#i picked hospitality

[crazybiaatch]

wdym I'm too young to know if I'm gay but I'm old enough to pick the classes that will define at least the next two years of my life and most likely what I go to uni for?

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[hitlikehammers]

PART 2/2: in which lock-picking⛓️‍💥 is 100% a valid love language, and waking up with ✨Steve Harrington✨ was NOT the future (exactly. maybe. ish.)

...but waking up in a hospital bed just might be ♥️

<<< last time: And Eddie thinks that’s highly fucking debatable—he’s not sure where it comes from, because it’s a little out of place, Eddie didn’t say anything but maybe he’s just that transparent, the heart of him so quickly, so completely, and if that’s the case then it’s entirely fucking debatable because Eddie thinks he’s going to burst, splinter like a starburst, glorious in the unmaking for how big this thing that’s building in him feels, how certain he is that it’s about to break his ribs and he fucking looks forward to it, so no: Steve doesn’t love most because he can’t, because Eddie is overcome with this feeling and he, he— He’s drifting, because Steve’s heat is a heady fucking drug, and his heartbeat’s a metronome, a lullaby against Eddie’s back and it’s instinct, it’s unquestionable when he shimmies tighter into Steve’s hold and sighs the weight of the world out between his lips because… Because goddamnit, this feels right.

OR: y'know. Eddie thought he was dying in the Upside Down but then he's waking up in the future, in bed with Steve Harrington like what the fuck

Eddie comes to—again: un-fucking-expected—with the same sensation of his ribs snapping, the pain of it a dull thing he thinks he can just float through because his heart’s so gone on the impossible possibility of some future imaginary day where he, where Steve, where they—

“Eddie?”

Wait.

Wait, that’s…okay.

Back up.

He tries to take in what his senses are willing to offer him: something starchy, itchy against his skin, both sides—definitely not the sheets from the bed he’d just felt visceral underneath him. Pressure and aching at his chest: but less sweet the longer he focuses on it. Stinging and the pull of maybe-bandages, maybe-sutures, maybe both and something deeper, like…oh, wow, fuck, it’s entirely possible his ribs are already broken. His heart still feels full, but also scared, unsure, wrong-footed as more and more little clues seep into his consciousness, before maybe the clearest of them all: a shrill little beep that’s fast, like embarrassingly fast—

A monitor.

He draws a shaky breath—iodine, like, burning levels as he inhales and holy fucking shit, he’s in a goddamn hospital.

He’s, did he…

Is this what Steve meant, when he said ‘wake up’? Did Eddie…

Did Eddie fucking survive?

It’s in the spiral of that thought that Eddie clocks the same voice that jarred him out of his own head…in his own head, before. With the fancy sheets and the warmth and the home and—

What…what if it wasn’t in his head at all—

But his body, his pulse recognizes that voice as safety. As…rightness incarnate.

“Oh fuck,” and that’s the Steve Eddie knows best, right there, a little breathy and a little pitchy for frayed nerves and constant worry and the weight of the fucking world to make sure everyone—everyone else—makes it out as okay as possible.

And it’s in thinking that, that Eddie recognizes what Steve-in-his-headin-the-future-in-his-dream-in-his-maybe-not-quite-death-hallucination meant, when he’d said Eddie’s eyes softened. Because Steve’s heart on his sleeve, in his eyes, had looked peaceful, then. Content, even.

Not so frantic. Not so…scrambling.

Still just as blinding, though.

“Thank fuck, you’re awake,” Steve half gasps, a tiny clattering against the tile floor vying to draw Eddie’s gaze away but there was genuinely nothing in the whole goddamn universe that could take Eddie’s eyes off of Steve just now, those lips parted ever so slightly, cheeks that tiny bit rosy, pulse maybe-maybe-not visible just below the bandages on his neck.

He’s beautiful.

“What do you need?” Steve’s leaning closer, hands reaching but then kinda fluttering, kinda hovering, not sure where to touch and even if they knew the answer, kinda like they’re not sure if they can touch in the first place, yet all Eddie can do when he sees them, when he feels the shift in the air for how close they are; all Eddie can do is remember what it’s like to be pressed close to Steve’s body, to feel Steve’s arms around his chest, like they’re keeping him.

