tell me (everything will be alright)
steddie | 814 words | cw: drugs
Steve doesn’t pretend to know what Eddie gets up to in his spare time. He imagines he probably smokes a lot of weed, maybe dabbles in some of the harder stuff he sells from time to time.
So he’s utterly taken aback when Eddie calls him freaking out about a bad trip, asking if he’ll come over and babysit him because he, “Took something, Steve. Please, just get over here.”
He’s even more surprised when he’s sitting on the Munson couch and asks Eddie what he took that he needs babysitting for and Eddie won’t give him a straight answer.
“I’ve just, I’ve never taken it before, so I didn't know how I’d react,” Eddie says, and Steve is concerned.
Mushrooms? LSD? PCP? Are those two the same thing? Steve is not knowledgeable enough to babysit someone as they trip; he’s totally gonna screw this up.
Eddie turns to him with wide eyes and says, “I feel crazy, man. Like, I’m seein’ shit.”
“Like hallucinating?” Steve asks, running a stressed hand through his hair. He is not equipped to deal with this. “I need you to tell me what you took, man. I need to know what I’m dealing with here.”
Eddie shakes his head, says, “It’s stupid. It’s so stupid. You’re gonna make fun of me.”
“I promise I won't make fun of you. Please just tell me,” Steve asks, begs really, because this is starting to scare him.
Eddie grumbles and groans, but eventually says, “It’s on the counter,” with a frown.
Steve scrambles to get up and look. He looks on the counter and - he doesn't find anything. He sees leftovers, he sees a bottle of Benadryl, he sees random pieces of mail. He does not see drugs that would require someone to babysit Eddie while he trips.
“Eddie, I don't see- is it on the bathroom counter? I need to know what you took.” He turns around and sees Eddie listing sideways on the couch, like he’s fading fast. “Fuck,” Steve whispers, sprinting back over to the couch.
He kneels in front of Eddie and sits him upright again.
He’s not freaking out. He’s just going to be so, so calm about this. “Eddie,” he says, voice measured. “I need to know what you took so I can help you. I can't help if I don't know what I’m dealing with.”
Eddie looks at him through squinted eyes. “’told you it’s on the counter.”
“I didn't see anything on the counter,” he says, trying not to snap.
“It’s the-“ Eddie breathes deep through his nose. “It’s the goddamn Benadryl. Took two of those motherfuckers and now I’m so, so dizzy, Stevie.” He doesn't slur the words, but it's a close thing.
Steve stares at him. Breathes out deep and just stares for a minute. His lips twitch.
Eddie purses his lips. “You’re making fun of me in your head. I can tell!”
“Ed,” he tries saying, but a laugh bubbles up in his throat and he has to stop and throw a hand over his mouth to contain it.
“Steeeeeve,” Eddie whines, frowning, pathetic.
“I’m so sorry,” Steve says, pulling himself together. “You’re right. This is serious. You took two Benadryl.”
“I took two Benadryl,” Eddie repeats. He yawns, his jaw cracking.
Steve doesn't laugh. He tries to not even smile, but it’s so hard with Eddie looking at him with such sad eyes.
“You’re gonna be fine,” he says, pulling himself up and plopping down on the couch next to Eddie.
“How do you know that? I’m still dizzy,” Eddie says.
“I think you just, you got yourself a little worked up, is all.” He puts an arm around Eddie, guiding him to rest his head in Steve's lap. “As soon as you relax, you’ll fall right asleep. And I’ll be here the entire time.”
“You won't leave? You’re sure? You’ll stay the whole time?” Eddie asks.
“I won't leave,” he says, brushing a hand through Eddie’s hair.
“Oh,” Eddie says, when Steve’s hands continue to play with his hair. “This is nice,” he says through a yawn.
“See?” Steve says. “You’ll be asleep in just a minute and everything will be fine.”
“You won't let the demons get me?” Eddie asks nonsensically, voice slurring with how to close to sleep he is.
“I won't let any demons get to you. I’ll fight them off,” he says, smiling down at Eddie.
“You’ll protect me?” he asks. And-
And something funny happens in Steve’s chest, like his heart skips a beat or something.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll protect you. I’ll always protect you.”
Eddie sighs and says, “Yeah, I know you will.”
And that feeling is still there as Eddie’s breathing evens out. Steve keeps his hand in Eddie’s hair, succumbing to the fact that he’s stuck here until Eddie wakes up.
He thinks there are worse places he could be.
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you examine yourself like studying a virus.
for days after, months - years, even - you torture yourself over small objects. times where you misspoke or interrupted with a joke when you should have listened. times when you didn't know how to show your support. times when you were louder, brassier, inappropriate for the situation. times when you were too quiet, shy, cold.
fucker. you constantly promise that next-time you'll do better. you will make sure every person you come in contact with leaves smiling. that they'll all feel loved and accepted and held. that you take care. other people do it! other people are actually good people; you're just cruel.
it feels like you are fighting a horrible little beetle. one of those parasites that control ants. one who comes up and wiggles into your brain and makes you a shameful ghost of a person. too spineless to ever be a demon. so what if you were having a bad day? you don't get to stumble. so what if you are overwhelmed? you don't need to make a scene.
all this time on the earth. you are still somehow convinced: the mistakes you make are more important than any other part of you. you still feel like you are wrestling a nature you do not understand; one that coils horribly inside of you. one that seeks to destroy, to undo.
you go home. you replay the moments where you weren't perfect. be better, you scold. do more. you are an accident. a train wreck. something to abhor.
the questions always ringing in your head: why did i do that? why do i slip? why can't i just fucking be normal? what if all i am is just ... this?
