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rancidpancakebatter · 2 years

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Drop In-Chapter 1 [P.P.]

Pairings: Peter Parker x AFAB Reader

Summary: You like Peter, and Peter likes you. This should be simple, so why isn’t it? Well, maybe it’s because you were already friends? Maybe it’s the stress of senior year? Maybe it’s because someone had to get bit by a spider? Who’s to say?

Word Count: 4.5k words

Content: MINORS DNI: 18+ Swearing, Marijana Use, Underage Drinking, Bullying,

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Chapter Summary: Summer round-up, smoke sesh, and the first day of senior year

A/n: Hey besties! Welcome back! It's been a bit! I'm so excited to continue this story! I've got an actual plot mapped out this time around so that'll be fun :))

“Okay now, just snap your foot up. There you go! You got it!” You felt the shock in your bones as the board hit solid ground again. Peter cheered as you made your victory lap around him before hopping off and catching the trucks in your palms. You threw your hands up and Peter was quick to rush you, lifting you slightly off the ground as he did.

“Congratulations on your first kickflip! You are now officially a pro skater.” He held up a fake microphone, now putting on a silly announcer voice, “(Y/n), please, tell the people, what will you do now?”

You giggled leaning into his balled fist, playing along. “I’m going to Disney World!” You both began laughing uncontrollably, Peter’s head thrown back as you fell forward, your hand on his shoulder.

Peter has been giving you skating lessons for a few months now. You could monster walk, do tic tacs, a manual, pivot, an ollie, a push shove, and now a kickflip. It was all thanks to him. Many falls and scrapes had happened to get where you are but you were proud of yourself.

Peter Parker was your best friend. Being with Peter was so amazingly fun. You couldn’t remember a time without him. He was the sun and all the stars, a guiding light in the monotony of the world. You weren’t sure you would ever admit that to him though.

Your dynamic with Peter had shifted. You were still close but not as intimate. Hugs were shorter, kisses sparse. You thought it was strange. You stupidly blamed yourself, thinking you had been too forward. As his hand came up to meet your shoulder, stabilizing himself as he tried to rein in his laughter, you couldn’t help but relish in the touch.

His fingers felt so sure and you couldn’t help but think that’s where they belonged. They belong on your shoulder, on your face, in your hair, or carded between your fingers. You missed him, as ridiculous as that sounds. He was right here, right in front of you, but for the past few months, he felt so far away. You refused to dwell on it much longer, choosing to instead focus on his blinding smile, adorned with dimples and small freckles.

He slung his arm around your shoulder, “I don’t know about you but I’m hungry and I think Uncle Ben mentioned something about burgers for dinner. What do ya say we head back?”

You wrapped your arm around his waist, “I think that sounds great!”

You made your way to where you had parked your car and threw your boards in the back. You had saved up enough money to get yourself a beat-up ‘99 Honda Civic. The front bumper was black and the passenger door was navy blue, the rest of the car was emerald green. Peter affectionately called it the “shit box” but he did your oil changes so you didn’t complain.

You didn’t know much about cars but you were very excited that it had a cd player and the speakers were pretty decent. For Christmas Peter made you a mixtape of sorts. He had compiled a bunch of songs from his collection of music and put it on one CD for you, titled: Better Tunes for a Better Day. It never left your console, unless Peter brought something else into the car.

Peter was the first person you saw after you got it. Your dad helped you sign all of the paperwork at the shady dealership and waved you off. He teased you saying, “I’m sure you’ll be busy for the rest of the day, driving Ole Pete around.”

You were so excited when you pulled up to his house, a noticeable bounce in your step as you made your way to the porch. You knocked on the door and May answered, pulling you into a tight hug. She had become a mother, of sorts, to you. Always checking up on you, asking about school and work. She was such a kind woman and you appreciated her generosity.

She called Peter down and once everyone was there you broke the news, barely able to keep it in. Everyone followed you to check it out, Aunt May standing by your side congratulating you on the purchase, while the boys went to survey the vehicle. Uncle Ben commended you on picking such a reliable car while Peter began muttering to himself, trying to find ways to make it faster, more efficient, etc.

Driving around with Peter was fun if not a little distracting. He would point out random things he saw, before asking if you also saw them. He would fiddle with things in your car, one time he began reading the entire manual to you because “this is important information and I’ll have to quiz you later.” Mostly it was distracting because he was distracting. You found yourself, more often than not, more interested in what he was doing than the road.

You trailed behind Peter as he made brief small talk with his guardians before going upstairs to his room. After eight months of hanging out together, you had a bit of a routine. You would shut the door as Peter opened the closet, and then you would grab the lighter off his desk before opening the window and sitting on the roof.

Smoking with Peter had become a weekly ritual that you looked forward to because once a week whatever walls Peter had built after that Halloween party would crumble, ever so slightly. You drank in those moments knowing you would have to wait a whole seven days before getting another sip.

The two of you passed a joint lazily between each other. You would feel small sparks every time your fingers brushed. Your brain felt pleasantly cloudy after a few hits. It was July in New York. it felt like summer was fighting against the reigning winter as the temperature would fluctuate. Today was a pleasant 66 degrees with a little cloud coverage. You watched as they passed overhead, trying to find shapes in the stringy cirrostratus.

Peter chuckled at you when you moved your hand toward him, “The blunt’s done, my guy.”

You pouted as he put the roach in a glass jar with other paraphernalic debris, which you referred to as the ‘Ghost of Weed Past’. You went back to gazing at the clouds, feeling just as weightless as them. Peter stretched, his hands pulling far above his head, and you tried not to stare at the bit of stomach that poked out underneath his tee. He let out a content sigh before laying down, his head on your lap.

Peter flashed you a lazy grin and your breath caught in your throat. He was so beautiful like this. Completely at peace, no worries of his guardian’s financial woes, no school, no bullies, just him and you, safe on the rooftop. You brought your hand to his forehead slowly pushing back the curls that resided there, bathing in the light of his smile. He closed his eyes at the contact, letting out another relaxed sigh as your fingers massaged his scalp.

You let yourself be swept away in the moment. You allowed the fairies in your brain to spin you a tale of gold. They told you that Peter loved you, that he was your boyfriend, that he didn't need to be high to show you affection, that nothing had changed and you guys were fine.

The fairies danced and jived, effectively shutting down any reasonable thought. Anything that would tell you that it wasn’t healthy to let yourself live in that delusion, anything that told you you were breaking your own heart, because here he was smiling at you, and that couldn’t be wrong.

“You should learn how to play the fiddle.” Peter opened one eye, peering at you between the gap in his fingers that he brought up to block out the sun.

“Why?” You scoffed at him. How is it that he couldn’t follow this completely rational train of thought?

“Because you’re Jewish.” Peter turned, his chest now facing you, his head held above your lap.

“I should learn to play the fiddle…because I’m Jewish.” Peter was a very expressive person and in these months (not actually) together you had been able to read almost each one.

Right now he was giving you the, ‘You seem to think you’re right but in this moment I believe myself to be much smarter than you and I can’t comprehend how you could ever think you’re right.’ It was an almost blank expression, the only sign of emotion coming from a slight twitch on the left side of his mouth.

“Yeah! We’re on your roof a lot, you’re Jewish, you should learn the fiddle.” Peter continued his stare.

“I don’t see the connection.” You huffed removing your hand from his hair to lean back on your palms.

“It’s like 'Fiddler on the Roof'! You could be the fiddler on the roof!” Peter started laughing and you joined in, not sure you got the joke but laughing all the same. His hands flew to his gut as his legs curled into his body, wheezing. You started to fall forward, unintentionally cradling his head in your body.

“That was so racist!” You couldn’t stop laughing.

“No, it’s not! I just think it would be funny!” Whatever restraint he had to stop laughing was broken and he started laughing again, twice as hard.

“Racist movie, racist reference, ergo, racist you.” You were laughing too hard to respond, as was Peter. After what felt like ages your chuckles died down.

“Is ‘Jewish’ a race or religion?” Peter looked to the sky, deep in thought.

“I guess it’s kinda both. Cause like, in World War II, Hitler was like ‘You can tell a Jew by their big nose’ right? But then, like, actually he just meant ‘you can tell an Israeli from their big nose.’ But since then people are like ‘Jewish means Isreal’ which isn’t wrong per se, but also not right. It’s like rectangles and squares. Every Israeli is Jewish but not every Jew is Israeli.” You let out a puff of air.

“Woah, that’s kinda trippy to think about.” Peter nodded letting out a quiet, “yeah.”

“So which are you?” Peter chuckled before answering.

“I’m not sure, I’m kinda Jewish by default. I’m not sure if May’s family is from Isreal or if somewhere along the line someone converted. Either way, we love a good Mannorah.” laughter overtook the conversation once again, fairies happily flitting about both of your heads.

You both stayed in the quiet. You weren’t sure how much time had passed but you were starting to come back down, so realistically about an hour. The world slowly began to get heavier as did reality. Peter’s head suddenly had weight in your lap, you fought back and forth between moving him and letting him stay.

“We’re gonna be seniors soon.” Peter’s voice startled you slightly, as did his sudden revelation.

“Yeah,” was the best you could muster up for a response, taken aback by his sombre tone.

“Soon we’re gonna have to plan out the rest of our lives, with no idea of what that might look like.” You stayed silent, unsure of what to say. You decide to bring a hand back to his hair, hoping the light scratches might comfort him.

You heard a knock on the door and Peter made no effort to get up. You opened the window, the smell of weed long gone, and beckoned them in. You were greeted by Ben’s smiling face on the other side of the door.

“Hey kiddos, the burgers are almost done. (Y/n) is your dad joining us tonight?” Your smile grew as Ben continued. He loved your dad, said he was wise beyond his years, which always made him chuckle. Ben was such a kind man, he cared so much about his family and had joked about adopting you into it. You were honoured to be someone he cared about.

“No, not tonight. Maybe next week though, I’ll be sure to ask.” Ben brought a hand up, dismissively waving it around.

“No, no, that’s okay. I’m sure he’s a busy man. You just be sure to let him know that he’s always welcome.” You told him you would and he stepped back out, you didn’t miss the fact that he left the door cracked, ever so slightly. You patted Peter’s shoulder, telling him you needed to head downstairs for dinner. He left your embrace begrudgingly, hopping up and putting the jar back in his closet.

Monday morning you were at Peter’s house ready to go by 6:45. It was the first day of school and you refused to be late. You didn’t know what the traffic was going to be like and you also knew who Peter Parker was. He was someone who was chronically late or, maybe, exactly on time. You told him yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, that you wanted to leave at seven. He agreed each day and every time you brought it up, but his seven is seven-fifteen at best.

Ben answered the door and ushered you in. He complimented your outfit and wrangled you into the kitchen where Aunt May was fixing breakfast. She stepped away from the hot stove to give you a hug before directing you to the chair Ben had pulled out for you. You loved seeing the Parkers excited about something. They run around, joyous chaos guiding their movements.

A glass of orange juice was sat in front of you and you put your backpack on the floor next to you as you got settled.

“(Y/n), are you excited, sweety? It’s senior year!” You chuckled at May’s enthusiasm, your eyes darting to the staircase periodically.

“Yeah, I’m pretty excited. I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet.” May gave you a sweet smile, one that told you she understood what you meant.

Ben clapped your shoulder before going to the stairs, “I’ll go see if Pete’s up yet.”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes “I told him I wanted to leave at seven.”

A few minutes later Ben assured you he would be down soon and kissed his wife on the cheek on his way out the door, he made sure to wish you luck before leaving. May had already plated breakfast, a healthy portion of eggs and toast sitting in front of you.

You heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and looked to see Peter Parker clomping down the steps. His backpack was open and his hoodie was only half on.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the man of the hour,” May said with heavy sass.

Peter said nothing as he kissed her on the cheek taking his plate. He sat next to you, kissing your temple before digging in. Your stomach fluttered to life at the seemingly casual display of affection in such a domestic setting. Peter, half asleep, didn’t seem to think anything of it. You were grateful Ben wasn’t here to comment on the obvious tension.

You were lost in thought, only snapped back to reality when Peter nudged your shoulder. Your head snapped up and he snickered at you. “I asked if you were finished, space cadet.”

You stuttered out a “yeah, sure” and Peter took your plates to the sink. You grabbed your things and May wrapped you in another hug. You were on your way out the door when May gasped grabbing both of your attention. “Peter! Go grab your camera we need to take a picture.”

You checked your phone for the time and bit back a sigh realising you were already ten minutes behind schedule, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to tell May no. Peter returned and handed his aunt the camera. She directed you closer to Peter, getting a few shots of you both together before taking some solo pictures. She waved you out the door promising you that your father would get the photos.

You started your car and began driving towards the school. Your CD automatically started playing and Peter turned it off before searching through his bag. You whined at him and he waved a plastic square triumphantly in front of your face.

“These songs represent all that is good and fun: the summertime. And while I enjoyed our summer together it’s time to move forward” You chuckled at his obviously planned speech and he continued. “Here I hold the soundtrack to our new adventure: The Last Fall of our Youth.”

You wrinkled your nose, not taking your eyes off the road. “Sounds kinda morbid.”

Peter let out an offended snort, “It is not! It’s a fact. This is the last fall we have before we are legal adults. It’s also like we’re ‘falling’ out of our youth. It’s a double entendre!”

You laughed as he replaced the CD, “That’s not what that means.”

Peter simply turned up the volume, drowning you out. ‘No Way Down’ by the Shins fills your speakers as you make your way to school. You arrived twenty minutes early much to Peter’s dismay but you told him you would jam out for another ten minutes and that seemed to satiate him. ‘Fell In Love With a Girl’ by The White Stripes started playing and you giggled as Peter began strumming an air guitar and whipping his head around.

Your new mantra was “Don’t let it get to you.” You started this mantra about four months ago. Peter had seemingly disappeared from your life for five weeks after Halloween. It broke your heart. You thought that maybe there was something there but his sudden absence left you confused and angry. Why would he string you along and then just leave? You couldn’t even say he just used you for sex because you guys didn’t even have sex.

