Pairing: Robb Stark x Reader; Soulmates AU (because Game of Thrones just didnât have enough fantasy drama for me)
Word count: 7.6k
Warnings:Â Angsty fluff, someone getâs punched but itâs not super dramatic
Summary:Â The names were the greatest mystery in Westeros. Each kingdom had their own telling of the story. None of the kingdoms could agree on where they were from or how they came to be. Each thought a different god, their own interpretation of religion, was responsible, but all seemed to agree on one thing: they were a gift.
Notes: so the thing is right⊠I didnât really mean to write this. It just sort of came out. Long story short. Itâs an idea I had. If people like it, Iâll finish it. It will probably take 3-4 Parts to complete the story arc I have in mind. Each part about this long.
It wasnât her banner or her looks that tipped Robb Stark off that she was (Y/n) Lannister. It was her being. The way she dismounted her horse while all of Winterfell still knelt before Robert Baratheon, as though everyone, even the King, was beneath her. The way she took her brotherâs helping hand as if Lannister blood was the only thing worthy of touching her skin. The way her chin never dipped, always keeping her head up and her gaze held high. The way her feet glided over the ground with quick, sure steps that spoke of how little she wished to touch Northern soil. The way she never met the gaze of anyone, save her siblings, Robbâs father, and the King. (Y/n) Lannister could not have hidden her identity even if she tried, and she most certainly did not try.
She kept beside her brother as the King motioned for them to rise and greeted Robbâs father. Her eyes took the time to wander over the keep, and she kept her expression unreadably passive wherever they went. She made no acknowledgment that anything important was happening around her until her sister exited the carriage. (Y/n) released her brotherâs arm and stepped forward to stand at the queenâs right hand.
âMy queen,â Ned Stark said as he bent to kiss Cerseiâs offered hand.
âMy queen,â Catelyn echoed with a curtsy.
Cersei greeted both with a weary, but polite nod. âMy sister,â Cersei stepped aside, positioning herself in front of Robb, and held out her hand for introductions, â(Y/n) Lannister, Lady of the Rock.â
Nothing hurts my spirit more than finding a fic and being fucking obsessed with it and it having amazing writing and vibes and then you get deeper into it and only after your emotionally invested does the author reveal this is the oc they come up with when they were like ten who broke every law of the canon universe to be the most powerful pick me in this fanfic and they wonât acknowledge or address in the story or in notes how much what theyâve done completely ruins the entire point of the thing theyâre writing fanfic of.
(I was betrayed by an amazingly written fic tens of thousands of words in just now that turned out to be hiding the biggest crock of oc pick me, my oc is god tier bullshit ever)
Warnings: This is a "Who Did This To You" trope so the OFC was a victim. It is not described in graphic detail, but please keep it in mind before reading if that may be triggering for you. Also Targaryen-typical cest.
Summary: There was no father in her life from whom she could seek protection in that moment, no father who could rush in and save her from this evil, who could swear to her it would never come for her again. But there was a voice, quiet and gentle and caring, which called out to her "Who hurt you?" and for a moment she thought that perhaps someone cared enough to listen to the answer.
âPrincess?âÂ
How different might the world have been if Viserys had let Rhaenyra marry Daemon that night heâd bedded her in the brothel? How different might the world have been if Rhaenyra had run away with Criston Cole when he asked her to flee with him? How different might the world have been if Laenor had not been forced to marry her mother? How different might the world have been if Rhaenyra had not taken Harwin Strong into her chambers? How different might the world have been if she knew who her father was?
âPrincess!â
Her features were a mixed bag, some that may have been Daemon, some that may have been Criston, some that may have been Laenor or Harwin, some that appeared to come from absolutely no one at all. Each of them had, at one time or another, looked at her with that sense of possibility, that she might be theirs or their worst enemies. All she could pinpoint were her eyes and her hair, Valyrian to her core. Many pointed to them as evidence of Daemonâs fatherhood of her. Her mother loudly touted it as proof that she was Laenorâs. She doubted it was proof of either so much as it was proof of Rhaenyraâs motherhood. Their hair, their eyes, were exactly the same shade. From the back, many had mistaken her for her mother over the years.
âPrincess who did this to you?â
Some nights, when she was feeling particularly lonely, she would play pretend in her mind, decide which man was her father and play act at him loving her. She would pretend Daemon took her up on dragonback back and taught her to fly. She would pretend Ser Criston snuck her sweets and hugs whenever the court's backs were turned. She would pretend Laenor⊠Well, she never had to pretend with Laenor or Harwin. They had always loved her in their own ways, as much as they could anyway.Â
âPrincess? Who hurt you?â
If she knew her father, if she had a father at all, maybe she could go to him now. She could run inside to find Daemon; she could slide under the wing of Caraxesâ protection where she knew no one would ever hurt her again. She could run to Criston and beg him to take her away as heâd once offered her mother; he could draw his steel and beat back those who tried to hold her there.Â
âPrincess, who did this?â
Someone was grabbing her, shaking her. She felt it in a sense, but in a far greater sense she didnât feel it at all. She knew it was happening, but she didnât feel the hands that gripped her shoulders, that tugged her back and forth. The same with the voice, calling out to her. She knew it was there, knew what it was saying, but she couldnât process the words.
âPrincess, look at me.âÂ
Something had happened. Something terrible. She knew that much. She knew the rest too, but by the by it would not come to her. Something had happened to her.Â
âPrincess, youâre bleeding.â
Yes, she rather thought she was. Not a great deal, but certainly enough to be noticed. To be noticed by⊠someone. Did she even want to know who?
âAlarra!â
She heard that word. She knew that word. Her name. Laenor had given her that name. He had been so kind to her all the years she knew him. He had always treated her as a daughter, claimed her as a daughter, cared for her as a daughter, loved her as a daughter⊠at least from what she remembered. Perhaps those memories were colored rosy by death. Perhaps Laenor would not have made this situation any better; perhaps Harwin, perhaps a father of any kind, wouldnât have either. Perhaps Ser Criston or Prince Daemon would have only made things worse. Perhaps this was simply her fate.Â
âAlarra, who did this?â
She knew that voice. Sheâd known it the whole time, but she recognized it now.Â
Tears welled up in her eyes, and Alarra blinked them away. Her eyes, against her will, regained their focus and brought her out of her daze. They brought her back to the world around her. She didnât want them to. She wanted to stay there, in her head where she felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing. People couldnât hurt her in her mind. In her body, people could hurt her.Â
She must have been crying for some time without realizing while she was stuck in her head. Her eyes were already overwhelmed with tears, and she could feel their dried tracts down her cheeks.Â
Aemond was more blur than man, hunched over in front of her, little more than overlapping shades of silver and black in her watery gaze. Yet even in her current state, there was no mistaking him. The details of his face were gone, but the vague black circle where an eye should have been marked him for who he was.Â
âAlarra, who hurt you?â Aemondâs voice was quieter than it had been when it called her back to her body, like he knew then that she couldnât hear him and knew now that she could.Â
Of course it would be Aemond. Of course he would be the one to find her at her weakest, at her most vulnerable. He had a way of doing that, finding her weak spots.Â
âWho did this?â
In response, Alarraâs body racked with a sob. Her shoulders were shaking with the force of how hard she cried, and it made some still disassociated part of her mind wonder if Aemond had touched her at all, if Aemond had actually shaken her shoulders as she thought or if it had been her body crying the whole time.
âAlarra, Iâm going to take you to the Maester now.â Aemond touched a gentle hand to her upper arm, a far gentler touch than she had ever felt from him before, far gentler than she thought him capable of.Â
âNO!â She jerked back the moment she realized what he said. Her hands clutched her dress to her chest to keep it from falling as she frantically skittered back on the ground away from him. âI canât- you canât- theyâll- no- no- no-â
Why couldnât Jace have found her? Or Luce? She would give anything for one of her brothers to be here. She would even take her mother or, gods forbid, Daemon right now.Â
The bush at her back poked and scraped against her bare shoulders and kept her from moving further away. It reminded her of her present state, of the dress barely clinging to her form and the bruises already coloring her arms and the cuts still bleeding at her collar.Â
âAs you say,â Aemond held up his hands in a mock surrender. She could see him now, the panic clearing her eyes of tears. His own eye was narrowed, though not judging or angry, for once, merely cautious.Â
âNo maesterâŠâ He stayed there, frozen and unmoving until Alarra ceased, till her feet stopped slipping and sliding uselessly over the ground, pushing for every inch of distance she could win away from him, till her shoulders stopped curling in on themselves hiding the more vulnerable parts of her body from him in favor of her partially exposed back.Â
Even when she stopped trying to put distance between them, when she relaxed with the surety that he wasnât going to force her to the Maester, he did not move any closer, did not break the silence in the air.Â
He watched her patiently, as he so often did. And she, as she so often did, looked away.Â
âIf you take me to the MaesterâŠâ Alarra hiccuped around another tearless sob. She felt a need to explain herself to him, to explain before he jumped to his own conclusions.Â
She hiccuped again as she prepared to subject herself to the mercies of one of the most merciless creatures she knew. âIf you take me to the Maester, theyâll say my virtue â He didnât. I swear he didnât, but theyâll say he didâ What with the rumors about my father, they will say⊠They will...âÂ
Neither of them needed to address the fact that Aemond was very much included in the âtheyâ whom Alarra feared talking.Â
Aemond had long questioned the Velaryonsâ parentage. He had relished toying with her brothersâ features that clearly werenât Valyrian, basked in the opportunity to avenge a childhood of mockery and wrongs. She had never before been the subject of his wrath, mercifully spared by a childhood friendship, but the gods knew this opportunity would be too good to miss if she didnât confront it.
âThey willâŠâ She couldnât help mumbling the incomplete thought under her breath.
When Alarra found the courage to meet his gaze again, Aemondâs one eye was already boring a hole through hers with its intensity, and Alarra thought, not for the first time, that perhaps the gods themselves had plucked out Aemondâs eye. If for no other reason than to quell a potential challenger.Â
âPlease,â she wasnât sure if there was enough air left in her lungs to voice the word, but she tried to speak it anyway, pushed it out between her lips like a quiet prayer to the gods, a quiet prayer to Aemond.
Aemond looked to be calculating his own course through these uncharted waters just as much as he appeared to be studying her reactions.Â
âWe cannot stay here, Princess,â Aemond spoke in a very stilted, calculated tone, like one reading facts from a book. âYou are injured. Your appearance is disheveled. Your dress is in tatters, and if I was as without honor as your family thought I was I could see every inch of your front simply by glancing down.â Â
Alarra subconsciously clutched her torn dress tighter to her. It was true. The blade had sliced clean through the neck and shoulders of her dress as it cut across her skin. The front would have fallen off long ago if not for her hand, and the weight of the damned thing and lack of support had long exposed huge swaths of skin to the cool night air.Â
Though, admittedly, up until Aemondâs arrival her dress had been her least concern.Â
Alarra turned her eyes down to her dress for the first time, again to avoid Aemondâs gaze. It was destroyed. The sleeves were gone; the embroidery was pilling and torn; the skirt was caked in mud; and worst of all, what remained of the neckline was soaked in her blood.
Without warning, Aemond stood.
Alarraâs eyes shot back up and her whole body tensed for a moment before she realized what he was doing.
Aemond wrenched off his black, Targaryen cloak and in the same flourish draped it over Alarra. She grabbed for it as it fluttered down, holding it to her chest.Â
âTh-Thank you,â she stuttered out the words.Â
Aemondâs cloak. She was wearing Aemondâs cloak.Â
Aemond ignored her platitudes, which was just as well for her since she wouldnât have known what else to say to him. âIâm going to touch you now, Princess,â Aemond said in warning. âI wonât harm you, and there will be no Maesters. Iâll only carry you to your chambers through the servantâs halls.âÂ
It was a chore, to force herself to calm enough for him to touch her, but she knew it was the best course. Her dress was well torn and would trail in ribbons behind her, and she was not sure she could walk. There was no physical damage to her legs, but she did not relish the idea of trying to rise to her feet in this state. Her upper body quaked even now; her legs would no doubt collapse if she so much as attempted to use them.Â
Aemond approached slowly, cautiously. He looked like a predator about to put his prey out of its misery. She knew he wasnât going to hurt her, at least not physically, but by the gods Aemond couldnât help looking like the hunter. There was something to his face. Power perhaps, a touch of ruthlessness, the confidence he had lacked as a child.Â
His hands slipped around her, one high on her back while his other dipped under her knees. He was ever so careful in the placement of his hands, tucking the cloak around her in his grip to avoid touching any skin. He stood with her in his arms, and she thought of anything else to help even out her breathing as she felt a manâs touch brushing against her even through fabric.
Being at home on the rocky beaches of Dragonstone. The soft feel of braiding her motherâs hair. The sound of a crackling fire in her room. The smell of the salty, ocean breeze off the water. The taste of her favorite wine on her tongue.Â
Every hall Aemond turned down she made a new list, and her breathing remained steady so long as she kept thinking of things.Â
Balerionâs skull on a pedestal lit by candles. The dowse of warm water as Jace threw her in the sea. Caraxesâs roar when he flew overhead. The scented oils anointing her baby brotherâs skin. Luceâs piss poor attempt at roasting rabbit as they camped in the woods.
Aemond said nothing while she made her lists. Perhaps he was calculating some plan of his own; perhaps he was simply giving her the space to think. Before tonight, she would have presumed the former, but now she was unsure.
Viserys on the throne. The soft threads of her embroidery. The nurses singing lullabies. The awful smell of the stables. A morning cup of tea.Â
They walked in absolute silence, and Aemond took every precaution not to be seen. He ducked down the hidden passages known only to those who had truly mastered the keep; he stopped at the sound of every approaching footstep and hid behind pillars or corners. At one point, he pulled her into an abandoned meeting hall for several minutes as two servants stopped outside to chat.Â
That had been a particularly painful few minutes, and she had refocused her efforts to list those things that meant the most to her.
Witnessing Daemon and Rhaenyraâs wedding. Vermaxâs rough scales under her fingers as Jacaerys introduced her to his dragon. Harwin comforting her with sweet words after a cruel bout of insults about her father. The smell of smoke when her mother took her up on Syrax. The odd tasting fish Laenor cooked for her every nameday.
âPrincess,â Aemondâs voice, as surprisingly gentle as it had been before, called out to her, âwould you get the door?â
It was the first thing Aemond said on their walk.Â
She mindlessly pushed open the door of her chambers, not even realizing that theyâd reached them. âYou can right me here, Aemond.âÂ
Aemond didnât hear her, or perhaps he ignored her. He did not deposit her in the doorway as she asked; he crossed the room and set her gently back on the edge of her bed.Â
âThank you,â she said, more out of habit than anything. She owed him her thanks to be sure, but her mind was too occupied with other things to mean it.Â
âOf course, Princess,â Aemond fingered the edge of the cloak still covering her. âI can leave this with you,â he offered, âbut people will question why you have my cloak. It is your choice.âÂ
Alarra released her death grip on the fabric, and Aemond didnât tug it away until it seemed she had firm grip on the dress beneath.Â
Aemond stood to his full height and turned to leave. âI will leave you to your night. We will talk again when you are well.â Â
She watched his back retreat for only a few steps before she could resist no longer.
âPlease Aemond,â Alarra whispered into the night air as if the silence were glass and her words a falling hammer that might break it were she not gentle enough.Â
Aemond paused at her door and turned back.Â
She wasnât sure what possessed her to speak, to ask. It was too much to ask. She knew it was too much to ask, especially of him. âIf you ever cared for me at all, as friend or family⊠do not tell anyone about tonight?â
His eye was not as intense as it stared at her now. It was softer, more discerning.Â
That, or more likely the distance buffered the spear of his gaze.
âYou are owed justice, Princess.â Aemond replied as he stepped back from the door and let his hand fall from the handle. Â
Alarra had expected a simple yes or no, even if the yes was a lie. But then, she hadnât expected him to find her in the garden. She hadnât expected him to help her if he did. And she certainly hadnât expected him to care if she received justice.Â
Aemond crossed the room in long strides and knelt down before her, resting a gentle, almost hesitant hand on the top of her exposed knee. âYou are owed justice, and you shall have it.â
âBut IâŠâÂ
Aemond didnât understand. And how could he. He was a man. He could fuck his way through half of Flea Bottom, and Viserys wouldnât bat an eye. Aegon already had, and the greatest repercussions heâd faced had been the occasional cold shoulder for his lack of decorum. Aemond was a man, and unlike women, men could demand justice when they were wronged.Â
âIf I say anything⊠the rumors⊠Iâll be ruined. He will say he ruined me, and no one will believe me, not over a man. The moment he opens his mouth, it will be my fault, and I will be ruined.â The tears in her were hardening into something more as her voice became more clipped, âNo assurances from the Maester that I am untouched will be sufficient to quell the mongers. My first child will be a bastard no matter when heâs born or to whom, and no man will have me accompanied by such a stain.â
This, of all things, was what Alarra was complaining about, what she was forced to worry about. It made her sick. She felt the bile rising in her throat even now, and she tried to swallow it down.Â
This was not what she truly cared about. Alarra wanted nothing more than time to grieve herself, grieve her pain, grieve what had been done to her, but she could not have it. And not simply for Aemondâs presence.
It would have been the same if it were any other man who found her. It would have been the same if it were the queen or even her mother. And even if she hadnât been found at all, it would have been the same tomorrow, or the next day, or whatever day that monster of a man finally came forward and opened his mouth about what heâd done to her.Â
She would be expected to be unshaken, unperturbed by any trauma. Her first and only concern would be expected to be her house, her reputation, and her family, not her own wellbeing.Â
The council, monsters that they were, may even demand she marry him, to be sure of the bloodlines.
The tears began to fall again, and she mourned not just what had been done to her and taken from her, not just her sense of safety and security, not just her sense of self, but also the mask she would have to wear come morning. She mourned because she knew it was her last chance to mourn. She mourned because she knew that even now she wasnât supposed to mourn, for Aemond was watching.
âLeave that to me, Princess.â Aemondâs hand reached up, and a thumb gently brushed away her newest tears, âI swear to you, on my life and my dragonâs. No one will question your honor.â
Alarra scoffed. Such a fond notion. If it came from her brothers she might have thought them naive enough to think such a thing could be done. If it came from her brothers she might have thought them sweet enough to try. But this was Aemond, and he was not sweet. And he was certainly not so naive.Â
âYou canât promise that.â Alarra closed her eyes to avoid looking into his.
âI can. I have my ways, Princess. Do not concern yourself with such trifling things as otherâs expectations of you now. I will see to those. You need only worry after how to feel yourself again.â
It was as though heâd read her mind and pulled out the exact thing she wished he'd say. If he were Jace, she would have leaned into his hand on her cheek and fallen asleep, not trusting that all would be well by morning but trusting at least that he would be by her side when it wasnât.Â
But this was Aemond, and another tear slid down her cheek from behind her eyelids. She wasnât sure if she could trust him, but by the gods did she want to.Â
âAlarra, tell me. Who did this to you? Name the man who forfeited his life tonight.â
For a moment, her breath caught in her throat beforeâŠ
âYou violated guests' rights, broke into a lordâs bedchambers, dragged him out of bed, drew your blade on him, carved out his tongue, and left him to be found by the servants who heard his cries!âÂ
For the first time in many, many years, Viserys Targaryen looked like a dragon.
It was enough to quell the room to a still silence. It was enough to make the young ones quake with something akin to fear.
The Targaryens and Velaryons, the family, were the only ones called into the throne room for this particular trial. It was not, as so many usually were, made known to the nobility or even the entirety of the Small Council. Even the Kingsguard, save Cole, had been asked to wait outside. The King had kept it quiet, assembled the necessary parties, and immediately begun questioning his second son the same morning the young knight had been found dismantled on the floor of his guest chambers in the Red Keep.Â
Aemond stood firm in front of his fatherâs rebuke. Arms tucked behind his back, feet shoulder width apart, he said, as though he were discussing the weather, âI also knocked out all his teeth.â
Aemond thought he might have heard Aegon snort.
âHE IS A TYRELL!â Viserys lurched to his feet, cutting his palm on the throne he moved so quickly. His finger stabbed at the man, leaning on Ser Criston for support, looking ever the pitiful victim. âA TYRELL! AND THE GUEST OF YOUR KING!â
The pain of the blades did not seem to register to Viserys, and even the usually attentive Alicent did not move to help her king as blood ran down the tip of Viserysâs finger.
On Aemondâs eyeâs side of the hall, the Velaryons formed one strong line in his peripheral vision, ever the picture of courtly decorum even as Jacaerys and Lucerys no doubt wanted to jump with glee. They were all quelled to a state little more than statues by the severity of the moment.
Only Alarra stood out of line. Only Alarra was not frozen in stone. She stood behind her mother, peaking out at him between Rhaenyra and Daemonâs shoulders, watching him with a gaze that flashed between awe, pity, shame, and something akin to desperation.
Aemond looked away. He did not let his gaze linger long on her. Much as he wanted to dissect the moods haunting her every feature, he refused to draw the kind of attention to her that observing her would require.Â
âNot an important one. Second son of a third son,â Aemond shrugged nonchalantly. âI assure you House Tyrell will not be greatly aggrieved by his loss.â
Viserysâs frame shook as though it could not contain his rage within his body. âOn what grounds, Aemond!âÂ
Aemond stood firm. Truly, his father could yell all he liked. When he wanted to be, Aemond could be a terrifyingly patient man. His patience would far outlast his fatherâs anger. Not merely for the fact his father was too physically weak to maintain this rebuke for long.Â
âI apologize, my King,â Aemond endeavored at civility, âbut the grounds are not mine to say.â
That seemed to take Viserys back. Something cold, dark, came into his tone. âYou would dare refuse your King.â
âI do not refuse my King. I have freely admitted to what I have done.â Aemond answered with an equally deadly calm.
A pin could have been heard dropping on the stones as Viserys took a shaky step down from the throne. âThe Tyrells will make you take oaths for this, and I will not refuse them. They will ask to send you to the Wall.â
Aemond swallowed down his pride, swallowed down the urge to rage that it was the Tyrell who should be sent to the Wall, swallowed down the urge to cut through his fatherâs presumptions about the night.Â
With a bitter taste in his mouth, Aemond bowed his head, âIf my king commands.â
âAemond,â His mother finally broke the silence of the rest of the room as she hissed at him, âDefend yourself.â
Aemondâs eyes stayed straight ahead, watching his father.Â
âYou heard your mother! Explain yourself boy!â Viserys commanded. âYou have dishonored this house; you will give your reasons for this!â
âMy reasons are my own. If the Wall is the price of his tongue so be it. I will not-â
There was a commotion amongst the Velaryons as all eyes turned to see Alarra pushing past Rhaenyra and jerking out of the grip her good father tried to clasp her in.Â
âHe was defending me, your Grace,â Alarra called even as she crossed the room. Daemon and Rhaenyraâs attempts to stop the girl halted as she loudly made her declaration.
Alarra dropped into a short curtsy next to Aemond before taking a similar stance to his beside him. Awaiting judgment.Â
Aemond clenched his jaw tightly. He thought he mightâve felt a tooth crack. He did not glare down at his niece, much as he wanted to, nor did he chase her back behind her parents, much as he wanted to.Â
Resisting the urge was not without complaint, and a huff slipped past his lips. The whole point of cutting out the manâs tongue had been so he could not speak of what heâd done to her. And now she loudly declared it in open court.
Was she trying to save him? Really, did she think Viserys would actually send him to the Wall? He would order it done then change his mind and settle for some brief exile or other. He would go to Essos, fight a war, become the next Daemon.Â
âYou must forgive Aemond for any impertinence.âÂ
Yes. She was trying to save him.Â
Alarraâs head was hung as she addressed her King. âIt was merely for the sake of protecting me. Ser Wendell attacked me in the garden last night, your Grace. Aemond was my rescuer. That is how Ser Wendell came to lose his tongue. If the Tyrells demand an oath, let me give it in his stead. Aemond has acted with nothing but honor.â
There was a quiet after Alarra finished speaking. Somewhere outside, knights in armor were walking past the throne room.Â
The first sound to break the silence was a wordless, toneless groan.
Ser Criston had let go of Ser Wendell, and Wendell had swayed on the spot for a moment before Ser Criston had kicked the man to his knees.
âAttacked you!â Viserys stumbled back to sit in his throne, breathing heavily, seemingly exhausted as the anger within him at his own son quelled in the face of this new revelation. âIn what way, dear girl, has this knight attacked you? Has he dishon-â
âNo,â Aemond cut off the King before he could finish voicing the word. He had promised no one would question her on this. âI saw what was transpiring from the balcony. At first it seemed nothing more than a spat. When I realized heâd drawn a bladeâŠâ He was cut off by his sisterâs loud gasp. âI came to her aid as quickly as I could. I am sorry to say I could not prevent all of what transpired, but I assure you my nieceâs virtues remain entirely intact. I would swear to it. His honor was the only thing destroyed last night.â
Wendell, on his knees in front of Cole, made loud, wordless noises and gestured wildly in the direction of Aemond and Alarra.Â
Aemond sneered and rested his hand back on the hilt of his sword, the blade letting out a threatening âshinkâ noise as he unsheathed the first inch. Wendell shrunk back, his arms freezing though his mouth still blubbered on. âYou can still lose your hand, Ser Wendell.âÂ
âOr your head.â
All blubbering ceased.
For all of his bluster and rage and shouting and for all the silence and fear it evoked, there was nothing Viserys could do to chill a room like those three words said by that voice.Â
âWhy does he live?â Daemon continued. His voice was as cold as the Strangerâs embrace, and his eyes glaring across the hall at Ser Wendell just as steady.
The question was for Aemond, he knew, but Daemon made no move to address him directly.
âThe coward fled even as I arrived. Alarra was quite merciful in her pleas that hunting him down to slaughter was not justice. So I quelled my anger with his tongue.â
âAnd his teeth,â Aegon muttered under his breath.Â
Aemondâs head jerked around, and he sneered at his brother. âHis teeth were incidental. If he hadnât so resisted losing his tongue, heâd still have them. They had to be gotten out of the way.â
Daemon paid no mind to the bickering between the brothers. He sauntered forth, like a lion stalking its prey.
âAlarra wished to have justice?âÂ
Daemon stopped then, in front of Wendell, staring down at the man.Â
Aemondâs eyes flitted to the woman in question.Â
Alarra was watching Ser Wendell almost as intently as Daemon watched him. The way Aemond remembered she used to watch the bugs that frightened her as a child, like she had to know where he was at all times, like she had to keep him in her sights or he may sneak up on her some other way, even tongueless and on his knees with the man visibly pissing himself.
âYes, she did.â Aemond answered for her.
âHe has no tongue,â Daemon mused. His head tilted to one side, and from where he stood Aemond could see the tug at the corner of Daemonâs mouth. âI suppose the only fair trial he will have is by combat.â When he wanted, Daemonâs smile could truly be a thing of evil.Â
It had been a chore to escape her rooms that night. Her mother had posted two guards to her door in an effort to make her feel more comfortable, but when the unfamiliar faces introduced themselves and took up their station it only made her feel more cut off, more alone. She felt suffocated by the presence of these strangers she did not know or trust blocking her primary exit from her room.Â
Climbing out the window had seemed the logical thing to do.Â
She could not sleep and had not eaten at dinner. She wasnât sure if she wanted to do either, but she was sure she didnât want to feel trapped.Â
Her feet took her around the back halls of the palace, wandering paths where no one would dare to look for her. It was around the fourth or fifth hall, in front of the room they had stopped for minutes on end, that she realized the path her feet had been carrying her along. She made no attempt to stop it. Or maybe she did and her feet didnât listen.Â
The garden was beautiful, if a little more terrifying. The moonbeams that had always made the water in the pool seem to glint now only seemed to cast shadows under the hedges. The flowers which were so beautiful and richly hued at twilight had bigger thorns this week than last.Â
âI would have thought wandering the keep at night was not to your taste anymore. Least of all here, Princess.â
Alarra did not so much as jump when she heard the voice. If anything, her shoulders seemed to loosen their tension. Â
âI could not sleep. My feet brought me here, and I-I cannot say why I did not leave.â She answered the unasked question.Â
Aemond came to stand beside her against the bannister, putting his back to the garden and instead facing her. âWe all fight our battles differently, I suppose.â
âI appear to be losing mine.â
Aemond chuckled humorlessly. âOn the contrary Princess, I think you are the champion of House Targaryen.â
Alarra finally tore herself away from the spot on the grass she had been trying to burn with her eyes alone. âI feel like the Queen of Fools. I keep thinking of everything I should have done, ways I could have stopped him, things I wanted to say.â
Aemond paused for a long moment, quietly considering his response.
âEven if there are things you could have done, that does not make you the Queen of Fools⊠though I understand why you would think such a thing.â Aemond assented. His head turned so his eye could stare out at the sky, and Alarra watched his profile in detail. He cut a far less intimidating figure tonight than he usually did in the light of day. âI am the same with my duels with Ser Criston. I berate myself for weeks after each loss, picking them apart in my mind. I play each out a hundred different ways. It helps at first, helps me become a better fighter, better swordsmen. I study it until I know I will never make the same mistakes again. But eventually, I have to move on.â
Aemond turned his eye back to her. âFor one simple reason, Princess. Those are all things I know to do differently now, but I did not know them then. One day, you will wake up and realize that the only thing you could have done that night, with what you knew then, is exactly what you did. Every idea you think of you can apply if the situation arises again, but you cannot expect yourself to have known those things before you knew them.â
Alarra pulled her eyes away forcefully and stared down at where it happened. He was right, in a way. She just wasnât sure that made anything better.Â
âDo not trouble yourself with moving on now, Princess. The last fight isnât over until Iâve stopped thinking about it, and I canât win the next one until it is⊠but if it takes me weeks to move past something as petty as a lost duel, I wager you are allowed more than a night to move past this.â
âAnd how many nights can I go before I collapse during the day?â Alarra asked quietly. âThis is the second night I have not slept, and my motherâs solution is to put my life in the hands of men I know no better than Wendell.â
That did seem to make Aemond pause. He always thought before he spoke, and the man thought hard now for what to say and how.
âI can-if it please you of course-think of one alternative.â
âShe will not harm you, Princess,â Aemond assured her.Â
Alarra stared up at the dragon looming over her. Her feet had frozen to the ground the moment she realized where Aemond was taking her, which given her distracted, absent state of mind had not been until they were standing on the beach with the dark, hulking mass of Vhagar casting shadows in the moonlight illuminating their skin.
She swallowed and shrunk back further into the meager protection of her cloak as Vhagar shifted and grumbled in her sleep. A puff of smoke floated away on her exhale.
âPrincess,â Aemond stepped between her and Vhagar, his back to the creature. He caught her chin between his fingers and tilted her head so her gaze was forced to meet his eye. âPrincess, do you trust me?â
âTrusting you is not the issue at the moment, Aemond.â Alarra mumbled.
