#IT SHOULD BE UPSIDE DOWN!

[ittybittyluci]

I Can’t Be The Only One

(I probably am)

Okay, so… I have this very niche issue that isn’t rlly an issue at all but it’s rlly fucking w/ my brain and I need to like… get it out there because, seriously, I need to know if I’m not alone.

Every time I see THIS SHOT:

Like… I always just inwardly thought that the hand he used to toss away the light was facing downwards? Like, palm down. But I recently like… actually LOOKED at these frames and… it’s… it’s not. His palm is facing upwards. And like… I have no clue why but it is absolutely MESSING me up. Like actually I’m tweaking over this. And, I don’t understaaand! Like, I just feel like his palm is supposed to be down. Every time I watch it, my brain thinks it’s facing down. That’s how it logics in my head BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENS AND ITS DRIVING ME INSANE SOMEONE FUCKING HELP ME—

Like I said, it’s really not a big deal, but like… heelllp. Someone PLEASE tell me I’m not insane. Tell me I’m not the only one who thought/continues to think it’s facing down.

[fifthnailinstevesbat]

after the events of season 4, steve just wanting SO BADLY to be friends with eddie. just LOVING the idea of them getting closer and having eddie as a friend because hell yeah! a close male friendship with someone that is actually my age, and who i don’t have a weird history with involving bruised eyes and love triangles? count me IN! and eddie is FUN, he is actually hilarious! the way they share the same glances of understanding when dustin is being an absolute shit head, rambling on and on about some obscure topic, expecting everyone to always be on the exact same page as him. of course. and, although steve suspects that eddie actually probably is keeping up with everything dustin says, much better than he ever could, he knows that above it all eddie can appreciate the antics for what they are, and roll his eyes with steve at dustin, i concur, you dustin henderson, are a total butthead.

steve just about junps RIGHT IN to being friends with eddie. hey man, what’cha up to tonight? wanna watch a movie? get drunk, smoke a bit? hey eddie, how have you been, man? he starts calling eddie up on the phone regularly just to check in, shoot the shit, he loves it! he loves having this new friendship with eddie munson and he loves how much the other boy has surprised him with how much he actually enjoys being around him. he’s not a freak, really, well ok maybe he is a little bit, but only in the best ways. he’s kind, thoughtful, and is always looking out for the people he cares about, which is something steve can really respect in a dude. but he’s also so funny? steve never could’ve anticipated just how much eddie has managed to make him genuinely LAUGH over their short amount of time spent together. and he’s really, out there? with the way he presents himself, the way he takes up space with these big THEATRICAL movements, leaving no room for regret or shame or god forbid embarrassment. steve isn’t even sure munson is capable of feeling it at all.

eddie munson is a good dude, and steve could use a bit more of that kind of person around him. he loves all of his friends, the weird little bonded family he’s found himself apart of, and they are all good people, but it never hurts to have afew more added in here and there. it never hurts to know there are more good people out there to find.

so steve is all over eddie, it seems.

at least, from where eddie is standing. nobody else seems as phased as eddie does at this sudden change in steve’s demeanour, in his interest in what eddie munson spends his time doing these days. it seems like, to everyone else, to steve, it’s just a natural progression in their relationship, after being sort of role model figures to the same group of kids, both being the two single dudes, who fought the same monsters together last spring, it seems nobody questions too much that they’d start casually hanging around eachother more. especially since eddie has found himself to fit into his own special spot as one of the group now after it all, after he unwillingly became tangled in this whole upsidedown-superpowers-supernatural-monsters and demons debacle, and tangled quite dramatically at that, the rest of the group that’s been with this since the beginning seemed to find no trouble in taking him in and seeing him as “one of them” now.

so, steve asking eddie to smoke, to watch movies, to go for a drive with no real end destination, it’s not really something that earns them too many double takes. dustin makes a comment or two in the beginning, because steve since when did you like hanging out with eddie? you guys are like so opposite, you don’t like any of the same stuff he does? and steve barely gives a shrug and a dismissive yeah yeah whatever man in response, with a signature eye roll, and dustin had said it seemingly also not too seriously, poking fun at steve wherever he can, not really meaning anything by it, as he fidgets around and rambles in the backseat of steve’s car, eddie riding up front. after that, though, he’s dropped it. it’s never brought up again. part of eddie thinks, too, that dustin would actually be enjoying that his two older friends are becoming friends themselves.

