#safe disposal

[ultimatecontractingllc]

Regardless of the situation, significant accumulations of junk can be an eyesore, and dealing with them can be pretty stressful. However, the process doesn’t have to be. In fact, there are many perks of removing unwanted junk. Here are some of them.

[speench]

nsbu fans listen to me, listen, most of the cast hasn't had an Ify moment yet where they talk directly to their ?? alter egos?? and before we see dynamics unfold with other characters I need everyone to consider: Liv and Kingskin as unwilling father and his newfound ride or die child trope that is all

[enviroserve]

Choosing an R2 Certified electronics facility allows you to better limit your liabilities and hazards to your company’s confidential data, and reputation. With an R2 Certified recycler, you can be assured that all your risks are handled, and you will never be caught off guard by fines, counterfeit goods, or forgery because your assets ended up in the wrong hands. R2 Certification gives governments, ministries, corporations, and individuals confidence that their e-waste will be responsibly disposed of, without endangering the environment or public health. Confidential information is safely erased, lowering the risk of data theft and counterfeiting. Besides, R2 certification encourages accountability and traceability throughout the recycling process as a serialised certificate of data sanitisation performed on your e-waste is provided. The amount of energy required to manufacture new products is lower and the amount of waste that ends up in landfills is reduced to a great extent.

[scificrows]

Today I'm thinking about this:

Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it. I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.

And about how Murderbot slowly starts calling its humans its friends in Exit Strategy, tentatively at first:

Were they my sort-of human friends? My clients? My ex-owners, though legally that was only Dr. Mensah. Were they going to see me and yell for help, alert security?

but also more confidently later:

Maybe that was why I had been nervous about meeting Mensah again, and not all the other dumb reasons I had come up with. I hadn’t been afraid that she wasn’t my friend, I had been afraid that she was, and what it did to me.

The only tag I can access on Ratthi is a partial that says my human friend. That’s strange and unlikely, but the pre-catastrophic-failure version of me seemed sure about it, and I don’t have anything else to go on.

and Mensah confirms this at the end of the book too:

I just want you to know you already have options here, and I expect you’ll have more offers for your services or advice as a security consultant. And that you have friends here you can discuss things with, whatever you decide to do, or wherever you decide to go.

The thought that a bot could see its humans as its friends (and because they treat it as a friend too) made Murderbot so emotional in Rogue Protocol that it needed a minute to process it. And later on in the series it starts to understand that its own humans are its friends too - and how much they care about it and that it can go to them for help if it needs them and I just. I think I need to withdraw and have an emotion about this in private too.

[bitchfitch]

i can not imagine being proud of a set up like this. and yet it is Depressingly common. You have three Incredibly expensive fish that also happen to be extraordinarily aggressive in a tank that's on the small side for one of them. with an additional aggressive predator that's half the size of them and so likely to get mauled. and at least one ray that will outgrow that tank quickly.

and then on top of it all you have no substrate layer, and thus no where for the microbiome to set up and keep the tank stable following water changes, no enrichment, no line of sight breaks nowhere for any one of your incredibly aggressive fish to hide from eachother.

This is a tank that only looks stable because all the fish inside it are too stressed to risk attacking each other. but the Moment one of them starts showing weakness from the cortisol poisoning happening here the others will turn on them and the tank will collapse.

these are animals. They're not just decorations. If you want that aesthetic ™ just spend the money this nightmare cost you on a resin mount.

[uncanny-tranny]

You can have whatever opinions about drugs and public drug consumption - I don't particularly care, and this is not the conversation for that discussion, but I saw a sharps container in a public restroom and it was exciting. It was just there, and it's the first time I've seen something like it (they also had changing tables in the men's restroom, which is also great, but I've seen that a couple times).

You have to realize that proper sharps disposal is a matter of public health and safety. Not everyone is educated about how sharps disposal works and why it's important, but seeing as how you can be infected by Hepatitis B and C and HIV, you can see why it's so important. Nobody deserves to be exposed to that, regardless of if they're an addict or not. Everyone deserves to be safe, whether addict or sober.

[mc-i-r]

Disposable Heroes

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four Ao3

A/N: Guys, I’m so sorry for the late update! Life has been crazy for me the past couple weeks but I hope that I can get back to writing more regularly. This chapter is the well-awaited Eddie pov, as well as a ton of backstory for him that I didn’t really plan on but it just kinda came out. This chapter is kinda rushed, I’m gonna be honest, but I wanted to get it out to you guys as soon as possible since its been awhile. There are gonna be some major warnings here so I’ll post them below. Take care of yourselves and stay safe, now enjoy!

Tw: homophobia, homophobic language, child abuse, domestic violence, referenced drug use, Eddie being incredibly gay

———

It’s a muggy Sunday morning, the summer sun burning through the last vestiges of chilled night air and frosted dewdrops as it rises from its slumber. Like the sun, Eddie rises as well. However, it’s with much less fanfare and grace due to the obnoxious pounding at his front door.

He groans dramatically, shoving his face in his pillow and willing whoever the fuck decided to bother him at—he glances at his alarm clock on the other side of the room, squinting to read the numbers—nine in the morning to go away. His wish must have pissed off some universal god because the knocking only gets louder, making the window above his desk rattle with every shake of the door.

With a sigh big enough to rival the windy intro of “Holy Diver”, he pulls himself to the door in a zombie-like state. Movements sluggish from his interrupted sleep, he misses the doorknob twice before finally turning it, throwing it open with newfound strength to find one Robin Buckley in all her glory. Her fist is raised and ready to knock again, her face the epitome of righteous fury as she glares at him.

“Uh, hey Buck. Whatcha doi—“ he begins, only to be interrupted by Robin shoving past him and barging into the trailer. He sighs, rubbing a hand over his face and pulling on his hair slightly before shutting the door.

Kids and their manners nowadays.

“Yeah, sure, come on in. Totally fine. I wasn’t sleeping or anything, noooo,” he says to himself before turning to face his intruder. Whatever Buckley is upset about seems serious, and from the icy look she’s giving him it also seems like it’s his fault. Her hands are on her hips like she’s in a Steve Harrington impersonation contest and plans on taking home a first place prize. Something in him squirms at the thought.

But, he is nothing if not a performer. So, of course, he puts on a show.

“Lady Buckley,” he declares in a posh British accent, bowing deeply with a flourish on his arm. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company on this fine morning?”

He’s expecting a fond eye roll, or a laugh, or huff, or something. He gets silence.

“Cut the bullshit, Eddie. We need to talk about Steve,” she demands.

Steve… Now isn’t that an interesting subject?

Now, Eddie has always been different. He was loud, and jumpy, and fidgety, and the other kids never wanted to be friends with him because they were scared. He was always covered in dirt, always barefoot because he either forgot to put on shoes or the ones he had were too small for his ever-changing feet. He would talk to himself, mutter little reminders under his breath or work through the questions plaguing his mind aloud because he just functioned better that way.

Then, at eleven, he found out just how different he really was. He was outside during recess when he fell off the monkey bars and scraped his hands and knees. He huddled on the ground, tears falling down his small cheeks because it hurt and his wounds felt like they were throbbing. Then a boy, James, ran up to him and asked him if he was okay. James had stark blond hair, a face full of freckles, and bright green eyes. He looked so concerned for Eddie, and was gentle when he picked up one of his hands to inspect the cuts littered there. It was that gentle touch that elicited a flutter of butterflies in his stomach, and ever since then Eddie knew.

When he had gotten home to the trailer that day, he felt confused. Other people in his class were constantly talking about who they “liked”; boys liking girls and girls liking boys. About how they would get all nervous around their crushes, and Eddie realized he had never felt that before. All of the girls in his class were just… girls to him. They never gave him that fluttery feeling James had. But… no one ever talked about boys liking boys. No one ever said if it was okay, so Eddie thought it must not be. That boys liking boys wasn’t okay. That he wasn’t okay.

It took awhile, but he finally confessed to Wayne that he liked boys, that he got all the little butterflies that boys were supposed to get about girls. Wayne shook his head and told him that he could feel butterflies for anyone he pleased, as long as they made him happy. They both cried that night, and ended up in a hug so tight they nearly fused together.

Since then, Eddie’s come to accept the fact that he’s gay. Has added it to his whole anti-conformist persona, even. So when high school hit he let himself finally be free. He joined Hellfire club, made friends with the upperclassmen who ran it, and learned all the intricacies of D&D that he never imagined he would. After two years, he met Gareth and Jeff who joined Hellfire much in the way he did. Then, Grant joined halfway through Eddie’s junior year and he quickly recruited him as well. He found his friends, his people, and he finally let himself be himself around them.

He told them he was gay after a long session of lazily practicing in Gareth’s garage and smoking, the weed having loosened both his limbs and his lips. They were all extremely chill with it, even after the weed had worn off. That, however, didn’t exempt them from making fun of him though.

Eddie was loitering in the hallway after school, waiting on Gareth to finish up a quiz he missed the week prior, when none other than Steve Harrington walked out of the pool room in nothing but those little speedos that leave zero to the imagination. Seriously, all those girls were right, holy shit. After he picked his jaw up off the floor, he noticed Steve was looking at him with that adorable little confused puppy look before a god damned smirk fell across his face. Eddie’s face, he knew, had to rival that of a Victorian nobleman fawning over a sliver of pale skin shown by a lady across the room with her face hidden by an elaborate fan because he was literally drooling for the man in front of him.

It got considerably worse when Steve leaned down to drink from a nearby water fountain, making Eddie’s mouth go completely dry with this blatant offering of ass right in his face. In hindsight, it might not have been an offering, per say, but it was definitely there and Eddie was definitely staring. So it really wasn’t a surprise that he jumped when Gareth tapped his shoulder, Eddie having not heard him come up behind him, and he turned on his heel so fast he’s surprised he didn’t get whiplash.

