#force time travel

[drauthor]

Last Line Challenge

Rules: In a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or however many you like).

Thanks for the tag, @shootingstarpilot! Sorry this took so long, I've been all the over place with stress and also writing ideas, big oof

I have a couple ideas that I've been tossing around but I finally gave in and decided to write the time travel fic of my dreams. I write in my head all day, every day and I don't know if this is going to interest anyone, but it interests me and by god, I am going to write my stupid Codywan time travel/dimension travel shenanigans - fix-it

(I forgot the fucking writing, shit--)

Jinn arches an eyebrow and Cody can see the intrigue flicker through his eyes. “You don’t know?” 

“Obviously not.” Cody is impressed at how neutral his voice comes out despite the irritation churning in his stomach. “I don’t even know where I am.” 

Jinn’s eyebrows make a break for his hair line even as he’s shoved aside, a young child squirming their way to the front. Cody leans back as the child leans in, eyes wide as they practically vibrate where they stand. 

“You’re on Tatooine!” 

Cody’s stomach drops out from under him and all he can do is stare. Tatooine? How was he on Tatooine— 

“It looked like lightning spat you out of the sky! One second there was nothing, and then—BOOM—you were on the ground, and you wouldn’t wake up, even with the screaming and Mister Qui-Gon trying to talk to you!” 

Lightning. Fuck. Obi-Wan, what happened— 

Stop.  

Breathe.  

Cody presses the knuckle into the corner of his eye harder and pulls in a careful, measured breath, focusing on the way the air fills his lungs, forcing them to expand in his chest. He digs his free hand into the sand, rubbing the grains against the pads of his fingers.  

Assess. 

He’s—apparently—on Tatooine. A few moments ago, he was not on Tatooine. He had been on Coruscant, walking through the Sith-forsaken hallways of the Senate building to meet with Chancellor Organa. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka were due back from their mission in the Outer Rim and were expected to meet with the council before lunchtime. Cody had been looking forward to lunch. 

[allskywalkerswhine]

in fics where luke gets plopped into the prequels i want every jedi within ten metres of him to think hes the weirdest jedi theyve ever seen. he has negative lightsaber form. he doesnt know what a kata is. he handstands when he meditates. his solution to sith is to try and have a chat. hes a political radical who keeps suggesting revolution. you ask him what the jedi code is and he says "kindness and compassion and helping those in need :) ". you ask how he used the force like that and he says some shit about how you are a luminous being limited only by your mind. the councils authority is just a suggestion. he is somehow the new favourite of both qui gon and yoda

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

[jedi-starbird]

Time Travel is my favourite trope and I think we need more fics where both Obi-Wan AND Qui-Gon time travel together because no matter when they get sent it's chaos. They're saving the galaxy and being physic flash-bangs to everyone around them.

like before Bandomeer?

The entire council is baffled to watch as Qui-Gon 'never taking a padawan again' Jinn has suddenly cut off his post-Xanatos depression tour to return to the temple and beeline to the creche with a frantic energy. His wild eyes immediately single out a fluffy, red-haired initiate.

"You." he exhales with a pointed finger, slightly ominous as he towers over the child. Said child starts vibrating with delight. "Me." he agrees, launching himself at the man. Qui-Gon drops to his knees with a thud that cannot be healthy. Obi-Wan's attempts to clamber into Qui-Gon's robes and maybe onto his shoulders is thwarted by the fact that Qui-Gon's massive hands are cupping Obi-Wan's tiny squishy cheeks. He stares at the initiate for a few minutes with an intensity that is starting to worry people.

Finally, "You're so small." Qui-Gon sounds like he might cry.

'What the fuck?' Plo Koon projects at Mace.

"I'm 9! That tends to be the case!" the child chirps back.

"You're nine." Oh. Ah. Qui-Gon's eyes are distinctively misty. He squishes the boy in a hug so hard he squeaks. Mace makes a series of gestures that imply the need for a head-scan. Depa obligingly drifts off towards the halls. Qui-Gon scoops the child up onto his hip and claims him as his padawan on the spot. The assorted council members and creche-masters burst into noise. Mace tells Depa to bring some space ibuprofen as well.

after Naboo?

