. You realize that’s actually totally fucked up, right? You can’t just make us feel whatever you want,” Dustin bellowed at him, standing up like Robin had done, looking down at Steve where he sat pathetically on the floor. 

And, when it’s put like that. 

Sure. 

It’s kinda fucked up. 

But he’s only ever meddled in a way that’s good. He only ever tries to make his friends feel the positives. Hell, on the night of that stupid Snow Ball, he’d given Dustin enough self-confidence to make Madonna seem insecure. 

All he does is try to help. 

“All I do is try to help.”

More fucking silence. 

Steve was so goddamn sick of silence. All he had was silence. He had the nothing, empty quiet. And he didn’t want it from the people who were supposed to make his life loud. 

“El won’t be here until later tonight. I think we should just meet up then.”

Steve buried his head in his hands, biting back sobs as the small group filtered out of his house. 

This is why he had wanted to take this secret with him to death. 

He told everyone who he really is, and now they all hate him, and he’s completely alone, and wherever Billy is he’s fucking scared and-

“Steve?”

Max’s voice was small, mirroring the way she was curled in on herself in the plush armchair near the wall. 

“Do you really think Billy’s alive?”

Steve nodded at her, desperately begging her to stay. To help him. 

“I know he is.”

“I have an idea.”

-

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. 

Doesn’t remember much of anything in this place. 

He studied the water lapping at his muddy boots, dragging his toes through it to make the water wave and ripple. 

It didn’t make a sound. 

“I want to help.”

Billy knew Steve was there even before he spoke. 

Something about the warmth he brought to the void place. 

The safety. 

“Don’t know if you can.”

Steve’s lips twitched into a ghost of a smile at that. His face was covered in blood, dried and flaking away from his skin, painted all the way down his face and neck, some staining the collar of his shirt.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“That happens when the only interactions you have with a guy are to beat his ass.”

Steve cracked a real smile at that. Something big and bright that made Billy’s gut twist in a way he didn’t quite like. 

“You’re forgetting all those other times we spent together. You’re not very subtle, you know.”

Yeah, Billy knows. 

Mostly because he wasn’t trying to be subtle. 

He had talked to Steve about his bitchy ex while they both had their dicks out in the shower. He was trying to be very much un-subtle. 

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

“I know.”

Oh. 

Steve knows. 

And all he had done was stare blankly at Billy. 

Nice. 

“I need to know where you are.”

“Why?” 

“Because I can help.”

Billy just blinked at Steve. 

“Do you know El?”

Something funny happened to Steve’s face. He kind of gave a little smile that flickered into a frown and landed on something a little pinched and awkward. 

“Yeah. How do you know her?”

“Hopper keeps saying he needs to get to her. None of us know what he’s talking about.”

And with that, Steve’s eyes went huge, and his jaw dropped. The water at Billy’s ankles sloshed quietly. 

“Hopper’s there? Chief Hopper? Jim Hopper is there?”

“Jesus, yeah. Been here since we all woke up.”

Steve acted like Billy had told him that Farrah Fawcett herself was on her way to shave his head. 

Meaning, he looked struck fucking dumb. 

“I’m gonna need you to explain.”

“I don’t know. Don’t remember much. Crashed my car on one of your shitty backwoods roads, and then everything is just, kinda, gone. I woke up in this shithole version of the library and Hopper found me here and we’ve kinda set up camp.”

Billy shrugged lamely. Something was dripping, he could hear the sound of it far behind him.

“There’s more of you? How many?”

“Not as many as there should be.”

Steve’s mouth pinched, and his big droopy eyes went all sweet and sad. 

“Where are you? Where’s the camp?”

Billy was suddenly embarrassed. There was a sound like a stream flowing over rocks.

What’s he supposed to say? The hellscape skeleton of your house oh and by the way all your stuff is here and I slept in your bed once because I was scared and sad.

“Someone’s house. Don’t know whose.”

Steve huffed some air out of his nostrils, his mouth pinching again. 

Billy hadn’t realized someone could make so many different expressions just by pursing their lips in different ways. 

“Find out. We’re coming to get you.”

A crash of a wave, and Billy was back in hell. 

-

Steve sucked in lungfuls of air, tossing the towel that had been covering his eyes to the ground. 

“You saw him.” 

Max was sitting in front of him, the t.v. playing static behind her. 

“Yeah. He’s okay. I mean, he’s really gross. Like, he’s-sorry. He’s okay.”

Max was still staring at him like she didn’t quite know how to proceed. 

“But he’s in the Upside Down?”

“Yeah. And there’s others. He said Hopper’s there, that he’s been trying to contact El.”

“Wait, Hopper? He’s alive?”

“Billy said all of the flayed woke up after the Fourth of July in the Upside Down. He doesn’t know anything that happened in this world, and Hopper was there and they’ve set up, like, some kind of camp, or whatever. He said they’re in someone’s house. He doesn’t know who.”

“ Fuck .”

Yeah, Steve agrees with that sentiment. 

This whole thing was like, kind of a lot. 

And deep inside him, those other feelings had yet to leave him alone all day. 

There was some kind of disappointment knocking about in his brain. 

He knows it’s Billy. 

All of those other feelings, it’s whatever Billy is feeling right that minute wherever he is. 

And it only happens when Steve is-

“Max, he’s here.”

She whipped around behind her, staring at the front door like Billy could waltz through it at any moment. 

“No, no not here, here .” She clearly didn’t understand. He used the towel to wipe the fresh blood from his upper lip, still having yet to clean himself up any. “The camp, the safeplace, it’s here. They’ve set up in my house!”

It felt like a revelation on par with the greatest inventions. Steve felt like the scientist that landed the man on the moon or the very first person to melt cheese onto fries. 

A genius. 

“So, he’s, I mean, he could be, just, here .” She looked over the room wistfully, and Steve knew how she felt. Like she wanted to pierce her hands into thin air, tearing a hole in between the two worlds and ripping Billy straight outta hell. 

(Really, she just filled him with a wave of fierce determination, but Steve likes to take poetic license on other people’s feelings sometimes.)

“And you can feel him.”

“Yeah.”

“Is he, okay?”

And he knows this question. 

Not the okay he assured her of when he first saw Billy. Soothing that he wasn’t missing any internal organs or possessed by any monsters. 

She wants to know if he’s held it together. 

“He’s scared. He’s always scared. But he’s really fucking stubborn, and he- I don’t know why he feels these things, but sometimes he gets kinda sad. Almost like he’s lost something, and sometimes, it feels like he’s caught fire, and his insides are just going up in flame and he gets overwhelmed by them. And sometimes he feels-” He hadn’t meant to continue.

“Tell me.”

He’s pretty sure Max knew what he was going to say next. 

She just wanted it confirmed. 

“Hopeless. Sometimes he feels hopeless.”

She sniffed, her eyes shining as she looked anywhere that wasn’t Steve. 

“But, we know now. He doesn’t have to be hopeless anymore. We’ll find a way in, and we’ll get him out.”

He didn’t want to manipulate her. 

He didn’t want to cross the boundaries everyone clearly thought he already had. 

But he was positive he would find a way to Billy. He was positive he would get him out and get him home. 

He sent a wave of that determination and hope and conviction to her. 

“Yeah. We’ll get him.”

-

“Hopper, man, some funky shit is going down.”

Hopper whirled around quickly, halfway to his feet and asking who's been hurt before Billy raised both hands, acting like he was calming an anxious horse.

“Nah, sorry, shoulda worded that better. I just mean, something’s happened to me. With me, maybe. I don’t know. Just hear me out. This shit’s gonna sound, insane.”

Hopper didn’t say anything as Billy explained, beginning with that night when the wall shattered next to his head, and ending with his most recent trip to the void place. 

Billy shrugged lamely when he finished explaining. 

“So, Harrington, huh? Never woulda guessed he was like her. You sure you didn’t see a little girl anywhere in the blank place?”

“No. It was just us. Both times.”

Hopper leaned back in his chair, scratching a hand through his thick beard. 

“The first time one of the demogorgons showed up on our side was behind Steve’s house. Took Will Byers from his shed. They live some few miles away. Second time was in Harrington’s backyard. Took Barbara Holland.” Hopper sighed, looking in the direction of the busted radio. Billy could more or less see the cogs turning in his head. “If you see him again, tell him where we are. Tell him I think the walls are thinnest here. That maybe he and El could tear through. Better yet, tell him to find me if he can.”

He clapped Billy on the shoulder, looking right at him in that way he did sometimes. It always made Billy feel like a little kid. 

“Thank you, kid. You might’ve just saved us.”

Billy felt awkward and didn’t really know what to do with his face. Thankfully, Hopper turned away from him, cutting the moment short and moving back to fiddling with the old radio. 

Billy ducked his way up and back to the furthest bedroom on the ground floor, taking a seat on his low cot and digging his palms into his eyes. 

He didn’t know how the void happened. If he could only get there in his sleep, or if it was Steve’s doing somehow. 

“C’mon, Steve. Where are you? Come find me, Pretty Boy. We gotta talk.”

When he moved his hands away, he was in that blank place. 

Billy was taken aback a bit, thinking somehow he had created the place around him. 

Until he saw Steve, standing nervously and staring at Billy. 

“I felt you. What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, you felt me? What in the fuck’s that supposed to mean.”

“Don’t worry about it. What happened? Are you guys okay?”

Steve wasn’t covered in blood anymore. 

In fact, he looked freshly showered, his hair slightly damp and soft-looking without product. 

It’s how he always looked right after having a post-practice shower. Clean and warm. Soft and inviting. 

“I talked to Hopper. He told me to give you a message.”

Steve’s eyes lit up, and he took a step towards Billy, the water rippling where his foot disturbed the surface. 

“He said, well. He told me where we are. Apparently, we’re at your place.” Billy tried to smirk a little, act like this was brand new information to him.

“Yeah. I gathered.”

“He thinks the walls are thinnest at your place. Said that maybe you and El could tear through easily. That mean anything to you?”

Steve nodded so hard his bangs flopped right into his eyes. 

He pushed his hair out of his face, tucking some behind his ear. Billy tracked the movement. 

“We’re going to try tonight. Maybe around six. Can you guys be ready by then?”

“We don’t have any way to track time around here. Don’t even know if it’s day or night, really.”

Steve bit his soft bottom lip, looking at Billy like he wanted to cry for him. 

“Then I’ll come and get you before. Warn you when we’re about to start. Make sure everyone stays close. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep it sustained, and we want to get everyone out if we can.”

“Steve, man, what in the fuck is going on? I’ve been shut up in this place for, for I don’t even know how long, and all of a sudden, you just start showing up in my head and telling me that you’re gonna take point on this big fuckin’ rescue mission.”

Billy doesn’t want to admit it to anyone, least of all Steve Harrington, but he’s scared, and confused, and he genuinely wishes that he had died in that library instead of waking up. 

“I’ll explain it when you get back.” 

And Steve smiled at him and the corners of his eyes crinkled and Billy didn’t quite feel like he wanted to die anymore. 

-

“Where are they?”

El didn’t even say hello when she pushed Steve’s front door open, just made straight for Max and Steve in the sitting room.

“They’re all being dicks,” was Max’s answer. “Steve told us about how you two know each other, and everyone kinda freaked.”

“I mean, it’s pretty freaky.”

“Yeah, sure, but they didn’t need to be such shitbirds about it.”

Somewhere between feeling harshly angry at Steve and his powers and hearing her brother’s voice crackle through the television speaker, Max had pretty much ensconced Steve as her sidekick. 

Which he didn’t mind in the least. 

It was kinda odd seeing the Byers in his house. 

Jonathan looked. Exactly the same. 

Like literally. His hair had grown out since his mother had taken a pair of scissors and a bowl to it last summer, and he looked just like the Hawkins Jonathan Steve was used to. 

It was kinda nice. 

At least one thing hasn’t changed. 

Especially because Will is pretty much unrecognizable. 

He had shot up, growing until he could nearly look Steve in the eye. And thank God, he must've followed Jonathan’s footsteps and stopped letting Joyce cut his hair. 

It was longer, adn shaggier, but it made him look so grown up. 

Nearly as grownup as El, her hair nearly down to her shoulder blades, the top of her head coming up on Steve’s chin, showing off the signs of her own growth spurt. 

Even Joyce was sporting a new look. Longer hair with bangs that were swept off her face.

She gave Steve a comforting hug, and those were just the same. 

Unease filled the room. 

Nobody knew what they were walking into. El had to have given them the basics, and Steve figures she explained some on the long drive back to town, but there had been even more developments since the last they had spoken this morning. 

Steve sifted through the borderline panic of Max and the Byers, clinging onto the fierce calm that El was radiating. Probably for his benefit more than her own actual experience. 

“I know where Billy is. We talked. I have an idea.” He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the feelings. “Hopper’s alive.”

It took a second. 

El’s carefully maintained calm wavered for a moment. 

And then it crashed down. 

Disbelief, relief, denial, anger, hope, joy. 

Everything a person could possibly feel at once poured out of El and Joyce both, nearly knocking Steve off his feet with the sheer velocity of the emotions. 

“Saw him?”

“No. But Billy mentioned him. He said he’s been trying to get to you.”

El’s eyes filled with tears, and Steve could feel the satisfaction, the pride, welling up in her that Hopper was still thinking of her. That he was trying to reach out. 

“My powers,” she trailed off.

“Yeah. I know. But, he said, well, he told Billy to tell me, he thinks the walls are thinnest here. Maybe in the woods outback. He thinks we can do it.”

Sorry,” Joyce interrupted. She had gathered herself somewhat, but her feelings were still shaky. 

She always felt like she was trembling emotionally. Joyce felt everything nearly as viscerally as Billy did. 

“I think we’re not on the same page. Steve, you spoke to Billy? El said she sensed him.”

“Steve is like me. From Papa.”

“You mean, from the lab?” Jonathan clarified. 

Everyone was staring at Steve again and he felt like burrowing a hole right through the floor and hiding underground forever. 

“Yeah, I got out when I was a kid. My parents were pretty hell-bent on hiding it from everyone. But. You know. Cat’s outta the bag now. But yes, it was me who saw Billy. He’s in the Upside Down. A bunch of people are. Including Hopper. It sounds like they were all taken and the flayed people out here were like, fake. Like evil twin versions.”

Sure, it’s a shitty explanation.

It’s the best he can do, okay? Leave him alone. 

“So, what’s his plan, then?”

That’s the good thing about the Byers, though. They get the whole, priority thing. Now’s not the time to focus on shit like Steve’s fake life. Not when the Upside Down is concerned. 

“Billy didn’t say much. Just that he thinks maybe El and I could like, band together to open it. I don’t really know how, I mean, I haven’t thought about it much, I just spoke to him, but that's the idea. I told him I would meet him in the void or whatever before we go so he can gather everyone and get ready.”

“So, is it just us?” Will asked quietly, biting the inside of his cheek. He was disappointed. His friends not being where they were needed. Not being there to see him for the first time since his family moved away months ago. 

Steve shrugged.

He was battling his own disappointment and hurt at everyone ditching him. 

“No. Let’s start calling. We need to stick together for this one. Billy hasn’t said anything about how bad the Upside Down has been, and we need to be ready to fight off anything that tries to get through.”

“Max is right. They should be here.” Will was already making his way to the phone placed on the side table. “They need to be here.” 

Jonathan caught Steve’s eye, jerking his head slightly to the hallway. 

Steve followed him, already knowing the line of questioning that was about to hit him. 

“I knew you called El. I picked up this morning. Now the story makes a lot more sense, I guess.”

“Yeah. I’ve been getting this weird feeling for a couple months, but I finally put it all together. Probably would’ve happened faster it is was El.”

“I don’t know. She’s been struggling a lot. She practices every day, but,” he sighed” I don’t know if she’s strong enough to make this work.”

He’s worried, adn scared, and has that exact same tremble-feeling that his mother does. 

“I know. I just don’t think we can leave them any longer. Billy said they’ve already lost people. I don’t know what it’s been like for them, but they’ve been stuck for fucking months, and-”

This time, it hit him so hard he really did blackout. 

His vision clouded around him, and his whole body burned with the raging fear inside of him. 

He could hear something, could hear someone screaming, adn something, something that sounded horrible, and so very very like a-

-

“Demogorgon!”

It’s like it had come out of nowhere. 

This towering figure, long and thin in all the wrong fucking ways.

And the sound. Billy realized what Hopper meant about how it’s not something you forget. 

They were in some form of a ready position. 

Billy among the front of the group, holding his ax he had never let go of in the first place. 

His heart was pounding. 

We’ll be out soon. We’ll be out soon. 

He didn’t believe it. 

How could he?

How the fuck is Steve Harrington going to get them out of the worst place ever? No offense to him or anything, but the guy could barely make a goddamn milkshake without spilling something on the sticky tile floor of Scoops Ahoy! and now, Billy’s life is in this guy’s hands while he stares into the jaws of a monster that looks like it stepped right out of H.P. Lovecraft’s wettest dreams.

It’s not like this is the first time he’s had this realization, but he is in way over his fucking head. 

“Steve,” Billy grumbled to himself through gritted teeth. “If you can hear me, get us the fuck outta here.”

The thing ahead of them wasn’t moving. It stood in the line of the trees behind Steve’s house. 

It was staring down the clump of people on the other side of the backyard. 

The air was still. 

Billy’s ears were ringing. 

He stared the thing down. 

Its long fingers twitched. 

Someone screamed. 

And the thing charged. 

It roared like nothing Billy had ever heard before. A shriek that seemed to vibrate Billy’s bones and tremble the earth underneath his feet. 

It charged. 

Sprinting forward on long thin legs, it loped with a grace that turned Billy’s stomach and made his knees wobble and threaten to give out. 

Plant your feet. 

It rang through his head, Steve’s voice from, some time Billy couldn’t remember. Or maybe Steve was just the little voice that commanded his bravery now. 

