#i already Drive a van technically

[ssaalexblake]

My niece is super excited to move house (don't blame her. Their place rn is just a nightmare for 89 reasons and that's not even going into the shit landlord) except she's not old enough to know what it's like when her parents move house 🙃

This will be an Experience.

[lovedrruunk]

'A Fresh Start 𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚🎐[part ii]

When the mysterious new girl in town makes a lasting first impression, you make it your goal to befriend and welcome her to the town. [Part i] playlist!!!

self deprecating stalker jinx ill luv u 4eva & eva & eva...

"Hey."

"Hi!"

“. . .”

“. . . ?”

“. . .”

“. . . ???”

You blinked, waiting for her to say literally anything else, but nope. Just “hey.” and now she was standing there, looking like she was on the verge of shitting her pants while you wondered if this was how all her conversations went.

Surprisingly you didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable, more so confused. Looking around, your eyes landed on your old neighbor who’s own eyes were on the girl in front of you. He was giving her this look of judgment. It wasn’t obvious or harsh but it was still there. And then it clicked.

This was her.

The newcomer who moved into that old cottage on the outskirts of town. The one Mrs. Van Dee Kamp couldn’t stop speculating about, the one Mr. Gallagher said “looked like trouble”, and the same one you were so curious about. 

It wasn’t long before your group started to shuffle awkwardly, clearly ready to move on. They glanced at her, the kind of quick, hesitant looks people gave when they didn’t want to seem rude but also didn’t want to linger. One by one, they made their excuses, mumbling something about needing to get back to their stalls. They took a couple of steps away, looking back once they realized you weren’t following.

“I’ll catch up with you guys later!” you called, waving them off.

Turning back, you realized she was already staring at you, her wide pink eyes locked onto yours like you’d just caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to.

“Hi!” you started... for the second time now.

“Uh… yeah.” she said, her voice flat as if responding to a completely different conversation.

Not exactly the warmest start, but you continued. “You’re new in town right? People have been talking, but you know, nothing bad! They’re just curious.”

Her eyes glanced left then right as you were talking, like she was scanning for an exit. “Yeah. New.”

You tilted your head. “Well, welcome. I’m–”

“Okay.” she cut you off, her tone abrupt.

“...Okay?” you repeated, blinking.

“Yeah. Thanks. Bye.”

Before you could say another word, she spun on her heel and started walking… no, speed-walking, towards the dirt path that lead into the forest.

You stood there, frozen, your brain scrambling to process what had just happened. Did she seriously just… run away? Mid-conversation?

It took you a solid few seconds to realize your jaw was hanging open. Shutting it quickly, you looked around, half expecting someone to jump out with a camera and tell you that it was a prank.

But no. The mysterious girl who had everyone talking had just bolted, leaving you standing there like an idiot.

And for some reason, instead of being offended, you couldn’t help but laugh.

Who was she? And what kind of person walked away from a perfectly normal greeting? Mind you, a greeting she had started. You didn’t know why, but suddenly, you were dying to find out.

. . .

This feeling wasn’t technically new.

For weeks, you’d felt it, that weird sensation on the back of your neck, like someone was watching you. At first, it had been easy to ignore. You told yourself it was just your brain playing tricks. It was harmless. Whatever.

But now? Not so much.

The feeling wasn’t just there when you stood still like it was before, it followed you now. Around the market, down quiet streets, even when you stopped to chat with neighbors. You’d catch glimpses, a blur of blue hair disappearing behind a corner, the faintest sound of boots on the gravel.

More than once, you were so sure you’d catch them. You’d spin around at the sound of a shuffle or a shadow that felt too close. But by the time you looked? Nothing. Just an empty alley or a completely innocent looking street lamp.

It was driving you nuts.

You didn’t have to guess who it was either. You knew it was her. The girl from the square, Powder, or whatever her name really was. The way she’d bolted last time you tried to talk to her? That had to mean something.

Now it wasn’t just about being watched. It was about her. What was her deal? Why was she sneaking around? Why couldn’t she just talk to you?

You're own feelings about the situation were confusing you. You didn't necessarily... mind it. Unlike the other townsfolk, you didn't see her as a threat. She didn't seem like the type who would go out of her way to harm you. So 'why' was the question, and you were determined to figure it out.

Every time you caught a glimpse of her, something tugged at you. It wasn’t just the mystery of it all, though that was definitely part of it. There was something about her, it's like she didn't want to be seen yet wanted all of your attention.

And you wanted to know why. Why so secluded? Why so interested in your mundane countryside life?

It wasn’t like the townsfolk were any help either. They whispered about her, sure, 'the new girl with the blue hair and the weird vibes' but that’s all they did. Whispers. Speculation. None of them had actually tried to get to know her as far as you could tell.

Which left it to you.

The more you thought about it, the more determined you got. You didn’t want to believe she was some big, bad menace just because she didn’t fit into their little box of what people here were 'supposed' to be like. She was human, and just as deserving of a community as anyone else. So, yeah, you had questions.

And, apparently, she had no intention of giving you any answers.

It was almost funny how good she was at avoiding you. You’d be walking down the street, sure you'd spotted her near the bakery, and then poof. Gone. Like she had been a figment of your imagination. It was starting to feel like a game, except you knew something she didn't. How to cheat.

. . .

“Alright, I know you’re in there!” you yelled, leaning closer to the door as your fist continued to bang on the wood. “You can’t hide forever!”

Silence.

You squinted at the cottage, the place looked... interesting. It was still that run down creepy cottage you remembered always seeing whenever you passed by, but it was strangely... lively. Big scraps of metal and parts outside, colorful flowers (although wilted), and colorful graffiti that seemed to cover every side.

Snapping yourself out of your thoughts, you knocked again harder, this time raising your voice. “I’m not leaving until you open this door!”

Still nothing.

“Powder! Or... whatever your name is!” you shouted, hoping the use of her name might get a reaction.

From inside, you swore you heard a faint creak. A floorboard, maybe? It was hard to tell over the sound of your heart hammering in your ears. You leaned forward, pressing your ear to the door.

“I can hear you in there, you know.” you tried, softening your tone just a bit, stepping back from the door. “I’m not mad or anything. I just want to talk! That’s all.”

The silence that followed felt even more deafening than before. For a second, you wondered if you’d imagined the sound altogether.

And then, just as you were about to knock again, the door creaked open.

Barely.

A narrow space, enough for one pink eye to peek through.

“What do you want?” came a voice.

It wasn’t hostile exactly, but it wasn’t friendly either. Cautious. Suspicious.

You blinked, caught off guard by just how intense her gaze was up close.

“Uh, hi?” you started, scrambling for words that didn’t sound totally ridiculous. “We’ve been running into each other a lot lately- well, okay, more like you’ve been running away- but I just wanted to…” You trailed off, realizing you hadn’t actually planned this far ahead.

Her eye narrowed slightly, not moving to open the door any wider.

“...check in?” you finally finished, wincing at your own words.

The door inched shut a little more.

“Wait, wait!” you said frantically as you held up your hands.

“I mean it! No tricks, no weird town gossip or whatever. I just… I think we got off on the wrong foot. Can we maybe start over? I'd love to be friends.”

Her eye flicked to your hands, then back to your face. For a moment, you thought she was actually gonna let you in.

Instead, she sighed. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

Her voice was quieter now, laced with something you couldn’t quite place. Regret? Fear?

“Why not?” you asked gently, lowering your hands.

But she didn’t answer, instead she gave you this long silent look. And just as you were about to speak up again, the door shut and the bolt slid into place.

“Well, okay then.”

. . .

[Part iii]

when i talk abt the town pls imagine a Minecraft village or something of the sort ...

this chapter was SOOOO SELF DIVULGENT btw lololol was totally laughing my ass off writing it. I hope the difference in the way i write their povs is noticeable!!! also its 2am rn ill make sure to proof read in the morning... maybe...

part 3 sometime this week probs! it'll go back to being in pows pov ≽^•⩊•^≼˚

notes r appreciated & thx 4 reading as aaalways XOXOXOXO

[Teensy taglist (ˊᗜˋ)]

@cattjull @kenqki @powderbomb-jinxed

[jjtheresidentbaby]

hi hi <3 hope you're doing okay :) can u do a cg!rafe cameron x little!reader where reader gets minorly wounded, like after falling from their bike or something, and rafe patches them up? thank you <3

˚. ❝₊˚ sunburnt ❞ ˚₊·

» rafe cameron x reader

» a/n: I have an extremely bad sunburn rn so that’s what I went with hope you don’t mind

» warnings: rafe is rubbing product on reader’s back while they’re shirtless but it’s in no way nsfw, talk of the pogues watching over reader, little!sarah mentioned, cg!kie & cg!pope mentioned, cg!barry mentioned, post canon, pet names

You wince as Rafe helps pull your shirt over your head, revealing the worst sunburn Rafe has seen since Sarah got near second degree burns when they were kids, he winces right alongside you. Given for different reasons; you hate the feeling of the material sticking your your skin and causing even more pain to the tight skin, and Rafe because seeing just how bad things have gotten without him around pulls on his heart strings.

It was only a week. One week with the pogues, Sarah acting as your main caregiver but having to have Kie take over when Sarah slipped halfway through the trip you guys took to the mainland. It was- an eventful week, to say the least. Kie and Pope stepped up and were much better at applying sunblock regularly than Sarah in her own regressed state, but the damage was already done and both Kie and Pope looked more than worried when they handed you off to Rafe two days ago. You’re a little surprised he didn’t go off on them then and there.

“Hurts.” You mutter when Rafe runs his hands gently over your back, the way your skin is hot to the touch cause even more worry in Rafe’s mind. He really doesn’t want to have to take you to the hospital.

“I know baby, I’m sorry. I’m gonna apply some coconut oil and then we can go lay back down.” You’ve found the coconut oil works better than the aloe as it leaves your skin moisturized for longer.

“M’kay, can we watch a movie?” That’s all the two of you have been doing for the past two days.

By the time you were driving back to Rafe’s after being away from him for a week you were so homesick Jj had to keep his legs thrown atop yours so you wouldn’t try and climb to the front of the van to get John B to drive faster- it’d be an embarrassing moment to think of if it wasn’t all worth it when Rafe came into view as you rounded the corner to Tannyhill and saw Rafe sitting on the porch waiting for you. The house is technically his and Sarah’s but with Sarah spending almost all her time at the rebuilt chateau, it’s basically just Rafe’s place that acts as storage for some of Sarah’s stuff.

“Course, what do you wanna watch?” Rafe asks and rubs some more oil onto your bare back, making sure that he’s being as careful and soft with his touch as he can be.

“Moana?” A small smile creeps onto Rafe’s lips as he nods along.

“Didn’t we watch that yesterday?” You shrug.

“I like it. Can we ask Barry to come over and watch it with us?” Rafe is obviously your favorite person while you’re regressed but Barry is a close second, and the both of them together is perfect to you. They never fail to make you laugh just by the way they interact with each other and the sidebar jokes Barry shoots your way as Rafe tries to dismiss every word he says.

“Sure, sweet thing. Do you need him to pick up anything before he comes over?” You shake your head and lift your arms when Rafe comes to slip your shirt back on, it’s actually his own but it’s loose and cotton so it’s more comfortable on your skin.

“Not even some fries from The Wreck?” A quirked brow gets sent your way and you quickly scramble to climb into Rafe’s lap before he can pick up the phone to call Barry.

“Wait- wait, yeah fries, get fries.” You plead and Rafe hums along with an arm slipped around your waist to make sure you won’t fall off his lap.

“You sure? You just said you didn’t want anything… Barry will be here quicker if he doesn’t stop-.” You cut Rafe off with a serious look on your face that he finds undeniably cute.

“I lied, I want fries. I don’t care if Barry takes ten hours to get here, I want those fries.” It’ll really only add ten minutes to the route for Barry to go into The Wreck and order some food to-go.

“Okay, okay, I’ll make the call.” He soothes and grabs his phone as you lean back into his chest with a content sigh. Your back doesn’t hurt as bad as it did when you first came home and spending the day with your favorite people will help you forget just how much you missed Rafe in the first place.

[sparkshock]

Age order of the Nublar Six

Okay. So like, I know people have their headcanons and shit, but I want to know if there is any ACTUAL confirmed age order besides what we already know. Like, I know Darius is the youngest, followed by Brooklynn, then Ben & Sammy, and finally Yaz & Kenji. But I scoured the interwebs and I couldn’t find anything confirming who was the oldest. I’ve seen some people say Yaz, some people say Kenji. Is there a definite answer or are we going based on headcanon?

If that’s the case, lemme cook here. This is all based on my own observations with my own headcanons sprinkled in. Feel free to disagree or call me out if canon contradicts anything.

Yaz: Oldest.

Born April 13, 2000.

10th grade/Sophomore in high school.

She drives the van in S1, indicating that she also has her learner's permit. Unlike Kenji, she seems to have a better grasp on driving, which means she's likely been doing it longer.

I headcanon that Yaz is from Seattle, Washington. The legal age to get a learner's permit in Washington is 15, which checks out.

She's always felt like the oldest to me, just based on how she acts. Obviously her maturity doesn't directly correlate with her age, but I think there is usually some overlap with that.

Kenji: Second oldest.

Born October 19th, 2000.

10th grade/Sophomore in high school. He is technically supposed to be a freshman due to cut-off dates, but his dad paid to have him move up a grade to be around people who would “be a better influence” on him.

He mentions that his dad locked the penthouse because he failed algebra, which is typically a course taken in freshman year, and Kenji doesn’t seem like the type of guy to take advanced classes.

I headcanon that Kenji is from Miami, Florida (based purely on the fact that my beta-reader said "he looks like a creature from Miami"). The legal age to get a learner's permit in Miami is 15.

Kenji has his learner's permit, but isn't comfortable behind the wheel, indicating that he hasn't been driving for very long.

(he kind of acts like a freshman. no shade but some of y'all are annoying as fuck. love kenji tho <3)

Sammy: Upper middle.

Born March 29, 2001.

9th grade/Freshman in high school.

She gives big sister vibes, so I feel like she would be next up.

Ben: Lower middle.

Born August 26, 2001.

9th grade/Freshman in high school.

He would be one of the youngest in his grade due to cutoff dates.

It just feels right to me.

Brooklynn: Second Youngest.

Born May 17, 2002.

8th grade.

She is taught by 100% online tudors so it’s hard to determine where she falls on the education scale, but I would assume she learns at an accelerated rate.

Darius: Youngest.

Born January 4th, 2003.

8th grade.

I think he turned 13 pretty early on.

He’s one year ahead in school, so although he SHOULD be in 7th grade, he’s actually in 8th grade. This could have happened for numerous reasons, but I'm just gonna say he was smart and skipped a grade because the school recommended it.

Obviously, a lot of this is just shit I made up, so feel free to disagree. Or, if you like any of these headcanons and want to use them in your own work, go right ahead! No need to credit me. This is how I’m gonna do it in my fic lol. But I’d love to hear other people’s opinions/analyses!

[cazzyf1]

pls tell me everything you know about the 1982 drivers strike i think about it often

Right I about to go into as much detail as possible about the driver's strike while hopefully keeping it comprehensible.

*cracks knuckles*

Let's go.

So to give some overall context to the situation, Bernie Ecclestone was doing some meddling. He had control over the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) which meant he could negotiate contracts between teams, track owners, television rights, etc. Realising the sort of power Bernie Ecclestone was getting, the Federation Internationale de I'Automobile (FIA) put Jean-Marie Balestre in charge. There was a big power struggle between these two however both Ecclestone and Balestre united against the drivers in 1982.

