#who did this to you part 4

[flowercrowngods]

In the end, it is the sound of a car door slamming shut that snaps Buckley out of her stupor, and she all but flies off the steps towards the truck. Towards where Eddie can vaguely make out the shape of a badly bruised face, the play of light and darkness not enough to conceal the deep purple splotches or the sluggishness of his movements as he raises his head. Turning toward Buckley like a flower to the sun. 

She presses her hand to the window for a second, just looking at him — and Eddie is glad he can’t see either of their faces. He has a feeling that what he’d see there would haunt him forever.

He looks away from them, back to Wayne who doesn’t seem at all surprised to have another stray in his home, simply rounds the car to talk to her. His words don’t make it all the way to Eddie, but a part of him is glad about it. 

This is not his moment. This is not about him. He’s just… sort of there. Steve’s got Robin, and Wayne’s got Steve. Eddie’s just standing around in his kitchen, worry gnawing at him that he’s missed his mark. Missed the role call. Missed his position in the scene, and now it carries on without him. 

Rooted to the spot, beginning to feel restless and unsettled as a new kind of anxiety creeps up on him to swallow him whole, Eddie looks around for something to do. Something to be useful. But there’s nothing… What does he… How can he— 

“Ed,” Wayne calls, his voice a little strained as he has Steve’s arm across his shoulder to support him down the driveway and up the steps. 

Buckley is on Steve’s other side, her jaw still clenched, her mouth still shut. In their middle, Steve’s eyes are shut, but a frown between them speaks of the pain he must be feeling still. He doesn’t complain, though; barely even groans. Eddie flits his eyes back to Wayne, feeling stragely caught. Not sure if he should go there and help, take either of their places, or— 

“Can you grab a glass of water, please, son?” 

Water! Glass! Yes, he can do that, he can do that. The cool handle doesn’t feel real against his hand, still sort of freezing, but he manages to open the cabinet and get out a glass. Hyper-focused on the smooth texcute against his fingers, the edges and curves seeming deeper and wider now than usual. 

He grabs another for Wayne and one for Robin, and carries them over to where they’re gently placing Steve on the couch, feeling robotic in his motions and losing all momentum the second the glass hits the table with a dull sound that courses through his whole body. 

“Thanks,” Harrington croaks, and Eddie is reminded of Blue. Of Not gonna break, Eddie. Of You know, sometimes I wish he would. 

He flinches back and swallows hard, rubbing his clammy hands on his jeans and decidedly not looking at the black eye, the massive swelling, or the split skin he can see so clearly now that the blood has been wiped away, tiny strips of band-aid serving as little highlights on bruised and broken skin. 

“You got it, man,” he mumbles, his voice a perfect mirror to Harrington’s croak, but Eddie has no excuse for it other than cowardice and strange, petrifying kind of fear stuck somewhere between He’s gonna die on my couch and He’ll be okay if only he stays here. 

In either scenario, Eddie feels like he shouldn’t move. Like this should become a still life, a painting; a companion piece to Robin’s, just moments ago. 

He looks to Wayne, not moving his head, just his eyes, feeling like a deer in the headlights even though none of this is about him. Wayne, bless him, is already looking at him, and his face is filled with such patient determination and understanding that Eddie feels another sob welling up in his throat. 

“Go change your sheets, Eddie, and grab the spare bedding from the closet. Steve’s parents aren’t home and he’s not to be alone. Doctor’s orders.” He turns to Robin, who’s cradling Steve’s face with such tenderness, her slim, trembling fingers look wrong against the reds and blues and purples of his face. “You can stay, too, just let me call your parents so they know where you’re at.” 

She looks like she wants to be polite and tell him that’s not necessary, but that look is quickly replaced with relief that Eddie feels is contagious almost. 

“Thanks.” 

Another croak. A rasp. And Eddie wonders if she thinks about still lives, too, or if she’s just holding back tears. 

who did this to you pt. 4 snippet. to fill the silence (preceding snippets for this chapter are here)

[rebouks]

Wyatt’s stomach was still churning too uncomfortably for him to think about dinner, nor did Brynn seem too bothered either; she was far more interested in taking herself to bed. He’d been too distracted to notice earlier, but he suddenly realised she hadn’t even brought a bag along with her.

