#chuckxfem!reader

[rwprincess]

Room For One More: Chapter 5

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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Fem!Reader-Insert

Word Count: 1.4K

Synopsis: An unexpected letter from your estranged father makes you seek comfort in the one place you know to look: Chuck.

CW: Estranged parents, pregnancy mention, swearing

March 29, 1968

Spring was blossoming and the blue violets with their soft sapphire blooms reminded you of days spent in Brentwood. It was nice to be in a similar area, or at least the same state so that you knew what to anticipate, but it was still your first spring in Mill Valley. It would be your final “first season,” as you had arrived last summer and were getting ever closer to that one-year mark. You stooped to sniff the fragrance of the light lavender petals as you passed, enjoying that the sun was finally out and melting away the bleak winter. You picked up the post as you passed your mailbox and began examining it. Your heart stopped and your fingers paused, tracing the ink on the return address of one particular envelope. It was from your father. 

At first, neither your mother nor you communicated to him where you had moved to. It wasn’t necessarily out of avoidance, but rather lack of caring. He had left your small family, after all, so neither of you felt he was owed the consideration of this information. However, through the grapevine of family, he had clearly found out. The letter was addressed only to you, and if his name hadn’t been in the top left hand corner, you would not have known, or even imagined, that it was from him. He had called maybe twice in the last six or so months you had lived here. Yes, twice, you thought, because he had called for Christmas and for your birthday. You had relied heavily on the gang to cheer you back up after that one. Luckily, they had taken you for pie at the diner and then out to see a movie to get your mind off of the brief long-distance encounter from him. 

You set the rest of the mail down on the coffee table in your living room, but opened your letter hastily and quickly skimmed it. Your heart dropped to your stomach and you immediately felt queasy at its contents. You read it again, slower this time, and then set it down with your hands shaking. You walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone, your fingers working on numb instinct rather than actually thinking about it. You dialed Chuck’s number. You couldn’t use the walkies for this one. There was only one person you even wanted to talk to about this, even though you weren’t cognizant of that desire. Ruth had of course answered their phone. You assumed 90% of the phone calls to the Steinberg’s house were for her, but you asked if Chuck was there. She knew it was you immediately and sighed, calling for Chuck in the background before returning to you, “Can you please make it brief? I’m expecting a call.” Under normal conditions, you’d roll your eyes at this request, but you felt distant, like you were outside of yourself and looking in, so you just agreed. When Chuck picked up, he sounded confused as to why you’d use an actual phone rather than your group’s customary method of communication, but you just told him to meet you at the park near your houses as soon as possible. 

Outside, the colors now seemed muted. You no longer had the springtime spring-in-your step and the sun didn’t even warm you. You felt like maybe you were being a tad dramatic. This isn’t the worst news you could have received, and in normal families, it might have been a happy announcement. However, the shock of it just kept you numb and disgusted. You couldn’t really say why you had reached out to Chuck and just Chuck. Maybe it was because you felt bad for Auggie and Stella and their family situations. You didn’t want to burden them with this or the pettiness you felt. Especially since you actually (once in a blue moon) heard from your dad. Stella’s mom had left without a trace and she had not had any communication from her for years, and of course, Auggie couldn’t communicate with his dad, so you should feel lucky, right? But you also had a habit of only wanting to divulge in one person when something like this hit you out of the blue; if you couldn’t reach out to that particular one person, you’d suffer on your own. Over the years, the person had changed, of course, and right now in your life that person was automatically Chuck.

You had expected more people to be out since it was such a nice day, but the playground was completely deserted. You took advantage of this, even though the silence was eerie and matched your empty mood, and climbed to the top of the play structure where you always did. Within the span of ten minutes, Chuck pedaled up on his bicycle and parked it. He approached you saying, “Jeez, who died?” at your expression, trying to make a joke, but you just shook your head. “Oh crap, did someone actually die?” He asked, quickly hiking up the plastic-and-metal construction to join you. You handed him the open letter from your dad and sighed as he opened it.

