#an eternal summer

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

Island in the Sun

Note: Always indebted to @flashfictionfridayofficial so glad that it exists. Once again here’s my entry for this week’s prompt An eternal summer #FFF197 to dabble on my head canons. In my universe, people like Shigeki Suwa should pay for the consequences. Lily’s image doesn’t exist. Episode 12 doesn’t exist (don’t get me wrong I love it.). AU-Canon divergence.

Fandom: Buddy Daddies

Characters: Rei Suwa, Kazuki Kurusu, Miri Unasaka, Karin Izumi

Pairing: Kazurei established (Kurusu Kazuki/Suwa Rei)

Words: 778

Rating: T

Rei has never been on a French beach. But like they say, there is always a first time for everything.

Unfolding himself from the car, the first thing that hits him is the blinding sun in spite of his aviators. As soon as he puts his feet down, white sand fills its way immediately into his footwear. It is a pair of camouflage flip-flops Miri has chosen for him when he and Kazuki casually browsed the Rakuzon website months ago for their impending escape along with the midnight-blue beach shorts that he is wearing right now.

He can taste the salt in the sea breeze blowing his jet-black hair gently. It is dry and humid, and he cannot say if he likes the temperature at all, so he lets his ebony vest open refusing to shed it off. Using a walking stick on a beach is not practical but needs must.

“Not too fast, Rei, your wounds!” Kazuki, freshly tanned, calls out. To hell with my wounds, Rei thinks, the bandages on my legs are gone. He limps his way to the shore ignoring Kazuki’s pleas. Exactly three months and a half ago, they were still in Japan and got involved in a car accident where the three of them supposedly died. In this “bad business” meeting different sorts of people is usual like the one-eyed supplier of cadavers. God knows the methods Rei used to ensure the man’s silence.

Now, they are on an island called Groix in Brittany, walking along its coast and renting a house on a cliff. Rei was in a coma for a week and after that 16 days in a rehabilitation center, while Kazuki arranged their new life in France with the assistance of his sister-in-law, Karin.

His rumination stops as the right car door slams and Miri comes out. The child is wearing the biggest black sunglasses Rei has ever seen on a human face. Her summer hat can’t keep still on her head. Kazuki makes a fuss about the yellow ribbon that is quite not attached to it. She insisted on donning her uneven black-striped swimsuit an hour ago inside the car.

Rei thinks he must commend their five-year-old daughter’s toughness. She’s been braving the long stretches of journey, and abrupt and lightning-speed changes in their lifestyle, at times violent, ever since leaving their country and her newfound friends.

Trailing behind them is Karin, who their child finds attached to each day the longer the young woman stays with them.

“Aunt Karin is so beautiful, and she creates these pretty dresses!”

Corresponding with her secretly before the accident required too much effort even leaving Kyutaro-san out of the picture. Perhaps, they will see him again in the future and apologise to him why they left without telling him.

He takes a look at Kazuki, finds his satisfied smile as soon as the view of the beach lays out before them. The sun and the sea. An eternal summer only for the three of them. Away from everyone they refuse to see. Finally.

Miri cannot wait to dip her toes to the water. It is not as if Fukuoka doesn’t have its own beaches. Still, France is far away from Japan. The Atlantic is much colder and wilder than the Pacific Ocean.

“It is a ginormous bathtub, Papa Kazu!” Her small hand intertwines with Kazuki’s own.

“It is, yeah!” Kazuki answers with great enthusiasm. “The half-day travel was worth it, Karin. Thank you again for finding this place,” Kazuki touches her shoulder, squeezes it.

Karin, in turn, holds his brother-in-law’s hand back. She’s been their host for the duration of their house-hunting in France even willing to put her studies on hold to accommodate them.

“I am relieved that your crazy plan worked out,” she sighs.

A “mysterious hacker” turned over a huge file of classified intel that convinced the Fukuoka Prefecture police to raid the Suwa’s ancestral home. They are consequently conducting immediate arrests of the organisation members concerning a number of attacks on the civilians that has happened since the 1990s. And the final nail on the coffin? Shigeki Suwa is languishing in a jail cell awaiting sentence because of two counts of murder, including killing his ex-wife. The news has made Rei’s long-winding recuperation at the hospital worth something, but his temporary immobility is debilitating.

Still, the fight is far from over.

“We are not safe yet, Kazuki, as long as he’s alive. We are going to continue to run for our lives.” One can sense the disappointment on Rei’s voice. If he could, he himself would put the bullet on his father’s head. He’d love to see that day happen.

[betweenthetimeandsound]

--prompt from @flashfictionfridayofficial

The languid sun dances on my skin, like I was the star of a show that everybody wanted to see. My skin glows like amber thrown under a halogen lamp, analyzed through a microscope and captured at its deepest moment. Spiders decorate my flesh, but they have no motive to make a home here--I have no food to offer, and neither does the sand.

Students come here to relax, pulling out weeds to decorate their hair or to get high of, trying to not worry about the papers in front of them. Models pose in front of the beach, hoping the sun would touch their shoulders at the proper angle for the most beautiful photo. But none of them are Aphrodites emerging from saltwater, nor are they Oshuns glowing in gold. They shed out their mermaid hair as if they could grow new strands to cover their pock marks.

Under a palm tree, I feel like I'm on my own island, chopped off from the mainland through thousands of years of earthquakes and extinctions. An eternal summer lingers through how the sand dances, but my soul remains staid, lost in a desert filled with rocks and emaciated skulls.

