#we need to know when to ask for help

[sittingonfilm]

How To Cope When Mental Illness Shuts Down Our Minds

"It may sound odd or impolite to suggest that most of us, when we are in the grip of mental illness, are no longer capable of thinking. That’s not how it feels, of course. From the inside the inside, our minds have probably never felt so busy and so focused.

"From the moment we wake up in panic and self-disgust, we are ruminating, pondering, exploring catastrophic scenarios, scanning our past, attacking ourselves for things we have done and not done, questioning. We may rub our temples to cool them down and when eventually we fall asleep, we are exhausted by the marathons our thoughts have run inside us. Nevertheless, we may still want to insist (for the kindest and most redemptive of reasons) that we have not been thinking at all, that none of this hive of activity deserves the title of thinking; it is just illness.

"To be mentally ill is to be swamped by secretions of fear, self-hatred and despair that – like surging seawater through a pumping station control desk – knock out all our higher faculties, all our normal ability to sensibly distinguish one thing from another, to find perspective, to weigh arguments judiciously, to see the wood for the trees, to correctly assess danger, to plan realistically for the future, to determine risks and opportunities, and, most importantly, to be kind and generous to ourselves.

"None of these faculties function any longer, but – and this is the true nastiness of the illness – we are never and nowhere alerted to our loss. We are both very ill and very unaware. It looks as though we are continuing to think as we have always done – with all the usual intelligence and reliability – but that we just have a lot more to worry about.

"Nowhere along the way does our mind generously tell us that it has begun to look at reality through a distorted lens, that it has – at some point in the day – to all effects, stopped working. No bell goes off, no hazard lights start to flash. The mind merely insists that it is giving us all the normal readings, and that we have objectively entered hell.

"Yet the truth is that we have lost command of about a third of our minds and are pulling together our ideas from the most degenerate, traumatized, unreliable and vicious aspects of ourselves.

It’s as if a group of terrorists had donned white coats and were impersonating prestigious scientists in order to lay out a set of vicious theories and prognoses.

"Once we have been through a few cycles of distorted thinking and recovered contact with reality, we should do ourselves the kindness of accepting that – on an intermittent basis – we will lose command of our higher faculties and that there is nothing embarrassing in recognizing the possibility and accommodating ourselves to it very carefully. This is the nature of an illness around which we will need to take the greatest care.

"We should start to get better at detecting when illness might be drawing in on us, what the triggers for it might be. Then when it is upon us, we should do and decide nothing. We shouldn’t start to send emails, deliver judgement on our lives or plan for the future. We should – as much as possible – stop all mental activity and rest. We might listen to music, have a long bath, watch something untaxing on television and perhaps take a calming pill.

"We should also try to plug our brain into that of someone else, to benefit from their greater powers of reason. We should have a trusted friend or therapist whom we can call on at such moments and ask them if they might re-calibrate and regulate our thoughts with an injection of their wisdom and insight. We should willingly put them in charge of determining how things are for us: they should be allowed to tell us what we are worth, what we have done, what there is to worry about – and we should do our best to discount the contrary, doom-laden signals that come from inside us.

"We may have grown up with the idea that so long as we are conscious, our minds will be working optimally. But mental illness teaches us a more complicated lesson: our higher faculties (those that give us access to reality) are extremely vulnerable and perilously prone to shut down under the sway of our emotional complexities – and to do so without telling us. We should strive to become thinkers who recognize when they are no longer able to think."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ⟡ 🌑 ⟡ ˚｡ ･ ───

[Transcript obtained from video posted on YouTube.]

[inkskinned]

crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.

i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.

in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.

i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.

i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.

plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.

the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.

we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.

i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.

a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.

today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.

loved beyond thinking.

[spacedlexi]

"sounds nice... having a partner"

[shouyuus]

i think ppl truly don't talk about the fact that having emotionally unavailable (or even emotionally abusive) parents breeds an inability to ask for help even when you need it bc you could never trust that ur parents would be there for you, and so you try to do everything urself and that leads to exhaustion and overwork while simultaneously thinking that if you could just do it all and do it perfectly then perhaps you'd get the affection/affirmation from ur parents (and later on ur boss/peers) that you've always craved which leads to blaming urself for not living up to crazy expectations and then thinking u don't deserve love bc you couldn't do it, etc etc

[sleepyorchidmonster]

Soo, remember in Glorious Masquerade, when Malleus came up with the story that the cause of the Crimson Lotus was unknown, and Rollo was actually trying to save everyone alongside the NRC students?

