#that’s her last name right?

[dreamofbecoming]

ok fuck it context now on ao3

—

“I’m freaking out, man!”

“You’re what? Why? This is like, what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?”

“I mean, yeah, dude, but now it’s here, it’s happening, and tomorrow it’ll be done and I can’t take it back!”

“Do you want to take it back? Because I think that’s a terrible idea, but if it’s really what you want, I’ll sneak you out the back right now.”

Dustin deflates a little, slumping into the plush chair this weird little church greenroom was nice enough to provide. “No, I don’t want to leave. Of course I don’t.”

Steve puts his hands on Dustin’s shoulders, not massaging, just resting. He doesn’t want to smear too much of his scent onto him before the ceremony, but old habits die hard. Steve suspects he’s always going to want to scent the kids for comfort, even though they’re literally all grown and starting families of their own and don’t need their old omega babysitter anymore.

Case in point, Dustin’s wedding is meant to start in, oh, looks like about 25 minutes, so Steve has to smooth this crisis over double time.

“What’s really bothering you, Dust? You were over the moon yesterday, and the day before that, and every day since you and Susie proposed to each other. Hell, every day since you met! What’s going on now?”

There’s a pause, which is always unsettling coming from Dustin, who hasn’t shut up for more than twelve consecutive minutes in the decade plus Steve has known him, but then he sighs.

“She wants kids.”

Steve’s brow furrows. “And you…don’t?”

Dustin huffs, frustration rising in his scent. “It’s not that I don’t, it’s that I don’t know if it’s a good idea, you know?”

“And you guys haven’t talked about this before now? You’ve been together for like eleven years, dude!”

“We have, of course we have! I’m just thinking about the risks, Steve! I’m a beta, I can’t carry her pups, and pregnancies are dicey for alpha females! What if something happens?”

“First of all don’t call women females, it’s weird. Erica or Nance will definitely smack you for that, and you don’t need a black eye in your wedding photos.” Dustin nods, cringing a little.

“Second, pregnancy isn’t the only option, man, and also it’s her decision. If she wants to carry them, that’s a discussion you need to have with her, but you can’t just shut her down about it. She knew you were a beta when she decided to marry you. She picked you because she loves you, don’t go deciding for her she’s better off with someone else. And besides, if you decide it doesn’t feel right for both of you, you can talk about adoption, or surrogacy, or…I don’t know what all the options are, but I bet there’s tons! Hell, I’d carry for you guys, if you wanted.”

“You would?” Dustin’s eyes get big and shiny almost immediately, and shit, Steve’s gotta shut this down now. The groom can’t be going out there with red eyes and tear stains, Susie will murder Steve on principle.

But he can’t lie to Dustin. Swore he never would, not when it mattered. “Course I would, man, what’s family for? Aw hell, kid, don’t cry, your mate will run me over with her car if your photos are fucked up because of me.”

“I just- I can’t believe you’d do that for me! You don’t even know if I’ll be any good at it!”

Ah, so that’s what this is really about.

“Of course you’ll be good at it, Henderson. You’d be an incredible dad, any kid would be lucky to have you. I mean, your kids are gonna turn out to be nerd city, but that was always a given.”

Dustin gives him a bitchy little eye roll, which was of course Steve’s aim. He still smells anxious, though.

“How can you be sure, though? It’s not like I have any idea what a dad is supposed to be like, you know? It’s why I kept latching onto older male figures, no offense to you and Eddie.”

Little shit. “You should be so lucky, you little twerp.”

Dustin shoves him away, but he’s grinning now, and his scent is slowly returning to the lemon-bright joy that colors it so often Steve just associates it with Dustin’s base scent at this point, so he’ll take the win.

“You really wanna know how I know you’ll make a great dad, Dustybun?”

“Don’t fucking call me that, today’s supposed to be my day!”

“I’m your best man, I’ll call you whatever I want. Seriously though, I have a story for you.”

“A story, huh? I don’t know, Eddie’s more the storyteller in your relationship…”

“I’m gonna go out there and tell your bride to delay the ceremony because you shat your slacks and need new ones, you menace.”

“Okay, okay!” Dustin laughs. “Tell your story.”

“I was gonna put this in my speech later, but I think you need to hear it now, and honestly it might be more about me than you, and I don’t want to steal the spotlight or anything.”

“Not worried about that, but I’m intrigued.”

“You know how when you’re a kid, you learn how to pick out emotion scents by context clues, from like your family and stuff?”

Dustin lifts an unimpressed eyebrow. “Yes, Steve, I’m aware of one of the foundational tenets of our society, which we all personally experienced.”

“Almost fifteen years I’ve known you, and your attitude hasn’t improved one bit, you know that?”

Dustin waves imperiously for him to continue. Steve glares at him, but they really are running short on time.

“You ever know a kid who had like, a gap? Some feeling they had never run into before, so they didn’t know what the smell meant?” Dustin shakes his head, looking curious.

“There was this girl in my class when we were like, seven? Eight? Something like that. Anyway, she borrowed Tommy’s favorite eraser, one of those animal-shaped ones with the faces printed on? He loved that thing. The girl, Cassie, she broke it, by accident. Tommy lost his shit. I’d never seen him so angry. And like, you know how little kids emotions don’t really come through that strong? He smelled like, grown-up angry. Filled the whole room. Freaked the teacher out, too. Everyone’s backing the hell up out of Tommy’s way, even me. But Cassie was just confused. Because no adult in her life had ever been truly angry around her, so she hadn’t learned what it smelled like yet.”

