#I like him in the outsiders and robin war too

[leeloooonfire]

based on this post about Steve's internalized bi-phobia:

Steve has known for years.

And how could he not when Tommy's freckles come back tenfold each spring like a flower peaking it's head through the last layer of snow? Or when Matthew Carver's hair have a reddish brown tone that turns blond after they spent the last days before summer break practising outside and remind Steve of liquid gold? Or when he watches Star Wars and Harrison Ford, rugged and witty, comes into view and twists his stomach in knots? How could he not know?!

Steve knows he finds guys as attractive as girls, known for many, many years. But.

But he can't. Not when Tommy sneers at that boy in their literature class who likes flamboyant clothes and wants to be an actor on Broadway. Not when the people they meet in Indi who are like Robin and Eddie 'fully queer' and talk about people like Steve as if they're traitors and scams. Not when he reads the newspaper and is assaulted by Reagan and his folk preaching about the 'fag pandemic' or how his father nods in approval and mutters 'another sinner gone for good' when the news play on TV and they occasionally mention the crisis that kills people like Robin and Eddie and him.

Like him....

It doesn't matter how much he loves sleeping with his nose pressed against Eddie's collarbone or that he thinks he'd like to kiss Eddie and hold his hands and wake up beside him until they're old and wrinkly and complain about bad knees.

He is, but he cannot be a queer, half a fairy '50% like me, 50% like Eddie' as Robin jokes.

He will not be a bisexual, he can keep it inside, keep it hidden, buried deep inside him no matter how much it pains him. He can be the straight friend who goes to pride and bakes rainbow cakes and marries a woman even though his heart screams in an ear ringing cacophony, 'Eddie, Eddie Eddie Eddie!'

This is how his 20s go: loud and hurting and yearning and hiding and more noticeably being disgusted and ashamed of himself for simply being able to love men the way he can love women.

He's 29 when his wife, Becky, leaves him. It's not just Eddie and this shameful secret that weights heavy on their relationship, but the scars and all the other secrets he is unable to explain to her that drive Becky finally away - back to Boston. She leaves him alone in that tiny house they bought three years ago with their Saint Bernard puppy they lovingly named Bernadette.

He's 30 when he goes to a coffee meeting of the bisexual group meeting in Chicago, nearly turning the car multiple times, hands and knees sweaty with fear that they won't want him there. They do want him there, welcome him with open arms, and talk about things Steve knows all too well: 'When I fell in love with the first girl, I ran. I like men just fine, so I hid my crush. It's just easier, when your parents hate gays, when the world is shaming our community, when we're dying.' He finds a second home there, and learns - learns about queerness and bisexuality, about trans and gender non conforming people and physical attraction versus emotional attraction. He learns about his past and present and about his future, about their history and where they want to go, how they want to mold their world to fit people like them into it without the pain and the hiding.

Steve is 33 when he finally comes out to everyone dear to him. To the kids who aren't kids anymore and to Joyce and Hopper, and then his parents. this does not go well, but Steve doesn't want, doesn't need their validation anymore. He has his family, his friends, his support system who love him not regardless of his sexuality but because of it, love him because it's part of him. He comes out to Becky, too and that goes much better. they want to be friends, in the future. She's also met Gary who works the the NY Times and wants her to follow him into the big city. So Steve is looking forward how that goes, their tentative friendship.

He is 34 when Eddie comes back from his latest world tour and wants to take a break to rekindle with his uncle, to write new songs, to take a breather. It's only natural that Eddie moves into Steve's guest room and takes over his space on the couch where he cuddles Bernadette while Steve is in the kitchen and makes them grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner.

Its even more natural when their feet meet while watching a movie and they lean into each other in the kitchen, dawn barely there, while they wait for the coffee maker to finish.

Steve's 35 when Eddie finally kisses him and he kisses back. No hurt, no shame, no guilt gnawing on him, Steve finally allows himself to be with the person he truly wants - regardless of their gender.

[glorious-spoon]

i respect the school coach/counselor steve movement, but in my heart of hearts i know that steve is going to grow up and become a hairstylist. he'd love it. the bitchy gossip, the human drama, the satisfaction of making someone feel comfortable and look how they want to look

maybe he follows robin to the big city for college. tries a couple of classes, drops out, goes to cosmetology school

(does NOT tell the kids until after he's finished. they still tease him within an inch of his life, but like - whatever. he fought interdimensional monsters on like five different occasions before he was old enough to legally drink, he can handle dustin hassling him for knowing what a strand test is)

(eddie is not around to hear about this. he lit out of town as soon as he finished summer school, diploma in hand. steve can't blame him. hawkins was never a good place for eddie munson, and even after the murder charges were cleared, it got worse)

(he still misses the guy, though. they ended up hanging out a lot that summer, and it sort of felt like the start of... something, but it'll take years for steve to work out exactly what)

anyway, eventually he uses some of his government hush money to set up a salon. he settles into his life as a regular person, and it's nice, it's good, it really is. eventually he gets around to figuring out why eddie's over the top flirting always made him feel clumsy and thrilled, and that's another part of himself that he settles into. finds some more family. some more community

he still keeps in touch with the hawkins crew, of course. robin lives nearby, and dustin calls all the time. nancy, too, when she can. she's overseas now reporting in war zones. it was never gonna work out between them

he hasn't seen eddie munson in almost ten years on a brisk day in february when the door to the salon swings open to admit a swirl of snow and a lanky figure wrapped leather, and steve drops the clipper he's holding and thinks, shit, what happened now and then, absurdly on the heels of that, he's going to freeze dressed like that

and then he's crossing the salon to yank eddie into a hug and getting hugged back just as hard, and ten years feels like nothing all of a sudden, and maybe he wasn't too late, maybe neither of them were, maybe they were right on time.

(eddie drifted out of touch with almost all of them other than dustin, who was tenacious, brilliant, and just unprincipled enough to track him down every time he moved

he told eddie to look up steve when he moved to the city, and eddie did, then dithered outside the door for twenty minutes freezing his ass off before he could make himself go in)

[dceasesd]

why juni ba’s the boy wonder has my favorite jason characterization of any contemporary comic run: a needlessly in-depth analysis (pt.1)

oh boy oh boy am i excited for this one buckle up boys it’s gonna be a long one. analysis under the cut (WITH PICTURES!!)

i, like many others, have many thoughts and opinions about juni ba's the boy wonder that i'd like to express. i was having trouble formatting my rant, though, so i decided that it was easiest to just address some of the common complaints i've seen about the comic and jason's characterization and insert my ramblings throughout it. so far i've seen three main complaints:

the typical boiling down of jason's character to "the angry one"

his lack of strategy going into the fight with the demon is out-of-character

the neighbor's kid interaction

to start with the first one-- when introducing jason's character, in both the second and first issue, ba uses the descriptors "coarse", "bitter", "hardened", "brash" and, of course, "rageful".

so, yes-- i understand where people are having issues with this characterization. however, even if it's overplayed, it's still important to remember that jason is angry, and is driven, in part, by his anger at bruce and the joker. and, as ba highlights, he deserved to be! completely erasing jason's anger is just as bad as defining him with it.

i also don't think it's wholly accurate to say that ba is boiling jason down to just his anger. it might seem like that when only considering the dialogue and narration, but jason's behavior in the comic doesn't perfectly align with how the narrator describes him. while the narration describes him as "rageful" and could be an instance of generalization, jason's actions throughout the comic are more aligned with two other emotions/motivators: fear and despair. we never see jason get actually, properly angry; the closest we get is when he's seemingly annoyed by damian (which i believe could be performative) and when he becomes violent, accidentally hurting damian.

even in this instance, though, he is not driven to this violence by rage, but rather fear. so, while ba states in the narration that jason is driven by his anger, he contradicts himself by highlighting how jason's sadness and terror motivates his character. this could be interpreted as lousy writing on ba's part, but i'm not going to attribute the paradox to that inference. to me, it actually represents a critque of the "jason is the angry robin" generalization, because it calls to attention the discrepancies between how one is described versus reality, an issue that jason both faces in the comics (bruce using him as a cautionary tale when dying WASN'T HIS FAULT) and outside of the comics, as mentioned previously.

furthermore, this highlights the difference between what jason believes about bruce's perspective and bruce's actual perspective (according to damian). jason believes himself to be a "failure", but damian refutes this by describing his conversation with bruce concerning jason, a conversation that does not align with jason's belief. if you couldn't tell by now, perception versus reality is a BIG theme in this comic (and for jason's character in general!)

i was really fascinated by ba's take on jason, because it veered pretty far from a lot of contemporary comics, most of which do, unfortunately, play with the angry robin jason generalization. they've been doing a bit with his fear, too, which has either been pretty fun or the most awful thing ever (i'm looking at you zdarsky. gotham war was fucked up), but what makes ba's jason stand out to me is how he grapples with his grief.

this boy is so sad. ba's jason might actually be the saddest rendition of him i've seen in canon content. we've seen jason grapple a little bit with the despair rooted in his death and resurrection, mainly in lost days, where he cries 3 (?) times, fresh out of the pit and very traumatized.

even in this comic, though, he reacts to his grief with anger more prominently than sadness. that obviously doesn't mean the despair isn't there, though-- anger is just an easier outlet for it (which i could really get into the masculinity aspects of that, but then this would be wayyyyyy too long).

ba's jason, though? that motherfucker is so. sad.

christ he's depressing. AND THAT'S SUCH A FRESH PERSPECTIVE!!!!!!! THANK YOU JUNI BA!!!!!!

now i'm pretty sure some people would argue that this rendition in out of character because he's so sad. to me, though, he's still the same jason; he covers up his sadness with anger and pettiness, redirecting his own insecurities onto those around him to mask his true feelings.

ba quite literally illustrates this in the comic. whenever he is being his snide, normal self, he has his red hood mask on; but when he actually opens up to damian and expresses himself truthfully, the mask is off. ba is highlighting how the classic jason anger and bitterness is, in part, a performance and coping mechanism.

this post is already too long, so i'll go over the two other critques in a different post, which i will link below (eventually). if you guys have any thoughts you'd like to share or discuss, my dms and asks are completely open! if you made it this far, i hope you enjoyed my ranting. look out for another post soon! :))

part 2 / part 3

[zahri-melitor]

In terms of trying to transplant how Dick’s generation grew up to independent adult heroes onto Tim’s generation, one of the significant issues is that the two groups have very different backstories.

The Fab Five and their generation were largely cared for children with present guardians during their teen years. Their ‘growing up’ rebellion moments were about wanting to establish their own identities separate to their parent/guardian. Then once NTT occurred and new young adult characters were added to it, you had a bunch who were escaping overbearing guardians with expectations the young adult didn’t want to fulfil, and leaving trauma behind.

The Core Four and other 90s heroes, in contrast, were mostly latchkey kids. They had loving but absent parents and parental figures. They were largely expected to grow up and show they were independent in their early teens. The arcs of their stories were not about growing up and finding themselves and ‘be your own person’, but about learning to trust others and interdependency and working together.

Like the shape of a Fab Five story is ‘in my preteens or earlier a Disaster Happened and I was taken in by a hero who cared for me and taught me the business as their sidekick. Then around 18-20 I moved out to live in a sharehouse with my friends as I wanted to find who I was outside of the shadow of being a sidekick’.

While…Tim’s generation largely aren’t sidekicks in the same sense. The shape of THEIR stories are of ‘teenager with largely absent adults is expected to grow up and show emotional maturity too early’. It’s actually notable that Tim, Kon and Bart all have long term story arcs that involve gaining a stable household right near the end.

Kon’s entire solo is the story of how he is neglected and exploited by every adult around him. He doesn’t have parents. He’s Peter Pan, the little boy who cannot grow up, who lives without parental expectation. He’s a celebrity kid exploited by Rex Leech and by CADMUS, who’s expected by those around him to act in an adult manner and held to that standard while simultaneously specifically being underage and not having the right to make his own decisions. His final arc in Superboy is about being so abandoned he doesn’t even have CADMUS to depend on anymore so he has to find an apartment and a job (the building superintendent) and is expected to act and function like an adult in that position. Superboy #59 (FIFTY NINE) is when Kon finally gets his own name. Superboy #100 is ABOUT Kon moving in with Jonathan and Martha Kent and finally having a stable home environment where he can be a child. Heck Kon’s already had a story where he’s ‘married’ and responsible for a kid. He’s had solo space adventures.

Bart’s solo is about Bart and Max learning to be a family together, but also: Bart’s childhood didn’t contain parents. Meloni turns up occasionally through his solo and loves him but also has to disappear away back to the 30th century at the end of each appearance. The final arc of Bart’s solo is about him moving in with Jay and Joan Garrick for more stability, because Max has disappeared (and stays disappeared). And then, post his solo, Bart even already has HAD an arc where he had to grow up and assume the Flash mantle (which went horribly wrong and led to his death).

Tim? Tim’s entire solo is about upheaval and change. The first time he’s expected to behave as an independent hero, not a sidekick, is literally Robin #1 when Azbats kicks him out of the Cave. Jack threatens to send him away to boarding school on multiple occasions and DOES for the Brentwood arc. He loses Jack, he loses Dana, he moves out to be a hero caring for his own city at 16, in Bludhaven post War Games. Bruce’s adoption of Tim was all about giving him back that sense of stability and support so that Tim had people backing him up again in his personal life and not only as a hero. And then he does the ‘leave and get a new identity’ thing during Red Robin.