What if that's another bit of foreshadowing for the end of Book 7?

Briar Valley is in a really precarious position now, still recovering from the Silver Owls, with the Senate mostly taking over while Maleficia grieves, so Malleus overblotting is just another blow to the fae, even if students like Leona, Kalim, Vil and Idia manage to advocate on his behalf.

So why not spin the tale of how there was an unnamed threat on the island that was so Dire (pun intended for Crowley) and all-encompassing that Malleus had to go all out?

To avoid collateral damage and prevent the issue from reaching the rest of the globe, he had no choice but to use his UM to cover the whole island, keeping everyone safe in a peaceful slumber while the threat was dealt with. Luckily, STYX coordinated efforts with the rest of Briar Valley and they managed to subdue the threat both inside and outside the barrier, and everyone is safe now!

That way, the world can see Malleus not as an uncontrollable monster, but as a fierce protector who might go a bit overboard, but means well (also he's a dragon and his remaining family was on the island, so his protectiveness is understandable). Therefore, it's best to befriend the fae and Briar Valley than make enemies out of them!

The only problem is the rest of the student body and staff that saw the overblot at Lillia's farewell party, but I'm pretty sure STYX's Lethe program is back on to deal with the mobs, while the rest of the cast can be sworn to secrecy in exchange for having Malleus owe them a favour (they can use Azul's UM for the NDA).

As for the problem, NRC has been dealing with overblots at least once a month, not to mention the STYX invasion, and the Phantom Dwarves back in the mines, and how Book 7 might introduce the true mastermind and that's what we have to deal with in Book 8... They just have to pick ONE of the options above.

As a sidenote, having Sunset Savanna become Briar Valley's fiercest allies because Leona told his brother that Malleus is his friend would be so funny. Falena sees his depressed brother going to the trouble of making a whole Power Point presentation to convince the council on the benefits of allying to Briar Valley, all to save a school friend, and just decides that Malleus Draconia will have his unending support. Kifaji too.

(Leona has been ignored and belittled so many times that he prepared for the worst and made a whole slide presentation in hopes of defending his point well enough. Shoud've just led with "Malleus Draconia is a friend of mine who just went through a very traumatic experience and I want to help him" Kifaji and Falena would accept in a heartbeat).

BONUS:

Leona: *Practicing his Power Point presentation at 2AM*

Cheka: Unca, what are you doing in the middle of the night?

Leona: I'm just practicing, no one (my dormmates aside) ever likes my ideas and I have to make sure this works...

Cheka: Why?

Leona: Well you see... [starts explaining the inportance of supporting Briar Valley at theur moment of need and the benefits an alliance may bring to the table] ... also the Lizard would love if-

Cheka: Why do you keep calling Malleus Draconia "Lizard"? Is he your friend? Do you want to help him?

Leona, sighing: Yeah kiddo, he is my friend. He's been going though some tough times, almost lost his father and brother, and as much as we butt heads, well, no one deserves that...

Cheka: So why don't you just say that he's your friend and you wanna help him instead of talking about those "tweatwies"?

Leona: First of all, it's "treaties", and second, well, Briar Valley is in trouble, and helping them might get us in trouble too. Also I'm just the accursed second prince, people never listen to me, I need to back up my proposal with facts.

*random noise that sounds like a mix between a growl and a sob (Falena and Kifaji are eavesdropping lol)*

Leona: What's that?!

Cheka, panicking: Probably the wind....

*THE NEXT DAY*

Leona, finishing the presentation: And that's my proposal, any questions?

Random councilman: Well I-

Kijaji, smiling menacingly: I think it's a splendid idea, Leona. Briar Valley has been a longtime friend of ours, so it's only right that we help them in their time of need.

Falena, also smiling menacingly: Agreed! I'm so proud of you, my brother!

Leona: Wait, seriously!?

Falena's wife, smiling and sharpening a knife while subtly observing the other councilmen, marking targets: Of course, Leona! You have a sharp mind and this is a good plan. Briar Valley will have Sunset Savanna's full support for the coming criais, isn't that right, councillors?

