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flowercrowngods · 6 months

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who did this to you. part 2

🤍🌷 read part 1 here pre-s4, steve whump, protective (but scared) eddie

This is not happening. None of this is happening, he’s… He’s dreaming. He’s high. High as a kite somewhere where reality doesn’t matter, where it can’t fucking reach him and he’s— He’s not panicking behind the wheel with Steve Fucking Harrington bleeding against the passenger side window.

It’s not happening.

Because if it were happening, Eddie would simply throw up. He’d leave his van on the side of the road and run the fuck away. Away from Harrington and his trouble, away from his rattling breath that’s so loud and unsteady, Eddie doesn’t even dare to turn on any sort of music, even though he’s itching for it, his hands clenching and unclenching around the wheel until his knuckles go white.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he mumbles under his breath, barely aware of his surroundings at all, his eyes flitting from Harrington to the red stain against the window, back to the road and then down to the white-knuckled grip and the speckles of dried blood that is decidedly not his.

Lost in his panic and disbelief, Eddie almost runs a red light.

It’s harsh, the way he hits the brakes, and the sound Harrington makes is pathetic enough that Eddie feels like maybe this might actually be happening.

“Sorry,” he breathes, his voice no better than Steve’s — and he’s not the one with a concussion, a broken rib, and that… fucking fear. Of something. Or someone.

Who’s hurting you, Steve?

Jus’ everyone, sometimes. God you don’t… You don’t even know.

He doesn’t even know. He doesn’t wanna know. All he wants is for Harrington to stop fucking bleeding, to keep his eyes wide open and—

“Ed,” the boy says, wheezes, and it sounds like he wanted to say his full name, but had to swallow first. Blood, Eddie thinks. Don’t let it be blood. “Think I’m… ‘M gonna throw up.”

“Please don’t throw up,” Eddie says before he can stop himself, hating how small his voice sounds, how urgent — like that’s the thing to be urgent about. God, he’s such an ass, but he… If Harrington throws up, Eddie will lose it. He knows he will.

He chances a glance over at Steve, who has somehow managed to get his right arm tangled with the handle at the door, keeping himself upright and safe from Eddie’s rather frantic driving style. His head is drooping, moving this way and that against the red-stained glass, and he blinks unseeingly as blood begins to trickle down from his nose and temple again.

He’s making himself small, and Eddie wants to pull him upright and tell him to stay like that, tell him to stop looking so terrible, so horrible, so…

So much like Eddie’s fucking problem.

He hates it. Hates everything about that vision. Boys like Harrington shouldn’t look like this, shouldn’t hold themselves like this, shouldn’t… Shouldn’t have no one but Eddie to take them somewhere safe.

It’s just not tight.

“Don’ wanna throw up,” Steve says at last, the pause too long for Eddie’s liking, and he sounds so solemn about it, yet so helpless, and Eddie kinda wants to scream. Wants Harrington to scream. Anything to stay awake and maybe not ruin his car. Anything to not fucking die in it.

“Tell me something,” he says then, because he knows he has to keep Harrington awake and speaking. Just for another ten, fifteen minutes, he tells himself. “Anything, yeah? Tell me anything. Gotta keep you awake there, you hear me? Sounds great, right, staying awake?”

He’s rambling and he knows it, desperation shining through his words and the god-awful way his voice breaks a little. This is not about him, he knows it isn’t, but still he wants to punch himself, wants to pinch himself and stay fucking calm.

But who could stay calm in a situation like this? The silence is filled with the horrible wheezing and rattling of Harrington’s breath barely audible over the engine, and Eddie has to look over several times to make sure he’s still there, still with him, still alive. His panic spikes each time.

He’s just about to reach over and shake him a little, snap in front of his face to get him back, when—

“I don’t know what.”

It’s quiet, that voice, breathy and tiny and almost invisible, and Eddie wants to scream again.

Tell me why you’re so scared. Tell me why your old buddy did this to you. Hagan would never touch you, so why did he now? Tell me what happened to Hargrove. Tell me why you sound so fucking small.

“Tell me about your…” He fumbles for a moment, taking a sharp left and pretending not to hear the choked-off whimper. Focusing on good things. On normal things. “Your favourite person.”

Eddie cringes at himself the moment the words leave his mouth. Your favourite person? Really, Munson? He scrambles to find something better, something cooler, or maybe something easier like asking his favourite fucking colour, but the overthinking really doesn’t mix well with the already panicked state of his mind. And Eddie just blanks.

Beside him, though, Harrington sits up a little straighter, smearing more blood against his window in the process that Eddie pretends not to feel nauseous about.

God, he never did like blood.

“You wan’ me to tell you ‘bout Rob?”

“Sure, yeah,” Eddie says, a little too loud, a little too shrill, actually running a red light this time because he doesn’t want to brake again and hurt the boy some more. There’s no one around anyway. This is Hawkins. Fucking dead-end of a town. It doesn’t need red lights, or boys who look like Harrington. “Rob. Tell me ‘bout him, what’s he like? Favourite colour, all that shit.”

“Her.”

Eddie blinks, looking over to find Harrington looking at him — or trying to, his eyes still drooping and empty. But it’s a good sign. People don’t die when they look at you, right?

“What?”

“Her,” Harrington says again. “An’ blue. Deep ‘n’ dark blue. She’ll say something corny when, when you ask her, jus’ to fuck with you. Sunset gold or rose, jus’ to mess with… But is blue.”

Eddie doesn’t really listen, doesn’t really process what Steve is saying, already thinking of the next question just to keep him talking. But then he continues on his own.

“Mornin’ blue dep— de… makes her sad, though. So only dark blue. Says it’s why we’re friends. You’re so blue, Stevie. Got half’a my clothes, still, she does. All the blues.”

That's... really fucking endearing, actually.

And he says it with a half-smile, too, bloody and pathetic as it is. Like it’s a secret that only the two of them are in on, only Steve and Robin. It’s kind of sweet.

Not for the first time today does Eddie find himself wondering, Who the hell are you, Steve Harrington?

He exhales through his nose, ignoring the way he’s started to shake with all that panic that’s been sitting inside him for a little too long now with no way to let it out.

“Not much longer,” he mumbles under his breath again, or maybe he just thinks very hard. Maybe he doesn’t know where he is at all. It’s like he blanks every few seconds, too busy thinking and trying not to.

Before he can tell Harrington to talk some more about that girlfriend of his, there’s a pained, confused little whine that forcefully tears Eddie’s eyes from the street for a moment only to meet hazel eyes widened in confusion.

“Wh— Where… Where’re we going?”

Oh no.

“Why’m I in y—“

“You’re safe,” Eddie interrupts him, speaking slowly because suddenly his tongue is too big for his mouth, and not entirely sure if he’s reassuring Harrington or himself. “You’re hurt, okay? It’s bad, but it wasn’t me. I’m taking you to… to someone. My uncle Wayne, he’s— He knows about that kinda stuff. You were telling me about Rob. Remember her, Blue? How about you tell me some more, hm?”

Eddie’s voice is unsteady with worry and fear and panic, and he’s doing a piss-poor job at hiding it. The thing is, he’s going to cry. He’s actually, absolutely, no-doubt-about-it going to scream and cry and punch a fucking hole into something when this day is over, when his van is no longer bloody, and when Steve Harrington won’t have reason to look at him any longer.