He would walk you to class but he seemed farther away, your fingers felt cold out of his hands. He started calling you “bro” and “dude” more often. He was awkward around you now. Well, more awkward. But he didn’t leave again. After a few months of beating yourself up and driving yourself crazy trying to read into everything Peter did, you decided it wasn’t worth it.

So you refused to think about how cute he was, how his boyish charm melted your heart and warmed your soul. You refused to think about the song that was playing. You refused to think about whether or not Peter was serenading you as he stared into your eyes singing every word. You wouldn’t let it get to you.

Peter and you received your schedules in the mail a few weeks ago and you immediately compared them. You had tried to sync them up as much as possible and were anxious to see if it had worked or not. Out of six classes, Peter and you shared four. You both high-fived, excited to see you both had the same lunch schedule too. This year didn’t seem so scary knowing you would have your best friend there by your side.

You made your way to your Homeroom, not yet having lockers and took a seat next to each other. While the teacher began droning on you listened intently while Peter rested his chin on his arms crossed over his desk. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately. He kept having weird dreams that he couldn’t remember when he woke up. He could piece together little snippets, something about his parents, flying in the city, finding out he has brothers. All very annoying.

You and Peter now took turns packing lunch. Peter had slipped to May that you had fed her nephew for a year and she insisted on splitting the task. Today May had packed some deli-like subs with a homemade dipping sauce. Both you and Peter had theorized about its ingredients but May refused to cough up a recipe.

Peter finally joined Yearbook. It took a lot of convincing and minimal bribery but he eventually relented. Mr Carter was excited to have a new addition, even if it was just for one year. On the first day of school, Mr Carter always went over the major events planned for the year, the equipment renting policies, and brainstormed for the yearbook's theme.

You wanted to pay attention but you had much bigger fish to fry. Peter’s birthday was in three days, this Saturday. You had originally gotten him two tickets to see Mumford and Sons at the Forrest Hill Stadium but the other day you started talking about them and Peter said he wasn’t a fan.

You knew realistically if you handed him the tickets he would be overjoyed because you had given him tickets to a concert. You wanted to get him something he would absolutely love though, but also you didn’t want to spend too much on him because for Hanukah you got him a “real” gift for every day and he said it was too much.

You only turn seventeen once and you wanted your gift to be special because he was special. You took out your notebook and began writing down everything you knew about your best friend to see if anything came to mind: smart, funny, skates, likes science books, zip up hoodies, nice smile, kind.

You hadn’t noticed Peter looking over your shoulder. He read this list of odd features with a puzzled look. He wasn’t sure who you were describing until he saw ‘Named after a religious figure not in his religion’ and faked a cough to cover up his laugh. He tried not to let his ego inflate as he realised you could only be listing his qualities. However, his comical disposition quickly turned into confusion. Why were you describing him? Were these good or bad things you were listing? He hoped they were good as you were quickly filling up the page.

Your task ran away from you, soon you had all but forgotten this list was meant to help you find a gift. You got lost in thinking about Peter, the curly-haired dork you had somehow become so attached to. You kept going, your goal shifting into filling the whole page. You were scribbling away frantically when your concentration was broken.

“(Y/n), you’re awful quiet today. Do you have any thoughts on next week’s prep rally?” You flushed looking up and seeing Peter’s gaze on your paper. You looked at the board, slyly moving your hand across the page, blocking Peter’s view. You weren’t sure how much he had seen but he didn’t need to see anymore. You cleared your throat.

“What if we made the spirit week themes a contest, the prize being your picture in the yearbook? Anyone who wants to participate can come here during fifth period and we can weed out the bad ones and vote on the best.”

Mr Carter eyed you suspiciously before writing down ‘Contest’ on the board. He knew you weren’t paying attention but your idea was good so he couldn’t be mad. Peter shot you a smile and you heard Trevor somewhere in the room tell you it was a “great idea”. You thanked him before returning your notebook to your backpack. Obviously, you were not nearly as discrete as you believed yourself to be.

After school, you drove Peter and You over to your spot. Peter hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what you were writing. You had filled three-quarters of the page with something about him. Taking a quick scan he was able to see a few words: cute, board, science, music, high, nose, funny, curls. Most of the words he saw were objective but there were enough positive adjectives that made him think that maybe, just maybe, you still liked him.

After all this time he hadn’t really pushed you away. After seven months of trying to distance himself, you hadn’t left but you also hadn’t pushed him. The feeling brought butterflies to his stomach, but these butterflies had switchblades tied to their wings. Bringing both a ‘warm and fuzzy’ feeling but also a ‘panic-inducing sense of peril’.

You both enjoyed skating in the late afternoon sun. Peter always gave you space to practice your tricks, only giving critique when asked. Eventually, you would sit down and watch as Peter did jumps and flips over different things in this warehouse-esk building. Once you watched as he stacked pallets and some metal sheeting creating a mini ramp. You also watched as it fell apart with him on it and he tumbled to the ground.

You didn’t get to stay long as you had work. You dropped Peter off at home and changed into your uniform shirt in his bathroom. He bid you a good day at work and you punched his shoulder in acknowledgement.

Not much had changed around the Ole Queens Centre Theatre. You got a new co-worker over the summer. He introduced himself as ‘Mags’, you think he was joking but he never gave you anything else to call him. Mags was a year younger than you with shaggy brown hair, standing at five-eight. He was pretty chill, he kept to himself and did his work, so you couldn’t complain. You knew he liked video games and had a dog, his mom dropped him off at work and he would tease you every now and then for going to a “smart people school”.

Nine o’clock came sooner than you expected, your shift flying by. You sent a text to your dad to let him know you were on your way home before starting your car. You opted to drive in silence, the newness of Peter's mixtape was still distracting and it made you think of him. You knew, either way, you would think of Peter. It seemed it didn’t matter how hard you tried to untangle him from your subconscious, his words and actions would grow new vines and barbs to trap you with.

You threw your backpack on your floor before collapsing onto your bed. All in all, senior year didn’t seem like it was going to be so bad. Most of your classes were easy and for the ones that weren’t, you had Peter to help you through.

You got dressed for bed and heard a knock on the door. It was your father, he held a plate of assorted fruit and a sandwich. He sat with you on your bed insisting that you eat while you tell him all about your day. You told him about your classes and how excited you were. You told him about all the books you needed for class and how you couldn’t wait to read them, while your dad just smiled.

He didn’t comment on how much you mentioned Peter, he didn’t comment on how you didn’t seem as ecstatic as you usually were when talking about him. He did notice. He noticed how these past few months you seemed a little defeated. He noticed how you smiled less and you seemed to be a little more reserved than before. But he didn’t know how to approach it, scared he might make it worse. So he just listened, to anything you would tell him, to the things you wouldn’t. He was there and he hoped, for now, that was enough.

Tag List: @andrews-lovr @brinaslittlefreak @drunkangels @ilovemoonknight @negasonic-teenage-asshole @preciousbabypeter @princesskittycatofmeowland @rudy-the-winged-wolf @whoreforklitz

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my-brothers-corrupted · 1 month

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My Brothers, Corrupted

Book Five: Section Eleven

Chase reconnects with his daughter. Jackie deals with some feelings, but doesn't handle their aftermath well, and ends up getting hurt. Masterlist

Tws for self-hatred, past abuse, violence, blood, and fighting. Tws may not be completely exhaustive - keep in mind the heaviness of the fic and look out for yourself.

Thank you to @lehhoh7822 for taking the time to compile this book!

She sits on the grass on the other side of the pond, avoiding his gaze.

“You sure?”

“She’s ready,” Stacy encourages, putting her hand on Chase’s arm. “Just… give her space if she gets upset.”

Chase nods resolutely, straightening up. He steps away from Stacy and moves towards his daughter.

“Can I sit down with you?” he asks, standing beside her.

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes flicker over to him. He sinks down into the grass, folding his knees up as he sits beside her.

“Izzy,” he says softly. “I’m really sorry I went away.”

Izzy sniffles. She has Stacy’s dark hair and eyes, but her face is more like Chase’s - and so are her sticking-out ears. He smiles down at her despite the seriousness of the situation. She has a little yellow soccer jersey on and light-up shoes. He wishes he knew how to express to her that two months ago he would have died just for the chance to see this little girl even once - and now, how excruciatingly wonderful it is that he can see her and her brother without any price but his heart.

“Why don’t you remember me, Daddy?” asks Izzy, hiccuping with sobs. “You’re my Papa.”

“Anti really hurt my head,” says Chase quietly, because she is old enough not to be lied to. “And I got very confused and upset, and I couldn’t remember who I was or where you were. I was really unhappy because I was missing you, but I still couldn’t remember. I had to try really hard for a really long time to remember anything at all. But Izzy, even when I was really sad, when I would have dreams of you and Hunter… they made me happy again. Because I knew you were somewhere in the world, and I knew Anti didn’t have you. And he never will, Zig-Zag. He’s never going to get any of us again.”

“Did Anti hurt you, Dad?” asks Izzy.

Chase frowns, scooting so that they are facing each other, sitting together on the grass. “Anti did hurt me and your uncles,” he says. “And sometimes, I’m still really sad from the things that he did to me. I’m really sad that I lost more than a year when I could have been here being your Papa. But now that he’s gone, I get a chance to be happier and not get hurt anymore.”

Izzy plays with one of Hunter’s toy trucks in the grass, wiping at her snotty face as she considers this.

“And if you’d give me one,” says Chase. “I would really like to have a chance to be a good Papa to you again too. Because even though I still get sad sometimes, I will do anything to make sure that you are happy - and that you never have to lose your Dad like that again. Izzy. I love you so much. Look at me, Zig-Zag.”

Her eyes look up at him. He touches her little hand and is nearly shocked out of his focus - her skin buzzes, just a little, just like Anti’s used to. And he wonders if this was one of the reasons he let his monster hold him so many times: because even then, even at his worst, he was looking for his child.

“You and Hunter are the most important people in the world to me,” he whispers. “And I am never letting anyone take me from you again.”

“You’re going to be happy again, Dad? You’re not going to go?”

“I’m not going to go,” says Chase. “And now that I’ve find you, I have the greatest reason in the world to be happy again.”

Izzy cries silent tears, looking up at him with her mouth pinched and trembling. He touches her face.

“I love you too, Daddy,” she says, and she reaches out for a hug.

Chase pulls his child to his heart. That is where she will stay for the rest of his life.

Something crashes into him from behind and he lets out a bark of a laugh as Hunter clambers onto his back, squeezing his neck so hard he can barely breathe. He clutches them both to his body and drops down into the grass, making them squeal with laughter as he pins and kisses them, clutching at their heads and blowing raspberries into their stomachs. And in the laughter of his children and the warm apple smell of their shampoo and the heat of the sun on their soft hair, he can see and hear and feel the whole of his future - and for the first time in his life, he is not scared of anything that is to come.

His name is Chase. His future is bright and beautiful, and he is looking forward to every goddamn second of it.

Anonymous asked:

Should Chase stay with the magicians too for a bit so he doesn't have to separate from Hunter? Just a suggestion! Poor kid seems really scared of being away from him again.

“Well, what do we think about that?” asks Marvin, taking a sip from his drink. Stacy offered to get them lunch. Then Jackie got defensive about JJ not being around too many people, and then JJ got a little sulky, so Henrik defended him and Marvin pointed out that Jackie just doesn’t like Stacy, and then everybody squabbled a little, and now they’re at a restaurant with a quiet patio so everybody’s relatively happy.

“I don’t want to overwhelm the kids,” worries Stacy.

“They’re latched onto him like a limpet,” Henrik points out, grinning. Chase does have both the kids on his lap, sharing his fries with them and letting them smear ketchup on his face and then laugh at him.

“Yeah, but Chase wouldn’t be living with us long-term,” Stacy points out. “I don’t want to raise their expectations. Mum and Dad are still separated. What if they get separation anxiety when he leaves to go home? Or when we have to go back to Sweden?”

“I’ll make more mirrors,” promises Marvin. “We can visit anytime. It’ll be no problem.”

“Thank you,” says Stacy fondly. Then she gives Marvin a smack on the arm. “Now eat your food, you’ve barely touched anything but your water.”

“Okay, okay! Sheesh.”

Jackie glowers at his sister-in-law from across the table, somehow managing to make drinking orange soda look menacing.

“Chase can be a little attached to Henrik anyway,” Marvin mumbles under his breath. “Schneep, how are you two doing with the co-dependence?”

“We are not co-dependent!”

“You sleep cuddled up together and wear each other’s clothes.”

Henrik grumbles. “I would be okay for one night. Maybe, um, sleep with JJ instead… room is dark.”

“We’re all a little co-dependent,” admits Marv. “It’s not a shame, it’s how we got through all of this. But is Chase able to spend a night away from you?”

“I’d be willing to try it,” says Chase, grinning a little nervously. “For these two.” He lands kisses in their hair. “But it’s up to you, Stace. I’m still a little, um. Unstable sometimes.”

“Maybe we could try a weekend instead,” says Stacy. “Just to make sure they understand Dad’s not moving in and not entirely ready to have sleepovers at his place.”

“Kids, you understand if Dad isn’t moving in, right?” asks Chase, putting a hand on Izzy’s hair.

“Will you come see me again tomorrow, though?” squeaks Hunter, gripping Dad’s arm tight.

“Yes, baby, every day I can. And Mum has a phone so she can call us anytime if something happens, okay?”

Hunter slurps on a ginger ale, thinking. “Okay, Daddy. Will you call me to read me to sleep?”

“Sure, pumpkin.”

“Okay. And Izzy?”

“I know, Dad,” says Izzy seriously. “Sometimes we can’t see you when you’re having a tough time.”

He chuckles and kisses her hair again. “I’m okay. Just gotta take things slow. For me, too, cause I get overwhelmed.”