Either way, he dug the balls of his feet into the cracked ground, and waited. 

Don’t stop fighting.

He swung. 

The ax clocked right into the side of the thing, barely cutting into its thick leathery skin, but it slowed it down. 

Well, actually. 

It made it change course from attacking the group as a whole, to honing in on Billy. 

Which was less than awesome. 

Billy wrenched the ax out of its tough body, thick, sticky black goo connecting the ax with its entry point as he drew it away. 

He swung again, nearly hitting the same place. 

The thing cried out, roaring over the sound of screaming and gunshots. 

Hopper had his rifle trained on the flowered head of the one Billy was furiously chopping into like a tree. 

There were two more, two he hadn’t noticed in his preoccupation with the one in front of him. 

He didn’t know who was who. Which gunshot belonged to which gun, which shriek belonged to which animal. 

He didn’t know if the cries of pain were from the awful beasts or the people in his camp. He was hoping the former. 

He swung again. There was a sickening sound of the metal blade connecting with something solid. Something like bone. 

Hopper shot it, once, twice in the head. 

It was whining, making a high-pitched noise as it staggered about. 

One last blow to the side of the thing, and it was finished. 

The monster flopped onto the ground, dark liquid oozing out of it, its body nearly split in half where Billy had hammered it with his ax. A great gaping wound that showed sticky dark entrails. 

Billy turned. 

His brain was working in slow motion as he charged into the battle still raging. 

He didn’t know how many of the things had arrived. 

All he knew was taking them out.

His arms were sore from the force he was putting into each blow with his ax. His muscles threatened to give out at any moment.

Drive them back. We’re coming. 

The thought was shoved into his head. He didn’t know where it came from but he believed it. 

“Help is on the way!” He shouted to no one and everyone. 

He had taken down two more demogorgons with the help of the others. One was missing its body, a petal head lolling on the ground, getting trampled on in the fight. 

-

Steve had felt the demogorgon before Billy saw it. 

It was an odd feeling, almost like it was a black hole sucking up everything he thought and felt before he could cling onto it. 

It made him feel cold, and empty, and just like the Upside Down felt. 

“We don’t have time!”

El was insisting on contacting the others. She was livid with them for abandoning Steve, but things were taking a turn for the small group trapped in that hellscape. 

“Steve’s right. If there’s a demogorgon there, that means the Mind Flayer has gotten some strength back, wherever he is.”

Steve nodded at Will gratefully.

“But, what’s the idea? You two open the gate. Then what? We wait for those things to come through to our side?” Jonathan asked, kinda harshly, if you ask Steve.

Steve rubbed his eyes, his fists pressing against them so hard he was seeing odd shapes. 

“No. I go through. I get them. I bring them back.” His head was a fucking mess. Billy was all over the place. Fear, desperation, and a horrible calm that only came when things looked like the end. Plant your feet, he thought, trying to get his feelings to Billy through the thin dimensional wall. Don’t stop fighting. “For the past few days, all I’ve been able to feel is somebody else’s fucking fear and this stupid stupid stubbornness and I know it’s Billy, and I know he’s in trouble. Like right now. The demogorgons are coming for them, and he’s so scared. He’s so fucking scared and he thinks he’s gonna die, and he’s trapped .”

He looked at each person individually, glaring at them all in the eye. 

“We don’t have time.”

So it was decided. 

He brought El outside, and stared into the shimmering water of the pool. 

The pool where a demon came out and dragged Barbara to her death. 

It gave him the fucking creeps. Well, it more gave him the severe anxiety, but there was something about it that made it seem like it was the best place to try and rip the fold between himself and Billy. 

Drive them back. We’re coming. 

He wanted Billy to have some hope. Something like a lifeline that would keep him fighting the monsters. 

He had wrenched his nail bat out of the wall it was still planted in from a few nights ago, and stood next to El, ready to try. 

“To be honest, I don’t know how to help you.” It was the only thing that scared him about this plan. “I don’t have the same powers as you. The telekin-the moving stuff around. I don’t know how to open this.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. 

“In Chicago. Kali. When I’m angry my powers are better,” she took his hand. “Make me angry.”

Steve closed his eyes. 

He tried to push Billy to the side, clinging onto the first bit of El he could sense. 

Her anger was like a melted core running through her. Driving her in a lot of ways. 

He grabbed onto it. 

Papa. Everything he did to your mama. Being locked in isolation. Fights with Hopper. Being trapped in the cabin. Feeling alone and not knowing how to fix it. New kids at school being mean. Techs in the lab that treated us like rats. The smell of skin burning. Parents that called you a freak. 

He didn’t know when he had stopped using El’s ready-made rage, and began siphoning his own straight into the beating heart of her fury. 

His gut began to feel white-hot, and he could feel the blood dripping down his lip. 

Lying to everyone. Being abandoned for the truth. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

Steve was livid. 

He’s never felt an emotion consume him like this. Felt one feeling take over so completely it’s like there was nothing else in the world. 

He opened his eyes. 

There was blood flowing steadily from El’s nose, and he knew his was doing the same. 

He could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, his body going into overdrive to divert all of his energy to his powers. 

The rift glowed red through the clear pool water, splitting open like a seam on a well-worn shirt. 

The burn on his arm ached, and he pushed into it. 

He remembered being held down on his father’s desk. Remembers the cigar being forced against his skin, bubbling up and disfiguring the tattoo beyond recognition. 

He remembers his father, this is for your own good, Steven. You’ll tell everyone you had an accident. People won’t question a burn like they will a tattoo. 

Like no one would take one look at the quarter-sized mark and know what would make it. 

He remembers getting the tattoo. 

It was nearly the same process. 

He was strapped down in a chair, his screams going ignored as the needle drove into his skin over and over, leaving a neat black number behind. 

001

Number One. 

The first in a series of children bred for something more, and beaten into acceptance. 

His head felt like it could explode. He didn’t know what was going on around him, was barely aware of El’s sweaty hand in his, and the bright red light coming from the cracked bottom of the pool. 

It was open. 

Number One took a deep breath, and dived into the pool. 

-

It was the little one that noticed it. 

Billy had been trying to yell at him to get back inside, to keep himself out of harm’s way. 

They had killed six demogorgons, and more were certainly coming. 

The trees in the forest were rustling in a way they never did on their own. 

The little one was pointing frantically, his eyes wide and scared. 

Billy turned, and his blood ran cold. 

Something was moving in the pool. 

It was making the thick non-water slosh around dangerously, the dark liquid lapping over the sides and staining the concrete. 

There were vines crisscrossing over the surface of the liquid, and Billy approached it carefully, hoping whatever was coming out would be trapped underneath them. 

“This is the last fucking thing we need,” Hopper gritted out, cocking his rifle and aiming at the sludge. 

And then Billy’s head felt like it had been cracked open. 

He was blinded with pain and rage and 

Help me, Hargrove!

He started swinging his ax wildly at the vines. Trying to break them apart enough for a body to fit through. 

His heart thundered in his chest, and he dropped to his knees, ripping at the slimy black tendrils. 

He shoved his left arm in.

It was like dousing his arm in ice. Like the liquid was made from the purest essence of cold. 

He searched frantically with his hand, finding something solid and yanking with all his strength. 

He had to put both arms in, grabbing hold of whatever he could, using his body weight as leverage to extract Steve from the cold. 

He was limp when Billy finally got him out, but breathing heavily. 

He opened his eyes, wiping his face free of the goop and blood covering him, and grinned at Billy. 

“Told’ya we would get you out.”

They shepherd him inside, most of the gang speechless and struck dumb from the events of the past while. 

Steve was given a change of almost clean clothes, and allowed to use some of their bottled water ration to clean the freezing black fluid from himself. 

He wasted little time, and was down in the Upside Down version of his living room with everyone else. 

“We can’t be long. El had to use a lot of strength to open it, but she’ll need her strength to close it, too.” 

Nobody knew what in the fuck Steve was going on about. 

Nobody but Hopper, that is. 

He still had disgusting pool sludge all over his front from when he pulled Steve into a tight hug when he had gotten his bearings back from his journey through the rift. 

“We can’t send people through that shit. It took all of Billy’s muscle to get you outta there.”

“So we drain it,” Steve insisted. “My parents drain it sometimes, I know how to do it.”

“I’ll keep watch. Make sure nothing tries to make itself known.”

Billy had barely wiped himself off. 

He didn’t care anymore about how freezing that shit was, he just wanted to surge forward, and get back the fuck home.

Hopper studied them both.

“Bring weapons. Yell if you need help.”

Billy nodded once, and turned on his heel, following Steve out the back door. 

Steve led him to a wooden shed on the side of the house. Billy had to clear the vines away from it before Steve could pry open the doors. 

It was full of pool equipment, and it didn’t take long for Steve to locate a large grubby pump. He knocked it against the wall of the shed until the filter attachment clattered off, leaving bigger openings for the sludge to, hopefully, run through. 

“Shit. This thing is electric. You got electricity?” 

It was the first time Steve had really gotten a good look at Steve since being in the Upside Down. 

He looked exactly as he had in the void place. His hair had a lot more disgusting black fluid in it, and he overall looked kinda shitty with the flecks of grime and blood on his face, but he looked bright. Alive. Strong. 

“How did you do it? Take me to that place. Figure out we were here.” 

Steve flushed. Billy had become overly aware that his face was completely covered under his bandana. Steve should cover his face. 

He drew another one of his back pocket, and, he didn’t know why, but he tied it around Steve’s face. 

Seriously, he could’ve just handed it to the guy and called it good there. But no. He had to set his ax on the ground, propped against his leg, wrap his arms around Steve’s shoulders, and tie the bandana like this was some intricate ritual. 

All while Steve just stared at him with those fuckin’ eyes of his. 

“It’s a long story.” Billy could barely hear Steve speak through the dirty cloth now covering his mouth and nose. “I’ll tell you when we’re back. When we’re safe.”

“I’m holding you to that, Harrington. Can’t have a guy poking around my dreams and shouting in my head without knowing his intentions.”

It was as close to flirting as Billy dared right now. 

Right before they tried to journey between worlds. 

“Good to know you heard me. I was trying to give you something of a pep talk.”

“Well, it worked. I would’ve just put my arms out and let those things rip me to shreds if I hadn’t have known.”

Billy didn’t know what Steve’s face was doing behind the cloth, but his eyes dropped, and Billy imagined that little cinch of his mouth that he had noticed Steve doing so much in that void place.

-

Billy meant it as a joke. 

He really did. 

And the Billy that was torn to bits in the mall wasn’t this Billy. Wasn’t the real Billy that was made out of real Billy materials and real Billy personality. 

But it still made Steve feel queasy, thinking about his arms spread wide, black goop pouring out of his mouth and nose as the Mind Flayer decimated him. 

“We’ve got a lot to talk about, Billy. Just, not now.” 

And Steve turned off, hauling the pump back to the pool and taking calming breaths. 

The pump sank without much effort, like there was some kind of gravitational pull at the bottom of the pool. 

Steve had connected the thickest hose he could find, adn sent Billy off with the extension cord to find an outlet that didn’t spark and threaten fire. 

Before no time, the pump was humming, and pushing black slime through the hose and onto the dead grass. 

They didn’t need to get it all out, just as much as they could shove everyone through. 

Steve closed his eyes, trying to reach El like he had Billy. 

We had a hold up. Shouldn’t be long. 

He could feel her on the other side. 

She promised she would stay close enough to the rift that Steve could get in touch with her. 

He could feel something slither down his spine, a wordless confirmation from her. 

The liquid in the pool was slowly edging down, leaving a stain on the once-white walls of the pool. 

“Gather everyone up. Tell ‘em to meet out here. Tell ‘em to leave it all behind.”

Billy was still staring at the edge of the forest when he commanded Steve. 

It was odd, being in his house that’s not his house. 

Everything was so. Wrong. 

From the way the house seemed to be crumbling down, reduced to its studs in some areas, to the way it was still clearly his house. Paintings his father had bought. Elegant furniture his mother selected. 

It was all there. Just under a thick layer of dirt and nightmares. 

He thought idly about his bedroom, wondering if it would look like it did on his end. A little messy, the sheets typically rumpled and unmade. 

He resisted the urge to wander upstairs, reminding himself he was on a mission. 

“It’s time. Don’t bring anything. It’ll probably be ruined along the way.”

Everyone looked grave. Steve tried to smile at them, tried to push through some calmness to them all. He had forgotten Billy’s bandana was tied around his face. He sent one last wave of quiet confidence around the room, and led the group through the kitchen. 

They had barely rounded the corner of the kitchen island when they heard a strangled yell from outside. 

Steve put his head down, and sprinted through the shattered glass doors, skidding to a halt in the threshold. 

Billy was staggering backward, his ax forgotten on the ground and his left hand was clinging wildly to his right shoulder. 

His jacket was in tatters, thick blood dripping bright crimson down his arm, standing out like neon against the dark, dirty ground. 

Steve didn’t feel himself moving forward. He didn’t feel his hands raising in front of him. 

He just felt anger. The same anger from before that had ripped through him like a raging forest fire and straight into El. 

The thing shrieked. 

It backed away from Billy, twisting and writhing as its horrible screams filled the air, making the hair on the back of Steve’s neck stand on end. 

Fierce fury was exploding out of him, and he grit his teeth against the pounding in his head. 

“You don’t get to hurt him,” Steve barely barked out. 

All went still, and the demogorgon snapped into pieces. 

Steve felt like he could pass out where he stood. 

He had never felt so wrung dry. 

His vision was waning at the edges, and he felt an arm around his waist, coaxing him toward the red light now barely shining through a thin layer of slime in the pool. 

“Hold your breath, Pretty Boy.”

-

Steve was limp against him, and Billy was doing his best to ignore the searing pain in his right shoulder as he held Steve close to his side. He had fumbled off both of their face coverings, moving clumsily through the pain of his injury. 

He took one last breath, and jumped into the rip between worlds. 

He plunged into the water, the crystal blue of a chlorinated pool. 

It was the best feeling in the world. 

Being covered and surrounded by clean. The heated water doing more to soothe Billy’s frayed nerves than anything in his life. 

He kicked hard, swimming one-armed to the surface, Harrington a dead weight in his injured arm. 

His head broke the water, and he took in deep lungfuls of clean, crisp air. 

Someone was tugging at Steve, and Billy, for the first time in his fucking life, was glad to see those kids Max was constantly hanging around. 

A woman Billy didn’t know was fawning over Steve, feeling for a pulse, and looking relieved when she felt his hot breath against her palm. 

“There’s more coming,” Billy coughed. 

He barely managed to get the words out, dripping muck and grime on the cement by the pool, when it felt as though he was hit from the side by a speeding train. 

He buried his nose in bright orange hair, hugging Max back as tightly as he could manage. 

He was exhausted, and feeling her there, alive and okay, was all that was keeping him standing. 

“I thought, I mean, we all thought you were dead. We saw it. That thing killed you .” Billy realized, with a whole lotta horror, that she was crying. Sobbing outright into his dirty chest. 

“Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” How could they have seen when that monster just came at him? 

“Oh, you’re bleeding.”

And if she only just realized he was hurt?

Max frog-marched Billy inside, to a very pale-looking Nancy Wheeler, sitting ready with a first aid kit. 

Billy had to peel his clothes off his body, the fabric stuck to him like a second skin. 

Nobody was speaking, and more of the people locked in the other place came traipsing into the room, fluffy towels wrapped around their shoulders. 

Hopper was the last to come in, holding the woman tight to his side underneath the striped pool towel. 

“Steve and El are closing it back up.”

There was a quiet murmur around the room.

Nancy patched up Billy’s shoulder, Max still stuck to his side like glue, the little boy from camp pasted to his other side. 

He had no idea how much time had past when Steve finally came traipsing into the room with Max’s little friend, both of them sporting matching bloody noses. 

Steve looked like shit. 

His face was covered in blood, old and new, and he still had some of the gross not-liquid in his hair from the Upside Down. 

But Billy doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see someone in his life. 

“I’m sure everyone has questions,” said the woman tucked against Hop’s side. El, Billy assumes, had taken her place on Hop’s other side, wrapping the towel around her shoulders as well. 

The woman launched into a story that made Billy feel like his brain was oozing out of his ears. 

A monster. One they had all met before. Playing body snatcher in their sleepy little town. 

Apparently, one had been wearing a Billy meat-suit and wreaking havoc around town, which made Billy wanna throw up until he died. 

Which, not-Billy, had died. Fuckin’ brutally. And in front of everyone. Which sure as shit explained why Max wouldn’t let go of his sweaty hand. 

The story made Billy queasy, and he took to studying everyone in the room instead. 

All the kids were there, even the one that had been following Steve around like a little shadow, but they were all glaring in the very much opposite direction of Steve. 

Steve himself was pressed almost against the wall, looking like he’d collapse if the wall weren’t supporting him. 

“What’s up with the cold shoulder?” Billy muttered to Max.

“They’re mad at Steve right now. He’s been lying to us all.”

It was all he got out of her before everyone started moving around. 

The woman, Joyce Byers, he’s learned, had finished her story, and the group from the Upside Down had begun clamoring for rides home, or maybe something to eat. 

Billy just saw Steve manage to slip away before he followed him. 

It took some doing, shaking off the little one, who still wasn’t speaking, and looked ready to burst into tears when Billy told him to stay behind in the living room. 

But Janet Holloway took the kid’s other hand and gently led him back into the living room. 

Billy nodded at her, and sped up the stairs. 

It was weird, being in Harrington’s actual room. 

It was messy, and looked like Steve spent most of his time here tossing clothes on the ground or twisting up in his bed covers like a tornado. 

But it was oddly comforting. 

Being in Steve’s real room, and not some perverse dirty copy. 

Steve was standing, facing the bed, peeling his borrowed jacket from his shoulders and leaving it there on the floor.

“I never said thank you.”

