#or when I spend years getting bullied for being a freak

[iwillstabyou]

I’m listening to Hozier and I’m feeling emotions I didn’t think even existed

[bunnihearted]

im sorryyyyy i dont wanna be a mean bitch but genuinely i feel like im the one of only ppl who are actually alone bc i keep seeing all of these ppl complain abt how alone they are then they post a bunch of pics with their friend groups and they go on trips and celebrate their birthdays with friends and im like 😦?????????? im ngl i lowkey feel betrayed bc like yes sure we can relate on "feeling lonely" but ig at the end of they day im so sorry im not saying this to gatekeep loneliness or whatever but like u just cannot relate to what it feels like to not only feel lonely but also be alone and not even have people who want to spend moments with u. and feel and be like on your birthday you're alone. on your insta you're alone. irl u dont have ppl who even want to make plans with u. i know i know that everyone's loneliness is valid and you can still have partners and friends and feel lonely and that is valid i really do think so. idk i just feel so fkn alienated from everyone, including people who say theyre lonely - bc they still have ppl to talk to and ppl to be with and ppl who wants to be with them and consider them their friend lol.... i dont have anyone to take pics with or have groupchats with or go to concerts with or go for walks with and i dont have anyone to message abt stupid things or blah lahblahblah it doesnt even matter atp

[stormy-nights-are-best]

There is a point at which school becomes just completely useless. There are skills you learn later on that (there's a big chance) you'll never need for your future job.

In maths, I consider it important to learn about converting numbers into percentages and working with scales. Everyone should know what a 20% discount on your 50$ shirt means‚ and how to look at a map with a scale and understand how far you gotta walk up to your destination. But trigonometry (the study of angles)? analytic geometry? fvcking prime numbers?? A kid should be able to opt out of that.

I'm personally too much of a sciences fan to tell you anything that wouldn't come around as useful later in your life‚ but mandatory physics is kind of an overkill. Why do schools force you to learn how to calculate which bus is gonna get the most damage from a boulder falling from heaven considering it's windy in Hawaii?

In my birth country‚ PE wasn't mandatory if you proved you were enrolled in sports outside of school. Not trying to flex here, but you could focus on karate‚ swimming‚ hockey‚ whatever - instead of being forced to be good at every single sport.

Mandatory English classes (not as a foreign language) are also just stupid after you learn basic grammar and the different media types. The ability to classify words and where they should go in a sentence, to know where to put a comma - that's useful. Classifying clauses is a waste of time.

Sure we should know about our countries' classic literature pieces. I can't find two kids who enjoy being forced to read those old books though. Recently, in the country I moved to, kids have been given 10 minutes out of English class to quietly read a book they brought to school themselves (and it can't be in a foreign language). They're encouraged to ask questions about unknown words and such. That's interesting. That's gotta be way better than reading and interpreting a news article the don't give a fudge about.

I'm sorry for the long text, but school system is so disgustingly flawed. I didn't even talk about speeches and presentations, that are the number one fear of many children regarding school.

[avianyuh]

Jeon Jungkook as a Boyfriend

So I think we've moved past JK's 'baby' phase

Like, look at him

Grown👏Ass👏Man👏

So I'm not gonna spew any of that "He's scared of girls" crap

He was very young when he debuted and I know for sure he's grown out of that phase of his life.

In three years Kookie will be 30🤧

But, JK is an introvert

I think that's something he has always been and fame has probably made him become a more defined introvert

So I think if one were to be dating him, you would spend a lot of time together at home

Playing video games

If you play the same things as him, I think he'd get a little competitive

If you don't play the same things as him (or if you don't game at all) He would definitely teach you how to play

Would get so much enjoyment out of teasing you

I could see him trying to cook for you

He shares recipes a lot with army so I think he'd cook for you

And if you like to cook, I think he would look forward to whatever you make for him

He loves to be active

But I don't think it'd be a "dealbreaker" if you don't like to exercise

I see him with his gym time the same way I see him with his video game hobby

He'd love to bring you along with him to the gym

Or his home workouts tbh

And force you to do 50 pushups or something stupid

And he'd fake bully you if you couldn't do it

And if you did, he would do 50 more that you so he could still win

Like I said, very competitive

I think he'd like to draw for you

Probably get a tattoo of you once he was really serious about you...

Though he ain't no baby, he is still the member's baby and I think their approval would mean a lot to him

So he'd get nervous when it came to introductions between you and the rest of BTS

But obviously, it would go well so don't worry

You'd get aquatinted with Bam

And all of his other friends

Would do karaoke night at least once a week

Would try to find the perfect moment to say I Love You

But he'd end up putting to much pressure on himself trying to figure out the perfect time to say it

But he ended up blurting it out after he came home from a studio session and was greeted by the smell of you cooking

You had made dinner for him at 12 on the morning because you knew he'd be working late that night

So he just stood in front of the doorway of the kitchen watching you explain why you made dinner so late

And that's when he said it

Arms crossed, big grin plastered on his face as he shook his head

"I Love You"

And you dropped the wooden spoon you were using to stir your pot and you jumped into his arms, returning those same words

UGHHHHH

And then y'all ate and moved it to the bedroom

Where you then passed out due to being stuffed and exhausted from being up so late...

But speaking of the bedroom!

SHEXY SHTUFF:

Ooooo

You guys know about the whole 1)Dom 2)Sub 3) Switch thing right?

Well, I think he'd be option 3

I see him as the type to take the lead most of the time

But, I think on days where he might be a little shy or who knows, maybe you upset him and got in a fight

I see him as the type who would want you to take the lead

But I think most of the time he would be dominate since he gives me control freak vibe

*Cough* Virgo *Cough*

Omg his arms

Imagine him like, lifting you

Oop

I see him as the type to be heavy with the eye contact

I think he'd put an emphasis on pace

I think if he was really trying, or was mad, he'd go faster

But if he had all the time in the world, he'd go slow and that's where he'd really lay on the eye contact

Would take sex as an opportunity to tell you how much he loves you

And yes, I do see him as the type to crack jokes during sex

And honestly my Tumblr friends, that is what you want in a man

Get freaky but at the same time have fun

Btw, have fun tracing those tattoos!

[bokettochild]

I cannot BELIEVE no one told me we had an update!!!!!

Anyways, here's my favorite bits as always, because I need to SCREAM about this one!

The rupee acquisition!

I love how JoJo included that traditional *item acquired* pose that all the Links do, and gave it a reason in the comic (Wind insisting he hold it up is just so fun)

Sky's comment though, "don't spend it all in one place". Isn't that a line you get in Skord when you acquire rupees? The cute little easter eggs here are so fun!

I also really love how Legend is taking an instructional role here, both with Wars and the champion!

While also letting his veteran show

and I love that the rest recognize that! Wild calling Legend "an expert" and actually listening to what he has to say, even if he doesn't agree with it.

I also super like the panels of Twilight's interaction with Legend here

Very eldest and middle sibling discussing the youngest child, and I love it. It reminds us that, even for all the cuteness we got between them in the last arc, Twilight still sees Legend as too rough around the edges, enough that it borders on bullying when it comes to some of the rest, and he's trying to curb that. And Legend is LISTENING, because (as I've said a thousand times) Legend respects Twilight and values his opinion. Twilight is his big brother too now and Legend, while still being himself, genuinely seems to care about his opinion.

Twilight's just tense in general, although why, I think is mostly because of Time's sharp scolding in the last update. Even though he's snapping back at the younger ones, he's not very happy to be snapped at right now, and he's eager to get out from under Time's watchful eye.

Time and Warriors

Because while he feels e has grounds to correct Legend for telling Wild what to do, Warriors straight up subtly scolding his protege is different. And the difference is that Legend and Wild and Twi had camaraderie (see Dawn p.3), they're brothers, but Wars is approaching this as a commander, a captain, and Twi doesn't appreciate that. Warriors isn't their leader though, but he's taking that role anyways. (Old habits die hard, I'm sure)

I mean, we all knew Wars was going to confront Wild sooner or later, but I'm glad he was so calm about it. Twilight's ruffled feathers (fur) is more from Time being overbearing, I believe, so it aggravates any slight annoyance Warriors might present.

Even despite some of our suspicions earlier, I like this bit here. Wild was a soldier once, and the captain is very much the image of what he would have worked with before. JoJo mentioned wanting to play with that dynamic, with them bothering having military background, and I think this is that training (hundred years ago though it was) kicking in and making the champion defer to the man who outranks him (as far as they know). Granted, they all call Wars "Captain" but this felt pointed.

I do love Four acting as the word of wisdom here, advising Time, just like he does Twilight, as to the best way to handle a team. it's a reminder that he's done this before, and he knows how teamwork can be, but also that sometimes you need space and working together means working in different areas.

Anyways, here's a couple bonus things that make me happy!

Bunny stance!

(shh, I know he's making a point by stepping on Wild's toes, let me have this)

Wars being so freaking pretty! Dear Hylia help me! (Is it wrong I understand Cia a bit now?)

Wind being the youngest sibling who is Done With Your Chatter

A competent boy being competent (and not as experienced as Ledge, but pretty darn close (if you've played both their games you know))

Showing off items! (I can hear the little ✨da nana na✨)

And of course, I love Time being a tired, overprotective parent (he looks like my mom here, good grief!)

[newkatzkafe2023]

Hey, so I thought of something funny, the Wukongs (and D.O) meeting the reader as the grim reaper (specifically the wolf from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish). And while she's pissed that they decided to cheat Death (AKA her), the monkeys are ignoring that fact and are constantly trying to hit on her. And what's worse they're not afraid of her. (Cause Death loves the smell of fear.)

I LOVE PUSS IN BOOTS THE LAST WISH!!! DEATH IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER!!🤩

(Lmk Wukong) GOD He is so annoying, he's been nothing but troublesome and irresponsible sense day one. Worse part is he was searching for immortality for his arrogant and vain self like the selfish jacka** he ended up being. Way earlier in the His centuries , he was deathly afraid of you (HA get it🤣😈) and you thrive oh his fear. What you didn't expect was for him to be so scared of you that he would find a way to escape you entirely. You tried to stop him by taking his soul early but he was a cheeky slippery like sh*t, at the end of it all he became immortal meaning he's no longer scared of you at all. This made your blood boil and you stormed off away from him leaving him be for years but the thing is he now spends his immortality trying to woo you and win you over. This might be a good time to get this thing called a Restraining order😑

(MKR Wukong) He's the second one you can't stand at all. His sh*tty attitude irritates you so bad of course you would go to threaten him especially when he was searching for immortality. I bet you 20 bucks too that the reason he's looking for immortality is a F*ck you to not only heaven but you as well. That caused a fued to break out and The final straw was when he became immortal, and boi did you go off at him as you both fought again. Then he somehow took you off guard and he crashed dead smack on to you lips, you freaked out of course and pushed him off but instead he pulled you closer and well with the Adrenaline and sudden move affection. He got to know you all too well, but you were able to get away from him blushing and growling at him. It was too late though because now he wants you very badly.

(NR Wukong) Oh lord, once he found out you were a woman, their would be no getting away from him. He would spemd everyday flirting with you and trying different ways to woo you. It was so annoying and inconvenient to your work, He became immortal centuries ago, and you would avoid him like a plague, but unfortunately, you knew him as a mortal Of course, you know the song and dance you would thrive on his fear of being scared of death. Unfortunately, years down the line, he found out something about you. When you both fought each other one more time, he ripped your poncho and saw a pair of breast cover Ina lace bra. Making you turn red in anger and embrassment before knocking his ass out. Hopefully, you scramble his brain to think he was hallucinating, but that clearly didn't work because, worse of the worst of all, he's trying to bed and marry you.

(HIB Wukong) Oh, you both have bumped heads, both when he was mortal and immortal centuries ago. Their was never a time when you both weren't fighting, his arrogance knew no bounds at the time, so it was fun knocking him on his ass. Then you found out about his immortality, which caused you to snap in a way that it never did before. You went to stop him from getting to immortality, and you both actively throw hands with each other during the journey to find immortality. It turns out to be all in vain at the end because Wukong got to the immortality peaches, and boy were you pissed. Cursing him in Chinese and Wukong no longer fearing you we fought for a good while until he grabbed to your boob. Shocking you both making you both blush and you yell profanities as you punched him, and that's how you got a monkey to become obsessed with you.

(Netflix Wukong) Oh man it was Hilarious bullying this joker when he was a mortal. I mean he did have your sympathy when he didn't really fit in with the other monkeys, but ever since he got that God forsaken stick He quickly became a pain in your ass. It's gets worse when you find out that he's on the path to get immortality, which was the straw that broke the Camels back. You tried to scare him out of his journey for immortality, and you would Spook him and pop out of nowhere Whistling at him. Well at the end unfortunately for you 2 things happen, 1 he finally got his immortality for himself, and 2, he found out that his bully was a female, and now he won't leave you alone. You tried to scare him away, but instead, he cuddled you close. Just great😒

(BMW Wukong) Ohhhhhhhhhh he just loves to get under your skin about his immortality😡 He's been taunting you for years with arrogance and brazen trouble making and Attitude. You would think that ass whooping you gave him as a teenager would get the point across but no If anything it motivated him to not only escape you but to one day get a rematch from you. When he did get his immortality, he did not one but seven freaking times It's like he was pissing you off on purpose and it gets even worse when he was never scared of you in the first place. You know what's worse instead of being scared, his stupid ass flirts with you you want to strangle him but you can't 😤😡🤬

(The Destined one) He doesn't actually annoy you as much as the others would. If anything he peaks your curiosity, as he wonders around on his journey it seems like he's rediscovering the world around him. Granted you hate how he got his immortality and Therefore doesn't have any reason to fear you, but he was incredibly respectful of you anyway so you didn't have any reason to decline his request for a date.

FEEL FREE TO REBLOG

[lovebugism]

forgive me for what is likely a basic ass request but... steve has a crush on eddie's best friend? smut optional but encouraged :) (love, j.d. aka mypoisonedvine)

✶ ┄ LOVE YOU, ON PURPOSE (i)

part one | part two

summary: steve harrington took extra care to avoid the local freaks of hawkins. having shared custody of a fourteen-year-old forced him into a bitter friendship with one, he's steadfast in his refusal to befriend the other. that is, until you start working at the groove beside family video. steve claims he only fell for you because you tripped him. (17k)

pairing: steve harrington / eddie's bff!reader

tags: strangers to friends to lovers, mutual pining, protective eddie, canon divergence TW swearing, bullying, some smooching, talks of insecurities, reader is doubtful of steve's intentions because steve used to be a dick <3

a/n: this request has been sitting in my inbox for ages. ages, i tell you! i wrote the outline the day it was sent in and ended up turning the blurb request into a full on 30k+ word fic. i'm sorry for the wait j.d. (and to everyone else who's been waiting patiently for me to put this out). i quite literally put my heart, soul, pussy, and so, so many hours into this. please enjoy! feedback is always appreciated! xoxo

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Something happens and I'm head over heels.

It would be a total disservice to call you Eddie’s best friend.

It wouldn’t even feel right to call you his platonic soulmate or his sister from another dimension. Not when the two of you are essentially an extension of the same human being. It’s a twin flame on steroids — your mirrored souls make the rest of Hawkins believe in some sort of higher power. There’s no way it wasn’t destiny that placed the two of you together at exactly the right place, at exactly the right time.

Your entwined spirits could’ve been a beautiful thing.

It’s too bad you’re both total fucking freaks.

Unfortunately, being a couple of metalheads who spend their free time creating fantastical worlds in silly little board games hasn’t become cool yet — for some sad, strange reason. It leaves you and Eddie as the town’s token social pariahs. The kind of misfits you only spot when you care enough to look — laughing too loudly at the lunch table or sharing a cigarette in the alleyway between school buildings.

The kind of weirdos who get your attention without trying. The kind that people only look at when they need something to make fun of.

With that being said, everything Steve knew about you came from the people that hated you.

Tommy Hagan said that you and Eddie had been fucking since the seventh grade, that the two of you had gotten close between blowjobs and fingerbangs in the old chemistry classroom. No one’s quite sure where it came from, but they believed him without thinking twice. You and Eddie tried to squash the rumor for years before leaning into it full throttle.

“And these are the freaks,” Tommy announced when he approached your lunch table. He was giving Billy Hargrove a grand tour of the high school, or rather the shithole, and detoured like you and Eddie were some kind of sideshow attraction. Him and his goons ogled at you like zoo animals.

Steve idled some feet away, not as interested in the bit as the rest of them. He was even less interested in entertaining the new kid on the block thateveryone else seemed to be obsessed with.

“Hey, Tommy...” Eddie sing-songed through a mouthful of PB&J. You’d given him the other half of your sandwich, because you always give him the other half of your sandwich. “Hope you’re not comin’ back to ask for a handy again. I already turned you down, remember?”

A dumb grin took over the boy’s freckled face. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned over to the California boy. “I wouldn’t get too close to them. Don’t know where their hands have been, you know? If I had to guess, I think Punchy got Munson’s rocks off in the janitor’s closet before lunch period.”

Neither of you were particularly fazed by the laughter that erupted all at once and threatened to swallow you whole. Instead, you smiled with bits of grape jelly smeared on your chin. “I bet you think about it a lot, don’t you, Tommy?”

You really lived up to the nickname. Punchy. You weren’t entirely sure where it came from — your fierce temper, perhaps, or maybe your intense personality. Either way, it suited you.

Vicki Carmichael once said that you bit a guy on a date one time. Barry Jenkins, a tennis douchebag who thought the world revolved around him because his dad owned a string of local laundromats. He took you on a date in his mom’s Impala and assumed making out in the backseat gave him free rein to stick his hand up your skirt.

