🩸 An Ongoing FARGO Fanfic Series, from Misha’s Masterlist Library.
☾⋆ MERCY Full Series Masterlist & File -> click here.
BOOK THREE • Chapters 3 -> 4
💿 -> “A&W” by Lana Del Rey [only 03:42 thru the end] (Ch.3)
💿 -> “Some Protector” by Role Model (Ch.4)
Gator Tillman x OC!fem!reader
circumstantial childhood friends to teen rivals to slowburn lovers. angst to the max, dark humor drenched, heavy smut with heavier plot, hurt/comfort, Tillman Kingdom compliant madness. S4+ universe hot-take. Seedy town collides with old money and elite underworld. 18+
🩸CHAPTERS SUMMARY: In a country that loves ruined boys and punishes untouched girls, Gator Tillman gets by just fine. Because he knows exactly what he is and wears it like a fucking badge: sleaze, sinner, self-made American manwhore who learned early that boys like him don’t get clean hands or clean exits. He can take the looks, the names, the reputation. Hell, he’s earned them.
But the second someone tries to put her in the same fucking category? That’s when the lie cracks and the rot curdles into something more foul than a decaying body.
Mercer is not his reflection, no matter how much she makes him see himself clearer than he ever wanted to. And when Reed Calloway mistakes her softness for availability, and her silent beauty for permission, something in Gator snaps mean and irreversible.
One night of simmering fury and internal spiraling has dawned into this morning, when he fully steps into the role of protector. And this is the moment all of Fargo learns that there’s a line you don’t cross— because protecting Mercer doesn’t make Gator Tillman a better man. It just makes him downright fucking lethal.
🩸AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please, I beg of you... queue up “A&W” by Lana Del Rey at the exact mark indicated when beginning Chapter 3, so that you can experience the waves of Gator's inner rage and all the events that take place from start to finish. I promise you, it's worth it. Because he's a self-certified American Wh*re, and we love (to hate) him for it. Also, “Some Protector” by Role Model for Chapter 4. The whole song plays throughout it, and it feels like a solid "episode ending" type of song for the entire thing, so just... yeah. TRUST ME ON THIS A'IGHT?!!?
🩸OVERALL SERIES WARNINGS/NOTES: TV-MA fanfic rating. Strong language, dark morbid humor, TOXIC Gator Tillman (who I shamelessly give way too much anti-hero redemption arc throughout) ruthless banter, bad childhoods, deeply rooted traumas, mutually detailed dark backstories, hatred mixed with underlying codependency (but it’s justified in this fic bc I said so) mutual jealousy, dirty politics. Very strong mature themes, matter and topics all around.
THIS IS AN 18+ FANFIC. Minors, do not initiate.
It’s a slowburn in hellfire: circumstantial childhood friends → teen rivals → inevitable lovers. Four novels of dark humor, heavier plot, sharper edges. Hurt, comfort, and every ugly thing in between.
Chapter Three
Uncharted Territory
💿 -> “A&W” by Lana Del Rey
[only 03:42 thru the end] (Ch.3)
The early morning sky was the kind of drab gray that didn’t give away anything or shadow Fargo in darkness. Instead? It foreshadowed the inevitable.
Gator stepped out of Andy’s van and slammed the door without a word. Andy barely looked up from the wheel, he already knew better. He shifted into gear and pulled away, heading toward his first class at the local community college on Main. That was the extent of the morning. No grand parting words. No nod. No small talk.
Didn’t need it.
Andy might be a class clown who had no idea when to quit, but when it came to this side of Gator Tillman? This very rare, silently seething side of him? He knew it was his job to be the getaway car and a true sidekick who didn’t ever make him feel obligated to explain himself.
He didn’t even throw his usual “play nice with the other kids today, ya hear?!” when dropping off his heathen of an unbiological kid brother.
Instead, he just shot him a wink before pulling out of the lot, making for his full day of classes down at the Fargo Community College.
Gator adjusted the collar of his jacket and stalked up the front steps of the school.
He was still grounded. Not that it mattered. Roy Tillman made it clear that while yardwork could wreck your back, missing school could wreck your future. So Gator was allowed this much: get in, keep your grades, and don’t fucking look for trouble.
