HAWKLINES - a Stranger Things based OC - Dottie Kline, daughter of disgraced former Mayor Larry Kline.
a study in: the sins of the father, poor little rich girl, taking back one's own name, the unwanted daughter instead of a son, the societal pressures of being a politician's daughter, the adaptability of an only child, the father as a child's first bully, and the need to atone for the sins of a parent.
written by Liesl (30s, she/her), indie, blog 21+ due to the themes of the show.
mobile rules & about below the cut | headcanon tag | headcanon masterlist
RULES
hi! I’m Liesl, and I’m over 30.
-please don’t follow me if you’re a minor
-because we should all be adults here, I feel like most rules should be just…be adults, we’re all here partaking in the same hobby.
-I’m not affiliated with the canon(s) for any of my muses.
-I usually consider memes to be one-shot responses; if you want to continue a meme, that’s fine! (I just tend to find myself getting overwhelmed if I assume that all/most memes will continue into threads.)
-I'm not mutuals only, because there are some fandoms I prefer not to have on my dash. for blogs that are mutuals only, if I follow you first and you haven’t followed back within a week while you’re active, I’ll assume you don’t want to interact (which is fine!) and I’ll unfollow so that I don’t accidentally send you something. If you choose to follow me at a later date, that’s fine too and I’ll just re-follow.
-If you follow me first, please give me a few days to decide if I’m going to follow back before you unfollow me. I work full time, and volunteer coach an undergrad academic organization, and I like to make sure to read your pages, so that I can respect your rules and can know your muse(s). I also am quicker to make time to look through your pages if you give me some sort of indication that you want to interact with me (sending a meme/message/etc).
-the only Billy that I write with/follow is dealtgod's Billy, because of how extensively we've plotted and how important dealtgod's Billy is to Dottie; when Billy is mentioned here, it's probably dealtgod's Billy specifically.
-for shipping: I’m multi-ship, and will only ship with blogs whose muns are over 21.
ABOUT
Born in 1967 to Larry and Winnie Kline, Dorothy "Dottie" Kline was a disappointment to her father from the moment she didn't come out Larry Jr. Neither of her parents had really wanted children beyond how having an adorable little mini-me to parade around would advance Larry's image in politics, and Dottie spent more time being raised by her nanny than her actual parents.
By the time she turned thirteen, Dottie had gotten used to her father's pendulum of an attitude towards her (proud, charming father in public, but never once the cameras went away), and by the time she was in high school, she stopped trying so hard to be daddy's perfect girl and just tried to figure out who she wanted to be. She'd never be good enough for him, but at least if he was mad at her he was paying attention, right?
Her world turned upside down after the disaster at Starcourt Mall, and her father's corruption was exposed. Dottie had known her father wasn't a good person, but the depth of his corruption was a shock. People who were her friends one day wanted nothing to do with her the next. Feeling an enormous sense of guilt for all the pain her father had caused, Dottie put her focus on trying to figure out something -- anything -- she could do to make things right.
The cogs in his mind were churning, trying to compile all this information into a useful hypothesis, though it was too early to get anything solid. All he knew right off the bat was that it had to be tied to what happened the year before. Had to. This odd shit was happening almost a full year after Will disappeared, and it had gotten Hopper's attention for a reason. Poison couldn't do this, not unless a plane had come down and dumped it all over the area while flying through.
There hadn't been any crop planes around.
“Almost like something is breaking it down from the inside, and the rot is... seeping out to cover the surface,” he mutters, primarily to himself but also in an attempt to answer her question. A hand comes up to swat at bugs that were beginning to fly off the trunk; they were feasting on this stuff. “I know you wanna get out of here, but I need to track the direction this is going. Flags should make it easy enough.”
Using his flashlight to point out the path of flags, he starts to move deeper into the woods. “Just give me a little longer, yeah?”
She had been hoping that he'd opt to agree that they should get out of there, but no such luck. And she's not just going to abandon him out here (she is no chicken, Dottie keeps reminding herself), but she can't be blamed if she gives another little glance around them just to make sure there's nothing too creepy out there about to jump out or something. Or to make sure Hopper's not about to show up between the trees and rip them a new one for being out here where they're definitely not supposed to be.