The asshole sported a red mark on his neck the next day.

When people asked you about it, you smiled with all your teeth in place of any real answer.

Carol Perkins loved to comment on the state of your wardrobe, telling anyone who would listen about the time she caught you rifling through the $1 bargain bins outside the thrift store. She liked to joke that you were stealing from them. “Because she can’t even afford a couple measly dollars. It’s kinda sad, honestly. I feel a little bad for her,” you overheard her saying once.

You were smoking a cigarette in the stall and watching through the crack of it while her and her friends touched up their lip gloss. 

“Wait, really?” Tina wondered, stopping mid-swipe of mascara through her long lashes to gape at the girl beside her. Because, god forbid, they don’t have someone to make fun of.

Carol snapped bright pink bubblegum between her teeth. She looked offended, almost — manicured brows furrowed and shiny lips snarled — like the idea of her taking pity on you was insulting. “No,” she snapped in response.

You’re pretty sure it’s the only rumor about you that’s got any bit of truth to it. Or any rumor of hers, really. The thrift store was great and all, but you firmly believe that your best pieces come remanufactured straight from Eddie Munson’s closet.

So it isn’t any wonder why the two of you seem to dress so similarly — all leather jackets and distressed jeans and hand-me-down t-shirts that are either too big or too small. The both of you take little care in your appearance, wearing only what you feel good in. And sometimes that means wild hair and baggy clothes that swallow you whole.

To make it worse, you and Eddie even talk the same. You’re both loud and brash and have very little awareness of personal space. You aren’t scared to make a scene or use your voice when you think it’s being stifled. And when you love someone, they know it, because you won’t leave them the hell alone.

These are all the things that Steve hated about Eddie. So he hasn’t quite figured out why he’s so damn in love with you. 

But he is. 

Quite dreadfully so. 

Head over heels and stumbling since the day he met you for a second time.

It was the spring of 1986 and The Groove had just opened up. Steve had heard murmurings of a record shop taking over the empty outlet adjacent to Family Video but had no idea it would nearly run them out of business. The shiny, new music store attracted all of their usual customers. People were more excited to buy new cassettes than rent movies they’d seen a thousand times already.

Steve didn’t mind, though. He liked it best when the store was empty. But all of his friends — a closeted lesbian, a basket case, and a couple of fourteen-year-olds — seemed to have the same affliction that was plaguing the rest of the town. 

He tried not to be offended when Robin said she was going to spend her break next door and not with him in the closet-sized break room. 

He failed.

Robin spent her half-hour and then some meeting you. She returned forty-five minutes later with a blushing face and a bleeding heart. Suddenly, there were two people in Steve’s life that couldn’t seem to shut up about you. As much as it annoyed him, he let her gush about you anyway, because that’s what best friends do, after all.

But Steve knew you once upon a time. Or he thought he did.

You were a loudmouthed metalhead who wore all black to blend in to Eddie’s shadow. You created fictional characters because it was easier than making friends with real people. You were strange and awkward and mean and gauche — the total opposite of this heavenly, mystical creature Robin was making you out to be.

But then it became this whole… thing.

With Robin and Eddie constantly talking over him about you, the rest of the kids were as confused as Steve was. And as they so often tend to do, the group decided to take matters into their own hands and make the short trek to meet you formally. Steve figured that their answer would be final. When those teenagers hate you, you know it. He learned that the hard way

They’re gone for a little over an hour and come back with a thousand stories and various tapes they say you gave to them for free.

Lucas has got a new Beastie Boys cassette and a proud smile on his face as he recounts the promise you’d made him about catching his next basketball game. “And she said she really liked my ranger,” he brags less than humbly, telling the older teens about how you’d heard stories about his track record in Hellfire campaigns. There’s a sudden suaveness to his voice as he bounces his brows up and down at them.

Max scrunches her face in disgust. She clutches a Kate Bush tape close to her chest, like it’s a prized possession she never wants to let go of. She rolls her eyes at her boyfriend (or maybe ex-boyfriend, but Steve can never keep up these days) and makes her own conversation with Robin. The two girls are the only ones with more than half a brain cell between them, or so they claim.

The redhead tells her that she plans on bringing her broken skateboard over to your store soon. She says the thing’s been wobbly for days, and Robin nods along like she knows all about it. “Well, apparently, she has some tools and knows how to fix it. Said the trucks just needed to be reinforced or some shit, I don’t know, I’m just glad it’s getting fixed.”

“Wait, why didn’t you tell me?” Steve asks her, confusion contorting his words along with his features. He crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “I could’ve fixed it.”

“You don’t know anything about skateboards,” Max monotones.

“Okay, but you don’t even know this girl! She’s a total stranger, Max. That’s dangerous.”

She rolls her eyes. “She’s nice, Steve. Way nicer than you—”

That makes him scoff.

“—And you’d know that if you got to know her.”

It’s Dustin’s turn to gush about you next. His opinion, for a reason Steve has never been able to place, arguably means the most to him. And the kid is just absolutely fucking beaming about you. He holds a Star Wars orchestral vinyl in his hand —  the brand new one he’s been talking about for weeks but couldn’t afford. 

He talks of the collection of DnD figurines you were painting behind the counter and the promise you made to make one for his bard come the next campaign. 

Dustin gazes at Steve, wide-eyed and nodding like he’s as amazed by the revelation as Steve is.  “She’s cool, Steve. Like… really cool.” 

The boy thought that Robin just had a crush, that Eddie was just being Eddie and overdramatizing all of his stories about you. But you’re everything they said you’d be and then some. The kind of stranger you meet that takes your breath away, that makes you sad in the understanding that you’ll never see them again. Dustin is grateful you don’t have to be a stranger anymore.

You sounded… nice. More than nice. They painted you out to be a fucking angel, the way you took care of a bunch of kids you barely knew for the better part of an hour. You weren’t the freak everyone made you out to be all that time ago.

They talk a great deal about your looks, too. Dustin, mostly. Lucas had received a glare and a half-hearted punch on the arm from Max when he said how pretty you were — even though she ultimately agreed with him. The curly-headed boy uses too big words to describe the renaissance painting you are, all heavenly morose and beautifully strange.

“Hey,” Eddie scolds from the sidelines, mostly playful. “That’s my sister you’re talking about. Bring it down a few notches, ‘kay?”

Steve is silent for the rest of the day after that. He’s not pouting about it like Robin keeps saying he is, just reserved in his reminiscence. 

He can’t tell if he’s intrigued or annoyed. They talk about you the way people used to talk about King Steve — with a borderline obsession for someone they don’t really know. And deep down, he knows he’s just jealous. Jealous that no one talks about him that way anymore. Jealous that none of the kids have ever talked about him that way.

It leaves him skeptical and wanting to see the real thing for himself.

Steve opts to meet you on his lunch break the next day with a tight chest and sweaty palms, like a part of him knew it was going to change the trajectory of his life for the foreseeable future.

The door dings with his arrival. The record store smells like earth and nostalgia, a bit like flipping through the pages of an old book. Vinyls sit in rows and in towers that rise to the ceilings. Colorful cassettes, of which there are thousands, have nooks and crannies of their own. Posters decorate the walls along with various patterned records — there’s hardly a blank spot in the entire store.

And when Steve sees you for the first time, he only sees the back of you.

You’re in all black, just like he imagined you’d be. A sliver of skin at your midriff is showing from where your too small shirt has ridden up your torso. And your hair is as wild as ever, though a little longer than he remembers. You’ve haphazardly pinned back the ornery strings with a sparkly pin, but it doesn’t do much to tame them.

A breeze of warm wistfulness washes over him at the sight of you. A reminder of a life that used to be his, that you were a part of only passively.

It’s your smile that does him in. Maybe because you’ve never looked at him with it. As far as Steve’s concerned, no one’s ever smiled at him the way you do, and you barely even know him. You hadn’t seen him in over a year and if you shared any words in the past, it wasn’t anything more than snarky one-liners. But here you are, looking at him with sunshine anyway.

“Hi,” you beam with the warmest grin he’s ever seen, swiveling in your chair to face him. “Welcome in.”

He’s too stunned by the sight of you to respond. He just stands in the doorway, all wide-eyed and gaping, like he’s the first to see an angel on earth. And it’s strange because you’re far from perfect. 

You’re blousy and a little disheveled, like you’d been running late that morning. The lack of makeup allows your imperfections to shine through in a way that makes you somehow more alluring. And you’ve got paint splattered like freckles on your cheeks, the culprit being the figurines you’re painting behind the counter. If you know you’re dotted with shades of red, blue, and green, you don’t show it.

“Can I help you find anything?” you ask him, still kind even though he’s acting like a fucking weirdo. That’s supposed to be your thing, not his.

Steve grasps for something to say but comes up short. His lips part and then close again in an embarrassing pattern that resembles a fish out of water. It makes sense, though; it’s a bit how you’ve made him feel just now.

When he realizes he can’t make out anything intelligible, he shakes his head. “Uh… nope.”

He’s leaving before he even realizes he’s leaving. The door dings again and he’s on the other side of it, long legs carrying him the short distance to Family Video at record speed. 

He swings and slams the egress shut in quick succession, as though the ghost of you had been chasing him. He leans against the glass pane and exhales a heaving sigh, eyes squeezing shut as he recoils at what he’d just done.

He always knew that King Steve had died some time ago, but this was a new low.

Robin watches from the front counter with wide eyes. “…Did you forget something?”

Steve sighs a big, hopeless sigh, then peeks his eyes open. “My dignity.”

“She’s cute, right?” she asks, already knowing the answer. Her brows bounce in time with the smirk on her painted lips.

“Yeah, she’s cute,” he answers, all mad because it’s obvious. “She’s fucking— she’s beautiful.”

“Aw. Look at you,” she sing-songs and tilts her head to her shoulder. “I think your heart grew three sizes today, Stevie.”

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

I never find out 'til I'm head over heels.

Steve, all caught up in his boyish misery, has no idea that he’s enraptured you in a similar way.

You hadn’t cared very much for the guy in high school. You didn’t really know him then, and you didn’t particularly want to. King Steve was rich. King Steve was pretty — too pretty. King Steve got attention from pretty cheerleaders and overaggressive douchebags alike.

King Steve didn’t need any affection from the local freakshow.

But, by some strange turn of events, he’d managed to make nice with your best friend. 

The way Eddie talks about Steve, his words always dripping with a distant venom, it sounds like they still hate each other. Maybe they do. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to admit that they hang out far too often not to be friends.

If you were still in school, you probably would’ve judged him for it. Being friends with the boy whose buddies made your life hell certainly warranted some degree of ridicule. But now, having graduated and trying to move on from it all, you can’t find it in yourself to. 

High school might as well have been a lifetime now. There’s no use in holding onto old ghosts.

If Eddie could let that shit go, so could you.

He drops by after school to keep you company like he always does when he doesn’t have a campaign to prep for. It’s his favorite pastime, perhaps a close second to Dungeons and Dragons. He gets to hang out with his best friend and swim in an ocean of music while he does it. As far as freaks go, Eddie Munson considers himself the luckiest.

He likes to hear you talk about everything new you’ve gotten in while he rifles through the old stuff that isn’t selling as well. You happily let him take what he wants for free. And what he doesn’t take, he doesn’t pay for either, because you cheat the system with your employee discount and then wipe the record from inventory. Just to be safe.

“I love having a criminal for a best friend,” he jokes every time, without fail.

Eddie stays by your side until the sun sets. He parts only to flip the sign at the door to closingfor you, then plops himself back on the counter again. His legs hang off the side of it, sneakers occasionally thudding against the wood when he kicks them back and forth too hard. He scans the back of an old Lynyrd Skynyrd vinyl and bobs his head to the rhythmic bass as the song fills the empty store. He’ll take this one home, he decides.

You keep on painting like you have been all day, breaking only to assist customers or stretch your aching spine. The forest dragon had been far more work than you expected — made of pretty purple leaves instead of scales and blowing blush-colored flowers instead of fire. The little piece of clay has resulted in a day of back-breaking work. 

You’ll be damned if Eddie’s next campaign isn’t the most stellar looking one yet.

Focusing on that makes it easier not to bring up Steve. 

You want to. You just don’t know how. 

Eddie’s friends were Eddie’s, and you don’t get involved where it doesn’t concern you. Besides, you did sort of give him shit for hanging out with The Hair way back when. The last thing you want is him taking the piss out of you about it.  

You don’t want to sound like you care too much. Even more, you don’t want it to be obvious that you’ve been thinking about the boy all day — making yourself sick as you stew in what could’ve run him out like he did.

“Saw your friend today,” you remark, feigning a sort of absentmindedness, as you swipe your brush along the petals of your dragon. “King Steve.”

“Oh, you met him?” Eddie wonders, more intrigued by your words than you expected he’d be. He says it like you didn’t already know the guy — like this new Steve was a totally different person you needed to be reacquainted with to really know.

“I wouldn’t say met him exactly. He just, like, popped in for half a second and ran out.”

With your back facing him, you don’t see the shit-eating grin that pulls at the corners of his mouth. 

Eddie was waiting for Steve to crack and finally see you. He knew he’d bite after the way the kids had talked about you — Dustin, especially. Because even though he claims he doesn’t have favorites, he’s got a very obvious soft spot for the boy. And he knew Steve would like you because everyone likes you. When they’re not clouded by judgment and high school hierarchies, at least. 

He’s still got no idea how a guy that trips all over himself at the sight of a pretty girl could’ve ruled Hawkins once upon a time.

“Fucking idiot,” Eddie laughs to himself, already gearing up for the shit he was going to give Steve the next time he saw him. 

But you see the boy before Eddie does. Steve comes back the next day, an hour or more after opening, less frazzled than the day before. The nearly twenty-four hours he had to prepare himself for the angel he was going to see allowed him not to make a total fool of himself when he stepped into the store again.

And you wouldn’t say it out loud — hell, it’s not even something you want to admit to yourself — but you’d been hoping he’d stop by again. 

You thought Robin would come by and drag him with her, or that Dustin and his friends would come around before Steve dropped them all home. Frankly, you didn’t really care what brought him back. You just wanted to see him again.

Steve’s different than the boy he used to be. Enough that it was obvious from a measly thirty-second interaction. He used to be a charmer who could talk his way out of anything. Not to you, of course, he wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to you. But then he stops by out of nowhere, in rare form, stumbling all over himself and looking like he didn’t recognize you at all.

You’re still trying to figure out if that was a good thing or not.

He’s mystified you in a way he probably isn’t used to. Most girls like the hair and the arms — the super buff, super strong arms that fit so nicely in his uniform — or the fact that he’s got money and a reputation that precedes him. But you’ve never given a shit about any of that. 

You’re more enchanted by the way nothing could even begin to conceal the soft, shy boy that King Steve had apparently turned into.

The door chimes above his head when he enters. The scent of earthy nostalgia is already familiar to him — lavender, sage, and something deeper. Steve considers it progress when he plants himself a few feet away from the door this time. If he runs out again, he’ll have to make an embarrassingly longer escape.

You turn away from your nearly finished figurine to greet the new customer. The practiced smile unconsciously widens at the sight of him. “Hi!”

“Hey,” he smiles with a curt nod. He regrets the half-wave he gives you the second his hand shoots up.

“You gonna run off on me again?” you tease and swivel in your chair to face him completely.

You’re wearing a Hellfire shirt that’s just slightly too big for you. It probably belonged to Eddie before it belonged to you. And you wear a corset-looking thing over top of it, a sheer number with a lace embroidery and a ribbon that’s tied in a bow at your belly. It doesn’t cinch you in the slightest, though, more for decoration than practicality.

“No that was… I just—” Steve huffs out a laugh as he tries and fails to come up with an excuse. He figures anything is better than the truth — that he saw how pretty you were and his brain forgot how to work because he’s the lamest person on the planet. 

So he chucks a thumb over his shoulder and fibs. “I left something back at Family Video. Had to run back.”

“It’s okay. I was just teasing,” you assure. “Uh— Are you looking for anything specific?”

“No. Not really. Just… new records to add to my collection, you know?”

“Oh, you collect vinyls?”

He doesn’t realize that’s what he’s just said until you repeat the words back to him. 

He’s kind of just talking out of his ass and hoping something sticks. That line does, apparently, because you’re beaming at him instantly. He’s scared to say no because then you���ll stop smiling. And he can’t have that.

“Yep,” he answers with a nod. The stack of records collecting dust in his den has to count for something, right?

He can’t find it in himself to regret his little white lie when it has you lighting up like a christmas tree. 

You toss your paintbrush down when you rush from behind the counter to meet him. You seem to have forgotten that you’d just dipped the thing in purple paint. The thing splatters shades of lilac all over the limestone bench. And, in your haste, you nearly smack yourself with the leaden slab as you raise it to pass by.

Steve’s eyes widen when you narrowly dodge the weighty thing — then jumps, startled by the dense thwap that echoes through the small store when it slams back down again. He’s almost worried that it might’ve busted the hinge. 

You cower at the loud sound but move on with a commendable finesse, too focused on him to care about anything else.

“That’s so cool! I’ve always wanted to collect, but records are so expensive, it’s crazy,” you ramble as you walk up to him, totally unthinking in the way you grab his forearm and usher him to the back of the store. 

Your sheer black skirt swishes at your ankles as you walk. The dainty fabric is patterned with sparkly stars and crescent moons. He notices you wear a pair of dark shorts underneath for modesty. Steve tries his best not to stare at your ass. He almost succeeds.

“We actually just got in a couple of Dio records — The Holy Diver, you know, the one that just came out. I’m pretty sure there’s only, like, a couple thousand of these things in the whole world — which is totally fucking bonkers if you think about it,” you explain in one breath, laughing, before stopping abruptly in your tracks. Steve nearly runs into you when you turn around to face him. 

