Eddie (morose): It's messed up after that all of the shit you've been through, you know how to remove a blood stain so well.
Steve: ...
Steve: This is spaghetti sauce, and the only reason I know how to do this is because one time you walked across my lunch table and kicked Carol's lasagna all over my favorite sweater.
“Do it scared” “do it alone” are all great tips, but my biggest takeaway from therapy is do it messy. This is especially true if you’re getting out of a burnout, which I experience often. Literally just do it messy. You don’t need to pick the perfect trail to walk, the perfect playlist to listen to, whatever the fuck it is. You don’t need to have a meticulous to do list and wake up at the exact time you planned and drink the exact amount of water you planned to drink. Like the biggest thing for people like me to remember is sometimes it’s okay to do it messy. Put on a random yt workout and just get it done in sweats. Do 5 minutes of a daunting task and go from there. Sometimes just getting up is a win during intense burnouts or depressive funks. Literally just do it messy.
Jeff can’t put his finger on it, but something’s wrong with him.
He’s never the first one to arrive for band practice, let alone early. But here he was in the garage tuning his guitar.
Jeff is watching from across the room. He’s punctual. He’s been playing his music at a lower volume. He hasn’t killed anyone’s character out of spite in at least a month. And Mike actually deserved it last week.
Jeff even heard him make comments about the cubs/cardinals game to Wayne in passing.
And there’s something wrong with Eddie’s hair.
It’s not frizzy like it normally is. It looked … soft. Defined. Conditioned —
“You’re sleeping with Steve Harrington!” Jeff snapped, pointing accusingly to Eddie.
Eddie’s face dropped.
His eyes darted between their friends — when did the other guys get here?
For a moment Jeff felt bad blurting it out, catching the fear in Eddie’s eyes. But just like everything else Eddie has faced, he’s replaced the fear with confidence.
Eddie’s eyes narrowed angrily at Jeff. “So what if I am?”
Jeff shrugged, plucking at his strings. “Good for you, man. Just hit me, that’s all.”
That made Eddie physically stumble. Like he wasn’t expecting that. “What?”
“You’ve been different,” Jeff said. “Not in a bad way. Good actually. Just — made me realize it.”
The garage was silent. As if everyone was afraid to make a move.
“Is there — is there gonna be a problem?” Eddie asked, all bravo drained from his voice.
“Nope,” Jeff said. “Like that we’re not waiting on you. Bring him by sometime.”
Eddie stood still, still trying to process everything.
“How did — how did you know?”
Jeff pointed to his own curls. “Your hair. Looks nice. Figured Steve washed it, huh?”
Eddie blushed, pulling a strand over his face. There was a mumbled of a ‘yeah.’
Gareth scoffed. Eddie’s glare quickly went to him. Gareth threw his hands up defensively. “No, it’s just that if anyone can take that mane of yours, it’s Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington.”
Eddie let out a laugh. “Whatever. Just play, bozos.”
Yeah, something’s different about Eddie.
He’s happier than he’s been in years. And Steve Harrington is to thank for that.
We were doing an activity where the kids got to make a playbill for a musical about themselves and all the other kids were like “character list: mommy, daddy, me, my brother, my best friend” “scenes: I get a puppy, first day of school, my baby sister is born”
But one little girl was like “oh, it’s a musical about ME you say” and the character list was all the other girls in the class cast as her body parts, and a story about how her body works.
“Kaylee is nice so she will be the heart. Lily is my kidneys. Sapphire is the lungs.”
She surreptitiously showed me that the girl who kept taking the crayons she was using was cast specifically as “left buttcheek” and I had to pretend like that wasn’t the funniest thing I’d ever seen.
Was just informed by my mom that I do in fact have ADHD and the reason I thought I didn’t was because ever since I was seven whenever I got super energetic my mom would have me go chop wood so now when I’m feeling The ADHD I go chop wood and I thought it was just some sort of routine I started when I was little and wanted to blow off steam
I’d also like to point out that my sister has a really hard time staying present (I can’t remember the term because we’ve always called it Tethered at my house) and whenever she’s feeling Untethered my mom has her knead bread and make syrup because they’re repetitive and easy things to do that ground her
Now that I’m thinking about it- my brother has days where he doesn’t talk and doesn’t eat unless he’s prompted, and on those days my mom sits him down in the fish pond in the backyard and plays Mozart and because he’s so used to that being his wake up he always comes back in after like an hour rambling about random things
Oh yeah and when it rains my mom has a required hour where we all have to go outside and run around and whoever finds the most worms for the garden wins and then we go inside and my mom makes us tea and we watch Studio Ghibli movies
Wait!!! When one of us has a bad day at school we make a fire in the backyard and roast homemade sausages and my mom tells us stories until we laugh and then she tucks is in bed like we’re five again and sings us songs
“I didn’t know I had adhd because my mom gave me such an effective coping mechanism” is such a high bar to clear and she soared over it like a space-plane.
