#Well this is the aftermath

[shu-box-puns]

Right so hear me out, we're in the Hallelujah Mountain base and Quaritch has decided he needs to inspect the compound for security reasons. So basically, Military!Reader has to tidy up QUICKLY, and hide their cat which they SOMEHOW, illegally, smuggled onto Pandora (don't ask, I haven't worked out how yet) and they're really stressed about hiding it before Quaritch turns up. Discovery will result in Military!Reader having to return to Hell's Gate and face rotating home, or Quaritch shoving the cat outside to teach them a lesson.

Logically, the only thing to do is get everyone else in the compound involved. I mean, Grace and the Colonel are natural enemies, so it would be laughably easy to convince her to get on board. So within hours, Grace has roped in the others, and there's a plan for Jake to get rid of the cat hair whilst Norm puts the cat in an exopack and sneaks it out back when Quaritch enters to carry out his inspection. Meanwhile, Trudy is on standby to stuff the cat in the helicopter as a very last resort, whilst Graced nags the man's ear off to distract him.

In exchange, Military!Reader just have to act as security for that day's forest mission since Trudy's sick. It's a win win :D

ANYWAY, to cut a long - and excellently thought out - story short, come morning, Military!Reader now has a much bigger cat to hide.

(Tsu'tey followed them home because they've been growing closer and he's assured all of them he'd be long gone before the helicopter arrives. In simple terms, he is in no way a morning person, and is too big to move. Very quickly, it becomes the whole compound's problem.)

Cut a tense but funny sequence of three fully grown adults (Norm, Trudy, Jake) trying to sneak out a groggy Tsu'tey as well as the cat, whilst Military!Reader fails to keep a poker face, and Grace wonders how the hell she ended up in this situation.

And yes, Tsu'tey and the cat become best friends.

[wolfythewitch]

Please help I have to write a paper on the Odyssey 😭 what's a good theme to write about? Is there anything of particular interest to you? 🙇🙇

Identity is always a fun little topic. Xenia maybe, also a running theme throughout the epic. There's uhmm y'know like the effects of war on both the soldiers and the home(and to that extent, y'know the whole undercurrent of grief and loss is soo fun. And katabasis I love katabasis. But you might get more of that from the Iliad. War (Iliad) and its aftermath (odyssey) and all that). Am very sleepy but those are the ones I can think off on the top of my head

[rdps01]

horror time

[lus-sav]

Oh you lie next to me Heart is beating heavily Blood in your ear through Blood on your shirt

[secretwhumplair]

Whump prompt XVIII

Caretaker is trying to buy whumpee to free them.

Only they cannot afford the asking price, so they're left haggling down whumpee's value, picking out every conceivable flaw and arguing with the seller that whumpee really isn't worth that - all fully within earshot of whumpee.

[eugeniedanglars]

the way i see it, colin has three options for handling the repercussions of kissing michael on the pitch in front of everyone:

gatekeep: by some miracle no one caught the kiss on camera so colin's sexuality is kept between him and any fans who happened to be on the pitch near him. the safest option.

girlboss: keeley gets the pr challenge of a lifetime handling the story of the first active premier league player to come out as gay. rebecca is tall and powerful and intimidating in the press room making it clear that richmond stands behind colin one thousand percent. the most realistic option.

gaslight: straight-up blatantly lying. not because he's ashamed or because he thinks he can actually convince anyone that the kiss didn't happen, but just because he refuses to let it be a big deal. acts like he has no idea what anyone is talking about if asked anything related to his sexuality. he doesn't claim to be straight, mind you, he just pretends to be extremely confused about why they're asking because he never kissed anyone in the middle of a football pitch at the end of an internationally-televised game? when presented with photo and video proof of the kiss he says that was some other richmond player named hughes who wears a number 12 jersey. you don't know him, he goes to another school. the funniest option.

[kazanskyy]

iceman + his concern for maverick post-hop 31

[spac-e-b0y]

Scott's (not) coming out.

[macbethz]

was it because of you?

s8 deb attempted murder-suicide by car scene is bad. but the version of it i invented in my head? you cant even imagine

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

gee wiz, it sure is cool that Gordon survived the resonance cascade, I sure hope he's doing well

Finally decided to give Gordon a ref for my au Aftermath (which i've talked about here. Once.)

Also bonus:

[sad-leon]

When your greif becomes so overpowering that you break shit, but now you're left empty and with just as much greif as you started with, if not more.

Anyways- guess who was listening to Lost One's Weeping again :D (it was me, i am so normal over that song)

[paintaya]

i travelled the word to find my wife and all i found was a weird angsty copycat

[fluffyslug]

I know Wilbur isn't exactly a one to dwell on unpleasantness. But seeing you best friend get run through has got to leave an impression.

[ancillaryjurisprudence]

oh cool the old 1.0 period patch notes!  Lets see what features they were adding in the year after the official release of the game!

*touches ground* something terrible happened here

[activatethis]

This is how, personally, I would've shot the scene of Raiden transferring godhood to Liu Kang in MK11 (The Lighthouse 2019 reference)

[wormdebut]

Nightmares

CW: nightmares, sleep paralysis, hurt/comfort

——

When Steve has nightmares, they’re loud. He wakes up thrashing, screaming and clawing to fight against veiny fuckers, and nasty demon bats. Often wakes up yelling thinking he’s still pulling hell creatures off his friends, chosen family. Dustin, Robin, Eddie.

