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lighteyed · 9 months

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can it be easy this once? / steve harrington

summary: steve accidentally gives a stupid answer to your honest question. (best friends with benefits pining idiots to lovers, fem!reader)

unedited we die like men & title from the alcott by the national ft taylor swift hehehe enjoy

It started as a means of comfort after Starcourt, when he was bloody and bruised up but you took him home and got closer, closer, closer, until it turned into a mess of blurred lines and panting breaths, lips swollen for reasons other than being hurt, for better reasons, reasons that brought forth safety and relief for the two of you. You both tend to hunger for such things. It’d been good, easy, for a bit there. Lately it’d felt like the intimacy was threatening to choke you. Like you’d never met a form of closeness you didn’t cling to. And God, did it feel like you were clinging. Craving an unwarranted change. Was it so unwarranted? You weren’t sure, you could never tell.

The air in his room is hot and sticky with summer, the ceiling fan providing the barest relief, your bare skin providing the slightest bit more. You stare all around his room, taking in all the stark traces of him, though in truth it doesn’t betray much, just as he attempts to. It’s a plain room, plaid walls, matching curtains, his desk messy and cluttered, all the dresser’s drawers slightly ajar like he spent a touch too long shuffling through all his clothes to determine which outfit would be best, which, knowing him in the way you do, he probably did. You knew he wasn’t as secure as he liked everyone to believe. Steve Harrington tried his best, but sometimes you saw right through him.

Other times he was harder to read. It was probably purposeful, layers of protection built around himself. Don’t love anyone, don’t let anyone love you, and you won’t get hurt. People can only hurt you if you let them. Steve wasn’t letting anyone anymore. Definitely not his parents, definitely not Nancy Wheeler, definitely not random girls who would inevitably end up disappointed with him. He swore it all off. He was a hopeless romantic who never wanted to be in love again. You understood it for the most part. Or you attempted to. It was hard when you were halfway (maybe more than halfway) in love with the guy, in his bed most nights, in his company most days, acting like a couple without being an established couple because he was too hesitant and you were too gentle to be pushy.

He nudges you lightly, naked chest peeking up from his covers, naked everything else kept firmly underneath. “You okay? You’re quiet.” He sits up so he’s level with you, and you avoid eye contact by leaning down toward the floor to grasp for the shirt he let you borrow, a faded Spider-Man one he insisted was from middle school. You didn’t entirely believe him, but maybe it was just funny, and kind of sweet, to picture Steve sleeping in a Spider-Man shirt and keeping it a secret just for himself. You pull the shirt on over your head, and before you can do it for yourself, he reaches for your hair and takes it out from where it’s caught under the shirt. The familiarity of it makes you flinch. You can have sex with him all you want but God forbid he’s the slightest bit loving outside of that. It confuses you, the softness in the touches that aren’t in bed with him. If he holds your hand in any context other than bringing you as into him as possible while he slips himself in and out, you lose all sense of normalcy between the two of you. You can’t be normal when he’s holding your hand and stroking your cheeks and being kind, soft, adoring Steve, without being your Steve.

“I’m fine, I’m just…” You reach for your shorts at the end of the bed. Steve watches you get dressed with his eyebrows scrunched together, confused. You’re not usually in a rush to leave after you have sex. Not that he wants you to. He likes that you stay until day sinks into night and he drives you home and waits to repeat it all again. Waits to see you, generally. And it’s not sex every single time. You drag him to see whatever’s playing at the Hawk and he makes you sit with him at Family Video on slow days when it’s just him on the clock and a single tumbleweed blows through the store instead of any customers. He drives you just about anywhere you ask and he lets you put on any cassettes you want in his car even if he hates what’s playing. It’s nice, the friendship part of all of it. If you had to give everything else up and just keep the friendship you’d be willing. He’d be willing. You consider it. “Nothing, just tired, probably gonna head home,” you smile at him over your shoulder before pulling on your socks and it’s half-hearted and he knows it.

“What? You can sleep here, you know that,” he waves a hand around the room, trying to catch your gaze, but you avoid his eyes again. Descending light slants in through the curtains and envelopes him in gold. He glows, he’s so pretty. His hair is messy from where you heatedly ran your hands through it, but it still looks nearly perfect. The fact that he always looks so good infuriates you.

“No yeah, I know, I wanna like shower and stuff too, and I left my new book at home and I wanted to do some reading,” you bluff calmly, standing up from tangled bedsheets and roaming the room in search of your sneakers.