ok let's expand on the shane failure thing. thinking about how ilya has a whole album in his phone. titled, organized, periodically revisited. ilya rozanov, two-time hart trophy winner
the chicken shane burned so badly that ilya held the pan up and said scott hunter will look at this and feel young before taking a photo. the bookshelf shane assembled backwards and didn't notice for three weeks—ilya noticed on day two and said nothing, just waited, and when shane finally clocked it ilya was in the other room and shane could hear him. the succession of unkillable succulents and cacti that shane somehow killed anyway. (there is a graveyard on the back porch. ilya calls it the memorial garden. he has named some of them. he tends to them with more visible affection than he gives most people.) the time shane got lost driving to an arena he had played in for six consecutive years.
there are others. the album is extensive. ilya adds to it with the sort of energy a who is building something important has. and the thing, the thing, is that he doesn't just find these tolerable. he doesn't endure them. he doesn't smile tightly and recalibrate expectations and love shane despite them, which is the mode shane spent most of his life existing in, the people who loved him holding his failures lightly and carefully like something that needed to be explained away
ilya lights up. every single time, the same way, like shane has done something wonderful by being, underneath the selkes and the captaincy and the thing the media does with his face and jaw, some guy. just some guy who kills plants and gets lost and burns chicken and loves him more than anything.
shane didn't know what to do with that for a long time. honestly he's not sure he did anything with it. he just. let it happen. let ilya take the photos and name the dead plants and do the thing with his face, the delighted thing, and tried not to think too hard about why it made his chest feel like a fist was opening in it. and then one day, just some tuesday, just another thing going wrong in the low-stakes way things go wrong in a life that is mostly very good, ilya takes out his phone, and shane doesn't feel the hum.
no buzz of humiliation in the back of his skull. no automatic how bad is this, how do i fix this, what does this say about me. nothing. just ilya laughing at his phone and shane watching him and feeling... fine. warm.
"send that to me," shane says. ilya looks up. "the chicken?" "yeah." a pause. "you want," ilya says slowly, like he's translating, "photo of chicken you burned. for yourself. to have." "yes." ilya looks at him for a long moment. something in his expression that shane has learned to recognize by now: ilya, knowing something is larger than it seems and deliberating what to do with it
he sends the photo. shane makes it his lock screen. for a week, every time he picks up his phone, there it is, the pan. the carbonized, fossilized remains. and shane looks at the photo and smiles. not at the chicken, or not only at the chicken exactly, but mostly at the specific knowledge that somewhere on ilya's phone there is an album, organized, curated, periodically revisited, of every time shane hollander was just some guy. and ilya thought it was worth keeping.
I’m sorry for adding directly to a post but I went to a wedding once where the groom’s name was Loren and the bride’s name was Lauren and at the end the officiant was all “introducing Loren [surname] and Lauren [surname], husband and wife” and the entire assembled lost it
also sorry for adding on but at my high school there was a Dominic and a Dominique who were dating and everyone just called them “Dom and Dommer” which is honestly the funniest shit ever
Prompt: Knot | Word Count: 586 | Rating: T | CW: None | POV: Eddie | Relationships: Steddie | Character Study, slice of life, making up for lost time
Eddie was thirteen the first time he visited a beach. Uncle Wayne drove him to Lake Michigan for a weekend, thinking the sun and waves would soften the anger in him, a sandy panacea for all the hurt his parents had caused him. Wayne had let him sit alone with a book for a couple of hours before dragging him into the water, splashing him while Eddie stood there and took it, stoney faced. Until Eddie had snapped and splashed back, harder, meaner, and Wayne had grabbed him and held him while he cried in the waters of Lake Michigan.
