#tagging this as simply robin because that right there is all of them

[danny-chase]

one day i'll learn how to draw properly...

[tinkerbelle05]

Bruce Wayne being a proud parent headcanons

Bruce is the type of dad to just endlessly and shamelessly brag about his kids to anyone who would listen. Be it during patrols, galas, PTA meetings, business meetings, hell even JL meetings. The man doesn’t care at all.

Bruce would have a stuffy wallet that’s just pictures of his babies doing wonderful things. There’s a picture of a tiny Jason with a big smile holding a blue ribbon with a A+ on it for winning the school’s spelling bee and right next to it is Damian with a sheepish expression and bright red cheeks, holding an art piece he did that got a 100 on.

Of course what’s in the wallet differs on what Bruce is doing. He’s not gonna pull out a picture of Cass’s recital as Batman, which leads to the rumor of the Batfam wearing their costumes 24/7. That makes them scarier than they were before.

In that wallet, there’s a photo of Dick as Robin smiling with two thumbs up while a goon lays unconscious, a picture of Robin!Tim trying to get a cat out of a tree, and a picture of Signal helping an old lady cross the street while Spoiler holds her groceries.

And of course if said kid is next to him, well expect to have 20 minutes of your time being spent by Bruce Wayne gushing about his little boy. While said “little boy” is like 6’5 and can easily tower over the both of you with a deep voice. And Bruce doesn't even notice (and if he does, he simply doesn't care) and continues with the conversation.

Damian is the most embarrassed by Bruce’s bragging, being unused to this much praise being expressed openly, while Jason and Dick relish in the praise Bruce gives them because Dick is a natural-born performer and Jason is the youngest child at heart who needs to have all of his Dad’s attention on him.

Tag: @bruciemilf, @akikkobara, @growingupbrown, @iwantadamusername, @jasontoddispoly, @odd-spooky-rainbows, @mexican-owlgal, @iamyouraveragestudent, @truck-kunwillbeourlordandsavior, @just-a-gal-with-a-boomerang, @classybananacoloregg, @dimension-hopper, @wiboo07, @adrunkskeletonsduck, @home-of-sexual-and-dumb-of-ass, @queerly-bel0ved, @skylions-den, @seasonsyeetingsstuff, @foulsandwichmusic, @mysteriesgalplusdamianthings, @profoundpacmilitaire, @insanebutteredtoast, @thenamessexual-homosexual, @jasontoddispoly, @bittersweetstargazer, @growingupbrown, @onlyhereforthechaos, @s-ourbuns, @suhnisideup

[steddiehyperfixation]

so you don't get lost (steddie ficlet)

written for @steddielovemonth day 17 rating: T cw: alcohol tags: first kiss, clubbing, college au, platonic stobin prompt: Love is about a hand reaching out to you so you don't get lost

“She’s totally into me, right?” Robin asks as they wait for their drinks at the bar, her smile a mile wide, and it’s been a minute since Steve’s seen her smile like that. 

“Yeah, totally,” Steve agrees. The girl Robin’s been talking to all night is drifting back over to them even as they speak, the two of them like magnets since they first traded smiles on the dance floor earlier that night. 

Robin glances back at her and bites back a wider grin. She bounces on her tippy toes and whispers to Steve, “If I make out with her it’s not gonna make you feel awkward, is it?” 

Steve shakes his head. “Go ahead,” he encourages. 

It had been a group effort to get Robin out tonight. Her university friends had enlisted Steve to help drag her out of the mopey funk she’d been in since getting broken up with two weeks ago, and it had taken an hour of Steve hyping her up while she kept crying off her attempts to do her makeup before she finally managed to make it to the club. He’s just glad it had been worth it. 

“I don’t even know if I remember how to do this,” Robin mutters, a little nervously, as she and Steve grab their drinks and rejoin her friends on the dance floor. But it turns out, she has nothing to worry about. The two girls resume their orbit around each other, and the second the next beat drops and the lights strobe, the other girl finally pulls Robin into a heated kiss. Steve watches this, and he smiles fondly. She deserves it. He’s happy for her. 

And he’s totally not jealous. Not necessarily of Robin, obviously, or the girl she’s kissing, but simply of the fact that they’ve so easily found a hot drunk stranger to make out with at the club and he…hasn’t. He can’t even remember the last time he’s had a decent kiss, much less scored at a club, though not for not wanting to. 

Steve finds himself glancing at Robin’s friend Eddie, the tatted-up metalhead Steve’s felt a pull towards since the first time they’d met. He thinks about kissing him every time they’re out together, and maybe there was a time when Steve would’ve just gone for it, a time before he’d taken a few too many hits to the ego and developed doubts and insecurities, but now the thought just makes him nervous. Eddie makes him nervous. 

He feels that nervousness now as Eddie catches him staring and he shakes those lovely dark curls out of his face and smiles at him. It bubbles in his stomach, flutters in his chest. Steve downs the rest of his drink and looks away. The alcohol floods heat through his veins and blurs his vision, but the ever-present thrum of anxiety just from being in Eddie’s proximity still isn’t dulled. He bobs numbly to the music, avoiding looking at anybody at all now, only staring at the floor or the wall or some super fascinating point just above everyone’s heads, sure he looks like an absolute freak. 

It goes beyond just wanting to kiss Eddie; Steve’s not stupid, he knows the only explanation for this sheer amount of nervousness he feels around him is that he’s got an actual, proper crush. Because not only is Eddie super fucking hot, he’s also sweet. Steve is an outsider in this group and he knows it, the college dropout who only tags along because Robin insists on it, but Eddie never makes him feel like that. It’s always Eddie who makes sure he’s included in conversations, always Eddie who makes a point to loop Steve into the context of inside jokes and stories whenever Robin is too distracted to. Steve craves those interactions, gets a thrill every time Eddie so much as speaks to him. So he doesn’t only want to kiss him, he also just wants Eddie to like him, wants him to see him as a friend at the very least. But it’s not like they’ve ever even hung out outside of a group setting, and sometimes Steve fears Eddie’s just being nice and he doesn’t actually see him as anything at all. 

Steve’s drifted so far into his own head he doesn’t realize his group is on the move, pushing deeper into the dance floor and leaving him behind. 

“Steve!” Eddie’s voice calls out to him and snaps him out of it. Everyone else has been taken by the crowd, but Eddie hangs back, reaching his hand out to Steve. 

Steve takes it, swallowing down the way his heart pounds as Eddie’s fingers curl around his hand. Eddie pulls him through the throng of jostling, sweaty bodies, and even though he maintains a tight grip on Steve’s hand, he still keeps looking back at him like he’s making extra sure Steve doesn’t get lost. Warmth blooms in Steve’s chest. Maybe he’s just drunk, maybe he’s just delusional, but all of the sudden he feels so very very cared for. 

“Thanks,” Steve says, nearly shouting to be heard over the music. 

“‘Course.” Eddie smiles as he turns around to face him. They’ve caught up to their friends now, but he’s still holding Steve’s hand. “I’d never just leave you stranded.” 

Of course he wouldn’t. He never has before. Steve just smiles back and squeezes Eddie’s hand. 

They’ve only just let go of each other when Robin and her girl, still kissing clumsily and staggering about the dance floor, stumble straight into Steve and knock him off balance. “Woah!” Eddie reaches for him again instantly, looping an arm around Steve’s waist to keep him from toppling over or careening into the crowd. 

“Ah! Sorry!” Robin giggles before she’s whisked away again. 

Eddie laughs. “Good for her, right?” 

“Yeah, good for her,” Steve says, watching his best friend spin out of sight, and when he looks back he startles at how close he and Eddie are, suddenly very aware of Eddie’s arm around his waist and his hands on Eddie’s chest. 

“You okay?” Eddie asks, his grip on Steve tightening like he means to steady him. 

“Yeah, thanks again.” Steve regains his footing, but he doesn’t pull away. There’s something there, he thinks, in the way Eddie’s always reaching out to him so he doesn’t get lost, literally and figuratively, in crowds and conversations. It could just be friendly, it could just be nothing, but for the first time, Steve lets himself hope. He even thinks about leaning in right now, but then he thinks about it too much, and he doesn’t. 

Instead, there’s a weird moment where they’re both just staring at each other. Eddie’s got this confused little smile on his face like he’s waiting to see what Steve will do, and when Steve doesn’t do anything, Eddie’s smile abruptly becomes more playful as if he’s trying to break the tension, and he starts theatrically swaying them to the music, even though it is most definitely not the swaying sort of beat. Steve laughs, his racing heart making it come out giddy and giggly, especially when Eddie drops his waist to grab his hand and twirl him around. 

Eddie pulls him in close again then, and this time Steve doesn’t think at all. In fact, it’s unclear which one of them leans in first; all Steve knows is that their lips finally, finally meet in the middle and he finally, finally gets to tangle his hands in Eddie’s hair, and it’s sweet and it’s hungry and it’s absolutely perfect. Steve holds onto Eddie and he gets lost in him. 

When Steve meets back up with Robin outside after the club closes, they exchange a celebratory, congratulatory high five, the both of them with matching kiss-swollen lips and dates set for next week. 

[naomihatake]

Solitude

you can find other zoro fics here: Naomi's archive

pairing: zoro x fem reader

tags: hurt/comfort, fluff, consumption of alcohol

summary: One would expect the swordsman to unwind after a battle, but there are times when he can't help but think. Alcohol doesn't always come in handy when a specific crewmate he grew fond of cuddled a tad bit too close to his heart.

word count: 3.3k

theme song: 'Daylight' by David Kushner

A/N: It can be imagined with both anime and opla Zoro. I don't know if he's slightly ooc or not, but I genuinely wanted to dig into this side of a relationship with the swordsman. The awkward times when he's getting used to it and simply accepting everything as a new part of his life.

I didn't forget about my multi chapter fiction, I just didn't find the inspiration for the 8th chapter. I couldn't help but write this for my own comfort and I want to mention that this original art of @tea917339 inspired me (check it out, it's absolutely amazing!!!)

I'm always open for your opinions and comments, so don't be shy about sharing your thoughts with me! <3

Usually, nights with the Straw Hats were lively, even after battles that left the crew members injured and bleeding. They would pick each other up and cheer up by simply bickering — that's what Zoro thought. 

The same way Luffy's hand extended to help him back on his feet after he plopped down on the ground to rest. The same way Zoro reassured Chopper after the kid tried his best not to get emotional afterwards. The same way Sanji threw some remarks and the swordsman spat back in annoyance. And, for fuck’s sake, Nami reminded him for the tenth time that day he owes her berry for something he completely forgot about. Usopp was sighing in relief every time he remembered they escaped with life again while Robin agreed with a soft smile on her face. Truly, it was almost insane — Zoro wouldn't exactly call that a miracle because he's doubtful of its existence. 

However, he couldn't bring himself to cheer up once the celebration of their victory was over and everyone went into their rooms. He was on the night watch and all he found himself capable of doing was burying in memories of all kinds, be it happy or not. With not enough alcohol in his system yet, it was rather hard to push those thoughts into the back of his head. 

The swordsman sat on the deck, his back resting against the wooden cabin. Hidden from prying eyes, he found peace in the temporary silence. Rare were the times when the crew was so peaceful and it was usually during the night, when they were asleep, because otherwise they would've caused a mayhem. 

The side of his mouth curled upwards at that thought. It was equally annoying and endearing, since in the months spent with them he found a lot of things about himself. Like the fact that he found his crew to be a family, like the way he sometimes found peace even in the chaos caused by them. 

Or like the presence he grew way too fond of along the way. That witch — she truly was one, judging by the effect she had on him. Only a spell could've made his mind get so clouded, only some unknown force could've managed to soften his edges so well. She joined the crew from the first day and he believed that a spell had been casted upon him since the first time they gazed at each other. 

Right. Zoro gulped down. The effect she had on him was equally annoying and pleasant. 

Annoying because he should've focused on his promise to Kuina, not get lost in between fairytales. He wasn't by any means the charming prince riding a white horse and he didn't intend on becoming one anytime soon. It filled him up with feelings unknown to him. Zoro might be a fan of adventures and he had rather insane ideas — as one might say —, but such sentiments were an entirely new path to walk on. 

First and foremost, it bothered him the fact that he wasn't sure he could fulfill both his promises and whatever the fuck was going on between him and the witch. He couldn't pinpoint what was happening, it was all in a blur, even if everything was clearing up whenever he saw her. 

That's when he's reminded why he likes their relationship — what kind of, he didn't know. When he saw her, there were always sparkles in her eyes and the smile on her face would grow wider, lines of happiness appearing on her cheeks. The curl of her lips would make his heart skip a few beats and he would relax his shoulders unconsciously. Eyes filled with joy looked at him as if he was the very reason behind her purest sensations. 

Also, not to mention how warm the depths of his chest felt when she was near. The heat would rise to his cheeks, which he sometimes found uncomfortable, but Zoro never ran away. A side of him wished so badly to go the other way and never look back, ignore her and those stupid damned feelings, but he never gathered enough courage to do so. Every single time, he would remain stuck, with his eyes stuck on her frame and fingers aching to touch and lips tingling to kiss. 

God fucking dammit. 

With a curse rolling off his tongue casually as he closed his eyes, the back of his head collided with the wooden wall he rested his back against. Zoro sat with his knees bent and feet planted onto the floor, only his Wado Ichimoji in his proximity. With its hilt glued to his shoulder, the sheathed sword was in between his fingers. By that time, he held it for comfort.

If that's what he could call it. The swordsman wasn't sure what else to associate it with. Or was it familiarity? The white sword was the only memory he had of a long lost friend and his first home at the dojo, by the side of his sensei. It was the only object tying him to his past, to his beginning, to times when he was much weaker, but determined nonetheless. 

To care about his promise was familiar. Zoro wouldn't give it up — proof was the simple fact that he still achieved to become the strongest swordsman in the world. One day, he will meet Mihawk again and when he does, he will be stronger than the first time he encountered him at Baratie. 

Looking back, it's been so long since. So long since a new life appeared before his eyes and he accepted it with no hesitation. He was a pirate, a Straw Hat, Luffy's first mate. The swordsman swore to help his captain achieve his own dream. 

Those promises were familiar. The erratic heartbeats caused by the witch weren't. The sensation settling in the pits of his stomach when her gentle fingers would brush over his arm weren't. It was foreign and it didn't sit well with him. 

Kuina. 

He still saw her face in his dreams sometimes and it was usually her ghost haunting him. Other times, in her place would be one of his friends and each time it was harder to fall asleep. 

When awake, memories of her replayed so vividly in his mind. Swords clashing together and whistling as they cut the air in half. A grin brightening up Kuina's face when he would fall on his butt and cuss her out again. They promised that one of them would become the greatest, but he was the only one capable of that, because her bones lay in a grave somewhere far away. 

Zoro opened his eyes and stared at the night sky with scars scattered all over it. A calming view, even if there was tumult inside of him, hidden in between ribs that broke with each new pump of his heart. His brown eyes fell to the floor and he crossed his arms on top of his knees, gripping the sword tighter. His chest puffed up with air when he inhaled and he let out a heavy sigh. 

“Zoro?” a soft whisper made him jump out of his thoughts. 

The swordsman snapped his head and he was greeted by the sight of someone he didn't even know he was searching for. A side of him wished to say something along the lines of “fuck off” while the other side desperately wanted to soak into her presence. 

A witch, indeed. 

