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polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup · 8 months

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hii 📓

Okay so the thing is that I wanted a “the Zenin raised Megumi instead of Gojo” fic but the thing is that I’m absolutely convinced that if the Zenin were the ones that took Megumi they wouldn’t actually take tsumiki too. The fandom consensus I’ve personally seen has been that she would have been taken and mistreated by zenin for being a female non sorcerer but I personally think they would have just straight up left her behind.

They only bought Megumi. They keep non sorcerers and women as servants in their compound but all of them are Zenin themselves. Tsumiki isn’t related and I couldn’t really see any reason why they’d want her. Which turned this into a fic where Tsumiki loses her brother, but she’s trying to find him again, she swears. I think of it as my “siblings doomed by the narrative desperately try to write a new one where they can be together” fic.

The thing is that Tsumikis mom was one of those people who thought love and consumption were synonymous. She had a habit of getting caught up with assholes and just… having both of them chew on each other for a while until it turns into this horrible fucking bloodbath.

Tojis just another loser her mom got caught up in, but he’s Tsumiki’s favorite out of all the losers, because he gave her her brother. Her mom marries this random guy she barley knows and Tsumikis pretty sure she does it so they can both ditch their kids twice as much, secure in the knowledge that there’s supposedly another person checking in. It works out great for them, because they both stop coming entirely. It’s fine, because Tsumiki has Megumi and Megumi has Tsumiki and they don’t need anything else.

It’s one of those things where they were in really unhealthy circumstances and it made their relationship a little bit unhealthy but not necessarily bad. They both had to grow up way too fast and deal with way too much too soon and become codependent on each other because they are, in the most literal way possible, dependent on one another. Neither of them know how to love in a way that doesn’t involve sacrificing themselves for their sibling, mostly because they don’t have a way that doesn’t involve that.

They’re in a sinking ship and tsumiki knows it. Their parents aren’t coming back. The money is going to run out sooner or later. Their problems are stacking up.

Megumi has confessed to her that he sees things that no one else does. When she asks him how he knows no one else sees them, he explains that they’d say something if they did and won’t say anything else. And she doesn’t know what to believe but she refuses to call him crazy. He tells her that monsters cling to her back and he fights them off for her. She patches up his bruises and cuts and tells him he’s brave and tries to figure out if she’s just imagining that her back feels lighter after. He tells her that there are dogs that only he can see that have started following him around, and she tells him she believes him and can never remember, later, if she meant it or was just saying it.

The last time Toji came by, he left them more money than tsumikis ever seen in her life, took them to ice cream, told them that he was sorry he was so shit at this and that the money was Megumi’s share in a payment. It was for something he was going to help daddy with later. Tsumiki and him were to use it to take care of themselves and be healthy, because Megumi couldn’t help him later if he wasn’t. And tsumiki was always afraid of what he meant by that, but in the end, she let it slip her mind. After all, Toji hadn’t been by in ages. He probably wouldn’t come by at all.

And he didn’t. But others did. Two men she’s never met before are waiting outside their building one day, and when they see Megumi, they laugh. But the thing that Tsumiki can never get out of her mind later is that she swears they weren’t looking at Megumi directly. They were looking at his dogs.

Tsumiki basically tries to get Megumi and powerwalk past them, but they’re a lot bigger and a lot stronger and there’s nothing she can do, really. They have a brief conversation about whether they should take her too, before one decides that Toji only sold him his kid and to leave the other behind. This makes both of them try to run, but there’s nothing either of them can do to overpower the men, and the men say that “Naobito would go ballistic if they left the ten shadows behind” so they take Megumi and leave her.

They put Megumi in a car and shove Tsumiki to the curb outside of it, and she tried to hold onto his hand, she swears. She grabbed at the car door even when the car started moving, and she banged on the windows, and she watched as Megumi kicked and punched and screamed inside, until one of them hit him and he went still. She ends up falling and hitting her head when the car picks up speed, and when she wakes up again, the cars gone and she has no idea where it went.

And it becomes a foundational moment for who she is. I think she was just intensely lonely before Megumi and poured a lot of herself into this idea of a family together. Tsumikis never able to shake the moment of her being outside the car and Megumi being on the inside, and not being able to get into him. She can never again get what she felt in that moment out of her head.

