#solomon lauter and the phone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heartofmorioh · 1 month

Text

they seem like something special

A/N: okay, so this is a NPMD fic I’m never gonna finish writing. Thought I’d post what I had, though.

Stephanie Lauter is doing something you’d be hard-pressed to ever see Stephanie Lauter doing. She’s studying. Green eyes squinting down at bouncing lines of text, noise-cancelling headphones drowning out the whispers and footsteps all around her. Even in a library, the smallest noise could distract her. And she can’t get distracted. She can’t lose focus, because once she does, regaining it is like scrambling, searching for something that is never going to be there.

Steph knows what it’s like to search for things that aren’t there. She also knows what will happen if she doesn’t hit the books this semester. She’s got her first big test in history coming up on Friday. If she fails, getting her grade back up will be damn-near impossible. Steph curls a lock of fading blonde hair around her finger, twisting it nervously. There’s always something just out of reach, just beyond her fingertips. Always something she’s scrambling to find, frantically searching for even when she’s sure it’s gone. Something always tugging her forward. Maybe that’s what’s keeping her going.

There’s a reason why Steph can’t fail this test. Her father promised that if she didn’t scrape at least a B on the test, she could kiss her phone goodbye for the semester. He wanted to take control of things early.

Solomon Lauter is a man of his word, for better or for worse. Steph knows this because it’s also true about her. She doesn’t promise things often. But she’s promised herself this: she will not fail this test. She will not lose her phone. It almost feels stupid being this adamant to keep possession of her cell phone. She tries not to think about why she’s so attached to it, why she can’t sleep without music blaring in her ears. She tries not to think about her music library and her old photos imported from a few generations of phones ago.

When Steph was thirteen, her mother disappeared.

She was beautiful and luminous, with a singing voice like an angel. And when she said she’d do something, she did. When Steph was thirteen, she told Solomon she’d win the Honey Pageant.

The Sweetest Woman in Hatchetfield. Stephanie Lauter’s mother. She disappeared shortly after she was crowned. She didn’t melt away, drip through cracks like honey seeping off a spoon. It was more like she was swallowed in a single bite. Like a moment passed, and then she was gone.

Gone.

And Steph became familiar with the feeling that she was chasing something always so slightly out of reach. Fast forward five years, and Steph’s house is haunted.

She’s sure it’s haunted. And that is why she needs headphones to sleep, why she needs memories to comfort her. The ghost, or thing, is not her mother. Oh, she wished it was for so long. Wished it was her mother returning in some form. No, it is not her mother. It’s some energy so similar to her mother’s presence, but it is not her mother. So she is alone. Her father is away so often, and if he weren’t, she knows he’d never believe her. He lives in a house with something unknowable, something he’ll never see or touch. Something he can’t believe in. Steph is trying to ignore the ghost while simeltaneously trying to figure out how to get rid of it. She’s seen the movies. Ghostbusters, The Sixth Sense, The Babadook. She feels like a terrified thirteen year old with a sharp stick and rain boots on as she tramps through the Witchwood Forest while her father thinks she’s in their yard playing. She knows he won’t check on her. She knows she’s alone in her mission.

She knows she can’t do this if her life is falling apart. She knows her life will start to fall apart if she fails this test and loses her phone. It’s the first step to madness. So here she is; huddled over a book in the back corner of the library, so very un-Steph Lauter-ish that the nerds who usually run in fear from her think her almost approachable.

+++

Peter Spankoffski is probably the most normal out of his friend group. He’s smart. He dresses unassumingly. He doesn’t speak unless spoken to. He’s not like Ruth, who would look someone she’s never met before in the eye and utter something you couldn’t waterboard out of Pete. He’s not like Richie, who smells odd and has voice cracks and talks about anime too much. He certainly isn’t like Grace, who isn’t even friends with losers like Pete and his friends. She has no friends. In fact, she’s only sitting with his group because they’re assigned to a history project together. Which is, in turn, the only reason why the four of them are in the library at all.

“Pete, you gotta go ask her for it,” Richie says, resting his chin in his palm and propping his elbow up on the table. “You’re our only hope.”

“Yeah, Pete,” Ruth whines. “I can’t go talk to a hot girl like her. She’ll laugh at me.”