“That Stephen King scary clown book? I’ll take you home and you can come back and read it here, so you don’t get scared,” and he knows you won’t get scared and that you love horror far more than he ever could but he just really, really doesn’t want to be alone. Why would you go when everything’s right here? His parents aren’t home and something about you leaving makes him antsy and desperate. When you still refuse to look at him he feels himself, his confidence, growing smaller and smaller. “Did I- did I do something?” He doesn’t mean for it to sound as pathetic as it does.

You whip around to face him, finally, finally, and touch a hand to his face. Relief floods through him at the heat of your fingers. “No, of course not, it’s all me, okay? I’m all sweaty and awful.”

“You look beautiful, I swear,” he squeezes your hand and you feel like you’re drowning. It’s hard to breathe, your chest tight. “Are you sure you’re okay? You can talk to me, it’s me.” He scoots closer, if that’s possible. “You’re one of my best friends, we tell each other everything.” You look up toward the ceiling, inwardly groaning. Best friend.

“You do this with all your best friends?”

“Well, no, Robin wouldn’t touch me even if she didn’t like girls-“ He feels himself starting to grin, teasing smile lilting at his lips.

“Steve!” You’re laughing a little and so is he as you push his arm back. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“What’d you mean, then?” He’s still smiling, that entrancing, deliberately pouty, lazy smile. Vaguely smirky. You don’t know if it’s deliberate, a ploy to distract you, con you into staying, make you less prone to saying what you want to say, but you press anyway, even though he’s making you want to lean forward and endlessly kiss the smirk off his mouth.

“I just think, I don’t know… you’re not seeing anyone else, right?”

“’Course not, why, you got other plans after this?” He grins again. You roll your eyes. He makes it so hard sometimes.

“Steve,” you whine, “I’m so serious right now.”

“Okay, okay. No, you’re the only one for me.” He means it. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard. “Are you seeing anyone else?” He asks you like it’s the easiest question in the world for him to ask but honestly he’s shitting his pants a little. He’s not sure what’d he say if you said yes, I am, and I think we should end this, which is where he’s assuming the conversation is going. You’ve got we shouldn’t do this anymore written all over you in his eyes and he’s steeling himself for the heartbreak.

“Does it look like I am?”

“Does it look like I am?” He repeats back, and he reaches for your hand in that too intimate way of his, takes it all careful and slow. “What’s this about?”

“I just, I just think, that, you know, I’m not seeing anyone, and you’re not seeing anyone, but we’re sorta… seeing each other, yeah?” You gesture between the two of you. He nods. He’s staring at you very intensely, waiting for you to get your words out. He’s still waiting for you to say you think this whole thing has been a very bad mistake, a miscalculated judgement on your part, you should go back to the way things were, so he’s not expecting what comes out of you next. “Shouldn’t we be, like, official, then?”

And instead of throwing up all the ways he so badly would love for that to happen, he chokes out, because he’s stupid and speechless, “Official?” And the way he says it, like it’s a curse when it’s only his disbelief that you’d want that with him after all this time, makes you immediately go into panic mode.

He quite literally sees the way you lose any sense of confidence in your question and he immediately tries to take it back as you stand from his side and start trying to force your words back in your mouth, too. “Fuck, forget I said anything,” you mumble, spying your shoes shoved under his desk where you’d comfortably kicked them off. You hasten to put them on as Steve scrambles up from the bed and starts dressing, matching your frantic speed.

“Hey, wait, that’s not what I- I didn’t mean it like that-“

“It’s fine, Steve, I get it, I totally do, this isn’t that for you, it’s fine-“

“It is, it is-“ but you’re not hearing him, your mind is already elsewhere. It’s in your own bed in the quiet, alone with your thoughts and not with him, mercifully not with him. You need this one mercy, “I’ll drive you home, babe, c’mon, I’ll explain everything, please-“

“I got it, it’s fine, I’m fine, you don’t have to explain, okay? I got it,” and you don’t just walk out of his house and down the block to yours, you absolutely flee. You take Steve’s heart with you.

He’s pacing the floor behind the register at Family Video three days and three shifts later, practically clawing at the walls of the place, and Robin is pulling her hair out at the sight of him in distress this way.

“What did you do?” She finally breaks, flipping her magazine shut.

“What? How do you know it was me?” He stops pacing. He hadn’t even noticed he was doing it.

