And also, the reasons behind each pairing
1.Steve, Max, and Will-
C’mon, have you SEEN the SASS? I guess one could argue Dustin should also be here, but his sass™️ is reserved for his brothers. Also, imagine the gossip sessions, like Will ranting about anything and Max and Steve absolutely cheering him on because he is 100% in the right.
2.Eddie, Robin, and Will-
Queer in a small town, Barb could also probably be in this group. They all bash each-other’s crushes until Robin wants to date Nancy, and Eddie starts liking Steve. Will would absolutely still be trashed for his crush on Mike. Robin would still bash on Eddie like have you seen that man? He’ll watch the same movie on repeat until he has to being it back.
Eddie just sighs and is like, I know, he’s great.
3.Nancy, Chrissy,Barb, and Robin-
Barb and Chrissy absolutely needed more screentime!! They were both so aghhh<33 They all kinda band together to do sleepovers and stuff, sometimes El and Max are invited when they aren’t doing their own thing. I just really like the characters.
4.Steve and Gareth-
Okay guys, have you seen that Steve and Gareth cousin au??(Someone please tell me the creator so I can credit them) Steve having another extravagant handshake for Gareth and Gareth always gushing about his cool older cousin to hellfire who is just like uh-huh sure Gareth.
I know theres the idea that Gareth would despise Steve, but also Gareth inviting Steve to hellfire after he got dethroned because Steve was there for his tough times so why can’t he be there for his?
5.Holly, Erica, and Steve-
Lets take babysitter!Steve to the MAX. All the parent call him when their younger kids need to be watched, he watches Holly for the Wheelers all the time to the point where he’s her brother, and she pretends to forget Mike’s name for like a week.
Erica insists only Steve can watch her, because he’s the only one who lets her watch My Little Pony without judging her or treating her like a baby, also because he starts getting into the show. Sometimes Tina and the rest of Erica’s friends come over and rope him into letting them paint his nails. Random days Steve will show up to Erica’s school with some McDonalds for her.
6.Murray and Alexei-
Self-explanatory because c’mon, really?
7.Steve, Will, and El-
Steve ADORES the Byers siblings, they say thank you when he does stuff for them, they are usually never the source of trouble when they go out.
Sometimes Will will just be so nice that it makes Steve feel bad for what he told Jonathan in s1 before their fight, because nobody in the Byers family is a screw-up except Lonnie, who was just a giant douche and a terrible father.
The only thing Steve dislikes about them is their respective crushes on Mike, because are you serious? He’s well on his way to becoming the next town Keith.
8.El and Max-
Also pretty self explanatory, El needs a better role model than Mike, and Max being overwhelmingly confident in every decision helps. Max also tries to make sure El doesn’t push herself to hard. Oh your head hurts? Lets get you some juice, we have this new flavor you’d like. You don’t feel good? Lets take a break. You scrapped your knee? I have a first aid kit somewhere…
Etc etc, Max just always making sure El feels comfortable.
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idk how it would happen but I imagine ven meeting his younger selves and they’re both so different. But the same. But different
he meets the one stuck in the desert with no memories and immediately almost gets his head cut off, just because — for ease of reading, he’ll refer to himself as Ven and the younger one as Ventus and the youngest one… Little Ven. Look, he never said he was that creative, and they like their name — because he startled him. He doesn’t remember the badlands that well, but he does remember how jumpy it made him. That’s still… there.
anyways he almost gets his head cut off because Ventus hears someone’s big metal shoes behind him and whips around, keyblade in hand, and Ven backs out of the way with his hands up and an eep! and puts a lid on the instinct to summon his own keyblade. Ventus’ face gives away his emotions pretty much instantly, which it doesn’t do so much anymore, but it goes fear-anger-confusion-VERYconfusion-fearagain-curiosity-confusion-bigshowyhuffyface. Like a kitten making itself look bigger. Ven tries to make himself look smaller, or at least non threatening. Or at least not like an evil future version of himself come to end his bloodline here and now. Would you believe he had that irrational fear every once in a while he’d make some kind of dumb mistake and go ah, I hope this doesn’t have universal consequences i feel the repercussions of via someone smarter than me coming to tell me off! which, I mean it’s not The Most irrational. Time travel exists. He’s doing… it(???). Ventus seems to settle somewhere between genuine curiosity and cornered kitten.