“Dude, you good?” Gareth asked. Eddie opened his mouth, squeaked out, “I’m fine” and immediately felt his face go up in flames. Gareth glanced over Eddie’s shoulder and he could see in slow motion the series of thoughts that crossed his mind. Gareth went from concerned to confused to understanding to smug so fast it was almost comical. When their eyes met, Eddie’s went wide.

“Don’t you dare say a word,” he hissed, and the smug look only intensified.

Once they got to his van, Gareth immediately rounded on him.

“Seriously? Steve Harrington?” Gareth teased. “Of all people, it had to be that douche?”

Eddie groaned and clenched his eyes shut. “I know, Garebear, now shut up before I push you out of the van.”

Of course, news about his little crush spread around his friend group like wildfire, and soon enough he was being teased by them relentlessly. Eddie knew his crush wouldn’t get very far, Steve was very clearly straight and in a happy relationship with Nancy Wheeler of all people. Still, Eddie couldn’t stop thinking about that smirk.

Just as his crush began to fade away, Steve showed up to school with a busted face and eye bags deep enough to rival shitty vampire Halloween make-up from a toddlers costume contest. Feelings came rushing back, the intense need to protect, to find out what happened and get justice for that pretty face.

Then it kept happening, and Steve showed up to school with a beat up face yet again. However, judging by his stumbling and droopy eyes, it came with a concussion this time. Just when Eddie was trying to figure out who did it, Billy Hargrove came stalking through the empty halls and all attention was focused on his scabbed knuckles. On the hungry glare he sent Steve’s way. On the way Steve shrank back a little on instinct.

And Eddie… Eddie just couldn’t leave well enough alone, now could he?

He walked up to Steve, brows furrowed. “Harrington?”

Harrington didn’t turn, eyes still focused on the spot where Billy had been before. Eddie tapped his shoulder. “Steve?”

He jumped that time, like Eddie had actually hit him, and spun to face him. Up close, his face looked a hell of a lot worse and Eddie had to suppress a wince just looking at him. Steve looked at him confused, though it was hard to tell between the swelling and assortment of bandages on his face.

“…Munson?” Steve began. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come up.”

He said it flippantly, with a wave of his hand towards his left ear like that explained everything. It didn’t, but Eddie felt like it wasn’t his place to push.

“You good, man? You look like you got in a fight with a dump truck and lost,” Eddie said. “Badly.”

He expected Steve to scoff and roll his eyes, push past him and hit his shoulder too hard to be an accident. He expected him to spit some barb and walk away, to leave Eddie there in the hallway alone. None of that happened, though.

Instead, Steve smiled. A little self-deprecating, but a smile nonetheless. He huffed a laugh.

“Make it a supercharged dump truck and you’ve got it right,” Steve joked at his own expense. It resulted in a shocked laugh bursting from Eddie’s lips, which he immediately stopped by smacking a hand over his mouth.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, pulling his hand away. “That’s not funny. I mean… your joke was, just not,”—he gestured to Steve’s… everything—“this.”

“It’s okay man, I know what you meant,” Steve said sincerely and Eddie doubted why he was ever called King Steve. The person who stood in front of him was the furthest thing from what those jocks supposedly worshiped that Eddie had to hide another bubble of laughter.

“Seriously, dude, did you even go to a doctor?” Eddie asked, and at Steve’s wince he knew the answer. He rolled his eyes and slung an arm around his shoulders, careful not to land too hard in case he was bruised there too, and led him down the hallway towards the nurse’s station.

“Uh,” Steve began. “Where are we going?”

“The nurse,” he explained. “Figured a look wouldn’t hurt, right?”

Steve’s shoulders relaxed a little under his arm, and Eddie decided to focus on him during their walk down the empty hallway. He noticed the way his hair bounced a little with every step, how a couple strands were threatening to fall from their perfectly coiffed positions. He noticed his moles and freckles, how he had a smattering of faint ones all over his face from time in the sun. He noticed how his nose was a little crooked now, with a bump on the bridge that wasn’t there before the weekend. He noticed how pretty his eyes were, with at least three different shades of brown all swirled together like melted chocolate with flecks of forest green nestled in the folds.

He noticed that Steve was looking at him.

They had come to a stop in front of the nurse, yet Eddie’s arm was still over his shoulders. He quickly retracted it, but Steve didn’t move away and neither did he.

“Well, this is your stop,” Eddie nearly whispered out. Steve smiled, just a small quirk of his lips, and his eyes flitted across Eddie’s face.

“Thanks, Eddie,” he started. Steve took a step backwards toward the station and did a little wave with his fingers that had no right being as endearing as it was. “See you around.”

With that, he disappeared behind the thick mahogany door and Eddie was left there alone, face full of flames and smiling like he was in fucking love with the guy.

Fuck, maybe he was a little bit in love with the guy.

That feeling didn’t waver, not even after seeing him in a skimpy sailor uniform as he scooped overpriced ice cream for toddlers in the Mall. Or, when he was pinning him to the rickety wall of the boathouse he was hiding in after seeing Chrissy murdered in front of him by some freaky wizard from an alternate dimension with a broken bottle to his beautifully freckled throat.

That feeling greatly intensified when he saw Steve take an honest to god bite out of a demonic bat and spit the flesh and blood out on the dried lakebed in the previously mentioned alternate dimension.

And, really, you can’t blame him for falling all the way when he found out exactly who dragged his half-dead body out of hell and saved his life.

So yeah, Steve was a very interesting subject indeed.

“Is… Is he okay?” Eddie questions as he straightens from his hunched position, head tilting to the side and making his bangs fall in his eyes. Robin throws her hands up with a mighty huff and a frustrated groan.

“Obviously not!” She exclaims. She starts pacing around his living room, back and forth in front of the coffee table. “He’s obviously not okay because you’ve been avoiding him and making him feel like shit for months and I’m actually really worried about him ‘cause he’s been doing stupid shit that can get him killed and I don’t know how much longer he can go on like this before it completely ruins him.”

As Robin rambles, her face turns a bright shade of pink. She finishes her speech, sucking in a deep breath as if she ran out of air. Eddie’s brows furrow.

“I haven’t been avoiding Steve,” he defends weakly. He hasn’t, not really. He just… he doesn’t want to get hurt.

Okay yes, Eddie is practically in love with the guy, but that doesn’t mean Steve feels the same about him. They’re friends, that’s it. Steve is going to find some beautiful girl and get married and have the houseful of kids he’s always wanted and Eddie will be here, still pining from afar. He knows it would be easier to just forget about him, and forget about the feelings clutching his heart like a starved hawk with its first fulfilling catch in months. That’s why he’s been slowly letting go over the past few weeks, trying—and failing—to get that stupid pretty boy out of his head. Of course, it’s not working, and every day he spends not talking to Steve feels like hell.

So no, he’s not avoiding Steve. He just doesn’t think he could survive it if he confesses and Steve rejects him completely. Staying away means he won’t accidentally reveal his feelings for the man, and judging by how much he’s feeling, it wouldn’t be very hard for that scraggly cat to come clawing and screeching out of the proverbial bag.

Robin, however, thinks the opposite because according to the look she’s giving him, she says he absolutely fucking has.

Eddie sighs. “Okay, maybe I have just a little bit but it’s not—“

Eddie freezes, stomach plummeting as Robin's rambling words take purchase in his mind. She said Steve was doing something stupid, something that could kill him. Flashes of a night now a distant memory play in his mind, one filled with panicked breaths, stilted tears, and a bloody bat with nails.

“Robin… What do you mean by ‘stupid shit’?” Eddie asks tentatively. Part of him wants to know the answer, while part of him fears the idea of ever finding out. Robin only gives him a confused look and crosses her arms.

“Eddie, that’s totally not the point of this conversation and you know it—“ Eddie cuts her off by waving his hands.

“Robin! Just…” he trails off. Should he tell her about Steve? He promised he wouldn’t but…

“Okay, I have to tell you something about Steve but please please don’t tell him I told you because I promised him I wouldn’t but if you also know something about him then I think you should know about this too,” he rushes out, words tumbling fast out of his mouth as his lungs scream for air. Robin’s icy glare has melted a bit, turning into one of anxiety and caution.

He sighs and flops down on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees as he looks down at his hands. He feels more than sees Robin sit next to him and he knows he has her attention.

“What happened, Eddie?” She prompts, and he takes it as a sign to continue.

“I had a visit from Steve awhile back, around four or five days ago,” he begins. “It was early in the morning and I couldn’t sleep so I was writing notes for a new campaign idea in the living room. I could feel that something was… off, so I looked out the window and there he was.”

He ran a hand over his face, pushing his bangs back and pulling on the ends. He glances over at Robin to find her looking at him. He squeezes his eyes closed for a moment before looking back at her.

“He wasn’t all there, Robin. Like… like he was trapped in his mind or something. I thought,” he huffs a deprecating laugh, “for a moment there, I thought he was cursed.”

He doesn’t mention that the image found its way in his head and can’t seem to find its way out, like a stubborn housefly who keeps banging against the glass hoping to be freed. The thought of Steve floating—eyes rolled back in his head while his lids flutter and his limbs shudder and break one by one—has kept him awake on more nights than he can count. The thought of him being subjected to his worst nightmares given life, all the lies that he tells himself turned to truth. The thought of Eddie being completely helpless, watching him die in agony in front of him.

He doesn’t mention that every night since then, he’s called Steve. He needed to hear his voice, to know he was okay. To know he was alive. He never got a call back.