Anakin is a little apprehensive of his place in both the order and Obi-Wan's life, but then one day Obi-Wan wakes up and is suddenly a lot less sad in the force?? In fact, if Anakin didn't know better he'd say he was almost giddy, but he's watched Obi-Wan try to pretend his world hasn't fallen apart for the past few months so it can't be that, right? And um, Miss Bant? He knows grief is a funny thing that affects people differently but he's pretty sure 'massive mood swing' and 'having full conversations with invisible people' is not...great? and you said to tell you if Obi-Wan got really weird in any way.

Anyway after a lot of medical exams, intense consultation with the archives, and a couple exorcisms, Anakin ends up being raised by his 'real' master and his ghost master. He is far more well adjusted emotionally and far less well adjusted for what counts as normal people behavior(not talking to thin air). When questioned on this, all he ever says is that he's talking to Qui-Gon. Isn't he...dead? Well, yes. Wait, he's a ghost? Ghosts are real? ...Well this ghost is real.

This starts a great number of existential crises among non-force sensitives and incredibly heated theological arguments amongst the Jedi. Whenever Obi-Wan is questioned on this, all he ever says is some variation of "the force got to know him for 5 seconds and kicked him back out." Mace backs him up on this even though that reasoning is technically blasphemous. Qui-Gon is having the time of his un-life. He's ascended to his final form, his sheer existence is a heresy, this is truly all he has ever aspired towards.

the Clone Wars?

The minute they get dropped back Qui-Gon immediately goes and haunts the shit out of Dooku. They have a signed terms of surrender and promise of info on the Sith Lord within the year. Only half of it is because Qui-Gon's giving Dooku complexes that are only perceptible to shrimp, the other half is because they now have a ghost spy that is not bound by the laws of physics nor spacetime.

Obi-Wan only nominally pays attention to this as he immediately goes and implements his 19 step seduction plan with Cody (he had to focus on something on Tatooine to pass the time). It fails. Spectacularly. Publicly. Ah right. Tatooine was not exactly the height of his sanity. Everyone in the GAR and temple is now riveted by High General and Councilor Obi-Wan Kenobi's attempts to go on a date with his Commander, who bats him away him like a particularly annoying stray and seems one bouquet of cactus away from committing mutiny. Anakin is worrying if it means his master knows about his secret marriage and this is some sort of really weird power play. (It is, but not in the way he thinks)

The next time Dooku goes after Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon spends a good few months appearing tear-stained at the edge of Dooku's perception and only communicating in terrible wails and discordant mutterings of 'padawan. my padawan. my little one.' 24/7.

"Wait, you're annoying Dooku into surrendering?"

"Oh no Anakin, we're crushing his psyche like a bug. :)"

[zylev-blog]

Danny was pissed. He was chilling in the Speedforce, waiting on his dad—the Flash—to show up when he felt something shift around him. He exited the speedforce to find that the timeline had changed again, and he had been written out of the timeline. He technically was a time anomaly now, and didn’t exist. So he talked to Clockwork, a ghost he’d gotten to know extremely well after Danny’s creation.

Danny was a clone of the Flash and Green Lantern(Hal Jordan) as part of an experiment that Lex Luthor had taken prior to cloning Superboy. Lex had wanted to know if the power ring was able to transmit anything genetically (it couldn’t. It was a wearable weapon, not a genetic thing.) but Danny had inherited Flash’s superspeed, so he wasn’t a complete loss. Danny wasn’t sure if he looked more like either man, considering they both wore masks. He had brown hair and green eyes. Beyond that, he tanned well, was tall for his age, and packed on muscle far easier than the Flash did. He hadn’t ever seen either man out of the costume.

After a talk with Clockwork, he decided he was just going to force his way back into his Dad’s life. Both of them, if possible. He arrived years before his creation by mistake, right near the start of the Justice League. By his estimates, the team had only been formed for a year before he’d arrived. It was strange; he both didn’t exist and was from the future. He guessed that it was around nine years before his birth, and since he was technically six months old, he was 9 years in the past. Thinking about this was going to give him a headache.

The Justice League was severely mistrustful of each other. They didn’t go out of their way for teamups, didn’t have weekly meetings, and almost pretended if the other members didn’t exist. The most recluse of them was Batman, of course. If any hero set foot in Gotham, they were booted out before they even got to downtown. Danny highly suspected Batman had the entire city on camera. The situation was weirding him out more than before. What had happened to the team?! He was used to everyone being one big family, and even the sidekicks having their own teams… speaking of sidekicks, why was Robin so small?! Wait a minute, that wasn’t the third Robin that he was used to, that was the first Robin! Baby Nightwing!