And Cassie? Cassie starts with a loving mother and her story arc over becoming a hero is about periods of operating on her own. She moves away from her mum to go to Elias School. Due to operating as a hero under her own name she eventually has to come up with the alias of Drusilla Priam to give herself a non-public identity to retreat to (and isn’t living with Helena Sandsmark but renting on her own during this period to protect Helena).

This is a set of characters for whom it makes no narrative sense to tell a story of them growing up by ‘moving out and finding their own identity as separate heroes’ because their entire PAST is about being alone and looking for connections and people to rely upon. They haven’t been looking for their mentors to accept them as independent adults, they’ve been looking to their mentors to be present and work with them.

They have already all BEEN through the steps of moving out (while underage) and learning to look after themselves as nobody else was there to support them. Growing up for them is about learning to trust and be respected for the skills they already have and trusted to know what they’re doing, rather than leaving to show they can operate independently.

And that’s a harder narrative to show, because it’s a less common growth story in our culture. But in the Core Four’s case, I’d argue a lot of the traditional signifiers of adulthood (moving out; moving away for education; taking responsibility for a city on their own; travelling for quests) are things they were already expected to do while still significantly underage, and so sending them through that plot again isn’t showing anything new to allow them growth. What they need is the adults around them to treat them as adults for the things they already can and do do.

[rogueddie]

Eddie slams his pile of books down on the counter, grinning at how hard Steve startles.

"Jesus, fuck," Steve holds a hand to his chest, glaring. "Man, come on, I'm too young to die of a heart attack."

"Are you sure about that?" Eddie reaches over, to tug at his hair- Steve bats his hand away before he can get near. "What are you now, seventy?"

"I'll have you know that the silver only adds to my charm."

"Sure, keep telling yourself that." He pats the pile of books. "I need to check all of these out."

"You know the limit."

"Please? Pretty please? I'll never insult you for going grey early ever again! Promise!"

"You've made that promise before," Steve grumbles, but starts to check the books out anyway. "What's all of this for anyway? New campaign or something?"

"Nah. Robin mentioned something about the cold war and nuclear shit. Got me curious."

Steve pointedly looks at the books, snorting. "Curious."

"What, you've never wanted to learn some new thing or something?"

"Not this much."

"What about all those sports you played?"

"That was more to do with my parents than me actually wanting to do it."

Eddies eyes narrow because... yeah. Outside of his old King Steve days, Eddie doesn't think Steve has ever wanted something. Not even for his birthday, or Christmas.

All he asks is for them to come to his and Robins flat. All he seems to want is confirmation that they're ok and alive.

"You always say you want kids though, right?"

"I mean, kind of. Though, I'm starting to think the brats we babysat might be more than enough for me."

"Chocolate?"

"Oh no..."

"What?"

"You're planning something, aren't you?"

"No! No, no, no... but there has to be something, right?"

"Something?"

"That you really want."

"There's nothing I need."

"That's not what I'm asking."

"That's all the answer you're getting." Steve shoves the pile of books towards him. "Get lost, I'm supposed to be working."

"Ugh, fine, you're no fun."

But he can't stop thinking about it. He ends up returning the pile of books, despite the fact that he barely read one page. When he tries to use it to question Steve, he dodges the question again.

He very quickly gives up, deciding to pester Robin until she tells him. That takes three weeks of constant, daily efforts. And, in the end, the answer is obvious.

Steve just wants to spend more time with people he cares about.

It's not easy to gather anyone in the party, given that there's no holiday or significant occasion- he manages it, though. All the kids, now young adults, organize transportation. Nancy and Jonathan, over the phone, help Eddie and Robin plan out where everyone will sleep with their small apartments.

The effort, and pain of organizing it all, is worth it for the look on Steves face when he comes home to find them all waiting for him.

When Dustin almost knocks him over with how harm he hugs him, for a second, Eddie is worried that he's going to start crying. But he holds it together, greets them all with so much enthusiasm...

"I forgot that he used to be like this," Robin comments, late into the night. They're sat a little away from the group, watching them argue over their games. "The kids mean a lot to him."

"He means a lot to them."

"I know. I think he forgets though, so... thank you."

Steve doesn't corner him until they've got the kids asleep- half of them going with Nancy, Jonathan and Argyle to Eddies appartment, the rest of them fighting over the little space in Steve and Robins.

"You could've got me chocolate," Steve says, nudging him.

"This is what you really wanted though, isn't it? That was the whole point, big boy."

"Right. Sorry, it... I wanted to say thank you. I know this must have taken a lot to organize and-"

"Steve. You don't need to thank me. Besides, I could never have done this on my own."

"Still... thank you." Steve is quiet for a moment, looking out to the busy city street. "What do you want?"

"This."

"No, what do you really want?"

"Yeah, this. Everyones together, having so much fun. We're gonna do a one-shot when you go to work tomorrow. And, uh... you're happy. I don't need anything more than that."

"Right," Steve clears his throat. He shuffles a little closer, so their sides are almost flush together, tentatively reaching out to hold Eddies hand. "You don't need anything else. What about what you want?"

"You know what I want."

"I want you to say it."

Steve leans over, bumping their shoulders together when he hesitates. He smiles, reassuring, and gives Eddies hand a squeeze.

"What do you want, Eddie?"

"You. I- I want you."

It's terrifying to admit, a horrifying leap... but the smile Steve gives him, so soft and happy, is more than worth it.

"As you wish."

[jube-art]

Would you...make more...JJ art? 🥺👉👈

sure! lmao :) a fic snippet under the cut!

Cassie breathes out, the fire inside of her makes it cloud up in the cold mountain air. She grounds herself, trying to think back on all that her Aunty Diana taught her, about containing her anger, about keeping things manageable and not lashing out at the people around her.

It’s not Cassies fault that anger runs in her family.

Deemed just a bit too ‘rough’ for the regular teen titans, she’s been given an address to go to for a team meet-up that would “fit her deposition” better.

(That the teen titans wouldn’t have a name attached too.)

It’s an old Justice League base, up here in upstate New York just outside of the Catskills and she’s just a little early. Not terribly early she doesn’t think, just about fifteen minutes from the official meeting time.

She knocks on the disguised door, the official teen titans stationary in her hands tell her exactly how to knock and where.

Sure enough, the rock wall opens up, creaking with disuse, yawning a gaping doorway into darkness.

“This is a bad idea.” She tells herself, the words make more of that cloudy air puff around her, but she moves forward into the dark anyway.

The first thing she sees is Nightwing.

Robin is here too, helping him with something just out of sight.

Involuntarily she relaxes a bit. Nobody doesn’t know who Nightwing is, he was the one who handed her the little piece of paper in the first place, telling her to come here. “Hello?”

“Oh!” Nightwing turns, shoving what he was working on down underneath the table. Robin keeps working. “Wondergirl! You’re a little early! Hello!”

Oh god. Did Cassie mess up? Should she have arrived on time? Damn it, mom, she should have left when she wanted to-!

“Welcome!” Nightwing instantly is all charming smiles and a brilliantly handsome face. He moves forward, leaving Robin to continue what he was doing. “I’m glad you decided to take a chance on this little project we wanted to start up.”

Cassie really didn’t have much of a choice did she? It was either this last ditch sort of reject project that she had no information on or it was ‘don’t be a hero’

“We’re just waiting on the other three to be ready.” Nightwing is still talking, still with that relaxed tone and smile. “They should be getting here soon. Do you want some water? We have cookies too-“

Robin jerks back. “Don’t bite me you little shit!”

Nightwing’s smile freezes on his face, awkward. “Ignore him. He’s getting one of the participants on board for this little subgroup.”

Cassie regrets everything. She’s gonna be working with somebody who bites? Who bites like a fucking child? Who is feral?!

Cassie’s all for fighting, all for war, but she’s also all for strategy, it’s in her blood. It’s apart of her power. She can’t deal with anything that’s little more than a feral beast-

Robin yanks around, bringing with him-

The boy is Cassie’s age. Black hair, a black mask over his eyes that can be nothing but one of Batman’s sort. He’s got a thick heavy and large cape on, black, going down to his ankles, pushing away from Robin with a sneer.

He’s sort of cute.

Pale face filled with freckles, thin and gaunt, a little taller than most boys Cassie’s age.

Is this- is this the new Robin?!

Cassie’s expectations of the group go way up.

“Hello?” Another voice comes from behind Cassie, causing her to turn and-

Oh my gods!

That’s! That’s Lex Luthor’s son! Dressed sharp in a form fitting leather jacket with skinny jeans and his signature thick sunglasses.

He’s got powers?!

“Ah! Superboy, so glad to see you-“

“I would rather not be called that.” The boy cuts off Nightwing, a sour expression on his face. “I would rather not be associated with that parent.”

Cassie’s mind is getting blown right now. What. What is going on?! Who is on this team?!

“Of course. I understand completely.” Nightwing’s still speaking for the bats. It looks like the older, still in the traditional uniform Robin is maneuvering the new guy to be front and center. “We’ll make a note of that going forward. Is there anything specific that you’d like to be called for now?”

The boy- superman’s son?!- just sort of looks sad now. Now that it’s been brought to attention, Cassie can’t see anybody but a younger version of Superman looking up from a punk’s face. “If I get one, I’ll let you know.”

The older Robin taps out some kind of pattern on Nightwing’s shoulder, and Nightwing taps one backwards onto Robin’s arm. They understand each other perfectly, as the older, traditional Robin goes ahead and leaves, headed to a side room with the label above it ‘Zeta’.

The new, strange, Robin (because who else is this?) sticks himself into Nightwing’s side.

The Superman … child (how?!) cocks his head at the behavior, the new Robin and him get into a weird stand off, eyes wide and unblinking. Creepy.

“Now we only have one more to wait on.” Nightwing tells the group at large. “Then after introductions we’ll discuss sort of what we have in mind for this group moving forward, and training both physically and mentally to help with both working as a team and working on handling what it takes to be a-

The concussive boom from outside makes Cassie’s ears pop. She winces at the sound, so does the kid of Superman

The bat’s both flinch, full body, jerking away physically from the noise.

The little new Robin way, way worse than Nightwing. Clinging onto Nightwing physically, off the ground and like a koala.

“That’s gonna be Impulse.” Nightwing sighs. “I thought Flash told me that they had stopped breaking the sound barrier-“

He sort of mumbles off, and the group waits a few beats in strange silence. When nothing happens for a bit, Nightwing actually reaches over to the command console and presses a button. “You have to go normal human speed, little dude.”

The group at large waits another second-

Like a flash, sure enough there’s two little wisps of a human being, one with red hair, one with blond. The two of them are wearing the same outfit, white and red, and are vibrating so hard that they are hard to get the details of.

Cassie can only see the chain that connects their wrists, tugging towards one or the other with every twitch.

It hits Cassie then, just how wild this is.

In the room right now is some powerful players, more powerful than Cassie was originally expecting when the teen titans had told her that with her … anger issues she might not be a good fit for the Titans name. Cassie expected to be thrown to the side, mad as hell, not put on a team that consisted of only power players. Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, you couldn’t get bigger names.

And here they all sit, in some run down old base cave in New York, waiting to be told that they’re going to finally be a team.

[chxrrysangel]

What Best Friends Do

Pairing | perv!eddie x best friend!reader

Warnings | MDNI 18+, porn with plot, Eddie is a such a perv(only for reader tho, he has some morals), he stares A LOT, meddling friends, guided masturbation (f), cumming together, dry humping, eddie cums in his pants, Eddie basically has an innocence kink

Words | 1,895

Summary | Forced to be gentlemanly with pussy on his mind, Eddie spends the night with his best friend for “the sake of safety”. A best friend with the shortest skirt and cutest pout he’s ever seen. Can he keep it together?

Technically Part Two

Eddie didn’t think this through. At all. 

When Steve suggested taking everyone home in one trip, a resounding yes erupted from the group. The only problem was that there weren’t enough seats. Neither of you thought it was a massive deal at the time, it was only a 30-minute car ride. That was roughly 5 Metallica songs, 3 random brought-up topics between the 6 of you, and maybe 10 stoplights throughout Hawkins. 

Everyone piled into the car as Robin called shotgun, while Nancy, Jonathan, and Eddie took the backseat. Hand in yours, your best friend helped you onto his lap for a less-than-comfortable ride home. But you would survive, it was just Eddie after all. The second your ass met his front, he regretted the entire thing. Every single pothole or speed bump pressed your body closer to his, and it was hell. 

Eddie prayed to every god he could think of, hoping that Ozzy and Kirk could hear his pleas somehow. He tried to think of anything to stop his dick from pressing farther into your ass, but not even the image of his nana naked could make the smell of your perfume turn him on less. You could feel him, he was sure of it. And you were too innocent to not realize that every time you rubbed up against him made it worse. A particular “break test”, as Steve liked to call them, had Eddie’s arm wrapping around your waist, pushing your bodies so close together he had to bite his tongue to swallow his moans. If he was any more pathetic, he might’ve cum in his jeans. 

So he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the heartbeat of your pussy against his crotch. Someone must’ve answered his prayers, because the next thing he knew Steve was triple honking to signal a house stop. Luckily enough, it was yours. Eddie braced your body as the car door opened, stopping you from falling. You thanked him, no matter how many times he said it was no trouble. Before anyone could say their goodbyes, Steve perked up to share an idea. 

“Are your parents home?”

You told him no, and that they wouldn’t be back until much later in the night. 

