repair boy (enoch o'connor x fem!reader)
synopsis: he's abusive, but what else is there?
warnings: dead dove do not eat, psychological manipulation, bullying and sustained emotional abuse, physical harm and non-consensual physical contact, stalking behavior, non-consensual physical aggression, gaslighting, emotional distress, anxiety, dark psychological tension.
The first thing you learn about the house is that it breathes.
Not literally. No one else seems to notice, but you feel it. In the walls, in the floorboards beneath your feet, in the way every morning resets like nothing ever happened. Like you never arrived.
Like you don’t matter yet.
Miss Peregrine tells you it’s for your safety. The bomb, the loop, the war pressing in just outside the edges of this strange, preserved day. Everyone nods like it’s normal.
You don’t know what you are.
Everyone else has something...floating, fire, strength, bees, dreams. Even the quiet ones have something tucked beneath their skin, something useful. Something that makes them belong.
A look across the dining table. A curl of his lip when you speak. A muttered comment just quiet enough that no one else reacts.
“Waste of space,” he says one afternoon, stabbing at his food.
You freeze. No one else does.
Olive laughs at something Bronwyn says. Hugh hums. Claire swings her legs under the table.
You swallow hard and keep eating.
A tug on your hair as you pass behind his chair...sharp, sudden, enough to sting your scalp.
You gasp, whipping around.
He doesn’t even look at you.
“Something wrong?” he asks mildly, glancing up a second later like he’s bored.
He smiles, just a little.
He’s always there. In the hallways, in the garden, in the corners of rooms where the light doesn’t quite reach. Watching.
You begin to feel it before it happens...the shift in the air when he’s close, the way your shoulders tense without meaning to.
One evening, in the kitchen, you reach for a fork.
His hand closes around your wrist.
You suck in a breath. “Let go.”
The others are there. Milling, talking, unaware. Invisible to this moment.
He presses the fork—fresh from the stove, still warm—against the inside of your arm.
You flinch, biting back a cry as heat blooms against your skin.
“There,” he murmurs, almost thoughtful. “Now you’ll remember.”
Your vision blurs. “Why are you doing this?”
His grip tightens for just a second before he lets go.
He walks away like nothing happened.
That seems to amuse him less.
He wants something from you. A reaction. A break.
And you refuse to give it.
Days...loops...blur together. The same morning, the same meals, the same quiet cruelty that no one else sees. You start to wonder if maybe this is your peculiarity.
Being hurt without proof.
You’re not supposed to be out of your room after lights out. Miss Peregrine is very clear about that.
But the walls feel too close. The air too thin.
The garden is silvered in moonlight, damp with the memory of rain that will fall again tomorrow. Always tomorrow. Always the same.
You make it to the far edge, near the hedges, before it hits you.
The confusion. The loneliness. The quiet, gnawing fear that you don’t belong here, that you never will, that maybe you don’t even deserve to.
A sound tears out of you...raw and ugly, nothing like the quiet composure you’ve been forcing. You drop to your knees in the grass, hands clutching at yourself like you can hold the pieces together.
“I don’t know what I am,” you sob into the dark. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be—”
Your voice cracks, dissolves.
The question hangs there, unanswered.
For a moment, there’s only your crying. The wind. The distant echo of waves.
Slowly, you lift your head.
Enoch stands a few feet away, half-shadowed, hands shoved into his pockets like he’s been there the whole time.
“Go away,” you choke. “Please- just go away.”
“I didn’t realize you’d break this easily,” he says, but it’s…off.
You laugh, wet and bitter. “You’ve been hurting me for days.”
“Everyone gets hurt,” he shrugs.
You drag your hand over your face, trying to wipe away the tears, but they keep coming. “I didn’t do anything to you.”
He’s watching you differently now. Not with that usual cold amusement, but something unsettled. Like he’s seeing something he didn’t expect.
It’s small, almost imperceptible. But it’s there.