She goes to the police and tells them that it’s her little brother, his dad sold him but she wants him back, and they’re like “…”. The issue is that apparently her mom can pick up the damn phone if the police call and she shows up, spins some lie about how her and the stepdad split up and he took the kid with him, they never adopted each others kids so it was within his rights, Tsumiki was taking the separation hard and acting out. She lies, basically, because toji hadn’t kept up his end of the deal and dropped in to check in (neither had she) and his kid wasn’t her responsibility, he could do what he wanted with him. She doesn’t want the police poking around the way she lives. Just let the kid go because he’s probably dead and not her real brother anyway.

Tsumiki refuses to give up on him. They were both kids who no one cared about but they cared about each other and that had to be enough. But she’s seven with no support and zero idea on how to find him. She starts skipping school to look for him in random streets, puts up flyers, can’t go outside without looking for him. She gets held back a year in school because of how much she skips and she can’t bring herself to care. She buys him gifts on every birthday and writes him letters she can’t post because she’s going to find her brother and she’s going to prove to him that she never once stopped looking for him. She just. She needs him to know that she never stopped looking for him. She needs to find him and be able to honestly tell him she never stopped trying.

One day her mom comes back in clothes she can’t afford and comes with movers they shouldn’t be able to afford and announces a move they definitely can’t afford. Tsumikis absolutely opposed to going because if her brother comes to look for her, she needs to be in their old apartment so he can find her. She doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. They have mysterious new benefactors who are setting up a trust to take care of tsumiki with a very generous stipend for her mom but they have to move to Sendai as a stipulation of getting the money.

It’s not until the attorney who’s managing her trust hands her a set of glittery blue butterfly hairpins that tsumiki realizes her mom sold her brother a second time.

The thing is that tsumiki had this one cheap set of butterfly hairpins she’d always stopped to look at in the store when she took Megumi to go grocery shopping. Shed never buy them, because they couldn’t afford it, but it was the thing she wanted most openly in front of him. She was always secretly really insecure about her hair, because they were the kind of poor where bar soap was a luxury they could only sometimes afford and kids at school made fun of how her hair was dirty and frayed. Megumi was the only one who ever saw how badly she wanted those stupid hair clips. If they had to give her a set of butterfly hair clips, it’s because he demanded that they did.

It’s basically implied that the Zenin are the ones paying for her care and upkeep due to an unspecified deal they cut with Megumi, but when they approached her mom with it, they added the caveat that Tsumiki had to be moved to a new city entirely and there could be no forwarding address left anywhere.

The zenins stance on tsumiki is, effectively, that she’s a weakness Megumi needs to be weaned off of. They honestly assumed he’d just like, forget she ever existed and he. Did not do that. He actually pitched a total bitch fit. Tried to scale the compound walls. Bit multiple people including the clan leader. But he’s got the ten shadows, he’s heir to the clan, and he can’t be caught up on some random non sorcerer who isn’t even a Zenin. They end up agreeing to pay for her to live very comfortably if he starts cooperating more but they want to make sure that he can’t ever find her again if he does ever succeed in running away.

Tsumiki is at once full of hope and hopeless, because on one hand, the butterfly clips prove that Megumi still loves her and remembers her, at least in her mind. But at the same time, she’s being moved to Sendai and doesn’t know how they’ll ever find each other again. She doesn’t honestly know if they’d recognize each other if they saw each other again. She wears the butterfly clips every day, even when she gets too old for the style, because she’s more confident about her brother recognizing them than her.

The thing about tsumiki is that she doesn’t understand hate. She just doesn’t. Her mom and toji always got caught up in these perceived slights and revenge and never once let go of the past. They’d destroy themselves if it meant taking down the people they hated with them. She never wanted that. She wanted to live with the people she loved and she’d happily turn around and forget everything, all the pain, all the searching, if it just meant she could go back to being megumis sister.

This isn’t about hate. This is about that moment outside the car, where her brother was inside and she couldn’t get in to him. This is about how helpless and small she felt when they shoved her to the curb and ripped megumis hand out of hers. She needs to make sure that when she finds Megumi, she can take him home again. So she decides she needs to learn how to fight.