“You’ve had three shifts and she hasn’t visited one single time. She always visits. And I know I didn’t do anything wrong, because I never do anything wrong, so, what’d you do?” Robin places her hand under his chin and stares at him expectantly.

He huffs, his hands on hips. “Maybe she did something, Robin, did you ever think of that?”

“Definitely not,” Robin retorts, waiting for Steve to be serious.

He deflates. “Okay, it was me.”

“I know that, now continue.”

“We were, you know,” he tilts his head down and raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes.

“Having sex, sure,” Robin bobs her head. A customer in the nearest aisle frowns and shuffles toward a different section further away from the two of them.

Steve shushes her. “I wasn’t trying to say it so loud.”

“Having sex,” Robin repeats, louder this time, not bothering to fight back a laugh at Steve’s exasperated expression, “continue.”

“Well, after that, she started asking if, if I was seeing anyone, which of course I’m not, because, you know, I’m into her, obviously, so I told her I wasn’t, and she said she wasn’t, so she said maybe we should be official.” Steve hesitates to say the rest of what happened. He still can’t believe all he could do when you said the words was repeat them back to you with that stupid look on his face instead of giving you the biggest, loudest declaration of love in a big, messy, pathetic, devoted way, the way he pictures himself when it comes to you, messy and pathetic and devoted, and he replays that moment back to himself all day long, thinking of everything else he could’ve said to make you understand.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? She’s all you talk about all day long, you want to be with her, don’t you?”

“Of course I do!” He snaps, dragging a hand across his face. “But when she said it I just couldn’t get the words out and she got, she got so sad and she left without me being able to explain anything and she hasn’t answered the phone which, yes, I’ve been calling, and I don’t know how to do this.” He’d never been good at school but he knew he’d get a Grade A in Pitiful.

“Do what? Tell a girl you love her? You’ve been in relationships before, Steve.”

“I know, but…” he sighs. “I’m different now, like, it’s not as easy anymore, for me, and I- I don’t want her to get hurt, and I don’t want to get hurt, it’s like, everything used to be my fault, and I wasn’t as good as I could have been, and I don’t want to break anything, I don’t want it to get fucked up, because it’ll be my fault, and I can’t do that again. Not to her.” He swallows, the words harder to come by than he would care to admit. “I’m a little… I’m a little in love with her, I think.” This is said quietly. It frightens him to say it out loud. He’s gone over it in his head, those words, so few of them, but they say so much, and it’s scary. He hasn’t said them to someone in years. The last time he did he got so brutally hurt he thought he’d never recover. But he had. So why was it still so scary?

“A little bit?” Robin teases, but it’s all love for him, truly.

“Alright, a lot in love,” he concedes. He wants to get used to saying it. He wants to say it to you. For real. Loudly. “I still don’t know how to do this, though. Not anymore.”

“Come on!” Robin gets up from her stool and places her hands on his shoulders. “You’re supposed to be Steve Harrington. You were using those…” she pauses for a beat and then, “charms,” the word is said with the smallest hint of sarcasm but she persists nonetheless, “on tons of girls in high school and at Scoops! Now whip them out again for our very nice friend that you sometimes go to town with!”

“When did any of those charms,” he says it with a matching sarcastic tone, “work aside from when I was sixteen and an idiot?”

“You might not be sixteen anymore but you’re still an idiot, if that helps.”

“It doesn’t but thank you for the encouragement.”

“I’m just saying!” She exclaims, throwing her hands up and returning back to her seat. “Putting yourself out there is always gonna be scary, but you can’t let that stop you. You’d actually be an idiot if you let that stop you. Are you just never gonna see her again? No, because you’d go insane. It’s not like what you did was all that bad anyway.”

“You really think so?” He perks up a bit, needing that confirmation that he isn’t a totally awful and irredeemable person. It’s easy for him to fall headfirst into that spiral of thinking. It was a trap set with the most accessible, perfect bait and he somehow always found himself walking straight into it without stopping to think if he was being fair to himself.

“You’ve both been in bad spots, you reacted the way you did and she reacted the way she did out of what was most likely panic and embarrassment. She’s definitely not even mad at you. Probably just, again, embarrassed. If you explain I think it’ll all be okay, Steve, I swear.” Robin can’t take much more of this conversation circling around, as much as she loves Steve and wants to be there for him, she would love him even more if he acted on his feelings and allowed himself some happiness for once. “So do you think you can you, like, maybe go tell her so she can keep visiting us at work? I need more company than just you and Keith and these customers with no taste,” she complains, glaring at the closed door that hides Keith, in all his absolute glory. The customer from before hears her comment and storms out. Robin rolls her eyes.

