Welcome - You can call me Mickey, Ryan, or Reveryfics. I'm a 22-year-old queer trans man, and I've been writing for twelve years now.
This blog is a dedicated space for my MLM (men-loving-men) fanfiction, crafted with queer men and trans men at its heart. As a trans man myself, I've seen firsthand the lack of stories that truly represent us, and I'm passionate about creating that much-needed representation. This space is specifically for my fellow queer men and trans men to find narratives where they can feel seen, celebrated, and deeply understood. I also write for my own personal needs.
I generally aim to update every other day, but my posting can vary. You might see a few new stories pop up in one day if inspiration hits, or there might be a slightly longer gap between updates, depending on my motivation.
I also have a side blog dedicated to myself, reblogs, and a place where you can send anything that isn’t a request: @mickeyontheside, plus a new fanfiction blog for fem characters: @ryangrace-writes
My requests are open for fluff, angst, and smut in moderation. Please give some description of what you're looking for in your request, not just 'character x reader'
Fandoms I'm currently writing and taking requests for: Marvel, X-men, Animal Kingdom, The Boys, The Pitt, Teen Wolf (?), Stranger Things, He-Man
Fandoms I'll write for if requested: Supernatural, The Boys, DC, The Pitt, Resident Evil, Stranger Things, The Walking Dead, Animal Kingdom, Teen Wolf (?), He-Man
While I've written for other fandoms in the past, my current focus is on the fandoms listed above. If you're unsure about a fandom, don't be afraid to ask.
What I'm comfortable writing For
My writing covers a broad range of themes and dynamics, including but not limited to: Fluff, Angst, Smut(Taking in moderation), Slight reader descriptions, Male reader & Trans male reader, Top reader/bottom reader, Gore, Fighting, Violence(As accurate as possible), Post-op & Pre-op ftm reader.
Important Boundaries: What I Won't Write For
Fem Reader or any Female Characters (my focus is exclusively on male and trans male reader inserts and characters).
Any Characters Below the Age of 18 in mature or romantic situations.
Disgusting or non-consensual kinks such as (but not limited to) breeding, urine/feces, non-consensual acts (rape, assault, etc.), age-gap (where one character is significantly younger or a minor), or any other morally objectionable themes.
If you're unsure about a request, feel free to ask! I'll always be transparent about my boundaries.
With everything I've shared, I also want to respectfully ask for your understanding regarding a personal comfort boundary. I don't feel comfortable with female or female-identifying individuals interacting on my blog. While I understand I can't physically prevent anyone from viewing content, I sincerely hope you can respect this request, especially when you see a "Females DNI" (Do Not Interact) warning clearly placed on a post. This boundary is important for maintaining the specific space and community I aim to cultivate here.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read through my guidelines and for being a part of this space. To everyone who's been here since the blog's start in late 2024, and to all the newcomers, welcome! A special shout-out to my amazing mutuals – your support means the world. You are all truly incredible.
Can we get a leon kennedy x husband fluff? Maybe Leon is helping him out with something idk its up to u <3
Quiet Hours - Leon S Kennedy x Male Reader
Summary: What's better than a quiet and peaceful morning in bed with your husband? Absolutely nothing according to Leon.
CW: Fluff - Husbands - Older reader (late 40s)
Words: 1k
A/N: Something short and sweet since I'm being a little lazy. Took me way to long to edit that picture of Leon, but hopefully it was worth it.
FEMALES DNI
The morning light filters softly through the sheer curtains, casting a warm, golden haze across the sheets. You are already awake, propped up against a stack of plush pillows with the spine of a worn paperback resting comfortably against your thumb.
Beside you, the steady, even rhythm of breathing fills the quiet room. Leon is finally sleeping without the restless tension that haunted him for so long. The dark circles are gone, replaced by the peaceful, relaxed lines of a man who is entirely, deeply safe.
You turn another page, mindful of the rustle, but the sound is enough to shift the weight beside you.
A low, gravelly groan rumbles in Leon’s chest. He shifts, burying his face deeper into the pillow before a heavy arm blindly reaches across the mattress to find you. When his fingers brush against your hip, a sleepy, contented sigh escapes him. He pulls you closer effortlessly, sliding an arm around your waist to anchor you to his side, his face pressing right into your shoulder.
"You're up early," his voice is thick and rough with sleep, vibrating against your skin.
"Someone has to keep an eye on you," you murmur, setting the book down on the nightstand and carding your fingers through his soft, slightly messy hair. "Or you'd sleep until noon."
Leon cracks one bright blue eye open, a lazy, devastatingly fond smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "It's called recovery, babe. Doctor's orders." He nuzzles closer, pressing a warm, lingering kiss just beneath your collarbone. "Besides, why read when I have a much better distraction right here?"
"Oh, really?" You raise an eyebrow, looking down at him. "And what distraction is that?"
Before you can blink, the lazy, recovering agent vanishes. With a sudden, surprising burst of energy, Leon rolls, pinning you gently beneath him with a triumphant laugh. The mattress bounces, and you gasp, caught entirely off guard as he cages you in with his arms, hovering over you with bright, mischievous eyes.
"Gotcha," he gloats, his smirk widening as you try to shove playfully at his shoulders.
"You cheated! You're supposed to be resting!" you protest, laughing as you try to wiggle out from under his weight.
"Hey, I'm just testing my range of motion," Leon fires back, leaning down to press rapid-fire kisses along your jawline, making you squirm. "Rehabilitation involves active stretching. Everyone knows that."
"You're insufferable."
"Yeah, but you love it." He pauses, grinning down at you, looking healthier, happier, and more vibrant than he has in months.
Suddenly, Leon’s expression shifts. He winces dramatically, his shoulders slumping as he lets out an exaggerated hiss of pain, clutching dramatically at his lower back. He immediately collapses forward, burying his face in the crook of your neck with a theatrical groan.
"Ouch. Ah... damn it. My back," he mumbles, his voice muffled against your skin. "I think you aggravated my injuries. The strain... it's too much. I might need prolonged bed rest. Preferably with you holding me."
You roll your eyes, a fond smile breaking across your face as you wrap your arms securely around his back, pulling him flush against you.
"You are such a dramatic liar," you whisper, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
Leon chuckles against your neck, completely unapologetic as he settles right back into your arms, content to stay tangled together for as long as the morning allows.
The warm weight of him pressing into your chest makes it hard to remember why you even bothered getting up in the first place. You run your hands soothingly up and down his spine, letting your fingers trace the familiar, hard line of muscle through the soft cotton of his t-shirt, marveling all over again at how he managed to walk out of his last nightmare in one piece.
"You know," Leon murmurs, his voice muffled against your skin, "if you keep scratching my back like that, I might actually fall back asleep."
"Threatening me with a good time?" you tease, tilting your chin back against the pillows. "I thought you had crucial rehabilitation to do. Wasn't active stretching the priority a minute ago?"
Leon lifts his head, a slow, lazy grin spreading across his face as he looks down at you. The morning sun catches the gold in his blonde hair, and for a second, time feels entirely suspended. No missions, no briefings, no endless shadow of what-ifs. Just the quiet room, the rumpled sheets, and the two of you.
"Stretching can wait," he whispers, his voice dropping an octave, losing the playful edge and turning soft. He shifts upward just enough to look you dead in the eye, his thumb reaching out to gently brush a lock of hair away from your forehead. "Right now, I have more important things to focus on."
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"Like making up for lost time," Leon says simply.
Before you can reply, he leans down, capturing your lips in a slow, deliberate kiss that immediately chases away the chill of the morning air. It’s unhurried and achingly tender, the kind of kiss that speaks to years of shared history, quiet compromises, and a stubborn refusal to let go of each other, no matter what tried to stand in their way.
His hand slides from your hair down to cup the back of your neck, thumb tracing the edge of your jaw. You let out a quiet sigh against his mouth, your hands sliding up to grip his shoulders, pulling him down until there isn't an inch of space left between you.
When he finally pulls back just an inch, breathless and smiling, his forehead rests gently against yours. His bright blue eyes are impossibly fond.
"Okay," Leon whispers, his thumb still tracing lazy circles against your skin. "Now my back really does hurt from holding this angle."
You let out a soft laugh, bumping your nose against his. "Liars go to a special kind of hell, Leon Kennedy."
"Yeah, well," he chuckles, shifting his weight so he’s lying properly beside you once more, pulling you flush against his side with an arm slung securely over your waist. "As long as you're down there with me, I think I can handle it."
He pulls the duvet up over both of you, sealing in the warmth. For a long while, neither of you says anything else. The book on the nightstand stays forgotten, the morning slowly turning into afternoon, and the world outside can wait for just a little bit longer.
Obsession - Benjamin 'Bullseye' Poindexter x Male Reader
Summary: Dex infiltrates your home after a night of heavy drinking, taking quiet, possessive control of your vulnerable state while indulging his dark, one-sided obsession.
CW: No use of y/n - Suggestive - Darker - Alcohol - Drinking - Stalker!Dex - Lawyer reader - Implied Matt x reader - Obeseive Dex - One-sided
Words: 6.2k
A/N: Okay so, I wasn't really sure where to go with this and hopefully I captured it well enough that you guys like it. It was going to be much darker but I ended up cutting nearly three thousand words in edit and just left it as this. Anyway I plan on working on some of the requests I got before possibly doing another Deadpool fic, I'm also sick and the medication makes me fuzzy so please bare with me on any mistakes.
FEMALES DNI
Obsession wasn't a slow burn; it was a quiet, structural collapse. It was a hairline fracture in safety—invisible until it spidered inward, bringing down the entire framework from the pressure alone. To most people, it was a sickness, a catastrophic loss of control that bypassed logic and shattered every moral boundary.
To Benjamin Poindexter, it was simply second nature. It was the quiet amidst the deafening static in his head, just enough of a lull for him to finally catch a breath.
A breath that held a thousand possibilities, a thousand scenarios, a thousand potential fixes. But no matter where his mind wandered, everything always led back to one person, sitting right there in the vulnerable sanctuary of your own home.
You were never truly alone, even when you locked the deadbolt and drew the heavy blinds against the New York night. To Dex, walls were merely suggestions, and privacy was a comforting delusion you told yourself to sleep better. He knew the precise rhythm of your footsteps on the hardwood floor—the heavier strike of your right heel, the subtle drag of a tired ankle after a sixteen-hour workday. He had cataloged every single square inch of your apartment long before he ever dared to step foot inside it while you were out. He knew the brand of detergent you used, the exact expiration date of the milk in your fridge, and the hidden spare key you kept tucked behind the loose brick in the hallway, a key he had duplicated in brass ages ago.
Dex had mapped your entire existence with the terrifying meticulousness of a sniper calculating wind resistance and Coriolis effect. He had memorized the exact cadence of your voice—the steady, authoritative register you used during cross-examinations, contrasted against the softer, unguarded timbre you reserved for late nights hunched over case files with Matt and Foggy. He knew the precise placement of every scar, every freckle, every mole, and the slight, charming overlap of that one crooked tooth that only showed when you let your guard down and truly smiled in the quiet of your kitchen.
He had memorized your eyes: the exact shade of them under harsh fluorescent courtroom lights versus the muted, golden amber glow of your bedside lamp. He knew the way you favored your left side after a grueling day, the way your jaw clenched—a tight, white-hot muscle spasm—when you stared at a difficult brief late into the night. He knew the difference between your professional public mask and the easy, unfiltered way you laughed when Foggy cracked a tired joke over takeout on your worn velvet couch.
And, God help him, he knew how Matt touched you.
From his vantage point pressed flat against the ceiling crawlspace or half-concealed in the deep shadows of the fire escape outside your bedroom window, eyes locked onto the subtle tension in your spine, Dex’s mind raced with intrusive, burning clarity. He thought of the ways he could finally feel your skin under his fingertips. Not with the tender, sickeningly sweet reverence that he’d watched Matt use—gliding hands beneath the sheets in the dark with a gentle certainty that Dex’s own calloused, trigger-happy hands could never hope to mimic, no matter how hard he tried. Matt touched you like you were fragile glass. Dex wanted to know what you felt like from the inside.
Dex knew the mechanics of your mind better than you knew them yourself. He knew the bitter, suffocating taste of defeat that was currently souring your tongue as you sat alone in the dark living room, replaying every misstep of a lost case, agonizing over the jury's verdict. He knew the exact moment you would reach for your phone, knew the way your thumb hovered over Matt's contact before dropping it back onto the cushion, too exhausted to reach out, too proud to lean on someone else.
Intimate was the only word for it, even if it was entirely one-sided, blooming exclusively in the dark, clinical architecture of his mind. He wanted you. Not with love—Dex couldn't love. Love required warmth, selflessness, a delicate give-and-take that his wiring simply didn't support. He didn't have love to give the way he knew you did, the way you poured your whole heart into advocating for people who couldn't save themselves.
He couldn't love you, but he *wanted* you. He wanted to consume you, to absorb your habits and mirror your mannerisms until he had successfully morphed himself into your very being, just to get a taste of the stability you represented.
Down in the dark, just inches away from where you sat weeping softly into your hands, completely unaware of the breathing silhouette lingering just outside your windowpane, Dex smiled. You kept his mind quiet. The static faded when you were near. And in Benjamin Poindexter’s world, quiet was the closest thing to heaven he would ever know—and he was willing to burn the whole world down to keep it.
The digital clock on your nightstand glowed with an aggressive, hostile red: 1:14 AM.
You hadn’t slept. Dex knew you hadn’t. He didn't need to hear your breathing to know it; he could feel the residual hum of your insomnia vibrating through the floorboards of the unit directly above you—or perhaps closer, just beyond the thin drywall of the hallway. He sat motionless in the deep, ink-black corner of your living room, completely swallowed by the shadows, his posture ramrod straight, hands folded neatly over his knees.
He watched you shift beneath the tangled sheets on your bed. The movement was sluggish, heavy with the bone-deep exhaustion of a man stretched past his breaking point.
Dex didn't blink. His eyes, clear and unnervingly dilated, tracked every microscopic twitch of your muscles as you finally threw off the covers. You sat on the edge of the mattress, shoulders slumped, head bowed so low your chin nearly touched your chest. You stayed like that for a long, agonizing minute—frozen, dead to the world, running the catastrophic trial over and over in your skull like a broken film reel.
Then, you stood.
Dex tracked the unsteady sway of your torso, the way your bare feet padded silently against the hardwood. He watched as you crossed the dark bedroom and drifted into the bathroom. The pale, sickly luminescence of the fluorescent strip above the sink flickered on, casting a harsh, ghostly pallor over your skin. Through the cracked door, Dex didn't miss a single detail. He watched you turn on the cold tap, cupping your hands and splashing water over your face, watching the droplets cling to your eyelashes and trace the sharp line of your jaw.
You stared into your own reflection, your eyes bloodshot and hollow. Dex leaned forward an infinitesimal fraction, his gaze tracing the exact contours of your face through the gap in the doorway, memorizing the haunted, defeated slump of your shoulders.
You turned off the light and moved back into the bedroom to get dressed.
Every rustle of fabric was a symphony to him. He watched you pull on a heavy, charcoal-grey wool coat over a rumpled button-down, the wool swallowing the lines of your torso. You slipped your feet into leather boots, not bothering to lace them up properly—just tucking the tongues in, desperate for a barrier between yourself and the cold pavement outside.
Then came the ritualistic, pathetic hesitation.
You walked over to the nightstand where your phone lay face-up, glowing softly with unread notifications. Dex already knew what they were: texts from Foggy asking if you were holding up, a missed call from Matt asking to come over.
You stared at the screen. Your thumb hovered over the glass, trembling slightly. Dex watched the internal war wage behind your eyes—the desperate, crushing urge to reach out for a lifeline, to let someone pull you back from the edge. But pride, or perhaps the sheer humiliation of failure, won out. With a sharp, jerky motion, you snatched the phone off the wood and shoved it deep into your coat pocket, silencing the light forever.
Your hand lashed out blindly onto the entryway table, fingers closing around your keys. The brass jingled softly, a sharp, metallic note in the suffocating quiet of the apartment.
Dex stood up from his chair. He moved with a terrifying, liquid grace, making zero sound as he stepped out of the shadows and tracked you toward the front door.
You didn't need to check the calendar or deliberate on your destination. Dex knew where you were going before the thought had even fully formed in the chaotic, alcohol-craving synapses of your own brain. You were going to drink. You were going to walk down to that dim, nameless dive bar three blocks away where nobody knew your name, where the neon beer signs bled red and amber through the grease-stained windows.
You were going to drink to forget a failure that felt too large to swallow. You were going to drink until the static in your own head matched the white noise of the jukebox, until the edges of the courtroom blurred, until you didn't even know how you managed to navigate the cold concrete labyrinth back to your own front door.
And Dex would be there for every drop of it.
He would watch you nurse glass after glass of cheap bourbon, tracking the way the amber liquid stained your lips, mapping the exact moment your eyes would glaze over and your coordination began to fray at the edges. He would trail three steps behind you in the freezing New York fog on the staggering walk home, a phantom in the dark keeping you safe from the rest of the world only because he refused to let anyone else ruin what was exclusively his.
By the time you finally collapsed back through your front door later tonight—limp, spinning, and utterly defenseless—you wouldn't remember the cold, you wouldn't remember the walk, and you wouldn't remember the heavy, calloused weight of his hands pressing you gently against the hallway wall in the dark, guiding you home when you couldn't do it yourself.
You would only remember the burn of the alcohol on your tongue, and the lingering, phantom warmth of hands that weren't Matt's, keeping you anchored to a reality you were desperately trying to drown.
Fog clung to the pavement outside like a wet shroud, parting just enough to let you slip into the suffocating warmth of the dive bar.
It was a dim, miserable excuse for a bar—the kind of place where the air always smelled faintly of stale floor cleaner, cheap draft beer, and the quiet despair of regulars who had nowhere else to be at nearly two in the morning. The neon sign above the door hummed a low, flat buzzing , casting a sickly hue over the sticky mahogany bar top.
You took a stool near the far end, your shoulders curled inward, trying to shrink away from the sparse crowd.
Exactly one hundred and twenty seconds later, the bell above the door jingled with a sharp, crisp chime.
Benjamin Poindexter stepped inside, shaking the damp chill from his shoulders with a subtle, controlled movement. He didn't look around, didn't draw attention to himself, but his eyes had already locked onto the back of your coat. He moved with quiet, predatory efficiency, sliding onto a booth or a stool three seats down and two steps back—far enough to maintain the illusion of a stranger, but close enough to catch the softest exhale of your breath.
He didn't order a drink. He didn't need one. You were his poison, and watching you was the only intoxicating agent he required.
Behind the sticky wood of the counter, the bartender—a woman with heavily bleached hair and a low-cut denim top—brightened instantly at the sight of you. She didn't walk; she sauntered over, leaning heavily against the bar top right in front of you, thrusting her chest forward with deliberate, calculated casualness so her cleavage was on blatant, unavoidable display under the amber lights.
A cold, razor-thin spike of pure, unadulterated venom pierced straight through Dex's chest.
His jaw locked so hard a muscle twitched violently in his cheek. He hated her. He hated the way she invaded your space, the cheap synthetic scent of her perfume, the presumptuous curve of her smile as if she had any right to bask in your presence. She was a distraction, a biological interruption threatening the fragile, obsessive sanctuary Dex had built around you. She was a variable he hadn't accounted for, and his fingers instinctively twitched inside his coat pocket, craving the cold steel weight of something lethal to clear the path.
And yet, a darker, more sickening realization curdled underneath his rage.
Dex knew you. He knew the inner machinery of your heart better than you cared to admit. For all his dark fantasies, for all his quiet surveillance and the possessive terror clawing at his throat, Dex knew the harsh, humiliating truth: you would choose a man. Not him. Never him. If you ever looked for comfort, if you ever sought out a body to warm your bed or hands to pull you out of your misery, you would reach for someone normal. Someone soft. A man with a warm smile and a clear conscience—a Matt, or someone cut from that same sickeningly righteous cloth. You would never choose the fractured, screaming void that lived inside Benjamin Poindexter.
The thought made his stomach twist into jagged knots, fueling the fire of his obsession until it burned hot and white behind his eyes.
He forced his breathing to steady, his gaze narrowing back onto you as you finally raised your head.
You looked up at the bartender, offering a tight, exhausted, polite nod—the kind of tired professional courtesy you couldn't switch off even when your world was crashing down. The bartender rolled her eyes playfully, letting out a breathy laugh before turning to grab the bottle, her body brushing unnecessarily close to yours.
"Bourbon. Neat," you said, your voice raspy, worn down to the marrow.
Dex watched every microscopic detail. He watched the bartender pour the amber liquor, the heavy liquid splashing against the sides of a scarred rocks glass. He watched you pick it up with fingers that barely missed a tremor.
And as you tilted your head back to swallow the burn, Dex watched your throat move. He tracked the exact bob of your Adam's apple as the harsh liquor slid down, your eyes squeezing shut against the bite.
In the dark sanctuary of his mind, the distance between you vanished. Dex didn't imagine the glass against your lips; he imagined his own teeth—sharp, white, and eager—pressing precisely against the thin, sensitive skin of your neck right where your pulse hammered against your collarbone. He imagined biting down just hard enough to draw a single bead of blood, tasting your panic, marking you so thoroughly that no bartender, no Matt, no jury in the world could ever wash him off your skin.
The second glass didn't even touch the sides.
Dex watched the amber liquid vanish down your throat with the same mechanical efficiency as the first, your hand slamming the heavy glass back down against the sticky wood of the counter with a sharp, hollow clink. The bartender barely had time to wipe the ring of moisture away before you were holding up two fingers, a silent, desperate demand for a refill.
You were chasing a ghost, trying to outrun the verdict, the silence, the crushing weight of a courtroom that had just chewed you up and spat you out.
With a sluggish, heavy motion, you dug your hand into the pocket of your coat and dragged your phone out into the dim, neon-lit air. The screen flared to life, casting a pale, cold glow over the exhausted planes of your face. Dex didn't need to lean in to know what was there. He knew the red notification dots by heart. More missed calls. More fragmented, worried texts from Foggy. More quiet, earnest pleas from Matt asking if he could come over, asking where you were, offering a safe harbor you stubbornly refused to step foot in.
You stared at the glowing blue light for three agonizing seconds. Your thumb hovered, trembling slightly over the screen—a microscopic window of hesitation where you almost let them in, almost let someone pull you back from the ledge.
Then, your jaw tightened. With a dead, indifferent swipe, you shoved the phone back into your pocket, letting the screen fade to black as you chose to fade right along with it.
The third glass arrived, sweating and golden under the grease-filmed lights. You tossed that one back, too.
Dex watched the transformation take hold with clinical, predatory fascination. He saw the exact moment the alcohol bypassed your defenses, loosening the rigid, unyielding posture you wore like armor. Your shoulders finally drooped. Your eyelids grew heavy, the sharp focus in your eyes dissolving into a hazy, unfocused fog. The world was shrinking down to the size of a rocks glass, and you were drifting right out into the deep end.
That was his cue.
Dex slid off his stool with absolute, frictionless silence. He didn't rush. He walked with the measured, terrifying grace of a predator closing the final few yards on a tethered animal. The floorboards didn't even creak beneath his boots.
He took the empty stool directly beside yours.
The space between you shrank to zero. You could smell him before you registered him—not the cheap beer and stale smoke of the tavern, but something clean, cold, and entirely clinical, like fresh iron and wool.
Dex raised two fingers toward the bleached-blonde bartender, who abandoned her other end of the counter the second she caught his eye.
"Another one," Dex said, his voice a low, gravelly hum that cut effortlessly through the low-fi drone of the jukebox. He slid a crisp bill across the mahogany, keeping his eyes locked entirely on the side of your face. "And keep it neat."
The glass appeared before you could even register that the seat next to you had been occupied.
You blinked hard, trying to clear the static and the liquor from your vision, and slowly turned your head. Your neck felt stiff, heavy, as you dragged your gaze upward to look at the man who had just bought your poison.
He was looking right back at you.
Up close, Benjamin Poindexter was entirely wrong. His suit was too neat for a dive bar at half past two in the morning; his posture was too straight, too rigid. But it was his smile that made the hairs on the back of your arms stand up in sudden, violent protest. It was a sharp, razor-thin curve of the lips—too bright, too rehearsed, and utterly devoid of warmth. It was a grin that belonged on a corpse or a predator pressing its face against the glass of a cage.
Your alcohol-fried brain short-circuited. Every instinct you possessed screamed that something was deeply, fundamentally wrong with the man sitting beside you, but your synapses were firing too slowly through the fog of bourbon to connect the dots. You couldn't process the danger; you could only stare, caught like a fly in amber.
Dex tilted his head, the terrifying smile never reaching his dead, pale eyes.
"Rough day, counselor?" he asked.
The words rolled off his tongue with a smooth, terrifying precision—the cadence of a man who had stood in an empty apartment, staring at a blank wall, and practiced this exact conversation a million times in his head before it ever happened.
He didn't need to do this. He didn't need to sit here, playing at being a stranger in a bar. He had a duplicate key sitting in the dark of his pocket. He could have just as easily followed you home in the freezing fog, slipped beneath the sheets of your bed while you slept, and buried his face in your hair, disappearing into the shadows before you ever woke up to scream.
He could have taken you silently, easily, without a single word ever passing between you.
But sitting here—breathing the same stale air, watching the confusion slowly melt into dull compliance across your face, playing the part of the stranger who just happened to notice your misery—was so much better. It was an exquisite, agonizingly slow foreplay.
He wanted you to look at him. He wanted you to choose him, even if you didn't know you were doing it. And as your hand instinctively reached out to wrap around the fresh glass he had just bought you, Dex smiled wider, resting his own hand dangerously close to yours on the counter, waiting for the night to finally begin.
You let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-hiccup—a dry, defeated sound that rattled in your chest. The alcohol had finally numbed the sharpest edges of your anxiety, leaving behind a heavy warmth that made everything feel slightly out of focus.
"You have no idea," you muttered, your voice thick and dragging as you reached out and wrapped your fingers around the fresh glass of bourbon.
Dex didn't move away. He stayed right where he was, his shoulder pressed just fractionally against yours, radiating a strange, clinical heat that cut right through the heavy wool of your coat. He watched your fingers—the slight tremor in your knuckles, the way your grip tightened around the rim of the glass—with an intensity that felt entirely too heavy for a casual bar encounter.
"Try me," Dex said softly.
His tone wasn't pushing. It was patient, almost sickeningly gentle, the kind of voice a therapist or a priest might use to coax confessions out of a dying man. It invited you in, wrapping around your alcohol-fogged brain like a warm, velvet noose.
You stared down into the amber liquid, swirling the remaining ice cube against the glass. You were too tired to be suspicious, too hollowed out by the verdict and the crushing weight of the courtroom to care that this man in the tailored suit looked at you the way a hunter looked at a deer caught in the headlights. You just wanted someone to listen. You wanted someone who wasn't Matt, who wasn't Foggy, someone who didn't look at you with that suffocating, righteous pity.
"Lost a case," you mumbled, taking another slow, burning sip. "Everything... all the evidence. It was all right there. Open and shut. But the defense... they just twisted it. Talked circles around the jury. And I just sat there and watched it happen."
"It's frustrating when the system fails," Dex replied, his voice a low, soothing hum. "When the people who are supposed to protect the structure let the cracks widen until everything caves in."
You blinked, turning your head slightly to look at him again. The phrasing was strange—too architectural, too clinical—but it drifted past your defenses, sinking easily into the warm haze of your mind.
"Yeah," you whispered, a bitter smile touching the corners of your lips. "Yeah, exactly. It feels like... like you're building something, and someone just comes along and kicks the legs right out from under the table."
Dex’s gaze dropped to your mouth, tracking the slight upward curve of your smile, cataloging the crooked tooth you were completely unaware was currently on display. A dark, quiet shiver rippled down his spine. He loved this version of you—stripped of your courtroom armor, raw, vulnerable, and leaning entirely on the edge of a breakdown.
"People are careless," Dex murmured, his voice dropping an octave, slipping past the ambient noise of the bar until it felt like it was echoing only inside your head. "They don't appreciate foundations. They don't know how to hold things together. But you... you care too much. That's your weakness."
He shifted his weight, his arm brushing a little closer down to your wrist. The skin-to-fabric contact sent a strange, electric jolt through your system, though your tired brain couldn't quite decide whether to pull away or lean into it.
"You shouldn't be alone tonight," Dex said, the words slipping out like a quiet decree, absolute and unshakable.
You let out a dry, humorless breath, shaking your head. "Where else am I gonna go? My phone's blowing up. Everyone wants to fix it. Everyone wants to tell me it's going to be okay."
"They want to fix you," Dex corrected softly, his eyes narrowing with a dark, possessive intensity as he stared at the side of your neck, imagining the exact weight of his hands sliding up to cup your jaw. "They don't want the mess. They just want the lawyer back. The hero."
He leaned in just a fraction closer, his breath ghosting over your ear, smelling faintly of mint and iron.
"I don't need you to be a hero," Dex whispered, his voice smooth as glass and sharp as a razor. "Let them call. Let them worry. You're done for the night."
The alcohol surged through your veins, a warm, heavy tide that washed away the last remaining shreds of your resistance. You didn't ask him his name. You didn't ask why he was here, or why his words felt less like a suggestion and more like an anchor dragging you under. You just nodded, your eyelids growing heavier by the second.
"Yeah," you breathed out, your head dipping toward your chest. "Just... tired."
Dex smiled—a wide, razor-thin expression of pure, unadulterated triumph in the dark. He reached out, his long, calloused fingers wrapping gently around your elbow to steady you as your center of gravity suddenly gave way.
"I know," Dex whispered, his thumb pressing firmly into your pulse point as he guided you off the stool and led you out into the freezing New York night. "I've got you."
The bitter New York wind hit you like a physical blow the second you stepped out of the tavern doors, the sudden drop in temperature sending a sharp shiver through your heavy coat. The alcohol in your bloodstream was a roaring furnace, fighting a losing battle against the freezing fog that clung to the wet asphalt of the alleyway.
Your legs felt like lead, heavy and uncooperative as you stumbled half a step off the curb.
Before you could pitch forward onto the ice, a hand caught you.
It wasn't a tentative, polite grab. It was a firm, unyielding grip wrapped securely around your elbow, anchoring you with terrifying precision. The touch was burning hot against the fabric of your coat, the fingers long and hard as iron.
"Careful," Dex murmured, his voice cutting through the wail of distant sirens and the low rumble of traffic. He didn't let go. Instead, his hand slid upward, his palm pressing flat against the small of your back, guiding your momentum forward with a smooth, effortless authority.
You leaned into it, entirely too exhausted and intoxicated to question why a complete stranger felt so agonizingly familiar, why his touch felt less like an intrusion and more like the only stable thing left in a world that had tilted entirely off its axis.
"Thanks," you mumbled, your words slurring together as your boots scraped against the concrete.
"Don't mention it," Dex replied softly.
He fell into step right beside you, matching your stumbling, uneven rhythm stride for stride. He didn't walk too fast, didn't pull you too hard; he paced himself to your ruin, keeping you upright when every instinct in your body wanted to collapse into a heap on the sidewalk.
The walk back to your apartment building was a blur of neon lights bleeding through the fog and the heavy, rhythmic crunch of gravel beneath your boots. Every few blocks, your phone buzzed aggressively in your coat pocket—a vibrating pulse of frantic worry from Matt, or another unanswered text from Foggy. You didn't even twitch. You didn't care. The phantom notifications felt like they were coming from another dimension, belonging to a version of you that had died somewhere back in that courtroom.
Dex felt the vibrations against his side as your hip brushed his. A quiet, venomous satisfaction curled in his chest. Let it buzz, he thought. Let them tear the city apart looking for you.
They were miles away, sitting in some brightly lit office or standing on a quiet street corner, looking for a ghost. But Dex was right here. Dex had you.
By the time the familiar, wrought-iron gate of your building loomed out of the fog, your head was spinning so violently that you could barely make out the brass numbers on the door. You fumbled blindly in your pocket for your keys, your fingers clumsy and unresponsive against the metal ring, dropping them with a sharp, metallic clatter onto the frozen concrete steps.
You let out a soft, frustrated sigh, your forehead dropping heavily against the cold wooden frame of the front door.
"I've got them," Dex said.
His voice was a low hum right beside your ear. You felt the shift of his weight as he crouched down—moving with a swift, silent grace that defied how drunk you felt—and scooped the keys up from the concrete. He rose back up, his chest brushing against your back, trapping you softly between his frame and the heavy oak door.
The proximity was suffocating, intimate in a way that made the fine hairs on the back of your neck stand straight up, even through the haze of bourbon.
Dex slid the key into the lock with a single, practiced twist. The mechanism clicked open with a quiet, oily slide. He pushed the door open, but he didn't step back. Instead, his hand drifted from your back, his long fingers wrapping gently around the nape of your neck, his thumb resting right over your pulse point where it hammered frantically against your skin.
He didn't force you inside. He just tilted your head back just an inch, his breath warm against your ear in the dark foyer.
"You're safe now," Dex whispered, the words dripping with a dark, terrifying devotion that you were far too drunk to parse. "I told you. I've got you."
You let out a long, shuddering exhale, your eyes fluttering shut as you leaned back into the solid, unyielding wall of his chest. You didn't know his name. You didn't know that he had memorized the exact weight of your breath, that he had spent weeks watching you from the shadows, that he was the fracture in your safety waiting to bring the whole house down.
You just knew it was warm, and you weren't alone anymore.
With a gentle, guiding pressure, Dex pushed the door open the rest of the way, ushering you into the dark, quiet sanctuary of your own home—not knowing that once the door clicked shut behind them, he would never, ever let you leave.
The heavy oak door clicked shut behind you with a soft, hollow thud, sealing away the cold New York fog and the rest of the world. In the pitch-black silence of the hallway, the air smelled like you—crisp laundry, faint printer ink, and the subtle, underlying musk of fatigue.
Dex inhaled it deep, his chest expanding as he took you in.
He didn't turn on the lights. He didn't need to. He had mapped the exact architecture of this apartment weeks ago, tracing the floor plan in his head until he knew every obstacle, every creak in the floorboards, every shadow where he could dissolve if the need ever arose. But tonight, he didn't need to hide. You had brought him past the threshold yourself, handing over the keys to your own confinement.
"Come on," Dex murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration against the shell of your ear.
His hand remained clamped around the nape of your neck, his thumb applying just enough pressure to guide your stumbling feet down the short corridor toward your bedroom. Every step you took was heavy, uncoordinated, your boots dragging against the floor. You were floating somewhere entirely separate from reality, adrift on a toxic sea of cheap bourbon and absolute exhaustion.
When you reached the edge of the mattress, your knees buckled.
With a smooth, calculated motion, Dex caught your weight before you could hit the floor. He didn't handle you with the gentle, aching reverence that Matt used—that soft, cautious worship Dex had spied on from fire escapes and rooftops. Dex’s grip was firm, dominant, his fingers sinking into the thick wool of your coat as he effortlessly steered you forward and pushed you down onto the bed.
You fell back against the mattress with a soft, yielding bounce, the cushions swallowing your weight.
You didn't protest. You didn't even flinch. Your eyelids fluttered open, heavy and lacquered with alcohol, staring up through the dim shadows at the towering silhouette standing over you. Through half-lidded, glazed eyes, you looked at him—or rather, looked *through* him, seeing only a blurred shape that offered warmth, silence, and an end to the spinning room.
Dex stood frozen at the foot of the bed, staring down at you.
In the dark, unshielded privacy of your bedroom, his mind raced with a violent, obsessive hunger. His eyes devoured every inch of you, stripping away the layers of fabric in his imagination with clinical, predatory precision. He pictured the exact expanse of your chest, the pale sweep of your ribs, the precise scattering of moles across your skin that he had cataloged from afar during stolen glimpses through cracked blinds and distant rooftops.
Matt's position.
Dex tried to force the fantasy into alignment. He tried to project himself into the memories he had pieced together of Matt crawling into this exact bed, sliding beneath these exact sheets with that infuriating, blind tenderness. He tried to imagine his own calloused, trigger-hardened hands tracing the line of your jaw with the same soft, sickeningly sweet devotion.
Even in the theater of his own mind, he couldn't get it right.
A dark, acidic frustration twisted in Dex's gut. He wasn't Matt. He didn't know how to be gentle. His hands were built for recoil, for leverage, for snapping tension and crushing resistance. He couldn't touch you like a saint because he was nothing of the sort. He was fractured, hollowed out, vibrating with a static that only quieted when he was exerting absolute control.
If he touched you with reverence, it would feel like a lie. So he wouldn't. He would touch you as you were: bare, vulnerable, and entirely at his mercy.
Slowly, deliberately, Dex stepped forward until his knees pressed against the edge of the mattress.
You didn't move as his fingers reached out. You let out a soft, incoherent sigh, your head rolling slightly to the side as his knuckles grazed your jawline. The skin was burning hot from the alcohol.
Dex didn't hesitate. He began to undress you, piece by piece, with the methodical efficiency of a surgeon dismantling a specimen.
He unbuttoned your heavy wool coat, sliding the thick fabric off your shoulders and tossing it aside into the dark. His fingers moved to the buttons of your shirt, working them open one by one with steady, unhurried precision. Every inch of fabric he peeled back revealed another piece of the map he had memorized in his head, turning a distant, agonizing fantasy into a terrifying reality.
For weeks, he had only seen you from a distance—clad in sharp suits across a courtroom aisle, wrapped in heavy coats on rainy sidewalks, hidden behind glass and architectural barriers. But now, as the shirt parted and your chest rose and fell in a shallow, drunken rhythm, Dex was staring at the exact body he had worshiped in secret.
His breathing hitched, shallow and hot in the dark room.
When your skin was finally bare beneath his gaze, Dex lowered his hands, letting his fingertips trace the exact path of a scar on your shoulder—a minor injury from a childhood accident he had dug up records to verify. He pressed down just hard enough to leave a white-hot impression against your skin, marking you without a sound.
You stirred beneath his touch, letting out a low, confused murmur, your hand twitching weakly against the sheets.
"Shh," Dex whispered, leaning down until his lips hovered inches from your ear, his voice dropping into a dark, hypnotic hum. "I've got you. Go back to sleep."
He stripped away the rest of the barriers, peeling back your clothes until you lay completely exposed to the cold air of the room and the burning, unblinking glare of his eyes. He didn't climb into bed to hold you the way Matt would have. Instead, Dex sat heavily on the edge of the mattress, his fingers resting heavily on your hip, anchoring you down.
He looked around your bedroom in the dark, taking in the framed degrees on the wall, the laundry basket in the corner, the quiet sanctuary you had built for yourself—a sanctuary he had now successfully breached. The static in his head completely vanished, replaced by a deafening, absolute silence.
He was here. You were here. And Benjamin Poindexter had no intention of ever letting go.
Can u plzzzz write a fic where male reader was in HYDRA with Bucky and when Bucky got out, he didn't see male reader again. But years later around the Thunderbolts, they are all sent out to get information on HYDRA or smth and they have to interagate M! reader, after he already has a normal life ig. And Bucky sees him again plzzz 🙏🙏🙏
Past Won't Leave My Head - Bucky Barnes x Male Reader
Summary: Bucky's past is catching up with him, and for once he can remember what it looks like.
CW: Angst - Ex-military reader - Ex-Hydra reader - Reader is a Russian super soldier - Established past relationship - Happy ending
Words: 4.2k
A/N: Oh it took me so long to edit these images that I nearly gave up. Anyway, I haven't written for Bucky in awhile and it seems like his happy streak is finally over but thats okay, it happens and I'm sure he'll be happy again soon. I realized too late this went a bit off from what you requested, I'm sorry I'm just burnt out and this is what I ended up with.
FEMALES DNI
Bucky was starting to forget your face.
It used to be vivid, sharp enough to cut through the static, but lately, the edges were fraying. The image he would conjure from across a dim, smoke-filled bar—bathed in the soft, bruised orange glow of a neon sign—was becoming a watercolor left out in the rain. Details shifted every time he tried to pin them down: a mole where it didn't belong, eyes set too distant or too close together, a laugh that sounded distorted, and a smile that never quite sat right. It was just a frustrating blur of something he desperately wished he could hold onto.
He hated it. He hated that his mind, scrambled and stitched back together by a hundred different technicians, was failing him here. He hated that he couldn't remember the exact shade of your eyes without them bleeding into the grey of the winter sky. He hated that the tactile memory of your lips against his during that reckless, drunken night in the barracks—the stolen warmth before the world went up in flames—was fading into nothing.
Worse still were the memories that did stick.
The ones that survived weren't the quiet moments in the dark or the shared grins over mess hall rations. They were the cold, hollow look in your eyes down the sterile corridors of the Siberian facility. The shared agony as the Russian handlers strapped you both to the metal chairs, the agonizing snap of conditioning taking hold, the screams that tore from your throat echoing off concrete walls until they became his own. Hydra didn't just break you; they hollowed you out. The warmth he clung to was completely erased, replaced by the bitter reality that you had both been turned into living weapons—cold, obedient, and entirely disposable.
You hadn't lost an arm like he had, but the rot had gone deeper, sinking its claws straight into your head. Even back then, when the masks were off and the missions were over, the toll was unmistakable. You would sit on the edge of a cot in the quiet hours between cryo-freezes, staring at your hands—hands that looked entirely human, yet moved with the terrifying, mechanical precision of a killer. While Bucky fought a constant, grinding war against the Winter Soldier persona inside his own skull, you seemed to have folded inward, a ghost haunting your own skeleton long before you ever managed to break away.
Now, a blurry face and fractured, painful memories were all you were to him.
You were a fragile, fading hope tucked away in the darkest corner of Bucky's mind. A desperate wish that somewhere out there in the noise of the modern world, you were free. That you were somehow living the life you deserved—even if, in his most selfish, quiet moments, the only life he ever truly believed you deserved was right here next to him, safe, breathing, and finally allowed to grow old.
The transition from sleep to waking was never gentle for James Barnes.
It was a jagged, violent wrench that dragged him out of the red mist and slammed him back into the quiet, sterile confines of his apartment. Tonight, the nightmare had been particularly vicious. He had been back in the chair, the cold, heavy band of the headpiece tightening against his temples, but the face hovering over him in the blinding fluorescent light hadn't been an anonymous handler. It had been you.
Your eyes—wide, glassy, and completely devoid of the person he used to share a quiet laugh with over stolen rations—stared right through him as the current tore through his nervous system. You weren't fighting it. You had stopped fighting long before he had, retreating so far inward that the man he loved was nothing more than a ghost rattling the cage of a conditioned machine.
Bucky bolted upright in the dark, a choked gasp tearing from his throat.
His chest heaved, every muscle in his body coiled as if preparing to launch into a firefight. His skin was slick with cold, shivering sweat, plastering his dark hair to his forehead. He dragged his left hand—the heavy, cold weight of vibranium grounding him against the phantom pains of the metal arm he used to wear—across his face, wiping away the moisture as his heart hammered a frantic, deafening rhythm against his ribs.
Breathe. You're home. You're out.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the lingering echoes of the Siberian facility back into the dark where they belonged. Slowly, the shadows of his cramped apartment took shape, steadying him. The silence of the night pressed in around him, heavy and suffocating.
Then, breaking the quiet with a sharp, abrasive vibration, his burner phone lit up on the small wooden nightstand.
Bucky flinched, his head snapping toward the glowing screen as if it were a live grenade. The phone buzzed again, vibrating violently against the wood, casting a harsh, pale light across the dark room.
He didn't move. He just stared at it.
In his line of work, late-night calls were never good news. They meant trouble, they meant shadows, they meant pulling a thread he desperately wanted to leave alone. But tonight, soaked in sweat and still haunted by the ghost of your face, a cold, sickening dread pooled in his stomach.
With slow, hesitant movements, his metal fingers reached out and picked up the device. He didn't check the caller ID. He didn't need to. He could already feel the heavy, oppressive weight of who it was before he even swiped the screen.
He pressed accept and brought the phone to his ear, saying nothing.
For a second, there was only static and the sound of heavy breathing on the other end. Then, a cool, unbothered voice cut through the silence, dropping a single word that instantly stripped away whatever fragile peace he had managed to reclaim.
"Hydra."
The name hung in the air like poison, paralyzing his vocal cords before his brain could even begin to process the logistics, the danger, or the implications. All the air left his lungs. The nightmare hadn't ended; it had just followed him into the waking world.
Before reason could catch up to instinct, before he could demand answers or slam the phone down to sever the connection entirely, the words slipped past his dry lips, resigned and dead tired.
"...I'll be there."
The air in Valentina's office always felt pressurized, like a high-altitude cabin about to drop its masks. It smelled of expensive leather, ozone, and the faint, bitter tang of old scotch she didn't bother offering to anyone else.
When Bucky pushed the heavy glass door open, the muted click of his vibranium fingers against the latch was the only sound that pierced the heavy silence of the room.
The rest of them were already there, scattered around the sleek, minimalist conference table like a collection of misfits waiting for the executioner. Bucky didn't look at them as he walked in. He kept his expression locked into that familiar, terrifyingly blank mask—the Winter Soldier's armor pulled tight over his skin to keep the panic from leaking out. He pulled out the empty chair at the far end of the table and sat down, heavy and deliberate.
Even so, he could feel them.
He didn't need to turn his head to know. Yelena’s eyes were narrowed, tracking his movements with that unnerving, hyper-observant sniper’s gaze. She looked at him the way a cat looks at a mouse that hasn’t realized it’s trapped yet—like she could read every single micro-expression, every tight twitch in his jaw, every frantic heartbeat hammering against his ribs. Across from her, John’s eyes were just as heavy, narrowed with a sharp, suspicious curiosity, sizing him up as if waiting for Bucky to crack under the pressure of whatever secret he was carrying.
They knew something was off. They could see right past the blank facade, sensing the raw, exposed nerve twitching just beneath the surface. Bucky ignored them, locking his jaw and keeping his eyes fixed on the empty space ahead of him.
"Glad you could tear yourself away from whatever charming nocturnal activities you've got going on, Barnes," Valentina purred from the head of the table. She didn't look up from the tablet in her hands, her sharp heels clicking softly against the concrete floor as she paced. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Or perhaps just had a particularly bad night with the old scrapbook."
She stopped pacing. With a theatrical flourish, she reached across the table and tossed a thick, tan manila folder across the smooth surface. It slid across the wood, stopping right in front of Bucky's hands.
"Open it," she gestured with a manicured nail, her tone dropping its playful edge for something chillingly professional. "We have reason to believe someone is trying to stitch the rotting corpse of Hydra back together. Not a splinter cell. Not a few fanatical die-hards hiding in a bunker. Someone with capital, institutional memory, and access to legacy assets we thought were buried in the permafrost."
Bucky stared at the folder. The cardboard felt thick, heavy with the weight of whatever nightmare was trapped inside.
"And why am I looking at it?" Bucky’s voice was a low, gravelly rasp, barely carrying across the room.
"Because," Valentina smiled, a thin, humorless stretch of red lips, "the person in that file has the answers. Or, more accurately, they are the key to whoever is pulling the strings."
Slowly, his metal fingers reached out. The tips brushed against the rough texture of the manila tab. He hooked his thumb beneath the flap and flipped it open.
The top page was a standard-issue intelligence brief: translated Russian telemetry, encrypted financial routes, a series of blurred surveillance stills. But tucked beneath the paper clipped to the left side was a physical photograph—a glossy, high-resolution surveillance print of a target captured on a crowded street corner somewhere grey and anonymous.
Bucky froze.
The breath instantly evacuated his lungs, leaving a sharp, burning void in his chest. The room around him seemed to tilt, the ambient hum of the building's ventilation system fading into a roaring, high-pitched static in his ears.
It was an older picture. The face looking back at him from the glossy paper was older too—etched with the unmistakable lines of time, shadows beneath the eyes that spoke of decades carrying the same invisible weight he did. It was a face he hadn't seen in the waking world in over half a century.
Except... it was wrong.
It wasn't the blurry, distorted, melting watercolor face his broken brain had been torturing him with for years. Despite the lines and the years, it was clear, it was vivid, and it was entirely, devastatingly real. It was you.
His mind violently rejected the discrepancy between the ghost he had been mourning in his nightmares and the flesh-and-blood reality staring up at him from the dossier. The file tried to blur you out, labeling you as an unknown anomaly, reducing you to a threat matrix, but Bucky’s eyes bypassed the ink entirely. He knew the slope of that nose. He knew the exact shape of that jawline. Beneath the weathered edges of a life lived in hiding, you looked almost completely the same as the night they dragged you down into the dark.
His gaze dropped frantically to the text printed beneath the photo.
Your name. A string of bold black letters that felt like a physical blow to the sternum.
An address—an apartment number in a city thousands of miles away.
A place of work—a quiet, unassuming existence built entirely on a lie.
You were alive.
The realization hit him like a freight train, violent and sickening. All these years, while he was drowning in the static of his own mind, while he was clawing his way back to humanity one agonizing inch at a time, you had been out there. Breathing. Walking the earth. Surviving.
A sudden, suffocating wave of nausea rolled through his stomach. His vision tunneled, the edges of the room going pitch black as the phantom scent of ozone, antiseptic, and Siberian snow flooded his senses. His fingers curled into the edges of the manila folder, the paper instantly crumpling and tearing beneath the crushing, involuntary grip of his vibranium hand.
Yelena’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears, sharp and probing from across the table.
"Barnes? You look like you're about to throw up on the conference table. Do you know him?"
For a heartbeat, Bucky couldn’t breathe. The silence stretched, heavy and dangerous, filled only by the frantic, erratic drumbeat of his own pulse. Every instinct drilled into him by a lifetime of war—first as a howling commando, then as a programmed ghost, and finally as a man fighting tooth and nail for his own soul—screamed at him to lock it down. Put the mask back on. Flatten his expression. Deny, deflect, bury it.
His jaw locked so tight his teeth ached. He forced his fingers to relax just a fraction, pulling them away from the crumpled manila folder before the reinforced steel of his vibranium hand tore the paper completely to ribbons.
He raised his chin, dragging his eyes away from your name and forcing them upward to meet Yelena’s piercing stare. She was leaning forward now, her elbows on the table, studying him with a chilling, predatory focus. John Walker was watching too, his brow furrowed as he tried to piece together why a seasoned veteran and an Avenger-adjacent asset looked like he’d just been put through a meat grinder.
"No," Bucky said. His voice was a flat, gravelly rasp, utterly devoid of inflection. It was the voice of the Winter Soldier, pulled out of the dark like a rusted weapon he swore he’d never use again. "Never seen him before."
It was a blatant lie, and he knew they knew it. But it was all he had.
At the head of the table, Valentina let out a low, theatrical hum of skepticism. She didn’t buy it for a second, but a slow, knowing smirk crept onto her red lips. She loved secrets. She lived for leverage. If Bucky had a weak spot—if this dossier represented a buried piece of his past he was desperate to keep hidden—that just made him infinitely more useful to her.
"Is that so?" Valentina purred, leaning back in her leather chair and crossing one leg lazily over the other. "Shame. Because according to our intel, this particular ghost has a very specific set of skills, and someone high up in the new black-market syndicate is trying real hard to bring him back into the fold. Voluntary or not."
Bucky’s blood ran cold. The words struck a nerve so raw it made his vision blur. *Voluntary or not.* They didn't just want information; they were hunting you. If a resurrected Hydra faction had gotten their hands on your file, it meant they knew where you were, what you were capable of, and how to push your buttons just like they used to push his.
"Then why bring it to us?" John Walker cut in, breaking the heavy tension in the room as he shifted his weight forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "If it's a Hydra ghost, send a strike team. Snatch him up, extract the data, and put him in a box. Why make a meeting out of it?"
"Because, Captain," Valentina snapped, her gaze shifting to Walker with a flash of synthetic warmth that didn't reach her eyes, "a standard strike team would get themselves killed in the first three minutes. Whoever this is, they spent decades hiding in plain sight. They know the old protocols. They know how to vanish."
She turned her dark, calculating eyes back to Bucky, her smile sharpening into something razor-thin.
"We need someone who can get close. Someone who understands the psychological architecture of a legacy asset. Someone who can recognize the threat before it detonates in our faces." Valentina leaned forward, resting her palms flat on the mahogany table, pinning Bucky to his seat. "Your assignment, Barnes, is to find him. Bring him in, or figure out who’s pulling his strings. And you're going to do it quietly, before the rest of the world realizes Hydra is crawling out of the woodwork again."
The room went dead silent.
The mandate was clear. They were handing him a compass pointing directly to the past he had spent years trying to outrun, and telling him to walk right into it.
Bucky stared at Valentina, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged animal. Every instinct told him to stand up, flip the table, and walk out the door. But beneath the panic, beneath the nausea and the sudden, suffocating weight of history crashing down on him, a fierce, terrifying resolve began to take root.
If anyone was going to find you—if anyone was going to protect you from the monsters trying to drag you back into the dark—it wasn't going to be Valentina's squad.
It was going to be him.
Slowly, deliberately, Bucky’s metal hand reached out and closed over the manila folder, sliding it toward himself. He didn't look at Yelena. He didn't look at John. He just stared at the edge of the paper where your name was written, his jaw set in a hard, unyielding line.
"...Consider it handled," Bucky said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
The hum of the motorcycle engine died, leaving behind only the heavy, oppressive silence of the alleyway.
Bucky sat astride the machine in the shadows, half-concealed by a rusted dumpster and the overhang of a brick fire escape. Across the narrow street, the dim neon sign of the bar flickered and buzzed, casting a sickly amber glow over the back entrance. It had closed an hour ago. The patrons had trickled out into the night, the lock had clicked into place, and the chaos of the evening had bled away into quiet routine.
Through the smudged, fogged glass of the backdoor, he could see you.
The blurry, melting watercolor face that had haunted his nightmares for decades was finally snapping into razor-sharp focus. Every memory he had spent years trying to bury—every stolen glance, every touch in the dark, every shared trauma carved into his nervous system—slapped back into place with the terrifying force of a freight train. It wasn't a ghost anymore. It was you.
You were moving methodically around the dimly lit interior, wiping down sticky wooden tables, stacking chairs, and tossing a dirty bar towel over your shoulder. Because of the engineered serum burning through your veins and the decades spent trapped in cryo-stasis, time had barely touched you. You looked almost exactly as you had in the barracks, the only difference being the heavy, watchful wariness in your eyes—a quiet survival instinct bred by Hydra. You had carved out a semblance of peace, a fragile, hard-fought normality in a world that didn't know what you really were.
And looking at you now, a sickening dread coiled in Bucky’s gut.
Because he knew what was coming. He knew that the moment he stepped through that door, the peace you had fought for would shatter. The shadows he carried would bleed into your world, dragging you right back down into the nightmare you both thought you had escaped. Valentina was hunting you. The syndicate was moving in. The past was clawing its way up through the floorboards, and the tragedy of it nearly crushed him—that the only life you deserved to have, a life where you could both just grow old together, was about to be ripped away all over again, and he was the one bringing the storm to your doorstep.
Bucky’s jaw worked, a muscle ticking violently in his cheek.
He raised a heavy, trembling hand, shoving it through his dark hair as he dragged in a sharp, shuddering breath of cold night air. His heart thundered against his ribs, a frantic rhythm echoing the war he had fought inside his own head for half a century.
Walk away, a cold, military voice whispered in the back of his mind. Protect him by staying gone. Let him keep his life.
He looked at you again. He watched the way your shoulders slumped under the invisible weight of a long day, the way you paused to rub the back of your neck—a subtle, heartbreakingly familiar gesture he remembered from the cold concrete floors of the Siberian facility. You were carrying it all alone. Just like he was.
No. He had spent decades being kept away from everything that mattered. He wasn't going to sit in the dark and watch you slip through his fingers a second time.
With a low, ragged sigh, Bucky swung his leg over the saddle of the motorcycle and killed the lights completely. His boots hit the damp asphalt with a dull, heavy thud.
He didn't hesitate anymore.
Crossing the quiet street, his heavy coat flaring behind him in the midnight wind, he moved with the silent, predatory grace of the man he used to be. The metal of his left arm hummed faintly beneath his sleeve, a cold weight grounding him to reality. He bypassed the front entrance entirely, stepping into the shadows of the alleyway and walking steadily toward the heavy metal backdoor you had slipped through moments before.
He reached the door, raised his fist, and froze. The space between his knuckles and the painted steel felt like an abyss.
With a slow, deliberate breath, Bucky lowered his hand and knocked.
The sharp, metallic rap echoed through the quiet alley, sounding entirely too loud in the dead of night.
Inside, the movement stopped.
Bucky held his breath, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. For a agonizing second, there was total silence from within the bar. Then, the faint scuffle of boots against the floorboards drew closer. The shadow of a figure approached the frosted glass of the door. A lock clicked. The heavy deadbolt slid back with a metallic scrape.
The door swung inward.
And there you were.
Standing in the dim amber light of the back room, looking right at him. The serum-induced perfection of your features hadn't faded a single day; you looked entirely as you had in the barracks, frozen in time just like he was, untouched by the natural decay of the decades. But the look in your eyes—sharp, defensive, narrowed with the immediate, lethal muscle memory of a Hydra asset—was a punch straight to Bucky's gut.
You had half-raised a hand, fingers curling into a defensive posture, ready to strike or throw a punch at whoever was stupid enough to knock on a back door past closing time.
Then your gaze locked onto his face.
The breath caught in your throat. The aggressive, defensive tension instantly drained out of your posture, replaced by a profound, paralyzing shock. You stared at him, your eyes wide, tracking the familiar lines of his face, the dark hair, the grim set of his jaw. Your hand slowly lowered, trembling slightly at your side.
"James?"
The name slipped past your lips like a phantom, a whisper so fragile it barely carried over the hum of the street lamps.
