#but he's still willingly associating with someone who she just. Does Not Like. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stevebabey · 2 years

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nine facts, one lie

summary: It didn’t matter that your best friend Robin claims he’s changed, you do not like Steve Harrington. He used to be egotistical, a player, an asshole — and you’re not in any hurry to believe he’s changed his ways.

Never mind that he seems terribly kind now, compliments here and there, or even that he’ll pick you up from a date gone horribly wrong… [16.5k]

[one sided enemies to lovers — you hate steve and by god, does he want to change that] dedicated to my dearest kenny

Fact #1: You did not, under any circumstance, like Steve Harrington.

It doesn’t matter what Dustin says nor the smug roll of Robin’s eyes, you knew it yourself even if no one else believed it; you did not like Steve Harrington.

From everything you’ve ever heard about the guy, it was a surprise that he still had any friends — especially with the likes of your friends, a fact that makes you gag when Robin brings it up.

Robin, lovely best friend Robin, who completely betrayed you by associating herself willingly with Steve.

Since the beginning of high school, the two of you had been thick as thieves. Gossip was spilled between the two of you frequently, juicy enough to make even Carol Perkins’ head spin — you talked often enough that it got you split up during class time constantly, giggles too loud to be contained.

Being at the bottom of the social food-chain —or maybe worse, completely unseen to your peers— there was nothing like sharing snarky remarks between you and Robin about the dunderheads who ‘ruled’ the school through idiotic popularity.

Robin had a particular dislike for Tina Burgess ever since she’d started the rumour that girls in band were freaks in the sheets and would put out to anyone who would ask. You weren’t sure what had been worse: the obvious dig that Robin wasn’t getting any or the slimy guys who believed it and had the guts to ask.

You, however, distinctly despised the likes of King Steve.

It was impossible to pinpoint what about him grated you so much; maybe, it was how he seemed to have girls in and out of his bed like he was playing a game, trying to rack up as many points as possible. Or maybe, it was that even you, invisible and not even on his radar let alone on his list, could see the appeal.

Even better than easy on the eyes, Steve Harrington is one of those guys that makes you understand the word gorgeous.

It doesn’t help that he’s rich as well, with a huge house with a pool and even a swanky car to pick you up in. A complete daydream. Swept away into sheets softer than yours at home, you’d get to spend a night in the arms of the most popular guy in school and if you’re really lucky, he’ll still pretend to know your name the next day.

What had really stuck with you was gossip you’d happened to overhear, head stuck in your locker as you fished around for your books and papers. Tommy H and Steve were 3 lockers over, at Tommy’s locker, and sharing the details of Steve’s latest conquest.

So was she any good? Tommy had been asking. I always assumed nerdy chicks weren’t as good- they practically cream their pants considering no one’s ever kissed em’ before.

Steve had laughed along too. Yeah, man. She was all over me. Had to keep picturing someone hotter though, you know those geeks aren’t the prettie— Your stomach had curdled and you had slammed your locker door louder than needed, just to shut him up. You were sure they both saw you leave.

It drove you insane. And even though Steve likely knew nothing of your existence — didn’t matter you had once been chem partners, nor the fact you shared English class— he was probably as close to an evil nemesis you’d ever get.

Hence the utter betrayal of Robin’s friendship with him.

Originally, when she’d told you over the phone, gleeful and gossipy, that King Steve had just been hired at Scoops Ahoy, the two of you had snickered. It hadn’t been enough to watch him drift from his other asshole friends, something in you burned deliciously hearing he’d fallen from yet another pillar.

It had only gotten better. Robin recounted countless stories where he had flunked out with girls — you’d nearly lost it hearing about her whiteboard, tallying up his ‘hits & misses’ when trying to score a date. It finally seemed Steve Harrington was somehow more of a loser than you.

On the 4th of July, 1985, Starcourt Mall burnt down — and the strangest thing about it all was that Robin suddenly didn’t seem to mind Steve so much.

They were friends. You’d been a little miffed at her quick change of heart as she doused your gossipy mood in an instant, insisting that Steve wasn’t so bad once you got to know him.

Rather reluctantly, your teasing remarks about Steve were brought to a halt as Robin retaliated each time, urging you to give him another chance. And while you agreed to be civil, especially considering you had to see him every time you visited Robin at work. But what could you do? Old habits die hard.

Fact #2: Steve Harrington is trying to be a better person.

Okay, you didn’t know that one, but Steve certainly did.

It means even though Robin had dropped several warnings and a few premature apologies, Steve was prepared to be absolutely lovely when meeting her other best friend (the other being himself, of course). Robin still seemed tense about the two of your meeting — so far you’d specifically come to visit her at Family Video when you knew Steve wasn’t there.

But a few shifts had been swapped around and on her late night Thursday shift where you always came by to keep her company, Robin was readying herself for the collision of her two friends.

Despite all her convincing, she could tell you weren’t sold on the new Steve she claimed to love and you hadn’t come by when he was there, meaning all your experiences to do with Steve were rooted back in his days of assholery.

It didn’t matter to Steve; he loved Robin and he had lots of practice trying to gain the ‘wow, you’re not a douchebag anymore’ gold star. He had this in the bag.

The janky chime of the door buzzer announces the arrival of someone in the store and being the one at the counter while Robin tends to the shelves, Steve’s head pops up, ready to greet.

“Hello! Welcome to Family Video!”

It sounds far too rehearsed, recognizing the customer service voice you put on at your own job. You nearly smile at the cheery greeting, taken aback by Steve’s handsome grin and his floppy hair, messed from the force of his movement. Then you clock yourself and have to fight off an urge to scowl.

Eyes already searching over the aisles for Robin, you’re just wondering if she’ll come save you from this conversation when Steve seems to realise who you must be.

“Oh, you must be y/n.” His easy smile, hands leaning forward onto the counter that separates you, takes you aback.

In your peripheral, you can see Robin spot you and head in the direction — but she doesn’t come quick enough to stop Steve from bungling the whole conversation with his next sentence.

“Robin’s told me a lot about you. I’m Steve,” His tone is friendly and at your silence, he continues. “Steve Harrington.”

Oh my God. He doesn’t even remember you.

Over Steve’s shoulder, you can spy Robin burying her head in her hands and muttering something to herself. Any annoyance you had pushed down springs to the surface. You school your expression as neutral as possible, though you’re sure your brow crinkles in irritation.

“I know.”

Okay, that was meaner than you intended, especially as you recall Robin’s plea to be civil at the very least. You clear your throat, unsure if you can completely hide your distaste for him.

“We were chem partners, freshmen year.” You remind him, attempting a smile. It might be a grimace. “And I was in your English class your senior year.”

Steve seems to realise his mistake, his cheeks turning rosy and his eyes widening almost comically — fuck, way to go, Harrington. All of his pep talks, amping himself up to be so friendly to you and then he goes and ruins it by not remembering you.

It’s embarrassing. Hawkins is a small town and practically everyone knows everyone, with the exception of popular kids who didn’t think they needed to. He winces, frustrated that his past has come back to haunt him yet again.

“I’m sorry.” He says, more sincere than you’re expecting. Well, you’re not expecting an apology at all — the Steve you remembered would’ve laughed it off, claiming that he couldn’t forget a pretty face and trying to brush over the fact he forgot you at all.

“Seriously,” he reaffirms at the hint of surprise on your features. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to forget your face. I’m pretty sure you’re the only reason I passed that chem class.”

Robin seems to sense your internal battle, baffled by his apology but still irritated by the fact his memory didn’t deem you memorable enough. She also wants to jump on the spot and say ‘told you!’ because the surprise you’d shown means you hadn’t believed her.

A part of her feels bad, knowing the battering Steve’s taken to his head too many times has undoubtedly knocked a few memories loose; but it’s not that they could explain that to you.

“I’m just shelving — want to come sit?” She offers, taking the conversation away from you and Steve. “We watched Highlander today and I could sit and explain the whole plot to you?”

It’s the usual activities you and Robin did when you came to bug her on her shift. You loved listening to Robin talk as she possessed a unique ability to turn a 10-minute retelling into an hour-long debate. Each subplot in the film needed to be discussed, with bad analogies that came out of left field and made you laugh til your sides hurt. It wasn’t a bad Thursday night all around.

Just as you’re about to respond, Steve cuts in and speaks instead.

“Robs, you’ve only got two hours left. It’s a Thursday, you could take off if you wanted? I don’t mind.”

Robs. Somehow the nickname for your best friend coming from Steve is more jarring than the polite offer he’s extended. Steve’s eyes shift back over to you, offering another weak smile and you wonder if this is a continuation of his apology.

“Really?” Robin’s excitement is evident. Bunking off early means you two will sneak a movie and have time to grab some greasy food for an actual hangout. “I mean- are you sure?”

Steve nods sincerely then cracks a grin, shooting a sarcastic smile at Robin. “What think I can’t hold down the fort for a couple hours?”

Robin is already peeling off her Family Video vest, digging under the counter to pull out her school bag. “I don’t think it, Steve. I know it.”

He laughs, meandering his way back to where Robin has left the returns cart and, furiously, you have to admit he’s being awfully nice. Robin nearly trips coming around the counter, her hand grasping your arm tightly to keep herself upright and she beams at you.

“C’mon!” She says, pulling you out the door, the buzzer chiming again as you both leave the store. Once outside, she pauses and you can feel her stare burning into your temple. She doesn’t say it but you can feel the beginning of an i told you so building in her throat.

“Don’t say it.”

“Say what?” She plays clueless but her grin gives her away. She links an arm through yours.

“Don’t say anything.” You say with a scowl, the two of you beginning to stroll down the stairs out the front. The crispness of the night makes you tug her a little closer. “I still don’t like him.”

Fact #3: Steve Harrington still likes to flirt.

In the beginning, the compliments are because Steve really wants you to like him.

He sees more of you with the change of shifts and perhaps, he gleefully thinks, you aren’t completely avoiding him anymore. You’ll come to see Robin in store even if he’s working as well and inadvertently, conversations spring up between the two of you.

The first time he tries to slip in a compliment casually, he’s not entirely sure what reaction he gets. On this day you’re waiting for Robin to finish out back, packing up some of the schoolwork she’d done in the backroom, and to Steve’s delight, you’ve opted to wait up by the counter with him.

You’ve already exchanged an awkward couple hello’s and now silence falls between you. Steve clears his throat and tries to earn his not a douchebag star.

“Did you get a haircut?”

You blink. Without thought, you bring up your hand and run it over the silky strands — cut fresh from yesterday. Surprise sprouts in your chest at the fact he noticed.

“Yeah,” you nod, tucking it behind your ears. “I did.”

“It looks good.” He compliments, pairing it with a genuine smile. “It like,” he gestures with a hand, hoping his ears aren’t as red as they feel. “Frames your face better. You look nice.”

For a moment, you forget to mask your emotions and the simple act of a compliment from an attractive guy makes your lips twitch into a smile. Robin bundles out of the back room before you remember to say something snarky, like What and my hair looked bad before?

Instead, it hangs in the air and when you leave behind Robin, you really consider smiling over your shoulder at him.

But it ruminates; the compliment loops in your mind until your insecurity unstitches it and it warps into something else entirely. His motivation is the question on your mind.

In what world does Steve Harrington flirt with you?

It has to be a joke. He must be making fun of you because that’s exactly what Steve used to do and if he’s not, that means he has changed and you’re suddenly worthy of his attention.

You recall the locker-room talk, his jeering tone and everything about his compliment turns sour.

Somehow, Steve’s worried he’s managed to make it worse.

His compliments dropped here and there — commenting on film choice, saying he likes your sweaters, all it seems to earn him is scowls. Your scrunched nose and heated glare from your distaste either means he’s worse at flirting than he remembers or it’s a painful reminder that still you see him as King Steve.

He’s not — he knows he is not. King Steve wouldn’t have bothered looking at the film you’d picked out, his comment would’ve been on your body not on the clothes you choose, and he certainly wouldn’t have noticed something as trivial as a haircut.

And because Steve is nothing if not a whinger, he tells all this to Dustin when the kid comes in to visit.

“I mean, I know I was bad but,” Steve cut himself off with a scoff, following Dustin through the aisles. Dustin didn’t even look as though he was listening, eyes trained on the shelves intently. “I apologised for not remembering her, like, an actual genuine apology— and that was years ago! I don’t get why she doesn’t like me, man.”

Dustin, who had indeed been listening to the rant of his older friend, promptly stopped and plucked a film off the shelf with a quiet aha!

“Are you even listening to me, Henderson?”

“Yes, Steve.” Dustin spun, eyes narrowed as he stared up at Steve intensely enough to unnerve him. “From what I’ve heard, you were pretty damn bad so I’m not surprised some people hold a grudge!”

“Yeah, but—”

“And you didn’t remember her. Maybe you did something rude in high school and completely forgot about it?”

Steve waved his hands dismissively, shaking his head in disagreement. Without noticing, you had slipped in the store up front, usual conversation struck up with Robin. However, you’d been quickly distracted as you searched the store for Robin’s other half and were baffled to find him following around a child.

“Looking for Steve?” Robin jibed when she noticed your gaze wandering across the store, your attention going with it.

You ignored the jab, rolling your eyes with a light laugh. “He wishes. Is he talking to a kid?”

“Who Dustin? Don’t let him hear you call him that.” Robin warned with a roll of her own eyes, shuffling about some stock room records in her hands. “He’s like Steve’s best friend. He was, uh, in the mall fire with us last year.”

The mall fire. Robin doesn’t talk about it at all, a hollow expression taking over her features that freaks you out far too much to push it. Pushing past your surprise, you decide to focus on the other part of her sentence.

“They’re friends?”

As if to prove your point, the two of them head to the front of the store in the middle of a bicker — Steve lags behind a bit, hands waving dramatically as Dustin calls over his shoulder, tone righteous and just a tad smug.

You catch the end of Dustin’s sentence— “Not every girl has to swoon over you, Steve, you know that right? So what if she doesn’t—” cut off when Steve shoves his shoulder, having spotted you.

Dustin looks as though he experiences a ripple of emotions; annoyance, as he whips around, ready to cuss Steve out for the shove, which quickly turns to confusion at the wide-eyed look Steve is staring down at him with. By the time he’s facing you something has clicked as he looks at you with renewed interest.

“Dustin.” He introduces, stepping forward with one hand held out for you to shake. “Dustin Henderson.”

Unwittingly, you peer over his shoulder and connect eyes with Steve — who gives a shrug in response, an awkward smile on his face. Taking Dustin’s smaller hand in your own, you smile and introduce yourself, unable to keep the hint of confusion out of your words.

“I’m Steve’s best friend.” The curly-headed boy explains, gesturing over his shoulder and Steve’s smile gets a little more awkward. He feels a smidge nervous considering there’s no telling what will fall out of Henderson’s mouth next. Steve’s a little relieved when it’s a typical plea for a ride, spinning back round to him.

“Andddd as my best friend, he’ll be totally happy to drive me to the Byers’ right now. Robin can handle the store for 10 minutes without you, can’t ya Robin?”

He slides the tape he’s grabbed onto the counter as he says it, a silent ask to check it out. Likely under Steve’s account which Dustin says it’s for the employee discount — which makes Steve scoff, considering he pays for it anyways.

All eyes move to Robin who freezes at the sudden attention, papers paused mid-shuffle in her twitchy hands. She narrows her eyes at Dustin and you find yourself watching Steve as he has a silent exchange with the girl — another halfhearted shrug that means he’s happy to take him if she doesn’t mind.

Robin swipes the tape and types the details into the computer hastily, waving them both off. “Yeah, yeah. y/n can always get behind the counter, worst-case scenario.”

Dustin fist-pumps, taking the tape back from Robin as she hands it over. He heads to the door and calls out to you as he goes, “And you’d look better than Steve in the vest too!”

It makes you laugh when Steve scowls, sidling up to you to lean over the counter and snatch up his car keys. He pauses, eyes roaming your face and looking as though he wants to say something to you.

“Steve!” Dustin’s voice pierces the glass and you look to see him waiting on the top step, hands raised, expression unimpressed.

Steve sighs, muttering the word dickhead under his breath and then he’s out the door.

Fact #3: You may have misjudged Steve Harrington.

It’s been just over a week since seeing Dustin in the store with Steve and though you’d never admit it aloud, it has shifted the way you see Steve.

A minuscule shift, you huff to yourself, tiny and not enough to completely dissolve your built in dislike for the Harrington boy. But you find the thought worming into your brain frequently, tripping over it in surprise when you realise you’re thinking of him again.

It’s just… it didn’t make sense.

Just like the flirting, it didn’t compute in your brain unless you rationalized it back to some asshole motive.

But Dustin had introduced himself as Steve’s best-friend, which was sort of weird enough on its own but you figured it had to be some insane trauma bonding from the mall fire.

Even if they had been the same age, Dustin didn’t seem like the company you’d expect Steve to keep— but neither was Robin, you thought after a moment of contemplation.

Robin’s knowing grin outside Family Video a couple of weeks ago that screamed i told you so floats up in your memory; you might have to concede she was maybe, potentially, just a little bit right.

The thoughts weigh on your mind as you wait in the kitchen for Steve’s car to pull into your driveway. A couple months ago you would have outright refused to accept a ride from King Steve and you still weren’t sure if you thanked him for his generosity tonight, whether it would come out snarky or genuine.

But he did offer, unasked.

You and Robin wanted to see a rerun screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show that was showing a few towns over. Robin couldn’t drive and neither could you, which meant when she’d seen the poster, it had only been a fleeting moment of excitement before you realised you didn’t have any means of travel.

She must have been moping about it at work that day because it was sometime in the evening after she got off work that your phone rang and she nearly shrieked down the line that Steve would take you both.

So, here you were; waiting for Steve to pick you up.

God, even the sentence sounded odd in your head. A flash of amber headlights on the street grabs your attention and before you can delve into the flip of your stomach, you duck out of the house and slip into Steve’s car.

