#everything ™

[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.

[jujucomet]

[waitineedaname]

now that i've finished tgcf i can make memes about all three books! i was tempted to put binghe at the absolute center because he could easily go into any quadrant at different points in his life, and both lwj and hua cheng could swing jock, but i think the most important thing is that wei wuxian is all four at once. somehow.

[samijey]

Nov 30th, 2024 //// Jun 2nd, 2025

[hitlikehammers]

The One Where Wayne Munson KNOWS BETTER Than to Lend Air to IDLE GOSSIP

(and does it anyway on accident and ends up thinking his 💕boy's boy💕 might be ✖️stepping out) ——(1/3)

Wayne Munson’s lived his life mostly free from the hubbub of small town gossip. Some was unavoidable in his tiny holler as a boy; more was part and parcel to the service, and plain keeping half-sane in war—anything for a distraction. After all that though, Wayne’d had more’n his fill of even a teaspoon of hearsay, and compared to where he came from? Hawkins, Indiana was small potatoes for keepin’ his nose clear out of it.

Which is all to say he don’t mean to collect any of the latest scuttlebutt on his way just to town after he gets off his shift with the sun barely a glimmer, just past 5 for Leah’s to be open for a better cup-o-joe than the sludge he gets on the floor. All he wants is a hot nightcap because he knows damn well his boy didn’t pick up more grounds before Melvald’s closed last night, and Wayne doesn’t want to see his bed until he’s had a full mug of fair-to-middling coffee.

And honest: he don’t think that’s more than he’s earned to ask.

But it is more than he bargained for signing’ up to, when he sees the only other people in the diner at this hour on a Saturday.

Because the only other people are a girl he don’t know, though he can’t see her real well from the back, which only really means he sees her coffee date full-on and much too well in exchange because they’re leaned in and they’re being all touchy across the table, voices low but not too low—he don’t think they even noticed him come in, let alone come to wait close enough to hear ‘em while he insists on saving the lovely Leah herself the trip to a table when he can damn well carry his own drink, thanks kindly.

“You’re gonna have a coronary if you keep hiding this.”

The girl sounds…she sounds the way Wayne remembers his Mamaw sounding when she was about to hit his Grampy up the head over some harebrained such-and-such. Exasperated, but all from a deep well of unshakable loving.

Which is what perks up Wayne’s attention, and then churns his insides quick right-next, because—

Well. The boy this young lady’s being all over-fond at for his antics is Steve Harrington.

Who, for all that Wayne understands, is meant to be his boy’s boy.

“No, no,” Steve’s shaking his head, tone bowstring-taut; “I’m gonna tell him.” Kid sounds resolved for all of half-a-second before he’s groaning, running hands over his face: “Or, I mean—”

The thunk of the boy’s head to the tabletop clatters the cutlery, and if Wayne weren’t already clued into their conversation, he’d be wholly absolved for dropping eaves given how the noise echoes through the mostly-empty establishment bar-to-door.

“Dingus,” the girl says, and it drips with concern, with affection, with a deep choler that, again, sings loud of married-couple.

Which twists Wayne’s guts all the more to hear.

Because she’s talking to Wayne’s boy’s boy.

“I’m gonna, I promise,” Steve sounds not unlike a man on his way to the gallows, even more when he sighs deep as anything and traces out his lips with his fingers, hands shaky even out the corner of Wayne’s eye for a distance as he hisses low:

“Fuck.”

And Wayne, see, he don’t like borrowing trouble. He meant it about keeping his nose clean of the gossip and the hearsay. So he makes sure he reminds himself good in his own head that he don’t know the facts here, and jumpin’ to conclusions don’t do no favors to nobody.

It don’t do nothing for the way that what he does know, what he sees and hears with his own god-given senses in the now, don’t add up too kindly for the Harrington boy.

Not least because it seems to be adding up poor indeed for Wayne’s boy.

“Do you think he’ll—”

“Steve,” the girl’s voice goes softer, but also frantic almost, as Wayne sees her reach across the way and gather Steve’s hands with a familiarity to the motion that wouldn’t make sense unless…

Unless they’re something special to each other.

Wayne’s watched Eddie reach out for Steve that way. He’s watch Steve do the same. So it…it just don’t make sense—

“You’re shaking,” the girl says, all kinda pitiful, and Wayne’d seen it before, but now he chances a look again and: oh.

Boy’s a leaf in a cyclone.

“It’s a big deal,” Steve rasps out near under Wayne’s ability to hear it.

But he does hear it.