“What can I do,” Steve asks, so earnest and Eddie’s pulse does a little skip for it, how good it feels; “I—”

And Steve’s eyes are already big, just short of pleading, darting to the corners of the room maybe for water, maybe for a button to call someone to help more than he can—as if anyone can help more than Steve can, just now, because Eddie’s waking up from what it feels like to have Steve, and the most pressing possible thing in the world just now is SteveSteveSteve, near enough to feel, to breathe in—

Steve’s eyes are already big, though, is the thing, even before the full-on fucking crash of something to the floor makes him freeze. Eddie tries to peer down, winces as it pulls to much at…everything, kind of, Jesus H., but he hurts everywhere, and…

“The hell were you doing?” he asks in the absence of being able to see because…metal. Metal had hit the floor, from the height of probably-the-bed, after Steve had pressed into the mattress, shifted the weight, and then he’d blinked all owlish and adorable: culpability for whatever he’d been up to written all over his gorgeous fucking face.

“Umm,” Steve chews at his lip a little, eyes peeking up through his lashes, that look that makes Eddie weak and wobbly at basically every juncture it’s possible to tremble at like that, but he doesn’t duck away; he doesn’t even blush. He’s not…whatever he was doing—and Eddie’s range of motion is fucked, he’s already super well aware of that shit when he even tries to move to see the floor, to follow the sound—but whatever Steve was doing, he’s unrepentant. But in a way where he maybe recognizes that other people would have been less brazen.

Eddie’s wrist tingles out of nowhere—weird, when all of him is already kinda in a sort of dull, narcotic-shrouded pain—and he frowns, glances down at least that far and notices the slightest ring of red that’s less angry, not attached to bite marks and broken skin, and he has the wildest thought cross his mind just then, and he steels himself to crane his neck as far as he can, to limit the strain he’ll put on his middle because now he needs to see, because he kinda knew before he cut the sheets and ran into the fray that coming out on the other side meant life behind bars if there was any life at all, yet here he is, increasingly seeming like this is real, and this is his ‘other side’, and…

He’s just in a fucking hospital. He’s…he’s here, and he’s, he’s not…he’s not in fucking chains.

And it stings like a bitch, and Steve’s a second away from stopping him, reaching for him and pressing him safely back onto the the bed, but Eddie gets the glimpse he needs. Recognizes the shape on the floor, shiny steel against the scratched-up linoleum.

“Were you,” Eddie traces the ridges of his teeth with his tongue, because there are layers to what he’s about to ask; “were, umm, were you picking the,” and the first little clatter from before makes more sense if he’s right, and if he’s right, well, fuck.

It’ll be hot as hell, if he’s right.

“That?” Eddie tilts his head toward the floor because: cuffs. What he’d seen, what had fallen: handcuffs. On the floor. And they’d have had to have been not on the floor, and probably on him before, and so, he—

“Possibly,” Steve answers with a straight face, as unapologetic as ever, maybe more; maybe even defiant, and oh, wow. Steve Harrington picking his fucking handcuffs, setting his stupidly-quickly-lovesick ass free.

Hot as fuck; seriously.

“How positively criminal of you, Harrington,” Eddie grins half-maniacal, feels the stretch of it burn against a cut that’s gotta run half the span of his cheek but fuck it, the warmth flooding him is undeniable, is incredible—he’s giddy all of a sudden, straight to his bones.

“S’nothing on hot-wiring,” Steve shrugs, like it’s not fucking everything; “but I wasn’t,” and Steve takes a deep breath before he squares his shoulders, looks at Eddie straight-on and shit, if he thought the warmth in him up to now was something?

It’s kinda got nothing on what consumes him under those eyes.

“I wasn’t going to let you wake up fucking…shackled.”

And goddamn if the fire in that voice, those words, doesn’t light Eddie up like burning, doesn’t shake him to the core and then blanket him in sureness and the kind of protection he didn’t think really existed.

Save that he does kinda think it’s exactly what this man’s made of; made for.

And Eddie can’t escape the certainty rising in his veins and pumping, fierce and unshakable, that he wants—more than maybe anything—to be the one to give that same safety, that same promise of something unwavering and permanent and beyond question, right back to Steve.

