All of my fanfic recs, all my thoughts, all in one place.
You’re welcome in advance.
🍸 -> Take me to dinner first, get to know me.
🖤 Steve Harrington, Gator Tillman and Teacake are #1’s.
🩶 Madison Montgomery and Maddy Perez are my babes.
🤍 Steddie (or) Stonathan x fem!reader are my bi polygons.
Design by day, spiral by night. 🌀
If I’m not hosting the rooftop bar afterparty hang, then I’m probably in your fic notes. I collect dialogue like jewelry, give fanfic recs with my late-night thoughts, and have way too many opinions on character arcs.
Here's a list of fics that have me in a chokehold.
Steve Harrington
“Oh, So We Do Love Steve.”
🌀 written by @sheisjoeschateau
MARGAUX’S REVIEW -> Okay, whoever didn’t think about giving Murray Bauman an actual niece on the show as Steve’s love interest (Duffer Bros, I’m lookin’ at you…) missed out on the ultimate shot at the best enemies-to-lovers onscreen romance. THIS SERIES IS CANON FOR ME. It’s ongoing, so I’m still in the midst of reading it. But just FYI? You won’t stop once you start. Angst, smut, funny af writing, best character arcs all around.
“Pray for the Night”
🌀 written by @upsidedownwithemmy
MARGAUX’S REVIEW -> Unreal feels all around. As someone who can't stand being left hanging after a solid one-shot that never continued, this fanfic is the exception to my being the most needy person on planet earth. It's exactly the right length, and I felt every single second of the heat. Emmy is a jewel on here, and I've been reading her works for ages.
“Tell Me What You Need.”
🌀 written by @sheisjoeschateau
MARGAUX’S REVIEW -> I’ve never in my life experienced the most in-depth friends with benefits to lovers whiplash in my entire f*cking life the way I did with this fic. Holy actual hell… This is the ultimate fwb-to-lovers angsty smut and p*rn with plot that I’ve read in the Steve Harrington fandom, and I’ve never loved a fem!Hopper!reader more than right here.
It's an extended one-shot, so DO NOT READ OUT OF ORDER.
Misha knocks this one outta the park.
“You Are My Sunshine”
🌀 written by @t-lostinworlds
MARGAUX’S REVIEW -> I BAWLED LIKE A BABY. Straight up, this is the only hurt/no comfort fic that I'll ever be able to withstand (NGL, I mentally wrote the sequel in my head where the ending is happy -- but that's just my heart needing closure). Incredible writing. Strong, strong, strong storytelling. I fell so hard for Steve and this fem!reader. My soul died reading this, and I'd revive it *just* to kill it off all over again. Not for the faint of heart, so just read it if you like heartache and pain like no other.
“Competitively Stupid”
🌀 written by @t-lostinworlds
MARGAUX’S REVIEW -> Fun?! Holy hot? Love the rivals to lovers energy in this one. Happy ending (big yay) but like sexy anxiety time here so yeah, go read and devour this one-shot because it's a gem.
[more coming soon]
Gator Tillman
“Mercy”
🌀 written by @sheisjoeschateau
MARGAUX’S REVIEW -> Seriously, this is the best f*cking Gator Tillman fanfic series on the internet. No one look any further, this is the deep dive you’re after. For all you Gator Girlies: park it right here. You have officially arrived at your destination. Look no further.
You’ve got a bad boy who falls for the girl that he’s been stuck with since childhood, and used to dread having her around… only to keep lying to himself, pretending he still feels like that, when he’s falling more in love with her every GOTDAYUM day. You’ve got a *seemingly redeemable* Roy Tillman (I’ve never seen a fanfic writer give his character a “good spin” in any Gator fics on here…) whose job is to look after said girl, and has been since she was four years old... You’ve got THE BEST SUPPORTING CHARACTERS (and you wind up caring about all of them to a scary degree). It reads as a richly detailed novel but it’s so cinematic that you feel like you’re watching your favorite Netflix series in real time. Like, really. Whenever new chapters drop, I’m always shouting to myself, “MY FAVE SHOW’S ON!” 📺 and no one is gonna tear me away from it, until I’ve finished reading every single bit of it...
-> Full review here, via my reblog.
[more coming soon]
Steddie x fem!Reader
“Two Can Play”
🌀 written by @wonderlandwalker
MARGAUX’S REVIEW -> Hottest threesome fic I've reading a hottttt minute.
The dynamics between all the characters, Steve's dominant energy and possessive attitude, Eddie being a sexy flustered rocker dude, and the reader being so sub but badass and knowing her power with that bodayyyyy??? YEAHTHAT'S THE SPOT.
[more coming soon]
Special thanks to these sexy babes for the banners //
🩸 An Ongoing Fanfic Series from Misha’s Masterlist Library.
📚 ALL BOOKS +chapters below -> scroll on… 📕📗📘📙
🗂️ Infodump file below {includes my curated series soundtrack etc}
Gator Tillman x OC!fem!reader 🖤
A slow burn childhood friends to lovers romance — fueled by angst, dark comedy, unhinged thrill-packed action and heavy smut with even heavier plot. Inspired by and based on Fargo, gone total teenage dirtbags into trauma strong icons. 18+
Gator Tillman is sin, Quinn Mercer is the altar... and they never pray for forgiveness. She's been his ever since they were kids. He doesn't believe in fate, or any of that shit.
But he'd bleed out before letting anyone else have her.
SUMMARY: Turns out? Bonnie and Clyde were born in Fargo, North Dakota.
They were born into rot. Her in old money, him in old crime. Childhood tied them together; circumstance kept the knot tight. Mercer’s been in love with him since she was four years old. Gator’s spent his whole life pretending he didn’t notice.
From the dusty backroads of their small town to the suffocating halls of their fathers’ empires, they grow up side by side. Through schoolyard scraps, midnight escapes, blood money, seedy secrets, and the kind of grief you just can’t talk about. They learn early that loyalty is currency, that bloodlines are a death sentence, and that in a place like this, you only survive if you’ve got someone who’ll take the fall with you.
By their teens, they’ve perfected the art of getting under each other’s skin. Rivals, allies, nuisances. Too tangled to walk away, too proud to admit they’d never want to. In their twenties, it gets worse: the stakes are higher, the knives are sharper, and the things they want from each other are far more dangerous than they used to be.
She fell first. He fell harder. And neither of them will get out clean.
Maybe not even alive.
♡ AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is undoubtedly my grittiest work yet. It's also my favorite series I've ever written.
Honestly, this one has a mind of its own. I wrote "MERCY" shamelessly, and turned every single wish I had for a fanfic into my own. I took Gator Tillman's character, and literally said, "let's make him far more tragic, far more edgy, and far more antagonist-worthy endgame bad boy."
I wanted a good girl who is pure but jaded. I wanted a bad boy who has the most fragile heart in the world. I wanted Bonnie and Clyde who survive the burn, and get the most unexpectedly happy ending that neither one of them were ever meant to have. I wanted to put the fucking underbelly of politics and elite society under an embellished microscope that still touches on really terrifying fucking truth. I wanted blood that's met with love. I wanted angst in a way that makes bone aches, so that the comfort can be more tender than anything. I wanted to turn "hurt/comfort" into something badass. I wanted plot-driven-smut that makes you wanna scream into a pillow for nights on end.
I wanted to make you all fall in love with Gator Tillman the same way I did, in the darkest corners of my wildest imagination.
🩸 Here's Mercy.
Xx, misha
♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡
“You’re really not gonna fight back?” he asked after a moment, voice rougher now, like he didn’t like how easily she'd just let it go. “You’re really just gonna stand there and let me say whatever the fuck I want?”
The words had landed on Mercer's back while she slowly walked away. She inhaled quietly, turning to look at him now. Her lips parted slightly, but no countered words came. Because resignation flooded her numbed senses.
Mercer was done.
“I’m tired of this back-and-forth, Gator.”
A muscle in his jaw visibly twitched. His hands curled into fists at his sides. He looked frustrated. Restless. Like he wanted to say something, or wanted to push her into doing something. Anything.
Because pulling away meant that she'd really given up.
But instead, he just scoffed, turning sharply on his heel. “Yeah, well,” he muttered, not looking back, “you’ve been tired of me for years, haven’t you?”
And just like that, he was gone.
BOOK ONE •
early childhood -> elementary school -> middle school
♡ 1) Blood Red Capri Sun
♡ 2) Dogs With Goddamn Matches
♡ 3) Bonnie + Clyde
♡ 4) Circumstantial Circles
♡ 5) A Storm Named Lilah
♡ 6) The Gift
♡ 7) Court Jester With a Truck
♡ 8) Junebug
♡ 9) Still in Town
♡ 10) The Shift
♡ 11) Happy Motherf*ckin' Birthday, Andrew Clarence Jenkins.
♡ 12) Sweet Escape
♡ 13) Unspoken Rule
♡ 14) House of Cards
♡ 15) Backfiring!
♡ 16) A Privileged Invitation
♡ 17) The Ballerina, Her Guardian & the Vultures
♡ 18) The Road to New York
♡ 19) Arrival
♡ 20) …Louise Would.
♡ 21) Residency
♡ 22) Lost in Transit: The Legend of Ted
♡ 23) Truth Never Lived in the Words
♡ 24) This City Spits Back
♡ 25) Off the Record
♡ 26) Talk to the Tillman
♡ 27) Ain’t That the Pointe?
♡ 26) Getaway Plans
(-> scrapped chapters moved to later in the book series.
ignore the cryptic inclusion vs. me just deleting ily thx)
〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️
📗
BOOK TWO •
freshman year
♡ 1) Sixteen Candles
♡ 2) The Outlaw, His Princess and Their Jester
♡ 3) First Impressions, Unlikely Bonds
♡ 4) The Hallway Gauntlet
♡ 5) Torque and Tension
♡ 6) Roy Tillman Loves Jesus
♡ 7) The Schulte Boy
♡ 8) The Fraternal Twins
♡ 9) Gut is God
♡ 10) Ain’t That the Pointe?
♡ 11) Sugar, Pumpkin Spice and Gator? Be Nice.
♡ 12) The Hunt
♡ 13) Coyote Ugly
♡ 14) Skin and Bone
♡ 15) The Photo in the Hallway
♡ 16) She’s Roy’s Problem
♡ 17) Thanksgiving at the Tillmans
♡ 18) Till Kingdom Come, We Feast on Revelations
♡ 19) Growing Pains
♡ 20) A Little Princess in Fargo (1/2)
-> chapter continued (2/2)
♡ 21) After Curtain Call
♡ 22) Daddy’s Little Girl
♡ 23) A Madison Family Christmas
♡ 24) Merry at the Madison's
♡ 25) Goodnight from D.C.
♡ 26) Windchill Touchdown
♡ 27) Sin City Sweethearts
♡ 28) The Resolutions Club
♡ 29) Second Time’s a Charm!
♡ 30) Roadside Rocky Road
〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️
📘
BOOK THREE •
sophomore year -> junior year
♡ 1) Sophomore Year
♡ 2) A Date with Reed Calloway
♡ 3) Uncharted Territory
♡ 4) Some Protectors
♡ 5) Equestrian Elites
♡ 6) Read the Goddamn Syllabus!
♡ 7) Hey, Hallmark
♡ 8) Barlow’s Ballet Company
♡ 9) TBD
♡ 10) TBD
♡ 11) Nothin’ Good Starts in a Getaway Car [A Reckoning]
♡ 12) Bloodstained Canvas
♡ 13) Talk to the Tillman
♡ 14) Old Habits, New Hobbies
♡ 15) Ice! Ice! Baby!
♡ 16) Brunch with Barlow
♡ 17) Ah, Puck It!
♡ 18) Off-Brand Machine Gun Kelly
♡ 19) Edge of Seventeen
♡ 20) Leverage
Note: Needless to say, there are incredible Gator fics coming out lately and they are so so good and I am super intimidated to post mine, but fuck it, right? Like that one post artist2: aw man that persons cake is way better than mine, meanwhile the consumer: hell yeah two cakes!
Anyway here's my cake.
Summary and CW: Pre season 5, in which reader is in a relationship with a narcissist and drowning her sorrows at the first bar she could find. Her spiraling thoughts are interrupted by exbf!Gator. A friendly long time no see conversation turns into a therapy session, turns into a scheme to escape the narcissist. (Reminiscing, cursing, alcohol consumption, kissing, groping, cheating, MDNI 18+smut (oral, vaginal fingering f!receiving, unprotected p in v sex), canon divergent at the end) Gator is a little out of character maybe, a bit soft. This is really self indulgent so apologies if this doesn't resonate with everyone who chooses to read it. Also read over this twice so if there are any lingering mistakes, sorry y'all
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It was remarkably slow for a Wednesday night at this bar. Three couples among the tables and booths, one man playing a game of pool by himself, two people at the bar itself with ten empty barstools between them, and one bartender. On second thought, it was league night at the bowling alley, maybe that's where the usual crowd was... Not that it mattered to you. This was simply the closest bar to home. And luckily there was an empty horseshoe booth secluded in a corner just for you.
You weren't usually a big drinker, but after the day you had, the week... Hell, if you were honest, you were surprised you didn't have a drinking problem given the life you've endured for the last eight years. Most of the time you kept your mask on: perfect, pretty, unbothered. It was easy, you had a mantra you repeated in your head: it could be worse.
But sometimes it all came crashing in at once, became too much, the mantra couldn't block out the dark thoughts, and then the dark thoughts spiraled and you end up questioning every decision you've ever made that led you to this point in your life... Then the what ifs begin: What if you'd just done one thing different in the past...? How far back would you have to go? Would you still be where you are? In misery. In a lonely, loveless relationship soon to be shackled in a lonely, loveless marriage.
All he cared about was what other people thought of him, what he looked like on social media: the guy who had it all, the guy that was winning at life. What you thought, what you did and said didn't matter to him. Why would it? You were just his trophy; truly, if he could shut you up in glass cabinet, kept on display, that would probably be his dream come true. The man he was online, how he boasted to his coworkers, friends, and family of any and all small achievements, that was a far different than the person you were engaged to, the person behind closed doors... It could be worse... It could be worse... It could be worse... But what if it could be-
You were abruptly yanked from your dark spiral by the sound of a voice, fortunately a familiar voice, because you did not have it in you to shoo away a drunken stranger hitting on you. "Well, well," the voice drawled as it drew closer. The thousand yard stare disappeared from your eyes as you turned your glance to the source, you couldn't smother your smile to save your life. There was just something about Gator Tillman, always has been, always would be. He was in his usual attire, the black cargos, the black t shirt that might've been a size too small but you sure as hell weren't complaining. His sheriff's cap was exchanged for his casual green trucker hat worn backwards; he didn't have his tactical vest, duty belt or any holsters, he was very clearly off the clock. "If it isn't Stark County's own Rodeo Princess reigning from '03 to '05."
You couldn't help but snort and scowl, your voice a bit amplified as you spoke into your glass, "Oh god, you remember that?" Then took a hearty swallow, wincing.
"'Course I remember that. S'when my crush on your started." Gator answered easily, gesturing towards you with his beer bottle.
You snorted again, but a smile crept across your mouth as you set your glass down softly. "Shut up."
When he caught your glance again he winked, muttering, "S'true." Then after a beat motioned to the other side of the booth, "Mind if I sit?"
"Go ahead."
To your surprise, instead of the opposite side he'd motioned to, he crowded in next to you. You shifted a bit further into the booth to give him more room, but he still shimmied himself closer to you so his thigh was pressed against yours. "S'my usual spot," he mumbled, "So I can see everyone, 'n all the doors."
Ah, yes, cop mentality. You nodded, an apology ready on your tongue but you swallowed it down. You wondered what it meant that you'd picked this spot, an unconscious choice, a specific choice; looking around - it did have the best view of the entire bar... A self preservation tactic you didn't even know you were doing? Or were you just used to trying to hide yourself in a dark corner, animal instinct, where it was safe? Or where you'd backed yourself into in a panic and find your demise?
Again Gator's voice pulled you from your spiraling thoughts, "Long time no see."
"Gator," you muttered, waiting until he turned his gaze down to you beside him, taking a leisurely sip from his beer bottle while you deadpanned, "We both work for the sheriff's department."
He rolled his eyes, parking his beer next to your half empty glass, "Yeah, sure, but you're always tucked away at home, all remote n' shit with your work, ain't been on the beat for a few years now, since you was with DPD. See your name on paperwork that comes through, now n'again."
"Yeah?" You smirked, what an odd thing to mention, you couldn't help but respond with a joke, "Get your heart skippin' a beat?"
"Y'caught me." He winked at you again.
You own heart betrayed you, skipping a beat when he grinned down at you. You grabbed for your glass but didn't take a sip, just needed something to occupy your hands, your eyes fixed on the amount of liquid still in the glass. From beside you Gator puffed out a soft chuckle, his left hand taking his beer, while his right arm stretched around the back of the booth seat, seemingly casual.
There was a kind of warmth you didn't expect to feel from the gesture, even if his arm wasn't around you, it'd been a long time since you felt even a glimmer of affection, even if this was purely companionable. The silence stretched... Comfortably, even. You didn't feel like you were on edge, ready for some backhanded comment or intentional barb. You could almost feel yourself relaxing.
"So," Gator spoke up again, his drained bottle clanking hollowly against the table top, with a wave of his left hand and nod at the bar he had another beer bottle on its way over, "What made ya stop likin' cowboy types?"
The question was unexpected, just like the laugh that burst loudly from your throat.
"Jesus, Gator, are you serious? That was 13 years ago." When he didn't respond and just waited expectantly, you sighed and laughed again. "Okay, besides the fact that I was too old to be the rodeo princess after '05 and it was time to give another girl a turn... After my final ride, your dad offered me some ADVICE, told me men didn't like girls with loud voices and too much spirit."
Gator snorted into his beer, at some point someone had dropped off a new bottle and cleared away the empty, you didn't even notice. "Funny. When he saw me staring at you he told me you weren't the kinda girl for marryin'."
"Wow." You murmured, "What a dick... Think he also told me I was too thick in the thighs and should 'do something about that before it's too late'."
Gator groaned a curse, muttering under his breath what sounded like 'those thighs' before not so nonchalantly adjusting the crotch of his cargos with his left hand. With a quick, sharp clearing of his throat he noted, "Didn't stop you from bein' loud and spirited."
Yes, as a 13 year old girl heading into high school you couldn't give two shits what the sheriff had to say about your personality, or your body. Though he definitely did make you avoid cowboy types, and ranch boys. You had dates throughout high school but you never had a boyfriend until-
"Didn't stop you from dating me, either." Gator added.
You rolled your eyes, "We dated for three weeks. Three," you wiggled three fingers in front of his stupid handsome smirking face, "Weeks."
He shrugged one shoulder, "Long enough to lose our virginity to each other."
Your laughter was loud, louder than it had been in years, loud enough that other patrons glanced your way at the sound before going on about their own business. "Yeah fuckin' right, you had at least three notches on your bedpost before me."
Gator shook his head, "May've dated before you but I uhhh." He shrugged again, like dropping that particular truth bomb was nothing. Now, as 26 year olds in a bar booth, it didn't mean much, but as 17 year olds? When you'd let Gator climb in through your bedroom window at midnight? That shit meant everything.
Your jaw dropped, a scoff of disbelief leaving you before you muttered, "Shut up. Shut. Up. I deflowered the sheriff's football star son?"
The sip of beer in his mouth got stuck in his throat, causing him to cough a few times before he tucked his head closer to yours to mumble, "Well y'don't need t'say it like that, make it sound like you stuck somethin' up my ass."
You giggled, truly giggled. When was the last time you'd giggled? "Alright alright... But... Why didn't you ever say anything?"
He finally pulled his head away to sit back against the booth normally, yet again another shrug of his shoulders before he answered, "Never thought to? Dunno... And, y'know, y'broke up with me four days later."
You scoffed, "I was campaigning for class president, I couldn't associate myself with someone who took a tire iron to another students legs."
Gator's grin returned, shifting slightly so his leg pressed a bit more firmly against yours, "Alright, alright." He mimicked you. The comfortable silence stretched again, you could almost feel the heat coming down from where his arm sat close but not close enough to your shoulders. "That's new." He gestured with his bottle to where your hands were circled around your glass. And just like that your little moment of peace shattered. He was referring to the shiny diamond on your left ring finger.
"Yeah," you agreed quickly. Tapping the band against the glass. The clink of metal against glass was almost too solidifying. You released your glass and clasped your hands together, hiding them under the table.
"Jesus, don't sound too excited, princess."
"It's not. It's not that I'm - I just- !" You began to babble, unwarranted apologies constricting your throat.
Gator took notice quickly. His arm finally dropped to land solidly along your shoulders, his hand gripping your upper arm. "S'fine."
Your pulse still hammered, fight or flight or freeze in full effect. You grabbed your glass from the table and drained it. The burn brought tears to your eyes. Once you returned the glass to the table Gator pushed it nearer to the edge.
"Y'know I only came over here t'say hi... But then I saw that haunted look on y'face, n' I wa'n't really sure if it was you. You ain't got that glow 'bout ya anymore. Hell, you look skinnier than you were in high school... Look like the kinda girl that took the sheriff's advice when she was 13... Y'okay?"
Frozen. You were frozen. He was reading you like a book. No one else saw it. Everyone else assumed you had a perfect life. You and your long time boyfriend turned fiance were a perfect couple. Living the American Dream. But Gator saw your moment of indiscretion, the lapse in your mask. Cared enough to ask if you were okay. You wanted to say yes. Yes you were fine, and you were excited to be married. You were going to go dress shopping soon and start making the invites. But... That wouldn't be true. You were dreading it.
Your gaze was fixed on the tabletop where your glass had been, when your brain finally calmed enough to come back online from being blue screened it was just to quickly plummet back into your spiral, the thoughts that brought you to the bar in the first place. You took in a deep breath and let it out slow. Who was Gator going to tell anyway? When would you see him again? Probably never since you weren't going to come to this bar ever again. Fuck it.
You met his eyes, dark, open, and warm. "D'ya mind if I vent?"
Gator nodded towards you in a 'go for it' kind of way, "Always liked listenin' to your speeches at the rodeo n' school. Somethin' 'bout your voice... You could read me the damn phone book."
You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment. He liked to hear you talk? Compared to the man you were to wed who always assumed you were going to tell him bad news or ask him to do something when he was already busy. So you'd reduced yourself to simply speaking when spoken to. But Gator liked to hear you talk. What the fuck?
"He didn't... He didn't really propose. Just drove us to a jewelry store and had me pick something out while he was busy on his phone. Didn't even get on one knee and ask. Just gave me the box, white cardboard not even velvet, still in the store, said, 'Here.'... Had me put it on myself and took a photo of my hand and posted on every one of his social media accounts."
"Romantic." Gator muttered.
"Yeah... I mean... When we got together it wasn't like this... Or... Or maybe it was and I just didn't notice. I'm... I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me. Might've never liked me from the start, maybe just liked the idea of me... But claims every day that he loves me. And I say it back because I'm afraid of what'll happen if I don't..." You suck in a much needed breath, "All the time I'm... I'm wonderin'... Maybe if I do this, or I try that, he'll at least... At least like me again. Maybe the spark will come back... Fuck, was there ever a spark in the first place? It's been eight years and... I know... I know now that he is a narcissist. I know I need to leave but I can't... I can't do it, and I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me." A tear escaped your right eye that you wiped away quickly. You huffed out a humorless laugh, "I shouldn't be unloading this on you, this is what therapists are for."
Gator's grip on your shoulder squeezed again, anchoring, "Don't mind. Talk t'me, for free. If y'want."
You remained quiet, regaining control over your watery eyes before you continued, you certainly wouldn't be able to stop now that you've started, "I don't know how it happened, or when it happened. Obviously it was gradual. He's just been wearing me down. Twisting my words and making me question my own thoughts. I know it's wrong, this is not a normal relationship, but something in my head keeps saying it's fine, he'll come around, he'll realize he's a selfish asshole and change... But -"
"They don't change." Gator supplied.
You shook your head in agreement. "At some point we got a joint bank account, but I pay all the bills with my check... Since I got the work from home job he'll say I just sit on my ass all day while he's out doing real work... meanwhile he gets to have 'play' money, at least that's what I call it... Gonna miss the cell phone bill payment because of this little luxury of mine tonight. The bills are always on time. I do all the cooking, cleaning, the groceries, schedule the appointments, the yard work, the taxes. He's turned me into a shell of myself, a submissive little slave. I don't even know how to be who I used to be, I don't know if I could... I... I don't know what I like anymore, likes my own interests, fuckin'... Hobbies?" You gestured at nothing with your hands, flopping them into your lap in defeat. "I don't know how to be me. I don't know who the fuck I am..."
"Baby, y'can't live like that, y'want me to set this guy up for murder or somethin'?"
You absolutely could not ignore the electricity that shot up you spine when he called you baby, but his offer that followed was enough to keep your hormones in check, and warn sternly, "Gator."
"Alright alright, heard. Too close to home." You rolled your eyes again, unconsciously leaning more heavily into his embrace. Comparing injuring a high school football player in his youth to abusing his power and pull as a sheriff's deputy to frame a man for murder was not too close to home... Still made you smile a bit.
"S'that why you're here tonight? Drownin' your sorrows?"
"Oh no," you answered almost too enthusiastically, "My breaking point was when he texted me earlier telling me I should get off birth control now so by the time we get married I'll already be pregnant." Saying it out loud made your stomach roll, you felt a cold sweat behind your ears and on your neck and suddenly there was a glass of water pushed into your line of sight, you took it and sipped gingerly. "The thought of being biologically chained to him for the rest of my life... Marriage is one thing but to have kids who'll mimic the way he treats me, thinking it's fine, thinking it's normal... God forbid I give birth to a girl... Just... Being a ghostly servant in my own house... Needed something stronger than wine coolers." This time the silence that stretched wasn't comfortable. In fact you felt disgusted to be in your own skin after laying your soul bare. So you shifted from Gator's comforting one armed embrace and covered up your uneasiness with humor.
"And that's the reason why I stole your usual spot at your bar." You stated as if concluding a long winded speech.
Gator brought his right hand to the tabletop, fingers clenched into a fist while his eyes peered out among the occupancy of the bar, scanning once, twice, then after the third time he thumped his fist against the table, "Y'know what." His voice was firm and sure, you couldn't help but look at him, waiting for him to continue his thought, "You're gonna cheat on your fiance tonight."
You choked on the spit in your mouth, coughing out his name in as scolding a tone as you could manage.
"M'serious." He slunk close to you in the booth once again, arm coming around your shoulders and pulling you much closer than before, you could feel the body heat exchanging through layers of fabric. "It'll be the perfect way to get out. Word'll spread like wildfire, just like it did in high school when y'dumped me."
You let out a soft laugh, your gaze didn't move from his glittering hazel eyes while you muttered, "There's almost no one in this bar."
"Yeah, well there's two old ladies right over there that've been watchin' us the whole time. They're just itchin' to update the granny grapevine."
Another soft laugh, softer than before because when did Gator's face get so close to yours? And why aren't you pulling away to make some distance? "They have not been watching us the whole time."
"They have." He hummed, close enough now that his nose brushed against yours as he nodded. "You'd know that, but you've only had eyes f'me, princess."
You were silent, too enamoured by the color of his eyes, the scent of his cologne, his arm pulling you in closer. You found yourself nodding along before you stated just as firmly, just as sure as Gator had, "I'm gonna cheat on my fiance."