His eyes ran up and down her figure. She didn't seem surprised to find him there, in a rather hidden spot, which meant she didn't search for too long. Did she even search for him or did she also wish to be alone for a while? The first place to search for someone during night shifts was the crows nest. 

She held two bottles of what he guessed to be alcohol and she swung them carefully before stepping closer. His chest tightened and he found it harder to breathe, even if it was inevitably easier than before at the same time. For some reason, she had that effect on him. 

Maybe he knew that reason all too well, but he just avoided thinking of it. 

“You told me we'd drink something together,” she reminded him in that warm voice of hers. 

The sweet melody that calmed his nerves. 

He didn't know what kind of energy radiated off him, but her behavior was far more gentle than usual. She wasn't hesitant, the witch never hesitated around him, she was just mindful of her actions and words. 

He didn't know why for a second he saw understanding in the curl of her lips when she crouched down. Unconsciously, Zoro knitted his eyebrows together in confusion at her gestures. 

The bottles hit the floor and she let go of them. Her eyes sparkled like they always did, but there was something different that time — a warmth they held only when she comforted Chopper or encouraged Usopp. Warmth similar to the shy rays of the sun of the morning, when the cold is still lingering and there's a specific scent in the air. Gentleness he only ever saw in her, because Luffy's kindness was different. 

A warmth so humane that was visible for the crew alone or those in need of it. 

The witch recognized something in his demeanor and Zoro had no clue what that was about. He could only see it in her gaze. 

“I suppose it isn't really the perfect time for me to butt in, hm?” she whispered. 

Like a promise only for him to hear. A secret. 

“How'd you find me here?” he found himself speaking before he thought it through. 

The question made her shrug. 

“I pick up easily on your energy. It's quite unmistakable, y'know?” 

There it was — one of the main reasons why she had the nickname of Witch both on the ship and outside of it. She's spoken about that for a few times and he had to admit he understood what she meant. However, the swordsman only felt those “energies” (as she liked to call them) in specific moments. He remembers that time in Lougetown when everything felt like energy instead of palpable objects, the reason why he won that fight. 

Sometimes he seriously wondered if she hadn't met his sensei at some point in her life. 

“What is it like?” once again, he asked before thinking. 

The witch pulled her lips in a tight line and hummed, gathering the right words to describe it. Her gaze bounced around and she grimaced once, when she probably found her choice of words to be unpleasant or inappropriate — she always scrunched her nose when it was difficult to find the proper terms. 

“It's sharp, but warm. Kind of steady, constantly flickering. For example, Luffy's energy is always all around the place and Chopper's gets out of control easily. Robin has the steadiest energy of all of us, even if it was kind of… strange lately.” 

Zoro arched his eyebrow at the last piece of information and only received a hand waving through the air. 

“Ignore the last part, I'm still figuring it out myself. No need to worry.” 

The swordsman knew the energy she was talking about was different than what he felt when she was in presence, but he wondered if whatever laid in her heart interfered with her ability to distinguish his being from the others. 

He watched as the witch looked at the bottles next to him and then clicked her tongue, deep in thought. 

“I don't know if they'd help you tonight, but I'll let you be.” 

None of those words were accusatory. They were all coming from a place of kindness and patience. 

Suddenly, her fingers curled around his bicep, below the bandana wrapped around his arm. Skin on skin, her touch was hot and pleasant, even if very confusing. 

What was she thinking? 

His puzzled feelings were written on his face. Uncertainty laid in his dark brown eyes and his fingers held onto the sword tighter. He didn't even notice when the grip on his Wado Ichimoji loosened up. 

Her gaze was reassuring as ever and she gently rubbed her thumb into his tensed muscles. 

Zoro had to at least admit to himself that vulnerability was uncomfortable. Without spoken words, she picked up on it. 

“I don't know for sure if I'll get to sleep tonight, so you could cut your night shift in half.” She's having issues with nightmares again? he silently wondered. “I'll be in my room, reading. Do what you see fit.” 

Instantly, she was back on her feet with her back straight and walked away. The swordsman didn't know what happened or what he should understand. 

He was utterly and completely confused. What just happened? 

Oh. The witch gave him space and time to think. She also told him where she was in case he decided to grip at the promise of comfort and hold tightly onto it. The opportunity laid right in front of him and he was the only one to decide whether he used it to his advantage or not. 

Zoro didn't notice when his shoulders relaxed. His body wasn't as tense as a few minutes ago, his back didn't feel as stiff. The exhale he left wasn't heavy anymore. 

The swordsman knew what this was about. Maybe it was the time to just accept his feelings and get on with it. He had to suck it up and deal with it, even if dealing with her wasn't the right way to word it out. It always felt more like she was dealing with him. 

With closed eyes, he remembered the last time her lips brushed by his. Gosh, it was so hot and his blood was bubbling like lava in his veins. It wasn't an accident, he intended on kissing her back with fever, but he had a hard time accepting everything. It was… weird. Facing that reality was troublesome. 

She has yet to lose her patience. The witch remained firm and each one of her questions were answered by gestures instead of words — something familiar for him. She was far more skilled with expressing herself even when sensitive topics came up. 

That was a miracle. Her presence alone could be compared to a miracle because it was completely unexpected and somehow always caressing him the right way. It was scary how accurately she could read him and the same applied to him. 

The sky before his eyes continued to sparkle with stars and he remained still in his place. His fingers caressed the scabbard of his sword as he blinked in the darkness, the chill air of the night invading his lungs. 

It was complicated and so simple at the same time. Zoro knew the answer — he just had to come to terms with it. 

Just as age promised, the witch sat on the bed in her room with a blanket warming her up. The lamp on the nightstand by her side casted a golden light over the pages of a book sitting in her lap. It was hard to focus on the story — a captivating part of pirate's history, sometime before the appearance of Gold D. Roger.

Her thoughts were followed by the swordsman. Zoro's mood was… sad at best. She didn't expect to find him in that state, but she quickly came to the conclusion that leaving him alone might do him good. 

She tapped her finger over the pages of the old book and clicked her tongue. Was it right to leave him? The witch never saw him in a similar mood and she also realized she didn't know how to help him. There could be a lot of ways to bring him back to earth or at least keep him afloat. Those ways were only known by him. All she could do was guess and hope for the best outcome. 

Heavy footsteps echoed on the other side of the door. When it opened wide, there was Zoro's tall silhouette, his white sword in his hand and one bottle of alcohol in his other. He came closer, his face hard as a stone. The pink hue painting his cheeks was the only detail giving away the fact that he drank one of the bottles she brought hours ago. 

“Why aren't you sleeping yet?” he said with a gruff voice as he plopped down on the mattress. 

There were only a few hours left before the sun would rise up from the sea. 

“You've probably guessed already,” she averted her eyes from his figure. 

“Nightmares again?” 

The witch only nodded, eyes focused on the book. Zoro let the sword against the couch. 

“I won't fall asleep, so you could as well take a night off,” only then she looked at him again. 

His darkened eyes have been locked on her since he entered the valley. The witch wanted to move, to eventually get away from his knowing gaze, but she knew there was no possible way to do it. 

“Are you alright?” she blurted out. 

She had to fill that silence with some kind of conversation. Maybe that wasn't exactly the wisest decision, considering his shoulders visibly tensed and he straightened his back. A frown appeared on her face. She regretted talking. 

The witch figured out he needed more time to sort his thoughts. 

“Why don't you go to sleep?” she tilted her head to the side. “The fight has worn us all out. You could rest for a while.” 

“And you?” 

“We'll be sailing for a few days. I can sleep ‘till afternoon.” 

“Nothing will happen for as long as you're on this ship with us,” the reassurance slipped so easily. “Do you trust us?” 

“More than anything,” the witch responded with a faint smile. 

Several weeks ago, her answer and reaction would've been so different. She made so much progress since she first met them, her trust now fully laying in their palms. Long ago, she would've backed away at such a question and, if they were lucky enough, the witch would admit she “needs time to adjust”. 

At first, all he did was lean close enough for his shoulder to touch hers. The swordsman only intended to enjoy some peace while he shared his booze with the witch. From time to time, she'd gulp from the bottle and then give it back to him before continuing her lecture. After each two minutes, the room would be filled by the rustling of pages. 

It didn't last long until he fell into her trap and tiredness dragged him glued to her. With his head in her lap, Zoro bumped his nose in her thigh. The witch's fingers ran through his hair and he let out an audible exhale, eyes closing instantly. Greeted by darkness, he felt warm not only on the inside. The blanket she curled around herself earlier was now covering his upper body as he sunk into the soft mattress and her. 

One of his hands curled around her knee and he dug his fingers into her flesh. Her leg jerked slightly at the unexpected touch, but when he tried to move away, she muttered a sweet “It's okay”, stopping his movements. 

The oxygen in his lungs was exchanged with her perfume and he bit back a groan. Her voice was like a lullaby, even if there weren't many words rolling off her tongue. Zoro wasn't bothered by the light of the lamp, completely forgetting about the world around him once her fingers continued running through his hair. 

His hand traveled up, until it fully rested on her thigh, the warmth of her body seeping through the thin material of her pants. Truth be told, he's never felt better. 

She was a remedy. His remedy. 

“Good night.”

Zoro heard her whisper solely because he was near her; otherwise he would've confounded it with the night breeze. 

Maybe giving in to her affection isn't that bad. 

[myosotisa]

there are bones in my closet - s.h.

Steve Harrington x Reader

‖  summary: You can't control what your scars have done to you, but you can control what you're going to do about it and who you're going to trust with them.

‖  tags: hurt/comfort, post season 4 volume 2. contains content referring to anxiety, depression, ptsd, unresolved trauma, and their symptoms. you comforting Steve and Steve comforting you. written all in one sitting and unedited, so sorry if there are mistakes. i'll go back and fix them at some point.

‖  word count: 3.8k

You both had scars; seen and unseen.

Some of his were physical. Puckered pink and tight scar tissue on either side of his torso, a smaller section on one shoulder. A straight, light line of discoloration across his throat. The special glasses he had to wear and the pills he had to take to keep the migraines at bay.

The rest were less obvious. A tensing of his shoulders whenever something flew by him and he wasn’t expecting it, even if it was as small as a bee. White knuckle grips, and sometimes a full body flinch, at the crack of thunder or flash of lightning. An uneasy feeling that led to irritability when he had to go outside while it was foggy. Wide, panicked eyes when he woke up in the middle of the night with a scream in his throat. His protective nature morphed, shifted, grew into something that could sometimes feel stifling. The anxiety that accompanied the fear behind the protection.

When you first got closer to Steve Harrington, it was easy for you to tell he had ghosts following him wherever he went. You knew because you had them too.

A tendency to jump or freeze at a loud noise or when someone raised their voice. Hints of subtle pain hiding behind your eyes around the holidays, your birthday, when people talked about their family and you forced a smile. How you could go from the life of the party, talking and laughing and helping everyone, and start to go quiet so quickly, sometimes entirely without warning. The way it wasn’t unusual for you to disappear for days at a time, no one knowing you were simply buried in your covers and unable to emerge. And sometimes, even when you were right next to him, right next to anyone, you would still feel so far away.

Steve was haunted by things that had long since died and you were too.

The first time you saw the signs in him was early April 1986.

You’d barely known him then. Both of you had known of each other in school but that was pretty much it – orbited different planets in the same solar system. When you met him again, or for the first time really, at the donation drive at the high school, he wasn’t at all what you remembered. King Steve was wearing a little name tag and folding shirts, pants, towels, and anything else set before him and then organizing it into piles just like one of your colleagues had asked him to.

Although pretty busy trying to wrangle a few other volunteers who seemed to have bitten off more than they could chew when it came to washing the bedding on the cots lining the gym, you couldn’t help but catch glimpses of him. How he had a heated but whispered argument with Robin Buckley from a year behind you, and then smiled like a proud father as she made peanut butter sandwiches. Turned into an absolute mother hen when a curly haired brunette walked by him with a limp, leaving his station to usher him over to a set of chairs and gave him what looked like a finger wag before ruffling the boy's curls. He only went back to folding when an older man, who you recognized as one of the people staying here, came and sat down next to the boy, waving Steve off with a shaky hand.

A few other preteens came by and talked to him, the only one you recognized being Nancy Wheeler’s younger brother Mike. He spoke with all of them with what could only be described as fond annoyance – like how you would talk to a younger sibling or a best friend. It intrigued you, for lack of a better word. An earthquake had shattered Hawkins and here was Steve Harrington: folding an endless number of fabrics that just kept growing, greeting anyone who tried to talk to him with a charming smile, and looking out for a select group of what appeared to be his friends.

After a particularly long conversation with two local moms, you noticed it. The smile was more forced, his responses less enthusiastic, shoulders rolling forward and eyes closing with a deep breath when he thought no one was looking at him.

He looked exhausted. The kind of tired sleeping can’t fix.

When another local came and chatted him up, carrying most of the conversation as Steve replied politely, and then clapped him on the back – he choked. A tightening of his chest, his neck, his eyes squeezing shut as he let out a few coughs. The man looked worried, asking him if he was okay, if he had hurt him. Then brown eyes blinked open wide again and flickered around wildly. His shoulders started to fall and rise faster, a flush creeping up his neck.

Your bleeding heart cracked a bit more as you stepped inbetween the man and him.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” you glanced back at the man, who gave a hesitant shrug before making an escape, and you returned to the wild eyes of Steve. “Volunteer coordinator here, do you think you could come help me with something?”

There was water collecting in the corners of his eyes as they glanced from you to the room like he was looking for a way to escape. His voice was slightly hoarse when he tried to respond, “I… I, uh-”

Lightly pressing the tips of your fingers to the clenched fist of his hand, you lowered your voice as quietly as you could. “Just come with me.”

His eyes squeezed shut, a single errant tear sliding down his pink cheek, before he gave a stunted nod.

You could feel eyes on your back as you walked with him off of the floor and into the swinging door of the kitchen.

Struggling with the weight, you pulled open the heavy metal door to the walk in fridge and motioned him inside. He didn’t question it as he stepped in and you followed behind him.

The space was small but not claustrophobic, large wire shelves on either side as the heavy door softly closed behind you. Eyes searching, you landed on a long plank of what looked like frozen pork ribs.

“Hold this please,” was the only thing you said as you thrust it into his hands. His eyebrows were drawn together in confusion but he took the slab, the ice cold object ending up nestled into his chest. Perfect. “Thanks, now just wait here a minute,” you inched past him, both of you having to rotate in order for you to get past without touching each other, “I have to grab one more thing.”

You didn’t. You didn’t need the ribs either. But you opened up the faded white ice chest in the back of the walk in and started digging through it, looking for nothing. Your companion didn’t say a word in the enclosed space, but you could tell the cold was doing its job as his breathing started to slow down. After pretending to dig for another few minutes, you stood up straight again and let the lid fall closed before hopping up to sit on top of it.

Steve was standing there dutifully and holding the frozen meat close to him just as you’d asked. The flush rising up from his chest had been replaced with pink nose and cheeks from the cold, dry air, and his chest rose and fell at a more reasonable rate. The panic in his eyes had abated and the tears blinked away as his head slightly swiveled to look around the metal container you both were in.

“You can put the meat down now if you want.”

He startled a bit, gaze returning to you having not realized you were sitting there watching him. “I’m sorry?”

“I didn’t actually need your help,” you offered plainly, motioning to the pork he was basically hugging. “The cold helps the panic go away.”