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Thinking abt the air nomads:
What if, after the war, once the dust has settled a little, Aang goes back to travelling, hoping that maybe he can find at least some trace of surviving airbenders. As an added bonus, he gets to do more of the exploring and wandering that he had to put on hold.
Toph goes with him ofc. She only just got a taste of real freedom and it was overshadowed by ever-present impending doom. While she's on speaking terms with her parents, she isnt quite ready to be back under their roof on a permanent basis. The rest of the gaang have their individual homes and responsibilities that they get back to, though they join for the odd field trip or adventure when they can.
So anyway, they're touring all over the world and over the years they notice just how displaced so many people have become. EK citizens who barely escaped the blaze but lost everything; FN military now decommissioned with no idea how to carry on; people looking for a new start in the hard-won peace. Maybe it starts with Toph heading back to Earth Rumble, where a group of young runaways scrounge for cheap fights to make a little money.
At each turn they find more and more people with no homes to return to and no family to protect them; runaways escaping the roles the war forced them into. Gradually, Aang and Toph start to see that they aren't so different from themselves. They just want a new start.
So they decide to give them one. They clean up the temples and set up villages in the surrounding areas (helps to be master earthbenders), where people can arrive and stay as long as they need. Travellers and refugees pass through in droves, sometimes choosing to stay and rebuild their lives there, sometimes continuing in their wandering with a guarantee that they'll always have a place to return to should they have the need.
Over time, the lemurs grow in number and even some flying bison calfs (hybrids with a relative species maybe?), can be seen in the skies. Whenever the founders visit, it isn't the same but Aang feels a little more at home.
The first time someone asks Aang to teach him his philosophies, and expresses his desire to become a monk, how can he refuse? Maybe it's a former soldier, somebody who's done terrible things, looking for a path to redemption. So Aang teaches him, and then he teaches others. And though they may not be airbenders, they are as earnest and faithful as any nun or monk Aang knew before. The temples become filled with new faces: Firebenders, Earthbenders, Waterbenders and non-benders all wearing Air nomad orange and yellow.
Aang always feared that it would be his responsibility to have airbender children, and the idea of forcing that on someone he loved terrified him. Maybe that's why he waited so long before acting on his feelings for his best friend, his travelling companion, his fellow-village builder and temple-restorer. How could they have a truly happy relationship with this pressure hanging over them? He wishes he could be content with the new way of things that he and his friends have created. But he knows that he can't be the last airbender forever...
Nobody knows why some children can bend the elements and others can't. Is it blood? Is it blessing? Is it the land in which you're born? Or is it the simple allocation of fates decided by the values and norms you're raised believing in? Is it enough to be surrounded by the culture and beliefs of the Air Nomads? Nobody knows...
All they know is that nobody sees it coming when the six-year-old daughter of two non-bender villagers from the Earth Kingdom and Northern Water Tribe sends herself flying twelve feet into the air with a sneeze.
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do you ever think about how Wyll's like second ever camp event is him getting tortured (put through The Torment Of The Hells?? drastic physical changes he did not consent to??) on screen in front of the whole camp and he tries to act like that was an okay and deserved thing for Mizora to do to him
During that scene with Karlach's confrontation, Wyll already knew that was something bad going to happen to him if he let her live. That's why he tries to rationalize it at first--"You served [Zariel]. That's enough to damn you."--and he still hesitates after--"You're asking me to trust a devil." But he saw the tadpole vision too, he knows Karlach is just a tiefling. He's been misled once again; he doesn't want to believe it, but the evidence is right there and he cannot deny that.
The thing is - he didn't know that he'll only get transformed. As far as warlock pacts go, he should have died or got sent straight to hell as punishment for disobeying orders. Fully knowing that possibility of dying or worse, Wyll saves Karlach anyway. Because it's the right thing to do.
In a way, I don't think Wyll thinks he deserves his punishment. His first line when you talk to him after is "Gods damn her straight back to Hells." and "I did what was right. And Mizora made me pay for it."
He has some awareness that he doesn't deserve what happened, but at the end of the day, he's still pacted, so he just takes whatever Mizora dishes out on him while trying to make the best out of it that he can.
Wyll also says, "It was worth the sacrifice," and that's pretty much the sum of his character. To be self-sacrificing time and time again. And maybe he thinks it's a sacrifice that he consciously makes instead of something that's thrust upon him without giving him a choice. Just like his pact, and just like everything else in his life. If he rationalizes it as a choice he makes, then he's not a victim, he's not abused or exploited. He's a hero, and heroes just have to make sacrifices for the greater good sometimes.
(Contrary to this, he does have a choice and it's a choice he keeps making, which is to do good things with his powers, rather than just succumbing to Mizora's evil influence. With his pact, he could've easily ran away and left the city to burn, and with Karlach, he could've easily followed Mizora's orders and killed her. But in both cases, he doesn't. Standing up to the devil on his shoulder is something that takes great strength.)
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