#they are such dorks in love help

[corrodedbisexual]

Hear your heartbeat

Steddie | ~2.1k | T for this part | AO3 link w/Explicit part

Nurse in training Steve is hanging out with Eddie in his room, trying to talk him into helping Steve practice the different ways of measuring a patient's heart rate.

"Please?" He pouts, making the best use of what Eddie often calls his big dumb doe eyes. "We're finally getting trained on real patients next week, and I just don't wanna look like a total loser. Everyone's been practicing on someone back at home."

It's not exactly a lie, per se. It's just that Eddie doesn't need to know Steve's already spent weeks practicing on Robin. 

(She let him run a full physical on her, anything that didn't involve needles. He even, with permission of course, checked her breasts for lumps through a training bra: something he felt awkward about at first, but in the end, it wasn't weird at all. It didn't feel one bit sexual. Apparently, when you grow out of your perpetually horny teenage stage, boobies by default are just another normal human body part. It was an interesting revelation.)

But you see, Steve has a theory. One that he's not completely convinced of, even though Robin keeps insisting it's 100% solid. But if there's a way to be completely sure... would be pretty stupid not to use it.

Eddie laughs at first, like he thinks Steve's joking; when Steve takes the stethoscope out of his bag and raises an eyebrow, he falls silent, then sits up on the bed and shrugs.

"Uh, okay, sure. Go ahead."

Smiling triumphantly, Steve sits on the bed next to Eddie and reaches for his hand, pulling it into his lap. Eddie flexes his fingers briefly, then stills.

Steve begins by pressing his thumb against the pulse point and counting as he watches the seconds ticking by on Eddie's wristwatch. 76 is slightly higher than the average, but everyone's got a different resting heart rate, after all. It doesn't mean anything. He needs more data.

Letting go of Eddie's wrist, Steve turns a bit to place his hand on his friend's neck. He feels Eddie swallow against his palm, but otherwise, Eddie keeps still, eyes darting between Steve's face and some point behind his shoulder. 

Steve presses two fingers against the carotid artery on Eddie's neck. After half a minute, Steve multiplies by two and pauses to think. Eddie stays perfectly still, no movement to justify the increase to 90. 

A flicker of hope lights up in Steve's chest, but a stubborn part of his mind keeps playing devil's advocate. Maybe it's the cigarette Eddie smoked just a few minutes ago? Steve tries to remember what he read about the effects of nicotine on the body. He doesn't recall the exact numbers, but yeah, that could be it. 

"Can you lift up your shirt for me?" He asks, putting in the earpieces of his stethoscope. Eddie chuckles awkwardly, looking down, then mutters something inaudible through an exhale, and complies.

Steve presses the chest piece to the left pectoral; Eddie inhales sharply and jerks away, but then leans back in, giggling.

"Sorry. S'cold."

"That's okay." Steve grins. "But stop laughing, I can't hear anything".

"Sorry," Eddie says again, biting his lower lip, and the chuckles die down.

Steve closes his eyes so he can focus on listening instead of looking. He realizes immediately the spot is wrong, the sound of Eddie's breathing drowns out his heart, but Steve keeps listening for a moment anyway. He shifts his hand a bit to the right, his pinky finger brushing the nipple; an honest accident. There's a quick, sharp inhale in his ears, a pause, and then the rustle of clothing as Eddie's shirt slips out of his fingers and falls over Steve's hand. 

"Shit, sorry," Eddie mumbles another apology, lets out an awkward laugh as he scrambles to lift his shirt again. "Maybe you should have picked someone less clumsy."

I don't wanna pick anyone else, Steve doesn't say, placing his other hand to the right of Eddie's chest, fingertips pressing against the bunched up cotton to keep it up. Another hitch in Eddie's breathing. Steve bites back a smile and moves the stethoscope further towards the center of his chest.

He can still hear the background whooshing of the lungs, but mostly, it's now the rhythmic thudding of the heart valves opening and closing. Steve's heard it a bunch of times by now, and yet it keeps fascinating him. The ultimate proof of life, something akin to magic, even though he knows all the science behind it. The sound he shed tears over finally hearing, almost a year ago, as he pressed his ear directly to Eddie's bloody chest, after long and desperate minutes of CPR.

Steve absentmindedly traces the edge of a scar beneath his thumb at the memory. He looks down at Eddie's watch; he doesn't really need to, so accustomed to the rhythm now that he's already aware the brief silences between the thuds in his ears got even shorter. Still, he lets the full 60 seconds tick by as he counts 102 beats.

Steve looks up. Eddie's looking to the side, his expression clearly aiming for indifference, almost boredom. Only Eddie doesn't look like that when he's bored. He fidgets, taps his foot, rolls his eyes, rubs his face, keeps looking around the room for anything to entertain him. Steve had enough classes with Eddie in high school to know.

Noticing Steve's staring, Eddie flicks his eyes towards him, a strange, forced smile on his lips. Steve can barely hear his words through the thudding in his ears.

"So, what's the diagnosis, Nurse Harrington? Am I going to live?"