Itadori Yuuji has the constitution of an ox and the strength to match it, and he is known for getting in fights with bullies and trouncing them so thoroughly that it’s never a question of who wins when the fight starts. He’s insanely physically capable and can hold his own in a fight with ease. He’s also nice and kind and Tsumiki’s comfortable enough asking him to teach her how to throw a punch or two.

She is bad at it.

So fucking bad at it.

But she never gives up, and Itadori is nice enough to keep teaching her despite how embarrassingly horrible she is at it all. He always asks her why she wants to learn so bad, she doesn’t seem to like it all, and she never answers his question honestly.

In their last year of middle school, their class has a trip to Kyoto. She, Itadori, and the rest of their group walk into some random restaurant in the city and have barely sat down when someone comes inside, starts searching every booth in the restaurant while shouting Tsumikis name.

And oh. They could recognize each other after all.

She looked for Megumi in every crowd she was ever in, but she didn’t consider that he was doing the same. Or that he would see her first.

Her brother grew up without her seeing it. Hes older, dressed in strange, expensive clothes, has a slightly bruised up face and split lip, but his eyes are the same, and he looks like the brother she remembered.

But a lot more nervous than Megumi ever was. He was a tiny, stoic child who didn’t take any shit and never showed fear, even when there were monsters that only he could see. But he’s nervous when he tells her that she probably doesn’t recognize him or remember him, but when she was a lot younger, he—

Megumi. He’s her little brother. Of course she remembers him. She’s been looking for him everywhere.

Megumi didn’t smile much as a child, but he smiles at her then. He tells her he doesn’t have a lot of time and she tells him that they can leave out the back, and he never let her hold his hand as a child but he takes her hand so easily in that second. And just for a second, she’s his sister again, and it’s everything she wanted.

They never make it out the back.

Two men come in. Megumi calls one of them uncle, and he goes stiff and flat the second he sees him. His uncle apologizes for his nephew, tells everyone that he always makes scenes when they’re out in public, tells him to apologize to the nice people and leave. Megumi was mistaken.

Tsumiki tríes to keep ahold of his hand. Really, she does. She tries to tell people to call the police. But megumis “uncle” steps towards her and Megumi slams him into a table, and then suddenly Megumi’s the one insisting that they leave immediately. They can go. It’s fine. They’re leaving. She loses ahold of his hand.

She tries to follow, but the other man restrains her. She learns that she’s better at slamming plates into peoples heads than she is at punching, and at this point itadoris Friend In Danger Override has been triggered and he fucking tackles the dude, which gives tsumiki the clearing that she needs to chase outside after her brother. She gets out just in time to see him be pushed into a car, and she’s had years to think about the last time this happened and figure out what to do differently. She throws herself in front of the car and refuses to move.

See her entire stance is that she’ll sooner get run over and killed in the street than let them do this a second time, but she also can see Megumi trying to fucking punch the drivers head in from behind because he’s about to hit his sister. His uncles trying to restrain him, and just for a second, she sees his hands make the shape of the shadow puppets he used to show her as children. Something invisible slams her out of the way just as his uncle knocks him out.

She picks up a rock and tries to smash in the fucking window with it, and itadori has to pull her out of the way to keep her from getting her feet run over when the car finally tears out of the parking lot. She goes ballistic on him for stopping her because her brother was right there and she lost him again and she didn’t even get the license plate. He was right there.

The police basically do jack all again. There’s no license plate, no names they can follow up on, and they’re still half convinced this is a settled custody issue even though tsumiki insists her brother was sold by his dad and is very plainly getting hurt wherever he is. Itadori is now a devoted advocate of finding tsumikis brother and reuniting them, and both basically kind of end up becoming really close to the other? He’s taking care of himself and his grandpa alone, she’s alone while her moms awol again, and they both become the others support system.