Thankfully for him, he still had his costume on this entire time as he zipped around the country, spying on the younger members of the Justice League. It was surreal watching everyone try to capture him, but he wasn’t going to be caught that easily!

Eventually his presence forced the Justice League into another teamup. Batman laid the trap out, and Flash lured him into it. The plan was so beautiful that he didn’t even realize it was a trap until he was caught in it. Green Lantern took off Danny’s mask, and for the first time, he looked at his fathers without a mask. They didn’t make the connection to him right away. It wasn’t until Wonder Woman’s lasso made its way around his wrist that the truth finally came out.

“Who are you?” Wonder Woman asked.

“Oof , hard question—ow ow oww—I’m being honest!” He struggled against the lasso as it started to burn him. “My designation was Dn-y, I go by Danny, though. I’m a clone.”

“Of who?” Batman demanded.

“Flash and Green Lantern.” The lasso was glowing brightly, indicating that he was telling the truth.

“How did you escape?” Flash asked.

He didn’t answer right away. He was trying to think about how to phrase the whole time traveling—timeline erasure thing when the lasso started to burn him again. “Ow ow! Sorry, I’m thinking! Ow! Turn down the settings on that thing, holy shit—okay, okay.” He winced, his words coming out in one breath as he quickly talked, “What do you know about time travel?”

Diana’s eyebrows were rising. “How are you able to resist the lasso for so long?”

“I’m not really resisting it.” He answered, noting the obvious deflect of his last question, “I just-oww—okay! My mind moves too fast for me to put into words sometimes and it makes me stop to think about it, but like, I’m not good at controlling the speed in which I speak all the time—owww make this thing stop burning me! I’m speaking honestly!”

Diana revoked the lasso, and he rubbed his wrist where his costume was starting to singe. He was still trapped in an anti-speedster prison, so it wasn’t exactly like he was going anywhere anyway.

“Why were you asking about time travel?” Batman asked.

“Based on the crickets chirping I heard earlier, that leads me to believe you guys haven’t had any experience in it yet.” He leaned against the wall of the prison, wincing as it shocked him with electricity. “Seriously? How paranoid are you, Batman?” He rubbed his shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting with you people, but I feel so attacked right now.”

“So we have experience with it in the future?” Superman piped up.

“Yeah?” His tone of voice equated to a ‘duh’ tone. “Why would I ask what you knew if I wasn’t from the future?”

“How far in the future are you from?” Green Lantern asked.

“Nine years, maybe close to ten? Timelines are weird. I’m technically six months old, but at the same time I’m sixteen. Cloning is odd, but I was like, the first clone ever, so I don’t really have a basis for this sort of thing, if you catch my drift.” He shrugged. He seemed like he talked a lot more than the heroes did, but he didn’t know if that was because he was a chatterbox, or because they weren’t comfortable in each other’s presence. Either way, the silence was odd to him.

“How did you end up here?” Batman asked.

“Honestly? I don’t fully know. Don’t give me that look, Diana! I’m telling the truth.” He added quickly as Diana fingered her lasso again. “All I know is one minute, I’m chilling in the Speedforce, and the next, the timeline is changed and I’m nine years too early for my birth. You’d think the timeline would at least have the decency to spit me out in my own year, but nooo, it wanted to—“

“What’s the Speedforce?” Superman interrupted.

He tilted his head at Superman’s question, then turned to the Flash. “How long have you had your powers?”

Flash shifted uncomfortably. “Two years.”

“Oh boy.” Danny’s green eyes widened. “You don’t know anything about them, do you?”

“I do know things!” Flash deflected, “My suit doesn’t catch on fire anymore! I can run up to Mach 2! I can get from either end of the country in thirty minutes!”

He groaned loudly. “Oh no. Oh no.” He chewed on his thumb, trying to recall everything he’d learned about his powers from his Flash. While he hadn’t learned his or Green Lantern’s identity yet, he knew almost everything about their hero personas and a lot of personal information. They were just worried of the Cadmus connection and didn’t want their identity to fall into the wrong hands if they still could see inside of Danny’s head.

“What’s wrong?” Diana asked.

“Okay.” He ran his hands through his brown hair, making it spike up. “Hypothetically—“ he cut himself off as Batman glared at him. “Okay, totally real, but uh, Flash, let’s just say that I’m faster than you right now. A lot faster.”

“How much?” Flash took a step forward, obviously curious.

