#basketball is very hard to follow if you don't know the game

[livwritesstuff]

i hit 100 followers while i was asleep (absolutely bananas imo but i’m so thrilled y’all are enjoying my steddie dads verse bc i’ve literally never had so much fun writing before) so here's a sneak peek of a wip featuring the Harrington fam

Eddie does not understand sports. 

He may be approaching fifty years old and way past his old ways of rejecting every notion that doesn’t perfectly align with his own interests, but even after all these years, the wires in his brain simply cannot wrap themselves around sports no matter how hard he tries.

And he does try because, naturally, he has three daughters, Moe, Robbie, and Hazel, all of whom play sports.

To be clear – his kids can do literally anything they want, bar none.

He’s still in goddamn awe with the whole arrangement that is the life he lives every day – kids and a house and a job he loves and all that with Steve Harrington of all people. There’s no way Eddie would start fucking all that up by projecting his own weird quirks onto his children. He refuses to be the kind of parent that prevents their kids from doing anything just because they don't get it. If the girls want to play sports, they’re gonna play sports. Nothing wrong with that.

Still, sports are one of those things he takes the back seat and lets Steve hold the reins for, especially now that thirteen-year-old Moe is pretty deep into the whole basketball thing. 

Steve understands the politics of the game, both on the court — like knowing which refs are gonna be biased towards which team and noting Moe’s play-time each game — and off. He schmoozes the coach, he’s friends with all the parents, all the things Moe, at thirteen, doesn’t even notice and Eddie, while aware of it, doesn’t understand. He still can barely follow the games themselves (and he goes to as many as he can, though he and Steve are outnumbered by one and with the prospect of the girls carting themselves around still a distant fantasy their schedule is insane so he can’t make them all). He does his best to follow his husband’s lead but Steve doesn’t always react to things the way Eddie thinks he will. He doesn’t bat an eye when a kid gets smacked in the face with a ball, nor at the impossibly loud thud when someone hits the deck (look — he gets the floor is hollow, but it is loud). He’s completely unbothered by the fit Moe throws every game whenever she’s inevitably benched for having an attitude with her opponents or her teammates or the coach or the ref or just about anybody who tries to get in her way.

As is what happened at Moe’s game yesterday.

Eddie hadn’t seen it — well, he’d seen it, but seeing something and understanding what he’s actually looking at are two totally different things. From what he gathers, Moe had missed an easy shot and gotten pissed off in her own little way about it, so she’d launched herself at whoever on the opposing team had gotten their hands on the ball after it ricocheted off the backboard. Unfortunately for Moe, the team they were playing had a reputation for being a little too aggressive for a middle school league, so when she’d hit the ground, she hit it hard. Moe had been pulled off the court by her coach (carded, maybe? Eddie still isn’t sure how that works in basketball) and scowled on the bench for the rest of the game.

Steve had tried to reason with her on the drive home (an interesting choice, in Eddie’s opinion).

“Darling,” he’d said, “I totally understand being upset about missing a layup, but I don’t know how to get it through your head that intentionally fouling someone isn’t the way to go about resolving that emotion. I love you and I support you, but I’m getting tired of watching you play for three minutes and then sit on the bench for the rest of the game.”

“Talk to the coach then,” Moe had grumbled.

“About what?” Steve exclaimed, “Moe — you do it on purpose!”

The conversation had ended not long later because Moe decided to give them both the silent treatment (a clear sign that she knew she was in the wrong even if she didn’t want to admit it) and Eddie thought that was the end of it (for that game, at least). Then, Moe threw them a curveball by spending most of that evening in the bathroom throwing up, at which point she admitted that her head had caught more of that fall during her basketball game than she’d originally let on.

Steve doesn’t mess around with head injuries (for obvious reasons), so the next morning he calls Moe out of school and brings her to their pediatrician to get checked out.

A couple hours after Robbie and Hazel boarded the school bus bound for their elementary school, Steve and Moe return home.

“So what's the verdict?” Ed asks as they enter the kitchen.

“She's concussed,” Steve announces.

“Like father, like daughter.”

“No sports, no bright lights, no reading, no school, no phone,” Steve says pointedly, and Moe only scowls harder. She’d been using the incident as a leveraging tactic in her crusade to get a phone. Not being able to play sports was a no-brainer; they’d all seen that one coming, so even as recently as this morning, she’d been claiming that she’ll “die of boredom without a phone,” while she recovers.

Even as recently as this morning, she’d been largely unsuccessful.

“Thirteen-year-old children do not need phones,” Steve had told her, “If someone wants to talk to you, they can call the house, and if it's urgent enough that it needs to be right now, you can get walkie talkies.”

“No one uses walkie talkies.”

“Your dad and I used walkie talkies all the time.”

“Uh, pretty sure it was just the one time, Steve,” Eddie pointed out.

“Yeah! And it worked out great!”

CONTINUE ON AO3

[setsugekka]

❥3:14am (m)

↳ Jisung waits for you to fall asleep, so that he can give and take freely.

han jisung x fem!reader — established relationship, explicit sexual content. [1k wc] cws: somnophilia!!, consensual non-consent!!, roleplay, masturbation (m), body cumshot/facial.

He hated to admit it, but it was the lack of compliance that really did it for him.

But the retelling of the act to you after the fact did it for you both.

"Come to bed, would you? I have work in the morning," you groaned into your empty side of the bed, nothing but a half glass of water and ear plugs on the nightstand. You had already taken the sleeping pills, after all.

"Yeah I'm coming!" Jisung chimes from the bathroom, whipping around the corner and shutting the light off in a haste before climbing into the cold sheets you two would be sharing.

"I love that we can do this," you say, turning to glance at him over your shoulder a bit, "ya know, share a bed without it being like, a sex thing."

He smiles, nodding in assurance. he loves it, too. Sort of for all of the wrong reasons.

Jisung doesn't have an alarm set for his plans, the anticipation keeps him up plenty already. He has a strategy, and every time he plays it out exactly the same way. Without fail. If he were really honest with himself, lying in bed next to you for two hours - thoughts racing through his mind of the fun yet to come - dick half erect for the entire duration, it was enough to reduce him to an insomniac as it was. He had a few rules, naturally, as anyone should when engaging in absolutely treacherous behaviors. Rule one, he never touches himself before beginning the scene, and rule two, don't wake her up. Rule two obviously being the most important of them, but he knew you had a way about you when woken up from your slumber and also there's the whole "lewd acts of non-consent" thing he's got going for him.

It starts as a whisper of your name, to which you never answer, of course. Followed by Jisung propping himself up on an elbow to lean over, gently, testing the drip and movement of the mattress and how disturbing it is to you. No response. This is when Jisung knows that it's time to play.

By now he's already hard, palming himself through the thin fabric of basketball shorts under the blanket that the both of you share, biting back heavy breaths as his eyes stare into the back of your sleeping head. He's hopeful that you will eventually turn to face him, but it's not necessary.

He can really only take a few moments of it before slipping his hand to touch his bare cock, fulling wrapping fingers around himself and pumping dully. Every time he does it, he thinks about how he knows how devastating getting caught would be, how friendship ruining, life ruining - absolute destruction and chaos. 

It makes his cock twitch in his hand, he can already feel heat pooling in his stomach.

Unfortunately, that is the tale of perversion - the more he shouldn't, the more gratifying it is to do it.

Jisung feels the dip in the mattress shift on his opposite side and freezes, hand still holding himself, watching the way the body next to him adjusts with intensity - he has to find out if his little game is over and if he'll have to run off to the bathroom to jerk himself off to an unsatisfactory finish into the toilet, but it looks promising when all the gesture results in is you lying on your back, still very much asleep, and much to Jisung's absolute pleasure - chest fully on display. Exposed. 

It takes him a moment before he feels comfortable enough with your act of slumber before he pulls his eyes away from your own and lets them trail down to your breasts, allowing his hand movement again but this time the pulls a bit more ragged and hungry than before. He can't touch. no touching, ever. but the looking that he most definitely is not privy to either is more than enough of a treat, along with the perfect visual of a fast asleep face next to his.

Normally, he likes to take his time. Tonight, is not going to be one of those nights he realizes as his breath picks up unusually quickly. Jisung finds he's way ahead of schedule, but the way heat is pooling and his muscles are tightening he knows he's not going to be able to last as long as he normally does.

Jisung quietly, carefully pulls himself up and off of the sweaty mattress, his tshirt clinging to his soaked back as he does so - kneeling with little distance and only slightly hunched over. He takes passing note of how thankful he is for the headboard, on which his hand now resides to hold his body weight. A cute, fleeting thought before his mind is once again clouded by perversion and desire - completely rewired in a way that rendered him almost unrecognizable as the Han Jisung that anyone knew him as. Hand gripped tightly around his hard length, pumping hard and fast at himself with bottom lip pulled between his teeth in an attempt to dull his whines - because he knows what waking you means for him - and it's that thought in and of itself that he loses himself to, unable to truly remain fully silent with a reluctant groan escaping between his bitten mouth as he pumps strands of cum onto your skin - across your breasts, catching on your mouth and chin, watching a small amount pool into the dip of your suprasternal notch before carefully climbing himself down and catching his breath.

He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, heart beating out of his chest and cock softening as he stuffs himself back into his pants. He inhales deeply, turning to reach off the bed and down below to a towel that he had already prepared for the nights activities.

Gingerly reaching forward, prudent fingers delicately caressing your skin as if afraid of disturbing you. Except that was the point.

"Hey," he whispers gently, nudging you on the shoulder and jostling you a bit in place before beginning to wipe his mess from you. It wakes you up tenderly, immediately remembering the circumstances of which that had been agreed and you smile at him with lazy eyes.

"Have fun?"

And Jisung simply smiles, wiping wetness from your chin, "I love you, tell you about it tomorrow."

♡ send me your thoughts and feelings in my ask.

—this is a oneshot, there will be no part 2.

[stregoniconiconii]

I think a lot of people really don't get the Eddie Dustin dynamic. They think Dustin and Eddie are new best friends, that they are equal, which is not the case. Their dynamic is more mentor-student coded. Eddie said it himself he sees the people in his club as little sheep he saved, he never really was their friend. His world view also shaped Dustin's personality. This kid and his friends saved the world 3 times, they consider themselves heroes and yet by society standards they are seen as nerds and get bullied. Then there comes a dude who they think gets it, so they latch on. Even though he is not that different from popular kids who think they are better than the rest. His harmful opinions influence Dustin (I would argue even Mike) that they suddenly ditch their friend, are mean, failing school even though in Dustin's case he absolutely loves learning and so forth. Eddie brought out the worst of them which contributed to the tensions in s4 between Steve and Dustin (along with Dustin maybe being jealous of Robin tbh I haven't considered that way but it makes sense). You can't compare the Steve and Dustin dynamic with Eddie and Dustin because Steve never saw himself as something better than Dustin, he always treated him as someone equal which is why their bond will always be stronger than the bond Dustin has with Eddie. I really hope for s5 they somewhat touch on this. (Sorry for coming in your inbox like this)

Most people in this fandom don't get Eddie, full stop. They completely buy into the bullshit he spews about conformity and "the man", which isn't helped by the Duffers also leaning into it. Most egregious example being the supposed conclusion to Lucas' s4 arc. It's ridiculous precisely because Eddie does begin to learn that his assumptions/"doctrine" is wrong through his growing admiration for Steve and his bravery.

Eddie's relationship with his friends is absolutely not based on any kind of equality. He is looked to as a leader and not a particularly forgiving one at that. More like a tyrant. It's played for laughs but Mike and Dustin are genuinely anxious about how Eddie will react to not only Lucas not being available for DnD on one particular night, but him being unavailable because of a basketball game. Lucas didn't even want to talk to him himself, probably because Eddie has already shown himself to be unreasonable when it comes to DnD and basketball.

It's not purely Eddie's influence that leads Dustin to his meaner path, but he certainly doesn't help. Dustin has always been a know-it-all and cocky, he has a foul mouth, and he clearly has hard set ideas about other people that he finds very difficult to let go of. I think Eddie's main influence is in the us vs them attitude that Dustin adopts regarding the "popular" kids, but Dustin's overconfidence is definitely also because he has cheated death 3 years in a row. Nobody that was real to Dustin has died and he believes his plans are infallible... until Eddie dies following one of his plans. Yes, Eddie made the stupid decision to run into certain death for no real reason, but it is through Dustin that Eddie is connected to the larger plot. If he had just witnessed Chrissy's death and then hid, then he would have eventually been found by someone else and never directly involved with the Upside Down.

The thing I mentioned about jealousy over Steve and Robin's friendship, I think it's something that gets overlooked Way too much. Dustin was very invested in his idea that Steve and Robin are perfect for each other. We all know why they're not together, but Dustin doesn't. He just sees Steve being best friends with Robin instead of boyfriend and girlfriend like he had expected/predicted and that throws him off. 1. He was not right about something and 2. HE'S supposed to be Steve's best friend. He feels replaced. So, he tries to replace Steve. Not totally, because he can't, but Dustin Literally says to Steve "You're just jealous I have another older male friend". Dustin doesn't have subtlety. He's Trying to make Steve jealous and it is working!

Steve and Dustin's friendship was so fresh and unexpected. They're not supposed to be friends, but they are. Steve watches Star Wars with Dustin, Steve does Dustin's hair. They save each other's lives. Attempting to recreate that brotherhood with Eddie just...doesn't work. They haven't gone through what Steve and Dustin have gone through. Plus, you're right, Steve and Dustin are on a more equal level. There's elements of mentor-student with them, but most importantly they teach each other. Steve isn't leading Dustin down a road of enlightenment, he's just hanging out with his buddy. Eddie doesn't compare.

I have zero faith in s5, which I'm barely certain I'll even be watching. The Duffers lean too hard into fan service so they're going to recreate the Justice for Barb storyline but with Dustin and it's going to suck. The Duffers don't think it's a bad thing that Dustin snipes at Steve constantly or puts down his intelligence, because it's meant to be funny. Comic relief yay. The characters on this show are mean to each other, yes, but it's annoying to deal with when we see Steve apologise for going too far when he bites back at Dustin.

[casiia]

sports i think the sully's (+) would play!

supa dupa unedited!

jake sully: definitely a football man, he forces the entire family to watch the super bowl with him and screams SO loud when his team loses. i can imagine he wanted a son so they could play together, do the cliche 'teaching my son how to throw a football' thing. jake also host family football in his backyard when his friend's come over, he has tonowari as the other team captain and forces the kids to play, making them line up so the dads can make their team.

"lo'ak- no! you have to play"

neytiri: i don't know why but she definitely plays tennis, like in my head it just makes sense. y'know when in tennis matches all you can hear are the competitors grunting while they hit the ball super hard, that's her. neytiri is basically serena williams. she has a custom made racket and her outfits change for every game she plays, her visor is blue most of the time because tuk insist the sun will reflect off the color and she will be able to see the entire time (she heard the sky is blue because it reflects off of the ocean and she just ran with it).

"tuk, you're right! the blue kept the sun out of my eyes"

neteyam: jake most definitely tried to convince neteyam to play football, "it's fun i promise" "follow in my footsteps" let's just say the countless hours of them throwing a football outside bored neteyam to death. so instead, i feel like he would play hockey. it's kinda the same concept...right? like they are both very big contact sports, ramming each other into the walls of the skating rink to get to the puck, tripping your opponents with a hockey stick making them fall into the hard ice. i assume neteyam would use it as an out to release pent up anger and aggression he holds as the oldest son, it's definitely not healthy, but it's better than nothing AND he's good at what he does so it's a win win situation.

"what, in the penalty box again? i didn't push him, i tripped. not my fault he fell so hard."

lo'ak: LO'AK! i already know he plays basketball, he wears the nike techs and everything. very big lakers fan, like i want to say his whole room is a bright purple and yellow and every night before he goes to bed he blows a kiss to kobe. he's obnoxious and knows he's better than most people, so he'll just take the ball every chance he gets and shoots. it's always great but if he does it in a close game and he misses, he will prob be benched for the rest of the quarter. he begs neytiri and jake to get neon bright basketball shoes that are super expensive because 'the brigther the shoe the better the athlete' and after years of begging, he finally gets the bright orange (ugly) shoes he's been wanting. if he sees tsireya in the crowd he points at her and says "this one's for you", completely airballs and gets yelled at by his coach..

"i'm not cocky, i just know i'm good"

kiri: uhm. kiri doesn't play a sport, she's very much the musician of the family. but if i really had to chose i think she would be good at,, ice skating?! or dance in general, again i have no idea. but let's say ice skating, she carpools with neteyam because they go to the same ice rink and the entire time it's just gossip. she's very stubborn and has to perfect the trick she does before moving onto the next one. i'm guessing that she experiences a big mental block, like she can't do spins or jumps anymore because she's afraid to fall on the ice and hurt herself; that's why she quit. she does miss the beauty of the sport but finds herself in tune with music.

"you know what elsa said, the cold never bothered me anyway"

tuk: SHE IS A GYMNAST! she's one of those annoying little girls who do cartwheels everywhere to show off. her leotards are all glittery and multicolored, she has to look her best for the judges. neytiri and jake absolutely eat it up, they make the entire family watch her beam routine once she successfully does it without falling off. when jake takes her to skyzone to practice her flips, he ends up getting stuck in the foam pit and has to have workers help pull him out. then he lost tuk. but aside from that, tuk is very hardworking and committed, she wants to be an olympian and if she's good at 8, imagine how good she will be when she's older. neytiri loves the time that they spend picking her outfits out or when she has to squeeze her little girl's hair into a bun. the memories they make in those 5 minutes keep tuk motivated, she no longer cries when she falls, she laughs that she did and gets up to do it again.

"MOM! TOO TIGHT MY HAIR IS GONNA RIP OUT MY HEAD!"

tonowari: hmm. i think waterpolo! saying this because he's metkayina but also one beefy man. he moves well in the water and is the fastest on his team, sososo very humble though. if someone scratches him or pulls him under water, he will try to drown the guy. ( sorry it's this short i know nothing about waterpolo)

"i didn't even do that, pshh you can't see anything it was underwater"

ronal: swimming?? i think maybe swim team or synchronized swimming. yes yes synchro swimming! she likes dancing of course but dancing underwater it just so much more peaceful to her. she is super close to her team and gets to pick out the music for each choreograph much to everyone's dismay.

"this is not old people music! it's good for the soul"

ao'nung: baseball player. 2 million percent a baseball player. he's a pitcher and always teases the person batting before throwing a curveball. if he gets caught he gets scolded but never benches because he's too good and they need him (gag). very very cocky boy, will never admit he's done something wrong and that causes the whole team to run. i can also see him annoyingly eating sunflower seeds and spitting the shell out between every word, no manners smh.

"huh- pft- no- pft- i- pft- didn't- pft- say- pft-" "AO'NUNG!"

tsireya: sweet baby is a cheerleader. she's a flyer and puts her entire trust in her spotters, they will never ever drop her. she loves to do very bold cheer makeup and color coordinates her outfits, her smile soso big as she waves to the bleachers with a pompom in hand. there are mean cheerleaders and she's always one of the girls to scold them "we are a team, weather you like it or not." she's at the top of the pyramid in everyone's hearts.

"yes i can do makeup on you tuk, is it scary being thrown? of course not, they will always catch me"

[grandwretch]

only i must wander, pt. 3

[on ao3] [pt. 1] [pt.2]

content warnings: conversations about and references to genocide, murder, cannibalism, kidnapping, drug use, human trafficking, racism, war, and bullying.

Steve and Robin weren't exactly best friends.

They tried. Or, well, Robin did. Steve kinda did what he had always done at work, which was keep out of everyone's way and try not to fuck up too hard. Robin, though, was putting in the effort. Not an hour went by without Robin popping out of nowhere to try and start a conversation. Usually about some gossip she'd heard about their classmates or one of the few movies they'd both seen. Steve usually did his best to keep up with her, never being the first to stop talking and walk away, but it felt–

It felt a lot like high school did. Robin's smile never reached her eyes, and it only put more pressure on Steve to follow suit. Be normal, the weight on his shoulders whispered, and everything will be okay. So when she spoke, Steve answered, a smile on his face.

No matter how plastic and saccharine it tasted.

The kids didn't exactly make it easier. Dustin was even more desperate for them to be best friends than Robin was. It was hard to begrudge the kid the connection, though, when he had spent the longest in isolation. He'd been alone amongst humans before El and Steve even had any words for what was wrong with them. What was Steve supposed to do, tell him to stop showing up and asking questions?

Max was worse. She forgave a lot less than Steve and Dustin, and still showed up at least once a week. She enjoyed her shift of threatening glares. Steve had tried to warn her off of it, and Max had snorted.

"If I can take down my brother, I'm not worried about a bitchy fox demon, or whatever." Max was unimpressed by monsters as only a pre-teen could be. Steve wasn't even sure when El had told her about the Wesen thing. He couldn't exactly pretend to be surprised; They'd never been very subtle around her.

So, yeah, they were both under a lot of pressure to be besties. Enough pressure to guarantee they would never be anything even approaching 'close'. Which Steve was fine with. He was finally getting used to all his friends being nerdy middle schoolers. What would he even talk to a friend about? … Basketball? Steve hadn't watched a game in months. March had flown by without Steve even catching a single game. Not that Robin would even be interested in basketball, and–

Steve shook his head, and focused on wiping bits of ice cream off the glass counter.

He did not want to be friends with Robin.

Dustin didn't care, though, as he came in and slammed his backpack down in an empty booth. "Steve!" he greeted, if that could even be called a hello. "Where's Robin?"

"I don't know," Steve said, even though he knew Robin was in the back room. She was socially allergic to the food court downstairs. That wasn't the point, though. "Why do you care?"

"I've got news!" Dustin crowed, "Big news!"

"What's he talking about now?" Robin asked from the door, arms folded.

Steve rolled his eyes. One day, the universe would teach Dustin that his antics wouldn't always get him what he wanted. One day. Steve hoped he was there to see it. "I've got no idea," Steve said, throwing his towel down on the counter in resignation. "He came in and started screaming."

"So El was telling me and Max about your big plan," Dustin said. Steve watched Robin's eyebrows shoot way up behind her bangs.

"Jesus Christ," Steve muttered. "You guys gossip more than every cheerleader in our school put together."

"What 'big plan'?" Robin said, an appropriate amount of sarcasm behind Dustin's emphasis of the phrase.

"There's no big plan. There's a–" Steve turned to Dustin, trying to get the words through his thick little skull. "There's an agreed upon procedure between me and Hop, should there ever be a threat large enough–"

"What the fuck do you think procedure means?" Dustin asked, every inch as bitchy as Steve had trained him to be.

"Yeah, well it sounds a lot less fucking ominous. I can't have a thirteen year old going around talking about my big plans with the police chief." Steve hissed. He knocked his knuckles on Dustin's shoulder, following him as Dustin tried to squirm away. "Did you even think about trying to explain why Hop would be working on a plan with me?"

"Can someone please explain this plan to me?" Robin said, volume increasing to be heard over Dustin's squawks of protest.

"Steve's going to be a good Grimm!" Dustin said, cheerily, dodging Steve's swiping hand.

"Jesus," Steve cursed again as Robin turned a disbelieving stare onto him. "It's not like that! I was talking to Hop about what happens if my parents show back up. We decided we should have a plan in place if they or any other Grimms start sniffing around Hawkins. That's all."

Robin looked at Steve for a long moment. "You said that Hexenbiest friend of yours was Chief Hopper's daughter, right?"

Steve winced. "Kinda. She was part of a case a couple years ago, and she hasn't been allowed outside much, but–"

Robin shook her head. "Believe me, I don't want to know. Hexenbiest blood can be used in all kinds of potions and shit. The last thing I need, as a Fuchsbau, is to get involved with whatever all that's about."

Steve didn't even know what to say to that, so he turned to Dustin. "Why are you here, Henderson?"

"I'm calling the plan into action!" Dustin said, his limbs flailing as if he'd been saying that this entire time, Steve, you idiot. "I would have called in a Code Red, but it's not…" His eyes darted to Robin, then back to Steve. "You know."

"There's a Grimm in Hawkins?" Steve asked, his voice flat with disbelief.

"... No?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Henderson…"

"No, come on! There's– Look," Dustin said, holding one finger up as he reached for his backpack. He pulled out one of last semester's folders, green with 'English' crossed out on the front. Underneath, he'd written 'Wesen stuff'.

"Subtle," Steve said.