Dustin is listening avidly, looking gratifyingly similar to how he does when Eddie DMs.

“Anyway, Tommy slapped her so hard it left a bruise, got his dumb ass suspended. But I just remember being so jealous, you know? Can you imagine? Eight years old and never knew what anger smelled like. Hell, at that point anger was just what home smelled like to me.”

Aw shit, now Dustin just smells sad.

“Do you remember when I drove you to the Snow Ball?”

Dustin’s got his thinking face on now, trying to figure out why Steve keeps jumping all over the place. Sue him, he’s no Eddie.

He nods anyway.

“Before you got out of the car, when I told you I’d come back to pick you up, you gave me this huge smile, and the car filled up with something I’d never smelled before. Not really, anyway. Maybe like, in passing, you know? Like in the hallway at school, but always faint and never towards me, so I never focused on it.”

Dustin’s eyebrows are totally scrunched up now, little genius brain whirring away. Goddamn brat never had any patience.

“I didn’t ask about it, because I wasn’t sure it was important, and also a little because I felt like enough of a caveman around you little rocket scientist dweebs I didn’t need you explaining feelings to me too, but I kept smelling it from you after that. And from El, and a little from Lucas and Max and even once from your mom, but it was just confusing, you know? I couldn’t figure out what was causing it, so I had no context clues to figure out what it meant.

“And then at Starcourt, after Robin and I went to go puke up those Russian drugs—”

“Ditched me and Erica who were very responsibly trying to wrangle you, you mean.”

“Tomato, tomahto, kid. Anyway, I told her I had a crush on her and she panicked and came out to me, so I switched to making fun of her crush so she would know I was okay with it, and suddenly there was that smell again. First time I ever smelled it coming from her. So after everything was done, I asked her.”

“Oh, so you’ll ask her, but not me? Hurtful, Steve.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, shithead, because Robbie already knew I was a moron, and she was never gonna want to go out with me, so I didn’t need to impress her. I could look stupid to Rob back then, but I still wanted you guys to think I was cool.”

“Steve, buddy, my brother, my best friend, my favorite jock please don’t tell Lucas I said that, we literally never thought you were cool.”

“Now who’s being hurtful?”

“Just the truth, Munson. I tell it like it is.”

“Ugh, whatever. The point is, I asked Bobbie what she felt for me in that bathroom, and she told me that’s when she realized she would love me forever. That we were going to be best friends.”

Dustin looks stricken.

“That’s what I was smelling all that time. Honey. That’s what I smelled in the car in the Hawkins Middle parking lot. You loved me. You were literally the first person in my whole life who ever did.”

“Steve—”

“This isn’t—look, I know it’s kind of sad and pathetic for kid Steve, but this isn’t about that. It’s not about me, okay? It’s about how my whole life turned around the day Dustin Henderson decided he loved me, because he never stopped. Not for a single second of the last thirteen years, and because you loved me then, I have a platonic soulmate and a horde of little siblings and a mate I adore and more friends than I can count on all my fingers and toes! You’re the one who encouraged me to go to cosmetology school, you’re the one who introduced me to Eddie, you’re the one who stood by me and let me crash on your mom’s couch when my parents kicked me out. My life is full of love, and joy, and purpose, and it all started with you, Dustin. I’m here because you loved me, and because once you started loving me you never stopped. I have smelled honey on you every single day since the 1984 Snow Ball, and that’s how I know you’ll be an incredible father. Because if you have all that love for a washed up ex-jock omega nobody had ever loved before? You’ll have all that and more times a million for any kid lucky enough to call you Dad.”

They’re both crying by now. Susie is gonna kill them for sure, but as Dustin buries himself in Steve’s arms like he’s still six inches shorter, Steve decides it doesn’t matter. This is worth it.

There’s a knock at the door, just in time it seems.

“Dingus, baby Dingus, you in there? T minus 5 minutes, boys, stick those feet in the oven if you gotta!”

“Yeah, Bobs, I hear you! We’ll be out in a sec, no cold feet in sight.”

“Roger that, bubba! I’ll inform the bride!” He can hear her racing off, probably dancing with pre-wedding excitement. For a cynical lesbian who has a new girlfriend every month and swears marriage is an archaic institution built on misogyny and omegaphobia, she sure does love weddings.

“You ready, kid?”

Dustin has taken the brief interlude as an opportunity to splash his face with water from the sink in the corner, so he doesn’t look like he’s been crying to into Steve’s shoulder, but Steve makes sure to straighten his tie and finger comb his curls back into place.

“Yeah, I think I’m ready.” He looks at Steve for a long moment, then throws his arms around him one last time. “I’m really glad you’re my brother, Steve.”

Steve squeezes him tighter for a moment, breathing in the familiar scent of lemon and cut grass and honey. Of family. Of love.

“Yeah, kid. Me too.”

[tittyinfinity]

I was hanging out at the karaoke bar, chatting with a beautiful woman, and we were really hitting it off. I threw a couple of flirtatious comments her way. She giggled nervously, but abruptly stopped and looked at the floor.

She told me that she was too nervous to hit on people because she's trans and worries that people will view her as a predator and that she might get hurt.