“No, it looks like I’m going to be a big sister.” The admission made you want to vomit.

“What? No shit?” His dark eyes expeditiously scanned the handwritten note, half-expecting an early April Fool’s joke from you. His eyebrows furrowed and his eyes narrowed as he reached the big reveal, just as you had. “Wow.” He whispered upon its discovery. He held onto the letter for a moment, not sure if he should even give it back to you. He already knew you didn’t want it. 

You let out a kind of choked laugh. It felt like some cosmic joke, but your throat had tightened around the sound and you coughed, realizing now that you were holding back tears. “How do I even respond to something like this, man?” You asked him, looking down at the ground which seemed as distant and removed as you felt. “Gee, thanks for thinking of me once every couple of months. Hope you do better with this next one?” You spat, mockingly.

“I-I’m sorry, kid.” Chuck said softly next to you. “I don’t know what to say either. It must feel really, really weird.”

You let out a humorless, dry chuckle. “That’s one way of putting it,” you paused for a moment, processing your thoughts, “I suppose a normal person would be happy. People love babies.” You had expected him to say something along the lines of ‘Yeah, but you’re not normal,’ and try to make a joke out of it, but he surprised you by taking it seriously.

“No...no, your reaction is totally normal.” He reassured you, “I can’t imagine someone really being happy about this.” He adjusted next to you, seemingly debating whether or not it would be comforting to touch you. You would have welcomed it. Not only did you not want to ‘bother’ your other friends with this information, but Chuck was the one you felt closest to anyway, and in any situation, you longed for him to hold you, but now would be a particularly good time. However, he didn’t; instead, he kept talking. “I mean, even if it weren’t with some other person. If my mom told me she was pregnant tomorrow? I’d shit a brick. I mean, ew, knowing that my parents are still having sex?” He blurted out, not thinking about it until his cheeks turned red immediately.

“Jesus.” You hissed and unconsciously shifted away from him; that was certainly one way to ruin a moment.

“Sorry. What I’m getting at is that, with the gap and everything, it would be weird no matter who you were or what the situation is...I really messed that up, didn’t I?” He grimaced at his own mistake.

“Yeah, pretty much.” You replied grimly, but inside you found it mildly amusing.

“Let me make it up to you, I’ll buy you a milkshake. Can’t stay down long when you have frozen dairy.” He nudged you, drawing out a small smile, but you still didn’t look up or agree, so he nudged you again, “Come oooon.” Now you had to look up at him, and your smile grew as you agreed to his offer.

Next (Chapter 6)

[rwprincess]

Room for One More (Chap 4)

Previous

Masterlist

Next (Chapter 5)

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Fem!Reader-Insert

Synopsis: The holiday blues have you missing Auggie and Chuck, who are out of town. But you’re able to have some one-on-one friend-time with Stella. Additionally, you fight your own feelings for Chuck and realization thereof.

A/N: So much of this reads like it’s Stella x Reader and I regret a little that it’s not. Maybe next time around. 

CW: Spoilers for The Outsiders; Mention of teenage pregnancy; Mention of cheating/infidelity; What I feel is cringey “girltalk” to move forward in the plot; Religious holidays/Church

Word Count: 2800

December 24, 1967

The holidays had been unbearably boring for you. Both Auggie and Chuck were out of town; Auggie’s mom dragged him to visit his stepfather, Jeff’s, family and Chuck told you that Hanukkah was falling pretty late this year; it didn’t start until the 26th, so his family would be gone for almost two weeks visiting his grandmother in Florida. Luckily, Stella was around to keep you sane. You wouldn’t see her on actual Christmas or Christmas Eve, the latter of which you were spending home alone, as your mom took the offer to be paid more at work that evening. You kept busy staying cozy by the fire and rereading The Outsiders. You still loved the dialogue and the character development. The strong bond of friendship reminded you of your own. The boys in the novel had elected to make a family of each other and would do anything for the “brothers” they loved, even if it took a tragic turn. You felt like you had a similar relationship to your trio of friends. You were all missing some kind of piece to your lives, your families; and the others filled that void. During your reread, it dawned on you that Sandy had left to live with her grandparents because she was pregnant and it was not Soda’s child. You felt scandalized; you couldn’t imagine cheating on someone, and Soda was painted to be some kind of sweet boyish Adonis, so least of all someone like him. 

