【 reseda, 2017 】

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━━ Stevie was learning a lot about the new kid. One could even say she was learning too much about him. 

Namely, what a fucking nerd he was. It was ❛ DC comics ❜ this and ❛ anime ❜ that. He even threw in shit about Dungeons and Dragons ( whatever the hell that was supposed to be ) and her being a real life Selina Kyle. ( Again, what? ) 

Stevie was too bemused to say anything, so she was halfway listening to whatever Miguel was chattering on about.

All Miguel learned was that he was undoubtedly, one hundred percent in love with Stevie. 

Now, he had never been much of a ladies' man. His aforementioned nerdiness and inability to stop himself from rambling did little to capture the attention of girls. ( If he was being honest, he lacked it from everyone outside of his friend group, but he was a hormonal, teenage boy. )

And now Stevie, who was not only the prettiest girl he had ever met, but took down four of his inevitable bullies without breaking a sweat and let him talk her ear off on the way back to the apartments? With her only warning being to not drop her bottles?

How could he think it was anything but?

In Miguel's opinion, the only issue was that Stevie never really responded to any of his attempts to get to know her. But perhaps she had a quiet nature or today had been a long day, so he would just fill the silence for her. ( She had been strangely grateful that he kept a lull from forming. She would rather die before admitting it, but she preferred the nonsense he spewed to the nightmarish scenes her own mind concocted. )

The pair walked through the entrance of the apartment complex, and Stevie went for her door. The bag was hanging lazily from her fingers while she pulled the key out, jiggling it into the lock until she could open the door. 

She pushed her way into the apartment, and dropped the bag on the counter.

Stevie turned around to see Miguel still standing in the open doorway, distracted by the bareness of her apartment. She rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers at him, grabbing his attention enough to pull him into the place before latching  three of her four locks.

She left Miguel to wander aimlessly while she made a stop for the bathroom to grab one of her black washcloths ( mainly to avoid questions about bloodstains from the rare intruder ) as well as a fresh roll of fishing line.

When Stevie walked back into the main area, Miguel was staring at one of the many blank walls. No doubt curious about the lack of personal effects; nay, the lack of personality in her apartment.

She never thought much of it. The facts were that she doesn't have enough to carry around, and she had even less to afford anything new. So before Miguel had the opportunity to think up any more questions, she tilted her head up to brush her lips against the shell of his ear. 

"What do you think you're looking at, Diaz?"

Stevie's sudden presence made Miguel jump out of his skin. Her breath induced shivers: goosebumps ran up his arms and down the back of his neck. She left his fingers trembling as she quickly grabbed the bag of glass bottles he carried from the mini mart to set down on the counter.

She pulled out a bottle of vodka and laid it on the countertop along with the bathroom items.  She got on her knees to grab two cups and her makeshift first aid kit, which included a pair of pliers, some gloves, a pack of sewing needles, and a shit ton of gauze.

Once all the equipment was present, Stevie grabbed the vodka and poured it into the cups. She slid one of the cups over by the sink, and placed her metal tools in it in order to disinfect before she used them.

Once she slid some gloves on, she looked over at Miguel expectantly, "Get over here."

The boy stumbled over himself to stand next to her while she was dousing the washcloth with the spirit in order to clean the nasty head wound he had before she fixed said nasty head wound. Out of her peripheral, Stevie noticed how nervous Miguel looked as he scanned the items she had pulled out and handed him a near empty cup.

"Drink it."

Miguel widened his eyes, "I, uh─I've never ... Do I need to drink─"

Stevie cut him off, "Would you rather me stab a needle through your skin while you're sober?" 

She all but shoved the drink into his hand before grabbing the needle and pliers from the sterilizing vodka, "This is the closest you're gonna get to numb unless you'd prefer an infection. I suggest you take the drink."

Miguel nodded, his eyes remained just as wide as he looked down at the clear liquid. As he was working up the nerve, Stevie pushed him in front of the sink while she was in the middle of rounding out the needle with her tool.

She noticed the furrowed look on his eyebrows and replied, "I'm not cleaning anything you throw up."

