#House Of VAns Chicago

[moodboardmix]

Rohe House Nr. 5, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Monika Pancheva Architect

[gotankgo]

«The sunny Californian exploitation double of Van Nuys Blvd. and Malibu High (two of the best from Crown International Pictures) opened across Chicagoland forty-five years ago, including a stint in The Loop at the Oriental Theater with Kung-Fu Mama (1973).»

[groovnuke]

RXKNephew

[papas-majadas]

Come across this beauty at Dunnings Pour House last nite.

Took everything in me not to steal it.

[thefeawl]

Edith Farnsworth and Beth Dunlap outside the former’s house in 1951

[shushmal]

Steve watched Eddie's van turn the corner and shut the front door, closing himself away from the outside world so none of his neighbors could see him as he rested his forehead against the painted wood.

"I'm not going to cry," he told himself.

He said it even as his eyes began to burn and his face began to twist, teeth grinding and throat closing. He wiped quickly at his face, again and again, as he stumbled to the couch to sit, drying each tear as it rolled down his cheeks, clinging to his jaw.

"I'm not going to fucking cry," Steve choked, and then doubled over into himself, arms around his thighs, and he began to sob.

So what if he was twenty-two, living in his parent's house alone, working the same dead-end job with a sixteen year old manager. So what if all his friends and family were in college, spread out from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles. So what if his boyfriend was moving to Seattle for his band and they broke up, because Steve was never going to be his parents, resenting and being resented for keeping his partner from his dreams. So what if he was too scared to ask Eddie to stay, to ask Eddie if Steve could go with him. So what if everyone moved on and Steve couldn't?

Steve grew up lonely. He could get used to it again.

He didn't realize how hard he was crying until the front door burst back open and Eddie hurled himself at Steve's feet, long limbed and clumsy and babbling.

"Baby, oh fuck, I'm sorry," he said, already untangling Steve from himself, tying all his loose ends back up together with his until they were a knot of their own. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Stevie. I never should have— I wanted to—"

"I'm sorry," Steve sobbed back. He gasped and swallowed it all back down. Eddie had already gotten them raveled up again, it would take forever to pick it back apart. Steve knew it would hurt worse this time. "Fuck, Ed, you didn't have to— I'll be okay, I don't want to hold you back—"

"Come with me," Eddie burst.

And Steve couldn't help himself, and began to sob again.

"Please," Eddie begged over Steve's crying, his voice shaking and his face wet enough to match Steve's. "Please, sweetheart, honey, please just come with me?"

Steve took a shaky breath, embarrassed and now too full of hope and fear. "You sure?" he whispered. He pressed his face into Eddie's neck, breathing him in again for what might be the last time, again. "Eddie, don't—"

"I'm so sure," Eddie said. "I'm so fucking sure, Steve, please."

"Okay," Steve breathed. Eddie had always been the braver of the two of them, especially when it counted. Steve leaned back so he could look at him, red faced and watery eyes. He tried to give Eddie a smile, but he knew it was wobbly and weak. "Okay."

All of Steve's fears meant nothing as he watched the happiness break like dawn over Eddie's face.

[steddieas-shegoes]

always struggling

for @corrodedcoffinfest prompt 'struggling'

rated t | 971 words | no cw | tags: steddie, post-break up, modern era, open ending but assume they get back together, pre-famous corroded coffin

⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️

“How are we still short?” Jeff mumbled under his breath.

Eddie heard him, though, and his heart sank in his chest.

“We don’t have enough.” It wasn’t a question.

Jeff shook his head.

They both looked at Gareth and Frankie unloading the van. Usually, they all took care of their own equipment, but all of them had been too impatient to find out how much they made, so Jeff and Eddie rushed inside their house to count.

They needed $268 more to pay for their travel to the festival that could actually put them in front of the right people. That’s it. $268.

And they only made $197 from their show at the bar downtown.

“So we can’t go.”

Jeff shook his head. “Not unless you can come up with $71 by tomorrow morning.”

Eddie knows if he went to Wayne, he’d find a way. He’d break open a piggy bank or withdraw from his retirement savings. He’d ask for an advance on his paycheck. Whatever it took to help Eddie achieve his dreams.

But he’d done that enough.

Jeff’s parents already covered the cost of Jeff to go, and Frankie’s parents had refused to encourage his ‘rockstar behavior.’ Gareth’s mom didn’t have anything left over after paying for his twin sisters’ back to school supplies and clothes.

“You could call-“

“No.”

Jeff nodded solemnly. “Right.”

Eddie couldn’t call Steve. Steve had helped buy him a new guitar and fix his van before their inevitable crash and burn when Eddie decided to move to Chicago and Steve wasn’t ready. He hadn’t spoken to him in months. He couldn’t call him up and ask for money.

“Maybe I could take a shift at the diner tonight. If I take the big tables, it might be enough in tips,” Jeff offered. “We could busk?”

“You know we never make good money doing that. Nobody likes the noise.”

“Maybe we’ll just have to try again next year. We can keep playing the bars.”

“Yeah. Guess so.”

Neither of them noticed Frankie or Gareth standing behind them, listening in to the dilemma.

“We didn’t make enough?” Gareth asked somberly.

“Sorry, kid. Just a bit short,” Jeff said over his shoulder.

“This is bullshit!” He yelled.

“Gare-“ Eddie started to say, standing to try to comfort him.

“No! I’m sick of struggling so much. We’re good. We deserve to be there.” Gareth continued. “We’re going.”

“Dude, we can’t just print more money.”

Gareth turned to Eddie, fire in his eyes, hands clenched into fists.

“Suck up your damn pride and call Steve. He told you if you needed anything to call him. Call him.” He stormed to his room and slammed the door.

Eddie would do anything for his band, his friends. He knew missing this festival could be one of his biggest regrets.

“Eddie, it’s fine. Gareth-“

“Is right. I should call him.”

Eddie didn’t wait for them to try to convince him otherwise. He walked to his room and closed the door, trying to figure out how to have this conversation with a man he was definitely still in love with.

No way to prepare, really.

He pulled up Steve’s name in his contact list and pressed call before he could stop himself.

It rang three times before Steve answered.

“Eddie? Are you okay?”