My heart sank. I let her know that she could hit on me in whatever way she wanted and I would LOVE it. We spent the rest of the night hanging out and flirting. We ended up making out. It was great.

But I can't stop thinking about how that wasn't the first time a trans woman has said that to me. About how unsafe it is for some women that they feel the need to give out fucking disclaimers to have normal interactions with people.

We have GOT to make the world a safer place for trans women. It pisses me off that there are men at the bar who are openly predatory towards me without fear of consequence, yet a trans woman is too scared to even fucking call me pretty. And that's because she IS more likely to face worse consequences for lesser things! Like what the fuck!

You need to always check on your internalized biases. Being queer yourself doesn't absolve you of transmisogynistic thoughts and behaviors. Being bi/pansexual doesn't mean you don't hold those biases either! If you feel differently about a trans woman hitting on you than you feel about a cis woman or a man hitting on you, you need to evaluate that.

Trans women, I love you so fucking much. You should be able to express attraction and love as freely as everyone else. I hope you can always feel safe around me. And I'll never stop fighting until you can feel safe period.

[hugs-and-stabbies]

The self-awareness on this guy 😞 someone pls send him an "are you bi?" quiz STAT

[muffinlance]

Hi ! prompt idea : What if Zuko was armed during the first episode and was stranded with the water tribe while the avatar left with Katara and Sokka, Iroh on his trail for white lotus reasons.

Oh we are going to have us some FUN with "stranded with the water tribe", say no more.

---

Zuko was dripping, and steaming, and staring down two dozen women and their gaggle of small children, plus that old not-the-Avatar crone from earlier. They were all cowering away from him. Which was--

Good. It was good. If they were cowering, then they hadn’t noticed how steam was not flames. He wasn’t sure he could make flames, not after the arctic water he’d landed in, with that last sight of the Avatar glowing; not after surfacing under the ice pack, after swimming, after kicking slamming breaking through and his ship was gone and there was only ocean all around and

and he’d made it back to this pathetic little camp of the Southern Water Tribe, because that was the only place he knew for sure would have shelter, and he wasn’t going to die just because they were all staring at him, even if felt like he would.

Even if the old not-the-Avatar woman could probably take him, right now. But she didn’t know that.

Zuko pulled himself up, taller than her by at least a few inches, and blew steam from his nose.

“I am commandeering one of your huts,” he said. And added, because Uncle said even a prince should be gracious: “You may choose which one.”

---

She choose her own.

...The only one without children that flames might scar, or younger women to catch a soldier’s interests.

Zuko sat by her fire and determinedly started struggling out of his wet clothes and she was still in here with him--

Zuko pulled one of her animal pelts over himself, and finished fighting off his clothes. When he stuck his head back out, cheeks still reddened from what was obviously the cold, she dropped a parka on his head.

“Dry clothes, Your Highness,” she said.

The parka was much bigger than he was. He fell asleep hoping that the camp’s men were on a long, long hunting trip.

---

He woke up again. Kanna tucked her favorite ulu knife away, newly sharpened, and stopped contemplating the alternative.

---

“I am commandeering a ship,” he said.

The crone led him across the village, all twenty paces of it, to a row of canoes.

“Take whichever one you want,” she said. “Will you need help getting it to the water?”

Zuko looked at the canoes. Looked at the ocean. Watched a leopard seal, easily the size of the largest canoe, dozing just past the ice his own ship had broken through the day before. It was frozen again, a great icy arrow pointing from the waves to the village, snow already starting to cover it over.

Beyond was blue sky and gray ocean and white ice, floating in blocks like stepping stones, like boulders, like cliffsides.

There wasn’t even a hint of gray steel, or smoke. Or any land, besides what they were standing on.

He looked down at the canoes again. Somehow, they seemed even smaller.

“I, uh,” Zuko cleared his throat. “I’ll require supplies. Before I go.”

---

They... did not have supplies. Not extra ones. This didn’t stop them from trying to give him supplies, food and blankets and anything else he could think to ask for. But each blanket was a pelt hunted by someone’s grandfather, had been inked with images and stories by someone’s mother, was the favorite of someone’s husband or brother or uncle or cousin--

They couldn’t go to the nearest market to replace things, here.

And when they talked about food, about what they could spare, they kept sneaking glances to their children, who were sneaking glances at Zuko from the huts, sticking their heads just over the snowy ledges like their fur-trimmed hoods would hide them. Their mothers and aunts shooed them away, and they crept back, like barnacle-crabs. Zuko glared, and they disappeared.

“When are your men coming back?” he asked. “They’re hunting, aren’t they?”

Oh. So that was what they looked like, when they weren’t trying to hide their hate.

---

Zuko wrapped himself up in the same blanket that night. It was printed inside with fine lines and images, telling a story he didn’t know. He wondered whose favorite it was.

---

Kanna wondered how quickly he’d wake—if he’d wake—if she built the fire up with wet driftwood and tundra grass, if she had one of the younger girls boost up a child to plug the air hole, if she let the smoke draw its own blanket down over this fire child.

---

It was hard to know when to wake up, because the sun never set. So everyone was up before him, and they all had spears and clubs and—and nets, and trap lines, and snow googles with their single slat to protect the eyes from snow blindness. Zuko had seen those once, at the Ember Island Museum of Ethnography, where they’d gone when it was too rainy for anything more exciting.