Other councillors: Yes Ma'am!! Don't kill us pls

[ongreenergrasses]

contentious Annie post but…even if Annie can’t live by herself, or prefers not to live by herself, or if she needs a lot of support to care for her baby, that still doesn’t make her weak or helpless or an unfit mom…I feel like a lot of people overcorrect and want her to be completely self sufficient and able to do everything on her own, but Annie has breaks with reality. she sees and hears things that are not there, and she likes having someone help her out of that. the fact of her having higher support needs, maybe needing someone else to live in the house with her and help her during episodes, does not in itself make her less capable or less of a mom. it’s just an accommodation she needs for her life to work and her and her kid to be safe. which is fine.

[the---hermit]

i am sadly one of those people who are super insicure of themselves after any social interaction, I go over and over again in my head and feel irrationally bad bc my brain tells me I was awkward, and probably came off as weird and so on. But you know what brain? I had the social interaction. I did it. I spoke out loud to people and had a conversation instead of freezing and feeling unable to talk. So fuck it if I came off as weird and awkward, I am weird and awkward and it's okay, because I did something that just a few years ago would have been even more of a struggle, and even earlier than that it would have been close to impossible.

[itz-pandora]

Thank you guys for dealing with me

[eatsbooksarchive]

If Eris meets someone and instantly realises that they are his mate, he knows nothing else of the person, how would he go about it?

i think he would try to take that shit to the grave — theirs or his. the one romantic relationship he is most readily exposed to throughout his life is fraught with abuse, despair, and unwillingness; the open romantic and sexual relationships his brothers participate in look a lot like subjugation; their secret ones, the ones that are genuine and sacred, are under constant threat of exposure; and we all know what happened to jesminda. not to mention being mated to him means becoming an external vulnerability, a heart beating outside of his chest, aching for a hand to reach out and crush it — and there are so many who would see him crippled in such a way. even beyond that, there’s the hostility a mate would experience amongst the autumn nobility. not while he was around, of course, but if they were ever left alone with all of the fae who wanted so desperately to ascend to power alongside the scion of autumn. so there’s obviously a lot of reasons he would keep it secret, all of them selfless, even if in the selfishness of the act.

but i do think, in the dark of the night, when the forest house is quiet and none are awake to scent the weakness on the air, he lets himself feel it — the second heartbeat, just outside of his chest. beating much slower than his own, as though in sleep. he imagines what they look like in repose, how they might nestle deeper into their pillow with a furrow between their brow as a dream stirs them towards waking, how he might like to lean forward and press his mouth to it until they settled, there, in the dark, where no one would know but him. and then — and then a servant creeps into his study to tend the hearth, which the ones loyal to him know not to do because he does not like to be disturbed and prefers to do so himself, which means this one is not loyal to him and is here to catch glimpse of what the heir is up to and report back to whoever sent them. (could be beron, could be a brother, could be a high-ranking noble who despises him, could be a high-ranking noble who hopes to slither into his bed. doesn’t matter much anymore.) the fantasy lives and dies in that moment, until the pressures of his life close around his chest once more and he must steal another reprieve from the heartbeat beyond, then it lives and dies there over again, again, again.

because the kindest thing eris vanserra can imagine doing for a mate is ensuring they never, ever know.

[little-mouse-adventures]

@orangerosebush's post here, with my comment and @fowlblue's tags today got me thinking.

Artemis Senior has been teaching his son matters of business from a young age. Not only was Artemis, at 11 years old, discussing stocks with his father, but Fowl Senior had been imparting his wisdom onto his son for years by that point, discussing the ever-increasing value of gold with him before tucking him into bed. Even outside of pure monetary value, Sr. had tried to go legitimate with his business dealings, leading Artemis to have a few legal ventures of his own.

We also see very early on in the books that Artemis has been regularly using Butler as a resource for his plots: bouncing ideas off him was apparently a fairly common tactic when he was scheming.

Both Artemis Senior and Butler are interested in (or at least, not opposed to) educating Artemis on the ways of their lifestyle(s). It would be Artemis Senior who would have taught his son the value of banks and safety deposit boxes and hidden safes but it was Butler who was actively working with Artemis to rob those safety deposit boxes.