God, he’d missed his voice.

“Hey Steve. Sorry if I’m interrupting anything-“

“No! It’s just family movie night, but they’re all arguing about what movie to pick anyway. How’s everything?” The sound of a door closing and silence in the background followed his question.

“Um. Well.” Just spit it out. “We have a really great opportunity at Iron and Metal Fest? It’s in Seattle, and we’ve been trying to save up to go, but we uh, we fell a little short and the deadline to let them know we can play is tomorrow morning.”

“Oh. How short?”

“$71.”

“I’ll Venmo you. Will that be okay?” Steve sounded like he’d switched the phone to speaker, probably to open the app on his phone.

Eddie didn’t deserve him, never did. A man who was willing to give up happiness so Eddie could chase his dreams, offering to help make them happen despite Eddie breaking his heart.

“Steve, I-“

“It’s okay, Eds. It’ll be worth it when you’re on a sold out tour someday, right?”

Eddie ignored the vibration of a notification as his eyes welled up with tears.

“I hope so.”

There was silence for too long.

“You still wanna be a rockstar, right?” Steve asked hesitantly.

“I do!” He really did. “I just didn’t think we’d have to struggle this much in a city made for bands like us.”

“It’ll be a great interview for Rolling Stone.”

“How do you have so much faith in us?”

“I have faith in you, Eds. Always have, always will. You’re gonna make it.”

“You’re too good to me.”

“Nah.” Someone knocked on the door and Steve whispered something to them before speaking to Eddie again. “Hey, I have to go. But I hope you wow everyone at that festival, okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Stevie.”

When he checked his notifications, Steve had sent him $500.

He cried for 20 minutes before he went and told the guys.

****

The show was incredible and Eddie had never been more miserable.

The guys were on a high no drug could match, but Eddie was sinking further into a pit of despair.

“Never known you to look this sad after a show.”

Eddie’s head shot up to see Steve standing against a few extra speakers backstage.

“Steve? What’re you doing here?” Eddie walked closer, worried he was seeing things.

“Couldn’t miss your biggest show yet. Hope it’s okay.”

“Of course it is. I’m glad you came.”

“Yeah?”

Eddie smiled, feeling some of the heavy weight lift from his shoulders. “Yeah.”

[steddielations]

Flight of Icarus lore dump:

Part 2 | Character List

- Eddie is a barback at the Hideout (rundown bar) where his band plays sometimes. He doesn’t sell drugs until the end. At 18, he moves in permanently with Wayne and starts dealing to help with the bills.

- Lots of people in town call Eddie “Junior” for his likeness to his dad and he hates this. He calls himself Junior condescendingly when he’s doing something that lives up to his dad’s criminal reputation.

- Steddie writers, when Wayne is conveniently absent from the trailer, he’s not always at work. He goes to a bar called the Attic on Fridays with guys that Eddie considers nice and upstanding.

- Eddie lives alone in his dad's house, but throughout his life, he’d stay with Wayne when Al disappeared. The first time, Eddie was 8, he fell asleep by the window waiting while he was left for days with little food until Wayne got him. At the start of the book, Eddie’s 18 and has been there alone for months. Wayne checks on him and brings him food. But Eddie is stubbornly independent, since 3rd grade he thought he could take care of himself.

- Eddie likes metal, but also rock, Chicago blues, country and bluegrass bc of his mom. His dad taught him guitar, but he learned to love music through his mom (Elizabeth Munson neé Franklin), who passed when he was 6. He still listens to her records, mostly Muddy Waters. He has memories standing on her feet dancing to that record. It brings him to tears once.

- Eddie’s dad Al is charismatic, Eddie calls it Munson Magic but doesn’t think he has it. “I inherited his hair, his van, and his guitar picks. But nobody’s loving Eddie Munson on sight.” Still, Eddie’s worst fear is being like his dad. Al only shows up to manipulate Eddie into helping him with schemes. Two of which get Eddie held at gunpoint twice and hit in the head with a shotgun. Al screws ppl over and gets their house burned down, with Eddie’s mom’s records.

[wynnyfryd]

Trailer park Steve AU part 54 (12.1)

part 1 | part 53 | ao3

cw: angst

Chapter 12

Steve drives to Chicago.

He wakes up to an empty bed and a sticky note by the kitchen phone, words scribbled over so the only legible thing left is the word sorry underlined in jagged black, and his breath sticks in his chest and he can't be here anymore. Epiphany ringing like a gong, sending ripples through his marrow, because the walls are closing in and Eddie decorated those walls — splattered himself over every inch of this place, and now he's just the newest haunt in a line of ghosts that Steve can't shake. He thought he’d gotten rid of them, but now he hears them louder than ever. In the hiss of the faucet, in the buzz of the fridge; they’re moaning in his bad ear and rattling his bones, and he can't be here alone with them he can't be here he can't—

So he drives.

Gets in his car with nothing but a spare jacket and a crumpled pack of cigs. If ever there was a time to pick the habit up in earnest. Eddie’s van is gone, and Steve’s heart is bruised; it's bleeding out inside him, pumping fresh hurt with every beat, so he lights a cigarette with shaking hands and heads north. Takes the back roads to the on-ramp of I-65, drives for hours; drives for years, speeding down empty stretches of highway with nothing but roadkill for company.

At some point he rolls the windows down until the icy wind makes his cheeks burn, but he can't really feel them. Can't feel his face, or his fingers, or his heart.

All the world is snow and asphalt, and Steve Harrington is alone.

He tries to drown it out with music. The radio mocks him with swooning quartets love songs — 'put your head on my shoulder' and 'life could be a dream' — and all the tapes he can reach belong to Eddie, so he pulls over on the narrow shoulder of an overpass bridge and screams and screams and screams while he chucks the cassettes over the edge.

Fuck Eddie.

Fuck him.

"FUCK YOU!!" he shouts to the foggy nothingness.

The words dig in sharp; pocket knife twisting in the space below his kidneys.

The fog doesn't respond.

Back in the car, his thoughts turn to his mom. Because he's driving to her, he knows — knew it in his splintering bones and haunted blood the moment he left town. He's driving back to his first ghost, as if confronting the original will somehow exorcise the rest.