“You’re an innocent man,” Steve leans in then, emphatic with it; “you’re a goddamn hero,” and he means it, holy shit, he believes that:

“Like hell I was just gonna,” and he shakes his head, like the idea is just that preposterous; like he cannot even consider anything but Eddie being free, and okay, and here, and…

Eddie’s struck with the sudden slap of realization across the fucking face that he couldn’t have gotten topside by himself. That someone had to get him from the hellscape to here. And of the able bodies in the Upside Down, no matter how strong the girls were, only one could have wrestled him through that gate. Only one could have…whatever he maybe needed, between this bed and that bat-strewn ground, it was, Steve would have been, he’d have—

The force his heart trips, then leaps with, is fucking cataclysmic. Eddie’s honestly surprised it doesn’t just tear out from his throat then and there.

“Plus they’re in the process of finishing the paperwork to make it all official, dropping the charges and all that, clearing your name,” Steve gestures vaguely in the air, like it’s all routine, the feds and the cops sweeping shit under the rug but then he remembers all the side comments he’d collected in the back of his mind these last few days about the ‘last time’ and then ‘the time before that’ and fuck all also the first time—

Maybe it is, just…sick and twisted and harrowing and heartbreaking routine.

“They’re just really fucking slow,” Steve smiles at him, all small and devastating and…

And okay, so that overwhelming urge to be a constant in Steve Harrington’s life, safe next to his heart kinda for always, zero to forever in half-a-blink?

Eddie knew he wanted, when he threw his vest at Steve’s bare chest more for Eddie’s own fucking sanity than anyone’s modesty, but it was all washed in the hopeless-helpless colors of desperation, of why not when I won’t see tomorrow; and now.

Now, all Eddie wants is tomorrow. Every tomorrow. No tomorrows without this man. Without what he saw, how it felt: what he knows in his marrow loving him would be.

It’s probably that conviction etching into his cells that makes makes him softer, a little weepy around the edges; drives him to need through the next words that escape:

“Steve,” Eddie breathes, wishes Steve were just that little bit closer so that the distance he can reach could reach him:

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” Steve waves him off almost, like he doesn’t think everything he is, everything he’s done is monumental. Not just the cuffs but with the cuffs like the cherry on top of how Eddie would—will, if he’s given the chance—devote all that he has and all that he is to making Steve happy. To making him as calm and warm and loved as Eddie could feel in that bedroom, in his head or in the future or on death’s fucking door.

“I mean,” Steve starts, and Eddie can already feel how he’s angling to downplay the thing that’s only swelling, building, growing under Eddie’s own ribs and, well: no.

No, Eddie won’t be standing for that.

“Stevie,” and Steve’s gravitated wordless just close enough for Eddie to be able to brush his fingertips against Steve’s wrist, to curl and pull his hand into Eddie’s grasp, palm splayed above Steve’s knuckles, holding. Keeping.

“Thank you.”

And Steve stills a little, stares at him like he can see what’s tucked up tight and dear in Eddie’s chest and maybe he can, because his voice is feather-light and a little bowled-over. A little…a little awed.

“You’re welcome.”

So yeah, maybe he can see what’s in Eddie’s chest, less tucked in this moment now than fucking, like…

Blooming.

“Do you believe there’s anything waiting when we die?”

Eddie’s gonna blame the frantic blossoming warmth coursing through him for the way he blurts that shit out with no preamble, like maybe the flowering wonder of it all pushes it out without permission, sweet on the back of his tongue but heavy because it matters so much; because it’s all just nostalgia.

For now.

“What?” Steve gapes a little, sounds dumbfounded; maybe a little wary. Fearful.

His hand’s still held under Eddie’s, though, so it’s only natural the way Eddie lifts his fingers and presses them palm-to-palm like it means something.

“Do you?”

“I…don’t know,” Steve swallows hard enough the follow down the taut line of his throat, fucking mesmerizing.

So maybe the way Eddie licks his lips before he says anything more isn’t…isn’t just for the sake of the topic and its weight, is all he’s saying.

“I,” and Eddie doesn’t really know where he’s going, here, or else: he knows exactly where he’s going.

He’s just not totally sure the path he’s planning to chart along the way for getting there.