Dustin ignored him, pulling a stack of newspaper clippings out of the folder. They were rather large, not at all like the small sports write-ups that Steve's mom used to clip out for him. No, these were big, front-page articles, with big black-and-white pictures accompanying them. Dustin's handwriting was in the margins, tiny scrawled notes and circles and arrows and–

Steve shook his head, trying not to let the sudden wealth of information overwhelm him. He felt like this should be the kind of thing Nancy had done in the past few years. Definitely not the job for him, who had trouble pulling together a decent book report.

"So I was spying on my mom's phone call," Dustin began, which inspired a new round of cursing from Steve. "Shut up, Steve, this is important."

"Your mom not killing us is important," Steve hissed.

"My mom is a middle-aged beaver woman. You're a nineteen year old killing machine," Dustin said, ignoring Steve's flinch. "You'll be okay."

Robin came around the counter to stand on Dustin's other side, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the collection of wrinkled newspapers. "Focus, boys," she said, her hands smoothing out the topmost clipping, which featured a large black and white photo of a kid. He was about the age Dustin had been when Steve first met him, grinning wide in front of Fort Worth Elementary. "What is all this?"

"This is what my mom was talking about," Dustin said, his gaze snapping back to his research. "He went missing last week."

Nausea roiled in Steve's stomach, and he forced himself to look away from the bright grin as he struggled with his own gag reflex. It was a little silly, since he hadn't even known Will when it happened– had been a fucking shit about it, even. He hadn't been able to stomach missing kids since '83. Not even in movies. That was one of the reasons O'Donnell hated him so much– She'd tried to make him read some awful book about a missing little girl, and he'd refused. Hired some nerd to write the report. She knew it, and he knew she knew it, but he couldn't read it. Couldn't think about some mom, sick to death with worry, and a bunch of men who thought she was crazy. It made him want to crawl out of his skin. Made him want to launch the book through the police station window with Lucas's slingshot. Made him want to make every teacher who'd whispered behind the Byers' backs eat the pages the words were printed on.

It made him want to pay for the words he couldn't take back with blood.

"Dustin, not every… Kids go missing all the time, buddy." Steve tried to be calm, the reasonable older brother, as his own hands started to shake. "Will was a special circumstance, you know that, right?"

"Oh, shit," Robin mumbled.

"This isn't about Will," Dustin said, although Steve could tell from the way that Dustin's eyes were big and round that it had been very much about Will. "My mom called her friend in Fort Worth, and they were talking about the investigation, and they– He's a klaustreich."

Steve had no idea what that meant, but the German was enough of a giveaway to get the gist. "This kid is a Wesen?"

Even as Dustin nodded, Robin was snorting and shaking her head. "If he's a klaustreich, it was the dad. It's always the dad."

"Hey," Steve said, voice weak. It was hard to fight Wesen prejudice when he had no idea what the stereotypes were supposed to be. It certainly didn't sound flattering, though.

"It's almost always the dad for humans, too," Robin said, a flush of embarrassment across her face.

Steve and Dustin exchanged a look. "Dads aside," Steve said , because talking parents never went well for him. Especially with any of the kids present. "It doesn't matter who did it, because this isn't any of our business. The police will handle this, Dustin, I don't know why–"

"Because he wasn't the only one!" Dustin moved the newspaper to the side, revealing another black and white photo of a smiling child. And then another. And another. More and more pictures were revealed, until the children devolved into a blur of gray and sepia. "In the past four years, more than 38 kids have gone missing in adjacent counties alone."

"That's impossible," Robin said, immediately. "Someone would have done something. They would have caught the guy. There would be– There would be fucking dogs and search parties–"

"Oh, like there was for Will Byers?" Steve said, his tongue numb. He almost didn't mean it, didn't want to be saying it, but all he could think about was that fake body of Will's. His own voice, asking if Jonathan had killed him. "Kids go missing all the time," he repeated.

Robin was quiet for a moment. "So the guy who took Will…"

"No," Steve and Dustin said at the same time.

"That was completely different," Dustin said, "and it's handled."

"One of us would have noticed if there were that many kids involved," Steve said, trying to make himself believe it. "And they wouldn't still be going missing."

"I thought they never caught the guy who did it?" Robin asked.

Another glance. "I made sure of it," Steve said, his voice firm enough to broadcast that he would not respond well to pushing. Not exactly stellar for his new serial killer reputation, but there was no way in hell he was telling Robin about the Upside Down. She wouldn't believe it, anyway, in spite of all the Wesen and magic and shit. Whatever created the Upside Down, it wasn't a furry little guy. It was something sinister, and the last thing he needed was it to get its claws into Wesen society.

Robin's eyes narrowed, her gaze analyzing Steve's face, before she nodded and looked away. "Alright, so what's your theory, beaver boy?"

Dustin sighed. "After I left the library, the trail went kinda cold. It's not like a thirteen year old can call grieving families and expect answers, you know?"

"That's why you should bring this to Hopper," Steve said, tapping the folder. "You know, an actual adult? And a cop, by the way. The people who would actually have a good chance of–"

"A Wesen family would never talk to a human cop," Robin said, then shrugged at Steve's sharp look. "Sorry, man, it's true. We have a thing about handling our own disputes."

"Alright, well…" Steve huffed. It wasn't that he couldn't appreciate the sentiment. He was pretty sure that when Robin said 'handling it', she was using a definition like his own-- Beating the shit out of it with a bat and then setting it on fire. "That's one family that won't talk, but that leaves almost two dozen–"

"More are Wesen," Robin said, and then leaned over to tap at a picture on the table. The kid was older than Dustin, around Robin's age. He beamed out of the gray, wearing his letterman's jacket, a football tucked under his arm. "That's Carter Ridley. Goes to school in Jackson. His mom comes into my dad's shop sometimes. They're jagerbars."

"Hunter bears?" Dustin translated, his nose wrinkling.

"They used to be berserkers, in the old country. Now they're mostly yuppies," Robin said, shrugging. "Still built like a fucking mountain, though."

"Huh," Dustin said, looking thoughtful.

"Alright, so two families…" Steve tried, but Robin shot him a look that left him feeling small.

"If someone is hunting Wesen kids, two is enough."

"Hunting any kid is bad enough," Dustin corrected, but his face was still unfocused in deep thought. "It does take a special kind of person to capture two predator kids, though…"

"What?" Steve frowned down at the picture. "He's, like, fifteen, sixteen? He's big, but he's not going to take out a full grown man."

"He's a sixteen year old jagerbars," Robin repeated. "They used to hunt humans for sport at that age. No dad with a beer gut is going to be able to take a jagerbar raging on teenage hormones."

"So what?"

"So it's a Wesen that's doing this," Dustin said, determined. "Something powerful. Something evil."

"That's your job, right?" Robin said, turning to Steve.

"I'm not a fucking–" Steve paused, frazzled. "I mean, I am. But, like… ethnically. I'm not going to start hunting criminal Wesen and killing them! That's insane!"

"So we're supposed to let them keep doing it?" Dustin said, whirling around.

"No! Or… maybe? I don't fucking know, Dustin. Why didn't you take this shit to Hop? He knows about this Wesen shit, now. I'm sure if he knew about this, he would do something about it." Not as much or as fast as Dustin wanted, but Steve had never known Hopper to sit around and let a kid hurt like that. He would stop this. He would.

"You want to send your father figure after a monster that'll tear him apart?" Robin asked. She didn't even sound upset about it, just… curious. Which Steve thought was rather rich, considering she'd never even met Hopper in the context of Steve. Rich and cruel.

"Steve," Dustin said, before Steve could even gather his thoughts enough to tear into Robin like he wanted to. The kid's voice was solemn, deep in the way he only got when he was on the edge of tears. "I know. But when has bringing an adult into this ever fucking solved anything?"

Steve wanted to protest. They'd helped– Hopper and Joyce and even those stupid science guys, they had all helped. Been instrumental, really. But Steve couldn't deny that sometimes it made things harder. They didn't understand, sometimes, why things had to be done a certain way. Whatever help they would give had to be wheedled out of them, piece by piece, usually at a cost greater than anyone guessed. And that was only if they didn't die. Steve hadn't known Bob, but he had watched Joyce cry into Hopper's chest about it, which was more than enough to solidify the danger in his mind.

He loved Joyce and Hopper. He did. But they weren't the reason they were all still alive. Nancy was. El was. And, sometimes, when someone needed to take the hit, Steve was.

"Okay," Steve said, his shoulders going lax in resignation. "Alright. But if we're going to look into this, we're going to do it right. Now…" What would Nancy do? he asked himself. "We need to know how many of these kids are actually Wesen. Any ideas?"

"You could show up to their house and see if their parents woge?" Dustin said.

"No."

"I have an idea," Robin said, "but you both have to promise not to fucking touch anything."

"There is no way you can make me promise that without telling me what it is I'm not touching," Dustin said, seriously. "That's entrapment."

Robin sighed, chewing off all the lipstick on her bottom lip. "Okay," she said, finally, "my dad's shop is the only Wesen apothecary outside of Indianapolis. If any of their families have ever needed anything a human shop wouldn't handle, they'll be on his ledger."

"Alright, so…. " Steve shrugged. "Would he let us see it?"

Snorting, Robin replied, "Absolutely not. But if his darling daughter were to leave the back door unlocked the next time it's her turn to clean…"

"Oh, good, another crime," Steve said, rolling his eyes. A quick glance at Dustin proved he would be no help in finding an alternative. Glee was written across the kid's face so patently that even Steve didn't have to puzzle it out. It's for the kids, Steve reminded himself.

"Since when do you care about what's legal, Harrington?" Robin said. "You've been drinking since the cradle."

"Like you said," Steve said dismissive. "Police chief. Father figure."

"Steve has, like, chronic parental issues," Dustin informed Robin, sotto voice.

"Dustin…"

"They're fucking terminal," Dustin continued, ignoring Steve's sighs of complaint.

"When are we fucking doing this?" Steve cut in, voice harsh with frustration.

Robin's face went blank in thought for a moment, running through the days in her head. "I'm supposed to clean up after inventory on Thursday," she said, shrugging. "That's the earliest I'll be able to get you in."

Six days. That was more than enough time for the more rational parts of Steve's brain to take back over, more than enough time to talk Dustin out of this heroism kick. He found himself nodding, more than willing to put this off for another week.

"It'll have to wait, then," Steve said, and tried not to sound too pleased about it.

Despite Steve's efforts, the next six days didn't lessen Robin and Dustin's insistence on playing the hero. In fact, Steve found himself on tenterhooks every night. He watched the evening news with an intensity he had given very little since graduation.

The six o'clock news, then the ten– The morning news on the weekend, anchors and time slots that Steve usually slept through. He watched them all with his heart in his throat, every cell of him focused on the prayer that he wouldn't see another sunny, ignorant smile on the screen. Every night passed without a new addition to their list, but that did nothing to soothe the mounting frenzy in Steve's chest. Instead, he could only wonder what they were missing, if there were kids slipping through their fingers unnoticed.

Saturday morning when the anchors said goodbye, the local channel started reruns of old episodes of Batman. Steve, numb with anxiety, stayed curled in his father's pristine armchair and let them play. Primary colors and musical stings blurred together in his bleary mind.

He'd never been a huge superhero kid, not like Dustin and Mike, but there had been no one in his elementary school who didn't sometimes watch Batman. There wasn't much that he remembered. The characters were all unfamiliar and cartoonish, but the apathy made Adam West's booming voice softer. It soothed the shake of Steve's hands.

In one scene, Batman rushed onto the docks, a bomb in his hands. There was nowhere to go, no way to save the unbothered masses around him. It was supposed to be funny; Steve recognized the slapstick body language, the sigh in West's voice. There were baby ducks in the water, for fuck's sake. He had thought it was hilarious, once, in the way sheltered little kids always did.

Steve pulled his legs a little tighter against his body, watching the fuse burn down. The exaggerated resignation had grown too familiar to be laughable. He sat and he watched Batman accept that this bomb was going to go off in his hands, so it wouldn't go off on anyone else's, and it didn't make Steve upset. It didn't make him uncomfortable.

It made him nod, approving. Because Steve knew that if he found himself with a bomb in his hands, he would keep holding it. Would curve himself around it, letting it go off.

"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb," Batman told him, and Steve clicked the television off. It was time to go back to bed.

The rest of the week wasn't easier. Work helped, the distraction as good for Steve as it had ever been, but Robin didn't. Her obsession had gotten its teeth into Dustin's little mystery, and there was very little else she was willing to talk about. Even when Steve managed to change the subject, he could see the missing smiles in the shadows behind her eyes. In time, she would lapse back into theories and ramblings about some story she had heard, once-upon-a-time. Steve was never sure how many of these stories were facts and how many were legends. The both seemed equally real to Robin, and by Thursday night, he had heard every word the Buckley clan had to offer.

He wished he could blame her. That terrible feeling got its claws into him every time, the paranoia and the guilt and the shame, and it would feel so much better if he could take it out on her. Steve knew it would. He couldn't bring himself to do it. He could feel the frustration bubbling up in his chest, taste the bitter words on his tongue. It didn't matter how long she rambled, though, every time he turned to face her, his voice refused to cooperate. It was too easy, he thought as she rambled through another legend too horrific to listen to. Even as Robin spoke, she broadcasted her fear louder than her voice. Every curiosity revealed another nightmare she'd never beaten. It wouldn't feel as good now, when he knew she was so fragile.

Or maybe he didn't want to be an asshole anymore.

So listened to every awful theory she had, and then drove home to find Henderson on his doorstep with his own set of ideas. Dustin's were at least a little less gory, but he had even less to work with than Robin did. Most of his 'theories', if they could even be called that, were cribbed from cop shows and nursery rhymes. The kind of thing his mother filled his head with so he wouldn't talk to strangers. They had never worked, because Dustin had never met a problem he didn't want to interrogate to death, but they left their mark all the same. So Steve soothed his fears, did his best to not sound too sarcastic when he assured Dustin that the bogeyman didn't exist, and then shooed Dustin off to bed.

Every night was the same, a shift of horror movie plots followed by a thirteen year old's best attempt at paranormal theory.

When the sun finally set on Thursday, Steve expected to feel relieved. After a week of fending off the worst of Robin and Dustin's impulses, he would finally be able to prove this wasn't their problem. All it would take was a quick look at Mr. Buckley's ledgers, and all three of them could finally move on.

Steve tried to remind himself of that, blocking Dustin's chattering voice out as he turned the thoughts over in his mind again and again. They did little to help the rising anxiety, though, the edges worn smooth with handling like well-eroded stones. Steve's fingers flexed against the steering wheel. The closer it got to go-time, the worse Steve felt. The air felt heavy around him, so thick he could imagine it darkening like in one of Dustin's movies.

"You are, like, the worst criminal in the world," Dustin said, halfway through shoving a Twizzler into his mouth.

"Is that supposed to be an insult?"

"You look like you're about to throw up," Dustin said, poking at Steve's cheek with his licorice.

Being able to grab the candy out of Dustin's hand without looking was the only thing Steve's Grimm abilities had ever been good for. He tossed it through his open window, his other hand covering Dustin's mouth– Well, the kid's entire face. Steve wasn't trying to shut him up as much as annoy him into submission.

"You know, you could stand to take this a little more seriously," Steve said, frowning. "Jesus, where is Robin? She said eight, right?"

"It's only 8:15, man," Dustin said, leaning his seat back. "Chill."

"How is it that I'm the only one who believes there isn't a fucking serial killer on the loose and I'm still the only person taking this shit seriously?" he muttered to himself. He needed a fucking cigarette, but he knew Robin would bitch incessantly if she smelled smoke on him. Steve had no idea how he'd picked up another nerd to tell him what to do, or why he even cared about what she said–

"Steve, fucking breathe."

Steve heaved, realizing his lungs had stopped working a thousand thoughts ago. "Thanks," he wheezed.

"No problem."

They lapsed into silence. The moment stretched out between them like the infinite increments between one and two, until Robin's head popped out of her back door. She already looked mad, the too-familiar furrow between her eyes, and Steve sighed under his breath.

This hadn't been his idea, but he was pretty sure that it was going to end up being his fault when they all got caught.

"Come on, before she has a fucking heart attack," Steve said to Dustin as he opened the door. They sprinted across the road, looking twice as suspicious as if they had walked. Steve looked over his shoulder as their feet finally hit the sidewalk on the other side. Though the street was empty save for the Bimmer, he couldn't shake the feeling of something at his back. The feeling had been lurking for weeks, though, even in his own house, so he forced himself to shake it off and slip into the door behind Dustin.

"Took you long enough," Robin hissed.

Steve barely held back an offended squeak, turning it into a grunt in the back of his throat that left him feeling nauseous. "Did you want me to fly here, Buckley? We were waiting for you."

"Yeah, well, we don't have all night." Robin rolled her eyes, but her hands fluttered in front of her chest, as if she wasn't sure how she was expected to hold her arms during a B&E. Steve deflated. It was hardly worth the fight if Robin was picking it to hide how scared she was. It occured to him, for a moment, that it was odd for Robin to be so scared of being caught in her own home. But then Steve thought about getting caught in his dad's office, and winced when his stomach lurched.

Maybe that was the life of a predator kid, Steve thought. Maybe the fear he'd kept just under the skin for most of his life was... normal. Robin had it, El had it. Maybe that was the price you paid for sharing a roof with a monster.

Dustin didn't let Steve mull over that one for long, turning and glaring at Robin in the dim light. "So where are the records, then?"

"The ledger is in the back office," Robin said, casting a glance over her shoulder in the blackness of the rest of the store. "We move it there so Dad can balance the books--" Without listening to another word, Dustin pushed past them both to stalk into the shadows. Robin hissed, the most animalistic sound Steve had ever heard her make, and chased after him.

Steve tried to follow, but the heightened senses he had come into recently did not extend to his vision. He was as lost in the dark as he had been the rest of his entire life. He stumbled into the Buckleys' storeroom using only what little lamplight shone through the windows.

Squinting at the shelves on either side of him, Steve struggled to make sense of what little he could see. The closest Steve had to reference was a librar. The shelves were too cramped and close together to resemble any kind of store he'd ever been in, especially the familiar aisles of the Big Buy. Rather than books, though, every inch of available shelf space was taken up by jars and boxes. Some held dried herb leaves or pills, like Steve had seen in pictures of old pharmacies. Others looked like they would be more at home in his chemistry classroom, right next to the preserved pig fetus. Glad the shapes in the jars were shadowy and dark, Steve shut his eyes and followed the sound of Dustin and Robin's bickering voices.

Who needed to confront the vision of that jar of suspiciously eyeball-shaped soup when you had enhanced hearing? Not Steve, that was for sure.

Luckily, the storeroom wasn't as big as the looming shadows made it seem, and he only took a few steps before he felt the familiar prickle of Dustin and Robin's presence against his skin-- Wait, was that familiar? When had he started noticing that? Why did he not notice himself noticing that--

"Thanks for joining us, dingus," Robin said, muffled around the thumb she currently had shoved in her mouth as she chewed at her cuticules.

"You are going to get scars," Steve said, frowning down at her free hand. It was already ragged around her nails, as if she'd chewed through one hand and kept on going. "And a yeast infection. In your hands. Just so you know."

"Can we please focus?" Dustin huffed as he flipped towards the back page of an enormous, cotton-bound book. It was filled with all kinds of words and numbers that made Steve's head swim, so he was more than happy to look away when Robin snorted at him.

"I hope you get fired for your weird diseased fingers," he whispered, and didn't even grunt when Dustin punched him in the side.

"I get that you two have some weird sexual tension to work out," Dustin said, and Steve and Robin flinched, making twin noises of disgust. "--but I don't actually have any idea what I'm looking for, here, so I could use some help."

"I have the list of the missing kids," Steve said, pulling it out of his chest pocket. He'd kept it there all week, moving them from shirt to jacket and back. It had felt wrong to leave them behind. "We're looking for their last names in here, right?"

Dustin frowned at the book, index finger tracing a line down the page. "No, this is by date, not name. If we use this, we'll be here all night."

"The last few months will--" Robin started, but Dustin wasn't having it.

"I'm not going to leave someone behind just because they didn't need heart powder for exam season this year," Dustin huffed, slamming the book shut. "Your dad has to have, like, a client list or something, right?"

Robin shrugged. "I mean, we have the address book we use for deliveries, but if they come into the shop--"

"Sorry, heart powder? Like, human heart powder? Like, from humans?" Steve interrupted.

"Not always. It's an Eisbiber thing," Dustin replied. "My mom says it got her through college."

"Your mom microdosed?" Robin said, her voice rising an octave.

"Mrs. Henderson might have eaten people?" Steve took a moment. "And I'm the bad influence?"

"That is, like, so not what we're talking about," Dustin said, pushing away from the desk. "Show me this address book."

Huffing, Steve stepped back as Dustin and Robin pushed past them towards an ancient filing cabinet in the corner of the office. Robin was nattering about her father's extensive record-keeping system, and it reminded Steve so strongly of his own father's boring dinner sermons that he tuned it out almost on instinct. Their voices faded until they were swallowed up by the fuzz in the back of Steve's brain, like someone turning the volume of a static-y television all the way up.

Why was he even here? As desperate as Steve had been to get in here and get it over with moments ago, he could feel the frustration starting to build in his chest. This was getting them nowhere, and even if Mr. Buckley did have some computer-level organizations going on here, how the hell was Steve supposed to help? The last time he'd checked, Grimm powers hadn't healed his stupidity yet. He should be home in bed, pretending it wasn't absolutely pathetic he was already under the covers.

"This is it!" Robin hissed as she yanked some monstrous, stained book from underneath a sheath of papers. So much for Mr. Buckley's filing system, Steve thought. "All the addresses should be in here. The ledgers get replaced every year, but this should be everything since we opened."

"Excellent," Dustin said, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon character.

"Okay, so--" Impatient, Robin laid the book on top of the cabinet with a thwap, opening the book straight down the middle. "Alright, so, what's the first... Oh. Huh."

Dustin peered over her shoulder, legs straining as his tip toed feet wobbled. "Huh," he agreed.

"What?" Steve asked. The double act was starting to wear on him.

"It's not just names and addresses. There's, like, dates and stuff? These must be sale and payment logs?" Robin didn't sound confident, and that, at least, made Steve look at the moldy book twice. "It's not a ledger, though. There's not a single dollar marked anywhere in here."

"Right, and we care about that because..."

"Because it might be a clue!" Dustin said, and began to scramble to open the list of names once again.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Sorry, are we putting Robin's dad at the top of the suspect list because he keeps records?"

"The first name on the list is Altheide," Dustin said, ignoring Steve. "Are they in there?"

"Cool," Steve muttered, starting to pace behind them. "Let's waste time trying to figure out if the most German last name we've ever heard is part of the German monster conspiracy in our town. Great use of our time, team."

Robin glanced his way, but turned back to the book without a word. With a little grunt of effort-- Steve was beginning to think the book got bigger every time somone looked away from it --she turned to the first few pages. After a moment of skimming the pages, Robin nodded. "Alright, here's one. We've got a G. Altheide from Lafayette."

Dustin grinned, his body barely containing his triumphant glee. He was practically vibrating out of his shoes. "That matches our missing kid-- What else does it say? If we can find some kind of connection between them, it might help us find out why they've been targeted."

"Assuming they were targeted at all," Steve reminded him.

Both of the excited detectives ignored him. "Altheide isn't exactly a regular," Robin said, her fingers following the rows of entries down the page. "He hasn't bought anything since 1982, but in '79 there was a rash of purchases for..." She paused, biting her lip.

"For?" Dustin and Steve prompted in unision.

"Milz," Robin said, looking a little grossed out. "It means 'spleen'. He bought 350g of it over the course of six months."

"Is that a lot? That feels like a lot," Steve said, looking between Dustin and Robin's blank faces.

"That's at least three full organs," Dustin said, shrugging. "Not exactly common, but..."

"No," Robin said, her voice sharp. "It's not common. And I'm sorry, Dustin, I know we were joking about your mom, but--"

"I wasn't joking," Steve muttered to himself. "It's weird."

"--It's exactly the kind of thing we aren't supposed to do. It's exactly the kind of thing that gets you run out of town again. Exactly what people expect us to be selling, and exactly the thing my dad always told me he would never..." Robin's voice trailed off. She flipped through the pages of the book, shaking her head. Steve and Dustin watched her in silence, the horrific humor of the situation completely gone.