Miles pass in silence, and Steve paints over the canvas of what-ifs again and again, oily streaks in the underpainting as he tries to set the scenes just right: quiet, tearful confrontations in his aunt's formal living room, graceless screaming matches out on the front lawn. In one version he never makes it past the guard at the front gate, and in another he just eggs the stupid lion statues leading up to the house while his mom silently weeps from the top of the stairs.

He doesn't know if his mom would laugh at that.

He doesn't know her much at all.

And that fucking hurts; that sits like acid in his lungs, because his mom was his first friend. When he was little — before the housekeepers and nannies, before his mom started tailing his dad on business trips like a trained dog on a leash — they spent so much time together. Trips to the playground, to the library, to the pool. He'd perch himself on her vanity when she got ready in the mornings, use her hairbrush as a microphone to sing along to 50s doo-wop, and she'd giggle and call him her little superstar, so he'd come up with stupid dance moves just to make her smile more.

He misses that. The script, the routine. How he'd spin around in his socks on the slippery bathroom tile and look up at her with her big hair full of rollers and her big eyes full of stars, and he'd say, "Hey! How come your eyes are all twinkly?"

And she'd grin and pinch his cheek and give the same answer every time: "Because you're the light of my life."

"I wish I knew what you'd say now," he whispers to the empty car.

For a moment he envisions that she's sitting there with him, that she's filling the blank space where the boy who broke his heart should be, but he can't remember her cadence well enough to mimic it; can't put words in her mouth when he no longer knows her lines, and with something a bit like horror and a lot like despair it occurs to him that he can't remember what she looks like. There's an apparition in his blind spot, but it's formless and unstable. The shade of its hair keeps changing; the texture, the length.

When he tries to make it speak, it shrugs and dissipates.

—

part 55

tag list in separate reblogs under '#trailer park steve au taglist' if you'd like to filter that content. if you want to be added please comment and let me know (must be over 21; please either verify in the comment or have your age visible on your blog)

[morganbritton132]

Living for conspiracy Steve. You know if they tried anything Joan the Disservice cat would be on the case. You also know Diane clocked it during her looky loo walks and she’s got tea. An alliance is forming.

What’s funny about Steve’s paranoia with the electric company van parked outside is that it’s definitely just the electric company.

If SoMeBoDy would just listen to reason then maybe they might remember the bad weather they’ve been having. They live in a suburb just outside of Chicago. It’s windy and wind messes with powerlines, but Steve isn’t dumb. Thank you very much.

He knows that.

Just like he knows what logo Mike said was on the van that El flipped. And like he said, “It’s spycraft 101. Of course, they’re here after a storm. It’s inconspicuous.”

“Big word,” Eddie replies appreciatively. “How do you know that?”

“I took the SATs?”

“Now the word! Why do you think that they’re tapping our phones?”

“It’s in all the movies, Eddie.”

There’s an unspoken duh tacked on to the end of Steve’s sentence and Eddie kinda loves it. He kinda loves how confident Steve is when he’s convinced himself this shit is real and a little part of Eddie wants to play along, but he knows how quickly it can all go bad so, “Baby, please. Stevie, what are they tapping into? We don’t have a landline.”

Steve pauses to think and then peaks back out through the blinds. He mutters, “You don’t know how wiretaps work?”

“Do you?”

Steve just purses his lips and looks even harder out the window which is just Steve-speak for ‘no, actually. I don’t know how wiretaps works because no one does.’ It makes Eddie grin, sliding up behind him and whispering in his ear, “Don’t you think one of our half dozen nosy neighbors would’ve told us if someone was spying on us?”

“Not if-“

“Baby, Diane came over twice last week because she saw a suspicious car in our driveway,” Eddie hums. “It was our car, Steve.”

Steve relaxes back against his chest a little but he knows the battle is not yet won so, Eddie adds, “Sweetheart, think about it. They’d know.”

“That’s true,” Steve relents just a little and then says, “Unless one of our neighbors is a spy.”

“No, baby.”

“Like a nosy neighbor that’s always in our business,” Steve continues, building confidence. “And who has always been in our business ever since we moved in…and who is talking to the electric company people right now.”

Eddie looks out through the peak in the blinds Steve is making and watches as Diane makes her way down her driveway in her pink house shoes, waving at the man halfway up the telephone pole. She calls something up at him but they’re too far away to hear it.

He can feel Steve pull away and Eddie thinks, damn it.

“Well, that friendship was good while it lasted.”

[jo-harrington]

Best Spring Break Ever (Eddie Munson)

Summary: Spring Break 1986, the way it should have gone.

Word Count: 3.2k

Characters: Eddie Munson, Corroded Coffin (Jeff, Gareth, Dave - Unnamed Freak), Dustin Henderson, Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, Will Byers, Wayne Munson

Themes/Warnings: No Upside-Down AU, Road Trip, Lighthearted, Boys Will Be Boys in the purest way possible, Nerd, Pop Culture References, one or two sneaky little references to Store Manager Verse (I had to)

Note: So a LONG TIME AGO I dropped a fun head canon that got lost to the cutthroat nature of the tags. It's not necessarily coming back to life per se but and now that I've promised @br0ck-eddie and @somnambulic-thing that I would do more Gen fics, I'm sort of giving it some more juice.

Gonna also use this for @munson-blurbs and @corroded-hellfire and their Flip Flopped Summer Writing event. (I cheated on the length, sue me.)

Enjoy!

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

---

When one thought of words to describe Edward J. Munson, there were plenty to choose from.

Daring, dashing, brilliant, handsome--

"Douchebag," Gareth muttered under his breath.

"Can it, asshole," Eddie snapped from the driver's seat of the van, angling the rearview mirror so he could pin the younger boy with a scathing look. "Or I'll leave you behind."

"He's got a point though," Dave offered. The rearview mirror shifted again, revealing dark brown eyes that narrowed angrily.

"Sorry," Dave sunk in his seat.

--adventurous, non-conformist, a music legend...

But carpool mom had never been a contender.

Until now.

For Eddie, Spring Breaks were never exciting.

A lot of families in Hawkins took the days off school to go out of town. Vacation to someplace interesting or warm, trips up to the beach, or to a distant grandparent's house for a visit.