Hearing his real name—not the designation, not the code, but his name—spoken in your voice after half a lifetime shattered the last remaining wall holding Bucky together.
"Hey," Bucky choked out, his voice thick, rough, and entirely broken.
He didn't wait for permission. Before his brain could process the danger, before the cold tactical logic screaming in the back of his mind could stop him, Bucky stepped across the threshold.
The door shut behind him with a heavy thud, sealing them off from the rest of the world. The scent of spilled beer, cleaning solution, and old wood enveloped them, but all Bucky could smell was you—real, breathing, and standing right in front of him.
You didn't move as he closed the distance between you. Your eyes searched his face, desperately looking for the monster, looking for the Winter Soldier, looking for any sign of the cage they had both been locked in. Instead, you found only him—shaking, overwhelmed, and looking at you like you were the only real thing left in a world made of smoke and mirrors.
When Bucky reached out, his human hand came up to cup the side of your face, his thumb trembling as it brushed against your cheekbone. Your skin was warm. Real. Alive.
A sharp, ragged breath tore from your throat, your eyes fluttering shut for a fraction of a second as you leaned instinctively into his palm, drinking in the touch you had both starved for since the world went dark.
"They're coming," Bucky whispered, his forehead coming to rest against yours, his voice cracking under the weight of the confession. "Hydra... they're looking for you. I couldn't let them find you alone."
You opened your eyes then, staring up into his with a grim, knowing clarity that proved the serum hadn't dulled your edge at all. A faint, sad ghost of a smile touched your lips.
"They were never going to leave us alone, James," you murmured, your hand coming up to rest tentatively over the heavy, solid warmth of his chest, feeling the frantic beat of his heart. "Not really."
"No," Bucky agreed, his grip tightening around you, pulling you impossibly close as the shadows of their shared past closed in around them. "Not really. But this time... we do it together."
Thinking a Friday the 13th au with Steve/M reader and some romance undertones. Like I said, could be Pam, Jason, or just something else to fill the slasher place. I was personally imagining camp vibes but I’d genuinely be happy with any setting you come up with. I don’t really have any more specific notes since there’s room for a ton of creative ideas on your part and I don’t want to dampen that or make it confusing. Thank you!!! 🫶
P.S - I’m also quite the horror fanatic so it’s fun talking to someone else who’s a fan. Personally, I’m big on hellraiser & poltergeist!
Cruel Summer - Steve Harrington x Male Reader
Summary: One summer night is all it took for everything to turn sideways. What was supposed to be an easy summer was anything but.
CW: No use of y/n - Horror au - Loosely based on Friday The 13th - Not canon - Mentions of death/murder - Mentions of drowning - Major character death - Reader has thalassophobia - Reader has a slight description - Reader is a camp counselor - Takes place in the late 80s early 90s - Everyone is around 18/19 - Blood - Gore - Other warnings i probably forgot
Words: 26.6k
A/N: Bludyl thank you so much for this request, genuinely got so many ideas the second I read it and of course we're going with Jason himself. I took elements of the various movies and put them into this, and the reason I described certain parts of m!reader is simply because I think it adds character and makes it memorable and not just a two dimensional character. I apologize if this seems messy at the end, I was really trying my best. Anyway, Hellrasier is such a good movie, definitely one of the movies that got me into body horor. Last thing, I'll ramble forever but I'm really enjoying these horror fics im writing and would love some more requests (maybe for Eddie)
FEMALES DNI
The transition from the sun-baked warmth of the wooden docks to the suffocating grip of the lake was always the loudest part.
One second, the humid air was thick with the scent of pine needles, cheap copper sunscreen, and the distant, obnoxious radio pop music bleeding from a counselor’s cabin. The next, a sharp, unexpected shove slammed directly between your small shoulder blades. A cruel, careless prank. Your eight-year-old body tilted, gravity betrayed you, and the world shattered into a deafening, chaotic roar of silver bubbles and churning foam.
You didn't even have time to scream. The lake swallowed your gasp whole, filling your mouth with a shocking, icy coldness before you could lock your lungs.
Instantly, the ambient noises of Camp Crystal Lake were obliterated. The frantic splashing of other kids, the tinny music, the shouting—all of it was replaced by the heavy, rhythmic thudding of your own pulse drumming violently against your eardrums. Thump. Thump. Thump. It sounded like a grandfather clock ticking down your remaining seconds.
You tried to kick, but the instinct was useless. Your canvas sneakers immediately filled with the lake's weight, transforming into blocks of lead that anchored your ankles, dragging you backward and downward. Above you, the surface of the water was a shifting, fractured mirror. You could see the distorted, undulating shapes of the pine trees lining the shore and the bright, golden disc of the afternoon sun, spinning rapidly out of reach as you sank further into the sun-starved depths. You reached a small hand upward, your fingers cutting through the cold currents, grasping at a sky that was quickly abandoning you.
The lake didn't just drown you; it squeezed you. The sheer hydrostatic pressure built against your ribcage, a heavy, invisible hand pressing the remaining oxygen right out of your chest. A trail of precious, diamond-like bubbles escaped your lips, dancing lazily toward the surface you would never reach. Your throat burned. The biological urge to inhale became a violent, agonizing command that your body could no longer fight. Your mouth opened.
The lake poured in.
It was bitter, freezing, and tasted heavily of iron, wet silt, and decayed autumn leaves. It flooded your nasal passages and tore down your trachea like liquid fire, a brutal invasion that choked out the last remnants of your strength. The panic, once sharp and electric, began to melt. Your flailing limbs grew heavy, turning soft and warm as a strange, deceptive lethargy washed over you. The vibrant, murky green of the lake water began to fray at the edges, tunneling into a deep, velvety blackness. You were fading, drifting into the absolute silence of the abyss.
You were floating in the dead zone, suspended above the uncharted floor of the lake where the sunlight never reached.
And that was when the shadow detached itself from the dark.
Deep within the tangled, skeletal forest of lake weeds, a massive silhouette shifted. It didn’t glide with the fluid ease of a fish or the aimless drift of a waterlogged timber; it moved with a heavy, deliberate, hulking grace. As your vision narrowed to a pinprick, you saw him. He was colossal, a towering figure clad in rags that billowed around him like smoke, his form scarred and weathered by the lake itself.
There was no malice in the way he watched you. Through the hazy, dying twilight of your consciousness, you felt an overwhelming, almost telepathic sense of recognition. He wasn't a monster hunting prey. He was a boy who had been left to rot in the dark, watching another boy suffer the exact same fate.
Slowly, an unnaturally large, scarred hand reached upward through the weeds. The fingers parted the water, stretching out toward your descending ankle. He wasn’t reaching to pull you into the mud. He was reaching to catch you. To hold you. To offer the protection in the dark that neither of you had ever been given on the surface.
Before those colossal fingers could brush against your skin, the water far above you ruptured.
A violent, frantic grip latched onto your wrist with a jarring snap, halting your descent and dragging your limp body back toward the light. The silhouette below didn't chase. It simply drifted backward, dissolving into the freezing floor of the lake like a ghost reclaiming its grave.
What followed was an agonizing, disjointed blur: the blinding, agonizing assault of the white-hot afternoon sun, the rough wood of the docks scraping against your bare back, and the rib-cracking impact of chest compressions. You violently coughed up gallons of black lake water, choking and gasping on the planks while teenagers screamed, wept, and panicked over your shaking frame.
The camp hailed it as a miracle. The counselors took the credit, whispering about how they had saved you just in the nick of time. But as you lay there, staring at the sky with trembling lips, you knew the terrible truth.
The counselors hadn't saved you. The monster at the bottom of the lake had been the only one paying attention.
The crude, dim orange lights on the VCR blinked in the corner of the room, permanently stuck on an eternal—6:37 PM.
The television set buzzed with a low, rhythmic hum of static. The grainy image of the local news anchor flickered occasionally, the tracking lines rolling lazily up the screen before finally evening out into a steady, sterile broadcast.
It was the first week of summer. And just like every single year, as if the entire county needed a morbid reminder to kick off the season, the evening news segment pivoted to the dark history out at Camp Crystal Lake. Two drownings. One fatal, the other lucky enough to have been dragged back to the shore.
You stared at the glass screen, your chest tightening. You wondered if that other little boy—the one who didn't come back up—had felt that same crushing weight in his lungs all those years ago. You wondered if the teenage counselors had just paid a fraction more attention, if they had stopped laughing or flirting for just sixty seconds, if he’d still be breathing air today. If he'd be alive, just like you were.
Jason Voorhees.
Your mother had told you the stories in hushed, bitter tones. She had been a young counselor at the camp the summer he went under. She understood the blinding, righteous hatred that consumed Pamela Voorhees. She understood that maybe, if she herself hadn't been trapped inside the infirmary, dry-heaving and vomiting from a severe case of heat exhaustion, she would have been out on those docks. She would have been watching. And maybe Jason would still be alive, a grown man now, just like her own little boy was.
You watched that identical news segment every summer, sitting in the absolute silence of your home, listening to how the reporters talked about the tragedy. They spoke about the two of you like it was an inevitability, an accident, a dark stain on the town's reputation.
But you knew better. You were just kids. For God's sake, a child's life should have been infinitely more important than a couple of teenagers sneaking off into the woods for sex. But it wasn't. The town moved on, the counselors went home, and you were left to carry the psychological rot of that water every day of your life—while Jason didn't get to live at all.
“You don't have to watch that, sweetheart.”
The soft, fragile voice broke through the static. Your mom smiled gently from the doorway, her footsteps silent as she walked over, her hand coming to rest in a warm, grounding weight against your forearm.
You didn't look up at her right away. Your gaze remained glued to the flickering blue light of the television before you finally let the flannel shirt you were supposed to be folding slip from your fingers, pooling into a messy, neglected heap on your lap.
"I know," you whispered, your voice barely carrying over the hum of the television. You kept your eyes fixed on the floor, the words brief and quiet, as if speaking any louder would draw too much attention to the tightness in your chest. "It’s... it's just not fair."
Your mother didn't say anything at first. She simply reached down, her warm fingers gently prying the flannel shirt from where it sat near your hands, throwing it onto the coffee table. Then, with a gentle, sweeping motion, she brushed the rest of the clothing pile off your lap entirely, letting it tumble onto the carpet.
Her gaze drifted past your knees, landing on the worn canvas backpack resting right next to an open duffle bag. Peeking out from the top zipper were the crisp, folded collars of the Camp Crystal Lake counselor staff shirts—bright, mocking things tucked neatly against the rest of your summer clothes.
A heavy, mournful silence settled over the living room.
"You don't have to go," she whispered, her voice softening as she reached out, enveloping both of your cold hands in her palms. She squeezed them tightly, trying to force some of her own warmth into your fingers. "You know that, right? Everyone will understand."
You looked down at your joined hands. Maybe she was right. Robin would understand in a heartbeat; she’d probably offer to fake a medical emergency just to give you an excuse to stay behind. Nancy would get it too, her sharp, empathetic eyes seeing right through the bravado. Eddie would just pat your shoulder, hand you a cassette tape, and tell you to take care of yourself. Even Chrissy would understand, offering a gentle, sad smile without a single shred of judgment.
But then there was the rest of them.
Billy Hargrove would look at you like you were a piece of stray trash on the highway. Tommy H. would make a spectacle out of it, laughing until he was red in the face, ensuring the entire town knew. And… and Steve.
Steve Harrington.
If you stayed behind, they’d never let you live it down. For as long as you drew breath in this town, you’d be the reclusive, fragile kid who chickened out because he was terrified of a little water. They’d think you were scared of drowning again, scared that this time there wouldn't be a savior waiting on the docks. But as your chest tightened, a quiet, dark hum resonated in the back of your mind—a deeply buried secret you could never tell a living soul. A small, irrational part of you knew that if you went back to that lake, you wouldn't truly be alone.
"I know," you murmured, keeping your voice low and even, choosing your words carefully to keep them from catching in your throat. You forced yourself to look up and give her a small, quiet nod. "But... I want to go."
You tried to anchor the words with a convincing smile, turning your lips up at the corners, but your mom knew you better than you knew yourself. She saw right through the fragile mask.
Without a word, she leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to the crown of your head. Her lips lingered there for a long, quiet moment, a silent prayer for your safety, before she pulled back and gave your hands one final, grounding squeeze.
"Okay," she said softly, her eyes searching yours. "Just promise me you'll remember that you can leave whenever you want. If it gets too much, you call me from the mess hall landline, and I will come get you. No questions asked."
Before you could let the anxiety paralyze you, your mom shifted gears, intentionally breaking the heavy mood. She dragged the duffle bag closer and began helping you finish packing, transforming into a whirlwind of maternal fretfulness. She systematically marched through the house, returning with things she deemed absolute necessities—most of which you definitely didn't need.
"You're going to need extra socks. The cabins get damp at night," she murmured, shoving a thick wool pair down into the corners of the bag. "And three extra flashlights. What if the batteries die? What if there's a thunderstorm and the main generator blows? You need backups."
As she meticulously organized your bags, she kept up a steady, soothing stream of chatter, trying to pull your mind away from the dark water and focus it on the horizon. She talked about the peacefulness of the woods, the clear night skies, and how you should try to just enjoy yourself over the next week and a half before the actual campers arrived.
And then, inevitably, she brought up Steve.
Of course she knew. Your mom wasn't blind; she had noticed the way your eyes lingered a second too long whenever a certain battered BMW pulled into the driveway, or how you seemed to grow completely quiet, retreating into yourself whenever his booming, cheerful voice entered a room. She knew everything, including the massive secret Steve had clumsily confessed to you and Robin in the back room of Scoops Ahoy last summer—the quiet, terrifying admission that he liked guys, too. Your mom didn't judge you for the pining. Lord knows she, of all people, understood what it was like to love someone fiercely from a safe, quiet distance.
"It'll be nice for you to get out of the house," she said casually, neatly rolling up a pair of jeans. "And I know Steve is looking forward to having you out there. Robin mentioned he was glad you signed up."
Your face flared hot, a sudden wave of heat rushing up your neck. You quickly reached for a worn, dog-eared paperback book on the end table, using the movement to hide your expression as you shoved it deep into the side pocket of your backpack.
"He's just a friend, Mom," you mumbled, your voice dropping to a defensive whisper. You shook your head, keeping your focus entirely on the book in your hands. "It's nothing."
Your mom just gave you a knowing, incredibly gentle look, placing a final heavy sweatshirt on top of your duffle bag before zipping it shut with a definitive snap.
"Whatever you say, sweetheart," she smiled, leaning back on her heels. "Just... give him a chance to be a friend. And keep an eye on each other out there."
Sleep didn’t come easy that night. In fact, it didn't come at all. Every time you let your eyelids drift closed, the heavy stillness of your bedroom vanished, replaced by the crushing weight of cold, dark water. Your lungs would seize in a phantom panic, the taste of iron and wet silt rushing to the back of your throat until you snapped your eyes open again, gasping for the dry air of your room.
You lay awake for hours, the thin cotton blanket tangled uselessly between your legs. The air conditioner unit in the window kicked on with a loud, rattling thud, humming aggressively as it blasted a steady stream of freezing air straight across your bed. You didn't bother to pull the covers back up. Instead, you just stared blankly into the darkness beyond the window, watching the pitch-black shadows of the tree branches sway like skeletal fingers against the glass.
Then, the sudden, shrill bell of the kitchen landline shattered the quiet.
The sound cut through the dark, traveling straight up the carpeted staircase and vibrating right into your bedroom. You flinched, your heart leaping into your throat. You waited a moment, listening intently for any movement down the hall, but the house remained quiet. Your mom was already fast asleep. She had always possessed that rare, enviable gift of falling asleep the exact second her head hit the pillow, completely detached from the anxieties of the waking world. Sometimes, you envied that more than anything.
With a heavy sigh, you kicked the tangled blanket away from your ankles. Moving like a ghost, you slipped out into the hallway and headed down the stairs, keeping your bare feet close to the wall to avoid the creaky floorboards.
The kitchen was bathed in the pale, eerie blue glow of the digital clock on the stove. You stopped right in front of the wall-mounted landline, its yellowed plastic casing gleaming faintly in the dark. The cold air from the central AC vent blew directly over your bare skin, sending a sharp chill down your spine as you reached out and picked up the heavy receiver.
"Hello?" you whispered, your voice small and raspy against the quiet of the house.
A stretch of empty, crackling silence followed. For a second, you thought whoever it was had already hung up. But then, a soft, familiar breath came through the line.
"Uh, hey."
Your grip tightened on the plastic receiver. Steve Harrington. Even muffled by the cheap wiring of a late-night connection, his voice was unmistakable—deep, a little gravelly, and entirely too loud for the dead of night.
"Did I wake you?" he asked, his tone dipping into something uncharacteristically tentative.
"No," you breathed out. You leaned your shoulder against the cold kitchen wall, pulling your knees slightly together to block the draft. You kept your response brief, your heart doing a nervous little flip just hearing him. "I was awake."
"Oh. Good. Okay," Steve muttered. You could hear the faint rustle of him shifting around on the other end, probably pacing the floor of his empty kitchen.
"Is something wrong?" you asked softly. You didn't usually pry, but the fact that he was calling your house at this hour made a protective jolt of worry override your usual quietness.
Steve let out a short, self-deprecating snort, followed by a quiet throat-clear. "Well, uh, kind of," he admitted, the confident, popular-guy facade slipping away to reveal the clumsy, honest version of him you liked best. "I was supposed to head up to the camp with Eddie tomorrow morning. Group caravan thing, you know? But, uh... he's taking Chrissy now. Just the two of them."
He trailed off, letting the sentence hang in the quiet space between you. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. Eddie and Chrissy had been dancing around each other for weeks, and Eddie had clearly seized the opportunity of a long, isolated drive to finally make his move, leaving Steve in the dust.
"Yeah," you said softly.
"Yeah as in...?" Steve prompted. You could practically hear the hopeful, boyish grin forming on his face through the receiver.
A small, involuntary smile tugged at the corners of your lips, completely breaking through the heavy fog of your insomnia. You leaned closer to the phone, your voice dropping to a gentle, steady murmur. "Yes, you can ride with me. I'll take the Jeep."
"Seriously?" Steve let out a breath that sounded like a laugh, the relief evident in his voice. "Man, you are a lifesaver. Seriously. The Jeep is perfect—way more room for all the bags anyway. I can be at your place by eight? That work?"
"Eight is fine," you replied quietly, a sudden, comforting warmth blooming in your chest despite the cold kitchen air. The terrifying depth of the lake felt a little further away now. "I'll be ready."
"Awesome. I'll see you at eight then," Steve said, his voice dropping to a softer, gentler register. "Get some sleep, okay?"
"You too. Bye, Steve."
You waited until you heard the quiet click of the line disconnecting before you gently rested the receiver back onto its cradle. The kitchen returned to its absolute silence, but the suffocating weight of the water was gone, replaced by a nervous, fluttering anticipation. You turned and headed back up the stairs, the cold air no longer bothering you at all.
True to his word, Steve was there—except he arrived nearly two hours earlier than he said he would. The soft, rhythmic rumbling of his BMW’s engine cutting out in the driveway was followed by a muted, polite knock at the front door just after six in the morning. Your mom answered it, her low, welcoming murmur echoing down the hallway. She smiled warmly, immediately ushering him inside from the humid morning air, gesturing for him to dump his duffle bags by the coat rack before pointing a finger toward the stairs. "Go on up," she whispered. "Wake him up."
You hadn't really slept. Even after the late-night phone call had eased the worst of the panic, the nightmares had simply waited in the shadows, catching up to you the moment you drifted off. You had only managed to slide into a deep, exhausted slumber a few hours before dawn. Because of it, you didn't even hear your bedroom door click open. You didn't hear the soft rustle of Steve’s denim jacket, or the quiet, heavy thud of his sneakers against the carpet.
You barely felt the mattress dip under his weight.
Steve sat on the edge of your bed, completely still, letting his eyes trace the quiet landscape of your room before settling entirely on you. The blanket had kicked down to your waist again in your sleep. In the gray, filtered morning light cutting through the blinds, Steve’s gaze lingered on your bare skin. He watched the slow, steady rise and fall of your chest. His eyes drifted upward, focusing heavily on the dark mole sitting dead center on your throat, right over your Adam's apple, before scanning the faint, familiar scatter of moles across your shoulders. He took in the tight, exhausted strain around your eyes, the dark purple shadows bruising the skin beneath them. You looked entirely worn out.
"Pervert," you mumbled.
Your voice was a low, sleep-roughened friction against the quiet room. You didn't open your eyes, your eyelashes just fluttering against your cheeks as you slowly rolled onto your side, burying half your face into the pillow to hide from the light.
Steve didn't flinch. Instead, a soft, amused huff escaped him. He didn't get up either; instead, he shifted his weight, pulling his legs onto the mattress to fully lie down beside you on top of the sheets. He propped his head up on his hand, looking down at you.
"Did you sleep at all?" he asked. The usual loud, energetic edge to his voice was entirely gone, replaced by a quiet, grounded gravity.
Your mom’s words from the evening before replayed in the back of your mind, clear and heavy. Give him a chance to be a friend. You kept your eyes closed, letting the thought settle. Steve had always been a friend. A slightly clumsy, arrogant one at first, sure, but he had grown into a remarkably better one after Robin came into the picture—especially after he finally ditched Tommy H. and the suffocating social standards he used to uphold like a shield. Steve cared. He always had.
"Not really," you whispered into the fabric of the pillow. You let out a faint, self-deprecating laugh that didn't hold any real humor. "Kinda stupid, isn't it?"
"No," Steve replied instantly. The answer was sharp, leaving absolutely no room for argument. He shifted slightly closer, his shoulder nearly brushing yours. "No... it's not."
The room went completely still. In the silence, a sudden, heavy memory dropped into your chest. You had almost forgotten that Steve had been there that summer. He hadn't been on the docks when you were pushed, but he had been among the crowd of curious kids who gathered near the shore, watching wide-eyed and terrified as the counselors dragged your blue, unbreathing body out of the surf. He had seen it all.
You shook your head slightly against the pillow, your throat tightening. "Sorry."
Steve’s hand moved. It was a hesitant, cautious motion in the space between you, but his fingertips finally extended, brushing gently against the edge of your bare shoulder. The touch was light, warm, and entirely steady.
"I can drive," he murmured, his thumb pulling back slightly as he deliberately changed the subject before the weight of the memory could turn weird. "If you want. You can just sleep in the passenger seat."
You slowly rolled back over to face him. Steve didn’t move away; he stayed right where he was, his head still propped up on his hand, his hazel eyes fixed on you with an unblinking, quiet intensity. The space between you felt incredibly small, filled only with the faint, metallic scent of his cologne and the cool draft of the air conditioner.
"I'll drive," you mumbled, your voice still thick with sleep. You offered a faint, tired expression. "It's a manual anyway. You'd just grind the gears."
To emphasize the point, you reached out and gave his chest a light, teasing pat before finally forcing yourself to sit up. The thin bedsheets slid down your torso, pooling in a messy heap around your waist as the chilly morning air hit your bare skin.
Steve smiled, a genuine, boyish expression that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He swung his legs over the side of the mattress, the bed shifting as he stood up. As he passed your nightstand, his fingers deftly scooped up your keyring, the metal jingling quietly in the quiet room. "Fine, but I’m loading the bags. Go get ready."
You didn't even have the energy to respond before he slipped out of the room, closing the door softly behind him. A real, unprompted smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, the heavy fog of the nightmares finally beginning to lift. Shaking off the lingering lethargy, you stood up and crossed the room to your desk. You rummaged through the small pile of clean laundry you had left there the night before, pulling out a comfortable, faded t-shirt and a pair of worn shorts. It was going to be a long drive out to the county line, and you wanted to be as comfortable as possible.
After a quick, steaming shower that finally managed to wash the cold dread of the lake out of your bones, you dressed and headed down the carpeted stairs.
As you neared the bottom, the low, rhythmic murmur of voices drifted out from the kitchen. You paused on the second-to-last step, pressing your shoulder slightly against the wallpapered wall, entirely out of sight from the entryway. You didn't mean to eavesdrop, but the mention of your own name made your feet freeze in place.
It was your mom. Her voice was low, carrying that familiar, strained note of maternal anxiety she always tried to hide from you.
"...just promise me you'll keep an eye on him, Steve," she was saying softly. You could hear the faint clink of a coffee mug being set down on the linoleum counter. "He doesn't talk about it, but the lake... it does things to him. He didn't sleep a wink last night. I just don't want him to be alone out there if he panics."
"Hey, Alice, look at me," Steve’s voice broke in. It was uncharacteristically gentle, lacking any of his usual loud bravado. "You don't have to worry about him. I’ve got him. Robin and I are going to be right there the whole time. I won't let anything happen to him, I promise."
A sharp, unpleasant knot formed in the pit of your stomach. It felt entirely wrong. A hot flash of frustration and embarrassment crept up your neck, making your chest tighten. Steve didn't need to babysit you. He wasn't your handler, and you weren't some fragile glass ornament he had to protect just because you couldn't get over a stupid trauma from a decade ago. You were both adults now. He was supposed to be spending his summer running around the fields as the head sports counselor, flirting and enjoying the sun, while you stayed safely indoors as the arts and crafts counselor. You didn't want to be his chore. You didn't want him looking at you out of pity.
You swallowed the lump in your throat, intentionally breathing out loud as you took the final step onto the hardwood floor, making sure your worn sneakers made enough noise to warn them.
The low murmur in the kitchen cut off instantly. You heard the sharp, distinct scrape of a wooden chair leg dragging across the floorboards as your mom quickly stood up, smoothing down her apron as you finally came into view in the doorway.
The sudden silence in the kitchen was thick, almost suffocating. Your mom stood by the counter, her fingers nervously smoothing down the front of her apron, while Steve sat at the table with a half-empty mug of coffee between his hands. The pale morning sunlight cut through the window screen, catching the rising steam between them.
"Morning, sweetheart," your mom said, her voice instantly shifting into an overly bright, cheerful register that felt entirely forced. She offered a quick, tight smile, her eyes searching your face for any sign that you’d overheard. "You’re up just in time. I was just telling Steve I made some blueberry muffins for the road."
You didn't look at her right away. Instead, your eyes drifted over to Steve.
He didn't look guilty, exactly, but he wasn't looking at you with his usual easygoing grin either. He was watching you carefully, his shoulders squared, assessing your posture just like he had in your bedroom. It was the exact look he gave people when he was checking them for injuries—full of an innate, protective responsibility that made your skin prickle with irritation.
"I'm not hungry," you said softly. Your voice was flat, devoid of any inflection as you crossed the linoleum floor. You kept your gaze fixed on the countertop, deliberately avoiding the heavy atmosphere in the room as you grabbed your canvas backpack from where Steve had neatly set it by the pantry. "We should probably get moving before the traffic hits the county line."
"Right. Yeah, absolutely," Steve said, clearing his throat as he pushed himself out of the wooden chair. The legs scraped against the floorboards again, a loud, jarring sound in the quiet kitchen. He grabbed his denim jacket off the back of the seat, slipping it over his broad shoulders with a quick, practiced shrug. "The roads get pretty backed up near the state park on Friday mornings. Better to get ahead of it."
Your mom looked between the two of you, the lines of worry deep around her eyes, but she knew better than to push when you were retreating into yourself like this. She walked over, her soft hands coming up to gently squeeze your upper arms.
"Call me when you get to the mess hall," she murmured, her voice dropping so Steve wouldn't hear, though he was already walking toward the back door with your duffle bag. "Just... stay safe, okay?"
"I will," you whispered. You gave her a brief, quiet nod before pulling away, slinging your backpack over one shoulder.
The morning air outside was crisp but heavy with the promise of July heat, the scent of damp grass and dew filling your lungs as you walked out to the driveway. Your dark green Jeep sat idling, the engine rumbling with a low, mechanical vibration that you could feel right through the soles of your sneakers. Steve was already at the back, slamming the rear door shut after tossing the last of the bags inside.
He walked around to the passenger side, his hand resting on the top of the door frame as he looked over the hood at you. The annoyance in your chest was still a tight, hard knot, but as you looked at him—standing there in the early light, his hair slightly messy, completely ready to spend his entire morning in a cramped vehicle just to keep you company—the anger began to lose its edge, leaving only a quiet, familiar ache.
"Keys?" Steve asked, holding out a hand across the roof of the vehicle.
You didn't say anything. You just climbed into the driver's seat, pulled the door shut with a heavy metallic thud, and slotted the key into the ignition. You shifted into reverse, your foot steady on the clutch, keeping your eyes strictly on the rearview mirror.
"Buckle up, Harrington," you murmured into the quiet cabin.
You tossed your canvas backpack onto the floorboards by Steve’s feet, the heavy straps settling against his sneakers. You sat in silence, waiting deliberately, refusing to shift the Jeep into gear until you heard the distinct, metallic click of his seatbelt locking into place. Once he was secure, you released the brake, slowly backing out of the gravel driveway and leaving the quiet safety of your neighborhood behind.
The morning sun was just beginning to crest the treeline, casting long, fractured shadows across the blacktop. For the first ten minutes, the only sound inside the cabin was the low, rhythmic hum of the all-terrain tires against the pavement.
Steve shifted in his seat, the leather creaking under his weight as he reached over toward the dashboard. His fingers deftly twisted the radio dials, cutting through bursts of loud static until he finally landed on a familiar classic rock station. The low, distorted hum of an old guitar riff filtered through the dashboard speakers. Satisfied, Steve leaned his head back against the cool glass of the passenger window, his eyes tracking the passing green trees.
"Why'd you sign up?" he asked quietly.
The question came out of nowhere, cutting through the music. Your grip on the steering wheel tightened, your knuckles turning a stark white against the worn leather wrapper. You stared straight ahead at the empty highway, the knot in your stomach winding tighter.
"I thought it would be good for me," you murmured, keeping your voice barely above a whisper. You swallowed the dryness in your throat, forcing the next words out before you could lose your nerve. "Nothing like facing a fear to get over it, right?"
Steve turned his head away from the window to face you. He studied your profile, his eyes tracing the rigid line of your jaw and the white-knuckle grip you kept on the wheel. A small, knowing chuckle escaped him, though it lacked any real bite.
"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?" he asked, a faint trace of amusement in his voice. "What, are you gonna let Robin drag you out onto the docks by your ankles?"
You glanced at him out of the corner of your eye, taking in the easy, relaxed way he sat in your passenger seat before looking right back at the road. You shook your head slightly. "I'll figure it out when we get there."
Steve let the subject drop, sensing the quiet wall you were building up between yourself and the memory of the water.
An hour bled into the drive, and the scenery outside slowly shifted from familiar town suburbs to dense, towering stretches of pine forest.
Steve did most of the talking. Every few minutes, he would pick a new topic out of thin air, clumsily trying to fill the heavy silence stretching between the two of you. He talked about his car, he complained about the heat, he rambled about a movie Robin had forced him to watch—deliberately avoiding any mention of the camp, the upcoming summer, or the lake itself. You barely responded, offering only quiet hums or one-word answers whenever he paused for a breath.
But you weren't annoyed. In fact, you were completely content just listening to him. You liked the low, slightly gravelly register of his voice when he was tired. You liked the way he clumsily hummed along to the radio when he forgot the lyrics, and you especially liked the quiet, easy way he said your name whenever he wanted to bring your attention back to something outside the window.
Eventually, the gas gauge started to dip dangerously close to empty. You spotted a faded, rusted neon sign rising above the trees and pulled the Jeep into a cracked asphalt gas station, letting the vehicle coast to a stop next to a solitary pump. You turned the key, and the engine died with a heavy, shuddering sigh.
Steve didn't waste any time. He unbuckled and climbed out of the passenger side, the humid morning air rushing into the cabin before he swung the door shut. Instead of walking straight to the pump, he leaned down, propping his forearms against the open window frame to look in at you.
"I'll handle the gas," he said, that stupid, boyish grin completely taking over his face as the sunlight hit his hair. "You want anything from inside?"
Your hand paused halfway to your shorts pocket, where you had been about to reach for your wallet. You looked at him, taking in the genuine, unbothered warmth in his expression, and decided it wasn't worth the energy to argue over who paid. You let your hand drop back to your lap and offered a small, quiet shrug.
"Surprise me," you murmured.
"Dangerous choice," Steve teased, tapping his knuckles twice against the side of the door before straightening up. "Don't complain if I come back with something terrible."
You watched him through the rearview mirror as he walked toward the station's glass storefront, his hands shoved carelessly into his pockets, leaving you alone with the quiet hum of the distant bugs.
The cabin of the Jeep grew stifling the moment the air conditioning died. You sat alone for a minute, the low murmur of the distant bugs providing the only company, before the heavy silence pushed you to move. Slipping out of the driver's seat, you closed the door quietly behind you, the thick, humid air of the rural highway immediately wrapping around your shoulders.
You walked to the back of the vehicle, leaning your hip against the dark green metal fender as you popped open the fuel cap. The smell of gasoline and hot asphalt was heavy in the air. Across the cracked lot, through the dusty glass storefront, you could see Steve standing in the snack aisle, squinting intensely at a row of candy bars as if it were a life-or-death decision. A small, faint smile touched your lips.
You didn't notice the noise at first—just a slow, shuffling drag of boots over loose gravel.
But then a shadow fell across the pump.
You flinched, your shoulders tightening instantly as you looked up. A man was standing barely two feet away, having materialized from the blind spot behind the old garage bay. He was older, his face a deeply lined roadmap of sun damage and graying stubble, clad in a filthy, grease-stained jacket despite the rising morning heat. His eyes were milky, wide, and unblinking as they locked onto you with a terrifying, singular intensity.
"Heading up to the lake, are ya?" his voice rasped. It was a dry, hollow sound, like autumn leaves scraping across a sidewalk.
You stepped back instinctively, pressing your lower back against the Jeep's rear quarter panel. Your throat closed up, your natural reclusiveness flaring into sharp, defensive anxiety as your mouth dried out. "W-We're..." you started, the syllable catching behind your teeth before you could even manage a quiet response.
But the old man didn't wait for you to finish. He leaned in closer, the reek of stale tobacco and sour alcohol rolling off him.
"You shouldn't go out there," he hissed, his hand trembling as he raised a crooked finger toward the dense, suffocating wall of pine trees lining the highway northward. "None of ya should. There's a curse on that place. A dark, bloody weight in that water. You go out to Crystal Lake this summer, and you're all doomed. Every last one of ya counselors is walking straight into a grave."
A cold sweat broke out across the back of your neck. A few years ago, the local whispers had traveled all the way to Hawkins—dark, ugly rumors about a woman named Pamela Voorhees harassing a crew of teenagers who had tried to reopen the camp. The town had kept it completely buried. The newspaper articles had been small, vague, and heavily sanitized, persistently pushing the narrative that a grieving, unstable mother had simply lost her mind before ending her own life in the woods. The media wanted everyone to believe the danger died with her.
But looking into the old man's crazed, dead-earnest stare, the knot in your stomach tightened into a hard, painful lump.
"She tried to warn 'em," the man muttered, his voice dropping to a harsh, wet whisper as he stepped even closer, completely ignoring the way you shrank away from him. "They didn't listen to her either. But she ain't the only thing waiting in those woods. The lake remembers. He remembers."
Your heart hammered against your ribs, the phantom weight of the dark water suddenly pressing down on your chest all over again. You stared at him, your lips parted, completely paralyzed by the terrifying certainty in his voice.
Before you could force a single word past the tight knot in your throat, the gas station door flew open with a loud, tinny chime.
"Hey! Back off!"
Steve’s voice thundered across the cracked asphalt, sharp and commanding. He didn't just walk over—he marched, his sneakers slamming down hard, his face completely stripped of that easygoing, boyish charm. In two steps, he was directly between you and the old man, his broad shoulders forming a solid, protective wall that completely blocked the stranger from your sight. Steve’s hand instinctively went out, resting firmly on the old man's chest to push him back a step.
"I said move along, buddy," Steve snapped, his jaw set tight, his hazel eyes flashing with a dangerous, protective heat. "We don't want any trouble, and we sure as hell don't need your garbage."
The old man blinked, his milky eyes shifting from you to Steve. He let out a harsh, wet cackle, stepping back into the gravel shadow of the garage bay. "Go on then, pretty boy," he jeered, shaking his head. "Drive right on in. The lake's waiting for ya."
With one last muttered curse, the man turned and shambled away, disappearing behind the rusted skeletal remains of an old tractor at the edge of the woods.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the distant hum of the highway. Steve stood there for a second, his chest heaving slightly as he watched the tree line, making sure the man was truly gone. The tension in his shoulders was palpable, a rigid, defensive energy that you rarely saw him use unless someone he cared about was cornered.
Slowly, Steve let out a long, ragged breath and turned around to face you. The hard, angry lines of his face instantly softened into deep concern. He took a half-step closer, his eyes scanning your face, taking in your wide eyes and the paleness of your cheeks.
"You okay?" he asked softly. His voice had dropped to that gentle, quiet register again, completely devoid of the bravado he'd just used on the stranger. "Did he touch you?"
You shook your head quickly, keeping your arms crossed tightly over your chest as if to hold yourself together. Your heart was still hammering against your ribs, a frantic, erratic rhythm, but having Steve standing right there—warm, solid, and completely unbothered by the old man's curses—made the phantom weight of the water recede just a little.
"N-No," you whispered, your voice small. You forced yourself to take a steadying breath, looking down at the asphalt. "He was just... talking."
"Yeah, well, he's a freakin' psycho," Steve muttered, though there was a lingering trace of unease in his eyes as he glanced back toward the dark wall of pines. He reached out, his hand hesitating for a fraction of a second before he gently tapped the side of your arm, a grounding touch to bring you back. "Come on. Let's get inside the Jeep. It's too hot out here anyway."
He didn't wait for you to move; instead, he walked around to the passenger side, opening the door and waiting until you climbed back into the driver's seat. When he slid in beside you, the familiar, comforting scent of his clothes and the car's interior immediately locked the strange, eerie warning outside.
Steve reached into the brown paper bag he’d brought from the station, pulling out a couple of glass bottles of soda and a box of powdered donuts, setting them clumsily on the middle console between you.
"Thought you might want something sweet," he said, trying to offer a small, reassuring smile to break the lingering dread. He popped his own soda cap off with a slick twist of his wrist. "Even if you said you weren't hungry."
You looked at the console, then up at him. The anxiety from the old man's words was still a cold shadow in the back of your mind, but looking at Steve—seeing the genuine, quiet way he was watching you, completely dedicated to making sure you were safe—made the long road ahead feel a little less daunting.
"Thanks, Steve," you murmured, reaching out to take the bottle.
Steve’s smile widened, but it quickly morphed into a look of sudden realization. He blinked, looking down at his empty hands, then over his shoulder at the fuel tank. "Right. Gas. I should probably actually put the gas in the tank," he muttered, letting out a self-deprecating laugh as he slid back out of the passenger seat.
You watched him through the driver's side mirror, the reflective glass framing him as he unscrewed the cap and slotted the nozzle into place. The steady, rhythmic ticking of the pump began to echo across the quiet pavement. You took a slow, cold sip of the soda he’d bought you, the sweet fizz coating your throat and grounding you completely. Just as the pump clicked off, Steve caught you watching him in the mirror. He didn't look away; instead, he flashed you another quick, unbothered grin, wiping his hands on his jeans before hanging up the nozzle. You couldn't help the small, genuine smile that slipped onto your face as you looked down at your lap, the lingering shadow of the old man finally starting to fade.
Nearly three hours later, the highway had narrowed into a winding, two-lane road that cut deep into the dense undergrowth of the valley. At some point during the second leg of the trip, the exhaustion had finally caught up to you, and you’d traded spots with Steve at a dusty rest stop.
Now, you were curled up against the passenger window, your knees pulled slightly toward your chest as you watched the endless, monotonous wall of pine trees blur past. The cabin was warm, the radio low, and the rhythmic swaying of the Jeep was almost hypnotic.
You stared out at the shadows stretching between the trees. The old man’s raspy voice was still echoing faintly in your head, refusing to leave you alone.
"Do you think he was right?" you asked quietly. Your voice was small, barely carrying over the low rumble of the tires.
Steve didn't look away from the road, his hands relaxed on the steering wheel, but his brow furrowed slightly. "Who? The guy at the gas station?"
You gave a small, barely visible nod against the glass. "Yeah. The guy."
Steve sighed, shaking his head as he adjusted his grip on the wheel. "No. Absolutely not. Guys like that just hang around rural highways looking for out-of-towners to scare. It’s like a hobby for them." He paused, his tone shifting into something a little more serious as he glanced over at you for a brief second. "Look, if anything weird actually happens out there, we'll just pack up the Jeep and drive right back to Hawkins. It’s that simple."
You shifted your head against the window, looking over at his profile. "I'm not going to make you abandon your summer just because I got spooked by some local."
You caught the quick, playful glint in his eye as he looked over at you, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Maybe not," he teased, his voice dropping into a low, smooth drawl. "But... you could always ask me to sleep in your cabin so you don't get scared, and I definitely wouldn't say no to that."
A sudden wave of heat rushed to your face. You reached over and gave his shoulder a firm, defensive shove. "In your dreams, Harrington. If I'm sharing a cabin with anyone, I'd rather be sandwiched between Robin and Nancy."
Steve let out a loud, booming laugh that echoed off the dashboard, clearly proud of himself for breaking your tension.
The rest of the drive passed in a quiet, easy peace, the heavy atmosphere completely lifted. The only minor interruption was a small family of deer that stepped out onto the gravel shoulder, causing Steve to slow the Jeep to a gentle crawl until they safely vanished back into the thick brush.
Eventually, the trees parted to reveal a massive, weathered wooden archway looming over the road: Camp Crystal Lake.
Steve rolled the Jeep through the entrance, the tires crunching loudly over the gravel as he navigated the dirt path leading toward the main clearing. He slowed the vehicle to a halt right next to a familiar, battered sedan. Robin’s car was already parked under the shade of a large oak tree.
Almost instantly, the heavy screen door of the mess hall slammed open. Robin came sprinting down the wooden steps, with Nancy hurrying right behind her. Both of them looked slightly disheveled, their hair a little messy and their clothes looking like they had been hastily thrown on in a rush to greet the vehicle.
You and Steve climbed out of the Jeep, the heavy humidity of the lake woods instantly hitting your skin. You walked around to the back, popping the trunk to grab your canvas backpack and duffle bag. Nancy and Robin caught up to you at the rear bumper, Robin immediately throwing her arm around your shoulder in a brief, grounding hug.
"You actually made it," Robin breathed, her eyes searching yours with a quiet, protective look before she immediately launched into a fast-paced debrief. "Okay, so, basically nobody else is here yet. The head counselor said the rest of the crew—like Billy, Tommy, and everyone else—probably won't show up until late tonight or tomorrow morning."
You slung your backpack over one shoulder, gripping the handle of your duffle bag. Hearing that Billy and Tommy weren't there yet felt like a massive weight lifting off your chest; truthfully, you wouldn't mind if neither of them ever showed up at all.
"That's fine by me," you murmured, offering Robin and Nancy a small, relieved smile.
"Come on, let's get your stuff into the main counselors' cabin before the afternoon heat gets unbearable," Nancy said, gesturing toward a long, weathered log structure nestled just on the edge of the tree line.
As the four of you began walking up the dirt path together, your bags heavy in your hands, you looked past the cabins toward the shimmering, sunlit expanse of the lake in the distance. The water looked still, almost peaceful in the afternoon light, but the tight knot in your stomach remained, a quiet reminder of what was waiting beneath the surface.
By the time the late afternoon sun began to dip behind the treeline, casting long, amber shadows across the camp clearing, you and Steve had managed to thoroughly scrub down the main mess hall. It was dusty, back-breaking work, but focusing on the grime kept your mind entirely occupied. Across the camp, Robin and Nancy had been busy airing out the bunk beds and sweeping the spiders out of the cabins, including the shared counselors' quarters.
When the girls finally walked back into the mess hall, wiping sweat from their brows, Robin immediately collapsed into a wooden chair and groaned, suggesting everyone head down to the docks to relax before the evening cooled down.
Your chest tightened slightly at the mention of the docks, but you forced a quiet nod. "I'll go," you murmured, looking directly at Steve, whose eyes had instantly jumped to yours. "But I’m staying up on the grass. Far away from the water."
Steve gave you a soft, understanding nod, not pushing the issue despite your brave words in the Jeep earlier about trying to face your fear.
Before heading down, you walked over to the heavy, yellowed landline mounted on the mess hall wall. The receiver was cold against your ear as you dialed your home number. When your mom answered on the first ring, her voice tight with waiting anxiety, you let out a quiet breath. "Hey, Mom. It's me. We made it... Yeah, everything's fine. Steve and I just finished cleaning the kitchen... I know, I promise I'll call you every couple of days. Love you too. Bye." Hanging up the phone felt like closing a safety valve, giving you just enough grounding to face the rest of the afternoon.
Walking out of the screen doors of the mess hall, the thick, pine-scented air hit your face. Down the hill, you caught sight of Eddie and Chrissy already dressed in their swimwear, laughing as they headed toward the glittering edge of the lake. Robin and Nancy were a few paces behind them, carrying a couple of faded beach towels.
Your own t-shirt was completely drenched in sweat from scrubbing the industrial kitchen, the damp fabric sticking uncomfortably to your back. Deciding you needed to change into something looser and drop the heavy shirt, you detoured away from the path and headed toward the main counselors' cabin.
You pushed the heavy wooden door open, stepping into the dim, shaded interior—and froze solid.
Steve was standing in the center of the room, completely naked, his back turned to you as he bent over his duffle bag, rummaging around until his fingers wrapped around a pair of red swim trunks. In the filtered light of the cabin windows, the sharp lines of his shoulders and the unbothered posture of his frame were completely on display.
A sudden, dizzying rush of heat slammed into your face. Brain scrambling, you spun around on your heel to bolt back outside, but your frantic retreat was cut short when your knee collided violently with a low wooden side table right by the doorframe. The wood groaned, and a sharp, white-hot pain shot up your leg.
"Fuck," you whispered through clenched teeth, squeezing your eyes shut as you clutched your bruised kneecap, desperately fumbling for the iron door handle to escape.
"You know," Steve’s voice broke through the quiet cabin, dripping with an entirely too smug, low amusement. You heard the distinct, fabric-on-skin rustle of him pulling the swim trunks up over his hips. "All you had to do was ask. I would’ve let you watch."
Your hand froze on the doorknob. Gathering every single ounce of willpower you possessed to keep your gaze strictly leveled upward, you turned back around to face him. Your heart was hammering against your ribs, your jaw tight as you forced your eyes to stay absolutely glued to his hazel ones, refusing to let your vision drift even an inch downward.
"Shut up, Harrington," you mumbled, your voice dropping to a quiet, flustered whisper as you leaned against the door to keep your balance.
Steve let out a soft laugh, the sound echoing quietly against the exposed log walls of the cabin. He fastened the drawstring of his trunks, entirely unfazed by your burning face, though his smirk softened into something a little more grounded when he noticed the way you were still hovering over your injured leg.
"Did you actually break it, or are you just dramatic?" he asked, taking a couple of casual steps closer.
"I'm fine," you murmured, quickly dropping your hands to your sides and straightening your posture. You kept your chest tight, your voice low and defensive as you tried to blink away the lingering heat in your cheeks. "Just... put a shirt on."
"Don't need one. Going to the lake, remember?" Steve pointed out, though he didn't tease you any further. Instead, he reached over to his bunk, grabbing a faded yellow towel and slinging it carelessly over his broad shoulder. He stopped just a foot away from you, his hazel eyes dropping briefly to the slight tremor in your hands before rising back to meet your gaze. "You still coming down to the grass? Robin brought that stupid radio. We can just sit under the trees."
You looked past him, out the cabin window toward the glittering, sun-drenched expanse of Crystal Lake. Even from this distance, the sight of the deep water made a phantom chill settle in the small of your back. But looking back at Steve—warm, completely at ease, and entirely solid—the oppressive weight of the lake felt like something you could handle, as long as he was nearby.
"Yeah," you whispered, offering a small, quiet nod. "Just... let me change first. Outside."
Steve huffed an amused breath, stepping past you and gripping the iron doorknob. "Alright, alright. I'm going. Don't take all day."
He slipped out into the bright afternoon sun, letting the heavy screen door click shut behind him. Alone in the quiet cabin, you took a long, steadying breath to settle your racing pulse. You quickly pulled off your sweat-drenched t-shirt and tossed it onto your bunk, reaching into your bag for a pair of loose, comfortable shorts.
When you finally stepped back outside into the thick July humidity, Steve was waiting for you, leaning his back against a nearby pine tree with his hands shoved carelessly into his pockets. He didn't say a word as you fell into step beside him, but as the two of you began walking down the dirt path toward the sound of Eddie's distant laughter by the water, his shoulder brushed against yours in a quiet, reassuring rhythm.
The dirt path felt hot beneath the soles of your shoes as you and Steve made your way down the hill. The thick canopy of pine trees slowly parted, opening up into a wide, grassy clearing that sloped gently toward the edge of the water.
Down by the docks, the rest of the crew was in full summer mode. Eddie was standing right on the edge of the weathered wood, his dark hair damp and messy as he yelled something entirely incomprehensible before launching himself into a dramatic cannonball. A massive explosion of silver lake water erupted into the air, followed closely by Chrissy’s bright, echoing laughter from where she sat on a beach towel, kicking her legs in the grass. Robin and Nancy were sitting nearby under the shade of a massive oak tree, the low, tinny sound of an 80s pop song bleeding out from a portable cassette player between them.
The moment the scent of wet wood and open, deep water hit your nose, your steps slowed. Your chest tightened instinctively, the phantom weight of the lake floor creeping back into the corners of your mind.
Steve noticed the shift immediately. Without a word, he adjusted his pace, halting right where the dense shade of the trees met the open grass—a safe fifty feet back from the actual shoreline.
"This look good?" he asked quietly, his voice dropping below the noise of the music and the splashing.
"Yeah," you whispered, the relief evident in your voice. "This is... this is perfect."
You dropped your towel onto the dry grass and sat down, pulling your knees up toward your chest to anchor yourself. Steve took a spot right beside you, shaking out his yellow towel before stretching his long legs out in front of him. He leaned back on his elbows, the afternoon sunlight filtering through the leaves above and casting a warm, dappled pattern across his bare chest and shoulders.
"Hey! Look who finally decided to join civilization!" Robin shouted from down the hill, waving a frantic hand in your direction. "Come on down! The water's actually not freezing for once!"
You offered her a small, quiet wave back but didn't move an inch. Robin knew you well enough not to push it, turning her attention back to Nancy, who was thoroughly coating her arms in sunscreen.
Steve shifted slightly, his shoulder brushing against yours as he looked out over the glittering surface of Crystal Lake. The water was almost unnaturally still out past the docks, reflecting the deep green of the surrounding forest like a massive, dark mirror.
"It really doesn't change, does it?" Steve murmured, his usual playful edge completely vanishing. He was staring out toward the deeper, uncharted center of the lake, his hazel eyes clouded with a rare, quiet solemnity. "Every time I look at this place, it feels like we're still eight years old."
Your heart skipped a beat. You looked down at your hands, your fingers tracing the fabric of your shorts. You knew exactly what he meant. The town could try to sanitize the history all it wanted, and the media could pretend the danger was gone, but the lake itself felt entirely frozen in time.
"Do you..." You swallowed hard, your voice dropping to a cautious whisper as you kept your eyes fixed on the grass. "Do you ever feel like... like someone's still out there? Watching?"
Steve was quiet for a long moment. The distant sound of Eddie splashing and laughing seemed to fade into the background, leaving only the low hum of the radio and the gentle rustle of the pine needles above.
Slowly, Steve turned his head to look at you. The easygoing counselor persona was completely gone, replaced by the fierce, protective gravity of the guy who had stood between you and the old man at the gas station. He reached out, his warm palm resting flat against the grass just an inch away from your knee, a solid barrier between you and the rest of the world.
"It doesn't matter if there is," Steve said, his voice steady, low, and entirely dead-earnest. "Because like I told your mom, I'm right here. I'm not looking away this time."
A quiet warmth bloomed in your chest, completely drowning out the cold dread of the water. Slowly, you leaned over, letting your head come to rest against Steve’s broad shoulder.
He didn't flinch. If anything, his entire frame seemed to relax the moment you touched him. He shifted his weight, leaning his cheek gently against the crown of your head, while his hand moved across the grass until his fingers lightly brushed against yours, anchoring you to him.
"You're incredibly stupid, Harrington," you whispered.
Down by the shore, a sudden burst of shouting and laughter broke through the trees. Eddie had clumsily scooped Chrissy up into his arms, carrying her down the wooden planks before launching both of them into the shallows with a massive splash. A second later, Robin let out a loud yell as Nancy pushed her in right behind them.
You watched them splash and swim, a quiet ache settling behind your ribs. "Wasting your summer on me," you murmured, your voice barely carrying over the distant noise.
Steve let out a soft, breathy laugh against your hair. It wasn't his usual loud, teasing sound; it was quiet and a little tired. "I think you're the stupid one here," he muttered.
You didn't move, just listening to the steady, reassuring thump of his heart beneath his ribs.
"Seriously," Steve sighed, his fingers finally sliding fully against yours, squeezing them gently. "You really haven't picked up on any of it? Why I called you in the middle of the night? Why I practically broke your mom's front door down two hours early just to see you?" He paused, his breath hitching slightly as his cheek brushed against your hair. "Why I’d rather spend this whole week and a half sitting up here in the dirt with you, completely avoiding the lake, before the actual campers get here?"
The air in your lungs suddenly felt incredibly thin. The distant shouting of your friends seemed to fade into absolute static, leaving only the sound of the wind rustling the pine needles above you.
Slowly, you lifted your head off his shoulder, shifting your weight on the grass so you could look directly at him. Steve didn't pull away. He kept his hand resting against yours, his hazel eyes completely open, watching you with an intense, vulnerable gravity that made your heart do a violent, erratic flip.
"What?" you asked softly, your voice dipping into a breathless whisper.
Steve held your gaze, the usual easy confidence completely drained from his face. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing as he looked at you, really looked at you, with a raw honesty that made the rest of the world feel miles away.
"I don't care about the lake," he said, his voice dropping into a rough, quiet register. "I don't care about being the sports counselor, or running around in the sun, or whatever else I was supposed to be doing this summer. I came out here because of you."
You sat frozen, the grass rough beneath your palms, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs. "Steve..."
"No, just—let me finish before I lose my nerve," he cut in gently, his fingers tightening around yours, grounding you right there with him. He let out a short, self-deprecating breath, looking down at your joined hands for a second before forcing his hazel eyes back up to meet yours. "I’ve spent the last two years trying to figure out what I’m doing, who I’m supposed to be after everything shifted. And the only time things actually make sense, the only time I'm not just pretending, is when I'm hanging out in your room, or listening to you talk, or driving around with you. I called you last night because the thought of you being out here dealing with all this heavy stuff by yourself made me sick."
He took a slow, deep breath, his shoulder nearly brushing yours as he leaned in just a fraction closer. The vulnerability in his expression was striking, entirely stripped of the popular-guy armor he’d worn for years.
"I'm not babysitting you because your mom asked me to," Steve murmured, his thumb smoothing over the back of your knuckles in a slow, reassuring circle. "I’m here because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I like you. Like... really like you. And I have for a while now."
The confession hung in the warm, humid air between you, heavy and sweet. Down by the docks, another loud splash echoed through the trees followed by Robin's distant, screeching laugh, but it felt like a background noise from a completely different universe. You stared at him, your lips parted slightly, the tight, suffocating knot that had been sitting in your chest since the previous night finally, completely unraveling.
A sudden, hollow wave of nausea hit you right in the pit of your stomach. Why did you feel sick? Steve Harrington—the exact same guy you had been quietly, desperately crushing on for what felt like an eternity—had just admitted he liked you. He *really* liked you. And your body’s immediate response was a dizzying, lightheaded panic that made your throat go completely dry.
"Oh," you whispered. The word was entirely breathless, escaping your lips before you could even think to process the heavy weight of his words. "I... I’m sorry. I didn’t know."
Steve watched your face, taking in your wide, stunned eyes and the sudden paleness of your cheeks. Instead of looking hurt or rejected, a soft, incredibly gentle smile touched his lips. He let out a low, breathy chuckle, his thumb continuing its slow, reassuring circle over the back of your knuckles.
"Don't apologize," he murmured, his voice laced with a quiet, self-deprecating warmth. "Sometimes I forget that the stupid, arrogant ways I used to get dates in high school don't exactly work with someone you actually care about."
A rush of fierce, desperate words flooded your chest. You wanted to open your mouth, to tell him right then and there that the feelings were entirely mutual, that you had been drowning in your feelings for him for months, even if you suspected he might already know.
But before you could force a single syllable past your teeth, a loud, aggressive roar cut through the quiet afternoon air.
The low, heavy rumble of a sports car engine tore through the camp entrance, tires crunching violently over the gravel. Billy and Tommy H. had arrived. Even from fifty feet away, you could hear them immediately shouting over the engine, slammed doors echoing off the cabins as they began loudly hauling their gear out of the trunk, their obnoxious bravado shattering the fragile peace of the clearing.
You and Steve both let out a heavy, synchronized sigh. The spell was completely broken. Instinctively, the two of you shifted apart on the grass, your hands slipping away from each other as your eyes darted anywhere but each other's faces.
"Always have to ruin the mood, don't they?" Steve chuckled softly, though there was a sharp trace of genuine annoyance in his eyes as he glanced back over at you.
"Yeah," you murmured, clearing the tightness from your throat as you braced yourself against the dirt. "Hey, I think... I think I'm going to go walk around the camp a little. Just look around before it gets too dark."
Steve looked at you, his expression open and understanding, and he gave you a quiet, supportive nod. "Yeah. Go ahead. I'll stay here and make sure they don't burn the place down on day one."
