#AND 8HRS LONG

[ssparksflyy]

my advice to you? NEVER take summer school. i genuinely would rather run a mile than go rn i will cry

[unlicensedmortician]

i was born in the right generation if i couldn’t put music from wildly different genres on my monthly playlist and blast it through my noise cancelling headphones while waiting for the bus after work i would have to explode people with my brain

[trensu]

I set myself a goal to have this fic finished and postedon ao3 by Halloween. As you can tell, I have failed miserably since it's neither finished or posted. In my defense, my hands were in much more pain than usual for most of October and so far November's not looking so great either.

Still, I feel kind of shitty about missing my goal, so I decided to post the first couple of scenes here. This fic is part of the Hawkins Halfway House series and we'll be meeting Billy in it. Enjoy!

Eddie was enjoying a quiet, little Horrors-free day with House. He’d dropped off Max and the Sinclair siblings with Steve in the morning since they hadn’t been able to hang out with Dustin and El for longer than any of the little Horrors deemed acceptable. El had been living with Steve for about a year now, and Dustin nearly twice that long. The transition hadn’t been as painful as expected but the kids were not used to being apart from each other, so an arrangement was reached that every other weekend, the kids could spend the night together either at House or at Junior.

This weekend, the kids had opted to stay at Junior with Steve. Depending on how things went, they might stay longer seeing as the kids were on some extended human holiday weekend as of the night before. If that happened, then Eddie planned on having some slow lazy mornings. However, it was now past lunchtime and he really needed to restock their stores of red meat, thanks to the pair of werewolf cubs in his care. He had very quickly become the local butcher’s favorite customer because of them.

Eddie had just about convinced himself to get going and be a responsible adult when the phone rang. Eddie made his way over to where House decided to keep the phone hooked up this week. He leaned against the wall, already fiddling with the phone cord, as he answered.

“Hawkins Halfway–”

“EDDIE,” Dustin screeched over the phone. “You have to come over right now. Steve is DYING.”

“What?” Eddie asked, bolting upright from where he had slouched. He heard the voices of the other kids over the line.

“He is bleeding. Blood should stay inside humans,” El said seriously.

“Bleeding? Where? What happened?” Eddie asked, resting the phone between his shoulder and ear to free up his hands. He got a bit tangled in the cord in his hurried searching of his pockets for his keys.

“Guys,” Steve’s voice broke through. “Guys, I’m fine. Oh god, Dustin, who are you calling? What did I say about using the phone? Junior, what did I tell you about letting the kids use the phone?”

“This IS an emergency!” Dustin protested, loudly.

“There’s so much blood,” Lucas could be heard in the background. “It’s like that time I ate a rabbit just before the moon set.”

“See, Eddie? HE’S DYING!” Dustin shouted directly into the receiver.

“You called Eddie? Dustin, give me the phone,” Steve said. After a brief scuffle, and what sounded like the handset being dropped to the ground only to get hastily picked up, Steve was speaking directly. His voice sounded funny. “Eddie, hi!”

“What happened? Dustin thinks you’re dying,” Eddie said.

“I’m fine! Nobody’s dying,” Steve said. Then, presumably to the kids, “Give me some room, I don’t want to drip on any of you.”

“Steve, are you bleeding?” Eddie asked, his worry mixing with irritation.

“Yeah, but I’m okay. It’s a bloody nose,” Steve said, which explained why he sounded weird.

“And a bloody mouth,” Lucas added.

“His eye’s busted up, too!” Erica said loud enough for Eddie to hear.

“Yes, thank you for that,” Steve said to the kids in that bitchy tone Eddie secretly enjoyed hearing. “Go watch some TV while I talk to Eddie. I promise I won’t fall over dead.”

“I’m coming over,” Eddie decided out loud.

“You don’t have to, honestly, the kids are freaking out over nothing,” Steve insisted.

“You’re due for a home inspection anyway. See you in ten.”

Eddie hung up before Steve could protest.

–

Eddie didn’t have a chance to knock on the door before it slammed open and he was swarmed by the kids.

“He’s in the kitchen,” Lucas told him.

“We couldn’t remember how much blood humans are supposed to keep inside,” El said.

“Yeah, so Dustin freaked out,” Erica snorted derisively.