You laugh again, a sadder one, this time at yourself, as you bring your palm to your forehead. “Sorry. I don’t— I don’t even know if you like Dio. I mean, of course, you don’t, right? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… rambled like that.”

You’d just been so excited and Steve had just been so different that you forgot who you were talking to. Hawkins High Royalty, Prom King, Biggest Flirt and Life of the Party in the yearbook. 

As far as you’re concerned, Eddie Munson is your only friend. He’s the only person in the whole world you can be yourself around and never get self-conscious about any of it. 

But sometimes you have moments like this one with a total stranger. Moments where you lose yourself in the conversation and your own jumbled thoughts. Moments where you talk and talk and talk until something thumps you on the head and you realize how annoying you’re being. This time, it’s the musky smell of his cologne that knocks you back to Ms. Click’s history class. The crisp breeze of bitter nostalgia makes you shiver.

Steve can see the way you get so suddenly aware of yourself and how the cognizance of the moment makes you writhe. He tries to bat away the lingering insecurities with a smile. 

“Love ‘em,” he responds with a nod. He raises his brows and scoffs, grins and crosses his arms over his chest. “I mean, Dio? God, they’re like… top ten bands of all time, at least. Maybe even five.”

That isn’t totally true. He doesn’t know much about the band to have an opinion, but he’s pretty sure he might’ve said he hated them once. That was only because Eddie wouldn’t stop talking about them, though. Steve could learn to like them, if it means so much to you.

That’s exactly how he justifies spending $60 on four records. 

He tells himself that he’ll listen to them and think of you, that it’ll be a solid conversation starter the next time he sees you. 

You had a whole damn rack dedicated to all your favorite bands — “I put it together myself,” you’d bragged with a proud smile. S it’s a wonder Steve didn’t walk out with the entire damn store. Because you just kept on smiling and talking, so happy to have someone to care about what you had to say, and he ate up every second of it.

He’ll have to work overtime to keep his pockets from hurting, but it’ll be worth it. Because he’ll get to keep talking to you and indulging in all the things you seem to love more than life itself.

You’re still rambling as you ring him up. Steve notices you haven’t stopped yourself like you did before. His lack of dismissal has made you more comfortable, it seems. He likes that.

“I think we’re also gonna get a couple cases of Def Leppard cassettes tomorrow, which is super sick. I think I might have to start collecting, honestly. Tapes are whole lot cheaper than records, you know,” you tell him as you scan and bag all his vinyls. “And it’s also, like, a fucking stellar album. I don’t think I’ve stopped listening to Photograph since it came out.”

“Photograph. Right. Love that one,” Steve nods with a kind smile as he props his elbows on the counter. He doesn’t particularly care that he’s not entirely sure what you’re talking about, or that he’s never actually heard the song. He’s starting to realize you could talk for hours and he wouldn’t get bored.

“Oh, is that your favorite too? Eddie’s more of a Foolin’ kinda guy.”

Despite the fact that he’s never heard the song or this album in his life, he nods anyway. 

He sort of spent the first eighteen years of his life faking just about everything — it kind of came with being the King of Hawkins High. It’s a talent that hasn’t yet left him, it seems, lying through his teeth to impress people. It’s almost become a second nature to him.

“Foolin’s good, yeah, but I think Photograph is obviously better.”

“Obviously, right!” you exclaim with a sunshine-coated laugh. “That’s exactly what I told him! But he’s way too hard-headed to be wrong about anything, so…”

“Well, I’d like to put it on the record that I firmly agree with you,” Steve replies so smoothly that his tongue must be dripping with honey. It’s so easy for him to fall into King Steve mode — when he isn’t forgetting how to speak and running off, that is.

You’ve learned a lot Steve in the past half hour. He likes metal, but leans more toward rock. Particularly all the metal and rock that you like. He hasn’t once had a differing opinion than you, besides telling you he heard Eddie playing a Metallica song once that he didn’t particularly care for. The second you tell him it’s one of your favorites, he backtracks instantly, blaming the Munson boy for being too sloshed to play it properly.

And you don’t miss the way he’s looking at you just now either, with his chin toward his chest as he peers up at you with warm amber eyes. He’s the charmer that he always was. It makes you remember, again, just who you’re talking to.

“We have a lot in common, King Steve,” you lilt with a playful grin.

He deflates at the use of the old nickname. You see the light in his eyes flicker for a just moment before he’s ducking his gaze away from you completely. He tries to brush it off with a laugh. “Yeah, I’m not— I’m not really King Steve anymore…”

“No?”

“Nope. Just… Just Steve these days.”

When he looks back at you, he finds you nodding at him, almost in approval. 

Most people are upset to find that he’s changed so much. They hate that he’s no longer the recklessly stupid dumbass they used to get drunk with. 

Not you, though.

“Cool,” you mumble, smiling softly, as you hand him his bag and receipt.

“Uh, I’d love to, you know, come take a look at those tapes when you get ‘em in,” he says as he walks backward towards the door, finally making the brash offer he’s been thinking about this whole time. “Maybe I can bring lunch and we can—”

“Well, Hellfire’s been doing campaigns during lunch recently. And Gareth’s out sick, so I’ve been subbing for him, you know, so…” you interject awkwardly, shifting your weight on your feet. You hate to turn him down, but Eddie might just kill you if he has to get a substitute for the substitute.

“Oh…” he nods, softly puckering his plump pink lips that you can’t seem to stop staring at.

“But I don’t think they’re coming in until late, anyway,” you add quickly. “So, you can stop by at closing, if you want?”

“No, yeah, that’s cool. So cool,” he replies, a little more flustered than he’d been just moments before. He’s just happy that your rejection wasn’t a total refusal.

You try to bite back the wide grin threatening to take over your mouth. “Okay… I’ll catch you later, then, Just Steve.”

“See you,” he waves right before startling himself when he backs into the basket of clearance tapes sitting just beside the door. He barely catches the thing before it tips over completely. He flashes you a shaking smile afterward and finds you covering your mouth with your hand while you try not to laugh too loudly. 

He wishes you’d just went ahead and laughed at him. He wouldn’t have even cared that you were laughing at him, if it meant he got to see you smile.

And even though he’d just gotten done making the biggest fool of himself, he walks back to work feeling like the coolest man alive. There’s a foreign strut in his step that hadn’t been there before he saw you. It doesn’t leave him when he realizes he’s gone slightly over his break and that Keith is manning the counter in his absence.

The man mumbles a monotoned goodbye to the customer he’d just checked out.

She turns around and Steve realizes he recognizes this girl — Mindy or Mandy or maybe Monica — from Mr. Kaminsky’s class way back when. She did all of his homework for him before and after letting him fuck her on her twin-sized bed in her all pink room.  That’s when Steve was conquering girls like they were Mount Everest, way before Nancy, when King was a title he wore with pride. 

But he’s still so stuck in his head with thoughts of you that he doesn’t even see Mindy-Mandy-Monica or the flirtatious wave she throws his way.

“You’re ten minutes late,” Keith scolds, with his dead tone and his deader eyes.

Steve only shrugs, uncaring if it came out of his paycheck because — “I just got a date with the hottest woman on the planet,” he boasts with a puffed out chest and too smug smile.

It doesn’t lessen Keith’s anger, just diverts it. Because he knows exactly who he’s talking about. And so does Robin, as she pops her head out from behind the man from where she sits at the computer. “No way,” they chorus in disbelief at his words.

Steve nods. “Yes way.”

“Eddie’s gonna kill you,” Robin remarks with the shake of her head. 

He knows she’s right. He just doesn’t care. 

Eddie’s always been protective of you. Everyone knows that. But the two of them were friends now — or somewhat good-natured acquaintances, at the very least. He would’ve been mad about a year or more ago, if King Steve had decided to suddenly woo his best friend. 

But it’s different now. He’s different now. Eddie knows how much everything’s changed, it’s just a question of if he’s willing to rehash old wounds.

It’s a good thing Steve knows how to take a punch.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Don't take my heart, don't break my heart.

Steve finds you again the next day less happy than he’s gotten used to.

The record store is dim and the red sign at the entrance has been flipped to closed, but the door is left unlocked — for him. The warm scent is a distinct contrast to the frigid spring night, a cozy high hemp and lavender, but your absence is noticeable and terribly heavy. 

Steve lingers in the doorway, his shadow looming like a giant before him from the moonlight streaming in from outside. 

He calls for you in the emptiness.

“Uh… Punchy?”

He’s relieved when you answer. The “back here!” you shout to him is muffled and far away. He follows the sound of your voice, filled suddenly with a childlike consolation. 

The yellow fairy lights dangling over his head guide him through the aisles of cassettes and closer to you. Through a cluttered backroom, Steve finds you standing just outside an opened door — left ajar, for him.

The smile you flash when you see him is as dim as the closed-down store. It lacks all the sunshine you usually look at him with, shades of stormy gray rather than the usual yellows. 

A look of concern flashes across his features — furrowed brows and inquisitive twinkling eyes — as you take a drag from the lit cigarette caught between your pointer and middle finger. You muster your best grin, but it flickers like a shoddy radio signal. 

“Punchy, huh?” you tease.

Steve’s brows pinch together as confusion floods his features. It takes him a moment to realize what he’d said and the nickname he’d used — and he doesn’t want to be dramatic or anything, but he kinda wants to die. It’s embarrassing, he thinks, to hold on to an old high school monicker. And, fuck, if you hate it half as bad as he hates being called king, he deserves a slap to the face right about now.

You laugh instead of ball your first. He’s able to smile meekly in relief. “Oh. Shit. Sorry, I… I don’t think I even realized it came out.”

“No, it’s okay,” you assure when you see him getting all apologetic. “Eddie still calls me that all the time, so… Old habits die hard, I guess.”

Steve tries to move on, but it’s hard to when you’re so obviously gloomy. He hates how reserved you’ve gone in your quiet, not talking up a storm like you had been the last time he saw you. Now you’re just… a storm. It’s a little like sitting next to a rumbling rain cloud.

The rumbling rain cloud beside him takes a drag of her cigarette.

“You okay?” he asks and sounds like he really cares.

You didn’t think King Steve was capable of caring about anything other than his hair, but he looks down at you like he can feel every blue bolt of your doom and gloom. He makes you feel seen in the void of your sadness despite all the years you spent being invisible to him.

“Uh, yeah. It’s just the tapes. They didn’t come in,” you answer with a shrug. Smokes leaves your mouth and lingers in white clouds in the air. “So I’m a little bummed.”

“Oh…” is all Steve says and his pink mouth forms a too pretty ‘o’ shape that you can’t draw your gaze from.

The following silence makes you momentarily cautious. Insecurity runs cold over you because no sane person gets this about upset over a broken promise of a couple cassettes. It’s stupid, you know it is, but you were really looking forward to them. It’s like promising a kid the most metal present ever and then snatching it out of their bare hands.

Now, over the course of a couple hours, you’ve managed to convince yourself you won’t remember happiness until you get those stupid tapes.

“Sorry,” you apologize to him for a reason he can’t place. You shift your weight on your feet and peer at him from beneath your lashes. “I know you were looking forward to them, too.”

You extend your hand and offer him the cigarette between your fingers like it’s an olive branch. He takes it from you with a distant smile, then opts to laze against the brick wall like you are. He stays a respectful distance on the other side of the entryway. 

“It’s okay. They’ll come. If I’m being honest, you know, I was kinda more excited to see you.”

His admission is brazen and a tad bit brash, even for a certified ex-douchebag. It lacks all of the usual honey-coated flirtation that usually tints his tone when he’s talking to a pretty girl. Because he wasn’t trying to make you swoon — though he certainly wouldn’t have minded if you had. This wasn’t some romantic advance, just a proclamation of his own personal truth.

A flash of shock contorts your features. “Really?”

“Of course,” he answers, breathing out a laugh that exits along with the smoke in his lungs. “I love talking to you. You’re… You’re cool, you know? S— Super cool.”

His face screws up at his stuttering, and he shakes his head at how the words sound leaving his mouth. His cheeks glow cherry red beneath an orange street lamp. 

“Super cool, huh?” you repeat with a giggle that’s bright enough to illuminate the velvet night. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me that before.”

Steve scoffs when he passes the cigarette back to you. Because, lately, that’s all he’s been hearing about you. From Eddie, from Robin, from Dustin — every good thing a person could say about someone else, they all say about you. 

He’s starting to understand why.

Because you’re sweet. Like, pure sugar poured on the tip of his tongue kind of sweet. You’re bright like sunshine and soft like summer rain. You’re a shot of pure espresso for a boy who thought his life was at a dead end. He’s not entirely sure how he ever could’ve thought you were some deep, dark, devil-worshipping freak.

“I don’t believe that,” he dismisses with the shake of his head.

You breathe out a sharp exhale and a puff of nicotine-coated smoke. “I’ve been the town pariah since I was eleven, Steve. Everyone thinks I’m some kinda delinquent who’s in a cult because I play a dumb board game. So, no. No one’s ever thought I was cool before.”

“Still?” Steve wonders with a twisted face. “You graduated, like, a year ago. Are... Are people really still on your ass about that?”

“A little,” you answer with a shrug, trying your best not to look as affected by it all as you feel.

Steve feels his chest swell with the fiery urge to protect you. The same one he gets when Dustin tells him about the assholes at school that are bothering him. He wants to defend you from the same sort of assholes that he used to be. The impulse is borderline primal, rooted somewhere deep and far within himself, because god knows he’s got a terrible track record when it comes to winning fights.

“Shit, Punchy… I’m— I’m sorry.”

You sputter out a laugh at the apology, louder when you realize he’s using the nickname again.

He can’t relate to any of this. The trials and tribulations of being persona non grata everywhere you went were certainly lost on him. Steve might’ve lost his touch somewhere down the road, but he’ll always be crown royalty — the kind of guy you think fondly of when your wonderyears are long gone. But you? You’re lucky if people don’t cross to the other side of the street when they spot you coming.

Perhaps that’s why his words warm you so much. Because, despite all that, he’s trying to make you feel better anyway.

You give him a tender smile and a dwindling cigarette. 

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s whatever, you know? I think it’s because I still hang out with Eddie all the time. Like, people see us and remember what fucking freaks we used to be,” you say with a laugh, then start to ramble without thinking. “We saw Tommy Hagan at Melvald’s the other day, and he looked at us like we caused him severe PTSD or something, like, he looked terrified. I honestly felt a little bad.”

Steve smiles, wide-eyed, equal parts intrigued and unsettled by the reminiscent glimmer in your eye and the daunting giggle that spills from your lips.

“But I wouldn’t leave Eddie, you know?” you blurt, suddenly serious, like you’ve taken offense at the very thought. “Not even if it meant people stopped being so mean. ‘Cause I love him and everything… Even though he’s a pain in the ass.”

“Oh, he’s a total pain in the ass,” Steve agrees and flicks the butt of the cig between his fingers. “He loves you too, though. I can tell. The asshole never shuts up about you.”

“He talks about me?” you ask, voice fragile and pitched higher than normal.

Steve doesn’t like the way you say it. He hates how you look at him even more, with a scrunched up face and eyes that flicker with embers of shock. Like you don’t believe it, like you think yourself unworthy of it.

“You’re all he talks about,” the boy assures, feeling so suddenly brave and wanting to make you feel brave too. He hands the cigarette back to you. “I don’t blame him. If I were him, I’d never shut up about you either.”

The contorted look of confusion on your face untwists itself, and your features fall flat with disbelief. A smile pulls slow at your mouth. Your eyes glitter an orange gold beneath the streetlight. They flit over to the boy beside you just long enough to take the stick from him.

“Steve Harrington…” you lilt, almost scoldingly so.

It makes him smile. “What?”

“Stop flirting with me.”

“Well, that’s very presumptuous of you,” he retorts playfully. “Who’s to say I was flirting?”

“So you weren’t then?”

“Maybe a little,” he shrugs with a knowing, practiced smirk. “Can you blame me?”

You don’t seem impressed by his not-so-subtle attempt at flirting, and he isn’t at all used to that. The bravado and the puppy dog eyes are his one-two punch — any other time, he’d have a phone number tucked safely in his pocket by now. But you’re not biting.

“I’m so not your type,” you dismiss with the shake of your head.

“Yeah?” he challenges, shoving himself off the brick wall with his shoulder and making the short trek over to you. He plants himself next to you, leans with one sneaker crossed over the other, and smiles with a playful twinkle in his eye. “And what’s my type?”

“Nancy Wheeler,” you answer without missing a beat. “Pretty girls.”

“Well, I think you’re very pretty—”

“Not like her,” you interject with a foreign firmness that Steve hasn’t seen from you until now. You’re still smiling at him, though, still kind but looking like you don’t believe him. Like you think this must be some kind of sick joke that he’s taking too far.

You can entertain Steve. You like Steve. Mostly because he’s totally different from the douchebag you remember him being — the douchebag you were expecting him to be. 

You find that he’s terribly clumsy and not overtly good with words. He says dumb jokes that don’t come out right and smiles in relief when they make you laugh anyway. He’s soft like peach fuzz or a fluffy cloud, mushy like warm chocolatey gooey goodness, and not at all like you remember him.

But then he does this. He morphs into something else, changes shape right in front of you. He smiles at you with little of his dumbassery behind it — all smirks and faux longing gazes with the intent of making you swoon at his feet. He grins down at you and all you see is the teenage boy who would’ve never looked at you that way four years ago. Hell, not even one. 

It reminds you of who he is, who he used to be, and who you are now. 