"What, exactly, are you hoping to figure out from this that the cops didn't?" Dottie can't help but ask -- not because she's doubting his powers of observation, exactly, but more because it's not like this gooey shit looks like anything she's ever seen before, and certainly not like anything that she thinks is identifiable in any meaningful way, especially not by someone who isn't some sort of plant-poison-rot-goo expert.
"Fine," she agrees, following along deeper into the woods, "But if Bigfoot shows up or whatever, I'm ditching your ass so fast..."
I don't think she'd ever admit it out loud, but one of Dottie's deepest insecurities that she'd shoved inside a tiny box, locked that box inside a bigger box, and tried to stamp down to pretend it doesn't exist because it feels trivial in a way that makes her embarrassed to even think about it being a legitimate insecurity is wondering why anyone should ever actually want her, when her parents -- who are supposed to be biologically programmed to love her -- don't.
but she'd never say it out loud. most of the time she doesn't even think it, because most of the time she knows she's a good person and a good friend and there are lots of great reasons for people to like her.
Max's stomach growls, and it's embarrassing. A liability. Like. Do not get crumbs on the floor, Max. Do not spill your drink, Max. Do not leave a trace, Max. And yet, she went running down the hall with a PB&J one day, the one she made right when Neil pulled up to the house, but not before Billy got into the kitchen first. She doesn't remember how Billy got into the kitchen so fast. Just one second he was in the other room, lifting weights. Neil's car door slammed shut, and then Billy was there. In the kitchen. Standing in front of her. Her guardian. Her keeper. (Which is such bullshit because Max didn't want a keeper; she wanted a brother. Maybe they are one in the same. Billy is both. No, was. No, is. Shit. Billy get up!)
She remembers how her stomach hurt when Neil came into the kitchen. Hunger and fear are two different things, and yet they are the same in the Hargrove house. Neil's asking Billy if he's just gonna let her spoil her dinner. Max knows when she's a stranger in her own house, and anyway, Max always runs. Billy always plants his feet. Stands there, unyielding. (Billy, get up please. Get up. Billy, please, get up!) So she does what she does best and gets the hell out, dripping jelly on the carpet with her usual runaway tactics. Neil didn't like that. He started yelling Billy's name. And then the PB&J didn't taste so good. So, she scoots closer to Dottie, like a coconspirator. Like that will help. Two hands in the cookie jar, two hands to take whatever bad thing comes with,
"Okay, we'll share. That's good." She shrugs her shoulder, mostly to shrug off the things that haunt her. She rests her skateboard by the front door. Max is quiet, follows Dottie into a kitchen, pretty in pink. Well, pretty if pink's your color, which for Max, it most decidedly is not. "Wow, this is..." She struggles to find the words. Scrunches her nose. "...Really pink." It comes out sarcastic, like Max kinda can't believe it. Maybe because she's got a gut feeling that the color doesn't make this place any more homey than the muted colors of the trailer that awaits her.
"You want any help?" She asks, kinda swinging her arms in a gesture that says she's not sure what to do with them. It's not the question Max wants to ask. Like she wants to ask Dottie a lot. Like if she's sad, too. And sad doesn't cover it all, like it just doesn't. But it would be a start. Max just isn't good at this. She sort of beats around the bush, talks in code. But curiosity starts to get the better of her, and she's lifting a brow. Watching Dottie drum her fingers on the table like Billy used to drum his fingers on the wheel of the Camaro.
"Nice choice," Max says, and means it. She sits heavy in the lyrics of "The Big Sky" for a second. The part about not being understood. The only problem is the big sky isn't full of the golden colors of a San Diego sunset. It's dark now. Ominous. "You used to drive around with Billy a lot, didn't you?" Max blurts it out, immediately regrets it. She looks down, away. Doesn't know how to recover because her favorite song is about him, too. But Dottie's asking because Max asked first, so,
"Mine's 'Runnin' Up that Hill,'" she answers. "I, uh. I listen to it all the time." She points to the Walkman on her hip. "When I'm on my skateboard."