Your mind wandered, taking a moment with that thought and you felt your brain creeping thoughts of Chuck into your conscious from your subconscious. Most of the time, you tried to push the thoughts down, but lately you had been failing. Perhaps it was just because you hadn’t seen him in awhile, although you thought that would have helped. You supposed ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ after all. You still hadn’t admitted your feelings out loud. You didn’t dare to speak it, lest that make it “real.” You also tried to treat him the same, before you developed your crush, but it was hard to remember what that was like anymore. Especially since you two had spent more time together as of late. Usually all four of you would spend time together, but on occasions where Stella felt more obligated to take care of your father or Auggie’s mom insisted he bond with Jeff or have a family dinner, you were the odd one out. Your mom seemed to work endlessly and you vowed to begin working as soon as you turned fifteen, so she wouldn’t have to keep burning the candle at both ends. You tried to market yourself as a babysitter as much as possible, but with families travelling and spending quality time together, your options were tapped dry. 

So, on those motherless-nights, Chuck sometimes reached out to have you come to his house. His mother was hesitant at first; another mouth to feed. But she also felt like it was her duty to God to take in another of His children. You had also eventually won her over because you were grateful to be included. Chuck had remarked how different you were around his mother than him. You had joked that it was because she didn’t put you in a bad mood or you liked her better, but really you were just sure to be super polite in order to stay. You saved all of your sarcasm for Chuck directly, when she wasn’t around, but he seemed to like that anyway. You also admired his sister, even though the two of them constantly bickered. She was that beautiful, popular, perfect, preppy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed teenage girl that every magazine said you should want to be. At first impression, you were stunned that she was Chuck’s sister. She was poised and polished, and looked directly opposite to him. However, after seeing them interact, the Steinberg personality came through more. She was pretty good at lobbing insults his way, and Chuck never minded. He always had something up his sleeve to throw back. You and Ruth didn’t really like each other. There wasn’t animosity, per se, but you were just another of her little brother’s weird friends and she eventually struck you as vapid and you were bothered by some of her fights with Chuck.

You had become so lost in your rabbit hole of thoughts about the Steinbergs and their dynamics that you jumped when your mother unlocked the door and entered the house. “Sorry to scare you, dear.” She said, scraping snow off her shoes and onto the rug before removing them. “Are you reading one of Stella’s stories again?” Your mom liked to stay involved in your life as much as possible, particularly to make up for her physical absence in it. So, while she hadn’t read any of them, she knew Stella wrote scary stories and that you would read them and give her feedback. 

“No, I was just...distracted.” You were not about to tell her why, though. “Lost in thought, I guess. Nothing in particular. But, no. Just The Outsiders again.” 

“Oh. Well, it is getting late, I think you should go to bed soon. We can have a nice breakfast before church tomorrow morning.” Your mom wasn’t particularly religious, but she insisted on going to the Church for Christmas Day and Easter. She felt that, in this small, talkative town, it was even more important to do so. You got up from your place on the sofa and folded the blanket that was draped in your lap and followed your mother upstairs to get ready for bed.

December 29, 1967

Stella’s father seemed to have an attitude similar to your mother’s. Stella had never mentioned going to church before, anyway, and you were pretty sure you had spent the night on a Saturday to waken there on Sunday without there being plans to. However, she and her father were there today. You took the opportunity to introduce your parents. It had never occurred to you that they would want to meet, being in the same situation. Perhaps because they both constantly worked. But they made polite conversation and seemed to click. Lots of “oh, we should have met sooner” and “maybe we should all get together for a family dinner some time,” which piqued your interest. It would be nice for your mom to have someone to talk to outside of Barbara, who had secured her job, or Mrs. Steuben down the street. Especially someone who knew what she was going through and could actually relate.