“I thought…” He trails off, jaw tightening. “I thought if you had something, it would show by now.”
Your brow furrows. “What?”
“Pain does that,” he says. “Pushes it out. Whatever makes you…you.”
You stare at him, horrified. “So you’ve just been...testing me?”
For a second, he looks younger. Not the strange, hardened boy he pretends to be...but someone unsure. Someone who doesn’t quite understand the line he crossed.
“It usually works,” he mutters.
Your chest aches. “I’m not one of your experiments.”
“I know that,” he snaps...too fast.
The wind shifts, carrying the scent of damp earth and salt. You shiver, suddenly aware of how cold you are.
His gaze drops to your arms. The faint marks, the places he’s grabbed, burned, bruised.
Something in his expression twists.
“…I didn’t think you’d cry,” he says finally.
You let out a hollow laugh. “What did you think I’d do?”
That lands. He exhales slowly, running a hand through his hair. For once, he doesn’t have something clever to say.
“I hate things that don’t make sense,” he admits, his voice dropped to something quieter. “Everyone here has a purpose. A function. Even if it’s strange.” His eyes flick back to you. “You don’t.”
The words sting, but not the way the fork did. Not the way his hands did.
“I know,” you whisper. “That’s the problem.”
Your voice breaks again, softer this time. Tired.
Something in him flinches.
“No,” he says, almost to himself. “That’s not…”
He stops. You watch him. You're confused and hurt...just waiting.
Enoch shifts his weight, restless. Like he wants to leave, but can’t.
“I didn’t mean—” he starts, then cuts himself off, frustrated.
Then, awkwardly, stiffly, he shrugs off his coat and holds it out to you.
“You’re cold,” he mutters, not meeting your eyes. “Take it.”
This is the same boy who burned you. Who pulled your hair. Who made you feel small and invisible.
Now he’s standing there, arm outstretched, like he doesn’t know what else to do.
He looks…relieved. Just for a second.
Then his usual mask slips back into place, not quite as sharp as before.
“You should go back inside,” he says. “Miss Peregrine will notice.”
You nod, pulling the coat tighter around yourself.
You start to stand, legs shaky.
“I still don’t understand why you did it,” you say softly. “But…please don’t do it again.”
That almost makes it worse.
But it’s the closest thing he knows how to give.
You turn and walk back toward the house, the garden quiet behind you.
Enoch stays where he is...watching.
And for the first time since you arrived...
He doesn’t feel in control of it anymore.
The next morning resets like nothing ever happened.
The same light spills through the windows. The same breakfast waits on the table. The same voices fill the air, soft and familiar to everyone but you.
And him. You feel it before you even see him.
Your fingers tighten around your cup as he walks in, already watching you. Not openly...he never does...but it’s there. That awareness. That quiet sharp focus.
Last night lingers in your chest.
The garden. The crying. His coat.
For a moment, something fragile in you hopes.
“Don’t look so hopeful,” he says under his breath as he passes behind you.
“You were,” he cuts in, low enough that no one else reacts. “It’s pathetic.”
The words hit harder than anything he’s done before.
Because for a second, you believed him.
At first, it’s subtle again, like he’s reminding himself how to do it. A brush of his shoulder too hard against yours. A whisper in your ear that makes your skin crawl.
“You thought one cry would fix it?”
You stop responding...that used to bore him.
Now it doesn’t. Now it just irritates him.
It happens in the workshop.
You shouldn’t be there. Everyone knows that. It’s his space...dark, cluttered, filled with things that twitch when they shouldn’t.
But you’re looking for something. Anything to make yourself useful. To be something.
You don’t hear him come in. You only feel the door slam shut behind you.
Your whole body goes rigid.
“Still don’t know when to stay out of places you don’t belong,” he says.
You turn slowly. “I was just—”
“Existing?” he mocks. “Yes, I’ve noticed.”
That flicker of hurt...and he sees it.
And something in him snaps back into place.
His jaw tightens. “I said—”
The defiance surprises both of you.