Anonymous asked:

I'm so happy for you Chase! Things are really coming together, I hope you enjoy every single moment with your kids. You're all making so much progress! Us cameras told you things would slowly get better if you kept fighting for your freedom and happiness. I'm so proud, for all the hopeless times you didn't give up through, and for beating the monster who ruled you. Gosh, you guys are free! It still feels impossible to believe!

“It is kind of wild, isn’t it?” chuckles Chase, just looking around. They’re just sitting at a nice restaurant - out in the open, able to buy food from a real place, with no fear of someone trying to hurt them or punish them. There’s no pain waiting at home. He can see his family again - here, alive, on his lap and smiling. Marvin looks more like himself, Henrik is talking, JJ’s breakdowns feel rarer and rarer each day, and Jackie’s not lunging across the table to choke-hold Chase’s ex-wife for touching his twin. That’s progress. It’s… stuff he never even dreamed of when he was with Anti.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Henrik has a hand on his arm. “Chase. Do you need a break?”

He realizes he might be crying a little. He wipes quickly at his face, laughing. “No. I’m okay. I’m… good. I’m really good.”

Izzy looks up at him seriously. He smiles down at her and she raises her hand to put her fingers in the hair of his nape, soothing him. He bends to knock their heads together and she holds on to him.

Anonymous asked:

Jj, how are you doing? You're in public, you get to see and be with your family, and you're not ever going to be a prisoner again. You must be absolutely chuffed if not a bit anxious.

“Splendid, good chap, I’m mighty chuffed - ”

“No! No, don’t get him started on that!”

“Jolly good time, innit?”

“You can’t spell out the word ‘innit,’ you little bastard - ”

“Brilliant, really, I’m positively scuppered to be - ”

Jackie puts an arm around his neck and pins JJ to the table, making him whistle in protest and laugh. Jackie rolls his eyes and lets him go after a minute, grinning despite himself to see JJ laughing.

“You’re feeling okay?”

“I’m pretty good today,” says JJ. “Lately, not too bad. I’m lucky to be the sort of person who can function with schizophrenia quite well when medicated. I still have some problems with the negative symptoms - the depression sometimes, the lack of interest in other people. And with my trauma I am still scared of people touching me, and I know that when I get triggered I go right back to playing pet or sometimes being violent… but I feel safe most of the time lately.”

“Do you think you could live like this for a while, then?” asks Jackie hopefully. “We’ll rebuild the house in the woods and you can settle down and be alright.”

JJ chuckles, glancing down. “Well… yes, I think I’d be alright. But the only thing is… I am a little aimless.”

“Aimless?”

“Jackie, I do miss England. I like living here just fine, but I am sort of homesick. I just stay in the apartment all day unless one of you takes me on a walk or something. I’m not a part of anything outside of this family. It’s hard for me to communicate with other people. Between the reaction to strangers, the mutism, and the schizophrenia… I don’t know if I should hope for anything more than coping for the rest of my life. I’m just sort of - sort of used up, I guess.”

Jackie blinks, startled by the admission. “JJ, that’s not true. What do you want to do? You can have whatever you want!”

JJ chuckles. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what I want or if it would even be worth hoping for. Sort of sounds nice having a job I like. Having some friends.”

Jackie’s stomach tightens. He wants to be away from him all day? Alone without brothers there if he gets freaked out or sick? Who’s going to translate for him? Who’s going to take care of him if he starts hallucinating or becomes delusional? What if he gets violent, what then?

“Um, well, think on it a little more, yeah?” he offers. “Maybe in the meantime your job can be helping me fix up the house.”

JJ smiles. “That sounds good.”

“Good.” Jackie pats his shoulder. “That’s good.”

Anonymous asked:

Don't baby JJ, please Jackie. He's a functioning adult who can talk for himself and take care of himself. If he wants a job I think it would be good for him, putting himself out there and healing. Just don't let your protective nature suffocate him.

Jackie drums his fingers against the table, trying not to go through a thousand things that could go wrong if JJ was alone. Fuck, he knows he can’t just keep them all in the apartment, he knows that - but there’s so many bad things that can happen.

He told him directly to his face the other day that he has trouble respecting him as an adult. That was mean. What was he even thinking? He has to be more supportive. He knows. If he doesn’t always feel it, he’ll fake it until it’s true. That’s what his siblings are trying to tell him, he thinks - that he can’t make them happy and they can’t make him happy.

But that sucks when all he wants is to make them happy!

“Maybe work with some animals,” JJ continues, eating his fish and chips. “I love little animals and Anti never let me have any.”

Jackie tries not to overturn the table with how hard his knee is bouncing against it. “That would be really good, Jameson,” he manages. “You’d be good at it.”

JJ smiles at him. “You think?”

No. Stay home and you can have any pets you want. He’ll buy him a whole ostrich farm if he wants.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Actually,” pipes up Chase on the other side of the table. “Now that Henrik’s doing better, I’ve been thinking a lot about getting a job too.”

Holy shit, they’re all trying to kill him.

Anonymous asked:

You do make them happy Jackie, but their happiness shouldn't come only from you. You need to let them branch out and do things on their own. You already know you can't keep them in the house 24/7, that's a start. Work on your paranoia and try to be less anxious. Please chat with a therapist about it, yeah? You're paranoid and anxious because of rules Anti drove into you about keeping them safe, but try and know that they can keep themselves safe too.

“Knowing facts doesn’t really make things better,” rumbles Jackie, rocking in his chair. “Still feels bad!”

JJ has his hand on his arm by now, trying to ground him. “Hey, hey. Jackie. Need a break?”

“No, I don’t need a break.”

“Jackie, loud voice.”

“Sorry.”

JJ squeezes his arms around his shoulders until Jackie is a little more calm.

“Therapist would be a good idea, Jackie,” says JJ, brushing a bit of hair from his eyes. “You could go see someone who isn’t just a talk therapist. Marvin’s going to therapy, right, Marvin?”

Marvin flushes a little, but he nods. “Right… yeah. I’ll go again next week.”

“I can’t really think about that right now,” says Jackie, too loud again. “Ask me later.”

“Okay.”

Anonymous asked:

Jackie, what's wrong? Too much change all at once?

“Yeah, oh, imagine that,” he growls under his breath. “Maybe we don’t have to talk about JJ and Chase getting jobs and wanting to see England and Marvin not coming home and staying with strangers and how I need to change and going back to therapy and Chase having a family outside of us and some girl I don’t even know touching my twin and paying for lunch cause I can’t and - ”

“Jackie. Jackie.” JJ pulls his attention to him. “You’re okay.”

The anger and fear and frustration boil under his skin. He wants to shake JJ and yell that he’s not okay and that JJ can’t go. But he doesn’t. Especially not in front of the kids. He bites on his tongue and rocks until the chair is rocking off its front legs with him. JJ holds him steady and doesn’t let the chair fall, patient.

“We can go home,” he signs.

“Not going home,” says Jackie.

“Okay. Just, if you need to - ”

“I don’t need to!”

“Okay.” JJ reaches out to pull Jackie’s hood up over his head. The sun lessens. It’s a little better. JJ is patting his hand heavily, almost striking him, a soothing drum against his wrist. “We’ll be done eating and can go home in a few, yes?”

“Yes,” mumbles Jackie. “Okay.”

They do finish eating soon, but everyone is talking so much they end up staying a while longer. The kids are chatting at Dad about everything they’ve been up to and turning to their uncles sometimes too, shyly reconnecting, even trying out timid, broken sign language their mother has been trying to teach them for Uncle JJ. Chase has his babies on his lap and his partner at his side, and don’t they look like a happy nuclear family? Everyone chats. Stacy chats. Stacy talks to all his brothers like nothing is wrong, and Jackie gets a vindictive sort of joy when JJ is shy of her, or maybe still a little unforgiving of the past. He hunkers down beside Jackie instead of engaging with her. Jackie puts a possessive arm around his baby brother. He feels like his only anchor right now - but even he is talking about leaving.

Which should be a good thing! Jackie knows that. When did he lose the ability to picture him being safe on his own? JJ’s kicked his ass in the past, but somehow Jackie still sees everyone hurting him. Maybe he spent so long separated from him, hearing him crying and scratching at the door of his room, that he just got used to thinking his baby brother was alone and in pain. Or maybe he really is just letting his anxiety eat him alive. Maybe he’s just seen all of them get beat one too many times.

They go home and Jackie closes himself into his room, listening as his youngest brothers play games and let Chase talk for hours about his kids and everything he envisions for them. Jackie feels a wave of guilt that he’s being such a sour grape - but more than that is the humiliation of knowing that out of everyone, he is the only one who does not seem to be moving forward.

When his brothers go to sleep that night all distraction fades from the house. The darkness of his room closes in on him. He sees the little black sound booth where he works and the dying swan girl in her ballet shoes on the stage, separated from her lover forever. He sees the cold concrete basement of the house in Norway, and Marvin sprinting down the beach away from him, leaving Jackie behind, bleeding out on the floor, as his siblings all vanished around him. He watches Max crumple in the graveyard - and he turns his back on him, and goes back to his monster.

Jackie feels something simmering beneath his flesh. He wipes hot tears from his eyes. There is something inside his body that could snap in half like a tongue depressor if he let it. There is something there that could collapse like a burned bedroom in the attic of a house abandoned in the woods. He’s everywhere and nowhere. Alone and surrounded by everyone who hates him. By everyone he’s killed.

He sits on his bed in the dark.

“How predictable,” comes a drawling voice behind him, and Jackie freezes stiff, fists clenching together. “I always knew you would find your way here. Jack’s little hero, breaking down like a child… you’re pathetic, Red.”

“Go away,” says Jackie, voice trembling. “You’re dead.”

“Don’t you nightmare about me every night?” asks Anti smugly, circling the bed. There is nothing in the darkness but his eyes, green as venom, and a faint outline. “Don’t I still haunt you, even dead? Poor widdle Roser. If only you hadn’t been so afraid, maybe you could have killed off my memory instead of letting your little brother do it for you.”

“I forced Dark to give Blue his magic back,” snarls Jackie. “I burned you down with light when you were out of control in the forest. I am still a warrior.”

“You’re a little boy,” laughs Anti. “Just my little killer. And now, without anybody to direct you, you’re nothing at all.”

“Shut the fuck up. I’m still their big brother.”

“They don’t even need you, Red.”

“I’m Jackie.”

“Some hero. You know that the moment you let yourself feel anything other than anger, you’re going to have a tantrum like a toddler.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“I used to have to beat you to unconsciousness when you exploded like that. Kicking and screaming and sobbing like a baby for someone to come save you.”

“You are dead. Go away.”

“I ought to do it again.” There’s a glimmer in the darkness and Jackie shrinks back on himself as he recognizes old torture devices he had almost forgotten, from when Anti was first breaking him in. “See you writhing and chewing your fingers for comfort again.”

“You leave me alone,” says Jackie, rocking himself and closing his eyes. “I’m going to wake up now. I’m going to wake up.”

“Come on, Jackie. Why don’t you admit you’re just an out-of-control baby with temper problems and too much strength for him to hold back? No wonder everyone is giving up on you.”

“I’m going to wake up. I’m going to wake up!”

“Oh, no, darling. This isn’t a nightmare. You’re mine now, Bloodred.”

Anti is on top of him and the sharp sting of a whip comes down directly on Jackie’s face, making him scream aloud, blood flooding down his face. He’s chained to a bed, tied up in barbed wire, wailing as it cuts into him. In the corner, Dapper is tied up by the throat, slumped against the wall, unable to do anything but watch with dead eyes. Jackie howls for him even though he knows he can’t help. Anti crushes Jackie’s nose with the heel of his boot and whips him again.

Anti’s yelling about something he doesn’t remember, some failure of his mixed with Red being loud, Red being annoying, Red being intolerable. His little brother is sick in the corner. Why can’t he save him? Why can’t he get up? He’s stuck under Anti’s feet as the blows come down. If he just holds still, maybe he can avoid something worse than getting whipped. Why won’t anybody come help him? What did he do? Anti turns to Dapper and Red screams for his attention, kicking at him to re-ignite his fury, to turn him away from his brother. And as the leather comes down on him again, Jackie recognizes something he no longer has - the comfort of being needed, desperately, by the whole rest of his family. The single relief for his heart in those times: the chance to protect them. The lone joy of being able to be a hero to them.

“I’ll beat you to death and make him bring you back again!” screams Anti, throwing aside the whip to straddle Jackie and draw his fist back, striking him again and again. “I’ll make you beg for mercy like the useless little bitch you are! You’re pathetic, Jackie! You’re pathetic! No wonder no one - fucking - wants you!”

Anti buries his teeth in Red’s throat.

Jackie wakes up screaming and tearing at his bedsheets, sobbing and ripping holes into the cloth. He cries like wild, tugging his hoodie close to his body and chewing on the strings of his hood.

If Blue were here, he could hold on to him, and he would rub his back and whisper reassurances to him. Squish him to his body and stroke his hair. But Blue isn’t here. Blue got sick of him. The fighting and the nightmares and the - the - the stuckness of Jackie, the obsessions and stubborn immobility, the terrified refusal to acknowledge everything that’s wrong. Jackie weeps into his pillow, shaking with an emotion too big to identify. All he knows is he wants to hit something. Hit everything. He screams and strikes his pillow once, twice. He strikes himself, hitting his head with his open palm as hard as he can. He tears out of bed, stalking around his room, grinding his teeth and trying to make the tears stop. How many nights in a row has Anti tortured him? Screamed at him? Told him how useless he is? Why won’t it ever stop?

“Pathetic!” he shrieks. “I’m not pathetic! And I - hero! Heroism, I’ll show you, fucking - ah!”

He screams, striking the wall with his fist. Fury and hatred like it’s the only thing left in him boils against his bones.

Jackie sinks to his knees, heaving.

“Look at me,” he chokes into the darkness. “I can’t… I can’t… I want…”

He wants to break in half.

He wants to go crying to his brothers and ask for help.

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t.

After long minutes, Jackie drags himself to his feet, shaking.

“Pathetic,” he growls. “Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see.”