Where is joy when it's all around you? What is happiness when a seagull comes over to land on your chest to kiss you once again?

[ladywynne]

Gan Eden

************************************************

The Moon Boys enter eternity at a ripe old age, and it isn't the Field of Reeds

Notes: Written for Flash Fiction Friday prompt An Eternal Summer.

This is an exploration of the afterlife. I tried to be as respectful as possible of Jewish beliefs and I am sorry for any mistakes, but this isn't meant to be a re-creation of true beliefs. Just a fictionalized journey. It necessarily draws from my imagination and conceptual understanding as the author. I am not Jewish.

Also I am in no way minimizing Steven or Jake's identities as real, separate people. I have wondered about if the splitting of their personality also split their soul. This is a result of that thought process, which is ongoing for me.

I tried to give them happiness. I hope you enjoy.

CW: A short depiction of a peaceful death. Skip the first section if you don't want to read it.

Words: 976

*************************************************

How do you comprehend the World to Come?

It was different this time…peaceful. They were holding Layla’s hand, and as their vision narrowed all they could see was her beautiful, lined, white-haloed face. 

When they were younger there was often only darkness before Khonshu thrust them painfully back into the body. Now there was light. It was white and pure. They rose, untethered, and the light encompassed them. 

***** 

Jake came to awareness on a shore. It was warm and bright though no sun was evident to hurt his eyes. He felt a gentle breeze in his curls and soft sand beneath his bare feet. And amazingly – the sea before him was crystal clear, so transparent he could see each colorful little fish as it swam. He felt only peace as he turned in a slow circle, taking in the summer around him. Past the shore was green as far as the eye could see. Beautiful paths lined with flowers of every shade meandered through lush vegetation, and in the far distance was a shining city. Best of all, standing apart from each other, a little distance down the shore were Marc and Steven. Their eyes met his and he walked to meet them.  

Marc and Steven were beautiful, their bodies hail and unblemished by scars, once again young men in their prime. Their faces were wonderful to see. They were completely unburdened. It was most obvious in Marc. There were no frown lines, no creased brow, and no sign of the wariness he had worn all his life. Jake almost didn’t recognize him. It was the most breathtaking thing Jake had ever seen and all he’d ever wanted. Not even Steven, awed by one of his passions, had ever conveyed such radiance in life. It made Jake complete to see it, and he felt cracks in his heart seal themselves.  

The three of them took each other in without speaking. Then, nearly as one, they grinned. Jake opened his arms to them, and they came, laughing and squeezing in an exuberant embrace. 

They stepped apart at the sound of someone nearby. Still smiling, they turned toward the newcomer. 

“Roro?” Marc choked out. 

“Hi,” their brother gave a little wave, very reminiscent of Steven. He was smiling too. He was a young man like them with the same brown hair, but straighter than theirs. Jake knew him, without a doubt, even though they never met in life. 

“Roro!” Marc said again, rushing forward to wrap Randall in a hug. Randall returned it, rocking back and forth with Marc and continuing to smile.  

“I’ve missed you,” Jake could barely make out Marc’s words, spoken into Randall’s neck. “So much.” 

Jake could see him squeeze Marc a bit tighter. “You were a great big brother, Marc. I never left you.”  

Marc made a little noise and held on a few moments longer before stepping back. Randall looked at Steven and Jake then. He wrapped them in a hug next, one on each side. “Thank you,” he whispered fiercely. “Thank you for taking care of him.” 

“It was our pleasure,” Steven said sincerely.  

When they separated Randall indicated the city in the distance. Looking more closely Jake saw that it was opalescent and set amongst the swaying green trees and grass-covered hills of summer. “There is more to see,” he said, “more people waiting for you. Gena, Jean-Paul, and abuela to name a few. But there are also hundreds that you helped during their lives. People who were able to pass on goodness only because of what you did. I want you to know that. Each of you made a difference. I’m so proud of you.” 

Jake didn’t know what to say to that, and he guessed the others didn’t either, but he felt grateful to have heard it.  

Randall went on, “Before that I have something to offer.” 

“What is it?” he asked, wondering what more there could be. 

“Healing,” Randall said simply. “You were born one soul. That ‘something missing’ you’ve felt? That was each other. You can be one soul again, if you choose. It won’t be like you were in life. It will be like you were before.” 

They looked at each other. Jake’s heart swelled just seeing their luminous faces. He knew his answer. He never wanted to be apart from them. Despite his peace and happiness in this moment, despite their nearness, he wished he could be still closer to them. Complete.  

Marc exchanged a nod with him. 

Steven was standing stock-still. He had known an individual adult life. Jake thought he may want that again, so he waited patiently. Finally, Steven blinked, then stepped forward and took one of their hands in each of his, “Let’s do it lads.” 

They smiled at each other again. Jake thought he had already smiled more than in the entirety of his life. Randall smiled too.  

Jake felt himself rising into the air and grabbed for Marc with his free hand. They rose a little way, the circle the three of them made spinning smoothly, but beginning to go a bit faster as they went. A light appeared in the center of their ring, just as pure and perfect as the one that led them here. As Jake watched, it began to grow. He held on to the others tighter. He had to… he wanted to tell them one more time, even if they already knew, would know in even more perfect clarity in just a moment, and even if the past seemed distant and extraneous now that they were here. “Marc. Steven.” He rushed to say it. “I love you.” 

