Drabble Challenge Day 9 - Enjoy

Your Boyfriend is Hot, So Hot, Too Hot

Written for @steddiemicrofic

[ AO3 ]

June prompt: "Hot" | word count: 315 | rated: T |

Eddie has a hot, hot boyfriend.

That's great, right?

Except the AC is down, and they're melting.

Eddie watches as a droplet of sweat rolls down Steve’s glorious, wonderful tits. His chest hair is damp and gleams in the dim light.

Fuck.

His man is hot.

He lifts a heavy hand and gently strokes Steve’s chest, prompting a groan from his lovely boyfriend. 

“Stevie…”

Another groan.

Eddie takes his hand back and shuffles closer to him, admiring his lovely, shiny face. His parted lips call his own, and he can’t resist their siren call.

Steve opens an eye just in time to see his boyfriend push on his arms to get even closer to his mouth.

“Eddie…” he moans.

Their lips collide, moist, warm, parting to give way to their eager tongues. Eddie feels a sweltering heat growing inside him, something great, something terrible…

He flings himself far away from his boyfriend, sprawling his too-warm body against the barely cool tiles.

“Jesus H. Christ! I can’t, I can’t.” he whines.

Beside him, Steve makes a noise not unlike a dying cat. “Whyyyy.”

“Stevie, I adore you.” He rolls on the floor, trying to find a colder spot. “We’re gonna survive this. Believe me, no distance could ever destroy the undying love I have for you.”

“Please shut up, I’m melting,” is the only response he gets. Understandable.

“They’re going to fix the electricity, sweetheart. It’s been more than twenty-four hours. It can’t go on like this.”

Steve rolls over and mashes his face against the floor. “We can’t even fuck. I hate everything.”

The warmth is unescapable. Unless…

“You know what? I’m going into the pool.”

Steve raises his head, panicked. “Eddie, no, it’s not clean!”

Eddie sits up, reinvigorated. “I don’t give a shit. Lover's Lake has never been clean, and it hasn’t stopped anyone from swimming in it!”

“The pool is green, Eddie, green! The algae have taken over. They’re going to eat you.”

“Not if I eat them first.”

So, tattoo shop AUs are really popping off lately and personally I love it. What’s more romantic than bleeding for art? Nothing!

But as someone married to a tattoo artist, I have been experiencing some mild She Wouldn’t Say That regarding tattoo culture. So here’s a few quick tips that may help inform your AU. With a grain of salt for my mostly-second-hand knowledge:

NO ONE REPUTABLE SHOP WILL TATTOO A DRUNK PERSON. EVER. or even a person they suspect of any kind of inebriation. This is not just for Regret reasons, but also because alcohol is a blood thinner. If someone is on an acute dose of blood thinners, you generally do not want to stab them dozens of times per second.

Maybe this is regional, but in my experience most tattoo places don’t call themselves parlors anymore. It has a kind of seedy vibe. I see shop or studio a lot but rarely parlor.

Most tattoo artists are hot, yes, but none are as hot at my wife

Tattooing janks up your hands. Sometimes in a RSI way but definitely in a changing-gloves-every-five-minutes-fucks-up-your-skin way.

Artists themselves are rarely if ever employees of the shop. They will be independent contractors who pay the shop either a cut of their sales or rent on their station like a hair dresser. They are also (usually) responsible for taking care of their own supplies, tools, etc. except for the stencil printer. What kind of dweeb would have their own stencil printer?

There is always a line for the stencil printer. Always.

Artists generally spend orders of magnitude more time working on art, replying to emails, doing consults, etc compared to time with their needles in skin.

A typical schedule for an artist might be: wake up at noon and guzzle half her body weight in coffee, one appointment from 1-4, and another from 6-9. Home to eat one (1) real meal at 10 pm. Drawing until 5 am. This is good for her actually and good for our marriage and she’s so healthy all the time.

An ideal shop receptionist needs to be friendly, knowledgeable, and encouraging. They also need to be willing to get out the baseball bat that is kept behind the counter.

If a shop has to choose between “good people skills” and “will promptly rebuff Nazis and the obviously inebriated” the later is often a more important consideration.

At any given moment in any given shop there’s going to be at least one apprentice or someone bumming around hoping to be taken on as an apprentice. They spawn on tic and this feature cannot be disabled.

Again I can not overstate how hot my wife is

An Impossible Choice

Written for @steddiemicrofic

[ AO3 ]

May prompt: "Delay" wc: 408 | rated: G | cw: N/A

Robin is graduating. Eddie isn't. Steve has to choose between following his best friend or staying with his boyfriend. Or does he?

They had a plan, Steve and Robin.

Working at Scoops Ahoy and Family Video had helped them save a bit of money. Adding in the government bribe for the whole Upside-Down affair and they had what they needed to get out of Hawkins.

But it was not enough for both Robin’s studies and an apartment. Which was when Steve’s grandmother came in.

Helen Harrington had decided that her grandson college’s trust fund was not going to be something he could only use for himself. She wanted him to support his future wife by helping her get an education to better follow her dreams, just like her husband had done.

Which was why Steve and Robin were going to marry as soon as she graduated, to get that sweet, sweet trust fund money.