You forced a small smile and pushed yourself up from the grass. Actively avoiding the main path to steer clear of Billy and Tommy's loud arrival, you darted back to the counselors' cabin. The interior was shaded and cool. You quickly grabbed a pair of sturdy sneakers, pulling them on before reaching for one of the official camp staff t-shirts. You pulled the fresh fabric over your head, tucking it into your shorts, and grabbed a light canvas jacket from your bag as you noticed the air beginning to drop in temperature the further the sun dipped below the trees.
The camp was massive—significantly bigger than it had felt when you were a kid—but as you slipped past the back of the bathhouse, the layout remained entirely too familiar. Your feet seemed to guide you on autopilot, taking you away from the noise of the lake and onto an old, unmarked dirt trail that snaked deep into the dense undergrowth of the woods.
Within minutes, the sounds of Eddie’s distant laughter and the roaring car engine faded into absolute nothingness. The forest was thick, towering pines locking out the remaining evening light until everything was cast in a deep, shadowed gray. It was peaceful, the kind of quiet you usually craved, but as the wind rustled through the high branches, a sudden, cold prickle of unease crawled up the back of your neck. You couldn't shake the distinct, heavy sensation that you were being watched by something standing just beyond your line of sight in the brush.
You kept moving, your sneakers snapping small twigs until the narrow trail abruptly opened up into a small, isolated clearing.
Right in the center sat a dilapidated, weathered wooden shack. The roof was partially caved in, the logs rotting and covered in thick patches of pale moss. The closer you drew to the structure, the harder the knot in your stomach tightened.
Then, your eyes caught the dull, orange glint of rusted metal half-hidden in the dirt.
You froze. Spread meticulously around the perimeter of the shack were several heavy, rusted bear traps, their jagged steel teeth open and waiting beneath the scattered pine needles.
"Fucking creepy," you muttered into the silence, your voice sounding small and fragile against the trees.
You shook your head, forcing your rational mind to take over. It was just an old hunter's shack. This deep into the valley, the land didn't even technically belong to the camp, and the surrounding woods were completely thick with wildlife. It made sense for someone to have a tracking base out here, even if the traps looked like they hadn't been touched in decades.
Stepping with extreme caution, you carefully navigated the edge of the clearing. You kept your eyes glued firmly to the ground, watching every single placement of your boots to ensure you didn't trigger a rusted jaw, or step on any hidden traps buried just beneath the surface of the damp earth.
Pushing past the rotting wooden door frame, you stepped into the damp, suffocating interior of the shack. The air inside was heavy with the smell of decay, old dirt, and ancient rust. Pale beams of evening light cut through the holes in the caved-in ceiling, illuminating countless dust motes dancing in the gloom.
Your eyes immediately tracked the floor, noting the small, bleached animal bones scattered carelessly across the dirt—skulls of rabbits and birds crushed under years of neglect. A few more heavy bear traps hung from the decaying logs of the walls, suspended by thick, rusted chains that looked entirely capable of snapping a person's leg in half. But it was the dead center of the room that made your breath hitch.
An old, mossy stone slab sat there like an altar. Draped meticulously across the stone was a faded blue knit sweater. It was filthy, riddled with jagged holes that had likely been chewed away by moths or rats over the years. You stared at it, your mind frantically trying to rationalize its presence. Sure, maybe the hunter who once owned the shack had simply left it behind when he abandoned the place. But it felt too deliberate. The way it was laid out, stretched across the stone, felt too perfect—like someone had placed it there by hand, preserving it.
"No," you mumbled to yourself, the sound of your own voice small and fragile against the rotting wood. "This is exactly how people get killed in movies."
Shaking your head to clear the sudden spike of panic, you spun on your heel. You stepped carefully, retracing your exact footprints out of the shack and back through the maze of rusted bear traps in the dirt. Whatever the hell was going on here, it wasn't your business. It was far enough from the camp property lines that the kids would never wander out this way, and that was all that mattered.
As you hurried back down the narrow dirt trail, the shadows of the forest began to stretch and bleed together in the fading twilight. Then, a faint, rhythmic rustle of dry leaves echoed from the brush behind you.
Right on the heels of the noise came a soft, hushed murmuring. It was a bizarre, repetitive whispering that seemed to bounce around inside your head before settling heavily at the base of your skull. You squeezed your eyes shut for a fraction of a second, forcing yourself to keep moving. It was just paranoia. It was the trauma from a decade ago mixing with the creepy shit that old man had ranted about at the gas station. For all you knew, that was his shack, and he used the traps and the sweater to scare off trespassing teenagers. Still, your heart began to drum a frantic rhythm against your ribs, and you sped up your pace, your eyes darting wildly into the darkening woods as the rustling sound seemed to follow your every step.
You stopped abruptly when the hushed whispering suddenly felt too close—almost like a gust of cold, hot breath brushing directly against the shell of your ear.
You spun around in every direction, your sneakers skidding slightly on the damp dirt as you stared into the empty brush, trying desperately to ignore the terrifying sound. But it wouldn't stop. The low, rhythmic chanting seemed to vibrate through the very air around you. And then, cutting through the static in your head, came the faint, distinct sound of a voice calling your name.
Up ahead, where the trail began to slope back down toward the camp cabins, a figure emerged from the gray gloom. It was Robin.
The moment her voice registered, the oppressive whispering in your ears cut off instantly, leaving nothing but the dead, heavy silence of the woods. You stood completely frozen in place, your chest heaving as you stared at her.
"Hey!" Robin called out, waving her hands in the air as she jogged a few paces toward you. "There you are. I've been shouting for like two minutes, I thought you went deaf." She stopped right in front of you, her easygoing expression instantly faltering when she took in your wide eyes and pale face. Her brow furrowed with genuine concern. "Whoa. Are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost."
You swallowed hard, trying to force your heart back down out of your throat as you stared past her shoulder, making sure the woods were completely still.
"Yeah," you mumbled, your voice trembling slightly before you managed to steady it. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just... I thought I heard something in the brush. Probably just a deer or a rabbit jumping out."
You knew it was a lie. Deer and rabbits didn't sound like rhythmic, synchronized whispers. Deer and rabbits didn't set traps around rotting shacks in the deep woods.
Robin scanned your face for another second, clearly not entirely convinced, but she chose not to push you. Instead, she reached out and gently grabbed your hand, her palm warm and grounding against your cold fingers as she began to lead you back down the path toward the clearing.
"Okay, well, the guys are finally done unpacking, and Steve's trying to start a bonfire down by the main fire pit," Robin said, offering you a reassuring smile as she tugged you along. "We're all heading down there if you want to join us. Get you out of the dark."
You let out a quiet, shaky breath, letting her pull you away from the trail and back toward the safety of the camp lights. "Yeah," you murmured, the tight knot in your stomach finally loosening just a fraction. "Yeah, that sounds good."
You let Robin guide you the rest of the way down the trail, the dense, suffocating dark of the woods slowly giving way to the warm, flickering orange glow of the camp's main clearing.
As you stepped into the light, the sharp scent of burning pine and woodsmoke hit you, masking the damp, metallic smell of the trail. The stone fire pit sat in the center of the lawn, surrounded by heavy log benches. Billy and Tommy H. were already completely in their element, leaning back with their legs stretched out, cracked beer cans in hand, and laughing loudly at some inside joke with Eddie, who was gesturing wildly as he talked. A few feet away, Nancy sat on the edge of a log right next to Chrissy, carefully stoking the bottom of the fire with a long branch, sending a brilliant shower of sparks drifting up into the violet evening sky.
Then you saw Steve.
He was sitting completely alone on the far side of the pit, farthest from the noise. He had a sweating glass bottle of beer held loosely between his thighs, his hands resting on his knees as he stared blankly into the center of the flames. The flickering light caught the sharp angles of his face, accentuating a heavy, distant look in his eyes that had nothing to do with the camp or the loud counselors surrounding him.
You walked over quietly, the grass rustling softly under your sneakers, and slid onto the log bench right next to him. Without saying a word, you reached down, wrapped your fingers around the neck of the bottle between his legs, and pulled it free.
Steve blinked, startled out of his thoughts, and looked over at you.
You didn't look back at him right away. You just gripped the metal cap, twisting it off with a sharp, practiced snap of your wrist that bit into your palm.
"Since when do you drink?" Steve asked, a faint, genuine chuckle breaking through his serious expression as he watched you.
You just shrugged, lifting the bottle to your lips and taking a small, cautious swig. The bitter, hoppy liquid hit your tongue, making your throat tighten automatically. You held the bottle out toward him, wrinkling your nose in immediate regret.
"I don't," you murmured, your voice low and completely honest. "It tastes like total shit."
Steve let out a real, bright laugh this time—the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes and completely erased the heavy, distant look he’d been wearing just a second ago. He reached out, his warm fingers brushing against yours as he took the bottle back from your hand.
"Yeah, well," he said softly, taking a drink before looking back at you, his hazel eyes fixed on your face with that quiet, grounding warmth you'd felt earlier on the grass. "Nobody drinks it for the taste."
You sat in silence for a few minutes, the heat from the fire pressing against your skin and offering a strange comfort against the lingering chill from the woods.
Across the pit, Tommy was loud, practically shouting over the crackle of the wood as he recounted some embellished story from his last semester, with Billy cutting in every few seconds to mock him. Eddie was tossing small twigs into the flames, occasionally catching Chrissy’s eye and making her laugh with a dramatic roll of his shoulders. It was exactly the kind of loud, unbothered teenage energy that should have made the camp feel normal.
But every time the wind shifted, sending a gust of cool air rushing down from the tree line, your eyes would instinctively drift back toward the dark trail you had just abandoned.
Steve took another slow sip from his bottle, his eyes tracking the subtle tension in your shoulders. He leaned in a bit closer, his voice dropping below the raucous noise of the others so only you could hear him.
"You're still white as a sheet," he murmured, his shoulder lightly nudging yours. "What happened out there on your walk?"
You looked down at your hands, your fingers tightly interlaced in your lap. For a second, you debated telling him about the rotting shack, the rusted bear traps hidden meticulously in the dirt, and the filthy, moth-eaten sweater laid out on the stone slab like a shrine. You wanted to tell him about the hushed, rhythmic whispering that had felt close enough to brush against your ear.
But as you glanced over at him—seeing the genuine, tired worry etched into his face, and remembering how hard he had tried to keep you distracted all day—you couldn't bring yourself to drag that darkness into the light. Not yet.
"Nothing," you lied softly, forcing a small, reassuring smile as you looked up to meet his gaze. "Just got turned around in the dark. It’s bigger out there than I remembered, that's all."
Steve studied your face for a long moment, his hazel eyes narrowing slightly as if he were trying to read the truth hidden behind your expression. He knew you well enough to recognize when you were retreating into yourself, but he also knew better than to push you when you were clamped shut.
Slowly, the hard line of his jaw relaxed. He let out a quiet sigh and set the beer bottle down on the log between you. Without a word, he shifted his arm, draping it casually across the back of the log behind your shoulders. He didn't quite touch you—not with the rest of the group sitting right there—but his presence was a heavy, warm shield against the vast, empty dark at your back.
"Well," Steve said softly, his voice steady and grounding. "Don't go wandering off by yourself anymore after the sun goes down. If you want to explore, you tell me. I'm your shadow out here, remember?"
You let out a breath you hadn't realized you were holding, your shoulders finally dropping an inch as you leaned back just enough to feel the warmth of his jacket against your skin. "Yeah," you whispered, looking back into the roaring orange heart of the fire. "I remember."
The fire had finally burned down to a pile of glowing, ash-covered embers, casting a faint, deep red light over the clearing. The heavy humidity of the afternoon had completely given way to a sharp, late-night chill that made the surrounding woods feel incredibly vast and empty.
One by one, the others had drifted away. Eddie and Chrissy had practically vanished into the shadows a couple of hours ago; the way they’d been leaning into each other all night made it completely obvious they were sneaking off to find an empty cabin together. Tommy and Billy hadn’t even made it back to the bunks, having completely passed out drunk at one of the heavy wooden tables inside the mess hall, their loud, synchronized snoring occasionally drifting through the screen doors. Just twenty minutes ago, Robin and Nancy had gathered their towels and left for the bathhouse showers, leaving you and Steve alone in the quiet dark.
You drew your knees back up to your chest, pulling the sleeves of your canvas jacket down over your knuckles. The silence between you wasn't heavy anymore, but the unsaid words from the afternoon were still lingering in the space between you.
"About earlier," you mumbled, your voice dropping to a quiet, tentative register that barely carried over the soft hiss of the dying coals. You kept your eyes fixed on the embers, your throat tightening slightly. "I... I didn't get to tell you. I feel the same way. But honestly, I think you already knew that."
Steve turned his head, a soft, slow smile breaking across his face in the dim red light. He let out a low, breathless chuckle, shaking his head. "Yeah," he admitted, his voice incredibly gentle. "I mean, I hoped. I've liked you for a really long time. I think I was just so terrified of ruining what we already had that I kept forcing myself to shut up about it."
You let out a soft huff, a quiet, genuine laugh slipping past your lips before you could stop it. "Doesn't change much," you whispered, finally turning your head to look at him. "Just means we're both total idiots."
Steve didn't laugh this time. He just froze, staring at you in the dark. The faint, warm glow of the embers caught the reflection in his eyes, and for a long moment, he looked completely awestruck, as if the sound of your laugh had entirely caught him off guard. The easy, confident charm he usually carried seemed to completely evaporate, leaving him looking raw and deeply affected.
"God," he blurted out suddenly, the word escaping him in a rough, quiet rush. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, his jaw shifting as he shook his head. "I am... I am trying so hard not to kiss you right now. It's actually killing me."
A sudden, dizzying wave of warmth rushed straight to your chest, completely melting away the chill of the night air. You shifted on the log bench, turning your body to fully face him. The lingering anxiety from the woods, the fear of the lake, the noise of the day—all of it faded into absolute static. You looked at him, a lazy, quiet smile tugging at the corners of your lips as you leaned in just a fraction closer, narrowing the distance between you.
"So do it," you whispered, your voice dipping into a breathless, steady cadence. "Everyone's gone. We're completely alone anyway."
Steve didn't hesitate. The last of his hesitation vanished, and he reached out, his large hand cupping the side of your face. His palm was warm against your skin, his thumb resting gently against your cheekbone as he leaned in and closed the remaining distance between you.
The kiss was soft, lingering, and entirely devoid of the rushed bravado he usually carried. It felt like a quiet release of all the built-up tension from the long drive, the whispered rumors, and the months of unsaid words stretching between you in Hawkins. You leaned into him, your hand instinctively rising to grip the fabric of his jacket, anchoring yourself to the solid weight of him. The scent of woodsmoke, cool night air, and the faint, sweet trace of his cologne wrapped around you completely.
When he finally pulled back, he didn't go far. He rested his forehead gently against yours, his breath coming in short, uneven hitches against your lips. His thumb smoothed over your cheek in a slow, protective circle.
"Wow," he whispered, a breathless, dazed chuckle breaking through the quiet. "Yeah. Definitely should've done that a long time ago."
You let out a soft laugh, keeping your eyes closed for a second longer just to savor the warmth of his skin against yours before looking up at him. "Told you. Idiot."
Steve smiled, the easy, genuine expression completely lighting up his face in the dim red glow of the dying embers. He slid his hand down from your face, his fingers intertwining tightly with yours and squeezing.
Before either of you could say anything else, the distant, echoing sound of a heavy wooden door slamming open broke the silence of the camp. A moment later, Robin’s loud, echoing voice carried across the lawn from the direction of the bathhouse, her and Nancy’s footsteps crunching over the gravel path as they made their way back toward the cabins.
Steve let out a quiet, amused sigh, leaning in to press one more quick, lingering kiss to your lips before reluctantly letting his hand slip away from yours. He stood up, stretching his arms over his head with a grunt, the familiar, easygoing counselor persona sliding back into place like a shield.
"Come on," he said softly, offering you a hand to help you up from the log bench. "Let's get inside before Robin finds us out here and interrogates us until sunrise."
You took his hand, letting him pull you to your feet. As the two of you turned to walk back toward the main counselors' cabin under the vast, starlit canopy of the woods, you glanced one last time over your shoulder toward the lake. The water was completely black now, a vast, empty mirror reflecting the midnight sky, but with Steve’s shoulder brushing against yours in the dark, the heavy, suffocating weight of the old man's warning felt just a little further away.
The heavy screen door of the counselors' cabin clicked shut behind you and Steve, locking out the biting chill of the midnight air. The interior was dim, illuminated only by the faint silver moonlight filtering through the dusty windows. You made your way to the back of the long room, where you’d left your gear on one of the stiff, narrow cot beds nestled into the corner.
A moment later, the door creaked open again. Nancy and Robin slipped inside, their hair damp from the showers. Catching sight of you and Steve in the shadows, they offered a pair of soft, tired smiles and whispered their goodnights before heading over to the larger double bunk on the opposite wall, climbing in together to ward off the draft.
Steve didn't immediately go to his own designated bunk across the room. Instead, he sat down on the very edge of the empty mattress right beside yours. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes quietly tracking your movements as you sat on the edge of the stiff springs, kicking your sneakers off into the dark. When you slid beneath the scratchy, thin wool covers, Steve reached out, his hand gently finding your shoulder through the blanket and giving it a soft, grounding squeeze. He didn't say anything, just offering a quiet, lingering look that promised you were safe before he finally got up and moved to his own bed.
You had no idea what time it was when the noise fractured the silence.
Your eyes snapped open, your heart immediately hammering against your ribs. You lay perfectly still, staring up at the dark wooden rafters as you listened. From far down the hill, cutting through the dead quiet of the valley, came a faint, heavy splash—the distinct sound of something, or someone, wading deep into the still water of the lake.
You squeezed your eyes shut, trying desperately to force yourself to ignore it, to attribute it to a stray animal or your own frayed nerves. But then the air in the cabin seemed to drop in temperature, and the whispering started again. It was the same soft, rhythmic, overlapping chant you’d heard on the trail, vibrating right at the base of your skull.
Your body moved before your rational brain could even protest. Defensively, you sat up, swinging your legs out from under the covers. You fumbled in the dark to shove your feet back into your sneakers. Bending over your canvas backpack, your trembling fingers swept past your book until they wrapped around the heavy, metal anglehead flashlight your mom had packed for you. You grabbed a thick, oversized hoodie from the bag, pulling it over your head to shield yourself from the cold.
Holding the unlit flashlight tight against your thigh, you took a cautious, silent step toward the heavy cabin door.
"Everything okay?"
The low, rough whisper cut through the dark, making you flinch. You turned to see Steve sitting straight up in his bunk across the aisle. His hair was messy, his eyes blinking against the shadows, but his posture was completely alert.
"Yeah," you whispered back, your voice small as you gestured vaguely toward one of the dusty glass panes facing the clearing. "I just... I thought I heard something outside."
Steve swung his legs over the frame of his cot, the old springs letting out a faint groan. He squinted down at his wrist, tilting his arm to catch the faint moonlight on the face of his watch. He let out a quiet, bewildered sigh.
"So you want to go wandering around out there at..." He paused, rubbing a hand over his face to shake off the sleep. "...two in the morning?"
Before you could even form an excuse or tell him to stay put, Steve was already shifting. He slid off the edge of his mattress, the worn springs giving a faint, metallic hiss as his feet hit the floorboards. In the dim silver light, you watched him efficiently shove his feet into his sneakers and grab his jacket from the post of the bed, pulling it over his shoulders in one smooth motion.
He didn't say a word as he reached down into his duffle bag, his hand blindly rummaging through the fabric until his fingers closed around his own heavy flashlight. With a sharp click, a bright beam of white light cut through the shadows of the cabin. Steve immediately brought his other hand up, blocking the beam with his palm so the glare wouldn't wake Nancy or Robin, checking the strength of the batteries through the gaps in his fingers. Satisfied, he lowered the light to the floor.
"I'm coming with you," he whispered, crossing the narrow aisle and stepping up right behind you. The solid heat of his presence instantly cut through the chill that had settled over you. "You aren't going out there alone."
The heavy wooden door of the cabin gave a barely audible creak as the two of you slipped out into the dead of night. The moment you stepped off the porch, the dense, humid air of the woods enveloped you, heavy with the scent of pine and damp earth. You and Steve clicked your flashlights on, keeping the beams swept low against the dirt path as you navigated past the dark, silent silhouette of the mess hall.
The silence out here was absolute—no wind, no crickets, just the rhythmic crunch of your sneakers against the gravel.
As you reached the grassy slope that led down to the shoreline, the beam of your anglehead flashlight caught something odd in the soft earth. You paused, lowering the light. Just past the treeline, where the grass gave way to the thick, dark mud of the lakebank, a series of heavy, deep boot prints disrupted the ground. They didn't lead toward the water; they came directly out of the lake, trailing up the slope in the exact direction of the mess hall you had just passed.
Steve stepped up beside you, his flashlight beam overlapping yours, illuminating the wet, distorted shapes in the mud. The water filling the deeper parts of the tracks was still slowly settling, glistening under the artificial light.
"Maybe Billy drunkenly stumbled out here?" Steve whispered, his voice low and tight. He shifted his grip on his flashlight, but his face told a completely different story. His eyes narrowed as he tracked the stride of the prints, and he didn't sound sure at all.
You stared down at the prints, a cold, heavy weight sinking deep into your chest. Billy and Tommy had been completely wasted when everyone left them—passed out face-down on the heavy wooden tables with empty beer cans rolling around them. There was absolutely no way Billy had woken up from a dead alcohol-induced sleep, walked all the way down to the water in the pitch black, waded into the freezing lake, and then marched right back up to the cabins without anyone noticing.
"Billy didn't have boots on," you whispered, your voice shaking slightly as you kept your flashlight trained on the deep, heavy ridges left in the mud. "He was wearing those beat-up white sneakers. Tommy was in sandals."
Steve didn't answer right away. He slowly raised his flashlight, sweeping the white beam across the dark, glass-like surface of the water. Crystal Lake was completely still, a vast expanse of pitch black that seemed to swallow the light. There were no ripples. No bubbles. Just the endless, suffocating dark.
"Right," Steve murmured, his jaw tightening. He took a half-step in front of you, his shoulder blocking you from the shoreline as his light tracked the trail of wet mud leading back up the hill toward the dark silhouette of the mess hall. "Okay. Let's go check the doors. Stay right behind me."
The walk back up the slope felt twice as long as the walk down. Every shadow between the cabins looked like a towering figure waiting in the dark, and every rustle of the pine needles made your skin crawl. The rhythmic whispering in your head had stopped the moment you found the prints, replaced by the loud, echoing thud of your own pulse in your ears.
When you reached the side entrance of the mess hall, Steve paused, holding his hand up to signal you to stop. The heavy screen door was unlatched, swaying open by just a fraction of an inch, moving in the faint night breeze with a slow, agonizing creak.
Steve stepped onto the wooden porch, his sneakers making no sound against the boards. He extended his arm, pushing the door open fully and shining his flashlight into the cavernous, shadowed room.
The beam swept over the rows of stainless-steel counters, the industrial stoves, and finally settled on the heavy wooden tables in the dining area.
Billy and Tommy weren't there. The benches were completely empty.
You swept your flashlight over the floor, your breath catching in your throat when the beam caught a trail of glistening, wet footprints leading past the tables and straight toward the heavy wooden door of the back storage room.
"Steve," you whispered, your voice barely a breath.
He looked down, his eyes tracking the footsteps. Seeing your grip tighten on your flashlight as you began to move toward the back, he quickly reached out and grabbed your wrist. "Hey—are you crazy?" he hissed in a frantic whisper. "We need to get the girls and leave. Right now."
You just turned and looked at him. The sheer terror in your eyes was mixed with a desperate, heavy certainty that you couldn't just run without knowing. Steve stared back at you, his chest rising and falling heavily, and that single look was all it took for him to let go of your wrist and step up right alongside you.
Holding your breath, the two of you carefully walked toward the back storage room. The moment you drew within a few feet of the threshold, the smell hit you both instantly. It was a suffocating, metallic stench of iron mixed with a putrid, sickening rot that made your stomach violently heave. You both instinctively choked back a gag, covering your noses with your sleeves.
Your flashlight beam caught on the heavy wooden doorframe, illuminating a thick, smear of dark, wet red that was still slowly dripping down the wood.
Steve shook his head, his face turning pale as he reached for your shoulder to pull you back. "Don't," he breathed. "Please."
But the dread pushing you forward was too strong. You moved past him, your hand trembling violently as you pushed the heavy door open, pointing your flashlight into the cramped, windowless room.
The beam sliced through the dark, and the horror of what lay inside froze the air in your lungs.
Tommy was the first thing the light hit. He had been hoisted completely off the ground, his body pinned to a heavy wooden ceiling beam by a massive, rusted iron meat hook that had been driven violently upward through the soft tissue beneath his jaw and out through the back of his neck. His head hung at a grotesque, broken angle, his mouth locked in a permanent, blood-masked stretch of absolute agony. A dark, thick torrent of crimson was still pulsing sluggishly from the wound, raining down in a steady, sickening patter onto the floorboards below. His chest had been completely shredded—deep, jagged lacerations tore through his skin, exposing the pale, glistening white of his ribs through his ruined staff shirt.
Just beneath his dangling, useless feet, slumped against a stack of metal shelving, was Billy. The sheer, mechanical violence inflicted on him made your stomach instantly violently heave. His torso had been hacked open with a heavy, brutal blade, split from his collarbone down to his waist. The force of the blows had completely caved in his chest cavity; broken, splintered ribs protruded outward like jagged teeth through a massive, gaping crater of exposed tissue and dark, shredded muscle. His unseeing, glassy eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, his face completely drained of color and smeared with a spray of dark blood. The concrete floor beneath them had become a literal swamp of gore, a thick, steaming pool of deep red that was slowly expanding toward the tips of your shoes.
The air in the room was warm, thick with the overwhelming, copper stench of fresh blood and the sickening, hot smell of ruptured organs. It was a scene of animalistic slaughter, entirely humanly impossible in its sheer brutality—looking exactly like the gruesome, nightmarish slasher films you’d tried to convince yourself weren't real.
Your vision swam. The flashlight slipped from your violently shaking fingers, clattering loudly against the blood-slicked concrete and sending the beam spinning wildly across the horrific, mutilated remains. A choked, terrified sob tore from your throat, your knees buckling instantly. Before you could hit the floor, Steve’s arms wrapped tightly around your chest, pulling you backward into the main kitchen as a ragged, panicked gasp of his own echoed in the dark.
The heavy, sickening silence of the kitchen lasted for only a second before the static in your head returned.
You heard it then—the low, overlapping murmur of the whispers, rushing back into the room like a sudden draft. They were louder this time, bouncing off the stainless-steel counters and getting closer and closer, until a heavy, rhythmic *creak* of the floorboards directly behind you shattered your focus.
You and Steve turned slowly, your movements stiff with sheer terror, your flashlight beams cutting through the dark to illuminate the entryway.
Standing in the frame was a hulking, towering figure. Its muscular frame was massive, clad in a tattered, waterlogged utility jumpsuit that clung to its body, dripping foul lake water onto the linoleum. But it was the flesh that made your breath lock in your throat—it was gray, bloated, and visibly rotting, peeling away in slick patches to expose dark muscle beneath. Pale, completely dead eyes stared straight through the light at the two of you. And for a fraction of a second, a sickening jolt of familiarity struck your chest. It was the exact same heavy, suffocating presence you had felt a decade ago while drowning in the dark depths of Crystal Lake.
"Go!" Steve screamed.
He didn't wait for a reaction. He yanked you by the wrist, pulling you along with a violent surge of adrenaline as the two of you bolted toward the side exit. You hit the screen door at a full sprint, bursting out into the freezing night air. Your sneakers pounded against the dirt as Steve guided you blindly toward the nearest dark structure—a small camper cabin nestled right at the edge of the clearing.
Steve slammed his shoulder into the door, flinging it open, shoving you inside ahead of him, and throwing his weight back against the wood to click it shut. He immediately dropped to his knees, frantically looking for a deadbolt or anything heavy to barricade the frame, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps.
You stood frozen in the center of the room, your eyes wide and unblinking as the pale moonlight crept through the dust-covered windows, illuminating the small bunks.
Neither of you had even realized which cabin you had stumbled into until a sharp, startled gasp cut through the dark.
"What the hell? Steve? Is that you?" Eddie’s voice hissed from the back corner, entirely disoriented.
You blinked, your vision adjusting to see Eddie and Chrissy scrambling to pull the blankets up to their chins, their eyes wide with shock and confusion at the sudden intrusion.
"Shut up! Keep your voices down!" Steve frantically whispered back, his hands still pressed flat against the door as he scanned the room. "We need to move. Right now. Get dressed, get your shoes on, and grab anything you can use as a weapon."
Eddie didn't ask a single question. Between the manic, pale terror in Steve’s posture and the completely hollow, haunted look in your eyes, he knew instantly that this wasn't a joke. He was out of the bunk in a second, snatching his jeans and boots off the floor.
Steve let go of the door and lunged across the small room, his hands gripping your shoulders firmly. He turned you to face him, forcing you to anchor on his hazel eyes.
"Hey. Look at me. Just look at me," he whispered, his voice trembling despite his best efforts to hold it steady. "Everything’s going to be okay. I promise you."
You could tell he knew it was a lie. Two of your peers were brutally slaughtered less than fifty yards away, and none of you had any idea what you were actually dealing with. But you just nodded, numbness settling over your limbs.
Chrissy hurried over, her hands shaking as she pressed a small, plastic clip-on flashlight into your palm. "Take this," she whispered, her voice cracking before she turned back to help Eddie, who was already ripping a heavy iron fire poker from the small hearth in the corner.
The weight of the flashlight in your hand seemed to clear the fog in your brain. Something in you suddenly snapped. The paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by a cold, sharp survival instinct. You weren't going to just run and let Steve do all the fighting.
"There’s an axe in the mess hall," you mumbled, your voice chillingly steady. "In the glass case by the kitchen. I can go back and get it while the three of you get to the counselors' cabin. Get Nancy and Robin, and get the car keys."
Steve’s grip tightened on your shoulders, his eyes flaring with panic. "What? Absolutely not! Are you out of your mind? We're staying together."
"Steve, think about it," you urged, pulling out of his grip. "I'm fast. If anything, I'm the fastest one out of all of us. I can slip in and out before it even realizes I'm there. Please. Just trust me."
It was the objective truth. If you had to rely on brute strength against a monster like that, you were dead—but speed and wits were the only advantages you had left. You had to use them.
Steve stared at you, his chest heaving as he fought a losing battle against his own protective instincts. He wanted to scream at you, to lock you in this cabin, to do anything to keep you from walking back into that kitchen. But looking at the cold, unshakable focus in your eyes, he knew he couldn't change your mind.
"Thirty seconds," Steve hissed, his voice cracking with a desperate, heavy gravity. He reached out, his fingers digging into the fabric of your hoodie, pulling you in just close enough that your foreheads almost touched. "If you aren't at the counselors' cabin in thirty seconds, I am coming back for you. Do you hear me?"
"I'll be there," you whispered.
Eddie stepped up beside Steve, his knuckles white around the iron fire poker. He didn't say his usual jokes; his face was dead-serious, his dark eyes locked on the door. "We're moving on three. Ready?"
Steve gave a single, tight nod, his hand lingering on your arm until the very last second. Eddie gripped the door handle, counted down with a silent motion of his fingers, and threw the door open.
You burst out into the night air first, your sneakers hitting the dirt with absolute silence. While Steve, Eddie, and Chrissy bolted in a tight, protective formation toward the main counselors' cabin across the lawn, you spun on your heel and sprinted back toward the dark, looming silhouette of the mess hall.
The cold night air bit into your lungs, but you didn't feel it. The adrenaline was a hot, rushing current in your veins. You slipped through the side entrance of the kitchen, your eyes instantly bypassing the heavy wooden door of the pantry. You refused to look at the dark pool of red slowly seeping out from under the frame.
Instead, your eyes locked onto the red emergency box mounted on the wall near the industrial sinks. Inside, behind a thin pane of glass, sat the camp's heavy, wooden-handled splitting axe.
You didn't look for the little metal hammer to break the glass. You wrapped the sleeve of your hoodie around your fist and smashed your hand directly into the center of the pane. The glass shattered with a sharp, loud spray, the shards clattering loudly into the stainless-steel sinks below.
You ignored the sharp sting across your knuckles, reaching through the broken frame to wrap your fingers around the smooth, solid wood of the axe handle. You pulled it free, the weight of the iron head heavy and grounding in your hands.
Then, the temperature in the kitchen plummeted.
Right on the heels of the cold came the whispers. They didn't sound distant anymore. They were bouncing off the metal prep tables, low, rhythmic, and suffocatingly close. From the shadows of the dining hall, a heavy, wet squelch echoed as a massive, waterlogged boot dragged across the floorboards.
It was inside with you.
You held the axe tight against your chest, your knuckles turning white. Dropping low behind one of the stainless-steel counters, you cut your flashlight off, plunging yourself into the absolute dark. Through the gap beneath the counter, your eyes tracked a pair of massive, decaying boots moving slowly into the kitchen, trailing a thick stream of foul lake water behind them.
The hulking figure paused just ten feet away, its head tilting as if listening to the frantic, erratic beating of your heart.
You squeezed your eyes shut, pressing your back against the cold metal of the island. You didn't breathe. You didn't move. You waited until the heavy, dragging footsteps shifted toward the back storage room, drawn by the sound of the dripping blood.
The second its back was turned, you lunged from your hiding spot. You didn't look back. You bolted out the side exit at a full sprint, the heavy axe swinging by your side as you tore across the open grass, desperate to reach the safety of the counselors' cabin before the thirty seconds ran out.
Your sneakers pounded against the damp grass, each stride sending a jarring jolt up your spine. The heavy iron head of the axe swung in rhythm with your frantic pace, a comforting but exhausting weight. The counselors' cabin loomed just ahead, its dark windows offering a fragile promise of safety.
You didn't look back to see if the hulking shape had realized you were gone. You didn't dare.
You practically threw your weight into the cabin porch, skidding on the worn wood as you burst through the heavy screen door. You slammed it shut behind you, throwing the rusted deadbolt into place with a sharp, echoing crack.
"I'm here," you gasped, your lungs burning as you leaned your forehead against the cool wood of the door, the heavy axe finally resting against your thigh.
A flashlight beam sliced through the gloom, hitting your face. Through the glare, Steve stepped forward, his eyes wide and frantic. The second he saw you—breathing hard, covered in dust, but whole—the rigid, terrified tension in his shoulders visibly broken. He didn't care that the others were watching; he lunged forward, wrapping one solid arm around your neck and pulling you tight against his chest for a brief, desperate second.
"Twenty-eight seconds," he breathed into your hair, his voice rough. "You're an idiot."
"I got it," you whispered back, pulling away just enough to show him the heavy splitting axe.
Behind him, the cabin was a scene of controlled chaos. Nancy and Robin were already out of bed, looking pale but entirely focused. Nancy was tying the laces of her boots, a sharp, silver hunting knife from her personal gear already gripped tightly in her hand. Robin was frantically stuffing essential supplies into a canvas bag, her hands shaking but her movements precise. Eddie stood guard by the back window, his knuckles white around the iron fire poker, while Chrissy sat on the edge of a bunk, her knees pulled to her chest as she tried to keep her breathing steady.
"We heard the glass break from across the lawn," Nancy said, her voice chillingly calm as she stepped up beside Steve. She looked at the axe in your hand, then up to your eyes. "You saw it?"
"It's the same thing from a decade ago," you murmured, the words feeling heavy and wrong on your tongue. "From the lake. It’s huge, Nancy. It... it killed Billy and Tommy."
Chrissy let out a small, stifled sob into her hands, and Eddie immediately dropped his poker for a split second to squeeze her shoulder, his face grim.
"Okay," Steve said, his counselor persona locking back into place, though his grip on your wrist remained tight. "We don't have time to process this. Nancy, you have the keys to your station wagon?"
"Right here," Robin answered for her, holding up a jingling ring of keys. "But the parking lot is all the way on the other side of the mess hall. We have to cross the main clearing to get to the cars."
The realization settled over the room like a physical weight. To leave the camp, you had to walk right back into the monster's hunting ground.
Suddenly, a heavy, wet thud echoed from the porch outside, followed by the agonizing, slow screech of wood straining under an immense weight. The whispers flooded the room again, overlapping and loud, vibrating the window panes.
It had followed your trail.
You frantically looked around the cramped, shadowed cabin, your heart hammering against your ribs. Nothing else mattered anymore—the clothes, the books, the gear, it was all completely replaceable. Everything you owned could be easily bought again, but your lives couldn't. Spotting your own key ring glinting under the pale moonlight on the small bedside table, you lunged forward, snatched it up, and shoved the keys deep into the pocket of your shorts, the cold metal biting into your thigh.
A few feet away, Nancy and Robin were huddled over a small wooden desk, tracing the camp layout in their minds. They were frantically whispering, mapping out the safest, quickest route to get to your Jeep and Nancy’s station wagon. It was incredibly risky—the vehicles were parked on the opposite side of the main clearing, totally exposed—but splitting into two groups and running for the cars was the only option left.
Then, the agonizing groaning of the porch wood outside abruptly stopped. The overlapping whispers in your head cut off, leaving the cabin in a dead, suffocating silence.
Chrissy, her eyes wide and chest heaving, cautiously crept toward the dusty window pane to see if the creature had moved. She took one hesitant breath, leaning just an inch closer to the glass.
CRASH.
A massive, bloated gray hand violently shattered through the window frame, a spray of sharp glass exploding into the room. Before Chrissy could even scream, the thick, rotting fingers clamped down into her hair, twisting brutally and yanking her forward. The sheer, mechanical force of the pull dragged her upper body straight over the jagged, broken remnants of the windowpane. Large, triangular shards of glass dug deep into the soft skin of her throat and chest, slicing through her clothes and leaving long, bright crimson gashes that immediately began to spill blood onto the sill.
"Chrissy!" Eddie shrieked.
He dropped his iron fire poker, the metal clattering loudly against the floorboards as he lunged forward. He wrapped his arms around Chrissy’s waist, digging his boots into the wood, and pulled back with everything he had. Steve and you instantly moved to help, your hands grabbing onto Eddie and Chrissy, trying desperately to counter the immense weight on the other side.
But it was entirely useless. No matter how hard the three of you pulled, the entity outside was unnaturally, terrifyingly stronger. The rotting hand didn't lose its grip for a single second, dragging Chrissy further out into the night air as she screamed, the broken glass embedded in the window frame tearing deeper into her stomach and sides, ripping her skin to ribbons.
Through the shattered pane, the towering, waterlogged figure of Jason loomed in the moonlight. His dead, pale eyes locked onto her. With a chilling, fluid motion, his other hand rose, gripping the massive, heavily rusted machete.
He didn't hesitate. He brought the blade down, plunging the thick, jagged metal straight through the center of Chrissy’s chest.
The wet, tearing sound of metal puncturing bone and muscle echoed clearly in the small cabin. Chrissy’s scream cut off instantly into a wet, choked gasp, her body going entirely rigid. Jason gripped the handle tightly and drew the machete back out with a brutal, tearing tug, a thick spray of dark blood painting the white wood of the window frame and splashing across Eddie’s face. Chrissy’s limp, lifeless form slipped from the monster's grasp, collapsing backward over the bloody sill and into Eddie's arms as he let out a guttural, heartbroken wail.
A violent wave of nausea rolled through your stomach, so intense you had to clamp a hand over your mouth to keep from throwing up. The small cabin was entirely filled with the acrid, choking scent of fresh iron and that putrid, waterlogged rot, sticking to the back of your throat. Forcing your eyes back toward the shattered window, you caught a final glimpse of the hulking, shadowed outline of Jason before he silently turned and dissolved back into the midnight gloom.
"We have to go," you whispered. Your voice didn't even sound like your own—it was hollow, stripped of all emotion. You reached down, using your free hand to help Steve forcefully pry Eddie’s white-knuckled grip away from Chrissy’s lifeless body.
Steve looked at you, and the sheer panic in his own chest faltered for a fraction of a second. He watched the light completely drain from your eyes, leaving behind a cold, terrifying numbness. He recognized that look. It was the exact same expression you had worn a decade ago. He remembered seeing it right before you were pushed into the dark waters of the lake, the same look when they dragged your blue, breathless body back onto the dock, and the same hollow stare you gave the walls of the mess hall while clutching a towel around your shivering shoulders as a counselor called your mother. You were completely shutting down, retreating into a deep, clinical survival mode—as if you knew that one wrong step would plunge you right back into the suffocating dark of that eight-year-old nightmare.
Robin and Nancy stepped in, gently but firmly taking hold of a shattered, weeping Eddie.
"Behind the bathhouse," you muttered, your eyes fixed on the floorboards. "There's a trail. It loops around the clearing and cuts straight to the parking lot. But stay on the marked path. There are bear traps hidden in the brush out there."
Robin’s eyes widened, the pieces instantly clicking from when she had found you trembling on the trail earlier. "Okay," she said, giving a sharp, determined nod. "We stick to the path, we get to the cars, and we drive as far away from this valley as possible."
Nancy let out a heavy, tight breath, adjusting her grip on her knife. "It'll take an hour, maybe two, to get back to the main highway. There’s that 24-hour gas station about twenty miles out—the one we stopped at on the way in. We meet there." She looked between you and Steve, her expression dead serious. "If one car makes it before the other, you don't wait. You call the police immediately."
There were no arguments. It was the only survival plan they had.
Eddie had gone entirely numb, his eyes glassy and distant as he let Nancy and Robin guide him toward the back exit of the cabin. Nancy cracked the rear door open, scanning the dense tree line before slipping out into the shadows, with Robin and Eddie right on her heels.
You and Steve followed close behind, the heavy weight of the splitting axe balanced precariously in your hand. The night air hit your face, but you couldn't feel the chill anymore.
You had barely cleared the porch steps, heading for the safety of the thick brush, when the atmosphere around you shifted. The temperature plummeted instantly, turning your breath into thick white plumes in the moonlight.
Then came the static. The low, rhythmic chanting flooded your ears, vibrating inside your skull—ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma—mocking the dead silence of the woods. A split second later, a massive, heavy crunch of boots crushing dry leaves echoed from the shadows directly to your left.
He was already ahead of you.
"Go! Run!" you shouted, your voice breaking the silence as you violently shoved Robin and Nancy forward, forcing them to sprint with Eddie toward the marked trail.
You spun on your heel, raising the heavy splitting axe as Steve instantly flanked your side. Through the silver, fractured moonlight filtering through the pine needles, the towering, waterlogged silhouette of Jason emerged from the darkness, the rusted machete in his hand glistening with fresh, dark blood.
Jason didn't rush. He moved with a heavy, unyielding momentum, his massive boots crushing the fallen branches beneath him with a sickening, rhythmic weight. The silver moonlight caught the wet, decaying tissue of his neck and jaw, making him look less like a man and more like a walking piece of the lakebed itself.
"Get back!" Steve hissed, his voice raw as he stepped slightly in front of you, raising the iron fire poker like a baseball bat. His knuckles were white, his chest heaving as he stared up at the sheer height of the thing. "Hey! Over here, you bastard!"
Steve lunged forward, swinging the heavy iron poker with everything he had. The metal connected with a loud, dull thud straight against the side of Jason's neck. It was a hit that would have dropped any normal man, but Jason barely flinched. His head snapped to the side from the force, a dark, thick fluid leaking from the impact site, but his dead, pale eyes never left you.
With a sickeningly fluid motion, Jason’s massive left hand shot out, clamping down around the shaft of the fire poker. He twisted his wrist, and the sheer, unnatural force of the movement ripped the weapon completely out of Steve's grip, sending it clattering into the dark brush.
Before Jason could bring the rusted machete down on Steve, you lunged.
The clinical numbness in your brain took over. You swung the heavy splitting axe, channeling every ounce of your adrenaline into the wooden handle. The sharp iron head bit deep into Jason’s right shoulder, burying a full three inches into the waterlogged, decaying muscle. A foul, swampy stench erupted from the wound, making your eyes water.
Jason let out a low, guttural grunt, his grip on the machete loosening for a fraction of a second.
"Steve, move!" you screamed.
As you violently wrenched the axe handle to pry the blade free from his shoulder, Jason's massive, waterlogged hand shot forward. His thick, slick fingers clamped tightly around your throat, the damp rot of his skin pressing hard against your windpipe as he hauled you completely off the ground. You dropped the axe, it clattering into the dirt as your hands instinctively shot up to claw at his bloated, unyielding arm. He wasn't squeezing to snap your neck—not yet—but he held you with just enough crushing, mechanical force to leave you entirely helpless, dangling in midair.
"Let him go!"
The frantic roar cut through the dark. It was Eddie. He hadn't kept running with the girls; he had doubled back. Sprinting blindly out of the tree line, Eddie scooped the fallen splitting axe off the ground, brought it overhead, and buried it deep into the center of Jason's back with a sickening, wet crunch.
The colossal impact jolted the creature forward. Jason's grip suddenly released, dropping you hard into the dirt. You collapsed, hacking and coughing violently for air, before Steve’s arms instantly wrapped around you, hauling you backward away from the creature's feet.
Jason slowly spun around, his attention shifting entirely to Eddie. The heavy splitting axe was still deeply embedded between his shoulder blades, the wooden handle protruding at a grotesque angle. The monster reached back, his bloated fingers groping blindly at his own spine as he tried to rip the weapon from his skin.
Eddie scrambled backward, his boots skidding through the dead leaves, his dark eyes darting wildly around the shadows of the brush as he looked for any viable escape route.
Forcing a ragged, painful breath back into your lungs, you looked between Eddie's panicked face and the axe handle protruding from the monster's back. The survival instinct that had taken over your body fully snapped into place. Ignoring the bruising pain in your throat, you lunged forward from Steve's arms, stepping right into the creature's blind spot.
You grabbed the wooden handle with both hands, dug your heels into the damp earth, and yanked backward with every single ounce of terrifying strength you had left.
The iron head tore free with a horrific, wet screech. The force of the pull sent you stumbling backward into the dirt, but the axe was back in your hands—along with a massive, dripping chunk of sloughed-off rotting flesh, exposing the dull, grayed muscle beneath Jason's tattered jumpsuit.
The monster stumbled forward a half-step, completely distracted by the sudden tearing of his own weight.
"Run!" Steve yelled, grabbing your arm and yanking you to your feet.
The three of you didn't look back. You bolted straight into the thickest part of the woods, tearing through the dense brush and briars as the branches whipped violently across your faces. You didn't know how long you ran, or how many miles you put between yourselves and the clearing. The dark forest seemed to stretch on forever, a blur of towering pines and suffocating shadows.
Finally, your legs gave out. The three of you collapsed against the base of a massive, ancient oak tree, your chests heaving, desperately trying to catch your breath in the freezing, silent dark.
You leaned your head back against the rough bark of the oak, your hands still trembling violently around the handle of the axe. The metallic tang of adrenaline was sharp in your mouth. Beside you, Steve was slumped against the trunk, his eyes wide and unfocused as he stared back into the dense web of shadows you had just sprinted through. Eddie was on his knees a few feet away, his head hanging low between his shoulders, his chest heaving so hard it looked painful.
"Did we... did we lose it?" Eddie choked out, his voice cracking into a ragged whisper. He wiped a mix of sweat and dark lake water from his forehead, his knuckles still shaking.
Steve didn't answer right away. He slowly slid down until he was sitting in the dirt, his shoulder pressing firmly against yours. It was the only grounding thing left in the world. He reached out, his hand wrapping over yours on the axe handle, gently easing your white-knuckled grip until the tension in your fingers finally gave way.
"I don't hear the whispering," Steve murmured, his voice low and raspy. He looked at your neck, his eyes darkening as the moonlight caught the faint, blossoming bruises left by those massive, rotting fingers. "Hey. Look at me. You breathing okay?"
You nodded slowly, though every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. "I'm fine," you managed to whisper, your voice hoarse. "We have to keep moving. The station wagon... Nancy and Robin should be at the highway by now."
"If they made it," Eddie muttered, a hollow, haunted look settling deep into his face as he stared at his hands. "God, Chrissy... she didn't even... it just happened so fast."
"Hey," Steve said, his voice dropping into that steady, unyielding tone he used when everything was falling apart. He looked directly at Eddie. "We don't pull it together right now, we’re next. Understand? The girls are smart. Nancy knows what she’s doing. We just have to get to the main road."
You looked up through the dense canopy of pines. The moon was tilting lower in the sky, meaning the night was finally starting to bleed toward dawn, but the shadows on the forest floor were still pitch black. You shifted, the keys to your Jeep clinking softly in your shorts pocket—a tiny, fragile reminder that escape was still possible.
"The trail should be just past that ridge," you said, pointing the head of the axe toward a steep, rocky incline a few yards ahead. "If we cut through the brush here, we can bypass the main clearing entirely and hit the gravel lot from behind."
Steve stood up first, his knees popping in the quiet air. He reached down, catching your hand and pulling you to your feet, refusing to let go of your fingers even after you were standing. "Alright," he whispered, his hazel eyes locking onto yours with a quiet, fierce intensity. "We stick together. No more running off, no more distractions. We get to the cars, and we leave."
Before you could answer, a soft, freezing gust of wind swept through the trees, carrying with it the faint, unmistakable scent of damp earth and stagnant, mossy lake water.
The three of you froze.
From the bottom of the ridge, the dead leaves crunched. A single, heavy, rhythmic step.
He was already there.
The footsteps didn’t just come from one direction anymore. The static in your ears multiplied, a deafening wall of sound as the heavy, rhythmic crunch of boots on dry leaves seemed to echo from every shadow simultaneously. It was an impossible, disorienting trick of the woods, wrapping around the three of you until the noise abruptly cut out, stopping directly behind Eddie.
Eddie froze. The color completely drained from his face, leaving him looking sickly gray in the silver moonlight. Slowly, with an agonizing, trembling deliberation, he pushed himself up from his knees and turned around. His dark eyes went wide, the pupils blowing out with absolute terror as the faint light filtering through the pines caught the cold, polished glint of silver.
Before he could even draw a breath to scream, the massive, rusted machete was thrusted forward with a sickening, wet force.
The heavy steel blade tore through his sternum, fracturing the bone with a distinct, hollow crack before protruding fully out of his back, dripping with dark crimson. Eddie gasped, his entire body jerking violently. The sound that came out of him wasn't human—it was a choked, agonizing gurgle as thick, dark blood instantly flooded his throat and spilled heavily from his lips, staining his chin and clothes.
Jason didn't stop. He walked forward, his towering, waterlogged frame imposing and unyielding, forcing Eddie to stumble backward until his spine violently struck the trunk of the massive oak tree. The impact drove the machete blade even deeper, grinding against the bark before Jason slowly, brutally wrenched the handle backward, pulling the jagged steel back out of Eddie's chest in agonizing slowness.
Eddie’s head rolled to the side, his glassy, fading eyes locking onto you and Steve in a desperate, silent plea. But before he could even drop to the ground, Jason’s massive, bloated hand shot upward, his thick fingers clamping completely over Eddie’s face. With a horrific, mechanical surge of strength, the monster slammed Eddie’s head backward, crushing his face directly into the rough, unforgiving tree bark until the sickening sound of breaking bone echoed through the clearing. Eddie’s body went entirely limp, slumping down into the dead leaves like a discarded ragdoll.
You and Steve stumbled backward, the sheer, visceral horror of the slaughter jolting your limbs back into motion. The paralyzing numbness in your brain shattered, replaced by a raw, primal panic.
"Run!" Steve choked out, his voice completely fractured.
You turned and bolted, tearing through the thick brush toward the rocky ridge that led to the gravel parking lot. Your lungs were burning, every breath screaming like fire in your throat as you pushed your body past its absolute limits. The heavy splitting axe was still gripped in your white-knuckled hand, swinging wildly by your side as you vaulted over rotting logs and tore through thick briars that sliced at your bare legs. Steve was right beside you, his breathing just as ragged, his sneakers skidding dangerously on the damp pine needles.
The treeline was thinning ahead, the faint, open expanse of the gravel lot visible through the dark trunks. You were so close.
But the woods weren't finished with you. Steve didn't even have time to react, his shoe catching on a thick, half-buried tree root hidden beneath the leaves. With a sharp, breathless gasp, his momentum threw him violently forward. He went down hard, his face slamming directly into the rocky, frozen ground with a sickening, heavy thud.
"Steve!" you shrieked, skidding to a halt and throwing yourself into the dirt beside him.
He groaned, a dazed, unseeing look in his hazel eyes as blood instantly began pouring from his broken nose, coating his mouth and jaw in a dark, slick smear. The impact had completely knocked the wind out of him, his hands scraping uselessly against the gravel as he tried to push himself up.
Knowing Jason was somewhere in the blackness behind you, the survival instinct took over. You grabbed the collar of Steve’s jacket, digging your sneakers into the earth, and forcefully dragged him to his feet.
"Get up! Steve, you have to get up!" you screamed, your voice raw and desperate as you slung his arm over your shoulder, bearing half his weight and forcing his staggering, bloody form to keep running toward the edge of the woods.
You burst through the final line of dense brush, dragging Steve’s staggering weight with you, only for the air to turn to absolute ice. The gravel parking lot was fifty yards away, the silver moonlight reflecting off the roofs of the cars, but you couldn't reach them. Emerging from the shadows directly in front of the trail exit was Jason. He stood perfectly still, a towering, impenetrable wall of rotting flesh and waterlogged cloth.
You skidded to a halt, the gravel grinding beneath your sneakers as you fell back into the tree line. There was no more running. The woods had shrunk around you, and the paths were closed. You were entirely cut off.
Jason didn't wait. He stepped forward with that heavy, rhythmic momentum, his dead eyes locking onto you. But as he drew closer, a sickening realization began to cut through the fog of your panic. He had plenty of opportunities to throw the machete, to split your skull the way he had destroyed the others. Instead, his posture toward you was different. The unyielding focus wasn't just to slaughter; it was a patient, possessive drive. He wanted to drag you back. Back to the black, suffocating depths of Crystal Lake, to finish what had started a decade ago when you were an eight-year-old child gasping for air in the dark. He didn't want you dead in the woods—he wanted you beneath the water with him.
"Stay... stay behind me," Steve choked out, his voice thick with blood from his broken nose. He tried to step in front of you, his good arm raised defensively, but his balance was entirely shot.
Jason lunged with an unnatural, terrifying speed that defied his massive bulk. Steve tried to throw a desperate punch, but Jason’s left hand caught him by the shoulder and threw him aside. Steve went flying through the air, his body colliding violently with the trunk of a thick pine tree. A horrific, sharp crack echoed through the clearing as his forearm snapped against the wood. Steve let out a ragged, agonizing scream, collapsing into the dirt, cradling his broken arm against his chest as blood continued to stream from his nose.
"Steve!" you shrieked.
The clinical numbness in your brain instantly vanished, replaced by a raw, adrenaline-fueled fury. You gripped the heavy wooden handle of the splitting axe, swung it overhead with every single ounce of strength you possessed, and brought it down toward his head.
Jason didn't even bother to dodge. He raised his right arm, and the iron head of the axe buried itself deep into his forearm, splitting the gray, decaying muscle down to the bone. A foul, stagnant stench erupted from the wound, but the monster didn't even flinch. Before you could pull the blade free, Jason twisted his arm, the mechanical force of the movement ripping the axe entirely out of your hands and sending it spinning into the dark underbrush.
With a brutal, backhanded sweep of his massive arm, Jason struck you across the face. The impact sent you spinning into the gravel. Your lip busted open instantly, filling your mouth with the hot, copper taste of blood. Your vision blurred, dark bruises already forming across your cheek and jaw as you scrambled to your feet, only to scream in agony as the silver glint of his machete came down. The heavy blade sliced deep into the meat of your calf, tearing through your skin and leaving a long, gaping gash that poured dark crimson into your sneaker.
You fell back onto your hands and knees, gasping for air, your body entirely bloodied and broken. Hitting him was barely doing anything; he was tossing the two of you around like mere ragdolls, completely unbothered by the damage you inflicted.
Jason turned away from your bleeding form, his heavy boots crunching over the gravel as he stepped over to Steve. With a sickening, effortless motion, he reached down, wrapped his thick, rotting fingers around Steve’s throat, and hoisted him completely off the ground. Steve’s legs kicked uselessly in the air, his face turning a dark, dangerous purple as his one good hand desperately clawed at the unyielding grip around his windpipe. The monster began to raise the heavy, rusted machete, the blade aimed directly at Steve's chest.
A desperate, wild thought snapped into your mind. You remembered the local folklore, the old stories whispered by the townspeople about the boy who drowned, and the terrifying, twisted devotion he had for the woman who raised him.
"Jason!" you screamed, your voice cracking, raw and bleeding.
The towering figure froze. The machete paused just inches from Steve's ribs. Slowly, the monster’s head tilted to the side, his dead, pale eyes shifting away from Steve to lock onto you.
"Jason, stop!" you slurred, your words heavy and uncoordinated from the pain, your vision swimming as you forced your injured leg to bear your weight. You took a shaky step backward, your hands raised trembling in the air. "Your mother... Pamela... she would be so disappointed in you! She didn't want this! She wouldn't want you hurting someone like you... someone who’s just trying to protect the people he loves!"
The words seemed to strike a strange, internal chord. Jason stood entirely still, his massive frame rigid, his grip on Steve loosening just a fraction—not enough to drop him, but enough to keep from killing him. The mention of his mother seemed to paralyze his mechanical drive, dragging a faint, ancient piece of humanity to the surface of his rotting brain.
