#spotify wrapped prompt meme

[philtstone]

Aragorn/Arwen, 63

#63 -- tujhe dekha toh from dilwale dulhania le jeyenge ok so the soulmatism of it all had me going completely nuts (simrans waking dreams.....i need to lie down) & before i knew it i'd re-read their appendix had 3 literary analysis epiphanies and was neck deep in the wiki page on love death and meaning and the paradox of religion and nonreligion in tolkein i say all that like i didnt just write movie verse kidfic lol. ellie is a shortened version of "nethel" which means sister in sindarin. in a different time in my life i would have named every single one of canon girldad aragorns "many daughters" & also included 5 of them but alas, at this time i am Busy. so we'll pretend that the other 3 havent come along yet. arwen has magic powers she will be fine. enjoy!

“My lady Luthien!”

The words come into Arwen's dream in the common tongue, whispered and full of a child’s awe. He is speaking as if to himself — the text has surprised him, or perhaps absorbed him so that he does not realize his mouth is moving, disrupting the Sindarin read privately in his thoughts with an impulsive, delighted exclamation.

To Arwen it is just as mesmerizing. She cannot know why her dream has brought her here, to this garden of her father’s House she has sought refuge in so many a time. She knows him very little, this child, not ten in the years of Men and so very human about it, with lanky limbs folded up against himself to cradle the book and a mop of dark hair that falls down over his eyes and the very beginning of spots on his chin (of endless intrigue to Arwen, who has only ever seen skin unblemished). 

She has not met him, but knows of him from her brothers’ letters: her father’s ward, sweet and grave and beloved amongst the Rivendell kindred as any novelty in the shape of a child might be. But Estel earns it, too. He is earning his presence in her dream in the same way, sat in the exact spot she always chooses, under bows of trees she has long considered friends. He earns it, though Arwen doesn’t quite know why he’s here. 

Don’t you? ask her thoughts of her self, and she does not answer.

Years pass, and she is home again.

“My lady Luthien,” he says, as she comes toward him, and within his voice is a gentle embarrassment that still manages to tease. 

Arwen, firm in her earlier, gentle rejection (he is far too young), cannot help but find this terribly charming anyway. It is just after dinner, and she has found him behind a pillar to the side of where they dine. He holds his cup in both hands. Until her appearance he was studying the carvings on one stone edifice to their side, and seems in every way his mortal age save one: there is a new and convoluted weight in his eyes that was not there in the early afternoon, when he called so clearly and sincerely to her. It seems to have entered like the broken branches of a sapling swept into a fast-moving stream after a storm. 

“I should be greatly flattered, Estel, to be compared thus,” Arwen says, offering that weight a smile. Estel drops his eyes back to the pillar. He seems to start and stop a few times before actually opening his mouth, and when he does,

“I should like to still be called Estel, for a while yet,” and there is great vulnerability there, in his young man’s eyes. It sneaks into her breast and cups a hand over the breath she draws, and despite the glade, and his youth, and the Truth her father has now shared with him, she is compelled: Arwen’s own hand slides over his knuckles, and they are holding the cup together.

“I will,” she promises. “I do.” 

On the edge of the last word do his eyes flick up to hers, canny in a way that sparks beneath her skin. He lives up to his name, she thinks then (not quite knowing why), and when she writes this to him after they have parted, in the letters they now share, he writes back: so do you.

Before Estel, her experience of Death was altogether different. She knew it first in abstraction and then in keen loss. Now she feels its imminance and urgency, in both grand and mundane ways.

For example, earlier this evening, Arwen thought she might die if she did not kiss him. It was a thought that crept over her swiftly, silent and keen as a fresh ice water brook spilling into open hands, very different from the thundering roar of the river spirits she had summoned to herself – until it was suddenly quite the same, roaring, and it must have shown in her eyes. In the late quiet of the night she came to her rooms and found him, there. 

(She has long since known why.)

The employment of her tongue is not new, but pulls a murmur out of him regardless. “My lady Luthien,” he starts, speaking almost directly against her mouth, with a wry amusement that is not so unburdened as to be playful and not yet a warning, either, and then he is properly startled into, “Arwen —!” when her next kiss includes a bite. The rasp of beard against her chin is uncomfortable and delightful. She can feel the rumble of her small victory in his chest. Aragorn has always done so much with just the two syllables of her name.

When she has lost all breath she pulls away, and does not pant — sweet air made salty by urgency comes in and out of her lungs in discordant sighs — but her lips stay hot against his ear and she feels every press of his fingers against the slope of her waist, burning. She thinks of death again; she has fought it off. Twice in one week now, in very different ways.

Aragorn does pant, in his own way. He lets out a quiet gasp and drops his head against the side of hers, not trembling but finding some stronghold deep within himself that begets composure. 

Slowly she begins to comb her fingers through the hair at his temple. In the dark alcove of her rooms (safe), they sway together.

“Tomorrow,” he murmurs, and she knows: tomorrow the council is held.

“I meant it, earlier,” says Arwen softly, into his hair. It has begun to grey, the strands too hidden yet to shimmer in the moonlight but there nonetheless. Every so often she will catch a glimpse of them and it will leave her wordless, and desperate to touch him. “Your fears are not the truth you think them to be.”

“Arwen.” She can hear the desperation that threatens to choke his own voice. Duty turns the peaceful twilight of her home into a foreboding shadow. There are two large warm hands on her face before she has noticed them move, and then she feels the wetness of her own cheeks: she had not realized she was crying. 

“I did not know it would be so momentous to love,” she says, while he wipes at her tears with war-roughened, gentle fingers. So many things about Men are a paradox. So many things about this man. 

“Meleth,” he says. 

“I meant it.” She repeats herself. “I know who you are in my heart, Estel.”

“You do,” he allows her, and she is not certain he believes it to be enough. No matter, Arwen thinks: her own belief will sustain them. It must, long enough that he has hope for himself as well as for Men, and then they might cross through the door, to the other side of the Dark.  

The Queen finds her husband in Faramir’s study, reading.

“My lady Luthien,” she is greeted, words threaded full of the subtle humour that has turned her head for over sixty years.

Arwen clasps her hands over the laden basket she packed without needing any kind of foresight and sighs thinly. 

“I did expect, mel nin, that you had gone the whole day without food, but I had thought you would be found holding grave council, or visiting the head healer, or even – forgivably – in the stables. Instead, you are here, nose-deep in an ancient poem.”

“It did not come to you in a vision?” he asks, and raises his eyes just enough to catch hers from beneath his lashes. This does nothing to diminish the focus etched into his dark brow, nor the way he holds himself (always it calls to her – it does not matter the shape), nor the deep blue of his mantle sweeping against the floor; he has not paused to change since returning from the Southern Wall. Whatever peace he thinks his feigned innocence will win him, she cannot know.

“Your Steward told on you, my love.”

“Aaah,” his face falls, so dramatically it is amusing.

She holds up her basket. “I have lunch.”

“My beloved wife has developed the sensibilities of a Hobbit,” Aragorn says, in her people’s language.