Steve startled at Billy’s voice.

“Yeah. No problem.” Steve’s tone was light and airy, but Billy heard him sniff.

“Max said the little shitbirds are mad at you. Something about you lying.” 

Steve turned around, giving Bily a watery smile.

“It’s a long story.”

“I got time.”

So Steve told him. 

About the lab. 

About the experiments. 

About the torture. 

He explained that he had rules. Never making anyone feel something they already didn’t. Never altering someone’s opinion of, or feelings towards him. 

Billy grit his teeth as he imagined Wheeler giving Steve a hard time about that.

Steve was silent for a moment, not looking at Billy.

“It’s okay if you hate me. I mean, everyone does now.”

“You'd be able to feel if I hated you. You and those powers of yours just saved my life, Pretty Boy. I’m pretty sure I’m feeling the farthest thing from hatred just about now.”

It was as close to a confession as Billy would let himself get. 

But if Steve knows what he’s feeling at any given moment, then that means that he knows, and he didn’t-

“Quit it. Insecurity isn’t a good look on you.”

Steve sounded tired, and he flopped back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling with his arms out. 

At first, it didn’t sit quite right with Billy. 

He had barely even begun to identify what he was feeling when Steve swooped in and just point blank told him what the emotion was. 

Billy spent nearly all of his time being a big fuckin’ facade. 

He tried his very best to hide any emotional tell from anyone around him. 

He prided himself on being a chameleon. That nobody would ever truly know how he felt in any given situation. 

And here’s pretty boy Steve Harrington. Who is feeling just as, if not more, strongly as Billy is. 

But, it takes out all the parts of emotions that Billy hates dealing with. 

Showing them. Talking about them. 

He’d never once had to grapple with the words to explain how he feels to Steve. 

Steve would just. 

He’d know. 

And god, that’s kind of a nice idea. 

Billy sat down gently on the bed. 

“Alright.”

Steve’s head popped up to stare incredulously at Billy. 

Billy just grinned at him. 

[mae-gi-writes]

Obtuse | Bang Chan (Stray Kids) - PART TWO

Summary ☆ "I don't know. I want to be his friend but then again, I don't. I mean, how can you simply be friends with someone when every time you look at them, you're thinking about how much more you really want?"

Genre ☆ bestfriends to lovers au, angst, slowburn, suggestive themes, college au, fluff, soft Chan x oc (Micha)

Word count ☆ 

. ° ☆ ° .

PART ONE | PART TWO

. ° ☆ ° .

Idiot, Micha kept on replaying the words like the words to her favourite song, Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

There she sat in the hospital chair beside her mother’s unconscious body, her life hanging by a thread with the help of the machine that beeped obnoxiously in the corner, and all she could think of was of the messed up realization that she was in love with her best friend.

Chan hadn't spoken a word as she'd sobbed and sobbed, even though she wasn't sure what she was crying about exactly. He'd only wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in to rest his head against hers in an embrace so firm and filled with warmth that her heart tugged in pain. He was so close that it pained her, the realization that he was so close yet so far was a blow that left a permanent bruise.

So she'd pushed him away, wiped her tears and gestured him to follow her.

He said nothing as he sat beside her, shifting every now and then as he succumbed to the dreadful silence filling the room.

And she hated it, that he was here as if this was the most normal thing for him to do. Because it wasn't. As if on impulse, Micha couldn't help but glance at his attire that confirmed her suspicions he'd just gotten out of the gym, probably having dropped everything to rush to her side.

"Who told you?" Micha asked. Her voice felt weird, strangled as she spoke.

Chan shifted and she felt his eyes on her face, the warmth of them permeating through her skin, "Felix called."

A stagnant pause ensued. In the silence, Micha forced herself to swallow down the lump of emotion stuck in her throat, forced down the feelings that seemed to have erupted through her every pore like she had just opened up a pandora's box of truths.

Go away, was what Micha's brain screamed. Go away.

But her heart protested. Please don't leave me.

Her brown orbs lifted to his side profile. Please don't leave me.

Even if I love you.

"You should go," is what she murmured out instead, "you're wasting your time."

"Don't say that," he replied, tone firm.

His silent assurance, that made it even harder to push him away. Micha didn't know how to feal with these feelings and though she wished she had stayed blossfully ignorant of them, there was no denying the cold hard truth that now blared atop her head like a red alert sign.

At some point, Micha's eyelids had fluttered closed for the next thing she knew she was squinting, disoriented and cuddled into a warmth that smelt of familiar pine and boy aftershave. Chan.

It was so familiar, laying on his chest and smelling that comforting scent of his, a scent that reminded her of home. She couldn't help but notice how well she fitted against him, the warmth of his hands casual on her waist and his nose nudging her temple and her heart skided to a momentary halt.

This was Chan. Just Chan, her best friend. Nothing else, nothing more.

So it was a relief once the doctor slid through the door, causing her to instantly jostle Chan out of the way. He stated that while her physical injuries would heal in a few weeks, though the one thing that worried him the most was the fact that her mother might not wake up from her vegetative state.

Micha would've fainted if not for Chan's strong hold on the back of her elbow and at some point, her father ushered her out with firm orders that the young man take her home.

"Here," he stuffed a few dollar bills in Chan's hand despite the latter's protests, "get some dinner. I insist."

The next few weeks were a blurry mixture of visiting the hospital while helping her father to run the family restaurant whenever she could. They took turns sleeping and watching over her mother's unconscious form, talked about the happenings of their everyday life in hopes that it would trigger something, anything.

The unforseen circumstances caused Micha to push back her internship by a semester and that so meant that she was permanently home and permanently swamped by none other than her best friend.

"What are you doing here? You’re supposed to have class," Micha asked upon noticing him slide out of the the kitchen with two sets of noodle bowls on a tray. It was no understatement to say that NomNom Noodles Restaurant was bustling with hungry customers as it was a Friday evening. What Micha hadn't expected though, was to see Chan's sloppy smile and sweaty forehead.

He shrugged, "your dad told me you could use the help."

Her heart tugged, partly churning with affection followed by this burning annoyance to get him out of her sight.

And he was helpful; he was a charming waiter that cracked jokes whenever he could, grabbing the dishes from her hands the moment she walked out of the kitchen, wiping tables he wasn't even assigned to. And all that made it harder for Micha to push him away. Oh how she wanted to ignore him, to make him understand that she needed a space, and a lot of it.

But she didn't want to hurt him. Not when he deserved so much better.

"Oi."

Micha was whipped back to reality when she felt Chan's finger poke her forehead, only to be faced with his dimpled grin, "earth to Micha. Customers are waiting."

Heat flushed through the back of her neck. She swatted him away, "don't touch me with your greasy hands."

"Aw shut up you," he made a move towards her, causing her to sidestep with ease, "stop it, Chan--"

She whipped around, almost bumping into one of the chairs as Chan's arms circled around her shoulders to pull her back to hug her close, "Chan!"

"Don't I smell nice? I'm just sharing it with you!"

And as if on cue, the door chimed open, both their heads whipping up with welcoming grins.

Only to face Ayeong's smile.

"Ayeong!" Micha all but shoved Chan away as she noticed the slight, barest slip of the said girl's smile.

Chan whooped and ran up to his girlfriend, cheeks flushed and eyes crinkling into crescents, "baby girl! You came!"

"And I brought company," she allowed him to kiss her cheek just as the door opened to reveal Minho and Seungmin bundled up into their coats.

Swalllowing down the sudden lump of pain, Micha went forward into Ayeong's open arms, "hey, it's been a while."

"I know!" Ayeong hugged her tight, so genuine that tears threatened to fall. Micha squeezed back slightly before quickly diverting her attention to greet the two other boys.

The restaurant was empty by the time their noodles were fresh out of the pot, meaning that they had the restaurant for themselves as they caught up on life and remembered their high school days. Micha learnt that Minho was interning at another restaurant, Seungmin had passed his Design projects with flying colours, and Ayeong had already signed a contract with the business hotel that she had trained with.

"That's amazing,” Micha said to Ayeong, "do you like it?"

"I do," Ayeong beamed, "and my superiors are nice too. They're all a bunch of guys so they aren't complicated."

"Careful Ayeong, one might think that you're gonna change boyfriends," Minho teased and caused the girl to stick out her tongue at him before leaning against Chan's shoulder.

Micha's eyes instantly shot away, swallowing hard at the knot forming in her stomach. She couldn't help it. It was like second nature to hurt herself by catching small glimpses of their entwined hands, of the adoration dripping from their eyes and she wished she could just make all the pain end.

It seemed like Minho noticed her unusual demeanour, for as they were leaving the restaurant after washing up the dishes, he'd stopped by the door to shoot her a concerned look.

"You okay, Micha?"

Surprise flitted through her face for a few seconds, "uh, yeah. Yeah I'm fine."

She saw him glance at Chan's figure before looking back at her with pursed lips, eyebrows knitted together as if deep in thought, and shook her head.

After all, who could deprive Chan of his happiness?

. ° ☆ ° .

It was safe to say that Micha fell into a routine; waking up to visit her mother in the early morning hours, replacing her father at the restaurant when it was his turn to sit at her mother's bedside, avoiding Chan at all costs even though he was practically throwing himself in her way, and locking up at around ten, nine earliest if the restaurant was void of clients.

She would've made a much greater effort at pushing Chan's helping hand away if not for the fact that her mother was mostly occupying the forefront of her mind. The truth was, a small part of her was actually relieved that Chan stayed no matter how angry she seemed, how cold she was to him. He was a big puppy constantly coming back for more no matter how much she kicked at his countenance.

And that made her feel even worse.

"Me and Aejong made pancakes the other day," Chan chatted on one late evening as they were clearing the tables, with Micha responsible for wiping them down while he mopped the floor, "she's a horrible cook. As unbelievable as that sounds."

"Why? Because she's too good at everything?" Micha knew she sounded bitter, but her tongue seemed to have a mind of its own, lashing out without control.

Chan, as oblivious as he was, didn’t seem to catch her sense of mockery, “maybe not everything. But she’s definitely very talented in many ways. I never knew she took piano lessons until she was seventeen. She passed the exams and all.” 

"Good for her.” 

“You know what’s the best thing though? I really like that she never boasts about herself. That, I admire that--”

“Yes Chan, I get it,” Micha finally snapped.

Chan paused in mid-mop, “What? What did I do now?” 

Her teeth sunk onto her lower lip as she kept on wiping down the tables instead of answering his question. 

“Why are you angry with me?”

"I’m not angry with you,” she folded her dishcloth a little too aggressively and turned to the other table. 

“Then why are you talking to me like that?” 

“It’s nothing.” 

“Micha.” 

“I said it’s nothing!” Micha finally whipped around to scowl at him and maybe it was the mixture of saddened pain whenever she thought of her dying mother along with the continuous stab, stab, stabbing of knives that pinched her heart every time she saw Chan so much as utter his lover’s name, a name that wasn’t hers, that brought tears to her eyes despite her not wanting to let him in, not anymore, not when he was one of the sources causing her pain. 

But the young man’s frustrated expression gave way to instant worry the moment he caught her eye. He made a move towards her. 

And that was when she burst into a fit of angry, heart-wrenching sobs. 

It was as though all the pain and the pent-up emotion that she’d stuffed at the back of her heart like an unused closet she could throw away the key suddenly burst open without warning, for once she started crying, Micha found that she couldn’t stop. Her tears only heightened upon feeling the warmth of her best friend’s embrace, pulling her closer and allowing her to sob her way through the tides of pain and worry and sadness that seemed to have taken over her countenance. 

Cheek pressed against the side of her head and hands softly rubbing comforting circles along her back, Micha just allowed herself to feel sorry for her state, if only for this one night where she thought that everything was slipping through her fingers; her mother, Chan. Her career. Her future. 

Once Micha had cried all the tears from her body so that there were none left, she could only rest against Chan as he rocked her from side to side, the only comfort that was holding her broken pieces together at this point. She hated it, loathed it. His kindness, his genuine concern for her. 

It made it so much harder to push him away. 

“How long have you been holding this in?” came his softened murmur against her hairline. She shivered unconsciously, hating the way her heart seemed to beat a little faster merely for his alto. Or maybe it was the closeness, the intimacy of his touch, especially in the dim lights of the restaurant with only the soft distant sounds of traffic in the distance to keep them company. 

“It’s not about how long,” Micha’s fingers unconsciously gripped the back of his hoodie, hoping to extend this moment for a little longer. Just for tonight. She continued in a mumble, “everything is...everything is just so overwhelming.”

"Want to talk about it?” 

Micha’s lips pressed into a thin line. When she spoke after her slight bout of hesitation, her voice trembled, “it’s like I’m not even in my life anymore. I feel like I’m in a nightmare-- and I can’t wake up.”

He hummed in reply, hugged her just a little tighter and kept rocking from side to side. That was all the encouragement she needed. 

“I mean, my mom’s a vegetable and she’s--dying,” a small sob echoed through her throat, “I know how these patients end up. I see no other solution. She’s going to wither away in that bed and I can’t do any fucking thing about it. And then there’s my degree which I’m not completing because we obviously need the money for mom so I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, to my life and to my career and just, I just can’t breathe Chan and it scares me, it scares me so damn much--”

“Hey hey,” he pulled back just enough to see another path of tears dribbling down her face, thumb reaching up to brush it away, “it’s okay, shh. Enough crying, hm? You know I hate it when you cry.” 

That only incited her to cry some more and Chan made a noise of protest before he cupped her cheek, gently wiping them away as they fell, “I know that everything sucks right now. I--I can’t even imagine how impossible everything must be for you, and I can’t tell you that things will sort themselves out because we never know what might happen.”

“But,” he continued with a gentle squeeze to her hip then and she tensed slightly at the intimacy of his gesture, “I swear it gets better. I swear it on my heart. And if you want to cry then cry, I’ll be here. If you need to shout, to scream, to punch someone, I’ll be there Micha,” tilting her chin up so that she had no choice but to gaze at him, he cracked the softest of smiles that left her all giddy inside, “I’m not going to let you go through this alone, that I can promise you.”

Swallowing thickly, it was hard not to squirm underneath the soft glimmer of his soft maroon-eyed stare. So she dropped her eyes while mumbling out a soft, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he whispered back.

“You don’t deserve to be here, you-- you’ve done so much for me and I don’t even know how I’m supposed to repay that--”

“There is nothing,” he cut her off firmly while his hold tightened unconsciously, “to be sorry for.” 

Still, Micha’s eyes suddenly found interest in the patterns of her best friend’s shirt, knowing that there was no possibility of eye-contact now, not if she wanted to keep her self-control in check. Maybe it meant nothing for Chan to hold her so casually in his arms, but there was no denying the fact that anyone looking through their restaurant window could mistake them for a couple, and the thought caused Micha to reel back in self-disgust. 

As if sensing her inner turmoil, her best friend’s hand went up against the back of her head before he nudged her to his shoulder. And while Micha’s brain was shaking in disapproval, she couldn’t find the strength to fight against what her own body yearned for, returning back into his arms and telling herself that it was just for tonight. Tonight, she would push everything at the back of her mind and just for now, would enjoy the mere warmth and comfort that came with Chan’s arms.

Burrowing her face into the crook of his neck and taking in his scent, Micha allowed her eyes to slip closed for a moment, trying her best to engrave this into memory. 

Just for tonight, she promised herself inwardly. Just for tonight, she would be selfish. 

Just for tonight, she would imagine that Chan was hers. And no one else’s. 

. ° ☆ ° .

"Do I have to be there?"

Micha caught Minho's eye as he helped her hand through her coat sleeve. The said young man's eyebrow rose at her question as if she'd never asked a thing so dumb, "yes you do."

"But why?" She stomped her feet while whining, "I don't even like to drink. Or dance."

"It's my birthday. I call the shots."

"I hate you."

"Aw, me too," he pinched her cheek with aggressive fondness and Micha batted him away with her hands, scowling and muttering a string of curses under her breath as she trailed after him towards his car.

Minho's birthday was to be special as he was turning twenty-two, the perfect excuse to go out and drown themselves in alcohol. Felix, Changbin and Jisung had even rode all the way from their campus to stay over for the long weekend, taking advantage of the public holiday to party the night away.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Minho asked as he slowed to a stop at a red light.

Micha turned to him, "yeah?"

He hesitated for a few seconds. Then, "do you like Chan?"

It was so sudden, like ice running down her back and making her go tense, fingers curling onto the material of her dark pants. Micha gazed out at the stop light until it went blurry, not knowing what to say to make it sound truthful.

"No--"

"I know he doesn't see you," Minho spoke up hurriedly, "but I see the way you look at him. I couldn't help but ask."

It wasn't like she had planned to let her secret out so soon. But he'd caught her red-handed. Her shoulders slumped, followed by the softest of sighs escaping her lips.

"You caught me," was the only thing she said.

Another pause that allowed the words to settle between them, before the light turned green and the car moved forward. A good distraction against the awkwardness sticking to Micha's heart like sweat.

"Do you..." Minho paused, "do you think you should tell him?"

"No."

"Don't you think he needs to know?" Minho turned his car down a street lined with pubs. They were slowly approaching their destination, “It’s not fair to him.” 

She kept her gaze out of the window, partly too embarrassed to face him and partly to keep herself from crying, "what good would it do?"

She was glad that they had reached the parking lot of the restaurant bar at that point, for she had no intentions of continuing a conversation that led to nowhere and, ignoring Minho’s call for her name, quickly jumped out of the vehicle and strode right up to the doors of Seniora’s. 

The restaurant was already full and she was glad that they had at least booked a private VIP spot in advance, thanks to Seungmin’s amazing organization skills. Micha weaved her way through in the dim spotlights shining atop dark mahogany tables that blended in with the darkness, trying to find their respective table among the throng of pretty, made-up girls in too-short dresses and guys who had no problem puffing out their cigarettes right into her face. 

