#I want to keep that buffer that I have

[estrellami-1]

I've been itchin for some good old fashioned steddie hurt/comfort, maybe steve with migraines? I know its been written a lot, but its always so soft and loving

Okay so this took FOREVER but muse deserted me like. Two days after I asked for these prompts. I’m terrible 😂 but I finally feel like I have something, so hopefully this suffices!

Courtesy of my dad putting a meat thermometer in the car on a 110°F/43°C day:

155.5°F, y’all. 68°C. That’s hot, no matter where you’re from. I’m not from Indiana, so I’m gonna go a little easy on Steve and say it’s barely breaching triple digits where he’s at, but if anyone’s from Indiana and wants to correct me, then by all means, please do!

It’s the heat that finally gets him.

Steve can deal with rain, with snow, with wind, hell, he can deal with interdimensional creatures.

But the heat is what finally takes him out.

His ears are ringing, his head is pounding, his stomach is churning.

The kids are out in the backyard, screaming.

He’d been out there with them, supervising, playing, settling fights. Being the babysitter. But he’d overdone it, and now he’s stuck inside. Can’t move from where he’d collapsed into a kitchen chair.

He’s got a cold Coke can by his elbow that he snagged from the fridge. Contemplates grabbing it and holding it up to his forehead, but everything feels like too much work right now, and he shuts his eyes against the tears that want to come.

The back door opens just as Dustin begins screaming about something else, and Steve can’t hold in the whimper, or the way he curls in on himself.

“Shit,” someone whispers, and Steve hears their footsteps approaching. “Steve?”

It’s Eddie. He’s whispering. Steve’s never been more grateful. He manages half a nod, to show he’s listening.

“Can I touch you?”

Another half-nod, and he grimaces at his head and stomach yelling at him.

“Okay, hey, shh, it’s okay, don’t move. I’m just gonna grab your hand, okay?” He does, grabbing the hand Steve hadn’t realized was tugging at his hair. He holds Steve’s hand with one of his and with the other, rakes his fingers through Steve’s hair.

Steve leans over a little, closer to Eddie, letting out a breath of relief. “Squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no, okay?”

Steve squeezes once, and Eddie lifts their joined hands to his mouth, kisses the back of Steve’s. “Okay. Headache?” A squeeze. “More?” Another squeeze. “Stomach?” Squeeze. “More?” Squeeze. Pause. “Can you point to it?” He points to his ear with their combined hands, and Eddie hums. “Ringing?” Squeeze. “Dizzy?”

No squeeze. He’s not sure. “Okay, that’s alright. D’you want the coke?” Two squeezes. “Okay. If I get you some water, d’you think you can drink some of it?”

A hesitant squeeze. He can try, sure, but he’s not sure it won’t come right back up. Eddie squeezes his hand, gently places it on the table, and kisses his forehead before moving away, getting a bottle of water from the fridge by the sound of it. He comes back quickly, lays a gentle hand on Steve’s shoulder and rubs it down his back for a second.

Steve sighs, bowing his head, and Eddie chuckles softly, placing the water down in favor of getting both hands on Steve’s shoulders. He squeezes and kneads his thumbs in, on either side of his spine, down to the middle of his back and up to the base of his skull.

He continues with the massage for a few minutes, until Steve’s practically melting onto the table, then drags one hand down his arm to his hand, taking it again so Steve can squeeze. “Did you take anything for your headache?”

A pause, because he’s berating himself for not thinking of that when it would’ve been the most effective, then two squeezes. Because Eddie’s perfect, he says, “That’s alright, Stevie, I know it’s hard. Let me get you something for your head. You want something for your stomach, too?” Steve could cry with how in love he is. He squeezes twice and hopes Eddie doesn’t notice the tear making its way down his cheek.

Eddie’s lips intercept it about halfway down. “It’s alright,” he murmurs, carding a hand through Steve’s hair again. “I know. You’re doing so well, Stevie, I’m so proud of you. The kids are okay, and I’m here to help for as long as you want me to, alright?”