At one point, there’s this random girl and boy who doesn’t speak who shows up to their school for indeterminate reasons. The girl is bored and twirling her glasses in one hand while the person in a suit that they’re with asks the principal questions, and when tsumikis eyes catch at the right angle, she sees an invisible monster clinging to a classmates back through them. She realizes it’s exactly what Megumi always talked about and still remembers that the people who took him could see his dogs. She corners the two others in a room and tries to demand information about the invisible monsters or see if they know her brother or the people who took him, and immediately gets blown off. The fight escalates until the girl tells him that actually, yeah. She knows tsumikis brother. He is a very special person to some very powerful people, and the only way she can ever help him is to tell him that she’s let go of him and that he needs to do the same to her. That’s the only message that the people who have him would ever let get through, and his life would get a lot better as soon as he got it.

The people who have him would give him anything in the world, except for her. He could be a lot happier and healthier than he is right now if he just agreed to stop trying to find tsumiki. If she really wants to help her brother, then she needs to let him go.

Tsumiki nails her in the back of the head with a milk carton when she tries to walk away. It sloshes out on her. Tsumiki did not intend this. She cannot admit that fact. There are some actions you just have to own when you do them. She tells the girl that he’s her brother and she’s never letting go of him. She’s going to find him. They can’t keep him from her forever. She doesn’t care how long it takes her.

For a second, tsumiki really thinks this girl is going to kick her ass, but she doesn’t. She wishes her luck and tells her she’ll need it, and it’s only later that tsumiki realizes she slipped the eyeglasses into her pocket.

And as it turns out, her brothers monsters were real all along.

There was a knife that toji left in the frame of his bed. Tsumiki confiscated it from Megumi as soon as he found it, and it was odd and strange and gave her bad feelings when she held it, and it can kill the things that gather on her back. When she follows Itadori to their local high school and joins the occult club in an attempt to find more people involved in this world of invisible monsters, she wears the eyeglasses and keeps the knife hidden in her bag.

It comes in handy when her senpais are trying to open this thing and suddenly there’s like a fucking portal opening and Actually Let’s Not Oh Too Late Let’s Run Let’s Fucking Run.

They run.

Meanwhile at the hospital Megumi found out in very quick succession that his sister has fucking sukunas finger and also that there’s a very over enthusiastic himbo who is the self appointed vice president of the Find Fushiguro Megumi And Bring Him Home Club who absolutely fucking refuses to leave his side. Sorry who are you. Why are you so enthusiastic about finding him. Megumi sort of was the one doing the finding there was a whole tracking situation and him waiting dramatically in the shadows like they just did it.

Anyway they run very very quickly to tsumikis school where she is dodging she is serpentining this is a fuckton of monsters oh holy fuck is that her brother?

The fight goes bad.

Tsumiki manages to follow itadori and her brother out at a much slower pace because she’s not a freak of nature like itadori and shows up just in time to see her brother shouting at itadori to not eat the fucking finger while itadori is absolutely trying to eat the fucking finger.

She chucks her shoe at him. The finger goes flying.

Then the monster eats it instead.

Tsumiki: :o

Yuuji: :o

Megumi: fuck

Now there’s a bigger monster and the fight goes even worse. There’s a lot of shouting. Itadori ends up with her knife. Then he ends up getting eaten and they’re down both a knife and itadori, who’s probably fucking dead. Then megumis insisting she run and she’s insisting he shut the fuck up because it’s sort of taken a decade to get this close to him again and she’s not fumbling the bag now because of a monster on the rampage. Have a sense of fucking priorities here.

Then itadori bursts out of the monsters stomach with the knife like the fucking Kool Aid Man and the fight is suddenly very over. Good job, team.

Gojo rolls up to his most stoic and eternally pissed off student having a dramatic and emotional reunion with his sister.

Yuuji, in a very bad whisper: no no so like she’s been looking for him for years but he saw her in the restaurant

Gojo: :o go on

Yuuji: and then he got caught by like, I don’t know, he said he was his uncle or something but the dude acted so weird and creepy and they put him in a car and Tsumiki tried to stop the car but they got away

Gojo: *gasp* what no

Yuuji: I know! Anyway then I start helping her look for him but we can’t find him anywhere until I’m at the hospital and he just walks up to me right?? And I’m like “dude I have been looking everywhere for you” and he’s like “I have no idea who you are, I’m here about that fucked up demon finger” and I’m like—

Megumi, really trying to have a moment here: we can both hear you

And megumis like “this is uh. My new teacher. I guess. I am his only student. And he is uh. Enthusiastic. Do not linger in conversation with him.”

