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“Ohh Gareth is blushing!” “Aww are you talking to your girlfriend again?” “He is in love” his younger sisters are giggling, dancing around Gareth who is currently sitting on the kitchen counter, telephone in hand.
“He just can’t help himself, she is just so pretty!” “And smart” “and talented” with high-pitched voices they are mocking the way their older brother is regularly fawning over you, while overly batting their eyelashes.
“They are growing up so fast!” His oldest sister is dramatically wiping away fake tears.
“You’re literally five years younger than me, what do you mean?”
“Actually I’m only four and a half years younger than you, so you’re wrong!”
Gareth is about to tell her that that is basically the same when he gets distracted by your laugh coming through the phone. “I can’t wait to finally meet your sisters!”
He grins “Ohh so that is the real reason why you finally decided to come and visit me. I can’t believe it, my dearest girlfriend is only dating me because of my siblings.”
“Don’t be silly!” He can hear the grin in your voice “We both know that it’s actually your hair that wooed me, but I guess your personality and you as a person in general are alright as well.”
“Haha very funny. I think you guys meeting will probably be the death of me.”
“What a great way to die.” those are the last words his youngest sister says before she grabs the older one and pulls her out of the room.
Gareth and you met at a concert a few months ago and instantly hit it off. After finding out that you both drove about two hours to the concert, coming from opposite directions, you exchanged numbers and promised each other to at least call every once in a while. Planning to attend the next good concert, that’s somewhat nearby, together.
Well, looking back on it now you might have overdone the whole staying in touch thing a little bit, not that you’re complaining! You and Gareth had great chemistry from the start and easily spent multiple hours talking on the phone every day. Considering that, and the way you both have been quite smiley ever since coming back from the concert, none of your family members were surprised when you announced your relationship.
You both have been itching to meet in person again, which is why you decided that the first longer trip you are gonna make with your first own car that you just got for your eighteenth birthday, is going to be to Hawkins. Gareth was over the moon, hearing this news, having himself begged his mom at least a thousand times to let him borrow her car over the weekend, to make his way over to your city.
“It’s getting late, I think I should head to bed, after all, I have a long drive planned tomorrow.”
It’s Thursday afternoon right now, tomorrow around this time you are gonna be lying in your boyfriend's arms. You already have everything packed and safely stored in your trunk, planning to drive over directly after school in hopes of arriving during the early evening.
“Okay, I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. Please drive safely, good night sweetheart.”
“Good night babes, see you tomorrow.”
He nearly has a heart attack when he hears his sister speaking up next to him “Aww he called her sweetheart, how adorable.” She giggles.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“Shouldn’t you be taller?”
—
The next day Gareth is up nearly an hour earlier than normal, being way too excited to even think straight. His giddiness follows him through the day confusing the Hellfire guys immensely. This is not how he normally responded to being at school.
“Okay, what’s up with you?” Eddie is the one to finally break the silence when they are all sitting at their lunch table “You’ve been acting weird all day!”
“Oh my girlfrie-” he is not able to finish his sentence before he gets interrupted by Jeff “Ohhh your totally real girlfriend that coincidentally lives super far away.” The boys laugh “You know we are all single, no need to make up lies to-” one of the other Hellfire boys speaks up just to end up getting interrupted as well. And that by no other than one of the freshmen “Not all of us are single, we’re not!”.
Damn.
“Well,” Gareth, being fed up with his friends not believing that he could possibly be in a relationship, abruptly stands up “Actually, she is visiting this weekend so if you come over you can finally meet my in fact very real girlfriend.” With that he storms out of the cafeteria, leaving his tray behind for the others to clean up.
—
His angry mood doesn’t stick, but his good mood doesn't return either. Is it really so unlikely for him to have a girlfriend? Is it so unrealistic that a girl could be attracted to him? He always thought that you were out of his league, but before now it never worried him or made him feel insecure. Quite the opposite actually, he was always proud that he was able to score a girl like you.
But what if you remembered him in an idealized kind of way? Would you be disappointed after seeing him in the flesh again? Would it be awkward? What if you decided that he wasn’t what you expected and just broke up with him?
His spiraling was interrupted when his house came into view, with a car parked in front of it, which exactly matched the description you had excitedly given him a few days ago talking about your newest possession.
Is he starting to imagine things now? You shouldn’t be arriving until way later in the day.
When he opens the front door he is greeted with the view of you and his mom, giggling and drinking tea at the kitchen table, something suspiciously looking like a photo album lying in front of you. The noise of the closing door notifies both of you of his presence making you simultaneously look up.
