stupid superpower
rating: teen
tags: humor, brotherly ribbing, Dustin has a ✨stupid superpower✨, Dustin continues to have issues with his tone
✨for @slashify at my BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST for the prompt: Character Has Powers (requested to be Dustin)
“Look, see!” Dustin points at the mat he’s laid out on the coffee table in Steve’s living room. “This is why Dart was so easy, it makes so much sense now.”
He turns to them with the biggest grin that’s getting a little less gummy by the week, now, but…he looks so proud, is the thing.
And it is painful. The pride. What it’s for.
The way they’re gonna have to probably dash it.
“I,” Steve squints at the setup, start to finish, empty cans framing the perimeter before he sighs: “I am not seeing anything, man.”
“No,” Dustin’s voice goes pitchy, really, he should have outgrown that by now, s’looking like it’s a permanent trait, yeesh; “look.”
And he points with such…some superiority, such imperiousness, like…okay, so maybe it’s the least painful of the list, when they have to dash all that pride. Kid’s gotta fucking learn some humility, man. Like, sooner rather than later.
“I told you I could communicate with them!” Dustin pulls off his cap and throws it to the couch, triumphant. Steve watches the mat for a few more seconds before he straights up, cocks his hip and crosses his arms.
“You’re telling me,” he says slowly; “that you talk to slugs.”
Because that…that certainly appears to be what the argument has been. They’d kinda thought Dustin has been joking, in previous passing mention. Eddie, at least, definitely thought he was just being an annoying little prick for how many times he asked if either of them felt particularly chiropteran, muttering about traits from interactions, close encounters, bites would obviously count.
Like, it was Dustin, if they took all the crap he said to heart, weighed it seriously, they’d never do anything else.
Like: ever.
“Interspecial gastropodic extracommunicational phenomena,” Dustin rattles off, a little defensive, if Eddie’s gonna be honest; and it wasn’t exactly called for. Steve just asked a question.
Eddie, on the other hand…
“So slugs and snails,” Eddie confirms, droll as fuck by intention, because Eddie is actually very aware of his tone in most situations, thank you very much; “the shell doesn’t deter you.”
“No, I think it’s the whole at least the whole class, maybe the whole phylum,” and he’s so excited, but, he’s also being a fucking know-it-all about it and there is a part of Eddie that doesn’t want to squash Dustin’s enthusiasm but the bigger part of Eddie, but fucking far, knows for a goddamn fact no one could possible squash Dustin’s enthusiasm, or self-confidence, like, Dustin would happily go toe-to-toe with like, Stephen fucking Hawking, and brag afterward that the intellectual stimulation was lacking.
So Eddie doesn’t actually feel bad about any of this and Dustin rambles on.
“But I think if I got my hands on a limpet, or an abalone—“
And when he looks up he must catch something, like he must be able to tell, to read something despite Eddie being very fucking careful to keep a helluva poker face right now—and Eddie’s kinda proud, because maybe the little shithead can be taught.
“You’re joking,” Dustin concludes, dry as fuck and with the audacity to sound…disappointed? Like in a how-could-you-be-so-juvenile-as-to-stoop-to-this-level kind of way which.
Which.
“Not at all,” Eddie clutches his non-existent pearls in mock offense, and Dustin’s eyes just narrow.
“I was right.”
“Might not want to say that too loud, Dusty-Buns,” Eddie shoots right back and Steve coughs unconvincingly to cover a laugh and Eddie bites his bottom lip to stop his own smile, less because of Dustin’s reaction and more just because…Stevie. Being adorable.
Steve being his Stevie.
“Yeah, that feels like slander,” Steve adds in thoughtfully, stroking his chin and everything before he turns to Eddie, considering.
“Can you slander yourself, if you’re embarrassing enough?”
And oh, oh: Eddie adores it when his boyfriend’s bitchy side comes out. He adores it so much.
“‘Course you can, big boy,” Eddie can’t help himself as he leans over and pecks at Steve’s cheek; Dustin scowls at them and Eddie can’t help himself, so he licks up Steve’s cheek for the disgusted grown from Dustin and the half-assed shove from Steve that doesn’t move him further away at all.
“You’re just jealous that I have a superpower,” Dustin ultimately shoots back which: okay, Eddie knows he’s capable of better than that, he’s kind of disappointed, that was so weak.
“It’s a stupid superpower,” Steve points out, plain and simple and Eddie wants to clap his hands. He. Loves. His. Bitchy. Boyfriend.
So. Much.
“Or is it a superpower for stupid?” Eddie asks, turning back to Steve like it’s a genuine question, a worthy debate.
“Naw,” Steve shakes his head, almost regretful; “he is pretty fuckin’ smart.”
“More than one kind of stupid, Stevie,” Eddie notes with due gravitas.
“Envy,” Dustin sniffs, so goddamn superior. “Green’s really not your fucking color,” and ooo, there’s a little snarl, a little sneer on his lips; “either of you.”
“I look good in green,” Steve points out, not even petulant, just factual.
“For example,” Eddie picks up and talks over Dustin’s comment like he never made one, leveling the little asshole with a pointed look:
“Some people are stupid about their tone.”
Steve doesn’t even try to cover his snort that time.
“You look good in everything, sweetheart,” Eddie takes the opportunity to comment, to sneak another kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth as he purrs; “and out.”
“Disgusting,” Dustin gags and Eddie turns to glare as he bites out:
“Tone!”
Like, way to prove Eddie’s fucking point for him, wow, the lack of self-preservation is overwhelming here.
“I’m gonna go find El,” Dustin announces, like he thinks it’s an airport; “she will be thrilled to have someone like her around—“
“Remember what I said?” Eddie turns to Steve, exaggerates the knowing look he gives; “types of dumb,” then he turns again to Dustin, and knows his look is pitying, because he fucking means for it to be.