Dottie can't help but laugh a little when Max comments on how pink the kitchen is. Because Max isn't wrong. It's really pink. "Bet you'd never guess that pink's my grandmother's favorite color," she teases lightly.
"Wait 'til you see the upstairs bathroom: pink tile, pink tub, pink wallpaper..." It's a bit much, honestly, but somehow her grandmother had managed to do it in a way that actually looked like something out of a stylish home decor magazine spread (though, at this point, old fashioned) instead of just straight up gaudy. Certainly a matter of personal taste, though, there's no denying that. "It's kinda like a Valentine's Day card threw up." Because while Dottie likes pink as much as the next person (and more than some people), there is such thing as too much monochromatic pink. At least the entire house isn't solid pink. Her grandmother had also used a lot of green, and some lavender accents. The mint green floor tile in the kitchen doesn't do much to counter the abundance of pink, but the main color in most of the rest of the main level of the house was green. Probably her grandfather's doing, if Dottie had to guess.
"Do you want to get us some drinks?" She suggests, sensing from Max's question that she needs something to do so she isn't just standing there. Spitting the leftovers from the box isn't exactly the type of 'cooking' that requires two people, but getting drinks is something she can have Max do. "You can have anything you want in the 'fridge, there should be some sodas, water, and I think lemonade. Cups are right up there," she points to the cabinet next to the refrigerator. "You can grab a cherry coke for me," Dottie adds, hoping it helps make Max comfortable enough to pick whatever she wants to drink for herself.
It throws her off when Max asks about Billy. It shouldn't throw her off; Max is Billy's sister, she has every right to ask about Dottie's friendship with him. But she still hadn't quite expected it to come up, and she can't help the little swell of sadness that tightens in her chest at the question. She hasn't quite figured out how to answer when Max adds what her favorite song is, and Dottie mentally files through the songs on the album to get to... oh. Either it's just coincidental that Max had just asked about Billy, or it's a little concerning that the song she says she listens to all the time on her skateboard is about wanting to trade places with someone else. Dottie's still not convinced that Max isn't going to change her mind about staying, and it strikes her as a possibility that Max might scamper away like a stray cat if she asks about that right now, so instead she just nods, putting one of the plates of spaghetti into the microwave to start heating it up. "That's a good one," she agrees, figuring that's a nice, neutral sort of thing to say.
"And yeah, I used to drive around with Billy a lot." She scrapes the edges of the to-go box with a fork, like there's anything left to be scraping onto the other plate of spaghetti sitting on the counter waiting for its turn in the microwave. "He used to drive me home from basketball games all the time." It feels like she's cheapening their friendship to boil it down to car rides, when she doesn't know how to put into words why it had felt so meaningful to her when Billy kept waiting to drive her home in the beginning, or how to explain that it really was never just about the car rides but it was about how somehow in that car with Billy she'd gone from just grudgingly accepting a ride home so she wouldn't have to walk, to feeling more understood than maybe she ever had before. But she doesn't know how to explain any of that. And she doesn't want to dump on Max, either. "It was really nice. He was a...really a good friend." Even that doesn't sound true enough. But the microwave dings, giving her something else to do, and she swaps the plates to heat the other one.
Ally had hoped that the joke would take a little bit of the edge of all of this off because it was still somewhat entertaining for her to think about even though it was also so gross. Now that they were old enough to know what that mirror was for, it wasn't something she really wanted to think about, and she knew Dottie wanted to think about it even less given that it was her parents...but the thoughts felt more welcome than these.
Honestly, Ally wasn't even sure what she was and wasn't allowed to tell Dottie about what had happened because while she was having a blast and then her whole life was falling apart, there was a lot of other stuff going on. Stuff that Ally's actually pretty positive that Larry has absolutely nothing to do with, but would it just hurt Dottie further to know? Would it better to protect her? Ally's had this same argument with Nancy and she lands at the same conclusion every time: being kept in the dark doesn't help anyone. Granted, Ally's biased because she had been the one that was kept in the dark, but it's not like she can pretend away this broken rib either.