One last squeeze before Eddie pulls away. Forever, he means, and the lips on his temple make him think Eddie understands.

He’s back in a few seconds with two pills. He hands them to Steve, but they’re small and he thinks he might drop them, might spill the water, so he presses them back into Eddie’s hand.

Another pause but Eddie understands a few seconds later and the pills are at his lips, and he’s opening for them, accepting the water that’s next, slowing down when Eddie murmurs. “Careful, slow sips. Just a little for now, you can do more in a minute, just let this settle first.” He pulls the glass away, sets it down on the table, and takes Steve’s hand again. “How about we go upstairs? Maybe take a bath? I think there’s some of that lavender oil still.” Squeeze, pause. Upstairs. Squeeze, pause. Bath. Two squeezes. Lavender.

Eddie seems to understand, thankfully. “Okay, no lavender. Want me to carry you up?”

Not for the first time, and probably not for the last time, Steve internally curses his parents for buying the biggest, grandest house they could. He squeezes once; even if he would prefer to walk, he’s not sure he can right now.

Eddie moves to crouch beside him, pressing another kiss to his temple. “I love you,” he whispers, lips brushing Steve’s temple still. “So much.” He gets his arms around Steve, adjusts a little, and counts down so Steve knows when he’s going to move. Steve loves him an insane amount.

Instead of saying anything, he loops an arm around Eddie’s neck, tucks his head into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and presses a kiss to Eddie’s collarbone.

Eddie gets him upstairs and in bed with minimal jostling. “I’m gonna go grab your water real quick,” he whispers. “D’you want the bath now, or later?” He quickly thrusts a hand back into Steve’s. “One for now, two for later.”

Steve thinks about it, honestly doesn’t know. Holds up a weak-feeling w to his chin. Water.

“Okay. I’m gonna let the gremlins know too, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Logically, Steve knows he will be back in a few minutes. He knows he’s in a sweat-soaked tank top and swimming trunks. But it’s somehow cooler upstairs than down, and his window is closed, and his head is pounding less, enough so that he’s falling asleep by the time Eddie makes it back up.

He startles awake when Eddie places a hand on his forehead, then winces when his movement causes everything to hurt more. “Shit,” Eddie whispers. “Sorry, baby, didn’t think you’d be asleep yet. Can you drink a little bit more water for me? Then we can sleep.

Steve frowns, lifts a clumsy hand to sign. Bath?

“Do you want one right now? Because I’ll go set it up if you do. But I think your body knows what you need right now and is trying to give it to you.”

Steve thinks it over, then agrees, asking for water again. “Yeah, of course, here, lemme just…” he maneuvers behind Steve, props him up some, and lifts the bottle to his lips. “Small sips, baby, it’ll be here later too, m’kay?”

Steve obeys, taking small, slow sips, tilting his head up when he’s finished. Eddie places a kiss on his cheek as he puts the bottle back on the table. “Go to sleep, baby,” he murmurs, laying them down. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Steve frowns, signs one more word. Kids?

“I let them know you’re not feeling well. They’re packing up, Nancy and Jonathan are gonna take everyone home. Robin threatened me with dismemberment if I didn’t tell you to call her when you’re feeling better.” Steve smiles. “Oh, sure, just laugh at a threat to me, what’s gonna happen when-” he splutters when Steve puts his hand over Eddie’s mouth. He grins, kisses his palm, and grabs his wrist, slotting his thumb into the pulse point. “Love you, Stevie.”

With the hand still held aloft, Steve sticks out his thumb, pointer finger, and pinky. I love you. And with that, he drifts off to sleep.

When he wakes up, the little bit of light coming from his window tells him he’s only been out for a few hours. He takes stock of himself: his head still hurts a little, his ears aren’t ringing anymore, and his stomach still feels a little weird, but he thinks he might just be hungry.