“Hobbits are good and noble creatures,” she retorts. She always argues better with him in Sindarin anyhow, “and have traditions from which we might learn.” She arches a brow: “Estel.”

“I am eating,” protests Aragorn, somewhat weakly. “I mean – I will.”

“You might do so now. With me – there is no one else here.”

It is a potent suggestion, she does acknowledge. She watches him think about it, proud to note all the little tells which she has known since he was a barefaced and impulsive young man. The same canny look sparks under Arwen’s skin. Once, decades ago, she had met him in the wild woods beyond her father’s borders in a stolen moment between darkness and duty, and convinced him to bathe with her in the river. She remembers her joy at seeing his wet dark hair plastered all over his forehead. She remembers his own joy, and how it fought off the lonesome blanket of the gathering shadow.

“Your thoughts are of something I know,” Aragorn says now, suspicion arching his tone and narrowing his bright eyes, no longer that of a young man but still full of a life that thrills her. “Some joyful mischief that you’re going to coax me into again, no doubt.”

“There is sadly no river in the palace.”

“Aaah,” uttered in a very different tone from before. His eyebrows twitch out of their focused furrow and his face warms with the memory. He lowers his book a little. “Arwen …”

But he does not move from his spot behind the desk, so Arwen places her basket down and sweeps forward, intent. The silver in his hair streaks liberally now, and lines furrow down his cheeks when he laughs – often – but otherwise Aragorn remains mostly unchanged from the presence filling so little yet so much of the many years of Arwen’s memory. Affection rushes through her, swelling like the river, growing like the trees in Lorien. That glade, too, is a memory full of joy. He is much better suited to a beard, though. Arwen tells him this.

“So you have said many many times,” Aragorn says, chuckling. “I have no plans of removing it from my face, beloved.”

“I know,” Arwen hums. “I am only observing.”

Slowly she comes around the desk, on even steps, until they are very nearly touching and she can fold her hands over the top of his book. She takes a long moment to look at him, and though she in her chosen mortality no longer carries the same potency of power that Tinuviel’s blood held before, she conducts her habitual scan of his spirit, the truth of it ebbing through her fingers where they touch. Beyond her duties as Queen (of which there are many, and she both capable and willing) this is what Arwen knows most deeply in her heart how to do. 

Finding Aragorn no more burdened than usual (though perhaps a little distracted) she leans in to whisper in his ear.

“Ah –” he clears his throat and touches two long brown fingers to her arm. Unexpectedly, then, Aragorn stage whispers, “We are not … as alone as it seems.” 

“What exactly do you mean?” Arwen, paused very close to his mouth, is compelled to whisper back.

And then,

“It’s alright!” comes a familiar little voice from seemingly nowhere, and all at once Arwen looks down to see the outside shape of the King’s voluminous cloak wriggle. Her mouth parts in surprise. The whisperer continues importantly, “You may kiss Ada if you like, Naneth. We are not looking!” 

“Ssssshhh!” materializes a second, equally familiar little voice.

Arwen tilts her head, mystified, as her husband sets his expression into something communicating exclusively the secrets and patient indulgences of fatherhood. Then he jerks his chin towards the door, eyebrows raised and everything, not a moment before there sounds the sharp cadence of what can only be a young boy’s footsteps (and Arwen would know this boy’s as she knows her own heart) and into the library bursts their only son. 

At the sight of his parents, Eldarion comes to an abrupt halt, and tries very hard to compose himself. 

“Ahem,” he says, straightening. She sees the way his body moves to mimic his father, and also the grass stains on his knees, and the disheveled mop of his curls that means he has definitely spent the last hour running around in the gardens. Arwen is unbothered by this. “Hello Ada, hello Naneth. Have you – have you seen my sisters?”

The front of Aragorn stays conspicuously still.

“Your sisters?” asks Arwen, clasping her hands demurely before her.

“I am afraid my attention has been elsewhere,” says Aragorn gravely, holding aloft his book.

“Indeed,” adds Arwen. “So much so that he has forgotten to eat.”

Minutely, the cloak quivers. 

“Hmmmm,” says Eldarion, lost in focus. “I must find them to create an alliance with the brave rangers in the North,” he speaks, almost as though to himself – he is really giving this quite a bit of thought. He is so absorbed that she could be in Rivendell again, drawn by a dream into her beloved, occupied glade … “For we must defend the townspeople but I cannot do it alone.”

Arwen blinks. Her heart is filled with tenderness.

“They have assigned you the role of orc again?” Aragorn is guessing, sympathetic.

Eldarion droops only a little before springing back up with full confidence. “Yes! But I am determined that we will create an alliance. I am a good orc, you see.”

With hasty goodbyes, he rushes away, taking the excitable sound of his footsteps with him.

A moment of quiet passes. Aragorn’s cloak begins giggling, so he spreads open his arms and herds them out one by one. 

“You must go quietly now, down the hall and into the gardens,” whispers their father.

“Naneth,” begins their youngest, halfway out the room, “Naneth, do you think if we formed a nalliance –”

“An alliance,” corrects Aragorn, still whispering.

“Shhh,” interrupts the other, “or Eldarion will find us!”

“But he must be getting lonely!”

“Oh, ellie …”

Their little voices trail out of the door.

“I believe an alliance would work,” Aragorn offers Faramir’s many inert books, speaking at a normal register once more. The study now empty, Arwen turns back to her husband. His eyes are twinkling. She does not say anything, but moves toward him, as she has done so many times before, and lays her head to rest against his shoulder. In moments the book is tucked away, and the warm hands she knows so well are cradling her arms. 

After a moment he says, “You are well? Arwen?” a gentle question in her ear. Arwen nods. She can now say what she knows, and why they are here: 

She sustained them, and there was hope to be found. 

Aragorn’s fingers rub over the gauzy sleeve of her dress. “Did you have your heart set on lunch?” he asks quietly.   

“I did,” Arwen says, and turns to hold his eye. “I do.” 

[kittyhelpsstuff]

Send 🎁 to receive a starter based off a random song from my Spotify Wrapped

Remember to state who the meme is for/or from for multimuses.

Add a number (1-100) for the starter to be based off the corresponding song.

[firstelevens]

song 25 + sambucky if you're still taking spotify wrapped prompts ☺️

25. Accidentally In Love by Counting Crows

When Sam’s phone goes off, he’s half asleep on his couch, buried under a small mountain of blankets and too congested to even really hear it that well. He only notices because it’s face-up on the coffee table and the screen catches his eye when it lights up.

He extends a hand out from his blanket nest and picks up the phone, wincing at the bright light of the display. 

It takes a second of squinting at the screen, but he finally manages to see that the notification is a text from Foggy: ‘any tips on how to handle your honors lit class? no subs available this morning so Hill has me covering’

‘Try not to show any weakness. They smell fear,’ Sam texts back. Then he adds, ‘There’s a Princess Bride DVD in the cupboard, you can get a key from Bucky.’

Foggy’s reply is predictably annoying: ‘does loverboy still think that you and me are dating? do I need to worry about him sabotaging my teaching in a fit of jealousy?’