Here’s the thing: Stephanie Lauter is hunched over the book they need for their research. Their mission is to go and ask if they can borrow it. Ruth can’t do it, Richie can’t do it, and Grace has not been offered the position, mostly because Grace is too wide-eyed and off-putting and oddly judgemental. So Pete is the man for the job. He sighs and walks over to Steph’s corner of the library, his body suddenly feeling like an amalgamation of several different parts instead of one working machine.

Steph is doodling where she should be taking notes. Pete notices this in her hand movements as he approaches. His breath catches in his throat as he watches her draw. Head moving slightly, hand gliding over notebook paper, eyes roving over words she is almost certainly not reading – Pete’s nerves feel heightened. He stands over her table awkwardly for a moment before she notices him. Pulling off her headphones, she looks up at him.

“You need something?” Steph asks. She’s both relieved and upset to be distracted. Her head hurts, her hand is cramping, and her eyes are blurry. But she’s lost focus and getting it back will be like trying to focus on the same star two nights in a row. She cracks her knuckles as she looks into Pete’s eyes for just a second too long.

“I like your drawing,” he blurts, his doe eyes big and his cheeks pink. And for a second, Steph forgets she’s annoyed. She forgets how hopeless and scared she feels. She glances back at her doodle; a round green ball with shapes and patterns scattering its surface. Planet Earth, with a banner underneath, bearing the legend, “how’s it going to end?”

“I was wondering that myself,” Pete says, a half-smile on his face. He hopes, he prays, that Steph gets the reference.

Her eyes briefly spark with recognition, and his heart rate slows. He’s safe. She returns his hesitant smile.

“Oh, The Truman Show, right?” she says. “I, uh. I liked that movie as a kid.”

As a kid. As in, before her mom disappeared. As in, before her house was haunted and before Steph had to do everything alone.

“Me too,” Pete says, and they meet eyes for just a second too long before she speaks.

“Uh, did you need something?” she says. “I’m a little busy, dude.”

“Yeah!” Pete says quickly. “Uh, sorry. I, uh, my friends and I kind of need the book you’re reading for a project. Could we…have it…when you’re done?”

“Pfft, you can have it now,” Steph sighs, closing the thick tome and putting her head in her hands. “I can’t concentrate at all.”

Behind those words, dread is forming in her stomach. She knows the material. She’s almost certain she knows it well enough. She can afford to take a break for now. But her stomach is full of black mould and she’s scared. It feels wrong. It feels like what she’s working toward will get farther away and then she’ll never be able to reach it. She’ll be running forever and ever.

And she doesn’t want to leave the library yet. She doesn’t want to be at home alone. Not with rain splattering the windows and dark clouds obscuring the sun.

“Really?” Pete says, and his voice cracks awfully. Steph cracks a smile in spite of herself. “Thanks, uh…”

“Stephanie,” she says. “But my friends call me Steph.”

She isn’t friends with this boy. She’s seen him before, and she knows next to nothing about him. But there’s something about talking to him she likes. Something that makes her feel safe.

“I know,” he replies, bursting her bubble. “You’re the mayor’s daughter.”

“Yeah,” she says. “And you’re…?”

“Peter,” he says, reluctant to tell her his last name.

“Pete,” she repeats with a very tired smile. “Cool.”

He’s not sure what possesses him to say what follows. It’s as if his mouth moves of his own accord. But he’s talking to Stephanie Lauter and she is not calling him Micro-Peter, so he cannot let this slip away.

Back at Peter’s table, Ruth and Richie are playing eight-ball on their phones. Grace is drawing in her notebook.

“You think Pete got the fucking book?” Richie asks boredly. Ruth throws a glance at the two chatting in the corner.

“Hopefully he’s getting more than just a book,” she says, grinning. And she’s right, sort of. A few minutes later, they’re all getting a bit more than they bargained for. They’re going out to eat at Pizza Pete’s with Stephanie Lauter, the mayor’s daughter. Ruth and Richie are a little in awe of her. Grace tags along, tutting about lost study time. But they’ll reschedule tomorrow, and right now all that matters is that they’re piling into Pete’s brother’s car, and rain is dripping against the windows, and Steph is actually really cool and nice.

“You know, you’re not what I thought you’d be like,” Ruth says as they sit at the table in Pizza Pete’s, all sharing a big pepperoni pizza.

“Ha, me?” Steph says. “What’d you think I’d be like?”

“I dunno,” Ruth replies. “Scary? Mean? Patronising?”