“From what we can tell, I’ve topped out at Mach nine.” He responded with a dry laugh, “But your speed was still a lot faster than mine. You’d never tell me what it was. I’m still growing though, and I’m getting faster. I’m able to beat my precious time by almost double each time we test. But my situation was complicated, and things were happening, and it was a mess.”

“Like what?” Superman asked.

“World war three. I think?” He rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture that he had picked up from Green Lantern, “Things got complicated. That’s why I was going to wait for…” his eyebrows scrunched together as the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “It was you!” He turned to Flash. “You!” He jabbed a finger at the speedster. “You set this up! You set ME up!”

The heroes took fighting stances, but Superman took a step forward, blocking them from Danny. “What are you talking about?”

“Okay okay.” He was trying to calm down his anger, but he had been told by Green Lantern in the past that he had inherited the man’s anger issues. “Let me start at the beginning. This is going to be a long story, you might want to take a seat.”

Nobody moved, but everyone was tense.

“Or not. Okay. So my creation starts with Lex Luthor.” He noticed Superman stiffen. “He used me as his trial, if you will. Once he got a successful attempt at cloning—me—he moved onto his real target. Cloning Superman.” Danny’s green eyes hovered onto Superman’s blue ones. “He was successful.”

“What happened?” Superman’s voice was unnaturally quiet.

“Well, at first, Conner wasn’t showing that he had all the powers of Superman. So Lex tossed him aside and tried again. The second attempt was more successful than the first. But cloning Kryptonian dna was hard, I guess.” He shrugged. “The second clone lacked basic emotions. Empathy, remorse… it made him the perfect little weapon for Lex. But eventually, the clone’s anger and Lex’s greed got to a point of no return. Lex was elected President of the United States and uh…you can probably see where this is going, right? While the fighting hadn’t like…’officially’ started,” He used his fingers to create air quotes around the word ‘officially’, “Things were getting tense. See, we couldn’t take the clone down because Lex had wrote out the Kryptonite deficiency out of his weakness. And the clone had all the strength of Superman and none of his remorse…”

Superman looked pale. “I see.”

“So Flash and I came up with a plan.” He turned back to his father, “We were going to travel into the next dimension for help. From what we could tell, that dimension was full of god-like beings, and one of them actually helped me out earlier! But for a lot of them, they ask for a price for their help. But anyway, Flash and I were going to take our case to the King and plead for help. I was waiting for Flash when the timeline reset and I found out that not only did I not exist, but I was nine years too early.”

“What are you going to do now?” Green Lantern asked.

“Dunno,” His voice dropped as the reality hit him. He wasn’t going home—his home didn’t exist anymore.

[ruporas]

good mornings throughout the travel

[ID: Two comics of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. The second is underneath the read more.

The first is in four panels and follows Vash and Wolfwood through hotel rooms. First, Vash and Wolfwood exit adjacent rooms, and Wolfwood has sparkles floating around him as he exclaims, “Rise and shine! Ready to go?” Vash frowns, displeased, and says, Urk— Good morning to you too.”

Next, they’re in a room with two beds. Wolfwood is awake and fully dressed. He’s sitting on the bed and smoking, back turned away from the viewer and he says, “Wake up already, sleepyhead.” Vash sits up with his eyes still closed and yawns before saying good morning. After that, they’re sharing a bed, and Wolfwood gets up and says, “Morning, sunshine. Time to get up.” His body shadows Vash from the sunlight. Vash is still lying down with a blanket draped over him as he mumbles good morning.

Finally, they’re embracing in bed, both shirtless. Sunlight shines on them, but their contact allows their shadows to drape over their faces. Vash smiles, kisses the top of Wolfwood’s head, and says, “Good morning, Wolfwood.” Wolfwood sleepily says, “Mph, g’morning, needle-noggin’,” snuggling into on Vash’s shoulder. End ID] ID CREDIT

TRIMAX Vol. 10 Spoilers under read more // bonus comic

[ID: The bonus comic starts with Vash asleep in bed, fully clothed with his hair half-black. Someone says “Good morning,” and Vash says, “Morning, Wolf—w...” He trails off as Livio, holding a plate of food, stares with abject shock.

Livio says, “I’m sorry.” Vash, smiling but sweating, says, “No, it’s my bad...” Livio repeats, “I’m sorry.” Vash says, “Geez, stop apologizing,” and cuts off Livio’s “I—” with a “Good morning, Livio.” Livio quietly mumbles, “... Good morning...”

