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solarmorrigan · 6 months

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For the dialogue prompt, how about “What happened doesn’t change anything” for either Steddie or Newmann?

Thank you!

Hello hello hello I finally have something for you! I chose Steddie for this one, since I was on a roll. I hope this suits!

[post-S2 Steddie AU; CW: Outing, transphobia, some internalized transphobia; soft ending guaranteed, though]

When he sees Hagan meandering over towards them in the parking lot after school, his queen bee tagalong, Perkins, in tow, Eddie knows nothing good is going to follow. The way he feels Steve shift beside him says that he suspects much the same. The rest of the Hellfire guys, all gathered around Eddie’s van, talking and joking before heading home, have fallen silent.

It’s a small consolation that Hagan isn’t trailing Hargrove; since putting Steve in the hospital (briefly, Steve always interjects) last November, Hargrove has mostly given him—and the members of the Hellfire Club, once Steve had been taken into their fold—a fairly wide berth. Hagan, however, has had no compunctions about hassling Steve whenever he gets a bug up his ass about something, and he’s only become nastier since he started toadying for Hargrove.

So Eddie expects trouble, but he hadn’t expected–

Hagan starts small, crowing about how Steve has finally found his rightful place: among the freaks. Steve doesn’t give anything away, no displeasure, no anger, just bored indifference – the same mask he’s always hidden behind (the one Eddie had learned pretty quickly to see past, once he knew what to look for). But Hagan pushes.

“I guess the freaks already have a king,” Hagan snipes, cutting a glance at Eddie, “but I’m sure he needs a lady to rule by his side, right, Stevie?”

It seems like an unoriginal sort of dig—calling Steve a girl, how creative—except Steve goes pale. The mask slips, showing wide and frightened eyes for just a moment, but for Hagan, who’s known Steve for years, it’s long enough. He knows he’s hit something good.

“Do all your new little friends know, Stevie-boy? What makes you fit right in with them?” Hagan glances around the group, apparently enjoying the fact that if looks could kill, he’d be dead four times over. Then he leans in and practically spits at Steve, “Do they know that they got into your pants, you’d be less of a King Steve and more of a Queen Stacy?”

And that does it – shatters Steve’s mask so thoroughly that he actually takes a step back, staring at Hagan with a kind of disbelieving betrayal frozen on his face.

The full meaning of the words hits Eddie about three seconds before Hagan hits the side of the van, one of Eddie’s hands fisted in the front of his t-shirt and the other held firm at the base of his throat – not hurting, exactly, but heavily implying that he could.

Eddie doesn’t even have to reach for one of the many theatrical voices he uses to rile people up or cow them into submission; he’s so thoroughly taken by a type of rage he hasn’t let himself give into in a long time that his tone comes out perfectly threatening all on its own.

“If you ever repeat what you just said to another person, I will find out, and I will make your life a living hell,” he hisses.

Somewhere behind him, someone—it might be Jeff, though Eddie isn’t sure—clears their throat, and when Eddie tosses a glance over his shoulder, he finds the rest of Hellfire standing firm at his back (even tiny underclassman Gareth, with his arms crossed and the meanest look on his face the poor kid can muster).

“Ah, my apologies,” Eddie says as he faces front again, flashing a manic little grin, “we will find out. And we’ll ruin your life, Hagan. Same goes for your girlfriend.”

Perkins, who had been standing off to the side as the snickering peanut gallery right up until Eddie had pinned Hagan to the side of the van, makes a choked noise of offense that goes entirely ignored.

“Tell me you understand, Tommy-boy.” Eddie punctuates the command with a flex of his fingers near Hagan’s throat, until Hagan reluctantly nods, and Eddie releases him. “Glad we’re in agreement.”

Hagan and Perkins hightail it the other side of the parking lot, leaving them be with nothing more than a nasty look from Perkins, but no one is much in the mood to chat after that. No one really knows what to say – except Steve, who offers a quiet thanks to the rest of the guys and, having caught a ride in with Eddie that morning, then asks to be taken home.

Even with the radio playing quietly as Eddie drives, the atmosphere in the van feels silent and stifling.