âYouâve been around dragons many times.â Aemond said it as both a statement and a question.
Alarra nodded. âYes of course, but never Vhagar.â
âSheâs no different than any other dragon.â Aemond stipulated.
âOnly that sheâs thrice as large and thrice as deadly. She's so large Arrax could sleep in her jaw.â Her tone was more biting than she meant for it to be.Â
Alarraâs eyes wandered back over Aemondâs shoulder. She couldnât help it. Not with her sleeping right there.Â
"I'd be a fool not to be warry, Aemond. We all would be. She's conquered kingdoms. She's killed dragons."
"None of yours."Â
"Well, I don't have one to kill."
Aemond rolled his good eye. âDo you trust me?â
âOf course.â Alarra bit back immediately. It was an instinctual answer this time. An instinct that had formed over the course of only two days, but an instinct nonetheless. If she had been thinking clearly, Alarra would have lied and said no or at least pretended to consider her answer before she tacitly agreed to trust him. Yet with the figure silhouetting Aemond, it was impossible to take time to think and consider anything seriously.Â
Something softened, only slightly, in Aemond's expression as he heard her response. âCome.â She hadnât realized till his hand dropped away that he had been cradling her chin the whole time, drawing her eyes back to his as it did. âI would never hurt you, and she does as I bid. If it helps, keep your eyes on me.âÂ
Aemond took Alarraâs hand in his and turned. Staring at him did help. Alarra glared daggers into Aemondâs back as he pulled her along towards Vhagar. Though, t he daggers turned to spears as her peripheral saw the beast open itsâ eyes.Â
âDo not look.â Alarra whispered to herself.
Aemond chuckled, shoulders shaking, and she realized sheâd spoken the reassurance out loud.Â
âEasy to laugh with the most fearsome creature in all the world under your control.â Alarra snipped quietly at him.Â
Aemond squeezed Alarraâs hand in response, as he had so many times that night, so many times since he found her in the garden. âTonight she is hardly mine.â  Aemond stopped a mere arms length from the head of the dragon.Â
Vhagar had not moved but to open her eyes, and Alarra felt them watching her as she stared intensely at the space between Aemondâs shoulder blades. If she didnât look, didnât challenge the dragon, maybe she would make it out of this alive.Â
âHello Vhagar,â Aemondâs free hand reached up and trailed over the scales on the underside of her snout, the only place he could truly reach.
Vhagar huffed in response and tilted her head ever so slightly towards Aemondâs palm. Alarra clutched his hand more tightly in response.
âKonÄ«r iksos nykeÄ hÄedar nyke jaelagon ao naejot rhaenagon.â There is someone I want you to meet. Aemond said the words to Vhagar gently, reverently, asking her permission as much as telling her.
âOh Aemond,â Alarra tugged at the hand he was holding. âI canât. Iâm not-â
Aemond didnât loose his grip. He clenched down and tugged Alarra out from behind him. He pulled her under his raised arm and tucked her into his side, never letting go of her hand on the other side of her body, instead choosing to wrap his arm around her. âAlarra,â by necessity given their difference in height, Aemond leaned down towards her ear, âI know. Trust me. I know.â
Of course he knew. Everyone knew. The Targaryen who couldnât ride a dragon. The would-be queen who couldnât claim a mount. The undeserving heir.Â
Alarraâs head dipped slightly away at the reminder.Â
Aemond lifted their entwined fingers and took a step behind Alarra. For a moment her heart leapt being alone in front of Vhagar, but Aemond quickly pressed himself into her back, shuffling her forward to reach the dragon. He placed Alarraâs palm on Vhagarâs snout where his had been moments before.Â
Vhagar huffed, and Alarra tried to retreat her hand, but Aemond held it still.Â
âEasy girl.â Alarra didnât know whether he was talking to her or the dragon.Â
âGÄ«da, Vhagar. GÄ«da.â Aemond leaned over Alarraâs frame, pressing her even closer to the dragon, and laid his forehead to one of Vhagar's scales.Â
The dragon's chest rumbled and she nudged back against him. Alarraâs hand twitched in Aemondâs grip under the shifting scales, but she made no move to pull it away.Â
âVhagar, bisa iksos Alarra.â Vhagar, this is Alarra . Aemond pulled his forehead back and began running his hands, the free one and the one trapping Alarra in its grip, over the beast.Â
With the sound of his voice telling her to calm, Vhagarâs gaze shifted to her rider with a wary eye, and being out from under the dragon's gaze took a great deal of the weight from Alarraâs chest.Â
âR-Rytsas.â Alarra hesitantly addressed the dragon.Â
Aemond smiled appreciatively down at Alarra and let go of her hand.  She kept it there on Vhagarâs snout though she stopped her stroking.Â
Alarra stayed frozen where Aemond left her waiting instruction on how to proceed while the dragonrider stepped out from behind her. Aemond stood under the edge of Vhagar's snout and held his arms out in what would have been a hug if the dragon were smaller.
Aemond's tone was soft as he spoke to his dragon. âÄ«lon jÄhor sagon Ädrure kesÄ«r rĆ«sÄ«r ao.âÂ
Alarraâs head whipped around and her hand fell in shock.Â
We will be staying with you tonight.Â
Aemond paid no mind to Alarraâs shock. addressing only his dragon. â Ziry iksos aĆha Äeksio sir. MÄ«sagon zÈłhon rÈł ry. â
Treat her as your master as well. Protect her at all cost. Â
There was a pause of several moments before Vhagarâs gargantuan tail lifted from the sand and smacked back down. Whatever passed between Aemond and the dragon, he seemed to understand this as acceptance. âThank you Vhagar.âÂ
Aemond scooped up Alarraâs fallen hand and tugged her down Vhagarâs length away from her snout and towards her belly. âThis should do for now,â Aemond said over his shoulder. âSand is not as soft as a bed, but it is a far cry better than wandering the keep all night.â
Aemond let go of her and dropped down on the beach, looking up expectantly at Alarra.
Alarra remained standing above the prince staring down at him in stunned silence.Â
Aemond watched her shock for a long moment before he said. âYou've said yourself Vhagar is the most fearsome creature in the world, Alarra. Yes?â
Alarra nodded numbly.Â
âWell?â Aemond gestured around them. Vhagarâs tail had flopped in a ring closer to her head, leaving the pair of them in a nearly perfectly closed loop encircled by the most powerful creature in existence. âI assure you anyone that makes it past Vhagar wonât make it past me.âÂ
Alarra wasnât bothered by that notion. No, she was fairly certain this was precisely what Daemon and his loyal guards frequently joked about as âoverkillâ when discussing old battles. She didnât feel safe in her room, and instead of suggesting she get to know her guards or offering her Criston for the night Aemond had taken her here, to a veritable fortress of his own making, safer than anything Maegor had ever built.Â
No, it wasnât the threats outside of the circle that gave her pause. It was those within, or rather the lack thereof.Â
âAemondâŠâ Alarra remained on her feet even as he offered her a hand down into the sand. âAemondâŠâ
Aemond raised an eyebrow. âIf it is being alone with me that causes hesitation, I can return for you before morning. Vhagar will keep you-â
â Äeksio?â Master?
Something washed over Aemond then, trading the pause from Alarra to him.
Alarra spoke quietly, as though she was afraid someone would overhear what Aemond had just done. âAo gÄ«migon skoros bona udir means. Ao daor gĆ«rogon bona arlÄ«.â You know what that word means. You know you cannot take it back.
Aemondâs brow furrowed. He seemed to think for a moment before deciding to respond, in equally flawless Valyrian. âNyke jÄhor daor jaelagon naejot.â I will not wish to.
Alarra, still as stunned as ever, took the hand he offered her then and followed him to the sands.
Summary: Steve has finally found something good, and he's not going to let it slip away.
Somewhere in the woods outside the front window, not far from the house, there was a loud crack, followed by multiple snapping noises and a crash. It had been a quiet, clear night, the sort of night where nothing could possibly go wrong. Everyone in town was asleep in their beds, and some people had even forgotten to lock their doors.
Over the many years he had lived in Hawkins, by necessity, Steve had become a very light sleeper, and the noise outside woke him instantly. He was shirtless, lying face up with sheets pulled halfway up his chest. The summer night had been too hot for any proper blankets, but now the lack of covers left Steve feeling exposed to whatever it was that woke him.
His instincts told him to fight, but he was laying down defenseless and knew that wasnât the best option. It took everything in him not to jerk himself up and roll out of bed to face off against whatever it was that made the noise.
Rather, making a point not to move his head or show any sign the noise had woken him, Steve began to check the room for signs of any disturbance in his peripheral vision. Steve always left a piece of clothing tossed haphazardly on the floor behind his bedroom door. It was strewn there in such a way that anyone who snuck in through the door and disturbed it would not think they needed to put it back in front of the door any particular way, but Steve would certainly notice it. The jacket heâd thrown there earlier that night was still there.
Glancing over, he saw the second floor window also hadnât been opened. It still had the penny precariously balanced on the outside ledge of the window. That one had been Dustinâs suggestion. Heâd said putting something on the inside ledge of the window would be too easy for a robber to put back when it fell.
Nothing else in the room looked like it had been disturbed.
Steve slowly reached out his arm, groping blindly for the bat that he always kept beside his bed. Only with it securely wrapped in his fingers did Steve sit up, slowly pulling his other arm free from under the pillow.
The streetlight outside the front window was streaming freely through the thin curtains and illuminating the bedroom. Sitting up, he could see no one had come in. He felt confident about that. The Russians from Starcourt were good at hiding, but even they couldnât go invisible.
Steve shuffled to the edge of the bed and got to his feet.
There was a huff from the other side of the bed. (Y/n) rolled over on her pillow and flung her arm out over where Steve used to be, making a thoroughly discontented face when her arm fell flat on the mattress.
âSteve?â She grumbled, not bothering to open her eyes.
Steve smiled and touched the back of his free hand to her cheek. âSorry, beautiful,â he whispered, âdidnât mean to wake you. Iâm just going to get some water.â
âMkay, hurry ba-âŠâ Steve chuckled as (Y/n) trailed off midsentence, already nodding off back to sleep. He couldnât blame her; sheâd had a very long, stressful day at work.
Leaning over, Steve pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. He was sure the noise was nothing, but he wasnât going to go check without a proper goodbye, even if she wouldnât remember it, just in case.
Bat swinging at his side, Steve tiptoed through the house. He didnât want to wake (Y/n), but also wanted to be cautious. Even if a sweep of the house could rule out any Russians hunting him for Starcourt, he could never rule out some newfangled monster from the Upside Down.
Steve made his way through the house, opening the door to each room and closet as he went, poking his head inside to look for any immediate signs of demogorgons or Russian spies or Vecna or God-only-knows-what-else.
Nothing.
The sound must have come from outside.
Steve didnât really want to go check. This was his home, his one place of peace. The outside could do what it wanted, as long as it stayed outside.
But the image of a demogorgon, thwarted by the many hidden alarms and booby traps Dustin had rigged up around the house for (Y/n)âs safety and Steveâs peace of mind, stalking past his house and on to the next completely defenseless and unaware family was too much to bare.
Steve took the keys off the hook by the door and slipped outside, locking the door behind him just in case something got between him and the house.
There were no immediate signs of what caused the noise in the front yard, but the house was bordered on one side by trees that, at this time of night, could hide a multitude of secrets.
Steve cautiously approached. He wasnât going to go in the woods. He wasnât that stupid, no matter what Dustin said. He was going to skim the treeline though, just to check.
âTook you long enough!â
Steve lurched raising the bat above his head as he wheeled around. He responded to the sudden noise before he processed the words or the voice, and his heart raced as he readied to strike.
Robin, wrapped in a housecoat over a set of matching checkered pajamas, was illuminated by the streetlight as she jogged across the road.
âGoddamnit Robin,â Steveâs arm relaxed back to his side, but his heart still stuttered with the adrenaline rush. âWarn a guy next time.â
Robin grinned, completely unconcerned, as she came over to join him. Her hands folded over herself, holding the robe tight around her against the cool night air. âSorry, thought youâd be out here before me.â
Robin lived in the cottage-style house across the street from Steve. They hadnât planned to be neighbors; that was just sort of a happy accident.
Robin bought her house first. Sheâd considered leaving Hawkins permanently in the aftermath of the world splitting open, but when Vecna and the Upside Down and Russians and the military were finally in Hawkins rearview mirror, Robin decided that Hawkins was finally a safe enough place to settle down.
Steve knew he was never going to leave. This was home. The Upside Down had stolen peaceful nights, family, friends, his sense of safety. He wasnât going to let it take his home too, not after it was supposedly gone for good.
When Steve finally saved up enough to move out of his shitty apartment, he knew he wanted to find a place for him and (Y/n). Theyâd only been dating for a year or so when Steve decided to move, but heâd known from day one that she was it. Sheâd gone with him to all the open houses and toured all the houses, thinking she was advising him on what he should get for himself. The only place that had appealed to her was the cheap, ratty fixer-upper across the street from Robin.
âWell I wasnât this time,â Steve gestured towards the upstairs window with the bat. âI woke (Y/n).â
Robin nodded and followed a step behind as Steve turned and made for the tree line. âHow is she? New job started this week, right?â
Steve smiled to himself as his eyes, now half-heartedly, scanned the tree line. âShe comes home everyday dead on her feet, but thereâs always a smile on her face. Sheâs running herself ragged, but she absolutely loves it. Wouldnât have it any other way.â
âGood for her,â Robin patted his shoulder. âI knew she could do it.â
âWeâre still doing dinner tomorrow night, right?â
âVicky and I will cook,â Robin edited the plans on the fly. âYou canât boil water, and I donât want (Y/n) to come home just to have to make food for us.â
Steve rolled his eyes, aiming two fingers in the direction along the tree line that led towards the back of his house. He led Robin that way, scanning the dark but seeing nothing. âI wouldâve ordered pizza.â
âIâm sure, but you have shit taste in toppings.â Robin jabbed a finger into Steveâs side. âWe both know it. Itâs safer this way. Besides, Vickyâs been experimenting with making her own meatballs. They only fall apart about half the time now, and even then, they just make my marinara into a meat sauce.â
There wasnât anything in the woods. At least not anymore. Steve was sure of it now, or as sure as he could be. Robinâs side of the road was relatively devoid of trees or any premier hiding spots, and there didnât seem to be anything disturbed on the rim of his side. Including Dustinâs traps.
âWhat time should we come over?â Confident the coast was clear, Steve turned back to Robin and leaned casually against his bat.
âWhenever (Y/n)âs off work, I want to catch up with her. Itâs been too long.â
Steve rolled his eyes again. He couldnât help it. âYou saw her last Thursday.â
âExactly. Weâre neighbors, and itâs been almost a week. In case you havenât got the memo yet, I like her more than you.â Robin teased with a grin. She thumbed over her shoulder, wordlessly indicating that they should head back. This time Steve followed her lead.
Steve returned the smile, practically beaming at the friendship that had blossomed between Robin and (Y/n), âSheâs pretty amazing.â His eyes drifted up towards the second story window as he walked Robin back to the road.
âHave you asked her yet?â Robin noted the direction of his eyes. âI mean obviously not, youâre not allowed to ask her without telling me.â
âNot yet, I was thinking this weekend.â
âGood.â Robin hugged Steve into her side. âSheâs good for you Steve⊠Something good to keep the nightmares away.â
Steve hung out beside the road with Robin for a few minutes more, talking over his plan with her. He was going to do it at sunset over a picnic in the field where they had their first date. He had written a speech and everything. Some of it left Robin appalled, but some of it, she admitted, was so sweet it made her sick.
Steve waited till he saw her door close behind her before he turned back and went inside.
(Y/n) was asleep exactly as heâd left her, facing his side of the bed with her arm strewn out over empty space and a slightly discontented expression that was clearly from not having her favorite nighttime armrest.
It made Steve smile.
He couldnât help but smile when he was around her. Robin was right. In a world that he knew was full of cruel people like Dr. Brenner, threats like Russian spies, creatures like the Demogorgon, monsters like VecnaâŠ
She was something good. His something good.
â(Y/n),â Steve tentatively touched her shoulder as he sat on the edge of the mattress, gently shaking her awake.
âHmmm,â She hummed, eyes barely fluttering open, âEverything okay, Steve?â She blinked at him, long and slow, her eyelids barely staying open.
âEverything is fine. Everything⊠Everything is always fine when Iâm with you.â
Heâd been nervous about this weekend for months, but now that he was thinking about it properly, the nerves just melted away. She was it. There was nothing that could go wrong while she was there, nothing to be nervous about while she was there.
Now that he was thinking about it, it wasnât a nervous obstacle to spending the rest of his life with her. It was an overwhelming urge that he couldnât stop himself from acting on.
This was absolutely the cutest fic Iâve read in a while. Their interactions are minimal and yet you can feel how much Steve adores her. I love how the focal point was the lingering trauma from the upside down but it seems to be in the past now, which is such a good thing for our favorite babysitter. Great job and thanks for sharing!!!
Pairing: Peter Ballard x Female!Reader, implied Steve x Reader (Does not really factor into the story)
Word Count: 5.1k
Warnings: mostly just fluff and angst that doesn't require a content warning. General content warnings consistent with Stranger Things
Summary: It couldn't be him. She refused to believe it. Eleven had to be wrong, had to have the wrong person. It wasn't that he wasn't capable of something like this; in the back of her mind, she knew he was. More, it was that she didn't want to face what it meant about herself.
Masterlist.
There was a familiar face staring blankly up at her from the page⊠she knew this face.
âWell, he looks evil,â Steve mused, looking at the drawing over her shoulder.
âHe was 001⊠He was the first. They built the lab to contain him.â Eleven explained.
(Y/n) was holding up the sketch Eleven had drawn of the patient from Hawkins Lab, who Eleven knew as 001, that Nancy had discovered was Henry, that they all called Vecna. Â
(Y/n) knew that face.
â(Y/n)?â Dustin touched her shoulder. â(Y/n), are you okay?â
She heard her brotherâs voice talking to her, and yet somehow she didnât register it. He felt, he sounded, so far away.
It felt like an out of body experience, like her thoughts were no longer contained inside her brain, like they were swirling around her in a cloud, consuming her entire world. This was not Henry Creel, could not be Vecna. Eleven had to be wrong. She knew this face, and she knew it all too well.
âHi Peter, I see they let you out again. The usual?â (Y/n) smiled brightly.
Peter was her favorite regular at Bennyâs, not that he was all that regular. He came in once every couple weeks or so. She assumed whenever the lab could spare him, though he always referred to it as a ârewardâ for good behavior. Bennyâs menu was hardly ârewardâ worthy. It was decent. Benny was a good cook, but it was just regular diner food. She could think of four other diners in Hawkins that served the same fair, though Bennyâs was certainly the closest to the ltab.
He wasnât a particularly nice regular. He tipped very well, which she appreciated, but most regulars do or they wouldnât be regulars anymore. Mostly, he was her favorite because he was an enigma. He worked for the Hawkins National Laboratory up the road, and he was very cagey about his work and himself.
âNo coffee,â Peter amended without looking up from the papers in front of him.
(Y/n) scribbled haphazardly on the ticket and slid it across the window to put on deck for Benny. There were a couple tickets ahead of it, and that gave her extra time.
(Y/n) dragged the stool out from behind the register and plopped down directly in front of Peter, propping her elbows on the counter and looking at him expectantly.
Peter rolled his eyes but kept them trained on his work. This was (Y/n)âs usual routine any time Peter came into the diner, so he didnât need to look up to know she was staring him down.
âMust you watch your customers so intently? I feel like a subject in the lab.â
âOnly the interesting ones,â (Y/n) dismissed. âNow tell me; howâs the lab?â
Peter flipped over one of the pages mindlessly. He hadnât processed all the words, but that clearly wasnât going to happen if (Y/n) had anything to say about it. He kept up the appearance of reading though to hold her interrogations to a minimal. âIt is in its usual state. I am nothing but a humble nurse for the children being experimented upon and tortured within its walls.â
(Y/n) rolled her eyes. It wasnât the kind of joke she would have made, but she let it slide. âYes, of course, but how is your work?â
âWhy would you care to know?â Peter dismissed the question.
âBecause Iâm bored, and like my brother always says life is a curiosity voyage.â
Peter rolled his eyes, âYour brother sounds foolish.â
âHey,â (Y/n) reached up and smacked Peter lightly on the side of the head, causing him to jolt. He stared at her in utter disbelief, as if no one had ever touched him before in his life, which she found very hard to believe. He was far too high and mighty, full of himself, not to have been bullied as a kid. âThatâs my brother. Only I get to mess with him.â
Nonresponsive and zoned out was not a good thing to be in Hawkins, Indiana in 1986.
âSheâs infected with Vecna!â Dustin began to panic, âQuick someone get my headphones from the desk,â Dustin pointed to the desk behind Max, who practically threw the headphones in her rush to get them to Steve as Dustin ran to the small shelf and began digging through Mikeâs cassette tapes.
âNo, no,â (Y/n) shook aside the memory as quickly as she could manage. âDustin,â she called to her brother, âReally, Iâm fine!â
âLike hell you are,â behind her, Steve forced the plastic strap of the headphones around her neck. âSeriously? How hard is it to find Pat Benatar!â Steve shouted.
âAgain, Iâm fine,â (Y/n) rolled her eyes, wrenching the headphones off.
They couldnât afford to waste a pair on her now. She could feel things coming to a head. Over the last 24 hours, virtually all of them had had to procure a pair of headphones and wrap them around their necks. Only Steve, Dustin, Eleven, and herself hadnât heard the ticking of a clock at some point yet. A low drone of noise was filling the room as songs played from the necks of the other occupants.
âReally!â She insisted to the skeptical crowd of teens staring her down, âno ticking. I was justâŠâ In addressing the room, her eyes found Elevenâs, âremembering something.â
Elevenâs eyes seemed to see right through her, and (Y/n) hesitated for a moment, wavering in whether revealing this information was a good idea or not. Everyone else in the room was staring at her, eyes darting now and again to Eleven.
It was too late to back out now. She took a breath and, watching Elevenâs face intently for her reaction, said the name.
âHi again Peter, Iâll put the usual on for you.â (Y/n) greeted him with a wave as he came through the door.
This time, when Peter walked in, Bennyâs was empty except for herself and Benny. He had his usual folder full of papers tucked under his arm, stamped with the fancy Hawkins Labâs seal on the cover declaring it was privileged information.
âThank you,â Peter took up his usual counter seat.
He had a way of being both extraordinarily polite and also incredibly rude at the same time. It was like he had spent his entire life being lectured on manners without actually having a single social interaction in which to use them.
âBenny!â (Y/n) called loudly over the order window, âPeterâs usual!â
Benny was somewhere in the back. With the diner being empty, Benny had ducked out to rearrange the stock while he left (Y/n) to mind the front. âGive me just a minute!â She heard her boss shout back.
âSo!â (Y/n) whipped around, leaning back against the order window, âGonna tell me how work was today?â
âTiresome.â Peter clipped.
(Y/n) raised an eyebrow, âThatâs about as descriptive as youâve ever been. Was it coworkers or your human test subjects?â She said the last part teasingly.
Peter paused for a moment, still not looking up from his papers, but he seemed to consider her question longer than he usually would before dismissing her. âBoss.â Having answered, Peter immediately went back to flipping through pages, only adding under his breath, âNot that I would call him that, persay. Heâs more like my worst nightmare.â
(Y/n) chuckled and approached, taking up her usual seat across from him. âTell me about it. Last week, Benny didnât let me off early on Friday even though it was my momâs birthday, so my little brother recruited his friends to try to bake her birthday cake instead of waiting for me and almost lit my house on fire.â
The word fire seemed to catch Peterâs attention. He still didnât give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.
âWhat do you mean you âknowâ Vecna?â Dustin demanded.
âHe came into Bennyâs from time to time,â (Y/n) felt like she was retreating into her skin. Eleven, Mike, Eddie, Max, the whole room. They were all watching her with dark eyes, watching her like they were watching the enemy.
Dustin was staring at her in utter shock. He didnât notice the looks from his friends or the fear in her eyes. He was still trying to comprehend this massive piece of information.
Only Steveâs hand, resting with a firm grip on her shoulder, was keeping her grounded in the room, keeping her from bolting out the door like a frightened deer.
âAnd you talked to him? You knew him?â Max joined the questioning, her tone far closer to interrogation than Dustinâs disbelieving one.
(Y/n) shrugged defensively, âLots of people from the labs came in. We were the closest restaurant. He said he was a nurse. I didnât know he was the literal devil.â
âNone taken.â Peter had talked to her. He had actually talked to her. Granted, they were complaining about their bosses, which was the oldest and most basic form of bonding in the book, but still. It was something. âHe is.â
âWell,â (Y/n) hopped down from the seat she had taken on the counter while he recounted his tale of woe. âIâm gonna start cleaning up if itâs all the same to you.â
Peter waved his hand down the length of the counter and immediately reverted his eyes back to his papers that were off to the side of the plate he was presently eating off of. Â
(Y/n) smirked to herself as she pulled out her rag. It wasnât much, but it was a start. Sheâd be damned if she wasnât going to keep poking at him till she got the answers she wanted.
It was Nancy who turned the whole scene into a proper interrogation. Though, perhaps given her profession, it was more of an interview. She waved the kids away from the seat in front of (Y/n) and took up a spot front and center in her vision.
âTell us everything you know about him. Start from the beginning.â
(Y/n) took a breath and recited the facts as coldly and emotionlessly as she could manage. âHis name was Peter Ballard. He came into the diner once every couple weeks. Everyone else from the lab came in groups, but heâŠâ Her voice cracked for a moment, and she hoped everyone else in the room saw it as nothing more than the nerves it was, âHe was always alone. He barely talked to me. The others said he was a nurse, and that he never talked to anyone in the lab either. He always brought files with him to read. It took months for him to even bother making eye contact with me.â
âNo,â Peter droned. He still acted thoroughly unamused with her presence, but he had started more readily answering her questions.
(Y/n) huffed and leaned back on her stool, tilting away from him. âWell, that explains so much.â
Peterâs eyes shot up from his paper, and for the first time he met her gaze. Not exactly an angry expression, but at the least a doubtful one, colored his face as his eyebrows drew together. âHow?â
âWell,â she let the legs of her stool fall back on the floor with a crash as she leaned forward towards Peter, âSure, you didnât have to deal with assholes on the basketball team shoving you into lockers, or girls on the cheer squad making fun of your clothes. But you also never found a group of friends with the same niche interest as you, or a guy to bond with over your mutual hatred of some bully, or a cute girl who thought you were the cutest thing since God invented puppies.â
Peterâs eyes narrowed.
âNo, Iâm serious,â (Y/n) immediately dismissed his expression. âSure, there are giant swathes of humanity that are the absolute worst, but there are some humans who are really great when you give them the chance. And you,â she poked a finger into his chest, ânever did. You were aware that some people sucked, but you didnât hang around long enough to find the ones that didnât before you decided to write all of us off as intolerable.â
Peter pursed his lips and turned back to his files. He wasnât going to continue this line of conversation.
âThatâs really all I know, Nancy. I swear.â (Y/n) huffed.
âThere has to be something though!â Nancy jumped up from her seat and began to pace, âIt canât be a coincidence that you knew him. Can it?â
âI didnât know him,â She emphasized. âWe didnât exactly bare our souls to each other and get matching tattoos. We were friendly. He came in every couple weeks, ordered the same thing. Towards the end he started making small talk, but that was it. Small talk. He didnât exactly spell out for me that he had dreams of becoming a mass murderer.â
âYeah, but what are the odds that you would get wrapped up in all of this?â Jonathan pointed out. âIt sounds like youâre the only person he talked to outside of the lab.â
âPretty freakinâ high, Jonathan,â (Y/n) huffed. âIf you havenât noticed, Hawkins isnât a metropolis. Itâs a pretty small town, and weird shit keeps happening. Weâre all wrapped up in it at this point.â
(Y/n) froze, staring at Peter as he approached his usual seat at the counter. Sheâd clocked him instantly when he walked in, and instantly had known something was very off.
He looked more or less the same, all white outfit, holier than thou expression. His hair was in its usual blonde waves, and he seemed more or less as agitated with his own existence as he usually did.
âH-Hey Peter, Usual?â (Y/n) asked.
âYes, please,â Peter replied.
And in that moment she realized it. That moment when he sat there, still looking up at her expectantly, waiting for her to put his order in. That moment when he didnât look down.
No files.
(Y/n) rushed the order in to Benny and whirled back around to join Peter. There were a handful of other people in the diner, but they were all regulars whoâd already gotten their food and knew their way around. She was completely unbothered with doing her rounds to their tables.
âWhy no files?â
Peter raised an eyebrow, âArenât you the one whoâs always bugging me to talk to you?â
âHeâs not here,â Dustin dropped the flashlight back to his side with a huff.
They had gone to the Creel house again, hoping to find where in the Upside Down Vecna was. Now that they had Eleven, with her powers back no less, they wanted to lure him to a place they could face off against him.
â(Y/n),â Lucas called over the bannister from the second floor. âDid Vecna ever mention anywhere else he liked to go? Or somewhere else in Hawkins he felt connected to?â
âNo!â (Y/n) shouted back with a huff, âIf heâs not here he must be at the lab!â
(Y/n) huffed and pulled back from where she was leaning on the counter. âThatâs it? Itâs cold? I thought you were going to actually help me? You know, useful feedback?â
Peter slowly pushed the mostly-full milkshake away from his plate. âI never agreed to help you. You only assumed I would when I came in.â
âYeah! For a free milkshake!â (Y/n) threw her hands up, utterly exasperated with him, âYou have to have more thoughts than âitâs coldâ. Iâm making Benny put milkshakes on the menu, and itâs my ass on the line if they arenât good.â
âItâs sweet.â Peter added, picking up another fry and taking a bite.
âOoooh! Thank you so much! Thatâs so much more helpful.â She bit back sarcastically.
Rolling her eyes, (Y/n) snatched the milkshake away, slurping through Peterâs abandoned straw. She made a face, âOh, ok⊠that is sweet.â
Peter didnât meet her eyes, but he waved his hand and made a face that very much said âtold-you-soâ.
It didnât look like anyone had been in the lab since Eleven closed the portal. The bodies had been cleaned up, no doubt by the military coverup team, but the broken glass in the screened in room surrounding the old portal was still strewn about the floor. Hopperâs gun Bob had left in the control room was still on the desk. There were even still spatters of blood every few feet along the walls and stains from dried up blood on the floors.
âSo,â Robin murmured quietly to (Y/n), âThis is what Round 2 looked like? Man I am so glad I just had the Russians.â
âIt doesnât look like heâs here either. Doesnât even look like heâs been here at all. Thereâs no portal,â Will assessed, turning back to the room.