Too bad trouble had a name today.
Reed Calloway, who conveniently wasn’t here today.
Fuckin’ pussy.
A true sign of a coward who was guilty and didn’t have the balls to face the consequences, let alone the music.
He cracked his neck.
Time to change that.
Gator knew it before he hit the first hallway. It was too quiet. Not empty, just hushed. Like someone was waiting for a bomb to go off. Every set of eyes clocked him when he passed. Some turned away. Some didn’t bother.
He didn’t look at them. And Gator didn’t walk, he prowled. Moved like something out of a hunting reel, his shoulders squared, fists loose at his sides, boots hitting tile in even, echoing steps. The hall wasn’t a hallway. It was a long stretch of battlefield.
And he had a single target.
Jake was laughing about something near the lockers. Mouth open. Face smug. Reed’s boy. Second-string linebacker, all bark, no bite. He didn’t see him coming.
But everyone else sure did.
The moment Gator stopped in front of him, the air snapped tight.
Jake blinked. “What the hell—?”
Too slow.
Gator slammed him against the lockers with one arm like it cost him nothing. Jake’s head hit metal, hard. The clang bounced down the corridor. The group of kids behind him scattered. Some didn’t even pretend not to watch.
Gator’s face didn’t flinch. “Where is he, Simmons.”
The words were low. Flat. Dead still.
Jake blinked hard. “Who—?”
Wrong answer.
Gator’s fist slammed into the locker beside his ear hard enough that the whole wall shuddered. Jake jolted. His face went pale.
“Don’t.” Gator’s voice didn’t rise. If anything, it dropped lower. “You know who.”
Jake’s mouth worked for a hot second. Then he laughed. Nervously. Weakly. “Man, I don’t—”
“Not your man.” Gator yanked him forward by the collar, face-to-face. “Try again.”
It wasn’t a request.
It was a last fucking chance.
Jake’s eyes darted. He was taller, broader. Six-foot-three next to the six-foot-even that had him pinned, but it didn’t matter. None of it did. Because Gator wasn’t bluffing. He never had to.
There was a long second where Jake considered lying.
And then he broke.
“Okay—okay. He took his car to the shop. Madison’s place. That’s it, I swear—he’s just laying low there.”
Gator stared at him. Silent.
Then he let go.
Jake slumped against the lockers like his bones gave out. The sound of him sliding down the metal was pathetic.
“Atta boy,” Gator sneered, leaving him in the dust.
He didn’t look back. Didn’t pause. He just turned, stalked down the hallway, and pushed out the front doors like nothing had happened.
The sun was still low. Bleached and cold across the pavement. Gator pulled out his phone and shot a single text to Bill:
Gator 🐊:
first period’s canceled. meet me at ur truck.
Gator marched off to his classroom to find him the second that he’d sent it, not leaving any wiggle room.
Bill blinked up from his textbook, half a bagel in hand. “Boo bear, you’re on the wrong side of the school—”
“Check your texts.”
The blue-eyed cowboy’s brow furrowed. He reached for his phone, which of course was already tucked away in his bag on silent. Like a good student usually should do before his class starts. He lifted a brow at the screen.
“Skip first with me.”
“You serious?”
Gator didn’t repeat himself. He just looked at him.
Bill sighed. “You know I can’t skip, man. My mom’s—”
Gator straightened, already nodding towards the door. He didn’t beg. Didn’t plead. But he didn’t need to in order for Bill to clock onto the fact that was something was way, way off.
“Fuck it,” Bill muttered, yanking his hoodie up. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t argue it any further as Gator marched ahead of him. Bill showed up in the lot a few minutes later after he stopped at his locker, keys in hand and expression tight. Gator climbed in without a word, and Bill drove.
They didn’t talk for the first few blocks.
Bill kept glancing sideways. Gator’s jaw was set. His eyes were fixed on the road. Elbow to the window, and still as statue.
After a moment, Bill finally spoke. Warily. “You gonna tell me what this is?”
“Nope.”
Bill nodded once. That was enough.
His gut already knew this was about Mercer. Because the only time Gator got quiet like this, the only time his rage didn’t come out swinging? It was about her.