“Munson, haul ass and stay with 'em.”

The two boys made eye contact in Steve’s dashboard mirror, a silent war that you couldn’t decipher. Eddie turned towards the others to beg for help, all feigning innocence and ignoring his silent plea. Right now he was rock hard, and Steve was ruining his chance to go home and jerk off until he got friction burn. But then he turned to see your patient gaze as you waited for their decision, and just melted. 

Fuck. 

Sighing, Eddie climbed out of the car in defeat. He waited until you began walking to your front door to scold the rest of the car. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he angry-whispered. 

“I don't know what you’re talking about Munson. Have fun though.” With that, Steve winked at the metalhead and drove off into the night. 

 He’s gonna regret this and he knows it. 

“Eddie, you comin’ ?” 

“Um, yeah. Sorry.” 

~~~

Eddie’s eyes began to unfocus, his head pounding as he took in the sight before him. There was something so… enticing about how little you understood the effect you had on him; on people in general. You didn’t think it was a huge deal, walking around your room in just a robe. But to Eddie, it was a massive deal. The thoughts he had earlier were coming back in full force and he had no way to escape them. There was only a single layer of material separating your naked body from the outside world and it drove him insane. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how short it was, making it so that just the right bend of your knees would him the perfect view of your pussy. 

Eddie didn’t really believe in God, but now he was reconsidering it. He knew it was bad to think of you like this, especially someone like you, but he couldn’t help it. If anything, your lack of experience or knowledge made him hornier. The pillow covering his crotch didn’t help much either, the dense material providing friction with every movement of his hips. 

“Eddie?” Your voice pulled him back to attention, focusing on you but not staring. Or at least trying not to stare. 

“Yes baby?” You blushed at the nickname, never truly getting over his terms of endearment for you. 

“I have a question.” He can tell by your tone that you’re nervous, and god it’s so cute. You bite on your lips as you think of what to say next, and all he can think about is that pretty little mouth sucking on his tip. 

“Shoot.” You took a deep breath, trying to find the courage somewhere to say what you need to. 

“Earlier in the car, I uh– I felt something.” Eddie fought off the urge to grin, the possibilities of what you said next giving him a depraved kind of rush. 

“What did you feel sweetheart?” He pressed the pillow further into himself, grinding his hips ever so slightly for relief. 

“Something hard. And…it felt good. I um…liked you pressed up against me. I felt tingly.” Eddie sat up straighter at your confession.

He could cum right now off your words alone. 

“Yeah?” You nodded in response, averting your eyes as your cheeks burned with embarrassment. 

“Do you wanna feel that again?” Eddie wanted to tear the pathetic robe off and fuck you over the nearest surface, but he knew he had to be patient and gentle. 

“Yes.” 

“Come here, baby. Come to Eddie.”

The bed dipped as you climbed over to him, your robe loosening just a little bit which he took notice of. Eddie removed the pillow, giving you a full view of the rock-hard erection he’d been hiding. A gasp fell from your lips, a hesitant hand reaching out before you thought better of it.

“You can touch if you want. I don’t mind.” You debated over it for a few seconds before reaching for his crotch. Your fingers brushed lightly against the tip, the friction making Eddie hiss in pleasure. 

“Oh my god, Eddie I’m so sorry!”

“No, no, don’t apologize. Didn’t hurt at all. It was the exact opposite. ” His voice was so gentle, like nothing you’ve ever heard from him before. It encouraged you to put your hand back where it was, rubbing softly to see how he reacted. You had no idea what you were doing, which made Eddie even more eager to ruin you. In his peripheral vision, he caught his eye on your closet mirror, inciting a genius idea. 

“Okay baby, I’m gonna make you feel good now. Can you do something for me?” You would do anything for him; so of course, you said yes. 

Eddie grabbed your hand, guiding you to sit in front of him with your back to his chest. His warm calloused hands bore a feather light touch as they grazed along your thighs. Slowly they inched higher, stopping just before where you needed it and pushing your thighs wide apart. Your best friend stared at the slickness of your folds, licking his lips in anticipation. Everything he'd ever fantasized about was slowly becoming part of reality.

In the reflection of the mirror, you stared at yourself, not quite sure who was looking back at you. It felt foreign to have anyone, let alone Eddie’s hands on your body in this way. The cross necklace you’ve had your entire life glittered in the light, and you willed the guilt rising up your throat to be swallowed back down. You wanted this. The brush of your best friend’s fingers across your stomach pulled you out of your trance, eyes tracing his movements. 

“Baby, you see this little button at the top here? That’s called your clit. It’s your best friend. And its favorite thing is to get rubbed on.” 

Eddie licked his fingertips in the reflection, bringing them down to between your legs to demonstrate. The wet feeling of his spit on your clit as his calloused hands began to rub circles was so foreign yet welcomed. Your brain began to feel fuzzy as the pleasure took over and your best friend enjoyed watching you come apart for him. Breathy moans and whimpers escaped your lips as you rutted into his hand, chasing something you weren’t even sure what to call.

He cooed at you, whispering sweet nothings in your ears. The ghostly feeling of his lips brushing against your hot skin clouded your mind, making it almost impossible to enjoy his praises. It was almost too much and yet you craved more. But then he stopped. 

“Eddie! Why’d you do that?” Whatever was building up in your lower stomach, aching to be released, slowly began to dissipate along with your excitement.

“Because, I want you to do it yourself.” He paused to kiss your temple, softening the blow of your disappointment. 

“But I can’t—”

“Yes you can, and you will. Give me your hand.” You did as told, watching as Eddie put two of your digits in his mouth and sucked. It was so…sinful. Nothing like anything you’d ever seen; and you couldn’t get enough.  He pulled your spit coated fingers down btwn your legs, right down to the center of your pleasure. 

“Now rub. And don’t stop until I tell you.” You did as you were told, slowly at first to get used to the feeling. 

Soon you fell into a rhythm, high off the feeling and chasing your own pleasure. Your back relaxed into Eddie’s arms, pushing your bodies impossibly closer together. His hips matched the rhythm of yours, which only made you wetter. Your moans were matched by his as you stared at yourselves in the mirror. He was enjoying this just as much as you were. 

“Eddie, oh God. I feel…I feel..”

He grinned at his reflection. 

“I know baby, I know.” He pulled your hips into his, trying to maintain as much friction as he could. At this rate, he wouldn’t last much longer.

“Hurts a little, yeah? Keep going gorgeous, it’s gonna feel so good. Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.” His voice broke on the last few words like he was gonna burst into tears at any moment. Your lower belly tightened with a delicious kind of pain, one you chased eagerly. You rubbed your fingers at a faster pace, desperate for some kind of release as Eddie grinded against your ass. He whispered the dirtiest things in your ear, saying how good you feel and how close he is. And then, the tightness stopped as a wave of pleasure coursed through your entire body, enough to make your toes curl and ears ringing. Eddie’s name fell off the tip of your lips as you came, the final straw as wetness spread through his boxers and hips slowed to a halt. You stared in his eyes as you caught your breath, trying to find the words to describe what just happened.

You were putty in his hands, he knew that now. A post-orgasm smile spread across his lips, shamelessly staring at your fucked-out state. He had plans for you.

[hippielittlemetalhead]

Never Took The Time (To Forget) part 4.2: Robin's Boy

A.N: Life is kinda sucky right now with job hunting, surviving at my current job, the strains that come with being a caregiver to a family member while maintaining a long distance relationship and just dealing with mental and emotional self-care. So here's this, super late and not beta-read but at least I wrote it.

As always, feel free to yell at/with me in the comments, tags and/or ask box.

Part 1 (Hop fucks up), Part 2 (Pride and Prejudices: Joyce's Edition), Part 3 (One of Us), Part 4.1 (With a Capital 'P'), Part 5 (Man Of The Hour)

There's not much that surprises Robin Buckley these days. She gets queasy at the sight of ground beef, the big friendly dogs a few doors down at the O'Reilly place make her blood run cold, she can't watch the old Russian movies her dad loves without having nightmares after and she's sleeping with a nightlight for the first time since she was six. But it takes a lot to surprise her.

Seeing the declared dead Chief of Police step out of a sleek black, obviously-secret-government-bullshit car flanked by an agent she recognizes as one of Owens' lackeys from last July when they were making the rounds with Government funded medical care contingent on signing sketchy NDAs? Just par for the course at this point.

Steve's face when Eleven-Jane rushes into the not-dead Chief's arms and it turns into a whole 'Moment'? Said Chief's look of barely interested confusion followed by tired annoyance when Steve drags her in front of him, rambling about Starcourt and new additions to The Party and finally getting to meet 'My Hop'? Yeah, none of that surprises her either. She plays along for Steve, doesn't give Hopper any time to say anything that would take that happy smile off his face or get rid of the way he's practically glowing he's smiling bigger than she's ever seen directed at anyone other than the kids. Tries not to think about the way it makes something in her clench and crouch like a cat getting ready to pounce and bare fangs she didn't realize she had outside of a life and death situation. She introduces herself, maintains eye contact and drags Steve off as fast as she can to do something, anything, that will distract him from trying to catch up like the Byers clan is with the kids and assembled assorted monster fighters.

She's not surprised when she can't stop Steve from stepping up every time Hopper or Joyce or anyone with a badge says they need anything despite his own still healing wounds. She's not surprised when Hop takes it a step too far.

They're at the Hopper Cabin that is steadily becoming the Hopper-Byers Cottage when Hop tells his and Joyce's shared custody bald parasite that Steve is little more than an annoyance he puts up with for the free babysitting service and manual labor and cause he can go up against shit that would give anyone else nightmares while keeping the kids safe and mostly in-check. She's sitting with Eleven-Jane, sewing patches onto one of Hop's old army jackets, (the kid had seen Eddie's battle vest in Steve's car and it had reminded her of her sister Kali and she'd decided she wanted one of her own for the war ahead and then all of the other rugrats had decided they did too so she and Argyle had taken to giving sporadic sewing lessons whenever the kids had the materials to start their own battle attire) when Steve comes round the corner to the back of the property striding with purpose she rarely saw when he was around his kids.

She leaves her unfinished project on the stump she'd been using as a stool and chases after him. She shooes off curious and worried kids, promising to stick with him, keep the walkie close and on, make sure he was safe and didn't run afoul of any demo-beasts or trigger-happy government goons as he made his way to his car and then wherever else he was marching his happy ass.

She hates the fact that when they're both finally back at the little apartment that Owens' yes-men had acquired for Steve when Harrington Sr. decided to be an opportunist prick and kick Steve out for 'not taking care of the house' in the middle of the 'earthquake', that Steve hasn't shed a single tear. She hates that she's not surprised.

He doesn't say anything as he kicks off his Nikes and shuffles over to the 'second-hand' couch they'd gotten from Mrs. Henderson (Steve and Robin were both fully aware she'd just gotten it shortly before Spring break and was in no way in need of a new one so soon, but they both also knew better than to call her out on her kindness). He doesn't look up at her from his spot curled in amongst the throw pillows and blankets they'd been gifted by parents of various members of the party after Hopper and Owens' story that the two of them had saved the kids again from some freak incident like last year with Starcourt. She pulls out the thick quilt they had found in the latest donations bins when Hawkin's government supervised relief force started outsourcing for supplies and basic comforts. He stares at the wall where they'd hung an oversized corkboard dedicated to polaroids and photo booth strips and even some properly printed pictures of the little monster fighting family they'd put together.

She can't pull him out of this, no matter how much she may want to. There's some places his mind goes only Eleven-Jane would be able to reach and neither of them were going to put more on that girl's plate. So she puts on a Bruce Springsteen record she used to hate and curls up as close as she can to him through the quilt and pillows. Every now and then she gets up to get them both water, to grab some crackers to try and coax him into eating and to switch over to a new record or just flip the one on the player but she always comes back to her spot next to her Steve.

"Whatever he said to you, you know it's not true. Right? You're worth more than a dozen undead cops on a power trip." That gets an amused huff.

"Seriously Stevie, the kids adore you, I swear all the moms in Hawkins think you're the best thing since sliced bread and I don't know what I'd do without my personal chump. We're soulmates, remember? One of these days we're gonna mind meld like Spock and McCoy and we'll be unstoppable. I can't make it without my McCoy, Bones."

"I can't make it without you either, you hobgoblin. Thanks Bobby."

The next day is better. Steve is still a little quiet, a little droopy. But he's present and there's a simmering anger underneath his smile that Robin is proud to see him acknowledging but makes her worry about him as he ushers her into his car to drop her off on her rare lone shift at Family Video before he heads out to a quick 'consultation patrol' with some military special operatives to check out something weird by one of the new cracks.

No one had told any of the kids yet, about the cracks starting to spread out in smaller fissures like a slowly spreading infection. Hadn't thought it necessary with Steve and Nancy (both now legal adults and wasn't the government taking full advantage of that) there as a first line of communication while Joyce wrangled a restless Hop as he settles back in and heals and spars with Owens over payouts and government aide for the town and what the growing military presence was and wasn't allowed to do. With the parents occupied the kids had come together tighter than ever, focusing on their injured and recovering from the nightmare fuel that was their spring break. No one noticed.

