strawberrysodaslut - Tumblr blog

strawberrysodaslut · 3 days ago

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jeeesus holy shit

everything about this is so… incredible feels like the wrong word bc it’s so sad but like… that’s what it is. you feel every emotion as it happens, the longing, the anger, the depression and the numbness. eddie is a fucking legend and steve, i hated him in the earlier parts but i just feel so bad for him here. even in the last flashback you can tell he’s fully gone before it happened

what an amazing piece of art

when you come in the cold (troubled!steve harrington x fem!reader)

summary: steve succumbs to his demons, and you reflect on your past with him as his present comes to an end.

uses she/her pronouns and female anatomy

☆ the sinner ☆ the library

tags: reader is given an insert name “rebecca” because i hate y/n (biblically, “rebecca” means “to tie firmly”); addiction; death; angst/hurt, literally no comfort, their daughter's name is not butterfly, it's just used to refer to her.

recommended listening: house in nebraska, amber waves, and onanist by ethel cain (because that's what I listened to while writing this and we should all be miserable when we read this)

somewhere in the midwest. november 2011.

Wind whistled through a crack in the bedroom window. They rattled in the cold seasons, but you learned to sleep right through. Eddie used to complain, rubbing his eyes in the morning and complaining of poor slumber after a particularly nasty storm. But he watched you shrug and your daughter maintain oblivion at the breakfast table, both perfectly accustomed to sleeping through the night no matter the weather or storm.

He learned a few months in just why that was.

But tonight, you were all sleeping soundly. Contently nestled under layers of clothes and blankets. Eddie's arm weighed down on your waist. A ray of moonlight bled over the tops of your plaid-covered toes.

At 11:33 that night, a particularly sharp howl broke through the window and woke you. You shot up, knocking Eddie's arm away and rustling the bed pillows. The alarm clock blinked in small red numbers. You massaged your head, suddenly pounding. One glance over Eddie's blanketed mound showed the curtains in the midst of a billow. The great oak tree in the front yard bobbed against the night.

Still, as you sank back down and blinked up at the ceiling, you could not quite stop feeling a pulsing in your head. A lump in you throat, hard and obstructive. A sensation in your chest like someone was holding you upside down. It all felt off. Something was wrong.

Your first thought was Butterfly, asleep in her bedroom across the hall. You had just swung your feet free from their confines and touched them to the floor when your phone rang on the nightstand.

You answered it quickly, unwilling to wake the rest of the home.

"Hello?"

"Rebecca? It's Sheriff Peters."

You pressed your heels firmly to the cold floor. It shot through you like a spurt, reaching your mouth where you brought your fingers to hold.

Squeezed your eyes shut tight. "Yeah?"

A heavy sigh. You moved your fingers to your head and felt it pulse again.

"The Harrington kid…”

Scrunching your eyes closed tighter, a picture flashed of 21-year old Steve. Chestnut tresses soon to be shaven by a stint at County right before his 22nd birthday. Dirt tracks on his bare arms. Oiled-dipped rag tucked in the back pocket of his Levi’s. A smile bright as the sun around a cigarette. A beam of afternoon light across a pair of freckled cheekbones.

“…well...he's gone, honey."

29-year old Steve slumped on the front steps of the old house. Thinner, greyer, sunken in. You went to tell him about the hearing. How Eddie was adopting her. Steve dug two dirt-caked fingers in his eyes. A cigarette withering between them. Track marks on his long arms. Holes in his shirt.

A shell of the man you knew.

“Rebecca?”

Your own sharp sniffle jolted you awake. “Y-yeah. Um…h-how did…”

Hooking your chin over your shoulder, you found Eddie still fast asleep. Silver light kissing his cheek. He spent the day making pancakes and coffee and giving your daughter piggyback rides around the house. She got antsy in the cold, always aching for playtime in the sun. She still didn’t understand that it wasn’t always warm.

She didn’t understand that some things went away.

“Uh…we found some stuff. Coulda been the booze, coulda been the drugs. It…it wasn’t pretty the last couple a’ months, kid.”

