#I love the stranger

[chaotic-orphan]

The stranger, pt.2

EEEK okay this is very late, but this is for @mmm-yes-potato for requesting a part two for my favourite villain so far this is for you!

Part 1 here

I hope it’s worth the wait!

Enjoy!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When the stranger had brought Vigilante back to their house, Vigilante had hoped they’d just knock them out, but the stranger didn’t.

They didn’t lay a finger on Vigilante. Just told to follow them and stay silent, no stopping anyone on the way there either. No way to alert anyone to help. Just follow along like a puppy.

So when they finally stopped in front of a house Vigilante was painfully awake. All they could do when the Stranger invited them in was glare at them with all the hate they could muster.

The stranger dipped their head, that infuriating smile on their lips as they said, “Please, come in Vigilante. I insist.”

That familiar feeling settled over Vigilante’s mind and they wanted to scream as their foot lifted against their will and they stepped inside the Stranger’s house.

The minute Vigilante crossed the threshold they had obeyed the command and the fog lifted. The moment it did, Vigilante lunged at the Stranger and caught them around the waist and the pair went rolling.

Vigilante got on top of the stranger and started wailing on them. Fist crunching nose, jaw, cheek anything it could reach, trying to knock the bastard out but they still smiled up at Vigilante. The stranger reached both hands to Vigilante’s jacket collar and bucked their hips, rolling until they were on top.

Vigilante let out a frustrated huff through their nose and threw their fist up at the Stranger but they caught their wrist with quiet, firm confidence and it was as if a vice had clamped down on Vigilante’s wrist. Vigilante tried to yank it back but it didn’t budge and the stranger just kept smiling.

“Fuck you!” Vigilante spat, clicking their thumb and index finger on their free hand and a flame grew in the palm of their hand before engulfing it and reaching over to grab the Stranger’s hand keeping theirs captive.

“Ah, ah, vigilante. No powers.”

The flame extinguished just as they grabbed the Stranger’s hand and Vigilante wanted to cry. The stranger grabbed their other wrist and quickly pinned their wrists above their head and waited patiently for Vigilante to accept their fate and stop struggling.

“LET ME GO YOU PRICK!” Vigilante screamed, but the stranger just shushed him.

“I see you’re going to be as difficult as possible,” the stranger said with a soft lilt to their voice.

“That’s kinda what happens when you kidnap people.”

“I could take your memories,” the stranger mused, taking pleasure in watch the realisation dawn on Vigilante’s face. “But then you wouldn’t be as fun. No, I got something else in mind, dear wannabe hero. Something far better.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The stranger didn’t do anything to Vigilante for the last three days. They had however set some ground rules: no leaving the house without the stranger’s permission, no burning down the house, no use of vigilante’s powers on the stranger or any of the strangers guests ever - that one vigilante had nearly laughed at. They couldn’t use a power even if they tried, they were borderline useless without another powered individual near them to leech off, and the last person they had touched before the stranger was some half powered loser trying and failing to rob their local pharmacy.

Vigilante scoffed, they were the half powered loser. At least the fire guy had his own source of power. But the stranger didn’t know that Vigilante was borderline powerless, even more so now against the stranger. Which is why it was so weird that other than those rules the Stranger basically let vigilante free around the house. They let them eat when they wanted, which was anytime the stranger wasn’t in the kitchen, and sleep where they wanted. That one Vigilante hadn’t trusted them on so they slept in the living room on the couch closest to the door if they needed to run.

“Seriously?” the stranger had asked when they saw vigilante asleep sitting up. “There’s a perfectly good guest room on the second floor.”

“Yeah, which is exactly where you want me to sleep, isn’t that it?”

“I just think it’d be more comfortable,” the stranger shrugged, casually leaning against the door frame. “I mean, you’re going to be here for a long, long time, Vigilante. You could at least be comfortable here, I’m not a monster.”

“You ordered a child to kill themselves in front of their parent. Tell me again your not a monster.”

“That’s different,” the stranger said waving the comment away. “That was to make a point. Wouldn’t you say the many lives the mayor has taken from innocents justices a life being taken from him?”