Bill gripped the wheel tighter. “She okay?”
“She’s fine.”
The words were clipped. Final. But something about the way Gator said it made it clear: someone had tried to make sure she wouldn’t be.
Someone had gotten too close. Hurt her in a way that didn’t leave bruises. And that someone was currently hiding in the dumbest place on earth.
Because out of every garage in Fargo, Reed Calloway had picked the wrong one. Bill’s father’s shop.
The laugh that escaped Gator’s chest was sudden and sharp, dry as a bone. It wasn’t humor. It was satisfaction.
“You believe that shit?” he muttered, more to himself than not. “Bastard took his car to your dad. Couldn’t have drawn me a bigger map if he tried.”
Bill exhaled slowly. “You wanna tell me what you’re gonna do?”
“No.”
“Right.”
They pulled onto the back road that led toward the shop. A pale streak of light cracked across the sky behind them.
“Whose car?”
“Reed Calloway.”
“So he’s the culprit.”
Gator just stretched his fingers once, cracking his knuckles… Then smiled. Just a little. The kind of smile that promised hell.
“How bad, Gator?”
“Bad enough.”
“How—”
But Gator was already out the door, nodding at him to follow. So Bill killed the engine, followed with a grunt and that was it. He didn’t ask again. Just followed his best friend into his dad’s autoshop. But his stomach was in knots. Because whatever had happened?
Gator was hunting.
And when Gator hunted, it was never clean.
The low buzz of Kent Madison’s auto shop rolled out like static, the kind that prickled behind your eyes. A hydraulic lift hummed in the back bay. Metal tools clinked faintly. The air stank of grease and tire rubber and stale coffee, the kind that lingered no matter how many times the shop door opened.
Reed Calloway stood just outside bay three, watching two of the shop guys work on the back end of a silver Porsche.
His Porsche.
The one with a freshly fucked bumper, one that Mercer had lovingly introduced to a guardrail less than twelve hours ago before kindly depositing it back at his house, earlier that morning before having Ronnie pick her up and take her to school.
Reed was tense but trying not to show it. Acting cool, relaxed. Arms folded, jaw set, pacing slowly like some guy trying to look like a man. He’d rolled his sleeves halfway up, hands marked with old ink and fake confidence.
That smug, cocky posturing?
It evaporated the second a low voice cut through the open garage door behind him.
“Need a hand?”
Ah, shit.
Reed froze. His spine went straight as board, but his neck turned slowly, carefully… like even looking too fast might provoke something he wasn’t ready to face.
Sure enough, Gator Tillman stood tall, framed in the doorway like a stormcloud with a pulse — one hand tucked into the pocket of his jacket, the other lifting a vape to his lips. Sweet smoke rolled out his mouth like it had something to say in a band of rings.
The sigh of it made Reed Calloway turn ghostly pale.
“…listen, man…” His voice came out much higher than he’d probably wanted it to. He cleared his throat, tried again. “I didn’t mean for any—”
“I ain’t your man.”
Oh, Gator was not fucking around
Bill stepped into view behind him then. Quiet, calm, but stone-set. He didn’t say anything at first. Just gave a small nod to the two occupied mechanics working on the car.
“Bill?” Devin asked, confused.
“Hey,” he answered casually, friendly as if this was a social call.
“What you doin’ here, kiddo?” Bob asked him, grease slick and voice gravelly. “It’s a school day.”
“I know, swear I’m not skipping,” Bill chuckled easily. “Could I borrow you both for a second? Got a weird noise coming from my truck out back, and my dad’ll kill me if I don’t fix it before he gets back.”
The two guys looked between each other, then at Bill, then at the unmistakable presence of his tall best friend standing in the doorway. Gator Tillman, lit fuse incarnate.
Gator just exhaled slowly, eyes hooded and sharp as he jut his chin out towards them in acknowledgment before setting his glare right back on Reed.
Neither of the mechanics asked questions. They didn’t want to know. They’d both been young and stupid once, so they left their tools and followed Bill out the back, all too glad for the excuse.
Inside the shop, the silence got thick.
Reed swallowed hard. “I didn’t do anything.”