Asking Steve if he’s alright feels like kind of a ridiculous move. Eddie wouldn’t be alright if he was in Steve’s position – hell, Eddie’s not alright. He’s pissed. But from the way Steve is sitting rigidly in the passenger seat, staring out the window like Eddie is driving him to his execution, Eddie’s anger—even on his behalf—isn’t what he needs right now.

Slowly, Eddie forces himself to let it go (for now, at least for now) and follow the familiar roads home.

It feels perfectly natural to simply head back to his place, where they’d been planning to go before that shitshow of a confrontation, though the surprise on Steve’s face when they pull up to the trailer says that he’d thought otherwise.

“You could’ve just taken me back to my house. I wouldn’t– I’d get it,” he says, and Eddie frowns at him.

“Did you want to go back to your house? We can hang out there if you want, I just figured…” Eddie tilts his head regarding him carefully. “You seem more comfortable here.”

Steve stares at him for a long moment, blank and uncertain, before he breaks back into motion with a shrug. “Okay,” he says, moving to get out of the van.

They head inside and nod a quick hello to Wayne, who looks like he’s just woken up in preparation for his shift, and then they go straight back to Eddie’s room. Eddie’s bag goes on the desk, but Steve’s goes by the door. Eddie sits down on the bed (admittedly one of the few places to sit, but also an invitation for Steve to come sit next to him) but Steve – Steve hesitates before leaning up against the wall, by the door with his bag, arms crossed and gaze cast towards the floor.

He looks ready to run at any moment, and Eddie sighs. This thing between them is new – so new that they’ve been afraid to put a label to it, dancing around each other uncertainly for months before sharing their first kiss barely a month ago. They’ve spent almost every available moment since with their hands on each other in some way or another, though Steve has been a bit skittish about moving past making out (Eddie had thought that maybe it was the unfamiliarity of being with another guy, but he thinks he might have a better understanding of the picture now).

Eddie doesn’t want to break things by pushing too hard, but somehow, he thinks leaving it unaddressed would be worse.

“Look, we don’t have to talk about it,” he says, watching Steve, though Steve still isn’t looking back, “but if you want to…”

Steve shrugs. “I wasn’t hiding it from you,” he says, finally glancing up at Eddie. “I mean, I was, but not– I was going to tell you.”

“You don’t owe me any kind of explanation,” Eddie says.

“You would’ve found out eventually, either way.” Steve lets out a sound that suggests he may have been trying to laugh. “But it was – I should’ve been the one to tell you. That was – that was mine to tell.”

A little bit of Eddie breaks as Steve’s voice does. He’s almost vibrating with the desire to hold and to reassure, to go over to where Steve is standing, still propped against the wall, practically curling in on himself (trying to make himself smaller), but he’s not sure how well it would be received. He tries words, instead.

“Steve, I’m so sorry–”

“That was the one thing,” Steve snaps, anger tearing across his tone, “the one thing Tommy would never touch, the one thing that was off limits, even he knew– and he just–” As quickly as it had come, the anger goes, taking Steve’s energy with it. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and lets his hands slide down to cover his face; when he speaks again, he sounds small. “I wasn’t ready.”

Eddie couldn’t keep himself from crossing the room if he’d tried – though isn’t trying, after that. He’s up off the bed and into Steve’s space before he’s even realized, and it’s probably only his proximity that allows him to hear what Steve says next.

“I’m not ready for things to change between us.”

“Steve,” Eddie says, low and careful, “what happened doesn’t change anything.”

Steve pulls his hands away from his face with a derisive little huff of a laugh. His cheeks are red and his eyes are bright; he’s not crying, but it looks like a near thing.

“It’s – like, I get it. You’re fully into guys, and I’m…” He waves his hands down at himself, sharp and frustrated. “Most people wouldn’t call me a real guy, if they knew.”

“Since when am I most people?” Eddie asks. “You say you’re a guy, you’re a real guy, fucking end of. Anyone who thinks otherwise can fuck off.”

Steve scoffs, rolling his eyes, clearly trying to hold back a much more emotional reaction, and Eddie chances resting his hands on Steve’s shoulders. Steve doesn’t move away, even eases a little into the touch when Eddie starts circling his thumbs at the skin right where his shirt collar ends.

