ONESHOTS ⊳ gavin reed x reader

[Finding homes]

This is completely unrelated to anything that has to do with 'x Reader's. This drabble is, quite literally, nothing but a summary of how I picture Gavin's childhood could've looked like. Enjoy.

Unfamiliar beds worsened nightmares, that much Gavin was sure of. He never thought he'd admit it, ever, but he missed everything. His old bed, his old toys, the room he shared with his mom, and even her.

He never thought he'd miss his mother.

She did a lot of bad things, that much he knew. He'd heard it time and time again. She'd always bring strange men home, which Gavin suspected turned into thin air, because he never saw them again. He only heard them when they entered the small apartment he called home, yet never saw them leave. He could only guess they were had done so while he was sleeping.

His mother also drank a lot. Beverages that smelled funny and tasted horrible, yet never failed to make her giggly and tipsy. Gavin liked her when she was like that. She was more allowing, and showed her emotions. Genuine emotions. Not the head-patting or the disinterested glances he'd always get—she actually hugged him, then cried, cried so much, for reasons he couldn't understand.

Then it all changed. A child protection worker came —Gavin still had no idea what exactly a one was — and his life got flipped around.

Suddenly, he started hearing about his father. The man he considered more mythical than real, to be honest. All the talk about custody started after that. Gavin considered it a funny word. It sounded like a combination between costume and melody. But it wasn't. It wasn't fun.

Because apparently the fact that his biological father had gained custody of him meant that he had to leave all he knew behind.

His father already had a family. He was married to a very pretty woman—Molly was her name. She was blonde, tall, gorgeous, and with eyes like gemstones. Like blue gemstones. Gavin liked her, but she didn't like him. Whenever she'd look at him, there was that certain something in her icy gaze. As if she were looking at rotten food, or an old plastic wrapper, or something she'd like to get rid of.

And finally another boy—his brother. His half-brother. Elijah, with blue eyes just like Molly, and a constantly neutral expression, who always seemed to be fidgeting with something. The first time Gavin had seen him, Elijah was working on a lego construction, analyzing all of its shapes and forms, adjusting every little detail.

Elijah didn't talk much.

But Gavin didn't really expect him to. He was kind of thankful for it, actually.

He wasn't overdoing it like his father, who had been looking at Gavin through the rearview mirror during the entire journey to Gavin's new home, and theirs. Elijah wasn't putting on fake smiles like his father, nor scoffing at him like his stepmother. Neutral, looking out the window, glancing at the other side of the backseat from time to time, just enough to satisfy his curiosity about the boy that was supposed to be a new addition to his family.

And Gavin could appreciate that. He could very much appreciate the silent, passive curiosity he shared with Elijah.

The rest of that fateful day was a blur, and before he even knew it, Gavin found himself in a bunk bed, on the lower one, blanket pulled over his head to protect him from monsters he suspected could have been hiding almost anywhere in the unfamiliar room.

And even downstairs, it seemed.

"If you hadn't fucked that whore, we wouldn't even be here!"

"Look, I know it was wrong. I just— It was right after our fight, and I had had a few drinks—" Gavin came to the conclusion that his father was what his mother used to call a schmoozer.