robin seems to be the only other person to look a bit harder at their situation, lingering stares at their interactions, all squinted eyes and eyebrows raised, though from her all this seems to be almost always and only ever directed at steve. eddie’s not sure what to make of that. isn’t he the weird one? i mean, he’s the one that stands out, right? he’s the odd denominator that makes their friendship strange. why would steve harrington want to hang out with Him? HIM? but robin doesn’t spend her time studying eddie to try and search for what about him could possibly have piqued the interest of cherished steven harrington, no, shes always looking at steve. like she’s seeing him differently, almost. eddie doesn’t even think that steve notices it, either, because he doesn’t seem to be questioning or doubting anything odd or strange or out of the ordinary with their newfound time spent together. and maybe, maybe robin is seeing him differently. eddie knows he definitely has been. seeing him more, intensely. deeply. human. seeing the person that steve is, as just steve, not this idealised version of a boy that eddies starting to question ever really even existed at all, or if everyone around him just needed to believe that he did, and who was steve if not happy to comply to the wants of the people around him for who he should be?

eddie likes having steve as his friend, too. don’t get it twisted. he loves how unexpectedly expressive steve is about everything, even really small things. steve LOVES to raise his voice, rest a hand on his popped hip, scolding the kids for something stupid with no real heat or malice behind it. and steve is, like, kinda bitchy too. eddie knew he had the capacity to be a real asshole when he wanted to be, that’s all he knew steve for back in the day, when he was back in high school, hanging around tommy h and the basketball boys, the jocks. eddie would spend his days hearing only whispers and gossip in the hallways of the parties at king steve’s house and the fights king steve had started and won on the court or out in the fields, only ever getting as close as a shove into a locker with the guy at the time, but eddie knew how it could go. he knew all about what steve had done to jonathan, what he’d said to him, the words he’d used. eddie knew it all. he’d seen enough, and been through enough himself, to know how these guys acted in response to guys like him, like jonathan, people who were lower on the social food chain. so, eddie knew about steve’s “mean streak”, if you will, but this kind of snarky bitchiness was something new to him. harrington was almost, sassy, when he wanted to be. it was less so cruel and more just, just sass. if he’s being completely honest it kind of blew eddie away, at first. he thought steve was one of those dull headed jocks who thought with their fists more than their actual brains, but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. steve’s insults were well thought out, they were FUNNY, he was smart with his words. and silly. oh my god steve harrington could be so fucking silly, real honest to god goofball when the moment called for it, when he felt comfortable enough. eddie had caught on multiple occasions steve mimicking lightsabers to play fight with dustin, or the stupid fucking shit he would do or say just to make robin laugh, singing along to a song playing on the radio with a funny voice.

it was all a little, intoxicating, to watch. eddie didn’t know what gave him the right to be in on this now, to get to see this side of steve and better yet to be at the other end of some of his best qualities. it was fun, all the time they spent together, but there was always something else tugging inside eddie everytime they spent close time together, too. something, he knew steve wasn’t aware of. something he knew steve wasn’t equipped to deal with. something he knew, was him. was him, making things something more than they should be, because, nobody seemed to be questioning that they could become friends, so why ruin that? why disrupt it?

- robin and steve

“Steve.”

“-but then like, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to watch it I just thought, hey, y’know, let’s try something different for a change, but then he- oh my god he honest to god TACKLED ME Robin — I mean, it was so fucking funny and it happened so quick — and all over a fucking Tom Cruise movie-“

“STEVE.” Robin lightly slammed a hand onto the counter. She had been standing behind it for no short of 20 minutes, watching Steve as he paced around, supposed to be stacking tapes onto shelves, but ended up spending the whole time going on and on, and ON, about how movie night went with Eddie last night. She thought she was bad…

Steve jumped, almost running into a shelf and knocking down his hard work, and seemed to snap out of whatever trance he had found himself in after starting to tell Robin a story about something funny Eddie had done last night.

“Shit, sorry. Sorry, what were you saying? Were you- were you saying something?”

To this, Robin just rolls her eyes and let’s out a laugh, “You, sir, are goddamn hopeless.”

“Sorry. How long was I talking for?” Steve wandered his way over to lean his arms onto the counter from the opposite side.