Eddie always stayed home. He enjoyed the silence of the town and the freedom to go anywhere and do anything he'd like. Wayne picked up some overtime while some of his coworkers were away, so there were a handful of extra hours for Eddie to play his music as loudly as he wanted, and some extra cash to splurge on a few nights of takeout.

This year was different though.

This year, Eddie had the misfortune of being friend, older brother figure, and role model to Dustin Henderson and his band of merry nerds.

The four of whom decided to enter into the All-State Science Fair in May with a project so ambitious and convoluted, they were either going to crash and burn, or get some kind of scholarship long before they needed to think of college.

And of course, when the time came to gather supplies for such an...extensive endeavor, the lowly freshman came to their good pal Eddie to help them procure some interesting items.

That was the thing with Eddie, though. He was sort of known for being the guy that could find things. Yeah, weed and other drugs from Reefer Rick, sure. But the phrases "I know a guy" and "I can try and cash in a favor" and "you owe me one" often passed through his lips, followed by a glint in his eye and a quirk of his lips.

For weeks he got the little idiots various items for their project, but when things on the list began to seem impossible to find--Rick had practically thrown him out when he had asked where to get liquid nitrogen--things started to get a little tricky.

Eddie, not one to let his friends down, complained about the whole ordeal to a friend he had unexpectedly made working at StarCourt over the past Summer--the Claire's store manager--and she had an interesting suggestion.

"Why don't you just go to the Science Surplus store in Chicago?" Eddie looked at her like she'd grown a second head. "What? Don't let the Cool Mall Girl facade fool you. I'd been known to dabble in science fairs and stuff when I was still in school."

"Nerd," he snorted before he waved for her to continue.

She told him about lab coats and machine parts and mystery boxes.

"It might be fun for you and your friends to drive up there and see it."

Thus, the Great Spring Break Roadtrip of '86 was born.

---

Well, more accurately, it was the Great Secret Spring Break Roadtrip of '86.

Because what parent--specifically Claudia Henderson--was going to let their kid spend a few days with no parental supervision? Where the only adult, technically, was Eddie.

She liked him, of course. Shit, most of the kids' parents liked him. But trust him to drive their kids hundreds of miles in a van that looked like it probably wasn't gonna make it 10 miles up the road?

That was another story.

But he was a schmoozer, a sweet-talker, a charmer, and in the end he got them all to agree to a few days up at the Dunes hiking and swimming and grilling hot dogs over an open fire.

If only the parents had been his harshest critics.

"When was the last time you had your brakes checked?"

"And your oil changed?"

"I heard some squeaking when you drove us home from Hellfire. I think there's something going on with your suspension."

"When did you become my pit crew?" Eddie snapped as he leaned against the front of the van and smoked the last cigarette he would have until they stopped for gas along the way.

Dustin, Mike, Will, and Lucas all froze in place. The older members of Hellfire Club leaned their heads out of the van to watch the interaction like the relentless busybodies that they were. Eddie flicked the butt of his cigarette to the ground before approaching the kids with his hands on his hips.

"We just wanna make sure it's safe," Mike was the first to speak up.

"It's safe," Eddie insisted. "I checked everything myself; Wayne wouldn't let me cross state lines if I hadn't."

Mike considered it for a second, then jumped into the van.

Dustin hummed doubtfully and kicked at one of the rear tires.

"Do you have a spare tire?" he questioned. "Just in case?"

Eddie nodded and even offered how to show everyone how to change a tire if the need ever rose.

"Gotta earn your keep somehow."

He mashed his hand on the top of Dustin's head as he passed.

Lucas and Will were last; they had their backs to him, heads leant together as they whispered conspiratorially. Eddie wondered for a moment if they even wanted to go--it was ok if they were scared--until they pivoted on their heels and began a barrage of questions about handling and off-roading and how prepared he was for any emergencies.

He was about to snap at them, tell them to shut up, when he saw a rolled up copy of Car and Driver in Lucas' hand and his brief annoyance faded.

He took a deep breath and stared up into the clear blue sky, begging whatever gods or devils there were to give him the patience to survive this trip.

"Listen," he huffed, "you either trust me and we go, or you don't and we stay. Even if I didn't have a stocked first aid kit--which, I don't, by the way...best you're gonna get are some crumpled band-aids in my glove box--it's not like we have all the time in the world to put one together.

"I promise. Everything will be fine. You trust me right?"

Lucas and Will turned away from him and whispered furiously once more. Before they stood up straight, looked him dead in the eye, and asked something that made Eddie let out a bark of laughter,

"What about Second Breakfast?"

---

They stopped for gas an hour in.

What should have been a ten minute stop turned into an hour. Bathroom breaks all around and then debates over which snacks to get.

"Don't waste all your money," Eddie fussed over them, pulling bags of candies and chips from their hands and stuffing them back onto shelves. "You're not gonna eat it all for one thing. And I'm not gonna clean puke out of my van if you try and end up making yourselves sick."

Suddenly the four freshman were all talking over each other with "mom never lets me have funyuns" and "what if we get the smaller bag?" Jeff, Gareth, and Dave all snickered and watched from afar as Eddie taught them The Art of Gas Station Snacks.

By hour two, the radio stations became unfamiliar, Eddie's mix tapes got boring, and slug bug was impossible. That's when everyone began fighting over the road map to play navigator, even though Eddie insisted that it was Jeff's job, since he called shotgun. But no one cared, especially not when--

"Hey I know our cover is camping at the beach," Mike piped up from the back. "But we're actually going to pass the Dunes. Can we go?"

Some of the others started to agree, mentioning how their moms packed their swim trunks.

"Hey!" Eddie snapped at them and then reached back to jam a finger into the map. "We passed the exit already. Better luck next time."

"But how about on the way back?" Dave suggested. "It's getting too crowded in here. A little fresh air would be nice."

And Eddie would have fought them, the thing was...he kind of agreed with Dave.

The members of Corroded Coffin were used to just the four of them and their band equipment. Now there were seven of them, on top of all their backpacks and sleeping bags, Eddie's guitar, and a cooler full of snacks and drinks. There was too much noise, too much arguing. One absolutely rancid fart had been tooted without admittance, which led to everyone just ripping one without a care in the world.