He pulls his sneakers on and opens the door to the apartment. The hot night air rushes over him in a swirl of wind. He draws his hood down low, over his eyes.

There’s something burning under his skin. Only one way to get it out.

Anonymous asked:

Jackie please tell me you're just going for a run, not going to get in more fights....

“If you don’t want to come,” he says, pulling his hood up, “then don’t.”

Anonymous asked:

No, we want to come. You need someone to tell your brothers if you get hurt. This is a bad idea though JBM. You could get arrested or worse. Just be cautious.

“Well, wouldn’t that just be a treat for everyone,” he mutters, feeling sorry for himself. Something skitters in the street behind him and he whirls around, alert, but nothing’s there.

“Whatever. I’m not even out for a fight. Just - someone might need help.”

He always seems to find someone who needs the violent sort of help when he’s angry.

Anonymous asked:

Marvin, Jackie is about go go get into fights again. Can you call or text him something, or maybe go to him? I know it's late but I'm scared for him. He needs someone to be rational with him.

Marvin’s in bed in the guest room of one of his magician friend’s houses. He stirs sleepily, grappling at the camera on the bedside drawer like his phone is going off, and reads the message distantly, not entirely sure if he’s dreaming or not. He flops back into bed, exhausted. Is it better to go to Jackie and comfort and help him, or is there a point at which he has to start letting Jackie deal with this on his own? He doesn’t even know where Jackie is right now. He’s drifting back to sleep as he considers his options.

Anonymous asked:

Jackie you know Anti was lying all those times. He lied and broke you down because he was scared of you. You beat him into dust once, and you can do it to his memory again. You are strong and capable and your family will always need you, even in the smallest ways they need you to be a protector and provider and big brother. Them having more freedom doesn't undermine that fact. You need to let this anger out, that burning feeling inside. It's OK to break in two. It's OK to go to your brothers for help. It doesn't make you weak or pathetic or anything that monster called you.

Jackie trudges down the street, hands stuffed in his hoodie pocket and eyes on the pavement. In his head, he knows he beat Anti and that his brother was scared of him for good reasons - but why doesn’t that make the memory of Anti go away? He’s dreamed of him for months now. The nightmares did not change at all when he died. In his head, he’s still so real, and Jackie is still so powerless.

He wants his siblings to need him. So they’ll stay. But aren’t they all learning to protect and provide for themselves? What then? What if they want to move out? What happens when they realize how broken he is and how useless?

A girl scurries past him, catching his eye. She’s clutching her purse close to her and walking rapidly, eyes downcast. Her keys are held tightly between her fingers.

Jackie’s eyes narrow at the sight of a man in a big grey coat pacing a few meters behind her. He draws back into an alleyway and waits for the man to pass him.

Anonymous asked:

Your brothers being able to take care of themselves doesn't make you useless or weak, Jackie. Your life cannot revolve solely around taking care of them. That's why Marvin was asking if you had done anything for yourself at all. You're co-dependent, Jackie. You rely on them to make you feel needed. You need to learn how to live with just yourself again, need to learn to be just 'Jackie', not always 'Jackie the big brother'. I believe you can do it, you are strong enough, brave enough.

Live with just himself? That sounds awful. He doesn’t even like himself.

Which is probably fucked up, he realizes a moment later. But what is he supposed to do? He looks down at his hands and remembers leaving bruises on his younger brothers and digging garbage out of the trash to find something to eat. He sees his face and remembers how Max looked at him before he left him splayed out on the ground, abandoned. His failures seem to follow him everywhere he goes.

Co-dependent… he’s the one who will provide for them. That’s not dependency. Right?

A rock skitters on the pavement behind him.

Speaking of following him.

He whirls around, and this time, he is able to catch a flash of a dark figure darting into the alleyway before everything falls silent again.

Jackie stares into the darkness.

He creeps forward, hands raised, and waits for someone to jump out at him.

Instead, he comes fully around the corner of the alleyway, and there, a little pink in the cheeks -

“Dammit, Jameson!”

“Hi, Jackie,” signs his little brother cheerfully. “You seemed mad.”

“Did you follow me from the apartment?”

“I felt like something bad was going to happen,” complains JJ, and he does make puppy-dog-eyes, but Jackie’s pretty sure he’s just being a cute little shit on purpose, not actually getting into a bad headspace. “You were shouting a lot.”

Jackie swears and backs away from him, kicking a trash bin outside the building beside them.

“Jackie, come home. It’s late.”

“I’m fine, JJ. I’m a goddamn adult, okay? Everybody needs to stop acting like I can’t handle myself.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Jackie shoots him a glare. “Just - fine, look, there’s some creep following this girl. I’m going to trail them and make sure she gets home okay. Are you coming or what?”

“Not leaving you out late at night,” signs JJ, pushing past him. “Let’s go.”

Anonymous asked:

JJ you could check out local deaf support groups or clubs where people would know sign! That's a good way go make friends without needing a translator! I know you're mute, not deaf, but in my experience as a speech impaired person deaf groups are more than welcoming. I think having more people you trust would be really good for you.

“Deaf support groups… I think I had forgotten those existed.” JJ paces behind Jackie, tapping his chin. “That could be really perfect, actually. Well, I guess I would still be pretty nervous. I haven’t really talked to anyone but my brothers in years now. But that could be a way to get back on the horse. To actually start communicating with other people. I don’t know. Won’t they think I’m so weird? I’ve lived like a hermit. But maybe it would be worth trying. Yeah, I can see that. Maybe I can try and find one in town. Thank you, that’s a good idea.”

“She’s going to her apartment building,” mumbles Jackie, watching the girl dart up the stairs. “He looks like he’s going to try and follow her into the building.”

The stalker is gaining speed as the girl tries to get into her building, no doubt hoping to follow her all the way to her apartment and find out where she lives, while she’s trying to get inside and disappear before he can.

“Hey!” barks Jackie, striding towards the man, who stops short, turning to look at Jackie. The girl casts one desperate look back at Jackie and takes this as her chance to get away, hurrying inside the building and all but sprinting out of view. The man’s face sours, looking back at Jackie, but most creeps like this aren’t going to do anything while they know somebody’s watching.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you,” shouts Jackie, crossing his arms over his chest. “Thought you’d follow her home? Leave her the hell alone, you gobshite.”

The stranger’s eyes are dark, and in the light perched above the apartment building, Jackie sees for just a second the glitter of a knife held between his hand and his pants pocket in warning. Jackie squares his shoulders, mouth curled. JJ stands beside him on the pavement, picking at his nails.

The man scoffs and paces towards them, looking off down the street. Jackie narrows his eyes but lets him walk towards them. He doesn’t look like he’s planning to attack, all hunched up, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Jackie caught him in the act and there’s nothing more to be done. Wrapping an arm around JJ’s shoulders, Jackie watches the man go by.

The stranger slams his shoulder into JJ as he passes, turning to give them one last glare before walking away.

Or that’s probably his plan.

But the moment he shoves into JJ, Jackie feels his younger brother go stiff beneath his arm. He does not gasp or whistle indignantly - he just goes very, very still, tense as a horse pulled to a sudden stop.

Coming from someone who has been forced to both witness JJ being beat and to physically fight Jameson himself, it’s not a good sign.

That man just touched him.

No one is allowed to touch JJ but his brothers.

No one.

“Jameson,” Jackie has one second to say, and then his little brother turns and grabs that man by the curls of his greasy hair, and slams the heel of his palm into his face.

Anonymous asked:

Jameson don't! You don't have a supernatural being to hide you anymore, if you kill somebody or assault somebody you'll get arrested! I know they touched you and you feel no one is supposed to, but just hit them once or twice and let them go, I don't want you to end up in prison. Jackie try to hold him back if you can, this could go really badly.

“Jamie! Jamie!” Jackie snatches him around the waist, all but yanking him into the air, but JJ thrashes against his chest, snarling. The stranger is hollering at them, that knife held in his hand, but Jackie can barely concentrate with Jameson spitting and writhing in his grip. He pulls him away from the man, wrapping a hand around Jameson’s throat to try and still him, without much success. “Jameson, no one will punish you! You’re okay! They’re right, I can’t hide you if the cops come. Jamie, you are in control, stop!”

Dapper spits at the stranger and gnashes his teeth, steadying himself against Jackie’s chest only long enough to kick out at the man with both feet. Jackie can practically feel the adrenaline and fear in his younger brother’s blood. All too well he remembers Anti’s jealous furies whenever Dapper was out of his sight. Sometimes he punished the others for getting too close to him, like when Jackie stole his Haldol from Anti in California, so Jackie hates to imagine the sort of anger it inspired in Anti when strangers got too close to his favorite pet.

“He’s not here,” Jackie cries, pulling JJ’s head to his heart. “Jamie, I know that freaks you out, but you have to remember you’re in control! You’re not his animal. You’re in control!”

Dapper tears out of his grip and lashes out at the stranger, fearless before the knife. Jackie shoves himself between them, and when that man comes at them with the blade, Jackie protects Jameson, shoving the stranger away and locking him into a fight. With one free hand, he shoves Dapper back, hard, and his little brother crashes to the ground, gasping.

Jackie takes a punch from the man, grunting as he hits his ribs, but he steadies and wraps the stranger into a headlock, flipping him onto the ground. The man’s older than Jackie and quite a bit bigger, and he roars with pain and anger as he hits the pavement. He grapples at Jackie’s legs, tearing him down to the pavement beside him, and then he’s on top of Jackie, pulling back that knife. Jackie pulls his knees to his chest and kicks the man hard in the stomach, giving him a chance to roll away, though another blow lands on his chest as he goes.

Jameson has bowed over himself in the middle of the pavement, kneeling with his head tucked into his chest and his hands gripping at his hair. Jackie thinks he is crying. He should never have let him come with him. What was he thinking? Bringing JJ with him to get in fights with creepy stalkers? He wanted to feel powerful again, to feel control as he pummeled some freak who deserved it into the ground, and maybe - just a little bit - he wanted to get hurt. But not to get his little brother hurt. He was supposed to help him with his fear of being touched - why hasn’t he been helping him?

There’s no time for more of Jackie’s self-loathing right now. That man is standing across from him, panting wildly, holding the knife up. There’s blood coming from his shattered nose, dripping down his curled-up lips. Jackie hates and fears him.

“Just get the fuck out of here!” he screams, snatching up a rock and coming at the man with it, throwing it half-heartedly towards him and making him flinch back. “You deserved that for following that poor girl, and then you just couldn’t go without shoving a guy half your size! Leave us alone, fucking creep!”

And thank God the man takes it as his chance to sprint away.

A wave of emotions washes over Jackie so fast it leaves him slightly dizzy. “Yeah, jackass!” he shouts. “Maybe you’ll think twice before shoving somebody who caught you in the act next time, freak!”

He leans over and puts his hands on his knees, panting harshly. Everything has gone quiet again. JJ isn’t making any noise, just hugging himself and pressing his forehead to the concrete of the pavement like he couldn’t get up if it would save his life.

“JJ…”

Jackie stumbles over to him, grabbing his shoulders and hunching over his body, landing a hand in his hair and holding on to him. “You are a wild little mongoose of a man, you know that? Shit, James, we’re okay… we’re okay…”

Anonymous asked:

Do we need to get the others for you?! Are either of you injured? You're okay, you guys will be alright.

“Are you okay? Come here.”

Jackie helps him sit up, trying not to be alarmed by how hard he’s shaking. “JJ, when was the last time someone else touched you?”

“Someone bumped me at the airport,” he offers weakly. “And Dark grabbed me.”

“Before that?”

“I don’t know. Anti got rid of them.”

Jackie pats the back of his head and pulls back, looking him over. He’s all freaked out, but - fuck, blood on his back. Jackie pulls his shirt up quickly, but there’s no wound underneath.

“Where’d that come from?”

“What?”

“There’s blood on you. Where are you hurt?”

“I’m okay, Jackie… I’m sorry, I know I’m a freak…”

“You’re not a freak, Jay, fuck. Anti just taught you some messed-up shit. Not your fault you’re a little violent when you’re scared. We just gotta work on it. You’re okay.” He squeezes his shoulder, searching through his hair for soft spots. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

“Jackie - ”

“I’m sorry I let you come with me.”

“You shouldn’t have come out at all, but - ”

“I know, I just get so insecure and I know it’s pathetic, I just - ”

“Jackie!” JJ claps in front of his face. “You’re the one bleeding!”

Jackie looks down at his shirt, where blood is pooling against his right breast.

“This is the hoodie Max gave me,” he whines. “Will the blood come out?”

JJ is tearing it off him and pulling up his shirt. Jackie takes the hoodie before it falls to the ground and hugs it to his uninjured side, mourning the stain on it.

JJ’s hands run over a knife wound in Jackie’s chest. “How do you feel?” he signs shakily.

“Okay. I thought he just hit me.”

“He got the knife in.”

“I am a little dizzy.”

Jameson knows well enough that the adrenaline will fade away all too soon, and then things will be worse than “a little dizzy.” He licks his dry mouth and gets to his feet, still dazed himself, and reaches out to help Jackie to his feet.

“Is it bad?” asks Jackie curiously.

“Let’s get home for now, okay? Just focus on that.”

“Okay.”

Anonymous asked:

Get home as quickly as you can guys. Henrik, Chase, are you awake? Jackie got seriously injured and is trying to make it home. JJ is with him, they got in a fight. Have medical supplies near by if you get this.

Noodle is awake in the middle of the night, zipping around the apartment at the speed of light and jumping on everything he can reach, and when he notices the camera beeping from the corner of the twins’ room, he decides to jump on that too.

“Pot Noodle! Fuck,” groans Chase, turning over. His cat springs away again. Chase rolls over to grab the camera. “Shit - Schneep, get up.”

“Mh? No. I’m sleeping. Good night for ten years.”

“Jackie and JJ got in a fight.”

Henrik swears rapidly in German, getting up from the blankets. “Where’s my bag?”

“In the bathroom, I’ll get it.”

