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ineffable-kelpie · 4 months

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Form Shapes Nature

Rating: G

Wordcount: 1,338

Prompt: A twirling-you-around hug

Characters: Dog, Adam

The hellhound, newly-christened as “Dog,” was not used to seeing the world from this angle. Before his Naming, he had towered over most lesser creatures, and could knock a full-sized demon to the ground with one good leap. Now, he was so low to the ground that everything else looked twice as big, and his short legs had to move twice as fast to keep pace with his new master.

If his master wished Dog to take this small size, Dog was happy to obey. They didn’t quite understand the point of it, though. Surely it would be easier to subjugate all the peoples of Earth with a massive, intimidating beast by his side? Surely his new master would want Dog to be able to knock his enemies flat and rip out their throats, instead of jumping uselessly at their knees? Did dog really need to be so small that a solid kick could send him flying?

He was obviously missing something. His master had said he wanted a dog he could have “fun” with. Dog didn’t know what this “fun” was, or how it fit into his master’s plan for world domination. Maybe that would become clear in time.

His master reached a flat road and walked alongside it. Dog padded dutifully by his side, and his master’s lackeys followed behind him, talking about something in human language. “They’ve got to let me keep him,” said Dog’s master, in response to something. He looked down at Dog with an expression Dog hadn’t seen in Hell, baring his teeth without any aggression. “Look, he’s already bonded with me. And he’s really well-behaved. Aren’t you, boy?” he crouched down to ruffle the fur on Dog’s head. “You won’t pee on the carpets or dig up mum’s flowers, will you?”

If that was what his master wished, then no, Dog certainly wouldn’t. Once he learned what “carpets” were, he’d make sure to avoid peeing on them. And he’d be careful to only dig up other people’s flowers.

One of his master’s lackeys said something. Dog’s master turned to snap back, “He can too understand. Can’t you, boy?”

Dog barked in agreement, though it came out as more of a yip, now that his voice had lost its deep, intimidating growl. Of course he understood his master. They were bonded, and he needed to be able to understand the commands he was given. But when the other humans spoke, it just sounded like noise.

“See? He’s smart,” said Dog’s master. “Don’t listen to him,” he added in an aside to Dog. “He’s just jealous ‘cause I got the best birthday present ever. No one’s gonna send you away, don’t worry.”

The very idea of anyone separating Dog from his master was absurd. As if his master would let them.

The group followed the road down to a street lined with houses, surrounded by fenced yards. Dog’s master stopped at one of these and opened the gate. “Come on, boy,” he said to Dog, holding it open. “This is home now.”

Dog’s home had always been Hell. But then, now that he’d found his master, home was wherever his master happened to be. Dog yipped and trotted through the gate into a green, fenced-in space. The lackeys followed.

The door of the house opened and another human came out. A human much larger than Dog’s master. Dog stood at attention. Was this an enemy? A threat?

She made the same face Dog’s master had made earlier, showing teeth without aggression, and spoke to the four of them. Then her gaze landed on Dog, and she hid her teeth again. She spoke, and an uneasy tension came over the group. Ah, Dog understood. This was the human they thought might try to separate him from his master. Well, his master would soon put her in her place.

“This is Dog,” said Dog’s master, crouching down beside him to ruffle his fur. “I found him in the woods, and he followed me home. Can I keep him? Please? He doesn’t have a collar, and he’s really well-behaved.”

Dog tilted his head, confused. His master was…asking for permission? To keep what was already rightfully his? Was this also part of his plan to lay waste to the world, or did he have a different plan that Dog didn’t know about?

The big human looked uncertain. They looked thoughtful for a moment, then said something and went back inside. When the door closed behind her, the lackeys started talking in hushed voices.

“She didn’t say no,” said Dog’s master. “And if she didn’t, my dad definitely won’t.”

The lackeys didn’t seem to agree. Dog barked to silence them. Before his Naming, his bark had been like a thunderclap, sharp and deafening. Now, nobody paid him any mind. He tried barking more, in case that would help, but his master turned to him and said, “Quiet.” Dog let out an embarrassed whine and obeyed.

The big human re-emerged from the house a moment later with an even bigger human. This bigger human squatted down in front of Dog and offered a hand for him to sniff. He didn’t smell unfriendly. There were traces of something sweet on his fingers, which Dog licked off.

“His name’s Dog,” said his master. Dog looked up at him. “See, he already knows his name! Look at how friendly he is, he won’t be any trouble. And it is my birthday.”

The big human who was still standing by the door let out a sigh. The bigger human straightened up and turned to her. They talked in low voices for a moment. The big human shrugged, and the bigger human motioned to Adam, and then the big human nodded.