“I got him to come inside but he didn’t stay long. Something spooked him, I think, I just… I don’t know, it was really weird. Like…” he trails off, unable to find the words.

“Like he was in fight or flight mode?” Robin suggests, and he nods.

“Pure instinct.”

Robin groans. “Shit, this is worse than I thought.”

“Wait, did he tell you?” He asks. Steve was so insistent on Eddie not telling her—made him promise, in fact—so why…?

“Well… after a very long, very emotional, and very vulnerable conversation, yes. He told me on his own terms though, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she supplies. “He… He didn’t tell me a ton of details, though. Not… Not like that.”

There’s a pause as Robin clenches her eyes closed and looks away from him.

“I didn’t know it was that bad,” her voice comes out just barely above a whisper, something he wouldn’t have heard if he wasn’t right next to her. Eddie stays silent, unwilling to break the solemn mood. Robin, however, misses that message entirely as she smacks his arm.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me, doofus?!” She accuses, giving him a half-hearted glare that is no less threatening. Eddie holds his hands up in surrender, unable to hide the exasperated look on his face.

“He made me promise!!” Eddie defends. “Plus he gave me those damn puppy dog eyes and I couldn’t say no.”

“He is really good at that, especially when he wants something. He says he has no clue but I bet you he does,” Robin whispers, almost conspiratory as if they’re sharing a terrible secret. Eddie can’t help but smile and shake his head. Screw Harrington and his stupid pretty eyes.

“Did he say anything else while he was here?” Robin asks after a moment of silence.

“No, that was the only thing he said really, other than an absent ‘I’m fine’ before he bolted out the door. It was a very uh… one-sided conversation,” Eddie explains. “He mostly gave only one or two word answers before he panicked and ran.”

“I’m gonna assume he didn’t tell you why he left?” She asks, and at the shake of his head she curses. “Fuck.”

“Fuck indeed.”

Robin shifts beside him, raising her hand to mindlessly chew on her thumbnail. He thinks the conversation is over. Or, rather, wishes it were over.

That universal god must really hate Eddie today because Robin roughly shakes her head and waves her hands around, letting out a huff.

“Okay, one problem at a time. That was totally not the point of this little talk and you know it, Munson,” she admonishes. “Why. Are. You. Avoiding. Steve?”

She punctuates each word with a, quite literal, punch to the arm. Eddie reels back, dramatically clutching his bruised arm and gives her a fake glare.

“Ow!!” He rubs his arm. For her incredibly bony arms, she really can pack a punch. He’s only half joking that it hurts.

“Answer the question!”

“Fine fine…” he takes a deep breath, knee bouncing with building anxiety before he stands up, unable to quell the urge to move. He paces twice in front of the coffee table before he has the nerve to look at her waiting gaze.

“So, as you know, I am a raging homosexual,” he states, and at his pause, she nods. “And I miiiiiight have a teeny weeny, itsy bitsy, enormous crush on him.”

The end of his sentence is rushed out, words jumbled together as he screws his eyes closed and waits for… whatever Robin’s response is going to be. He waits for five seconds. Then ten. Then twenty-five because yes he’s counting. If he knows one thing about Robin Buckley it’s that she doesn’t know when to stop talking so silence is a very rare occurrence for her and now its been a whole minute and something must be wrong so he opens his eyes to find her—

The only word that even remotely comes close to encompassing the expression on her face is seething.

He instinctively takes a step back.

“Edward Lee Munson you better explain yourself right fucking now or I swear to every god out there that I will rip out your spleen and feed it to the neighborhood dogs before you take a step out that door,” Robin all but growls out, eyes icy and cold as they stare through him. He’s quick to explain because he really quite values his spleen, thank you very much.

“Okay, okay, geez I get it! Fine,” he huffs. “I’ve been avoiding Steve because it’s hard to be around him.”

Robin only raises an eyebrow. Eddie groans. He really wishes he didn’t have to explain his big, fat, gay love this early in the morning.

“It’s hard because he’s so…. So Steve all the time. He’s so kind and caring and hot— god, Birdie, he’s so fucking hot—“

“Okay, yeah, I didn’t need to know that,” Robin interrupts.

“Sorry,” he says, a bit sheepish. “Every little smile he gives me feels like a swarm of butterflies are fighting horde-style to get out of my stomach. I just…

“I think I’m in love with him,” Eddie confesses. The way her eyes blow wide is comical, and he’s half expecting them to pop and burst like they do in cartoons.

“But I know better,” he gives her a sad smile. “I know that I’m not special, he doesn’t mean it like that. Like I want it to. And…. And I know he never will.

“I thought that distancing myself would make the feelings go away, make it… I don’t know, hurt less? But not seeing Steve at all… fuck, it hurts worse than dying and I know what that feels like. Now I don’t even have him as a friend,” he scoffs at himself, shakes his head a little and focuses on a framed picture of him, Steve, Robin, and Dustin from graduation on the wall. Focuses on how Steve’s arm is wrapped around his shoulders, hand gripping his upper arm as he smiles shyly at the camera. How Eddie himself is leaning into his side, tucked under his arm as if he belongs there. As if he’ll ever belong there. He looks back at Robin.

“But this is what’s best. I can’t have my stupid heart feeling things my brain knows it shouldn’t,” Eddie ends his little speech by flopping back down on the couch. Part of him regrets telling her, but another small, itty bitty part is almost grateful.

Eddie’s always had a way of caring too much, even from a young age. Wayne could tell you better than anyone that Eddie has always had a soft side. He could tell you that Eddie refused to let him kill any of the bugs that got into the trailer when the weather turned cold and insisted that they be put outside under the trailer where it was at least a little warmer. He could tell you that every time Eddie would see another person cry, he would too.

He’s just always been like that, so carrying this around with him everyday? It was becoming too much to bear, having to put on a face around everyone so no one could tell. So no one could see how it was breaking him inside. Wearing him down to the bone. Slowly, slowly killing him.

Robin sighs beside him and he had almost forgotten she was there. Her voice is quiet and strangely gentle as she speaks.

“Why do you think that, Eddie?”

What?

“What?” He asks incredulously and knows his face is in a similar state to his voice.

“Why do you think Steve wouldn’t like you like that? Has he said anything to make you think he wouldn’t?” She clarifies, which really doesn’t clarify anything at all for him because what?

“Um… are we talking about the same Steve? You know, Steve Harrington, Hawkins’ resident ladies man? Why the fuck would you think I’d have a shot?” He explains. “He’s so painfully straight and I am so painfully not, Robin.”

Robin just looks at him like she’s trying to read his mind. Or, rather, push a thought into his mind. Waiting for something to click. It doesn’t. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Besides, Steve never tried to talk to me about the whole distance thing, so I just—“

“You know what happens when people assume things, Eddie,” Robin interrupts.

“—figured that he didn’t mind,” Eddie finishes with a glare. Robin closes her eyes and takes a breath as if calming herself. She pinches her nose, right between her eyes like Steve always does when he’s frustrated or tired, and turns to him. She takes his hands in hers, and her face is only a mere mask of calm, the tumbling waves of anger rolling just under the surface.

“Eddie,” she begins. “Have you ever thought of the possibility that Steve doesn’t talk about his feelings? That he would keep it all bottled up inside like he does with literally everything else?”

Well, when she puts it like that…

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Robin agrees. “I only found out about this whole… thing two days ago and that was only because I just so happened to catch him falling asleep at work. He wouldn’t have told me if I didn’t ask him, I know that for sure. He… Eddie, he honestly believes that this is all his fault. That he’s the one that fucked everything up between you and he kids.”

Eddie’s brain screeches to a halt. “Wait, what do the kids have to do with this?”

“You haven’t told them anything?” Robin asks, eyes going a little wide.

“Have I told a bunch of teenagers—whose opinions I regretfully respect—that I have a crush on their babysitter? No, I have not.”

“Okay, yeah that was a stupid question, sorry,” she amends. “Just… the kids are avoiding Steve and I can’t think of a reason why.”

“They’re what!? Wait, why haven’t I heard of this until now?” Eddie exclaims. Robin gives him a look that makes him deflate a little. “Let me guess, you only found out two days ago?”

“Bingo, we have a winner!” Robin fake cheers, raising her arms in a mock-celebratory fashion. She drops them with a huff. “They haven’t talked to him in weeks, Eddie, and I think it’s because you have been avoiding him.”

Her tone isn’t accusatory, but it still makes him feel like shit.

“They must have picked up the sense that something was going on between you two and assumed they should be avoiding him too,” she suggests. Eddie leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“I don’t get how they could think that, though. I mean, Steve has been nothing but good to them for years now.”

“I know,” Robin agrees. “But they’re kids. Stupid, dumb, ungrateful kids, but they’re still kids.”

Eddie drops his head in his hands, pressing hard on his eyes until spots form behind his eyelids.

“I really fucked this up, didn’t I?” He asks it rhetorically, but Robin gives a noise of agreement anyway. “How do I fix this, Birdie?”

“You could start by talking to him,” Robin suggests.

Now isn’t that a terrifying thought?

Because knowing you have feelings for someone is one thing, but telling them? That’s something so far out of the realm of possibility for him that he’s never even thought about considering it.

“Have you lost your fucking mind, Buckley?” Eddie exclaims, looking over at her with wide eyes. “I’d like to keep all my teeth if you don’t mind. I mean, I know I’m not your type and everything but some poor schmuck would probably like to look at this face one more time before it's beat all black and blue.”

Robin only rolls her eyes at his rambling—which is rather hypocritical of her if you ask him, since she seems to treat rambling as an Olympic sport she plans on winning every time she opens her mouth. She grabs his face between her hands and honest to god shakes him.