You take the front seat. Mainly because it would be too weird to get in the back, as though he was your chauffeur — though you suppose for tonight, he is. Steve smiles when you get in and you find it easy to mimic it. Gravel crunches as his tires pull away from the curb, gathering speed as he heads for Robin’s house.

Eyes out the window, you don’t see how he steals glances at you every couple of moments. The air feels tinged with awkwardness and Steve swallows, wondering if he’s allowed to break it. You’ve been a little warmer to him — I mean, hell, you just offered him a smile.

As he pulls the car up in front of Robin’s house, engine idling, he pushes out a breath and dredges up his courage.

Yes, in the beginning, the compliments were because he wanted you to not see him and scowl. Tonight, it’s because you look beautiful and he wants you to know it.

“You look—” Oh god, and now you’re looking at him, eyes a little wide before they narrow in suspicion. “—uh, pretty.”

“What?”

“I mean, you always look pretty!” He amends. “But, y’know, you look lovely tonight. Pretty.” Stop talking.

“P-Pretty lovely.” It falls off his tongue in haste, delivered so terribly he’s surprised he doesn’t cringe immediately after. God, it was like whatever flirting skills he had flew out the window with you.

“No, Harrington, I mean— why do you keep saying these things?”

Steve feels utterly lost, shown on his face as he blinks, once, twice, and doesn’t say anything. Your insecurity bubbles up, mixed with anger at the thought he might indeed be messing with you.

“I don’t know if this is funny to you, to- to like, joke that you like my clothes or- or to pretend to think that I’m pretty but it’s not. And I—”

“Woah, wait — who said I was joking?” Incredulity taints each word, his brows pulled high in surprise. Steve’s stomach twists, feeling his heart recoil at the complete seriousness in your words — you think he’s been making fun of you.

“Well, why else would you call me pretty?” You ask pointedly, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Because you are?” It’s faint, Steve’s voice suddenly a lot softer.

You’re not sure you can contain the ripple of emotions on your face, his words sticking you in the throat so you have to swallow thickly. It’s like a switch is flipped, each compliment of the last couple of weeks shifting into a new meaning in your mind.

It’s overwhelming and you find yourself searching Steve’s face desperately, drinking in his sincere expression, brows drawn together as he offers a weak smile. Fuck, you think and along with it, dozens of apologies fester and churn — god, you’d been so rude and—

“Um, backseat please!” A sharp knock at your window scares you, nearly jumping out of your skin and breaking your focus on Steve. When you turn, Robin’s standing on the sidewalk, bent at the waist to peer at you through the glass. You stare at her dumbly for a moment til she wiggles her eyebrows with a grin and it makes you crack a smile, finally reeling yourself in enough to move.

Unclipping your belt, you’re rather thankful to be shoved to the back of the car. Hidden in the dark, you shift to take the seat behind Steve. Your eyes spy a sliver of his neck, exposed skin about the collar of his jacket and it fixates you for a moment.

Because you are? Steve’s words follow you, plaguing you in the shadows of the backseat — you purposefully ignore how it makes your heart sing ever-so-slightly.

Fact #4: Bradley O’Connor is not to be trusted.

“Guess who came into my work today?”

It’s said all gleeful, your hands gripping the counter as you nearly launch yourself over it in your excitement. On the other side stands Robin, doodling in her notebook — or she had been, til your arrival had been announced by the door chime, her ‘Welcome to Family Video!’ cut off by your sudden commotion.

“Um,” Robin begins indignantly, brows raised high. “Half of Hawkins? You work at Bradley’s Best Buy y/n, like the whole town shops there.”

Her sarcasm bounces off you, undeterred in your good mood; it was like the sun was shining just for you today. You didn’t even mind Steve obviously listening in on you two, his hands frozen above the keyboard as he eavesdropped from his seat at the computer.

“Yeah, speaking of Bradley’s...” you grinned at Robin, hoping your hint was enough. It was, her expression shifting into something more enthusiastic.

“Bradley Bradley?”

You nod at her question, your teeth sinking into your bottom lip in an attempt to contain your giddy grin. But it’s hard when your long-term high school crush Bradley O’Connor came through your till, flirted like there was no tomorrow, and insisted you jot your number on his receipt.

He didn’t even seem to care that you worked at a supermarket. You knew well that he and all his friends lived in the cushy tax bracket which meant the first job they ever worked would be after college. Kids like you and Robin, stuck working hours in dead-end jobs to help pay rent, were often easy pickings for teasing.

It just made you lean into your naive feelings more, swooning at the fact he didn’t care. You had been too elated in your feelings to notice the piles of his friends waiting outside the store; if you had, it might’ve made you more cautionary.

“Bradley O’Connor?” Steve butts in, swiveling in his chair to question you. The way Steve says his name, tinged in disbelief, makes you narrow your eyes.

“Is that so hard to believe?” You say defensively and chose to not acknowledge Robin’s deep sigh. Eyes widening, Steve splutters for a moment as he shakes his head.

“What? No, not like that! I just mean—him? Really?”

You can’t quite pick what’s hiding in his voice, eyes instead following Robin as she whirls around and delivers a glower that makes Steve reconsider his tone, swallowing.

“I mean—” He starts again, clearing his throat, cheeks a titch pink now. “I didn’t realise he was... your type.”

You stare at Steve, your expression skeptical as you try to pull apart whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. When you can’t figure it out in a moment, you ignore the comment and turn back to Robin and ignore it.

“Asked for my number.” You lean closer to Robin, wiggling your brows as you lead her along the excitement you’d felt earlier today. “Insisted on it actually.”

Robin’s brows manage to raise even higher, nearly disappearing into her hairline and you’d be a bit offended if her grin didn’t match your own.

“Oh. My. God.” She says, her pen punching down on the pages of her notebook to punctuate each word. “Oh my god.”

You don’t bother trying to hold back your grin, nodding along, some form of a squeal escaping you — it vaguely occurs to you should rein it in with Steve listening in, but you can’t find it in yourself to curb your feelings for his sake.

“Finally!” Robin manages to break her script of oh my god’s. “You’ve only liked him for—what? Two years?”

You flush automatically at the admission, your grin becoming a grimace as you shoot a glare at your best friend. She means well, but you’re not exactly lining up to let Steve Harrington in on all your secrets.

Your eyes flit over to where he sits, still watching the conversation. As if he can read your unease, he mimes turning a lock over his lips and tosses the key behind him blindly in an exaggerated motion. You’re in a good enough mood that it makes you laugh lightly, breaking back into a smile and comforted that at the very least, Steve won’t go ratting out your affections.

“Hey, as happy as I am for you, aren’t you supposed to be helping your Mom today?”

Like a bubble bursting, Robin reminds you that, alas, the world exists outside the perfect moment of exchanging digits over the cash register at work. Your eyes widen, a little horrified as you spin around and squint at the clock on the wall. Shit.

“Shit.” You verbalize the thought and you’re out the door before you remember to call out your goodbyes.

Steve watches you go, your purple wind-breaker flapping behind you wildly as you all but sprint around the corner and out of sight. It’s a bit too comical and he can’t help but chuckle. The sound draws Robin’s attention and all too suddenly, Steve feels as though he’s been caught doing something wrong as she whirls around to face him.

For a moment, they just stare at each other. Steve wonders if he’ll have to remind her that despite the jokes they both make, he can’t actually read her mind.

She breaks the silence. “What was that?”

“What was what?” It’s genuine confusion, Steve’s head tilting to the right an inch.

“I didn’t realise he was your type.” Robin mocks, her voice high pitch and hands gesturing somehow sarcastically. “That! What was that?”

Steve frowns, defensiveness creeping up in his tone. “That was nothing!”

Okay, so, that sounded way less casual than he hoped. Steve clears his throat, spinning on his seat to face the computer again. It was nothing. Robin was being a vulture, picking at remains, picking at nothing — absolutely nothing.

“Nothing at all.” He mutters, beginning to type again and Robin snorts behind him, voice still doused in sarcasm.

“Mm, for my own sake, I’m gonna ignore the fact you’re clearly interested in her.”

Steve hits a wrong key in his surprise, an annoyed beep! coming from the computer. It sums up how he’s feeling. He turns his head back to Robin, brows furrowed as he shakes his head. “What? No, no way.”

“Yes, way.”

“Robin, no. Even if I did—not that I do but even if I— look, I’m not stupid enough to get a crush on someone who hates me.”

This puts out the fiery retorts for just a moment, Robin dimming as she recalls the bitterness you harbor for Steve. Well, harbored — she knows you back to front and she’s willing to bet money that if you stopped hating him for just a second, you’d probably like the guy.

“She doesn’t know you.” She lands on eventually, features softening as she recalls the bitterness on Steve’s face whenever some idiot from high school dragged up his past — usually, in an attempt to humiliate him.

“Look, I’m not interested in her.” Steve reiterates, though a little weak, waving his hands wildly as if it will help drive the point home. “Not gonna happen. Never gonna happen. “

The door rattles as it’s opened by a new customer. Robin and Steve both cease their conversation immediately, turning to greet automatically — and who should it be Bradley O’Connor, himself. He doesn’t spare a glance at the front counter, sauntering straight into the action movie aisle.

“In fact,” Steve begins, an idea formulating in his mind. He spins back to Robin with a grin. “I’ll happily help her get her next date.”

“Steve, don’t—“

Steve ignores her protest, sidling out from behind the counter and tracking Bradley down to where the rom-com section starts.

“Welcome to Family Video!” It’s a bit cheery and it makes the boy jump in surprise, surprised by the new voice. Steve continues. “Anything I can help you with today?”

Bradley chuckles stiffly, a little affronted at the enthusiasm Steve’s to help a customer. He clocks the double take he does, the glance down at Steve’s name badge giving away that Bradley’s well aware of who he is. Exhaling, Steve hopes he won’t bring it up.

It looks as though Bradley weighs something up in his head, taking another once over at Steve before he speaks. “Yeah, actually. You know what movies chicks dig?”

Steve can tell in the way Bradley says the word chicks that he’s an asshole. Not thinking of girls as people, more like scores: notches in his belt. It makes him tick, jaw clenching.

But he was like that once. Nancy Wheeler had found a genuine spot in him and coaxed it out. You — you could do the same.

So, Steve says, “Yeah, man. Anyone in particular? Usually depends on the girl, honestly.”

Bradley sniffs, one hand nudging under his nose as he skirts his gaze around the store. He lands on Robin, who thankfully, doesn’t look like she’s trying to eavesdrop at that exact moment.

“Do ya know y/l/n?” He jerks his chin in the direction of Robin. “Buckley’s friend?”

Steve nods, glad at the easy segue; now, all he had to do was talk you up. And Steve Harrington was nothing if not a flatterer. He halts a moment later with a frown, realising what a noncommittal date it was. You deserved better than that, Steve thought.

“y/n? You can’t just rent out a film for a girl like that. She’s a total catch, dude— you gotta do the whole nine yards, yanno? Cinema, popcorn, be a gentleman and all.”

He pairs his suggestion with a usual charming smile, crossing his arms across his broad chest. Bradley seems to pick up on the extra interest and his brows quirk up.

“You got like, a thing for her or something?”

His pink cheeks nearly give him away. Steve, to his credit, manages to not blunder his next response. It’s almost like Robin’s line of fire earlier prepped him for this moment.

“Nah,” he replies, coolly. “She’s just a friend.”

The next words are a little less casual, Steve straightening up as a surprising amount of protectiveness curls in his gut. “And as her friend, I’m just looking out for her.”

Bradley swallows, breaking eye-contact as if Steve could puzzle out his ill intentions if he looked long enough.

“So, be nice and take her out all proper.” Steve lets it sit in the air for a moment, then smiles, a polite way that’s well practiced in his line of work. “Can I get anything else for you?”

It might be the quickest customer Robin’s ever checked out, with Bradley managing to get the film rented and be out the door in under 2 minutes.

Thankfully, Robin is chuckling when he wanders back behind the counter. He had been harboring a thread of anxiety, worried he had really overstepped by thinking he knew best — it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done it. On top of that, Steve really doesn’t want this to bite him in the ass, especially considering it was to help you.

“Don’t—” Robin starts, a smile curling her lips. “—let this go to your head, but that wasn’t nearly half bad.”

Steve tries not to feel smug, settling instead on pleasantly content. He was in your good books after this, for sure.

When you call the store from home, wire twisted in your fingers and talking loud enough in your excitement that Steve could hear it from beside Robin, she makes sure to mention the good word he put in for you.

Fact #5: If you call Steve Harrington from a pay-phone on a Friday night, he’ll pick up.

The bleak cold of the night air isn’t anything compared to the shame that’s building in your chest. You’re trying your best to ignore it, to not give in to your anxious doubts — what did Bradley say on the phone?

It was supposed to be a movie night at his place — that was what he’d suggested when he toyed with your feelings at work, a handsome smirk on his face. You’d tried not to sound disgruntled at the hurried change in plans, instead trying to lean into your excitement that tonight went from casual to a definite date.

Bradley O’Connor didn’t just invite anyone to the movies with him. And he’d said 7 on the phone, you huffed to yourself.

7 o’clock. The showing of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off that was playing at Hawk cinema. Though, he did sound a bit distracted on the phone, his voice sounding distant.

You glance at the clock above the ticket booth. 7.13pm.

Heaving a sigh, you tuck your coat closer around yourself and wonder how long you should wait before it goes from sad to truly pathetic.

Five more minutes, you think, Give him five more minutes.

Because you hopelessly want his flirts, his coy smile, and charming winks to be real; you want to be swept up in a teenage daydream and have it all work out for you for once.

You swallow, picking at your fingers as you dredge up your hopes, convincing yourself he’s coming — because if he doesn’t...it means Steve and his confused tone were fucking right. That Bradley wasn’t the type to go for your type.

You shouldn’t have waited the five extra minutes.

Technically, you think bitterly, you were right. Bradley does show up.

You’re stepping out, wondering if you should brave the walk home in the dark — but a familiar group of raucous boys in Letterman jackets heading for the cinema freeze you in your tracks.

“Holy shit, she actually came.”

It’s not said kind, not in awed disbelief as you’d hoped. It’s cruel — jeering explodes in the group of boys, unkind laughs and snickers resounding off the bricks as they smack each other, all in on the joke. The realisation sinks into your stomach, staining it black.

Bradley looks smugly satisfied — a pompous conceited piece of shit that you should’ve known better than to believe.

You don’t even want to look at him, a hot sting of tears burning behind your eyes. You don’t want to give him a chance to taunt you. Your feet take you forward, barging through the group and smacking your shoulder against Bradley’s shoulder, hard. You hope it hurts.

“Tell Harrington thanks for the suggestion to take you to the movies!” He calls after you like he knows how it rubs salt into the wound. It does; it stings maybe more than the initial humiliation. “Guess he’s not an idiot all of the time!”

The boys laugh, a series of oohs that finally break your floodgate. Tears streak, hot and fast, and you brush them off before they reach your chin, sniffling. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

The humiliation is coating you, sticky and clinging like a fog and you squeeze your eyes closed as you inhale quickly. You round the corner fast, feet not stopping til you’re at least four blocks from the cinema, further downtown.

You feel dumb. Scratch that, you feel like a fucking idiot.

A stray tear escapes without permission and the next thought is that you want to go home. Blurry eyes scanning the street, you clock the phone booth and head for it, fueled by the urgency of your thoughts: get home, then fall apart.

The glass is cold as you push the door open, creaking and weathered. You close the door and turn, staring at the phone. Who do you call?

Your mom is the first thought. She’d driven you in — though, you’d told her you’d get a lift home with Bradley since he had a car. You’re not up for the coddling you’ll get when she sees the state of you in the slightest. Besides, she’d mentioned heading to a friends for the evening.

Robin is the next thought. And you would, except she can’t drive so all she’d do is ply you with a combination of questions and furious insults directed at Bradley.

Your next thought...No.

You sigh, leaning your head against the glass, not caring about how grimy it might be, and smack your head against it a couple of times. No, no way were you about to call Steve Harrington for a lift.

Not when he fucking set you up. Not when he’d just taken the shred of trust you’d granted him and torn it up immediately. Especially not after crying because you believed a date like that with a guy like Bradley O’Connor was genuine.

You were not calling Steve.

The Harrington household number is easy to find in the paper phone book.

It’s under Steve’s father’s name, some prick with big money who’d likely report you to the police for harassment if he picked up the phone. You stare at it and then at the phone, a frown set on your brow as you weigh it up.

Steve didn’t work Friday night — you know, because it used to be a night to go visit Robin, back when you avoided Steve.

A stray thought floats up, bringing back the words of Robin on the phone as she had celebrated the news. It’s a bitter memory now, made entirely worse as you recall what she had said. Steve talked you up, her voice crackled down the wire, when O’Connor came in. Put in a good word for you.

A new emotion surges in your chest and you’re relieved to shrug off some humiliation for anger. God, you feel even more stupid for thinking Steve would’ve actually talked you up.

As you punch in the number, the keypad taking a bit of a beating, you huff and think at the very least, he can owe you a ride for ruining your evening.

“Harrington residence, this is Steve.”

“Harrington.” You spit it out with venom. On the other side of the phone, Steve recoils a bit, surprised at the tone.

“y/n? I thought you were—”

“I’m on Cavendish Boulevard, right by Tony’s. Come pick me up.” It’s fierce and clipped. You don’t really want to unleash your anger on the phone, lest he leaves you stranded and you have to ring around your mother’s friends just to find her. You just want to go home.

Steve makes a noise of confusion over the phone, a bit slow on the uptake. “But I thought tonight was—”

“Harrington.” you say again, a little softer, your emotions leaking into your voice involuntarily. Fuck, you sound pathetic but in the moment you can’t bring yourself to care. You plead, “Please.”

“I’m coming,” He says, voice indicating he’s caught on to why you might be calling. “Yeah, I’m coming, just sit tight.”

Fact #6: When Steve Harrington says he ‘knows a spot’, he doesn’t always mean Skull Rock.

You’re angry.

That much Steve can tell. Steve’s reminded too much of the last ride he gave you when you pop the door, sliding almost uncomfortably into the passenger seat and turning your clenched jaw towards the window.