“Oh, I dunno Steve, just about half an HOUR?”

“That is an over exaggeration Robin, it’s only been like-“

“Honestly, man, i’m concerned for you. You are like next level OBSESSED with Eddie. Eddie Munson. You do realise this right??? You are obsessed with him, Steve.”

To this Steve sputters, lazily waving his hands back and forth.

“No, Robin, what the hell are you talking about? I am not OBSESSED. No need to be jealous, alright, Stevie-Boy here can have more than one friend. Your spot in my heart isn’t any less special now that it’s beginning to be shared by another.” He bats his eyelashes up at her, holding both hands over his chest as if to cradle his heart.

“Oh my GOD! You even SOUND LIKE HIM!”, she playfully slaps his shoulder. “Steve. You are obsessed.”

“I am not obsessed! He’s just a really great guy, alright-“

“Blah blah, yep whatever you say, lover boy.” Robin quips, plopping down onto the chair chair infront of their staff computer, turning herself to face it.

“Wha- what? Lover boy? What the hell Robin, that is not- that doesn’t even make any sense!”

She is just smiling at him now, enjoying seeing him spiral like this. Steve let’s out a sigh as he puts his hands on his hips, and shakes his head, looking at her right back.

He opens and closes his mouth afew times, like he’s really thinking about what he wants to say next. Or like he has no idea what to say next, and his brain is not moving fast enough to formulate the next sentence his mouth knows he wants to say. He wasn’t obsessed. That’s not- that’s like- no. No he was not, Robin was just playing around with him, she knew how to get on his nerves. Get him all wound up over little things just to see him react like this.

After a minute or two, Robin realises Steve was not going to reply anytime soon, so she turns fully back toward him. Saving him from his spiral.

“So, what are you’re plans for tonight Steve-O?”

He lets out a chuckle and walks around the counter till he’s behind it with Robin, leaning his back against it so he can stand across from her and face her.

“Well, not really sure. Parents aren’t home, no early shift tomorrow, might drink afew beers, listen to some music, —“

“See what Eddie’s doin?” Robin finishes for him, quirking her eyebrows up and down as she does it.

“Oh shut up!” Steve just laughs and softly throws a tape from the counter at her chest. “As a matter of fact, yeah I will see what he’s up to. Because we are friends now, Robin. Is that a problem? Actually I was also gonna ask you what you were up to after work, too, but you know what after this I’m having second thoughts, I mean, the way you’ve been treating me lately-“

“Oh my god, you are the worst. Yes, I’m free, of course I’ll hang out with you dingus. You and your tweedle dee.”

Steve laughs at this, then tilts his head.

“Wait, does that make me dumb? Tweedle dumb?! That’s how you see me?”

“Yeah it is actually, got a problem?”

“Oh wow, she’s feisty today. Can’t believe you think I’m dumb, Rob’s. When you come knockin’ tonight, do not expect a warm greeting at my front door.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll take my chances.”

- later. steve’s house. to be continued?

[starrysharks]

hotel manager

[eclec-tech]

I have a problem. 🎨

I've shown my husband some of the art on Tumblr and mentioned repeatedly how cool it is that the people here can make such breathtaking digital art and that I wish I knew how to draw like they do.

Today's my birthday. Wanna guess what he gave me?

Yep. I now own a drawing tablet!

The problem is that I don't know the first thing about drawing or digital art. He said it's just for fun so I can try to learn some basics and that there's no pressure. Oh, but there's pressure! He's such a sweetheart to buy this nifty gift for me, and now I feel like I need to learn how to draw something asap to show him how much I appreciate it.

Where do I even start?

[steddieme]

i started writing an entire steve is seven fix-it au ficlet just because of this one scene that was stuck in my mind. but it's turning out way too long, so here's the scene instead

and god when he first meets eleven again. they all gather together at steve's to strategize and eleven steps into the house with hopper and the kids in tow. and steve just. starts crying as soon as he sees her.

"ellie," he sobs out. everyone, but robin, looks confused. eleven frowns but as steve takes his watch off and shows her his tattoo, her eyes widen in recognition. the kids move to interrupt, but eleven runs towards steve.

"seven!" she yells as she jumps into his arms. he holds her tight and sinks to his knees as his body is wrecked with sobs. el begins to cry into his shirt.

