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aheathen-conceivably · 4 months

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“Good morning, birthday boy.”

Both Antoine and Zelda were now well used to rising at sunrise, so the words hadn’t woken him; but they did pull him out of the nebulous ether between sleep and wakefulness, so he moved closer to the woman curled around his back, “Oh, is that today?”

“Don’t play coy with me. That’s my job.”

Her hand wrapped around his waist, down his chest and to his drawstring, “I’m an old man now, my love, how could you possibly want someone with such wrinkles? I do believe I even found a gray hair yesterday.” A light laugh sounded in his ear, prompting him to turn and face her, “You can be so dramatic for a stoic. Thirty-six is not old.”

It was getting harder to answer her, to keep his tone measured as one of her hands wrapped around his neck and the other grazed up and down his arm. He brought his hand to her thigh, just below the lace of her silk shorts, “Oh you don’t believe me, do you? You should have heard the creak my knee made yesterday. I think it even scared off one of the horses.”

This time she did laugh aloud, shaking his hand off her thigh by throwing her leg onto the other side of his waist and sinking her weight down onto him. Her tone was as close to mocking as it ever came, “Yet not a peep from mine. Thank God at least one of us is still young enough for this.”

“Oh you’ll see one day, young lady. It’s tough to get old…” But by that point he had all but given up trying to speak without his voice descending into sighs. Her lips were trailing down his stomach, just slowly enough to answer him with a smile he had to look down to catch, “Sounds terrible. You poor thing. I suppose I’ll have to take care of you from now on, won’t I?”

Antoine took another glance out the window, where the day had already somehow grown brighter than he realized; but still he didn’t hurry Zelda with the last of his buttons. She caught his glance and finished the final one, “Don’t worry. You’ll barely be late.”

He pulled her close to him before grabbing his hat from the hook on the wall, “I know. And Mabel’s bakin’ a cake for lunch, so I doubt it’ll be much of a hard day.”

“Oh, so you did know.”

“You don’t have a market on coy, my dear.” He pulled his arm away and returned her wide smile, placing the hat on his head before grabbing her hand one final time, “How ‘bout you bring Violette over after you and Gio finish up work? She can have some cake and you and Mabel can enjoy yourselves.”

She answered with a quick kiss before turning to dress in her own work clothes, “Sounds great, old man.”

After their morning tasks, Antoine was standing in the stables with Silver. Before his daughter got there or he got another minute older, there was one thing he knew he wanted to do; and if he didn’t have the confidence to do it today he knew he never would.

She had been friendly with him for weeks now, and he kept hearing Abe’s words in his mind tempting him like a daydream, “You get her to let you ride her and you’re welcome to, anytime you like.” Only she wasn’t some trained horse, she was wild and distrustful. Sometimes her nostrils still flared menacingly in his presence and he thought that maybe, despite all their time together, she still even hated him. But as he ran his hand along her shining black coat, she blinked slowly, trustingly, and he knew that it was the day.

He went to the front of the barn, where he grabbed the riding gear that had sat tempting him every day. First he set the blanket atop her, then the saddle. He stopped periodically as he adjusted it, listening and looking for any sign of her anger, but she stayed patient with him each step. Finally he placed the bridle on her face and buckled the strap in front of her chest. It was like she understood that the movement had fully encircled her in some sort of trap, and she kicked her legs angrily as her eyes went dark.

Any other day he might have walked away, or undone the buckle around her chest, but today he knelt down in front of her so he could look her in the eyes. “Hey old girl, hey,” the words were half spoken, half whistled, “it’s me, okay? Just me. You can trust me.”

Her kicking stopped and her eyes seemed to settle on him, blinking slower and slower as he ran his hand along the side of her neck.

He walked beside her, letting out a shaky breath and putting a hand on her thigh. Alright, Antoine. Now or never. Don’t think about her throwing you in the sand. Don’t think about her breaking your back with one kick. He grabbed onto the horn and hoisted himself up onto the saddle. In the movement his knee let out a low creak and he laughed aloud, louder than he intended to, “Old man.”

Only his voice seemed to stir something in Silver, and she immediately turned to trot out of the stables. He grabbed the reins immediately and went over everything Abe had told him. Don’t pull too tightly. Stay calm. Your feet matter just as much as your hands. Talk to them with every move you make. Stay fucking calm.

Out in the desert sunshine, he passed Abe in his favorite spot next to the fire where he had sat to eat his cake. Antoine didn’t dare fully turn to face him, but out of the corner of his eye he could see his eyebrows raised impressively and a small approving smile on his face.