Dog’s master straightened, his face lighting up. “So I can keep him?”

The big human adopted a stern expression and said something else to Dog’s master. Then he nodded as well.

“Yesss!” Dog’s master ran forward and threw his arms around both big humans. They hugged him back. “Thank you, thank you! I promise he’ll be the best dog ever!”

Dog’s master’s excitement was so infectious that Dog could no longer stand still. He yipped and started running around the little yard, circling his master and the two big humans and jumping at their knees. He was too small to knock them over even a little bit, but that was for the best. His master seemed to care an awful lot about their opinions, so Dog would make sure to never hurt them.

“You hear that, boy?” Dog’s master let go of the other two humans and knelt down to his level. “I get to keep you, and you’ll be my dog, and we’ll go on the best adventures!”

With another yip, Dog jumped up at his master’s chest. To his surprise, his master caught him and lifted him high up in the air. That was a new experience. Dog had never been small enough to be lifted up like this. If it was anyone else, it would have been terrifying. Dog would have thrashed to get away before he could be hurt, even if it meant falling the now-considerable distance to the ground.

But it wasn’t just anyone, it was his master, which meant Dog was safe. The arms around him were there to support him, not hurt him. He stretched up to lick at his master’s face, and his master laughed and spun around until Dog felt dizzy. Dog buried his nose in his master’s chest. His tail flipped happily back and forth, and now that it was short and fuzzy, it couldn’t raise burning welts in his master’s skin. Which was lucky, because Dog couldn’t have made it stop moving if he wanted to.

So this was why his master had wanted a little dog. This was “fun.” Dog understood now. They didn’t have anything like this in Hell, so his master must be very wise to know about it. This was much, much more important than world domination.

#good omens fanfic #good omens ficlet #good omens dog #hugfest 2024 #the last hug!!!!!#can I get a wahoo!!!!#twenty count 'em TWENTY hugs :)#whew ok I need to take a lil break from writing now #this is also the first time I've run against Ao3's tag limit hehe oops #the price to pay for trying to write so many side characters #luckily this was the last one #cyankelpie's fic

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flowercrowngods · 1 year

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part 1 | part 2 (these make one big story, you won't understand this part without the others)

day 03: first kiss

a/n: not sure if I vibe with this part, but I hope it's okay. also don't think you're getting fluff

A broken heart is such a thing that will make you live either in the past or in the future; never in the present moment. Lovesickness feels like a virus is attacking the very fabric of your universe, distorting time and space and leaving you floating; directionless and hurting.

That is how Steve feels as he goes through the motions of his life, getting his kids ready for finals, for their oral and written exams, or planning end-of-year school trips. While school provides a great distraction and he has mastered the art of switching into teacher mode almost effortlessly, he feels like he’s just an inch or two beside himself. Beside where he should be.

He’s dwelling in the past or mourning dozens of possible futures, an infinity of them that will end up unrealised, unlived, unloved. His heart is heavy all the time, his head hurting, and his phone chiming with an endless string of messages that go unopened, unreplied.

It’s been a few weeks since the engagement party, since he last saw Eddie — who asked if he was okay, who has been asking to see him again, to hang out, have a drink, just catch up. But every time he does, Steve just hurts, and he finds excuses.

— Sorry, it’s finals season, I’ll be spread thin for the next few weeks :(

Eddie had replied with a litany of sad, brokenhearted emojis that were at equal measures ridiculous as they were exactly what Steve was feeling. Is feeling. Will probably always be feeling, for the rest of his life and beyond.

So far, Eddie hasn’t asked him to be his best man. Steve sort of doesn’t want to give him the opportunity for that. He’s cowardly enough to wish he could avoid Eddie forever if only that meant he wouldn’t have to see his face fall and crumble when he tells him, No.

No, I can’t be your best man. I can’t make it to the wedding. I can’t make it, I can’t do this, I can’t stand by and watch as you show me and the rest of the world that your dream life is not with me. Never with me. I can’t hand you over when all I wanna do is hold you. Hold your hand. Walk you down the aisle and then sweep you up in my arms, just to run out, run away; anywhere, as long as it’s with you.

It doesn’t make sense. There won’t be an aisle, there won’t be any sweeping, there won’t be a future for them. Never has been. Not like this.

Although there was a brief moment in time where their futures almost aligned. Almost. The timing was never right, though, stumbling through the motions and currents of two lost boys’ emotions. But it was almost there, almost enough.