Oh, how he wants to skip forward. Past the nausea, past the fear, past everything that’s happening right now. Maybe past the insomnia that will come with a day like this, too.

Past all of it.

Or better yet, travel back in time and never get to that fucking boat house.

But he can’t. So he breathes.

At first, through the ringing in his ears and the racing of his own heart so loud and so forceful he’s shaking with it, he worries that Steve’s gone silent again, that he’s gonna ask again, ask what happened, ask where he is, ask all the questions that make Eddie feel like he’s been doused in ice water because they’re questions that only get asked in stupid movies where terrible things happen to people.

But then he hears him mumbling something. Numbers.

“What’cha mumbling there, Blue?”

“‘S her number,” Steve says, his voice slurring again, worse than before, and Eddie hits the gas a little harder. “‘S jus’ her number. Robbie’s number.”

And he mumbles again. Over and over and over, until Eddie couldn’t forget it if he wanted to, ingrained into the frayed edges of his mind now.

He lets him ramble, lets him repeat the number until the words slur together and he can’t separate a four from a nine anymore. Each time Harrington hesitates, each time he stumbles over the words or forgets a digit, Eddie wants to punch the wheel.

He doesn’t. He only grips it tighter and counts down the turns he takes, the streets he passes, the fucking trees that are familiar, before, finally, the trailer park comes into view.

The sob Eddie lets out when, with shaking, trembling hands he pulls up to his home to find his uncle having a smoke outside is deafening to his ears after the quiet weakness of Harrington’s voice.

It startles him, makes him stop his rambles and sit up straighter when Eddie finally kills the engine. For a moment, without the steady, rolling hum, the car is filled with the small, tiny whines Steve makes on each exhale. Like it hurts to even breathe.

“Wha’s wrong?” He asks, but Eddie can’t really hear him. Can’t turn to him, can’t— “Eddie?”

He’s out of the car before he can take hold of another thought, stumbling out of his open door on legs that feel numb and heavy. The urge to cry is back again, the burning in his eyes only getting worse when Wayne takes in the dried blood on his clothes and hands with careful, calculated worry.

“Ed?”

“I didn’t know what— where—- I’m… Wayne, I’m sorry.”

“Slow down, kid,” Wayne says, raising his hands as if to calm a spooked deer. Like Eddie is the one who needs his help. And he is. He really, really is, and he shouldn’t be, because this isn’t about him, but—

Wayne grabs him by the shoulders to keep him still, and only now does Eddie realise he’s shaking again, restlessly moving his weight from one leg to the other. His uncle steadies him, gently pressing down on his shoulders to ground him, and Eddie nearly sobs again.

“Ed. Are you in trouble?”

“No,” Eddie scrambles to say, becoming aware of what this looks like, hiding his hands behind his back on instinct, like that’ll make Harrington’s blood disappear. “‘S not my blood, I didn’t do anything, I swear! I swear. It’s, uh. I just found him. In the boathouse, I found him, and he was… God, he looked so bad, okay, but he didn’t want the hospital, and he was, like, so scared of something, and we don’t even talk, we don’t even look at each other, but I just… I didn’t know what to do, and you know something about concussions and people who were beat to shit and, again, I’m—“

“Eddie,” Wayne says, his voice so calm but so assertive that Eddie shuts up immediately, gladly handing over to controls to his uncle now. “Who’s the kid?”

He nods towards Eddie’s van, where Harrington looks to be halfway unbuckled, but his eyes are closed and his face smushed against the door again, like he just gave up.

“Shit,” Eddie says, adrenaline and panic slowly falling from him with Wayne’s hand on his shoulder. He sags into his uncle and rubs at his face. “It’s Steve. Uh, Steve Harrington, I mean.”

“Okay,” Wayne says, and he’s so calm. So calm. Eddie feels like he’s about to fall apart, and Wayne is the only one keeping him together, with that’d steady, warm hand on his shoulder. “And you promise me he didn’t give you trouble? Or anyone else who’ll come finish what they started?”

Eddie shakes his head profusely, getting a little dizzy with it. “I promise I’m not in trouble. He said Hagan did this to him, was alone when I found him. No trouble, Wayne, I swear, I’m not like that, you know I’m not.”

“Okay,” Wayne says again, and Eddie wants to weep. “I know you’re not like that, but some people are, y’know? You did good, son. You did good. Now help me get him out of that car.”

It takes his uncle tugging him towards the van for Eddie to kick back into motion, nearly falling over his feet turning back around. It’s only Wayne’s “Easy” murmured under his breath that keeps the ground from opening up and swallowing him whole.

He climbs in on the driver’s side while Wayne rounds the car and gets to Harrington’s side.

“Hey there, Blue,” Eddie says, his voice shaking and the nickname slipping again — but it’s easier to call him that than his real name, it’s easier to pretend it’s literally anyone else in here with him, bleeding against his door.

It’s easier to pretend it’s not Harrington’s breath rattling the way it does, easier to pretend those pained groans so high in their cadence they can only count as whines don’t come from Hawkins High’s Golden Boy who graduated a few months ago and was supposed to be done with bullshit like this.

“Come on, up you get,” he tells him, not daring to raise his voice too much.

He looks so frail. Like he’s already broken. Or like he’s trying not to. Like he’s holding on.

Eddie pretends not to think that the hand he places on Steve’s cheek to gently pry him from the window is not the only thing keeping that boy together right now.

Harrington groans, whines, wheezes, but opens his eyes to meet Eddie’s. Jesus, we’re they this blown before? Or this swollen?

“Hey,” Eddie says, just to say something. Just so he won’t have to hold the boy’s face in silence, just so he won’t have to focus on all the blood. Just so he won’t have to hear more questions that people aren’t supposed to ask.

Steve opens his mouth, his breath coming out a little sharper, like he wants to say Hi rather than Where am I? or When will it stop hurting? Like he wants to say How can I help you help me?

Somehow, Eddie manages a smile.

Wayne chooses that moment to open the door — just unclicking it, not pulling yet; giving Eddie enough time to support Harrington, make sure he doesn’t fall.

“Careful,” he whispers, though whether it’s for Wayne, for Steve, or for himself, he can’t quite tell. Maybe it’s a plea to the rest of the world, and to anyone else who will listen.

Steve is still staring at him. That’s probably not a good sign. He leans back a little, turning Steve’s head to make him follow him. Slowly, of course. Gently. Eddie can’t remember ever having touched something like it was going to break if only he looked at it wrong, but somehow he’s hyper-aware of it now.

Because Harrington is staring at him. Entirely too still, like he has no strength, no coordination to do anything but stare. And yet Eddie is the one who, now that the adrenaline has fallen from him, now that he can let someone else take over, now that Harrington doesn’t need him anymore, finds himself unable to look away.

Because Steve is just a boy. And so is Eddie, who can feel Steve’s breath against his wrist. And maybe, out of the two of them, Eddie is the fragile one. The one about to break.

“Blue, you with me?”

Steve nods. Doesn’t speak again. Doesn’t move. Eddie swallows, briefly looking back down at Wayne to see if he’s ready. His uncle nods, ready to catch Harrington should he go down, and Eddie turns back to the boy who’s smeared with his own blood.