You haven’t changed so much since high school. You’ve matured a little, sure, but there was never an asshole exterior that you felt the need to outgrow. You’re still loud at times, unaware and ignorant of the world around you. You still play lightsabers outside Eddie’s trailer in between lengthy Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. You still pretend like the lingering glares from all the people you used to know don’t bother you. 

They do, though. They always have.

You look at Steve and you see this butterfly — someone made of rainbow colors and mostly mature. He’s growing, and you’re stuck in the same cocoon you’ve been wrapped in since freshman year, still fumbling around and trying to figure out where you fit.

He’ll always be the pretty butterfly he always was, with his pretty little iridescent wings that catch the light and all the attention. He’ll feed off the applause he gets while you’re sitting on the sidelines. The girl who’s destined to stay bundled in her cocoon forever only hears all of his praise — never watches, never receives.

“You and I are completely different people, Steve Harrington,” you declare with a grin that tells him you’ve already made up your mind.

The boy doesn’t get it, though, why you seem so upset by the idea. Him and Robin were completely different people. Him and Dustin were, too. The two people he adored — tolerated — most in the entire world weren’t a single thing like him, and it was better that way.

You don’t seem to share a similar philosophy, though. You take a drag from your mostly gone cigarette and mourn what could have been; if only he had been the town freak or you had been born the pretty girl next door.

“That doesn’t have to be such a bad thing—”

He’s abruptly cut off by the sound of muffled rock music and the bright yellow headlights of Eddie Munson’s van. The two of you shield your eyes when he whips into the desolate parking lot and parks in front of you. The sudden intrusion feels like being blinding like the sun after you’ve found such comfort within each other in the dead of night.

The stifled Def Leppard song — or maybe Poison, Steve can never quite tell the difference — is brought to a sharp halt when the engine shuts off. The headlights dim. The metallic slam of the driver’s side door sounds so much louder in the darkness.

Eddie rounds the front of his van and eyes the two of you rather suspiciously. The boy inhales deeply, puffing out his chest and splaying his hands on his hips. “…What’s going on here?” he squints at you.

You give him a terribly manufactured sunshine smile and bat your lashes his way, like you’re pretending to be un-innocent. “Nothing…” you sing-song.

Eddie rolls his eyes at you, then turns his attention to Steve. They’re not really strangers anymore, but he still feels the need to treat him like an outsider anyway.

“Harrington,” he says in the place of any real greeting. “Don’t you have other shit to do? Like, I don’t know, a shift as the mannequin at the GAP or something?”

Steve can’t find it in himself to get self-conscious about his fitted-sweatshirt, khaki-slack combo when the insult comes from a guy in a decade-old leather jacket, unwashed t-shirt, and ripped jeans.

“Very funny,” the brunette monotones. 

“I’ll see you around, yeah?” you ask when you turn and walk backwards towards Eddie, like there’s a gravitational pull dragging you to him.

You say it to be polite mostly, but you’re hoping for an affirmative — a promise that you’ll have another night like this one, where he sees you just to be seeing you. Hell, you’ll even take a nod if that’s all he’ll give you. And when he does, he gives you a tiny smile that almost makes you trip over yourself.

Fuck, you think to yourself, like your brain is talking to your heart. We just agreed not to do that.

Before you get in the van, you walk by Eddie and bring your cigarette up to his mouth. You coax the stick between his lips with your pointer and middle finger, opting to let him take the last couple of hits because he never turns down a free smoke.

The passenger door shuts once you’re tucked into the seat of it. The sound it makes punctuates your absence. Steve feels all of its emptiness.

He eyes Eddie from the distance, immediately noticing the darkened skepticism dancing in his dark eyes. 

The boy’s always felt the need to protect you. When the entire town got spooked about stories of some satanic panic and started treating you like monsters, he wanted to shield you from the boogeyman everyone turned into. 

Steve wasn’t one of them, the bad men. But Eddie loves you and it’s made him doubtful.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Steve feels the need to say, as though he’d been caught with his pants down and not just sharing an innocent cigarette with a friend.

Eddie takes the final few puffs of it and exhales rather dramatically, lips pursing to blow it in his direction though it’s too far away to hit him. The boy throws the filter to the concrete and extinguishes the ashes with the toe of his dirty sneakers. 

He waits until the white smoke has fully dissipated to speak.

“Damn right, it isn’t.”

That’s all he says. He doesn’t even look at Steve when he says it, or when he rounds the van and hops into the driver’s seat next to you. Steve squints when the too bright headlights come alive again in time with the roaring engine and dated rock music. His tires screech when he speeds out of the back parking lot. 

The tin can he drives nearly tips over when he turns too sharply onto Main Street.

Steve doesn’t get a chance to get a good look at you before you’re gone completely. It makes him all boyishly upset, knowing the hours without you will be most agonizing, but the empty feeling is eclipsed by the warm relief of not getting clock cleaned by Eddie Munson.

Damn right, it isn’t. Four words. That’s all he gets. But they’re daunting and coated with a lingering foreboding that feels almost like a threat.

So, by all accounts, Steve probably should’ve known there was no way Munson was ever going to back down that easily.

Eddie comes back the next day, a thundering storm cloud of the boy he usually is, head wild with curly hair and a million thoughts. 

The door dings far too gently for such an aggressive arrival. Metal bangs against metal as the handle collides with the window pane. He stomps to the counter in several quick strides, dark eyes darting around the half-empty store — obviously searching for something.

Robin, manning the front counter, is entirely unable to be threatened by him. The all black, chunky metal rings, and crazy hair stopped being so intimidating when she found out you called him Eddie Spaghetti. Now, it’s all she can think about when she sees him. 

Even as he stands ahead of her, obviously upset, all she sees is a very cartoonishly angry Eddie Spaghetti, and it takes everything in her not to laugh.

“Where’s Steve?” the boy finally wonders when he realizes the boy’s not in the front.

“Uh, he’s in the back, I think. Why?”

Eddie doesn’t humor her with an answer. He just storms past the counter and makes a b-line for the break room.

Robin watches him over her shoulder. “You’re not supposed to go back there!” she half-heartedly shouts, but makes no further effort to stop him from doing so.

He finds Steve working beneath the dim yellow light of the back room. There’s a warmed-up container of leftovers on the small round table on one side of the room and a stack of unorganized tapes on the counter on the other. Steve multitasks between both and hums something summery under his breath — The Beach Boys, maybe.

He’s too distracted to notice Eddie’s abrupt appearance. It’s the subtle click of the shut door that gets his attention.

Steve’s confused at first. His head snaps over his shoulder like a ghost must’ve closed the door on him. He realizes that it’s just Eddie, and he’s so innocently relieved that it’s almost humorous, then confused all over again. His brows pinch together and through the chicken tender jutting out his check, he mumbles: “You’re not supposed to be back here—”

“Yeah, I got that part,” Eddie interrupts in a monotone.

He swallows. It’s as thick as the tension that settles between the two of them, made heavier by the lengthy silence. He crosses his arms over his chest, stands up a little straighter, and bares his neck when he lifts his chin. “I want you to leave her alone.”

Steve scoffs and chews through his mouthful. “Leave who alone?”

“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” Eddie squints with an unusual sort of seriousness. “I don’t want you messing around with her anymore, man. I’m, fucking— I’m so fucking serious right now.”

The clarification makes Steve laugh. He shakes his head and goes back to piling the myriad of tapes into organized stacks on the counter. “We were just talking, Eddie. I don’t need the lecture, okay?”

“We both know it’s never just talking with you.”

“What? Are you in love with her or something?” he retorts, trying to make a joke of it.

Eddie, for the first time in his life, isn’t amused. “Oh, god, get over yourself, dude. I know what kinda guy you are, alright? I’m not gonna let you hurt her.”

His words hit Steve like a pot of boiling water. It prickles his skin, leaving blisters and burning red blotches in its wake. He’s all but on fire with his anger, less offended by the accusation than by the person it comes from.

Steve and Eddie aren’t friends by any means. They’re just two guys with shared custody of a bunch of teenagers, bonded in their want to keep them all safe. But through their lighthearted animosity, is a sort of understanding: neither of them are the assholes the entire town claims them to be. Eddie isn’t apart of some satanic cult. Steve isn’t a douchebag that uses women as accessories. And that’s just a silent agreement they’ve both come to on their own terms. 

But now here they are, talking like it’s 1984 all over again and they’re strangers who hate each other’s guts.

“No. I’m not gonna hurt her. Because we’re just friends, Eddie.”

The boy just shakes his head. He scrunches his nose like he’s wincing, then laughs — a big, dramatic laugh that fills the tiny break room. He begins to pace, waving an accusatory ringed finger Steve’s way. “No, see… That’s the thing. I don’t think King Steve is capable of being ‘just friends’ with a pretty girl.”

Steve rolls his eyes with a heavy huff. He comes to the conclusion that Eddie’s just projecting and that there’s no use in arguing his case. He shoves a black VHS tape into its designated sleeve and slots it in with the rest of them, muttering under his breath, “I’m not King Steve anymore…”

“What?”

“I said, I’m not King Steve anymore!” he yells, a bit louder than he intended to.

He drives a tape onto the pile with an unexpected aggression. It hits the wall with a resounding thud. His arms flail wildly at his sides when he turns to face Eddie again. “God, you guys act like people can’t change! I’m not the asshole I used to be, alright? Jeez…”

Eddie exhales sharply through his nose in the place of any real reply. Deep down, he knows all that. He knows it’s all true because he would’ve never befriended him otherwise. Steve Harrington — the king, the rich kid, the douchebag — turned out to be a pretty damn good guy. 

And maybe if Eddie didn’t love you so much, he’d be able to wrap his head around all that.

But does. So he can’t.

He saw you two together the night before, sharing a cigarette behind The Groove — albeit a little too close for his liking — and suddenly, it was junior year all over again.

You’re stressed out about the ACT and college acceptance rates, none of your clothes quite fit you, and you’re trying out bold things with your makeup that don’t quite fit you either. You grin wildly up at Eddie through the vibrant lipstick smeared on your lips, laughing at his half-hearted attempt to cheer you up. 

And Steve is a senior, standing on the other side of the hallway — with his pretty clothes and prettier hair — and he lets all of his friends laugh at you. They make fun of your un-styled hair and the way your shirt makes your boobs look, and Steve doesn’t find any of it particularly funny but he lets them mock you anyway.

Eddie sees you together and forgets about the man Steve is now. All he sees is a boy who never stuck up for you, for either of you, who let his best friends make your lives hell because his reputation mattered more.

And it wasn’t like it was his job to defend you, because it wasn’t. Not really. It’s just that you would’ve done it for him, if the roles were reversed. Eddie, too. Neither of you would’ve let a lamb be led to the slaughter quite like that. It was the Hellfire motto, after all — to protect the little sheep from the creeping wolves.

That’s where the difference lies. It’s where the mistrust settles deep and where the root of all of Eddie’s worries lingers.

But Steve has done more to prove himself than Eddie likes to give him credit for. 

He takes care of a bunch of kids like it’s his job. He runs Robin to and from school most days out of the week, on time each morning — which, for a guy who showed up late every day for four years, was definitely saying something. He even comes to Eddie’s shows when he’s not too busy working the graveyard shift, never minding that he sticks out in his collared shirt and slacks — a pretty boy amidst a crowd of freaks.

Fuck. Steve Harrington was a pretty alright dude.

But you’re better than alright. You’re better than good. Better than perfect. 

If you got your heart broken, Eddie thinks he’d feel all of it times a thousand.

Steve’s been through his own kind of heartbreak, though. He’s slapped a bandaid over his own bleeding heart, and it’s made him soft. The good kind of soft — the kind where he sees a bug on its back and has to flip it over because it hurts too much to let it suffer. Eddie knows he’ll be that kind to you. Kinder, even.

“Yeah, you better hope so, Harrington,” the boy concludes with a slow nod of his wild head. He steals a chicken tender from the styrofoam box it sits in, like it’s some kind of power move, and waves it at him like a condemnatory point. “I hear you do anything — anything — to her… And your ass is grass.”

Eddie takes a hearty bite from the strip, then tosses it back into the container again. He spins on the ragged heel of his sneaker and stalks out of the break room, punctuating his absence with the slam of the door. The ancient thing gets lodged and doesn’t quite shut all the way, so he has to double back and shut it fully.

Steve is left dumbfounded, in more ways than one.

“…He just ate my chicken,” he mumbles to himself with a frown settled deep between his brows. But there’s a lingering tension in Eddie’s storming out — a tangible fog within his words that settles something heavy in the Family Video breakroom that doubles as storage. 

It feels almost like a blessing.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Won't escape my attention...

The more time you spend with Steve, the more confident you get. 

You visit him at work more often, caring less and less about bothering anybody when you realize they all wanted you there. You let yourself ramble in front of him, too, not stopping yourself nearly as often as you used to. Steve guesses you started to believe him somewhere around the millionth time he promised he liked hearing you talk.

You turn to glitter in his presence, becoming more unapologetically yourself and glowing with it — with all the things that used to make you insecure, things that King Steve would’ve made fun of you for some time ago. Everything you were scared made you too different, is why he liked you in the first place.

And Steve gets to watch it all play out right before his eyes. You inch slowly out of the protective shell you’ve built around yourself and bloom like springtime flowers. He’s grateful he gets to witness it, even more that you feel comfortable enough to do it all in front of him.

You’re hardly as timid as you usually are when you saunter into Family Video. Rather than tiptoeing in and apologizing for intruding, you burst through the front door with a beam and a high-pitched squeal. You’re as bright as every star in the galaxy combined; even dressed head-to-toe in black, you’re more blinding than the sun. 

Eddie’s leather jacket, either stolen or unenthusiastically lent from the boy himself, swallows your upper half. You wear a piece of Metallica merchandise beneath it. The thing is cut up to your ribcage. The jagged edges in the fabric, likely from a dull pair of kitchen scissors, tells him the chop was intentional.

A leather skirt clings effortlessly onto you, revealing the pudge of your stomach and the curves of your hips. The thing is donned with two spiked belts and several chains hanging loosely at your waist.

Steve is dozing at the counter with his chin propped on his first when you walk in. He’s half-asleep until he sees you. The shot of espresso that walks in makes him instantly forget how tired he is.

“Guess what?” you ask with wide, sparkling eyes as you skip to the counter with your hands behind your back.

Steve always hated that question. Usually, it came from Dustin or Robin — or, god forbid, both of them — followed by a “No, seriously. Guess.” It left him with no choice but to humor them until they ultimately caved and told him something he couldn’t have guessed in a million years.

He isn’t so annoyed now, though. In fact, he smiles. “What?” he replies.

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, as though in a futile attempt to conceal the wide grin on your face, and take your hands from behind your back. You flash him the cassette tape you hold in the palm of them, a blue and yellow thing with the angled Def Leppard logo printed on the cover.

“No way!” Steve finds himself exclaiming like he’s the number one fan of the rock and roll band. He isn’t; never has been, really. But he is a fan of you. All of his excitement, all of his bright and shining smiles — they’re all for you.

“They came in last night— when I was off, of course— and I opened this morning and there was a whole damn tower of these tapes! I’m the one who does the tape towers, okay? Plus, I’ve been doggin’ my manager for weeks about the things, so I can’t believe they came in and no one told me, you know?”

Steve gets lost in your rambling right along with you, nodding because he never wants you to stop talking. His twinkling gaze follows you back and forth as you pace in front of the counter. You gesticulate wildly with your hands, nearly elbowing a customer when they get too close to the line of fire.

“And she was all like ‘I can’t control when they come in,’ And I was like ‘well, you can’t control when I come in either, I’ll be taking a long lunch now, thank you’—” you recount, albeit at a slightly louder volume that shocks anyone who doesn’t know you. People shoot you lingering side eyes from over the aisles.

Steve doesn’t care. He’s even happier that you don’t seem to either. You feel comfortable enough with him now to stop caring about the rest. When you stop yourself, you do it because you’ve said everything you need to say, not because you feel like you’ve annoyed him in some way. 

“Anyway,” you conclude with a sigh. “I wanted to run it to you personally because, besides Eddie, you’re the only person I know who cares as much as I do.”

You smile sweetly at him, peering at him through your lashes, so suddenly timid — no longer the boisterous girl lighting up the whole room. Steve notices that you do that a lot, go from loud and sunny to shy and glimmering. Eddie does it too, sometimes, but it’s not nearly as cute.

“My wallet’s in my locker,” he tells you when you hand him the tape. He cocks his thumb over his shoulder with his free hand. “Let me go grab it. I’ll be, like, two seconds—”

You reach over the counter and take him by the arm, wrapping chipped maroon nails around the crook of his elbow to keep him from straying too far. Shock coats his features at the suddenness of your touch and the way it makes him buzz.

You scoff. “Are you serious? I’m not gonna make you pay, you weirdo.”

“No?”

“Of course not! It’s a gift.”

“Well, gee, Punchy. Considered me flattered,” he concedes with a faltering smile.

You laugh at his half-hearted attempt to be charming.

He rests his crossed arms on the counter and leans over the top of it in an effort to be the slightest bit closer to you. He gazes up at you with honey eyes and raised brows and a big, dumb smile. “And, you know, flattery... it goes a long way with me.”

You arch an un-manicured brow at him. “Does it, now?”

“Yep. So much so, I’m willing to break a few rules and let you pick out a couple of movies. On the house.”

It’s dumb and it’s sweet and so terribly innocent. He wants to give you so much than that but he’s got about eighteen dollars to his name, so all he can do is offer you a few measly VHS tapes. It has you beaming like he just offered you the world.

“Steve Harrington,” you scold playfully. “I didn’t know you were so naughty.”