At the start of the 1982 season, a new license called a 'super license' was put forward for the drivers to sign. This license was based on other sports, like football's transfer systems, meaning the drivers had fewer rights - their team owners essentially owned them. For example, the super licence meant a team could keep drivers to one team for up to three years, even if the drivers wanted to leave. This happened after, in 1981, Alain Prost was racing for McLaren, and he became convinced that the car wasn't safe. He refused to drive for the team, though he had a contract. He said if necessary, he would walk away from the sport altogether. Then Renault approached Alain Prost, and he joined them. A new license was created to prevent this situation from happening again.

1982 was also the season that (at the time) 2x World Champion Niki Lauda decided to come out of retirement. In 1979 he had been racing for Bernie Ecclestone's team 'Brabham', but halfway through the season, he walked away, finding no more interest in the sport. Eventually Ron Dennis, who ran the team 'Mclaren' tempted Niki back into the sport.

Niki was sent the super license a few days before the start of the season to sign, and being a stickler for detail he made sure to read through all of it. In reading it, Niki realised the control the team owners would have over the drivers and did not approve of it. Quickly, he rang up Didier Pironi who was head of the drivers association, to talk him through what he had found. Didier agreed that these licenses were bad and then called all the other drivers, telling them not to sign the licence. They had been late though, as 24 had technically already signed as they hadn't properly read the licence. The only ones that hadn't were Lauda, Pironi, Villeneuve who had seen something similar in ice hockey and didn't like it, Arnoux, Giacomelli and de Cesaris.

In South Africa, Kyalami the track was prepared for the drivers to start practising, and the drivers were arriving in their normal cars. But before they could get out on track, a bus pulled up with Niki Lauda and Pironi in it. Without their knowledge, Niki and Didier had managed to borrow a bus from Trevor Rowe and were ready to take the drivers back to their hotel at the Kyalami Ranch. They rounded up all the drivers and told them of their plans, and while they were hesitant, eventually, most of them were convinced to get onto the bus. Only two didn't. Jochen Mass, who was late (He's always late, someone said) and Jacky Ickx.

The team owner of March, John McDonald, caught wind of what was happening and tried to prevent the bus from leaving by parking a van in front of the bus. Jacques Laffite got out of the bus to move the van, accidentally stalled it, but eventually got it out of the way. The bus then set off, taking the scenic route back to the Sunnyside Park Hotel while every news van and car chased after the bus, getting clips of Niki Lauda looking out the back of the bus and waving at them.

Eventually, they arrived, and all of them strutted past the journalists and went into the hotel. Thus ensued a fun time for the drivers relaxing around by the pool for the day. However, things back at the track were not shaping up well.

Bernie Ecclestone and Jean-Marie Balestre were pissed. The race organisers threatened to impound the cars, Bernie Ecclestone threatened to sue the drivers, and Balestre announced if the drivers didn't come back, then they would all be fired. Bernie Ecclestone had already fired the drivers from his team, Nelson Piquet and Riccardo Patrese. The mechanics put signs out joking advertising for new drivers. Didier Pironi was doing the main negotiations for the drivers at the track and reporting back to Niki Lauda at the hotel on how it was progressing. During the evening, when dinner was being served, the driver's wives and girlfriends, who were still at the track, started throwing bread rolls at Balestre.

Didier Pironi arrived at the hotel and explained that if they didn't return and drive immediately, they risked life bans. Niki Lauda realised that this strike would last the night, and he knew that if all the drivers returned to their own rooms, the team principles would easily be able to convince them to abandon the strike. They needed to stay united, which meant literally sticking together. He arranged to take over the conference room in the hotel and have all the spare mattresses brought into the room.

All the drivers moved into this one big room, and soon, the entertainment started. Many of the younger drivers felt quite panicked about the whole situation, worried that they would be fired for going on strike, which would have ended any career in motorsports, so they went to the older drivers like Niki for reassurance. Niki tried to lighten up the atmosphere by telling dirty jokes. Bruno Giacomelli, who was quite passionate about machine guns, got his hands on a chart and gave a presentation on how to take a gun to bits. There was also a piano in the room, and driver Elio de Angelis, trained to play the piano, performed for all the drivers. Everyone there said it was the most beautiful playing they had ever heard. Gilles Villeneuve also had a go playing a few joyful pieces.

The team owners and journalists had by now discovered that all the drivers were hiding out in this one big room, and they were trying to get in. At first, Niki gave an interview by the door, but he ensured no one would leave the room. One of the team principles, Mo Nunn of Ensign, had brought the driver, Guerrero's girlfriend, along as a bargaining trip. Niki made sure to accompany Guerrero to see his girlfriend. He said that the situation could have brought a tear to your eye. Eventually, they got the girlfriend away from the team principal and into the room. Team principal Jean Sage of Renault tried to get to Prost and Arnoux but was beaten off.

At this point, the team principals grew frustrated and decided to break into the room, so the drivers had to use the piano to barricade the door.

Then night came, and it was time for the drivers to get even closer. There were not enough mattresses for one each, meaning all the drivers had to bunk up. Many funny photographs have come from this event. Alain Prost and Giles Villeneuve shared a mattress, which led to Patrick Tambay saying if a child came from this, all the others might as well give up.

There was a problem with the toilet as there was only one and it wasn't in the room. There was a key to the toilet and so the drivers agreed to leave it in the middle of the room so they would know if someone left to the toilet and didn't come back. One driver, Fabi, ended up going to the toilet but did not come back.

During the night, Carlos Reuntemann or Keke Rosberg snored so loudly that Gilles Villeneuve threw a blanket over them to cover the sound.

In the morning, all the drivers got up, trying hard not to sniff the odour of the room and got ready to head to the track as Didier Pironi had been able to successfully negotiate a licence they were happy with. No drivers were fired, Nelson Piquet and Riccardo Paterese were rehired, and the race was successful. There were fears that the drivers could be arrested at the airport, but thankfully, that didn't happen. Instead, they were fined for taking part in the strike, which, while it didn't affect some drivers who already had plenty of money, it wasn't ideal for the drivers who were just getting started.

This is as much as I am able to remember; if you know anything more or if there is something wrong in this let me know in the comments below! Hope you enjoyed the read :)

[sexhaver]

Boston driving tips:

if you're making an unprotected left at a stoplight and are the first one in line when the light turns green, your job is to gun it and make that left turn before any oncoming traffic has an opportunity to move. otherwise you will sit there throughout that entire fucking light, forcing everyone behind you who wants to go straight to merge to the right (which of course gums up both lanes), until it turns red again and you awkwardly finish up your turn while the entire intersection glares daggers at you. if you pull this shit on a one-lane road, then congratulations, you made it so you were the only one to make it through on that light cycle, and the drivers behind you are not only allowed but actively encouraged to pit manuever you off the road if they can catch up.

for optimal performance, you should be looking at the signal for the cross street + the walk signal. once you see the cross signal turn red, hold down your brake with your left foot to free up your right foot to hover over the gas pedal. that way, when your light turns green, you can simultaneously lift your left foot while dropping your right to instantly start moving. this maneuver has many names depending on where you learn it. i learned it as the "Worcester left" but ive also heard it referred to as a "Lexington left".

if you're in the left lane and one person passes you on your right, there's a 50/50 shot on which one of you is the asshole (you for driving too slow in the passing lane, or the passer for being a speed demon)

if two people pass you on your right, you are the asshole and need to merge right at the soonest opportunity to avoid further embarrassment

if THREE (or, god forbid, more) people pass you on your right, pull over to the nearest breakdown lane at your earliest convenience and commit seppuku with a tire iron

become intimately familiar with the exact size of your car and how close you can get to stuff without hitting it. this proprioception is helpful when parallel parking but is mostly for those times when someone is trying to turn left from a single-lane road, and they pull off as far to the left as they can without going into oncoming traffic to let people around them, and then the person behind them spends a few seconds trying to fit their 6-foot-wide car through a 9-foot-wide gap before concluding that this maneuver is sadly impossible. don't be that fucking guy

learn how to parallel park. yes i know it's stereotypically scary but there is a method you can learn and it will save your ass so many times. just line up your car's side mirror with the side mirror of the car in front of the spot you want, cut the wheel all the way towards the curb, move for a bit, stop, cut the wheel all the way the other way, resume, wham bam thank you ma'am

you can ignore like 80% of all "no parking" signs because they all say NO PARKING in huge bold letters and then under that in 8pt font they add "every second Tuesday of every month during lobster season on odd sides of the street only from 7-9pm". or it's "reserved" parking for an event that already happened or hasn't happened yet (they put the effective dates right there on the sign)

turning right on red is technically legal at a state level in MA, but most intersections in Boston will have a cheeky little "no turn on red" sign hidden somewhere as a fun Eye-Spy-type game for kids to play on road trips. if you don't see one of these signs, it's a coinflip whether you just missed it or if you can actually turn right

are you moving into Boston for college? you should definitely rent a moving van for your stuff and then follow your GPS directions that take you down Storrow Drive. nothing bad has ever happened to moving vans on Storrow Drive

[thefatedthoughtofyou]

Eddie and Max get out of the hospital at the same time. Eddie's scars are tender. It hurts to move sometimes. But he's got ointment, and pain pills, he'll be fine.

Max can see, not super well, but it improves a little every week. Her arms are mostly healed, she still has slings for when they ache. Her legs are healed, technically, the bones anyway. But she's got braces and isn't supposed to walk on them yet. She can stand on them for a couple minutes off and on to stretch them. But she goes to physical therapy multiple times a week.

Her mom had been rightly worried and upset and freaked out, because they couldn't afford a van for her wheelchair. And yeah she can get out of her wheelchair if she needs too, but its easier on her body if she can just, roll in and out of a vehicle.

So eddie tells her mom he can drive her around. All they need is a ramp for his van. He already had straps in the back to secure things, they use them on Gareth's drum set. The relief on Max's mothers face and the way she hugs him genlty is... too much. He just smiles and looks away, nodding when she thanks him again.

He drives her to therapy twice and decides that her trailer needs a ramp too. A good one. He can't help lift Max's chair, so he just has to watch Max's mom struggle to get her up the stairs.

So he goes home and starts drawing. He can see it in his head, the way he wants it, bigger than it probably needs to be, but he wants the slope to be low impact, because once her arms get strong enough to move herself, he wants her to able to do that. He just... doesn't know how he's gonna manage to DO all this.

But he goes to the hardware store one day, with Wayne, because Wayne knows things, about everything. And Wayne helps him pick out the wood, they estimate the numbers and then buy a little more, just in case. And they load it up, and drop it by Max's house. And the next day, Wayne goes to work, and so does Eddie.

He ties his hair back, shoves himself into a pair of Wayne's old cover alls, and walks slowly over to Max's, she doesn't have therapy today, or the next two. Eddie doesn't think he can get it done by then, but he's gonna fucking get it started if it kills him. He pops a pain pill into his mouth, takes a swig from the water he'd brought with him, takes a look at the drawing he'd made, and gets to work.

Max rolls onto her small porch steps about an hour into Eddie's work, he's been measuring and cutting and just separating things into piles. She says his name softly and he looks up, squinting, he's covered in sweat. And his body fucking hurts. He wipes at his forehead with his arm and limps over to Max. She's holding out a new glass of water.

"What are you doing?" Her voice is ...tight. Like she knows exactly what he's doing. Eddie chugs the water and hands her back the empty glass.

"What? You don't like suprises?" He huffs, smiles with the tease. She smiles back, her bottom lip trembling slightly. He rests his hand gently on her knee, gives it a squeeze, then heads back to where he was,

"Go inside. I can't keep an eye you when I'm working and if you roll off that teeny tiny porch you're mom'll kill me." She snorts, but does as he says. A few minutes later Eddie hears the door slap shut again, and looks up to see another glass of water sitting on the porch. He shouts a thank you, and keeps working.

It only takes another hour before he almost has a breakdown. His skin hurts, he's hot, his hands are shaking. He's downed three more glasses of water. His last thank you had been so strangled that Max had just looked at him and then disappeared into the house.

He's sitting on the porch steps now, hands shaking in his lap, tears falling down his face. He can't take another pill yet. He's got two hours. He takes a few very deep breathes, about to steel himself and get back to work, his hands are on his knees, about to push himself up, when he hears the car.

He looks up, and Steve's car is parking at his house. His hands fall from his knees. But its not just Steve in the car, Nancy and Robin are there too. All of them in old looking jeans, and ratty looking shirts.

Robin's are covered in paint. Eddie's breathing goes shakey as Steve pats Robin's shoulder and points at Eddie. Robin nods and heads for him, doing a weird little run, Eddie can't help but smile. Steve and Nancy are grabbing things from Steve's trunk, Eddie doesn't see what things, before Robin is filling his vision, dropping to her knees in front of him looking concerned as her hands gently cradle his face.

"Hey you. You okay? Max said you might need some help." Robin breaths it out like a sigh, like she'd been holding in her worry. Eddie bites his lip to stop it from trembling anymore and nods. She nods back with a smile.

"Okay cool. Well, help is here. Help being, Steve and Nancy." She nods to them.

"And I'm gonna sit with you until you're feeling a bit better okay? Then you can jump back in." Steve clears his throat aggressively as he walks past her at that. Robin's face scrunches.

"Maybe." She tells Eddie. Steve was ... was he mad? He wasn't looking at Eddie, just helping Nancy get the tools they'd need out of the box they brought. Eddie had some tools, but just for one person. Robin rubs his knee gently and squishes in next to him on the stairs.

"So you got baby sitting duty?" He asks her, his side pressing into her as almost all the fight to stay upright leaves his body. She's steady beside him, holds him up easily, her hand curling around his bicep for extra support.

"Well, Nancy and Steve thought it was probably best that I don't handle tools. So yeah, but hey, babysitting you's not so bad. I mean you're a GREAT conversationalist." Robin smiles brightly at him, watches him try to smile back and then grimace.

"You okay?" Her voice is concerned now, and that apparently draws Steve's attention. He's at Eddie side in the time it takes for Eddie to nod, his face still scrunched in pain. Steve kneels, looks up at him.

"Where are your pills?" He asks. Eddie shakes his head.

"Hour an a half." Eddie grunts out. Steve's head falls and then it's shaking, he sighs, and fuck, he sounds disappointed. And he's glaring at Eddie when he finally looks back up.

"What the fuck were you thinking? Doing this by yourself, with no one here but Max to help you if you got hurt. Did you think about that?" Steve's voice gets louder as he talks.

"Steve." Robin's voice, a warning.

"No. Robin. This is... you could've gotten hurt Eddie." He huffs it, his voice is full of frustration, and anger. Eddie just stares at the ground, tries to breathe around the lump in his throat.

"I know I fucked up alright? Can we spare the lecture?" He grits, his voice is wobbly. Steve doesn't hear it, just huffs again and stands, Eddie sees his hands hit his hips and braces for whatever he's gonna say next.

"What was Max supposed to do if you got hurt? Huh? She can't help you dude! And Wayne's at work! You're all alone out here, when you shouldn't even be out here in the first place!" Steve is openly yelling now, both Nancy and Robin saying his name as Eddie's shoulders shake. Eddie clears his throat roughly, pushing the tight feeling away so he can speak. He shoves himself to his feet with a wince, pain shooting through his body.