A whimper bubbled through your throat, wrapped around a dollop of vile snaking its way up. You brought your knees to your chest and hugged them tight.

“He’s at the house?”

“They’re takin’ him off now, but…yes.” Sheriff Peters sounded pained. There were voices and sounds of movement behind him.

The chirp of dispatch walkies. The slam of squad car doors. The shriek of gurney wheels. Of ambulance latches. A siren carrying him away. You didn’t want to close your eyes and picture the white sheet they’d take him in.

So you kept them open. Watched the shadow of a tree branch paint the bedroom wall.

“They’re just…they’re gonna need you to come ‘n identify him. Protocol. Everybody knows you…well…”

A breath shuddered through you, then out. You must’ve started to shake, because Eddie, who didn’t even wake for the storm, shuffled in bed. Jerked like he was pushed, sat upright and laid a hand on your arm.

“Baby, whas a’ matter?”

“O-okay,” you wept into the phone. Your cheeks were warm and wet and you could taste something sweet on your tongue. Everything felt swollen and wrong and rotten.

The world felt suspended. Time felt suspended. Like watching a creation of your own life, but not living in it.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Sheriff Peters whispered.

You hung up the phone.

Eddie had never heard someone wail the way you did that night. Like someone in the war who just lost their son. Like someone being torn apart arm by arm. It sent a terrifying panic through him like never before.

He folded his arms around you and held you against his chest to stop the shaking. Shushed you and rocked you and pet your hair when you began to sweat. As your phone fell to the floor, he noticed the most recent area code. The Sheriff’s personal number. A number he came to know well.

He knew this day was coming. Knew it was soon when he saw Steve stumbling through town. Knew it wasn’t long before he just couldn’t do it anymore; and not even the thought of getting better for that little girl in the room down the hall could save him anymore.

“Oh, God, baby,” Eddie murmured into your cheek where his lips pressed while he swayed. “Oh, God.”

Your daughter slept through any storm. Thankfully.

☆ ☆

November 17th, 2006

Dear Diary,

It’s freezing here. An early winter, they said. It might even snow. Steve’s out with his father, hunting. I miss him so much and I don't really know why. He's not very kind when he's here. He's been especially mean lately. Quiet, but mean. Maybe he doesn't realize how much it hurts when he won't look at me.

Is it wrong to imagine the kind of man he could be? To pretend he's someone else when I talk about him? When they ask about him, if they don't know him, I can come up with all these lies. He's kind, he's romantic, he's sweet. They don't know the difference.

There are instances when these things are true. When he's tired, or he's hurt. I think he's sweetest when he feels guilty. When I find his wallet thick with a fresh wad of cash and there's blood on his coat. When he makes a mess and I have to clean it up. When he takes it too far. He can be so sweet then. Tender, even.

He's never soft, but he can be very tender. I wish they could know that.

But maybe that's our secret to keep to ourselves. The things that happen in this cold and hollow house.

I think I hear his truck pulling up. What a strange thing, how alight my body feels when he's near, no matter what.

☆ ☆

The hospital morgue was quiet. The creak of steps through the tile above you, the swish of doors flapping open, then closed, the soft shudder of your own breath stuttering out of you. Those were the sounds of the last place you'd ever see Steve.

A crumpled tissue sat permanently under your nose on your trudge down the hall. It caught the thin drippings of a morning full of unconsolable sobs.

Each time Eddie poked his head into the bathroom, where you stationed yourself on the bath mat against the tub, you broke down again. His poor attempts at comfort were futile. Every stroke of his hand over your hair, each glance of welled-up doe eyes, every soft murmur and gentle shush—it sent you right back over the edge.

But the sound of her delicate voice through the bathroom door truly tore you apart.

What's wrong with mommy?

Mommy's just not feelin' too good today, bug. You wanna go color her a picture?

Why couldn't he have gotten better for her?

It's a thought you tried to swallow down as the sheriff lead you into the room. It was sour and thick on the way down, like trying to swallow a lemon candy whole. Though, perhaps that was the scent of the cleaner they used to mask the underlying smell that'll never leave this room.

