#Steve doesn’t want to keep the music because it feels like he’s keeping the pain

[morganbritton132]

Just remember this idea I had for a fic where Steve’s dad worked in marketing and made jiggles for commercials so they had a full music studio in their house.

The local music store had a section where local artists can sell cassettes. It’s mostly poorly recorded country music from The Hideout’s open mic night, but Corroded Coffin is there too. Eddie practically stalks the shelf to see if anyone buys their music. No one ever does (except for Gareth’s mom).

Then one day, Eddie goes into the shop after work to see if any of CC’s stock is gone, and sees a new tape there. No artist name. No song titles. Just a slip of paper stuck into the case with a hand drawn rose on it.

Eddie buys it and even though it’s not his typical type of music, falls absolutely in love with the voice on the tape. He loves the music. The production quality. The way sadness seeps into every corner of side A and B.

He goes back to the record shop and asks who left the tape, but the employee has no idea. They think someone just stuck it there without permission and have no idea who they’re supposed to pay for the sale.

Two more tapes show up over the next month with a different drawn flower on it, each sadder than the last. The artist is clearly going through something. Eddie still has no idea who they are and is now stalking the shelf not just to see if his own music is selling (it’s not).

He’s in full investigation mode and it’s annoying all of his friends. He needs to know who this person is because he’s a little in love with them and also a little worried about them. It’s really sad music.

Meanwhile, Steve is just trying to process the end of his relationship with Nancy in the only way he can think of.

[unclewaynemunson]

It takes a while before Eddie catches up to what’s happening. It’s subtle, really, an untold story in slightly averted gazes and barely-visible scowls. But he starts paying extra attention to it when he catches Steve resolutely facing the other way when they pass a storefront with a couple of mirrors in it. From that moment, it doesn’t take long before Eddie notices the pattern, the way Steve meticulously avoids basically every reflective surface like it’s becoming a second nature for him.

When he finally asks Steve about it, Eddie sees how his face drops, and he kind of wishes he hadn’t brought it up. It pains him to see Steve like that.

‘I just - I don’t really recognize myself, anymore,’ Steve says. ‘I know it’s really fucking superficial, but I used to be this hot dude, you know. The guy everyone wanted to be with. And now I’m just some guy, with glasses and hearing aids and a belly and a retreating hairline, and a gross scar around his neck.’

Eddie can actually feel his heart shrink in his chest. He hates this for Steve. He wants to make clear to his boyfriend exactly how beautiful he still is, not despite, but exactly because of all the things he just mentioned.

'Those things can still go together, you know,’ he says, playfully shoving his shoulder against Steve’s, pressing a quick kiss against the scar on his neck. ‘If you ask me, you’re still the hottest dude in all of Hawkins. You’ll always be.’

And slowly, a smile starts creeping over Steve’s face. ‘You sure about that?’

Eddie nods, not looking away. ‘Hundred percent.’

Since that day, Eddie starts keeping a stack of post-its and a pen in the bathroom. Every night before he goes to bed, he sticks a new note on the bathroom mirror: “I love the color of your eyes.” “I love your soft tummy.” “Your hearing aids make you look like a sexy cyborg.” “Did you know your nose looks biteable AF?” “Your moles are more beautiful than any constellation.” The stream of compliments is endless, but not once does Eddie have to make an effort to come up with something new.

And that’s how the mirror stops being Steve’s enemy. Because ever since the first note, it’s become his new favorite thing to look in the mirror, the very first thing he wants to do when he wakes up in the morning. The messages always manage to surprise him, tirelessly keep pointing out new things about him, always in the most Eddie-ish way possible: funny, sweet, unhinged, caring, horny, genuine... And always so full of love. The one thing he can always count on.

But one morning, a day after he and Eddie got into a heated fight with each other, Steve steps into the bathroom with dread clawing at his stomach. He knows the mirror will be empty. Eddie was so fucking angry at him last night.

Unexpectedly, he does spot a note, a purple post-it with Eddie’s handwriting on it. He feels the overwhelming urge to cover his eyes, because this time, there will be something mean on it, no doubt. Eddie will tear apart what used to be the best part of Steve’s day with one single sentence. He steps closer, swallows, gets ready to face the music.

