Lines Are By The Lovely @thejoxaren

STWG daily prompt 5/10/23

prompt: quiet

pairing/character(s): steddie

CW: autistic sensory overload? ish?

-

Sometimes, Steve just needs quiet.

The party can be so loud, and overwhelming sometimes. But he's always just dealt with it; he lets his fingernails dig into his thighs, looks at the ground, and makes himself as small as possible. And when they leave, he lets himself go into his room and curl up in a ball on the floor, and exist in the quiet (and sometimes hit his head against the wall until everything inside his brain shuts up).

No one's ever noticed before. Not until today.

Dustin, Mike and Lucas are all yelling about something. Steve's not quite sure what, but it's making it hard for him to focus on what Robin's saying. The sound of Dustin's shrieking laughter feels like it digs into his skull, and Lucas snorting in return feels like too much. He manages (he hugs himself and curls up a little, rhythmically tapping each finger to his thumb).

And then Robin gets excited in the middle of her talking and starts excitedly tapping his shoulder, which is usually fine (usually he finds it makes him feel quite fond), but today it feels like the gentle taps are painful zaps of electricity that reverberate through his entire being. The tapping of his fingers get harsher, and he finds it harder to keep eye contact with Robin.

He doesn't even realise he's curled up more and his finger tapping has turned into digging his pointer finger's nail into the pad of his thumb, until Eddie (who's next to him on the couch) reaches out to hold his hand. He wants to pull away immediately, but Eddie doesn't let go until he's looking at his face.

Suddenly the panic and overwhelm isn't so ignorable. Not without the rhythmic tap tap tap, or the sting of pain from his nails.

"You wanna go up to your room?" Eddie asks, quietly enough that Robin can continue talking to the other teens without feeling interrupted.

Steve just nods simply, and when Eddie lets go of his hand he finds himself shaking it out to get rid of the lingering touch he can feel. He refuses to meet anyone's eyes, keeping his gaze on the back of Eddie's t-shirt as he follows him out of the room and up the stairs to Steve's room.

Distantly, he feels bad for abandoning his house guests.

"Hey, hey hey." Eddie says, voice still so soft and gentle, when they close the door of his room behind them and his breathing starts to speed up, "What's happening?"

Steve shakes his head and swallows harshly as he starts to pace back and forth, still shaking his hand out. No one's ever been here for this part before.

"Quiet." He requests in a whisper, and sees Eddie nod a few times as he sits on the bed.

Eventually, Steve just lays on the floor, like usual. Lets the feeling of the cold, hard floor against his back ground him, and thanks all the gods he doesn't believe in that his parents' house is relatively soundproof. Finally, it's quiet.

After a minute, he feels the shift in weight as Eddie gets up from the bed and walks over to him. He tenses up at first, worried Eddie's going to start to talk. Because he's not ready.

But Eddie never does what he's expecting.

Instead, he feels his presence as Eddie sits and then lays down next to him on the floor. And now the gentle sound of Eddie's in-breaths and out-breaths are all Steve can hear. And it helps his own breaths calm down, until they're just deep breathing together, hands close but not touching.

Steve never though he could have someone else here when he's like this, but somehow, it's still quiet enough.

drop dead gorgeous

ranboolive

Hands down one of the best things ive ever made!! Im proud of my composition :)

(Closeups under the cut)

It's my 2 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

WOW????

ur springtrap is such a creature

Im planning to write a detective Ness fic, just, GIVE ME TIME‼

I already have the opening scene locked and loaded in my head for the past month, my headcanaon of Ness walking into the local pd and just giving over his evidence and research that incriminates like 17 people to the police just because he got bored.. it eats at me.

Local people have been scratching their heads at the carjacker in town for 6 months, and Ness just calls them up all cheery "Heya there, I've got *whatever secret/codename the pd calls the mystery carjacker dude* ready for yall to come pick up. No, he's fine- just thought you guys would want 'em wrasseled up by now :)" and he's just sitting on the guys back in his driveway to keep him down 😭

For that one it could have been a coincidence, but the pd finally decide to give him a trial on helping out the detectives and then it goes on from there.. but that's a secret, its for the fic :)

Fuck, I love this coulor pallet so much

“Turns out being toxic in the streets ain’t that different from being toxic in the workplace”

Steddie playing that couple’s game testing how much you know about your partner. Eddie is asked “What is Steve’s favorite fruit?”

Eddie, grinning, holds up his sign that just says “Me.”

Steve, pinching the bridge of his nose, holds up his sign that says “It’s peaches but he wrote ‘me.’”

SAM!! I'm only now realising that what Sam's wearing here, is what he's always wearing but without the vest.. how did I not know.. AND IT'S SO OBVIOUS NOW THAT I LOOK AT IT.

guh.

He looks so good without the vest too, very much giving preacher boy that's in the closet. Or 60's house wife. I mean Sam's not far off from that... ANYGAYS!

(See ⏬??)