“They were six,” Vigilante said through gritted teeth.

The stranger tilted their head, “So? What does age have to do with how much value is attached to a life?”

Vigilante stood at that. Said so cool and callously as if discussing the weather or a hypothetical child the stranger had tried to murder.

“How many children has the mayor’s corruption killed, Vigilante? Hmm?”

“That’s different than him killing the children himself.”

“If he did maybe I’d respect him more,” the stranger said with a dark look in their eyes and an edge in their voice. The stranger pushed off the doorframe after stunning Vigilante into silence. “He gets to hide behind policy, and the greater good and can get away with murdering hundreds, and you look at me and tell me I’m the monster for attempting to murder one? What makes him different than me? What makes his child’s life worth more than the parents in the Dregs, hmm? Tell me.”

Vigilante looked into the stranger’s eyes, dark and deep and shining with some kind of divine retribution that made them think that what they were saying wasn’t crazy.

“I’m not here to debate philosophy,” the Vigilante said eventually, voice measured. “Murder is murder. It stains your soul. His karma will come around eventually.”

The stranger smiled a small smile, then it grew wider, showing teeth and they started to laugh. Vigilante watched as the crazy person threw their head back with a riotous kind of laughter as of Vigilante had said the funniest thing in the world.

After they stopped they wiped their eyes and said: “That’s a good one, has a nice ring to it.”

The stranger stuck their hand out then, that dazzling model worthy smile on their lips. “Nice to meet you vigilante, I’m Karma.”

After that the stranger tried to get Vigilante to go upstairs but vigilante refused so the stranger brought down pillows and a duvet for them and left them to it. Vigilante couldn’t get the look on the stranger’s face out of their mind as they spoke of the mayor and their child, even when they closed their eyes it was there, haunting them until they fell asleep.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

On the fourth day, Vigilante woke up before the stranger Karma, and slipped into the kitchen to make some coffee before they woke up.

“It’s still weird having you in my house,” and Vigilante jumped at the voice, knife in hand and turned in a second to see a sleepy Karma in their pyjamas in front of them. Karma smiled a lazy smile. “Your reflexes are good, not great. You didn’t even notice me in the room.”

“Shut up. It’s early,” vigilante grumbled.

“You should have a shower. I’ll wash your suit. You haven’t gotten changed since you’ve been here.”

“I’m not taking off my mask.”

“I didn’t ask you to, just your clothes so I can wash them. You’ll get them back but I don’t want you stinking up my house.”

“Marvellous. How about you let me go then?”

Karma smiled at them. “Nice try.”

Vigilante turned back to look at the kettle then, waiting for it to boil. On the one hand they felt disgusting and wanted a shower so bad, on the other… well, they still wanted to shower. The stranger hadn’t made them do anything they didn’t want to, and in a strange way, Vigilante knew they wouldn’t.

But then why were they keeping them here? Against their will? Why go through the fuss of it?

“Fine. I’ll have a shower.”

“Good. There’s clothes in my wardrobe you can borrow.”

Vigilante nodded, made their coffee and went to the stairs. They paused at the first step, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but then shook their head and climbed the stairs.

The water was warm and Vigilante scrubbed their skin raw and was down a few minutes later, hair wet and sticking to their mask. The stranger was still in the kitchen, sitting at their counter eating breakfast all very domestic.

“Here, take your mask off. Use this instead.”

“No.”

“I won’t look, Vigilante. I promise you. I don’t care who you are. It doesn’t bother me. Just so I can clean your mask too, come on.”

Vigilante looked down at the mask Karma had slipped over to them. It covered their face, yeah, but what else would it do? Vigilante remembers the villain who strapped bombs behind masks that terrorised the city for weeks.

“No,” the vigilante said. “I already cleaned mine. I didn’t want it dirty after I had a shower so I’m okay. Thank you.”

“Wow. I didn’t know you could be so mannerly,” Karma mused and took the mask back.

“Well I’m not usually this friendly with kidnappers. But you have been reasonable so far.”

“Mmm,” the stranger hummed, eyes bright. “So far. Speaking of… I have a small meeting today. You’re coming with me.”