“I can’t tell you everything, but I’m telling you to trust me and talk to him,” she practically demands, giving him a pointed look much like the one from before. Except he still doesn’t know what it means, as that final piece has yet to click into place.

He nods in her hold, partially afraid of her now, and she releases him.

“We need to fix this. Now,” Eddie insists. He looks over at her. “We need to talk to the kids.”

Eddie stands up, running to his room and groaning at the mess he left. Tossing his sheets and blankets back on the bed, he reaches under his bed for the walkie he knows he last saw under there three days ago. Except, it’s not there. He stands up, scrunches his eyebrows, and thinks.

Let’s see… it was next to the keychain that was on top of the VHS sitting on the books on the corner of the desk, then he moved it when he had to answer one of Lucas’ questions which he did while he walked around the trailer and he laid it down when he finished to get some cheese from the fridge, meaning—

Eddie runs back to the kitchen, finding the walkie on top of the fridge, right where he thought it would be.

“Got ya!” He grabs it and runs back to the living room where Robin is waiting very impatiently.

“Where even was that?” She asks but he ignores her, electing to set the frequency so he can talk to the kids all at once instead of answering her. He presses the button.

“This is Eddie the Banished calling an emergency Hellfire meeting pronto,” he orders into the speaker. “I repeat, emergency Hellfire meeting.”

He waits for a response. One minute. Two minutes. Three—

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Eddie mumbles, pressing the button again. “Over.”

Immediately, Dustin responds. “Hear you loud and clear, Eddie. Is this a code red situation? Over.”

“Nope, not a code red. More of a uh…” he glances over at Robin who shrugs. “Code yellow? I think. Over.”

“What the hell is ‘code yellow’? We don’t even have one of those,” comes Erica’s, as always, sarcastic remark. Eddie can faintly hear Lucas yelling in the background.

“Munson, you better not be shitting with us.”

“I promise you, Red, I wouldn’t. Not about this.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, people! You’re supposed to say ‘over’ when you’re done talking! Over.”

“Shove it, Dustybuns, the adults are talking.”

Eddie has to hold the walkie away from him at Dustin’s responding shriek. He presses a hand over his eyes. These kids are going to kill him one day.

“Guys, this is serious. Just get your asses over to my trailer as soon as possible. Robin’s already here, does someone have Little Byers and Supergirl?”

“I’ve got them. Over and out,” Mike responds.

“Erica and I are on our way. Over and out,” Lucas says.

“Be there in fifteen. Over and out,” Dustin declares. Eddie glances at Robin, sharing equally nervous and worried looks. This is not going to be fun.

Thirty minutes later, all of the kids are cramped in Eddie’s living room. Lucas, Max, El, and Mike are scrunched together on the couch, while Will and Dustin sit on the floor in front of them. Erica claimed Wayne’s recliner as soon as her and Lucas got there, refusing to move for the older teens.

Robin is standing next to him, hands on her hips again—really driving home the whole “Steve is my platonic soulmate” bit—as he stands there with his arms crossed. The two of them remind Eddie of disappointed parents about to tell off their kids, which, in reality, isn't too far off.

“Okay, what the hell?” Dustin asks, still breathless from the trek there. “I literally just got home an hour ago. Why did you call us and make us bike all the way here in the heat?”

“Because you deserve it for being shitheads,” Eddie defends and rolls his eyes. He’s met with a cacophony of dweeby teen voices as they retaliate.

“What did we do this time?”

“What?! We didn’t do anything!”

“What did Dustin do, now?”

“Me? Why am I the one being blamed? I wasn’t even here!”

“Because you’re too damn nosey, dude.”

“Ouch, Lucas. Ouch.”

“Hey!” Eddie yells, clapping his hands to get their attention. It startles them all enough to quit talking over each other and look back up at him. “Okay, I’m just going to get to the point. Why are you all avoiding Steve?”

Mike gives him a confused look and crosses his arms, his expression the epitome of teenage angst.

“We thought you hated Steve, dude. You would always leave the room whenever he was around with some shitty excuse so we just decided to do the same,” Mike answers. Dustin nods from his spot on the floor.

“Yeah, we all thought he did something or said something to you since every time we brought him up, you’d shut the conversation down somehow. It just… naturally progressed from not talking about him to not talking to him either,” Dustin explains.

“Steve stopped showing up to things, too. He used to help me practice but he’s not shown up in weeks,” Lucas adds.

“Mom’s gotten really worried about him. He’s not shown up to dinner in a while, either,” Dustin chimes in. He shrugs. “We just thought the feeling was mutual.”

Eddie clenches his eyes closed and throws his head back. Fuck, this is worse than he thought. He hears Robin shift beside him, and knows firsthand the look she’s giving them right now.

“Have any of you even considered asking Steve about this?” Robin asks accusatively. “Or even talking to him about anything other than rides or movie nights?”

Silence falls over the room, so thick and suffocating that Eddie briefly prefers the air of the Upside Down to this. He pulls his hair, scrunching down on the floor and balancing on the pads of his feet.

“This is all my fault,” he groans, twisting strands of hair frustratedly.

“It is,” Robin agrees and ignores the glare Eddie sends her way for that. “But we can still fix this.”

“Wait, what’s going on?” Mike asks.

“Why does Eddie look three seconds away from strangling himself with his hair?” Max hesitates, sounding the most cautious he’s ever heard her. Eddie groans and avoids eye contact with the group.

“The reason I’m avoiding Steve isn’t because I hate him. It’s uh… quite the opposite, actually,” he explains, nervously fidgeting with his rings and pulling a thick strand of hair to hide his face. He glances at Robin, who gives him an overly enthusiastic thumbs up, and he rolls his eyes.

Max and Erica give him equally smug smirks while Will looks at him with wide, understanding eyes. The rest of the group, however, look confused.

“Wait, then why are you avoiding him?” Dustin asks.

“Dude, that makes zero sense,” Mike counteracts. El just looks lost, almost like she’s trying to read his mind. Which… he really wouldn’t be surprised if she could at this point. Eddie sighs.

“That’s not the point,” Eddie redirects. “The point is that an issue with me and Steve shouldn’t affect you guys’ relationship with him.”

“Yeah,” Robin agrees, and he deftly ignores the pointed look she sends his way. “Steve has been there for all of you for years.

“Dustin, wasn’t it Steve who helped you catch D’art when he escaped from your cellar? He bought pounds of meat for you to lure a demodog away with, then fought a pack of them by himself to keep you safe. Steve put himself in the line of fire again against said demodogs in the tunnels after he was beaten unconscious by Billy, then sacrificed himself to Russians just so you and Erica could make it out alive a year later.”

Dustin clamps his mouth shut from its gaping position—likely from him wanting to defend himself from the truth—and has the decency to look sheepish. Eddie turns his gaze to Lucas.

“Lucas, wasn’t it Steve who helped you train for basketball when you started to show an interest in it? He practiced with you every week, even after a long shift at work or when he felt like shit, just because you asked. Steve protected you against Billy because it was the right thing to do, and took a beating so you wouldn’t. Not many people can say they’d do that for someone else, especially not against anyone as vicious as Hargrove,” Eddie adds. Lucas drops his head in his hands, knee bouncing from his place on the couch.

“Max,” Robin begins. “Steve checked up on you every day after Billy died. He would bring you food or ice cream or a distraction, but he was always there. He would drive you to the arcade just to cheer you up, let you beat him at Dig Doug and Pinball just to see you smile. Steve was terrified to let you be the bait for Vecna, he… he kept telling me that he wished it was him instead. That he should be the sacrifice, not you.”

Robin wipes her eyes where they begin to tear up, and Eddie uses the pause to look at Mike. He still has his arms crossed, but the smartass look on his face has dwindled a little.

“Mike, I know you don’t like Steve because of him and Nancy, but you can’t hold onto that grudge forever. What happened between them had nothing to do with you, so there's no need to be mad at him for it,” Eddie states. Mike isn’t looking at him now, and something tells Eddie that the kid just needs a reality check. Hopefully, this will work. “Steve has been protecting you from the beginning, even when you were more than hostile to him. You’ve at least got to give him credit for that.”

Eddie looks around, sees the morose expressions on the kids’ faces.

“Steve has picked you all up countless times from Hellfire, waiting the entire session out in the parking lot while wasting away in his car. He was there rain or shine, snow or sleet, and he never missed a day. Not once,” he states.

Eddie first found Steve’s presence after Hellfire to be confusing, an anomaly. He didn’t know that the Steve the kids talked about was the same Steve he had a debilitating crush on in high school, not until he saw him waiting outside after the first session the kids attended, leaning against his maroon BMW like a Calvin Klein model. A ball of anxiety formed in his stomach at the sight, because one thing about Steve Harrington was that he’s unpredictable. Eddie just didn’t know if it was good or bad yet.

“You know, usually when people graduate they tend to stay away from high school, not willingly come back,” Eddie teased.

His words seemed to spark some life into Steve, as he jolted from his relaxed position against the hood to stand firmly beside his car. Steve ran a hand through his hair, and looked Eddie up and down.

“You’d probably know more about that if you managed to actually graduate, Munson,” Steve quipped, but it wasn’t mean. He had a smile on his face, and the air around him was friendly. Some of the anxiety churning in Eddie’s gut eased at the sight.

“Besides, who says I’m here willingly?” Steve asked rhetorically, as Dustin made his appearance by running up to him and immediately began talking his ears off about the new campaign. Steve turned his full attention on the boy, nodding along to certain comments even when Eddie knew for sure Steve didn’t know what the hell Henderson was talking about. The other kids soon crowded around the former jock, all talking so incredibly fast that Eddie was surprised the sound barrier survived their cracking voices.