He has some money these days, so now he swims in oceans instead of lakes.
Even under an umbrella he feels the heat on his skin, warming his sore muscles, making him sleepy. He drops his book onto his lap, his eyes slipping closed until he hears screaming and he wakes in a panic. But it’s fine, just Gareth’s boys out in the water, climbing all over their dad so he can throw them up into the air letting them land with a splash into the gentle waves.
“Here,” Steve says, helping him up from the lounger, and out into the sun. He spreads a towel on the sand and Eddie lays down on his front as directed. He hears the pop of a lid as it’s flicked open, the sound of sunscreen being warmed between Steve’s palms, and then strong hands are on his shoulders, massaging and kneading.
Eddie rests his head on his arm so that he can watch his friends playing in the water. He’ll go for a swim later, when the beach is quieter, when he can take his shirt off and not have to deal with the stares and whispers of the beautiful people of California.
He closes his eyes, let’s himself drift under Steve’s touch, let’s the smell of artificial coconut and salty air soothe him. The waves pick up and the sound of them lapping on the shore reminds him of that day with Wayne. A day where he finally let go and let himself be seen. A day where the Munson doctrine was temporarily drowned in Lake Michigan while he cried into his uncle’s chest. He learned it was okay to be vulnerable, you just had to show your soft parts to the right people. People who wouldn’t use it against you. People like Wayne.
People like Steve.
It’s still new, this thing between them. So much time wasted, so many years they could have had together if they’d just taken notice, just been brave. “Better late than never,” Wayne had said to him. The thought of never makes him feel cold. Never would have been like living in a world where the sun never rises.
Steve’s hand runs over a painful knot in Eddie’s shoulder and he groans from the pressure. Using a cane helps his leg but hurts his shoulder; Steve knows that because he knows Eddie’s soft parts.
“I love you,” Eddie says, the sound of it smothered by a wave hitting the shore, but the pressure on his back pauses just for a moment, long enough to know he was heard.
They haven’t said it yet, it felt too early for declarations. They weren’t teenagers, they’ve been around the block. But so much time has been wasted.
He feels a soft kiss on his shoulder and he smiles.
Whatever you do, don’t picture married Hollanov where Shane has to banish Ilya from their bedroom anytime he actually wants to read before bed because Ilya jumps him the second he puts on his reading glasses otherwise.
Hello!! I am back with yet another piece of soft grace propaganda 😌 but is it propaganda if it's canon? Who knows! You should read it though. To check if you're resistant to propaganda
Summary:
Grace cries a lot. I, as his best friend and the only sensible entity on this ship, have made a list to start investigating his idiosyncrasies.
We have been heading for Erid together for a few months. So far, Grace has cried over:
- His breakfast burrito
- A photo of a monkey he saw on the portable thinking machine
- Me (I was sitting next to him. We were not talking. I think I got an extra leaky one)
Or: Grace cries. A lot. Rocky, the sensible Eridian he is, starts taking notes.
are those two dudes from supernatural ok? it’s been like 14 years. there’s high schoolers younger than their contract. i don’t think i’ve ever seen them in any other shows. are they allowed to leave? do they feed them?
Imagine how difficult of an adjustment it will be for Shane and Ilya to not only be on the same team but to never actually share the ice (except on the power play). They're stuck watching their man be far and away the best player out there without the distraction of being mid-play themselves and they've lost their outlet for channelling all of their sexual tension into something reasonably acceptable for audiences. Imagine the fan edits of them just sitting on the bench, chewing on their mouthguard, while shooting obvious fuck-me-eyes at the other. Ilya's urge to check Shane into the boards is unreasonable. As soon as Shane gets on the ice he shoots off like a bat out of hell to burn off his excess energy. They can't even fucking look at each other in the locker room. As soon as they're home Ilya is throwing Shane up against the wall as hard as he would have done if they were both wearing pads. Those first few months they both acquire more bruises off the ice than on it.
ive invented (note: dubious claim) something i call the bear diet which is mostly fruits and vegetables with fish as the main protein source and something like once a month you eat a few hyperprocessed foods of your liking because that is when you, the bear, raid a dumpster in the suburbs
As a principled feminist I'm often tempted to say shit like "are men capable of higher thought" but then I have to remember not to perpetuate gender essentialism and change it to "why do men choose not to think about anything"