Gator smiled. Not a nice smile. Not even close.
It was slow, wicked, and dangerous… The kind of smile that only showed up whenever someone already knew the ending, and it wasn’t gonna end well for them.
“Didn’t you?” Gator asked, like he already had the answer in his pocket.
Reed’s jaw tightened.
“Didn’t get to,” he snapped, very defensive now, teeth bared like he was trying to reclaim some ground. “Bitch stole my fucking car.”
Gator’s brown eyes glittered. That grin never wavered. He took one deliberate step forward, rings of sweet vapors falling off his tongue.
“That’s what you’re mad about, huh,” he mused. “Not the fact you got told no and went for it anyway?”
Reed’s throat jumped. His hands twitched, half-curled into fists for a second before unclenching again. “I didn’t—nothing happened.”
Gator tilted his head, just a little. “What’s wrong, Calloway?”
“Nothing.”
“Ya sure?” Gator tossed his vape off into the corner. The cherry of it sparked briefly, then died. “You don’t look so sure.”
“I’m sure I haven’t got shit to feel guilty for.” Reed took one unsteady step back. “And I don’t want trouble, Tillman.”
Gator exhaled, slow and level. “Fucker,” he seethed, rolling his neck until it cracked. “You already got it.”
And then he swung.
One brutal punch, straight to the jaw.
Reed’s head snapped sideways. He stumbled back, arms flailing. He didn’t fall, though. Just clenched his jaw with one of his strong hands, eyes disbelieving, cursing under his breath.
So Gator didn’t stop.
The second punch caught him square in the face. Cartilage cracked. Blood flew. Reed collapsed backward onto the shop floor, his palms skidding out to catch him.
But Gator crouched down over him. Grabbed him by the jaw with one hand, just tight enough to hurt, and forced Reed’s face toward his own. His lip was split. Blood bubbled on his chin. His chest heaved.
“Christ, Tillman—that fucking little good-for-nothing princess has you whipped—”
“You ever try that shit again…” Gator’s voice dropped low, like the last sound you’d hear underwater. “You ever put your hands on her again… You ever so much as fucking breathe near her again?”
He paused, just to let the silence throb. Then he gave him a cold, dead smile.
“You won’t need this shop.”
Another pause.
“You’ll need a grave.”
A tense beat passed over them. Then Gator let go, straightened up, and brushed the dust from his sleeves like Reed wasn’t even worth the stain.
And Reed? He didn’t move. Didn’t say shit. Because even he knew damn well that he was so eternally fucked.
Bill had re-entered during the tail end. He’d heard most of it. His face was newly pale and grim, locked down with a stone hard expression of disgust that didn’t move. He stepped over the oil trail, boots silent, and stood over Reed’s body with a dark scowl.
“Well you’re lucky it was him that got to you first,” Bill said in a deep, surprisingly terrifying voice.
“Mama’s boy,” he mused aloud, half to himself as he hauled Reed to his feet — one tight fist clenched in the collar of his hoodie. “You’re done here.”
Reed tried to jerk out of it, but Bill slammed him back into the wall of the garage, not hard enough to knock him out but enough to rattle every last excuse in his chest.
“I’ll be happy to send your daddy a fat invoice for this little visit,” Bill said. “Hope you can afford it.”
Reed scoffed through blood, lips twisted. ”Jesus—ain’t no way that prude is worth all this trouble.”
Bill looked at Gator then, like he was asking for permission.
And Gator? He gave his best friend a crooked little nod. Like a dare.
So Bill did the honors and punched him. One clean shot to the eye.
Reed dropped again, moaning.
Bill shook out his knuckles. “Had to.”
Gator grinned, finally satisfied. “Damn right you did.”
They didn’t wait around for cleanup.
Bill swung his keys around his fingers and led the way to the old red Chevy idling out front, and Gator followed, not bothering to look back.
And inside that truck, both of them knew it didn’t matter that Mercer wasn’t Gator’s girlfriend or Bill’s blood sister.
She was theirs.
And no one fucking touched her when she said no.
Chapter Four
Some Protectors
💿 -> “Some Protector” by ROLE MODEL
12:05 PM
Mercer slung her bag higher on her slim shoulder and stepped out of class with a silence that roared. The bell shrieked above her like it always did, metallic and overeager, but she didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink.