You kept talking, your voice shaking, your words slurring together as the blood loss from your leg began to take its toll. But you didn't stop moving. With every word you spoke about his mother, you took another slow, agonizing step backward, intentionally drawing his focus away from the parking lot and toward a wide, steep opening in the treeline right behind you—an old, rocky boat launch that led directly into the black, unmoving waters of the lake.
"She's watching you, Jason," you choked out, your voice trembling violently as you kept your eyes locked on his hulking form. You backed up another step, your sneaker skidding on an algae-slicked stone, the sound echoing sharply in the heavy silence. "She sees what you're doing. She wouldn't want this."
The monster’s head tilted further, a low, wet hiss escaping the dark slits of his mouth. It was working. The sheer mention of Pamela Voorhees was a physical anchor, dragging his fractured, brutal mind into a state of stagnant confusion. But his grip on Steve remained a vice. Steve's chest was barely moving now, his eyes rolling back as his fingers weakly scratched at the gray, bloated flesh of Jason's wrist.
You needed him to drop Steve. You needed to be the only target left.
"Look at me!" you shouted, your voice cracking with a desperate, raw authority. You slapped your own chest, smearing the fresh blood from your busted lip across your hoodie. "I'm the one who escaped! I'm the one from the lake! Leave him alone—your mother wants me!"
That did it.
Jason's dead eyes flared with a sudden, localized fury. With a brutal, careless shove, he threw Steve’s limp body out to the side. Steve hit the gravel hard, rolling a few feet before lying completely still, his breathing shallow and ragged.
Jason turned his full, towering frame toward you. The rusted machete rose, glinting with a lethal, silver light in the cold moonbeams. He took a heavy, wet step forward onto the boat ramp. Then another.
Your breath hitched as you continued your slow, agonizing retreat. Your left leg was entirely slick with blood now, the deep gash in your calf throbbing in agonizing rhythm with your pulse. You slurred your next words, your vision beginning to vignette at the edges from blood loss and sheer exhaustion. "That's it... just come to me. Let's go back. Let's finish it."
The gravel beneath your feet completely gave way to smooth, slick stones. The air grew perceptibly colder, heavy with the thick, suffocating stench of standing water and lilies. You risked a fraction of a second to glance over your shoulder. You were standing at the absolute precipice. Just a foot behind you, the black, glass-like surface of Crystal Lake stretched out into the midnight gloom, completely still, waiting to swallow whatever broke its plane.
Jason was right on top of you now, his massive shadow completely eclipsing the moonlight. He didn't just reach for you. With an explosive, terrifying surge of mechanical force, he drove the heavy, rusted machete downward.
The blade tore directly into your shoulder, fracturing the collarbone with a sickening, wet crunch. A sharp, white-hot scream of pure agony was ripped from your throat, your vision flashing blindingly. The sheer force of the blow nearly buckled your knees, the heavy steel burying itself deep into your muscle and pinning you to his proximity.
From the gravel lot behind him, a weak, wet cough cut through the static in your ears. "No..." Steve's voice was a broken, desperate wheeze as he tried to drag his shattered body forward. "Don't..."
Jason didn't even look back. He gripped the hilt of the blade, preparing to rip it out and finish you.
But through the blinding agony, a cold, empty smile broke through the blood on your face. You didn't try to pull away from the steel. Instead, you reached up with both hands, your fingers wrapping like iron vices around his thick, waterlogged wrists, anchoring your entire existence to his.
You looked straight into his pale, dead eyes, the copper taste of blood heavy on your tongue.
"Let's go home, Jason," you whispered.
With a final, desperate surge of absolute adrenaline, you threw your entire body weight backward off the edge of the ramp, using your grip on his wrists to drag his massive, heavy frame over the edge with you.
Together, you plummeted backward, breaking the still surface as the freezing, bottomless dark of the lake swallowed you both whole.
The freezing shock of the water engulfed you, a sudden, crushing weight that instantly muted the chaotic noise of the world above. But as the dark closed over your head, you didn’t panic. A bizarre, heavy stillness settled deep into your chest, entirely overriding the white-hot agony radiating from your shattered collarbone. Despite the phantom memories of the boy from a decade ago, and despite the stark, absolute certainty that this was where your life would end, you felt oddly calm.
The buoyancy of the lake caught you both, suspending your bodies in the weightless, murk-filled depths. The sudden drag of the water forced Jason’s bloated hand to slip from the hilt of the machete, which remained deeply embedded in your shoulder. Suspended in the dark, his dead, pale eyes stared directly into yours through the gloom. You clamped your jaw tight, fighting the instinct to gasp as your lungs screamed for oxygen, your fingers still locked around his waterlogged wrists.
Then, the world began to blur.
You were fading in and out of consciousness, the lack of oxygen turning the dark water into a swirling, dizzying vortex. You were barely aware of the dull, heavy impact when your back finally struck the soft, silty floor of the lake, stirring up a thick cloud of ancient mud. Through the haze of near-death adrenaline, your hand moved on its own. You reached up, wrapping your fingers around the rusted hilt of the blade pinned in your own flesh, and with a sickening, wet grunt that cost you the last of your air, you ripped the machete from your shoulder.
Before Jason could pin you to the lakebed, you drove the heavy blade forward with everything you had left, burying it directly into his chest, right through his rotted heart.
A thick, jet-black fluid immediately erupted from the wound, clouding the dark water around you like ink. Yet, through the murky veil, his eyes caught yours one last time—and in that final, suspended second, those dead pupils told you absolutely everything he couldn't say. The possessive fury was gone, replaced by a hollow, ancient exhaustion.
You don't remember letting go. You don't remember kicking your legs, or the agonizing, burning scramble toward the surface. You didn't even register the moment your face broke the plane of the water, gasping for air in ragged, desperate gulps that practically tore at your throat.
The next thing you knew, you were standing in the shallows. Your body felt like lead, dragging against the resistance of the water as you blindly hauled yourself up onto the muddy embankment.
Just a few feet away on the gravel, Steve was curled on his side. He was sobbing, his voice a fractured, ruined sound as the agony of his snapped arm and the sheer helplessness of the night finally broke him. "Just let me die," he choked out into the dirt, his eyes squeezed shut. "Just fucking let me die..."
"You already going back on wanting to date me?" you teased, your voice nothing more than a raspy, blood-flecked whisper.
Steve's head snapped up. His eyes went wide, filled with a manic, disbelieving shock as he stared at your dripping, bloodied figure. You collapsed heavily into the dirt right beside him, a weak, exhausted smile breaking through the grime on your face. Shaking violently, you dug your hand into the pocket of your soaked shorts, pulling out the heavy ring of Jeep keys and letting them drop into the gravel between you.
"Drive for me?" you murmured, your vision finally fading to black.
Your eyes fluttered open to the rhythmic, hypnotic click of a turn signal. The dashboard of your Jeep glowed a faint, amber hue in the pre-dawn shadows, the green numbers of the digital clock swimming in your blurred vision. Beside you, the engine rumbled in a steady, vibrating frequency that made the deep, throbbing ache in your shoulder flare with a sickening heat.
You turned your head slowly, your neck stiff and bruised. Steve was leaning heavily against the doorframe, his left arm tucked awkwardly and rigidly against his stomach—crude sticks from the woods acting as a makeshift splint, bound tightly with his own torn belt. His right hand was white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his jaw clamped so tight the bone looked ready to snap. His face was a horrific mask of dried blood from his broken nose, his hazel eyes wide, hollow, and fixed entirely on the dark highway ahead.
"We're almost there," he whispered, his voice barely a gravelly rasp. He didn't look at you. He couldn't. It felt like if he took his eyes off the road for even a fraction of a second, the fragile reality keeping him upright would shatter. "Just stay with me. We're almost there."
You let out a weak, shaky breath that caught sharply in your throat, wincing as you tried to shift your weight. Looking down, you realized you were entirely shirtless; Steve had used your soaked, torn hoodie to fashion a thick, heavy compress over your ruined shoulder, binding it tightly across your chest to stem the flow of blood. The fabric was completely saturated in a dark, terrifying crimson, but the bleeding had finally slowed to a sluggish ooze.
The Jeep suddenly slowed, the tires crunching heavily as Steve swung the wheel with his single good hand, pulling into the harsh, fluorescent glare of the 24-hour gas station. The transition from the suffocating dark of the woods to the blinding, artificial white light felt entirely surreal, like stepping onto a twisted movie set.
Through the cracked windshield, the scene unfolded in a disjointed, chaotic blur. Nancy’s station wagon was parked crookedly by the pumps, its doors flung open. Nancy and Robin were there, their faces pale and streaked with dirt under the neon lights, frantically gesturing as they spoke to two local sheriff's deputies. In the distance, cutting through the heavy mist hanging over the asphalt, came the distinct, rising wail of an approaching ambulance.
And then, your eyes drifted to the edge of the brick building. Standing just beyond the perimeter of the overhead lights, half-hidden in the shadows by the ice machine, was the old man from town. Crazy Ralph. He was peeking around the corner, his weathered, hollow face twisted into a knowing, grim expression. He wasn't yelling his usual warnings anymore. He just stared at the Jeep, a silent, terrifying testament to the nightmare you had barely survived.
The moment the Jeep rolled to a stop, Robin’s head snapped toward the headlights. Her eyes went wide, a soundless cry leaving her lips as she instantly bolted across the pavement. She threw the passenger door open, her hands trembling violently as she reached in, careful to avoid your shattered shoulder but desperately pulling you into her arms to help you out of the seat.
On the other side, Nancy was already there, her fingers working quickly to unbuckle Steve, her face a mask of fierce, protective determination as she helped him ease his broken frame out of the driver's side.
Your sneakers hit the cold asphalt, your knees instantly buckling under your own weight. Robin caught you, wrapping her arms tightly around your waist, her breath hitching in a sob against your neck. You looked past her, catching Nancy's eye over the hood of the car. All you could do was smile—a faint, dazed, entirely detached smile that felt completely disconnected from the gore and horror clinging to your skin.
The deputies rushed forward, their voices loud and demanding, shouting over one another as they tried to ask what happened, who else was out there, where the others were. The flashing red and blue lights of the arriving ambulance began to wash over the gas station, painting the blood on your body in a rhythmic, sickening pulse. Paramedics swarmed the space, pressing a cold oxygen mask over your face and gently trying to push you onto a gurney, their hands frantic as they assessed the deep gash in your leg and the fractured bone in your shoulder.
But you didn't answer the cops. You didn't look at the needles or the bandages. You just kept smiling through the plastic of the mask, your eyes locking onto Steve across the pavement as the paramedics worked on him too. You were out of the lake. The air was freezing, the lights were blinding, and you were both still breathing.
The flickering blue glow of the television screen cast long, dancing shadows across Steve’s living room. A couple of months had bled into the past, but the silence that lived between the four of you was different now—heavy, but fiercely protective.
You were tucked firmly against Steve's chest, sitting in his lap with his good arm wrapped securely around your waist, his chin resting gently on your uninjured shoulder. Right beside you on the larger sofa, Nancy was curled up in Robin's lap, her fingers idly tracing the hem of Robin's sleeve while Robin slowly ran a hand through Nancy's hair. None of you were really moving. Your eyes were all locked onto the local news anchor, whose voice sounded flat and entirely clinical coming through the speakers.
They were covering the "Crystal Lake Tragedy." It was exactly what you all expected—a total fabrication. The media and the police had woven a story that was easier for the public to swallow, a neat little package of human depravity. The anchor detailed how a deranged, fugitive transient living in a dilapidated shack near the campgrounds had brutally targeted a group of camp counselors before ultimately drowning during a frantic struggle in the water. The segment showed a brief, grainy photo of the lake's surface, announcing that state divers had officially concluded their search after recovering human remains from the silt bed.
Except you, Steve, Nancy, and Robin knew the truth. The divers hadn't pulled up a fresh corpse. They had found the fragile, moss-covered bones of a boy who had belonged to the lakebed for decades, lying down there in the dark as if they had never left. There was no giant. There was no monster. Just a myth, a handful of shallow graves, and four survivors left to bear the weight of what actually happened.
With a soft click of the remote, Nancy turned the television off, plunging the room into the quiet twilight of the evening.
By the time the sky outside turned a deep, heavy indigo, Robin and Nancy had quietly gathered their things and left, leaving the sprawling house completely still.
The quiet followed you and Steve up the stairs and into the familiar, shadowed safety of his bedroom. The windows were cracked open, letting in a cool summer breeze that lacked the stagnant, heavy humidity of the valley. Steve shifted above you, hovering over your frame with a gentle, deliberate care that had become second nature to him over the last eight weeks. His weight was grounding, a solid anchor against the mattress.
He leaned down, his lips moving with agonizing slowness as he traced the thick, jagged line of the silver scar carving across your collarbone and stretching down toward your chest. Your fingers rose lazily, tangling into the soft, familiar mess of his hair, gently tugging at the strands as his warm breath brushed against your skin.
Neither of you talked about that night. You hadn't spoken Billy or Tommy’s names since the police interviews, and Eddie and Chrissy’s memory was something the four of you held in a sacred, silent pact. A nightmare like that didn't need words; it was better left buried in the dark depths where it belonged.
"You know," Steve hummed against your skin, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that sent a pleasant shiver down your spine. He shifted upward, his lips brushing over the skin of your throat until they pressed a soft, lingering kiss directly against the mole sitting perfectly over your Adam's apple. "The scar kinda makes you look incredibly hot. Like... major turn-on."
A faint, breathless laugh caught in your throat, your fingers tightening slightly in his hair. "Is that right?" you whispered, your voice thick with a lazy, content warmth.
"Yeah," he sighed softly, the tension completely draining from his shoulders as he relaxed his frame, resting his forehead right against the center of your chest, listening to the steady, unhurried rhythm of your heartbeat.
The room grew quiet again, the distant sound of crickets outside the window filling the space. For a long time, the only movement was the slow rise and fall of your chest beneath his weight.
"I love you," Steve whispered into the dark, his voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the breeze.
You smiled, your hand sliding down from his hair to rest flat against the warm skin of his back, holding him close.
Summary: After losing your mother the year prior, a fight with a fellow student puts you on house arrest. With nothing to do, you began spying on your neighbors but something isn't right.
CW: No use of y/n - Loosely based on the movie Disturbia (2007) - Mention of murder/death - Violence - Fighting - Blood - Reader and Steve are both 18 - Set in early 2000s - Not canon - Mention of stalking - Angst - End fluff - Language - Long fic
Words: 17k
A/N: Been getting a lot of asks that are simply 'more steve x reader' and nothing else, so unfortunately those who requested are just gonna have to take what I can give. This is more so loosely based on the plot of the 2007 film, and if you haven't watched it then the fuck are y'all doing? Cult classic in my opinion and one my mom and I have watched several times along with The Day After Tomorrow. Anyway I'm rambling, hopefully this feeds you in the meantime and I apologize if the pacing or timing is weird, was unintentional. Last thing um holy shit 2000+ followers???? HELLO?!?!?!
FEMALES DNI
The dashboard clock glows a weak, sickly green against the dark—11:42 PM.
The road back into Hawkins is nothing but a ribbon of cracked asphalt swallowing itself in the headlights, bordered on both sides by the oppressive, shifting shadows of the Indiana woods. It’s early autumn, the kind of crisp, heavy air that makes the windows fog if you don’t keep the defrost running on low. The radio is just a faint, tinny murmur in the background, some alt-rock track from earlier in the summer losing its signal to static the closer you get to town.
You lean your head against the cool glass of the passenger window, watching the silhouette of the trees strobe past. Your mom’s hands are loose on the steering wheel, her face illuminated by the dashboard light. It had been a good weekend trip—just the two of you, a rare break from the suffocating quiet of your house—but the silence currently stretching between you is shifting from comfortable to heavy.
You can tell by the way she clears her throat, the specific, hesitant tilt of her head, that she’s gearing up for the talk. Not the one you’d painfully sat through two years ago when you finally stumbled over the words to tell her who you actually were, but the sequel to it. The one she’s been tentative about for months.
"You're awfully quiet over there," she says gently, her eyes flicking to you for a fraction of a second before returning to the empty road. "Just tired, or are you dreading going back to school on Monday?"
"A little bit of both," you mutter, shifting in your seat, your fingers tracing a loose thread on the seam of your jeans.
She sighs, a soft, sympathetic sound, but there’s a persistent weight behind it. "Honey... we talked about this on the drive up. Junior year is flying by. You can't spend the rest of it hiding in your room, or tucked away in the back of the library."
"I don't hide," you lie defensively, staring fixedly out the window. "I have friends."
"You have Robin and Eddie," she corrects, her tone melting into that agonizingly tender, maternal worry that always makes your throat tight. "And I love them, I do. They are wonderful, fiercely loyal kids. But you use them like a shield. It’s like you think if you stay in that tiny, safe little bubble, nothing can ever hurt you."
"It's a good bubble," you whisper.
"But the world is getting bigger," she presses on, her voice rising slightly with an earnest, desperate sort of hope. "Even here. People are... they're adapting. They're accepting things more. It's the 2000s, sweetie. It isn't like when I was growing up. You don't have to keep your head down and look at the floor everywhere you go. You’re allowed to exist. You're allowed to be happy."
You close your eyes, the warmth of the car suddenly feeling entirely too stifling. It’s the 2000s. As if a flip had been switched on the millennium and suddenly the world was safe. She meant well—God, she meant so well, and you loved her fiercely for trying to understand—but she didn't have to walk the hallways of Hawkins High. She didn't see the lingering, burning stares, the casual cruelty spat in the locker rooms, the suffocating isolation of being a quiet, closeted guy in a town that still smelled like old paint and stagnant air.
"It isn't that simple, Mom," you say, your voice cracking slightly, betraying the sudden spike of sadness in your chest. "I wish it was. I swear to God I wish it was just as easy as 'putting myself out there.' But it just isn't."
"Why can't it be?" she asks softly.
Before you can answer, she slows the car, pulling to a halt at the lone, blinking intersection just on the outskirts of the town limits. The light is a glaring, solid crimson. The idling engine thrums beneath your sneakers, a low, steady heartbeat.
Your mom shifts in her seat, turning her head to look at you properly now that the car is stopped. The red light casts deep, dramatic shadows across her face, emphasizing the tired lines around her eyes, but her expression is full of nothing but unconditional love.
"What about that boy from your chemistry class?" she asks, trying a new angle, her voice taking on a lighter, almost teasing cadence to break the tension. "The one who helped you fix your alternator in the school parking lot last month? Steve? Steve Harrington?"
Your breath hitches in your throat. Just hearing his name makes a nervous, complicated knot tie itself tightly in your stomach. Steve. He was popular—or, at least, he used to be the undisputed king before high school drew to its long, exhausting close—but he’d been surprisingly, bafflingly decent to you. Over the last year, you’d fallen into this strange, fragile rhythm of being 'outside of school' friends. You’d smoke a cigarette behind the video store together, or talk about movies, or he’d help you with your piece-of-junk car. He was easy to talk to when the hallway eyes weren't watching. But he was still Steve Harrington. You were just the shy kid who blended into the wallpaper.
"Steve is... we're just acquaintances, Mom. He's just being nice."
"He looks at you like he wants to know you," she says, a knowing, gentle smile touching her lips. "Maybe you should try talking to—"
The light turns green
The sudden, emerald glow floods the cabin of the car. Your mom breaks eye contact, looking forward, and her foot eases off the brake. The car rolls forward, sluggish and heavy, moving into the center of the empty, dead intersection.
"You should just try," she finishes, her voice quiet.
You open your mouth to respond, to tell her that Steve Harrington lives in a completely different universe than you do, but the words die in your throat.
Time doesn't slow down. It doesn't give you a moment to process. There is only a sudden, blinding eruption of white light violently flooding the left side of the vehicle. A deafening, apocalyptic roar of tearing metal, shattered glass, and screeching rubber tears through the quiet night.
The impact is instantaneous and absolute. The driver’s side door caves inward with terrifying force, the frame buckling like wet cardboard. The violent momentum violently jerks your body to the side, your head violently snapping against the window frame as the world loses its axis. The car lifts. Gravity flips.
Everything is a chaotic, sickening kaleidoscope of spinning darkness, the shrieking chorus of crushing steel, and the terrifying, weightless sensation of the car flipping entirely over. Your shoulder hits the roof, your vision exploding into a jagged galaxy of white-hot pain and sparkling static.
And then, with a bone-jarring, brutal crunch, the car slams back onto its tires, skidding sideways across the asphalt before finally, mercifully, coming to a dead stop.
Silence descends like a suffocating blanket, broken only by the hiss of a ruptured radiator and the frantic, erratic ticking of the broken dashboard.
Your ears are ringing—a high, piercing, agonizing drone that drowns out the rest of the world. The air is thick, choking, tasting heavily of copper, and smoke from the deployed airbags. For a terrifying, paralyzed few seconds, you can't feel your limbs. Your vision blurs, dark spots dancing at the edges of your eyes as you struggle to draw breath past the crushing pain in your chest.
Slowly, agonizingly, you force your eyes open. The world is tilted.
"Mom..." The word is nothing more than a wet, pathetic wheeze, barely clearing your lips.
You force your head to turn, every single muscle in your neck screaming in protest. Through the haze of smoke, you see her. She’s slumped sideways, her face pale, a dark line of blood glistening near her hairline. But her eyes are open. They are wide, frantic, dilated with a primal, maternal terror that completely bypasses her own agony.
"Are you... okay?" her voice is a ragged, breathless gasp, trembling violently as she tries to reach out for you, her fingers twitching against the ruined console. "Sweetie... look at me, are you... are you hurt?"
You try to move. You try to open your mouth to tell her that you're breathing, that you're alive, that you're right here—
But through the shattered remains of the front windshield, a fresh pair of brilliant, blinding high-beams cuts through the smoke.
Another car. Coming down the intersecting road. Fast. Too fast.
Your heart violently drops into a freezing, bottomless void. Your eyes widen, locking onto the approaching lights reflecting in the shards of glass littering the dashboard. They aren't slowing down. They don't see the ruined carcass of your car blocking the dark lane.
You look back at your mom. She’s still looking at you, her focus entirely consumed by making sure you’re safe, completely oblivious to the white light rapidly illuminating the right side of her face.
You try to scream. You desperately throw your weight forward, reaching out a hand to grab her, to pull her, to do anything.
"Mom—!"
The word is violently swallowed by a second, catastrophic impact, crashing directly, brutally into the passenger side.
The split-second image of her face being swallowed by the blinding, merciless white light is the last thing you see before the world completely turns to black.
The bathroom smelled like lemon-scented bleach and stale cigarette smoke, a suffocating combination that did absolutely nothing to clear the heavy, permanent fog in your head.
A sigh slid past your lips, rough and exhausted, as you leaned your weight against the porcelain lip of the sink. You stared at your reflection in the stained mirror. A year. It had been an entire, agonizing year since the night the world ended in a crunch of metal and a flash of high beams. You were a senior now, technically. But most days, you felt like a ghost haunting the hallways of Hawkins High, just going through the motions of a life you didn’t really feel a part of anymore.
After the funeral, when the silence of your old house became too loud to bear, you had moved into your grandparents’ place. They were well-off, living in one of those quiet, manicured neighborhoods where the lawns were perfectly green and nothing bad was ever supposed to happen. By some cruel twist of fate, their house sat directly across the street from the Harringtons.
For the first six months, you had completely retreated into yourself. You became a shadow. Robin and Eddie, bless them, had tried so hard. They would sit on either side of you at lunch, talking loudly to fill the silence, gently pushing a tray of food into your line of sight, desperate for just a nod or a single-word answer. But you had nothing left to give.
And then there was Steve.
You had never asked him to come over. You never invited him. But like clockwork, his car would pull into your grandparents’ driveway, and a few minutes later, he’d be knocking softly on your bedroom door before slipping inside. He didn't force you to talk. He didn't offer pitying glances or awkward condolences. Instead, he just... existed in your space. He’d sprawl out on your rug to do his homework, flip on your TV to watch a movie while you stared at the ceiling, or bring over that dumb guitar of his, plucking at the strings absentmindedly just to fill the quiet. He was just there, a steady, grounding anchor because he knew you were drowning.
School had become a secondary thought. Your grades slipped—not a total nosedive, but enough for the guidance counselor to red-ink your report cards. The school had tried calling your house for parent-teacher meetings, completely oblivious to the paperwork sitting in the front office, until your grandmother finally marched into the building, clad in her expensive coat and radiating a quiet, furious dignity that left the principal stuttering apologies. Only then did they leave you alone.
But the kids at school didn't leave you alone.
You should have been at lunch right now, letting Eddie tear up a piece of pizza for you while Robin rattled on about her band practice. Instead, you were hiding in the back boys' bathroom, staring at the dark circles under your eyes.
The heavy wooden door whined on its hinges, snapping you out of your daze. Footsteps echoed on the tile, loud and deliberate. You didn't move, hoping whoever it was would just use the urinal and leave, but the steps stopped right behind you.
In the reflection of the glass, two faces materialized. Tommy. and one of his brainless jock shadows from the basketball team. They had a specific kind of radar for vulnerability, and you had been their favorite target for years.
Tommy leaned against the wall, a cruel, mocking smirk twisting his lips as he looked at the back of your head. "Look at this. The freak’s alive."
You kept your eyes glued to the drain, your hands tightening slightly on the edges of the sink. Just ignore them. They'll get bored.
"He looks worse than usual, doesn't he?" the other guy chuckled, crossing his arms. "Hey. We're talking to you, man. What, you too good for us now?"
You didn't answer. You just breathed through your nose, counting the seconds.
Tommy took a step closer, his voice dropping into a low, venomous purr. "You know, I’ve been thinking about that accident. The whole town talked about it for weeks. But I bet I figured it out." He leaned in, his breath hot against the side of your neck. "She probably crashed that car on purpose. She probably killed herself because she couldn't handle having a faggot for a son."
The world went violently, terrifyingly still.
The ringing in your ears from a year ago—the sound of the crash—suddenly roared back to life. Your knuckles turned entirely white against the porcelain, a cold, blinding rage erupting from the deepest, darkest hollow of your chest.
"What's the matter?" Tommy taunted, misinterpreting your silence for submission. "Gonna cry to your mommy?"
Before the last word even fully left his mouth, his buddy lunged forward, grabbing the shoulder of your jacket and violently spinning you around to face them.
Usually, you shrunk away. Usually, you took the shove, walked out, and let the tears burn in your throat until you were safe in your room. You had never gotten into a fight in your life.
But something in you snapped. The dam broke.
You didn't think. You didn't hesitate. Pulling back your right arm, you threw your entire body weight behind a wild, furious punch. Your fist connected squarely with the jock’s jaw with a sickening, heavy crack
The guy’s head snapped back in pure shock, his grip releasing from your jacket as he stumbled blindly into the metal stall doors.
Tommy’s smirk instantly vanished, his eyes widening in disbelief, but you didn't give him a chance to react. The rage was an absolute, driving force now, a primal need to destroy the people who had dared breathe her name. You lunged at Tommy, tackling him around the waist. The momentum sent both of you crashing hard onto the cold tile floor.
Tommy yelled out as his back hit the ground, but you were already scrambling up, throwing your leg over his torso, pinning him to the floor. You raised your fist and brought it down hard across his mouth.
"Shut up!" you screamed, your voice raw, breaking with a year’s worth of unshed tears and suffocated agony. "Shut up! Don't you talk about her!"
You hit him again. And again. Tommy threw his hands up to cover his face, trying to buck you off, but the pure, unadulterated adrenaline flooding your veins made you impossibly heavy. Your knuckles were splitting, the metallic taste of his blood splattering across your skin, but you couldn't stop. Every punch was for the silence, for the hospital room, for the empty house, for the burning, suffocating unfairness of it all.
"Hey! Get the hell off him!" the other guy roared, finally recovering, scrambling forward to grab your jacket from behind to pull you off.
You violently yanked your elbow back, catching him hard in the nose, sending him stumbling back a second time, blood instantly pouring down his lip. You turned back to Tommy, your chest heaving, tears finally spilling over your hot cheeks, blurring your vision as you raised your fist again.
“Hey! Stop! What the hell is going on in here?!”
The bathroom door slammed open against the wall with a deafening bang. Principal Higgins stood in the doorway, his face pale with shock, but he didn't even have time to move before a blur of a yellow-and-green Hawkins letterman jacket pushed right past him.
"Hey—stop! Drop it!" Higgins yelled, pointing a trembling finger.
But it wasn't the principal who reached you.
Two powerful, familiar arms wrapped securely around your torso from behind, pinning your arms to your sides and lifting you completely off Tommy. You thrashed violently, kicking your legs, a wild, animalistic snarl tearing from your throat.
"Let me go! Let me go, I'll kill him!" you shrieked, blindly fighting against the grip.
"Whoa, whoa—hey, it's me. It's me, calm down," a frantic, breathless voice muttered right against your ear.
Steve.
He held you tight, his grip unyielding but careful not to hurt you, absorbing the violent shocks of your thrashing body. He braced his boots against the slick tile, dragging you backward, away from Tommy who was currently groaning on the floor, holding a bloody, swelling face.
"Let me go, Steve! Let me go!" you sobbed, the anger instantly fracturing, collapsing into a hollow, devastating grief right there in his arms. Your knees buckled, the adrenaline draining out of you as fast as it had come, leaving you shaking violently.
Steve didn't let go. As your legs gave out, he sank down with you, keeping his arms locked around your chest, pulling you back against his torso until you were both sitting on the dirty bathroom floor.
"I've got you," Steve whispered, his voice thick, his chin resting against your hair as he stared over your shoulder, glaring a promise of absolute murder at Tommy and his friend. "I've got you. Breathe. Just breathe."
The cold, sterile click of the plastic band locking around your ankle sounded like a gunshot in the quiet kitchen.
You sat stiffly in the wooden dining chair, your eyes fixed blankly on the heavy black box now hugging your skin. The police officer grunted as he stood up, his leather duty belt creaking under the weight of his gear. He adjusted his cap, giving you a long, look that was a mix of pity and warning.
"Three months," the officer said, his voice echoing off the tiled floor. "Three months confined to this property. Your boundaries are the house and a hundred-foot radius outside. You step past the driveway, the base station over there by the phone logs a violation, and the state takes over. Next time, it won’t be house arrest. It’ll be a juvenile facility. Understood, son?"
You didn't look up. You didn't nod. You just kept your eyes glued to the monitor. Three months. Your entire senior year, effectively paused. No school, no walking down the street, no sitting behind the video store with Robin. Just the four walls of your bedroom and a invisible fence.
Still, as the front door clicked shut and the officer’s cruiser rumbled down the driveway, a grim, numb realization washed over you. It could have been worse. Tommy’s parents had threatened to sue, screaming about assault charges and a broken nose. If it hadn't been for your grandparents' money, their expensive lawyer, and Steve stubbornly telling the principal exactly what Tommy had said about your mom before the first punch was thrown, you’d be sitting in a jail cell right now.
The silence in the kitchen became heavy, suffocating.
Your grandmother stood by the counter, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. The quiet elegance she usually wore like armor seemed frayed at the edges. With a slow, heavy sigh that seemed to age her by a decade, she walked over, pulled out the chair directly beside you, and sat down.
"I know your mother's death has been hard on you, sweetheart," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly as she reached out, her fingers hovering just over your bruised, bandaged knuckles before gently resting on your arm. "But this? Fighting? Getting arrested? She wouldn't want this for you."
A sharp, bitter sting pricked the back of your throat. She wouldn't want this.
Everyone loved using her memory as a yardstick for how you were supposed to grieve. But your grandmother didn't get it. No, your mom wouldn't have wanted you to come home with bloody fists and a police escort. But she wouldn't have made you feel like defending her memory was a mistake, either. She would have been the one holding you while you cried, furious at the world for being so cruel to her son, instead of looking at you like you were a problem that needed to be managed.
"I don't want to talk about this right now," you said, your voice flat, devoid of any energy.
Before she could respond, you pulled your arm away and stood up. The extra weight of the monitor dragged at your ankle, an awkward, heavy reminder of your new reality with every step you took. You didn't look back at your grandmother as you crossed the linoleum, slipping out of the kitchen and making your way up the carpeted stairs.
Your bedroom was cool and dark, the curtains half-drawn against the afternoon sun. You shut the door behind you, the click of the latch offering a small, temporary shield from the rest of the world.
Slowly, you walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress. Your eyes immediately drifted to the bedside table.
There, in a simple wooden frame, was a picture from two summers ago. It was taken at a rest stop on the way to the lake. Your mom had her arm looped tightly around your shoulders, grinning widely into the camera, her hair windblown and messy. You were looking at her, caught mid-laugh, looking happier and lighter than you could even remember feeling.
You picked up the frame, your thumb tracing the glass over her face. The silence of the room closed in on you, thick and accusing.
Would she be disappointed in you?
Would she look at the dark circles under your eyes, the split skin on your hands, and the tracking device strapped to your leg, and wonder where her son went? You squeezed your eyes shut, pressing the frame against your chest as the first hot, stinging tear finally broke free and tracked down your cheek. You were so tired of fighting. You were so tired of being alone.
The shadow cut across the bedroom floor before you even heard the footsteps.
There was no polite knock this time, no tentative rustle outside your door. Just the heavy, familiar thud of Steve’s sneakers against the stairs, followed by the soft click of your bedroom door swinging open.
You didn't move. You were still curled on the edge of your mattress, the wooden frame of the photograph pressed so tightly against your ribs that the sharp corners dug through your t-shirt. You kept your back to the door, staring fixedly at the beige wallpaper, waiting for the inevitable questions. You figured he’d want to talk about the principal's office, or the blood on the bathroom floor, or the way you’d completely lost your mind on Tommy.
Instead, there was just the rustle of a heavy denim jacket being tossed onto your desk chair, followed by the familiar, deep sigh that always seemed to leave Steve’s lungs the second he stepped into your room.
The mattress dipped significantly as he sat down on the very edge of the bed, a few feet away from your feet. He didn't try to pull the covers down, and he didn't force you to turn around. He just sat there in the quiet, the smell of the crisp autumn air and faint cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes, cutting through the stagnant, heavy atmosphere of your room.
For a long time, neither of you said a word. The only sound was the low, rhythmic hum of the base station box down in the kitchen, a constant reminder of the invisible boundary line wrapping around the house.
"Your grandma let me in," Steve said finally. His voice was lower than usual, stripped of that easy, confident cadence he wore like armor at school. "She looked pretty rough. Said the cops just left."
You swallowed hard, the back of your throat burning. "Yeah."
"She said they put a tracker on you."
"Ankle monitor," you muttered, your voice thick and rough from the tears you’d been trying to choke back. "Three months. If I step past the driveway, the cops come back and take me to a juvie facility."
Steve didn't yell. He didn't scoff or make a joke to lighten the mood. You heard the fabric of his jeans rustle as he shifted, pulling his legs up onto the bed so he was sitting cross-legged, staring at the back of your head.
"Tommy’s got a broken nose," Steve said softly. "Two black eyes. His mouth is a total mess. Looks like he ran face-first into a brick wall."
A cold, defensive wall immediately went up in your chest. You tightened your grip on the photo frame, your knuckles aching under the bandages. "I don't care. I'm not apologizing to him, Steve. I don't care if his parents sue me. I don't care if I go to jail. He was talking about—"
"I know what he was talking about," Steve interrupted. His tone wasn't angry; it was fiercely, fiercely protective, cracking slightly at the edges. "I heard him, remember? I was right there. And for the record? I think you should’ve hit him harder."
The admission made your breath hitch. Slowly, hesitantly, you turned your head, looking over your shoulder at him.
Steve was looking down at his own hands, picking at a loose thread on his knee. His knuckles were slightly red, too—probably from how hard he’d had to wrench you away. There was a tight, exhausted line between his eyebrows, but when he realized you were looking at him, his expression softened into something so incredibly gentle it made your chest ache.
"I'm serious," Steve whispered, finally meeting your eyes. "Tommy’s a piece of shit. He’s been a piece of shit since middle school. You shouldn't have had to handle that alone. I should've been there sooner."
"You pulled me off him," you said, your voice cracking completely now. You rolled over onto your back, letting the photo frame rest openly on your chest, staring up at the ceiling. "I was... I couldn't stop, Steve. I've never felt like that before. I thought if I stopped hitting him, the things he said would be true. I thought... I thought my mom would be disgusted with me."
Steve moved closer, sliding down the mattress until he was lying down right beside you, his shoulder brushing against yours. He didn't look at the ceiling; he kept his head turned, his eyes fixed on the side of your face, watching the way your jaw trembled.
"Hey," Steve said, his voice dropping into that quiet, grounding register that had kept you afloat for the last near month. "Look at me."
You turned your head to look at him. He was so close you could see the faint amber flecks in his eyes, the absolute sincerity in his face.
"Your mom wouldn't be disappointed in you," Steve said firmly, leaving absolutely no room for doubt. "She loved you. Anyone who saw the two of you together knew that. She’d be pissed at Tommy, and she’d probably be pissed at the school, but she wouldn't be disappointed in you for hurting because you miss her. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to feel like everything is unfair, because it is unfair."
A tear slipped from the corner of your eye, tracking hot down your temple and into your hair. You didn't wipe it away.
"I'm stuck here for three months, Steve," you whispered, the reality of the confinement finally settling into your bones like lead. "I can't go to school. I can't leave the yard. I'm just... I'm a ghost in this house."
Steve let out a small, soft laugh—the first real sound of comfort you’d heard all day. He reached out, his large, warm hand gently resting on your forearm, just above where your own hand was clutching the picture.
"Then I guess I’m stuck here too," Steve said softly.
"What?"
"You think a plastic band on your leg is gonna stop me from coming over?" Steve tilted his head, a tiny, genuine smirk finally playing at the corner of his lips. "Please. Your grandma’s kitchen has better snacks than my house anyway. I’ll bring my homework over. I’ll bring the guitar. We can watch whatever terrible movies you have on VHS. Robin and Eddie can come sit on the porch within your little hundred-foot radius. We'll figure it out."
He squeezed your arm, the steady, solid weight of his hand transferring a warmth that you hadn't realized you were completely freezing without.
"You're not a ghost," Steve murmured, his eyes holding yours with a fierce, quiet intensity that made the nervous knot in your stomach return, though this time it didn't feel like fear. "And you're not alone. I'm right here. I’m not going anywhere."
For the first time in a year, the heavy, suffocating weight in your chest eased just a fraction. You let out a shaky, trembling breath, closing your eyes as you let the warmth of his hand anchor you to the bed, finally letting the silence of the room feel a little less empty.
True to his word, Steve didn't let the ankle monitor change a single thing.
For nearly an entire month, your bedroom became the unofficial headquarters for the four of you. Every single day after the final bell rang at Hawkins High, the front door would click open, and the familiar chorus of footsteps would head straight up the stairs. Robin would drop her heavy backpack with a dramatic groan, immediately pulling a stack of stray worksheet packets from her bag—the ones she’d aggressively cornered your teachers for. Eddie would sprawl out on your rug, tossing his denim vest aside and pulling out a notebook to scribble down ridiculous campaign notes for his next D&D game, occasionally trying to teach you complex chord progressions on your own guitar. They’d force you to eat the snacks your grandmother left out, talk over each other about the mind-numbing gossip in the hallways, and make sure the room never tasted like stagnation.
And on the weekends, when your grandmother left for her volunteer shifts or out-of-town trips, Steve would come by himself. He’d show up with a cardboard box filled with greasy fries from the diner and a stack of rented VHS tapes from the video store. He didn't ask if you wanted company; he just assumed you did. You spent hours sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on your bed, watching cheap action movies or arguing over the bad dialogue, his solid, warm presence a quiet shield against the dark thoughts that usually crept in the moment you were left alone.
But the nights were different. The nights were when the house went entirely dead, and the silence became too loud to ignore.
During those late-night hours, when your mind refused to shut off, you found yourself drawn to your bedroom window. You’d sit on the sill, your chin resting on your knees, staring blankly out at the cul-de-sac. Directly across the asphalt sat the Harrington house, large and dark and mostly empty, save for the single light always burning in Steve's bedroom window. But it was the house right next to Steve’s that truly drew your attention lately.
It belonged to a man you didn't know. There was just something about the place—something about the way the curtains were always drawn entirely closed, the way the yard was perfectly, eerily manicured, but devoid of any real signs of life—that rubbed you the wrong way. A biological hitch in your chest every time you looked at it. You’d asked your grandmother about him over breakfast a week ago. She’d just sipped her coffee, entirely unfazed. “Oh, him? He moved in about two years ago, sweetheart. Quiet man, keeps to himself. I think he’s some sort of medical professional. He seems perfectly nice.”
But "nice" didn't stop the prickle of unease at the back of your neck.
By Friday night, the crisp autumn air finally broke, dissolving into a sudden, torrential rainstorm. The wind violently lashed against your windowpane, blurring the streetlights into streaks of fractured gold and silver. Your grandmother had left an hour ago for her weekly book club, leaving you completely alone in the dark house with nothing but the rhythmic, low hum of the rain and the steady ticking of your grandfather's old clock.
The night before, while rummaging through the attic out of sheer, suffocating boredom, you had stumbled across a dusty leather case containing your grandfather’s old heavy-duty binoculars, along with a clunky, outdated Panasonic camcorder. It had felt like a stupid joke at first. But tonight, with the rain trapping you inside and the restlessness burning in your limbs, you had actually set the tripod up right at your window.
You leaned in, lifting the cold metal of the binoculars to your eyes, focusing the lenses past the rain-streaked glass. First, you swept over to Steve's house. Through the magnification, you could see his bedroom light casting a warm, amber glow. A second later, his faint, familiar silhouette crossed the frame—he was wearing a baggy sweatshirt, tossing something onto his desk. You watched for a moment, a small, involuntary comfort settling in your chest, until his light suddenly clicked off, plunging his side of the street into darkness.
You sighed, about to pull away, when a pair of headlights cut through the downpour.
You quickly shifted the binoculars, tracking the dark sedan as it splashed into the driveway of the quiet neighbor's house. The engine cut out. Through the rain, the driver's side door pushed open, and a tall, slender man stepped out into the storm. Even under a heavy trench coat, his posture was remarkably rigid, almost unnaturally straight. He moved with a slow, deliberate grace that didn't seem to care about the pouring rain.
But he wasn't alone.
The passenger door opened, and a young girl stepped out onto the wet pavement. She looked around your age, maybe a few years older, her blonde hair damp and clinging to her face. She looked small, her shoulders hunched against the cold as she followed him toward the front porch. You adjusted the focus, your heart giving a strange, unprompted thud. There was a weird, heavy tension in the way she walked—sluggish, almost hesitant.
You watched them step onto the porch. The man unlocked the door, stepping inside first, but before the girl followed, he stopped. He turned around, his pale face catching the sickly yellow glow of the porch light, and his eyes swept slowly across the dark cul-de-sac. He looked directly toward your house, his gaze lingering on the upper level for a long, agonizing three seconds.
You froze, your breath hitching, the binoculars pressed painfully against your brow bone.
Then, he stepped inside and clicked the front door shut.
You were so entirely hyper-focused on the house—watching a faint, dull light click on in what looked like a downstairs study, trying to track their shadows through the thin gaps in the heavy drapes—that the absolute quiet of your own room completely slipped your mind. The rain was too loud. The storm was too distracting.
"Being a creep?"
You violently jumped, a loud gasp tearing from your throat as you spun around, your knee smacking hard against the leg of your computer desk. The binoculars slipped from your hands, clattering loudly across the wood before rolling onto the carpet.
Steve was leaning casually against your doorframe, his dripping wet jacket already hanging from your doorknob. He had a crooked, teasing smirk on his face, his hair slightly damp from the run across the street, his hands shoved deep into his denim pockets.
"Jesus, Steve!" you wheezed, clutching your chest, your heart hammering violently against your ribs. "You scared the hell out of me! How did you even get in?"
"Your grandma leaves the back mudroom door unlocked when it rains so the wood doesn't swell," Steve said, strolling into the room entirely unbothered, his eyes flicking from you to the tripod set up at the window. The smirk on his face widened, a wicked glint in his eye. "What’s the deal? A porno not good enough you have to spy on the neighborhood?"
"I wasn't—" You cleared your throat, heat instantly flooding your cheeks as you scrambled to pick up the binoculars, hastily shoving them onto the desk. "I wasn't doing that. Shut up."
"Sure looks like it," he laughed, walking over and lightly tapping the camcorder with his knuckle. "You look like you're running a stakeout. Who are you tracking, the Soviet Union?"
"I was just curious," you murmured, running a hand through your hair, trying to shake off the lingering, cold dread from the man's stare. You looked back out the window, where the neighbor's house sat dark and unassuming under the rain. "I just... I don't know who he is. The guy across the street. He just rubbed me the wrong way when he pulled in."
Steve glanced out the window, his expression shifting from teasing to indifferent as he looked at the house next to his own. He shrugged, walking over to your bed and tossing himself onto the mattress, propping his head up with his arm.
"Henry Creel," Steve said easily. "Pretty sure he's a therapist here in town. Or a psychologist, or something like that. Works with people out at the clinic near the county line."
"A therapist?" you repeated, the word tasting strange in your mouth. You turned around, leaning your lower back against the window sill, looking at Steve. "He just... he looks weird. The way he moves. And he brought some girl home just now. She looked like she was our age, maybe a little older. Does he have a daughter?"
"No idea," Steve said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a sleeve of crackers, cracking it open with his teeth. "Like your grandma probably told you, the guy's a ghost. He moves in, he pays his taxes, he doesn't talk to anyone. My dad spoke to him once about the property line fence and said the guy was polite, but totally blank. Like talking to a cardboard cutout."
Steve popped a cracker into his mouth, his amber eyes settling back on you, his tone softening into that familiar, attentive warmth. "Why? He do something weird?"
"No," you said quietly, looking back over your shoulder at the dull light burning in the neighbor's window. "Not really. Just... watched him look at the house. It felt weird."
"Hey," Steve said softly.
You looked back at him. He was patting the spot on the mattress right next to him, his eyes completely serious now, stripping away the jokes. "Leave the guy to his boring therapist life. Come sit down. I brought that bad zombie movie you wanted to see."
You sighed, your breath briefly fogging the glass as you took one final glance across the street. Just as you were about to pull away, a faint, pale light on the second floor of the Creel house abruptly snapped off. In the split second before absolute darkness took over the room, a sharp, rigid silhouette glided past the pane, moving with that same eerie, deliberate slowness.
A chill pricked the skin at the back of your neck. You looked down at the old Panasonic camcorder resting on the tripod, its mechanical gears cold beneath your fingers, and then turned your head to look back at Steve. He was already settled against your pillows, his long legs stretched out across the duvet as he fiddled with the TV remote, entirely focused on getting the tape to track correctly.
Your fingers moved almost on their own. You reached out, popping the plastic lens cap off the camcorder, and angled the frame until the lens was perfectly locked onto the dark facade of Henry Creel's house. With a soft, heavy click, you hit the red record button. The tiny, sickly green light on the back of the camera began to blink in the dark. Maybe Tommy was right; maybe you were turning into a total freak, a creep hiding away in a dark bedroom. But every single instinct in your gut—the same instincts that usually kept you alive and invisible in the hallways of school—was screaming that something was fundamentally wrong across the street. And right now, you didn't have the luxury of ignoring it.
After checking one last time to make sure the tape was spinning, you finally stepped away from the window. The extra weight of the ankle monitor dragged against your skin as you climbed onto the mattress, sliding yourself beneath the covers. You sat down beside Steve, carefully leaving a deliberate, safe few inches of space between your shoulders—the same polite distance you always established at the start of every night, even though you knew exactly how the evening would end. Without fail, as the hours ticked by and the room grew colder, Steve would always find a way to subconsciously scoot closer, his warmth eventually radiating right through your clothes until you were practically pressed together.
You looked at him for a split second. The screen was flickering with the static opening of the movie, casting dancing blue and white shadows across the sharp planes of his face. He looked so entirely normal, so grounded, completely unbothered by the storm raging against the glass or the heavy, invisible fences trapping you in this house.
But as if sensing your stare, Steve turned his head. The moment his amber eyes met yours, a soft, incredibly genuine smile broke across his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes.
Your chest suddenly felt entirely too tight, a wave of bittersweet sorrow crashing over you so violently it made you dizzy. Looking at him, you couldn't help but hear your mom’s voice echoing in your head. “What about that boy from your chemistry class? Steve? Steve Harrington? Maybe you should try talking to—”
Would any of this have ever happened if she hadn't died?
If that light had stayed red for just five seconds longer, would Steve Harrington be lying in your bed right now, halfway across town on a rainy Friday night? If that car hadn't hit you, would you still be the shy, terrified kid hiding in the back of the library, too paralyzed by your own shadow to ever think of him as an actual friend? It was a sick, agonizing paradox—the worst year of your life had somehow brought you the only person who made you feel like you were still anchored to the earth.
Steve’s smile faded just a fraction, his eyebrows drawing together as he noticed the sudden, heavy distance in your eyes.
"What?" he whispered, his voice dropping below the low hum of the television. He shifted his weight, fully turning his body to face you on the mattress. "Everything okay?"
You didn't answer right away. Instead, you let your body sink backward, your head hitting the cool, crisp fabric of the sheets, your eyes staring up at the dark ceiling. The rain outside was a chaotic, deafening roar, but inside the small radius of your bed, the silence felt incredibly fragile.
"Can I tell you something?" you asked, your voice barely clearing your lips, sounding small and vulnerable against the backdrop of the storm.
Steve immediately mirrored you, sliding down the pillows until he was lying on his side right next to you, his head propped up by his hand, his undivided attention locked entirely on your face. "Yeah. Anything. You know that."
You swallowed the thick knot of emotion burning in your throat, your fingers tightening around the edge of the blanket. "I mean... about what my mom said to me. That night. In the car, right before the light turned green."
Steve didn’t blink. The easygoing, casual demeanor he usually wore completely melted away, replaced by a quiet, intense focus. He reached out, his warm fingers gently wrapping around your wrist, his thumb resting right over your pulse—steady and grounding, just like he always was when the dark stuff started slipping out.
"I'm listening," he murmured.
You stared up at the ceiling, watching the blue light from the television screen dance across the white plaster. "We were arguing," you started, your voice a little detached, like you were reading the words off a script you’d memorized over a thousand sleepless nights. "Not a bad argument. Just... she was doing that thing she always did. Trying to push me. Telling me it was the 2000s, that the world was changing, that people were more accepting now."
You took a shaky breath, your knuckles whitening under the covers. "She told me I couldn't just keep Eddie and Robin as my only friends forever. She said I was using them like a shield so I wouldn't ever get hurt."
Steve’s thumb stroked a slow, rhythmic line against your wrist. He didn't interrupt. He just let you speak, absorbing the heavy weight of the words.
"And then we stopped at that red light," you whispered, the metallic taste of fear rising in your throat just from the memory. "The last thing she ever said to me... she asked me about you."
Steve’s hand stilled against your arm. You could feel his eyes on the side of your face, his breath catching slightly. "Me?"
"Yeah." A bittersweet, breathless laugh slipped past your lips, though your eyes were burning with fresh tears. "She asked about the boy from chemistry class who helped me fix my alternator in the school parking lot. She said... she said it looked like you wanted to know me. She told me I should just try talking to you. And then the light turned green."
The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the frantic patter of the rain against the glass and the whirring of the tape inside the camcorder across the room.
Slowly, you turned your head on the pillow to face him. Steve was staring at you, his amber eyes wide, a raw, painful sort of emotion shifting behind them. His jaw was tight, his lips parted slightly as he processed the fact that his name had been the final prefix to the worst moment of your life.
"I lie awake thinking about it every single night, Steve," you confessed, a tear finally breaking free and tracking down into your hair. "I think... if I hadn't argued with her, if I hadn't hesitated, if I had just answered her question right away, would she have hit the gas sooner? Would we have missed that car completely? And then I think about you being here. In my room. Every single weekend."
You reached out with your free hand, your fingers weakly gripping the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "If she hadn't died... would we even be friends right now? Or would I still be too terrified to ever speak to you? It feels sick. It feels so incredibly unfair that it took losing her to get you."
Steve didn't say a word. Instead, he dropped his hand from your wrist and moved with a sudden, fierce deliberateness. He slid closer, closing those polite few inches of space you always kept between you, until his chest was pressed against your shoulder. He reached up, his large, warm hand cupping the side of your face, his thumb gently wiping away the tear on your cheek.
"Hey," Steve said, his voice thick, cracking under the weight of his own emotions. "Look at me. Look right at me."
You blinked through the blur of tears, focusing on him.
"Don't do that to yourself," he whispered fiercely, his eyes holding yours with an intensity that made your heart hammer against your ribs. "You don't get to play the 'what if' game with that night. It wasn't your fault. It was a piece-of-shit driver running a red light, and that is it. Do you hear me?"
He squeezed your face gently, his palm hot against your skin.
"And as for us?" Steve let out a rough, emotional sigh, a tiny, sad smile touching his lips. "I was always going to find a way into your life. Maybe it would've taken me another month to find an excuse to talk to you in the hallways. Maybe I would've had to pretend my car broke down just to get you to look at me. But I was always going to be here. I wanted to know you then, and I want to know you now. Your mom... she was right. She saw it before I even had the guts to admit it to myself."
The honesty of his words hit you like a physical wave, knocking the remaining breath from your lungs. You stared at him, your heart aching with a complicated, beautiful kind of sadness, realizing that the anchor you’d been clinging to for six months wasn't just there out of pity. He was there because he wanted to be. Because he was choosing you, every single day.
Before you could say anything else, Steve shifted again, sliding his arm completely under your head and pulling you tightly against his side. He let his chin rest against the top of your hair, his strong arm wrapping securely around your waist, holding you like you might break if he let go.
"Just let me stay," Steve murmured into your hair, his grip tightening as the wind rattled the windowpane. "Stop trying to figure out the universe, and just let me be here."
You let out a long, trembling breath, the tension completely draining from your spine as you buried your face into the soft fabric of his sweatshirt. You wrapped your arm around his middle, holding him back just as tightly. Inside the small, safe sanctuary of your bed, the storm outside didn't feel quite as loud anymore.
And across the room, entirely forgotten in the dark, the camcorder’s little green light continued to blink, silently recording the pitch-black house across the street.
Over the next couple of weeks, the loud, chaotic energy in your bedroom began to quiet down. Robin and Eddie stopped coming over after school every single day, but for the first time in a year, the distance didn't feel like a rejection. It felt like growth. Robin had finally found the terrifying, dizzying courage to ask Nancy Wheeler out on a real date, and she spent most of her free time now either pacing her bedroom in a panic or glowing with a nervous, breathless sort of happiness. Eddie, meanwhile, had finally kicked off his massive new D&D campaign with the Hellfire Club, his afternoons consumed by scribbling down lore and shouting about dragons in the high school drama room.
You didn't mind the quiet. You were genuinely glad they were stepping out of the protective bubble they’d built around you, and besides, you still had Steve. He was the one constant, showing up with that same unbothered, steady warmth, making sure you didn't dissolve into the background.
But on the nights Steve wasn't there—the nights his car stayed parked across the street or he was working a late shift—the restless, burning anxiety returned. You found yourself pulled right back to the windowsill, the heavy leather strap of your grandfather’s binoculars digging into the back of your neck. It became a routine, a ritual to keep the silence at bay. You’d focus on Steve’s house first, tracking the warm amber light of his room, watching his silhouette move past the glass until he either left or his house went completely dark for the night.
Then, almost automatically, your eyes would drift to the right. To Henry Creel’s house.
The unease in your chest had only grown tighter over the last fort-night. You had never seen that blonde girl leave the house since the rainy night she arrived. Not once. You had spent hours watching, but the only movement you ever caught was Mr. Creel stepping out to his car in his rigid trench coat, leaving briefly before returning to his silent, heavily curtained home.
Frustrated by the gaps in your memory, you had dragged your heavy ankle monitor up to the dusty attic a few days prior, tearing through old cardboard boxes until you found the tangled mess of RCA and firewire cables needed to hook the old Panasonic camcorder up to your laptop. You had spent an entire afternoon scrubbing through hours of grainy, low-res footage, your fingers clicking frantically on the trackpad.
But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just a few clips of heavy drapes swaying slightly as a shadow glided past an upper window, and the kitchen light blinking on and off at odd, late-night intervals. The glaring problem was the layout of the property: the garage sat at an angle, entirely windowless from your vantage point. If something was happening inside, the house swallowed it whole. You had tried talking to Steve about it the next afternoon while he sat on your rug untangling your guitar strings. While he’d agreed it was definitely weird that the girl hadn't been spotted since the storm, he’d just offered a gentle, sympathetic sigh.
“Look, man, there’s not much we can do. People are quiet. Maybe she’s homeschooled, or sick, or just hates Hawkins. Without any real proof, we’re just two guys playing detective.”
He was right, of course. But logic did nothing to soothe the phantom ache of your instincts.
That brought you to tonight. It was another miserable, rainy evening, the downpour drumming a relentless, suffocating rhythm against the roof. Downstairs, the faint, comforting scent of garlic and roasting chicken wafted up the steps—your grandmother was in the kitchen, humming softly to herself as she made dinner.
Upstairs, you were practically glued to the windowpane, the cold rubber of the binoculars pressed hard against your eye sockets. The lenses were focused entirely on the Creel house.
The garage door was open.
A sickly fluorescent bulb flickered inside the concrete space, casting harsh, long shadows into the rainy driveway. Henry Creel was inside. He had backed his dark sedan halfway into the structure, and you watched, your heart giving a sudden, hard thud against your ribs, as he hauled heavy, bulging bags out of the trunk. They looked like massive, industrial-sized bags of lime or fertilizer, the plastic crinkling under his grip, but he carried them with that same terrifying, effortless posture, his face entirely expressionless.
You slowly turned the focus wheel, tracking him as he carried a heavy bag toward the back wall of the garage. He stepped into a deep shadow, disappearing from your line of sight entirely.