“I’m gonna take off your seatbelt now, yeah?” he tells him, not entirely recognising his voice anymore. “That man out there, that is Wayne. My uncle. He’s safe. He’ll take care of you, okay?”

“Safe,” Steve breathes, and that shouldn’t be the one thing he focuses on. It shouldn’t sound so unsure. So insecure. So hopeful, so relieved, so— Fucking earnest.

Swallowing all these thoughts, all this desperation and all those questions, Eddie reaches over Steve, one hand still supporting his head and feeling the overheated skin of Harrington’s cheek against his palm, the hint of stubble and the crust of dried blood. As if in slow motion, not daring to make a wrong move and hurt him more than he already does, Eddie frees him the rest of the way, letting the seatbelt slide into its hold behind his shoulder.

“Careful,” he says again, just to say anything, but he is careful, and his hold on Steve is steady.

“‘M careful. Not gonna break, Eddie.”

“I know.” But maybe I will.

“Good. ‘Cause… Don’ wanna break.”

Eddie smiles, despite everything. “You’re not gonna break, Blue. Wayne’ll catch you.”

Harrington loses his focus then, his eyes glazing over, but the small smile on his lips widens. “Blue. ‘S nice.”

Yeah, Eddie thinks. He kinda is.

Somehow, miraculously, they get Harrington out of the van and into the trailer. He throws up halfway to the doorstep, and Eddie curses under his breath while Wayne talks quietly, asking him yes and no questions that Eddie can’t really hear through the ringing in his ears — a strange mix of fear and relief, a panic not quite over, but soothed by his uncle’s familiar voice; even if it’s not directed at him.

“Don’t worry about it, kid, the next rain’ll take care of that. Stop apologising.”

It throws him then, rather suddenly and violently, watching Wayne supporting Harrington, watching the blood smeared boy with the swelling, angry red bruises in his face. Somehow it’s different, seeing him in his home.

This was always a safe space. Always void of everything terrible.

And now there’s a broken boy on his doorstep who’s not Eddie.

He remembers the fear, the panic, the plea for no hospital, Eddie. Can’t go there.

Why not? You need a doctor—

Monsters. Only monsters there.

It paralyses him and he stays where he is, holding the door with an arm that’s heavy like lead, standing on legs that begin to go numb again. He watches, but not really, as Wayne sits Harrington down on the living room couch, between magazines and brochures and some of Eddie’s calculus notes from last night that he was searching for a sketch of a monster he was so certain he’d drawn in the margins a few weeks back.

Now there’s blood on his calculus notes. And Eddie is helplessly keeping the door open as though he’s going to run away any second now. Letting in more trouble to join Harrington on his couch.

He should… He should close the door. Help. Run. Disappear.

“Ed,” Wayne calls, snapping him out of his stupor. “The first aid kit, please. A bottle of water. A clean, wet cloth. A blanket, too.”

Wayne talks him through it, takes it one step at a time, has Eddie bring him one after the other like he knows how much he’s keeping his nephew together by keeping him on the brink of usefulness.

Soon, Wayne has everything he needs, taking care of Harrington and his wounds, keeping him awake and talking so much better than Eddie did, even making him smile here and there, hiding his wince when the motion pulls on his split lip or the huffed breath sends a jolt of pain through his rib that Eddie is absolutely certain must be broken with the way he holds himself — with the way he lets Wayne hold him up.

Wayne is doing his thing and Eddie is hiding, gripping the kitchen counter like a vice, staring both unseeingly and hyper-vigilantly as exhaustion washes over him, dragging him under and draining him of more than adrenaline. He slumps against the cupboard behind him, rubbing at his face like that’ll make it all go away.

It’s not right. It’s not. This is Eddie’s home, it’s supposed to be safe, it’s not…

He breaks away, ripping his hands from the counter and all but stumbling outside, heaving a deep breath and giving in to the urge to cry. Tears spring to his eyes and he wipes them away angrily, because it’s dumb, it’s so stupid, it’s absolutely fucking insane that he should be so worked up when Harrington talked about dying earlier.

These things don’t happen. They don’t!

“Stop fucking crying,” Eddie grumbles, sniffling and wiping away more tears as he closes his eyes against the afternoon sun. “Get a grip, Munson, Jesus Christ, there’s no reason to cry you big fuckin’ baby.”

Nobody’s there to contradict him. Nobody’s there to make it worse. So he lets his eyes sting for a while, lets his lips wobble, his jaw clenched shut, the balls of his hands pressing into his eyes, breathing deliberately.

In. Hold. Out. Hold.

He doesn’t even scream. Doesn’t punch the still bloody side of his van, doesn’t run into the woods and disappear into the void.

He simply breathes. Tries not to think about boys dying in mall fires, and even less so about boys beaten and abandoned in boat houses.

Doesn’t think about fucking Hawkins in Bumfuck-Indiana and the cursed way it has, driving its people mad.

Doesn’t think about, They said my brain is hurt, Eddie. Doesn’t think about the Monsters Harrington mentioned. Doesn’t think about Blue, doesn’t think about I’m tired, Eddie. Don’t wanna hurt anymore.

Doesn’t think about blue, blue, blue.

He’s shaking when he comes back inside. He’s shaking when Harrington meets his eyes, looking a little clearer now, the blood washed away and everything bandaged a lot better than Eddie managed. He’a bundled in Eddie’s blanket. It’s wrong. It’s so, so wrong.

Eddie can’t move, and neither does Steve.

“Steve,” Wayne says, waiting until those eyes tear themselves away from Eddie and back to him, though Eddie sees them fill with such trepidation, he almost asks what’s wrong. “I won’t hear a no on this, and I won’t let you go home. I’m taking you to the hospital. Especially if you tell me your head was hurt like this before, more times than one.”

“Three,” Blue breathes, a little dazed still. Not magically healed, not even from Wayne. Another thing that doesn’t feel right.

“Three times,” Wayne says, nodding, like he’s encouraging Steve to continue.

“But I don’t want a hospital.” Again with that tiny fucking voice. Like the Monsters are hiding under hospital beds.

“I know, son,” Wayne sighs, tugging the blanket a little tighter around Steve, and Eddie’s eyes begin to sting again when he notices the tone Wayne uses. When he realises. When he remembers.

”I want my mom.“

”I know, son. But she’s not coming. Your mama is gone, Ed, and this is your home now. Think we can make that work, hm? You and I?”

Eddie had never felt so lost as he did then, clutching his blanket to his chest, burying his face in the wet fabric even as this man — his uncle — tugs it tighter around him. Like he is fine with Eddie wanting to hide as long as he doesn’t run away.

He had shrugged, then, even though we wanted to shake his head, tell him no, tell him he wanted his mama.

”I’m scared, uncle Wayne.”

And Wayne had smiled a little, and nodded. “Then we do it scared, Eddie.”

Actually, Eddie feels like he never stopped doing it scared.

And now there is Steve, who Eddie never believed knew what being scared felt like. It’s dumb, of course, because even Harrington is just a boy, but he was always untouchable to Eddie. They never talked. They never existed in the same space together, not in a good way and not in a bad way. Their worlds just never aligned, never collided, never coexisted.