The closer they got to the edge of the farmyard, the more Silver seemed to remember exactly what she was doing, and perhaps even exactly where she was going. Her feet moved slowly at first, and then faster and faster as Antoine’s guidance grew more comfortable and confident. As the hills opened up and the flowers parted for them, it was like he forgot to be afraid or to wish that this moment was everything he had ever dreamed of, simply because it was.

#alert alert Antoine is now an adult #did I give him the most subtle wrinkles possible because I’m having an existential crisis about it?#…..maybe #but he’s back baby Yeehaw Antoine is BACK #1932 #sims 4 historical #ts4 decades challenge #ts4 historical #sims 4 decades challenge #the darlingtons #sims 4 legacy #ts4 legacy #sims 4 story #ts4 story #1930s #Antoine Duplanchier #Zelda darlington #Abraham Hines #sim spice

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flowercrowngods · 18 hours

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🤍🌷 @stevesbipanic and @the-winged-doe asked to see ugly unpolished unrefined words, soo—

cw & tags: past major character death, grief, attempted time-travel fix-it(s), eddie&robin besties || potential wip

Eddie takes a long drag of his cigarette, the biting hot smoke hitting the back of his throat and clawing its way into his lungs, going as deep as he allows and leaving a permanent mark that brings neither relief nor calmness tonight. His fingers shake where they’re pressed to his lips, but the rest of him is unmoving where he sits on the front porch of their new trailer.

It’s quiet out here. It’s always quiet in Hawkins these days, the city a fucking ghosttown.

And he knows it’s not because of the one they lost. He knows it’s not because of him. But still the emptiness is stark and the silence oppressivem more so than it ever has been.

Everyone still looks for him, months later. Dustin still begins to speak, cutting himself off mid-sentence, and Robin still stands with enough space to either side, like she expects him to just show up and invade her space like the home he made for himself in there.

And somewhere among all that is Eddie. With his very own history. Or, non-history, as it turns out. But history and non-history leave wounds alike, and the memories feel just as real. A small mercy, at the end of the day, for them to feel real when they’re all he has left anymore.

He takes another drag, not quite exhaling before he obliterates the cigarette and fishes for a new one before the butt even hits the ground.

Fumbling with the lighter in his pocket, he only gets as far as placing the butt between his lips before a hand snakes into his field of vision to snag it from his mouth.

“Hey,” he complains halfheartedly but makes no attempt at getting it back, watching instead as Robin comes up to sit beside him, grimacing at the stink of tobacco that must be heavy around him.

“You’re disgusting,” she says with no real heat behind her words.

Eddie shrugs, because yeah, sure. He’s been called worse things. Robin’s called him worse things. This is her being nice. Her complaininig about his incessant smoking is nothing new. What is new is what she does next, placing the cigarette between her own lips and reaching for the light he’s been holding in a loose grip since she arrived.

She starts coughing immediately, pulling a face at the disgusting feeling of smoke in her lungs and tobacco on her tongue. But she keeps going. Eddie can only watch in surprise and mild horror.

“These things’ll kill you,” he says then in an echo of her usual sentiment, aware that he sounds as bewildered as he feels.

“Well,” Robin says, aiming for casual, but quickly interrupted by a wheeze and a cough that’s almost adorable. “Let them try.”

Eddie huffs, a pale little smile lingering on his lips as he leans back against the stairs behind him, resting his weight on his forearm to watch her. There is something captivating about her. Eddie always wonders what it is, wants to study her forever.

Maybe it’s only the lingering traces of Everything Steve Harrington that clings to her every breath, her every move, her every fucking cell, with how much he was a part of her and she of him. Maybe it’s their shared grief that has made Eddie fall a bit in love with her and with the way the moonlight catches in her hair and in the smoke wafting from her cigarette.

But somehow he refuses to believe that all he loves about her is merely the memory of Steve.

Robin, in turn, is kind enough to let him stare. Kind enough to let him find out what it is between them. If this friendship is more than a misguided projection of grief and mourning and trauma; more than co-dependence and the obsessive will to keep this one person in your life. This one person who understands.

After a while of Robin just holding the cigarette between her fingers, becuase no matter how strong her will to self destruct, she never quite got it right with the smoking, Eddie snatches it back before it goes to waste completely. As if pulled in by a string attached to his hollowed out chest, Robin leans back and into him in one smooth motion. It’s too calculated, though, and Eddie can feel how much she sags once she doesn’t have to hold herself up anymore.

He’ll hold her. It’s fine. She gets to rest if she wants to. God knows she needs it.