“You don’t have to believe me right now,” Eddie says softly. “But I like you, Steve. I like you, andI’m gonna stick around and prove it to you.”

Something about the declaration makes Steve’s eyes snap right to Eddie’s, searching, anxious and cautiously hopeful, and Eddie lets him look. Whatever he’s after, maybe he finds it, because he uncurls from himself a little after that, just enough to lean in for a hesitant kiss that becomes much more certain when Eddie himself doesn’t hold back.

Eddie pulls Steve back over to the bed after that, poking and prodding him around until they’re both settled, Eddie’s back to the pillows and Steve’s back to Eddie’s chest (Steve’s never said as much, but Eddie’s gathered that this is one of his favorite positions to cuddle in; he doubts if Steve’s spent much time being the little spoon).

“Tell me something else,” Eddie says, once he’s got his arms wrapped securely around Steve’s waist.

“What?” Steve asks.

“Tell me something that you want me to know.” Eddie leans forward to press a kiss to Steve’s temple. “Anything.”

For a moment, Steve is quiet, thinking as he traces absent patterns over Eddie’s forearms. “I could tell you why I picked Steve,” he says finally.

“If you want to, I’d love to hear it,” Eddie says.

“It wasn’t because it was sort of close to my… old name. That was actually kind of a coincidence.” Steve lets his head fall back against Eddie’s shoulder, the tension that’s been wound through him for the last hour finally starting to ease. “Steven was my grandad’s name.”

“Yeah?” Eddie prompts softly.

“Yeah. My mom’s dad. I used to spend a lot of time over at his house when I was a kid. Before he died. I kind of got the feeling he liked me more than my parents did.” Eddie gives Steve a squeeze around the middle. “But he used to tell me all these stories about fighting in World War II. Probably not very age-appropriate, now that I think about it, but at the time I really ate it up.

“He didn’t really, like… glorify it, I don’t think? He just kind of told me what happened, good or bad, and whatever the story was, I always thought he sounded, y’know – strong and brave. And when I wanted to pick a new name…” Steve shrugs against Eddie. “I kind of hoped he wouldn’t mind sharing his with me.”

“Bet he’d be honored,” Eddie says, giving Steve another little squeeze.

“Some days I’m not so sure,” Steve says quietly.

“Well I am. I’ll just have to stick around and prove that to you, too,” Eddie says decisively.

Briefly, Steve’s hands tighten where they rest on Eddie’s arms. “I like the sound of that,” he says, and Eddie turns so he can press another kiss to the side of Steve’s head.

“Good,” he says. “Me too.”

#221expressions #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #transmasc steve harrington #stranger things #does this make a whole lot of sense? probably not!#is it some really soft hurt/comfort though? yes.#tw outing #tw transphobia #solar wrote #answers from solar #this is the last fic for this round of prompts but I'll have a few more soon I hope?

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jounosparticles · 6 months

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reply to the tags of your reply to my previous ask: PLEASE RANT TO ME ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP!!!! i want to hear. they rot my brain too and im glad that i found someone who's also suffering the suegiku takeover

OKAYOKAY YAY!!!!! this will be fun >:)

a huge suegiku analysis:

okay in the last ask you mentioned how tetchou stabs jouno for fun and sillies and stuff which happened to make me think a lot about how tetchou acts decently different around jouno than others.

tetchou is typically rather formal in the way he acts in a way? as in he's very straightforward, generally composed and calm in his words, and polite to anyone he's dealing with.

an example of this is when he still treated the cafe owner kindly despite him being an "accessory to terrorism" in jouno's words.

basically, in most situations, he remains very composed. even when he's up to his sillier antics (like when he was watching ants or doing pushups during a meeting). he's direct and straight-faced almost always around most people. he doesn't act that way to be seen as silly, it's just who he is (and i love it).

i would imagine he could act this way for many reasons. it is most likely him being professional, likely as a reference to the irl tetchou who had samurai lineage; making him act with the tone and professionalism of samurai.

despite his professionalism, maybe he has difficulty being expressive around most people, or maybe he doesn't want to be expressive around people by choice.