“When we were down there, and I was telling you to go after Wheeler,” which yeah, okay, surprise direction there, weird little detour, but…it doesn’t feel wrong.

Which means, if it’s right instead: then that’s everything that is Steve in Eddie’s lungs for breathing, in the chambers of his heart. So he leans into it.

Squeezes Steve’s fingers laced together with his.

“Eddie,” Steve starts, sounds tired, spent, and Eddie was never going to let that happen; no matter where he’s going, or leading them down the path of his revelations, the truth etched new but also deep in his bones like it was only waiting to be found and known.

“It was because that’s what I wanted. For me. I wanted to,” and his breath catches on a little chuckle, so light and choked and a little hysterical as he adds, giddy and a little bashful all together at once:

“Unambiguously, umm,” and he trails a little, wants to hide behind his hair just a touch but to do that would require a broader capacity to move in the first place and more, so much more: it would mean letting go of Steve’s hand.

So: absolutely not.

Especially not when Steve’s gone full dropped-jaw gaping at him, his fingers in Eddie’s grasp twitching like he’s confused, like maybe there’s part of him short-circuiting, and Eddie feels his exhales tremble when he finally blinks, finally tilts his head and takes Eddie in at a new angle before he asks, genuine and not just a little lost:

“Seriously?”

And Eddie…Eddie’s actually never been more serious in his life, so.

“Like,” and he circles Steve’s knuckles delicate-like with his thumb: “I wanted the chance, to try, I guess, yeah.”

And he doesn’t know if he’s risking everything to own it, even if he’s owning just a sliver of the breadth and depth that he feels, but he does know unequivocally that he wouldn’t hold it back if given the choice, the opportunity to do it over and not show his bloody-beating heart on display.

A bloody-beating heart that’s moving quicker, slamming harder against his chest but…that actually feels like the only correct thing it could do. Because this merits it.

This kinda is his whole fucking heart.

“Do you still?”

It takes Eddie a longer string of seconds than he’d prefer to own to, to process the words as having meaning, no matter that he doesn’t fucking understand what they’re aiming at.

“What?”

“Want,” and Steve’s the one squeezing Eddie’s hand now, turning a little to graze at the line of his veins at the wrist; “the chance.”

And he says it deceptively casual, despite how he’s staring at their hands, determinedly not meeting Eddie gaze as Eddie gets his chance at the gaping.

“Fuck yes,” Eddie finally huffs on something not unlike unabashed fucking joy, save that this thing he’s feeling is so much bigger, and when Steve looks up, meets his eyes and his own glimmer, shine so bright and brim with such disbelief, but so much stronger and with such hope, Jesus.

Eddie can’t help the giggle that bubbles out of him. Like his whole fucking soul gets shaped into a single breath of exultant delight.

And they both hold to one another, trace across skin and map the lines and dots and scars, and Eddie’s not stupid, he knows this isn’t how it works but…

But he’d still bet money on the fact that the way he’s touching Steve, so innocent and so quietly intimate, is healing his wounds, shoring up his weaknesses and stitching him up fuller, better, breath by shared-sacred breath.

It’s heady as fuck. It’s exquisite.

“Why’d you ask me about when we die?”

Steve’s the one to break the still, and even that’s not breaking anything, really; he speaks so soft. He’s stroking down from Eddie’s thumb back and forth.

It’s not breaking anything.

“I saw something,” Eddie whispers, not sure what reaction that’ll get, and Steve’s staring at their hands again, marveling really, so Eddie can’t read any hint save for the crinkled furrow in his brow.

“But you didn’t die.”

Which isn’t the reaction he thinks he expected, even if Eddie couldn’t name what he did expect. And it’s also not a revelation he thought he’d receive.

“Not at all?”

Because he’s genuinely surprised. He at least figured he’d flatlined like…long enough to have visions of absolute and total domestic bliss and shit.

But Steve’s shaking his head decisively, holding on to Eddie just a little bit tighter.