"There's my girl." You could feel his grin against your mouth, so close, making you chase him, stealing your breath. His other hand came to the hinge of your jaw, easing your face just a touch more upward.
"I need another drink." You whispered, "Before I lose my nerve." You began pulling away, ready to scramble out of the other side of the horseshoe booth and sprint to the bar but his hold was solid. Without Gator encompassing all your senses, you took a breath and realized your hands were firmly gripping his shoulders.
"Y'don't need another drink, baby." He shook his head, drawing you closer again, the arm around your shoulders shifted lower to squeeze around your waist. His lips brushed yours as he spoke, "If I remember right y'used to say you'd get drunk off my kisses."
You gasped in his every word, giving a short nod before the miniscule distance was finally closed. God, how you missed being kissed, being held, being appreciated. And god damnit Gator was right. He'd always been a good kisser, kisses that took your breath away and made you feel lightheaded... Drunk.
His plush mouth worked softly, his tongue sliding against your bottom lip and into your mouth seamlessly. His thumb brushed along your jaw, easing your mouth farther open, tilting your head every few moments to get better access, moving his lips and sweeping his tongue in just the right ways that had you whining into his mouth and totally forgetting you were in public, even if there were only ten other people occupying the bar. Your hands were desperately gripping onto his shoulders to his biceps, from his chest to his neck, "God," you breathed, your lungs frantic for air but your mind too dizzied to ignore the much more frantic thirst for Gator's lips. His teeth nipped gently against your bottom lip and you had to squeeze your eyes shut and pull away for a steadying breath, "I need you so fuckin' bad." You whispered like a confession.
Gator's lips weren't to be deterred, trailing down your chin and jaw, he hummed against the skin of throat, the hand not securely gripped against your waist grabbed one of your hands to push your open palm against the front of his cargos, an unspoken earnest agreement to your sentiment. You gasped again, feeling just how hard he was from simply kissing you, the way his hips twitched in the booth seat to try and gain more of your touch. Holy fuck, to want and be wanted in return, this felt insane.
"Y'still with me, baby?" He grumbled against your neck.
You could only manage a nod, acutely aware of how wet your panties were after having not felt sexual desire for who knows how many years.
Gator moved back, just enough space so you could breathe and think.
"Where d'y'live now?" He asked.
"My parents house." You slurred a bit then cleared your throat, "My mom didn't want to deal with snow anymore so she and my dad retired to Florida. They signed it over to me. Five more years of payments til it's paid off."
Gator's eyes widened a bit, the stunned silence confusing you until he clenched his jaw and started ranting a bit too loudly, "Y'gotta be shittin' me! This fuckin' guy has the most beautiful girlfriend, who does everythin' for him, lost weight she didn't need to lose, and lives in a free house? This abusive piece of shit-! Tell me somethin', talk t'me, talk me down, baby, gimme somethin' to keep me from goin' t'your house n' murderin' this guy."
A smile cracked your mouth, your hands coming to rest on either side of his neck, "Uhh, we can't have sex if you're arrested?"
With a decompressing breath, Gator nodded, "Fuck, you're so fuckin' right."
Yours and Gator's tabs were quickly paid, though it was a wonder because he couldn't keep his hands off you. Trailing behind you like a tall, dark, handsy shadow, almost crushing you against the bar, making your cheeks and neck blush hot and crimson when you could feel him pressing, still hard, against your ass. While the bartender grinned knowingly at you and went to go make change from Gator's fifty dollar bill, you were fighting for your life while he whispered against your neck, "Can't lie, missed when there was more to grab back here."
There was something to be said about misery affecting your appetite, all aspects of your appetite it seemed. Because right now you felt absolutely starved while Gator's hands roamed your thighs and ass, with absolutely no regard to the public eye, his lips ghosting against your neck so softly that it brought about goosebumps.
"Holy shit." You muttered under your breath. Forcing a pleasant smile at the bartender when he came back with Gator's change, all of which Gator tossed into the tip jar before hauling you both out of the building like it was on fire.
You tossed the engagement ring through your cracked driver's side window onto the dash in you car before Gator scooped you up like a princess and put you in the passenger side of his truck, laughing all the while.
That glow, that loudness, that spirit felt like it was coming back. Little by little, with every minute spent with Gator. Could it get better?
There was no sneaking onto the Tillman Ranch, security was posted at all hours, but getting into Gator's barndominium where there was far less security was much easier. No porch lights, no light posts, just stumbling and fumbling and muffling laughter while trying to get a key into a keyhole in the pitch blackness of midnight.
As soon as the door closed behind you, Gator flicked the lock and caged you in against it. His mouth was hot and desperate against yours, far less tame than at the bar, like he'd patiently waited eight whole years to kiss you again and nothing was going to stop him now.
While his hands were skimming over your thighs and hips, your fingers were trembling and frantic working at his belt buckle.
"How long's it been?" He asked between kisses, popping the button on your jeans and easing the zipper down.
"Uh," your mind was too foggy, too overloaded with pleasure and you haven't even got to the main event yet. "A few months, I don't know."
He didn't seem to love that answer and rephrased his question, "How long's it been since someone else made you come?"
You cursed loudly, drawing your mouth away to gasp in breath, head tilting back against the door when you felt his fingers dip into your dripping folds. "Forever." You managed to answer on a whiny moan.
"Fuck," Gator groaned at the amount of slick, two fingers sliding into you with ease. He captured your moan with his mouth. Quirking his fingers as he moved them in a steady rhythm, thumb pressing against your swollen clit. Tears spilled from the corners of your eyes unbidden as you quickly came on Gator's fingers. Legs shaking and threatening to buckle at the knee. "Fuck, so sensitive, baby. So pretty when I make you come." He murmured against your gasping mouth, your hands clinging to his shoulders for some stability before he removed his hand from your underwear and held you around the waist with both arms. "This poor neglected pussy doesn't know what she's in for tonight."
"Holy fuckin' shit, I'm think I'm gonna die in this barn." You steeled your legs enough to trust them not to collapse and moved your hands to push your jeans and panties down, kicking your shoes and socks off in the least sexiest possible way in your haste. The giggling returned for a moment as Gator too struggled to remove his boots while standing. In a scramble of half removed clothes and stumbling, you made it to a couch instead of the bed in the former hay loft. Gator made sure to make you come on his tongue, and then his mouth and fingers before he made his way up your body to occupy your panting pout with devouring kisses. You could taste yourself on his tongue, it was the most erotic thing you'd experienced outside of a smutty paperback in years. You wanted to return the favor, at least a little bit, feel the weight of him on your tongue, the thickness of him constricting your airway, the smell and taste of his musk that was all him, you were salivating at the thought. But he assured you there would be plenty of time for that later, right now he needed to take care of you, since no one else cared to over the years.
He sat on the couch, hauling you onto his lap so you could ease yourself down his shaft at your own pace. Of course you'd forgotten how big Gator was; the stretch, the fullness, fuck, you could come again from that alone. You set a leisurely pace, a bounce and a rolling rhythm that had Gator's eyes rolling back and his head tilting back so you could see the expanse of his neck, the little moles that dotted his skin, the way his throat worked as he gasped and swallowed while you worked. His hands gripping and ghosting along every available inch of your skin. When you started to lose your rhythm, growing a bit frantic, your walls sporadically clenching along his cock he rolled his head forward again, mouth agape, eyes wide and blackened with a starving desire. "There ya go," he encouraged, his hands taking their place on your hips to help guide where you lost your pace, "Am I gonna make y'come again, baby? God, fuckin' squeezin' me so tight."
"Yeah," you nodded dumbly, and continued to babble as yet another climax approached, "Yeah, you're gonna make me come, fuck... fuck, you're gonna make me come so hard again!"
"Fuck," he practically growled, jaw clenched as he watched you work towards your peak, your fluttering walls growing tighter and wetter. The clutch of your pussy coming on his cock, along with the sight of your face as you cried his name was too much. While you were still quivering from your high he gathered you in his arms to lay you across the cushions, drawing your legs up until your calves rested against his shoulders. Pistoning his hips into you like some feral animal, grunting and groaning while his sweat and hand mussed hair swayed across his forehead with his every movement.
He fucked you through your orgasm, through the overstimulation, to draw you once again to another peak, even as your muscles trembled in protest, all you could do was whine as you let the sensation climb until it enveloped you again, fingers grabbing weakly at his thighs.
"Shit," he hissed, "Shit, this pussy, fuck, she's amazin'. You're amazin', baby - god - fuck - you're so fuckin' beautiful. Fuck, I'm gonna come, where d'you want it." His hips were faltering as his orgasm approached, he was impressed with himself for having made it this far without spilling; making you come four times was good enough, and the way you looked and sounded when you whined his name wasn't making holding it off any easier.
"No!" Your weak grip on his thighs tightened slightly, with what strength you had left, "Stay inside - fuck - stay inside me! Come in me, Gator, fuck, please!" You couldn't contain your scream as you crested a final time, your muscles were burning with overworked effort, Gator shouted out a curse at the feeling of you clutching him even tighter than before. Your words, your pleading, the scream, how the fuck could he not come, his orgasm practically torn from him as you milked him for ever drop. He let your legs fall from his shoulders, collapsing on top of you, his mouth against your ear whimpering with every dissipating wave until the pleasure finally ceased. Together you were just a panting mass of limbs, glistening with sweat from the scant moonlight shining in from the loft window.
Gator kept his weight off of you once he caught his breath, but he had to wait several minutes before your breathing returned to normal, almost worried you were having an asthmatic event; because that would make for an interesting emergency room visit.
He tossed the couch blanket over you before heading to the mini fridge, grabbing two water bottles. He cracked one open and put it in your hand, tossing the other next to you before heading for his little bathroom. The water always took a long time to warm up, regardless he waited for it to become warm before putting a washcloth under the stream.
You were dead to the world after you sucked down the entirety of the water bottle, loose limbed as Gator kindly cleaned you up of your combined bodily fluids. Wrapped up in the couch blanket, he carried you up to the loft, depositing you into his bed. Once he was sure you weren't going to wake for any little sound he went about getting dressed, grabbed his work laptop and phone and parked himself back on the couch...
When you woke it was in an unfamiliar bed, but you were surrounded by a familiar scent... As well as the smell of coffee, thank fuck for that. Trying to rummage quietly, you found a pair of boxer briefs and a t shirt with 'SHERIFF' printed on the left breast pocket, that would work well enough to keep the chill of the morning away.
To be honest, you were surprised to find Gator still here. Assuming last night at the bar was just a ploy to get you into bed, assuming you'd need to find your own way home, back to your normal life. But there he was, sat on the couch, feet already back in his boots and kicked up the coffee table. Two steaming mugs of coffee sat a good distance away from said boots on the table. You crept down the stairs quietly but couldn't evade creaks on certain steps.
"Mornin'." He mumbled without looking back. His laptop was still perched on his thighs where it seemed it had stayed all night and well into the morning.
"Hi." You voice a bit roughened from sleep, and y'know the whole screaming orgasm thing from the previous night. "D'you ever go to bed?" You wondered, taking a seat next to him on the couch, leaning forward to inspect the coffees and grabbing the one that looked like it had more creamer in it.
"Nah." He answered, pausing in his reading and scrolling on the computer to stretch his arms over his head, his shirt drawing up to show skin up to his belly button. You appreciated the sight as you sipped your coffee. "Been busy."
"Busy doin' what?" You asked, puzzled. Was Gator on duty already?
He leaned forward to grab the other coffee, taking a leisurely sip before he nodded towards his laptop, "Restraining order is active. Your ex's bein' supervised while he packs all his shit up from your house. And cuz I'm fuckin' nice - just about finished with the final details of his transfer order to Billings PD... Oh, n' I called y'out sick from work. Figured you'd need some recovery time after... All that... The sex, I mean... And you prob'ly need to go to the bank n' get that shit fixed."
You stared, blinked, then cleared your throat, "Shit, you really were busy." Then occupied your mouth with another sip from your mug.
"I fuckin' hate paperwork and askin' favors." He stated with a lopsided grin; with his hair still loose he looked younger, less stern like his photos in local news articles usually were. Closing his laptop with finality, he sighed before adding, "But if it means helpin' you, I'll do it ev'ry fuckin' day."
You didn't have words. The woman was too stunned to speak. This all seemed rather out of nowhere. Were you just supposed to believe Gator Tillman had been pining for you for all these years? And now he was using (possibly abusing) his power as a deputy to give you the kickstart you needed to get your life back on track?
"Listen." And he was really good at interrupting your spirals. "Las'night don't have t'mean anythin' if y'don't want it to... It could just be fun, celebratin' escapin' a narcissist."
You shifted, bringing your legs beneath you as you faced him fully, squinting slightly but enough so that he was raising a curious eyebrow at you. "Did you really have a crush on me since we were 13?"
His face smoothed out into a grin, a blush tinting his ears red, "11."
"Huh?"
"Since we were 11." He clarified.
You bit your lips together to resist a smile. That was so sickly sweet you could honestly barf.
"I know that, uhh, you might need some time on your own to figure yourself out, figure out who you are after all the bullshit y'been through, but I'll be here, if y'need - well, if y'want me."
You scoffed, setting down your mug before reaching over to take his from his hand and the computer on his lap, depositing them on the table as well before sliding yourself over to straddle his thighs. He jostled you a bit when he planted his feet on the floor, this legs spreading a bit while your fingers laced together behind his neck, thumbs absentmindedly stroking against his nape. His hands settled on your hips, giving a small squeeze as he looked up at you, waiting. "'Course I want you around. You made me come five times and then I slept the best sleep I've had in years."
His hands fell away from your hips as he rolled his eyes.
"Hey, I'm kiddin'." You remedied, snatching his hands to put them back on your hips. You restarted, making sure you had his eyes before you spoke sincerely. "Last night. Before all the orgasms and making out in a bar booth, when we were talking... Just talking... And you made me laugh... It was the first time I felt like myself in years. You make me feel like me... So I'm gonna need you around to keep, y'know, finding myself. Y'know, if y'want."
"Oh, I want." He nodded enthusiastically, his fingers flexing on you and pulling down, his own hips rising to grind against your core. "But I think y'need to be more hydrated... And eat somethin', before we fuck again."
You nodded, "Valid. I could eat."
Hardly two seconds passed before you found yourself moved out of his lap and he was striding to the little kitchenette with the mini fridge sat on the countertop. "Only got a hot plate n' one cast iron pan, so fried eggs and toast, or toast and fried eggs?"
You laughed, and Gator's own smile widened at the sound. "Toast and fried eggs sounds good."
You went back to sipping your coffee while Gator slowly but surely fixed breakfast. "Looks good on ya, y'know?" Gator said, for the first time not drawing you from your spiraling thoughts. Your mind feeling clear, unburdened for the first time in years.
"What?" You looked down at the shirt, "Your clothes?"
"Nah," he said as he strolled over to grab his mug off the coffee table, gesturing with his free hand to his left chest, then yours, "Title."
You couldn't help but snort loudly, "If you think Roy Tillman is gonna deputize a woman, I'm gonna have to take you to the hospital to have your head checked for sex induced psychosis."
He nodded but then continued, "I mean, you're really good at rallyin' a crowd. Always have been."
"Yeah. Maybe back in high school on the debate team."
"Still could, I bet. You're funny, pretty, friendly. Young enough to get the younger folks vote, charm the old bastards for their vote."
You narrowed your eyes in his direction, setting down your now empty mug. "What're you getting at..?"
"Campaign for Sheriff."
You scoffed, drawn to stand at such fucking insane idea. "Are you fucking joking? Are you trying to get me killed? Your dad would literally kill me, literally. Without a second thought."
"Nah," he said, as if that should settle your anxiety, which, strangely, it did. "He needs to be taken down... You're the one to do it."
"Gator, c'mon."
"I believe in you." He said it so easily, so sincerely, over the sound of silverware clanking on plates. He walked over with two plates, handing you one as he sat, and you followed beside him. The warmth you felt in your heart spread throughout your limbs, heating your skin to a pink blush as you murmured a soft thank you. "Election's not for six months, maybe in that time you might find who you are, what you wanna do, who you wanna be. 13 year old you who gave no shits what the sheriff thought of her would believe in you, you should too."
Gator Tillman x OC!fem!reader • circumstantial childhood friends to teen rivals to slowborn 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+
OVERALL SERIES WARNINGS/NOTES: t.w.'s - strong foul language, TOXIC Gator Tillman (who I shamelessly give way too much redemption arc throughout) ruthless banter, bad childhoods and deeply rooted traumas, detailed dark backstories, hatred mixed with underlying codependency (but it’s justified in this fic bc I said so) mutual jealousy, dirty politics. 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.
☾⋆⁺₊⋆
SUMMARY: Turns out? Bonnie and Clyde were born in Fargo, North Dakota.
They were born into rot. Her in old money, him in old crime. Childhood tied them together; circumstance kept the knot tight. Mercer’s been in love with him since she was four years old. Gator’s spent his whole life pretending he didn’t notice.
From the dusty backroads of their small town to the suffocating halls of their fathers’ empires, they grow up side by side. Through schoolyard scraps, midnight escapes, blood money, seedy secrets, and the kind of grief you just can’t talk about. They learn early that loyalty is currency, that bloodlines are a death sentence, and that in a place like this, you only survive if you’ve got someone who’ll take the fall with you.
By their teens, they’ve perfected the art of getting under each other’s skin. Rivals, allies, nuisances. Too tangled to walk away, too proud to admit they’d never want to. In their twenties, it gets worse: the stakes are higher, the knives are sharper, and the things they want from each other are far more dangerous than they used to be.
Gator Tillman is sin, Quinn Mercer is the altar... and they never pray for forgiveness. She's been his ever since they were kids. He doesn't believe in fate, or any of that shit. But he'd bleed out before letting anyone else have her.
She fell first. He fell harder. And neither of them will get out clean.
Maybe not even alive.
CHAPTER ONE
Blood Red Capri Sun
Seventh grade.
The year your bones grow wrong.
The year your mouth runs faster than your instincts.
The year everything feels like an insult, an opportunity, or a goddamn dare.
For Gator Tillman, it was the year everything cracked open. Because seventh grade wasn’t just awkward, and the year that kicked off puberty on a high (albeit squeaky) note. It was seismic. The tectonic kind. The kind that split fault lines wide open and swallowed people whole.
He and the Mercer girl had known each other since they were four. Not in the sweet, fuzzy childhood way. Not like storybooks, with sidewalk chalk and lemonade. It was more like proximity. Legacy. Inheritance. The kind you don’t ask for, but get saddled with anyway.
Just like Quinn Elizabeth Mercer: someone that Gator never asked for, and got saddled with anyway.
They were raised in the same town but on opposite ends of the same empire. Bloodlines that traced back to the same rot. Her father in tailored suits, his in a sheriff’s uniform. Both grinning like crocodiles while the world beneath them burned, one more cunning about it than the other, who carried it like a burden for the man in charge.
So the two of their offspring? They weren’t strangers. They were… familiar.
Too familiar.
Sunday school. Courtroom benches. Ribbon-cutting ceremonies and charity auctions. Always side by side, staring each other down across sugar cookies and lukewarm punch. Their names were spoken in hushed tones by the adults.
Watch that one, she’s trouble.
Keep him away from her, he’s nothing but bad news.
But it wasn’t until seventh grade that things really began to orbit. That something shifted from background static to direct collision.
And it all started over a fucking juice box.
It was lunchtime. Loud, chaotic, institutional. The kind of environment where fights were forged and alliances dissolved daily over petty adolescent nonsense. Gator was halfway through a bag of off-brand corn chips when Mercer leaned across the table and started mouthing off about something. Probably about her daddy’s business. About how it “wasn’t that different from his.”
Which infuriated him. Because it was different.
His daddy wasn’t some silk-tie psycho who smiled while he did bad things. His daddy was a sheriff. A man of the law.
And boy oh boy, had she laughed at that. Laughed. Right in his face.
“You really think Roy Tillman ain’t as dirty as the rest of ‘em?” she said, sipping her Capri Sun like she had all the answers in the world. “Please.”
He’d glared at her so hard it could’ve burned a hole through her skull.
“You think yours is better?” Gator shot back, jamming the last of the chips in his mouth. “Your daddy kills people with a goddamn handshake.”
She tilted her head. Smirked. “Yeah. And your daddy does it with a six-shooter. Same shit, different delivery.”
“Yours sleeps with foreign countries.”
“Right before he cuts yours the check.”
Gator felt it then. That flicker of something. Something hot and irritated and blindingly specific. The kind of thing that came with its own weather system. Storm clouds moving in behind his eyes.
And before he could stop himself?
Before his dumb, thirteen-year-old brain could process the consequences, he reached across the table, snatched her juice box, and squeezed.
The thing exploded.
Sticky red liquid everywhere, all over her hands, her collar, her face. It was a brighter shade of red than her crimson hair, born from blood. It was stark against her fair complexion, a slow-dripping smear of artificial fruit punch trailing down her chin.
She blinked a couple of times, and the table went still. The entire cafeteria leaned in.
And for a moment, Gator felt victorious. Smug. Like he’d won something just now, up against this little smartass of a girl.
Until she grinned.
She didn’t gasp in shock, only at the initial impact of the cold liquid. She didn’t frown, nor did she smile in anger. Nope, Mercer just grinned in pure, unfiltered, gleefully psychotic joy.
Then she lunged.
One second Gator was upright, and the next she had tackled him to the linoleum. There was no grace in it. No choreography. Just lanky limbs and elbows and curses, tables screeching back as they knocked into them. Her knee caught him square in the ribs.
“Goddamn—” he growled as his palm shoved her slim shoulder hard enough to roll her.
She snickered as she bit his forearm.
He laughed. “Fuck’s your deal, huh?”
Mercer didn’t even bother to give him any sort of verbal response. She just kept on giving him her best pretzel positions like a lithe assassin, and he was half-appalled, half-intrigued by the challenge.
A teacher shouted across the cafeteria.
Another blew a whistle.
“TILLMAN AND MERCER.”
No one moved. The entire sixth and seventh grade just watched in stunned silence as the two of them tore into each other like wild dogs in their Sunday best, as if no one had said a thing.
Gator pinned her by the wrists, glowering down at her as he had her down. “Gonna call uncle yet or what—?”
But before he could even complete that sentence, her Capri Sun was somehow back in her hand and she all but squelched the pouch into his hair.
Gator recoiled. “You are work—”
Mercer cackled as her legs got tangled up even further with his. And by the time they were yanked apart, Gator’s lip was bleeding. Mercer’s French braid was half undone, her uniform shirt soaked in juice and wrath.
And both of them were grinning now.
Something had started there. Something no one in that cafeteria had words for yet. But it was loud. It was very loud, and soon enough the whole town was gonna hear all about it. And things would never go dormant again.
That was the first time Gator Tillman ever realized that there was something dangerous about this girl. This odd, strange girl who’d been thrust into his life before he ever even knew the real meaning of fear.
Mercer didn’t back down.
That actually kind of scared him.
But while that scared him now, that was gonna end up being scared him more than anything else ever would for the rest of his life.
Because Mercer wasn’t just some girl in his class. She wasn’t just the daughter of the ultimate kingpin who cut the checks with veneer teeth for the hungry monsters who helped him operate the underbelly of the nation.
She was his match.
Same spark, same heat, same blood in a different type of packaging.
Seventh grade. That was the spark. The catalyst. From that point forward, there wouldn’t be a day that the two of them didn’t orbit around each other. They were doomed to orbit around their arguments, around their gravity, around the inevitable, unstoppable fact that they were tethered by the soul, entangled in a web of lies and invisible strings.
Bonnie and Clyde hadn’t started with guns and bodies in the dirt. They’d started out with something smaller. Something dumber.
A capri sun.
A dare in the shape of a look that lasted a second too long.
They didn’t know it yet, but they’d just loaded each other for life — two guns cocked, pointed, and waiting.
The fuse had been lit.
And it was already burning fast.
***
CHAPTER TWO
Dogs with Goddamn Matches
“You ain’t gonna do it.”
Gator Tillman said it low and smug, the way boys say shit when they want to see a girl burn the whole house down.
It was a stupid thing to say. Hell, most of the things that came out of his mouth were. But this one had some weight to it. Real weight. Because he knew that look on her face. He was beginning to learn that when she got quiet like that, when her mouth went flat and her eyes narrowed, somebody was about to suffer.
Usually him.
But he said it anyway, standing there in that dim half-lit hallway outside Roy Tillman’s locked office, rocking back on his heels like a jackass in a Western showdown.
“Schyeah, you ain’t gonna do it,” he repeated, like he was spitting out a dare laced with dynamite, just begging her to crack and blow shit up.
And that’s exactly what she did.
Not quite yet, but it was coming. Because that tone in his voice? That cocky, half-laugh drawl thing he did? It was pure gasoline to her fuse. Always had been, ever since he got smug in Sunday school and made her wonder if the intrusive thoughts inside her head were maybe, just maybe, supposed to be exercised.
She turned her head slowly to face him, like a hinge creaking open. One brow arched like a blade.
“You think I’m scared of your daddy’s office?”
“I think you’re a coward in Dior lip balm.”
She stared.
He grinned.
A second passed. Then another.
And then?
“Move.”
She brushed past him without flinching, already reaching for the doorknob.
That was how the two of them operated. No foreplay. No planning. Just impulse and ego and a shared taste for lighting matches in dry fields.
The hallway outside Roy Tillman’s office was dark. Dead quiet. The kind of quiet that begged for trouble. Strip lights buzzed overhead. The air smelled like wax and floor polish, like every school hallway after curfew.
“Thought you said it was locked,” she muttered.
“It is locked,” Gator replied, fishing a hairpin from his back pocket like a magician about to make a dove disappear.
She gave him a look. He shrugged.
“Don’t ask.”
She didn’t. Just leaned against the wall with her arms crossed and watched him work.
Gator was fast with it. Sloppy, sure. But efficient, like someone who’d practiced enough to be dangerous and not enough to be smart. He jiggled the pin, cursed under his breath, and then finally…
Click.
He looked up, triumphant.
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re slow.”
Gator squinted at her, not even bothering to look as he pushed the door open with his pointer finger. He kept that same smug eye contact as he gestured inside.
“Ladies first,” he said with a little tilt of his head.
“Guess that means you.”
He made a face. “Wow, and yet we’re the misogynists.”
“Oh good grief,” she muttered, pushing past him again and walking into Roy Tillman’s office like it was her birthright.
And that was how it started. Not with some grand plan or master scheme. Not with vengeance, calculated ambition, or whatever other reasons people broke rules.
But with boredom. And pride.
Entitled pride, at that. Because they were still riding high off the cafeteria brawl. Still drunk on adrenaline from that goddamn juice box explosion and the look on Principal Fields’ face when he pulled them apart like rabid dogs.
And because deep down, neither of them were ready to stop.
Not yet.
Not when they’d just gotten started.
So when Gator said, “Let’s see what my old man’s hidin’,” she didn’t even blink.
Because why the hell not?
There’d been whispers all week. Quiet conversations at grown-up dinner tables, the kind that stopped the second kids walked in. Something was brewing. Something big.
And somewhere in Roy Tillman’s desk was the start of it.
