marilyn thornhill x fem reader

burden

You don't remember when it started, but you think somewhere between realising that even after six months you still haven't made friends and that for all of the effort you've put in, it all starts to make you feel small. And stupid. And fucking useless.

Moving was meant to be a fresh start, Nevermore was meant to be a fresh start, but after being held back another year after failing, and realising with a horrifying clarity that you aren't all together normal, your parents had enough.

And so you're here, now. A school for outcasts. And somehow, of course, you feel like a burden in a school designed to make you feel whole, welcomed. Somehow, you're an outcast in an outcast school.

Yoko your roommate though is a godsend, she's surprisingly kind and gentle for a vampire, and never faults you for being a shapeshifter who can't shapeshift. She says she gets it, Enid, her best friend, is a werewolf who struggles too. And the moment you meet the bubbly blonde is feels a little like you belong. Like it's okay to be who you are.

You're asked a million questions. "Would you be able to shapeshift into a bug? A bird?" Then, a gasp. "I bet you could one day shapeshift into a werewolf!" And it made you blush and revert a little back into yourself, laughing and telling Enid: "Maybe, one day. Who knows?"

One day still hasn't come. And for how kind your new friends are, it still feels unreachable to begin to feel normal. And they're sweet, but it's hard sometimes to relate to teenagers with your age gap. Sometimes it makes you feel uncomfortable, how three years isn't a lot but it feels like a whole generation, so you're content in your solace and isolation.

Finding reprieve in the library becomes the norm after receiving angry phone calls from your mother, urging you to please shapeshift, to stop casting an ugly shadow across your families name.

At the reminder of her disappointed voice, the cruelty of her pressure, you bite your lip to contain the tears and focus on your homework, breathing in the smell of the library and the quiet of the space around you. Botany. The other saving grace in how hard it's been lately.

Because no matter how hard you've tried, Marilyn Thornhill, your self proclaimed dorm-mom and teacher, has become the one thing you look forward to every day.

She's kind, and warm, and so dorky it's kind of endearing for a teacher who is just obsessed with plants, and who wants her students to be just as enamoured.

She regularly brings in different experiments, flowers that turn fruit into rotten piles, then back into blossoming sweet delights. Flowers that are love potions, plants that can kill or resurrect. She's a woman eager to teach, to ensure her students are safe and welcomed.

Your stomach warms at the thought of her, and you know the thoughts are dangerous, but there is something inside of you you can't help. Sometimes, you think of how she pushes her glasses up onto her face more when they fall, and your heart actually leaps. You blush just at the thought of the endearing action.

And she never looks to you like a burden.

Not like Larissa Weems, the principle, who when finding out about your affliction had that pitying look grace her features that you're so used to it hurts.

You know she didn't mean it, but it flashed past her eyes when she first found out that you couldn't shift, like the idea broke her heart.

"Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. I thought the library was empty."

You jump, a small squeak leaving your throat you don't mean as you whirl around at the voice. Hand to your chest, you close your eyes in relief and huff on a giggle when Miss Thornhill looks apologetically back to you, wincing at your fright.