“I’m still mad at you but godDAMN why do you look so fucking HOT when you’re shouting at me that’s fucking unfair.”

Steve stares at the note for a full five minutes before taking it off the mirror and adding it to his ever-growing post-it collection. He’s completely overwhelmed by the love Eddie showed him even while he was angry. By the certainty behind that simple gesture. The unwavering commitment in Eddie’s actions.

Steve wakes Eddie up with a kiss and a cup of coffee. They talk it out, like they always do, and he buys a ring for Eddie the next day.

[imfinereallyy]

Tattooed Steve

now with a part 2 :)

I need tattooed Steve. Like Steve starts to get tattoos after Vecna. Maybe it’s because his body is covered in scars now, and he no longer has to hold on to the idea of permanently damaging his skin, cause like it already is. Or maybe it’s cause he’s trying to love his body again, and he sees how excited Eddie gets each time he gets to show off his tattoos. And Steve, Steve wants to feel that way too. Or maybe he likes the pain. Maybe it’s all three.

But Steve Harrington, wouldn’t be Steve Harrington if he wasn’t like massively insecure about his interests and his looks. So he keeps it a secret, for months (maybe even years depending on your tastes for slow burns). And it starts to get harder and harder because he can’t avoid tatting his arms (it’s prime real estate as Eddie put it once), and wearing long sleeves all the time isn’t ideal. But he continues the charade because let’s be real, most people in his life make him feel inadequate (big word, Robin would say) about almost everything. Especially the people he cares about.

The only one who never really makes him feel that way is Eddie. Sure he teases him to high heavens, and is absolutely disgusted by his music taste but Eddie never makes him feel stupid about it or make it seem like he doesn’t get an opinion. Which is actually kinda driving Steve nuts because it’s making it harder and harder to not to fall in love with him.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise at all that Eddie is the first to see them, he made Steve comfortable and that was dangerous. But it was hot in Eddie’s apartment (the a/c busted again), and Steve chose to wear a sweatshirt during mid-July with nothing underneath. So when Steve is sweating bullets, and Eddie just lets out an amused snort to just “take the damn thing off already”. Steve doesn’t really think. He just whips it off and leans back on the couch. It’s only after ten seconds of silence, and no eddie rambling that he realizes his mistake, and oh.

He doesn’t think he’s every seen Eddie Munson speechless.

Eddie reaches out to touch Steve without thinking (they had broken touch boundaries a long time ago, and damn it makes Steve want to kiss him so bad) and starts tracing his tattoos.

There is a bewildered look on Eddie’s face mixed with something heated. “When did you start getting these?” And oh, Steve doesn’t think he’s ever heard Eddie’s voice purr like that before. It makes Steve’s insides stir, and he’s pretty sure he would tell Eddie anything right now, do anything Eddie wanted.

“Last year, right after Vecna.” Steve’s breath hitches as Eddie slides his hands down his chest.

“Didn’t know you had it in ya big boy. Which was your first?” His eyes darken with even more heat.

Steve’s at a loss for words he can’t speak. Eddie needs to get his hands off of him if he wants him to actually respond. Instead Steve’s eyes wonder down his body where Eddie is starting to peak at the ones near his hips, and oh no…anyone but that one.

When Eddie hooks his fingers in his jeans and pulls down the right side, he freezes. Because there, right below the bat bite he and Eddie share, is a tattoo of a red guitar pick with a black and gold cursive E in the center (it’s also Steve’s only colored tattoo, despite his love of color he worries that colored ink will clash with his wardrobe).

“That’s not my first.” Steve rushes out when Eddie hasn’t said anything. “I uh, got it a couple of months ago on the anniversary of spring break. Sorry if it’s weird.”

Eddie’s eyes pop up to Steve’s, and gone is the heat. Instead there is something deeper, and much softer. “You’re an idiot.”

Steve freezes, because Eddie of all people, is now telling him something he likes is stupid. But before Steve can pull away in shame, Eddie holds his hips down and puts his face close to Steve’s. “You’re an idiot. Because of course it’s weird. And of course that’s why I absolutely love it. And it’s why I absolutely love you.”

Steve doesn’t think he’s every rushed so quickly so kiss somebody so hard before. And even when they fall off the couch, and he gets his sweat all over eddie, he can’t find it in himself to regret it one bit.