Their faces shone like miniature stars as they looked at him, and when they merged the very last remnant of imperfection, the last whisper of fear or loneliness, was subsumed forever in unity. 

[jlilycorbie]

FFF197: Homecoming

Prompt from @flashfictionfridayofficial​

A wave of grasshoppers heralded my return to my favorite old haunt, to the twisted tree and the creek. At least, I called the meandering drainage ditch a creek as a child. Ankle-deep water trickled by, and tiny fish darted through it. Though I dreamed up many ways for them to get to the creek, it turned out they were placed there by mosquito mitigation.

The tree loomed large in my memories. It was a skinned knees and splinters kind of place. A frogs in your pockets and mud in your shoes place. A little pocket of deep shadows and shallow water in the blistering heat.

It was smaller than I remembered.

Little peeping frogs still lurked in the grass and splashed in the water. There was still room in the hollow place at the base of the tree for me to settle on the cool ground. I leaned back and closed my eyes, listening to the hot wind in the leaves above. Fruit swelled on the branches, now in reach, but still green and astringent. For the first time in years, I felt like I could fill my lungs completely.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a bee visiting a nearby flower. I extended a hand toward her, and she landed on my fingertips. "Did anyone tell you Granny Wisdom died?" I asked. "I don't know where your hive is, but Granny loved you. You may have noticed the gardens have gone to seed. That's why. She told me it's traditional to tell the hive when you lose a family member. Could you pass the word?"

The bee waited until I'd said my peace, and she took flight. The bees probably understood that she was family even if other people didn't. Just the babysitter, my parents said when we moved far away. I spent afternoons after school in her cottage or following while she worked in her garden. I spent long summer days rambling through the property or sitting in her kitchen while she cooked up jams and jellies or watching quietly when women came with hushed stories and left with smiles and secret parcels.

I'd come out in memory of an eternal summer, of handfuls of frogs and jars of fireflies. Of days harvesting and canning. But I looked around and found an audience. To my left, a fox. To my right, a hare watched with wide, wise eyes. "It's true," I said. "She's gone. I'm so sorry, someone should have told all of you." I leaned my head back against the trunk and looked up into the branches, where a masked face looked back. "Don't worry. I know all of this belongs to someone who will live here. Someone who will love it."

We never lost touch. I promised to write her when we moved away, and I did. Not as often as I should have. Not as diligently. But I did write. And she wrote back. An unbroken connection through the years, even if I always promised to visit and somehow never found the time. I collected all of her letters, her cards, her recipes, her advice, in a book I called Granny's Wisdom, because I thought I was clever.

We talked on the phone more often than we wrote. I came back once when she was sick, and I stayed with her until she was well again. One day I got a call regarding Greta Wisdom. It was her real name after all. "She's not sick again, is she?"

"No," said a man who sounded distracted and vaguely annoyed to have to talk to me. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but Ms. Wisdom has passed away."

Back before she was Granny, her cottage and land weren't much. She still didn't have much money when she passed away, and while she never lacked friends, she didn't have any family. She left what she had to me, and on the heels of that news came investors hungry for the land.

All of them wanted to raze the house, to parcel out the land. It would be easy, and it would make my life easy, too. I could have done it from a distance, even. Never laid eyes or set foot on the land again. But I already worked remote. Easy enough to come back one last time, to say goodbye properly.

Other creatures came, and I delivered the sad news again and again, to possums and coyotes, to the snake that lived under the porch, to feral cats and songbirds and crows.

And also to the young woman who waited on the porch, eyes brimming and shoulders slumped. "Is it true?" she asked.

"It's true," I said, and I let her inside. 

She coughed out a laugh as she looked around the kitchen with its hanging bundles of herbs and shelves of preserves and canned homegrown vegetables and volumes filled with Granny's tight, neat handwriting. "It's just like I remember," she said. "I'm sorry, I'm Miranda."

"Miranda? Wait." I left her stranded in the kitchen so I could retrieve a package with her name on it waiting in another room.

She stood in the middle of the room, rubbing her arm, and she said, "Hey, you aren't Imogene, are you?"

"That's me."

Miranda smiled then, just a little. "Granny used to talk about you all the time. She kept saying we ought to meet."

"Yeah?" I glanced around the kitchen. "Would you like to stay a while? Have some tea? Talk about Granny?"

Her smile grew. "I'd love to. She always used to say she'd leave this place to you. Did she really?" I nodded while I filled the kettle, and she asked, "What are you going to do with it?"

I thought about my afternoon wandering, about my childhood roaming. About the house and about investors. I didn't know the answer until she asked. "I'm going to stay."

[yellow-yarrow]

oh ok so these are the companies of ex-Za/um members:

Summer Eternal - a co-op, that includes Lenval Brown and Disco Elysium writers Argo Tuulik, Olga Moskvina, Dora Klindžić

Dark Math - Kaur Kender's brother Heiti Kender, Timo Albert ex-za/um motion graphic designer

Longdue - ?

Red Info - Robert Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov

[imsosocold]

Where are the kind, strange boys in front of weird houses who's willing to do dubious shit together??!!

[mrtequilasunset]

We all know what the real Disco Elysium successor is gonna be

[keyboard-worrier]

Summer Eternal, the new studio/art collective being started by former ZA/UM collaborators including Argo Tuulik and Olga Moskvina who were writers on Disco Elysium, Lenval Brown who was the voice of the narrator, and a number of other writers, designers, and artists.