âFuck!â Mike turned, kicking a wall. âFuck! Fuck! Fuck!â
He wasnât at his old home. He wasnât at the lab. He wasnât at any of the places heâd opened portals that they knew about. (Y/n) was at a loss. There wasnât anywhere else to look.
He must be hiding, hiding somewhere completely random with absolutely no connection to him. It was the logical thing to do if he didnât want to be found, but it just didnât make sense. Sure, Eleven said 001 was a creature completely void of any emotion, set to the singular purpose of restoring order to the world by ridding it of humanity.
But (Y/n) knew that wasnât true. Hell, the Party shouldâve known that wasnât true. 001 had slaughtered an entire lab in an instant he was so blinded by rage, not even giving them the option to join them that heâd given Eleven. When he became Vecna and was sent to the Upside Down, the first place they knew heâd gone was home. Max had seen the disassembled pieces of the Creel house in Vecnaâs inner hideout in the Upside Down. And Henry had talked to Nancy about her visit to his father, about how heâd vengefully plotted his demise.
Even the Peter (Y/n) knew was riddled with emotions, most of them negative, but still they were there. Even when he was putting on a neutral face, she always knew he detested humanity. He hated his job. HeâŠ
Heâd teased her about her milkshakes, about how much she talked, about high school, about her brother. HeâdâŠ
(Y/n) bolted for the door. âSteve, get the keys! I know where he went!â She shouted.
âSo why donât you ever sit with them?â (Y/n) asked, nodding with her chin over Peterâs shoulder to the lab coats at the table behind him.
They werenât literally wearing lab coats, but in her mind everyone who worked in a lab was supposed to be wearing a coat. So thatâs what she called them. In actuality, they were all dressed almost exactly the same as Peter.
âI mean, I know you hate them, but even you have to get lonely sometimes.â
Peter picked up another fry and put it in his mouth, avoiding her question.
âThere must be someone tolerable enough to eat lunch with.â
âI eat with you.â Peter told her, âDo I need someone else?â
(Y/n) felt her cheeks turn a little bit pink, and she tried to swallow it down. âWell no, but you must have friends. Someone at the lab? Or someone from when you were a kid? I know you were homeschooled, but still. Everyone needs friends.â
Peter snorted, and (Y/n) wasnât sure if it was at the idea of him needing someone or at the idea of having a friend. âWell, I regret to inform you that I just have you.â
There was a portal, up against the wall of the diner, behind the counter right where she used to sit when she would talk to Peter.
âDead on, (Y/n).â Steve patted her shoulder, joking, âHe mustâve really liked the eggs.â
Grilled chicken with a side of fries and a coffee. Always the same food; didnât matter what meal it was. (Y/n) didnât bother to voice that though.
âItâs one of the basketball players,â Dustin pointed out.
A pair of broken, twisted out of shape, legs were sticking out from behind one of the couches the kids had dragged into Bennyâs after it was deserted.
âItâs biggerâŠâ Eleven murmured, taking a step forward towards the portal.
Mike caught her arm, pulling her back away from the portal.
(Y/n) didnât join in, the banter or the analysis. She was staring at the portal.
It was right where she used to sit, literally right there. If Peter had been there, and sheâd been in her usual spot talking to him, all she wouldâve had to do was tip her stool back, like she always did, and she wouldâve fallen straight into the Upside Down.
âYouâre gonna fall over if you keep doing that,â Peter pointed down to the legs of her stool.
(Y/n) rolled her eyes and continued to totter back and forth on the back legs of the stool. âThen Iâll knock my head in and get off work early, and you wonât have to put up with me. Sounds like a win for both of us.â
The front legs of the stool slammed to the ground, and (Y/n) stared wide-eyed, mouth ajar, at Peter.
Peterâs eyes had a fire to them she had never seen. There was something there, something behind his usual disinterested, annoyed expression. Something dangerous.
He had a vice-like grip on her wrist, and (Y/n) was positive that she was going to have a ringed bruise around the bone there in the morning from how tightly he held her and how hard heâd jerked her back forward. Her arm was stretched out across the width of the counter, practically touching his chest heâd jerked her so far back.
The shock in her face seemed to douse the fire in his. âSorry,â Peter cleared his throat, dropping her wrist.
âN-No, itâs okay.â (Y/n) dismissed haphazardly. âDidnât realize I was worrying you.â
Under his breath, so quietly she wasnât quite sure she heard him right, Peter whispered, âOf course you worry me.â
âWhat was that?â (Y/n) asked.
âNothing, just donât want you dead on the floor. The hassle of finding another friend is unappealing.â
âWell,â (Y/n) smiled, though not as brightly this time as she usually did, âyou canât get rid of me that easy.â
A grey body, void of skin and hair and a face. Vine-like Tentacles protruding from his back, whipping back and forth in all directions as if they had a mind of their own, encircling the party, drawing them tighter and tighter into him.
She knew what Eleven told her, knew the story of how Vecna had come to be, but she just couldnât believe it. She couldnât see Peter under there, inside the monster.
She couldnât see Peter batting away Eleven with a vine, without a care in the world for her scream as she went flying back into a deadened tree.
(Y/n) looked up, startled. She hadnât heard anyone come in. Sheâd been too absorbed in the math homework splayed across Bennyâs counter to notice anything other than the mental image sheâd been constructing of going to watch all of her friends graduate knowing she was going to have to repeat senior year.
âOh Peter, I didnât hear you come in. Usual?â
Peter sat down in front of her, which was not in his usual seat. âNo, I only⊠I came here to talk, to apologize, and say goodbye.â
âWait youâre leaving?â (Y/n) dropped the pencil from her hand. âAre they moving you out of the lab? Whatâs going on?â
âThereâs been a⊠development. And soon my services will no longer be required.â Peter caught the pencil (Y/n) hadnât heard rolling across the counter and carefully balanced it back in place in front of her textbook.
âW-Well, where are you going?â She tried, and failed miserably, to hide the disappointment from her tone, âIâm sure they have phones there. Iâd hate to leave you with no one to pester you every week.â
âI canât tell you.â Peter smiled, actually smiled. (Y/n) didnât know if it was unnerving or endearing. It was the first time sheâd ever seen him smile. She got the occasional snear, once in a while a smirk if she was particularly amusing that day. But he never smiled, certainly not like this, sad, disheartened, like he was sorry he had to go. âThatâs why I came. I know I scared you last time I was here. I⊠I showed too much of myself, and for that Iâm sorry.â
âPeter, you donât have to apologize.â (Y/n) reached out, hesitantly and took his hand. âNot for being yourself at least.â
âOh but I do.â Peter dismissed. Turning his hand over, Peter took hers in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. âMaybe one day youâll see why.â
And as easily as he slipped into her life, he was gone.
âEddie,â She whispered from their hiding place behind the rock, âwhatever happens, can you promise me something?â
âWhat?â Eddie whispered back to her.
(Y/n) hesitated for a moment before she peeled herself away from the rockerâs side. âHold Steve back.â Turning to Jonathan on her other side, she patted his arm. âAnd donât let him and Dustin do anything stupid while Iâm gone.â
(Y/n) was usually an anxious, hesitant person. She was an extrovert to the extreme, but she was also very risk averse. She was the type of girl who walked with her eyes on her own feet, and her arms brought in across her chest at all times. She didnât exude surety or confidence ever. The three words her friends would use to describe her were skittish, excitable, and self-conscious. With Dart, Dustin had taken the lead trapping the monster in the cellar. In the Byerâs home, she had cowered behind Steve, from the demodogs and from Billy. In Starcourt, her brother had practically dragged her down to the Russian base. She had been the one driving the distraction car, all too happy to put distance between herself, Dustin, and Steve and the Mindflayer.
She was not fearless like Nancy or powerful like Eleven or a natural leader like Steve. In the face of monsters and spies and alternate dimensions, she was scared, like any normal person would be.
But this, sheâd convinced herself, wasnât a monster from an alternate dimension. A monster, maybe, but one she knew.
â(Y/n), what are you doing?â Jonathan tried to grab at her arm, but she moved faster, ducking out of the way as she came running out from behind the rock.
Vecna was baring down on Eleven, standing in front of Lucas, Mike, and Dustin with her arms wide as she tried to push him back.
â(Y/n)!â The shout came from somewhere behind her, but she didnât look back at Steve as she heard him running after her.
âPETER!â She came to a stop under him and shouted up into the air, at the body in the center of the mass of tentacles.
His head turned, slowly, towards her. âPeter, come down here!â
â(Y/n),â he said, seemingly to himself.
She shouldâve been afraid, quaking in her boots afraid. But for once, she just couldnât seem to manage it.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear Steve shouting, shouting at her, at Vecna, at Jonathan and Eddie for holding him back.
âPeter!â She called again.
The tentacles seemed to whip back and forth through the air, splaying themselves out flat on the ground and slowly encircling where she stood, as they lowered their master to the ground.
âNO!â Dustin tried to jump, but without instruction needed Lucas and Mike grabbed him and held him back.
âPeter, you donât have to do this.â
âPeter is dead. Your friend,â he spat the word, âsaw to that.â
âI know she put you here, but I donât think Peterâs gone.â A tentacle slithered at the back of her heels, and (Y/n) took a step closer to Peter.
âYou always had such idealistic notions.â He snarled, âThis is what I am. Not Peter, this.â Two of the tentacles whipped out from the circle they had formed around (Y/n), and latched onto her wrists, wrenching her down to her knees.
(Y/n) shook her head, âI donât believe that.â
The tentacles tightened around her wrist, and she bit back a whimper in disgust as they began wrapping themselves slowly up her arms.
âSociety is a scourge (Y/n). The real curse is not me; itâs humanity.â Peter began walking towards her, the tentacles around her dragging her to meet him.
âThen why havenât you cursed me? Killed me?â (Y/n) asked, âEveryone else has heard the clock ticking, Peter. But here I am.â
The tentacles were wrapping around her chest now, gluing her arms to her sides. Peter, Vecna, did not respond. He stood directly above her now, her bound defenseless at his feet.
âIf Peter was dead then you wouldnât be listening to me right now.â
One of the tentacles wrapped itself around her throat, but she didnât feel it constricting her at all. It was like it didnât know what to do.
âLet them go, Peter. Theyâre just kids. Scared, little kids like Henry used to be.â
Steve was still shouting and struggling with Jonathan and Eddie, and in her peripheral, it seemed Eleven had joined the boys in holding back Dustin.
âIâll stay.â She whispered loud enough for only Peter to hear. âWeâre friends right? Iâll stay here, with you. But you have to let them go. Leave them alone, leave Hawkins alone.â
Peter blinked. âYou wouldnât leave your brother.â
He sounded like Peter, the dark, raspy voice of Vecna was gone. He sounded young again; he sounded whole.
âIâll leave him to protect him. Peter, you live in this place free of people and the society you hated, and itâs still not enough. You never wanted to be alone.â The grip the tentacles had on her was loosening, and (Y/n) tried to stand. The tentacles melted away as Peter saw what she wanted to do. âIâll stay here, with you. You wonât be alone⊠But you have to let them go.â
Thanks for reading! If you like this, please go read my Eddie Munson fic. I'd really appreciate it! I think it's even better than this one, and it meant a lot to me writing it. I look forward to knowing what you think!
Okay wow, I absolutely loved this. I think you captured Peterâs personality really well, like in the line, âHe still didnât give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.â That characterization and his curiosity, despite his belief that he hates people is perfect
AND the idea of him wanting a friend in the upside down, despite his hatred for humanity seems spot on for him.
AND AND I adore the implications of readerâs immediate choice to stay in the upside down⊠like itâs hinted that sheâs with Steve but she doesnât even glance at him giving up everything to stay with Vecna. I think thereâs so much there to be explored about readerâs feelings (whether she realizes what they are or not) about Peter and her life in Hawkins. I also think Peterâs immediate agreement to leave Hawkins and the Party alone if she stays with him is so intriguing and would be interesting to see whether thatâs because he has a bigger plan or because he truly just values her at his side.
This is such an interesting read, would you consider continuing it?
Overall, I absolutely loved this piece and canât thank you enough for choosing to share it with us! Great job on it!
Itâs been a while since anyone read this one closely so thank you for that.
I want to answer some of your questions and expand on this for you a bit, but I donât think Iâll be continuing it in a sequel. This was written so long ago; there isnât much demand for a sequel. And this came out with part one of last season of stranger things, and the end of the last season was such a hard pivot from this vision with and without the OC that I have a hard time envisioning the universe now. (Iâm not even sure if Iâm watching the new season) But let me expand some here on what a sequel wouldâve been if I wrote it at the time and answer some of your questions:
If I wrote a sequel, it would have continued the same structure with flashes in time back to their time in the diner and a bit to their time apart after he enters the upside down before she joins him, but those flashes wouldâve delved a little deeper into their psyche rather than the surface of them being friends and finding each other.
The way I envision Peter in the time gap in this story between them meeting and her leaving with him is very much how he was in the show. Confrontation with Eleven, creation of the upside down, festering hatred for humanity, reaching to expand the upside down. She doesnât teach him that humanity is good like sheâd maybe hope. She teaches him that she is an exception to humanity being bad. He spends that whole time in the upside down fixating on her, pondering her, considering what he will do when he inevitably encounters her (while destroying the world). And before she arrives to join him, he knows he wants her somehow, but he hasnât really confronted in what way and what heâs willing to lose to get it. So there wouldâve been a couple flashes of that: of him in the upside down thinking about her and this.
She leaves with him to go to the upside down almost immediately because yes it will save Dustin and Steve and her friends but also because when I considered writing a sequel at the time I envisioned expanding on her being a little âoffâ, for lack of a better expression. He was coming into the diner for years, and as much as she changed him he changed her a bit too. Thereâs something to his presence and aura that is drawing her in, (I havenât seen the newest remake, but I think of it like a version of Nosferatu; she doesnât understand it but something almost supernatural is drawing her into the orbit of this grotesque monster and making her want him in some way. She knows itâs wrong, but she canât really help it.) And a sequel wouldâve have flashbacks to this, her being a bit odd and off in the diner, a bit toooo drawn to him, a bit tooo quirky with her friends after encountering him.
Iâd probably explore the idea that she offers to stay immediately on an impulse (abandoning Steve and her family and friends kind of on a whim) but he accepts immediately because this time heâs the one who understands whatâs happening (her liking him/wanting him). With a plot centering on this dichotomy that they came from a world she fully understood, where she controlled their relationship with each other, where she knew everything and understood him perfectly even if he didnât understand himself. And they entered this new world where heâs the one with all the power, he knows everything and understands her perfectly even though she doesnât understand herself. Theyâre at odds and thereâs a tension to it because she isnât used to not knowing how she feels and he isnât used to having to deal with human emotions, but it works when she comes to accept that she didnât just give everything up to save everyone and that this canât be all morally bad to want if it means it saved everyone.
(Also Iâm envisioning this entire thing as Jamie Campbell bower once the party leaves because even though he thinks humanity is scum sheâs an exception and she offered to stay when he looked like Vecna, and he understands her feelings on this one thing better than she does so he doesnât need to look like the gross monster he is to scare her.)
I kind of envision the story ending sort of ambiguously again. Years after she chooses to stay but not long after she comes to terms with wanting him. Likely with some attempt by the party to save her resulting in her death or something. Peter alone again, unable to comprehend that the party who he thinks are scum had the best intentions of saving her from what they thought was hell, just seeing it as them killing her. And then leaving it open ended on what he does about that.
An important addendum to my above ramble that may clarify further why Peter would immediately choose to say yes:
They are leaving a world where she has some knowledge and power (Hawkins) for a world where she has no knowledge and no power (upside down). They are leaving a world where his power is limited and his knowledge and understanding is almost nonexistent (Hawkins) for a world where everything is subject to his control and he is all knowing and all powerful (upside down).
HER decision is permanent. As far as sheâs aware, she has no method to leave him without his permission and willingness once sheâs stuck in the upside down without Eleven. HIS decision is not. He could easily restart his crusade against Hawkins at any time, and she could do nothing to stop him. His agreement to stop is only binding for as long as making her happy and having her by his side matters to him.
She doesnât fix him. He is entering this agreement aware that she is drawn to him/likes him/feels some nosferatu-esque pull towards him and that that gives him some power of attraction over her, aware that he is bringing her into a world where he has all the literal power over the world, aware that he could take back his promise at any time with only her anger to deal with.
He knows heâs lonely. He knows he likes her. Heâs obsessed over her for years in the Upside down. Heâs started to see her as an exception to humanity, but he is doing all this knowing he has a safety net. And he might not do it if he didnât have that safety net. He can start his plan up again whenever he wants.
And what happens when the safety net is slipping away??? đ
Like she somehow gets into contact with the world she left behind...
I'm thinking of 2 options, he shows her (a kind of a beauty and the beast bit with the mirror) and she goes back to properly say goodbye and convince the gang that their rescue plan will probably get them all killed...
Orrrr she starts to get powers đ± does Vecna sleep? For some reason my mind went to her slipping into his dreams then into one of the kids'
Oh no this is not a healthy balanced relationship ala Belle and the Beast (as healthy as that can be anyway). She doesnât fix him. He doesnât open up to the idea of humanity being good or not getting what he wants. What he wants changes but heâll still get it at the expense of everyone else. He wonât give her the opportunity to leave while he still wants her there, and if he eventually doesnât want her there anymore he would probably end things horribly (ie her dying or him destroying Hawkins).
He also canât afford for her to gain power. He likes her. He wants her there, but again she hasnât fixed him. He doesnât trust her. Heâs still deeply flawed and power hungry. He canât let her have the opportunity to leave him of her own volition or challenge him for control. He needs to be in charge.
The only options for them are happily ever after in a toxic relationship (weird-compulsive-draw-to-a-monster-making-her-miss-flaws) or intervention by an outside force that ruins that happiness or him killing her out of his own greed and hunger.
I opt for outside force.
(The mummy is a good reference point image wise. But Iâm imagining something very undefined like a calling or craving in her blood. The way the FMC in Nosferatu dreams of him and is drawn to him against her better judgment and is changed from who she was by this supernatural allure.
Okay you donât understand that your absolutely perfect vision for this duo has me desperate for more. It almost feels like she knows itâs wrong to be drawn to him and want to stay with him but canât help herself. How would she feel about herself as she develops that knowledge?
Also, I could also see her missing Steve, how would Henry cope? I bet heâd âshowâ her (create visions for her) of how Steve has moved on and found someone else to ensure she continues to choose Henry. BUT I could also see him being so insanely jealous over her missing Steve that he starts to resent her/ question her feelings for him despite being able to read her mind.
I really canât thank you enough for sharing this work and then expanding on it for me, I canât get it out of my head and I really really appreciate you taking the time to give me more of it.
I think Vecnaâs reaction heavily depends on if you think she ever really liked Steve. Which is not something I fleshed out fully at the time.
If I were to write it now, based on the inkling I had then, Steve would have always been a distraction that she felt affection for. (That may make it sound similar to the way Nancy was with Steve before they ended, and in some ways it is. But Iâm thinking the tone is a bit different.) I imagine it would be the dating version of a person who you know sees you as their best friend, but theyâre not your best friend. You like them well enough, of course you do youâre friends. And youâre probably nicer to them than you would be to someone else you were similar levels of friends with because you know how much you mean to them, and you donât want to ruin things for them, but itâs all tinged with pity and empathy for their ignorance. Like if I expanded on it now, sheâd be dating Steve because Steve asked her out and she liked hanging out with him well enough, but for her the emotions never got much further than âyeah I like that guy Iâll give him a chance since I clearly canât have what I wantâ. Sheâd like him but sheâd never love Steve, no matter what Steve feels for her. Sheâd be more protective of him than the others because she felt sorry for not being what he needed and because she knew she felt this inhuman draw to Vecna that she shouldnât and the guilt was crushing her more than anything.
In that world, I donât think Vecna feels any ill will towards her over Steve. I think if they crossed paths again Vecna would lord over Steve that she actually chose Vecna because she wanted him and didnât want Steve. Vecna would be incredibly egotistical and malicious in rubbing it in Steveâs face. Even against her will if she was still alive and didnât want Steve to know that she didnât love him, Vecna would still rub it in, but I donât know that Vecna would hold it against her if her feelings for Steve werenât that deep.
Now, if she dated Steve and did like him as youâve proposed, I imagine her relationship with Vecna would become incredibly vindictive where Steve is concerned pretty rapidly. He would be cruel and manipulative about it from the jump. True or not, he would try to convince her that Steve was inferior. Iâd go a step further from âSteve moved onâ visions. I think heâd probably try to convince her that Steve NEVER liked her. Look at everything I do for you that Steve never did (nevermind that Steve didnât have the power to control a world the way Vecna does). Look how quickly he abandoned you (Nevermind that she told the others to make him, Nevermind that he didnât have the power to follow, Nevermind that he comes back). I think Vecna wouldnât just want her heartbroken over Steve moving on; I think heâd twist the knife that Steve was never hers. Hell, heâs been in Nancyâs head a lot; heâd probably try to say Steve only was with her because he couldnât have Nancy or even to get closer to Nancy through their respective brothers. He wouldnât let Steve stand in the future (ie heâs moved on visions) but he also couldnât let Steve stand as a memory (ie he was never yours). And whether he grows to despise her depends heavily on her reaction to his visions of Steve. If sheâs broken by it, heâd probably be all too happy to remake her in his image or the image he wants of her. If sheâs angry, heâd probably meet anger with anger and grow to hate her and then the relationship becomes altogether more physically harmful.
Now, all of this is about Steve. I think the one relationship thatâs hinted at that Vecna would have a bigger problem with in every version of this sequel is Dustin, whoâs kinda offhand mentioned to be her brother. Nevermind that itâs not romantic, that might actually make it worse because Vecna canât usurp that. Vecna would always resent that tie to the real world and that relationship that takes her attention from him. She of course would miss her brother irrespective of her romantic feelings, and he would hate that. Whether that would fester into hatred of her is maybe debatable. Iâm inclined to think that because itâs not a romantic tie it would manifest more in Vecna feeling desperation and becoming increasingly controlling of her movements and invasive in her thoughts and insecure about where he stands. The longer sheâs with him and the more she misses Dustin, probably the less freedom Vecna allows her to have.
Pairing: Peter Ballard x Female!Reader, implied Steve x Reader (Does not really factor into the story)
Word Count: 5.1k
Warnings: mostly just fluff and angst that doesn't require a content warning. General content warnings consistent with Stranger Things
Summary: It couldn't be him. She refused to believe it. Eleven had to be wrong, had to have the wrong person. It wasn't that he wasn't capable of something like this; in the back of her mind, she knew he was. More, it was that she didn't want to face what it meant about herself.
Masterlist.
There was a familiar face staring blankly up at her from the page⊠she knew this face.
âWell, he looks evil,â Steve mused, looking at the drawing over her shoulder.
âHe was 001⊠He was the first. They built the lab to contain him.â Eleven explained.
(Y/n) was holding up the sketch Eleven had drawn of the patient from Hawkins Lab, who Eleven knew as 001, that Nancy had discovered was Henry, that they all called Vecna. Â
(Y/n) knew that face.
â(Y/n)?â Dustin touched her shoulder. â(Y/n), are you okay?â
She heard her brotherâs voice talking to her, and yet somehow she didnât register it. He felt, he sounded, so far away.
It felt like an out of body experience, like her thoughts were no longer contained inside her brain, like they were swirling around her in a cloud, consuming her entire world. This was not Henry Creel, could not be Vecna. Eleven had to be wrong. She knew this face, and she knew it all too well.
âHi Peter, I see they let you out again. The usual?â (Y/n) smiled brightly.
Peter was her favorite regular at Bennyâs, not that he was all that regular. He came in once every couple weeks or so. She assumed whenever the lab could spare him, though he always referred to it as a ârewardâ for good behavior. Bennyâs menu was hardly ârewardâ worthy. It was decent. Benny was a good cook, but it was just regular diner food. She could think of four other diners in Hawkins that served the same fair, though Bennyâs was certainly the closest to the ltab.
He wasnât a particularly nice regular. He tipped very well, which she appreciated, but most regulars do or they wouldnât be regulars anymore. Mostly, he was her favorite because he was an enigma. He worked for the Hawkins National Laboratory up the road, and he was very cagey about his work and himself.
âNo coffee,â Peter amended without looking up from the papers in front of him.
(Y/n) scribbled haphazardly on the ticket and slid it across the window to put on deck for Benny. There were a couple tickets ahead of it, and that gave her extra time.
(Y/n) dragged the stool out from behind the register and plopped down directly in front of Peter, propping her elbows on the counter and looking at him expectantly.
Peter rolled his eyes but kept them trained on his work. This was (Y/n)âs usual routine any time Peter came into the diner, so he didnât need to look up to know she was staring him down.
âMust you watch your customers so intently? I feel like a subject in the lab.â
âOnly the interesting ones,â (Y/n) dismissed. âNow tell me; howâs the lab?â
Peter flipped over one of the pages mindlessly. He hadnât processed all the words, but that clearly wasnât going to happen if (Y/n) had anything to say about it. He kept up the appearance of reading though to hold her interrogations to a minimal. âIt is in its usual state. I am nothing but a humble nurse for the children being experimented upon and tortured within its walls.â
(Y/n) rolled her eyes. It wasnât the kind of joke she would have made, but she let it slide. âYes, of course, but how is your work?â
âWhy would you care to know?â Peter dismissed the question.
âBecause Iâm bored, and like my brother always says life is a curiosity voyage.â
Peter rolled his eyes, âYour brother sounds foolish.â
âHey,â (Y/n) reached up and smacked Peter lightly on the side of the head, causing him to jolt. He stared at her in utter disbelief, as if no one had ever touched him before in his life, which she found very hard to believe. He was far too high and mighty, full of himself, not to have been bullied as a kid. âThatâs my brother. Only I get to mess with him.â
Nonresponsive and zoned out was not a good thing to be in Hawkins, Indiana in 1986.
âSheâs infected with Vecna!â Dustin began to panic, âQuick someone get my headphones from the desk,â Dustin pointed to the desk behind Max, who practically threw the headphones in her rush to get them to Steve as Dustin ran to the small shelf and began digging through Mikeâs cassette tapes.
âNo, no,â (Y/n) shook aside the memory as quickly as she could manage. âDustin,â she called to her brother, âReally, Iâm fine!â
âLike hell you are,â behind her, Steve forced the plastic strap of the headphones around her neck. âSeriously? How hard is it to find Pat Benatar!â Steve shouted.
âAgain, Iâm fine,â (Y/n) rolled her eyes, wrenching the headphones off.
They couldnât afford to waste a pair on her now. She could feel things coming to a head. Over the last 24 hours, virtually all of them had had to procure a pair of headphones and wrap them around their necks. Only Steve, Dustin, Eleven, and herself hadnât heard the ticking of a clock at some point yet. A low drone of noise was filling the room as songs played from the necks of the other occupants.
âReally!â She insisted to the skeptical crowd of teens staring her down, âno ticking. I was justâŠâ In addressing the room, her eyes found Elevenâs, âremembering something.â
Elevenâs eyes seemed to see right through her, and (Y/n) hesitated for a moment, wavering in whether revealing this information was a good idea or not. Everyone else in the room was staring at her, eyes darting now and again to Eleven.
It was too late to back out now. She took a breath and, watching Elevenâs face intently for her reaction, said the name.
âHi again Peter, Iâll put the usual on for you.â (Y/n) greeted him with a wave as he came through the door.
This time, when Peter walked in, Bennyâs was empty except for herself and Benny. He had his usual folder full of papers tucked under his arm, stamped with the fancy Hawkins Labâs seal on the cover declaring it was privileged information.
âThank you,â Peter took up his usual counter seat.
He had a way of being both extraordinarily polite and also incredibly rude at the same time. It was like he had spent his entire life being lectured on manners without actually having a single social interaction in which to use them.
âBenny!â (Y/n) called loudly over the order window, âPeterâs usual!â
Benny was somewhere in the back. With the diner being empty, Benny had ducked out to rearrange the stock while he left (Y/n) to mind the front. âGive me just a minute!â She heard her boss shout back.
âSo!â (Y/n) whipped around, leaning back against the order window, âGonna tell me how work was today?â
âTiresome.â Peter clipped.
(Y/n) raised an eyebrow, âThatâs about as descriptive as youâve ever been. Was it coworkers or your human test subjects?â She said the last part teasingly.
Peter paused for a moment, still not looking up from his papers, but he seemed to consider her question longer than he usually would before dismissing her. âBoss.â Having answered, Peter immediately went back to flipping through pages, only adding under his breath, âNot that I would call him that, persay. Heâs more like my worst nightmare.â
(Y/n) chuckled and approached, taking up her usual seat across from him. âTell me about it. Last week, Benny didnât let me off early on Friday even though it was my momâs birthday, so my little brother recruited his friends to try to bake her birthday cake instead of waiting for me and almost lit my house on fire.â
The word fire seemed to catch Peterâs attention. He still didnât give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.
âWhat do you mean you âknowâ Vecna?â Dustin demanded.
âHe came into Bennyâs from time to time,â (Y/n) felt like she was retreating into her skin. Eleven, Mike, Eddie, Max, the whole room. They were all watching her with dark eyes, watching her like they were watching the enemy.
Dustin was staring at her in utter shock. He didnât notice the looks from his friends or the fear in her eyes. He was still trying to comprehend this massive piece of information.
Only Steveâs hand, resting with a firm grip on her shoulder, was keeping her grounded in the room, keeping her from bolting out the door like a frightened deer.
âAnd you talked to him? You knew him?â Max joined the questioning, her tone far closer to interrogation than Dustinâs disbelieving one.
(Y/n) shrugged defensively, âLots of people from the labs came in. We were the closest restaurant. He said he was a nurse. I didnât know he was the literal devil.â
âNone taken.â Peter had talked to her. He had actually talked to her. Granted, they were complaining about their bosses, which was the oldest and most basic form of bonding in the book, but still. It was something. âHe is.â
âWell,â (Y/n) hopped down from the seat she had taken on the counter while he recounted his tale of woe. âIâm gonna start cleaning up if itâs all the same to you.â
Peter waved his hand down the length of the counter and immediately reverted his eyes back to his papers that were off to the side of the plate he was presently eating off of. Â
(Y/n) smirked to herself as she pulled out her rag. It wasnât much, but it was a start. Sheâd be damned if she wasnât going to keep poking at him till she got the answers she wanted.
It was Nancy who turned the whole scene into a proper interrogation. Though, perhaps given her profession, it was more of an interview. She waved the kids away from the seat in front of (Y/n) and took up a spot front and center in her vision.