“You got me all wrong,” Steph sighs, looking a little sad. The truth is, isolated doesn’t equal mean. And Steph is isolated. She has friends, sure, but she hardly ever sees them as of late. She doesn’t do much outside of her own world. She’s possessed with her own life and there’s barely any room for anything else.

But, oh, she misses it. She misses, not popularity exactly, but many of the things that came with it. She’s held it together for so long, and she keeps trying to hold it together. And she’s scared if she lets things change too much, if she lets her guard down too much, she won’t be strong enough to hold up the world anymore.

Pete glances at her, and they lock eyes. He knows the look in her face. It’s so familiar to him. It’s what he would see if he looked in the mirror more often. He doesn’t love the sight of his own face almost as much as he does. He looks too much like his brother.

There’s always a reason for these things, and this is Pete’s. Four years ago, his older brother disappeared. He stayed late after work one day and never came home. It was as if he vanished off the face of the Earth.

Ted was an adult. He lived on his own. He had a car. Nobody files a report when a single thirty-year-old goes missing. Hardly anyone even notices at all.

Peter noticed. He noticed the next day when Ted didn’t text him at all. Ted couldn’t go a fucking day without texting Pete the link to some dumb article or Instagram post or something. So Peter noticed almost immediately that his brother was gone. And two empty apartment visits later, he knew his brother was gone. It was like one day he had been there, and the next day, he was not.

Peter’s parents didn’t care. Nobody cared. Everyone fucking figured he’d gone on vacation. He’d run off somewhere. He’d gone off the grid for some reason. Every food item in his fridge turned and all his clothes gathered dust in the closet where they still hung, and nobody looked for Ted Spankoffski.

Nobody except Peter. Peter looked for Ted. At fourteen, his parents let him stay out all day as long as he kept his phone on him in case of emergencies. They never texted or called him. He spent all summer that year trekking and tromping through the Witchwood Forest with a flashlight, searching and chasing and digging for treasure that would never be there. He spent months looking for something everyone agreed he’d never find, far beyond when it was understandable, far beyond when it was cute, far beyond when anyone believed that Ted could still be alive if he really hadn’t just run off somewhere.

People go missing every day in Hatchetfield. Peter’s brother, Steph’s mom. Four years later, Peter will act like he’s okay. Like Ted’s disappearance doesn’t hurt like a broken ribcage every day. He drives Ted’s car, even.

Steph still doesn’t listen to Fleetwood Mac. They were her mother’s favourite band. She sang Landslide in the Honey Pageant. Steph prefers not to think about that at all. For some reason, it’s the song that hurts most. Like she was warning everyone that something might happen. Like it was her goodbye.

Landslide is a goodbye song.

Neither Steph nor Pete is ready to let go of what happened. So they keep chasing it forward, moving along accidentally in the process.

When all the pizza is eaten, they sit around waiting for the check, and Steph blurts something that definitely shifts how the others see her.

“I kinda don’t want this to end,” she says.

“Me neither,” Pete sighs from across the table.

“Yeah,” Richie says, resting his head in his hands. “Steph, you’re so much cooler than I thought you’d be. Not that you’re not cool!” he said quickly. “Just like, chill-er. Than I thought you’d be.”

“You guys kinda were too,” she says quietly. She shoots a sidelong glance at Grace, who’d spent most of the meal talking while she ate a slice with a fork and knife.

“We should all go over to someone’s house,” Grace says matter-of-factly. Steph grins slightly, remembering the drive from the library to the restaurant and how Grace had complained about how procrastinating was against God’s will.

“Yeah!” Ruth says happily. “We should go to Pete’s house, ‘cause he’s rich.”

“I’m not rich, Ruth,” he says, frowning. “You’ve been to my house. There’s three bedrooms. We don’t even have a basement.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ruth replies, frowning. “The bow-tie keeps throwing me off.”

“Well, how about Steph’s house?” Grace says, and Steph feels her smile fade. Goosebumps erupt over her arms.

“No,” she says quickly. “No! I mean, uh. My dad doesn’t like when I have people over.”

“Didn’t you say he was out for the day?” Pete asks. Steph squeezes her eyes shut. She had said that, hadn’t she? Back in the library, before they left, Pete had asked if she needed to be home at a specific time and she had said her dad wouldn’t be home all day, so it didn’t matter.