It looks like it will be structured with 50%+1 of shares held by the full-time creative team, 25% for other workers, 20% for investors, and 5% for a non-profit with players as members. Hopefully this kind of structure can avoid the catastrophe of ZA/UM.

[yekokataa]

despite being so rushed to get their announcement out that they didn't even set a real twitter username, summer eternal brought their meme posting a-game

[shanastoryteller]

The day his deal comes due, Sam goes missing.

Dean tells himself it’s nothing, that he’s gotten caught up in some research, some last ditch, hail mary nonsense and that he’s just turned his phone off and everything’s fine, that he wouldn’t do something stupid, that he wouldn’t break his promise.

He tells himself that for the first two minutes after he cracks his eyes open and sees the empty bed across from him, and the first time his call goes straight to voicemail, and not much after that. Sam’s broken his promises over things significantly less important to him than his brother’s life.

Dean is dressed and in the Impala five minutes later, heart thudding wildly in his chest. He calls Bobby, Ellen, everyone he can think of, but none of them have heard from Sam, none of them have eyes on him. Sam was with him last night, even if he boosted a car, there’s only so far he can get.

He keeps calling, keep searching, desperate to stop whatever he’s trying to do, to find him, to see his brother one last time before he’s dragged to hell. To make sure Sam is going to be okay after he’s dragged to hell. But the hours tick down, the sun sets, and he can’t find a trace of him. He’s so exhausted and heart sick that when he goes to call Sam again it takes him a long time to read the number on his phone, eyes swimming, the time not making any sense.

1:03

That’s not possible.

That’s not –

His phone rings, blocking out the time with Bobby’s name across the screen, and he answers it but his throat is too thick to say anything.

“Dean?” Bobby says tentatively. “Are you – I got an email from Sam. It just said, I mean, did–“

“What did it say, Bobby?” he asks, even though he’s sure he knows.

Bobby sucks in a breath at his voice, because he knows just as well as Dean that he should be screaming in hell right now, not answering his phone. “To take care of you.”

Dean drops the phone, hears Bobby still talking as he grips the wheel and presses his forehead against the back of his hands. This is what he’d been afraid of. This is why he hadn’t wanted to mess with the deal in first place. This is the one thing he’d begged Sam not to do.

It's easy to find a crossroad.

The demon is laughing at him when it shows up, wicked grin in a pretty face. “That didn’t take you long, boy.”

It’s a different demon than the one he delt with, obviously, but Dean figures they all know the same shit, since demons are a bunch of gossips. “This wasn’t the deal. My brother lives and I die.”

“You traded your soul for your brother’s life,” she corrects, so amused by all this that all he wants to do is kill her, to exorcise her, to make her scream. “Just like your father traded his for yours. There’s no reason Sammy can’t make his own trade. Man, but is your family fucked up. Maybe if you’d just settled down like little Sammy wanted, you wouldn’t all be bargaining for each other’s lives like haggling at a flea market.”

“Untrade it,” he snaps. “My soul for him alive, come on, no year, no waiting, you bring him back and take me to hell right now.”

She laughs in his face. “You don’t have anything to bargain with, boy.”

“My soul,” he repeats, “That’s what this is about, isn’t?”

“Oh, it’s what it’s all about,” she says. “But Sammy’s a clever boy. You know that, don’t you? He didn’t trade his soul for your life, he didn’t have to. You didn’t die. No, he traded it for your soul. Sorry, honey, but your credits been declined.”

At first he doesn’t understand. Sam traded his soul for Dean’s, exactly, so there’s no reason he can’t trade it right back. Then he gets it.

She sees the exact moment it clicks, the moment despair and horror sweep across his face too quickly for him to stop them. “That’s right. Little brother owns your soul now. For some reason he didn’t think you’d take proper care of it. You have it because that’s where he wants it, but no one will be making any deals with you, Dean Winchester. You can’t sell a soul you don’t own.”

“You can’t,” he has to clear his throat, “you can’t just come in and change things at the eleventh hour-”

“Eleventh hour?” she interrupts. “Sammy made his deal eleven months ago.”

His mouth is so dry he can’t speak.

“Isn’t it funny?” she asks, head cocked to the side. “All this time, the deal he’s been trying to get out of wasn’t yours, but his own. Maybe the two of you might have even managed it, except you just wouldn’t help, would you? Insisting that he not research, that he not look for a way out, and he spent so much time trying to convince you, coaxing you to talk about your feelings when he knew you were safe, all he because he thought it would make you feel better when he was gone, because he couldn’t tell you the truth and talk about how scared he was, so talking about your fear was as close as he could get.”

Dean’s going to be sick. “Don’t – please, please, I’ll give you anything-”

“You don’t have anything,” she says, gleeful. “You want to know why I agreed? The thing that made it just too delicious to refuse? Sammy’s down there, just starting in on an eternity of torture, and all he has to do get out of it is give up your soul. It’s his, after all, and he can put the original deal back in place any time he chooses. Just one moment of weakness on his end and his beloved big brother will be on the rack instead.” She sighs happily. “It’s almost as good as anything we’re doing to him down there, the knowledge that if he slips up for even a moment then it would all be for nothing. I couldn’t have found a way to twist the knife deeper if I tried.”

There’s vomit crawling its way up his throat and he has to swallow it down before he can speak. “I can’t – I’ll do whatever you want, please, there has to be something.”