—

this completely got away from me, and I still need someone to write a fic like this asap, or like anything involving tattooed Steve. I also will jump for joy if someone draws something like this. Part two linked here

[buckyalpine]

always you’s angst only ending … feed us a tiny lil drabble of maybe bucky not stopping until he and bruce and maybe even shuri (cause bby’s the smartest) find a way to bring her back?

like he enters the portal, scoops up her body, and kisses her back to life. then throws her over his shoulder, locks her in his bedroom, and makes love to her for like a week straight.

“she’s barely been back for a month- AND SHE’S ALREADY PREGNANT?!”

- ur local angst slut who’s actually hella sensitive and cannot handle this shit, gossip girl 💋

Always you angst alternative ending 

18+

Okay YES, if your a pure angst fiend, you may ignore this but I'm here to mend hearts from the sadness that was this fic.

Warnings: Angst, FLUFFFFFFF, Smuuuttttt, happy ending 

5 years later

Bucky refused to accept you being gone. He tried to heal, going to therapy, grief counselling, medication, writing letters, everything under the fucking sun to help him come to terms with the fact that he’d never see you again. 

It was impossible.

It ate him alive.

He was physically stronger, pouring all his time into the gym to find a way to numb the pain but he was more mentally fucked than ever.

It had been 5 years, nearly 6 and the raw pain he felt was still fresh. Every night, he'd wake up searching for you. He couldn't let go, holding onto the pieces you had left behind. He wrote to you as often as he could, keeping a locked diary of things he wanted to tell you, letters he knew no one would see but what else could he do when he wanted to talk to you so badly but you weren’t there. 

That didn’t stop him from finding a way to pour his heart and soul somewhere. 

_________________________________

Happy Birthday babygirl,  I wish I could wake you up with kisses today, tell you how special the world is with you in it, make you pancakes, feed you in bed because I know you’ll cuddle up in the sheets until noon. Buy you a pretty dress, take you out, maybe even go dancing, even if its just me and you and Steve’s playlist of songs from the 40′s. I’d hold you close to me all night until your feet were sore or until Tony told us to turn the cheesy music off. 

I know he secretly ships us (Peter taught me that word) 

If it were up to Stark, he’d throw you the biggest birthday party ever; that wouldn’t stop me from trying to sneak you away for some more birthday kisses. birthday cuddles. Birthday sex...is a new song Sam introduced me to. 

I wanted to do so much with you today sweet girl. Show you how much I love you on your special day. I should have shown you before it was too late. I regret it every single day. I’d give anything for just another day, just so you’d know. 

It was always you. 

Steve brought you some flowers today, Sam brought some balloons. I hope you see them from wherever you are. It’s not the same without you here angel.

We miss you baby. 

I miss you. 

Till we meet again,  JBB 

_________________________________

Hi Baby, I know it’s not a special occasion, I have no real reason to write today. I missed you though. I wanted to tell you about how I jumped out of a plane today and all I could think of is how much you would have laughed because I didn’t use a parachute. You’re laugh is the sweetest sound in the world and I’d give anything to hear it just one more time.

Sam recorded it all, you would have been the first person he showed the footage to. I’d probably ignore you both and then you’d probably tease me about being grumpy and I’d want a kiss to feel better. And a hug. Maybe some cuddles. Please? 

Also you’d be proud of me today, Red Wing broke and it wasn’t my fault. Promise. I even apologized to Sam after but he doesn’t think I’m being sincere. And I’m not because red wing is a little shit. So is Sam. 

I miss you sweets. I wish you were here. It hurts. Everything hurts. 

I hope we meet again. I’ll never let you go. 

Yours, JBB

_________________________________

My y/n,

I’m sorry. I should have told you. I regret it everyday. I’ll never stop trying to find a way to get you back. 

I love you,

JBB

_________________________________

It’s been almost 6 years. It still hurts.

Till we meet again, JBB

_________________________________

I can’t anymore. I need you back. 

JBB

_________________________________

There were some days where Bucky was able to focus, writing as much as he could, spilling all of his feelings onto the paper, a tiny part of him hoping that one day he’d be able to give you all his letters so you’d know you were all he could think of. 