“I know you do, and I think you have every right to. His shady dealings are affecting you and your whole family and he didn't think about that at all. His corruption has bled out onto you, and it's still bleeding,” Ally sighs, cringing just a little bit because damn breathing is hard when it's deep like that. She tries to push past the pain though, and she shakes her head. “Even if you don't know the true extent of it all, you know enough, and it's not fair. That's why we're doing this...”
Holding up the newspapers in her hand, Ally gives them a little wave and then gives Dottie a smile before squeezing her hand again and then going back to it. She's not going anywhere, and she especially wants to avoid all the pestering from her parents. This is a huge deal, and they were fine with her coming over, but Diane's already out there trying to get all the gossip from the neighbors, and Ally can't even properly explain why she's battered and bruised, hence the extra make-up and the smiles and the pretending that everything is actually fine when it's anything but.
Chewing gently on her hurt lip, Ally manages to speak up again. “How...much do you know? Like...did they explain the whole mall fire to you? Was it like erasing evidence, or do you think it was just a tragedy?” She's fishing, but the problem is she doesn't realize how Dottie might take it given the flayer was a government contained issue, but with all the headlines and the news, Ally wonders how much is being spun and how.
She just kind of nods numbly at Ally's reassurance, and at the way Ally manages to put into words a portion of the way that Dottie's feeling right now. Not all of how she's feeling, because there's too much she's not allowed to tell Ally that explains some of the other things Dottie's feeling. That in itself is at least part of the problem: not that she wants to really talk things out or go seek comfort with her friends (if she even has any friends other than Ally anymore), but even if she did want to, she can't because if she slips up and says the wrong thing, and anyone finds out, then she's going to be in even more seriously deep shit. (Espionage is a very serious crime, Miss Kline, they'd said. Not telling anyone about the Russian involvement with the mall was a matter of national security, they'd said.) It's isolating, the way she doesn't trust herself not to say something she's not allowed to. She doesn't even remember how many pages she'd signed swearing herself to secrecy on all this. It's not like she'd actually read any of the things she'd signed, either -- it's not like she could have not signed anyway.
Ally's dutifully helpful, with the way she goes back to the newspapers. Dottie's the one who had assigned the task, who'd come up with the task in the first place and been doing it for the past week (she thinks? weird how even with dates on all the newspapers she can't keep track of time) but she's the one who can't quite get back to it yet. Maybe it's just that it took Ally vocalizing the reminder of why they're doing this that's actually reminding her how little this is really doing. "This... isn't helping," she admits. With something between a groan and a sigh, Dottie pulls her knees up in front of her chest, leaning her elbows on her knees and rubbing her hands on the sides of her face, fingers shoving their way through her tangled curls. She's probably smearing newspaper ink from her hands onto her face, but if she is, she doesn't care. Just like she doesn't care that the bleach she'd poured onto her hair the other night looks like shit, if she ever gives herself an objectively critical look in the mirror. She's not sure she ever plans on leaving the house again except to go get newspapers from Bradley's so it's not like it matters anyway.
"I don't even know what I think I'm gonna find." It feels pathetically defeatist to admit that the thing she's been spending all day and all night doing for more than a week isn't accomplishing anything. It feels even more pathetic to know that she's probably going to keep doing it anyway.
The worst part of this is that she can't answer when Ally asks how much she knows. Asks what she knows about the mall fire. If it was a tragedy or erasing evidence. This is the part that she really can't handle. When has she ever not told Ally everything? She shakes her head, hands still pressed against her temples "I can't tell you." She hates saying those words. "Not allowed to tell you," she adds, just in case Ally thinks that she means 'don't want to' instead of truly 'can't'. "I signed a bunch of stuff. I think I go to jail for like...ever if I tell anyone anything and they find out."
this was crazy, this was crazy, THIS WAS CRAZY! it wasn't the first time harrington had put his foot in his mouth. charging straight forward into a problem without really considering what the HELL he was going to do about it. jesus, this one took the cake. it was a commitment to his community that when beyond taking donations for clothes and dried goods. he was talking about becoming mayor of hawkins, here?! steve could cry at his own pigheaded stupidity. but dottie… his ex times a million and one girlfriend was in his house, slapping his name printed on campaign pin on his chest, and telling him he could do it. not only that, but he should by any means necessary! that familiar hero complex began stiring in his chest, and steve found hismelf standing up a little straighter.