She leans forward, cruelty and delight shining in her eyes. “The only thing you can do is what you’ve been telling your precious baby brother to do for the past year. Accept it. Move on. Live a good life so his sacrifice isn’t in vain.”

God. How can she – how can Sammy expect him to –

He’s doubling over, finally upchucking what little he’s ate today, and he’s dry heaving on the dirt when he hears the fading sound of her laughter.

This can’t be real. This has to be Hell, he has to be in it right now. He has to be.

[hairmetal666]

The note shows up in Eddie's mailbox cubby on Valentine's Day.

It's nothing fancy, loopy cursive handwriting on lined paper:

"I know this is probably silly but I can't go another day without saying it, and today seems appropriate for this kind of confession. Seeing you in the morning is the best part of my day. You're so gorgeous it leaves me breathless. I hope you don't mind if I don't leave my name. Just wanted you to know that you're beautiful."

His eyes fill with tears that he blinks back, a goofy smile stretching his mouth wide.

"You good there, Munson?" Robin Buckley asks.

"Oh, yup, yeah, all good." He laughs. "Just got one of those 'you're my favorite teacher Mr. Munson!' notes."

He squeezes the letter to his chest before slipping it in his pocket.

---

The worst thing about Eddie's new job is that someway, somehow, Steve-fucking-Harrington works here too. PE teacher, JV basketball coach, of-fucking-course. Once a douchebag jock, always a douchebag jock. What makes it all worse is that he's still the prettiest guy Eddie's ever seen.

---

The first week of March, there's a commotion in the hallway that has him rushing out of his room, ready to breakup a fight. He finds Harrington already there, holding Dustin Henderson and Will Byers by their shoulders. Troy Walsh and James Dante stand across from them, wearing matching snarls.

Of course Harrington is picking on little nerd kids; he knew it. But before he steps forwards to break it up, Steve speaks, voice low and angry. "You want to tell me what happened here, Troy?"

"Byers tripped. He really should watch where he's going," Troy says. James laughs.

Steve's glare goes even more icy, more disdainful (it's so fucking hot, Eddie hates it). "You want to take that again? And try being honest this time, or you're suspend from the team."

Troy splutters for long enough that Eddie finally notices Will's stricken face, the sketchpad and snapped colored pencils littering the linoleum.

"I saw you take those things from Will, and unfortunately, I'll have to call your parents and you will be responsible for purchasing a new sketchbook and pencils. You're also benched for the next four games."

The boys shout, but when Steve raises a hand they quiet immediately. "You want to complain more, or do you want it to be five games?"

"No, sir," they answer before scampering off.

Harrington faces Dustin and Will. "You boys okay?" he asks them.

"We're good, Mr. H," Dustin answers.

"Glad to hear it." Steve begins collecting Will's ruined belongings, stops to study one of the drawings.

"This is really good, Will."

Will flushes. "Thanks. It's my character for dnd,"

"Dnd? That's that game that El and Max are always talking about? With the character sheets and the dice?"

"Yeah!" says Dustin. "You know it?"

Steve's smile is a little bashful, and it tugs at Eddie's heart in a way he has to ignore. "Not much. Just from what the girls have said. You want to tell me about it?"

"Really?" Their eyes light up.

"Really. You can stop by the gym during lunch. Only if you want to, though."

"Cool," says Dustin.

He pats them both on the shoulder, and they hurry away, leaving Steve and Eddie suddenly alone.

Eddie should head back to his class, hasn't been needed in this situation at all, really, but before he can disappear, Steve spots him and his eyes widen.

"You need something, Munson?" Steve's cheeks go a faint pink.

He shakes his head, feels wrong-footed. "Uh, that was really cool what you did just there."

"They're really good kids," Steve says. "I know them a little. Used to babysit El Hopper." He slides his hands into the pockets of his khakis and, seriously, fuck Harrington for looking like that in a pair of Dockers.

"Babysitter, Harrington? Never thought I'd see the day. Or that you'd be the one defending a bunch of nerds," Eddie says. He means it teasing, but Steve's face warps into a frown.

"Y--yeah, I guess. I mean. I'm trying not to be that guy anymore, and Robin's really helped--"

"Shit, man, I'm sorry. That's not what I meant, at all--"

"--I feel terrible about all that shit I pulled back in school. That King Steve stuff? I was awful and you didn't deserve--"

"Steve!" Eddie cuts him off. "I forgive you. For everything." He looks down at his shoes. "For all I didn't want to believe it, you really have changed."

They're both pink faced now, avoiding each other's eyes. "Thanks," Steve says. "I should get going, but--for the future-- I really wouldn't mind--um--trying to be friends."

The grin that passes across Eddie's face is huge. "Yeah, Harrington, I'd like that."

Eddie has to run to make it to his classroom on time. He passes Dustin and Will and the rest of their gaggle of friends, rushing them along, but forgets all about it as he steps in front of his third period juniors.

---

He and Steve are...friendly now. They chat, they joke, they share smiles that have Eddie's heart beating too fast even though it's not like that. Turns out Steve is kind and funny (a little bit of a bitch too, but in a way that ties Eddie's stomach in knots), and a hell of a teacher.

---

His freshman are in small groups, peer-reviewing an essays, when Max Mayfield catches his eye. She's one of his favorite students and absolute trouble.

"What's up, Mayfield." He asks.

"Are you friends with Mr. Harrington?" She asks.

He chuckles. "Sure, Max, we're friendly enough. Why?"

