where i end and you begin.

pairing: Dan/Phil rating: M word count: 101,838 summary: They’re all connected in some way. All have their own stories to tell. If Dan were a better person he’d get to know them more but he always feels like something is holding him back. So they just continue to work in each others spaces, creating things out of dough and making better things with icing. Donna’s slogan is that everything was made with love but he thinks that’s just because she made this thing—they’re just the hands that give it out to other people. One day, Dan thinks, he’ll hope to feel that passionate about something again. Or a story about grief and loss, found family, donuts, and first love. a/n: big thanks to @kay-okays for uploading this for me. you have no idea how much of a struggle it was to get this on ao3. so sorry if the format is off in places.

When Dan finished talking, when all the words had come out, Evelyn had looked at him the same way that she looked at him back at that last session, a mix of pride and unbridled joy that Dan had grown up. He had grown up and become the person that his twenty-one year old self had been so scared of, the sixteen year old self he would have been proud of, and the twenty-five year old almost gave up on if it hadn’t been for those around him to remind him that he was loved.

Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Rating: E Word count: 4,009 Summary: It had, obviously, been Harry to come up with the idea of them pretending to meet each other for the first time, Draco had raised an eyebrow at the thought, but went along with it, because Harry was excited about it, but he knew himself too much to know that it wouldn’t last long. They had been together for almost a decade, had a whole life and a home together, but it never felt like they got enough time. Draco indulged Harry in a lot of things, he felt it was the least he could do, because he loved him, but Draco liked that they were no longer playing those games anymore.

or, it's been a while since Draco and Harry have had time for themselves, and they're going to make the most of it.

pairing: steve harrington & robin buckley, steve harrington & tommy hagan, steve harrington & tommy hagan & carol perkins, steve harrington & the party rating: n/r word count: 8,175  summary:

Before Dustin Henderson, Robin Buckley, Interdimensional Monsters, and the world ending, there was Tommy Hagan.

You couldn’t find Steve Harrington without Tommy Hagan trailing behind him. Steve might have been the charm but Tommy Hagan had always been the brains, their eighth grade teacher would later say at Tommy’s funeral.

All Steve could really remember from that day was the way that everyone turned their head around when he had showed up to the chapel late wearing his dad’s suit because he outgrew the ones that he owned. Steve never got the job that his dad had promised him because he messed up so bad with school, so here he was wearing a hand-me-down to his ex best friend’s funeral.

( or a story about friendships told in a non-linear fashion. )

bad call. 

It’s all TK types before shoving his phone back in his pocket, before his dad starts making a speech, before he looks over at Nancy who looks like she’s seen a ghost.He can hear his phone buzz in his pocket but he stands still looking at the back of the ambulance knowing that he’s going to have to clean the blood off all the equipment. He couldn’t stop looking at Nancy on the ride back, the small little splatters that rested on her cheek like a freckle, or the way that he watched her try and stop her hands from shaking, or how irritated her ear was because she kept trying to use her shoulder against it like it would help the ringing stop.

(or the one where Carlos, TK, and Nancy talk about grief and make cookies.)

Carlos cooks, Owen finds a Yahrzeit candle and lights it, Nancy covers all the mirrors in the house and Tommy sits next to TK. Silence lays heavily across the house, for someone who had so many happy memories of his mother, he can only think of the bad ones. The ones where he was crying out for help in not so many words, but one’s that only a mother could hear. Because she knew him best, the ugly little parts that no one speaks about because it’s easier but she faced them head on because that’s just what you do for someone you love, isn’t it?