The sleepiness disappears like it was cut out of them and they get to work in tandem, without speaking again. Chase sets water to boil on the stove. Henrik lays their cheapest blanket over Jackie and Marvin’s bed, setting his medical supplies up beside it before heading to the kitchen to ready a big glass of water. Chase shuts Noodle in his room and then pulls his shoes on, heading out onto the balcony of the apartment to watch for his brothers.

Henrik steps out to join him a moment later, wrapping his tattered doctor’s coat close around them.

“I’m going to kill them,” he says.

“I’ll help,” replies Chase.

Anonymous asked:

Are the others awake?! Jackie is hurt, I don't know how badly, but some guy got a knife jab in him and he's bleeding a lot.

“Don’t worry, Jay,” says Jackie gently, rubbing his little brother’s back. “I bet Chase and Schneep will get up and help. I’ll be fine.”

Jameson is clinging to his side and to his hand, like he’s ready to catch him if he falls, but Jackie feels fine. He’s had worse. Actually, it’s kind of nice - JJ all snuggled up beside him, fussing over him. He’d never admit it out loud, but he doesn’t mind being the center of attention. Schneep and Chase will probably fuss over him too. Well, he’ll get chewed out, for sure. But maybe they’ll all stay in his room with him and bring him snacks and stuff like that. It could be a nice break. He’ll call in sick to work and because he’s hurt, everybody will keep him company and entertain him and stuff. This could be a best-case scenario. He ruffles JJ’s hair fondly, but Jameson just looks up at him with his big blue eyes, and Jackie can’t read the expression in them. Jameson squeezes his palm warmly. They’re just about a block from the apartment.

It’s around this time that the pain starts to register. He goes grey so fast he actually feels some of the blood draining from his face, his heartbeat picking up tangibly somewhere inside his skull. He swallows thickly, his head swimming, and his next step sort of misses its mark, making him stagger slightly against his brother.

JJ’s arm is ready around his waist, keeping him from falling. Jackie is too dazed to make any comments - he can barely register what’s going on. Everything is glazed over in a sort of numb confusion.

But his side still hurts.

Tears rise in his eyes as he’s forced to take another step, and when his grip on the wound loosens, JJ’s hand is there, forcing him to keep pressure on it. He groans, trying to pull back a little, but Jameson tugs him resolutely forward, clicking his tongue at him, the only comfort he’s able to give him.

“Ow, ow, ow,” complains Jackie, swaying against his brother. “I - I gotta have a quick break, James.”

But JJ doesn’t let him stop. He presses down hard on the wound and keeps him going. Jackie feels sick. It hurts more every second. He wants to stop. He feels bad. “Ow, JJ, ow.”

“Motherfuck,” rumbles Henrik from the balcony. “He’s staggering. Chase - ”

Chase is already taking off at a sprint, hurrying down the apartment building’s stairs towards his brothers.

Anonymous asked:

You'll be okay Jackie, just make it a little further. We got Dok and Chase ready for you, you'll be okay.

Jackie blinks at you like a bird snatched out of the sky, his mouth open. He takes another step and half crumbles, letting out a startled wail as he falters against JJ.

“Jackie, Jackie.” Chase just seems to be chanting his name as he runs up to them, grabbing him from the other side, and JJ and Chase pull his arms over their shoulders and keep him moving forward even as his eyes water with the pain. “Jackie - shit, JJ, how did he even - this much - ?”

JJ shoots him a warning look and Chase shuts his mouth.

“It’s okay, man, Schneep’s ready.”

“I want Blue,” sobs Jackie. “Where is he?”

“Come on, let’s just get you up the stairs, okay? We can carry you if we have to.”

“No, I can walk!” cries Jackie, flushing just at the thought of them having to pull him up the stairs. “I just want to go to bed, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just had a bad dream, I just - ”

“Jackie, it’s okay. It’s okay. We’re right here. It’s going to be okay.”

But there’s wet, sticky blood down his chest and he does not like it. He doesn’t like this. He wants this to stop.

Anonymous asked:

How bad is the injury, Henrik? Don't be too hard on him, they've been through a lot tonight. I really hope Jackie will be okay.

Henrik is waiting in the open door to their apartment, face drawn. He beckons them inside and into Jackie’s room, and everyone helps him on to the bed.

At this point Jackie’s crying more out of frustration than anything else, and being unable to stop crying only makes things worse. He’s bleeding, it’s sticky, it hurts, he’s caused all his brothers trouble, he’s pathetic, he’s useless -

“Jackie, my Jackie,” Henrik calls. “Don’t curl in on yourself, my dear, come here.”

Jackie wants to curl up and die. Henrik is trying to pull him out of his roly-poly ball, but he doesn’t want to go. He wants this to stop. Chase and Henrik are both so loud and the room is too bright and too hot and he hates the blood everywhere and he’s crying and it hurts.

“Schneep, don’t we have - you know - ”

“Nothing to put him fully asleep, just some localized anesthesia.”

“Should we go to the hospital?”

“Not if we don’t have to. He keeps getting in stupid street fights. I don’t know what he was up to.”

There’s a pause, and then Henrik answers JJ: “Oh, just a small fight, huh? You think this makes it better? You are in trouble later. Hey! Don’t you sign at me in that tone of voice! Okay, fine, fine! Is good that you were there, whatever. Chase, get me a syringe.”

Henrik bends over Jackie, pulling his hands carefully back. His mouth sets as he manages to look at the wound, reaching down to put pressure on it again when he finishes.

“Yes, is good you were there,” he repeats quietly. “And a good thing this is the right and not the left. Mostly it’s in his shoulder, I think. Need a better look. Jackie, is alright. Sh, don’t look at me like that… I’ll forgive you if you get better, okay? Here I am.”

scunneredzombie asked:

Let your brothers help Jackie, there's no reason to be ashamed. You will be okay, just need a bit of help up the stairs and then you can lay down and let Schneep take care of you. It'll be done soon, just hold on.

“Yes, of course,” murmurs Henrik, rubbing Jackie’s good shoulder in slow, rhythmic motions. “How many times I have patched you up? It will be okay.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” cries Jackie. “Please make it stop.”

“Jackie, I have something for the pain - ”

“No, no needles, Dok!” screams Jackie, pulling away from him. “No, I don’t - ”

“Jackie, Jackie.” Henrik holds his face and tries to keep his voice low and steady. “I know you can be brave for me. I know it’s too much but you must calm down or I won’t be able to help. Now you must come here and let me give you just one shot. Yes? Here, let me see.”

He cuts Jackie’s shirt down the middle, revealing the wound. He reaches to take the hoodie from Jackie too, since he’s clutching it to his chest, but Jackie rears back with it, clinging to the fabric.

“Okay! But you can hold it out of the way for me, okay? Just in one hand. Hold it in your left hand and let your arm down. There you go. Thank you, my brother, my dear. Okay.”

Chase hands Henrik the syringe with the anesthetic after Henrik pulls on latex gloves and Henrik turns back to Jackie with it, placing a hand on his chest to steady him. Chase moves forward to clean the wound with a sterilized cloth. Now, with the shirt gone and Jackie doing his best to stay uncurled, Henrik can see the wound fully.

Henrik can… see the wound fully.

A line of black-red blood against white skin. It trails down Jackie’s naked chest as he squirms, helpless to do anything about what’s happening. Stuck. The thick scent of copper is filling up the room, and Henrik’s fingers feel numb around the body of the syringe. What’s going on? He’s done this all before. He’s a doctor. He just needs to put the needle in his chest, just -

The sharp blade of the needle drawing blood from his chest, and -

It’s sharp, cutting into him, and nobody comes when he screams, and the blood runs down him in rivulets. The flies come to eat at it. He can’t move. He can’t -

“Henrik!” Chase catches his twin as Dok staggers, crumpling towards the floor, the needle slipping out of his hand.

Anonymous asked:

Oh Henrik, it'll be okay. It's triggering you a bit because of memories of pain. Try to fight through it, they need the good doctor right now. I believe in you, just stitch him up and you can go rest and de-stress.

“Schneep?” cries Chase, pulling him to his chest as JJ moves to comfort Jackie. Fuck, what a goddamn night. He just wants to wake up and realize it was just a bad dream. “Henrik, man, look at me.”

But Schneep won’t. His eyes fixate on the carpet in front of him, his eyebrows pulled together in a vague sort of alarm. Chase pats his cheek rapidly, trying to pull him back. “Schneep, don’t get lost in that head of yours. It’s okay. Just - JJ, come here and look after him a second. I gotta at least give Jackie the anesthesia.”

Jameson comes to his aid obediently, sitting down beside Henrik and hugging him from the side. Henrik takes a fistful of JJ’s shirt into his hand without looking at him, breathing heavily through his nose.

Chase gives Jackie the anesthesia. “There, Jacks, now at least the pain will settle down in a minute, okay? Hang in there.”

“Do I need stitches? I want to go to bed, Chase, I don’t feel good!”

“Yeah, a few stitches, but you won’t feel them much, okay? Here, have some water, come on.”

Chase looks back at Henrik as he helps Jackie drink, but his twin is just sitting there, staring at the floor. “Henrik, I know it’s rough. But they’re right: I kind of need you right now. Come on, Dok. Nobody’s going to hurt you. I swear, okay? Not ever again.”

JJ sets his chin down on Henrik’s shoulder and looks up at Chase unhappily.

“Are you okay?” asks Chase.

JJ nods.

“Well, great,” Chase breathes, turning back to Jackie. “Two out of five, that’s great.”

Anonymous asked:

JJ, you know how to stitch up wounds right? Can you or Chase take over for him right now and get the bleeding to stop at least? This is really a crisis scenario oh boy.

“My medication makes my hands shaky,” says JJ, flexing his fingers.

“It’s fine, I’ve stitched all of you up before,” says Chase, exhausted. “Just - will you get him out of here? Just lay him down, okay?”

“Are you sure?”

“He’s not going to be able to do this,” says Chase, turning his eyes back to Jackie. “He doesn’t deserve to have to go through it all again. See if you can get him back to bed.”

Chase doesn’t look back as JJ leads Henrik up and out of the room. He doesn’t want to see that blank distance in his twin’s eyes ever again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Jackie is chanting, beginning to cry in earnest again.

Chase strokes his hair quietly, readying a needle and thread. “It’s okay, man. Listen, I need you to try and be as still as you can for ten minutes, okay? Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Chase, I’m sorry.”

“There’s my guy. Okay, it’s going to hurt a little, Jackie. Ready? Don’t look.”

Jackie squeezes his eyes shut, tears flowing over his face as Chase works in silence, trying to stitch well and keep Jackie steady at the same time. Jackie flinches and groans and tries to rock a couple times, but as they go he gets quieter and quieter - and whiter, too. Chase blanches at the sight of how much blood is soaking into their blanket.

The wound was deep, but not wide, and it has pierced mostly muscle, which is a relief. Chase soothes his hands over the stitches, checking that they are held together fast. He looks up to see Jackie half-conscious on his pillows, blinking slowly up at the ceiling, his face hot from crying. Chase shushes him softly and turns him onto his side just enough to wrap gauze around the wound.

“No itching at those, okay?” murmurs Chase.

“I’m cold,” whimpers Jackie.

“You lost a lot of blood. Lie still for a while. I’ll make it better.”

Chase sets up a blood bag and swipes the inside of his elbow with iodine. He chugs half of Jackie’s water and squeezes his hand around the sheets of the bed, letting his veins rise in his arm and setting the empty blood bag between his teeth before sliding the needle into the vein of his arm.

He breathes slowly through his nose, taking deep breaths. When he’s ready, he squeezes into the bedsheets again, pumping the blood out of his arm and into the bag.

“Drink some more water,” he tells Jackie, holding the glass up to him with his free hand. “Come on, don’t look at me like that.”

Jackie is just staring up at him with big, guilty eyes, white in the face. Chase lies down beside him and sighs, closing his eyes and squeezing his fist in the blankets, feeling the blood rush out of him.

“I love you,” says Jackie in a wavering voice.

“I love you too,” answers Chase. “I wish you would stop forgetting about that.”

Jackie’s eyes water and drip. They lie together on the pillows of the bed, and when Chase has filled the blood bag and offers up a clean needle, Jackie allows him to press it into his arm.

“I’ll clean up,” murmurs Chase.

“No,” protests Jackie, clinging to his shirt. “No, stay… I want… please.”

“Hey. We’re okay. We’re okay.”

“I’m so tired of feeling this way. I’m so… I’m… I’m sorry.”

Chase wraps his arms around him and holds on to him, closing his eyes. When Jackie starts to cry again, he lets him.

Anonymous asked:

Good job Chase, thank you for taking over for your brother. You did well, we're proud of you! Do you think he'll be okay for now? The wound seemed pretty deep, hopefully it won't take too awfully long to heal.

“Aw,” says Chase, signing to keep quiet. “Thank you, I appreciate that. It’s not so bad, I been watching Dok for years. Yeah…”

He glances down at Jackie asleep beside him, brushing his hands over his shoulder. “I hope he’ll be okay. It’s not a deadly wound, you know? It could have been.”

He sighs. “Always seems to get hurt. I think he gave everybody a pretty good scare. Shit, I’m going to have to call Blue in the morning and tell him. But yeah, Jackie should be okay. It’ll be really sore for a while. Going to keep him in bed. He’s not exactly a deferential patient, though. And if you see him picking at his stitches, tell him off!”

He pets at Jackie’s arm, staring down at him. “Quiet when he sleeps, isn’t he? I don’t think he’s dumb or anything. I just think he’s so emotional lately that sometimes he makes dumb choices. He needs to give himself a break. He could just stay with us, you know? He could enjoy being free a little. Doesn’t have to stress about money and making sure we’re okay all the time. He could make sure he’s okay.”

Chase slides out of bed to get some more water and a snack, repositioning the camera on the end of the bed.

“But yeah. I think he’ll be okay. That’s my Jackie. Tough motherfucker.”

Anonymous asked:

JJ, how are you doing after that? Are you injured at all, or still feeling triggered?

