#I don’t care if it’s impractical

[shalayce]

SCOTLAND FOREVER! <3

[fey-hunter-9000]

Whoever came up with the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” never used their bloodstained weapon to write messages on the wall

[frmulcahy]

Jim looks so hot in the new leather pirate fit I think Vico Ortiz might actually kill me this season

[hahaweevil]

[komagoat]

I hate my brother. Merry Christmas I guess.

[hellsite-users-blog]

Resting ❄️

[aroadside-attraction]

Thru Hiker Eddie and Trail Angel Steve

When he was a kid, Eddie used to go on little day hikes with Wayne- it got him out of that awful house, and Wayne always taught him something new about how to get by out on the trail. As he grew older, the hikes got longer, until Wayne was taking him on 2, 3 day backpacking trips. When Eddie finally moved in with him, hair shorn and scarred in ways people couldn’t always see, Wayne took him out for a full week. It took over half of it for Eddie to start acting like himself again.

After that, hiking was their thing. It was what they did anytime they got into a disagreement, any time that Hopper brought him home by the scruff of the neck with threats about this being the last time he’d get off with only a warning- they took to the woods and walked until something in both of them settled.

So when Wayne died, too young but entirely content with his life, Eddie knew what he had to do. He was going to fucking Cheryl-Strayed his grief and hike the PCT from border to border. Wayne had talked about wanting to do it a million times, but he could never afford the months that he’d have to take off to do it. But Eddie was making decent money as a musician and the only real plus side of this whole situation is that he could convince his manager that between the grief and the stark beauty of the Sierra Nevadas, he’d come out of this with two or three albums worth of material.

Becoming a Trail Angel had honestly been an accident, for Steve. Robin had accidentally found herself engulfed in a group of backpackers on a day hike out at Walkers Pass and had endeared herself to them immediately. So when Steve showed up to the parking lot to give her a ride back to town, he was met with a group of ten or so chatting up a storm with his best friend. He agreed to take them all back to town, as long as they were patient enough for him to make trips- he could only squeeze five in at a time, with their packs. It was on his third trip that he realized no one in the car knew Robin, and that they’d just assumed he was a Trail Angel. After they explained what that actually was, he found he liked the idea- it was a decent drive over the pass, and the people were great. So the next day, when he noticed a group of hikers that he had brought down the day before sitting at a bus stop, he pulled over and asked if they wanted a ride back up.

The way it escalated after that, well. Yes, technically it was completely under Steve’s control, but he’s never really been able to help the way he just wants to, well, help people. He’s off for the summer, but the time people start showing up at the pass, so it’s pretty easy for him to go up to the trailhead and perform a little trail magic- in the summer months his trunk is always full of snacks and water and half full trash bags, and he’s always willing to load a few strangers into his car for a ride back to town. Once the crowd thins out, though, that first summer, it leaves him feeling a little hollow. See, Steve’s not a big hiker. Sure, he’s fit enough that he could probably pull off at least being a section hiker, but hiking leaves him too alone with his thoughts for his taste, so taking on the PCT doesn’t really feel realistic. But the way the hikers talk about it? The magic they experience along the way? The clarity they reach? Steve wants that. So, he does something a little stupid. He follows them.

Lone Pine, Bishop, Mammoth, he follows them all the way up to Mount Shasta before he turns back for home. Two or three days in each town, he got real familiar with the people at the back of the pack of that year’s Northbound hikers. And it felt good, to have something to do over the summer, a way to get his own little taste of the PCT.

It becomes a thing, every summer. He does what he can for the majority of the hikers as they enter the Sierras, and then he follows them up California. The towns tend to treat him just the same as the hikers- he takes up odd jobs that none of the hikers seem inclined to take, does what he can to help the communities as he drifts through, even makes friends with the local angels. And it settles something in him, sends him back into the school year ready to deal with the chaos of his fifth grade class.

Steve meets Eddie the way he meets all his hikers- set up with his car at the Walkers Pass trailhead, a friendly smile and a good snack in hand. They don’t exchange many words- Eddie had really just come down for the pit toilet, but he’s still torn on whether it’s any better than shitting in a hole in the woods. Eddie heads back up, expecting to never see the pretty boy with the moles ever again.

Until he’s there at the trailhead just outside Independence. He accepts a ride, then, and trades names with the trail angel. And again in Bishop, where he learns that Steve does this every year. He looses him for a bit, until he snags a ride from Steve down to Meyers. That time, he tells Steve why he’s on the trail- it’s the first time he’s ever ridden down in Steve’s car without any other hikers present, so it’s a bit easier to open up. The ride back up to the trail the next day is significantly quieter.