Sam glares at the screen of his phone but it doesn’t do much, given that Foggy can’t see him. ‘Just for that you I’m not telling you where I put the Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet. You’ll just have to teach the ninth graders about iambic meter yourself next period.’

Foggy doesn’t get back to him for a while, which isn’t all that surprising. The beginning of the school day is hectic enough for a guidance counselor without having to unexpectedly cover another teacher’s class.

He stumbles to the kitchen to make himself tea, a blanket around his shoulders and his phone in his hand, but Foggy doesn’t reply for another twenty minutes. Sam’s head hurts too much for him to remember how neat the supply cupboard was, but he’s hoping it’s not so bad that Foggy’s just elbows deep in useless stuff.

After giving it another few minutes while he takes his next dose of cold medicine, he sends a text to check whether Foggy found what he was looking for.

The reply is immediate: ‘didn’t end up needing the dvd! I asked Bucky for the key and when he heard you were sick he said he’d handle it.’

‘Doesn’t he teach first period journalism?’

‘You’re sick so I won’t make fun of you for memorizing his schedule,’ Foggy writes, magnanimous as ever. Then: ‘there’s like five journalism students so he said he’d just combine them. said he could take your kids for the rest of the day too.’

Sam feels his jaw drop. Covering just one class is more than enough, but the entire day? When Bucky has almost a full slate of classes to teach, too? His face is suddenly all warm, and he’s at least fifty percent sure it’s not the fever.

His head is getting heavy again, and the screen is starting to hurt his eyes, but he manages to get a text out thanking Bucky for covering for him and assuring him that he can just put on movies for every single class.

He doesn’t have to wait long at all for the reply. ‘You’re welcome, Wilson. Now get some rest and stop worrying about your classes; they’ll be fine.’

Yawning widely, Sam types out a quick reply and takes Bucky’s advice, pulling the covers over his head and quickly falling back asleep.

Not having to field questions for subs or keep an eye on his email for questions from concerned students means that Sam isn’t repeatedly getting up when he’s supposed to be resting, and when he emerges from his blanket cocoon that afternoon, he can stand without getting dizzy for the first time in two days.

He celebrates by dragging himself into the shower, where the steam and the decongestant make it so that he regains his sense of smell, however briefly, and he feels more like a person than he has since Friday.

There’s probably an argument to be made for going back to bed, but Sam has never been great at being still, so he throws in a load of laundry and cleans up a bit while he’s on his feet. He’s about to make dinner, too, but then Sarah gives him a talking-to and makes him promise to order food instead, and Sam understands that she will instinctively know if he crosses her.

Sam already has the app open, scrolling through his options when his doorbell rings. For a second, he thinks that Sarah figured she couldn’t trust him to follow through and just ordered the food herself. Normally, he wouldn’t put it past her, but she’s getting the boat ready for a charter tomorrow, so he can’t imagine that she had the time or the cell service.

A peek through the curtains answers the question, though: there’s a familiar sedan parked in Sam’s driveway, a peeling Rutgers decal on the rear windshield.

“If you’re bringing me work to grade, I’m going to sneeze on you,” he declares, as he opens his front door to find Bucky waiting outside.

“I’m not a monster,” says Bucky, looking mildly offended at the thought. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” says Sam. “I can probably be back in tomorrow.”

Bucky narrows his eyes. “Or you could take a second sick day and actually get better instead of running yourself down again.”

“We’re supposed to be working on that stupid archival project tomorrow,” says Sam. “If I get another sanctimonious email from John about prioritizing my tasks, I’m gonna have an operatic meltdown in the middle of his classroom.”

“Entertaining as that would be, there’s probably another way,” Bucky says. “I’ll handle Walker for now. You just worry about getting better.”

Sam could probably push back if he really wanted to, but he can’t bring himself to be mad about Bucky looking out for him. “Okay,” he says, and Bucky’s eyebrows go up in surprise.

“Really? It’s that easy?”

“I blame the cold medicine,” says Sam. “I’ll be a pain in the ass again on Wednesday, I promise.”

Bucky smiles. “I look forward to it.”

“Well,” says Sam, after they’ve both been silent for a moment. “Thanks for coming to check on me; I really–”

“Wait!” says Bucky, and Sam stops in his tracks, eyebrows raised in question. “I didn’t just come to ask how you were doing. I, um– I wanted to bring you this, too.”

He holds out what Sam now realizes is a bag from the Thai place near the school.

“I would’ve made you soup myself, but I had to stay late with the yearbook kids, and my Ma would kill me if I half-assed her chicken soup recipe, but I know you like this place, so…”

Sam looks from Bucky to the bag of food and back, his eyes wide. “Thank you,” he says, and he can feel how soft his voice has gone around the edges. He probably should make some kind of joke to restore the natural order of things, but he can’t bring himself to do it. “You didn’t have to, Bucky, seriously.”

“I know,” he says, with a little shrug. “I wanted to.”

“Oh,” is all that Sam can manage to get out. “Okay.”

“It’s cold,” says Bucky, once Sam takes the bag of food out of his hands. “I should let you get back inside.”

He starts down the steps and Sam only belatedly remembers to call out, “I’ll see you on Wednesday!”

“See you then,” says Bucky, turning to face Sam and taking the last few steps to his car backwards. “Oh, and thanks for calling me cute!”

Sam feels his eyebrows lift in surprise. He wracks his brain to go over the last five minutes of conversation, but he comes up empty. “Wait, what?”

But all that Bucky does is hold up his cell phone before opening the door to his car. “Night, Sam!”

Suddenly, Sam remembers sending a text earlier today, clouded by the haze of exhaustion and cold medicine. His eyes go wide.

He didn’t, did he?

It’s only Sam’s dignity that keeps him from sprinting for his phone, staying in the doorway until Bucky’s car pulls away.

The second his headlights disappear, Sam throws the door shut and hurries to where his phone is charging on the kitchen counter. It takes two tries for him to unlock it with his face, and then he’s swiping over to his texts, opening up his conversation with Bucky and reading back the last few messages.

His eyes go wide as he reads his own words back.

‘It’s so cute that you use semicolons in your texts,’ he’d said to Bucky. ‘You know I’m not grading these for punctuation right?’

‘Maybe I just want to impress you,’ Bucky had replied.

And then, because that wasn’t enough, apparently Sam had replied, ‘Maybe you already do.’

He’s pretty sure that he’s never recovering from this, but just to make sure he learns his lesson, he texts a screenshot to Foggy with the message, ‘COLD MEDICINE SAM CANNOT BE TRUSTED!!!’

Foggy just sends him back a bunch of cry laughing emojis in response.

[dreamwatch]

For the wrapped meme: 11 & Steddie, if you please!

Thank you for the prompt, I really needed this to get my brain working.

You know until your ask I didn't realise I hadn't even specified a fandom! Stranger Things, people! (in case anyone else wants to send me a prompt)

---

#11 - Refugee by Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers

Steve is vibrating with anger.

They’re sitting in Eddie’s van in the parking lot outside Bradley’s Big Buy. Eddie’s looking in the rear view mirror wiping someone else’s spit off the side of his face with some grubby napkin he found in the glove box. He’s acting like he’s wiping some girls lipstick off his cheek. 