It was dim inside, only the slant of moonlight slicing through the blinds like silver razors across the floor. The air smelled like stale cigar smoke and old leather. Gator’s boots scuffed the linoleum, while her sneakers didn’t make a sound. The walls were heavy with books nobody read. The shelves smelled like dried sweat and dust. And the desk? Massive. Made of old oak. Probably weighed more than both of them combined.
“Start on the drawers,” she said.
Gator snorted. “Yes, ma’am.”
But he did it. No argument. See, that was the thing… he could mouth off all day long, but when it counted, he followed her lead.
She liked that about him.
Not that she’d ever tell him.
He closed the door behind them, the sound too loud in the silence, like a gunshot against a prayer. It made her sigh disapprovingly, turning to look at him. And for a second, just one, Gator actually hesitated. He looked at the leather chair, eyes flicking over to the dull, beige filing cabinets. The empty mug with a sheriff’s star on it.
“You gonna stand there all night or actually be useful?” she mused condescendingly.
Gator rolled his eyes. “Hold your damn horses, Jesus,” he grumbled while he grabbed a flashlight from his hoodie pocket and got to work on the desk.
Mercer hovered near the cabinets, rifling through the top drawer like she’d done this before. Like it wasn’t her first time stealing state secrets.
He tried not to watch her. He really did.
But there was something about the way she moved. Lithe but sharp, fast, surgical. Like her fingers were a scalpel and the truth was a tumor she was cutting out with the utmost precision.
“…Lord, would you hurry up?” she whispered.
“Shut the hell up, I’m workin’ on it,” he hissed, fumbling with the latch.
“Thought you were good at this.”
“I am.”
“Then what’s takin’ so long?”
“You wanna do it?”
While he fumbled with the bottom drawer, she went over to another file cabinet, eyes scanning the labels like she was on a grocery run for blood.
There were names.
Dates.
Operations stamped in red.
And just beneath the third drawer…
There it was.
She froze.
“…Gator?”
He glanced up, hair falling into his eyes. “What?”
“I think I found it.”
He stood, moving closer to peer over her shoulder like she was opening the Ark of the Covenant.
The folder was slim. Unlabeled. But the paper inside was thick and old. Legal, probably. The kind with weight.
Mercer opened it. Inside was a list of names. One of them jumped out.
A name she wasn’t supposed to know.
Gator saw it too. His breath caught. And just like that, the fun was gone. Because this wasn’t just about screwing around anymore. Nah, this was something else.
This was something they both weren’t supposed to —
“Close it,” he murmured.
“Why?”
“‘Cause I know that name. And if I know it, my daddy’s probably killed for it.”
She closed the folder quickly. And that should’ve been the end of it.
But of course it wasn’t.
Because the second she snapped the drawer shut, the office door slammed open behind them.
Roy Tillman filled the frame like a freight train made of fury. And behind him, smooth as silk and twice as cold, stood Jonathan Mercer.
Her father.
Gator’s stomach dropped.
She straightened beside him, hands already empty, guilt smoothed over her face like all the makeup she never really bothered to wear, minus the basics. The two of them stood frozen, guilty as hell. The file was gone. The drawer was shut. But that didn’t matter.
They knew.
Both their daddies knew.
No point in running. Not from men like them.
Roy’s voice came like deep thunder approaching swiftly from the distance. “Explain.”
Neither of them moved.
“I said—”
“It was her idea,” Gator said quickly.
“He brought the hairpin,” she snapped.
“Don’t matter,” Roy growled. “You’re both in it now.”
Oh yeah, Roy was furious. Because they’d really done it now. This was grounds for major consequences.
But unlike Roy, Jonathan Mercer didn’t speak. Not yet. Just walked in slowly, looking around the room like he was bored by the whole affair.
And then he just… laughed.
One dry chuckle. No real warmth in it, despite the seemingly real amusement.
“Would you listen to that, sheriff?” he said, shaking his head. “Look at them. Already throwin’ each other to the wolves.”
Gator’s brow furrowed. He actually felt bad for a second. “I ain’t—” he started.
“You two tryin’ to get yourselves killed?” Jonathan asked, almost playfully. But calm, measured.
Disturbingly amused.
Mercer bristled beneath her father’s gaze. It made Gator swallow hard. Because Jonathan was looking at her like he was taking notes. Like he was filing her away under a new category. Like something had clicked.
Gator saw it happen in real time, for the first time.
He hated it.
“Well,” Daddy Mercer said, turning toward Roy. “At least they work well together.”
But Roy didn’t laugh. He inhaled sharply, grabbed Gator by the arm and yanked him out of the room as he started barking orders about a week’s worth of chores, manual labor, and Bible verses.
It was contrary to her punishment.
Because unlike Roy Tillman, Jonathan didn’t yell. That wasn’t his way. He didn’t raise a hand. Just waited until it was only the two of them left in the room.
Then he stepped forward, slow and quiet, and spoke with that same surgical precision she’d inherited.
“You look just like your mother when you lie.”
She froze, heart in her throat.
“Thing is,” he continued, crouching ever so slightly, voice cool as smoke, “she was better at it.”
Then his spine straightened. He didn’t even give her a last look as he made his way toward the door.
“Guess you aren’t as smart as I thought, baby girl.”
With that, he walked out. Didn’t even look back. And she just stood there. Not crying. Not shaking with dread or fright. She was just… still.
And somehow, that was worse, because it landed like a bullet to the gut. Because she could take screaming. She could take slaps. Hell, she could handle the whole house crumbling down on top of her and still walk away laughing.
But that? That made something inside her crack.
He knew that it would. Her father knew that any physical violence wasn’t something that would deter her, let alone anything he’d ever get away with. He wasn’t the physical punishment type. Jonathan Mercer walked away with the kind of calm that only monsters could wear.
And his daughter was bred to bear it for him.
And somewhere down the hall, Gator Tillman had turned to look back at the closed door, ears ringing from all the storm still rolling out of Roy.
He knew something had shifted. He just had no idea how deep it ran.
Neither of them got what they wanted that night. But they sure as hell got what they deserved for being so careless about it. They knew better.
Didn’t stop them, though. Never did. So Gator decided that from then on, things would go differently. If he was gonna have to keep her around, it might as well be a good time. Because the two of them? They weren’t just trouble.
They were two matches in a box full of gasoline.
And the world hadn’t even started burning yet.
***
CHAPTER THREE
Bonnie + Clyde
The next morning broke dry and mean.
A pale, unforgiving light scraped across the town like a blade. Frost still clung to rooftops and the grass was a flat, brittle green. The type of freeze that burned your fingers if you touched it too early.
And somehow, it was even quieter than usual. Not the soft sort of quiet. It faintly hummed with leftover energy, like something had happened and the town just hadn’t figured out how to say so yet.
Mercer hadn’t slept. Not really, anyway.
She’d finally gotten home just before 8PM, her boots soaked through and hair half crusted with dried rain. After the whole office break-in incident, she’d gone outside the building and saw her dad patiently waiting at the car for her. Daddy Mercer was already taking an important call, briefly nodding at her absentmindedly once he’d spotted her finally exiting through the doors to follow him. He was cool, acting as though nothing had even happened.
As if he hadn’t just served her some brutal honesty on a silver platter barely ten minutes before.
So little Mercer just slipped into the car as her father held the door open, riding in silence before he hung up and let the driver know they’d be dining-in that night, instead of going to whatever dinner had been on the books. The Mercer’s made their way home, back to their enormous estate that never felt like a home at all.
After barely touching her food, she’d taken a walk. Didn't matter that it was late. Night walks felt calmer. Like they allowed your thoughts to run wild, so that they could finally exhaust themselves enough to let you find sleep. It was all sort of a blur, everything that had followed her sly little adventure with the Tillman boy earlier that night. Mercer couldn’t even remember what had been served for dinner, just that she’d pretty much scraped her fork across the plate before going to take a walk. And her daddy hadn’t stopped her, just plopped a mindless kiss on top of her head while checking his phone to make another call.
He didn't need to worry. Why would he? The chip inside her locket would let him know exactly where she was at all times. It was fine. One day, he'd likely need to get that thing actually embedded in her skin. But for now, Mercer never parted with her deceased mother's locket. So Jonathan would just cross that bridge whenever he got there.
It currently dangled from Baby Mercer's neck as she walked. She had no idea how long she’d even walked, or where she’d even gone. Just thought her headphones had drowned out the noise as she walked underneath the moonlight, thinking of nothing and everything at the same time, until eventually, she made her way back through the front doors.
Then she’d left her jacket on the kitchen floor. Didn’t even bother with an explanation as to where she’d been.
Or rather, she didn’t need to.
Her father was gone, naturally. Daddy Mercer’s absence was more reliable than his presence these days. So she peeled off her clothes in the hallway and stood under hot water until it stopped feeling like someone else’s blood under her fingernails that hadn’t been spilt by her own hand, but slain and executed by her name, all the name.
And then she stared at her ceiling until the morning split her giant bedroom open.
When she finally left the house, she didn’t even try to cover the dark circles under her eyes. She didn’t bother to hide the tear in her jeans or the faint scrape along her shoulder. She threw on an old gray hoodie that smelled like gasoline and iron and a hint of something that might have been bleach, opting out of sporting one of her nicer crewnecks. It just didn’t fit this morning.
Baby Mercer let herself out the front door, and once she’d walked down the winding bath and made it to civilization she didn’t even flinch when a neighbor’s dog barked at her. She didn’t speak to anyone that passed her on the sidewalks or neighboring streets, just keeping her face and towel dried hair concealed beneath the hood.
She hadn’t even bothered to bring her headphones, because music just felt like noise at this point.It was a silent, anti-social hot girl walk.
Until she saw him.
Gator Tillman, across the street, standing like a problem she’d accidentally summoned. Or maybe a consequence. Either way, he looked like hell.
There were cuts on his knuckles, fresh and raw, like he’d just gone to war with something metallic and came out the other end smirking. His shirt was half tucked, and his bottom lip had a split in it. His oily, slick chestnut hair was doing its usual mussed half-assed Elvis Presley bullshit, only this time? It looked earned. Like maybe he’d gotten into trouble and the trouble had liked him.
They both stopped walking at the same time.
Neither of them said anything.
Not at first.
They just stared at each other across the wide-open nothing of downtown Fargo, North Dakota. A place the townsfolk had begun to call “Mercicville,” even though mercy was the last thing it had to offer. And here stood Fargo’s finest: the sheriff's broken boy, and the kingpin’s tragic daughter, in some forgotten parking lot in front of a shuttered laundromat and a closed liquor store. No traffic. No noise.
Just Babygirl Mercer and Gator Tillman, breathing heavy in the cold.
Then, like they’d both been holding a match to the same stick of dynamite… they burst out laughing.
Not pretty laughter. Not polite. It hit Mercer so fast and so loud it nearly doubled her over. Her shoulders shook with it, sharp and uncontrollable. She leaned her long, slender frame against the rusted metal pole of a No Parking sign and laughed until her lungs hurt.
Gator barked something like a what the fuck, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. He grinned through the blood caked at the corner of his mouth from where it split. He looked wrecked. He looked thrilled.
“You look like shit,” he called.
“Yeah?” she shot back, voice hoarse. “So do your knuckles, Thunderdome.”
He looked down at his hand, flexed his fingers, and smirked. “Barbed wire fence. Someone left it open. I closed it.”
“With your face?”
“With my charm,” he said. “And grit.”
Mercer straightened and crossed the street like the town wasn’t even real. Like the cars didn’t matter, or the laws, or whatever quiet sense of normalcy tried to settle in after sunrise. She stopped two feet in front of him.
The proximity didn’t scare her. Nah, what scared her was how natural it felt to be standing in front of Gator Tillman the way you stand in front of someone you’ve known your whole life, which technically they had.
Even though they hadn’t really known each other until last night.
“What the hell was that?” she went ahead and asked.
Gator shrugged casually. “Trouble.”
“Felt like more than that.”
“Wasn’t less.”
Silence settled between them like a dare. It would have been easy, too easy, for one of them to flinch. To call it what it wasn’t. To walk away and pretend the night before had been a fluke. But neither of them did. Because flukes don’t feel like this.
Like friendship.
Or maybe just… silent understanding.
Mercer looked at him with narrowed eyes, like she was reading something between the lines of his busted mouth and bleeding hand.
“You’re not gonna tell anyone, are you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What, about your late-night Breaking Bad moment that I got dragged into?”
“I was thinking more Dog Day Afternoon.”
He snorted. “You wish. You don’t have Pacino energy.”
Mercer leaned in just slightly. “I’ve got the gun and the getaway car. You’re the one who got caught on a fence like a drunk raccoon.”
His mouth twitched, but he didn’t step back. He didn’t give her an inch.
She liked that.
And she also found herself liking his eyes. Big, brown, wild and soft all at once. They made her head spin a bit. They made her mind wander to places she wasn’t sure that she’d ever been. The Tillman boy’s eyes held her in a way that no one’s arms never had. Even when they held fire, anger and sadness, something about them also held warmth.
Warmth that she felt in her chest, just gazing at him.
They stared at each other for another long second. She could smell the leftover adrenaline on both of them, like smoke on a jacket after a bonfire. They were still burning, just beneath the surface.
“Where you headed?” he asked eventually.
“Nowhere.”
“Same.”
They didn’t say it, but it hung in the air anyway: well then, let’s go nowhere together.
They didn’t walk side by side, not exactly. Gator walked a half step ahead, like maybe he wanted to make sure he could keep an eye on her but also keep his distance. She stayed just close enough to make it clear she didn’t mind. They didn’t speak for the first ten minutes. Just wandered past half-frozen puddles and sidewalks littered with salt, grime and grit. Everything around them felt dirty, lived-in and tired.
And somehow, that made it feel somewhat right.
Finally, Gator broke the silence.
“Last night,” he said, not looking over at her even when he felt her look at him. “You said something. About not owing anyone anything.”
Mercer nodded, hands curried in the pocket of her hoodie. “I did.”
He squinted at the morning light. “You believe that?”
Mercer kicked a rock into the street. “I have to.”
He nodded like he got it. Like maybe he didn’t agree, but he understood the kind of world you had to survive to say something like that in the first place.
When Mercer looked over at him again, she really saw his appearance better in the light. The swelling along his cheekbone, the bruises forming beneath his skin, the way his body moved like he’d been thrown into something harder than he expected and came out with teeth still bared, braced for more.
And it hit her, just for a second, that he wasn’t just some bad boy with a violent streak. He was made of something tougher. Stranger, unorthodox in his own way. Something that matched the thing inside her that never sat still.
Something that felt closer to her than anyone else ever had in her thirteen years of life.
The two of them were sharp in different places. Both of them were dangerous in ways they hadn’t figured out yet, both very capable of causing a hell of a lot of damage as individuals.
But together?
Together, they might be something else entirely.
Mercer didn’t know what exactly. Not yet. At least not fully. But she’d remember this morning, better than she’d ever remember last night after she’d gotten home but just as much as she’d remember their sneaky little escapade before that. Just like she’d remember the feeling that ran through her spine when he looked at her like she wasn’t a girl at all. Like she was a matchbook and he was already holding the flame.
They didn’t touch. They didn’t hug, or walk too closely. They didn’t make any promises.
But somewhere deep in her bones, Mercer knew that this wasn’t just the aftermath to follow one night of trouble.
It was the start of multiple aftermaths, after multiple days and nights of trouble and wreaking havoc.
It was the start of something messy. Something cruel. Something that would take years to make sense of and even longer to survive. Something neither of them were ready for, but neither of them could walk away from.
And someday? Someday, they’d both look back on this and realize it was always gonna be the two of them.
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🩸 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).
🩸 An Ongoing FARGO Fanfic Series, from Misha’s Masterlist Library.
☾⋆ MERCY Full Series Masterlist & File -> click here.
BOOK TWO • Chapters 28 -> 29
💿 -> “Nonchalant” by Suki Waterhouse (Ch.28)
💿 -> “I Love It” by Charli XCX (Ch.29)
💿 -> “You’d Never Know” by BLÜ EYES Ch.29)
💿 -> “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World (Ch.29)
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: New Year’s Day kicks off the beginning of an all new 365-day-into-night calendar for six teenage dirtbags — still wreaking havoc in Las Vegas before turning to Fargo.
Everyone’s got goals. Andy’s got graduation coming up. Gator’s got a chance to control-alt-delete his sleazy Snapchat inbox (then start a new wave of disaster). Bill’s determined to explore new possibilities that put him out of his comfort zone. Tiff lives outside the comfort zone and plans to keep going. Crawford vows to not repress as much as he usually does…
…and Babygirl Mercer? She’s ready to start letting her heart do more talking. Or at the very least, take baby steps towards making that her reality, before her life gets away from her at faster than it already is.
🩸AUTHOR’S NOTE: Sorry this took so freaking long. I planned on posting these chapters on New Year’s Day, but better late than never. We’ve reached the end of Book Two. That’s fucking crazy!
Book Three? Here we come ;)
But until then: let’s wrap this year out right.
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.
🩸OVERALL SERIES WARNINGS/NOTES: TOXIC Gator Tillman (who I shamelessly give way too much anti-hero redemption arc throughout) underage drinking and teen hoodrat stuff, 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.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Resolutions Club
New Year's Day | Las Vegas
The rooftop was quiet in that high-dollar, insulated kind of way. Blankets on chair backs, heat lamps overhead and champagne flutes sweating from the chill desert air.
Somewhere below them, the city still sizzled with neon and desperation, but up here, they had a corner of peace carved out of the madness. Big white linen napkins, tiny gold salt shakers, and an aggressively curated playlist of indie covers of ’80s pop songs drifting through the sleek overhead speakers.
Gator hated it immediately. Too clean.
Tiff was already perched on a cushioned bench with her shoes kicked off, swinging her hose covered feet like she owned the place. Which, with Mercer’s AMEX backing them, she kind of did.
“So,” Tiff said, biting into a complimentary crostini like she was chewing on gossip. “Can we please talk about the fact not a single one of us kissed anyone at midnight?”
Andy choked on his sparkling water. “We didn’t even notice midnight, dude. We were pulling off the highway into fucking Barstow.”
“I did notice midnight,” Crawford said, not looking up from the menu. “You were playing ‘Promiscuous’ by Nelly Furtado for the fifth time and yelling out the window at a Waffle House.”
“I was trying to manifest something for you, Croissant,” Andy said, stabbing a cube of butter like it owed him money. “And also? ‘Promiscuous’ is a cultural milestone.”
“More like a cry for help,” Crawford muttered.
“I could have kissed someone,” Tiff points out. “There was a slutty bouncer last night with biceps like goddamn Thanksgiving hams, but no. I was too busy hauling your guys’ drunken bodies through a hotel lobby like a nanny with a gambling problem.”
Gator raised a brow. “You saying that like it wasn’t the best night of your life.”
“Oh, it was.” Tiff grinned. “But I still didn’t get my New Year’s kiss, which is homophobic.”
Mercer just smiled, slow and knowing, sipping whatever orange citrus spritz the server had brought her without asking. “I wouldn’t kiss and tell,” she said casually, gaze flicking across the group like she knew damn well the power she held.
Gator rolled his eyes. “Okay, Lana Del Evasive.”
“Oh my God,” Bill wheezed, half-choking on his cocktail shrimp. “You practiced that one?”
“It was spontaneous, man.”
“No way,” Andy said. “You had that locked and loaded since sophomore year started.”
“I’m just saying,” Gator drawled, chin resting in his palm, “while some of us were too classy or too shy or too academically engaged to get any action, I was fielding DMs last night.”
“Oh God,” Mercer deadpanned without looking at him. “Don’t tell me. Lemme guess. Lilah Marshall was at the top?”
“Bingo,” Gator clucked smugly.
Bill snorted. “Of course she was. Isn’t she like, fourteen?”
“Gross. She’s fifteen. Freshman, just like us. And also the mayor’s daughter. Which automatically makes it funny.”
“She’s been in love with him since elementary school,” Mercer explained to the table like a bored historian and not a yearning girl who’s been in love with him since she was four. “Pageant curls, pastel sweaters, and this ever constant ability to be nearby when he’s talking.”
“Bitch doesn’t even blink,” Tiff added flatly. “It’s like she’s staring into the abyss.”
Crawford set down his drink and narrowed his eyes at Gator. “You flirt with her?”
Gator shrugged. “Sometimes. I get bored.”
Mercer just smirked, but it was all surface. No teeth, no warmth. She sipped her drink again, the condensation sliding down her wrist as her heart thudded cruelly.
Crawford’s eyes flicked from her to Gator, and he did his best to refrain from scoffing as he subdued it with a light sigh through his strike instead.
“You’re so full of shit,” Bill said lightly, nudging Gator’s arm. “Like you’d actually let that girl anywhere near your mouth. You’d combust.”
“I’d combust from boredom,” Gator replied. “Pretty sure the last time she finished a sentence it had a sticker chart attached to it.”
“Mmm, also,” Tiff hummed, “Her daddy only wants her dating someone who’s going to major in, like, agriculture economics and sing in church.”
“Well shit,” Andy said grandly. “Guess I’m outta the running.”
“You were never in the running,” Crawford muttered.
Andy ignored him. “But hey. No kiss for me either. Tragic. I’ve made peace with it. One day I will kiss a woman with a truly enormous rack and she will hold me between her bosom like I’m a sad little Victorian ghost boy.”
Crawford pulled a face. “I’m going to be sick.”
“I want to be you, Jenkins,” Bill said, laughing so hard he nearly tipped his wine. “Next life. I'm coming back as you.”
Mercer just grinned behind her glass, nose scrunched, eyes fond.
Andy leaned back, triumphant. “This is why I’m the soul of the group. You’re all cowards. Mercer, you kiss anyone?”
She raised a brow at him. “As I said… I wouldn’t kiss and tell.”
“Which means yes?” Bill asked, wide-eyed.
“Or it means no,” Gator said quickly, too quickly. “It’s Mercer. She’d say that even if she was out kissing the damn Pope.”
“I feel like even the Pope would be like, ‘She’s a bit intense,’” Andy offered. “In a good way. Like in that sexy because-she-knows-how-to-use-a-crossbow kind of way.”
“I do know how to use a crossbow,” Mercer said simply.
Crawford sighed and reached for the bread basket. “We’re going to die on this trip.”
The food arrived, and for a moment, there was peace. Six plates, one big round table, and the clink of silver.
Andy was already halfway through his duck confit before the server even left the table, and eyeing the desserts at a nearby table that had just been served.
Tiff leaned back in her chair, stomach full, hair in a sleek dark bun. “Alright,” she said. “Resolutions. Let’s hear ‘em.”
Andy pointed his fork at her. “Barstow never counts.”
Crawford raised an eyebrow. “Do we actually care about resolutions, or are we just killing time before dessert?”
“Psh. Speak for yourself,” Gator said. “I’ve got goals.”
“Oh really?” Mercer tilted her head. “Do they involve taking more thirst trap selfies with farm equipment?”
“I like farm equipment.”
“We know,” Tiff muttered.
“Alright then, you go first,” Bill drawled, grinning. “Big man with his big goals.”
Gator leaned back and crossed his arms, like he was about to deliver a campaign promise. “My resolution is… to get my boater’s license. Actually study for the test this time. And maybe not crash anything.”
“That’s progress,” Mercer said mildly.
“And also,” Gator added, “to stop replying to Lilah Marshall.”
Crawford made a solemn noise of approval, subtly eyeing Mercer’s poker face.
“Also,” Gator said, deadpan, “I wanna try one of Andy’s bath salts. Just one.”
“I’ve got seasonal scents,” Andy said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Sure you do,” Crawford deadpanned.
Bill leaned forward. “Alright, I got one. I wanna write a song that actually doesn’t suck. Like one that’s… real. Not something I stole from my own diary.”
“Aren’t those the same thing?” Tiff asked slyly.
“Don’t psychoanalyze me, darlin,” Bill said, blushing.
Mercer raised her glass. “Too late. I wanna be the first one to hear it.”
He winked. “Deal.”
Tiff went next. “Mine’s simple,” she said. “Live more. Say yes. Especially to chaos.”
“You said yes to a felony last night,” Crawford pointed out.
“Exactly,” Tiff said proudly.
Andy waved his fork. “Okay, me. I resolve to graduate.”
A beat of silence.
“That’s it?” Bill asked, brows raised.
Andy gave a sweeping shrug. “Graduating is the most punk rock thing I can do right now.”
“No lies detected,” Mercer grinned.
Gator shook his head, teeth sunk into the bottom lip of his own wide-set grin. “You seriously better make a fucking scene when swooping that diploma.”
Andy pointed at him, pure mischief on his face. “Bet. NEXT?! Twin One? Twin Two?”
Crawford set his fork down and said, low and dry, “Gonna stop pretending I’m fine when I’m not.”
That really silenced the table. Just for a second.
But Mercer smiled tenderly at him. Even Tiff did, despite the fact Crawford was just sipping his wine and avoiding eye contact with anyone. Bill and Gator both actually exchanged a look. A soft one.
Then Andy reached across and poked his arm with a breadstick. “You are fine, though. Like, clinically. And emotionally. And biblically.”
“Gracias,” Crawford said flatly. “Mercer, you’re on.”
Mercer swirled her drink. “Mine’s kind of boring.”
“Hit us,” Bill said warmly.
She glanced down, thoughtful. “To be softer. With the people who deserve it.”
Gator’s eyes flicked to her, sharp and quiet, then back to his plate.
Tiff raised her glass. “To that.”
And one by one, they all raised theirs.
Six drinks. Six kids. Too much food, not enough sleep. They were half-strangers to the people they were just a year ago. They’d grown teeth. Hearts. Scars.
“God,” Andy said, tipping his flute, “I love us.”
“You’re so embarrassing,” Crawford muttered.
Bill clinked his glass against Mercer’s. “Best New Year’s ever.”
“I didn’t even get a kiss,” she teased.
And beside her, Gator grinned slow. “Yet.” Then he jutted his chin out at her. “Also? Thought you didn’t kiss and tell.”
CHAPTER
Second Time’s the Charm
Six months later, the high school gymnasium smelled like sweat and plastic chairs and half-dried carnations. Rows of navy-robed seniors sat like bored cattle under the sick yellow glow of the Fairmoore High School’s fluorescents, while a thousand folding chairs creaked behind them, all filled with moms, dads, siblings, and the occasional deadbeat holding a sign made from a pizza box.
And in the middle of it all, seated in the back row of the graduating class, wearing socks covered in flamingos and a pair of knockoff Ray-Bans that he refused to take off indoors, sat Andrew Clarence Jenkins.
Nineteen years old. Fifth year senior. Wearing a navy gown that didn’t quite zip over his broad shoulders and a graduation cap so obnoxiously decorated it was visible from space.
The back of the cap sparkled in glittery silver initials:
A. M. J.
Tiff had helped him glue them on that morning while eating leftover tiramisu in her bathrobe. They’d both been hungover from some pre-grad drinks the night before at her house, nor had she stopped documenting the whole time.
“I want it to blind God,” Andy had muttered, flipping through a bucket of rhinestones.
Well, it worked. Because now? Here he sat. Grinning like the bastard he was. Last one alphabetically in his row, foot jiggling, absolutely vibrating with the kind of chaotic potential energy that should’ve gotten him escorted out before the ceremony started.
From the stands? It was a whole other circus.
Gator was leaned way back in his folding chair, one foot propped against the metal bar in front of him, a wicked grin stretching across his face like he’d helped breed the entire graduating class. His arms were crossed over his chest, but loose. Comfortable. Proud.