One minute passed. Then two. The empty garage remained still, the rain splashing violently against the concrete lip of the driveway. Your breath hitched, fogging the glass, as you waited. Finally, after nearly four agonizing minutes, he materialized out of the darkness again, his hands empty, wiping a layer of dust from his palms onto his trousers.
He walked slowly toward the front of the garage, stepping right out to the edge where the rain met the concrete. He stopped.
You froze, your fingers locking tightly around the barrels of the binoculars.
Henry Creel stood perfectly still under the flickering bulb, his pale face illuminated against the black backdrop of the storm. Slowly, deliberately, his head tilted up. His cold, light eyes began to sweep across the dark, empty street, tracking the pavement before rising up, up, until they locked directly onto your bedroom window.
A violent jolt of pure, adrenaline-spiked terror shot down your spine. It felt like a physical shockwave. Even through the rain and the glass, you knew, with absolute, terrifying certainty, that he was looking right at you. He knew you were there.
You violently ducked down, dropping below the windowsill so fast your knees cracked against the floorboards. Your heart was hammering like a trapped bird in your chest, your breaths coming in short, ragged gasps as you pressed your back against the drywall, the heavy binoculars clutched to your sternum.
"Dinner's ready, sweetheart!" your grandmother's voice suddenly called out from the bottom of the stairs, her light, cheerful tone completely shattering the suffocating terror of the room.
You squeezed your eyes shut, waiting a full, agonizing minute, listening to the heavy thump of the rain against the glass before you dared to move. Slowly, your shaking hands reached up, grasping the tripod of the camcorder. Without raising your head above the sill, you reached out, popped the lens cap off, and blindly pressed the red record button. The tiny green light began its slow, rhythmic blink in the shadows of your room.
Shaking off the residual chill, you forced yourself to your feet, refusing to look back out the window as you slipped out of your bedroom, the heavy weight of the ankle monitor dragging at your heel with every step down to the kitchen.
Over the next two weeks, your curiosity curdled into something much closer to obsession. The restriction of your ankle monitor—the cruel, invisible perimeter that kept you a prisoner in your own home—only served to hyper-focus your attention on the dark house across the street. If you couldn't live your own life, you were going to figure out what was happening in Henry Creel’s.
Every single night, the old Panasonic camcorder was whirring in the dark shadows of your windowsill. And every morning, while your grandmother was downstairs listening to the radio, you would sit cross-legged on your floor, scrubbing through the grainy, flickering playback on your laptop, taking frantic mental notes of the anomalies.
Because there were so many anomalies.
You noted the bizarre, rigid schedule Henry kept. He would leave the house at exactly 11:15 PM every Tuesday and Thursday, driving out toward the county line, only to return precisely forty-five minutes later. His trunk always rode noticeably lower on the return trip, the rear bumper practically scraping the asphalt of the cul-de-sac. One night, through the binoculars, you watched him spend three hours in the dead of night digging up a massive, deep trench in his backyard under the cover of a tarp, his shovel cutting into the earth with a terrifying, rhythmic precision. When he finished, he didn't plant anything. He just filled it back in, packed the dirt flat with his boots, and walked inside.
But the most sickening realization came on a Tuesday afternoon. Through the lenses, you watched a second girl walk up to his front porch. She was younger, maybe fifteen or sixteen, wearing a bright yellow rain poncho and carrying a school binder. She knocked on the door, and Henry opened it, offering that same polite, completely vacant smile your grandmother always raved about. The girl stepped inside.
You watched that house until the sun went down. You watched it until the streetlights flickered to life. You watched it until your eyes ached and watered.
She never came out.
The next morning, her car—a beat-up blue sedan she had parked three houses down—was gone. You hadn't seen anyone move it, but the empty curb stared back at you like a threat.
Terrified and sick to your stomach, you finally broke. You walked downstairs, picked up your grandmother's landline, and dialed the Hawkins police station. You muffled your voice with a dish towel, your heart hammering against your ribs as you spat out an anonymous tip about a missing girl last seen entering the Creel residence.
An hour later, a lone Hawkins police cruiser pulled into the cul-de-sac. You pressed your forehead against your bedroom glass, holding your breath as the officer walked up the porch and knocked. Henry answered within seconds. You couldn't hear the words, but you watched the body language. Henry was calm, relaxed, his head tilting in polite confusion. He gestured inside, as if inviting the officer in, but the cop just laughed, waved his hand dismissively, and patted Henry on the shoulder. They talked for less than three minutes.
As the officer turned to walk back to his cruiser, Henry Creel didn't close his front door. Instead, he stood perfectly still on his porch. Slowly, his pale face tilted upward. His cold, piercing eyes bypassed the police car entirely and locked directly onto your second-story window. He didn't blink. He just stared at you through the glass, a slow, sickeningly knowing expression settling over his features.
The police cruiser pulled away, completely oblivious, leaving you shivering in the dark as Henry finally stepped back inside and clicked the door shut.
Then, the footage started getting genuinely, terrifyingly weird.
It happened on a Thursday night while you were asleep. The next morning, you were scrubbing through the overnight tape, your eyes heavy, when you suddenly froze, almost spilling your cold coffee onto your lap. You hit rewind, tracking the grainy tape back to 3:14 AM.
On the screen, the second-floor window of the Creel house—the one directly across from yours—was pitch black. But suddenly, a pale, frantic shape materialized against the glass. It was a girl. Her face was pressed hard against the pane, her mouth open in what looked like a silent, blood-curdling scream. You watched in absolute horror as her hands violently slammed against the glass, the motion rhythmic and desperate, over and over again, until a tall, dark shadow materialized directly behind her. A pale hand reached out from the darkness, wrapping around her shoulder, and in one swift, terrifying motion, she was violently yanked backward into the black void of the room. The window was empty again.
Your hands were shaking so violently you could barely hit the pause button.
When Steve came over that Friday evening, you didn't even wait for him to take his jacket off. You grabbed his wrist, dragging him straight to your laptop, and hit play.
Steve stood over your shoulder, his eyes fixed on the small screen. As the tape reached 3:14 AM and the girl’s frantic hands began battering against the window, you heard his breath hitch. The easy, skeptical expression he usually carried completely vanished, the color draining from his face until his jaw went entirely slack.
"Jesus..." Steve whispered, his voice rough as he stared at the frozen frame of the dark window. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, his chest rising and falling rapidly. "Jesus, you weren't kidding. That's... that's a girl. Someone is in there."
"I told you, Steve!" you said, your voice cracking with a frantic, desperate tone. "I told you something was wrong! Nobody believes me, the cops didn't even look, and he *knows* I'm watching him. He knows!"
Steve turned around, looking down at you. The protective, fierce instinct that always took over him when you were in trouble flared in his amber eyes. He looked out the window at the dark Creel house, his knuckles whitening as he clenched his fists.
"Okay," Steve said firmly, his voice dropping into a low, deadly serious register. "Okay, you're right. This is completely fucked up." He reached down, his large hand gripping your shoulder, giving it a solid, grounding squeeze that instantly cut through your panic. "Your grandma is out of town until Sunday night, right?"
You nodded quickly, your throat tight. "Yeah. She left this afternoon."
"Good," Steve murmured, pulling his denim jacket back onto his shoulders and locking the window latch tight. "I'm staying. I'm staying right here in this room for the weekend. We're going to keep that camera rolling, and we're going to watch that house together.”
The rain had finally tapered off into a miserable, clinging mist that blurred the streetlights into greasy halos. For nearly two hours, the bedroom had been locked in a suffocating, restless silence. You paced a tight track across the carpet, the heavy plastic of your ankle monitor clicking softly against your skin with every turn, while Steve sat on the edge of the mattress, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the dark facade across the asphalt.
The silence snapped when a pair of bright white headlights violently cut through the dark, sweeping across your bedroom ceiling in a slow, blinding arc.
You both froze. Steve was on his feet in an instant, his boots making no sound as he crossed the room to step beside you. Together, you carefully parted a single slat of the plastic blinds, peering down into the cul-de-sac.
Through the damp haze, Henry Creel’s dark sedan rolled backward out of his driveway. Its brakes squealed softly, a low, metallic whine that made your stomach twist, before the car shifted into drive and glided down the dark street, its taillights bleeding into the mist until the neighborhood was plunged back into shadows.
Steve stared at the empty street for a long, heavy second, his jaw set in a hard, dangerous line. Then, he turned his head to look at you.
"I'm going to go look," he said, his voice dropping into a flat, steady register.
Your heart violently dropped into a bottomless void. Before he could even take a step toward the door, you lunged forward, your fingers locking frantically into the heavy denim of his sleeve.
"Are you stupid?" you breathed, your voice a harsh, panicked whisper as you pulled him back. "What if he comes back, Steve? What if he catches you in there? You saw what he did to that girl—you don't know what he's capable of!"
Steve didn't pull away. Instead, he placed his large hand over yours, his fingers warm and steady against your trembling knuckles, gently anchoring you.
"Hey, look at me," Steve murmured, shifting his weight so he was facing you completely. "Listen to me. He just left for his Tuesday night run, right? You said it yourself—he’s always gone for exactly forty-five minutes. I’ve got time."
"You don't know that for sure," you argued, your eyes stinging with a sudden, sharp wave of tears. The thought of him walking into that dark house alone made you physically sick. "What if tonight is the night he changes his mind? What if he forgot something? Steve, please, just stay here. We have the tape."
"The tape isn't enough to get the cops to actually do their jobs, and you know it," Steve said softly, his amber eyes holding yours with a fierce, stubborn intensity. He squeezed your hand, his thumb rubbing a slow, reassuring circle over your knuckles. "Think about those girls. Think about what we saw on that screen. If there's someone trapped in that basement or an upper room, I can find them. I'll be in and out in ten minutes. I swear to God. I’ll check the back door, take a quick look, and come straight back across the street."
You stared at him, your chest heaving as you fought the desperate urge to beg him to stay. But looking into his face, you knew there was no changing his mind. Underneath the easygoing exterior, Steve had a stupid, fearless streak of bravery that always flared up when someone was in danger—especially when it came to protecting you and the things that kept you awake at night.
"Fine," you whispered, the word tearing roughly from your throat as your grip slowly loosened on his jacket. "But you have to be careful. Seriously, Steve. If you hear anything—anything—you run back here."
"I will," he promised, a small, reassuring smile finally breaking through his serious expression. "I'm fast. You know that."
"Take a flashlight at least," you muttered, turning to your desk drawer and pulling out your grandfather's heavy, black metal maglite. You pressed the cold cylinder into his palm. "Don't turn it on unless you absolutely have to."
"Got it," Steve said, slipping the flashlight into his jacket pocket.
You followed him downstairs, the extra weight of the tracking device on your leg ticking like a countdown in the quiet house. When you reached the front hallway, Steve paused by the lock, turning back to give you one last lingering look. He reached out, his hand briefly cupping the back of your neck, fingers sliding into your hair for a brief, grounding second. "Keep the binoculars on the back door. If something goes wrong, blink your bedroom light."
"Okay," you breathed.
He slipped out into the misty night, the front door clicking softly behind him.
You didn't waste a second. Dragging your grandfather's heavy binoculars with you, you crossed the dark hallway into the living room, stepping up to the large bay window that faced the cul-de-sac. You didn't dare turn on a light. Standing in the shadows of the heavy drapes, you lifted the cold rubber pieces to your eyes, focusing the lenses past the glass.
Through the magnification, you watched Steve’s dark silhouette jog low across the wet asphalt, a phantom moving through the fog until he disappeared into the deep, black shadows on the side of Henry Creel's house.
The silence that settled over the living room was absolute, broken only by the erratic, frantic thumping of your heart against your ribs. You stood perfectly still in the dark, your forehead pressed against the cold glass of the bay window, the heavy binoculars clamped so tightly against your face that the rubber rims dug painfully into your skin.
Through the lenses, the side of the Creel house was a wall of impenetrable shadow. You adjusted the focus wheel with a shaking finger, tracking the faint, distorted reflection of the mist against the dark wood.
There. A brief flicker of movement.
Steve’s silhouette materialized near the back porch. He was moving low, his shoulders hunched, his movements cautious and deliberate. You watched, your breath completely catching in your throat, as he stepped up onto the small wooden deck and reached for the handle of the back door. He gave it a gentle pull.
Nothing. It was locked.
You saw him pause, leaning his head against the wood as if listening for any sound from within the belly of the dark house. Then, he stepped off the porch and glided toward the nearest ground-floor window—the one that led into the kitchen. He pressed his face close to the glass, cupping his hands around his eyes to block out the dull glare of the distant streetlight.
Ten minutes, you reminded yourself, your knuckles turning entirely white around the binoculars. He said ten minutes.
Seconds bled into agonizing minutes. Steve moved along the perimeter of the house like a ghost, checking a second window, then a third. Every time he paused, a fresh wave of blinding, suffocating panic crashed over your body. You kept looking past the house, scanning the empty, misty road at the edge of the cul-de-sac, terrified that a pair of headlights would suddenly cut through the fog ahead of schedule.
Then, Steve stopped at the narrow cellar door—the old wooden storm doors that slanted down into the foundation of the house.
You watched him kneel on the damp grass. He reached down, grasping the rusty iron handle of the left door. He pulled, his shoulders tensing with the effort, and you could practically hear the ancient, complaining groan of the wood from across the street. It yielded. A dark, gaping wedge opened up in the ground.
Steve didn't hesitate. He pulled the heavy metal Maglite from his jacket pocket, clicked it on for a split second to see the steps, and then slipped down into the black void, pulling the wooden door shut behind him to conceal the gap.
The cul-de-sac went completely dead again.
"Please, Steve," you whispered into the dark, empty living room, a solitary tear escaping your eye and tracking down the side of your nose. "Please, just hurry up."
You looked down at your wrist, but in the shadows, you couldn't read your watch. It felt like an hour had passed, but your mind was playing tricks on you. The confinement of the last month, the isolation, the crushing weight of your mom's absence—it all condensed into this singular, terrifying point in time. If something happened to him over there, you couldn't even cross the street to save him. The second your foot hit the asphalt, the alarm in the kitchen would trigger, and by the time the cops showed up, it would be too late. You were entirely, utterly helpless.
You raised the binoculars again, focusing back on the cellar doors.
Nothing moved. Five minutes passed. Then seven.
And then, a cold shock of pure, unadulterated adrenaline violently seized your spine.
At the far end of the street, the mist suddenly glowed a dull, blooming white.
Headlights.
Your heart stopped. You dropped the binoculars slightly, staring with wide, horrified eyes as the dark shape of Henry Creel’s sedan materialized out of the fog, turning slowly, quietly into the cul-de-sac. He was back. He was nearly twenty minutes early.
"No, no, no," you panicked, your voice breaking into a breathless sob.
The sedan glided down the asphalt, its engine a low, predatory hum that filled the quiet night. You scrambled away from the window, hitting the floorboards, your ankle monitor heavy and useless against your leg. You needed to blink your bedroom light. You needed to warn him.
Furious and terrified, you scrambled toward the stairs, your hands scraping against the carpet as you threw yourself upward, desperately racing against the ticking clock of Henry Creel’s headlights sweeping across the driveway across the street.
Your hands were shaking so violently you could barely locate the plastic switch on the wall. When your fingers finally locked onto it, you began throwing it up and down with frantic, erratic motions.
Click-click. Click-click.
The bedroom plunged into darkness, then erupted into glaring, yellow light, over and over again. Your heart hammered against your ribs like a trapped bird. You stared out the window through the parted blinds, your eyes wide and wild, begging the universe for Steve to look up, to see the warning, to run.
Down below, Henry Creel’s sedan rolled to a smooth, silent halt in his driveway. The headlights cut out, leaving only the dull amber glow of the running lights cutting through the heavy mist.
You dropped your hands from the light switch and pressed your face right against the glass. Through the dark, you caught a sudden ripple of movement in the shadows of the Creel backyard. A figure broke away from the cellar doors, moving with a desperate, low-profile sprint. It was Steve.
He didn't make a break for the street—the sedan’s proximity was too dangerous. Instead, you watched him vanish into the blind spot around the far side of the house. A second later, his silhouette materialized near the front corner, pressed completely flat against the dark wood siding. He was trapped just inches away from the front porch, peeking around the molding as the driver’s side door of the sedan pushed open.
Henry Creel stepped out into the mist. He adjusted the collar of his long trench coat with that same agonizing, rigid posture, completely unbothered by the damp cold. He walked up the porch steps, his shoes making a faint, rhythmic crunch on the wet concrete. He pulled his keys from his pocket, unlocked the front door, and stepped inside.
The moment the front door clicked shut and the porch light died, Steve wasted no time.
He bolted. He abandoned the shadows, launching himself across the wet asphalt of the cul-de-sac like a sprinter out of the blocks. He crossed the street in seconds, tearing through your grandmother’s front yard and disappearing around the corner toward the back mudroom.
Downstairs, the heavy wood of the back door rattled violently as he threw himself inside, followed immediately by the sharp, metallic throw of the deadbolt. You heard his boots hit the floorboards, but they didn't pause. He was scrambling up the stairs, his breathing loud, ragged, and completely unhinged.
You didn't even have time to move away from the window before he burst onto the second-floor landing. He bypassed your bedroom entirely, throwing his weight against the bathroom door.
The heavy plastic of your ankle monitor dragged like lead as you rushed out into the hallway. By the time you reached the bathroom doorway, Steve was already on his knees on the cold linoleum, his hands gripping the porcelain rim of the toilet as he violently retched.
You stood frozen in the doorway, your hands hovering in the air, your eyes wide with a panicked, helpless terror. The bathroom smelled like lemon bleach and the sudden, acrid sting of stomach acid. Steve’s shoulders were heaving violently, his knuckles entirely white where they clamped onto the bowl, his chest rattling with deep, agonizing gags.
"Steve..." your voice was nothing more than a terrified whisper, completely swallowed by the sound of him spitting into the water. "Steve, what happened? Did he see you?"
He didn't answer right away. He dry-heaved again, his eyes squeezed shut, a thin layer of cold sweat glistening across his forehead in the harsh fluorescent light. Slowly, agonizingly, he pushed himself back onto his shins, though his legs were trembling so hard he looked like he might collapse right onto the floorboards.
"Call the cops," he breathed, his voice raw, cracking heavily as he choked back another violent gag. He looked up at you, his amber eyes completely bloodshot, dilated with a primal, suffocating horror you had never seen in him before. "Call the fucking cops right now."
A cold, heavy numbness washed over you. The image of the police officer laughing on Henry’s porch two weeks ago flashed through your mind, a bitter, agonizing spark of anger cutting through your panic. The cops wouldn't look. They didn't care.
"What?" you whispered, your throat completely closing up. "What did you see down there?"
Steve grabbed the edge of the sink, pulling his trembling body up until he was standing. He didn't even look at his own reflection. He frantically slapped the faucet handle, letting the cold water rush over his hands before cupping it and splashing it violently into his face. He rinsed his mouth, spitting into the drain, his breathing still shallow and terrifyingly fast.
"There are pieces of people down there," he gagged, his hands gripping the porcelain so hard the ceramic groaned under his weight. He turned his head to look at you, his face completely pale, stripped of every ounce of his usual confidence. "In the back of the cellar, under the tarps. It isn't fertilizer in those bags, man. It's... oh God, there are limbs. He has a fucking dead body in his basement."
The sharp, heavy thud of a knuckle striking the front door cut through the house like a physical blow.
Both of you froze instantly. Steve’s head snapped toward the hallway, his wet hair dripping onto his shoulder, his chest locking mid-breath. The bathroom was dead silent for three agonizing seconds before it happened again—three slow, deliberate knocks that seemed to shake the very foundation of the stairs.
To reach the kitchen landline, you had to go downstairs and pass right by the front door’s narrow glass window.
Steve didn't hesitate. He pressed a single, trembling finger to his lips, his eyes wide but dead-set. Reaching out, he wrapped his hand around your wrist, pulling you firmly behind him as he stepped out of the bathroom. He kept his weight low, his sneakers making no sound against the carpeted hallway as he led the way down the stairs. You both crept down, practically crawling the last few steps, ducking your heads well below the sightline of the front door's window as you moved toward the kitchen entrance.
"I know you boys are in there."
The voice didn't come from a shout. It was a calm, unbothered, polite cadence that drifted cleanly through the heavy wood of the door.
Your breath caught violently in your throat, your heart hammering so hard against your ribs it felt like it would burst. Steve's hand paused just inches away from the yellowed plastic of the kitchen wall phone. He closed his eyes, took one deep, ragged breath to compose himself, and ripped the receiver off the hook. His fingers flew across the keypad, frantically punching in three digits: 9-1-1.
He pressed the plastic tight against his ear, his voice dropping into a frantic, hushed whisper the second the line clicked. "Yeah—hi, I need the police at the corner of Elm and Maple. Right now. There's a guy—"
"It doesn't have to end poorly," Henry’s voice echoed from the front porch again, closer now, as if he had leaned his face right against the wood. "We can talk this out."
You pressed your shoulder hard against Steve’s chest, trying to hear the operator’s tinny voice through the receiver, but before the woman on the other end could even finish asking for the address, the line erupted into a sharp, flat, rhythmic beep-beep-beep.
Steve stared at the phone in absolute disbelief, his jaw tightening. "He hung up," he whispered, his voice cracking with a sudden spike of dread.
The calm on the front porch evaporated. A sudden, violent pounding rattled the front door, the wood groaning against the deadbolt as Henry began slamming his weight against it.
"Steve," you whispered, a sudden, terrifying clarity washing over you as the adrenaline completely took over your brain. "I have an idea."
"No," he muttered automatically, his eyes scanning the dark kitchen for a weapon. "No ideas. We find a place to hide, or we find a knife."
"Listen to me," you urged, grabbing his forearm to force him to look at you. "The ankle monitor. If I cross the driveway and get into his yard, the base station logs a felony violation. It automatically alerts the county station. The cops will come. They have to come."
Steve’s eyes widened in horror. "Are you insane? You'd be running right into his territory. He could kill you before they even get down the street."
"He won't get away with it this time," you countered, your voice steadying even as the front door began to splinter under the heavy impacts. "If we stay here, we're sitting ducks. If I run, the clock starts ticking for him."
"I said no!" Steve hissed, his hands coming up to grip your shoulders, his face pale with a desperate, suffocating fear. "I'm not letting you risk your life for this. I just got you back."
The weight of his words, the sheer, agonizing sorrow of the last year, and the terrifying reality of the monster at the front door all collided in your chest. You didn't want to hide anymore. You didn't want to be the ghost in the bedroom, or the kid who took the hits in the bathroom.
You lunged forward, grabbing Steve by the sides of his face, your fingers burying into his damp hair, and pulled him down into a hard, desperate kiss.
It was messy, fueled by pure adrenaline and a year's worth of unspoken, terrifying longing. His lips were warm against yours, a stark contrast to the freezing dread in your veins. For a split second, the pounding on the door vanished.
"I'm done hiding," you whispered against his mouth as you pulled back just a fraction.
Steve stared at you, his amber eyes burning with a wild, fierce emotion. Before you could step away, he groaned, his hands shifting from your shoulders to cup your jaw, dragging you right back into another deep, crushing kiss. His grip was unyielding, his hands shaking against your cheeks as if he were trying to imprint the feeling of you into his skin.
"I'm coming with you," he muttered against your lips, his breathing ragged. He pulled back, his hands dropping to grip yours tightly. "I'll go out the front side, yell, make a scene—whatever it takes to get his attention away from the backyard. The second you hear me shout, you run for those cellar doors."
You let out a shaky sigh, the gravity of it settling in, and nodded. "Okay."
You gave him one last, quick peck on the lips, a silent promise to survive the night, before the two of you slipped silently through the kitchen and out the back mudroom door into the freezing, misty rain.
The cold water hit your face instantly, shock-starting your system. Steve gave your hand one final squeeze before disappearing around the dark corner of your grandmother's house, moving toward the front yard to draw the monster out.
You waited, your boots pressed against the wet grass, the heavy plastic of your ankle monitor suddenly feeling like a ticking bomb.
"Hey! Creel! Over here, you piece of shit!" Steve’s voice suddenly roared through the foggy cul-de-sac, followed by the loud, heavy crash of a trash can being violently flipped onto the asphalt.
You didn't hesitate. You bolted.
The moment your foot crossed the threshold of the concrete driveway, a faint, distant electronic beep echoed from inside your kitchen. You had just shattered the hundred-foot radius. You sprinted into the dark street, the mist tearing past your face as you plunged straight across the asphalt, tearing through the tall wet grass, and throwing yourself directly into Henry Creel’s pitch-black backyard.
The wet wood of the cellar doors splintered against your fingernails as you violently yanked them open. The gaping black void of the basement exhaled a sickening, cold breath of copper and damp earth right into your face. You didn't even have time to step onto the first stair before a heavy, rigid force violently crashed straight into your chest.
The breath exploded from your lungs in a ragged gasp as the momentum threw you backward. You hit the concrete lip of the storm drain hard, the back of your head snapping against the stone, sending sharp, white-hot sparks exploding across your vision.
Through the blur of the mist, a pale, angular face materialized over yours. Henry Creel. His eyes were wide, light, and entirely devoid of any human warmth, his teeth bared in a tight, mechanical snarl. Before you could even draw air back into your collapsed lungs, his large, cold hands locked brutally around your throat, pinning you flat against the wet ground.
"It didn't have to end this way," he whispered, his voice terrifyingly calm, completely steady even as his fingers dug deep into your windpipe, cutting off your oxygen. "All you had to do was look away."
Panic, pure and animalistic, surged through your veins. Your legs thrashed against the mud, the heavy plastic of your ankle monitor scraping uselessly against the stone. You flailed your arms, your fingers curling into claws as you desperately scratched at his face, your nails tearing track marks through his pale skin. You dug your fingers into the meat of his forearms, ripping at the fabric of his trench coat with a frantic, suffocating strength.
He flinched as your nail caught the edge of his jaw, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second. It was just enough. You drew your knees to your chest and violently bucked your hips upward, throwing your entire weight into his torso. Henry stumbled back, his hands slipping from your neck.
"Fuck you, you freak!" you gasped, choking on the rush of cold air as you scrambled to your hands and knees, fighting for traction on the slick grass.
You pushed yourself to your feet and bolted deeper into the shadows of the yard, but Henry was instantly up. He lunged after you like a predator, his long strides easily closing the distance in the dark. You veered toward the side of the house, your boots skidding in the mud, but you tripped over a rusted garden hoe left in the tall grass. As you stumbled forward, you felt a violent tug at your back—Henry’s fingers had caught the hem of your shirt, the fabric ripping loudly as you frantically tore yourself from his grip and threw your weight around the corner of the concrete foundation.
He caught you near the low brick wall of the crawlspace. His weight slammed into your back, pinning you face-first against the rough stone. Your hands slid across a thick, heavy layer of crinkling black plastic—the massive tarps you had watched him haul into the yard weeks ago.
Desperate to turn around, you thrashed violently, your elbow catching him sharply in the ribs. As you kicked backward to break his hold, your hand violently yanked the edge of the heavy tarp away from the brick.
The world completely froze.
Staring straight up at you through the dark, half-buried in a shallow trench of gray lime, was the young girl in the yellow raincoat. Her face was completely pale, a dull, hollow gray under the mist, her lips parted slightly. Her lifeless, milky eyes were wide open, staring directly into yours, fixed in a permanent, silent scream for help.
A violent wave of nausea hit your stomach so hard you dry-heaved. You wanted to vomit, you wanted to scream for Steve, you wanted to cry until your lungs gave out—but before a single sound could tear from your throat, Henry’s hands were back around your neck, brutally flipping you onto your back and slamming you into the mud right beside her.
He squeezed. This time, there was no hesitation. He threw his entire body weight into his thumbs, crushing your larynx.
Your vision began to tunnel, jagged black spots dancing at the edges of the dark sky. Your hands grew weak, your thrashes turning into useless, heavy twitches. Your head rolled helplessly to the side, your cheek pressing into the cold, wet plastic of the tarp. You were looking right at her. Right into those empty eyes.
"I'm so sorry," you sobbed into the dark, the words nothing more than a silent, wet bubble of air stretching across your lips. I'm sorry I didn't call sooner. I'm sorry I didn't look closer.
The absolute terror fractured, leaving nothing but a cold, hollow angst. Your mind flashed to your mom—to the white headlights—and a sudden, furious burst of survival instinct flared from the very bottom of your soul. You weren't going to die in the dark across the street.
With the absolute last ounce of strength in your fading limbs, you brought your hands up, blindly driving your fingers into Henry’s face. You didn't just scratch; you gouged, your thumb sinking violently into his right eye socket until you felt the wet turn of his eyelid.
Henry let out a horrific, curdling shriek, his posture shattering as he instantly drew his hands back to cover his bloody face.
The pressure vanished from your throat. You dragged in a massive, burning lungful of oxygen, coughing violently as you used your boots to shove his chest, sending him tumbling back into the mud. You staggered up, your knees shaking like water, your chest heaving in agonizing, ragged wheezes.
And then, through the dark, a distant, beautiful sound cut through the roar of the rain.
Wail. Wail. Wail.
The high-pitched, screaming sirens of the Hawkins police cruisers were roaring down Elm Street, their blue and red lights already painting the thick fog in rhythmic flashes of red and blue. The ankle monitor had worked. The alarm had logged.
You looked down at Henry, who was frantically trying to wipe the blood from his eye, his face twisted into a demonic, unrecognizable mask of fury. Realizing the cops were seconds away, you turned and bolted back toward the safety of the open cul-de-sac, your boots tearing up the turf.
But he was right behind you. The sound of his heavy, mud-slicked footsteps was a terrifying cadence against your heels. You reached the edge of his driveway, the flashing lights of the approaching cruisers illuminating the empty street just fifty feet away—
Thud.
Henry tackled you from behind, his arms wrapping around your waist like iron bands. The force sent both of you crashing brutally onto the hard, wet asphalt of the road. Your chin smacked the ground, splitting the skin, but the pain was entirely swallowed by the sheer, unadulterated terror of his weight pinning you down again.
"Please!" you shrieked, a wild, animalistic scream tearing from your raw throat so loud it felt like your vocal cords were ripping apart. "Help me!"
The screech of rubber on wet asphalt tore through the night as three Hawkins police cruisers violently swung into the cul-de-sac. Their tires skidded on the slick pavement, the bright, strobe-like flashes of red and blue light cutting through the heavy mist, illuminating the entire street in a surreal, chaotic wash of color.
But the lead cruiser didn't stop in Henry Creel’s driveway. It violently swerved, its high beams raking across your grandmother’s front yard before the driver slammed on the brakes, stopping directly in front of your house across the street.
Through the blinding glare of the headlights, your heart completely shattered.
Lying motionless in the wet grass, illuminated by the flashing blue emergency lights, was Steve. He was sprawled on his side, his green-and-yellow Hawkins letterman jacket dark and soaked with rain, one arm stretched out limply toward the road. His face was turned away, completely still, showing no signs of movement as the downpour washed over him. Henry must have blindsided him before coming into the backyard.
"Steve!" you choked out, the name tearing from your throat in a raw, ragged sob.
The heavy weight on your back suddenly shifted. Henry Creel looked up, his one good eye widening in real, calculated panic as the cruiser doors flew open. Realizing the narrative was completely out of his control, Henry abruptly released his grip on your waist, scrambling up from the asphalt and slipping back into the dark shadows of his property line like a phantom dissolving into the fog.
The weight of his body left you, but you couldn't move. You collapsed flat against the cold, wet pavement of the street, your body shaking so violently it felt like your bones were vibrating. The raw skin on your throat burned with every agonizing breath you dragged in, and the metallic taste of blood from your split chin pooled on your tongue.
You couldn't take your eyes off Steve's unmoving form across the street. The sheer, suffocating angst of the last year—the terrifying certainty that everyone you ever cared about was destined to be taken from you in the dark—surged over you in a crushing wave. You buried your face into your scraped hands, pressing your forehead against the wet asphalt, and just wept. Big, ugly, breathless sobs wracked your entire frame, your tears mixing with the falling rain.
"Hey! Stay down! Don't move!"
Heavy, frantic footsteps violently splashed through the puddles, sprinting across the dividing line of the street toward you. Within seconds, a massive shadow blocked out the flashing police lights. A large hand gripped your shoulder, but it wasn't the cold, brutal crush of Henry’s fingers. It was firm, cautious, and professional.
Officer Callahan dropped to his knees on the wet asphalt beside you, his yellow raincoat crinkling loudly as he leaned over your shaking body.
"Son? Son, look at me," Callahan urged, his voice loud over the wail of the sirens. He gently turned you onto your side, his eyes scanning the deep, dark bruises already blossoming tightly around your neck. "Are you hit? Did he stab you?"
You couldn't answer. You just choked on your own breath, pointing a trembling, bleeding finger across the street toward the dark lawn. "Steve..." you wheezed out, your voice a ruined, pathetic whisper. "Steve... he's in the yard. He went into the basement... there are bodies..."
Callahan's face went completely pale under the blue strobe lights. He looked from your bruised throat, across the street to where another officer was already sprinting toward Steve’s limp body, and then back toward the pitch-black exterior of the Creel house. The skepticism the department had carried for weeks instantly evaporated, replaced by a cold, visible horror.
"Chief! We need an ambulance at Elm and Maple now!" Callahan shouted into the radio clipped to his shoulder, his grip tightening protectively on your arm as he pulled you up just enough to get you off the freezing pavement. "And get backup out here—the neighbor’s yard is a crime scene! I’ve got a kid choked out in the street!"
You let your head fall against Callahan's heavy jacket, your eyes still locked on the yard across the street. Through the haze of your tears, you watched the second officer drop to his knees beside Steve, gently rolling him onto his back. A second later, Steve's head moved. He let out a sharp, coughing gasp, his hand weakly coming up to clutch his temple as the officer held him steady.
He was breathing. He was alive.
As the sirens continued to wail into the rainy night, signaling the end of your isolation, you let your eyes close, finally letting the darkness take you, knowing the monster across the street couldn't hide in the shadows anymore.
The heavy, humid warmth of a late evening had finally replaced the crisp rain, but a lingering chill still seemed to sit deep in your bones.
It had been two weeks. Two weeks since the flashing blue lights had permanently shattered the quiet fiction of the cul-de-sac. Tonight, the street was mostly quiet again, save for the single yellow police cruiser parked at the curb next door. The bright yellow crime scene tape still looped lazily around the Creel porch, fluttering slightly in the evening breeze, but the heavy equipment and the coroners were finally gone.
You were curled up on the old wooden porch swing of your grandmother’s house, your legs tucked in tight as you rested your back against Steve’s chest. His arms were wrapped securely around your waist, pulling you back into his lap, his chin resting gently on top of your hair. The steady, rhythmic creak of the chains above you was the only sound cutting through the twilight.
The news had been a whirlwind. Henry Creel had been caught three counties over, pulled over in his dark sedan with a trunk full of lime and old clothes. He hadn't even put up a fight. Faced with the mountain of evidence Steve had uncovered in that cellar and the hours of grainy camcorder footage saved on your laptop, he had cracked. He pled guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. He was going away for life, buried so deep in a maximum-security facility that he’d never see the sun again. The families of those girls finally had their answers. You had given them that.
Steve shifted behind you, his thumb tracing a slow, soothing circle against the fabric of your shirt, right over your ribs. His chest expanded against your shoulder as he let out a low, content sigh.
"Still got a full week left with that thing," Steve hummed softly, his eyes drifting down toward the porch floorboards.
You looked down, watching the way the fading twilight caught the heavy plastic edge of the ankle monitor hugging your skin. After everything came to light, your lawyer had tried to get the confinement dropped entirely, but the county judge was a stickler for protocol. You still had seven days of house arrest left on your sentence.
A small, breathless laugh slipped past your lips, a genuine smile finally touching your face for the first time in what felt like forever. You tilted your head back to look up at him. "Yeah. Turns out catching a literal serial killer doesn't actually count for time served on an assault charge."
Steve let out a soft, deep chuckle that rumbled right through your back. The tense, exhausted lines that had dominated his face for the last fort-night finally melted away, replaced by that easy, familiar warmth in his amber eyes. He leaned down, pressing a lingering, soft kiss right against your forehead, his breath warm against your skin.
"Guess not," he murmured, his arms tightening around your middle, pulling you just a fraction closer against him. "But... if it makes you feel any better, it does get you a boyfriend."
Your heart gave a sudden, beautiful flutter, the last remnants of the heavy angst that had suffocated you for a year finally dissolving into the warm evening air. You shifted, turning your face into the crook of his neck, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne and clean laundry.
"Yeah?" you whispered, your voice a little thick as you wrapped your hands over his forearms. "That a permanent position?"
"Oh, absolutely," Steve whispered back, his lips brushing against your ear as the porch swing swayed gently in the dark. "You're stuck with me. Even after they take the bracket off."
You closed your eyes, letting the steady rhythm of his heartbeat anchor you to the porch, finally feeling like the ghost was gone, and you were actually home.
Hopeless Romantic - Stiles Stilinski x Male Reader
Summary: After keeping your werewolf identity a secret for years, you confess the truth to a protective and receptive Stiles
CW: Fluff - Werewolf reader - Both Stiles and reader are late teens (18/19) - Stiles being Stiles - Not finished
Words: 5.1k
A/N: Okay, I say not finished as in I didn't write more even though I absolutely could've but I got lazy. Also just wanted to write stupid fics for Stiles cause ya'know why not? Might eventually do more but who knows. Last thing, I genuinely don't care for this fic but here it is
FEMALES DNI
Stiles Stilinski was, by his own exhaustive definition, a tragic, textbook case of a hopeless romantic. For roughly a decade, his romantic blueprint had a single, immutable headline: Lydia Martin. He had been utterly convinced that the universe, in its grand, cosmic design, would eventually make her see him. Sure, there was a loud, fiercely rational voice in the back of his head—usually sounding suspiciously like his dad—reminding him that a decade-long unrequited obsession was less "epic love story" and more "please seek professional help," but Stiles ignored it. It was a long shot, yeah, but Stiles lived for the long shots.
Then came the tail end of junior year, right when the supernatural body count was high enough to make everyone twitchy, and the universe decided to throw a wrench into his entire psychological infrastructure.
You transferred in from out of state during the final, exhausting months of the school year. You didn’t make a grand, dramatic entrance. You literally just waltzed into Beacon Hills High, barely uttered a single word to the front desk administrator, and immediately plunged Stiles into a violent, deeply confusing internal crisis.
It started on day one. You walked into the classroom—the one classroom where Stiles didn't have Scott as a buffer—and you didn’t just glance past him. You looked directly at him. Eye contact. Dead-on, intense, and completely unblinking. Stiles’s brain derailed instantly, his hands freezing over his notebook as you walked right past his desk to claim the empty seat directly behind him.
The maddening part of it all? If Stiles was being completely honest, objective, and analytical, you were... regular. Average. You weren't a towering lacrosse god or a brooding leather-jacket archetype. You looked a little older than the rest of the junior class—maybe by a year, with a permanent, heavy shadows-under-the-eyes kind of exhaustion that Stiles recognized all too well. You were on the slightly shorter side, lean and athletic, but in a town where seventy percent of the male demographic spent their free time shirtless in the woods or on a field, that didn't exactly make you a statistical anomaly.
You were quiet. You kept your head down, spoke in a low, gravelly murmur that required people to actually lean in to hear, and you very explicitly, very systematically avoided Scott McCall and Isaac Lahey. Stiles noticed it within forty-eight hours. The second Scott walked into a hallway, you'd execute a flawless, seamless U-turn. If Isaac was near the lockers, you vanished into the crowd like a ghost.
But you didn't avoid Stiles.
In fact, you made a deliberate, quiet effort to be around him. And it wasn't the usual Beacon Hills routine where someone sought Stiles out because they needed a research monkey, a map of the woods, or a Jeep ride away from a monster. You didn't want a single thing from him. You just... liked his company. You listened to his manic, mile-a-minute tangents without looking at him like he belonged in Eichen House. You'd sit next to him, propping your chin on your hand, letting him ramble about lacrosse strategies or conspiracy theories, occasionally offering a small, tired smile that did weird things to Stiles’s heart rate.
And that was the terrifying problem. Because suddenly, that grand, ten-year hopeless-romantic obsession with Lydia Martin wasn't just taking a back seat—it was being completely, violently overshadowed by the quiet, grounded pull of the guy sitting right behind him.
The transition from junior to senior year hadn’t brought the usual teenage excitement; instead, it felt like bracing for impact. But the summer leading up to it had been different. You’d spent the better part of those hot months split between two very distinct, very intense environments: Deaton’s veterinary clinic and Stiles’s bedroom.
Working at the clinic was supposed to just be a summer job, a way to blend in. But Alan Deaton was a Druid, and you were a born werewolf. It took him all of five minutes on your first day to look at you over a golden retriever’s charts and subtly let you know he knew exactly what you were. He didn't push, he didn't call Scott, and he didn't treat you like a threat. He kept your secret with the same quiet, impenetrable discretion he used for Derek and the rest of the pack. To Deaton, you were just a kid who had been running your whole life, trying to find a corner of the world where you could finally just breathe.
But Stiles... Stiles was a different story.
You were currently sprawled out across his mattress, a heavy AP textbook propped open against your chest. A few weeks ago, while studying late at his desk, you’d caught a glimpse of his laptop screen when he went down to get water. The open tabs were a chaotic, glowing mess of Bestiary pages, local animal attack archives, and notes on pack dynamics. He was trying to figure you out. He knew you were hiding something, and it terrified you, but it also made you ache to just tell him. You weren’t some rogue Alpha or a bloodthirsty lone wolf looking to start a war. You just wanted the semblance of a normal, quiet life—something you’d never been allowed to have since the day you were born. You wanted to tell him before he solved the puzzle himself and assumed the worst.
A low, aggressively frustrated grunt shattered the quiet of the room.
You blinked, breaking out of your thoughts. Across the room at his desk, Stiles was furiously scratching out a line in his notebook. He was pressing down so hard that the metal tip of the pen tore right through the loose-leaf paper with a sharp rip.
"Okay, see? This is a targeted attack by the educational board," Stiles groaned, throwing the pen down. It bounced off his desk and rolled onto the floor. He spun around in his rolling chair, planting his feet and letting his head drop back against the headrest. "How do you do this? Seriously. How are you so freakishly good at this?"
You shifted, stretching your legs out further across his bed, the worn fabric of your jeans rustling against his comforter. You looked up from your textbook, a small, amused smile tugging at the corner of your mouth.
"It’s pretty simple, Stiles," you said, your voice low and steady. "It usually helps if you actually pay attention in class instead of staring the entire time."
Stiles froze, his head snapping up. Even without your heightened senses, you wouldn't have needed a supernatural nose to catch the sudden, spike of nervous heat radiating off him. You’d noticed the staring for months. At first, back in the spring, his eyes would instinctively drift toward Lydia Martin’s perfect strawberry-blonde hair a few rows ahead. But lately, it was like his brain would short-circuit halfway through the glance. He’d look at Lydia, then his gaze would falter, looking right past her until it locked onto you in the back row. It used to make you incredibly unnerved—expecting him to call you out, expecting him to see the wolf under your skin—but now, it just made your chest feel tight in a completely different way.
"Staring?" Stiles echoed, his voice climbing an octave. He aggressively pointed a thumb at his own chest, his eyes wide with theatrical offense. "Me? Staring? I’m hurt. Truly. I am a bastion of academic focus, okay? I would never."
"Right. My mistake," you murmured, tilting your book back up to hide the widening grin on your face. "You were probably just analyzing the structural integrity of the whiteboard."
"Exactly! Thank you!" Stiles snapped his fingers, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees as his frantic energy dialed right back into that intense, hyper-focused stare. "It’s a very distracting whiteboard. It’s got a glare. It’s a hazard, really. But glad to know you’re watching me closely enough to keep tabs on my eye line."
Stiles held the stare for a beat too long, his own words catching up to him, before he suddenly looked down at his own shoes, coughing clearing his throat. The flush on his neck was so bright you could practically see the heat radiating off it.
"Anyway," he muttered, spinning his chair an inch to the left, then an inch to the right. "The point is, AP Gov is a scam. It's an absolute scam, and you’re clearly a witch or something if you’re pulling an A-minus without even breaking a sweat."
You let the book drop back to your chest, watching the nervous, rhythmic bouncing of his left knee. Your heart gave a slow, heavy thud against your ribs. A witch. If only he knew how close—and yet how entirely wrong—he was. You could hear the steady, rapid-fire rhythm of his pulse from across the small room. It was always fast, but around you lately, it had this erratic, fluttery cadence that made your own wolf stir, eager and desperately confused.
"Not a witch," you said softly, your voice carrying that quiet, grounded weight that always seemed to pull his frantic gaze right back to you. "Just a good listener."
Stiles stopped bouncing his leg. He looked up, his amber eyes searching yours with that terrifying, brilliant intensity that made him the pack's detective. He rolled his chair a few inches closer to the edge of the bed, his hyperactive defense mechanisms dropping away for a rare, quiet moment.
"Yeah," Stiles murmured, his voice dropping to a rare, soft register. "Yeah, you really are." He rested his chin on his hand, looking at you where you lay scattered across his sheets like you belonged there. "It's weird, you know? In a town where everyone is always screaming, or running, or... I don't know, bleeding. You're just... quiet. It’s nice. It’s really nice."
The honesty of it hit you like a physical weight. Your hand tightened on the edge of your textbook. This was the moment. You could feel it in the air—the perfect, fragile window to just say it. To tell him that the quiet he loved so much was something you had to fight for every single day just to keep the beast inside you asleep.
You glanced past his shoulder, your eyes involuntarily landing on his backpack on the floor, where the corner of his laptop peeked out. The memory of those glowing tabs—the Bestiary, the frantic searches for a "rogue beta"—flashed in your mind.
"Stiles," you started, your voice slightly tighter than before. You sat up slowly, swinging your legs over the edge of his bed so you were facing him, just a few feet apart.
He blinked, tracking your movement, instantly picking up on the shift in the room's gravity. "Yeah? What's up? You look like you're about to confess to a murder. Please tell me you didn't steal my Jeep, because the alignment is already shot and—"
"I didn't touch the Jeep," you cut him off with a breathy laugh, though the nerves in your stomach were twisting into tight knots. You took a slow, deep breath, letting the scent of him—faded laundry detergent, old paper, and pure, anxious Stiles—steady you. "I just... I want to tell you something. And I need you to just listen for a second before you go full FBI agent on me. Okay?"
Stiles went completely still. His eyes darted to your hands, then back to your face, his expression melting from frantic humor into something completely focused, serious, and entirely yours.
"Okay," he said softly, leaning in. "I'm listening."
You opened your mouth to speak, the truth balanced right on the edge of your tongue, when the sudden, jarring blast of Stiles’s ringtone shattered the silence.
The heavy, rhythmic vibrating rattled his desk, the sound entirely too loud in the quiet room. You both flinched. Stiles threw a frustrated glance over his shoulder, huffing a breath through his nose. "Ignore it," he muttered, keeping his eyes locked on yours. "Whatever you were about to say, say it. The universe can wait for five seconds."
But the universe—or whoever was on the other end of the line—refused to be ignored. The call timed out, and within a literal heartbeat, the phone began to blare a second time. Then a third.
"I am going to throw that piece of tech into the preserve, I swear to God," Stiles groaned, his intense focus snapping as he rubbed a hand over his face. He rolled his chair back to the desk. "Sorry. Seriously, I'm sorry. Let me just kill it."
He grabbed the phone, his thumb hovering over the decline button, but he stopped when he saw the caller ID. His shoulders dropped, the annoying hyperactive energy instantly draining from him, replaced by that heavy, hyper-vigilant posture he always got when the supernatural reality of Beacon Hills came knocking.
"It's Scott," Stiles said, glancing back at you with a look that was half apology, half warning. He slid his thumb across the screen. "Hey, Scotty, what's up? Look, I'm actually in the middle of something kind of important right now, so unless the school is currently being eaten by an ancient alpha or—"
"Stiles, you need to listen to me right now," Scott’s voice burst through the receiver.
Even without putting the phone on speaker, you could hear every single syllable perfectly. Your born-wolf senses caught the sharp, ragged edge of Scott’s breathing, the elevated thumping of his heart, and the distant, echoing sound of tiles and dripping water—the school locker rooms, maybe.
A cold spike of adrenaline shot straight down your spine. You sat perfectly still, your fingers curling tightly into the fabric of Stiles’s comforter.
"We have a problem," Scott pressed on, his voice dropping to a harsh, urgent whisper. "There’s a wolf in Beacon Hills. A new one. An Omega or a lone beta, we aren’t sure yet, but they’ve been tracking around the edge of the preserve. Isaac and I just picked up the scent near the school."
Your heart did a violent, agonizing roll in your chest. Panic, cold and suffocating, clawed at your throat. They know, you thought, a dizzying wave of nausea washing over you. They found me. You had spent months meticulously masking your scent, showering with heavy, scented soaps, taking the long way around the woods, and avoiding Scott and Isaac like the plague. But you’d spent the entire summer glued to Stiles. You’d been in his Jeep. You’d been on his bed. Had they picked up your scent clinging to him? Were they coming to hunt you down because they thought you were a threat to their territory?
You were so trapped in the rising tide of your own panic that you almost missed the next words out of the phone.
"Stiles, it’s bad," Scott said, his voice cracking slightly. "It killed someone. A hiker near the overlook. It happened less than an hour ago. The scent is fresh."
The room seemed to tilt. The panic in your chest fractured, turning into a profound, freezing confusion. Killed someone? No. No, that wasn't possible. You hadn't been anywhere near the overlook. You’d been right here, in this room, watching Stiles fail AP Government.
Your mind raced backward, tunneling into memories you’d spent years trying to bury. You had killed someone once. A lifetime ago, back when you were younger, trapped in a bloodthirsty pack under the thumb of a ruthless Alpha who demanded total obedience. You had broken his rules, you had lost control, and a life had been taken. You had fled that pack, terrified of what you were, and you had sworn an absolute, sacred oath to yourself: never again. You hadn't touched a drop of human blood since. You’d survived four years in this godforsaken town without ever baring your fangs at an innocent.
"Isaac and I are heading to your place right now to look at the maps," Scott was saying, oblivious to the fact that the monster he was hunting was currently sitting three feet away from his best friend. "We'll be there in five minutes.”
"Yeah. Yeah, okay," Stiles said numbly, clicking the phone off.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Stiles stared at the blank screen for a long moment before he finally looked up at you. The easy, warm expression he’d had just minutes ago was completely gone, replaced by a pale, drawn tightness around his jaw.
"Hey, I am so, so sorry," Stiles said, his voice frantic as he began to pace the small width of his bedroom. "We're gonna have to pause whatever you were about to say, because Scott and Isaac are coming over and apparently we have a murderous rogue wolf on the loose, which is just great. Fantastic. Love a Tuesday. I need to find the high-resolution maps of the preserve, because if the body was at the overlook, then the migration pattern—"
He was rambling. He was moving toward the closet to look for his whiteboard supplies.
And you realized, with absolute, terrifying clarity, that you were completely out of time. If Scott and Isaac walked through that door, they would smell the sheer, unadulterated terror radiating off you. They would smell the wolf on you. And with a fresh body in the woods, they wouldn't ask questions. They would see a lone wolf hiding in the shadows and they would eliminate the threat. You were screwed. Unless you took the leap right now.
Stiles kept talking, his back turned to you as he grabbed a stack of folders. "I think the 2014 geological survey is under here, if you could just—"
You didn't think. The instinct to survive, to protect the fragile, beautiful thing you’d built with this boy over the summer, took over completely.
In a single, fluid motion, you launched yourself off the bed. You crossed the distance between you in a fraction of a second—faster than any human could ever move. Before Stiles could even register the shift in the air, your hands gripped the front of his flannel shirt.
With a blunt, controlled burst of strength, you shoved him backward.
Stiles hit the mattress with a heavy thud, his breath leaving him in a sharp gasp. Before he could scramble away or yell, you leaned over him, pinning his shoulders flush against the bed, trapping him beneath your weight. The folders he’d been holding scattered across the floor.
"Woah—hey! What the hell?!" Stiles gasped, his hands instantly flying up to grip your wrists. His eyes were wide, dilated with a sudden, sharp shock, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. "What are you doing? What—"
"Stiles, shut up and listen to me," you breathed, your voice cracking under the weight of your panic. You held him down, your grip tight but careful not to hurt him, your face just inches from his. "I am a werewolf."
Stiles went entirely rigid beneath you. His jaw dropped, his amber eyes darting across your face, searching for a punchline, searching for a lie, searching for anything.
"I'm a werewolf," you repeated, the words tumbling out of you in a desperate, breathless rush before you could lose your nerve. "I was born one. Deaton knows, he’s known since my first day at the clinic. But Stiles, I swear to God, I swear on my life, I didn't kill that hiker. I haven't killed anyone since I arrived in Beacon Hills nearly four years ago. I’m not the wolf Scott is looking for. Please, Stiles. Please believe me."
Stiles lay perfectly frozen beneath you, the scattered folders completely forgotten on the floor. For a long, agonizing second, the only sound in the bedroom was the frantic, overlapping rhythms of your heartbeats. You held your breath, bracing yourself for the shift in his eyes—the sudden fear, the calculation, the look he gave every monster that threatened his town.
Instead, the tension in his shoulders slowly drained out of him. He didn't try to twist out of your grip. He didn't reach for a mountain ash canister or call out for his dad.
He just breathed out, a long, shaky exhale that brushed warm against your chin.
"I know," Stiles said softly.
You blinked, your fingers tightening just a fraction on his shirt. "What?"
"I know you didn't do it. I believe you," he repeated, his voice remarkably steady despite how fast his pulse was still racing. He looked up at you, his amber eyes completely clear, devoid of any doubt. "An hour ago, you were lying right there on that exact spot on my bed, chewing on the cap of a black ink pen and entirely focused on finishing a government worksheet. You haven't left my sight since school ended."
A wave of dizzying relief washed over you, so intense your knees almost went weak, but you didn't move. You couldn't. You were still hyper-focused on the way he was looking at you—not with suspicion, but with a strange, vulnerable heat.
"And, uh... if we're being completely, entirely honest here," Stiles stammered, a sudden, bright flush creeping up his neck and flooding his cheeks. His eyes darted away to the wall for a split second before locking back onto yours, his voice dropping into a sheepish, rapid-fire mumble. "I know exactly where you were an hour ago, because I spent a solid ten minutes completely failing to read a single paragraph about the judicial branch. Instead, I was highly, meticulously preoccupied with staring at the patch of skin right above your waistband. Your shirt had bunched up when you stretched out, and I was... looking at the hair on your stomach. So, yeah. Alibi confirmed. I am a direct eyewitness to your complete and utter innocence."
Your brain practically short-circuited. The intense, life-or-death panic that had driven you to pin him to the mattress instantly evaporated, replaced by a sudden, dizzying rush of heat. You stared down at him, your wolf-heightened senses tracking the sudden spike of adrenaline and sheer, nervous attraction radiating off his skin.
"You were staring at my stomach?" you murmured, your voice dropping an octave, the grip on his shirt loosening until your palms were just resting flat against his chest.
"Yes! Okay? Yes, I was," Stiles blurted out, defensively waving one hand in the air while the other gripped your forearm, though he didn't push you off. "It was highly distracting! You can't just lounge around on a guy's bed looking like that and expect him to memorize constitutional amendments. It's an unfair working environment. But the point is—the logistical, criminal-justice point—is that you're cleared. You're completely innocent. Scott is tracking a different wolf."
The weight of the situation crashed back into the room just as Stiles finished speaking. The distant sound of a motorcycle engine—Scott's dirt bike—echoed from a few blocks away. They were getting close.
"They're going to smell me, Stiles," you said, the anxiety creeping back into your tone as you finally back off, letting him sit up while you knelt on the edge of the mattress. "Scott and Isaac. The second they walk in here, they're going to know what I am. And with a body in the woods..."
Stiles scrambled up, sitting cross-legged in front of you. He didn't look panicked anymore; his detective brain was already spinning at a million miles an hour, but this time, he was working *with* you.
"Hey, look at me," Stiles said, reaching out to firmly grab your shoulders, forcing you to meet his gaze. "They aren't going to do anything. You've been here all summer. You're a part of this now. You're a part of me. I'm not letting them touch you."
Your ears twitched, the sharp, distinct sound of a motorcycle engine cutting out in the driveway cutting through the ambient noise of the house. A second later, the heavy thunk of two pairs of boots hit the front porch steps. You could hear their footsteps approaching the front door long before they even had a chance to knock or call out Stiles’s name.
The reality of the situation settled heavy in your chest, but looking down at Stiles, the suffocating terror from a few minutes ago was gone.
Stiles stood up from the bed, brushing the dust off his jeans from his earlier frantic maneuvering. He looked back at you, catching the tense, rigid set of your shoulders. Instead of panicking, he just offered you his signature, slightly goofy, completely reassuring lopsided smile and gave you a bright thumbs-up.
"Operation: Defensive Buffering is officially a go," he whispered, gesturing dramatically toward the door. "Just stay behind the shield. The shield being me. I am highly effective at talking people in circles until they forget why they were angry in the first place."
Despite the absolute chaos of the situation, you couldn't help but shake your head, a soft laugh breaking through your nerves. You followed him out of the bedroom and down the stairs, the steady, rhythmic sound of his heartbeat acting like an anchor for your own. You trusted him. Completely. And knowing that he trusted you back—even after you’d just aggressively pinned him to his own mattress—made the wolf beneath your skin settle down into something calm and fiercely protective.
By the time you reached the bottom of the stairs, a heavy knock rattled the front door.
"Stiles! Open up, we have the scent tracking east," Isaac’s voice called out through the wood, sounding urgent and sharp.