He rolls onto his side and comes face-to-face with a sleeping Eddie. As he watches, Eddie’s brows scrunch, he mutters something, and he stretches out, one arm creeping across the sheets towards Steve. His hand pushes against Steve’s chest a few times before he mutters something else and wraps his arm around Steve, pulling him closer.

Steve can’t help it. He grins and kisses Eddie’s forehead, so in love with this dork he’s just about shaking with it.

Eddie’s eyebrows scrunch again and his eyes flicker open. He smiles at Steve. “Hi, baby,” he whispers, sleep-rough. “How’re you feelin’?”

“Better,” Steve whispers back. “Head still hurts a little, but it’s not bad. Mostly I’m hungry.”

Eddie hums, tucking his head under Steve’s and rubbing a hand up and down his back. “What’re you in the mood for?”

Steve hums back. “Feels good. I dunno. Think there’s any burgers left? Might do one of those.”

He can feel the face Eddie makes. More so, he can hear it in his voice. “You want leftover burgers?”

Steve lifts one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “It’s easy.”

“Stevie. Baby.” Eddie pulls back to press a kiss to his lips. “I asked you what you want, not what would be easy. If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?”

Steve thinks about it, then starts laughing. “Honestly? McDonald’s.”

Eddie chuckles too. “Then McDonald’s you shall get,” he swears. “Wanna come with me or stay here?”

Steve’s brows raise in surprise. “I can get it, Eds.”

“I know you can. I’m asking if you want to come with me or if you’d rather stay in bed.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’d rather stay in bed with you,” he says, causing Eddie to smile.

“Ah, but we can do that after I get your food. You want your regular?”

“Yes, please. Think I’d rather stay here, if that’s okay. I think the sun might make the headache worse.”

“That’s fine,” Eddie soothes, standing up then bending over to press a kiss to Steve’s temple. “Be back soon.”

“M’kay. Thanks, baby.”

“Anything for my love,” Eddie grins, bowing before he walks to the door.

Steve chuckles and shakes his head at his boyfriend’s dramatics, shifting in bed to get comfy again.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when Eddie walks in, he blinks awake, stretching as he smiles at him. “Hi, baby,” Eddie whispers.

Steve wants to kiss him, so he does, sits up and drags Eddie closer, food all but forgotten. “Hi,” he whispers against Eddie’s lips. “Thank you.”

Eddie hums as he kisses Steve once more then pulls away. “Anything,” he says, and Steve knows he means it.

They eat in relative silence until Steve asks, “how’d the kids react when you told them?”

Eddie smiles. “They were mostly worried for you. I think Dustin was about to bust inside and demand why you didn’t tell him you weren’t feeling well, but then Nancy gave him a look—you know the one—and told him in no uncertain terms that they were going to leave you to rest and could check in on you tomorrow. So expect a call from him.”

“Or twelve,” Steve chuckles. “Speaking of, I should probably call Robin, huh?”

“Probably,” Eddie agrees, then grins. “Or I can think of something else we could do instead.”

Steve pretends to think about it, then leans in. “Robin can wait,” he agrees, matching Eddie’s grin with his own.

[soracities]

if we should protect children because they are vunerable, this means you would protect cruel children who bullies people who different than them then. the children who responsible to trauma for someone else's entire years

You're assuming that "protecting" children is the same as absolving them of responsibility and that's not what I said. All children are vulnerable, because all children are children; they don't come out of the womb with a perfectly working moral compass anymore than they come out of it waiting to hurt people--they're vulnerable because their understanding of the world is entirely at the mercy of what we, as adults, consistently tell them and show them. Children behaving cruelly aren't exempt from that--they learn that cruelty from somewhere, or someone. Your job, as the adult, is to make sure they understand that it's unacceptable so it will not happen again--but your job is also to ask why someone that young is behaving this way to begin with, so you can ensure they become better.