She can't help the rant she falls into as they drive through checkpoints and past regular civilians being escorted through areas a little too close to a Gate for comfort. She goes on about how half of the soldiers act like Steve is just one of them and the other half treat him with the same cautious curiosity they do Eleven-Jane whenever she makes her way to the 'front lines' these days. She wants to get the weird boy-speak head nods too! Even Nancy gets them, especially when she's walking around with her sawed-off strapped to a jerry-rigged hip-holster. Robin has used Darlin' before, she's speed poured Molotov Cocktails to hand to soldier boys trying not to piss their pants as Steve and Nancy barked orders as they tried to down a demogorgon fresh from the Upside-Down. Where's her battlefield camaraderie?

It makes him laugh and shake his head fondly as he calls her crazy and weird with that soft smile on his face that makes her chest feel warm and fuzzy like her parents' hugs used to when she was 10 and crawled into their bed after having a nightmare. She doesn't tell him to be careful as they turn down onto Main street or to make sure he comes back in one piece as he rolls to a stop in front of the dark storefront. She starts on another tangent about him abandoning her to the drudgery of Capitalism as he gets to frolic in the woods with a bunch of burly men with their toys before he laughingly reaches over her to open her door to start pushing her out of the car. He smiles big and dopey as she practically spills onto the asphalt, still rambling away about neglectful soulmates and abuses of driving power with smatterings of claims that she'll take over his apartment if he dies and use his ashes as fertilizer for the plants he's taken to keeping on the fire-escape outside the living room window if he dares to leave her alone to babysit his hellions.

He shoots back a final, "Love you too Bobby!" before taking off towards where he's meeting the scientists and soldiers he's supposed to lead through Upside Down infected woods. As he leaves her standing on the sidewalk he doesn't make any sort of promise to be safe, to let the government goons just do their job, to make it back to her alive or in one piece. Not even to make it back to her. She plays with the locket she's taken to wearing that holds a curled up braid of hair shades darker than hers or anyone's in her family.

She doesn't watch his car to the end of the street like she might have before Spring Break, after their Starcourt 'adventure', instead she takes a deep breath and unlocks the dumb video store in this dumb town full of dumb people who don't know when to call it quits and just get the hell out of Dodge. She boots up the computer leaving it to warm up while she starts sorting through whatever mess the new shmucks Steve insisted they hire to cover what times the two of them couldn't because of the Arcade (which they had also gone and hired more staff for now that people weren't one tremor away from rioting in the streets) and Upside Down/ government related shenanigans they ended up getting dragged into.

The bell above the door jingles and she has to bite back a groan. "Welcome to Family Video, I literally just got here so you're gonna have to give me a minute before I can help you."

"Afraid we've only got movies round here, officer. You want any other medium of entertainment I'd suggest the arcade or the distribution yard." She won't turn to face him, not sure she can keep her cool if she does right now. Her hands move on muscle memory, shuffling papers into their proper piles and flipping open VHS cases to check if they need to be rewound. "Sorry, guess we'll have to catch up another time."

"I'm uh, I'm not here for a movie." She may have only heard his voice a couple of times and in passing but she didn't call her ears little geniuses for nothing. She forces her body to relax, lowering her shoulders the way Steve taught her to and keeping her voice light like Eddie walked her through, calling on his Theatre Kid skill set to teach the Party how to convincingly lie improvise when being questioned by people who really did not need to know just what was going on in good old Hawkins.

She can hear him sigh and can't help but picture his hand running over the fuzz on his head the way Steve runs his hands through his coif more and more nowadays in a way he never did before Nancy, before he got pulled into this bullshit and Hopper was rumored to be the one signing his paperwork and taking responsibility for him when his parents didn't show up after an almost week long stay at the hospital. "Look, I know you don't like me. And it has been brought to my attention just how much I fucking earned that. But I- I need your help here. To fix it."

There's not much that surprises Robin Buckley these days. She gets queasy at the sight of ground beef and meatloaf covered in ketchup, the big friendly dogs a few doors down at the O'Reilly place she used to pet and give snacks to on her way to and from school make her blood run cold, she can't watch the old Russian movies she and her dad used to stay up late watching together without having nightmares after and she's sleeping with a nightlight by her bed for the first time since she was six. But it takes a lot to surprise her. Jim Hopper might have just done it.

She doesn't stop moving, doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of throwing her off. She fiddles with the sharp little knife she has tucked up her shirt sleeve in the little sheath she and Steve put together between shuffling papers, taps at the button on her vest hiding the mic attached to the walkie talkie that never leaves her pocket these days. When she finally turns to look at him she's not surprised by the thinness of his frame or the way his eyes and cheeks still look a little sunken in. She sees the tired father worried for his kids and his people and his town, angry at the government for their involvment and their stupidity that she had come to expect. She is not expecting the remorse, the fear, she sees looking back at her. She wonders for a moment what he sees when he looks at her, at any of the teens and kids and young adults he's fought alongside trying to stop the end of the world.

"Fine. He'll be back from his patrol-" He looks mildly confused for a moment, meaning Joyce hadn't been passing along even the minimal information Nancy and Steve had been giving her to relay to Hop and the rest of the Party. That would have to be it's own discussion at some point probably. "-in about twenty minutes. You have fifteen. Now why should I help you?"

"You care about Harringt- Steve. You're close, the two of you have been basically Siamese Twins since Starcourt from what I hear. I- I realize that I made a mistake dumb enough shitting Mike Wheeler is making more sense than me, that I fucked up in a way I don't fucking know how to fix. And I am asking. Politely. For your help."

Honestly she's not sure she believes him. Honestly he's surprised her more times in the last five minutes than most anything or anyone else has in the last year. The man has a lot to unpack and the situation with Steve is just a drop in the man's pile of shit he's managed to bury himself under but maybe there's some hope yet.

She checks the watch on her wrist (an obscenely expensive piece Steve got from one of his parents' rich friends at a holiday party he was too young to remember on a leather band that he had outgrown and never got around to replacing) and looks back at Hop. Ten more minutes. "Why are you here?"

Hop groans in that growly sort of way that makes her think of her grandpa Dale, a great bear of a man who had given the best hugs with shoulders to put Jim Hopper to shame. The no-longer-chief runs his hand over his fuzz again, one hand propped on his hip as he shifts his weight to one side and she tamps down the flicker of biting anger at another example of the ways Steve had shaped himself after a man who never gave him the respect or care he deserved.

"I don't know how to fix what I fucked up. Steve's a good kid, I can admit that now. And he didn't deserve my bullshit just cause I couldn't get past old highschool biases. I wasn't there for him like I should have been- like I told him I would be when I signed those papers. But he's not the kid I thought he was, he's nothing like his folks or the other trust fund brats who think they run this shithole town. I don't know what I'm doing. I just know that kid deserves better than I've been doing."

She hums like she's mulling over his little speech to hide the way she's freaking out a little over what to say to all that. Even she doesn't know how she and Steve got to where they are beyond being tortured by Russians for information they didn't have then being drugged out of their minds while fighting inter-dimensional flesh monsters. But she doesn't think that would help Hop much in this situation.

But she thinks she believes him. At least for now.

"Alright, I'll help you with Steve." Hop sighs, his shoulders dropping as he seems to unclench slightly. Seriously, that much tension cannot be good for him after being in a Russian gulag for almost a year. "But not because I think you deserve it. You were right, Steve deserves better, but he wants you and Joyce and the kids to be in his life. Be a part of it. That is the only reason I will help you. He deserves a better dad than the one he's had and for some reason he thinks you're like super-dad."

"I- How the fuck did I not- What the hell?"

Robin shrugs, "The human brain is good at weeding out what it doesn't want to see. You didn't want to see Steve until you had to and that realization brought you to me. So. Ignorance is bliss and all that."

"So what do I do?"

She checks her watch again. "He'll be running late, especially if the fissure he's checking out is as bad as we think it is. So you have time to run back home, get Joyce to make extra of whatever monstrosity of a casserole she's trying to make this week and you get your rugrats to figure out a way to be the last drop off after Steve takes the brats to the arcade later instead of sleeping off whatever knocks he gets on patrol today. Then instead of letting him head home you make him come inside for dinner. Use the excuse of finding out he's been doing patrols if you have to. But you make him go inside and sit his ass down and eat something and you let him just- let him just be, Hop." She's running out of time but there is just so much she wants to get through to him. "Just make him feel like you see him."

"I- I'll try."

"Yeah, sure. Just-" She bites back the vitriol she wants to projectile vomit in his direction. "Just don't hurt him again. He's more than just a babysitter or front lines muscle. And I will make you wish you were back with the Russians if you make him forget that."

"I believe you."

"Good." The bell over the door jingles again and she looks past Hop to see a group of teenagers making their way to the comedies. "Now I have to get to work and you need to not be here by the time Steve comes to check on me. So talk to you later, Chief."

"Right. Thanks for your help, kid."

She shrugs him off as he turns to head out. The teens are watching him not-so-discreetly as they try to act like they're looking through the latest releases. She forgets that the man is as much a mystery as the heavy-duty military forces that have taken over their small town.

"Alright, folks. What are we looking for today?" She still technically has a job to do even if the kids keep their distance from her like they do the rest of the Party who at this point have all been seen either spending time with said heavy-duty military forces or chasing something into the dark of the forest wielding weapons smeared in monster blood, or both. It's going to be a long day.

Tag list (I think this is everyone?)(if your tag didn't work let me know cause they don't always work for me Idk why):

@thelittleclare @jackiemonroe5512 @0body0disphoria0 @strangersteddierthings @lingeringmirth @dead-cherry-bitch @irethsune @ink777 @the-daydreamer-in-the-corner @ledleaf @pansexuality-activated @paintsplatteredandimperfect @kinryuuki @yikes-a-bee @altocumulustranslucidus @ohimamarigold @samsoble @sensationalsunburst @xxbottlecapx @y4r3luv @swimmingbirdrunningrock @flustratedcas @rootbeerandmusic @vinteraltus @wonderland-girl143-blog @failedstarsandgoldenclouds @steddie-as-they-go @steveshairspray86 @youdrewstarsxaroundmyscars @i-amthepizzaman @wormapothacary @croatoan-like-its-hot @maya-custodios-dionach @ineffable-monster-romancer @asquareinverona @ellietheasexylibrarian @pukner @bookworm0690 @nightmareglitter @joekeerysmoles @salchica @lawrencebshoggoth @iheartjennaaa @child-of-cthulhu @anaibis @rocochen20 @katdeerly @samcoxramblings

[ladykailitha]

The Harrington Pattern Part 9

As you guys wanted, here's me doubling up on posting days. It will (hopefully) be twelve hours apart so that each chapter can get some love.

In this chapter we have a lot of flirting between Eddie and Steve. The Party being "meh" *shrugs shoulders* at Steve being bi. And Robin being the most soulmate a guy could ask for.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

MY TAG LIST FOR THIS STORY IS CLOSED!!!!

@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @emly03

****

That night they were all gathered to watch the amateur theatrical society put on Much Ado About Nothing.

Even the ones who had been reluctant to join in were doubled over in laughter at the trick the Prince pulled on Beatrice and Benedict. The way they cried when Hero was accused of cheated on Claudio. And cheered when it was resolved happily ever after.

Mike complained about it all the way to the car. “We were forced to read this play in eighth grade and I hated it. I never knew it was funny.”

Eddie put his arm around his shoulder. “That is the unfortunate side effect of the education system. They suck the joy out of all of everything.”

“Normally I’m rolling my eyes at Eddie’s rants,” Robin said, “but I’m going to have to agree with him on this one. They just want sanitized versions of everything.”

Steve nodded. “Like what’s with the jump in American history when we stop in eighth grade at the Civil War and then all the way to WWII in eleventh grade, with only a brief mention of WWI as it related to WWII. Are they really trying to tell us that nothing happened in those eighty years of note? Like the fuck?”

Mike blinked at him. “Holy shit, I never even realized.”

The kids looked around at each other in shock.

“They push math and science,” Eddie continued, “but shit on everything else, except sports.”

He winced when realized what he had said. He looked over at Steve with an apology on his lips, but Steve was nodding.

“And they have to be the right sports, too,” Steve agreed. “Wrestling, swimming, soccer...anything outside the big three baseball, football, or basketball. Trust me, I got a lot of flack on being on the swim team. It was ‘gay’.”

“What?” Will squawked. “Why?”

Eddie licked his lips. “Little, teeny, tiny uniforms.” He emphasized the point holding his fingers not that far apart.

Dustin snorted. “Can’t be any worse than the basketball shorts.”

Steve looked upwards as he chewed on the bottom of his lip.

Dustin’s eyes bulged out of his head. “How much worse are we talking about here?”

“Speedo.”

Lucas frowned. “What the fuck is a Speedo?”

Eddie was practically vibrating in his skin. “Can I tell them, Stevie? Can I please?”

Steve let out a little sigh. The sigh the Party lovingly called his mom sigh. It was the sound he made when he knew no mater what he did it was going to end badly for him, so he just...let it happen.

He waved at Eddie to go ahead.

“Instead of swim trunks, that have a leg on them,” Eddie crowed, “Speedos are swim underpants. They cover the junk, the ass, and that’s it.”

“And you deliberately wore these things?” Max asked in interest. More interest than Lucas or any of the guys were comfortable with.