“ dottie, i— ” he trusted her. possibly more than anyone in this doomed town. if she didn't think it was crazy, then he knew beyond any reasonable doubt that it wasn't. nevermind the show he put on down at the city hall. nevermind the crowd cheering in a moment of inspiration to support him. nevermind her staying up all night to brainstorm his campaign strategy. the fact that she showed up at his door and looked him in the eyes, in many ways like she used to when they were young and in love, it gave steve… hope. hope was more powerful than bravery. it was more powerful than an ego boost. hope had the strength to persist no matter what storm weathered through the cracks and points of weakest integrity. hope was… really beautiful. just like she still was.
steve blinked away the eye contact he held with dottie and turned his body towards the kitchen just down the hallway. he lifted his hand, finger extended. still a little dazed from the aftermath of his actions. “ through here. c'mon. i'll make a strong pot of coffee. no strings attached. ” meaning he'd stop blubbering about a mess he'd gotten himself into and one she was simply throwing herself into headfirst. he felt a twinge of guilt about that. he reached between them and took the stack of materials she brought along with her. setting them on the island once he entered the kitchen, he immediately glided around the counter to the coffee pot to get the machine percolating. soon the morning seemed to turn around the for the better once the full-body roast filled the air. steve pulled out a stool and sat at the breakfast bar. elbows holding him up as he slumped over the cool surface. “ why do you wanna get into this, dottie? you don't have to put yourself through it just for me… i mean, i'd love your help! you're great, but are you sure? about everything? ”
She just stared at him, raising one eyebrow and standing in the doorway like she was silently daring him to try to tell her he wasn't going to go through with it. Like he actually thought she'd let him do that when she was standing in front of him, telling him she thought he could do this, telling him she thought it was a good idea. Dottie decided to take it as a win when Steve relented to her request for coffee, and took the binders out of her hands to walk to the kitchen.
Helping herself to a stool at the breakfast bar while Steve started the coffee, Dottie didn't bother wasting time pretending she wasn't fine with making herself right at home in Steve's house. (Okay, maybe she'd had the thought -- brief thought -- last night that it could be a little awkward going to offer her campaign services to her ex boyfriend for his mayoral campaign, especially considering how many times they'd dated then broken up and then rinsed and repeated that cycle. But that's not what this was about.) She actually thought he'd do a good job at the job and not just with being the public face. Not to put a feather in her cap, but Dottie figured that of anyone in this town, she knew the difference. But until he'd opened the door and started trying to backtrack, Dottie hadn't actually realized she'd be sitting here trying to convince him to go through with a campaign. She'd thought she'd be volunteering to jump on board a train already leaving the station, not giving it a shove. But she could give him a shove, if a shove was what he needed.
Come on, Steve. Don't talk a big game then scare yourself out of the follow-through. I've got your back.
Having gotten the coffee started, he came and took a seat, too. And asked what really was a very valid question. One she'd thought about last night. What did she want to get out of this? The answer was pretty obvious. "Absolution, probably." It sounded more dramatic than it felt, actually saying it. It wasn't like helping Steve's campaign was going to cancel anything out that had happened years ago when her father had been the mayor. And it wasn't like she truly had any moral obligation to try to atone for any of the things Larry had done, even if she'd spent years thinking that she did.
"I wanna help you for me, Steve." I need this. "I mean it when I say I think you'll do a good job. And sure, some of it might suck. Or be a little... too close to home, as they say. But I guess I just want to help put someone good in that office."
this entire moment gives her deja vu. except, this time, it's not susan carson - or sue, as everyone had called her - finding her in the computer classroom and inviting her to her birthday party.
no, right now, it's dorothy klines, or dottie - maybe dot to those who know her well enough. (floribeth doesn't.)