“Guys!” Felix’s voice boomed through the jazz notes floating through the air, and Micha turned towards his voice to see him waving frantically, a huge grin on his childish face, ‘over here!”

His excitement was contagious as it caused her own lips to stretch into a mirroring grin. She bounded into his arms without hesitation, “Felix! You made it! You said you had an assignment to finish.”

“You know how convincing Minho hyung gets once he sets his mind to it,” the freckled man gave her a once over before he whistled, “don’t you look--”

“--Fucking gorgeous, Micha,” the pair turned towards the voice, seeing Changbin with open arms while she squirmed at his compliment. He was being too kind, though her sleek black jumpsuit that clung to her curves was definitely a contrast to her usual sweater and jeans. Behind him stood Jisung and Seungmin, as well as a few other of their classmates, girls and boys included.

Her eyes suddenly locked onto a familiar pair of dark orbs. Chan. 

“Hello! Hug, please?!” Changbin’s hand brought her attention back as he waved before her, scowling in mock annoyance. Micha grinned, wrapping her arms around his neck, “come here you big baby.” 

“Careful Mi, he might have wandering hands now that he sees you’re more than just a replacement for Chan,” Seungmin commented while giving her shoulder a squeeze. 

That earned the latter a glare from the said muscled man, “what? I’m just stating how beautiful she looks.” 

Micha made her rounds of greeting -- did Minho’s friend group triple by tenfold since she was gone?-- and was exhausted by the time she finally stumbled before Chan.

“Hey, look at you,” Chan offered her a dimpled grin and she swore she wanted to coo at how cute he was. Stop that, Micha gave herself a mental slap as he continued, “all I’m gonna say is, stay away from Changbin tonight.”

“He’s not going to do anything,” she rolled her eyes, “I’ve known him long enough. I’m basically his brother.” 

Her best friend said nothing, only gazed at her in that undecipherable way of his, like he was trying to solve a puzzle that couldn’t be solved.

“What?” she asked. 

“Uh--nothing,” he dropped his gaze, looked away just in time for their attention to be diverted by Minho calling for a round of shots, “alright alright everyone! I’ll open up the party, shall we?”

Before she knew it, Micha had been tugged along by none other than Felix only to be dragged to the counter where a row of shots were being filled to the brim. She didn’t have to ask, knew instantly by smell that this was definitely not water. Her nose burned at the sting of vodka permeating her nostrils and she cursed under her breath as Minho handed her one with a teasing, yet sympathetic grin.

“I think you’ll need it tonight,” Micha couldn’t stop herself from scowling at the underlying meaning in his words. She swore at him, “dick.” 

Micha hadn’t realized how monotonous, how boringly routine, her life had become ever since she flew back to her motherland. What with her mother’s situation in hospital and her running around trying to cover up all of her father’s blind spots, Micha had forgotten how it actually felt to be young, to be as carefree as she usually would be during university in-between her constant flow of assignments, how she used to get into this ‘fuck-it’ mood and hit up the arcade with the rest of the boys before winding up at one of the local bars, beers in their hands as they competed on who could chug down their drinks faster. 

So she took advantage of Minho’s birthday to let herself relax and actually pay attention to what was happening to her, around her. Just in this moment. Nowhere else. And it felt good. It felt...alive. Free.

She danced along to the music, chatted with the other girls who she now realized were quite cool and sassy in their own flirtatious ways, drank shot after shot every time another one of her friends dragged her back to the bar without realizing that maybe she should’ve kept count.

Until it was all too late. The alcohol didn’t have any effect. Until it hit her like a tow truck.

And maybe this sudden rebellious streak had manifested itself the moment her eyes lingered over the familiar pair of figures on the dance floor, chest clenching and heart crumbling at the sweetest brush of Chan’s fingers against Ayeong’s forehead. Micha turned away just in time to halt the tears burning through the corners of her eyes and she impulsively made a grab for Changbin’s arm before pulling him along with her, “let’s get another drink.” 

“Are you sure Mi? You kinda look tipsy already--”

“It’s on me. Now stop being a wuss and come on.”

Seniora’s was filled to the brim now that it was almost past midnight and the sea of bodies aided to calm the storm threatening to split her heart into. It made it easier to breathe, easier to push back the thought at the back of her mind as the alcohol paved its way through her blood and thrummed against her veins. 

It felt good. Too good. And Micha wanted this numbness to last forever.

. ° ☆ ° .

Unfortunately, it didn't.

"It's alright, you're alright," Changbin's soothing alto comforted her as she kept on throwing up the contents of her dinner, continuously dragging her hair back to hold it up and out of the way.

"Oh god--" Micha's stomach lurched "I'm sorry--" she couldn't stop herself from vomiting once more and boy, was she glad that Changbin had dragged her out of Seniora's just in time.

"So?" Felix called from the corner of the small street in which they were hiding from curious eyes. No point in giving people something to talk about, "how is she?"

"Holding up," Micha called back despite the sour taste in her mouth. When it felt like she wasn't going to pass out anymore, she slowly dragged herself upwards, throwing Changbin's concerned expression a weak smile.

To which he replied, "you look like shit."

"Thanks Changbin. That's exactly what I need to hear," Micha rolled her eyes, feeling his strong arm wrap itself around her waist. She allowed herself to lean into him just this once, fearing that she might trip over her feet and fall flat on her face if she wasn't careful.

They stumbled over to Felix who, upon giving Micha a once-over, stated that she was to be sent home at once.

"I'm fineeee guyssss," Micha whined through slurred words, "pluss, I really wanna...dance y'know?"

She swayed a little for good measure, only to stumble and she would've landed flat on the sidewalk if not for Changbin's arm holding her upright.

"I'm bringing you home," Changbin's tone was firm.

"Nooo, I don't want to go home yet!"

"Micha, you and I both know that you're too drunk to make those decisions right now."

"But Changbinnieeee I just--I really want to--" and as soon as the picture of Chan's face flashed before her eyes, she felt her resolve crumbling into the form of tears, "I want to...forget about him--"

It hurt too much. She couldn't keep it together. It was like she was forcing herself to hold in the pain burning through her loins and no sooner had had she tilted up to meet Changbin’s eyes that she burst into wretched sobs.

She felt him still for a moment, arm hesitantly tugging her closer, hand wrapping around her head in comfort, “h-hey,” he peered into her face, slightly panicked at her outburst, “what--what’s the matter?” 

“Mi?” Felix’s voice joined in. Warmth swept over her side, “Mi, what’s wrong? Do you not feel good? Do you want to go home?” 

Micha nodded, and felt herself getting tugged to Changbin’s chest. That made her cry even harder, for while his scent was nothing short of comforting, it wasn’t the warmth she was looking for.

All she wanted was for Chan.

But he wasn’t hers. And he never will be.

“I got her,” she heard Changbin’s words over the raging storm tossing her heart aside. Warmth circled her shoulders -- his leather jacket, no doubt -- and she allowed his hands to steer her away from the loud bass beats of the restaurant bar and she had to give that to him. No matter how much of a bad boy he was, no one could possibly deny him of his heart of gold. That Micha was pretty sure of.

They were halfway up the street with Changbin flailing for a cab when a familiar car pulled up their street. Its window rolled down, causing Micha’s breath to halt in her throat.

“Need a ride?” Chan’s eyebrow was raised in amusement, only to drop in concern upon noticing her pale composure, “what the--Micha?!” 

“No,” Micha quickly stuffed her face into Changbin’s shoulder, “Changbin, please...” 

The latter, as confused as ever, nudged her towards the car, “come on Mi. Chan’ll take you home.” 

“Nooooo.” 

"Not the time, Micha. Seriously, get in the car.” 

“I said noooo--”

Too late, for Changbin simply whipped her up in his hold, walked right around to the passenger door while ignoring her trying to sock him one, before plopping her into the seat. He slammed the door in her face and waved goodbye, “see you tomorrow, loser!”

Great. That was exactly what she needed. To be alone with Chan.

“Well someone drank a little too much tonight,” was the first thing he said the moment he pulled onto the street, a little smirk sent in her direction. Micha only sighed heavily, before leaning away to look out of the window pane. 

This was painful, sitting here with Chan with all those unresolved feelings burning her loins while he sat, totally oblivious and charming and just so breathtaking that it physically hurt her fingers from stopping any attempts to hold his hand, just touch his skin, just-- feel him. 

“Where’s...Ayeong?” she mumbled against the glass.

Just the name caused her chest to tighten. 

“I dropped her off with the other girls. They’re having a sleepover or something.” 

“She’s not spending the night with you?” 

“No.” 

“Ohh how dumb of her,” the words rolled off her tongue so easily now that there was alcohol swimming through her veins. It actually felt good to know that Ayeong was not to be with Chan that night, “it’s her-- it’s her lossss.” 

“Oh you are so drunk.” 

“I am...” she hiccuped and threw him a scowl, “not drunk!” 

Chan chuckled, reaching over to ruffle her hair playfully and that simple act merely got her heart racing, “I’ll see if I have some extra aspirin to give you for your headache tomorrow--” 

"Chan, can I--can I tell you something?” 

He stopped at the red light and as his head turned, eyes finding hers in the darkness of the morning hours, a surge of courage suddenly overtook her.

She wanted to blame it on the alcohol even though deep down Micha was certain a small part of her had always wanted to let her best friend in on the most deepest, darkest secret she wished she could carry to her grave.

But this secret that had been eating her from the inside out, was something that was making her heart to burst at the seams. And while she never even imagined of hurting Chan that way, she knew that this was inevitable. It had to be done, for her to move on from it. Because she’d realized then and there, that it would be impossible for her to just bury those feelings away, no matter how hard she tried.

So that left her with no other choice.

“I think that,” her hand rose up as if on instinct to poke his cheek then, eyes drooping with sleep, “I think I....might be in love with you.” 

-----

Tagging: @allyg-onz​ @elysianxshepherd​ @rindomo​ @freckledquokka​ @maedesculpaeusoubi​ @missskzbiased​ @seungoclock​

[sapnxps]

(WTL) Chapter One: Greg the Neighbor- Georgenotfound x Reader

If I knew that when I moved to London, I'd have two weird neighbors, I'd laugh in your face. Now I'm friends with an old cat lady. Now I'm enemies with my cute neighbor that's definitely not single, who also screams too much.

Even though he's a dick, why can't I stop thinking about him?

My parents told me I’d regret moving to London from the state before I left because I’d miss them and the US too much.

They were half right.

I’m sitting on a box messily labeled ‘kitchen’ in the hallway of my new apartment complex. I huff, wiping the sticky sweat from my forehead. The moving bill is almost 4 thousand dollars. If I knew moving would be this expensive, I wouldn’t have moved out from my parent’s house until I was 40. Sure, I moved a lot of my belongings across the Atlantic ocean, but 4 thousand dollars? Who do I look like, Jeff Bezos?

Today has been hectic, to say the least. Three of my boxes somehow drifted away to Spain. Don’t ask me how that happened, I don’t even know. I’ve been unpacking by myself all day. A box of my kitchenware got shattered upon arrival. I should’ve listened to my Mom on that one, she told me to just buy plates and glasses here instead of shipping them here. Big mistake I’m never making again. Finally, the biggest chunk of my problems: My apartment is full of boxes and I don’t feel like unpacking. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been sleeping on an air mattress for two days, maybe not, but I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. If one more thing goes wrong, I think I might lose it.

Begrudgingly, I lift myself up from the box I was sitting on. It’s a bit dented now, but the way it felt on my ass, it’s just pots and pans. I open the door, pulling this box into my apartment. I weakly push it into the kitchen. It collides with one of the boxes filled with shattered plates. The sound of the broken glass sliding across the box sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I need to make a note to properly dispose of that. Turning my head to look around my new home, I feel my brain's short circuit. All these boxes unpacked, I’ve barely made a dent. This is going to take for-fucking-ever. Moving is modern-day torture. Oh, that’s funny. Remember to tweet that later.

The next three hours of my life are taken up by filling up my kitchen cabinets and drawers with cutlery and various kitchen utensils. The counter was now less bare, housing my toaster and breadbox. My Tupperware containers sat in a special place in the far-right cabinet by the sink. It looked like this home was lived in, as long as you didn’t glance anywhere else besides the kitchen.

I soon after tackled the bathroom, which was the less intimidating room compared to the living room and bedroom. I got the shower curtain hung up, which made it look nice. The rug found its way to the floor, protecting my feet from the cold, cream tile. The shelves were now stocked with a few fluffy peach towels and soaps. Underneath the sink had cleaning supplies as well as spare toilet paper. Living alone meant having nobody to give you another roll if you finish the other one. Kinda sucks. I had a boyfriend during high school, and two years into college. I dreamed of living with him, we planned it all out. I’d finish college, we’d move to a city and rent out the tiniest apartment we could find. We’d live it out until eventually we made ends meet and the rest would be. Dreams cut short though, he cheated. It’s part of why I left in the first place. Needed a change of scenery, new people.

That’s where I am now. New people. Stuck on that part. Haven’t gotten a chance to meet any, which is oh so tragic. I can’t decide if I want to introduce myself to the neighbors or let them come to me? I’m stuck pondering on the thought until I hear a knock at the door. I wonder if my lost boxes have mysteriously arrived.

Opening the door, I’m greeted with an older woman, holding out a small cake into my space.

“Hi dear, I’m your neighbor to the right. Heard all the commotion, saw all the boxes. I had to see for myself the fresh meat in the complex,” She paused before lightly tapping my arm with her free hand. “Just teasing! It’s great to have another lady on this level. The young man to your left, handsome fella, never comes out much though. Hopefully, we can have a girl posse or something,” Her posh accent made her much different than me. Is it wrong to already feel isolated?

I grin at her, moving out of the way to invite her in. “Nice to meet you, feel free to come in. I apologize for all the boxes scattered around, moving has been proven to not be quite my talent,”

The woman smiles brightly at me, shock plastered on her face. “You’re American!”

“That I am,” I chuckle. She hands me the cake, which I gladly accept. My diet has consisted of soggy hash browns from the complex lobby. She makes her way to what is settled in the living room, politely setting herself on my suede blue couch across from the large wall in the room. I place the cake on my counter by the stove, making a mental note to grab a slice once the woman leaves.

The shock never leaves her aged face, “Oh goodness! How amazing. I have a foreigner as my neighbor. You’ll find London quite lovely. I know how it feels to be isolated and removed from what you’re used to, but I promise you’ll fit right in,” She says as I settle myself on the loveseat a bit away from the couch.

“Where are you from?” I ask. She obviously isn’t American.

She smiles, “Just a bit east of Surrey. South of London. Beautiful area, grew up on a small cottage,” The woman was glowing as she spoke of her hometown. She was obviously proud of where she grew up. Compared to my southern Arizona town, this place seemed like heaven. A cottage? Sign me up.

“Sounds lovely,” I speak truthfully.

“Welp,” The woman slaps her laps, a way of signaling it’s time to end the conversation. Despite only speaking for a small amount of time, she seems like someone I can come to if I ever have questions about London or the terminology that I hear around the city. I’ll need to remember that she’s the neighbor to the right. As she began to see herself out, I remembered the other neighbor she mentioned. The young man to the left. I believe she used the term ‘handsome fella’ to describe him. Once she was out in the hall, I felt the need to find out more information.

“Oh!” I shout, hanging myself out into the hallway. She pauses her steps, turning back to me. “By the way, who’s my other neighbor? The guy you were telling me about. Does he have a name?” I ask.

“Greg,” She nods, resuming her short walk back to her apartment.

Greg. Ugly name.

I completely forgot about the conversation by dinner time. As I was munching down on my cake, delicious by the way, I heard loud yelling from my right side. I wouldn’t even call it yelling, more like high-pitched screaming. Who was my neighbor over there again? Greg? Greg. He was causing a ruckus and a mere heart attack at that. He was screaming so loud I nearly jumped out of my skin the first time I heard it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s facing a very, very gruesome murder right now. Well, I guess I don’t know any better. I’m just wishing for the very best.

Another hour passes. The yelling never stops. It’s only 8, but my body is as awake as ever. I still have yet to get used to the new time zone. At times it was difficult, but I’m using it to my advantage now. I have some extra time to unpack and get my actual bed ready. My bed frame was put together professionally during lunch, so that was one thing checked off my list. The mattress I ordered was delivered yesterday. Now it was just the matter of putting the sheets on and preparing my duvet.

Fitted sheets fucking suck to put on a bed. I was currently struggling to put it on my nice mattress. It was edging close to 10 pm. The sky was dark, and I was stuck in some odd mixture of a starfish and the downward dog position. If this moment was a picture, it could be used for blackmail. The closer I got to finally getting the top right corner on my bed, the more stretched out I became. I was like one of those sticky hands you’d get in those toy dispensers at the grocery store. I was just about to get it, when another loud shriek could be heard. In shock, I slammed my head on the bed frame and lost grip of all four corners of the sheet.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled underneath my breath.

Whatever. He probably has a greater reason to be screaming like this, right? Justified shouting, whatever you want to call it. My bedroom is closer to his apartment than the kitchen was. Is it nosey to try to figure out what he’s saying? I don’t want to be that type of neighbor. I’ll continue minding my business because I don’t want to find out some weird shit about Greg that I don’t want to know.

The screaming never stopped.

In fact, if anything, it got louder. And louder. And louder. Is it okay to call the cops here?

It’s midnight now. The next fucking day. And Greg is still screaming at the top of his lungs as if everyone else isn’t asleep. If I saw some normal citizen just trying to get some rest, I’d be fed up. Well, I’m still fed up. I’m also running on a messed-up sleep schedule, so it’s not like I was trying to sleep anyways. My bed is made now, and comfy as hell. I built a shelf to house some of my small decorations, with the entertainment of my noisy neighbor’s yells to accompany me. For some odd reason, it made me feel less lonely.