“I don’t—“

“Ah. That wasn’t a request, vigilante. You’re coming with me, and you will be on your best behaviour, won’t you?” Karma asked, smiling as if they hadn’t just compelled them to do exactly that.

“I fucking hate you.”

“Mmm, not yet.”

When the stra— Karma, left the house Vigilante tried to stay behind. They really did, and they managed it for a time. Then the pain set in, as if an invisible rope was tethered between Karma and them and tugging sharply, strangling their waist and they cried out and was forced to follow. The closer they got to Karma who was waiting in their car, the lesser the pain became and they hated the smug, patient smile that was on Karma’s stupid face the entire time.

“What? You don’t want to blindfold me or something?”

“What’s the point when I can just tell you to forget and you will?”

Vigilante huffed in their seat and said nothing the rest of the drive that brought them through the city and out towards the docks. In the city, Vigilante rolled down their window and was about to scream for help when Karma told them to be quiet and Vigilante obeyed. Tears of frustration forming behind their eyes making them want to scream at the stranger.

They got to the old cannery and the stranger stepped out and said: “come along,” like Vigilante was a dog and Vigilante again, obeyed, like a dog.

“This is all very supervillain-esque,” vigilante told Karma and Karma laughed.

“The highest praise coming from you,” Karma replied easily. They walked from the cannery through the docks before they met a group of people nearer the pier.

“Ah, there they are. I was wondering if you’d show up at all, old friend,” a man in his late fifties said, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He looked like the villain from the old professor Layton games, tall and stalky with a big moustache and black hair.

“Not to fret, I was just dealing with the problem we kept encountering on our sacrifices surviving.”

The older man looked to vigilante, eyes shrewd despite his slightly haggard appearance. “This the problem then?”

“Yes. Our little hero. Well,” Karma said turning to face Vigilante. “Our little wannabe hero. I intercepted them right before they told the actual Heroes about a little pattern they had noticed.”

“Did you now? And the hero?”

“Oblivious as all heroes are.”

“Fuck you,” Vigilante spat and Karma smiled. The older man let out a shocked laugh.

“Quite the mouth on ya kid, let me guess, you grew up in the dregs, hmm?”

“Let me guess, you’re a dickhead too?”

“Mouthy and unflinching even in the situation you’re in,” the older man mused. He took a long drag of his cigar and exhaled a lungful of smoke, looking at Karma then. “Just your type.”

“I know,” the stranger said. “But we’re here for business, so shall we?”

“Right, yes. Well first off is DeVines, she caught one of her rookies growing a conscience and running to tell a hero about it.”

A woman stepped out of the crowd, tall and blonde her face obscured by her black and white domino mask and behind her she dragged a shaking boy behind with his hands cuffed behind him.

Vigilante made to step forward, but Karma was faster, glancing over his shoulder, his swirling eyes ensnaring Vigilante’s and Vigilante wanted to scream for meeting their vertigo inducing gaze.

“Stay,” they said. Vigilante’s feet stuck to the floor.

The boys face had been beaten to a pulp, all purple bruises and little scratches. They couldn’t see out of one eye but Vigilante realised with horror that they recognised that stupid haircut, even with all the blood and dirt matting it. At the moment the boy recognised Vigilante too and stepped towards them.

“You- you! You’re a h-h-hero,” they stammered, voice raw and broken. The vigilante’s heart plummeted to their stomach and they went to reach out but Karma grabbed their wrist and held it down. “Please- p- please. I don’t wanna die. They’re going to kill me. I thought they were my family. They said they were going to hurt me if I didn’t please help me.”

“He’s just a kid,” Vigilante said, almost pleadingly to Karma who didn’t look at them.

“Just a kid who crossed the wrong people,” the woman said, her voice low and coloured with a sadistic glee that she had rooted out a traitor to their cause. “What do you wanna do with them boss?”

The question was directed at Karma who regarded the kid for a moment. They looked at Vigilante then and went to stand in front of them. Vigilante looked away from their eyes, they knew exactly what the stranger was going to say and they couldn’t. They couldn’t hurt a civilian. Even one who wasn’t entirely good.