In the same vein of breaking-and-entering, TLC also gives us the fun little moment where Butler hands Artemis his own lockpicks, to get into the workings of the bomb.

With one line we learn that Artemis knows how to pick locks, but does not have his own set of lockpicks. Butler, on the other hand, has both the tools and knowledge how to use them. Partnered with a brief mention in TTP of some the specific trades of those previously employed by Artemis Senior (including such things as crime lords, insider traders, and cat burglars), we can extrapolate that Artemis Senior would generally hire someone to pick a lock for him, rather than do so himself.

It's pretty logical to conclude then that Artemis learned big-picture management from his father, and day-to-day skillsets from his bodyguard.

Essentially, Artemis Senior taught Artemis how to run a criminal empire. Butler taught Artemis how to be a criminal.

[rebloggiedoggie]

can't stop accidentally spoiling myself disco elysium bc every single fanart i see of this game is soul rendingly beautiful and important to me

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

ok if youre doing caledonius and simon go all out. some important characterization about cal to me is she

is delighted to impart the beauty of history onto little minds

yet is completely disconnected and casual about killing them if it means bringing about the apocalypse she religiously believes in

knows that that's not okay and is willing to lie to the close friends of the kids she watched die when they are trying to find their dead friends

is truly worried about the well-being of her vulnerable students

words her concerns in a way that intentionally guilts her students into trying to go out and fix things themselves. things that, again, she helped cause (oh, i just hope we can find [pep, who is being blamed for spader's disappearance, which she witnessed] before the wiz cops find him first and blast him on sight... <- after claiming she can’t find pep herself and that she and Deb are the only people who care about him. like. she wants to find him to use him in a sacrifice ritual.)

like come on i just know she is lying about not being able to use some kind of locator spell to find him. she wanted deb to find him for her. why. insidious beastie.

ignores the kids that the other teachers like most in order to give preferential treatment to some kid no one else likes. like, as in, she ignores them as though those kids do not exist.

to be fair the reason the other teachers give spader preferential treatment is just because they want to put their god inside him. and she thinks hes not the right vessel. but she is also with those teachers. this is such a funny stupid little thing to me. the few teachers who don’t want to make any kids into a god-vessel, also generally give spader good treatment, because hes noisy and charismatic. but cal literally walks through him as if he is not there which is INTEGRAL to her character to me can you imagine the first time they tried to bring the second age of terror in. her sulking in the back. rolling her eyes when he explodes into viscera. called ittt. can we try my kid now

near-religiously worships peppermint butler. full back tattoo of him. as soon as she got a student that looked like him and/or that she knew used to be him, she could not keep her hands off of him. she begged the other teachers to let him in even though he set the whole stage on fire during auditions. she keeps picking him up and touching his hands

let the kid she was planning to sacrifice bring his friend with him to the ritual sacrifice chamber, instead of leaving her froze in the alley with the other kid she incapacitated, and only LATER ripped the two of them apart so they could yell at each other all weepy and scared in the dark. to be fair this worked in her favor because the only reason pep really wanted to drink the shit was because he wanted to be strong to protect deb but it was kind of insane that she let pep bring his friend along after all the work the teachers had gone through to get spader alone. they turned his cousin into a rock and never turned him back.

despite the phd she does not think or do things smartly. i could have been EASILY convinced she had killed blaine right there in front of everyone and lied about them being fine (what, are you planning to come GET them later?? theyre a liability for you! as soon as they get up they have SOOOOO much shit against you now you are a TEACHER WHO ATTACKED THEM)(uweh. if. anyone believes them.) if they werent just like, sitting there later. hanging out

sorry. okay. also.

teases bufo for being old in front of all her students and winks at him.

runs so fast she makes fire behind her and expects her students to keep up. shes like 12 feet tall and they are all like 0.5 feet tall

calls her lecture over her shoulder while she runs. after coming to class 5 minutes late. while screaming.

she seems to be the only one taking the cult thing seriously and she knows it but she does not do anything about that fact. she lets them kill some kid who probably wasn’t going to survive their ritual and then keeps bringing up the fact that he’s missing with other kids to encourage them to keep their spirits up (he’s dead. she watched him die the night before.). her fellow cult members dealt with it way more awkwardly (bufo told everyone spader had run away to a non-magic farm upstate to live it up) and she, as the fun and welcoming teacher, probably had to field dozens of upset teenage wizards while LITERALLY knowing that he was actual dead twenty feet away