“Right, yeah, tell her I love her, tell my best friend I love her,” he frowns, nerves creeping up the back of his neck. “Maybe you could just call her first and ask-“

“Steve! I am not meddling in your love life like that when you already know everything there is to know!” She throws her magazine at him. “She said she wants to be with you, go be with her!”

“Alright, alright!” He waves his hands dismissively. He begins to pace again, this time his eyes held to the clock. Robin groans. There’s still three hours left of their shift.

You’re in your room wallowing, or doing what’d you call attempting not to wallow but failing at it miserably. You haven’t touched a single page of your book, mostly content to just listen to sad records and more or less stare at the wall. It was stupid, you knew, to behave in such a way over some guy. But it didn’t feel like some guy. It was Steve, after all. It all felt deeper than just some guy. You two had been through a lot together, more than most people have been, and if you’d just ruined your friendship with someone you always felt safe, felt at home with, over feelings you couldn’t control and probably would be better off not having, you were going to need some serious therapy.

It probably was silly of the two of you to start this thing up anyway, you reason, fighting back your urge to do any further crying into a pillow. You try to focus on painting your nails a nice shade of dark blue but it reminds you of Steve’s old Scoops uniform and of that night (and all that nights that followed) so you stop in the middle of your second thumb and grab nail polish remover and start scrubbing away at your finished right hand.

“Fuckin’ ridiculous,” you mutter, the cotton ball in your hand soaked through with blue and your nails discolored and muddy. “I am ridiculous,” you say to yourself, shaking off your wet hand. Your room is filled with the smell of acetone and disappointment. You think about lighting a candle when your doorbell rings. You debate answering it before it rings again. And then again. And again, more frenzied this time.

You open the door to a distressed Steve. His cheeks are red and he’s breathing like he can’t anymore. He’s not the multi-star athlete he was in high school, he realizes in this moment. “Did you- did you just run here from work?” You ask him, but he’s already too close to you, not answering your question, gazing at you because simply looking isn’t enough and has never been enough. He is gazing. He is flush with adoration. It’s hard not to bloom under that radiance. He makes you want to forget everything and go back to plush lips on hot skin and the quiet contentment that came alongside being with him in those first few months. You back up a little into your doorway but he steps up to you, following your steps. “Where’s your car-“

“Forget that for a sec,” he says, and you stop talking out of surprise. “Just, just tell me if we do this it’ll be okay, and we won’t be terrible for each other, and we’ll be good,” because he needs to hear it, even if it’s ridiculous and he’s jinxing it before it’s begun he needs to know you’re right there with him. “Like, just tell me it can be easy this once. If you broke my heart I don’t know if I’d be able to handle it. ‘Cause I love you. I do. And I want this.” And you get it. He’s letting you get it. He’s letting you all the way in. You realize, flustered and basking in it, that he’s the first one to say those words. That you hadn’t even said them when you posed your first question. But he’s saying them out loud and it’s brilliant and beautiful. He is beautiful.

It makes you want to weep, the love that swells here, out in the open. “Fuck, Steve, what type of girl do you think I am, breaking the heart of the guy I’ve been in love with since he started sneaking into my bedroom?” He smiles. He glows. It’s so beautifully Steve. Maybe it can be easy.

When he kisses you, he proves it: the ease, the tranquility. He is fervent and burning. Everything is urgent with Steve. Especially kissing. He captures every bit of you immediately. His touch is light when he urges you out of your doorway and into your living room so he can shut your front door and quit giving the neighbors what he’s sure is the show of a lifetime. It is for him, at least.

#IM JUST GONNA POST THIS NOW BECAUSE I WANTED TO WRITE SMUT BUT I KEEP DELETING IT AND IF I DONT JUST POST AS IS IM GONNA END UP NEVER POSTIN #i feel like the ending is rushed but otherwise i did enjoy writing this immensely!#love you guys<3333 #i will write smut one day but not today i guess! i’m literally at work rn too soo #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington fanfic #steve x reader #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington one shot #stranger things x reader #stranger things

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waroferas · 1 month

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If you're still taking requests, may I ask for Warriors keeping Wind and Tiny Time on kiddie leashes?