"Protecting" kids is not ignoring when they hurt or torment others, it's not refusing to teach them consequences or right from wrong, it's not "zero tolerance" policies in schools that treat a child being bullied and the child bullying them as equal instigators, and it's certainly not protecting them from recognizing, and atoning for, the pain they have caused someone else. You don't have to make peace with the now-adults who hurt you when you both were kids, but you cannot let the horrors of your own childhood impact how you treat or respond to the children living theirs around you right now, either.

You don't protect kids so they can get a free pass for bullying or tormenting another child. You protect them because kids are impulsive, emotionally reactive, and profoundly social (which means deeply impressionable) human beings who are still learning & processing insane amounts of information every day about what it means to be alive, to be alive as yourself, to be alive as yourself with other people. Protecting them is realising that you can't isolate the responsibility of a 10 year old from the bigger responsibility of the literal grown adults around them, adults who are in charge of teaching them about the world and how to behave in it. Whether you have children of your own in the future or not is completely irrelevant to this; we all become those adults eventually--no matter what happened to us as kids.

[todayisafridaynight]

i have specific ways of drawing men nude and i forget those ways sometimes

[shreddeddescent]

I’m actually reading over my own shit back and asking myself IS big mama a groomer?

No I don’t think she is. That’s not her deal. She’s nice, maybe she’s too nice, and obviously far too rich, but she’s genuinely helping, she’s genuinely good at it. The issue is she’s absolutely got an agenda that no one’s paying attention to. Too much going on to notice. Big mama doesn’t actually do things for free so what’s the real cost? These kids are too traumatized to notice it. Maybe Slash notices it.

It just might really LOOK like she’s a groomer cuz of how much money she has, cuz of how weird her mannerisms are, how overly willing she is to dote on these poor fucking kids even if they can’t pay for her services. She’s clearly rich so that’s too weird. But she found them cuz april knew her, cuz April’s got sooome kind of in with the hidden city, not that she knows it.

That doesn’t mean spending time in her hotel is good for them. That doesn’t mean bad things won’t still happen to them. That doesn’t mean they should trust her fully.

But she’s really good at helping them unpack it all. And they have sooooo much to unpack.

[crossbackpoke-check]

18 + swaymark!!

oooo thank you!!

#18 - pleaser, wallows + swaymark

okay i know they are canonically obsessed with each other but. the song is in some ways about feeling like you’re failing in your relationship and being not quite as obsessed with them as they maybe are with you, and in this video of them talking about being a tandem, there is the slightest pause before swayman answers “do you miss him?” that makes me want to probe a wound. we’re not talking irl reasons of how that’s an absurd question (how do you miss him. you’re coworkers you’re seeing each other all the time) we’re talking that maybe this whole goalies-in-love thing got blown out of proportion and now swayman’s having to buy into the bit too hard. linus loves it & everyone’s asking about their bromance & how they love each other so much and the thing is—linus is safe. he’s got a wife and plausible deniability and jeremy? jeremy is gay. sure, he can crack jokes and people-please but the more people ask the more they're going to find out until maybe they find out something jeremy doesn't want them to know. and the longer this goes on, the more jeremy has to sit at linus' dinner table with linus and his beautiful wife and pretend like he isn't a little bit in love with him. and you know what? the longer it goes on and linus doesn't dial it down jeremy does stop being in love with him, because it just feels cruel, until he finally is done enough that he stops biting his tongue and ruins the moment.

[oopey-doopey]

Spamton Neo battle but Susie and Ralsei never show up to help Kris fight Spam.

The soul can’t knock Kris into fight shape due to their fear. Spam is winning by land slide and is about to land the finishing blow on Kris but for a second either due to Kris’ weakened state or just another momentary flash in Spam’s delirium he imagines Kris as a younger version of himself.

Not projection but just straight up him before everything went completely wrong, battered and bruised and down trodden and stops the attack to heal Kris as he’s no longer seeing Kris as an obstacle or similar case to himself but a direct instance that he can “save” sorta how he wanted help and to be saved when he was in that position years ago. 