“I’m good at it,” Steve said, blush creeping up his ears and down his throat from the stain on his cheeks. “The uniform wasn’t as bad Eddie’s making it out to be.”

Gareth snorted. “Nope, they really are that bad. There was a period of time where–”

Eddie slammed his hand over Gareth’s mouth. “There’s no need to tell them about that, Gare.”

Steve looked over at Brian.

“Your senior year Eddie forced all of Hellfire to watch your meets.”

“Bri!” Eddie protested.

Steve looked over at Eddie and raised an eyebrow. “You like the...what was you it called it,” he said tapping his finger on his lips, “the ‘little, teeny, tiny’ uniform, Eds?”

Eddie threw his arms in the air. “I am but a gay man in a small town, so sue me!”

“I always preferred the lifeguard uniforms at the community pool,” Steve said. “Less wedgies.”

“Babe,” Eddie scoffed, “those shorts and tank left very little to the imagination. At least with the Speedo you knew what you were getting. With the lifeguard uniform it was all fantasy.”

Steve laughed. “I bet you were the kind who faked drowning to get CPR from their favorite lifeguard.”

“I can honestly say, I’ve never done that.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked all smiles. “Can you prove that?”

Eddie got up close to him and whispered, “Yeah, darlin’. I think I would have remembered you rescuing me before the Upside Down.” He winked at him and sauntered off. The rest of the band hastily said their goodbyes and hurried after their ride home.

Steve’s face was as red as his old life guard uniform. “Right. Let’s get home, yeah?”

Dustin eye’s narrowed at him for a moment. “Steve Harrington, are you crushing on my DM?”

The remaining eight looked at Dustin in shock.

“Dude!” Will hissed. “You can’t just ask that in public! What if someone overheard you?”

Dustin looked around and waved his hand around him. “There is literally no one here. I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t think it was a safe time to ask. But I’m going home with my mom as soon as she gets here and I will not be stymied.”

Steve ducked his head. “And if I did like boys, that would be okay with everyone?”

Everyone just looked around at each other and there was this collective shrug.

“Do you still like girls?” Max asked, genuinely curious.

Steve nodded shyly.

Lucas frowned. “You can like both?”

“Like David Bowie!” El said with her serene smile. “He likes both. Freddie Mercury from Queen, too.”

Steve snapped his fingers. “Exactly like that, El!”

Her smile grew.

“It’s okay if you like Eddie that way,” Mike said softly.

All the heads snapped to look at him.

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, okay. I have a lot to work on regarding the whole Lucas thing, but I’m not a complete ass.”

“Thank you,” El said and kissed his cheek. “You just have a lot growing up to do. We all do. We just need to give each other the chances to do so safely. Or at least that’s what Joyce keeps telling me.”

Steve gave her a hug. “Thanks, Supergirl.”

He looked out at all his friends. The people who were more his family then his own parents.

“I might have a small...” he raised his finger and thumb, “crush on a certain metalhead DM who recently joined the Party in March...”

Robin scoffed. “And by little he means huge!” She spread out her arms all the way out.

Dustin’s head snapped around to Steve. “If you two get together, he better treat you right. You deserve it.”

Steve blinked. Considering how Dustin had worded his original question, he had been sure that Dustin was going to him not to break Eddie’s heart.

He gave Dustin a hug and kissed the top of his head.

He really shouldn’t have doubted this kid.

Just then, Claudia pulled up in her station wagon and Dustin, El, Will and Mike all piled in after saying their goodbyes.

“He totally has the hots for you, by the way,” Max said dryly.

Steve blinked at her for a moment. “How do you know that? Does he spend all his days learning alt rock on his guitar or something for me?”

Max just blinked at him. “Huh. You aren’t as stupid as I thought.” And then she just started walking toward the car.

Steve scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “So to make sure I got this right, Max is saying Eddie has the hots for me because he’s been learning my favorite songs for me on his guitar?”

“That’s what it sounded like to me, man,” Lucas said with a half shrug.

“I’m with Lucas on this one,” Robin agreed. “So maybe you should do what I’ve been suggesting for the last three weeks and you know ASK HIM OUT!”

Lucas giggled.

“Shush you,” Steve admonished. “Get to the car.” He pointed at Robin. “You are spending the night with me to help plan out something cool.”

Robin saluted and Lucas just rolled his eyes and they all walked to the car to end another great night at the fair.

****

“Let’s play to your strengths,” Robin said, sitting cross-legged on Steve’s bed.

“Sports, sewing, and history,” Steve said, ticking them off on his fingers. “Fat lot of good that’s going to do me. It’s not as though I can whip out something overnight as a token of my affection.”

She rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t have to be something fancy. You could do something small. Like maybe use that fancy red thread you got at the weavers yesterday.”

He blushed. “I wouldn’t know where to start. Everything I know how to make is either winter stuff or something he’d never use.”

“He uses that handkerchief all the time,” Robin pointed out. “You could do something like that.”

Steve flopped dramatically on his back. “Not if he knew it was made from that fancy thread I got. He’d want to protect it.”

Robin had to give him that one. Because that would be an Eddie thing to do. And while the sentiment was sweet it would make Steve sad that he never used it.

Suddenly Steve sat up. “Oh!”

She blinked at him. “What’s ‘oh’?”

“He was telling me just last week,” he explained, “that the bag he used to hold all his dice for their game got a hole in it and it kept spilling the dice all over the inside of his backpack!”

Robin grinned. “Let’s pick out the best material to match that pretty thread.”

Steve nodded. “I just have to make a quick phone call to find out how big the bag should be and I can have this done in no time at all.”

He called Dustin and told him his idea. Dustin was ecstatic and told him everything he needed to know.

Robin and Steve then dug into his material stores and picked out a nice black felt and a satin red lining to make doubly sure Eddie wouldn’t lose the dice down the gaping maw that was his backpack.

He then showed Robin how to make patterns and cut them. Then he got to work.

Even with how easily Robin got bored, she watched the whole time with fascination. How he embroidered his pattern into what would be the front of the bag. How quickly and evenly Steve stitched the pieces of cloth together. He explained the process every step of the way and her eyes just lit up.

He turned the bag right side out and fitted it with silver draw string. He pulled it taut and held it up to Robin to see.

She reached out and gently took it from him. “That’s so cool. You do a bunch of these at work and send them to Katie as way to gauge reactions to your work, while you make bigger pieces.”

Steve licked his lips. “You really think these would sell?”

“And I think Eddie would be pleased as punch that he got the first official Harrington Pattern design.”

Steve took it back from her and smiled. “That would make it even more special, wouldn’t it?”

Robin grinned. “Yes, yes it would.”

He threw his arms around her. “You’re the best soulmate anyone could possibly ask for.”

She blushed but held him tight. “You too, Stevie.”

When Steve finally pulled back he tapped his finger on his lips. “Now what to make you.”

Robin squealed. “But you already made something awesome. The pirate costume was amazing, you don’t have to do more just because you made Eddie something.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yes, but I just tailored the clothes. I didn’t make them. I want to make you something.”

She scoffed. “Like the only thing I need are gloves for marching band. Since I have to have hand-me-downs, they are either too tight or way too big.”

His eyes lit up. “I’ve never made gloves before. That would be fun and interesting to try.”

“How would you even measure something like that?” Robin asked, a small amount of hope creeping into her voice.

Steve grinned. “Do you remember those ugly ass hand turkeys they made us draw in elementary school?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Just. Like. That.”

Her eyes went wide. “Wait are you serious?”

Steve just grinned.

****

Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13

I'm not 100% sure my history experience in school is universal in the US, but in order to bridge the gap you actually had to an elective history class called Twentieth Century. Like it was straight up bullshit. And before you ask, you can bet your ass I took that class. It was taught by my favorite teacher. Of course I took that class.

Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @microbiology @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @danili666 @goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @i-must-potato @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @justforthedead89 @vecnuthy @irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @dragonmama76 @scheodingers-muppet @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @thespaceantwhowrites @paintgonewrong @mogami13 @beelze-the-bubkiss @croatoan-like-its-hot @retro-vagabond @sani-86 @pansexuality-activated @y4r3luv @dauntlessdiva @vampire-eddie-brain-rot @lololol-1234 @nightmareglitter

[luffyvace]

MORE LUFFY RELATIONSHIP HEADCANONS

Yeahhh!!! Luffy hcs we’re what my first ever hcs were about! Look how far I’ve come! I love Luffy and I’m so proud of myself! enjoy these Luffy hcs lovely readers <3

Bathing together is SUPER FUN

and messy

you have lots (too many) bubbles

and yes bath toys

even stuff that’s not supposed to be in the bath-

like sticks-

let him tell it they’re swords

he personally doesn’t bathe bc he doesn’t care

even if its mandatory seeing as though no one wants to smell all that funk 😀

so he canonly bathes once a week right??

with you !! He can bathe at any time!

why? Cuz it’s funn 😆😆

you turn it into a game! an adventure!

so now he looks forward to bath time ;3

luffy splashes water everywhere

I wouldn’t be surprised if the ceiling is drenched with that dude’s strength 😂🤦‍♀️

it takes you FOREVER to clean up

but you know what takes even longer?? GETTING HIM OUT THE BATH

”AWWW but we were having sooo much FUUUUN (NAAAAAME)”

actually it did take a long time til you found a cheat code 😋

tell him sanji’s making food!!

ez way to get him out 😎

The final boss tho??

is getting him to help out with cleaning the mess up

especially after you told him there’s food around🧍‍♀️

Now bro’s DEFINITELY not listening 🙉

unless you use another cheat code (saying you’ll tell sanji not to give him any meat til he helps clean up)

your not getting any help buddy..

he’s already gone by the time you get him out the bath 🤷‍♀️

but again! If you use cheat code no.2 you can get him to help :)

which leads me to…!

Cleaning together !!

which turns into a game too :P

well, more like a competition-

Because that’s the only way you’ll keep him from getting bored and complaining instead of actually cleaning

even with meat on the line 🤭

‘it’s just so boriiiiiiiing ☹️‘

- according to luffy

so yes! You propose a competition!

and whoever cleans the fastest wins the prize of…….you guessed it! MEAT!

now he’s up like a whirlwind, swiping up all the soap with a towel and water with tissue 😏

you probably don’t even have to do anything anymore 😜

he may have won the battle but you won the war

eating together can also sometimes be a competition

now you can win by playing it smart like Uta

or just agree so he can leave you to eat, without actually trying

but if it’s not a competition…it’s certainly a war..

and I mean the dangerous one every straw hat goes through each time sanji calls in for food..

Luffy stealing your food!!!

😦😦

no but seriously, not even you, Luffy’s s/o gets the benefit of the doubt⁉️

it’s every man for himself in the dining room 😂😂

if your intelligent, depending on if your more like Robin or Nami you’ll either be unbothered about his antics or super annoyed

with being unbothered you’ll have a lot more peace of mind

and luffy will probably get away with more of his tomfoolery because you put up with him 😆👍

however with a s/o more like nami who gets annoyed easily, yeah he’s not getting away with any of that

thankfully for her, nami has less to stress over now (you take 50% it’s a requirement)

If your more carefree like luffy

i can guarantee you’ve got on like every straw hats nerves at least once

oddly enough I have a feeling you haven’t been able to bother brook just yet

dude’s 90 he got bigger problems..

but yes you terrorize everyone (even outside the straw hats) whether it’s intentional or not

if your strong it’s a relief for luffy not to have to worry about you and he’ll send you to defeat some guys, protect the ship or protect one of your weaker Nakama

he highly believes in you and your capabilities likes he believes in Zoro 👍

he also doesn’t have to worry about strong attacks hurting you as badly or if you go off on your own/get lost or separated or smth

especially as his s/o

if your weak he probably worries about you a little bit more but all the straw hats can handle themselves to some sort of extent

and he knows for sure you won’t go down without a fight!

and that you can at least hold over until he gets there

then he’ll beat the crap outta those guys!

he always tells someone strong to go with you to fights or what might be dangerous

if he doesn’t have to be somewhere for some reason, he’ll go himself!

he just wants to know your safe :)

Luffy loves you because your you! and he really just appreciates that fact in itself.

he looks past physical appearances completely and goes straight for personality

and even then he doesn’t judge that!

point is, no matter what type of anything you are, Luffy loves you because he just does.

he gets a funny feeling in his stomach and he gets extra excited!

Luffy loves you.

He simply does.

and there’s no explaining why.

These were short but sweet<3

to which i hope you enjoyed them💗

[apomaro-mellow]

King&Prince 8

Steve was glad for the boots, but he wasn't about to extend any gratitude to the king for the bare minimum. He was still essentially a prisoner. It begged the question of why he wasn't in a cell anymore, but Steve wouldn't complain. His current situation was a lot better. But the boots came with a price and the cost of having them was apparently following the king around.

"How's your foot?"

"What?"

"Your foot from the-the cut didn't look too bad and you're walking now so...?"

Steve's eyes narrowed. He didn't understand why the king sounded so nervous. "My foot's fine. I can walk. I was able to walk yesterday, but you wouldn't hear of it. Do I look made of glass?"

King Edward paused in the hallway. "....No, you don't."

"Good. Because I'm not. I'm not going to break from some little cut or anything you've got planned for me."

"What do you think I have planned?"

"I haven't the clearest idea", Steve said. "But I'm not fragile. You can do your worst-"

"My worst?", he chuckled. "Little prince, you haven't seen my worst. You haven't seen my bad side at all. But maybe it's about time you've witnessed the worst of your father."

Steve was given a coat and he was led outside. The skies were cloudy and the air was crisp, but the frigid atmosphere was beginning to melt away. It made Steve realize how long he'd been locked away. The frost was melting and spring would be here soon.

Wait...

"You people have warm weather here? You have spring and..." He almost said 'sun' but to do so seemed ridiculous now.