Eddie watched as Steve glanced at him over the kids’ heads, giving him a loose smile and a shrug as if saying, ‘what can ya do?’

Soon, all the gremlins piled into Steve’s fancy car, still talking and gesturing wildly with their hands. Eddie had a passing thought that he should get Steve some earplugs or something to at least help drown out the noise. He immediately shook his head at the thought and jumped in his old, beat up van, driving home to an empty trailer and trying desperately to forget Steve Harrington existed.

“He always waits until the excitement starts to wear off before he takes you all home, letting you talk to each other for nearly an hour after each session despite the fact he never has a clue what you’re talking about. He always listens to you guys, no matter what,” Eddie supplies. “Did you guys know he has mixtapes for each of you?”

At the question, they all look at him with varying degrees of confusion and an all-too-late realization. Eddie huffs, while Robin mutters something under her breath that sounds a lot like, ‘of course they didn’t.’

“There’s one for each of you, filled with songs you like or mentioned liking at some point despite some of them not being his own taste. He listens to you, all of you, and it fucking hurts to know you don’t see that,” he exposes, and part of him regrets letting a bit of his anger out. Though, the kids need to know this is serious, that you can’t go through life assuming the worst in people, so if being angry is what it takes then so be it.

The kids have various emotions on their faces, ashamed and regretful being the two most prominent. Dustin clears his throat and looks up at Eddie, flicks his eyes to Robin, and returns them to his lap.

“I… I didn’t realize he did so much for us,” Dustin quietly admits, and a small part of Eddie cheers at finally teaching the kid a thing or two about humility.

“We’ve been taking advantage of him for… for so long,” Lucas breathes out. Max nods morosely beside him, and Will raises a shaky hand to cover his mouth.

Mike rolls his eyes, still petulantly crossing his arms. “Why should we even care about him? All he’s probably doing is wallowing in his fancy house or something.”

He says it with a layer of snark so thick, all the kids turn to him with varying levels of bitchy glares. Eddie, however, can tell his attitude is a mask, a way for him to hide how he’s truly feeling to prevent from being too vulnerable. From being too open. Eddie knows a lot about that.

It started when Eddie was four and he scraped his knee on the harsh gravel outside his parents’ run-down home in Kentucky. Tears rolled down his chubby cheeks as he ran inside to tell his mom, who he knew would take care of him. She told him to play outside, and not come in until she told him so, but his knee really hurt and he was scared they would have to cut it off if it bled too much. At least, that’s what Charlie—a kid who lived two streets over—said they would do.

When he stepped over the threshold, something felt off. The house was quiet, more so than normal, and it set him on edge. The TV was filled with static that grated on his little ears, and he covered them with his hands as he made his way over to turn it off. He picked up the antenna off the floor, wondering how it got knocked off the top of the TV in the first place. He looked around the living room, finding it in a similar state of disarray. He followed the trail of broken things before him; the overturned coffee table, a spilled ashtray, a stray pillow, and the chair his dad always sat on, pushed far out of its normal place. He questioned who could have messed up his house like this, leaving a big mess behind.

He found his answer when he ventured into the kitchen, just a few short steps from the living room, and found his mother laying on the floor. She was on her stomach, arms splayed out as if she tried to catch her fall and head turned to look at the doorway where little Eddie stood. Her eyes were closed but she was still breathing, the floral pattern of her dress moving with each breath. Shards of ceramic were spread out around her, littered with droplets of dark blood that spilled from a cut on her forehead. It dripped down the side of her face, along the curve of her cheek and onto the floor where it formed a small puddle. Her skin was pale in the artificial light of the house, the soft yellows doing nothing to soften the tones of her ashen face.

“Mama!” He ran up to her, falling to his knees beside her still body. He shook her, trying to get her eyes to open, but all it rewarded him was a pained grunt. His eyes welled with tears again, this time for his Mama, but nothing he was doing was working.

A shadow fell over the floor and he looked up to find his father blocking the light from the gold-colored light fixture above the kitchen table. His face was stern and dirty looking, his stubble well past the point of a five o’clock shadow and leaning more towards a sleazy strip club owner. There was a smear of blood on his face from his hand, which he noticed was bruised around the knuckles. However, the sight of what was in his other hand made him freeze, entire body going stock still.

In his father’s left hand were the remnants of the broken plate on the floor, the jagged edges cutting into his skin where he gripped it tightly. Matching blood littered the edge, and a splatter of the dark liquid traveled up his hairy arm and disappeared into his rolled up flannel sleeve.

He looked up at the figure before him, and the tears spilled over against his will.

“What happened to Mama?” He asked. “Why won’t she wake up?”

“‘Cause she’s sorry, son,” his dad answered, throwing down the ceramic and causing it to shatter against the floor. Eddie flinched, and his father caught the motion. He hadn’t been able to quell it, hadn’t learned how to hide his fear yet. The man scowled at him, lip curling as he grabbed Eddie’s arm and hauled him off the floor in one solid motion.

“She’s weak, Edward,” he began. This close, Eddie could see the redness of his eyes, and the deep purple bags that hang underneath. “Just like all women. Do you wanna be weak, boy?”

Eddie shook his head, and his father gripped his arm tighter. “Answer me!”

“N-No sir,” Eddie muttered, voice small and weak in the face of his father.

“Then stop that fucking crying, don’t be a sissy. I ain’t raising a fucking faggot, Edward.”

With that, his dad dropped his arm and stumbled into his bedroom down the hall. As soon as his figure was gone, Eddie turned back to his mom, crouching next to her. Sometime when his dad was talking, her eyes had opened and her breathing grew stronger. Eddie felt like it was nothing short of a small miracle.

“Mama, are you okay?”

“‘M okay, baby,” she replied, pushing herself off the floor with a grunt. She sat up with Eddie’s help, and frowned when she saw the reddened mark on his arm. “I shouldn’t have let him do that to you.”

“You were hurt, Mama. ‘S not your fault,” Eddie reasoned, pulling his arm out of her grasp to wipe at some of the blood on her face. “You’re bleeding, too.”

“Oh,” she began, reaching up to touch the wound as if she hadn’t realized it was there. “It’s nothing, Eddie, just a little scratch. Mama will be okay, promise.”

She didn’t look okay, this close, with her sunken-in face and slowly forming black eye Eddie hadn’t been able to see before. But his Mama was always right. Always.

“Pinky promise?” Eddie asked, holding out his little pinky. His Mama smiled, and raised a shaky hand to lace her pinky with his.

“Pinky promise.”

A year later, he was riding in the car with his Mama, backpack at his feet. She was dressed nicer than he ever remembered her being; a baby blue, short-sleeved dress hugged her slender frame, paired with white heels, white bug-eyed sunglasses, and a sheer white scarf she had tied around her hair. Her suitcase was in the trunk, but his father was nowhere to be found.

“Mama?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Where’s Dad?” He asked. His Mama cleared her throat before she answered, voice shaky.

“He’s not coming with us, Eddie,” she said. “We’re going somewhere far away from him. Somewhere new.”

“Where?”

“Have a look for yourself, honey,” she said, pointing to the window. Eddie crawled up on his knees to look out, seeing a sign welcoming them to a place called Hawkins. He sat back down in his seat, looking back at his mother.

“What’s here?” He asked. His mother smiled.

“Your Uncle Wayne. He’s my brother,” she supplied. “We’re just going to pay him a little visit, okay?”

A few short minutes later, they were parked in front of a small trailer, a gruff looking man waiting for them on the newly-built porch. They got out of the car and Eddie grabbed his backpack, slinging it over his shoulders before his Mama led him up the steps.

“Eddie, this is Uncle Wayne,” his Mama informed. He looked up at her and she nudged his arm, urging him to say something.

“H-Hello, sir,” Eddie greeted, sticking out his small hand for the man to shake. Wayne huffed a laugh and crouched down, causing Eddie to take a step back on instinct, before he took his hand and shook it.

“Nice to meet ya, Eddie,” Wayne began. He let go of his hand but stayed crouched. “You can call me Wayne, or Uncle Wayne, or Uncle, or—hell, Todd for all I care. Just none of that ‘sir’ business, you got me?”

Eddie smiled and nodded. “Sorry, si—uh, Uncle Wayne.”

“That’s better, boy,” Wayne said, smiling as he clapped his shoulder softly. Wayne had kind eyes, blue and soft around the edges. They weren’t mean like his fathers. Instead, they looked exactly like his Mama’s—save for a few extra wrinkles around the edges. “Why don’t you go on inside while your Mama and I talk?”

Eddie did as he was told, walking in the trailer and taking in his surroundings. It was small, smaller than his house, but cozy. A couple mugs were hung up on the wall, paired with three trucker hats and a framed picture he was too far away to see. An old, floral patterned couch sat on the long wall of the living room, a coffee table in front littered with an opened can of Coke and a half-eaten bag of chips. The windows were open to let light in, making the space feel much bigger than it actually was.

He stepped into the kitchen, just a pace away from the living room, and took in the red-toned wooden cabinets and cream countertops stained with coffee rings yet to be wiped away. There was a hallway to his left where he found a single bedroom and a bathroom. The bathroom was small, just big enough for a stand-up shower, toilet, and sink. A single toothbrush sat in the cup on the side of the sink along with a bar of soap and an almost empty tube of toothpaste. On the other side of the sink though, Eddie noticed an unopened toothbrush. It was blue and had sparkles throughout its plastic. At the bottom, there was a small dog sticker and it made him smile a little.

