#if we're all being honest

[orionchildofhades]

steddie swapping soulmate au part 6

part 1 |[...]| part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | Ao3

---

Walking the halls of highschool for the first time ever is more than a little intimidating.

Steve remembered the way his father had announced all and every single of his expectation before leaving.

the name Harrington means something around here and Steve has to remind everyone of it.

but those thoughts were easily out of the window by the idea of his soulmate.

just thinking of it was enough to make his heart beat fast, faster than any of the cars his father had shown him during the trips this summer.

and he might meet him just today

him

he remembered waking up, fifteen for barely a couple of day, in a new bed. in his soulmate's. in Eddie's.

relief, to find the proof of it, of him being meant for someone else, had soon left room for a frantic panic has he realised how he had turned into panic.

he was in a boy's body, and even though he did not mean to peek, his soulmate had gone to sleep in a lack of close that left almost nothing to the imagination.

except from a pair of boxer hiding the worst, he could see everything from shoulder length hair to very flat chest to a single pierced nipple that Steve had hurried to cover in the first shirt he found on the floor.

said floor had been covered in a frenzy of notebooks and clothes and a couple of papers crumbled and thrown in the vague direction of a trash can.

horror upon the view had taken hold of Steve's chest, hearing from here the screech his mother would let out of she ever found his own room in such a state before a startled laugh burst out of his lips.

it was so fucked up.

his father would kill him if he learnt his soulmate was another man.

but after a second, or a minute, of careful breath, Steve had stood up and went around the room, something reverent burning softly in his chest. his hands had followed the wood of the shelves, the spines of well loved books, caressed the glossy red of a stunning electric guitar.

it was scary.

it was exalting.

the idea of soulmate had always been a far away dream. no tangible reality to cling to. his parents relationship could be described as rocky at best and they always told everyone they were soulmates, the perfect couple written in the stars, god sent and blessed by the heavens.

(wait a couple of days of seeing him around before talking)

but they weren't exactly perfect.

they were screams and silences, evenings spent without a word, sharing a meal without warmth. they were wine bottles and glass full of bourbon. they were blank eyes upon harsh words. orders and expectation. they were not there.

the idea of a soulmate had always been a far away nightmare. something he wished so badly was different, would not happen to him, something binding him and someone else who would offer him nothing but quiet and loneliness.

but this room... it had been full of life. so unlike all his family had ever shown him.

it was like what his grandparents had tried to show little Steve once before they died and their memories faded in the past of a life that was not his anymore.

it was life and personality and a slight ordeal of chaos and, while Steve roamed the room, he slowly learned that, maybe, just a small and quiet maybe, this soulmate might not be so bad.

and he had learned about him, about Eddie. About this boy a year older than him, who lived with his uncle in a trailer park, who cooked and burned eggs when he was too preoccupied by his music but who, apparently, could make killer pancakes when he wanted. about the way he grew up, vaguely, hints here and there from Patricia, another soulmate, just as sweet as the smell of the cookies they had cooked, and much nicer than his own parents. once more.

maybe this all soulmate business is not as terrible as i thought, maybe the only terrible soulmates are my parents.

the voice was quickly shut down.

nonetheless, Steve had had the time of his life for a couple hours, using all the time he had to bath in the warmth of it all.

and the best part ? his soulmate lived in Hawkins.

So Steve walks down the halls of this new school, apprehention burning beneath his skin and the shimmer of excitment making everything glow a little bit brighter.

After all, not many soulmate can meet each other so soon. Wouldn't it be fantastic to actually learn from him, instead of through him?

Steve spends a few days trying to get a hold of the situation, understand the dynamics of the school and get a look at his soulmate.

He signs up in a few clubs, excited to see all the sports team he can join. He hangs around a couple of friends he had since childhood, the daughter of one of his dad's co-worker and the son of his mom's favorite neighbour.

Carol and Tommy. Carol was nice, a bit loud when she wanted attention and excited like never before to storm the world. Tommy had always been quieter, sticking to his friends and waiting for things to unfold. The three of them were close, years spent at each other's house, playing and fighting like children do, growing into gossiping and sharing secrets.

He did not yet told them about Eddie though.

Simply because Eddie is his to keep and his to know.

Soon, he thinks, i'll meet him soon.

At lunch this day, Steve sits between Carol and Tommy, a couple of older students across from them with smiles on their faces. The eldest Haggans, Richard, is senior and smile devishly at his brother when he annonces he joined the basketball team, laughing at his brother's expense when he explained he might try to get a scholarship this way. They all run in the same circles, even came several time at the Harrington's household when they organised parties for work.

