Not a steddie!dads post believe it or not, but I was thinking about how S1-Steve conks the fuck out after sleeping w/Nancy (which was.......an interesting choice imo) but it got me thinking about what would happen if the same thing happened with Eddie.
Like, all the Upside Down shit is done and they're all healed up and, after pining for each other for ages, Steve and Eddie finally hook up.
It definitely wasn't a gooey, sappy, romantic love confession type of situation, more like the natural culmination of several agonizing months of sexual tension and trying to feel out what the other might be thinking and a pretty aggressive campaign of flirting on Eddie's part that he's certain Steve was matching him on toe-to-toe for at least most of and being badgered by their friends to pull their respective heads out of their respective asses — a glorified hook-up, really.
Yeah, there might have been an undercurrent of more in the way Steve had threaded their fingers together and the way he'd looked at him with those gorgeous hazel eyes of his and the way he'd kissed him like it fucking meant something, but there hadn't been a lot of words.
Eddie's a words kind of guy, believe it or not, and he'd really like to be looped into whatever the hell is going on inside Steve's perplexing brain, thanks, but no.
Instead, afterwards Steve had pulled Eddie into his arms, twined them tight around his waist and tangled their legs together and tucked his face into the curve of Eddie's shoulder, and that was...new, but in a matter of minutes he'd started softly snoring, and that — dozing off after a hook-up so the other can make a discreet exit — is a move Eddie knows intimately, not that knowing it makes it sting any less, because Eddie had thought Steve might be more, that this thing roiling beneath the surface of their friendship could be more than just a one-time thing.
It's actually kind of fucking horseshit, actually, that Steve is expecting Eddie to just leave like this had been nothing more than a chance to get laid, because Eddie knows it's more than that — not because he has good self-esteem or whatever, but because it's so obviously more than that.
The whole thing actually kind of bothers Eddie, and he's always been a petulant shit about things that bother him and he'd never cared too much about doing what he's "supposed to", or whatever, so...fuck it. He's tired and this rich-people mattress is way more comfortable than anything Eddie had slept on before, and Steve needs to grow a pair and face the music of this shit in the morning.
So instead of sliding out of Steve's grip like everyone who came before him, Eddie settles in and forces himself to fall asleep too.
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whoever this beloved anon was I am so touched by your kindness! You definitely didn’t have to do this but I am so happy you enjoy this idea and I will happily expand upon it for you!
this is just a collection of word vomit bullet points for the time being but I will happily answer any and all questions about this pair!!
warnings: violence, angst, child death (Sarah Miller), foul language, the same warnings that apply to tlou, reader is Sarah's mom and described as having similar features to her.
So the general Idea is that you and Joel are happily married before the outbreak.
You had been Sarah's mother, his high school sweetheart he got pregnant when neither of you were old enough to have any reaction to the pregnancy test other than a fucking panic attack in one another’s arms. but you made it work
you both worked but made time for one another and your sweet girl, going to museums every other weekend and joel insisting on swooping you off for a date every now and then
nothing special. He knows you’re more of a diner gal than anything too fancy that makes you both feel out of place.
On his birthday in 2003, you had planned to tell him that you were pregnant again. But the memories of your own fears of motherhood from all those years ago begin to swirl through your head again and you get cold feel. deciding to tell him the morning after
it is his birthday afterall, you want to focus on him.
but when you’re woken up in the middle of the night because tommy needs to get bailed out, Joel kisses you sweetly one last time before promising he’ll be back and you can’t shake the feeling that something bad is happening.
its you that shakes sarah awake that night. shouting at her to put on her shoes when she’s still rubbing the sleep from her eyes because you’ve been listening to the radio for the past two hours, calling joel again and again and again praying for him to fucking pick up but to no avail.