Dustin started to argue that his concern was legitimate, but Eddie pushed past all of them to get to the kitchen. There, Eddie nearly swallowed his tongue because Steve was indeed in the kitchen. Shirtless. And bent over the sink. The steam rising from the running water dampened his chest hair and made his skin dewy. The muscles in Steve’s arms flexed distractingly as he scrubbed almost violently at a bloodied shirt.

Eddie didn’t have much time to enjoy the view because as soon as he finished processing the vision, he caught sight of Steve’s face. He immediately understood why the children panicked. Steve’s face was a mess. Steve had done his best to clean up most of the blood, but his nostrils were still rimmed with some, and the split lip started to bleed again when Steve looked up at Eddie. The skin around his eye was puffy and bruised.

“It looks worse than it is,” Steve said immediately. “No concussion!”

Eddie covered the distance in a few long strides. He reflexively reached out to touch Steve’s face, then pulled back when he realized what he’d been about to do. Eddie had been adamantly ignoring the small crush he was harboring for his kids’ foster parent. Unfortunately, it meant he had to forcibly ignore opportunities to touch Steve as much as possible. In this case, it resulted in Eddie fluttering his hands uselessly around Steve.

“What happened?”

“First, you should know that I handled it and I was already planning on calling you to give you a rundown of the situation. I wanted to clean myself up a bit before calling but that didn’t go as planned, obviously.”

“Steve.”

“I’m fine, really. I’m more worried about Max.” At Steve’s words, Eddie’s whole body tensed.

“What happened to Max?” Eddie asked before it occurred to him, “She wasn’t with the other kids. Where is she?”

“She ran to her room as soon as we got home. She’s kind of shaken up. I haven’t had the chance to talk to her about what happened because the others saw me and were freaking out the whole ride home.”

“I can talk to her,” Eddie said immediately. Steve nodded as if he hadn’t expected anything different, and began to explain what happened.

“I took the kids to the park nearby to burn off some energy before dinner,” Steve said. “Max stayed in the parking lot because she wanted to practice using her skateboard.”

While Steve spoke, Eddie maneuvered himself around the familiar kitchen. He grabbed a clean kitchen towel and dug out an icepack from the freezer. After wrapping it up, he handed it to Steve, who delicately placed it over his eye.

Steve continued to explain how he made sure he settled in a spot that would give him a good view of both the parking lot and the playground. Everything had been going well. All the kids were having fun, although Max had tumbled a couple of times while trying to find her balance on the skateboard. Then Steve had been distracted.

Erica had gotten a bit too into a game of chase. She had started to get a little wolfy around the edges. Lucas had immediately shielded her from view by throwing his hoodie at her face. Steve guided her a farther away from the playground to somewhere more quiet and secluded to give her a moment to calm down. Once she had collected herself, she and Steve rejoined everyone at the playground. Steve had given the playground a quick lookover to make sure everyone was still accounted for, but when he’d looked for Max over at the parking lot, a man was with her.

Steve had been too far away to hear what the man was saying, but the man was way too close to her. Max had frozen in place. If the unknown man approaching her hadn’t been alarming enough, seeing her freeze like that set off all sorts of bells. While Max wasn’t Steve’s foster kid, he knew her well enough by now to know that, when cornered, Max's first instinct was to fight, not flee or freeze.

“I ran over there as soon as I saw what was happening,” Steve told Eddie, as if Eddie would ever doubt him. Steve had a protective streak to rival a werewolf. “By the time I got to them, he had grabbed her by the arm.”

Steve had shoved the man away from her the moment he had gotten within reach. From there it had devolved into a fistfight that left Steve in his current state. Thankfully the other kids were too wrapped up in their playground games to realize what was happening at the time but one of the other parents at the playground had seen and used the nearby payphone to call the police. The cops showed up to break up the fight. As far as Steve was aware, the man who had grabbed Max was taken away by the cops. They took some statements from witnesses, but Steve, to Eddie’s utter lack of surprise, insisted on going home with his kids rather than going down to the station.

Eddie was grateful for that. He had seen how cops treat people they consider less than human, even when they didn't have an ounce of supernatural blood in them. Little Horrors in distress were not always great at keeping their human faces on.