“I feel bad for acting crazy,” admits JJ, sitting beside Henrik as he plays with Noodle. “Jackie wouldn’t have been hurt if I could control myself. I wish I could just convince my brain that I’m not in trouble once and for all.”

“Hi, um - Stacy?”

“Chase, hi, good morning. What’s wrong?”

“Am I that obvious?”

He can hear her smiling in her voice. “Well, we’ve known each other a long time.”

He chuckles weakly, running his hands through his hair. “Yeah. Yeah. Hey, listen, I need to talk to Marv if that’s okay.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Um. Jackie got in a fight last night.”

“Oh, no. I wish it surprised me. Is he okay?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, let me grab Marvin.”

She shouts for him a few times - Chase is pretty sure she has to wake him up because Marvin sleeps like a lazy cat when he gets the chance - but a moment later, he’s on the phone.

“Chase? What’s going on?”

“Um, Blue,” says Chase, his voice rising a little with his nerves. “Well, see, you know how, um - it’s Jackie.”

“What? What’s wrong? Is he upset?”

“Ummmm… Marvin, he got stabbed.”

Chase pulls the phone away from his ear as Marvin starts yelling on the other side.

“He’s okay! Just come over here, please! He wants you.”

Marvin promises to be there soon and the call ends. Chase sighs and moves to the kitchen, getting breakfast ready. It’s going to be a long day.

Anonymous asked:

Feeling better today Jackie? Remember no picking!

Jackie’s laid out on his bed without an ounce of fight left in him, his eyes big and watery. JJ’s sitting with him, rubbing his shoulder.

“The camera…”

“They just want to know how you’re feeling,” signs JJ.

Jackie stares mournfully up at him. He’s white as candle wax. “Okay.”

“Be honest with me,” JJ tells him. “Come on.”

Jackie’s going to cry again. “I feel really bad.”

JJ runs a hand through his hair, clucking his tongue in sympathy. “Chase will go get some better pain medication later and you can have anything you want, okay?”

Jackie hides against JJ’s side, wiping at his face.

“Okay. We’re okay,” signs JJ. “It’s okay. Jackie, I’m sorry I got you hurt.”

“It wasn’t you,” mumbles Jackie. “I was just angry… you were looking out for me. I probably would have just gone and gotten into an even more dangerous fight if you weren’t there.”

Marvin bursts into the room without knocking, dropping a couple plastic bags out in the hallway and racing towards his twin. He slips onto the other side of the bed and grabs Jackie’s hand, feeling for his pulse with the other. “Oh, Jackie, my Rose, are you okay? Oh, my Roser. What were you thinking? Jackie, poor Red.”

He leans down to start kissing Jackie’s face, once, twice, and despite everything Jackie can’t help but giggle a little, pushing him away.

“JJ, how is he?”

“He’s going to be okay,” says JJ with a little smile, brushing a lock of white hair behind Marvin’s ears. “Just needs some TLC.”

“I shouldn’t have gone, Jackie, I’m sorry,” croaks Marvin, squeezing his hand. “I’m terrible, I didn’t even think how much I would upset you saying that shit. I love you, nothing else matters, I shouldn’t have - ”

“Marvin,” whimpers Jackie, reaching up to touch his face. “Don’t, okay? Just… just stay.”

Jameson slips out of the room to give them a few minutes.

Anonymous asked:

You'll be okay Jackie. Your brothers are here for you and like JJ mentioned you'll have better pain killers soon. Just hold on and keep being strong! You may be a little dumb for getting in to this situation but you'll be okay with some love and brotherly care taking.

Jackie shoots you a scandalized look. Marvin bursts into shaky laughter, slumping down on the bed beside him. “You are just a little dumb,” he murmurs, bumping their heads together. “Sometimes.”

Jackie sighs. “Yeah. I am.”

“Jackie, what were you even thinking? Seriously? Talk to me, sugar, because I am just - I’m at a loss, I…”

Jackie’s face creases and falls. He leans back against the pillows, closing his eyes.

“Jackie. I mean it. You have to talk to us. You just… you just have to, love. I can’t watch this eat you alive anymore.”

Jackie opens his eyes again to look up at him. Marvin squeezes his palm once more.

“I’m really unhappy,” whispers Jackie, squeezing his eyes shut against tears. “And now everything hurts and - and I’m so stupid and angry and - and I just want - I just want - but I can’t…”

“My Roser,” sighs Marvin, kissing his hand. “Tell me everything.”

“But it’s ugly!” Jackie croaks. “Everything going on in my head. And I’ll break down. I don’t know if I can come back from that. I don’t know if I can - ”

“Jackie.” Marvin touches his shoulder, cocking his head at him. “Jackie, you’re allowed to be a burden, okay? We all want you to have a chance to get better.”

“I’m - I’m afraid. I don’t want you to leave me when you see how much of a mess I am.”

Marvin closes his eyes and breathes in. “Jackie… I’m just sorry that I haven’t made enough time for you to understand how much you mean to me. I’m sorry I was wallowing. I wish I had been telling you this for weeks, my darling, but listen now, okay?”

Jackie nods, eyebrows furrowing with concentration.

Marvin kisses the back of his hand. “There is nothing in the world that you could do that would make me stop loving you.”

“You promise?” whispers Jackie. “You won’t leave me alone?”

“Never,” Marvin whispers back. “Never, ever, ever. And have I ever lied to you, my heart, my other half?”

“No,” says Jackie. “Never.”

And Jackie lets himself break in half.

Anonymous asked:

Henrik, are you okay? It seems like seeing the wound was a really bad trigger for you. Are you taking care of yourself, getting some rest and doing relaxing things? It's important to de-stress after major triggers like that.

“Henrik?”

Chase sits with his brother, offering him eggs and a bagel on a plate, all nicely placed, with thick golden butter on the bread and a sprinkling of pepper and seasonings on perfectly yellowed eggs. “Are you better this morning, Deutsch?”

Jameson warned him that Henrik has not been responsive since last night. He woke up from nightmares shaking but won’t talk.

“Back in your head, Schneep?” asks Chase miserably, brushing hair from his brother’s eyes. “How do I get you back out of there, huh?”

The noise of Jackie’s crying rises from the other room and Henrik swivels towards it, his eyes big and his body tense like he’s waiting to run. He keeps Noodle firmly in his lap, stroking his fur quickly. This much is different than last time: Henrik is nervous now, not completely dead to everything around him like he was last time. Chase hopes it means he’s closer to the surface than before.

“Let’s get you some food and have some quiet time,” offers Chase, scooting closer to him and offering him some eggs on a fork, shoving an interested Noodle away. “Come on, man. We’re okay.”

Jamie comes to the doorway to check on them, eating a piece of chocolate. He does not like to be unincluded even from bad things, Chase has noticed. He always wants to be around somebody. Chase doesn’t mind.

“Where’d you get that?” asks Chase, nodding at the chocolate.

“Marvin brought bags with him,” says JJ, putting another piece in his mouth between words. “I think Stacy sent some presents.”

“Ooh, get them for us, sugar, Dok should have some chocolate. Maybe I’ll put coffee on too. He loves coffee.”

JJ wanders back into the hall obediently and returns with the plastic bags.

Anonymous asked:

Thank you for letting yourself break Jackie. You're doing a good thing, I promise. Now your brothers are here to help you with the process and aftermath. You're never alone Rose.

Marvin holds on to Jackie against the headboard of the bed, letting Jackie cry against him, and then shout, and then cry again. It seems to Marvin that all the emotions of the past two months - or longer, still - are bleeding out of Jackie in heavy, painful rivulets of overwhelming feels. But maybe once he finally opens the wounds, they can start treating them, and then they can finally heal. If Jackie thought this would be alarming to Marvin, the truth is that his twin has sensed all of this hidden under the surface of Jackie’s skin for months now, and there is nothing but relief even when Jackie screams or sobs hard enough that Marvin knows this much feeling will put Jackie out of commission for days to come. He strokes his back and holds him. His hand rests on Jackie’s shoulder, his silver rose ring glistening on his finger, while Jackie’s dog tags hang over his hoodie, silver in the morning light.

“It’s Max,” cries Jackie, in between everything else, in between his anger towards himself and his hurt towards Anti and his despair towards everything else in the world. “It’s Max, Marvin, all I want is Max.”

“Why can’t you have him?” whispers Marvin.

“Because I’m too broken!” screams Jackie. “Because I’m too scared of him rejecting me! Because I’d rather have the memory of those two weeks when he loved me than ruin it all by having to see him walk away from me the way I walked away from him.”

“Baby,” murmurs Marvin, hugging him. “Why don’t you take a couple days and let yourself be vulnerable like this, and when you see that your brothers and I don’t run away, you’ll know that Max would still love you too.”

“How do you know?”

“I know you, dummy,” chuckles Marvin. “He wouldn’t have stayed with you like this if he didn’t really love you. Hell, you would have never let him near you in the first place.”

“What if I can’t make him happy, though?”

“Then you could at least give the poor man some peace,” Marvin sighs, rubbing his shoulder. “Cause he deserves that much for making you remember what it was to hope for something again.”

scunneredzombie asked:

If Jackie gets really hurt then I'd love to see Blue learning how to care for them all again in healthy ways through caring for Jackie after the injury! Jackie and Marvin having an open, genuine conversation about how to love each other again would be wonderful progress for them.

“Are you going to go stay with the magicians again?” asks Jackie, looking up at his sibling.

“No, I’ll stay here and look after you.”

Jackie can’t help but be a little pleased with this. Here is the being-fussed-over part of getting hurt that he wanted.

“Guess it was worth getting stabbed then,” he says proudly.

“Don’t say that,” chides Marvin, sighing. “You shouldn’t have to get stabbed to finally open up to me.”

Jackie shrugs, fiddling with his blankets. “I don’t want you to go cause I’m too much to handle.”

“I won’t, Jackie. Okay? Just give me a couple chances to prove it.”

“Okay. But to be fair it’s not like you were really opening up to me either.”

Marvin looks away, deflating.

“I wanted you to save me somehow,” he admits roughly. “I was scared to have to start working on myself. Like I said, it wasn’t fair of me. We will be better siblings to each other now.”

“What’s going to change?”

“You’ll come to me,” says Marvin wistfully. “Won’t you? When you need me?”

“If you’ll just be open with me about the fact that you want me there I will,” says Jackie. “You were so agitated whenever I was around.”

“It was my fault, not yours,” murmurs Marvin.

“If you look grumpy and act grumpy and push me away, I’m going to assume you don’t want me around, Marvin. I know sometimes Chase and Schneep can read each other’s minds and they always know when to back off or when to push it and stick around, but I don’t get that. If you tell me to go, I’ll go. But if you just ask me for some time, or to do something together, or tell me that you want to talk - shit, Marvin, don’t you know I’d give you anything in the world that you asked me for?”

Marvin bites down on his lip, nodding. “I do… too much, I think.”

Jackie chuckles. “Yeah, maybe. But I trust you not to ask too much of me.”

“Well, if I do, you have to tell me.”

“That’s fair.”

“It’s just communication, Jackie. Right?”

“Yeah. But I’m not always good at that.”

“You’re fine at that,” replies Marvin. “You’re direct and you’re honest when you just let yourself talk. Just don’t shut yourself up around me.”

“Okay. Just let me know when you want me there.”

“I do need you to understand, though, Jackie, that I can’t always be here either. I have to have my own life outside of this family. I’m going to spend time with the magicians and with my friends. Sometimes I’ll do things you don’t want me to do. Just tell me what’s upsetting you and I’ll explain why it’s important to me and… we’ll go from there.”

“I can do that,” says Jackie. “Just sometimes you know I need a little more time than other people with change. And that’s something I know I need to work on on my own. With a therapist, probably. And I will, Marv. I want you to be happy. I want to be able to let all of you go be your own people… without getting so scared that you’ll never come back to me.”

“Well, from now on, let’s make sure to spend some time with each other every day, or at least explain it to the other when we can’t.”

“And make some fun plans?”

“Once you’re out of bed, you injured loser. What do you want to do?”

“Oh, anything with you,” says Jackie.

Marvin laughs, shaking his head at him. His brother. His twin.

“Yeah,” he says. “That sounds good to me too.”

Admin Note:

Okay… I’m honestly so sad to say this but we are getting close to the end!

Obviously there’s still a few scenes left, and I’ll spend some more time on Jameson and wrap up some of Jackie’s loose ends and so on.

But I just want you to know that in the next few weeks if you want some more time talking with someone or have characters spend more time together or even if you want to give anybody presents or that sort of thing, feel free to send an ask and I will make stuff happen as much as I can!! You can bring up past scenes if there are any story loose ends you would like to know more about.

The next couple weeks are to wrap up the story, obviously. But since you guys have been characters too… it’s also time for you to start saying goodbye to these characters. Just wanted to give you a heads up :’)

and not to be soft but I LOVE YOU okay bye

3 notes · View notes

faenemy · 7 months

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Hii don't mind me, just wanted to ramble abt Mark and friends series in ur ask box cuz why not :3 (you've drawn fanart of them b4 btw!)