Karma grabbed Vigilante’s chin and forced their head up to look Karma in the eyes. Vigilante saw a brief second of that swirling abyss and shut their eyes. “No. No. No. I won’t listen.”

“Open your pretty eyes, Vigilante,” and Vigilante did. Was one second all it took for Karma to enchant them? To bring them under their spell? Karma was smiling, they had them now. “You won’t move a muscle during the rest of this meeting. You can scream, and cry and beg me to stop, but I won’t. Understand? I won’t take your voice, however, same rules — no yelling for police, or heroes or help, because it’s not coming, understand?”

Vigilante was shaking, their bottom lip quivering as the command took hold, the dense fog settling over their mind scrabbling all thoughts except that one.

Obey.

As Karma stepped away from Vigilante and walked over to the rookie villain with a conscience.

Obey.

As the stranger told someone to release the fire boy’s cuffs.

Obey.

As the stranger blocked a desperate punch from fire boy, caught their wrist, twisted it, bending their arm back until it snapped like a twig. The boy screamed, trying desperately to pull their useless arm back to them pleading mercy.

“KARMA STOP!” Vigilante cried, voice desperate and far too high. Karma looked over their shoulder at vigilante, a vicious smile on their face. Vigilante would have taken a step back at that smile. That crazed sadistic smile, but their limbs wouldn’t move. The more they tried to break free, the more the fog descended and their mind turned on them.

Obey.

“Hero please-“ the boy mewled after their hand caught fire and tried to burn Karma. Vigilante begged again. For a life they weren’t above begging. This wasn’t murder, this was torture. “Karma please let him go. Please. Stop. Don’t kill him, please! PLEASE! PLEASE!”

Karma punched the boy, extinguishing his flame, knuckles cracking against his cheek then kicked the boy to the ground where he tried to scramble back but was surrounded by Karma’s fucking sycophants.

Karma turned to Vigilante, blood on their knuckles and cheek, which they wiped away smearing the blood over their cheekbone just under their eye. Vigilante wanted to run. They wanted to get sick. Their entire body shook with the terror flooding through their veins.

This is the person that kills children, Vigilante reminded themselves. The image of Karma imprinted on their mind’s eye, and they forced themself never to forget who this person was.

Sadistic and cruel.

A monster.

Obey.

Karma walked up to them then, pressing a bloody hand to Vigilante’s exposed jaw, tilting their head up to look at Karma in the eyes.

“When you ask so nicely, how can I say no?” They said, voice thick with dark pleasure and amusement that Vigilante wasn’t privy to.

They pulled their hand, sticky with fire boy’s blood, off Vigilante’s face and turned to their crowd of devoted followers.

Vigilante tried to memorise their faces too.

“I’ve decided to have mercy, my friend here swaying me to be a better person.”

There was a chorus of boos, but the frightened boy’s eyes went to Vigilante then and he was shaking and crying, and said thank you over and over and over again.

“So, rookie. Look at me,” and Vigilante could tell there was compulsion in his words. “You’re going to forget this. You’re going to forget how you broke your arm. It was a work accident is what you’ll tell the doctors and nurses in Central Hospital, isn’t that right?”

“Ye-ye-yes, sir.”

“Good. Then, once they’ve healed you…” Karma looked over their shoulder to vigilante and it froze vigilante to the spot. This wasn’t the sadist karma looking at them anymore. It was the calculated stranger from the roof who was brutal in an unfeeling kind of way and wormed their web of words through Vigilante’s ears until they lost their freedom.

Karma’s eyes swirled and Vigilante screamed:

“COVER YOUR EARS! DON’T LISTEN TO HIM! SING OVER HI-“

“Vigilante, silence.”

Vigilante wanted to scream. Their eyes filled with helpless tears as the boy started backing away with one good hand on the ground, and started singing and screaming until the stranger told them to shut up.

“Once they’ve healed you, I want you to walk to the Mayor’s office. Ask for an audience and make it convincing.”