At about 2, I began to reject the company. I felt irritation grow in my chest as I heard the same high-pitched shrieks that I heard at 8. The annoyance that bubbled in me overtook my politeness. Before I knew it, I was up and in the hallway banging on his door. I didn’t have the time to care about my Daffy Duck pajamas sticking to my legs due to the heatwave hitting England right now. Before I even realize it, my fist is slamming on his door. I never knew I had the power to knock that hard, but my anger and blossoming resentment overpowered me. I continued banging until the door pulled away from its frame. Now I’m face to face with Greg.

Boy was he handsome.

I was met with a man, about 5 foot 9. His dark brown hair was disheveled. Strands of hair laid across his forehead messily. If he wasn’t screaming, I would’ve thought he was sleeping. He was wearing a fluorescent green hoodie with an odd smile plastered on the front. It was a bit large for his skinny frame, that’s unimportant though. His grey sweatpants were twisted on his legs. What the fuck was he doing? His face was delicately shaped. This jawline looks sharp yet fragile like it was constructed of the most fragile rose crystal I’d ever seen. His brown eyes reminded me of caramel, thick and way too easy to get lost in.

“Hi, uh Greg-” I start. I’m just realizing now how close I am to him. The scent of his spearmint gum floods my nostrils. It’s a bit powerful, crinkling my nose at the smell. It wasn’t gross, just very shocking.

“George,” He spat. That’s fucking embarrassing. I’m meeting him for the first time and I got his name wrong. I’m not taken aback for long though, because his attitude oozing from his simple correction was enough to disgust me. I’ve done nothing wrong to him, except maybe get his name wrong. Was my moving too much of a nuisance to him? Poor little British thing, he can deal with it.

I cringe, “Oh, um, sorry.”

He leans into the door frame, sweatshirt adjusting to the movement. Forget a tiny bit large, he was swimming in this thing. “Yeah, no problem. Can I help you or are you selling girl scout cookies at,” George checks his watch. “2 in the morning. If you are, I’m not interested, sorry ‘bout that,” His outfit makes me feel a lot less aware of mine. Despite his face being rather attractive, the outfit makes him look like he just rolled out of bed.

“Oh, yeah. I was wondering if you could lower the volume a bit, please. Or just stop screaming entirely, if possible. I don’t know if you have some weird shouting fetish, but I certainly don’t,” I chuckle. George, however, doesn’t chuckle. Actually, he looks rather unamused. If a human was an art museum, it would be George. Curling into a ball and falling into an endless void doesn’t sound too awful right now. I think I’ll add that to my itinerary. I’ll do it in my bed so I’m at least comfortable while I’m drowning in my own self-pity.

He grimaces, “Yeah. Sure.”

He’s blunt. Got it.

The second I turn my back to the door, it slams. Wow. What a cunt. Shaking the interaction off, I begin to feel the wear and tear of the day beginning to hit me. Moving all those boxes made my muscles ache. The solution to all my problems today seems to be going to bed. Not that I’m not okay with that, just funny. The day before I left for London, you’d think I was shocked by lightning. The electricity that was running through my veins was no match for any ADHD medicine the FDA had ever approved. Now, my body is beginning to fall victim to the earlier time zone. Not that it was a big deal, it was going to happen eventually. These next few days would just entail a difficult sleeping schedule. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.

I quickly find my way back to my own bedroom. The yelling was quieter, but I could still hear George through the thin walls. He was murmuring to someone softly. This apartment complex was all 1 bedroom apartments. He didn’t live alone. How lovely! I made a fool of myself to him, and he was most definitely telling his partner right now. Talk about dignity, am I right?

I scrolled through my phone for an hour, before the screaming returned to its original volume. Would it be overdramatic to say I felt my face go red with anger? I don’t think so. I think I handled the situation as politely as I could. Hell, I even cracked a joke so he could know I wasn’t that upset over the situation! If I knew he was going to resume his disruptive noises, I wouldn’t have been so nice or absolutely hilarious. Nobody that douchey gets my amazing humor. He didn’t even laugh! I hear another shout followed by a slam to a desk. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

Welp. Welcome to London!

[masterkief]

request: honestly we need more ryan stuff! literally anything- my favorite stories are ones where the reader & the boy are friends (with benefits maybe idk) and everyone is basically taking bets on whether or not they'll end up together ya know? But I'll take literally anything haha

hiii @cornye-west here’s your request, I really hope you enjoy it. I tried to keep it as close to what you wanted as I could! 🥺👉🏻👈🏻💕

- -

My body was hot. I could feel the sun beating down on my tightly shut eyes and I was trying to ignore the sweat dripping down the nape of my neck. Squeezing my eyes shut tighter I searched for more sleep but couldn’t find it. A headache was beginning to creep its way into my temples giving me no choice but to force open my eyes. Taking in my surroundings I noticed an arm draped over my waist, the hand attached to it gripping my hip. Moving my head to the side, my gaze met a peaceful looking Ryan; his face buried in his pillow. A small smile pulled at my lips, but not very long before an emptiness filled my gut.

I told myself to stop letting this happen...but I always ended up in the same position.

- -

We met through mutual Twitch friends and out of them all Ryan and I clicked the most. Our relationship was the type where we bullied each other to no end. Fake fighting, telling one another we hated the other when clearly we didn’t, etc. But then...things changed. There was a particular night where everyone else had fallen asleep, leaving Ryan and I alone. Not wanting to “disturb them”, Ryan suggested we finish movie night in his room with a sly expression I’ll never be able to forget. Drunk and secretly pining over him, I agreed. One thing lead to another and before I knew it Ryan was behind me telling me how good it felt to “finally” be inside me. Now here we were a year later still randomly waking up together.

Shaking the thought from my already aching head, I slowly removed Ryan’s arm so that I wouldn’t wake him up; tiptoeing from the room for Tylenol. Closing the door quietly, I made my way to the kitchen, looking around at the destruction from last nights “wine and video game” night. Jackson was knocked out half naked on the couch cowboy hat still on, but none of the other boys were where we left them last night.

“Hi Lego.” I whispered to the pup, creeping past him. One of his eyes was open and watching me but he quickly dozed back off into sleep. Lucky him.

Making it to the kitchen without disruption, I searched for the pills; my head pounding.

“Too much wine?”

The sudden voice caught me off guard and I jumped, dropping the pill bottle on the floor.

“Damnit Matt.” I groaned rubbing my head and quickly trying to clean up the scattered pills.

When I stood back up he was leaning against the island, grinning like a fool. My eyebrows pulled together with confusion.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I questioned, throwing a couple pills in my mouth. “You gotta problem Twatson?”

Matt snickered, pushing himself away from the island to go towards the fridge.

“How could I have a problem with someone who won me $10 last night!?”

My insides clenched and I was frozen in time trying to remember what happened.

“What?” I said blankly, not able to find any memory from last night.

Again Matt snickered as he started to walk past me, leaning in towards my ear.

“You and Ryan.” He whispered. “You guys are in loOoVeEe.”

Almost spitting out my water, I watched as he walked into the living room where Jackson was just now waking up. They high-fived each other and full of confusion I rushed towards them.

“Hold it right there Matthew.” I scolded. “Jackson hold him down.”

Eyes and head still foggy with sleep, all Jackson did was take Matt’s arm in his hand.

“You’re not gonna say the shit you just did in there then leave me hanging.” I growled sitting in Matt’s lap so he couldn’t leave, “Now spill.”

If Matt’s smile got any bigger his face would explode.

“Awh come on Y/N!” Matt moaned, “You really don’t remember?!”

Again I racked my brain, but couldn’t figure out what the hell he was talking about. I stared at him with an open mouth, shaking my head a silent ‘no’. Matt sighed and shoved me off of him so that I was now planted between him and Jackson.

“Jackson help this dang dip out.” Matt ordered stomping towards the kitchen.

“What Matthew’s trying to say,” he exhaled and took his hat off. “Is that we heard you and Ryan last night.”

My stomach dropped and my cheeks burned. Jackson’s eyes widened realizing what I was thinking.

“Oh no no no Y/N.” He chuckled, “Not that!”

I relaxed into the couch, sweat dripping down my neck once again.

“We heard you and Ryan tell each other ‘I love you’!” Matt called from the other room.

My cheeks turned a deeper crimson and I felt like I might puke.

“You’re...you’re joking right?” I choked on my words.

How could I forget telling Ryan I was in love with him?

“Nope.” Matt interrupted my thoughts as he plopped down next to me again, “In fact, we’ve been waiting for it to happen. Hence how I won $10, we took bets!”

Were Ryan and I really that obvious? I mean yeah the guys knew we were close, and randomly hooking up...but we never really made it seem like we were in love? Sure I had feelings for Ryan, how could I not? But for him to feel the same seemed assanine.

“Y/N the guy has it bad for you.” Jackson chimed in as if reading my thoughts.

“No one believed me.” Matt said, “But I know my buddy Ryan. That mope’s been in love with you since he first heard your voice over the mic.”

If my eyes got any wider they’d pop out of my skull.

“‘I wonder if Y/N likes this?’” Matt said trying to imitate Ryan’s voice, “‘I wonder if Y/N has seen this movie, I bet she’d love it.’”

I cleared my throat and resisted the urge to pass out.

“He talks about you the way he talks about the Iron Giant dude, fuckin crazzzy.” Matt continued. “On and on and on.”

Not able to stand it anymore, I let my legs push me up off the couch and towards Ryan’s room; ignoring the cat calls and whistling coming from Matt and Jackson. Slowing down as I approached the door, I stuck a shaky hand out, apprehensive to open it. Slowly turning the knob, I crept back into his room. Ryan inhaled sharply, I obviously woke him up. A sleepy smile formed on his lips and he ran a hand through his hair.

“Morning weeb.” He greeted groggily, pulling himself up into a sitting position on the bed.

I watched him intently, taking everything in. He was trying his hardest to stay awake, the sun coming through the window making him squint in order to see. His nose was scrunched to hold his one eye closed, his perfect teeth glistening in the light. My stomach was fluttering...could I really be in love with him? All this time we spent together and I didn’t even notice. I always had a thing for Ryan but the part of me that wanted to avoid heartbreak blocked out any...deeper feelings. Staying quiet I made my way to the bed. Instead of going to the side where I usually slept though I went to Ryan’s. His eyes were still heavy with sleep, but they followed me...unsure of what I was doing. Climbing onto him, I straddled his hips and let my eyes meet his. Instinctively his hands gripped my hips, his eyes now beginning to wonder down my body. I playfully slapped his cheek and forced him to look back up to my eyes.

“Listen perv.” I leaned forward and whispered into his ear.

As my chest rested against his I could feel his heart pounding. I pulled away and sat back into his lap, my hands resting on his shoulders.

“Did you mean what you said last night?”

Ryan’s eyebrows furrowed and for a second I thought maybe Matt and Jackson had been fucking with me the whole time. I know he could feel my hands getting clammy, my nerves kicking in big time. Swiftly, Ryan lifted me up and backwards off of him, my back meeting the mattress while his body now hovered over me. Tucking stray hair behind my ear, he then ran his thumb across my jawline; tracing. After a moment I propped myself up on my elbows.

“Ryan?”

He stayed silent.

“Ryan, please...” I whimpered, growing impatient.

This was the most awkwardly intimate moment Ryan and I had ever shared. The sex was always rough and fueled by alcohol and pot. I began struggling beneath him, subconsciously readying myself to run when he rejected me. Ryan snickered and squeezed my hips tighter with his knees.

“I love when you struggle Y/N.” He muttered, running a hand through his hair again. “But you know what I love more?”

My head was swirling and I was sure I died and went to heaven. I shook my head “no” and searched his face for an answer. The sly grin he once was showing slowly relaxed into a soft smile. He brushed his thumb over my lips.

“You.” He said, his voice barely audible.

Tears stung at the corners of my eyes and for a second the wave of nausea from before returned. Putting his weight on his knees, Ryan leaned down towards me..his lips ready to meet mine.

“WOOHOOHOO! OWH OWH!” Screaming, followed by loud banging on the other side of the bedroom door ripped us both from our bubble.

“Oh my god they were listening this whole time?” I groaned, covering my face with my hand. “Again?”

Lego’s barking now echoed through the house as Jackson and Matt continued to cheer. I looked back at a very confused looking Ryan, trying to ignore more embarrassment. Just looking at him brought me to an ease, setting all the feelings I had for him in stone.

“I love you Ry.” I cooed, pushing up more so I could meet his lips with mine. “But man I hate your friends.”

[koushisatori]

Anniversary

First of all: If you happen to stumble across this, please cut me some slack and be gentle with me. English is not my mother tongue, and on top of that, I got rusty by procrastinating everything (literally) for the last half-year (*μ_μ) I am apologizing in advance if something is weirdly written.

This is also my first ever piece of fanfiction, so I have to get used to that to :(( So if you got ideas or anything, I’ll gladly try to fulfill your wishes to simultaneously improve my writing.

Hmm, is there anything else? I hope not, and if there is, I’ll add it !! 

tendou x f!reader

genre: small bit of angst, fluff

warnings: none

word count: 2.7k

note: /

__________________________________________________________

usually, your relationship with Tendou is smooth sailing, both of you decided to take the step of moving in together relatively early, exceeding the common couples limit by not only doing this barely a year into your relationship but doing so in a different country far from your family and friends

(both of you learning french together to survive a new life in an absolutely foreign country...however, the first months of grocery shopping were disastrous ) 

you both became a couple in your last year at Shiratorizawa, surprising absolutely....well,...no one, honestly

every person just seeing a moment of your interactions with each other would have guessed that you already were dating

Tendou and you were the embodiment of being disgustingly in love - like people see you and feel  s i n g l e wanting to have what you two obviously found with the other

(SemiSemi, to this day, shudders violently thinking about how he caught you two making out in the storage room a week after Tendou finally confessed to you <3) 

anyway

while Tendou followed his dream of becoming a chocolatier, you began to study - enter: stress

after finishing his required training he got a job at a high-class factory (everything his handmade and super expensive?? You’re just so lucky to be his better half and get to taste his creations for free)

they value his skills and invest in him to become better, but that also means that his time for you shrank even more

you understood that, of course, and it's not like you didn’t spend a lot of your times crouching over books either with being close to receiving your first degree

in general, your fights are stressed-induced, and as quickly forgotten as they came up bc...let’s not beat around the bush, both of you are shit at staying mad at the other, especially if it means cutting short the already sparse time you currently have <3

they’re usually about petty stuff, too

recently though it happens more regularly and they ever so slowly started to border on painful

he stays at work for longer to perfect his already otherworldly skills; and your patience is running thin with all the deadlines and exams putting immense pressure on you

both of you are just so unsatisfied and stressed and...so fucking tired

it’s always forgivable though

you don’t mind planned dinner dates turning into movie nights with him falling asleep on you after what feels like seconds

because he’s there, pressing his face into your side or stomach hard enough for you to wonder if he’s trying to suffocate himself, while his long arms are around your waist holding onto you as if his life depends on it

he doesn’t mind being splayed across your lap watching the latest episodes of his series while you type away on your laptop, even though you were supposed to enjoy a nice weekend lazying in front of the tv with him 

a forgotten date hasn’t killed you yet as well, but the amount of times it was currently happening allowed insecurities to have their way with you

both of you always make up for it one way or another (leaving an apology breakfast or even taking it to bed, buying flowers, sharing the sweet kisses you were supposed to enjoy the night before,...) 

but this time, he didn’t just forget to be on time for any date.

he completely missed your anniversary

you spend the whole afternoon cooking his favorite dish for dinner, making yourself all pretty for him, wearing the jewelry he got you for your birthday, it was some kind of tradition by now

just to be stood up, dinner turning cold and your mood sour

no message, no callback

around 11pm he - finally ! - gets in touch with you 

‘‘(Y/N)!! Bunny, did something happen? Did you miss me so much?’’

you could hear the dopey grin he was wearing while teasing you, one you usually loved, one that was contagious

but it didn’t help the pain and disappointment nesting in your heart, right now

he really didn’t remember

was the date so insignificant to him? were you no longer a priority?

you swallow around the lump in your throat, desperately begging your brain to not amplify your insecurities even more

‘’No...it’s...it’s alright, I just wanted to know when you’re home...’’ your attempt to keep the doubts and pain you experienced that second hidden was pointless, because even on the phone, your boyfriend was able to look right through you

‘‘Bunny what’s wrong?’’ he asks worriedly

normally you’d say that it was alright, that you’d speak later or directly say what was bugging you so terribly

this time...you didn’t feel like talking or maybe even fighting, scared that he might confirm your thoughts and leave you

‘’It’s nothing, Tendou,...’’ you hear him wince, you can’t remember the last time you called him that ’’don’t bother with me if it’s not as important to you.’’ 

‘‘Not as...’’ a moment of silence follows, in which he checked the date and, lastly, Tendou understood ‘’Oh. Oh shit, (Y/N),...Bunny, please, wait for me, please, let me explain...’‘

It’s not the answer you wanted (on the other hand, what answer would that be?)

‘‘I waited...and I’m tired,’‘ you add without thinking, hanging up before he even got the chance to answer

while you don’t want things to end...you can’t help but think ‘what if?’ - that thought alone though is enough for the dams to burst

With a soft groan, you blink your burning eyes open, noticing your spine protesting and pop from the uncomfortable position you fell asleep in. A glance at the alarm clock elicited another tired groan, the 4 on display mocking you. 

The burning and overall sluggish feeling controlling your body immediately reminded you of the things that had taken place. That his scent surrounding you arose solely due to his pillow in which you had pressed your face.

While you obviously weren’t on the best of terms right now, a small part of you was still hopeful and reached out across the bed in search for the warmth your red-haired better half usually provided. Unsurprisingly, your hand met a cold bed half.