His attention soon wandered to the bedroom, where he found a little twin-sized bed and tons of boxes. The bed was bare, save for a folded up quilt near the bottom with a pillow on top. The boxes were filled with various things; clothes, books, a cassette player, shoes, and tons of other small trinkets. He sat on the ground, pulling a box closer to look through it. There were thin books near the top labeled ‘Hawkins High’, and he flipped through it to find pictures upon pictures of people. He read the names, sounding them out to see if he could get them right. Some of them were weird, though, and he quickly put the book down to look at something else.

There was a box of cassette tapes to his left and Eddie scooted over to look through it. There were tons of names he didn’t recognize as he rifled through the plastic cases, though one stood out to him.

He picked up the Fleetwood Mac tape along with the cassette player from a box near the closet, plugging it into the wall and putting the tape in. He eyed the front door, seeing it still firmly closed. Just then, the tape clicked, causing him to jump, and he pressed play.

The familiar voice filled his ears, and he smiled. He and his Mama used to listen to Fleetwood Mac back home in the kitchen while they made supper, singing along with the tape or the radio to fill the house with music. The sound of it brought a smile to his face, and he closed his eyes as he listened to the words.

Engrossed in the music, he barely registered that the front door had both opened and closed until a soft hand was laid on his shoulder.

“Eddie, baby, I have to go,” his Mama said, and he jumped to his feet. He kinda felt bad about going through Uncle Wayne’s things without him being there, but if they were leaving then he didn’t think he would get too mad.

“Where are we going now, Mama?” Eddie wondered. His mother’s face turned pinched, and she lifted her glasses to look at him directly. She wore make-up, much more than she usually did, and as she crouched down Eddie could see it was barely disguising a bruise along the top of her right cheekbone.

“Eddie, only I’m leaving,” his Mama corrected. “You’re staying here with Wayne.”

At that, his whole world fell apart.

His mother, his Mama, was leaving him. It didn’t seem fair that he couldn’t go with her, that he couldn’t stay with his Mama like he wanted to. Wayne seemed nice from their brief interaction, but he didn’t know him. Not like he knew his Mama.

His stomach sank to his feet, and it felt as if someone poured ice-cold water over him. His eyes grew wide as tears welled, spilling over his cheeks.

“Why, Mama?” Eddie sobbed, wiping at his face because he wasn’t supposed to cry. “Why can’t I go with you?”

“You just can’t, Eddie, I’m sorry,” she stated. It felt hollow, her explanation. Like she was hiding something.

“But why?”

“Because you just can’t, Eddie!” She snapped, and Eddie’s breath caught. She sounded mad, but Eddie had never heard her get mad, not at him at least. He didn’t know what he did, only that she wouldn’t let him go with her.

She took a breath and cupped his cheek. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“But- But you can’t leave me!” Eddie wailed. “Mama, please!”

She opened her arms and he fell into them, clinging hard enough to deem separating impossible. She hugged him back just as tight, and Eddie saw evidence of tear tracks streaking through her caked-on foundation.

“I know, baby, I don’t want to leave you either,” his Mama soothed. “But Wayne is going to take care of you, okay?”

Eddie looked over her shoulder to see Wayne leaning against one of the kitchen countertops, smiling sadly at him. Eddie screwed his eyes shut and buried his face in his mothers neck.

“You’re gonna come back, right?” Eddie mumbled before he moved to look at her. “Pinky promise you’re gonna come back for me.”

His Mama cried and wiped at her cheeks, smearing the make-up and making the bruises appear fresh on her pale skin. She held out a pinky, and Eddie laced his with hers.

“I promise, Eddie,” she said, leaning forward to kiss his forehead before getting to her feet. Her and Wayne shared a hug on her way out, and Eddie caught Wayne wiping his eyes too. He and his uncle stood on the porch as his mom drove away, waving until her taillights disappeared around the curve of the road.

That was the last time he saw his mother.

Unfortunately, it was not the last he saw his father.

He stayed with Wayne for two months until his father found him. They had grown accustomed to each other in that time, Eddie having warmed up to another parental figure and Wayne having gotten the basics down for caring for another being. Wayne insisted he start school in the fall, and he was two weeks in when all hell broke loose.

His father rolled up to the trailer in a fancy-looking sports car Eddie knew his dad didn’t have the money for. He stumbled out on the gravel, banging on the door until Wayne pulled it open.

“The hell are you doin’ here?” Wayne asked, standing firm in the doorway.

“I’m here to get my son,” his father demanded. He pushed past him and stormed the place until he found Eddie in the only bedroom—Wayne having set up a cot in the living room.

Eddie hadn’t expected to see his father again, mostly because he didn’t think the man really cared for him. That was prominent when he snatched Eddie off the bed and hauled him out of his room.

“Dad?” Eddie questioned. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking you away from here,” his father responded, glaring at Wayne who stood blocking the doorway.

“You’re not takin’ him anywhere, Al,” Wayne countered. He crossed his arms, looking far more intimidating than Eddie ever imagined. “He’s happy here.”

“He’ll be even more happy with me,” his dad insisted. “With his real family.”

“Son of a bitch, Al, I am his real family!” Wayne yelled. “You ain’t got the means for takin’ care of that boy, and you know it.”

His father stood toe to toe with his uncle, glaring at him. He whispered something Eddie was too far away to hear, but it made Wayne deflate completely.

Eddie didn’t want to leave. He found that these past two months with Wayne were filled with more happy memories than he ever remembered having back home. Wayne was nice, a little rough around the edges but he was a big softy inside. He cared about people, that much was evident in the way he was constantly helping people out around the park. He was a good person, so leaving him felt like his Mama all over again.

“Come on, son,” his father demanded, grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the trailer. Eddie looked back at Wayne, eyes stinging. He waved, and Wayne waved back. He watched the trailer from the backseat until he couldn’t tell which one was theirs, only facing the front when his dad snapped at him.

They rode for hours, far past the Indiana state line, until they ended up in a strange city filled with tall buildings and blinding lights that made Eddie’s eyes sting. They went through the city, stopping on the outskirts in a run-down neighborhood even more decrepit than his old house in Kentucky.

He spent two years with his dad in a city he came to know at St. Louis, but it never felt like home. Not like the trailer with Wayne, or anywhere his mother was. He learned how to hotwire cars and how to drive like a bat out of hell whenever his dad told him to. He learned that he was too much to take care of; his father constantly complained about feeding him, keeping him clothed, taking care of him like a father should. He learned that showing emotions would only get you hurt, that he had to hide them to survive. He learned what all the different white powders did to someone, how they would affect your mind and your body. How they made his father violent, or remorseful, or depressed, but never happy.

His father was on a bad trip when a rush of red and blue lights invaded their windows, sirens blaring and making Eddie’s ears ring. Their front door was kicked open, the old wood splintering easily under the force of a steel-toed boot. Police flooded the house, and Eddie was grabbed and dragged out before he had time to comprehend everything that was happening.

He was sitting in the back of a cop car with the door open, body completely still as police went in and out of their house. He couldn’t let them know he was scared out of his mind, that he was afraid of what they would do to him. He knew the best way to get through it was to show nothing at all. To be indifferent. Emotionless. It was the only thing his father taught him that he deemed useful.

His father was dragged out of the house by two policemen, kicking and screaming at them but Eddie couldn’t hear what he was saying, ears having gone deaf to anything other than the ringing in his head. Next thing he knew, his father had broken free and punched one of the officers, causing several to tackle him to the ground and handcuff him before practically throwing him into a car and hauling him away. All Eddie could do was watch, knowing there was nothing he could do to help him.

“You got somewhere to go, kid?” One of the cops that took him out of the house asked, leaning against the open door and blocking the flashing lights. Eddie nodded, and the cop took him back to the station where he called Wayne.

“Eddie, son, where are you? Are you okay? If that bastard hurt you, I swear to god—“

“Wayne,” Eddie began, his voice rough from not using it. “Can you come get me?”

A pause. “Sure, kid, where are you?”

“St. Louis,” Eddie supplied. There was cursing on the other end, muffled so Eddie couldn’t tell what was said but he knew Wayne well enough. Even after only two months, the man had become more like a father to him than his own dad ever was.

“I’m coming right now to get ya, just hold on tight, okay? I’ll be there ‘fore the morning.”

True to his word, Wayne showed up right before dawn in his beat up truck. He stormed the station like a madman, looking for him. He was rumpled, like he threw on just enough clothes to be decent before booking it all the way here. If he knew Wayne, that’s probably exactly what he did.

“Eddie? Eds, where are ya?”

“Sir,” the lady at the front desk interrupted. “I’m going to have to ask you to lower your voice—“

“Wayne!” Eddie perked up from the desk chair he was sitting at in the station, running around desks before jumping straight in his uncle's arms. Wayne held onto him just as tight, and he could’ve sworn he heard a sniffle or two come from the man.

“I was so worried, Eds,” Wayne whispered. “I tried lookin’ for ya, I swear I did, just—If I’d known he’d taken ya to another state I wouldn’t’ve stopped ‘til I searched the whole damn country.”

“I know, Wayne,” Eddie muttered. “I missed you too.”

As much as Eddie tried, he couldn’t put up that mask of indifference around his uncle. He could try, sure, but it never worked longer than five seconds before he saw right through it and it crumbled at Eddie’s feet.

“Let’s get you home, son,” Wayne insisted and before he knew it, Eddie was asleep in the passenger seat of the truck as they took the highway home.

Since then, Eddie and Wayne had become inseparable. There were no secrets between them, no masks. They weren’t needed, not when Wayne was more than good to him. They weren’t wanted, either, since Wayne made sure to remind him that showing emotions wasn’t a bad thing. That it was good, healthy.