âTell us everything you know about him. Start from the beginning.â
(Y/n) took a breath and recited the facts as coldly and emotionlessly as she could manage. âHis name was Peter Ballard. He came into the diner once every couple weeks. Everyone else from the lab came in groups, but heâŠâ Her voice cracked for a moment, and she hoped everyone else in the room saw it as nothing more than the nerves it was, âHe was always alone. He barely talked to me. The others said he was a nurse, and that he never talked to anyone in the lab either. He always brought files with him to read. It took months for him to even bother making eye contact with me.â
âNo,â Peter droned. He still acted thoroughly unamused with her presence, but he had started more readily answering her questions.
(Y/n) huffed and leaned back on her stool, tilting away from him. âWell, that explains so much.â
Peterâs eyes shot up from his paper, and for the first time he met her gaze. Not exactly an angry expression, but at the least a doubtful one, colored his face as his eyebrows drew together. âHow?â
âWell,â she let the legs of her stool fall back on the floor with a crash as she leaned forward towards Peter, âSure, you didnât have to deal with assholes on the basketball team shoving you into lockers, or girls on the cheer squad making fun of your clothes. But you also never found a group of friends with the same niche interest as you, or a guy to bond with over your mutual hatred of some bully, or a cute girl who thought you were the cutest thing since God invented puppies.â
Peterâs eyes narrowed.
âNo, Iâm serious,â (Y/n) immediately dismissed his expression. âSure, there are giant swathes of humanity that are the absolute worst, but there are some humans who are really great when you give them the chance. And you,â she poked a finger into his chest, ânever did. You were aware that some people sucked, but you didnât hang around long enough to find the ones that didnât before you decided to write all of us off as intolerable.â
Peter pursed his lips and turned back to his files. He wasnât going to continue this line of conversation.
âThatâs really all I know, Nancy. I swear.â (Y/n) huffed.
âThere has to be something though!â Nancy jumped up from her seat and began to pace, âIt canât be a coincidence that you knew him. Can it?â
âI didnât know him,â She emphasized. âWe didnât exactly bare our souls to each other and get matching tattoos. We were friendly. He came in every couple weeks, ordered the same thing. Towards the end he started making small talk, but that was it. Small talk. He didnât exactly spell out for me that he had dreams of becoming a mass murderer.â
âYeah, but what are the odds that you would get wrapped up in all of this?â Jonathan pointed out. âIt sounds like youâre the only person he talked to outside of the lab.â
âPretty freakinâ high, Jonathan,â (Y/n) huffed. âIf you havenât noticed, Hawkins isnât a metropolis. Itâs a pretty small town, and weird shit keeps happening. Weâre all wrapped up in it at this point.â
(Y/n) froze, staring at Peter as he approached his usual seat at the counter. Sheâd clocked him instantly when he walked in, and instantly had known something was very off.
He looked more or less the same, all white outfit, holier than thou expression. His hair was in its usual blonde waves, and he seemed more or less as agitated with his own existence as he usually did.
âH-Hey Peter, Usual?â (Y/n) asked.
âYes, please,â Peter replied.
And in that moment she realized it. That moment when he sat there, still looking up at her expectantly, waiting for her to put his order in. That moment when he didnât look down.
No files.
(Y/n) rushed the order in to Benny and whirled back around to join Peter. There were a handful of other people in the diner, but they were all regulars whoâd already gotten their food and knew their way around. She was completely unbothered with doing her rounds to their tables.
âWhy no files?â
Peter raised an eyebrow, âArenât you the one whoâs always bugging me to talk to you?â
âHeâs not here,â Dustin dropped the flashlight back to his side with a huff.
They had gone to the Creel house again, hoping to find where in the Upside Down Vecna was. Now that they had Eleven, with her powers back no less, they wanted to lure him to a place they could face off against him.
â(Y/n),â Lucas called over the bannister from the second floor. âDid Vecna ever mention anywhere else he liked to go? Or somewhere else in Hawkins he felt connected to?â
âNo!â (Y/n) shouted back with a huff, âIf heâs not here he must be at the lab!â
(Y/n) huffed and pulled back from where she was leaning on the counter. âThatâs it? Itâs cold? I thought you were going to actually help me? You know, useful feedback?â
Peter slowly pushed the mostly-full milkshake away from his plate. âI never agreed to help you. You only assumed I would when I came in.â
âYeah! For a free milkshake!â (Y/n) threw her hands up, utterly exasperated with him, âYou have to have more thoughts than âitâs coldâ. Iâm making Benny put milkshakes on the menu, and itâs my ass on the line if they arenât good.â
âItâs sweet.â Peter added, picking up another fry and taking a bite.
âOoooh! Thank you so much! Thatâs so much more helpful.â She bit back sarcastically.
Rolling her eyes, (Y/n) snatched the milkshake away, slurping through Peterâs abandoned straw. She made a face, âOh, ok⊠that is sweet.â
Peter didnât meet her eyes, but he waved his hand and made a face that very much said âtold-you-soâ.
It didnât look like anyone had been in the lab since Eleven closed the portal. The bodies had been cleaned up, no doubt by the military coverup team, but the broken glass in the screened in room surrounding the old portal was still strewn about the floor. Hopperâs gun Bob had left in the control room was still on the desk. There were even still spatters of blood every few feet along the walls and stains from dried up blood on the floors.
âSo,â Robin murmured quietly to (Y/n), âThis is what Round 2 looked like? Man I am so glad I just had the Russians.â
âIt doesnât look like heâs here either. Doesnât even look like heâs been here at all. Thereâs no portal,â Will assessed, turning back to the room.
âFuck!â Mike turned, kicking a wall. âFuck! Fuck! Fuck!â
He wasnât at his old home. He wasnât at the lab. He wasnât at any of the places heâd opened portals that they knew about. (Y/n) was at a loss. There wasnât anywhere else to look.
He must be hiding, hiding somewhere completely random with absolutely no connection to him. It was the logical thing to do if he didnât want to be found, but it just didnât make sense. Sure, Eleven said 001 was a creature completely void of any emotion, set to the singular purpose of restoring order to the world by ridding it of humanity.
But (Y/n) knew that wasnât true. Hell, the Party shouldâve known that wasnât true. 001 had slaughtered an entire lab in an instant he was so blinded by rage, not even giving them the option to join them that heâd given Eleven. When he became Vecna and was sent to the Upside Down, the first place they knew heâd gone was home. Max had seen the disassembled pieces of the Creel house in Vecnaâs inner hideout in the Upside Down. And Henry had talked to Nancy about her visit to his father, about how heâd vengefully plotted his demise.
Even the Peter (Y/n) knew was riddled with emotions, most of them negative, but still they were there. Even when he was putting on a neutral face, she always knew he detested humanity. He hated his job. HeâŠ
Heâd teased her about her milkshakes, about how much she talked, about high school, about her brother. HeâdâŠ
(Y/n) bolted for the door. âSteve, get the keys! I know where he went!â She shouted.
âSo why donât you ever sit with them?â (Y/n) asked, nodding with her chin over Peterâs shoulder to the lab coats at the table behind him.
They werenât literally wearing lab coats, but in her mind everyone who worked in a lab was supposed to be wearing a coat. So thatâs what she called them. In actuality, they were all dressed almost exactly the same as Peter.
âI mean, I know you hate them, but even you have to get lonely sometimes.â
Peter picked up another fry and put it in his mouth, avoiding her question.
âThere must be someone tolerable enough to eat lunch with.â
âI eat with you.â Peter told her, âDo I need someone else?â
(Y/n) felt her cheeks turn a little bit pink, and she tried to swallow it down. âWell no, but you must have friends. Someone at the lab? Or someone from when you were a kid? I know you were homeschooled, but still. Everyone needs friends.â
Peter snorted, and (Y/n) wasnât sure if it was at the idea of him needing someone or at the idea of having a friend. âWell, I regret to inform you that I just have you.â
There was a portal, up against the wall of the diner, behind the counter right where she used to sit when she would talk to Peter.
âDead on, (Y/n).â Steve patted her shoulder, joking, âHe mustâve really liked the eggs.â
Grilled chicken with a side of fries and a coffee. Always the same food; didnât matter what meal it was. (Y/n) didnât bother to voice that though.
âItâs one of the basketball players,â Dustin pointed out.
A pair of broken, twisted out of shape, legs were sticking out from behind one of the couches the kids had dragged into Bennyâs after it was deserted.
âItâs biggerâŠâ Eleven murmured, taking a step forward towards the portal.
Mike caught her arm, pulling her back away from the portal.
(Y/n) didnât join in, the banter or the analysis. She was staring at the portal.
It was right where she used to sit, literally right there. If Peter had been there, and sheâd been in her usual spot talking to him, all she wouldâve had to do was tip her stool back, like she always did, and she wouldâve fallen straight into the Upside Down.
âYouâre gonna fall over if you keep doing that,â Peter pointed down to the legs of her stool.
(Y/n) rolled her eyes and continued to totter back and forth on the back legs of the stool. âThen Iâll knock my head in and get off work early, and you wonât have to put up with me. Sounds like a win for both of us.â
The front legs of the stool slammed to the ground, and (Y/n) stared wide-eyed, mouth ajar, at Peter.
Peterâs eyes had a fire to them she had never seen. There was something there, something behind his usual disinterested, annoyed expression. Something dangerous.
He had a vice-like grip on her wrist, and (Y/n) was positive that she was going to have a ringed bruise around the bone there in the morning from how tightly he held her and how hard heâd jerked her back forward. Her arm was stretched out across the width of the counter, practically touching his chest heâd jerked her so far back.
The shock in her face seemed to douse the fire in his. âSorry,â Peter cleared his throat, dropping her wrist.
âN-No, itâs okay.â (Y/n) dismissed haphazardly. âDidnât realize I was worrying you.â
Under his breath, so quietly she wasnât quite sure she heard him right, Peter whispered, âOf course you worry me.â
âWhat was that?â (Y/n) asked.
âNothing, just donât want you dead on the floor. The hassle of finding another friend is unappealing.â
âWell,â (Y/n) smiled, though not as brightly this time as she usually did, âyou canât get rid of me that easy.â
A grey body, void of skin and hair and a face. Vine-like Tentacles protruding from his back, whipping back and forth in all directions as if they had a mind of their own, encircling the party, drawing them tighter and tighter into him.
She knew what Eleven told her, knew the story of how Vecna had come to be, but she just couldnât believe it. She couldnât see Peter under there, inside the monster.
She couldnât see Peter batting away Eleven with a vine, without a care in the world for her scream as she went flying back into a deadened tree.
(Y/n) looked up, startled. She hadnât heard anyone come in. Sheâd been too absorbed in the math homework splayed across Bennyâs counter to notice anything other than the mental image sheâd been constructing of going to watch all of her friends graduate knowing she was going to have to repeat senior year.
âOh Peter, I didnât hear you come in. Usual?â
Peter sat down in front of her, which was not in his usual seat. âNo, I only⊠I came here to talk, to apologize, and say goodbye.â
âWait youâre leaving?â (Y/n) dropped the pencil from her hand. âAre they moving you out of the lab? Whatâs going on?â
âThereâs been a⊠development. And soon my services will no longer be required.â Peter caught the pencil (Y/n) hadnât heard rolling across the counter and carefully balanced it back in place in front of her textbook.
âW-Well, where are you going?â She tried, and failed miserably, to hide the disappointment from her tone, âIâm sure they have phones there. Iâd hate to leave you with no one to pester you every week.â
âI canât tell you.â Peter smiled, actually smiled. (Y/n) didnât know if it was unnerving or endearing. It was the first time sheâd ever seen him smile. She got the occasional snear, once in a while a smirk if she was particularly amusing that day. But he never smiled, certainly not like this, sad, disheartened, like he was sorry he had to go. âThatâs why I came. I know I scared you last time I was here. I⊠I showed too much of myself, and for that Iâm sorry.â
âPeter, you donât have to apologize.â (Y/n) reached out, hesitantly and took his hand. âNot for being yourself at least.â
âOh but I do.â Peter dismissed. Turning his hand over, Peter took hers in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. âMaybe one day youâll see why.â
And as easily as he slipped into her life, he was gone.
âEddie,â She whispered from their hiding place behind the rock, âwhatever happens, can you promise me something?â
âWhat?â Eddie whispered back to her.
(Y/n) hesitated for a moment before she peeled herself away from the rockerâs side. âHold Steve back.â Turning to Jonathan on her other side, she patted his arm. âAnd donât let him and Dustin do anything stupid while Iâm gone.â
(Y/n) was usually an anxious, hesitant person. She was an extrovert to the extreme, but she was also very risk averse. She was the type of girl who walked with her eyes on her own feet, and her arms brought in across her chest at all times. She didnât exude surety or confidence ever. The three words her friends would use to describe her were skittish, excitable, and self-conscious. With Dart, Dustin had taken the lead trapping the monster in the cellar. In the Byerâs home, she had cowered behind Steve, from the demodogs and from Billy. In Starcourt, her brother had practically dragged her down to the Russian base. She had been the one driving the distraction car, all too happy to put distance between herself, Dustin, and Steve and the Mindflayer.
She was not fearless like Nancy or powerful like Eleven or a natural leader like Steve. In the face of monsters and spies and alternate dimensions, she was scared, like any normal person would be.
But this, sheâd convinced herself, wasnât a monster from an alternate dimension. A monster, maybe, but one she knew.
â(Y/n), what are you doing?â Jonathan tried to grab at her arm, but she moved faster, ducking out of the way as she came running out from behind the rock.
Vecna was baring down on Eleven, standing in front of Lucas, Mike, and Dustin with her arms wide as she tried to push him back.
â(Y/n)!â The shout came from somewhere behind her, but she didnât look back at Steve as she heard him running after her.
âPETER!â She came to a stop under him and shouted up into the air, at the body in the center of the mass of tentacles.
His head turned, slowly, towards her. âPeter, come down here!â
â(Y/n),â he said, seemingly to himself.
She shouldâve been afraid, quaking in her boots afraid. But for once, she just couldnât seem to manage it.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear Steve shouting, shouting at her, at Vecna, at Jonathan and Eddie for holding him back.
âPeter!â She called again.
The tentacles seemed to whip back and forth through the air, splaying themselves out flat on the ground and slowly encircling where she stood, as they lowered their master to the ground.
âNO!â Dustin tried to jump, but without instruction needed Lucas and Mike grabbed him and held him back.
âPeter, you donât have to do this.â
âPeter is dead. Your friend,â he spat the word, âsaw to that.â
âI know she put you here, but I donât think Peterâs gone.â A tentacle slithered at the back of her heels, and (Y/n) took a step closer to Peter.
âYou always had such idealistic notions.â He snarled, âThis is what I am. Not Peter, this.â Two of the tentacles whipped out from the circle they had formed around (Y/n), and latched onto her wrists, wrenching her down to her knees.
(Y/n) shook her head, âI donât believe that.â
The tentacles tightened around her wrist, and she bit back a whimper in disgust as they began wrapping themselves slowly up her arms.
âSociety is a scourge (Y/n). The real curse is not me; itâs humanity.â Peter began walking towards her, the tentacles around her dragging her to meet him.
âThen why havenât you cursed me? Killed me?â (Y/n) asked, âEveryone else has heard the clock ticking, Peter. But here I am.â
The tentacles were wrapping around her chest now, gluing her arms to her sides. Peter, Vecna, did not respond. He stood directly above her now, her bound defenseless at his feet.
âIf Peter was dead then you wouldnât be listening to me right now.â
One of the tentacles wrapped itself around her throat, but she didnât feel it constricting her at all. It was like it didnât know what to do.
âLet them go, Peter. Theyâre just kids. Scared, little kids like Henry used to be.â
Steve was still shouting and struggling with Jonathan and Eddie, and in her peripheral, it seemed Eleven had joined the boys in holding back Dustin.
âIâll stay.â She whispered loud enough for only Peter to hear. âWeâre friends right? Iâll stay here, with you. But you have to let them go. Leave them alone, leave Hawkins alone.â
Peter blinked. âYou wouldnât leave your brother.â
He sounded like Peter, the dark, raspy voice of Vecna was gone. He sounded young again; he sounded whole.
âIâll leave him to protect him. Peter, you live in this place free of people and the society you hated, and itâs still not enough. You never wanted to be alone.â The grip the tentacles had on her was loosening, and (Y/n) tried to stand. The tentacles melted away as Peter saw what she wanted to do. âIâll stay here, with you. You wonât be alone⊠But you have to let them go.â
Thanks for reading! If you like this, please go read my Eddie Munson fic. I'd really appreciate it! I think it's even better than this one, and it meant a lot to me writing it. I look forward to knowing what you think!
Okay wow, I absolutely loved this. I think you captured Peterâs personality really well, like in the line, âHe still didnât give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.â That characterization and his curiosity, despite his belief that he hates people is perfect
AND the idea of him wanting a friend in the upside down, despite his hatred for humanity seems spot on for him.
AND AND I adore the implications of readerâs immediate choice to stay in the upside down⊠like itâs hinted that sheâs with Steve but she doesnât even glance at him giving up everything to stay with Vecna. I think thereâs so much there to be explored about readerâs feelings (whether she realizes what they are or not) about Peter and her life in Hawkins. I also think Peterâs immediate agreement to leave Hawkins and the Party alone if she stays with him is so intriguing and would be interesting to see whether thatâs because he has a bigger plan or because he truly just values her at his side.
This is such an interesting read, would you consider continuing it?
Overall, I absolutely loved this piece and canât thank you enough for choosing to share it with us! Great job on it!
Itâs been a while since anyone read this one closely so thank you for that.
I want to answer some of your questions and expand on this for you a bit, but I donât think Iâll be continuing it in a sequel. This was written so long ago; there isnât much demand for a sequel. And this came out with part one of last season of stranger things, and the end of the last season was such a hard pivot from this vision with and without the OC that I have a hard time envisioning the universe now. (Iâm not even sure if Iâm watching the new season) But let me expand some here on what a sequel wouldâve been if I wrote it at the time and answer some of your questions:
If I wrote a sequel, it would have continued the same structure with flashes in time back to their time in the diner and a bit to their time apart after he enters the upside down before she joins him, but those flashes wouldâve delved a little deeper into their psyche rather than the surface of them being friends and finding each other.
The way I envision Peter in the time gap in this story between them meeting and her leaving with him is very much how he was in the show. Confrontation with Eleven, creation of the upside down, festering hatred for humanity, reaching to expand the upside down. She doesnât teach him that humanity is good like sheâd maybe hope. She teaches him that she is an exception to humanity being bad. He spends that whole time in the upside down fixating on her, pondering her, considering what he will do when he inevitably encounters her (while destroying the world). And before she arrives to join him, he knows he wants her somehow, but he hasnât really confronted in what way and what heâs willing to lose to get it. So there wouldâve been a couple flashes of that: of him in the upside down thinking about her and this.
She leaves with him to go to the upside down almost immediately because yes it will save Dustin and Steve and her friends but also because when I considered writing a sequel at the time I envisioned expanding on her being a little âoffâ, for lack of a better expression. He was coming into the diner for years, and as much as she changed him he changed her a bit too. Thereâs something to his presence and aura that is drawing her in, (I havenât seen the newest remake, but I think of it like a version of Nosferatu; she doesnât understand it but something almost supernatural is drawing her into the orbit of this grotesque monster and making her want him in some way. She knows itâs wrong, but she canât really help it.) And a sequel wouldâve have flashbacks to this, her being a bit odd and off in the diner, a bit toooo drawn to him, a bit tooo quirky with her friends after encountering him.
Iâd probably explore the idea that she offers to stay immediately on an impulse (abandoning Steve and her family and friends kind of on a whim) but he accepts immediately because this time heâs the one who understands whatâs happening (her liking him/wanting him). With a plot centering on this dichotomy that they came from a world she fully understood, where she controlled their relationship with each other, where she knew everything and understood him perfectly even if he didnât understand himself. And they entered this new world where heâs the one with all the power, he knows everything and understands her perfectly even though she doesnât understand herself. Theyâre at odds and thereâs a tension to it because she isnât used to not knowing how she feels and he isnât used to having to deal with human emotions, but it works when she comes to accept that she didnât just give everything up to save everyone and that this canât be all morally bad to want if it means it saved everyone.
(Also Iâm envisioning this entire thing as Jamie Campbell bower once the party leaves because even though he thinks humanity is scum sheâs an exception and she offered to stay when he looked like Vecna, and he understands her feelings on this one thing better than she does so he doesnât need to look like the gross monster he is to scare her.)
I kind of envision the story ending sort of ambiguously again. Years after she chooses to stay but not long after she comes to terms with wanting him. Likely with some attempt by the party to save her resulting in her death or something. Peter alone again, unable to comprehend that the party who he thinks are scum had the best intentions of saving her from what they thought was hell, just seeing it as them killing her. And then leaving it open ended on what he does about that.
An important addendum to my above ramble that may clarify further why Peter would immediately choose to say yes:
They are leaving a world where she has some knowledge and power (Hawkins) for a world where she has no knowledge and no power (upside down). They are leaving a world where his power is limited and his knowledge and understanding is almost nonexistent (Hawkins) for a world where everything is subject to his control and he is all knowing and all powerful (upside down).
HER decision is permanent. As far as sheâs aware, she has no method to leave him without his permission and willingness once sheâs stuck in the upside down without Eleven. HIS decision is not. He could easily restart his crusade against Hawkins at any time, and she could do nothing to stop him. His agreement to stop is only binding for as long as making her happy and having her by his side matters to him.
She doesnât fix him. He is entering this agreement aware that she is drawn to him/likes him/feels some nosferatu-esque pull towards him and that that gives him some power of attraction over her, aware that he is bringing her into a world where he has all the literal power over the world, aware that he could take back his promise at any time with only her anger to deal with.
He knows heâs lonely. He knows he likes her. Heâs obsessed over her for years in the Upside down. Heâs started to see her as an exception to humanity, but he is doing all this knowing he has a safety net. And he might not do it if he didnât have that safety net. He can start his plan up again whenever he wants.
And what happens when the safety net is slipping away??? đ
Like she somehow gets into contact with the world she left behind...
I'm thinking of 2 options, he shows her (a kind of a beauty and the beast bit with the mirror) and she goes back to properly say goodbye and convince the gang that their rescue plan will probably get them all killed...
Orrrr she starts to get powers đ± does Vecna sleep? For some reason my mind went to her slipping into his dreams then into one of the kids'
Oh no this is not a healthy balanced relationship ala Belle and the Beast (as healthy as that can be anyway). She doesnât fix him. He doesnât open up to the idea of humanity being good or not getting what he wants. What he wants changes but heâll still get it at the expense of everyone else. He wonât give her the opportunity to leave while he still wants her there, and if he eventually doesnât want her there anymore he would probably end things horribly (ie her dying or him destroying Hawkins).
He also canât afford for her to gain power. He likes her. He wants her there, but again she hasnât fixed him. He doesnât trust her. Heâs still deeply flawed and power hungry. He canât let her have the opportunity to leave him of her own volition or challenge him for control. He needs to be in charge.
The only options for them are happily ever after in a toxic relationship (weird-compulsive-draw-to-a-monster-making-her-miss-flaws) or intervention by an outside force that ruins that happiness or him killing her out of his own greed and hunger.
I opt for outside force.
(The mummy is a good reference point image wise. But Iâm imagining something very undefined like a calling or craving in her blood. The way the FMC in Nosferatu dreams of him and is drawn to him against her better judgment and is changed from who she was by this supernatural allure.
Pairing: Peter Ballard x Female!Reader, implied Steve x Reader (Does not really factor into the story)
Word Count: 5.1k
Warnings: mostly just fluff and angst that doesn't require a content warning. General content warnings consistent with Stranger Things
Summary: It couldn't be him. She refused to believe it. Eleven had to be wrong, had to have the wrong person. It wasn't that he wasn't capable of something like this; in the back of her mind, she knew he was. More, it was that she didn't want to face what it meant about herself.
Masterlist.
There was a familiar face staring blankly up at her from the page⊠she knew this face.
âWell, he looks evil,â Steve mused, looking at the drawing over her shoulder.
âHe was 001⊠He was the first. They built the lab to contain him.â Eleven explained.
(Y/n) was holding up the sketch Eleven had drawn of the patient from Hawkins Lab, who Eleven knew as 001, that Nancy had discovered was Henry, that they all called Vecna. Â
(Y/n) knew that face.
â(Y/n)?â Dustin touched her shoulder. â(Y/n), are you okay?â
She heard her brotherâs voice talking to her, and yet somehow she didnât register it. He felt, he sounded, so far away.
It felt like an out of body experience, like her thoughts were no longer contained inside her brain, like they were swirling around her in a cloud, consuming her entire world. This was not Henry Creel, could not be Vecna. Eleven had to be wrong. She knew this face, and she knew it all too well.
âHi Peter, I see they let you out again. The usual?â (Y/n) smiled brightly.
Peter was her favorite regular at Bennyâs, not that he was all that regular. He came in once every couple weeks or so. She assumed whenever the lab could spare him, though he always referred to it as a ârewardâ for good behavior. Bennyâs menu was hardly ârewardâ worthy. It was decent. Benny was a good cook, but it was just regular diner food. She could think of four other diners in Hawkins that served the same fair, though Bennyâs was certainly the closest to the ltab.
He wasnât a particularly nice regular. He tipped very well, which she appreciated, but most regulars do or they wouldnât be regulars anymore. Mostly, he was her favorite because he was an enigma. He worked for the Hawkins National Laboratory up the road, and he was very cagey about his work and himself.
âNo coffee,â Peter amended without looking up from the papers in front of him.
(Y/n) scribbled haphazardly on the ticket and slid it across the window to put on deck for Benny. There were a couple tickets ahead of it, and that gave her extra time.
(Y/n) dragged the stool out from behind the register and plopped down directly in front of Peter, propping her elbows on the counter and looking at him expectantly.
Peter rolled his eyes but kept them trained on his work. This was (Y/n)âs usual routine any time Peter came into the diner, so he didnât need to look up to know she was staring him down.
âMust you watch your customers so intently? I feel like a subject in the lab.â
âOnly the interesting ones,â (Y/n) dismissed. âNow tell me; howâs the lab?â
Peter flipped over one of the pages mindlessly. He hadnât processed all the words, but that clearly wasnât going to happen if (Y/n) had anything to say about it. He kept up the appearance of reading though to hold her interrogations to a minimal. âIt is in its usual state. I am nothing but a humble nurse for the children being experimented upon and tortured within its walls.â
(Y/n) rolled her eyes. It wasnât the kind of joke she would have made, but she let it slide. âYes, of course, but how is your work?â
âWhy would you care to know?â Peter dismissed the question.
âBecause Iâm bored, and like my brother always says life is a curiosity voyage.â
Peter rolled his eyes, âYour brother sounds foolish.â
âHey,â (Y/n) reached up and smacked Peter lightly on the side of the head, causing him to jolt. He stared at her in utter disbelief, as if no one had ever touched him before in his life, which she found very hard to believe. He was far too high and mighty, full of himself, not to have been bullied as a kid. âThatâs my brother. Only I get to mess with him.â
Nonresponsive and zoned out was not a good thing to be in Hawkins, Indiana in 1986.
âSheâs infected with Vecna!â Dustin began to panic, âQuick someone get my headphones from the desk,â Dustin pointed to the desk behind Max, who practically threw the headphones in her rush to get them to Steve as Dustin ran to the small shelf and began digging through Mikeâs cassette tapes.
âNo, no,â (Y/n) shook aside the memory as quickly as she could manage. âDustin,â she called to her brother, âReally, Iâm fine!â
âLike hell you are,â behind her, Steve forced the plastic strap of the headphones around her neck. âSeriously? How hard is it to find Pat Benatar!â Steve shouted.
âAgain, Iâm fine,â (Y/n) rolled her eyes, wrenching the headphones off.
They couldnât afford to waste a pair on her now. She could feel things coming to a head. Over the last 24 hours, virtually all of them had had to procure a pair of headphones and wrap them around their necks. Only Steve, Dustin, Eleven, and herself hadnât heard the ticking of a clock at some point yet. A low drone of noise was filling the room as songs played from the necks of the other occupants.
âReally!â She insisted to the skeptical crowd of teens staring her down, âno ticking. I was justâŠâ In addressing the room, her eyes found Elevenâs, âremembering something.â
Elevenâs eyes seemed to see right through her, and (Y/n) hesitated for a moment, wavering in whether revealing this information was a good idea or not. Everyone else in the room was staring at her, eyes darting now and again to Eleven.
It was too late to back out now. She took a breath and, watching Elevenâs face intently for her reaction, said the name.
âHi again Peter, Iâll put the usual on for you.â (Y/n) greeted him with a wave as he came through the door.
This time, when Peter walked in, Bennyâs was empty except for herself and Benny. He had his usual folder full of papers tucked under his arm, stamped with the fancy Hawkins Labâs seal on the cover declaring it was privileged information.
âThank you,â Peter took up his usual counter seat.
He had a way of being both extraordinarily polite and also incredibly rude at the same time. It was like he had spent his entire life being lectured on manners without actually having a single social interaction in which to use them.
âBenny!â (Y/n) called loudly over the order window, âPeterâs usual!â
Benny was somewhere in the back. With the diner being empty, Benny had ducked out to rearrange the stock while he left (Y/n) to mind the front. âGive me just a minute!â She heard her boss shout back.
âSo!â (Y/n) whipped around, leaning back against the order window, âGonna tell me how work was today?â
âTiresome.â Peter clipped.
(Y/n) raised an eyebrow, âThatâs about as descriptive as youâve ever been. Was it coworkers or your human test subjects?â She said the last part teasingly.
Peter paused for a moment, still not looking up from his papers, but he seemed to consider her question longer than he usually would before dismissing her. âBoss.â Having answered, Peter immediately went back to flipping through pages, only adding under his breath, âNot that I would call him that, persay. Heâs more like my worst nightmare.â
(Y/n) chuckled and approached, taking up her usual seat across from him. âTell me about it. Last week, Benny didnât let me off early on Friday even though it was my momâs birthday, so my little brother recruited his friends to try to bake her birthday cake instead of waiting for me and almost lit my house on fire.â
The word fire seemed to catch Peterâs attention. He still didnât give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.
âWhat do you mean you âknowâ Vecna?â Dustin demanded.
âHe came into Bennyâs from time to time,â (Y/n) felt like she was retreating into her skin. Eleven, Mike, Eddie, Max, the whole room. They were all watching her with dark eyes, watching her like they were watching the enemy.
Dustin was staring at her in utter shock. He didnât notice the looks from his friends or the fear in her eyes. He was still trying to comprehend this massive piece of information.
Only Steveâs hand, resting with a firm grip on her shoulder, was keeping her grounded in the room, keeping her from bolting out the door like a frightened deer.
âAnd you talked to him? You knew him?â Max joined the questioning, her tone far closer to interrogation than Dustinâs disbelieving one.