They had gotten used to death, gotten used to staring it in the eye and making jokes. But it was different, when it was your dad. They both knew that.

"It's all like that. Every single purchase in this book is... Milz. Gehirn. Gallenblase. Herz. Not a single fucking herb or poultice in sight, just..." Robin shook her head. "How is he even sourcing this?"

Steve and Dustin traded a look.

"Let's solve one mystery at a time, okay?" Steve suggested, , when the question had hung over them for too long.

Robin shook herself, and Steve watched her pull focus over her face like a mask. He had no idea how she did it; Every time he even thought about his father with a Grimm's rage in his veins, it made him vaguely ill. He couldn't imagine holding proof of it in his hands. The mere thought had panic clenching around his throat like a fist.

"Give me the next name," Robin said, solidifying herself as one of the strongest people Steve had ever met.

"Barrett," Dustin said, and Robin was off.

They went through every name like that, one after the other. Some of the names were in there, followed by sales and dates the same as the first. Some of them weren't, although there was no way to know if the kids were human, or their parents were good people. They found more than Steve would have liked. Two dozen cozy little cannibal families in Indiana, most of them a twenty minute drive where Steve's kids went to school.

He didn't say anything, though. Didn't bitch and moan and protest as he had before. He didn't have to. Dustin no longer smiled when they found a name, all the victory of a lead paying off sucked out of it. Now, every confirmation deepened the frown on Dustin's face, made the lines between his brows go tight with worry. Every name was no longer proof that his theory was right, just another danger to Hawkins.

"I'm starting to think Mrs. Henderson is right about, like, everything," Steve mumbled to himself once they'd made it to the end of the list. It wasn't even much of a joke as a dawning horror. More and more, it was beginning to seem like Robin, Dustin, and El were actual outliers, not just proof that stereotypes were wrong.

"Don't say that," Dustin said, despairing. "You don't have to live with her when she's right."

Robin was still staring down at the book, shaking her head. "Out of the 40 missing kids, almost half had parents willing to eat human flesh for a cheap high." She slammed the book shut, and glared up at Steve. "I fucking told you it was the parents!"

"Okay, let's not leap to any--" Steve began, but Dustin cut him off with a rough snort.

"More like your parents," the kid said with a sneer.

Robin woged for a half second, fur rippling across her face and then away again. The gold in her eyes stayed, though, glowing eerily in the dim light. "Excuse me?"

Dustin pointed at the book, his eyebrows almost flying off his face with emphasis. "Your dad is peddling human body parts, and he just so happened to be selling to half the families whose kids are missing?"

"Yeah," Robin said, "Wesen families, not human ones. Why would that--"

"I don't know, the fact that he was collecting blackmail on them?" Dustin rolled his eyes when Robin growled. "There's no reason for him to keep evidence of illegal activity if it's not for blackmail or spying, and I think--"

"No one cares what you think," Steve said, stepping between the two of them. When a smug smile began to spread across Robin's face, he shot her a glare. "Either of you. You're both being stupid."

"Oh, good, the keg stand king of Hawkins High is going to preach to us about being stupid," Robin muttered under her breath but her gaze finally filtered back into its hazy blue, the sharpness of her teeth dulling as she spoke. Steve resisted the urge to sigh in relief.

"No offense, Steve, but you're not exactly--"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, Henderson." Steve drew himself up to his full height, a display that would have been more intimidating if his hands hadn't instinctually found his hips. "Because what I am is a Grimm, and that's as close as we're gonna get to an official on this thing, so what I say goes. More importantly--"

Robin tried to break in, a protesting whine to her voice as she said, "I don't think being born--"

"More importantly," Steve repeated, a little too loud for someone who was trying not to get arrested by his own father figure, "I'm the son of a business man. Do you know how many lectures I've had to sit through?"

"What does that have to do with any--"

"Getting rid of your own clientele is bad business. Especially if you can still get something out of them. And given that Mr. Buckley has blackmail on nearly every single wesen family in the state, I'd say that he has a lot to gain from keeping them around and no motive to speak of."

"Thank you," Robin said, relief evident in her voice.

"You weren't right either," Steve sighed. "Look, I-- I think it's as weird and gross as you both do, okay? I have no idea what we're going to do about this, but.. One mystery at a time, alright? These kids have to come first, and I don't think this--" Steve gestured to the book, so unassuming with it's tattered cover "--actually has anything to do with it. It was a good lead. It was. But this isn't a game."

"But all the names--"

"Less than half of the names, Dustin," Steve interrupted. He paused to put a gentle hand on the kid's shoulder, squeezing gently. "It's enough to prove that wesen are getting targeted. But we can't force everything into connecting because it's convenient. That's how people get hurt."

"Then what does it mean?" Robin's voice was muted, her gaze still stuck to the floor. "If it's not a part of it, then why--"

And Steve got it, he did. It would be so much easier to swallow if this was part of some grand conspiracy. So much easier to accept that her father was a terrible person if there was a fantastical story to back it up. If Robin could pursue this thing and claim that the anger in her chest was for the kids, not for her own frightened heart. If there were a bigger evil out there, something she could focus it on that wasn't someone she loved. Steve understood it better than Robin could probably ever imagine, but there was nothing he could do to fix it for her.

"It means that there's a lot of stuff for us to fix," Steve said, "and it's going to take more to fix it than we thought. That's all."

Dustin sighed, slumping forward. He faceplanted into Steve's abdomen, hat tumbling off his head with the sudden jolt. Steve caught his weight, keeping him steady with one hand flat on his back. Dustin was getting taller, Steve realised with a pang. Next year Steve wouldn't be able to hold him up so easily.

There were no thoughts of his own impending adulthood in Dustin's head, yet. "What do we do now?" Dustin said, every inch the child he had been two years before. Steve looked over his head at Robin who shrugged, still looking lost.

It rankled that Steve didn't know how to help her. He couldn't pull her into his side to offer the support that the kids so eagerly took. The things he did with Hopper were no help, either; Steve didn't know much about her interests but beer and a game on the television didn't help much with forgetting that your dad was the most fucked up version of a drug dealer.

"We should go home, get some rest." Steve ruffled Dustin's hair. "We can try to figure out our next steps tomorrow, okay?"

"We're running out of time," Robin said, motioning at the list. "There's no way they're keeping those kids ali--"

"Stop it," Steve said, pulling Dustin further into his chest. "It's late, and we're all on edge. There's nothing we can do right now that's of help to anyone, alright? We need to get some sleep and come at this when we aren't freaking out."

"I'm staying with you tonight," Dustin said, muffled by the fabric of Steve's shirt.

"Dustin," Steve began, sighing, but Dustin wasn't willing to be swayed. He tilted his head up, frowning as he made eye contact with Steve.

"There's no way I can see my mom tonight, man," he whined. "She's going to know something's up, like, immediately. Call her and tell her I'm staying over because I ate too much lasagna and fell asleep on your couch again."

Fair enough. Claudia Henderson had an almost supernatural nose for danger, one that would be on high-alert when Dustin started asking too many questions about the illicit substances she may or may not have taken in the 60s. There was nothing that gave a scheme away like questions with too much specificty, and Dustin had never understood the meaning of the word 'casual'.

Steve looked toward Robin, resigned to not actually getting any sleep tonight. "What about you, Buckley?"

Robin's face creased with disgust. "Oh, ew, Harrington. Tell me you are not using this as an opportunity to pull."

"As if you would be so lucky," Steve said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Come on, you're telling me you want to make eye contact with dear old dad over the breakfast table tomorrow morning?"

Robin apparently hadn't thought of that. He watched it settle over her, the fact that this was her life now. That nothing, not Friday mornings or family games or birthday parties would ever be free of the knowledge of what her father had done. He watched her truly understand it, watched the nausea cause her jaw to work, watched her hands flex at her side.

Steve had spent the last two months dreading the day his parents came back home. Not even because he was worried about how they would treat Dustin and El-- That, Steve could handle. He had gotten very good at keeping secrets over the last two years. No, the worst of it was that it was very different, it turned out, knowing that your dad was an asshole who hurt people and having to acknowledge it.

Being a Grimm didn't make Bradley Harrington a monster; Steve had always been very aware of who his father was. Not that it had ever been much of a secret. Every dinner Steve had ever been forced to have with the man had turned into a lecture on how to screw the most people over, how to use it to control the narrative around you. It was framed as a lesson, but it was bragging-- A list of people whose lives he had ruined to buy Steve a shiny new toy he hadn't asked for, to keep him clothed in fabrics that made him itch and feed him expensive dinners that made his stomach churn.

Robin's father was closer, and kinder. He didn't want to think about how much harder this would be for her.

"That's... nice of you, Steve," Robin said. "But I should go home so no one suspects anything."

Steve nodded. "Then we can meet up at my house tomorrow afternoon," he said. "We'll go over our options then. Until then, we keep our heads down and try to forget everything we learned tonight, okay?" Robin and Dustin both nodded, and Steve felt something in his core finally unclench.

It was a long, hard night. Long after he'd gotten Dustin home and tucked into a guest room, Steve was wide awake. He found himself walking up and down the halls of the second floor. He kept his footsteps as quiet as possible, but he couldn't make himself stop. He wished he could blame it on the nerves that had made him so jumpy earlier, or even fear-- That, at least, would be familiar. Sleeping for months after the demodogs and Billy had been rough; Every time he closed his eyes, his heart would lurch with adrenaline.

That night, Steve felt calm. His brain turned every shadow and creak into an enemy, but with a confidence that shook him. He was in his own home, lancing at windmills, confident that whatever beast crept out of the corner wouldn't last long in front of him. They wouldn't touch Dustin. Every other Wesen kid in Indiana might be in danger, but not his.

Steve had never had a lack of self-assurance, exactly, but the complete belief in his own victory was new. And, if he was completely honest, unnerving.

That didn't stop his feet from moving.

He drove Dustin to the Wheeler's the next morning, the both of them silent and sleepy-eyed. Dustin hugged him for a little too long before he got out of the car, uncaring about embarassment or teasing in a way Steve could never fathom, but he returned every ounce of affection as long as the kid would let him. The drive home was lonely.

At least with Dustin out of the house, Steve could sleep. He didn't even bother going up to his room, just sprawled himself out on the couch and let the rising heat of the morning lull him into unconsciousness. By the time he woke, it was almost time to pick Dustin up.

Apparently, a single day with his friends was enough to shake Dustin from his fear. "So it's got to be another Wesen, right?" he said before he'd even closed the Bimmer door behind him.

"We're not talking about it without Robin," Steve said, absently adding, "and put on your seatbelt."

"Come on," Dustin whined. "We don't need a stupid girl to figure this out for us!"

"I'm going to tell El you said that the next time a monster crawls out of the ground to kill us all." Steve didn't even bother looking over at Dustin as they spoke, his eyes fixed solely on the after-school traffic milling around them. "See if she helps your ungrateful ass after that."

Dustin huffed and threw himself back against his seat, arms folded. "Sorry, it's-- Why does everyone have to be so stupid about girls all the time? They're just... they're just girls!"

Steve winced. He still kinda regretted the advice he had given Dustin about girls the year before. Sure, it had been true, but Steve had only recently learned that because things got you the results you wanted, didn't mean you could do them. Even if girls liked it. Even if it kept you safe. Hopper had laughed his ass off when Steve had confessed that he wasn't sure how to take it back without embarassing himself. In the end he had told Steve to keep an eye on it and help when Dustin ran into trouble, same as he would anything else. The problem was, of course, that Steve himself hadn't figured out a different way to talk to girls.

He could talk to them, yeah. Ring them up and ask them about their day, then send them off and never see them again. But dating? Steve couldn't exactly claim to be an expert anymore, especially since he hadn't given it a single thought in months.

"Oh, man," Steve said. He could feel his face twisting with discomfort. "I mean... it's kinda just what... boys do?"

"It's not what I do," Dustin grumbled, kicking at the floor in front of him. Usually, Steve would have snapped at him to not wreck the Bimmer, but it had been a rough week, and it was shaping up to be an even rougher day. Steve didn't have the energy.

"That's funny, because I remember a kid who wanted to talk to Max even when his weird pet was terrorizing the town," Steve joked.

Dustin didn't laugh, just looked up at Steve with big, sad eyes. "I don't know," he said, a little fear starting to creep into his voice. "I just don't care anymore. I feel like it's all Mike and Lucas even think about, anymore, and even Will... all Will ever talks about anymore is Mike and Lucas talking about girls! And it's stupid, 'cause there's so much other stuff to think about, you know?"

"Well, for one, Mike and Lucas and Will don't have to deal with the same things you do," Steve said, trying to talk around Wesen issues and medical scares as gently as possible. "Plus, well. It was pretty much the same way when I was your age, right? Everyone, even all the adults, expect you to talk about girls and sports at your age. And some people, you know, are more interested in others, and then some people just... pretend, because they like to fit in. Does that make sense?"

Dustin made a small noise of confusion. "Should I start pretending, too? Is it, like-- Is it important?"

"No, you--" Steve sighed, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel. "It's good, that you don't pretend. Seriously, man, sometimes I wish you'd pretend to care about, like, volume control, but I like that you don't pretend. Your friends like that you don't pretend. Just, you know, you have to understand that not everyone is able to be that cool about it. Give it a few years, and people will stop caring about it so much."

"So were you pretending? Is that why you haven't been on a date in a while?" Steve squirmed at Dustin's question, feeling thoroughly grilled by the thirteen year old in his passenger seat, but it was better than the fear he'd had earlier.

"Not, um--" Steve cleared his throat. "Not exactly. I mean, sure, for a long time, yeah. I was... I was expected to behave a certain way, and when everyone else started going on about girls then, like, yeah. I put on a show for a little while. But, you know, then I met Nancy, and I liked her more than I've ever liked another girl. More than I had ever liked anyone, at that point. I haven't really... I mean, people kinda expect it from me, because I was a little too good at pretending, but it hasn't really felt like that again. It's not realistic to expect yourself to be crazy over every cute girl you meet. Even the really, reall cute ones. So, you know, don't be so down about it. Maybe you'll meet your own Nancy one day."

"I think Nancy was already my Nancy," Dustin said, frankly, and Steve snorted. Yeah, the kid's childhood crush had never been super subtle. "I don't know, man. There was this girl, you know, at camp? Her name was Suzie. And she said she liked me and I... I liked her, too, but there was just so much going on at home, and there's so much going on now-- How am I supposed to care? It just doesn't seem worth it."

"This is going to sound like shitty advice," Steve said, continuing over Dustin's eyerolling. "But you're young. You're probably not going to meet the love of your life in middle school. You're allowed to not care about it for a few more years, if that's what you want."

"What if I never care about it again?" Dustin asked in a small voice.

"Then you're luckier than the rest of us," Steve said as he pulled into the driveway. "Because, you're absolutely right: it's not worth it."

"Wow, you're such a romantic," Dustin said, hand already on the door handle. "I have no idea why you're still single."

"Mystery of the century," Steve said to his own black eyes in the mirror. 

They spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen, where they usually spent most of their time snacking. Steve hadn't had the stomach for food in days, really, but he made Dustin a sandwich while nibbling on a package of stale Keebler crackers. 

Robin finally showed up thirty minutes after they'd agreed to meet up. She stomped into the house with the heavy gait of the thoroughly exhausted, and Steve eyed her sweat-damp hair and mussed clothes with a little frown.

"You know, I could have picked you up." He was well-aware that his house was a fair piece to bike to, even to people who technically lived close. Being in the woods didn't help, with less people to find you if you fell off your bike. Steve never let the kids cycle to his house, forever worried about finding one of them in a ditch the next morning, and it didn't sit right that Robin had made the trek clear across town on her own. 

"If my mom had seen me being picked up by Steve Harrington, she'd have a heart attack and then spend the next five years trying to 'cool mom' her way into finding out if we had sex," Robin said with a huff as she readjusted the plaid shirt tied around her waist. 

Steve could feel a grimace crease his face, both at the second-hand embarassment and what that said about his own reputation. Had the exaggerations of his sexual conquests really spread so far as to make it to the middle-aged population of Hawkins? Did people talk about his sex life with Hopper or the Sinclairs, or worst of all, Karen Wheeler? 

He hoped not. He really hoped that Mrs. Buckley was either just paranoid or extremely invested in Robin's love life, because the alternative was too stomach churning to bare. 

"Okay, ew. I didn't need to hear that," Dustin said, his face pulling into a mirror of Steve's.

"Sorry," Robin said with a shrug that didn't seem that sorry at all, actually. 

Rolling his eyes, Dustin said, "Since Steve promised me there would be no weird teenage romance energy tonight, can we please get to the point of this meeting?" 

"Which is?" Steve asked, leaning against the breakfast nook. 

Dustin picked up his folder of 'research' and slammed it down on the island in the middle of the kitchen dramatically, both hands splayed onto the paper. He leaned forward, making eye contact strong enough with Steve that he was almost sure the kid was trying to trigger a woge for dramatic effect. "We are going to find out the culprit of these kidnappings tonight or die trying." 

"Dustin, could you please stop predicting our deaths?" Steve groaned. "You're a total jinx. If I die because you said that, I'm going to invent ghosts just to haunt you." 

"Do you honestly believe in that stuff?" Robin scoffed. "Like, ghosts? Magic universe manifestation or whatever?" 

Which was rich coming from someone who had spent four days telling Steve about every fairy tale creature she could think of. 

Steve didn't even look her way as he shrugged. "Robin, I am literally friends with a wizard. I watch you turn into a giant fox creature daily. Of course I fucking do."

"Guys, can we please focus?" 

Under Dustin's militant reign, Steve and Robin dutifully helped him re-read all the newspaper clippings. There were a few commonalities that Dustin had missed-- All of them found by Robin, who had a better geographic memory than Dustin and Steve put together. However, there was nothing that would establish a functioning territory for a Wesen, or even a motive or means. Just a few common street names, a lingering presence for a month or two before it jumped across the county line to lurk somewhere else. 

It would be helpful, Steve thought as he listened to Robin and Dustin debate about jurisdiction laws, if he had access to any files Hopper might have in the station. He knew all it would take was a quick call and an explanation, but the last thing he wanted was to get Hopper and El involved in anything that involved missing Wesen kids. Anyone who knew the truth of what El was knew that she was the cream of the crop, and Steve wouldn't be able to think past the sheer worry. It was going to be hard enough to keep Dustin safe, and there would be no convincing Dustin to keep himself safe if El kept rushing into danger. And she always did, no matter what anyone told her.

Even worse would be dealing with Hopper, who had the tendency to be even more overprotective than Steve himself.

Eventually, Robin threw the newspaper down on the table. "I give up. There's literally nothing in here that we haven't considered, like, a million times before." Steve was only halfway through his own stack, but he had to agree. 

"There has to be something," Dustin said. "There's always a clue, we just have to find it!" 

Robin pushed a hand through her hand, her bangs sticking out from the top of her head at an angle. After a moment of silence, she said, "I think we're looking at this the wrong way. I was reading this book last year, about how the cops find big serial killers. You know, like last year, when Larry Eyler--" 

"Let's not talk about that." The last thing Steve wanted to talk about with Dustin was Larry Eyler. Even if he was comfortable telling his teen friend about a rampant serial killer, he wasn't exactly keen to find out what Dustin's opinions on gay people were. Or, even worse, have to explain what a leather community was. He shot Robin a look. 

"... Okay, fair," Robin said, giving the thirteen year old in the room a glance before moving on. "Anyway, when they look for these guys, the first thing they do isn't to try and figure out exactly who did it. They try and figure out what kind of person would do it, and go from there. You know, to narrow it down." 

Steve frowned. "We already know what kind of person did it. It was a Wesen; We already decided that." 

"No, not like that. Like-- What kind of personality traits do they have? Are they bold or are they skittish? Are they charming? Creepy? Stuff like that." The explanation didn't exactly make sense to Steve, but he supposed the general concept was reasonable enough. There had to be some way to find out who commited a crime when there were no witnesses, and the cops certainly put enough people behind bars without them. It might as well be psychology, Steve supposed, although to him that was about as meaningful as witchcraft. 

Dustin sounded more convinced. "How do we even find out something like that?" 

"Ugh. A psychology degree, I guess," Robin said, as if she had never thought about it before. 

"It's not a terrible idea, though." Dustin said. His eyes had gone hazy and unfocused, staring through the newspaper on the counter instead of at it.  "If we stop focusing on exactly who the kidnapper is, and maybe focus on what kind of Wesen they might be, that would definitely narrow it down..."

"Can we?" Steve asked. His frown grew deeper. "I mean, it's kinda messed up to just decide that one kind of Wesen is more likely to kidnap kids than another kind, isn't it?" 

"Steve, you're new to this, so I get it," Robin said. She had that tone in her voice that Steve hated, the one that said he was being a new level of stupid previously undiscovered by man. The kind that said they couldn't even blame him for being so unable to compute reality, because who would ever expect Steve Harrington to be capable of thought?  "You're still thinking about people as humans. We're all the same, we all bleed red, yadda yadda. But Wesen aren't like that. Some of us literally bleed different colors." 

He wasn't sure what that had to do with anything. "That doesn't seem like a good enough reason to--" 

"It's like zoology," Robin interrupted. "Cats and dogs aren't inherently good or bad, right? There's a mix, made up of enviromental and social influences. But they have specific instincts, and specific responses to certain stimuli. There's no changing that." 

"Yeah, but-- Cats and dogs aren't people, Robin," Steve said. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, unsettled as always by the Wesen impulse to dehumanize each other. Maybe it made sense to them-- After all, they literally weren't human --but as someone raised completely in the human world, no amount of woge could  make Steve look at someone with two legs and a smile and think 'animal'. Even remembering the way demogorgon flesh collapsed under the weight of his bat still made Steve vaguely ill. 

"They're not human, you mean. Neither are Wesen. Look, I get it," Robin sighed. "But when a Maushertz dies, the first person you look at is the Klausreich. That's all I'm saying." 

Dustin jumped in, patience worn thin by their impromptu ethical debate. "So, what? You think we need to look through every species of Wesen and find out exactly who would be compelled to hunt the species of Wesen that are missing?" 

"It's better than our other idea," Robin reminded them, "which is literally absolutely nothing." 

"I still think this is a terrible idea," Steve said. This sounded like a good way to get their asses kicked. Or an even better way to end up like his parents. 

"When we start looking to you to be the ideas guy, Harrington, that's how I know we're really fucked," Robin said, rolling her eyes. 

"Great." 

"Do your parents have any books on wesen species?" Dustin asked, ignoring Steve's glare. 

"No." Robin shook her head.  "Maybe one about anatomy or something, but nothing general like this." 

Dustin looked thoughtful for a moment, and then began, slowly, "Is it possible that it's..." 

Steve stopped him before he could complete the thought, completely uninterested in revisiting last night's near meltdown. "Dustin, if Robin's parents were using the kids in a weird drug scheme, there would be bodies literally all over Indiana. Let it go." 

"Fine! Fine..." Dustin said, throwing his hands up in the air. "What then? We can't exactly go the library for this kinda shit. What else do we do? Call Owens? My mom?"

"Who's Owens?" Robin asked, turning to Steve. He almost wanted to rub it in her face, that he knew something she didn't, but Dustin looked all too willing to answer her question. 

"Someone we literally can't talk about without getting our asses kicked by Reagan," Steve said quickly. "Shut up, Dustin." 

The kid didn't look all too upset about Steve's intervention. If anything, he looked excited, as if Steve had reminded him of something great. "Hey, wait, what about your parents, Steve?" 

"My parents haven't been in town in months," Steve said, although Dustin already knew. Robin had probably already guessed, by the way Dustin talked about them like they were strangers, and for once Steve was glad to confirm his parents had all but abandoned him to Hawkins.  "There's literally no way this could be them." 

"No, I know that. But they probably have research or something, right?" 

Robin visibly brightened, straightening from her previously defeated slouch. "Oh my god, Dustin, you're a genius!" 

"Isn't his ego big enough already?" Steve sighed. Dustin was already giving him the smugest eyes imaginable, as if Robin's praise proved what Dustin had been telling Steve all along. He was starting to wish these two had never met.

"No, seriously, there's literally no way that professional monster hunters wouldn't have information on which monsters are more likely to commit which crimes," Robin said. "That's like if cops didn't keep info on gangs. And that's exactly what we're looking for! If we're gonna play the Grimm game, then we need to start thinking like a Grimm." 

"And that starts with getting a Grimm's information," Dustin finished, a gleam in his eye. 