Tsumiki is lingering. She needs fucking intel so he can’t disappear again. Where does he go to school and can she transfer there. It’s fucking wizard school? Will they take her even though she’s not a wizard? She cannot emphasize enough that she will study any fucking subject they want so that way she can be close with her brother again she does not care if it’s applicable to her education or life. She can throw things at people itadori tell the man tell him how enthusiastically she will throw things at monsters for their weird fucking wizard school.

Itadori: she hit me in the face with her shoe like five minutes ago

Tsumiki: see???

Megumi keeps trying to forbid her from wizard school but she’s technically the older sister so she has override rights. She will go to wizard school. How does she get wizard school to accept her.

And Gojos just really weird and off and keeps looking at Megumi and saying that he “didn’t know he had a sister.”

He really didn’t know that Megumi had a sister he wanted to stay with.

And then suddenly it’s like a switch is flipped and he’s back to his normal self telling them to leave everything to him, because he’ll make sure tsumiki can come back with them. And uh? Itadori? Weirdly physically capable kid who will apparently eat anything? Is he going to be good getting home after all this?

Itadori: actually if it’s not too much trouble can I go to wizard school too my grandpa sort of died half an hour ago and I don’t have plans for the rest of my life. Tsumikis kind of my best friend and I’d like to make sure she’s all good at wizard school. I’m a really good fighter and I stabbed the last monster so like can I come too because you know. Dead grandpa. No family or future to speak of. Haha.

Gojo:

Megumi:

Tsumiki, softly: dude

There’s more after they make it to jujutsu high but this is already really long so we leave it here

#ask games #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #continuing my streak of becoming obsessed with minor background characters #other highlights include itadori trying to platonically wingman for tsumiki with her brother (because it’s been like a decade and she knows #nothing about him and he knows nothing about her and she’s terrified he won’t like her once they get to know each other again) so that way #itadori can be the one asking the get to know you questions and tsumiki doesn’t have to admit out loud that she and her brother know nothing #about each other only the inherent problem is that her brother is actually unfairly pretty and has a sort of dry wit and is reserved but #when you get to know him he’s such a genuine dude and oh fuck oh no he’s in trouble this is his best friends long lost brother he has to be #violating some kind of code here. Kugisaki stop laughing at him this is a crisis.#gojo basically backed out of teenage fatherhood when he saw Megumi walking around with the divine dogs because it’s one thing to butt heads #with a major clan over an outcast member it’s another to do it for their most sacred technique #he thought that Megumi would be better taken care of than anyone else in the clan as the person with the ten shadows and that he’d probably #be better off than with an emotionally broken seventeen year old who works at least 28 days a month and has no idea how to raise a child #he never realized that Megumi had a sister he wanted to stay with who the Zenin separated him from #he tells himself he would have intervened if he had known because he’s been secretly worried and guilty about not taking in Megumi after all #since Maki showed up and said some worrying things about the clan heir and his standard of living and got the confirmation when he met #tsumiki and realized that he could have kept them together all those years ago and didnt. megumi and tsumiki kind of haunt him with lost #potential because not only could they have grown up a family but they could have grown up his family. megumi doesn’t know why satoru gojo #of all people is being so weirdly helpful and intense about about sponsoring tsumiki and keeping her close to him

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littleoddwriter · 2 years

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This is a bit different from most of the requests, since it's platonic, but i was wondering if you'd write young Edward getting foster-to-adopt'ed by a male reader? It's canon that he was in many foster families but none of them wanted him, and that he aged out of the system, and idk, i just feel like he deserved to have a loving dad. Someone who would humour his riddles and comfort him after nightmares. :(

Home | Kid!Edward Nashton & Dad!Male!Reader (Platonic)

Hi there! Please, I'm absolutely loving this. You have no idea how many times I wished for this for Eddie. He really deserved a loving parent in his life. So, I really hope you like what I've done with it! Thanks for the request. It's lovely. :') <3

summary; See above.

notes; Male!Reader; Reader is a Dad; Ed is 12 y/o; Platonic Relationships; Foster Family; Adoption; Past (Child) Abuse; Past Trauma; Emotional Hurt/Comfort; Fluff.