His head drops to look over the plastic bundle in his arms. “The…? No, I wasn’t-”

“It’s okay, Steve. You don’t have to explain.”

A few moments passed as Steve’s grip on the meat shifted before he set it back on the shelf you had taken it from. Now free, his arms crossed over his chest and he shifted on his feet slightly. You took your own few moments to slow down, to breathe. To let the cold air recover you as much as it could before you had to go back out there.

Go back to grieving widows and broken families and people suddenly without homes or possessions. People crying, screaming, trying to make sense of something senseless. Some looking out for ways to help, some desperately seeking help no one could reasonably provide. You would keep going until your heart bled dry and then just a little farther, just to go back to your empty apartment and do it again the next day.

But it was what you could do. It was something you could do. A way you could help.

Rescuing Steve Harrington from having a panic attack in a crowded school gym was a way you could help even when you felt like you were falling apart at the seams.

His voice is gentle when he asks, “how did you know…?”

That he was panicking? That the cold would help? That he needed help?

“Guess when you know what it feels like, you know what it looks like.”

He seems to quietly consider your answer as he quietly considers you. Eyes searching, posture guarded, energy unsettled. You want to show a kind smile, open palms, telling him sweet words that will settle him, do the job that you’re supposed to be doing here.

But you’re so exhausted. The kind of tired sleeping can’t fix. And you just need a few more minutes before you put the act back on.

Whatever he was looking for, he seemed to have found it, because his arms fell from his chest, one lowering to rest on his hip as he leaned the opposite shoulder against the shelf beside him.

“Do you, uh, have any other tips and tricks?” He hesitantly asks, his gaze locked on your dirty sneakers.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

The first time he saw yours was early June 1986.

The two of you had spent a steadily increasing amount of time together as he continued to volunteer to help at the makeshift shelter and you continued coordinating. When it was possible, the two of you would end up on a station together and you’d get a few more clues into what exactly were the skeletons in Steve’s closet. Hushed conversations about a friend in the hospital, about a friend they’d lost, about one they’d gotten back. Stories like you heard every single time you worked, but these felt different. The more you watched, the more you saw the string that tied all of them together. How it wasn’t just Steve looking out for his people, but them looking out for him and each other too.

A group of people that made no sense to be together but bonded in a way that couldn’t have happened peacefully.

Sometimes he would be talking to one of them – one of the preteens, or Robin, or Nancy Wheeler, or Jonathan Byers, or Joyce Byers, or the newly revived Sheriff Hopper – and would nervously glance your way like they didn’t want you to hear. You pretended not to.

If you could have stopped listening, you would have. But you heard and processed everything around you whether you wanted to or not.

Regardless of some of the strange things that floated into your ears, you never said a word about it. Never talked about the scar on his neck, or the scars on his sides you had gotten peeks at when he reached for something up high. Never asked why sometimes his whole body would start to react as if he was in a life or death situation, never questioned what triggered those moments. Never mentioned that when you weren’t working together, you could feel his eyes on you like a hawk, like you were one of the people he looked out for now too.

Never admitted how terrified that made you.

In return, he never asked why you would suddenly disappear for an hour and re-emerge with frozen fingers. Never pressed when you told him you were fine even though you couldn’t say it convincingly. Never forced you to talk when you fell silent or made you feel like you had to act a certain way or fulfill a certain need for him.

He just needed someone. Someone who knew, but didn’t know. Who saw the weight, saw the string that wound tight to him and his friends, saw when the mask started to crack and needed to be whisked away from prying eyes, and didn’t ask to know anymore than that.

You needed someone too. Someone who knew, but didn’t know. Who could see past the performance, see when the shadows drew in tighter and started to choke you, see that you were trying so fucking hard all the time. You needed someone who would understand that you were going to fight tooth and nail against the idea of needing someone – a trapped animal lashing out at anyone who tried to get close because they didn’t know if they were going to set it free or make the killing blow.

You didn’t know Steve could be that person until he proved it.

The day had started off shit. You’d woken up in a haze and debated if this was one of the days that would make you bury your head in the sand and wait for the storm to pass. Your first mistake was deciding to get up and go back to work anyway.

Your second mistake was putting Butter Handy Andy on dish washing duty.

You’d been talking to Vickie McAdams about the supplies you all had available for making dinner tonight when a huge crash came from inside the kitchen. Completely unprepared for a sudden noise that loud, you couldn’t hold in the yelp, couldn’t mask the way your entire body tensed, couldn’t help the way you immediately stopped in the middle of your sentence. Frozen, heart stuttering an uneven rhythm in your chest, the contents of your stomach kicking up, and people were staring. People were staring. Everyone was looking at you and thinking there was something wrong with you and you’re weak and broken.

Sweet, sweet Vickie, with a concerned furrow to her brow and a calm smile, asked, “Hey, are you okay?”

It took 75% of what you had left to put the act back on.

“Yup, just spooked me a little.” You laughed and then she laughed and then it felt like you had saved it, fooled them, protected yourself. It felt like the eyes were off of you.

Well, all except 2.

Your third mistake was stepping in between two men who had started an argument by the missing persons board.

Already running on fumes, you really should’ve thrown in the towel an hour ago. But giving up wasn’t a skill of yours and all that awaited you at home was silence and skeletons, so you kept the engine running. The disagreement had started quietly but quickly escalated into a screaming match in front of everyone in the room. Having forgotten yourself, gotten lost in the role you were playing as a coordinator and a leader, you’d immediately approached and tried to talk them down. Neither paid any attention to you and more people were starting to gather, either to watch or concerned they needed to do something. A baby nearby started to wail and the murmur of the gathering people grew and all the noise continued to grow into a tidal wave that rushed in your ears.

One of the men raised a fist like he was going to throw a punch. You rocketed forward, putting yourself between them with your hands out to try to stop him. And you did – the forward motion of his fist stopped. But then his other hand fisted in the fabric of your shirt near the collar and he tossed you away like you were nothing. You stumbled and then fell, gasping out in pain and shock as your tailbone made contact with the shiny, wooden floor.

The crowd descended then; pulling the two men apart before either of them could come to harm. People rushed for you, throwing out questions of ‘are you hurt?’, ‘what were you thinking?’, ‘are you okay?’ as hands you didn’t know forced you back to your feet. There were so many eyes and so many questions and so many hands and everyone was so close and everything was so loud and you couldn’t see and you couldn’t breathe and you couldn’t move and you couldn’t talk.

You ran.

Pushed your way through the small circle of near strangers that had formed around you and settled into a run toward the swinging kitchen door. Through the door, past where Andy was still dropping pots and pans into soapy water without a care in the world, past the walk in fridge, and out the back doors. The sun was setting but the air was still hot and humid and choking you as you kept fucking running. You didn’t know if anyone followed you, you didn’t even try to look. You just listened to the frantic beat of your heart that told you to keep going or else it would be the end of you.

Your feet carried you to a familiar place that you hadn’t seen in a few years. You ran out of breath and had to stop just as you reached the bleachers along the mile track behind the school. They were coated in shades of orange, making the dusty track beyond them look even older as the sun carried down toward the horizon.

Despite your lungs and legs not being able to run any further, you were still thrumming with adrenaline, muscles tensed, chest tight, heart and mind racing out of control. You couldn’t focus on anything, couldn’t stop, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get back in control.

A hand lightly tapped your shoulder and you swung.

Steve Harrington dodged your fist like a man who had taken more than his fair share of punches.

“Woah, hey, just me,” he offered calmly, hands coming up in a surrender gesture. The wire rim glasses were a recent addition, only a month or so old. You’d overheard one of his friends joke that maybe if he had taken one less knock to the noggin he wouldn’t need them. Hurt eyes or not, they flickered over you, caught sight of the heaving of your chest, the blood shot eyes, how you panted out between your teeth and arched your back like a cornered animal.

You certainly sounded a bit like one as you barked, “What the fuck do you want, Steve?”

He instinctively stepped back at the venom in your tone, eyes widening slightly in surprise. His mouth opened, closed, opened, and said nothing. The fear in his eyes quickly abated and then his expression fell. Not into one of pity or worry, like you normally expected. No, Steve looked at you like someone who knew, but didn’t know. Someone who understood. And it broke you.

Denim covered knees hit dust as you fell on them hard enough to hurt. You didn’t feel it, the physical pain, too distracted by the agony of your bleeding heart cracking your chest wide open. A sob tore from your throat as you buried your face into your sweaty hands and shook with the force of your tears. Gasping in a few sharp gulps of air as the cries continued to force themselves out of your mouth.

Firm, warm arms circled your shoulders and forced you off your knees and onto your ass and thigh, legs off to one side as your upper body made contact with a solid chest. His grip around you was tight, almost bone crushing, and despite the way you thought it would trigger you more, it was grounding. Something solid, something real, something physical while everything else felt like sand running right through your fingers. Despite the unexpected comfort offered, your sobs continued.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured into your hair, barely audible due to your crying. “You’re safe.”

The word ‘safe’ made your bleeding heart shatter into pieces, another sharp wail leaving you as your nails started to dig into the skin of your face. Almost like he knew, Steve momentarily released one of his arms to force your hands away from your face and press them into his chest, encouraging your fingers to fist in his shirt instead. You obliged subconsciously, hands twisting in his loose t-shirt as you pressed your eyes into his shoulder instead. Satisfied, he returned both arms to his tight circle that held you pressed to him.

You don’t know how long you both sat there on the track behind Hawkins High School. Long enough for the automatic lights to flick on over the field and the sunset to dip into golden reds and purples as night crept closer. Long enough for your ass to fall asleep and for your crying to stop and for your breathing to return to normal and then even longer than that.

He didn’t pull away until you did, and even then it was with reluctance.

Making eye contact for the first time, you didn’t think before the words tumbled out of you. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he replied, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Like his shirt wasn’t damp with your tears and he hadn’t followed you out here while you ran like your life depended on it.

Wanting to argue that you had plenty to be sorry for, instead you shifted gears to the part of you that desperately wanted to give some kind of excuse or a reason to what had just occurred. “I swear, I normally don’t-”

“It’s okay,” he interrupted you with a kind smile, one hand giving your knee a soft squeeze before returning to his own lap. “You don’t have to explain.”

The shattered bits of your heart that lay in the wasteland of your chest thumped once, twice.

“Thank you,” it came out of you as barely a whisper.

“I’ve got you,” he repeated, eyes warm and gentle. “I’ve got you and you’ve got me.”

Thumped once, twice beneath the fear.

“I’ve got you and you’ve got me.”

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thanks for reading!! if you liked it, please give it a reblog and leave a comment, as they make my day &lt;3

[ofallthingsnasty]

a few days ago I had a little thought about secret admirer Sanji trying to keep things lowkey and how he'd still overdo it. thanks to @tang3r1n's addition, I had to use this as a little writing exercise because it tickles me

tags: secret admirer (and thus unintentional stalker) Sanji, modern AU, crack treated seriously, misunderstandings, i definitely did not write this with the US in mind (everyone drinks) pairing: Sanji/GN!Reader word count: 1k

“Another one?”

Robin’s eyes are dark over her porter. She leans closer, chin perched on her hand, rapt attention all on you. 

“Yeah, another one”, you confirm and nip at your beer. Crystal wheat, your third today - and you can tell. Usually - or, at least when you’re sober - the little letters that flutter into your mailbox every other day are not only a great source of discomfort but also… weirdly embarrassing. You’re definitely not as eager to share them with your friends as you are now, when the alcohol has loosened you up a little, breathed some humor into this whole ‘secret admirer slash stalker’ situation that has been going on for a while now.

“Here, get a load of this”, you say, tapping the paper with your nail. It’s a little crinkled from throwing it in your bag but it still smells nice, probably spritzed with some floral perfume. Yeah, creepy.

“‘My darling, you looked simply ravishing today.’ The ravishing is underlined, by the way”, you slot in and turn the letter around to show her. “See?”

She nods and you continue. “‘Blue suits you exceptionally well. It makes me think of the skies when we first met. Maybe you remember it, too? I’ll never forget the first time you looked at me-’ oh my god, I can’t even read you the rest, it's so embarrassing!”

You can’t help but pull a face at your own voice. The letter goes on and on, as they all do - paragraphs upon paragraphs of someone laying it on thick, usually talking about your eyes, your clothes, your body - and then their feelings about those things. It reads like a paperback romance from the 90s, flowery and greased up to the maximum. You hand her the paper, so she can read the rest for herself. 

“Ugh. Like, who- who fucking talks like that?”, you mumble into your beer and try to wash down the heat in your cheeks with another swig of sunflower-yellow wheat.

A snort interrupts you, the sound coming from Zoro, who sits right next to Robin. He looks like he’s about to spurt out his mouthful of beer like the jet of a water pistol. Of course he finds it amusing. 

He swallows loudly, then barks out a laugh.

“That sounds exactly like- Eouch-”

Robin gives him a close-eyed smile as she shifts her weight around. “... Like a secret admirer, doesn’t it?”

“Secret admirer? Robin, how often do I have to tell you? This person has started sending coffee and donuts in my name to work. My coworkers are starting to talk. How do they even know where I work? This is so beyond ‘secret admirer’ territory.”

“I want free food, too”, chimes Luffy from behind her as he loads up on peanuts before shimmying back to the darts, where Usopp and Chopper are waiting for him. “If you don’t want them, tell them they can send me donuts!”

Very helpful, thanks, dude.

You lean over the edge of the table once he’s out of earshot again, eyes wide as you let them flit between Robin and Sanji, who has been awfully quiet during all of this. He looks weirdly downtrodden as he peers into his own glass, spinning it with one hand. It’s nothing new for him to be a little sulky during your meet-ups - probably another tinder date that didn’t turn out quite as he had hoped.

“I got a fucking bouquet the other day, can you imagine? I even took a- oh, wait-”

You fish your phone out of the back pocket of your jeans and swipe through your gallery to show them a picture of the decadent monstrosity (in your favorite color, no less) that had everyone at work chuckling two Fridays ago. It’s gaudy, over the top, ridiculous - you let your oldest coworker take it home with her because you simply couldn’t stand to look at it any second longer.

“Look at this. Next thing they’ll do is put my head in the center of one of these, I swear.”

Robin says nothing. Sanji visibly pales, then he mumbles into his white wine spritzer. 

“Darling, aren’t you exaggerating? Just a little bit?”

“Am I, Sanji?”, you say, dead serious and voice gravelly. “Am I?”

You lean closer until you’re almost nose-to-nose with him, the one too many crystal wheats making you a little animated. You don’t care, suddenly humorless under the dim lights above you.

He pulls back as you shove yourself into his personal bubble, eyes swimming with something. It’s incredibly out of character for him to be so silent about this whole situation and even beneath all of your buzz, you feel disappointment sting in your belly.

“What’s gotten into you, Sanji? Why are you defending this random creep?”, you say, very confused and a little mad. One year ago, when you had troubles with a too-friendly coworker, he had been there - had chaperoned you home after work, had helped you address the situation with your employer. For him to see you so distraught and almost brush you off is more than just a little strange.

“What if they follow me home, huh? What then, Sanji?”

Well, you have officially rendered him speechless. The blond looks like he’s choking on some words that are trying to climb out of his throat but never quite make it through his vocal chords.

“Yeah, what if they’re in this bar?”, mocks Zoro and gives you a pointed look. 

“Stop making fun of me, idiot”, you hiss and aim a single peanut at his head. “This is serious.” Of course, you miss.