On the other hand, did he really want to have to clean sand out of the van once this trip was over?

"Alright," he finally shouted over the others, causing them to quiet down. "If everyone behaves the rest of the way, we'll see about making a stop at the Dunes on the way back."

---

Their accommodations that first night were less than ideal.

Rick had mentioned something once about forest preserves and camp sites once when he'd driven up to Chicago to meet up with some fishing buddies. So Eddie figured renting a campsite would be fun, not to mention cheaper than a motel. They'd sleep under the stars, just like he'd promised all of their parents, grill some hot dogs and roast marshmallows for s'mores.

It would be great.

But building a campfire was harder than it looked--especially when you had six sets of eyes on you--the ground was hard to sleep on, and then at some point in the night, a storm rolled in and they all had to pile into the van to stay dry.

Chalk it up to Murphy's Law.

"Should have sprung for a cabin instead," Jeff joked as they all struggled to fit in the back of the van after they all sought shelter inside.

Come morning, they were all tired and sore and grumpy, and Eddie drove through McDonalds for steaming hot hash browns and egg mcmuffins to shut them all up.

Then they finally reached their true destination.

The American Science and Surplus Center was an unassuming building in a busy suburb north of the city. Busier than Hawkins, at least. Eddie had to drive around the block several times before he realized the entrance was in the back of the building, gravel parking lot and all.

As soon as they set foot inside, it was a sensory overload, but it felt like home.

Colorful signs everywhere, aisles filled with bins of bottles and beakers and corks and machine parts. There was a man who looked like he stepped out of Doctor Who by the cash register, and about a dozen lab skeletons situated around the perimeter of the store dressed to look like famous scientists.

All of the boys scattered once they picked their jaws up off the floor and they, quite literally, spent hours scouring the store finding one amazing thing after another.

Dave and Jeff went to the back corner where there was a display of army surplus. Garerth found an entire aisle dedicated to models and kits. Eddie walked around picking up things at random. Things that just seemed interesting and weird, his imagination putting different bits and bobs together to create mini figures for mechanical foes for the next--and maybe last--campaign he created as the DM for Hellfire.

It was a bittersweet moment for him.

And the kids? Well, they were either the worst customers in the world or the best. They were running around, throwing things into baskets, trying to figure out how much of this or that they needed for their project.

This was a once in a lifetime trip so they were determined to get everything they needed now.

Of course, that ended up causing a problem. Because there was only one of a certain item on their shopping list and Dustin wasn't the only person to grab it.

Eddie heard the commotion before he saw it.

"I need this."

"So do I."

"I touched it first."

"Well I saw it first. Finders keepers."

The other freshman were quick to jump into the verbal tousle, disrupting everyone in the store, and Eddie was quick to abandon his own shopping to go and see what was wrong.

Only to find the dweebiest tug of war on the planet: His four little sheepies versus three equally dorky-looking boys. It was a flurry of gangly limbs, sweaty hands, mom-provided haircuts, and pressed khakis as they argued over the one thing all of the kids seemed to need for their respective projects.

Eddie figured it was better to intervene before someone got a nosebleed from stress.

"Hey guys, cut it out, what are we arguing for?"

"Who's this?" the apparent leader of the other kids snapped. "The barber shop is down the street if you need a haircut Bon Jovi."

"Alright Revenge of the Nerds, calm down," Eddie snapped. "Just trying to make sure this doesn't end in a bloodbath. What's going on here?"

"We need that air pump," Dustin nodded down to the box he was holding onto for dear life.

"Well so do we. And we saw it first."

The kids started talking over each other again until Eddie whistled sharply.

"How about," he suggested and dug into one of his pockets and pulled out a shiny quarter, "we flip a coin?"

"No way!"

"No chance!"

"This air pump is ours," the rival nerd scoffed.

"What if we just beat you up and took it?" came a voice the next aisle over. Eddie glanced over his shoulder and shot daggers at his nosy friends.

"Not helping Jeff!" he hissed and turned back to the kids. "It's either a coin toss or nothing."

Eventually, both groups agreed, and Dustin was even gracious enough to let the other kids call it. Eddie flicked the coin into the air, the nerd called heads, and then time seemed to slow.

Eddie's thoughts raced through all of the possibilities. He really couldn't give a shit about these other nerds but...damn they deserved a fair shot at it. And his friends...he didn't want them to come all this way just for disappointment.

There was a clink as the coin hit the ground and bounced.

Then another clink.

Then a clatter as it landed.

Tails.

---

Another hour passed victoriously in the science surplus store and everyone's mood went up exponentially.

Eddie spent a little extra cash to get a soldering iron that he found in a clearance bin. Dustin and Lucas got to explain their whole project to the wannabe timelord, who was excited at the prospect of flash freezing ice cream. Not to mention Dave, who flirted with the evening manager as she came in for her shift; he even got her number, the lucky schmuck.

The sun was setting by the time they made it back outside, chattering happily about their finds, but they stopped in their tracks as they found the rival nerd standing near the van with a tall, polished boy in a letterman jacket beside him.

"This them?" the jock asked the younger boy.

"Yeah," he glared at them all and then pointed at Mike. "And that's the one who flipped me off."

Eddie could feel Mike tensing beside him--obviously regretting what he had done in the throes of victory--and he took a step forward, hands held in front of him to show he meant no harm.

"Hey guys listen," he started. "What are we doing here? What's fair is fair. We flipped a coin."

"My brother said it was rigged," the jock accused.

Eddie snorted, "how could I possibly rig a coin toss? Here I'll even show you the quarter."

The jock, curious, took a step forward, despite his brother whining for him to "just beat them up already."

Eddie shoved a hand in the pocket of his jacket and rooted around for a moment, before swiping his sneakered foot across the ground, sending gravel and sand and whatever else made up the parking lot into the two boys' faces.

"Go, go, get in the van," he hollered to his friends, who immediately crossed the lot and piled into the vehicle.

Once the doors were locked and the key was in the ignition, they all hollered in triumph, Gareth even yelling for Dave to "hit 'em with the pressed ham" as they pulled out of the parking lot.