Vash sits up from the couch he was sleeping on and looks down, thinking, “... That’s right. I won’t wake up to you anymore... I have to get used to that...” End ID]

[lucabyte]

Not all who wander are lost. Some who wander, however, are extremely, extremely lost.

[nancywheeeler]

hopeless time loop. the way out isn’t to save everyone. the way out isn’t to save even one person. the way out isn’t to change anything. the way out is accepting how it happened the first time is how it always will be. that’s how you acted, that’s how they acted, that’s how you would have acted every time if you weren’t given the curse of hindsight. the way out is accepting you can’t fix the past; you can only forgive yourself for it.

[stealingpotatoes]

I’m just imagining Ezra going up to Mace and Depa like “it’s nice to meet my grandmaster and great grandmaster” and they’re like “CALEB TRAINED YOU???”

they see ezra's gunsaber and immediately think "oh my god we must have seriously fucked up training caleb if his padawan ended up like THIS"

[destinysbounty]

Ranking the DR kids based on how well they'd handle getting time-traveled to the beginning of the OG series:

Euphrasia - she lives in the Cloud Kingdom and has been with the Writers of Destiny long enough to have at least a functional understanding of everything that's happened and is supposed to happen. She would also be willing and capable of ensuring the original timeline remains preserved to the best of her ability. Any errors she makes are minor and get quickly resolved.

Arin - is a massive nerd with a near encyclopedic knowledge of the ninjas' pasts, but even he doesn't know everything. He'd probably drop a bunch of lore/spoilers purely on accident and feel really anxious/awkward about it afterwards. This does not stop him from accidentally dropping spoilers in the future, though. As excited as he is to be trained by Master Wu himself, seeing Lloyd as a twerpy little brat is more than a little disturbing and he's not sure he likes this. At one point he realizes his parents are still alive/present in this point in time and has an emotional crisis about whether or not to visit them. Eventually decides that if he can use his knowledge to fix the past and perhaps prevent all sorts of bad things from ever happening, then he should go for it. But he's also constantly second-guessing himself and questioning what changes will "fix" the past and what changes will absolutely destroy everything.

Sora - only kind of pays attention to Arin's ninja fan rants, and also isn't Ninjagian and therefore has no basis of understanding for their history, so she has a very incomplete understanding of things. Why does Zane look human? She is having so much stress over whether or not she can preserve the original timeline because she really loves her life as it is now, and is scared that if she changes too much then everything she currently has will be torn from her. But if she doesn't know how things originally happened, how can she make sure she's not changing too much? Needless to say Sora would have such a bad time and is seriously regretting not paying more attention to Arin.

Wyldfyre - I don't even need to explain this one. You all know exactly what would happen.

[bluuscreen-png]

working on my own little “the master doesn’t die and joins the doctor after lotl” au so here’s voyage of the damned outfits if i got to do the costume design [plus a couple silly bonus sketches under the cut]

[paper-lilypie]

2024

[yandereforme]

Yandere batfamily time travel au (different/angsty version)

The bad family gets thrown into the future, about 20 years or so. They are them faced with three major villains who lives in Gotham and have somehow become worse than the joker in terms of casualties. Two of them are front fighters, well, the third is said to be the boss and is not seen often. Their counterparts are pretty much obsessed with fighting this person. However, it isn’t long before their nemesis kidnaps one of the Wayne’s from the past, and that is when they meet you.

You are the third member, and contrary to popular belief you are not the boss. It’s more of a Harley Quinn sort of situation. The two main fighters are people who recruited you after your foster parents sold you to human traffickers, because you developed meta-abilities. Those two ‘rescued’ you and trained you to use your abilities to help them commit crimes, though they usually disguise you whenever you go out, so no one knows you exist. The rest of the time, you are usually treated as a servant/pet.

I think the first person they kidnapped was definitely Damian. However, none of the kidnappers realized that Damian had a tracking device as well as a comm. after a little bit, they all start becoming protective of you, and I can see several of them attempting to be kidnapped just to see you.

After a little while, the fight happens. They are winning when, suddenly, a shot rings out and you fall to the ground. The bullet had been meant for one of them (you can choose which one, though I am mostly thinking Bruce for the Maximum angst) but you moved in the way of it. You got shot for them. You saved them, but paid for it with your life.