He opens his mouth to say something but a laugh to your left stops him. Your head snaps back and Robin at least has the decency to cover her mouth as her shoulders shake ever so slightly.

“Why are you laughing now?”

She waves her hands in surrender but that mischievous smile you’ve grown to know and loathe is still on her face.

“Well, I think that this secret admirer of yours should speak up soon, right, Sanji?”, she says and picks up her porter again. “I-”, he starts and somehow looks even more uncomfortable than before. He reaches to adjust his tie and you take the opportunity to butt in. 

“I don’t know if I want that, Robin”, you deadpan. “If this continues, I’m gonna call the police.”

There’s a clatter next to you - Sanji is suddenly up from his seat, with both hands on the table. Something about his expression screams deer in headlights.

“I need a cigarette. Now.”

[marvins-linguinie]

corroded coffin has gotten really popular. im talking 'a stadium full of people for a single show' popular. steve, being eddie's husband, wants to be at every one of his concerts, but can't. and the day that eddie breaks the news of his world tour to steve, a flood of emotion sweep over him. of course, he's ecstatic, because people want to see cc play!

but, he knows he won't be able to go. steve has never left hawkins, and he's afraid something will happen if he does. that's part of the reason. the other part is his job. he can't miss a lot of days, let alone however long the tour takes. he teaches kids, and he can't just stop in the middle of a year. eddie knows steve can't go, but promises to call him everyday.

eddie's flight is early in the morning. steve drives him there, and robin and nancy tag along. they don't know how long it'll be. the drive is mostly quiet, beside the cool breeze from the windows. everyone knows how sad this goodbye is going to be. it's not forever. eddie kept repeating that, hugging steve. robin and nancy weren't sure if he was trying to convince himself or steve, but they were on the verge of tears. eddie and steve share one last kiss, and he walks away with his guitar case slung over one shoulder, and his duffel bag slung over the other.

steve drives home. he's shocked by how much eddie has affected the world. he's upset. over the next year, he keeps imagining eddie playing, and the crowd cheering. imagining him running to eddie on the stage, hugging him. robin and nancy stay over sometimes. the tourism dies down in hawkins. the only reason they were there in the first place is because they wanted to see cc live. eddie knows steve doesn't go out of hawkins, so most of his shows are based there, mostly so steve can watch them. eddie follows through with his promise, calling him every night, bragging about the different foods, and how fancy the hotel is, what some of the fans gave him.

a few more months pass. steve feels numb. eddie is getting tired, and wants more than anything to be back home, with steve. one night, eddie calls steve, and he doesn't pick up. eddie goes into panic mode. he immediately calls robin, and she simply explains the time difference, and how it's 2am in hawkins. eddie's emotions take over, and he just starts to bawl. he misses the morning kisses, he misses steve's smile whenever eddie has a show, he misses not being alone in a bed. and, however nice the fan art, and the gifts may be, he misses steve. he would give anything to be in steve's arms.

turns out, cc finished all of their tour early. he couldn't get in contact with steve, to tell him that he was flying home, and figured it would be better as a surprise. once the band arrives in hawkins, eddie knows steve is at the high school. it's a friday, and around 10 am, so he's teaching a class. perfect. eddie always loved dramatic entrances, and this was an incredible opportunity for one. eddie stops at the front desk, and has to get a visitors pass. he starts walking to steve's classroom, practically bouncing with excitement.

his boots make an echo down the empty hallway, at he makes a stop in front of a door. he quietly knocks. no answer. he knocks again, this time, opening the door, cautiously. steve has his back faced toward him, writing on a chalkboard. the whole class goes silent because 'oh my god superstar eddie munson is standing in our classroom?' one student squeals, and eddie puts a finger over his mouth, getting the kids to stay quiet. as steve is explaining the homework, still faced toward the board, eddie steps closer. eddie has a goofy grin on his face, as he raises his hand. "Mr. Harrington," he says, "what's the homework again?" steve sighs and turns around, and then realizes.

"You guys call him that, right?" eddie asks. steve's mouth is open, and his eyes are glassy. the room is mostly quiet, from confusion, and trying to figure out what the hell eddie munson is doing in their classroom. steve scans eddie's body. eddie's hair is longer, even longer than it was. he's wearing new rings, but still has his wedding ring on his middle finger as he did when he left. the bell rings, and as some of the kids flow out, some ask for signatures, and eddie scribbles something down on a piece of paper for each of them. the last student walks out, admiring the gibberish on their paper. steve stands still, tears slowly running down his face.

eddie steps toward him, and steve runs to eddie, practically jumping into his arms, sobs coming from both of them. robin walks in, and gasps. eddie doesn't let go. he never wants to. steve has some stubble, and his hair has grown out. steve sinks his face deeper in eddie's shoulder. he doesn't want to let go either. god, he's missed this. that part of steve that disappeared when eddie left, is finally there. like a puzzle piece.

eddie is his puzzle piece. the one that fits perfectly into place, and connects the other pieces. he's never loved a person more. robin will always be steve's platonic soulmate, but eddie.. eddie is his not platonic soulmate. and everything is okay again. steve is okay. eddie's okay. no more empty beds, no more envisioning the other's face, no more feeling empty. no more.

[sparklingsin]

— five ways to say i love you | steve harrington

+ steve harrington x fem!reader

tags: fluff, banter, steve being steve, some angst, some gore - like in the show, s4 canon adjacent

a/n: no summary since this is pretty self-explanatory. hope you have a good read! feedback is appreciated!

one.

The Wheeler basement is warm, separated from the world, the Upside-Down, the lab. Shielded from trouble. A distraction from whatever danger lies ahead. The kids are sitting around a table with Eddie, who is making a face at them — they're engrossed in what seems to be quite a stressful game of DnD. You don't try to pretend that you understand it.

Nancy is half-asleep on Robin's shoulder who is reading the latest "Teen Beat". Beside you, Steve's busy shooting daggers at the kids table, one of his arms curled behind you on the couch. Not quite touching you, but close enough that you remember it's there once every few minutes.

"Do you want to kill your only best friend?" you ask and Steve pries his eyes away from the group to look at you, eyebrows still furrowed.

"Wha— look, it's just that the kid barely tells me anything anymore, okay? I'm just a little — "

"Jealous?" you interrupt.

"— worried," Steve finishes, mouth twisting into a frown at your words.

You pout at him. "Aww, that's sweet. Mama's worried."

Steve shoots you a look. "Tease all you want, but if something happens to that little shit, it's on me, you know?"

"Aw, I'm sure Dustin loves you too."

Steve gives you another stink eye, then turns back to the kids. You try your best to suppress the smile that tugs at the corners of your lips.

A beat passes before Steve quips again, absentmindedly picking at some loose threads on the arm of the sofa, still gazing at the kids.

"I mean, I worry about the other kids too. About all of us. Robin, Nance. You."

You try to ignore the warmth that mushrooms across your chest.

"Should I be scared that you're worried about me, Harrington?"

He looks back at you. There's a twinkle in his eyes, that flares up that new found feeling in your stomach. You don't want to acknowledge it but it begs for your attention.

"Maybe."

two.

Steve walks eight paces under your window before deciding that he's going to do it. He finds a small pebble in the yard and tosses it at the window, praying to anyone who's up there listening, that you're awake.

Much to his relief, you open the window a minute later and peer down at him in the darkness. You seem to stare at him for a moment— understandably so, given the ungodly hour— and then gesture for him to come up.

Two tries later, Steve is tumbling through the window and into your room.

"Shhhh," you mutter to him in the dark, and he freezes, stilling himself beside your desk.

"What are you doing here?" you ask, voice an octave lower than usual and Steve realises with a start that you had been sleeping after all. If your slightly puffy eyes and pink pajamas are any indication.

"You look like hell," you add, looking him up and down. He hadn't changed from his slacks and white t-shirt and his hair was probably rough from all the tossing and turning. Thankfully though, you don't seem mad. Only confused.

"Right, um," he begins and then shuts up. Now that he's here, he realises how terribly pathetic it is for him to be doing this. How cowardly, how very unmanly.

"Steve?" you ask, reaching out to grab his shoulder. You're so warm, he almost sighs out loud.

"Shit. Yeah. Hi. So, I did come here," he says, but stops again. Because how can he say what he wants to say? How do you tell someone that your house it too big, too empty? That the halls go on forever without a soul in sight? That he lies awake at night, wondering what he would do if he found himself all alone in the world much like he is in his house?

"Earth to Steve," you call again, and now there is concern seeping into your eyes but Steve really, really doesn't know what to say. He simply looks back at you, something cold unfurling in his chest.

"Uh, can I sleep here?" is all he can muster. He braces himself for your reaction, for you to call this weird and refuse but you only tilt your head ever so slightly.

"Of course," is all you say too. There's some recognition in your eyes that leaves him feeling bare but he is grateful that you don't say anything else. He watches you plop into bed and pull one pillow to the corner that is by the wall and fluff it up.

"Okay," he says glancing around your room, "Just give me a pillow, a blanket and I'm good to go."

You stop in your journey of trying to find one edge of the blanket and look up at him, eyebrows knitted.

"Good to go where?"

"Sleep on the floor I mean."

You look at him like he has grown two heads and then pat the space on the bed beside you.

"Don't be stupid. Sleep beside me, there's plenty of room."

three.

"Find it?" Steve calls from beside the bed just as you spot the locket under a couple of envelopes in your drawer. It a pretty large thing— you're not sure how you had missed it the first time. You open the locket to reveal a set of pictures. One of Max, when she was about nine, and other, of your mother.

"Yeah," you answer, putting your arms around and behind your neck to try and clasp the chain together. The darned thing is too small unfortunately and your arms grow sore before you know it.

"Jesus. Here," Steve mutters, having spotted your struggle from where he had been trying to find the necklace under your bed. Without waiting for your response, he gently plucks the delicate chain from your fingers and moves behind you.

The chain clasps together with a satisfying click. As he lets go of it, the tips of his fingers brush ever so gently against your spine and you watch him in the mirror as his eyes move from your neckline to your face.

"All done," he whispers, breath warm on your neck. You can feel his silhouette behind you — those broad shoulders and arms that you don't want to imagine being held by.

But you do anyway.

"Thanks for doing this with me," you whisper, without taking your eyes off of him in the reflection of the mirror. He doesn't look away and your heart skips two beats.

Your fingers fidget with the locket.

"I'm just worried about Max," you say and then bite your tongue, surprised by your own admission. Something in his eyes— it catches in your chest and coaxes your concerns out of you.

"Hey, hey," he says softly, turning you around to face him, his hand slipping into yours. The touch sends a spark up your arm, but it warms you.

All this while, you had been trying to put on a brave face for your sister. But standing in your house, being faced with memories you only think of on the coldest nights— the reality impales you with a terrifying finality. A tear escapes the corner of your eye.

You don't want to see the ruth in Steve's face as he tilts your head towards him with a soft Hey. His eyes are round but far from pitiful.

"She's going to be okay. We're going to make sure that she's alright."

four.

Steve's throat is closing up. A demobat's tail wrapped firmly around his neck restricts all airflow as a swarm of its siblings sink their fangs into his sides. Metal coats his mouth, the agonizing pain sending a shockwave though his body. He can't even scream; the sound builds and dies in his throat. The incessant attacks provide him a surge of adrenaline to thrash at the bat's tail, but in vain. Its grip is too tight. He can already feel the energy start to drain out of his arms as his brain begins to shut down.

If it has to end this way, Steve thinks, he wants to see you before it does. The Upside-Down starts to dim before his eyes as he tries to picture your smile. Radiant, warm. Everything this hell-hole isn't.

Then suddenly, the demobats are screeching around him and his sides are not being torn apart anymore.

Steve's eyes shoot open, to find you looming above him — cheeks streaked with tears and grime, fending off the incoming swarm of bats with a boat paddle. Your presence seems to give him a bolster. He tightens his grip on the bat's tail and bites off a chunk. The wretched creature screeches, instantly loosening its grip on his neck and the oxygen rushes into his throat — almost choking him, but it is a welcome pain. Feeling returns to his fingertips in the form of a faint buzzing.

Standing up and swaying slightly, he swings the creature around by it's tail, slamming it to the ground with a final thud before using his foot to rip it in half. The blood streaks across his slacks but he is too tired to care.

Three things register in his head. One) You are here, in the Upside-Down. So are Robin, Nancy and Eddie. Two) He is alive. Three) You're throwing yourself at him and he immediately wraps his arms around you, shaking. You are trembling too, and a sob bubbles up from your throat.

"What—" he pants into your hair, "What are you doing here?"

You pull back and reach for his face, cupping his cheek. It is too dark to be entirely sure but save for a couple of scratches you seem mostly unharmed. Your eyes are swimming with tears and he desperately wants to comfort you but his on hand is shaking so badly, he is glad you're there to steady him.

"You didn't come up for 3 minutes," you run your thumb across his cheekbone.

"How could I just leave you?"

five.

"You okay in there?" Steve's voice jolts you from your thoughts.

Nancy and Robin trudge several feet ahead of you, Robin's flashlight swinging wildly as she talks animatedly. You look up at Steve, and try to gauge if you should lie or tell the truth.

"I'm just thinking about what pizza I'm getting after we torch this asshole," you quip after a moment and Steve laughs. A good laugh— the kind that travels up your chest and warms your being.

"I'm assuming it's classic margherita?" He asks, slowing down to keep up pace with you. He swings his torch around, keeping an eye out for any movement.

You scoff. "What do you take me for, Harrington? I have taste, alright?"

He laughs again and it is a truly wonderful sound. "Alright, alright. Then what is it?"

"Well, we'll find out if we all make it out alive, eh?" You regret the words as soon as you say them. A silence falls between you again, cold and clammy, much like the surrounding air or lack there of.

A moment passes before Steve nudges his shoulder into yours. "The first thing I wanna do if I make it out alive is talk to this girl."

You turn to look at him, puzzled, but he's looking at the ground, gaze trained on the light thrown by his torch in front of him.

"Tell her how I feel."

You feel your heartbeat rise just ever so slightly just as a branch snaps under Steve's foot. He kicks it aside and steps over a vine.

"She works at Family Video with Robin and I. I only met her a few months ago, but I feel like I've known her forever, you know? She gets me, and I know I am a little stupid about somethings but I get her. She is the only thing that makes complete sense to me. She's so smart, so brave, so beautiful and she— she makes me laugh. She makes me laugh so much."

Steve jumps over a wide log, and you feel like your heart has grown wings and fluttered it's way out of it's cage.

Every word of his feels like it's filling you with air, lifting you gently off the ground. It feels too much, like you're dreaming and might wake up anytime soon, crying about losing something so perfect.

"Steve," you manage, but your voice is weak and croaky. If Steve hears you, he doesn't look at you.

"We've been through so much together, in such less time and I don't think I could have made it this far if it wasn't for her. I don't.. I don't want to share this with anybody else. If I don't make it out alive... my only regret would be not telling her this. And telling her that—" he pauses in his tracks and finally turns to look at you. The expression on his face knocks the wind out of you. Nobody has ever looked at you this way.

"That.. I love you," he says, voice soft as silk and all you can do is close the space between you two to pull him in for a kiss.

You didn’t think, not for a second, not when you had first realised you liked him, that Steve Harrington would return your feelings that you kept so well-guarded. You imagined that friendship was as far as it would go, and tried your best to be indifferent to the growing feelings in your heart.