She narrows her eyes, like she knows he's not being totally honest. "Oh, nothing. He just talks about you all the time."

He's blushing horribly and Max, and all of her friends, smirk up at him. "He does?" He chokes out.

"Mmhmm," Lucas Sinclair says. "Says he thinks you're really cool."

"Definitely one of the best teachers here," Mike Wheeler adds.

Eddie rolls his eyes. "Okay, very funny, guys. How're your essays going?"

They answer, but before Eddie goes to help another group, Will says, "he really does like you, Mr. Munson. A lot."

El nods earnestly up at him. "It is true," she says. "I know him."

"Thanks, kids. I'll keep that in mind." He gives them a smile, tries not to let their words get to him. When he reaches the next group, though, he notices his hands are shaking.

---

Gifts start turning up in Eddie's cubby. It starts with a bag of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from his favorite bakery. There's a small note that says "from your secret admirer," on the packaging. Every two weeks or so, something new shows up in his little mailbox; a woven friendship bracelet, a yellow rose, Hershey kisses, a delicately painted dnd figure that gives Eddie a small crisis because it's his own bard character, an Iron Maiden cassette, a bag of dice that almost brings him to genuine tears.

Eventually, he gets another note. This one is typed and reads: "I would love to have coffee with you 11am this Saturday at the Cafe on Main Street."

---

He walks into the cafe at 10:50am, wearing his favorite pair of ripped black jeans and a burgundy button-down, his hair pulled into a loose bun. He doesn't recognize anyone there.

Eddie gets in line, studies the menu, and the little bell above the door rings. He whips towards the sound to find none other than Steve Harrington in little wire rim glasses, a butter colored sweater, and jeans the man must have painted on, Jesus Christ. Honestly, the whole thing is enough to give Eddie a coronary (and to, embarrassingly, chub up in his own tight jeans).

"Steve?" He asks. He's overwhelmed with the (stupid, stupid) hope that it's been Harrington all along. "What are you doing here?"

"Henderson asked me to meet him. He around?"

"Uh, no?" Eddie feels heat creeping up his throat.

Steve shakes his head, as though he expected as much. "You alone? We could grab drink."

"I can't believe this." Eddie hides his face in his hands, knows it's gone horrifyingly crimson.

"What's wrong?"

"My secret admirer told me to be here now, so we could meet," Eddie's misery slices through his words. "I'm such an idiot."

"I--your--what?" Steve stammers.

He gathers himself enough to look Steve in his hazel eyes and ask, "I'm assuming it wasn't you leaving notes and gifts for me at work?"

And he expects Steve to say no. To laugh and ask why he'd ever do something like that, but instead, instead he flushes a deep red. "O-only one note."

"What?"

"I, uh," Steve clears his throat. "I left you a note. On Valentine's Day. I--we weren't friends yet, and I wanted you to know how much I liked you. It's --uh--it's pretty silly, huh? Robin's--"

"Steve," Eddie interrupts. He's going to tell Steve that he reads the note often enough that he has parts memorized; that it's the kindest thing anyone has done for him, but what he says instead is, "Dustin Henderson told you to meet him here at 11?"

"Yeah. Said he had something to show me."

Eddie remembers running into Will and Dustin and their friends that day in the hall, the weird conversation in class, the dice and the miniature. Something must click for Steve at the same time because his mouth drops, blush getting somehow deeper.

"Oh my god. Henderson! I'm gonna kill him. They figured out I had a crush on you."

"They WHAT?" Eddie says, loud enough that several looks are aimed their way.

"I'm so, so sorry, Eddie. Holy shit, this is so humiliating. You have to believe me, I had no idea they were doing this. God, I'm really starting to think it is possible to die from embarrassment."

"You have a crush on me," Eddie says instead of any of the dozens of helpful things he could say.

"Um. Yes?"

Eddie takes a deep breath, straightens his spine, and asks, "You wanna have coffee with me?"

"I'd really like that." Steve's return smile is so beautiful, it makes Eddie weak.

---

Eddie Munson is making out with Steve Harrington in the backseat of Steve's BMW. He and Steve spent the day together. They've kissed for so long that the sun has set, both of their lips are swollen, their skin red from stubble, and Eddie is nowhere near ready for the night to end.

Steve breaks away, gently pulling their mouths apart, but arms still tight around Eddie. "Hey, what kind of gifts were they giving you anyway? The kids?"

"Oh," Eddie blushes. "Uh, cookies, a dnd mini, lots of candy, a set of dice."

"Oh my god," Steve says, he pulls a little more away. "Oh my god, I'm going to kill her, Jesus Christ."

"Who are are you killing, sweetheart?"

Steve groans. "Robin. She was helping them. We found a set of dice at this little bookstore and she told me to get them for you, and--" he breaks off with a helpless, frustrated noise.

Eddie doesn't mean to, but he starts to giggle.

"It's not funny!" Steve says.

That only makes Eddie laugh harder. "Your best friend," he squeaks. "And a group of literal children set us up. That's hilarious, Harrington."

Steve's mouth drops and for a second Eddie thinks he'll be upset, but then he's giggling too, his whole face crumpling into it.

Steve pulls Eddie close once the laughter subsides, his eyes trained on Eddie's lips.

"We could pretend we didn't get together," Eddie manages to say.

"What, like, make them think they failed?"

"Yeah. We could tell them I got stood up, but you and I hung out. Had a bro day."