“You had a pulse, whole way to he hospital,” he tells Eddie, voice gone a little hoarse; “it wasn’t strong but,” and Steve looks up at him, and fuck, those eyes are too shiny now and Eddie doesn’t want that, he doesn’t want his Steve to hurt, he—

“I fucking held you,” Steve croaks and oh, oh he’s shaking, Jesus—

“I kinda,” and he swallows with a click Eddie can hear, around a throbbing pulse Eddie can see, wants nothing more than to soothe with his lips against that tender skin; “I kinda had to make sure, so,” and the hand that’s not holding Eddie’s comes up, trembling as he reaches toward Eddie’s chest:

“Kept my hand pressed, just,” and his voice gives, and he looks up at Eddie with something like devastation, begging something like permission because he doesn’t know that everything that Eddie is, is his.

But he will.

He will know.

“Yeah?” Eddie breathes out, holds Steve gaze as he nods, as he tries to make it clear that anything Steve needs is his, and then some.

It takes a second, but the shine in those eyes finally shifts, finally brightens and then Steve’s breathing’s made of tremors, but his hand finds Eddie’s chest and sends something sparking like lighting through him just as the whole of Eddie feels immediately like he’s home.

And Steve’s hand on his chest feels exactly like it did in their future bed, in their future room, in their future life.

Their always love.

“Yeah,” Steve whispers, then takes a moment, palm splayed wide just above Eddie’s bandages, before he’s gripping Eddie’s wrist with the other hand a little harder:

“It’s so fast,” he exhales like it holds the whole world and then some; he wonders at just Eddie’s heartbeat under his touch and god.

God, but Eddie…Eddie couldn’t have imagined he’d ever feel like this. Let alone feel like maybe it’s mutual, maybe it’s real, maybe he can keep it and stay in this feeling for forever.

“Fuck yeah it is,” Eddie murmurs, then he chuckles, inhales deep maybe just to better feel the weight of Steve’s hand; “making up for the lost opportunity, y’know,” and fuck, all he wants is to be able to lean, to kiss the pout of those lips, to taste what it means to love somebody like he’s never done before.

“Making up for what it missed the last time your hand was there to feel it.”

And Steve’s hand above his thrumming heart twitches just a little, but never flags or makes to move, to leave, and Eddie thinks that he’d be fine if he lived the rest on his days with Steve like that, near enough that he could press a hand to Eddie’s heart at all times and just…just know that it’s his.

Because maybe it’s sudden—it’s definitely quick—but Eddie’s never known anything like he knows this.

“Eddie,” Steve finally whispers, a question and a claim and a means of cradling Eddie to his heart, somehow, for how swathed in light and affection Eddie feels in that moment, in just the shape of his name like it’s never been spoken before.

“I saw the future,” Eddie blurts out in a rush, breath coming a little quicker and heart-under-Steve’s-hand pounding harder. “Maybe. I don’t know, I mean, it sounds so stupid when I say it out loud but it felt so,” but then he looks into Steve’s eyes again and Steve is listening, Steve’s maybe doesn’t think he’s crazy, so he feels safe enough to say with his whole fucking chest:

“It felt real, Stevie.”

“What was it?” Steve asks, so quiet, so gentle like he doesn’t want to disturb this thing either, like he doesn’t need to hear it spelled out yet to know it’s delicate, the most important thing in the world, which fuck yeah it is, even as it cracks and chokes for the flood of feeling around it when it presses up from Eddie’s chest:

“Us,” Eddie breathes it out like the precious truth it genuinely fucking is:

“It was us.”

And Steve doesn’t say anything, but his eyes glimmer all the more, swimming with a riot of emotion to a degree than Eddie feels drowned in awe just to see it, and his hands on Eddie hold tighter, more fervent, devoted like a pledge for the way it runs through Eddie’s blood and sings in his veins:

“Even if it wasn’t real,” but Eddie’s doesn’t believe that, not really, not in his heart of hearts where it all pounds into the crevices that map Steve’s touch; “even if I wasn’t seeing the actual future,” and maybe he wasn’t, maybe that wasn’t their future, and maybe he’ll never know, but what he does know, is—

“It felt right, Steve.”

He knows that clearer than he knows the sky is blue.

“It was just a few minutes,” Eddie flounders a little, mostly because he remembers how good it was, written indelible into how much he wants, here and now:

“But I have never felt anything so right.”