“Who are you?”
Wow his voice is higher! It dropped pretty late. Mostly while he was training here, so he never really had the embarrassed-by-voice-cracking thing Aqua told him about with Terra, he was worried about other things. And his hair is so much scruffier, and his skin is dry-looking, he doesn’t remember taking care of himself very well out here. There’s nothing here, really. Has Ventus eaten? Today? Should he have brought the conchas from the kitchen. Is that an open cut on his arm? That’s blood. That’s bad. Ven’s been forgetting to speak and just looking at his younger self which is not helping his nerves, he doesn’t think. “Uh… you? Older you! We’re in a dream, sort of, I think.”
probably not the right thing to say, even though ven’s not sure what WOULD be the right thing to say. That was about the most succinct he could make it. Ventus’ eyes narrow, and he drops the curiosity, and Ven knows what just happened, he thinks this is a test now. It’s absurd enough to not be real, and it must be illusion magic. Ventus spins his keyblade behind him and lowers his stance (still kinda sloppy, the Master was always— Xehanort was always on him about it even though apparently holding a keyblade backwards was fine). “Bullcrap,” he spits.
“Language!” Ven scolds, feeling the spirit of Aqua fill him. Ventus is too nervous to say anything more than “crap” though, which is kind of cute but weird to think about now that he’s still nervous around adults but swears like a sailor around, like, Roxas.
“Either leave me alone or fight!”
“I don’t wanna—“ And then Ventus jabs at him, his patience for the test spent. The faster he passes, the faster he can go sit down and the less of a chance he gets hurt. Ven dodge rolls out of the way once, twice, threefourtimes, getting ten pounds of dust down his shirt. He never liked this feeling. Dust stuck to his skin. Ventus gets more and more frustrated with every miss, starting to make angry growls when he does, and snaps out a strike raid, which misses, and it misses on the way back, but Ven is busy righting himself from where it missed and Ventus gets a heavy slash in right on his knuckles, which stings.
Ven recoils, and Ventus sees the real actual blood on his knuckles and the teeth of Wayward Wind and his eyes blow wide. Almost immediately, he drops his keyblade and backs away, hugging his arms to his chest and turtling in his jacket. “Oh— sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry! I messed up.”
“it’s okay! It’s okay, it’s fine,” Ven reassures him, really really wanting to stop hearing himself over-apologize. He quickly, telegraphing his moves because he knows how bad this could look, summons his keyblade and casts a quick Cure. The wound vanishes, even though it’s gonna leave a bruise anyways. Ven shows his arm. “See? Totally fine.”
Ventus doesn’t move towards him, but un-turtles slightly. His eyes linger on Ven’s hand — fine. Like he said — to the space his, their keyblade was just summoned, the one he’s holding his version of. To his face, which is pretty similar, though Ventus hasn’t looked at himself in a mirror in a while. To his outstretched arm, and the thin scars over it, and his own scrawny arm, dried blood still shiny over a thin but deep cut.
Ven follows his gaze. “Can I see that?” he asks, gently.
Ventus slowly, very deliberately shuffles his way over and gives up his arm to be looked at. Ven takes it — Ventus almost flinches when he touches him, totally real and corporeal and warm and stuff — and once again casts Cure, this time a Curaga just to cover anything he might not be showing him. Ven used to do that, before he knew what he was doing but after he was too floaty to know what he was doing at all, he’d just not tell anyone he was uncomfortable. It felt shaky and bad to verbalize, and it took Terra specifically a long time to teach him that no was a good word and I made a mistake was not the end of the world. Ven’s not gonna be able to teach the younger version of himself that whole thing in a few hours. But y’know — at least he can be nice.
Ventus studies the spot on his arm that he cured. It’s going to scar because he didn’t get to it on time, but he knew that, and Ventus figures that out, his stare moving to the same scar on Ven’s forearm. And the rest of them. Some the same, some came later. He is not, pointedly, removing his arm from Ven’s hands.
Ventus’ voice is tentative and scratchy. “Why’re you here?”