You and Stella discussed the possibility/opportunity on Friday when you finally met up post-holidays. “They seemed to have hit it off, right?” She asked, and you confirmed with a nod. She waited a moment and then said “What if...what if they started dating?”

You thought about it seriously and suppressed the automatic squeal of ‘we could be sisters!’ as though this were a real life Parent Trap. “Actually, I don’t know how I’d feel about that. Not that I have anything against your dad! He’s a terrific guy. It’s just...I don’t know if she’s ready for that sort of thing yet. Is he, really?”

Now it was Stella’s turn to mull it over. You could see her making a face, weighing the truth in her head. “Probably not. I’m not sure that he’ll ever trust a woman again, actually.” She said softly, sadly.

“I’m not sure my mom would trust someone either,” you replied, truthfully. Having your spouse leave seemed to take its toll. It made you think back to your revelation about The Outsiders and cemented, yet again, that you would never cheat on someone. You felt like that was one of the lowest things you could do. You weren’t sure if Stella’s mom had found someone else or just left. Auggie had told you that Stella had always felt that it was her fault, so you figured there wasn’t another romantic interest. But you also couldn’t understand someone leaving Stella. She had some odd tastes, sure, but it wasn’t like she was a difficult child. She was kind, brave, and loving. You couldn’t picture younger, little Stella being much different. Not enough to drive a parent away, that was for sure.

“Hmm. That kind of gives me an idea for a story.” She said and jotted a note down in her book on her desk. You sat cross-legged on her bed, instead. She often wrote ideas down, so she usually sat at her desk. Occasionally you both sat on the floor. She still had some of her Halloween stash of candy and was sharing it with you.

You bit into a piece of chocolate from that hoard and said thoughtfully, “You know, it’s weird that these taste the same like two, three months later.”

“Oh, I’m sure Auggie would tell you all about the preservatives in it and how they’re going to give you cancer.” She smirked.

“I don’t understand why he acts so shocked when we eat it. He does, too.”  You laughed at his mild hypocrisy. “I do miss those lectures, though.” You said with a sigh.

“Me too. Kinda.” She chuckled. “But they’ll be back for school soon enough.” She knew you didn’t just miss Auggie, and neither did she. As a writer, Stella was very observant. She had noticed you acting differently around Chuck and looking at him just a little too long or with a little too much softness in your eyes, but she didn’t let on that she knew...well, until today. Curiosity was getting the better of her and she wanted to know if her deductions were correct. She wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it, though. She had a way with words when they were written on paper. Broaching an awkward topic such as this, though, not so much. You discussed other things until she finally blurted out, “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, what?”

“I mean, it’s kind of personal, but-- I figure we’re friends, right?”

“I sure hope so.” You laughed, “Otherwise it’s really weird that I’m sitting on your bed eating your chocolate, right?”

“Oh yeah, true.” She chuckled nervously in response. “So, like...I’ve never really had any girl friends to talk to about this but...do you like anybody?” You’d never thought about the fact that she just had Chuck and Auggie, who probably weren’t too keen to hear about any of her crushes. Especially Auggie. “Man, I feel silly just asking that. Like, what a stereotype, right?”

“Why? Do you have a crush on somebody?” You asked.

“No, not really.” She admitted. “I guess there’s some people who aren’t bad-looking in my classes, but a lot of them aren’t very interesting. Or they’re jerks. And I only really hang out with you, Auggie, and Chuck, and that’s not happening.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, I’ve known them forever. They’re just like brothers at this point.”

“Really? I got the impression that Auggie liked you.” You said, in a teasing tone. She rolled her eyes.

“Funny, I got that same impression about you. You know what we say, Auggie likes every girl.” You laughed at that, knowing there was some truth in it. You had seen him drool over Ruth as well, although you had seen plenty of guys about school do that. “Would you ever consider dating him?” She asked you, bluntly. Your eyes widened in surprise at the question.