Once Steve finished updating Eddie, he went to reassure the other kids while Eddie made his way to see Max. Eddie had barely stepped into the guest room Junior had made for Max before Max shot to her feet. She was very pale, made even more apparent by the dark red feathers that had sprouted through her hair and along her face. Her hands were rough and clawed.

“He found me,” Max said. “Billy found me. He tried to take me away.”

Eddie swore under his breath. It was just as he had suspected. He didn't think the cops would hold Billy for very long. He had to start planning a defense but first, he wanted to comfort Max, offer some reassurance. He stepped closer to her but slowed his movements at Max’s flinch. Instead, he redirected and leaned against the dresser close to Max. Her jaw was tense. She crossed her arms, clutching at her elbows.

“But he didn’t,” Eddie said firmly. “You’re still here. Steve stopped him and you’re safe.”

Max’s breath hitched.

“Is…is Steve mad at me?” Her claws dug into fabric at the elbows of her hoodie, nervously shredding it. “I have my backpack in the closet. I can leave. If he’s mad.”

“What? No, no, no, Max, Steve’s not mad at you. He’s worried, but he’d never get mad at you for something like this.”

Her voice dropped to a shamed whisper.

“But Billy hurt him so bad. He broke Steve’s face,” her breath hitched again, but she had yet to break into tears. It hurt Eddie to see her try so hard to keep it together. “It's all my fault, he’s going to be so mad.”

“Max Mayfield, listen to me,” Eddie said fiercely. “None of this is your fault. This is all on that hunter. Steve doesn’t blame you and he’s not mad at you.”

She gnawed at her lip, eyes cast down. She didn't believe him, he could tell.

"Billy's going to come back. He’ll hurt Steve again," Max said.

"If that happens, and I'm not saying it will!" Eddie said. Though he knew she was right about Billy. Billy was a stubborn, possessive, and angry man. "But if it does, it still wouldn't be your fault. He's a grown up making his own awful decisions, okay?"

"Okay," she said despondently, though she no longer sounded like she would break into tears.

"I need to let Steve know what to expect but he'll probably come up here after to check on you if you're okay with it."

Max nodded jerkily, not looking at him. Eddie suppressed a sigh. Max had been making so much progress, opening herself up more to others and getting attached to things that interested her. If Eddie hadn’t hated Billy already, the sight Max retreating into herself again because of his reappearance would’ve done it.

"Do you want to be alone? Or do you want some of your friends up here with you?" Eddie asked.

Max shrugged. Eddie glanced over at the unmade bed. The underneath looked darker than it probably should be. He smiled tentatively at Max.

"I think El is already under the bed, so if you want to be alone…"

An oozing black tendril squirmed out from underneath the bed to wrap gently around Max's ankle. Some of the stress that pinched Max’s expression eased at the touch. She easily dropped to the ground and scooched into the cramped space beneath the bed.

“You are safe, Max,” El’s voice hissed from the dark space.

Eddie left the room and closed the door quietly behind him. It was time to fill Steve in on some things he had hoped would never come up.

[fluentisonus]

working full time with normal hours has convinced me more than ever that actually high school Could have been a sane & even enjoyable time for me if it weren't for the homework. sick & twisted tbh

[zaddyazula]

this is an hour and 37 minutes of work 😭😭😭

[crehador]

boyfriends who get mike wazowski'd together stay together

[sealovinq]

joselcy chibis!! he's giving her candy ❤️💜

original base under the cut

[bekkachaos]

when people in my real life are like "omg yes I'm obsessed with this thing too" I have to start real small to gauge where their obsession sits in comparison to mine so I don't come across too crazy when they really mean "oh I really liked that thing but am capable of going through my day without it being on my mind every waking moment"

[mooniety]

Ever thought about how Susie most likely went an incredibly long time without any hugs?

I can't imagine there was anyone for her to hug during her time in Another Dimension, and I feel like Haltmann wasn't willing to accept hugs from her when she came back considering he forgot her existence.

Tragic deprivation of hugs. (and many other things)

Probably the last time she was hugged was from her dad before the AD accident.