That was why she had been at the library in the first place. She didn’t want to be home alone. But she can’t tell them that.

“Yeah,” she huffs. “I just…my house isn’t really cool. It’s kinda big and not very…welcoming?” She trails off.

“Is it spooky?” Richie asks, his electric blue eyes boring into hers.

��Uh, you could say that,” she sighs, blowing hair out of her face.

“Cool,” Ruth hisses, resting her face on Richie’s shoulder. “Can we please come over?”

“You guys…probably wouldn’t like it,” Steph says with a grimace. But Ruth and Richie continue to badger her as Pete takes care of the check, and eventually, the big question drops.

“Why not?” Richie asks, scrunching up his nose.

“Because it’s haunted!” Steph blurts. Her house is haunted. And that’s why she’s here in the first place, that’s why she’s so desperately trying to hold things together with one broken arm. That’s why when she’s on top of her schoolwork, she watches movies and researches the paranormal. That’s why she has a knife in her bedside drawer and she sleeps with her door locked, even if she knows it won’t do anything. Stephanie Lauter is not safe in her own home.

“Haunted?” Ruth and Richie say in unison.

“Haunted,” Grace whispers in awe.

“Haunted?” Pete says distractedly, joining the conversation far too late. He adjusts his glasses. “Did you guys figure out where you wanna hang out?”

“Stephanie’s house is haunted,” Grace says loudly. Pete looks at Steph, and their eyes meet. Oh. There it is. That is Steph’s thing, her reason.

“Yeah, so we wanna go there,” Ruth says, sticking out her lower lip.

“Haunted house, huh, Steph?” Pete says weakly.

“That’s why I didn’t want you guys to come over,” she says softly. “I wasn’t joking around.”

“I’m not laughing,” he replies. “Your dad’s at work, you’ve got a big empty house all to yourself with a ghost…? Maybe we should come over.”

“What?” Steph says, blinking.

“Yeah!” Grace interjects, catching on. “We don’t want you to be home alone in a haunted house!”

Pete offers Grace a genuine smile for the first time since he’s met her. Because she gets it, even if it doesn’t always seem like she does. Pete doesn’t want Steph to feel like she has to be alone, because he hated feeling alone that summer when he was fourteen. She looks in his eyes, and they rove over to Grace, Ruth, Richie…she knows they are adamant.

“Okay,” she sighs. “All right. You guys can come over for a few hours.”

As they pile back into Ted’s car and Steph sets Pete up with directions to her house, she feels cold and frightened. Anxiety bubbles up in the pit of her stomach. Returning home after being out is always hard, especially in the rain. It’s grey and gloomy all over Hatchetfield, no golden sunlight to warm Steph or light her way.

#nerdy prudes must die #npmd #hatchetfield #stephanie lauter #peter spankoffski #ruth fleming #richie lipschitz #grace chasity #writing

21 notes · View notes

its-short-for-jackalope · 2 years

Text

Hatchetfield Mayor Solomon Lauter upon returning his daughter's bugged phone and almost immediately learning that she was involved in the unexplained disappearance of the high school football star two weeks ago:

#jack jabbers #npmd #nerdy prudes must die #npmd spoilers #nerdy prudes must die spoilers #solomon lauter #hatchetfield #starkid #team starkid

276 notes · View notes

soupdwelling · 11 months

Text

poor stephanie lauter man. she was definitely alive when her mom died, maybe young but it’s likely she was old enough to grasp the concept and also understand that the circumstances of her death were. strange. solomon clearly struck some a deal with the lords in black that resulted in her death, but steph doesn’t know that. she’s probably always wondered what happened, it plagues her at night, she keeps pictures of her and her mom on her phone and wears her ring so she doesn’t forget.

solomon’s probably been affected too. it’s not a normal everyday thing to sacrifice your wife to 5 eldtritch gods, but maybe before it happened he wasn’t such a shitty person. maybe he’s always been power hungry and a little too controlling, but maybe he was trying to do better. he had a wife. he had a daughter. he was trying to be a good dad for her. so maybe in a way steph lost her mom and her dad that day. she died and he got way, way worse.

but what possible circumstances could solomon have ended up in that forced him to sacrifice his own wife?? my theory is that it somehow involved stephanie. the choice ended up being choose your wife or your daughter, and he chose his daughter. maybe this is partially why he’s so controlling of her. “your mother died for you so you have to be perfect, turn out exactly the way i want you to or it was all for nothing” on top of the need to protect his image, steph is just fighting an uphill battle trying to meet her fathers impossible expectations and always falling short. and she doesn’t understand why. from her perspective, the death of her mom is a mystery, all she knows is that her dad turned into a massive asshole after she died and seems to partially blame her for some unknown reason. so she’s just growing up with this weight on her shoulders and for some reason feels guilty for her moms death even though she doesn’t even remember it?