In the corner of his eyes, he spies Eddie comming in the cafeteria alongside his friends. In the last week, he gleaned as many information about him as possible. He intends to see if he can talk to him after class during his club activities, perhaps even join it if he manages to find a way to hide it from his father.

He doesn't really understand the whole role playing business. Patricia had tried to tell him what she knew of it, which was not a lot. Things about magic and dragons and maths? somehow. Still, Steve became curious and couldn't wait to discover more about his soulmate.

Eddie's eyes slid on him across the room, before snorting at a joke from his friend. A bit of bread is thrown across the table, hitting one of the people on his cheek before they started bickering in midly wild gesture. He didn't glance at him a second time.

That is another strange thing about this situation.

Eddie had not come to him at all.

Steve has an excuse, except for his slight nervousness obviously. he barely knows the way to his classroom. Eddie on the other end, had all the time in the world to look for him.

But it was fine.

Steve remembers the way his head pounded when he came back to his room after swapping, to his body. Ideas and names might not be the clearest thing to remember.

All of it would certainly come back when, this afternoon, Steve would go to him.

It is with a sliht tremor in his hands and sweat dripping down his back that he makes his way toward the room in which the Hellfire club holds session. But the hope is stronger than the fear, the idea of someone taking care of him and being loved by him so important his heart swells and he steps forward, hand ready to knock.

the doors open by themselves, or rather by Eddie, who stands being them, arms wide open, towering over him with a hint of darkness behind his eyes.

"Well, would you look at that. A lost sheep." He announces with a booming voice, a sly grin on his lips. Steve can't tell whether it is directed at him or at his expense.

Nervousness creeps back, clinging at his shoulders and his cheeks tint lightly.

Behind Eddie, the rest of the club observes the scene with keen eyes, not saying anything. The table in the middle of the room is filled with papers, dice and small dolls? more like the things in the monopoly, thown across the board. They probably represent the characters, Steve realises.

"I, hum, I came to talk to you?" That sounded wrong. More like a question than an actual answer.

Shaking his head, Steve tries to stand a bit taller, straightning his back and looks at Eddie in the eyes. Big eyes, full of all the life he found in his room last time.

He shouldn't be scared. This is his soulmate. No use being nervous.

"And what would a Harrington want with little old me?"

Surprise hits Steve in the chest.

So he does know who I am?

Doubt starts to creep it's way into his brain.

"I wanted to join your club," he says, he glances behind his soulmate once more to look at who he thinks is the head of the club, trying to send a smile her way.

"And what club would that be?"

With a frown, Steve drags out his answer, "Hellfire," he reads of Eddie's shirt even if he knows it, showing the design with a finger and grin, hopping to take the strange tension in the air own a notch, "the dragons and dungeons club?"

Someone snorts in the room and Eddie's eyes darken slightly.

"Listen, we don't accept jocks here, everyone heard the loud statements you and your little friends are making by joining every sport club okay, and we don't accept the kind of people who hangs out with Richard fucking Haggan. This was a funny encounter, now move along."

His throat swells with telltale feeling of tears. Confusion and a strange pain course through his body. He takes a step back, frowning, trying to come up with something to understand why his soulmate, who clearly told him he recognised him, rejects him like that.

Did Steve do something?

"But, I wanted to-"

"Not interested," Eddie finishes.

The doors clap back right in his face, leaving him alone in the empty corridor, alone with the turmoil of feelings hacking at his heart and brain.

he swallows up tears before nodding vaguely.

well, that was just humiliating.

---

i love angst :)

remember, both Eddie and Steve are years younger than what we see in the show. We meet Eddie when he is 20/21 yo in s4, and Steve is 17/18 in s1 and 19/20 in s4. Here they are -barely turned-15 for Steve and 16 for Eddie. I decided to change a few things about how they act compared to later.

hope you liked Steve POV

this chapter is longer than my usal!

(i started this fic during my holidays and i only had my phone to type on, this is on a computer, therefore, longer. And with probably with more typos)

[toytulini]

listen im ace and im pro kink at pride and whatever, but the way some of yall are wording your posts in response to the backlash against it is uh. really taking me back to the ace shitcourse era.

yall know theres nothing wrong with being a "virgin", right? that its not inherently shameful to have not had sex, to never have sex, even if youre not ace, even if you do want to have sex someday, like, its fine that you haven't had sex?

maybe if your problem is that theyre trying to police your behavior and shame you for expressing your sexuality, you can say that? instead of resorting to "haha stupid virgin gets no bitches" like my god. do you not hear how fucking regressive that attitude is? i know, i know, youre "joking".

get a better joke

[claraoswalds]

JODIE WHITTAKER as THE DOCTOR Doctor Who - "The Woman Who Fell to Earth"

[itsjustelian]

You know you're in for a good time when all of the fics for a ship are tagged 'misunderstandings'

Like these bitches cannot and will not communicate.