Steve thought this was all rather rich, coming from the boy who hadn't known what a Grimm was mere weeks ago and a girl who had been ready to write him off forever for being one. Not to mention, Steve had absolutely no interest in actually being a Grimm. He might have been born with a Grimm's powers, but that didn't mean that he had to go around acting like one. If anything, trying to protect these kids was his first step in making sure he never followed that path. 

"This is insane," he told them, his voice brokering no room for negotiation. "What do you want me to do, call them up and tell them a bunch of Wesen kids have gone missing? Because that's going to either end up with them here, which we definitely don't want, or they're going to hang up the phone because, again, it's Wesen kids." And the guy they were trying to find probably wasn't doing much worse than whatever his parents had been doing in Prague for the last six weeks. 

"Doesn't your dad have a study upstairs? I mean, have you even looking in there since you found out?" Dustin said. 

Steve's stomach sank. His father did have a study, yes, on the far end of the hallway from Steve's room. He hadn't been in there since he was very little, not yet old enough to understand why rules existed. The bubbling rage on his father's face had been clear, made even keener by the fact it had nowhere to go. Steve's father hadn't laid a finger on him, but Steve never forgot the rule again. While the rest of his memories of that age had been washed away by time, that one had remained, far clearer than Steve was technically comfortable with. 

He wondered, now, if his father had woged at him, his child's mind unawakened to what he was truly seeing but keen enough to know he was in danger. 

 "I'm not allowed in there," Steve said, quickly. Without another word, Robin stood and walked out of the kitchen, Dustin scrambling after her. Steve leapt to his feet and overtook them with a few large strides, using his body to block the way up the stairs. "No, Robin, seriously. My dad will lose his fucking mind if he finds out anyone's been in there." The anger hadn't had anywhere to go when Steve was a kid, but who knew what he would do if he came home to find his 19 year old had been rummaging around in there? Even worse, what about kids that weren't even his? 

"Steve, I literally helped you break into my dad's store and look through his secret blackmail book," Robin said, her mouth curling into a snarl.  "Forgive me if I don't really care that your daddy might be mad at you when he gets home." 

"Sorry, am I the only one remembering that my dad might be an actual murderer?" Steve asked, looking from Robin and Dustin and back. Neither of them looked very impressed, and once again, Steve felt like the only sane person in the universe.  "Hello? Are you even-- Seriously, guys, this isn't cool." 

"Steve, chill out," Dustin said. "We don't even know when your dad will be back. You told me literally a few months ago that they said they probably wouldn't be back until Thanksgiving! We have, like, so much time. They're literally never going to find out." 

That was true. It would be months, probably, before his parents found their way back home. The dust would have more than enough time to settle, and Steve could spend as much time as he wanted trying to clean everything up. That didn't rid him of the queasy feeling in his stomach, or the panic tightening around his throat, but it was enough to make him quaver under Robin's glare. He stepped out of the way, rubbing at his nose while Robin pushed past him. 

"... Fine. Fucking fine," Steve muttered under his breath. "This is so fucking stupid." 

He followed Dustin up the stairs, eyes glued to the familiar carpet under Dustin's sneakers. It was getting harder and harder to swallow down the panic that always sprung up when he thought about his parents, a sign that did not bode well for Steve's career as an anti-Grimm. It was odd, he knew, but until all of this, Steve's feelings had been pretty neutral to his family. He hated it when they were around, of course, but didn't every teenager? That was why they all complained, right, because their parents made them feel like a rat in a cage, and they didn't have Steve's good luck of months and months alone? Even after dinners with the Wheelers and the Henderson, after he had learned that most kids loved their parents, he didn't examine his own feelings too closely. There was no reason for it, after all; They were gone, and had never hurt him. What would be the point of thinking about it now, when everything else in the world was out to get him? 

It wasn't until he realized what being a Grimm meant to his parents, meant for his relationship with them, that he realized how truly fucked he was, being afraid of his parents. Because how was he supposed to stand up to them if he couldn't even make himself walk into an empty study? All Steve could really do was hope it got better as he got a little older, and that his parents would stay out of his business until then. For now, his palms sweat as he thought about what they were about to do. Wiping his hands on the leg of his pants, Steve tried to ignore the panic. 

Robin didn't wait for permission to throw open the study door, immediately heading for the large bookshelves that lined the room. Steve looked around before stepping over the threshold, his heart in his throat. The room seemed normal enough, like the home offices on television shows. The walls were a boring beige, unmarred by his mother's personal touch, and the only furniture besides the shelves was a large antique desk, a high-back chair, and an over-large ottoman to the side. It was all brown and white and boring, covered in a thin layer of dust. 

Steve felt sweat pool on his back as he took two shaky steps in. 

"It's all business junk," Robin said, her fingers skimming over leather-bound spines. "And encyclopedias. Honestly, I don't think most of this stuff has ever been touched before."

"My dad's not exactly a huge reader," Steve said. For the first time in years, Steve felt the urge to chew on his bottom lip. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that his mother hated it even more than his father hated a broken rule. She hated the chewing and the fidgeting and the sounds, all things that Steve had driven her crazy with for the first ten years of his life, and she wouldn't put up with it for a second more. 

She couldn't hear or see him now, but Steve didn't dare break the habit. 

"Help me check the desk," Dustin said, and Robin darted across the room to join him. 

For a moment, Steve thought about stopping them, the intrustion feeling even riskier than opening the door had been, but what was the point? No one kept anything important in a desk they never used. Steve couldn't remember the last time his dad had spent more than a few minutes in his study. It wasn't a place meant to contain any semblance of real life. Steve had to imagine that even the dust mites suffered. 

He watched them rifle uselessly through marked pens and blank papers, every drawer unlocked and useless. 

"I don't get it," Robin muttered to herself as she stood, hands on her hips. She didn't even seem to be talking to either of them, too absorbed in her own thoughts. "There should be something. Why isn't there something?" 

"Because my parents aren't a movie. They're real people," Steve hissed, a little fed up. "They are also, unfortunately, my problem, so if we could get the fuck out of my dad's study--" 

"Hold on," Dustin said, breaking through the brewing spat. "I think I found something." He was standing over the too-large ottoman his dad kept in the corner, the matching upholstered top torn off the base and set to the side. Steve felt the air rush into his lungs, ready to lose his fucking shit, and then he noticed that the base was hollow. Well, it had been hollow, once. It was full, now, crammed to the brim with books older than Steve had ever seen before in his life. 

"Holy shit," Robin said, rushing to Dustin's side. Steve, despite himself, followed. 

They surrounded the disguised trunk by unspoken accord, all of them kneeling to get a closer look. Most of the books were trashed, the cloth covers water-stained and the pages wrinkled. Other than that, there was nothing common amongst them. Every book was a different size, a different shape, the pages cut differently or just a tad more yellow than the others. Some were worn white by time, while others had gone grey with dirt. Despite all that, they looked recently well-taken care of, and they were free of dust. The holes in some of the bindings had been neatly stitched with clean, white thread. 

"God, some of these look ancient," Robin said, reaching for one of the oldest. Steve and Dustin leaned to peek into the pages as she opened it slowly. Steve could smell decaying paper and stale ink as the pages flipped through the air, and he squinted as the stench made his eyes water. The letters swam in front of his face, but even as he blinked them away, the spindly handwriting on the yellowed page refused to make sense.

"Is that even in English?" Dustin asked, and Steve silently sighed in relief. 

"This is an old German dialect," Robin answered. She set the book to the side, perched on the plush ottoman top. The next few were in English, and Steve could tell she was disappointed, but then she reached for another. It was so old that the pages crumbled at the corners when Robin picked it up, and the words inside reminded Steve of the one time a teacher had given them their assignments in some old version of English as a joke.  "This one is even older than Modern German--" She reached for a another, her eyebrow furrowed in thought. "And I think this one's in Yiddish?" 

"Can you read that?" Steve asked, shocked. 

Robin shrugged. "It might take a little time, and the dialects might throw me off a word or two, but most of them, I can. I think." 

"Okay, great!" Dustin said, "So you can focus on those, and me and Steve can split anything in English between us." 

Steve picked up the nearest book carefully, holding his breath as he opened the front cover. He had never been a huge book person, and he had certainly never cared about the condition of a book when he finished reading it, but something about these books felt important. Not just because he was sure his father would kill him if he ended up ruining it. 

To his surprise, there was no title inside the book, just a name and a series of dates. "I think the ones in English might be diaries. This one is, at least." 

"They must be your ancestors, or something," Dustin said, grinning at Steve over the the trunk. He looked thrilled, like they had found actual treasure instead of a stack of dusty old books. "It's kinda cool, when you think about it. Having all this history in your blood." 

Steve could understand why Dustin, who had been cut off from the Wesen world completely, might think that. But Steve could already feel a pit forming in his stomach, "Something tells me I'm not going to like finding out what 'my blood' has been up to. But, uh, I think I should be the one to read these. Just in case." 

Dustin looked a little disappointed, but nodded. "Sure, man. They're your books."

Luckily, there were only a few proper diaries in the pile. At least, ones in English, anyway. The rest were almost like dictionaries-- "Bestiaries," Dustin corrected -- little more than impersonal lists and facts about the different kinds of Wesen. Steve listened to Dustin read a particularly sarcastic passage about Eisbibers, and then turned back to the books in his hands. 

If he had to be honest, Steve was a little thrown off by the fact that he now had physical proof that his parents were Grimms. He'd been preparing himself for the truth for months now. At least, he'd thought he had. Now, with the proof in his hands, Steve didn't feel very prepared at all. At least none of the books had been his parents' diaries. He wasn't sure if he could handle reading their thoughts, when they hadn't bothered to call in months. He wasn't sure if he could handle facing that they even had thoughts, when they'd mostly amounted to ominous shadows in the corners of his life.

He certainly couldn't handle thinking of these books in his father's hands, what his dad must have been thinking as he read them for the first time. Steve could feel his brain slip into fuzziness as he begins to flip through the first few diaries. The entries were short, and he found himself skimming over them, lingering on the ones with small pictures and diagrams scrawled in the margins. 

In one, he found a perfectly drawn and unfamiliar heart, every valve and aorta clearly labeled. Underneath, his great-grandfather said it was the heart of Siegbarste. Steve flipped the page, not wanting to find out whose heart he was looking at, but the entry only continues. The handwriting has changed, the ink a little fresher-- And Steve would be surprised, because it's not exactly how diaries are meant to be used, but apparently that wasn't how Grimms worked. Every single one he's looked through so far has had a note or two written by someone else. It would almost be heart-warming, the generations of collaboration, if it weren't a legacy of murdering people that now rested on Steve's shoulders. 

So, no, the presence of a second author wasn't what shook Steve. It was the familiarity of the handwriting that turned his stomach. Most of the contact he'd had with his parents had been in writing. Not in letters, of course; Steve didn't expect his parents had that much time for anyone, least of all him. But through the years, they'd talked to him mostly through notes. Simple lines explaining they would be back home in a few months, impersonal birthday wishes, a few kind lies of affection. Always written by his mother, of course, when she missed the easily polished child that Steve used to be. 

And that same writing was here, her looping 't's and slanted 'r's, only now instead of soothing the loneliness in Steve's chest, it told the tale of a particularly stubborn Siegbarste, who had been so unwilling to die that she had to take a crowbar to his ribs and-- 

Steve closed the book. 

Suddenly, he was nostalgic for the days when Nancy and Jonathan were the ones who did all the research. Sure, Steve had resented it a little at the time-- He'd meant it when he'd said that all he really wanted was for Nancy to be happy with the person she loved, but it had also stung, that Nancy had picked someone smarter than him, someone who could keep up with her. If this was what it was always like, though, he was grateful that he and Nancy hadn't worked out. He wasn't sure he could stomach this every single year. It was so much easier to just pick up a blunt object and keep some kids alive, even if he was the one who always ended up in the hospital afterwards. 

If this was what being 'smart' meant, Steve genuinely thought he preferred being stupid. 

Robin and Dustin had settled in with their books, though, and there was no way that Steve was leaving them up here alone. There was no telling what they'd get up to, and he wasn't exactly about to let them dig through his family's secrets. He looked from diary to diary nervously, with no real idea of where to start. Eventually, though, he looked to the cleanest diary, almost pristine except for what looked like a singe in the corner. On the outside, embossed in gold, was the name 'Otis'. 

Steve had known, intellectually, that if his dad was a Grimm then so, of course, was Grandpa Otis. Something in his brain, however, had rebelled against the thought. Because while his parents had triggered every prey instinct Steve had ever had, Grandpa Otis had never made Steve ever feel anything but safe and loved. Even though Steve had literally heard his grandfather's stories about the war, about the terrible things Otis had done and seen, he couldn't imagine him hunting someone. He had gone to war because he hadn't had any choice, and he had fought with honor and righteousness. At least, that's what Steve had always been told. That's what he wanted to believe, more than anything in the world. 

At least if he was wrong, though, he wouldn't have to look his grandfather in the eye again. There were some advantages to losing the one family member who cared about you, he guessed. 

Curiosity getting the better of him, Steve opened the diary to the first page and began to read. 

Otis' diary entries started in his first days of boot camp, desperate to keep some kind of record since the family's grimoire-- Steve had to assume that was some kind of fancy word for book --was no longer available to him. At first, there was almost no mention of Wesen at all. He wrote about Steve's Grandma Mary, mostly, and how much he regretted marrying her only to make her wait for him. A few weeks later, though, things changed. 

The longer Otis served, the more Wesen he met. His fellow soldiers, his commanding officers.... It seemed that Otis couldn't go more than a few days without forcing someone into a woge on accident. To Steve's surprise, Otis didn't seem upset or disgusted by being surrounded by Wesen. If anything, he seemed guilty to be causing them problems, and worried that his presence might keep his unit from performing at their best when he was shipped out. 

Then, the entries became more and more sparing, only appearing when Otis had met a new Wesen. Sometimes, they would be French or English allies. Usually, they weren't. Steve wasn't the greatest history student, the dates mixing themselves up in his head at every opportunity, but he had thought that the Second World War was mostly fought with bombs and guns. Apparently, Otis' unit hadn't been informed of that. It seemed every entry was now about Otis having to wrestle some Wesen enemy into the mud, feeling their hearts stop underneath his hands. 

He never talked about the humans he had to kill. Only the Wesen. 

Steve didn't know how he did it. He didn't know how Grandpa Otis could drink with a Wesen one night, and the next pretend it didn't matter when one died by his hand. But he couldn't hate him for it, either, because if he hadn't... If he hadn't been able to pretend like that, then the faraway look that he used to get in his eyes might have been so much worse. It wasn't what Steve would have done, but it meant he lived long enough to meet his grandson, and how was Steve supposed to judge that? 

After a few years of entries, they became vague and wistful. At one point, there was a long, rambling entry about a beach that Steve didn't really understand, and the next day, there was only a list of names. After that, there was scrawled poetry in German and English, followed by sketches of men long dead. Steve was almost tempted to put the book to the side, a little ashamed of snooping through his grandfather's worst memories. He hadn't been able to put it down when Otis was in the thick of it; That felt too much like abandoning him. But Steve's own search still loomed, and it seemed obvious that nothing he needed was in these pages. 

Steve flipped through the next few pages, eyes skimming over awkward verse and floral doodles, until his gaze caught on one entry in a heavy, unfamiliar hand. He sat straight up as he read, eyebrows raising so far in shock that it hurt a little to blink.

"I think I found it," Steve said, breaking the long silence that had settled in the room. "Blutbader! We're looking for Blutbader." 

"What? No, I already--" Dustin looked down at the book in his hands with a frown. "There's literally nothing in any of these books about Blutbader hunting other Wesen except for very specific blood feuds with the Bauerschwein." 

Robin didn't look convinced, either. "Yeah, I've never heard of a Blutbad pack picking fights with other predator species like this." 

"I don't think they usually do," Steve said, and flipped back to the beginning of the entry. "But I found a journal in here from Grandpa Otis. I don't remember him ever talking about it much, but I guess he spent some time in Europe after the war? One of his friends wrote some information down for him while he was in the hospital.  Turns out they were tracking some French soldier who gave them a bad feeling, and it turned out to be a Blutbad. Luther-- His friend's name was Luther -- said that the guy didn't hunt humans, which was weird because it should have been super easy in all the chaos. Like, he specifically says that literally almost every other predator species in France was on the hunt, but instead this Blutbad guy focused entirely on this species called... Waages?" Steve's tongue tripped over the pronunciation, and he looked to Robin for help.

"'Scale'," Robin translated, and then said: "I've never heard of them." 

"Good reason for that," Steve said, grim.  "Luther says that before Grandpa Otis could take him out, this Blutbad had killed nearly every Waage in Europe." 

"That's..." Robin looked sick.

Dustin had no such compunction, focused entirely on finding answers. "So, what? Sometimes a Blutbad just comes out the wrong way and goes after Wesen instead of humans?" 

Steve shrugged. "Luther doesn't go into a lot of detail, and said that he mostly avoids Blutbader, but he does kinda hint that maybe humans are just an easy target. And, yeah, some of them go after Bauerschwein because they're loyal. But a brave Blutbad, or an angry one--" 

"Or a crazy one," Dustin interrupted.

"Yeah, or that," Steve said. "They might go after literally anyone." 

"If there was a Blutbad pack in Indiana, I feel like I'd know about it," Robin said. She crossed her arms and sat back on her heels, frowning. 

"There is," Dustin said. 

"What?" Robin frowned. "No there isn't. I mean, there are the Munsons, but--" 

"What, Eddie Munson?" Steve interrupted. That was the last person he'd expected to be dragged into all this nonsense. Or maybe the first person, and he'd just dismissed it as being far too obvious. Steve would have pegged him more for 'vampire' than 'magical German animal monster', though. 

It was Dustin that answered. "Yeah, he's the reason Mom won't let me join the D&D club. He and his uncle are Blutbader." 

"Sorry, Eddie Munson is a werewolf?" Steve clarified. He just couldn't accept it. What kind of werewolf wore that much silver? "Eddie 'The Freak' Munson?" 

"Don't call him that," Robin snapped. 

"Sorry!" Steve said, his hands flying up in supplication. "It's just... He's not exactly subtle about it, is he? I'm pretty sure he wore fangs to school for like half of my freshman year. Not how I would pretend not to be a monster." 

"I think we're all very aware of how you pretend not to be a monster, Harrington," Robin said pointedly. Steve rolled his eyes. "And that's super not the point. Eddie and his uncle don't count as a pack. They're barely even really Blutbader." 

"How do you--" Dustin began, but Robin didn't entertain the thought of letting Dustin loose on a new theory. 

"Eddie and I have been in band together for the past three years. I've never even seen him squish a bug, much less hunt anything," Robin said, making stern eye contact with Dustin that honestly reminded Steve way too much of his own mother. "And like Steve said, he's not a subtle dude. I'm pretty sure if he had an aggressive bone in his body, he would be hunting jocks in the hallways." 

Alright, that was a much more believable reason, Steve thought. 

Dustin looked at Robin, donning that 'mysterious' expression he practiced in the mirror, the one that Steve had told him multiple times only made him look constipated. "Maybe he's more clever than you give him credit for." 

"Absolutely no way. No Blutbad would be able to deal with Hargrove for more than 15 minutes without throwing a punch back," Robin said, and Steve found himself nodding along. Dealing with Billy was hard enough without supernatural rage behind it. Even at his most human, Steve hadn't been able to keep his cool. There was no way that a roided up killing machine was going toe to toe with Hargrove and simply walking away. Robin continued, "There's a reason Eddie hates the basketball team, and it goes to the tune of daily swirlies until he hit his growth spurt." 

Steve winced at the reminder of his old friends' idea of fun, but he had to admit that Robin was right. Eddie had always been loud and in everyone's faces, all leather and smoke and pounding bass, but the moment any actual conflict started, he was the first to disappear. Eddie was always just... gone. Never apologized, never took anything back, but just disappeared, as if he had never been there to begin with. The rest of the team had always accepted it, content in knowing that their authority was no longer being challenged, but Steve had watched him as he walked away, always wondering what was happening in the freak's brain that made this cycle so unending. 

Then again, if Eddie was really a Wesen, was it really so surprising that he didn't want to fight a group of teenage assholes that included a baby Grimm? Steve wasn't sure how obvious it was to people, before he'd started wogeing. Sure, El and Dustin hadn't noticed until his eyes came in, but they were hardly experts on the subject. And Robin hadn't known, either, but she and Steve had hardly spent much time together before Scoops. 

Suddenly, Steve wanted very badly to know what Eddie Munson thought when he looked at him. 

He said none of that outloud, instead turning to Dustin and saying simply, "She's right. He and Tommy H. always had it out for each other, and Eddie was always the first to run. Not exactly the sign of a cold-blooded kidnapper." 

"Okay, fine," Dustin said. He scrambled up from the floor to put his hands on his hips in what Steve was surprised to find was a mimicry of himself. "What about his uncle, then?"

Steve and Robin exchanged a tense look. This kid and his theories were going to get them all killed if they didn't play their cards right. 

"Look, Dustin, you're right," Robin began, slowly. Her voice was the kind of gentle that Steve associated with kindergarten teachers and small children who were about to turn into the elementary equivalent of an emotional atom bomb. "Just because there's no pack in Indiana doesn't mean there are no Blutbader at all. But there's also absolutely no proof that the Blutbad we're looking for is from Hawkins, or even that it was actually a Blutbad-- This is all just supposition, remember?" 

"What was that quote you were telling me last winter?" Steve reminded him. "Something about forcing the proof to fit your idea instead of the other way around? Let's not have a repeat of last night, buddy." 

"So what are we supposed to do, just sit around with absolutely no idea of who it might be?" Dustin asked, his face flushing red with anger. "Wait for another kid to disappear? Just because we don't have any evidence? Jesus, Steve, you're not the fucking cops! You're a Grimm. Do something Grimm-like for once!" 

Steve blanched, his grandpa's words flashing through his head. "No thanks." 

Dustin shook his head. "I think maybe we should--" 

"No, this is stupid," Robin said, frustration leaking into her voice. The mom act had been abandoned just as quickly as she'd picked it up.  "Just because you think it isn't the Munsons doesn't make that true." 

"Ever heard of something called 'innocent until proven guilty', dickhead?" Steve said, immediately following Robin into the new plan of shaming Dustin into submission. 

To Dustin's credit, he at least gave it a few moment's thought. For a second there, Steve was almost relieved by the look of doubt in his face. Of course, he shattered Steve's dreams for a peaceful evening pretty much immediately. "Even if it's not them, we can at least talk to them, can't we? They've gotta no more about other Blutbader in Indiana than we do." 

"No," Robin said, immediately. "No way. Just because Eddie doesn't fight in school doesn't mean that his uncle is the same and, uh, they would make mincemeat out of an Eisbiber, and there wouldn't be anything Steve or I could do about it." 

"If anything, me being there would make things worse," Steve said, grimacing as he imagined a fully grown Wesen with the same rage El and Robin had shown when Steve forced a woge out of them. "A Grimm poking around and asking questions is going to make a lot of people mad, especially when you accuse them of a crime."

"We have to be smart about this," Robin agreed. 

Dustin huffed. "I'm sick of being smart about things and watching other people get hurt because of it." 

Guilt curled in Steve's chest. Maybe they weren't being the most sensitive about Dustin's clear trauma, here. Steve honestly wished he could make it all better for him. Wished it was as simple as Dustin wanted it to be, a bad guy for Steve to fight and make everything okay again. He wanted that, too; Wanted to be able to kill the monster that made Dustin afraid. 

But it wouldn't change anything for Steve to go fight a werewolf, even if he won. Most of those kids would still be dead. And Dustin would still be afraid. 

There was nothing Steve could do about that. His only job was keeping Dustin alive.

"Dustin--" He started, but Dustin could hear the weakness in his voice, and immediately leapt on the opportunity. 

"Can we at least drive down to the trailer park tonight, and look around?" he said, looking at Steve with shining, hopeful eyes.

"The trailer--" Steve repeated, stopping halfway through to look at Robin in disbelief. "The werewolf lives in the trailer park? Jesus Christ, what kind of weird ass horror movie bullshit plot--" 

"Not the time." 

"Fine, whatever." Steve turned back to Dustin. "Even if we do go down there, what exactly are you expecting to find? What do two grown men in a single-wide trailer even have room to hide? Not fifteen kids, I'll tell you that much." 