And it's what's been on Steve's mind all week, playing and replaying, tearing at him from the inside out, leaving him with a jigsaw puzzle of infinite pieces of could have beens, would have beens, and what ifs.

"You know," he tells Robin one evening, who has practically moved in now, claiming that broken hearts are best nursed together. "I was actually Eddie's first kiss."

To her credit, Robin doesn't drop the carton pizza at Steve's non-sequitur. She just swallows hard and looks at him in that careful way she has now, where she's trying to read him and ask his eyes to tell her what it is that she should say next. It's frustrating. It's the greatest kindness anyone has ever shown him. It makes him want to punch a wall, and it makes him want to wrap her in the warmest hug and never, ever let her go.

"You were?"

Steve just nods, his lips trembling as his throat closes up again.

"No," she says in the gentlest voice, taking his hand as she guides him to the living room couch. "I didn't know that. Do you wanna talk about it?"

He shakes his head, tucking his feet under her thigh and leaning sideways against the backrest of the couch. His head is heavy and he's tired. He's always tired, even though he doesn't cry as much anymore. It's been four weeks since the engagement party.

"No, I just, uh– Just wanted to say that."

She nods, her eyes boring into him for two, three, four seconds before she finally turns to her pizza.

He looks past her, his eyes unfocused as his mind travels back to that day when they were still in high school.

~*~

The day that Eddie told him he was gay. And Steve had asked how he knew, because he'd been wondering about his own sexuality.

"I don't know, I just know."

"Well, have you ever kissed a boy?"

And Eddie had blushed a little, charred with his feet in the dirt like he always did – still does. "No."

"Okay."

And Steve, ten years ago, had thought, why not kill two birds with one stone. "Would you like to?"

"Huh?"

"Well, I mean, I'm kinda on the fence about it? Sometimes I think I might like guys, but then other times not so much. But I've never kissed one either, so," he shrugged. "If you, like, want to? We can."

"You want me to kiss you?" Eddie sounded incredulous, but his eyes were very big, very dark, very vulnerable. And it was not a no.

"Only if you want to."

A grin split Eddie's face then and he raised his eyebrows suggestively, but there was something forced about it. "Well, what If I fall madly in love with you, Steve Harrington, hm? What then?"

"Oh, please," Steve had only snorted; the thought that Eddie would fall for him out of all people was just too absurd.

And then something had shifted between them, the air turned into something sizzling as Eddie's smile fell and he stepped closer to Steve, raising one hand to his cheek.

"Here goes my first kiss," he murmured.

"Ever?"

"If we discount Lisa from kindergarten, then yes."

Steve huffed, looking down at Eddie's lips, the moment strangely intimate – but not uncomfortably so. Being this close to Eddie wasn't something new, Steve was used to his friend's tactile nature. "Fuck Lisa from kindergarten."

"I'd really rather not," Eddie smiled before finally, finally leaning in and capturing Steve's lips in a kiss.

To this day, Steve is not sure why he went and deepened the kiss like he did. Was it because he knew this was Eddie's first and he wanted to make it good, make it last? Was it because something deep inside of him knew that he liked boys, too, and that he liked Eddie, even though that realisation wouldn't come for another year at least?

He doesn't know why, but he feels it on his lips still, the memory of their first kiss. Their only kiss. A spectacular one that ended with twin smiles after Steve showed Eddie how to move his lips, how to tilt his head, how to open his mouth to let him in. How to capture the little sigh that he would make.

Eddie had looked at him, a little dazed, and Steve grinned at him, delighted at his expression more than at the kiss itself.

"A-And did you," Eddie started, pulling his hands away from Steve and shoving them deeply into his pockets. "Did you get any closer to, uh, to finding out?"

"If I like guys?"

Eddie nodded.

Steve thought about it; about the kiss and how it wasn't as soft as making out with Nancy or Allison. How he would swallow their moans and run his hands along their soft bodies. Eddie wasn't like that. Eddie was just Eddie.

"I think I'll just stick with girls for now," he shrugged with a smile, patting Eddie on the shoulder and squeezing lightly when the other boy began to sway a little.

"Suit yourself, Harrington," Eddie said, shoving him a little. "But you're missing out."

Years later, Eddie had drunkenly confessed to him that he'd had a crush on Steve back then. For years. And Steve had wanted to ask about it, ask if it's still there, that crush, that connection on a deeper, closer level; but then Eddie told him, "Remember Chrissy? We're official now."

And all the words had died on Steve's lips. All those questions, or the confession that, Yeah, me too. Though Steve's crush on Eddie was much later, years after their first kiss, – and it never really ended.