“Stop staring at me.”

Steve turns away, looks out the passenger window to see the prick from the store packing his groceries. The temptation to run over there and kick the shit out of him is so intense he ends up staring at his hands instead. He’s not sure why he suddenly feels like the bad guy in all of this.

“I feel like a drive, how about you, Steve?” Eddie’s voice is clipped, his tone all pinched and stiff. Steve just nods, there’s no point saying anything right now, he’ll get shot down and it will start a fight and he’s not in the fucking mood.

They drive for close to an hour, Steve taking surreptitious glances at Eddie from time to time. Over the hour he watches as Eddie’s shoulders relax, the tension in his arms loosens. Watches the transformation from an angry alley cat back to Eddie.

It’s not fair, but he learned a while ago nothing in Hawkins is fair. But what annoys him, what really incenses him, is how Eddie reacts to these bastards. He doesn’t fight back. He just grins, throws up those stupid horns, sticks his tongue out. He pokes the bear, and he looks like he’s enjoying it too, unless you really know him. Then you see the flash of hurt in his eyes, the way he stiffens slightly. The way he hunkers down for hours afterwards while he works through whatever the fuck is going on in his head. Which Steve can’t help might be faster and easier if Eddie would just talk to him. Or anyone. Just fucking talk.

The van slows and pulls off the road, stopping at the edge of a cornfield. Eddie shuts off the engine, killing the music. Steve sneaks a glance, watches as Eddie tips his head back against the headrest and closes his eyes. The engine tick tick ticks, the birds caw. An occasional car whooshes by. Eddie and Steve just sit.

A warm breeze flows through the windows, and Eddie pushes stray hairs off his face. He caught colour on his cheeks over the summer, the scar on his left one no longer looking so stark against his skin. Eddie took great delight in showing that off to the townsfolk of Hawkins. Sometimes Steve just wants to scream at him.

“I know you don’t get it,” Eddie says on a sigh, finally cutting through the last of the tension in the van.

“Yeah, I don’t. Sorry.”

“I don’t need you fighting my battles. I can do that myself.”

Steve shakes his head, “Didn’t see you putting up much of a fight.”

“That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?”

Eddie pats himself down, and Steve knows he’s looking for cigarettes. He also knows he doesn’t have any. He only has gas in the van because Steve gives him the money for it. No one will give him a job, Wayne gets less hours at the plant, and they all know why that is. So he gives Eddie gas money because he drives Steve around even though Steve has a perfectly nice car, and they both know what this really is. Just another thing they don’t talk about.

Steve lights a cigarette and takes a deep drag before passing it to Eddie. 

“I don’t know how you put up with it, that’s all.”

“And what else am I supposed to do, exactly?” Eddie takes a drag, and ashes the cigarette out the window. Doesn’t hand it back to Steve. He wasn’t expecting him to. “You can’t fight everyone, Steve.” And he draws his name out, in that way that makes Steve want to slap him. Like he’s being mocked. Like this is school, and he’s the mean boy. 

“Then— Then leave.” Don’t leave. 

Eddie rounds on him, eyes blazing. “Why should I fucking leave?”

“You always wanted to go, you said—”

“On my terms. My terms! Not because some hick cunt wants me gone. This is my fucking home, Wayne’s home. My family and friends are here. I nearly died for this place, Steve! I have more fucking right to be here than them.” He runs out of steam, stabs the cigarette into the ashtray likes its ablaze. “I’ll go when I’m good and ready.”

The sun creeps lower in the sky, and the light hits Eddie’s hair and it’s like a halo. He gets these moments, when he’s still, when he’s sleeping, when he thinks he’s not being watched, and his face relaxes and he looks like a boy. Just a kid. It’s not fair. 

Eddie scrubs his hands down his face, sucks in a lungful of sticky summer air, and then turns the key in the ignition. Music roars, and Steve jumps, it gets him every time. Eddie huffs, a ghost of a laugh, and reaches over to punch him lightly on the thigh. 

“Come on, let’s go home.”

The van turns in the road, heads back towards Hawkins, and despite the afternoon of worry and anger, all Steve feels right now is relief.

[moregraceful]

It took HR three hours to acknowledge my resignation 😌 but it is done.

I am not doing anything for the rest of the day and I'm about to reblog a prompt meme for kissing in five seconds (so I stop clawing my eyes out in Canva and do something less crazymaking - to be clear I was not doing anything prior to confirmation that my resignation was received either) and later I am seeing a friend for dinner whom I ghosted for two months because I was so miserable. She's excited to hear how I found a nonprofit that is a bigger shitshow than a public library. I will ask her for a work (or??? grad school?????) reference.

Last night at dinner, while I was doing a dramatic and humorous verbal reenactment of something deeply stupid, my mom said, "I haven't seen you smile in months." Guy who weaves joy into the fiber of his being not smiling for months around family he lives with? Lmao.

[landwriter]

8! ♥

my beloved Hooked on a Feeling by Blue Swede! It's gotta be - like no question, it's gotta be a romcom-energy Dream POV.

Hob cuddles Dream for the first time and Dream just falls in LOVE. It's totally platonic. He fell in a lake or something. And he's no longer near-hypothermic, he's ass over tea kettle in love. On the outside: stony and stoic. On the inside: writing poems about Hob. Jacking off about Hob. Looking at everything from a particularly friendly yellow tea towel to trees in a park and being reminded of Hob. (Hob said he liked forests, once.)

There's mutual pining and they both think it's unrequited, for an appropriately light-hearted and brief amount of time. Hob expresses his feelings by doing little flirting things that send Dream absolutely around the bend. Buys him potted plants. Gets him books. Bakes for him. Touches his arm. Dream presumes Hob is this friendly with everyone, because Hob is a Very Good Person, and Very Good With People, unlike him. Hob literally cannot help himself. His love shines out of him. Dream thinks Hob just looks that way all the time.

At some point, someone - anyone, literally anyone with eyes - mentions 'your boyfriend' to Dream, and Dream is like, "What boyfriend? Who?" and Hob, who is also there, in earshot, is like, "Yeah, who?", baffled because surely he'd have noticed Dream having a boyfriend, they spend so much time together these days, but also 100% ready to fight the man for his crime of existing.

And someone - Matthew, Lucienne, literally even the deli guy, just shakes their head and offers a silent prayer to the God Of Himbos that the two idiots figure it out within the next decade.

(They do.)