"i'm so sorry, ellie, i didn't want to leave you there, i'm so sorry," he gasps out.

"i know, it's okay, seven," she whispers.

the room is silent with varying levels of shock and heartbreak on everyone's faces. steve pulls away to put his forehead against el's.

"it's steve now, actually. well steven, but everyone calls me steve."

"steven... did you just add a t to seven?" el asks, scrunching her nose.

steve laughs and says, "my mom, or well the family that found me, gave me that name. it's a real name, i swear."

"what the hell is going on?" mike interrupts them.

steve sighs. it's time to explain everything.

[konmics-n-stuff]

Supergirl (1996) #37

[emioliravioli]

happy day of birth here’s some blazamy for the soul

SJKHDAJKSHF AAAAAAA

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!! THE GIRLS!!!!

[coolnonsenseworld]

A little promo with my little obsession on the side...........

Reminder all items are shipped from Poland - for details on shipping times check out FAQ or send me a private message!

 mmezzy.bigcartel.com

[allieslobster]

I don’t think Will’s favorite song is “Should I stay or should I go?” anymore. I mean, it was the song that helped him survive the upside down but at the same time I’m sure he can’t listen to that song anymore without reliving the trauma of it all.

I have a theory that he will be under the grasp of Vecna and they need to play his favorite song, assuming it’s that song, they play it for him but it doesn’t work. Also, whose favorite song doesn’t change throughout the years?

[beansmakesthings]

One day I'm gonna make an RTC bootleg but it's just me playing everyone and it's terribly edited together so the conversations can happen, with bad choreography cause I can't dance, only serviceable songs cause I'm a soprano and the boys songs have notes that are too low and I'm not an opera singer so I'm only kind of okay at The Ballad of Jane Doe, and there'll be costumes but no set cause I live in an apartment and have no where to film, and I'll piece together my favourite bits of scripts and edit parts that are kind of iffy (get ready for the best Ricky origins), and it'll be equal parts awful and brilliant

[gbirrd]

7/9 - Duke Thomas tarot card designs for Complete Candor by @vexfulfolly as part of the @batfam-big-bang

Read the fic here!

Other cards:

1-Babs 2-Cass 3-Bruce 4-Tim 5-Damian 6-Jason 7-Duke 8-Steph 9-Dick

Image IDs

Image 1:

A design of "The Moon" tarot card. It has the texture of recycled paper and reads "THE MOON". A symbol of a person turning to fog is visible behind the numeral "XVIII".

Duke Thomas faces forwards filling the frame in his Robin uniform. His left eye is open wide and is white and pupil-less. A blue starburst surrounds it and glows a pale blue. A large crescent moon glows brightly from behind him.

Image 2:

A design of "The Sun" tarot card. It has the texture of recycled paper and reads "THE SUN" upside down. A symbol of a black hole is visible behind the numeral "XIX".

Duke Thomas faces forwards, filling the frame in his Signal uniform. His right eye is wide open and is white and pupil-less. A large yellow starburst, white at the center, surrounds it, with sparks coming off in all directions. A sun is directly behind his head with long sunbeams coming from it. The bat symbol on his chest glows white, and black shadows slightly coat the edge of the frame. The entire card is upside-down.

[piratefishmama]

Fake it Till you Make It | Part 9

Eddie felt like he’d been dipped directly into some kind of crazy world where nothing made sense. Or rather where everything he thought was true, was actually the opposite.

He was in an opposite world where despite being the obvious odd one out, he was being made to feel comfortable instead of ostracized.

These rich people? Not assholes.

Steve Harrington? Not a douche.

Okay so… that was only two things, but they were two pretty huge things on the Munson Doctrine that he’d now need to mentally re-write

Especially when the response to “we’ve known each other since high school but—but I guess I never really thought much about him until I saw him with Robin at The Hideout, apparently he was making sure my band was child safe for Dustin and the other kids and I—"

Was, “your band?” Interrupting him may have been rude but Lynda looked damn near sparkly eyed at the idea of him being in a band, as if middle-class people like the parents he’d freaked out thus far only thought they knew how to behave to appear richer, and rich people were actually this whole weird little species of their own. “Steven here has always sort of gravitated toward talented people, first Nancy, I’ve never known a girl quite as driven to be heard by the people around her as that one and I’m a lawyer, I really admired her for that.”