"You think I dont know that? I know how fucking alone I am. Thank you. Steve." His hand clenches at the pain in his side, a whimper rips out of his throat, tears burn his eyes and fall. Steve looks startled, then concerned, reaches out to steady him, Eddie slaps his hand away, hard.

"Don't fuckin touch me." He growls, wipes at his eyes with shakey hands and starts walking to his trailer. His foot hits a dip in the ground and he stumbles, Robin catches him, just enough to keep him on his feet. She lets go immediately as he shrugs her touch off gently, and keeps walking.

"FUCK!" he yells it, to no one really, just built up frustration clawing its way out of him. He stomps, carefully, up his own trailer steps, and lets the door slam shut behind him.

Max's trailer door squeaks open, and the three of them turn to see her looking at Steve.

"That was harsh. I told you to come help him, not fucking yell at him and make it worse." The look in her eyes could cut glass. Steve droops under her scrutiny, his hands moving to cover his face.

"Fuck. I know." He groans. He looks up, and over to Robin.

"What's wrong with me?" He sighs, his head hanging again. Robin gives him a sympathetic smile, walks closer, rubs at his arm.

"You care about him. And you were mad. And when you're upset you get...." she trails off, thinking.

"Bitchy." Nancy supplies, moving to his other side, her hand on his shoulder as he glares at her.

"What? You do. Eddie was trying to do something nice. Something amazing, actually, for Max." Steve glares harder, she holds her finger up, silencening whatever he was about to interupt her with.

"And yes he went about it the wrong way. He obviously should have called for help." Robin chimes in, squeezing his arm.

"But no one said he was a genius. He's just trying to help." Nancy finishes, moving her hand over his shoulder soothingly.

"I know that. But he can't... he can't just help others to point that he hurts himself!" Steve flails a little, both Robin and Nancy leaning away from him, out of his flail range. They share a look though. And Max snorts behind him. He wips around to look at her.

"What? What was that for?" He asks, his tone, to his dismay, bitchy.

"Did you hear what just came out of your mouth? Have you met yourself?" She asks, crossing her arms carefully over her chest. She glares at him until he deflates. He sighs. Squints against the sun as he looks up at the sky.

"I need to go apologize." He says. All three girls nod.

"Yep." Nancy says, pressing her lips together so she doesn't smile.

"Definitely. 100% yeah." Robin squeezes his arm again, gives him an encouraging nod.

"If you don't. I'm throwing myself down these steps and telling my mom you left me unsupervised." Max says, her voice flat. Steve's eyes widen, and then he gives her a look.

"Jesus. Alright. I was already going. No need for threats." He calls the last part over his shoulder as he makes his way to Eddie's trailer. He bounces up the steps gingerly and knocks.

"Come in." Eddie's voice calls. Steve opens the door, the living room is empty. He walks down to Eddie's room and his heart sinks. Eddie has one arm pulled up inside his coveralls, it's bent at an interesting angle, he's sitting in the edge of his bed, his face is wet with tears. He flinches a little when he sees it's Steve standing there and that hurts Steve too. He moves closer, just one step and then Eddie chokes out,

"I'm stuck." And Steve moves fast. He kneels in front of Eddie, trying to look at the situation, his arm is caught in the sleeve, his elbow shoved into it tightly, he moves Eddie's wrist and Eddie flinches again.

"Does it hurt?" He asks, keeping his voice quiet. Eddie nods, bites his lip. The sleeve is pressing hard into Eddie's arm, right where one of his scars is. Steve winces in sympathy.

"How attached are you to these?" He tugs on the front of the coveralls, Eddie looks at him.

"I'm not. They're Wayne's old pair." He says, his voice tight from the pain.

"Okay good." Steve says as he slides his pocket knife out, flicks it open, and cuts the sleeve in one fluid motion. Eddie's arm drops free, another whimper falls out of him at the release.

Steve cradles Eddie's arm, holds it gently as Eddie catches his breath. His fingers squeeze Eddie's wrist and he opens his eyes. Looks at Steve.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you." Steve says, not letting go of Eddie's wrist. Eddie blinks at him. Stares. Then shakes his head.

"Don't be. I fucked up. You were right. I shouldn't have been out there by myself." Eddie frowns, wipes at his wet face. Steve shakes his head then, pushing himself up onto his knees, his back straightening, moving him closer to Eddie's face.

"No. Don't do that. It wasn't your fault. Okay? I shouldn't have yelled. You were trying to help Max. And I just... I didn't wanna find you hurt. Again." Steve looks at Eddie, really looks at him, tries to convey what he means without having to say it. Eddie's eyes are wide, and a little glassy from crying, but Steve sees it, the moment realization hits him.

"Okay. I won't do it again." Eddie nods, moves his wrist in Steve's hand so he can curl his fingers around Steve's wrist.

"Thank you. Just call us. We'll help you. Okay? And Eddie?" Steve swallows, stands and lifts Eddie to his feet, Eddie blinks at him owlishly.

"You're not alone. I'm sorry if we made you feel that way." Steve whispers it, feels his throat burn as Eddie starts crying again. He wipes at his face and shakes his head, looks at Steve with some strange frown smile combo.

"No I know. I just... it's always just been me. And Wayne. Ya know?" He says, holding onto Steve as he sways, dizzy. Steve holds onto him right back.

"Yeah. Well... not anymore." Steve shrugs, smiles, and then tugs Eddie out of his room. They get him another pain pill, Steve rubs some ointment onto the scar on his arm, and then they go back outside.

Nancy is cutting wood while Robin measures and marks. Steve doesn't let go of Eddie's hand until he has him sitting on the porch steps. Max hands him another glass of water.

"You're drinking me out of house and home Munson." She teases, he stares her down as he chugs the water, holds the glass back out to her and wiggles it with a shit eating grin.

"Unbelievable. Sending the girl in the wheelchair to do your errands." She sighs, but smiles when Eddie hops up and gets the door for her, follows her inside to help. He pops back a minute later and hands Steve a peice of paper. It has his plans for the ramp on it.

"This is sort of what I was aiming for." He shrugs, watches Steve look over the paper.

"You did this?" He asks, looking back up at Eddie. Eddie nods, wraps his arms around himself, feeling self-conscious under Steve's gaze.

"What? What's wrong with it?" He asks when Steve says nothing.

"What? Oh no, sorry, nothing's wrong. It's just super detailed." Steve smiles, shakes his head, hands the paper to Robin and Nancy.

"Yeah well, I wanted it done right." Eddie shrugs, Nancy makes a weird moaning sound behind them, both of them look to see her looking down at the paper in her hands, lovingly. She looks back up at Eddie.

"Finally! Someone else detail oriented. I'm making copies of this." She sounds genuine as she waves the paper, smiling at Eddie. He flushes red and moves to sit on the steps again. When his hands stop shaking he helps Robin with the measurements.

She measures, he measures, Nancy and Steve cut.

It takes them two days. But they get it done. The ramp wraps around the side of the trailer, where Max's mom always parks. He bought some plywood as well, to put down on the ground, so Max's wheels wouldn't sink.

The first time she pushes Max down the ramp she nearly cries as she throws herself at Eddie. Hugs him tight and then apologizes when he huffs in pain. Max grabs his hand, looks up at him with her bright blue eyes, and kisses his arm. Just a little peck, smooching the bats on his skin. But he gets it. That's all she needs to do. He knows she's grateful.

Steve shows up at Eddie's trailer the day after they finish the ramp. His eyes are wild and he looks like he's been shoving his hands into his hair for a couple of hours. Eddie gets half way through asking what's wrong and then Steve is kissing him. They almost fall into the trailer with the force of it. Steve catches them, rights them, but doesn't let go of Eddie, just lets out a breathy,

"Sorry sorry." As he keeps them steady. Eddie just smiles dumbly at him. Wayne stands from the couch, clears his throat awkwardly and pats Eddie on the shoulder as he leaves, says,

"Told you them coveralls was lucky boy." He winks as he passes them. Eddie's laughter filling the trailer behind him as Steve's face goes crimson and he drops his head on Eddie's shoulder with a dramatic groan.

[ghost-proofbaby]

FIRST IMPRESSIONS (a barista!eddie x barista!reader au)

summary: eddie faces the perils of being a coffee shop opener, and meets you. you, who's so damn optimistic it should be annoying. you, who makes the job that has given him trouble seem like a cake walk. you, who seemingly bleeds sunshine. god, he should really hate you.

warnings: TWO uses of "y/n", fem!reader (use of she/her pronouns), PHYSICAL descriptors used for reader (she has a nose ring and a septum piercing! that's all), eddie is just a bitter and grumpy idiot.

wc: 5.2k

a/n: i apologize in advance for all the technical 'barista' talk in reference to positions. i tried to elaborate on a few of them, haha. also... yes. i gave reader two nose piercings. it's definitely not even more self-projection psh. (because i have three)

the full menu

Eddie Munson is not a morning person.

So, why, for the life of him, he ended up as an opener, he couldn’t tell you. 

It had been a snowball effect. He got tired of working odd jobs here and there to produce enough cash to slip Wayne for bills, decided the quick change made off of fixing up neighbors’ cars or mowing lawns just wasn’t cutting it for his desired spending habits. He was tired of being so restricted by his misfortune; he was tired of watching Wayne pull long shifts only to continue living paycheck to paycheck. He was tired of his friends like Harrington and Buckley having money from their part time gig at the movie store to freely agree to impromptu late nights at Benny’s or seeing the latest slasher films in the theater as they premiered while he had to deliberate over counting change to see if he even had the funds to join in. He was tired of eyeing that guitar in the mall and constantly telling himself one day. 

Eddie Munson had been tired. But now, as he forced himself awake most mornings before the sun even rose, he was exhausted.

Originally, he’d wanted to be a closer. He didn’t mind being the clean up crew, having to spend late nights in a coffee shop sweeping up grounds and scrubbing away the stickiness of the day. But then the hiring manager that interviewed him had hinted towards the fact that their store already had enough closers when he’d spotted Eddie’s availability, made a few off comments about how what they really needed was a couple brave souls to take over opening shift, and that tiresome cycle rang in Eddie’s ears. Before he even had the chance to think it through, in his desperation, he’d insisted that oh, actually, my availability is completely open. I don’t mind working earlier than that. 

What bullshit. Eddie definitely minded working earlier than that. He more than minded it — he loathed it.

Long story short, it had been a series of unfortunate events that led Eddie to where he was now. In his van, fifteen minutes early, staring out at a parking lot bathed in the lingering night as he fought to keep his eyes open. 

The clock on his dash read 4:46 in a taunting blink, flickering against his bleary eyesight and making him question every decision in his life that had led him here. Adjusting to the new job had been easy enough — his trainer was nice enough, learning how to make drinks and what routines were required in the morning had been meticulous but rewarding — except for the time. It wasn’t just his start time that tortured him vehemently; shifts seem to pass miserably slow, the seconds dragging their feet in no hurry to get anywhere in particular. The clock didn’t care if Eddie yearned for his bed and a few extra hours of sleep gifted by a nap. Traffic didn’t either, when he’d hit the highways and catch just the beginnings or the tail end of the morning rush.

You’d think he’d complain more about the commute. But the gas spent on the twenty minute drive to the town over was the least of his concerns.

“Fuckin’ John,” Eddie mutters when a large truck pulls up to the drive thru, a notable regular he’d begun to recognize after not even a month of working there. They had just recently changed their opening time (they used to open an hour earlier, his manager had informed him. Eddie had nearly burst into grateful tears that he’d never experienced that crime of humanity.) 

None of his coworkers had arrived yet. Most lived closer, able to garner extra snoozes on their alarms and shorter drives of contemplation. Eddie only ever envied them on mornings like today.

“We don’t open for, like, another forty minutes, asshole,” Eddie curses out loud to himself, counting down the time until John gives up and drives away. The man would just circle the store like a vulture anyways. He always did; he always had to be the first customer, grabbing his ridiculous coffee order before scurrying off to play cards at the casino, “How do you come here every fuckin’ day and not know that?” 

It took the older man a full four minutes before he finally roughly shifted his truck back into drive, being the farthest thing from gentle as he hit his gas and jerked his vehicle out of the drive thru line. Eddie couldn’t see him clearly through the stubborn darkness, but he could easily imagine that look of irritation at not receiving the caramel frappucino with a quad shot that he seemed to feel entitled to. 

God, that man was a dick. 

Eddie nearly misses another coworker pulling up to park beside him during the spectacle. 

By this point, he’s learned what cars all his coworkers drive. 

Carmen, the fellow barista who had trained him but he now rarely worked with due to her availability being a bit later in the day, drove a bright red 2012 Kia Soul that had certainly seen better days. Nicole, one of the shift leads he worked with often during his opens, drove a small and silver Nissan Versa. The year is lost on him, but he’s willing to bet it was a few years old at this point. James, another shift lead who went by Jamie and never had much to say, drove a Volkswagen that looked to be straight out of the 70s. And that was just the beginning, the ones he could think of off the top of his head while he was still waking up inside his van. 

The car parked beside him wasn’t any of these. He didn’t recognize it at first glance, and found himself doing a double take as his face scrunched up. 

A Jeep. A two-door Jeep Wrangler with vibrant, chipped yellow paint now sat idle beside him. 

Who the fuck drove a yellow Jeep? 

He can’t even bother to be annoyed or fatigued anymore with the mystery presently before him. He can’t see through the tint of the windows, can’t make out the silhouette of who it was. He was well aware that he hadn’t been acquainted with all of his coworkers quite yet – there was a plethora of baristas in the store he’d only heard spoken of in passing rather than properly meeting – but it had seemed like the people who opened always came from the same rotation of sorry suckers. 

Nicole’s car pulls up. So whoever drove the Jeep was not one of the shift leads. 

Five minutes to 5:00 AM, Nicole’s car door opens first and Eddie can hear the Jeep’s engine kill. He’s quick to fumble with his own keys, pulling them from the ignition in a haste and throwing a hand out to blindly grab his apron from his passenger seat.

A deep shade of green. Everyone had one or two of them laying around, and they were the root of the nickname for all new hires: green beans. He had just finally gotten the one embroidered with his name a little over a week ago, and his manager had apologized profusely as she swore it usually didn’t take that long.

Eddie really didn’t care. The moment he started wearing the apron with his name on it, customers had taken to randomly addressing him by it, and it made him fucking uncomfortable. 

“Rise and shine, campers!” Nicole’s voice echoes through the parking lot the moment all three openers are out of their cars. 

Eddie doesn’t answer at first (which isn’t unusual; Nicole was used to his ever-present sleep-deprivation induced silence). He’s too busy nearly tripping over himself as his eyes stay glued on that Jeep, on the door that swings wide open roughly from two parking spaces away as he waits with bated breath. 

Would this new coworker he was about to meet even like him? 

“God, Nicky,” a new voice groans – a girl’s voice.

Ah, fuck. 

Eddie had noticed the mysterious phenomenon of the way everyone who worked here seemed to be attractive to some extent. Nice on the eyes, always smiling and always flirting in a friendly manner to garner more tips. He’d had plenty of bisexual panics in the bathroom anytime one of his coworkers extended that friendly flirtation his way. All the fellow guys (as few as there were) and all the confident girls he’d been in the trenches with – it didn’t matter, they all affected him. 

Hawkins didn’t have nearly as many pretty people. Eddie sort of felt cheated for having lived a mere twenty minutes from a goldmine of such people for so long, completely unaware. But he also felt sort of relieved, knowing that if he were still a teenager barely scraping by in high school, this coffee shop would have been his downfall with awkward stumbles and feelings caught from all those faux smiles and joking winks that his now coworkers laid on heavy with their regulars. 