And Eddie wondered if it was cowardly for them to have done what they did. For him to have done that.

He didn't want to be known as the guy who ran from trouble.

But hearing his friends' laughter, knowing their safety was ensured, he figured that sometimes running away was ok.

---

Dinner was reminiscent of something out of a heroic legend.

The IHOP off Route 64 had become a mead hall with drinks sloshing over the edges of cups and laughter and cheers in abundance as they regaled each other with more fantastical versions of the non-existent battle they'd just survived.

As though Eddie had been Beowulf and his foe the dastardly Grendel.

"He had to be 7 feet tall," Lucas awed. "And like...400 pounds."

"I'm never worrying about Jason Carver beating me up again if we survived that guy," Mike agreed.

"You're gonna have to fail again this year so you can stick around and protect us Ed. At least until I graduate," Gareth told Eddie, who protested that he didn't even do anything.

Then everyone erupted into a good-hearted merriment again.

Eddie felt a little bad for the waitress who would clean up after them, but he couldn't do anything to stop his friends joy and excitement.

Instead, he left a very generous tip once they left.

Their second night of camping was much more successful than the first. There were no attempts at a fire and no s'mores to be had, but Eddie broke out his guitar and strummed some familiar songs that had everyone asleep in no time.

Almost everyone.

He stayed up for a little longer though, smoking and staring up at the sky through the canopy of the trees. There was something special being out here, and he wondered if all of the heroes in his favorite stories felt like that, seeing all of their companions safe and asleep under their watch and the watch of the stars above.

There was a rustle of a sleeping bag and Dustin looked over at Eddie with bleary eyes.

"Why're you still up?" he asked. "Gotta take a dump or something?"

Eddie snorted and crushed the butt of his cigarette underfoot.

"Just thinking," he waved a hand dismissively. "Get back to sleep. Gotta drive back in the morning, and we need to hit the road early if you guys still wanna go to the beach."

He was about to take his own advice and settle into his sleeping bag when Dustin called his name again.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"I dunno," there was another rustle as Dustin shrugged. "For driving us out here, for getting all of the stuff we've been asking you to get, for protecting us...for being our friend."

"Don't mention it Henderson," Eddie smiled warmly. "What else was I gonna do? Let you guys lose the science fair."

"It's more than that."

"I'm sure that Harrington would've helped you if I hadn't."

"Steve's a cool guy but seriously," Dustin insisted. "He wouldn't have done all of this for us."

Eddie didn't know how to answer that, so he just hummed and closed his eyes.

The last thing he heard before he fell asleep, to dreams of guitar solos and bats and epic adventures...

"Best Spring Break Ever."

[blue-disco-lights]

Galladrabbles: You Were Meant for Me

The sweet sounds of Jewel 💎 for our @galladrabbles prompt this week, courtesy of @atthedugouts!

=============

Lip gets the call at 1am. Doesn’t even flinch - Chicago PD’s got the Gallagher house on speed-dial.

“Again?” he seethes. It’s his turn to bail the assholes out.

“Let me get this straight. You two stole an old van so you could make out in some rich lady’s driveway?”

“Anniversary of our first kiss, Lip. Had to go big,” Ian says, all innocence.

“Go big? With another indecent exposure charge?”

“At least she didn’t shoot at us,” Mickey laughs, to his husband’s utter delight.

Lip’s done. “You know what? You two were meant for each other.” 

“Yep,” they both agree.

[haleswallows]

For @aug-kissed - Week 4 First Kiss | Chocolate Kiss | Goodnight Kiss Fandom: DC x DP Pairing: Danny Fenton/Duke Thomas Chapter 3 of 3 Teaser:

“What if I just keep driving?” Danny says, still turning on the blinker and starting to slow for the ramp. “We could. Go to Chicago instead. No one would know. Or we can go to Wisconsin and harass Vlad. That sounds like fun, yeah?”

“You mom would know. Jazz too.” Amity Park creeps up quick. Duke still can’t get over the great wide open of the plains states. He stares a bit at the sprawling outer edges of the town, amazed at the lack of skyscrapers and how big all the yards are. The single residential houses are foreign, Duke's thoughts on the brownstones and apartment complexes of Gotham.

“Last chance.” Turning, Danny warns. “I mean it, we’ll be there in like five.”

“You're doing the thing. Worrying and catastrophizing –.” Duke gapes. It's his first look at the GAV, painted with a mural of Phantom holding up the world a la 80s stoner van. “Holy shit.”

There's a convenient spot in the driveway next to it for Danny to park. Duke can't stop looking at it. “Holy shit,” he helplessly repeats.

Danny opens his mouth to reply, but doesn't get anywhere. A truly large man in a bright orange hazmat suit bursts from the front door of the house and charges across the lawn to them. “Holy shit,” Duke tries again, fearfully this time.

The driver’s side door wrenches open. Duke gets a glimpse of Danny’s face screwed up in a pleading ‘save me’ expression before he’s hauled out of the SUV and lifted into a hug.

“Dann-o!” the man shouts. “You made it! We’ve missed you so much, your mom’s inside. Held up a little in a project, but she’ll be right up as soon as she’s done in the lab.”

“Hi, Dad.” Danny pats the insanely broad shoulders of Jack Fenton. “Missed you too.” Jack sets Danny down. When Jack scrubs a hand over his head, Danny stumbles.

“Oh! I’m so sorry. I got so excited and totally forgot.” Jack stoops to peer in the SUV. For some horrific reason, Duke’s brain feeds him the scene from Jurassic Park of a dinosaur peering into the Jeep. He blinks. “Hi, Duke!”

Duke plasters on his best and charming smile, tries to make it look like he isn’t cowering against the door. “Hello, Dr. Fenton! It’s nice to meet you.”

Holy shit.

[thefeawl]

Farnsworth House

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was retained by Farnsworth to design a weekend retreat during a dinner party in 1945. The wealthy client wanted to build a very special work of modern architecture, however, toward the end of construction, a dispute arose between architect and client that interfered with completion of the building.

[ebongawk]

The party had dialed past a ten on the insanity scale, like, two, maybe two-and-a-half hours ago.