SO LETS START OFF WITH SOME CONTEXT. Mark and friends is a completed series on YouTube made by this guy ashur gharavi, it follows the story of Mark blah blah i can't talk in this format snymore I need to go silly mode holf on. SO MARK IS GHIS 'LITTLE MONSTER' KID RIGHT, AND ANOTHER CHARACTER IS BILLY WHO IS AN ADUKT HUMAN. SO THE SERIES IS KINDA LIKE A KIDS CARTOON BUT WITH BLOOD AND MURDER. BILLY KIDNAPPED MARK AND FORCED HIM TO DO STUFF FOR CAMERA. AS THE SERIES GO ON, THERE WILL BE LITTLE HINTS IN THE FORM OF NEWSPAPER OF LIKE WHATS ACTUALLY GOING ON AND WHY HES FOING THIS. READ EVERY SINGLE BACKGROUND NEWSPAPER EVEN IF IT DOESNT FEEL IMPORTANT, THE LITTLE DETAILS ARE SOOOO GOOD. MARK IS LIKE 10 YEARS OLD AND HES LITERALLY SO CUTE, HE DONT DESERVE EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENWD TO HIM. IM NOT GONNA SPOIL THE ENDING FOR U, CUZ ITS LITERALLY SO GOOD I REMEMBWR WHEN I FIRST WATCHED IT AND THE ENDINV IS JUST SO PULLING MY HEAET STRINGS AND LIKE SUCH A TENSE SCENE YK. ITS LITERALLY SO GOOD, THERE ARE 3 COMPILATIONS OF IT (PART 1,2 AND 3) I THINK ITS LIKE 2 HOURS LONG PLEASE PLEASE WATCH IT (ONLY IF U WANNA OFC NO PRESSURE) I LOVE THE CHARACTERS SO MUCH THEYRE SO WELL WRITTEN, I HATE BILLY BUT I LOVE HOW WELL HIS CHARACTER AND MANIPULATION IS WRITTEN HES SO FUCKING CRUEL. I LOVE HOW ASHUR ISNT AFRAID TO JUST FUCKIMG MAKE HIM DO TERRIBLE AWFUL SHIT. I LOVE IT SO MJCH ITS SO CREATIVE I LOVE MARK TOO, HWS SO CUTE I LOVE DRAWING HIM. OH AND ALSO, ITS CANON THAT TWOMP TAKES PLACE AFTERRR THAT SERIES AND MARK IS FRIENDS WITH ARGOS AND MR PLANT. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH THEYRE SO UGHHHHH. THE ACTOR IS EYE CANDY TOO HES SO COOL. PLEASE WATCH IT ILL GIVE U A COOKIE IF U DO (AGAIN, ONLY IF U WANNA THO NO PRESSURE) :3

SOME PICTURES ^^

(This ask wasn't proofread btw)

HI HI HI Thank you for the ask box rambles I love them <3

Definitely did not go and binge the whole series, nope, not me

ANYWAY MY RAMBLINGS AS I WATCHED AND THOUGHTS UNDER CUT

I love this little green guy!

Marks parents seem to be murdered (go figure)

I'm assuming he was kidnapped in an ice cream truck/van??

Mark is kept in a cage without an actual bed it seems, at least when he isn't on camera

Are the puppets the actual children, or do they just represent them?

Mark keeps rubbing his side/stomach, maybe where his kidney was removed??

Child star shows an actual person so kidnapper might have started as a child star?

Grandma knows her kiddo is still alive (GET HIS ASS)

Is the plant guy who killed Big Monster Mr plant?

Donovan escapes???

Cupcake monster gets killed (very sadge)

WHY THE FUCK DID THEY PUT TOMATOES IN A FRUIT SALAD??? JAIL!!!!

apparently monsters are edible, might be some cannibali going on?

Also humans are considered monsters in this world

In "cooking" the newspaper is obscured, but it seems to read (missing childs body found, but not his head) Cupcake Monster???

UPDATE DEFO CUPCAKE MONSTER NOOOOOO

No Illinois, Minnesota or Indiana

Maybe the other kids were from Minnesota and Indiana, since Mark is from Illinois?

Aight my man was defo the child star, I'm assuming he is repeatimg the crimes of big monster???

Oop so search led to Indiana, snap my prior theory lol

Big monsters cousin changes last name

Frame lasted long on that, so I assume it's important

I keep forgetting Billy's name LMAO

Big monster and sewer? Seems like an It reference

So they're near Michigan now, noted

WHY MUST YOU TORMENT ME :(((( I luv paper bag dog NOOOOOO

Mark seems more vocal and challeging billy more now

Billy straight up gave the kids psychedelics my god

Someone save the child pls

Donovan my beloved is traumatized:((((

Oooooh the photos in the background are crying now, I think those are Marks parents?

Mr plant defo killed Big Monster, king shit

OOOOOH

okay so kid star (johnny) met with big monster in the sewer, got murdered

But Billy was the one who encouraged him to, Billy was going to star in the movie before Big Monster was convicted. So he was the kid who was crying in the article because his role was dropped

NOOOOOO MARK IS ADDICTED TO DRUGS

Get HIS ASS GRANDMA

I can't read the teleprompter, get this dude some glasses.

Just remembered how Mark cannonicly has his photos taken???? And sold I think??? Wtf???

Donovan had started a charity:((( he thinks his friends are gone

The date on the newspaper in the back keeps changing

Can I fight Billy??? I think I could take him easy

Mark straight up ate a razor blade get this kid a doctor

OH MY GOSH THEY'RE GOING TO THE DOCTOR

APOLLO HAS BLESSED ME

the eye test in the back reads "Mark has one more week before I kill him" if my new son dies I riot

Can I adopt Mark

Goal list; dispose, replace, repeat

I wonder if there are other shows featuring Donovan and Cupcake Monster?

Why were they kidnapped?

Befriend that strange man??? NOOOO

Did my son just kill Billy???? HELL YEAH

RUN BOY RUN

MY SON IS SAFE!!!!

In conclusion, I would like to adopt Cupcake Monster, they are now my child. I would also like to punch Billy repeatedly :D

#tw cannibalism mention #tw muder #tw kidnapping #mark and friends #mark and friends spoilers #i had a lot of fun watching this #ten outa ten #would recommend #fae rambles

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desertleviathan · 8 months

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With regards to my last enormous post, have a fun fact about each character:

CAPTAIN SIEGE ZABAC - Before he was a FF14 character Siege was a Blades In The Dark character. I had played FF14 during 1.0 and bounced off of it hard, but my BitD crew was full of FF14 players who were trying to lure me in and insisting that it was very different now. They knew I was a giant FF8 dork, so when the concept art for the Gunbreaker job was released, that's how they hooked me. I signed up some time in 4.3-4.4 I think and haven't let my subscription lapse since. And since Siege the BitD Cutter was already in my brain in a big way, I just remade him best as I could in FF14.

R'KHSANA JANNAT - This character exists because I was messing around with retainer appearances and was like "Oh wild, this hairstyle plus this Miqo'te face looks quite a lot like fitness model Jamie Eason (google her somewhere private, you're welcome). Yeah, I made a hot girl character to drool over. There's nothing shameful about that. I'd fuck Siege too. I'd probably let all these alts peg me except maybe Lockpix because the goblin gas mask thing doesn't do it for me. There is no shame in inventing a hot person and then lusting after them.

GRIEVER STRZYGASCH - He is a big fat FF8 reference, obviously. His surname, within the constraints of Hrothgar lore, means something like "Servant of the Witch (Deceased)".

PENITENT CORMORANT - After Siege, Penny is the next oldest of my alts. I was making a blue-eyed Avatar Korra stand-in, my mouse slipped and gave her orange eyes, and I was like "Oh that's spooky, I dig it!", then adjusted things until she looked about 15 years older because those eyes said to me "I have seen shit you can't even imagine."

LUNATICIA CERISE - Luna's original version was my all-time favorite City of Heroes character, an Electric Brute who played like a living monster truck. Her FF14 incarnation handles totally different, but has fundamentally the same personality driving her. Also, Luna is the only one other than Siege who's fully caught up with the MSQ. And she's the only one who has a second "main" job - she's just as much a Reaper as she is a Red Mage.

LOCKPIX BURGLEBANKS - I rolled versions of Lockpix six different times and gave up on them before finding the Goblin Language compilation someone made.

USUL HARAGIN - Usul's name is Paul Muad'dib's secret Fremen tribe name in Dune. It is also one of my favorite jokes in this very silly video.

youtube

PANDORA JARNVIDR - Pandora's backstory came together like... yesterday. Before that she was just the 8th spot because I had already made a character of every other race but Elezen, and I have a pretty active Elezen alt on another server.

#Youtube

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commsroom · 4 months

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what's eiffel's go to snack/concession purchase at monster truck shows? does he even go to monster truck shows? does he just watch them on tv? does doug eiffel enjoy demolition derby? in my head they're kinda the same thing

on one hand, i think eiffel has had a lot of practice sneaking food into movie theaters and other venues. on the other hand, anywhere with a concession stand and a popcorn machine, he's getting popcorn. if it's a fairgrounds type of event with outside food vendors, he can't resist a taco truck or fresh mini donuts. he will complain about lines and that they're ripping everyone off, but even if it's standard stadium food, he'll probably buy a hot dog and a slurpee anyway.

i definitely think he goes to shows, or. at least, has been before and would like to go. i don't think it's the same to watch on tv, and he's not bothered by a loud and rowdy environment. he likes being around people who are hyped up. i think he likes demolition derby, and mud bogging, and lemon racing. monster trucks win out because they're the biggest and loudest and flashiest. (and arguably kinda the nerdiest.) but i think he watches a ton of that stuff as background entertainment on youtube, too. mud bogging compilation videos are like cocomelon for grown men.

#there's also a sense of camaraderie to live entertainment. and eiffel is a lonely person who wants to drown out his thoughts so #i mean. yeah he'd love going to stuff like that. and concerts.#but back to the point. i loveee that eiffel loves monster trucks. one of my favorite eiffel facts it says so much about his taste #thank you!!#asks

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canmom · 1 month

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asgard's wraff too (immediate impression)

I had a brief go at Asgard's Wrath 2, one of the flagship games of the Quest 2/3, published by Meta themselves through their 'Oculus Studios'. This game is provided free to every Quest 3 owner so I figured I'd give it a shot lol. Though I didn't play for all that long before I got a headache and had to stop. (I think the headset was a bit tight, it's very finicky to get this right even with a better strap, and games that demand more movement tend to be worse for it.)

Asgard's Wrath is not to be confused with Asura's Wrath, the fascinatingly odd QTE-based game featuring animation by Studio 4°C. No, what we have is a first-person action game based on Norse mythology. Actually this new game seems to be broadening the mythological palette a bit, but the prologue/recap segment keeps things Norse.

tbh I wasn't particularly sold, but this game's been getting rave reviews everywhere, so maybe it gets better.

When I booted the game it had to compile some 4500 shaders - kinda odd, every Quest is the same so surely it could come with the shaders precompiled? Nevertheless, once that was done the game could get going. What I found was... kinda awkward, if I'm honest.

Broadly speaking Asgard's Wrath II features thumbstick movement with a directional iframe dash, and you can swing your sword and hit stuff. The opening level sees you fight a giant gryphon-like monster which flies around you and shoots laser beams. Credit where it's due, I think it's about as decent an implementation of this kind of thing as you could hope for... but in that very respect it really starkly shows the limitations of VR for action games.

Standing up and playing this game did not, fundamentally, feel more ~immersive~ than sitting at my desk playing an FPS game. If anything it felt less so. It felt sort of like I was piloting a mech rather than standing there as a Norse goddess. Especially when your character is flung bodily around: you look down and see your character's body near-prone, but your proprioception tells you exactly where your feet are, and it isn't there.

Movement generally feels quite glidy - no doubt too much up-and-down camera movement would be a motion sickness trigger, but also you can feel that you're physically standing on the floor, and somehow that is more noticeable when you're supposed to be walking than when you're supposed to be flying in a game like Rez Infinite. If you try to physically move around, the world sorta slides away from you in a weird way. I honestly think I would have preferred the teleportation based movement used in games like Half Life Alyx.

The whole thing felt like it was constantly calling attention to the difference between my physical body and virtual body.

Still, all that aside...

The game throws you in to a recap of the previous game. You get a little controls tutorial in a mysterious mystical space by disembodied arms belonging to the Norns, then you ride a giant bird through a series of vignettes from the previous game; then you get to wander around a tavern that is supposedly a prison where Loki used to be contained (always up to his tricks), encountering sort of phantasms of almost all the Norse gods telling you off for trusting Loki. Plus a little band playing tunes with a centaur in it, that part was cute.

This story, where a nameless player character is just sort of crowbarred into Norse mythology, feels incredibly 'videogames excuse plot'. From the way the recap was told, it was pretty evidently the kind of game where you're led around through a series of setpieces, while being told that you're powerful and important and a big deal. It's a story that's hard to take seriously in its own right.

I don't love the character designs. They look like a Marvel movie crashed into a truck full of concept art, full of ostentatious armour and huge horns. The way they talk, as well, feels very much like 'I am trying to get this exposition over as efficiently as possible'.

Things picked up a bit when a gryphon shows up and attacks you. The big bird here looks great and movies really well. The mechanics involved a few types of attack pattern to respond to - it's a tutorial boss so nothing too complicated.

The main weak point is the actual act of swing the sword at the big bird when it's down. It felt sort of like I was just waggling at it with a foam sword - there is no way to disguise the fact that you are swinging a small plastic controller which isn't actually hitting anything. But it was also hard to tell how much damage I was doing.

After you beat the gryphon you fall in a lake. Here, you're floating back-first into the gloom, but in practice you're falling horizontally, so again it has that disconnect.

OK, now let's talk about rendering. You knew it was coming x3

A lot of the materials in this game have that sort of smooth, noticeably low-poly look you see on the Quest. The game does try pretty hard with baked lighting and what appeared to be some envmapped specular reflections, and one point in the opening sequence had a dynamic light playing across the hands of the Norns - that was neat. I was also impressed by the rope physics while you're riding the giant bird. Certainly those 4500 shaders are doing some work in here. The main issue is, as with every Quest game, the lack of any dynamic shadows.

The tavern scene seems to be running into some kind of limit with showing skinned meshes, since most characters only appear when you move near to them, and they're all rendered with this Fresnel glow shader that hides any actual lighting information. But the characters rendered more normally generally look good. The animations at least are solid and abundant. Expressive body language is vital in a game.