With this in mind, he doesn’t know why he wasn’t prepared for when you stepped out of the Jeep. Slamming the door shut behind you, your arms were full with an apron that was definitely not green, along with an oversized water bottle and what he thinks is either a cardigan or jacket. A tote bag slung over your shoulder looked to be stuffed full as well. You were a walking cliche for the type of person that people would expect to work at a coffee shop. The type of person that embodied all those jokes of if an alternative person isn’t making my coffee, it’s not going to taste good. 

Eddie should know; he’d been the butt of many of those style of jokes given that he also fit into that category. With his long hair, with his sparse tattoos, with his new nose ring – he knew he was as much of a cliche as you were. 

Didn’t stop him from staring at you, suddenly wide awake. 

“Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine?” Nicole jokes as she rounds the front of your Jeep, stopping and looking between you and Eddie before she says to you, “You’d think after a month’s vacation you’d be happier to see me.” 

You take two steps forward, lining up right between Eddie and Nicole, and suddenly contort your face to be such an over-exaggerated smile that it’s nearly a grimace. Eddie is so caught up in the scrunch of your nose, he nearly misses the way you grit out a sarcastic “Better?” from between your teeth. 

“Oh, that’s the winner,” Nicole cackles, keys jangling as she shakes them and leads the two of you towards the front of the store. Over her shoulder, she continues to joke, “Keep on smiling like that, and I sense a twenty dollar tip in our future.” 

Eddie still hasn’t said a word. What is he supposed to say? All he can do is trail slightly behind you, doing everything in his power to not let his eyes roam over your legs or backside. You were just wearing black jeans, in line with the same dress-code everyone else followed, but they were doing you favors. 

“Y’know, I think I already saw John’s truck this morning,” your voice was surprisingly pleasant despite the insinuation Nicole had made that your first impression should be grumpy. Far less gritty than Eddie’s would have been had he spoken up, “Think I can sweet talk that out of him? Maybe I’ll ask about his wife. Or- Oh!” you exclaim, bursting with sudden energy that should give Eddie a headache this early, “Put me on bar! I’ll douse his drink in caramel how he likes, that’s sure to tug on his wallet- Sorry, I mean heart-strings.” 

Nicole continues to laugh as she fumbles with unlocking the door, and it’s not lost on Eddie that he has never made any of the fellow baristas laugh like that. Although, to be fair, he has never been quite as enthusiastic as you. He didn’t seemingly bleed sunshine like you. Here the three of you were, outside in the dusky beginnings of a morning, and he could have sworn that the sun had already risen from the light that seemed to emit from you. 

It should have made him nauseated. It kind of did, actually. 

You turn suddenly, just as Nicole finally turns the lock, and face him. Your smile is subtle, eyes so wide he wouldn’t notice the bags even if you had any. “I’m Y/N, by the way.” 

You stick your hand out and he can see you sticky with it – with hopefulness, with friendliness, with kindness. His stomach churns. 

Nope. Not a chance. 

The moment Nicole opens the door, he’s barely muttering his name back to you, and is rushing past you to enter the store. His shoulder brushes against yours, and he has to tell himself repeatedly he did not just shoulder-check you. He has to tell himself that it’s okay he didn’t meet your level of enthusiasm. He has to tell himself that you’re just another barista, someone else who makes coffee for a living and that this new energy you bring is just due to that vacation that Nicole mentioned. 

It’ll fade. He’ll be fine. At some point, his stomach has to stop churning. 

—

It doesn’t. 

Your energy doesn’t falter, to his surprise. Not only are you sunshine personified, but you’re also damn good at your job. Eddie can only imagine how sluggish he’d be if he had a month off from anything, especially a job, but it doesn’t even seem as though you have to dust any of your skills off for the day. 

You offer to take over opening up the ‘drive thru��� aspect of the store, brewing all the coffees and teas without complaint as Eddie lingers in his misery of shuffling through the tasks of opening up the food portion of the store. As he’s sorting the croissants to be replenished, implementing the technique of FIFO (first in, first out), he can hear Nicole still cackling at whatever you’re saying in the back of the house as you clean the syrup pumps. When he’s labeling all the new breakfast sandwiches for the day with their best-by dates, he can hear you humming a few feet away from him over the clicking of the sticker gun in his hand. And when the clock finally reads 5:30 to signify the time of opening, you’re putting on your apron, tying it around yourself more securely than Eddie always lazily did. Even your black apron seemed to fit on you better than his did, as if you were more made for this job than he was. As if you had years of experience to carry on your shoulders, and God, were you carrying them with grace. Constantly smiling, constantly joking. He’d once thought Nicole incapable of even breaking a grin, but he’d hardly gone longer than a minute without hearing her laugh during the time of your opening together. 

God, he sort of hated you. 

You never even mentioned how rudely he’d shrugged off your introduction. Occasionally, he’d even caught you looking his way during the conversation, a soft expression on your face as if you were ready to include him in all the inside jokes at a moment’s notice. 

He made sure to consistently stare straight ahead, never once seeming to glance your way when you wore that expression. 

You were just too nice. You were putting all the other openers to shame right before his eyes, himself included, and he hated you for it. 

Once the store is open, John is the first customer in drive, as always. Eddie wears the headset (the one you’d grabbed for him, sanitizing it and slotting a freshly charged battery in without him even asking. God, he hated you.) and listens in to you greeting the awful bastard, and his stomach does another flip. 

“Good morning, John,” you chirp happily. He couldn’t see your face from around the corner, but he could only imagine that you were wearing a smile. Maybe you even had that damn camera on so that the customers could see you just as you could see them. 

He waits. Anxious to hear John’s grumpy reply, be reassured when someone else also didn’t match your energy. The man had never been pleasant a single day that Eddie had worked thus far. Simply barking out his order, acting offended when someone didn’t recognize him. 

If anyone was going to be cruel to you, Eddie would bet all five dollars in his pocket that it would be John. 

But even John wasn’t fucking mean to you. 

He had replied in the most cheerful tone Eddie had ever heard leave the man’s throat.

“And who am I speaking to?” he almost sounds teasing. It fans at Eddie’s irrational irritability. 

“I’ll give you three guesses.” 

He hates the way your customer service voice was so similar to just your normal voice. A bit squeakier, a bit more polite, but still bottled sunshine. He hates how nicely it caressed his eardrum as compared to the grate of some of the other barista’s tones while on drive thru. He hates that some deep part of him secretly hoped that Nicole stationed you there your entire shift, and that if she did, he would fight tooth and nail to keep this damn headset on. Just to hear your voice. Just to hear your light.

“Only three?” John’s gruff voice scoffs, “There’s only one person who works here who is this damn cheery before eight in the morning.” 

Nicole laughs from where she’s bent over to put down a few of the sanitizer buckets by the bars, shaking her head as she also listens in over her headset. 

“I’m making it easy on you, then,” you say as you suddenly come into view for Eddie. He’s trying to replenish the sandwiches and protein boxes that the store keeps on display for the customer by the register, still working through his morning tasks as he realizes you’ve completed yours.

Man, he fucking hated you. 

You don’t miss a beat as you begin to tap one of the espresso machines awake, punching all the right buttons to pull John’s espresso shot before you turn to make your way towards the cold beverage station. “You still drinking the same thing, old man?” 

“I’m not old.”

“Right, and I’m not already over-caffeinated,” that’s a lie. He hasn’t seen you touch a drop of coffee this entire time, “Just pull on up. It’s a billion dollars, or whatever your total normally is.” 

John’s cackle is cut off by him pulling away from the speaker box, effectively disconnecting the two way mic. Even Eddie finds himself nearly grinning at your reply, but he stops himself. Because you’re annoying. Because no one should be this witty this early. Because the ability to make others laugh this often should be a cardinal sin. 

He stops the grin because he hates you… right?

You do manage to get a tip out of John. Eddie sees it with his own two eyes. It’s a quick deposit of whatever spare change the stingiest man Eddie had ever had the displeasure of meeting has lying around his car, and it happens so quickly while you’re leant out the window to pass the man his receipt that he always requests that Eddie almost convinces himself it didn’t happen. But it did. He saw it with his own two eyes, as he tripped over his two left feet, effectively nearly knocking Nicole over with him. 

The look she gives him makes his stomach twist this time as his heart lurches. It’s a knowing look. It’s despicable. 

She doesn’t say a word until later into the shift, once more baristas are scattered across the floor and peak is in full swing. Eddie isn’t kept on food, and you aren’t kept to manage taking orders or run the window – he’s the one reassigned to the window position as you are moved to the cafe bar. He’s tasked with quick connections before handing out drinks to bored business people, as you fly through making drinks for both mobile orders and any customers that choose to physically walk into the store. 

Nicole puts herself on the position of ‘DTO’ – she greets the drive thru customers over the headset and takes their orders, her tone not nearly as honey-sweet as yours had been. She’s lacking in jokes, she sticks to a script that must have taken her years to make sound even remotely natural. 

Eddie’s just grateful he doesn’t have to wear a headset and listen to her directly in his ear. 

Rush has died down when she turns to him and cocks a brow with her hip. He has the window shut, fiddling with his thumbs as he anxiously awaits for the partner on drive bar to finish making the iced white mocha for the customer currently sitting on their phone. He’s sure the look she shoots his way is in regards to the fact that he isn’t ‘connecting with the customer’ or putting himself through insufferable small talk. 

It isn’t.

“Do you not like her?” 

His head shoots up, fully meeting her curious gaze, “Excuse me?”

“Y/N,” she clarifies, “Do you… not like her?” 

“I don’t know her,” he weakly defends himself.

He had been a dick to you this morning, hadn’t he? What a weak defense for being a bad person to someone who makes this entire store glow simply by being here. 

“You should give her a chance,” Nicole speaks softly as she leans back on the counter that holds the order screens, “I… She can be a lot, but she’s one of our best. Think of her as the people’s princess, so to speak.” 

He knows you’re one of the best here, just in the short few hours he’s caught glimpses of you. He has no idea how you’re so quick with making drinks, or how you manage to hold such genuine sounding conversations with all of the customers who stand right at the hand off plane. He just gets irritable when they stare at him with prying eyes as he tries (and fails) to keep up his pace. 

“I… I can see it,” he nods, bringing a hand up to pinch his bottom lip, “I mean, John clearly loves her.” 

Nicole gives a pointed look, “He does. She doesn’t take his shit – him and his wife bring her gifts for every holiday. They know her damn birthday and bring her cards. It’s insufferable.” 

He cracks a shy smile at that, “They bring her birthday cards?”

“They bring her birthday cards,” she echoes back to him. Eddie finally receives the drink he was waiting on and turns, quick to hand it out with a soft mutterance of ‘have a good day’. Once he’s finished and the drive thru is officially empty, he faces her once more, “You don’t have to like her as much as everyone else. I know you’re still new and adjusting but… she’s one of the best for a reason.” 

“Because she can turn out drinks like it’s no one’s business?” Eddie questions, side stepping and lifting his chin in your direction as you finish yet another drink, as if to prove his point. 

“That,” Nicole shrugs her shoulders and pushes off the counter, “And because she actually gives a damn.” Eddie’s brows shoot up as he waits for her to continue, “She knows these customers, man. Learns about their lives, hears them out. Remembers the small things. She’s the same way with all of us, too. She once got turned down from being a shift lead because she’s too nice. Have you ever heard of someone being shot down from a job for that?” Nicole pauses, and Eddie can only shake his head, feeling the ends of his ponytail brush the back of his neck, “She has the management experience – she knows how to run this place. Sometimes, I see it. The way she steps up and takes responsibility. She chooses to be that kind even if it makes her seem like a nut job. She chooses to let people hear walk all over her, because she cares. She cares more about treating us as humans or whatever than she does an upgrade in pay.”

“Makes sense they wouldn’t make her a shift, then,” Eddie dares to say, which earns him a sharp look, “I mean, management positions aren’t for the weak of heart. You have to make tough decision-”

“Once, a man was harassing one of our baristas. This dude who was married. Came in like clockwork and picked up a mobile order under his wife’s name, wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept flirting with one of our poor girls. I’ve never really been afraid of her, but I was every time that man stepped foot in here,” Nicole grabs a rag and starts to wipe down the counters with a low whistle, as if she isn’t spilling serious store lore right now to Eddie. As if she isn’t bringing on more questions than answers, “She’s not weak of heart. She’s good of heart. And if she hadn’t been on vacation, she would have been your trainer. You don’t have to like her, like I said, but it would do you well to give her a chance.” 

Trainer? 

Carmen had mentioned something about another barista being the usual trainer. She had even tried to joke around with Eddie that he would have liked the other girl better, something about how she was funnier and easier to get along with. 

You. You were the girl she’d been talking about. The people’s princess, as Nicole had put it. 

Eddie opens his mouth to say something in reply, although he isn’t quite sure what he can say. 

God, he had been a fucking dick. And Nicole was matching sure he felt all seven levels of Hell, of guilt, for it. 

It ate him alive for the rest of his shift. His stomach churned with it. All that guilt gnawed on him from the inside out, using his bones for toothpicks, and he already knew what he needed to do without Nicole saying it.

—

“Did that hurt?”

The two of you got off your shifts at the same time, as most openers do. At ten o’clock precisely, Nicole was shooing the two of you off the floor, two fresh baristas taking both your places as you scurried to the back. 

He’d overheard the joke made ten minutes prior, Nicole speaking to a fellow shift lead about who would be replacing you, already mourning your absence. She didn’t make such a joke about Eddie.

“Huh?” you look up quickly from where you had been carefully rolling and folding your apron into a bundle. 

Eddie gestures vaguely to his nose again, repeating himself, “Did it hurt?” 

It was the best he could do – pathetic small talk about the nose piercings of yours that had caught his eye. 

You grin radiantly, and he tries to swallow down that instinctive voice that whisper hate, hate, hate. “Which one?”

Right. You had multiple nose piercings. A hoop that matches Eddie’s own, only on the left nostril rather than the right like his, and that septum piercing. He’d probably look dumb to ask about the nostril considering he had his done, and should already know that it definitely doesn’t feel nice. 

“The septum,” he clarifies, “That combination, though, um… It looks sick.” 

Oh, he sounds so fucking stupid right now. He wishes the sticky floors beneath the two of you would split and swallow him whole. 

“Eh,” you shrug, finally glancing away from him to finish wrapping the strings of your apron snugly around the bundle you’d made of it, “My nostril honestly hurt worse. If you’re thinking of getting one,” you pause, and look up, offering him a look of pure mischief. Heart, stomach, mind. They all lurch with that look as you whisper, as if letting him in on a secret, “Do it.”

“I don’t think I could pull it off,” he’s quick to blurt out, eyes widening, resisting the urge to take several steps back and put distance between you two. 

Fuck, he didn’t hate you. It hits him like a truck – this shift had managed to slip through his fingers so quickly. The fastest one to date. Between all of your jokes, all of the laughter you managed to pull out of others and that he had to fight down, the day had flown past as easily as a shift really could. 

He regrets spending the shift moping. He regrets ignoring your introduction. He regrets not giving you a chance. 

“I think you could,” your tote bag now hangs from your shoulder, and you have your keys prepared in one hand as you hold your water bottle in the other, “Everyone says that, but if you can already pull off the nostril, adding a little septum to the mix never hurt nobody.” 

Is your face stuck like that? Stuck with a subtle and shy smile pulling at the lips, making the corners of your eyes crinkle in the slightest? 