Bill, on the other hand, was sitting straight up like an eager father at a spelling bee, both hands clasped and his eyebrows sky-high. When the principal announced Andy’s row was up next, he made a sound. Not a yell, just a very specific kind of wheeze that sounded like joy being forced through a pipe.
Tiff looked like she’d just stepped off a Milan runway. Sleek black two-piece, rhinestone glasses, a clutch that probably cost more than someone’s car. She had her phone out the entire time, camera focused like a sniper. She had been recording since the second Andy’s row started moving.
Mercer was sitting next to Crawford, one leg crossed over the other, red nails tapping lightly against the metal chair arm. She was smiling. Her real one, quiet and slanted and all-knowing, but covering it under a soft laugh as Andy finally emerged down the aisle.
Crawford? Crawford looked like he wanted to crawl inside himself and die.
He was wearing a fitted button-down and a pair of his wireframe glasses that had slid slightly down the bridge of his nose. His arms were crossed, his brow furrowed, his mouth muttering something like, “This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. This school is a county fair. This country’s doomed.”
Mercer reached over and wrapped one arm around his stiff, folded posture.
“I will scream,” he muttered.
“Dawh,” she just grinned, whispering dramatically. “No, you won’t.”
And he didn’t.
Not even when Andy made it to the stage with a stride so confident it should’ve been illegal. He stopped halfway up the stairs to shake hands with a custodian who definitely didn’t work that night, then strutted the rest of the way up like he was entering the damn Met Gala.
Principal Tennyson looked terrified. The man held out the diploma like a shield.
“Andrew Clarence Jenkins,” he said, voice faltering halfway through.
And that’s when Andy reached for the microphone.
“Lemme get that real quick,” he said, peeling it gently — gently! — from the man’s hands. “Thank you, Principal T. Appreciate the hustle. Now if y’all would just kindly shut up for one second.”
The room froze.
Tiff’s phone dropped a little. She whispered, “No. Oh my god, he’s doing it.”
Gator’s mouth had dropped open in silent awe. He didn’t even look at Bill, just reached over and smacked his arm twice like a proud coach watching his idiot protégé become a legend.
Mercer squeaked, while Crawford just stared with his mouth hung open. Agape with horrified anticipation.
Andy stepped up to the mic like he’d been waiting his whole life for this moment. “Class of twenty-twenty-fuck-you, we did it,” he began.
The audience gasped.
Tennyson twitch-flinched.
The valedictorian in the front row dropped her script.
“I know I’m technically a year behind. Shut up. Shut up. I don’t care,” Andy continued, raising a hand. “Some of us had a long journey. Some of us had to pass Algebra 2 three separate times. Some of us, me, spent our junior year working two jobs, teaching ourselves chemistry out of YouTube videos while living out of a glorified trailer home with a raccoon infestation. Shout out to Rick, our emotional support raccoon. Love you, little man.”
The gym was absolutely silent.
No one knew what to do.
Andy went on. “I just wanna say… if you ever feel like giving up? Don’t. Because you could be nineteen years old, surrounded by children, still wearing highlighter socks and no underwear under this gown because you forgot to do laundry, and somehow—somehow—ya still graduate from this bullshit school. So I’m here to say: anything is possible, if you lie well enough on your transcripts and charm the hell out of your remedial English teacher. Shout out, Ms. Claymore. You’re a real one.”
From her seat, Ms Claymore awkwardly shifted, chuckling nervously as the other teachers suspiciously looked at her.
Tennyson tried to cut the mic. It didn’t work.
Bill had a fist over his mouth and was wheezing. Gator looked straight-up emotional and smugly proud. Like there were stars in his eyes, as though he had just witnessed God.
Tiff was filming, whispering, “Yes, sweetie, YAS,” like Kris Jenner filming her children with the camcorder.
Mercer had her hand on her heart and the other lifted like she was in church, while Crawford slowly slid down in his chair, face in his hands.
“Unalive me.”
“You love him,” Mercer murmured mid-worship.
“I hate everything,” he stage-whispered, not moving.
She smiled and pulled him in a little. He let his head rest on her shoulder. Crossed arms. Full body pout. A perfect portrait of toddler-approved protest.
Andy ended his speech by screeching into the mic. Like an actual pterodactyl scream, before handing it back to the principal with a two-finger salute.
Then he launched his graduation cap into the air.
“WE OUT, BITCHES!”
And in a moment of complete anarchy, the rest of the class, only halfway through the roll call, followed him.
Caps went flying. People screamed. Teachers scrambled. Tennyson went white in the face and started whispering for backup into his walkie.
Gator and Mercer were the first on their feet, screaming like they were at a rock concert.
Bill joined them a second later, hollering something about legacy and legend and punching the air like a proud father at a baseball game.
Tiff kept filming, screaming like the proudest most feral stage mom.
Crawford ducked so far down in his seat it looked like he was hiding from a sniper.
The gym went to hell.
And a newly graduated Andy Jenkins walked off the stage into history.
The sun was low and mean above the Fairmoore High parking lot, baking the asphalt until it smelled like rubber and sweat and ketchup packets forgotten under car seats.
But Andy Jenkins had graduated.He’d actually fucking graduated, and chaos was the only thing on the schedule.
Gator hit him first.
One long stride and then a full-bodied tackle of a hug, the kind that lifted Andy halfway off his beat-up Vans and had him hooting like a medieval banshee. Gator was laughing too hard to speak, dragging him in with one long, strong arm and beating his back with the other like he was trying to burp him to death like a baby with colic. There was a definite pop of a vertebrae giving up.
“Jesus H—ow! My lungs, you damn bastard—!” Andy screeched, breathless and elated, voice cracking like a firework.
“You did it, you freakin’ miracle,” Gator barked, shaking him once, hard, like a dog with a chew toy. “You did it. Andy ‘Two-Time’ Jenkins, Class of Never Let ‘Em Know Your Next Move.”
Bill crashed into them next with a double-armed hug like a football dad during draft season.
“THAT’S MY BOY!” he roared at a decibel that had several nearby parents flinching.
“You’re not his papi,” Mercer called dryly, stepping up with an armful of florals that looked like they belonged at the Met Gala or someone’s tasteful vineyard wedding.
“Coulda fooled me,” Bill grinned, planting a sloppy kiss on Andy’s head. “I feel like I raised him.”
“That’s because you’re mama,” Mercer grinned, handing the bouquet arrangement to Andy.
“Did you pick these yourself, Quinnifred?” Andy asked, taking the bouquet reverently. “From the graves of your enemies?”
“Just the heads,” Mercer said, completely straight-faced. “The stems were from Whole Foods.”
“Y’all are so white,” Tiff muttered, and then handed him her bouquet.
Which was a giant, glittery cone of condoms.
Every flavor.
Every size.
Duct taped together like a trophy.
“WOOOO, NO BABIES,” Andy bellowed, taking them with the most enthusiastic flourish.
“I hate it here,” Crawford muttered behind them, stiff as a pole in his preppy clothes and expensive shoes.
“Oh please,” Tiff purred, snapping a pic. “You’re gonna thank me when he gets banged in a threesome and doesn’t die or reproduce.”
Andy laughed so hard he nearly choked. “Crawfish, you got me anything?”
Crawford, deadpan, handed him a wrapped rectangle. Andy peeled the paper with dramatic care. A three-pack of mint gum.
“Spearmint?” Andy gasped, clutching it to his chest. “My liege.”
“It was that or a sock from my glovebox,” Crawford muttered as he shoved a tiny envelope into his hand. “Also, here. Fifty bucks to Olive Garden so that you’ll shut up about it.”
“Dude.” Andy leaned in with a conspiratorial twinkle. “You being this uncomfy around me is the most satisfying part of my life right now. I should pay you tuition.”
“I’ll invoice you,” Crawford replied instantly.
Andy winked. “Noice.”
——
Ten minutes later, all six of them were piled into (and onto) Gator’s truck.
Andy had declared he was riding in the truck bed “like a protagonist in a Sundance drama,” which Gator didn’t even argue because Andy was the protagonist today. Mercer had climbed in with him, sliding back with her arms looped around her knees, face upturned to the sun.
Tiff was in the backseat behind Gator, sunglasses on, hair perfect, camcorder in one hand and iPhone in the other.
“I’m filming in landscape for Reels and vertical for TikTok,” she explained coolly. “Now Crawford, take this third camera and do wide shots through the rear window.”
“I’m not—”
“Crawdaddy, you’re already holding it.”
“…Fine.”
He adjusted the angle like it was a mechanical engineering project. “If I do this, I’m getting credit.”
“You’ll be in the credits, boo,” Tiff promised.
Gator threw himself into the driver’s seat and cracked his knuckles. “Y’all ready for the road trip to hell?!”
Bill slid into shotgun and cued up Spotify. “Oh, we’re doing this right,” he said, scrolling dramatically.
And then the Inception theme blared through the speakers.
Andy flung his arms wide in the back. “YASSSSS!” he howled, throwing his head back like he was ascending.
Mercer couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re the most dramatic bitch I’ve ever known.”
“Thank you,” Andy said, faux-serious. “I take that as a deep personal compliment from the likes of you.”
The truck pulled out with a rev, chaos in surround sound. Tiff was shouting angles. Crawford was now fully hanging halfway out the window. Gator screamed at a mailbox. Bill started beatboxing.
And in the truck bed, halfway down the interstate, Andy and Mercer found a quiet rhythm between the noise.
“You ever think,” Andy said, “that we’re all just trauma survivors with excellent comedic timing?”
Mercer smiled without looking at him. “All the time.”
He nudged her foot with his. “You’re funnier than people expect.”
“It’s that trauma, baby.”
“Ayyyyee.”
“You’re louder than people want.”
“Touché,” Andy nodded. “But no, like—I mean it. You got that scalpel humor. Like if stand-up was surgery, you’d kill the patient on purpose and walk out wearing their skin as a coat.”
Mercer cackled, real and sharp. “Bless you, Andy.”
“What? I’m being sincere.”
“You’re being Andy.”
He turned serious for a beat. “I always noticed this, y’know? Even early on. Like… we both say crazy shit so no one notices what’s underneath.”
Mercer didn’t reply at first. Then, she tilted her head towards him, crimson hair flying around her face.
“Yeah. You’re not wrong.”
Andy leaned back on his elbows, staring up at the clouds. “Today was good.”
“You earned it.”
“I almost didn’t finish. Twice.”
“I know.” She glanced at him again. “You still did.”
Andy grinned at her. “You’d make a good motivational poster. Like one of those black ones with the eagle.”
She threw a piece of her bouquet at him. He caught it.
Tiff yelled, “THROW THAT AGAIN, MERCER—Crawford missed it!”
“I didn’t miss it—Andy blocked the damn frame with his fat head.”
Andy smirked at Mercer. “Even my head is cinematic.”
“Hey, okay,” Crawford’s voice cut in, directing like he was on set. “Okay, lean left, Jenkins. You’re in the way of the light—good—Mercer, give me a little laugh—YES—okay, Andy, now say something profound.”
Andy sat up, beaming. “I AM THE AMERICAN DREAM.”
Crawford rolled his eyes but kept filming. Tiff whooped. Gator slammed the horn three times like a war chant.
And Mercer?
She smiled brightly at Crawford as he leaned out the back window with his digicam. Just a flicker. Quiet. Quick.
He grinned right back.
Didn’t say anything.
Didn’t have to.
They both knew it. That it started with a cold October morning in AP English, a reluctant seating chart, and a girl who smelled like cashmere, vanilla and rifle powder and read Salinger too fast, and unknowingly beckoned for a lonely, bored-out-of-his-mind rich kid to sit next to her instead of opting for his own private corner to sulk and judge people.
Now Crawford was here. Helping film his friend’s second shot at a senior graduation in a truck full of absolute lunatics.
Mercer rested her chin on her knees and looked around. At Andy, at the road, at the back of Gator’s head, at Bill’s hand hitting the dashboard like a drum, her best girlfriend’s pearly smile behind her camcorder and Prada shades.
She closed her eyes for just a moment.
It was stupid. It was messy. It was holy.
It was summer.
And God help them all, it had just begun.
The truck pulled off the two-lane highway in a screaming crunch of gravel, dust kicking up like an old Western, and Andy nearly went flying out of the bed.
“DUDE,” he screeched. “Warn a bitch!”
“Put some weight in your ass, Jenkins!” Gator yelled over his shoulder, one arm flung casually out the window as he eased the RAM into a sudden turn, rolling up beside a faded pink-and-white roadside ice cream stand called MEL’S CHILL.
Bill’s voice rang like a victory bell. “Yes. Oh my God. Yes. My life just peaked.”
“Why are we stopping?” Crawford asked flatly, still half-hanging out the window with a handheld camcorder. “We have three hours to drive and only four working brain cells between us.”
Gator shifted into park and popped the driver’s door. “Because it’s ice cream, bitch.”
Tiff gasped like he’d just proposed. “Gator. I’ve never loved you more.”
“You have, though,” he deadpanned, shutting the door with a satisfying thunk. “This is just the most recent time.”
Andy launched himself out of the truck bed, sprinted toward the faded walk-up window, and threw his hands into the air. “I HAVE NO PARENTS. I’M GETTING WHATEVER I WANT.”
Mercer slid down more slowly, boots hitting the gravel, arms stretching overhead. “Yeah, I think we noticed that around the time you screamed through all four acts of Mamma Mia! on the drive here.”
“I contain multitudes,” Andy said, spinning. “Also, I will be ordering the Twelve Scoop Tower of Regret.”
Bill slapped Gator’s back hard as they all started toward the stand. “Good call, man. This was needed.”
“Damn right it was,” Gator muttered, eyes on the flaking chalkboard menu but already eyeing Mercer out of the corner of his eye. She hadn’t said anything, but her hair had lifted in the breeze and he could see it. She looked younger today. Softer.
He’d waited months for this.
Mercer didn’t catch him watching her. She was scanning the menu too, brows raised in mock horror. “Why is the Banana Drama Split served in a plastic pirate ship?”
Tiff leaned in. “That’s the one. That’s your order.”
“Pardon?”
“Banana Drama. Pirate ship. That’s your entire brand.”
Gator smirked. “Get the split, Mercer. It’s your birthday.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“Close enough.”
“It’s May,” she said flatly, but she was grinning. “My birthday was on Valentine’s Day. That’s three months ago.”
He gave a one-shoulder shrug, cocky and careless, except it wasn’t. “Still counts. We didn’t do anything stupid for it. Just the boring rich girl stuff.”
Mercer blinked at him. Something shifted behind her eyes.
She remembered.
A white G-Wagon had waited in the center of the stone courtyard. Polished like a weapon. Jonathan stood beside it, crisp in slate blue, his hands clasped together like a senator presenting a bill.
Tiff had screamed, while Mercer had smiled, posed and said thank you.
It had been a good day. Objectively.
She and Tiff had driven it downtown, met up with both their fathers for lunch at Rochelle’s, where the table was long, white-linened, and tucked in a corner booth. Their fathers talked shop while the girls tried on pearls and laughed softly. Afterward, there was the party back at the Mercer’s mansion. Lush and curated, with orchids and music that had been tailored to “youthful elegance,” all while guests fluttered about and cooed at her with their veneer teeth and thickly scented perfumes and cologne.
The cake was pristine.
But Mercer couldn’t stop seeing blood pooling into the fondant. Couldn’t stop hearing the subtext of Jonathan’s toast.
You deserve the world. You’re my whole world. So my darling, I bought it.
She hadn’t cried.
She'd only smiled.
And later, she snuck out. Right into the cab of Gator’s ‘94 RAM, flannel blanket on her lap and her hair up in a bun with her baby hairs flying as he drove them aimlessly under the North Dakota stars. No plan. No cameras. No talking. Just a quiet Gator, driving.
She’d laid her head against the cold window and said, “This feels more like sixteen.”
And he hadn’t said a thing.
Just turned up the heat.
Back at the ice cream stand, she turned to him now, a half-smile playing at her lips. “You’re a bit late.”
“I ain’t punctual,” he said, reaching for his wallet. “Now go get the pirate boat sundae, princess. You’re six.”
She rolled her eyes but went, blushing.
Bill ordered a Peanut Butter Mudslide with extra fudge and asked for two spoons.
“I’m not sharing that with you,” Tiff said without looking up from her camera. “I’m getting my own.”
“Didn’t say I was sharing,” Bill grinned. “The second spoon is just in case I drop the first one mid-battle.”
Andy ordered the most chaotic thing on the menu. A sugar cone stacked with four scoops: mango, birthday cake, mint chip, and something radioactive blue. He was licking it before Gator had even paid.
“This is it. My life’s purpose. I’m opening an ice cream truck. But like, themed.” He licked his fingers. “Like… doom metal themed.”
“No,” Crawford said instantly.
“Think about it, Crawfish. Screamo Sundaes. Grindcore Gelato. Slayer Sorbets.”
“I’d rather eat asphalt,” Crawford muttered.
“You’d be my CFO,” the graduate sang.
“I’d rather eat you,” he said, and Andy beamed.
“Promises, promises.”
Tiff was documenting all of it. “This is gold. Pure, sticky gold.”
Crawford gave her a withering glance. “I hope your phone storage corrupts.”
“I hope you trip and fall in your own ennui.”
“Okay, children,” Bill muttered, handing out napkins like a suburban dad. “Behave.”
Gator came back with Mercer’s sundae. A banana split in a literal pirate ship, the hull dripping chocolate syrup and doused with cherries. She took one look at it and actually laughed.
“You are an idiot.”
“You love me,” he said too easily.
She took it without reply. But there was a quiet, grateful curve to her lips, and lovesickness coursing through her veins.
They settled under the shade of a slouching wooden picnic table, paper napkins flying, plastic spoons clicking.
Mercer dug into her sundae. Absentminded. One bite after another, thoughtful and slow, until she licked a bit of cherry sauce from the curve of the utensil with one soft flick of her tongue.
Gator almost dropped his spoon.
He blinked, stiffened beneath his jeans, shifted. Felt a lot of tension flowing through him. Hard to say where. Lower back. Something. Maybe.
She didn’t notice. Of course she didn’t.
She never knew.
He’d make sure of that.
Which is why he turned away, clearing his throat before he scratched the back of his neck. “You got, uh, stuff on your face.”
She glanced at him, eyes slitted in mock suspicion. “Do I?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you lying?”
“No.”
Mercer hummed, eyeing something.
She leaned toward him, head tilted. And before he could react, she reached up and wiped the side of his mouth with her thumb. Soft. Casual. Almost familial.
He didn’t flinch. Just blinked.
“Think you meant you,” she murmured, cleaning it.
Her hand lingered for a fraction too long.
…and then, a monstrous burp split the air like an air raid siren, breaking the spell.
Andy collapsed forward with pride. “THAT’S WHAT FOUR FLAVORS OF DESTINY WILL DO TO YOU.”
Bill barely glanced up, eyes alit. “Oh, so we’re doing this now,” he drawled.
Andy blinked. “Doing what?”
And then Bill’s face twitched. Just slightly. A grin.
And a beat later, Andy’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh no.” The smell hit them like napalm. “OH MY GOD—BILL—”
Tiff shrieked and bolted two feet to the left.
Crawford choked, coughing and laughing at the same time, eyes watering. “We’re outside! Wha—how is it concentrated?!”
“MY EYES,” Andy howled.
Mercer covered her nose and gag-laughed, doubling over next to Gator. “You’re unwell—!”
Bill beamed. “You’re welcome.”
“Dude, that’s fucking foul,” Gator reeled back, covering his strawberry cone as if that might shield it from the toxic scent that wafted his way.
Tiff pointed both cameras at him, spare hair clip clamped over her nose. “Legendary behavior. This is going on the year-end reel.”
“Great,” Bill said, utterly unfazed, eating more ice cream. “Make sure you tag the location.”
Crawford was bent over, hands on his knees, wheezing. “It’s like he died inside.”
Andy fell off the bench. “Mercer, please. Eulogize me.”
She looked down at him solemnly. “Here lies Andy Jenkins,” she said, all nasal, nose pinched between her sticky fingers. “Beloved friend. Casualty of gastrointestinal warfare.”
Bill saluted. “Rest in farts, baby boy.”
They all cracked up again.
And amid all the screams, all the slaps, the choking laughter, the horror and glory and dairy-related chaos… Gator Tillman looked across the picnic table.
Mercer was laughing, pink-faced, hair wild in the breeze. Pirate sundae half-melted beside her.
🩸 An Ongoing FARGO Fanfic Series, from Misha’s Masterlist Library. ☾⋆ MERCY Full Series Masterlist & File -> click here.
BOOK TWO • Chapters 16 & 17
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+
🩸AUTHOR’S NOTE: EARLY THANKSGIVING POST (because the Christmastime chapters are actually way longer (plus I’ve got more Thanksgiving chapters coming in OSWDLS at some point) so hang tight, “y’all.” Because right now? It’s turkey day at the Tillman’s.
🩸CHAPTERS SUMMARY: It’s a crisp day in Fargo, North Dakota. It’s Thanksgiving Day, golden hour me showin’ off, the homemade pies fill the air with spices, the turkey’s plump…
And in the middle of it all, a long table sat proudly on the Tillman property like some medieval banquet spread… White cloth snapping gently in the breeze, authentic old silverware catching the dying sun, nice centerpieces of handpicked pinecones, antlers and wax-dripped candles flickering in ornate holders older than most of the guests combined. The chairs were mismatched, folding metal with rust in the corners, cushioned antiques dragged out of storage, and a few plastic patio ones thrown in. Didn’t matter. It was beautiful in the strangest, most terrifyingly pure way. Timeless and unorthodox.
Roy Tillman is hosting this year, same as last year and the year before that and so on. But this time, something about it feels different.
And in Gator’s opinion? That ain’t so bad.
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.
🩸OVERALL SERIES WARNINGS/NOTES: TOXIC Gator Tillman (who I shamelessly give way too much anti-hero redemption arc throughout) ruthless banter, bad childhoods, deeply rooted trauma across the board, mutually detailed dark backstories, hatred mixed with underlying codependency (but it’s justified in this fic bc I said so) mutual jealousy, dirty politics.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Thanksgiving at the Tillman’s
It was 8:07 A.M. on Thanksgiving morning, and Andy was already emotionally invested in a balloon shaped like Pikachu.
He was sprawled out on the living room floor like a damn toddler on a sugar bender, head propped up on a throw pillow, chin resting in both hands as the opening fanfare of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade filled the house. The television glowed cartoon colors across his happy face, highlighting every shift in expression with high-def clarity, as if his soul genuinely depended on whether or not Kermit the Frog cleared the corner of 34th without toppling over.
On the couch behind him, Gator sat like he owned the airspace. Legs spread wide, arms crossed, his hoodie haphazardly thrown over a shirt that didn’t match. He was smiling.
Smiling like an asshole, to be specific.
Every time that a float passed by that looked particularly stupid, he offered one of his signature zingers in that half-drawled deadpan that somehow always landed.
“Oh look, another inflated corporate mascot. The spirit of gratitude lives on.”
Andy, unphased, just shot back, “Says the guy who put Mountain Dew in his cereal last week.”
“Breakfast innovation is a free country,” Gator replied, barely shifting. “What you’re watching right now is staged propaganda with glitter.”
A lightly amused grunt sounded off nearby.
In the recliner, Roy sipped his black coffee like it was the last cup on Earth and he’d earned it by surviving the war. Newspaper folded on his lap, bifocals low on his nose. He occasionally looked up at the television screen, gave it a small grunt of judgment and then returned to scanning headlines like he was personally vetting the nation for disappointment.
The whole house smelled like cinnamon and butter, thick and warm in the air. The sweet scent felt even closer now, which was exactly when Mercer emerged from the kitchen with sock ballet feet and gracefully smug, carrying a steaming bundt pan full of freshly baked monkey bread. Her oversized gray crewneck hung off one shoulder like it had been trying to escape her since 2009, and her wispy, long crimson ponytail bounced as she sauntered in.
“Look alive,” she said, the words laced with mischief as she set the pan down on the coffee table like a sacred offering. “It’s gooey. And it’s hot.”
Gator instantly sat up straighter, trying and failing to pretend that he hadn’t just leaned in to sniff the air.
Roy didn’t say anything. He just stood up with a sigh, newspaper left behind, and padded into the kitchen to grab plates and silverware. Mercer blinked, halfway to stopping him.
“Wait—Roy. I can get it.”
“You made it, stay put,” he said simply, already out of the room.
She blinked once, then smiled to herself.
Andy rolled over to inspect the bread like it was an ancient relic. “You baked this?”
“From scratch,” she lightly drawled, arms crossed proudly.
“I would literally die for you, Quincy Adams,” Andy declared, his voice muffled through the rising steam.
“That’s excessive,” she replied, but she was beaming.
Gator grinned. “Nah, he’s right though. You bake like a golden girl’s granddaughter with a trust fund.”
“I have no idea what that means,” Mercer muttered, half-laughing, “but thank you.”
As she cut pieces for everyone, Roy returned, balancing a handful of mismatched ceramic plates and utensils with the practiced ease of a man who’s done more than his fair share of post-church brunches. He set them down beside her — and Mercer looked up at him with a quiet, sincere kind of thanks that didn’t need saying.
Roy just nodded once, sat back down in his recliner and resumed judging America via parade floats.
Andy took one bite of the monkey bread and immediately ascended to a higher plane. “I am not joking when I say,” he groaned with his mouth full. “This is better than sex.”
“Then you don’t know what good sex is,” Gator said, already halfway through his first piece.
“I know enough to say this is better.”
Gator smirked as he kept eating, very oblivious to Roy’s very disapproving sigh that deeply exhaled through his nose like a disappointed pastor.
Mercer wrinkled her nose in satisfaction as she took a bite herself, humming like a smug little gremlin who knew that she’d just won Thanksgiving morning. And she also let herself pretend that what her dream boy had just said… did not make her heart twist up with jealousy, simply sighing as though it didn’t.
It’s fine, she thought. One day, he’ll want me like that.
Meanwhile, Roy took a bite of the monkey bread and let the briefest smile tug at his lips before hiding it behind his mug as he dug into his own slice some more.
Then, as if on cue, Gator checked the time, his eyes glancing at his phone before he stood up and disappeared into the kitchen.
Mercer squinted after him, her mouth full of cinnamon and joy.
“Where’s he going?”
Nobody answered.
But then Gator returned with military precision, balancing a tray with four glasses of milk, her little bottle of antibiotics and a rogue napkin folded like some lopsided attempt at a placemat.
He plopped it down in front of her with zero ceremony. “Take your meds.”
Mercer blinked, then barked a small laugh. “Jesus. It’s not even nine. I’m just now eating.”
“So you’ll eat more. Then take ‘em after.” Gator was already reaching down, lightly tugging her hot pink gauze wrap to inspect it. “This is sliding.”
“I can fix it myself,” she said gently.
“You’re not gonna,” he muttered, his brow furrowed, focusing like her forearm was about to detonate before he got to fixing it.
Roy watched, warily and wordlessly.
He slowly chewed another bite of monkey bread and sat back. But he was watching Gator’s face, the way he crouched down with one hand bracing her wrist, readjusting the gauze, eyes narrowed, lips tight… and he was also watching the way that Mercer looked at him with tender lovesickness, while he wasn’t looking at her. The quiet, doomed kind of way a girl looks at something that belongs to the world and not to her.