But the truth was, Steve got you like nobody did. Saw you like nobody else did.

When Steve pulls back, his eyes are shining with something so fierce, you think you might burn under his gaze.

"I love you too," you whisper against his lips and he sighs as if a humongous weight has been lifted off of him. You kiss him once more, then twice and rest your forehead against his. The smile on his face fills you with a newfound courage to face the impending doom.

"We're making it out alive, you and I."

[igotanidea]

The Fear: Jason Todd x Fem!reader part 3

part 1

part 2

A/N: Please, don't hate me for taking it slow :D :D And let me know if anyone wants a tag.

When her phone rang Y/N was halfway through her little science project. She spend last two months trying to come up with some crazy formula that would be the cure to the new version of the latest found virus. Still futile, but every other attempt brought her closer to the success.

“Oh, get lost…..” she muttered with zero intention and zero willingness to pick up, yet still glancing at the screen. Dick Grayson. Oh, ok. This probably wasn’t a social call.

“Dick? Hey there boy wonder, been a while” she answered, still hoping the bats weren’t in any trouble. Grayson was charming as usual, but his cheerful, flirting tone did not make her lower the guards down. And that instincts quickly turned out to be right when Tim intercepted the phone and simply explained Jayson got into trouble. That was all she needed to know, no more questions necessary. She made them a promise when she left Gotham.

“I’m on my way.”

 Y/N knew the boys for quite a while. She wasn’t born in Gotham but for inexplicable reasons her family moved there when she was 10. Her father, much like herself now, was a scientist who was fascinated by Scarecrow’s fear gas and made it his personal mission to crack the formula and/or find the antidote. Of course, he failed miserably, being exposed to the extreme amount of toxin himself and as a result – going crazy and ending up locked in the mental hospital. Y/N was 12 at the time. Her mother went through a nervous breakdown because of what happened to her husband and a few months later ended up in the same ward at the same hospital leaving the poor girl alone.

Hm.

Poor girl was smart enough to escape the claws of foster care for three whole months, just because she was way too smart for a kid her age. She knew where her parents kept the money, she was overly familiar with the way Gotham used to function, what places to avoid and what facilities were somewhat safe. She learned all of that through careful observation. And she had her father’s chemistry and science books and research so it was enough to keep her occupied and not get into any trouble. She was attending school, being the quiet, silent student, keeping her amazing brain and mind at bay just to avoid anyone’s attention. Being invisible was the only way to stay out of radar. Also, that little girl was dealing with pain, loss and rage. She hated Scarecrow for obvious reasons and took her father’s mantle in finding the antidote to that freaking gas.

After said three months however, during one of her experiments, she had a little accident and the little explosion she caused, resulted in covering her house in the cloud of chemicals. Fortunately, they weren’t detrimental for human health, unfortunately the blast was big enough to alarm the neighbors and to make two vigilante show up at her door. Batman and Robin took it upon themselves to inspect the place, since the cloud was green – the same color as the fear toxin, so they had reasons to believe Crane was involved in whatever happened. When they saw a little girl, only a few years younger than Robin (Dick at the time) they were shocked. Or at least, Dick was, since Bruce would never resort to something so petty as “shock.” After a long conversation, batman was ready to leave, but surprisingly Dick opposed to the idea making a point of why Y/N mustn’t be left alone, and what could happen to her and her extraordinary skills in the foster care. Somehow, this was convincing enough for Bruce to take the girl under his wing. After all, she could have been useful.

They revealed their secret identities to her and quickly figured that she would be the best imaginable addition to the team. Even if she wasn’t interested in field op and was not qualified for that, her behind the desk work was invaluable. She put hours and hours of work to create chemicals and mixtures for Dick and Bruce to use on patrol. She came up with the antidote to Ivy’s poisons. She developed and enhanced the gadgets. And yet, her mission and purpose was still to be fulfilled. Slowly, the bats started to call her “The Chemist.” Tacky enough to keep her safe.

She stayed when Dick left and became Nightwing.

She was there when Jason was appointed new Robin.

She wanted to leave when he was killed by the Joker. It was too much for a fifteen year old girl who was infatuated with the boy. Even if she never cried. Never. After all that happened to Todd she became cold, a bit vicious, more guarded than before. If it was anyone else, Bruce would get concerned about the risk of her becoming a sociopath, but Y/n never showed any sign of falling into mental illness. If anything, she became more focused, more observant, more vigilant, more dead-seton defeating all the Arkham freaks running around Gotham. With silent weapon – poison, toxin, whatever. For two years she was distant and unapproachable by anyone, except Dick and Alfred. The situation changed when Tim arrived at the manor. His observational skills, workaholism and insight were perfect complement to Y/N’s ambition and passion. They became the best of friends, forming a real brother – sister bond. The one she never had before or after. Damian who came last, accepted her, but they were both struggling to open up to one another.

She was finally getting though her past when magically, after five years some new villain appeared in Gotham.

“Red Hood?” she frowned “but isn’t it what Joker used to call himself before?”

“Yes.” Bruce nodded

“So?”

“So? “ now the Batman was frowning, girl’s condescending words did not fit in the situation.

“What do we do? Do we  use any of my mixtures on him? Do we tranquilize him? What’s the big plan, Bat?”

“Me and dick are coming after him. You’re staying here.”

“What’s new?”

“We’ll let you know if need for any of your toxins arises….”

The rest of the story is probably known to all of you. You know, the Lazarus Pit, the resurrection and the dramatic exposure of Red Hood’s real identity – Jason Todd himself. Only he was not himself, at least not the one she knew. He was more aggresive, more violent and unpredictable. And even more emotional then before.

One night, when she was walking home from work he just grabbed her from the street (of course scaring the shit out of her) and in some crazy, angry, unhinged words confessed to being in love with her. And then he kissed her.

But she was smarter than fall for him again and fought against her own heart. After all, being a chemist she knew and saw better than anyone what was the effect of Lazarus Waters on his organism. And from then both Y/N and Jason were dragged into crazy circle of pushing and pulling each other away.

Up to the point where she couldn't take it any longer and left.

Leaving him heartbroken. Utterly defeated.

Sad part was that he broke her first.

But Y/N was not completely heartless. She still stayed in touch with the boys and promised them, that whenever they needed her she would always come. Even if the wound of parting ways with Jay was still fresh.

part 4

@pinksirensong

@shadow-pancake9

@lwtmonster91

@your-local-cryptid87

@@princessbl0ss0m

[kennahjune]

hi hi i'm the main blog of who said stuff about steve stimming. OH MY GOD! you responding to those tags has made me stim the fuck out holyyyyyyyyy shit okay. thank you for replying to them!!!!

on the topic i wanted to just talk about steve stimming, if you don't mind lol. god it makes me ill to think about steve being all giggly and he has a high pitched squeal in the back of his throat when he's filled with so much joy that he thinks it's gonna bust open his chest right then and there.

steve who stims by bouncing on his tip toes and rambles to robin so fast that his words aren't even words anymore and he just sighs in a break for breaths and he is GLOWING and his cheeks are sore from smiling so big. he feels like no amount of hand flaps can get across how goddamn big his heart feels inside his chest

steve who shakes robin or eddie when he gets all gooey happy and he does this combination of a back and forth swaying and wiggling his body. he giggles in a way that he finds absolutely embarrassing but he can't fucking help it, he's just so happy

and oh my GOD, eddie who beams back at steve's stims. kisses his head for it or takes one of his hands once he's done flapping them and kisses it. eddie who loves seeing steve happy stim. eddie who often tells steve how cute he is when he's happy. and steve stims even more. steve who pics up the stim of repeatedly kissing eddie's cheek or lips. just. eddie who loves steve so much. eddie who is absolutely in love with his happy steve-o

HI OMG HELLO!!!

YES YES YESSSSSS

The kids picking up on Steve’s stims and him and Dustin rubbing off on each other and stimming together when they’re particularly happy abt smth.

El and Max making Steve bracelets and shit so that when he does his hand flaps his bracelets jingle and clank in a way that soothes his brain.

Lucas jumping up and down with him whenever they’re playing together because he just can’t help it. Steve’s happy so he’s happy!!

Mike not understanding at first but slowly picking up on Steve’s facial expressions and copying them without even realizing.

Will noticing that Steve stims the most when talking about Eddie and taking his time to ease out all the info he can because he loves seeing Steve so goddam happy.

Eddie seeing Steve grin stupid-big when flirting and Steve trying to hide it but Eddie takes his face in his hands gently and presses kisses all over his face— his cheeks his forehead his nose (Steve’s nose scrunches so ADORABLY—) and when he finally kisses his lips Steve’s smiling so much it’s more teeth than anything but that’s fine because Eddie Did That.

Steve bouncing and pacing and shaking Robin and barely breathing because he’s gushing about smth Eddie said or did that day and Robins looking at him like he hung the moon because he’s just so happy and she loves that he’s so happy.

Wayne picking up on the stims and noticing that Steve can’t always get the flaps out and no matter when he does his hands are still awkward so Wayne gets him a little fidget toy of some kind and Steve is fucking ECSTATIC and immediately goes into stimming because Wayne noticed and helped and UGH—

And it’s not just hand flaps and bouncing. It’s full body shivers and wiggles and shakes!! Steve will shake his head from side to side hard he’ll get a headache sometimes but it’s fine because Eddie is simply looking at him and smirking that Smirk and Oh Gosh—

You’ve got me on a rampage now lmao

[marvelsswansong]

hi~ can I request a steve or eddie x reader where they asked them out to watch scary movies with the gang or just them on a date not knowing y/n secretly loves anything horror-related, thank youuu! loved your stories btw 💕

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 (𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲)

summary: Steve's desperate to ask you out - so desperate, in fact, that he takes on Dustin's advice to ask you out on a horror movie night. Only, it backfires because you don't easily get scared: in fact, you love horror movies.

tags: Steve x gn!reader, pining!Steve who is bad at asking you out, humor, pure fluff, Dustin and Erica coming in clutch as wingman/wingwoman, short and sweet, happy ending duh, oneshot

☆ word count: 2.7K+☆

⚠️ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲, 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞.⚠️

Steve already regrets his decision to host an impromptu movie night at his place in an effort to impress you because of two reasons.

One, the invitation has somehow stretched to include Robin by way of you suggesting to bring her along when Steve had proposed the night in the first place (totally catching him off guard), then Robin had invited Eddie, who then invited all the kids from Hellfire.

Two, it's a piece of dating advice he took from Dustin.

This has to be rock bottom, Steve thinks internally, running a hand down his face at the realization that he's gotten so desperate to date you that he's taken dating advice from a literal teenager. Said teenager who now, will also be joining in on his 'horror movie date' with you.

Not that Steve called it a date when he'd ask you, of course. He'd tried to feign nonchalance, casually turning his head to the side to avoid eye contact, maintaining a chill tone and casual attitude whilst leaning against the counter of Family Video.

"If you're free Friday night, the store's getting the first few copies of the VHS release of Fright Night." Steve had said coolly, as if what he was asking was no big deal.

"Really?" you'd piqued up with immediate interest at that, bright eyes twinkling with curiosity and the glossy smile on your lips sent a shiver down his spine. Fuck, you were so attractive to him.

"Yeah. You could come over to my place and we could watch the movie right when it comes out. If you wanna, of course."

You eagerly nodded at that, clearly excited.

"Sounds awesome! We can make it an even more fun night by ordering pizza and inviting Robin-" you'd already started rattling off, clasping your backpack over your shoulder. Steve had attempted to speak up to correct you, the mention of inviting other people filling his mouth with bitter tones, but you were already rushing out of the store in a hurry.

"Let's iron out the details tomorrow, okay? Bye, see you!" you'd yelled whilst standing up on your bike, flashing him a quick grin and a thumbs up in the air before cycling off into the distance. Robin had emerged from the inventory room then, wide smirk on her face, to which Steve only raised his left hand to silence her teasing.

"Don't even get started."

Steve had been flirting with you - from his point of view - excessively and heavily. 'Running' into you at the grocery store. Offering you rides on rainy days. Making a point to swing by your summer job at the local bakery under a variety of excuses: Dustin wanted a bagel, Robin forgot to grab breakfast, he heard from Jonathan that the new cinnamon buns were amazing... All to be able to see your face light up with recognition and to hopefully hear your melodic laughter.

But you were so friendly and nice to everyone that his pursuit for your love was beginning to drive him crazy. He had no way of knowing if you were picking up on his advances or if you were simply disinterested because you were already taken. That was the curse of you being new to Hawkins, the struggles of you being the mysterious, attractive newcomer that elicited stares and compliments everywhere you went.

Perhaps that was why Steve was desperate enough to receive advice from Dustin, when you'd quickly excused yourself to the bathroom at the arcade, and the curly haired boy had sighed dramatically and walked straight up to Steve - abandoning the rest of his friends by the Tron machine.

"We need to talk, Harrington." Dustin had said, hands on his hips, a serious expression on his face akin to that of a disappointed parent. Unwrapping his lips from his straw stuck into a diet coke bottle, Steve frowned, confused.

"Uh... okay. About what?"

"You and (Y/n). It's getting pathetic, really. Why don't you just say it out loud: I like you, do you want to go out on a date?"

Steve had spluttered at that, red flush sweeping over his cheeks in an instant, carbonated liquid burning in his throat as he coughed and attempted to catch his breath.

"W-Wha, I- Uh. Listen. That's just like, not possible."

"Why not?"

"Because!" Steve's voice came out unnaturally high, so he coughed and forcibly lowered his voice, grimacing. "Because. We've known each other for less than a month, and I really don't want to be known as thecreep who asks someone out when they've just moved into Hawkins like a few weeks ago. Also-" Steve paused, mulling over if it would be wise to share such information with the younger boy. "I don't even know if the feelings are mutual."

Dustin only hummed at that in affirmation, before his mischievous eyes twinkled with a new idea.

"I got it. Horror movies." the young boy clapped his hands together at that, as if he was announcing something big.

"What about them?" Steve countered, not following.

"Everyone knows that horror movie dates are a shoe in for romance. It's like in all those romantic movies - the guy takes the girl out to a horror movie, the girl gets scared and cuddles into the guy, it leads to a heartfelt confession, then bam! They're dating."

"This isn't a movie, Henderson. That won't work." Steve scoffed, running a hand through his hair dismissively. Dustin's expression just soured at that, before he stuck his tongue out.

"Oh, and what you've been doing has been working out?"

Steve had opened his mouth to defend himself, but found himself lost for any sassy retorts, a stinging sensation spreading through his chest at the realization that, shit, Dustin had a point. A proud smile lifted the edges of Dustin's lips at that.

"Listen. You don't have to listen to me, cool, whatever. But we're all getting sick of you pining and moping in the corner. Take my advice if you want to, thank me later. Or don't take my advice and die alone. Choice is yours."

Steve would've strangled Dustin if you hadn't emerged from the bathroom then, innocent smile on your lips, shyly asking if you'd missed anything important. The curly haired boy only gave you a toothy grin, sneaking a sly smirk at Steve from the corner of his eyes before responding.

"Nope! Now come on, I want to show you where the best game in this arcade is."

Cut to now and his date with you has turned into a giant party of eight: four adults (you, him, Robin and Eddie) and four kids (Erica, Dustin, Lucas and Mike). You're the last one to arrive to Steve's place, windswept hair and apologetic eyes as you explain that you were held up doing last minute chores back home, and Steve waves it all off.