(Y/n) shrugged defensively, âLots of people from the labs came in. We were the closest restaurant. He said he was a nurse. I didnât know he was the literal devil.â
âNone taken.â Peter had talked to her. He had actually talked to her. Granted, they were complaining about their bosses, which was the oldest and most basic form of bonding in the book, but still. It was something. âHe is.â
âWell,â (Y/n) hopped down from the seat she had taken on the counter while he recounted his tale of woe. âIâm gonna start cleaning up if itâs all the same to you.â
Peter waved his hand down the length of the counter and immediately reverted his eyes back to his papers that were off to the side of the plate he was presently eating off of. Â
(Y/n) smirked to herself as she pulled out her rag. It wasnât much, but it was a start. Sheâd be damned if she wasnât going to keep poking at him till she got the answers she wanted.
It was Nancy who turned the whole scene into a proper interrogation. Though, perhaps given her profession, it was more of an interview. She waved the kids away from the seat in front of (Y/n) and took up a spot front and center in her vision.
âTell us everything you know about him. Start from the beginning.â
(Y/n) took a breath and recited the facts as coldly and emotionlessly as she could manage. âHis name was Peter Ballard. He came into the diner once every couple weeks. Everyone else from the lab came in groups, but heâŠâ Her voice cracked for a moment, and she hoped everyone else in the room saw it as nothing more than the nerves it was, âHe was always alone. He barely talked to me. The others said he was a nurse, and that he never talked to anyone in the lab either. He always brought files with him to read. It took months for him to even bother making eye contact with me.â
âNo,â Peter droned. He still acted thoroughly unamused with her presence, but he had started more readily answering her questions.
(Y/n) huffed and leaned back on her stool, tilting away from him. âWell, that explains so much.â
Peterâs eyes shot up from his paper, and for the first time he met her gaze. Not exactly an angry expression, but at the least a doubtful one, colored his face as his eyebrows drew together. âHow?â
âWell,â she let the legs of her stool fall back on the floor with a crash as she leaned forward towards Peter, âSure, you didnât have to deal with assholes on the basketball team shoving you into lockers, or girls on the cheer squad making fun of your clothes. But you also never found a group of friends with the same niche interest as you, or a guy to bond with over your mutual hatred of some bully, or a cute girl who thought you were the cutest thing since God invented puppies.â
Peterâs eyes narrowed.
âNo, Iâm serious,â (Y/n) immediately dismissed his expression. âSure, there are giant swathes of humanity that are the absolute worst, but there are some humans who are really great when you give them the chance. And you,â she poked a finger into his chest, ânever did. You were aware that some people sucked, but you didnât hang around long enough to find the ones that didnât before you decided to write all of us off as intolerable.â
Peter pursed his lips and turned back to his files. He wasnât going to continue this line of conversation.
âThatâs really all I know, Nancy. I swear.â (Y/n) huffed.
âThere has to be something though!â Nancy jumped up from her seat and began to pace, âIt canât be a coincidence that you knew him. Can it?â
âI didnât know him,â She emphasized. âWe didnât exactly bare our souls to each other and get matching tattoos. We were friendly. He came in every couple weeks, ordered the same thing. Towards the end he started making small talk, but that was it. Small talk. He didnât exactly spell out for me that he had dreams of becoming a mass murderer.â
âYeah, but what are the odds that you would get wrapped up in all of this?â Jonathan pointed out. âIt sounds like youâre the only person he talked to outside of the lab.â
âPretty freakinâ high, Jonathan,â (Y/n) huffed. âIf you havenât noticed, Hawkins isnât a metropolis. Itâs a pretty small town, and weird shit keeps happening. Weâre all wrapped up in it at this point.â
(Y/n) froze, staring at Peter as he approached his usual seat at the counter. Sheâd clocked him instantly when he walked in, and instantly had known something was very off.
He looked more or less the same, all white outfit, holier than thou expression. His hair was in its usual blonde waves, and he seemed more or less as agitated with his own existence as he usually did.
âH-Hey Peter, Usual?â (Y/n) asked.
âYes, please,â Peter replied.
And in that moment she realized it. That moment when he sat there, still looking up at her expectantly, waiting for her to put his order in. That moment when he didnât look down.
No files.
(Y/n) rushed the order in to Benny and whirled back around to join Peter. There were a handful of other people in the diner, but they were all regulars whoâd already gotten their food and knew their way around. She was completely unbothered with doing her rounds to their tables.
âWhy no files?â
Peter raised an eyebrow, âArenât you the one whoâs always bugging me to talk to you?â
âHeâs not here,â Dustin dropped the flashlight back to his side with a huff.
They had gone to the Creel house again, hoping to find where in the Upside Down Vecna was. Now that they had Eleven, with her powers back no less, they wanted to lure him to a place they could face off against him.
â(Y/n),â Lucas called over the bannister from the second floor. âDid Vecna ever mention anywhere else he liked to go? Or somewhere else in Hawkins he felt connected to?â
âNo!â (Y/n) shouted back with a huff, âIf heâs not here he must be at the lab!â
(Y/n) huffed and pulled back from where she was leaning on the counter. âThatâs it? Itâs cold? I thought you were going to actually help me? You know, useful feedback?â
Peter slowly pushed the mostly-full milkshake away from his plate. âI never agreed to help you. You only assumed I would when I came in.â
âYeah! For a free milkshake!â (Y/n) threw her hands up, utterly exasperated with him, âYou have to have more thoughts than âitâs coldâ. Iâm making Benny put milkshakes on the menu, and itâs my ass on the line if they arenât good.â
âItâs sweet.â Peter added, picking up another fry and taking a bite.
âOoooh! Thank you so much! Thatâs so much more helpful.â She bit back sarcastically.
Rolling her eyes, (Y/n) snatched the milkshake away, slurping through Peterâs abandoned straw. She made a face, âOh, ok⊠that is sweet.â
Peter didnât meet her eyes, but he waved his hand and made a face that very much said âtold-you-soâ.
It didnât look like anyone had been in the lab since Eleven closed the portal. The bodies had been cleaned up, no doubt by the military coverup team, but the broken glass in the screened in room surrounding the old portal was still strewn about the floor. Hopperâs gun Bob had left in the control room was still on the desk. There were even still spatters of blood every few feet along the walls and stains from dried up blood on the floors.
âSo,â Robin murmured quietly to (Y/n), âThis is what Round 2 looked like? Man I am so glad I just had the Russians.â
âIt doesnât look like heâs here either. Doesnât even look like heâs been here at all. Thereâs no portal,â Will assessed, turning back to the room.
âFuck!â Mike turned, kicking a wall. âFuck! Fuck! Fuck!â
He wasnât at his old home. He wasnât at the lab. He wasnât at any of the places heâd opened portals that they knew about. (Y/n) was at a loss. There wasnât anywhere else to look.
He must be hiding, hiding somewhere completely random with absolutely no connection to him. It was the logical thing to do if he didnât want to be found, but it just didnât make sense. Sure, Eleven said 001 was a creature completely void of any emotion, set to the singular purpose of restoring order to the world by ridding it of humanity.
But (Y/n) knew that wasnât true. Hell, the Party shouldâve known that wasnât true. 001 had slaughtered an entire lab in an instant he was so blinded by rage, not even giving them the option to join them that heâd given Eleven. When he became Vecna and was sent to the Upside Down, the first place they knew heâd gone was home. Max had seen the disassembled pieces of the Creel house in Vecnaâs inner hideout in the Upside Down. And Henry had talked to Nancy about her visit to his father, about how heâd vengefully plotted his demise.
Even the Peter (Y/n) knew was riddled with emotions, most of them negative, but still they were there. Even when he was putting on a neutral face, she always knew he detested humanity. He hated his job. HeâŠ
Heâd teased her about her milkshakes, about how much she talked, about high school, about her brother. HeâdâŠ
(Y/n) bolted for the door. âSteve, get the keys! I know where he went!â She shouted.
âSo why donât you ever sit with them?â (Y/n) asked, nodding with her chin over Peterâs shoulder to the lab coats at the table behind him.
They werenât literally wearing lab coats, but in her mind everyone who worked in a lab was supposed to be wearing a coat. So thatâs what she called them. In actuality, they were all dressed almost exactly the same as Peter.
âI mean, I know you hate them, but even you have to get lonely sometimes.â
Peter picked up another fry and put it in his mouth, avoiding her question.
âThere must be someone tolerable enough to eat lunch with.â
âI eat with you.â Peter told her, âDo I need someone else?â
(Y/n) felt her cheeks turn a little bit pink, and she tried to swallow it down. âWell no, but you must have friends. Someone at the lab? Or someone from when you were a kid? I know you were homeschooled, but still. Everyone needs friends.â
Peter snorted, and (Y/n) wasnât sure if it was at the idea of him needing someone or at the idea of having a friend. âWell, I regret to inform you that I just have you.â
There was a portal, up against the wall of the diner, behind the counter right where she used to sit when she would talk to Peter.
âDead on, (Y/n).â Steve patted her shoulder, joking, âHe mustâve really liked the eggs.â
Grilled chicken with a side of fries and a coffee. Always the same food; didnât matter what meal it was. (Y/n) didnât bother to voice that though.
âItâs one of the basketball players,â Dustin pointed out.
A pair of broken, twisted out of shape, legs were sticking out from behind one of the couches the kids had dragged into Bennyâs after it was deserted.
âItâs biggerâŠâ Eleven murmured, taking a step forward towards the portal.
Mike caught her arm, pulling her back away from the portal.
(Y/n) didnât join in, the banter or the analysis. She was staring at the portal.
It was right where she used to sit, literally right there. If Peter had been there, and sheâd been in her usual spot talking to him, all she wouldâve had to do was tip her stool back, like she always did, and she wouldâve fallen straight into the Upside Down.
âYouâre gonna fall over if you keep doing that,â Peter pointed down to the legs of her stool.
(Y/n) rolled her eyes and continued to totter back and forth on the back legs of the stool. âThen Iâll knock my head in and get off work early, and you wonât have to put up with me. Sounds like a win for both of us.â
The front legs of the stool slammed to the ground, and (Y/n) stared wide-eyed, mouth ajar, at Peter.
Peterâs eyes had a fire to them she had never seen. There was something there, something behind his usual disinterested, annoyed expression. Something dangerous.
He had a vice-like grip on her wrist, and (Y/n) was positive that she was going to have a ringed bruise around the bone there in the morning from how tightly he held her and how hard heâd jerked her back forward. Her arm was stretched out across the width of the counter, practically touching his chest heâd jerked her so far back.
The shock in her face seemed to douse the fire in his. âSorry,â Peter cleared his throat, dropping her wrist.
âN-No, itâs okay.â (Y/n) dismissed haphazardly. âDidnât realize I was worrying you.â
Under his breath, so quietly she wasnât quite sure she heard him right, Peter whispered, âOf course you worry me.â
âWhat was that?â (Y/n) asked.
âNothing, just donât want you dead on the floor. The hassle of finding another friend is unappealing.â
âWell,â (Y/n) smiled, though not as brightly this time as she usually did, âyou canât get rid of me that easy.â
A grey body, void of skin and hair and a face. Vine-like Tentacles protruding from his back, whipping back and forth in all directions as if they had a mind of their own, encircling the party, drawing them tighter and tighter into him.
She knew what Eleven told her, knew the story of how Vecna had come to be, but she just couldnât believe it. She couldnât see Peter under there, inside the monster.
She couldnât see Peter batting away Eleven with a vine, without a care in the world for her scream as she went flying back into a deadened tree.
(Y/n) looked up, startled. She hadnât heard anyone come in. Sheâd been too absorbed in the math homework splayed across Bennyâs counter to notice anything other than the mental image sheâd been constructing of going to watch all of her friends graduate knowing she was going to have to repeat senior year.
âOh Peter, I didnât hear you come in. Usual?â
Peter sat down in front of her, which was not in his usual seat. âNo, I only⊠I came here to talk, to apologize, and say goodbye.â
âWait youâre leaving?â (Y/n) dropped the pencil from her hand. âAre they moving you out of the lab? Whatâs going on?â
âThereâs been a⊠development. And soon my services will no longer be required.â Peter caught the pencil (Y/n) hadnât heard rolling across the counter and carefully balanced it back in place in front of her textbook.
âW-Well, where are you going?â She tried, and failed miserably, to hide the disappointment from her tone, âIâm sure they have phones there. Iâd hate to leave you with no one to pester you every week.â
âI canât tell you.â Peter smiled, actually smiled. (Y/n) didnât know if it was unnerving or endearing. It was the first time sheâd ever seen him smile. She got the occasional snear, once in a while a smirk if she was particularly amusing that day. But he never smiled, certainly not like this, sad, disheartened, like he was sorry he had to go. âThatâs why I came. I know I scared you last time I was here. I⊠I showed too much of myself, and for that Iâm sorry.â
âPeter, you donât have to apologize.â (Y/n) reached out, hesitantly and took his hand. âNot for being yourself at least.â
âOh but I do.â Peter dismissed. Turning his hand over, Peter took hers in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. âMaybe one day youâll see why.â
And as easily as he slipped into her life, he was gone.
âEddie,â She whispered from their hiding place behind the rock, âwhatever happens, can you promise me something?â
âWhat?â Eddie whispered back to her.
(Y/n) hesitated for a moment before she peeled herself away from the rockerâs side. âHold Steve back.â Turning to Jonathan on her other side, she patted his arm. âAnd donât let him and Dustin do anything stupid while Iâm gone.â
(Y/n) was usually an anxious, hesitant person. She was an extrovert to the extreme, but she was also very risk averse. She was the type of girl who walked with her eyes on her own feet, and her arms brought in across her chest at all times. She didnât exude surety or confidence ever. The three words her friends would use to describe her were skittish, excitable, and self-conscious. With Dart, Dustin had taken the lead trapping the monster in the cellar. In the Byerâs home, she had cowered behind Steve, from the demodogs and from Billy. In Starcourt, her brother had practically dragged her down to the Russian base. She had been the one driving the distraction car, all too happy to put distance between herself, Dustin, and Steve and the Mindflayer.
She was not fearless like Nancy or powerful like Eleven or a natural leader like Steve. In the face of monsters and spies and alternate dimensions, she was scared, like any normal person would be.
But this, sheâd convinced herself, wasnât a monster from an alternate dimension. A monster, maybe, but one she knew.
â(Y/n), what are you doing?â Jonathan tried to grab at her arm, but she moved faster, ducking out of the way as she came running out from behind the rock.
Vecna was baring down on Eleven, standing in front of Lucas, Mike, and Dustin with her arms wide as she tried to push him back.
â(Y/n)!â The shout came from somewhere behind her, but she didnât look back at Steve as she heard him running after her.
âPETER!â She came to a stop under him and shouted up into the air, at the body in the center of the mass of tentacles.
His head turned, slowly, towards her. âPeter, come down here!â
â(Y/n),â he said, seemingly to himself.
She shouldâve been afraid, quaking in her boots afraid. But for once, she just couldnât seem to manage it.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear Steve shouting, shouting at her, at Vecna, at Jonathan and Eddie for holding him back.
âPeter!â She called again.
The tentacles seemed to whip back and forth through the air, splaying themselves out flat on the ground and slowly encircling where she stood, as they lowered their master to the ground.
âNO!â Dustin tried to jump, but without instruction needed Lucas and Mike grabbed him and held him back.
âPeter, you donât have to do this.â
âPeter is dead. Your friend,â he spat the word, âsaw to that.â
âI know she put you here, but I donât think Peterâs gone.â A tentacle slithered at the back of her heels, and (Y/n) took a step closer to Peter.
âYou always had such idealistic notions.â He snarled, âThis is what I am. Not Peter, this.â Two of the tentacles whipped out from the circle they had formed around (Y/n), and latched onto her wrists, wrenching her down to her knees.
(Y/n) shook her head, âI donât believe that.â
The tentacles tightened around her wrist, and she bit back a whimper in disgust as they began wrapping themselves slowly up her arms.
âSociety is a scourge (Y/n). The real curse is not me; itâs humanity.â Peter began walking towards her, the tentacles around her dragging her to meet him.
âThen why havenât you cursed me? Killed me?â (Y/n) asked, âEveryone else has heard the clock ticking, Peter. But here I am.â
The tentacles were wrapping around her chest now, gluing her arms to her sides. Peter, Vecna, did not respond. He stood directly above her now, her bound defenseless at his feet.
âIf Peter was dead then you wouldnât be listening to me right now.â
One of the tentacles wrapped itself around her throat, but she didnât feel it constricting her at all. It was like it didnât know what to do.
âLet them go, Peter. Theyâre just kids. Scared, little kids like Henry used to be.â
Steve was still shouting and struggling with Jonathan and Eddie, and in her peripheral, it seemed Eleven had joined the boys in holding back Dustin.
âIâll stay.â She whispered loud enough for only Peter to hear. âWeâre friends right? Iâll stay here, with you. But you have to let them go. Leave them alone, leave Hawkins alone.â
Peter blinked. âYou wouldnât leave your brother.â
He sounded like Peter, the dark, raspy voice of Vecna was gone. He sounded young again; he sounded whole.
âIâll leave him to protect him. Peter, you live in this place free of people and the society you hated, and itâs still not enough. You never wanted to be alone.â The grip the tentacles had on her was loosening, and (Y/n) tried to stand. The tentacles melted away as Peter saw what she wanted to do. âIâll stay here, with you. You wonât be alone⊠But you have to let them go.â
Thanks for reading! If you like this, please go read my Eddie Munson fic. I'd really appreciate it! I think it's even better than this one, and it meant a lot to me writing it. I look forward to knowing what you think!
Okay wow, I absolutely loved this. I think you captured Peterâs personality really well, like in the line, âHe still didnât give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.â That characterization and his curiosity, despite his belief that he hates people is perfect
AND the idea of him wanting a friend in the upside down, despite his hatred for humanity seems spot on for him.
AND AND I adore the implications of readerâs immediate choice to stay in the upside down⊠like itâs hinted that sheâs with Steve but she doesnât even glance at him giving up everything to stay with Vecna. I think thereâs so much there to be explored about readerâs feelings (whether she realizes what they are or not) about Peter and her life in Hawkins. I also think Peterâs immediate agreement to leave Hawkins and the Party alone if she stays with him is so intriguing and would be interesting to see whether thatâs because he has a bigger plan or because he truly just values her at his side.
This is such an interesting read, would you consider continuing it?
Overall, I absolutely loved this piece and canât thank you enough for choosing to share it with us! Great job on it!
Itâs been a while since anyone read this one closely so thank you for that.
I want to answer some of your questions and expand on this for you a bit, but I donât think Iâll be continuing it in a sequel. This was written so long ago; there isnât much demand for a sequel. And this came out with part one of last season of stranger things, and the end of the last season was such a hard pivot from this vision with and without the OC that I have a hard time envisioning the universe now. (Iâm not even sure if Iâm watching the new season) But let me expand some here on what a sequel wouldâve been if I wrote it at the time and answer some of your questions:
If I wrote a sequel, it would have continued the same structure with flashes in time back to their time in the diner and a bit to their time apart after he enters the upside down before she joins him, but those flashes wouldâve delved a little deeper into their psyche rather than the surface of them being friends and finding each other.
The way I envision Peter in the time gap in this story between them meeting and her leaving with him is very much how he was in the show. Confrontation with Eleven, creation of the upside down, festering hatred for humanity, reaching to expand the upside down. She doesnât teach him that humanity is good like sheâd maybe hope. She teaches him that she is an exception to humanity being bad. He spends that whole time in the upside down fixating on her, pondering her, considering what he will do when he inevitably encounters her (while destroying the world). And before she arrives to join him, he knows he wants her somehow, but he hasnât really confronted in what way and what heâs willing to lose to get it. So there wouldâve been a couple flashes of that: of him in the upside down thinking about her and this.
She leaves with him to go to the upside down almost immediately because yes it will save Dustin and Steve and her friends but also because when I considered writing a sequel at the time I envisioned expanding on her being a little âoffâ, for lack of a better expression. He was coming into the diner for years, and as much as she changed him he changed her a bit too. Thereâs something to his presence and aura that is drawing her in, (I havenât seen the newest remake, but I think of it like a version of Nosferatu; she doesnât understand it but something almost supernatural is drawing her into the orbit of this grotesque monster and making her want him in some way. She knows itâs wrong, but she canât really help it.) And a sequel wouldâve have flashbacks to this, her being a bit odd and off in the diner, a bit toooo drawn to him, a bit tooo quirky with her friends after encountering him.
Iâd probably explore the idea that she offers to stay immediately on an impulse (abandoning Steve and her family and friends kind of on a whim) but he accepts immediately because this time heâs the one who understands whatâs happening (her liking him/wanting him). With a plot centering on this dichotomy that they came from a world she fully understood, where she controlled their relationship with each other, where she knew everything and understood him perfectly even if he didnât understand himself. And they entered this new world where heâs the one with all the power, he knows everything and understands her perfectly even though she doesnât understand herself. Theyâre at odds and thereâs a tension to it because she isnât used to not knowing how she feels and he isnât used to having to deal with human emotions, but it works when she comes to accept that she didnât just give everything up to save everyone and that this canât be all morally bad to want if it means it saved everyone.
(Also Iâm envisioning this entire thing as Jamie Campbell bower once the party leaves because even though he thinks humanity is scum sheâs an exception and she offered to stay when he looked like Vecna, and he understands her feelings on this one thing better than she does so he doesnât need to look like the gross monster he is to scare her.)
I kind of envision the story ending sort of ambiguously again. Years after she chooses to stay but not long after she comes to terms with wanting him. Likely with some attempt by the party to save her resulting in her death or something. Peter alone again, unable to comprehend that the party who he thinks are scum had the best intentions of saving her from what they thought was hell, just seeing it as them killing her. And then leaving it open ended on what he does about that.
An important addendum to my above ramble that may clarify further why Peter would immediately choose to say yes:
They are leaving a world where she has some knowledge and power (Hawkins) for a world where she has no knowledge and no power (upside down). They are leaving a world where his power is limited and his knowledge and understanding is almost nonexistent (Hawkins) for a world where everything is subject to his control and he is all knowing and all powerful (upside down).
HER decision is permanent. As far as sheâs aware, she has no method to leave him without his permission and willingness once sheâs stuck in the upside down without Eleven. HIS decision is not. He could easily restart his crusade against Hawkins at any time, and she could do nothing to stop him. His agreement to stop is only binding for as long as making her happy and having her by his side matters to him.
She doesnât fix him. He is entering this agreement aware that she is drawn to him/likes him/feels some nosferatu-esque pull towards him and that that gives him some power of attraction over her, aware that he is bringing her into a world where he has all the literal power over the world, aware that he could take back his promise at any time with only her anger to deal with.
He knows heâs lonely. He knows he likes her. Heâs obsessed over her for years in the Upside down. Heâs started to see her as an exception to humanity, but he is doing all this knowing he has a safety net. And he might not do it if he didnât have that safety net. He can start his plan up again whenever he wants.
Pairing: Peter Ballard x Female!Reader, implied Steve x Reader (Does not really factor into the story)
Word Count: 5.1k
Warnings: mostly just fluff and angst that doesn't require a content warning. General content warnings consistent with Stranger Things
Summary: It couldn't be him. She refused to believe it. Eleven had to be wrong, had to have the wrong person. It wasn't that he wasn't capable of something like this; in the back of her mind, she knew he was. More, it was that she didn't want to face what it meant about herself.
Masterlist.
There was a familiar face staring blankly up at her from the page⊠she knew this face.
âWell, he looks evil,â Steve mused, looking at the drawing over her shoulder.
âHe was 001⊠He was the first. They built the lab to contain him.â Eleven explained.
(Y/n) was holding up the sketch Eleven had drawn of the patient from Hawkins Lab, who Eleven knew as 001, that Nancy had discovered was Henry, that they all called Vecna. Â
(Y/n) knew that face.
â(Y/n)?â Dustin touched her shoulder. â(Y/n), are you okay?â
She heard her brotherâs voice talking to her, and yet somehow she didnât register it. He felt, he sounded, so far away.
It felt like an out of body experience, like her thoughts were no longer contained inside her brain, like they were swirling around her in a cloud, consuming her entire world. This was not Henry Creel, could not be Vecna. Eleven had to be wrong. She knew this face, and she knew it all too well.
âHi Peter, I see they let you out again. The usual?â (Y/n) smiled brightly.
Peter was her favorite regular at Bennyâs, not that he was all that regular. He came in once every couple weeks or so. She assumed whenever the lab could spare him, though he always referred to it as a ârewardâ for good behavior. Bennyâs menu was hardly ârewardâ worthy. It was decent. Benny was a good cook, but it was just regular diner food. She could think of four other diners in Hawkins that served the same fair, though Bennyâs was certainly the closest to the ltab.
He wasnât a particularly nice regular. He tipped very well, which she appreciated, but most regulars do or they wouldnât be regulars anymore. Mostly, he was her favorite because he was an enigma. He worked for the Hawkins National Laboratory up the road, and he was very cagey about his work and himself.
âNo coffee,â Peter amended without looking up from the papers in front of him.
(Y/n) scribbled haphazardly on the ticket and slid it across the window to put on deck for Benny. There were a couple tickets ahead of it, and that gave her extra time.
(Y/n) dragged the stool out from behind the register and plopped down directly in front of Peter, propping her elbows on the counter and looking at him expectantly.
Peter rolled his eyes but kept them trained on his work. This was (Y/n)âs usual routine any time Peter came into the diner, so he didnât need to look up to know she was staring him down.
âMust you watch your customers so intently? I feel like a subject in the lab.â
âOnly the interesting ones,â (Y/n) dismissed. âNow tell me; howâs the lab?â
Peter flipped over one of the pages mindlessly. He hadnât processed all the words, but that clearly wasnât going to happen if (Y/n) had anything to say about it. He kept up the appearance of reading though to hold her interrogations to a minimal. âIt is in its usual state. I am nothing but a humble nurse for the children being experimented upon and tortured within its walls.â
(Y/n) rolled her eyes. It wasnât the kind of joke she would have made, but she let it slide. âYes, of course, but how is your work?â
âWhy would you care to know?â Peter dismissed the question.
âBecause Iâm bored, and like my brother always says life is a curiosity voyage.â
Peter rolled his eyes, âYour brother sounds foolish.â
âHey,â (Y/n) reached up and smacked Peter lightly on the side of the head, causing him to jolt. He stared at her in utter disbelief, as if no one had ever touched him before in his life, which she found very hard to believe. He was far too high and mighty, full of himself, not to have been bullied as a kid. âThatâs my brother. Only I get to mess with him.â
Nonresponsive and zoned out was not a good thing to be in Hawkins, Indiana in 1986.
âSheâs infected with Vecna!â Dustin began to panic, âQuick someone get my headphones from the desk,â Dustin pointed to the desk behind Max, who practically threw the headphones in her rush to get them to Steve as Dustin ran to the small shelf and began digging through Mikeâs cassette tapes.
âNo, no,â (Y/n) shook aside the memory as quickly as she could manage. âDustin,â she called to her brother, âReally, Iâm fine!â
âLike hell you are,â behind her, Steve forced the plastic strap of the headphones around her neck. âSeriously? How hard is it to find Pat Benatar!â Steve shouted.
âAgain, Iâm fine,â (Y/n) rolled her eyes, wrenching the headphones off.
They couldnât afford to waste a pair on her now. She could feel things coming to a head. Over the last 24 hours, virtually all of them had had to procure a pair of headphones and wrap them around their necks. Only Steve, Dustin, Eleven, and herself hadnât heard the ticking of a clock at some point yet. A low drone of noise was filling the room as songs played from the necks of the other occupants.
âReally!â She insisted to the skeptical crowd of teens staring her down, âno ticking. I was justâŠâ In addressing the room, her eyes found Elevenâs, âremembering something.â
Elevenâs eyes seemed to see right through her, and (Y/n) hesitated for a moment, wavering in whether revealing this information was a good idea or not. Everyone else in the room was staring at her, eyes darting now and again to Eleven.
It was too late to back out now. She took a breath and, watching Elevenâs face intently for her reaction, said the name.
âHi again Peter, Iâll put the usual on for you.â (Y/n) greeted him with a wave as he came through the door.
This time, when Peter walked in, Bennyâs was empty except for herself and Benny. He had his usual folder full of papers tucked under his arm, stamped with the fancy Hawkins Labâs seal on the cover declaring it was privileged information.
âThank you,â Peter took up his usual counter seat.
He had a way of being both extraordinarily polite and also incredibly rude at the same time. It was like he had spent his entire life being lectured on manners without actually having a single social interaction in which to use them.
âBenny!â (Y/n) called loudly over the order window, âPeterâs usual!â
Benny was somewhere in the back. With the diner being empty, Benny had ducked out to rearrange the stock while he left (Y/n) to mind the front. âGive me just a minute!â She heard her boss shout back.
âSo!â (Y/n) whipped around, leaning back against the order window, âGonna tell me how work was today?â
âTiresome.â Peter clipped.
(Y/n) raised an eyebrow, âThatâs about as descriptive as youâve ever been. Was it coworkers or your human test subjects?â She said the last part teasingly.
Peter paused for a moment, still not looking up from his papers, but he seemed to consider her question longer than he usually would before dismissing her. âBoss.â Having answered, Peter immediately went back to flipping through pages, only adding under his breath, âNot that I would call him that, persay. Heâs more like my worst nightmare.â
(Y/n) chuckled and approached, taking up her usual seat across from him. âTell me about it. Last week, Benny didnât let me off early on Friday even though it was my momâs birthday, so my little brother recruited his friends to try to bake her birthday cake instead of waiting for me and almost lit my house on fire.â
The word fire seemed to catch Peterâs attention. He still didnât give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.
âWhat do you mean you âknowâ Vecna?â Dustin demanded.
âHe came into Bennyâs from time to time,â (Y/n) felt like she was retreating into her skin. Eleven, Mike, Eddie, Max, the whole room. They were all watching her with dark eyes, watching her like they were watching the enemy.
Dustin was staring at her in utter shock. He didnât notice the looks from his friends or the fear in her eyes. He was still trying to comprehend this massive piece of information.
Only Steveâs hand, resting with a firm grip on her shoulder, was keeping her grounded in the room, keeping her from bolting out the door like a frightened deer.
âAnd you talked to him? You knew him?â Max joined the questioning, her tone far closer to interrogation than Dustinâs disbelieving one.
(Y/n) shrugged defensively, âLots of people from the labs came in. We were the closest restaurant. He said he was a nurse. I didnât know he was the literal devil.â
âNone taken.â Peter had talked to her. He had actually talked to her. Granted, they were complaining about their bosses, which was the oldest and most basic form of bonding in the book, but still. It was something. âHe is.â
âWell,â (Y/n) hopped down from the seat she had taken on the counter while he recounted his tale of woe. âIâm gonna start cleaning up if itâs all the same to you.â
Peter waved his hand down the length of the counter and immediately reverted his eyes back to his papers that were off to the side of the plate he was presently eating off of. Â
(Y/n) smirked to herself as she pulled out her rag. It wasnât much, but it was a start. Sheâd be damned if she wasnât going to keep poking at him till she got the answers she wanted.