“You did?” Steve asked in surprise, why had they never said anything?

“Of course I did! Karen told me she wanted to be a journalist, gosh let me tell you she’ll make an incredible journalist someday, we’re already proud of her.” They knew she wanted to be a journalist? They were proud of her? “Then there was Robin—"

“Robin is my friend.”

“Oh, I know” he didn’t like how she said that word, that know, she couldn’t know-know, right? How would she—how could she? No… no she couldn’t. Robin had never said anything, never hinted at anything, she was terrified of being known, scared of the consequences. It’d taken being stuck in a broken elevator at work and him freaking out about enclosed spaces to come out to him, and he’d had to, in a moment of panic so sure he was going to die in there, come clean about his crush on her for her to do it! “That doesn’t change the fact that you had a crush on her first, don’t think we don’t know about that, we do. Your children are loud.” Dustin. It had to be Dustin. Not the queer thing, the crush thing. He’d never even told the little snot about that, he’d just noticed it, latched onto it, and like a dog with a high prey drive, just refused to let go, shaking it around until it was nothing but tatters. “She’s so talented in linguistics. and languages aren’t easy let me tell you, I don’t know what she intends to do but she’ll go far in it when she gets there.”

Steve was just kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, still semi-convinced that the whole thing was performative and that the second Eddie left, the moment Steve was on his own with them, they’d pull the rug out and it’d have all been for ‘show’ and they weren’t supportive at all.

He was ‘dating’ a musician. Not a rich one. An unknown musician from an unknown band, living in a trailer park, with zero prospects, zero connections, and frankly a terrible reputation around the parents of Hawkins for his little fake date scheme.

Surely that had to be breaking some kind of unwritten rule for rich kids. Right? Surely his parents would have expected more from him, right?

Surely this wasn’t actually okay… was it? Was it really okay? Could it be okay? If… if he actually wanted that? Would it continue to be okay, or were they just saving face until it was safe to return to being the disappointed set of parents he’d come to know as an adolescent?

“I didn’t know you paid that much attention…” Eddie squeezed his hand, he didn’t have to look at him to know he’d fixed those bring brown eyes on him all warm and supportive. There for him, if he needed him to step in.

If he needed him to make it all about him again, to shine the spotlight on himself in either a positive or negative light, Eddie would.

He squeezed back, he’d be okay.

“Oh sweetheart… we may not be the best at showing it, but we’re not blind. You were just a little harder to speak to when you were younger, all those parties, and the drinking, the drugs—”

“It was just—”

“Marijuana is a drug, son.” John finally spoke up and that was the end of that argument, although Eddie was visibly trying to hide a grin as the towns resident ex-drug dealer who’d maybe supplied that marijuana once or twice. “Not one a boy that age should have been consuming.” True, he’d kill the kids if he ever caught them smoking weed unsupervised.

Maybe if he was there, he’d let them do it once just to show them what it was like. But once would be the maximum, and they’d be supervised!

He’d been unsupervised surrounded by strangers with alcohol and bad decisions to make. He was lucky he hadn’t wound up knocking some poor girl up or something equally life destroying.

“Yes, like your father says it was difficult, your father and I… we had to be the bad guys more often than we’d have liked and then things at the office got busy and well… maybe all that put a strain on things, but we were never not paying attention, I’m sorry we made you think that.” Another gentle squeeze. Eddie was there.

He'd continue to be there.

“So Stevie here has a type is what I’m hearing” Eddie finally spoke up, breaking the tension, a small but warm smile on his face that Steve appreciated more than he could possibly say.

“So I like people to be passionate about what they like! I like intelligent people—”

“Oof, puts me out of luck then” Eddie cut in with a dramatic little pout on his face, hand over his heart.

“Are you kidding me? You’re smart, you’re really smart!”

“Dude I failed high school like, three times. Pretty sure they finally let me graduate out of pity.”

