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the grounding of a lifetime
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. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧
Dolores Burton was mostly thought of as quite the formidable woman by the people of Hawkins, probably due to the fact that she had divorced her abusive ex-husband via a frying pan to the head. And it was true, she was—she'd often threaten to bash racist people's heads in with her cane, and, infamously, had cursed Mrs. Tree out last autumn after she found out what the woman's son was doing to the kids at his school—but she had a soft spot, too. A soft spot for her husband, George, (although his son with the same name had always been a menace), who painted her nails and snuggled with her to watch television, and a soft spot for her grandson, Gabe. Perhaps the second one was because she'd never had any children of her own, but whenever he and his ghastly father had visited, she'd always spent as much time as she could with him, feeding him extra, because who knew how much he had to eat at home? And so, when Gabe had made his way to Hawkins and asked to live with her, she'd jumped at the opportunity.
Gabe was a good kid. He got high grades, wore nice clothing, and was generally sweet. He wasn't a rebellious teenager with loud, obnoxious friends—in fact, Dolores actually liked all of them, especially the young Byers boy, who came over often and was one of the most polite of the bunch—who blasted heavy metal music and never did their homework. He may have been a little odd, doing things like reading an extraordinary amount of newspapers, and liked things that boys weren't supposed to like, such as painting his nails, but she loved him for who he was, and especially loved that he followed the rules.
Well, there had been that one time last year where he'd been gone for days, but he'd told her over the phone that his friends had gotten hurt and he needed to stay with them. She didn't know what to think of that, because none of them seemed like the sort to get into fights, but it definitely had been a fight that had given Gabe those welts on his legs and sent the Fairgrieves-Byers girl into a three-day long coma, and she'd heard that somebody had been arrested, so that was quite strange. Still, after teaching Gabe that he needed to come to her and George for these things (along with revoking his television privileges), she set him free again, relaxing with the rules this summer so long as he promised to stay responsible.