Stiles didn't hesitate. He stepped up to the entryway, and you slid into place directly behind him, leaning slightly to the side to peek out over his shoulder. Your heart gave one final, nervous thud against your ribs as Stiles wrapped his fingers around the brass door handle and pulled it wide open.
Scott and Isaac were standing on the porch, practically vibrating with supernatural adrenaline. Scott had his phone in one hand and a crinkled map of the preserve in the other, his brow furrowed in deep concern. Isaac was leaning against the porch railing, his eyes scanning the yard, his nostrils flaring as he actively caught the air.
The very second the door swung open, both of their heads snapped up.
Isaac’s eyes instantly went wide, his posture freezing as his gaze locked onto you over Stiles's shoulder. Scott blinked, his chest hitching as he inhaled sharply, his alpha instincts immediately registering the presence of a born werewolf standing right in the middle of his best friend's hallway.
"Stiles..." Scott started, his voice dropping into a cautious, low register as his eyes darted between you and his best friend, his hand instinctively dropping toward his side. "Who is—"
"Okay, before anyone starts flashing glowing eyeballs or baring teeth, everyone take a collective, deep, calming breath," Stiles interrupted immediately, stepping slightly to the left to block more of you from view, his hands flying up in a universal stop gesture. "Scott, Isaac, meet my boyfriend—well, not boyfriend yet, we’re working on the formatting of that, but my very close, completely innocent study partner who happens to be a werewolf. And no, he did not kill the hiker."
Isaac’s jaw practically hit the porch floor. He blinked, looking from Stiles, to you, and then down to Stiles’s hands, which were still waving around erratically. "Your what?"
"Study partner! I said study partner," Stiles corrected rapidly, his face flushing a furious, sudden crimson. "The other part was—that was a tentative working title, completely unconfirmed by a secondary source, ignore that part. Focus on the innocent part. That is the crucial narrative hook here, guys."
Scott, however, wasn't looking at Stiles. His eyes—warm, but fiercely heavy with the weight of an Alpha—were locked onto yours. You didn't back down, but you didn't challenge him either. You kept your posture grounded, your hands visible, letting your scent carry nothing but total, unadulterated honesty. You smelled like old books, Stiles’s laundry detergent, and a deep, historical exhaustion, but there wasn't a drop of blood or malice on you.
Slowly, Scott’s tense shoulders dropped. He inhaled again, deeper this time, filtering through the layers of the air.
"He's telling the truth," Scott said softly, his voice carrying that innate, gentle authority that made him who he was. He looked at you, a faint, understanding softness flickering in his expression. "You're a born wolf. Your heartbeat... it's completely steady. You're not the one who was in the preserve."
"See? Thank you, Alpha McCall, voice of reason," Stiles sighed, dramatically dropping his hands to his sides. "Can we please come inside now? Because standing on the porch debating supernatural genetics is a great way to get the neighbors calling the Sheriff, and my dad is already on a very strict low-sodium diet and cannot handle the stress."
Isaac crossed his arms, finally stepping past the threshold as Stiles waved them into the hallway. Isaac looked you up and down, his eyes lingering on your lean frame, before tilting his head. "If you've been here all summer, how come we never caught your scent until now?"
"Because he’s smart, Isaac. He actually understands the concept of stealth, unlike certain people who like to roar in public parks," Stiles shot back, shutting the front door with a firm click.
You finally stepped out from behind Stiles’s shoulder, your voice quiet but steady as you addressed the two beta wolves. "I didn't want trouble. I’ve been hiding since I got to Beacon Hills four years ago. I worked for Deaton because he promised to keep my secret, and I avoided you guys because... well, packs attract trouble. And I just wanted a normal life."
You paused, your eyes instinctively drifting to the side of Stiles’s face. "But then I met Stiles. And tonight, when you called... I couldn't let you think I was the monster in the woods."
Scott looked between the two of you, capturing the unspoken intensity, the lingering electricity from whatever had happened upstairs on the bed before they arrived. A small, knowing smile tugged at the corner of Scott's mouth—the look of a best friend who had been waiting for Stiles to move on from his childhood crush for a very, very long time.
"Deaton trusts you, so I trust you," Scott said, reaching out to place a solid, welcoming hand on your shoulder. "But if there's an Omega out there killing people, we need to find them before the hunters do. Are you with us?"
You looked at Scott’s hand, then at Isaac’s reluctant but accepting nod, and finally down at Stiles. Stiles was watching you, his amber eyes bright, practically bursting with a mixture of nervous excitement and a fierce, protective pride.
You let out a slow breath, the weight of four years of isolation finally melting off your chest.
"Yeah," you said, a genuine smile breaking across your face as you subconsciously shifted an inch closer to Stiles. "I'm with you."
Summary: After a tense, vulnerable exchange regarding your reckless self-sacrifice, the Danger Room's abrupt end and the students' taunts leave Scott and you caught in a mix of lingering concern and unresolved chemistry.
CW: Slight angst - Mutant reader - Reader has energy related mutant abilities - Scott being Scott - Shorter fic
Words: 2.7k
A/N: yeah I don't even know where I was going with this, and let's be honest they'll probably never talk about it's any further cause I'm lazy as hell.
FEMALES DNI
Why?
It was a single word, a persistent, rhythmic hum at the back of Scott’s mind that hadn’t ceased since the day he first saw you. It was a question that evolved alongside you, shifting from simple curiosity to a gnawing, heavy concern that settled deep in his chest.
Why were you so damn intent on playing the martyr? Why did you insist on standing in the path of the storm if it meant a younger mutant walked away unscathed? You carried the weight of the team like it was a penance, as if you were constantly trying to pay back a debt for a power you never asked for and couldn't always control. You didn't just push your limits; you shattered them, treating your own body like a disposable conduit.
And you never had an answer. Every time he pressed, every time he stood there with his arms crossed, demanding a reason for your recklessness, you would just offer that small, exhausted smile. Your eyes would be heavy, rimmed with the strain of holding back the very thing that made you powerful, and the conversation would end there.
He knew, though. He saw it all.
He watched how you protected the students during Danger Room drills, the way your skin would begin to subtly pulse with a frantic, rhythmic red. It was a volatile, hungry light that almost rivaled the intensity of his own optic blasts. Scott understood the mechanics of it—the way you siphoned energy from the ambient air, from the flickering lights of the hallway, or even from the latent bio-electric fields of the people around you—but he also saw the terrifying price of that intake.
He saw you when there was nowhere left to vent it. When there was no circuit to overload, no object to charge, and no teammate to spare from the surge. In those moments, when you were a literal ticking time bomb, the red glow radiating from beneath your skin became blinding. It was agonizing to watch you struggle to contain that internal pressure, to see you choose to let that energy turn inward, burning you from the inside out, rather than letting it loose and risking someone else.
Maybe it was the leader in him that found you compelling. Maybe he respected that, on a fundamental level, you were built from the same self-sacrificial iron as he was. Or maybe, just maybe, it was simply that he liked you.
The sharp clack of boots on the metal catwalk snapped him back to the present. The gait was too measured for Logan’s heavy tread and too deliberate for Jean’s light, graceful stride. He didn't have to look to know it was you.
"Thinking of joining the simulation?" Scott asked, his voice steady even as his pulse quickened. He kept his posture guarded, arms crossed firmly over his chest, his gaze remaining fixed on the activity in the Danger Room below.
You moved into his peripheral vision, leaning against the railing beside him. You didn't mirror his rigid stance; you looked as though you were trying to hold yourself together by sheer force of will. "Maybe," you said, your voice raspy. You gave a slight, nonchalant shrug. "I’m still a little over-capacitated from the morning session. I think I’ll just watch."
Even through the ruby-quartz lenses of his visor, even with the world perpetually bathed in his own crimson hue, he could see the strain on your features. You looked completely spent, the faint, flickering red glow beneath your skin telling him exactly how much energy you were currently struggling to dampen.
"Good," Scott said, his tone softening despite his best efforts to keep it clipped. "I wouldn't want you getting hurt."
You let out a huff of laughter, a dry, tired sound, and nudged your shoulder against his arm. "Is that concern I hear, Summers? That’s almost sweet." You sent him a lopsided, teasing grin. "Just remember, I’m your backup if this goes sideways, not a helpless student."
Scott turned his head, looking at you fully now. The urge to tell you the truth—to tell you that his "concern" was actually a constant, low-level terror that you were going to spontaneously combust while saving someone—was almost overwhelming. He wanted to tell you that he hated the way you treated your safety as an afterthought.
Instead, he looked back down at the training floor, his jaw tightening. The confession died in his throat, replaced by the familiar, frustrating weight of his responsibilities.
"Right," he said, his voice coming out a little stiffer than he intended. He turned back to you, his expression unreadable behind the visor. "Just... please. Take it easy today."
The Danger Room floor was a hive of controlled chaos, illuminated by the shifting, holographic landscape of a dense, simulated forest. Below, a small group of younger students was working on basic coordination—shifting their forms, testing their durability, and learning to sync their movements. It was meant to be a low-level exercise, the kind of repetitive, rhythmic training that built muscle memory, but from the catwalk, it looked like a frantic dance of potential.
Scott’s eyes were fixed on the display, but his focus was fractured. He was supposedly monitoring the squad’s tactical cohesion, yet his gaze kept snagging on the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of your chest. The faint red glow beneath your skin seemed to ebb and flow with the intensity of the fight below, a silent, bioluminescent echo of the exertion happening on the floor.
He felt the weight of a dozen questions pressing against his teeth, held back only by the rigid discipline he wore like armor. He wanted to reach out, to touch the pulse point on your wrist to see if it was as hot as he suspected, but his hands remained locked behind his back. Every time he opened his mouth, the words felt too heavy, too vulnerable.
He let out a sharp, frustrated breath, his head giving a slight, involuntary shake as he tried to refocus.
"I'm not trying to prove anything," you murmured, your voice cutting through the hum of the cooling fans. You didn't look at him; you kept your eyes trained on a girl with metallic, gold-hued skin as she deflected a simulated projectile.
Scott blinked, his posture slacking just an inch. "I didn't say you were," he said, his voice dropping into that low, level tone he used when he was actually trying to communicate, not just command. "I just don't understand why you keep putting yourself at the bottom of the list."
You shrugged, a stiff movement that showed just how much tension you were holding. "Maybe that is the problem," you started, your voice thoughtful. "I tell myself I’m thinking of them, but maybe I’m thinking of myself first. I’m thinking of the collateral damage. If I lose my grip, if I can't vent this… this excess… I’m the one who ends up hurting them."
You finally turned your head, locking your gaze with his visor. "It’s not just recklessness, Scott. It’s insurance. I’d rather burn up than let a single one of them get caught in my blast radius. They deserve a chance to live in a world that doesn’t want them, and I’m the only one who can ensure I don't become the thing that ends that chance."
Scott opened his mouth to argue, his pulse spikey and erratic, but before the rebuttal could leave his lips, a shrill, excited shout echoed from below.
"Hey, Summers! Can we kick it up a notch? This is getting boring!"
Scott winced, his professional demeanor snapping back into place. Before he could respond, a second voice—one of the younger boys, clearly emboldened by the adrenaline—shouted up, "And maybe stop flirting with him? Seriously, get a room! It’s gross!" The kid made a loud, exaggerated gagging noise that reverberated through the massive chamber.
The tension in the air shattered. You let out a genuine, startled laugh—a bright, unguarded sound that seemed to catch Scott completely off guard. He looked at you, stunned for a fraction of a second, his brain clearly struggling to process the sound of your laughter.
A deep, embarrassed flush crept up his neck, turning the tips of his ears a bright crimson that nearly matched the light of his visor.
"Ignore them," he muttered, his voice tight. He turned toward the control console with unnecessary force, tapping sequences into the interface with sharp, clipped movements. He elevated the simulation level, shifting the peaceful forest into a jagged, obstacle-heavy gauntlet. "They need to learn to focus, not critique the coaching staff."
He cleared his throat, the sound harsh in the quiet of the observation deck. When he turned back to you, he was still wearing that slight, bashful flush, and his usual composure was frayed at the edges.
"I wasn't..." he stammered, his fingers twitching toward his visor before he forced them back down. "That wasn't... I wasn't flirting. It's just... I'm a professional."
He looked at you, then quickly looked away, his jaw tight. "They're just kids. They don't know when to keep their mouths shut.”
The air in the control room felt suddenly thin, charged with a different kind of static than the one humming beneath your skin. You watched his hands—typically steady, precise, and lethal—stumble over the holographic keys as he adjusted the difficulty of the simulation. It was rare to see Scott Summers flustered; it was endearing, and for a fleeting moment, it made the persistent ache in your bones feel a little less heavy.
You offered him a smile—slow, soft, and entirely devoid of the exhaustion that usually pulled at the corners of your mouth. It was a genuine attempt to put him at ease, even if the shadow of that weariness still clung to your eyes.
"I’d hate to see what real flirting looks like, if that’s your baseline," you teased, your voice low and rhythmic. You shifted your weight, turning fully toward him, ignoring the way your muscles protested the movement. "Though, for the record, I think you’re doing a terrible job of pretending to be nonchalant.”
Scott cleared his throat, a sharp, ragged sound, and aggressively tapped a sequence into the console to increase the obstacle density on the floor below. He refused to meet your eyes, his posture rigid as a steel beam. "Let’s change the subject," he muttered, his voice tight. "Thank you. For… for opening up. A little."
He didn't mention that he knew how rare this was. He didn't have to; you both knew you guarded your inner workings like a vault, perhaps only ever having truly cracked that door open for Erik or Charles. The silence stretched between you, thick with the weight of the question he’d been carrying for months.
You studied the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his jaw worked under the mask of his composure. You could see the internal struggle—the leader who needed to maintain control versus the man who was genuinely, viscerally terrified for you.
"You're still doing it, Scott," you said softly, your teasing tone dropping away. You took a half-step closer, the heat radiating from you making the air around him shimmer just slightly. "You're looking at me like I’m a structural failure waiting to happen."
He froze, his fingers hovering over the display. He didn't look at you yet, but his voice was quiet, stripped of the professional veneer. "Maybe because you act like one. You treat your life like a temporary lease, and I’m expected to just… watch you burn through it."
You watched him finally turn. The ruby-quartz of his visor caught the flickering light of the monitors, turning his gaze into two dark, burning holes. "Why does it bother you that much?" you asked, searching his face. "Is it just the liability? Or is it because you actually care what happens to the power source?"
He let out a sharp, incredulous huff, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "Don't do that," he said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low register. "Don't try to intellectualize this. You know exactly why, and the fact that you have to ask is either a testament to how little you value yourself or how much you’re trying to deflect."
He stepped toward you, the distance closing until you could feel the cold, sharp presence of his focus. "It bothers me because I see you, every single day, trying to be the sacrificial lamb for people who don't even understand what it costs you to stand there. You think you're protecting them by taking it all inside? You're just killing yourself in increments."
He reached out, his hand hovering near your arm as if he meant to touch you, but he pulled back at the last second, his fingers curling against his palm. "I'm not a bystander, and I'm not just your teammate. When you hold all that in, when you start glowing like a dying star… I’m the one who has to decide whether to pull you out of the fight or let you finish it. And I am tired of having to make that choice, because I never want to see you hit that limit."
His breath hitched, a rare moment of vulnerability slipping through his armor. "So, no. It isn't just about the mission. It’s about the fact that you think you're alone in this, but I'm standing right here, and I'm not going to let you just disappear into a flash of red light because you think you're 'insurance'.”
The sharp, rhythmic blare of the alarm cut through the heavy, charged air of the observation deck like a guillotine. Below, the holographic forest vanished in a swirl of static, leaving the students standing in the empty, sterile expanse of the training floor. Their voices drifted up, raw with exhaustion but bubbling over with youthful, unfiltered energy.
"That’s a wrap, team! Good work!" one of the older students shouted, followed by a chorus of cheers.
Then came the inevitable. A chorus of whistles and jeers rose from the floor, and you heard one of the younger ones—the same kid who had gagged earlier—cupping his hands to project his voice. "Just kiss him already, Summers! We're bored of watching you stare!"
The sheer audacity of it hit the room with the force of a physical blow.
You bit your lip, your shoulders shaking as you tried to suppress the laugh bubbling in your chest. You looked over at Scott. He was frozen, his back ramrod straight, his face a masterpiece of controlled mortification. The tips of his ears were burning a vivid, angry red that seemed to pulse in time with the fading lights of the console.
He didn't move, he didn't snap back at them—he just looked as though he were contemplating whether or not to trigger the fire suppression system just to clear the room.
"They really have no filter, do they?" you murmured, your voice thick with amusement. You reached past his rigid form, your hand brushing his shoulder as you tapped the sequence to kill the simulation and cycle the door locks. "Honestly, I think they’re just trying to see how much of a rise they can get out of you."
You turned to leave, but paused, glancing back over your shoulder. The playfulness died away, leaving you with that weary, honest look. "We'll talk about this later," you said softly. "And I want to know why they’re so convinced there’s something for them to ship, because I suspect you might be telegraphing more than you think."
Scott let out a long, ragged exhale, the sound of a man trying to regain his footing on a sheer cliff. He stayed fixed to the spot, his hands still hovering near the console as if he were afraid if he moved, he’d shatter. The image of him—the unflappable, iron-willed leader—being reduced to a flustered mess by a bunch of teenagers was almost worth the physical agony you were currently enduring.
"Right," he finally managed, his voice strained and dropping to a low, clipped tone. He didn't look at you, focusing instead on the heavy steel doors as they began to hiss open. "We'll talk later."
You walked toward the exit, the slight, persistent ache in your bones acting as a reminder of the energy you were still fighting to contain. You didn't look back, but you could feel his gaze—weighted, intense, and deeply concerned—trailing you until you stepped out into the hallway, leaving him alone with his students and the lingering, uncomfortable truth of the conversation you'd just had.
Summary: After confessing his failing heart to you, Reggie finds an unexpected, fragile sanctuary in your arms, permanently shattering the simple boundaries of your relationship.
CW: No use of y/n - Slight angst - Hurt comfort - Implied friends with benefits - Kissing
Words: 3.9k
A/N: I don't even know anymore, I was half asleep while writing this and just completely gave up at some point. Hopefully you guys enjoy it though. Last thing, Tumblr isn't letting me add pictures like I normally do because it just keeps fucking it up so I apologize, it'll probably end up looking like this for awhile
FEMALES DNI
Codependency was the word that hung in the air like thick smoke, though neither of you dared to label it. It was a symbiotic arrangement, a strange, oscillating frequency where the lines of give-and-take blurred until they were indistinguishable. It hadn't started with grand promises; it had started with the friction of skin and the adrenaline of proximity. It started as pure, unadulterated pleasure—a distraction from the neon-soaked chaos of the city.
Bartending at a club that catered exclusively to the "gifted" crowd meant your life was a revolving door of questionable characters and ego-driven nightmares. You dealt with tempers that could shatter glass and appetites that defied nature. And then, there was Reggie. A-Train.
He was different. He was charming in a way that felt curated yet dangerously authentic. He knew how to talk to you—not with the predatory hunger so many other supes displayed, the kind that made you wonder if they’d follow you into the dark alleys behind the club—but with a smooth, disarming confidence. When he smiled, he didn’t just show teeth; the corners of his eyes crinkled, a subtle vulnerability that felt like a secret he was only sharing with you.
In the chaos of your shift, he became your anchor. You liked simple, and Reggie had become the definition of it.
Simple was the sight of him sliding into his usual spot at the corner of the bar, the polished mahogany reflecting the club’s pulsing strobe lights. Simple was knowing exactly what he wanted—a specific, bitter-sweet concoction—before he even had to lift a finger to signal you. Simple was the way the air seemed to shift when he entered, a subtle, static charge that clung to him, smelling faintly of ozone and expensive cologne, a sensory reminder of the speed that defined his existence.
Simple was the quiet ritual of him waiting for you at the end of your shift, his lean, athletic frame tucked into the shadows near the back exit. It was the feeling of his hands against your skin, grounding you after a night of dodging dangerous tantrums; the way his lips felt against yours, desperate yet controlled. It was waking up in the pale, hum of dawn with his arm heavy across your chest, finally having his personal number saved in your phone, and the quiet comfort of your strange, undefined orbit.
But simple, you learned, was a fragile commodity in a world built on power and public image.
The club was louder than usual tonight, the bass thrumming through the soles of your shoes, but the corner of the bar remained stubbornly, unsettlingly empty. You found yourself glancing at the clock, then toward the entrance, your movements practiced and automatic as you mixed drinks for strangers.
It wasn't the first time he’d missed a night. His life was a whirlwind of Vought press tours, training sessions, and PR crises. But this felt different. The air in the club lacked that familiar, static prickle that always announced his arrival. A cold, nagging feeling began to coil in your gut, a dissonance that didn't sit right with the rhythm of your night. You gripped the edge of the counter, your knuckles turning white, wondering if the simplicity you’d clung to was finally unraveling, leaving you alone in the noise.
The club’s bass continued to thump against your ribcage, but your focus was entirely on the cold screen of your phone tucked beneath the bar’s service rail. You hadn't initiated a conversation in weeks. It was a silent, unspoken rule of your arrangement: he arrived, he initiated, and you responded. But the absence of his familiar, ozone-charged presence was itching at your skin like a rash.
Your thumb hovered over his contact.
You: Hey, miss—
You stared at the words, the cursor blinking with an accusatory rhythm. Pathetic. You hit delete, the backspace key clicking rapidly. You tried again, keeping your movements brisk, trying to mimic the casual indifference of a bartender checking on a regular.
You: Didn’t see you tonight. Everything okay?
It was neutral. Safe. You hit send before you could overthink the potential vulnerability of it.
You watched the screen. The bubble appeared, that little grey indicator of life, and your breath hitched. It hovered for a agonizing three seconds, then vanished. No message. Just silence.
The rest of the shift was a blur of spilled mixers and hollow, strained smiles. By the time you reached your car, the silence of the parking lot felt heavier than the noise of the club. You leaned your forehead against the cool glass of the driver’s side window, feeling the vibration of your own heavy, erratic breathing.
"He's just busy," you muttered, the words sounding thin and defensive in the enclosed space. "He’s got a million things going on. It’s not like we're... hell, it’s not like we’re even friends."
You blew out a frustrated breath, a jagged sound that filled the car. You were lying to yourself, and you knew it. If it was just about the pleasure, you wouldn't feel this hollow ache in your chest. You wouldn't be agonizing over a ghost-text.
The drive home was a mindless navigation through the city's neon-drenched grid. When you finally unlocked your apartment door, the silence of the place hit you like a physical weight. You tossed your keys onto the counter with a clatter that sounded too loud, let your bag slide off your shoulder to hit the floor, and kicked your shoes off in opposite directions.
You walked straight into the bedroom, the room dark save for the sliver of light from the streetlamps bleeding through the blinds. You sat on the edge of the bed and checked the phone one last time. Still nothing. No bubble. No incoming call. Just the same empty screen you’d been staring at for hours.
A sharp, hot spike of irritation—or maybe it was just hurt—shot through you. You tossed the phone onto the nightstand, watching it slide toward the edge, and started peeling off your work clothes. The fabric was stiff, tacky with spilled liquor and the stale, suffocating scent of the club. You shoved the pile into the hamper, not bothering to fold anything, and retreated into the bathroom.
You didn't wait for the water to reach the perfect temperature before stepping in. You needed the heat to scrub the night off you. As the spray hit your shoulders, you leaned your forehead against the cold, damp tiles of the shower wall, closing your eyes.
The water cascaded down your back, turning the steam into a thick, suffocating cloud. You stood there for a long time, letting the hot needles of water dull the jagged edges of your thoughts. You were trying to wash away the feeling of his hands, the phantom memory of his skin, and the creeping, cold realization that you were just another temporary stop on his high-speed circuit.
You forced yourself to move, shaking the lingering dread from your shoulders as if it were actual debris. You grabbed the soap, scrubbing your skin until it was pink and raw, desperately trying to strip away the lingering scent of stale alcohol and the phantom pressure of his touch. The hot water drummed against the tile, a relentless, rhythmic distraction from the gnawing anxiety in your stomach.
When you finally turned the handle and stepped out, the bathroom was a sauna of humid air. You wrapped a towel around your waist and wiped a jagged streak through the condensation on the mirror. Your reflection looked back at you—hollowed out, eyes bloodshot, the exhaustion of the night etched into the tension in your jaw. You didn't linger. You just wanted the cold, dark silence of your bedroom.
As you walked past the nightstand, your phone sat inert and dark. You didn't even glance at it, too drained to care about the void it represented. You missed the sharp, high-pitched buzz against the wood, followed by the soft illumination of the screen as it flickered to life.
Reggie: Can I come over?
The message sat there in the dark, a silent request waiting to be acknowledged.
Three miles away, Reggie sat on the edge of a pristine, white leather sofa in his apartment, his leg bouncing with a nervous, staccato rhythm that would have blurred the vision of anyone watching. He stared at his phone so intensely his eyes burned.
He didn't need to ask. You had given him a key—or at least, you had told him the spare was under the third planter, a gesture of trust he usually treated with the casual arrogance of a celebrity. But tonight, the air in his own place felt too thin, too pressurized. He felt like a coiled spring, his heart rate elevated, his metabolism burning through energy at a rate that made his skin feel like it was vibrating.
He kept looking at the screen, waiting for the ‘read’ receipt, waiting for the immediate chime of your reply that he had grown accustomed to.
"Why isn't he answering?"
A flicker of something darker than impatience crept into his chest. Was it anger? Or was it the sudden, terrifying realization that he was actually waiting on someone?
He checked the time. The silence stretching from your end was becoming unbearable. It felt less like you were ignoring him and more like the distance between you was growing, widening into something he couldn't just run across in a heartbeat.
He didn't have the patience to wait for a response, and he certainly didn't have the stomach to sit in this silence a second longer. He stood up, his movements fluid and unnervingly fast. He didn't even grab a jacket. He just grabbed his keys, the metal biting into his palm, and headed for the door. The simple request for permission had already turned into a burning need for presence. He didn't need you to tell him to come over; he just needed you to be there when he arrived, to remind him that he was still anchored to something that wasn't just Vought, cameras, and the crushing weight of his own life.
Reggie hovered on your welcome mat, his hand poised to knock, then dropping back to his side, then rising again. He stared at the worn, faded wood of your door, his gaze flicking down to the terra cotta planter tucked in the corner. He knew exactly where the spare was—he’d been inside plenty of times when you weren't home—but tonight, the idea of just letting himself in felt like a violation of a boundary he hadn't realized he’d set until this very moment.
He knocked. Three soft, controlled raps. He stood back, his pulse thrumming in his throat, ears straining for the sound of you.
After a few agonizing minutes, he heard it: the soft, rhythmic shuck-shuck of your slippers against the hardwood floor. He pulled his shoulders back, trying to smooth the frantic energy out of his posture. When the lock clicked and the door swung open, the relief that hit him was so sharp it almost knocked the wind out of him.
You stood there, looking tired but soft in your worn-out pajama pants and those oversized, ridiculous plush dog slippers. He’d teased you about them for months, calling them "fashion crimes," but seeing them now, they looked like the only grounded, real thing in his entire world.
"Hey," you said, a small, genuine smile tugging at your lips, completely unaware of the turmoil he’d been carrying for the last hour. "Didn't know you were stopping by."
Reggie didn't say a word. He just stared at you, his eyes scanning your face as if he were trying to memorize the exact lines of your expression. He held his phone up briefly—a silent gesture toward the message he’d sent—before sliding it deep into his pocket. He took a single, deliberate step across the threshold, invading your space, and he didn't wait for an invitation.
He reached out, his hand steadying against the door until he pushed it shut behind him, the click of the latch sounding unnervingly final.
Without a word, he closed the distance. He moved with a grace that felt heavy tonight, not his usual lightning-quick blur. He pressed you back against the hallway wall, your shoulders hitting the drywall with a soft thud. Before you could even register the shift in the air, his lips were on yours.
It wasn’t the hurried, hungry kiss of a man looking for a quick fix. It was slow, agonizingly sweet, and tasted like desperation wrapped in velvet. It was the kiss of someone trying to ground themselves before they floated away.
”Oh,” you thought, your heart stuttering against your ribs. ”Something is definitely wrong”.
Reggie leaned into you, his weight familiar and solid. His hands found the bare skin at your waist, his thumbs tracing slow, deliberate circles into your hips. The contact was electric, but it lacked the frantic edge it usually held. You reached up, your fingers gripping his shoulders, feeling the tension locked tight in his muscles beneath his hoodie—a rare, startling sight that made the moment feel even more surreal.
He didn't pull away. He just sighed against your mouth, a sound that was half-prayer and half-surrender, letting his forehead drop to rest against yours as he anchored himself firmly into your space.
Your hands slid up from his shoulders, your palms cupping his face. His skin was warm, a sharp contrast to the cool air of the hallway, and his eyes—usually so bright and animated—looked dim, heavy with a weight he hadn't brought with him before.
"Reggie," you murmured, your thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. "Are you okay?"
He didn't answer with words. Instead, he leaned down, pressing a series of soft, chaste kisses against your lips—almost like a penance. When he pulled back, his hand found the small of your back, his touch firm and guiding. He didn't wait for you to lead the way; he moved you gently, steering you through the living room, past the threadbare couch and the stacks of books, straight into the bedroom.
You followed him, letting the current of his mood dictate the pace. It was simpler this way. Trying to force him to talk, to strip back those layers of armor he wore so well, felt like trying to hold back the tide with your bare hands. If he wanted to be here, if he wanted to exist in this quiet, then that was enough for tonight.
He sat you on the edge of the bed before gently easing you back, his weight following yours as he crawled up over you. The air shifted. This wasn't the frantic, skin-burning urgency of your usual nights. His kisses were slow, almost reverent, lingering at the corners of your mouth and your jawline with a tenderness that felt like a foreign language. It was domestic, terrifyingly intimate—the kind of soft, heavy affection that made you feel like you were actually somebody to him, rather than just a place to hide.
Your hands slid under the hem of his hoodie, your fingertips dancing along the waistband of his jeans before slipping upward to splay against his bare chest. You felt it instantly. Beneath the muscle and the heat of his skin, his heart was hammering a chaotic, jagged rhythm. It wasn't just fast; it was stuttering, skipping beats like a broken record, a frantic fluttering that sent a jolt of alarm through you.
His lips moved from your jaw to the hollow of your throat, then trailed slowly, agonizingly, across your collarbone. He paused there, his breath hot against your skin, but you went rigid. You couldn't ignore the frantic thumping beneath your palm any longer.
"Reggie," you whispered, your voice trembling. "Your heart… it’s—"
He stopped mid-breath, his forehead resting against your chest. He froze, then slowly pulled back, propping himself up on his forearms to look down at you. His expression was unreadable, caught between fear and a sudden, sharp exhaustion.
"What?" he asked, his voice rough.
You didn't take your hand away. You pressed your palm flatter against his sternum, feeling the erratic, desperate thrash of his pulse. "It’s not right. It’s… it’s skipping. Everything okay, man? You’re scaring me."
He stared at you, his eyes darting across your face as if searching for a reason to lie. Then, his shoulders slumped, the facade finally cracking. He let out a shaky, hollow laugh that didn't reach his eyes.
"It’s the V," he said, the words barely audible, almost swallowed by the room’s silence. He looked away, his jaw tightening. "The Compound V. It’s… it’s catching up to me. The speed, the training, the supplements… my heart can’t keep up with the pace anymore."
He looked back at you, and for the first time, you saw the genuine terror hidden behind the A-Train persona. "Every time I push it, every time I move, I feel like I’m running out of time. My own body’s betraying me, and I don't know how to stop.”
The silence that followed his admission felt thick, heavy enough to crush the air right out of the room. You just stared at him, your hand still splayed over his chest, feeling that erratic, stuttering rhythm vibrating against your palm. It wasn't just a physical sensation anymore; it felt like a countdown.
"You're not serious," you whispered, though the way he was looking at you—stripped of that A-Train polish, just a man terrified of his own biology—told you he wasn't joking.
Reggie let out a jagged, humorless laugh, his gaze dropping to the bedsheets between you. "I wish I was. It’s been… building. Doctors, Vought—they keep telling me it’s fine, that it’s just the ‘strains of peak performance.’ But this?" He grabbed your wrist, pressing your palm harder against his sternum. "This is my heart trying to quit, and I’m just out here trying to outrun it."
His grip on your wrist was tight, almost painful, a stark departure from the gentle touches he’d been giving you just moments before. He was holding onto you like you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the bed, to the room, to reality.
"I can't tell anyone," he said, his voice dropping into a raw, desperate register. "You know what happens if the public finds out? If Vought finds out? I’m finished. They’ll replace me before the ink on my medical charts is even dry. I’m an asset, not a person to them, and assets aren't allowed to have heart conditions."
You felt a cold knot tighten in your stomach. You’d always known the life of a supe was performative, a stage-managed existence, but seeing it manifest like this—Reggie trembling in your bedroom, admitting he was slowly breaking from the inside out—felt like a door had been ripped off its hinges.
"Reggie, if you keep pushing it, you’re going to kill yourself," you said, trying to keep your voice steady despite the way your own heart was starting to race in sympathy with his. "You have to tell someone who can actually help. Not Vought. Not your PR team. A real doctor."
He shook his head sharply, a lock of hair falling over his forehead. "There’s no ‘real doctor’ for this. It’s not just broken, it’s… altered. The V changed everything. I’m stuck, man. I’m a high-performance engine that’s rusted out." He closed his eyes, his breathing hitching. "I just… I needed to be somewhere where nobody was looking at me like I was a brand. I needed to just be… here."
He looked at you then, and the raw vulnerability in his expression made your chest ache. He wasn't looking for a fix; he was looking for a witness to his decline.
You shifted, ignoring your own fear, and pulled him down until his head rested against your shoulder. He went limp instantly, letting his weight sink into you, his heart still fighting that uneven, frantic battle against his ribs. You just held him, stroking his hair, the realization settling over you that the "simple" life you’d carved out for the two of you was gone, replaced by a jagged, complicated reality that neither of you knew how to survive.
The night wore on, the neon glow from the city outside filtering through the blinds, casting long, distorted shadows across the bedroom. The frantic, erratic tempo of his heart slowly began to level out, though it never quite settled into the steady beat of a healthy man. It remained a hitching, uneven rhythm, a constant reminder of the ticking clock he lived under.
Reggie didn't move. He stayed tucked against you, his face buried in the crook of your neck, his breathing finally matching the slow, intentional cadence you were setting for him. The earlier tension, the desperate, almost manic energy he’d brought through your front door, had evaporated, leaving behind a hollowed-out exhaustion that seemed to seep into the very mattress.
"You're shaking," you whispered into the quiet, your fingers still tracing slow, soothing lines down the back of his hoodie.
He didn't pull away; he only tightened his grip on your waist, his knuckles white against your side. "It’s just... it’s quiet here," he murmured, his voice muffled by your skin. "No cameras, no press releases, no one asking for a smile. It’s the only time it feels like I’m actually breathing, not just... performing."
You stared up at the ceiling, the fan spinning lazily above, and realized that this—this fragile, broken moment—was the closest you’d ever been to him. All the months of shared drinks and unspoken boundaries, the casual hookups, and the carefully curated mystery of A-Train had been a buffer. Now, the wall was down, and the reality was heavier than you ever could have anticipated.
You weren't just a bartender to him anymore. You were the only person in the world who knew he was dying.
"You can stay," you said, the words feeling heavy and permanent. "As long as you need to."
Reggie shifted, pulling back just enough to look at you. In the dim light, he looked younger, stripped of the bravado that usually made him seem untouchable. He reached up, his hand trembling slightly as he tucked a stray lock of hair behind your ear, his thumb lingering on your temple.
"I'm not worth this," he said, his voice raw, devoid of its usual rhythmic, practiced flow. "You shouldn't have to carry this. You don't know what you’re getting yourself into."
"I know," you replied, your voice firm. "But you're here. And for tonight, that’s all that matters."
He looked at you for a long moment, an unreadable intensity in his gaze, before he let out a long, shuddering breath and collapsed back against your chest, his eyes sliding shut. The room grew deathly quiet, save for the hum of the city and the faint, uneven thrumming against your palm.
As the hours slipped toward dawn, you didn't sleep. You lay there in the dark, watching the way the streetlights painted patterns on his skin, realizing that your simple, uncomplicated life had effectively ended the moment he walked through that door. You had invited the storm inside, and as Reggie’s breathing finally deepened into true sleep, you knew there was no going back to the way things were.
You were tethered to the fastest man alive, and you were both hurtling toward something you couldn't outrun. You pulled the blanket higher over his shoulders, guarding his secret as if it were your own, and waited for a morning that felt more like a beginning than an end.
Summary: Reunited in a strange new century, you fall right back into the toxic, possessive grasp of a newly returned Soldier Boy.
CW: No use of y/n - Not exactly canon - Implied dark themes - Reader is German - Reader is a born Supe - Reader gets called 'Pretty Boy' - Reader is traumatized - Language - Slight angst
Words: 3k
A/N: Okay this started at like 900 words and I somehow ended up with this, I fucking hate this but I'm desperate to post something. God this is so bad and the German maybe off, cause I don't speak it at all. Last thing, forgive me for this garbage.
FEMALES DNI
The rain that night didn't wash away the blood; it just diluted it, turning the Alsace mud into a slick, crimson soup. Every breath you took tasted like copper and woodsmoke, a brutal reminder that despite whatever gifts God had seen fit to curse you with, you were still terrifyingly breakable.
If you had just kept your mouth shut. If you had just accepted that you were caught in the gears of a war you never asked to fight. If you had just died with what little dignity a conscript was allowed, it wouldn't be so bad. But the instinct to survive is a filthy, primal thing. It strips away pride until there is nothing left but the screaming in your chest.
Through the ringing in your ears, you heard the heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots.
He loomed over you like a monument of olive drab and tarnished gold, the eagle emblem on his chest darkened by grease and German blood. Ben. Soldier Boy. America’s golden boy looked down at you with an expression that wasn't even hateful—it was bored. To him, you weren't a person; you were just another piece of foreign debris he had to clear off the board.
Panic, hot and sharp, overtook every fiber of your being. You scrambled backward in the dirt, your hands slipping in the mire.
“Bitte, ich tue alles!” The words spilled past your swollen lips, frantic and broken. “Ich werde euch im Krieg helfen! Bitte…"
Soldier Boy stopped. He tilted his head, his fingers casually hooking into his tactical belt, right near the heavy grip of his combat knife. He let out a short, scoffing laugh—a low, raspy sound that made your stomach drop.
"Help us?" he said, his voice dripping with that smooth, old-school Brooklyn arrogance. He took a slow step forward, the mud groaning under his weight. "What makes you think we want help from some kraut rat who can't even stand up straight? You're out of your depth, sweetheart. The whole damn fatherland is."
How could you prove your worth? How could you make a man like this see you as something other than target practice? Your mind raced, grasping for the only leverage you had left—the secret the German high command had tried to weaponize.
“Ich bin ein Supe!” you gasped out, desperate to bridge the language barrier before he lost interest. “I am… like you! Born with it. They wanted me for a spy. I can disappear—I can make shields. Please! Ich schwöre, ich werde alles tun!”
That stopped him cold.
The casual indifference vanished from his face, replaced by a sharp, calculating stillness. Soldier Boy crouched down, the heavy leather of his boots inches from your face. The stench of stale tobacco, cheap whiskey, and gunpowder wafted off him, suffocatingly thick. He reached out, his gloved fingers clamping around your jaw with enough pressure to make the bone groan. He forced your face up, staring into your eyes with a terrifying intensity.
"A supe, huh?" he murmured, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register. He twisted your chin slightly, inspecting you like a piece of livestock. "Funny. Usually, German science projects have a bit more fight in 'em. You're telling me you were born this way? No serum?"
You could only nod, a pathetic, jerky motion that sent fresh agony through your face.
Soldier Boy let out another laugh, but this one was darker, devoid of any humor. "Well, ain't that something. A naturally grown freak. And here I thought Vought had the monopoly on the special stuff."
He didn't look impressed; he looked annoyed that the world was more complicated than his propaganda reels suggested. His grip tightened for one agonizing second before he shoved your face away, letting you drop back into the dirt. He stood up, wiping his gloved hand on his trousers as if you had left a stain.
"Get up," he barked, turning his back on you as he signaled to the shadows behind him. "Move it, before I decide your little magic trick isn't worth the rations. We're taking him back to the command tent. Let’s see if this bird sings as good as he begs.”
None of it really mattered. You had simply traded one prison for another.
At first, the American command tents weren't much different from the German labs—just different men in different uniforms staring at you like a weapon they hadn't learned how to aim yet. But then, Ben took a liking to you.
It wasn't a kind sort of affection. It was the possessive, careless favor a man shows to a stray dog he’s successfully broken. He liked the way you looked, sure—the contrast of your sharp, European features against the rough canvas of his quarters—but mostly, he liked that "no" wasn't in your vocabulary. You became his shadow, his human shield, and his dirty little secret. When the artillery got too loud or the pressure of being America’s golden boy pressed too hard on his shoulders, he’d drag you into his private quarters. He’d take whatever he wanted from you, leaving you bruised and breathless, and in return, he kept Vought’s white-coats from dissecting you.
"He's a useful little freak," Ben had told the suits, his hand heavy and warning on the back of your neck. "Keeps his mouth shut, does what he's told, and his shields keep the shrapnel off my suit. We’re keeping him."
So you stayed. You let him mold you, use you, and call you his "pretty little kraut." It was entirely one-sided, a twisted transactional nightmare, but you endured it because beneath the degradation was a semblance of safety. As long as you belonged to Soldier Boy, the rest of the world couldn’t touch you.
But safety in Vought’s world is an illusion. When Ben vanished in Nicaragua in '84, your protection went with him. No longer deemed useful, Vought treated you like surplus military hazardous waste. They pumped you full of experimental stabilizing agents—burning cocktails that made your veins feel like dry ice—and put you under. A relic of a war everyone wanted to forget.
Decades later, you woke up to a world that had moved on without you.
Navigating the 21st century was a slow, agonizing rebirth. You forced yourself to shed every remnant of the old country. You practiced in front of mirrors for months until you could perfectly mimic a flawless, generic American drawl. You hid your invisibility and your shields so deep you almost forgot how to use them. You reinvented yourself entirely.
Yet, some habits never die. You still needed an anchor. You still needed someone to tell you where to stand so you wouldn't drown, and that was how you fell into the orbit of Billy Butcher.
A sharp, violent buzzing cut through the dark, heavy silence of your bedroom. You let out a low groan, shifting against the mattress as your hand blindly scrambled across the nightstand. Your fingers wrapped around the sleek metal of the smartphone—a piece of technology that still felt entirely alien to you sometimes.
Swiping the screen blindly, you pressed it to your ear and rolled onto your side. "Yeah? What d'you want?" you murmured, your voice thick with sleep.
"Oi, pretty boy. Get your arse out of bed, I need a favor," a raspy, gravelly voice barked through the speaker.
The familiar, abrasive cadence of Billy Butcher instantly cleared the fog from your brain. You sat up, the bedsheets pooling around your bare waist as you rubbed a hand over your face. "Butcher. It’s three in the morning. Why the hell are you calling me?"
"Because you're the only reliable bastard I've got on the payroll, that's why," Butcher chuckled, a dark, dry sound. "And lose the attitude, yeah? Sounds a bit too much like hard work. Look, I need you at the safehouse. Now."
You sighed, a weary, defeated sound. It was happening again. The same pattern, the same trap. You had traded Ben for Billy, always falling into bed or into line with men who smelled like gunpowder and bad intentions because you simply didn't know how to exist without a master. You couldn't say no. To Butcher, you were a ghost with a useful set of skills and a clean record, and you let him keep using you because it was better than being completely alone in a century you didn't belong to.
"What's this about, Billy? I told you, I'm trying to keep my head down," you said, though you were already swinging your legs out of bed, your feet hitting the cold hardwood floor.
"Let's just say an old mate of yours dropped by. A real blast from the past," Butcher said, his voice dripping with a terrifying, smug satisfaction. "Bit of a family reunion, you might say. Peep your texts, sunshine. Don't keep us waiting."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
A heavy dread settled into the pit of your stomach, turning your blood to ash. Your phone vibrated in your palm, a text notification lighting up the dark room. With trembling fingers, you tapped the screen and opened the attached photo.
It was a blurry, dimly lit surveillance shot inside a dilapidated building. Standing in the center of the frame, looking older, rougher, but unmistakably him, was Ben.
Soldier Boy was alive.
The drive to the safehouse was a blur of streetlights and cold sweat. Your hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly your knuckles turned white, the ghost of an old war humming in your veins. You hadn't used your real voice or your real name in decades. You had buried the boy from the Alsace mud deep beneath layers of American slang and a quiet, unassuming life.
But as you pulled the car up to the curb outside the derelict brownstone, the past caught up to you in a single heartbeat.
Billy Butcher was standing under the amber glow of a flickering streetlamp, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He looked as rugged and unbothered as ever, his heavy black trench coat shifting slightly in the night breeze. You killed the engine, but you didn't get out right away. You just stared through the windshield, letting the silence of the car envelop you for a few agonizing seconds. Your heart was a rabbit in a snare.
Finally, you forced your door open and stepped out into the damp night air.
Butcher watched you approach, his lips curling into that sharp, knowing smirk he always gave you. It was the look of a man who knew exactly which strings to pull to make you dance. Neither of you spoke for a moment, the tension thick enough to choke on.
Butcher took one last drag of his cigarette, dropped the butt, and crushed it beneath his boot. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy brass ring of keys.
"Need you to play babysitter, mate," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. He tossed the keys. They cut through the air, and your hand flew up automatically, catching them with a dull metal clack.
Before you could even form a question, Butcher walked right past you, giving you a rough pat on the shoulder that felt more like a warning than a gesture of comfort. He headed straight for his own car, leaving you alone on the pavement. You rolled your eyes, a heavy, tired sigh escaping you as you turned toward the heavy wooden door of the safehouse. You unlock it, the hinges groaning in protest as you push it open and step into the dim, musty hallway.
"Back so soon?"
The voice drifted out from the kitchen, low and raspy, carrying the distinct, heavy drawl of mid-century Brooklyn. A voice you had heard in your nightmares for forty years.
Your entire body went rigid. You froze in the doorway, your fingers gripping the brass keys so fiercely the metal bit deep into your palm, drawing pain that barely registered against the shock.
"Was zum Teufel…?" you whispered. The words slipped out before you could stop them, raw and unpolished, your carefully practiced American accent instantly shattering.
A figure stepped out of the shadows of the kitchen, holding a half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey. Ben. He looked different—his hair was longer, his face weathered by whatever hell Vought had buried him in—but the posture was exactly the same. The same arrogant, casual stance of a man who owned every room he walked into.
But when Ben’s eyes landed on you, he stopped dead in his tracks. The smug, careless look vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden, jarring stillness. He stared at you, his chest rising and falling as his gaze swept over your face, recognizing the sharp European features he used to hold in his grip.
"You're alive?" Ben breathed.
The words didn't come out as a taunt, or a boast, or even a threat. His voice dropped into a quiet, gravelly register that sounded entirely wrong coming from him. It sounded like... relief. Like he was genuinely, deeply grateful that you were standing there.
The unexpected softness of his tone hit you like a physical blow, sparking a sudden, bitter fire in your chest. You let your shoulders drop, abandoning the American disguise completely. When you spoke, your voice was thick with the harsh, rolling consonants of your native tongue, cold and sharp as winter ice.
"Maybe," you whispered, staring back at him with wide, unblinking eyes. "Or maybe... maybe I am finally dead, Ben. And you are only looking at your past mistakes.”
Ben didn’t move. He just stood there, the whiskey bottle heavy in his hand, looking at you like he’d just unearthed a ghost from the trenches. That arrogant, untouchable shield he always wore around his shoulders cracked, just for a second, letting something raw and horribly human blink out at you.
"Don't talk like that," he said, his voice dropping into that gravelly, low register. He took a slow step forward, the floorboards groaning under his weight, just like the mud used to. "You ain't a mistake. And you sure as hell ain't dead."
"No?" You let out a short, humorless laugh, the sound sharp and grating in the quiet house. You didn't back away this time. Decades on ice and a new century had given you a different kind of spine, even if the fear still pulsed like a phantom limb. "You think because I breathe, I am alive? Vought took me after you disappeared, Ben. They put me in a box. Cold. Dark. For forty years, I was nothing but ice because I had no master left to tell them I was useful."
Ben flinched. It was a minuscule movement—just a tightening of his jaw, a slight twitch in his broad shoulders—but you caught it. The great Soldier Boy, bothered by a ghost.
"I didn't know," he muttered, shaking his head. He took another step, closing the distance until you could smell the familiar, suffocating mix of stale tobacco and cheap liquor pouring off him. He looked down at you, his eyes scanning your face, searching for the boy who used to tremble under his touch. "They told me everyone was gone. I thought... I thought you died in Nicaragua with the rest of 'em."
"And if you knew? What then?" Your German accent bit into the English words, heavy and unforgiving. "Would you save me? Or would you just keep me in your tent like a pretty dog? A shield to stop the bullets?"
Ben’s face darkened, the familiar, volatile heat flashing in his eyes. He set the whiskey bottle down on a nearby table with a loud, deliberate thud. He stepped right into your space, towering over you, testing the old boundaries. He reached up, his large, calloused hand hovering near your face for a fraction of a second before his fingers clamped around the back of your neck.
It wasn't the brutal grip of a captor, but it wasn't gentle either. It was possessive. Demanding.
"I kept you alive," Ben growled, his thumb pressing firmly into the skin just beneath your ear, forcing you to look up into his bloodshot eyes. "Don't you forget that. Those corporate suits wanted to slice you open the day we brought you in, and I told 'em no. I gave you a roof, I gave you food, and I kept you safe. You belonged to me."
"Ja," you whispered, your breath hitching despite yourself, your heart hammering against your ribs in that old, terrifying rhythm. The familiarity of his weight, his scent, his absolute certainty that he owned you, was an intoxicating, terrifying poison. "I belonged to you. Because 'no' was a word that would get me killed."
Ben’s gaze dropped to your lips, then traveled back up to your eyes. The anger in him seemed to simmer down into something heavy, thick, and complicated.
"Well, you're here now," he murmured, his grip softening just a fraction, his thumb tracing a slow, familiar line along your jaw. "And so am I. The rest of 'em... Payback, Vought... they're gonna burn for what they did to us. But you? You're still my pretty boy. Ain't ya?"
The trap was closing again. You could feel it. The keys Butcher had given you were still biting into your palm, a reminder that you were supposed to be the handler here, the babysitter. But looking at Ben, feeling the heat radiating off him in this strange, terrifying new world, you realized some things never changed. You were still the boy in the mud, and he was still the only monster big enough to keep the other monsters away.
"You have not changed at all, Ben," you breathed, your voice a fragile, rolling whisper against his chest.
"Why change perfection?" Ben tilted his head, a faint, dangerous ghost of his old smirk returning to his lips. "Now... tell me what kind of trouble we're making with that asshole.”
A/N: This was honestly just something short since I haven't posted in twenty days, and I kinda feel bad. I'm currently just focusing on life and trying to figure out some things, so that's why everything is lacking so bad lately. Last thing, hoping to get some more fics out for this summer and such.
FEMALES DNI
Another brutal Oceanside heatwave had settled over the coast, turning the already scorching summer into an absolute pressure cooker. If people weren't choking the shoreline at the beach, they were holed up indoors with the AC blasting on high, or crowding around whatever patch of water they could find to keep from melting. The Codys, naturally, were no exception. And neither were you.
By mid-morning, you’d already sweated through two shirts. The heavy, stagnant air didn't stop Andrew from clinging to you, though. From the second you woke up in your shared bed, his frame was heavy against yours, his hands anchoring into your skin despite the slick sheen of sweat between you. It lasted through breakfast and all the way to Smurf’s house, until you finally gave up on logic, peeled the damp fabric off, and ditched your shirt entirely.
Deran and Craig had thrown a half-assed invite your way, trying to rope you and J into a surf session to beat the midday glare. But the second Smurf casually mentioned she had errands to run—leaving the house completely empty—you caught Andrew’s eye. The silent agreement was instantaneous. Smurf liked you. Hell, she trusted your judgment on a job more than she trusted Baz’s half the time, which was saying a lot in this family. If she was giving you two a free pass to her sanctuary, you weren't about to say no.
Now, the house was finally dead quiet. The guys were gone, Smurf’s car was out of the driveway, and it was just the two of you.
While Andrew went inside to change out of his heavy jeans, you walked straight out to the backyard. You didn't even bother looking for swim trunks. You kicked off your flip-flops, stripped down to your boxer briefs, and slid right into the cool, turquoise water of the pool. The relief was immediate. You floated on your back, ears submerged so the rest of the world drowned out into a dull, watery hum, staring up at the blinding California sky.
The heavy thud of the sliding glass door cutting through the silence was your only warning. Then came that low, familiar hum in the back of Andrew’s throat—the one he only made when the noise in his head finally quieted down, usually because he’d found you.
"Better?"
His voice was quiet, rough around the edges. You didn't open your eyes, but you could hear the heavy thwack of two towels hitting a lounge chair, followed by the soft, rhythmic splash of him wading down the steps into the shallow end.
You let a slow, genuine smile break across your face, drifting aimlessly on the surface. "Much.”
The water was a physical relief, drawing the suffocating heat out of your muscles as you drifted. You heard the steady slosh, slosh of Andrew wading deeper into the pool, his movements methodical and unhurried. When the cool water finally reached his chest, he stopped, standing perfectly still in the middle of the deep end like an anchor.
You floated over until your head nudged against his ribs. You opened your eyes, squinting against the harsh glare of the midday sun. Up close, you could see the tension still lingering around Andrew’s eyes—that permanent, hyper-alert tightness that never really left him, even when the rest of the family was miles away. His dark hair was slicked back, wet from the splash of his entry, and his gaze was fixed down on you with that intense, unblinking focus that used to intimidate people on a job. To you, it was just Andrew.
"You're like a rock," you teased, reaching out to plant a hand on his shoulder, deliberately giving him a firm shove.
He didn't budge. A tiny, almost imperceptible twitch of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, his large hand coming up to wrap around your wrist. He didn't squeeze, but the weight of his grip was a grounding promise. "You're gonna drown if you don't look where you're floating."
"Then save me," you laughed, pulling your wrist free and splashing a sudden, sharp wave of water directly into his chest.
Andrew blinked, wiping the droplets from his face with a slow, deliberate swipe of his forearm. The quietness in his eyes shifted, a rare, playful glint breaking through the static. Before you could swim backward, his hands shot out, catching you around the waist. With a sudden burst of effortless strength, he dunked you under.
The cool blue enveloped you for a second before you broke the surface, coughing and shaking the hair out of your eyes. Andrew was standing there, a rare, genuine chuckle vibrating in his chest. You lunged forward, wrapping your arms around his neck and dragging him down with you, the two of you wrestling in the water in a chaotic mess of tangled limbs and muffled laughter. It was a side of him the rest of the world never got to see—the side that didn't have to carry the weight of Smurf's expectations or the crew's paranoia.
Eventually, the roughhousing slowed down, settling into a comfortable, quiet rhythm. You leaned back against the pool wall, resting your elbows on the coping, while Andrew stood close enough that your knees brushed underwater. His thumb traced a slow, repetitive circle over the skin of your hip, just beneath the waistband of your soaked briefs.
"Thirsty," Andrew muttered after a long, peaceful silence. His voice had dropped back into that low, gravelly register. "Smurf made sweet tea before she left. Left a pitcher in the fridge."
"Go grab it," you said, tilting your head back against the concrete. "Bring two glasses. I'm parched."
He gave your hip one last, lingering squeeze before turning and wading toward the steps. You watched his broad, heavily freckled back as he climbed out, the water streaming off his dark trunks and pooling on the hot concrete deck. He disappeared through the sliding glass door, leaving the backyard in total, sun-drenched silence.
The second the door clicked shut, you looked down at your heavy, water-logged boxer briefs. They were sticking to you uncomfortably, trapping the moisture. Remembering your earlier thought about skinny dipping, you smirked. There was no one around for miles, and Smurf wouldn't be back for hours.
You kicked your legs, floating just enough to slide the wet fabric down your thighs. You stepped out of them completely, letting your bare feet sink into the smooth plaster of the shallow end. Standing up, the cool air hit your wet skin, a sudden, freeing contrast to the heat. You gathered the dripping, heavy boxer briefs into a tight, soaked ball in your right hand, waiting.
A moment later, the sliding door rumbled open. Andrew stepped out, carefully balancing two sweating glasses of iced tea.
He stopped the moment his eyes found you standing entirely bare in the shallow end, the water only coming up to your hips. His gaze darkened, tracking the water droplets rolling down your chest and stomach, his expression shifting from calm to completely transfixed.
"Andrew," you called out, a wicked grin spreading across your face.
Before he could even take a step forward, you whipped your arm back and launched the soaked, heavy bundle of boxer briefs straight across the patio.
Smack.
The wet fabric landed with a perfectly loud, squelching slap right against the center of his bare chest.
Andrew didn't flinch. He didn't even drop the glasses. He just stood there, looking down at the dripping briefs stuck to his sternum, and then looked back up at you through his eyelashes, his dark eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that made the California heat feel completely irrelevant.
Andrew didn’t blink. He just stood there for a long beat, the soaked, heavy fabric of your briefs still plastered to his ribs like a wet leaf. Slowly, deliberately, he walked over to the small glass table next to the lounge chair, his gaze never breaking from yours as he set the two sweating glasses of iced tea down. He didn't spill a drop.
Once his hands were free, he reached up, peeled the dripping bundle off his chest, and let it drop to the concrete with a heavy, wet thud.