He's just happy that you actually showed up.

Of course, Mike has decided to sit himself right in the middle of the sofa (the only place left with empty seats), forcing you and Steve to sit one seat apart from each other. Steve has to suppress his scowl from actually showing on his face and he ends up pushing over the diet coke bottle to Mike a little too aggressively, to which the younger boy frowns and asks if he's done anything wrong.

'Yes.' is on the tip of Steve's tongue, but he swallows it back, faux smile and all.

"Hey Mike, why don't you come sit down here?" Eddie then intervenes, after exchanging a knowing glance with a very amused Robin, perched on her own chair in the corner.

"But I'm comfortable here-" Mike starts out, only to be practically yanked down by Erica.

"Stop complaining and sit your butt down. Besides, I think as the shortest, I deserve to sit on the empty spot on the sofa." she explains, winking at Steve, clearly in on the joke.

You miss the whole argument as you're over by the kitchen counter talking with Lucas and Dustin, waiting for the microwave to stop beeping to take out the popcorn. Steve can't bear to look at Erica's smug face, though she makes it a point to mouth "you're welcome" to him before grabbing a spare bowl of popcorn and popping a kernel into her mouth.

"Come on, the movie's about to start!" Eddie announces, settling down onto the floor with his legs crossed. The lights flicker off and you quickly settle into the only available seat left - next to Steve on the blue couch, your knees brushing up against his ever so slightly as the movie begins.

Steve's patient.

His mind is divided between paying attention to the movie and hoping that at any moment - the next jump scare, the next kill, the next loud noise and uninterrupted scenes of creepy music - that you'll break, crumble like chalk out of fear and leap into his arms as expected. Steve's made it a point to lean back, place an arm around the back of the couch to open his embrace up, even going so far as to ask you if you're alright through out the movie.

"Yeah, don't worry bout it Steve." you whisper, tugging a blanket over your lap. He frowns at that, before quickly smiling when your eyes meet his again.

"I'm just making sure like, you know, that you're not too scared or something." he tries to rationalize his desperate behavior as you shrug.

"Aw, don't worry bout it. Horror movies are my thing."

Shit.

"R-really?" his voice breaks at that, which he coughs quietly to cover up, as you eagerly nod along, careful to not disrupt the others.

"Yeah! It was a tradition in my house to watch them every weekend. Grew up reading horror novels too and Halloween was always a big deal in my home town and all. I honestly don't think I've been truly scared by a horror movie since I was like three." you boast, before your eyes redirect to stare at the screen.

Double shit.

True to your word, you don't seem the least bit scared through the whole movie. No, instead you laugh, you make fun of the effects and you provide amusing commentary that makes everyone else laugh along with you as well.

The few inches between you and him remain that - a few inches apart - for the whole movie and you never so once lean into Steve or brush up against his fingers. It's painful, having you so close yet so far, for Steve to be begging for some miracle at this point, for this fruitless mission to work out whilst it fails spectacularly instead.

The failure stings even worse when, after the movie ends, everyone disperses to go back home - Eddie offering to drive all the kids back, Robin taking the bus back home after hastily hugging you and Steve goodbye - and all that's left for show is a messy livingroom. A picturesque scene of a mess of spilled popcorn, empty paper plates dripping with grease and sofa cushions with imprints of human bodies.

"You're not... leaving?" Steve asks lowly, surprised, hands freezing mid-motion of picking up an empty glass bottle from the floor. You look up from where you're standing, right over where the boys were sitting, using a dust bin and a newspaper to sweep up the spilled popcorn.

"No, I wanted to help you clean up. Is that... alright?" you ask, hesitant. "Because if not, I can leave right now-"

"No, no, no!" he quickly rushes out, shaking his head sideways. "Stay as long as you like. Just not like too long, I guess, because my parents are coming back tomorrow morning-" Steve starts to ramble, because that's what your speciality is (making his mind turn to mush and melting him into putty in your hands).

You giggle at that, nodding.

"Don't worry, Stevie. Unless this clean up takes the whole night, I'll be out of your gorgeous hair in no time."

He lets out a brief sigh of relief.

"Right. Uh, thanks."

A few beats of silence pass in between both of you shuffling round the room to straighten blankets, dust off cushions and pick up trash, until your compliment finally registers in his brain. He's been so engrossed in how miserably this 'horror movie date' mission has failed that it takes him a while to actually register the fact that you called his hair gorgeous.

"Wait. Did you say my hair was gorgeous?"

Your movements lull for a second from across the room, having just swept the kitchen counter clean of grease and spilled liquid, before you flash him a nervous smile.

"Well... yeah. I mean, there's a reason you were the 'King of Hawkins' and the resident heartbreaker in your high school years, no?"

Steve groans, embarrassed.

"Oh god, did Robin tell you about my Hawkins High days?"

You laugh, nodding, a sound that lights a pleasant fire in Steve's stomach.

"Yep. Got all the gossip I needed from Eddie too. I didn't know you used to play basketball."

"Trust me, I was a douchebag back then. Those days are long, long gone." he draws out his sentences to emphasize his point, flailing his arms around in a dismissive manner.

"Aw, well, at least you kept your good looks and charm in tact from high school." you pause, folding the kitchen towel over your left arm, before smirking. "Well, maybe not your charm."

"Hey, what is that supposed to mean!" Steve counters, lip pouting, pretending to be hurt. You shrug, coyly looking up at him with a knowing grin on your lips.

"I don't know. But something tells me King Steve would've just told me that he finds me attractive and ask me out on a date, instead of taking the advice of a teenager."

Steve's smile drops into a look of complete horror, his mouth already burning with a million apologies as worst case scenarios rush through his mind, but oddly your fond smile never once fades. He's expecting you to mock him, or for you to at least frown and tell him that you're terribly sorry but not interested, but instead you abandon the dirty kitchen towel on the counter and walk right up to him.

At this proximity, he can individually count the stray strands of hair in disarray by the crown of your head and he's overwhelmed by the sweet scents of your shampoo wafting over him in waves. It makes him nervous, fingers itching by his sides as he doesn't know what's appropriate to do, but his curious eyes never once leave your amused ones.

"At least, that's what I've been told by Dustin. I hope he didn't lie, did he?" you question, quirking your eyebrows.

Silence.

"He didn't." Steve admits into the air, letting out a deep sigh. You only continue to stare at him in silence, amused grin and all, as if you're waiting for him to continue to speak.

"So... do you wanna ask me out now? Properly?" you have to spell it out for him, laughing softly at how adorably embarrassed and confused he seems to be.

Long gone are his suave, ladykiller, king of Hawkins High days.

No, the boy standing in front of you is still charming but with none of the pretentious ego underlying it, and he's endearingly awkward whilst he stumbles on his words in an effort to regain his composure.

"Right! Yes, uh.... I really, really like you. Do you want to go out for dinner some time? I could pick you up from your place at maybe... 7pm next Friday?" he trails off, voice still low and hesitant, as if he's still bracing for a last minute rejection.

"Yes, Steve, that'd be wonderful."

You leave Steve standing there, dazed and lovesick, when you lean over and peck his cheek, your honey chapstick lips sticky and soft against his face, the simple gesture of affection sending shockwaves through his chest that renders him motionless even when you pull away. If you can see what a devastating effect you have on him, you don't comment on it - no, instead you flash him a dangerous wink that Steve swears he would do anything for.

"See you then, Harrington."

"Holy shit." Steve breathes out finally once you leave, speaking to no one in particular as the night wind blows through the empty room.

He did it. He's finally asked you out on a date.

And you've said yes.

The joy in his heart and the added bounce to his steps quickly fades, however, when it then pops into his mind that this probably means he owes Dustin now.

"Fuck."

Last time he owed Dustin something, Steve had to take off a full day of work to drive him to a sci fi convention in a major city three hours away and back. The gas alone had cost Steve a fortune.

Sighing, Steve shakes away that thought, too happy at the prospect of taking you out next Friday. He'll deal with paying back Dustin later.

He just hopes this time, Dustin will take mercy on him and his wallet.

a/n: just something short and sweet to hold y'all down before I post the massive 16K slow burn Eddie fic later this week! Probably not my best but I think it fit the prompt well and I just wanted something cute and short and sweet and simple to digest <3 <3 <3 thank you so much nonnie for sending this one in, I really had a fun time writing it!

hope y'all enjoyed it regardless!!!! :)

[reikunrei]

I didn't talk about this at all in my last doctor who post because there was so much else going on that I wanted to touch on, but after @mikesbasementbeets mentioned one of the closing lines of the episode in the tags, I kinda wanted to just talk about it a bit.

So, this is one of the rare episodes of dw where everyone lives at the end, including all of the victims who outright or technically died. Throughout basically the whole show, but especially the early seasons, and especially s1 with the 9th Doctor, there's an incredible emphasis on "we cannot interfere or else everything will fall apart." The episode right before these ("Father's Day") actually tackles this very idea, which I hope to explore sometime in another post. In short, the Doctor doesn't save people. Doing so often results in more harm than good (unless it wasn't meant to happen, but we don't have time to get into that here lol).

However, at the end of this episode, he does something completely different.

He says everybody lives. He sends out a mass of nanogenes, now reprogrammed, toward the gas mask soldiers surrounding the bomb site and they rewrite and "fix" their DNA, making them all normal humans again without the injuries of dead little Jamie. As I showed in the initial post, even Jamie winds up coming back to life, despite the fact that he was already dead when the nanogenes found his body and used him as a blueprint. Realistically, Jamie should still be dead because he wasn't technically "changed" by the nanogenes, simply brought back to life, which the Doctor earlier says is easy.

It's an extremely profound ending to a dw episode, and it's one that sticks with a lot of people.

Now bear with me because I'm sick with a cold as I write this so it might not be very coherent, but in conjunction with all of the other connections/similarities/parallels between these episodes and Stranger Things, this feels startlingly fitting for (at least part of) the conclusion to st.

Throughout all of st, we've seen time and again that knocking things down with violence doesn't really work. It's especially evident in st4 when Nancy, Steve, and Robin flambée Vecna, blast away a few chunks of flesh, and knock him out of the third story of a house. You'd think that would turn him into a pile of smoldering mulch, but it doesn't! Frankly, he gets up and walks away very quickly. We're shown and told time and again that killing outright does not work.

In these dw episodes, they could have tried killing any of the victims to keep them at bay (at one point the Doctor even pick-pockets Jack's sonic blaster so he won't use it on the victims). However, with the nanogenes present, they simply would have been "fixed" again and brought back to life. Much like Vecna, they would've just kept coming back.

And what winds up saving the day in dw? Love and understanding. When Nancy finally admits to Jamie that she's his mother, not his sister, and apologizes for everything that's happened and comes into contact with the nanogenes, it makes them fix their misunderstanding.

A lot of people talk about how Will said "we have to kill him" irt Vecna/One at the end of 4.09. However, again, we've seen that it literally does not work. And along with everything else surrounding the weirdness with identities in st, specifically with the distinctions between Henry/Edward, Vecna, and One (and Brenner) (check out the original post I linked at the top for links to other folk's posts about this), it's not far-fetched at all to assume that untangling the uncertainty left here will be what brings them closer to "saving the day," much closer than anymore fighting ever would.

We spend a lot of these dw episodes being scared of Jamie. Even Nancy is constantly visibly fearful of him and won't go near him, but in the end, she takes him into her arms despite the risk of her becoming infected. They don't brute force the nanogenes into understanding, they don't try to reprogram them, and they don't physically fight them off. They constantly run away, use words, or even sing them to sleep. There is very little violence in these dw episodes, and most of it comes from the victims themselves and is very tame.

Stranger Things, at its core, is about love, and that extends to the (supposed) villains. The way things have been presented thus far are very unreliable, but we have enough information from the show itself (aided by things like TFS and even bits of the VR game) to prove that there's something else going on, and maybe, just like with little Jamie, someone just needs a little bit of helpful truth.

As Joyce Maldonado once said, "Can love defeat fear?"

[miraculousmultifan]

Foreigner's God

This fic was written for the @strangerthingswritersguild's Hozier Project where we each chose a song from Hozier's self-titled album and wrote a one-shot inspired by it. I chose Foreigner's God.

I also crossposted this fic on AO3 which you can read here.

Here are the tags (the fic will be under the cut):

Ship: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Other Characters Mentioned Additional Tags: Presumed Dead Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington Has a Crush on Eddie Munson, Kas!Eddie, Post-Season 4, The Five Stages of Grief, Angst with a Happy Ending, Struggles With Religion, Mentions of Atheism, Ambiguous/Open Ending

Warning: I want to clarify, since I was having some struggles finding the right tag, that there is a lot of discussion about Christianity (namely Steve's relationship with Christianity and faith as well as his own grievances with other Christians and things like "how God chooses who gets a miracle"). My family is Christian, so there's a little bit of my own self-projection with Steve's internal monologue, but this is in no way meant as "Christianity Bashing"

If any of that is something you wouldn't like to read, I suggest you don't continue. This has been your warning! :)

Denial.

Kneeling over the man’s prone form, Steve refuses to believe he is truly dead. They get back to the trailer quickly, so surely there’s still a chance that he could make it. Right?

The Upside Down rattles with earthquakes, but Dustin’s tears are still louder in comparison. The man’s not dead because that would mean he left Dustin to grieve. He wouldn’t do that, so he’s not dead.

Steve dips his head down until his cheek is suspended a thread above his lips, waiting to feel a soft brush of air to prove that he’s still breathing. He wraps his fingers around his wrist like a pathetic excuse for a hand-hold as he tries to find a pulse. He stays like that for much longer than he needs to in the hopes of feeling a puff of breath, a thump of a heartbeat under his skin. 

It will come. It has to. Because he isn’t dead.

Nancy and Robin pull Steve and Dustin away from his body, even as their own bodies shake with sobs. The ground trembles as another earthquake runs rampant through the Upside Down, splitting the ground and spreading cracks through the dirt.

One by one, everyone leaves the Upside Down through the gate in the ceiling of his trailer. Without–

They leave him lying there. They leave him to rot.

Not that he can rot. Because he isn’t dead.

Anger.

Steve used to be a Christian. Back before the Upside Down. Back before he was pushed headfirst into actual hell.

He wasn’t exactly devout. He definitely didn’t follow the “no sex before marriage” rule or anything. But the faith aspect? The belief of a God that created them? An all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God? He believed that. He wanted to believe there was someone with the ability to protect them. To look after them.

Then he had to fight a six-foot, slimy, petal-headed monster to protect Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler. The same monster that made Will Byers go missing. The same monster that killed Barb in his pool. Where was God then?

God doesn’t exist. There is no possible way the God that is supposed to love them unconditionally and protect them would create something hell-bent on tearing apart every living being it came across.

Some people might assume the demogorgon, the Upside Down, all of it has to be the work of Satan. Steve knows better. Satan is only supposed to tempt you to sin. His goal is damnation, not death. That’s what he wants. Not vicious, violent creatures that kill innocent people for fun.

So, after Carver comes back from everything alive, surviving the earthquakes and rifts in the ground, and tries to spew bullshit about the kind of people God loves and the kind that he sends to hell, Steve knows he’s wrong. What ever happened to “love thy neighbor?”

While he isn’t a Christian anymore, he knows that Carver is simply twisting the words of the Bible to support his own malicious agenda, venting his grief over Chrissy by directing his rage onto a scapegoat. An easy target that didn’t deserve any of it.

