#she's slightly peeved because i opened the little door near the top of her cage for this video | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hiyo-silver · 5 years

Text

Behind Blindfolds

Nobody expected the world to end the way it does until it starts. It was always thought to happen all in one go but instead it drags on for years of feigning really living when all they’re doing is surviving. In this situation maybe, surviving is really losing.

Summary: another new person joins the losers- survivors- and he may or may not have been a really bad person to let into their space.

Chapter 1 2 3 4 + ao3

Taglist: @fuckboykaspbrak @thesquidliesthuman @rachi0964 @beepbeep-losers@bigbilliamdenbro @jalenrose11 @sleepygaybrough@itandstrangerthingsfanfic@boopboopbichie @peachywyatt @aizeninlefox@sockwantstodie @ahoybyeler@yooonbum @coffeekaspbrak @sedanleystanley

The drive home goes mostly uneventfully, thank goodness. The homecoming with the groceries is exciting for them all. It’s the first time they’ve been truly successful at what their goal was. It gives them a sense of hope that they can be strong despite the hardships. They can’t be brought down, laughing and talking as they put the groceries away into the kitchen.

After they finish, Beverly finds her way back to the living room, spotting the notebook that was Ben’s. It brings a pang to her heart, she hadn’t known him well but it still hurts when she remembers the scream they’d heard from outside the door. It hurts even more to realize how numb they already have become to the pain that loss brings. Ben seemed nice, and she wonders how intrusive it would be to read bits and pieces of his story. She hopes it wouldn’t be too awful, because she already finds herself picking it up to read through. The first page is dated, it’s from months and months ago. It brings a small smile to her lips, it’s almost like Ben had predicted the apocalypse. It’s very good actually, his words string together like song lyrics or prose. It’s nice to read, although his ideas could have used so much more development, and she wished he was still here to finish them off, or even explain them out loud to her.

She doesn’t even feel Bill sit next to her on the couch, “I used t-to write, lost motivation to a-after a while,” he says, looking over her shoulder, reading a few of the scribbled words at the top of the page, “Thriller w-was never my genre, usually h-horror,” he admits, before this he never really talked about his writing to anyone, he found it embarrassing and thought of it as something to be ashamed of, that since he likes to write about fearful things that people would see he himself as creepy or weird. But y’know, there’s no reason to keep it private anymore. With what he’s seen, he’s not even sure he’ll be around for much longer. He can only hope, and he doesn’t know what he really hopes for. Life is the human instinct to want to hold on, but does he really want to stick around to see how far this will go?

“Did you ever write something about everyone in the world dying?” she asks with a little smirk, trying to make light of it the way Richie does. They are all learning from each other and picking up on each other’s traits, it’s inevitable with their close proximity. The more jokes the better, and it’s even better if they don’t pick up on all of Stan’s grumpiness, because he doesn’t seem anywhere near lightening up, they wish he would but they can’t force him to. He’ll come to terms with everything on his own time.

“I can’t say so, m-mostly just the n-normal amount of death,” he says with his own chuckle to her. At least they can keep the conversation light, they jive well. It’s important, if they were getting into fights it would probably be the most counterproductive thing they could do. Facing death tends to bring people together, all fighting for a common goal instead of each other, at a point personal inhibitions and views don’t seem so important on an individual basis. They’re distracted from the conversation when there’s a rustling in a box on the kitchen island. The birds.

Beverly suddenly remembers her little secret passengers, getting up quickly to check on them, opening the top slowly and peering in at the scared creatures. She wishes she could comfort them, but she knows next to nothing on birds and grabbing them to try and give them a chance at life had been fully on impulse, but now she feels worse. They’re in her full responsibility and if something happens to them it’s her fault. Maybe that’s why she’s so scared to be a mother and why she had been so close to having an abortion but then didn’t. It’s just like the birds. Wanting not to take away any of their chances, but not wanting to actually have to follow through with all the care. Maybe caring for the birds can almost be like practice motherhood in some simple way.

She sees the three of them cowered into the corner of the cardboard box, she feels bad for them. She’s never been a big fan of birds, they’re finicky and unpredictable which is a reason most people aren’t a fan of them, but now she realizes how much bigger and more powerful she is than them and most of that anxiety evaporates. She opens it fully to expose them to the light. “Hey, Stanley, anything you can tell me about the kind of birds these are? What do they need to eat?” she asks, she hopes that he is as interested in birds as he seems by his decor. She wants to see him replace that scowl with at least a little smile for once. She knows the joy pets can bring people, she hopes he’s one of those people.