This is everything I know about doctor caledonius love and light

[fluffypotatey]

Can we please see Javy (Top Gun) and Javi (Twisters) in a fic or blurb?

hm well i haven’t written their official intro to each other yet (and i do plan to in Jake’s pov) but i got memes for how it would go down!

it’s literally just two different memes but one’s edited two more times lol

[clumsypuppy]

guy who only asks questions if they feel insightful enough to be worth asking and only hangs out if there is smth to do together <- deeply uncomfortable of the idea of wasting someones time

[strangersteddierthings]

Steve, Gareth and Chrissy are cousins AU (sad edition) [prologue] [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Final Part]

"So," Robin says after they clink their molotov cocktails together, "do we also get to talk about the whole cousin situation now?"

Steve looks across the field, where Eddie and Dustin are defending themselves from invisible enemies. Gareth and Lucas are swinging the finished spears at each other while Erica shakes her head at them, working on a third. It looks like Nancy is showing Max the proper way to hold a shotgun, which isn't nearly as bizarre as it probably should be.

"What's there to talk about?"

"Are you doing okay?" Robin asks.

Steve doesn't mean to making a scoffing noise. It just leaves his body involuntarily. "No. But I'm not the only one not doing okay. Now that we know Vecna doesn't have to do the whole weeklong build up to murder town, that he could get any of us, as any time and he's just being a sadistic bastard-"

"Steve. He'll take the bait. If nothing else, we have to believe that."

Steve looks from Max to Gareth, then back to Robin. "Yeah. Right."

Robin is quiet for a moment, before her eyes flick away and back to him again. "Do you want to talk to Gareth? He was... God, Steve, it was awful, hearing him scream for you. While Vecna was... Anyway, I know you two are like avoiding each other for whatever reason, but I think you can let go of whatever it was."

"I just wanted to keep them safe, Robbie," Steve swallows down the sob that wants to break free. "I never wanted them involved in this. I was so scared that I'd somehow infect them with the Upside Down that I just kept them away and it took Chrissy anyway. It-it-"

"It hasn't taken Gareth, though," Robin says softly, cutting Steve's spiral off. "It hasn't taken him. But he needs you. I think you need him, too. You should talk. Before we drop him at the Creel house. Because."

She doesn't finish, but that's fine. Steve knows what she's saying. They could die today. Any one of them. Chrissy died without Steve making it right. He'd started to work on hanging out with Chrissy again, but it was all surface level. He didn't even apologize. With Gareth he could justify, however shitty that was to do, that he was staying away because Gareth asked him to.

Chrissy hadn't asked for Steve to step out of her life. He'd done that himself in '83.

He can't do right by Chrissy anymore, but he can try with Gareth.

He stands and Robin gives his knee two solid pats before he walks away.

"Dustin, you piss off Steve somehow?" Eddie asks.

Gareth, in the middle of facing off with Lucas, pauses to look around, which gains him a light tap to his side by Lucas' spear. Sure enough, Steve is stalking their direction with a grim determination on his face.

"What, why am I the one getting the blame?" Dustin says, offended.

"It is usually you," Lucas adds, which earns him a squawk of indignation from Dustin, who shoots back, "he could be coming to lecture you for making Erica do all the spear making!"

Steve doesn't approach either boy, though.

"Hey, can we talk?" Steve asks once he comes to a stop in front of him.

"Got some end of the world regrets, Harrington?" Gareth says, trying to keep his voice lighter than he feels. He wants to tease Steve, not bully him.

He must succeed because Steve gives a chuckle and says, "I don't think we have time for all the end of the world regrets, so, uhh, just the one for now."

"We're cool, dude," Gareth says, eyes flicking from Steve to Eddie. The kids know, Gareth told them himself, but Eddie doesn't. "I started it."

"Yeah, but I graduated and still pretended you didn't exist. Which isn't what you asked for."

Gareth shrugs, because he doesn't know everything but he knows enough. Learned this isn't anyone else's (besides Eddie and his) first rodeo or whatever. That there have been other times, dating back to the year Will Byers was lost for a week. "Dude. Seriously. We're cool. You've been dealing with... whatever the fuck this is. So, just, like promise to be around more once we all survive this."