Death.

The chemical acidity immediately swelled in your throat, urging you to throw up. The sheriff's hand on your back moved in slow circles. It didn't even register to feel bad about it when you shrugged him off. He understood.

After all, they all knew Steve.

The sheriff stood near the door, eyes on his feet while you approached the metal slab.

The sheet billowed toward his chest, caved in with freed weight. His skin marbled in the cold, in death. Like the pale surface of deli meat, splotched with discoloration. His eyes were closed.

You felt your lips move to confirm what they all knew, but no sound registered. The sheet moved slowly back over his face until only the silhouette of his nose stared back at you.

☆ ☆

November 2008

Dear Diary,

It's strange, being without him every day. Especially as the world creeps toward winter. For some reason, I find myself aching for him most when it's cold. Maybe because it was his favorite season, winter. Winter when it was frigid and bare and empty and he had an excuse for slinking away. "Nothing better to do than get into trouble," he used to say.

They all think I'm so weak, the way I keep crawling back to him time and time gain. Mama says I'm pathetic. That if I can't see what kind of man he is after all that, I never will, and he'll get away with murder. But hasn't she ever loved someone terrible? Doesn't she know how it feels? To be someone's light? To be the only thing someone who doesn't love, loves?

He might not say it often, but even everyone can admit it. Steve loves me.

But, something's felt different lately. When I lay with him, it feels like laying with a stranger. I don't think we can do this anymore. Not unless he wants to be better.

That's like asking a wolf to forget its nature, isn't it?

☆ ☆

For some reason, all you could think the entire fast-paced walk back to your car was: idiot.

Idiot, idiot, idiot.

You slammed the door, got behind the wheel, and pounded your fists on the leather.

Idiot, idiot, idiot. Why did you do it? She's just a little girl. This wasn't who you were.

You jammed the keys into the ignition and slurped the snot back into your nose. Fucking idiot. The car rumbled to life, yellow headlights splicing through the grey afternoon. Goddamn idiot.

With every grumbled syllable, you began to hiccup. Hyperventilate. The car died back down under a trembling hand, sitting still in the hospital parking lot.

You leaned forward and pressed your head to the steering wheel. The leather was cold against your skin. Your breaths shuddered out in puffs of white. Closing your eyes squeezed free more tears, plopping out in hot, fat drops across your lap.

Closing your eyes materialized a Steve that hadn't been alive for a very long time. A healthy Steve, sun-kissed skin and cords of lean muscle, steady hands and green-flecked eyes full of life. He crumpled as time went on. Caved in on himself. You remember having to tip your head back to look at him that very first day.

But the last day, he looked at you through the mesh of your screen door. He seemed almost a child on your front steps, banging with fists that could barely clench together. Wobbling back and clutching the railing to find footing.

I wanna see her.

The camo Carhartt swallowed him whole then. The camo Carhartt that used to block his shoulders and swaddle you by the zipper. It drooped at every odd angle. It felt like another man's token of a life no longer lived.

I'm her father.

He once told you that he thought if he'd been given a different man for a father, he might not have turned out this way. Murmured in the rosy rise of another day, when the one before it had been spent screaming at each other until your throats were raw and more plates were unusable—when you had another bag packed at the door, and Steve came shuffling back in with a bunch of limp-stemmed daisies.

His arm around your shoulders, your head tucked into the crook of his neck. His skin was so warm. His lips scraped over your forehead in wintered appearance. He said if what happened to him as a kid never happened, he'd be on the other side of the town line. But you wouldn't love him like that, would you?

As he looked up at you from the bottom step of your front porch, bleary-eyed and red-nosed, you thought about your daughter wishing for a different father. You thought about your daughter on the other side of the town line, saying if she'd just been born to a different man, she wouldn't have ended up like this.

Not until you get better, you told him.

And you shut the door on his slumped shoulders, suddenly too small, under a too-big coat.

Would she remember him? It was the next thought that churned in your mind as you lifted from the wheel. Pressing on the brake to turn the key and start the engine, you thought about the corners of her mouth that curled like his. Would she ever know that? Would she recognize that in photos, tucked under your bed until she got older?