He falters. His resolve slips and, for no more than half a second, his brain forgets how to work. 

He’s not quite sure how you manage to do that to him all the damn time. You make his brain shortcircuit and his belly quiver and his vision swim. He’s known you for a while now, long enough that the lovesickness should’ve well worn off.

Steve’s worried that there’s no cure for you, that he’s in it for the long haul now — upset stomachs, heart palpitations, and all.

“Well, I’m full of surprises,” he shrugs and sways on his feet. “What’s your poison, Punchy? Molly Ringwald? Robert Downey Jr.? The John Hughes type?”

You can tell he’s joking. You squint over at him and rest your elbows on the counter top your face-to-face. 

The wintergreen mint on his breath makes your head swim. 

Your rouge-tined lips are so close he can taste them — he wants to, desperately so. 

You don’t miss the way his gaze flits to your mouth, lingering there for no longer than a blink.

“Try Night of the Living Dead,” you challenge. 

“That is so dreadfully on brand for you,” he manages to reply without much stuttering. He’s surprised he’s able to get any words out at all, with the way his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest.

“I’m nothing if not predictable.”

Steve doesn’t respond as he leaves the counter to get what you asked for. Silence is easier than saying that you’re the most surprising thing he’s ever met in his life.

When he returns, he brings the entire film franchise with him. All three movies are stacked in his arms and he scans the backs of them, hoping Keith won’t notice that they’re being rented free of charge.

“Have you ever seen them?” you wonder.

He shakes his head. “No. I saw one of them at a drive-in a long time ago, but I wasn’t exactly paying attention, if you know what I mean—” he answers with a soft laugh, quick to cut himself off. It was supposed to be a dumb joke, but both of you know what he was insinuating and it makes everything awkward. 

Robin would’ve slapped him on the back of the head if she were around to hear it. 

He would’ve deserved it.

“Well, you missed out,” you scold, not quite meeting his gaze. “They’re actually pretty good.”

“I’ll try and watch ‘em sometime then.”

“Tonight?” you offer suddenly.

Steve furrows his brows. “…Huh?”

“I mean, like— I don’t know… I thought maybe we could watch them tonight,” you stammer with your eyes turned down toward the counter, where you draw invisible patterns onto the granite with the tip of your finger. “Like, together… if you want.”

Steve is momentarily speechless. He’s spent weeks plotting how he was going to ask you out. It would come to him in waves. He’d feel like he’d concocted the most perfect, foolproof plan right before realizing there was no way in hell he could ever go through with it — all in the same fleeting thought. 

But here you are, biting the bullet for the both of you. 

He’s grateful. He thinks he’s dreaming.

“That sounds…” Steve trails off with the mindless nod of his head. “Yeah. No. Totally. That sounds… really cool.”

A wide smile pulls at the edges of your lips. You purse your mouth to the side in attempts to conceal it. “Cool,” you murmur all cool-ly, like his affirmation isn’t heaven to your ears.

“Uh, not to sound like a total douchebag or whatever, but my dad— he’s got this theater room and everything, and my parents are almost never home,” Steve rambles as he puts all three movies into a paper bag. Then his eyes go wide and his face glows cherry red. “Not like that! I didn’t mean it like— That sounded really weird… I’m sorry—”

You giggle at him, at the way he can pretend to be so suave, and then reveal all the marshmallow fluff he tries to keep hidden a moment later. “It’s okay, Steve. I got what you meant.”

He writes his address on a yellow sticky note with the Family Video logo printed in green at the very top. His handwriting is boyish and sloppy, the sign of a boy who never did care much about school. Some letters are connected, others far apart; some written too big, while others are too small. You find it endearing, but Steve knows it’s just because his hand was shaking something fierce.

He leaves his number written at the very bottom. Just for good measure.

“No funny business, alright, Harrington?” you joke, waving a ringed finger at him as you walk backward out of the store, heading back to your own job.

Steve bites back a smile. Once upon a time, he was all funny business. No girl was ever going to invite King Steve over and not expect some heavy petting. And he wants so badly to kiss you — fuck, he wants to kiss you all the time — but the want to spend innocent time with you eclipses all of those boyish feelings.

He yearns to be close to you. Like magnets. Or a moon and the ocean’s tide.

“No funny business,” he promises.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

You keep your distance with a system of touch.

It isn’t until you arrive at the front gates of the Harrington home you realize you’ve never been in the suburbs of Hawkins before.

You grew up on the very outskirts of town, where there were more trees than people or houses. The block was half rundown already and horribly secluded. The only interesting thing about it was the winding trail through the woods that led to the anterior of Forest Hills trailer park.

That’s where you spent the bulk of your time, practically living with Eddie and Wayne in their one-bedroom trailer, until you felt guilty enough to go back home for a day or two. Your parents would inevitably remind you why you ran off in the first place, and then the cycle would start all over again.

It was all just far enough away from Hawkins that you could pretend like the town’s bullshit didn’t exist. The freak from the wrong side of the tracks didn’t belong on Maple Street or Fairview Road or Laurel Avenue. That was for people who could afford new shoes every school year, who could go clothes shopping and not feel guilty about cutting into their food money, who were set up with trust funds before they were even born.

But here you are now, on Fairview Road, seven o’clock sharp, and standing in front of the biggest house you’d ever seen. 

You ring the doorbell and flinch when it’s louder than expected. The chime is light and jaunty. You wonder if it’s been programmed for the change in season.

Steve answers no more than a couple seconds later. He swings both French doors open, arms spreading wide like the smile on his face.

He’s traded in his slacks for comfier jeans and his vest for a form-fitting sweatshirt he’s bunched at the elbows. You realize, then, that you’ve never seen him without the forest green Family Video jacket. It makes him look naked, almost, like a totally different person — no longer the dork who works a measly nine-to-five with his best friend and visits the freak next door on the off chance his manager won’t dock his pay for it.

The vest had humbled him to a certain extent. Now he just looks cool. Like the boy people would either praise or avoid like the plague, for fear of getting in King Steve’s path — just a little bit more mature looking now, with his chiseled jaw and scruffy chin.

It makes you feel a little stupid from where you stand on the porch ahead of him, wearing the same thing he’d seen you in earlier that day. He’s got no idea you spent the past couple of hours agonizing over what to wear. For the sake of not seeming crazy overzealous, you opted not to dress up. Now you’re scared he thinks you just didn’t care enough to.

But you do care. So goddamn much that’s it scary. 

You never had to worry about what you wore or what you looked like before you left the house, about what you had too much of and what you lacked. Now, it’s all you can think about.

If Steve notices anything at all, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps on smiling at you, too happy to see you to care about what you’re wearing. He’s just glad that you showed up.

Truth be told, he had a six-pack and Robin’s number on speed dial on the off chance you canceled on him. He was preparing himself to wallow in self-pity and spend the rest of the night ranting to his best friend about the bleeding heart he had for you. Because, as far as he was concerned, you were far too good to be true. 

You were beautiful and funny and kind and perfect. You treat him like you’ve known him for years, like he didn’t spend so many of them avoiding you in attempts to keep some measly title that didn’t mean shit. You were too perfect. Sometimes, Steve gets scared that he just made you up.

But whether you’re a dream come true or the real thing, you’re standing on his front porch anyway, with a smile and a bottle of grocery store wine. 

He saves the beer in his fridge and the wallowing for another day. 

Steve escorts you through his lavish living room and to the downstairs area that’s got a movie screen hanging on the walls and a couple of leather couches sitting in front of it. The coffee table in front of them holds a myriad of glass bowls — popcorn, various candies, and more popcorn.

“You planning on throwin’ a party down here, Harrington?” you tease with a soft chuckle, trying to conceal how your heart’s about to burst at the mere sight of it all.

“Well, I just— I didn’t know what you liked, and I didn’t— I wanted to make sure you had something to eat, you know,” the boy stammers out. He brings the palm of his hand to rub at the back of his neck. “So I just… I got… everything.”

“It’s a good thing a like everything then, huh?” you smile at him as you pluck a Red Vine from its dedicated bowl. You rip off an inch or two with your teeth and then talk as you chew: “I hope you’re prepared for all of this shit get eaten, Harrington. I can get quite ravenous.”

Steve nods to himself and tries not to smile too big. “Sounds entertaining… Maybe I’ll just watch you instead of the movie.”

It was supposed to be a joke. 

But then you settled down next to him on the couch, keeping a respectful distance but sharing the same fuzzy blanket, and he has to physically force himself to drag his gaze away from you. 

He was right about what he said before, you were far more entertaining than the black and white film projected ahead of him — grabbing handfuls of popcorn at a time and quoting the movie through the mouthful. 

It’s a tad bit barbaric, the faintest bit off-putting, and otherworldly levels of endearing. It leaves him virtually unable to take his eyes off of you. 

He didn’t think you could get more beautiful, but you keep on proving him wrong. 

He’s starting to realize he doesn’t know shit.

You’re slowly coming to the same understanding.

You’ve heard stories about Steve. Usually from gossiping cheerleaders standing in circles at their lockers or whispering in the back of a classroom. Doomed as the freak and all but banished from the inner society of Hawkins High, you became an observer. You were so invisible that people sometimes didn’t realize they were talking right over you, sharing secrets they wouldn’t want someone else to get a hold of. 

But apparently you were the exception. Because you weren’t a someone to them.

They talked about how kind he was, how well endowed, how they were meant to go on some stupid date but missed their reservation because Steve got a little too handsy beforehand, and how they spent the rest of the night with their hands shoved down each other’s pants at Lover’s Lake. 

You were seeing, firsthand, how much he’d changed. How he made his promise of no funny business and how he was sticking to it — no teasing you about the whole thing with a knowing smirk and flirtatious honey eyes, no urging to close this distance between you, no tiny touches on your arm or thigh in the hopes of heavier petting.

He spends the entirety of the first movie perfectly respectful. Just like you’d asked him to be. 

And it was nice, knowing that you weren’t wasting your evening with some asshole who was only spending time with you in the hopes of you putting out later. But it leaves you the faintest bit empty. Hungry. You long for his touch like a missed meal. Starving and feeling it all.

It’s not even heavy petting you want, you just want to feel him next to you — to press yourself into his side and to warm yourself with him like a blanket. 

But you weren’t a pretty cheerleader or a girl dripping in expensive clothes and daddy’s money. You were the weirdo, the freak, the loudmouth nerd, Punchy — all names you wore proudly, like lit-up signs or steel armor. 

Until now. 

Now you think if you weren’t Punchy, if were you someone different, then maybe he’d want to touch you more.

The first hour and thirty-seven minutes of your favorite movie are strangely agonizing. 

Your hands itch with the desire to touch the boy next to you, and they busy themselves with the bowls of candy and savory junk food splayed out on the table in front of you. It’s mindless more than it is anything. You’re absentminded binging does nothing more than half-distract you from the thoughts raging rivers in your skull.

You don’t even realize you’re doing it until your hand falls into an empty bowl of popcorn and finds nothing but kernels at the bottom of it. 

It makes Steve laugh, thinking you were just too into the movie to notice — having no idea it was him taking up all your brain power. 

He leaves to fix more snacks for you while you slip the second VHS into the movie player. He returns with a bowl of freshly popped popcorn and two beers after the wine bottle has been sufficiently emptied. When he plops down next to you again, it’s in the same spot he’d been sitting in all night — a couple of excruciating inches away.

Under the guise of sharing the popcorn in his lap, you make the too bold decision to slither in at his side. It’s innocent at first — your thighs just barely graze and your elbows bump when you dip your hands into the bowl. And it’s still innocent some thirty minutes later, when you find yourself resting your head on his shoulder with your legs curled up behind you.

Steve tenses when he feels your temple pressed against him, but only for a moment before he relaxes again. It makes him all suddenly warm and self-aware of every movement he makes. He tries not to breathe too heavy or shift too often, for fear it might jostle you too much. He doesn’t want to stop feeling you against him like this, even if it’s got his skin prickling with a searing form of anxiety.

“Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep,” he jokes.

“Of course not. It’s way too riveting,” you scoff, even though he can feel you cuddling further into him. Your cheek rubs against the soft cotton of his sweatshirt when you look up at him. He turns his head to peer down at you and his nose nearly grazes your forehead. 

He finds you with a certain glint in your eye. It’s borderline playful, like it so often is, but coated with a sweetness that drips over him like honey. “You like it so far?” you wonder.

“Yeah,” the boy nods quickly. He couldn’t tell you what had happened the past two-and-a-half films, but he could tell you how your jaw tenses when you chew and how your smile curls just before you laugh out loud and how your eyes widen every time you quote the movie. “It’s really good. I like it.”

You beam at him before turning back to the projector again. You shift to get more comfortable against him. “Good.” 

By the third movie, you’re somehow even closer.

Truth be told, Day of the Dead wasn’t your favorite in the trilogy, so it left your mind wandering to far off places — namely, the pretty boy sitting beside you. He goes to put the tape into the projector, feeling immediately cold without pressing into his side, and when he returns he tries his best not to beg you to cuddle against him again.

“My shoulder’s gettin’ real cold over here,” he tries to joke. 

You see right through his beckoning, though. It makes you happy to know he wants it just as much as you do. 

“Just say you wanna be next to me, Harrington,” you tease like you aren’t happily obliging him. You snuggle into his shoulder and rest your head against him while your arms curl around his bicep.

“I wanna be next to you,” he repeats, a playful smile on his lips though his gaze softens with sincerity. “Is that so bad?”

You shake your head against him in reply. Suddenly as mushy as the boy beside you, you turn to look up at him. “Not unless it’s bad that I wanna be next to you, too…”

“Nah. It’s not bad,” he assures in something short of a whisper. “Guess I’m just glad I’m not the only one that’s so far gone.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what he means by that. He doesn’t have to.

Perhaps it’s the admission that this boy is so far gone for you that gives you a sudden burst of confidence. Maybe it’s the comforting feeling of being seen, of knowing you’re no longer alone in your similar far gone-ness. Each feels like rays of sunshine to your skin and has you pressing your lips to his wanting ones without much thought. 

The plump pink of his mouth are magnets for yours. They meet and lock together with little effort, almost destined to do it. It’s a soft, meager, and lingering little peck that sucks you both in a little too easily. It’s hard to pull away from him, but when you do, your lips click in protest.

Then there’s a look, then a deafening silence that says more words than either of you were capable of forming in that moment. His amber eyes dart between both of yours, asking a question without saying a goddamn thing. One that you answer with your own softening gaze. 

And it’s almost better than the kiss itself, the swirling feeling in the pits of your stomach, the knowing of what’s about to happen.

A silent plea and a blink later and his lips are on yours again. 

It’s an awkward mess of yearning mouths and tangled limbs as the both of you fight to find purchase on one another. Your fingers knot in the collar of his sweatshirt, pulling him impossibly closer, while his grip the bare skin of your waist from where your shirt had ridden up. His touch makes you buzz, like a static shock or a bolt of lightning.

Steve makes several observations when he feels you melt into him like honey on toast. He notices how you press yourself into him, like you won’t be satisfied until you’ve swallowed him whole, and how it has you kissing him like you’re scared he’ll pull away — like you’ll open your eyes and he won’t be real. 

You’re as domineering against his mouth as you are in real life, still as all-consuming and overpowering as the girl he’s gotten so familiar with.

He doesn’t realize how you’ve settled so intently on top of him until his back meets the pillowy cushion of the leather couch. You don’t either, until he exhales a sharp gasp against your cupid’s bow. Then you part from him, for the first time in several minutes, breathing in the oxygen your lungs had just begun to scream for. 

Steve finds you with kiss-bitten lips and glassy eyes that look upon him with a softness that he didn’t know existed until now. He smirks with his own swollen and pinker mouth like he isn’t glowing red beneath you. 

“I thought you said no funny business,” he manages to tease through bated breaths.

You don’t bother to make up excuses for yourself. You’re already on top of him, all over him — you’ve already kissed him like you would’ve died if you hadn’t. Now, you’re straddling him, caging him between your legs and under your torso. You’ve settled on top of him with a comforting weightiness, like you’re building a home in the familiarity you’ve sought in him.

“I lied,” you mutter with a lazy shrug. A sly smile pulls slowly at your lips until you’re all but beaming sunbeams down at him. He revels in your warmth. “’S not my fault you’re so damn cute.”

It’s easier to blame it on him for all the reasons you’re attached to him like a magnet to his metal, your moth to his flame. You part his lips with your mouth, rut your tongue against his own, reveling in the foreign familiarity of it all, and then blame him for the way you can’t seem to stop any of it.

Steve doesn’t seem to mind, though. The way his hands find purchase on your hips, petting the warmed skin there and sometimes squeezing to pull you further down onto him, tells you that he has a similar yearning to melt with you. He lets you kiss him all slow, allows you to taste all of him, and doesn’t rush you in your process. It’s comforting, tender. Free.

He’s not used to being on his back like this. Usually, he’s the one taking control. It’s his mouth that does all the work. So, it’s strange to be under you and to have you above him. But it’s more pleasant in an even stranger way not to be rushed — not to have to do all the work. His mouth opens so obediently for you and finds an effortless rhythm with your lips and your tongue. 

It’s the easiest thing he’s ever done in his life, kissing you. 

He delights in every ounce of the warmth and unfamiliarity you press to his mouth, and tries to shove down feelings of unworthiness that simmer in his chest while you do so.

You don’t part until your mouths are numb and tingling with it. 

Your lips are more vibrant in their color, aflame and swollen from being so ardently kissed and sucked and bitten. Neither of you mind making out like a couple of teenagers. It’s comforting to know that things won’t go further than a couple soft touches on burning skin. It was never supposed to be anything more than that, anyway. It was just about being close to each other.