An annoyed sigh later, you sat up and rubbed over your eyes angrily. You were hurt, which should be understandable, but remembering his overly happy tone even with evident tiredness underlaying it, you guessed that he didn’t stay behind on purpose and that, maybe, something good had happened. So to say, you as well behaved like an idiot.

Suddenly, you remember the last sentence you said. Realizing what it implied, you felt like banging your head against the wall. You wanted to be understood by him. What you didn’t want was to give Satori the time to allow his anxious tendencies to fester while he was alone, foregoing untrue, negative ideas. The fact that he still wasn’t in bed with you, was proof enough which lead to you cursing out loud.

While your last words towards him told something differently, you surely didn’t want to leave him or him to leave you. Both of you could work things out, you always did, and…well, you always hoped that it would stay that way until you had lived a fulfilling life as a couple, with grey hair and wrinkles taking your last breath together wherever life would lead the two of you.

The simple solution was to communicate like the grown adults you are. 

Determined to talk through it the way you should have done earlier and maybe...just maybe get some cuddles afterward, you swung your legs out from under the blankets. After you quickly put on some warm, worn-out socks, you quietly leave the bedroom and tip-toe through the hallway.

You expected the apartment to be silent, to be dark. What you didn’t expect is the soft light coming from your shared kitchen. Or the clinking noises of bowls and pots colliding lightly, lowly muttered, sleepy curses, and even quieter sniffles interrupting the barrage of words from time to time.

Upon hearing those little sounds - no doubt coming from your anxious boyfriend - your heart clenched painfully in your chest. This is your injudicious doing. Straightening your back, you stepped into the kitchen, slightly squinting against the much harsher ceiling lights assaulting your eyes.

The original plan was to offer a heartfelt apology, and follow it up by an honest declaration of love and the proposal to talk about everything. There were a lot of things that needed to be cleared up between you and Tendou. But after entering the kitchen, you came to an abrupt halt.

Your eyes wandered, lingering on cuts, burns, and blisters that blemished your boyfriends' pretty fingers. Slowly, your gaze continued to move up his arms and shoulders, tensed and screaming out his fear of losing you. For a moment, you hesitated, but you eventually lifted your gaze to meet his wide eyes, as red-rimmed and puffy as yours. He looked like a deer caught in headlights. Normally, you would find it adorable and stretch your hands out to cup his cheeks (not to pull him down, definitely not) and press a kiss to his lips...but right now? You really just felt like crying, seeing your Satori so heartbroken over something you said carelessly in the heat of the moment.

Suddenly wincing, Tendou quickly pulls back his hand to his chest away from the hot stove. Yet, he did not dare to break eye contact with you. Seemingly afraid that what he currently saw is nothing but a sleep-deprivation induced hallucination. That you would just vanish if he so much dared to even think of blinking.

The stupor rooting you to the spot though vanished in favor of closing the gap between the two of you to help him.

‘‘Tori...’‘ you croaked worriedly, eyes flickering down to his hands and back up to his watery, sad eyes. ‘‘I’m so sorry,’’ you whispered. Any louder and your voice might break. ’’...let me take care of you.’‘ 

You turned off the stove before you gently tugged Tendou behind you to the bathroom. Making him sit on the edge of the small tub, you gathered everything you needed to patch him up with rehearsed movements.

For a while, both of you were silent. 

You carefully worked on disinfecting cuts and putting special creams on the different wounds and burns, while not hurting him any further. Concentrating on ignoring the thick tension of untold apologies, and fear. Doubt weighing heavy on the two of you. 

Meanwhile, Tendou couldn't help but admire your features. Your soft hair - faintly smelling like peaches and anis - falling into your face, hiding away your pretty (Y/E/C) eyes. He loved to get lost in them. Or how your tongue poked out between your lips in concentration and the little scrunch of your nose when you thought that you could have done better. 

Even in this hazy state of mind, he knew for certain that he would try to hold onto you for as long as possible. That he would do anything to make you forgive him.

After you finished gently wrapping band-aids (silly ones with colorful patterns just the way you both love) around his fingers, on his palm, and back of his hand, he quickly moved them to hold onto yours.

‘‘Don’t leave me.’‘ Tendou's voice is just above a whisper, and if you wouldn't have been that close to him as you were, you would have missed it. But you could hear him, and your eyes immediately met his, filling with tears all over again.

‘‘Satori, I’m-’‘

‘‘(Y/N), please...please, don’t leave me. I’m so sorry. Of course, I care. Our relationship, you...nothing’s as important to me as you are. It was the only thing keeping me sane that last week. I don't know why I forgot about it. I truly feel horrible.'' he started. ''Please, believe me. I love you so, so much. I...I can’t imagine a life without you. I don’t want to.’’ Even with his voice quivering, it was crystal clear just how serious his words were to him. 

He needed to get it out in the open. There was no way in hell that he would allow any doubts about your relationship to fester in your mind.

‘’I was held back to talk about the upcoming Christmas preparations that I’m supposed to be leading this year, and then I was called into the boss’ office and I couldn’t check my phone,’‘ the desperation to explain still evident, Tendou resorted to rambling about the happenings of the day.

‘‘I’m sorry for hurting you, but Bunny, I beg you...I know that we haven't had enough time those last weeks, that we didn't have any if we’re honest. I understand that you must feel neglected. I will change that, give me a chance to make you forgive me, please.’‘ 

It wasn’t like you wanted to cry again, but the tears rolling down your cheeks seemed to have a mind on their own. ‘’ ‘Tori...’’ you sniffled, your voice breaking away at the last syllable. ‘’Can I hug you?’’  

The relief on his face spoke volumes, and before you even got the chance to make good on your words, he already stands tall in front of you, enveloping you tightly.

Securely wrapped up in Satoris’ arms, you feel like coming home after months away. Or like taking in the first gasp of fresh air after holding your breath underwater for too long. With Tendou holding onto you like this, you found the strength to answer.

''I'm sorry, too...I love you so much, and...I know you always have a reason, and it was childish to hang up on you and leave you worrying alone instead of talking to you. And...if you neglected me those last weeks, then I did the same. We both were too busy for each other...'' 

After a short pause, you ask: ''B-but we can work it out, right?’’ Slowly, you looked up to him. ‘’I want to spend my life with you, Satori. Don’t listen to dumb me 5 hours earlier. 5-hours-ago-me was so stupid, and petty, and does not reflect my true wishes,’’ you added. ’’No one of our old friends wanted to put up with me the last week because I’m so head over heels in love with you and all I do is tell them ‘’You should have seen what Tori did for me’’ and what I plan to do for you...I can feel them roll their eyes from the other side of the world!’’

Suddenly aware of your very honest words, you pushed your face against his chest to hide your burning cheeks. Embarrassment painting them in a pretty hue of pink. 

Tendou hadn't realized that he had actually held his breath listening to your words until he chuckled a bit breathlessly. The remaining tension possessing both of your bodies faded away after that, allowing you to relish in the feeling of having the other in your arms again.

After a while, you bravely gazed up at him again, even with your cheeks still set ablaze. ''Come to bed?'' And with a sweet smile, one that reached his eyes and made your heart stutter, he nodded. 

Things between the two of you weren't ideal quite yet, Tendou kknew that much. But they would be. Tomorrow would be a new day. You would hopefully agree to celebrate your anniversary a day later. He hoped, that you would agree to spend it with him from the first second you woke up to the very last before you fell asleep. You will hopefully enjoy the news that his promotion was topped with holidays that allowed you to spend Christmas and New Year's Eve with your families in Japan.

He also hoped for you to say yes when, surrounded by your friends, he would ask you to marry him under the Cherry Blossoms in spring.

Things weren't quite ideal, but watching your peaceful expression while sleeping on his chest, he knew, all the up and downs were worth powering through. He would embrace every hardship if that meant keeping you by his side forever.

[merlins-mushrooms]

Surprise, surprise, I'm back again!! I know I ask for a lot of drabbles, but listen,,, they're really good and I want to support!! But uh, could you do a Cedric x Reader drabble about the first time they say I love you? Ft. Lots of fluff and romance? Pretty please with a cherry on top??

I know you requested fluff and romance but some little goblin in my brain kept banging pots and pans together and screaming “ANGST” and I had no choice but to indulge it to get it to shut up

Also if there’s any mistakes in this please take into consideration that it’s currently two in the morning and I chose to finish this instead of sleep. Do not follow my example. Sleep.

You could tell within five seconds of Cedric storming into his workshop that his day had been… rough. He had that look, his patented “I’ve had it with just about every creature on this blasted planet” look. He’d told you on many occasions that you were never one of those creatures, that you could always lift his mood just by paying him a visit, which made you giddy beyond words.

This morning Cedric had asked you to come to his workshop to see him that evening, since he knew he had a busy day and wanted you there so he could end his day on a happy note. You were more than happy to, even though you knew the risks. Specifically, the risks of having to deal with a cranky Cedric.

Like right now, for instance.

“Don’t even start,” you tutted when Cedric started to rant, unable to stop the amused smile creeping onto your face. “I’ve got some tea ready for you, just come sit down and I’ll give you a shoulder massage.”

Cedric closed his mouth, though his expression remained sour. He sat down in the chair you pulled up for him, thanking you as you handed him his cup of tea.

“So,” you said as you began to rub at the muscles in his shoulders, “I’d ask you to tell me about your day, but I think I know enough.”

Cedric grunted. “Awful, as usual.”

You gave a sharp laugh. ‘As usual,’ oh, how dramatic. You knew Cedric’s days were often just fine, that a day like this happened maybe once a month, at most. You stayed quiet though, not wanting to irk Cedric any more.

“I didn’t spend fifteen years perfecting the art of sorcery just to spend my time as the royal sorcerer entertaining children and being subjected to humiliating circumstances. If I’m going to be performing idiotic tricks I should at least be doing it in front of other royalty- adult royalty, thank you. Why can’t anybody respect me…”

Your heart swelled with sympathy. You had seen Cedric do incredible things, he deserved more recognition than he received. “People do respect you, Cedric.”

“Sofia hardly counts,” Cedric said with a sneer. “I’ve seen her have conversations with a rabbit, so her respect for me may not mean much.”

You laughed. “Well, I respect you too,” you said with a warm smile, moving your hands up to rub gingerly at his neck, “I know you’re a great sorcerer.”

Cedric sighed, waving your hands away and turning around to face you. “I know, but that’s not enough.”

The smile on your face dropped instantly. “What do you mean?”

“All my life I’ve had to prove myself to everyone: my parents, my sister, Roland…” Cedric looked to you sadly, “They all think that I’m a bumbling idiot of a sorcerer. But if I finally gained their respect, no one would ever doubt my talents again.”

You quirked an eyebrow questioningly, “So…?”

“So, they’re the ones that matter.”

Cedric realized his mistake in word choice when he saw the hurt look on your face. His heart sank. He started to backtrack, stuttering something about not meaning what he said and just being tired from the long day, but you were already turning to leave with a huff. He stood up to go after you, but he stopped himself. Maybe it was best to let you leave and cool off. After all, what he had said to you was horrible. He didn’t blame you for being angry with him. However, part of him worried that if he let you leave, you’d never come back.

“Wait!” Cedric shouted after you, “Please, don’t leave!”

You snort, grabbing your bag that you had left by the door. “You’ve made it clear how you feel. I wouldn’t want to stay and be in your way of proving yourself to the people who actually matter to you.”

Cedric cringed. He didn’t need to be reminded that he was a rat. “Please, just let me explain-”

“There’s no need.”

“Don’t go!” Cedric was starting to panic, fearing that he may never be able to fix this mistake.

You scoffed. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because…” Cedric took a shaky breath, “Because I love you.”

You froze, your hand still tightly gripping the doorknob. You certainly weren’t expecting that. There was a twinge of doubt in your mind, however. He had said it in a heated moment. What if he only said it to catch you off guard and stop you from leaving? Would Cedric really stoop to such a low level?

The fact that you hadn’t moved both worried and relieved Cedric. On the one hand, you hadn’t stormed out of the room, so that must mean something. On the other hand, your silence was disconcerting. Cedric gulped. “Are you going to say anything?”

You were trying to. All of the thoughts and words tumbling around in your head seemed to dry up on your tongue when you tried to summon them. You gave up on speaking and slowly turned around, your heart fluttering in your chest when you saw Cedric’s face, his eyes glassy with unshed tears as he bit his lower lip, a sign of Cedric’s nervousness you had grown familiar with. You could tell he really meant what he said.

Cedric swallowed. “Well, if you aren’t going to say something, then allow me. Of course you matter to me. You’re kind, and wonderful, and you’ve been there for me more times than I can count. I know I haven’t told you this as often as I should, but I appreciate you and everything you do for me. The one thing you can’t do, however, is change the minds of everyone who thinks I’m a terrible sorcerer. I know you try, but it’s just not enough. I wish it were.

“I’m sorry that I said something so hurtful to you, I truly didn’t mean it. When I said I love you, however, that I meant from the bottom of my heart. I’d tell you every reason why I love you, but I think I’ve said enough for tonight. I’m sure that you agree.”

Now your eyes were the ones with unshed tears. The only sound you could manage was a soft “Cedric,” as you stepped away from the door, lowering your bag back to the floor, your eyes never leaving his.

Cedric gave a nervous chuckle, “I will say, I wasn’t planning on blurting it out like I did. I’ve wanted to tell you for some time now, but I wanted to save it for a… better moment than this one, I suppose. The middle of a fight may not have been the best-” Cedric was silenced by your lips on his. He returned the kiss, melting when he felt your hands come up to cup his face.

You pulled away. “I love you too, by the way. Probably should have mentioned that.”

“I-”

You pressed your finger to Cedric’s lips to silence him. “I thought you said you were done talking for the night?” You grinned and resumed the kiss before Cedric could say anything else.

[vividlybnha]

fighting a loosing battle

 @krbkweek2k19 Day 1 (April 14)

Dance/Suits/Music 

Warnings: Bakugou is a love sick idiot and Kirishima wins.

Word Count: 1995

Author’s Note: Not gonna lie, I got really carried away writing this. Was gonna end it before it hit 1k but here we are. I love these idiots too much for my heart to handle.

Bakugou doesn’t want to admit it but he’s lost. Totally and utterly lost. He knows when he can hear the chaotic sounds from behind the apartment door, the mixture of music and pots clanging together. But it’s not his fault that he lost. It’s not like Bakugou asked for another villain to show up right before he had to clock out. Yet nonetheless, the noise continues and Bakugou can feel the dread fill him. He can already hear the teasing.

Opening the door makes the pain in his palms tingle, the barely there burning of his skin and Bakugou can’t help but hiss. At least he’s home right? He doesn’t have to go all out on another villain or write another report, he gets to sit down and lay back.

When he opens the door Kirishima isn’t standing there, ready to get his reward for winning their race, which is suspicious because on the rare times that he does win he starts gloating as soon as the door creaks open. He sees the mess of his shoes pilled up against the side of the hallway, mud tracing the bottom. Yeah, Kirishima is definitely home. The music blares louder, soft lyrics smoothing into the sweet sounds of the piano (so different from the loud rock music).

Pulling off the sweaty T-shirt Bakugou can feel his muscles stretching and straining. A feeling he would have appreciated in his younger days, an acknowledgment that he did a good job with training but now it’s the telltale signs that the next few days he’ll have to go a bit easier if he wants to be able to sleep without the tingling pains. Pulling off his socks makes his thighs strain and all Bakugou wants is Kirishima’s arms wrapped around his waist, his fingers delving into his skin, massaging sweet kisses into neck welcoming him home. But that bastard still hasn’t greeted him yet.

He tries to keep quiet as he makes his way to the kitchen, fixated on scaring him as a form of revenge. Which is so funny to Bakugou that despite the fact that they are both pro heroes that fight incredibly dangerous villains that he will still squeak when Bakugou surprises him. He presses himself closer to the wall, grin pulling at his lips. Oh, this one is going to be good. Bakugou takes a quick turn with palms up ready for tickling but stops quickly upon seeing him.

The evening sun presses golden rays into the tiles of their floor, cascading it as an orange sea. It already makes the scene that of a romance movie and then he sees Kirishima. Hair lowly swaying across his shoulders, his sweetly scarred arms brought to his chest as he twirls in lazy circles across the kitchen floor. He looks so soft in the orange light, smiling and singing along to the music. He can see the food bubbling over, it’ll probably burn if they don’t get to it but Bakugou can’t bring himself to stop the scene from playing on. Kirishima dips into another twirl and he giggles. The idiot actually giggles, like something is funny and Bakugou can feel his heart breaking with it. He brushes the hair out of his eyes before dramatically posing to a quick strike of the guitar, one hand high in the air and the other bringing the spoon to his lips as he mouths the words.  Bakugou can’t stop the chuckle at his idiot husband.

Kirishima, of course, as always screams and drops his spoon. Yet the heartfeltness of the scene doesn’t change. Bakugou smiles over Kiirishima’s incoherent yelling of “When did you get here?” and “How long have you been standing there?” and walks over to him following the gentle sways of the music.

“Hey to you to Idiot. You looked so cute dancing I couldn’t help but watch.” Bakugou slowly wraps his aching arms around Kirishima’s waist, ignoring the soreness in favor of the warmth of his skin. He presses impossibly close, attempting to steal his heat, lips pressing gently to Kirishima's neck. He kisses all the way up until he finds Kirishima’s lips again, which are already curled into their usual grin.

“You’re a jerk.” He dips closer for another kiss, soft and sweet. “And a loser, you didn’t think I’d forget did you?” Kirishima’s head dips back in a laugh and Bakugou has to pull his waist closer because he leans so far back he thinks he might fall. He doesn’t but recoils from his laughter and smushes Bakugou’s face in his hands. Bakugou grunts and glares at him.

“I don’t even know what I’m going to do with this win. What is my sweet oh sweet reward going to be?”