“Hi”
He is still frozen at the door. You stand up, cross the room and meet him at the door, embracing him in a hug as soon as he is within reachable distance. Coming back to earth he quickly returns it.
“Hey”
“You’re early.” It comes out more like a statement than a question. His tone made you fear that you crossed a boundary or upset him, slightly pulling back from the hug to look at his face “Yes, is that okay?”
“YES! Sorry! I mean yeah that’s totally cool, I’m just surprised. How did you get here so early?”
You grin sheepishly “I might or might not have skipped school today. But I wouldn't have been able to focus either way because I was way too excited” you reason.
“You’re lucky that it was my day off today or you would be sitting on the porch right now” his mother's amused tone pulled you out of your little daze, finally completely pulling out of the hug “I probably should be concerned about you being a bad influence on my son by skipping school, but it looks like he himself isn’t really taking his attendance that serious either.”
Shit.
“However,” you and Gareth share a slightly anxious look “I'm gonna make an exception and let that slide today, but don't make skipping a habit. We don't want your academics to suffer, right?” Gareth groans, mumbling something about her embarrassing him under his breath.
You on the other side let out a breath you didn't knew you were holding in. You didn’t even think twice about what impression you would leave, when you show up for the first time meeting your boyfriend's mom, proudly proclaiming that you just skipped school.
She grabs her bag and turns to you. “I'm going grocery shopping, anything I should bring honey?” You both simultaneously shake your head. “I wasn't talking to you Gareth, you just skipped school, I may not punish you, but I’m sure as hell aren’t rewarding you either!”
“But she skipped too, why are you asking her then?”
Geez thanks.
“Well SHE is not my child to raise and SHE is also a guest, if you excuse me now, I want to be at the shop before all the good fruits and vegetables are gone.” With that the door closes behind her, resulting in you two being alone now.
“Hi” 'Wow smart thing to say, if she doesn’t already think that you are a total loser she sure does now.'
Instead of laughing at him as he expected, you smile.
“Hi! Wanna show me your room?”
—
Back at Hawkins High, the Hellfire Club is still sitting at their table.
“Wasn’t that a bit much? He seemed genuinely hurt.” Dustin, always the sweetheart, speaks up. “Yeah, I feel bad now too” agreement follows from the others.
“Do you really think that his girlfriend isn’t real?” Mike asks Eddie
“I mean I was suspicious before, but this kind of sold the deal, right? If he had a girlfriend, why would he react like that?” The others nod at their ‘leaders‘ reasoning.
Dustin decides to speak up again in hopes of making them see the said things from Gareth's perspective “I mean you sort of implied that it's extremely unlikely for a woman to want him”
Eddie looks offended “Come on now, that’s not what I said or meant and you know that.”
“Yeah, I know that, but does Gareth?”
“Okay, you know what, I'm gonna drive over and apologize. Then I'm telling him that it’s no biggy that he lied about having a girlfriend and we will all just forget about it. Yay happy ending, driving into the sunset together with our hair flowing in the wind.”
“Fine man, but Im coming with you,” Jeff says “Not the whole sunset thing, but I think I have to apologize too.” And with that, they both make their way to Eddies van to drive over to Gareths.
—
Gareth on the other hand has long forgotten about their ‘fight’ at lunch, being a lot more focused on the way his girlfriends' lips feel. He still can’t believe that he finally has you here, in his house, in his room, in his bed. That he can hug, touch and kiss you. He slowly pushes you down, laying part of his body weight on you to get closer, while your hands find their way under his shirt.
—
Eddie and Jeff have now arrived at their destination, ringing the doorbell a few times.
Nothing.
“He must still be mad, let's get in through the garage, they never lock it.” Eddie proposes.
—
“There is someone at the door” you break the kiss
“Yeah, I heard.” Gareth only takes a second to respond before instantly chasing your lips again.
“You don’t want to open?”
“Nah, whoever it is is gonna survive, I have more important matters to attend to.” You giggle, making your boyfriend aware of how smitten he is again.
—
The two boys have successfully entered the house and are now walking up the stairs, Eddie already talking the apology, that he and Jeff came up with on their way here, through in his head, being so deep in thought, he doesn’t even consider knocking before he opens the door, well more like slams the door open.
The first thing he hears is a shriek that sounds suspiciously like it came from a girl. The next sound is clearly Gareths voice.
“What the fuck dude, ever heard of knocking? Get the fuck out!” With that, he is pushed out of the room by a shirtless Gareth. Neither he nor Jeff has a chance to say anything before Gareth is slamming the door in their faces.
“Damn, maybe he wasn’t lying.”
“Good for him, good for him.”