You’ve almost succeeded in your effort to melt into the boy beneath you, when you hear the distant sound of a door opening and closing again. Muffled voices follow — unknown to you but obviously familiar to him. 

You part from him without thinking, like you’re a couple of kids again who’ll get in trouble if your parents ever found out what you were doing down here. Steve groans at the loss of you and in annoyance at the sound of his parents. His heavy eyes fall shut and his head leans back to the couch cushions as he fights to swallow down all of his anger.

His parents never really come around these days. They’ve got a bigger home in the city, closer to his dad’s work, and they choose to stay there most days of the week — month. 

They used to make excuses for why they left their only son behind. It’s five minutes from your dad’s firm. There’s more opportunity for your mom’s real estate business. Oh, don’t be so selfish, Steven, you’ll finally have the place to yourself. It’s a win-win for all of us.

Steve didn’t want their excuses. It was actually easier with them gone. 

But they come around every now and again, whenever it’s most convenient for them, and treat their arrival like something that needs to be celebrated. Like they aren’t supposed to be with their child in the fucking first place. And they somehow manage to pick the most inconvenient times for him, like they know he’s in a bind and want to see him struggle to get out of it.

Usually, it’s when he’s in between paychecks — when they want to take him out to some fancy dinner he could barely afford anyway, but especially when he’s hardly making it until payday. Now, it’s when he’s got the prettiest girl he’s ever seen on top of him, and he’s all hot and half-hard. Steve doesn’t want to let them ruin the moment, as good as they are at it.

“It’s okay. They won’t come in here,” he assures when he feels you tense at the unexpected company. “My mom will go to the bedroom and my dad will go to his office. We’re good, I promise.”

You figure he’s right. The voices grow more and more distant. Heeled shoes click up and up the stairs while heavy stomps head the opposite way. But you’ve already been so woefully knocked out of your stupor that you’re scared it’s too late.

Your lips are numb and the credits are rolling and you’re on top of this beautiful boy and you have no idea how you got there.

It’s almost frightening, the way Steve had consumed you mind, body, and soul by just existing next to you. You become dreadfully hyperaware of the whole thing — of who you are, who he is, and what you’re doing. You lose all your softness and turn to ice, hardening and shrinking back into yourself.

“I should—” you start before clearing your throat when the words come out heavier than expected. “I should head out anyway.”

“Oh,” is all Steve can say. “Right.”

You stare down at him, chest still pressed against his, nose nearly touching the tip of his own. “I just— I have to open tomorrow and everything, so—”

“No. Yeah. Yeah, I— I get it.”

You make tricky work of untangling yourselves.

His legs twist with yours when you both try to rise from the couch at the same time. Then your ring gets stuck in the fabric of his shirt, but not before his belt buckle gets somehow caught in yours. It’s like fate is protesting the imminent parting, but neither of you are paying attention to the signs.

He walks you to your car and chuckles under his breath as you scurry to the front door. 

You’re not-so-distantly terrified of running into his parents. They probably wouldn’t mind that he’s sneaking around with a girl, surely that they’re used to, but you’re almost certain they’re not used to girls like you. Girls with wild hair and leather skirts and chunky boots and too bold makeup. 

You’re not the girl next door. You’re the girl parents warn their sons about. “Leave that girl alone,” they say. “She’s nothing but trouble.”

You tell him all of this on the short trek to your half-broken-down car when you catch him laughing at you about the whole thing. You say it in jest, lighthearted and trying to make a joke of it. But there’s an underlying melancholia to your tone that reveals every truth you’re trying to evade.

“They don’t care enough about me to give a shit about a girl I’m with, I promise,” he confesses with a laugh that sounds more like a sad scoff than anything else. His chocolate eyes turn gold beneath the yellow street light. He smirks at you. “Besides, I don’t know if I told you this or not, but my middle name is actually trouble, so… I think we might be a match made in heaven.”

You roll your eyes at his attempts to flirt with you, though his lack of finesse makes you smile. “You’re an idiot, Steve Actually Trouble Harrington.”

“You really know how to say goodbye, don’t ya?” he grins when you reach the curb where your tin can car sits. 

“Yeah, I’m pro,” you shrug with a teasing glint in your eye, then you beam. “I’ll see you around, ‘kay?”

“Totally,” he nods, suddenly forlorn at having to leave you like he hadn’t just spent the past four hours with you.

Themetallic click of your car door opening sounds much louder in the emptiness of the suburbs. You glance at the boy right before you sink into the driver’s seat, feeling your heart swell with something short of yearning — anticipation. 

You weren’t actually a professional at saying goodbye, you find, because you’re realizing how hard it is to leave him.

“Steve!” he hears you shout from across the lawn when he’s halfway up the drive. 

He turns around, expecting to hear you tease him some more or tell him you were having car troubles. Neither would’ve shocked him. You’ve got a smart mouth and a shittier car. But you keep on surprising him, all but launching yourself into him before kissing him harder than he’s ever been kissed before.

Steve tenses against you at first, then relaxes again in record time. He sighs in the comfort of having your body pressed so intently into his and your arms wrapped around his neck to pull him somehow closer. 

You feel the breath of his exhale fan against your cupid’s bow. It makes you smile, and he feels the expression contort against his lips. His hands rise to the widest part of your hips without thinking. It’s all muscle memory now.

And even though he’s spent the better part of an hour kissing you, this one is so obviously different. This wasn’t just to pass the time. This was more than just to feel him — it was to tell him something. He hears every word you don’t say, but rather press like a stamp to his mouth.

He’s breathless when you pull away. You meet his flushed face with a mischievous grin.

“What was that for?” he wonders breathlessly, but doesn’t waver with his hold on you. He quickly notices that yours doesn’t either.

You shrug in response. “‘Cause you’re pretty.”

“Yeah, well…” he tries to play off like he’s not blushing like crazy. “You’re pretty too.”

Your beam ebbs into a teasing, tightlipped smirk. “Stop flirting with me, Steve Harrington.”

You shove him away with a rougher hand than you realize before you walk away from him. Steve rubs at the ache in his chest with the palm of his hand.

Your playful teasing and your lingering kiss is the only thing Steve has to remember you by when you turn on your chunky heeled boot and head off down the driveway again. He’s frozen, mesmerized by the sight of you and reeling at how you manage to drive him crazy without trying.

Your eyes find him again just before you duck into your car, and you see him still looking at you — mouth agape and eyes wide like you’re some kind of rare find. You figure you must be, in some way. Girls like you aren’t supposed to like guys like him. Vice Versa. Tale as old as time.

The boy stays locked in his stupor until the sprinkles whir on. The spurts of freezing cold water spray all over him and his pretty hair and expensive sweatshirt and his vintage jeans. “Shit!” you hear him swear as he rushes for cover on his front porch. 

He’s quickly soaked and freezing cold, but he smiles anyway when he hears the sound of your giggling behind him. It’s as animated as your personality and spills from your mouth like so many rays of sunshine, just a little too loud for the quiet midnight suburbs. 

It’s perfect, he realizes. You’re perfect. 

[i-cant-sing]

Saya want know how Qasim look,are you have proposal?(≡・x・≡)

(pics below) Qasim, the brother, is older than reader by 5 years. He has chocolate brown hair, thick messy locks, and green eyes. He's gifted with eiditic/photographic memory which made him excel in school and he obviously had a high IQ as well. Doesnt mean reader thinks he's intelligent. Sure, Qasim is book smart, but he's not- street smart. Y/n has been the one to often make him realise that his friends were taking advantage of him by making him do their homework, or that they were laughing at him not with him because of his intellect. But reader chalks it up to his sweet nature, her goody-two-shoes of a brother who was hafidh (memorised the Quran) would always be the forgiving person. Its not that he was a pushover, he just... preferred to be the bigger person. Always. He'd chuckle and ruffle your hair "so what if I cleaned up their mess? it only took me 5 minutes and the job was done. Its okay, Y/n." He's always so selfless. You used to worry that he'd get hurt because he's too kind, you used to think he couldnt stand up for himself because he just didnt know when to- but no. Qasim was quite protective over you. When he saw you trying to tackle one of his so-called bullies, the boy towering over you (but you dont consider the height advantage, not when youre a raging kitten), Qasim stepped in and landed a single punch that knocked him down. (then big bro had to spend the rest of the day consoling u because you made him fight someone- and in ur head, that was the biggest sin u made him commit).

Qasim in Arabic means "the generous one" or "the one who shares", and being the older bro, he took his name quite literally. You were the younger sibling, the spoiled brat, the princess! But Qasim never had any problems with sharing anything with you, be it materialistic things or advice or even knowledge. You memorised Quran by his help (because u were competitive) and he had the extraordinary patience of a saint. You two would often participate in competitions at the local mosque just to get the cash prize and help your parents a bit (they never took ur guys money, encouraging u to either save it or spend it on something). Since both of your parents worked long hours, you two were left unsupervised for a long time and that only meant genius yet chaotic shenanigans, including prank calls to the pentagon hq.

Qasim grew up to get a lot of full ride scholarships from top colleges, and once he did his masters (a STEM major), he decided to start his own travel agency, surprising everyone because it seemed like something he wouldnt do? Everyone expected him to go into sciences, but he said he liked to travel and see the world, and Qasim told you that he enjoys running his own business, being your own business.

You supposed it made sense because he was a polyglot and he did enjoy learning new things and seeing new places, their history, etc. Due to his job, he would be gone for long months at a time, but he never returned empty handed. His arms full of souvenirs and sweets and BOOKS! Its not that he bought them for u, no. He bought those books for himself, but once he read them- he's already memorised it and he doesnt have anymore space in his home for more books, so he's always dropping them by your place (as kids, u made him memorise the phonebook before hiding the entire neighbourhoods phone books and had people pay to use your brother's memory for contacts, which was a good business until your father busted it down).

Qasim is the softest, kindest, most generous person. Even though he has a busy schedule due to work, he always made time for you. Whenever he came by, especially during your finals season, not only did he help you study, but he would also stock up your fridge and made sure to do some maintenance around your house. Fridge not working? Qasim has the tools, and if you werent so tied up with studying, you wouldve freaked out over him disassembling your fridge like lego. Sink clogged? No need for the plumber, Qasim knows the right potion of chemicals to unclog it. He's always been the one to prefer to do things himself, by his hand rather than relying on help.

what do u guys think???

[ladykailitha]

Icarus Part 7

Hey, guys! I hope you're all still enjoying this story! It's a blast to write.

Here we have Gareth's explosion and the resulting fallout.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

****

When Eddie got back to his hotel he had all three of his bandmates waiting for him.

Jeff had his arms crossed, glaring at the other two. “I’m here under protest, I told them you had messaged me that you wouldn’t be coming home last night but they still thought you were being kidnapped or some shit.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow at Gareth and Brian. “I’m a grown ass man who can do grown ass things like have sex with another man and spend the night.” He raised his had to stall the onslaught of questions that were no doubt about to screamed at him. “Of course I didn’t get papped. I never get papped. Jesus Christ.”

“We’re supposed to be working on our ninth album,” Gareth growled. “Fucking act like it.”

Eddie threw back his head and laughed. “You don’t get to say that this time. Not after what you and Bri did in London last time,” he hissed. “We had a chance to record in the actual fucking Abbey Road Studios and you two went on a three day bender where Jeff and I didn’t even know where you were. It got so fucking bad, you two have been banned from drinking at all this record.”

Brian had the decency to look chastised. But not Gareth, he doubled down.

“Which is why it’s so important that you don’t do it either,” he snarled back. “We don’t want to be kicked out of this studio too.”

“I was back before breakfast was being served!”

Jeff stood up and held out his hands. “All right, enough! Gareth this attitude is getting out of hand. No one has done more for this band than Eddie and you acting like he’s gonna do a runner at any moment is fucking ridiculous. And after all these years if he hasn’t run off yet, he sure as hell ain’t gonna now.”

“You need to work on your abandonment issues, dude,” Eddie snapped. “I have put my heart and soul into this band and I really don’t appreciate the constant insinuation that each concert, each album is going to be the last.”

Gareth stood up, fists clenched at his side. “You mean to tell me if Steve Harrington walked in here and offered to suck your dick in exchange for you quitting the band, that you wouldn’t?”

“Absolutely not,” Eddie said coldly. “And he would never ask. God.” He ran his hands over his face and began to pace. “His little brother is like our number one fan. You know that guy I took with me back to Hawkins?”

Gareth nodded curtly, but Eddie could tell he was starting to unbend.

“He loves our band,” he continued, pulling at his hair. “So that’s just one of many reasons why he wouldn’t. The biggest one, though, Gare.” He whirled around pointed directly at him. “Is that he knows what this band means to me and would never make me choose.”

His lip wobbled and the glimmer of unshed tears stuck to his eyelashes. “Because he loves me.”

Eddie sank to his knees, hands in his hair and began to rock back and forth.

“You take care of Gareth,” Brian said to Jeff, quiet but harsh into the silence that followed that statement. “I’ll take care of Eddie.”

Jeff nodded and bullied Gareth out of the room. The door closed and the remaining two could hear the harsh tones of the two who had left.

Brian got on his knees in front of Eddie and gently removed Eddie’s hands from his hair.

“Hey, Ed,” Brian murmured. “Can you look up at me for a moment? I need to make sure you’re okay.”

Eddie looked up at him. “That’s who I was with last night,” he whispered, his voice rough with emotion. “Steve said that he loved me and he kissed me, Bri. It was so special.”

Bri sighed and sat down cross-legged from him. “It’s that we’re all supposed to be sequestered and you snuck off, only telling Jeff where you went. So Gareth and I freaked out a bit.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Maybe a lot.”

Eddie ran his fingers through his hair, settling into a more comfortable position on the floor.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, his voice clearer than before. “That was stupid of me. But I don’t think it’s fair that Jeff and I are being punished by the label for something you and Gare did.”

Brian scooted forward until their knees were touching. “It’s not and I am sorry about that. My girlfriend had broken up with me at same time I learned that I was asexual and I was in a really bad place. But I shouldn’t have let Gareth talk me into that bender, there was no excuse.”

“I’m afraid if he has another outburst,” Eddie murmured, “that everyone is gonna want us to replace him. The label, our PR firm, even our Chrissy would be forced to concede that the band can’t continue with him in it. And I don’t want that. But I will not have my life dictated to by someone who is four years my junior.”

Brian let out a long shuddering breath. “You’re right. While we’re here, if he’s willing, we should get him some therapy. Because I don’t want to lose him either. You guys are my family and have been forever.”

“Back ‘attcha, Bri,” Eddie murmured. “Last night was so good and I had awesome news for everyone that I couldn’t wait to tell you guys.”

Brian chuckled. “Even more awesome then sex with Steve Harrington? Must have been off the charts then.”

“I snuck out to see The Fallen in concert,” Eddie said chewing on his lip.

“Of course you did,” Brian said rolling his eyes. “And of course if we’d all gone it would have completely ruined their last show because it would have been all about us and not them.” He stuck out his tongue. “You still suck though.”

Eddie laughed. “Just wait, it gets better.”

Brian waved his hand for him to continue.

“So I was also able to get backstage where I got to meet Abbadon–”

“Gareth is going to murder you and then bring you back to life so that he can murder you all over again,” Brian said dryly, shaking his head.

“Do you think he’ll grant me a stay of execution if I told him I asked Abbadon if he thought his band would want a chance to headline for us?” Eddie asked batting his eyelashes and clutching his hands to his chest dramatically.

Brian blinked at him for a moment. “I guess that would depend on if they said yes...” he said honestly.

“All of them have to agree,” he replied with a shrug, “but Abbadon was pretty sure that they would.”

Brian sat there a moment. He licked his bottom lip thoughtfully. “I think we should use it as leverage.”

Eddie’s head reared back. “What do you mean?”

“Tell Gareth that if he gets therapy, The Fallen will tour with us,” Brian explained. “But if he won’t, he has to take the tour off and go into rehab.”

“Oh.”

Eddie chewed on his bottom lip as he thought about it. “I think we should ask Jeff and if he agrees, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Brian nodded. “I love him like a brother, but this was the last straw I think.”

“Let’s call Chrissy in on this, too,” Eddie said.

“Yeah.” He let out a shuddering breath. “Okay, yeah. Let’s do this.”

****

They ended up staging an intervention and using The Fallen as incentive they all got Gareth to agree to counseling.

A therapist would come in twice a week and Gareth would have two hours sessions with this person.

They were carefully vetted by Chrissy and the rest of the band, but finally they decided on one that would help Gareth.

Dr. Sam Owens came in and Eddie, Brian, and Jeff all sat in Brian’s suite, waiting for him to be done.

They tried to work on music but it felt flat without Gareth there. They tried watching a movie but they couldn’t decide which one.

They simple sat in silence until it was five minutes before the session was up. Then they slowly made the trek to Gareth’s suite.

Dr Owens came out first.

“I can’t discuss anything that went on in our session,” he warned.

“It’s just–” Jeff said, distressed. “Are you going to work out with Gareth?”

Brian nodded. “We just want to make sure we don’t need to vet someone else. He’s okay with continuing to see you, right?”

Dr Owens softened. “I understand now. My apologies. Often managers and fellow band members ask– rather, they demand to know what was said.”

“Not cool,” Jeff said. “We’d never. We just want to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible, because we care. We want him to get better.”

Dr. Owens nodded. “Thank you. You should be all right to go in and see him. We didn’t get to anything gritty today.”

They all nodded and bid the doctor goodbye.

Jeff knocked on the door and was promptly told to come in.

All three of them slipped into the suite. Jeff and Brian surged forward and gave him a group hug.