She was still not sure what college to choose, but Chicago was a strong contender, and they had taken a trip there in February to get the lay of the land.

Wherever Robin wanted to go, Steve would follow.

That was the plan.

But now…

Now Steve’s future was fractured.

On one side, there was Robin, his best friend, his platonic soulmate.

On the other hand, there was Eddie.

Eddie with his tender eyes, his mischievous smile, and all his obscure references he always explained to Steve.

Eddie, and the sweet kisses they shared at every corner.

Eddie and the nights spent learning each other’s bodies.

Eddie, and the delay in Steve’s plan caused by the month his boyfriend had spent abed and Principal Higgins’ refusal to let him finally graduate.

Steve wanted to spend his afternoon bitching with Robin.

Steve wanted to wake up every morning in Eddie’s arms.

He had been so sure of his future, before. But now, admiring his boyfriend face glowing in the morning sun, he was hit by the inescapability of his situation.

“I don’t need that diploma, sweetheart” Eddie whispered in his neck. “I can follow you to Chicago.”

Steve’s throat tightened. “I don’t want you to sacrifice that for me, Teddy. I know it would hurt you. Don’t lie.”

“Stevie…”

“Hey, Dinguses!”

They both jumped as Robin threw herself on the bed between them.

“You know I’m taking a gap year, right?”

“You what?”

“I wasn’t going to make you leave your new boyfriend, Steve. And someone has to make sure this dumbass actually studies instead of either pinning or making out with you in a dark corner.”

you bottle Miette??

A story within a story where a mother sits her rowdy children down and tells them a story about a the world's sweetest, kindest mother who never lost her temper, never cursed and never yelled at her children, no matter how rowdy they could get. She would only gently, kindly told them to not do the dangerous things. One day she sweetly, kindly told her children to not go play at the riverbank, because it's dangerous and they might slip on the rocks, fall into the water, and die. Her children do not listen. They go play at the riverbank, where they slip on the rocks, fall into the water, and die.

And the sweet perfect mother of the story comes to the riverbank, sees that all her children drowned, and starts crying so bitterly that angels overhear her, and the angels say to each other, "she does not deserve this, this woman has never done anything wrong in her life, this should not have happened to her", and feeling great pity for her, bring her children back to life, and after that they always listened to their mother and lived happily ever after.

And the storyteller's children, who at this point are familiar with the concept that these stories are supposed to have some sort of a moral or lesson in them, interject to point out that their mother hasn't always done everything perfectly, she isn't always sweet, curses a lot, and as a matter of fact loses her shit at her kids all the time. She isn't like the mother of the story at all.

And their mother agrees: Her children are correct. She is not a perfect mother who has never done anything wrong. Angels will not have pity on her, and they will not bring her little shits back to life if they go to the river and die. So they better fucking not go get themselves killed in the first place.

I was reading Marguerite Yourcenar's Le coup de grâce last night, both in French and in English because I enjoy pondering the choices made by translators—and the English translation was so bad. At one point the word "solitude" in the French original became "privacy" in English, in a sentence where the difference in meaning did matter, I think. At another point, the very simple word "les oublis" became "remembrance betrayed" which I feel gives extra precision in the translation which wasn't present in the original...?

There's also a passage in French in which the narrator wishes a woman would have had children, "who would have inherited her courage and her eyes", but decides that's a pointless regret because these decisions on how to populate the future are not ours to make ("ne nous appartiennent pas")—the English translation turns it into "Absurd, for who wants to people (...) the future?" That's different...!! And later on the narrator says that "all these misunderstandings" make him want to "steer clear of any conviction that isn't entirely personal". The English translation says "such misapprehensions were to cure me (...) of holding ready-made convictions." I'm sorry but, in this context you're saying a different thing. Again.

By this point I went looking for the name of the translator, in order to carry it in my soul in a pocket of indignation—and I found: "translated from the French by Grace Frick in collaboration with the author"! Grace Frick! Marguerite Yourcenar's life partner!

That was such a plot twist. Your wife? Your own wife wrote this inaccurate translation, with your blessing...? Well, I now have two theories: 1. After publishing this book, Yourcenar regretted some minor writing choices and asked Frick to modify some words and phrasings in her translation so they were closer to what she wanted to express. As a perfectionist who feels many regrets immediately after submitting a completed work I sympathise with this, but also that's cheating. You can't give English readers a text that's closer to what you wanted your book to be while French readers are left to wallow in the mud of your less precise first draft. I'm affronted by this possibility. 2. Grace Frick's translation was imperfect, and Yourcenar said nothing because she loved her and her imperfect linguistic choices. I also sympathise. I hope that's what happened actually—it feels less plausible than 1. but it makes me feel more at peace with this whole affair. I felt all my indignation melt away as soon as I decided to embrace this explanation.

if you’re having a bad day, here’s a cute little marching band

Steve: I swing both ways.

Steve: Violently. With a bat. Come get some, motherfuckers.

site that you can type in the definition of a word and get the word

site for when you can only remember part of a word/its definition 

site that gives you words that rhyme with a word

site that gives you synonyms and antonyms