Unrest torments Steve’s head, unsure if he’s gained enough trust to ask what went wrong this evening. On the other hand, you had called him. At the very least, you trusted him to come and get you.

The tires groan as he drives out of Tony’s parking lot, the hood of the car dipping to the gutter and rolling out onto the quiet roads.

“Am I allowed to ask what happened?” Steve drives slow so his eyes can flick over to you, watching the way you smooth your hands down your thighs, a self-soothing motion. It makes his chest twinge, a tad more worry than he’s probably warranted to considering you are barely friends. If that.

“Depends.” you finally turn to face him, a pinch in your eyebrows. “What did you say to Bradley?”

Steve detects the cynicism of your question in a heartbeat. Even though he knows he was all charm, Robin even affirmed it, he still rehashes the conversation, scrutinizing it for what he had said wrong.

You take his silence as admittance. Scoffing lightly, you focus back out the window, eyes boring into the streets. You’re in the middle of a mutter, something like I was so right about you when Steve manages to find his voice.

“I—” Shyness has crept up inside, Steve suddenly worried you’ll find his comments odd and not endearing. Worse, you’ll think he’s being in-genuine again. You’re just quiet, waiting. “I told him that he should take you to the cinema, instead of just renting a film. That you deserved a better— a proper date.”

He shoots a look in your direction, trying to see how you take in the words. Your shoulders have bunched up stiffly, your body turning further away but he can still see the furrow in your brow, angry emotions emitting out in every direction from you — you don’t believe him.

“I swear,” He continues, more desperate to prove himself. “I said something about— that you were a catch and- and you can ask Robin, I swear to—”

“Steve, stop.”

Horror churns through his gut when Steve realises you’re crying, soft tears dripping off your cheeks. As if you can sense he’s about to talk again, ready to rattle off his insistence, you speak before him.

“If I believe you,” you inhale shakily, pushing your palms into your eyes hard. You don’t want to cry in front of Steve. “If you’re telling the truth, then that means...”

Your teeth chew on your lip, hiding its quiver as you relive the humiliation of earlier all over again. “It means, I was actually stupid enough to believe him.”

Painfully, Steve can feel the embarrassment rolling off you in waves as you bury your face away. He swears under his breath. He’d detected asshole from Bradley two words in but this? This was not even in the ballpark of what he’d considered happening tonight. How fucking childish to ask someone out as a joke.

You seem to be slipping into a ramble, uncaring that you’re pouring your feelings out to Steve — Steve who you hate, or at least you did. Steve who you were ready to verbally pummel a minute ago. Steve who is looking at you so gingerly that you might consider he actually cares about you.

“He- all his friends were there.” You admit, words wobbling and tone revealing your utter mortification. “It was just a big fucking joke.”

For a minute, the car is silent; you stare at the road and watch it get swallowed beneath the car.

“I’m— I’m so fucking sorry.” Steve starts again, feeling like he’s managed to take one step forward and fifteen backward with you. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “I had no idea he would do that, I swear, I wouldn’t have—“

He cuts himself off, apparently out of words to say, or taking your silence as a cue to shut up. His apology sits in the silence and you know now, he means it. Bradley’s smugness compared to Steve’s sincerity leaves no contest; you’d been too in your own head to realise you’d muddled them up.

You’re faintly aware that Steve has been driving absently, guzzling up gas so you can have a moment suspended away from reality. But he seems to grip the wheel tighter, with more purpose, and instead of looping the block again, Steve picks a route.

You wipe under your eyes again, sniffling through your clogged throat. “Where are we going?”

Steve adjusts his grip on the steering wheel, throwing a glance at you.

“Where I go when I’m upset.”

A snarky retort rises in your mind on instinct, the hurt part that wants to lash out, make someone hurt like you’re hurting. You think about saying something like what does rich, popular Steve Harrington get upset about? when he says, “Helped me a lot after the, uh, the mall fire.”

You swallow the words on your tongue and guilt stains your throat.

It’s a short drive; Steve drives so comfortably that you question how many times he’s traced this route. Too plagued by horrid memories, forced into his car and driving until he’s tired enough to sleep without nightmares.

You can’t say you’re expecting the stretch of road that crawls out to Skull Rock. For a moment you regard him, wondering if he’s daft enough to try to get lucky right now. But the car veers off track, driving down a less traveled path.

He doesn’t stop til you’re surrounded by timber trunks — there’s not much room to open your door when Steve puts the car into park.

Normally, you make a witty comment — “You didn’t bring me out here to kill me, right? I can’t see how that would make me feel any better.” — but you bite your tongue. You feel too downbeat to be witty now.

Steve rounds the car and pops the trunk, leaning over it with one hand still gripping the top. He rummages for a moment, moving junk around til he pulls out a couple of items: a baseball bat, some bag that clinks noisily, and a few other items, stuffed quickly into the bag. He tucks the baseball bat under his arm.

“C’mon,” he murmurs and waves you to follow him, after shutting the trunk and locking the car. Again, you’re eerily aware that this route is well-familiar to Steve. You stumble to keep up, eyes on your feet so you don’t get a face full of dirt.

Eventually, the trees give way to a clearing littered with various junk, glittering broken glass all around making Steve tell you to watch where you step.

He makes his way towards a rotten tree trump in the centre of the clearing, poorly cut and barely a flat surface on it. Still, Steve digs around in the bag and fishes out an empty beer bottle. You think you can guess where he’s going with this.

Carefully, he manages to balance it on a slanted surface and as expected, he draws the bat out from under his arm and offers it to you.

The wood is warm from being pressed against his side and you curl your fingers around it, sapping it into your hands. He digs around in the bag for another moment, revealing a pair of safety glasses — damn, he’s really prepared.

Steve unfolds them and steps closer, offering them out to you — but you don’t remove your hands from the bat, instead jutting out your chin to indicate for him to put them on for you.

It makes him pause. Steve regards you for a moment, eyes unsure before he steps even closer.

It steals your breath, the intensity of his gaze as he pushes the glasses up your nose, his fingers tracing along the rims and down the arms of the glasses, tucking any stray hair behind your ears. It’s oddly intimate, watching him through the plastic, his expression focused, breath fanning over your face. He looks handsome — the shadows cutting his jawline nicely and you can smell his cologne when he’s this close.

When he steps back, you have to remind yourself to breathe — the scent of him still swirls in your chest.

Even though you know what he’s brought you here for — the bottle, the bat, the open junkyard already doused in broken litter — you still don’t make a move.

Steve gestures to the bottle. “Hit it. Hard as you can.”

It’s a soft instruction; you know if you wanted, you could turn around and he’d drive you all the way home, no questions asked. But then you’d spend the rest of your evening drowning your sorrows, wallowing in a pint of ice-cream and sniffling over the phone to Robin.

You turn to face the bottle, lifting the bat, and readying your grip.

Holy shit, she actually came.

The bat connects fast with the bottle, a loud crash pistoling off and filling the clearing — the brown glass dissolves into the night, pieces are thrown in every direction and you’re suddenly very grateful for the safety glasses.

You heave in a breath, surprised by how that felt. It’s thrilling. You whip around to look at Steve and choke on a laugh at what you see — he’s put on a ridiculous pair of sunglasses.

They’re not at all the usual stylish ones he’s worn to parties before. It’s likely didn’t want that pair damaged but still needed to protect his eyes. Instead, these pair look like women’s sunglasses, with big wide round frames. It’s a bizarre sight, Steve Harrington is women’s sunglasses, at night-time no less.

“Nice glasses.” The tease falls off your lips instinctively, a laugh contained in the words.

Back to poking fun at him — a definite sign you’re feeling better. He sighs, playing it up, popping his hip, and planting his hands on his sides.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve says, but he’s smiling. “Be thankful I gave you the cool ones. Normally, it’s just me up here anyways.”

It’s somewhat of a lie. He’d bought two pairs of the safety glasses, one for Robin as well, but she hadn’t liked the loud noises of broken glass when he brought her with him.

But Steve thought the stupid oversized glasses his mom had tried to dump — he was going to offer them to Robin but it had slipped his mind — would be a better choice. You wouldn’t be thinking about fucking O’Connor if he’s in women’s sunglasses.

It’s surprisingly effective; a giggle titters out of you again and you cover your mouth as if it’ll help hide the sound. You’re a bit bewildered at how easy it feels to laugh so soon.

Steve pushes the glasses up onto the top of his head, his hair sticking up at odd angles and he narrows his eyes at you. His smile gives him away. He bends and roots through the bag, finding another bottle for you to smash. The sunnies slip back down to cover his eyes as he sets up the next one.

It wobbles precariously on the stump but you don’t wait for it to settle, baseball bat swinging and shattering it in a second.

“Fuck!” You scream and the curse is swallowed up in the splintering sound of glass. Steve whoops, looking almost like a suburban mom, cheering from the sidelines. The scream helped — hell, swinging with all your might and channeling your rage into demolishing a bottle was definitely helping. You don’t feel upset, you feel enraged.

The stump isn’t empty for long, Steve dutifully scoops up another bottle and places it out for you. He pauses, sunglasses back in his hair, and points at the bottle as he fixes you with a determined look.

“This one’s O’Connor.”

You meet his eyes, his brows knitted together and an expression that says he wants you to destroy it because he’s angry with you — angry for you. He steps back.

When you hit it, an earsplitting crack thunders out. The bottle fractures, fragments careening off in every direction. A wild grin sweeps across your face, knowing that whatever comes at school next week— whether Bradley went back to ignoring your existence or used tonight as fuel for taunting — you could just picture how you felt as you shattered that bottle.

“That felt good.” You breathe out, turning back to Steve. Your teeth graze your bottom lip, sinking in to stop from grinning like a lunatic. A delirious laugh wrestles itself out of your chest and you let your head drop back, eyes turning up at the inky sky, laughs petering out.

Steve tries to ignore how the sound lights up his chest like a Christmas tree, some part of him burning with glee with the knowledge you’re feeling better because of something he did.

He watches your gaze rove across the sky, searching for something he doesn’t know. He’s not sure if he should dig out the next bottle or whether this was it — that now, he’d take you home now and he’d be back to just a brief hint of a smile from you if that.

Head dropping forward, you offer back the baseball bat and Steve’s heart sinks.

Reining in his dejection so it doesn’t show, Steve takes it from you and pulls a polite smile; at the very least, he’ll get some credit with Robin for cheering up her best friend.

As he moves to tuck it under his arm, he freezes at your own motions. You’re bending down, rummaging through the bag, and scoring a bottle — this time, a big champagne bottle, left on the bench from the last time his parents had been home. Four? No, five days ago.

You plant it on the stump, hands hovering around it as it quivers for a moment, only dropping them when the bottle finally settles. You step back, look at him and Steve finally understands what you’re doing.

Surprise sprouts in his chest, his lips parting. You’re giving him a turn?

“Well?”

He’s been gawking a bit, he realises and Steve remembers to close his mouth. He shifts the bat out from under his arm and then pulls the sunglasses off his head. He offers them to you, with a nod.

“Swap. I’ll miss the bottle completely with these on.”

“But that’ll make me laugh.” You point out, tone cheeky as you pass them over regardless.

Steve slides them on, a dramatic eye-roll as he steps up to swing. He’s usually only here when his anger is feeling uncontrollable, like hot lava boiling over and burning him from the inside out. He’s calmer tonight, with no emotions running rampant — well, maybe not any bad ones at least.

He scrounges his brain to think of what’s annoyed him this week; Keith, as always. The champagne bottle on the stump, the only bitter evidence his parents had been home in the last week. The agonizing wobble in your voice as you’d cried in the passenger seat of his car.

There’s a familiar burn in his muscles when he swings, another bottle sacrificed to anger and destined to a life scattered in the dirt. You whoop loudly, just as he had, and Steve can understand why you’d laughed at the sight of him in those sunglasses. They’re huge and you look nearly bug-like, shiny round domes of black staring back at him.

“Nice glasses.” He grins cheekily, a copy of your own words. He doesn’t need to see your eyes to know you’re rolling them at him.

The bat and safety glasses get passed between you two, equal turns until the bottles run out. Steve’s only sorry he didn’t bring more, drinking in the giddy and wild grin that overcomes your face when another bottle meets its fate.

When you pack it in and stumble back to his car, Steve revels in the closeness you seemed to have gained. No longer three steps behind, your shoulders brush his on the walk and when you stumble over a root, your hand shoots out and grips his arm, steadying yourself. You hold it for a moment longer than you should.

The skin of your hand still tingles as you slide into the passenger seat. The air of the car is more comfortable now, cozy even, as Steve cranks the heat and the trees pass you in a blur as you drive out. Bruce Springsteen’s Hungry Heart is warbling on the radio, the volume turned low and you can’t help but stare at him.

You were so wrong about him.

You were so astronomically wrong about him; it’s the only thing you can think of as you drive home, amber streetlights illuminating the streets of Hawkins. The clock on the dash reads 9.57pm — meaning you’ve been with Steve for nearly two hours. The fact nearly draws an awed sort of laugh, but you press it down til it’s only a smile, hidden as you turn back to the window.

He drops you off by 10.14pm, insisting on buying you a milkshake to complete the night.

Honest, I get one after every time I smash shit. It’s hard work you just did! He’d said as he ordered. One chocolate shake for you, one vanilla, for him. You gotta, like, replace electrolytes and all. The fact you don’t think he’s said it to make you laugh, makes you laugh even harder.

The milkshakes sustain the silence on the final drive home and you quickly understand immediately the importance of the shake. After all the frustration, the sugar is near soothing as the cold sweet dances on your tongue.

The engine idles as Steve brings the car to a halt by the curb outside your house. You eye it, astonished by your reluctance to end the evening and you wonder if Steve can tell.

You don’t know if you want him to notice it or not; reading into your hesitancy feels like a whole new can of worms. The porch light is on, waiting for you.

Home. What you’ve been yearning for since 7.15pm this evening — finally, the roller-coaster of emotions has wrung you out and tiredness seeps into your bones. But you can’t leave without a goodbye. Not without telling Steve what tonight meant to you.

“Thank you.”

You don’t mean to murmur it, but it’s nearly a whisper as you take your eyes off the house to turn to Steve in the driver’s seat.

Steve somehow manages to soften more at the quiet words, an easy smile pulling on his lips. He nods. It means of course like you don’t even have to thank him for it. The car purrs beneath you, filling the silence with a quiet rumble.

You want to say it again, louder because it’s not just a thank-you — it’s thank you, I’m sorry, I was wrong about you, can we start over? I hated you for the longest time but do you ever think you could like me?

The last thought punches a breath out of you and it sets you in motion. You couldn’t be having those thoughts; not with the tension in the air, his closeness so enticing now you’ve tasted it once. You couldn’t be having those thoughts at all.

You’re on the sidewalk, about to close the door before you remember to squeak out a ‘goodnight!’. The walk to your door is short enough that you shouldn’t feel the cold of the night — besides, you’re too warm inside, emotions churning wildly to notice anyways.

It doesn’t help when you reach the porch and peek over your shoulder, the maroon BMW still waiting by the curb, amber headlights shining, for you to make it inside okay.

Fact #7: You’re way too wasted right now.

You’d started with vodka and that had been, what? An hour ago.

An hour ago when O’Connor had made his entrance with his buddies, stupid cheers erupted from the crowd of high schoolers that were stupid enough to worship the likes of him.

Or maybe, you’re the stupid one for hoping you wouldn’t see him tonight.

But if the open invite to Melody Carter’s house for a late-night Saturday party meant the likes of you and Robin could come, of fucking course O’Connor would be there.

You had been only planning on one more drink, the one you’d been pouring when O’Connor showed face, but his smirk across the room had you finishing it instantly. It burned as you swallowed it down, your hands already moving to pour more liquor into your cup.

Two more shots down of — what was it? The label tells you it’s tequila — and you’re thoroughly drunk. Which, honestly, might not be a great move considering the number of people at this party. There are a lot of people here.

What had started as a party for only the senior year had quickly snowballed, kids older and younger showing up. Hell, you were pretty sure you’d seen Aaron Bright pass through the front door, a boy two years out of high school.

Did that mean Steve was coming?

Oh-kay, that had to be the tequila speaking.

But once the thought is in your head, it spins out, unstoppable, careening and building up your hopes before you remember to crush them. You weren’t hanging out to see Steve; quite the opposite in fact.

The bottle-smashing adventure you’d shared with him had been just over a week ago and maybe your thoughts had strayed to him a couple of times. A couple of times might be putting it lightly.

You just— you didn’t know how to act around him anymore.

Without the shield of ‘Steve Harrington is a douchebag’ to give a reason for your scowls, you had to admit he was utterly charming.

You couldn’t tell if it was the shift in your own perception or if Steve really was this nice, each sentence flirty or teasing — either way, it meant you were as good as reduced to blundering through any interaction with him.

So, naturally, you’d resorted to avoiding Family Video instead, which, hey, might not have been your best idea.

Robin had tracked you down after you didn’t show up to two of her evening shifts to hang. Gossip flowed as you divulged her in your Friday night, the prank O’Connor had pulled, and the subsequent tears that had followed. With a guilty smile, you let Robin get wrapped up in her anger and forgive your absences — too distracted to even ask how you’d gotten home.

Technically, you hadn’t lied. You had just... omitted certain facts.

Besides, you were feeling confused enough about Steve all on your own. You had no doubt that adding Robin, the mutual best friend between you two, and her opinion would make it all the messier.

Or maybe she’ll tell you what you don’t want to hear. Something in your head whispers, the tequila burning a little fouler in your stomach. That you can’t have him. That she knows him and he would never want you.

For good measure, you chase down one more shot.

And that’s how Steve finds you — wasted out in the back garden of a party.

Robin had invited him, halfheartedly during one of their shifts. Honestly, a high school party had very little appeal to him — most parties had no appeal after the events that had transpired in the last couple of years.