#stephanie lauter #i literally took a 5 hour nap and woke up and immediately started thinking about her i feel insane #solomon lauter #npmd #nerdy prudes must die #i could write a book about why steph has one of the most tragic backstories omfg this poor girl #hatchetfied #starkid #jaspers thoughts

45 notes · View notes

thegranddewru · 7 months

Text

Solomon Lauter is an absolute asshole and a shit dad, and I 100% believe he uses his tracking of Steph's phone for unkind purposes. But, they also live in Hatchetfield, where people go missing every day. Which makes me think I can understand the temptation to track your kid's phone.

#not saying it's okay to do secretively #no forgiveness for this man #but i love when things are wibbly wobbly and shit heads still #sometimes have good intentions in some things #like real life humans are complicated and so I find it fun #when characters are #hatchetfield #solomon lauter #stephanie lauter #nerdy prudes must die #i would be having a conversation with my kids #and they would be tracking me too #you never know when you could end up in sheila young's dungeon or something!

22 notes · View notes

patchythecryptid · 11 months

Text

I knew I always hated Mayor Lauter but now I hate him even more because you know the scene where Steph throws her hand between the hammer and phone?

She then says "you're killing me"

And he replies "if only, Steph, if only"

Like this bitch wants his daughter to die that's the only interpretation I got from these lines and I only realised this today. Long story short I am full of loathing for Solomon Lauter I'm glad he died in the musical

#nerdy prudes must die #starkid npmd #npmd spoilers #solomon lauter #mayor lauter #stephanie lauter

30 notes · View notes

zoeyslament · 2 months

Note

okay here is some of it:

" Stephanie Lauter is doing something you’d be hard-pressed to ever see Stephanie Lauter doing. She’s studying. Green eyes squinting down at bouncing lines of text, noise-cancelling headphones drowning out the whispers and footsteps all around her. Even in a library, the smallest noise could distract her. And she can’t get distracted. She can’t lose focus, because once she does, regaining it is like scrambling, searching for something that is never going to be there.

Solomon Lauter is a man of his word, for better or for worse. Steph knows this because it’s also true about her. She doesn’t promise things often. "

STEPH UH KNEE MY ADHD QUEEN STUDYING???? Good for her oh my god :)

2 notes · View notes

lauterishotter · 8 months

Text

//ooc: tldr i made a little writing that kinda like, explains further a hc i have?

i think that solomon has an alcoholic addiction, and since addictions can be hereditary, i think steph would also have a big drinking problem too

but, yk imma deep dive into her first drink

tw: alcohol, drinking, being drunk all in all

—————————————————————————

[How old is the age people start drinking? Most people would say 21. If you were rebellious, maybe 18-19. But Stephanie Lauter’s first ever experience with alcohol was at the sweet age of 16.]

[At 16, what keeps most people busy is school work, work-work, and a lot of work in general. Steph did just that. Teachers used to say she’s diligent. Classmates called her fun. What they didn’t know was that just over a simple weekend, about everything changed.]

[Of course Steph knew her father had an alcohol problem. It’s one of the many traits her mother tried to help him rid. It did work. Only for a little bit, up until they lost her. Solomon fell back into his old habits hard and was often a mess. Underneath his remarkably clean public image was an alcoholic father.]

[Well, can you even call him a father if the one person who took care of his kid was a maid?]

[One evening on a cold winter’s day, Steph was extremely down. Something about the weather, her emotions, and schoolwork had just been too much. Like any reasonable person, instead of asking for help, she immediately looked for a distraction. Sure, being on her phone worked but.. it’s not quite enough.]

[Wandering around her big house was certainly a treat. Her dad is out for more campaign rallies and good PR, which leaves Steph all to herself. Least, she should be. She wandered around both floors, checking to see if any of the housekeepers were there. She then realized that he was going to use the staff as another PR stunt.]