It was Nancy who turned the whole scene into a proper interrogation. Though, perhaps given her profession, it was more of an interview. She waved the kids away from the seat in front of (Y/n) and took up a spot front and center in her vision.
âTell us everything you know about him. Start from the beginning.â
(Y/n) took a breath and recited the facts as coldly and emotionlessly as she could manage. âHis name was Peter Ballard. He came into the diner once every couple weeks. Everyone else from the lab came in groups, but heâŠâ Her voice cracked for a moment, and she hoped everyone else in the room saw it as nothing more than the nerves it was, âHe was always alone. He barely talked to me. The others said he was a nurse, and that he never talked to anyone in the lab either. He always brought files with him to read. It took months for him to even bother making eye contact with me.â
âNo,â Peter droned. He still acted thoroughly unamused with her presence, but he had started more readily answering her questions.
(Y/n) huffed and leaned back on her stool, tilting away from him. âWell, that explains so much.â
Peterâs eyes shot up from his paper, and for the first time he met her gaze. Not exactly an angry expression, but at the least a doubtful one, colored his face as his eyebrows drew together. âHow?â
âWell,â she let the legs of her stool fall back on the floor with a crash as she leaned forward towards Peter, âSure, you didnât have to deal with assholes on the basketball team shoving you into lockers, or girls on the cheer squad making fun of your clothes. But you also never found a group of friends with the same niche interest as you, or a guy to bond with over your mutual hatred of some bully, or a cute girl who thought you were the cutest thing since God invented puppies.â
Peterâs eyes narrowed.
âNo, Iâm serious,â (Y/n) immediately dismissed his expression. âSure, there are giant swathes of humanity that are the absolute worst, but there are some humans who are really great when you give them the chance. And you,â she poked a finger into his chest, ânever did. You were aware that some people sucked, but you didnât hang around long enough to find the ones that didnât before you decided to write all of us off as intolerable.â
Peter pursed his lips and turned back to his files. He wasnât going to continue this line of conversation.
âThatâs really all I know, Nancy. I swear.â (Y/n) huffed.
âThere has to be something though!â Nancy jumped up from her seat and began to pace, âIt canât be a coincidence that you knew him. Can it?â
âI didnât know him,â She emphasized. âWe didnât exactly bare our souls to each other and get matching tattoos. We were friendly. He came in every couple weeks, ordered the same thing. Towards the end he started making small talk, but that was it. Small talk. He didnât exactly spell out for me that he had dreams of becoming a mass murderer.â
âYeah, but what are the odds that you would get wrapped up in all of this?â Jonathan pointed out. âIt sounds like youâre the only person he talked to outside of the lab.â
âPretty freakinâ high, Jonathan,â (Y/n) huffed. âIf you havenât noticed, Hawkins isnât a metropolis. Itâs a pretty small town, and weird shit keeps happening. Weâre all wrapped up in it at this point.â
(Y/n) froze, staring at Peter as he approached his usual seat at the counter. Sheâd clocked him instantly when he walked in, and instantly had known something was very off.
He looked more or less the same, all white outfit, holier than thou expression. His hair was in its usual blonde waves, and he seemed more or less as agitated with his own existence as he usually did.
âH-Hey Peter, Usual?â (Y/n) asked.
âYes, please,â Peter replied.
And in that moment she realized it. That moment when he sat there, still looking up at her expectantly, waiting for her to put his order in. That moment when he didnât look down.
No files.
(Y/n) rushed the order in to Benny and whirled back around to join Peter. There were a handful of other people in the diner, but they were all regulars whoâd already gotten their food and knew their way around. She was completely unbothered with doing her rounds to their tables.
âWhy no files?â
Peter raised an eyebrow, âArenât you the one whoâs always bugging me to talk to you?â
âHeâs not here,â Dustin dropped the flashlight back to his side with a huff.
They had gone to the Creel house again, hoping to find where in the Upside Down Vecna was. Now that they had Eleven, with her powers back no less, they wanted to lure him to a place they could face off against him.
â(Y/n),â Lucas called over the bannister from the second floor. âDid Vecna ever mention anywhere else he liked to go? Or somewhere else in Hawkins he felt connected to?â
âNo!â (Y/n) shouted back with a huff, âIf heâs not here he must be at the lab!â
(Y/n) huffed and pulled back from where she was leaning on the counter. âThatâs it? Itâs cold? I thought you were going to actually help me? You know, useful feedback?â
Peter slowly pushed the mostly-full milkshake away from his plate. âI never agreed to help you. You only assumed I would when I came in.â
âYeah! For a free milkshake!â (Y/n) threw her hands up, utterly exasperated with him, âYou have to have more thoughts than âitâs coldâ. Iâm making Benny put milkshakes on the menu, and itâs my ass on the line if they arenât good.â
âItâs sweet.â Peter added, picking up another fry and taking a bite.
âOoooh! Thank you so much! Thatâs so much more helpful.â She bit back sarcastically.
Rolling her eyes, (Y/n) snatched the milkshake away, slurping through Peterâs abandoned straw. She made a face, âOh, ok⊠that is sweet.â
Peter didnât meet her eyes, but he waved his hand and made a face that very much said âtold-you-soâ.
It didnât look like anyone had been in the lab since Eleven closed the portal. The bodies had been cleaned up, no doubt by the military coverup team, but the broken glass in the screened in room surrounding the old portal was still strewn about the floor. Hopperâs gun Bob had left in the control room was still on the desk. There were even still spatters of blood every few feet along the walls and stains from dried up blood on the floors.
âSo,â Robin murmured quietly to (Y/n), âThis is what Round 2 looked like? Man I am so glad I just had the Russians.â
âIt doesnât look like heâs here either. Doesnât even look like heâs been here at all. Thereâs no portal,â Will assessed, turning back to the room.
âFuck!â Mike turned, kicking a wall. âFuck! Fuck! Fuck!â
He wasnât at his old home. He wasnât at the lab. He wasnât at any of the places heâd opened portals that they knew about. (Y/n) was at a loss. There wasnât anywhere else to look.
He must be hiding, hiding somewhere completely random with absolutely no connection to him. It was the logical thing to do if he didnât want to be found, but it just didnât make sense. Sure, Eleven said 001 was a creature completely void of any emotion, set to the singular purpose of restoring order to the world by ridding it of humanity.
But (Y/n) knew that wasnât true. Hell, the Party shouldâve known that wasnât true. 001 had slaughtered an entire lab in an instant he was so blinded by rage, not even giving them the option to join them that heâd given Eleven. When he became Vecna and was sent to the Upside Down, the first place they knew heâd gone was home. Max had seen the disassembled pieces of the Creel house in Vecnaâs inner hideout in the Upside Down. And Henry had talked to Nancy about her visit to his father, about how heâd vengefully plotted his demise.
Even the Peter (Y/n) knew was riddled with emotions, most of them negative, but still they were there. Even when he was putting on a neutral face, she always knew he detested humanity. He hated his job. HeâŠ
Heâd teased her about her milkshakes, about how much she talked, about high school, about her brother. HeâdâŠ
(Y/n) bolted for the door. âSteve, get the keys! I know where he went!â She shouted.
âSo why donât you ever sit with them?â (Y/n) asked, nodding with her chin over Peterâs shoulder to the lab coats at the table behind him.
They werenât literally wearing lab coats, but in her mind everyone who worked in a lab was supposed to be wearing a coat. So thatâs what she called them. In actuality, they were all dressed almost exactly the same as Peter.
âI mean, I know you hate them, but even you have to get lonely sometimes.â
Peter picked up another fry and put it in his mouth, avoiding her question.
âThere must be someone tolerable enough to eat lunch with.â
âI eat with you.â Peter told her, âDo I need someone else?â
(Y/n) felt her cheeks turn a little bit pink, and she tried to swallow it down. âWell no, but you must have friends. Someone at the lab? Or someone from when you were a kid? I know you were homeschooled, but still. Everyone needs friends.â
Peter snorted, and (Y/n) wasnât sure if it was at the idea of him needing someone or at the idea of having a friend. âWell, I regret to inform you that I just have you.â
There was a portal, up against the wall of the diner, behind the counter right where she used to sit when she would talk to Peter.
âDead on, (Y/n).â Steve patted her shoulder, joking, âHe mustâve really liked the eggs.â
Grilled chicken with a side of fries and a coffee. Always the same food; didnât matter what meal it was. (Y/n) didnât bother to voice that though.
âItâs one of the basketball players,â Dustin pointed out.
A pair of broken, twisted out of shape, legs were sticking out from behind one of the couches the kids had dragged into Bennyâs after it was deserted.
âItâs biggerâŠâ Eleven murmured, taking a step forward towards the portal.
Mike caught her arm, pulling her back away from the portal.
(Y/n) didnât join in, the banter or the analysis. She was staring at the portal.
It was right where she used to sit, literally right there. If Peter had been there, and sheâd been in her usual spot talking to him, all she wouldâve had to do was tip her stool back, like she always did, and she wouldâve fallen straight into the Upside Down.
âYouâre gonna fall over if you keep doing that,â Peter pointed down to the legs of her stool.
(Y/n) rolled her eyes and continued to totter back and forth on the back legs of the stool. âThen Iâll knock my head in and get off work early, and you wonât have to put up with me. Sounds like a win for both of us.â
The front legs of the stool slammed to the ground, and (Y/n) stared wide-eyed, mouth ajar, at Peter.
Peterâs eyes had a fire to them she had never seen. There was something there, something behind his usual disinterested, annoyed expression. Something dangerous.
He had a vice-like grip on her wrist, and (Y/n) was positive that she was going to have a ringed bruise around the bone there in the morning from how tightly he held her and how hard heâd jerked her back forward. Her arm was stretched out across the width of the counter, practically touching his chest heâd jerked her so far back.
The shock in her face seemed to douse the fire in his. âSorry,â Peter cleared his throat, dropping her wrist.
âN-No, itâs okay.â (Y/n) dismissed haphazardly. âDidnât realize I was worrying you.â
Under his breath, so quietly she wasnât quite sure she heard him right, Peter whispered, âOf course you worry me.â
âWhat was that?â (Y/n) asked.
âNothing, just donât want you dead on the floor. The hassle of finding another friend is unappealing.â
âWell,â (Y/n) smiled, though not as brightly this time as she usually did, âyou canât get rid of me that easy.â
A grey body, void of skin and hair and a face. Vine-like Tentacles protruding from his back, whipping back and forth in all directions as if they had a mind of their own, encircling the party, drawing them tighter and tighter into him.
She knew what Eleven told her, knew the story of how Vecna had come to be, but she just couldnât believe it. She couldnât see Peter under there, inside the monster.
She couldnât see Peter batting away Eleven with a vine, without a care in the world for her scream as she went flying back into a deadened tree.
(Y/n) looked up, startled. She hadnât heard anyone come in. Sheâd been too absorbed in the math homework splayed across Bennyâs counter to notice anything other than the mental image sheâd been constructing of going to watch all of her friends graduate knowing she was going to have to repeat senior year.
âOh Peter, I didnât hear you come in. Usual?â
Peter sat down in front of her, which was not in his usual seat. âNo, I only⊠I came here to talk, to apologize, and say goodbye.â
âWait youâre leaving?â (Y/n) dropped the pencil from her hand. âAre they moving you out of the lab? Whatâs going on?â
âThereâs been a⊠development. And soon my services will no longer be required.â Peter caught the pencil (Y/n) hadnât heard rolling across the counter and carefully balanced it back in place in front of her textbook.
âW-Well, where are you going?â She tried, and failed miserably, to hide the disappointment from her tone, âIâm sure they have phones there. Iâd hate to leave you with no one to pester you every week.â
âI canât tell you.â Peter smiled, actually smiled. (Y/n) didnât know if it was unnerving or endearing. It was the first time sheâd ever seen him smile. She got the occasional snear, once in a while a smirk if she was particularly amusing that day. But he never smiled, certainly not like this, sad, disheartened, like he was sorry he had to go. âThatâs why I came. I know I scared you last time I was here. I⊠I showed too much of myself, and for that Iâm sorry.â
âPeter, you donât have to apologize.â (Y/n) reached out, hesitantly and took his hand. âNot for being yourself at least.â
âOh but I do.â Peter dismissed. Turning his hand over, Peter took hers in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. âMaybe one day youâll see why.â
And as easily as he slipped into her life, he was gone.
âEddie,â She whispered from their hiding place behind the rock, âwhatever happens, can you promise me something?â
âWhat?â Eddie whispered back to her.
(Y/n) hesitated for a moment before she peeled herself away from the rockerâs side. âHold Steve back.â Turning to Jonathan on her other side, she patted his arm. âAnd donât let him and Dustin do anything stupid while Iâm gone.â
(Y/n) was usually an anxious, hesitant person. She was an extrovert to the extreme, but she was also very risk averse. She was the type of girl who walked with her eyes on her own feet, and her arms brought in across her chest at all times. She didnât exude surety or confidence ever. The three words her friends would use to describe her were skittish, excitable, and self-conscious. With Dart, Dustin had taken the lead trapping the monster in the cellar. In the Byerâs home, she had cowered behind Steve, from the demodogs and from Billy. In Starcourt, her brother had practically dragged her down to the Russian base. She had been the one driving the distraction car, all too happy to put distance between herself, Dustin, and Steve and the Mindflayer.
She was not fearless like Nancy or powerful like Eleven or a natural leader like Steve. In the face of monsters and spies and alternate dimensions, she was scared, like any normal person would be.
But this, sheâd convinced herself, wasnât a monster from an alternate dimension. A monster, maybe, but one she knew.
â(Y/n), what are you doing?â Jonathan tried to grab at her arm, but she moved faster, ducking out of the way as she came running out from behind the rock.
Vecna was baring down on Eleven, standing in front of Lucas, Mike, and Dustin with her arms wide as she tried to push him back.
â(Y/n)!â The shout came from somewhere behind her, but she didnât look back at Steve as she heard him running after her.
âPETER!â She came to a stop under him and shouted up into the air, at the body in the center of the mass of tentacles.
His head turned, slowly, towards her. âPeter, come down here!â
â(Y/n),â he said, seemingly to himself.
She shouldâve been afraid, quaking in her boots afraid. But for once, she just couldnât seem to manage it.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear Steve shouting, shouting at her, at Vecna, at Jonathan and Eddie for holding him back.
âPeter!â She called again.
The tentacles seemed to whip back and forth through the air, splaying themselves out flat on the ground and slowly encircling where she stood, as they lowered their master to the ground.
âNO!â Dustin tried to jump, but without instruction needed Lucas and Mike grabbed him and held him back.
âPeter, you donât have to do this.â
âPeter is dead. Your friend,â he spat the word, âsaw to that.â
âI know she put you here, but I donât think Peterâs gone.â A tentacle slithered at the back of her heels, and (Y/n) took a step closer to Peter.
âYou always had such idealistic notions.â He snarled, âThis is what I am. Not Peter, this.â Two of the tentacles whipped out from the circle they had formed around (Y/n), and latched onto her wrists, wrenching her down to her knees.
(Y/n) shook her head, âI donât believe that.â
The tentacles tightened around her wrist, and she bit back a whimper in disgust as they began wrapping themselves slowly up her arms.
âSociety is a scourge (Y/n). The real curse is not me; itâs humanity.â Peter began walking towards her, the tentacles around her dragging her to meet him.
âThen why havenât you cursed me? Killed me?â (Y/n) asked, âEveryone else has heard the clock ticking, Peter. But here I am.â
The tentacles were wrapping around her chest now, gluing her arms to her sides. Peter, Vecna, did not respond. He stood directly above her now, her bound defenseless at his feet.
âIf Peter was dead then you wouldnât be listening to me right now.â
One of the tentacles wrapped itself around her throat, but she didnât feel it constricting her at all. It was like it didnât know what to do.
âLet them go, Peter. Theyâre just kids. Scared, little kids like Henry used to be.â
Steve was still shouting and struggling with Jonathan and Eddie, and in her peripheral, it seemed Eleven had joined the boys in holding back Dustin.
âIâll stay.â She whispered loud enough for only Peter to hear. âWeâre friends right? Iâll stay here, with you. But you have to let them go. Leave them alone, leave Hawkins alone.â
Peter blinked. âYou wouldnât leave your brother.â
He sounded like Peter, the dark, raspy voice of Vecna was gone. He sounded young again; he sounded whole.
âIâll leave him to protect him. Peter, you live in this place free of people and the society you hated, and itâs still not enough. You never wanted to be alone.â The grip the tentacles had on her was loosening, and (Y/n) tried to stand. The tentacles melted away as Peter saw what she wanted to do. âIâll stay here, with you. You wonât be alone⊠But you have to let them go.â
Thanks for reading! If you like this, please go read my Eddie Munson fic. I'd really appreciate it! I think it's even better than this one, and it meant a lot to me writing it. I look forward to knowing what you think!
Okay wow, I absolutely loved this. I think you captured Peterâs personality really well, like in the line, âHe still didnât give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.â That characterization and his curiosity, despite his belief that he hates people is perfect
AND the idea of him wanting a friend in the upside down, despite his hatred for humanity seems spot on for him.
AND AND I adore the implications of readerâs immediate choice to stay in the upside down⊠like itâs hinted that sheâs with Steve but she doesnât even glance at him giving up everything to stay with Vecna. I think thereâs so much there to be explored about readerâs feelings (whether she realizes what they are or not) about Peter and her life in Hawkins. I also think Peterâs immediate agreement to leave Hawkins and the Party alone if she stays with him is so intriguing and would be interesting to see whether thatâs because he has a bigger plan or because he truly just values her at his side.
This is such an interesting read, would you consider continuing it?
Overall, I absolutely loved this piece and canât thank you enough for choosing to share it with us! Great job on it!
Itâs been a while since anyone read this one closely so thank you for that.
I want to answer some of your questions and expand on this for you a bit, but I donât think Iâll be continuing it in a sequel. This was written so long ago; there isnât much demand for a sequel. And this came out with part one of last season of stranger things, and the end of the last season was such a hard pivot from this vision with and without the OC that I have a hard time envisioning the universe now. (Iâm not even sure if Iâm watching the new season) But let me expand some here on what a sequel wouldâve been if I wrote it at the time and answer some of your questions:
If I wrote a sequel, it would have continued the same structure with flashes in time back to their time in the diner and a bit to their time apart after he enters the upside down before she joins him, but those flashes wouldâve delved a little deeper into their psyche rather than the surface of them being friends and finding each other.
The way I envision Peter in the time gap in this story between them meeting and her leaving with him is very much how he was in the show. Confrontation with Eleven, creation of the upside down, festering hatred for humanity, reaching to expand the upside down. She doesnât teach him that humanity is good like sheâd maybe hope. She teaches him that she is an exception to humanity being bad. He spends that whole time in the upside down fixating on her, pondering her, considering what he will do when he inevitably encounters her (while destroying the world). And before she arrives to join him, he knows he wants her somehow, but he hasnât really confronted in what way and what heâs willing to lose to get it. So there wouldâve been a couple flashes of that: of him in the upside down thinking about her and this.
She leaves with him to go to the upside down almost immediately because yes it will save Dustin and Steve and her friends but also because when I considered writing a sequel at the time I envisioned expanding on her being a little âoffâ, for lack of a better expression. He was coming into the diner for years, and as much as she changed him he changed her a bit too. Thereâs something to his presence and aura that is drawing her in, (I havenât seen the newest remake, but I think of it like a version of Nosferatu; she doesnât understand it but something almost supernatural is drawing her into the orbit of this grotesque monster and making her want him in some way. She knows itâs wrong, but she canât really help it.) And a sequel wouldâve have flashbacks to this, her being a bit odd and off in the diner, a bit toooo drawn to him, a bit tooo quirky with her friends after encountering him.
Iâd probably explore the idea that she offers to stay immediately on an impulse (abandoning Steve and her family and friends kind of on a whim) but he accepts immediately because this time heâs the one who understands whatâs happening (her liking him/wanting him). With a plot centering on this dichotomy that they came from a world she fully understood, where she controlled their relationship with each other, where she knew everything and understood him perfectly even if he didnât understand himself. And they entered this new world where heâs the one with all the power, he knows everything and understands her perfectly even though she doesnât understand herself. Theyâre at odds and thereâs a tension to it because she isnât used to not knowing how she feels and he isnât used to having to deal with human emotions, but it works when she comes to accept that she didnât just give everything up to save everyone and that this canât be all morally bad to want if it means it saved everyone.
(Also Iâm envisioning this entire thing as Jamie Campbell bower once the party leaves because even though he thinks humanity is scum sheâs an exception and she offered to stay when he looked like Vecna, and he understands her feelings on this one thing better than she does so he doesnât need to look like the gross monster he is to scare her.)
I kind of envision the story ending sort of ambiguously again. Years after she chooses to stay but not long after she comes to terms with wanting him. Likely with some attempt by the party to save her resulting in her death or something. Peter alone again, unable to comprehend that the party who he thinks are scum had the best intentions of saving her from what they thought was hell, just seeing it as them killing her. And then leaving it open ended on what he does about that.
Summary: You go a bit dumb and cock drunk one night in bed with Clark, and he initially has no idea whatâs happened to you and is very concerned.
Warnings: Minors DNI. Dumbification, cock drunk, pet names, pinv, pretty much all filth.
Word Count: 1.6k
It takes Clark a long time to come to terms with the fact that that glazed over look in your eye, the wordless unintelligble sounds that are the only noise your mouth can make, the boneless flop of your limbs wherever he chooses to place them, is actually a very good thing.
At first, heâs worried, incredibly worried, when you canât form your own name, when the only sound that comes out of your mouth is a broken half formed moan of his. Heâs worried heâs gone too hard, too fast, hurt you in some way that his impervious body canât possibly sense.
He stops so suddenly that the action alone is almost enough to jar you free, and in conjunction with the panicked but gentle rousing he engages in, you come to your senses very quickly.
âNo I just⊠Iâm sorry. Thatâs never happened before I guess I just got a little cock drunk.â
âC-cock drunk?â
âIt-I donât know. It happened to my roommate in college sometimes? Sheâd⊠come so many times in a row, or it would feel so good sheâd kind of just⊠lose herself she said. Sheâd go all dumb like her boyfriend literally fucked her brains out.â
âI-â He pauses for a long time. âAnd thatâs a ⊠good thing?â
âYeah,â you laugh a little breathlessly, âitâs a very good thing⊠It feels good for me anyway. You donât have to-you know you donât have to fuck me like that if itâs a problem for you. Iâm sure doing all the heavy lifting all the time isnât fun.â
His lips twitch, and you know heâs fighting a smile. âHeavy lifting doesnât really bother me. I could-I didnât mind it I just⊠I was worried. You werenât responding, and I thoughtâŠâ
âYou thought youâd hurt me.â Itâs not a question. You know him well enough to know where his mind went.
âYeah.â
âNo, love.â
Heâs hunching over a bit where heâs sitting on the end of the bed, and you push him back a bit, make room for yourself, curl up in his lap, and lay your temple to his chest. His arms wrap around your naked body instinctively, holding you tight to his bare torso, and you know itâs a comfort, a lifeline, he needs right now. Coming down from a spoiled high, reassuring himself that he didnât hurt you, knowing he didnât let you down. He needs to hold you close and feel your skin on his and tell himself he did good.
âYou were perfect.â One of your hands works its way free of his tight grip around you, and you immediately sink it in his luscious curls. âSo perfect you made me forget my own name there for a minute.â
âOkayâŠâ He nods like heâs trying to convince himself youâre right. âOkay, good to know.â
You kiss his cheek, and now youâre the one biting back a smile. âIf it happens again, know that itâs a good thing and you can keep going⊠only if you want. I donât want you to feel like you have to if itâs a turn off.â
âItâs not⊠Itâs not.â
âââââââââââ
Thereâs a slight puddle of drool forming under your mouth on the pillow, and you can barely register anything but the next cresting wave of pleasure thatâs moments from crashing over you.
Youâve already come once rubbing yourself on his thigh, once with his mouth between your legs, once on his fingers, once on his cock, and now a youâre about to come a second time around him.
Your mind is starting to go if it isnât gone already. You feel it, and you try to fight it remembering how scared heâd gotten the last time. But heâs just fucking you so good.
âIâve got you, sweetheart,â Clark groans.
His hips roll into yours, and thereâs the sound of skin slapping skin to accompany the feel of his gloriously thick cock sliding home between your legs.
You moan wantonly into the pillow and donât even bother trying to stop more drool from leaking out of the corner of your mouth.
His hand knots in your hair, and he uses it to, incredibly gently, pull your body up off of the mattress. A long strand of saliva stretches between the pool on the pillow and your lips until it finally snaps halfway to Clark and leaves a wet trail down your chin and onto your neck. If you could control any part of your body, you might reach a hand up and wipe it away, but you canât even manage to close your mouth thatâs hanging open as your head tilts back against Clarkâs chest let alone work either of your boneless arms.
When your back is flush with his front, his hands find their usual resting places â right on your breast, left on your hip â and hold you as close as they can while still giving his hips room to move.
âItâs okay.â Clark leans his head down so he can pant quietly into your ear. âYou can come again. Iâve got you, sweetheart. Iâve got you. Let it go.â
âCla-ooooh,â is all you can manage as your pussy squeezes around his cock, and you come for the fifth time that night.
His cock is stretching all of your walls, and itâs hitting every sensitive spot inside you like heâs memorized angles and degrees and done fucking geometry to find the best way to make your eyes roll back in your head. You donât know how you keep breathing when his length bottoms out inside you, and if the blurred lines in your vision are any indication you might not be breathing.
âSo pretty,â Clark sighs and buries his face in the top of your hair. âSo good for me, sweetheart, you feel so good when you come so hard for me.â
You whine, lewd and loud and desperate. You want him to go faster. Youâre overstimulated and cock drunk and incapable of coherent sentences to express that thatâs what you want, but his hips are maintaining the same hard but steady pace he set when his cock first sunk into your pussy well over half an hour ago. It doesnât seem like heâs even close to being done with you tonight â though that part youâre not complaining about.
âYou have some drool on your chin there, sweetheart.â Clark notices.
He frees one hand from your waist to reach around to grab the pillow youâd dirtied, and in a flash the pillow is gone and only the pillowcase remains.
Heâs still steadily fucking into you. His cock is slamming in with a hard snap of his hips and sliding out with a slow drag of every inch along your walls. If you were of a sound mind youâd ask how he was capable of coherent speech or observations or anything at all while you felt like this.
Clark gently wipes away the drool â still fucking smoothly into you. He even licks the corner of the fabric to help wipe away some of the dried bits that had stuck to your face from the pillowâs puddle.
âBetter sweetheart?â He ruts into you, âAll clean?â
You nod and almost choke on your saliva as you try to swallow down any more drool.
âShh, shh,â Clark reaches around your body, and you make a noiseless high pitched keening sound as some part of your brain incapable of speech realizes where his hand is going.
His thumb brushes over your clit, and you nearly scream from the pleasure on your oversensitive nub, bucking wildly into his hands and forcibly changing the pace heâs otherwise consistently maintained connecting his hips and yours.
He frees your breast finally and grips your hip a little more firmly than a human man, a little more firmly than necessary. âShh, shh, itâs okay. You can drool over me all you want, sweetheart; donât hurt yourself swallowing it down. I know youâre a bit dumb right now.â
Your hips try to jerk again but canât move in his grip, and your walls cease up around his cock in a spasm nearly as strong as an orgasm. Fortunately, Clarkâs hips snap out of rhythm to ram his cock hard into you to enjoy every second of your pussy quaking. âOh you like that?â
You nod, but you canât really say more.
âYou like being dumb, sweetheart?â
You nod.
Clarkâs hips move a little faster. Your pussy is leaking so much around his cock that even being the thickest and longest man youâve ever had â by a wide margin â heâs moving with so much ease now. You must be absolutely gaping open around him by now; heâs used you, stretched you, so long. Youâre sure your pussy will look like an absolutely used slut tomorrow, and you kind of love it.
âI get it. Youâre so smart all the time sweetheart,â he grunts, as his cock twitches inside you. âYou can trust me. Shut your brain off for a while and be dumb for me.â
You donât even feel the wave. It hits you full force all at once, as your eyes roll back in your head and you cry.
What happens next, youâre not really sure. You know itâs a very long time before Clark comes inside you and finally exhausts his near infinite stamina for the night, but you canât remember any details of it beyond white hot pleasure intermittently rolling over you through a mind-numbing haze.
âIs it wrong to say I like you dumb?â Clark sheepishly asks the next morning. âNot all the time, just when weâre in bed together.â
You shake your head and burrow back under his arm into his side. And âClark Kent you can fuck me dumb any time you want,â is the first thing you say after coming back to yourself.
Summary: You go a bit dumb and cock drunk one night in bed with Clark, and he initially has no idea whatâs happened to you and is very concerned.
Warnings: Minors DNI. Dumbification, cock drunk, pet names, pinv, pretty much all filth.
Word Count: 1.6k
It takes Clark a long time to come to terms with the fact that that glazed over look in your eye, the wordless unintelligble sounds that are the only noise your mouth can make, the boneless flop of your limbs wherever he chooses to place them, is actually a very good thing.
At first, heâs worried, incredibly worried, when you canât form your own name, when the only sound that comes out of your mouth is a broken half formed moan of his. Heâs worried heâs gone too hard, too fast, hurt you in some way that his impervious body canât possibly sense.
He stops so suddenly that the action alone is almost enough to jar you free, and in conjunction with the panicked but gentle rousing he engages in, you come to your senses very quickly.
âNo I just⊠Iâm sorry. Thatâs never happened before I guess I just got a little cock drunk.â
âC-cock drunk?â
âIt-I donât know. It happened to my roommate in college sometimes? Sheâd⊠come so many times in a row, or it would feel so good sheâd kind of just⊠lose herself she said. Sheâd go all dumb like her boyfriend literally fucked her brains out.â
âI-â He pauses for a long time. âAnd thatâs a ⊠good thing?â
âYeah,â you laugh a little breathlessly, âitâs a very good thing⊠It feels good for me anyway. You donât have to-you know you donât have to fuck me like that if itâs a problem for you. Iâm sure doing all the heavy lifting all the time isnât fun.â
His lips twitch, and you know heâs fighting a smile. âHeavy lifting doesnât really bother me. I could-I didnât mind it I just⊠I was worried. You werenât responding, and I thoughtâŠâ
âYou thought youâd hurt me.â Itâs not a question. You know him well enough to know where his mind went.