But Robin had been a bit adamant as she realised he didn’t have a date lined up like he usually did. He’d winced as she connected the dots, counting on her fingers that it had been nearly two months since he’d used his weekend for social plans. That is, excluding hanging with Robin.

The fact he stopped going on dates round bout the same time you stopped completely ignoring him was completely unrelated. But Steve was glad Robin didn’t notice the coincidence, so she couldn’t grill him about it.

In fact, she was surprisingly mute over his sudden agreement when Robin purposefully mentioned you’d be there. Her twinkling eyes said she knew more than she’d let on.

And at first, it seemed like a colossal mistake to come.

Steve didn’t like alcohol like he used to. The last few years had birthed something in him that hated not being in control of his body, especially when dark corners seem to hold something more sinister, or the lights flickered.

Or maybe it was the fact he hasn’t really been to a party since Halloween ‘84. Steve shoves the memory of that night down, away.

He lasts two minutes in the crowded main room before he’s shouldering out, hoping the garden will provide some relief. It brings lungfuls of fresh air, the natural blanket of the night and you.

You’re fairly certain you came out here to fight the spinning in your head, desperate for fresh air but now, sprawled out on the cool grass, you’re completely distracted by staring up at the sky. You’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for, gazing into the stars.

A head pops into your vision, Steve’s hair flopping over as he peers down at you. “y/n?”

“Steve!”

Whatever he was expecting, it was not the unbridled glee in your voice. You squirm happily, like a slug in the rain, and if your slurring hadn’t given you away, it’s evidence of how drunk you are. It doesn’t matter that something in his head says she’s drunk, he still finds himself smiling.

“That’s me.” He scans the garden for Robin, assuming the two of you would be together. Concern laces his next words. “Why ya out here on the grass, sweetheart?”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Steve’s not sure what it is he’s said, but he’s never seen a reaction like this out of you before; your hands cover your face, giggles slipping loosely out as if you’re hiding a secret.

Sweetheart. You hide the flame in your face behind your hands. There’s nothing to be done for your giggles, loud and drunken, not stopping no matter how much you will yourself. The pet-name brands itself onto your heart, the heat of it racing under your skin.

Steve tries again. “Where’s Robin? I thought you two came together.”

“We did.” You remove your hands to reveal your wide-eyed expression as if just remembering the fact yourself. Man, that must have been ages ago. “She was talking to... to...”

“Vickie?” Steve supplies, with an amused smile.

“Yes!” You snap your fingers at him, expression showing a little bit of disbelief mixed with awe. It shows in your words. “How did you know that, Steve?”

Steve. Not Harrington. You’ve called him by his name twice and Steve’s a little embarrassed by how much he likes it. Likes the sound of his name in your mouth, on your lips.

He shakes his head like an etch-a-sketch to get rid of the thought, mind stuck on your lips too long. Stay focused, Steve chides himself. Extending out a hand, he offers it to you with the intent to have both of you track down Robin.

Though, if you’d last seen her with Vickie, there’s a chance Robin would bite his head off for interrupting the two of them. Vickie, apparently, had a hard time believing the fact Steve and Robin’s relationship was entirely platonic in nature. Tracking her down at a party might not help.

He’s pulled out of the tangent of thoughts when you slap your hand into his — and tug.

Steve topples, immediately grateful for his lack of alcohol because, with any less coordination, you’d be squished beneath him. A hand plants on either side of your head, catching himself just above you. You grin, alcohol on your breath and Steve isn’t completely sure whether he’s imagining the pink on your cheeks.

“Uh,” Steve says, before scrambling off you hastily. He wasn’t sure if he could be so close to you without his face growing warm; or worse, he didn’t want you to be uncomfortable. Though spying your amused expression, as if you’d known the closeness would make him blush, maybe Steve didn’t need to be worried.

“S’just,” you say, words a bit mumbled. “s’lay down on the grass. Y’know, look at the stars.”

You point up at the sky in case Steve didn’t understand. The grass is still cool under your back and your head isn’t spinning so much but you don’t really feel like moving. Something in you knows that your limbs will feel like cinder-blocks and movement will send your head back into a tizzy.

Without thinking, your push your lips into a pout and aim it at him. Steve flops down without argument.

“You didn’t tell me why you ended out here,” says Steve, wanting to keep you talking. He’s not entirely confident you won’t just fall asleep if the two of you lapse into silence.

You swing your neck, head lolling to the side to look at Steve. Eyes narrowed, it’s like you’re trying to see if he’s genuinely asking. Whatever you find in your search must satisfy you, because you speak, rolling your head back to peer upwards.

“O’Connor’s here.” You say, bitterness in your tone. “Then my head started spinnin’.”

Steve watches as you tilt your head back towards him, pulling a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes. “S’now I’m here.”

You’re not sure what convinces you to do what you do next.

Perhaps, it’s because Steve’s expression is tilting too close to pity and you don’t want it; or that you feel lonely enough that you’ll take touch whenever you can, brave enough with the alcohol in your blood to ask.

Or maybe, you just want an excuse to touch him.

“Gimme your hand.” With a gesture of your own, you hold your hand up like you might be asking for a high-five. It wavers, fingers quivering if he looked close enough. After a moment of confusion, Steve humours you.

You feel the callouses first, rough skin scratching against yours as Steve gingerly holds his hand out, letting your press your own against it. It’s warm, warmer than your own and you wish you could twist your fingers until they slotted in with his.

Don’t says a voice in your head, drowned out in the drunkenness. Don’t do this to yourself. Maybe, it’s the voice of reason. It seems you’re very good at building yourself up just to get torn back down.

Hand pressed to hand, you can’t find it in yourself to care about that; you want to touch him, so you ask, and he gives it to you. The alcohol makes it black and white.

You hated him. You did, but now it’s all garbled and wonky and different — and you don’t hate him at all. Not anymore. Every complication you had worked up, all the knots tied in your brain seem to dissolve; hand to hand, it’s easy to admit what you’d been denying to yourself.

“I used to hate you, y’know.”

Steve’s not sure if this will ever get easier to hear. That people he’s grown close to carry reminders, unshakeable memories, of an old ego that still haunts him.

He doesn’t know what to say. He knows you know he’s sorry, that he’s different now. So, he weakly says. “Used to?”

“Yeah.” A smile finds your lips, tugging them up slightly. Steve thinks he could marvel forever at how your lashes kiss in the corner when you smile. It’s aching. “Used to.”

“S’kinda hard to hate you,” you sigh, eyes turning skyward. “I should. You didn’t even remember me a couple months s’ago,”

Steve focuses on your hand against his to deter the twinge in his heart. Your hand is smaller than his and when he curls his fingers, they hug the top of yours. A breath bursts past your lips, loud enough he hears it.

“M’sorry.” he whispers, though he’s said it time and time again.

He doesn’t care; he’ll say it a thousand it times if you’ll keep looking at him like that. Features soft, so different to the glare he’s all but memorised — instead, your eyebrows drawn together like the sight of both your hands, palm to palm, might be the most devastatingly beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

Steve feels you push back against his fingers, a gentle pressure like you’re trying to hug him back.

“And now I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Even while drunk, you can’t look at him while you confess. If you look at him, then it’s real and logic will prevail and you’ll rein everything back in.

Looking at both of your hands, feeling the yearning spool in between your ribs — none of it matters. You like him so much that it feels woven into everything else; weaved into the noises of the party, the black of the night, the grass tickling the back of your legs.

You like him so much it makes you sick.

On second thought, that might be the alcohol.

Steve’s response, whatever it might be, vanishes when you rip your hand away and sit up suddenly — emptying to contents of your stomach into a lovely rosebush to your right. Disgusted with the sudden visual aid to what you had for dinner, you groan. The movement has sent your head spinning again, rotating out of the same orbit as Earth.

Steve’s palm soothes down your spine, rubbing warmth as he murmurs comfortingly.

“Shit, sweetheart,” he mutters, more to himself. “You’ll be feeling it in the mornin’.”

You groan again, eyes sliding shut and tumbling you into darkness.

Fact #8: You’re never drinking, ever again.

You’ll be feeling it in the morning. The last memory of last night curls up like smoke in your head and all you can think is Steve was fucking right.

The sheets feel scratchy as you release an agonised noise into your pillow, coiling in tighter. There’s a pounding in your head, bleeding out of your ears and eyes and you don’t think you’ve ever felt so terrible in your life.

Eyes screwed shut tight, you move slowly and draw your head up. Sneaking a look, relief fizzes in your chest as the recognition of your sheets — you made it home, you’re in bed. Never mind that you can’t quite remember how you got here. A shuffle of your legs tells you, uncomfortably, you’re still in last night’s jeans.

What time is it? There’s sun coming through the gap in the curtains. Daytime. Some sleep-covered murmur escapes you, though even you can’t tell what it’s supposed to mean.

Plopping your head back down, you search your memories. It’s an effort to push past your headache to put together the puzzle of last night. Visions of arriving at the party, of drink number one, and dancing with Robin are clear but sometime after O’Connor shows up they begin to get hazy.

You remember the cool grass. The moon. Steve. God, that’s right, he was there — what you might have said to him is anyone’s guess. Another grainy and fogged memory of puking in the bushes. The rest of the night is locked behind a tequila fueled paywall in your brain

Burrowing back into your sheets, the hangover takes priority and you only hope to sleep it off.

—

The next time you wake, the pounding in your head has shifted to the door.

You can’t have been asleep for more than an hour according to your alarm clock, blinking midday numbers back at you as you drag your head up. Thankfully, a large portion of your hangover has been cured with sleep — otherwise, the unending knocks on your door might be the end of you.

You struggle to speak, aware of your sandpaper throat but whatever gurgle you produce is good enough for whoever is on the other side of the door. Robin, judging by the intensity of their knocks.

Lo and behold, Robin bowls into the room once she hears signs of life.

“What did you say to Steve?”

Oh.

That has you sitting up, wincing at the pain it brings and you nurse your head in your hands. “What?” you rasp out. “Nothing!”

That might be a lie. You wince again, searching through you scrambled memories for what she could be referring to and come up short. Robin can read your genuine confusion.

“Why?” The word comes out a bit shot. You clear your throat. “Did he say something to you?”

“Nothing specific,” Robin grimaces a bit. She’s never been the best at hiding her emotions. “He just— he asked if you’d talked to me. Said he was checking if you were still alive. Which, yanno, thank god you are! He said you barfed in Melody’s mom’s rose bush, which quite frankly is hilarious and—“

“Robin.” you moan, trying to cut off her ramble. “Why are you here?”

Robin seems to remember the original reason she was nearly breaking down your door, body jumping like she’s been zapped. “Right!”

She suddenly seems to reconsider herself, ducking her head and beginning a well practiced pace across your carpet. “I know you said you don’t like him, which I get, I know- he was the worst! But I dunno, you seemed to, like, I don’t know? Warm up to him? I guess, he just seemed real bummed on the phone when I said you hadn’t called me.”

A series of emotions jolt through your nerves, none as strong as the elation at hearing Steve had called to ask about you. You push it down with another groan and fling yourself backward, bouncing on the springs of your mattress.

Hands hiding your face, you mumble the next words as if you don’t quite want Robin to hear them.

“I don’t not like him.”

“And I can’t tell what that is supposed mean.” Her pacing hasn’t ceased. Her arms gesticulate wildly as she speaks. “You don’t not like him sorta, to me, just sounds like you like him!”

“Robin,” you whine, well aware of the way she can read you like words on a page. “What do you wanna hear? That you were right?”

Robin halts her pacing, leaning her knees onto the edge of your mattress. You peek at her through your fingers. She’s looking a little more wide-eyed. “Yes. Absolutely. If my two favourite people in the world could suddenly get along, maybe even be friends, I think I’d like to know.”

“We’re not—”

“But that is not why I’m here.” She’s gone serious, brows raised as her voice turns softer. You nearly think she’s taunting you, a hint of a smile hidden in her expression.

“I’m here to discuss the distinct possibility that you have managed to skip the part where we become a cool trio of friends and have traveled into more than friends territory.”

Damn her. She’s too good, unspooling your secret right after you’ve only just managed to admit it aloud (not that you could remember that thought). Dragging your hands down your face, you groan again — there’s no point in hiding it from Robin, especially when she seems to have you all figured out.

“I’m gonna take that as a ‘wow Robin, you’re incredibly smart and totally right’.” She jibes, looking far too smug.

Perplexingly, she doesn’t appear to care that you confirmed Steve had you feeling gooey inside and weak at the knees. You dredge yourself to a sitting position, blankets pooling at your waist, and regard her with as much sarcasm as you can.

“Wow, Robin,” you drawl tiredly, still a bit catty from your lack of sleep. “You’re so totally right.”

“Don’t forget the incredibly smart part.”

You wallop her thigh with your sleeve, halfhearted and not at all mean. She grins. For a moment, you’re monumentally relieved to be sharing this with her — you’re best friends, talking about a boy you like, back to feeling thick as thieves with her.

“You gotta talk to him though, you know that right?”

A sigh. “Yeah, I know.”

—

By the time you’ve rinsed the last of your hangover down the shower drain, washed down with the suds of your strawberry shampoo, the sun is nearing the horizon.

Droplets cling to the ends of your hair, leaving a trail behind you on the carpet as you don fresh clothes. You try your best not to analyse each piece, shoving down any self-doubts and recalling Steve’s generous compliments littered through the past couple of months.

Tonight. It had to be tonight, you decided. Any longer and you’d lose the nerve, crawl back to avoidance because you’re not really sure you want to hear what you said to him in the garden.

You can only imagine it’s some confusing amalgamation of your complicated feelings — mixed with the amount of alcohol you had drunk? It was a stab in the dark trying to guess what you had said.

The plan you have is half-baked at best. The walk to Loch Nora isn’t far — but if your plan goes south, you’ll have plenty of time to wallow and clear your tears on the walk home. Thankfully, It’s still too early for dinner. You can smell the beginnings of it bubbling on the stove as you creep down the stairs.

As soundlessly as you can, you slip out the front door. Warm air greets you. The sunbeams trickle across the sky, dipping lower behind the horizon and painting soft blemishes of pink and orange across the sky.

The other perk of the walk is that you’ll have ample time to decide what you’ll say to Steve; you can deliberate each word, orchestrated so that it can be played down if need be. Minimal cringe and hurt feelings.

You’re running a few options over in your head when the rumble of a car cruising down your road draws your eyes. With a startle, you realise it’s a familiar maroon colour — a car you’d been in just over a week ago.

You watch as Steve parks, evidently so entrapped in his own thoughts to notice you on the doorstep. He’s messing with his hair anxiously, eyes on the ground and when you look closer, his mouth is moving, an indication he’s talking out loud to himself.

He makes it halfway up the driveway before you stumble out to meet him.

“Steve?” You call out and his head shoots up, a little alarmed to see you. His steps falter, the pair of you met in the middle of your drive.

“Y/n. Hi.” For someone who had come to your house, he seems a bit affronted to be seeing you. Acutely, you realise that he’s nervous. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the road. “Were you— is this a bad time? I didn’t mean to intrude—”

“No!” You squeak. “No, I was just... coming to see you, actually.”

“Oh.” Steve blinks. He ducks his head for a moment, clearing his throat but you still spot the pink on his cheeks. “How’s your head? You’d had, uh, a lot to drink last night.”

There’s only a mild rush of embarrassment to your system, a sheepish grin playing at your lips. “Right. Last night- I’m sorry you had to, er, see that. Or rather, thank you for taking care of me.”

Steve smiles back. One hand reaches up to scratch the back of his neck, a nervous motion. You don’t mean to zero in on his large bicep, tan skin on display with his short sleeves but it’s impossible not to — Jesus Christ, it’s like he’s doing it on purpose.

You smile timidly, willing your cheeks to cool.

“Yeah, about that.” He starts, eyes shifting about nervously. He can’t pick a spot to focus, too nervous to look you in the eyes.

Steve’s been throwing around your words ever since you uttered them to him in the garden. And now I can’t stop thinking about you. Tone so sweet, so sincere, your brows drawn together like it hurt you to admit how much Steve had been on your mind.

His stomach had nearly turned itself inside out at your reveal, nerves flaming and relief coursing at the realisation that it was mutual. You’d been on Steve’s mind since even before you’d given him your softest smiles after bottle smashing, sugary grins over your milkshake, a genuineness you’d never shared with him before — and after? God, it had driven him mad.

But then you’d scampered out of the car like a spooked animal. Stopped coming by Family Video and cursedly, seemed to slip back into an old pattern of ignoring him.

Then, the garden.

God, if you hadn’t been drunk, and maybe if Steve wasn’t so surprised by the sweetness you showed him, he might’ve kissed you.

Holding your palm against his, you might as well have been grabbing his hopes and hoisting them out of the depths — that perhaps, your avoidance stemmed from something different this time round.

Steve takes in your shy expression, bottom lip trapped in your teeth, and prays it’s all for the same reason he’s nervous and not instead, because you’re trying to awkwardly figure out how to tell him it was all the alcohol talking.

“What you said…” He’s trying to be nice to his feelings, on the defence in case he’s so terribly wrong about this. About you. “Did— did you mean that?”

The face you pull doesn’t instill him with confidence, his stomach plummeting at your hesitance. Fuck. He’d overshot, as usual, clinging too tightly to the threads of affection you’d shown him.

“I…” You’re unsure where to begin. God, what did you say?

Steve thinks he can garner what reaction that is; it’s the exact opposite of what his heart had managed to convince him. You went back to avoiding him on purpose. He cuts you off hoping to save himself some awkward rejection, shaking his head and taking a step back.

“Don’t worry. It was— you were drunk,” Embarrassment starts flooding in, a hot uncomfortable flush up his neck that makes Steve want to sink into the ground. “I shouldn’t have— it was weird of me to ask.”

He’s rambling too fast to get a word in. You take a step forward as he takes another step back, worried that he’ll leave before you can even get a word in. Never mind that all plans for orchestrating the perfect thing to say are out the window — you have to say something.

“I don’t know what I said!” You blurt, desperate to halt his retreat. It works; Steve stops, taken aback by your words. Oh God, what now? You debate where to start.