Vigilante screamed, but not a sound came from their lips. “And when you get into the mayor’s office I want you to take this gun—“

Karma held up a hand and DeVines gave him a hand pistol. “And I want you to blow your brains out in front of him. If you can’t get an audience, then you blow your brains out at the reception desk in city hall, you understand?”

“Yes sir,” the boy said, crying now. Snot running down past his lips.

“You understand why you’re being punished now, right?”

“Ye-yes sir.”

“Good. Tell me Why?”

“I betrayed you sir.”

“The heroes can’t help you.”

“No, no sir,” the boy sniffled. Karma looked back at Vigilante and the boy followed his eye.

“Are you happy I didn’t kill him now?” *~*~*~*~*

continued here

[wanderingmind867]

The Phantom Stranger never gives away his origins, but I feel like he opens up most to Cassandra Craft. Once he had a name. But now, he merely wanders this earth for reasons unknown even to him. The eternal wanderer, forced to be a stranger to everyone (possibly including himself). That's shockingly relatable. And god, I want the Phantom Stranger to have the existentialism of Howard the Duck. They're radically different, but they're both deeply existential characters. If only steve gerber had written more at dc...

[tech-obssessed-shark]

I’m an unsettling person in general in the sense that I love to sneak up on people, make comments like “oh right I am a person yes”, move around oddly, talk with strange wording, etc. so I really like the Stranger! I think things that are just a bit off in the way that to I don’t get scared of things like it BECAUSE abnormality is subjective. I mean- I hate eye contact and have a habit of repeating everything people say, so if I met someone like me I wouldn’t be afraid at all!

sometimes I like to think about the differences between the avatars that chose their fears willingly and the ones who were forced into it. an interesting question to ask yourself is 'is there anything that could make me choose to be an avatar?'

for most people the answer is probably yes. everyone's scared of something enough to do practically anything to escape it. and sometimes fears can seem real damn alluring.

I make a lot of jokes about how I'd become an avatar of the corruption, the buried, the spiral etc., and that is partly because goddamn that worm lady (/pos) but it's also because if faced with that option I can't one hundred percent guarantee I'd say no.

I think the only ones that couldn't make me hesitate before saying no are the vast and the lonely. this is probably because I have issues with self-isolation, and the idea of a frigid, empty void calls to my nihilistic side a little too much for comfort.

anything else, even the 'grosser' ones have their unique appeal. there's a sense of belonging there that nobody can ever take away from you. you don't have to be scared of anything anymore. (unless you meet gertrude, in that case rip.)

I haven't really talked to anyone else about it irl (there are no tma fans around me, it's very sad) but I do notice in the fandom that most people have a specific fear that they're fond of. some of them are less common than others (it's not often you see someone who goes all in for the flesh), but they're all there.

I mean, you can probably guess that mine's the corruption, for the same reason the lonely isn't my favorite. (as a concept and narratively it's cool as hell, but speaking in terms of real life, no thank you.) a few of my other favorites are the spiral and the stranger but that's mostly because the vibes are immaculate and I'm a sucker for some classic creepy shit.

I'd be really curious to know what people's reasons are for preferring their respective fears.

[guardian-of-soho]

Still stuck on how Aziraphale ate that meat like he was starving. Like he’d been starved for millennia, and he hadn’t even known it, because he’d never once been fed. But we know they don’t have to eat (nor sleep, etc.), so what he’d been starved for is pleasure. Being present in his body, feeling the joys and longings it could feel. Understanding what taste buds were made for. He hadn’t known; he’d never learned to miss it.

Now imagine what a kiss has done to him.

[slavicafire]

in this new year I want you to be alright. I hope you move out. I hope you have enough money to feel safe. I hope you abandon shame and forgive yourself. I hope you get enough sleep and some good news. I hope you laugh a lot and the heaviness of the world eases a bit. I wish you to be alright.

[hellenhighwater]

Forbidden orange juice

[morganbritton132]

Steve gets really into birdwatching after patrolling the woods around Hawkins for upside down creepy-crawlies and then accidentally joins the Hawkins Community Birdwatching Society, and rightfully doesn’t tell anybody about it because he still wants the party to think he’s cool.