The room goes very still.
Enoch steps closer, slow, deliberate. “You don’t get to choose when to listen.”
“I’m not one of your...your things,” you say, voice shaking. “You don’t get to—”
His hand lashes out, grabbing your chin, forcing your face up.
“Don’t,” he says quietly, dangerously. “Finish that sentence.”
His grip isn’t hard enough to bruise.
“You think last night changed something?” he continues, eyes searching yours like he’s trying to prove a point to you or himself, you can’t tell. “You think I suddenly care?”
Your silence answers for you.
You stumble into the worktable, something metal clattering to the floor.
“I was curious,” he snaps. “That’s all. You broke, I observed, and now we’re done.”
The words are clinical like you imagined everything else.
If it was just cruelty, it would be simple. You could hate him. You should hate him. But now there’s something messy under it.
One moment, he’s worse than before.
You start noticing it in the smallest ways. The way his hand lingers in the air a second too long before grabbing you. The way his insults come sharper, like he’s trying to drown something out. The way he watches you when you don’t see him.
Or when he thinks you don’t.
You stop keeping track. And then it happens again....you’re in the garden.
Not crying this time. Just…sitting.
The night air is cool, the same as always. The same wind, the same distant sea. It should feel repetitive but it doesn't.
You don’t hear him approach.
You don’t look at him. “Doing what?”
Silence stretches but he doesn’t leave.
After a moment, you speak, softer. “Why are you here?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
When he does, it’s quieter than you’ve ever heard him.
“I wanted to see if you’d cry again.”
“…I’m not going to give you that.”
He’s looking at you...not like before. Not like prey, or a puzzle.
Like something he doesn’t understand.
Something that’s gotten under his skin.
“You’re still here,” he says.
The words are strange. Flat. Almost confused.
His mouth presses into a thin line.
You shake your head, looking away again. “You’re cruel for no reason.”
“I don’t like things I can’t figure out,” he says.
Your brows knit together. “So you hurt them?”
It’s so immediate. It knocks the breath out of you.
You let out a shaky exhale, hugging his coat tighter around yourself. You haven’t given it back. He hasn’t asked.
“I’m not something for you to figure out,” you whisper.
His gaze flicks to the coat then back to your face.
But he doesn’t sound convinced.
The relapse comes the next day.
He’s trying to erase everything that’s been building.
It’s in the hallway this time... it's empty and quiet...no one around. He corners you before you can slip past.
“You’re getting comfortable,” he says.
His hand tangles in your hair, yanking your head back.
A sharp cry escapes you before you can stop it.
“There it is,” he murmurs, almost relieved. “I was wondering where that went.”
Your hands grip his wrist. “Stop—!”
“Why?” he snaps suddenly, something cracking through his voice. “So you can sit out there and look at me like I’m something broken?”
And then it falters...just for a second.
You feel it. Something flickers in his eyes. Not anger. Not cruelty. But fear...and it’s gone just as quickly.
He shoves you away like he’s burned.
“Stay out of my way,” he says, voice flat again. “I mean it.”
He turns and walks off before you can say anything.
Before he can say anything else.
That night, you don’t go to the garden.
Curled in on yourself, staring at nothing.
And for the first time, he notices your absence.
He doesn’t come to you, not just yet. He just paces.
He's restless and irritated. Unsettled in a way he can’t fix. Because hurting you didn’t make it go away. It made it worse.
That look on your face...
It was…tired. And the feeling lingered, the look on your face had been replaying inside his head.
And for someone like Enoch...that’s unbearable.
He tells himself he’ll stop, be doesn’t...not immediately.
Change doesn’t come clean. It comes ugly. With far more damage in between.
But something has shifted now. Something he can’t quite put back where it was. And the next time he reaches for you...
Not long....and eventually...
It will cost him everything if he doesn’t figure out what to do with it.
The house is never truly quiet.