It’s easy for Carver to blame him and call him a Satanist when the jock had a front-row seat to Max floating in the air, her limbs snapping like twigs. For a Christian with no experience with the Upside Down, blaming it on Satan seems like an easy out that requires minimal critical thinking.

But then Carver went from vague comments about sinners to using the Bible to turn Hawkins against him. Calling him a freak, a murderer, a Satanist. They deface his missing posters with devil horns and pentagrams, unable to let his name rest. After everything, they still won’t let him rest.

And Steve is angry. His heart is heavy with the weight, the hate, of Carver’s fucked up beliefs. Why does this jackass get to live when he is dead? Why does Carver get to run his name through the mud when he’s not even around to defend himself?

Carver is so scared of imaginary monsters that he can’t see the real ones that are haunting Hawkins.

He sacrificed himself for a town that hates him. A town that, even now, couldn’t appreciate what he’d done for them. Hawkins never deserved him. Not even the federal government could be bothered to clear his name. It’s much easier for them to hide the truth and paint him as the real villain rather than reveal him as the hero he really was. They’re the cowards. Not him.

Steve hates Hawkins. Steve hates the people who ruined the life of a boy whose biggest “crime” was dressing in edgy clothes, listening to loud music, and playing a nerdy board game. Steve hates the people that made him feel like a coward for trying to protect himself. Steve hates the people who taught him that he would only be redeemable when he was dead.

He hates God for letting it happen.

Steve wants to scream. He wants to kick and bite. Thrash and punch. He wants to shout from the rooftops about how the very man they scorn is the one who saved them all.

He wants to scream the name of a god he no longer believes in. He wants to curse a god that doesn’t exist. The purest expression of his grief, echoing through town.

Bargaining.

Steve would trade the ungrateful citizens of Hawkins if it meant he could have him back.

To the people of Hawkins, he’s just missing. With the lines of open gates, destruction on every corner, overcast sky, and endless ash floating in the air, some of them believe that whatever his agenda was, he had succeeded. They don’t know shit.

They pray to their god for a miracle. For someone to stop the murders. Stop “the devil” from wreaking havoc. As if their god actually had that power. Steve and his friends hadn’t laid down their lives for everyone to shout “miracle!” If they managed to defeat Vecna, Steve didn’t want God getting all the credit for it.

Miracles are bullshit anyway. Why should a god give miracles so sparsely? Why do some people get miracles and others don’t? God shouldn’t play favorites. How does he decide who deserves a miracle? 

Why hadn’t a true hero fit that criteria?

What “lesson” does God teach when he lets innocent children die without stepping in? What “lesson” does he teach his believers when he lets them invoke his name like a waiver as they hurt an innocent boy?

Sometimes Steve thinks that it should have been him instead. It was his fourth year dealing with the Upside Down; his winning streak had run its course. It was about time anyway. It should have been him.

Steve can’t fathom trading anyone else for him. It would either be the shitheads of Hawkins or Steve. Maybe the assholes in Hawkins Lab who released the Upside Down on all of them in the first place. Maybe the fucking feds that used him as a scapegoat instead of owning up to their mistake.

Depression.

Alone in his house, Steve sits on his bed in his room and stares down at the piece of clothing in his lap. He isn’t crying, but it’s a near thing.

Dustin hasn’t called in days, torn up by grief. Mike refuses to look at him, using him as an easy target to place his blame. Lucas is too busy sitting at Max’s bedside to be betrayed by Steve’s failure. Sometimes Erica comes over to sit on the couch with him and show him her dice or talk about My Little Pony, but they never talk about him.

Robin knows something is wrong, of course. They know each other so intrinsically that they don't have to speak to share their thoughts and feelings.

The thing is… Steve doesn’t want to talk about it. If he tried to open up, he’d have to find a way to pry the man’s name from his throat. Robin supports him like always, but he can tell that she’s starting to worry even more than usual.

He wants to cry. He wants to sit there and let himself cry, but he can’t. His eyes are deceptively dry, giving off the impression that he isn’t grieving even when he feels it every day.

Does he even have the right to grieve? Steve barely knew the guy! They’d only spent a week together and he had the audacity to grieve at the same level as someone like Dustin? Steve was being irrational.

Robin and Nancy could have handled Vecna, no problem. Steve never should have assumed being the distraction would be easy. That the distraction team would just hop back through the gate as soon as they played their part. Not when he knew how vicious and determined those bats could be.

The denim vest feels like it’s burning a hole through Steve’s legs. It’s selfish for him to keep it. Surely Wayne needs it more. 

But the two of them had sort of become friends, hadn’t they? They had joked together. They bonded over Dustin’s overconfident attitude. They…

Well, let’s just say Steve had to go through a bit of a bi-crisis in the midst of his mourning.

If Steve could only talk to Robin about this mass of grief, guilt, and what-ifs in his chest—if he could finally say his name—maybe he could finally break down into pieces. Maybe his numb exterior could finally reflect his shattered heart. 

Acceptance.

He’s dead. He’s dead, and he’s never coming back.

He was an ever-present pressure in Steve’s life for one short week before he vanished forever. And Steve can accept that.

They won’t have another opportunity to tease Dustin together. They won’t sit pressed on a couch together, their thighs brushing. He won’t lean too close into Steve’s space and bump their shoulders together. They won’t get the chance to say the things they left unsaid.

And now Steve will never know.

But he can accept that. He can because he has to.  Because they held his funeral. 

You don’t hold funerals for people who aren’t dead. So Steve just has to accept it. The sooner he can, the sooner he can move on.

…

Revival?

Something is in his house.

That’s the first thing Steve registers when he steps up to the front door. The wood by the handle is scratched up with claw marks, and the metal lock is on the ground, pulled out of the door and rendering Steve’s house key obsolete.

Instead of entering the threshold unprotected, Steve scrambles back to his car to grab the nail bat from his trunk. He considers getting his walkie out to ask for help but decides to scope out the situation first. Cautiously, he makes his way through the entryway leaving the door open behind him in case he needs to make a hasty escape.

He expects the house to be destroyed; valuables taken, glass shattered, and dirt smeared all over the linoleum tiles. There’s definitely mud tracked into the house, but the shape of the footprints is like nothing Steve has ever seen. From a distance, they might look like regular feet, but upon closer inspection, Steve notices that the toes seem elongated, the length of the feet bigger than any normal human’s.

Tentatively, Steve follows the footsteps with his bat tightly gripped in his fist. They lead up the stairs to Steve’s bedroom where the door is hanging slightly ajar.

Something is in Steve’s room.

It has long, leathery wings; ragged and tangled hair; sharp, pointed claws; and a thrashing, demonic tail. It moves around the room with shameless wonder, trilling to itself as it sniffs at the comforter on Steve’s bed, the clothes in his closet, and the denim vest on his desk.

The creature stops at the desk, pausing to smell the vest thoroughly, unconsciously giving Steve a view of its side profile. Strange… The monster bears a striking resemblance to–

“Eddie?” Steve breathed, his grip on his bat loosening as his eyes finally blurred with unshed tears. “Is that you?”

The monster whips around to face Steve, its lips pulled up into a snarl as its dark, human-like eyes stare sharp and steady, directly into the emptiest parts of his heart. Without a warning, the creature crowds into Steve’s space and starts sniffing him within an inch of his life. It runs its strangely human-like nose along the crook of Steve’s bared neck while its clawed hands hold Steve’s arms by his sides firmly.

Steve drops the bat, frozen in place. Now that it’s so close, Steve can see the similarities to Eddie in the monster’s face. Those same expressive Bambi eyes. The strong line of his nose. Those same plush-looking lips pulled back to reveal monstrous fangs. Even with the changes, there’s no doubt in Steve’s mind that the creature before him is Eddie.

Then, when Eddie has apparently finished sniffing, he snuffles in Steve’s face, satisfied, and picks him up like he’s made of feathers. With seemingly minimal effort, he places Steve in the center of his bed and fluffs the blankets up around him, swiping his frighteningly long, black tongue up Steve’s cheek in a sopping wet lick.

Steve blushes, unsure how he should be reacting. “Eddie?” he murmurs softly once more, hoping to draw Eddie’s attention to the words leaving his lips.

Eddie chirps, climbing into the bed to join Steve and curling up at his knees. His wings flap, sending a burst of air across Steve’s face before they settle, and he faces Steve with his eyes relaxed and expression open.

With a nervous smile, still not sure what to do with his hands, Steve says, “Do you… recognize me?”

Another chirp and Eddie presses his forehead into Steve’s outstretched palms. 

“Okay,” Steve breathes, letting out a brief sigh of relief. “Can you speak?”

Eddie whimpers, hanging his head low. The sound is broken, raspy as though his vocal cords are struggling to produce the deep sound. Steve feels like he’s losing him all over again.

Mustering all the tender charm he can manage, Steve slowly reaches out to loosely hold one of Eddie’s hands. Eddie picks up his head to watch him, making no move to stop the motion, the only indication of his interest being the little flick of the end of his tail back and forth.

As gently as he can, Steve rubs his thumb against the inside of Eddie’s wrist and softly presses a kiss to his palm. “I’m glad you found me,” he murmurs, hoping that Eddie will understand the sentiment. “I’m glad you’re back.”

There’s no mutual language between the two of them for Steve to express it, and he knows he would only break if he tried to verbally convey it, but his entire being feels like it’s lit up with the broken love he holds in his cracked and shattered heart. Even if he said the words out loud, Eddie wouldn’t be able to respond in kind. 

Just like everyone else, leaving Steve wanting for something no one can give him. 

Steve lays back in his bed to stare up at the ceiling. All his grief is no longer warranted now that Eddie’s back, but despite that, he still feels as though he’s lost something truly important. 

His cheeks are still damp from the brief tears he shed at Eddie’s return, but when he goes to wipe them away, Eddie beats him to it. He raises himself up until he’s propped up on top of Steve and leans down to lick the tears away. It’s a little gross, but Steve appreciates it anyway.

With that task complete, Eddie flops down until his entire body weight is pressing down on Steve, laying on top of him like it’s a normal thing for friends to do. He nuzzles at the crook of Steve's neck and chuffs.

Steve chuckles nervously, a deep flush rising to his cheeks. “You alright there, Eds?” he manages to squeak out.

Instead of moving his head to look up at Steve, Eddie presses his face harder into Steve’s neck as a rumbling sound vibrates from the base of his throat. It sounds strangely like a purr.

Then, to Steve's immense surprise, Eddie raises his head and looks Steve straight in the eye. His eyebrows furrow in intense concentration as he opens his mouth. At first, only a low growl comes out before it slowly morphs as Eddie’s lips form around the word “…S-Steevie.”

Steve blushes a pretty pink. “Yeah. That’s me.”

Eddie snorts, though it reminds Steve more of a dragon huffing smoke from its nose than a laugh. He presses their foreheads together gently and Steve goes still beneath him. “Missed you,” Eddie grits out as though those two words took all of his effort. Then his face splits into a wide grin and he leans down to lick at the tip of Steve’s nose, reminiscent of an excitable puppy.

Heat blooms in Steve’s chest, and he struggles to hold back the warmth that wants to pour out of him from his fingertips. So, instead, he reaches his hand up to brush Eddie’s hair back from his forehead and smiles. “I missed you too,” he murmurs in response, trying to put all of his love into those four words.

Eventually, they’ll work on re-introducing Eddie to everyone else and giving him some speech therapy to help with his vocal cords, but for now, Steve is content to just lay there. He has no reason to grieve anymore. Not when he has Eddie back.

[fastcardotmp3]

Re: the tags of that post you just reblogged from me - AU where Steve and Eddie swap roles for just the final fight (Eddie’s with the girls, Steve’s with Dustin) but with an added subplot where we meet Steve’s parents early in the season & maybe they’re trying to get him to grow up/move out/think about his future, or something else, but they’d have to feature somehow so we still get that ending scene except it’s Robin telling his parents he didn’t make it (im picturing a very tragic recontextualising around the phrase “you need to do something with your life” leading to Steve drawing the bats away from Dustin)

That’s just my quick thoughts though, I’d love to know how you’d do it!

oh I LOVE this you've got my brain spinning I have so many thoughts and it's all your fault!!!

(I am so sorry for how long this got)

I think there are for sure many versions of this plotline that could work BUT here goes nothing

I definitely agree that we'd need to introduce Steve's parents early on (in my ideal world we'd have met them sooner than s4 for this plotline but alas I'm not in charge I'm simply posthumously script doctoring) and I think one version of the conversation there could come from a place of wanting what's best for him, but centering itself around ambition and choice in a way that sticks with Steve.

"You had so much ambition when you were still in school, Steve-- all of your sports, how sociable you were-- what happened to that? Where did you lose that along the way?"

And Steve flounders a little bit, because he's gotten to the point after season 3 where he can see himself better from the outside, is just that touch more self aware and good at reading not just other people's feelings but his own.

So it takes him a beat to put it into words, but he's able to, is the thing--

"Maybe I don't need to go down the-- the usual path to end up where I want to end up."

"Is this where you want to end up?" his mother asks, "working at a video store for the rest of your life?"

"It's not about that," Steve shrugs, pouring two travel mugs of coffee all the while, one for him and one for Robin.

Because he knows it's not about that, he spent all of last summer learning it's not about that and the months since discovering that there's a certain amount of peace in knowing that things aren't perfect but that matters less when you have your people around.

"What's it about then? Steve, I just-- I don't want you to get stuck here, when I know you could do so much more with your life if you just chose to."

"I'm not doing nothing with my life, Mom!" he laughs, exasperated but certain for once in his goddamn life. "I'm-- I'm actually doing really well right now, I've got good friends and I've got the kind of job where I'm kept busy while I figure out what's next for me and I'm just... happy, I guess? Like, can't my ambition just be to keep doing stuff that makes me happy? Can't I choose that?"

And he has to go to work, has to walk out and promise her that they'll talk about it more later, talk about it with his dad too, but Steve knows what he cares about and this isn't going to shake his resolve.

What he cares about is this group of people who have changed his life even more than the monsters did, who brought enough good into it to at the very least match the bad, and in some cases (like the girl already monologuing as she climbs into the front seat of his car and accepts her coffee with a mocking kiss to his cheek) somehow usurp the bad.

Steve doesn't have to be what this town expects of him, what most likely to end up rich superlative voters expect of him, what his parents expect of him, because his life isn't about being any particular something, it's in the doing.

It's in the swinging of a baseball bat, the swinging of his fists to keep the people he loves safe.

It's in the morning drives to get Robin to school on time and the late night ones to make sure Dustin meets curfew.

It's in the friendship he's managed to find with Nancy in the past year, the knowledge that this version of them is the best one by far.

It's in the days driving the kids to the trailer park to visit Max even if she ultimately ends up refusing to come out with them, because at least they're doing it, at least they're trying with her.

It's in this, too, when they drive out to Reefer Rick's place and some of the claims of happiness start slipping through Steve's fingers again with the proof that it isn't over, the fight.

But they've beat it before and they can beat it again. It's in the doing, and Steve has gotten knocked down many a time but the thing he always does is he always gets up on the other side.

He knows this. He trusts in this. He's built a fucking worldview around this because that's where his ambition went, Mom.

That's what happened to "Steve Harrington, actually a cool dude."