they bite btw

#frogart #oh war of eras my beloved. i litro dont know how to tag for this kind of stuff while avoiding crosstagging. SAD !#lu #lu warriors #lu time #? i guess. she's small #lu wind #hw #<- for me #i have like . 3 other asks for these guys and i am sooo happy abt it truly . thats not a complaint . keep em comin

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oceanwithouthermoon · 3 months

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i always feel bad when i see how the point of a lot of saiki's personality traits flew right over the heads of a lot of fans due to him being an unreliable narrator and a tsundere lol.. so a lot of things he says are immediately proved to be untrue and often just him putting up a front, but some people dont pick up on it..

like i see a lot of "haha saiki would never want to watch a romance movie" guys there is an entire chapter (170) dedicated to him being like "i much prefer mysteries to romance stories.." and then immediately becoming absolutely enamored with a romance story.. he was lying, guys, LMAO

less specific ones include:

"i hate children, they annoy me" *goes out of his way to help kids, comfort them, be kind to them, etc.*

"i only use my powers for self gain/my own convenience." "anyway my mama told me to never use my powers selfishly so i always use them to help people and i try my best not to use them for personal gain<3"

"those guys are so annoying, i would never hang out with them willingly." "yeah it took them about two sentences to convince me to go with them. their thoughts seemed like they really wanted me to go, so i did. i didnt want them to be upset. not that i care about them or anything."

(sorry i post about this kind of thing a lot, i just giggle a lot at how the entire manga is so easily misinterpreted and thousands of people have watched the show but didnt pick up on the main characters most defining character traits and frequent bits.. i think there needs to be a masterlist or something disproving all the extremely common misconceptions about saiki k lol)

#not hating lmao its just silly #i once saw one of those 'how saiki k characters would drink their coffee' posts and for saiki it said 'black coffee'#and i giggled #what do you mean you think the guy who only smiles during really sweet moments or when hes eating sweets would drink black coffee #thats so out of character but they obvi were just going by personality which u guess is funny #that mf prob would make homemade pumpkin spice lattes drowned in sugar and creamer and whipped cream and sprinkles #hey genuine question to people who watched the anime this way: how was it still funny ?#him being a liar tsundere unreliable narrator is often the MAIN bit.. like in EVERY chapter..#did u only pay attention to the silly mini jokes within the episodes and those were somehow still enough to make you love the show ?#or like.. what was it ??? IDK I GENUINELY DONT GET IT #saiki k #tdlosk #the disastrous life of saiki k.#saiki kusuo #meows post

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ahaura · 1 month

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im sure its been said already but as the election draws near more and more liberals will come out of the woodwork to shame people with a conscience to give away their vote to the democrats for free. i'm already seeing posts saying "why aren't people more concerned about a trump presidency?" you want to know why? it's because people already know he's bad. everyone already knows what he is and what he's done and what he'll do. there's nothing to discuss. he's a racist despotic worm of a man. there's nothing else to say.

biden is currently president. the genocide is happening under his watch. he's the one funding isra*l and arming them; he's sidestepped congress more than once to give them weapons. by oct. 27, the biden administration already knew that "Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets." the state department/biden have engaged in atrocity propaganda, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the death toll recorded by the gaza health ministry, and so on. the united states is currently in the process of trying to pin the "war in gaza" on netanyahu (see sen. schumer's speech) after months of backing blatant genocide as a means to act as if they're "doing something" about the genocide (Instead of, say, threatening to cut off all aid to israel with the condition that all hostilities in gaza, the west bank, and occupied jerusalem are halted immediately and permanently, allowing palestinians freedom to travel, allowing aid into gaza, etc etc etc.)

the long and short of it is that liberals view their own lives as being worth more than palestinians'. that's it. they'll vote for another 4 years of the guy ushering in genocide and supporting apartheid + settler colonialism because he isn't outright attacking them (despite various laws and rulings happening both at the supreme court level and at the local level all over the country that will endanger people). they'll settle for the illusion of safety and security and shame anyone with a conscience and accuse them of "supporting the republicans" when in an actual democracy you would be able to use your vote as leverage to extract concessions from those who want to be elected. that's how it's supposed to fucking work.

democrats are not owed people's vote. if biden loses, it will be biden's fault; it will be his campaign's fault; it will be the democrats' fault. trump is bad; the republicans are bad. we already know this. this is not an endorsement of either. but if democrats are too cowardly and feckless and servile to the motivations of the american empire and never do anything for their constituents then why the fuck should anyone vote for them. you want to get mad at someone, why don't you do something useful and stop worrying about team-sports with a purely selfish basis and start hounding the people in power who are supposed to serve you, the voter.