Eddie had almost stayed down there. Steve had to carry his near-lifeless body out. But they had heard something, a whisper of a heartbeat.

It was enough.

Steve had refused to leave Eddie’s hospital room. He made sure Robin and Nancy were posted by Max’s. One of them would come back and report, let Steve know her heart was still beating. Steve had felt Eddie’s heart beat, as weak as was, and he needed to stay near him, to make sure it kept beating. He needed to make sure it kept getting stronger.

He still had his nightmares. Always does, always will. They were awful in that hospital room.

He and the girls hadn’t made it in time. No heartbeat. He and the girls hadn’t made it in time. Dustin was gone too. He and the girls hadn’t made it in time. There were too many bats, they get Robin and Nancy too.

Steve still wakes up screaming and clawing. Fighting. The nurses stopped coming in to check, eventually.

Eddie stayed asleep. Stuck in the coma. Steve stayed with Eddie. Eddie’s uncle—Wayne—doesn’t know. Can’t. Not yet.

Hopper had shown up. Like he had risen from the dead. Steve cried in his arms, in the silence of Eddie’s hospital room. The only sounds, beeping of machines and Steve’s broken sobs. Hopper saying “You did good, kid. Everyone’s safe.”

Everyone wasn’t safe. Max and Eddie were still sleeping.

Max wakes up. Eddie doesn’t. Steve still wakes up screaming and thrashing.

The doctors say it should be any day now.

The last time Steve wakes up, screaming in the stupid fucking hospital, Eddie’s awake.

Steve had basically thrown himself out of his chair, screaming at dead things that had fangs and claws, had woken up when he hit linoleum. He had shaken himself off, as he had done every time previous, flicked his eyes over to Eddies hospital bed, and was met with wide brown eyes.

“Oh my god, Eddie.”

The second time Steve cries in that stupid fucking room, draped over the end of a shitty hospital bed, Eddie and Steve keep that secret between them.

——

When Eddie has nightmares, they’re all consuming. He had told Steve once, it wasn’t the nightmares that scared him the most. It was waking up frozen in whatever room he had fallen asleep in. Locked in his own body.

Steve couldn’t process that. He can’t imagine not being able to fight. He isn’t sure he would ever wake up if he couldn’t thrash his way out of those dark spaces. He admires Eddie’s strength, his vulnerability.

Eddie had come home with Steve when they had released him from the hospital. He’d been confused, but Steve had insisted—had the extra room.

Eddie had been staying in the guest room, but that only lasted a week. He had kept coming to Steve when he woke up screaming. Comforting him. Eddie had told Steve that he had heard Steve thrashing and fighting, screaming that stupid hospital room from hell, long before he had opened his eyes.

“I figured I was still in that frozen place, the sleep paralysis, but I couldn’t open my eyes.” Eddie had told him, as he wiped at Steve’s wet cheeks. Steve had apologized, face red with embarrassment, and Eddie had told him to never apologize for feeling. It was the first night Eddie stayed with Steve.

Wayne knows now, knows his nephew is alive, breathing. He knows something happened that he can’t be fully privy to—he’d have to know basics since the shady fucking government shoves money at them like it was candy, put the Munsons in an apartment, cleared Eddie’s name. Wayne knows that those of them involved in ‘whatever it was’ cope better together. He doesn’t push Eddie to come to the apartment, he knows he at Steve’s.

Steve think Wayne knows about them—which it’s new to Steve and Eddie as it is, but Wayne definitely knows. Steve doesn’t think he disapproves though. He’s seen the soft smile Wayne’s had as he watched Steve run his hand through his nephews hair, watched them watch each other. Wayne is an observant man.

But he’s not a man of many words. He only ever tells Steve, “Thank you for saving our boy.”

——

They watch each other sleep.

When Steve falls asleep curled up in Eddie’s side, he feels strong arms tighten around him like a cocoon. Feels safe. It doesn’t stop the nightmares though. Doesn’t stop the screaming, but when he does tear himself away from certain death Eddie is right there.

“It’s okay, Stevie. It’s over, we won. It’s okay baby.” He whispers, pressing kisses into Steve’s hair. Steve cries. He’s always fucking crying now, but Eddie doesn’t care. He holds him through it, until he can breathe again.

Eddie has a habit of falling asleep on Steve’s chest. Told Steve he likes to hear his heart. It makes Steve blush like a fucking idiot, but that beside the point, he falls asleep listening to Steve’s heart and Steve falls just a little bit further in love with this man, every time.

Steve watches as Eddie sleeps. He feels it when Eddie’s limbs lock up, thinks this is part of the ‘freeze’. He listens to the whimpers Eddie lets out, feels powerless to it. Runs his fingers through hair and whispers that he’s here, he’s right here and Eddie’s safe. He does it every time, and watches as Eddie pulls himself out of the paralysis, watches as Eddie’s eyes snap open and he heaves in a deep watery breath, buries his head in Steve’s chest and cries. Steve just does holds him tighter, lets Eddie cry and lets Eddie find his steady breaths, again.

It gets a little easier. They actually start to fall asleep together, instead of letting the other rest. They still struggle through most nights, but they do it together. Kiss away each other’s tears and fears of what they went through.

When Steve has nightmares, they’re loud.

When Eddie has nightmares, they’re all consuming.

But they have each other, and they get through it, together, every time.