However. Eddie brings his uncle around the party for the first time and before he can introduce him, Wayne’s like, “Hey, Steve. Diana tell ya that she saw a pileated woodpecker outside of Melvards last week?”

When Steve doesn’t respond with confusion, a record scratches inside Robin and Eddie’s brains at the same time because

“This is Wayne? Your friend Wayne??” Robin asks at the same time that Eddie exclaims, “Steve from bird club is Steve Harrington?!”

[lilpomelito]

not that joe keery isn’t a very attractive man but i absolutely love the mythos the fandom has constructed around steve’s beauty like he’s somehow simultaneously the most beautiful creature you’ll ever encounter in your life and just some guy. fic writers become divinely possessed by the muses when describing this guy’s moles. i’ve never felt more secure about my own brown eyes than when i read what people write about steve harrington’s otherworldly beautiful brown eyes. he’s both unobtainable handsome and your boy next door.

[moonpascal]

self insert x canon will always hold a special place in my heart

[ohohorla]

[artrealla]

golden hour cuddles

[imfinereallyy]

you can pry happy endings from my cold-dead hands. It can be the most heart stopping, gut wrenching fic that has every existed and I will read every drop of it if I get my happy ending. I have had enough painful endings in real life, give me happy in my fantasy world. It can be at the last second, it can be a single sentence, even a single word. Give me all the angst and hurt in the world for 500,000 words, but please give me the comfort I need in the ending. please and thank you.

[plistommy]

One of the reasons why I love Steddie is how sweet Eddie was with Steve in the forest scene. That’s what got me into this ship. It was nice to see someone being patient and kind to Steve like that and it coming from someone like Eddie who viewed Steve so differently means a lot.

I loved how he told him how much Dustin looks up to him, making Steve smile and even after that wanting to joke around a little to make Steve laugh as well.

It was such a nice change, because all the other scenes we just see him bickering with someone or people making him seem stupid when he asks questions. Eddie didn’t make fun of him for not knowing Ozzy like he probably would have prior to things and instead let it be and called Steve cool. I love them.

[karies-art]

„You’re like… really hot, dude. Wanna make out?“

„?!?!“

FratBoy!Steve just being his very bisexual self 💖

[kidovna]

angels, demons, and halloween through the years

For @bylerween prompts for day 3 & 5 (young and old byler, costume contest)

[morganbritton132]

The person who knows Steve the most is Tommy. The party is annoyed every time they are confronted with this fact, because sure. They know Steve’s favorite songs and his hair care routine, but Tommy knows that too. He also knows that Steve is allergic to aspirin.

Nancy and Jonathan are standing in the middle of Melvin’s arguing about painkillers because neither can remember what Steve asked for, and decide to just grab one. They all do the same thing anyways, right? Wrong.

Nancy barely has the bottle off the shelf when it’s grabbed out of her hand, “Wow, Wheeler. Breaking his heart isn’t good enough? You wanna kill him now too? Get Tylenol.”

Steve calls Dustin up and is kinda whiny until he agrees to go to his house and watch movies. He doesn’t want to do this. He makes it clear that he doesn’t. Like, an hour and a half in, there’s a knock at the door.

It’s Tommy with a birthday cake that his mom made and insisted he drop off. Dustin didn’t even know it was Steve’s birthday. They’ve known each other for two years.

Tommy is roaming the shelves as Family Video, rolling his eyes about Steve befriending Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson and a band geek and how loudly they are just dicking off at the counter. Theyre snacking on brownies Robin brought in, and then he hears a wheeze.

Then panic. Then the thump of a body on the floor. Then without even thinking, he’s pulling an epi-pen out of his pocket and jabbing it into Steve’s thigh. Of course his ‘friends’ have no idea about his peanut allergy. Of course.

Steve has the presence of mind to blurt out, “Is that expired?”

“I don’t freaking know!” Tommy snaps, and then snaps his fingers in front of Steve’s face when his eyes start to droop. “Hey, stay awake until the ambulance gets here.”

“Am’lance?”

“Yeah, the ambulance,” He says, turning to Steve’s friends. “You did call an ambulance.”

And Eddie and Robin are like, “Yes” as they slowly back up to go do that.