“Floyd, could you sing to me?”
The big brother looked up from where he was tucking the blanket under Branch’s feet. “Sure thing,” he said with a light smile. “What would you like to hear? A lullaby?”
“I don’t know,” Branch mumbled as he nestled his head into the pillow. “You choose.”
Floyd could still see a crease of worry between his baby brother’s brows. He softly brushed a thumb over it in a silent reassurance that everything was going to be okay before he turned around to reach for their dad’s old guitar.
I think Floyd would often sing to Branch to get him to fall asleep, usually the songs and lullabies their parents sang when the older four were still little.
I know in the movie it seemed like they all left right after their fight, but I like to imagine that they just stormed off to cool off and that they actually left in the following days. And that this was the last song Floyd sang for Branch that night. :')
Both Sides Now (specifically this cover by Voncken)
Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They snow and rain on everyone
So many things I would've done
But clouds got in the way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's clouds’ illusions, I recall
I really don't know clouds at all
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancin' way you feel
When every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way
But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughin' as you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away
I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions, I recall
I really don't know love at all
Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way
But now my friends, they’re acting strange
They shake their heads, and say I've changed
Well, something's lost, but something's gained
In living life each day
I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down
And give and take
And win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions, I recall
I really don't know life...
I really don't know life at all
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i hit 100 followers while i was asleep (absolutely bananas imo but i’m so thrilled y’all are enjoying my steddie dads verse bc i’ve literally never had so much fun writing before) so here's a sneak peek of a wip featuring the Harrington fam
Eddie does not understand sports.
He may be approaching fifty years old and way past his old ways of rejecting every notion that doesn’t perfectly align with his own interests, but even after all these years, the wires in his brain simply cannot wrap themselves around sports no matter how hard he tries.
And he does try because, naturally, he has three daughters, Moe, Robbie, and Hazel, all of whom play sports.
To be clear – his kids can do literally anything they want, bar none.
He’s still in goddamn awe with the whole arrangement that is the life he lives every day – kids and a house and a job he loves and all that with Steve Harrington of all people. There’s no way Eddie would start fucking all that up by projecting his own weird quirks onto his children. He refuses to be the kind of parent that prevents their kids from doing anything just because they don't get it. If the girls want to play sports, they’re gonna play sports. Nothing wrong with that.
Still, sports are one of those things he takes the back seat and lets Steve hold the reins for, especially now that thirteen-year-old Moe is pretty deep into the whole basketball thing.
Steve understands the politics of the game, both on the court — like knowing which refs are gonna be biased towards which team and noting Moe’s play-time each game — and off. He schmoozes the coach, he’s friends with all the parents, all the things Moe, at thirteen, doesn’t even notice and Eddie, while aware of it, doesn’t understand. He still can barely follow the games themselves (and he goes to as many as he can, though he and Steve are outnumbered by one and with the prospect of the girls carting themselves around still a distant fantasy their schedule is insane so he can’t make them all). He does his best to follow his husband’s lead but Steve doesn’t always react to things the way Eddie thinks he will. He doesn’t bat an eye when a kid gets smacked in the face with a ball, nor at the impossibly loud thud when someone hits the deck (look — he gets the floor is hollow, but it is loud). He’s completely unbothered by the fit Moe throws every game whenever she’s inevitably benched for having an attitude with her opponents or her teammates or the coach or the ref or just about anybody who tries to get in her way.
As is what happened at Moe’s game yesterday.
Eddie hadn’t seen it — well, he’d seen it, but seeing something and understanding what he’s actually looking at are two totally different things. From what he gathers, Moe had missed an easy shot and gotten pissed off in her own little way about it, so she’d launched herself at whoever on the opposing team had gotten their hands on the ball after it ricocheted off the backboard. Unfortunately for Moe, the team they were playing had a reputation for being a little too aggressive for a middle school league, so when she’d hit the ground, she hit it hard. Moe had been pulled off the court by her coach (carded, maybe? Eddie still isn’t sure how that works in basketball) and scowled on the bench for the rest of the game.
Steve had tried to reason with her on the drive home (an interesting choice, in Eddie’s opinion).
“Darling,” he’d said, “I totally understand being upset about missing a layup, but I don’t know how to get it through your head that intentionally fouling someone isn’t the way to go about resolving that emotion. I love you and I support you, but I’m getting tired of watching you play for three minutes and then sit on the bench for the rest of the game.”
“Talk to the coach then,” Moe had grumbled.
“About what?” Steve exclaimed, “Moe — you do it on purpose!”
The conversation had ended not long later because Moe decided to give them both the silent treatment (a clear sign that she knew she was in the wrong even if she didn’t want to admit it) and Eddie thought that was the end of it (for that game, at least). Then, Moe threw them a curveball by spending most of that evening in the bathroom throwing up, at which point she admitted that her head had caught more of that fall during her basketball game than she’d originally let on.
Steve doesn’t mess around with head injuries (for obvious reasons), so the next morning he calls Moe out of school and brings her to their pediatrician to get checked out.
A couple hours after Robbie and Hazel boarded the school bus bound for their elementary school, Steve and Moe return home.
“So what's the verdict?” Ed asks as they enter the kitchen.
“She's concussed,” Steve announces.
“Like father, like daughter.”
“No sports, no bright lights, no reading, no school, no phone,” Steve says pointedly, and Moe only scowls harder. She’d been using the incident as a leveraging tactic in her crusade to get a phone. Not being able to play sports was a no-brainer; they’d all seen that one coming, so even as recently as this morning, she’d been claiming that she’ll “die of boredom without a phone,” while she recovers.
Even as recently as this morning, she’d been largely unsuccessful.
“Thirteen-year-old children do not need phones,” Steve had told her, “If someone wants to talk to you, they can call the house, and if it's urgent enough that it needs to be right now, you can get walkie talkies.”
“No one uses walkie talkies.”
“Your dad and I used walkie talkies all the time.”
“Uh, pretty sure it was just the one time, Steve,” Eddie pointed out.
“Yeah! And it worked out great!”
CONTINUE ON AO3
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