Bakugou pulls his face from Kirishima’s soft hands. Despite wanting to nuzzle closer. Kirishima’s hands despite the years of work as a pro hasn’t calloused like Bakugou’s, they are soft and warm and no matter how many times that Kirishima will touch him his hands are always welcomed and loved.

“Maybe it can be me saving dinner and not letting it burn?”

“Oh fuck.”

Kirishima pulls away from Bakugou and grabs another spoon from the cupboard, stirring the already burnt meal. Bakugou leans against the counter, cracking his knuckles against his jaw as he watches.

“I’m not hearing a thank you. I just saved our dinner.” He grumbles at when Kirishima pushes his face away from him and laughs, “Your not getting one. I may not make food like you can but if you had gotten home earlier then maybe it would be different. Be happy I didn’t order sushi.” So he’s gonna pull this card, as always. Bakugou ignores it this time in favor of wrapping around Kirishima from behind, nuzzling as close as he can.

“You’re clingy today.” It comes out more like a question than a statement and Bakugou leans just away enough so he isn’t muffled by Kirishima’s throat. “Missed you.” If he was younger he’d be burning with embarrassment, probably angrily signing those words off but he doesn’t because for the years they’ve been together its always the same feeling when he comes home. It’s always the same smile he comes home to. Yet he can feel the faint anger when Kirishima laughs though. It’s not funny, he misses him, he always does.

Kirishima’s helplessly soft fingers find their way to his cheek, holding him close while he kisses his cheeks.

Bakugou can’t help but love the times like this. Where he gets to hold Kirishima so close, smell the lavender in his shampoo, the dents of scares that line his skin. Bakugou can’t stop himself from pressing soft, knowing kisses into the manly scars.

“Love you.” He says it so softly he almost hopes that Kirishima doesn’t hear. That the words just softly drift in the air until they disappear but one of Kirishima’s hand grapples onto his and he’s smiling.

Kirishima clumsily places the top over the pot, moving it off the now gone fire and turns to face Bakugou. Usually, now he takes the chance to ramble on about his day, the stupid things he saw, his thoughts but today he doesn’t. Today he takes Bakugou’s hands in his and sways to the music.

He can still feel the faint straining of his muscles as he moves to the music, twirling in small circles to the piano chords. But he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t want to. He wants to hold Kirishima as close as he can and simply dance to the music. He can’t even remember the last time they danced together, under all the chaoticness of adult life they usually end up passed out on the bed endlessly mumbling over their days and sassily drawn out remarks.

Bakugou draws Kirishima closer with another step. This is the closest he will ever come to true peace, to true love and happiness. Right here in Kirishima's soft arms, his warm body pressed close to him as he whispers the lyrics to a song Bakugou doesn’t care to hear.

He wants to tell Kirishima all about his day. About how much he missed him between reports, how much he wanted to text him about the simple things. He wants to tell him just how much he loves it when he holds him so closely, how much he loves just being near him. But his words as always get caught in his throat and the only thing he can do is hold Kirishima's hand tighter. As tight as he can.

They stay there for an impossibly long time. So long that the orange sunbeams turn dark and the food goes cold. Kirishima is the one that finally pulls away, pulling Bakugou from his hazy half sleep state. Bakugou only allows him to because he knows they need sleep and food and they probably don’t need to stand in the kitchen for hours on end. Or at least that's what he tells himself because if it was up to him they’d never leave this moment.

Kirishima once again takes Bakugou’s face into his delicate hands and kisses him fully. Barely open lips pressing together. Bakugou can’t help his hands from roaming, pulling Kirishima’s shirt adjacent to him. Anything to have him closer, anything to just feel him there. He grunts angrily when Kirishima pulls away, leaning closer for more. Wanting to feel his lips litter his body with love.

“‘M hungry.” He says between kisses. Bakugou is too, he can feel his stomach grumble with the feeling. He keeps the thought of, ‘well I’m hungry for you’ well in the back of his brain.

“The foods probably cold by now.” It is, it most definitely is. With a grunt, Bakugou begins to pull the plates out of the cabinets and the utensils from the drawers. Kirishima gets out their drinks, still twirling to the music in the background. Bakugou doesn’t see when Kirishima changes it from the soft swirl of piano and guitar and small charms to the grumble of rock music. He can’t stop the grin that overtakes his face and turns to Kirishima.

“Thought you said you were hungry?” He can’t stop the tapping of his foot to the electric rift of the guitar. Kirishima just smiles brightly as always and Bakugou can’t help but feel hopelessly in love.

“I am, the music isn’t stopping anything.”

But it is. And Kirishima knows it is because as soon as the lyrics hit they are both banging their heads and screaming as loud as they can. Even with the knowing look of happiness they share, even with the small flutter of butterflies in Bakugou’s stomach he blushes and stomps his feet to the music.

They don’t get to dinner for a while. They stay in the kitchen, not dramatically swaying to the music like in those stupid romantic movies, like before but rocking as hard as they can, laughing and pulling each other’s strings.

And Bakugou for the life of him can’t figure out which one he loves more.

Then Kirishima turns, hair splayed across his face and laughs hard, he plays the fake guitar wonderfully. Bakugou almost wishes that he was a rockstar instead of a pro-hero because damn could he pull it off. Then he pulls Bakugou close, smashing their lips together with the sheer intensity of the song and leans back, screaming the lyrics. Bakugou feels bright and lovesick and stupid.

He can’t really lose when he is with Kirishima. He can’t just be quiet and himself and angry. He is more, so much more in Kirishima's soft, delicate, wonderful hands. He is everything he wanted to be and Kirishima’s somehow even more.

“I still haven’t gotten a reward yet, I think I might know what I want.”

And upon all the yelling in the music Bakugou hears him so clearly, “Hm?”

“I want you to kiss me.”

And Bakugou finds himself falling in love all over again.

[missblissy]

May I have number 50 from the cotton candy prompts with Arthur?? Thanks baby

Cotton Candy Fluff Writing Prompts [pt. 3/8]

Send me a number 1 thru 50 for a word that I’ll use to write a fluffy headcanon, drabble, or starter. Send 🔄  for a random number instead. WARNING: some prompts listed are NSFW. (SOURCE)

50. — getting away from it all

((Bet, gotchu babes, enjoy the story

It was far too fucking early in the god damn morning for this much ruckus to be waking you up from your peaceful sleep. The same went for Arthur. You rolled over, away from the loud banging and crashes of whatever the hell was going on outside your tent. You curled up beside Arthur, burying your face into his bare chest while he instinctively wrapped an arm around you.

The sun was barely leaking inside the tent. This had been the third morning that you’ve been woken up by someone doing their chores. You groaned when you suddenly remember you had chores to do too.

“Arthur,” You muttered into his chest. He smelled like dirt and the faintest smell of lilacs. He really loved smelling like a fruity woman didn’t he? He just had to have those bars of soap that smelled like springtime flowers. You weren’t surprised though, because he did love flowers and he loved giving them to you.

Your sleepy cowboy groaned as well, letting out a sour sigh and pulled you closer, “Just a few more minutes,” His voice was in that sexy rough tone he only had in the morning.

Honestly, you would have loved to go back to sleep, but you were a much lighter sleeper than Arthur. The man could sleep through anything! Colem O’driscoll could show up any second and start shooting up the place and Arthur would be fast asleep like the big baby he was. 

“Arthur, I have to get up-”

“No! Noooo!” He grabbed ahold of you so tight that you started having trouble to breathe. He whined and cried, “No, (Y/N). Please, just a few more minutes and I’ll get up. I swear.” You knew that was a lie. He’d fall right back to sleep and he’d trap you there in his arms. Not that you wanted to be there, but you’d rather just get up and start the day.

You pried him off you, ignoring his protests and gave his forehead a light kiss. He begged for another one and like always, you gave in. Arthur laid there in your shared and skinny bed, watching you get dressed. You kept your back to him, which he didn’t mind. Your ass looked just as perfect and good as it always did, and it was by far his favorite part of your features.

“We should do something later,” Arthur said after he yawned. You were surprised that he was still even awake. Maybe he was going to get up after all?

“Like what?” You slipped your hands into each sleeve of your shirt, then started buttoning it up from the bottom up.

Arthur rolled out of bed, just nude as you were a few seconds ago. He threw on a pair of pants and said, “I don’t know,” He mumbled it out so all the words got stuck together, “Maybe we can... I don’t know, go to town? Get a hotel for the night and sleep in for once?”

You mulled it over, “Sure,” You finally said, “I’d love to do that,” You smiled at him wide, walking over to finishing the buttons he had left on his shirt, “It’s a date.” The two of you shared a quick kiss before departing. You both had a very long day ahead of you. ________________________________________________

How many hours did you slave away today? From dawn to dusk, mostly. The sun was already setting and you had nearly finished all your chores. You took the camp inventory, you went and got the needed supplies, you unloaded the supplies and put them away, you washed the dishes from breakfast and fed all the horses. 

You were busy helping Pearson with tonight’s dinner, you were by the pot, string the stew slowly and taking in the alluring smell of food. There was a sudden presence on your head, you looked up as Arthur plotted his hat down on your hair. There was a smile on his face, you hadn’t seen since this morning. He must have been away on that stagecoach job you heard Hosea talking about earlier.

“Busy?” He asked, gazing down at you with a fondness only you knew.

You had to gaze back, making sure Pearson was busy, “Not really,” You dropped the oversized spoon back into the pot, “Just cooking.” You took Arthur’s hat odd and held it in your hands, returning his smile, “Why?”

He snuck a little closer to you, he smelled like gun powder and cigarettes. He leaned down to meet your heigh and stole a kiss, “Let’s get out of here,” There was a twinkle in his eyes, begging you to say yes.

Pressing your lips together into a thin line, then smiling wide you played coy, “I don’t knooow...” You trailed off, then got on your tiptoes to put his hat back on his head, “I’m a little busy, I’ve got so much to do,” You didn’t have anything to do, but you wanted to hear him beg.

Arthur gave you this harmless glare, “Really now?” He put his hands on his belt, standing tall and he looked around, “Doesn’t look like there is anything to do. What’s got you so busy, miss?” 

You giggled at his little attempts at flirting. You felt bashful as your cheeks started to heat up, “You know,” You dragged on your words, “This and that,” You took a step closer to Arthur and put your finger on his chest, “What’s got you wanting to get out of here?”

It was always fun to flirt with him, to be coy and distance while being close and intimate at the same time. You could see Arthur’s brain working up a reply as he stood there as firm as a wall. You glanced around, keen on not letting the other see you two flirting so much. You’d be in a storm of teasing if anyone caught you too.

“I’d love to show such a pretty lady a night on the town,” Arthur loosely grabbed your hand at his chest, the brought it up to his lips for a quick kiss, “Take you out for a real dinner,” You both shared a glance at the pot of stew, “Maybe sleep in a real bed?” God that all sounded so nice. You wanted to keep up your game for a bit longer though.

It wasn’t easy to step away from him, but you did so slowly and only a few by a few inches, “Oh gosh, that all sounds so nice. You’d do that for me?”

Arthur wasn’t going to let you play this game and slip between his fingers. You riled him up and with an evil little smirk, you step away again when he got closer. You were ready to sprint away and make him chase you but he was too quick and caught you in his arms. Trapped against his chest and in his arms, Arthur looked down on you with his own evil smirk, “I’d do anything for you, anything you’d like,” He got close your ear, you felt his beard tickle your check and neck, “Anything.” 

You were all hot and bothered now, just by that one action. You wiggled in his arms, “You’re the devil, Arthur Morgan.” His grip on you loosened.

“You’re just as devilish, (Y/N) (L/N),” He was right to some extent. You weren’t innocent either, standing there give him that look, that smirk that told him he’d have to work for his prize.

Well, you were convinced, you looked at him and stepped away while grabbing his hand and holding it tight, “Come on then, Mister Morgan, let’s go out on this date you want so bad.”

The sweet sound of his low chuckle made your heart scream as the two of you walked over to your horses while holding hands. Like the gentleman he was, he helped you on your horse, then got on his own. You set off for Valentine, enjoying the peacefulness of the ride there. You were so happy to get away from the camp for the first time in weeks. Especially with Arthur. Alone... With Arthur.

The ride was short, you were thankful for that. Arthur had been so kind as to buy a room and a bath for the night. He told you to head on over to the bathroom, he’d meet you there after he bought something from across the street at the store.

Walking down the hallway, you could hear others through the thin walls. Many people here had the same idea as you. You found the bath and stripped down immediately and jumped into the hot and steam tub. The water washed away all the dirt that started to cling to your skin. It felt so nice to soak. Just as you reached the peak of bath glory, the door opened and Arthur let himself in.

“Well, howdy mister,” You slid down under the bubble, being sure to cover your bits and smiled at Arthur, “Are you here to help me? How much do you cost?”

He laughed at that while shutting the door, “I’m all yours, for free, and as long as you want,” It didn’t take him very long to wave you over to make room, and climb into the tub. The water splashed up and the tub overflowed with an extra person in it. Arthur sat with his back to the rim and he pulled you over between his legs so that your back was to his chest.

You scooted down, lowering yourself into the water and wiggled while giggling. Arthur quickly wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you back, “Where do you think you're going?” he playfully growled. You could lean your head back right under his chin, and looked up with a grin.

“No where! Just getting comfy,” You riggled in his arms and unhooked his hands around you, “You aren’t the most comfortable seat, you know?” He knew.

The two of you shared more chuckles. You reached forward towards the side table and grabbed a bar of soap, “Do you mind?”

“Not at all, my darling,”

It was nice. Arthur’s hands were smooth and rough at the same time. He was gentle with the bar of soap and his hands going over your skin. The warm water was refreshing. You wished you could bathe every day, maybe someday you’d have a house all your own with its own bathroom. You loved it, and you loved that you could get away and do this with Arthur. The two of you rarely got enough time to really enjoy each other’s company. The gang was more important than your relationship some days. It was straining and hard, so you were extremely grateful to get this time alone with Arthur.

The bath was perfect, it was very intimate, bathing each other and stealing kisses and bites every now and then. He was a devilish man. He’d nip your neck, hard enough to leave a mark and for you to squeal out.

“Arthur!” You whisper yelled. He just gave you this look that said I didn’t do that while grinning wildly. He’d do it again a few seconds later, this time biting even harder and right in the crook of your neck and shoulder. 

This time you spun around, facing him as you sat on your knees, “You tryna fight? Huh!?” Still, he just gave you that cheeky grin.

“Maybe,” Oh damn him! 

You lunged forward, going right for his own neck while your hands pressed against his chest and held him in place. Oh, how he tried to fight it, but you were too quick. Your teeth latched onto his skin, right in that sweet spot below his ear. You bite nice and hard, hoping to leave a purple spot on neck. Water splashed out of the tub and soaked the floor.

Arthur let out a growl and snaked his arms around your waist and brought you closer. His low thunder growl sent chills up your spine. He was much stronger than you and used that to his advantage. He held you down in place, pulled himself away, “Woman! You watch yourself!”

You were face to face, inches apart. You grinned, then lift your eyebrows, making a puppy dog look, “Or what?”

That sparked his interest and cause lightning bolts to shoot through his entire body. Arthur gave you this nasty, nasty look, “Get up,” He said, pushing you off him, “Get the fuck up and get that fucking room upstairs before I destroy you here right now.” Ooooh you got to him. You could tell. 

You bit your lip and played along, “Okay,” You stood up, making sure you did so slowly so Arthur could enjoy the show. He watched as the water rolled off your skin, making you glow in the lantern light. Every curve, every feature stuck out to him and he couldn’t take his eyes off you.

When you got out of the tub, he leaned over the rim and smacked your ass as hard as he could, “Hurry up,” His voice was low like the rumble of a waterfall, “Don’t keep me waiting now,”

You yipped out at the sound of the crisp smack he gave you. Your rear end stung a little and left your skin tingling, “Why don’t you make me?” You looked over your shoulder at him with that same puppy dog look.

Oh good god, you did it again. You knew every button to push to get him going and all riled up. You hurried out of the bathroom, wearing one of the hotel robes that they offered. Before you left the bathroom, you were sure to give Arthur one more dirty look, sticking your tongue out at him in a sexy way that said use me.

God this was nice. A short vacation, yes, but a much-needed one. You couldn’t wait for Arthur to join you upstairs. The night had only just started. Thank god, you were so happy to finally get away from all the work of the camp. Finally, you could unwind and sleep in and honestly, fuck the shit out of your cowboy sweetheart. What perfect way to end the day.

[shadow-light19]

The Wolf of Lilac Lake: Breaking Free

Summary: Daniel seems to finally be in charge of activities today and he starts spouting off all this cultist bullshit. Now that Max has proof, he tries to find David so that he can fire Daniel but it looks like Daniel has gotten to him first.

Notes: Okay, I made this a LOT angstier than I meant for it to be. Sorry, not sorry. I feel like David has issues that he is hiding. The angst is based on David’s breakdown in front of Max in the Season 1 finale and the friend pills he has in the original episode. I feel like he has depression from Jasper’s death and is always so happy and optimistic because of that. Hopefully, it doesn’t come up as too sudden in the story but when have I ever written about David caring about his own well-being in the first place? I also rewrote three tiny parts of chapter 5 to make the angst more fitting. The first is when David is woken by Gwen in the morning, the second is when Gwen leaves, and the third is when he’s in the sauna. If it doesn't work, let me know and I'll rewrite these.

Previous Chapter: https://shadow-light19.tumblr.com/post/174025664742/the-wolf-of-lilac-lake-muzzling-the-dog?is_related_post=1

Next Chapter: https://shadow-light19.tumblr.com/post/174189019287/the-wolf-of-lilac-lake-overcoming-demons

“Rise and shine, campers! Today is a beautiful day!”

Max rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He stretched and pressed brew on his Mrs. Coffee. Neil and Nikki got up and sleepily walked to the Mess Hall to get breakfast. Once his pot of coffee was ready, Max poured himself a mug and walked into the Mess Hall as well.