Roy sighed. Took another bite.
He was gonna die indebted to Jonathan Mercer, that much he knew. That slippery silver-haired bastard had his hand in everything, including the shallow grave that Roy would probably be buried in if he ever once slipped up. He kept Mercer safe, not because he wanted to but because there wasn’t another option. Although, it wasn’t something she ever personally made feel like a burden. It was never on her. Just her father.
For multiple unspeakable reasons.
Gator was his son. His reckless, hellbound spawn that saw juvenile detention as a rec center and would likely wind up being bailed out of jail on his privilege as being the son of a lawless sheriff.
But Mercer? She was Jonathan’s daughter. And that was an entirely different kind of terrifying.
“Hey,” Andy piped up from the floor. “Y’all think the Rockette kickline is a cult?”
Roy grunted. “Yes.”
“Trafficked,” Gator deadpanned.
“Scientology,” Mercer sighed.
She finally took her antibiotics while watching a float shaped like SpongeBob drift across the screen. “That thing has better health insurance than all of us combined,” she murmured.
Roy took a long sip of coffee, humming at that. “I’d say that’s not off base.”
The conversation spiraled from there, quick-witted and irreverent, jumping from cartoon nostalgia to Broadway medley slander. Andy and Gator were both relentless, bouncing off each other like sarcastic brothers who share a brain cell while Mercer kept pace effortlessly, voice light and dry with the occasional sugar-rushed burst of laughter. Roy mostly stayed quiet, sipping coffee and watching his paper sag in his lap as the three of them tore through the floats like critics from hell.
And somewhere in between a poorly lip-synced performance from a B-list pop star and a two-story balloon shaped like a dinosaur in a Santa hat, Mercer leaned back on her elbows, milk in one hand, antibiotics taken, and let herself smile as she watched the TV.
Gator caught it. Just briefly.
Then smiled to himself briefly, while secretly looking at her.
Not a smirk this time.
Not an eye-roll either.
Just a real, rare little thing.
Then he looked away, and the moment passed like smoke.
The parade marched on. And the house, for all its ghosts and doom and debt and damage, felt just for a second like a place where things were normal.
Even if they weren’t.
The Tillman house smelled like cooked guts, sage and sugar.
It was 1:12 P.M. and Gator was now elbow-deep in a giant bowl of raw herb butter, while Roy was shouldering the gutted half-thawed wild turkey with a kind of grim reverence, as if the carcass were an old friend they were now preparing to eat out of duty, not delight.
Outside, the wind beat now against the porch like it had a grudge. While inside, the ancient oven rattled like a dying tractor, its heat bleeding unevenly into the drafty kitchen where windows fogged and pie crusts were sweating under Mercer’s watchful, merciless eye.
“Clock’s ticking,” she muttered, half to herself and half to the five pies rotating through oven rack purgatory. One pecan, one Dutch apple, two pumpkins, and one slightly chaotic experiment involving chocolate and cayenne. “If the lattice doesn’t set right on the apple, I’m flipping this whole kitchen.”
“Over my dead body,” Gator said without looking up. He was rubbing the butter underneath the turkey’s skin with military precision, every finger move economic and focused.
Mercer flicked her eyes over at him from her side of the counter. “Ya promise?”
“You flip this kitchen and I’m flippin’ your ass back to the ER.”
“Okay, Lawd. Have mercy.”
Roy said nothing as he lowered the big ass turkey into the roasting pan with the kind of grace usually reserved for newborns or bomb defusal. The pan clattered slightly as it hit the stovetop, steam curling from the cavity. He straightened, wiped his hands on an old dishrag.
“Ten minutes at 500,” Roy grunted. “Then down to 325 for the long haul.”
Mercer saluted with her pie lifter. “Yes, chef.”
Andy, for his part, was stationed like a raccoon in a treasure cave. Darting between dishes, taste-testing everything with the stealth of a street magician. No one had caught him in the act yet, despite the fact that he was absolutely stealing bites out of each and every side dish like it was a moral imperative.
One finger-swipe of sweet potato casserole.
One strategic spoon-dip into the green bean almandine.
One stolen and very obvious little chunk of cornbread that he artfully masked by rearranging the rest with a fork.
He was a phantom of flavor crimes.
No one said anything. But Mercer’s eyes tracked him now and then like a sniper watching a target that they weren’t ready to shoot just yet… because it was just far too fascinating to watch.
The old kitchen was a cluttered mess of warmth and chaos. Cracked linoleum, ugly wallpaper, one overhead light that flickered with the spite of a poltergeist. Yet somehow, it held them all. Roy stood at the head of the scuffed prep table like a general surveying a map. Gator moved with the same unspoken rhythm as him, side by side, clashing occasionally in gruff glances and quiet curses, but working together all the same. Particularly when it came to things that bled. Game meat, wild birds, injuries. They shared a language for it. Not love. Not even comfort. But fluency.
Mercer was a solo operation, guarding her pie territory like a mob boss. Still, when Gator asked her all gruff and low if she had enough cinnamon, she tossed him the jar of cloves without even looking.
And Andy?
Well… Andy didn’t belong anywhere in particular, which meant that he belonged a little bit everywhere. The adopted stray. The kitchen jester. Nineteen and floating, anchored to no family table except this one by some dumb accident of timing and kindness.
His actual house, which was far across town, cul-de-sac, cracked driveway, paint peeling… wasn’t waiting for him. He had six younger siblings still there, most of them probably eating turkey sandwiches off paper towels and watching reruns of Judge Judy by now with their mom… who hadn’t texted or called all week. Not once had she hit his line.
She was probably working remotely. Maybe sleeping.
Or simply not caring.
Andy didn’t talk about it. Not even a joke. Not even a whisper.
Instead? He cracked jokes about casserole textures. About Mercer’s pie crusts looking “suspiciously and dangerously symmetrical, like you made a deal with Satan.” About how he was “absolutely taking this turkey’s college fund once it’s out of the oven.”
Mercer just rolled with it, like always.
She shot back just as fast, her humor dry and surgical, matching him beat for beat. There was something weirdly intimate in how well she understood the rhythm of his deflection. She never pressed. Never asked. Just punched back with a smirk and an insult that didn’t feel like an insult. Two people with haunted houses inside their chests, figuring out how to laugh over the noise.
Gator quietly watched that, sometimes.
Didn’t say anything, though. Just watched the way that Andy didn’t flinch when Mercer teased him. The way his smile didn’t break, even when it wasn’t funny. And the way he moved in the kitchen like he didn’t expect anyone to tell him to go home. Because, maybe, he didn’t have one.
The unexpected knock came at 1:47 p.m.
Three short, loud pounds against the front door. All sharp enough to slice the tension like a knife.
Roy immediately looked up from basting.
“…Christ,” he muttered. “If that’s the Millers trying to bless my house again, I swear to God above—”
“I got it,” Gator said easily, already wiping his hands on the nearest clean-enough towel. He trudged out of the kitchen like a man being sent to face a firing squad.
Mercer glanced at Andy.
“Roy hiding yet?” she mumbled dryly.
“He’s halfway under the table,” Andy whispered back, eyes wide and mock-terrified.
Mercer snorted and went back to glazing the Dutch apple pie, while Gator made his way out into the living room, already dreading whatever act he’d have to put on because it was Thanksgiving and of all the days to be an ass, this wasn’t one of them.
When he opened the front door, there was a pause.
A beat of silence, some blinking… because…
“WELL DAMN, BOYS. DIDN’T THINK I’D BE EARLY ENOUGH TO SEE GATOR LOOK DOMESTIC!”
Gator nearly choked.
Standing on the porch was Bill Madison, tall and grinning like he’d just won a game nobody else knew they were playing. He wore a faded denim jacket over a flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up, blonde curls windblown, dimples deep enough to get lost in. He was holding a foil-covered dish in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other like he’d just crashed the world’s most casual wedding.
“Jesus Christ,” Gator laughed, doubling back, then grabbing him into a rough, tight hug against his better judgement. “What the hell’re you doing here so early?”
Bill slapped his back twice. “Folks told me to spend the holiday with my second family.” He pulled back now but still leaned in, dropping his voice conspiratorially. “Also, pretty sure my dad’s trying to get me on the sheriff’s good side. Political power plays, y’know.” He winked. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
Gator grinned so wide it looked painful. “Bro. You’re disgusting.”
“You love me.”
“Eh.”
They stepped back, both beaming, and that’s when Mercer rounded the corner, still wearing her flour-dusted apron, and let out a squeal that was entirely undignified.
“NO. WAY.”
Bill mirrored her expression instantly. Jaw dropped, eyes wide, like someone had hit a playback button. “IT’S A PIE WITCH.”
She ran to him. And he spun her around in a hug like they were in the final scene of a goddamn tearjerker Hallmark movie, and the brother had just returned home from the war.
Gator just stood there watching them — Bill’s warm laugh, Mercer’s unguarded joy, with his arms crossed and wearing a smirk twitching into something real.
Mercer was still beaming whenever their surprise guest finally set her down. She eyed the tinfoil in his hands. “Did your parents actually send food?”
“Oh yeah,” Bill said, turning toward his truck. “Casseroles, a pie, and a gift basket. Handwritten card and all.”
“No,” Gator deadpanned. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh yes,” Bill sang. “And I know, I know, you’re not gonna cry, tough guy.”
Mercer was already pinching both of his full cheeks. “You wholesome sunuvabitch.”
Bill just grinned. “Guilty as charged. Now—” He jerked his thumb towards the lawn. “Y’all come help me lug in the rest.”
The three of them crossed the lawn to his truck, Mercer dragging on a coat over her shoulders as they loaded up aluminum trays and the basket full of cornbread, a tub of cranberry sauce, and some wildly unnecessary wine. Gator rolled his eyes the whole time, but he handled the heaviest dish and took the card without comment while pretending it didn’t make him feel some type of way, even deep down in the darkest pits of his jaded soul that was capable of feeling…
Mercer? Well she looked happier than she had in years during the holiday season…
…and then Andy walked out onto the porch with a stack of chipped ceramic plates in his hands, and froze.
He nearly dropped the whole thing.
“BILLIAM?!”
Bill turned, eyes lighting up. “My man!”
Andy screeched loudly while practically launching himself off the steps, grinning so hard his face looked like it might split in half. “You weren’t supposed to be here yet, what the hell!”
“Surprise!” Bill laughed, catching him in a one-armed hug. “Now come help me carry shit before Roy declares war on God.”
“Too late,” Andy said. “He’s already hiding in the hallway. Mercer’s pie lattice scared him.”
“No,” she laughed, almost sputtering. “He thought some church folks had come a’knocking way too early.”
“I’ll go let him know Jesus hasn’t come back for him yet,” Bill said as he jogged up to the porch, hollering into the house like a war hero returned home. “MR. TILLMAN, HAVE YOU MET OUR LORD AND YET?”
Mercer cackled, while Gator grinned beside her.
Andy, still holding half a casserole in his arms, looked between them like maybe? Just maybe… he hadn’t missed Thanksgiving at all.
Not really.
Not where it counted.
And as the four of them disappeared back into the house, arms loaded, voices loud, the wind howling like a warning across the fields and the pies still baking in the oven, Roy stepped out from behind the pantry door, shook his head, and took a long swig of whiskey straight from the bottle. He didn’t say much as he gave Bill a gruff, quick man hug while the younger lad just warmly instigated the affection without any hesitation.
But Roy didn’t reject it, and he didn’t go back into hiding either.
The house was full.
The table was waiting.
And for now, everything felt just barely, impossibly right.
Even if it wouldn’t always last.
It was cold.
Not just North Dakota cold, but Fargo cold.
And yet, somehow? Not miserable.
Not today.
The wind that had brutalized the town all morning had stilled to nothing more than a wandering sigh across the grass. No clouds, just gold. The kind of light that made everything glow a little softer, like the prairie had been brushed with honey. The sky above was postcard-worthy, streaked in saffron and rust and faint lilac, autumn’s final scream before winter swallowed the land whole.
And in the middle of it all, a long table sat proudly on the Tillman property like some medieval banquet spread… White cloth snapping gently in the breeze, authentic old silverware catching the dying sun, nice centerpieces of handpicked pinecones, antlers and wax-dripped candles flickering in ornate holders older than most of the guests combined. The chairs were mismatched, folding metal with rust in the corners, cushioned antiques dragged out of storage, and a few plastic patio ones thrown in. Didn’t matter. It was beautiful in the strangest, most terrifyingly pure way. Timeless and unorthodox.
Roy Tillman stood near the head of the table, his posture deceptively relaxed, though his eyes scanned the group like a quiet warden. Dressed in a dark wool coat with the collar turned up, the sheriff looked like a relic out of time, some war-era American ghost with a holstered sidearm and a $3,000 pair of boots dusted with field dirt. His voice rumbled low in conversation with three members of the town’s evangelical church. Same folks he invited every year out of tradition and social necessity more than any real desire. He needed to stay in the good graces of Fargo’s old-world morality committee, after all. They might not like the man, but they feared him more.
And ironically, Roy was religious. Profoundly so.
The most lawless cowboy in three counties with a God complex and an actual cross around his neck. Nobody quite knew how he justified the things he did. All the filth he buried, the crimes he silenced, the hush money that he accepted, even the bodies likely hidden somewhere in those thirty acres he owned outright before he was legal to vote. But he went to church. He quoted scripture. And he bowed his head before meals.
Today was Thanksgiving.
He was hosting.
And in this town, that meant something.
The church folk — stooped, smiling, holier-than-thou — never said it aloud, but they hated Gator Tillman more than sin itself. The boy was currently lounging in one of the old chairs at the far end of the table, legs spread like he owned the place, which he technically did, based on inevitable inheritance. Sixteen, damned and built like trouble, Gator looked like every bad decision rolled into one lean, slick-haired volatile package. His reputation had preceded him by a decade; the townsfolk whispered about him before he hit kindergarten. ‘Hellbound,’ they called him.
And today? He was grinning.
“Y’all makin’ eyes like someone died,” Gator smirked at one of the more judgmental church ladies just across the table, his voice all honeyed sarcasm. “It’s a feast day, not a funeral.”
She offered a thin smile in return, already regretting RSVPing and purchasing the good wine as a contribution.
Gator didn’t give a shit. He was actually on his best behavior for exactly three reasons:
He loved Thanksgiving.
Bill and Andy were here.
…and Mercer was here.
Quinn Elizabeth Mercer. The girl who had been dumped into his life like an obligation, a burden, a ghost at the table since they were four years old. The daughter of Jonathan Mercer himself, the most powerful man on this side of the Rockies. Some said he had more reach than the U.S. government. Some said he was the government, having more power than the United States president would ever have.
Mercer (and no one ever called her by her first name, not even her own damn father) sat across from Gator, quietly helping set out the dessert table, like it didn’t matter that every eye was aware of her lineage. The warm pies were mostly hers. She baked as though she were the forgotten granddaughter of Julia Child. Like it was a ritual. Expertly, precisely and compulsively. The kind of work that let her control something, anything. Given just how much she lacked control over in her own life. It gave her something to which she would ever have to surrender, allowing her full control.
Gator had watched her press crusts earlier inside the kitchen, all into place, like she was sealing off wounds.
She didn’t dread the Mercer name. She carried it like a crown. Or a blade, wrapped in silk and hush money.
And it didn’t matter how often Gator teased her. Gave her a hard time. Called her “princess” under his breath, flicked her with his fork or made jokes about her pies. He watched her like a hawk. Especially today. When church folks got twitchy around her, or when they said things that were almost things. He caught every glance. And if anyone had said the wrong word, Gator might’ve buried them with the rest of Roy’s sins.
He didn’t know why he cared so much. But he did.
“You burn that one?” Gator muttered, nodding to the pumpkin pie closest to him.
Mercer barely looked up. “No. You just have bad taste.”
Andy snorted across the table, flicking a crumb at Gator. Bronzed and buoyant in a vintage sweater, hair slightly messy like he just woke up from a nap he didn’t plan on taking. The thing was, Andrew Jenkins was a walking contradiction. Well-spoken, razor-sharp and unabashedly funny. Somehow? He made all the older church women laugh without saying anything dirty. Just his smile did it. His dopey charm made it feel safe to be weird.
“Mercer’s pies got soul,” Andy said cheerfully. “Unlike yours, Mrs. Miller.”
“I didn’t bake anything, Andrew.”
“No? Bless…”
Bill Madison leaned back in his chair next to Gator, broad-shouldered and golden in the light, the picture perfect image of a real man with the added weight of real Midwest blood. Buttoned-up but never stiff, warm but not overly sweet, Bill radiated sincerely well-mannered good boy energy like a solar panel. No one in town understood how Bill and Gator became best friends, but no one dared question it either. It was too strange. Too solid to be true.
The Madison family consisted of six kids, devout parents, old oil money and blue-collar grace, and they had quickly won over the town when they moved here last year. Bill’s dad’s auto shop was always booked up solid. They gave discounts to veterans and single moms, they co-hosted church potlucks. And yet, when Bill walked into a room with Gator, the town just went quiet.
Gator elbowed him. “You gonna make out with the pastor’s daughter before grace or after?”
“Shut up,” Bill laughed, cheeks red.
Roy watched from afar, standing near the dessert table, church elders fluttering around him like sinner moths to a bonfire. His eyes drifted occasionally… always landing back on Gator. The boy never noticed. Or pretended not to notice.
And then from across the field, the sound of tires crackling over gravel traveled over yonder.
Everyone turned.
A Lincoln, black and sleek, pulled into view. Quietly. Purposefully. It crept to a stop a hundred feet from the table. The engine died. The doors opened.
Three figures emerged.
Andy squinted. “Is that…?”
Gator shielded his eyes with one hand, his grin already forming.
Bill leaned in. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Mercer set down a knife, straightened. Smirked.
Roy had already stood. And he was chuckling now. It was a slow, deep and throaty, low chuckle that shook the stillness like a hand grenade.
“Of course,” he muttered to himself.
Because here came the Schulte’s.
Rafe Schulte, tall and immaculately tailored, the kind of man who probably had his suits custom-fitted in Italy and still hunted elk in Montana. His wife Linda, soft-spoken and elegant, the kind of woman who’d sooner poison you with charm than raise her voice. And their son, Crawford.
Crawford Schulte. Their golden boy. The prodigal. The heir. And the most unpredictable kid who had gumption that went against the status quo.
And suddenly, the table felt like it was holding its breath.
Mercer raised one eyebrow, turning to look at Gator sitting across from her with wordlessly impressed delight sweeping across her face in the form of a knowing grin. He just cracked his knuckles, smiling wider with a light shrug.
She tilted her head. You invited him, huh?
He tilted his own head. Never said that.
“Now this about to get interesting,” Bill muttered gleefully.
And Roy? He just welcomed them with open arms.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Till Kingdom Come, We Feast on Revelations
The golden hour sunlight hit just right as Rafe and Linda Schulte strolled up the dirt path, flanking Crawford like a set of chic, well-groomed bookends. The sight was almost cinematic. Crawford was dressed down in a soft all black flannel and actual jeans for once, walking toward the long outdoor table set up in the back pasture of the Tillman property, his parents on either side of him, statuesque and polished in that old-money way that made even Roy Tillman look like a man of the people.
Gator was already grinning like a bastard. He had dropped that vague invitation to Crawford last Sunday night. Something like, “If ya show up, we won’t shut the pearly gates and deny you.” It had been a throwaway line, low on expectations, high on plausible deniability. And yet here Crawford was.
With his fucking parents.
Bill’s jaw practically unhinged. He looked from Crawford to Gator, his eyes squinting with suspicion and delight. “You invited him?” he mouthed next to him at the table.
Gator just shrugged, playing it cool. “Might’ve mentioned something,” he muttered, eyes twinkling with mischief, already eating the moment up. He leaned back like he wasn’t proud of it, but oh, he was. No one was fooled.
Mercer, already seated at the table, was grinning too. Not at Crawford. At Gator. She didn’t even need to ask. She knew, without a doubt, that Gator had invited him. And not just invited—welcomed. Probably right after Crawford saved her life last weekend, when that coyote came flying out of the brush and Crawford fired on instinct, taking it down before it could take her down.
It was silent understanding. Mercer caught his eyes. Gator caught hers. And he rolled his eyes like oh please, but the smug little curve at the corner of his mouth only confirmed that she was right.
Then came Andy.
That shameless little golden retriever on crack literally stood up and waltzed his ass across the lawn to greet Crawford like he was the Pope coming to bless the peasants.
“Look what the tide dragged in,” Andy said with his arms open, zero shame, vibrating with uncontainable glee.
Crawford blinked. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, deadpan. But he didn’t move away when Andy launched on into introductions with the Schultes, shaking both Rafe’s and Linda’s hands like he was running for office.
They were stunned, obviously. Rafe tried to keep his expression neutral, but Linda’s eyes widened slightly at Andy’s shameless grin. Still, they both shook his hand. Because what else were they supposed to do?
Andy just kept going, already herding the trio toward the table like a waiter at a wedding. And Roy came up then, offering a firm handshake to Rafe and a more respectful nod to Linda, and surprisingly, Rafe matched the energy. Casual. Warm. Like they hadn’t been looking down their noses at folks like the Tillmans for decades, despite the fact that Roy Tillman had just as much power in his pinky as the likes of Rafe had in his pocketbook.
Crawford shook Roy’s hand too, firm and quiet, his ears flushing pink whenever the legendary sheriff just winked at him. And that’s when Gator caught his eye again.
It was a moment.
Crawford Schulte, who spent every Thanksgiving at a country club with silver cutlery and dry-aged turkey, was here. On Gator’s turf. Bringing his parents with him, no less. That was a flex. That was a fuck-you to tradition. That was a flag in the ground.
Gator gave him the smallest nod, jutting his chin.
Alright. You win this one.
The church folks enthusiastically slid down to make room for the Schultes, and Andy flopped back into his own seat beside Mercer like he was born for it, across from Bill and Gator. The pastor took his place at the far end of the table, opposite Roy.
Crawford sat beside Andy and immediately regretted it.
“I’m not gonna be normal,” Andy warned, already sliding a pitcher toward him. “So you better buckle up.”
“I’m already dead inside,” Crawford replied, flat as a pancake and already overstimulated.
“Excellent!” Andy chirped.
Once everyone was seated, Roy Tillman stood. The conversations dimmed to nothing. His voice was low, full of weight. No need for show. He said something about grace, and gratitude, and how this time of year was for remembering not just where you came from, but what you’ve made of where you are.
Then the pastor joined in, and the two of them led grace together. Everyone held hands.
It was quiet. That kind of perfect, golden silence that only happens during sunset, where the wind is gentle and the birds don’t even chirp too loud.
Afterward, the feast began.
Voices rose, plates clattered, forks found food. Laughter started at one end of the table and spilled like warm gravy across the rest. Gator and Bill kicked off some banter, arguing about the best way to carve a turkey. Andy was immediately involved, offering up his entire soul to the debate. Mercer rolled her eyes and added her two cents, and Crawford? Crawford picked at his stuffing and tried not to smirk.
Key word: tried.
He could feel his parents watching him. They’d never seen him like this. Sarcastic, dry, even bitchy in that low-simmer way he only got when around Andy. Crawford attempted to dial it down, sitting straighter, eating neater.
And then Andy leaned over and said something so dumb, so aggressively stupid, that Crawford groaned and buried his face in his hands. Bill had to duck his blonde head of hair into his arm, while Gator’s shoulders were shaking. Mercer sipped her wine like she was watching a soap opera, grinning like a devil woman dressed in ivory.
Roy, across the table, asked Andy to pass the green beans. Andy didn’t skip a beat, mid-story.
“Oh, absolutely, Sheriff,” he said as he passed the dish over to him, like he’d been raised in a monastery.
Gator immediately snorted. “You kissin’ ass again?” he teased.
“Shh,” Andy hissed through a grin. “I’m bein’ respectful.”
“Can’t hear you over the sound of your tongue scraping worn boot leather,” Mercer added dryly.
Even Bill jumped in, wheezing. Crawford was trying so hard to stay stoic, but his lips twitched and betrayed him. He was overstimulated and unbalanced — ass sweating a bit, even with the chilly weather… but also, he was somehow exactly where he needed to be.
A few weeks ago, Gator had nearly lost his mind just seeing Crawford seated next to Mercer at their usual lunch table.
Now? He was part of the damn group.
Later, once the food was demolished and people were slowing down, Roy set his fork down and spoke again. This time, quieter.
“Well. I reckon we all owe thanks to Mercer here,” he said. “That bird you’re chewing on? She brought it down.”
The table went still. Even the wind paused.
Mercer didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. She just took the attention like a stone takes the sun.
The church ladies murmured. The pastor’s eyebrows raised. The older men nodded, muttering something approving. But it was Bill who actually jumped in first, complimenting her with that smooth charm of his.
“Damn near the best turkey I ever had,” he said, raising his glass, adding politely, “Forgive my language.”
Gator leaned back and said, “Here, here. I ain’t ever been prouder of an underaged murderer.”
Roy sighed. But he didn’t disagree.
Mercer’s heart ached in a weird way as she looked at Gator… this disaster of a boy who still somehow made her feel more seen than anyone. No softness in him, not really. Just raw honesty. And she would take that over faux sweetness any day.
They locked eyes. He winked, she smiled.
Then she glanced at Crawford, speaking with a smirk. “Of course, if it weren’t for Schulte here, y’all would be eating me instead.”
Silence.
Crawford blinked at her. So did his parents.
“Pardon?” Linda said, almost politely.
Gator and Bill both started chuckling immediately. Roy chuckled too, shaking his head.
“Coyote,” Mercer explained, reaching for the potatoes. “Thing damn near launched at me, right after I shot the bird. I was done for. Until Crawford dropped it like a sniper.”
Rafe blinked, stunned. Linda’s brows twitched in alarm.
Andy, never one to miss a beat, stood up dramatically. “It was a cinematic moment,” he declared. “Picture this, my lords and ladies. This motherfucker—” he gestured at Crawford. “—shot that coyote mid-air. Like, mid-air! It was flying. Soaring. And Mercer was standing there like Snow White about to get mauled—”
“Sit down,” Crawford muttered, rolling his eyes so hard they almost spun out of his skull.
Gator was doubled over next to Bill, who was absolutely no better — and Roy was thiiiiiiiiiiis close to laughing, too. At the end of the table, even the pastor looked bizarrely intrigued.
Crawford’s parents were stunned. For once, they weren’t thinking about grades… or Ivy League colleges… or their son’s five-year plan. They were listening to people praise him not for being smart, or driven, or polished.
But for being brave.
For showing up.
For doing something real and terrifyingly brutal and human.
Crawford didn’t say a damn thing. But he down across the table at Mercer, and for the first time all night, there was something vulnerable in his eyes. Just for a breath. Like he wasn’t used to being seen like this. Not by a crowd. Not by anyone.
Mercer met his gaze without flinching. She raised her glass toward him, half in thanks, half in challenge. The warmest smirk curved her lips, like yeah, I’m telling it. And for once, Crawford didn’t look away. He clinked his glass gently against hers across the dishes and bones and empty pie tins, and Andy’s lap as he smiled between them.