"mhm. new in town. new in school. new in class. the people are really loud---" so many thoughts, words and pictures and feelings that are and aren't hers are constantly flitting through her mind. so many smells, too, like the air in the room being stale, or someone wearing a bit too much perfume. and so many sounds, like someone tapping a pencil in a rhythm that irritates her; two people were chewing gum, three were shifting in their seats and at least one of them had a bad case of having to deal with cotton against their skin. "---i figured most of them wouldn't mind if i took my lunch and peeled."
a beat and then: "flori. i mean, floribeth. dalisay. floribeth dalisay. that's my name. but most people call me flori, or beth, or, well... throw something nickname-shaped at the wall, see if it sticks."
The corner of Dottie's mouth twitches in a little grin -- it's kind of funny how long the new girl rambled on about her name and nicknames for someone who had just (accurately) said that the people are really loud here at Hawkins High. To be clear, Floribeth isn't at all wrong that the cafeteria is loud. It definitely is. And Dottie can imagine that it can be a little overwhelming for someone new to school in the middle of the school year.
(Floribeth not even the first new kid in the middle of the school year this year, either. It might sound ironic, coming from the mayor's daughter, but Dottie really hadn't ever thought that Hawkins was a cool enough place for anyone to be moving to, especially more than one family, especially in the middle of the year. But that's not really her business.)
"Must suck being new," Dottie acknowledges sympathetically, even though she's only guessing, because she's never lived anywhere except here so she's never been new. "You could come sit with me and my friends sometime if you want to. Just look for pom poms and we're probably somewhere around...I'm Dottie," she introduces herself then, "Kline. And just 'Dottie's good," she adds, since it feels fair when Flori had given a whole rundown of her full name and options for nicknames, when Dottie just prefers 'Dottie' and doesn't really like her full first name anyway.
"Do you want some company?" She offers, "Or did you want to be by yourself? It's cool either way," she adds quickly, hoping it doesn't come off as being pushy if the other girl had just been looking for some space to decompress from a new school.
sender laughs before receiver even finishes the joke because they already know the punchline.
@teveharrington | meme
They're sitting by the food table, pretty bored because this fundraiser is mostly adults (which is boring) except for them: of course Dottie had had to come, it's her dad's party, and from what she'd gathered, Steve's mom had made him come. Their moms have both been annoying all afternoon, telling them they should hang out together, assigning them stupid tasks to do together instead of just having the actual caterers do them... it's kind of annoying and kind of weird. Not that Dottie like hates Steve or anything, they see each other around at school and stuff even though he's a year older than her, and there's not a lot of overlap between grades at the middle school, it's just that it's kind of embarrassing the way their moms keep saying how 'cute' they look. They're almost in high school, they are not cute like little kids or something. Geez.
Their moms had both said something about how cute it would be if they went to the Snow Ball together, which had prompted a whiny, embarrassed "Mooooom!" from both of them, at which point they'd essentially been banished to the food table. 'Watch the punch' like that was a real job.
It's because there's literally nothing else do to here that they're trying all of the different tiny foods on the table, comparing notes, and telling lame jokes. It's the miniature, single-bite banana cream pies that had prompted Dottie to say "Knock knock" then then loop Steve into the seemingly endless loop of 'who's there?' 'banana' 'banana who?' 'knock knock'. She's almost wondering if she's kept the loop going for long enough, when it's like he senses that she's about to switch to the punch line, and starts laughing prematurely; she can see the word 'orange' about to leave his lips, and she leans over to cover his mouth with both her hands.
"No stop it, it's my joke!" He's still laughing, muffled from behind her hands, as she gets out the "Orange you glad I didn't say banana!" punchline. She can feel him saying it too, behind her hands, but she says it louder so she wins. Pleased with herself, Dottie lets go of Steve's mouth, giving him a grin that's perhaps a little overly proud of herself for the actual level of accomplishment that was telling a knock knock joke without letting him interrupt.
(from billy!) sender gently tucks receiver into bed after they've fallen asleep on the couch.