Steve giggles again, and it's the best sound Eddie's ever heard. "I'm absolutely on board with this plan, but you should definitely kiss me some more."

"Oh, yeah?" Eddie asks, his voice low. "And what'll I get out of it?"

"Why don't you get over here and see."

As if Eddie could turn down an invite that enticing. He slides a hand behind Steve's head, drawing him in, and they're kissing like they never stopped. It only been a few hours, but Eddie knows--without a doubt--he's already head over heels.

[aroaceleovaldez]

apparently pjotv twt was being weird about book!Percy's eyes being green because they don't think the ocean can be green (???) so consider this a sequel to my Grace siblings eye colors post and here is some visual references of green water for all your Percy inspo needs:

And for reference, the water around New York-ish where Percy is usually is somewhere around this color:

or some alternatives:

or here is a nice hazel green if you want his eyes more on the brown side, which is very common in freshwater ponds and streams:

or if you want him to have totally brown eyes - water rich in tannins will appear brown, greenish-brown, or very dark brown - this is sometimes called "blackwater" due to often appearing very dark or having low visibility:

[kroosluvr]

Just once, I want to be immeasurably happy.

[fuumiku]

It was Maid Day today yesterday a week ago so I got struck by inspiration to draw the worsties, and it ran away from me into a whole AU where they’re coworkers at a maid cafe. She’s a med student & this is just a part time job, and this is his depression job while he gets his life back together. He needs something he can be workaholic about to forget what it’s like having a personal life and personal issues. He’s actually the accountant, but the new hire janitor (Izutsumi) doesn’t show up for half her shifts and is a sloppy worker, so he gets the extra work of doing her job on top of his because he’s undervalued and overworked. Of course, janitors also have an uniform to keep the aesthetic cohesion as they go about cleaning the place, of course.

Senshi’s the part time cook you only see slivers off, he’s kind and warm when you do see him and have a chat but most shifts he’s in and out the kitchen without a trace. Laios and Falin are regulars because Falin and Marcille are besties & in the same med school, Laios accompanies Falin as she visits her friend at work and gets hooked on the food. Chilchuck has to remind Marcille to work instead of chatting with Falin for an hour, and next thing he knows she’s distracting him from work too. That’s it that’s the AU. Inspired by this idol AU fanart a bit <3

This was not meant to be birthday gift but well…… Happy bday Chil!!!

Read from left to right

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Housing is a labor issue

There's a reason Reagan declared war on unions before he declared war on everything else – environmental protection, health care, consumer rights, financial regulation. Unions are how working people fight for a better world for all of us. They're how everyday people come together to resist oligarchy, extraction and exploitation.

Take the 2019 LA teachers' strike. As Jane McAlevey writes in A Collective Bargain, the LA teachers didn't just win higher pay for their members! They also demanded (and got) an end to immigration sweeps of parents waiting for their kids at the school gate; a guarantee of green space near every public school in the city; and on-site immigration counselors in LA schools:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Unionization is enjoying an historic renaissance. The Hot Labor Summer transitioned to an Eternal Labor September, and it's still going strong, with UAW president Shawn Fain celebrating his members victory over the Big Three automakers by calling for a 2028 general strike:

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/uaw-general-strike-no-class

The rising labor movement has powerful allies in the Biden Administration. NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is systematically gutting the "union avoidance" playbook. She's banned the use of temp-work app blacklists that force workers to cross picket lines:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

She's changed the penalty for bosses who violate labor law during union drives. It used to be the boss would pay a fine, which was an easy price to pay in exchange for killing your workers' union. Now, the penalty is automatic recognition of the union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

And while the law doesn't allow Abruzzo to impose a contract on companies that refuse to bargain their unions, she's set to force those companies to honor other employers' union contracts until they agree to a contract with their own workers:

https://onlabor.org/gc-abruzzo-just-asked-the-nlrb-to-overturn-ex-cell-o-heres-why-that-matters/

She's also nuking TRAPs, the deals that force workers to repay their employers for their "training expenses" if they have the audacity to quit and get a better job somewhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

(As with every aspect of the Biden White House, its labor policy is contradictory and self-defeating, with other Biden appointees working to smash worker power, including when Biden broke the railworkers' strike:)

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

A surging labor movement opens up all kinds of possibilities for a better world. Writing for the Law and Political Economy Project, UNITE Here attorney Zoe Tucker makes the case for unions as a way out of America's brutal housing crisis:

https://lpeproject.org/blog/why-unions-should-join-the-housing-fight/

She describes how low-waged LA hotel workers have been pushed out of neighborhoods close to their jobs, with UNITE Here members commuting three hours in each direction, starting their work-days at 3AM in order to clock in on time:

https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1669088899769987079

UNITE Here members are striking against 50 hotels in LA and Orange County, and their demands include significant cost-of-living raises. But more money won't give them back the time they give up to those bruising daily commutes. For that, unions need to make housing itself a demand.