Dustin's face was flat and serious, but Steve could see the desperation bubbling in his eyes. "I don't know what we're going to find, Steve. I don't. But I'm so sick of having to know something for sure to be taken seriously." 

"That's not--" Steve tried to explain, but Dustin was already turning to Robin with a different tactic. 

"Do you think we knew what we would find when we went to look for Will?" he said, as if Robin had literally any point of reference for everything that had gone down in 1983. She knew what every other person in town knew, and Dustin knew that, and was using it against him. Steve's guilt about Will warred with the new rage against being played. Dustin continued, "No! We went out to find him, by ourselves, because all the adults were too busy sitting around and talking about proof and profiles instead of looking for him." 

"From what I've heard," Robin began slowly, shooting Steve wide-eyed glances to gauge his reaction to every word, "you and your friends got really lucky finding Will. And I'm not saying that it was a wrong decision, or that you shouldn't have done it, because you found your friend, and that's-- That's great, Dustin. It really is. But we can't rely on luck again, especially with so many kids missing." 

Steve jumped back in, a new level of anger in his voice. "What happens if you get hurt, Dustin?" he asked, trying to remind Dustin of the reality of what happened to Will. He didn't just go missing; He was attacked. This wasn't just going out and looking for someone. This could end up leading to war. "Whoever took those kids is actively going after Wesen, and you want to just knock on the door of the guy you think did it? I'm supposed to be the adult, and I'm not letting you be that stupid. Sorry." 

Dustin drew himself up to full height, and Steve was struck for a moment with the realization that Dustin had grown while he was away. He was still nowhere near catching up to Steve, but he wasn't the little kid who couldn't see over Steve's shoulder, either. He was going to be fourteen soon, Steve remembered, and the thought made his stomach churn with anxiety. The bigger they got, the harder they were to protect. There was no more scooping Dustin up to keep him safe. There was no more holding him back with one hand and a weapon in the other. In two short years he would be as old as Steve had been when all of this had started.  

The way Dustin held himself, chin high and feet planted, said he knew all that and more. "I'm going to Forest Hills whether you like it or not, Steve," he said. There was no more anger in his words, just simple fact. That, more than anything, told Steve just how grown up Dustin was becoming.  "The next time you leave me alone, I will get on my bike, and I will find my answers. It doesn't matter if it takes days, or months, or if I have to skip school or jump out of my window to do it. So you can give up and let me go now, or you can come with me." 

Steve knew he would do it, too. Wouldn't even think twice before he did it. Even worse, he would probably drag El and Mike and who knows else into it. And though Steve knew that, more assuredly than he knew anything else these days, he also knew that Dustin knew he knew that. As dizzying as that logic was, it all came down to Steve being manipulated by this punk kid, and part of him wanted to fight back out of sheer spite. 

But that would leave Dustin on his own, facing off against who knows what. 

Steve sighed.

"This is so fucking stupid," Steve said, throwing his hands up in defeat.  "Jesus. Okay, fine. Sure. Let's go talk to the fucking goth werewolf. Sure. I hate this plan. I hate you." 

Steve stood, pointedly ignoring Dustin's cries of triumph. One of these days, when the stakes were a little less high, he was going to have to figure out how to take that kid down a peg. He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to rid himself of the sudden exhaustion that had descended over him, and when he opened his eyes he saw Robin, still on the ground, glaring up at him.

"I can't believe you gave up so easily, Harrington," she said. "That was pathetic." 

It had already been a long day of having his every opinion and boundary walked all over, and Steve had been itching for a good reason to put his foot down. The kids were always his best reason, so it was with a certain amount of glee that Steve snapped at Robin. "You have no idea what I've been through with these kids, and to be honest, I'm not all that interested in telling you. The only thing you have to understand is that it's my job to make sure Dustin isn't hurt, and if I have to drive down to Forest Hills to get my ass kicked to do it, then that's what I'm going to do."

"Or you can lock his ass in his bedroom until he turns 40 like the rest of the helicopter parents," she said with a fake smile. 

Steve huffed. "No one's making you come with us," he pointed out. Honestly, he would feel better about Robin staying behind. It was one less person for him to look after, and Dustin would stop trying to go over his head if there were less people involved. "You can stay here for the night, if you're nervous, or I can drop you off at home on the way." 

She stared at him, blankly, for just a moment before rolling her eyes and pushing herself to her feet. "You're just as crazy as the kid is if you think I'm letting you both run off and die without a braincell to share between you," she said. "Of course I'm going with you." 

"Of course you are," Steve repeated, and resigned himself to a repeat of the night before. 

Steve's only victory of the day was that they, at the very least, listened when he demanded they all eat something before heading out. It seemed that even Wesen with no self-preservation instincts didn't want to die on an empty stomach. Usually, Steve would cook something, but it seemed like a bad decision to leave dirty dishes behind when he wasn't sure if he was coming back to clean them. Despite his misgivings, Dustin dug up a frozen lasagna from the bottom of Steve's freezer, where it had been laying in wait for what might have been months. 

Usually, ricotta cheese made Steve's stomach tie itself in knots, but he couldn't even feel the oily, grainy texture on his tongue as he chewed. Every cell in him was focused on trying to think of anything other than what they were about to do and failing. None of them ate well, but Steve was determined to keep trying until he realized that Robin had disassembled her lasagna layer by layer and was restacking them in new, weirder patterns. 

It was a short drive to Forest Hills. Loch Nora was a richer part of town, sure, but it wasn't exactly a well-inhabited one. It was largely sought after for the privacy it afforded, surrounded by the woods on the edge of town. Turns out the edge of town was also a pretty great place to put all the people no one wanted in town, too. Steve tried not to think about that too much as he pulled into the lot, parking his car behind the diapalated sign. 

"You know which trailer is his?" Steve asked Robin, looking from home to home as if Eddie's would be as big and obvious as he was. 

"I don't know if I like us being parked so far away," Robin said instead of answering. "I mean, what if something happens and we need to make a getaway?" 

"Then you run," Steve said, dryly. "The Bimmer isn't exactly inconspicuous, Buckley. If I park this shit at Eddie's front door, he's either going to run or come through the windshield." 

"There's got to be a reaction somewhere in between, there," Dustin piped up from the back seat. 

"Shut up, Henderson," Steve said, glaring through his rearview mirror. "This is a conversation for adults who aren't actively trying to get everyone killed." 

As Dustin grumbled, Robin looked at Steve with wide eyes. "You really think Eddie would attack you out of nowhere like that?" 

"No," Steve admitted. "At least, not without seeing my eyes, first." 

Robin grimaced. Steve could still remember the way her forced woge had made her bare her fangs. If he hadn't seen her like that, he would have never believed that Robin was capable of violence, either. But he had seen proof of it-- In fact, the only Wesen who had ever not reacted with violence to his woge was Dustin. 

And, let's be honest, Dustin could hardly be counted when it came to Steve. Or having his guard up. Or really... anything. He was a weird kid. 

"Alright, fair enough," Robin said. After taking a deep breath, she looked toward the back of the park, where the older, dingier models stood. "I've only been over for like five minutes one time, but I think I remember he was in the very back. Big and white, wheels still on." 

"Right. Right, okay, come on." 

All three climbed out of the car silently-- Well, as silently as Robin and Dustin were capable of --and began to walk down the dirt path that cut through the center of the trailer park. There was no use in being sneaky, Steve thought, even as his hind brain scrambled to find a way to camouflage himself here. It was barely night, the last of the sun still painting the horizon a dusky purple. They were in plain sight of nearly every window in the damn place. There was no play that could give them any kind of advantage, outside of just... walking. 

It was what they were going to do when they got there that was the hard part. 

Maybe he could get Robin and Dustin to step back a little, Steve thought, and then he could just... knock. Sure, whoever opened the door would still freak the fuck out, but Steve had enough of a handle on his own powers that he could talk them down from attacking.... probably. 

He squared his shoulders, bracing himself to mount the rickety stairs to the trailer, but Dustin stopped him with a hand on his elbow.

"Wait, wait," Dustin said, voice hushed, "we should look around outside first. You know, do a perimeter check?" 

Robin sucked her teeth in disbelief and muttered, "Where do you think we are?" 

"Yeah, man," Steve had to agree,  "this isn't Fort Wayne. It's a trailer park." 

"I just want to be thorough!" Dustin insisted. "Come on, it'll be really quick."

Looking back at Robin, Steve lifted his eyebrows, receiving only a shrug in return. Fine. It was Dustin's stupid recon mission, anyway. They could play it Dustin's way. At least it was just looking around in some overgrown grass and not something dangerous, like plunging the depths of underground tunnels infested with demonic dogs. 

Sure, it wasn't likely that he would make the same mistake twice, but Steve couldn't be too careful around his little shits.

Dustin darted in front of Steve, leading the way to the back of the Munson's trailer. There wasn't much to be seen, especially in the dark. Even Steve, whose vision had been getting better with every day, couldn't see much besides a few pieces of plastic and rusted metal. Whatever they had been before, their forms were now almost entirely covered by the wild growth of the Munson's 'backyard'. Dustin tried his best, poking at any suspicious lumps, but there was nothing to be found. No weird smells, no unexplainable prints. There weren't even any out of place sounds, which was usually Steve's first clue that things had gone terribly. Even when he strained, Steve couldn't hear more than a few muffled conversations and a Reds game. 

Dustin crept towards the edge of the lot, where the foliage went from unkempt to wild, overgrown with ryegrass so tall it almost rivaled Dustin himself. Steve almost called him back, unnerved by the shadows in the weeds, but bit his tongue. It was fine, he told himself, heart pounding. Everything was fine. It was just plants and the summer wind. Everything would be okay. 

Robin sidled up to him, muttering under her breath. "This is a waste of time." 

"I know," Steve said, turning to her. "Just let him--" 

In the future, Steve will say that the Blutbad jumped out at them. It's a simpler story, and one easy to believe. Sometimes Steve believes it himself. Most times, though, Steve knows the truth. In one heartbeat, he was certain that they were alone, and in the next he knew they weren't. 

They moved at once, him and the shadow-- Steve was pushing Dustin behind him before he could even see what he was racing against. At first, it was just a shadowy form at the edge of the weeds, a blur in the corner of Steve's vision,  but as the figure leapt at them, it shifted into focus. He saw the eyes first, burning red in the monochrome night, and a flash of fangs in a snarling mouth. Claws extended from thick, swollen hands. Long, curling hair that covered a little too much face to be human. 

And then he saw the glint of silver jewelry, the moonlight reflected off a familiar leather jacket. 

Blutbad, Steve thought, and then: Eddie.

It was nothing like when he had first met Robin. That had been a standoff, nothing but time for his mind to think of a thousand ways to fend her off. This was nothing but a moment, nothing but a split second for Steve to figure out what to do next, and all Steve could think was how he didn't want to hurt anyone. 

He didn't want to hurt Eddie. Didn't want to have to, but he couldn't let him touch Dustin or Robin, either. Couldn't just sit back and do nothing, couldn't let them watch him be torn apart-- He remembered, vaguely, something Grandpa Otis had said about Blutbader having weak backs, but he couldn't remember enough to make use of it. 

Even if he had, would he even be able to make use of stomaching it? 

For the first time since he'd come into his Grimmhood, Steve was paralyzed with indecision.

Which was why it was somewhat of a relief when the moment passed, and Eddie rushed past all three of them without sparing them a second glance. 

"Um," Robin said. Steve could feel her fur brushing against his arm, just for a moment, before it melted back into skin. 

"Follow him!" Dustin barked. He tried to sprint off after Eddie himself, but Steve had never let go of Dustin's sweater. He pulled ineffectually at Steve's grip, but Steve only tightened his fist and hauled him back.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"  

Dustin sputtered, gesturing after Eddie. "He ran! That's a sure sign of guilt!" 

"Or a sure sign of a Grimm being in the vicinity?" Robin said, voice dry. 

Steve took a deep breath, trying to calm the pounding of his heart. While he really, really hadn't wanted to hurt Eddie, now that the initial shock had passed, the instinctive adrenaline was a little harder to deal with. His hands shook against the fabric of Dustin's shirt. "Look, I agree we should talk to the guy--" If only to apologize for scaring the shit out of him in his own backyard "--but if we're going to do it then we're going to do it slowly. And you're both going to stay behind me." 

The only thing more dangerous than a feral animal was a cornered feral animal.

Reluctantly, Dustin nodded, and he and Robin fell into step just behind Steve. Even before they approached the corner of the trailer, Steve could already hear Eddie's voice, hushed and hurried.

"I'm serious, Wayne, we have to get out of here," Eddie said. Whoever he was talking to only hummed thoughtfully, and there was an upset little huff that reminded Steve so much of Mike Wheeler he rolled his eyes on reflex. "There's a Grimm on our ass, and he's got Wesen with him. I have no idea what's going on, but if it's Mom's shit, then I don't wanna be here when they figure out we don't have anything for them." 

That sounded exactly like the kind of thing Steve wasn't supposed to be hearing. Chest stinging with guilt, Steve walked a little faster. As he stepped into the dimmest circle of light from the Munson's front porch, the other man spoke up. 

"I don't think that's what they're here for, Ed." An older man stood next to Eddie on the front porch. He was everything Eddie wasn't, bald and solemn and plainly dressed, but there was something in their faces that seemed to match. Eddie's uncle, Steve realized, the Blutbader they were really here to talk to.  He already seemed to know they were here for him, because he was looking over the railing, meeting Steve's eyes before Eddie even had a chance to turn around. "Is it, son?" he asked Steve. 

"Uh, no, sir," Steve said, as Eddie turned around with what could only be called a squawk of surprise. "It isn't." 

"Oh, good," Eddie said, his cadence still familiar from the countless rants that Steve had been helpless to avoid for the past four years. "It's one of the Harringtons. Great, this is exactly what I needed. To get fucking thrown out of town--" 

Eddie knew his parents were Grimm, Steve realized with a start. That almost made sense, except that there was no way Eddie or Wayne had ever met his parents. Not in a normal, human way, anyway. They didn't exactly spend their days taking leisurely strolls down the streets of Hawkins. Hell, Steve was pretty sure even he wouldn't have been able to meet his parents if he didn't live in the place where they stored their birth certificates. 

But Eddie knew they were Grimm. More than that, he was scared of them, but not that they would kill him. 

For the first time in months, a hope sparked in Steve's chest. 

"Hush, boy," Eddie's uncle said.  "Let him speak." 

"We're not here to cause any trouble, sir," Steve said, trying to put on the voice that had once charmed so many respectable Hawkins parents. It was a rusty skill, but it was one he had spent years refining. He tried to smile. "Really, we're not. But there's been something weird going on lately, and I don't think I can ignore it anymore." 

Mr. Munson didn't look impressed. His bushy eyebrows drew together, and Steve resisted the urge to fidget under his gaze. Eddie, apparently, had no resistance at all. It was hard to focus on the elder Munson, and not Eddie, who was chewing nervously on a lock of hair. "And that brought you to our door?" 

"Well, Mr. Munson," Steve said, hesitating as he tried to figure out how to sound like a competent Grimm, "my... my parents aren't really home to take care of it, and it's not like the cops know half of what's going on in this town." Sorry, Hop. "I wasn't really sure where else to start. We just need some information and then we'll be on our way." 

It didn't take years of obsessively puzzling out peoples' attitudes to know that Mr. Munson wasn't entirely on board, no matter what he'd said to Eddie. "And who's 'we'?" he asked.  

Robin stepped forward. Steve could practically feel the vibration of her nerves, and he swayed into her space slightly, bumping their shoulders together. "That would be us, sir." 

On his other side, Dustin was much more enthusiastic. "My name is Dustin Henderson, sir. I go to Hawkins Middle. I'm really excited to meet you and your nephew, sir, because I'm pretty sure you can help us, even if I'm not allowed to join the D&D club next year, which is total bullshit, by the way, and--" 

"Dustin," Steve said, voice tense. "Now is really not the time." 

Ignoring them both, Robin waved up at the porch. "Hi, Eddie." 

Eddie dropped the hair he'd pulled into his mouth and stepped closer to the railing, eyes flashing red as he squinted down at the trio. "Buckley? The fuck are you doing running around with Steve Harrington?" 

Steve tried to ignore the flash of hurt. It didn't matter that Eddie obviously thought he wasn't good enough to hang out with. It didn't matter at all. Steve had absolutely no interest in hanging out with Eddie Munson, or even Robin, except in emergencies like dozens of missing kids-- 

"Well, uh. We work together," Robin said, and Steve stared into the Munson's porch light, frowning. "You know, at the ice cream shop in the mall?" 

There was a beat, and Eddie turned to his uncle, pleading. "Wayne, come on. There is no way you're actually buying this bullshit. None of this even makes any sense. What the hell is a Grimm doing running around with a Fuchsbau and whatever flavor of rodent this kid is?" 

"Hey!" Dustin protested, and Steve hated the way he felt a little relieved that Eddie had briefly killed Dustin's enthusiasm. 

"If anything, son, I think they speak very well to our ability to make it out of this night alive," Wayne said. He finally looked away from Steve, his gaze darting over Robin and Dustin before finally meeting Eddie's. "I don't think anyone coming here to cause trouble would bring these two along with them. No offense, of course." 

"Isn't that a good thing?" Robin whispered in Steve's ear. He shrugged, waiting for Eddie to argue. To agree. To do something, anything.

Whatever Steve was waiting for, however, it never came. He just stood there, glaring at his uncle and refusing to give the rest of them a second glance. It made Steve want to scream, just to see if he could get Eddie to flinch. Just to see if he could get Eddie to look.

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Harrington," Wayne said, after the silence had dragged just past the point of comfortable. Steve tried not to flinch at the address, hands clenching by his side as he thought of his father. "You sound like you're in a right pickle, and you at least had the good sense to come here unarmed. Why don't you come sit down a spell, and we can talk about what's got you climbing around in my weeds so late at night?" 

And didn't that sound like a recipe for disaster? Steve didn't think of himself as a very suspicious person, and he was all for giving the Munsons the benefit of the doubt, but he'd read a few fairy tales in his time. He didn't remember most of them, but taking invitations from wolves had stuck with him as a pretty stupid thing to do. 

Of course, there was no need to be impolite.  As Steve considered how he could suggest a more neutral territory without offending anyone, Dustin stepped forward. 

"That sounds great!" he chirped, and before Steve could stop him, he was rushing for the stairs. 

Steve met Robin's wide, nervous gaze. Into the wolves' den they went. 

tag list: @i-write-stories-not-sins-bitch @suddenlyinlove @plasticcrotches @adizzycollegekid

[chiarrara]

(part two of this ask from @distorzija-misli6 <3)

Basketball AU: I don't know as much about Basketball as I do about Baseball, so this is a good chance for me to think through positions & what each character's role on the court would be! (and decide if I want to make them taller than their canon heights)

Nobara: I talked about how Nobara likes to drive to the basket and draw (or make) fouls a lot. She's also got a good midrange shot and can make three pointers. She can play anywhere on the court, she's a really versatile player, and she always goes hard. She's also a huge shit talker. She has a reputation for elbowing, pushing, and doing anything to get the ball. Basically, the way she sees it, everyone on the other team is an enemy and she doesn't care what happens to them as long as she gets the basket & her team gets the win. She's not super sappy and motivational with her teammates, she's more into tough love. But she's also super loyal and trusts her teammates fully. I maintain she'd be a sixth man off the bench who can easily sub in for a shooting guard or a forward. (also I might bump her up to be at least 5'5" or 5'7" girly is so short)

Maki: She's a team leader. Cool headed, very skilled, hard worker--she practices more than anyone. She's great at taking charge on the court & directing plays. She's an amazing ball handler, she can dribble the ball up the court, make tough passes, get out of traps, and throw the ball in, all without making a turnover (losing the ball and giving it up to the other team). She has a natural commanding presence and her teammates look up to her and follow her lead. She is absolutely a tough love girly, though. She will tell you exactly what you suck at and need to improve, and you're not gonna get a lot of praise from her. But that just means it means even more when you do get it. Ya girl is a point guard with a good shooting arm and amazing court sense and game knowledge. (I might bump her up to 5'9" or 5'11" just to keep her height on Nobara)

Megumi: Since Megumi is also really strategic I think he started out as a point guard on the men's team, but when the teams merge, he and Maki have to compete for the spot. He kind of wants to just give it to her, but she absolutely won't let him so they play for it. Unfortunately, when it comes down to it, he just isn't as driven, is too unselfish with the ball, doesn't go all out and loses (queue Gojo-Megumi heart to heart). After that, I think he transitions to more of a shooting guard/small forward position. He's a defensive focused player, he gets near the basket to get rebounds, he creates opportunities on offense by running plays that confuse the defense, he blocks players on the other team to create scoring opportunities for his shooters. He can score from anywhere on the court, but he often passes the ball when he should be taking a wide open shot. Room for improvement. (we'll make him 6'1"-6'2"?)

Yuuji: He's a tough player, strong and athletic, but he's not fouling on purpose like Nobara does. He plays under the basket a lot, he's a strong shooter. He's got all kinds of layups, jump shots, and the occasional three. Any opportunity to dunk he's taking it. Any opportunity to block the other teams shot, he's taking it. He's extremely coachable, if you tell him to jump, he literally asks how high. Great free throw shooter because he can just turn off crowd noise & distraction and focus in. He's the notorious D1 athlete in a post game interview. His answer to everything is "we left it all on the court" or "we gave it 110%". One time he broke his nose colliding with a guy and had to wear one of those bizzare looking face guards for like a month after. (6'0" he's gotta be shorter than Megumi, sorry)

Yuuta & Toge: They're both shooting guards, knocking down three pointers. Yuuta tends to defend more under the basket because of his height where Toge is out on the perimeter. Toge's a great ball handler and can make quick passes and weave around the defense. Yuuta's great at getting in position, side-stepping, shot faking, at shooting from mid-court. They're both supportive teammates and are great cheerleaders from the bench. (Yuuta is 6'4" and Toge is only 5'10" on a good day)

Panda: He's the tallest, the biggest, and the strongest. He's posted up under the basket making layups, blocking shots, getting rebounds, and boxing dudes out so they have to take bad shots. He can go absolute beast mode on a counter attack and jump over a dude to get a slam dunk. He's the biggest morale-booster & the heart of the team. (he's still 6'7")

Shoko: She was the head coach of the women's team and when they merged, she got the position to coach the coed team. She's decisive, outwardly unemotional, and extremely effective. She doesn't pump the team up with big speeches, she's much more subtle, but she develops the relationships in practice and throughout the season so when it comes to a make or break moment, her team believes her when she says, "Well, I know you can win, so are you going to?

[gayelectro]

Do you wanna talk about Aiden? I haven't seen anyone ship canon Iron Leaguers with OILs here before!

I would love to!

I know I've seen "OIL" thrown around before, but I'll be honest, I don't know what it means! Happy to hear that Aiden miiiight count as one?

Here he is!

(Art by @toxiccaves! The big ref sheet is here!)

I dunno if you wanted to hear more about his backstory or his history with Top Joy, so I'll give you a little sprinkle of all of it.

Basically, Aiden was custom commissioned for a furniture store. Mostly just as a huge flex to say "we can afford a mecha". It's a teensy bit advertising, but more than anything, Aiden is a retail worker and a pro mover. He can lift very heavy things with ease and he's really precise and careful. But the thing is, in the Iron Leaguer universe, retail bots are outrageously few and far between. By and large, it just makes more sense to hire humans, they're cheaper and don't run on oil.

So overall, Aiden is a very lonely guy and super isolated from other mecha. Plus, his job (where he works somewhere between 60 to 80 hours a week) is soul crushingly boring. So, like many people, he watches sports to escape. He quickly becomes attached to his local pro basketball team. Since their home court is so close, he ends up getting to go watch live games a lot! The court is the only place he feels connected to others, even though he only spectates.

The Dark Queens is my headcanon name for Top Joy's first basketball team. It just follows what we know of that country's naming convention for DARK Federation teams; "Dark [Noun Relating to Royalty]". And DQ just happens to be Aiden's local team. He was already pretty new to basketball in general when Top Joy joined as their Super Rookie. So naturally he becomes a bit of a super fan himself.

Top Joy is sooooooooo happy to have such an enthusiastic fan, so he in turn makes an effort to get close to Aiden. After all, if Top Joy is gonna be the best Leaguer in the history of the league, he's gotta be good to his fans. They become fast friends. Both Aiden and Top Joy are inexperienced and desperate for attention, so they fit together like peanut butter and jelly. A puppy love blossoms between them. Fan meet and greets dissolve into romantic trysts after work. They're cute and giggly and sweet to each other.