“Seriously, I— Robin came over and was talking about how you’d called and— I-I remember some of last night but it’s a bit—”

“You don’t...” Steve interrupts, giving a confused shake of his head. The wind ruffles his hair, strands dancing over his forehead. “Remember any of it?”

Why does it feel like you’ve disappointed him? Despite your initial wish to not relive whatever you’d said in the garden, you’re suddenly dying to remember. Even now, you can feel yourself combing the hazy memories, hoping there’s a stone you’ve yet to turn. It’s fruitless.

“I remember embarrassing myself by puking in the bushes.” You grimace as you say it, heat rising in your face. You can feel your nerves fraying, heart pounding but none of it in a good way. “Look, Steve, does it matter what I said? I-“

“It does.” He says, voice suddenly lower. It rasps, more serious than before. “It matters if you meant it. Do you?”

He takes another step forward, close enough that you can smell his cologne again. The same comforting musky scent as when he pushed the safety glasses up your nose and tucked your hair behind your ears in the woods together, touch gentle and eyes kind.

“You said,” He breathes, his honey eyes hopeful. “You couldn’t stop thinking about me.”

Oh.

It seems to be a habit of yours; rewinding through your actions towards Steve in the past, heavy with regret. He’d still been sweet, checking on you out in the garden even though you’d left him in the dark for a week. After managing to make you forget the worst date ever.

Then you’d upchucked your feelings, so drunk you couldn’t remember it, and then your dinner too. You were a mess; Steve Harrington made you a lovely absolute mess. Fuck, you’d likely ruined whatever chance at something with him.

But then again, here he was.

Still showing up, enough hope to dredge together the courage to drive over and ask you what it meant.

“I meant it.” You say, softly. You feel captured in his gaze, pulled into his orbit with no choice about it. He’s like the sun, gravity pulling you closer the longer you stand this close to him. Your heart feels like it’s made of jelly, each thump echoing out into your limbs. “I— fuck, you made it so hard to hate you. I used—”

“—Used to hate me.” Steve recites the words before you can say them, amusement in his voice. Some of his nervousness has leaked out, shoulders less tight. You can nearly see a glint of his Harrington charm in the curl of his lips. “Yeah, you said that last night too.”

It’s said to poke fun, teasing you for last night’s loose tongue. You groan, head tilting back. “God, anything else I said last night that I should know about?”

Steve steps closer. It makes your breath hitch, your head straightening up and bringing your faces closer still. You’re not sure where this is going, not sure what he’s thinking, if he can hear the thunder of your heart — he hasn’t even said anything that implies the feelings are mutual.

You vaguely wonder how he knew that your words held more weight than they appeared. He’d been paying more attention than you’d expected; knowing that I can’t stop thinking about you meant more than what was on the surface.

This time, you know him well enough to know that his teasing is not mocking. That the Steve in front of you is not at all like the one you’d remembered from the school hallways, the one who’d thrown around shitty comments, had notches in his belt, and didn’t care who got hurt as a result.

He doesn’t answer your question. Instead, he says, “I can’t stop thinking about you either.”

The world doesn’t stop spinning, but for a moment, it certainly feels that way. Blood rushes in your ears, blooms under your cheeks, and the words sink in. The wind sounds like the sweetest music, the colour spread across the sky is a shade that could only be called love and a boy is telling you he likes you too.

It faintly occurs that the silly teenage daydream you pictured with Bradley — you’re instead getting with a boy you swore you hated not two months ago.

It makes you like him even more.

He’s earned it, your trust, your affection — your kiss.

Wordlessly, you surge forward at the same time Steve does. You clash, gifting each other an awkward headbutt instead of some swooning kiss. Pain splinters momentarily across your forehead, gone after a moment.

You can’t help it, a laugh bursting from your lips. You’re so nervous. It doesn’t deter you, peering up at him with adoring eyes. Somehow, you still manage a tease. “Were you trying to kiss me, Harrington?”

His hands cup your face, fingers tucked under your jaw, and thumbs stroking your cheeks. His own smile barely contained, elation shining in his eyes.

“I will if you stop calling me that.”

He kisses you before you even get a chance to agree.

There’s bliss hidden in his lips, you think happily. Steve kisses soft, plush lips that mold to yours like its second nature, two pieces of the universe aligning.

You can feel the heat of his mouth, the scratch of his thumbs upon your face and you sigh, content, into the kiss because no one has ever kissed you like this.

He kisses you and suddenly, there is no war-torn battle in your mind. Your hands have twisted into the fabric on his shirt, tugging him closer. It’s unbearable. You want him, completely, embarrassingly, and undeniably. You’ll take anything he’ll give you — you want him to give you everything.

When the kiss breaks, it’s only for a moment; Steve presses another, short and gentle, then another, and another, like he can’t handle not stealing another taste of your lips.

“Steve,” you rasp, chuckling a bit. Your eyes are still closed, like you’re worried it’ll all be some dream if you dare to open them. His nose nudges yours, crushing closer to you, unwilling to relent the closeness he’s finally been granted.

“Let me take you out.” He whispers and it’s enough to open your eyes, lashes crinkling as you beam up at him. Steve drops a kiss on your cheek, thumbs stroking with a tender care that makes you shiver. “Please.”

As if you could say no. You give a minuscule nod but your delight is given away in your smile, eyes bright as you admire each detail of his face fondly. “Yeah, alright.”

It makes him laugh, amusement dancing across his features, and God, he looks so handsome you have to kiss him again.

You do, hands escaping the confines of his shirt and twisting around his neck. Steve hums happily, something you’ll come to learn he does whenever you kiss him first. It makes you gleeful, a shot of pure euphoria tipping down your spine. You shiver, wonderfully.

“Just promise me,” you say when you pull back, breathing a titch ragged. You grin. “Not a movie date.”

Steve grins, one hand leaving your face to curl around your waist. It’s warm, heat radiating into your skin.

“Still no faith in me, sweetheart?” He chides, fingers dancing along the skin of your waist, giving away his joy. The pet name makes your knees weak, a flash of a forgotten memory in the garden breaking through.

“Something tells me you’ll convince me.”

Fact #9: The first fact is a lie.

His next kiss feels like a promise; that he’ll do the work to convince you, just like he’d done the last few months. That he’d be more than happy to. You drink in affection from a boy who’s so sweet on you with a happy sigh.

He tastes like sunlight.

Fact #10: You might just be falling in love with Steve Harrington.

taggin sum mutuals below!

@hawkinsindiana @spideystevie @harringtonbf @writtenbybelle @hoesbloated @familyvideostevie @lurkymurker @sattlersquarry @steddiesandwich @circesstars @upsidedownwithsteve @raggedyoldwitch @sunshinehollandd @ohschmidts @appocalipse

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mad4turtles · 6 months

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Can I get some Uncle Tello- Baby/Toddler Casey Jones Jr bonding fluff? Their bond is just so cute and funny to me & I just keep thinking about Donatello "I don't like kids, but if anyone even breathes wrong in Casey Jr's direction I will not hesitate to take someone out" Hamato aka 'the grumpy, protective uncle who grows to love his nephew very much but would never willingly admit it outloud (especially to his twin. Too bad for him Leo most likely already knows. again. twins lol ). Cause I can imagine poor guy had a hard time coping with the fact that CJ can destroy anyone's "emotionally unavailable bad-boy" image with little effort if you give him the time. And Donnie learned the hard way 😂

I am SO sorry this took so long! This prompt is golden and I love it, here you go!

Donatello tolerates children. He doesn't hate them because, believe it or not, there is a difference between the two.

He understands from a logistical standpoint that children function differently from adults. They're still navigating the world, cry when a need isn't met, laugh when you tickle them or someone falls on their face, and put everything and anything within reach in their mouth to figure out what it is and if they can eat it. Most of the time, the answer is no.

Donnie understands that, so he tolerates children. And as the world caves in and he's forced to intermingle with more humans and Yokai than he'll ever see (the numbers dwindle daily, but who's counting?), his tolerance builds. Though his position in the Resistance—Keeping Everyone Alive Under Six Feet of Earth and Limited Oxygen—keeps him cooped up in his lab and limits his interaction with people in general, on the odd days he's not locked in there with a sign that reads 'Keep Out or Get Bit', he'd say he does a decent job. Take that, autism.

It's on one of these odd days Cassandra Jones kicks the door of the mess hall down with enough force to send it flying, holds up a dirty bundle with a squirming thing inside and screeches. “I have acquired a child!”

And that was that.

Well, not really; there was a lot of screeching, demanding, explaining and even more frantic demanding involved. But Donnie barely remembers most of it. He'd been busy staring at the little pink face peeking out from the ragged cloth wrapped hastily around a tiny body, wondering how and why anyone would abandon him.

Logically, he knew why. Babies smell, they're defenceless, needy and loud. All recipes for disaster—death—in the alien apocalypse. Logically, he knew it was better to cut your losses and ditch, lighten the load, ease the burden and raise your chances of survival.

Emotionally, irrationally, he wanted to find the blood mother and kill her himself.

Regardless, Cassandra had claimed him, named him—Casey Jones Jr, of course—and the Hamato's had a new family member.

Cass was a mother, and Donnie was suddenly an uncle.

Cassandra, despite herself, is a great mother. She feeds, clothes, bathes and teaches Jr with the ferocity and vigour she's always had in spades but dipped in a new warmth and love Donnie never would have associated with her. It's unexpected, but Cass wouldn't be Cass if she weren't screwing Donnie's perception of reality in her every waking moment.

April and Raph dote on him something awful with baby voices and whatever toys they find or have donated to them by other understanding and indulgent parents. Mikey cries when he takes his first steps. Draxum gifts him a Yokai necklace made from dragon teeth and scales.

(“He can eat them once his feeble infant teeth fall out,” he explains while stoically cradling the giggling infant on one clawed palm, outwardly indifferent yet impossibly gentle. “They will harden his skin and strengthen his bones to iron. No Krang would dare stand in his way.”

“We are not,” April says, “feeding dragon teeth to my nephew, Draxum.”

“As his grandfather, I should have some say in his dietary requirements. Cassandra agrees with me!”

“I will bury you, Draxum,” April growls in a tone that promises unspeakable violence. “I will bury you deep.”

“... understood.”)

Leo lets him chew on his mask tails while rocking him to sleep. He also cries like a bitch when the little pink thing looks him in the eye, drool dribbling down his chin and his gummy smile miles and miles wide and says—“Weo!”

(Donnie thinks Splinter would have loved him just as much. Shared with him the stories and legacy of their clan, sang to him the same old Japanese lullabies, enthralled him with the tales of Lou Jitsu, everything he'd wanted to do should he ever become a grandfather.)

Donnie doesn't see Casey much. Not by choice, but he's a busy freaking turtle and one-year-olds are notoriously for being loud, distracting little things that Donnie cannot afford, now more than ever.

He knows their chances of winning the war are slim at best and impossible at worst. Hope can only take you so far, crazy mystic powers or not. They've already lost so much of their world. They've already lost Dad.

So Donnie needs to focus, work and keep working so they won't lose anyone else. Anything less than the best possible outcome is not a thread of logic he is willing to follow.

Then there's a knock at his door.

Without turning from his multiple screens, mystic or otherwise, Donnie grunts, “It had better be good—”

Cassandra bursts through the door, blazes across the room, dumps something on Donnie's lap—“HOLD THIS I WILL RETURN SHORTLY SHUT UP AND THANK YOU FAREWELL!”—and slams the door behind her on her way out.

Donnie sits bamboozled in his chair in the aftermath of her whirlwind. He stares at the scorch marks her feet left on the floor, the angle his door sits at after she'd slammed it near off its hinges—

“Ba!”

—and at the one-year-old pink thing she'd left to drool on his lap.

“Oh hell no, hell no—Cassandra Bernid Jones!” he hollers to no reply.

How in the shit could she do this to him?! Why in the shit?!

Junior giggles at Donnie's misery, kicking his bare feet madly and clapping damp hands. He must've had his fingers in his mouth. Joy.

“Cassandra, come back for your child or I will feed you to the nearest Krang Hound!” Donnie shouts. Unsurprisingly, his only answer is more of Junior's incessant giggling. Pudgy fingers reach for Donnie's face and Donnie lifts him higher, further away. Junior shrieks with joy.

Growling, Donnie activates the mechanical arms in his shell to carefully lift the child off his lap as he stands, holding him at a fair distance. The child is delighted by this and kicks harder, screaming with unbridled joy and having the time of his life. Donnie stares, fighting a scowl and a flinch because dear god how can something so small be so ungodly loud?

Donnie wants to smash something. Ironically, the indirect source of his ire keeps that desire at bay, but it doesn't stop him from grinding his teeth.

He's busy running updates on their freaking security system, the only thing keeping the Krang from finding them and killing everything that breathes. Cassandra knows this, everyone knows this, he'd sent them an email about it! So why, in the ever-loving shit, would Cassandra literally drop her child off with the one person who has a history of only tolerating children? Sure it's his adopted nephew, but he can only last so much in the presence of his own blood relatives for Christ—

He doesn't realize he's hissing, a low guttural thing rivalled only by Raphael at his angriest, until Junior stops laughing.

As much as they postured and played with fashion, aesthetics and trends as teenagers, Donnie and his brothers are mutants, and by (non-freaky)human standards, they are not conventionally 'pretty'. And according to many honest human comrades, April included, they can be downright unnerving sometimes. Mostly when they're pissed off, their animal roots seeping through the cracks of the humanity instilled in them by a loving father. They growl, hiss, click and roar, bearing their teeth and snarling like beasts. It's worse for Donnie and Raph, the carnivores of the family and most prone to biting; Raph's size doesn't help, and Donnie has easily frightened some of their biggest and strongest Yokai allies with a flash of fangs or a warning hiss.

It's not something he likes about himself these days. It never bothered him until they were forced to interact more and more with humans who had no qualms pointing shit like that out, even now with literal aliens prowling their ruined world. Still, he's learned to roll with it like he does with everything else.

But Casey Junior looks at him—his peeled lips revealing sharp fangs grit tight in a snarl and a hiss he can't curb fast enough—and he starts crying.

Oh shit.

“Oh shit,” Donnie says, flapping his hands, ire forgotten as panic takes over. “Oh shit, the child is crying and I am the cause. Cassandra will kill me, then Draxum will bring me back as a zombie so Raph can kill me again.”

What the hell does he do? Make funny faces? Pretend to trip over and fall flat on his snoot? Kids love physical comedy, pain is always funny! Or maybe he—or—oh who is he kidding, he's screwed. And the baby is still crying, kicking his feet and red in the face. Donnie lowers but doesn't touch him, biting his lip as his thoughts race. Not even five minutes and he's proven he cannot handle a child. How does Raph do this? How did Dad put up with this for seventeen years—

Oh wait, there's an idea. What did Dad do?

Trick question: Donnie knows exactly what Dad did when they were younger, and eight times out of ten it worked. The problem lies with Donnie and his intense aversion to all things stinky and gross and loud, all of which Casey Jr is.

But Donnie has seen and lived with worse even before the world went to shit. He lived with Leo and Mikey as his little brothers; they piss him off like it's their personal mission, but he loves them so fiercely it's painful. He'd look death in the eye and double-dog dare it to do its worst for them.

This is his baby nephew. He's not been around nearly as long but surely, surely, Donnie can get over himself for him, too.

(Even if he is a busy turtle working his ass off at the end of the world. But family is different. Family trumps everything.)

So Donnie swallows, takes a deep breath, takes Casey from the mechanical arms before dismissing them into his shell—“I'm doing it, I'm freaking doing it—” and pulls Casey into his arms, holding him tight against his chest.

The crying doesn't magically cease as Donnie had hoped, but it dies down into kitten-like sniffles that do—something to Donnie's heart, squeezing and twisting it in a way he hasn't felt since Mikey was this small, maybe smaller. Whatever it is, it compels him to cup the back of Casey's ebony head and press his (grossgrossgross) face into the exposed crook of Donnie's neck.

“Um... there there,” he says clumsily, patting Casey's back with his other hand. “Cease your crying. It's making my knees hurt and my chest do weird, fuzzy things I don't have time for.”

Casey turns his head at Donnie's voice, frighteningly alert.

Hm.

With a claw from his battle shell, he pulls his purple hood up, shielding Casey from the neon glare of his computer screens and LED lights around the lab.

“I apologize for scaring you,” he says a decibel softer. Casey turns his head again in response, still sniffling but significantly calmer. “I am angry, yes, but I am not angry at you. It was unfair of me to show my ire that way, especially in front of you, child who is easily frightened by loud noises and yet is scarily perceptive of the moods of the people around you...”

Casey lays his head against Donnie's shoulder, blinking up at him with big watery eyes. Donnie blinks back.

This is... not awful. It's progress. Progress is good. This is good.

He tears his gaze from Jr's—as deadly a weapon as Mikey's eyes for sure—and sways from side to side the way he used to do for Leo when they were young and scared. He hums a tune under his breath, one from that Ghibli movie about little people; he can't remember the film's name but the song at the end was cute and catchy as it was corny. Even years later, he remembers the words—

“I'm 14 years old, I am pretty. I'm a teen tiny girl, a little lady. I live under the kitchen floor. Right here, not so far from you.”

The sniffles die off, Casey's pudgy fingers grasping Donnie's torn hood, tiny nose buried against cool scales. Donnie keeps going, softly rubbing Casey's back the way Dad would rub his shell during Donnie's worse days. The memory brings tears to his eyes, so he shuts them before they can fall.

“Sometimes I feel happy, sometimes I feel blue. In my dreams O I wish I could... Feel my hair blowing in the wind, see the sky and the summer rain, pick a flower from the garden for you. Beyond the lane there's another world, butterflies floating in the air. But is there someone out there for me?”

By the end, Donnie looks down to see Casey fast asleep, sucking his thumb and drooling on Donnie's shoulder. For a breathless moment that lasts an eternity, Donnie is spellbound, staring at the little pink thing—a biological miracle someone had so quickly discarded on the barren streets of a dying world, a little life that had persevered despite every odd stacked against it, Cassandra's son, Donnie's little infant nephew—he cradles in his arms. For the first time he doesn't care for the slimy drool coating his shoulder, the bacteria or anything his body and brain would outright reject.