The night is warm for mid-September, but still Robin shakes against him. Eddie holds her closer.

Silence settles over them, and it’s not an easy one. Silence is never easy anymore, especially with them. He feels so deeply hollow that even the silence echoes in there, creating an ever-present, uncomfortable thrumming of apprehension and anxiety within him. A certain sense of doom, one that can’t quite decide if it’s only an echo itself.

“I wanna stop time,” Robin says at last, the cigarette long dead between Eddie’s fingers, but he somehow can’t bring himself to flick it away. “I don’t want tomorrow.”

I don’t ever want a new day. I don’t ever want another tomorrow. I just want Steve.

They ring in his head still, another echo that only hollows him out further every time it reaches him — Robin, overcome with hysterical grief, screaming and crying, curled up on that hospital floor, her cries quieting down and making Eddie wish she would be loud again, because the quiet was what killed him. The quiet, the whispered words, the declarations that tomorrow could go fuck itself if it came without Steve made him wish, irrationally, desperately, that their roles were reversed. That he could have died and Steve could have lived, and Robin would never have to wish tomorrow never came.

He’s not entirely sure if she remembers the words, too. If she even said them in this world.

So he takes a deep breath, breathes away memories and non-histories, feels the heavy weight of his guitar pick hanging around his neck, resting on the scarred flesh of his chest, and tries not to think of the one string left on his acoustic guitar. Tries not to think of his one last attempt. One last try.

“I know,” he tells her. “Me neither.”

He peers over her head, lifting his left wrist to check his watch. Ten minutes until midnight. Ten minutes until Steve’s birthday.

“It’s not tomorrow yet,” he tries lamely, and Robin huffs — the sound wet and bitter and hopeless, making Eddie’s eyes sting.

“It’s always fucking tomorrow,” she rasps, her voice flat and wavering, and Eddie knows her well enough to know she’s about to cry. And she knows him well enough to do it.

“I know,” he says again, and reaches for his necklace through his shirt. One more attempt. One more try. One more chance. His eyes burn.

She turns to him after taking a moment to compose herself, peering up at him through her lashes.

“Tell me again?”

His heart falls, the tense apprehension vanishing from the air, bur quickly replaced by something a lot more heavy. Something that looks and smells and feels like grief.

They both know he’ll do anything she asks. He can’t really bear saying not to her. And not about this, anyway — she’s the only one who knows.

She’s the one who should have had the chance.

“Which part?” he asks, holding a new cigarette out for her to light it. She does, and the both follow the flame of the lighter Robin always keeps in her pocket these days.

She leans forward and takes a drag. Eddie lets her.

“All of them.“

Eddie sighs, pain welling up inside him, and he closes his eyes against the night sky. “Robbie,” he pleads, but he doesn’t finish his plea. He’ll do it. He’ll do anything she asks.

But before he starts recounting the tales of how he almost saved Steve Harrington, he finds himself saying something he never thought he’d tell her.

“There’s one more.” The words hang in the air, and Robin doesn’t react. Has no idea what’s coming; what he’s about to tell her. The guitar pick is heavy on the necklace around his throat. “There’s one more try. One more chance. I’m… I have one more—“

He can’t even finish the sentence. Can’t bring himself to say it, lest it all be jinxed forever. He doesn’t want to hope. Wants to carry this weight for all eternity and never think about all those times he failed to save someone he was never meant to save at all. People like Eddie, they’re not made to save anyone. Hell, they can’t even save themselves.

Steve was supposed to be the one doing the saving.

And he did. God, he fucking did. But he was never supposed to—

Cold fingers wrap around his own as Robin fits their hands together.

“I hate you a little bit for telling me.”

Eddie nods, trying to focus on the cold hand and the nicotine in his lungs, trying not to let panic and grief and guilt and the heavy weight of one more chance win. “I know.”

“Hey, Eddie?” Robin says after a while, the silence stretching on, and it’s almost midnight now. “Can you— Would you do something for me?”

He turns his head, flicking the butt of his cigarette out into the darkness beyond them. “What’s that?”

“Don’t— Don’t try to, to save him. Don’t— Just… Just maybe, could you celebrate his birthday with him? Make sure he knows he’s… God, make sure he knows he’s loved? Last year, no one really made time on his birthday and we just moved it backwards but God, could you— It’s almost midnight, and—“

“Robbie,” Eddie interrupts her, his voice hoarse and wavering, his eyes burning with tears as he tugs her close and holds her to his chest. “You should go. Don’t you wanna…”

But she’s shaking her head against him with a vehemence that can hardly be misunderstood.