He breathes, shaky and shallow and too fucking fast, but then Steve starts stroking his palm along the unmarked spaces of his chest, back and forth over the gallop of his heart like he means to stay there. Like he could ever want to keep.

“Well,” Steve whispers, his eyes on the path of his hand to make sure he doesn’t draw any pain—as if he ever could—until he knows the safe route over and back, again and again, and then he looks up, catches Eddie’s eyes and locks there, doesn’t pin so much as holds, holds, holds.

And good fucking god, Eddie feels it glisten through him like starlight; Eddie feels remade before Steve’s leaning in, lower than to meet Eddie’s mouth but then he’s pressing his lips to the dip between Eddie’s collarbones, holding there, breathing like he means to savor, like he means to cherish, like he means to, to…

To stay.

And Eddie’s heart’s under that hand and those lips all at once, wholly Steve’s while it quivers like a riot, while it leaps as Steve changes the world, writes their fucking future where his mouth drags wet and warm and ardent and there’s nothing in it at all that can be anything other than at least on the way to love as he breathes, fucking vows:

“We gotta try, then, don’t we?”

♥️

>>>also on ao3✨

for @penny00dreadful 🖤 still very fucking sorry it's this late

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

divider credit here and here

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

atp phil’s like “ffs i wish i could hit you with a car then i wouldn’t have to be stuck with your annoying dramatic ass 🙄”

[starflungwaddledee]

some rather strong first impressions were made.

required reading for the magical "voice" headcanon and another for starstruck's signature in particular. asked by @trainerbob23 !

[respectthepetty]

Wut and Sol said they could give Joe some money out of kindness, and Joe could pay them back whenever.

Ming said he would give Joe whatever he wanted in exchange for Joe's body because Ming is selfish.

Joe taking Ming's deal is the most relatable moment I've had with Joe because I, too, would pick the devil I already know. Mixing finances with friends is always dicey, and he would still owe them. With Ming, it's business and he doesn't have to worry about ruining a friendship. He can hate Ming, but as long as Ming runs him his money, he'll continue to do his job because this is just another stand-in job.

Joe is really saying "sex work is work"

And I respect that.

[anglerflsh]

solution for intrusive thoughts

[puppppppppy]

Why are ppl scared to call it what it is and say we’re still going thru covid on top of seasonal illness. Like. That’s pretty important right. I was watching the news and they were like oh yeah we have an unprecedented number of flu cases “as well as other sicknesses” without actually saying Covid. No announcement abt vaccinations or masking or anything. Also if I hear someone joking abt “war flashbacks” for mentioning covid I fucking hate u

[biterflies]

saiki k au where he gets tired of people stealing his power dampeners so he just starts claiming its medical equipment. for like a nerve disease or smt. like oh why did he collapse on sports day when his little head thing was removed then get better when its put back? and why did he spend the rest of the day all shakey and off his game? cause you removed the piece of Vital Medical Equipment that's supposed to stay poked in his head at all times to deliver little electrical shocks or something to his brain so the signals in his head for being able to move his limbs work. so it screwed him up for a bit cause supposed nerve disease. and that's why he almost had to go home sick that day yknow. and why does he sleep with them on? well do people sleep with their pacemakers on? and it being pointy is cause it needs to stab into the head so it can send those signals directly to the brain. I like to think he starts claiming this after the class trip where teruhashi steals one cause once is chance (and nendo being dumb) but twice with two seperate people? thats cause for paranoia. so he just uses his powers to forge medical records and make doctors remember diagnosing him incase there's questions. saiki justified this because they are technically life saving equipment. just not HIS life nessasarily.

when he makes this paper work for proof the gym teacher decides to give a lecture to the students about proper care regarding fragile medical equipment and how this could be life and death for their classmate, and gives saiki less of a hard time in gym classes for medical reasons

then nendo gets all upset about hurting his best bro on accident and clings even harder while trying to give saiki things to cover them up with so they don't come loose at all, like hats and helmets which saiki refuses on principle.