This was the eighth foster family he's had that had rejected him in the end, explaining that he was "too much work" for them. Whatever that meant. Because they hadn’t cared for him at all. And he always behaved perfectly after all. Tried to anyway.

He knew that most kids his age - twelve - were either already dropheads and so no one wanted them because of it, or they misbehaved on purpose if somebody did because they had gotten it into their heads that they didn't belong and wanted out.

Edward wasn't anything like that, though. He wasn't a drophead. He didn't misbehave. At least not on purpose. He sometimes disobeyed because some of the rules were stupid.

So, when you showed up and were ready to give him a home for a while, Eddie was apprehensive. You seemed nice. You were very gentle with him and talked to him as though you were both on eye-level, which most adults didn't. He didn't trust you, though. It could all be an act. He's had that before. They were all nice and gentle at the initial meeting, supervised by the case workers, and once he was home with them, they started to either ignore him or yell at him for everything.

Nonetheless, he took his chance to get out of the Godforsaken orphanage for a couple of weeks, if not months.

______

As soon as he entered your house, you showed him around. You stayed nice throughout. Even when you explained certain rules, like rooms that were off-limits (at least by himself), things he wasn't allowed to do (things that made sense for a change, like using the kitchen all on his own; especially the big kitchen knives), and his bedtime. He thought he was getting too old for that, but if you insisted that he should at least be in bed by ten PM, then that was a small price to pay for a room all to himself. He's never had his own room before. He always had to share it with somebody. Not this time, though. It made him happy. He hasn't felt happy in a while.

"Okay, Edward, if you have any questions, you can ask me at any time," you told him, smiling at him.

Nodding, Eddie looked up at you, adjusting his glasses, and asked, "May I have some paper and a pencil, please?"

He desperately needed some alone time now after all this stress from the past week that it took for him to get moved into your house. And the best way for him to have that and actually relax was to write down the riddles that ran circles in his mind.

"Of course! Here, get situated in your room and I'll bring them to you right away," you responded enthusiastically, leaving him alone in his room.

He was waiting for your mask to drop. You couldn’t have really been this nice to him, right? This couldn't possibly be genuine.

Despite that, Edward sat down at his desk and patiently waited for you to return with the two items.

“Here you go,” you said, as you came back and handed him a couple of sheets of paper and a pencil, an eraser and a pencil sharpener. “What do you wanna do?”

“Puzzles,” he answered shortly. He wanted you to go away and leave him be, so he could focus on his riddles.

“What kind of puzzles?” you prodded. It kind of surprised him that you seemed genuinely interested in what he was going to do, but he also didn’t want that sort of attention on him at that moment.

“Riddles, quizzes, things like that.”

Nodding, you looked slightly impressed. He hated to admit it, but it pleased him that you seemed impressed with him.

“Well, have fun then. If you need anything, just yell for me or come downstairs, okay?”

“Okay.”

At last, he could tend to his riddles, as you left him alone in his new room.

______

For the first week or so, that was how it went for the most part of his day with you. Edward stayed in his room and worked on his puzzles to ease his mind and you would leave him alone. You only ever came in to ask if he was okay, if he was hungry, or if he needed anything. And sometimes you would also come in to bring him a snack and a glass of juice unprompted.

He liked that. He actually felt cared for. This might have been the first time that has happened.

Still, he stayed cautious around you. He just couldn’t trust you yet.

But with every day, his apprehension was swayed by how gentle and fatherly you were. You actually treated him like he was your son. And every time that was clear to him, he felt himself leaning towards you and wanting to stay.

One day, you came into his room before dinner time. That was unusual.

“Hey,” you greeted him softly.

Stopping to write, Ed turned to you and waved.

“I was just wondering if I could ever take a look at your puzzles? It’s okay if not. They are yours and I’ll only look if you give me permission. But I’m curious to know what you come up with every day,” you explained why you were in his room so suddenly.

Was this a trick?

Only one way to find out, Eddie thought.

“Okay. You can look,” he said and gave you the sheet he was just working on.

You took your time to read each riddle carefully, and once you were done you looked at him with a gentle smile on your lips.

“God, you’re incredible. Do you know that?” you told him and even seemed sincere, “You’re so smart! I’m very impressed with you, Eddie.”