Donnie stares at Casey Jones Jr and finally pins a name to the fuzzy feeling in his chest.

Oh.

“Oh,” he says. Jr snuffles in his sleep.

---

When Leo turns a corner to find Mikey, Raph, April and Cassandra huddled outside Donnie's lab doors, he almost turns around to avoid the oncoming storm of Donnie's short temper. The gossip in him wins out in the end as he squeezes between Raph and Cassandra to peer through the crack in the door.

What he sees has him gaping like a fish.

Donatello Hamato—the Resistance's resident genius and hermit—sits languidly at his desk surrounded by screens, one hand tapping away at holographic screens, breezing through emails. The other arm curls around a babbling Casey Jr, grubby hands clenched tight on one of Donnie's old rubber fidget toys as he gnaws on it like a dog with a bone.

“The shipment from Asia's remaining base in Hong Kong should be arriving at the port between noon and sixteen hundred hours tomorrow,” Donnie rambles, eyes scanning a long wall of encrypted mystic text.

“Ba!” Casey cries around the toy, kicking his legs.

Donnie nods with a hum, scratching his chin. “Yes, I agree. Krang activity has intensified alarmingly at the Old Port since the refugee extraction six months ago, but there's no time to plan a safer route...”

“Ba dee ba!” Casey blows a messy raspberry. Not missing a beat, a mechanical arm pops from Donnie's shell to wipe the baby's mouth with a cloth before discarding it.

“You're right, Jr. I suppose there's no helping the matter. We must brief the teams as soon as possible to discuss the matter, rally what factions we have at our disposal—”

“Eeeee!” Casey screeches before bursting into giggles.

Donnie brightens. “Of course! We could send the drones! They're stealthier and won't incur a needless massacre at the hands of psychopathic aliens. If anything, we shall be doing the massacring once I've outfitted the drones with my newest Genius Built trademark mystic weaponry! Excellent idea Casey Jones Jr, what would I do without your added brilliance.”

“Don-NEE!” Casey cries.

“Yes yes, I'll send the email and hopefully one of those dumb dumbs will actually read—wait, what did you say?” Donnie drops the screens and plucks Casey off his lap to stare him in the face with wide eyes. “Did—Did you just—did you just say—?”

“Don!” Casey giggles, wiggling in Donnie's grip. “Don don don don don! Don-NEE!”

Donnie stares and stares and stares. A stupidly happy grin splits his face in two. “Oh my god.”

“Oh my god,” Mikey breathes with a matching grin.

“Would'ja look at that,” Raph chuckles, his smile a proud, fond thing.

“Knew he had it in him,” April nods.

“Which means Leonardo owes me fifty bucks!” Cassandra quietly whoops.

Tearing his eyes away from the horrendously cute picture of his twin and nephew, Leo aims a sly grin at Cassandra. “I would if we still used actual money as a source of income or trade.” Cassandra's grin drops like a stone, and Leo fights an evil cackle that would make Draxum proud. “Cash hasn't been a thing in years, Cassandra dear. Get dunked on.”

“Bite my ass, you di—!”

The door abruptly slides open the rest of the way and they tumble to the floor in a heap. Above them, Donatello stands unimpressed, brow raised and one hand on his hip. Curled in his other arm, Jr babbles happily and reaches for Cassandra.

“Evening all,” Donnie drones as they clambered guiltily to their feet. “To what do I owe this displeasure.”

“Nothing at all!” Cassandra said, shooting Leo a poisonous glare before opening her arms to receive her son. “Thank you for looking after my child, I will take him back now and relinquish you from your—”

“A-bub-bub-bub!” Donnie turns slightly, putting Jr out of her reach. “I have decided that Jr may stay a few hours longer while I run the regular diagnostics and schedule that meeting you no doubt heard about while you were unceremoniously eavesdropping at my still broken door—thank you for that Cassandra, by the way—he is no trouble presently and makes an excellent rubber duck to bounce ideas off. Don't you agree, Jr?”

Jr snaps his head up to beam at Donnie. “Ah!” he says. Donnie's impassive face melts into a rare smile that Leo aches to see. He's not smiled like that since before Dad...

Cassandra's arms flop to her sides. April, Mikey and Raph stare, rendered speechless until April lifts a finger. “... er, Don, are you sure—?”

“Quite sure, Commander O'Neil,” the impassive mask returns, but Donnie's fooling no one. “Now if you don't mind, Jr and I are very busy bees and must get back to work, so begone. And while you're at it, please issue this new warning to the rest of the base: 'I have only had Casey Jones Jr for five hours, but if anything happens to him, I will kill everyone in this base and then myself.' Good day.”

“Goo' 'ay!” Casey chimes and Leo has a front-row seat to Donnie's delighted crooked smirk right before he slams the door shut in their faces.

There's a beat of silence.

Then Raph claps his hands. “So,” he draws out with a strained smile, “who saw that coming?”

“Me,” Leo sings.

“You bet against him!” Cassandra booms. “With non-existent money!”

Leo shrugs, motioning them to follow him down the hall. “Only on principle. I knew he had it in him. Jr is family and Donnie loves attention and family. It was bound to happen.”

“Aaand it was stupidly cute!” Mikey chimes, floating by them with his hands tucked under his chin.

Leo thinks of the tingle he'd felt in his chest hours ago when Cassandra first ditched—ahem—dropped Jr off with Donnie, of the familiar tune from an old, corny yet hopeful film from their childhood humming from the fringes of their Mind Meld, of the glee and soft, new, helpless love bleeding from Donnie's gaze, his smile, as Jr babbled his name.

Leo smiles. “Yeah. Stupidly cute.”

---

Reblogs are appreciated! Feel free to drop more requests! For those of you still waiting, thank you for your patience I will get to them soon! :3 <3

#rottmnt #my writing #rottmnt fic #rottmnt movie #bad future rottmnt #bad future timeline #casey jones jr #casey jr #uncle donnie #i love them with all my heart #they are family your honor

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theghostbunnie · 2 months

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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TALK ABOUT NIKKI AND NERRIS IN THE NEW EP I LOVE YOUR OPINIONS ON EVERYTHING

(bcs they're scarily similar to mine)

TYSM????❤️♥️💕💝 and I always have so many opinions I'm the fuckin yapinator

I was literally talking just the other day about how Nikki has a detachment from feminity as she's literally been reprimanded for doing it wrong before even her two best friends doing an 'eh' with an iffy handshake when she even REFERS to herself as a girl and I do strongly believe it's bc she's at that age where she's learned feminity does equal something shameful or weak, or in her case maybe even thinks it makes you mean and shallow. While SIMULTANEOUSLY still being a young feminist and trying to not have that subconsciously!!! Creates a sort of "it's for others not for me" mentality accidentally bc she's supposed to be Nikki™ and thinks she'll be less respectable, or less herself if she's feminine.

But she's actually been this way in the show before she's willingly wore pink on two occasions willingly, as casted as Juliet, and wearing Indian traditional clothing. (I'd argue even further on the second one as it wasn't given to her for play but she made it!! And it was pretty!!) In the episode Neil and her get stuck in the flowerscouts he just WAKES UP with makeup and a seaweed wig on and I'm firm that like she did that and knows how to lmao. (Further proved by her literally doing her own makeup in this episode)

But back on topic yeah when she was enjoying herself until she realized ofc her worries weren't upfront exactly "oh no I look girly!" It was oh no I look like a FLOWERSCOUT, a "type" of feminity she's tried to push away from bc she associates it with a specific type of woman, and worries who she is as a person if she likes this.

I hope the fandom takes this episode as Nikki being a more rounded character instead of like, just erasing her masculine side or something :/

Bc most importantly; Nikki's expression of feminity in this episode *wasn't performative* she was doing it by herself for how it felt

ONTO NERRIS

I love their character ok like everyone in camp campbell is an asshole in their own way and their own degree, and I know early fandom liked to demonize the hell out of Nerris but I actually love how their character flaws compared to the other campers way more just scream "child" to me. They do shit and I go "yeah this is definitely a character acting immature with not a full grasp of their actions" and it's cute in a way to me idk!!! Like girl that's someone's DIARY WHY DID YOU POUR YOURSELF SOME JUICE AND KICK YOUR FEET AND GIGGLE READING IT YOUR SO SILLY ! Nerris often prioritizes themself in selfish ways but also in very childlike ways so yeah reading someone's diary because they connect with them and gain a little crush on them through that is adorable, esp jumping straight to "is this LOVE?"

Nerris liking girls- also something!!! Hinted towards in past episodes!! ((Nikki too some people call It "just admiration" but she literally has blushed at Ered and called her "my baby")) Nerris' scene where they're profusely sweating asking Ered to hang out with them i want to say could be a sign she has a crush on her too, but honestly? I'd be more inclined to believe the "it's just admiration" argument more here, I could see it going either way.

NERRIS WITH NIKKI THOUGH, IN NIKKI'S LAST DAY ON EARTH, Does that god modding type play little kids do where they narrate what they want to happen and get huffy when the other kids don't play along, which again back to my previous point of Nerris honestly being a small time offender compared to most the cast and also adorable.

But specifically she was trying to lowk boss Nikki into running into her arms and to me that's always been🫵🤨🏳️‍🌈⁉️

So I find it really funny how Ered, a character most the fandom hasn't really paid attention to or been a favorite or anything, always gets HC'd as a lesbian (often just for the jokes, or because her parents are gay, or because she's colored hair pronouns and skateboard/hj)

Absolutely no hate to the HC itself I'm sure there's someone who loves her character alot who has it but sometimes you can kind of tell when most are just slapping labels on characters they don't care about, and Ered out of the three of them is the ONLY one who hasn't shown cannonically interest in girls??? 😭 Like most of the cast, hasn't in anyone or any gender!! Nerris and Nikki have been exceptions in that, and now it's even official for Nerris!

Nerris and Nikki have cannonically only shown interest in girls. Unless some specific brief scene is slipping my mind atm/gen

ALSO GONNA TALK A LIL MORE ABOUT ERED BC I LOVE HER also need to specify the difference between a hc and a theory RN as I know it's very likely not cannon but the fact Ered doesn't know a lot of "being a woman" or periods (like an alarming amount missing for someone 14 ALSO CAN I GLOAT A LITTLE BIT ABOUT BEING RIGHT SHE WAS 13 IN S1-S4 !!??? OTHER PEOPLE WOULD SAY LIKE UP TO LIKE 17 SOMETIMES) (also context it's bc she says "other freshmen" and freshmen are 14-15.)

You could argue she simply is a late bloomer but girl you yelled at the word uterus like you simply can't understand 🏳️‍⚧️🫵🤨⁉️⁉️ and "what happens at NIGHT TIME??" like the whole conversation gave me the vibe she only knew things on a surface level and wanted to know more simply to be included!! I also wanna point out Ered never says anything that could confirm or deny she even gets one, just that Gwen thought she did, which could've been assumption or simply the wording she chose to phrase.

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joesalw · 4 months

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This year was an eye opener for me.. I do like her music but the way she acts, woah. I genuinely liked Joe and was a bit sad when they broke up because i thought they fit each other well, but boy am I glad they're broken up seeing how immature she has been acting and how mature he has been. You've a 35 year old woman who's embarrassing herself just to get back at her ex (not even her most recent ex, i still remembermatty scandal) and for what?? To make him feel jealous??? To make him feel bad about leaving her??? Its sad that so many of her swifties who are legit adults would bully another person for not wanting to marry and have babies with their queen instead of coming after genuinely horrid people who have done wayyy worse (including their global warming queen), but no, they only care about blondie and how she has been wronged by her exes because she and her BFF selena are the ultimate victims. It's so funny how they "care" so much about their queen who let's bffr doesn't give two shitsabout them individually. I just saw a swiftie talk about all the things taylor has been through in Brazil and all saying no one deserves it, and while it surely is bad to have someone die at your concert, but yk who has been through more??? Ana's loved ones, all those affected by the wars going on in the world and like the people getting affected by her pollution, its winter but I had to carry a hat on an outing w my friends because its unusually hot here and while I do have empathy for some of the bad stuff she has gone through like being groped, all my empathy does tend to vanish when she willingly associates w sa apologists or uses private jets to get some dick.. if she was a nobody acting so childishly, it wouldn't have mattered so much but she literally has a huge impact with her actions, as spiderman movies once said, with great power comes great responsibility, ig blondie only wants the power and none of the responsibilities.. its kind of disappointing considering I once looked up to her but nvm so many of her fans are so tired of her, especially us poc.. a few of the swifties ik are also tired of her shenanigans since she started the Joe hate train and dated matty..

#anti taylor swift #joe alwyn #swifties dni

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shovelknightofficial · 2 years

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How does the SK cast handle tax season?

Interesting question! Hopefully this answers your concerns about the Shovel Knight world's tax season, Shoveler!

• Shovel Knight: Deals with it normally, as in, begrudgingly.

• Plague Knight: The IRS does not go anywhere near the Explodatorium.

• Specter Knight: Specter Knight is actually still alive, just slowly rotting. However, he's still a thief at heart, and he swears to the IRS that he is undead and therefore doesn't have to pay taxes.

• King Knight: King Knight creates taxes… that nobody pays. He pays someone to do his own self-made taxes in an attempt to convince people to pay his taxes, however, this fails miserably and he only loses money as a result.

• Shield Knight: Shield Knight is a repeat tax evader. Sometimes Shovel Knight tries to convince her to pay taxes, but she is often too busy adventuring or being the Enchantress to care.

• Black Knight: Black Knight pays his taxes, and does it competitively, attempting to pay twice as much as Shovel Knight does.

• Propeller Knight: Propeller Knight is a sky pirate, and thusly the IRS has a hard time catching the Flying Machine, since it can, y'know, fly.

• Mole Knight: Mole Knight is actually happy to do his taxes and has even taught his moles how to do their taxes.

• Treasure Knight: He's rich so he takes as many tax breaks as legally possible. Treasure Knight also does all of the Order's taxes. One of the few people who actually understands taxes.

• Polar Knight: Polar Knight does not understand taxes, and nobody, not even Treasure Knight, is bold enough to ask him for his taxes.

• Tinker Knight: He takes advantage of tax write-offs for business expenses most of the time, but he doesn't use any legal loopholes and does everything inside the system.

• Enchantress: The IRS does not go to the Tower of Fate anymore.

• Baz: The Baz does not have income and therefore does not have to pay any taxes.

• Reize: Dependent. He doesn't pay taxes.

• Mr. Hat: Mr. Hat is a wanted criminal and thusly he also doesn't pay taxes.

• Phantom Striker: Phantom Striker is retired and lives off of his pension, but he still does a good turn and pays his taxes.

• Mona: She begrudgingly paid them in secret, making sure that Plague Knight did not know. After the destruction of the Tower of Fate, everybody realized forcing anyone who is associated with Plague Knight to pay taxes is a horrible idea, and thus she no longer pays her taxes.

• Dark Reize: He does the Enchantress's taxes for her. Willingly.

• Goldarmor: Goldarmor has a lot of tax write-offs but does theirs normally.

• Dragonarmor: Like Goldarmor but cooler.

• Liquid Samurai: They all file their taxes together in perfect synchronization. They also joint file.

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theconstitutionisgayculture · 1 year

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If you’ll humor a poor elderly 28 year old for a bit, I’ve been mad for the past few days and I’d like to vent to someone. The newest Fire Emblem game came out, and since I’ve been Touhou-dodging spoilers, I only just recently looked up the actors for the game. And I found out that they replaced a long-time voice actor for a staple character (Anna), and people were celebrating because the actress is conservative (and like not even VISIBLY conservative, she doesn’t talk politics at ALL) (1)

(2) So people are celebrating her being replaced, right? Well her replacement actress is a “Believe All Victims” woman who suddenly decided not to believe all victims when it was revealed her fiancé is a twice-divorced domestic abuser who has recorded threats of killing one wife’s dog and threatening the other (or the same one, details are fuzzy) that he’d beat her with a TV remote. And she actively defended him and is still engaged to him. (2, I swear 3 will be the last one)

(3) And I know this is a phenomenon that we KNOW is hypocritical bullshit, but I still feel compelled to ask: how are people so vitriolic over someone’s politics that they’d willingly take someone worse? Like… I absolutely don’t care about someone’s politics, so long as they’re not assholes. One of my favorite actors who has a sexy-as-fuck voice is one of those far-left types, I could not give less of a shit so long as he’s not a douchebag or a literal criminal.

First off, exCUSE you with that elderly 28 year old crap. As a 35 year old who just got over turning 30, you shut your youthful, radiant mouth. Enjoy your 20s. Be grateful each day to be further away from your teens.

Now to your actual ask, lol

I'm gonna be making some of assumptions of motivation here, because I can't actually read minds, but for most of these people, it's seems to be because nothing matters more than The Cause. The thing is, The Cause is always changing. Sometimes, The Cause is general left wing politics. In that case, they'll usually ignore or excuse things like abuse or misogyny if they had already previously supported the person accused of those things against an Evil Conservative. (see, Joe Biden killing #MeToo, Bill Clinton raping Juanita Broaddrick, Ted Kennedy and the Car That Wouldn't Stay Out of the Water, etc). Sometimes, The Cause is feminism, in which case being a Democrat or a liberal who does the Wrong Thing might not protect them if they're a man. (See, Johnny Depp) Sometimes The Cause is transgenderism, is which case it doesn't matter how feminist or left wing you are, you must be destroyed for not enthusiastically supporting every aspect of trans rights activism or even associating with anyone who doesn't support every aspect of trans rights activism in even the most tangential ways (see, JK Rowling, Mark Hamill, TERFs in general).

The left, especially the socially conscious left, love eating their own. Their entire movement revolves around punishing the guilty and obsessively checking themselves and others for thoughtcrimes. That kind of frothing mob mentality doesn't leave much room for common sense or self-reflection. Which is exactly what the people at the top pushing these ideas want.