Wyatt: You didn’t bring anything with you? Brynn: I not really have anything… Wyatt: If I knew you were going to set out with nothing, I might not have been so keen to let you leave. Brynn: It was important to me. Wyatt: I know. Brynn: You came to find me, didn’t you? Wyatt: Perhaps-.. but I changed my mind in the end. Brynn: Before or after you fail? Wyatt: [snorts] In between. Brynn: I not mean to ghost you-.. I hoped to get a new phone, but something more important popped up. Wyatt: It’s okay.. I have your phone, by the way. Brynn: Oh-.. is Gael still breathing? Wyatt: Unfortunately. Brynn: Maybe you knock some sense into him. Wyatt: I doubt it. Brynn: Hm, me too-.. I would have liked to see his face. [Wyatt snickered lowly; he should’ve taken a picture]

Wyatt: Would you still have come back? You know, if it weren’t for-… Brynn: I always plan on coming home. Wyatt: I take it you were busy saving your money? Brynn: Yes! Though your friend Darien helped me in the end. Wyatt: I’ll have to pay him back then. Brynn: Pfft, I pay myself! That’s why I take so long. Wyatt: I could’ve helped you, if you’d asked. Brynn: I not think it fair. Wyatt: What do you mean? Brynn: Is so expensive. Wyatt: And? Brynn: I not want to bankrupt you. [Wyatt squinted, realising he’d never mentioned the fact that his lifestyle didn’t quite match his bank account] Wyatt: Brynn, I could buy us a private jet if I wanted-.. several, in fact. Brynn: Really..? Wyatt: Mhm. Brynn: You live so modestly; I never would know. Wyatt: Well, at least you’re not after my money.

Brynn chuckled sleepily; she hadn’t returned with the intent to sit idly on her hands, but it was nice to know there was no rush to find employment, or to make money. She was beyond exhausted after the past few months

Brynn: Does that mean I not have to get a job? Wyatt: Not unless you want one. Brynn: Will you keep yours? Wyatt: Probably not. I just wanted to know what it felt like-.. mundanity. Brynn: Is kind of rewarding, no? Wyatt: Oddly so. Brynn: I think we have something more rewarding to spend our time on soon. Wyatt: How long do we have to, uh.. prepare? Brynn: I not know exactly. Wyatt: You haven’t been to the doctors? Brynn: I not able to just walk in without being registered! I feel fine, anyway. Wyatt: We’ll sort it out tomorrow-.. get you some clothes n’ stuff afterward. Brynn: You are soft. Wyatt: Only for you.

With no worries left unsaid and no more secrets between them, Brynn draped herself over Wyatt and crashed-.. hard. Some people clearly didn’t understand her choices, but she’d never felt so loved, seen, or safe with anyone else before. She was finally home, and for the first time in her life, she was truly content…

Previous // Next

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"I think this is the most inhuman; and human, that I've ever felt.." MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. IN FIVE YEARS. A DECADE. imagine how much can happen in a century. just ONE (1). How will you grow? what phases do you find? even in 5 years, you will find patterns.

[raprockcity]

(not a genderbend.) i think she looks nice in red, ok? Fits his green hair

[thaliagrayce]

y'know what we don't talk about enough? Hazel died. We talk about how she grew up in the 30's and 40's and we talk about how out of place she feels in the modern world, but! She died! She was dead! She has spent more time dead than alive, and not by a close margin!

How does that effect a person??? We got some of it in the flashbacks, but once those caught up with her present timeline and she shared them, they just kind of... disappeared. And she was a regular girl with some weird past experiences. That's one way of doing it, sure!

I think it would have been a lot cooler if she was just a touch creepier. If she felt a little bit Wrong. Yeah, in general she's more approachable than her brother, she's more sociable and less closed off, but. If you actually spend any time with her, it can be difficult to tell which child of the underworld is actually more unsettling.

Hazel is bright of personality and has a dazzling smile, but sometimes she'll just... shut down. She'll go completely blank for like half an hour and nobody knows what to do with it. Sometimes she forgets she's alive. Sometimes she'll spout the grimmest shit you've ever heard like it's nothing, she won't even notice it's weird until the room goes quiet. She spent decades in Asphodel, which is designed to make people forget about themselves and wander around for eternity, only she didn't have the luxury of forgetting! Wild! After she comes back to life, sometimes she forgets that she's allowed to Do Stuff now. She can spend so long sitting and staring at nothing. Sometimes she'll start crying on cloudless days because it hits her again that she can actually feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and she can hear birdsong. Every little mundane experience is a blessing and she will make you remember that in the most foreboding way possible.