“Parakeets. I don’t think we have proper bird food but let’s see,” he says, trying not to get too worked up over the fact that she’s kidnapped live animals into his home. At least they’re not something too wild like a squirrel or coyote. Birds are beautiful, and they’re gentle if you’re gentle with them. He likes that about them, they’re an easy animal to admire from afar, he’s not ever owned one. He doesn’t like to trap them. Birds are different than humans, if they’re out in the open they can fly. They can’t fly as well in a building, you can be an amazing bird owner. But a golden cage is still a form of cage.

He learns to be less peeved though as they work on setting them up a place to be, Beverly even thinks she sees the ghost of a smile on his face for the first real time since she’s met him. Night falls and they’re almost even some sort of content. Life feels normal, they’re creating their own sort of normal and it’s almost beautiful.

Kay and Bev are cuddled up in the guest bedroom, they’ve come to find endless comfort in the other’s touch. It’s a pure kind of friendship, one Beverly has never has had before. Kay isn’t so sure she’s had this before either. It feels safe. It feels better than it had ever felt with her ex husband. It feels like some sort of intimacy and closeness she’s never experienced. It almost feels like feelings.

“Beverly, if something happens to me, I want you to be my daughter’s mom,” Kay whispers to a half asleep Beverly, who is at least awake enough to nod and agree, letting the information sink in. She leans her forehead against Bev’s with a soothed sigh, and the two of them both fall into a light sleep void of any dreams or nightmares.

There’s a knock on the door like when Kay had come originally, the first one to flinch awake is her. She pulls gently away from Beverly, sitting up and rolling off the bed, waddling her way to the front door with her hand on her stomach. “Hello? Who are you?” she asks, tapping back onto the door to let the other person know she’s there. Soon she’s joined by Bill also woken by the pounding. It feels better to not be alone with whoever the stranger is.

“I need help, they’re trying to kill me, please!” a man’s voice yells, continuing to pound so desperately that Bill is sure he could definitely break the door down or at least punch a hole in it. He’d rather listen and help the have them exposed to the danger of a broken door, not after they’ve come as far as they have.

“I’m g-going to open the door,” he says in a calm voice, cracking it only slightly. Stan is awoken now by the noise, he has the same gun on his shoulder that Mike had been ready with when it came to Kay’s arrival. He looks livid, his eyes burning with the anger, it’s almost like the normal hazel has been replaced by pure fire.

Bill cracks it open and a lanky man with dark hair tumbles in through the door and falls to the floor. Bill slams the door behind him. The man wails and squirms on the floor. If anyone in the house had still been asleep they aren’t possibly anymore, just too exhausted and out of it to make their way to the foyer.

“Put your hands in the air and state your name and where you’ve come from right now or risk being shot on the spot,” Stan says in a voice loud and clear, it’s not a bluff. He may seem cold, but by now he’s here to protect himself and his new friends, he’s got enough friends, he doesn’t need any newbies. Newbies means change and change is dangerous, it always has been.

The man collects himself up to his feet. “I’m Patrick, I was hiding but a group of men found us and opened our eyes to see that thing, I was the only one to get away,” he says, choking and hiccuping on a sob at the thought of what he’s gone through. He’s loud and dramatic, Stan doesn’t like that. The man’s eyes are red and irritated, his pupils enlarged as he takes in his new location.

Stan shoots a warning shot but it only hits the wood floor as the man dodges the aim. Stan grumbles out a sigh and drops the gun, putting the safety back on, “You’re on thin fucking ice, Pat,” he says, it’s almost a trigger for him. His wife died only recently, and she’d been a dark haired woman named Pat, and now here’s a threatening dark haired man named Pat sitting on the floor of his home.

“Stan, put that thing down!” Bill scolds, grabbing the gun from him as soon as the safety is on it and it’s safe. “Be nice, y-you know how hard this is f-for everyone,” he grumbles himself. “If you have a pr-problem with it you can take the garage.

And that’s how it end up. Stan ends up staying in the garage of his own home due to his massive distrust of the new guy, the rest of them all returning to bed and Patrick to the couch in the living room, laying there in the dark fully clothed with his shoes on before he starts rifling through the backpack he travelled with, a sketchbook coming out in his hands with a devious smile on his face. In due time.

7 notes · View notes