Oh. They were going hunting.

“Give me that,” Zuko said, and took a spear.

The women looked at him. One of them adjusted her googles.

“I can hunt,” he scowled.

He did not, in fact, know how to hunt.

---

“Give me that,” the Fire Prince said, and Kanna almost, almost gave him her ulu. Humans, like most animals, had an artery in their legs that would bleed them quick enough.

She kept skinning the rabbit-mink one of the women had snared.

“I can help,” he said, with less grace than most of their toddlers. Likely with the skinning skills of a toddler, too. She wasn’t going to let their unwanted visitor ruin a perfectly good pelt.

“Chop the meat,” she said, and gave him a different knife. “It’s dinner.”

“...This is really sharp,” he said a moment later, looking at the knife with some surprise.

“Is it,” said Kanna.

---

Things the Fire Prince was convinced he could do: hunt (until he realized he couldn’t tell the tracks of a rabbit-mink from a leopard-rabbit apart); spear fish (at least he could dry himself); pack snow for an igloo (frustrated princes ran hot); ice fish (the prince was a problem that kept coming close to solving itself).

Things the Fire Prince could actually do: mince meat, increasingly finely; gather berries and herbs, once he stopped trying to crush them; dig roots, under toddler supervision; mend nets, after the intermediary step of learning to braid hair loopies.

“Can’t I take him ice fishing again?” asked one of the women, as she watched Prince Zuko put as much apparent concentration into braiding her daughter’s hair as his people had into exterminating hers.

“Wait,” said another woman, sitting up straight. “Wait wait wait. I just had an idea.”

---

Three words: Infinite. Hot. Water.

---

Summer was coming to an end. The sun actually set, now, and the night was getting longer, and colder. The salmon-otter nets were mended and ready. The smoking racks were still full of cod-lemmings. The children were all a little older, the women all a little more used to doing both halves of their tribes’ chores; a little more used to not watching the horizon, waiting for help to come.

The Fire Prince was staring at the canoes again.

“Are you actually going to try leaving in one of those?” Kanna asked.

“...No.”

“Come on, then; someone needs to watch the kids while the women are hunting.”

She didn’t leave him alone with them, of course. But she could have.

---

Elsewhere, the war continued.

The moon turned red, for a moment none could sleep through; they did not learn why.

The comet came and went, leaving their castaway prince laying on the beach, his breath fogging up into the night sky above him, as the energy crashed from his system as quickly as it had come. Above, lights began to dance in the sky; Zuko pulled his hood up, so none of those spirits—children, dead too soon—got any ideas about kicking his head off to be their ball.

The war had ended. The world didn’t feel any different; no one in the south would know until spring came again.

---

Suffice it to say, Sokka and Katara were not prepared for this particular homecoming.

[seefasterdraws]

i think its so funny that no one knows that fionna and cake are real except simon. imagine if he forgets to tell marcy and just gives her a heart attack one day

[heartorbit]

find another role, carry on the show

[demaparbat-hp]

Izumi (steambaby) sketches.

[mychemicalbrromance]

#1 like a prayer fan none of you understand (insane)

[estrellami-1]

Steddie Week 2024

July 5th Prompt: Reunion

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 6 | Day 7

@steddie-week

“Babe,” Eddie calls from the kitchen. Steve’s in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, so he garbles out an unintelligible one minute! before quickly finishing.

He walks into the kitchen, tugging at the collar of his shirt. “What’s up?”

Eddie’s eyes are dancing with mirth as he helps Steve fix his collar. “You’ll never guess what just came in the mail.”

Steve raises a brow. “You’re acting like my parents are groveling at the door right now.”

Eddie barks out a laugh. “Oh, sweetheart, no. I’d very much be laughing in their faces if that’s what was happening.” He grabs Steve’s glasses from the counter he’d forgotten them on last night, unfolds them, and carefully slides them on Steve’s face. “No migraines,” he murmurs, and Steve’s hit with a rush of love so big he just has to tell Eddie.

“I love you.”

Eddie smiles softly; a small, disbelieving, hopeful thing that’s never changed from the first time Steve said it. “And I, my love,” he murmurs back. “But no, it’s not your parents.” His grin grows into a giggle. “It’s fuckin’ Hawkins High.”

Steve makes a face. “It’s still standing?”

Eddie snorts. “Apparently-fucking-ly.” He grabs two letters; one with Steve’s name, one with Eddie’s. “One letter for each of us. I already opened mine. It’s a reunion.”

Steve furrows his brows, rips into the envelope, pulls the paper out. “Hawkins High School… forty-year reunion… de-” he frowns up at Eddie. “Decennial?”

Eddie hums, nods. “Every ten years. God knows where our other ones went.”

Steve hums. “Guess we can throw these in the trash, huh?”

Eddie shifts. “You don’t want to go?”

Steve stares at him incredulously. “You do? You, Eddie Munson, want to go back to the place where—and these are your words, here—apart from our group of friends, only the- the backwoods of inbreeding resides?”

Eddie cackles. “Oh yeah, I did say that, didn’t I?” He’s delighted. Steve’s finding it hard not to smile in the face of that joy.

“So you want to go back?”

Eddie shrugs. “Think about it,” he requests. “I don’t want to go to see how anyone else is doing. Frankly, I don’t have the time to give two shits about them. But you know I’ll always jump at the chance to show you off.”