And now…

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, okay? There’s a doctor, Doctor Clarke. Like— Yeah, like your science teacher, remember him? ‘S got a brother who’s just as much of a genius, and just as kind. He’ll take a look at you, yeah? Make sure your brain isn’t too hurt, clean your wounds, give you something for the pain. He won’t, uh. He won’t hurt you, kid. Whatever’s got you so scared, Dr Clarke will be nice to you. Especially when I’m there with ya, I’m an old pal of his. And I will be. Won’t let you outta my sight until you’re well enough to run away from me, you hear me, kid?”

Eddie’s hands are hurting, his fingertips raw from where he’s been biting his nails while Wayne talks Blue through what’s going to happen — and he wonders, with the way Steve’s eyes are glued to Wayne, if he ever had anyone talking him through shit like this.

“Okay,” Harrington breathes at last, still sounding way too small. “But. I’m…”

“Scared anyway?” Wayne offers. Steve nods. You’re so blue, Stevie. “Then we do it scared anyway.”

And they do. Wayne goes to get the car so Steve won’t have to walk too far, leaving Eddie alone with him for a brief moment.

He watches, from his place in the kitchen, how Steve’s face falls into a look of utter exhaustion and tiredness; the adrenaline washing from him just the same. Eddie wants to reach out. Wants to say something, break the spell of tension and silence and I know we don’t talk, but I’m glad you’re doing a little better. I’m glad you’ll go see a doctor. I’m glad you haven’t died, I guess. Do you really think you will? Are you really so scared of that?

But Eddie keeps biting his nails, and Steve keeps his eyes closed, blanket around his shoulders. And they don’t talk.

“Thank you.”

Eddie perks up, not entirely sure he didn’t imagine the words — but Harrington moved slightly, his eyes still closed but his face now turned towards Eddie.

“For, uh. This.”

“I didn’t do shit, Blue,” Eddie says. “That was all Wayne. All I did was freak out, I promise.”

Harrington shakes his head, though, slowly. “Mh-mm.”

Eddie’s mouth snaps shut, because there is no room for discussion here. They don’t talk. And he doesn’t want the bubble to burst with insecurity and sourness.

“Thank you,” he says again, and he sounds final about it. It makes Eddie wonder what he’s like, really like, when he doesn’t consist of pain and nausea and disorientation.

He has a feeling that, despite everything, despite Monsters under hospital beds and torture in boathouses and mall fires that kill teenagers, Blue Harrington might be someone good to talk to. Compassionate as shit, even when all he wants to do is pass out.

“You’re welcome,” Eddie rasps, pretending that his eyes don’t sting.

He wraps his arms around his chest like he’s hugging himself, or like he’s holding himself back. From reaching out, from asking, from telling, from talking.

Unwittingly, even with his eyes closed, Steve mirrors him, and Eddie wonders if he, too, it holding himself back, or just curling in on himself some more even though it must hurt, feeling so small.

Maybe that’s what fear of death does to a nineteen year-old. It’s so fucked up. Eddie wants to scream again.

Outside, he hears a car door fall shut just before Wayne reappears in the door, giving Eddie some kind of meaningful look that he wouldn’t mind deciphering on any other day, but today he fears he needs words.

“I don’t know how long this’ll take. Will you be okay, Ed?”

“Will I be— Yes! I’m not the one with the concussion, man, of course I’ll be—“

It’s a bluff, comes too fast, and Wayne sees right through it before Eddie even realises it, and he steps closer. A warm hand on his shoulder. His eyes stinging again.

“You did good, kid. Everything will be fine. But it might take a while. It’s fine if you need to go somewhere, just… Don’t drive. Call Jeff if you need someone, just. Don’t do anything stupid. And don’t get behind the wheel. Deal?”

Eddie swallows hard, hit by another desperate, aching wave of I wanna go back in time and skip this day. A wave of tired exhaustion and wondering, aimlessly, just who the fuck Steve Harrington really is.

“Deal,” he says, and Wayne pulls him into a hug.

Eddie follows them outside then, trailing behind them like a lost little puppy, helping Harrington into Wayne’s car. His movements are still slugged and a little disoriented, so Eddie decides to lean in again and fasten his seatbelt.

“Careful,” he mumbles, allowing the boy a moment’s warning, a moment to adjust before the weight settles on his chest.

Dejá-vù hits him and makes him pause, with Harrington staring at him again.

“I’m careful,” he says, the corners of his mouth tugging into a little smile.

More lucid than earlier, and Eddie thinks it that which takes his breath away for a moment.

“Not gonna break, Eddie.”

“I know,” he says, still not moving back, instead reaching up to tighten the blanket around his shoulders even though the seatbelt is already there to hold it in place. “You’re not gonna break, Blue.”

The smile on those lips is genuine now, gentle enough to not be ruined by the blood crusting them.

“Thanks. Again.” And then, when Eddie finally pulls away to close the door and tell Wayne to drive safely, “I really do like that name.”

It soothes the urge to scream.

Eddie closes the door as gently as he can — which isn’t much, because the car is old and not exactly smooth.

“I’ll see you later,” he tells Wayne. Promises. To stay out of trouble, to stick around, to not run away for a while again, to stay out of his car.

Wayne nods, a faint smile on his lips.

“Later, Ed.”

And then they’re gone, and Eddie is untethered again. Wonders, for a few seconds every now and then if it really happened, if this is real.

But it did. And it is.

And after sitting on the steps for a while, having a smoke and staring at where Wayne’s car disappeared ten, twenty, forty minutes ago, Eddie heads inside.

He has a phone call to make.

🤍🌷 tagging: @theshippirate22 @mentallyundone @ledleaf @imfinereallyy @itsall-taken @simply-shin @romanticdestruction @temptingfatetakingnames @stevesbipanic @steddie-island @estrellami-1 @jackiemonroe5512 @emofratboy @writing-kiki @steviesummer @devondespresso @swimmingbirdrunningrock @dodger-chan @tellatoast @inkjette @weirdandabsurd42 (a thousand percent sure i missed some but oh well such is the 3am disease)

addendum 22 jan 24: onwards to part 3

#steddie #steddie fic #steddie fanfic #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington whump #this is so long i am SORRY #i hope tagging y'all was okay (and equally i'm hoping i missed nobody but also it is 3am)#who did this to you #most of y'all will know most of the beginning already maybe i should have split it up but i wanted y'all to have Something New too #and then the Something New got out of hand and oh well :(#dio words

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markscherz · 4 months

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tumblrs being transphobic, with the ceo himself starting an actual harassment campaign against a transfem & also banning transfems who post abt it.

Oh shit, I had not heard about that.

I would like to say I don’t understand why this shit keeps happening, but I actually do understand it way too well. It just makes me so sad and angry. Especially on a site where people find and make their communities.

So much of this is about ego, and the people with power wielding that power to protect themselves and failing to protect others with it. A mere hint of negative sentiment towards them is harassment that is dealt with immediately and harshly, but a dozen complaints about discrimination or threats or bullying take ages to process and frequently come to unsatisfactory moderation decisions.

Whatever the sentiments of the people running this hellsite, you are always welcome in my corner of the internet, wherever you find it. You are all wonderful, and we all deserve to feel that part of this space belongs to us and those to whom we can connect.

Transphobia has no place on tumblr, period. Or anywhere else in society for that matter. It is that which should be being rooted out.