I bet Susie would break if someone hugged her for the first time post-AD accident. Whether it be crying or some other incredibly dramatic emotional reaction out of the norm of what she'd be like at that point. Regardless of whoever it may be that gives her that first hug after so long, depending on one's headcanon (whether it be Kirby, or Meta Knight, or Taranza, or Magolor, or whoever in general)

She could use a hug for sure, I think.

i have! now here's a significantly longer answer to this!

i apologize for the late response as well, i really wanted to give this ask the most appropriate answer i possibly could & may still do additional edits after posting:

i agree that susie probably wouldn't be hugging anything but herself in the another dimension - i assume that being deprived of any human connection, especially physical touch, for at least a decade would be the equivalent of sitting in an insane asylum for an equal amount of time, or even more when you consider the sphere doomers & their funny little enderman powers

furthermore, i also can concur with haltmann being generally against giving/receiving hugs, it's pretty difficult to imagine an egomaniac businessman (when we meet him in robobot at least, beyond that is all dependent on personal headcanons) willing to suck up to someone of a lesser position than himself, especially if it's his very own conglomerate

however, there's something that keeps me from completely settling with that notion, specifically in regards to susie:

throughout robobot, we can see that susie has a very large presence in haltmann's life besides just being his secretary, whether it be the gold statues that heavily resemble her, her image on the hwc currency as shown in haltmann's 2.0 boss battle, how she oversaw the mechanization of popstar (although that one could be easily chocked up to just being his secretary), haltmann's approval of the ice cream factory, her concerts for him as seen in the 100% completion cutscene, & a little personal headcanon of my own:

giving her the opportunity via arduous tasks to join hwc without any sort of previous resume nor prestige, possibly due to sympathy after hearing her story about being his long lost daughter & having really nowhere to go after that - the way i imagine it is similar to a situation where someone in need directly asks you for help, although you may not be personally acquainted with that person, it would feel wrong if you didn't at least try to provide them with some sort of help to get them back on the road

susie clearly means a lot to him despite his negative & usually apathetic disposition & shows that he's potentially already crossed his own personal boundaries once if not multiple times for her & would do so again in a heartbeat --but only under the pretense that she would have to ask him first

i specifically mention "ask" as a majority if not all of haltmann's "canonical" affection towards susie can be easily regarded as implicit. in spite of that, with the amount of care he's shown, i feel confident enough to say that he most likely wouldn't be against the idea of giving susie (& ONLY susie) something like a hug as well as may even view giving her a hug a minor thing for her of all people to ask for

but let's think about why SUSIE wouldn't ask/hug haltmann? some immediate reasons i can think of are:

a bad reaction from him when she first hugged him after returning from the another dimension (perhaps before explaining her story to him)

out of respect as her higherup/boss (remember, haltmann's affection towards susie has been up to this point very indirect, i doubt he himself would actually offer to hug her, so she'd probably never know if he wanted a hug/to hug her)

abiding to company etiquette

or going into crack headcanon territory, quietly waiting for the day he'll get all his memories of her back. & with how overly imaginative & grandiose susie tends to be, she'd probably be more than just willing to wait to hug her father for that one special day (which of course, never happens.)

but this is all assuming that she'd still even be willing to hug anyone let alone seek physical connection in correlation to her time in the another dimension, as although haltmann is her father & she may have hugged him in the past, sometimes our more recent personal experiences weigh more. & after her very fun trip to disneyland, i imagine she's learned to be paranoid & generally distrustful of others, perhaps stemming from previous life-or-death situations in which she believed she could trust others only to be immediately betrayed by those same individuals

for example, think about all our battles with the sphere doomers in kirby's return to dreamland: initially, we're led to believe that after finishing the extra stage we can immediately obtain the energy spheres via reaching for them in the middle of a suspiciously boss-like platform. however, as soon as we actually reach them, a sphere doomer suddenly forms around the spheres as a sort of surprise attack, forcing us fight in order to obtain them

although we may be able to immediately identify that this is a trap majority of the time, susie was most likely very young & thus naive. combined with the idea that she most likely was also very desperate to survive, it's not hard to imagine that she'd fall for similar traps multiple times before learning not to trust anything in the another dimension

we can even somewhat see her skepticism in a few of her cutscenes in robobot, specifically whenever she mentions the possibility of the mother computer/star dream being imperfect & i can only imagine that it would only continue to further grow as kirby, the person who saved her--the only other person she potentially ever trusted in her life--also led to her father's demise

a hug for susie is like a wrecking ball to a tower entirely made of glass, although it appears tall & encompassing, it's ultimately fragile & unreliable as a source of security

phewwwwww, now i've reached the end with that tangent, i can totally agree that susie would literally shatter into pieces of she were hugged by someone, but i doubt it'd be a dramatic emotional reaction as i can't imagine her knowing how to react, let alone understand the concept of physical connection after such a long period of time

for her, i feel like it's one of those moments where you think about how much you're touching someone, yet, in spite of all the awkwardness, something about it makes you feel a bit more complete than before.