Steve raises both eyebrows this time. “You want to show me off? In fucking Hawkins?”

Eddie deflates. “You don’t want to go.”

Steve shakes his head. “No, babe, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that even though it’s legal, even though we’re officially married now, if there’s one place that isn’t gonna be accepting…” he trails off, lets Eddie finish the thought for himself.

“What if I convince Nancy to come?”

“Well, she’ll have to come if we go, won’t she? Cause you know she’ll go anywhere Robin does, and Robin’s gonna follow me, so…”

Eddie snickers. “Okay, yeah, fair enough. But babe, we’ll have Nancy and Robin on our side. The three of you took on Vecna, I think you can take on some overweight, washed-up, balding fifty-something-year-old.” He squeezes at Steve’s biceps, and Steve tries not to preen.

He’s proud of the care he’s shown his body, he’s proud of the way he looks, he’s proud that Eddie likes the way he looks. He can feel his resolve waning, is about to tell Eddie fuck it, let’s go, when his phone rings.

He pats his pockets, looks around for it. “Room,” Eddie supplies, and Steve gratefully peck his cheek before jogging to their room, where it’s laying on his nightstand. Eddie walks in as he answers it, having followed at a more sedate pace. “Hello?”

“Are you going to the reunion?”

“Hey, Robbie,” Steve chuckles, meets Eddie’s eyes. “Yeah, we are.”

“Yes!” She cheers. “You’re the best, we’re getting joint hotel rooms, right?”

He laughs and sits on the edge of the bed. “It’s Hawkins, Robs, I don’t think it has anything quite that fancy.”

Robin groans, loud and long enough that both Steve and Eddie have to stifle their giggles. “But I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“It’s been barely a week, Robbie.”

“That’s what I said!”

He relents. “I know. I miss you too. We’ll see you there?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and hangs up.

Steve looks at Eddie, amused. “I guess we’d better pack. And you should tell the guys, don’t you have something going on that day?”

“Oh, shit,” Eddie says, and runs to the living room for his phone.

Steve surveys their room and sighs. He calls out to Eddie, “bring me a notepad on your way back, please!”

Eddie does, so he sets to work making a list for everything they need to pack while Eddie types away, postponing his plans.

While they might not get joint hotel rooms, Steve, Eddie, Robin, and Nancy are carpooling back to Hawkins in Robin’s van. She’s driving, Nancy’s in the passenger seat, Steve’s right behind Robin and Eddie’s right behind Nancy. Their luggage is piled precariously in the back, meaning every time Robin turns, the luggage slides from one side of the van to the other. Steve, with his mostly-undiagnosed OCD, flinches every time. And every time, Eddie pats his hand.

Besides the shifting suitcases, it’s a nice ride, even if Steve does grab Eddie’s hand and squeeze, just a hair tightly, whenever they pass the Welcome to Hawkins! sign.

Everyone gets a little quiet, after that. Robin fumbles with the radio, and Eddie perks up. “This song,” he says, practically bouncing in his seat.

Steve snorts. “Iron Maiden,” he tells her.

“The fact that you know that-”

“It gets worse,” he tells her, grinning. “The song is called Wasted Years. I know all the words.”

Robin grins, turns the volume up.

The joke’s really on her, though, because she’s always been good at music, patterns, and she’s singing the chorus with him and Eddie by the time they get to the end of the song, Nancy laughing at them. “So understand,” they sing, Robin glancing in the rearview mirror, Steve looking from her to Eddie and back again. “Don’t waste your time always searching for those wasted years. Face up, make this stand. And realize you’re living in the golden years!”

Steve and Eddie are practically screaming it at each other by the last line. Robin’s given up to join Nancy in laughing at them. Steve joins in as Eddie plays air guitar to the end of the song, collapsing in a laugh when it’s finally over.

“Okay,” Eddie says, grinning. “I think I could take on anything now.”

“Yeah?” Nancy asks, pointing ahead. “You’re ready for the reunion?”

They’d decided, since the last time they took a proper road trip had been too many years ago, they could do it the same day as the reunion.

They’d forgotten how getting old, coupled with the problems every one of them still has from the Upside Down, means they’re all very much sore from sitting in a car for upwards of five hours.

The plan was drive the five-something hours, go to the reunion, crash in the hotel, and drive back home the next day.

Steve hates the plan now and wants to go to the hotel to rest like the old man he’s letting himself be.

However unfortunate it may be, the reunion is today, which means Steve gets to suck it up, say hi to people he probably doesn’t even remember anymore, and then leave.

He hops out of the car and stretches a little, laughing when Eddie attempts the same hop out of the car and almost eats asphalt. “Dumbass,” he mutters. Eddie shoots him a Cheshire grin.

Before long they’re ready to walk inside. Steve takes a breath as he passes through the doors. The hallways are the same, but the lockers are new. It still smells like teenagers and feet, he notices, wrinkling his nose. The things you’ll get nose-blind to, he supposes.

The letters they’d gotten said the reunion was to be held in the gym, so that’s where they head.

Steve didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t a few snack tables along the edge of the room and a single Reunion of ‘85 banner. “Goddamn,” Eddie says from beside him, “depressing much?”

Steve snorts in agreement and walks over to the drink table. If he’s going to talk to people, he’s at least going to have questionable-looking punch while he does.