âYeah.â
âNo, love.â
Heâs hunching over a bit where heâs sitting on the end of the bed, and you push him back a bit, make room for yourself, curl up in his lap, and lay your temple to his chest. His arms wrap around your naked body instinctively, holding you tight to his bare torso, and you know itâs a comfort, a lifeline, he needs right now. Coming down from a spoiled high, reassuring himself that he didnât hurt you, knowing he didnât let you down. He needs to hold you close and feel your skin on his and tell himself he did good.
âYou were perfect.â One of your hands works its way free of his tight grip around you, and you immediately sink it in his luscious curls. âSo perfect you made me forget my own name there for a minute.â
âOkayâŠâ He nods like heâs trying to convince himself youâre right. âOkay, good to know.â
You kiss his cheek, and now youâre the one biting back a smile. âIf it happens again, know that itâs a good thing and you can keep going⊠only if you want. I donât want you to feel like you have to if itâs a turn off.â
âItâs not⊠Itâs not.â
âââââââââââ
Thereâs a slight puddle of drool forming under your mouth on the pillow, and you can barely register anything but the next cresting wave of pleasure thatâs moments from crashing over you.
Youâve already come once rubbing yourself on his thigh, once with his mouth between your legs, once on his fingers, once on his cock, and now a youâre about to come a second time around him.
Your mind is starting to go if it isnât gone already. You feel it, and you try to fight it remembering how scared heâd gotten the last time. But heâs just fucking you so good.
âIâve got you, sweetheart,â Clark groans.
His hips roll into yours, and thereâs the sound of skin slapping skin to accompany the feel of his gloriously thick cock sliding home between your legs.
You moan wantonly into the pillow and donât even bother trying to stop more drool from leaking out of the corner of your mouth.
His hand knots in your hair, and he uses it to, incredibly gently, pull your body up off of the mattress. A long strand of saliva stretches between the pool on the pillow and your lips until it finally snaps halfway to Clark and leaves a wet trail down your chin and onto your neck. If you could control any part of your body, you might reach a hand up and wipe it away, but you canât even manage to close your mouth thatâs hanging open as your head tilts back against Clarkâs chest let alone work either of your boneless arms.
When your back is flush with his front, his hands find their usual resting places â right on your breast, left on your hip â and hold you as close as they can while still giving his hips room to move.
âItâs okay.â Clark leans his head down so he can pant quietly into your ear. âYou can come again. Iâve got you, sweetheart. Iâve got you. Let it go.â
âCla-ooooh,â is all you can manage as your pussy squeezes around his cock, and you come for the fifth time that night.
His cock is stretching all of your walls, and itâs hitting every sensitive spot inside you like heâs memorized angles and degrees and done fucking geometry to find the best way to make your eyes roll back in your head. You donât know how you keep breathing when his length bottoms out inside you, and if the blurred lines in your vision are any indication you might not be breathing.
âSo pretty,â Clark sighs and buries his face in the top of your hair. âSo good for me, sweetheart, you feel so good when you come so hard for me.â
You whine, lewd and loud and desperate. You want him to go faster. Youâre overstimulated and cock drunk and incapable of coherent sentences to express that thatâs what you want, but his hips are maintaining the same hard but steady pace he set when his cock first sunk into your pussy well over half an hour ago. It doesnât seem like heâs even close to being done with you tonight â though that part youâre not complaining about.
âYou have some drool on your chin there, sweetheart.â Clark notices.
He frees one hand from your waist to reach around to grab the pillow youâd dirtied, and in a flash the pillow is gone and only the pillowcase remains.
Heâs still steadily fucking into you. His cock is slamming in with a hard snap of his hips and sliding out with a slow drag of every inch along your walls. If you were of a sound mind youâd ask how he was capable of coherent speech or observations or anything at all while you felt like this.
Clark gently wipes away the drool â still fucking smoothly into you. He even licks the corner of the fabric to help wipe away some of the dried bits that had stuck to your face from the pillowâs puddle.
âBetter sweetheart?â He ruts into you, âAll clean?â
You nod and almost choke on your saliva as you try to swallow down any more drool.
âShh, shh,â Clark reaches around your body, and you make a noiseless high pitched keening sound as some part of your brain incapable of speech realizes where his hand is going.
His thumb brushes over your clit, and you nearly scream from the pleasure on your oversensitive nub, bucking wildly into his hands and forcibly changing the pace heâs otherwise consistently maintained connecting his hips and yours.
He frees your breast finally and grips your hip a little more firmly than a human man, a little more firmly than necessary. âShh, shh, itâs okay. You can drool over me all you want, sweetheart; donât hurt yourself swallowing it down. I know youâre a bit dumb right now.â
Your hips try to jerk again but canât move in his grip, and your walls cease up around his cock in a spasm nearly as strong as an orgasm. Fortunately, Clarkâs hips snap out of rhythm to ram his cock hard into you to enjoy every second of your pussy quaking. âOh you like that?â
You nod, but you canât really say more.
âYou like being dumb, sweetheart?â
You nod.
Clarkâs hips move a little faster. Your pussy is leaking so much around his cock that even being the thickest and longest man youâve ever had â by a wide margin â heâs moving with so much ease now. You must be absolutely gaping open around him by now; heâs used you, stretched you, so long. Youâre sure your pussy will look like an absolutely used slut tomorrow, and you kind of love it.
âI get it. Youâre so smart all the time sweetheart,â he grunts, as his cock twitches inside you. âYou can trust me. Shut your brain off for a while and be dumb for me.â
You donât even feel the wave. It hits you full force all at once, as your eyes roll back in your head and you cry.
What happens next, youâre not really sure. You know itâs a very long time before Clark comes inside you and finally exhausts his near infinite stamina for the night, but you canât remember any details of it beyond white hot pleasure intermittently rolling over you through a mind-numbing haze.
âIs it wrong to say I like you dumb?â Clark sheepishly asks the next morning. âNot all the time, just when weâre in bed together.â
You shake your head and burrow back under his arm into his side. And âClark Kent you can fuck me dumb any time you want,â is the first thing you say after coming back to yourself.
Summary: You go a bit dumb and cock drunk one night in bed with Clark, and he initially has no idea whatâs happened to you and is very concerned.
Warnings: Minors DNI. Dumbification, cock drunk, pet names, pinv, pretty much all filth.
Word Count: 1.6k
It takes Clark a long time to come to terms with the fact that that glazed over look in your eye, the wordless unintelligble sounds that are the only noise your mouth can make, the boneless flop of your limbs wherever he chooses to place them, is actually a very good thing.
At first, heâs worried, incredibly worried, when you canât form your own name, when the only sound that comes out of your mouth is a broken half formed moan of his. Heâs worried heâs gone too hard, too fast, hurt you in some way that his impervious body canât possibly sense.
He stops so suddenly that the action alone is almost enough to jar you free, and in conjunction with the panicked but gentle rousing he engages in, you come to your senses very quickly.
âNo I just⊠Iâm sorry. Thatâs never happened before I guess I just got a little cock drunk.â
âC-cock drunk?â
âIt-I donât know. It happened to my roommate in college sometimes? Sheâd⊠come so many times in a row, or it would feel so good sheâd kind of just⊠lose herself she said. Sheâd go all dumb like her boyfriend literally fucked her brains out.â
âI-â He pauses for a long time. âAnd thatâs a ⊠good thing?â
âYeah,â you laugh a little breathlessly, âitâs a very good thing⊠It feels good for me anyway. You donât have to-you know you donât have to fuck me like that if itâs a problem for you. Iâm sure doing all the heavy lifting all the time isnât fun.â
His lips twitch, and you know heâs fighting a smile. âHeavy lifting doesnât really bother me. I could-I didnât mind it I just⊠I was worried. You werenât responding, and I thoughtâŠâ
âYou thought youâd hurt me.â Itâs not a question. You know him well enough to know where his mind went.
âYeah.â
âNo, love.â
Heâs hunching over a bit where heâs sitting on the end of the bed, and you push him back a bit, make room for yourself, curl up in his lap, and lay your temple to his chest. His arms wrap around your naked body instinctively, holding you tight to his bare torso, and you know itâs a comfort, a lifeline, he needs right now. Coming down from a spoiled high, reassuring himself that he didnât hurt you, knowing he didnât let you down. He needs to hold you close and feel your skin on his and tell himself he did good.
âYou were perfect.â One of your hands works its way free of his tight grip around you, and you immediately sink it in his luscious curls. âSo perfect you made me forget my own name there for a minute.â
âOkayâŠâ He nods like heâs trying to convince himself youâre right. âOkay, good to know.â
You kiss his cheek, and now youâre the one biting back a smile. âIf it happens again, know that itâs a good thing and you can keep going⊠only if you want. I donât want you to feel like you have to if itâs a turn off.â
âItâs not⊠Itâs not.â
âââââââââââ
Thereâs a slight puddle of drool forming under your mouth on the pillow, and you can barely register anything but the next cresting wave of pleasure thatâs moments from crashing over you.
Youâve already come once rubbing yourself on his thigh, once with his mouth between your legs, once on his fingers, once on his cock, and now a youâre about to come a second time around him.
Your mind is starting to go if it isnât gone already. You feel it, and you try to fight it remembering how scared heâd gotten the last time. But heâs just fucking you so good.
âIâve got you, sweetheart,â Clark groans.
His hips roll into yours, and thereâs the sound of skin slapping skin to accompany the feel of his gloriously thick cock sliding home between your legs.
You moan wantonly into the pillow and donât even bother trying to stop more drool from leaking out of the corner of your mouth.
His hand knots in your hair, and he uses it to, incredibly gently, pull your body up off of the mattress. A long strand of saliva stretches between the pool on the pillow and your lips until it finally snaps halfway to Clark and leaves a wet trail down your chin and onto your neck. If you could control any part of your body, you might reach a hand up and wipe it away, but you canât even manage to close your mouth thatâs hanging open as your head tilts back against Clarkâs chest let alone work either of your boneless arms.
When your back is flush with his front, his hands find their usual resting places â right on your breast, left on your hip â and hold you as close as they can while still giving his hips room to move.
âItâs okay.â Clark leans his head down so he can pant quietly into your ear. âYou can come again. Iâve got you, sweetheart. Iâve got you. Let it go.â
âCla-ooooh,â is all you can manage as your pussy squeezes around his cock, and you come for the fifth time that night.
His cock is stretching all of your walls, and itâs hitting every sensitive spot inside you like heâs memorized angles and degrees and done fucking geometry to find the best way to make your eyes roll back in your head. You donât know how you keep breathing when his length bottoms out inside you, and if the blurred lines in your vision are any indication you might not be breathing.
âSo pretty,â Clark sighs and buries his face in the top of your hair. âSo good for me, sweetheart, you feel so good when you come so hard for me.â
You whine, lewd and loud and desperate. You want him to go faster. Youâre overstimulated and cock drunk and incapable of coherent sentences to express that thatâs what you want, but his hips are maintaining the same hard but steady pace he set when his cock first sunk into your pussy well over half an hour ago. It doesnât seem like heâs even close to being done with you tonight â though that part youâre not complaining about.
âYou have some drool on your chin there, sweetheart.â Clark notices.
He frees one hand from your waist to reach around to grab the pillow youâd dirtied, and in a flash the pillow is gone and only the pillowcase remains.
Heâs still steadily fucking into you. His cock is slamming in with a hard snap of his hips and sliding out with a slow drag of every inch along your walls. If you were of a sound mind youâd ask how he was capable of coherent speech or observations or anything at all while you felt like this.
Clark gently wipes away the drool â still fucking smoothly into you. He even licks the corner of the fabric to help wipe away some of the dried bits that had stuck to your face from the pillowâs puddle.
âBetter sweetheart?â He ruts into you, âAll clean?â
You nod and almost choke on your saliva as you try to swallow down any more drool.
âShh, shh,â Clark reaches around your body, and you make a noiseless high pitched keening sound as some part of your brain incapable of speech realizes where his hand is going.
His thumb brushes over your clit, and you nearly scream from the pleasure on your oversensitive nub, bucking wildly into his hands and forcibly changing the pace heâs otherwise consistently maintained connecting his hips and yours.
He frees your breast finally and grips your hip a little more firmly than a human man, a little more firmly than necessary. âShh, shh, itâs okay. You can drool over me all you want, sweetheart; donât hurt yourself swallowing it down. I know youâre a bit dumb right now.â
Your hips try to jerk again but canât move in his grip, and your walls cease up around his cock in a spasm nearly as strong as an orgasm. Fortunately, Clarkâs hips snap out of rhythm to ram his cock hard into you to enjoy every second of your pussy quaking. âOh you like that?â
You nod, but you canât really say more.
âYou like being dumb, sweetheart?â
You nod.
Clarkâs hips move a little faster. Your pussy is leaking so much around his cock that even being the thickest and longest man youâve ever had â by a wide margin â heâs moving with so much ease now. You must be absolutely gaping open around him by now; heâs used you, stretched you, so long. Youâre sure your pussy will look like an absolutely used slut tomorrow, and you kind of love it.
âI get it. Youâre so smart all the time sweetheart,â he grunts, as his cock twitches inside you. âYou can trust me. Shut your brain off for a while and be dumb for me.â
You donât even feel the wave. It hits you full force all at once, as your eyes roll back in your head and you cry.
What happens next, youâre not really sure. You know itâs a very long time before Clark comes inside you and finally exhausts his near infinite stamina for the night, but you canât remember any details of it beyond white hot pleasure intermittently rolling over you through a mind-numbing haze.
âIs it wrong to say I like you dumb?â Clark sheepishly asks the next morning. âNot all the time, just when weâre in bed together.â
You shake your head and burrow back under his arm into his side. And âClark Kent you can fuck me dumb any time you want,â is the first thing you say after coming back to yourself.
I have someone very specific in mind and it probably isnât them but I can bet my ass this person (who claimed to support Isnotreal last time I checked) also voted for that expired cheeto.
HA! More than one imposter! Yo slide in my dmâs letâs compare notes!
Sometimes I like to go back to the argument I had with that lady in November who swore Trump wasnât going to take any of my rights away and see how much more of her pro-Trump content sheâs deleted from her blog (All of it now btw. Sheâs masquerading as one of us)âŠ
Which is doubly funny because sheâs apparently become a big Superman fan in spite of the flashing neon sign in that movie that says Superman would hate you and think youâre a monster for what you voted to do to humanity.
⊠anyway if you make Superman content you should block her cause losing fanfics seems to be a powerful motivator for her
Summary: In your most vulnerable hour, Jake 'Hangman' Seresin is the one to find you, and the one to ask you the ultimate question. "Who did this to you?"
Warnings: Mentions of Abuse and DV (NOT committed by Jake), nongraphic description of resulting injuries, a very one-sided bar fight, mention that a character is going to therapy, insults and confrontation by a past abuser. (This story is a who did this to you trope. While it is only dealing with the 'who did this to you' aftermath of what was done, please keep that in mind.)
Notes: This is just an excuse to write the who did this to you trope. This is self indulgence at its finest.
âWho did this to you?â
Your head shot up a little too quickly at the unexpected company, and the world began to spin all over again. With a groan, you laid your head back on the bartop, hoping the flat wood would help the world right itself faster.
Youâd been lying there with your forehead pressed on the cool wood of the bar, sitting directly under an air vent, for the better part of thirty minutes. The Hard Deckâs AC was working overtime to keep the heat outside, and the rush of cold air blowing down the back of your shirt was doing wonders for your sore arms and back.Â
âHurricane, who did this to you?â
You hadnât been expecting anyone to be there. Everyone else was down at the beach. You thought youâd have some time alone to lick your wounds and cover your bruises and emotionally recover from what had happened that morning. Penny was too busy watching Maverick. The aviators were too engrossed in a new game Maverick had invented called dogfight volleyball, and the bar was technically closed at this hour. You thought you could slip by and start your shift sight unseen.Â
âHurricane,â The voice was firm, but not demanding. Underwritten with a tone of concern that was very uncommon to that particular voice. âHurricane,â it repeated.Â
You opened your eyes and rolled your head to lay facing the voiceâs direction and made eye contact with Hangman.Â
You knew it was him before you turned, but for some reason you still did.Â
Backlit by the sunâs rays bouncing off his perfect golden hair with an open button-up billowing in the sea breeze, he stood in sharp contrast to your current state. Like an angel stepping out of heaven and into hell.Â
In some ways, this was your worst case scenario. Hangman was definitely not your favorite pilot and was very close to your least, and he was certainly not your friend. You were at best frenemies and even that was a stretch. The pair of you had been constantly bickering and making snide comments behind the otherâs backs since practically the moment you made eye contact with each other. He intentionally made your life difficult behind the bar, and you rang the bell on him on multiple occasions.Â
He was responsible for everyone calling you Hurricane. Youâd come crashing through the doors on your first day working at the Hard Deck with a torrential downpour following you in from outside. A drowned cat wouldâve looked less soaked through and pathetic than you, and the moment Penny introduced you to the squad, heâd made a snide remark about the Hurricane you brought with you. The rest was history. It became like a callsign to them; your name long forgotten by most. The only pilot who didnât call you Hurricane now was Bob, and it ground your gears just a little bit more every time you heard it.Â
On the other hand, this mightâve been the best case scenario. Hangman wasnât someone who was going to make a big show of this. He wouldnât rush down to the beach and ask for help. He wouldnât fawn over you or ask you if you were okay a million times. He wouldnât expect you to cry on his shoulder and incessantly pick at you until you broke down.Â
âWho did this to you?â Hangman took a step in from where heâd frozen in the door out to the patio.
His expression was like his voice, hard and firm with undertones of the worry that anyone would be feeling in this situation. Hangman wasnât the nicest guy you knew, but you knew from the other pilots stories of the many times heâd saved their lives that he wasnât evil, and you didnât doubt for a moment that heâd at least be somewhat concerned even if he didnât care particularly for you.Â
âYou already know who.â
It was true. Devin had been in the bar about once a week for the last six months that youâd been dating. Heâd made the rounds through the aviators, none of whom particularly liked him but all of whom had been polite enough not to say anything⊠except Hangman.Â
The second Devin left after his first introductions, Hangman had made his distaste known. âSomethingâs off about that guy,â heâd said before the door even closed. Phoenix had teased him about being jealous that his snarky banter was no longer the center of your world, but youâd seen it for what it was. A combination of being angry he wasnât the center of attention and looking to defy you at every turn that was a uniquely Hangman blend.Â
Hangman approached you slowly, taking one deliberate step at a time. Every step with such obvious forethought that it gave you the time and the option to back away. A detail you wouldnât have expected from such an ego-centric man.Â
You didnât back away. Hangman was a lot of things, most of them negative, but you could say with absolute certainty that you werenât afraid of him. For all the times youâd yelled at him, youâd never been scared of his physicality, and for all the times he'd yelled at you, his hand had never so much as twitched.Â
Standing beside you, under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights that threw your skin into sharp relief, Hangman had a full view of the damage.Â
âThat fucker,â his voice was a harsh, raspy whisper, âIâm gonna kill him.â His hand seemed to lift of its own accord. Flat, open palmed and always within your line of sight, he reached up and stroked his fingers along your cheekbone with a feather-light touch.Â
âI already dumped him.â You donât know why you felt like explaining yourself to Hangman of all people, but maybe it was the determination in his eyes. The way he stared down at your cheek like his eyes could will the twing of pain away.Â
Hangman gave a half-hearted, inattentive nod. âThatâs certainly a start.â He looked like gears were turning in his head, like he hadnât given up on his first idea.Â
A flood of memories came back to you.Â
âThe only active duty pilot with a confirmed air-to-air kill.â Coyote, introducing Hangman.
âWe call him Bagman, cause heâll kill anyone and get anyone killed. He doesnât seem to mind.â Omaha commenting on Hangmanâs aim at the dartboard.Â
âThatâs his second air-to-air kill.â Bob, telling you what he could about the mission theyâd just come back from.Â
âHangmanâs deadly in the sky. I wouldnât wanna cross him.â Rooster, finally being honest about what he thought of Hangman, after the blonde saved his life.Â
Hangman had killed before, and in his line of work, with his level of skill, likely would again. He definitely didnât mean what he said, certainly not literally. He wasnât about to rush out to his truck and go hunting Devin in the streets, but it wasnât something he of all people would say entirely jokingly either.Â
You slowly sat up in your chair. The world was spinning less now. Whether that was because the nausea was finally passing or because Hangmanâs hand stayed on your cheek, grounding you in the moment, it was unclear. âI appreciate your concern,â you hedged, âbut really, Iâm fine. I can handle myself.â
Hangman snorted and let his hand fall away. âObviously you can; you already kicked his ass to the curb on your own. Doesnât mean Iâm not gonna kill him for good measure.â Hangman hopped up on the bar and swung his legs over.Â
You probably shouldâve objected to his comfort level invading your workspace. Penny was very explicit that no one was allowed behind the bar who didnât work there and even more explicit that that applied to all naval aviators. Somehow, though, you doubted Hangman would rat you out, at least not today.Â
âAre you going to tell Penny?â Hangman mozied around behind the bar, picking up a rag and tossing it over his shoulder. He was looking for something, but he didnât seem inclined to ask. You werenât any more inclined to offer.Â
It wouldâve broken whatever moment was passing between you. Caring? Camaraderie? You werenât sure, but there was certainly some level of understanding that remained largely unspoken.Â
Hangman found what he was looking for in short order anyway. He flipped open the ice cooler and pulled the rag off his shoulder, filling it with a scoop of ice and tying the ends.Â
âNot now,â you were disinclined to bring it up to Penny.Â
The Hard Deck was a Navy bar, and Penny had made a lot of powerful friends. Hell, you had a lot of powerful friends if you were willing to use them; one of them, or at least a powerful person who was willing to help you, was standing right in front of you. You could only imagine what would happen to Devin if you told anyone. All of it would be deserved of course, but you doubted most of it would be legal. And that really wasnât what you needed right now, and you werenât ready to have that conversation anyway.Â
âHold this to your cheek. You wanna get the swelling down,â In a reversal of roles, he leaned against the bar in the place that was normally yours and offered you his makeshift ice pack.Â
You took it with a quiet, âThank you.â
Hangman nodded with a thoughtful expression, watching your hand raise it to your cheek, âIâll let you tell them in your own time, but youâre going to go to someone to help you through this until then⊠professionally.âÂ
It wasnât a question. He wasnât leaving room for debate. It was an order as plain as any he got in the Navy.Â
You nodded wordlessly against the ice pressed to your face. It was a reasonable expectation, a reasonable request. You werenât sure if you needed it or not, but you supposed that was the point. You werenât sure. Better to go too soon than too late.Â
âGood,â Hangman sighed, seeming relieved, and pushed off the bar. His muscles flexed with the motion, bulging against the short sleeves of his open button-up shirt. They remained tense as he crossed his arms over his chest. His teeth gritted behind his closed lips. âIâll keep him out of the bar.â
âHangman, you really donât have to-âÂ
âHe hurt you.â Hangman cut you off with a dismissive wave of his hand. He looked serious, deadly serious. âThatâs all I need to know. Heâs not welcome here anymore.â
Before you had the chance to respond, not that you were entirely sure how you would, Hangmanâs eyes left yours, staring at something over your shoulder out towards the beach.
âDo you have any makeup for that cheek?â
Your head turned, and you saw the outlines of Penny and Mav, arm in arm, making their way back to the bar. âYeah,â you replied, âBut my shoulder is a different story. I need to go findâŠâ
Hangman jerked his button up off his shoulders and balled it up, tossing it across the bar to you. âGo quick. Put this on.â
âHangman, I-â
âGo.â Hangman urged, and you ran off before Penny could see the two of you.
Your phone kept buzzing in your pocket, but you didnât have time to check it.
You thought you knew what it was. Phoenix demanding to know why one of Jake Seresinâs shirts was wrapped around your shoulders. Hangmanâs werenât as distinctive as Bradleyâs, usually solid colors with a barely-there logo on the pocket. None of the guys had noticed you were wearing it, but you knew Phoenix had the moment she came back in from the beach. Sheâd shot you a disappointed, skeptical look and immediately begun whispering to Bob as they walked away with their drinks.Â
Penny hadnât been much better. She hadnât identified which pilotsâ shirt it was like Phoenix clearly had, but she was two steps away from asking when the evening rush began to pour in without any sign of slowing down.Â
The Hard Deck was slam-packed, and none of the bartenders had a second to spare. The newest class of TopGun recruits were graduating within a week, and it seemed that everyone had turned out for the upcoming occasion.
The bar was crowded with faces new and old. All of the graduating pilots were scattered around, and most of their instructors had made their way in at some point. Some of the pilots had families, wives and girlfriends, who had flown in and accompanied them to the bar that night. There were more than a few old friends in town to visit or siblings using the graduation as an excuse to get away.Â
Even most of Mavâs squadron was there. Pennyâs old flame had claimed a spot by one of the dart boards, and his lieutenants were all taking turns trying to dethrone Hangman as the king of darts. Normally, they would have migrated to the pool tables by now, but the bar was too crowded for even TopGunâs finest to leverage their way into skipping the line to have a game.Â
One of the soon-to-be graduates hunkered down at the bar, some asshole who was billing himself as the new and improved Hangman, kept snapping his fingers at you to try to get your attention from behind the bar. You were dangerously close to ringing the bell on him the next time he did it, and Pennyâs fingers were clearly itching to do the same. Tragically, neither of you thought that was a very good idea. Tonight mightâve been the one night where it was simply too busy to ring the bell.
There were so many people you couldnât see past the sea of bodies pressing in around you, and it was a miracle that you didnât bolt from the claustrophobia.
Marg after marg. Old fashioned after old fashioned. Beer after beer. The line never seemed to stop, and it was taking its toll on you. Tonight was simply not your night.
âGo,â Pennyâs hand touched your shoulder and made you jump, spilling some of the tequila shot you were trying to hand off. âIâll clean that. You look like you need a break. Take five.â
Normally on a busy night, you wouldâve protested, insisted you could hold down the fort and done your best to help Penny push through the rush, but not that night.
Your shoulders slumped in relief, and you ducked under the gap in the bar without much of a second thought, pushing your way through the people towards the door to the kitchen. There was a âbrokenâ stool by the door to the kitchen that was in fact not broken at all but had a sign taped to it that said it was specifically so it was open for when workers were on break. The seat provided some much needed relief for your aching feet and even more aching shoulders.
Shaking cocktails was really aggravating the bruises just beneath the button up wrapped around your shoulders, and you found yourself hurting almost twice as much as normal this shift. That mightâve been why you felt like you were moving in slow motion the whole time. That or the sheer number of people had simply made the task seem insurmountable.
You were just closing your eyes and leaning back against the wall when your phone in your pocket buzzed again.
It wasnât really a conscious decision to check it, more habit than anything else. And really, you hadnât expected it to be anything that bad. You hadnât heard from him all day.Â
But there it was. His name. His name a half a dozen times over the course of your shift. Each text progressively more urgent and pressing than the last.
âIâm still coming to pick you up from work.â
Bile rose up in your throat, and you suppressed the overwhelming urge to bolt. The room was suddenly too hot and too crowded, and there were too many faces. Faces you recognized and faces you didnât. A wash of faces that was the perfect place for him to hide, to wait, to lurk around for the opportune moment to reveal himself.
You couldnât do this, couldnât deal with this. Not here. Not now. Not in front of all these people. Not alone.Â
You did the first thing that came to mind.Â
It was stupid really. You couldnât explain why it occurred to you, why you acted on it so immediately, why you thought it was a good idea at all. It probably wasnât; it could just as easily have backfired in your face as anything else. But your gut told you it was what you should do. Really, your gut didnât so much tell you as wrench you in that direction with an undeniable force.Â
âHey can I talk to you for a sec?âÂ
Hangman was an easy man to find, even despite the crowd, strutting around the dart boards like he owned the place, which he very nearly did, rubbing the other pilots noses in his shots that were somehow better blindfolded than theirs were with sight.
You interrupted him boasting loudly to Fanboy and Payback about how he didnât even need to practice. Perfect marksmanship just came naturally to him. The rest of the pilots were all gathered at the high tops near the darts boards, mostly rolling their eyes. They were having some kind of tournament, or rather a competition to see if anyone could take Hangman down.Â
Payback seemed almost too happy for the interruption, but Fanboy was a bit more perceptive, at least at the moment. Fanboyâs eyes darted away to Phoenixâs table, and you saw the jerk of his head when he caught her eye. Funneling the female aviatorâs attention in the direction of what was unfolding.Â
You, wearing Hangmanâs shirt since he disappeared for half an hour earlier that day, asking to talk to him alone near the end of your shift. You knew exactly what it looked like.Â
âSure.â Hangmanâs tone was completely casual, not giving anything away, but when his back turned on his companions, his eyes were burning. You quickly looked away from his gaze and led him from the group.
âI wasnât checking my phone.â The words were tumbling out of your mouth the moment he was out of the othersâ earshot. You didnât even bite your tongue long enough to turn around. âHeâs been texting me my entire shift. He was supposed to be my ride home tonight, and I think he might show up soon.â
When you faced Hangman, you knew the panic in your voice and in your eyes was painfully obvious. Now that you were semi-alone with him, with someone who knew, there was no hiding how much it jarred you. Your hands fumbled with your phone trying to show him the flood of texts youâd gotten, unnoticed, over the last two hours.Â
Hangman didnât look down even as you turned the phone to show him. His jaw was already clenched; his expression was agitated, visibly angry. His eyes werenât looking at you or the phone. They were searching the faces in the crowd similar to the way yours had only moments before though far more thorough. The honed, trained eye of a military fighter pilot meticulously picked through the crowd for its target, finding nothing.Â
âCould youâŠâ You hesitated to ask. It was such a ridiculous request. Just yesterday, Hangman wouldâve been your absolute last choice to be in this position with; you wouldâve risked handling it alone before asking for his help. But here he was. The only one who knew. The first one you asked. âIâll give you a round on the house for it. I just⊠Would you mind giving me a ride home? I donât want to stumble on him alone.â
Hangman didnât hesitate or pull his eyes from where they continuously scanned the crowd, as if his gaze alone was enough to keep a threat at bay. âNo beers required, Hurricane.â The words seemed to be coming out of his mouth even as you offered. Like heâd already decided what he was going to do the minute you told him the problem. âWait here a sec? Iâll handle it.â
Hangman walked the short distance over to the bar, glancing back over his shoulder at you every few steps like he was making sure you hadnât disappeared, and flagged down Penny. Something on his face mustâve told her it was urgent because she forwent several regulars and big tippers demanding drinks to beeline towards him. He leaned over the bar and whispered something in her ear, gesturing back in your direction.Â
Penny looked concerned, and she nodded along with what Hangman was saying until he turned to leave.Â
âIf Penny asks,â Hangman put a hand on your shoulder, a firm grip holding you to his side as he led you through the throng of people towards the exit, âa guy was bothering you, and I drove you home cause you were scared of him.â
âNot entirely a lie,â You mumbled, shifting closer into Hangmanâs side.