@dealtgod ( billy ) | meme
Dottie hadn't realized she'd fallen asleep until Billy's nudging her gently, and she can hear that the movie must be over, because it's quiet in the house. It isn't that she hadn't liked the movie, she had, she's just also tired, and had made the mistake of curling up a little too comfortably on her side of the couch; resting her head on the arm of the couch and hugging the throw pillow against her chest had probably been what had done in her ability to stay awake. She doesn't really remember closing her eyes, but she doesn't remember the last thing that had happened in the movie, either. If she spends time thinking about it, it probably makes sense that she'd fallen asleep: Dottie doesn't think she's slept well in more than a year. It's a little better with Billy living here, but it doesn't help that Max is still in a coma, Vecna still hasn't been found, and the whole town's under a quarantine that is a bizarre combination of lockdown and 'life as normal' that Dottie's not sure anyone can fully wrap their heads around.
She mumbles something about being fine; she's not awake enough to really string together a cohesive sentence, and she's not awake enough to want to bother moving. If she was more awake, she might consider that she'll probably have a crick in her neck in the morning if she stays sleeping all night in this position, but she isn't more awake, and so she doesn't consider it, nor care. But Billy evidently does, because he gently extracts the throw pillow from her arms, picks her up, and carries her up to her bedroom and sets her down gently on her bed. The whole time she's only half-awake at most, but she can feel him pulling the blankets over her as she rolls over once she's in her bed and almost instinctively finds Mr Bear and pulls him in against her chest.
If she was more awake, it might have occurred to her that this is probably the first time anyone has tucked her into bed since her nanny had stopped working late enough to put her to bed when she was seven or eight, and the first time anyone had ever cared enough about where she slept to put her in bed if she'd fallen asleep somewhere else in the house.
But she's not awake enough to consider any of that, she's only awake enough to say "'Night, Billy," and drift back to sleep as his footsteps disappear down the hall to his room.
sender pulls receiver back into bed for "five more minutes."
@teveharrington | meme
She smacks the alarm clock to shut it up. One day maybe they'll invent an alarm clock that isn't the most obnoxious sound in the world. Maybe that's part of the point, that it's such a horrible sound that it wakes you right up, but there's got to be a more pleasant sound that would also be effective. But that's a job for someone else, someone more fully awake, and who's into the whole alarm-clock-building business, so until that person comes along, she'll be smacking the clock as soon as it wakes her up.
Dottie moves to slip quietly out of bed, but Steve, who still looks asleep, even if he'd been woken up by her alarm clock, grabs her wrist with a sleepy little whine. "I'm just gonna go running," she tells him quietly, leaning over to give him a gentle kiss, before starting to get up again, and he whines again, giving her wrist a little tug, mumbling something about 'five more minutes.' She can give him that, she's not in that much of a hurry, there's plenty of time to stay in bed for a few more minutes and still get her run in. It's nicer in bed, anyway, and he's warm and comfortable.
She slides back under the covers, snuggling closer to Steve; if he wants five more minutes then he's going to have to be her pillow, which, really, is a win-win. She nestles her nose up against his neck, laying her head on his shoulder that she's now claimed as her pillow. One leg drapes over his, and she drapes her arm across his chest, fingers lazily brushing through the hair on his chest until she's found the most comfortable angle to let her arm rest. "Five more minutes," she agrees, mumbling into his neck. "Maybe ten."
Jamming her fingers at cheer practice had put a damper on a few things -- legibly writing her homework, for one, but more importantly, repainting her nails. It was superficial, Dottie knew, but she couldn't really stand the thought of having to keep her already-chipping, week-old nail polish for another week or two while she waited for her fingers to heal enough to un-splint them, and she'd been trying to paint them anyway. It hadn't been going very well. And of course she'd jammed fingers on her right hand, too, so the only fully functional hand is her non-dominant one. But she's stubborn, and she also couldn't just have partially painted fingernails, that just wouldn't work.
She'd been surprised when Star offered to help. A year younger than Dottie, and not at all in the same social circles, Dottie doesn't think they've even had two full conversations before, not that she has anything against the younger girl; if anything, she's always kind of felt like there's something about her that rubs Star the wrong way, but no one's obligated to like her, and there are definitely people who don't like her just because of her dad, so she's never put too much thought into it. But none of that meant that she hadn't been willing to accept the help when it was offered.
"This is really nice of you," she tells Star, watching as she smoothly paints her nails, being gentle with her taped-up fingers but getting them painted, too. "I kinda never thought you liked me much, so thank you for this."