When he turns after getting punch, he nearly runs into someone. He quickly steps back. “Oh, sorry!” He looks up into the shocked face of Tommy Hagan. He blinks. “Tommy?”

“Steve.”

Steve smiles. “How’ve you been?”

Tommy blinks, like he can’t believe Steve’s being nice to him right now, and that’s when Steve remembers they’d parted on not-so-nice terms. Oh well, he would’ve feigned politeness even if he’d remembered. “I’m good, yeah, uh, how- how’re you?”

“I’m good,” Steve agrees. “Really good. Last I remember you and Carol were dancing around each other, yeah? What happened there?”

“We got married,” Tommy nods.

“Congratulations!”

“And then divorced two years later,” Tommy adds, smirking. Steve winces. “How about you? Last I knew, it was you and Wheeler, ‘cept she cheated on you with Byers, yeah?”

“God,” Steve laughs, “that was so long ago. Yeah, that happened. We talked it through and Nance and I are really good friends now. She’s married to someone else, as am I, but we both keep in touch with Jon, thought he’s out in California now.”

Tommy’s brow raises. “Married? Who’s the lucky girl?”

A presence beside him makes Steve turn to see Eddie grinning at him. “My ears are burning.”

“They should be,” he laughs. “Tommy, you remember Eddie?”

“Munson,” Tommy nods, then does a double take. “Wait, you’re married?”

“As of three years ago now,” Eddie says proudly. “But together for…”

“Thirty-seven years,” Steve provides, smiling at his husband before turning back to Tommy. “Did you ever get remarried after Carol?” Tommy shakes his head.

Eddie whispers in Steve’s ear, “You know he totally had the hots for you, right?”

Steve winces at the blast of static from his hearing aid and quickly shuts it off. “Ow,” he mutters, grinning crookedly at Eddie, who looks apologetic. He quickly signs what he’d whispered, and Steve laughs. “Don’t you remember my initial panic?”

Eddie thinks, back to when Steve had asked him what’s gay versus friendly, becoming increasingly confused when most of the things Eddie ticked off in the gay category were things Steve and Tommy had done that Steve had thought firmly resided in the friendly category. “Oh, yeah.”

Steve snorts, shakes his head, pushes him away. “Go talk to someone else. Rescue Robin, she looks like she needs it.”

“Nah,” Eddie says, “she can hold her own,” but goes anyways after a quick peck to Steve’s cheek. Steve turns the hearing aid back on.

“Man,” Tommy says wonderingly, “what happened to you?”

“Concussions,” Steve answers flatly. “Three of ‘em. Then I grew up.” He sighs, looks down at his cup, then up at Tommy. “Listen, man, about what we used to do-”

Tommy winces. “I know. I had that revelation a while ago, actually, but it was definitely shitty of me.”

Steve smiles, shrugs. “You had a crush on me. It’s not an excuse, but it does make a certain kind of sense you’d react that way, especially considering the kind of home life you had.” He smiles self-deprecatingly. “Feel free to stop listening if the therapist side of me comes out. I swear I’m not trying to, like, diagnose you with anything.”

Tommy’s brows raise. “You’re a therapist?”

Steve hums affirmatively. “Started as a school counselor, if you can believe that.”

Tommy fixes him with a wondering grin. “Y’know? I think I can see it.”

“Do my eyes deceive me,” someone says from their side, draping their arms across Steve and Tommy’s shoulders, pulling them into a hug.

Steve comes face-to-face with Carol. He grins. “Hey, Carol.”

“Hey, you,” she says, raking her eyes over him. “Time’s been good to you.”

“You’re one to talk,” Steve says happily, but its true; she doesn’t look a day over forty, instead of the fifty-odd she is now. “How are you?”

“Can’t complain,” she agrees.

They go through the same song-and-dance, but this time when she asks who he’s married to, he sees Eddie juggling water bottles, talking to a couple of people. “Oh, for-” he mutters, then louder, “Eddie, what in the everloving fuck are you doing?”

Eddie drops a bottle, puts the other two on the table behind him, and jogs over to throw his weight onto Steve. “Making friends.”

Steve snorts, elbows him off. “Say hi to Carol, babe.”

Carol clocks it immediately, based on the twitch of her eyebrow, but only says, “I didn’t peg you two as a couple.”

“Well, yeah,” Eddie snorts, “it was Bumfuck, Indiana in the 80’s.”

Carol tilts her head in agreement, then turns to Tommy and says coolly, “Tommy.”

“Carol,” he replies, tips of his ears red.

Eddie looks between them, then turns a raised eyebrow on Steve, who quickly signs, “Married for two years a while ago. I don’t know any details.”

“He clearly is still into her.”

“I refuse to be a part of whatever you’re planning.”

Eddie pouts. “You’re no fun.”

Carol clears her throat. “Sign language?”

Steve snorts. “Turns out brains aren’t supposed to get banged around. You’ve got a real good chance of messing something up that way.”

Eddie pokes his cheek. “‘S not your fault.”

“Never said it was,” Steve placates.

Carol shakes her head. “How many concussions do you have?”

Steve hums. “Three? Four?”

“Three,” Eddie corrects. “Not that we need to get into it right now.” He gives Carol a tight smile, and Steve hip-checks him.

“Down, boy,” he murmurs with a smile. “I’m alright.” He turns to Carol with a wider smile. “Long story short, the concussions caused irreparable hearing loss. I’m almost completely deaf in my left ear, but I get by.”