Eddie probably should've dipped out well before then. Shit, he was normally gone with the wind once he sold out, but something about this party had him sticking around a few extra minutes that had, in the blink of an eye, transformed into a few extra hours.

Maybe it was the feeling of the last hurrah. The final graduation party of the season at Andy Doucheface's house before everyone fucked off to campus tours and early move-ins or whatever-the-fuck university freshman did.

Or maybe it was because, as soon as no one was paying attention, Eddie'd started siphoning spare beer and snacks and digging through the belongings of The Parents Doucheface.

(Maybe he'd pocketed a couple of super nice tools to ninja slip into Wayne's toolbox at a later time and also a framed picture day photo of Andy from elementary school that he was gonna toss in the lake in an effort to devastate the people who'd raised such a Doucheface. Who could say?)

He'd already loaded his provisions into the van. Literally only came back to make a final circuit for any spare, unopened handles of liquor – he didn't want jock cooties, ew – when he found it.

The Holy Grail of a party of this caliber.

Spray paint.

Eddie looked around, but he was definitely alone in the garage. And the jockstraps inside were raging, music gradually getting louder and still hard to hear over the shouting of drunk voices. With a gleeful, maybe slightly maniacal giggle, Eddie grabbed the paint - red, his lucky day - and got to work creating a masterpiece on the interior walls of the garage.

Lost in the artistic haze of poorly rendered dick and balls jizzing onto Andy's face, Eddie didn't hear the uptick in commotion outside the garage. He was finishing up the first "s" in "ass" (as in, "Jason Carver loves eating hairy ass") when the garage door suddenly burst open.

Now, listen. Eddie's fight-or-flight is pretty fucking reactive, and he tends to automatically lean toward fight. He has, of course, relied on flight to get out of many a pickle, but generally his fists were out before his feet were moving.

So, when that door hit the wall with a loud bang!, Eddie had his lighter in hand and the spray paint up in a half-second, just about ready to burn the hair off whatever drunk asshole was coming to start shit.

But the drunk asshole squeaked, ducking down beneath where a fireball would've been if Eddie hadn't caught himself.

Because it wasn't, in fact, a drunk asshole.

It was Chrissy Goddamn Cunningham.

And she really did not look drunk at all.

Oh, be still, his cynical, stupid fucking heart. Why the hell did it skip a beat?

He'd heard, through the endlessly riveting rumor mill churned out by the ridiculous Hawkins grapevine, that she'd finally kicked ol' Carver to the curb once they'd walked the stage. But he hadn't actually run into her at one of these stupid ass parties all fucking summer. He'd been hoping for, like, one chance encounter before he took off for Chicago, but alas.

The stars were not shining on Eddie Munson the past couple months.

But maybe now.

"Well, shit," Eddie said as the door she'd come through swung shut. "You stumbled upon my lair, Cunningham. Sorry for, uh, almost flame-throwing you."

Her eyes, which had been wide with fear when she walked through the door - valid, considering the circumstances of her entrance - blinked as she took in Eddie's handiwork.

"Oh," she breathed, reading Eddie's crass statements he'd semi-permanently stamped onto the walls. Her eyes going from Andy's Dick Sundae to Carver's Ass-Eating Preferences as her cheeks split with a smile. "Oh, gosh, Eddie, what--? Gosh, that's so funny."

No fucking way she was building up his ego while he publicly ragged on her ex.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at his twin masterpieces. Relishing in her grin with a shit-eating one of his own. Taking the opportunity to finish spelling out 'ass' on the drywall "I, uh, take commissions, you know. Something pretty to hang in your dorm room."

"Not something about Jason eating ass?"

"Only if you ask nicely."

God damn it. That made her giggle. Eddie was going insane.

"I wish I had my camera," Chrissy sighed, stormy eyes bright as she reread Eddie's dig at Carver. "Andy's parents are just going to make him paint over this. It won't be memorialized."

"Should I make a pit stop at the 7-11 billboard on my way home? Let the town know what Jockstrap McGee and his Pearl Necklace Sidekick plan on getting up to in college?"

Chrissy blinked at him, tilting her head to one side.

"Pearl necklace?"

Suddenly, back in the house, the sound of glass shattering resounded down the hallway just before someone yelled, "Scatter!" and Chrissy's eyes widened again.

"Oh, shoot! We gotta go!"

"Wha--?"

But she was already grabbing his hand and hitting the door to open the garage. But, instead of waiting for the door to come up, she yanked open the side door and pushed him through. Fingers firmly clasped, Chrissy took off, dragging a very confused Eddie behind her as she sprinted around the side of the house and bypassed the gate to run into the neighbor's yard.

"Cops!" she whisper-yelled at him as they ducked through a grove of trees. Eddie chanced a glance back, barking out a laugh that was maybe a little too loud when he saw the flashing red and blue lights.

"Fuckin' knew that was gonna happen," he whispered back, pulling her to a stop where they were hidden behind some bushes. A metric fuckload of kids were spilling out of the house, many too drunk to run properly. Chance fucking rammed into McKinney, who fell to the ground and immediately started barfing all that alcohol out of his system.

A couple of piggies suddenly rushed through the open garage door, looking left and right for the culprits that had used to escape. Eddie could barely see them, tucked away as they were and from a less than stellar vantage point, but suddenly Chrissy's opening it made sense when the two cops took off running in the opposite direction.

"Excellent method of distraction, Cunningham," Eddie murmured, barely discernible over the shouting. "You run from cops a lot?"

Beside him, Chrissy shrugged.

"I watch a lot of horror movies," she responded, shuffling a little so they were crouched closer together. So he could hear her, he assumed, but holy shit she was close enough that he was gonna spontaneously combust. "Whenever the heroine has an opportunity to distract and doesn't, I always get so mad!"

"Are you the heroine in this story?"

"Saved you, didn't I?"

Oh. Oh damn. She had jokes. And that sly look in her eye, tongue tucked between her teeth as she bit back a giggle.

She was gonna kill him, and he'd thank her.

"You know, I held onto this," Eddie said, holding up the can of paint he hadn't thought to pitch. "We could, uh. We could make a trip to the 7-11 billboard together, if you want."