Whether the soul takes a back seat to watch or is just being stuck in a stalemate with whatever force is afflicting Spam, it’s just Kris and Spam and their odd kinship of feeling like empty shells left in that basement...

[crmsndragonwngss]

It’s probably a good thing that my dad’s going with me to this show on Saturday solely because that’ll keep me from spilling my fucking guts out to Jesse Cash about how I heard Dreamcatcher on my discover weekly playlist in 2014 and between Erra and Ghost Atlas his music saved me when I was at my absolute lowest low if I manage to catch him at the merch table and really nobody wants that lmfao

[buysomecheese]

I want a dissertation on brotherhood in relation to birth order and senses of responsibility focusing on Eric Matthews and his relationship to school, sexuality, *homo*sexuality, and masculinity and how he projects/protects Cory through all of this and I want it NOW!

(Lots of fun little unorganized thoughts in tags <3)

[sasukimimochi]

my heart: but what if you don't write rn and draw COI wangxian cuddling. or just any of the wangxians- i want to see lwj on wwx's lap having a nap and being just content.

me, who needs to finish like 2-3 more chapters this week than usual so i can avoid continuation errors and clean on top of that for a visit this saturday:

i... i need a responsible adult to tell me no

[a-queer-little-wombat]

How ... how do I make connections with the chicken math victims? Or other homesteading kinds of people?

I know several places within 30min of me selling eggs out of a cooler in their front yard, but they're still going for $4-6/dozen.

Will trade sour cherries or candied ginger or pie or something, but I can't seem to find community-minded folks...

There's some dude (derogatory) on FB who is PISSED people are pricing their farm fresh eggs at $2 and $3 a dozen instead of $4+, saying it's "disrespectful" and "undignified" and "I'm trying to feed my kids" like Sir, you are on a Facebook group page bitching about your neighbors egg prices because your pet chickens aren't earning you a living wage and you think it's your neighbors' fault, you do not have a leg to stand on here wrt dignity.

Also half the answers are like "I give them to friends and family free" or "I donate them to food banks" or "I'm making them affordable to folks who might not otherwise be able to get them now that they're so expensive in the store" and "if you think you're going to turn a profit keeping backyard chickens you have been wildly misled" and so on, and so forth, and I'm so living for it.

and I can tell you right now, he did NOT like my answer of "if you're trying to feed your kids, I hear eggs are edible."

[drunkndaized]

Ranpo I love you but if there was a way to talk me into taking my meds without someone externally just forcing me to or helping me with it we wouldn't be having this problem. You can't talk to me and expect that you'll be able to come up with an idea that works. I've spent years trying so many things and this has been the best solution, and it hinges upon external help. Especially since I can tell I'm not in a good enough space to try to just work through this. I love it, but it does not have the necessary skills to caretake me if I actually fully break down (which is possible from water + my meds because they are both severe texture issues if either of them touch me). I can't risk something much worse for one dose of my meds.

[kavehayati]

PLEASE ?! WHAT THE HECK WAS WORK 😭 /pos

[victory-cookies]

I have been invited to a music festival by one of the girls I went to see sio and I’m waffling about it bc on one hand I want to go and there are some good artists that are gonna be there but on the other hand do I have the money. it’s also really close to when I’m heading to another concert so I’m already spending a lot of money around then

[candycryptids]

On god I am keeping ontop of Vierapril but the Yokai Event might fr derail me when it drops LMAO I love Yokai watch So Much it is INSANE how badly I've wanted the event to come back cos I started playing like shortly after the last one ENDED. SAD!

[badfanfix]

The next chapter is an interlude (like a filler episode? I miss filler episodes.) so I’m tempted to post it today so proper plot will continue on Thursday.

[mpregwizard]

you absolutely can get addicted to things other than drugs because somehow out of the two things i was doing two weeks ago the one i cant stop thinking about and have to keep myself from doing at all hours of the day is not the edibles but watching yuri on ice