“Damn,” Carol says lightly, “life, huh?”

Steve snorts. “You can say that again.” He tilts his head. “How are you?” He asks. “Really?”

She gives him a crooked smile. “Let’s walk and talk.” Steve offers her his arm, which she takes with a laugh.

“How am I,” she muses. “Well I thought I found love, but we imploded two years later. Thank god for prenups, I guess, but at the same time, that made it feel like we were doomed from the start.”

Steve hums. “Eddie and I have been legally married for three years,” he tells her. “Together for thirty-seven. We’ve got prenups. Not because we think we won’t work, but because we want the people we care about to not have to worry about any of that.” He’s silent for a few steps. “I used to think love is out of our control. That we don’t get to decide who we fall for. And maybe, to a certain extent, that’s true. But love is also a choice you make every day. Eddie and I are still in love because we choose to be.”

“You look at each other like you’re on your honeymoon.”

Steve giggles. “And to think we didn’t even have a honeymoon!”

Carol laughs, too, then sobers. “You always were more fortunate in love,” she says. “What do you think? Do we have a chance?”

Steve hums. “I think it’s obvious, just by looking at him, that he’s still into you.”

“No shit.”

“So what’s important is how you feel. Marriage is work, I’m not gonna lie and say it’s not. So are you ready, and I mean really ready, to work for it?”

She works her lower lip. “I think so,” she admits. “But I- I’m also not completely sure I’m straight.”

“Okay,” Steve shrugs. “Do you know what he and I used to get up to?” He shrugs at her look. “I’m just saying, neither is he.”

“I mean, I definitely still like guys.”

“Well duh, you’ve taken more dick than I have and I’m married to a man.”

She snorts. “But women…”

“I know,” Steve says sympathetically. “It’s hard, isn’t it.” He pats her hand. “If you’re ready to try, though, you need to talk to him.” He turns her around, gestures toward Tommy, who quickly looks away, cheeks burning. They both laugh softly.

Carol leans up to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Steve. Let’s keep in touch.”

“Let’s actually keep in touch,” he agrees, handing her his phone. “Where do you live?”

“Columbus for now, but he’s in Dayton.”

Steve hums. “We’re in Detroit.”

“We’ll do phone calls,” Carol decides, laughing.

Steve chuckles, saves her number. “Plan to meet up-”

“Never actually do-”

“Oh, Carol, it’s been so long-”

They both break off into giggles. “You’re fun,” she decides. “I wish we’d kept in touch.”

“To be fair, we competed for title of bitchiest.”

“To be fair, I don’t think we ever grew out of that,” Carol retorted, and Steve snorts, gently shoving her.

“Alright, go get your man, and send mine over here.”

She gently steps on his shoe as she leaves, impish smile in place, and Steve turns only to run into Nancy and Robin. “Hey, guys,” he smiles.

Nancy gives him a look. “Making nice with Carol?”

Steve shrugs, grins at her. “Turns out we were just kids. Who knew, right?”

Just then, Eddie comes up behind him, wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist and resting his chin on Steve’s shoulder. “What’re we talking about?”

Nancy smiles at him, wraps an arm around Robin’s waist. “Being kids.”

“That so?” He presses a kiss to Steve’s cheek, pushes back to look at him. “You look lighter.”

Steve hums. “‘S cause I love you.”

“Charmer,” Eddie mutters, turning bright red. “C’mon, seriously.”

“Seriously,” Steve agrees. “I was talking with Carol about her and Tommy, and I told her that why we work is because we work at it.”

“Very true.”

From behind them, someone cautiously asks, “Eddie Munson?”

They both turn, and suddenly Eddie’s scooping her up in a hug. “Ronnie! What the hell are you doin’ here, huh?”

She laughs and hugs him back just as hard. “Did you ever know a Jackson Starnes?”

Eddie’s brow furrows for a second, then smooths out. “Oh, Jackie! Yeah, he was cool.”

“Mhm. He’s my husband.”

“No shit? I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks,” she laughs, then nods at everyone else. “Who’s the hunk you were hangin’ off of?”

Eddie chuckles. “Ronnie, meet my husband, Steve.”

She turns an eyebrow on him. “You got married?”

“He proposed,” Steve corrects her, grinning.

“To the preppiest of jocks,” Robin adds.

Eddie laughs. “What can I say? It’s love.” He swoons, placing a hand over his chest, almost pulling Ronnie over with the arm still over her shoulder.

She laughs and dumps him off of her. Steve swoops in before he can fall, hoisting him up with a quick kiss.

“I’m Nancy,” she says, extending her hand to Ronnie. “And this is my wife Robin.”

“Oh!” Eddie says, literally jumping back into the conversation. “Robin and Steve are like how we were.”

“Platonic soulmates,” Steve agrees.

“With a capital P,” Robin emphasizes.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Ronnie says.

“How’s Wayne?” She asks Eddie.

“Dead.” He snickers at her face. “‘S alright, Ronnie. It’s been years.”

“Still. I can be sorry.”

“You can,” he agrees. “It won’t help anything, but you can.” He digs his phone out of his pockets, opens his contacts app. “Here, lemme get your number, yeah?”

“Fuck yeah,” Ronnie says, “let’s hang out, just lemme know when so I can get a sitter.”

