“No, wait,” says Finnick. “Let’s do it together. Put our faces right in front of his.”
Well, there’s so little opportunity for fun left in my life, I agree. We position ourselves on either side of Peeta, lean over until our faces are inches from his nose, and give him a shake. “Peeta. Peeta, wake up,” I say in a soft, singsong voice.
His eyelids flutter open and then he jumps like we’ve stabbed him. “Aa!”
Finnick and I fall back in the sand, laughing our heads off.
When I recently reread the series, this moment was just pure gold. It was so funny and silly but it also felt so earned among the rest of the books and it’s such a great way to start off their alliance. They deserved this moment so much.
Also, it’s not mentioned that they’re making faces but I couldn’t resist and had so much fun with it. :D
EDIT: OMG I just realised I screwed up the reading direction! I have no idea how that happened and I noticed just when I was about to post it. Well, it’s a manga now?! 🙈
this is not part of the process but the way I’m having both pictures next to each other as i work on Eddie hits so goddamn right to me. Just funny placing, I guess.
When Eddie’s band made it big and he was ready to leave the trailer park, he took his neighbor Max with him.
She was only 6 years younger than him so he couldn’t really adopt her, but her step brother had recently died in a horrible car crash, her step dad had left them, they were practically broke and her mom was an alcoholic.
He couldn’t leave her there.
Legally she gets adopted by Wayne but he refuses to go with them to the big city, so he stays back in Hawkins and takes care of Susan, Max’s mom. Helps her get through rehab.
Seven years later Max is 21 still lives with Eddie and is putting herself through college. Susan has been sober for 5 years and she and Wayne are living happily together which means Max and Eddie are actually brother and sister now.
–
Steve was disinherited 7 years earlier and has been trying to make a living playing guitar in bars for the last two years after he lost his job. But times are hard and he can’t afford his rent anymore so he gets kicked out with only a guitar to his name.
He’s trying to make himself comfortable at the base of a tree in the park one night, when he sees three men trying to mug a girl who he recognizes as Max.
He knows her because she’s been listening to him play his songs in that same park everyday for the last three months. She’s always a little mean but leaves him big tips and her eyes shine with wonder when he plays the songs she asks for. She’s funny and deceivingly kind and he really likes her.
Even if he didn’t it’s not like he can’t stand by and let someone get mugged. He steps in to intervene and manages to ruffle the men enough to run away from him, not before getting a few punches himself but his guitar took the worst of it, breaking practically in half and he’s fucking devastated.
Max insists on taking him to the hospital because the bruise in his eye looks really nasty and he might have a concussion. Steve refuses and they argue about it until Steve points out he cant afford health care since he’s sleeping in the fucking park.
Max convinces him to go back to her place to keep an eye on him, gives him ice and googles what a concussion looks like and decides pleased he doesn’t have one. He agrees to rest there and the next day he wakes up and decides to make breakfast for her as a thank you.
He takes a shower and changes into the clothes Max left for him the night before. He figures he can stay at least one day, take that time to figure out what he’s going to do now.
Max mentioned replacing his guitar since “it died saving her life” and Steve was reluctant at first but when he sees the place Max lives in he thinks ‘Fuck it, she can certainly afford it’
So… that’s when Eddie shows up.
Eddie comes home exhausted from tour, wanting to yell at Max that he’s home but it’s too early for her; he knows she’s probably sleeping. Except he hears noise in the kitchen. He sneaks in thinking he’ll catch Lucas there and is shocked to find someone else entirely.
He sees a full head of brown wavy hair, broad shoulders, a slim waist, soft pink skin covered in beauty marks, long legs and an ass he could write odes about looking delicious in a pair of sweatpants that look weirdly familiar.
The man is singing softly as he moves around the kitchen, cooking pancakes by the looks of it. His voice is soft, mellow and really pretty and Eddie kind of forgets what he was doing and just stares at him.