But unfortunately, they feed into each other's worst habits and tendencies. Namely, Aiden is a people pleaser, thinks his opinions make him an expert at things, and jumps to put others on a huge pedestal. Which means that when Top Joy vents about his teammates being mean to him, Aiden calls his teammates jealous, because TJ is perfect and his way of playing is the most entertaining. And TJ will listen and take it to heart, mostly because it's exactly what he wants to hear.

Aaaaaaaand we all know that Top Joy's ball hogging and showboat-er-y eventually got him totally kicked off of the team. Because of how DARK handles things, Top Joy essentially just disappears one day. Aiden's boyfriend is gone without a trace and he slowly pieces together that most Dark Queens fans are glad that he's gone. This makes him further retreat back into his job.

But holy crap, the entire plot of Shippu! Iron Leaguer happens! Top Joy goes through a crazy amount of development and now he's got a soccer world championship under his belt?! The news is crazy enough and big enough to reach Aiden, even in his reclusive state. Aiden tried avoiding talking about his job as much as possible, so it would've been hard for Top Joy to find him, but thankfully it's pretty easy for Aiden to find TJ once he knows what team he's on!

They'd end up reconnecting really easily at that point. Aiden had been heartbroken that Top Joy left without so much as a word, but he genuinely believes him when he explains that it wasn't by choice. Plus, in the time they've been apart, Top Joy has grown a lot as a person. He's a lot more emotionally mature than he was. Sadly, Aiden was sort of frozen in place by the separation and self-isolation. So they probably wouldn't fall in love again, they're now in different life stages, but they would be the best of friends.

Plus, now Top Joy has lots of friends and would be eager to introduce everybody on Silver Castle to his first fan and first boyfriend. They'd love him and he'd get the chance to finally make some more connections, deeper connections, to other mecha. Hell, someone might even convince him to try playing a sport. If anyone could do it, it'll be Top Joy and Silver Castle.

Also this is his voice claim:

[bnnywngs]

mdzs kindergarten au where 10yo nie mingjue went to pick his baby bro a-sang and baby a-ying and a-cheng look at him and go woah you're so big gege are you adult?? a-sang your brother looks so cool!! and start following mingjue gege around like little ducklings, a-sang loves this because he loves his dage and loves when people love him, so he's a very happy child; on the other side, shy a-zhan is silently jealous and bit a-sang until he bleeds because a-sang is a friend thief and a brother thief

they grow up and wei ying and jiang cheng still look up to mingjue, now 20yo, and start playing football ⚽ because of him and huaisang is like "please don't ask me to do this with you guys or i'll hate you forever and tell dage to not talk to you guys ever again" so he ends up as they supporter from the stands while they play and always ask mingjue ge to watch their big games, trying to shoot as much goals as they could; while they're at it, lan zhan, still jealous of mingjue but now for a different reason, decides to play basketball (because he is higher than everyone in school) and try to show off to his best friend wei ying in hopes he'll finally fall in love with him, and even asks huaisang for help sometimes (he doesn't know, but wei ying is already head over hills in love with his lan zhan, but is afraid of losing his friendship over a (im)possible unrequited love)

now they're all in college, jin zixuan finally realized how much of a idiot he is and now is trying to court jiang yanli (and is somewhat successful although nothing he does go exactly the way he wanted to), mingjue is married to meng yao, and both wei ying and jiang cheng still look up to him but now they're more mature about it. wei ying stopped playing football so he could chase his dream of being an artist, going to university with huaisang who's studying fashion. lan zhan thought very seriously on what he wanted to do and he more or less disappointed his uncle when he said he would go to the same uni as wei ying and huaisang because he wanted to study music. xichen asks, very seriously, if he chose this so he could still be beside wei ying and lan zhan is quite offended, but doesn't really deny it. jiang cheng went to another uni the same as jin zixuan and senior lan xichen, still plays football and still asks mingjue ge to watch his important games together with his friends and sister

and when they're finally adults, during wangxian marriage (after do many years pining stupidly), huaisang smirks and start his maid of honor speech with a power point presentation full of pictures and some short videos about their love story, talking about wei ying's crush on his dage and lan zhan's cute childish jealousy (and he can clearly see xichen's fingers in this, he didn't remember being filmed while crying that wei ying loved mingjue ge more than him, but he was six for the love of the gods!!) and proceedes to show embarrassing pictures of both of them pining from afar and everyone just laugh and share their own stories and the couple is embarrassed but a bit more in love with each other. they're all happy

by the end of all the speeches, lan zhan very calmly take the microphone, thanks everyone for being present, his uncle for everything, his parents in law for wei ying, his husband, and then he turns and look to his brother for a long moment with a tiny, tiny smirk and then look to huaisang ans says, very serious "thank you huaisang for being our friend, and for holding my brother's heart with so much affection, i can't wait for my turn to make a speech on your marriage"

wei ying and jiang cheng laugh so hard and so loud, mingjue chokes hard on his wine and laugh and cough at the same time, wei ying's parent try to hide their own laughter and uncle qiren just sigh with a head shake, while both xichen and huaisang just turn bright red with embarrassment, huaisang glaring at lan zhan before sighing loudly and muttering "i hate you, you petty bitch"

• related to this & this

[wtficedance]

hi! i don't necessarily follow women's football but i know some things and i noticed there's a high percentage of ACL injuries in female footballers. i wonder if there's a similar case of ACL injury in women skaters as well? do female footballers and female skaters use their legs differently, biomechanically speaking?

Q #203:

Hi Anon,

First of all, apologize for taking this long. This has been sitting in my notes and I’ve been adding to it for a few weeks. You have come to the right place to talk about the biomechanics of injury, especially in footballers (as someone who grew up playing competitively for over a decade). Football, basketball, volleyball are all lateral impact sports. There’s lots of landing and pushing off to the side and hard planting to quickly change direction. The planting, that really sharp force and change of momentum, is often where athletes tear their ACLs. It’s almost always non-contact, the ligament just experiences too much torsion and shear stress and tears. Skating is less of a lateral sport, because of the glide (in comparison to running where there’s an impact with the stride) so while stroking uses some exterior rotators (the glute medius, piriformis, etc) there’s not a jolt of force in the knee like there is without skates.

In field sports (football, American football, lacrosse, field hockey, rugby) there’s an element of cleats having too much traction with the turf, and getting stuck while the body’s momentum goes another way that wouldn’t happen in a sport like volleyball or basketball. This is also more of a factor on artificial turf than grass, which is why there’s been a major push in women’s football for international games on grass, even in the NFL there has been an increase in demand for grass. That’s not as much a factor in skating.

For female skaters, like Kaitlin Hawayek, who are unlucky enough to tear their ACLs it’s a lot more likely that it’s a contact injury, with a force being applied on the outside of the knee so it caves in and the ACL tears trying to stabilize it. This can happen coming out of a lift or a freak fall, but it’s less likely to a routine stroking motion like a crossover or turn like it is for field athletes. I’m guessing that Kaitlin’s ACL happened on a curve lift dismount gone wrong where her skate got caught and then lots of outside force was applied to her knee.

Female footballers have a uniquely high rate of ACL tears (and other ligament injuries) compared to peers in other sports and their male peers in football. Here’s a few of the reasons that researchers point to as risk factors:

- There’s a social factor that female athletes are more discouraged from strength training which helps balance the strength of the quads and hamstrings which is often a contributing factor to knee stability. And generally female athletes begin puberty earlier and are at a critical part of their musculoskeletal development when they’re most insecure about their body’s and most discouraged from doing resistance training for injury prevention.

In this 2020 literature review [2] of 12 studies on injury prevention protocols in women’s football, they found that “there is low-level evidence that multicomponent, exercise-based programmes reduce overall and ACL injuries by 27% and 45%, respectively.” It should be noted that this literature review included 9/12 studies focused on adolescents (9-18yo), which is that critical period for musculoskeletal development & a time period of extreme social vulnerability.

Across all sports, protocols using agility, plyometric, balance, mobility, and strength protocols are very effective at preventing injuries. “Systematic reviews confirm the efficacy of such programmes to reduce ACL injuries,35 for all athletes and all sports (OR=0.50; 95%CI 0.41 to 0.59), and female athletes specifically (OR=0.33; 95%CI 0.27 to 0.41).“ OR means “odds ratio” so for all athletes/all sports the protocols halves the risk of injury per incidence of risk and for female athletes it reduces it by 67%! Which is huge. And shows that well-rounded training programs are more-so important for female athletes because of general social attitudes that deter strength/plyo/agility training in favor of cardio.

Here’s a little chart of their multi-component studies just for comparison.

- Female athletes are more likely than their male peers to have eating disorders and to deal with malnutrition because of general social expectations. This can lead to weaker muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones that are more prone to injury at the same impact forces that wouldn’t injure someone not suffering from malnutrition.

- Female athletes are given fewer resources when it comes to training centers, facilities, artificial turf/grass etc. Additionally, more female athletes work at least part-time if not full-time jobs which leads to greater fatigue, less sleep and recovery time, etc.

- Only 6% of orthopedic and sports exercise research is done exclusively on female athletes, so a lot of current sports and recovery science is done on male athletes and just generalized across populations, which ignores female-specific factors. And a lot of papers available on this matter that attempt to derive a conclusion about causality/risk are from reviews not necessarily cohort or longitudinal studies.

- I’ve talked about this previously but the Q-angle, the angle the hip socket sits from the sagittal axis relative to the knee, is more exaggerated the wider your hips are. And it’s almost always larger in women. The additional lateral force makes the knee more likely to bow in and causes shear strain in the ligament. This bowing makes the ligament more vulnerable to tearing than in male athletes who have narrower hips. Strength training with emphasis on external rotation, foot position relative to knees, and weight distribution is important to account for differences in bone structure, and why sports science that’s centered around only male athletes results in a flawed approach for injury prevention in female athletes.

- Football is an extremely fatiguing sport because of the length of games as opposed to sports like basketball and volleyball where there’s more natural stoppage of play. In addition to just endurance, explosiveness is needed in the 89th (and 119th) minute, and the intra-joint forces necessary to create that explosive power are quite large, and when fatigued incorrect body mechanics can lead those intra-joint forces to be applied to weaker structures in the knee.

From a 2021 study [2] focused on changes in biomechanics under fatigue in female footballers w/ 20 participants from 20-31yo: “Knee extension moment decreased in 8, knee valgus moment increased in 5 players. A subset of participants showed a drift of pivoting limb kinematics that matches the known ACL injury mechanism; other players displayed less definite or even opposed behaviors.” 

Valgus is a description of a pattern of movement in the knee other than extension/flexion. Particularly with regards to internal rotation from the hip, where internal rotators or ADDuctors (the inner thighs) overpower external rotators ABDuctors (gluteus medius), causing the knees to cave and rotate to face each other as opposed to forward.

This is an example of NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III landing from a standing broad jump, you can see as opposed to directing his knees outwards and forwards, he exhibits knee valgus. Griffin was known for his short, injury prone career. Including torn right ACL in college; right LCL sprain in 2012; torn ACL, LCL, meniscus in 2013; ankle issues, and a whole lot more. 

General consensus was that he was so injury prone in college and in the NFL (in non-contact situations) because of his excessive knee valgus that was never corrected.

There has been some general thought that the menstrual cycle (menstruation, follicular, ovulation, and luteal phase) potentially play a role in ACL vulnerability though there is no real consensus.

  A 2017 review [3] about the relationship between ACL laxity, menstruation, and contraception attempted to collate studies that relate the 3.

“Twenty-one studies totaling 68,758 participants were included: 5 on the menstrual cycle and ACL injury, 7 on hormonal contraceptives and ACL injury, as well as 13 on menstrual cycle and ligament laxity”

The literature collated suggests that the oral pill potentially reduces risk of tear by 20% but the strength of the evidence in these studies is low, related to overall bias and robustness of research methods/study design.

“Specifically, laboratory studies have found that exposure of the ACL to estradiol results in a dose-dependent reduction in fibroblast and collagen synthesis and that this effect is attenuated by the addition of progestins” estradiol is low during menstruation, peaks during the luteal phase, and then has a secondary, smaller apex halfway through the luteal phase (see pic below). Basically, estradiol peaks during the menstrual cycle create certain periods of time where fibroblasts-cells responsible for the creation of connective tissue-have their proliferation rates decreased, so connective tissue and collagen is being replaced and reinforced significantly less than during the rest of the menstrual cycle. In contrast, progesterone increases fibroblast rate of proliferation, creating a protective effect. 

So as you can see in the graph below, in the luteal phase the simultaneous rise of the two hormones cancel one another out whereas in the ovulatory phase, the peak in estradiol with no protective progesterone creates a window of vulnerability for all connective tissues in the body.

“The identification of estrogen receptor positive fibroblasts in the human anterior cruciate ligament strongly suggests female sex hormones may have an effect on the structure and composition of the ligament” [5]

“The proper function of a ligament depends on the appropriate type, synthesis, assembly, crosslinking, and remodeling of collagen. This complex interplay between synthesis and remodeling of collagen is influenced by hormones, exercise, and immobilization. Thus, it is clear the amount of collagen bundles and the individual types of collagen influence the ability of the tendon to withstand loading.”

Progesterone’s protective effect explains why the oral pill (either combined estrogen/progesterone or progesterone only) correlates to fewer ACL injuries. Progesterone essentially tricks the body into never entering ovulation, and prevents development of the follicle which is responsible for estradiol production. So even in the presence of estrogen, there is no massive increase in native estradiol concentration which weakens connective tissue. 

All of this to say, a lot more research needs to be done but we do have a preliminary understanding of how certain risk factors can be ameliorated, and that can help us understand what is potentially going wrong at clubs that have had a slew of injuries (looking at you Arsenal women). I love talking about this kind of science, because it is so understudied, so if you want to chat more anon I would love to! But also if this was too much info I’m very sorry I just find it fascinating.

And here’s all the papers cited:

1. Making football safer for women: a systematic review and meta-analysis of injury prevention programmes in 11 773 female football (soccer) players. Kay M Crossley, Brooke E Patterson, Adam G Culvenor, Andrea M Bruder, Andrea B Mosler, Benjamin F Mentiplay.

    1. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/54/18/1089?ref=performancesporthacks 

2. Fatigue induced by repeated changes of direction in élite female football (soccer) players: impact on lower limb biomechanics and implications for ACL injury prevention. Matteo Zago, Sina David, Filippo Bertozzi, Claudia Brunetti, Alice Gatti, Francesca Salaorni, Marco Tarabini, Christel Galvani, Chiarella Sforza, Manuela Galli.

    1. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2021.666841/full 

3. The effect of menstrual cycle and contraceptives on ACL injuries and laxity: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Simone D Herzberg, Makalapua L Motu’apuaka, William Lambert, Rongwei Fu, Jacqueline Brady, Jeanne-Marie Guise.

    1. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2325967117718781

4. Report on sex-related factors in sports medicine at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting, Mary K. Mulcahey, MD, of Tulane University School of Medicine

5. Combined Effects of Estrogen and Progesterone on the Anterior Cruciate Ligament. Warren D. Yu, MD; Vahé Panossian, MD; Joshua D. Hatch, MD; Stephen H. Liu, MD; and Gerald A. M. Finerman, MD

https://journals.lww.com/clinorthop/Fulltext/2001/02000/Combined_Effects_of_Estrogen_and_Progesterone_on.31.aspx

[keepoffthegrassss]

It was weeks ago now and I can't rember who it was, but I saw a post of someone saying they wanted some fics of Steve seeing Billy that first day in the car park and immediately dumping Nancy bc of it. By the time I'd written this I couldn't find the post anywhere , idk if this is what they wanted but its what came to my mind, I obvs changed the timeline around a little but hopefully it's still easy to follow, anyway enjoy :)

——————————————————————

Steve pulled into the parking lot of Hawkins High. Nancy was sitting in the seat next to him. The air was tense between them, had been since last Wednesday.

"So let me see the essay" She said, he unfolded it and handed it to her. He watched her face as she was reading it and he could see her mouth, pinching into a line. clearly preparing herself to let him down gently.

"i know it's shit" he said,

"No, it's not, It just needs a little reorganising, can I make notes?"

"Yeah, sure." He said.

"So here you talk about your basketball game, which is really good, but then you go on to talk about your grandfather and I don't really see how it's related?"

"Well, you see, we both won. That's the connection." 

"..Right" She says, almost grimacing. "Well, when's the deadline?"

"Tomorrow for early admissions." She winced. He said, "Well, Can you come over and help me with it tonight?"

"We can't. We've got the dinner tonight."

He froze thinking back to what happened at last week's dinner with Barbara's parents. They'd been doing it for months now. Coming over every Wednesday, having dinner with them and consoling them, pretending not to know that the daughter they thought had run away and was missing was in fact dead and buried.

It had always been horrible but last Wednesday Nancy seemed to be having a harder time than usual.

She drank too much at dinner And when she excused herself to the bathroom, Steve followed trying to look after her. And that's when she got mad at him for not telling Barbara's parents about her death.

Which was completely unfair. 

He remembered the look on her face, looking at him like he was disgusting. He had to remind her that they were under a government NDA to not tell anyone. 

She didn't care.

She started calling the government bullshit, the NDA bullshit. Hawkins lab bullshit. All the stuff that happened and Barb's death? Bullshit.

And then she turned on him. She pointed her finger at him and said "you are bullshit".

He remembered reeling back like he'd been hit, hurt and shock making it hard to breathe. 

"Nance, what do you..."

"you're pretending like everything is fine and it's not fine! Barbara is dead and no one can know. This is all bullshit! You and me pretending, going on little dates like we're in love." 

Steve froze.

"..Like we're in love?.."

"Bullshit." she spat.

"..You don't love me?" 

At that moment she turned around and threw up in the toilet. Even with his mind reeling he'd helped her out, holding her hair and rubbing her back even though his mind was a million miles away, he was barely aware of their touching.

He remembers awkwardly apologising to Barbara's parents, they were very understanding, dinner was over anyway. He remembers having to support Nancy, the touch scalding him as he led her to his car. He remembers driving her home in silence, simmering the whole time trying not to cry. He dropped her off at the door into Mrs Wheeler's arms and just walking away. Mrs Wheeler could see that he was upset but didn't say anything.

He came back to the car where they were sitting as Nancy repeated whatever she'd said. He scoffed, "right, of course, the dinner."

She glared at him.

He had confronted her about what she said the next day. But she claimed that she was drunk and that she didn't remember any of it. It wasn't right for him to be mad at her. And he kind of understood that…but he could not shake the hurt that he felt when she called everything that he felt for her. The last year of their life spent together. Bullshit.

A roaring engine interrupted them. They both turned on instinct to see a navy blue camaro swerve into the parking lot, screeching to a halt in front of them. 

They glanced at each other silently communicating and opening their doors, as they stood they could hear the loud music blasting from the car, something with alot of electric guitar. Nancy's sharp eyes immediately noticed the California licence plate. 

The door opened and a booted foot slammed down onto the concrete, next  a head of dirty blonde curls ducked out from the car as the owner got out, straightening and slamming the door shut.He leaned back against the car to light a cigarette, looking out across the parking lot with a smirk on his face, his eyes glancing over Nancy and Steve with a sneer.

The other door opened and Steve vaguely noticed a redheaded girl get out and skate off.

But he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the boy. 

A cigarette dangling from his pink lips as he tucked his tight, white tshirt into his even tighter blue jeans that left little to the imagination. As he turned his head Steve caught the flash of an earring dangling from one of his ears. 

The boy took one last suck on his cigarette, Steve watching the way his cheeks hollowed and how his long eyelashes fluttered as he blew the smoke out through his nose, before he threw his cigarette to the ground, grinding it out with his boot and sauntering off towards the school building. Swaying his hips and showing off his gorgeously muscled ass as he did. Steve noticed the tittering of girls as he walked past them clearly checking him out.

Nancy huffed, drawing Steve's attention back to her, she'd come round the front of the car to stand next to him and watch the stranger disappear. Her nose was scrunched up, a judgemental look on her face.

Steve frowned.

He looked down at her, her small frame and soft brown hair in contrast with her piercing eyes and crossed arms. Then he thought of a muscled frame with unruly curls, a smirking mouth that didn't match the look in those sea blue eyes and decided then and there that he was going to make a decision.

“Nance. Do you love me?”

“What!?”

Steve clarified, “I know that you were drunk. But you said that you didn't love me. So I'm asking you now, do you love me?”

She froze. Clearly panicked. And her mouth opened and closed. 

She seemed to not know how to reply.

“Right..i see” he muttered, turning away and willing back the tears in his eyes. 

“Steve” she said “Steve that's not fair!”

He whirled around, 

“What's not fair!? We've been dating for a year! I thought that we were in love! You said that you loved me. And then you call it bullshit.” he took a steadying breath “Even now, when you're sober. You still can't say that you love me. So maybe you're right! That year of our relationship was bullshit. So what's the point of continuing!?”

She looked hurt, almost like she might cry, and steve could see her opening her mouth to say something but he cut in before she could, afterall she’d already hurt him so badly

“I won't see you at the dinner tonight. Goodbye, Nancy.”

He spun around and walked into the school, immediately veering into the bathrooms to splash water on his face and compose himself. He wasn't sure if he really wanted their relationship to be over, but he certainly didn't want what was going on for the past week to continue.

Or perhaps what had been happening for the past Year, they say that drunk words are sober thoughts, or at least that's what Steve was telling himself as he wondered if he'd made the right decision.

He headed to his locker, feeling determined to not regret this, on his way he saw that blond haired boy in the office, leaning on the desk in a way that showed off his ass, a charming smile on his face as he spoke to the receptionist. 

The boy turned, looking Steve up and down then smirking as they made eye contact. The receptionist said something and the boy turned away again. 

Steve could feel heat rising to his cheeks, but also sinking low in his gut as he walked away, unable to help the smile forcing its way onto his face.

Yes he decided, he definitely made the right decision.

[yuseonghqs]

🌊 GREETINGS FROM YUSEONG BAY !

JUST LANDED: SEO, NOAH. / / FROM: USA. / / AGE: 21.

–––– ( FOLLOW ? ) / / ( READ MORE ? ) / / ( MAILBOX ? )

born and raised in seattle, washington, noah is one of two children. if you were to ask noah about his early life, his childhood, he would describe it as eerily average. noah, born quickly after his sister, making them irish twins, felt undoubtably close to her and though the two fought, as siblings usually do, they were generally well to get along.

his mother started her education in nursing and went on to become a nurse practitioner and work in a family clinic; his father working mostly highly laborious jobs in construction, becoming a site overseer in a lot of large scale projects in the city. with both working very demanding jobs, they didn't spend much time raising their children, nor did they put much effort into their already crumbling marriage.

in middle school, noah becomes known as sort of a "basketball prodigy" and once in high school, it becomes his defining feature when the games become all that more high stake. he is the team's ace and is well known both in his own high school and others in the area. it earns him a glowing reputation, which is something he hates, because well, being shy and also popular, don't really mix well together. and while he has friends he enjoys being around, he also has a reputation for being quiet and somewhat brooding.

the discontent began to set into the house when nina and noah entered high school. fights were common, he and his sister would sit on the carpeted stairs and listen to the explosive arguments that would rattle the house. both of them knew eventually, their parents would get a divorce, sometimes welcomed it even. that is, until they didn't quite choose the same parent to live with upon the separation.

noah had always felt closest to his mother and the option between staying at his school in a city where he had lived most of his life, rather than going to a new country, speaking a new language, and experiencing major culture shock, felt like the safest choice. nina, however, chose to move to south korea with her father, who would be moving to live closer to his parents.

the choice to separate from is sister was almost worse than the hurt of the divorce between his parents; the fact that they would no longer be a whole family, now broken and continents away from each other, would leave noah feeling betrayed in a way. for the one who had always looked out for him, would be thousands of miles away. the sadness he felt and the shame in his codependence would cause him to close himself off from everyone and leave him lingering in his last high school days as a wallflower, even more reserved, anxious, and quiet.

since sports had always been his favorite outlet, besides playing guitar, he decided to entertain a scholarship to UW. with basketball dominating his life, he found it hard to really find much direction in life, because while he doesn't really want to play professionally, he also doesn't really know what he wants out of university either. he would find himself on the track to graduate with a degree in biochemistry, having a just mild interest in science courses.

not really knowing what to do with his life, noah decides to follow his sister to seoul with a exchange program for the summer. with both living near his sister again and enjoying the change of setting and life away from sports, he in passing, tells his coach and a few teammates that he wants to stay in korea and continue his education there. they do not support this idea, while it would mean losing their star player. through enough guilt, noah reluctantly agrees to come back.

tw self-harm / this would change with a "freak injury" during one of his morning runs by the han river. noah would be told by doctors in seoul that he would not be allowed to play basketball until he had significant physical therapy, or in all likelihood, ever again. this would also mean, losing his sports scholarship.

such a drastic change to noah's life, left him with even less of an answer of where to go or what to do. his parents didn't have much money, let alone to pay for his schooling, nor did he even want to go back home and confront his former teammates and coach. so in an act of desperation, he fled to yuseong bay, to live with his father and grandparents on their family farm.

currently, noah feels like a fish out of water, but ultimately he feels as though yuseong is actually helping him learn to live with that uncomfortableness. he finds comfort in blending in with simplicity, not having to make largely life changing decisions, and ultimately, just feeling calm by the quietness of the town.