[eucchabe]

offering you a panel redraw of the beloveds

[pinkjersey]

Tadej Pogačar & Jonas Vingegaard + Hands (2022 edition)

2022 Tirreno-Adriatico, Stage 4 | 2022 Tirreno-Adriatico, Stage 6 | 2022 Tirreno-Adriatico, Stage 6

2022 Tirreno-Adriatico, Podium Ceremony | 2022 Tirreno-Adriatico, Podium Ceremony | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 9

2022 Tour de France, Stage 9 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 9 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 11

2022 Tour de France, Stage 11 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 12 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 16

2022 Tour de France, Stage 17 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 17 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 17

2022 Tour de France, Stage 17 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 18 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 18

2022 Tour de France, Stage 18 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 18 | 2022 Tour de France, Stage 18

2022 Tour de France, Stage 18 | 2022 Tour de France, Podium Ceremony | 2022 Tour de France, Podium Ceremony

[giveemgreef]

no loser point but a lover point instead <3 vegas golden knights @ minnesota wild, 30 march 2024

[separatist-apologist]

I had a redbull today for the first time in three weeks and its weird how everything feels the same. Maybe is the same.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Here is the first headcanon we are expanding on:

-I think once adopted, Spider is a mama’s boy. He craves physical attention and he has been raised essentially Na’vi in a way that Jake hasn’t. I think he would connect with Neytiri’s parenting style more, I think they’d do a lot of weird shit together that the other kids would rather die than help with, like cooking or mending shit. I think Spider would be literally delighted to help with boring household chores with his mother and that’s so mamas boy of him. He’s a “mother, do you need help with dinner, can I do the dishes so you can sit down?” kid while all the rest of them are gagging and calling him a suck up in the background.

-Spider likes cooking. It's always been something he could help with easily even if he couldn't always eat what was being made. Kiri hates cooking and always has because she hates when her brothers expect her to cook. On Jake and Neytiri's date nights to avoid a fight, Spider would always just offer to help Neteyam.

-Neytiri does most of the cooking for the family. Jake is not a bad cook, he's just not a good cook. He has skills but they are mediocre. She does not mind, because she likes it. It's a chance to personally use Eywa's gifts and transfer them into energy for her family, a way to thank Eywa herself instead of just accepting the bowl from the clan cookfires. It's a calming mental reset every time, and the natural conclusion to every hunting trip.

-None of her children have taken any interest in this particular lifeskill. Kiri, who would sooner let her attention drift and let the cookfire burn the mauri to the ground, doesn't have the attention span for anything other than Eywa. Lo'ak has to be essentially bound and shackled to the cookfire to do any work, and he complains the entire time to the point that Neytiri gets a headache. Neteyam always helps with no complaints, but he obviously does not enjoy it much and it always makes Neytiri feel bad for forcing him because he's the most agreeable. Tuk is too young to be anything other than a nuisance during a task like that.

-So it's comes as a great surprise when, after Neteyam was shot and the demon child rescued, she finds him watching her every move every time she prepares a meal.

-At first she thinks it's because of the boat and the cut on his chest. The knife in her hand as she chops the roots. It's not not that, but it is something more. A curiosity for the direction she stirs a boiling pot, and for the order she adds the spices.

-It had honestly never occurred to Neytiri at all that the child had a personality or interests outside of things mimicked from her children. Insolence and loyalty from Lo'ak, disobedience and morality from Kiri, honesty and stubbornness from Neteyam, even playfulness from Tuk. But none of her kids are at all interested in cooking.

-Spider and Neteyam are both confined to the mauri for recovery, and Neteyam is out like a light by eclipse every night and has to be awoken for evening meal. Spider is silent at Neteyam's side, where he spends most of his time, like Neteyam has to watch him to be sure he's there. She doesn't ask him, just slides over a cutting board and a knife and then passes him a vegetable to cut.

-Neytiri would have to be blind to not notice how perfectly he copies her cuts from before.

-That continues, with Jake and the other kids none the wiser, for a few days, until eventually she puts him in charge of stirring. He has to leave the safety of Neteyam for that, but the lure of the task is too great. He stirs, counterclockwise four times and clockwise twice, just like she always does.

-The next night she tests him. Asks him to get out the ingredients for a certain meal, the one she made the first night she noticed him watching, over a week ago. He doesn't miss a thing. They work shoulder to shoulder, side by side. Every night on, she has him fetch the ingredients unless she shows him something new.