The moment passed. But it stayed, too. Like the echo of a gunshot in the woods. And then Andy said something outrageous about how Mercer should train a hawk next and ride it into battle, making the whole table dissolved again. Rafe Schulte poured himself another glass of wine. Linda leaned in to ask Roy about the history of the property. Bill was bragging about how he technically taught Mercer how to shoot (he did not), and Gator kept cutting in with worse and worse lies about it. Andy tried to balance a dinner roll on Crawford’s right shoulder.
And Crawford?
He let it happen.
He let himself be at a table full of contradictions and new scars and people he didn’t think he belonged to, but somehow, he did. Whether he liked it or not, he did.
As the sky went dark and the stars blinked out one by one above the pasture, the last of the laughter lingered like smoke. And somewhere deep in Crawford’s chest, beneath the layers of pressure and armor and bullshit, something cracked open.
Something that would keep the tube of sleeping pills kept sealed shut for now, or maybe for a while, maybe even for good.
Something alive and ready to be released so that it could live.
And for the first time in a long time… he let it stay that way without telling himself to stick with what’s expected of him.
🩸 An Ongoing FARGO Fanfic Series, from Misha’s Masterlist Library.
☾⋆ MERCY Full Series Masterlist & File -> click here.
BOOK TWO • Chapters 19 -> 20
💿 A Little Princess Soundtrack
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+
🩸AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is undoubtedly my grittiest work yet. It's also my favorite series I've ever written. Honestly, this fanfic has a mind of its own. I wrote "MERCY" shamelessly, and turned every single wish I had for a fanfic into my own. I took Gator Tillman's character, and literally said, "let's make him far more tragic, far more edgy, and far more antagonist-worthy endgame bad boy." I wanted a good girl who is pure but jaded. I wanted a bad boy who has the most fragile heart in the world. And I wanted Bonnie and Clyde who survive the burn, and get the most unexpectedly happy ending that neither one of them were ever meant to have.
Here’s Mercy.
Xx, misha
🩸CHAPTERS SUMMARY: December arrives in Fargo, and it’s got some growin’ pains for the Midwest small town’s very own Bonnie & Clyde duo.
Mercer’s cool restraint is wearing thin. Gator’s tough boy ways are goin’ a little soft for his usually thick skin. Their daddies are getting more involved in their lives. And their friends are noticing more, too, just how much the kingpin’s daughter and the sheriff’s son can’t go one day without each other — circumstantial friends or not, history be damned.
On top of that, Baby M’s got her biggest recital to date underway… because she’s officially starring as Sara Crewe in Madame Barlow’s Ballet Company’s upcoming performance of “A Little Princess.”
‘Tis the season to be jolly.
{Cue up the soundtrack for full experience! Link above.}
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.
🩸OVERALL SERIES WARNINGS/NOTES: TOXIC Gator Tillman (who I shamelessly give way too much anti-hero redemption arc throughout) ruthless banter, bad childhoods, deeply rooted trauma across the board, mutually detailed dark backstories, hatred mixed with underlying codependency (but it’s justified in this fic bc I said so) mutual jealousy, dirty politics.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Growing Pains
DECEMBER
Mercer wasn’t the type to start shit. Not for herself. Not for her name, her reputation, her existence. She’d been called cold, stuck-up, a “frigid bitch” and many more things since fifth grade. And fine.
Let them say what they wanted, she thought.
Because she didn’t care what anyone said about her.
But talking shit about Gator…?
That was different.
That has always been different.
It took a turn for the worse in history class on a Tuesday morning. Snow on the forecast and the heating system in the old building of the private high school clicking on like it was giving up on life. The giant fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, and the full classroom smelled faintly of Expo markers and boys’ sweat.
Mrs. Kilgore was mid-rant about Lord of the Flies, trying to explain savagery and civilization to a bunch of AP kids who only cared if they could fake their reading logs.
Mercer sat near the back. Arms comfortably crossed, her grey eyes half-lidded, waiting for the bell like it owed her money.
“…nah, he’s a fucking imbecile,” a voice muttered.
That’s when it started.
Jacob Roarke, mouth too big for his skull with an ego too small to compensate, leaned back in his creaky seat just three rows back and started mouthing off to his posse.
“Gator Tillman thinks he runs the whole damn town,” he said, loud enough for at least half the classroom to hear. “Acting like a king just ‘cause his daddy wears a badge.”
Mercer’s eyes didn’t twitch quite yet, even as her ears perked.
Because, yeah. Obviously. Everyone said that. Even Mercer herself had said that, right to Gator’s face. And he hadn’t disagreed.
“He gets away with murder, man. Skipping class, smoking behind the bleachers, fighting whenever the hell he feels like it. While if any of us pulled that shit? We’d be expelled. But Tillman…” Jacob took a beat, snorting without humor. “Little bitch ass is untouchable.”
Mercer blinked. Slow and lazy. Like a predator in no rush.
Still, nothing new.
…but then…
“Truth is,” Jacob went on, just a little louder, enjoying the attention. “Without his sheriff daddy cleaning up after him, Gator wouldn’t even last two weeks out here. He’s just another dumbass redneck with a bad attitude and daddy issues.” Then he snorted again, worse this time. “And dead momma issues. Tough.”
Now Mercer’s fingers curled.
She didn’t remember standing.
Didn’t remember turning around in her chair.
All she remembered was her blood rising, sharp and hot, like hot fire underneath her ribs, and turning to face him.
“You wanna say that to my face, Roarke?”
Her voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
Jacob Roarke blinked, startled, then he smirked.
“…what, did I hit a that lil’ motherless nerve, princess?”
Bingo. That was the last damn thing he said before she punched him square in the face.
No warm-up. No warning. One clean shot to the jaw. His chair tipped backward with a loud crack. He sprawled like a rag doll, stunned and flat on his ass, nose already leaking red.
The entire room froze. Even Mrs. Kilgore stared, her mouth hung open, marker still in hand at the board.
Mercer didn’t say a word or stick around for punishment that she already knew was coming. She grabbed her bag, stepped clean over Roarke, saluted the teacher with a curtsy and walked straight out of the classroom. She didn’t wait for her name to be called. Didn’t wait for the whispers. Didn’t wait to be sentenced for detention.
She already knew that was on the agenda.
Because unlike Gator, she didn’t have a badge behind her name.
Just a very rich daddy who was going to be less than impressed.
⸻
She got one day of detention. Could’ve been worse. It would've been worse, if Roy Tillman hadn’t shown up to the office that afternoon and leaned against the wall like he owned the place, staring down the principal with his patented brand of charismatic intimidation.
Sheriff Tillman didn’t say much.
He never needed to.
Just made one calculated comment about “what a shame it’d be if Jacob Roarke had to explain why his locker smelled like weed and desperation” to his parents… and that was that.
And the only “talkin’ to” that he gave to Mercer herself?
“I’m not gonna ask y’what got your fist swingin’ all of a sudden. But that’s only because my son’s a bad influence and you’re stuck havin’ it rub off on you. So consider this a write-up and apology, wrapped into one. On both our accounts.”
Mercer walked out of the principal’s office with her appointment slip for where she’d be spending her afternoon, once school let out. Roy adjusted his hat, taking his leave as she walked down the hall — her slim shoulders relaxed, feeling oddly calm…
Until she saw Gator.
He was now slouched in the hallway by the vending machines, holding an ice pack to his cheek, blood drying on the collar of his shirt. Split knuckles. Swollen lip. Something in his shoulder held wrong, like maybe he’d thrown it out punching someone too hard.
She stopped cold. “What did you do?”
Gator looked up, one eye half-closed, and smirked through the pain. “Well, look who ratted herself out. My daddy help bail your sorry ass out—?”
“What the hell did you do.”
“Returned the favor.”
Her stomach dropped. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did.”
Mercer exhaled through her nose, sharp. “Gator. What the hell. I had it handled.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, well. Not gonna let some asshole run his bitch ass mouth and think there’s no price.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You got into a fight over yourself?”
He didn’t answer that.
Which was answer enough.
Her jaw clenched, newfound realization dawning in real time. “You didn’t fight him over you…”
“Nope, and it wasn’t Jacob. Kiddin’ me? That’s the easiest punch in all of Fargo—c’mon, M. Be serious.”
That made her blink, still processing...
“…so you fought someone else…”
“Great job, genius—”
“—over me…?”
Gator looked away.
No smirk this time.
Just a tiny roll of his better shoulder, like it hurt worse to admit it out loud than it did to flex his aching muscles.
“…I’mean, not over you…”
He’d barely muttered it.
Mercer stared.
“You absolute dumbass,” she whispered.
Gator finally looked back at her. That little shit-eating grin returned, like it was involuntary. “I’m the dumbass. And yet, here you are. Still yellin’ at me instead of walkin’ away like a good girl.”
Mercer crossed her arms at that, every part of her body buzzing with something she didn’t want to name. Because he was right. She was still here. Still giving a damn. Still attached by some invisible thread that had been wrapped around both their throats since they were four years old.
And it scared the hell out of her.
Because no one, not even her father, hell not even herself… had that kind of hold on her.
No one but Gator Tillman.
⸻
Later, in the cafeteria, Bill and Crawford were knee-deep in a debate about whether or not Die Hard counted as a Christmas movie. Tiff was sitting between them, mostly trying to keep the peace while occasionally throwing cheese puffs at Crawford when he got too animated.
Andy strolled by, earbuds in, nodding along to something orchestral and probably ridiculous. Then he paused, just long enough to raise an eyebrow at Gator’s busted lip as he strolled up with a tray.
“Sweet baby newborn Jesus, what happened to you…?”
Gator didn’t even blink as he screeched back a chair, then another. “Walked into a door.”
“Yeah?” Andy smirked. “Door fight back?”
He didn’t answer that as he peeled back his jello cup while plopping into one of the empty seats he’d pulled back, letting the one beside him remaining waiting.
Bill arched a brow. “Well did it?”
Andy’s brow furrowed, while Tiff suspiciously squinted at a Gator — before her eyes flicked over his shoulder.
Mercer, trailing behind Gator with her own tray, also didn’t answer the concerned glances her friends cast her. She didn’t have to. Her eyes were already burning holes in Jacob Roarke’s back across the room, where he sat with a swollen cheek and a paper towel up his nose.
Crawford noticed.
Of course he did. Because he was annoyingly perceptive like that.
“You good?” he quietly asked, voice low, directing it toward Mercer as she sat down.
She didn’t look at him. Just began peppering her salad.
“I’m fine,” she sighed, calm as a knife.
At this point, they were all sussing them out. Tiff, Andy, Crawford, Bill. Gator was licking the red jello off the lid before tossing it aside like it was just another Tuesday… and Mercer was tossing her mixed greens and veggies around coolly, not looking up.
Bill clocked the vibe immediately, along with her bruised beneath her long sleeves, peeking out despite the thumb holes keeping her nicely fitted shirt clung to her arms.
“You deck someone, too?” he asked, half-frowning.
Mercer’s expression didn’t change.
“Deserved it,” she murmured.
Bill sighed through his nose, contemplating that for a solid moment. Until finally, he leaned back, eyes still on here.
“Hell yeah,” he muttered, lifting his chocolate milk in a toast.
That actually surprised her.
She peeked up at him through her lashes, finding him already smiling at her and giving her a tiny wink, even though Crawford stared at her with concern.
“Finally,” Bill told her, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Was beginnin’ to wonder if you had more restraint than me.”
Mercer blinked. Then, sheepishly, she grinned at him before forming up some of her salad. Gator just kicked back in his chair, arm draped over the backrest, bruised but smug.
Tiff glanced between them. “Y’all are the worst. Like, actually. Dead ass.”
“You mean, they’re the best.” Andy slid in beside them and opened his thermos, nudging her. “You’re just jealous, Queen TiTi.”
She arched in perfectly micro bladed eyebrow at him. “Of what? The mutual Caucasian destruction pact they got happening?”
Andy beamed. “Precisely.”
Crawford scoffed disapprovingly.
But Mercer leaned back in her seat, subtly smirking. Still silent. Still composed. And just beneath the surface, something dark and warm pulsed in her chest.
She still didn’t even know who the hell Gator had thrown hands at. Didn’t know what they had said about her. But it couldn’t matter to her less. Just like he didn’t care what anyone said about him. Gator had heard it, and that was enough for her to accept. She honestly felt zero need to ask, or be clued in. Fighting for her own reputation or demanding respect for herself outwardly was just not the sort of fight she had in her, or rather it was a fight that she chose not to have.
But Gator? That was hers to fight for.
And apparently, she was his too.
No deals. No promises. No spoken truths or verbal vows made. Just bare fists. Loyalty. And a very niche, peculiar sort of love that didn’t need words to survive.
They were doomed.
But they were doomed together.
“You better keep your bones intact before next week,” Tiff suddenly said very pointedly at Mercer — who looked up now to see her best friend smirking at her with a fixed, semi-paternal look as she jabbed a fork in her direction. “Because you’re ’bout to be onstage for an entire weekend straight pirouetting like a perfect ballerina, and the last thing the role calls for is a broken foot and bloody knuckles.”
Mercer flushed, grinning. “What, you don’t think Sara got her hands dirty while sweeping some floors?”
“I think Sara’s a badass who needs to be able to wield a broom and plié at the same time.”
Bill immediately beamed. “We got our tickets! Mom managed to get us the last long stretch’a seats. Eight of ‘em in a row.”
“You bet we did, girl,” he grinned at her brightly.
“Your whole family’s coming?”
“You kidding? My sisters worship A Little Princess. The VHS tape is damn near a lost cause now.”
Crawford sighed into his sandwich. “Well I’ll be in the nosebleeds. Because apparently, ballet in Fargo is a hit.” He huffed, muttering, “Little did I know...”
“But got your ticket,” Mercer asked, trying not to sound so eager but failing beautifully. “Right??”
He smirked. “Tickets. Plural. Mom’s coming, too.”
“And I’ll be in the front row with my folks,” Tiff gloated shamelessly. “Because ain’t no balcony high enough or ticket sales fast enough to keep me from seein’ you front and center, baby.”
“No fair!” Andy suddenly whined with a mouthful of green beans. “I managed to swoop me up a ticket in the middle somewhere random as shit, like—J12. Like smack dab in the middle of the audience. I’ll probably be stuck between two old geezers with no sense of humor or cultural appropriation.”
Gator suddenly threw his head back laughing, nearly choking on his food. “I knew you’d crash out about it takin’ place in India, bro.”
“Umm, YEAH?!” Andy flailed, food flying off his spoon. “I’m the closet thing to an import from Saudi Arabia this town has. I’m still waiting for them to call me about making my cameo in this thing.”
Now Bill howled. “Brother, you’d play one helluva shaman.”
“Fucker, I’d pay to see that,” Gator snorted, sending him and Bill into a snickering, wheezing fit.
At this point, Mercer was a rosy-cheeked fool. She tried not to kick her feet under the table, feeling the sudden urge to squeal with joy.
Because the truth is, she’s been looking forward to this recital for a long time. More than looking forward to it. It’s one of the few things that has had her excited beyond belief. She’s been practicing for it day after day, night after night. Not just at the dance studio, or in rehearsals. She’s been practicing on her own, in her bedroom. And she’s been practicing inside the home dance studio that her father had built out for her whenever she was just a little girl, in one of the bigger rooms at their estate, complete with floor to ceiling mirrors, and along ballerina barre.
On top of that, the role of Sara Crewe in A Little Princess has been a dream role of hers ever since early childhood. But given just how demanding the part is, you had to be at least sixteen years of age and experienced, highly experienced, to be able to audition for the part.
Well, Mercer was fifteen… but she was already far more advanced than any of the other students in her class. The audition hadn’t been easy. And Madame Barlow did not just hand select her favorites and hand things to them. But unbeknownst to Mercer, she has been a long time favorite of Barlow’s ever since she first entered her dance classes as a toddler. Her discipline is unmatched. Her technique is damn near flawless. And her focus, her dedication, her genuine adoration for the art of ballet… All of it does not go unnoticed by her peers, let alone Barlow and her assistant. Hell, even the other dance companies around town and neighboring counties no damn well. Barlow doesn’t take on just any girls into her private ballet company. All of them achieve and strive for excellence. Mercer just set the bar extra high.
The “barre,” that is.
“Shocked your daddy didn’t put us up in box seats,” Gator muttered.
Mercer looked at him then, tracing the outline of his sharp nose, the couple of pretty moles along his neck and cutting jaw — from where he was sitting next to her. He stared down at his plate, picking at his fries. And her heart flipped inside out.
“What,” she teased flatly, eyes full of mischief as she barely contained the angry butterfly ballet in her stomach. “Roy not satisfied with yours and his seats?”
He rolled his eyes. “Roy would stand by the exit fine and be just fine,” he countered wryly. “That way, if there’s a fire, he can be ahead of it. Help usher folks out.”
She kept looking at him, even as he deflected. “Where’re you guys sitting?”
A smirk played at the corner of his lips. “Why, you gonna blow us a kiss at the end?”
“Nah,” she said nonchalantly, not missing a beat. “Just wanna know which direction to expect my flowers thrown from during curtain call.”
At that, Gator looking up, finally turning to look at her. He was still hunched over his tray of food, but the look in his eyes? All devil. All bad news. All naughty and nice, all at once.
All for her.
“Only good girls who don’t go deckin’ people in the face and willing go to detention get flowers, Baby M,” he shot back, low and quiet. A wicked glint in his eyes. “So unless you work your way back off the naughty list? I wouldn’t get so excited.”
She pretended tonight at that, humming lightly. A little chirp as she reached for her bottle of sparkling water and sip it casually.
“Aisle seat. Center-right. G19 and G20.”
The water crystallized in her mouth, bottle gone still at her lips as she stared at the table, feeling his words hit her soul before he added…
“That’s where your keepers will be.”
Chapter Twenty
A Little Princess in Fargo
The box office windows were already sweating under the heat of it. Fargo’s most chaotic, overcrowded, unexpectedly prestigious fucking ballet night of the season… and Andy Jenkins walked straight into it like he was stepping onto a red carpet.
He didn’t even slow down.
He just slapped his printed ticket against the plexiglass window and grinned like he owned the entire state of North Dakota.
“Yep. That’s me. One of the last remaining seats,” he told the box office lady, who blinked at him like she wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t famous. His grin only deepened, eyes widening with manic excitement. “You’re welcome!”
To be fair, he kind of acted like he was a famous presence.
She scanned the ticket, handed him a program, and Andy took it reverently — like he’d just been given the fucking Magna Carta. The cover was glossy, dramatic as hell, featuring a sepia-toned silhouette of two girls in Victorian dresses, and he wheezed laughing because he clocked the tiny text before he saw Mercer’s name.
“Oh, she’s never living this down,” Andy muttered, tucking the program under his arm like it was evidence.
The lobby was already choked with people — old couples, bored dads, fussing mothers, little girls in tulle skirts, little boys with bows. Fargo had apparently decided that this was the cultural event of the season if not the whole year. A fucking pilgrimage. Andy practically strutted right on through it, his new tailored blazer on, curls looking immaculate, cologne on point. Not even because he was trying to impress anyone, but because his favorite girl in the whole wide world was starring in the biggest ballet this cursed city had ever seen — and he was not going to be caught slacking.
Also, the story partially took place in India, which meant Andy was soaking in the cultural spotlight like it was sunlight.
He cracked open his program and hissed under his breath because the set design sketches were actually freakin’ gorgeous. Palatial windows, warm silk backdrops, stormy London grays, the heat of Calcutta. He felt weirdly seen. Like someone had opened a storybook and said, “Let’s honor your ancestors real quick.”
“Quinnifred, you brilliant little menace,” Andy exhaled deeply, chest swelling. “God, I’m so proud of you.”
He texted the group chat:
ANDY 🤡: at the venue 😎
guess who got one of the LAST mf seats
ANDY 🤡: this program has INDIA in caps
y’all KNOW i’m fucking ascending
THIS IS MY HOMELAND
EVEN IF IT MAINLY TAKES PLACE IN NEW YORK IDGAF
He quickly took a selfie. Chin up high, collar straightened, eyes blazing with chaotic babysitter energy — and sent that too, along the message. Then he slid into the main hall.
…and stopped.
…because Jesus Christ, this theatre did not belong in Fargo.
Crystal chandeliers. Red velvet seats. Gold filigree balconies. The kind of place where a disgraced Russian prima ballerina would drink herself to death in the 1800s. It was old-money beauty in a town full of Walmart parking lots.
Andy straightened his collar again, like the building itself was now judging him. He took a slow breath, let himself have the moment... Then marched down the aisle like he was the goddamn mayor and dropped into his middle-of-the-row seat between two strangers who were probably regretting their choices immediately.
He snapped another picture and sent it.
ANDY 🤡: this seat??? PRIME.
ANDY 🤡: i am MERCERS OFFICIAL CHEERING DEITY tonight
Then he shoved his phone in his pocket, sat up tall, and grinned like he’d never been happier to exist.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the hall, the Madison family was rolling in like a soft-hearted, pastel-colored tornado.
Bill walked in with his shoulders already up by his ears because five little sisters at a ballet was basically a controlled explosion (but he was living for it). And every single one of them — Rosie, Beth, Iris, and that tiny spitfire June — were all shockingly well-behaved. Not one of them was out of line. Polished shoes. Hair bows. Matching dresses like some Hallmark family out on parole.
Leslie Madison beamed like the CEO of motherhood.
Kent Madison looked like he could both rebuild a barn with his bare hands and cry at a ballet about a little girl in London.
And then there was Cassandra — age twelve, whip-smart, too observant for her own good, and currently elbowing Bill in the ribs.
“You’re shaking,” she whispered with a grin.
“I’m not shaking,” Bill whispered back, shaking.
“Bro, you’re gonna cry.”
“It’s allergies, Cass.”
“There’s snow outside.”
“It’s… winter allergies?”
Cassandra snorted. “You’re soft as hell and you know it.”
“Language, ma’am.”
“…soft as heck.”
Bill tried to fake a scowl, but he couldn’t help laughing — cheeks flushed pink because he was absolutely, undeniably excited. Mercer was like a little sister to him — had been ever since the moment she’d walked up to him and Gator and Andy like it was her birthright — and the idea of seeing her onstage, in the spotlight, starring in something this big… it got him weirdly emotional.
Leslie had found their row. Eight seats, all together, all perfectly centered… because of course she did. Like the absolute legendary mother that she was.
“Alrighty, chitlins,” she chirped, ushering them all. “In we go—no, JunieBee. You know dang well you’re sitting next to me, cutie pie—c’mere…”
Everyone shuffled in.
Kent helped June climb over his legs, between him and Leslie.
Rosie gasped dramatically at the stage curtains.
Iris whispered, “It looks like a palace!”
Beth said, very seriously, “I bet it smells like ballet chalk.”
Bill settled into his seat, stretching his long legs, and looked around with the pride of someone introducing his family to something he loved.
“You said this girl’s the daughter of Jonathan Mercer?” Kent asked casually, glancing toward the box seats.
“Yeah,” Bill nodded. “But don’t get weird about it. She’s just Mercer to us.”
Kent raised a brow, smirking. “Jonathan Mercer’s never been ‘just’ anything in this town.”
Leslie swatted him. “Stop it. We’re here for the art.”
“Oh I’m here for the tap dancers,” Kent countered. “They have those, right?”
“Daddyyyy,” Rosie sweetly whined, leaning over with Iris. “It’s ballet. Not tap dancing!”
“Right—right, right, right…” Kent corrected himself theatrically, like a total girl dad, through and through.
“And it’s about the war too,” Beth chimed in, her expression still sophisticated in the most wholesome, wise-beyond-her-years way. “So it’s serious, guys.”
Leslie schooled her face, playfully solemn. “Absolutely, baby.”
“Well in that case,” Kent added with an all-knowing glint in his eyes, a grin on his face, “the Mercer girl is gonna nail this role.”
Bill grinned, shaking his head. Because the fact that his parents even cared enough to be curious meant something.
“She’s gonna kill it,” he murmured.
Cassandra smirked. “And you’re gonna cry.”
“Cassie—”
“I’m just saying.”
“Cassandra.”
“I’m just so happy for you,” she teased, slumping against him dramatically.
He elbowed her lightly and she yelped, giggling, and the whole row dissolved into soft, warm snickers. The kind that only belonged to a close-knit, shamelessly loving family.
Front row, dead center, in a dress that shimmered under the stage lights even before the show started, Tiff Kerrington was holding court like she was born to sit in the spotlight.
Her parents, Congressman Charles Kerrington and his effortlessly elegant wife, Marlene, were already in full social butterfly mode. Charles was shaking hands, smiling wide, charming every person within ten feet. Marlene was immaculate, every movement slow and deliberate, the kind of woman who could make a nod feel like a benediction.
Tiff? Well, Tiff was now texting Mercer backstage, because subtlety was not in her vocabulary.
TIFF 💅🏾: ARE U READY BECKY
TIFF 💅🏾: oops i mean SARAH**
TIFF 💅🏾: I MEAN MY LITTLE WHITE PRINCESS WHO GETS SENT TO VICTORIAN CHILD LABOR AND STILL SLAYS EVERY STEP AND BECOMES BESTIES WITH A GORGEOUS LITTLE SLAVE GIRL
TIFF 💅🏾: this role is disturbingly on brand for both of us
She paused, considered her own words, then typed:
TIFF 💅🏾: also if ur wigged? i’m pulling the fire alarm
Then clicked her phone off, satisfied, and nestled back in her seat. She looked at the stage — the pre-show lights glowing, musicians tuning in the pit, velvet curtains holding their breath… and then she smiled to herself, with the kind of tenderness she only ever showed when it came to Mercer.
Her parents exchanged greetings with strangers, perfectly polished, perfectly political. Tiff let them. She didn’t need their attention. She loved them dearly, and truth be told? Tonight, she needed one thing only: for her best friend to break every last person’s heart tonight.
She glanced up, toward the balcony — and immediately spotted Crawford.
Because of course he’d be easy to spot. All clean lines, perfect posture, dressed like he was legally obligated to attend charity galas. His mother sat beside him, straight-backed, pearls glinting, while Crawford himself raised one hand in a barely-there wave.
His face stayed neutral.
But his eyes were alive, even from a distance.
Tiff grinned and waved back, blowing him a theatrical kiss just to piss him off. His expression didn’t shift, but she knew the corner of his mouth ticked. And in his case? That’s the closest thing he ever had to outright joy in public.
Crawford Schulte: silent trust fund baby on the outside, feral shitposter in the group chat, and Mercer’s unspoken twin flame.
And then came a new ripple in the air.
A hush.
A subtle shift in the room’s temperature.
Because Roy Tillman had arrived.
People inside the lobby parted for him without meaning to. Roy had always carried that sheriff aura — tall, stoic, weathered by prairie winters and bad decisions. He wore his nicest flannel, clean jeans, boots polished. Not out of vanity. Out of respect.
He shook hands. Nodded. Spoke quietly when spoken to.
And Gator trailed beside him, one step behind, sharp as hell. He’d actually tried tonight, as far as appearance. Good jeans, clean boots. Shirt tucked in. Hair combed back but still messy in that feral, Gator way. He walked with his same strange mix of cowboy swagger and city-slicker sin — but goddamn, he looked good.
He looked fine as fuck.
And inside, he was buzzing.
Not that he’d admit it.
Not that he even knew what it meant.