[bonefall]

As a big sibling with a lil sib with epilepsy, when they read TBC they Honestly thought if they got struck with lightning reciting the lord's prayer they'd be cured like Shadowsight is from their epilepsy. I had a discussion with them on how that's not how it works, but ge was so upset they took it away from Shadowsight that he hasn't picked the books back up and has stated that 'he hopes Ashfur wins and starts a new religion.,'

I do not even know how to respond to this besides saying that your little sibling is 100% right to be pissed and I now also hope Ashfur wins and starts a new religion.

[coldflasher]

was rewatching the pilot again yesterday for fic reasons and thinking again about the sherlock-style screen annotations they had when barry was doing CSI work that they literally only did in the first ep and then never revisited again, presumably because they realized it'd be far too much effort to work out the details on such a precise level

and thinking about like. that barry allen with the hyper-precise exact measurements that he did by eye (with joe shaking his head in awe so you know that he's a CSI supergenius) vs. the leonard snart who timed his heists to the exact nanosecond (which again, presuming they ditched because it's a logistical nightmare to write dialogue that nitpicky and obsessive, and would be such a fucking pain to do on a week-to-week basis). like. yet another reason they are soulmates tbh. is audhd4autistic a thing the same way t4t is a thing? if it isn't then i'm making it a thing

[cluescorner]

Arlecchino's whole deal is unbelievable

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder what's causing my weird powers? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta become King and then kill my "Mother".

*Kills Clervie and "Mother"*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I was able to defeat a Fatui Harbinger when I'm like 17 or so? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta be in jail and become a Harbinger.

*Is in jail for a while and becomes a Harbinger*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I am-

Pierro: Hey what's up hello, anyways you're descended from the Crimson Moon Dynasty of Khaenri'ah. I'm sure that this is a lot for you to take in so-

Arlecchino: Ok.

Pierro: ...You're just cool with that?

Arlecchino: IDK maybe? I can't really worry about that at the moment, I'm a father now. This orphanage full of children I love (who also are child soldiers and are not allowed to leave or else I'll execute them except maybe now I'm just gonna wipe their memories IDK I'm morally complex) isn't gonna run itself.

*Runs the orphanage/spy recruitment initiative*

Me, the fucking player: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE KHAENRI'AN? WHY WASN'T THIS BROUGHT UP IN YOUR FUCKING QUEST?? OR ANYTHING ELSE????

Arlecchino, talking to me through my phone: I honestly don't know why you care, I'm too busy to give a shit. Anyways, I'm gonna go fight fate itself I guess. I'm sure that I don't share any thematic parallels with any other Khaenri'an characters (particularly as it relates to acting and family angst) and that I haven't made the idea of 'curses' on Khaenri'ans and what they entail even more complicated than they already were. See ya.

[ra-vio]

im supposed to be studying

[moonpaw]

thinking about nami's backstory and how she begged for help twice, and both times ended up with Gen getting beat up and sliced to ribbons, as well as the rest of the villagers getting attacked as nami watched in horror, and this was after watching her mother get shot in the head

then later on in arlong park, she watched as several marine ships came to try to help and watched as arlong and the fishman pirates sank each and every one of them before the navy stopped sending help altogether and in just a few hours nami realized that she can no longer ask for help, it won't successfully come without lose of life of either random people or those she cares about

so at that moment she decided that she can't rely on anyone, can't ask for help lest they get attacked, and that she is completely and utterly on her own

and then comes in luffy and the straw hats, determined to help, but i think it's important here to know that luffy waits until nami asks for it, something she was avoiding until arlong backed her into a corner and everyone she loves was about to be killed despite all her effort and struggles

asking for help meant death to whoever would, but not asking for help would lead to the deaths of those she was trying to protect

so she asked

[flowercrowngods]

i’ve decided to send an ask for each story you posted in the wip game kdnehdhs who did this to you? lives rent free in my brain 💛💛 (@a-little-unsteddie)

thank you so much 🥰🤍 still slowly working my way through the asks, so have a few more words to make up for the wait 🫶

who did this to you (pt.4) // tales of blue part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | read on ao3 🌷 preceding snippet no 1. | no. 2

Finally, finally, the familiar sound of Wayne‘s old truck rounding the corner into the trailer park interrupts the tense silence that seems to have fallen over all of Forest Hills tonight, and Eddie has half a mind to run out there, run toward them and get the whole story. Just to be sure that everything is fine. Just to be sure that Steve’s still… That he’s still there.