[stranger-chichka]

The scenes with the stars in Stranger Things and their importance (p. 1)

I wanted to post everything in one take, but I didn't expect I need so many screenshots, oops. So, there will be 2 posts: this one includes scenes from 1x04 to 6x04 + a mention of the s3 rain fight, and the second one covers episodes 7, 8 and 9x04. Well, not the whole episodes, but just the scene where we can see stars. Also, sometimes I'm gonna write a little about the scenes which follow or precede the one with the star because almost always there's a connection between them. And I'm sorry in advance for my miserable vocabulary. It's really very hard to choose the right words for such an analysis when English is not your native language and I hope it wouldn't be too painful to read.

So, as @madwheelerz there's a possibility that the stars bookmark important moments/scenes we should pay close attention to. So far I've noticed these moments with stars in the show:

2 stars on Erica's earnings during the DnD game in 1x04 (it foreshadows Mike & Will defeating Vecna - the theory about it is here) and stars on the dress she wears in episodes 6, 7, 8 and 9;

2 stars on Lucas's sneakers during his basketball game where they win and he's the one to make the final shot (THIS parallels Erica who rolls 20 and defeats Vecna in the game);

stars on Will's costume he's wearing during the DnD game before the rain fight in s3;

6 stars on Angela's earnings in the Rink-o-Mania scene (and during THIS scene Mike & Will argue again which parallels their s3 rain fight);

Also, stars are associated with Dustin. In s3 he talks about star-crossed lovers and sings “Neverending Story” where the lyrics are : “reach the stars, fly a fantasy.” + “Ziggy Stardust” in Will’s playlist.

And @skvtebored mentions two more characters having stars in their clothes. Jason and Patrick have stars on their jackets, that's why we'll start with them.

3x04

We see the boys wearing them for the first time in 3x04 while they’re going to look for Eddie and have a small talk with Lucas near the abandoned Benny's Burger restaurant (and this place is associated with El because of s1). But I want to start with the previous scene. We see El in her room after dinner and the "She didn't look fine" moment, thinking about the roller rink accident and the massacre at the lab. "What did you do?" "What have you done?" These phrases are said by Mike and Brenner. We are shown flashbacks from that horrible day in the lab. (I made a collage with some shots, but haven't included the ones with the bodies of kids, it's already too gross to watch).

On the screenshots (1st & 2nd row): Brenner walking through the door, El in front of the broken mirror, a labyrinth with two silver balls, a ball with 8 on it, a chess desk, two dice with 2, 6, 4 and 5, some blocks with one green and one blue figures. To be honest, I don't know if these objects are there for a purpose, but I better leave the screenshots here and maybe someone with a bigger brain will connect the dots.

+ I'm adding the gifs from the moment with El in her room because of that spinning effect, like in the scene with her and Max in the final episode where she restarts her heart.

After El's flashbacks we see the Upside Down (3rd row): the library, some abandoned building that I thought could be Brimborn Steel Works but it's probably not, Creel's house with a spaceship slide next to it and Vecna.

The next shots we see (4rth row): the sun is rising, a yellow lamp in Benny's Burger restaurant, a "SPEED LIMIT 25 69" sign, a shot of the room with Lucas in a blue t-shirt (similar to El's shirt in the previous scene) and him near the doors of the restaurant with "WINNERS ONLY" written in green on it.

The dialogue between Lucas and Jason starts with: "What are you guys doing?" What did you do? What have you done? What are you doing? Past, present and...future is missing. Where will? Hmmm. And Jason's answer parallels Henry telling El the same thing the day he killed those kids in the lab. Like almost word by word. They're going to look for Eddie and Lucas is coming with them. Actually, during this scene they're putting some stuff in the truck.

The next scene when we see Jason and Patrick, they're on their way to one of Eddie’s friends. But right before seeing them in the car we are shown Eddie's trailer from the outside and the locked door with yellow ribbons, the room with the gate, hats, yellow light and electricity flickery, red lightning bolt and Vecna spying on the people with traumas.

At that time Vecna's looking for his next victim and he chooses who? Patrick. His nose starts bleeding. One of his friends calls it “gross.” They beat up the members of Eddie’s band and are going to Dustin's house. Before that fight Jason talks with them a little while Lucas pretends he isn't part of their club, although he's in Hellfire. That's when one of the boys says: "Lucas, what the hell?"

And then another boy tells Jason this: "Well, you have eyes, don't you? He's not here." That's when he starts beating him, stepping on his hand and saying: "It's gonna be hard to play drums with a broken hand." And who has no eyes and broken limbs? Vecna's victims. Interesting. In the following scene El’s in jail questioned about the roller rink accident and we see her having flashbacks of hitting Angela and the massacre at the lab again. The car is in the first shot of that scene.

As Jason and others come to Dustin, Patrick says: “No one’s home” and here I already wrote about this scene. Jason answers they should keep looking and then he sees the car door open and Lucas is not there. He says: "Where the hell is Sinclair?" while Lucas reaches Dustin and says: "Where the hell have you been?" After Jason notices Lucas in Dustin's house he says: "What the hell were you doing?"

Lucas answers: "I was looking for clues" and Patrick calls Lucas Sherlock Holmes. Hmmmm. Does it remind you of anything???? Not only do we have a Sherlock Holmes reference but also in both scenes they're talking about clues. Steve asks Dustin: "What sort of clues we're supposed to be looking for here?" By the way, keep in mind "by any chance."

After this Lucas says: "I found one" and leads them to Hopper's cabin. I wonder if it's foreshadowing of him finding Vecna in s5.

In the following scene again (for the third time) - El’s thinking about the roller rink accident and that day in the lab while riding in the car before being rescued by Owens and his people. What did you do? What have you done? And we see a rainbow.

The next scene with the basketball team is them in the woods on their way to Hopper's cabin.

Lucas said THAT is the place where Eddie's hiding. It reminded me of Will hiding in the shed in s1. Is it a parallel? The first shot we see is Jason opening the truck. Again, it reminded me of s1 and Jonathan checking Lonnie's truck. And Eddie was hiding in a boathouse which is a shed at the edge of a river or lake used for housing boats. He was hiding in the shed like Will. Interesting. And here we see after references. (Watergate my beloved) So, they’re in the cabin and the scene is shown together with the one where Owens tells El about Vecna and how he's killing right now in Hawkins. We are shown Lucas running out of the Hopper's cabin and Hopper with his cuffs off as Owens speaks of "good people and brave friends." In the following scene - Max's in trance for the first time.

4x04

The next day Jason comes to Sinclairs and talks with Erica (She refers to Lucas as Jason’s boyfriend in the most careless way possible, says he might be with Dustin and mentions Nintendo). I wrote about this scene in my Nintendo theory, so I'm leaving the link here (that's a must-read). I just want to add this screenshot from that scene where Erica's colouring the DnD character who looks like Eddie but we know that Mike is trying to look like him, even grows his hair, so I really believe it's Mike from s5, because 1) we see a dragon 2) we see a sward 3) we see a shield and 4) we see Mike with a sword and a shield facing the dragon and leading their party (Eddie is also the leader of Hellfire) in Will's painting.

Again, we hear: "Where the hell's Sinclair?" And in the following scene Steve, Lucas and Dustin talk about Victor Creel and Vecna, how he was killing then and how he's killing now.

6x04

In the previous episode Jason was wearing a black suit, so I didn't check these scenes, but in 6x04 he is in his bomber again. The police officers are talking with the citizens about Eddie and the curfew they should follow while they're looking for him. People are mad. "It's been days. Days!" The police officer answers: "I understand you all are upset, but I promise you, we will find him." And that's when Jason comes in. His first word is "No. You won't." (El's first word to Mike is "no") .

"Son, how about we talk about this in private?" That's what the chief asks Jason. (He is not ready to reveal the truth yet. The same with the Duffers.) Does it remind you of any other scene? Season 2. Mike is mad because Hopper (who’s also the chief of police) was hiding El in his cabin and Hopper asks him to talk about it in private. He calls him a liar and cries in his arms. But what if I told you he's not only mad at Hopper for hiding El but also at himself because now he has to hide from himself. From his true feelings. His feelings for Will. And Jason's speech just proves it.

"So you can keep me quiet? So you can keep the truth from coming out?"

Very and very interesting phrasing. That’s definitely the parallel to Will’s speech in the desert. "Sometimes, I think it's just scary to open up like that. To say how you really feel. Especially, to people you care about the most. Because what if they don't like the truth?" We saw Mike resonated with these words very much. He nodded and even wanted to answer something, but Argyle distracted him. What is Will's truth? He loves Mike. What is Mike's? Same. The only option for them is to come out in s5.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't bear to listen to any more excuses and lies. In fact, I think we've all had enough. That's enough."

Well, well, well. We have plenty of liars during the show but it seems to me that Mike lies the most, right? He lies not only to others but to himself. And here Jason just speaks on behalf of the GA, especially those who are homophobic, because the truth is "awful" for them.

"Last night, I saw things, things I can't explain. Things the police don't wanna believe. And things that I don't wanna believe myself. And I've come to accept an awful truth."

Jason is talking about Patrick's death, but we should always look for a double meaning in that show. He is talking about an awful truth. And we associate the truth with Mike and Will's feelings towards each other. What things he can't explain and believe is he talking about? Mike having gay panic at the airport maybe? Or Mike being pissed off because Will was showing little attention to him at Rink-o-Mania? Or Mike flirting with Will in Jonathan's and then his room? Or maybe Mike's triple take in the desert? Here Jason represents the GA, who were oblivious to the boys' feelings but now start noticing them.

By "satanic cults" he refers to Hellfire. The DnD club. And DnD represents Mike and Will's relationships, IT'S THE FACT. Jason compares it to disease. @howtobecomeadragon cracked it right open: D&D - sodomy - Satanic Cults - disease - AIDS.

ritualistic sacrifices = the consequences of forced conformity;

cults = lgbt community/Bylers;

deaease = AIDS crisis;

DnD = Byler relationship;

"And Eddie Manson is the leader of one of these cults."

Who's also called a leader of the party? Mike. Who wants to look like Eddie? Mike. Jason's speech is not only about Eddie, but it's about Mike and his feelings that he's hiding deep inside for a long time. Feelings toward Will.

Jason believes their town is cursed because of Hellfire and some ritualistic shit. In 1x04 Eddie says:

"Society had to blame something. We're an easy target. We're freaks because we like to play a fantasy game. It's forced conforming. That's what's killing the kids!"

And in 9x04 we see this scene. 5 targets with shot heads (= Vecna attacking people's minds). As far as we know Vecna was targeting 4 people in s5: Crissy, Fred, Max and Patrick. Or was there one more person? Mike is Vecna's 5th target. And also the smoke in these scenes looks like the fog we see in Vecna’s visions.

Let's return to Jason's speech. On this note, Erica's lost her nerve. By the way, she also has stars and hearts on her dress during this scene, so the next moments with her are also important.

"A club. A harmless club. That's what they want you to think. But it's a lie. A lie designed to conceal the truth. And now this cult is protecting its leader, Eddie. Hiding him. (Here we see Mike's parents, so these lines definitely refer to Mike) Allowing him to...continue his rampage."

Here Jason represents the homophobes, some of the GA and Milkvans who hate Mike and don't understand his personality, whereas we are protecting him for all costs. And what is a lie designed to conceal the truth? Mike's romantic feelings toward El. Once again, I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't bear to listen to any more excuses and lies. In fact, I think we've all had enough. That's enough.

Again, here he's religious = homophobic. And the Duffers created the paradox in which good=evil and evil=good. Just look. "Evil" is "live" backwards and "Will" is "lliv." Liv means "life" in Scandinavian languages. Will is the one who Mike wants to live his life with. While "good" is "doog" backwards and Mike says to El he's not a dog in Surfer Boy Pizza. That's such a reach but this post is full of crazy shit, we're crazy, so what???????

Okay, okay, okay. I'm gonna be even more delusional. Hellfire. Hell + fire. He'll. Fire. He will. Fire. He. Will. Fire. it's all about Will and fire. And we know about fireballs. Ohhhh, stop me, stop me now.

"We will be implementing a curfew. If you are not in your house after sunset with the doors locked, you'll be written up."

That reminded me of Mike and El in s3 lying about a curfew to the party in order to be kissing in Hopper's cabin (El's house). I'm not sure if there's some connection, but the whole kissing thing was Mike trying to be a normal teenager. Having a girlfriend. Enjoying time with her. While being in the closet (= locked doors). And for some reason we see "will" in italic, why??? And "written up" with all the writing-letters-to-El-and not-to-Will thing. Maybe, Mike is "written up" by El (=from, El) after focusing all his attention on Rink-o-Mania at Will while he was supposed to spend romantic time with his girlfriend.

And this is the following scene. Mike himself confirms Jason's truth. His words just parallel what Jason already said.

Jason: "Last night, I saw things, things I can't explain. Things the police don't wanna believe. And things that I don't wanna believe myself. And I've come to accept an awful truth...Some people say our town is cursed. They just don't know why. Now we know. Now we do." Things = love. Remember that.

Mike: "I know, it's hard to believe. But it's true. All true."

In this scene, the boys are lying to Suzie about Nina Project calling it Nintendo. Wait, wait, wait…Americantendo. Nintendo goes together with DnD in Will's love confession, so it represents Byler's relationship. (I hope you've read it, but leaving the link once more!!!) And really, during their search for Nina Mike and Will open up about their feelings to each other. Mike says they need Americantendo for Dustin's birthday. Can we suppose that we'll see Mike and Will as a couple on Dustin's birthday?

The following scene (wow, three scenes in a row) is with Dustin's, Lucas's and Mike's parents + Holly and Erica coming to Wheeler's looking for the kids. They lied about going to the movie ("What time was the movie?" "Four hours ago.") and Erica exposes their lie while Holly sings "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" Hellfire.

When Dustin's mom questions their involvement with Eddie, Ted says: "I think at this point, anything is possible" and Mr Clarke in s3 says to Joyce: "Once you open that curiosity door anything's possible." Karen answers that their kids aren't murderers and Ted tells this: "Don't put words into my mouth. See, she does that, twists my words." Hmmmmm. Is it a reference to Mike's monologue where he uses the words of others and not his own??? That's smart, that's smart.

+ When Karen is calling the police we see 7 made from the magnets on the fridge.

The following scene is the Hawkins group near Skull Rock aka make-out spot and Dustin realises the compass doesn't work correctly because of the electromagnetic field. The electricity. (I wonder if somebody already spoke about the magnets and compasses because I feel like there's some double meaning there too!!!!)

So, we have scenes with El suffering from her traumatic memories (she blames herself for what she thought she'd done) and Tigers looking for Eddie (who is also blamed for something everyone thinks he's done) going together. And we know that El hasn't killed these kids, the same with Eddie. Both aren't guilty. Vecna is responsible for all those deaths.

And other scenes with Jason go together with the ones with Mike and Will/refer to Mike. The ones with lies and the truth. And there'll be even more in the second post.

On this note I leave you alone with your thoughts, but to see the full picture wait for p.2, which I hope I'll have finished by Monday.

[demonslayedher]

How do you think the evolved form of Akaza was? Would he have changed his appearance or would he not have had any physical change? How do you think the change would have been?

If demons were Oni-mon, a collectable trading card game, there would be set courses of their potential based on how hard they train and how many people they eat. Like a road-map in their genetics!

But Muzan doesn't play Oni-mon. Muzan's too mature and scientific so such trite and childish games. Muzan is a man of science! That mean he's more likely to have a passing curiosity in bacteria and do a bunch of swabs around the house, and then he gets tired of waiting to see the results, and then he forgets about them until he comes back later to be pleasantly shocked how his bacteria cultures overgrew their containers in all sorts of unexpected shapes and colors.

That is to say, I think demons would have a very active form of epigenetics, that is, how their DNA responds to different behaviors and environmental factors, as opposed to following some set course in their DNA. As a simple real life example, years of diet and exercise will impact how you look at middle age, and two versions of yourself in alternate universes may be hard to recognize as having the same DNA because of this.

Demons are like extreme versions of this; they start with a certain set of DNA, and that DNA accounts for a lot of how they start out as a demon, and the ways that DNA is expressed will be more volatile to changes in their diet--or in Akaza's case, exercise.

So if we take Akaza as a demon developed through physical training and limited diet, then he's bound to look like some kind of gym dude bro no matter how far he gets from where he started.

Hang on, I gotta check something. Ufufufufufufu. Basketball was introduced to Japan in 1908. Moving on.

Something that's been key in major physical developments in demons, at least when we've seen them as they first occur (we don't know how and when Hantengu, Gyokko, and Daki discovered their own transformative abilities), is that there's an emotional elemental, like a sense of desperation. Specially, I'm referring to Nezuko and Kokushibo achieving what we might think of as their "ultimate forms," at least for what we saw, but given the "infinity" theme so common in demons, I'll bet they still could had gone further. Akaza really likes the idea of training forever, but it doesn't seem he's got a specific outcome in mind.

Other times, there is intention in how one develops, like when Nezuko figured out she could get small just because Tanjiro asked her to, or when Enmu was straining himself to merge with a massive physical object. I... I kinda don't think Akaza thought that hard about the pink hair (but something in his memories was drawn to pink, he must not had been able to help it.)

We've also seen cases of demons choosing not to show their most powerful, achievable form, for whatever reason, from convenience to aesthetic (Nezuko, Daki, Muzan especially). Akaza seems to have no qualms about this. Would he get angry about Speedy stealing his look, though? Annoyed at least, probably, Speedy is weak.

So if we take these factors into account, like desperation for some desired outcome and admiration of strength, who knows, maybe in some AU out there he figured out a way to merge his dislodged hand with Kyojuro's body as a means of forcing him to stay alive so they can fight forever.

But maybe we needn't look any further than Akaza's desperation not to die himself, so much so that he sealed the injury at his neck. If he were to keep developing from that point, perhaps before he manages to pop out a new head, his other muscles bulge first, especially in the upper chest area and arms. He'd probably be capable of taking of a much, much larger physical form than just his kinda short human-sized one.

And then maybe what would pop out...

.........would be a football-shaped head.

[hdsouta]

↺ ... INTRODUCING : TRAINEE 093 ; ITO SOUTA .

𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐈𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐄 ▸ BORN ON MAY 11, 2003 IN NAGASAKI, JAPAN. SIGNED EXTENDED TRAINEE CONTRACT UNDER 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂 ON AUGUST 2020. NOTABLE SKILLSET(S) INCLUDE DANCE / VISUAL.

penned by bon for hydra labels.

CHECK OUT HIS STATS, PLAYLIST, AND PINTEREST.

hi everyone! i go by bon! i'm 25, in the est, he/she/they, and a full time student with a full time job. still, i'm sure i can be around a lot if not enough ok... also feel free to follow me on pinterest and i will follow back haha also ignore how ugly and messy my whole account is because i have too many FUUUUcking muses. thanks! i will also eventually have a playlist on spotify so tune in for that ok.

anywho, i'm here to introduce my new bean, ito souta, who i made specifically for this rp on a whim because i really wanted to join it... i've been eyeing it for a few days, so i'm so glad i got in today! well, i'll go ahead and write some stuff about him below:

basic stats.

full name: ito souta.

nicknames: soda.

age: nineteen.

birthday: may 11th, 2000.

gender: male, he/him.

quick personality tl;dr. (very original, i know.)

positive traits: supportive, cheesy, loyal.

negative traits: ruthless, vulgar, pressuring.

likes: dancing, music in general (specifically pop punk and hip hop stuff), sports (specifically basketball), pvp video games, uhm idk yall this is hard CRIES

in general, i like to think that souta is very egotistical yet somehow also very charismatic and outgoing. he probably gets annoying when he gets too far up his own ass, but it's how he deals with the hard work he puts in to be an idol without results (or so he thinks). he finds himself losing a bit of hope every new day because he's been doing this shit for so long... and with an injury he got when he had just started training, which almost impacted his future career.

in some of his very first few weeks of being accepted into the company, he fell on his shoulder doing rec activities during some down time (or however it works lmao), which gave him an injury he had to basically force himself to work through. due to this, it's definitely not healed right, but it's good enough in order to keep him thriving in the company and working towards his debut. still, it hurts on and off, and he tries his own physical therapy for it, but you know, it be hard sometimes ya feel.

uhmmm... i think otherwise he's a hotshot. i like to think he's the one that's always searched up on pinterest or when people scroll the profiles of groups, they always stop to double take him. that's part of his ego ish, because he knows he's hot shit and people turn heads at his appearance. it sometimes gets in the way of his logical thinking, but you know, he's a kid... so what do you expect?

on another note that i wanted to mention... he used to want to be a basketball player, and if he didn't go into the idol industry, he would have 100%

i'm kind of just spewing stuff and i think i will either edit this or make a new like info post whenever i get some real solid shit for him!!!

otherwise, i will say a little bit about me. i am 25, in the est tmz, prefer he or they pronouns, and you can call me bon or bonbon. the loml is ateez, and i would d*e for them in a heartbeat. i also love block b, omega x, and a few other groups. i'm always open to talking about things even if they aren't rp related! if you'd like to add me on discord, just lmk <3 i can give you my tag!

i'm going to get some FOOD now because i'm hungry and then i will reply to people as well as fish around a bit more. i can't wait to write with everyone and please excuse me if i seem a little off or don't understand jlskdf it's been a hot minute since i've been on tumblr to rp as well as been in an idol group (it's been YEARS since this one).

[grandwretch]

ok pudding pops. i figured we were all jonesing for some fanfic really bad rn so here's what i actually have written for 'only i must wander' ch 3. i'll be deleting once ao3 is back up, and i'll try to have the rest of the chapter up soon. kisses.

Steve and Robin weren't exactly best friends. 

They tried. Or, well, Robin did. Steve kinda did what he had always done at work, which was keep out of everyone's way and try not to fuck up too hard. Robin, though, was putting in the effort. Not an hour went by without Robin popping out of nowhere to try and start a conversation. Usually about some gossip she'd heard about their classmates or one of the few movies they'd both seen. Steve usually did his best to keep up with her, never being the first to stop talking and walk away, but it felt– 

It felt a lot like high school did. Robin's smile never reached her eyes, and it only put more pressure on Steve to follow suit. Be normal, the weight on his shoulders whispered, and everything will be okay. So when she spoke, Steve answered, a smile on his face. 

No matter how plastic and saccharine it tasted.

The kids didn't exactly make it easier. Dustin was even more desperate for them to be best friends than Robin was. It was hard to begrudge the kid the connection, though, when he had spent the longest in isolation. He'd been alone amongst humans before El and Steve even had any words for what was wrong with them. What was Steve supposed to do, tell him to stop showing up and asking questions? 

Max was worse. She forgave a lot less than Steve and Dustin, and still showed up at least once a week for her shift of threatening glares. Steve had tried to warn her off of it, and Max had snorted. 

"If I can take down my brother, I'm not worried about a bitchy fox demon, or whatever," Max said, as unimpressed by monsters as only a pre-teen could be. Steve wasn't even sure when El had told her about the Wesen thing, although he couldn't exactly pretend to be surprised. They'd never been very subtle around her. 