Looking down at his hands, Ed couldn’t hide the big toothy grin that spread across his face. “Thank you,” he said softly.

“It’s just the truth. Nothing to thank me for that,” you responded kindly. “Keep at it, son. You’ve got a great mind there.”

Surprised, Edward raised his head and looked at you with his mouth agape and his eyes wide. You called him ‘son’. No one has ever done that before.

Smiling, you left his room after telling him to come downstairs for dinner in ten minutes.

He stayed the way you left him until then, too shaken up by what just happened to move, let alone think.

Perhaps you were a genuinely good person that somehow decided to foster him. Why he was chosen, Ed would never know or understand, but he was starting to be grateful for it.

_______

A couple of months later, Eddie was still with you. And for some inexplicable reason you didn’t seem like you wanted to get rid of him anytime soon either.

By now he had accepted that you were truly a good father that wanted him around and that genuinely cared for him. He even met your own kids, who were both adults and had moved out a little while ago, and which was the reason why you decided to foster children from the orphanage, as you had explained to Ed some day.

It was at night when he really acknowledged that he also just wanted to stay with you, though.

Edward has never slept well. He couldn’t remember a time where he didn’t have nightmares or panic attacks or hadn’t been forced to stay awake by whatever was happening around him in the room he shared with all those other children.

None of that just went away now that he’s had his own room. The nightmares still plagued him.

Until then, he’d been able to hide them well enough from you. They kept him up and they jolted him awake every night, but you didn’t know that. He never told you.

But that one night, it wasn’t a regular nightmare. It was far too real. He could feel the rats chewing on his fingers, like they used to do at the orphanage. He saw the dead babies in their cradles. He witnessed how drops killed his peers one by one, letting them decay while they were still alive.

He was in so much pain, so much turmoil. He felt helpless and alone.

He was screaming for help. Because he was in pain. Because he was alone and scared. Because he wanted to get out.

“Eddie! Eddie, it’s okay. Son, it’s okay. You’re safe,” your voice reached him, forcing him out of the dreamworld at last. Or had they just been memories disguised as a dream?

Jolting awake, Edward was panting, staring at you with wide eyes. He could barely make you out without his glasses and only the light from the hallway illuminating you in a soft light. But it didn't matter. He knew it was you.

Painfully, his face twisted and a sob tore from his throat, as he started to cry.

Immediately, your arms wrapped around him and pulled him into a tight embrace. He clung onto your shirt for dear life.

Shushing Ed quietly, you rocked him back and forth gently, "Sh sh, sh. It's okay, Eddie. I'm here now. I've got you."

The more time passed, while you kept comforting him like this, the safer Edward started to feel. Safe. He's never felt safe before.

At last, he stopped crying and let go of you. He felt embarrassed about his outburst, his fear, that you needed to comfort him like he was a baby. He was almost thirteen. He wasn't a baby anymore and he shouldn't behave like one.

When you also let go of him, though, he suddenly felt cold and alone again.

Tucking his longer hair behind his ear gently, you spoke softly, "Do you think you can sleep again? What do you need right now?"

Wringing his hands, Ed refused to look at you and instead stared at his lap.

"I don't know," he whispered. It was a lie. He knew what he needed and wanted now. He wanted you to stay until he fell asleep again. He wanted to write down puzzles or say riddles out loud. He wanted to feel safe again.

"Well, that's okay. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me something you want or you ask me to go so you can sleep, okay?" you responded, rubbing his back. Your hand stayed there, then.

He could feel himself relax under your touch.

"Could you… stay, please?" he asked eventually, speaking so quietly, he almost didn't hear himself, "Only until I fall asleep again."

"Yes, of course," you said, "I'll just sit down at your desk—"

You went to get up and Edward instantly grabbed your shirt, holding you back. It was such a quick reaction, he barely knew what he'd done until you stopped talking.

"Do you want me beside you until you're asleep?" you inquired. There was no judgement in your voice.

Nodding frantically, Ed didn't trust himself to speak up.

"All right. Move over a bit so I can fit," you told him then.

Quickly, Ed pressed himself against the wall, lying on his side now. Feeling the cold, sturdy wall against his back actually soothed him a little. There wasn't another kid behind him. Just a wall. And in front of him was just you.