"Right. Yeah, makes sense." Miguel had a toothy grin before he took a sniff. It smelled like nothing, so there was no way it could be that bad, right?

Wrong!

It was liquid fire.

Stevie was smart to tell him to move. The first sip he took, he all but sprayed out. Miguel hated the drink and took sharp breaths, hoping to get the burn out of his mouth.

"You gonna finish it?"

With a screwed up face, Miguel shook his head, "Fuck that! I'll take the needle sober!"

Stevie lifted her eyebrows in surprise, but accepted his answer. ( She fully anticipated he would change his mind again. ) She lifted the vodka soaked towel to the cut on his forehead. He hissed as she wiped the blood off the edges of the cut, and tried to shove her hand away when she got any closer to the middle.

"I'll try again."

Miguel gagged with every sip. 

It made Stevie want to jab the needle through her ears.

But he muscled through. He suffered the burn of a shot of cheap vodka before he nearly dropped the glass into the sink. He didn't wince whenever Stevie dabbed around his wound, and the only time he screamed when the needle first pierced his skin. 

Stevie was stitching his cut up with an uncomfortably practiced ease before she uncharacteristically broke the silence, "It was karate."

"Hm?" Miguel hummed like he was floating, and tried turning his head to look at her. Luckily, Stevie stopped him as she grabbed his chin to turn his face back to the correct position.

"What was karate?"

"During the fight," Stevie answered, making sure to correct his statement from earlier as she tied off the last few knots, "You said Johnny did tae kwon do. He does karate."

Miguel's mouth dropped in a silent 'oh' as she dropped the pliers and needle in his empty glass. Stevie grabbed the vodka soaked towel again, and she moved to tend Miguel's face once more. 

Now that the worst part was over, Miguel became very hyperaware of just how close they were. Or more accurately, how close she was to him. Stevie had him pressed between her and the countertop, and with the way she leaned her leg against his? 

He forgot how to breathe.

Before he even realized it, he blurted out, "You looked really hot when you kicked their asses!"

Stevie stopped cleaning his wound to raise an eyebrow at him. He seemed to have a really bad habit of backtracking and rambling, which was seen once more. 

"Not that you don't look good every other time. Like this morning. You looked really pretty this morning and right now and I'm gonna shut up."

Stevie, still holding her right eyebrow higher, pursed her lips and nodded, "That's a good idea."

Immediately after, she dropped the towel in the sink and grabbed some tape and gauze from the kit. Stevie pressed it on his forehead before taping it down.

"You're done."

The relief that Miguel felt at those two words was palpable. He grabbed the Pepto Bismal Stevie had set out ( not even realizing that she bought him a new one while he was getting his ass beat for the second time that night ), before speeding out of her apartment.

Don't embarrass yourself.

That was his one rule for himself as he walked home with her. And what did he do? 

He embarrassed himself.

Stevie followed him out with an extra tap filter she bought with Kyler's money. He fumbled with pulling his keys so badly, the door opened before he could even grab the correct key. Miguel tried to sneak into the crack of the door ( and his mother ), but she stopped him before he could get any further into the apartment.

"¡Ay, mijo! ¿Qué te pasó?" ( Oh, my son! What happened to you? ) His mother grabbed his face gently, as to not injure it further. But if he thought he could escape his mother's grip, he had another thing coming.

"¡Mamá! Estoy bien, es nada," ( Mom! I'm fine, it's nothing, ) Miguel muttered, embarrassed before his mom asked about his head. Stevie rolled her eyes at the lack of an excuse. 

( Lying 101, dingus. Always have a story. )

She interjected, hoping she could get home and try to get some sleep, "Some guys tried to jump me and he wanted to defend me. He's a little bruised up, but his head got the worst."

Miguel's mother's eyes flitted to Stevie quickly, and pushed her son ( who was giving Stevie an exasperated look ) behind her. His mother was not as sly as she probably thought she was being.

"Did you give him the gauze?"

The girl nodded, readjusting the cases of water, "Stitches too."

The casual addition was horrifying for the mother. As a nurse, Carmen was perfectly used to people needing stitches ( even though it made her feel sick that her son was the person who needed them ). The problem was that this strange girl, who looked no older than Miguel, was the one to give them.