“No,” she cries, and it’s more of a sob than anything. “I think if I ever saw him again, I’d… I don’t know what I’d do. Burn the whole fucking world to the ground for him or some shit, I can’t— I’d probably just cry all the time and that wouldn’t be helpful, really.” There’s a weak, wet laugh that bubbles out of both of them, and Eddie’s wiping at Robin’s face, drying the tears and making way for new ones to fall.

“I’d light a fire for you,” Eddie says, the same weak smile on his lips that Robin meets him with now. “Nineteen fucking fires, you hear me?”

She laughs again, then buries her face in his neck in a way that never quite fit. In a way that Eddie always knew was supposed to be someone else’s neck.

But he’s not here anymore. And Eddie can’t get him back. No matter how much he aches for it, no matter how much he learned over and over and over again how easy it is to love Steve Harrington and how hard, how fucking impossible it is to lose him. Over and over and over again.

And to live without him. This one fucking time they all get. It’s not fair.

And now Robin is asking him to go back one more time and make sure that Steve knows— That he knows.

Somehow the thought of that feels nobler than any attempt to save him, to bring him back; to rewrite history from a lonely boy’s perspective and hope that no one else is reading along.

It feels right, too. Fundamentally and suddenly, and with such an intensity that Eddie knows the decision has been made the second he started telling her.

Still he hesitates. Robin’s sobs have calmed down, and Eddie’s hand finds its way into her hair.

“Do you really mean it?”

She nods.

He nods, too, but slower. Like he’s trying to sway himself. Which way, he doesn’t know.

“Make him happy.”

“Okay,” he decides after a while, feeling hollow and desperate, but feeling purpose burning underneath his skin again. “One last time.”

He unwinds his arms from around her and heads inside to grab his acoustic guitar. The last remaining string, badly untuned because he never dared to touch it, stares back at him in both mockery and invitation. A dare. A chance. A promise.

Outside, Robin is waiting for him, looking anxious. Eddie wants to hug her. He doesn’t, only tightens his grip around the guitar’s neck.

“Listen, Eddie, if this is goodbye or something—“

“It’s a birthday party, Robsie,” he interrupts her, aiming for light, aiming for brave. “I’m coming back right here.”

“I know,” she rushes to say, taking a step toward him and wringing her hands. It’s endearing. It’s genuine. Eddie really is a little in love with her. “But, y’know, you don’t mess with time, and I don’t know what all you already changed before and I don’t wanna know but… If this is goodbye, if something happens, I just wanna tell you that I’m gonna miss you. And that I think you’re really cool. And that Steve’s— he’s really missing out, okay. Okay?”

Eddie breathes, taking in her words and letting them soak into his body, his every last fibre.

“Okay,” he smiles. “Thank you. You’re… I’m kind of in love with you, Robin Buckley. So there had better be no change in the universe, ‘cause that would really suck.”

They smile at each other, Eddie with his guitar and Robin with her lighter, and somehow this feels like a deja-vu. The antithesis to a moment forever burned into his memory.

Make him pay.

Make him happy.

Eddie tugs on his necklace and plays the string before he can think about it too hard; before he can decide otherwise.

Distantly, he hears the church bells announcing midnight as the world around him fades.

🤍 permanent tag list gang: @skiddit @inklessletter @aringofsalt @hellion-child @cryptic-cryptid @hotluncheddie @gutterflower77 @auroraplume @steddieonbigboy @n0-1-important @stevesjockstrap @puppy-steve @izzy2210 @itsall-taken @mangoinacan13 @madigoround @pukner @i-amthepizzaman @swimmingbirdrunningrock @hammity-hammer @stevesbipanic @bitchysunflower @estrellami-1 @goodolefashionedloverboi @awkwardgravity1 @devondespresso @bookworm0690 (lmk if you want on or off, for this story or permanently)

#steddie #steddie fic #eddie & robin #eddie munson #robin buckley #robin and eddie are grieving besties now #me writing another story about death and the inability to grieve?? it’s more likely than you think #this one probably doesn’t make sense yet because they’re both refusing to think about what’s real or think about anything at all #so past present and future need time to develop above the damaged psyche of two entirely too young adults #so bear with me and give us time #anyway i’m posting this despite its unpolished ugliness bc this is as good as it gets #if i were anything like my self this would be a 7k study but as it turns out writing about grief is exhausting #(hi taglist gang i hope it was okay to tag you for entirely too raw a draft for anyone to lay eyes on lmao 🤍)

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