He hopes not. If it is, he’ll never be able to have a normal conversation with you. He’ll always be too distracted, too infuriated, too overwhelmed. 

“You’re a very optimistic person,” he almost lets it slip out as a scoff, but refrains, Nicole’s words echoing in his mind. It would do you well to give her a chance.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” you casually say to him. 

“Did you just quote Star Wars to me?” 

Eddie is aghast, staring at you with even more awe than before. And you – oh, you look so goddamn proud of yourself and the way you’ve left him shellshocked, smugly lifting your chin and smiling more intentionally. You’re smiling so widely that your eyes pinch nearly fully shut and even more of that sunshine is now flooding the backroom up to Eddie’s knees.

“I don’t know,” you start to step around Eddie, carrying an air of arrogance that would only be so endearing from someone who had been proven to be as kind as you were, “Did I?”

You never give him the chance to answer. You leave him there, standing in the middle of the back of house and not even clocked out yet as you walk away with a bounce in your step and a quick have a good day, Eddie! over your shoulder.

When he’s finally off the clock and having given a half-ass goodbye to everyone on the floor (which no one replied to as enthusiastically as they had yours, by the way), you’re still sitting in your damn yellow Jeep. You give him a slight wave through the windshield as he makes a beeline for his van, and he doesn’t even bother to return it. Pretends he doesn’t see it. Looks straight ahead. If Nicole is watching from the drive thru window that serves as a front row seat to the entire interaction, she’s going to rip him a new one next shift they work together. 

God, Eddie wishes he hated you. 

Instead, he’s left hoping that next time he opens, you’re there to make the time fly. Maybe he’ll be the one quoting Star Wars to you. If he can ever get the stick out of his ass, that is.

taglist: @josephquinnsfreckles

(tag list is open - if you'd like to be added, let me know!)

[sam24]

Minivans And Pawnshops

Summary: You were out on a mission for a week, and when Tony, your self-appointed overprotective bodyguard, notices your Greek god of a boyfriend acting weird, he makes it his personal duty to figure out why. By asking Steve what was going on? Hell no. By slipping a Stark Tracker on him and shoving 11 people into an 8-seater Honda Odyssey to follow him.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x fem!reader

*****

“Take a left.” Friday’s monotone voice rang out.

“Take a left here, Happy,” Tony instructed, looking up from the Stark Map on his phone.

Happy rolled his eyes, mumbling something along the lines of I know, the robot already told me.

“This isn’t necessary, Tony,” You repeated for about the hundredth time. “Steve is not cheating on me.”

“My evidence says otherwise,” Tony urged Happy to drive faster, earning a grumble from the latter. “He’s acting very suspicious, always going out and coming back late every time.”

“Actually, I can vouch for Tony on that one,” Clint adds from his squished place in the last row of the mini-van, practically sitting in an annoyed Natasha’s lap. “He’s been acting pretty weird.”

“Doesn’t automatically mean that he’s cheating,” You defended. “He probably has other reasons.”

“Fine. Cheating or fight club. Which would you prefer?” Tony cocked his head at you, and you shoved it back.

“If he is bedding another woman, I will make sure he cannot bed any woman ever again!” Thor declared loudly into your ear, Wanda also wincing on the other side of him.

“You mean cut his dick off?” Sam piped in from the back, who was purposefully shoving into Bucky with every turn the car made.

“Um, indeed. I think so,” Thor shrugged. “I am not sure what I meant either.”

“Uh Mister Stark?” Peter turns around from the passenger seat that he was sharing with a very uncomfortable Bruce. “Did you really have to bring all of us? I have a lot of math homework to finish.”

Tony waved him off. “I have like 30 assistants back at the tower, kid. Someone will do it for you. Plus, all of us have to catch Rogers in the act and publicly shame him.”

You turned back to Tony, remembering what you both were initially arguing about after the ringing in your ear settled down. “You didn’t have to sneak a damn tracking device on him! You could have just asked what he was doing like a normal person.”

“Fuck being normal. At least be grateful that I waited for you until you came back from your mission to catch him red handed.” Tony smirked. “Or should I say cum handed.”

Everyone gagged.

“Actually, I don’t think that’s how it works,” Vision frowned, basically underneath Wanda. “The semen technically would not be in the Captain’s hand, unless-”

“Vis, honey.” Wanda just shook her head.

“Plus, I already asked Cyborg over here.” Tony pointed to the back at Bucky, who was still glaring at Sam. “He went uhh, I don’t know and ran away,” Tony said in his best dumb jock voice.

“Nothing is going on, Tony.” Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Just turn the car around.”

“I agree with Barnes.” Natasha kicked Tony’s seat from the third row. “Turn around, Happy.”

Bucky looked past Sam and Clint, who were hitting each other’s knees with their own. “Steve told you too?” He asked in Russian with a raised eyebrow.

Natasha shook her head with a smirk. “No. I’m just smart like that.”

“Too late, buddy,” Tony ignored their secret conversation, flashing a fake smile over his shoulder. “Like the great John B once said, ‘We didn’t come this far to get this far’.”

Peter whipped around once again, his eyes lighting up at the quote. “Mister Stark, I’m really glad that you’re watching my TV show recommendations, but I’m pretty sure someone else said it before he did-”

“Happy, take another left here.” Tony called out, mimicking the AI who just said it seconds before.

You rolled your eyes, the red dot in the center of Brooklyn on the phone screen catching your attention. You had no reason to doubt Steve’s loyalty toward your relationship. He loved you and you loved him and you knew that he would never do anything to hurt you. But, you were curious as to why Steve was apparently acting weird while you were gone, and what the hell he was doing in Brooklyn.

“Trust me, Tone. He’s not cheating. I’ll just ask him when he comes back, it’s probably just some stuff he has to take care of.”

“C’mon guys,” Bucky pressed. “Let’s turn around. I need to pee or something.”

“Hm, sounds like you're in denial.” Tony said to you, ignoring Bucky once again. “Don’t worry, the next step will be coming soon. Anger,” Tony announced with a grin like it was some kind of flashy news headline.

“Tony, why the hell does it sound like you want my boyfriend to be cheating on me.”

“Aw come on, it’s not like that,” Tony gestured at Happy to take a right. “I’m just looking out for you.”

You rolled your eyes once again, rubbing your wrist, remembering the death grip Tony had on you earlier as he dragged you into the light blue Honda Odyssey packed tight of Avengers in the back of his garage. He was saving it for his future family, he had claimed when you asked why Tony Stark of all people owned a minivan.

“Stop!” Tony yelled, and Happy quickly stepped on the brake, sending everyone flying forward. You heard Bruce and Peter groaning in the front. “This is it. The big reveal,” he announced.

You immediately scooted ever closer to Tony as he pressed his forehead to the window.

“He’s having an affair with . . .” Tony paused with a frown, his sunglasses sliding down the slope of his nose. “The owner of Vintage Pawn Shop?”

Pawn shop? Didn't Steve say something about a pawn shop a while back?

Identical confused eyebrow furrows made their way onto everyone’s faces, except Bucky’s and Natasha’s, as you spotted your unmistakable 6 foot 2 super soldier through the glass littered with fingerprints.

He was describing something to the old lady working in the store, looking hopeful and tired, like he had been searching for it for days. She nodded and raised her finger in a one minute, honey type of way and started rummaging through some things behind the counter. She pulled out a small box from somewhere, opening it and gently placing it in front of Steve.

You squinted your eyes, accidentally shoving Tony’s head into the window of the car as you craned your neck closer, trying to read the woman’s lips.

She said something along the lines of This might be what you’re looking for, sweetie, and Steve’s eyes lit up, a clear wave of nostalgia crashing over him. With gentle calloused fingers, he lifted a ring out of the box, admiring it with a soft smile.

“Friday,” Tony called out, face still squished between you and the car window. “Connect to the store’s CCTV.”

Before you could ask since when the hell Friday could do that, the Stark Map with a You have arrived at your destination adorned on its screen quickly was replaced with the live footage from the store’s cameras.

“Did this belong to someone that you knew, honey?” The old woman’s kind voice grainily made its way through the speaker of Tony’s phone as she noticed Steve’s eyes glistening with tears.

Everyone tried to move closer to the phone for Steve’s reply in the overcrowded car. “Ow!” You heard Clint yell, probably at Sam. “That was my foot, dumbass!” He was immediately shushed.

“Yeah.” Steve nodded, still smiling at the ring. “My ma’s.”

Multiple gasps were heard throughout the car, Happy’s being the loudest.

A weeks old, sleepy memory that was buried deep into your brain immediately flooded back.

You and Steve were wrapped around each other, your ear pressed to his heart, slowly lulling you to sleep with a familiar beat.

“Y’know, you remind me of my ma.” Steve randomly declared against your hair, and you peered up at him to meet the soft currents in his eyes. “Beautiful. Kind. Doesn’t take shit from anyone.”

He pressed a kiss to your lips as you smiled, cupping your face to pull back and look at you. He stared lovingly at you for a while, settling into a comfortable silence.

“Everything okay?” You turned your head to kiss his palm. The last time he had looked at you for this long without talking, it was right before he burst into tears after you had almost died on a mission.

“Yeah, sweetheart. Just thinking.” He pulled you back into his chest, placing another kiss on your forehead. “She would’ve loved you.”

After a little bit of silence, he spoke again. “Her ring was beautiful.”

“Oh?” You hummed.

“Yeah.” He nuzzled his nose into your cheek, a slight Brooklyn accent slipping through as he talked slowly, his words laced with sleep. “Don’t know where it is, but I wanna find it for you. I’ll look through every pawn shop in the state. And when I find it I’ll propose when the time’s right under the stars and you’ll say yes because you’re just like my ma, and Ma loved me more than anything in the world.”

If Steve had brought up the topic of marrying you during the day when you were wide-awake, you probably would have had a stroke of happiness.

But right now, it was night.

It was night and you were half-asleep, wrapped up in Steve’s warm arms, feeling more at peace there than you ever had anywhere else.

Nothing but peace.

So you just drowsily grinned into his bare chest, your hand snaking up to rest on his cheek. “She loved you more than anything in the world, huh?” You repeated. “Well then I guess your Ma and I are pretty similar.”

You looked up from the screen and back at the window, staring at the ring in Steve’s hand with wide eyes. The sunlight bounced off of it and the jewel sparkled in the light with an elegant touch. Steve was right- it was absolutely gorgeous.

A smile crept onto your face, matching the one on Steve’s.

“Why the hell are you smiling?” Tony’s voice interrupted your daze. “He’s gonna propose to the side chick!”

[nep33ts]

okay so making a donation post makes me genuinely anxious as hell but i've been told by many friends that i should, so here we go i guess??? long story short, i've been sleeping on the floor of my formerly abusive mother's office, and while that worked for a while, it seems like shit might break down because she wants my grandmother to move in, which will be a shitshow if it happens because she's horrifically a homophobic, transphobic, racist gusano. i don't think i'll *die* if i don't get help, but my stress levels are already kinda high as hell. i got a van for me to live out of if it gets too bad, but it needs front end work before i can even really drive it at all, and i got the money for that from borrowing from family, who want me to pay back $800 per month (which i think i can technically swing??? it'll just be really close and i'm probably going to have to sell some of my possessions) If you can help, i'd greatly appreciate it

[bitchyfoxymama]

Saviors - Sinclair Brothers x F!Reader

Warnings: abuse but not from the Sinclairs, murder, language used against reader, Bo being out of character. Fluff, let me know if I missed anything.

A/n: this is possibly the second longest one-shot I've ever written besides petals and bullets. I hope you all like this one.

...

You, your two friends, well they were technically your boyfriend's friends and said boyfriend had decided that driving from California to Florida to go to Disney world would be cheaper and way more fun than flying. What a dumb idea that was. Your clock read just after midnight and you've made it just forty miles out of Baton Rouge when your back left tire blew on your Volkswagen minibus. 

"Fuck," you moan out as you gently pull to the side of the empty road.

"What? What happened?" The sudden jolt from the blow tire woke everyone including your easily irritated boyfriend, Ben. 

"I think we blew a tire so I pulled over," you say un buckling your seat belt just as you turned the key in the ignition. You open your door, the Louisiana air is sticky and wet. Of all the places to break down it had to be here. 

You stop next to your back left tire and inspect it, a rusted nail sticks out of the tire as it slowly deflates. You begin mumbling swears as you open the back of the minibus searching for the spare you are more the positive you replaced when the front tire blew six months ago. 

"Fucking damnit!" You place both hands in your hair giving a frustrated tug. 

 had already gotten out at this point and was standing next to you, his voice making you jump. 

"I asked you if you had put the spare back in, god do you always have to be so stupid!" He slams his fist against the side of the minibus. 

His anger makes you feel small, if there hadn't been people in the bus he would have punched you instead of the bus. 

"I-I could have sworn I put it in," you say barely above a whisper. 

"Yeah? You thought? Well you didn't and now we're stuck out here in bumfuck Louisiana!" 

"Hey, what's going on?" Rebecca rubs the sleep out of her eyes. 

"Y/n forgot to replace the spare tire and now we're stranded here til morning when another person probably comes down this road." 

You look down ashamed, reaching out to grab the camping gear and flashlight. You head off the road and just want to set up camp and sleep. You've been the only one driving for the last couple of days. 

"Come on let's just set up camp so we can all sleep and hopefully get help in the morning. 0 on, let's find level ground." You don't want to make Ben any madder than he already is. 

Everyone gets out of the van and follows behind you with sleeping bags and backpacks, in case someone stumbled upon the bus and decided to have some sticky fingers. 

Once you're all settled, you finally turn in for bed. Ben, still angry and annoyed, decided to sleep next to Rebecca and her boyfriend, leaving you alone near a tree stump. You let the tears flow freely from your tears. None of you noticed the truck slowly driving past with their lights off or the man that got out and took the spark plugs.

…

When the sun begins to rise you peek your eyes open and see everyone has already begun packing up camp, it seems they forgot to wake you. It's silent. Not the friendly enjoyable silence, no this silence is awkward, as thick as the Louisiana humidity. 

You walk back to the minibus, packing everything up as they all wait for a car as they lean up against the bus. Maxwell, Rebecca's boyfriend, opens the side of the bus to sit half inside and half out. 

You decide to turn the keys in the ignition to at least getting the inside of the bus cool. But to your surprise the ignition does turn over. 

"What the fuck is wrong now," you groan getting back out of the car and popping the hood, "where the fuck are the spark plugs?!" 

You slam the hood shut and walk over towards the trio standing outside the bus. 

"Who took the spark plugs out of the bus?" 

"What are you talking about?" Ben asks giving you an annoyed look. 

"The sparks are missing, did you guys hear anything last night?" You ask again looking around the three of them. 

However just before you can get your answer a truck comes round the bend. It's an old beat up pick up. The driver slows and stops just before you guys. 

"Well howdy there? Whatch y'all doing out here so early in the mornin'?" He's a scrawny man with a cute dog in the bed and you think that makes him all the more attractive too you. 

"Oh well we-" you're cut off by Ben. 

"Well my girlfriend here, she blew a tire and seemed to forget to get a new one. She also says she's missing her sparks but you know how women are with cars," he says roughly slamming his arm over your shoulder, making you flinch. The stranger's eyes flickered to you softening for just a moment before going back to a stoic look and staring at Ben. 

"I see well, I can take you to Ambrose, it's just 12 miles up the road, my brother owns a mechanic shop and he should be able ta help yall with yours problem. Only this is I only got room for two of ya's," he says rubbing his chin. 