Before you die, you look whoever you saved in the eye, and ask them to make sure that this didn’t happen again. You meant it as making sure human trafficking were destroyed, and those with abilities were put in good homes, or that no villain could use someone the way you had been used. However, the bat family takes this as permission to make sure you never become a villain ever again.

When they get to their original timeline, the first thing they do is search for you. You were a chubby three year old, knew you hadn’t discovered your powers until you were five. It was fairly easy to frame your parents for a crime, and take you with them to the manor. You were never going to have to struggle again. You saved their lives. Now they were going to return the favor.

[sharkneto]

what about five made him ur blorbo…

Man, what made Five my guy.

There’s the surface level stuff – he hits a lot of tropes I love. Asshole with a heart, competent in everything but people, an assassin who gets cool fights to good music, teleports, last man in the world, has a fucked up wife situation. He’s a fifty-eight-year-old man who looks thirteen, that concept right there has so much to work through, all by itself.

All of that is really fun stuff, but under all of that, I think I can sum up why Five hit so hard with just that he has heart. The show could have gone the route of comic!Five – unredeemable bastard of a tiny man. That would have been fun, I love comic!Five, but he works better on a comic book page, where things can be more 2D. The change the show made – maybe on accident – is that show!Five loves an incredible amount, and that’s what hooked me hard. Sure, some of this is fan interpretation, but I think it’s got moments in-show to back it up. One of his first moves he made, when stuck in the apocalypse, was to make Delores – he has her within a few days of landing there. She says so much about him the second we meet her in the show - shorthand to tell us just how bad the apocalypse was, and that, when faced with nothing, Five makes a person he has to take care of. With that, he survived four decades as the last person on earth in dystopian hell before he could get back to save the world – so he says, at least, but he has always prioritized his siblings. They're his world. He’s not great at saying it, but he’s a man of action and his actions speak very loudly.

With all that love, comes a lot of grief, which is actually what keeps me going with Five. I’m pretty open that I’ve had a lot of grief in my life. I’m doing better, it’s been a number of years now, but grief doesn’t go away, and Five is an incredible vehicle for playing with and processing grief. Experiencing it, growing from it, moving on with life around it. And Five has so many layers of grief to play with. There’s the grief for his family who he found dead when he was 13, grief for the world because it all ended, grief for the life he lost, grief for the life he had to live, grief for what he’s had to do, grief for his body and his situation. How do you keep going and move on after experiencing such loss? I find it both cathartic and motivating to think about and sit in that space.

He's a walking tragedy and I adore him for it. Character of all time.

[estrellami-1]

If I Should Stay

A few quick housekeeping things! First: a friendly reminder that my taglists are CLOSED! If you’re new (or if you’ve been her the whole time and just got here too late for the taglists), you can subscribe to the “#if I should stay” tag and follow along that way! I do my very best to post every 4 days. Secondly, if you’d like to see every part of this in one place, the ellipses below now links to the second part of the fic taglist! I’ve gone back and edited all previous parts so now everything should have a link imbedded in the ellipses. Unfortunately, if you reblogged an older version of a part, you won’t have the link in the ellipses. If you read all this, kudos! Now onto the story.

Part 1 | . . . | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30

They get to school and rush in just before the bell. Steve catches Eddie’s eye and blushes before he ducks his head, sliding into a seat and pulling a notebook out from his backpack.

He finds it more difficult than normal to focus, but he does his best, breathing a sigh of relief when the bell finally rings.

“Hey, Eds,” he murmurs as they walk out of class.

“Eds,” he parrots, something in his gaze that Steve can’t quite parse out.

Steve blinks, frowning slightly. “Do you not want me to call you that? ‘Cause I can-”

“No,” Eddie says. “No, it’s fine, just… new.” A light flush paints his cheeks. “I like it.”

“I’m glad,” Steve says, smiling softly.

“Steve,” someone calls from down the hallway, and Steve hides his wince when he turns to see Tommy heading his direction.

He sees the moment Tommy notices who’s with him; sees the moment his face changes. “The freak bothering you, man?” He asks, getting between Steve and Eddie.

“No,” Steve says, maybe too sharply for the way Tommy looks back at him, confused. He takes a breath, tries again. “We’re fine.” He looks at Eddie, wants to say so much, but sees him subtly shake his head.

He takes another breath. “I’ll see you later, yeah?” He asks Eddie instead. “For, uh, the project?”

“Project?” Tommy looks between the two of them, brows furrowed.