The long hallway flooded with students and all the usual chaos — squeaking sneakers, voices hollering, papers crumpling, backpacks unzipping, lockers slamming like gunshots in broad daylight. And she threaded through it all like a ghost through a warzone, her chin lifted, mouth set.
Unbothered. Composed. Untouchable.
She hadn’t seen Reed all day. Not once. Not between classes. Not lurking around corners. Not at his usual morning haunt next to the vending machines, where he always ran his mouth and swaggered like a stock character in someone else’s bad story.
The fact that he was absent didn’t surprise her. Not even a little. In fact, it made her sick.
And also? Somewhat darkly amused.
Because the coward had probably been waiting for her to fold. Maybe to cry. Maybe to stay home. But she hadn’t. She’d come to school in her coven black satin, subtle eyeliner sharp enough to cut, and a look in her eyes like she’d already survived whatever the hell he thought he could do to her.
Still, the pit in her stomach hadn’t left. Not really.
Not since last night.
Because she might’ve been jaded, she might’ve seen too much and grown up too fast, but she was still a girl. Sixteen.
And the thing about trying? It had taken so much.
She’d tried.
Mercer had picked out a pretty dress from her mother’s closet. She’d gone to dinner and made conversation. She’d agreed to a movie and took the time to pick one she’d actually wanted to see, maybe even discuss and debrief afterwards with him.
She’d opened a door.
And Reed had only tried to shove himself through it like she owed him something.
Dark corner of a parking lot. Cold metal of the car behind her. His breath hot and sour in her face. His slimy hand crawling…
The memory made her grimace. She clenched her jaw, her fingers curling tightly around the strap of her bag as her sleek black trousers flicked around her slender thighs.
The thing that really got to her wasn’t even just how inappropriately he’d acted. It was how he’d tried turning her into something that she wasn’t.
A slut. A story. A notch. A brag.
And hell, maybe to some people, that wouldn’t have meant as much. But Mercer? She was rough. She was loud. She was borderline feral on the worst days. But her body? That was hers.
Untouched, undiluted and still hers.
Because no matter what had been ripped away from her growing up — her peace, her safety, her goddamn innocence — this one thing hadn’t been stolen. She had chosen to keep it. She chose every day. Even if Gator Tillman never looked at her like that, even if he never touched her the way she dreamed about when she couldn’t sleep… she still wanted it to be him.
Only him.
Or no one at all.
With a deep sigh through her nose, she turned the corner and made her way into the cafeteria. Shoulders back, calm and collected.
And immediately…
“Baby gworl!”
Andy Jenkins.
He swooped in like a tornado in colorful sneakers, flinging an arm around her shoulders as if she’d summoned him with some ancient spell of chaos.
“What the hell are you doing here—?” she laughed, unable to help it, her voice cracking with a rare note of real amusement and shock.
“Excuse you,” Andy scoffed, pressing his palm to his chest. “Can I not simply grace these cursed halls of teen mediocrity without being persecuted?”
“You literally don’t go here anymore.”
“Ah, but I am a man of the people.” He spun her in a half circle with one arm still slung around her before planting his feet again with the clumsiness of a baby calf. “Plus, I’m bored. My philosophy professor cried today. That’s enough college for the week.”
Mercer was really laughing now. Actually laughing.
And when she opened her mouth to deliver a smartass retort…
“Is this public school flirtation?”
Crawford.
Six foot three. Beige sweater, hair combed to hell, looking like he’d just stepped out of a sexy teen cologne ad, absolutely deadpan as he approached — a tray already in his hands.
Andy gasped. “Is that broccoli on my plate?”
“Yes, because you haven’t consistently eaten anything green since 2012,” Crawford deadpanned.
Mercer arched a brow at him. “Is this your way of bullying him into adulthood?”
“I’m not bullying,” Crawford clarified calmly, spooning some mashed potatoes next to Andy’s clump of mystery meat. “I’m curating his survival.”
Andy turned to Mercer. “Do you see the domestic abuse I endure?”
She snorted.