As Tucker writes, most workers are tenants and vice-versa. What's more, bad landlords are apt to be bad bosses, too. Stepan Kazaryan, the same guy who owns the strip club whose conditions were so bad that it prompted the creation of Equity Strippers NoHo, the first strippers' union in a generation, is also a shitty landlord whose tenants went on a rent-strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/20/the-missing-links/#plunderphonics

So it was only natural that Kazaryan's tenants walked the picket line with the Equity Stripper Noho workers:

https://twitter.com/glendaletenants/status/1733290276599570736?s=46

While scumbag bosses/evil landlords like Kazaryan deal out misery retail, one apartment building at a time, the wholesale destruction of workers' lives comes from private equity giants who are the most prolific source of TRAPs, robo-scabbing apps, illegal union busting, and indefinite contract delays – and these are the very same PE firms that are buying up millions of single-family homes and turning them into slums:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

Tucker's point is that when a worker clocks out of their bad job, commutes home for three hours, and gets back to their black-mold-saturated, overpriced apartment to find a notice of a new junk fee (like a surcharge for paying your rent in cash, by check, or by direct payment), they're fighting the very same corporations.

Unions who defend their workers' right to shelter do every tenant a service. A coalition of LA unions succeeded in passing Measure ULA, which uses a surcharge on real estate transactions over $5m to fund "the largest municipal housing program in the country":

https://unitedtohousela.com/app/uploads/2022/05/LA_City_Affordable_Housing_Petition_H.pdf

LA unions are fighting for rules to limit Airbnbs and other platforms that transform the city's rental stock into illegal, unlicensed hotels:

https://upgo.lab.mcgill.ca/publication/strs-in-los-angeles-2022/Wachsmuth_LA_2022.pdf

And the hotel workers organized under UNITE Here are fighting their own employers: the hoteliers who are aggressively buying up residences, evicting their long-term tenants, tearing down the building and putting up a luxury hotel. They got LA council to pass a law requiring hotels to build new housing to replace any residences they displace:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-28/airbnb-operators-would-need-police-permit-in-l-a-under-proposed-law

UNITE Here is bargaining for a per-room hotel surcharge to fund housing specifically for hotel workers, so the people who change the sheets and clean the toilets don't have to waste six hours a day commuting to do so.

Labor unions and tenant unions have a long history of collaboration in the USA. NYC's first housing coop was midwifed by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1927. The Penn South coop was created by the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union. The 1949 Federal Housing Act passed after American unions pushed hard for it:

http://www.peterdreier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Labors-Love-Lost.pdf

It goes both ways. Strong unions can create sound housing – and precarious housing makes unions weaker. Remember during the Hollywood writers' strike, when an anonymous studio ghoul told the press the plans was to "allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses?"

Vienna has the most successful housing in any major city in the world. It's the city where people of every income and background live in comfort without being rent-burdened and without worry about eviction, mold, or leaks. That's the legacy of Red Vienna, the Austrian period of Social Democratic Workers' Party rule and built vast tracts of high-quality public housing. The system was so robust that it rebounded after World War II and continues to this day:

https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-architecture-austria-stigma/

Today, the rest of the world is mired in a terrible housing crisis. It's not merely that the rent's too damned high (though it is) – housing precarity is driving dangerous political instability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Turning the human necessity of shelter into a market commodity is a failure. The economic orthodoxy that insists that public housing, rent control, and high-density zoning will lead to less housing has failed. rent control works:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

Leaving housing to the market only produces losers. If you have the bad luck to invest everything you have into a home in a city that contracts, you're wiped out. If you have the bad luck into invest everything into a home in a "superstar city" where prices go up, you also lose, because your city becomes uninhabitable and your children can't afford to live there:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#yimby

A strong labor movement is the best chance we have for breaking the housing deadlock. And housing is just for starters. Labor is the key to opening every frozen-in-place dysfunction. Take care work: the aging, increasingly chronically ill American population is being tortured and murdered by private equity hospices, long-term care facilities and health services that have been rolled up by the same private equity firms that destroyed work and housing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

In her interview with Capital & Main's Jessica Goodheart, National Domestic Workers Alliance president Ai-jen Poo describes how making things better for care workers will make things better for everyone:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-12-13-labor-leader-ai-jen-poo-interview/

Care work is a "triple dignity investment": first, it makes life better for the worker (most often a woman of color), then, it allows family members of people who need care to move into higher paid work; and of course, it makes life better for people who need care: "It delivers human potential and agency. It delivers a future workforce. It delivers quality of life."

The failure to fund care work is a massive driver of inequality. America's sole federal public provision for care is Medicaid, which only kicks in after a family it totally impoverished. Funding care with tax increases polls high with both Democrats and Republicans, making it good politics:

https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/4/7/voters-support-investing-in-the-care-economy

Congress stripped many of the care provisions from Build Back Better, missing a chance for an "unprecedented, transformational investment in care." But the administrative agencies picked up where Congress failed, following a detailed executive order that identifies existing, previously unused powers to improve care in America. The EO "expands access to care, supports family caregivers and improves wages and conditions for the workforce":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/04/18/executive-order-on-increasing-access-to-high-quality-care-and-supporting-caregivers/

States are also filling the void. Washington just created a long-term care benefit:

https://apnews.com/article/washington-long-term-care-tax-disability-cb54b04b025223dbdba7199db1d254e4

New Mexicans passed a ballot initiative that establishes permanent funding for child care:

https://www.cwla.org/new-mexico-votes-for-child-care/

New York care workers won a $3/hour across the board raise:

https://inequality.org/great-divide/new-york-budget-fair-pay-home-care/

The fight is being led by women of color, and they're kicking ass – and they're doing it through their unions. Worker power is the foundation that we build a better world upon, and it's surging.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

[megashnx]

every minute we inch closer to all of the 5 Disco Elysium successor companies denouncing the others as revisionist before they all end up collapsing, and it will be a better display of DE's themes than anything they could otherwise produce