“You need to just lay it out,” the girl tells him, earnest now and more of that than any irritation, any frustration put-upon or otherwise; “be up front with him.”

And it ain’t fair, yet, even if all the signs are pointing that direction; but Wayne likes Steve. He doesn’t want to think the worst of him. And he doesn’t, really, in his heart, think Steve could do or be the worst, from all he’s learned and seen—Wayne’d had uncharitable thoughts about it he kid, before he knew better, based on hearsay which one more time, he don’t countenance as a rule, and he’d been taught better and quick from the second he saw Steve at his nephew’s bedside, and heard the only thing he’s proud and happy to have dropped in upon uninvited:

You nearly fucking died yourself dragging him out, Steve, what the hell—

That Henderson squirt, scolding Steve something fierce.

So Wayne reminds himself this boy loved his boy enough to risk himself to bring Eddie home. Before they were anything to one another. And Wayne knows damn well they’re both something to each other, now. It don’t make sense that Steve wants to…be up front about a notion with Eddie that could hurt.

But then: care can look a lot of different ways, and can change over time. Ain’t nobody to fault for that. And much as Wayne can’t quite believe the Steve he’s gotten to know these past many-months could swallow hurting his Eddie…

Wayne’s been proven incorrect about people more than enough in his life to know better than to think it’s impossible to be wrong about a man’s heart.

“Oh, I’m sure that’ll go over fucking fantastic,” Steve’s huffing, rolling his eyes—apparently he don’t want to be up front with the person they’re talking about. Wayne tries to remind himself that they’ve not flat out said it’s Eddie yet. Wayne shouldn’t go making assumptions.

“Why not?” the girl’s pressing him. “Be honest, with him,” then her tone does go a little judgemental; “you can’t honestly think he doesn’t suspect—”

“I really don’t think he does,” and it’s a strange thing, because no matter the words themselves, it don’t sound like Steve’s meaning to be deceitful about a thing. Kinda sounds a little like he’s mourning, like he’s just in a kind of pain. “If he did, then at least maybe I’d have some kind of,” he waves his hand in the air, looks frantic, at loose ends all around; “heads-up for where his head’s at.”

And they’re both quiet for a spell, and Wayne looks for Leah in the back, knew she was getting food ready and was happy to wait—for better or worse with the conversation he’s been privy to without permission unspooling at his side—but he’s starting to feel antsy for all that he’s hearing, and the way he can’t quite tamp down associating it all with Eddie, with touchy things Steve might have to tell Eddie—

“Tell him by the end of the weekend.”

And now: think he might have to tell, encouraged so damn strong and single-minded by his lady friend with her hand on his arm.

“That’s fucking tomorrow!”

“End,” she’s narrowing her eyes sharp enough Wayne notices more in the shift of the room than to see it head-on; “of,” and then she’s smacking Steve’s arm to emphasize hard enough it rings out; “the weekend.”

Then Wayne notices how her posture shifts, and she leans closer again, so much affection, and easy with it, and welcome for it, no doubt about it:

“I don’t like seeing you like this,” she says low and earnest; “especially not when the thing you’re like this about is,” and then her tone shifts to something bright, near-on hopeful, even:

“It’s such a good thing, Steve.”

“I mean,” Steve mumbles, kind of miserable really; “of course you think so.”

And Wayne don’t like where his head goes for things the girl who’s watching Steve with such soft eyes might think to be good, might think while she’s touching him so close and —

“He’ll,” and she huffs a touch before going all heartfelt again: “Eddie is going to—”

And the moment his plausible deniability about the subject of the discussion is gone, Wayne gives up waiting for his coffee at the counter and…retreats to the corner by the door, far as he can get from whatever’s said next. He’d leave, honest, but the truth of the matter’s this:

He can’t be expected in good faith to figure out how to bring any of this up with Ed if he don’t have no caffeine in him.

☕ 👀 ☕

✨ part ii >>>

For @thefreakandthehair, who requested 'Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST—and since this is almost a YEAR LATE, could I possibly offer it as a normal-amounts-of-late birthday gift, more than as an egregiously-and-unforgivably-late prompt fill for you?