-Tuk is the first to catch them in their silent little game, coming in to see if Neytiri will deem Spider well enough to at least come see the stars, which look particularly clear that night. Neytiri says he can go, and is shocked by how sad he looks for one second before turning to Tuk, like she'd kicked him.

-When she directs him to start the meal the next night he seems surprised, and she realizes he thought the dismissal the night before was a permanent one. So when Tuk comes for him again when he's helping with lunch, she tells Tuk that he's busy. She is not good at reading body language without a tail or ears to judge with, but he turns even pinker than usual and seems to vibrate with energy for the rest of the day.

-Neytiri is fairly sure the entire family knows about the cooking thing, because she's pretty sure Neteyam is not actually asleep at every mealtime still at this point. He's really recovered a lot by now, and she's pretty sure he ratted her out and that's why the mauri becomes essentially off limits to everyone besides her and Spider during every meal prep time. Sometimes she thinks she can hear Kiri and Lo'ak chasing someone off who was trying to come visit.

-Spider and her do not talk for the most part, they just become increasingly in tune with each others movements. Cooking with someone is a hard pairing to match, and Neytiri usually finds it incredibly frustrating, even with Jake sometimes. Spider seems to be able to read her mind, hand her the exact right spice before she even finished the thought about how it was needed, or finishing dicing at the exact moment the vegetables need to be added.

-She finds his personality in tweaks he adds to her recipes, some needed to adjust for his human palate, but always compensated for in an explosion of creativity between them both to find an adequate or even superior substitute. She apologizes in lessons, basics and then the hard stuff, things she should've been teaching him for years. They learn in tandem, each other and the Metkayina cuisine, types of squid and clams and seaweed that add tastes that must be enhanced and balanced with the correct tools, just as a child must be to grow properly.

-She finds herself mourning days alone at the cookfire, or days with one of her other kids who wanted to be anywhere else. Days where he was likely waiting for them outside, interested in what she was doing but not wiling to ask.

-There is no direct apology, not yet. For now it is learning, and building new memories and experiences. His songcord, which she has now seen, is basically a recipe book at this point, Jake says. But so is hers. Songs of slicing meat that provides energy from Eywa, and souls meeting souls for the first time.

[furiosophie]

this would have worked with literally any of thrawn's friends and i think that's beautiful <3

[trophywifemac]

I think a lot about how Dennis used to be so much softer, more pliant in his late 20s and 30s, how he used to be more outwardly emotional and less rigid, even though he was just as manipulative and predatory, if not more so... and how much sense it all makes with him having bpd.

repressing your feelings to the point you can't even find them even when searching desperarely, unable to control them when they accumulate to the point of overflow, having your anger boil up to the surface when you can't do anything but have an actual tantrum, feeling hot and desperate and a little scared for how your grip on the situation is slipping until it's gone and you're still there — and he goes through this over and over without help or any non-self-destructive coping mechanisms.

just. yeah.

[daydreamerwonderkid]

I love Tim being depicted as having a caffeine addiction, but I have to confess that I never really saw him as much of a coffee drinker.

Idk why, but the mental image of Tim at ass o'clock in the morning typing away at his laptop with the rattiest hair, the ugliest eyebags you've ever seen, and a disgusting pile of empty Monster/Redbull energy drinks cluttering the floor just speaks to me.

[undertheredhood]

see what bruce (who is currently being mind-controlled which doesn't excuse his actions at all in any way, shape or form) doesn't seem to understand is that the only way jason can ever live a normal life away from all the chaos that comes with being involved in the hero/villain world is if it is jason that is choosing to live that life for himself instead of having that choice forced upon him, otherwise it doesn't work at all.

[accio-sriracha]

Unpopular opinion: I hate the taste of coffee and would happily go the rest of my life without it.

Did you guys see that? See what I did there?

That's called giving your opinion.

Not outright hate speech and discrimination against people for things they may or may not even have any control over.

If you want to give your opinion, great! I love opinions! They mix things up, keep everything interesting, and are really great topics for conversations!

If you want to be racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic, ableist, or any other kind of piece of shit type of person, keep your mouth shut!

Do we see the difference now, everyone?

[infizero]

i was gonna make this a silly comic but i think it's funnier in text form. anyways during the yotsuba arc light for sure had like a wet dream involving L one time that he wakes up in a cold sweat from, and L is next to him in bed on his laptop like "hmm, what's wrong light-kun?" and light just stares at him like he just watched him murder 5 people in cold blood

[keepingthepeaceinouterspace]

Ace saying "I respect what you want, I really do." Is something that can be so personal...