“Yeah but that was bullshit, not everyone is good at school. I barely passed an I’m still half certain I only did cause of the sports shit.” Maybe the money thing too “but you can come up with all kinds of stuff on the fly, I know you ‘DM’ for that dungeons and demons shit an you deal with Dustin, Mike, AND Erica like a pro and honestly that takes some work the kids are nightmare children normally, so it’d probably be actual hell when you have to believably improv their characters taking a liking to some random NPC you’ve conjured up to be a weird little one time interaction and—and I know you can recite Shakespeare! And come up with your own Shakespeare-like poems, that SOUND like Shakespeare, and you write your songs which is cool, and you play guitar which is tricky I know I tried once it’s not easy, and in debate, people couldn’t keep up with you ever and—” and he was rambling.

“—Dragons…” Eddie gently cut him off, eyes wide but his smile… it looked like a cross between awe and affection. It was beautiful, and the dimple was there which made it extra pretty. Fuck why was Eddie Munson so goddamn pretty all of a sudden?

Was it even sudden? “Huh?”

“Dragons… you know NPC, but you don’t know it’s Dungeons and Dragons…” he sounded so fond, so soft spoken it was strange… but a good kind of strange that made Steve’s cheeks warm “you—you know all that about me?”

“W-well… yeah I mean—we’re dating, of course I know about the Dungeons and Dragons stuff I—” he could explain it away for his parents but Eddie, who was in on their fake dating thing, emphasis on the fake couldn’t be so easily fooled.

“No, not the D&D stuff… the Shakespeare thing, poetry, debate class, you saw that?”

It was his turn to be bashful, to be shy, to squeeze that hand, to be honest about something he’d never thought too hard about but god he had to now, didn’t he? “…You were hard to miss, Eddie.” He’d grown up, he could appreciate what he’d scoffed and rolled his eyes at back when he was a dumb teenager, he could admit that he’d seen Eddie, that deep down, despite the scoffing, the eye rolling, that deep down he liked that.

Deep down he’d always liked Eddie. He just wished he’d have been less of a douchebag, maybe they’d have known each other sooner.

“Ehem” Lynda gently cleared her throat, not cruelly, her smile definitely a little mischievous, a little ‘i'm going to be INSUFFERABLE about this’ but not trying to break up the moment, she just had to ask “Eddie… I’m not sure if you still live at home, but… if you do, are your parents… okay with you being away for a week with total strangers? Do… do they know about—”

“Ah! Uhm, yeah! Well, yes and no. My parents aren’t really… around, I live with my Uncle Wayne, he took me in when I was a kid.” He wasn’t going into that story, and nobody could make him for the sake of a fake date scheme “He knows about me… uh… about us… he’s okay with it, but he did ask that he meet you both before we go, if I’m allowed to come with you?”

“We’d be thrilled to have you, Eddie, he can meet us any time he likes.”

Main Goal. Achieved.

Part 11

[localguy2]

Hi when was someone going to tell me that the Adventures in The Pale Heart have SECRET MEMORIES like Zavala's and Crow's sections but with Mithax and Eido (And another with Caiatl and Calus)????

This is some of the dialogue from it but God hearing it in game was something else...

I highly recommend watching a video of it (if you can find it) or doing yourself, because this is only a small cut of it

If you wanna find this, load up The Hollow Part 1 Adventure, and instead of going through the portal, ignore it and head to the Cyst behind The Waterfall, there should be one of those pyramid key things you can interact with and it'll play this memory.

[foreskinniest]

this is so buckwild like genuinely. this is a US senator just openly saying this with his whole chest. when i tell you the civility of discourse is only truly moderated by the threat of getting your teeth kicked in... But they forget that when they only campaign from twitter

[calicheer-cove]

Lonnie Byers, Neil Hargrove, and Laura Cunningham: *still canonically alive*

Stranger Things rp blogs, shippers, artists, and fanfic/headcanon writers:

[angelynmoon]

More eldritch monster Steve, because I have no self control

Part 3

--

They ask him what he is, well, Erica asks, loudly and quite rudely, but she is his favorite, after El.

El, who looks at him in confusion, with a little blood leaking from her nose, she, Jonathan, Will, Mike, and a man named Argyle arrived sometime early in the morning.

"Why can't I tell?" El asked, head tilting as she frowned.

Steve looked at her, "I'm a very good mimic."

"But what are you?" Will asked, "Even I don't feel the connection."

"You wouldn't." Steve tells him, "You can feel the connection Henry had to the Down Below, everything you and El feel can trace back to him and Dr. Brenner. I have a connection to the Down Below, something deeper than either of them have, because I was born there or because of how long I lived there before leaving, who knows." Steve explained, "As for what I am, I can't tell you that. I never needed a word for what I am before."