He gets shook out of his trance by a gasp behind him,
“Eddie! You are home early!” Max says, feigning happiness and looking really nervous. He turns to look at her and lifts an eyebrow looking unimpressed but turns back around when he hears a crash and something dropping to the floor behind him.
And ‘fuck, where did Max find his guy?’ he thinks as he finally sees his face, the man is kneeling, picking up the spoon he just dropped so he’s looking up at him through his lashes,big brown eyes that look golden in the morning light, straight nose, pink full lips that are slightly parted and a jaw that could cut him in half.
He is fuckign gorgeous.
“Oh, Lucas is going to be devastated,” he says.
Although, he just noticed the man has a black eye so maybe Lucas already knows. Max punches his shoulder hard “How dare you!? I’d never do that to Lucas” she tells him as she moves past him immediately dipping her finger in the pancake mix and moaning loudly.
“Steve, this is so good! Also Eddie, Steve. Steve this is my brother Eddie”
“Max don’t, wait till it’s cooked” he guy, Steve whispers to Max nudging her away from the mix and then turns to face Eddie, and waves awkwardly, wiggling his fingers and smiling bashfully.
Eddie sighs and lets his bag drop from his shoulder and hit the ground with a loud thud. “Okay i’m gonna need an explanation” he says going to sit in the kitchen island, “And lots of pancakes.”
First of all, thank you for trusting the process with me again tonight!
Second of all, a context of what was going through my head.
It’s 1995, The Lion King just got out and for some reason, it blew Eddie’s mind. The music, maybe. Can you feel the love tonight is everywhere, and there is always music in that house. So, Sir Elton John is now the most beautiful excuse for Eddie to take anything from Steve’s hand and just slow dance with him. Steve is a bit suspicious that maybe Eddie just does that to avoid doing chores. Or maybe (and Steve is more fond of this other theory), he just wants to lay his hands on his husband with no reason.
It doesn’t matter, really.
This, in passion red, is how they recall that year, thinking back from 2023. The most beautiful, vibrant memory.
I was at the coffeeshop in the village and someone asked me how my llamas are doing, and a woman overheard and told me that when she was a kid, her parents used to have a couple of llamas in their sheep farm, and every single sheep in their flock imprinted on one of the two llamas. Each sheep chose the best most charismatic llama according to mysterious sheep criteria, and never wavered in their ovine loyalty. Each of the two llamas was worshiped by a small sub-flock of devoted sheep who followed him everywhere like Jesus’s apostles and only left their field for transhumance when led by “their” llama. The funniest thing is the way this woman overheard the word “llama” and immediately came to sit next to me to tell me this, like she had waited since childhood to share her bewilderment about the two religious congregations of sheep led by rival llama prophets in her family farm.
I’d have trouble keeping that in myself.
i love how 100k of us feel the same need to tell everyone that she felt
*blows a kiss into the void* this is for you, nonnie. some lame attempt at smexy steddie (cw: explicit)
Eddie loves reducing Steve to a moaning, whimpering mess beneath him. He loves to swallow the little gasps that in another life mean yes and good and fuck, but in this one mean Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Steve is like a drug to him, especially with one hand clenched in the sheets, the other in Eddie’s hair as he comes undone on Eddie’s cock, clenching and tugging and pulling and always wanting more, more, more.
One of my favorite things Joe Keery does as Steve is the tiniest change in expression EVERY time he chooses to put himself in a hero situation - where he is full on ready to throw down or protect but there is a millisecond of absolute fear. It’s a twitch in the face and a look in his eyes and it’s gone as quick as it showed up before he pushes it away and gets cocky again. He does it all the time if you start noticing it, and it’s usually pretty subtle and perfect and it not only says so much about him as an actor but also says so much about Steve. He’s just a kid, too.
It’s the this:
Your honor, I’d like to enter this frame sequence into evidence as well:
Just got posterity, I’m back with another gifset for evidence