Even in the loops, especially in the loops, there is always something breathing under the surface of it. A creak in the walls, a distant shifting of wood that remembers every version of itself. You’ve started sleeping lightly, not because you want to but because you have to. Something in you expects it now. The pressure of being watched. The feeling that if you close your eyes too long, you’ll miss the moment it starts again.
You dream anyway, not peaceful ones, never peaceful.
The first thing you notice is the cold.
It seeps into your room like a mistake in reality, like the house has briefly forgotten how to hold warmth. Your eyes flutter open into darkness, into stillness, and then into a shape at the foot of your bed.
Your body locks before your mind catches up.
“Don’t scream,” a voice says softly.
You scramble backward, hitting the headboard hard enough to sting. Your breath tears out of you in sharp, panicked bursts as your eyes adjust and you see him more clearly.
Sitting there like he belongs. Like this is normal.
“What are you doing in here?” you choke out.
He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he tilts his head slightly, studying you like you’re something he left unfinished.
“I wanted to see if you sleep the same,” he says at last.
Your stomach twists. “Get out.”
That single word is calm. Final.
You reach for the lamp beside your bed, fumbling, hands shaking. He doesn’t stop you. Doesn’t even move. Just watches.
And there he is, fully visible now. Pale in the yellow glow. Dark circles under his eyes. Hair slightly disheveled like he hasn’t been sleeping either, like he’s been doing this more than once.
Your throat tightens. “How did you even—Miss Peregrine—”
“She doesn’t check your window,” he interrupts mildly.
Something cold settles in your chest.
“You’ve been coming here,” you whisper.
He shrugs. Not a denial, not an admission either. Just indifference.
You press yourself further back. “Why?”
A pause. Long enough that it starts to feel like he’s not going to answer at all.
Then, “Because you change when you’re asleep.”
Your breath stutters. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
He leans forward slightly, and you flinch instantly.
That reaction, your fear, makes something flicker in his expression. Not satisfaction. Not cruelty. Focus. Like he’s collecting data. Like you’re not a person in front of him, but a problem he hasn’t solved yet.
“I don’t do anything,” you say quickly. “I’m just asleep.”
“That’s what I thought,” he replies.
The way he says it makes your skin crawl.
Like he’s already decided you’re wrong.
It’s not graceful. It’s not calculated. It’s pure panic.
Your palm connects with his face, sharp and loud in the small room. The sound cracks through the air.
He turns his head slightly with the force of it, then stills. Everything in the room seems to pause with him.
Your hand is still raised, shaking.
“I told you to get out,” you whisper, voice breaking.
He touches his cheek slowly, not reacting like someone hurt, but like someone recalibrating.
Then he looks back at you.
For the first time, there’s something unstable in his expression. Not anger. Not even irritation. Something worse.
“…You hit me,” he says quietly.
“Yes,” you snap, tears burning your eyes now. “Because you’re in my room.”
He stares at you for a long moment, then leans back slightly as if reconsidering the entire situation, like he didn’t expect that variable.
“I didn’t think you would wake up,” he says finally.
That makes your blood run colder than anything else.
His eyes flick to your face again, steady, clinical, wrong in a way you can’t name fast enough.
“I thought it would be easier to see you like this,” he adds.
Your voice comes out small. “Like what?”
The word hangs there, heavy and uncomfortable, like it doesn’t belong in your room. Like it doesn’t belong in you.
You don’t notice when he stands. Only that he does.
The space between you shifts immediately, too close again even without him touching you. You flinch harder this time. He notices that too, and something tightens in his jaw.
“You should lock your window,” he says abruptly.
Your laugh comes out broken. “You think that fixes this?”
Then, quieter, “But it makes it harder.”
He turns toward the window, stops, and looks back at you one last time. Not soft, not kind, just staring like he’s memorizing something he shouldn’t care about.
Then he leaves the way he came.
Like he was never there. The unsettling feeling stays though, and so does the certainty that whatever this is, it’s getting worse. Not better.
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