Then, his fingers hooked into the waistband of his own swim trunks. He didn't hesitate, sliding them down his thighs and kicking them away until he was just as bare as you were. Standing there in the blazing afternoon sun, his body was all lean muscle, pale skin, and dark freckles, completely unbothered by his own nudity.
You bit your lip, a breathless chuckle bubbling up in your throat at the sheer, unblinking gravity of his expression. He looked like a predator mapping out a route.
When he took his first heavy step back toward the pool, his eyes locked onto yours, you instinctively took a step back, your bare heels sliding against the smooth plaster of the shallow end.
"Don't," you laughed, raising your hands in a mock surrender as the water lapped at your hips. "Andrew, don't you dare."
He didn't slow down. He descended the pool steps with a quiet, lethal sort of purpose, the water rising up his shins, his knees, his thighs, until he was fully submerged back into the cool blue.
"You started it," he murmured. His voice was low, a rough, quiet rumble that carried clearly across the water. It wasn't loud, but it had that immovable Cody weight to it.
"I was clearing the air," you teased, backing up another step into the deeper water, the pool rising to your chest. "It was a tactical decision."
"Yeah?" Andrew kept coming, his broad shoulders cutting through the water with terrifying ease. He didn't look angry; he looked entirely consumed, that hyper-fixated focus of his narrowed down to a laser point, completely locked on you. "Bad tactics."
You went to swim backward, but you weren't fast enough. Andrew closed the distance in two long strokes, his large, wet hands breaking through the surface to lock firmly around your waist. His grip was absolute, his fingers digging into your hips as he hauled you against his bare chest. The sudden, full-body friction of skin against skin underwater sent a jolt clean down your spine.
You gasped, your hands flying up to grip his wet shoulders for balance as he pinned you back against the smooth concrete wall of the pool.
"Caught you," he whispered, his face inches from yours. His breath was warm against your damp skin, his dark eyes searching yours with an intensity that made the cool water around you feel like it was starting to boil.
The full-body collision of skin against skin underwater instantly shattered any lingering quiet. You barked out a laugh, your hands slipping from his slick shoulders down to his ribs, trying to find leverage against the concrete wall. Andrew didn't budge an inch, his heavy frame holding you pinned, a faint, dangerous spark in his dark eyes that told you he was entirely invested now.
"Oh, you think you've got me?" you wheezed, tilting your head back.
"I know I do," Andrew murmured, his grip tightening just a fraction around your waist, his thumbs pressing into your hips.
You didn't give him time to gloat. Shifting your weight, you planted your bare feet firmly against the smooth pool wall and shoved off with everything you had. The sudden leverage caught him off guard. You threw your entire upper body weight forward, wrapping your arms tightly around his neck and bringing both of you crashing down into the deep end.
The water swallowed you whole in a chaotic explosion of white foam and bubbles. Underneath the surface, it was a lawless scramble of tangled limbs. You twisted your torso, using the momentum of the dive to plant a hand on Andrew's shoulder and literally body-slam him deeper into the cool blue, forcing his back toward the plaster bottom.
For a second, you actually had the upper hand. But Andrew was pure, dense muscle, and his stamina was terrifying.
Before you could pull away to break the surface, his hands found your thighs. With a sudden, explosive burst of strength, he stood straight up through the water. He didn't just push you off; he lifted you completely out of the pool, your bare torso cutting through the humid air as he hoisted you over his shoulder like a sack of concrete.
"Andrew! Wait—" you gasped, spitting out a mouthful of pool water, but it was too late.
With a low grunt, he slammed you right back down. You hit the surface chest-first with a spectacular, echoing splash, sinking like a stone before scrambling back up to breathe, shaking the wet hair out of your eyes and coughing through your laughter.
"Dirt bag," you choked out, wiping your face.
Andrew was already moving toward you again, the water parting around his chest. He had that rare, unhinged grin on his face—the one that made him look ten years younger, completely stripped of the heavy paranoia he usually carried like armor. "You want some more?"
"Come here," you challenged, lunging forward before he could set his stance.
This time, you managed to slip behind him, wrapping your arm tightly under his chin and locking him into a textbook headlock. Andrew laughed—a rough, barking sound—and reached back to grab your wrists, trying to peel your fingers away while you squeezed with everything you had, both of you sloshing wildly against the shallow end steps.
"Yield," you demanded, grinning against the wet skin of his shoulder. "Say it."
"No."
A sharp, deliberate throat-clear cut through the heavy splashing.
The sound was like a bucket of ice water. Instantly, both of you froze. You didn't drop the headlock right away, but your head snapped toward the patio doors.
Smurf was standing on the deck, leaning casually against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest. Neither of you had heard her car pull up, let alone the sliding door opening. In fact, looking past her into the house, you realized with a jolt that the glaring afternoon sun had completely vanished. The sky overhead was a deep, bruised violet, and the underwater pool lights had automatically flicked on, casting a glowing turquoise hue across your bare skin. You’d been messing around for hours.
Smurf’s gaze drifted from the wet clothes scattered across the concrete, to the two sweating glasses of tea, and finally to the two of you tangled up naked in the shallow end. Her expression didn't change; she just held that knowing, matriarchal smile that always made it impossible to tell exactly what she was thinking.
"I'm going to start dinner before the rest of the boys get back," she said, her voice smooth and entirely unbothered. She tilted her head toward the house, her eyes locking onto you with that quiet authority. "Clean up out here and come help me?"
It wasn't really a question. She offered one last, easy smile before turning on her heel and slipping back into the air-conditioned kitchen, the glass door sliding shut behind her.
The backyard fell dead silent again, save for the gentle lapping of the water against the tile.
Slowly, your arm slid off Andrew's neck. He turned around in the water, his dark eyes wide as he looked at you, and for a long, tense second, the sheer absurdity of the moment hung in the air. Then, a breathless huff escaped your lips. Andrew let out a quiet, gravelly chuckle, and within seconds, the two of you were leaning against each other, laughing quietly into the dusk so Smurf wouldn't hear you from the kitchen.
Summary: After a possible career ending injury, Frank's reluctant to get back in the ring with you, even if it's just to spar.
CW: MMA au - UFC au - Sparring - Brief mention of injury - MMA fighter Frank - UFC fighter Frank- Ex MMA fighter reader - Ex UFC fighter reader - Established relationship - Fluff - Slight angst
Words: 3.4k
A/N: Well I am back, and with a Frank Castle AU. I wasn't sure exactly where I was going with this but ended up deciding to go this route which I think worked out better. If this does well, maybe I'll do similar aus with other characters not hundred percent sure. I don't know crap about MMA/UFC, I've watched UFC before but not enough to understand a lot. Last thing is, uh again the warning below is just for preference, if you are fem and decided to read all I'm asking is to be respectful.
FEMALES DNI
The distant, rhythmic thud of leather hitting a heavy bag echoed in the cavernous space, vibrating inside Frank’s skull. It was a sound that used to anchor him. The violence of a fist connecting with meat, the hollow slap of a body hitting the canvas, the metallic rattle of the chain-link cage—it was the only music he’d ever cared for. Now, it just felt like a countdown to a memory he couldn't outrun.
It had been eighteen months since that night, and the guilt still tasted like copper in the back of his throat.
Logic told him it shouldn't bother him. Frank wasn't the one who’d heard his own vertebrae snap under the weight of a botched takedown. He wasn't the one who’d spent three months staring at a hospital ceiling with his jaw wired shut while a surgeon explained that his career had ended before his prime. But logic didn't account for the fact that it was you in that cage. It didn't account for the way his heart had flatlined when the referee—distracted and slow on the draw—let the extra four seconds of a dirty ground-and-pound go on far too long.
The worst part wasn't the injury itself. It was the aftermath. It was the fact that Frank’s career kept climbing, the wins piling up like a mountain, while you were relegated to a cramped apartment, watching his highlights on a flickering TV screen.
Frank shook his head, a sharp, jagged movement to clear the ghosts. He rubbed a calloused hand over his face, the stubble rasping against his palm, and stepped deeper into the dim light of the neighborhood gym.
You were standing by the weight benches, back turned to the door. Even from across the room, the sight of you hit him like a liver shot. Your posture was different now—stiffer, more guarded. The surgical scar ran like a jagged lightning bolt down the center of your spine, a permanent map of the night the lights went out.
“Took you long enough,” you said, your voice a little raspier than it used to be. You moved slowly, a careful hinge at the hips as you reached for a water bottle in your gear bag. “Starting to think you finally realized I’m a bad influence and stood me up.”
Frank didn’t say a word until he was right behind you. He didn't want to startle you, but he needed the contact like he needed air. He stepped into your space, his large, scarred hands settling gently—almost tentatively—around your waist. He pulled you back against his chest, feeling the heat of you through his shirt.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he grunted, the words low and gravelly against the skin of your neck. He pressed a slow, lingering kiss to the hollow there, his eyes closing as he just let himself breathe you in. “Not in this lifetime.”
You reached down, covering his rough, taped knuckles with your own hand. A small, private smile tugged at your lips as you felt the familiar heat of him. Frank didn’t just let go; he shifted, his nose grazing the ridge of your shoulder blade before he pressed a deliberate, lingering kiss directly over the raised tissue of your scar. It was a ritual now—an apology he never stopped offering, and a mark of ownership he refused to relinquish.
The sharp, salty tang of sweat clung to your skin, a dead giveaway.
“Been here a while?” Frank asked, finally pulling back. He didn't wait for an answer, already moving to drop his duffel with a heavy thud next to yours. He caught the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head in one fluid motion, muscles rippling under skin mapped with his own history of violence. He looked you over, his dark eyes narrowing as he took in the dampness of your hair. “You said you’d wait for me. You’re gonna overwork that back before we even start.”
“I got restless, Frank,” you countered, turning to face him. You leaned back against the weight rack, crossing your arms. “Sitting around the apartment is worse for it than the gym is. You know that.”
Frank let out a low grunt, one that was halfway between a disagreement and an acknowledgment. He stepped closer, the smirk finally tugging at the corner of his mouth—that rare, lopsided Frank Castle look that he only ever saved for you.
“Is that right?” He stepped into your space, his presence looming and solid. “Maybe you just need a better reason to stay home. You sure you don’t want to pack it in? Go back, soak in a hot bath?” He paused, his voice dropping an octave, gravelly and suggestive. “I’m sure I could find a way to help you relax.”
You rolled your eyes, though the heat in your chest had nothing to do with the gym’s lack of AC. “Real subtle, Castle.”
He chuckled, a low vibration in his chest. By now, the gym had emptied out. The rhythmic snap-snap-snap of some amateur kid working a heavy bag in the corner was the only other sound, but even that was fading as the owner started dimming the overhead lights. This was the routine: the world ended at the gym doors, leaving just the two of you in the shadows of the mats, just like it had been when you were both rising stars.
You shrugged, your gaze drifting over the familiar lines of his face—the broken nose, the scars, the fierce protection in his eyes. “Maybe once we’re done here,” you said, your voice softening as you reached out to snag the waistband of his gym shorts, pulling him just an inch closer. “But I’m hoping you’ll join me. I don't think I can reach the spots that actually ache.”
Frank’s expression shifted, the playfulness dying down into something much more raw. He reached up, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw with a tenderness that would have shocked anyone who’d ever seen him in a ring.
“Yeah,” he rasped, his forehead dropping to rest against yours. “I’ll join you. But first, let's see what you’ve got left in the tank. Don't go easy on me just 'cause I'm the one still on the payroll.”
Frank paced a small circle on the mat, his movements methodical and heavy. He was staying outside your reach—way outside—dancing a perimeter that felt more like a chore than a warm-up.
Usually, sparring with Frank was like being trapped in a cage with a hurricane. He was a pressure fighter; he liked to get inside, use his weight, and make you feel every ounce of his strength. But tonight, he was a ghost.
You lunged, throwing a jab-cross combo that was meant to test his guard. Instead of parrying and digging a hook into your ribs like he used to, Frank just stepped back. He slipped the second punch with a foot of clearance to spare, his hands held high and tight, his eyes tracking your every twitch with a frantic sort of focus.
“Come on, Frank,” you grunted, resetting your stance. “I’ve seen heavy bags with more aggression than you’re showing right now.”
“Just finding my rhythm, baby,” Frank rasped, his breath hitching as he circled left. “Testing the air. Seeing how you’re moving.”
You didn't buy it. You feinted a low kick—just a twitch of the hip—and Frank practically leapt backward, his brow furrowed in a sharp line of concern. He wasn't looking for an opening; he was looking for a way to make sure you didn't break.
“Bullshit,” you snapped, dropping your hands to your sides. The sudden stillness made him stop in his tracks. “You’ve been ‘testing the air’ for ten minutes. You’re dodging hits you’d normally counter in your sleep. You’re keeping enough distance for a third person to stand between us.”
Frank adjusted his stance, his shoulders bunching. “I told you. I’m warming up. Don't want to catch you with something stupid before you’re loose.”
“You’re being soft, Castle,” you said, the words sharp and intentional. You stepped into the pocket, forcing him to either engage or retreat again. “You’re scared. You think if you put a hand on me, I’m gonna shatter like glass.”
Frank’s jaw tightened, the muscle jumping in his cheek. That hit home. He hated being called scared, but he hated the idea of hurting you more. “I’m being careful. There’s a difference.”
“Not in this gym there isn’t,” you countered. You moved in again, faster this time, snapping a leg kick that actually connected with his thigh. It wasn't hard, but it was enough to sting. “I’m not a patient in a ward anymore, Frank. I’m your partner. I’m a fighter. So stop treating me like a ghost and actually spar with me.”
Frank went still, his dark eyes searching yours. He was breathing hard, not from the exertion, but from the internal war he was losing. He looked at your spine, then back to your eyes, his hands trembling just a fraction.
“I can’t,” he admitted, his voice dropping into that raw, guttural growl. “I see you move a certain way, hear a certain sound...and I’m back in that arena. I’m watching you go down again.”
“Then watch me stay up,” you challenged, stepping into his space until your chest was inches from his. You took his hand—the one wrapped in tape and scarred from a dozen wars—and pressed it against your side. “I’m right here. I’m solid. You want to help me? Then help me remember what it feels like to be in a real fight. Don't let that guy in the arena take this away from us, too.”
Frank stared at his hand against your ribs, his fingers curling slightly. He let out a long, shaky exhale, the tension slowly bleeding out of his frame and being replaced by a focused, familiar heat.
“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?” he muttered, though the smirk was finally beginning to return.
“So you’ve told me,” you grinned, snapping your guard back up. “Now, quit being a coward and hit me.”
Frank grunted, a low, dangerous sound. He shifted his weight, his center of gravity dropping as he finally stepped into the pocket. “Alright. But don’t come crying to me when you’re sore tomorrow.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” you laughed, just as Frank exploded forward, finally fighting like the man you knew.
The sparring was a dance of calculated restraint. You could feel the dormant power in his shoulders every time he checked a kick or parried a strike; he was moving at sixty percent, his strikes landing with a controlled thud rather than a bone-deep crack. Even so, he was working you. He kept the pace high, forcing you to pivot, to breathe through the burn in your lungs, and to trust your body again.
But every time you threw a heavy hook that left your ribs exposed, Frank would pause for a fraction of a second—just long enough for you to recover.
"Still pulling punches, Castle," you huffed, ducking under a slow-rolling cross.
"Keeping you honest," he grunted back.
He waited for you to overextend on a lead leg kick, and then he struck. With a burst of speed that reminded you exactly who he was, Frank stepped inside your guard, wrapped his arms around your waist, and used his momentum to drive you backward. The chain-link fence of the practice cage caught you, the metal groaning under the combined weight of your bodies.
He didn't take you to the mat. Instead, he spun you around with practiced ease, pinning your chest against the cold, galvanized steel.
Frank pressed himself flush against your back, his heavy weight anchoring you there. He reached around, his large hands engulfing yours and pinning them against the mesh of the cage above your head. You were trapped between the fence and the sheer heat of him. You felt his chest heaving against your spine, his breath hot and ragged against the sensitive skin of your ear.
He didn't pull away. Instead, he leaned in, his nose brushing against the side of your neck, inhaling the scent of salt and exertion.
"You know," he started, his voice dropping into a low, vibrating rumble that you felt deep in your bones. "I forgot how good you look from this angle. Pinned up against the wire...maybe I should’ve kept you in the clinch more often."
He let out a short, dark chuckle, his lips grazing your skin. He was teasing you, trying to lighten the heavy air that had hung over the gym all evening, but there was a raw edge of hunger in his voice that he couldn't quite mask.
You felt the familiar spark of defiance—the one that had made you a contender in the first place. You didn't struggle; you waited. You felt the slight looseness in his grip, the way he’d relaxed just enough because he thought he had you.
In one fluid motion, you dropped your weight, twisting your wrists inside his hold. You used the cage for leverage, shoving off the wire and spinning into his space before he could reset his feet. Frank stumbled back a step, surprised, and you didn't give him an inch. You hooked his lead leg and shoved, using his own momentum to send him back against the fence.
You slammed your forearm against his chest, pinning him where you had just been. You leaned in close, your face inches from his, a triumphant hum vibrating in your throat.
"I don't know, Frank," you whispered, your eyes locking onto his dark, blown-out pupils. You felt the rough texture of the cage behind him and the frantic beat of his heart under your arm. "I think I like this view a whole lot better."
Frank stared at you for a beat, stunned into silence. Then, a slow, genuine grin spread across his face—the kind of grin that showed teeth.
"Yeah?" he rasped, his hands coming up to rest on your hips, no longer hesitant. "You’re gettin' cocky again. I like that.”
He didn't stay pinned for long. Frank moved with that deceptive, predatory speed he was famous for, slipping your forearm and diving for a double-leg takedown. He was careful—always careful—guiding your descent so your back hit the thick foam of the center mat with a dull thump rather than a bone-jarring crash. He followed you down, settling into a heavy side-control before transitioning into a full mount.
He didn't strike. He just stayed there, his weight a solid, grounding presence on top of you. His large hands pinned your wrists beside your head, but his grip was loose, almost a caress. He was looking down at you, his dark eyes searching your face with an intensity that felt like it was peeling back your skin. The sweat dripped from the tip of his nose onto your cheek, but neither of you moved to wipe it away.
For a long minute, the silence was absolute. Frank’s chest rose and fell against yours, his expression clouded with a question he’d clearly been chewing on all day.
"Doctor say anything new?" he finally rasped, his voice barely a whisper in the empty gym. "About...you know. Returning. Getting back in the rotation anytime soon?"
The question felt like a physical weight, heavier than Frank’s body. He knew the answer was a sore spot. He’d seen the way you flinched whenever an MMA blog posted a "Where Are They Now?" retrospective, or when commentators spoke about your career in the past tense, like you were a ghost haunting your own highlight reels. He knew the walls of that shitty apartment felt like they were closing in on you every time he left for a fight.
You shifted beneath him, the movement stiff, your eyes drifting toward the darkened ceiling. You let out a long, jagged sigh that seemed to drain the last of the adrenaline from your limbs.
"It’s hit or miss, Frank," you admitted, shaking your head slowly against the mat. "One day the specialist says the nerve ending is looking 'promising,' and the next he’s talking about 'long-term mobility management.' It’s a coin toss if I’ll ever be cleared for a sanctioned walk-out again."
Frank’s jaw tightened, his thumbs tracing small circles over your wrists. You could see the guilt rising in him again—the "why you and not me" that stayed shadowed in his gaze.
You reached up, breaking one hand free to cup the back of his neck, pulling him down just a fraction so he had to look at you. "Hey. Look at me."
His eyes locked onto yours, raw and pained.
"Even if the answer is never," you said, your voice firm despite the ache in your chest, "I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be in your corner. I’ll still be the one screaming the loudest when you're under the lights. I’m cheering you on until the wheels fall off, Castle. You’re stuck with me."
Frank closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against yours. He took a shaky breath, the tension in his shoulders finally snapping as he let himself just be there with you, grounded by the promise.
The adrenaline of the spar had cooled, leaving behind a dull, familiar ache in your lower back and the heavy, grounding presence of Frank by your side. The gym was silent now, the lights dimmed to a low, amber glow that caught the sharp angles of Frank’s face as he watched you move.
He stood by the bench, his own bag already zipped, but he wasn’t in a hurry. He was just...observing. His gaze followed the line of your shoulders as you reached for your discarded t-shirt. You felt his eyes track the movement of the fabric as it slid over your skin, momentarily concealing the jagged line of the scar he’d kissed only an hour before.
Frank had a way of looking at you that made you feel like the only solid thing in a world made of smoke. It wasn't just desire; it was a quiet, fierce brand of devotion that he didn't have words for.
You reached down, gathering your hand wraps and your bottle, stuffing them into your duffel bag with a tired precision. When you finally zipped the bag shut and looked up, he was still there, leaning against a weight rack with his arms crossed, his dark eyes unblinking.
You couldn't help the small smile that tugged at your mouth. "You gonna keep staring, Castle, or are we actually leaving?"
Frank didn't move, though a shadow of that lopsided smirk touched his lips. "Just taking it in," he rasped, his voice sounding deeper in the stillness of the gym. "Making sure you're still in one piece."
You straightened up, slinging the heavy strap of your bag over your shoulder. The weight made you wince—just a flicker of a shadow across your face—and Frank was off the rack in a second, his hand reaching out as if to catch you, before he forced himself to go still.
"Hey," you said softly, reassuring him. You stepped into his space, tilting your head. "That bath...is it still on the table? Or were you just talking big to get me off the mats?"
Frank’s expression softened, the intensity in his eyes shifting into something warmer, more intimate. He reached out, his thumb brushing a smudge of gym grime from your cheekbone. "Always on the table. Hot water, some of those salts the doc recommended. I’ll even handle the heavy lifting."
You laughed, the sound echoing lightly against the high ceiling. "I think I can manage to sit in a tub by myself, Frank."
"Didn't say you had to do it by yourself," he countered, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.
You hummed, the sound vibrating in your throat as you reached up. You grabbed the lapels of his jacket, pulling him down toward you. Frank met you halfway, his large hands coming up to cradle your face with a tenderness that always felt like a secret he was sharing only with you.
You leaned up on your toes, pressing a lingering, salt-tinged kiss to his lips. It wasn't a quick goodbye; it was a promise. He tasted like grit and determination, and when he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours for a long, quiet breath.
"Come on," he muttered, finally taking the bag from your shoulder despite your mock protest. "Let’s get you home.”
Pain, Without Love - Benjamin 'Dex' Poindexter 'Bullseye' x Male Reader
Summary: He needed you to be afraid. If you were afraid, the world made sense. If you were afraid, he was just Benjamin Poindexter, Bullseye. But if you weren't...then he had to face the possibility that he was still a man. And that was a far more terrifying thought.
CW: No use of Y/N - Angst - Hard To Love trope - Hurt/Comfort - Mentions of injury - Breif mention of blood - Mentions of childhood abuse - Strangers to ? - Not explicitly romantic - Older reader (30s) - Softer reader
Words: 3.3k
A/N: I did give a really good mutual of mine a look at the first half of this, because they actually are a big reason I'm writing for Dex and their feedback was very helpful and motivational. I really think he fits the "hard to love" trope pretty well, especially when given his loose origins and Wilson's portrayal of Dex. All in all I had a good time writing this, teared up a little bit but it was totally worth the finished and edited version. Last thing, if you understand the title reference smooches all around.
FEMALES DNI
Benjamin Poindexter was an equation that had never quite balanced. He was a collection of sharp edges and cold precision, a man who had never been likable, let alone lovable. To truly know Dex was to look into a mirror and see only the cracks. Perhaps the fault lived in his marrow, inherited from a mother whose touch was a strike and a father whose presence was a threat. He had spent his childhood learning the geography of his own pain—calculating the velocity of a swinging belt, the trajectory of a glass bottle, the weight of a silence that promised a storm.
He had become a master of the bruise. He’d gotten so used to the heat of a blooming welt and the dull throb of a cracked rib that he had eventually mistaken the agony for a form of intimacy.
Was I born this hard to love? The thought was a jagged glass shard in his mind. Was I so fundamentally broken that people had to use violence just to make me feel something?
He could still see his mother’s face—not soft with maternal warmth, but tightened with a disgust that made his chest ache. He remembered his father, the smell of cheap whiskey clinging to him like a shroud, raising that half-empty bottle. Benjamin had learned to go numb. He had turned himself into a stone, cold and unmoving, because stones don't cry when they’re kicked. Not by his mom. Not by his dad. Only Nate—dead, distant Nate—had ever held a piece of his heart that wasn't scarred over.
Violence was the only intimacy Dex understood. If you weren't hurting him, you weren't really there.
The sun had long since abandoned Hell’s Kitchen, leaving the skyline to rot in a bruised purple twilight. As the shadows stretched over the grime of the city, it felt as though the world had finally balanced its books, demanding payment in blood. Dex lay there, the cold pavement leaching the last of his warmth, yet he could still feel the phantom sensation of the bullet—a white-hot needle stitching him to the earth. Pain was his only honest lover. It was the only thing that had never lied to him, never left him, and never demanded he be good to earn it. It was a constant, a fixed point in a chaotic world.
He expected the end to be a quiet calculation. He expected to draw his final, rattling breaths and see Nate waiting for him in the static—Nate, with a hand outstretched to take him somewhere where the lines were straight and the pain couldn’t find a purchase.
Instead, the void tasted of lavender.
The transition was jarring. The sharp scent of ozone and city trash was replaced by something cloying and floral, and the biting wind was traded for the gentle, rhythmic press of cold hands against his feverish skin. He tried to flinch, his muscles coiling like rusted springs, but the surface beneath him was foreign. It wasn't the sterile, lonely precision of his apartment’s mattress. It was soft, plush, and smelled of old laundry detergent and life—worn and lived-in, comforting in a way that made his throat ache with a sudden, violent thirst.
Then came the voice. It wasn't a bark or a command; it was soft, leveled, and careful. It was the kind of voice one used for a wounded animal or a ticking clock—as if speaking too loudly might cause him to shatter into a thousand unfixable pieces.
As his vision swam, your face came into focus. You were a blur of soft edges, your expression tightened with a worried intensity that Dex didn't know how to process. He wanted to look away; the kindness in your eyes felt like a physical weight, an intrusion. He could almost mistake you for his mother, but the memory of her was a sharp blade, and your touch was something else entirely. You moved with a deliberate, quiet rhythm, your hands approaching him slowly, telegraphing every move as if you understood the electricity humming under his skin—the way he was constantly braced for a blow that hadn't come yet.
With a gentleness that felt like a mockery of his own hardness, you propped his head up on plush pillows. Dex watched through hooded, glassy eyes as you began to strip him of his gear. You handled the suit—the armor he used to hide his humanity—with such strange reverence, setting it onto an old wooden coffee table as if it were made of glass.
When the soft weight of a blanket settled against his bare legs, Dex felt a sob catch in his bruised ribs, trapped behind a wall of stone. You turned him onto his side, your movements methodical and sure, and he heard the hitch in your breath that mirrored the frantic beating of his own heart. You weren't afraid of the monster; you were afraid for the man.
Was I born this hard to love? The thought was a jagged shard of glass, twisting in his mind. Was I so fundamentally broken that I had to be gutted, bleeding and hollowed out, before someone would touch me without a weapon in their hand?
You could feel the way he tracked you, his fingers twitching at his side with every movement you made. He looked at you like you were a puzzle he couldn't solve, his body reacting to your care as if it were a new kind of agony. Through and through, the bullet had gone—a clean enough hole in the flesh. But as you looked down at the man who had turned himself into a weapon just to survive, you wondered how you were supposed to fix a soul that had been taught that love was just another word for impact.
Why?
The word was a jagged stone caught in his throat, sharp enough to draw blood. Why? Why were you treating him like he mattered? Why were you so calm, your hands steady on a mutt that had spent its entire life bared-teeth and ready to snap? Why save a thing that was designed only to break other things?
He wanted to scream it, to demand a reason for this unearned grace, but his lungs felt like they were filled with wet sand. All that surfaced was a choked, broken sob. The sound was pathetic to his own ears—a wet, heaving noise that signaled the final collapse of his defenses. Tears finally broke, hot and stinging, carving clean tracks through the dried blood and gunpowder caked on his cheeks.
You didn't flinch at his grief. You didn't look away in embarrassment or disgust. Instead, you leaned into his space, your eyes searching his with an intensity he’d never had the privilege of seeing. There was no fear there, no calculation—only a deep, quiet recognition.
Your hand reached up, your fingertips barely grazing the scar on his cheek. The contact was so light it was almost a ghost of a touch, yet against his feverish skin, it felt like a brand. Dex’s breath hitched, his eyes wide and roaming your face, memorizing the way your brow furrowed not in anger, but in a frantic sort of care.
When you began to pull away, the world tilted. You turned toward the corner of the loft, toward a figure shrouded in the deep shadows—someone Dex hadn't even noticed in his delirium.
No.
His hand, heavy as lead and trembling with a fine, desperate palsy, reached out for you. His fingers caught the air, grasping at the space you had just occupied. God, don’t go, he thought, the silent plea screaming behind his teeth. Please, for once, don’t let the shadows take something from me.
You must have felt the shift in the air, the sheer magnetic pull of his panic, because you were back in an instant. You leaned over him again, becoming his entire horizon. Up close, you were unbelievable—soft in a way that shouldn't exist in a place as jagged as Hell’s Kitchen. Your eyes were the kindest things he had ever been allowed to look at.
"You're going to be okay," you whispered.
The words weren't a hollow promise; they were a directive, spoken with the quiet authority of someone who knew how to survive a storm. You reached out, brushing the sweat-slicked hair from his forehead with a slow, deliberate sweep of your hand. Then, your thumb found the pulse point on his wrist.
Dex watched, fascinated and terrified, as your fingertip began to trace a pattern on his skin. A star. One point, two, three—the lines were crisp and intentional, the center resting right over the prominent vein where his heart hammered against his skin. You were mapping him, grounding his soaring heart rate with a physical rhythm he could understand.
Dex barely heard the sound of a door closing in the distance, or the muffled scrape of furniture being moved in another room. His senses were narrowing, tunneling down until there was only the pressure of your finger on his wrist and the overwhelming, cloying scent of lavender.
It wasn't the room that smelled of it. It was you.
You smelled of safety. You smelled of the one thing Dex had never been able to calculate, the one variable that refused to fit into his equation: peace. As his vision finally darkened, the last thing he felt wasn't the pain of the bullet, but the heavy, grounding weight of your hand holding his, refusing to let him drift away into the cold.
The fever was a cruel architect. It took the plush comfort of the pull-out couch and warped it, turning the soft cushions into the hard, linoleum floor of a kitchen that hadn't seen a kind word in decades.
In the dream, the air was thick, suffocating and sour. He was small again—his bones felt fragile, his skin too thin. He could smell her before he saw her; she reeked of cheap gin and a floral perfume so cloying it made his stomach turn. It was a scent that didn't promise peace like lavender did; it promised a storm.
"Look at me when I’m talking to you!"
Her voice wasn't soft. It was a jagged edge, a serrated blade sawing through the silence of the house. Dex stood there, paralyzed, a collection of sharp angles and silent terrors. He felt the first strike—a sharp, stinging heat that radiated across his jaw. He didn't fight back. He never did. He just stood in the geography of his own ruin, tracing the familiar trajectory of her rage.
"I wish you'd never been born!" she shrieked, her face contorted into a mask of disgust that burned deeper than the physical blows. "You’re an undeserving waste of space, Benjamin! A void! There’s nothing in you worth loving!"
As her hand rose for the final, finishing blow, the world fractured. The palm collided with his cheek, and the impact sent him spiraling out of the memory and back into the present with a violent, gasping jolt.
Dex’s eyes snapped open. His chest heaved, his lungs burning as if he’d been submerged in ice water. For a terrifying second, he was still there—still that small, broken boy. But as his vision cleared, he felt the heavy, rhythmic throb in his side. His hand flew to the wound, his fingers brushing not against bruised skin, but against the textured grit of medical gauze and the firm, professional tuck of a bandage.
The weight of the fever and the panic made his equilibrium snap. He tried to shift, to find the edges of the bed, but his coordination failed him. With a pained, muffled huff, Dex tumbled off the cushions. He hit the floor hard, his knees barking against the wood, his hands trembling as they braced his weight.
He stayed there on all fours, head hanging low, sweat dripping from the tip of his nose onto the floorboards. The loft was silent. The only light came from the small, amber glow of the stove lamp in the kitchen, casting long, skeletal shadows across the room.
He strained his ears, desperate for the sound of that even, calm voice. He sniffed the air, searching for the lavender that had anchored him earlier. Nothing. The air was still and sterile.
She was right, he thought, the nightmare bleeding into his reality. You saw the hole in me. You saw the bullet, and you saw the broken parts behind it, and you finally realized I wasn't worth the effort.
He felt a hollow, cold ache in his chest that was far worse than the bullet wound. He assumed you had done what everyone else did: you had stabilized the weapon, realized it was dangerous, and walked away before it could discharge. He was a stone again. And stones didn't need blankets. Stones didn't need to be touched.
He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool floor, waiting for the silence to swallow him whole.
Dex’s fingers were white-knuckled, tangled deep in the matted, dirty blonde strands of his hair. He gripped his own scalp as if trying to hold his skull together, his teeth gritting so hard his jaw ached. A sob hitched in his chest—a jagged, ugly thing he refused to let out—as he began to scramble. He was a man defined by his precision, but now he was a mess of clumsy limbs and desperation.
He crawled, dragging his leaden body toward the high bar counter that separated the kitchen from the living area. His fingernails scraped against the floorboards until his hand finally slapped onto the edge of the counter. With a low, guttural groan, he hauled himself up. He clung to the wood for balance, his breath coming in ragged, shallow bursts that clouded his vision.
As the room stopped spinning, his eyes began to track the space. It wasn't like his apartment. There were no empty, echoing halls. Instead, there were colorful post-it notes scattered across the fridge and pantry in a frantic, organized chaos—reminders of tasks, thoughts, or routines. His gaze drifted, finally landing on a small framed photo nestled next to a ceramic bowl.
It was you. You were younger, a chunky kid with a smile that was a little too wide for your face, radiating a type of uncomplicated joy Dex couldn’t fathom. A woman held you, her arms a protective circle. Even through the blur of his fever, the contrast was a physical blow. You had been held like you were precious. He had been held like he was a burden.
The soft snick of the front door closing was barely a whisper, too quiet to alert a man whose senses weren't currently drowned in a fever-dream.
You didn't say a word at first. You simply set two brown paper bags onto the coffee table, placing them beside the medical supplies you’d laid out earlier with surgical neatness. You kicked off your shoes, your movements fluid and silent, and walked toward the kitchen.
"It’s my mom," you said, your voice a low, steady hum in the quiet loft.
Dex flinched, his shoulders hiking toward his ears, but as the words settled, the tension began to leach out of him. He didn't turn around; he couldn't. He just stood there, braced against your counter, staring at the photo of a life he didn't understand.
"I went to get a few things," you continued, closing the distance between you. You didn't rush him. You stepped into his peripheral vision slowly, offering him every second to react, to strike, to be the monster the world said he was. "Come on, Benjamin. Let’s get you back where it’s comfortable."
You reached out. Your hand settled on his waist, your fingers splayed softly against the bare skin just above the bandage. Your other hand moved to his, gently uncurling his white-knuckled grip from the counter and sliding your palm against his.
It was an invitation, not a command. You gave him every chance to pull away, to shove you back, to let the "mutt" bite. His muscles twitched, a reflexive spark of violence flickering in his nerves, but it died out the moment he felt the heat of your skin. He didn't push. Instead, he let out a long, shuddering breath and leaned—just an inch, but it was everything—into your touch.
You had managed to guide him back to the edge of the bed, but he wouldn't lie down. He sat on the edge, his spine a rigid line of tension, his hands clutching the soft fabric of the duvet as if it were the only thing keeping him from falling into the earth.
"Aren't you scared?"
The question was barely a whisper, cracked and dry. Dex finally looked up, his eyes bloodshot and rimmed with a raw, agonizing vulnerability. "I could kill you. Right now. With anything in this room." His gaze flickered to the ceramic bowl, the coffee table, even the pens on your counter. His mind was a target computer that wouldn't shut off, even when he was dying. "Why are you doing this? Why aren't you running?"
He expected you to flinch. He expected the same look of cold terror he’d seen on the faces of his victims or the disgust he’d seen in his mother’s eyes. He expected you to realize the math didn't add up.
Instead, you just continued to kneel before him, your expression as steady as a heartbeat.
"Dex," you said, your voice low and grounding, "I’ve spent my whole life watching people try to beat the 'bad' out of things. I’ve seen how the world treats anything that doesn't fit the mold." You reached out, not to restrain him, but just to exist in his space. "Just because a dog is taught through violence...just because it’s been kicked until it learned to bite first...that doesn't mean it’s an inherently bad dog. It just means it hasn't had the right person to show it that it doesn't have to be on guard anymore."
Dex let out a harsh, jagged laugh that sounded more like a cough. "You can't fix me," he spat, the words laced with a self-loathing so deep it felt bottomless. "You’re talking about a monster. I’m a weapon. You can't fix something that’s designed to snap. Eventually, I’ll hurt you. It’s what I do. It’s the only thing I’m good at."
He waited for the blow. He waited for you to agree.
But you didn't pull away. You moved closer, your knees pressing against his shins, and you reached up to cup his face. Your palms were warm, a stark contrast to the icy chill of his fever-sweat. You looked at him—truly looked at the man behind the bullseye—with that same wide, kind smile from the photograph.
"I don't want to fix you, Benjamin," you whispered, your thumb tracing the line of his trembling lower lip. "You aren't a broken machine. You're a person who was never given a chance to grow toward the light. I’m not here to fix a monster. I’m here to mend the parts of you that were never allowed to heal."
It was the "Benjamin" that did it. Not "Dex," the soldier. Not "Poindexter," the asset. Just Benjamin.
The wall he had built out of cold precision and stone-hard apathy finally buckled. The "why" that had been stabbing at his insides finally twisted one last time and broke. A sob, deep and guttural, ripped from his throat—a sound of pure, unadulterated grief for the boy who had been kicked and the man who had been used.
He collapsed forward, his forehead dropping onto your shoulder, his fingers bunching into the fabric of your shirt. He was heavy, a dead weight of trauma and exhaustion, but for the first time in his life, he wasn't bracing for impact. He let his tears soak into your skin, his body shaking with the force of his cries.
For the first time since he was a child standing in that sour-smelling kitchen, Benjamin Poindexter let someone love him without the requirement of pain. He let the lavender drown out the gin, and for one fragile moment, the equation finally balanced.
Summary: Foggy's not in the office and Matt needs help going over a case. His best option just so happened to be Foggy's brother, the same one Matt has a crush on.
CW: Fluff - Established friendship - Mutual pinning - Lawyer reader - Post-op reader - Older reader (mid 30s) - Reader is Foggy's brother - Reader referred to as Nelson - Masculine trans male reader - Bottom reader - Top Matt - Cunnilingus - Riding - Protected sex - Light choking - Semi-public
Words: 7k
A/N: Can't believe I have to say this, but no females or minors interact with this! Just because I'm using more less specific anatomy doesn't mean the reader is fem! I personally don't have bottom surgery, so neither will reader!! Plus, there isn't enough fanfiction for FtM readers where they are actually viewed as men, so that's why I'm here! Yeah this, I don't even know it's cringy as fuck-
FEMALES DNI + MINORS DNI
Matt Murdock’s problem had a rhythm. It was a specific cadence of a heartbeat—one he’d first picked up in a cramped Columbia dorm room, tucked between the scent of Foggy’s cheap cologne and the stale air of law school textbooks.
Back then, you were a ghost. You were quieter, reserved, sunken so far into yourself that Matt sometimes had to strain to hear the blood moving through your veins. You were just another body in the sea of frantic, ambitious students, always hovering in the corner of the room like a secret. You only seemed to anchor yourself to the earth when Foggy was there to hold the line.
Matt would find you slumped on Foggy’s bed, the rustle of heavy pages the only sign of your presence. But there was always that subtle shift—the way your heart would skip a beat, then settle into a faster, more insistent thrum the moment Matt stepped through the door. He couldn't see the way you looked away, but he felt the heat of your gaze, a gravitational pull he couldn’t quite categorize.
It was Foggy who finally broke the seal one night, long after you’d retreated to your own room. The air in the dorm was heavy with the smell of old coffee and high-stakes anxiety.
“He’s trans,” Foggy muttered into the dark. He didn't sound defensive—just honest.
Matt, lying on his own twin bed, felt the word settle over him like a missing puzzle piece. It explained the guardedness, the way you seemed to be holding your breath for years at a time. “What?”
Foggy shifted, the springs of his mattress creaking. “My brother. He’s transgender. He told me it was okay if I told you.”
Matt nodded slowly, a small, thoughtful hum vibrating in his throat. He felt a strange surge of warmth—not pity, but a sudden, sharp clarity. “Is he handsome?” Matt teased, trying to keep his voice light even as his own heart gave a traitorous kick.
A notebook caught him square in the chest. “Wouldn't you like to know, Murdock,” Foggy scoffed, though the smile was evident in his voice. “Keep your hands off the merchandise.”
Knowing hadn’t made Matt less nervous; it had made him hyper-aware. He wasn’t just crushing on his best friend’s brother; he was falling for the quietest man in the room, terrified that his "senses" were overstepping boundaries he didn't yet understand.
Matt rubbed a hand down his face now, the present-day reality of Nelson and Murdock pressing in on him. The office was too quiet without Foggy’s frantic typing. The files under his fingers were a mess of complex litigation, and his brain was fried.
You weren't a ghost anymore. Over the last decade, you had bloomed. Foggy had described the changes to him over drinks—the way your jawline had sharpened, the newfound breadth of your shoulders, the way you finally smiled with your teeth. But Matt didn’t need eyes to know you were different. Your voice had dropped into a rich, resonant baritone that vibrated in Matt’s very marrow. You moved with a heavier, more confident gait. You sounded…solid. Whole.
His fingers brushed the Braille labels on his phone as he dialed. It rang three times—the third ring cutting off as you picked up.
“Matthew?” Your voice was thick with sleep, a low, grainy sound that made his stomach flip. “It’s nearly eleven. Please tell me you aren't still at the office.”
“I’m still at the office,” Matt admitted, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. He loved the way the syllables of his name sounded coming from you—the 'th' soft, the 'm' a lingering vibration. “I’m hitting a wall on the Dorsey filings. I…I was wondering if you’d be willing to give me a second pair of eyes? If you aren't too tired.”
He heard the tell-tale sounds of your life on the other end: the soft thump of your cat jumping off the duvet, the rustle of a discarded blanket, the sharp click of a lamp being switched on.
“You’re a menace, Murdock,” you sighed, but there was no bite in it. Just a warm, familiar affection that made the cold office feel a little smaller. “Fine. But I’m not putting on a suit and tie for some late-night call. You get me in a hoodie or you don't get me at all.”
Matt smiled, a genuine one that reached his eyes. “I think I can live with that. See you soon.”
The silence of the office wasn't truly silent; to Matt, it was a hum of flickering fluorescent lights and the distant, muffled roar of Hell’s Kitchen. But then, a new sound cut through the static.
He heard the heavy clack of the street-level door, followed by footsteps on the stairs. They were firm, purposeful—the gait of a man who knew exactly where he was going. Then came the soft thud of the office door closing and the familiar, melodic jingle of keys being dropped into a pocket.
Matt sat up straight, swiveling his chair toward the door. He didn't need to see you to know the exact moment you entered the room. Your heartbeat was a song he’d memorized over a decade ago. In college, it had been a frantic, staccato thing, hidden behind layers of uncertainty. Now, it was a steady, resonant bass line—confident, grounded, and unmistakably yours. It was the most comforting sound in the city.
"You look like you're drowning in paper, Matt," you said, your voice warm and slightly gravelly from the late hour.
Matt leaned back, a small, tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Only up to my chin. I figured if I went under, I should at least have good company."
He tracked your movement as you walked toward his desk. You set a paper cup down, the scent of dark roast and a hint of cinnamon swirling into his senses. Then, you reached down. Your fingers brushed his as you guided his hand to the cup—a lingering, grounding contact. He didn’t need the help—his spatial awareness was better than anyone’s—but he never pulled away. He lived in a world of ghosts and echoes; your touch was one of the few things that felt solid.
"Foggy actually left you alone in this mess?" you hummed, pulling out Foggy’s squeaky desk chair.
Matt took a grateful sip of the coffee, feeling the heat bloom in his chest. "He claimed he had a date. Something about a guy from the DA’s office, though I suspect he just wanted to avoid these filings." He paused, tilting his head slightly. "But it worked out. Now I have my favorite Nelson with me."
You chuckled, the sound vibrating low in your chest—a sound Matt felt more than he heard. "Right. Foggy on a date? I’ll believe that when he stops talking about work for more than five minutes."
You reached across the desk, your sleeve brushing against his arm as you gathered a stack of files. Matt heard the rustle of you rummaging through Foggy’s drawer, the click of a pen, and the cap being pulled off a highlighter.
"Am I really your favorite?" you asked. Your voice had dropped a fraction, the teasing edge giving way to something softer, more genuine.
Matt leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, moving into your space just enough to hear the slight hitch in your breathing. "Don't tell Foggy," he whispered, his tone conspiratorial and dangerously fond. "He’s got the heart, but you...you've got the brains. And better taste in coffee.”
The office settled into a heavy, comfortable rhythm. It was the language of two people who had spent a decade in each other’s orbits: the rhythmic click-clack of your pen, the dry rustle of paper, and the low, melodic vibration of Matt’s voice as he muttered legal jargon under his breath.
At one point, Matt slid a manila folder toward you. As you reached for it, your fingers grazed the back of his hand. The contact was brief, but to Matt, it felt like a lightning strike. He heard your heart skip—a sudden, sharp hitch in the beat—before it accelerated into a frantic, driving tempo. He didn’t say anything, but his head tilted just a fraction of a millimeter.
He caught the sound of your fingernails scratching against the coarse stubble on your jaw—a habit you’d picked up since the testosterone had thickened the hair there. It was a sound he’d grown to love; it meant you were focused, grounded, and entirely present.
Exhaustion finally started to win. Matt let out a long sigh, his shoulders dropping as he reached up to his throat. He caught the silk of his dark red tie, tugging it loose with a practiced flick of his wrist. His fingers moved to the top button of his shirt, undoing it to let the cool office air hit his skin.
The room went still. He could feel your gaze—not just a glance, but a heavy, lingering weight that tracked the movement of his hands. He felt the air shift as you licked your lips, the faint sound of your breath hitching.
"You were staring," Matt whispered. His voice was low, vibrating through the mahogany desk.
"No," you blurted out, the word coming out a little too fast, a little too defensive. You scrambled for an out, your mind racing. "How can you even tell? Maybe I was...staring at the man in the doorway?"
It was a terrible excuse. There was no one in the doorway; the hallway was a vacuum of silence.
Matt leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking under his weight. He crossed his arms over his chest, a gesture that pulled the fabric of his shirt tight across his shoulders. He didn't turn away; he looked directly in your general direction, his sightless eyes hidden behind his glasses, though you felt like he was seeing right through your skin.
"Uh-huh," he hummed, a playful, private sound. He was fighting back a laugh, the corners of his mouth twitching.
You waved a hand dismissively in the air—a useless gesture for a blind man, but a necessary one for your own sanity—and tried to bury your nose back in the Dorsey file. "What is it?" he pressed, his voice dropping an octave, becoming more intimate. "What were you looking at?"
How were you supposed to say it? How could you admit that you were transfixed by the dexterity of his fingers? That you were wondering if those same hands would be gentle or firm if they were wrapped around your waist—or your throat?
Matt’s head tilted further. His nostrils flared, taking in a sharp breath. The scent of the room had changed. The clean, soapy smell of your skin had been overtaken by the saltier, sharper tang of arousal and the spike of pheromones that came with a racing heart.
"You were looking at me," Matt said. It wasn’t a guess. It was a cold, hard fact delivered with the confidence of a man who could hear your blood rushing to your face.
"I.." You choked on the words, your throat feeling suddenly tight. "I’m sorry. I just...I got lost in thought."
It wasn't a lie. You were thinking. You were thinking about how the man across from you had been a constant in your life through every surgery, every transition, and every heartbreak—and how, right now, the only thing you wanted was to bridge the three feet of desk separating you.
Matt didn’t stop at loosening his collar. He ran a hand through his hair, mussing the perfectly groomed strands until they fell over his forehead, then fully unknotted his tie. He tossed the silk strip onto the pile of folders in front of you—a flag of surrender, or perhaps a challenge. He wanted your undivided attention, and he knew exactly how to get it.
He began rolling up his sleeves, the fabric bunching past his elbows to reveal the corded muscle of his forearms. He undid a second button, leaning back with his legs braced wide, claiming the space between you.
"And what if I said I think about you, too, Nelson?" he whispered. His hand reached up, fingers hooking around the temples of his tinted glasses. He pulled them off, setting them aside.
You swallowed hard, the sound loud in the quiet office. In your head, Matt Murdock didn’t think about men like you. He was a man of logic, law, and a very specific kind of Catholic guilt. He was supposed to think about the firm, or the latest beautiful witness, not a trans man who had spent years rebuilding himself into the masculine figure sitting across from him. You were convinced that having something with you would be a one-way ticket to his priest’s confession booth.
"I’d say you’re sleep-deprived," you managed, your voice a little raspy. "And that you’re probably mistaking me for someone else in the dark."
Your fingers twitched, brushing the silk of his discarded tie. You leaned back, your chair letting out a sharp, protesting creak that felt like an exclamation point to your nerves.
Matt let out a long, slow breath, his eyelids fluttering shut as he tilted his head. "I hear your heartbeat every time I’m near you," he whispered, his voice vibrating with a sudden, raw intensity. "I’ve heard it since the day we met in college. It’s a constant. A rhythm I’ve used to find my own way back to center."
His hand slid up his chest, his palm flattening over his heart. He began to tap a frantic, syncopated rhythm against his sternum—a mirror of the desperate pace your own heart was currently setting.
"How?" you whispered, your eyes glued to the movement of his hand. "How can you possibly hear that?"
A small, knowing smile played on his lips—the kind of smile that suggested he had a thousand secrets he was finally ready to share. "There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Nelson." He opened his eyes. Without the glasses, the intensity of his gaze was staggering. Even if he couldn't see you, those vivid, dark brown eyes seemed to anchor you to the spot.
"I like you," he said simply. The words weren't a question; they were a confession. "I thought it was obvious. I mean, even Foggy figured it out years ago."
You felt a flush creep up your neck. Foggy had always been the observant one. While you had been trying to shrink, to disappear into the background and draw as little attention as possible during your early transition, Foggy had been watching. He’d seen the way Matt’s head turned when you walked into a room; he’d seen the way Matt lingered on your voice.
"Foggy was always better with the emotional stuff than I was," you whispered, finally braving a look directly into his eyes. "I was just trying to survive. I didn't think...I didn't think someone like you would ever be looking at someone like me.”
Matt didn’t respond with words. Instead, he rose from his chair with a slow, deliberate grace. He navigated the few feet of space between your desks with his hands held slightly out—not because he was lost, but as an invitation, waiting for you to meet him halfway. He stopped when his legs brushed against your knees, a physical boundary that made the air in the small office feel suddenly scarce.
His hands found yours, his fingers long and warm as they curled around your palms. With a gentle, insistent tug, he pulled you to your feet until your bodies were mere inches apart. He was close enough that his breath hitched against your skin, carrying the faint, comforting scent of the coffee and cinnamon you’d brought him.
"Can I kiss you?" Matt whispered. The question was raw, stripped of his usual lawyerly composure. His hands trailed up your arms in a slow, searing path until his palms cupped your cheeks, his thumbs brushing just below your cheekbones.
You let out a shaky breath, your mouth opening and closing as you tried to find your footing. "You're...you're seriously asking me that?"
It wasn't a rejection; it was pure, unadulterated disbelief. You had walked into this office expecting a night of dry legal filings and bad lighting, not a decade’s worth of unspoken longing finally coming to a head.
Matt let out a soft, huffed chuckle, his forehead leaning down to rest against yours. "Yeah. I thought that was the right way to do this. Usually, I'm better at reading the room, but with you…" He trailed off, his voice cracking slightly. "With you, I just want to be sure."
You didn’t give him a chance to finish. You cut him off, your lips finding his in a kiss that started out soft and uncertain—a question asked in return. Matt answered it instantly. He groaned low in his throat, a sound of pure relief, and pulled you flush against him. He liked the solid weight of you, the way you fit perfectly into the space he’d been holding open for years. Even with the slight height difference, the way he had to tilt his head felt natural, like two jagged pieces finally clicking into place.
Without breaking the kiss, Matt began to move. He guided you backward, his boots shuffling against the thin carpet until he felt the edge of his chair. He sat, and in one fluid motion, he pulled you down with him.
You slowly pulled away, both of you panting for air in the sudden silence of the room. You were straddling his lap, your hands splayed wide against the heat of his chest, feeling the frantic, galloping rhythm of his heart through the thin cotton of his shirt. Matt’s hands moved from your cheeks, sliding down the curve of your neck—his fingers lingering over your pulse point as if he were savoring the fact that it was racing just for him—before settling firmly at your waist.
"We aren't going to get any work done, are we?" you sighed, your forehead dropping onto his shoulder as you tried to catch your breath.
"No," Matt hummed, the vibration of his voice buzzing right through your chest. "Absolutely not."
He didn't wait for a rebuttal. His lips were already hovering over yours again, closing the distance before the Dorsey files could even cross your mind.
The kiss deepened, turning hungry and urgent. Matt stood, lifting you easily from his lap and pressing your back against the edge of his desk. The wood was cold against your spine, a sharp contrast to the furnace-heat of his body. With a careless sweep of his arm, a stack of Dorsey files slid onto the floor, the paper fluttering like dying birds, but neither of you cared.
Matt leaned over you, his weight a grounding presence. His fingers hooked under the hem of your hoodie, the fabric bunching up as he slid his hands over your skin. He moved slowly, his fingertips tracing the coarse line of hair that ran past your navel and disappeared into the waistband of your sweatpants.
A violent shudder ran down your spine when his touch grazed the thin, horizontal lines of your top surgery scars. Even six years later, having his hands there—so gentle, so deliberate—felt like it was altering your DNA. He wasn't just touching you; he was learning you.
"Foggy never did you justice," Matt hummed against your mouth. He began pressing soft, lingering kisses to your jaw, your neck, the hollow of your throat. "All those stories...they didn't even come close."
You let out a breathy laugh, your head falling back. "Yeah? Well, maybe that’s what you get for asking my brother for life updates when I was only ever one phone call away."
You slid your hand up his chest, past the open buttons of his shirt. Your fingertips caught on a ridge of puckered skin—a jagged scar near his ribs you hadn't known was there. It was thick and ropey, a testament to a violence you didn't quite understand yet.
Matt hummed, his hands continuing their exploration, mapping the curves of your sides and the muscle of your chest. His thumbs hooked into the waistband of your sweats, dipping just low enough to make your breath hitch.
"Like I said," he whispered, his voice vibrating with a dark, low-frequency heat. "There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Nelson."
Your other hand came up, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck. You gave a sharp, insistent tug, pulling him down until his lips were mere inches from yours, his nose brushing against yours in the dark.
"Maybe you can tell me all about them over coffee tomorrow?" you hummed, your voice teasing despite the way your heart was thundering.
Matt’s hands stopped dead at your waist. His fingers dug into your skin, his grip tightening until it was almost bruising—not with malice, but with a sudden, overwhelming surge of want. He let out a ragged, disbelieving breath.
"I’m standing here thinking about how badly I want to fuck you right now," he breathed, the honesty of it hitting you like a physical weight. "And you’re asking me about coffee?"
He tilted his head, his gaze fixed on you with an intensity that made the room feel like it was losing oxygen. "I don't think you realize how long I've been waiting to have you on this desk.”
Matt didn’t hesitate. He surged forward, pressing you harder against the mahogany desk until the wood bit into your lower back. He was a wall of solid, radiating heat, his breath ghosting over your skin in ragged hitches.
"What's stopping you?" you challenged, a reckless smirk tugging at your lips. You didn’t wait for an answer, your fingers moving to the remaining buttons of his shirt, popping them free with an urgency that sent a stray button skittering across the floor.
Matt’s own smirk was dangerous—the look of a man who had just been given permission to stop holding back. His fingers hooked into the hem of your hoodie, and in one fluid motion, he pulled it up and over your head, tossing it blindly onto the pile of discarded files. You helped him shrug out of his shirt, the silk sliding off his shoulders before hitting the floor somewhere in the shadows.
Then he was on you again, his bare chest slick with the heat of the room as it pressed against yours. He kissed you hard, a bruising, possessive claim that tasted like coffee and desperate longing. One of his hands moved to your throat, not to squeeze, but to rest there—his thumb resting right over your carotid artery so he could feel the frantic, thundering pulse of your arousal. His other hand traveled down, his palm flat against your stomach before hooking into the waistband of your sweatpants.
He stripped them away with practiced ease, sliding them down past your hips and ankles. At the same time, your hands fumbled with his belt. The leather groaned as you yanked it through the loops, your knuckles grazing the heavy, insistent heat through the fabric of his trousers.
You pulled back just an inch, your chest heaving as your eyes roamed over him. In the dim light of the desk lamp, his torso was a map of scars and lean muscle, looking like something carved from marble. Your gaze dropped to the prominent bulge straining against his slacks.
"Mmm," you hummed, a low vibration of approval as you kicked your shoes and sweatpants completely aside. You shifted, the cool air of the office hitting your legs, leaving you in nothing but your boxers. You looked from the evidence of his erection back up to his face, a playful spark in your eyes. "Seems a little unfair, don't you think, Murdock? I'm significantly more exposed than you are."