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snarkspawn · 4 months

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happy (belated) valentine's day @pharawee ❤ but also @ these two idiots

#kenbig #kinnporsche #kinnporsche the series #kinnporsche fanart #ken kinnporsche #big kinnporsche #bl tag #userpharawee #I'm so sorry about the (lack of) background #I was going to add some details to the room but #unfortunately I am not god's strongest soldier #and this already took so long as it is -_-#anyway I love you lots and I shall deliver the appropriate amount of smooches IN PERSON on friday!!#JUST YOU WAIT (threat)

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hyoqa · 7 days

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pairing: hoshina soushirou x gn!reader (no prns)

summary: in which he realizes you were the one for him

warnings: none i think !

wc: 1100

Hoshina wasn't a player. He wasn't one to say yes to everyone who came his way nor was he one to lightly pursue just about anyone who slightly interested him— not to mention he didn’t fall easily to begin with. He was a busy man in a dangerous line of work so having a relationship simply didn’t make sense most of the time.

However, this is not to say he hasn’t had a few relationships here and there. He loved those he dated, he really did. He did not believe in dating for the fun of it nor did he believe in starting a relationship he knew would end at some point, but subconsciously he tried not to get attached. He kept his distance and locked away his heart to keep from getting hurt. Was it unfair? Well yes, but he was scared. Everyone has something that terrifies them greatly, this just so happened to be Hoshina’s.

Yet, recently he could tell that something was different with you. It had only been a few months since you started dating, but he feared the shift in his feelings. He knew what it was— he knew very well, but as soon as he admitted it, it would be over. There’d be no going back for him. He knew he was being rather irrational, he knew that if he sat down and confronted these emotions he’d realize they weren’t that big of a deal, but he couldn’t. He’s never been able to.

However, while fighting this kaiju, it became plain obvious that he was simply in denial.

It upset him how important you were to him, but more than that it upset him that he knew he was important to you. You had made it so painfully clear that he meant the absolute world to you and that broke him to pieces every single time.

To him it was easy being alone— he just had to make sure his job was complete before he died. If he could ensure everyone’s safety or at least help Mina out, there was nothing more he wished for. Yet while fighting Kaiju no. 10 today, when he saw his life flash before his eyes, his immediate thought was of you. If he died you’d cry. And that alone was going to get him home alive.

He’d rather die than make you cry. Especially not alone.

As he stood up again, he could see his blood dripping from his wounds and immediately it made him chuckle. You’d cry anyways when you see the state he’s in.

I’ll have to be around to wipe your tears at least, he said to you in his head.

He was incredibly lucky that you didn’t work on the battlefield, his heart simply would not be able to take it. But he did, and for you he’d have to get home safe. Even if no one else cared that much, not even himself, he knew you would.

All of a sudden, it was easy to admit. He was hopelessly in love with you, in a way he didn't know he was capable of. He wished that he would spend the rest of his life with you and he hoped you would spend the rest of yours with him. Perhaps he was just afraid and a little flustered to admit that he was important to someone, especially someone special to him too. He had seen how painful it was for those left behind, a little too often.

But there was an easy solution to that, he’d just get back to you safe every time. He just won’t make you worry and he’ll be there for you. This was supposed to be a dilemma, something he thought he'd stress over, but in the moment he felt eerily relaxed, definitely not like he was fighting an identified grade kaiju. The rest of the fight was a blur, he couldn't remember much. His head was clear but the fatigue had taken over at that point, but before he knew it, the kaiju laid in front of him still.

He was faintly conscious as they rushed him into an ambulance and patched him up. Once he was properly treated and awake, they had warned him to stay put and take it easy, but all he wanted to do was see you.

As soon as he left his assigned room, he immediately bumped into you. You had been waiting to be let in to see him. You took one look at the way he was patched up and tears welled into your eyes. He could tell you didn't mean to, you didn't want to worry him.

“Please don't cry,” he said softly, wiping your tears away. He couldn't help but smile at the sight of you. “I'm perfectly fine.”

“I'm not crying,” you said with a scowl on your face, but the way your voice cracked was not very convincing. “I'm so glad you're back.”

“Can't live without me?” he teased. He knew you couldn't live without him, but he couldn't either. Yet, now he even hated the thought of you living without him, let alone with someone else, so here he was. And here he always will be.

“Shut up,” you said. “You know I can't.”

He knew, but hearing you say that still made his heart flutter. He reached out with his right hand to grab your left and held it carefully. He leaned in to kiss you, but it was so much sloppier than the careful ones he usually gave you. Forgive him, he was terribly exhausted.

“I can't either,” he said, snuggling his face into your shoulder.

“You can't?” you asked, a little surprised. It broke his heart that he had possibly made you feel such way.

“Not for a second,” he said, still avoiding eye contact. “I'd rather die than wake up without you next to me, actually.”

You wouldn’t reply, so he brought his head back up to look at you.

“Oh, don't cry,” he said and chuckled a little, wiping your tears away as he kissed you again. “I didn't mean to make you cry.”

He hadn't let go of your hand and although he was gentle, he held it firmly. He didn't say anything, but he vowed to himself that he'd put a ring on it someday. He wasn't letting go of you ever.

You were the one for him.

#hoshina x reader #hoshina soshiro x reader #soshiro x reader #hoshina soshiro #hoshina #kaiju no. 8 x reader #kaiju no 8 x reader #kn8 x reader #IM SORRY I GENUINELY FEEL LIKE I YAPPED FOR SO LONG FOR THIS TO HAVE NOTHING REALLY #LIKE WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR TRULY #who knows idk #ANYWAYS TYSSM FOR READING OMG #i still do hope u enjoyed i spent a little too long for this to end up the way it ended up #I AM SO EXCITED TO WATCH HOSHINA EP #i feel like rereading kaiju too #SO MANY HAPPY THINGS HAPPENING !!!!#i need to review his characgter i feel like im truly not understanding enough i do not know him well enough #TAGS PLS WORK I BEG

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arrowsperpetualcringe · 4 months

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HOT TAKE.... They'd be cute :]

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silverwhittlingknife · 1 month

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How would you describe Tim's people skills? Especially when you compare them to Dick's?

Hi anon, this was a fun ask!! I picked out a few panels for each of them (comforting friends, a bit out of sync with friends, fighting with friends, and offering practical support to friends) just to get a quick look at their people skills in action, and then I rambled on about my thoughts on their strengths and their weaknesses.

(Caveat: I'm going to try to focus on my ideas about differences between the two of them, since we're comparing, but I do think they're socially more similar than not, so you might also want to check out @bitimdrake's post on Dick and Tim's similarities for the big picture!)

Short version: I think they've both got good people skills. Dick's are a bit better and more natural, whereas Tim's are more practiced and learned (in ways that sometimes show).

Let's start with Dick first, and then I'll get back to Tim.

Dick

Comforting friends in Titans Secret Files:

Dick: Will you go back in there and sit down? This is my house. You don't need to clean up after me! Donna: I know, I just... I just ... Dick: Hey, hey... what's the matter? Donna: Nothing. It's nothing. Dick (reaching out to supportively grip her shoulders): Donna, this is me here, remember?