"Why doesn't Y/n go? It is her car after all," Rebecca says looking at you. 

"I'll go too right babe? Can't have you going alone," Ben says, squeezing your shoulder painfully, you have to bite your lip from crying out. 

And so you and Ben pile into who you all found out to be Lester Sinclair. He was the youngest of three. 

"So where y'all from anyway? Don't seem like locals round these here parts," 

"Oh well-" 

"Were from California, driving cross country this summer to go and see disney world" 

You stay quiet now and just look down at your lap. You don't feel like getting Ben angry once again.

Lester looks at you from the corner of his eyes. Planning on ways to make your boyfriend shut up and let you speak for once. He had this overwhelming sense to protect you. Don't go thinking that healing black eye and the way you flinch any time that no good asshole would touch you. 

that. But why did yall choose to drive and not fly? Seems like you'd saved some time flying?" 

"Yeah well it seemed fun at the time until this one had to go and get the tire popped" Ben says annoyed. 

"Well shit, I forgot the roads flooded. We may have to go the long way." Lester says stopping in front of the road that leads into Ambrose. 

"Oh that's OK! We can walk from here, that way you don't have to worry about going an extra way," you say, smiling up at him with a genuine smile. He smiles back at you but doesn't miss the scowl on your boyfriend's face.

You wave at Lester after you've both exited the truck, you give jonesy a rub behind her ears and head over to the little step stones that have taken place in the washed out road.

"Come on, the faster we get into town the quicker we can get the shit we need and on the road again," Ben said, grabbing your arm and pulling you hard. He drags you all the way to the mechanics shop. He knocks on the front door. 

"Hello! We were told you were open and could help us!" Ben yells. 

…

Unbeknownst to the two of you, Bo was on the back roads talking with Lester. 

"She needs our help, he doesn't treat her right neither. She's got a healing black eye and every time he touched her she flinches, and you should've seen her, she's finer than frogs' hair split four ways," 

"Hmm, and you say she's got two other with 'er? Well bring them back to Vin and he can take care of them while I go and help our visitors. You grab them sparks and hide them in the house, right?" 

Lester shakes his head headed back into his truck to get Rebecca and her boyfriend. 

…

Back at the shop, Ben was getting impatient and you were bored. 

"I'm gonna go explore, since I'm just a woman and wouldn't know anything about cars right?" 

"You don't have to be such a bitch you know," he huffs. 

"Well you are such an asshole, after this all over and we're in Florida, I'm going to drop you all off and head home, beauce this," you say pointing between yourself and him, "is over. For good this time." 

He back hands you hard enough to draw blood from your lip that his fist made contact with.

"Fuck you Ben!" You screech, "find your own ways to Florida you fuckwad" you walk away up towards the house of wax wanting to clear your mind and maybe have a good cry. 

You are amazed when you make it up the hill to the beautiful building, only realizing as you got to the front that the architecture was made entirely of wax. You gently pushed open the door and stepped inside, giving  yourself your own guided tour of the house. 

Everything was beautiful and the little intimate details intrigued you. 

"These look so life like, the artist must have such magical hands," you say in a hushed voice as though you were in an art museum and let's be honest here you really were. 

Hiding in the shadows, watching you as you gushed on and on about his art work was Vincent Sinlair, the middle son of the Sinclair brothers and the artist behind the house of wax. 

His eye stared at you as though you were a beautiful piece of art that needed to be taken care of and looked after. He silently followed you around like a lost puppy. 

Once you finished admiring the art work and decided enough time had passed and Ben more than likely got the parts needed to get back on the road. You walk towards the exit when the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. You peak over your shoulder and you are more than certain you saw a flash of long raven hair. 

…

Back at the mechanic shop just after you had left Bo's voice was heard booming from inside.

"Hold your fuckin' horses, I could hear you banging like all hell!" He opens the door with a scowl on his face, Bo hopes to see you there as well. With the way Lester was talking you up he was excited to see the beauty that was you. But alas you were there, only you annoyed looking boyfriend. 

"Whatchu need?" Bo asks, folding his arms over his chest. 

"My girlfriend's minibus has a popped tire and missing sparks. We need them as soon as you can give them to us. And I can make the pot sweeter," Ben says, pulling out a $100 from his wallet. You see Ben, Rebecca and Maxwell were silver spoon babies, you were lower middle class. 

"Well I'll be damned. As much as I'd like to take you up on your offer, I'll have to check in our basement to see if we have them. Why don't you come with and we can work out the price," Bo says, making room for Ben to come in through the door. Ben walks in further into the shop not paying any attention to where Bo had moved. Rookie mistake. Bo hits him over the head and Ben is out cold. 

When Ben wakes he is secured to an old barber chair under a grate in what he assumed to be the mechanic shop. He's gagged and wiggling trying to escape. He's screaming but nothing comes out. 

…..

When you make it to the mechanic shop, you try the door and are happy to see it's finally open. 

"Hello! Is anyone here? Ben! Where are you, you still here?" You ask out walking around, fingerings all the different products on the walls. 

"Why hello there darlin'" you jump at the sudden voice behind you. You are greeted with quite the sight, a gorgeous man with a trucker hat and mechanic overalls.

"H-hi! I um, I'm looking for the guy I was with, he came here to get a new tire and spark plugs. Have you seen him?" You can feel a blush creeping up your neck. Curse your affinity for getting nervous about gorgeous men talking to you and making you lose all sense of yourself. 

"That one fella with the permanent annoyed look? Yeah, I sent him on up to our house, we didn't have the right type or sparks here so I sent him up there to get help from my twin Vincent. I could take you up there if you want or you could wait here?" He says while taking his hat off and running his hand through his damp hair. It makes him look all the more attractive to you.

You smile at him, "is your brother the one who made the art in the house of wax by chance?" 

"That he is ma'am, that he is. He's our own lil family artist," he says showing off his award winning smirk, now how about we get you on up to your friend? Maybe even get some food in yall too. You must be hungry." Just as the words left his mouth your stomach growled causing you to blush and wrap your arms around your noisy tummy. 

You smile at him. You've smiled more around these two strangers than you ever had in your entire relationship with Ben.

"Of course, please lead the way," you follow after him and to his pick up truck, this one much nicer than the one you previously rode in only hours before. The silence on the drive to the house is silent but peaceful. 

You get a better peak at him as he drives, he's attractive and knows it. His hands are big and veiny. Suddenly you are having thoughts about how they'd feel between-woah there y/n you have a boyfriend. Wait wait no you don't you broke it off with the fuckwad. Yes continue with the thought of his fingers in between your thighs as he moves them in and out of your- 

"Doll?" Bo lays his hand on your shoulder startling you. 

"Yes?" The blood rushes to your cheeks and head almost making you dizzy.

"I said we're here now," he says while fixing his hat and getting out of the truck. 

"Oh." You peep out as you follow him into the house. It's beautiful, it's very homey and definitely has the feel that three grown men live here. 

"I'll get started on some lunch for you" he says walking to the kitchen as you stand awkwardly in the living room. 

There are footsteps heard coming up from what can be assumed is the basement. When the door opens you are met with a beautiful sight, a man appears sporting long black hair, half up in a mini bun. He's wearing a wax made mask. He was beautiful. 

"Wow you are beautiful," you say out loud. 

He head snaps towards you and he then signs 'Thank you' you smile, you took a few ASL classes in high school. 

"Are you the one who made all the beautiful sculptures in the wax museum?" 

'Yes, did you like them?' He signed again.

"I didn't just like them, I loved them! You have such a beautiful talent!" 

'Would you like to see more?' He signs, 'I have just finished one at the workshop I have in the basement of the house of wax,'

"I would love to, but I'm only in town until my minibus is fixed. It would've been a great honor to see it though!" 

Just ask he was about to reply, Bo is calling you both to the dining room table. 

…

The 3 of you are enjoying a wonderful meal when it's interrupted by the front door being slammed open. All three of your heads look towards and see Ben. 

"B-ben!" You stand abruptly. 

"Get the fuck away from them y/n! They are a bunch of freaks!" 

Neither man speaks as they are stiff as a board.

"What do you mean? They've been nothing but nice to me this entire time," you say staying put. 

"That one locked me up in some torture device!" He says pointing to Bo, causing you to look at him, "I think they're the ones behind the missing sparks and blown tire," this causes you to slightly step back. 

"Now darlin' it ain't what you think, ok maybe it is," Bo begins looking at Vincent for help. 

"Get the fuck over here now, so help me. Don't be fucking stupid!" Ben says. 

"What did you say?" You look at him. Without you even realizing, you subconsciously grabbed the knife on the table. You don't even realize what your doing until you hear Bo say "don't go at the throat or head. Vinny needs those intact." 

"I am so sick of you abusing me and belittling me! I am so sick of it!" You scream. 

"You wanna stay with the freaks you crazy bitch? Fine you do that but dont you ever forget who owns you." He says stepping back away from the three of you. "You don't own me, you've never owned me!" You land the first blow in his stomach twisting the blade. You don't stop until Bo is pulling you off of him. Holding you close to his chest as Vincent wipes away the tears that have begun to fall. You're free, you're finally free of the abuse. 

"We'll always protect you doll, always." Bo says as he holds you close and kisses the top of your head. 

[wisteriagoesvroom]

schools of thought: part 2 🦊

A landoscar college AU, told through social media

to catch up, check out part 1 here

author's notes

thank you for your patience and the kudos on part 1 🤧 irl stuff happened and i worked on a different story for a while before getting back to this one

ignore timestamps, they don't really matter

if you enjoy it, please consider liking / reblogging / commenting! 💙

—————we pick up at the federation U library———————

lando's studying late. it's a tuesday, and there aren't too many people there - just him, linda the librarian who isn't particularly impressed at anything or anyone, and a couple of other students on other islands of desks, stuck in their own world.

lando doesn't find academic work impossible per se, it's more the sustained attention that gets challenging. and contrary to how he seems, he does actually work hard at his core modules. even if he isn't sure exactly to what end, yet.

the screen's blazing bright and lagrange's theorem is starting to make his brain statick-y, so lando rubs his eyes. one of those advice pages on tiktok said changing tasks could help sometimes to refocus on his studying. something about crop rotation or switching channels of the brain or something. if it's on social media, it must be true.

so he opens his design software instead and makes a party invite.

he sends a prayer to the holy trinity of tiesto, guetta and darude for his very basic photoshop abilities. and an extra hail-van-helden for the free software that he pirated off charles.

the party playlist is already whirring in his head. definitely some garage smashed with some old school hip hop, and he's sure there's a way to get some hans zimmer piano in there. whatever, it'll work.

satisfied with his efforts, lando sips from his hydroflask. (the drink is one part instant coffee, one part spicy honey, and a lot of hot water. carlos gives him shit about it all the time, but carlos is spanish and generally prone to dramatics when it comes to coffee and just about everything else.)

still focused on his important task of Procrastinating His Stabilizer Equations, lando texts max.

linda, to her credit, only glared at him once when he started humming kid cudi under his breath.

and judging from experience, max and charles are going to be a while, so there's nothing for lando to do but stare at the wall and keep working on his playlists. oh, and his math assignments.

meanwhile, oscar gets a ping from logan.

what is there to say about the meeting really, oscar thinks. uneventful. ———————earlier——————————

the first project catch-up with lando, they'd met under the campus bee statue. a sunny afternoon, but the campus was quiet, half of them having decamped to the nearby hills or beach for a change of scenery. it was just the pleasant and tolerable buzz of other students enjoying the warmth and doing university student things. he'd spotted a couple of people with picnic blankets out. he hadn't brought a picnic blanket, thinking this would be a quick meeting.

lando had appeared in a blur of white and orange, like a y2k elf. ear piercing, music festival rubber bracelets and all. in a t-shirt that said i'm acute angle.

"'sup osc!" lando said.

"that t-shirt's gramatically incorrect. technically." oscar had replied.

"whaa-aat. but more to the point, it's funny."

"i guess. did you do the reading yet? thought it'd be good to talk roles and responsibilities and maybe a project timeline."

"timeline?" lando said, as he tossed his backpack down and flopped on the lawn. lando extracted two heinekens from a side pocket and went through a complicated manouvre of opening them with his room keys. "thought we'd maybe crack open a beer and just chat, matey."

i'm not your matey, oscar thought. i'm a passenger to whatever train of chaos it is that you're driving and i'd like to get off.

oscar's skin prickled as he realised the double meaning of get off. he also tried to not think too hard about how overfamiliar lando was acting towards him. the worse thing was: there was a bigger part of him that was probably willing to let lando get away with it.

lando seemed to be ignoring whatever existential crisis oscar was going through. instead, lando was going on and on about philosophical youtubers and sparknotes. lando was so animated when he spoke, too: hands always in gestures, as if excitement buzzed directly out of his fingertips and onto oscar. there was a sparkle in his eyes, blue sliding into grey, that made oscar want to sit on his hands. because they were the kind of eyes they wrote about in regency novels, the windows to the soul kind of melodramatic nonsense. that would make him want to do stupid shit. like, get-in-the-way-of-the-project-grade kind of stupid shit.

so it took oscar a lot of energy to focus in that first meeting. he thought he did a pretty decent job picking up the thread of conversation, around the part where lando had called foucault's theory "the indiana jones thought thingy."

"i think you mean archaeology of knowledge."

"right! right." lando said, as he beamed up at him.

oscar had suddenly felt overly warm, then. probably just the sun on the quad, he thought to himself. he was from australia, so technically he should've known better, and worn adequate SPF. he'd have to set a phone reminder for that at a later point. he refused to be fooled again by the european summer and its apparently hypnotic effects. even if those hypnotic effects were probably mostly caused by a menacing parallel phenomenon that oscar would call solarus landonitus.

—————————————————

later, oscar's cooks dinner, and tries to decipher the instructions on the back of a frozen bag of beef mince. pato and logan are away at a football game across the border in italy, an overnighter thing.

his phone vibrates. it's lando.

oscar's hands hover over the letter keys. a party? he couldn't think of anything worse. but lando said a couple of friends, and it's true oscar hasn't really partied, and he thinks hanging out with his D&D friends doesn't really count. there had been that one instance in first year when oscar had gone to try and meet logan and pato at the ministry of sound, and he'd accidentally ended up at the ministry of state government building. after that, he'd figured parties weren't really fated for him.

but. lando, social butterfly lando, campus personality lando is the one asking. and logan's right, oscar probably does take himself too seriously.

osc types and deletes at least four different responses before be replies. he is an eng lit major, he tells himself. surely he should be better at crafting his words than this. but sometimes it is what it is.

so it isn't a commitment, and it isn't a hard no, either.

oscar stares at his phone. it's gone quiet. lando's moved on – probably uploading an instagram story. or smashing his too keyboard loudly in a public space as he solves a polynomial. or making a new and unlikely EDM song out of radiator noises, or whatever it is that lando "i'm so cool" norris decides to do with his free time.

oscar is studying the dorm kitchen tiles, thinking about not thinking about lando, when his pasta water boils over. it hits the induction stove with a loud hiss.

"shit!" osc yelps. he grabs a nearby dish towel to wipe it up.

the pasta ends up both soggy and under salted, but he eats it anyway. mind turning all the while.

——————stay tuned part 3 (hint: party party)————————

p.s. if you want to be tagged/notified on the next part/updates just lmk in comments or DM and i'd be happy to!!