When the gear clunked into drive, and the left turn signal clicked to a steady beat, you found yourself thinking about that beastly silver truck. They'd impound it, no doubt. His last prized possession, the last piece of his former life left unscathed.

Your heart squeezed in mourning for the four-wheel possession as you rolled into the road, jostling over buckled pavement and snow mounds.

How odd, to mourn a vehicle you froze and sweat and cried in. How odd, indeed.

☆ ☆

November 2009

Baby's first snow! Butterfly looks so sweet all bundled up in her little coat. Like a little doll, all squished cheeks and snug buttons to her chin. She hates her boots and keeps trying to kick them off, but they make the cutest little imprints in the backyard.

Steve put money in the mailbox again. Sometimes he leaves little notes on the envelopes, each more eligible than the last. "For diapers" or "for you" or "for her" or sometimes, just "I'm sorry." They used to make me cry, but now I don't even want to look at them. Every pair of boots and every new coat buttoned snug to her chin is purchased by me. The money tucked into crumpled envelopes scrawled with his handwriting, a smaller amount each time, goes into a box in the back of the closet. Maybe she'll get to go to college one day. Maybe she'll have a better life than Steve and I did. That's the hope, isn't it? That she turns out better than we did.

I try not to think about where he got it. Or the fact that every time I see him, he looks worse than the time before. I know he's using and I know it's bad. They still called me every time he got busted until I told them to stop. Phone calls at 3 a.m tend to wake sleeping babies, and I can no longer trek out in the middle of the night to save him anymore. And maybe I could no longer stomach hearing "heroin" and "Steve" used in the same sentences.

But Butterfly looks sweet in her coat, purchased by mommy. I take pictures for Steve, hoping one day he'll see them with clear eyes.

Just like the box of cash in the closet, there are things waiting for a future, grown-up Steve.

☆ ☆

Her body hurtling toward you came like a stop-motion, stuttered and slow. She flung into your knees, accustomed to your waiting arms, and you braced her with a palm to the back of her damp head. From the bleary looks of it, she'd spent the day running amok with Eddie. But you couldn't stop to process the mess. It passed by like a cloud, something barely even acknowledged.

"Hey, bug." It came from your own mouth but took a few extra beats to hit your ears. You only felt your jaw working up and down to form the words.

Eddie watched your eyes glaze over the him, the room, your daughter—time. You were in your own state of it, meandering aimlessly through the front door. He took the purse sagging at your side and placed it on the hook beside the door. He slid his hand around your waist and pulled you the rest of the way inside.

"Wanna get mommy a pair of pajamas to wear?"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah? You pick, okay, bug? We're gonna give mommy a little bath time to warm up."

Her little feet pattered up the steps overhead. Like raindrops on a car roof. Your eyes flickered her way just in time to catch a flash of purple tulle, prancing around the banister.

"Come on, honey," Eddie cooed into your ear, the same octave he used with Butterfly. It felt like he was across the room, calling through a closed door.

He had one arm around your waist, one hand against your arm. Bracing like you'd just come home from surgery. Waiting for your body to give out.

She brought a pile of red fabric placed on the closed toilet lid. Eddie thanked her, ruffled her hair—just like Steve's in thickness—and told her to pour the bubbles into the rushing water. It all came like radio static, like words creeping through interruption. You thought your fingers were cold. They certainly hurt, curled into tight fists at your sides. Eddie had to pry them open so you'd stop shaking.

Your coat came off first, unzipped and dropped to the floor in a noiseless thud. Sleeves slipped off your arms, fabric slipped over your head. Butterfly was gone when you turned, a mess of muffled noise and clattering across the hall. Playful chattering and five year-old pretend. You found a dark blob of woodgrain and let your vision swallow it until the room fizzled away around it. Eddie tugged your jeans over your hips and peeled them off your legs.

"Alright, step, step. Sit down—there you go."