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @bookworm0690 @bumblebeecuttlefishes @captain--low @depressed-freak13 @dragoon-ze-great @dreamercec @dreamwatch @estrellami-1 @finntheehumaneater @goodolefashionedloverboi @grtwdsmwhr @hiei-harringtonmunson @hbyrde36 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @live-laugh-love-dietrich @mensch-anthropos-human @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notaqueenakhaleesi @pearynice @perseus-notjackson @pretend-theres-a-name-here @pukner @ravenfrog @sadisticaltarts @samsoble @sanctumdemunson @shrimply-a-menace @slashify @stealthysteveharrington @swimmingbirdrunningrock @theheadlessphilosopher @theintrovertedintrovert @themoonagainstmers @theohohmoment @tillystealeaves @tinyloonyteacups @tinyplanet95 @warlordess @wheneverfeasible @wordynerdygurl @wxrmland @yourmom-isgay @1-tehe-1

NOTE: it's important to me that you know that Wayne's accept belongs to nowhere, and is just the voice of someone I knew as a kid, who also sounded like a little of everywhere and then again nowhere. so if you think some turn of phrase doesn't fit what you think you're reading in terms of dialect? it's just that this way of stringing words together is—with intention—its own amalgam of places and times

divider credit here and here

[violetsorengail]

She doesn’t like anyone but Xaden, and she only tolerates me, though I’m growing on her. Like a tumor.

fourth wing - ch. 36

iron flame - ch. 65

onyx storm - ch. 62

[azurem]

While I think Nightmare is more modest with his request for affections —since I think Ink would start a lot of the hugging-kissing combos so there's not much need for him to be the one to initiate— I believe that the moment he does ask for them he's just. No nonsense. Like, he'd sit, pat his lap and just say "come here" no hellos nor hi's just. C'mere. He then proceeds to give a very clear statement of how he wants to be pampered for the next 30 minutes.

I think Ink would find it funny...... He'd start writing the instructions down to play along and all that. If he forgot what he was doing mid-ways Nightmare would just repeat himself because he wants very specific things or else the urge to be loved won't be quite quelled properly.

"...Ha? Come again?"

"I need you to kiss me for at least a moment. You could also hug my neck. Also... The nuzzling thing you do, too. That'd be appreciated. Hm. You could take the scarf off, now that I'm thinking about it..."

"Ppfft. Alright? Anything more, boss?"

"...Call me by my name as well."

"You're so odd."

[shadowlinktheshadow]

GREEN LINK APPRECIATION HOURS!!!

[theside-b]

Watanabe Shu and Ogoe Yuki in I BECAME THE MAIN ROLE OF A BL DRAMA - THE SEQUEL ↳ 『続 • BLドラマの主演になりました』 (2025)

[raspberrii-soda]

look, i dont really know shit about card games, but look at the cute new cards with the sugar rush racers 🥺🥺

(These are all from Disney Lorcana)

There's also a turbo card but it just isn't the same as these cute and colorful candycore partycore whateverelse sugar rush racers cards

[cinematicnomad]

YELLOWJACKETS ▸ 1.05 blood hive

[justashyweebx3]

Pp,,,,,,,,,p,p,pp,p,p,p,p,PLLEASWAE I FUCKING NEEEDDC BEN HWA SO GODAM BADDDDDADDADADADADDADADADADADADADADADADADDADDDDDDDDDD PLASE I WILLL DO LITERALLY FUCKING ANIYTHING FOR THENMMMMMMMMMMM PLLWLEPEPSPALPSPW HRGRGRGGRGGRGRGRGGRGRGRGEGEGEGRGEEGRGRGRGG&#&&#&#&#-$-$-$-$-$&$&$$&$&$&$&$&&$&$&$-6" 263-6-*36-*3;6" ;36"3: 7"3 :66;"3;72*;7*28!*2+9`¶{~¶{~{(9~(9~(9~(9~(9~+9~+9~+91×=1×=1+8+18×[1℅×1℅×2×[1[×2!8[82[×`!8`×=8+2÷°`\¥√\`\`^π\°÷|\`=×

[mamawasatesttube]

Between Tim and Kon who makes the first move?

honestly for me it varies! i slightly tend towards it being tim, but not always. but in a very specific way, i.e. it's a very gradual melt right on into a relationship, and tim is the one who goes hey. wait a minute. this feels like A Relationship.

at first, saying it'd be tim is probably surprising, since tim has a history of NOT making the first move across his comics - we don't actually see how he and ari get together, but steph chases after him and repeatedly states her interest in him before they ever get together; tim is the one who asks zoanne out, but only after she kisses him and then runs away. then tam once again is the one to ask him if he's interested in her (and, i mean, if you count lynx ii, she's always the one initiating things getting physical and making out with him, but they also literally never talk about it, so i don't entirely really count her as a serious tim love interest).