[Perfect.]

[Rushing to her dad’s office, Steph decides to do what her Solomon said she does best. Ruin absolutely everything. Spinning is his office chair, she sweeps everything cluttered on the desk onto the floor with her arm. She enacts her usual routine when her dad’s away from home: Find a pen, a few pieces of paper, scribble a bunch of shit all over it, and plaster the papers all over the inside of his office.]

[There was already a nice pen on his desk she missed to sweep off, so the girl quickly snatched that as she checked the drawers. Few legal documents here and there, a checkbook, random belongings. Steph finally found a large notepad in the very bottom drawer. Taking the notepad out, a slim key fell out between some pages. Must’ve been hidden there.]

[Grabbing the key, Steph stared at it. There’s not a lot of places that her dad uses a key for, let alone hide it She takes the key, slipping the notepad back in as she looked around to find a lock.]

[In the house, Solomon’s office was simple. His desk was towards the back, right in front of a middle. The left side of the room held a bookshelf while the right side had a cabinet wall. And damn, were there a lot of them.]

[Steph snooped around the desk, but to no avail. Of course the girl knew what she was doing was wrong. But did she care? Not one bit. If he won’t properly take care and pay any attention to her, why should she follow? The only thing that would happen is he’d ignore her more.]

[Walking to the wall cabinets, she opened up a few bottom ones, before hitting one that was locked. Checking the keyhole, the girl found that the key perfectly fit. When Steph inserted the key and opened the lock, the few things inside the locked cabinet shocked her.]

[A half drunken bottle of whiskey and 3 glasses, all neatly together on one shelf. Steph’s not surprised by the bottle, he drank ever since she was born. But 3 glasses? Who the fuck was he inviting to drink with him? Nonetheless, she took the whiskey and one glass, sitting on his chair.]

[The idea of drinking always intrigued Stephanie. After all, if her dad and Max can drink like nothing, why can’t she? Although with Max, by the end of it, he’s passed out on the floor a few hours later. Steph simply took off the cork with one hand and poured the glass half full with the other. With her eyes closed and the door locked, she downed the whiskey, drinking it quick before putting the glass down.]

“Agh- oh shit, oh fuck!”

[The taste of the whiskey was virtually nothing, as a burning sensation went down her throat. She checked the bottle to read the label.]

“40% ABV? A- agh, cedar wood flavor? Jesus, this is.. a lot.”

[Continuining to cough after she drank it, Steph stopped and took one more look at the bottle. The feeling of the whiskey down her throat, and whatever was in it, made her want more. It’s gross, she knows she shouldn’t. She wouldn’t.]

[/Right?/]

[She grabbed the bottle again, and poured even more into her glass. She kept on drinking and drinking, even using the two other glasses in the cabinet. The more Steph drank, the more she craved it. It had her on such a high, but at what cost?]

[It was now fully empty. She shook the bottle upside down before twisting the cap back on and putting all the glasses back in his cabinet. Her head is aching, and her body feels like jelly. Everything feels so, /so/ fucking weird.]

[Steph waddled out of her dad’s office, stumbling over the chair and almost tripping on the doorway. The floor was cold, she can feel it in her socks. The air was warmer outside than in the office, and she wandered out into the hallway. Looking up at the stairs, she shakily got up each step.]

[Each time she lifted her foot, it felt like a weight was attached onto each leg. Pulling herself up was difficult, especially with the hazy feeling that Steph was in. She got to room, and collapsed at the foot her bed.]

“/Fuck…/“

[Stephanie Lauter was on the floor, her head about to float away somewhere and her body like jelly. This feeling was so- so weird. This, alongside her atrocious hangover was a sign that she should’ve stopped. Well, would’ve stopped.]

[But she couldn’t stop herself after that.]

#hatchetfield rp #hatchetblr

4 notes · View notes

willowdied · 1 year

Text

STEPHANIE LAUTER - yellowjackets verse

she didn't even like sports - anyone with eyes who would be looking for one of the most popular girl in school spends the entirety of any game she attends locked to her phone. how then is stephanie, daughter of well known politican solomon lauter, on the girl's varsity soccer team her senior year? stephanie won't say, nor does she talk to most of the girls on the team ( she knows what they must think of her ) but their implications on her 'dear daddy' buying her a spot aren't exactly wrong, even if the why is up for rumor and speculation. stephanie is busting her ass, though, practicing day and night and it shows- she's not the best, but she is certainly not the worst on the team. she pulls her weight. she's friendly is a bit more quiet than usual, and steph is gearing up to kick ass and properly prove herself to the team- to maybe make actual friends other than her new boyfriends friends who probably feel they have to hang around her-

the sky seemed to have other plans though. stephanie lauter is determined to show the determination that might not have been clear to the yellowjackets before. she is determined to make it home and to prove to them that she can help everyone survive on the way.