It was warm then. It burned a moment on your toes, the stinging sensation of when cold meets hot. It dulled when the warmth touched your calves, your hips, your stomach, wading under your breasts. Eddie lowered you back against the porcelain. His hand was a big warm gust of wind over your head.

Big brown eyes blinked slowly in the white light of afternoon. He was sitting on the floor beside you, arms tucked over his knees. How long had he been there? How long had you been home? Did you lock your car when you parked it? Were the keys still in the engine? You don't remember coming home.

"Do you want me to stay?" he asked.

You don't remember replying, but he was standing anyway. He lingered a moment, swaying on the bathmat. You stared through his leg into the door. He thought he might have to manually turn your head to bring you to life. But he busied himself with scooping your clothes off the floor, putting your pajamas where you'd find them before he reached the door.

It thumped closed and you placed your hands over your face. Steam emanated from your flesh, tendrils licking the frost-bitten surface of your cheeks. Did they smell like lemon cleaner, or did the stench of the morgue just bury itself in your nose? Would it go away? You lurched with rising bile just once, hunched into the bath water. Butterfly chose lavender bubbles.

Don't go, honey.

You dropped your hands and let them sink into the water. You could not open your eyes and see another moment of this new world. How different the colors seemed when someone you loved was not here to fill them in.

You can't leave me.

☆ ☆

"Hey, bug."

"Are you feeling better, Mommy?"

She was warm, recently-bathed and bubblegum-scented. Eddie brushed her teeth, plopping her on the step stool to sing the "tooth song" in the mirror. He rummaged through the dinner mess left in the kitchen while you padded across the hall into her room, where you slipped into her bed against the soft pink glow of her nightlight.

"A little," you whispered, placing your head on the pillow beside her. "Mommy's just a little sad."

She bunched her hands under her cheek and blinked at you in the darkness. "Why?"

You mimicked her, feet hanging over the edge of the bed, hers tucked under the blankets. "Someone I used to know died."

She searched your eyes, lashes tapping. Her hand came out to touch your arm, where it sat in gentle pressure. You smiled at her, feeling the dryness sting with wetness again.

"Will they come back?"

You swallowed and it clicked in your ears. A teardrop plopped against her pillow. You swiped at it and smiled again.

"No, he won't. But, I'll always remember him. I hope you will, too. I'll show you his picture tomorrow, would you like that?"

Butterfly nodded. You nodded back, reaching out to smooth your hand over cheek.

"He looks kinda like you," you told her, and matched her toothy grin with one of your own.

"Really?"

"Really. Come on, bug, snuggle in."

She wriggled into your arms and pressed her cheek to your chest. It was the slow and even rhythm of your breaths, and the perfume clinging to your clothes, that sent her to sleep. You let your eyes close, your breathing slow.

In the darkness, Steve's amber eyes blinked goodbye.

In the morning, you'd pull the box from the closet and show her a photograph over ten years old. She wouldn't see herself in it just yet, but one day she would.

#ANGST #SUPER ANGST #fic rec #steve harrington

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strawberrysodaslut · 12 days ago

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OH DEAR

just thinking about steddie and how they would react to seeing reader with pierced nipples 😌💕

Okay but them seeing your nipples for the first time just to find out they’re pierced! 👀 Like maybe you three, along with Robin and Nancy, all travel out to the mountains somewhere to stay in a cabin on a lake for a weekend to celebrate graduating from high school and since the cabin is in a more private area, you bring up the idea of skinny dipping. Of course all of you are comfortable in your friendships with each other to just strip down and bare all for a swim, so the five of you are soon down by the shore of the lake ridding yourselves of your clothing. 👀😏

word count: 740

warnings: (18+ only, so minors move along!) BOOBS! And pierced ones at that 😏, unmentioned nudity (they’re all basically nude from the start), perv!Eddie and Steve, brave!Robin (she cops a feel lmao), profanity, etc

Robin was the first to notice your nipple piercings, eyes bugeyed and mouth agape as she couldn’t help but stare at the shiny metal shimmering in the sunlight, her cheeks flushing a deep pink when she looked up to realize you caught her gaping at your tits. “You never told me you had nipple piercings...”