but this is where he's different around jouno.

firstly, i'll talk about the times he's stabbed jouno. this has happened twice, and both were to de-escalate jouno from his tendancy to mentally torment people.

the wording in these panels implies this is a regular occurrence. which is a little funny to me hehe.

anyway, we see by the way that he acts around others that usually he de-escalates situations by talking first instead of acting. he will turn to violence if he believes it's needed, but typically he talks first. we see this when he confronts kenji verbally before attacking.

yet with jouno he doesn't bother to tell him to stop first, instead opting to jab him. remembering that the hunting dogs have enhanced physical strength, a small stab wound probably isn't a huge deal for them.

because of this i think the stabbings are tetchou partially teasing jouno. him messing around like that isn't something he does with anybody else but he seems to enjoy pissing off his partner.

also. stabbing him directly in the ass? gay as hell. jouno following up by saying "don't poke my ass every single time" implies that his ass specially gets jabbed a lot. hmmmm

anyways

another example of this is when tetchou smirks/chuckles at jouno insisting that he's the greatest hunting dog. the small laugh was most definitely to bother jouno.

mmmm theyre both so pretty.

once again, tetchou pushes aside his composed self and being intentionally silly only really happens towards jouno.

arguably, this can be shown again in the pushups scene.

tetchou acting unbothered and then calling jouno's weight "just right" while he continues to exercise seems like a combination of him trying to (jokingly) annoy jouno as well as his tendency to not acknowledge his own actions as bothersome or odd to others.

anyway to sum up this segment: tetchou is only seen intentionally bothering and teasing jouno and nobody else. he acts much differently towards others but seems to let his professional guard down around only his partner. this shows a great layer of trust and comfort between the two!

oh. but im not done talking about this. not at all.

the other huge display of emotions for tetchou was everything that went down with kenji.

as displayed throughout most of tetchou's appearances, he's incredibly justice-orientated. he has a tendancy to put justice above everything. here's a couple panels showing this:

ooog tetchou is so pretty. i love that left panel so much

using his own logic here, he should have went after bram after having found him. tetchou even admitted that, but there was one other thing more important to him than that. jouno.

starting here, this panel takes place after bram and aya escape. at this point, tetchou had assumed the agency was using bram to control people; meaning it wasn't just kenji he technically had business with at that time.

i will also preface this by saying the book's influence likely had an impact on tetchou attacking kenji before they could finish talking.

however, the book's writing didn't stop tetchou from insisting on finding jouno before taking down the agency. his worry towards jouno's whereabouts made him change his stance on justice as well as deterred him from prioritizing taking down the agency.

now that he's talking to kenji, i'd like to start it by showing that he seemed genuinely grateful and happy when kenji initially offered to help him find jouno.

as well in the anime, his eyes soften when kenji offers to help.

after talking to kenji for a brief moment, he opts to attack instead of continuing. this seems out of character for tetchou; he even apologized to kenji before saying he needs to find jouno as quickly as possible.

the fact that he apologized, combined with how we've seen him treat people in the past shows that this isn't typically what he resorts to.

also, in the anime we can see the gloss his eyes slightly shaking as he says this line, which could display worry, sadness, or anger towards whatever could be happening to his partner.

he seems almost distraught, which is a huge contrast to his typically-composed self.

and, of course; there's the fact that mid-fight tetchou had to tell kenji that jouno is a good person despite what people think.

he looks genuinely sad here, as if he's speaking from his heart. jouno has very-clearly put up a tough exterior that he uses around everyone, but tetchou goes out of his way to defend him even when he absolutely doesn't need to.

he could have stayed silent or just said he wants his coworker back, but he insisted on stating that jouno is a good person.

it's also important to note that nobody else tends to speak kindly of jouno, which puts a lot more depth on their closeness to each other. tetchou sees through jouno's words and actions and knows that he is heavily misunderstood.

and of course, we have tetchou directly saying that he will place jouno above justice despite knowing what the right course of action should have been.

he is putting jouno above the very thing he basis his career as well as his morality on. that's how worried he is. that's how much he cares.