on the other hand, while kon of course has been a flirt since he was decanted from his tube, a lot of it was very performative and he's only actually ever been in three relationships, two of which were instances of abuse and grooming. given how introspective he gets after his resurrection, and how much less sure of himself he is in general, i tend to believe this is where he starts actually unpacking all his relationship trauma and internalized homophobia. i think actually accepting that he is gay and not actually interested in women is a very jarring thing for him, and accepting that he was groomed and abused is also very difficult, and it takes him a while.

because of that, i think he ends up a) confused about what romance actually feels like, and b) very tentative about dating for a while. he wants deep connection - he was genuinely in love with knockout, and he thought she loved him too; he thought tana would be part of his life forever, and his devotion to cassie was notable even before they actually dated. but deep connections are hard to make with people you don't know well, and by the time he's around 19-20 i think he's kind of struggling with the idea that he's not gonna get what he's looking for in casual relationships, but also the idea of being in Gay Love with one of his best friends is terrifying, because he's not good at identifying what being in love feels like, so he kinda talks himself out of it. "this is comfortable and easy so it must not be romance, this is just really good friendship, because romance feels like walking a tightrope. right? haha. right??" and all that.

and then moreover, i think tim really sits on the fact that he's bisexual for a long time. not because he's trying to hide it, but because he's just so intensely private about things that bother him, and he's got some jack drake shaped Internalized Issues in his head to work through about what it means to be transmasc and to like men (i.e. a voice that sounds suspiciously like a conservative dad putting in one single ounce of effort re: understanding queer relationships is in the back of his head going "but you'd be the girl in the relationship if you dated a man, right?" and tim has to take several deep breaths and figure out how to unpack that before he's ready to even think about admitting out loud that he's interested in guys too, even to himself, let alone to anyone else).

so for a hot second kon's just out there going "i like men but it doesn't matter because i'm never going to fall in love with someone that really truly wants me and loves me as deeply as i'd love them, and i'd be miserable about that except that i'm just pretty satisfied being bffs with tim :) i feel at ease when he's around and he makes me laugh and i just like being near him and watching him work on gadgets or listening to him ramble about cars or letting him sleep on my shoulder. i know it's not romantic because i feel so safe and comfortable, but i'm happy with it, whatever it is. and if i think he's hot, well, that's just because he is hot. everyone knows that!" guy who pretty much is already tim's boyfriend but he hasn't noticed that yet because they're both kind of stupid and also insanely devoted to each other in the same way, so they both go "yeah this seems normal for us" and kon really doesn't question it that hard.

meanwhile tim is the guy to whom labels and boxes matter a lot more, so he's the one who sits back one day and goes, wait. oh my god. i'm in love with kon. and then he has to steeple his index fingers and interlace the others and press his hands to his face in deep, deep thought. he's in love with kon, and realizing that makes a lot about his life suddenly make a lot of sense, because seriously - a hundred clone attempts, changing robin to be red and black, making out with cassie because he missed kon so much - okay, okay, yeah, he sees it now, okay, so maybe he's been in love with kon for years at this point and never actually realized it, that's fine, this is fine, he's FINE, he's NOT freaking out or overthinking--

anyways. after freaking out and overthinking and brooding on a rooftop for four to seven business days (not all at once, of course, but he gets his hours in), he finally goes to kon and jabs his finger into his chest and goes "Hey. Are we dating?"

and kon stares at him for a second with a loading circle spinning over his head. claps his hand over his mouth. inhales sharply like a dying fish. claps his other hand over the first hand. starts floating a few inches off the ground in pure agitation.

"Oh my god, Tim," he says, his eyes as wide as dinner plates and his voice an octave higher than usual. "Are we dating?!"

"I think so," Tim says, and narrows his eyes. "I mean, if we're not, maybe we should be. Pizza and a movie tonight?"

and kon clearly goes through A Whole Process in his head (working through the "wait, dating is comfy and chill and happy and easy?!" crisis in real time), but ultimately goes "okay!!! yeah!! okay!!! let's do that!!! wow!!!!" because, hey. he would love to hold hands with tim while watching the sunset and eating hipster san francisco pizza.

and that's how they end up sitting on the floor by the coffee table in the titans tower common room, eating pizza, and poring over a calendar + their text message history to try and figure out when, exactly, their anniversary is. ("okay, so when we went on that picnic in april, was that a date?" "i think so. alright, so it has to be before april, but after valentine's, because you made a joke about being single here, see? so we're looking at somewhere in march. "okay, but we did do 'palentine's' together, so does that really count??" "fuck, you're right, that totally was a date too. uh...")

[sorryiliketoscreenshot]

[shadow0-1]

Tensions

[averagestrayrat]

The S2 finale of Fawx & Stallion carried the emotional catharsis of more than a century of fandom.