Sarah, bless your little girl’s bleeding heart is the one who insists you check on the adler’s against your better suspicions and when you find the eldest looming over her daughter, blood and sinew dripping from her mouth, you grab your daughter hand and burst into a full sprint until something slams into your back and sends you tumbling onto their front lawn
its how joel finds you, struggling to keep the once sweet old woman, whose now nothing more than dead eyes and gnashing teeth straining to snap at your pulse point as you push against her while sarah shrieks before your husband runs forward and cracks her skull with a wrench.
there’s hardly a moment of pause, just enough for him to pull you up and into his arms before he’s ushering you both into the car with an urgency.
when the truck crashes, you get separated from them. Perhaps at Tommy’s side when the flames rise and create a wall, separating you from your husband, or maybe pulled into the mob of chaos when trying to escape from those already infected-
all joel knows is that you promise you’ll find him: just get sarah to safety and you’ll meet him at the river
Poor thing is already so frightened, held in her father’s arms with tears streaming down her face insisting they can’t leave you they just can’t but her father kisses her forehead and reassures her its going to be okay
“we just need to be brave, okay babygirl? Your mama’s real tough, she’s gonna be alright.”
he isn’t sure if he’s saying it to his daughter or himself.
but when he comes to the river you aren’t there. Only a soldier who points a gun at the scared little girl in his arms and then he loses everything
its when the light is gone from his daughter’s eyes that he realizes. His voice cracked and raw from sobbing that he looks around to see his brother with drawn in shoulders and tears in his eyes but his wife is nowhere to be found.
Tommy says you got lost in the chaos. Everything was so loud, so sudden that he turned around and suddenly you weren’t there.
Joel wants to go back but its Tommy that stops him, that dulls the red in his vision to a sad faded pink because his brother points at the orange horizon not too far from them, so much of the city is already in flames.
“We’re gonna find her, but not there.”
So Joel searches. for the first year spent in the world post-outbreak its all he did.
He became a smuggler because of it.
Information came at a price and he needed to be able to fucking pay it, whether it be in blood or ration cards. He was willing to do anything to find you or any thin thread that lead your way.
But it’s Tommy that asks him to give up. Not in those words of course.
The youngest Miller knows better than to say something so cruel that would make his brother, the only person he has in this world turn on him.
But his voice is worried when he asks him one night in Boston when he hasn’t even had the chance to wash the blood from his knuckles
“You think she would have wanted this for you?”
the fight that followed his words was brutal. Vicious insults and scarred fists slamming against each brother until they're both too tired and bloody to continue. Each leaning against a wall for support and Tommy’s wavering voice breaking the silence.
“I don’t know where she is, Joel. But I do know you're gonna get yourself killed if you keep lookin’ for her.”
All he can do is nod.
It’s a few days later when he meets Tess. Who has heard plenty of stories about the elder miller’s brutality and wants him to put that muscle to good use for some extra profit.
It begins his new life. One that empty and cold but one he can live.
Until of course, Ellie comes along. The sweet and incredibly opinionated girl that makes him become something akin to the man he thought died twenty years ago.
its when he’s traveling with Ellie, that it happens. When a warm familiarity has settled between the two because so much blood and pain has been shared he can’t help but see her as something close, something bright even though all he can force himself to utter in her reference is “cargo”
when theyre traveling through the woods as Ellie chatters away, probing his memory about a movie that may or may not have existed thirty years ago because her descriptions of the plot are incredibly odd he hears a voice shout for them to stop and finds himself staring at a man- no, a boy- pointing a gun at them.
Ellie stills, but Joel can see enough to know that from the lanky figure and dimpled face that he’s young. Maybe twenty, twenty-two at the oldest, but his eyes dart from Joel to Ellie with a pinprick of fear that allows Joel the time to charge forward and slam him to the ground before wrestling the gun from his hands.
He has enough to time to tuck it under the stranger’s chin before he hears the sound of the safety being turned off and finds himself looking up and seeing a gun just inches from his face.
Joel’s head whips around when Ellie’s voice calls out his name in fear, he turns to see another stranger holding her a gun point, shoulders drawn back and a shadow cast over their face by the had obstructing their identity.
“You hurt one of mine, I hurt one of yours. That a fair deal?”
Its takes him a moment to recognize you. It’s been so long since he’s heard your voice, the sweet tease when you would poke at him each time he woke up late despite the fact that you reminded him to set his alarm the night before, the times you’d chide him with a harsh “Joel Miller!” whispered in public anytime he was able to grab you a bit too passionately to be appropriate in public but the laughter in your voice let him know you were never truly mad at him. You didn’t know how to be.