“Yeah, for Mrs. Click’s class,” Eddie says smoothly. “She hasn’t assigned it for you yet?”

Tommy looks to Steve, trying to confirm, and Steve nods. “She just assigned it, a two-page paper about the person she pairs you up with. She’ll probably stagger it, though, so you probably won’t get it for another week still.”

Only half a lie; that had been an assignment, and she had assigned it roughly a week later, but he and Eddie hadn’t gotten it yet.

Behind Tommy’s back, Eddie winks at Steve and walks away.

Steve moves to walk to his locker, Tommy following close behind. “Man, it sucks that you got stuck working with that freak,” he says sympathetically, shaking his head.

“Nah, man, Eddie’s cool,” Steve says, forcing the cheer to stay in his voice.

Tommy snorts. “What, that fag?”

“Stop it, man,” Steve says, a note of warning in his voice.

“Don’t tell me you’re sticking up for him,” Tommy sneers.

“Y’know what?” Steve says, stopping short in the hallway. “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m tired of being an asshole like you, like my dad. Maybe I want to meet people and have them like me for me, not for what I can do for them, or for the money or the big house.” He shakes his head. “Stay the same if you want, change if you want, but I’m done.”

Tommy grabs his arm, and Steve yanks it away, glaring at Tommy. “Don’t do that,” he says. “And leave Eddie alone.”

“Or what?” Tommy says, grabbing at Steve’s arm again.

Steve intercepts, grabbing his wrist, giving a warning squeeze. “You really don’t want to find out,” he mutters, dropping Tommy’s wrist and walking away before Tommy can get a word in edgewise.

Robin brushes past him on his way to his locker. “Proud of you, dingus,” she murmurs, and he does his best to hide the smile that brings to his face.

Carol’s waiting by his locker, popping her gum obnoxiously. “So,” she said. “Heard you were a bitch to Tommy.”

“Takes one to know one,” Steve replies. “If you’re here to convince me to stay an asshole, feel free to leave whenever you want.”

She shrugs. “Tommy can also be a bitch sometimes,” she agrees. “But the Hagan name holds almost as much power as the Harrington family.”

Steve offers her a crooked smile. “There’s more important things in the world than names.”

“Maybe,” she shrugs, unconcerned. “You know he’s majorly pissed at you.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I don’t really care.”

“I didn’t expect you to. Just thought you should know. He’s gonna try to get back at you.”

Steve snorts. “He’s welcome to try.”

“Alright.” Carol shrugs again, gently nudges his shoulder with her fist. “See you around?”

“Maybe,” he agrees, looking at her. “What do you see in him?”

She sighs, looks down the hallway. “I think once upon a time I saw who he could be.”

“And now?”

“I’m afraid of who I’ll be if I leave him.”

Steve offers her a commiserating smile. “You’ll be yourself,” he says. “But it can definitely be scary.”

She grins, sharp, pulling her mask back on. “Damn, Steve, when did you get smart?”

He smirks at her as he shoulders his backpack. “It’s not that. It’s that I finally care enough to say something.”

With that, he walks off to his next class, mentally thinking about his schedule and holding in a groan. Chemistry. He hated chemistry, the first time, and something tells him he’s going to hate it just as much this time around.

Permanent Taglist: @justforthedead89 @ilovecupcakesandtea @madigoround @bookbinderbitch @suddenlyinlove @nburkhardt @artiststarme @paintsplatteredandimperfect @i-less-than-three-you @alyelf @quarble @messrs-weasley @littlewildflowerkitten @vankaar @starman-jpg @bornonthesavage @steddie-there @goodolefashionedloverboi @andienotannie @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @platinum-sunset @just-ladyme @steddiestains @swimmingbirdrunningrock @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @martinskis-lydias @notaqueenakhaleesi @sleepyboosstuff @bestwifehaver @m-owo-n @thatonebadideapanda @finalmoondragon @velocitytimes2 @callmeanythjing @ajeff855 @ilikeititspretty @knitsforthetrail @sillysparrow @that-one-corvid @ace-is-bored @muricel @harpymoth @weirdandabsurd42

Fic Taglist: @blondlanfear @do-you-want-something-more @str4wb3rry-guy @paperbackribs @ninjapirateunicorns @bisexualdisastersworld @hiscrimsonangel @lolawonsstuff @xo-r4e @thedragonsaunt @l0st-strawberry

[yellourr]

Katniss gave rue the burial that she couldn’t give prim