I'll give it a bit more time at some point, but overall this feels very much like a game that was made as 'flagship action game to prove an AAA-style game is viable in VR', and on that front I feel like I'll take some convincing still - everything so far feels like it would work a lot better on a flat screen. It doesn't really have much identity as a game so far either - its interpretation of Norse mythology is gaudy and not particularly original, and it really feels like it's taking itself way too seriously. I think a dash of humour and weirdness would help tremendously. But maybe the Egyptian and Aztec sections will be more appealing, Norse shit is kinda played out these days.

iunno, are people still interested in reading about these VR adventures? I know most people don't have these platforms so I may as well be discussing the fauna of the moon

#computer games #vr

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ghostflowerdreams · 9 months

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Books Similar to Stranger Things

The most obvious starting point is to check out the officially authorized novels that further expand the canonical Stranger Things world, such as Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond. It's a prequel novel that follows Eleven's mother and her time as a test subject in the MKUltra program. Then there's Darkness on the Edge of Town by Adam Christopher, which is about Chief Jim Hopper's old life as a police detective in New York City.

There's more novels that delve into the past of a few of the show’s characters like Runaway Max by Brenna Yovanoff, which explores Max's past--the good and the bad--as well as how she came to find her newfound sense of home in Hawkins, Indiana.

However, if that still isn't enough the next best thing is to find books that are similar to Stranger Things or give off the same feels via plot, the friendship, theme and aspects of it. I know I'm not the only one on the search and so while scouring the web I've compiled a list of the most common book recommendations I've seen people suggest.

I like making lists like these as this is how I also usually form my 'To Be Read' list. Oh, and this isn't any particular order either.

Paper Girls Vol. #1 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Cliff Chiang (Artist) & Matt Wilson (Colorist) — is a graphic novel that follows a group of 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls in the early hours after Halloween of 1988, who uncover the most important story of all time. [1]

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix — The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. After an evening of skinny-dipping Gretchen disappears in the woods but returns a few hours later, naked and…different. She’s moody. She’s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby.

Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries—and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

Ghoul by Brian Keene — There is something in the local cemetery that comes out at night. Something that is unearthing corpses and killing people. It’s the summer of 1984 and Timmy and his friends are looking forward to no school, comic books, and adventure. But instead they will be fighting for their lives.

The ghoul has smelled their blood and it is after them. But that’s not the only monster they will face this summer...

The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson — Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls--a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place--Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories.

The summer Jake turns twelve, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly lighthearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined.

Summer of Night (Seasons of Horror #1) by Dan Simmons — It's the summer of 1960 in Elm Haven, Illinois, and five 12-year old boys are forming the bonds that a lifetime of changes will never erase. But then a dark cloud threatens the bright promise of summer vacation: on the last day of school, their classmate Tubby Cooke vanishes.

Soon, the group discovers stories of other children who once disappeared from Elm Haven. And there are other strange things happening in town: unexplained holes in the ground, a stranger dressed as a World War I soldier, and a rendering-plant truck that seems to be following the five boys. The friends realize that there is a terrible evil lurking in Elm Haven...and they must be the ones to stop it.

Haven by Tom Deady — In 1961, the small town of Haven thought they'd gotten rid of their monster.

After a series of child killings, Paul Greymore was caught carrying a wounded girl. His face, disfigured from a childhood accident, seemed to confirm he was the monster the community hoped to banish. With Paul in prison, the killings stopped.

For seventeen years, Haven was peaceful again. But Paul served his time and has now returned to Haven--the town where he grew up, and the scene of his alleged crimes. Paul insists he didn't commit those crimes, and several townspeople believe him including the local priest, a young boy named Denny, and his best friend Billy.

Trouble is, now that Paul is back home, the bizarre killings have started again--and the patterns match the deaths from Haven's past. If Paul isn't the killer, who is?

Or WHAT is? An unlikely band of adventurers attempts to uncover the truth, delving into long-hidden tunnels that might actually be inhabited by a strange, predatory creature.

One Word Kill (Impossible Times #1) by Mark Lawrence — In January 1986, fifteen-year-old boy-genius Nick Hayes discovers he’s dying. And it isn’t even the strangest thing to happen to him that week.

Nick and his Dungeons & Dragons-playing friends are used to living in their imaginations. But when a new girl, Mia, joins the group and reality becomes weirder than the fantasy world they visit in their weekly games, none of them are prepared for what comes next. A strange—yet curiously familiar—man is following Nick, with abilities that just shouldn’t exist. And this man bears a cryptic message: Mia’s in grave danger, though she doesn’t know it yet. She needs Nick’s help—now.

He finds himself in a race against time to unravel an impossible mystery and save the girl. And all that stands in his way is a probably terminal disease, a knife-wielding maniac and the laws of physics.

Starr Creek by Nathan Carson — Set in 1986 rural Oregon, Starr Creek features Heavy Metal teens, Christian biker gangs, and hopped up kids on 3-wheeled ATVs. They all collide when strange occurrences unveil an alien world inhabiting the Oregon woods.

Inside by D. M. Siciliano — Set in 1987. Reid is a bully, but he’s still Alex’s best friend. When Reid pushes Alex and their friends into invading a historically haunted Massachusetts house, Alex knows it’s a terrible idea, but indulges his friend. What could go wrong?

Inside, a mysterious Shadow looms in the darkness. The door to the house vanishes, leaving them trapped. The group flees through the tiny, one-roomed house that defies logic, constantly shifting, presenting them with new doors, hallways, and rooms that seem to be plucked from their memories and fears. One by one, the Shadow hunts them, intent on burning them all from within.

Is there any way to escape? Or will they be burned from the inside out?

The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek by Link Neal & Rhett James McLaughlin — It’s 1992 in Bleak Creek, North Carolina—a sleepy little place with all the trappings of an ordinary Southern town: two Baptist churches, friendly smiles coupled with silent judgments, and an unquenchable appetite for pork products. Beneath the town’s cheerful façade, however, Bleak Creek teens live in constant fear of being sent to the Whitewood School, a local reformatory with a history of putting unruly youths back on the straight and narrow—a record so impeccable that almost everyone is willing to ignore the suspicious deaths that have occurred there over the past decade.

At first, high school freshmen Rex McClendon and Leif Nelson believe what they’ve been told: that the students’ strange demises were all just tragic accidents, the unfortunate consequence of succumbing to vices like Marlboro Lights and Nirvana. But when the shoot for their low-budget horror masterpiece, PolterDog, goes horribly awry—and their best friend, Alicia Boykins, is sent to Whitewood as punishment—Rex and Leif are forced to question everything they know about their unassuming hometown and its cherished school for delinquents.

Eager to rescue their friend, Rex and Leif pair up with recent NYU film school graduate Janine Blitstein to begin piecing together the unsettling truth of the school and its mysterious founder, Wayne Whitewood. What they find will leave them battling an evil beyond their wildest imaginations—one that will shake Bleak Creek to its core.

Dead Flip by Sara Farizan — Growing up, Cori, Maz, and Sam were inseparable best friends, sharing their love for Halloween, arcade games, and one another. Now it’s 1992, Sam has been missing for five years, and Cori and Maz aren’t speaking anymore. How could they be, when Cori is sure Sam is dead and Maz thinks he may have been kidnapped by a supernatural pinball machine? These days, all Maz wants to do is party, buy CDs at Sam Goody, and run away from his past. Meanwhile, Cori is a homecoming queen, hiding her abiding love of horror movies and her queer self under the bubblegum veneer of a high school queen bee. But when Sam returns—still twelve years old while his best friends are now seventeen—Maz and Cori are thrown back together to solve the mystery of what really happened to Sam the night he went missing. Beneath the surface of that mystery lurk secrets the friends never told one another, then and now. And Sam’s is the darkest of all...

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman — Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

Whispering Pines (Whispering Pines #1) by Heidi Lang & Kati Bartkowski — Rae’s father vanished without a trace—and Rae knows what happened to him. But no one believes her when she says that her father didn’t run off, that he was actually taken. Now, a year of therapy later, Rae’s mother decides they need a fresh start, and so they move to a new town in the hope that life can return to normal.

The problem is, there is nothing normal about the town of Whispering Pines.

No one knows this better than Caden. He’s lived in Whispering Pines his entire life, and he’s seen more than his fair share of weird—starting with his own family, as the town is the perfect home base for his mother’s ghost hunting business.

When several kids go missing and then show up like zombies with their eyes removed, many locals brush it off. Just another day in Whispering Pines. But Caden has a dark secret, one that may explain why someone is stealing eyes. And Rae, who knows how it feels to not be believed, may be just the person Caden needs to help him put things right.

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand — On the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.

Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now.

Three teenage girls who come together to face an ancient evil.

Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.

Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.

Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

The Devouring Gray (The Devouring Gray #1) by C.L. Herman — On the edge of town a beast haunts the woods, trapped in the Gray, its bonds loosening…

Uprooted from the city, Violet Saunders doesn’t have much hope of fitting in at her new school in Four Paths, a town almost buried in the woodlands of rural New York. The fact that she’s descended from one of the town’s founders doesn’t help much, either—her new neighbours treat her with distant respect, and something very like fear. When she meets Justin, May, Isaac, and Harper, all children of founder families, and sees the otherworldly destruction they can wreak, she starts to wonder if the townsfolk are right to be afraid.

When bodies start to appear in the woods, the locals become downright hostile. Can the teenagers solve the mystery of Four Paths, and their own part in it, before another calamity strikes?

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland — Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats.

Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind.

As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children.

The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.

It by Stephen King — is about seven adults who return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they had first stumbled on as teenagers…an evil without a name: It.

Welcome to Derry, Main. It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real...

They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made twenty-eight years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children.

Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that terrifying summer return as they prepare to once again battle the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers. [2]

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero — It takes place in a small mining town in Oregon, first in 1977 where a group of kids who call themselves the Blyton Summer Detective Club have uncovered the truth behind a creature called the Sleepy Lake monster and a supposedly haunted mansion.

Years later, in 1990, the meddling kids are all grown up but are called back to that small town when the mystery resurfaces, apparently not as resolved as they had once all thought.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury — is a dark fantasy about two 13-year-old best friends, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, and their nightmarish experience with a traveling carnival called 'Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Show' that comes to their Midwestern home, Green Town, Illinois, on October 24th.

Whisper (Whispers 1) by Lynette Noni — “Lengard is a secret government facility for extraordinary people,” they told me. I believed them. That was my mistake. There isn’t anyone else in the world like me. I’m different. I’m an anomaly. I’m a monster.

For two years, six months, fourteen days, eleven hours and sixteen minutes, Subject Six-Eight-Four — ‘Jane Doe’ — has been locked away and experimented on, without uttering a single word.

As Jane’s resolve begins to crack under the influence of her new — and unexpectedly kind — evaluator, she uncovers the truth about Lengard’s mysterious ‘program’, discovering that her own secret is at the heart of a sinister plot … and one wrong move, one wrong word, could change the world.

The Lightning Tree (The NI Revolution Trilogy #1) by Lene Fogelberg — Nature finally rises against humanity.

Flora Reed discovers a lifeless body in her front yard the morning after the last day of her junior year of high school. Matters get worse when more people from her small town are found dead under mysterious circumstances and police take an interest in the boy next door, Carl.

Flora is convinced that Carl is innocent, suspecting that the deaths are somehow connected to her younger sister Fauna's tragic accident a year earlier. What she learns changes everything, and she has to race against time to prevent the killings from spreading. Flora and a small group of friends soon find themselves at the onset of an apocalyptic battle between man and nature, with no one believing their story.

The Call by Peadar Ó Guilín — is set in a unique future of Ireland—or what once was Ireland. Everyday children from as young as 10, fear the day they will get “The Call” – a point in which they are sent the Grey Lands, where they must survive being hunted by the Sidhe for twenty-four hours. Some come back alive, some dead, and some come back…different.

The story focuses mainly on Nessa, a fourteen-year-old girl with twisted legs thanks to polio. While not immune to the taunts and whispers she receives about her disability, she trains hard and is determined to prove to everyone that she can not only survive The Call, but that she deserves to be there.

All Our Hidden Gifts (The Gifts #1) by Caroline O’Donoghue — is set in an Irish town where the church’s tight hold has loosened and new freedoms are trying to take root.

It follows sixteen-year-old Maeve after she finds a deck of tarot cards while cleaning out an old closet in her Catholic school. She quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at school.

But when Maeve’s ex–best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace.

The Door to December by Dean Koontz — Little Melanie had been kidnapped when she was only three. She was nine when she was found wandering the L.A. streets, with blank eyes. What had become of her in all those years of darkness... and what was the terrible secret, clutching at her soul, that she dared not even whisper?

Her loving mother and the police desperately hunted for the answer. They needed Melanie to help get to the bottom of the most savage scene of carnage the city had ever seen. And they would do anything to save her from whatever dreadful force or thing had invaded her young life. But first, they would have to save themselves from a rising tide of terror... and from an icy evil howling through The Door to December.

Infinity's Doorway by David Wind — Arren Blaine is a cop, he doesn't believe in the paranormal. He knows there is no such things as Werewolves or Shifters, until...

"Find me..." The words uttered by the mysterious woman he'd swerved off the road to miss, echo continually in Dallas policeman Arren Blaine's head as he fights to get back into the world of the living, after the almost fatal car crash.

"Find me..." So begins an odyssey of discovery that takes him far from the Dallas P.D. forensic labs and into the frightening world of the supernatural in his search for the woman who had saved his life. A woman he is destined to share eternity with, if he can find her... If he can save her...if she is even human...

Notes:

[1] — There's actually a live-action adaptation of Paper Girls on Amazon Prime. So, if you really like it you can also check it out. This is recommended a lot because there's plenty of striking similarities between Paper Girls and Stranger Things. Both feature a group of young heroes; ordinary kids who grew up in the '80s and are plunged into a series of adventures.

However, Paper Girls is it's own thing and is not an Stranger Things imitation as some people going into it expected it to be. It actually has a different tone, message and concept.

[2] — Stranger Things has many tropes inspired by Stephen King's works such as Carrie, Firestarter, It, The Mist and The Talisman (with a bit of The Body thrown in). This is why whenever someone asks for recommendations his books are always suggested.

#Stranger Things #books #book recommendations #books similar to Stranger Things #list of books #recommended books #books to read #books similar to #tbr #to-be-read list #to be read

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