“Telekinesis and slug-speak aren’t even in the same universe, man,” and Jesus H., Dustin looks offended at the suggestion, which.
Which.
“The overlap of telepathic—“
“Slugs, Dustin,” Steve butts in, cuts him off; “I drown those fuckers in little bowls of beer in the yard. They go in willingly,” and oh. Oh, Eddie loves his boyfriend.
Eddie loves his boyfriend so goddamn much.
Because he hadn’t even noticed the set up, the slight of hand, because Steve had overturned the can of PBR he hadn’t finished, that had gone warm anyway, and dumped it into the shallow little bowl that used to have pretzel sticks inside, low enough to, to—
“Well they won’t anymore,” Dustin declares, fucking haughty with it; “because I will tell them—“
“Yet behold, special super slug-whisperer,” Eddie gasps and gestures wide to the mat where the slug demonstration had originally taken place: “whatever do we have here?”
What they have there is the little bowl of beer, set on the slug mat.
With slugs already drowned inside.
“Probably maybe you should be smarter about where you stick your attention if you really want to save your precious children from their hoppy graves,” Eddie shrugs, and infuses his words with as much fake fucking concern as he can fit into them because slug-whispering.
Fucking honestly.
Dustin only wastes a few seconds gaping at the scene, mouth working around something—comprehension, maybe, or just some degree of shock—before he turns his eyes up and glares at them both.
“You’re evil,” he says definitively, pointing; “both of you.”
“Go see El, Super Slug,” Eddie smiles indulgently; “she’s absolutely trembling with anticipation at the arrival of an equal, I’m sure of it.”
“After all, didn’t you say,” Steve shrugs and folds his arms over his chest, looks Dustin up and down before delivering the final blow:
“You were right.”
And Dustin scowls, and Eddie cackles, because that’s his brother, that’s their brother.
“Fucking assholes,” Dustin mutters, and leaves his slug mat and the beer-bowl behind as he stomps out the door: these children really need to learn about cleaning up after themselves, even if they leave in a stompy little huff like a goddamn toddler, fucking hell: but still.
Dustin’s their brother.
Like they were ever going to let him get away with bragging about slug powers.
permanent tag list (comment to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690
66 notes
·
View notes
WIP Wednesday
Good morning! Hope everyone is surviving the first week of January. I'm still riding the high of finally finishing a fic which I have been struggling with since completing Someone Wicked so. Can I get a woop woop? Sharing a little bit of that today since I'm genuinely really happy with it. And I also shared some more of my two other definitely not abandoned WIP projects as well.
Also, quick COC update: I will finish my prompt list for sure, but I'm taking a quick, necessary break, so it might not be for a minute. But rest assured, there are some more fic recs and illustrations incoming.
Enjoy!
One December Night (Read on AO3)
“You’re impossible, Simon Snow.”
That makes me smile, the way he says it, the way he keeps talking to me, looking at me. [...] I touch his jaw and draw my thumb over his bottom lip. My wings make a red canopy above our bodies.
“Show me your fangs,” I say quietly, rubbing the edge of his mouth. For a moment his hips still, and he looks properly scared. I don’t want that. I kiss him the way I kissed him at the market, slow and full of things I’m still not sure I can say out loud. “I want all of you. Not only halves.”
Close Your Eyes
“I don’t have to tell you everything,” Baz says coldly.
“You don’t, but you’re doing a shit job at pretending to be okay and I’m sick with fucking nerves every time I wake up in the middle of the night to you gone. I didn’t like it at Watford and I like it well fucking less now.”
“Simon—”
“Christ, I just need to understand. Because you’re—because I’ve been trying. Right? I’ve been trying. But I don’t know what to do.”
“I know you have. I just … I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Talk. About this. I just …” He’s a lump under the blankets, shoulders hunched, knees up, chin tucked low. I could cover his whole body with mine. “I can’t.”
Sober
I’m not surprised when I shuffle out of my room at half ten only to immediately trip over his mess. Cold tea left sitting in the middle of the floor for fuck’s sake. The ceramic rattling across the hardwood and my muttered curses startle Snow from his supine position on the sofa where he apparently took up camp while I slept in.
Crouching to retrieve the cup, I huff audibly as I notice it’s one of my growing collection of Twilight-themed mugs, his idea of a running joke since we lived in student housing.
This one says ‘This is the skin of a killer, Bella’ and it’s covered in sparkles. Some get stuck to my skin every time I handle it. (Which would be never, if I had the choice, but it’s the closest thing I’ll probably ever get to a gift from Snow so I can’t actually bear to throw it out.) (Or the rest of them, for that matter.)
Tags under the cut!
@imagineacoolusername @martsonmars @valeffelees @bazzybelle @ileadacharmedlife @aristocratic-otter @urban-sith @letraspal @palimpsessed @whatevertheweather @nightimedreamersworld @carryonsimoncarryonbaz @raenestee @erzbethluna @confused-bi-queer @moodandmist @yeonjunenby @shrekgogurt @thewholelemon @whogaveyoupermission @onepintobean @ebbpettier @orange-peony @theearlgreymage @ic3-que3n @captain-aralias @fatalfangirl @prettygoododds @stitchyqueer @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @forabeatofadrum @ivelovedhimthroughworse @mysterioussheep @rimeswithpurple @c0nsumemy5oul @facewithoutheart @hushed-chorus @blackberrysummerblog @larkral @j-nipper-95 @alexalexinii @iamamythologicalcreature @supercutedinosaurs @wellbelesbian @that-disabled-princess @cutestkilla @youarenevertooold @emeryhall @best--dress
79 notes
·
View notes