#i think i already said this and frankly idc #uspol #📁.zip #to me personally it's abhorrent and vile to tell palestinians 'biden is facilitating the murder of your people culture and history but you #still have to vote for him!!1' like how is that not unbelievably callous and ghoulish #frankly speaking. a lot of this 'you should be concerned about trump' is going to turn into #blaming palestinians and arabs and muslims and anyone remotely with a conscience for biden's loss #instead of doing something productive like pushing for people in power to do something they'll nitpick and belittle #and tell palestinians + arabs and muslims + everyone who understands that genocide is bad that they SHOULD #settle for a decrepit genocidal monstrous freak who is CURRENTLY facilitating genocide because #it makes THEM feel better and they aren't personally threatened (yet) by the guy currently in power #any and all 'you're not taking trump seriously' comments should be met with extreme skepticism #because i promise i PROMISE that the vast majority of people unhappy with biden are not going to turn around and vote for trump #and if they do? well guess what THAT'S BIDEN'S FAULT! nevermind the vote uncommitted campaign that was very successful and #will be replicated in the near future. but liberals only care about asthetics and superficial and not #about real material change which is why they'll dress up their callousness and racism in a 'you hate gay people if you dont vote for biden'#like this country is already going to shit we are rapidly descending into fascism and i dont see biden doing anything to even remotely #challenge it do you???? once agian. NOT an endorsement of the republican party but my GOD when the 'lesser evil'#is DOING the evil or normalizing the evil then you cannot settle for 'the lesser'! end of story.

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oodlesodoodles · 7 months

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Harry squeezes a local Club manager to let them have a swim in the fancy ass pool in return for keeping a drugging/poisoning case quiet

#Ive been really productive the last few days but i go back to work so thats gonna change #Maybe this isnt universal but the most easygoing and eager to skinnydippers ive met are trans guys haha #And i like the thought of kim being so tightened til theres relative privacy and also a body of water OUT OF THE WAY #Hes really disapproving of harry doing this until it works! Then hes excited. so they come back in the wee hours to 'interview a late night #They have to be hush about it bc they dont want anyone else tagging along #God when im bored for multiple days instead of doing chores my brains starts writting fic i guess.

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fafameow · 4 months

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Merry Christmas for those who celebrate and happy holidays woo!!

#kirby #magolor #bandana waddle dee #gooey #marx kirby #merry christmas #happy holidays #fafa art #i dont celebrate christmas but some reason i always like to make xmas drawings every year guess its my lil gift for you guys ;)

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king-magppi · 2 years

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Urrmm Don't Hug Me I'm Scared stuff for tonight. Dw abt tagging for spoilers bc I still haven't finished watching the new season myself

There's 3 of them but I CLEARLY have a favorite

#dont hug me im scared #dhmis #dhmis fanart #dhmis red guy #dhmis yellow guy #dhmis duck #dhmis green guy #dont hug me im scared fanart #dhmis sketchbook #sketchbook's semi-humanoid design was inspired by mimi super paper mario and clive handforth lbp2 #idk i had the idea to draw her like that and had to sketch it out and im proud of how it came out #dont hug me im shit posting #i guess?? a lot of yellow guy memes in this

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brewstersbru · 6 months

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I want to get more used to writing low stakes lil blurbs so please enjoy this, also posted on ao3 under my pseud brewstersbru :) hopefully being able to post it here will bring the perfectionism anxiety down lol

***

Astarion is perhaps the one of the most interesting, irritating, but somehow undoubtedly kind people Halsin has ever observed. Though he’d flay anyone who had the audacity to tell him it.

The duties of an Arch-Druid are many, and often arduous in nature, but nonetheless rewarding. And it all boils down to watching, observing, noticing little idiosyncrasies in the people he leads. The people who trust him with their lives and wellbeing. Halsin has become well-accustomed to watching, as any good leader must and it is no surprise that the skill has followed him to where he is now, camping with a menagerie of illithid-infected souls, searching for a cure.