Steve's humble enough to thank Eddie for saving his ass, but he's done this enough times to still be able to reassure the guy who calls him badass that, "It always looks hopeless right before we win. Don't freak out too bad if it looks like the end of the world, huh?"

Eddie looks at him like he has two heads, says he's jealous of Steve's optimism.

Even Robin tells him that she thinks they might not win this time but all Steve knows is that they always have before. All Steve knows is that his instincts usually work out, let him protect the rest of them long enough to make the big and vital moves necessary to beat this thing.

All Steve knows is that he just, he's changed a lot but-- He's just the same kid who was cocky enough to run back into the Byers' house to fight a monster, stubborn enough to let the Russian's beat the hell out of him before he'd let them do the same to Robin and he--

"I don't know, I still have hope. Maybe this is the first time we actually win. Forever."

There's this sense of finality to it, hanging in the air, and she doesn't look convinced there in the same way she doesn't look convinced when he and Dustin are saying goodbye to the other three at Eddie's trailer, but Steve kisses her once on the forehead and says, "what are you waiting around for? Go kick some ass, your schmuck will be here when you're done."

His instincts have always protected them in the past.

It's his instincts that have him formulating a plan the second he realizes the bats are going to get inside the trailer, going to make a break for the gate and attack whole swaths of people unprepared for such a thing.

Dustin will be mad about being abandoned on the other side, but Steve's pissed him off before and he's always gotten over it.

It's in the doing, his ambition.

It's in the doing, the key to a well-spent life.

It's in the doing, the being of Steve Harrington, overconfident nature and all.

He always gets back up, every knock to the head and blow to the ego, Steve always gets back up, so he holds his ground and fights. Leads the bats away and keeps them there.

His mother wasn't wrong that he's changed, but she wasn't right when she claimed the thing he'd lost was his ambition. He'd found it, this force of nature in his chest that makes him willing to face down hell if it means the people he loves are safe.

He always gets back up, a tail around his throat.

He always gets back up, teeth in his flesh.

Steve Harrington is a pro at getting knocked down.

"I'll get up in a second, just-- just a second--"

"Steve there's-- there's so much blood-- Steve, you need to-- you have to get up now--"

"It's okay, it's okay, we won, just-- just another minute. Wanna see that-- Rob and the others made it back. Then we--can go--"

Dustin is crying. Dustin is holding him.

And Steve is bleeding out, he thinks somewhere indistinct and hazy at the back of his mind. He'll get up and fix that in a minute.

"You die, I die! Hey, hey motherfucker! Don't close your eyes-- you die, I die, you hear me?!"

It's in the doing, really, that Steve does as he's told just long enough to see the other three come stumbling out of the tree line towards them.

It's in the doing, in the choice of it, that he dies knowing they won.

(His mother wails when Robin approaches her at the shelter two days later with sunken eyes and unwashed hair. His father sinks into the closest chair and takes the offered keys to a maroon BMW with trembling hands.)

(It's in the doing that this time, in order to really win, they have to cling a little bit to his hope.)

[all-pacas]

So in my semi-secret HIMYM rewatch — I've been watching on weekends with a friend — we just hit 'The Rough Patch," ie, the first Barney and Robin breakup.

And first of all: S5 absolutely is weird and my conspiracy theory about it being when the finale was written 100% holds, it all makes so much sense.

But second: it is a really bad episode. Not because of any shipping reason. It's just… a mess. Unfunny. Even scenes that ought to be funny, like Lily, Ted, and Marshall in the car, somehow don't work. The B/R breakup is also bad, as it has nothing to do with any episodes before or after. It really feels like the writers went "oh, time to break them up!" and just… did it. It's hard to explain if you haven't watched (which I'm assuming most folks on my dash have not). This couple has a season of lead up to them dating, with their relationship being the main plot of the 4th season. They spend the first few episodes of season 5 dating, and while they don't particularly give off vibes of being madly in love so much as super horny, they seem happy enough to be horny together. And then all at once there's fat suits involved, and they're miserable together, and they break up because "two awesomes cancel eachother out." The episode practically lampshades it: they're so similar, they seem perfect for one another. Buuuut time to break up.

So, if I was to rewrite that episode — with the goal of them breaking up in the end — here is what I would do:

At the end of the previous episode, Barney and Robin are fighting. They break up then, in a messy and impulsive way. "I guess we should just break up then!" "Fine!" "Fine!"

At the start of Rough Patch, narrator Ted explains it's been a couple of weeks. And… Barney and Robin are avoiding one another. More than that, they are practically running from the room when the other is present, loudly declaring they are FINE, dragging the gang in, making everyone pick sides. The others are all worried and, just as importantly, super annoyed. Ted and Marshall think that the two probably love one another and just need to talk it out; Lily points out that Barney and Robin are the most stubborn and petty people on the planet, and that's not easy. But she agrees it's necessary.

Most of the episode is the trio trying to scheme to get Barney and Robin together. There's surprise parties, Robin is brought to GNB on flimsy pretexts, the gang tries to arrange a meet up at laser tag — somehow, impossibly, Barney and Robin simply always escape or avoid getting caught. Lily finally comes up with an elaborate and foolproof scheme to get them in a room together… they are locked in a room together… and when Lily peeks in on them… they're gone!

The next day at the bar, Lily, Marshall, and Ted have given up. They mourn the end of the Gang, and discuss custody arrangements. Lily says this is all Ted's fault for blurring the "dating in the friend group" line to start with. Barney and Robin walk in together. Marshall is excited: did they talk it out? And then bang it out? No, Robin says, we really did break up.

Cut to: Barney and Robin, a few days ago. They realize almost right away what the gang is doing, and this annoys them enough that they work together to avoid being forced into a room together. We see them exchanging texts and phone calls warning one another, etc.

When Lily gets them in a room together, they escape out the window and end up on the roof. They start giggling and congratulating one another on their cleverness before sobering. Robin admits that she's missed this. Having stupid fun with Barney. Barney nods. They were really good friends, weren't they? It sucks that they broke up and have to be enemies now.

After a moment of silence, Robin says, maybe they can still be friends. Go back to being friends, like they were. Even though they broke up in a stupid fight, at the time she hated him. (Barney interjects: he thought she was a huuuuge bitch). But this scheming has been fun.

They agree they're much better as friends, and it's worth breaking up in order to save their overall relationship. They have a nice hug.

Back in the bar, they explain they really did break up, and it's for the best, since it means they can now go back to being friends and totally awesome. They both seem okay with it. As the episode ends, Robin has to go to work, and Barney checks out some girl at the bar.

[tkpuke]

Mother of the Year

Pairing - Steve Harrington x Reader

Word count: 1,840

In which you don’t give Steve Harrington a break in teasing him how he’s viewed as the overprotective mother on the group of kids nonstop. His final string has been pulled, and it does not end good for you.

This is a tickle fic. Please do not read if that’s not your thing.

“You see, I can’t, because I promised I’d pick up the kids right after school.”

You lift up your wrist, seeing the watch nearing close to 3 o’clock. Whether he was just giving them a ride home, or because they asked him to give them a ride somewhere else after school knowing their own parents won’t, he will be missing movie night at Robin’s place.

“Right now we’re going to head to the store to pick up a few snacks. We won’t start the movie until night falls, you can still make it.” You reasoned, because when you go back to the group without Steve tagging along behind, Robin’s gonna have a field day when she finds out why.

You’re starting to as well, finding Steve be the new parental figure to the kids almost amusing. Too hard to not tease the poor guy who’s likely heard enough.

“Oooo, Yeah, no.” Steve says, fiddling the car keys in his hands. “It’s best I stick around with them so they won’t do any dumb shit, y’know?”

Whatever the kids were gonna be up to in fifteen minutes, you didn’t want to know. If it has Steve concerned, it gave away it’s probably no good. If you thought about it more, anything they do got Steve watching them like a hawk’s eye.

“Alright then. Make sure to give them motherly smooches on the cheek when they’re out for me, kay?” You grinned, waving goodbye as Steve flips you off before climbing into the car.

First string pulled.

You rip your eyes away from the Wolverine comic, looking to see Dustin carrying a heavy firework box covered with about fifty warning labels in black bold font. Clearly trying to catch the right peoples attention who knows what they’re doing when handling these bad boys.

“Can we?” Is all Dustin says to you, trailing your eyes to the box and back to him once more. You see Lucas trying to plead a yes from you with his gaze, Max behind the two of them with crossed arms, looking like she doesn’t have anything better to do.

“Is that all you guys came here to do? Snoop around my basement until you mistake something dangerous as a toy?” You scoff, but they all shared blank looks before shrugging.

“Yes or no?” Dustin asked again, but you nudged your head to Steve who’s sprawled on the couch watching Full House. “Go ask mom.”

Dustin rolls his eyes before making his way over, poking the side of Steve’s head with the box to gain his attention. “What?” Steve looks up at the three, turning the volume down a little.

“Can we light all of these outside?” Lucas points to the door that leads to the backyard.

“Specifically all at once.” Dustin adds.

Steve takes a single glance at the box then immediately shakes his head.

“No no, NO. Unless you kids like getting set on fire, why even bother asking me?” Steve snatches the box out of Dustin’s hands, standing up to put it back where they found it.

“Because Y/N told us to go ask mom.” Max said simply, causing you to silently giggle when you caught Steve quickly stopping to turn his direction towards you to hand the nastiest glare in his books.

Second string pulled.

“Give me your palm.” You place yours upright on the table, Steve’s resting on top as he seems a bit doubtful. Your new knowledge on palm reading was thanks to the morning newspaper, a journalist writing a small story of Hawkin’s opinions around the subject. Is it real? Is it fake and scammer fuel? You didn’t really care, you wanted to give it a go regardless.

“You know this stuff is fake, right?” Steve said but you shushed him, tracing his palm lines gently with closed eyes. You sense the suspicion in him, and honestly you had your own doubts too. You’re far from knowing what the hell you’re doing, not having a clue this existed until a few hours ago. The way you managed to convince Steve you practiced palm reading for a good couple of years baffled you.

Entertaining, even. This would be fun, you felt like you could make him truly believe you know what his future ahead of him holds in store.

You stopped the tracing. “You will pursue your dreams very soon, Steve. I see you doing what you love the most.”

Steve was practically on the edge of his seat. “And that is..?”

You put a bit of pressure on his palm, pretending to search deeper for the answer. To get a good view on his many dreams you claim you know so well.

“Daycare. Your dream job is Daycare.” You manage to answer in a serious tone, but the thin line of your lips to suppress a laugh is getting harder and harder by the growing silence.

Final string pulled.

You hear the chair legs skid across the floor, finally opening your eyes to see Steve rounding the table to leer down at you. You barely flinch, but you’d be lying if you say he didn’t look a little bit intimidating.

“What? Don’t like the answer? Maybe it’s not true, you see my palm reading can be a bit rusty— HEY!” You audibly shout from surprise when Steve tossed you over on his shoulder effortlessly.

“Steheve! What are you doing?” You giggled nervously, but grunted a bit when he dropped you on the soft cushions of the couch. He sat comfortably on your waist, grabbing one of your hands to trace his nails on your own palm lines, sending a ticklish sensation.

“Hmm, the future is telling me you’re gonna regret your words real soon. How, you might ask? Let me show an example.”

“That’s not how palm reading wor— eeEEHAHA!” Fast squeezes on your hips ripped a couple snorts from you, bringing a hand to cover the blush swarming on your warm cheeks.

This isn’t fair, you thought. First thing he does is go straight to your worst spot of all time? Doesn’t even go slow first either?

This is Steve Harrington, he never goes slow. Also noticing he’s a bit bothered you fooled him into believing you had the gift of seeing into the future, a drop of mercy won’t be shown anytime soon.

A minute goes by with those thumbs still drilling harshly onto your hips, never letting up so you can suck in the sweet air. You couldn’t believe you already felt tears sliding down your face, Steve choosing to ignore them.

“PLEHEASE! SOMEWHERE ELSE! GEHET OFF!” Bucking him off was out of the question, your strength compared to his was laughable. Putting more weight on his knees to become heavier nailed your coffin shut.

“Oh yeah? Give me one good reason why I should.” Steve asked, not a hint of sympathy showing in his tone. Although, he did stop in case you seriously thought you had a good reason to change spots. He’ll play fair, but it comes back to him to decide if he agrees or not.

“It’s my wohorst spot, Steve. I can’t hahandle it..” why bother pleading your case when this is seen as your punishment for never letting him breathe with all the mom jokes. Of course this isn’t the first time you both had tickle fights, but it barely lasted more than forty seconds before you two pulled yourselves together.

However, did you ever experience an understandably angry Steve ruthlessly tickling you to pieces? No, but now you have the right to say it’s terrifying.

Steve tsked, confident you had a much better excuse up your sleeve to get out of this situation. “That just makes me want to stay longer.”

Fingers finding your hip bones once more, rubbing small circles which you learned drives you completely insane. The death grip on his wrists to stop his swift movements did you no justice, and obviously not the weak punches aimed at his chest either.

You felt like you entered the gates of heaven when those wiggly fingers eventually left your hips alone, blessing your lungs with a whiff of air. “Have we learned anything today?” Steve showed off a smug smirk, prideful he’s gotten you in a mess so quickly.

The amount of energy you’ve been rewarded back made you lift up your head, staring closely into his eyes that your noses almost touched.

“Why so mad, momma bear?”

A ear piercing squeal came out next, a pinch being set on every individual rib of yours. “Looks like we haven’t.” Steve sighed disappointedly, but your wild thrashing and incoherent giggly begs made him smile nonetheless.

After pinching every rib for two rounds, he sticked to digging on your stomach without warning. One thing Steve enjoys doing when tickling people is watch them get startled over him randomly switching spots out of the blue. Priceless reactions.

“Jeez, I feel like this tickles horribly.” Steve acts remorseful, but the scratching fingers heading to both of your sides dishes out his true intentions. “Is this any better?”

You never wanted to get revenge on someone so badly until now. Damn him, because there’s no spot on your body that eases the tickling. He’s aware.

“I’m SOHOHORY!” You managed to say between your cackles, Steve raising a questionable brow.

“Are you?” He stops, but not entirely. Steve plants pokes all over your torso to keep you busy giggling.

“Yehes! Oh my gohod, stohohop!” You try to block every poke but when you do it results in Steve giving your neck a quick skitter.

“Hmmm…” Steve obnoxiously hummed, resting both of his hands on top of your stomach to help him sit up straight. Either way, it made you flinch hard. 

“I want you to say you’re very sorry for being rude to your most handsome friend in the group for no reason, and that you’re a total idiot for thinking your teases wouldn’t have consequences.”

You blinked. “Steve—“

A tweak to the side cut you off. “I’m waiting.”

You gave him a tiny glare, not making eye contact as you said your scripted apology. “I’m sorry for being rude to you for no reason.” That alone is satisfying for you, but apparently not to Steve since he did not budge.

“And?”

You audibly groaned. “And I’m a idiot for thinking my words won’t receive consequences! There, now get off.”

At last, Steve got off. You slowly sit up, putting the loose strands back in the correct places due to all the thrashing earlier. You watch him head to the kitchen, searching the cabinets for something to fill both of your now grumbling bellies.

You go up behind him all innocently. “So what’s for dinner, mom?”

Needless to say, laughter rang around the house a second time. Steve learned from the beginning that he will, in fact, never hear the end of the mom jokes. Does it stop him to tickle the snot out of anybody who teases him about it regularly, though? No, no it doesn’t.