[cchapsticck]

66 & steddie of course

66. by and down the river - a perfect circle

The last time he saw Eddie Munson he was elbowing federal agents off of him while a gurney shakes through a hospital parking lot. His shirt's sticky with blood that's not his own. Eddie coughs, this horrible wet rattling thing, and he sounded. So totally unconcerned. Inconvenienced, maybe. Bored. His eyes all out of focus, blinking like a cat, looking up into the fluorescent lighting as they hit the hallway.  -halo- Eddie kind of wheezes out. And there’s a metallic jangling, Eddie’s wrist, bloody and open, subcutaneous fat digging into a handcuff keeping it there, like he’d tried to reach for what he thinks he’s seeing.  The sound startles him and in the moment of hesitation an orderly and a, fuck, cop or something, pulls him back, holds his arms behind him. Stops him from following. But he hears over the rattle of the caster wheels, over the chatter of agents and doctors, over the static of the PA above him, the last thing he hears Eddie say, to himself more than anything, is: ...that’s mean… And then no one saw Eddie Munson again. Agents assured them he was alive and well, simply relocated to an undisclosed location with an undisclosed identity but in the wake of it all it was hard to believe that any of that was true, even when he’d very much like it to be.

wrapped prompt meme

[curiosity-killed]

Spotty Wrap: 17

Bird Song by Juniper Vale

Send me a number and I’ll share the corresponding song from my Spotify wrapped 🎶

[nycorix]

Let's GOOOO

LMAO this is all from my nksverse playlists because of course it is~

[gccdstories]

// sometimes I wish apple and/or amazon music did the same sort of ‘wrapped’ thing like spotify because ... I don’t pay for spotify, and I don’t want ads, so I listen to the other ones and so I don’t get the wrapped thing... it kinda makes me sad. (because yeah, if apple and/or amazon has the same sort of feature, I’ve never seen it/discovered it.)

[taiturner]

NEW YEARS CLEAN-UP 🎊

rules: unburden yourself from the abandoned WIPS collecting dust in your folder and share 5 gifs, then tag five people. (tagged by @yenvengerberg, thank you i feel like i can do something useful with these things now 💖)

tagging with no pressure of course: @wyllhalsin, @capinejghafa, @cardvngreenbriar, @seance, @ayoedebiris, @ughmerlin, @craintheodora, @lottiemilfews, @natscatorrcio (yeah miles i'm tagging you to be funny i know what you did with those psds)

these are all from projects that i have in a folder titled "on the bench" that i want to pretend i'll come back to, but.... some of these have been benched for so long and they're no longer fresh in my head so i fear they'll be abandoned forever. should also be mentioned that a lot of projects on the bench are literally just me making all the typography first and then losing inspo when i actually wanted to gif things.... usually by the time i do start, i change my mind about the type anyway. i also have so many abandoned gifs from other gifsets i've already posted but i'm not even sure where to begin searching so... here are some things!

one of the many gifs i already created for a prompt from @yellowjacketsoctober to put the show in a different genre. ironically, a prompt that i came up with for the event specifically to make this gifset but didn't even complete. i spent so many hours and so many days trying to gif this entire arc for these three with the intent to make it a heist drama set but after so long i realized i was just giffing exactly what happened in the show and it started to feel pointless. but at least here's a preview of something that i'll never finish. my trio of all time, can they commit more crimes together please! (should also be said that this folder is 44gb because i already saved all the caps + because these psds are so heavy... new years clean up for real)

i don't know what it is about lydia that makes it so hard for me to finish any set for her, but every time i try i seem to always lose the drive eventually (probably because twd in general just feels really uninteresting for me to blend, for some reason). from a 2022 spotify wrapped meme, i'm pretty sure i restarted this specific gifset so many different times, unhappy with the colors and the blends and the text and everything -- which is why there are two very different examples here. my girl of all time though i will finish something for her eventually (and maybe even this one, because this song is still so good for her).

one of the many gifs that were abandoned by my scream vi set for favorite slasher in october. when tumblr first changed the image upload limit to 30, i promised myself to never take advantage of that too much, but i severely underestimated how many moments i would want to include for this movie and i made so many other gifs for this set but ultimately cut them so i could try to tone it down - 18 gifs in this set still feels like a lot but i spent so much time on this set that it was hard to part with many more. anyway here's sam being the hottest final girl in the world and correct about everything.

i don't know how long this has been on the bench but it was definitely a project i started way before season 2 even aired. i think i just got stuck and wasn't sure where to go with it, but anyway her!

extra spoiler for @wyllhalsin but this was supposed to be a pride edit in june for one of my favorite lgbt characters of all time. this show's camera movements nearly makes it impossible to blend anything so i lost the drive, but i will come back for felix someday (and for coty, obviously this set was for him).

[philtstone]

your choice of Fellowship members, 17

#17 -- "San Fransisco", The Mowgli's I've been in love with love and the idea of, Something binding us together, You know that love is strong enough :')

For all that Sam has only just traversed half of Middle Earth and faced unspeakable horrors, there is still a small part of him, which he is sure many a self-respecting Hobbit would be proud of, that feels wholly out of sorts at an event of Men so grand as this.

The food at Aragorn's coronation feast is right delicious, though. This does make Sam feel very confirmed in his choice of friends.

"I don't think they'll do it," comes Pippin's voice, while Sam finishes the last of his ale and happily digs into a very flavourful sweet potato pie, "there's too many people watchin'. And her father's right there and everything."

"I'll bet you half of Gimli's best pipeweed,” says Merry, “in ten minutes -- alright, fifteen -- they’ll be off. Go on, look at their faces, Pip."

"Bet on your own pipeweed," grumbles Gimli, rather more loudly than might be advisable. "And nae, they'll last another twenty yet. These elf types are made of unnaturally strong stuff, I've come to find."

"You're only saving the pipeweed because you are afraid of losing it to me," says Legolas calmly. "As I am correct in thinking they shan't last five."

Sam watches as Gimli takes back his compliment, and Legolas's flagon of ale, with great ceremony. Legolas is handed a second, unscathed flagon immediately by Pippin, who seems to have produced it out of thin air.

Amongst all the everything else, Sam has to admit there's something relieving about being able to simply sit in companionable tomfoolery with his old friends. There is still loss, lingering around them, but it doesn't hurt so -- certainly not at a time like this, when joy ripples through the room like a bubbling brook, carried by most everyone in the court but none so effortlessly as Aragorn himself, whose face -- ever grave, often warm in Sam's memory -- is transformed completely into a beacon of radiant, cloudless laughter.

Beside him, almost literally glowing with her own happiness, is Lady Arwen.

Throughout the former half of the day, Aragorn had admirably devoted his attention to any and all who required it, with a forward sincerity that no one could question. It’s by now late evening, and the King and his lady have spent the day standing closer and closer to one another until now they are all but bound at the hip like lovers (which Sam supposes with a little private nod to himself they are), sat at the great table at the front of the room (most folk are too caught up in their own celebrating to notice anymore), arm in arm (like black-eyed Susans wrapped ‘round each other!), and with their heads bowed such that their cheeks almost touch but not so much that the whole hall can’t see their delighted, whisper-y, intimate laughter. 

They’ve been at it for nearly an hour by now. It’s a little hard to tell whose robe starts where. Sam’s sure that were this any other time and place, there'd be a lot of tongues wagging about propriety and such.

Then again, Sam doesn't know much about propriety when it comes to Men and Elves, does he? 

“I’m telling you,” says Merry. “Fifteen more minutes, and then we’ll look over, and they’ve snuck off.”