She fucking sparkled in the moonlight when she looked at him. Some airy disbelief written across her features that Eddie could not possibly comprehend. Shouldn't he be the skeptical one here?

"I may or may not have snuck some shit off Andy's property, though." Eddie grinned. "You ain't gonna tattle on me, are you, sweetness?"

"Not if you got the good stuff," Chrissy answered with a shrug just as Hopper and Callahan burst through the front door, various drunk kids in tow. "Where are you parked?"

Eddie nodded around the corner before taking the chance of a goddamn lifetime. Reaching down, he took her hand with his again, holding his breath to see what she'd do.

If she'd drop it.

He should've inhaled, because the moment she laced their fingers together, he forgot he needed air altogether.

"Alright," he said, fucking breathless. Squeezing her fingers, he looked at her for a long moment. A moment where she met his gaze head on, some awed determination set there that he wanted to know fucking everything about. Looking back at the house, he watched the cops as they paraded drunk teenagers onto the porch. "Ready?"

Chrissy, beside him, in the weirdest goddamn event of his life, nodded resolutely.

"Let's run, baby."

[queenie-ofthe-void]

A Desperate Fool - Part 5

Part 4

Last Time: Nancy had an unexpected guest while filling Eddie in on everything he's missed over the past year. Now: Nancy finally tells him what's going on with Steve

~~~

Nancy starts the story at the beginning of the end. 

Robin, Max, and Lucas flew out to LA and spent the last three days of Eddie’s ten day bender loading up boxes, carving Steve out of his life. After severing her lease, Robin and Steve moved into a small apartment in Chicago, only a train ride away from Dustin– which worked out when Steve struggled to leave the house for the first two months. All of the arcade and game store money Steve spent on the kids over the years was paid back in full to help cover the rent.

Eddie remembers the moment he opened their front door to a hollowed-out home. No toothbrush by the sink. No gold, wire-framed glasses on the nightstand. Just Steve’s matching guitar pick necklace next to two silver house keys, and a note which said ”don’t call” in Robin’s looped handwriting.

The first few months after Steve moved out are just a whirlwind in his memory. Countless parties and late nights and warm beds buried his grief, keeping it at bay, at least for a while.

Then Corroded Coffin’s new album Love Me. Hate Me. Fuck Me. Free Me. dropped. Eddie's lyrics filled to the brim with seething disdain, heavy with angst. The album found its target audience faster than anyone had expected, launching Corroded Coffin from an opener to a headliner in only a few months. 

The collective internet started raiding his past like the trash heap it was, and that’s when the interviews started. He was forced to defend his sexuality, his adoption, his shitty parents. Answering questions at the whims of anyone with internet access. Eddie held the rage like a lifeline, letting it fuel his shows and lace his words. 

He'd started showing up high to interviews. Even though he’s six months sober now, he’s never gone back and watched them, too afraid of what he’d find. He knows questions about his exes came up a few times. He can't remember what his answers were. Probably doesn't want to, with how his younger fans reacted. 

That doesn’t stop Nancy and she doesn’t sugar coat it for him. She tells him paparazzi and angry fans camped outside Steve's apartment building for weeks after Eddie mentioned Steve's full name in a drunken livestream. They were served an eviction notice a week after a fan threw a milkshake at Robin as she tried to open the front door. Steve was able to pull her inside, but his appearance only incensed the crowd into vandalizing their building. Apparently people didn’t take kindly to the idea of Steve dating a woman, proof that he only used Eddie as some sort of queer experiment. Like they hadn’t been together for almost eight years. 

Moving out required coordination and a decoy moving van, like something out of a goddamn heist movie. According to Nancy, that’s exactly what it was. They packed up their things for the second time, and were out within twenty-four hours. The kids snuck the two through the back in the dead of night, with Nancy dressed as Robin and Jonathan as Steve leaving out the front to distract the crowd. 

Looking back, he can’t believe how naive he’d been to think there’d be no real-world consequences. Eddie used the album as an opportunity to purge himself of overwhelming emotion and pour them into the music, like he always did. He indulged in the recurring fantasy of Steve holed up in his bedroom, brooding and crying while listening to Eddie’s songs over and over again. But he never thought for a second he’d be putting Steve in actual danger, let alone Robin or anyone else.

Nancy says that’s when they moved into her and Jonathan’s guest bedroom for two months. It was awkward at best, and difficult at worst. Steve would walk in on Nancy and Jonathan in the middle of a conversation about Eddie, or catch them watching interview clips. No matter how hard she tried to hide it, Steve seemed to see right through her. 

“Eddie,” Nancy sighs, wiping a stray tear from her eye, “I don’t think you understand how hard it was on everyone, not just Steve. You didn’t seem to care what we had to say, and when you called, you’d never ask about us. You only ever talked about yourself. All we heard about was Metal Munson, then had to watch Steve struggle with it all. It just– we didn’t know what to do.”

It took him longer than it should have to notice, since he didn’t call often. He was too relieved to care about the lack of messages or missed calls, sick of everyone constantly begging him to slow down. They’d see him online at some party or another, dancing next to some boy he’d never remember or drinking bottles on top of bars. Every new viral video brought a wave of concerned phone calls from Nancy and his friends. So really, it’s no surprise at all that he didn’t notice the change right away.

Because if Nancy’s timing is right, the month Steve and Robin moved in was when his family started blocking all contact with him.

~~~

ao3 (Homesick)

Alright turns out I'm terrible with exposition so this chapter is taking me FOREVER! I'm relatively happy with this part though so I'm ready to share. So I'm breaking it into bite sized pieces

Ooooo ALSO I started uploading all of A Desperate Fool to ao3 under the series Homesick. I'm going for full chapter updates on ao3 and little snippet updates here, so Tumblr might be just slightly ahead (never far though). Not sure what the rules are for marking the fic Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson when they never interact, and Steve isn't even there, even though that's what the whole fic is about. Idk I tried to make it clear!

I've talked about how the first chapter with Robin was supposed to be a one-off. But the overall concept was born from the song If It Means A Lot To You by A Day To Remember. That song is gut wrenching, so hopefully my fic is too!

Part 6

Tag List!!!

@sadisticaltarts @5ammi90 @blacklegsanji21