homegirl needs a hug, maybe a bit more than that, but better to start with baby steps than to put all our eggs in one basket

[hellishqueer]

robin was making fun of me because it'd only been like. a month since i got into disco elysium and i already had nearly a 100 songs on my harry playlist

it has a 115 now jic anyone was wondering :3c

[edithdraws]

I'm normal about them. You should listen to my spotify playlist(s) btw <3

[hopeofhouse]

baldurs gate dashboard simulator 1492 DR

🎲 3-4-5-2-9-7-17-3

monks are sooooo hot……..flurry of blow me 😭😭

🧌 phallusaluve

lol i got invited to an upper city party by a hauntingly beautiful pale woman with luminous blood red eyes. she said she was gonna give me a lift from the sewers. is anyone that fucking stupid . thats what i want to know

🏏 nightmayre-deactivated2948192

actually my cousin went to one of those parties and she said it was really incredible and the drugs they have there were very high quality. i would recommend not judging people just because they want to meet you in the sewers because sometimes in doing so you can close yourself off to a life changing experience. thats just my opinion though.

🧌 phallusaluve

LMAOOO VAMPIRE SPOTTED

# they think theyre so smart literally howww have they survived

🍞 lumpkinfigsworthstepsout

hey this is super rude actually like maybe she has a skin condition? sunlight sensitivity is a thing you know? like there are more and more drow leaving the underdark to escape lolth’s persecution. you don’t know anyone’s story. 🙄

🧌 phallusaluve

SHE HAD TWO HOLE SHAPED SCARS ON THE SIDE OF HER NECK???

🎓elfschool

all my haters become gators when i cast true polymorph

🌑 v0ides-wh1sper

[oil painting of the hem of a dark velvet dress artfully stained with mud, seemingly in a dark stone alley, with a romantic swishing motion as if the individual pictured is in the middle of running, a flash of an elegant curved silver dagger in their ring-covered hand]

# uppercity # femalejusticiar # L O S S C O R E

🪱 tadpoledadventurer

yeah yeah the squid that comes to you in your dreams and tells you about his mams butterknife. we’ve all tried to fuck him

☘️ lucksmercy

i

what the fuck

🪱 tadpoledadventurer

the squid?? you know him

🎻 daggerplusone

op your experiences are not universal

💐 summercrocus

DNI if you:

support the circus of the last days (aberration rights abuses)

have ever prayed to ilmater (glorifies suffering)

have fucked, or have ever considered fucking, the drow twins at sh*ress’ caress (do i even need to fucking say it)

have a postcode in the central lower city (neo-bourgeoisie)

are a sorcerer (self explanatory)

worship umberlee (self explanatory)

believe in bhaalspawn reformation (my mother was killed by a bhaalspawn)

🪙 insightcheck

fyi op is pro steel watch

# thanks for the free blocklist in the tags though

🌿 old-friends-senior-bear-sanctuary

i just want to get dicked down again

🧝‍♀️ featherfell

OLD-FRIENDS-SENIOR-BEAR-SANCTUARY?????

🐬 bitch-queen

Do u reckon the dark sisters would do top surgery. An absence in the chest area.

#Lady save our National Health Sharvice

⚖️ driderclitoris

NEED people to stop fucking in the graveyard. the mortarch has enough on her plate without you low lifes desecrating everywhere. youre not original and its crass. have some fucking respect

🏹 undrcty

sure thing, user driderclitoris. i’ll take that into account.

[proton-wobbler]

You guys are so missing out on polls bc I started a new job and am also reading Dungeon Meshi I'm so sorry

[lionhanie]

posting new back2u part tmr morning ^_^ AS PROMISED….. meeting my self-set deadlines like a boss 💯💯💯

[parasolyaa]

ukrainian mutuals checkup: are you guys alive and doing ok after today?

[opens-up-4-nobody]

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