He’s known Mercer since they were four. And yeah, he’s seen her at rehearsals, sure. Mostly when they were kids and his daddy had to go pick her up — dragging him along as he griped the entire way there like a brat. Then he’d scowl from the car, watching her little tutu float across the glass window, pretending that he wasn’t watching the entire time… even though he was, and Roy saw him watching in the rearview mirror. But other than that? Gator had never seen Mercer dance. At least not for real — not onstage, not like this, not with lights and a full-blown orchestra and hundreds of eyes on her.
It was a full house. The four-day show weekend completely sold out, almost as soon as tickets had gone on sale. And this was opening night, which only meant that folks were proud to be the first who’d see it.
Gator kept his hands shoved into the pockets of his Levi’s, already stripped of his thick winter jacket — now draped across his arm. The button-up under it fit him well, undone at the top, just enough to show some newly sprouting chest hair that puberty had decided to gift him. And he sauntered in with that usual swagger of his into the theatre with his father, giving a curt nod to folks who extended their hand or a greeting.
He wasn’t prepared for how much anticipation clawed at him.
Hell, he didn’t know it was anticipation at all.
Mentally, he filed it under something else. Labels it as curiosity, maybe. Or morbid interest, or… whatever.
Whatever it was, Roy saw it.
“Quit you’re fidgeting,” he muttered as they found their seats.
The kind that said you’re full of shit but I’m too tired to argue.
Their seats were nearly perfect — center-right, floor level and close enough that Gator could lean just slightly into the long aisle for an unobstructed view. Which is why he took the chair right at the end of their row, so that he could do exactly that.
He smirked to himself.
Ideal, he thinks. Now I ain’t got no fat heads in my way to peer over.
Roy lowered into his seat with the ease of a man who’d carried the world on his shoulders too long. “Jonathan sure knows how to pick ‘em,” he murmured, looking around.
Gator absentmindedly reached for his program, crumbled in his back pocket. “What, you mean our mid-level VIP seating, away from all the suits?”
That earned him a side-eye of disapproval. But after a beat, Roy let out a low grunt, nodding towards the box seats. “You tell me you’d rather sit up there in the stratosphere next to him. Be my guest.”
Gator looked up.
Sure enough, Jonathan Mercer was there in all his glory. Dressed to kill, like old money personified. Schmoozing effortlessly with the city’s elite, whether they were his own personally invited guests or the ones still trickling in while passing his box — stopping to kiss ass and flash their veneer smiles and coo about his perfect daughter.
The star of tonight’s performance.
Something sour filled Gator’s tastebuds as he all but glared up at him. It always did, whenever he laid eyes on that silver fox of a man.
A man who held the sort of presence and power that even Roy Tillman was obligated to respect.
Gator had never understood it. Anytime he’d asked as a little boy, Roy only reprimanded him and shut down the conversation. It only made him pester more. For a while, at least. Until one day, back when Gator was roughly eight years old, he’d gotten bold — along with the brattiest, most foul attitude in all of the United States. He’d pried and pried.
Until finally?
Roy had yelled.
Not just bellowed, but boomed.
It’s the only time he’d ever gotten physically harsh with Gator. Spankings are one thing. Even a sharp pop on the mouth for foul language is something he had gotten used to growing up.
This wasn’t that.
This had been different.
“WHY THE HELL DO YOU KISS HIS ASS ALL THE TIME?”
“It’s called work, Gator. Now drop it.”
“I hate them. Both of them. I hate that stupid man—his stupid girl, I hate them—”
“Gator Tillman—”
”—I hate you for makin’ ‘em stick around all the time—”
All it took was one of Roy’s gorilla grips on Gator’s arm for him to flail, which resulted in swinging at him in the process until he hit the scruffy, calloused flesh of Roy’s face. And that earned Gator a full blown slap across his own small face. It damn near felt like a punch, given the sudden brutality of it.
He’s never forgotten it since.
Sometimes Gator still feels the slap sting his face when just looking at Roy. Even at Mercer… even though she never asked for this.
It’s a deeply buried resentment that he’s never been able to rid himself of, no matter how much time’s passed. Because when his daddy got mad, he could still see the fury in his eyes from that day, right after the slap.
He doesn’t know just how deeply Roy has regretted it ever since.
He doesn’t know just how badly Roy thinks of himself as a father every day.
He doesn’t know just how eternally indebted, how blackmailed Roy is, by the blood money kingpin that is Jonathan Mercer. Or just how much that his own name is in the crossfire of that.
Gator sighs slowly through his nose now, still staring up at the man who has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember. And as if right on cue, Fargo’s handsome savior glances down — making eye contact with him and his daddy.
Roy lifts a hand, acknowledging him.
Jonathan grinned wide and tipped his head toward him in thanks, then winks at Gator — who barely manages to just his chin in response.
Fuckin’ pompous ass motherfucker, he internally seethes.
“You nervous?” Roy asks quietly, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Gator blinked, then turned to him. He scoffs. “For what?”
Roy exhaled, settling back in his seat with his own program as he cleared his throat. “For our girl. She’s the star of this whole thing.”
He sifted through the pages of the program while Gator just cracked his neck and looked around, still letting the bitterness dissipate. Finally, he focused on the program in his lap again.
“Ain’t my girl,” he barely mumbled, now staring a hole into the page that read off the cast list before muttering, “she’s your problem.”
His father side-eyed him, then let his hard eyes flick back to his own program. He didn’t argue with him. He knew better. For a whole lotta reasons. But even so, his voice returned newly softened. Lower, rare and thin-edged. Almost tender.
“Well in that case, you’re both my problem.”
Gator swallowed.
He hadn’t expected that — and he didn’t even realize that he’d looked up at Roy after he’d said it until he was looking away, shifting in his seat.
But Roy was now staring at the stage with this… strange expression he got sometimes. The one that held grief and pride and years he couldn’t get back. The ones he shared with someone who used to mean everything to him, who made him believe in shots in the dark, turned happily ever after.
Olivia had been dead fourteen years.
No daughters born after she’d birthed Gator.
But if she’d ever had one with Roy? Or if a daughter had ever been born into the wrong family, because she was meant to become a daughter in-law…
It would’ve been Mercer.
He didn’t say that. He didn’t have to.
Because as much as Roy Tillman knew that?
Olivia Tillman had known from the start.
DING.
“Shit,” Gator quietly murmured to himself, reaching for his phone to turn it on silent mode and check in with his people.
Meanwhile, the group chat was unraveling.
ANDY: LOOK AT MY SEAT LOOK AT IT
🧷 [ATTACHED IMAGE]
BILL: We see you! Cass says hi and your shirt’s cool ;)
ANDY: 🙂↕️🙂↕️ why thank you, mistress madison
TIFF: you look like a youth pastor
ANDY: BITCH???
CRAWFORD: stop yelling i’m in a balcony surrounded by donors
TIFF: tell them you’re famous, pookie.
CRAWFORD: i will kill you
BILL: 🥹y’all, mercy is gonna crush this :)
TIFF: duhhhhh 🖤
ANDY: someone check if she’s alive backstage
CRAWFORD: NO LET HER FOCUS ANDREW
ANDY: UR NOT MY MOM!!!!!!
ANDY: also your mom’s hot even though she’s scary looking in her pearls
TIFF: lmfaooooooo damn i wish we were all sitting together
BILL: Oh lord, I’m praying Mercy’s got her DND on. 😂😂
ANDY: QUINNIFRED, R U DRESSED BABYGIRL?? U READY??
ANDY: also wait where’s my other child
ANDY: GATOR BLINK TWICE WYA???
Gator instantly grinned like an asshole before his fingers started flying.
GATOR 🐊: seated sat soot
GATOR 🐊: also jokes on u guys. ain’t no fuckheads i gotta look over from my aisle seat. enjoy ur neck ache after the show, tiff. front row sux.
GATOR 🐊: yo baby m. if ur reading this? gtf off ur phone and stretch
GATOR 🐊: ur on any min now, twinkle toes.
His shit-eating grin only deepens as he hits send, before re-reading all of his friends’ texts. He snorts to himself at Andy’s dumb selfie and his combed hair, shaking his head. Then he cranes his neck to peek over towards where Bill and his family’s all sitting — spotting his head of blonde hair, along with the other five blonde heads belonging to his sisters. Kent happens to turn just enough as he speaks to Leslie, spotting Gator over yonder. His eyes widen, waving like an overzealous dad, just to make Gator squirm. Sure enough, he does. But he laughs through it all the same, especially when Leslie and the girls turn — then Bill, who smiles like an idiot and points at him.
Gator smirks, saluting him quickly.
BUZZ.
But then his phone vibrates, making him glance down…
Three white hearts appear across his screen.
From Mercer, in group chat.
BABY M: 🤍🤍🤍
Gator’s eyes soften as he looks, breath stalling before he knows it even has. He smiles down at the screen, small and private, looking at those little hearts and imagining Mercer backstage, hurriedly typing them before she tucks her phone away.
He rolls his eyes, still smiling, pocketing his own phone now.
The lights dimmed.
The orchestra struck its first trembling note.
And Gator Tillman, who thought he knew everything about this girl that he’s grown up with, leaned forward as the theatre goes dark…
Completely unaware that his entire fucking world was about to split wide open the second her freshly chalked pointe shoes first kiss the stage.
ACT I
Fargo, North Dakota, might have been far from London or Paris in latitude and sophistication. But tonight, the grand hall of Madame Barlow’s company was its own little pocket of Europe: gilt-edged balconies, polished wood glinting under soft amber lighting, and the faint scent of roses that someone (probably an overzealous stagehand) had insisted on scattering over the floor.
Every seat was taken.
The audience sat in that tense, quiet, prelude-to-magic state, waiting for the first notes to strike…
[CUE: “Ramayana: A Morning Raga”]
From the moment the overture began, it was clear this wasn’t going to be a standard recital. The opening of A Little Princess unfolded like something conjured out of memory and sunlight, the orchestra’s string section pulling the audience into India, luring them into the story of Sara Crewe and the little Indian boy at her side, into a world both strange and familiar. Onstage, a woman spun and gestured, narrating without words, her motion as much part of the story as the dancers themselves.
And there, center stage, was Mercer.
She looked almost impossibly small in her modest cream-colored dress. Not a hint of flash or glamour. No sparkles, no sequins… but the simplicity of it made her presence even more luminous. At fifteen, she was playing a child, and the costume underscored that innocence. Yet it was the way she moved, the absolute command over her body, the expression in every line and tilt and gesture, that made her almost otherworldly. She wasn’t just performing a role; she was inhabiting a soul. Every flick of her wrist, every tilt of her head, every quiet extension of a leg spoke volumes.
Her movement expressed tales of imagination and mystic wonder far beyond Fargo.
“…yaaaaaaaaaas.”
The faintest of whispers underscored the music, by none other than Andy.
He sat somewhere in the middle of the theater, wedged between a pair of elderly couples who’d traveled from the other side of town, probably thinking the ballet would be polite, slow, traditional. Instead, he was a kid in a candy shop, wide-eyed, mouth slack in that stupid, permanent half-grin he got when something genuinely amazed him. Every time the little boy twirled beside Mercer, Andy whispered under his breath: “India, baby! That’s my homeland right there.” And whenever Mercer gestured excitedly with those lithe, dainty ballerina fingers of hers as she interacted with the woman and boy, Andy just beamed and murmured to himself proudly, “Look at her go, goddamn.”
The man beside him blinked at the whispered commentary and shrugged to himself — already realizing with a sigh that this wasn’t going to be a quietly observed performance. At least not from his seat.
Across the theater, the Madison clan was all in various states of absolute enchantment. Beth was impossibly still, her little face pale from the glow of the stage, eyes so wide they seemed larger than her tiny head. Iris and Rosie, holding hands, mirrored each other perfectly, gripping one another as if they were both tethered to the performance itself, while June, that spitfire, squirmed slightly in her seat between Leslie and Kent, unable to contain her glee. Cassandra, leaning casually forward, had the slyest grin on her face, caught completely off guard by Mercer’s effortless grace and charm. And Bill?
Bill, the oldest of all six kids, the supposedly level-headed one of the group… looked like he’d been struck by something he didn’t have words for. He didn’t just watch Mercer; he observed her as if she were family, one of the sisters he didn’t actually share blood with but loved as though he did.
Up in the balcony, Crawford’s gaze was quieter, more composed, but no less captivated. He sat next to his mother — prim, collected, legs crossed, hands folded in her lap, her face serene. But her only son’s subtle, genuine smile betrayed him. There was a rhythm to the way that he watched her, a deep, wordless understanding that Mercer’s presence onstage was more than just entertainment. She was chaos and brilliance distilled into motion, and she was opening a window for him into a world he desperately wanted to inhabit but rarely allowed himself to enter.
Suddenly, Mercer clutched her chest in a soundless gasp, engrossed in the woman’s tale as the other dancers acted out the story.
The sight of it made something inside him flutter, feeling tickled.
A tiny flicker of a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, teeth and all. But right as his mother turned to look at him, he schooled his face. Effortlessly quick. And yet, as soon as she’d looked back towards the stage and wasn’t paying attention again, his smile returned — watching while Mercer threw her head back laughing onstage, still in the act.
It wasn’t a romantic spark she ignited in him.
It was something else entirely.
A twin-flame sort of connection, something unacknowledged but undeniable. She dared to live — and by daring, she’d invited him to do the same. And he was too powerless to refuse, ever since he’d watched her from afar, beginning of freshman year. He’s leaned into it ever since, and he’s still leaning. One stiff, constipated muscle at a time.
Suddenly, the music shifted…
[CUE: “Children Running”]
It was subtle at first, the strings lengthening, a soft drum beneath, and then Mercer and the little boy began to run across the stage, the scene changing from static storytelling to the whirlwind of a child’s wildest imagination. All the stagelights swirled as if the stage itself had become a kaleidoscope, the glow catching her striking red hair and her modest cream costume dress in a way that made her appear to float above the floor. The boy laughed, high-pitched and infectious, spinning with her, twirling, collapsing into little running leaps… and Mercer matched him perfectly, every single motion of hers brimming with exhilaration.
The pair spun, hand in hand, across the stage as a choir’s chanting layered over the orchestral melody, a rhythm so primal it resonated in every chest.
But the chest is struck hardest, struck fiercest — was none other than Gator Tillman’s.
He currently sat rigid, arms crossed, jaw tight — and yet, he was rooted to the seat, unblinking. He’d been like this from the moment Mercer was spotlit, just minutes ago now, at the top of the opening number. And every second, every minute that passed, every strike of the violins in the pit’s string section, every sparkle of the chimes… rendered him speechless, making every muscle in his body go stiller and stiller.
Gator had seen Mercer dance countless times over the years, in brief spurts, when scooping her up from the dance studio. He’s watched her warm up and stretch. He’s seen her precise lines with just the way she walks. Her posture. Her obnoxious poise, even when hunting deer meat. And yeah, sure. He saw her tiring herself out, weeks before the audition, perfecting the shit out of her disciplined pirouettes at his house, inside his garage on that little wood plank Roy kept out there with chalk for her.
He’s seen her somewhat in her element.
But never like this.
Never with abandon. Never as though the child inside her had been set free. He doesn’t even recognize her in this moment. This little spark she carries, this raw, irrepressible joy that poured from her movements, made something within him ache, and thaw, and uncoil. And he doesn’t even understand why.
But that’s because he doesn’t do “feelings.”
He’s always told himself, he does not do feelings.
He’s always told himself that this girl had been imposed upon him since they were four. Thrust into his life, like some forced friend he’d never asked for… as if Roy’s task of looking out for her, by extension, made him her keeper.
“AHHHH-ahhh-ahhh-ahhhhh!…”
Mercer is now flying across the stage, down into the audience — still trailed by the little boy as they run through whatever magical world they’ve conjured up inside their heads, shouting over the music as they bang their chests.
Young, wild and free.
Just like true children should grow up being.
…unlike the children they’ve grown up being.
Gator swallows as she runs out of sight, while the stage begins to morph into another scenery while the music crescendos. Something squeezes inside his chest, but he just keeps his arms crossed, his legs spread apart, now staring at his shoes. He doesn’t know that this feeling stirring up inside of him isn’t ever gonna go away. He doesn’t know it’s because he’s not some unfeeling bastard, like his father appears to be. He doesn’t realize that this feverishly right, bruising, indescribably overwhelming sensation will never wane… only burn brighter — hotter — over all the years to come, all for her.
Because he doesn’t even know that he loves her.
But this… this was something else. The stage doesn’t just show her talent; it shows a reflection of her imaginary life, inside her wildest dreams. The parts of her that she’s never been allowed to display, to live, to experience.
And for some godforsaken reason, it makes him ache.
Roy’s still seated beside him. Burly arms crossed, his gruff expression stoic. Unmoved in theory, but as the lights grew brighter again, he allowed the corner of his lips to lift ever so slightly in what might’ve been a smile. Or the ghost of one. He wasn’t sentimental, not ever. But he had to admit, quietly, to himself… that Mercer’s performance was something extraordinary. Even he, the man who refused indulgence, found himself caught up in it.
[CUE: “Cristina Elisa Waltz”]
The scene shifted again.
An older man, warm and kind, portraying the father, now entered stage right.
The ballet dancer appears to be in his late twenties, portraying the male lead in the show. Captain Crewe — strong and dashing, donning a masculine costumed uniform that still accentuates his graceful manner. His appearance compliments Mercer’s in a way that shows they are the two main subjects, the ones to watch. Especially as they interact with one another now, vibrant and jovial, dancing around the stage and each other…
And then they danced together.
They waltzed. Not in the cold, formal sense of ballroom instruction, but in a way that radiated trust and joy. Mercer laughed softly, the kind of laugh that made an audience lean in involuntarily, even without words. The man spun her, held her close, mouthing words of unconditional love and pride that she could not possibly hear but instead felt in every muscle and sinew.
The audience was spellbound.
The Madisons, still enraptured, could barely breathe.
Tiff was grinning like a madwoman, her hands clasped together and pressed to her chin in quiet, prayerful delight.
Andy’s little emo commentary, muttered under his breath, only added to the hilarity without breaking the moment, while Crawford felt his spine stiffen at the wholesome scene…
And then there was Jonathan Mercer, sitting in the box above, watching. He was meant to embody pride, the distant, idealized father in the audience. Yet something haunted stirred within him. For the first time in decades, a pulse of genuine feeling, raw and human, tugged at him. Watching Mercer spin, twirl, laugh, embrace the illusion of a father she did not have, he was confronted with the gap between reality and art, between longing and fulfillment. He felt it briefly, sharply, then carefully tucked it away, forcing himself to smile, to clap, to appear as though nothing had stirred beneath his polished exterior.
But his eyes did not leave her, and Gator caught that, scowling reflexively at Jonathan from his perch below… in his own silent, bitter acknowledgment of everything ugly and unfair about the world that had brought them here.
It wasn’t until the number ended that Gator tore his eyes back to the stage, away from him — and those cynical brown orbs instantly thawed at the sight of Mercer, still embraced by Captain Crewe, beaming up at him.
Then the lights dimmed…
Father-and-daughter-figure left the stage, and a new scene emerged.
Miss Minchin’s School for Girls.
[CUE: “Miss Minchin’s School for Girls”]
Twelve teen girls danced across the stage, emerald-green uniforms flowing with each step.
A plump and expressive woman, representing the comic relief, wiggled and twirled in a way that had several audience members (especially the younger children) giggling aloud. She represents Amelia Minchin, sister and assistant to the school’s headmaster.
And then, Miss Minchin herself entered.
Tall, wiry, imposing… yet moving with an elegance that belied her villainous role. She smiled, but it was the kind of smile that froze the audience in place, creating a tension as delicate and sharp as a blade.
Andy gulped.
“Oh yeah,” he whispered, eyes on Minchin. “Thassa bad bitch.”
Bill’s brows reached the heavens at this point, watching the way all the girls dance across the stage in perfect unison. It was impressive, though scary in a way. Because it was flawless. Not a single step was out of place, and all his little sisters were completely entranced. June’s little feet kicked in time, and the triplets moved their heads in time with every ballet shoe onstage. Beth was mentally taking big notes, expression pensive enough to make Cassandra stifle a fond snort, her lips pressed together tightly. Kent, at this point, was already prepared for his four youngest to sign up for ballet classes next week — while Leslie felt like a little girl again herself, watching the scene.
The audience shivered between awe and amusement, moments so perfectly human in a polished, perfect ballet that the magic became tangible.
Then Mercer returned, entering stage left, along with her father… and Beth’s eyes instantly locked on her, along with the other two triplets. Same as Tiff, who grinned brightly.
She now wore the most delicate, pure white costume, a small hat perched on her head and hand muffs completing the image. Her every motion was fluid, expressive, commanding attention even amid the ensemble of girls. The father figure returned to guide her through the dance, twirling her, introducing her to the Minchin duo. And though there were no words, the story was clear, conveyed in the smallest flicks of fingers, the softest inclinations of the head, the tiniest hesitations and bursts of motion that said…
I am leaving this place, but never you.
Because I’ll always be with you.
And I’ll return to you, once I’ve fought and won this war…
[CUE: “Knowing You by Heart”]
The orchestra swelled with each heartbeat, each step, carrying the audience through the narrative without missing a beat.
The sight of it made Bill’s heart pinch, knowing that he wished to follow in Captain Crewe’s footsteps one day. To enlist, to fight for his country. To defend both his and his family’s rights. To ensure that his mother and sisters were protected, and to make his father proud, so that he could begin a family of his own one day and carry on their legacy.
The final dance between Mercer and the father figure approached, while the stage lights focused solely on them and came down on the rest of the set…
The first farewell.
The melancholy “I’ll see you soon.”
The parting gift of a beautiful porcelain doll, along with a gold heart-shaped locket glitters in the light — catching it just so, as Captain Crewe drapes it over his daughter’s neck, fastening it with care. It’s a symbol of his love; of his sacred promise to return to Sarah while her mother’s image inside of the locket watches over her in his absence.
It's a scene that sends an odd sort of shiver up Roy’s rigid spine, reminded of Mercer’s real life locket that she always wears, containing her own mother’s image… concealing the tracker behind it, so that her father knows where she is at all times, no matter what.
And from the confinement of his box, Jonathan Mercer’s expression softened again. Rare, unguarded, feeling something he’d buried long ago. He watched as the imaginary father lifted his real life daughter. As he spun her, and then let her go to face the world alone… a metaphorical send-off to school, to life, to war, to anything beyond the stage.
The orchestra began to decrescendo as Captain Crewe took his leave, while Mercer waved as Sarah — holding the doll that he left her, watching him until she was left alone, center stage.
But then, before the lights fell completely…
Something compelled Jonathan to look below, as if pulled by gravity itself… and he found Gator, unforgiving as always, already glaring up at him. Brown eyes narrowing, as if telepathically reminding him: you don’t fool me.
Maybe no one in this theatre, or in this town, or the entire goddamn county, sees Daddy Mercer for who he really is. A pocketbook of broken dreams and childhood neglect. A widower who never even seems to grieve his wife at all, let alone love the living daughter who carries her gift, her soul, her spirit. A private snake of an investor who only pretends to care about the cause, just to maintain his title as King and Savior. An absent father to an ever-present daughter.
But Gator does.
And Jonathan has never believed or seen that more than right now — as the audience begins to clap, and Gator’s eyes never leave his, even as his own hands come together and clap loudly. The glare remains intact. So instead of averting it, Jonathan merely allows himself to hold his gaze with his own. He lifts his hands, clapping slow and sharp, his grim expression twisting up into a jarring little smile that doesn’t meet his all-knowing eyes. And there’s still something unusually solemn in his subtle expression that Gator sees, clear as day, even from where he’s seated below in the thunderous applause as Act I comes to an end.
It isn’t until the lights go out, leaving the theatre in darkness, that Jonathan is finally freed of those big brown eyes he has spent years hanging over Roy’s head, ever since Elizabeth Mercer died.
ACT II
[CUE: “Breakfast”]
The second act doesn’t so much begin as it ignites, the orchestra pit slipping into a quick, bright tempo that scatters across the auditorium like sunlight catching glass.
And then, there she is: Mercer, already moving before the audience fully wakes to the moment, gliding into the light as Sara Crewe.
She cuts across the stage in a long, sweeping arc, her new emerald uniform catching every pale glint from above, but the real glow? It’s her. It’s in the gentle lift of her chin, it’s in the way that she pushes through each plié with a softness that seems almost unearthly. Her arabesque unfolds like the world is opening beneath her pointed foot, and even the ballerinas around her — every single one of them razor-sharp, trained like prodigies, not a girl on that stage older than sixteen — cannot dilute the burn of attention on Mercer.
Thirteen girls from Fargo, North Dakota should not look like they belong in the Royal Opera House. And yet they do, each movement crisp and confident, perfectly placed. Madame Barlow trained them well — and she watches with pride now, just offstage, in the wings like a proud (albeit strict) den mother. Majority of the girls are hers, while others belong to other troops from neighboring counties with excellent instructors and opportunities for careers beyond the Midwest.
But all that Barlow focuses on are the five girls from her intimate company who were cast as various girls at the school…along with the sixth, starring in the leading role.
They all circle around Mercer like satellites, locked to a gravitational pull they’re too young to understand but grasp all the same. Their technique is magnificent, but Mercer’s is… something else. It’s not just better. It’s not louder. Just… charismatic. A force that draws the naked eye — even when she’s dressed to blend in, wearing the same uniform, same bow, same curls.
Her red hair is a match struck in darkness underneath the stage lights. It’s ridiculous how much it stands out. The whole front of the audience seems to lean forward, like no one expected this small, quiet, sardonic girl from Fargo, from real life… to turn into something so luminous.
[CUE: “False Hope”]
One girl in particular, a seemingly prissy student, stands with her arms firmly crossed, one toe pointed perfectly — her expression soured. It contrasts all the other girls, given how they’re all hanging onto Sara’s every word, as she begins to tell them a magical story at their request.
But not this girl.
This girl? She just rolls her eyes.
“Ugh, Lavinia…”
Tiff mutters it under her breath with disdain from the front row.
Charles bites back a laugh, containing it just in time. He remembers this role from the film adaptation all too well. The snooty girl who is obsessed with her hair, dedicated to brushing it for hours on end so that it remains silkier than a satin gown. Lavinia is a snob, and it shows. And yet, she never deters Sara from her sharing fantasies with the other girls, or spreading joy. In fact, Sara finds her amusing. Not in a cruel, bullying way. Quite the opposite, actually…
It’s as though she finds Lavinia to be exactly the kind of girl in all her stories. The so-called “cynic,” too petty to believe in good things… Including having a good time.
The ballerina portraying her plays it well. Her hair is golden blonde, long and flowing down her back, half tied back in a pristine bow. It contrasts Mercer’s beautiful wavy curls, and they dance around each other in a way that makes the audience both laugh and cheer.
Because Lavinia is put off, and Sara is living for it.
Gator smirks to himself. Because yeah, that part? That part is all Mercer. Sly and coy, secretly devilish and also morbidly enjoying seeing someone uptight become so unsettled and pissy while she just grins innocently. Like the pretty princess she is.
Suddenly, Miss Minchin enters again.
She’s still donning those wickedly sharp lines and rigid shoulders, a brittle sort of grace. She’s technically brilliant, but stiff in a way that’s meant to read as suffocating pretension. Her costume ages her just enough, the stage makeup adding severity to the twenty-something-year-old ballerina portraying her…
Immediately, Andy’s big ole stupid grin deflates like someone just stabbed it with a hatpin. “Oh goddamn it, not her again...”