and in this panel, we see he's extremely angry towards kenji's lack of response.

lets compare this to the first time tetchou fought the agency.

in chapter 61, when he was fighting the agency alongside jouno; he kept a more menacing/intimidating look as he attacked. when he was not attacking, he kept calm-looking despite being pissed off. compared to when he was fighting kenji in chapter 100 and looked infuriated. even the different fonts used for the dialogue puts further emphasis on this.

now, i'm going to jump ahead to the end of tetchou and kenji's fight. tetchou recognizes his mistake and asks kenji to kill him.

it's important to note that his reasoning as to why he should have chased justice was because he doesn't think jouno would have condoned his choice.

he specified it again, even opting to call jouno his friend. also note how white his eyes are here, meaning his intent was pure and he genuinely felt awful for misjudging what jouno would have wanted. he cares so much that he was asking to be killed for misunderstanding what was the correct course of action.

and then after kenji insists on helping him find jouno instead, he smiles in relief before the two pass out.

one last small note is that we've only ever seen tetchou smile three times throughout the manga so far, and all of them were mentioned here and involved jouno.

to sum it all up: tetchou, who is typically very composed and justice-orientated, is willing to throw aside his entire stance on justice for jouno. he lets his professional guard down around his friend, allowing them to tease each other and be silly as well, which he doesn't appear to do around others often. this shows that the two have a close bond and genuinely care so much about each other.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

as for jouno, i don't have as much to say however there definitely is a few things i'd like to touch on.

firstly, despite claiming to hate tetchou a lot, jouno still uses a respectful honourific (-san) whenever he refers to him. i'm not a japanese speaker so please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong but there's a good chance jouno would opt to not use an honorific at all if he genuinely detested tetchou as much as he claims.

and when it comes to teasing, jouno does it much more often than tetchou does (however he also messes with more people, it's just a personality difference between the two).

clearly with the way they act around each other, jouno does not actually hate tetchou. i think they like to bother each other by play-bullying.

also, noting on jouno's criminal past, he was given an easy oppurtunity to be thrown into the DoA where he could be incredibly powerful and would likely not face any consequences for his actions had he joined.

we know he declined fukuchi's offer because he found joy in saving innocent people. but i would the influence of the other hunting dogs helped set him into that place of mind. tetchou seems to be the one he works with most, so there's a good chance he takes a lot of inspiration from how tetchou handles justice.

another thing i noticed with jouno is that his displaying of emotions is almost an inverse of how tetchou acts. jouno keeps smiling a lot despite who he's speaking to. in contrast, he can keep a straight face when interacting with tetchou a lot.

of course, that could make it seem as if jouno is unhappy around tetchou, but i would argue it's the opposite.

some people will force a happy expression to appear unassuming or kind (or in a lot of jouno's cases, intimidating). so him allowing himself to maintain a straight face around tetchou could mean that he is comfortable enough around him to not feel the need to express everything. he doesn't need to keep his guard up around tetchou.

jouno almost always keeps a very happy or calm composure around enemies, likely as an intimidation factor. yet he allows himself to express frustration and annoyance around the hunting dogs in general, and most often with tetchou. i'd like to imagine this just shows his security in his partner.

jouno talking to an enemy, for reference ^ i also just really love this page hehe

the last thing i'll mention here is a lot of speculation on my behalf. however i think that jouno seems like the type to push away those close to him. i kind of perceived his supposed hatred towards tetchou to be a combination of joking around as well as possibly a defense mechanism to try and avoid keeping people close?

my main reason in stating that is that he's claimed to not like any of his coworkers yet still opts to not betray them and still works well with them. if he truly hated tetchou, he probably wouldn't allow them to work together. he likely says such things to avoid being liked too much, and these actions proved to work since tetchou acknowledged that everyone sees jouno as cold.

yet through all that tetchou still knew he was good despite the exterior, which makes them well-suited for each other.

anyways: i feel like these two really do treat each other much differently than they treat the other people around them. that puts a lot of emphasis on their bond and closeness in general. they can be silly around each other, they can get through arguments no problem, they make a great team, and clearly care about each other a ton! they mean so much to me <3

i love my sillies :)

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