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madcatdaderpydrawer-blog · 1 year

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do the others ever actually realize how fucked it was that they were blaming Moon so much? Does Moon ever forgive them? Cuz frankly I don't think I would, I'm not sure if I'd feel safe trusting them to actually help if I got into trouble like that a second time after being treated like garbage the first time.

The animatronics did gradually start to realize, though it was months after the fact that the realization started for most of them. I'll be talking about the main band here, as Sun is a whole other category in of itself and is far more complex and this post is already very long. They were all pretty shaken up themselves, and in general the lack of stability from when everything was still haywire still remained. In a way having someone to blame just made things simpler, and Vanessa wasn't around anymore. The one most involved in her plans was Moon, and Moon is also the one who while infected was the most passionate about the role. For some reference even the other infected animatronics were wary of Infected Moon because of his strength, temper, and cruelty. Infected Moon was seriously bad, probably the worst infected animatronic and even before the others got infected he still left a mark when he was on his patrols with his cruelty and generally enjoying to make people scared. Just stating this to make it very clear that Infected Moon was not a good person, nowhere near it, and he had a lot of involvement in Vanny's plans as he was her right hand man so to speak.

People like Roxanne and Monty felt somewhat betrayed as well, because if he had done his job none of them would've had to suffer. Roxanne held a grudge against Moon for a long time because she felt that he could've stopped her plan before anyone got hurt if he just did his job correctly. Meanwhile Monty just felt really hurt that Moon helped spread the virus, even if he wasn't entirely in his right mind when he did it. He knows that he wasn't but it still hurts and he still feels like Moon betrayed him.

Honestly it took really long for them to separate Infected Moon and Moon, as Infected Moon was such a wicked cruel person. He left a nasty mark, and they couldn't really process that Moon was a victim too because they kept associating him with Infected Moon and his actions.

Moon was very conflicted when they started trying to make it up to him. On one hand, he didn't want to accept it. They'd been villianizing him for weeks while he himself was struggling to cope with the trauma he'd been put through. Hell, they made it actively harder for him to handle his emotions. But at the same time, he knows why they blame him for it. He understands Roxanne's point and blames himself for it too, and thinks that it was irresponsible of him to not report it the moment he felt something was wrong. if he'd done that no one would've had to suffer. And he has Infected Moons memories he knows just how awful he had been acting, and understands that it would leave some scars. He also gets why Monty feels betrayed because infected or not, Moon still willingly doomed them all to the same fate by spreading it to them and making sure it went through. She didn't force him to do it which makes him feel even worse about it, even more like he was the one to blame. Though really she didn't HAVE to force him to do it; All she had to do was know her audience. She knew by then that Infected Moon is a spiteful control freak whose majorly jealous of mainly his brother yes but also of the band for being treated as if their so much more important. It really wasn't that hard to convince him to find a way to put the program in them so she could get them on their side, especially with offering him to be in charge of them. The idea of instilling some amount fear in the oh so important golden children of the company with the strange program that they don't know how to control while also being in a position of power over them once it did finish was something he would never refuse.

Sorry for rambling, Infected Moon is a very fun topic to discuss lol. But anyways eventually he would try to forgive them. It would take a very long time though.

#fnaf security breach au #redemption au #post infection #fnaf vanny #fnaf vanessa #daycare attendant #fnaf moon #moondrop

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practically-an-x-man · 2 months

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1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, and 16 for Jasper, Eris, and Nikoletta? :)

Oooh thank you!!

Answers under the cut for space :D

Edgy/Misc OC Asks

What memory would your OC rather just forget?

Jasper: The sensation of Kyle's death through their empathic sense. Sometimes they wonder if it would be easier to have just seen it, but they'll always be plagued by how it felt to have all his emotions just completely cut off like that.

Eris: Honestly... they have very few regrets. Either things turn out alright or they don't. The closest would be seeing Rick get stabbed by Peacemaker, since that's the closest he ever came to dying and it scared Eris like nothing else, but even that they were able to mostly brush off once they were assured he'd be okay.

Nikoletta: STAR Labs. Anything from STAR Labs.

2. What's something about your OC that people wouldn't expect just from looking at them?

Jasper: That they're a nurse - they're a punk with dyed hair and tattoos, who's usually covered in bruises from roller derby. Who would guess that they spend their life administering patient care?

Eris: That they're as old as they are. His features do look a little off, in a sort of "undistilled" way since she was born so long ago, but he still mainly just looks like someone from Türkiye or Egypt, vaguely in their thirties, and people wouldn't guess that they're actually centuries old.

Nikoletta: Probably her relationship with Abner - neither the fact that it exists, or how it takes shape. Especially after Belle Reve, she comes off as extremely stern and powerful and aloof, and I feel like people would never expect to see her being soft with a sorta-awkward guy like him (even though she's very happy and in love)

3. What is your OC's fatal flaw? Are they aware of this flaw?

Jasper: They can't let go of connections they make - meaning they'll stick with a friend even if the friendship is toxic, they struggle to cut off their homophobic parents, and they take peoples' criticisms of them harshly. This can be a good thing at times, since they'll be an incredibly loyal and caring friend and would never consider betraying/cheating/etc., but it also means they can be stepped on.

Eris: They're too careless about life. Others, yes, we all know they're not afraid to be ruthless, but even with themself - he'll push his healing factor to the absolute brink of its limit, and someday it might get her killed for good.

Nikoletta: She struggles to trust people. She's let Abner in, of course, and most of the other members of the Squad (Corto Maltese was quite the bonding experience), but outside that half-dozen people? There's nobody she can rely on. Even with the people she does trust, she still wouldn't leave her drink unattended with them or leave the apartment unlocked for them to stop by - not because she doesn't like them, but because Belle Reve has broken her trust so completely that she can't bring herself to willingly put any amount of her safety in their hands (except maybe Abner, and we both know it took a lot to get there)

4. When scared, does your OC fight, flee, freeze or fawn?

Jasper: Depends on the situation. If someone else is in danger, they're trained to jump into action (from being a trauma nurse). If it's themself in danger, their instinct is to freeze.

Eris: Fight! That's Eris' response to a lot of things, actually...

Nikoletta: By instinct, fawn, but she's trained herself to be combative instead.

9. Do you have a specific lyric or quote which you associate with your OC?

Jasper: Hold the Line by Toto

It's not in the words that you told me It's not in the way you say you're mine It's not in the way that you came back to me It's not in the way that your love set me free

Eris: Weapon by Against the Current

I seem fine But I can't take the highs and the lows All I am is a weapon (weapon) I shoot 'em down 'til I end up alone

Nikoletta: Whispers by Halsey

"This is the voice in your head that says "You do not want this" This is the ache that says "You do not want him"

10. What's an AU that would be interesting to explore with your OC?

Jasper: Hm... I could see a role-reversal AU being interesting, good premise for angst, but for something lighter it could be fun to try out a florist/tattoo parlor AU (since Jasper likes tattoos and heavier stuff, and I could see Kyle taking the florist role)

Eris: Not really an AU since it would fit in the main fic, but I wouldn't mind writing more of Eris' escapades throughout history. I guess if I wanted to make it an AU it would be a reincarnation AU - like they keep running into various humans that they end up getting close to, every hundred years or so, with the idea that it's always Rick's soul finding its way back to them?

Nikoletta: Hm... maybe a fantasy AU, or like a witch-and-wizard thing? Like Nikoletta is a shadow witch, and the other members of the squad are different types of magic-users (Nanaue is a demigod, Cleo is a druid, etc.)

16. What is your OC's pain tolerance like?

Jasper: Reasonably high - they're a roller derbyist, they deal with a lot of bumps and bruises, but I think they're better at dealing with blunt pain (like bruises and sprains) than sharp pain (like cuts)

Eris: Pain? What's pain? They've literally been eviscerated before, pain is nothing.

Nikoletta: Not as high as you might think - she can sustain a lot of discomfort (being cold, hungry, etc.), but she tends to avoid outright pain if she can

#my friends!!!#answered asks #ask game #my ocs #jasper wilson #oc eris #nikoletta bordeaux

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hchollym · 2 years

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I read your post about Percy being a spy during book 7, it makes sense perfectly and many people believe it also (except the fact that if he was, why Rowling didn't clearly tell it? because of time restricted? Voluntarily, like something she intentionnaly hiden?) I just wanted to add two little things which i have never see people point out, and who may support this theory: Percy had become a departement director after the war, we didn't have more information about this but it's likely that he was one of the youngest departement head ever, if not the youngest. From the little we know and can feel, he seem to be a respected man in the reformed ministry. I am not convinced that he could have accessed to a very hight position if he had gotten along, even if it was by obligation, with the voldemord government (and people don't pay attention but we are even free to go as far as imagine that he become minister since cursed child is evidently not canon and JKR know it), despite having participed in the battle at hogwart. He may have fake his loyalty and end up with "the good guys", but he had still been associated for months with the last minister and this had chances to have limited his career perspectives. I may have totally wrong, but i tend to thinks that his hight position after the war can also be a argument. Another thing is that we can wonder what he tells to Aberforth exactly for him to believe and had confidence in him (obviously he totally had, otherwise he wouldn't have call him for the battle). It's possible that they had acquaintance in common who have assured him that Percy was truswhorthy, but we don't know. But i doubt that Percy just arrived and say "hi, i am the son of Arthur Weasley, the one who had deserted and was assistant to Fudge and Scrimgeour, i want to go back to my family but i can't, can you call me if something happen? It's possible that it was that and not go further (they just talk and Aberforth understand him), but i think that Percy had give him some guarantee other than that. It's very obscure anyway. What do you thinks?

Sorry for the long post, i hope you read me until the end of this!

I love getting longs posts like this, because I enjoy reading other people's perspectives, so no worries! 😄

I don’t think it matters much that Rowling didn’t specifically say that Percy was a spy. She had plenty of “ghost” or dropped storylines in the series, and even after the 7th book, she left quite a few unresolved story arcs. She also didn’t tend to focus too much on the plots involving minor characters, so I feel like Percy being a spy is just another one of those things that she ultimately didn’t want to waste too many pages on.

I agree with you completely about your first point. After the series ended, Rowling said, “Percy ended up as a high-ranking official under Kingsley.” What’s interesting though is that she also made the statement that, "Any Ministry officials who knowingly and willingly went with Voldemort's ideologies during the time when the Ministry was under his control were sentenced to Azkaban." So what exactly is considered ‘willingly’? It’s incredibly vague, because it would be hard to prove whether someone went along with the Ministry because they wanted to vs. they were afraid of the consequences if they didn’t (especially since law enforcement didn’t regularly use Veritaserum in questioning suspects due to its limitations).

Percy was working directly with the Minister of Magic while it was under Voldemort’s control. He would have gone along with everything the Minister did - on the surface anyway - and would have been involved with the new laws based on the deplorable ideologies (more so than many other officials in the Ministry). Frankly, if he wasn’t a spy, that would have been enough to sentence him to Azkaban, regardless of his involvement in the final battle (because one good deed does not exonerate someone from past war crimes). So the fact that Percy didn’t go to Azkaban and became a high-ranking official instead is very telling; it implies that Kingsley had no doubts about his loyalty before the battle, which would only really be possible if Percy was proven to be a spy.

I also agree that Aberforth would have needed to trust Percy in order to risk contacting him. If Percy were actually aligned with the Death Eaters, then Aberforth would have given him full access through a secret tunnel to Hogwarts and the people opposing Voldemort. In that situation, Percy could have led all the Death Eaters inside in a surprise attack and the battle would have been over before it began. Aberforth needed to have at least some assurances that Percy was not a traitor.

As you said, it’s possible that he came to that conclusion after having a conversation with Percy, but I tend to doubt it. Aberforth was rather cynical and not overly trusting. I think Percy proved himself in some way (such as passing on vital information) in order for Aberforth to directly reach out to him. Also keep in mind that Aberforth was likely contacting as many allies as possible - Percy was only one person (as opposed to a big group of people that could have joined them), and yet Aberforth took the time to specifically let him know what was happening. That implies that there was a stronger connection between the two of them than just a quick conversation about loyalty.

You made some excellent points, and thank you for sharing them! 😊

#percy weasley #percy weasley defense squad #spy percy weasley #ask me #anonymedasilva #hp #my thoughts #my headcanons #aberforth dumbledore #kingsley shacklebolt #post-canon

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lizardrosen · 9 months

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Hamlet Liveblog 2011, ACT TWO

I found a notebook from college when I went through the text of Hamlet line by line, and now I'm sharing the best parts! Act One

Act II, Scene 1

People who deserve backstory: - Reynaldo - Polonius current Will: I have always been exactly this way, omg

2.1.64 "by indirections find directions out" - theme of the whole freaking play! Polonius is maybe not as much of a fool as he seems. Similar to Hamlet pretending to be mad

2.1.88-89 "he fell to such perusal of my face / As a would draw it" - he wants to remember her as she is before he loses it - and he knows he will

Why stage it like this? Perhaps it is more effective to see his madness through the eyes of someone else

2.1.100 "This is the very ecstasy of love, whose violent property fordoes itself" - now he believes that Hamlet loves Ophelia and that it's killing him to be repelled like this (Perhaps it is)

Act II, Scene 2

2.2.6-7 "Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man / resembles that it was." - what people see and what Hamlet contemplates

2.2.28-29 "Put your dread pleasures more into command / than to entreaty" - Rosencrantz doesn't understand why the majesties are not following the status quo - are they on friendly terms? He doesn't know

2.2.70 "Never more to give the assay of arms against your majesty" Does this mean Claudius has no more foreign relations to deal with? Now Shakespeare can move onto what he really cares about: the domestic/internal stage. current Will: This was partially correct! I was drawing a connection to Othello and Macbeth, where the foreign armies are defeated offstage very early on and never really come up again, and it's true that Fortinbras becomes less of the focus for a while, but he's still a threat on the edges of the play.

2.2.93-94 "Mad call I it, for to define true madness, What is't but to be nothing else but mad?" - You'll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what madness is, or you'll avoid the question and never know if you're insane or not. In short, this place is a madhouse.

2.2.139 "He is a prince, out of thy star" - again with the celestial spheres and orbits!

2.2.160 "I'll loose my daughter to him" - she's a tool or plot device

2.2.174 "for if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog" - what does this have to do with honesty? When there's no integrity, lies grow easily; or a cute girl in the public gaze gets pregnant and diseased

2.2.201-203 Polonius: Will you walk out of the air, my lord? Hamlet: Into my grave? Polonius: Indeed, that's out of the air. Hamlet is considering his own mortality, but Polonius turns his comment into a joke

2.2.209-210 "You cannot take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life" Hamlet is tired of Polonius and his mindless words, and he's also still thinking of death, so he wants to die and finds it fitting that Polonius would be the one to kill him

2.2.215 Guil: My honored lord (formal) Ros: My most dear lord (impulsive and trusting)

2.2.234-5 "Denmark's a prison" - Hamlet's bound by fillial duty to seek reveng, and he needs to watch as his uncle slips into his father's throne and sheets "Then is the world one" - Rosencrantz is trapped by trying to figure out where he is and why, so he has no free will, no reference point, besides Guil, who's just as confused but more upset

2.2.242-43 "I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams" Okay, there's a lot of stuff here - hints of claustrophobia; wants to be king somewhere; is it the infinity of space that gives him the dreams, or would he already have them? universes within universes, relative sizes, and the suffocating distance between electrons nutshells associated with fairies and Queen Mab, which is appropriate since she blows men's dreams way out of proportion

(and then I tried very earnestly to analyze the whole "a dream itself is but a shadow" dialogue, but mostly through the lens of coming up with headcanons for Ros and Guil, which is not a very good critical lens actually, and twelve years later it makes approximately zero sense, so I'll spare us all)

2.2.256 "In the beaten way of friendship" - it's like a beaten path, so longstanding, but also maybe just there out of habit and no real affection; or beaten like broken down and in disrepair because he doesn't trust them and has bigger things on his mind

2.2.262-63 "Come, deal justly with me" - genuinely hurt that they don't tell him the truth, also perhaps an order to obey "come, come, nay, speak" - in some versions he actually says 'knave', which belies his claims of friendship earlier "What should we say, my lord?" - Guil is hurt by this; maybe Ros was gesturing and trying to communicate something, or he was trying to figure something out. Anyway, Guil was jolted into the present and remembered about delving

2.2.271 - "by the obligation of our ever preserved love" - Hamlet uses their prior relationship (may be present still) to pressure them into telling him everything. He might not really value them anymore and is jealous of the love they bear each other, (and wonders why he can't have the same with Horatio)

Question: Would R&GaD have gone any differently if they knew about the ghost?

2.2.282-290 He knows that man and earth and sky are beautiful "majestical" creatures, but can't feel it and sees it all as "this quintessence of dust"; "What a piece of work is man!" Is he admiring mankind (in theory) or is he judging R + G for being sneaky? Or mocking them because they have no "apprehension" at all? (well, fear, but no understanding)

2.2.439 "like a neutral to his will and matter did nothing" - unable to think or act, like Hamlet hesitates to just kill Claudius

oh, interesting, I thought that the Hecuba speech was foreshadowing for Ophelia losing her mind after Polonius is killed, and not Hamlet being preoccupied with Gertrude's reaction to her husband's death! I think this has to be because I was unfamiliar with the Pyrrhus and Priam story

The Player can stir up passion in himself for a fictional character, but Hamlet can't do anything with his real motive. All people are characters for him, so he can sympathize with any of them.