"We get all four seasons here, you know, when the royal budget allows it."

That almost sounded like a joke. Steve frowned. He didn't like when his ignorance was thrown back at him like that. But really, how could he know otherwise? This was supposed to be the land of darkness. Where the wrong shadow could be filled with teeth. Everything was out to kill you here.

The king led him to the stables and for a moment, Steve saw hope. If he got a horse, he could get away. Even if the king gave chase, he could get pretty far with a horse. And Steve was justly proud of his riding skills. His hopes were dashed when the king only asked for a single horse.

"Am I to walk beside your horse wherever we go?", he asked, arms crossed. He imagined being paraded around, perhaps led on a leash like a trophy of war.

"No, Harrington. I expect you to ride with me."

Steve was so stunned, the horse was saddled and the king had already mounted by the time he came back to himself.

"You...you can't be serious! I can't-you can't expect me to-"

"Oh, I do. Now hop to it. We have a lot to see before it gets dark."

The thought of being outside the castle walls when night fell was what prompted Steve to mount the horse. But even so, he refused to touch the king. He instead, dug his fingers into the part of the saddle he could find purchase and held tight with his legs.

"You're going to need to touch me eventually."

"Over one of our dead bodies."

It occurred to Steve how easy it would have been to kill him like this. He'd kept a utensil with the idea of using it to threaten someone before. Why hadn't he done it again? Even just a fork could be deadly if placed in the right area. And here, the king who had terrorized his family was riding with his back to him. If he had just the right thing, he could have ended it all now. But he was without a weapon. And Steve wasn't so stupid that he thought he could choke out a monarch right here in the courtyard and get away with it.

It wasn't easy to ride with barely a grip on anything, but Steve's legs were nothing if not strong, and they helped keep him upright as they left through the castle gates.

"Is that Eddie?", Robin noted, watching from a window.

"Sure looks like it", Gareth replied.

"But he's riding so slow?"

Gareth took a closer look and his eyes bugged out of his head. "Is he riding with the prince?!"

Robin's eyes narrowed. "I mean, I did tell him to be gentle with the guy. It's nice having some actual muscle that I can boss around. I didn't think he'd take me seriously."

Back outside, Eddie was steering the horse carefully and cautiously. He wasn't trying to give the prince special treatment, but he didn't want him flying off the back of the horse either. The road from the castle led right to the capital city, but Eddie didn't want to go there. Even looking like he was now, Steve would attract attention simply because he was riding with the king. He wasn't in the mood to prevent a stoning.

Instead, he took them off the path, to the forests that spread out over his land. Steve was blessedly quiet during most of the trip, probably taking it all in. From his question about the weather, Eddie surmised a unhealthy dose of propaganda was fighting against being a first hand witness. Eddie had heard all the scary stories that people told to explain his existence, his connection with his creatures, and his kingdom in general. He could probably count on one hand the things people got right.

"I've been fighting with your family for a long time. Do you know why?"

Steve blinked, surprised by the question when they had been riding in silence. "Because we've always been enemies."

"But do you know why?"

Steve's brow furrowed. "Your kingdom sprung from the darkest depths to challenge ours. If we left you alone, we'd be consumed. All you want is destruction. To turn everything into a desolate wasteland."

The king chuckled. They got deeper into the forest. With how cloudy it was, the thick of the woods began to get darker. Eddie didn't need to ask if Steve's mind had been changed. The evidence was already presented. If he was too stubborn to see it, he'd be a lost cause. All Eddie needed to see was how he'd react to the actual monsters used to scare and frighten.

There was a cave ahead, pitch black on the inside. The horse stopped before even Eddie ordered it, sensing what was within.

"Your people have always been afraid of my kind. And I can't fault them for being afraid of what they don't know." He dismounted and held a hand out for Steve. Steve ignored his hand and got down himself, doing his best not to stumble. Between his bandaged foot and slightly numb legs, he somehow managed.

"We know enough."

"Do you? So you've seen and can identify all the different creatures under my command?"

"I don't need to identify a monster. I just need to know how to kill it."

"And there it is! Knowledge in the name of decimation, instead of knowledge itself. Or, if you can imagine, progress." The king cackled and Steve felt like he was being made fun of again.

"Why did you bring me here? What's in the cave?"

"I think you already know, Harrington. You're smarter than you look." Eddied took the horses reins and tied it to a tree off to the side so it wouldn't run off.

For a split second, Steve thought about the numerous rocks on the ground and how he could just grab one and-

Why did he always have these thoughts? How often had he stopped himself from being more violent. Every moment that went by without Steve physically assaulting the king, he heard his father's voice calling him useless and weak. If his father and been captured, King Edward would be dead by now. His father would have never been taken at all.

King Edward went to the mouth of the cave and reached a hand out. There was a chittering sound, a creature coming forth. The hairs on Steve's body stood on end and he reached for a sword that wasn't there.

"If you've brought me here to kill me-"

"Shh", the king shushed, but it was unclear who he was speaking to. To Steve? Or to the grey, four legged thing coming out of the black. The king knelt, hand held out, letting whatever it was, get closer to him. Steve had seen drawings, depictions of what lurked in these lands. But nothing prepared him for how the face opened slightly, revealing a hint of the rows of teeth that lied within. It was like a flower made of nightmares.

Steve had been frozen in place as he watched the king pet the creature like it was a dog.

"Tell me, prince. Do you like spiders? Or rats? Or even wasps and flies?"

"Those are all pests", Steve answered, though his voice wasn't as firm as he would like it, guard up and attention all on the two monsters before him.

"And yet, each of them as a specific niche in our world. A role to play in our ecosystem. And it is our ecosystem." The king turned his body slightly to look at Steve, taking in his tense stance. "You can relax. If my intention was to kill you, I wouldn't have wasted my breath talking to you."

"As if anything you do has a rhyme or reason. Nothing about you or this kingdom makes any sense!"

"Or is it that you refuse to see reason?" The king sent the creature back into the cave. "It's about time you take the blinders off and see my kingdom for what it is."

Steve shook his head. "A snake may very well be part of an ecosystem but its venom is still dangerous. Killing those things before they over take us is the only thing that makes any sense. That still makes sense."

"And I could say the same about your people. Kill them all and snuff you out before you can destroy my kingdom and my people."

"Then why don't you!?"

"Because that's not what I want!"

His words echoed between the trees. He stepped towards Steve but the prince stood his ground. If this was where he died, he'd do it with his head held high. The king didn't stop until they were toe to toe.

"I'll say this for your benefit. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it the by now." His eyes glanced at something behind Steve.

Curious and confused, Steve looked around to see a horde of those grayish monsters assembled behind him and in his shock, he nearly jumped into the king's arms, hands clinging to his clothing.

"Didn't take much for you to touch me after all."

Steve's blood went from running cold to being startling hot. So hot his hand moved before his brain. The crack of his hand slapping across the king's face echoed.

Part 10

Tag Team

@thesuninyaface @only-evanescent @snakeorsquid @ignoremyworld @theclichefortunecookie @goodolefashionedloverboi @just-a-tiny-void @0body0disphoria0 @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @samsoble @jamieweasley13 @y4r3luv @xtkxkrzrizir @un-knownperson @greekgeek24 @justdrugsformethanks @potato-of-the-lord @notaqueenakhaleesi @swimmingbirdrunningrock @queenie-ofthe-void @nebulainajar @lil-gremlin-things @nicememerino @robininblue @hornedqueenofhell @anne-bennett-cosplayer @moomkin77

[riality-check]

steddie prompt! steve struggling with his dyslexia and feeling like he isnt smart enough compared to eddie and the kids?

In an effort to, in his words, "convert him to the light side," Dustin had given Steve an armful of what he deemed "essential reading" and sent him away to "learn the ways of the Force."

If Steve didn't like Star Wars so much, he would've made fun of that little nerd.

But, honestly, he's a little grateful. With no more monsters to slay and it being way too cold to venture outside of his house to go swim or play basketball, the books fill up a good chunk of time.

Too good a chunk.

It's taking him way too long to get through them.

He didn't try The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings because those looked way too intimidating. Dune's first twenty pages were boring as shit, and Ender's Game was a lot, to say the least.

So, he's been making his way through A Wrinkle in Time.

Slowly making his way through it. Too slowly.

Steve has been quickly reminded about why he hasn't voluntarily read a book since elementary school, and why he stopped reading the required books in high school.

It's hard. Reading sucks.

He doesn't know how other people get through it when the letters don't make sense and seem to switch, like how "b" and "d" or "f" and "t" look way too similar.

"Whatcha readin'?"

Steve looks up from the book - god, it's probably taken him at least an hour to get through chapter one, hasn't it - to find Eddie in the doorway of the living room.

Guess he's taking advantage of the spare key, Steve thinks to himself, but he's not mad about it, not even a little.

"A Wrinkle in Time," he says, holding up the book so Eddie can see the cover.

Eddie lights up. "Oh, I love that book! I think the last time I read it, I was in, shit, maybe fourth grade?"

Steve knows he didn't mean it, but damn. That hurt a little bit.

He can't even get through a book Eddie read when he was in elementary school?

"What part are you at?"

Steve tucks the book against his chest so Eddie doesn't see how the bookmark isn't very far in. "Not very. Just met Mrs. Which. It's kind of hard to get through-"

"Oh, yeah," Eddie nods. "It took me, like, three days."

"- because the letters keep switching."

Eddie frowns. "What?"

"The letters," Steve says. "Like, they're moving a lot for this book. I don't know why."

Eddie looks at him blankly.

Oh.

"Does that... not happen for you?"

Eddie shakes his head.

Steve huffs out a laugh because of course this would be a uniquely him problem. Of course people like Dustin and Eddie and the rest of the party would like reading, because of course they would be able to do it right.

"I guess I really am stupid."

"It took me three tries to get through my senior year," Eddie says seriously, putting his hand on Steve's shoulder. "Does that make me stupid?"

"No," Steve says instantly. It doesn't. Just because Eddie wasn't good at school doesn't mean he isn't smart. He's a brilliant storyteller and musician, and both of those take brains.

Steve doesn't have a hobby that takes brains because he just... doesn't have enough. Plain and simple. That's how it's always been.

"Ok, then you're not stupid for having trouble reading," Eddie says like it's the simplest thing in the world.

"But-"

"But what? We're all gonna struggle with something. For me, it was school. For you, it's reading. It's why we've got other people to fill in the gaps."

Other people don't fill in the gaps. Steve does. Steve stretches himself thin, makes sure he's everywhere at once to make sure the kids and Robin and Eddie are okay.

No one else can do that because. Well.

Steve has to be irreplaceable somehow. He's gotta be necessary somehow.

This is the only way they need him.

"Get out of your head, martyr," Eddie says, reading his mind. He's not as good at that as Robin is - Steve doesn't think anyone will ever be able to read him like Robin can - but he can still do it.

It's weird, just like Eddie is. Steve's learned to love weird over the past few years.

"Do you want me to stick around?" Eddie asks.

"You can stay, if you want," Steve says.

"I always want to stay with you," Eddie says, and damn if that sentence doesn't take Steve's breath away. "But I figured I'd ask."

So, Eddie lays his head in Steve's lap as Steve dives back into a world of tesseracts and space and time, and when Steve tilts the book down and points to a word that just isn't making sense, Eddie reads it for him.

He doesn't comment on how often he hears the pages flip.

[upsidedownwithsteve]

Hi!! I missed you and your writing a bunch and never got the chance to congratulate you on the wee babe! So happy for you and your partner ❤️

If you are willing to do any Eddie blurbs, maybe you could do a kind of slow burn, sexy lil one for the Eddie girlies (me) 😂 I know the blurbs are quite short so obviously a slow burn isn’t meant for that but maybe just something that is full of some delicious/thick sexual tension!

I know I’ll love anything and everything you’ll write so I can’t wait to see what you come up with 😘😘😘😘

thank you my lovely! I wasn’t sure if I hit the brief here, so I hope you like it! 🧡

It was ridiculous, you knew that.

An entirely, enormously ridiculous way for someone your age to act. But Eddie Munson was far prettier up close and he was softer than you’d imagined, a little clumsy and funny even when he didn’t mean to be.

And he was friends with your friend. You’d watched in awe one day when he pulled Robin into a one armed hug outside of the town library, his arm slung familiarly around her shoulders and when she introduced you with your name and a nudge to your ribs, Eddie Munson turned his wide smile onto you and you suddenly realised there could be things that were brighter than the sun.

It was an awful, pretty thing, to have a crush.

A cloying, silly thing that made your body flush with heat and your stomach feel too tight. It made your to tongue too big for your mouth, it made you tear your wardrobe apart looking for the perfect outfit, just on the off chance of getting to see him. And when someone mentioned his name, your breath would catch in your chest and your heart threatened to explode, to shatter your ribcage and announce itself to everyone around you by throwing itself dramatically onto the floor below.

You think Eddie knew. He had to. Either because you were awful at hiding it or your friends couldn’t keep their mouths shut. He didn’t tease, not really. Eddie had found out rather quickly that you weren’t as used to being teased in the way he did with Nancy, or Steve. So he was so much more gentle with you, but god, you noticed the way he grinned a little too much when he leaned down to talk by your ear, watching for the parting of your lips at his proximity, the way your hands would curl into your pockets.

So he took to trying out something new each day, a slow but sure thing. He promised you shotgun when the rest of the kids moaned and had to clamber into the back of the van, throwing you a wink and a little bow as he held the door open for you.