[hellfireloserclub]

"Honey, I never drive faster than I can see. Besides that, it's all in the reflexes."

This started off as a little thing for @thefreakandthehair spring prompt and ended up as this...

its also on ao3

Eddie was confused.

He often was these days, between the sometimes crippling pain and the faded brain fog from the pills to counteract it, it made the whole thinking and words thing sometimes a little difficult, the words would come out backwards, forwards and sometimes in the wrong order. 

And for someone who prides themselves in their ability to tell a good story it was debilitating. 

Oh, not that Eddie couldn't still jump on a table and make a spectacular speech if needed, it was more the fact he sometimes struggled to remember what day it was, or if it was his turn to pick up the rugrats.  

He didn't think he was doing bad for someone who was clinically dead for a good while. Although he took umbrage at Mike dubbing him, El, Max and Will his zombie army. 

Out of the four of them, he and El were the only ones that were technically dead. 

And Steve fucking Harrington of all people had been the one to drag him back to life, and out of Hell to boot. 

It wasn't fair, not only did he have to deal with the fact that Steve was actually a good guy, he had to deal with shared custody of the gaggle of children who had added themselves completely and utterly onto his very existence. 

And on top of that, he owed Steve a life debt.  

Hopefully, he would never have to cash it in because unfortunately for Eddie, he was enjoying having the other man around. Three years, countless hospital appointments together, and NDAs that made their friend circle increasingly difficult to add to, made it inevitable that the two of them had gotten close. And if he had developed a bit of a thing for the handsome reformed ex-jock? Well, that was between him and whatever god wanted to take him, he was pretty sure they just passed him around like a bad nickel.

 It was just as well that they already cast him out of the good god-fearing household of Wyatt Munson, because he was pretty sure he would get a beating for the impure thoughts he had about that their Harrington boy. It was just as well he hadn’t listened to anything his father had said to him since he was seven years old, or he was pretty sure he would have to be locked up a few cages down from old Victor by now. 

But circling back around to his first point.

Eddie was confused. 

He had been sure that he was supposed to be at Castle Harrington on this balmy sunny Friday evening, but it was quiet. Too quiet for the usual gathering of chaos that normally descended on Steve… or at least Steve's pool. 

He parked up, scanning the drive for bikes, and the street for any sign of the kids, but the only other sign of life was Steve's Beemer sitting in its designated spot under the gigantic tree. 

Had he gotten the wrong day? It wouldn’t be the first or the last time he had turned up at the completely wrong place on a wrong day, this was why he made lists, why he always had a pen and a notebook in his pocket, between his forgetfulness and brain fog and Steve and the deafness (that nobody seemed to notice but Eddie and Robin) they almost made a functioning human adult between the pair of them, at least if Steve remembered to put his glasses on.

Eddie was second-guessing himself now, were they supposed to be meeting at the arcade? Was it Hellfire at the Wheelers? Pulling down his sun visor he checked the notes pinned there to help keep track. Nope, he was supposed to be at Harrington's, Steve's spikey scrawl was clear enough. 

With trepidation he clambered out of his van and headed to the side gate, they always entered from the backyard now, because Steve would panic if anyone knocked at the front door. leftover trauma, adamant that the Russians were still out to get him. Eddie didn't want to point out they were hardly likely to knock. Steve was jumpy enough at the best of times.

He found Steve quickly enough, flicking through some sports magazines lying near the pool Not in it. Never in the pool alone, that was the rule, and they all stuck to it. Even if the danger was long gone, there was always a chance, always a fear that something would break through, and come back from the dead. After all, Eddie had, so had El. 

"Have the brats been ruptured?" 

Steve looked up, face brightening at the sight of him. And wasn't that a thing that Eddie loved to see, he was glad he was one of the precious few who got to see Steve's genuine smile. It really was a sight to behold, it lit up his tanned face, eyes sparkling behind the frames he hated but would wear because it wasn’t worth everyone who loved him nagging at him if he didn’t. 

"They're all the way in Utah, went to visit Suzie. She won an award or something." Steve shrugged, leaning over and grabbing Eddie a beer from the cooler beside him. Eddie could almost hear the 'they told you this, they told me this, but our brains don't work ' that Steve didn't have to say. 

Steve gestured for Eddie to come to join him, room on the lounge for two. 

Eddie and Steve spent a lot of time as just the two of them, the kids would run off and leave them behind, the fair, the lake… the kids wanted them there but on the periphery, close enough for just in case. It was just the way it was now. A phone call, just in case. Late-night drives, just in case. I'm here, we're here, it's fine. No danger, no code red.

 One at a time the older kids had moved on, Robin and Nancy to college and Jonathan back off to California with Argyle. 

It was just him and Steve now, a fact Eddie hadn't really lingered on too much with the kids keeping them on their toes. 

But soon it would be time for the kids to move on, lives bigger than the traumatizing confines of Hawkins. 

Soon it would be Steve and Eddie, Eddie and Steve, nothing to bring them together but the fact that they enjoyed spending time together. 

They both had money to fall back on now, so it wasn't a lack of funds that had them staying in the cursed town. Eddie was pretty damn sure that Steve's parents hadn't been home since Christmas, so Eddie figured Steve was still here for the same reason he was. 

The kids, and to make sure the damn gates stayed closed. 

"Was that this weekend?" He took a seat on the end of the chair taking the offered beer. 

"Yeah, left this morning, they're gonna call in a bit to check in, it’s not that I don’t trust Lucas and Mike’s driving, but…" 

“It’s not the same as you driving them, Yeah I get it, our little birds are ready to fly Stevie, we must let them cast their wings into the great unknown.” he pulled Steve in with one arm while pointing his beer at the sky, it took everything in him not to turn to look at Steve, who’s breath he could feel warm and inviting on his cheek.

“Is it bad that I’m kind of enjoying the silence?” 

"I can go? Not like it takes two of us to babysit negative amounts of brats" Please don't send me away. Something in Eddie was worried that Steve only kept him around because of the kids, the voice that sounded an awful lot like his father nagging at the back of his head saying that he was the reason that the family had fallen apart, he was too much, always too much. 

Eddie dropped his arm from around Steve's shoulders, already missing the feeling of him as he moved away.

Steve's smile faltered, "If I hadn’t wanted you to come over, I wouldn't have left you a reminder under your sun visor," 

"If the kids aren't here why did you?" He searched Steve’s face for answers, knowing that whatever he wanted to say wouldn’t be what came out of his mouth, it never was, Steve Harrington was good at hiding the truth under layers of something else, and it might fool the others but Eddie could see right through it. 

" Because believe it or not Eddie, I like spending time with you, and it would be nice to do it without worrying if Henderson is trying to shotgun my beer.” is what he said, but it sounded a lot like ‘don’t leave me’ to Eddie.

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

It was almost ten, and Eddie still hadn't left, and to his surprise, they hadn't run out of topics to talk about. Steve was currently fussing with the messy pizza they had made, trying to work out how to get the thing to fit on the shelf in the oven. 

Eddie could help, could, being the important word. He wasn't going to; it was far too amusing to watch Steve's domestic struggles. 

The phone rang, and Steve nodded for Eddie to answer. 

"It'll be the kids" He explained as he finally maneuvered the pizza onto the tray, only partly covering himself in tomatoes and cheese. Eddie did as he was told, only feeling slightly strange at answering the phone in someone else's house.

"Harrington house, who's calling?." 

"We've been gone a day, and you already got your feet under the table?"

"Hello to you too Red." Eddie smiled as he heard the gaggle of munchkins gathering around the phone. 

"Eddie?" That was Mike. "What's he doing at Steve's?"

"Told you so. I knew you didn't need to ring his apartment but nobody listened to me " 

That was Lucas, he sounded more and more like Erika the longer they spent together. 

"Nobody likes a know-all Lucas, and that's what you sound like right now."

"Whatever Micheal, some of us just aren't oblivious to the world around us"

The sound of Will's laughter in the background made Eddie's heart sing. It was good to hear, especially when it was at Mike's expense, it might have been frowned upon to have favorites, but Will was quickly becoming a contender, especially now he was becoming more and more outgoing, it made Eddie happy that he could at least make a difference in one of his sheep' life. And it wasn’t as if Eddie could call him out on his questionable tastes when the object of his own affection was standing in the middle of the kitchen wearing an apron that stated he was the world's best mom.

After a scuffle for the phone, Lucas came back on the line.

"Is Steve there ?" 

"I'm not good enough for you Sinclair? After all the things we've been through, I'm hurt." 

"Do you want to hear about Suzie and Dusty Bun or what ?" 

Eddie turned around to yell for Steve to hurry the hell up because, it didn’t matter that the kids were nearly nineteen now or that Suzie was very much an active part of all their lives, whenever Dustin was near his girl he turned into an idiot. 

Eddie didn’t need to yell Steve was already at his side leaning in to get as close to the receiver as possible, his hand reaching up wrapped around Eddie's to hold the phone in place. Warm fingers pressed into the back of his hand, and it was as if it had hit him with a bolt of lightning, the casual touch wasn’t new, but this felt different. All night Steve had been casually touching him, a hand on his lower back as they maneuvered around the kitchen, feeding him bits of pepperoni as he had attempted to stretch the doe how Argyle had shown them in a doped-up haze the last time he had been over. Now Steve was running his thumb over the knuckles of Eddie’s fingers where they held the receiver, and no matter how much Eddie wanted to hear what the kids had to say, he wasn’t able to concentrate on anything but the feeling.

"Come on then, should we be worried?" 

Absolute chaos broke out on the other end of the phone, and Steve laughed at his kids' shouting, holding the phone away from the two of them to escape the sound. He rolled his eyes fondly, before pulling the phone back towards them, stepping closer as he did so. Eddie wouldn’t be able to tell you what the kids had said to them even if you held him at gunpoint. Steve was too close and his mind had gone completely off on its own, trying not to think about how Steve was resting his thigh between Eddie’s leg as he lent inwards, and how Steve’s free hand was playing with the hem of Eddie’s vest top, almost absentmindedly. 

It was a relief when the buzzer went on the oven and Eddie excused himself to go save the food. 

******

"Kurt Russell would totally get some." 

Eddie rolled slightly to the side so he could look at Steve's face in the flickering light of the television. 

At some point they had ended up lying on the floor, the effects of Argyle's other parting gifts making the world seem lighter when their feet were on the sofa and their backs on the stupidly fluffy rug. 

Steve had acquired big trouble in little China for them to watch for the tenth or maybe eleventh time. Perks of managing the video store, deeming it a cinematic masterpiece. Eddie wouldn't have gone that far, but there were definitely perks to re-watching Steve's current favorite movie. 

Mainly Kim Cattrall and Kurt Russell.

Eddie appreciated them both, it wasn't like he could hide that part of himself, not after his mouth had moved of its own accord in the hospital. 

That fuzzy brain fog that came with his meds really didn't help the brain word filter, at any point Wayne could have cut in and shut him up about the handsome knight that had saved him from a hell dimension, but apparently, his uncle had the same mischievous streak he did and enjoyed watching both Steve and Eddie squirm, it hadn't been like either of them could escape the confines of their hospital beds. 

He knew Wayne would have stopped him if he thought Steve knowing was dangerous, and Wayne may be a man of few words, but he was a good judge of character, and he would never have let him wax poetic if he didn’t think Steve was safe, that Steve was at least an ally. So the fact that he had outed himself in a drugged-up medical haze to the notorious ladies' man and ex-king of Hawkins High, and Wayne hadn’t stopped him? It spoke volumes for Steve as a person, it kind of made it considerably worse that Eddie had developed this complicated web of feelings for him in the meantime.

But more and more Steve would come out with things that made Eddie question the fabric of his own reality. And bring into scrutiny his one-sided crush on the straightest man he knew (other than Hopper and who knows what happened in Russia during desperate times and all that) Steve said things that sometimes made Eddie stop and think, an offhand comment about some celebrity in a magazine, or the infamous time he let slip that he knew of Eddie's favorite queer club in Indy. 

But Eddie didn't want to force anyone's hand, it wasn't for him to assume or make someone out themselves. 

But maybe his one-sided crush was oh so much worse, and actually on someone who could like him back… and just didn't? 

Eddie wasn't sure if it was the brain fog or the weed that had him analyzing, but he was sure that Steve had moved closer Almost on top of him again now they had rolled to their sides. And Steve was very much not watching the television, his eyes were fixed on him. 

"That almost sounds like you want to fuck Jack Burton Stevie?" He had aimed to make it sound like a joke, but his voice faltered making it sound more like a question. 

Steve moved quickly, sometimes Eddie forgot he could do that, it had been a long time since either of them had run for their lives or done any sort of sports, but Steve was clearly still working out, he slung his leg over Eddie and pinned him down by the shoulders, leaning in close, and the fucker was grinning. 

“Just listen to the ol' Porkchop Express and take his advice on a dark and stormy night, alright?” Steve started monologing in a way that was so damn reminiscent of Eddie’s own style he was almost touched, “When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your head up against the barroom wall, looks you crooked in the eye, and asks you if you paid your dues;” Steve lent forward, and Eddie almost saw god as Steve’s hips pressed down towards his own, but Steve either didn’t hear or ignored the gasp that escaped him, really leaning into quoting the movie. “you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that:” Steve was practically nose to nose with him now, Eddie had to go cross-eyed to focus, the smell of the weed was heavy between them, Steve’s breath was ghosting on his lips as he spoke "Have you paid your dues, Jack? Yes, sir, the check is in the mail.”

Neither of them could remember what day of the week it was but the lunatic could recite the entire opening of the damn film they were watching word for word, it shouldn’t be as hot as it was, but Eddie was above everything else a nerd. 

Then the madman laughed, swinging back to break the trance that he had captured Eddie in, but not removing himself from where he straddled Eddie. It was on the way to becoming a problem. A problem that Steve was probably going to become aware of sooner rather than later.

“Not answering my question sweetheart?” he somehow asked when he got the blood to re-direct to his brain.

"I mean, jock action heroes are more your thing, so maybe not Jack Burton. But Snake Pliskin? One of us wouldn't be walking for a week after." Steve didn't even look embarrassed, like admitting he would fuck Kurt Russell wouldn’t get him murdered if he muttered it in the wrong place.  

Although Eddie was one to talk, he was currently the one with a lap full of another man.

Plucking the joint from behind Eddie's ear where he had placed it for safekeeping (Steve's rug had a habit of eating anything left unattended, the shag pile was great for getting lost in when you were stoned. The one on the floor not the one on Steve's chest, although Eddie had wondered on more than one occasion if it might have the same effect.) Steve went to light it again wriggling around while he tried to find the lighter in his back pocket. 

Suddenly the position they were in became dramatically different to any other time they had found themselves lying like this, it was loaded with something almost thrilling. Like the anticipation in line for a rollercoaster, or the thrill of waiting for the headline to perform.

Eddie really really wanted to kiss Steve. 

And he felt Steve had orchestrated a master plan to get him to this point, the note, the weed, the goddamn pizza and the fact that he was lying on his back with Steve straddling him like the opening scenes of some skin vid. 

Steve hadn’t moved away, the trail of his fingers along the shell of his ear was almost deliberate, like Steve was testing the water. The two of them never really shy away from the other's touch, but this was more, Eddie could feel it. 

"I don't think I've got the jaw structure to be Kurt Russell babe." 

Steve moved the hand from his ear down to his jaw, stroking the scarred skin that ran across it with his thumb, Steve's pupils were dilated and Eddie was sure now it was from more than just the purple palm tree, it was pure want; it was desire. It was everything that Eddie had been feeling for the better part of the last three years. 