2.2.550-51 "If a do blench, I know my course" - somewhat overreactionary (sic), but better than not doing anything; of course Hamlet can make himself see anything (see Othello's "ocular proof")

#hamlet #polonius #ophelia #claudius #rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead #act ii scene 2 is Very Long #i left out a LOT of stuff that's either basic or uninteresting but there's still just So Much

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 2 years

Text

The Power of Storytelling: Listen Closely

listen nonny i wanna put the full ask here but it's so long so i'm just gonna link it here

Read on Ao3 Masterlist

Warnings: none for this part

Pairings: anxceit, can be platonic or romantic you decide

Word Count: 3864

It’s easy to fall into a routine; Tobias won’t attend every one of Invoq’s shows—there’s only so many times he can be in a place of such sensory levels, after all—but without fail, he will wait at the tree outside the tent for Invoq to emerge before escorting him to the tavern for a drink. Invoq will tell him about what went especially spectacular about that night’s performance, Tobias will respond with gentle jibes about who he’s managed to scare this time, and they’ll happily drink until the tavern gets too overrun by drunks to hear each other.

Pepper remarks about how close they seem to be when he goes to pick up his bread. “You and that magician have gotten awfully cozy with each other, haven’t you?”

“He says it’s good to have a friend in the towns he stays in,” Tobias says as he picks up a sack of flour, “I’m simply offering my services.”

“Mm, and since when do you offer services without expecting anything in exchange?”

He indicates the sack he’s carrying and Pepper snorts.

“You don’t pay for my bread anymore, boy.”

“At your insistence!”

“Yes, ever since I learned you were paying me double what the rate should be.” She wags a floury finger in his direction. “And don’t think I don’t notice you sneaking coins into the mason jar when my back is turned.”

He raises his hands. “If people found out I wasn’t paying—“

“Pshaw if people found out, they’re the ones who helped me insist, you stubborn boy. You’re the one who can’t stand the idea of unpaid debts.”

“Well, my lady,” he grunts as he hefts another sack, “when you earn a living the way I do, I’m afraid some things can’t be avoided.”

“Which makes it all the more interesting that you’re willingly associating with a man whose career is fooling people out of their coin.”

Tobias’s head jerks up. “That is not what he does.”

“No?” Pepper perches her elbows on the table. “Is that not what street magic is? Fooling your senses and when you’ve been fooled, demanding coin for the fooling?”

“People pay to see what impresses them, Invoq impresses them.”

“You know his name too?”

“It’s on the flyers scattered about town. I read.”

Pepper laughs, reaching out and patting his shoulder. A puff of flour lingers where she touches him. “I’m just needling you, poor boy.”

“Hmph.”

“I’m glad Invoq has a friend such as you,” Pepper continues, softer now, “someone to show him around and keep him out of trouble.”

Tobias snorts, setting down the sack of flour and dusting his hands off. “I don’t think I could keep him out of trouble if I tied him down and held him at knifepoint.”

“Hm, no, and he’d probably enjoy that.”

Tobias splutters. “Pepper!”

“What? Is not part of his act daring escapes? He’d probably figure out how to make an act out of it.”

Oh, that’s what she meant.

“Really, boy, he’s good for you.” Pepper claps him on the back. “It’s been too long since there’s been someone in town to focus your attention on for more than a day or so.”

“I always have time for you, my lady.”

“Point that somewhere else,” she scolds, shooing him out of her back room, “I’m far too old and far too tired of your nonsense.”

“I’d never dream of calling you old, my lady.”

“Out!” She shoos him away, still smiling. “Out, out, go practice on your magician!”

“Your magician?” Of course Invoq has to be right there. “What’s this I’m hearing, is there another performer competing for your affections?”

Tobias sighs, putting his package over his shoulder and shaking his head. “Pepper likes to needle me about things.”

“She’s old enough to be your mother, I believe that’s her job.”

“Grandmother, perhaps.”

Invoq slaps him on the arm. “Have some respect! She isn’t old enough to be your grandmother, you scullion.”

“Of course, of course, how rude of me.”

“I can still hear you both,” comes Pepper’s voice from inside, “get off my stoop!”

“Apologies, my lady.”

“Right away, my lady.”

“I’ll sic the cat on you!”

“Oh, shit,” Tobias says, grabbing Invoq’s hand, “we really should go. I don’t want to tangle with Winston.”

“Winston?”

“Little black menace. I swear he knows how annoying he is and makes it a point to be more annoying than you think he’s going to be.”

Invoq chuckles. “The mighty sellsword, bested by a fur ball.”

“He’d shred your sequins and leave you in a pile of fabric and glitter. I wouldn’t test him.”

“I wouldn’t need to,” Invoq smirks, using their joined hands to tug Tobias closer, “I’ve got a big strong sellsword to protect me.”

“You’d have to hire me to get me to protect you from Winston.”

“Oh?” They come to a stop near the fountain. “And how much would that cost me?”

“More than a drink, that’s for sure.”

Invoq pouts—he totally pouts—and looks down at him. “What, no discount? Not even for me?”

“If I went around giving discounts out to every pretty face, I’d be poorer than a piece of wood.”

Before he can blink, Invoq’s leaning way into his space and he’s sitting on the edge of the fountain with the grinning man looming over him.

“You think my face is pretty?” A gloved finger runs along his cheek. “Coming from you, that’s quite a compliment.”

“Come on, that can’t be the first time someone’s told you you’re pretty.”

“No, but it is the first time it’s coming from someone as pretty as you.”

“Oh, so that’s why you want to hire me,” Tobias sighs, “you just want to look at my face.”

“Don’t be so modest,” Invoq says, “the rest of you isn’t bad to look at either. Perhaps I should hire you as my assistant.”

“I don’t think sequins really suit me.”

“You’ll never know until you try it. I’ve got an—oh!”

Invoq suddenly topples forward and only Tobias’s quick reflexes keep them both from toppling into the fountain. It does have the unintended consequence of Invoq landing a bit awkwardly in Tobias’s lap, but there are worse fates.

“Sorry,” the children holler behind them as they keep running down the road. Tobias rolls his eyes and helps Invoq sit back up.

“Are you okay? They can be kind of oblivious about their surroundings.” Only then does he realize Invoq’s gone red. “Invoq? You okay? Are you hurt?”

Invoq blinks up at him, his lips slightly parted. “Y-yes, yes, I’m—I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”

“You sure? You look a bit…flushed.” He reaches up to feel his face only to grin when Invoq lets out a small noise. “Oh, I see…”

“Shut up.”

“What, you can dish it out but you can’t take it?”

“Don’t quote me at me,” he grumbles, fidgeting a little only for Tobias to hold him tighter. “Hey!”

“Don’t want you falling in,” he says softly, sitting him back up slowly, “easy does it, there we go.”

“Get off of me,” Invoq all but whines, still blushing furiously.

“Actually, you’re the one who’s on me, Invoq.”

“Let me go, please.”

Tobias lets him go without further protest, looking to where the kids ran off to give Invoq a moment to get himself together. “I wonder where they were going in such a hurry.”

“No idea. Maybe we should ask?”

Before they can get up to figure it out, however, another group of people walk down the street, a little less explosive than the kids but still muttering excitedly to each other.

“It’s been so long since he’s come back!”

“I know, I’ve still got memories of the last stories he told.”

“You think he’s got new ones?”

“I hope so, I’d love to hear what else he can come up with!”

“Oh, but I miss hearing the old ones! I hope he does both.”

“I can’t wait!”

They watch as they make their way down the road too, before Tobias whistles, long and low.

“What,” Invoq asks, “do you know what’s going on?”

“I think Conras is coming to town.”

“Who?”

“I’ve never seen him,” Tobias says, shaking his head, “I’ve only heard from him. Apparently, he’s this really old storytelling that lives over the valley’s edge. He only comes once in a blue moon.”

“He’s just a storyteller?”

“Well, according to Pepper, he’s the best storyteller she’s ever heard. All the kids love him, or they love his stories.”

“If he doesn’t come very often, how come they remember him?”

“Because they grow up with his stories and when they’re older, he still recognizes them when he comes back. Or so Pepper says.”

Invoq hums. “And he’s supposed to be coming tonight?”

“I think so.” He turns to him. “What do you think, interested?”

“I don’t have a show tonight,” Invoq agrees as they stand, “I suppose it can’t hurt to see my competition.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure he won’t be nearly as sparkly as you.”

“Hey!”

Tobias is certainly right, the place where people gather for Conras isn’t nearly as opulent or formal as Invoq’s tent. Instead, there’s an old fire pit that looks like it hasn’t seen a spark in decades and a collection of logs around it. It’s quite near the forest’s edge, something Tobias gives a quick once-over before settling near one of the outermost logs. Invoq takes a seat next to him, forced to press against his shoulder as more people sit. It’s far from the worse seating Tobias has ever been forced into.

“How do we know he’s coming,” Invoq murmurs, “I didn’t see any flyers.”

“There never are any,” one of the townspeople whispers back, “but one of the shoemaker’s daughters said she saw him coming this afternoon and told the whole town.”

“He always comes at sundown like this,” another says, “so if he’s coming, we’ll know in a little bit.”

“I see him!” One of the children gets up and darts into the treelike, quickly followed by half a dozen more. “Conras! Conras!”

“Easy, my little ones,” an old voice laughs as a figure begins to emerge, “I am not so strong as you, I must take a while.”

An old man, a weathered and worn cloak about his shoulders, comes into the dusk near the fire pit with the children flitting eagerly about him. He reaches toward the singular stone at the apex of the curved logs and one of the little girls helps him find it.

“Ah, thank you, my dear. I’m afraid my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”

“That’s okay, Mr. Conras,” she chirps, “we can see! We’re happy to help.”

“So kind, my dear.” He pats her shoulder. “Well, shall we light this fire so I may see all of your faces?”

Someone strikes a flint and steel and the fire catches, revealing a kindly old face with bushy eyebrows, a gently sloped forehead, and eyes that dance with the flames. Conras looks around at the townspeople, greeting a few of them and teasing the children that scurry closer to sit on the ground near the bonfire.

“Mind you don’t get too close, now, my dear, your dress is far too lovely.” He urges a few of them further back, a few of them closer to avoid the worst of the flames, before he lays his staff to the side. “Well, now, I’m sure you didn’t drag yourselves to the edge of town just to hear an old man mumble to himself, did you?”

“We came to hear your stories,” the children cry and he laughs.

“Then my stories you shall hear.”

He shifts and the night quiets. Even the bonfire snaps and crackles quietly as he draws a slow breath. When he speaks, his voice is low and hypnotic, coaxing them closer even as no one moves.

“When the sun was young and the grass was just learning to grow, there was a tree that grew and grew toward the sky, reaching its branches into the air as you would spread your fingers. This tree grew close to a small family of people, whose houses were made out of stone and wood, so seamlessly it was as if they grew out of the ground.”

Conras shifts, holding his hands out in front of him.

“The smallest house could fit in your hands, just like this, and the people who lived inside them learned to listen to the earth to shape it, to build their houses and grow their food and live their lives.”

“How do you control stone and wood,” one of the children asks, “isn’t it impossible?”

“For these people, no, it was not. And they did not control it, they simply learned how to ask it for what they needed. All of this was taught to them by the tree, and their parents, and their parents before them. Trees are very wise, you know, it is important to listen to them.”

The children nod.

“But as all trees do, sometimes, they have problems. And this tree, which had sustained this family for so long, had begun to grow weary.”

“Trees can get tired?” Another child shakes their head. “I didn’t know that.”

“Anything that loans itself out to help another grows weary,” Conras says, “and for this tree, who had loaned bits and pieces of itself over many generations, it was very weary indeed.”

He shifts again, his hands coming to rest on his knees.

“And for this family, who had lived in the shadow of the tree so long that they had forgotten how much it taught them, did not realize why the tree began to droop, and they did not notice when the sun’s light began to grow brighter.”

The grove is quiet.

“One day, one of the children walked outside and asked his door to open for him. And he was surprised when it would not open. He tried again and again, asking and asking, but he could not do it. So he asked his sister, who could not open it, and he asked his parents, who could not open it. None of them could ask their door to open, and they did not know why.”

“Why?”

“Patience, my little one, I will tell you.” The flames dance around Conras’s figure. “They got outside by climbing out of their windows, thinking perhaps that something had stopped the door, only to look around and realize that no one had been able to come outside. They helped everyone climb out their windows and they all puzzled about why things had stopped working.”

Conras cups his hands in front of him.

“You see, the tree had taught them how to ask so long ago, but they had forgotten that something you must expect when you ask is for the answer to be ‘no.’ And so, because they had all lived so long with the understanding that if they asked, they would receive, they did not know what to do.”

“Does that mean they were never able to get inside their houses ever again?”

Conras smiles down at the little girl. “No, my dear, they were able to fix their doors so they could get in and out. But they could not build anything new, and so they decided they had to talk to the tree and make sure it was fixed.”

“Did it work?”

Conras merely smiles and continues. “The little boy asked why they couldn’t ask the tree if it would be fixed. After all, that is what they had been taught. And all the village elders were consulted and they said yes, the little boy will go up to the tree and ask for things to be better. He would ask what to do, how to learn, and he would start the cycle of learning anew so something like this would never happen again.”

The dark settles around the campfire as Conras speaks.

“So the little boy asked the tree what he might do to make it work again. And he was surprised when the tree said nothing. Please, he asked, my family doesn’t understand. What did we do? Why won’t you help us?”

Shadows lengthen around Conras. The children shuffle.

“And the tree showed him. It showed him how tired it was, how hurt it was, and how weary. I am old, the tree said, I am old and I am tired and you could not understand how much it hurts to keep giving like this.”

“But…but the boy did understand, right?” One of the children raises their hand. “And was able to fix it?”

“If a tree spoke to you, would you understand it? And would you know what to do to help?” When the children shake their heads sadly, Conras nods. “No, the little boy heard, but he could not understand. But he was only a boy, and the tree older than his great grandparents, it was not his fault that he did not understand. And so the boy cried there, under the tree, and the salt in his tears made the leaves turn toward him, for a tree has no arms and cannot hug a crying child.”

Several children scoot a little closer to each other.

“But a family always has arms to embrace a crying child, and so the child’s cries summoned the family up to the base of the tree and they listened as the child wept and told them about how the tree hurt. And while they could not understand why the child was crying so, they understood that their problem would not be fixed by asking the tree for help.”

Conras pauses. The wind rustles the leaves. One of the children hiccups. “So what did they do?”

“The boy was exhausted and fell asleep at the base of the tree. The tree and the boy rested there, for several moons, as the family began to try and live their lives without the help that had been there for their entire lives. And the boy slept, and the family lived, and the tree rested. It is always good to rest.”

The fire flickers as if to agree.

“And one day, when the sun was high, the tree asked the boy to wake.”

Several children gasp.

“The boy opened his eyes as a new flower bloomed before his eyes and he smiled. He reached out and touched it and the dew rolled onto his hand. The tree looked down at him and told him we have rested, child. And he asked the tree if he could have the flower.”

“Did the tree give it to him?”

“Does he get the flower?”

“The tree gave him the flower and he ran home to show it to his parents.” Conras smiles. “And they thanked the tree for taking such good care of their little boy while he rested.”

“What happened to the tree, Conras?”

“What happened to the family?”

“Oh, I couldn’t tell you,” Conras sighs, “I am far too old to remember every tree’s story.”

And just like that, the hypnotic trance is broken. The townspeople rustle back and forth, murmuring to each other. The children rush to huddle around Conras, asking for more, more, more, and he laughs softly.

Invoq stirs and frowns. “That…wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“No,” Tobias agrees, “me neither.”

“It wasn’t a particularly happy story, was it?”

“Not really.”

“It was good, though,” he muses, “I’ve never been so entranced by a story before. The way he spoke, it was like I could see it, even though there’s nothing to see.”

“Mm.”

Invoq nudges him. “Not pleased?”

“I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“What’s wrong with a simple happy ending?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” Conras says suddenly, startling the two of them, “a happy ending is as good an ending as another.”

He looks up, gaze latching onto Tobias’s with unerring accuracy.

“Though I have a feeling that is not all, hmm?”

Tobias shrugs. “Feels a little…hopeless to me, that’s all.”

“Hopeless?” Conras tilts his head. “The family learns how to live, the tree learns how much it is appreciated, the boy asks for something and gets it. It is a story of compassion, of healing.”

“But it didn’t work the way it was supposed to.”

Conras laughs. “I believe you’ll find that life very rarely works the way it’s supposed to.”

“I guess.”

Conras looks at him, eyes roving over his form. Something about it is unsettling, and yet…and yet. “I would suppose you like a story with a bit of a gentler resolution, hmm?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something where all the tree wanted was to be acknowledged, or the boy sleeping miraculously made everything work again, or that the boy was the one to bring the magic back, hmm? Something where the hero emerges unbroken, hmm?”

He shifts. That had been what he’d been thinking.

“I understand,” Conras says gently, “especially when the opposite is so often true for you. A story is good to help you work through the things you can’t in reality. And yes, there is something appealing in someone seeing your worst side, your worst self, and choosing to believe in you anyway.”

His gaze sharpens.

“And something appealing about something far stronger than you shouldering the burden, protecting you, so that you know what it feels like to let go for a second.”

Tobias’s breath catches in his throat. Next to him, Invoq tightens his grip on his hand. But then Conras looks away and the murmur of the townspeople swells once more.

“Conras, will you tell us another story?”

“Of course, my dear, have I told you the one of the moon and the stars?”

Virgil crawls into bed that night and stares at the ceiling. What was that all about? The story was creepy, and weird, and not at all happy, no matter what that storyteller said. Even if he was really good at telling stories and all the other ones were much happier and even funny, that didn’t make the first one good too.

Even if it was right and he hit a little too close to home. Even then.

…how did he know all that? There’s no way it could be that obvious, right? No, no, Tobias isn’t even real, he’s a fictional character. He’s someone Virgil made up. It’s fine. Virgil’s fine.

…he really hopes Conras isn’t going to be at the ball.

Janus sits on the edge of the bed and tugs at his gloves. The stories ring in his head as he tries to get ready to go to sleep, but Conras’s voice still whispers in his head. Lessons, bits of wisdom, snuck into the spaces between words. He thinks of how much Conras was able to tell about Tobias just from how he reacted to the story, and he thinks about what the Imagination might be able to tell about him.

And he resolutely does not think about what the lies and stories he chooses to tell say about him and what the other’s reactions to them say about them.

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