Matt leaned in, his lips hovering just a hair’s breadth from your ear. The hand on your throat moved up, his fingers tangling in your hair to tilt your head back.
"I'm a lawyer," he rasped, his voice dropping into that gritty, gravelly tone that made your knees weak. "I'm very good at finding ways to settle the balance. Why don't you let me show you?”
Matt was on his knees now, settled between your legs. His hands—calloused and steady—gripped your thighs, the pressure grounding you as he pulled you toward the edge of the desk. You felt the breadth of his shoulders between your knees, a solid anchor in a world that was quickly turning into nothing but heat and friction.
One of your hands was tangled deep in his dark hair, your knuckles brushing his scalp; the other gripped the mahogany edge of the desk so hard your fingers went white. Your head rolled back against your shoulder, a shaky breath escaping you as Matt leaned in.
He started with soft, reverence-filled kisses to your inner thighs, moving higher with agonizing slowness. He wasn't just exploring; he was listening. He could hear the way your blood rushed to the surface of your skin and the precise moment your breath hitched as he neared the center of your heat.
"Fuck," you rasped, a shudder racking your frame when his hot breath fanned over your bottom growth. The sensitive bud was pulsing, swollen and aching for a touch that Matt seemed determined to delay. He pressed a light, lingering kiss to the very tip of it, his fingers flexing against your thighs to keep you open for him.
"Relax," Matt whispered, his voice a low vibration that seemed to travel right up your spine. He leaned up just enough to press a firm kiss to the soft skin below your navel, right at the start of your happy trail. "Give in to me. Let me take care of you."
You let out a jagged exhale when he moved back down. His tongue made a slow, agonizing path from the base of your growth upward, following the new length your transition had given you. It was a targeted, deliberate sensation. One of his hands slid from your thigh, his fingers finding the softer, slicker skin behind the growth, massaging gently as he continued to lick in rhythmic, upward strokes.
Your thighs instinctively tightened around his head, the muscles in your legs coiling with the need for more. When he finally took the sensitive bud into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it and sucking with a slow, steady pressure, your vision blurred.
Your hand tightened in his hair, yanking his head back as a low, guttural moan was torn from his throat—a sound of pure, shared hunger.
"Stop," you huffed, your chest heaving. "Stop teasing me, Matt. Just...please."
You tried to force your muscles to relax, even as Matt’s thumb began to circle the hood of your growth, his touch light and teasing. He pulled back just an inch, his lips glistening in the low light, a dark, satisfied hum vibrating in the small space between you.
"You seem to like it," he murmured, his senses fixed on the frantic rhythm of your heart. "And I like the way you sound when you're losing your mind.”
Matt didn’t wait for you to find your words. He leaned back in, his stubble—just starting to roughen his jaw—grazing your sensitive inner skin before his lips sealed around your growth once more. The suction was firm and rhythmic, a direct, pulsing pressure that made your entire body go taut.
You let out a jagged gasp, your fingers digging into the hair at the base of his skull. The sensation was overwhelming; with the increased sensitivity from your transition, every slide of his tongue felt like an electric current. You couldn't help it—your hips began to roll instinctively, seeking more of that grounding heat, pushing yourself deeper into his reach.
"Matthew," you gasped, your voice breaking. "Please—"
He didn't slow down. If anything, he became more insistent. He could hear the way your breath had turned into short, hitching sobs of pleasure, and he used that as his compass. His hands moved from your thighs to grip your hips, his fingers hooking into your skin to anchor you as you rocked against him. He wasn't just taking; he was worshipping, his tongue swirling around the head of your growth before pulling back with a slow, drawing pressure that made your toes curl.
Your thighs began to tremble, a fine, uncontrollable shaking that signaled you were reaching your limit. The office around you—the cold desk, the smell of old paper, the distant hum of the city—all of it bled into the background. There was only the wet, sliding heat of his mouth and the low, vibration of the hum he made against you when you bucked your hips upward.
He felt the shift in your muscles, the way your heart rate spiked into a frantic, staccato rhythm. He knew you were right on the edge. He transitioned from slow licks to a fast, fluttering motion of his tongue right against the most sensitive point, while his thumb maintained a steady, circular pressure at the base.
"Matt—I'm—" You couldn't even finish the sentence. Your head thudded back against your shoulder, your eyes fluttering shut as a wave of heat started at your core and radiated outward.
He didn't let go. He kept up the pace, his mouth a hot, insistent vacuum that pulled the climax right out of you. You cried out his name, a raw, vocal sound that echoed off the glass walls of the office, your fingers clutching at his shoulders as your body was racked by a long, shuddering release.
You lay back against the desk, the mahogany cool against your heated skin as your chest heaved. The high was still humming in your marrow, making your limbs feel heavy and liquid. You watched, mesmerized, as Matt stood up from his knees. Your thighs slid from his shoulders, dropping to drape loosely around his waist as he leaned over you once more.
He pressed a lingering, reverent kiss to the center of your chest, right over your heart, before trailing a path of fire up to your lips. Your hands climbed his shoulders, nails dragging down the lean muscle of his back before hooking into his skin to pull him closer.
"I'm not done with you," he whispered against your mouth, his voice a low, rough promise. He pulled back just enough for you to see his eyes—dark, unfocused, and radiating a raw hunger.
You let out a shaky breath, watching as he reached for his own waistband. He undid the button of his slacks with a practiced flick of his thumb, pushing them down along with his boxers until they joined the growing pile of discarded clothes on the floor. You sat up on the desk, your eyes tracking the lines of his body, landing on the heavy, insistent length of him.
"You're staring again," he chuckled. Even without his sight, he seemed to feel the weight of your gaze like a physical touch. He reached blindly but accurately into his top desk drawer.
You bit your lip, watching him pull a small square foil packet from the stash. "How could I not?" you hummed, your voice dropping into a suggestive purr. "Always prepared, aren't you, Mr. Murdock?"
You reached out, taking the condom from his hand. Matt’s smile was sharp and knowing as he leaned forward to steal one more quick, searing kiss. He let out a sharp intake of breath when you began to roll the latex over the hot, aching length of him, your fingers steady despite the adrenaline.
You didn't stay on the desk. You stood, your bare body flushing against his before you placed your hands on his chest and pushed. He went back willingly, his office chair catching him with a soft creak of leather. You moved instantly to straddle his lap, your knees bracketing his hips.
One hand rested on his shoulder for balance; the other wrapped around his cock, your fingertips grazing the tip. Even through the condom, Matt seemed to feel every ounce of your heat as you began a slow, deliberate stroke. His head tilted back against the headrest, a low, guttural moan vibrating through his chest as you lifted yourself and sank down onto him in one smooth, agonizingly perfect motion.
Matt’s hands snapped into action. One gripped your waist, fingers digging into your skin to anchor you, while the other found purchase around the curve of your throat. He didn't squeeze, but the weight of his palm—firm and possessive—sent a fresh jolt of electricity through you.
"There," Matt rasped, his head rolling to the side as he felt you settle against him. "Now we’re even.”
Matt’s grip on your waist was white-knuckled, his fingers digging into the dip of your hips to anchor you. Every time you sank down, the contact was a revelation—the heavy, insistent heat of him filling you, the subtle friction of the latex, and the grounding, possessive weight of his hand at your throat.
His head was thrown back against the leather headrest, his jaw tight as he tracked the symphony of your body. To Matt, you weren’t just a person; you were a masterpiece of sound and vibration. He could hear the way your joints shifted, the slick slide of skin against skin, and the frantic, beautiful mess of your heartbeat thundering against your ribs. It was a sensory overload that would usually drive him to distraction, but with you, it just felt like finally coming home.
"Don't stop," he rasped, his voice a jagged edge in the quiet office. His thumb brushed over your windpipe—not enough to hurt, just enough to make your breath hitch and your moan resonate deeper in your chest. "I’ve spent...God, I've spent years wondering what you’d sound like like this."
You leaned forward, your chest brushing against his bare skin, your hands finding the back of his neck to steady yourself. Your fingers tangled in his hair, the strands soft against your knuckles as you settled fully against him, your hips rolling in an agonizingly slow, grinding circle.
"Is it everything you imagined, Matthew?" You managed a breathy, teasing laugh, though it was cut short by a sharp moan when Matt bucked his hips upward, meeting your depth with a forceful, desperate hunger.
He squeezed your throat softly—a silent command for your attention—and pulled your face down until your lips were a hair’s breadth from his.
"Better," he whispered, the word vibrating against your mouth. "Infinitely better than the version in my head."
He shifted his grip, his hands moving to your backside to pull you even tighter against him, his movements turning more urgent as he began to lose the battle for his own composure. The office chair creaked under the weight of your shared rhythm, the sound lost in the rush of your breathing.
Matt’s thrusts grew sloppy, the measured precision of a lawyer replaced by the raw, uncoordinated hunger of a man who had reached his limit. His hand slid from your throat, trailing a path of fire down your chest to join his other hand at your hips. He braced his forehead against yours, his breath coming in hot, jagged hitches as he lifted you slightly and brought you back down to meet him in a slow, agonizing grind.
You leaned forward, your lips brushing his, eyes half-lidded as you whispered his name like a prayer. The office around you seemed to dissolve, leaving nothing but the friction of skin and the heat of the moment.
"I’m," he breathed, the word breaking into a ragged gasp. "I’m close. Please."
He bridged the gap, his kiss deepening into something deep and possessive as he anchored you against him. His hips rolled into yours one last time, his body taut as you squeezed him, feeling the frantic pulse of his release. Your thighs trembled, hands tangling in his hair as the world fell away, leaving you both suspended in a long, shuddering climax that seemed to echo in the silence of the office.
For a long time, neither of you moved. You sat there, hearts hammering in sync, sweat mixing where your chests pressed together. Matt finally broke the kiss, his forehead dropping onto your shoulder as he let out a long, shaky exhale. His grip on your hips loosened, his trembling hands beginning a slow, reverent path up and down your spine. He wasn't just touching you; he was listening—tracking the way your heartbeat gradually slowed, mapping the lingering tremors in your muscles.
Reluctantly, you pulled away. Your legs felt like water as you stood up, crossing the small distance to his desk to grab a box of tissues. The sound of the tissue rustling and the soft slide of fabric as you pulled your clothes back on seemed loud in the quiet room. Matt stayed in the chair, his head tilted as he listened to your heart settle.
When you stepped back in front of him, holding out his boxers, he didn't take them immediately. Instead, he reached out, his hand lingering near your hip as if he were considering pulling you right back down.
"Please," he whispered, his voice still thick with sleep and satisfaction. "Tell me we can do this again. Tell me this wasn't just a side effect of the late night."
You let out a soft laugh, leaning down to press a lingering kiss to his lips. "You think you’re getting rid of me that easily, Matthew? I’ve been pining for a decade; you’re stuck with me now."
Matt’s face broke into a genuine, brilliant smile—the kind he only ever saved for those he truly trusted. He took the boxers from you, his fingers brushing yours. "I’m counting on it," he said, standing up to pull his slacks on. "Though I’m hoping for my bed next time. Or yours. Anywhere but these squeaky office chairs."
He walked up to you as you started gathering the scattered files from the floor. His hands found your waist, a few fingers dipping back under the hem of your hoodie to find that patch of warm skin he’d claimed earlier.
You opened your mouth to reply, but the sharp click of the front door lock froze the air in the room. The office door swung open, and there stood Foggy, eyes wide and jaw practically hitting his chest.
"Oh...wow," Foggy deadpanned, his gaze darting between your flushed face and a very shirtless, very 'sex-drunk' Matt Murdock. "Okay. That happened."
"Foggy," Matt started, turning toward the sound of his partner, though he made no move to actually move his hands away from you.
"Don't," Foggy held up a hand, looking like he wanted to turn around and walk right back out. He was clutching a few manila folders like a shield. "I don't need the legal opening statement. I have eyes. And ears. And a very strong sense of 'I should have knocked.'"
You walked over, taking the folders from his hand just to give your own hands something to do. "I thought you had a date," you muttered, rocking back and forth on your heels.
"Yeah, well, he rescheduled," Foggy cleared his throat, avoiding eye contact with the shirtless man behind you. "And I realized I left these on my kitchen table. I thought I'd be in and out in thirty seconds." He paused, looking at you, then at Matt. "Was it—"
"I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, Foggy," you cut him off, pressing a hand to his face and gently steering him back toward the door. "Go home.”
You stood by the door for a moment after the lock clicked, listening to the fading rhythm of Foggy’s footsteps as he practically sprinted down the hallway to avoid further awkwardness. Turning back toward the room, you found Matt in the center of the office. He looked significantly more "Murdock" than he had ten minutes ago, though his hair was still a mess and his eyes held a lingering, soft glow. He was currently plucking his silk tie off the corner of Foggy’s desk with the precision of a man who could feel the exact texture of the fabric.
You walked over to him, your bare feet silent on the carpet. You picked up the manila folders Foggy had brought and stacked them into a somewhat organized pile—a futile effort given the chaos of the rest of the room—before leaning back against the edge of the desk.
"I’m never living this down," Matt hummed. He sounded remarkably sheepish. He stepped into your space, his hands instinctively finding their home at your waist again. "I’m going to hear about this at every brunch, every firm meeting, and probably in the middle of our next opening statement."
You smiled, reaching out to straighten the collar of his shirt. Your fingers brushed against the warm skin of his neck, and you felt his pulse jump under your touch.
"No, you’re definitely not," you murmured, smoothing out the fabric. "Foggy has a memory like an elephant for things that embarrass you. It’s his favorite pastime." You paused, looking up at him, your expression softening. "But about that coffee I mentioned earlier...maybe I can finish helping you look over these files over a fresh cup? Someplace with better lighting and significantly less chance of your partner bursting through the door?"
Matt’s head tilted, a small, genuine smile tugging at his lips. He leaned down, his face burying in the crook of your neck as he pressed a slow, lingering kiss to your pulse point. The heat of it radiated through your entire body.
"I’d like that," he whispered against your skin. "I’d like that a lot.”
Hi Mickey! I was wondering if you'd be interested in writing a Pope Cody fic where Pope surprises the reader by showing up at his place after getting out of prison. Maybe the reader has a friend over and Pope thinks he's moved on but the reader assures him that Pope's the only one for him. I love your writing!!
Good Thing - Andrew 'Pope' Cody x Male Reader
Summary: After getting out of prison, Andrew wasn't thinking about going home to see his family. He was thinking about seeing the one person who actually mattered.
CW: No use of Y/N - Slight angst - Slight misunderstanding - Fluff - Kissing - Established past relationship - Older reader (late 30s) - Implied reader has worked with the Cody family
Words: 3.7k
A/N: Very excited to have gotten this request. I'm now buzzing with more ideas after finishing season 1 while editing this fic, so prepare for a onslaught at some point in the near future. Hopefully this is what you had in mind, as I really did enjoy writing and editing it.
FEMALES DNI
You couldn’t say you were surprised when Andrew got arrested. Honestly, you weren't even surprised he’d been caught while protecting his family. It was the Cody curse: that same family used him as a weapon while simultaneously viewing him as a liability. They had tried to do the same to you once they realized you were the only good thing in Andrew’s life, pulling you into the orbit of their jobs and their secrets. You knew, even then, that this was the inevitable outcome. Andrew was a man built for the fall.
You’d lost count of the days spent driving to that gray, lifeless facility to visit him. Those were days you knew the rest of the Codys wouldn't waste on him—not when there were scores to plan or money to move. You made a point of visiting the day before his birthday, a calculated move to avoid the others. You specifically wanted to avoid the sharp, possessive gaze of Smurf. Andrew had nearly lost his mind getting you away from her influence, dragging you out of the "family business" before the rot could settle in your bones. He’d saved you, even if it meant he had to stay behind in the dark.
Then, halfway into the second year of his sentence, you suddenly stopped showing up.
He didn't blame you. Whatever ghosts the two of you shared—before Smurf dragged you in and he dragged you back out—it wasn't worth the fluorescent lights and the reinforced glass. It wasn't worth the way he flinched when you reached out, or the suffocating silence of a man who had forgotten how to be touched. By the time he was halfway through that three-and-a-half-year stretch, you had disappeared into a life that was quiet, clean, and far away from the Cody name.
So, why was he standing in front of your house now?
The setting sun cast long, amber shadows across the deck. Andrew was there, a ghost made of flesh and bone, walking slowly up your porch steps. His calloused fingers brushed against the surfboard resting on the porch table, lingering near a discarded shirt and a tin of board wax. He looked out of place in the salt air, still wearing the tension of a man who expected a cell door to slam shut at any moment.
Your wetsuit hung on the line, still dripping steadily onto the wood—drip, drip, drip—the only sound in the evening quiet. You were inside, likely still in the shower, washing the salt from your skin with that specific shampoo he remembered.
Cedar and mint.
To Andrew, that scent didn't just mean you; it meant safety. It meant the life he had forced you to take so he wouldn't have to watch Smurf destroy you, too. He stood there, frozen, caught between the urge to knock and the instinct to run before you saw what the last few years had done to him.
His hand came up, heavy and trembling. His knuckles barely grazed the aged, salt-worn wood of the front door. Andrew didn't look at the house; his eyes remained fixed on his boots, tracking the dust from the road. He let out a long, shuddering breath, his forehead coming to rest against the doorframe right beside his hand. He was a man holding onto a ledge, unsure if he wanted to be pulled up or let go.
Then, he heard it.
Your voice. It was muffled by the wood, but he’d know that low, resonant frequency anywhere. But it was immediately followed by another—a softer, melodic laugh. A woman.
Oh.
The syllable echoed in the hollow of his chest. His body screamed at him to turn around, to vault over the porch railing and disappear back into the shadows of the coastal highway. He had no right to be here. He had no peace to offer you, only the jagged edges of a life lived under Smurf’s thumb. Maybe you’d moved on. Maybe that was why the visits had stopped—why the letters you never sent remained yellowing in a desk drawer. You hadn't talked about labels back then; you were just two people clinging to each other in the dark, too terrified of Smurf’s surveillance to call it love.
The door creaked open before he could retreat.
It wasn't you. The woman standing there had skin the color of deep mahogany, her hair piled into a messy, salt-crusted bun. She wore a sheer pullover over a damp bikini, looking every bit like she belonged in this sun-drenched life. She was beautiful in a way that felt healthy, vibrant—everything Andrew wasn't.
"Can I help you?" she asked. Her voice was curious, not yet guarded, but she leaned slightly against the frame, a subtle claim of territory.
Andrew’s mouth opened, then clicked shut. He felt like a ghost trying to remember how to speak to the living. His throat was dry, tasting of every unspoken word and regret. He looked like a stray dog—beaten, dangerous, and lost.
"I..." he started, but the word died.
Then, you appeared. You rounded the corner from the hallway, drying your hair with a towel, your skin still steaming from the shower. You stopped dead. Your eyes went wide, turning glassy in an instant as the air left your lungs. You looked older—the fine lines around your eyes spoke of years Andrew had missed—but you were still the man who had been his only sanctuary.
"Andrew," you breathed. It wasn't a greeting; it was a prayer.
The woman stepped back, sensing the sudden, violent shift in the atmosphere. She crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze darting between your shocked expression and the hollowed-out man on her porch.
"You're out," you said softly, stepping in front of her, closing the gap but keeping the threshold between you. "I didn't...I didn't think it was today."
Andrew’s heart didn't just break; it shattered, the shards cutting into his lungs. He heard the way you said his name—not Pope, the monster Smurf had raised, but Andrew. He looked past you into the warm, lit living room. Did she know? Did she know the way you used to hold him when the night terrors got too loud? Did she know how many times he’d pressed you into that same couch, desperate to feel something other than his family’s rot?
He looked at her, then back at you, his voice a jagged whisper. "I shouldn't have come.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. It wasn't just the absence of noise; it was the weight of years, of secrets, and of the blood Andrew had on his hands. No one moved. The woman looked between the two of you, her eyes sharp and perceptive, reading the invisible threads of history that tied you to the broken man on the porch.
Finally, she broke the spell. She straightened her posture, reaching behind the door to a small console table—a place Andrew hadn't noticed in his panic—and snatched up a set of keys and a leather purse.
"Well," she murmured, her voice slicing through the tension like a blade. "I should get going. Maddy is probably wondering where I’ve disappeared to."
She didn't lean in to kiss you. She didn't offer a familiar touch or a lingering hug. She simply gave you a small, knowing smile—one that suggested she understood exactly who was standing on your porch—and stepped toward the door.
As she brushed past Andrew, she paused. She was close enough that he could smell the salt spray on her skin, but she didn't flinch. She leaned in, her voice a ghost of a whisper meant only for him.
"Be good to him," she said.
Andrew didn't breathe until she was down the steps. Was it a warning? A plea? Had you told her about him—about the Cody family, the jobs, the dark streak in his soul that only you knew how to soothe? The thought that you had spoken his name to someone else, that you had shared his existence with this vibrant woman, made his stomach twist with a mix of jealousy and profound shame.
"Please," you finally whispered, your voice cracking the evening air. "Andrew...come in."
He hesitated. His boots felt like they were made of lead, anchored to the porch. He turned his head, watching the woman climb into her car. She didn't look back at you, and she certainly didn't look back at him. She just drove, her taillights disappearing into the amber glow of the streetlights, leaving Andrew alone with the one person he was most afraid to face.
He finally moved, crossing the threshold with the gingerly steps of a man walking through a minefield. As he stepped into the entryway, he didn't look at the furniture or the art on the walls. He looked at you.
He was close enough now that the scent of the shower hit him full force. It wasn't the sterile, metallic smell of the prison or the rot of his mother’s house. It was cedar and mint. It was the smell of the mornings you used to spend together before the world went to hell. It was the smell of home.
Andrew’s eyes tracked the dampness of your hair, the way your pulse thrummed in the hollow of your throat. He looked like he wanted to reach out and touch you just to see if his hand would pass right through, but he kept his arms stiff at his sides, his fingers twitching against his thighs.
"You changed the floors," he said, his voice gravelly and low, his eyes finally darting to the hardwood. It was a mundane observation, but it was all he could manage without breaking. "They used to creak."
You let out a breath that sounded like a sob caught in your throat. "A lot of things changed, Andrew.”
"Who is she?"
The question was sharp, cutting through the scent of cedar and mint like a jagged piece of glass. Andrew didn’t wait for an answer. His gaze began to prowl the room, darting from the kitchen to the mantle until it landed on a small wooden frame. In the photo, the woman from the porch was laughing, her head leaned back against your shoulder as the Pacific tide surged behind you both.
You followed his gaze, a long, shuddering breath escaping your lips. Before you could speak, Andrew scoffed—a dry, bitter sound that held no humor.
"Is she better than me?" he asked. He didn't realize he was moving at first. It was an old instinct, the way he occupied space, drifting forward until he was deep in your personal bubble. "You moved on because you found someone...clean? Someone who isn't a liability?"
You stepped back, your hips hitting the edge of the kitchen island, but Andrew didn't stop. He kept coming until he was looming over you, his shadow swallowing you whole.
"Is Maddy yours?" he whispered, his eyes searching yours with a desperate, frantic hunger. "Is she your kid? Did you start a family while I was rotting in a cage?"
His hands flexed at his sides, his knuckles white, before they finally snapped up. He gripped your shoulders—hard. But the second his skin touched yours, the tension didn't escalate. Instead, the fight seemed to drain out of you. Your shoulders softened under his palms, a silent surrender that Andrew wasn't prepared for.
The aggression vanished as quickly as it had arrived. His grip loosened, his fingers curling into the fabric of your shirt, and then his head dropped. He let his forehead thud against your chest, his shoulders shaking with the effort of holding himself together.
"Do you love her?" His voice didn't just break; it fell apart. It was a small, wounded sound that belonged to the boy he used to be, not the man the Codys had built.
"Liz," you whispered, the name finally found its way out. "Her name is Liz, Andrew. She’s a friend. Just a friend."
Your hands moved hesitantly, hovering in the air before finally settling on his forearms. You could feel the corded muscle, the vibrating tension of a man who had been on guard for years.
"Don't lie to me," he choked out into your chest, his fingers tightening on your shirt. "Don't...I can't...please don't lie."
You shook your head, hot tears finally blurring your vision. You squeezed his arms, trying to ground him, to pull him back from whatever dark ledge he was standing on.
"I’m not lying, Andrew," you breathed, your voice steady despite the moisture in your eyes. "God, I’d never lie to you. Not about this. Not ever."
He stayed there for a long moment, listening to the rhythm of your heart, the same rhythm that had been his only North Star through every job and every prison sentence. He smelled the mint on your skin and felt the warmth of a house that wasn't Smurf’s. It was too much. It was everything he didn't deserve.
"Maddy," Andrew muttered, the name sounding like a foreign word in his mouth. He was still pressed against you, but his mind was working, filing the name away, trying to map out the new boundaries of your world. "Who is she? Is she...does she stay here?"
You rested your chin on the crown of his head, feeling the coarse texture of his hair. Your fingers traced slow, absent-minded patterns over the skin of his forearms, trying to leach the tension out of him.
"Liz’s girlfriend," you whispered. "They have a place a few miles up the coast. She was just stopping by to drop off some wax."
He let out a breath that he seemed to have been holding since he stepped onto the porch. His fingers finally unclinched from your shirt, but they didn't go far. They slid down to your hips, his palms heavy and warm as he anchored himself to you. He didn't pull away. He seemed content to stay in the sanctuary of your shadow.
"Why’d you stop coming?"
The question was muffled against your chest, stripped of the aggression from moments ago. Now, it was just a raw, aching wound. "A year and a half, and the visits just...they stopped. I waited. Every visiting day, I waited until the guards cleared the room."
You felt a pang of guilt so sharp it made your breath hitch. You pulled back just enough to force him to look at you, one hand sliding up to cup his cheek. His skin was rough, a little cooler than yours, and he leaned into your palm with a desperate, crushing weight. He looked like a man who had been wandering in a desert and had finally found water.
"Smurf," you murmured, the name tasting like lead.
Andrew’s eyes darkened instantly. The mention of his mother always brought a specific kind of shadow to his face.
"She found out I was still seeing you," you continued, your thumb brushing over his cheekbone. "She made it very clear that if I kept showing up at that facility, I wouldn't be walking back to my car one of those days. I didn't exactly want to end up dead in some ditch, Andrew."
You left out the rest—the way Craig had followed you for weeks, the silent phone calls in the middle of the night. You would have risked it for him, honestly. You would have faced whatever Smurf threw at you if it meant Andrew didn't have to be alone. But you knew him. If Andrew found out his mother had laid a hand on you, he’d do something that would ensure he never left prison again. You stayed away to keep him safe from his own protective instincts.
Andrew’s jaw set, his eyes flashing with a familiar, dangerous glint. "I won't let her hurt you."
It was the same promise he’d made you when you were teenagers hiding in the backseat of his truck. The same one he’d made when he practically forced you out of the family’s reach years ago. It was a Cody promise—heavy, violent, and absolute.
"I’m out now," he whispered, his grip on your hips tightening as if he expected Smurf to materialize in the kitchen and snatch you away. "She doesn't get to touch what’s mine. Not anymore.”
Andrew didn't let go. Even as he pulled away from the island, his hands remained anchored to your hips, his thumbs hooked into your waistband as he navigated the hallway. He moved with a strange, magnetic pull, guiding you past the living room where the sliding glass doors revealed the darkening shoreline, past the bathroom where the steam was still vanishing from the air.
He didn't stop until you reached the bedroom.
The room was dim, lit only by the fading lilac glow of the sunset, but Andrew’s eyes immediately found the bedside table. There, next to a lamp, sat a framed photo of his younger self—unburdened and staring back with a ghost of a smile. Next to it lay a thick, worn stack of the letters you’d written but couldn't send, held together by a simple rubber band.
Andrew’s knees hit the edge of the mattress, the sudden contact making him stagger slightly. You didn't hesitate. You stepped into him, your hands moving to his chest as you gently guided him back. He sat heavily, and you climbed into his lap, straddling his thighs just as you had when you were boys hiding from the world in the back of his truck.
In the shadows of the room, his hazel eyes were vivid, darting across your features as if he were trying to memorize your face all over again.
"I missed you," you whispered, your hands coming up to cradle his face. Your skin was warm against his, a sharp contrast to the cold steel he’d lived with for years. "Every single day."
He leaned his forehead against yours, his breath hitching. You began to pepper soft, lingering kisses along his jawline and his scarred cheeks. With every press of your lips, his hands tightened on your hips, his fingers digging in just enough to remind himself that you were real, that you weren't another prison-cell hallucination.
"Tell me," he begged, his voice a jagged rasp against your skin. "Tell me you love me."
He sounded like a man drowning, reaching for the only lifeline he had ever known. You leaned back just enough to look him in the eye, then slowly pushed him down until his back was flat against the covers. You loomed over him, your hair falling like a curtain around both of your faces, creating a world that consisted only of the two of you.
"I love you," you whispered, your lips hovering inches from his. You felt his heart hammering against your chest, a frantic, wild thing. "I love you, Andrew. So much."
You repeated it softly, a litany of truth meant to drown out every lie Smurf had ever told him.
"Kiss me," he whispered.
And you did.
It wasn't the frantic, desperate kiss of a goodbye, nor was it the rough, jagged edge of the Codys' world. It was slow. It was soft. It was a long-overdue conversation, filled with the years of words you’d kept locked away to keep him safe. As your lips met his, Andrew finally let out a long, shuddering sigh, his eyes closing as he let the salt and the cedar and the love wash over him, finally bringing him all the way home.
The kiss deepened, becoming less about the shock of the reunion and more about a desperate, tactile reclamation. Andrew’s hands were everywhere—grasping at your shoulders, sliding down your spine, clutching the fabric of your shirt as if he expected you to dissolve into sea mist if he let go for even a second.
"Stay," you whispered against his mouth. "Stay with me tonight."
It wasn't a question. You’d stopped asking him that years ago, back when you realized that Andrew didn't know how to answer questions about his own desires. He only knew how to follow or to protect.
He pulled away just an inch, his lips sliding down to press against the column of your throat. He lingered there, his breath hot against your skin, and you felt his lips brush against your Adam’s apple.
"Yeah?" he hummed, the vibration rumbling through your chest. He hesitated, his voice dropping to a small, uncertain pitch. "Can I...I can stay in here? With you?"
You let out a soft, breathy chuckle, your Adam’s apple bobbing against his lips. "What, Andrew? You think I’d make you sleep on the floor like a dog?" You pulled back just enough to catch his gaze, pressing a quick, firm kiss to his mouth. "It’s your bed, too. It always has been."
Andrew didn't speak. He just watched you. As he moved to get ready for bed, his eyes never left your form. It was a predatory kind of focus, but softened by a deep, aching reverence. He watched you pull your shirt over your head and toss it toward the chair; he watched the way the muscles in your back moved as you reached down to peel back the heavy duvet.
To him, you were a miracle of light and ordinary life. He committed the way the lamplight hit your skin to memory, filing it away in the dark corners of his mind where he kept the things worth surviving for.
When you finally climbed under the covers and patted the space beside you, Andrew’s breath hitched. He didn't just slide under the blankets; he crawled toward you, moving with a slow, deliberate caution. He didn't stop until his body was draped over yours, his weight a heavy, grounding presence that you welcomed.
He tucked his head into the crook of your neck, his face pressed against the warm, bare skin of your chest. He breathed in deep—cedar, mint, and you. The silence of the house was absolute, broken only by the distant, rhythmic pulse of the ocean and the sound of your shared breathing.
"I love you," he mumbled, the words thick with sleep and the sudden, overwhelming safety of the room.
He didn't wait for a response. He didn't need to. He simply closed his eyes, his fingers curling into your side, and for the first time in three and a half years, Andrew Pope Cody slept without dreaming of a way out.
Cat And Mouse - Benjamin 'Dex' Poindexter 'Bullseye' x Male Reader
Summary: Vanessa knew Dex was going to become a problem, one that she created at that. Her solution? Fight one gun for hire with another, completely unaware of their personal game.
CW: Violence - Fighting - Blood - Injuries - Ex government official reader - Older reader (30s/40s) - 'Vigilante' reader - Implied reader and Dex knew each other
Words: 5.4k
A/N: I'm a firm believer in fellow AroAce/Queer (as a aroace queer man) Dex, and I will fuckin die on that hill! That being said, I couldn't force myself to write anything romance related given his character, so I figured this would be as good as it gets at the moment. Love Dex and Wilson Bethel, so hoping to contribute to the x male/ftm reader fanfiction for you guys. Last thing, I'm really happy you guys seemed to like my Pope Cody fic! THIS CAME OUT SO BAD!
FEMALES DNI
Everyone’s played a game of cat and mouse, whether they realize it or not. We’ve all chased something—or someone—simply for the electric hum of the pursuit. Maybe it was a girl you had no business talking to, an opportunity that slipped through your fingers like smoke, or a friend you couldn't quite let go of. But the game changes when the mouse stops running and starts hunting the cat.
For years, you were the undisputed predator. You collected targets like trophies: a corrupt councilman here, a sadistic precinct captain there, a judge who viewed the law as a suggestion. They never saw the game coming, and they certainly never saw you. That was the beauty of it. The ignorance of the prey made the final moment—that split second of realization—so much sweeter.
It had been the same during your years with the agency. Every mark, every contract, every steady pull of the trigger provided a cold, clinical satisfaction. Until you crossed the line. Or, as you preferred to think of it, until you realized the line was a fiction drawn by men who didn't have a drop of blood on their own hands. You weren't a hero; you were just a high-caliber pawn in a game of chess that never ended.
The sky outside your window was the color of a fresh bruise—swollen purples and deep, aching blues. Heavy clouds hung low over Hells Kitchen, pregnant with the smell of rain that refused to fall. Inside, your apartment was a cavern of shadows, save for the rhythmic, dying flicker of the fluorescent bulb over the sink. The air was thick, a cloying mix of gun oil, stale cigarettes, and the sharp, unexpected sting of cherries and mint emanating from the woman standing in your apartment.
Vanessa Fisk.
You didn't move from your seat. A slow, jagged smile pulled at your lips as she placed a heavy brown paper bag on your scarred coffee table. The muffled thump of bundled cash echoed in the quiet room. You didn't look at the money; your eyes stayed locked on hers.
"You and your husband have the wrong address," you said, your voice a low, gravelly hum. "I thought I made it clear: I don't lose sleep over the type of people you pay to protect."
Vanessa didn't flinch. She was as cold and elegant as a marble statue. "I'm not here for protection," she sighed, her gaze sweeping over the Spartan conditions of your living room. "I’m here because I need someone to take out the trash."
You scoffed, leaning forward until your elbows dug into your knees. The movement pulled the skin tight over the scars on your shoulders—relics of a life you’d tried to bury. "If this is about Daredevil, save your breath, sweetheart. He’s off-limits." You reached for a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter on the table. "I like the guy too much. He’s got spirit."
Vanessa gave a dry, humorless laugh, tossing a second bag onto the table. This one hit with a more substantial weight. "It isn't the Devil. You like the chase, don't you? You like the thrill of catching the mouse that no one else can touch."
She began to pace, her heels clicking softly on the hardwood. She paused to inspect the framed photos on your wall—relics of a man you used to be—before glancing at the scattered pill bottles and the stack of overdue bills on the counter. She turned back, her expression tightening. "I want Benjamin Poindexter. I want Bullseye dead."
You took a long, slow drag of the cigarette, the cherry glowing bright in the dim light. You let the smoke curl out of your lungs, eyes shifting from the cash to the woman.
"You want a 'problem' erased," you corrected her. "Dex is a hurricane. Once I stop the storm, who's to say I won't become the next problem on your husband's list?"
Vanessa stepped closer, her fingers brushing against a face-down photograph on your shelf. She didn't flip it over. Instead, she turned her full attention to you, taking in the reality of the man before her: the broad, powerful frame, the map of white scar tissue across your chest, and the hollowed-out look in your eyes that only comes when a man has nothing left to lose.
"You won't," she said softly, her voice brimming with a chilling certainty. "Because you're the only one who knows how he thinks. And deep down, you want to see if you're still faster than the best.”
You reached down, fingers hooking into the handles of the heavy brown bags. As you hauled them up, you rolled your shoulders back, a series of sharp, rhythmic cracks echoing through the quiet apartment. It was the sound of a machine being forced back into gear after too long in the shed.
Standing at your full height, you loomed over her. Even in her stiletto heels—which probably cost more than your car—Vanessa Fisk was dwarfed by you. You stood a good foot taller, a wall of scarred muscle and cynical intent, but she didn't flinch. She didn't even blink. She just stood her ground in the gloom, smelling of cold rain and expensive mint.
You stepped into her space, the heat from your cigarette inches from her face, and held the bags out between you.
"I don't want the money, Vanessa," you said, the words sliding out with a plume of gray smoke. A slow, toothy smirk pulled at your face, the cigarette dangling precariously from the corner of your mouth. "You were right the first time. I'm in it for the high."
You pressed the bags into her hands. She took the weight without a word, her eyes searching yours for a crack in the armor. She didn't look disappointed; she looked like she’d just won a bet.
She turned away, walking back toward the kitchen counter where your stack of overdue bills sat like a mounting threat. Her gloved hand reached out, finally picking up the face-down photograph she’d been eyeing.
"Everyone has a price," she murmured, her voice smooth as silk. She turned the photo over, studying the two men in the frame—younger, cleaner, smiling. "Tell me...does he have a price? Or is the chase really enough to satisfy a man like you?"
You didn't answer immediately. You walked over, your shadow swallowing her as you stared down at the image. Your heart didn't race—you’d killed that part of yourself years ago—but your eyes blew wide, fixed on the face of the man standing beside you in the photo.
Dex.
"He’s always been the mouse," you said, your voice dropping into a low, dangerous register. You took one last, deep drag of the cigarette, the cherry glowing a fierce, angry orange. Slowly, deliberately, you pressed the burning tip directly into Dex’s face on the glossy paper. The photo curled and hissed, the smell of melting plastic filling the air. "It was always about the chase."
Vanessa watched the smoke rise from the ruined picture. "And now you finally have a reason to finish it?"
You let out a laugh—a low, gravelly sound that vibrated in your chest. You looked at her, the smoldering remains of the photo still between her fingers.
"Do men like us ever really need a reason, Vanessa?" you asked. "We just need a direction."
She nodded once, a sharp, clinical movement. She didn't need to say anything else. She left the money on the counter anyway—a silent insult or a standing offer—and walked toward the door.
”Try not to make too much of a mess. My husband hates cleaning up after old friends.” she said over her shoulder.
You sat deep in the driver’s seat of your sedan, the engine off and the cabin cooling into a damp chill. A black baseball cap was pulled low, the brim cutting off the top half of your vision, leaving only the glowing cherry of your cigarette and the entrance to the apartment building across the street. It was a nice place—brick facade, clean awnings, way too upscale for a man who spent his nights painting the city red. Then again, the Fisks took care of their favorite monsters.
Movement at the glass doors made your eyes track center.
Dex stepped out, his shoulders hunched against the first few drops of the oncoming rain. He looked... diminished. In your memory, he was a giant, a specter of pinpoint accuracy and jagged nerves. Now, seen through a cracked windshield, he just looked like a man in a hurry. It had been years since you’d stood in the same room—years since the night a bullet meant for your spine grazed your ribs instead. He’d been a lousy shot that night, fueled by a frantic, desperate kind of rage. But then, you’d both been messy back then.
You watched his silhouette vanish around the corner, but you didn't move. You waited. Your watch ticked through thirty minutes of silence, the interior of the car filling with the gray ghost of cigarette smoke. Precision was the only thing that kept men like you alive.
When the half-hour mark hit, you slipped out of the car. The rain was steady now, a cold mist that clung to your skin. You didn't use the front door. You moved like a shadow into the alley, your boots finding the familiar rhythm of the fire escape. The iron groaned under your weight, but you were light on your feet, climbing until you reached his landing.
The window was locked, but the glass was old. You pressed a piece of heavy-duty tape to the pane to muffle the sound, then gave the center a sharp, controlled tap with the palm of your hand. It didn't shatter; it crunched. You cleared the jagged teeth of the frame and slid inside, your boots hitting the hardwood with a dull, heavy thud.
The air inside was stale. It was a "pretend" apartment—sparse, functional, a stage set for someone trying to convince themselves they were a normal member of the human race. You moved through the dark, your fingers grazing the surfaces as you passed. No dust. Everything in its place. Terrifyingly neat.
You reached the bedroom door and stopped. Your eyes caught on a splash of color against the drab grey of the duvet. A cat. It was curled into a tight ball, its chest rising and falling in the deep, easy sleep of a creature that felt safe.
A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. You walked over and sat on the edge of the mattress, the springs giving a faint, metallic whine. Your hand reached out, hovering for a second. Your fingers trembled—just a fraction—before you sank them into the soft fur behind the cat’s ears.
"He’s becoming domesticated," you rasped, the sound of your own voice startlingly loud in the empty room. "Who would’ve thought, Dex? You found something that doesn't scream when you touch it.”
The obsession with order was the one thing about Dex that had never changed. It was his anchor, his way of convincing the world—and himself—that there wasn't a jagged, howling void where his soul should be.
You moved back into the main living area, your boots silent as you navigated the space. You stopped at the entryway, looking down at his shoes. They were aligned with surgical precision, toes pointing toward the door at the exact same angle. On the small bookshelf, the spines were perfectly flush, organized by height and then, likely, by subject. It was a museum of a life, not a home.
You had never understood that need for rigid lines. Your world was one of frayed edges and blurred boundaries, but there was something oddly hypnotic about his devotion to the grid.
For years, Dex had been your mouse. He’d lived his life entirely unaware of the shadow you’d cast over him. You’d been the ghost in the machine of his life—a subtle nudge here, a lingering gaze from a rooftop there. It had been a private game, a long-form masterpiece of a hunt that required no audience and no ending.
But as you stood there in the center of his sanctuary, the "subtle" era felt like a lifetime ago. The game was evolving. The cat was finally stepping out of the tall grass.
The silence of the apartment was broken by the distant, rhythmic thrum of the elevator, followed by a set of heavy, deliberate footsteps echoing in the hallway. You didn't scramble for cover. Instead, you tilted your head, listening to the cadence. He was tired. You could hear it in the slight drag of his heel.
A low, melodic whistle passed your lips—a sharp contrast to the gloom.
You moved to the small, lone table in the kitchen area and pulled out a chair. The wood scraped softly against the floor as you sat, leaning back with an air of casual ownership. You didn't draw your weapon. You just waited, that same jagged, toothy grin stretching across your face.
The lock clicked. The handle turned.
You watched the door swing open, your eyes bright with the thrill of the corner.
The door swung open with a practiced, mechanical efficiency. Dex stepped inside, already reaching for the light switch with his left hand while his right went to his keys, moving to place them in the exact center of the entryway bowl.
He didn't see you at first. He was focused on his ritual. He kicked his boots off, nudging them into their designated slots in the rack with his heel, his breath coming in shallow, rhythmic pulses. He looked drained—the kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to hold a crumbling psyche together with nothing but sheer willpower.
Then, he heard it. The faint, metallic click-clack of you thumbing the flint on your lighter.
Dex froze. He didn't jump; he didn't gasp. He simply went still, every muscle in his body locking into a state of high-alert tension. His head snapped toward the kitchen table, his eyes wide and unblinking, tracking the small flame that illuminated the lower half of your face.
"You're late," you said, the smoke from your cigarette curling into the air between you.
Dex’s hand didn't go for a gun—he didn't need to. His fingers twitched, instinctively seeking the edge of the metal keys he’d just set down. His posture was rigid, his spine straight as a rod. He stared at you, his mind clearly racing to categorize the threat. The "mask" he wore for the world—the polite, steady FBI agent—was gone, replaced by the raw, jagged edges of Benjamin Poindexter.
"Who are you?" he asked. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion, but there was a tremor of agitation underneath. You were a variable. You were dirt on his clean floor. "How did you get in here?"
You leaned back, the chair groaning under your weight. "You don't remember?" You let the grin spread slow and wide, making sure he saw the predator behind the eyes. "And here I thought I was special, Dex. I've been watching you for a long time. Even back when you were still wearing the suit and pretending to be a Boy Scout."
Dex’s eyes flickered. He was scanning you now—not as a person, but as a target. He was looking at your center of mass, your throat, the distance between your hands and the table. His breathing started to hitch, becoming faster, more erratic.
"I remember the scent," he whispered, his voice cracking just a fraction. He tilted his head, a bird-like, twitchy movement that was pure Poindexter. "Gun oil, and…smoke." He took a step forward, his hand hovering over the counter, fingers spidering toward a steak knife left in the drying rack. "The man who didn't die. The one I missed."
"Missed by an inch," you corrected, tapping the scar beneath your shirt. "It was a messy night for both of us. But look at you now. A nice apartment, a cat...you’re almost human."
Dex flinched at the word human. He looked over at the bedroom door, his eyes darting toward the cat, then back to you. The violation of his sanctuary was clearly starting to make his "structure" fail. He wasn't just angry; he was vibrating with the need to put things back in their place.
"You touched my things," he hissed, his eyes fixated on the way you were sitting—disrupting the perfect symmetry of his kitchen. "You’re in my space. You need to leave. Now."
"Vanessa Fisk doesn't want me to leave," you hummed, enjoying the way his pupils dilated at the mention of the name. "She wants me to finish the game we started all those years ago. But I told her...I like the chase too much.”
You pushed off the table, the chair legs screaming against the floorboards—a sound specifically designed to grate on a man who craved silence. You stood at your full, imposing height, dwarfing the kitchen space. Slow and deliberate, you stretched your arms out wide, palms open, baring your chest like a target on a range.
"Go on then, Dex," you baited him, your voice a low, gravelly dare. "Show me you’ve practiced. Show me you’re more than just Fisk’s errand boy."
The reaction was a blur. Dex didn't wind up; he didn't telegraph. His hand snapped to the drying rack with the precision of a piston. The steak knife flickered through the dim light, a silver streak aimed directly at your throat.
You didn't flinch until the last possible microsecond, tilting your upper body just enough to feel the cold kiss of the blade’s wind. The knife thudded into the wooden doorframe behind you, vibrating with the force of the impact. The handle hummed—a perfect, deadly bullseye, missed only because you’d moved.
Dex’s face contorted. His eyes were blown wide, his breathing coming in jagged, hitching gasps as he stared at the knife he’d "missed." It wasn't just anger; it was a crisis of identity. To Dex, a miss wasn't a mistake—it was a failure of his very soul.
"Missed again," you taunted, taking a slow, heavy step toward him. "Must be the cat. Softening your edges."
"Shut up," he hissed, his voice rising in pitch. He scrambled toward the entryway bowl, his fingers clawing for the keys. He didn't just grab them; he indexed them, feeling the weight, finding the center of gravity for each individual brass key. "You’re making it messy. You're...you're all wrong. You don't belong in the grid."
"The grid is a lie, Ben," you said, using the name like a weapon. "The world is just one big, bloody mess, and you’re the sharpest piece of glass in the pile. But you’re getting slow. You’re thinking too much."
He lunged for a heavy glass coaster on the side table, his movements twitchy and frantic yet terrifyingly fast. He hurled it. Then a key. Then a heavy fountain pen. You moved with the practiced grace of a man who had spent years studying his rhythm, dodging by inches, the projectiles embedding themselves in the walls or shattering against the floor.
The apartment—his perfect, structured sanctuary—was being systematically destroyed by his own hand.
"Look at this place, Dex," you laughed, the sound deep and mocking. You ducked as a brass key whistled past your ear, burying itself an inch deep into the drywall. "You’re the one breaking the rules now. You’re the one making the mess."
Dex stopped, his chest heaving, his hand hovering over a heavy lamp. He was vibrating, his eyes darting from the shattered glass on his floor to the knife in the doorframe. The "mouse" was backed into a corner, but he wasn't fleeing. He was coiled, his sanity fraying at the edges as he realized he couldn't predict your movement.
"I'll fix it," he whispered to himself, his gaze fixing on your eyes with a terrifying, singular focus. "I'll fix the mess. I just have to put you down first.”
You surged forward, closing the distance before he could find another object to launch. Dex let out a sharp, guttural sound—half-snarl, half-sob—and met you halfway.
He didn't lead with a punch; he led with a tactical strike, his elbow aiming for your temple with the speed of a snapping trap. You caught his arm, the impact vibrating through your marrow, and used his momentum to shove him back against the kitchen counter. The perfectly aligned jars of spices exploded behind him, showering you both in a cloud of cinnamon and shattered glass.
"You're sloppy, Ben!" you roared, throwing a heavy hook that he parried with a desperation that was almost beautiful.
"I'm...not...sloppy!" he hissed through gritted teeth. He grabbed a heavy ceramic plate from the drying rack and, instead of throwing it, used it like a jagged shield to deflect your next strike. The plate shattered against your forearm, slicing through your skin, but you didn't flinch. You leaned in, your forehead slamming into his in a brutal headbutt that sent a spray of red across the pristine white tile.
Dex stumbled back, his eyes rolling for a split second before the predatory instinct snapped them back into focus. He was bleeding from a cut above his brow, the crimson line carving a path through his pale features. He looked at the blood on his fingers, then at the blood he’d spilled on you.
A manic, flickering light danced in his eyes. He wasn't trying to run for the door. He was leaning into the chaos.
He lunged, tackling you around the waist and driving you into the living room. You hit the coffee table, the wood splintering beneath your combined weight. You rolled, grappling in the wreckage, hands searching for throat, for eyes, for any leverage. It was a messy, ugly tumble—less like a choreographed fight and more like two wolves tearing at each other for the right to breathe.
You pinned him for a second, your weight crushing his chest. "Is this what you wanted?" you panted, your blood dripping onto his collar. "The mess? The noise?"
Dex didn't answer with words. He reached up, his fingers digging into the fresh wound on your shoulder with a surgical, agonizing precision. As you hissed in pain, he bucked his hips, throwing you off. He scrambled to his feet, but instead of finishing you, he paused to straighten a crooked picture frame on the wall with a trembling hand, even as his other hand reached for a heavy brass lamp.
The irony was thick enough to choke on. He was trying to maintain order while systematically destroying his life.
You stood up, wiping a trail of blood from your lip, and started to laugh. It was a dark, jagged sound. "You're still trying to fix the room, Dex? We’re the ones who are broken. The room is just collateral."
He hurled the lamp. You didn't duck—you swatted it aside, the base bruising your palm as it crashed into the television. You stepped into his guard, catching him in a clinch. You could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, a frantic thud-thud-thud that mirrored your own.
For a long, breathless minute, you just struggled against each other, locked in a stalemate of raw strength. You weren't reaching for your knife, and he wasn't reaching for the shard of glass inches from his hand. You were just...holding on. Two monsters in the dark, recognizing the reflection in the other’s eyes.
"You missed that night," you whispered in his ear, your breath hot and ragged. "Because you didn't want to kill me. You just wanted me to notice you."
Dex’s entire body shuddered. The rigid, mechanical tension in his muscles snapped, replaced by a sudden, violent shove. He pushed you away, his chest heaving, his face a mask of sweating, bloody agony.
"I don't...I don't know you," he lied, his voice breaking. He looked around the apartment—at the shattered plates, the ruined photos, the blood-stained carpet. His structure was gone. The mouse was no longer hidden, and the cat was no longer hunting. They were just two men standing in the ruins of a pretend life.
"Yes, you do," you said, steadying yourself against the wall. You didn't move to attack again. The "high" was fading, leaving behind the dull ache of old age and new bruises. "And that’s why you’re not going to kill me tonight. And I'm not going to kill you. We’re just going to keep playing, aren't we?"
Dex looked at you, his pupils dilated until his eyes were almost entirely black. He didn't say yes. He didn't say no. He just picked up a single, unbroken key from the floor and held it so tight his knuckles turned white, his gaze fixed on you with a terrifying, unspoken promise.
The game wasn't over. It had just finally become honest.
This wasn't a job anymore; it was an addiction. You were both junkies for the adrenaline, hooked on the specific, jagged high that only the other could provide.
For a heartbeat, the apartment went dead quiet, the only sound the dripping of the faucet and the frantic thud of two hearts. Then, Dex snapped.
He lunged with a raw, uncoordinated power that bypassed his usual precision. He slammed into your midsection, his shoulder driving into your gut as he pinned you against the wall. The impact was a dull roar in your ears, the plaster behind your head cracking like an eggshell. The air left your lungs in a ragged wheeze, but you didn't drop. You couldn't.
Dex scrambled, his desperation manifesting as a frantic need for a tool. He lunged for the doorframe, his fingers white-knuckled as he wrenched the steak knife free from the wood. In one fluid, terrifyingly fast motion, he didn't stab—he flicked.
The blade buried itself four inches deep into the meat of your thigh.
The world went white for a second. You froze, your leg buckling as the cold shock of the steel registered, followed immediately by a blooming, sickening heat. You looked down at the handle protruding from your jeans, then back up at Dex. He was heaving, his face a mask of sweat and absolute, terrifying focus. He was waiting for you to break.
Instead, you started to laugh. It was a wet, breathless sound that turned into a cough. You reached down, gripped the handle, and with a guttural grunt, you ripped the blade out. You didn't even look at the blood as you tossed the knife aside; it clattered uselessly against the baseboard.
"You're still aiming for the limbs, Ben," you rasped, a dark, manic glint in your eyes. "Aim for the heart if you actually want the game to end."
You didn't wait for his response. You threw your entire weight forward, tackling him before he could find his footing. You hit the floor hard, the impact jarring your teeth. You rolled him over, pinning his shoulders down with your knees and pressing your forearm hard across his throat.
The pressure was immense. You could feel his windpipe beneath your bone, the frantic pulse of his carotid artery jumping against your skin. Dex didn't go still; he became a cage of thrashing limbs. He clawed at your face, his nails digging into your cheeks and tearing at the skin near your eyes, trying to find a soft spot to gouge.
"Look at me," you growled, leaning down until your forehead was inches from his. "Stop looking at the room. Stop looking at the mess. Look at me."
Dex’s eyes were blown wide, a panicked, frantic blue. He was choking, his face turning a deep, bruised purple, but the clawing slowed. His fingers transitioned from tearing at your skin to clutching at your forearm, holding onto you like a man drowning. For a second, the violence shifted into something else—a heavy, suffocating intimacy.
"Is this...enough?" Dex managed to wheeze out, his voice a strangled thread. "Is this...what you wanted?"
You stared down at him, the blood from your face dripping onto his forehead, mingling with his own. You realized then that you weren't just the cat, and he wasn't just the mouse. You were both just two broken things trying to feel the edges of your own existence.
"It's a start," you whispered, the pressure of your arm never wavering.
The adrenaline began to ebb, replaced by the heavy, thrumming ache of reality. The apartment was a graveyard of the man Dex had tried to be. Broken glass, spilled spices, and the copper tang of blood hung in the air, thick enough to taste.
You slowly eased the pressure on his throat, but you didn't move away. Your forearm was still braced against his chest, feeling the frantic, bird-like rhythm of his heart finally begin to slow. Dex didn’t move. He lay there among the wreckage, staring up at you with eyes that looked less like a predator’s and more like a man seeing a ghost.
"The game’s over for tonight, Ben," you rasped, your voice cracking from the strain.
You rolled off him, your wounded leg giving a sharp, white-hot protest as you slumped against the base of his kitchen island. You didn't bother checking the hole in your thigh; you just pressed the palm of your hand against it, feeling the warm pulse of blood through your fingers.
Dex stayed on the floor for a long time. He stared at the ceiling, his chest heaving. Slowly, he sat up, his movements jerky and mechanical. He didn't look at you. Instead, his eyes fixed on a shattered ceramic bowl—the one that had held his keys. He reached out, his fingers trembling as he touched a jagged shard of porcelain.
"It’s messy," he whispered. The word sounded like a confession. "It’s all...out of alignment."
"It’s honest," you countered. You reached into your pocket, finding your lighter and one last, crushed cigarette. You lit it, the flame steady despite the tremor in your hands. You took a drag, the smoke burning beautifully in your lungs. "This is what we are. You can't hide it behind a nice zip code and a clean floor."
Dex finally turned his head. The blood from the cut on his forehead had dried into a dark streak across his eye, making him look like he was wearing a fractured mask. He looked at you—really looked at you—without the sights of a gun or the trajectory of a blade between you.
"Vanessa...she'll expect you to finish it," Dex said, his voice flat but curious.
"Vanessa doesn't own the game," you said, blowing a plume of smoke toward the ceiling. "She just bought the tickets. I'm the one who decides when the curtain falls."
You used the counter to haul yourself to your feet, gritting your teeth against the flare of pain in your leg. You looked around the ruined room one last time. In the doorway of the bedroom, the cat appeared, blinking its green eyes at the chaos before sitting down to lick a paw. It was the only thing in the apartment that wasn't broken.
You walked toward the window you’d broken to get in, leaving a trail of dark droplets on his floor. You stopped at the frame, looking back over your shoulder. Dex was still sitting in the middle of the debris, holding that shard of porcelain like it was a holy relic.
"Fix your window, Dex," you said, a small, tired ghost of that toothy smirk returning to your lips. "And get some sleep. You look like hell."
"Are you coming back?" he asked. The question wasn't a threat. It was a plea for the only structure he had left: the chase.
You paused, one hand on the fire escape railing. The rain was finally falling now, a cold, heavy downpour that washed the salt and copper from your skin. You looked at the "mouse" sitting in the ruins of his cage and felt a dark, familiar spark in your gut.
"I never really left, Ben," you hummed.
You slipped out into the night, the iron of the fire escape cold beneath your boots. Behind you, in the dark apartment, Benjamin Poindexter sat in the silence, listening to the rain and the fading sound of your footsteps, already beginning to calculate the distance for the next time the cat came out to play.