He stays right where he is, though, staring at Buckley‘s wild hair, feeling her shadow walk over him as Wayne pulls up to their driveway and stops. She is right in the centre of the headlights, but still she doesn’t move. Eddie wants to scream at her. Wants to nudge her and shove her out of the way — imagines it, imagines all the alternate universes in which he finds her wide eyes scared and unseeing as Wayne‘s voice sounds behind them, telling them that Steve didn’t make it.

Except in this one, Wayne said they’re coming home. In this one, shit like that doesn’t happen to eighteen year-old boys and their friends.

Aside from that girl. Barbara Holland.

Eddie swallows, his eyes flitting between bright lights to the silhouette of Buckley right in their centre. Like a doe, he thinks. Terrified of what she’ll find.

Don’t you wanna know? Eddie wants to ask her. Don’t you wanna see? What are you afraid of? What did you see? Who is he, Robin, and who are you? Why the fuck won’t you move?

In the end, it is the sound of a car door slamming shut that snaps Buckley out of her stupor, and she all but flies off the steps towards the truck. Towards where Eddie can vaguely make out the shape of a badly bruised face, the play of light and darkness not enough to conceal the deep purple splotches or the sluggishness of his movements as he raises his head. Turning toward Buckley like a flower to the sun.

She presses her hand to the window for a second, just looking at him — and Eddie is glad he can’t see either of their faces. He has a feeling that what he’d see there would haunt him forever.

[binah-beloved]

nobody talk to me tonight i had to go to hard pity for captain Ishmael and i'm livid

[kikigeh]

Want to know how I know Frozen 3 will most definitely not be great? The announcement of a Frozen 4.

The problem with Frozen 2 was that it had many, many ideas and they attempted, and utterly failed, to condense them into one singular linear story; the problem with Frozen 3 is that they "have so many ideas" that they realized they can't realistically condense them into one singular movie so their solution to "not repeat a frozen 2" is to instead push for ALL ideas to move forward which in turn has given them an overly lengthy cut.

Watching Frozen 1 in cinemas for the first time in a long while really reminded me how Frozen worked because it was very very simple and most of its heart was in the two "main" characters and how they navigated through life after a horrendous situation they were put through.

The heart of Frozen is not all the mystical and mythical elements that they can't get enough of attempting to push, hell, the most compelling part of Elsa as a character was just how raw and human she felt DESPITE having otherworldly powers.

I truly don't know which road they're taking the franchise through, but if the podcast and the books that have come out are anything to go by, it's straying way too far from what made the first movie compelling and enjoyable: its freaking simplicity.

[thedreadvampy]

just like. bit late to the TMA2 party here but casual reminder that if you stay on that thing where you keep looking for throughlines and Clever Thematic Links between Mechanisms albums and Magnus Archiveses I will come to your house and beat you around the head with a 2x4 painted with the words THERE WERE NINE PEOPLE WHO WROTE THOSE ALBUMS

[anxiously-sidequesting]

You know what I love more than just heroes and villains going up against each other is when the hero and villain have a certain respect and acknowledgement to the other, have a special relationship or connection with the other, or just a general interest that's between just THOSE TWO GUYS and not anybody else Grandfather Spider Morganthe Schismist Soldier Duncan Grimwater

Like I could easily see the YW teaming up with almost any of those people (see: only GFS and Morganthe the other two are crazy) not out of maliciousness or because they switched sides but because they're just compatible with them in ways where it just makes sense. Like for example the YW fighting back-to-back with Morganthe or having in depth magical discussions with her because we understand her on a level no one else does. Like in a crazy season finale where the Savior of the Spiral would not even Dream of Ever Working With Those Ruffians but when they have to they're like so magical (no pun intended) together because they just click. Like in the original Teen Titans where Deathstroke and Robin were like fighting in Hell together and they were on the SAME WAVELENGTH despite being bitter enemies THAT'S THE SHIT I LIKE. I think maybe that's the reason why I resonate more with these guys than Malistaire because imo it's just so much more interesting and emotional when we get two people on opposite sides of the morale scale able to come together and work so fluently. This is also me saying I want a Schismist Soldier and YW Roommate Sitcom.

[nerosdayinanime]

ok i originally just wanted to think of something w obagiyuu but then it went to obamitsugiyuu but then sabiuzui happened and now its a full on everyone lives au with everyone hugging the last 3 ubuyashiki kids just after kiriya announces the demon slayer corps disbanded and im Crying