But beneath the easy rhythm of it all, something inside her stirred as she took in her immediate surroundings. The way Andy had shown up today. The quiet fury simmering beneath Crawford’s cool exterior. The slight, almost imperceptible shift in how close they stood beside her now.
They knew.
They knew.
Gator had told them. Or maybe he told Bill, who told them.
Maybe both.
And maybe she should’ve been furious about that breach of her privacy. But she wasn’t. Not even a little bit. Not when she looked up and saw the way Andy was still rambling to fill silence, and the way Crawford was shielding her on one side, carefully stacking her tray with shit he knew she hated but would still eat because it made him feel better.
They weren’t here to talk about it.
They were here to stand with her, even if she never said a word.
By the time they reached their table, Tiff appeared like a storm cloud in platform boots and glitter eyeliner.
“MY BITCHES!” she howled, arms flung wide.
Mercer rolled her eyes but grinned. “You’re so annoying.”
“And you’re so hot, it’s disturbing,” Tiff sang, flopping down beside her and draping an arm dramatically across Mercer’s lap. “Don’t ever wear that shirt again unless you want me to die.”
Mercer leaned into her, cheek to temple. “You’re already brain dead.”
“Only when I’m near you,” Tiff sighed faux dreamily, then added in a sincere whisper, “I heard.”
Mercer stiffened.
But Tiff just pecked her cheek then kept talking to her and the boys about the hot substitute teacher in second period like she hadn’t said anything secret at all.
They were all dancing around it, and somehow that made it bearable. It made Mercer feel like herself again. Seen. Known. But not broken.
Then heads turned.
And there they were.
Gator and Bill. Both moving through the cafeteria with a casual swagger that looked way too deliberate. Bill was smirking, all big shoulders and baby-face charm. Gator was unreadable, rigid and detached, his tray in one hand and his dark gaze slicing sideways toward the jock table.
Reed’s table.
All of them were there. Reed’s friends. His little pack of future frat boys and probable felons that would get away with it and break girls until they bled. Their eyes followed Gator and Bill like wolves tracking another predator. But they didn’t dare move. They didn’t say a word. Because they knew better.
Because Reed had gone home today, and he wouldn’t be back for a while.
And if Roy Tillman had anything to say about it, he’d stay the hell gone. Because whatever line had been crossed last night, Gator already ensured it wouldn’t be crossed again. And his daddy? He had his own twisted sense of loyalty, one that started with Mercer’s father and ended with whatever dirty favor kept them both breathing in a world where most men didn’t get to.
Mercer’s eyes stayed on Gator until he finally looked at her.
And when he did?
God. That look.
It burned through the space between them, slow and quiet and viciously protective. Not soft. Not sweet. Not gentle.
But hers.
All hers.
She dropped her eyes. Just for a second.
When they finally sat down at the table, no one said a word about the bruises on their knuckles. No one asked why Gator kept flexing his right hand like it hurt, or why Bill looked so pleased with himself for a guy eating cafeteria chili.
Instead, they talked shit.
Andy roasted Crawford for his sweater. Crawford listed off every possible vitamin deficiency that Andy had. Tiff threatened to seduce Mercer just to make everyone uncomfortable. Bill stole food off Andy’s tray like it was a game. Gator stayed quiet for the most part, but he never stopped watching the girl he’d never stood a chance at not looks after since childhood.
And Mercer?
She leaned back, ate her food, laughed when it felt right to laugh. And for the first time in a long time, she simply let herself feel soft. Just like she’d claimed that she would when speaking resolutions out loud, wrapped up in the middle of them. Her people, her wolf pack. Then and now.
🤍🤍 Baby M’s got the most protective ring of friends around her at all times from a 360 degree angle. And it’s only the beginning of the manic thrill ride that awaits us, rest of book three.
As I said: get comfy.
NEXT UP -> Tiff’s equestrian girl era in full swing, Crawford’s studying skills, Andy’s unsettling home life, Bill’s baseball league and ranch hand skills, Baby M’s advanced ballet lessons with Barlow… and Gator’s aimless rebellion that leads him to not only discovering a channel for his internal rage, but also a job that brings him closer to his daddy’s secrets (and Daddy Mercer’s).