“No, I guess not. Like you said, he likes every girl. Not very special, right? And since my dad left my mom for another woman,” you reminded her, “I don’t think my ego could take that. I’d probably be too jealous.” You kind of scoffed a laugh, trying to make it seem like your answer wasn’t too serious.

“Not just because he’s your friend?” She asked, since that had been her reason for not liking him.

“No. I think people should be friends with their boyfriend or girlfriend. You should get along and like their company, right?” She gave that a thought and then agreed.

“Then what about Chuck?” She asked, and her sly smile told you that she already knew and you began to panic. 

You tried to play it cool with a, “What about him?” But her ‘are you serious?’ stare made you ask, “How long have you known?” instead.

“I don’t know. How long have you liked him?”

“That long?”

“No, I just...I mean, how long have you liked him? I probably noticed a couple of weeks ago.” You groaned and rubbed your face, trying to hide. “What? Is that the whole time?”

“No,” you admitted. “Please, please promise me you will not tell another soul, dead or alive.” She crossed her heart at your stern glare. “I’ve never told anybody. I haven’t even said it out loud to myself.” You told her and gave a pitiful whimper, embarrassed by your confession. 

She gave you a moment of silence to pity yourself and then pushed on, “So...since when?” 

“I don’t know. October, maybe? Or late September?” You really weren’t sure. It was hard to place a pin in it, and maybe you hadn’t even noticed your feelings at first. You were in denial for a bit, too.

“Wow.” Stella said, actually surprised. “Well, for what it’s worth, you’ve been hiding it pretty well. I don’t think either of them know.”

“Good. I’d die. Or have to leave town. And I’m not too keen on starting over again.” She gave you another ‘really?’ look at your dramatics. “Hey, look. It’s bad enough you know. Hell, it’s bad enough that I know.” That made her laugh.

“If you feel that way, why do you even like him?” She said with a smile.

“I didn’t get to choose!” You said, defensively. “I don’t know. He makes me laugh.”

“So does Auggie,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but Chuck isn’t in love with every other girl, either.” You stuck your tongue out at her.

‘No, just you.’ Stella thought. For every secretive glance she saw you steal at Chuck, she saw him return one. But it wasn’t her place to tell you that, just as she would never tell anyone else about your secret. She was glad that she was right though, and that you had admitted it. Underneath the horror stories and doubts about whether marriages could actually work, Stella was a hopeless romantic.

“I mean, look,” you started, “I only ever hang out with you three. And on occasion bump into Ruth or god forbid, Tommy Milner.” You spat his name. “That’s not gonna happen. So, my options are pretty limited.”

“You could just be like me, solo. Not liking anyone.”

“Yeah, I guess. Like I said, I didn’t choose it.” You folded your arms over your chest. “You promise, right?” She knew what you meant, and how serious you were.

“I promise, Y/N. I won’t say a word to anybody.”

“No writing it, either. No crafty loopholes.” You shot back. She laughed at your slight paranoia.

“Yeah, I won’t write it down either. Or blink it in Morse code. Or give subliminal messages. Or--” You cut her off by tossing one of her pillows at her.

“Please tell me you’ve written another story so we can talk about something else. Anything else.” You begged.

“Actually, I have!” She gave you a hand-written draft. In the story, a girl accepted a dare to stay on a supposed-witch’s grave all night. The club who was initiating her through the dare told her that she had to mark her presence at the grave by driving a dagger into it. When she had made it through the night, she put the dagger in the dirt and went to leave, but was being held down to the grave! She thought the witch’s spirit or zombified person was pulling her down into the grave and died of fright. When the club went to check on her dare in the morning, they found that she had stabbed through her own dress, pinning herself to the grave. 

“Interesting that it’s not actually supernatural. Kind of a ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ thing.” You told her when you finished. “Now, give me a pen.” She was used to this part. She was thrilled that you were a reader and were willing to give her feedback. You made edits to her drafts before she typed them up to make her stories feel more ‘published.’ You quickly began work on this manuscript, scribbling notes about grammar and word choice.

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