Stevie did not want to be on the receiving end of motherly hysterics, so she pulled down the high neck of her tank top. The expression on Miguel's mother fell as she looked at the scar above her heart.

"I got hit by some broken glass a couple years back."

Liar.

"I had to stitch myself up."

You know damn well that Annika was the one who saved your ass. Show them the stab wound you did on yourself three years ago. See how she reacts then.

"I knew what I was doing."

Not well. ( Fuck off! )

Despite feeling so embarrassed in front of her, Miguel couldn't help but stare at the scar she bore. Even as Stevie let her shirt fall back into place, he could still see the tail end of it just past the edge of her tank top. He hadn't caught onto the girl watching him as he stared until his mother pinched the back of his hand. ( Miguel was no longer the only Diaz who was embarrassed in front of the girl. )

Carmen felt flustered. The girl walked her son home, patched him up, and dropped him off at their doorstep, acting so painfully casual about giving someone stitches at fifteen. ( She had truly never met someone who was so rude, yet so kind. Sort of, at least. ) 

She opened her mouth and closed it again, unsure of what she wanted to say before opting for gratitude, "Well, uh ... thank you, mija."

Stevie had felt impatient. Carmen Diaz looked as uncomfortable as she felt until she dropped her statement of gratitude. 

She knew that her expression faltered. She felt her jaw loosen ... and her eyes burn. She had been hit so suddenly with a sense of grief. 

Tears she had spent the better part of a decade hiding away begged to come out for a simple term that the mother had probably said a thousand times. But Stevie knew better than the latch onto a stranger ( who Stevie knew more about than her son most likely did ).

She was callous and careful all at once. She was nonchalant about her offer to install the water filter. She was acting as Miguel did in her own place with the slyness of a fox, drinking in every detail of the neighbor's apartment. Every move she made was so carefully curated in the presence of mother and son as she placed the filter with a far more practiced ease than the first time she did it to her sink.

Stevie had not wished to overstay. In reality, she did not want to stay over at all, so she moved to leave with little fight. 

However, cold fingers wrapped around her scarred shoulder, and Stevie was nearly about to break a streak she hadn't realized she was keeping. ( Six months without a kill, somebody get her a medal. ) She whipped her body around, carelessly knocking Carmen's hand off of her shoulder.

( All that had been done was prove to Carmen that someone had hurt this girl. And whoever it was, had hurt her badly. )

It had softened her in a way that set Stevie on edge. 

"What's your name, mija?" She felt the same lump in her throat, and she swallowed it down again. 

"Stevie."

The Diaz woman nodded, not wanting to push her any further, "I'm Carmen."

I know.

She had nearly threw that truth in her face, but instead, offered a tight smile as Carmen continued, "Well, it's pretty late tonight, but we would love to have you over for dinner tomorrow night if that's okay with your parents?"

Miguel was frantically shaking his head at his mother. He had seen the lack of effects in her apartment. Stevie clearly didn't have a good relationship with her parents if there was nothing that indicated their existence. Unfortunately, he was too late.

The offer had already been made.

Stevie shook her head as well, though for a different reason, "Oh, my parents are dead. It's just me."

She had been so nonchalant as she said so, you would have thought that she was talking about the weather. 

The silence was painful and it was awkward, so Stevie took the opportunity to make another excuse to make her swift escape, "I also have to work tomorrow night, so I wouldn't be able to make it. But thanks for the offer."

Carmen looked visibly uncomfortable as she tried to smile at the girl, "Maybe next time then."

Yeah fucking right.

"Maybe," Stevie contradicted the thoughts in her head, as she had officially made her way outside of the apartment.

"Well, good night, Stevie," Carmen bid adieu.

With a smile that looked less like a smile, and more like she was baring her teeth, Stevie responded with nothing more than a good night before walking away.

━━ carmen diaz is a milf rt

━━ also i have poll-ish question? 

━━ i intend for this to last the span of multiple seasons, so would you guys prefer that stevie's story is made into more of a series and split stevie's story up ( such as book one = seasons 1-3, book two = seasons 4 -5 ) or should i keep it in this one book?