Steve looks pained but before he can reply, Eddie cuts in, "I'm sorry. How do you know each other?"

Gareth looks to Steve, who just shrugs as if to say your friend, you responsibility and honestly? Fuck Steve Harrington. Keeps traumatizing secrets and pushes Gareth away and also throws him to the wolves. Except, this is the secret Gareth has been keeping from Eddie. He sighs and turns to Eddie. "Well, uh, Steve's my cousin. We used to be super close before I started high school. Actually, Steve here is the reason I joined Hellfire!"

Eddie seems to go through all 7 stages of grief before settling into a confused. "I'm sorry. Steve talked you into joining Hellfire?"

"That is not what I did!" Steve defends himself.

"God no. He just went into great detail about how loud and obnoxious and attention-grabbing the current president was, as if that would make me want to not meet you for some reason."

"It was a warning!" Steve yelps at the same time Eddie sing-songs, "You think I'm attention-grabbing, Harrington?"

Dustin, Lucas, and Erica are all laughing at Steve has he tries to sputter through what he meant by attention-grabbing ("It's hard to not pay attention when he's shouting from the top of a lunch table!"), and Gareth just watches on, amused.

After they fight an... evil wizard? Vecna or whatever his name is. Once this is over, Gareth is going to sit Steve down and make him tell him everything, but that can wait.

He wants to watch Steve flounder trying to defend himself from the accusations of watching Eddie just a bit too much back in high school.

Later, as they all pack up and load up in the RV, Nancy stops Steve from entering the RV, ushering everyone past until Gareth and Steve are the only ones left outside.

"Are we acknowledging that you're cousins, now?" she asks.

"You knew!?" Steve sounds surprised. Gareth's surprised, too.

Nancy just rolls her eyes. "Steve, I've been to your house." When that just makes Steve look confused, she rolls her eyes and says, "there are family pictures covering almost every inch of your living room."

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Robin pipes in, appearing in the doorway with an angry expression.

"It wasn't really my thing to talk about, was it?"

"Yeah, but did you even check in with Steve? If you knew, and knew what happened to Chrissy- you didn't even ask if he wanted to go to the funeral!"

"Robin!" Steve hisses.

Nancy doesn't look upset by whatever accusation Robin seems to be trying to make. "If Steve wanted to go, he could have said something. We aren't his keepers. But, also," her gaze goes from Robin to Steve, "I didn't want to pry or seem pushy. I figured you'd tell us when you were ready."

Robin frowns but doesn't say anything else, disappearing back into the RV. Gareth gestures for Steve and Nancy to go first, and then he's closing and locking the door behind him before heading to sit by Eddie along the back bench seat. A bunch of shit has been piled there, so Gareth shoves it off the seat and to the floor. The pile of things ends up being a hazard and he almost brains himself while turning to sit down; something under his foot slides and Eddie saves him, yanking him to fall onto Eddie. After some fussing and laughter from those around, Gareth gets seated and looks down to see what almost killed him.

It's a phone book.

Eddie leans in close once they're back on the road to town to whisper, "so, you just let me go on all those rants about King Steve and never once thought to tell me you were related?"

Gareth just gives him his best impression of a King Steve smirk and says, "I would have hate to have deterred you from talking about your favorite school subject."

It's worth seeing the scandalized look on Eddie's face, even as the man socks him in the leg for the comment. "I hate you, man."

Gareth rubs his leg and says, "you don't mean that."

There's a long silence from Eddie after that before he says, "you're right. I don't mean that. And. Uh. In case I don't- in case it goes south down there but ends up fine up here, I just-"

"No," Gareth growls. "Fuck you, Eddie. We're going to be fine. All you gotta do is shred on your guitar and get the hell out. You're going to be fine."

"You didn't see the bats."

"Eddie."

"Fine. It's gonna be fine," Eddie agrees and falls silent.

Gareth frowns at that. Eddie must really be worried, to not argue back like he usually does. Gareth's worried, too, but what can he do?

He thinks about his mom. When did he last tell her he loves her? If they don't succeed tonight, will he get a chance to say it again? Will anyone get a chance to say it again?