“No, no,” says Pippin, wiping importantly at his froth mustache; they are, Sam’s got to admit, all a bit in their cups. “They’re too much in their own world. I don’t think it’ll occur to them to do it.”

“Five,” says Legolas primly. “The people are reveling and Lord Elrond looks pleased.”

“He’s looking pleased at the wall all the way over there,” says Gimli, stifling a dignified burp. He passes Legolas the ale again, who takes it and finishes it off, “which is well enough, I’d agree, but dear Pippin makes a good point.”

“Why thank you, Gimli.”

“What do you think, Frodo?” asks Merry, crossing his arms in a preemptive triumph.

They all look over; Frodo’s been more quiet than any of the rest of them all evening, which is to be expected these days. Sam thinks this with a sharp ache in his heart. Merry and Pippin and Gimli, alongside many others, have loosened their proverbial neckties and rumpled themselves the way grand feasts ought to rumple you; even Legolas has hairs sitting the wrong way on his head. Save the scarf Pippin lent an hour ago for additional warmth, Frodo looks just as he was early this morning: clean and tired, and occasionally with a small smile on his face whenever he looks upon his friends. For Merry's question he does not have a smile, and takes a long moment to answer, and Sam worries that perhaps in their own enjoyment they’ve left him too long to be caught in his own head and heartache – on a night like this! – and the thought carries with it a sort of sadness that a Sam of only a year ago wouldn’t have thought possible.  

Then Frodo says,

“The real question we ought to be asking, Merry, is — how much do we think Aragorn has had to drink?”

And he isn’t his old self, to be sure, but he’s got a little sparkle of mischief in his eye that gets Sam grinning a big old grin.

The collective begins muttering contemplatively amongst themselves quite immediately.

“Now that is a good question,” says Merry. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him have more’n a cup,” opines Gimli. “Now, Legolas — Legolas --" (He reaches an arm over to swat at the elf) "you've known him longer than the rest of us --"

“Hmmmm,” is all Legolas says, deep in a consternated focus, looking with such drunken intensity at the king that Sam thinks it’s a miracle Aragorn doesn’t notice.

Or maybe he does, and is just ignoring them.

“He does seem awful giggly-like,” says Pippin, drawing his chin back with wide eyes and a voice tinged with a bit of awe, “that’s right enough.”

Even Sam finds himself seriously considering Frodo's question.

Then,

“He has had barely a drop,” interrupts a sudden, sonorous voice, and the group of them startles sharply. There, of course, is Gandalf: appeared robed and overall perfectly put together behind their table, sucking serenely on his pipe where he stands tall above them, “for the King's attention has been elsewhere; what you are observing is simply the effects of being in love.”

His eyes twinkle with the same mischief Frodo's held.

“Or,” Gandalf adds slowly, “indeed, what you are not observing.”

He nods with significance, and Sam turns back to see a thoroughly empty pair of seats.

“Oh!” exclaims Pippin.

“How long’s it been?” demands Merry.

"I cannot see them!" cries Legolas.

“Oh, not four minutes,” says Gandalf gravely, and Legolas makes a dismayed face.

“But a moment off!” he laments.

“So I suppose not a single one of you may claim Glimli's good pipeweed,” Gandalf informs them. He blows a perfectly shaped smoke ring towards Merry, who sighs with yearning; Pippin is still looking around the room open-mouthed with surprise. “Now, if you might excuse me, I must go meddle in some affairs,” says Gandalf.

He sweeps away, towards the other far corner of the hall, where between the dancers Faramir stands shooting looks (Sam's sure he himself has had such looks in the past) at a resplendent (if slightly red cheeked) White Lady of Rohan.

Sam sits back in his seat. It's true, all in all: Aragorn and Arwen really are nowhere to be found. Lord Elrond, Sam notices, continues to look very determinedly at that wall, but with a happy sort of expression on his face.

Sam's seen just enough of the world to figure when how some elves are feeling, at least.

"He could've come said goodnight," says Merry, sounding slightly put out.

"Ach," says Gimli, with a surety that's very characteristic of him, yes, but terribly comforting all the same. "We'll see him again tomorrow."

And the simple truth of it, Sam thinks -- if just for now -- might be the greatest relief they've all felt in some time.

He looks towards Frodo; he has a hand held over his mouth, and is working very hard to smother his laughter. With another private nod to himself, Sam digs back into his potato pie.

“So …” begins Pippin's voice again after a moment, emerging from the cheerful bustle and chatter around them. “How long do we think, 'til Faramir and Eowyn sneak off?"

[tunastime]

eyllo tuna ^-^

16 from your spotify wrapped for the writing thingy ^-^

hi artsy, hi leaf! I've stuck you both together :3 I hope you don't mind! I played kingdom dance a lot when I was planning things for my d&d character, so that's why it's number 16!

(397 words)

Tango rises to his feet.

The fire in front of him is still healthy, eating up the heavy oak logs thrown across it. He can hear the faint pop and crack as the flames lick the wood, and here in the middle of nowhere, there's nothing but that, the slow trickle of water through the river, and the sound of bugs. Tango flicks his tail. The sky is clear tonight.

There's chatter far off from him, something easy and light that he tunes out in favor of glancing down at the person next to him. It's supposed to be an easy night, that's what this rest day is for, and Jimmy, it seems, is taking full advantage. He pillows his head in his hands as he lies back, blinking slow up at the sky. His eyes flick over briefly as Tango moves, and he smiles with just the edges of his mouth.

Tango extends his hand. Jimmy blinks, making a questioning noise. Tango smiles, and the smile grows a bit more as Jimmy keeps watching him, and he splays his fingers out to him.

"C'mon," Tango says.

"What for?"

"Let's dance," Tango says, the rush of words already tumbling out of his mouth before he can be nervous, or anxious, or feel really really stupid about the whole question. There's not even any music anymore. It's just fire and chatter and noise.

He can see, even in the flicker of light, a low, red flush in the high of Jimmy's cheeks.

"It'll be fun," Tango prompts. Another stretch of his hand, hoping Jimmy will reach.

"I don't know how to dance," Jimmy says, and fits his hand in Tango's, lurching to his feet. Tango wobbles as Jimmy pulls his arm, and they straighten each other out. Jimmy's hands come to Tango's elbows, cupping around his bicep. Tango clamps around Jimmy's forearm. He's still giggling, somewhere in his chest, and with Jimmy in front of him now, illuminated by the fire behind him, he's having trouble stopping.

"I'll teach you," Tango says, voice lowering, not entirely on purpose. Jimmy blinks again, owlish, like he's still trying to choose, before his expression softens, and his hands find Tango's.

"You know how to dance?" Jimmy asks, tilting his head, a smile creeping onto his face.

"We're about to find out," Tango laughs, and pulls the two of them a little closer to the fire and warmth.

(spotify wrapped ask meme)

[firstelevens]

last line tag game

my beloved @monroesimons tagged me to post the last line I added to my WIP

“I’m cutting you off,” Bucky says, swiping his coffee mug and setting a bottle of water in front of him.

no-pressure tagging @birdhapley, @philtstone, @bisamwilson

[dreamwatch]

Spotify Wrapped Writing Prompt

Look, I was pretty sure someone asked for this, but I can't find the ask and I've written it and I think I'm a little bit in love with it, so sharing anyway.