“Hey, Camp Man. What’s for breakfast today?”

His eyes were closed as he took a swig of coffee.

“Good morning, Max! I’m not David, but breakfast today is fresh fruit and rice.”

Max choked on it.

“What the fuck? Why are we eating that healthy shit? Tell David that I want toast and cereal.”

He glared up at Daniel while holding his mug of coffee to his chest.

Daniel looked down at Max. He smiled and cracked his neck.

“Now Max. David isn’t feeling well today so I insisted he rest and let me handle you kiddos today.”

Max scoffed at him. He went to take another drink from his mug when Daniel snatched it out of his hands.

“Hey, freakshow! Give that back!”

Daniel carried it to the sink and dumped it.

“Max, coffee is filled with toxins. I want you all to be healthy so we will be having detoxifying meals from now on.” He grabbed a tray off the counter and slid it into Max’s hands.

“Now everyone! Please get your breakfast and sit down. We will be having a party today!”

Everyone cheered. Max huffed and picked at his food.

“Now settle down everyone. Before we start setting up for the party I just want to ask if anyone is interested in space?”

“Oh! I love space!” Space kid raised his hand in the air.

Daniel sidled over and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Well did you know that all negative emotions come from space?”

Space kid stuttered.

“U-Uh, no. I didn’t.”

Daniel nodded and walked back to the center of the Mess Hall.

“Yes, it’s true. Our atmosphere is under constant bombardment from negative emotions tied to dark toxins. These toxins cling to the matter left over from the big bang, meaning that even though we are all pure of heart at birth, we’re bathing in a negative-rich environment every second.”

He gave the kids a pitying look. Neil scoffed.

“I’m gonna stop you right there. Are you suggesting that the massive explosion responsible for the creation of the universe is also responsible for some sort of endless radioactive evil?”

Neil snapped his apple slice in half.

“Because that’s fucking bullshit.”

Daniel’s eye twitched as he stalked up to Neil.

“Oh, Neil. Of course not! The big bang didn’t create the universe. It was just a side effect of the Millenia Wars started by Zemoog and the Galactic Confederacy.”

Neil flinched as Daniel placed an arm on his shoulder.

“I understand that you are very inquisitive. Have you ever stopped and wondered if what you were taught was wrong? After all, we are all products of our environment. Most people will believe what they are told by the people they respect which can cause them to question differing facts.”

He walked over to Nerf.

“I understand that you have anger management problems and can be more violent towards other people. I’m sure many people you respect like your parents or your teachers have convinced you that you’re the problem. That’s not true though! The world is so scary and unsafe that you can’t help but feel threatened. In reality, the world is the problem.”

Daniel walked passed the other tables.

“What if I told you that it didn’t have to be? That all those anxieties and doubt that fester inside all of you can be washed away? That you could ascend to a higher calling?”

Nerf jumped up from his seat.

“I don’t know what you’re selling but I am buying it!”

The other campers looked at each other in concern.

“I can help you reach ascension. All you have to do is let me show you how.” Daniel placed his hand on his chest.

Max stared at Daniel in horror. He grabbed Nikki and Neil and quietly backed out of the room as Daniel became distracted by Space Kid and Nerf asking him questions.

Once they were outside, he let go of their hands and grabbed his own hair.

“Oh, my fuck… This guy’s insane!”

“We have to tell David! This should be enough for him to fire him right?” Neil shrieked.

“David should be in his cabin. Daniel said he wasn’t feeling well remember?!” Nikki raced past them.

The three ran as fast as they could to David’s cabin.

“David, open the fucking door! You have to fire Daniel! He’s trying to convert the camp! He really is a cultist!” Max screamed as they banged on David’s door.

No one responded.

“Quick! Nikki, check the window.” Neil directed.

Nikki ran to the side of the cabin.

“He’s not in here!”

Max was panicking.

“Damn it! Where the fuck could he be?”

Neil wrung his hands. “You don’t think Daniel did something to him do you?”

Max froze. He bit his lip in worry.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. That’s why Daniel’s doing this finally. David’s out of the way.

“Fuck!” He looked around.

Max saw smoke rising off to the side.

“Maybe he’s over there?”

The trio ran towards the smoke and gasped when they stopped in front of the sauna.

“Purification Sauna? What is that supposed to mean?” Nikki climbed up the door and looked into the window.

“I can’t see anything inside. It’s too steamy.” She made to get down but put pressure on a rung of the door handle.

“Augh!” Nikki fell to the ground. The handle spun from her weight and the door opened. The trio gathered in front of the building as steam flowed out from inside. A silhouette appeared in the fog.

“David?” Max called out.

Damn it, the idiot better be okay.

The figure emerged from the sauna.

“Hiya, kids!” David grinned widely.

“D-David!? What happened t-to you?” Neil’s voice shook with fear.

Max’s jaw dropped in shock. David was still wearing his outfit of the bandanna, vest, and camp uniform, but it was all white and gray.

“Daniel helped show me how to be truly happy! Isn’t he the best?”

David walked forward. The group quickly backed away.

“David snap out of it! Daniel fucking brainwashed you!”

David chuckled.

“Aww, Max. I’m not brainwashed, I’ve been enlightened. Why don’t we go see Daniel together? I need to know how I can obey the Ancient One’s will and he can enlighten you all as well.”

They booked it.

“What do we do? David was the most capable of all of us to stop Daniel!” Neil cried.

“Maybe we can gather the other kids and stage a revolt? It worked on Gwen and David before!” Nikki looked back. David was walking in their direction.

“I hope so! Maybe he hasn’t gotten to them yet and we can band together to fix David.” They threw the doors of the Mess Hall open.

Dolph, Ered, and Harrison were inside. Dolph was directing Harrison on where to place the white streamers and Ered was leaning against the wall.

“Guys! Daniel’s a cultist and he brainwashed David! We gotta snap him out of it!”

Max yelled. The others turned to him.

“Really? That’s so uncool.”

Dolph clapped his fist into his palm.

“We offered to start setting up while he took the others to a sauna. Is that how he is brainwashing people?”

Nikki nodded.

“Yeah! It magically changes your clothing to white and gray as well! We have to stop him.”

They followed the group outside only to come face to face with Daniel.

“Ahhh!” They screamed.

Daniel’s grin twitched.

“Hey, kiddos! What are you up to?”

Max pointed his finger at Daniel.

“You fucking maniac! What are you planning?”

Daniel cracked his neck.

“Oh, Max. Once everyone has been purified, we’ll toast to ascension by drinking purified Kool-Aid and then they will sacrifice their mortal bodies and ascend.”

“You’re going to kill us?” Neil freaked.

Daniel tsked.

“You’re going to ascend! You’ll be able to join Zemoog in paradise. I want to save you from the negative toxins that are encompassing you all here on earth. It’s such a wonderful feeling being purified. Isn’t that right David?”

“It really is, Daniel.”

“Ahh!” They jumped in fright.

David and the other campers were all standing behind them. Each of them were dressed in white and gray and sporting large grins.

Oh, my God. He’s already brainwashed everyone? We’re dead! We’re fucking dead!

“We love you, Daniel.” They all said in unison.

The remaining campers backed away towards the tents. Daniel joined the others.

“I’m sure it seems scary to you right now, but once you’ve become purified I’m sure you’ll understand that this is all for your own good. David, if you would be so kind as to take them to the Purification Sauna? I think we’re just about ready to ascend.”

“I’d do anything for you, Daniel.”

David stepped forward and transformed. The wolf jumped forward but the kids dodged him. Max wracked his brain for ways to stop David.

Fuck! How do you deal with a fucking wolf? Wait a second!

“Harrison! Can you conjure a dog whistle? Maybe that will snap him out of it.”

Harrison screamed and dodged another lunge.

“I c-can try! It might t-take a while though!” He started waving his hands and tossing the wrong appearing objects to the side.

“Ered! Use your sunglasses to try to reflect the light into his eyes!” She took the sunglasses from her jacket and did her best to follow Max’s directions.

“Nikki, slow him down! Neil, what’s the best way to snap someone out of brainwashing?”

Nikki charged at David and Neil turned to Max. “I don’t know! I’m a man of science! Gwen is the one with a Psychology degree. The best way I can think of, based on how the brain works, is to try to re-establish their way of thinking. Try calling out to him to make him remember his previous self or snap him out of it with some kind of shock to the synapses of his neural system.”

Max growled. “That’s not working so far! Harrison is still trying to get the dog whistle and Nikki is fucking biting him and he’s not waking up.”

Max shrieked when he felt himself get picked up by the hood of his hoodie. Neil shouted his name but was quickly restrained by Nerf. Max twisted in Daniel’s hold.

“I don’t think so, Max. David belongs to Zemoog now! Once you all have ascended, David and I will continue to find children and save them. Now let’s get you guys purified.”

Shit! I can’t get free!

He tried to call for Nikki but his voice died in his throat. David was holding Nikki and Dolph by the backs of their shirts. Nerris had somehow tied Harrison up and Space Kid and Preston had down the same to Ered.

We’re going to die. We’re really going to die. This can’t be happening!

Max could feel himself start to hyperventilate. The group was dragged towards the sauna and Max couldn’t stop the tears from welling up. They passed a table that had red plastic cups laid out and bowls of Kool-Aid on them. Max whimpered at the boxes of rat poison thrown carelessly to the ground beside it.

“No! Let me go! I only want to die from being mauled by a wild animal or fighting something really terrifying! Not by juice!” Nikki struggled in David’s grasp but it didn’t faze him in the slightest.

This is it. We’re going to be brainwashed to kill ourselves. Wait… what did Neil say? Make him remember himself?

“David! Snap out of it! Daniel’s going to kill us and use you to kill others! You may be an optimistic idiot but you’ve always done your best to try to make me less cynical, remember Camp Man?”

The others caught on to what Max was doing.

“Come on, David! Remember how you made me wear a helmet in order to do extreme sports? It’s lame but it’s because you care. You even painted flames on it and on my knee and elbow pads to try to make it look cooler.”

“You’re the one who bought me a paint set when you found out that the camp only had four colors of paint and a worn-out brush. You’ve hung up all of my art in my tent or you wrap it and store it in your cabin so that I can take it home when summer ends.”

“David! You attend all of my magic shows and even if the trick doesn’t work like it should, you still clap and tell me how amazed you are. You promised to come to all my shows when I am good enough to perform for crowds. You can’t do that if I’m dead and you’re a murderer!”

“When I first came here and found out that Cambell lied about Science Camp, you went into the woods and came back with several logs. You asked me what beakers and test tubes looked like and then carved me all the tools I needed out of fucking wood! You may not understand science but you understand us!”

“I know I bit your hand when we first came to camp but you’ve never held it against me. You’re a badass werewolf and that’s so cool! You understand my love of nature and never get mad at me or scold me for getting dirty. So snap out of it Rusty! You promised to let me meet some of the wolves and foxes in the area. I want to howl at the moon with the whole pack and that includes you, Rusty!”

David stopped walking. Daniel opened the door to the sauna.

“Alright! Time for everyone to get in the sauna!”

Ered, Harrison, and Neil were thrown into the sauna. They reappeared at the window banging and screaming to be let out. Max renewed his struggles in Daniel’s hold. Tears streamed down his face as he clenched his eyes shut.

“DAVID FUCKING SNAP OUT OF IT, PLEASE!”

David dropped Nikki and Dolph. Daniel turned to him in confusion and Max managed to wriggle out of his hoodie. He dropped to the ground in his yellow camp shirt and ran behind David. Nikki and Dolph did the same. Daniel’s face contorted in anger.

“David. I asked you to bring them to the sauna. Are you disobeying me?” Daniel drew the sacrificial knife from his pocket.

David was emotionlessly staring at nothing.

“Do you know what happens to those that betray Zemoog?”

David stood still. The white bandanna around his neck slowly turning back to yellow. Max and the others watched as David went from emotionless to furious in seconds. He lunged at Daniel and bit the arm that was holding the knife. Max pushed the others back as Daniel shoved David off him and they fought.

“Hurry! We have to let the others out!” They rushed to the sauna and opened it. The others jumped out gasping and uncovered their ears.

“Thank god! I thought for sure we were done for!” Neil hugged himself.

“Everyone, David needs our help!” Dolph pointed at David who was surrounded by Daniel and the brainwashed campers.

There’s no way David will willingly hurt a kid. We need to get them out of the way.

“Nikki! I need get everyone away from David. Harrison, Ered, I need you to take the ropes and round everyone up! I’ll tie a knot once you’re done. That should keep everyone out of the way.”

Nikki dashed forward and dragged campers away from David. Daniel turned in surprise but was quickly distracted by David again.

Ered and Harrison wrapped them up and Max tied the knot. They dragged the group away from the fight so they could stay out of David’s way.

“What do we do now?” Neil asked.

Max turned back to the fight happening several feet away. He winced when he heard David yelp in pain but held himself from rushing forward.

“We can’t do anything. We’ll only get in the way. The only thing we can do now, is wait.”

David yelped as Daniel sliced his hind leg with the knife. He bit hard on the wrist holding the knife and kicked it away when Daniel dropped it in pain. Daniel tried to kick David off of him but David managed to pin him to the ground.

There’s no way I’m letting you escape. I don’t care if you tried to kill me but you tried to kill my campers and that is INEXCUSABLE!

David slammed his head against Daniel’s. Daniel slumped over, unconscious. David stepped off of Daniel and transformed.

“Are you kids okay?” He limped over to the huddled group of kids. He couldn't see any injuries on them.

They rushed forward and hugged him.

“Aww! I missed you too!” He kneeled and hugged them.

They stayed that way for a couple seconds before he stood up. He saw how Max looked embarrassed and was glaring at the ground.

“Took you fucking long enough. You had us worried sick, asshole!”

“I’m sorry I scared you all. If it weren’t for you kids though, I still would’ve been brainwashed.”

David walked over to the Quartermaster’s store and brought out a length of rope. He tied Daniel up, then returned to the kids.

“Ered, please call the police for me so that Daniel can be arrested.” He handed his phone over. David looked at the rest of the campers that weren’t brainwashed.

“I’m going to keep an eye on Daniel. Could the rest of you get me a bucket of water and some towels? I’m hoping that will be enough to wake the other campers. Please don’t go near the sauna or the Kool-Aid. I’m gonna need that as evidence for the police.”

The others quickly disbanded to do as David asked. David looked down at Daniel.

I can't believe I was so foolish. I should've followed my instincts when he first arrived at camp. I should've asked Gwen to stay or told her my suspicions. I'm sure this traumatized the kids and it's all my fault.

Nikki and Neil lugged the bucket of water over to David. He thanked them for their help and picked it up. He splashed it onto the brainwashed campers and sighed in relief when they cried out in indignation.

“Why are we all tied together?” Space kid looked at David.

David untied Max’s knot and helped the campers stand.

“When Daniel arrived, I had my suspicions that there was something dangerous about him. I didn’t act on it though because it seemed so unfounded. He was polite and his resume and previous experience were sterling. I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t trust him so I figured that I would just keep an eye on him and that everything would be okay. It’s why I never actually hired him. I wanted to be able to terminate his position if I needed to.” He turned to Max, Nikki, and Neil.

“When you three came to me with your suspicions of him being a cult leader, I should’ve fired him on the spot.”

David rubbed his elbow with his arm. “I’m sorry that I put you all in such danger. I failed to protect you and worse became brainwashed into someone who was willing to harm you.”

He hung his head in shame. David couldn’t hold back a sob.

I can’t believe I came so close to losing all of you. This whole situation was all my fault. Maybe I shouldn’t be a counselor. I’m sure they hate me now for almost allowing them to be killed.

“David, stop crying you fucking dumbass.” David stared at Max.

Max looked uncomfortable but pulled one hand out of his pant pocket and gestured to the others.

“Do you remember how we snapped you out of Daniel’s brainwashing?”

You guys told me… how much I care for everyone here at camp.

“You were reminding me of how much I love all you campers.”

Max smiled.

“That’s right! You may be an idiot but you genuinely care about us for some fucking reason. You broke free from the brainwashing because of that, so stop whining about your stupid delusions.”                                 

David smiled and kneeled down again. He spread his arms out for a hug.

“Aww! Come here, you guys!” Everyone rushed him except for Max.

Max stood off to the side and watched the others in relief. David extended his arm and pulled him into the hug. It made him smile wider when the only form of protest Max gave him was the middle finger.

“That’s sooo touching.”

Everyone froze.

David stood up and pushed all the campers behind him. He could hear sirens wailing in the distance as he faced Daniel. Daniel was awake but completely immobile.

“I mean, sure you managed to stop me in the end, but you were too weak to do it on your own. Even as a werewolf! My goodness, that’s pathetic.”

David’s glare fell.

“You didn’t even trust your own instincts! Maybe you seem happy and naïve to everyone else but I can see the truth. You’re broken inside.”

David could feel Daniel’s words chipping at him.

“You lack confidence in yourself and in what you do. That’s why you struggle to get the kids to do anything, that’s why you’re always getting hurt, and that’s why I was able to get one over on you. You told me about everything that's happened in this camp so far besides being a werewolf, remember? The mascot, the times you've been hit by a bus, the stab marks on both your palms, especially everyone's attitude about camp. You’re a much better actor than I thought David.”

David stared at Daniel as the police pulled up. He guided the police to the sauna and table full of poisoned Kool-Aid. He led the officers to Gwen’s cabin so they could seize Daniel’s possessions. He gave his statement and waited as the campers were interviewed as well.

When all the cop cars disappeared down the dirt road, David guided the campers into the Mess Hall and put on a movie. He called for pizza delivery to cheer the kids up and ignored all the worried looks the kids were giving him. He assured them he was fine every time one of them asked if he was alright with a cheerful smile and pat on the head. Once they were all settled in, David excused himself to the bathroom. Once he was alone, David let the tears fall.