“Um,” Ven says, elegantly. “I’m not sure.”
”That’s dumb,” Ventus huffs.
“Hey.”
“Sorry. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Ven says, gesturing for his other hand. Ventus hesitates — fear-worry-want, his face is like an open book — and gives it to him, finally desummoning his keyblade. “Do you not know Cure yet?”
Ventus scowls again. “Shouldn’t you remember? No.”
Ven shakes his head. “I don’t remember when we learned it. I thought it was before this.”
“I don’t remember anything before this.” Ventus, despite curling forwards into the touch he’s being given, somehow scowls even deeper.
Ven kneels. “And I don’t remember being so angry,” he says, softly. “We don’t get much better at the memory thing in the future.”
“Oh.” Ventus keeps standing. “Do—“ he bites his lip.
“Do what?”
“Do we… do we get better at — you’re … I’m… mad. I don’t like— You don’t look— Do we— nevermind, sorry. It’s nothing.”
“We get happier,” Ven says, something inside him crumbling. “We do, we get friends, even.”
Ventus’ eyes widen, not looking at him. “Here?”
“No, not here. It… it’s a long story. But I promise it gets better.” Ven doesn’t like looking at this. He spent so long not thinking about it — on purpose, not thinking about it, ever since he woke up in the Land of Departure “thinking about it” was more of a phrase that meant shaky, scattered flashes of memory and sharp copper smells and waking up with his heart in his throat and his muscles trying to scatter out of existence or hearing a metal fixture drop to the floor with a loud clang! and suddenly he couldn’t hear anything except ringing and it was all, an abstract cocktail of not good that he never untangled and avoided like the plague — that… making it real, seeing himself just exist in a terrible place while nothing happens to him like those flashes of memory, it makes it real. And it breaks something inside him, something really small but gummed up because before this he had a layer of detachment from the whole thing, and he almost wants to cry. Ven knows now that he didn’t deserve this and it was stupid and horrible and he should have just had friends who loved him this whole time because it’s possible and he’s a likeable person and he has good to give and love to receive. But Ventus doesn’t know that yet, and he sure won’t believe it until it happens. He remembers not believing it. He remembers thinking it wouldn’t ever get better, and how much better it feels now that it has, and — oh, okay he is crying cool. Ventus looks at him like he’s grown a second head, all confusion and worry and tentative digging inside himself to see what he should do.
“Do… um. Do you want a hug?” Ventus asks nervously.
Ven nods. Ventus’ arms curl around Ven’s back, all thin shaky noodles and no muscles and fewer scars and not used to doing this. Not too hard — he doesn’t want to weird him out — Ven hugs back as best he can. He learned how to give pretty stellar hugs from his friends. He hopes Ventus can feel it.
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Okay, y’all imagine with me for a second-
So
Let’s say Edward snorts when he laughs sometimes. Usually because something funny REALLY catches him off guard or some shit, right? Right, okay, wonderful, adorable-
He accidentally does it in front of Colonel Mustang.
IT’S JUST LIKE THE WHOLE MEME OF ‘When he looks at me. And I look at him. WHEN HE LOOKS AT ME-’ BUT EDWARD IS JUST STEADILY GETTING REDDER AND REDDER IN THE FACE AND MUSTANG JUST STARES LIKE “Hoh?? You lil’ shit???....Do it again-”
Then it escalates to Mustang chasing Edward all around Central Command with the determination and resilience of Goddamn JESUS CHRIST, BECAUSE HE IS READY TO TICKLE THE SNORTS OUT OF EDWARD AND EDWARD IS DYING INSIDE, SCREAMING FOR HIS LIFE-
Edward tries to get Lieutenant Hawkeye to save him.
She just salutes him saying, ‘Rest in Peace, Edward.’
LORD KNOWS HE DIED THAT DAY, COULDN’T GO TEN MINUTES WITHOUT MUSTANG TICKLING THE SNORTS OUT OF HIM AND HE’S ON DEATH’S DOORSTEP BY THE END OF THE WORK DAY.
Oh, but he totally doesn’t let it happen again like, a week later. He totally didn’t rile up Mustang into tickling him to death the very next week. Noooo, why would he ever do that? (fucking liar-)
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