-----

#66 - Hard To Handle by The Black Crowes

Eddie hates waiting in line. Life is too short (a lesson he learned the hard way) for standing around waiting for things. With the exception of getting gig tickets or getting into those gigs. Both valid reasons to wait.

Maybe less so this gig.

It’s not really his scene, there’s more than a few poseurs in the line, but Kyle likes the band and, as so often is the case with them, Kyle gets what Kyle wants.

Eddie gets… a little less.

He’s at the stage in his life, at the grand old age of twenty four, where he craves companionship over sex. While his friends are still fucking around, literally in some case, Eddie needs to settle. Needs the peace and stability. And he’d never, ever, admit it to anyone, but he needs to be taken care of. The thing is, thats a hard sell in your early twenties. But Kyle got it. Got him. His need to be looked after. The fact that he had scars and trauma and health issues from ‘an accident’. He was okay with all that.

For a while, anyway. Things change though, right?

Eddie earns shitty money, so Kyle pays more of the rent, and he gets the sense more and more that one wrong move, one missed pay check, or fuck, if he lost his job, Kyle would throw him out on the street. What’s love got to do with it? as Tina would say. So he finds himself toeing the line more and more. Doesn’t argue about the stupid shit, let’s Kyle have his way more and more. Just little things.

Little things mount up to be big things, though.

So yeah, he comes to gigs he’s not really into and he sees bands he might not have bothered to, and he listens to music thats okay, but it’s not him, you know? Its like, him adjacent. 

And all of that is why he’s standing outside the Ritz Music Hall in Indianapolis, freezing his balls off, waiting to get in to see The Black Crowes.

Kyle got to talking to some people in the line, and Eddie just smiles and makes out like, yeah my god, great band, like he wouldn’t have been arguing a few years back about how Iron Maiden were clearly the superior artists. He doesn’t have the fight in him for those kind of arguments anymore. So he nods and smiled, hands shoved in the pockets of his shitty old leather jacket, scarf pulled tight around his face. Tight around that scar.

He zones out and he’s looking around, people watching, killing time. Eyes up and down the line as he keeps moving to keep warm. And he spots it, about thirty people ahead of him, that swoop of brown hair that he knows oh so well. 

No fucking way.

He tells Kyle he thinks he’s spotted a friend, won’t be a second, and all that, and then heads down the sidewalk.

“Steve?”

Chestnut Swoop spins to look at him, and he didn’t even need him to, he knew who it was. Knows that hair anywhere. Those shoulders, the way he carries himself, the way he moves. Eddie knows it all.

“Eddie? Holy shit!”

Eddie nearly gets knocked off his feet, Steve lunging toward him and practically pulling him off the ground into a bear hug. He’s kind of lost for a second, before he wraps his own arms around Steve and squeezes back. He smells good, and Eddie recognises his cologne. Eternity for Men. He picked it out for Kyle, and Kyle just scrunched his nose up and walked off. Steve’s wearing it. Something Eddie would have chosen.

Steve pulls back from him but hangs on to his arms, like he’s taking him all in. Eddie’s heart is thundering in his chest.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Actually, scratch that, where the fuck have you been?”

“Here, in Indy… mostly. It’s a long story.” Steve raises an eyebrow but Eddie plows on, doesn’t give him a chance for a follow up question. “What about you man, here to see... “ he points to the marquee up above. 

“Yeah,” answers Steve. “Yeah, there’s a few of us from work and, fuck! Robins here! She’s gone to pee,” Steve looks around, as if Robins pissing in the street, “uh, somewhere. Man she’s gonna lose her shit when she sees you.”

They talk, and Steve introduces his work friends and Eddie can’t help himself, he’s checking them out trying to work out which one is Steve’s girlfriend. Robin screeches “Eddie!” as she runs up the street, practically throws her self at him. He gets the overwhelming urge to cry. He’s feels like an idiot. 

“Eddie? Come on man, we’ll lose our place.”

Kyle comes up behind him, looking mildly pissed. He’s eyeing up Steve’s friends and then his eyes are all over Steve. There’s no way he doesn’t recognise him. Eddie has a photo album that he started putting together in 1986. Pictures of the kids, of Wayne, of Robin and Nancy and Steve. There’s one of the four of them sitting on the porch of Wayne’s new trailer, beers in hand, all cheering at the camera as Wayne took the photograph. Eddie and Steve practically in each others lap. That one is in a frame. Kyle clocked something there straight away. Eddie gave him nothing. Close friend, he said. Kyle huffed, sure. Subject closed.

It was the weirdest thing. And it wasn’t just trauma bonding, or whatever the fuck Robin called it. The trauma got them together, maybe, threw them altogether on a big spin cycle and spat them out, but Eddie and Steve clicked. They’d have clicked without it. So easy to say opposites attract, but they weren’t that different really. Not when you scratched the surface. 

And it wasn’t really anything but it wasn’t really nothing, either. There were late nights under blankets, and well you’re staying over and it’s cold so you may as well climb in the bed, dude, and I can’t sleep wanna go for a drive? and arms thrown around shoulders, and sitting side by side, knees touching. There were pinkies linked, hands over hands, lying in bed crying, foreheads touching. Nothing, but everything.

They had two good summers before Steve said he was moving away. Nothing for him in Hawkins, apparently. Eddie couldn’t hide the hurt, so he ended up burying it in the back of his van with his backpack and his guitar and left town first. Said goodbye to Wayne and just took off. He came back for holidays and birthdays, but if Steve or Robin did the same, Eddie never knew.

And now they’re outside the Ritzy Music Hall in Indianapolis and it’s November and its cold and Kyle is standing there like he wants to start swinging his dick. And Eddie? He just wants to grab Steve by the hand and run. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t run now. He follows.

“Um, I should get back,” he says.

Steve’s brows dip, like he’s confused. “Fuck no! Cut in with us. I’m not letting you out of my sight, dickhead.” Steve laughs but it’s stiff and his eyes don’t really leave Kyle. 

“We’re good, thanks.” Kyle throws his arm over Eddies shoulder, pisses on his territory for all to see and starts to drag him away, but Eddie pulls out from under him.

“Just a second,” says Eddie. Kyle cuts him a look, sharp and beady. Eddie reaches into his pocket, finds a scrap of paper. No pen. Shit.

“Ooh, yes, pen! I have one!” says Robin, and he loves her, and fuck he’s missed her so much. And her hair is different, and she looks so cool. It’s only been three years and he’s missed it all.

He jots his number down and hands the paper over, before snatching it back and adding another.

“Top is mine, or Kyles, I guess,” and he’s so embarrassed at that, “but the bottom one is Waynes. He’d love to hear from you.”

And so its goodbye, and call soon, and he’s back in line with Kyle and Kyle is in a shitty mood now. Declares how he just wanted to enjoy his night, and well apparently Eddie running into the best friends he ever had, the ones he ran away from so they couldn’t hurt him first, well that just fucked Kyle’s night right up. 