A bit out of sync with friends (but still getting along well) in Titans 3:

Dick: The movie runs 98 minutes. So if we fast-forward past the coming attractions and watch only half the credits, I can still make it back to Blüdhaven in time to - Roy: Nightwing, chill. Team morale demands that you relax and enjoy yourself.

Fighting with friends in Titans 13:

Dick: We haven't used it much, Changeling. But that's gonna be different. Starting right now. Our performance against Tartarus and the HIVE was unacceptable. Each and every one of you should thank God you weren't killed. Kory: How dare you? How can you just stand there talking to us like we're a military detachment -

Giving support to relative strangers in Nightwing 87:

Neighbor 1: Oh, he - he's a true gentleman, you know? Always holds the door, or helps me up the stairs with my groceries if we both come in at the same time... Neighbor 2: ...used his motorcycle to jumpstart my car one morning and even got my brother-in-law a job with Wayne Enterprises when he got laid off... Neighbor 3: ...and he's very, very, very nice and doesn't talk down to me. Plus he lets me use his basketball.

Offering practical support (making dinner) in Prodigal:

Tim: I can't believe you can actually cook... Dick: I like to eat. Tim: So does Bruce - but he had to order Chinese last night. Dick: That's where I'm one up on him - I've lived on my own without an Alfred. Still miss him, though... He was good for a lot more than cooking and cleaning. Tim: Yeah. But at least we don't have to miss him on empty stomachs.

Strengths:

I think Dick's people skills are pretty simple: he has them! He's good at people! And I tend to think of Dick's people skills as so automatic they're mostly instinctive. It's not something he really has to think about because it's so ingrained in him. A combination of natural talent plus a childhood spent around sociable performers means Dick's just really highly attuned to the people around him.

And I don't think he's particularly obvious about it. So e.g. you could be having a conversation with Dick where he didn't seem like he was paying close attention, but if there was An Important Moment where you got anxious for a moment or let something important slip or let a bit of anger show through etc. - Dick will have picked up on it, even if it's unconsciously, and it'll stick with him and come back to him later.

And just generally - I think Dick has good instincts for who he can trust and who he shouldn't trust; when he's treading on conversational landmines he'll often pick up the unease even if he doesn't have the context to know why there's a problem; if he's trying to comfort and trusts his instincts he'll often do the right thing even if he can't justify in words why he felt like that was the right thing to do.

So I think for Dick, there's always the level of conscious awareness - the things he's aware he knows, if you will - and the level of unconscious awareness - things he senses, but maybe can't explain, or maybe doesn't want to know so he's suppressing the thoughts.

So he's good at leading, and he's good at comforting, and he's good at listening, and he's good at figuring out the right thing to say...

Like, he's good at all of it, so it's actually sort of difficult to elaborate because there's just not that much nuance? Given any particular interpersonal situation, Dick has an excellent chance of getting a quick read on some random guy he's just met and then getting the reaction he wants pretty fast, whether it's intimidating the guy or comforting him or getting him to cooperate or taunting him until he loses his temper, etc etc etc.

Obviously Dick's not a mind reader, and he can get things wrong, especially when he's in the throes of one of his own personal crises, but generally I think Dick's very very sure-footed with people, even with strangers.

Weaknesses:

This isn't a weakness precisely because Dick's usually doing it on purpose, but he'll sometimes have fights with his friends because they think he's acting overly professional/detached and he thinks they're not being professional enough. So e.g. in Titans 13, you can see Dick's set up the room almost like he's leading a business meeting, and he's the boss lecturing them, and they're reacting by getting mad at him. Part of this is basically a Traditional Bat Problem - Tim's friends also balk because they feel like Tim's keeping them at a distance - but Dick tends to lean especially hard on "I'm The Leader Here So Shut Up And Do What I Say" professionalism / distancing.

When things are going well, Dick's friends may grumble at his intense professionalism but basically appreciate it (this is basically how things go in their reunion in TT vol 2); when things are not going well, though, it becomes a point of tension. Generally, Dick gets extra-professional as a coping mechanism when under stress, as here in TT vol 2 12:

To the extent that Dick falters with social skills, it tends to be almost exclusively with people he knows well, not with strangers. Dick sometimes struggles with maintaining relationships, largely because he's often juggling multiple responsibilities; he'll sometimes get hyperfixated on something and deprioritize his more stable relationships (so e.g. when he gets fixated on trying to fix Blüdhaven and gets distracted from his relationship with Babs).

Somewhat relatedly, if things start going wrong in his own life, he tends to self-isolate out of shame and avoid everyone he thinks of as more put-together. So, for example, in the aftermath of Blockbuster, he's a self-destructive mess who's trying to dodge and/or drive away Clark and Roy and Tim (all people who care about him and would want to help), but Sophia Tevis and Rose are two messed-up young strangers in trouble and their obvious neediness trips his "urgency" meter, plus he may be a mess but they have no context to realize that so he doesn't feel so self-conscious, and he's able to be drive-by super-helpful to them and then dive right back into privately self-destructing.

Also not a weakness per se, but he tends to be a bit of an introvert in general - he and Wally are close, but they go long stretches of time without catching up; when he's spending time with friends, usually it's Donna / Wally / the Titans / Tim visiting Dick rather than the other way around; he's more likely to get cajoled into joining a team than the other way round - Wally talks him into rejoining the Titans and Roy talks him into joining the Outsiders. He likes people and likes spending time with friends, but he's usually not the one initiating a social gathering. He's self-aware about this; in Titans 9, he muses, "It's not the newness that's the problem. The problem is the old stuff. The ruts. You know someone long enough - well enough - and you fall into a rut with them... you completely take the relationship for granted..."

Relatedly, because Dick's pretty self-contained, he has a recurring problem where loved ones interpret him as distant or detached or indifferent even when he's still passionately attached - both Kory and Babs break up with Dick in part because they feel like he's not really that committed to them (also there are mmm Problematic Plotlines involved but I'm ignoring those for the purposes of this post), and in both cases IMO they're misreading him. He's deeply upset by both breakups and responds with big declarations of feeling and, uh, proposing marriage shortly afterward. (Okay, so he's not ALWAYS sure-footed sdfdsfs)

When Dick's getting something wrong, it's usually because he's upset and overcompensating - when things with Kory and Babs are tense, he tries to fix it with Big Gestures; when Vic's mad at him about spying, he missteps with an elaborate secret plan culminating in a big dramatic offering of a new body which Vic does want... but he's still understandably miffed at Dick for making a bunch of decisions behind his back instead of talking to him. Dick guesses right about something Vic will want, but because Dick when he's feeling guilty tends to slide into I-Am-The-Leader, I-Must-Fix-Everything-By-Myself, I-Am-Responsible-For-Everything mode, he forgets that the whole original problem is connected to not respecting Vic's autonomy / right to make decisions for himself, and that a better gesture would be asking Vic what he wants instead of once again making decisions on his behalf without consulting him. (I'm sympathetic to Dick's spying-on-Vic plan on account of how Vic did turn into an evil moon for a bit - comics are bonkers, you guys sdfdsfs - but I'm also very sympathetic to Vic feeling that he deserved fuller disclosure here.)

And you can see similar patterns in lower-key conflicts too: every time Dick gets accused of being just like Batman, it's usually because he's coming off as harsh or detached or uncaring (sometimes on purpose because he's pushing people away; sometimes just because Dick handles grief and fear by shutting down; sometimes because his the-buck-stops-here leadership style can come off as overly-detached), even though Dick actually cares SO SO MUCH, all the time, about everyone he knows.