teruhashi says something generically Perfect Pretty Girlish about it on the outside but on the inside shes freaking out because if she hurt saiki to satisfy her own curiosity then there's no way shes PERFECT but no one KNOWS she did that since they were alone at the time so reputation is fine and saiki didn't SEEM hurt but he was asleep so who knows!!! but she freaks out over it for a long, long while before deciding she'll make it up to him by spending more time with him because why WOULDNT he love that but its mostly to satisfy her own conscience and ego. she probably has a fantasy where he's all blushy and shy and saying "oh wow" a million times while she takes care of him so selflessly when his illness acts up, yknow the classic Blushy Shy Fantasy Saiki but she gets to feed her superiority/savior complexes even MORE, then it goes nothing like that in reality.

kaido thinks that saiki is at risk so of course The Jet Black Wings must protect him from any attempts from the Dark Reunion to harm him by stealing his lil head thingys in an attempt to get to The Jet Black Wings through harming his closest ally. there must have been attempts before after all to justify a whole speech being given regarding it, and has a subplot where he's assuming nendo is part of the dark reunion cause of the sports day accident.

hairo says something about how saiki wasn't even going at full swing during sports day and how saiki has to push himself much harder then the rest of the class to do the same or even better then them (citing how he apsolutely destroyed the running events despite supposedly having an disease that directly affects his ability to run). then he calls him a inspiration on never giving up and working hard everyday. then rallys the class to work just as hard as saiki so all of them can do even better like saiki obviously strives to do.

SAIKI has realized his plan went so, SO wrong because now his popularity is way too high right now but he has to live with the consequences of his actions so he just spends his time trying to get people to like him less for most of the initial kickoff after the speech and the subsequent attention that came after. probably blows off teruhashi under the excuse of medical reasons (says something like "why would you help? no offense but you're not a doctor" when she offers to help, insert the fantasy sequence she had in her section around here), and that gets his popularity back down to normal. and it goes back to normal cause people are used to it now, just avoid touching his head, easy

but yeah that's my pitch for a chapter basically. (are all the separated plots in an episode called chapters? that's the closest word I can think for them)

[latenightsundayblues]

Found some stuff i made based on my fic before even posting it on AO3; i guess it can be called concept art in a way. Here's a younger Stu proudly showing off his collection of creepy-crawly friends he's kidnapped from the woods and named after cool horror characters. I got the idea after visiting a really cool vaccine institute ive known for a long while that displays venomous animals both dead and alive for educational purposes.

"This big one here was Hannibal. He bit me once and I spent 3 days in the ER without my parents noticing. Also I found Pinhead there-- what? Oh, it's the scorpion, right over there. Anyway, I jumped over a fence to smoke weed in some abandoned asylum an' landed on something sharp. Turns out it was him. Got real fuckin' sick for like a week and a half after that for some reason though"

And also Billy teaching Stu how to pin up a butterfly. Kinda different (and remarkably less homoerotic) from what I actually ended up writing lmfao

[chirpsythismorning]

S5 opener REAL

[god-i-hope-so]

Deadpan!Tommy just made another one-liner and Buck just loves it because he knows Tommy is actually always joking, just differently than him. And they just have the best evening (until they don't).

[kingkatsuki]

Mother Mitsuki, who despite Masaru’s pleas, is way too invested in Bakugou and your relationship.

[loudmound]

i think where people are losing the plot in terms of making james and jim characters that have suffered more than what is initially apparent in the narrative of sh2 is that it tends to absolutely consume how they see those respective characters and takes that shit to the absolute extremes. james and mary having a tumultuous relationship when she was sick turns into "mary was james' abuser when she was sick." conversely, for jim, it's entirely possible that she was institutionalized and sa'd while she was there, then that somehow turns into "none of what she experienced in silent hill was real and she's been locked in that mental hospital for 20 years, actually." it's deeply unserious.

[sp00pypumpkins]

Got busy this weekend and couldnt draw much so today I did this silly thing :3

Something sweet about the Prototype qwq I find it endearing those two would get so happy when the prototype is near while other toys would feel intimidated by them XD I will make more silly doodles about why Zero thinks so high of the Prototype in the future :D

Au by @asamary You should check their stuff :D!

Also Zero chirps when they are very happy (The only one who got to hear them is 1006 till now, Zero is a bit embarrased because he cannot control it but with 1006 he lowers his guard but also acts childish around him too HAHA)

[neechees]

There's this vid going around of this tiktoker calling this town in AB "a very welcoming place" when it's incredibly racist