It wasn’t until much later in middle school when he learned that having a mask was necessary sometimes. Especially when people started calling him a freak and a weirdo because he wasn’t identical to everyone else. Because he lived in a trailer with someone that wasn’t his biological parent and wore hand-me-down clothes that were baggy on him since his growth spurt hadn’t hit yet. He donned the air of indifference he had left behind long ago, letting the names and rumors bounce off his skin like water off an umbrella.

That need intensified when high school hit and the rumor mill grew exponentially. Suddenly, he was bombarded with accusations of Satanism, prison time, drug dealing—though that one was true—pet raccoons, and, at one point, an army of undead babies he sucked the life out of that he could command at will. Really, the shit people came up with was astounding, and Eddie learned to shove it all away. None of it was true—save for a couple things he would never, in a million years, tell another soul at Hawkins High—so he made sure to act like it was true. Let people believe what they want to believe. In the meantime, Eddie used it to his advantage to prevent anyone from getting too close. From looking past the barrier he put up between himself and everyone else.

So yeah, Eddie knows a little bit about where Mike’s coming from.

“Actually…” Robin starts. “Steve’s not doing so great—“

“What?!” Dustin squawks out, cutting Robin off and all but jumping up from his seated position. “Why the hell did you not start this whole damn thing with that?!”

“We were getting there, Henderson!” Eddie clarifies. “Now sit your ass down.”

Dustin—for once—does as he’s told. Eddie looks to Robin and gives her a nod, letting her have the floor.

“Steve’s got it in his head that he’s the only one allowed to sacrifice himself for us, that he’s only needed or wanted when he can put himself in the line of fire. So, like the caring dumbass he is, he’s been wandering around Hawkins at night because he’s worried that something will happen.”

“But I closed all of the gates,” El starts, head cocked and eyebrows scrunched like a confused puppy. “We are in no more danger.”

“I think part of him knows that, Supergirl,” Eddie explains. “But he needs to know for certain, to make sure you guys are absolutely safe.”

She nods, and sadness finds its way to her eyes. Eddie feels a pang of sympathy for her, knowing that learning how to live all over again is never easy.

“He’s not been sleeping much,” Robin continues. “It’s like he’s barely there anymore. Like he’s just… a shell.

“He thinks you all hate him. He thinks he deserves this for all the shit he did in the past, even though we all know he’s more than made up for it by becoming a decent fucking human being,” she spits out. There’s anger in her eyes now as she glares at a stain on the carpet, unwilling to look at the kids but needing to get her point across. “He broke down in my arms because this is the fifth fucking time the people he’s loved has left him and I think… I think this time broke him.”

She raises her head and looks over the kids, tears balanced on her lower eyelashes and threatening to spill over.

“You’re his family, the family he got to choose, and you still… you left. Just like everyone else has.”

The room fills with silence as the words sink in.

“How… How do we fix it?” Will asks, his quiet voice now loud. Eddie sighs and rakes a hand through his hair—a motion that keeps reminding him of Steve—before shoving his hands in his pockets.

“I know part of it is my fault, I admit that. I shouldn’t have just stopped talking to him all of the sudden, I should’ve… well, there’s a lot of things I should have done but I didn’t, so I plan on fixing that,” Eddie admits. He looks around the room, makes as much eye contact as he can to drive his point home. “You should too. A simple ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t going to cut it, not this time. Not for this.”

The kids all nod, and Eddie gestures to the door to dismiss them. They all look like kicked puppies with slouching posture and ducked heads, walking out of the trailer with their tails between their legs. Dustin and Mike are the first to hop on their bikes, ready to either apologize and get it over with or get as far away from his and Robin’s disappointed glares as possible. Before they can push off, Eddie calls out to them.

“Hey! Give it a couple days,” Eddie orders. “Steve… He’s going to need some time. Go to him when he’s ready, okay?”

He’s met with various nods and ‘will do’s as some of them take off, their knobbly knees hitting the handlebars of their too-small bikes. Then, he notices a particular brunette has yet to leave, her bike with little white training wheels still standing in the grass. Her big brown eyes lock with his and, even though there's a porch between them, he can feel the seriousness in her gaze.

“I miss him. He was always very nice to me,” El confesses. “He always gave me piggyback rides.”

Her face falls a little. “I did not know we were being mean to him.”

Eddie finds himself softening a little at her words.

“I know, Supergirl,” he winks at her. “That’s why you’re my favorite.” 

She giggles in response and hops on her bike, meeting up with Max who stopped to wait for her a few yards away. 

Eddie closes the door, falling against it with a thud. He groans, the sound bouncing off the thin door and out in the empty trailer. He turns to go to his room, preferably to wallow, before nearly jumping clean out of his skin. 

Well, he thought the trailer was empty, except there now stands one Robin Buckley who has resumed her unimpressed, hands-on-her-hips, "you're a fucking dumbass" position from earlier. 

"Jesus H. Christ!" He exclaims. A hand comes up to grab at his heart which is actively trying to beat out of his chest as his lungs grapple for air. "Birdie, I forgot you were there."

"Yeah," she deadpans. "Clearly." 

Eddie straightens up, and quirks an eyebrow at her rather over dramatically. Robin rolls her eyes.

"Well?"

"It's a deep subject," Eddie sarcastically responds. Robin, unfortunately, doesn't find that funny. "'Well' what?"

"Go apologize!" She yells. 

“Okay, okay, geez!”

Eddie pats himself down, looking for the keys to his van before Robin clears her throat. He looks over at her to see an unamused quirk of her eyebrow before she points to the hook by the door where his keys hang. 

“Thanks, Buck!” he exclaims, pressing his hands together in prayer to the saint she is. Grabbing them, he throws the door open and clears the steps in one jump, stumbling a bit on the landing but really, he’s quite proud of this rare athletic appearance. 

Jumping in his van, he slams a random tape in the deck, grinning a little at the song that plays first. Despite his obvious avoidance of the second track, the Master of Puppets album still holds a very special place in his heart. So it's really not a surprise that the song that just so happens to play first reminds him of the very man he’s going to see, sacrificial tendencies and all. 

He slams on the gas, tires squealing as he peels out of Forest Hills trailer park faster than he ever has before. 

He’s not running away this time; not running from a small cheerleader’s body trapped on his ceiling, not running from angry town hicks with their fiery pitchforks, and not running from a creepy interdimensional demon who enjoys sucking the life out of depressed teenagers. 

No, this time, he’s running to something. Running to Steve. 

He just hopes Steve will let him.

———

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[sysig]

can you draw edgar and scriabin playing on a park like brothers for the vargastober? ty!

Day 7 - Play stupid games

[cissa-calls]

Countdown to Coven of Chaos: Day 514

Wanda: “Why is there a nondescript cardboard box in the dumpster”

Agatha: “I started an oil painting. It didn’t turn out. Don’t worry it’s not a big deal.”

Y/N: “Then why did you work on it for 5 days straight and cry when I said the building looked crooked?”

Agatha: “…”

Agatha: “Because you being wrong physically hurts me”

Y/N: “It was crooked!”

Agatha: “IT WASN’T”

Wanda: “Get it out of the dumpster and let me judge!”

Agatha: “Well um…when I said I threw a painting away…it was more like the remnants”

Wanda: “That thing is in splinters that couldn’t even be used as kindling now, isn’t it?

Agatha: “…Mayhaps I overreacted…”

[vore-scientist]

In vote situations how would the smaller individual who is inside the stomach get out, how is it possible? Does the larger being just throw up on a daily basis or does the smaller individual sit in the stomach until the larger being hast to use the bathroom?

Hi anon, great question.

This is something that depends on entirely the preferences of the person making the vore content.

The second scenario is known in the community as “full tour” if the eaten person stays alive, and “disposal” if they are digested.

The first scenario… weird… I can’t think of a community wide term for prey being regurgitated. I’ve not seen anyone label such content as “regurgitation”. I guess it’s because in most safe content it is the default method. Most safe vore involves the prey leaving the way they came.

When it comes to safe vore, My own preferences lean towards regurgitation 80% of the time with the other 19.5% consisting of creative means (teleportation, phasing, under the knife/other means of direct extraction, shrinking so small they go into the vasculature and get out through glands, etc). and 0.5% Full Tour (intestines are very cool, I’m just not normally in a mood for full tour)

When it comes to fatal I do not care for disposal at all no thanks. No shame on folks who like it but it definitely grosses me out (it is a gross thing, and I say that as a neutral descriptor not a negative one. Note: Full Tour is often depicted as… cleaner than logically it would be. So the gross factor isn’t there, though this also depends on the content creator)

[jackassrabbit]

Consider: Robot girl whose battery swells up like this as she ages.

[in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene]

I do think Withers has a really subtle background character arc in bg3. Because at the start it is really clear he doesn't want to be here and he's being forced to clean up his mess by Helm and probably Ao. He doesn't really care either. Everything ends so nothing really matters, he'd like to go back to his paperwork now please.

Except he's stuck babysitting a bunch of traumatized dumbasses as they stumble into dealing with the most recent bad idea of his three fuck-up disappointments. So he brings them back when they die for a pittance, lets them pay for some vengeful ghosts to come back as flesh and blood to wreak bloody vengeance on the Absolute, and starts to... comment, on what's going on, as he follows them on their adventure.

Next thing you know Withers is like, doing things unprompted. He refuses to bring back Alfira (or Quil) but that's an act of compassion, keeping the poor girl from the Urge and letting her rest, his actual duty as a god of death. He tells Arabella to follow her destiny and does that thing to make her grief go away which honestly freaks me out but seems to be him trying to help her. He shows up at Moonrise and prompts us to consider why the Dead Three would want a bunch of soulless illithids that would give them no power, getting us to think of the big picture.