But honestly... these weaknesses exist, but they're minor in comparison to his strengths?? Dick's a guy with a lot of very strong friendships for a reason. He's true as steel and once he cares about you, he cares about you forever. <3

OKAY! So that's Dick. Let's finally move on to...

Tim

Comforting friends in Joker's Last Laugh 3:

Tim: Babs? Is everything okay? (hugs her)

A bit out-of-sync with friends (but still getting along well) in Young Justice 7:

Cassie: A campout isn't a campout without a real fire. It's no fun at all. Tim: But the generator is far more efficient, Cassie. It's non-polluting, it poses no threat of forest fire, and it's... it's ... (taking in everybody else's expressions, sighing, reversing course) It's no fun at all. Impulse, can you...?

Fighting with friends in Adventure Comics 3 (stonewalling, avoidance, and lying!)

Conner: You weren't picking up. Tim: I didn't know it was you. Conner: I turned off my caller ID blocking. Tim: I was busy. I am busy. Conner: Too busy to talk to your best friend? Tim: Yes. No.

Giving emotional support to relative strangers in Robin 98 / 100 / 156:

Wesley: I just wanted to thank you. They tell us at the meetings that it's important to let people know how you feel. You did a lot for me - making me sober up. If you hadn't taken the time to notice - (Later) Tim: You're gonna stay strong, right? (Wesley: Right.) Tim: You're gonna stay sober, okay? (Wesley: Okay.) Tim: You're gonna do it 'cause - Wesley: 'Cause if I don't you'll come back and kick my butt all over campus. Tim: Uh huh.

(The redhaired guy was about to jump. Tim convinces him to sit down and talk first.) Tim: So, you're in college? Guy: Yeah, I'm a freshman. How'd you know? Tim: Just a hunch. I'm guessing you don't like it much. Guy: I always hated high school. Always felt like I was outside looking in, never part of any group or anything. I was on the diving team but even then I didn't feel like part of it. The only good thing was that was where I met Lori, my girlfriend.

Offering practical support (medical care and tea) in Batgirl 59:

Tim (treating her injury as she shares her traumatic past): Whoa. That's ... horrible. Cass: That's nothing. Stephanie and I used to laugh about - oh... uh... never mind. Wait, Tim. I... I'm so ... stupid, I don't - Tim: You're not stupid. Want some tea? Cass: I ... uh... yeah. Thank you.

Strengths:

Tim! I think Tim's also pretty decent at people - not as good as Dick, but hardly anyone is?

I tend to think of Dick as instinctively good at people, and Tim as more consciously good at people.

Tim spends a lot of time being intentionally watchful: observing, spying, psychoanalyzing people, paying careful attention to what they say, thinking about what makes them tick. (And Tim psychoanalyzes himself, too. Tim is studiously engaged in the study of Tim, and of Tim's friends, and of Tim's family. He's often playing a role, even when that role is "Tim Drake.")

So e.g. in Red Robin, at one point Tim has an elaborate domino-falling database where he's compiled a list of villains he wants to fight and how he wants to fight them, all leading up to a very careful takedown plan for Boomerang where he's thought through and anticipated Boomerang's every move ahead of time... and he's basically right! He gets it all right!

And this kind of intensely-studied logical chess-game of "he will do this for this reason, and then this for that reason, and the other people will respond in this way, like a series of dominos, and I've thought through all the possibilities" is Very Tim to me, and I feel like... this is just the sort of thing that Dick would never ever do?

And mostly Dick wouldn't do it because he wouldn't have to. When Dick's skeptical of James Gordon Jr., he goes to talk to the guy and feel him out, and he ethically feels obliged to give him the benefit of the doubt because there's no evidence against him, but he's got a bad feeling and doesn't trust him and secretly slaps a tracer on him because he's got an instinct he'll want it, and he's right: James Jr. is up to something, and that tracer is exactly the thing that Dick needs.

And similarly if Dick wanted to goad James Jr. into doing something, I think he'd go off and meet him and goad him into doing it, and he'd have an instinct for what to say to make that happen - I think the whole elaborate domino plan that Tim comes up with for Boomerang would feel unnecessarily complex to Dick. Not that Dick doesn't make complicated plans, because he absolutely does, but Dick doesn't usually overthink people.

Similarly, if Dick had been the little kid in Lonely Place of Dying, he'd have gotten worried and gone straight to Bruce and talked to him, not gotten worried and taken photos of Bruce from a distance and then come up with an elaborately overthought plan to go to New York and track down his estranged son and fix him that way. And, like. Kid!Tim's not entirely wrong! He's correctly picked up on a very real and very strong connection between Bruce and Dick even though he doesn't know either of them! And given how little actual information Tim has, this is actually an impressive plan (it's a bad plan, because Tim doesn't know about their fights, but it's an impressively solid plan given that his entire information basis is "watched them from a distance and collected news reports"). But this isn't how Dick thinks about people.

Backing up to a more general point: Tim values people skills really really really highly. I think "uses interpersonal skills to help and comfort other people" is one of Tim's highest values and arguably the highest value - he imprinted on Dick because he was kind, and then imprinted on Batman because he was comforting Dick. And he has six million After-School-Special-style plotlines where he tries to comfort / advise / rescue / etc. people in various stages of emotional distress and who are using bad coping mechanisms. His very first outing as Robin involves talking down a semi-suicidal shooter; the big finale of YJ has Tim talking Secret down from her rampage; he's very gentle when he's comforting his girlfriend after she confides in him about a maybe-attempted-rape; he talks down a suicidal college student in Robin; plus there's the entire concept of "Batman needs Robin" in the first place; not to mention his obsession with the importance of friends; and so forth.

So it's something that he's good at because it's something he values and works at. His people skills are conscious and learned. He does a fair bit of amateur psychoanalysis of other people's problems, and he's generally good at identifying the problems, even if he's not always great at fixing them. And he's often playing a role, or imitating other people, rather than being himself; he invests a lot of time constructing alternate identities; he's often more comfortable wearing a mask. (It is just so typical of Tim that his civilian friendship group is the DCU version of D&D players.)

So his practiced-people-skills work decently well, because he's diligent and he cares a lot, and he's better at people when he's older than when he's younger. And he's extremely good at things he's had a lot of practice with, like meeting new schoolmates, or making small talk, and he's friendly and he likes people, and he's good at learning scripts and following them, and he only tends to misstep when he's distracted or unusually anxious or when he's in a situation where normal social norms don't help. (Of course, since he's a vigilante and not an ordinary person, distracted / unusually anxious / weird situation are all things that happen more often than you might think!)

I also think Tim has a few caretaker instincts that have become automatic - generally he's hyperaware of when people are upset and usually tries to reach out or fix it, and even when he's trying to keep himself at a distance he'll slide into caretaking sometimes - so e.g. there's that moment in Batgirl with Cass when Tim's kinda upset with her for siding with Batman (and distancing himself from other people in general), so he's not intending to get close to her, but also what we see him doing is treating her wounds and then getting her tea. And meanwhile Cass actually wants to reach out, and she's intensely observing him and worrying and wanting to help, but what she actually does is... drink the tea. That Tim got her. While she stays firmly on her side of the couch.