Though, with this aforementioned observational skill, Halsin has gotten the distinct impression that many of them seek quite a bit more than a simple cure. Absolution, freedom, a clearer path forward. It is so often in the words they don’t say, rather than those they choose to reveal. For example, Gale never talks of an ‘after’, a concept all of the others seem so enamored with, save Astarion, of course. He simply hums and offers a small melancholy smile when conversation turns to the topic of everyone’s plans after they find a cure. It wasn’t difficult to figure him out, not when Halsin had been paying attention. Gale is convinced that dying is the only way to atone for his sins. To be forgiven.

Halsin’s heart aches at the thought; poor child, it is not a sin to wish to be loved. But he digresses.

Astarion, curiosity that he is, had immediately captured Halsin’s attention when he’d joined camp. On the surface he seemed shallow, and ill-tempered, but Halsin has not gotten this far in life by making quick judgements on a person’s first actions after he’s met them. Sure enough, he’d caught a glimpse of the real Astarion not even two days later.

It had been a long day, brimming with long, arduous battles after which they had all come out exhausted and bloodied. Wyll, with his lion’s heart, had fought especially ferociously. Perhaps too much so. His robe was torn horribly across the front and he’d had to be propped up as they trudged back to camp, unfortunately neither Halsin nor Shadowheart had maintained enough energy to heal anyone.

Astarion had almost immediately wedged himself under Wyll’s arm, curling an arm around his waist while also berating him as they walked. “What in the hells were you thinking jumping out like that! You’re weak, leave the feats of strength to Karlach you dolt!” And on and on. The words were cutting, and not entirely fair, but still, his hands remained gentle against his friends skin and he walked slowly so as not to jostle his injuries.

Shadowheart- exhausted herself, likely with a beast of a headache after all of the concentration spells she’d been slinging- had told Astarion to shut it, only hearing the words and not the worry behind them. He had obliged- another kindness-as his eyes darted around the scrunched pain painted over her expression and his own expression set in resolve. Still, he performed a pout, and everyone took it for what it was- or rather, what he’d wanted them to take it for: Astarion being his usual surly self.

Halsin took it for what it truly was, a man doing his best to aid his friends and keep their spirits high after such a grueling encounter. He’d thought they needed someone to direct their exhausted irritation at, lest they start picking themselves apart instead (something Halsin had noticed, but was unaware Astarion knew of) and offered himself like it was as natural as breathing.

The kindnesses didn’t stop there, either. When they made it to camp he’d taken Wyll to his bedroll as the others collapsed onto their own. Rummaged through the camp supplies until he found a potion of greater healing, then did not feed it to Wyll until he was half asleep and delirious.

“Mmh… Dad?” Wyll had murmured, eyes squinted closed as he moved his head around. Astarion had simply hummed and continued feeding him the potion.

For the rest of the night he prepped ingredients with practiced efficiency and left them next to the communal cooking pot for when the rest of the party woke for breakfast. Halsin had needed to trance for a few hours, loathe as he was to turn away from the scene, and when he returned Wyll’s robe had been mended, folded and placed aside his head. Astarion was nowhere to be seen. Halsin hoped he’d found his way to his own tent for a short trance.

Elves do not need to sleep, this much is true, but even a short trance would have done wonders to refresh and replenish his energy. Astarion had to know that.

Halsin is still unsure what the other elf had done for the rest of that night, but he’d emerged from his tent with just as much practiced, haughty vigor as he’d always had halfway through breakfast the next morning.

“Astarion! Good morning! Thank you for aiding me in our trek back yesterday.” Wyll had smiled at him, something warm and molten in his eyes. Astarion simply huffed and waved it off, “Well, dear, someone needed to lecture you about the dangers of heroism. None of these dimwits were going to do it.” Wyll smiled and the others gave halfhearted protests from where they’d been digging into the breakfast Gale had prepared from the ingredients Astarion had left out for him. There was a sparkle in his eye as he caught sight of them eating it, something almost like pride, if Halsin had to name it.

The others had been dumbfounded, asking around the campfire about who had done it. When no one came forward they’d simply shrugged and taken it to mean that the culprit was too humble to take credit. Besides, who were they to question a miracle such as this. No one asked the vampire if he’d done the deed, why would he have? He doesn’t eat food anymore and he doesn’t even really like them.

It’s exactly what he wants them to think. Halsin has to give him points for his dedication to maintaining pretense. Wyll doesn’t mention his robe, but his eyes dart from hand to hand trying to scrutinize any bandages or pricks that might indicate a late-night sewing session. It’s a smart move on his part but Astarion, it seems, is a masterful tailor. His fingers are unbandaged and unbloodied.

