𝙿𝚁𝙴𝚃𝚃𝚈 𝐺𝐼𝑅𝐿𝑆 | poly , hbh '22.

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁𝑇𝑊𝑂: 𝙱𝙻𝙰𝙲𝙺𝐵𝐼𝑅𝐷.

trigger warnings:    physical abuse mentions.    SA mentions.    brusies.    blood.

𝑩𝑼𝑮.

2019.

MORNING SUN FILTERS into the boys room, the dark curtains blocking most of the light from their eyes but the horrors of the night before certainly don't disappear. Spider is the first to wake, with a stream of brightness warming his face, his blue eyes meeting that of the girl, though she remained asleep, he was thankful for that. The bruises he'd seen forming the night before were nothing in-comparison to what he could now see. Blotches of purple and blue, no sight of the sickly green colour that they would eventually turn, he would bet that beneath the swollen skin of her eye, bloodshot eyes could be seen.

Chook had made such a mark on her that she no longer looked like Maddison, she looked like a broken and wounded shell of someone he once knew and he didn't like that. Without a thought, he swipes a soft finger across the fallen piece of hair in her face, pushing it back behind her ear. This moment startles Maddison awake, shaking shoulders in fright as she sits up, but as the rustling and movement wakes the other two, recognition settles in. She is safe. She knew where she was, she knew who she was with and the rapidly beating heart settles in her chest.

"I, uh . . ." she hums as all eyes remain on her. "I didn't know where else to go. I'm sorry."

Spider, Ant and Dusty watch the girl as eyes drop to her hands, legs now folding together, curling in on herself. There was a sick sense of heroism in all of them, especially in Spider, they were glad she found them, they were glad that she felt comfortable enough to stay with them. A saviour complex perhaps, but only time would tell.

"Don't apologise." Dusty was the first to speak, slow and low as he moves from the bean bag he'd slept in to atop the bed where they all sat. "We're all glad you're here and you're alive." He murmurs.

There was certainly no argument from the other two as they nodded their heads, careful not to touch the broken girl, but still let her know that they were there, they would forever have her back. A moment of softness that these boys didn't often show, Dusty, even at sixteen had already built a reputation of flickering through a rolodex of girls on the regular, Spider who was an overall asshole to everyone and enjoyed baiting people into petty arguments and then there was Ant while nothing too terrible for him, he was just a follower in their little group and often, by association, deemed a bit of a prick, but really, what teenage boy wasn't. Maddison finds comfortability within their presence, there is no judgement, there is no petty arguements, there is just them and her.

"You're our Bug, you always have been. We're your friends and we wouldn't want you anywhere else." Ant pipes up softly, his hand out stretched on the bed in front of her, palm up and open for her to take, when and if she wanted to, knowing that touching her without her permission would not go over well, not know. But Maddison doesn't take the hand, she doesn't even acknowledge it really, but instead leans into the shorter of the three boys, her cheek, though painful and damaged, pressed into his shoulder. Grounding her.

And from that moment on, there was a bond stronger than any other that had formed.