No one tried to stop you. No hands reached out for you. No one called out your name. You made it through entirely unscathed. You could feel eyes on you, but they didnât raise the hairs on the back of your neck. You doubted, highly, that they were Devinâs. More likely, Hangmanâs squadron were watching him retreat from the bar with you under his arm without so much as a goodbye. More likely, they were plotting and planning the questions they were going to hound the two of you with the next time they saw you. More likely, Phoenix was pointing out to everyone that you were wearing Hangmanâs shirt.
â------
âDoes he have a key?â Hangman didnât break the silence until heâd turned onto your block, until heâd brought his truck to a slow crawl, looking for your tiny, inconsequential cookie cutter house in a row of tiny, inconsequential cookie cutter houses.Â
Yours was pretty much the only house without a Navy flag or Navy paraphernalia of some description sitting in the yard or stuck to a car in the driveway. The neighborhood was not far from the Hard Deck which was not far from the base, and the tiny houses geared towards first-time-buyers were crawling with Navy pilots and newlywed military couples who wanted to live offbase.
You were on the second sidestreet, the third house on the left. Hangman already knew the way without instruction. Penny had conned every Top Gun pilot with a car into driving you home at least a couple times. And while Hangman was usually the pilot she was least willing to ask, he was also the only one who was guaranteed to always be sober.Â
His question came out very sober. His usual lilting, teasing tone had dropped off somewhere today and never fully returned.Â
âHe did. He⊠he told me he lost it, butâŠâ You both knew better than to believe that.
Hangman pulled into your driveway and flicked the truck into park and turned it off. âTomorrow Iâll drive you to the hardware store, and weâll change the locks.â
âYou donât have toâŠâ
âDo you feel safe with him having a key?â Hangman cut you off. He was looking down at you with just a touch of condescension, so classically Hangman. Like he knew the answer already, like he knew you knew the answer already, and that you were silly if you pretended not to or refused him.Â
You knew where this was going, and you thought about lying, just to relieve Hangman of whatever false sense of duty or obligation he had imposed on himself by being the one to find you at the Hard Deck. But it was way too late. Hangman wasnât stupid, but he was incredibly, irritatingly stubborn. And heâd already set his mind to helping you through this. âNo.â
âThen tomorrow morning Iâll change the locks.â Hangman threw his door open and hopped out of the truck. It slammed closed behind him as he circled around to your side. You made to open your door, but Hangman beat you to it. âAlarm services are expensive,â He continued, offering you a hand, âbut they make door jammers that have sound alarms on them at least, and my sister bought some cheap window versions a while back that I could help install.âÂ
You took Hangmanâs hand and dumbly followed him up to your door as he rambled on about extra door locks and doorbell cameras. All options that you could pick up tomorrow for him to put in.Â
âThatâs too much effort,â You halfheartedly protested as you spun your keys around trying to find the one to your front door.Â
There really werenât that many keys. There were a couple to the Hard Deck, one to the shed where Penny kept beach supplies, and one to Devinâs place that you hadnât returned. They were all distinct shapes and colors, but you couldnât seem to focus long enough to find the plain silver key to your own door. Maybe because you knew there was another one, exactly like it, somewhere across town at that moment.  Â
âNot if it makes you feel safe.â Hangman leaned back against your door frame, his eyes skimming up and down your block as if he was still on alert in the crowded bar, still looking for signs of trouble, signs of him.Â
âWould youâŠâ Your words trailed off as you watched his darting eyes. The question came bubbling up before you could stop it, before you even really thought of it. It was less a question and more a response to his vigilance, to the thought that his vigilance might be warranted and necessary.Â
âWould IâŠ?â Hangman didnât let it go. His eyes turned to look at you.
You chewed at your bottom lip, debating if it was worth asking, debating if it was necessary.Â
He probably thought it was, if his mannerisms were any indication, if his talk about alarms was any indication, if walking you to your door and watching your back were any indication.Â
âWould you come in?â
Hangman raised a doubtful eyebrow, sure you didnât mean what those words usually meant.
âNot like that, itâs just⊠Youâre right. He probably still has a key, and if we canât fix it till the morningâŠâ
Understanding seemed to wash over his face, and Hangman kicked himself up off the door jam. âIf itâll help,â he immediately conceded. âIâll sleep on your couch.â
âItâŠâ You hesitated, but only for a moment. âI think it would.â
The silence inside your home was almost palpable. It was late enough that going to bed wouldnât have been awkward for either of you, but neither of you were tired. And neither of you seemed up to faking being tired just to get away.Â
Hangman sat on one end of the couch, and you sat on the other. At some point, you mustered the effort to turn on the tv. The local news was a quiet, bland drone of background noise cutting through the still air around the two of you.
You felt like you should say something. Maybe âshouldâ wasnât the right word; maybe you wanted to say something. But either way you didnât know where to begin.
You had only ever been alone with Hangman when he was dropping you off as a favor to Penny, times that were filled with snarky jokes and constant nagging from both of you, and earlier that day in the bar. You werenât close. You werenât friends. You were barely acquaintances. He was only here because he was in the right (or wrong, depending how you looked at it) place at the right time.
âThank you,â That seemed like a good place to start. âFor today, thank you.â
âYou have nothing to thank me for.â Hangman countered quickly. His eyes stayed on the tv, though they were clearly out of focus staring at the screen.Â
âI do though. You couldâve told everyone.â
âYou werenât ready for that.â He added it under his breath, countering without cutting you off.
âYou couldâve left me to finish out my shift.â
âNot with him coming to the bar.â
âYou couldâve left after you dropped me off.â
âHe has a key.â
âYou couldâve turned and walked out the door when you first saw me at the bar.â
Hangman let out a heavy sigh, not of annoyance or exasperation but a sigh weighed down with duty and concern. âNo, I couldnât.âÂ
Your eyes met his over the center of the couch, and a breath rushed out of your lungs under the intensity in his gaze.
â-------------------------------------
You woke up in your bed, mouth open, with more than a little drool pooling on your pillow.Â
You had no memory of falling asleep there, of getting into bed, of going to your room at all.Â
You remember being on the couch, talking to Hangman. You remembered the way his eyes, intense, open, and honest, compelled you to speak. The way you couldnât bite back the story pouring from your lips. The story of Devin asking you out, of falling for him in those early weeks, of how he changed after you committed to him. The story of what he did that night, of his buddies who sat back and did nothing, of the jokes you heard the three of them cracking as you ran from the room.
You remembered Hangman crossing the space between you and putting a hand on your arm, how cautious he was touching you, how much time he left you to pull away, how gentle his touch was against your skin. You remembered throwing yourself into his lap, sobbing into his shoulder as he held you against his chest and rubbed soothingly up and down your back, whispering promises that that asshole would never hurt you again.Â
You didnât remember anything after that. You mustâve fallen asleep in his lap.
Sitting up, you found the answer to your unasked question.
A folded piece of notebook paper sitting on the pillow next to you:
âThought the bed would be preferable to sharing the couch with me. If Iâm wrong and you wake up in the middle of the night and donât want to be alone, you can always wake me up. If not, Iâll have coffee ready for you in the morning. - Jake.â
As you read, his words the night before echoed in your head to the beat of a nonexistent drum as you read the note once, then twice, then a third time.
âNo, I couldnât.â
You carefully folded the paper up and tucked it in the top drawer of your bedside table.Â
True to his word, Hangman was wide awake, standing in your kitchen pouring himself a cup of coffee when you walked out of your room.Â
âH-Hi,â you stuttered.
Last night, in the comfort of darkness, with exhaustion clouding over your mind and his arms holding you close, it had seemed the most logical thing in the world to open up to Hangman. And with the light of day glinting through the windows, with him dressed in the button up heâd wrapped around you the day before, with him lounging back against your counter as he sipped from your favorite mug, with an overconfident air that was too comfortable for any normal personâs first time in your home⊠It was odd to think that feeling hadnât changed, that you still felt able to bare your soul to him, that you didnât feel a need to run back into your room and get changed or freshen up, that you were perfectly comfortable being seen by him like this, a tired quaking mess with puffy red eyes.
Part of you expected to walk out into your kitchen to an epiphany that youâd made a horrible mistake, that Hangman was exactly as much of a cocky asshole as you thought he was two days ago. But the epiphany never came.
âMorning,â Hangman took a sip of coffee and set the mug aside. He looked casual, at peace, like this was just another day, like heâd done this a million times. âIâm ready to go whenever you are. I found the toolbox in the bottom of your coat closet. Hope you donât mind. Weâll probably need a few things if weâre gonna do anything more than replace the locks.â
âY-Yeah,â You grabbed a mug off the drying rack and crossed the room to pour yourself a cup of coffee from the pot beside him, your shoulder brushing passed his as you poured. âSounds good.â
âHey.â Hangman seemed to immediately pick up that something was plaguing your mind. He didnât reach out for you like last night, quite the opposite. He took a step away and turned to face you, crossin his arms over his chest, âIf you want to be alone, Iâll head out. Iâll go to the store, pick up the locks, and change them myself. You can have time to yourself if you need it.âÂ
âNo,â You immediately countered his obvious misinterpretation of your mood. âI-I donât think I want to be alone. Iâm just⊠antsy I guess.âÂ
He didnât seem to fully buy it, but he let your excuse hang. âOkay then, weâll head out when youâre ready.â
â----------------------
All day, as Hangman worked around your house first changing the locks then installing alarms then fixing a window that wouldnât lock and then righting a wobbly chair leg that had absolutely nothing to do with your safety, neither of you mentioned the note he left or you crying in his arms or falling asleep on his lap or his quiet âNo, I couldnâtâ.
â--------------------------
You made a vow to yourself when Hangman finally left your house late Saturday afternoon. You were never going to ring up his card at the Hard Deck again. It couldnât really repay what heâd done for you, the feeling of safety heâd brought to you in what was probably your most vulnerable moment so far on this earth, but you knew he wouldnât want anything more showy. Hangman loved being the center of attention, but somehow you knew he wouldnât want attention for this.Â
True to your vow, the next Saturday evening, Hangman was on his third beer and had, unwittingly on his part, not paid a dime.
The Hard Deck was far less crowded that night. The graduating Top Gun candidates had all flown away, and only those currently stationed at the base, mostly Maverickâs squad, and some locals remained. A few dozen patrons milled around a room far larger than they needed with maybe a dozen pressed up to the bar. Most of the dozen fell under your responsibilities at the moment. Penny had, unintentionally, abandoned you not long before when Maverick had wandered in and taken up his usual stool.Â
Omaha and Halo, the first aviators to arrive, had claimed one of the pool tables early in the night, and the rest of the squad had started rotating through matchups. It appeared Fritz was on a hot streak, one that was no doubt about to end as his next opponent in line was Hangman.Â
All seemed right with the world. The constant buzz of voices, the crooning of the Goo Goo Dolls song that Bob had selected on the jukebox, the ready flow of beer to your usual patrons. Everything was fine.
Until the door opened one last time. Not that places of business ever âexpectedâ anyone because they hardly sent out invitations to come buy beer, but you really werenât expecting anyone else that night. All the regulars were already inside.
The door banging against the wall as it was flung open was enough to draw your surprised eyes up to the entryway.Â
Face lit by the sun setting over the beach through the windows on the opposite wall, he was unmistakable as he marched into view flanked by his two buddies. They immediately began scanning the room.Â
Your breath rushed out of your lungs, exhaling in a gust that you couldnât hold back any more than the wind.Â
No, no, no. He wasnât here. He couldnât be here. He couldnât confront you here. He couldnât corner you alone.
There was no time to think, no time to check with Penny if it was ok to leave your station, no time to get to the door or bolt out the back.Â
âIâll keep him out of the bar.â
It was your first instinct when you saw the text the weekend before, and it was your first instinct when you saw him that night.
âHurricane?â Penny called after you as, without so much as a word in her direction, you ducked under the gap in the bar and made a beeline for the pool tables.Â
You barely heard her, and if you did, it didnât register.Â
âJake,â his real name leaving your lips was enough to draw most of his coworkersâ attention, all those in earshot at least. You grabbed his arm the second he was within reach, inadvertently clawing his skin with your nails as you pulled him up from where he was hunched over the pool table lining up a shot.Â
Jake laughed and shrugged off your arm before he even turned around and saw who it was. âHey,â he rubbed at the red marks in his skin, âI was justâŠâÂ
The words died on his lips when he turned and saw the panic in your eyes. It was brimming up inside you, overflowing and choking you off from every other sensation except the desperation for Jake to understand.
He knew better than anyone that there was only one thing that could make you look like that, feel like that. His head jerked up immediately in the direction of the door, as if he could sense the direction of the impending doom.
You watched the lighthearted smirk that constantly plagued his lips fall away. You watched the light in his eyes cloud over in darkness. As his gaze went up over your shoulder to the door, where one of the three men with angry expressions and dark eyes spotted your back amongst the khaki uniforms and began moving.Â
Jakeâs arm twisted in your grip and grabbed you by the elbow, jerking you unceremoniously behind his back. There was no time for pleasantries, no time to be nice about whatever he was about to do.
âFanboy, stay with her.â Jake ordered over his shoulder to the nearest aviator. His gaze didnât waiver from the three men approaching, even as he issued commands. Â
Most of the aviators in Mavâs squad were scattered around the room. Mav was at the bar talking with Penny and Halo. Fanboy and Coyote had been watching Hangman school Fritz, who was being hyped up by Payback. Rooster was at a table not far from the pool game talking to a pretty girl. And Phoenix and Bob were half spectating from their perch by the jukebox discussing something that had gone wrong in a training run that afternoon.Â
Fanboy caught you and held you up as Jake pushed you in his direction. âWhatâs going on?â
Jake didnât answer. He side-stepped in front of you, half blocking you from view, and walked to the edge of the pool area. There was a buffer zone between himself and you. He was the first line of defense, and he was giving the second, Fanboy, room to react.Â
âYou fucking bitch!â If Fanboy didnât know what was going on before, he instantly caught on.Â
Fanboyâs arms tensed around yours. His back went rigged, as if a commanding officer had just called him to attention, and he curled away, pulling you back behind him and putting his body in front of you as a shield. Even with Fanboy hovering in the way, his body didnât hide Devinâs eyes. They sought you out around Jakeâs frame and over Fanboyâs shoulder; they found you huddled up behind the Navy uniforms and the fancy stars pinned to the pilots chests. No number of medals pinned to Jakeâs chest could stop the chill that ran down your spine in response to the venom in Devinâs tone. You wanted to look away, but the daggers in his gaze skewered you in place, held you hostage.Â
You wanted to curl up and hide, preferably behind Jake... Well, preferably in a home far away from there wrapped in heavy blankets with many deadbolts between you and Devin with Jake vigilantly standing guard at the door.Â
Devin tried to walk straight past Jake, like he didnât even see him. Jake wasnât having any of it.Â
A thick, muscular arm stuck out across the length of Devinâs shoulders as he tried to pass, holding him back.
Devin wasnât a very big guy. He was well toned, but he was no naval aviator. He was no Jake Seresin. Jake had about an inch on Devin, but his well built frame made up for their near identical height. Devin had never been one to hit the gym hard while Jake certainly was, and it showed. It showed in the way a single arm without so much as a brace didnât move even as Devin walked straight into it.Â
If the rest of the bar werenât looking when Devin shouted that you were a bitch, they certainly were when he glared up at Jake. âOut of the way you fucker!âÂ
Jake getting out of the way was about the last thing you wanted to happen, and Jake seemed disinclined to oblige either. His arm didnât move from where it blocked Devinâs path, even as Devin glowered up at him.
The staring match lasted only a moment before Devin, impatient as always, gave up and turned back to glaring at you. He shouted, unnecessarily loudly, across the minimal distance between the two of you, âYou changed the locks on me?âÂ
There was shuffling behind you and the sound of something clanging onto the pool table.Â
You couldnât bring yourself to turn your head away from Devin, couldnât look away, couldnât let him out of your sight. But there was the sound of footsteps as first Coyote, then Fritz, then Payback came into range in your peripheral vision.Â
None of them knew what this was about, but it didnât take a rocket scientist to figure out where this was going. And any idiot could tell whose side they would be on in a fight between Jake and Devin.Â
âShe didnât. I did.â Jake declared at a similarly loud volume, pulling Devinâs attention back on him, demanding Devin shift his focus off of you. âYou got a problem with that, you take it up with me.â
Devin took a step back, finally abandoning his futile attempt to confront you in favor of squaring up to Jake.Â
As Devin stepped back, the trio of pilots stepped forward. Fritz approached first, joining Fanboy in front of you. Payback followed after Fritz, lingering halfway between him and Jake, a bystander ready to step in if things got out of hand.
Coyote, however, had no questions about how any altercation would go down. His hand came down as he walked up behind Jake, slapping down reassuringly on Jake's shoulder to let him know he wasnât alone. Coyote flanked Jake at such a close distance that it made it impossibly clear that, if this turned into a fight, it would not be three on one.Â
It wouldnât even be three on two for that matter. Devinâs buddies, who had crossed the bar with him had hung back a few feet, giving Devin the space he wanted to scream at you or confront you or whatever else he had been planning before Jake intercepted. The duo found themselves with two bar tables between them and Devin. One of which was, ever so unfortunately for them, occupied by none other than Bradley Bradshaw and his drinking companion.Â
Devinâs friends would be forgiven for not realizing that they were offering up the chance to divide the group in half. Bradley, per usual, wasnât in his Navy uniform, and a guy in a faded Hawaiian shirt didnât exactly look intimidating. At least not while he was sitting down chatting up a pretty girl.
Seeing the escalation Coyote invited, and flashing his eyes to where you cowered behind his squadmates, Rooster got to his feet with a slow, lithe push off the table in front of him and turned his back on Devin. Not even bothering to give the belligerent asshole, currently one on two against Hangman and Coyote, the time of day, he turned his entire attention to the backup Devin brought with him.Â
Never in your life had you been scared of any of the naval aviators, but there was something especially intimidating about the incredibly casual way Bradley put himself alone in a fight against two men. His relaxed stance, completely unbothered by the numbers game he was playing. His head, cocking to one side to crack his neck, and then the other.Â
âYou the latest pilot sheâs spreading her legs for?â Devin snarled up at Jake, completely oblivious to what was going on behind him and unconcerned by Coyoteâs presence.Â
Jake was entirely unphased. His voice was calm and steady even as Devinâs got more and more red with each passing moment. âNo, but I am a friend. And if you have a problem with her youâre gonna have to go through meâŠâ Jake added as an afterthought, âAnd him,â jerking his head to Coyote.
âYou think sheâll fuck you if you play hero?â Devin spat out the word fuck as if the thought of you and sex in the same sentence disgusted him. âYou donât gotta try that hard to get her to spread.â
Jake shrugged and casually dismissed the comment. âThatâs really not my business or yours.âÂ
âShe is my business; thatâs my girl.âÂ
Devin jabbed a finger over Jakeâs shoulder in your direction without looking away from Jake, and you instinctively shrunk further back behind Fanboy. Until you felt the material between your fingers, you didnât even realize that your hand had reached up to fist the back of Fanboyâs uniform.Â
You didnât know, logically, why you were afraid. Whatever Jake was doing, he was doing a marvelous job of keeping Devinâs eyes off of you. You were absolutely certain that Devin would have to knock Jake out to get to you, not that he could even manage that. You were also absolutely certain that even if he did, heâd still have to make it through Rooster, Fanboy, Fritz, Payback, and Coyote, not to mention the dozen Navy guys from other squads currently spectating who would jump in to assist, or Penny or Mav. There was just something about his finger pointing at you, accusing you, that made that feeling of helplessness bubble up inside you again, that made you feel pinned, trapped under his hand.
âIâll do whatever I want with her.â
It was like Jake knew or could sense your growing bubble of fear. He leaned ever so slightly to one side, like he was simply shifting his weight from foot to foot, before standing back up straight in between Devinâs finger and you. Â
âNot anymore.â Jake declared firmly. âYouâre already about a mile closer to her than I want you to be.â
That declaration made Devinâs lips twist up into something akin to a smirk. âIâve been a lot closer to her than this.â
Jakeâs shoulders tensed, and for the first time it seemed like Devin got to him. âI know exactly how close you got.â His voice darkened, and you could practically picture the look in his eyes, practically knew it by heart from the night you told him what Devin had done. âWhere Iâm from, we donât treat women like that.â
Devin laughed humorously, heading tilting back to let the single tone ring out in the air. âWell we arenât where youâre from. Thatâs my girl, and Iâll do what I want with her.â
You shivered involuntarily, like someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of your shirt. It sent a chill through you to think of Devin alone with you, doing what he wanted with you. You remembered what he did the last time he had that power over you. You couldnât let it happen again.
âNo,â It took a moment to register that Jake was the one snarling, not Devin, not even you. The word came out in a hiss between his teeth. âYouâll do what she wants. And right now she doesnât want you here.âÂ
For whatever reason, Devin was getting to Jake. The unshakeable, unflappable Jake Seresin was rising to a rolling boil under the surface of his skin, and there was nothing he could do to hide it. From the tone of his voice to the tension in his shoulders, to the way his fingers twitched in and out of a fist, Devin and what he was saying was under Jakeâs skin.
Devin saw it; you could tell. You couldnât see his eyes around the bodies between the two of you, but you saw his posture change, his stance open up and his chest puff out. He leaned in and sneered, âShe needed to be put in her place. She looks better roughed up anyway.â
You felt their eyes on you. The squad. The whole bar. None of them were actually looking at you. None of their heads turned, but you knew every one of them was staring at an image of you in their minds. Maybe they all figured it out before. Maybe they knew when Devin walked in or when Jake escorted you home. Or maybe they didnât know anything at all, but either way Devin just gave them confirmation.
Payback was no longer content to play the bystander. His shoes clicked on the floor, echoing in the silence that existed throughout the bar as Jake and Devin sparred. He flanked Jakeâs other side, shoulder to shoulder with him as Coyote had been since the confrontation began.Â
Coyote didnât move an inch except for the hand at his side that clenched into a fist.Â
Jake took a step closer. But for the inch of height difference, he stood nose to nose with Devin as he said, âWhere Iâm from, a man lays his hands on a woman, and you take him out back and put one between his eyes.â
Devin pushed up, mustâve stood on his tiptoes to do it, to close the gap with Jake, to put himself on the same level as the pilot. âSheâs mine, you fucker.â Flecks of spit, visible even at your distance, splattered against Jakeâs cheek. âGet the fuck out of the way.âÂ
Devinâs hands came up and shoved Jake in both shoulders, hard.
Jakeâs shoulders didnât give an inch. His feet didnât budge. His posture didnât change.Â
Jakeâs voice dropped low, so low you barely heard it. If a single soul in the bar had been focused on anything other than the confrontation at hand, if the jukebox hadnât run to the end of its queue of songs and left the bar in silence, if any more distance had been between the two of you, you wouldnât have heard the rough, guttural retort from somewhere deep inside Jakeâs chest, âYouâre really, really gonna have to make me.â
Without warning, Devin swung.
He was standing too close to Jake, almost chest to chest with the taller aviator. There was no good angle from which to strike, and his arm took a wide arc away from his body to get the necessary momentum and distance to hit at Jake with any force.
It was like it moved in slow motion, Jakeâs head turned, his eyes following the direction of the swing as it approached his face.
You gasped and clung tighter to Fanboy, who blindly reached back to clutch your arm, pulling you in closer to him.
The fear, entirely for Jake, was also entirely unnecessary.
Jakeâs head leaned to one side and effortlessly avoided the blow. Devin stumbled a couple steps to the side as his momentum carried him past Jake.
It gave Jake the space he needed to counter, not with a wide, slow hook around to the side of Devinâs face, but with a swift, firm uppercut to his jaw.
The connection sent a crack echoing through the bar, and Devinâs entire body went slack before he even hit the floor.
Coyote caught his arm before he could collapse, not that it did Devin any good to be under Coyoteâs care instead of Jakeâs. Coyoteâs grip was so tight on Devinâs upper arm that you were sure it would bruise not just the skin but the muscles underneath.
Jake bent down over the other man and bent a finger up under his jaw. Devinâs head tipped up into Jakeâs face without any protest and fell back to bob loosely to one side the moment Jake wasnât supporting him any more.
âHeâll be out cold for a while.â Jake declared, glancing up to give Coyote a nod.
Coyote dropped his grip on Devin and let him crumple unceremoniously to the floor.
âNow,â Jake left Coyote to deal with Devin, stepping over the unconscious body on the floor as one might step over a puddle in the street. He ambled over to Rooster, whose presence had been more than enough to hold off Devinâs two buddies for the brief ten seconds of fighting, if it could even be categorized as a fight.
âAre you two,â Jake wagged a finger between Devinâs two friends as he came shoulder to shoulder with Rooster, âthe ones she told me helped him out last week? Cause I gotta bone to pick with them too?â
âNo, we didnât!â The shorter of the two declared loudly. âLook, we donât want any trouble.â
Jakeâs head turned to glance back over his shoulder, and for the first time since Devin confronted you, you made eye contact with Jake.
His eyes were hard, cold, unfeeling. He wasnât angry anymore. He wasnât upset or worried or fearful or any of the other emotions you felt warring inside of you. The mask was back on, the unflappable exterior that only you had seen beneath before tonight. He wasnât waiting for them; he was waiting for you. A good soldier, waiting for his orders.
Imperceptibly to everyone but Jake who was watching you like a hawk, you shook your head. This had gone on long enough already tonight. You just wanted it to be over.
âWell then,â Jake turned back to the two friends in tow. âWhy donât you take your buddy and get out of here?â Jake stepped close, towering over the shorter one as he added, âTell him if he comes back round here to bother her again; I will spend the rest of my life making sure heâs too afraid to even look at another woman.â
Beside Jake, Rooster began casually cracking the knuckles of his fist one by one, presumably for emphasis.
There was a dull thud that drew the quad of menâs attention back towards Devin.
Payback was squatting over the unconscious man. Heâd seemingly been rooting through the other manâs pockets. The sound of his wallet dropping back onto Devinâs back was the noise that drew the menâs eyes and everyone elseâs watching as a result.
Payback was waving a credit card in the air in Jakeâs general direction.
âGood idea,â Jake wandered over and snatched up the card. âCall it payback for disturbing the bar tonight.â Jakeâs teasing smirk was back as he used Paybackâs callsign. He abandoned the group to amble back towards Penny at the bar, and his absence seemed to break the tension.
The patrons, scattered around, all began slowly turning back to their tables. The conversation was quieter, hushed whispers that were no doubt mostly about the fight theyâd just watched ensue, but their eyes seemed to have drank in their fill of the scene.
Under the watchful eye of Rooster, with Coyote and Payback standing by, Devinâs two friends draped their friend unceremoniously across their shoulders. Despite the struggle they were clearly having, not a soul offered to help as they stumbled under his weight out of the bar.
âI hope they have to drag him to the car.â
You jumped and turned your head to find that at some point in the chaos Phoenix and Bob had come up on the other side of the pool table as a last line of defense.
âPlease, I hope they faceplant in the gravel.â
You let out a humorous laugh at Phoenixâs comment as your body finally slumped under the weight of the evening, resting back against the pool table with a huff of air.
âAre youâŠâ
âFritz, if you ask me if Iâm okay, I will walk out of this bar right now.â You held up a finger to silence him.
You were not okay. You would be okay, one day; you knew that much. But that day was not today.
In the distance, like you were hearing an echo from the other end of a long tunnel, you registered the bell ringing for a free round. Your vision was tunneling too, but you could make out Jake was leaning across the bar, ringing the bell himself as he slammed Devinâs card on the bar in front of Penny.
Maverick, always present in front of Pennyâs bar, slapped him on the back and whispered something in his ear, but Jake seemed, for once, thoroughly uninterested in his commanding officer.
His eyes, you thought, appeared to be focused on you. He left the bar before he even got his own free drink and headed straight back towards the pool tables.
Coyote and Rooster tried to talk to him, but he brushed him off. By the time he reached Fanboy, still awkwardly hovering in front of you, his destination was clear, and Fanboy slid right out of his way.
âCome on,â Jake held out a hand to you. âPenny wonât mind if you donât finish out your shift.â
It wasnât a tunnel you were looking through now so much as a camera, the lens zooming in and zooming out, narrowing and expanding your field of vision around Jake.
Jake, the only thing in the world right now that felt safe, that felt ok.
You numbly, clumsily, flung your hand out to grasp his, and as his fingers laced through yours you thought you might have a different answer to Fritzâs question, not that youâd ever voice it.
âââââââââââââ
âThank you.â
It was about an hour after you and Jake had left the bar.
Heâd walked you out the back door of the Hard Deck and down the beach for the better part of half an hour before the two of you wordlessly agreed to find a comfortable spot to sit down in the sand.
The silence had been more comfortable than you ever thought silence with Jake could be. Every time heâd driven you home from the Hard Deck, heâd felt the need to fill every available moment with some kind of noise, compulsively turning up the volume on the radio or making snarky, sarcastic commentary about anything that passed by the window. Silence was not Jake Seresinâs forte.
Yet the silence between the two of you had felt like a comforting blanket, wrapping you in understanding. He already knew what happened between you and Devin; the hard part of that explanation was over. He already knew why Devin was there that night, what must have prompted him to show up, what he was hinting at in front of the whole bar. He knew nothing else about you, but he knew this, knew every detail of the most painful moment of your life, and he accepted it without question, gave you what you needed without question, helped you without question.
âYou donât have to thank me for doing the right thing for once in my life, Hurricane.â Jake murmured. âItâs a nice change of pace.â
You wished you could deny that, say that Jake was a great guy, say that he always did the right thing or that he was a good man. But the truth was he often wasnât. He was flawed, deeply so, rude when it was uncalled for, inappropriate when the moment was serious, lewd when he should have been respectful, confrontational when he should have been kind. He was as flawed as any other human being, maybe more so.
But when you needed him he was there. When no one else was there, he was there. And that, to you, forgave any multitude of sins.
âWhat did Mav say to you when you left?â
âWhat?â Jake did a quick double take, looking down at you beside him. âOh,â He chuckled to himself. âHe said, âGood man, no push-ups tomorrow when I shoot you down.ââ
âWell,â you smiled, âI owe you a lot more than a few push ups.â
âYou owe me nothing.â
You squeezed his hand, his fingers which had been laced in yours since he led you out of the Hard Deck, âHow about a second chance? If I remember correctly we didnât get off to the best start.â
Jake smirked, âNot a chance am I starting over. Youâre still my Hurricane.â
Re-stumbled upon this masterpiece and I am reminded of just how GOODD this read is! oh my goodness gracious me the whole squad just pulling up no questions is the freaking hottest thing ever