Eddie chokes on nothing. “You have a kid?”

Ronnie grins, a shit-eating thing as she hands his phone back. “Three.”

“Goddamn,” he says, “you got pictures?”

Ronnie rolls her eyes, grabs her phone. “What kind of mom would I be if I didn’t? Here, this is Cassie, Alex, and… that’s Elijah.”

“Oh, man, Alex looks just like Jackie, doesn’t he?”

“I carry him for nine months,” Ronnie bitches good-naturedly. “‘Nough about me, though, how’re you? Corroded Coffin ever take off?”

Eddie snorts. “You hear about the psychopath in ‘86?”

“I remember something about it.”

“Yeah. I got caught in the crossfires, wrongfully blamed, and spent…” he looks at Steve. “A year?”

“Almost.”

He turns back to Ronnie. “Almost a year hiding out. Corroded Coffin was officially disbanded after I was allowed out of hiding.”

“Fuck,” Ronnie says, “there goes my entire foot in my mouth, I guess. What’re you doing now, then?”

He chuckles. “A little bit of everything, honestly. A little music, a little writing, a little D&D. Nothing that’s made me a household name, but enough that I’m kept busy and we’re comfortable.”

Ronnie nods. “And how about you?” She asks Steve.

“Oh, nothing as fun as that,” Steve chuckles. “I’m a therapist.”

Ronnie tilts her head. “Any specialties?”

“C-PTSD, mainly.”

“Damn, I know about eight people who could use someone like you.”

Steve snorts. “That’s usually the way it goes, yeah.”

“Well it was great seeing you, Eddie,” Ronnie says. “And meeting all the rest of you. But I’ve got to find my husband and get back home, so we’ll have to continue this later.”

“Of course,” Steve says. “See you later?”

“Absolutely,” Ronnie nods, then turns and walks off.

They decide to leave not too much later. They’re all tired, so the drive to the hotel is filled with only the sound of the radio, turned almost all the way down.

“Y’know,” Eddie murmurs, tracing the ring on Steve’s finger, “she was my first kiss.”

Steve snorts, an explosive thing that he definitely learned from Robin. “She what?”

“Yup,” Eddie nods. “I knew I liked girls, but she’s the only one I got close enough to to actually know. We got stupid one night and decided to kiss and it basically went how it would if you and Robin were to kiss.”

“Ew,” Steve says on reflex. Eddie snorts.

Robin slaps at him from her seat, then yells when he slaps back, “Don’t distract the driver!”

“Bitch,” he tells her, “you slapped first!”

“You said ew about kissing me!”

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“Hell no!”

“That’s why I said it!”

Eddie leans up to murmur to Nancy, “should we break it up?”

“Eh, give it a minute. Once they resort to cursing their lineages we can break it up.”

He chuckles. “Always the wise one, Wheeler.”

“You’d best believe it,” she nods smugly.

“Nancy!” Robin says. “Baby! Defend me!”

“About kissing Steve? Who I’ve kissed before?”

“Oh, no,” Robin says, horrified. “I’m stuck in the car with the two people who are experts on Steve kissing.”

“Why’d you make it sound like a bad thing?” Steve demands.

And… yeah. Eddie’s glad they got separate hotel rooms.

Based on the look Nancy throws his way when they part, she’s glad, too.

[s-aint-elmo]

girl who has suffered more than alll-mer

(ID in alt text)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 251

Danny is tired and annoyed. On one hand, his parents took the whole ‘so I might be slightly dead’ pretty well! Which is good! On the other, they decided to send him and his sisters to their uncle while they take care of the Guys in White and refurbish the house to be, well, him safe. Which meant a ridiculously long flight all the way to New Jersey. 

A flight he was pretty sure happened to be illegal what with the fact that neither of them were asked for their IDs or anything despite having them with them. Hm. Y’know he’s not going to question it, he’s getting a nap the moment they get to Uncle Harvey’s. 

[great-sketch-pectations]

SO IVE PLAYED STRAY GODS.

I’m on playthrough 2 now and it’s already branched so much and I’ve unlocked new songs and it’s such a delight I’m having so much fun. I’ve also decided Grace has tattoos under the jacket because honestly why wouldn’t she.

[numum]

teehee

[obsob]

in other news. my frog family has expanded

[poebrey]

Imagine getting adopted after your parents were brutally murdered through circumstances that were seemingly your fault, being told that it was so you could serve as both an experiment (for your foster father to prove humans could follow Vulcan teachings) and a tool (for your foster brother’s development), seemingly failing both of them, then later being told by your foster mother who you thought you had a healthy relationship with that the reason you were given as much love and affection as you were when you were a child was because it had to be denied to the child she really wanted to give it to, her real child. Oh and that she thought you were the reason your family was falling apart. Michael is a better person than me because I would’ve said fuck everyone and taken a nap.

[camellcat]

lose my mind every time the doctor takes rose's last name in fics. brilliant, amazing, splendid, absolutely perfect.

like, what do you MEAN she'd be the one to change her last name? he doesn't even HAVE a bloody name like us! plus, she's rose tyler. you think he's going to want that to be different? it's the doctor and rose tyler in the tardis (or I suppose whatever they do in pete's world, but that's still the doctor and rose tyler having their new adventure)!!

she's rose tyler and he is whatever-he-wants tyler. end of discussion. the whole pond diabolical should've been clue enough imo