You smirked and gave your piercings a quick rub with your thumbs before shrugging your shoulders. “Got them done on my 18th birthday. My treat to myself. Didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t think it mattered.” You laughed softly, reaching up to gently pinch her blushing cheeks between your thumbs and forefingers before teasing in a not so hushed manner. “You’re so red, Robs. Tell me you’ve never seen pierced nipples before without telling me you’ve never seen pierced nipples before.”

“What? Pierced nipples? Where?” Eddie came up behind you seemingly out of nowhere, making a wide smirk tug at the corner of your lips at the sole fact that you finally had the chance to show Eddie fucking Munson your tits. Eddie waited with bated breath for one of you to answer and when you finally turned to face him looking up at him with a Cheshire cat-like grin, he had his answer before he even had to look down.

“Riiiiight...here.” You answered while grabbing him by the jaw and tilting it down to bring his gaze to your pierced nipples for him, watching with a smirk as his eyes went wider than Robin’s and he visibly and audibly swallowed the build up of saliva pooling in his mouth. You knew he wanted to put his mouth on your tits, could tell from the way his tongue slowly and subconsciously swiped along his bottom lip, and as much as you wanted that you knew it had to wait.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Sweetheart... I finally get to see what your tits look like and find out they’re fucking pierced?” Eddie groaned before his gaze was back on your own, trying his hardest to fight the urge to reach out and pinch your nipples.

“I wanna see your nipple piercings.” Steve chimed in as he hip chucked Eddie out of the way, who growled dangerously with a warning glare thrown Steve’s way. “Oh shit, that’s hot.” Steve gaped at your tits, which had you smirking even more. What next? Was Nancy gonna gape too?

“Yeah no shit, but I saw them first so fuck off.” Eddie said as he hip chucked Steve right back, gaze immediately glued back on your piercings where he licked his lips some more.

“Actually,” Robin added, shoving Eddie out of the way. “I saw them first.” She grinned before grabbing both of your tits in her hands and savoring the quick squeeze she gave them, earning a soft gasp and moan of surprise from you in return.

“Aww come on! I wanted to touch them first.” Eddie huffed out with a pout as he crossed his arms over his chest, which you snorted out a laugh at.

“Really Eddie? Eager much?” You teased, absolutely loving the fact that Eddie was whining over the fact that he didn’t get to feel your tits first. You’d fantasized many-a-times about flashing Eddie your tits and the things he’d do to you following it, and you were sure he would do such delicious and filthy things to them.

“Oh trust me, Sweetheart, you have no idea how many times I’ve imagined what your tits look like, what they feel and taste like...” He commented, tossing his head back with a low groan at the fact that they were much better than he expected. They were perfect, in fact. He just needed to feel and taste them.

“Fucking same.” Steve groaned, which had you blushing not realizing Steve had sexual thoughts about you too. You thought he had no interest in you in that way, but it seemed like you were totally wrong about that. Maybe this trip would turn out to be better than expected.

“Well fuck... Guess we’re having a threesome this weekend.” You stated before running towards the water before they could say anything and diving in to join Nancy who’d been in the water for minutes now, Robin joining you right after and leaving Eddie and Steve standing on the shore in wide eyed shock at your comment.

Oh they were going to have a lot of fun during this trip.

(If y’all want that threesome, you’re gonna have to like, beg comment, and reblog because I don’t typically write Steddie fics and I’m gonna need some sort of payment in return for it and those likes, begging comments, and reblogs on this will be sufficient enough payment for me. 😏🤭)

Tag list: @eddiesprincess86 @dixontardis @anaisweird @rockautumnviking @eiriancrow @hellfire-in-hawkins @munsonswhore86 @tiannamortis @thicksexxualtension @eddies-puppet @readsalot73 @bmunson86 @ruinedbythehobbit @hellfire1986baby @mvnsoneddie86 @niragis-right-hand-rabbit @munsonsgirl71 @corrodedcorpses @feltonswifesworld87 @pleasantlycrazyworld

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steddie x reader #steddie x you

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