They’re in, eventually, and the band come on, and now Eddie at least has noise to drown out the thoughts ticking over in his head. He feels suddenly so empty, so cold. He has work in the morning, and he’s starting early and he could feign any number of ailments at this stage, but there’s this terrible little thought at the back of his mind that he could end up with all his shit thrown out in the street. 

The band play a slow song, one he knows is called Miserable and deep inside he’s laughing at himself. Kyle is swaying away, one step away from getting his lighter out by the look of him, so Eddie taps him on the shoulder and tells him he’s going for a piss.

There’s another line at the bathroom, everyone else jumping out during the slow song, but eventually he’s at the front, gets in an out in less than a minute. He doesn’t want to go back inside. He keeps looking around, hoping he’ll see the swoop, or Robin’s pink streak in her blonde hair, but the place is packed and it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. He fucks off to the bar instead. Another line. Why not?

The song changes, and he knows this one, intimately. It’s an Otis Redding number. He has a really intense memory of his dad singing it for his mom. His dad fucking loved Otis Redding. It punches something inside him and he feels breathless. He gets to the front, orders his Jack and coke, he’s in a go big or go home kind of mood now, and its not until he opens his mouth to order that he tastes blood. He raises his hand and touches his lip. He was chewing it and he didn’t even notice it. 

His mind’s in a fucking pit now, and there’s this song and he just wants to go home, but it’s not even his. Nothing is his. 

There’s a hand tapping on his shoulder and like, a fucking fight is the last thing he wants and the best thing that could happen to him tonight. He turns and gets a face full of Steve Harrington.

“Hey, you okay?” How does he do that? How does he just stay so reasonable, so considerate? Eddie ran away and they see each other for the first time in years and he could be pissed and angry but instead he just makes Eddie want to climb inside him.

“No,” Eddie says, honest for once. And then Steve’s hand is in his and he’s being dragged from the building, and they’re out on the street, and fucking Kyle, he’s going to—

“Hey, Ed, dude look at me.”

“Kyle—”

“Fuck Kyle.”

“What?”

They’re back on the sidewalk, with the smokers and the early leavers, and it’s fucking cold so he can’t hide the shiver. 

Steve rubs his hands up and down the sides of Eddie’s arms, because he remember. The way the cold seeps into Eddie’s bones and never leaves once it’s there. He remembers.

“I said fuck Kyle.”

“I have to…”

“You don’t have to do anything. You look fucking miserable, and I don’t like the way he talks to you. I don’t like the way you shrink when he stands next to you. You used to shine. He doesn’t make you shine.”

And what is he supposed to say to that?

“I’d make you shine.” Steve says that. Steve Harrington says that to Eddie Munson. Eddie stops breathing.

“I…”

“I’ve missed you, Eddie. So fucking much.” Steve looks right at him, eyes bright and wet. 

Eddie can barely answer, his throat tight. He sniffs, just nods like a fool in the middle of the street. “I’ve missed you, too.”

“Let’s go somewhere. Get some food or something.”

“Robin—”

“Robins fine, she’s with her girlfriend.”

And he just nods again, like a dashboard ornament. “Kyle—”

“Do you love him?”

“What?’

Steve laughs. “I said. Do. You. Love. Him?”

Does he?

He loves having someone at home when he is because he hates being alone. He loves having someone lie next to him in bed so that when he wakes up the world feels real. He loves having someone to cook for, someone to go grocery shopping with. Someone to hold when they’re having a bad day, someone to hold him when his world is falling apart. Someone to show his favourite films to, to play his favourite albums to, to share books with. To laugh with. Someone to sit in the drive in and hold hands with. He loves that.

But he doesn’t love Kyle. And Kyle doesn’t love him.

“You always know, don’t you?”

Steve smiles at him, that cocky little smirk of his. Gorgeous.

“I always know.”

Steve takes his hand and they walk together.

Side by side.

[ethanhuntfemmefatale]

Spotify wrapped meme but BillRita and song uhhh 51 👀🦴

HEY so this is late but I rewatched the movie and finally figured out what I wanted to do with this prompt

Song 51 is "Everlong" acoustic version by Foo Fighters. My concept was to try to capture the song's bleak romanticism, with Rita POV on a mid-canon Cage. Incidentally, you can read the ficlet without this knowledge, but I imagine Cage being post-farmhouse, and after the realization about the visions being a lie, taking a couple runs to just train with Rita and pretend they're still in early stages.

Billrita, 558 words:

He doesn't talk much. Grim. In between sessions he sits on the floor against the wall, like a statue in the mech suit, until Rita says they can go again. It's almost peaceful. They've been training on and off well into the night--they have a couple hours before morning, when Rita should probably shoot him.

“Go again, Cage,” she tells him, and Cage starts the process of getting up in the mech. Partway, he stumbles, and his face twitches with frustration as he uses the wall as a brace. Rita watches him for longer than she should, the way his shirt bunches around his hips. She turns away to boot up the robots.

They fight on either side of the stone arena at first—Cage’s grunts and bullet sprays filter from a distance through the clash of sword on steel—but soon they meet in the middle, not touching or looking at each other, but moving around each other, sometimes fighting the same enemy. Cage’s style is clumsy, and his command of the mech is bad, but he’s solid. He tackles the robots with a doggedness that ends in a kill. Rita can predict him easily, and use him as a prop, like a bookend or a paperweight.

When the exercise ends, Cage turns and starts to stomp over to the side again, to slump like a puppet with his strings cut, but Rita says, eyeing his retreating back, “Get out of the mech.” He pauses for a beat too long. Either this is new behavior from her, or he’s laying it on thick to make her believe she can surprise him.

The mech clicks as it withdraws and he steps out of it, leaving it half-open and grasping. His feet are quiet on the stone floor. He’s in his socks, black socks, she notices as he turns towards her, and a t-shirt that shows his arms.

Rita disengages her own mech with a swipe of her thumb and steps out. She strides across the length of the room until she’s only a few steps away. Cage keeps his eyes on her the whole time, and doesn’t move.

“Have I had you do a plank for me before?” says Rita.

“No.” She itches to correct him—"no, what?" "No, sir."

Instead she says, “Can you do one?”

“Yes.”

“Go,” she says.

He drops immediately. His body isn’t made for strength work, his arms starting to tremble within a few seconds, but he doesn’t show it in his face. His hands splay out against the stone, stark tension in his tendons.

Rita crouches next to him. He cuts a strange figure, serious, looking at once like a struggling child and a soldier, his legs stiff as boards. He takes steadying breaths, and his teeth worry into his bottom lip, which looks chapped. She could trace a line from his ankles to the nape of his neck. He doesn’t look at her.

“Your form isn’t bad,” she says, and he twitches. His composure stutters—he probably has another thirty seconds in him. “Go another minute.”

Cage's gaze flickers to her, the miserable pinch of his eyes making something spark in her chest. He gasps out, “I'm gonna die if I do that, Rita.”

"I'm killing you after a minute either way," she tells him. He looks at her and sighs, low. His body holds.