#when your life starts coming together only to fall apart #girl is a gun trope #anyhow love steph lauter i am on season one but i'll come at you with headcanons when i am caught up / this weekend #( stephanie ~ headcannons )#( stephanie ~ yellowjackets )

3 notes · View notes

thehatchettownchronicles · 3 months

Text

No Flowers On My Bones - 4

MASTERLIST

Content Warnings: daddy issues, dead mom, childhood neglect, ptsd, lautski being sweet lil nerds

🥀🥀🥀🥀

“Tell me about your mom.”

Steph blinked, and looked up at Peter. He stared down at her, partially curled up on his chest. The two of them were curled up on the couch, a Star Wars marathon playing in the background. One that neither of them were really paying attention to, evidently. Peter had his arms wrapped around Steph, holding her close to his chest as they lay together.

“I mean, she’s gone, has been since I was a kid, what is there to know?” Steph deflected.

It’s not that she didn’t trust Peter. She did, really, with every part of herself. But it was like there was this barrier in her brain that stopped her from saying a word. Even now, even though Solomon Lauter was now two months dead, she could practically feel his disapproving glare on her at the very thought of it.

Steph’s heart broke a little when she saw Peter’s small frown.

“Steph, there’s a lot to know,” he softly rebuttaled. “I know it’s a hard topic, and if you really don’t want to talk about her, I won’t push. But I’d love to hear about her.”

Steph worried her lip between her teeth, before giving a soft sigh. She began softly fidgeting with the neckline of Peter’s t-shirt as she began to talk.

“…She was beautiful,” she began, quietly. “I always thought she was the prettiest lady in the world. Still do. I used to sit and watch her do her makeup, and she would always smile at me and offer to teach me how to use it if I wanted. But she always would remind me that I didn’t need it…”

Peter listened intently, rubbing Steph’s lower back as she spoke. He was proud of her for beginning to step out of her comfort zone.

“I was always closer with her than with Dad. Sometimes when he was busy working we’d have little girls’ days just the two of us. We’d go to the mall and shop for pretty dresses, and she’d take me to go get ice cream after. She always said it was ‘our little secret’, even though I knew Dad knew about ohr little shopping dates,” Steph rambled, her face softening as she kept talking about her mother.

It was like the dam broke.

Steph felt so free, being able to talk about her mom. It had been 10 years.

10 years of silence. 10 years of a quiet, empty house. 10 years of her father’s cold, hard insistence on what “proper” living looked like for a politician and his wayward daughter.

Steph couldn’t stop now.

She recalled the time she and her mom had prank called her dad on his work phone. The fact that whenever her dad was at work late, her mom would always blare music through the house, singing along and pulling Steph to dance with her. She remembered homemade meals, baking goodies from scratch, and being taught to pick her own outfits.

Stephanie shared it all with Peter. Baring him her battered, bruised soul as she tried to recall some of the only joy she had from her childhood.

And when she remembered that last Honey Festival…she clammed up once more.

Solomon really wouldn’t want her talking about that.

Peter was worried about Steph’s sudden silence, and chose to gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. He pressed a small kiss to her forehead, and mumbled, “…She sounds amazing, Steph. Just like you.”

This made Steph’s heart melt a bit as she looked up at Peter. He looked panicked for a second, which confused her.

“Oh, shit, Steph, a-are you okay?” he asked, his hand moving to cup her face, rubbing his thumb over her cheek.

Steph hadn’t realized that she was crying.

She rubbed the heel of her palm over her tear-streaked cheeks, and nestled her head into the crook of Pete’s neck.

“Yeah, Pete. I’m okay.”

#starkid #hatchetfield #tgwdlm #nerdy prudes must die #hatchetverse #npmd #lautski #starkid fanfic #lautski fanfic #stephanie lauter #peter spankoffski #chocolatephone #melissa’s notebook

11 notes · View notes