Everything carefully thought out and executed. Every kindness meticulously planned and hidden. He truly is an enigma. He would rather his friends believe him selfish and cruel, than see him for the gentle, caring man he truly is.

The kindnesses continue, always carefully implemented so as to erase any and all suspicion that Astarion may have had any part in it. He continues to be outwardly difficult and mean so as to cover his tracks. Halsin can do little but watch, as he always has, that is, until Astarion’s little kindnesses eventually and inevitably extend to him, too.

He is not so easily fooled, has seen past the performance that the other man puts on for some reason that he is still trying to parse.

It’s a quiet evening, the battles of the day had been hard, but nothing they were ill-equipped to handle. The shadow curse has been getting to Halsin, though. Seeing his greatest failure in all of it’s unbearable misery has been weighing on him. And he knows his struggle is not invisible to his fellow party members. They seem unsure what to do about it, though, seeing as he is a centuries old former Arch-Druid with life experience they could hardly fathom. He enjoys his time at camp but cannot say with certainty that he is truly close to anyone there. Though he wishes to be, he is afraid they’ve placed him on somewhat of a pedestal after his actions in the grove, forgetting that he is fallible and full of emotion, same as them.

He very nearly misses it, when it happens, too caught up in his thoughts to hear the slight shuffling near the entrance to his tent. Thankfully, he doesn’t, and emerges with a small smile.

Astarion freezes at the sound of his emergence, crouched over something small and wooden at his feet. Then, almost as if possessed, his shoulders relax and he looks up with a devilish grin. “Halsin! My dear, I was just looking for you. Some wretched little thing of a child has gifted me with perhaps the ugliest wooden duck I’ve ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes on. And these things are in no way ‘beautiful’ on a good day. I cannot have something so… distasteful loitering around my tent. You mentioned you liked ducks so I thought it would be of better use here. Otherwise I’m throwing it in the river.” It’s a lot of words, more than the vampire generally tends to use in casual conversation, as much as he pretends he’s an insufferable chatterbox. That’s the second clue Halsin gets that perhaps there’s more to this than Astarion is telling him. The first being the way he froze, as if he hadn’t been expecting Halsin to be there. “Looking for you”, right…

Astarion stands and nods at the duck on the ground. It’s small, a little misshapen, but it’s got hearts carved where it’s eyes should be and for some reason Halsin finds that hopelessly endearing. He kneels and cradles the thing gently in his cupped palms.

When he looks up Astarion is grinning at him, still in that sneering performative way he likes to, but in his eyes that shine of pride makes itself known. Halsin likes the duck, it’s obvious. And Astarion is proud of himself, but he’ll never tell. He’ll never let anyone else be.

The third clue is dripping sluggishly down Astarion’s finger, stark and red against his deathly pale skin. Halsin remembers the first time he’d whittled. His hands had looked much of the same. He smiles.

“Thank you, Astarion. This is very good. Would you like some salve for your hand?”

Astarion’s eyes widen, only fractionally, but noticeable if you’d been looking in his eyes. And Halsin had been. Still, his expression shutters and he pastes another smirk on before turning his nose up at the duck.

“Thank the Gods, that ugly thing is your problem now. And I’ve no idea what you mean dear, my hand is perfectly serviceable.” He rushes away with a perfunctory wave, likely to rob Halsin of the opportunity to call him out on his bullshit. Halsin only smiles and cradles the duck. He’d bloodied his hands for this, for him. The surge of affection that washes through him is entirely involuntary but wholly welcome.

Astarion wakes from his trance the next morning to a gift settled gently at the entrance of his tent. It’s a wooden cat, masterfully carved from a dark oak and undeniably beautiful. Perfectly fitting the vampire’s tastes and sensibilities.

A note lies beside it in what he recognizes to be Halsin’s messy scrawl.

Thank you, Astarion, again for the duck. It thrills and delights me to know that you care. It did make me feel better, you know, and I still have that salve if you need. All you have to do is ask. I thought I’d return the favor, seeing as you do so much for the camp but refuse to let anyone see it, or thank you.

I see you. I thank you.

Yours,

Halsin

#bg3 #astarion #halsin #bloodbear #halsin x astarion #halstarion #gale being a wet cat #wyll being dashing and heroic #can you tell im swooning #i care him sm #you guys dont get it like i do #covert kindnesses #astarion is kind of like those cats that look away as they slide food towards you #like ‘gods ur pathetic but /here/ i guess’#brublurbs

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