"Are there others?" Jonathan asked, which was a good question considering what Steve could do.

Steve looked away, towards the pool, "No. I am the only one like me."

Which had always been true, Steve was unique, but there had been others of his kind once.

Now, however, he was the only one left, but the children didn't need to know that, they didn't need to know that the Down Below was like it was because it was a grave yard of his kind, the vines that ran through it had once been the veins of Steve's race, that the residule life that had once ran through them allowed Henry to control them, though Steve doubted that Henry was the one really in control.

His race was dangerous, he'd always know that, ever since the moment of his first memory, but Steve was dangerous too, he was afterall the one that had killed the rest of his kin.

They'd deserved it, parasitic and destructive, they fed on others of their race if they were strong enough and ate the other creatures in the Down Below if they weren't.

Steve had been the smallest, the one that wasn't a threat, that prefered to chase Demobats and hunt Demogorgans, he had been the one least likely to be a threat.

But all things that live have a breaking point.

Steve's had been his spawn. His kind didn't need partners to spawn, just enough energy and want, and Steve had wanted so much that all he needed was a few good hunts and he had his spawn.

But his kind, like most predators, went after the weak and the young, and Steve's spawn had only him to protect them, while partners were unneeded they usually still paired to spawn, if only to make protection detail easier.

His spawn had been killed and raveged before they even really existed, and Steve, who'd only wanted a family to raise, though he hadn't had the words to understand that, had gone after those who'd taken that from him.

And small, unassuming Steve had quickly become something to fear, laying waste to his own race and leaving them to rot instead of feasting, the worst of the slaughter Steve wrought, the thing that made him more dangerous than all of his race.

Because his anger and destruction didn't come from those he kileed, but from himself, and if that was his own feeling then what would he become if he feasted on the ones he killed, who thrived on the destruction and death that his race was built upon.

No, Steve had always been different, soft, his kind had said, an easy target for an easy meal. And then Steve had proved them wrong, but it hadn't mattered, because by the time Steve's anger had faded into grief and sorrow he'd been alone, the last of his kind, surrounded by the rotting corpses of his kin, the vines left behind too frightened to reach for him, the Demogorgans too wary of the war Steve raged to come out of hiding.

And then a tiny crack had appeared, not much more than a sliver, but enough for Steve to slip through, for him to leave the Down Below and the destruction he'd done, a chance to start over in a world where he could raise his spawn to adulthood, hiding amidst the creatures of the Upper World.

But the children didn't need to know any of that, didn't need to know that their jokes of Steve being their second mom fell a little too close to home on some occasions, because they were his, weren't they, not his blood but they were his spawn just as much as the ones he'd lost because he'd fought for them, got hurt for them, fed them, protected them like a parent should, he'd threatened government officials to keep them from removing Will from Joyce's home, threatened Owens to give Hopper Jane, he'd made sure that the kids got compensated, even Susie, in the form of college funds for each and every time they saved the world from the Down Below, the knowledge he'd picked up from Mr. Harrington finally useful, he'd even gotten Murry something, a few secret conspiracies confirmed, for his assistance.

This was his family, his to protect and Steve wasn't sure what would happen if he failed, truely failed and had to bury any one of his kids, or Robin, or Eddie, who was surprisingly easy to care for, or even Eddie's uncle, who was Steve's merely because that uncle was Eddie's and Eddie was Steve's.

Eddie was Steve's, Steve frowned and looked over to where the kids and Eddie were arguing about what his Dustpans and Dinosaurs name should be. When had Eddie become his, his to protect and keep, and care for.

Steve blinked as he realize it was the moment that Eddie risked his life to protect Dustin.

Spawning was easier in pairs, afterall.

--

Um... hi.

I'm attempting a tag list, sorry if I forgot you, sorry I didn't tag on the second part, but I posted that before people asked to be tagged, well, I think I did.

Sorry, if I tagged you and you didn't want to be tagged.

Also, I know nothing about dustpans and dinosaurs, sorry, dungeons and dragons

@merricatty @lesbiabrobin @apuckishwit @starlight-archer @0o-mushroom-o0 @cats-ate-all-of-my-pasta