He was safe.

To help him fall asleep, he said some of his favourite riddles out loud, citing them and leaving a few seconds between each for you to answer them. And every time you did. He couldn't help but smile. Others had always thought he was weird because of his passion for riddles. But you seemed not to mind and it was genuine. He knew that too, by now.

And soon, he was asleep again, not dreaming anything terrible for once.

In the morning after, you two talked about what happened, what Ed had been dreaming that scared him so much. And he explained it to you. He told you everything he's never told anyone before. You'd been shocked to know how terrible it was at the orphanage. And once again, you pulled him into a comforting embrace. He welcomed it.

______

Only a few weeks later, it was Edward's birthday.

He didn't think you knew. He's never told you. And a lot of people didn't take a closer look at his personal information on the sheets they were given when they fostered him.

But when he woke up that morning, it was because you were knocking on his door. He looked at the alarm clock, after quickly putting on his glasses, and realised that he hadn't even slept in. Why were you knocking, then?

"Yes?" he called, feeling uncertain. This couldn't mean anything good.

A moment later, the door opened and revealed you holding a cupcake with a burning candle stuck in it in your right hand and a wrapped gift in your left.

"Happy birthday, Eddie!" you exclaimed, smiling happily at him. It wasn't fake. He knew fake smiles all too well.

Staring at you in shock, Ed sat up properly.

"Here," you said, handing him his gift. His present. "You can open it right after you blow out the candle. Okay? Remember to make a wish."

Holding up the cupcake in front of his face, you encouraged him with a nod.

Edward closed his eyes, inhaled, and blew out the candle, as he thought, I wish Y/N would adopt me.

When he opened his eyes again, you grinned at him and put the cupcake down on his bedside table.

"Do you wanna open your gift now?" you asked, although it seemed more rhetorical, considering he kept kneading it in his hands, making the wrapping paper crinkle. The gift itself was pretty solid and rectangular. He had no idea what it could be.

Nodding, Ed started to rip open the paper, then.

It was a notebook. There was a green question mark printed on the cover.

"You can write your puzzles into it. Or whatever is on your mind. Doesn’t matter. It's yours after all," you told him gently.

"Thank you so much," Eddie said, shocked to his core. This was the best gift he's ever received. It was also the first one, but the best nonetheless.

"Anytime, son," you smiled, "But there's one more thing. Inside. Open it, will you?"

Excited, Ed opened the notebook. There was a loose sheet of paper in it.

When he took a closer look at it, he didn't know what his expression might have been. It was probably a weird mix of utter shock and happiness.

Those were adoption forms!

His wish. It came true. You were going to adopt him!

"I don't know if you really wanna stay with me until you're at least eighteen, but I thought I'd still make it part of your birthday gift in case you do. What do you say, Eddie?" you asked, sounding uncertain for the first time since he's been with you.

Frantically, Ed nodded and put the present aside so he could get up. Then he threw his arms around your waist and hugged you. He's never hugged you on his own accord before. You always initiated it.

"I'd love that."

Relieved, you sighed and rubbed his back and shoulders.

This was the best birthday of his life.

______

Once the adoption process was done, Ed could barely contain his glee. He was giddy with excitement when the two of you drove back home. Home. His home. He'd never have to set another foot into that orphanage ever again.

When you opened the front door for him, he was met with many warm welcomes. Surprised, he saw that your biological children were there, such as your ex-wife, who you were actually really good with, and other members of your family, who he's only seen in photos before.

"Welcome to the family, son," you told him proudly, patting his back.

"Thanks… dad," he responded, smiling brightly at you. He's never called you that before. It felt a little strange, still, but right.

At last, he belonged.

#this is over 2.6k words long and i probably could have written even more jhfshfjhs but alas i didn't #what a joy to write this was tho! <3 #all i know about fostering and adoption was taken from movies and tv shows btw so excuse any inaccuracies please-#like i don't think you can adopt as a single parent right? or can you? probably not when ed was a kid tho - but hey! creative freedom #edward nashton #ed nashton #edward nashton x reader #the riddler #dano riddler #dano!riddler #paul dano #danonation #platonic relationships #fanfiction #fanfic

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