Gareth looks down at the phone book at his feet.

"Wait, does anyone have change for a payphone?" Gareth asks from somewhere behind him. Steve turns in his seat to look into the back of the RV.

"Uh, yeah," Robin digs into her pockets, but then narrows her eyes at Gareth and asks, "wait. Who are you calling?"

"I have to let my mom know I'm alive. Just... hear my voice," Gareth says. "She needs to know I'm okay. It's already been too long since last we talked and... after Chrissy she was..."

Robin's face drops into the guiltiest look Steve's ever seen on her face and she produces her wallet, dropping the whole thing into Gareth's open hand. "Yeah, no. Sorry. There's still plenty of time for a phone call before the end of the world. You better return my wallet, Cunningham."

"I'm not going to rob you, Buckley," Gareth says before ducking out the RV with Max, Lucas, and Erica.

Steve tries not to let the guilt well up in him as they drive away. Gareth had wanted to come with Team Kill Vecna but Steve had quickly argued against that. He wasn't going to let Gareth anywhere near the Upside Down.

So it was decided. Max, Lucas, Erica, and Gareth at the Creel house, Dustin and Eddie on distraction, and Nancy, Robin, and Steve were going to face down Vecna.

There was still hours to go before they'd try, with a time set for 9:20ish, since that's the time Vecna's been enacting his curse according to Eddie's broken watch. Plenty of time to fortify Eddie's house in the Upside Down, plus the almost 40 minute walk to the Creel house from Forest Hills.

This was going to work. It had to.

Max and Lucas opt for hiding around the back of the house, waiting for time to pass until it's closer to dark, and Erica said she was going to snoop around the abandoned playground, so Gareth decided to head to the payphone a couple of blocks down the street.

He makes it halfway there before Erica scares the shit out of him by saying, "why do you need a phone book?"

Gareth yelps and spins, stupidly trying to hid the book behind his back even though he knows she already saw it. "I- uh, no. No reason."

Erica eyes him and he's suddenly very aware of whatever Eddie saw in her that night at Hellfire, that let her join the club. She's pretty scary for a middle schooler. "Do I look stupid? Who are you calling." It's not a question. It's a demand.

"I'm going to try and get a hold of Eddie's uncle," Gareth answers, trying to sound like an authority figure. "Tell him he'll find Eddie at his home at eight tonight. I know you all are so used to not telling people but this is- we need a real adult and Wayne's an army vet. He'll know how to help. He'll want to help."

She purses her lips, stays quiet for a moment before she nods. "I'm usually surrounded by stupid people, but you're kind of not one. I've got more change if you need it."

Gareth calls the plant and asks to speak to Wayne Munson. It's a bit of back and forth before the secretary agrees, but only if Wayne agrees to speak to a Gareth Cunningham. The plant must be getting calls from angry locals.

"Are ya really Gareth, or are ya just wantin' ta yell at me for helpin' raise the devil incarnate?" Wayne sounds tired and Gareth feels bad for him.

"Eddie would love for you to call him that to his face when you see him again."

"Thank God, son," Wayne sounds relieved. He must recognize Gareth's voice. "Ya okay? No one's harrassin' ya, are they?"

"No. Listen Wayne, I'm going to say something crazy but please just listen and do your best to be casual. I know where Eddie is. Or, where he will be at eight tonight. He's.... not physically hurt but he's going to need you. He might hate me for telling you this but I had to."

There is a pause where all he hears through the phone is a long inhale followed by a slow exhale. "Mmm hmm. I appreciate yer concern and glad ta hear no one's botherin' ya just for knowin' Eddie."

Gareth is only confused for a moment before he realizes Wayne is trying to make this conversation sound routine from his end. "Just. He's going home. But please don't show up until after eight. If you... if you beat him home he might run. Try to keep you out of this, y'know?" Gareth is just lying now, but he's a teenage boy in a garage band that plays in a dingy bar at the edge of town. That is to say, he knows how to lie off the cuff.

"I read ya loud and clear. I'll let ya know as soon as Eddie's been found safe so ya can quit worryin'. I gotta get back to it, but thanks for reachin' out."

Gareth hangs up and looks to Erica. "Well. Let's hope I haven't ruined everything."

"Let's hope that you know Wayne as well as you think you do."