Still hasn't. And it's not a crush. It's more. It's everything.. He's in love. In it. Caught, stuck, trapped inside, while Eddie and everyone else is on the outside, just watching him struggle.

~*~

Later that night, on his umpteenth re-run of the First Kiss Episode that's keeping him from falling asleep, leaving him frustrated and sad and wondering, his phone rings. Eddie's name pops up on the screen, the impersonal Eddie Munson feels like a knife through his heart. He couldn't bear any of the silly nicknames that Eddie's always had in his phone, and needed to go back to a clean slate.

It hurts, though. He watches, considering to let it go to voicemail – but he hasn't talked to his... to Eddie in four weeks. Barely even talked to him on his engagement party.

And even though there's a chance opening for Eddie to ask him or to talk about his wedding, Steve answers the call.

"Stevie," Eddie says, somewhere between a sigh and a hum, and immediately takes away Steve's breath.

"Hi," he rasps. His heart is racing, his hands begin to tremble and he's shaking even under the thick, warm blanket.

"Did I wake you?"

He hums a negative, not trusting himself to speak, and it comes out a pathetic croak, because God, he missed Eddie. Part of him was missing – part of him will always be missing now, he knows –, and it makes him cry. It's not a sob, not a wail, not anything that Eddie can hear or something that would alarm Robin in the other room.

They're silent tears, and he presses his face into the pillow. He should hang up.

"Stevie?" Eddie asks again, his voice so small, so gentle, so worried. "Are you okay?" And after a moment of Steve being unresponsive because he can't catch his breath without gasping, Eddie asks, "Are you crying?"

And just like a kid that tries to be brave through the pain after falling down, but breaks the moment someone asks if they're hurt, Steve lets out a tiny, broken little sob.

"Oh, Stevie baby," Eddie sighs, and he sounds so sad, so compassionate, Steve never wants to hear his name like that ever again. "Do you want me to come over?"

"No," he croaks pathetically, hitting himself once, twice, three times for not keeping it together. For not being strong enough.

I can't do this.

"What do you need?"

"Sleep," he sniffles, stupidly.

"Okay. Then I'll stay here and be silent company, yeah? Don't need to be alone. Is Robin there?" He hums again, affirmative. "Good. Want me to say something? Read to you, tell you a story? Play you some music or–"

"Eddie," Steve manages. I love you. "Just silence? But you don't have to."

"Nah, I'll stay with you," Eddie says before Steve even finished his objections. "Until you've fallen asleep, yeah?"

Steve just nods into his pillow, even though Eddie can't see or hear it.

He's watching the seconds turn into minutes as the time passes. He's so tired, but he doesn't want to let go yet. Not when Eddie is right there. Not when there's still the phantom feeling of his lips capturing Steve's, a memory that is ten years old and still as strong as the very first second.

He should have known, then. Should have leaned in for another kiss, should have told Eddie that he knows he's into boys now, too, and ask Eddie to keep kissing him.

He shouldn't have taken years.

He should have created a new world just for the two of them, with an infinite amount of futures, and all go them happy. All of them SteveAndEddie.

But he didn't. And he wants to apologise. For being so slow, for not knowing until it was too late. For pulling away these past few weeks when that's the last thing he ever wants to do. For not being strong enough; for being too weak.

I'm in love with you, he thinks. Over and over and over. Mouths it voicelessly into the silence between them. Says it out loud when after almost two hours, Eddie hangs up with a quiet, "Good night, Stevie. I miss you." He says it when Eddie's gone, the beep of an empty line the only response he gets before that cuts out, too.

And then he's all alone again.

tagging: @sexymothmanincarnate @mcneen @livsters @eddiemunchondeeznuts @abstractnaturaldisaster @steddie-as-they-go @hyperfixationgoddess @goodolefashionedloverboi @stxrcrossed186 @imzadidragonfly @eddiemunsonswife @bidisastersworld @ghost-ly-s @romanticdestruction @walkingaftermidnight07 @anaibis @rainydays35 @mightbeasleep @sunfloweringstories @korixae and thanks to everyone who said nice things about this 🤍🌷

come back tomorrow for: here come the tears (and hurt/comfort, maybe) | read part 4 here

#steddie fic #steddie #steddie week fic #steddieweek2023 #maybe I'll write the first kiss scene as one later. when my eyes dont hurt and the thought of posting doesnt make my brain eat itself #will I ever post a steddie week thing not around 2am?? -- unlikely #the emotions are dulled unless they are sharp because heartache is fun like that (and so is anxiety can I get a wahoo)#dio words #I hope I got all the tags I dont think there were any requests in reblogs but if I missed them pls dont be mad 🥺

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