ANGEL ~ vance hopper x reader ~

⌗ 𓂃 𖥔༌ ᰷ ﹅chapter 1﹅ ᰷ 𖥔༌ 𓂃⌗

"have you eaten breakfast?" my voice came out wobbly.

"no. but I'm not hungry." he replied.

"take an apple, at least," I picked one up from the fruit bowl beside me and ran it under the tap before hurrying past dad to press the red ball into finney's hand. "c'mon, let's go."

I hurried the kids out of the front door without a second glance to dad, who was still stood their fuming. there was an angered shout from within the house a brief second after the door closed and I hurried the kids down the path and out of the chainlink gate.

***

we'd reached the elementary-middle school fairly quickly. the two schools had been joint into the bigger middle school which wasn't too far of a walk from our house.

"ok, have a good day, kids. don't get into any trouble with people you don't want trouble with. answer questions in class and do the work, i'll meet you back home," I dusted the kids down and sorted their collars before pressing a kiss to gwen's head and ushering her off. as I went to kiss finney on the head he shied away from me. "what? too cool to let your older sister give you a kiss on the head?"

"no, just too old, don't ya think?" finney retorted, a small smile tugging on his lips. I smirked back at him.

"how bout you fuck off into school then?" I joked. I was always more jokey with finney; he was older and understood my humour better. he flipped both his middle fingers up as he walked backwards and slowly turned to face the school building. "hey, I don't wanna be hearing from your teachers that your giving kids at school the finger!"

"yeah, yeah!" he laughed.

"he's lucky I even let him get away with that." I muttered with a smile as I turned to walk to the high school to start my day of classes.

***

I span my combination into the lock on my locker.

"y/nnnnn!" my best friend, bruce yamada, leant on the locker beside me.

"hey," I replied, unable to suppress the smile he brought to my face. I pulled the books I needed from my locker into my bag and grumpily slammed my locker shut.

"howww isss life?" we both turned from my locker to head to class. I knew what he was referring to, it's not like he could outright ask me 'how's your home life, is your asshole dad still abusing the will to live out of you for every little noise you make?'.

"alright, had a stand-off in the kitchen with dad cuz I dropped a plate and finney had to save me from getting my ass beat." I scuffed my shoes along the floor, still grumpy. bruce was the only person who knew about my dad and his drinking problem. he briefly placed a hand on my shoulder in comfort. "whaddya got first?"

"chem, you?" I returned the question.

bruce was about to respond before he cut himself off.

"dude. is that vance hopper?" I glanced in the direction of where my best friend was looking.

stood beside his locker was the one and only 'pinball' vance hopper. he was in our grade, 11th, and barely ever came in, he usually lingered around the grab'n'go, dominating the pinball machine. everybody knew not to mess with him or his game if they valued their lives or their faces.