(I tend to think of Cass as slightly similar to Tim but at the very very very beginning of her learn-to-people journey here? Like Tim, she cares!! A lot!! And she's successfully understood that Tim's upset, and she knows when she's put her foot in her mouth. But she's not sure what to do yet.)

Weaknesses:

Tactless! This is a tricky word because I think people sometimes hear 'tactless' and misunderstand it as 'generically rude,' but that's not quite the issue - Tim's quite polite most of the time; his problem is that his default mental monologue is very detached / psychoanalyzing / analytical, including about himself and things he's emotional about. He'll often be analyzing his own emotions even in the process of having them (I also talk about this a little here, though it's mostly a post about Dick and anger), and Tim's also constantly analyzing other people.

This means that if he doesn't edit his brain-to-mouth filter, he can come off as too detached or professional or calculating.

This is obviously similar to Dick's problem of coming off as too detached / professional - again, they're both Bats - but it's not quite the same thing, and I think this distinction is most obvious if you look at the places where they're doing it on purpose and picking fights:

Dick's most likely to pick fights by pulling rank: "I'm the boss, you all fucked up this mission and you better not do it again, shape up or shut up." This is a kind of distancing that's about Dick-the-impassive-boss and you-the-subordinate.

By contrast, Tim's more likely to pick fights via hostile psychoanalysis: "I notice you're being snide about Cass again, but we both know you're actually just mad that Bruce cares about her more than he cares about you." When he's miffed, both his inner monologue and the things he says tend toward 'uncharitable analysis of your emotional weaknesses,' and this is something he periodically directs at Bruce / Jason / Damian. This is a kind of distancing that's about Tim-the-hostile-analyst and you-the-unfortunate-target-of-analysis.

(Caveats: I don't think Tim's above trying to pull rank if he can, but he rarely has the opportunity; Dick's not above jabs at other people's weaknesses when he's very defensive and feeling attacked - junkie, elevator - but IMO he's more likely to pull rank, whereas Tim's jabs are more likely to be wrapped up in insulting psychoanalysis, so e.g. Jason's insecurity is his problem. The Jan Brady of the Batfamily.)

You can see related similar-sounding-but-different issues if you look at some of their respective breakups. So e.g. Dick has a breakup with Babs in which she thinks he doesn't care about her, and Tim has a breakup with Cassie in which she thinks he doesn't care about her. And these breakups are different for six million reasons (among other things, Dick and Babs have a pretty intense romance, whereas, uh, Tim and Cassie have had one date and IMO she's very right that they're better off as friends).

But you also get some useful character notes:

Babs is wrongly anxious that Dick's mostly in love with nostalgia for their past rather than the person she is now (he 100% does love the person she is now!) and she's being unfairly bitchy about Catalina, but she's also correctly noted that he's gotten into the habit of deprioritizing their relationship in favor of vigilante busywork & that he's been a bit pushy in swooping in protectively rather than letting her fight her own battles, so when she's accusing him of being a control freak it's not completely coming from thin air; Dick responds by getting hurt, upset, and direct (he gets furious and punches something, but then makes a big sweet sincere emotional speech to her about how much he cares and values her, albeit one that's so caught up in his own emotions like wanting to "protect" her that he's not slowing down enough to take in her insecurities).

Cassie has correctly realized that dating Tim is a bad coping mechanism and she really needs to just deal with her grief over Conner; when she starts crying, at first Tim moves to comfort her, but when she actually clarifies the breakup, an upset Tim responds by aggressively de-emotionalizing the conversation and pretending he's being totally logical and not emotional about it - he first wonders aloud if he's a bad detective for not seeing it coming and then attempts a bonkers guilt-trip suggestion that it's their duty to date in order to uhhh avoid turning evil in the bad future (sdfsfdsfdsfds sure tim nice try)

This isn't because Tim literally doesn't have feelings, because of course he does! But often, the more upset he is, the worse he gets at clearly expressing those feelings, and the more he intellectualizes them or avoids discussing them.

(Caveat: The trouble with any distinction is that it's easy to exaggerate it in ways that are oversimplified, and I want to emphasize that this doesn't reduce to "Dick always expresses emotions, Tim is never emotional," or anything like that. Dick has a bunch of complicated feelings about the intensity of his emotions because he values control and detachment and often is trying to be more detached (I talk more about this in the context of anger here and here); Tim often retreats to faux-analytical detachment when he's actually very emotional; and these are tendencies rather than one-note 24/7 truths - Dick is completely capable of intellectualizing away his emotions; Tim is completely capable of just getting straightforwardly and directly upset. But if you're looking for broad distinctions, I think it's fair to say that Dick's usually better at directly using his words and expressing his emotions, even if he sometimes feels self-conscious shame about it later, whereas Tim tends to self-sabotage and deflect and hide by producing intellectualized faux-logic instead of just being direct about what he wants or what he's feeling.)

An unrelated issue is that Tim also tends to get intrusive when he's anxious, and it gets worse the more he cares about you. Tim really really really wants to know what's going on and has an intense Need To Help, which generally works out for him - this is the entire reason he pushes his way into the Batfamily! - but it's easy to imagine Tim running into people who might not appreciate his busybody sneakiness; so e.g. secretly stalking your friend because he has a bruise, or running your friend's DNA, etc., is... stuff that all comes from how much Tim cares, but also it involves a very fuzzy relationship with other people's privacy, so Tim's friendships that stick around tend to be with people who find this kind of intense observation to be caring rather than pushy. Relatedly, Tim's version of "be protective" can overlap with "be condescending," which means he tends to get along best with confident people like Bruce, who could punt him into a wall and who thus finds Tim's 'disapproving medic' shtick endearing instead of insulting.

Tim also struggles to connect to people for whom he doesn't have an obvious "script" or who don't respond to his usual scripts. So e.g. offering Gar a "you don't like me but let's be friends" handshake worked; offering Cass a "let's be friends" handshake worked; offering the same thing to Damian did not go over so well; and I think this kind of "it usually works so this is my habit now?" thing is very Tim, and I don't think it's the sort of mistake that Dick would make.

More broadly, because Tim's people skills are conscious and learned - the effort sometimes shows! He stares at people. He secretly spies on them. He pokes around in their secrets. Dick can be paying close attention to you and seem like he's not, so that his awareness seems effortless and less intrusive. I think Tim's awareness tends to be a bit more effortful.

That said, though, I don't think that Tim's intensely-observing-you shtick is necessarily obvious except to people who are fairly socially-skilled themselves. When I write fanfic, I generally write from Dick's POV, and I tend to write Dick being hyperaware of when, say, Tim's observing him, or trying to figure out what's going on with him. But I think of that as more "Dick's good at reading Tim and really aware of being watched, so every attempt at subtlety stands out in neon lighting," and I think to someone who's less good at reading people than Dick is, Tim is a lot subtler.

And I think for e.g. someone like Cass, who really struggles with people skills, Tim seems impossibly and naturally good at interactions in the same way that to Tim, Dick seems incredibly good at it.

#ask tag #dick grayson #tim drake #hi anon this is SO OLD i'm so sorry sdfdsfds #i am very slow & this is very long because i kept adding things to it but this was a very fun ask thank you <3

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