But that sweetness is buried under a cold rasp that cuts through the air as you point a rifle at the scared little girl in front of you.
“You think I won’t?” You’re older now, skin covered in scars from a life he didn’t know you got the chance to live and your eyes are cold as they regard your husband. “Put the gun down and get the fuck off of him, I won’t repeat myself.”
Joel mumbles your name in awe. The woman he loved, the woman he mourned the one he fought so hard to find stands before him like some sort of hallucination and suddenly the world feels like its spinning until you bark orders at him again.
“You’ve got five seconds Joel, make a fucking choice before I make it for you.”
He looks down and realizes the boy under him, the one with the bleeding nose and snarling face has your eyes and his dimples.
“One.”
The one above him has Sarah’s hair. Soft brown curls that shine under the sun.
“Two”
Wait. No, they both do.
“Three.”
Twins. Jesus fucking Christ you had twins.
“Four.”
Joel holds the rifle up above his head and the one boy standing snatches it from his grasp, tossing it to the ground and kicking it far from his reach. He slowly stands, allowing your son- dear god your son- to scramble to his feet.
Your voice softens just for a moment. “You okay, Duke?”
Blood stains the bottom half of his face from where Joel slammed his fist into the boy’s nose just moments before, but he nods nonetheless.
Now, they both stand on one side of you and he can see the resemblance clear as day the same way he would whenever Sarah was by your side.
When you order him to hand over his bag, he does so without question before telling Ellie to do the same.
She watches him with wide eyes, her hands still up in the air but gaping at her companion as if he had grown a second head.
“Joel!” “Just do it, alright?”
He doesn’t miss the way you watch their interaction with narrowed eyes until she tosses her bag to you and you slowly lower your gun.
“Now, you want to tell me what the fuck you think you’re doin’ at my home?”
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hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?
hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].
but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.
it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.
and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.
the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.
an emptiness, like you said.
but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.
you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.
he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.
but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.
how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.
the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.
think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.
i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.
but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one.
wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.
as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛
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btw not to make everything about My Fucking Guy but i honestly think one of the things that seperates q!phil out from the other islanders is the approach he takes to dealing with the lack of agency + control all the islanders have over whatever the fuck the federation's doing.
it shows up most prominently whenever tubbo is excitedly telling him about the 'progress' he's made with cucurucho or various investigations (ie: trapping him into a corner with the 'do you have free will' questions), and phil always shoots it down w an immediate 'that doesn't mean anything. curucuho will say anything to mess with you. you can't take anything he says as true.'
and it's not that phil is... a paticularly pessimistic character? he's just EXTREMELY practical. like, he's yet to give up on anyone EVER finding ANY answers (he was the one who initially gave the federation that one week ultimatum w the cage for a cage stream), he just doesn't trust the idea that curucuho is ever going to voluntarily give them. they're uncontrollable + senseless - you might as well argue with the weather.
and like, if that's how he sees the one (1) and only point of contact the islanders HAD with the federation for months, it explains a lot abt his characters lifestyle! ofc he sits on the wall all day, talking to his kids, and keeping his head down. he believes that the federation wants nothing more than to drag the islanders into sick games + tasks just so they can fuck with their head (ie: curucuho revealing he was the one cellbit gathered all that information for). and while he can't totally PREVENT any of that from ever impacting him, he can make sure his kids are well fed, well protected, and as happy + comfortable as he can manage. this is objectively not a perfect situation, there is a guaranteed amount of suffering + fear that he can't mitigate, but he can at least account for it.
like, he REFUSES to engage. whenever curucho shows up, he treats them with total ambivalence. he's not going to get riled up by anything they do, he's not going to get super attached to the guy, he's just gonna laugh it off and irish goodbye it when things drag on. the ONLY time he's strayed from that general guiding principle has been since he's lost his eggs, and can no longer afford to let the federation's fuckery go: those are his fucking kids.
hence the completely unprecedented levels of outward rage and sadness and terror he shows throughout the birdcage streams - almost all directed directly to cucurucho. it's all a completely fair + proportional response to the horror the islanders are being subjected to, but it feels so different bc until now, q!phil has been so dedicated to not reacting, and not giving the federation any sign that they're actually getting to him.
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