Steve doesn't reply right away, eyes flicking between Eddie's and mentally flipping the pages of his class notes. Causes of pupil dilation: light (the room's lighting the same as when they started), certain medications and drugs (Eddie didn't take any), eye or brain injury (thankfully not), and... 

Oh. Oh.

Oh, thank god.

Steve removes the ear pieces, hooking the stethoscope around his neck and removing his hands from Eddie's chest. Eddie lets go of his shirt, too, and it drops down over his torso. 

"Well." Steve takes a deep breath and looks Eddie straight in the eye, a playful smile on his lips. "Your resting heart rate is definitely elevated for your age. Your breathing rate is abnormal. Your pupils are slightly dilated. Oh, and you keep doing that, too," he says as Eddie visibly swallows. He puts his hands on Eddie's neck again and presses his fingers down, moving in tiny circles, feeling the shape of the glands.

"Your throat doesn't hurt, does it?" Eddie shakes his head, still staring at Steve like a deer in the headlights. "Well then," Steve stops pressing down, just lets his hands rest on Eddie's neck. "My professional medical opinion would be…" His eyes flick down to the lips; Eddie licks them. "You're attracted to me."

"W-what?" Eddie jerks back, Steve's hands falling off his neck. Eddie's brows furrow. "Jesus Christ, Steve. What the hell."

Steve giggles, despite feeling a little bad, because Eddie looks almost panicked. But he gets stupid when he's nervous, can't help it.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He reaches for Eddie's hand and pulls. "Come back here."

"Why?" Eddie frowns, his tone cautious.

"Cos you're too far away to kiss." He watches Eddie's eyes widen.

"What?" Eddie all but squeaks. 

"I've got a serious case of Crush-on-Munson disease." Steve presses his hand to his chest dramatically, struggling not to laugh. 

Eddie's face shifts through several different expressions, settling on utter bewilderment. "Huh?!"

"Might be deadly," Steve tries to say seriously, but he can't stop grinning at this point. "There's only one known cure. You gotta save me, Eddie."

"What the fuck," Eddie mutters, the corners of his lips slowly lifting; a hysterical giggle escapes his lips, then another, and then he drops his head, shaking with silent laughter. 

Steve shuffles closer, and Eddie doesn't move away; the opposite, in fact, curling in towards him and resting his forehead against Steve's shoulder as he groans. 

"You're a dork." Eddie lifts his head, tilted to the side, as if studying Steve's face. His smile is beautiful. Steve can't resist leaning in and pressing his lips against it. 

Eddie gasps against his mouth, but responds immediately, his whole body coming alive, arms around Steve's waist, leg thrown across his lap, getting closer, closer, until their chests are pressed together. 

Suddenly, Eddie breaks the kiss and narrows his eyes at Steve, feigning annoyance.

"I can't believe you tricked me with the whole 'playing nurse' thing."

Steve laughs, pulls him in by the back of his neck, and kisses him again.

A kinky follow-up on AO3

[purpleneutrino]

"Let's celebrate coming back from hell and not losing our minds."

on twitter

[wearecrowley]

super subtle investigative reporter fell reporting for duty

[sidespart]

Janus, arrives to the party visibly drunk and proceeds to be an enormous bitch to everyone until he gets slapped in the face: I can’t believe they don’t invite us to more events.

Remus, his shoes covered in human excrement: they don’t know what their missing.

[httpiastri]

these two <33

[witchwrestler]

[thiziri]

Commander Tim Laurence and Princess Anne being cute after attending the Easter Service at St George's Chapel, Windsor, on 03 April 1994 🥰💕

[mirapteo]

I CALL THEM BRAINSTORM >:3

[beanghostprincess]

i love the concept of sanji crushing on usopp and having to hold himself back from treating him like he treats the girls because then it'll be extremely obvious that he's in love.

sanji after offering food to nami and robin: [staring at usopp intensely, hands shaking] nami: are you alright, sanji-kun? sanji: [about to break the tray he's holding] i regret every decision i've ever made

[gayvecchio]

[crystalpallette]

happy valentine's day! here's the suzuran gang here to tell you sometimes you don't need a romantic partner, being with your friends is just fine :)

[chasing-the-void]

Part 2 (Season 2) of my series showing Terry and Korvo’s budding relationship

They’re so fun to draw. Enjoyed drawing the napadoodles too.

[nikki-rook]

If your friends or family had any doubts about your feelings for each other, they don't anymore x

[theking-mustdie]

isaac was the og sassfest but some of you just don’t want to admit it😒

[chainofclovers]

What if I actually actually actually take to heart the idea that when I lack concrete information—and can confidently assume that this lack will continue for some time—it's really and truly okay to just chill out and set my mind free to wander :) :) :)

[planet-poptropica]

BARD AND D BETTER VIDEO CALL THIER SON AND SEND POST CARDS OR SO HELP ME, NP WILL TRACK THEM DOWN AND DRAG THEM BACK

⋆ I am going to continue this down below because um- I did not know it was going to be this long but- Here we are- ⋆

⋆ New Achievement Unlocked: You are my daaad, you're my dad! Boogie woogie woogie!⋆