One day he brought pizza for games night, five boxes of it stacked in his arms on top of a monopoly case. And when no one else was looking, he produced some twizzlers from his pocket, easing them into your hands and whispering that they were “just for you and him, alright?”

Another wink, another grin, another thing to set your body alight.

Then during movies, he made sure to steal the seat next to you, sinking down into Nancy’s couch cushions, pretending not to notice how his body melted into yours. He was a solid wall of heat, much softer without leather and denim but when his bare arm touched yours, your body turned electric, your brain buzz and fizz.

And when it got dark enough and everyone was too busy arguing over the best Star Wars, Eddie’s hand moved from his own lap to lay next to yours on the sofa. His pinky finger touched your own, something you would’ve thought was an accidental touch if it hadn’t happened twice.

When you found the courage to peer at his face in the shadows, his straight nose and flushed cheeks highlighted red from Darth Vaders lightsaber, you saw the twitch of his mouth, the beginnings of the smile he could never seem to contain.

He kept his hand there all night and magically, amazingly, touching the courage to do the same - even if your ribcage was taking a beating from the way your heart pounded against your bones.

You were sure you were permanently scalded from being around Eddie Munson.

[bluespiritshonour]

Oh my God!

I just caught up with World's Finest: Teen Titans and I absolutely have to write this out:

First of all, I love this cover:

The thing that caught my eye: “you're grounded.”

Not the dramatic “you're fired” as if the motherfucker didn't raise that damn kid in his own damn house for YEARS.

(I know. I know. Bar on the ground, but what would you?)

Also, the anger palpable on Bruce's face and Dick's absolute disregard for it. I'm laughing here y'all. This is what teenagers act like. This is what fights between parents and children look like.

Also. Dick Grayson, I've been missing. You're back from war!

I love how curt he is. The “Get lost” hits in all the right places. We love a strongly-principled character that stands for what he believes in. With all the lukewarm Dick Grayson writing floating around I felt like walking into a coffee shop while it's snowing outside.

More of this writing, please.

I'd been waiting for this moment all through this series.

This conversation.

I compare things all the time. It might not be the right thing in every field but I think it serves well when it comes to comic books. We all have personal “canon criteria”—for example, mine are “Darwyn Cooke wrote this Bruce so I'm taking it as valid characterisation ” or “Every version of Bruce played by Kevin Conroy is valid”. (Minus Bruce Timm bullshit!)

Which was what cinched my hatred for Bruce after reading a Robin short story that Cooke wrote and alluded to Robin: Year One in it. I mean, I might not fuck with Dixon, but am I going to call even Cooke's Bruce OOC? No. It means Bruce is a jerk. Full stop.

Waid is one of the writers I respect (excluding Kingdom Come. I hate it and I can't put my finger on the why. But I just do: I hate it. I hate it for Clark. I hate it for Diana. And I'm a professional Bruce-hater so let's not even go there. I hate it for Dick too.)

And Dick and Bruce's relationship has a lot of baggage from the fact that a) Bruce is himself traumatised and fails to meet Dick's emotional needs b) he wasn't ready to be a father when he adopted Dick c) Dick simply suffers from being the eldest—the test child.

And very rarely have I seen writers manage to walk on the thin line of complicated-but-dedicated-and-strong.

Young Justice cartoon did it. Dick and Bruce's relationship is going strong. But they fight and have different values. And Dick can see all that is wrong with Bruce's approach to vigilantism in particular and life in general.

Grimm (Legends of the Dark Knight #149-154) did it right. Where Bruce hurt Dick deeply and made him feel unwanted all the while overthinking about Dick's well-being. Way to go, buddy! You can see the repercussions it has for Dick while simultaneously stare at this man who's tying himself into knots trying to think how best to parent.

I think that's what most Bruce and Dick comics miss: the excessive worrying. They don't show the worry, make them fight for drama, never address it apart from throwing out a “it's because Bruce's worried” (bitch, where?) and have Dick running back to Gotham at the first chance. It sounds an awful lot like “your parents hurt you 'cause they love you” bullshit.

I think World's Finest manages it well because foremost, Bruce says, in words, that he's worried about Dick's well-being. He's taciturn, he's putting constant pressure on Dick all in the hopes of making him quit Titans. All this makes him a jerk. But I don't hate him for it.

It's between Dick's “you don't trust me” and Bruce's “no, I don't trust them.”

Most teenagers clash with their parents. It's normal. That's what Waid has shown here and I love it. It feels very—normal?

Especially when the Bats aren't normal! Bruce sure as fuck ain't a normal parent. But there was something very bitter-sweet coming-of-age in this conversation.

Bruce does all those things that are bad for Dick and his growing independence. You're not supposed to handle teenagers like that.

He's worried and taking desperate measures. “If I punish him, then maybe he'll obey me and quit Titans and then he'll he safe”—lots of parents who don't know how to deal with teenagers do it.

But the sequence of it: Bruce is worried → Bruce wants Dick to quit Titans → for Dick it means proving himself to be better, to not get hurt (as if he can control that beyond a certain point) → Bruce being alarmed at Dick's insistence to stay with the Titans and taking desperate measures like benching him.

At least it makes sense.

Compare it to Dixon's Nightwing origin story, which honestly, personally I think was lazy writing. Drama for drama's sake. “You’re fired because you're spending too much time with the Titans.” The same writer also had Bruce say that he did it because he wanted Dick to strike out on his own. Blah, blah, blah.

And no matter whatever happens he'd never ever say it to Dick's face that he's worried about him because—well, reasons.

Robin: Year One logic:

I'm worried about Dick's health so I fire him. He runs off and can get hurt? He joins a school for assasins? None of my business. He can get hurt on his own, I don't care as long as it is not on my conscience. Peace.

—Bruce “professional narcissist” Wayne.

So, yes. When faced with this book(WF: TT), I'd call Dixon's writing lazy.

I'm also comparing this to several other instances when Bruce verbally says (never to Dick, mind you) that he loves that Dick's a better person and better vigilante than him. But in the same book he'd yell at Dick for exactly the same thing. (I consider that lazy writing, since BTAS made sure to show a shot of Bruce smiling whenever Dick was happy/not like him).

I like this thing here where he says it to Dick's face. He's still grounding him for “discipline's sake” or whatever—very, very IC for Bruce.

But he also lets Dick know that he appreciates his values, that are different—better—than Bruce's own.

I can stomach that.

Honestly Bruce's writing in this book felt like BtAS writing (pre-Bruce Timm fuckery). That's a compliment.

P.S. Waid's a good story-teller overall. His Superman: Birthright was one of the first Superman comics I read and I fell in love with Clark right away.

Peace ✌️😂

[onepiece-polls]

One Piece Shipping War - Grand Finale!

Propaganda under the cut.

Propaganda for Franky x Robin:

Do I really need to explain?

The old married couple who's healthy, Enies Lobby (and all their appearances) are their propaganda really.

It’s all about the maturity!

Their dynamic is perfect and their pasts are so similar. I love the chemistry between them as well as their introduction that helped build the connection and shared history they already have.

they are THE t4t bi4bi ship | franky telling robin "existing is not a crime" immediately puts this at number one for me | they are opposites (bright and loud + quiet and goth) but also they're both so eccentric and silly <3 | THEY WEAR MATCHING OUTFITS

Mom and dad Straw Hat

They are STILL the Mom and the Dad of the Straw Hats, this is the one thing I don't care what Oda says <3 Also their interactions in Enies Lobby and Thriller Bark are amazing.

In my eyes, they are married. Some of my favorite character interactions in the manga/anime and in official art.

Oda had Franky call Robin his wife at least once

Your honor they’re married

I'M GOING TO PUT LINKS IN MY EXAMPLES (Mod note: I linked to the whole post, the propaganda was going to get too long otherwise. But I will copy this line:...) They immediatly clicked in Enies Lobby, Franky saved Robin with both words and actions ("Your existence is not a sin!"), and then she grabbed his balls.

The duality of two kids who were just trying to chase their dream and having circumstances outside their control (the government) take everything they love away from them, but one choosing solitude and the other adopting every other person in a bad circumstance??? I love them. Plus they literally had couple moments from the first interaction.

The ultimate t4t couple idk what else you need theyre iconic

A wholesome ship of a woman who feels the need to be constantly on edge trying to relax and a man who is a 110% himself from the moment we see him. the joy of frobin is the causal domesticity, in many color spreads and especially post timeskip we can see them casually enjoying the others company.

Remember when Franky was in Chopper's body in Punk Hazard and every time he spoke Robin was like "Franky. Stop talking. Do not talk while you're in Chopper's body."

idk like. he's obsessed with her. she's his weird Goth gf and he's her himbo. they have matching outfits. I love them.

Look. It's Franky and Robin. Literally the only two characters that make sense to ship on the Sunny. Their arcs are inextricably intertwined (water7/enies lobby). Also LOOK AT THEM interacting, both during their arcs, but also thriller bark, or post time skip. I love them. Also robin crushed frankys balls.

funny big robot man & analytical smart research lady power couple... silly x smart... himbo x researcher... augh... so good

They are the ship for taxpaying adults your honor I LOVE them they’re literally freak4freak and they share such a fucking powerful arc together (Water 7).

that moment she let him sleep on her lap in punk hazard was sooo cute <3 -- The matching thigh highs and bottoms in film z can NOT be understated. -- Strawhat mom and dad -- Let's not forget the way robin convinced franky to join ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) -- she also indirectly called his balls "treasure" so,,, -- the way their stories are so closely intertwined...they were both keys to destroy the world...the way they instantly connected over that...the soulmate-ism of it all...

they . them. girlboss and malewife. that's it.

She grabbed his balls. He totally liked it.

He's so silly and she loves it. She's so scary and he loves it. She grabbed his balls in public.

They will be endgame trust me. Franky doesn't treat any other girl like he treats Robin. There dynamic in Water 7 and Thriller Bark was and always will be one of the best in all of OP.

Propaganda for Nami x Vivi:

Yes, Nami has a new girlfriend on every island, but her heart belongs to Vivi. Vivi in turn refuses to marry, because her heart belongs with a pirate ❤

THEY’RE LESBIANS! IN LOVE! another point: my friends who are watching OP for the first time came to me and asked “so Nami and Vivi… they’re gay right?” So it’s pretty apparent to even newcomers

I just think they’re neat! And in love. Nami gave up money for Vivi that’s True Love

Anyone who saw them can just tell they’re gay. Like Nami gave up money for her

They're one of the rare lesbian ships in op, they care for each other so much !!

Lesbians

Lesbians

They were so gay that Luffy offered to share food to cheer Nami up when they were separated.

i dare you to read Baroque Works through Alabasta without shipping them. the way Vivi and Nami are so affectionate with each other, and Vivi putting saving her nation on hold to get Nami healthy again ???

Lesbians

Let’s go lesbians!!!!! Ok but actually, I think Nami saw a lot of herself in Vivi (ha) especially when Igaram “died” and then throughout their journey together Nami really encouraged her to open up to the crew. Nami showed Vivi it was ok to ask for help just like Luffy showed her.

Vivi was Nami's gay awakening and you cant change my mind. Nami was in love with Vivi and Vivi def had some kind of feeling for Nami. They were so close and they were more then just 'gal pals'

Lesbian Pirate Supremacy! they clearly care a lot about each other and considering when nami meets vivi she is probably one of the first close female friends she gets to have.

[zonigiri]

𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐈 𝐃𝐎 𝐈𝐒 𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐔𝐑𝐄

pairing: wano!zoro x reader

summary: unfortunately, you have a crush on zoro and zoro is in love with someone else and so, cue: pining (or so you think)

wc: 3.3k

cw: fluff + reader smokes + potentially inaccurate wano arc details because I haven’t caught up with the manga but i had to get this out sorry!!

a/n: i had to get this out of my head and i haven’t written anything in a while and so reqs/ideas/feedback on asks are welcome!

Clinking glasses, boisterous laughter and sounds of revelry filled the air. The kingdom of Wano was celebrating the end of Kaido’s reign and of the ill-famed prophecy coming to fruition after two long decades. As always, your crew was in the centre of the limelight. Luffy was predictably surrounded by piles of empty plates on one side and plates loaded with food on the other. Ussopp and Chopper were merry-making, Robin, Nami and Franky were engaged in conversation with Yamato-kun and Tsuru-san, Brook was playing with some children and you couldn’t see Sanji anywhere. Probably escorting some damsel in distress somewhere, was your best bet. And in a corner of the room, surrounded by Kin’e’mon, Duke Dogstorm and Cat Viper was Zoro – all of them going through barrels of sake like running water. With the burden of Kaido off everyone’s shoulders, everyone felt lighter, freer. So why was there a heaviness in your heart?

You excused yourself from the people around you and you went outside the room to take a deep breath. Maybe looking at the stars would remind you again how insignificant your troubles were. You chastised yourself for feeling the way you did when there were people that had lost their loved ones in the war and in the years preceding it, and once again you wished that matters of the heart could be reigned over by logic. You’d carried a thing of sake with you and there were strains of faint music coming in from somewhere and so you took unladylike sips while staring up at the stars in the sky, willing all other thoughts out of your brain.

“Oi, what are you doing out here?,” a familiar gruff voice rang out behind you. Jolted out of your thoughts and nearly choking on the sake, your eyes widened as you turned around to find Zoro. However, before you could get a word in, he spoke again, and your chest felt heavy again.

“Shitty-cook was looking for you.” Oh. It was probably too much to have expected Zoro to notice your absence and come find out in the middle of a banquet with free-flowing sake. You should’ve known better.