It took them a moment but they realized that Eddie had been quiet this whole time, that he had hung back when they entered the room.

He stood in front of the door with his hands on his lower back, just watching them shower Gareth with affection.

But he didn’t know what to do. Gareth had really hurt him. Had made an event that had been so happy for him and turned it to ash on his tongue. His first time with Steve would always be tainted by Gareth screaming at him.

Steve had been so angry when he heard what Gareth had done and was ready to pull out of the tour, everyone else’s disappointment be damned. But Eddie had talked him down. Told him about the intervention. The deal that could be struck and Steve reluctantly agreed.

One therapy session didn’t make up for all the hurt and anger he had felt.

They all turned to look at him and Eddie felt like he was the one who was in trouble, not Gareth. His lip wobbled as he sucked in a breath.

He turned on his heel and would have ran if he hadn’t felt arms wrap around his waist.

“I’m sorry,” Gareth mumbled into his back. “God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You’re my best friend. My brother. I’m so sorry, Ed. Please don’t go.”

Eddie wrapped one hand around Gareth’s arm and pressed the other against the wood frame of the door. He laid his head on the door and let out that shuddering breath in a long exhale.

“You hurt me so bad, Gare,” Eddie whispered. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

He could feel Gareth nodding into his back.

“I don’t know how you didn’t drown like the rest of us,” Gareth said. “But I want to be more like you, Eddie. Please don’t go. I don’t think I could take it.”

Eddie huffed out a sigh.

“It’s because I saw what the worst of those vices did to a person,” he said, slowly turning around so that they were face to face. “And I made a promise to my Uncle Wayne and on my mama’s grave that I wouldn’t turn out like my dad. It hasn’t always been easy, in fact it’s been fucking hard almost all of the time, but I work at it.”

Gareth had tears streaming down his face.

“You’ve got to let me live my life, man,” Eddie finished. “I won’t let you ruin a good thing that I’ve got going for me because you have abandonment issues.”

Gareth let out a shuddering breath. “Yeah. I promise to be better. I promise to stick with therapy. Just promise you won’t give up on me.”

Eddie wrapped his arms around his friend and held on tight. “I promise.”

****

Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25

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[dekusleftsock]

Hey, so you said in your tags about how katsuki is a freak in his own way, could you please expand on this idea a little and when it comes to Izuku?

Sure!

I actually made a post about this very concept semi recently but that post also didn’t really have organization lmao

The main reason I’ve always thought Katsuki as “a freak” as I dub him is for the very foundations of his personality. I think the main reason why no one in the western fandom looks at him and sees him for his (kinda) socially inept aspects is because of a combination between cultural differences and the nuances that hero society throws into Japan specifically.

It’s well known that Horikoshi’s story/world is heavily influenced by American super hero comics. Superman, Spider-Man, Harley, Poison Ivy, Bat-man, Captain America, ant man, etc. are all very obvious influences throughout the story, with characters like Allmight often feeling like a combination of Superman and Captain America.

The reason I bring this up is because the very aspects of these super hero comics is kind of in direct contradiction with Japanese society, especially as those heroics within the world affect the society around them.

Heroes are this curve ball thrown into a society that teaches its citizens to be polite, complicit, and quiet. That’s not to say that this is necessarily a “wrong” way to have a society, but I think it’s with this context that Katsuki’s character (and therefore the intentions behind it) become clearer.

Heroes are bright, loud, and powerful. But long before Katsuki was a hero he already was these things; how does that affect his social life? How do the people around him treat him in the context that he is both not a hero nor having of a quirk? If heroes are the “exceptions” to the society around them, and Katsuki is not yet an exception, then he is an outcast, right?

It’s this context that I feel most people forget. Katsuki understands the people around him, he’s very observant and nosy, but he also just doesn’t care. He is unabashedly himself at all times. Those jokes Aizawa made about keeping him out of the spotlight showcase this perfectly, Japanese society expects a certain standard for the social context around him—which he actively ignores.

It’s a very ironic aspect to his character given that most people admire and/or envy him. It puts a whole new light on izuku saying that he was the one “actually in his life”, that Izuku may have admired him before his quirk for simply being himself. Not to mention how it makes sense that he would believe izuku was looking down on him for admiring him before his quirk, because Katsuki was bullied! I think that’s an often overlooked detail given that he only became “acceptable” to most kids around him when he gained his quirk. The memory this is showcased in is entirely Izuku’s pov, which is heavily biased in the sense that he admired Katsuki. Getting jumped by kids two years older than you though is so weird, and I can’t help but wonder if the perspective might’ve changed were it in Katsuki’s pov.

To me, the idea that Izuku’s memories of Katsuki being this social god come from blind childlike envy and admiration, especially as the contextual things happening (Katsuki is a REALLY big hero fan, he’s rude, he doesn’t remember people’s names, actively terrible at making friends at UA for a good couple weeks, getting bullied to even a minimal extent) in comparison to the words being told. You are told by Izuku that Katsuki is amazing, brilliant, talented, energetic, crass, and in reality (especially when they enter UA), to most people Katsuki is annoying, loud, mean, a little intimidating, and not nearly as cool as he thinks he is. His friends spend the entirety of the beginning of their first year actively making fun of him for thinking he’s tough shit when he so obviously isn’t.

And I think the biggest most important part to this “Katsuki is a bit of a social outcast” discussion, is that the villains thought he was like them! They thought he would hurt people because he screamed “die” and didn’t like winning when he felt he didn’t earn it.

The only reason Katsuki is not as much of an outcast as, say, Izuku, is simply because he won the lottery. He earned that extra point. He caught that curve ball to Japanese society and honed it into something greater.

And, see, Izuku can’t really know/comprehend that Katsuki would be, I don’t know, unpopular to any extent (shown in the beginning of the series when he’s freaking out on the bus that HES being complimented and Katsuki is being insulted), because to him Katsuki always acted like a hero. And in a way, he does! But it’s in the way that hero society throws that curve ball, contradictory to social norms, and of course it makes sense why they still happened at all; the past was dangerous! It was life changing! Disparity and violence and death, desperation fueled this huge monumental change. And what is izuku “I don’t know how to make people like me” Midoriya going to do when this kid, Bakugou Katsuki, acts like one of the heroes on TV? He’s not gonna call the Geneva convention and ask why the hell this child isn’t acting like a normal citizen—he’ll admire him to such a visceral degree because it’s almost like he was born a hero.

I like the concept that, because heroes and villain are cut from the same cloth, relatively similar in concept and strength and past hurts in their history, that this also affects how they are socially. You are outcasted by society: you want to oppose societal norms to live freely as yourself and others as theirselves, you want to make sure everyone can smile at the end of the day because sometimes you or your parents couldn’t, you want to be the best because someone told you that you couldn’t, you want to be just like the hero on your TV, who inspired the hero in your life.

Also you need to be at least a little bit of a freak to be listening in on people’s business all the time because it involves your childhood friend/rival to literally any degree. Like bro what is wrong with you come HERE BBG LET ME PICK YOUR BRAIN APART PIECE BY PIECE

More side note: idfk where I got the Geneva convention thing. I was just thinking about how mha has genuinely had violations against the Geneva convention

[deramin2]

Essek constantly gushing about his partner but pointedly not giving his name hits me so hard in the feels.

Two formative childhood experiences for me:

ONE

I was severely, mercilessly bullied as a child at every school I went to even if they're was no overlap of kids, and authority figures either ignored me or directly told me it was my fault. I was socially toxic. Any other kid who publicly associated with me was also targeted for harassment. I was best friends with a girl around the corner but because I was a couple years younger (in itself an invitation for bullying) and a parish, we could never let anyone know we were friends.

I've been told I should be upset at her for this, but it wasn't her fault. It was the other children who made it a fact that she would be harmed by publicly being my friend. She didn't make those rules, we were both just honest that it existed and there was nothing we could do to change that. The best we could do to survive was at least protect her. And that benefited me by actually having a friend.

So if we talked about each other it was"my friend." No names. No acknowledging we knew each other in public. No introductions to other friends. Keeping that divide up was necessary to survival. I had a couple friends on the same freak level as we and we were in fact targeted with additional harassment to get to the other person. It was a legitimate threat to live with. At some point I just stopped thinking it was ever necessary to reveal who my friends or family are unless it's both explicitly relevant and necessary.

TWO

I learned to use the internet in the late 1990s when anonymity was considered a best practice. Don't give out your age, sex, location, or other identifying information. You don't know who is on the other side of that screen or what they will do to you if they know. Sperate your online and offline worlds to protect yourself.

This helped reinforce experience one because clearly adults also acted like those kids and this just normal human behavior no one will ever put a stop to that you need to be on guard for at all times. Build in air gaps so if one of you is compromised it's harder for the perpetrator to get to other people you care about. Defending them through anonymity is a way of showing you love them.

Also since some family are searchable through have state government jobs that right-wing nut jobs chips target them for, I wanted to make sure they couldn't be connected to me as a queer trans disabled person active online. In case something I said led to them being targeted.

(This is correct advice, even though it flies in the face of modern online conventions. There are tons of malicious people on three internet who will target you and anyone you love if they decide to hurt you.)

RESULT

By default, I refer to people by their relationship to me, not their name. My friend, my partner, my parent, my family, someone I know, etc. Often I avoid gendering them to make it even harder to identify them. I have to consciously consider if the person I'm talking to has any reason to know my associate's name. Blacklist everyone, then whitelist exceptions.

I do this even if both people know each other because the specific association feels dangerous. Better to be viewed as acquaintances than a meaningful relationship that changes how either of us could be viewed. It's not even really a judgement on thinking the person is untrustworthy, I just don't want to spend any extra energy thinking about it. It doesn't even feel relevant because my relationship to this person fellas like it conveys more information that actually matters.

ESSEK

Essek knows both he and Caleb are being targeted by powerful people who have shown they will target loved ones to get to them. Additionally, tensions between the Empire and Dynasty are still high and it could very easily compromise how their own sides view them if it's known that they're romantically entangled with someone from the other side. It could also blow each other's cover and make their meeting places more vulnerable to attack. Especially if their enemies know they could hit both of them at once.

It's genuinely dangerous for their connection to be known, so they don't name names. It's not even a matter of whether Bell's Hells would intentionally misuse that information, but what they also could just let slip to the wrong person. It's not really worth the risk when "my partner" is all the information they actually need to understand him.

My guess is that Essek said "Bren" is hiss partner because they already know a Bren sent them to Astrid. And since Caleb no longer uses the name Bren it would be much harder to connect them. It would have caused more questions, more prying, and more risk to give no name for his partner when directly pressed. So he gives a truthful but less dangerous answer. The anonymity is an act of love.

[aangsdefensesquad]

https://www.tumblr.com/rifari2037/763621496657756160/the-idea-of-her-being-mother-figure-is-challenged?source=share

Wouldn’t anyone with a bit of compassion and sympathy not tell a damn CHILD that his whole culture/family was killed away?

they make katara into a mother-figure just cuz she cares for all of them, news flash just because a WOMEN cares for your well being and takes care of you doesn’t mean she’s a mother figure

Aang's irresponsible and childish behaviour *sigh* aang is a child and y’all are acting like he called her something worse. All of the characters in the show has some kinda of bad moments. I don’t see any of you calling out zuko or katara for calling Ty lee a circus freak.

once the character u don’t like say something oh god the patriarchy oh aang is an abuser.

Aang ran away after someone blamed him for something he actually did a hundred years ago. Katara must find him in the storm, then help him dwelling with his past.

I’m so sorry but like are we talking about the boy who just woke up from a 100 year old coma to find out that a horrible war has broke out AND he has to stop it and learn bending within a year span? Oh and his family aka everyone he cared about is dead, I’m sorry murdered. While aang should not have run away and just leave katara.

That’s probably his maturity level for the millionth time HES A CHILD and how come I don’t see any essays about ppl blaming zuko for betraying his uncle, who was there for him for 3 WHOLE YEARS.

ppl love to blame aang and pinpoint his flaws but just when it comes to their favorite characters they just blame it on their trauma. aang is a child ppl if he was acting like this if he was like 18 or something then sure you can blame him that too only half of the things.

And how come none of you talk about how many times aang was literally ready to risk everything for katara?

aang offers to take katara to the northern water tribe so she can learn waterbending under a master after knowing her for only a few hours at most. he also does this after she expresses her upset at being the only southern waterbender left. “katara! we’re going to find you a master!”

aang gives himself over to zuko and his fire nation crew to save katara and sokka’s village

aang completes all of bumi’s challenges to save katara and sokka

aang goes out and basically risk his life trying to get the medicine for sokka and katara cuz they were sick.

y’all make it seem like aang was some abusive jerk to katara as if katara never enjoyed the time she spend with aang

And zuko is a dad? Please he was rather the emo eldest child. The real dad here was sokka. Zuko basically bullied aang when he said he didn’t wanna kill ozai. And zuko being mature is like saying zutara shippers dont mis-characterize the og characters.

Zuko blamed mai and basically accused her of cheating

called Ty lee a circus freak just cuz he can’t find anyone to blame his problem on rather than himself

3.oh and he constantly throw tantrums through out the whole show.

I mean obviously zuko will do these things cuz just like aang, zuko is a child who is forced to grow up too fast.

fun fact of the day : none of the gaang kids had a childhood

and please don’t snd me these zutara arguments I really don’t want to involve myself in their stupid arguments

[bordysbae]

Heyy lovely can I request a Luke hughes fic with the prompts 4 and 10. Maybe the readers on her period and is crying on the phone to jack or Quinn because luke won’t answer and she’s got bad cramps?

“on my way”

luke hughes x fem reader

4. i’m here baby, don’t worry

10. you make me feel safe

warning: vomiting and nausea

word count: 0.7k

—

its the first week of summer, and of course you’re spending it at the hughes’ lake house. the boys always stay at the lake house for a month during the summer, it’s been their ritual since they first bought the house nearly 10 years ago. you and luke have been dating since first semester of freshman year, and ellen has really grown to like you, which is why she always invites you to go on trips with the hughes family. this is your second time at the lake house, and it already feels like a second home to you.

“morning honey! i’m assuming luke told you that him and the boys are going fishing with jim right?” ellen says as she sips her coffee at the kitchen island. “yeah he did, what are you doing today?” you ask her, as you pour yourself a cup as well. “i’m going out with one of my friends, are you alright being alone for a bit? i should be back at like 1, we’re just going out to lunch. if not you can always join me and my friend, she’s known the boys forever so i’m sure she would be delighted to meet you, she’s heard about you being luke’s girlfriend.” “oh no! i don’t mind being alone at all, honestly i’m not feeling too great. my cramps have been acting up a bit today” you say as you sit next to her. “aw i’m sorry hun, if you need anything don’t be afraid to call me okay! i’m gonna be leaving here in about 20 minutes.” “thanks elle, you’re the best” you smile, her returning the favor.

you’re now alone since ellen left about 15 minutes ago, and the boys are still fishing. your cramps are killing you, and the pain meds are barely working. you’re in pain and you’re hormonal, so the best thing you can do is cry. you always get cramps so bad that you feel the need to vomit, and luke knows this. so you decide to just call him and see when he’s coming home. unfortunately he doesn’t pick up, and this makes you cry even more. you hate vomiting, and the fact you know you might vomit at anytime is freaking you out. you start to panic, and luke still won’t answer his phone.

you decide to call quinn in hopes that he can get ahold of luke, and with your luck, quinn doesn’t answer. you keep feeling more nauseous by the minute and your last resort is calling jack. “hello?” jack says. “hi jack sorry to bother you, could you get luke please?” “yeah, everything okay?” “um, yeah. sort of, not really. can you just get luke?” “yeah yeah of course here” he says, a slight panic in his voice as he hands the phone to luke. “hi babe, are you okay? i’m so sorry i didn’t hear you call, jacks phone was connected to the speaker so i didn’t hear it ring. don’t worry he disconnected it when you called, what’s up?” “luke i think i’m gonna vomit” you say softly. “what? are you okay? what’s wrong?!” he says concerned. “my cramps, they’re killing me. and your mom left like 20 minutes ago, what time are y-you coming home?” you say, holding back your gags. “now! i’m not that far out on the lake i’ll have them drive me back and drop me off, i’m on my way.” “luke no, don’t stop your fun cause i’m sick. i’ll be okay i just wanted to let you know.” you sigh, taking a sip of water. “too late, my dad already started the boat. i’m gonna hang up okay? i’m almost home” “okay. i love you lukey” “i love you more” he says before ending the call.

as you’re leaning over the toilet, holding your hair back with your hand luke slowly creaks the door open. “oh y/n” he says as he quickly walks over to hold your hair back. “i’m sorry luke” “you’re sorry? don’t be sorry for anything. honestly it wasn’t even that fun, i was the only one who couldn’t catch anything and i was tired of getting bullied for it” he chuckles, making you smile at the thought of the comments the boys must’ve made. you begin to start gagging again, and you start to freak out a bit. luke rubs your back gently, “i’m here baby, don’t worry.” he states softly.

once you begin to feel better you both climb into luke’s bed, and you’re cuddled into his chest. “thank you luke, you make me feel safe.” “of course, i’d do anything for you. i love you.” “i love you more lukey.”

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

I want to request an eddie fic where Jason finds out eddie has a crush on reader and maybe she's semi popular or a cheerleader. And jason calls reader over to where he's picking on eddie and says sonething like "hey. Have you heard the news? The freak has a crush on you" and she kisses eddie in front of everyone and confesses that she likes him too and jason is just stunned

Requests have resumed. You can submit yours here!

Currently writing for Eddie Munson. I write for a variety of reader inserts (male, female, gender neutral, readers of color too).