He doesn’t mean for the words to slip out.
They just do.
It’s loud enough for the elderly couple in front of him to give him the kind of scandalized half-turn that implies that they’ve survived wars but this crosses a line. But Andy just shrugs, his eyes glued to the stage with absolute dread, because he already knows:
This bitch is about to ruin everything.
The contrast between Mercer and Miss Minchin is stunning to witness. Mercer’s movements are featherlight, filled with intention and vulnerability; Miss Minchin’s are too precise, to the point of suffocation, brisk enough to send a shiver down anyone’s spines.
And somewhere in the midst of their dance, Gator Tillman has forgotten how to sit like a normal human being.
His arms have dropped from their usual iron-cross stance. His palms rest on his thighs, fingers splayed unconsciously, like he’s grounding himself. His spine is a little straighter. His jaw is slack but barely. And his eyes?
Pinned.
Dragged across the stage by Mercer’s every shift, every turn, every breath.
When the hell did she become this expressive?
When did she start smiling like that?
Has she always danced like this and he just… never fucking noticed?
It doesn’t compute. None of it. His brain is running diagnostics, and every system is glitching out because he genuinely doesn’t know what to think. The wild yet calm, too-collected girl he knows offstage? Too clever for her own good, too poised in ways that piss him off… is now some ethereal, glowing creature who looks like she belongs on world tours. Not in some local “big fish” production that’s above high school plays but just shy of Juilliard.
She moves like she has royalty in her blood.
And Gator can’t look away.
Then, the music shifts.
A darker chord threads through, curiosity spreading throughout the full rows of seats as the lights change.
…and then?
A new girl steps out.
Her costume is rough, designed to mimic poverty, her skin a deep, stunning shade of midnight. She’s dressed as a servant, a peasant girl.
Becky.
Her movements are deliberately smaller, sadder, sweeping across the stage with a broom that looks too heavy for her frame. She’s no older than Mercer. Maybe the same age.
Tiff nods once, sharp and knowing, grinning now…
“Mmhmm, there she is,” she mutters, barely audible, but her mother gives her a tiny amused side-glance anyway.
Because Tiff knows this story like gospel. She grew up with this book. Wrote an entire essay on France’s Hodgson Burnett, back in middle school. So she already knows how Becky and Sarah are destined to be best friends. And she knows exactly what it means to see Mercer — her Mercer, her bestie girl and confidant — onstage with this girl.
Tiff gently sighs to herself now, thinking about how far-fetched it feels that she’s only known Mercer for just over half a year. Summer in New York feels like a past life, but not because it’s distant. Because it feels like she must have known Mercer always. Like they were born orbiting each other, even as babies, before life fatefully brought them together at that residency.
That’s why this moment hits her.
It hits her hard.
The dance is beautiful. Sad. Tender. All movement, no dialogue, their bodies telling the entire story. Becky sweeps with her broom, as Sarah watches her with innocent confusion. Why is this girl separate? Why is she not allowed to dance, play, move with us here at school? It’s so wholesome, so tragically childlike and innocent, that Charles and Marlene Kerrington can’t help feeling something pull at their heartstrings.
Mercer’s expressions shift so delicately you almost miss it. From curiosity, to empathy, to hesitation. She reaches out to the servant girl, trying to speak through the gesture alone.
But Becky flees.
The moment shatters.
The spell breaks.
Up in the balcony, Crawford releases a quiet sigh through his nose.
Privilege.
That’s what the scene is about.
And at sixteen, he’s already painfully aware that he’s a walking embodiment of it. He’s stoic, composed, dry. Always has been. But he’s not stupid. Wasn’t born yesterday. He knows the world. He knows the story. He sees the truth in every dance move, hears it in every note from the orchestra pit, connects the dots that represent the parallels. And he feels that tug in his chest that only comes when something is uncomfortably honest.
Back onstage, another girl appears. The smallest of them all, the students at the school. She wears the emerald green unit form, her bow perfectly tied, absolutely wrecked with tears. Clinging to a photo of her deceased mother.
And suddenly, there comes Amelia, with the comedic timing of someone who knows her role, desperately trying to comfort her. But it doesn’t work.
So, Mercer sits.
She reaches out.
She comforts the little girl…
[CUE: “Angel Wings”]
The audience softens collectively, a hundred held breaths, all waiting to see where the moment goes…
But Roy feels something crawl up the back of his neck.
Something electric and cold and painfully tender.
Because Mercer’s movements, her lithe hands gesturing skyward, describing through dance the idea of mothers turning into angels; her fingers brushing the locket at her chest — mirror the truth.
Her real mother died.
Elizabeth Mercer overdosed when Mercer was four years old.
And the real locket that always hangs under Mercer’s real clothes, now kept backstage inside her coat pocket, stored safely inside her duffel… contains her mother’s picture.
Roy’s flannel suddenly feels too tight over his chest.
Gator, meanwhile, goes rigid again too. His arms cross. His brows pinch. He looks angry, but it’s not anger. Not really. It’s that near-sick feeling of being too aware. Way too aware of Mercer’s truth bleeding into this fiction.
Way too aware of his own truth — the ghost of his own mother, that parallels hers…
He will not cry.
He doesn’t do that.
But goddamnit, his eyes sting.
The story brightens briefly. A birthday party for Sara Crewe is hosted at the school, a kaleidoscope of colors and balloons — all cheerful movement, bouncing props, everything light.
Then Miss Minchin sweeps in and kills it in one gesture.
“God, I knew it,” Andy curses through gritted teeth, waving off the old woman in front of him as she shushes. “It’s a show, not a funeral.”
Minchin breaks the news.
Sara’s father is dead.
And as she breaks the news, we see Captain Crewe illuminated on the other side of the stage, in his own spotlight. Off at war. Fighting. Defending another soldier. Trying to save him from his own death… and seemingly resulting in a shared death instead.
His spotlight goes out…
…leaving us back in Minchin’s office, her expression apathetic and expectant.
Mercer’s shocked reaction is so muted, so intricate… Her body folds inward, her footwork falters, her face freezes in a way that’s too real, too convincing, that the Madison family all start emotionally collapsing in their own row. Like synchronized swimmers of heartbreak.
Leslie’s hand covers her mouth. Kent blinks rapidly.
June is confused but quiet. The triplets sit statue-still, eyes huge.
And god help him, Bill looks like he might openly cry on the spot.
Even Cassandra, genius that she is, loses every trace of her earlier smugness. Her face is now solemn. She’s only twelve, but she looks unusually older in this moment, drawn in by Mercer’s performance. She doesn’t even glance at Bill, who has moisture gathering in his eyes.
The show just gets darker.
Miss Minchin’s cruelty escalates. She drags Sara offstage. The set creaks as it shifts and reconfigures. The world dims, collapsing the stage into the shape and setting of an attic. Cold, gray, oppressive.
The music turns mournful.
And Andy?
Andy is fucking outraged.
“Are you KIDDING ME?” he hisses under his breath, fidgeting violently. “Hold up, is this another Cinderella story?—oh hell no—”
And the second the old woman in front of him even turns halfway around, he’s already looking right at her with resolved confidence that’s borderline shameless.
“I’m a real life orphan and got sponsored this ticket, alright? Don’t ruin this for me, Mildred. Buy a box seat next time. Now turn back around.”
…well, she does.
Andy’s not even ashamed of the fib — because he is personally offended on Sara’s behalf. On Mercer’s behalf. His knee bounces like he’s bracing for a fight that doesn’t exist, absolutely engrossed in the story.
Miss Minchin marches in with a fake candlestick, physically guiding Mercer up the stairs with choreography jarring enough to bruise — even if it’s only pretend. Mercer’s new gray costume washes her out. She looks smaller. She looks… crushed.
And then it happens.
The necklace.
Miss Minchin strides over to her and snatches the locket right off Mercer’s neck with a brutal flick — and the audience gasps in one collective, horrified inhale.
Mercer’s hand flies to her bare throat. Her face breaks… not dramatically but in this cracked, quiet way that guts everyone watching.
Miss Minchin sneers and storms offstage.
Mercer sinks.
Slow…
Devastated…
The music drops to a near whisper. Just a few trembling strings.
Gator’s jaw ticks, something jagged and furious scraping through his chest. His arms are now crossed so tightly now that his veiny biceps tremble. And he’s in absolute, miserable disbelief that something hurting her — even in fiction — can hurt him.
And then Mercer starts to dance.
Not beautifully.
Not gracefully.
Brokenly.
It’s a series of fragile steps that are meant to mimic searching, to pantomime comfort-seeking and self-soothing. She’s shaking so hard that it looks real. Her hair slips from its pins. Her breaths echo even though she’s silent.
Gator’s eyes burn.
His nose burns—the fuck, why does his—
He refuses to let anything fall, he refuses to even blink too fast, but he is not okay and that’s disturbing on way too levels right now and is this show done?
Mercer suddenly curls into herself on the floor — center stage, illuminated by a single white spotlight. Devastated, crushed and tiny, with the doll clutched to her chest.
The music swells, each note like a wound being pressed…
And then?
“Papa…”
Her voice is tiny. Barely there.
“…Papa?”
She reaches a hand toward the dark like she’s reaching for the past, towards the audience, as though they hold the answer.
The word fractures into a sob.
“Papa…”
It’s the kind of sound that breaks something in a person.
The lights snap out.
A violent, anguished rush of air fills the theatre as the audience exhales and applauds, hands slamming together harder than applause should ever be.
Everyone claps.
Except Gator.
He sits there frozen in shock, breathing like he’s just been sucker-punched, lips parted, eyes wide but shadowed.
Because that wasn’t just Sara crying for her father.
That was Mercer.
That was the little girl inside her who has cried out every day for a father who refuses to show up.
A reality Gator has always known and always hated.
But tonight it hits him like a fucking hurricane.
He is glad — furious and grateful — that all the lights are still out. Because Jesus Christ, if anyone saw his face right now…
He doesn’t cry.
He doesn’t break.
He doesn’t—
But shit, he almost does.
He swallows it, though. Swallows the burn. Crushes it down with anger and resentment and something he doesn’t even have a name for.
The audience just keeps clapping. But still, he doesn’t clap.
Because he’s too busy trying to hold himself together.
ACT III
Bill plopped back into his seat beside Cassandra with a muffled groan, the velvet cushion sighing under his weight. She smirked immediately, her sharp, clever, catlike eyes taking in the tousled hair and faint glimmer of sweat on her brother’s forehead from the mid-intermission rush to the lobby.
“Sit still, cowboy,” she teased, tugging the hem of her sweater just so. “You’re jiggling the entire row. I swear, you’re vibrating more than the bass down in the orchestra pit.”
Bill rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth quirked anyway. “Yeah, yeah. Just keepin’ my reflexes sharp.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean, c’mon—gotta be ready in case someone steals my sisters while I’m distracted by a sad-ass ballet.”
Cassandra shot him a faux glare. “Watch it, or I’ll tell Leslie you cried like a little idiot during the last scene.”
“Hell, I might’ve,” Bill admitted casually, zero ego, grinning at her smugness. “But I swear, that girl screaming ‘Papa!’—like that? Mercy—” He puffed out his lips until they vibrated. “Girl done punched me right in the heart. Brutal.”
Kent, lounging just on the other side of Leslie, audibly snorted. He craned his neck towards the other end of their row. “You’re a softie, William.”
“Call me out all you want, old man,” Bill leaned forward, smirking warmly at his dad, “but don’t act like you weren’t misty.”
Leslie, ever the diplomat, shook her head but didn’t hide the glint of mist in her own eyes. “Yeah… it was beautiful, wasn’t it?” she said quietly.
Between them, Beth, Iris, and Rosie huddled together, whispering to each other and occasionally pointing at the stage whenever Mercer’s performance replayed in their minds. June, newly perched in Beth’s lap, yawned loudly but waved her small hand at the stage anyway. She was five, and this was all new, all magical, and she felt it all with wide, curious eyes… even during the intermission, with the curtains still drawn.
Bill leaned down, watching them while catching Cassandra’s elbow with his hand. “You seein’ this?” he whispered, his voice full of wonder. “All of ‘em. Totally lost. Just… look at them.”
Cassandra smirked, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Yeah, I see it. We’re basically the wholesome epicenter of this entire theater right now.”
They shared a brief silence, watching the four little girls as they tiptoed along their emotional edges inside their seats, then they chuckled quietly at the wide-eyed, glowing innocence that only five to ten-year-olds could carry so naturally. The others in the row seemed to notice too, leaning back and smiling quietly, careful not to disturb the tableau.
Bill, halfway through glancing at Cassandra, noticed movement across the theater. Gator was sauntering back to his seat, but something was different. The usual swagger was there, yes, but it was… muted. Stiff. Controlled in a way that screamed ‘trying not to feel.’
Bill immediately rose, making his way through the filling theatre and stepping toward him, politely shuffling past people until he made it over.
“Hey, killer!” He lightly hollered, clapping Gator lightly on the shoulders as the boy passed, making his way down beside.
Gator blinked, ripped from his thoughts. Then half-smiled, half-grunted, still walking as if caught halfway between worlds. “Hey.”
Bill just grinned. “You good, man? Look like you’re carrying a whole funeral procession in your pockets.”
Gator’s brow furrowed, then he muttered something barely audible.
Almost half-formed.
“Funer—? Nah—nah, man… nah.”
Bill raised an eyebrow. “Nah?”
“Nah, ain’t no ain’t no funeral,” Gator shook his head, already scratching the back of his neck, uncomfortably averting his eyes.
The blonde heartthrob didn’t push his luck by pressing him about it. He just nodded along easily, eyeing the rebel for another couple of seconds before giving him another firm clap on his shoulders, trying to shake Gator out of it.
“C’mon, it’s Act III, man,” he teased roughly, but warmly. “Minchin’s about to make us all start rioting in the aisles down here. Beth’s ready to slug her.”
Gator’s hands dug deeper into his pockets. Chest puffed, jaw tight, trying to laugh. “Yeah. Totally. Woman’s batshit crazy.”
His words hung like fragile glass between them.
Like an absentminded attempt at a response, his mind still elsewhere.
Bill paused, squinting at him. “Nah, you’re not good. You’re… you’re feeling shit. I can see it.”
Gator scoffed and deflected like a pro. “I’m fine, Bill. Not all of us are mushy Hallmark kids.”
Bill’s teasing grin softened, almost tender.
He knew. Oh, he knew.
This was all to do with Mercer.
Mercer was getting under Gator’s skin, stirring shit he didn’t like to feel. And Bill, midwest cowboy heart on full display, was quietly (and morbidly) happy for him. Because Gator needed this. He needs to feel, and needs to keep on feeling.
…feeling for her.
Even so, Bill didn’t say a word. Just clapped his best friend on the shoulder once more before heading back toward Cassandra and the others. Just as he started walking back, Roy Tillman approached, offering a tight-lipped nod.
“Mr. Tillman,” Bill greeted, extending a hand like a gentleman.
The handshake was curt, almost businesslike, but there was a subtle nod of approval in his eyes.
“You with your folks?”
Bill grinned. “Yes sir, gang’s all here.” He gestured over to where his family’s all seated and waiting on the opposite side of the theatre. “All eight of us.”
Roy grunted, a smirk ghosting at the corner of his lips. “Tell your father I need a new taillight on the truck. Fresh tires, too. Need to stop in.”
That earned him an effortless smile from Bill. “We’ll take care of ya.”
“Don’t need discounts. Just need solid.”
Bill gave him a little salute. “My dad only carries what the pioneers approved of back in the wagon days. We’ll set you straight.”
Despite his stoic expression, Roy nodded with a wink. As he turned back and made his way to his seat, Gator watched his father and Bill share something effortless that he himself didn’t share with his own father. It made his insides twist up a bit. But the second Bill clapped his shoulders again, reminding him of their workload next week before sauntering off, he softly smiled to himself.
Because no matter how strained Gator’s relationship was with his daddy, it’d never make him resent Bill enough to blow it. Not when Bill was the only guy who made him not completely hate the white picket fence family lifestyle that he and all his sisters have. Unlike Gator, who grew up an only child, reckless and motherless, with an emotionally unavailable father.
The lights began to flicker, a subtle warning that intermission was ending.
Gator, meanwhile, sat awkwardly next to Roy. He didn’t speak. He stared at the floor, hands between his knees, posture stiff. Roy, patient as ever, didn’t prod. He shifted, adjusted, watched him quietly… and eventually just let the boy be, knowing the kid he raised had already lived through enough of these emotional landmines to handle his son’s silent processing.
Then, a faint buzz in Gator’s pocket broke the quiet.
He pulled out his phone quickly, checking the group chat.
Andy’s message hit like a goddamn cannonball:
ANDY 🤡: Miss Minchin better croak in the first number
ANDY 🤡: WHERE’S BECKY. WE NEED HER BROOM JUST FOR A SEC.
Gator nearly choked on his breath, snorted quietly, then tried to hide the grin creeping across his face. Even though it was worlds too late. Roy arched an eyebrow, side-eyeing him like a hawk — but his son’s second snort escaped anyway. Sharper. Louder. He slapped a fist to his nose to muffle it, his heart racing, doing everyone not look at his dad.
The lights were dimming, the theater already darkening for Act III…
“You ain’t right in the head,” Roy muttered dryly, voice low and blunt.
…and Gator’s third snort was mercifully drowned by the falling curtain lights and orchestra beginning to play. Roy shushed him, but honestly, he was also fighting off his own smirk. His boy clearly needed this, whatever dumb-ass message had done it.
And then the stage was alive again.
[CUE: “On Another’s Sorrow”]
A ghostly harp trilled somewhere down in the orchestra pit, delicate and melancholy. A choir began singing, soft, ethereal. The kind of hymn-like song that made every bone ache in your chest with anticipation.
And then Sara Crewe entered stage right.
Mercer stepped lightly, an old mop clutched in delicate hands and dressed like the servant girl she now was. Each movement of hers — a gliding arabesque, or a tremulous plié — brought a sharp ache to the chests of anyone watching.
She danced with grief.
She danced with sorrow.
She danced with loss so pure and quiet, so believable, it could choke the air. Her eyes carried her father’s absence like a tangible weight.
For Sara, her father’s irreversible absence hadn’t been a choice… whereas for Mercer, her own father’s absence was a choice made daily.
Bill’s mouth hung slightly open. Lip trembling. Eyes glassy. He wasn’t crying outright yet. Not again, not fully. But he was breaking inside, while watching Mercer transform into Sara, the girl lost in the unforgiving machinery of Miss Minchin’s world.
Tiff felt the same pull inside her chest. Pride in Mercer, mingled with visceral heartbreak. She wanted to cheer, but knew the theater demanded silence for this moment. So her hands were clenched so tightly, knuckles white against her smooth, caramel-colored hands.
Andy was now uncharacteristically still in this moment. He watched Mercer, traipsing the floor with every melancholy plié as she wielded her prop across the stage, mopping through her newfound grim reality as an orphaned girl… and something about it made him swallow. As if he, too, could somehow feel the pain. Could relate to it. Because while he wasn’t without parents, at least not in the orphaned sense… he was without their presence.
It’s one of the ways in which he and Mercer were so unusually tethered.
Different specifics. Different upbringings.
Different classes. Different lifestyles.
…but one eerily similar, strangely parallel sadness in their own stories.
He sighed to himself now, a sad but enchanted smile pulling at the corners of his lips. Because all he could do was watch the little beauty that was this girl, who felt like his own sister who he’d somehow grown up befriending over the last year and somewhat babysitting. And here she was now — not robbing a liquor store blind with Gator Tillman at midnight, but spinning in true ballerina fashion across a lavish stage in her hometown like a little princess.
Then, Lavinia entered.
That golden-haired tyrant of privilege entered, bow pristine, posture perfect, smirk sharp as a dagger — she entered stage right, opposite of where Sara now stood with her mop.
The girls stood there, having a staredown from both ends of the stage.
…until Lavinia lifted one perfectly arched foot, her pointe shoe piercing the air, her eyes still staring down Mercer from across the way… and then, her smirk turned cruel, just a second before her foot lowered back to the floor in a long long, toes slowly scraping…
One foot glided across the floor, deliberately re-smearing all the dust Mercer had just mopped. And as she continued gliding, one pointed shoe at a time, wickedly waltzing across the floor… Sarah (or well, Mercer) just stood there, perfectly still, eyes hollow, frozen in grief.
The reaction was audible.
The audience inhaled sharply.
The cruelty of it was exquisite in its horror.
Up in the balcony, Crawford’s jaw had nearly unhinged. His expression now, usually straight-faced and composed, totally transformed. He looked aghast. Almost comically so. He watched the elegance of cruelty unfold onstage, the way Mercer just let it happen. And suddenly, he was struggling to distinguish the girl from the role she embodied.
Because petty shit like that gets underneath his skin more than anything else on the planet, and can’t help it. Fiction or not. Ballerina bitch or not.
Before he could stop himself, he very discretely whipped out his phone while remembering Andy’s earlier text.
He swiped like a pro, his thumb swiftly forming a response to the group chat:
CRAWFORD 🤓: Lavinia makes Minchin look like a cuddle puppy.
CRAWFORD 🤓: [ATTACHED GIF]
The gif was of President Cornelius Snow, with the subtitled quote below him, reading: “I want them dead.”
Tap.
Pocket.
Eyes back on the stage, like it never happened.
His mother’s very disapproving glare burned into him, silently severe, but he didn’t flinch. Only murmured “sorry” as he straightened in his seat again and cleared his throat.
Miss Minchin now entered with aloof precision, eyes locking on Mercer while Lavinia pranced offstage — unabashedly smug, ribbon bouncing in her hair. Now it was just the headmistress and her new little servant girl.
They circled each other like predators. Mercer’s movements were deliberate, sorrowful. She mopped, dipped, pivoted with silent obedience. But each step was a weight carried with dignity — even while Minchin pantomimed barking out orders, hovering like a vulture, closing in on her prey.
But the second that Mercer began to subtly cower…
Becker emerged.
Andy nearly clapped, but instead settled for a victorious fist in the air, leaning forward with anticipation and newfound adrenaline. “Alright, we out here, let’s go,” he oh-so-quietly whispered into his hands, steepled in front of his lips as he watched…
[CUE: “Compassion”]
The African-American beauty of a ballerina portraying Becky now danced her way towards Mercer, wielding her own mop. She was shy and guarded… but she began to re-mop the floors with her, sharing in the task.
Minchin just wrinkled her nose with disgust, glowering at both girls while she took her leave.
It left Mercer and the girl to their own dance. A timid one, as if they were both learning about one another. Getting to know one another, now that they were no longer segregated by race and class. Instead? They were two young girls, now forced into equal status, thrust into grief-stricken poverty…
But the connection between the two girls shifted the scene.
Humanity and camaraderie flourished in the shadow of oppression.
Together, they created a dance of their chores. Pirouettes, pliés, arabesques. The sweep of the mops, the dusting, even polishing the silver. They elevated toil into art. Mercer’s sorrow softened into quiet resilience, and Becky began to mirror her, courage blooming in small, careful steps.
…but then came fear.
[CUE: “For the Princess”]
Becky froze in place, as though expecting punishment from the shadows…
Mercer reached for her, gently urging her to continue, but Becky ran offstage. And as soon as she’d retreated, Mercer’s entire body sagged… the isolation palpable.
But then she lifted herself again, dusting hands carefully.
Still performing, still existing…
Then Amelia burst in like a comet, absurdly jovial, clutching baskets, frantic steps, arms flailing in chaotic joy. Her presence lifted the audience, softening the intensity, reminding them that even sorrow carried laughter. And as soon as Mercer’s posture regained itself — realizing that she was only safe in this woman’s presence versus Minchin’s — the crowd could truly breathe.
The two of them shared a brief dance of sorts. Amelia was all broad moves and brash theatrics, whereas Mercer’s was delicate and precise. There were moments when the crowd laughed outright at how polar opposite they were, and even Gator found himself grinning at the scene. Because every time that Amelia stumbled, or nearly dropped something — Mercer just caught it like a pro, mid-grand-jeté. It was so unexpectedly wholesome, like a breath that no one knew just how badly they needed throughout this story… that Jonathan himself, up in the booth, actually found himself chuckling.
Jonathan Mercer was actually chuckling.
Not the forced politician kind, where the smile is for cameras. No, this was a trace of genuine amusement breaking through his subdued demeanor. It was a father watching his daughter keep in time with a brilliant comedic dancer in a way that captivated hearts, including his own — which is wild, given that he seemingly didn’t have one of those to captivate at all.
But he did.
He does, and watching his child reminds him of that every day.
“HA-HAAA! HA!”
The audience jumps, their laughter growing tenfold at the sound of unfiltered, childlike laughter tinkering through the crowd.
The source? June Madison.
Kent is now squeezing her in his lap, snorting into her hair. Warm and fond. Absolutely fond, cheeky and dadlike as little June giggles loudly at Amelia’s clumsy acts onstage.
Leslie can’t even shush her because it’s so adorable. And now she’s giggling with her, low and throaty, motherly and heartfelt.
Rosie and Iris blush and giggle like crazy, while Beth looks shocked — and then has to stifle her own laughter. Cassandra is shamelessly snorting next to Bill, into her own palm. And her older brother just looks at June with the happiest expression, as if agreeing with her cheer.
The sound snaps the child’s laughter Jonathan back to reality, unsettling him in a way that makes his blood feel like ice inside his veins. But he doesn’t let it show, masking it all too well, focusing on the scene again…
The laughter finally dies down when Amelia begins handing Mercer a pouch of sorts, before opening her dainty palm and pressing coins into it with a list.
And just as Mercer begins to walk away with it, understanding the tasks that she’s been newly assigned to go into town… Amelia gestures for her to wait.
[CUE: “The Shawl”]
Suddenly, chimes ring from the orchestra pit.
Just then, Amelia reveals with flourish, flicking it into the air… a long stretch of woolen fabric.
A shawl.
She dances with it briefly, making her way over to Mercer before wrapping it around her slim shoulders. And Mercer — fragile and small, yet monumental in her portrayal of this role — softly beams at the woman with gratitude. Then she twirled slightly, embracing the shawl.
Andy exhaled a shaky breath, relief in the simplest act of kindness.
Crawford also found himself smiling. Quietly, all to himself.
Once Amelia places a theatrical kiss to Mercer's cheek, exaggerated enough to make the younger girl blush and smile, she prances her over towards the door. And a gust of wind, along with fake snow, rushed across the stage.
The audience audibly gasps as Mercer braces herself against it.
Even Roy shifted, impressed with the technical brilliance. Gator, still reeling, couldn’t detach his eyes from her. Words like “beautiful” or “heartbreaking” tried and failed to describe it. This was something more primal.
After only a moment’s hesitation, Mercer re-fastened the shawl tightly around her cold shoulders, dancing against the breeze being blown into her from the tech crew offstage. It’s so believable, it makes everyone forget that it’s just a show; that this is a ballet performance in a small town, and it’s not real winter wind being harshly let into the theatre.
The song closed on Mercer finally braving the weather, exiting stage right.
The theater held its breath.
Act III had only just begun.
Tiff exhaled audibly, knowing the heartbreak yet to come, knowing the rest of the story would unravel with precise cruelty and devastating beauty.
All delivered by her best friend, Mercer, as Sara Crewe.
🩰
-> the final act of the show
{posting today @ 9PM CST — check back here!}