Brain fog be damned, Eddie couldn't take it anymore, he placed his hands on Steve’s hips and pulled.

Steve came willingly, it only took a moment for his lips to find Eddie’s, searching them out with laser precision, hands moving up to twist into Eddie’s hair and pull. There was no way that Steve missed that groan, to be fair Eddie wasn’t sure who it had come from, too busy sinking into the feel of Steve pushing his way past his lips with his tongue and pressing him further into the rug. 

God, Steve had orchestrated this whole night with the precision of one of Eddie’s campaigns and Eddie was putty in his hands, hands that were currently exploring the shape of him, sliding over his hips, his ass his…

Eddie broke the kiss, sliding his mouth to Steve’s cheek, then across to his ear.

"Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"What are we doing?"

"I have no idea." Steve pulled back enough to look down at him, and Eddie got a moment to appreciate how damn disheveled the other man looked with his glasses all smudged and askew, hair a mess and lips bruised from kissing. I did that.

"So you don't do all this with all your friends?" Eddie joked. 

"My friends consist of my ex, her boyfriend… Whatever Argyle is, a lesbian and a bunch of school kids… if you're talking about being stoned and having a life-changing moment while lying on the floor, that happens surprisingly frequently for such a dynamic group of people. "

"Steve…" 

"If you're talking about this…" Steve nudged his nose against his cheek "This is just for you."

"So I'm special?" 

"Mmm hu," Steve mumbled into his cheek, lips ghosting his skin, before his hand reached around to Eddie's back pocket and grabbed the pen from it, ripping the lid off with his teeth he lent back down and grabbed at Eddie’s wrist pulling his hand above his head and holding it in place. A shiver ran through him, and yeah Eddie would unpack that later, but for now, he watched as Steve traced the line of the worst of the bat bites on his arm down to the point where they had given him a blood transfusion in the hospital.

Steve signed his name next to the mottled skin, before reaching up and kissing the inside of his elbow. “Did you know you called yourself a vampire in the hospital when they gave you my blood to save you?”

“You did what now? I did what now?” Eddie had no recollection of this at all.

“I told Wayne you wouldn’t remember, I told Wayne a lot of stuff over the last few years,” Steve released his grip on his wrists, letting Eddie move to hold him. “I told him back then you were special and I couldn’t lose you, and I’m telling you now Eddie, You’re special, and I want to keep you… If you’ll have me.”

Eddie pulled him closer, taking Steve’s face in his hands, scanning for the lie, the unsaid things that Steve Harrington didn’t say, he couldn’t find anything. 

“Hope you’re up for a trip.”

“What?”

“I'm getting that chicken scratch you call a signature tattooed on, I’m not forgetting this.” Eddie grinned and pulled Steve in for another kiss.

Eddie Munson was confused. But not about this.

They might be battered and broken, but together they at least made a fully functioning human and that was enough.

[ohbo-ohno]

Ooohhh I like the new background. Very nice.

Serial killer!Ghost, Kidnapped!Soap

I keep having this recurring scenario in my head, where I imagine Simon driving a van down into the woods. It's dark, the full moon visible, and the only sounds echoing through the forest are the laughter and cheers from a group of party goers deeper in the woods. He can even see the smoke of the bonfire at this distance.

He makes sure he has all his gear on him: vest, med pack, and bullets. He grabs his gun from the passenger seat. He heads towards the back, and unlatches the back doors.

He takes off his dog tags, using a small key attached to it to unlock the crate where he keeps his dog. And Johnny stumbles out of it, onto the forest floor. He's dressed modestly in a T-shirt and sweatpants, with sneakers on. There's a thick collar on his neck, and a muzzle on his face.

Johnny doesn't move from his spot on the ground, sitting on his heels and waiting for the go ahead. He's already been instructed on how to play the game.

On the count of three, Johnny runs. If he's found by Simon within three hours, then he loses. Simon will of course always win, the poor dog doesn't know his collars got a tracker on it.

The fun part for Simon is slowly driving Johnny closer and closer towards the unsuspecting civilians having the time of their lives.

If Johnny loses, he's dragged back into the crate and brought to Simon's home, where he lives out the rest of his days. If he wins, he gets to go back home, to escape from his kidnappers grasp and be freed.

To Simon, this is a nice hunt to live out the adrenaline fueled hunts he used to have in the army, to feel blood on his hands again. For Johnny it's a fight for freedom, the only chance he'll get to escape.

Another rule of the game: If anyone sees Johnny, Simon kills them. Or, he might even ask Johnny to kill them.

It's why the poor pup tries so hard to stay away from the other people in their vicinity, to keep his hands clean, but it's going to be a rude awakening for him once he realizes the whole place is fenced on one side, a cliff on the other, with only one way out.

The game ends just like Simon thought it would: both of them tussling on the dirty, bloodied ground. Simon is elated, bloodthirsty, but poor Johnny's yelping from behind his gag, voice muffled.

And once Simon wins, he's gonna bring the man back to his house and get his reward.🗑️

ok wait oh my god. ok wait oh no this is. ok wait-

this is my FAVORITE kind of primal play (and also im like 90% sure the only kind i've written)

i love this type of ghoap with a fake compassionate simon. he tells johnny that if anyone sees him they'll die, so he gives johnny a muzzle! to help, of course! so his pup doesn't start barking and get all sorts of attention :/ (of course it's also so he doesn't risk johnny actually getting people to help him, but he doesn't say that)

and he gives johnny a headstart! and even lets him wear shoes! gives his good boy all the tools to make his great escape <3 of course johnny never needs to know about the tracker in the collar, it's better if he just thinks ghost is that good at tracking

and you just know johnny fights so fucking hard when ghost catches him. he's nothing but pure adrenaline, nothing but his need to get away, so he abandons any technical training he might have - and honestly it doesn't matter, since ghost is a better fighter than him. but it's fun for ghost to see johnny revert back to pure animal instinct, the way he's supposed to be

and the come down for soap after a chase is hard. the rush of adrenaline, the sex, often the murder, it all makes for a horrible crash once ghost has decided they're done. he's got to carry johnny back to the car, fold him up all small in his car crate, usually even has to carry them back inside. it's so rare that johnny doesn't have a tantrum during baths, and ghost takes full advantage of the lethargy soap sinks into post-chase

thinking about ghost praising soap for doing such a good job running, fucking him in the dirt and saying almost got away that time pup, did such a good job. want another chance after this? think you'll even be able to walk? might just have to crawl around, should make you anyway. since when do dogs walk on their hind legs, huh? you wanna crawl around for me, puppy?

and soap's eyes are feral above the muzzle, blazing in absolute rage, but he can't do anything about it, and ghost just laughs in his face. says if you're so mad i caught you, why didn't you do a better job hiding?

[verdemoun]

I can’t see all of them being able to drive well but I also can’t see that fact stopping them. Maybe for some angst, who is the first in a car accident?

oh two part-er

first while not technically a car accident kieran was very literally hit by a car his first day in timewarp, and not a light tap. he was thrown, broken arm, bruised ribs, head slammed into the asphalt so hard he saw spots and passed out. his introduction to modern era was the chaotic horror of an emergency room, searing fluorescent lights, the stink of disinfectant and strangers in alien hospital uniform repeatedly asking what his name was.

kieran duffy wasn't remembered as a van der linde. he wasn't remembered at all. bessie had no way of connecting the dots that so much of mary-beth's novels were true until lenny started reading them. so with the hospital mandated bare minimum to a seemingly homeless man who stammered about O'Driscolls and his gang, he got turned back out onto the streets with a few days of painkillers and a shoddy cast on his arm.

everyone else gets the comfort of waking up to the smiling faces of loved ones or at least a friendly mad woman chasing you down the street knowing your name. kieran sleeps rough for weeks, lurking around the modern era shady belle because it's the only thing familiar but being chased off the gated property the second he's noticed.

when hosea and lenny happen across him by chance, he's more bruised and battered than his corpse was riding headless back into shady belle, and more terrified than he ever was being their prisoner in colter.

it is months before he can get in a car without looking like he's being held at gunpoint

but the first van der linde car accident, hmm: well obviously the gang pick up driving very differently.

hosea is the perpetual old man driving 10 under the speed limit when you're already running late to work. but bessie lets him drive the chevy on sundays and they just enjoy one another's quiet company on the open road.

lenny is the only one who can drive without bessie clutching the door. he is also the first to buy his own car and understands they serve the same purpose as a horse. even forms an emotional connection to his car, is slightly upset it doesn't love him back like maggie did.

they put off teaching sean to drive as long as possible and true to form he proves their greatest fears being a horrible driver - but the pizzeria never had to pay a late delivery fee again.

kieran sat behind in the wheel in an empty lot, let the car roll a hundred yards before pulling the handbrake and having a panic attack. never again. passenger princess/walks everywhere.

as much as he loves learning about the engineering of cars, arthur is not a natural driver. he insisted on learning to drive in a truck because people already looked at him and assumed he had a truck. as a result, no parking lot trolley return was safe. his truck is as dented as his spine is ruined.

so no one expected it to be lenny who was running late one night: or a phone call from an unknown number, saying there'd been an accident. not lenny's fault, of course. another driver, too drunk or too tired to realize the light was red and slammed straight into the driver side of his car.

most of the gang have been lucky enough to avoid a hospital, and as a result it's chaos. bessie is so distressed worrying about her son that she forgets she's the only one who knows what to do. hosea is panicky asking reception what happened, where's lenny, where's his boy. and sean is just. silent. nothing. no bouncing. no anxious fidgeting. he's silent, and still.

and lenny's asleep. general anasthetic or some sort of sedative, unnaturally still and more bandages than flesh. just a strange, bulky hospital bed and blue hospital blanket. tubes and a heart beat monitor that they naively thought only existed on tv.

hosea chases bessie, who has to remove herself because she doesn't want to be the only one in the room crying. it doesn't seem fair how upset she finds it when she has known lenny for so much shorter than the rest.

just sean. sitting with unnatural calmness in a plastic chair beside lenny in a hospital bed. afraid to hold his hand in case he hurts him. cracks a few jokes about being glad lenny has always only ever loved reading, because if he wanted to learn to play piano he'd be mortified by his broken, swollen fingers.

lenny doesn't laugh. the heart rate monitor stays at a constant, steady beep.

some old, painful memory digs its way to sean's consciousness. he can hear bessie sobbing in the hallway, hosea bracing her weight in an embrace like she'll collapse without him. sean instinctively opens the windows and moves his chair so as to not be in between lenny and the night air. his eyes bounce for a moment between the clock and the heart rate monitor. he offers him confession, like a good catholic boy, and when no answer comes, begins to sing old irish blessings only loud enough for the two of them to hear.

lenny is fine and makes a full recovery!! discharged days later, recognises he's lucky and it could have easily been so much worse. he's more annoyed about the hospital getting his family worked up for no reason. whatever drugs they gave him, it was the damn best sleep he ever had. he's more upset over the hospital bill than his car being wrecked, and wasting a joke about 'all the bleeding was internal, that's where blood is meant to be' on sean, who doesn't get it

recognises the tune next time sean is humming irish blessings to himself. doesn't know where.

[courtingchaos]

I will gladly take pity on you! I hope this is a good prompt. Maybe one of the boys (I'll let you choose which one because I'm fine with whoever) driving home in the rain when they encounter reader all drenched and walking home so they decide to give her a lift

This isn’t an excerpt, this prompt just spoke to me about Bully. So have a little tiny introduction to these two since I’m having a hard time putting the first chapter out!

Eddie Munson x Fem Reader (technically OC but this isn’t canon to my fic)

He’s already hit one curb because of the rain so he’s creeping down 12th trying to avoid hitting that one storm drain that dips too low in the street. Sheets of rain turn the world grey and wobbly and he can barely make out the other cars, let alone a person on the sidewalk, but for some reason he notices a flash of green in the midst of all the grey and he stares. Too green to be a tree but there’s no way someone would be walking in this surprise summer storm. A deluge dropped on Hawkins with a five minute notice, surly whoever this poor soul was would have run for cover under an awning or-

“Oh you’re kidding me.” Eddie laughs to himself when he notices the green is actually a jersey. White shorts plastered to legs decked in green socks and are you hobbling along in your cleats? He slaps his hazards on and pulls up to the curb ahead of you, reaching over to crank his passenger window down quick before you can pass him. “Hey stranger!” He has to yell over the rain. “Need a ride?”

He knows you’ve noticed the van and recognized his voice just by the halt of your stride. Hair plastered to your face, clothes plastered to your frame and glasses clutched in your hand you’ve never looked more pathetic and that was honestly something to him because he’s watched you search for an insult one too many times.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah I fucking heard you.” You yell back to him, still standing stock still in the downpour.

“You know it’s kind of wet outside.” The rain soaks the door and Eddie makes a promise to himself if you don’t get inside in the next minute, he’s leaving you to your fate. “I have a towel in here you can use to dry-“

“I don’t need your help, Munson.”

He rolls his eyes, not that you can see him, and laughs at you because it’s appropriate. Even you would admit that if you weren’t soaked to the fucking bone. “Seriously, get in.” Again he reaches over to open the door and shove it out into the rain. “You’ve got thirty seconds dude.” He watches you frowning deeply at his offer but he can also see you turning it over, quicker when he holds up all ten fingers like he’s about to count down.

“No! Okay, just…hold on.” You rush over to the side of his van and haul the door open to throw your bags in the back. A wet slap of canvas and an immediate puddle that he notices and a slight twinge of empathy for your soaking form. When you finally get in with a loud slam of his door you sigh, sitting on the edge of the seat like you hadn’t already gotten it all wet.

“You can sit back.”

“I don’t want to get everything wet.”

“Well too late, sport. You wasted like four minutes with the window down.” He’s joking but the look you shoot him quiets him long enough to reach back for the long forgotten blanket in the back. From the corner of his eye he watches you try to push your hair out of your face and wring out your jersey and it isn’t lost on him how everything is clinging to you. “Here.” He shoves the blanket at you and you eye it before taking it gently, the fight seemingly drowned out of you. “What happened?”

“My car broke down just outside of the school. They locked the gates so I couldn’t get in to use the payphone and I figured why not walk!” You gesture out the windshield with a furious middle finger. “Obviously God fucking hates me.” You sling the blanket over your shoulders and wedge it under your hips to try and mitigate soaking into the seat before you finally lean back with a long sigh. “It pains me to say it, but thank you for stopping.”

Eddie’s eyebrows nearly fall off his face. “Did you just say thank you?”

“I’m capable, yes.”

“To me?”

You’re silent for a moment in the wake of his sarcasm, a deep breath before you unfold your hands and fiddle with your glasses. “You’re the only person who stopped. So thank you.”

He watches you swallow your pride. Sweet victory for only a moment before he watches you try to clean your glasses with the edge of the ratty blanket. It’s pathetic really and any other time he’d have a Pointdexter quip to make and you’d fire back a Booger joke but when it’s just the two of you he finds the urge is almost nonexistent. If there’s no audience, is it still funny? He holds out his hand before he really thinks it over. “Give it.” When you just stare he snaps his fingers and points at your glasses.

The edge of his shirt isn’t much better but it’s dry and mostly clean so he rubs the lenses gingerly while he tries to not break them. He holds them up to squint at them in the dark daylight before handing them back to you. “Probably a little streaky.”

“No, I-I appreciate it. Thank you.”

“Oh my god, two in one day?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Mm, there it is.”