Eddie’s not quite sure when the songs he’s writing in his old beat up journal go from grieving to longing. It’s hard to trace, when the emotions can feel so similar sometimes. He thinks some of the songs in the middle of it all are about both. He feels a bit guilty about it all- this trip was supposed to be about Wayne, about closure. It wasn’t supposed to go like this, falling for this elementary school teacher turned trail angel who is clearly sorting through his own shit if he spends his summers chasing people who are chasing their own dreams.

But still, Eddie writes. He writes songs like he’s never written before. Sure, he’s got plenty of songs about lusting after boys and those big scary feelings nobody wants to talk about but everyone wants to hear. But nothing like this weird sort of pining for a guy he’s spent maybe a total of 6 hours with.

Still a little reckless in his grief, Eddie leans into it. He fosters his longing little feelings until it blooms into a full blown crush. At that point he’s creeping ever closer to Mount Shasta, the place Steve had told him was his last stop coming down from the trailhead at Sierra City. He wasn’t eager to bring this last meeting closer, but he knew dragging his feet might cause him to miss Steve all together as he heads back down the road to home.

Nothing happens at Mount Shasta. Steve tells him it’s his last day before heading back- he’s got a long drive ahead of him, so he won’t be shuttling anyone up to the trailhead the next morning. He wishes Eddie a shy farewell as he climbs out of the passenger seat one last time- jokes that if he ever finds himself on the trail again, Steve would be more than happy to give him a ride.

The rest of his hike is rough. He’s got a tangled mess of emotions that it takes the next thousand miles to sort through, his grief over his uncle twisted up with this fresh grief of his weird little totally unrequited crush in a wholly unpleasant torment. The last 98 miles, he forms a plan.

He gives himself until the next June. Time to mourn, time to see if the feelings fade, time to put out the album he wrote on the trail. He names it something poetic, maybe something to do with trail magic or the nicknames of the hikers he met along the way. Maybe it’s after Wayne’s favorite trail. Maybe it’s simply called The Pass, a nod to the place he first met Steve.

The next June, when the weird feelings are still there and he missed Wayne but it doesn’t feel like it eats him alive every day anymore, he packs himself into his car and drives the 140 miles up to the Walker’s Pass trailhead. He provides a little magic- food and drink and a friendly face- while he waits for his angel to return. And he does, driving back up that windy road and pulling into the parking lot beside him.

Eddie asks him to dinner, and Steve accepts. Turns out he’s been harboring a crush for the past year too. It goes great, and even though they have to wade through the long distance- Eddie’s got his life in LA and Steve’s not quite ready to leave his town- and the trail- they make it work.

They get married up at Walker’s Pass. It’s Steve’s goodbye to the trail, despite having moved to the city a year prior. His own little bit of trail magic to carry with him the rest of his life.

The trail provides, after all.

[gayestcowboy]

man….. if i had tremendous amounts of money id get a fucking circular bed. i need a circular bed so bad.

[teehee]

purse i found while antique shopping 💘!!!

[grilledcheese-savage]

Guys I think it’s so funny that Sasuke came back with his tits out in Shippuden and NOW BORUTO ALSO HAS THIS DEEP CLEAVAGE OUT 😂😂 HIS MENTOR BASICALLY SAID “I’m not letting you go back like that, let me rip you a drop cleavage.” 💀💀💀💀💀😂😭

[sansonrio]

dc age tim up so that he and steph can go do wine tastings together and become sloppy drunks challenge

[vivaladunn]

knox in fort knoxville has me thinking

[filmcel]

my anxiety is coming back

[gjordis]

The only thing in life that I want as bad as I want a horse, is a car with those pop up headlights

[starlooove]

Day 5 was also mainly a drawing and it was Duke as a dnd mage

[chronically-peach]

Realized Noah Sebastian from Bad Omens always wears a black glove on his left hand when he’s performing and it made me think of alt Kevin covered in tattoos and wearing a black glove on his left hand, at first to cover his scars but then as time goes on he starts to enjoy the aesthetic of it and it becomes a staple in his outfits. Fans would speculate about the meaning behind it but he just thinks it makes him look more alternative and cool. The rest of the team, Andrew and Neil especially, would tease him about it relentlessly but it doesn’t stop him from continuing to wear it.

No thoughts in my head just alt Kevin covered in tattoos wearing a black leather glove.