The more details you had to your request, the better it is for me. EX: “What about some fluff for Eddie after he’s had a long day?”

Feel free to look through my masterlist here!

Eddie Munson x Female Reader. 

CW: Some name calling/bullying. 

_____________________________

Eddie know he's being obvious. He should truly tattoo the truth on his forehead. But he tries to give the passing decency that he’s not this deep into the hook and line. Eddie tries to pretend he is not sinking. Whenever you pass him in the hallways, he tries hard not to follow you the entire length of it. 

This all started a year ago, when you moved into town moving in from the city. He’s not sure what caused the move though the town rumors are your mother begged for the change of scenery to stop a wandering eye of your father. But Eddie doesn’t buy into small town gossip. 

He doesn’t have to imagine the bullshit they say about him. He hears it every day and the last thing he wants is to stoop as long as them. So he didn’t think about what the reason what. He only thanked the gods that you did land here in Hawkins. You sat next to him on the first day of school, even asked him if he had a pencil you could borrow. 

Eddie cursed himself when he had to tell you no, but he waltzed over to Mrs. Bakers desk, batted his lashes and got one for you. You laughed at the way Eddie leaned into the edge of the desk, fingers twirling a pencil in the mug she had on her desk. When Eddie returned to you, pencil in hand, he gave you a small smile. “Secured just for you.”

And from the second he heard your laugh, Eddie was a goner. 

He wasn’t supposed to go anywhere--Eddie was supposed to graduate that year. You were supposed to just be the girl that Eddie had a crush on and that maybe flirted with if the heavens would be that gracious. But it’s just supposed to be a fleeting things. 

Now he’s year, repeating his senior year and the fleeting crush burns brighter in his gut every second he sees you. At lunch, if Eddie is behind you in the line, he leans in closer, asking what you think is best off the menu for today. You always laugh. “Let’s add a fruit to that skinny pale you call a lunch,” you tease back. 

It’s entirely obvious. 

So Jason Carver really doesn’t need to slide up behind him now on a Friday, which had been rather mundane, and start a scene. 

“Oh, please, not the freak flirting with you. You can tell him no, you know? If he doesn’t take a hint, let me show you how a real man should treat you and intervene,” Jason spits. 

You scoff and move your tray down the line. “So, Eddie, why don’t I ever see you at the games?” 

Jason had been trying to get with you every since you showed up, but he wasn’t your type. Or he was the type you’d go for at your old school, but Jason always felt like he was a predator, stalking you to seize a praise where Eddie also seemed to keep a distance. Sure you could tell he liked you but he never imposed. He inched in momentarily to make a joke and then just as quickly as you could blink your eyes, he was gone again in the distance. You couldn’t tell if it was just shyness or if Eddie was just like that as a person. But you enjoyed having a slower pace, you got to spend more time feeling Eddie out rather than jumping in immediately to things. 

Eddie turns the heated glare from Jason towards you. His heart nearly skips a beat when he remembers you’re in the cheerleading outfit, the skirt barely brushing the first half of your thighs and the tank exposing your midriff. He’ve forgone your sweater--one that Eddie had seen you wearing earlier. “Sports, well, sports aren’t really my thing. I’m much more into intellectual games.”

You giggle for just a moment and then Jason shoves into Eddie’s back. Eddie mindful of you in front, takes the loss of the milk carton to the floor between your feet and slips an arm around your waist to keep you from hitting the metal railing. Eddie does manage to break your sure fire hip bruise and even keeps your tray up on the railing in the process too. 

“Watch it freak!” Jason hisses. 

“You okay?” Eddie asks you. 

You nod, one hand subconsciously reaching for the chain on his jeans. You reach for it to keep you steady and also because it’s pressing into your thigh and the chill of the building has settled into the metal as well. It almost stings against your skin. “Yeah, you?”

“Peachy,” Eddie smiles down at you. 

“News flash, freak, you really need to watch where you’re going. You’re pathetic with your gawking,” Jason presses on. 

Eddie realizes now Jason is just trying to pick a fight. As the new school year crept on, it felt more obvious to Eddie too that maybe you liked him back. But he still never pushed it. He’d be out of here soon enough. It would never work with him. It would always be fleeting. But now, as Jason seethes down Eddie’s back, Eddie wonders if Jason’s mood is less at the fact that you don’t like Jason and more ten times more pissy because it’s Eddie who you actually like back. 

Eddie’s learned in his years that sometimes not giving in is much more effective. So once Eddie is sure you’re stable, he nods on. “Why don’t you pick a fruit I’ll add to the skinny pale I call a lunch box?”

Your smile dances over your lips. “I’d say sun, because you’re so pale but why don’t we get some potassium in you today.”

“Potassium sounds good to me.”

“And,” you add on, the hand on his chain, trailing up to his neck. Eddie eyes widen and he nearly rears back out of your grasp, but you push up and capture his lips just fast enough to keep him from totally pull away from him. Eddie whimpers into your mouth--as embarrassing as it is, but it is his first kiss that is not game induced or alcohol riddled. It’s a real kiss.

So real it’s got his toes curling in his Reeboks. He feels like a child. The way he wants to whimper again because you’re still kissing him. The point would’ve been made with even just a simple peck. But you’re still holding onto the back of his head, you’re still pulling him even further into you. Eddie’s hands which had been hovering over your skin, dig in just a little on your waist and he tugs you into his body too. 

Your lips finally part, a little wet from the kiss. “And some vitamin kisses too,” you whisper. 

“Oh my god,” Eddie whispers. It is not the thing to say after a kiss. It’s not. And neither is, “I think I died.”

You snort at Eddie’s confession and the cross of his eyes as he buckles just a little in your hold. He catches his own weight but you get arms under his pits, laughing as you. “Eddie, get serious,” you laugh. 

He stands erect again. “Seriously--what was that?”

“I like you too, Eddie.”

It’s five words but Eddie swears they light his skin on fire. “Would-do-a date?” he stumbles out. 

“Are you asking me on a date?”

“Yes--if you want,” he adds on quickly. “Movies? Do you want to go to the movies?” He realizes now he didn’t properly get the question out as his brain is still lagging behind after the kiss. 

“I’d love to go to the movies. Tomorrow?”

Eddie nods. “Yes, sure. Uh, can I call you later after looking in the paper about the releases?”

“I would be disappointed otherwise. I’ll look too, yeah?”

“Sounds good.”

You reach for the fruit, which you know you’ve been standing in front of for far too long by the pursed lips of the lunch lady and hand Eddie the banana you’d teased about earlier. He laughs but takes it with a wink. When you look at Jason, he’s pushing out of the lunch line and heading for the side doors to th cafeteria. You’re not sure how much he saw, but you hope it was everything so he’ll finally get the hint. 

Eddie walks you to your table. He hovers for a moment unsure if it’s too much but the end he goes for a peck on your cheek and then flies over to the table he normally sits. You catch the wind of his run pushing his hair up and laugh as his friends greet him with enthusiasm, hands slapping on his back. 

Saturday can’t come quick enough. 

[synnamonroll666]

Ashrah X Fem!Reader X Syzoth: Intro Dialogues (Feat. Sareena, Kitana, Mileena)

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A/N: I meant to post this almost two months ago! TWO! I have got to stop slacking! 😭 Anyway, if you want context, this is kind of a continuation to these headcanons I did back in November.

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Sareena: I'm so proud of you, sister!

Ashrah: Don't say I told you so!

Sareena: I told you poly relationships were too good to give up!

••••••••••

Ashrah: Syzoth and (Y/N) really enjoyed Halloween as well! They say they want you to be a part of it next year too.

Sareena: I'll start working on my costume now!

Ashrah: Nothing that shows too much skin or scares the children away!

••••••••••

Syzoth: Your sister and (Y/N) are angels! They are the sweetest—

Sareena: Ohhhhhh, my God! I know! You love them!

Syzoth: Is there something wrong with expressing that love?

••••••••••

Sareena: I told you people wouldn't think you're a freak! That's why Halloween is the best time of year!

Syzoth: I had never felt do free to be me in a public place my whole life!

Sareena: *Smirking* You know, it's okay to get freaky from time to time anyway.

••••••••••

(Y/N): Your sister makes me so happy.

Sareena: As happy as you make her?

(Y/N): I think more.

••••••••••

Sareena: Next Halloween is going to be amazing!

(Y/N): All I ask is that you go easy on the children this time. Syzoth didn't even scare them as much as you did.

Sareena: Hey, it's all a part of being a demon!

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Kitana: I am still weary of you courting Syzoth and (Y/N).

Ashrah: I have nothing but the best intentions for them both.

Kitana: Actions speak louder than words, Ashrah.

••••••••••

Ashrah: Do you not accept us?

Kitana: It's not that. I'm just concerned.

Ashrah: I understand your concern but it is false.

••••••••••

Syzoth: Would you mind training (Y/N)? She told me that she would like to learn more about kombat.

Kitana: I would be happy to, Syzoth.

Syzoth: Thank you, princess.

••••••••••

Kitana: A demon, a Zaterran, and a human: I never seen anything like this in the one million years of my existence!

Syzoth: Neither have I, princess. But I couldn't be happier.

Kitana: I am glad to know that you are now happy, Syzoth.

••••••••••

(Y/N): You said you would help me train?

Kitana: Yes, would you like to start?

(Y/N): Just please go easy on me at first.

••••••••••

Kitana: Syzoth says that you and Ashrah make him very happy.

(Y/N): *Smiles* That really warms my heart to hear that.

Kitana: It really makes me see things in a different light.

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Mileena: I know being in an unaccepted relationship is hard.

Ashrah: It is difficult, but it would be harder without (Y/N) and Syzoth.

Mileena: In my eyes, happiness is all that matters. Of course, if you are not harming anyone to achieve it.

••••••••••

Ashrah: I see a lot of me, Syzoth, and (Y/N)'s relationship in you and Tanya's.

Mileena: I suppose we are similar in a way.

Ashrah: Both judged for loving who we want.

••••••••••

Syzoth: People called us freaks. But look at us now!

Mileena: Honored to be accompanied by beautiful woman throughout life's journey.

Syzoth: It's a lot less than those bullies can say for themselves.

••••••••••

Mileena: You said you wanted a day off to spend time with Ashrah and (Y/N), Syzoth?

Syzoth: Please, Empress. I plan on proposing.

Mileena: Then take the whole week. You have my blessing.

••••••••••

(Y/N): Syzoth has been acting strangely with me and Ashrah lately.

Mileena: Trust me, (Y/N). Everything will be fine.

(Y/N): I sure hope you are right...

••••••••••

Mileena: What is this "double date" you suggested?

(Y/N): It's when me, Ashrah, and Syzoth and you and Tanya all go out together and share a date. It will be fun!

Mileena: You Earthrealmers never fail to be interesting to me.

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Requests for more are open!

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[lunatic-pudge]

Sniper SWF Alphabet

My baby boy!!!!! I think I might do Pyro or Demo next

A: Affection (How do they show affection? And how affectionate are they?)

Sniper is one of the most touched-starved of all nine mercs. It comes from him being an introverted-esque person and also his job. But when it comes to having an s/o, he is a very affectionate person. He loves giving and receiving affection

B: Best Friend (What would they be like a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

He'd be a good best friend to have if you can break through his barriers. He doesn't let people in easily, he's very defensive about letting people in. So you would have to start slow with breaking the barriers. Sitting together and making small talk. Once the barrier is broken, he's another loyal friend. He's also a gossiper, ready to talk about and hear the latest merc drama. He's also a little shit-head and occasionally will cause trouble by letting a bee or spider lose in the building. He thinks seeing Scout freak out over a little bee is top tier comedy

C: Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Loves cuddles. You two will be constantly cuddling each other in private. He's the type of person to just lay on top of someone. He's like a coat or blanket and it's adorable. He doesn't discriminate on cuddles, if you want to be the big spoon, he'll gladly allow it. He'll cuddle you in front of people when he's drunk or completely exhausted. You're his comfort item

D: Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking & cleaning?)

Would definitely want to settle down. He'd make a great house husband. Is very particular with cooking and cleaning, he has a very specific routine for it and doesn't like breaking said routine. He is also very into trying new foods so you'll be trying a lot of interesting stuff. Please picture this man in a frilly pink apron for me, thank you :)

E: Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Very and horribly shy about it but will do it to get it done and over with so he doesn't have to dwell on it anymore. He's upfront with it and gives a reasonable explaination for it. Post breakup, he becomes very reclusive. It takes him a bit to get over the relationship but once he's over it, he'll start to revert back to his usual

F: Fiancé(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Wants to get married but is scared of it. He wants to make sure the person he's with is the one. It would take a while for him to propose, I give it four years of dating at least, but after he pops that question and you say yes, he's excited. I feel like he'd let you do most of the wedding planning while aggressively supporting you, but there would be some things he'd like, such as a small wedding. But this man will make your dream wedding come true

G: Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Is surprisingly a very gentle bean. Hims is such a sweetheart. Is very good at being a listening ear if you need to vent. He'll hold you and let ypu talk about everything and anything. He enjoys spending time with you

H: Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Another gangly man with gangly man hugs, but they do be warm and comforting. Hugs are affection and he's a very affectionate man so hugs are constant. He tends to do a lot of suprise hugs from behind. He'll lay his chin on top of your head as well. He's also they type to put his elbow on your shoulder and bully you for being short

I: I Love You (How fast do they say the L-Word?)

Takes a while for him to say it. He'd probably end up saying it on your one year anniversary which makes it such an emotional moment for the both of ya. He writes lots of little notes for you and puts them everywhere and all of them contain a little I love you in it, sometimes it's just an I love you note but it's still very adorable

J: Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Is only jealous when drunk or high (you know damn well this man is the team's weed dealer). He's very confident of himself when sober, but when he's under the influence of something he's the possessive, worried you'll leave him for someone else type of person. He'll be all over you and accusing the person of trying to take you away from him, tears may or may not be included

K: Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Little smooches with every hi and bye. Going to the bathroom? Here's a smooch before you go. Oh, you're back? Here's a smooch for returning. He usually just gives quick innocent kisses and saves the more saucy and romantic ones when alone and for those special moments. Will kiss you anywhere and everywhere but usually tends to stick with kisses on the lips since it's quick and easy

L: Little Ones (How are they around kids?)

Is unsure about kids. They're cute and he tries to be a good role model for them, but he also doesn't understand kids. He's on the fance about having kids in the future. It depends on you if you two are having them or not. He's also the type to get absolutley fucking murdered by a hoard of kids. They'd maul him alive (it's like a reverse FNAF where the kids kill the adults and stuffed them in a suit)

M: Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Grumpy old man. He's up early making coffee and being grumpy. He's very much not a morning person and it shows. He's very snippy with the other mercs so you'll have to be there to be the neutral party and pull him away from fighting someone

N: Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Is up late. He spends his nights cuddling you and watching a movie. With enough convincing, he'll turn his camper into a mini blanket fort. He struggles to sleep at night so it ends up contibuting to his morning grumpiness. He'll spend most of the night cuddling you until he falls asleep

O: Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait awhile to reveal things slowly?)

Another thing that would take a long time for him to do. He doesn't want you trying to use this info against him. But if you're with him, then you obviously must have some patience, the long wait is worth it though

P: Patience (How easily angered are they?)

Depends on his mood of the day. He's usually a very patient man but some days everything annoys him. He's very quick to apologize for his anger though. He doesn't like being mad at you, it's hurts his feelings

Q: Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every detail in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

I'd say he's pretty good with memorizing info about you. He does tend to forget and mix up some small bits, but overall, he's good with memory

R: Remember (What is their favourite moment in your relationship?)

His favorite memory is when you two both took care of an injured owl. Owls are his favorite bird so when you came to him with a small box that had a baby owl in it, his heart melted. He's got quite the knowledge with taking care of animals so he knew what to do, asking you to retreive certain item so you both can help the owl. Taking care of the owl was like a test to see how well you both work together. He has pictures of the time hung up on his wall. You both ended up keeping the owl as a pet

S: Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Very protective. He tends to stick close to you to make sure you're safe. He'd be someone who would hold you close to him with one arm, point his kukri at the person and growl at them. He gives you big scary dog privleges

T: Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, and everyday tasks?)

He tries his best. He likes going all out for anniversaries, making sure you feel like royalty in that day. He also goes all out for your birthday, basically telling you that you're not lifting even a finger at all that day. He'll interrogate you for date ideas since he tends to not know what to do for date night. Plz help him

U: Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

The man pisses in jars. No sane person pisses in a jar and throws it at people. But aside from that, I'd say the only real bad habit/trait of his is his reclusiveness and his grumpiness. This man has an attitude on him and isn't scared to show it

V: Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Doesn't care much about his looks. I feel like he does the bare minimum to exist. But does take better care of himself when he starts dating you. It's a very noticable difference too which ends up with the mercs questioning and attempting to bully him. He doesn't give a shit about them though. He only cares about you and his parents

W: Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

It all depends on how long you two have been together. If it's been casual, then he's fine. But long term? Homie ends up developing separation anxiety. He doesn't like being away from you for too long. He'll usually take something of yours to kinda help him. It barely helps. He needs you.

X: Xtra (A random headcanon for them)

I feel like he'd be the type of person to be constantly high. He's obviously the weed dealer of the team, he knows what the good kush is. He's also a very feral man. Just look at him. He never got that rabies shot and it shows

Y: Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

He's very picky about his partner. He doesn't like when his partner who's persistent and aggressive. He tends to let his partner take the lead but if they wanna do something he does't want to do, he will throw a fight about it if they persist

Z: Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?)

Struggles to sleep at night. He tends to be on edge a lot so it messes with his sleep schedule. So he usually just spends the night cuddling and watching you sleep until he himself can pass the fuck out