So, yeah, they were both under a lot of pressure to be besties. Enough pressure to guarantee they would never be anything even approaching 'close'. Which Steve was fine with. He was finally getting used to all his friends being nerdy middle schoolers. What would he even talk to a friend about? … Basketball? Steve hadn't watched a game in months. March had flown by without Steve even catching a single game. Not that Robin would even be interested in basketball, and– 

Steve shook his head, and focused on wiping bits of ice cream off the glass counter.

He did not want to be friends with Robin. 

Dustin didn't care, though, as he came in and slammed his backpack down in an empty booth. "Steve!" he greeted, if that could even be called a hello. "Where's Robin?" 

"I don't know," Steve said, even though Robin was in the back room, where she'd spent every other break since they'd started working together. That wasn't the point, though. "Why do you care?" 

"I've got news!" Dustin crowed, "Big news!" 

"What's he talking about now?" Robin asked from the door, arms folded. 

Steve rolled his eyes. One day, the universe would teach Dustin that his antics wouldn't always get him everything he wanted. One day. Steve hoped he was there to see it. "I've got no idea," Steve said, throwing his towel down on the counter in resignation. "He came in and started screaming." 

"So El was telling me and Max about your big plan," Dustin said to Steve, and Steve watched Robin's eyebrows shoot way up behind her bangs. 

"Jesus Christ," Steve muttered. "You guys gossip more than every cheerleader in our school put together." 

"What 'big plan'?" Robin said, an appropriate amount of sarcasm behind Dustin's emphasis of the phrase. 

"There's no big plan. There's a–" Steve turned to Dustin, trying to get the words through his thick little skull. "There's an agreed upon procedure between me and Hop, should there ever be a threat large enough–" 

"What the fuck do you think procedure means?" Dustin asked, every inch as bitchy as Steve had trained him to be.

"Yeah, well it sounds a lot less fucking ominous than a thirteen year old going around talking about my big plans with the police chief, doesn't it?" Steve hissed. He knocked his knuckles on Dustin's shoulder, following him as Dustin tried to squirm away from the rapping. "Did you even think about trying to explain why Hop would be working on a plan with a professional ice-cream scooper?" 

"Can someone please explain this plan to me?" Robin said, volume increasing to be heard over Dustin's squawks of protest. 

"Steve's going to be a good Grimm!" Dustin said, cheerily, dodging Steve's swiping hand. 

"Jesus," Steve cursed again as Robin turned a disbelieving stare onto him. "It's not like that! I was talking to Hop about what happens if my parents show back up. We decided we should have a plan in place if they or any other Grimms start sniffing around Hawkins. That's all." 

Robin looked at Steve for a long moment. "You said that Hexenbiest friend of yours was Chief Hopper's daughter, right?" 

Steve winced. "Kinda. She was part of a case a couple years ago, and she hasn't been allowed outside much, but–" 

Robin shook her head. "Believe me, I don't want to know. Hexenbiest blood can be used in all kinds of potions and shit. The last thing I need, as a Fuchsbau, is to get involved with whatever all that's about." 

Steve didn't even know what to say to that, so he turned to Dustin. "Why are you here, Henderson?" 

"I'm calling the plan into action!" Dustin said, his limbs flailing as if he'd been saying that this entire time, Steve, you idiot.  "I would have called in a Code Red, but it's not…" His eyes darted to Robin, then back to Steve. "You know." 

"There's a Grimm in Hawkins?" Steve asked, his voice flat with disbelief. 

"I don't think so?" 

Steve rolled his eyes. "Henderson…" 

"No, come on! There's– Look," Dustin said, holding one finger up as he reached for his backpack. He pulled out one of last semester's folders, green with 'English' crossed out on the front. Underneath, he'd written 'Wesen stuff'. 

"Really subtle," Steve said. 

Dustin ignored him, pulling a stack of newspaper clippings out of the folder. They were rather large, for clippings, not at all like the small sports write-ups that Steve's mom used to clip out for him. No, these were big, front-page articles, with big black-and-white pictures accompanying them. Dustin's handwriting was in the margins, tiny scrawled notes and circles and arrows and– 

Steve shook his head, trying not to let the sudden wealth of information overwhelm him. He felt like this should be the kind of thing Nancy would work on, probably was the kind of thing she had done in the past few years. Definitely not the job for him, who had trouble pulling together a decent book report. 

"So I was spying on my mom's phone call," Dustin began, which inspired a new round of cursing from Steve. "Shut up, Steve, this is important." 

"Your mom not killing us is important," Steve hissed. 

"My mom is a middle-aged beaver woman, and you're a nineteen year old killing machine," Dustin said, ignoring Steve's flinch. "I think you'll be okay."

Robin came around the counter to stand on Dustin's other side, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the collection of wrinkled newspapers. "Focus, boys," she said, her hands smoothing out the topmost clipping, which featured a large black and white photo of a kid. He was about the age Dustin had been when Steve first met him, grinning wide in front of Fort Worth Elementary. "What is all this?" 

"This is what my mom was talking about," Dustin said, his gaze snapping back to his research. "He went missing last week." 

Nausea roiled in Steve's stomach, and he forced himself to look away from the bright grin as he struggled with his own gag reflex. It was a little silly, since he hadn't even known Will when it happened– had been a fucking shit about it, even –but he hadn't been able to stomach missing kids since '83. Not even in movies. That was one of the reasons O'Donnell hated him so much– She'd tried to make him read some awful book about a missing little girl, and he'd refused. Hired some nerd to write the report. She knew it, and he knew she knew it, but he couldn't read it. Couldn't think about some mom, sick to death with worry, and a bunch of men who thought she was crazy. It made him want to crawl out of his skin, made him want to launch the book through the police station window with Lucas's slingshot, made him want to make every teacher who'd whispered behind the Byers' backs eat the pages the words were printed on. 

It made him want to pay for the words he couldn't take back with blood. 

"Dustin, not every… Kids go missing all the time, buddy." Steve tried to be calm, the reasonable older brother, as his own hands started to shake. "Will was a special circumstance, you know that, right?"

"Oh, shit," Robin mumbled. 

"This isn't about Will," Dustin said, although Steve could tell from the way that Dustin's eyes were suddenly big and round with grief that it had, at one point, been very much about Will. "My mom called her friend in Fort Worth, and they were talking about the investigation, and they– He's a klaustreich."

Steve had no idea what that meant, but the German was enough of a giveaway to get the gist. "This kid is a Wesen?"

Even as Dustin nodded, Robin was snorting and shaking her head. "If he's a klaustreich, it was the dad. It's always the dad." 

"Hey," Steve said, weakly. It was hard to fight Wesen prejudice when he had absolutely no idea what the stereotypes were supposed to be. It certainly didn't sound flattering, though. 

"It's almost always the dad for humans, too," Robin said, a flush of embarrassment across her face. 

Steve and Dustin exchanged a look. "Dads aside," Steve said quickly, because talking parents never went well for him, especially with any of the kids present, "it doesn't matter who did it, because this isn't any of our business.The police will handle this, Dustin, I don't know why–" 

"Because he wasn't the only one!" Dustin moved the newspaper to the side, revealing another black and white photo of a smiling child. And then another. And another. More and more pictures were revealed, until the children devolved into a blur of grey and sepia. "In the past four years, more than 38 kids have gone missing in adjacent counties alone." 

"That's impossible," Robin said, immediately. "Someone would have done something, eventually. They would have caught the guy. There would be– There would be fucking dogs and search parties–" 

"Oh, like there was for Will Byers?" Steve said, his tongue numb. He almost didn't mean it, didn't want to be saying it, but all he could think about was that fake body of Will's. His own voice, asking if Jonathan had killed him. "Kids go missing all the time," he repeated. 

Robin was quiet for a moment. "So the guy who took Will…" 

"No," Steve and Dustin said at the same time. 

"That was completely different," Dustin said, "and it's handled." 

"One of us would have noticed if there were that many kids involved," Steve said, trying to make himself believe it. "And they wouldn't still be going missing." 

"I thought they never caught the guy who did it?" Robin asked. 

Another glance. "I made sure of it," Steve said, his voice firm enough to broadcast that he would not respond well to pushing. Not exactly stellar for his new serial killer reputation, but there was no way in hell he was telling Robin about the Upside Down. She wouldn't believe it, anyway, Wesen and magic and shit notwithstanding. Whatever created the Upside Down, it wasn't a furry little guy. It was something sinister, and the last thing he needed was it to get its claws into Wesen society. 

Robin's eyes narrowed, her gaze analyzing Steve's face, before she nodded and looked away. "Alright, so what's your theory, beaver boy?" 

Dustin sighed. "After I left the library, the trail went kinda cold. It's not like a thirteen year old can call grieving families and expect answers, you know?" 

"That's why you should bring this to Hopper," Steve said, tapping the folder. "You know, an actual adult? And a cop, by the way. The people who would actually have a good chance of–" 

"A wesen family would never talk to a human cop," Robin said, then shrugged at Steve's sharp look. "Sorry, man, it's true. We have a thing about handling our own disputes." 

"Alright, well…" Steve huffed. It wasn't that he couldn't appreciate the sentiment, but he was pretty sure that when Robin said 'handling it', she was using a definition like his own: Beating the shit out of it with a bat and then setting it on fire. "That's one family that won't talk, but that leaves almost two dozen–" 

"More are Wesen," Robin said, and then leaned over to tap at a picture on the table. The kid was older than Dustin, probably around Robin's age. He beamed out of the grey, proudly wearing his letterman's jacket, a football tucked under his arm. "That's Carter Ridley. Goes to school in Jackson. His dad comes into my mom's shop sometimes. They're jagerbars." 

"Hunter bears?" Dustin translated, his nose wrinkling. 

"They used to be beserkers, in the old country. Now they're mostly yuppies," Robin said, shrugging. "Still built like a fucking mountain, though." 

"Huh," Dustin said, looking thoughtful. 

"Alright, so two families…" Steve tried, but Robin shot him a look that left him feeling small. 

"If someone is hunting Wesen kids, two is enough." 

"Hunting any kid is bad enough," Dustin corrected, but his face was still unfocused in deep thought. "It does take a special kind of person to capture two predator kids, though…"

"What?" Steve frowned doubtfully down at the picture. "He's, like, fifteen, sixteen? He's big, but he's not going to take out a full grown man." 

"He's a sixteen year old jaegerbar," Robin repeated. "They used to hunt humans for sport at that age. No dad with a beer gut is going to be able to take a jagerbar raging on teenage hormones." 

"So what?" 

"So it's a Wesen that's doing this," Dustin said, determined. "Something powerful. Something evil." 

"That's your job, right?" Robin said, turning to Steve. 

"I'm not a fucking–" Steve paused, frazzled. "I mean, I am. But, like… ethnically. I'm not going to start hunting criminal Wesen and killing them! That's insane!" 

"So we're just supposed to let them keep doing it?" Dustin said, whirling around. 

"No! Or… maybe? I don't fucking know, Dustin. Why didn't you take this shit to Hop? He knows about this Wesen shit, now. I'm sure if he knew about this, he would do something about it." Probably not as much or as fast as Dustin wanted, but Steve had never known Hopper to just sit around and let a kid hurt like that. He would stop this. He would. 

"You really want to send your father figure after a monster that'll tear him apart?" Robin asked. She didn't even sound upset about it, just… curious. Which Steve thought was rather rich, considering she'd never even met Hopper in the context of Steve. Rich and cruel. 

"Steve," Dustin said, before Steve could even gather his thoughts enough to tear into Robin like he wanted to. The kid's voice was solemn, deep in the way he only got when he was on the edge of tears. "I know. But when has bringing an adult into this ever fucking solved anything?"

Steve wanted to protest. They'd helped– Hopper and Joyce and even those stupid science guys, they had all helped. Been instrumental, really. But Steve couldn't deny that sometimes it made things harder. They just didn't understand, sometimes, why things had to be done a certain way. Whatever help they would give had to be wheedled out of them, piece by piece, usually at a cost greater than originally revealed. And that was only if they didn't die; Steve hadn't known Bob, but he had watched Joyce cry into Hopper's chest about it, which was more than enough to solidify the danger in his mind. 

He loved Joyce and Hopper. He did. But they weren't the reason they were all still alive. Nancy was. El was. And, sometimes, when someone needed to take the hit, Steve was. 

"Okay," Steve said, his shoulders going lax in resignation. "Alright. But if we're going to look into this, we're going to do it right. Now…" What would Nancy do? he asked himself. "We need to know how many of these kids are actually Wesen. Any ideas?" 

"You could show up to their house and see if their parents woge?" Dustin said. 

"No." 

"I might have an idea," Robin said, "but you both have to promise not to fucking touch anything."  

"There is no way you can make me promise that without telling me what it is I'm not touching," Dustin said, extremely seriously. "That's entrapment." 

Robin sighed, chewing off all the lipstick on her bottom lip. "Okay," she said, finally, "my dad's shop is the only Wesen apothecary outside of Indianapolis. If any of their families have ever needed anything a human shop wouldn't handle, they'll be on his ledger." 

"Alright, so…. " Steve shrugged. "Would he let us see it?" 

Snorting, Robin replied, "Absolutely not. But if his darling daughter were to accidentally leave the back door unlocked the next time it's her turn to clean…" 

"Oh, good, another crime," Steve said, rolling his eyes. A quick glance at Dustin proved he would be no help in finding an alternative. Glee was written across the kid's face so patently that even Steve didn't have to puzzle it out. It's for the kids, Steve reminded himself. 

"Since when do you care about what's legal, Harrington?" Robin said. "You've been drinking since the cradle." 

"Like you said," Steve said dismissively. "Police chief. Father figure." 

"Steve has, like, chronic parental issues," Dustin informed Robin, sotto voice. 

"Dustin…" 

"They're fucking terminal," Dustin continued, ignoring Steve's sighs of complaint. 

"When are we fucking doing this?" Steve cut in, voice harsh with frustration. 

Robin's face went blank in thought for a moment, running through the days in her head. "I'm supposed to clean up after inventory on Thursday," she said, shrugging. "That's the earliest I'll be able to get you in." 

Six days. That was more than enough time for the more rational parts of Steve's brain to take back over, more than enough time to talk Dustin out of this heroism kick. He found himself nodding, more than willing to put this off for another week. 

"It'll just have to wait, then," Steve said, and tried not to sound too pleased about it. 

Despite Steve's efforts, the next six days didn't lessen Robin and Dustin's insistence on playing the hero. In fact, Steve found himself on tenterhooks every night. He watched the evening news with an intensity he had given very little since graduation. 

The six o'clock news, then the ten– The morning news on the weekend, anchors and time slots that Steve usually slept through. He watched them all with his heart in his throat, every cell of him focused on the prayer that he wouldn't see another sunny, ignorant smile on the screen. Every night passed without a new addition to their list, but that did nothing to soothe the mounting frenzy in Steve's chest. Instead, he could only wonder what they were missing, if there were kids slipping through their fingers unnoticed. 

Saturday morning when the anchors said goodbye, the local channel started reruns of old episodes of Batman. Steve, numb with anxiety, stayed curled in his father's pristine armchair and let them play. Primary colors and musical stings blurred together in his bleary mind. 

He'd never been a huge superhero kid, not like Dustin and Mike, but there had been no one in his elementary school who didn't sometimes watch Batman. There wasn't much that he remembered. The characters were all unfamiliar and cartoonish, but the apathy made Adam West's booming voice softer. It soothed the shake of Steve's hands. 

In one scene, Batman rushed onto the docks, a bomb in his hands. There was nowhere to go, no way to save the unbothered masses around him. It was supposed to be funny; Steve recognized the slapstick body language, the sigh in West's voice. There were baby ducks in the water, for fuck's sake. He had thought it was hilarious, once, in the way sheltered little kids always did. 

Steve pulled his legs a little tighter against his body, watching the fuse burn down. The exaggerated resignation had grown too familiar to be laughable. He sat and he watched Batman accept that this bomb was going to go off in his hands, so it wouldn't go off on anyone else's, and it didn't make Steve upset. It didn't make him uncomfortable. 

It made him nod, approving. Because Steve knew that if he found himself with a bomb in his hands, he would keep holding it. Would curve himself around it, letting it go off. 

"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb," Batman told him, and Steve clicked the television off. Maybe it was time to go back to bed.

The rest of the week wasn't easier. Work helped, the distraction as good for Steve as it had ever been, but Robin didn't. Her obsession had gotten its teeth into Dustin's little mystery, and there was very little else she was willing to talk about. Even when Steve managed to change the subject, he could see the missing smiles in the shadows behind her eyes. In time, she would lapse back into theories and ramblings about some story she had heard, once-upon-a-time. Steve was never sure how many of these stories were facts and how many were legends. The both seemed equally real to Robin, and by Thursday night, he had heard every word the Buckley clan had to offer.

He wished he could blame her. That terrible feeling got its claws into him every time, the paranoia and the guilt and the shame, and it would feel so much better if he could take it out on her. Steve knew it would. He couldn't bring himself to do it. He could feel the frustration bubbling up in his chest, taste the bitter words on his tongue. It didn't matter how long she rambled, though, every time he turned to face her, his voice refused to cooperate. Maybe it was too easy, he thought as she rambled through another legend too horrific to listen to. Even as Robin spoke, she broadcasted her fear louder than her voice. Every curiosity revealed another nightmare she'd never beaten. It wouldn't feel as good now, when he knew she was so fragile. 

Or maybe he didn't want to be an asshole anymore. 

So listened to every awful theory she had, and then drove home to find Henderson on his doorstep with his own set of ideas. Dustin's were at least a little less gory, but he had even less to work with than Robin did. Most of his 'theories', if they could even be called that, were cribbed from cop shows and nursery rhymes. The kind of thing his mother filled his head with so he wouldn't talk to strangers. They had never worked, because Dustin had never met a problem he didn't want to interrogate to death, but they left their mark all the same. So Steve soothed his fears, did his best to not sound too  sarcastic when he assured Dustin that the bogeyman didn't exist, and then shooed Dustin off to bed. 

Every night was the same, a shift of horror movie plots followed by a thirteen year old's best attempt at paranormal theory.

When the sun finally set on Thursday, Steve expected to feel relieved. After a week of fending off the worst of Robin and Dustin's impulses, he would finally be able to prove this wasn't their problem. All it would take was a quick look at Mr. Buckley's ledgers, and all three of them could finally move on.

Steve tried to remind himself of that, blocking Dustin's chattering voice out as he turned the thoughts over in his mind again and again. They did little to help the rising anxiety, though, the edges worn smooth with handling like well-eroded stones. Steve's fingers flexed against the steering wheel. The closer it got to go-time, the worse Steve felt. The air felt heavy around him, so thick he could imagine it darkening like in one of Dustin's movies. 

"You are, like, the worst criminal in the world," Dustin said, halfway through shoving a Twizzler into his mouth. 

"Is that supposed to be an insult?" 

"You literally look like you're about to throw up," Dustin said, poking at Steve's cheek with his licorice. 

Being able to grab the candy out of Dustin's hand without looking was probably the only thing Steve's Grimm abilities had ever been good for. He tossed it through his open window, his other hand covering Dustin's mouth– Well, the kid's entire face, really. Steve wasn't trying to shut him up as much as annoy him into submission. 

"You know, you could stand to take this a little more seriously," Steve said, frowning. "Jesus, where is Robin? She said eight, right?" 

"It's only 8:15, man," Dustin said, leaning his seat back. "Chill." 

"How is it that I'm the only one who believes there isn't a fucking serial killer on the loose and I'm still the only person taking this shit seriously?" he muttered to himself. He needed a fucking cigarette, but he knew Robin would bitch incessantly if she smelled smoke on him. Steve had no idea how he'd picked up another nerd to tell him what to do, or why he even cared about what she said– 

"Steve, seriously, fucking breathe." 

Steve heaved, realizing his lungs had stopped working a thousand thoughts ago. "Thanks," he wheezed. 

"No problem."

[m34gs]

For the anime ask: 6, 9, 14, 25

Thank you for the ask, friend!! (from this post) There might be some spoilers ahead, but that kind of comes with the territory for questions like these. Beware!

6. popular anime you didn’t like

Are you trying to get me killed, friend. Do you want to see the Meags dead in the ditch. (I jest. Only god can kill me, and only when I'm ready.)

Alright, I have to admit: I don't actually tend to really know what's popular. Sometimes I know, sometimes I'm like 'oh this is so good I bet everyone watches it' and no one else I know has heard of it, or sometimes everyone is like 'oh this show is so popular!!!' and I'm over here like 'whomst?'. Comes from not being allowed a internet or personal ipods/computers when I was younger, and our TV channels were limited. So, bear that in mind while I list my answers and my reasons.

Sword Art Online: Hate. Hate hate hate. Loathe. Kirito? More like Kiri-NO. He's so...bland. And annoying. And I just despise him. Couldn't watch the full thing. Don't like. Don't like at ALL.

Yugioh: I used to watch episodes here and there on 4KidsTV. I didn't like it. I did not like the art style and character designs and I didn't get what the big deal was about them battling with cards. And even now that I'm older, I could probably go and rewatch it, but I don't really want to. Just. No desire.

Kuroko's Basketball: Let me just first start by clarifying. I was actually interested in this anime at the start. But then they started making the sports actions out to be super-powers...and I didn't know at the time that Sports Anime is just Like That. So then I became more neutral about it. And then. It dragged. It dragged so much. Like, the plot got so slowed and I got so bored I ended up not finishing it. So, there were parts I did enjoy, and I really liked a lot of the characters, but I can't say I liked this anime overall.

Chobits: Idk. It's cute and all, but also I just didn't enjoy the main dude. I found him annoying. Also stopped watching this one part way through. That's just something I do. If I find it does not Spark Joy, I stop watching the show. Because I don't like to waste my time on shows I don't like.

9. favorite anime child

This is a toss-up between Somali from Somali and the Forest Spirit and Anya from SpyxFamily.

Anya is cute and funny. She's so relatable in a humourous way, and she really does try her best. She fails a lot, but then sometimes her failures inadvertently save the day. Plus, she has some of The Greatest facial expressions.

Somali is an innocent human child discovered by a Golem in a forest; in a time and place where humans are nearly extinct and are hunted down by Beasts and magical being. The Golem is trying to get Somali back to her own kind. Somali is a sweetheart. She does her best to follow the Golem's direction and she genuinely cares about him, and she calls him papa. Similar to Anya, she is just trying Her Best. In contrast to Anya, she is much more quiet and timid.

Honestly, I can't choose. Both girls are very sweet.

14. saddest anime you have ever watched

Ok, Honestly, I've probably watched a lot of anime with sad things, and bittersweet endings...it's hard to really choose One. But, that being said, I do have one that comes to mind. Take it with a grain of salt, though, because this is my opinion, and my opinion is subject to change at any point and time lol.

Corpse Party.

Yes, I know it's based on a video game. Yes, I know it's in the horror genre. I don't care, it is still sad. It is sad more than anything. Why is it sad? I don't know where to start. I'm not going to recount all the deaths, onscreen or offscreen, because that would take too long. The situation itself is bleak; students trapped in a ghostly school with all sorts of spirits after them to hurt them and rip them apart? Maybe it's sad because they're children? They're supposed to represent hope and light and the future, and they get stuck in this school and (literally) torn to shreds. Also. The littlest one dies. Which, is like, that is a Big Thing, ok. LIke, even in regular horror movies; there was a time where You Did Not kill off the children (yes, I know there are plenty of child deaths in horror now, but it is still one of the more disturbing aspects of those movies). Kids end up being the unlikely heroes. The ones who persevere and survive despite their innocence and trust in others, or maybe even *because* of it. (or they end up being the demons, but that's not relevant here).

So when that little girl gets tortured and murdered, After putting her trust in an older boy who said he would help her...it brings a huge wave of sadness. She was so helpless. She just wanted to find her big brother. She went from hopeful and trusting to Terrified, and then dead. (not to mention the ghost possessing the place to begin with is Also A Child)

25. anime you would recommend to someone who hates anime

I don't really know if I have one specific anime for people who hate anime. I don't think there's a catch-all that everyone would enjoy. And I don't really like pushing things on other people if they've indicated they don't like it.

If I were to recommend one, it would entirely depend on the person. If they're nice to me about it and they indicate they want to try anime, I would talk with them and find out their interests before recommending. Someone who loves romance might not wanna sit through One Punch Man, you know? So I'd take the time to figure out some actual suggestions that they might genuinely enjoy.

But.

If they're mean to me. Or talk down to me.

I'm gonna recommend they watch Boku no Pico with their Grandmother. 😀