As if right on cue, another familiar voice filled with half-hearted anger and pure annoyance called out from a distance. “Oi Marimo, where the hell have you been? Hiyori-chan’s been looking for you all night, how dare you keep a lady waiting?” Your heart lurched again hearing Hiyori’s name and as Zoro turned around to face Sanji, Sanji spotted you. His tone changed immediately as he called out to you this time, sweetly and with no trace of earlier frustration, “Hellooo YN-chan, didn’t see you there! Are you enjoying the party? Was mosshead over here, bothering you?” 

“Haaa?!”

You let out a little laugh and a wave, with a smile you hoped was convincing enough, the same time as Zoro let out an accusatory curse.

“Hey, Sanji! I’m alright thanks, I was looking for you actually. Can I have a cigarette?”

“Of course, anything for you!” Sanji trips over himself trying to get out his pack of cigarettes and insists on lighting it for you. Having completed it, he turns around to see Zoro still standing there, staring at the two of you. “You stupid Marimo, didn’t I tell you Hiyori-chan’s waiting for you? Don’t you have any manners? I can’t believe she would pick you over me. She’s the most beautiful woman in the whole country, why would she even want a brute like you?! Don’t keep her waiting, you ill-mannered animal!” Sanji all but kicks Zoro, as if sending him flying to Hiyori’s feet might make up for however long she’s been waiting. For a second it looks like Zoro and Sanji are going to butt heads for the nth time but Zoro simply twists his face into a scowl, decides against it and walks off, grumbling under his breath. You turn back to rest your elbows on the parapet as you watch the smoke billow away into the night sky.

“So, Zoro and Hiyori, huh?,” you say with a little laugh.

Sanji lets out a scoff, takes a drag as if to compose himself, and then speaks, “Can you believe it?”

You don’t answer him and the two of you finish your cigarettes in silence afterwards. You offer Sanji your remaining sake and he graciously accepts. The two of you walk back to the banquet hall and instinctively your eyes scan the room for Zoro – he is nowhere to be found. And then, cautiously and against your best interests, you scan the room for Hiyori – she is nowhere to be found either. You can feel the bile rising in your chest as you scan the room a third time, this time for signs of either of them, but nothing. Putting two plus two together, you walk into the room with a heavier heart than you’d left. Walking over to the banquet table, you grab two bottles of sake and go join the group nearest to you. Chopper was putting chopsticks up his nose and the entire group was in splits – it was easy to pretend you were having fun too.

Back on the ship, you try your best to give Zoro as wide a berth as possible and hope it goes unnoticed. In your defense, it’s nothing obvious – it’s not like you’re walking the other way when you see him. You didn’t really want to either. Your heart might have been hurting but even then, you couldn’t deny how good he looked doing push-ups on the deck of the Sunny. Well into his 500’s, brazenly shirtless, and sweat glistening like molten gold on his brown skin in the sunlight. Had you not been bothered about giving him some space, you likely would’ve been staring at him shamelessly and Robin would’ve passed a cheeky comment about flies going into your open mouth. With a heavy sigh, and a slightly heavier heart, you go back to the book you were reading.

Days pass like this, with you toeing a thin line doing your best to keep your distance while trying to not make it obvious to anyone. This was just a passing crush and from past experience you’d learned that the best, and probably only way, to deal with it was to bide your time and let it fade away on its own. You only wondered how long it would take this time, because there was a limit to the pangs of pain you could tolerate.

You were sitting in the crow’s nest, knees to your chest and cradling the book you were reading when a movement drew your attention to the door. Zoro walked in with weights and set them down on the floor next to you.

“Should I- do you need the room?” you asked getting ready to get up, hoping simultaneously he’d say yes and no to appease the two splits your heart was in.

“Stay,” he grunted under his breath and he turned around and began setting up his equipment.

Long ago the two of you had come to an agreement to tolerate, and allow, only each other in this little sacred space the two of you had managed to create for yourselves on the Sunny. You reading in silence while Zoro worked out nearby was a near-natural occurrence for the two of you and naturally it often led to small talk, casual conversation and eventually playful banter. You’d spent nights up here on watch, drinking from the secret alcohol stash that Zoro and you had hidden away underneath the floorboards. The more you thought about all the memories you have of the two of you in the room where you were, the more the awkwardness of the present moment was stifling, closing in your heart and squeezing it in desperation. It was too far gone now, there was no escape. If you left now, it would make it even more obvious so all you could hope for was that Zoro hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Although with the way you’d tried to leave earlier… Zoro was an idiot but unfortunately, the bastard could be observant when he wanted to. It was all you could do to stare into the book in your hands, boring your eyes into the words on the page and registering none of them.

Wordlessly you slid back into place, watching him curiously as he arranged the weights on the racks with his back to you. Thanks to your efforts, you had never been alone with him ever since you’d left Wano. You’d made it a point to always stay on the deck, with others in company and sight, to prevent yourself from the exact situation that you were in right now. You knew Zoro liked to train in the crow’s nest, but it was also your favourite place to read a book for similar reasons – it was quiet and far away from the chaos that the deck was almost always prone to.

Speaking of the devil, Zoro's voice cuts through the room, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Dunno, you’ve seemed a little out of it ever since we left Wano.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, we haven’t- you haven’t come up to the crow’s nest to read or anything,”

“Oh.” Your heart flutters a little at the fact that he noticed, but the rational part of your brain shuts it down. That’s what a friend does. He cares about you, just not the way you do about him. “I uh- I wanted to give you some space.”

It was Zoro’s turn to look confused. “Hah? Why?”

“I thought you might need some time to get over….” your voice dies down as the confusion in Zoro’s eyes increases. “Get over what?” The pure obliviousness almost makes you question yourself but for the sake of your sanity, you decide to press on. “Over Okiku-san?” you say softly. You see his eyes soften at the mention of her name.

“Oh. Yeah, I visited her grave with Kin’e’mon before we left.” You nodded understandingly. “If that’s what you’re worried about, I’m fine.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Miss her? I only knew her for a week.”

“Then… do you miss Hiyori-san?”

“Haaah?! How do you know about that? Did someone tell you? I bet it was Brook he has awful fucking timing. Just like that morning….” Zoro grumbled under his breath.

Your heart sinks a little as you recall he’s referring to the night that they slept together. You remember feeling devastated when Brook was telling you and Nami and you had to do everything in your power to act like it was scandalizing gossip and not like it felt like your heart was like a rock dropping rapidly into the sea. And it was happening again.

“No one told me, I just… guessed. I’m sorry,” you say softly, trying to stop tears from falling.

“What for?”

“It must suck to leave someone you love behind.” A pause and then you offered honestly, “I don’t know if I could do it.”

“Who did I leave behind?”

“Hiyori-san?”

You could see the gears in his brain turning as he tried to put the pieces together, “And who do I love?”

“Hiyori-san….?”

“Where the hell did you get that from?!”

“From you?!" Zoro continued to stare at you like you were spouting nonsense and so you added in your defense, "I thought she confessed to you on the night of the banquet!”

“She did,” but before you could say anything Zoro spoke again, "But I turned her down.”

“Oh. So it was Okiku-chan then?”

“Haaa?! Where are you getting any of this from?! You’ve been acting strangely ever since we left Wano and now you keep fuckin’ talking about me being with people I haven’t ever thought about that way. Do you think I’m like ero-cook over there, who falls in love with every single girl he meets? Is that really what you think of me?”

“No,” you whisper, tears threatening to spill any moment now. You’d never seen Zoro this annoyed, and never at you. Zoro turns around and starts putting his weights back, his back to you. “Forget it, I just wanted to see if you’re okay but I don’t know what’s wrong with you.” 

Your heart sank to your knees and all the arguments you'd been using to not confess to him suddenly fell away. All that was left was your need to explain to Zoro that you'd never meant to piss him off, only to try and know who he liked because you liked him. You spoke before you realized you were doing it, and before you knew it the words had already left your wobbly lips in a shaky whisper. 

“Zoro, I’m sorry. I like you.”

Hearing your trembling voice, Zoro turned around and walked over to stand a few steps away from you. You could feel his eyes on you and you’re sure he had questions, but you were also sure there were tears in your eyes; and so you were staring holes into the ground because the last thing you wanted now was for Zoro to see you cry. 

Zoro’s voice was softer when he spoke, “I like you too. Are you alright? You know you can talk to me if something’s bothering you, right?” He didn’t know what was going on and your sudden change in behaviour only confused him even further.

Incredulous, you looked up to face him, brimming tears now forgotten. You wondered if you should let it pass since your tortured confession was wildly misunderstood by the swordsman who really had moss for brains at times but now that you’d come out and said it, you figured you might as well get it over and done with. It had taken you months to get this far, and the part of you that was sick playing pretend just wanted to let it all go to flames and see where the pieces fell in the aftermath. You weren’t sure if you could handle another day of acting like Zoro was just a friend to you and another night of going to bed wondering what it would be like if you had the courage to tell him how you felt. 

“Zoro no, I like you," gathering courage you started tentatively with a shaky breath and hoped that this time the confession would go through. "I was, I was upset because Brook told us about Hiyori and you and then Luffy told us about Okiku-san and then she died the night of the fight and then- it was all a lot to process and- and I was jealous. And hurt. And I didn’t know how to handle it so I thought avoiding you would help because I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry, please don’t be mad at me.”

Your voice went back to a wobbly whisper by the end, and so you missed the way Zoro was looking at you. You’d looked up briefly at some point during your long-winded defense but you'd gone back to the comfort of staring at the ground, talking about this was hard enough. Was it because you'd seen the way Zoro's eyes had widened? Possibly, but you were shaking with nervousness and there was only so much you could admit to on a day when all you were planning to do was finish your book, really. Hearing you talk, his expression had gone through shock, mild distaste at hearing you thought he liked Okiku which immediately changed to a smirk as soon as he heard you say you were jealous. Right now, there was only half a smirk on his face because he was fighting a smile that was threatening to show up. 

“Stupid woman, why didn’t you tell me?”

“What?” 

“That you liked me." Your head shot up at that and all you could do was stare wordlessly at him as he continued, each next word causing another heartbeat to miss, leaving you with an anxiousness you felt bubbling in the depths of your chest. "Could’ve avoided all these tears if you’d told me earlier. ‘Cause I like you too.”

Your eyes widened hearing him and all of a sudden your brain went blank. All the questions you had for him disappeared and all you could do was look at Zoro wordlessly as he continued to speak. 

“I turned Hiyori down because I told her I like someone else, have liked, for a long time now. It’s you, dummy. I like you. Now, will you stop crying? You’re kinda ruining the moment here.”

He gently flicked your forehead and you smacked his arm out of reflex with an offended squawk. A grin broke out on Zoro’s face, “There we go, that’s my girl. Glad to have you back, princess.”

A watery smile made its way onto your face but you were still trying to process what you'd just heard. 

“You turned down Hiyori-san… for me? She’s the oiran," your voice faltered as you re-realized the reality. 

“Yeah, so?"

"She's the most beautiful girl in all of Wano."

"Yeah well, I think you're prettier." Your eyes widened at his words, tears long halted, as you looked up at him in awe. Like you couldn’t believe the moment you're in is real. Zoro's hands cup your face, his face inches away from yours, as he asks under his breath, "Can I- can I kiss you?" 

You nod as if in a daze and you feel his lips on yours immediately afterwards, hungry and hot. His other hand grabs your waist and pulls you closer to him in a single jerk and then he digs his fingers into the skin of your waist, holding you so tight it would've hurt had you been focusing on that instead of drinking his gasps and little groans in. Breaking away from the kiss and looking into Zoro's eyes, you saw a searing look in there that would've buckled your knees had he not been holding you. Tiptoeing, you pressed a shorter, chaste kiss onto his lips and hoped Zoro could feel what you were trying to say: thank you, thank you. 

Pulling away, you make yourself comfortable in Zoro's hold, looping your arms around his neck and when you speak there's a twinkle in your eyes, "So… you had a crush on me, huh? That's embarrassing."

"Oi! You said you liked me first!"

You throw your head back and laugh, because yeah he's got you there but you've got him now so you can't be a sore loser. Not today, anyway. 

BONUS:

It's late at night and you're lying next to Zoro on the deck, staring up at the sky. The remainder of the day was spent skirting around each other, sharing furtive glances and shy smiles when others weren't looking. Telling others hadn't come up yet but you'd be lying if you said you hadn't been thinking about what this meant for the both of you. With that thought still lingering, you piped up. 

"Soo, does this mean we're dating?"

"Nope."

"What?! Why not?" you cried out in indignation and propped yourself up on your elbows to turn to him, offense painted all over your face. 

"You still have to ask me out," Zoro pointed out.

"I confessed to you!"  

"Exactly, that's why you have to ask me out."

"You-" The logic didn't make any sense but you of all people knew it was futile to argue with Zoro when he'd made up his mind. So you lay back down with a sigh, "Fine. Fine. Roronoa Zoro, will you be my boyfriend?" 

You turn to him after you finish your question, staring into his eyes with only a slight glare, loving annoyance pricking your tone but you both know it's harmless. Zoro matches your stare with his own and doesn't speak but leans in closer towards you to close the gap with a kiss he hopes answers your question: a resounding yes. But just in case you hadn't received the message, he mumbles it softly against your lips, "You have no idea how long I've been waiting to say yes."