And by the end (especially if you do a resist!Durge playthrough) Withers is actively interfering and seems genuinely invested! He brings Durge back from the dead, free of their father! He encourages us before the final fight with the Netherbrain! He's real fucking smug that the Dead Three lost when he never seemed to care about the destruction they caused before! He throws a reunion party and many of his lines are genuinely touching or kind! Especially if a companion died permanently! He has tea with Gale's mom and Tara! He's like, socializing and shit! Yes, everything is temporary and we all die, but there's great beauty in fighting for that precious time and living it to the fullest!

Basically Wither's character arc is this meme, all because Helm made him go outside and touch grass.

[creepyscritches]

I follow several podcasts with people with accents from around Appalachia, and I think it sounds really lovely. It's awesome that your cousin is growing up without being pushed to change it!

:') thank you. I love the way it sounds too - - especially when you get up in the actual smokies (a subrange in the appalachians). There's entire dialects and slang up there as unique as the mountain culture! My uncle was a mountain ranger when I was little and he'd take me on the more kid-friendly trails 💕 Our local station had a series called the Heartland that would focus on all the awesome culture in the area (heehee my fav was always how goats are the preferred kudzu control). There's also dance and fiddle contests that are incredible to see! A lot of talent and highly skilled trades are overlooked simply bc of how the region has been portrayed as unintelligent. Appalachian folk living in the mountains are by far more intellectual when it comes to the natural world than given credit. When you have multiple slangs for "cougar", you have to acknowledge they have developed from a community that is so in tune with the local fauna that even cougars have a hard time sneaking up on people. That's crazy cool! Gatlinburg is renowned for the local black bear population and it's a beloved sighting when one trundles along a creekside.

I dunno, I just really love where I'm from and I wish people could appreciate it without treating the folks that hold it closest to their hearts as "hillbillies".

[thebreakfastgenie]

Phil Ramone broke so much glass to get that sound for the beginning of You May Be Right. Imagine collecting the garbage from the studio that day.

[britishassistant]

The Crewel siblings are as different as black and white, but that doesn’t mean they don’t share traits. One of the villains had the unfortunate experience of being targeted by Yuu’s mom’s ire. She was just trying to check on her baby after news came back about a particularly nasty villain encounter. But someone just had to break through the wall of Yuu’s apartment at the time. Anita was trying to be a good hostage like her brother taught to, but this gentleman was starting to. Get. On. Her. Nerves. I personally enjoy the idea of her dragging the villain out the apartment by the ear, whispering in gene/mother given wrath that Yuu needs a break and to tell all the others of that too. Slamming the door in the probably sorely confused Baddy’s face and just returning to Yuu saying “We’ll just go out for tea, you said there was this family run bakery you haven’t had the money to try?” Yuu knows at this point it’s better to just smile and nod.

Thank you for the ask, dear anon!

Yuu’s not sure who’s rapping at the door this early. Is it early? It feels that way, like they only closed their eyes half a minute ago, returned from yet another kidnapping turned Prefect intervention to perform a quick and dirty patch up and topple face first into bed.

They barely have the wherewithal to pull on the shirt they somehow shrugged off during sleep, stumbling towards the door on shaky, coltish legs, hissing at the cold.

“Love the knocking on doors, guys,” They grumble as they undo their locks and latches. “Real improvement on breaking it down, but what could you need this—?”

“Good morning!” Their mother chirps on the other side of the door. “Goodness, I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“…Mom?” It takes a moment of them blinking in stupefaction to realize yes, their mother is here, standing in the doorway. “Mom! I, ah, come in, come in, how, what…?”

“I hope now isn’t a bad time.” Mom says, stepping through the door with all her usual grace. “You did tell your father and I that you had today off, and while he’s got to take care of the puppies, I thought I could come down and check on how you were doing after what happened. You sounded a bit shaken up.”

“Mom, I’m fine, I promise. Heck, I end up tied to the tops of buildings so often now I’m used to it.” Yuu tries to smile unconvincingly, before darting a look around at the interior of their small apartment. “Uh…Sorry about the mess.”

“Oh, don’t be silly!” Their mother exclaims. “I didn’t come here to see your flat—I came here to see you, sweetheart. Anyway, it’s hardly as bad as your room when you were younger—remember when you were twelve and you’d just leave your worn-out slippers just lying around every time you got a new pair? And the pups would steal them for toys and we’d have to wrestle them back to throw away?”

“Mom.” Yuu groans, covering their face with their hands. “That was ages ago, and it wasn’t that bad! At least I’m better than Dad!!”

Their mother laughs and holds her arms out.

When Yuu goes in to hug her, she squeezes just tightly enough and whispers, “I’ve missed you so much, Yuu.”

Wrapped up in the warm embrace, they can feel tears begin to prick at their eyes, like they’re small and have just had their scraped knees bandaged and kissed.

“….missed you too, Mom.” They whisper, squeezing back fiercely.

Eventually, Mom pulls back, giving their shoulders a little squeeze. “Now, how about you go wash up and get dressed, and I’ll take you out for the day? I remember the pictures you sent over of those cute little tarts—”

Which is when the door explodes.

Yuu is momentarily thankful for the reaction instincts their time as the Prefect has made them develop, as they curl over their mother and twist her away to take the brunt of the wood shrapnel.

There’s a shadowy figure standing in what used to be the doorway.

“HUMAN!!” Banshee screeches. “MY LIEGE HAS GIVEN YOU THE HONOR OF REQUESTING YOUR PRESENCE!! COME!!”

Yuu groans as they straighten, trying to keep their mother behind them. “And you couldn’t knock?”

Sebek strides in, ignoring their question.

Silver Knight follows, but pauses when he catches sight of Yuu’s mom. “Ah. You have a guest.”

“HUMAN!” Sebek yells. “WE ARE KIDNAPPING THE REPORTER FOR THE MOST HONORABLE, MOST TERRIBLE SUPERVILLAIN OF ALL TIME, THE MIGHTY TSUNOTARO! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WAYLAY US UNLESS YOU WISH TO INCUR THE WRATH OF HIS FINEST BODYGUARDS!!”

Silver shrugs in apology but grabs one of Yuu’s arms anyway.

“Ah, so you two work for one of the newer supervillains Divvy was telling me about!” Mom exclaims, ever the optimist. “I’m Anita Radcliffe, Yuu’s mother. It’s lovely to meet the two of you.”

Silver blinks at her, wide-eyed and attempts to bow back while not letting go of his stranglehold on Yuu’s arm. He’s worryingly good at it. “Nice to meet you. I’m Silver, ah. Silver Knight, henchman to Tsunotaro.”

“This one is known as Banshee! Bodyguard to the glorious Malleus-sama, the secret identity of the most noble and terrible Tsunotaro!!” Sebek proclaims. “Be awed, human!!”

“If it’s meant to be secret, why are you outing it at the first opportunity…” Yuu mutters to themself, trying to covertly shake splinters out of their hair.

“Ah, be careful sweetheart!” Their mother says, though she doesn’t come towards them like she obviously wants to, heeding Uncle Divvy’s Hostage 101 lectures. “You’ll get something in your eye by doing that—would you gentlemen mind if they cleaned themself up a bit? Made them more presentable for your…employer?”

Yuu is uncomfortably concious of the way every eye in the room rakes over their comfy, ratty, covered in debris, pajamas.

“…As expected of the one who raised the reporter.” Sebek chuckles. “Naturally, human, you must dress in your finest garments for a meeting with my liege! Nothing less will do!!”

They pointedly do not remark that Tsunotaro has seen them in far worse attire than this.

Silver huffs a laugh suddenly, shaking his head.

“Sorry, it’s just,” He chuckles again. “Just remembered something Fa—Batman said, about how Tsunotaro would like to have a view when…”

He seems to remember himself as he trails off, pale cheeks blazing red. For their part, Yuu can feel blood rushing to their own face at the implication.

“SILVER!!” Sebek yells. “For once you’ve had a good idea!”

What.

“What?” Silver says, confused.

“What??” Yuu asks, desperately hoping they’ve misunderstood.

“Human!” Banshee proclaims. “You will bathe yourself, and I shall take pictures of you for Malleus-sama!”

Silver stares, mouth open in shock.

Yuu can feel their eyelid developing a twitch.

There’s a small snapping noise.

One of the shards of wood in their mom’s hands has been snapped in half.

Yuu knows that look on her face. It’s one they learned to dread growing up, heralding disappointment and scoldings and stories about clowns stealing their teeth.

“…Right.” Mom says. “Right. Yuu, you go get cleaned up. These gentlemen and I,” She seizes Silver with one hand and Sebek with the other, manages to prize their grips off of Yuu almost effortlessly. “Need to have a little chat about something private.”

“Uh—” Silver hesitates.

“HUMAN! UNHAND ME AT ONCE!” Sebek blusters.

“Mom—” Yuu starts forward, worried for their mom’s safety.

“That’s enough.” Yuu’s mother commands, then smiles sweetly at them. “Yuu, dear, be careful when washing things out—don’t get any splinters in your face. I’ll see you once you’re dressed, alright? We’ll pop down to that sweet family bakery for breakfast after I’m finished.”

Yuu hasn’t come this far in life by not listening to their mom when she tells them what to do in that tone of voice.

They turn around and walk through the bathroom door, shutting it behind them.

[anoant-haikyuu-dump]

Also anytime I have literally any fukutora or Nekoma 2nd year-related thoughts, my brain just turns into princess leia going "ant you're my only hope" on repeat

Little do you know I'm the one transmitting those thoughts into your head, I've infiltrated your brain and now you're forced to think about the funny gay cat teens