Then there were the days where sobs tore through his body, his breathing labored, only managing to scribble three words before crumbling into a dark abyss. Bucky wracked his brain every single day; if you were able to go back once, there had to be a way to get you back again. Bruce and Tony had spent countless hours in the lab trying to find a way to reopen the portal but nothing led to you. 

*****

Bucky stared at his burner, pressing call and ending it before it could go through multiple times before finally letting it ring. There was only one other person he could turn to. He knew he wasn’t going to be immediately welcomed back into Wakanda but this wasn’t just about him. Everyone wanted you back. Nothing was the same without you there. If there was a 1% chance to get you back, he had to try. His chest felt tight as the jet landed in a secluded area having arranged a private meeting with Shuri, the one person he trusted with his life. 

"I-I have a favor to ask" Bucky's eyes were already pleading with her, his heart racing as he approached her, ready to fall on his knees. 

"Anything Sergeant Barnes" Shuri smiled, sensing he was there for something urgent, nodding for him to continue. There was zero hesitation as she immediately agreed to come back with him to try and get you back, bringing her own lab equipment with her so she could work with Bruce. After filtering through a number of timelines and timestamps, she’d managed to pinpoint the portal to find you but it wasn’t without its consequences. 

“You understand you may not return” Shuri whispered as Bucky threw on his tactical gear, insisting on getting you all on his own while rest of the team watched in pin drop silence, reluctantly letting him go alone “And y/n...we can get her back but there's a chance she may not...” 

She squeezed his hand before he stepped onto the platform, not wanting to finish the sentence but he already understood. He knew it was possible he’d find you again but it didn’t mean he’d find you alive. 

“Then at least I get to say goodbye” He gave her a strained smile; he had to bring you home one way or another. If this was how he had to go, he would run happily to his death; he’d be at peace knowing he died trying to find you. With the push of a button, he was instantly thrown into a warp, transported to where you had last been with Nat. Everything came to a halt as he found himself at an abandoned hydra base, the cold nipping his skin. Bucky blinked, his vision focusing on the fuzzy figure laying on the ground, his feet moving before he could process anything. 

There was no one else around. 

It was you. 

His doll. 

His y/n.

He sprinted to you, tears clouding his vision as he approached you, dropping to his knees, both fear and hope fighting for dominance. He found you. You were there. But would he ever actually get you back? Were you even breathing? 

“Y/n?” Bucky cradled you to him, scooping you in his arms and chasing the portal that had already began to close. He held your face to his neck, his metal hand protecting your head, holding you securely against his body as you both fleshed back to the present. 

The team gasped as he appeared on the platform again with you safely tucked in his arms. They didn’t dare move, everyone holding their breaths while Bucky laid you down with you still in his arms, his hand softly stroking your cheek. 

“Y/n? Doll?” His heart was beating erratically, your skin was warm, a glimmer of hope burning stronger as he gently shook you, pressing his cool metal hand against your face. “Please” 

“C’mon doll, come back to me baby, I have so much I need to tell you” He pleaded, his warm breath fanning against your face, tears brimming his eyes. Tony and Steve itched to whisk you off to the medbay while Sam silently shook his head, wanting to give Bucky an extra minute, hoping you’d be able to wake up in the super soldiers arms where you belonged. 

“Baby, wake up sweets” Bucky couldn't help himself, pressing his lips softly to your forehead, trailing feather light kisses down your face while cuddling you. “C’mon I l-love you” His voice cracked, his lips finally pressing against yours. They were still soft, warm, you had to wake up, you had to-

Your lips stirred, your eyes cracking open, taking your first breath as your eyes focused on Bucky. 

“Sweetheart?” Bucky's eyes grew wide, unsure if he was dreaming or not, scrambling to hug you closer, cupping your face gently.  

“Bucky?” Your voice was a raspy whisper, leaning into his touch, feeling his tears fall onto your skin as he pulled you into his chest. 

“My doll” He let out a soft sob, cradling your head as you buried your face into his neck, moved to cling onto him, the last thing you remembered was darkness and now you were in his arms again surrounded by his warmth, his scent. Everyone stayed rooted in place, tears falling freely, dying to grab you, hug you, hold you again but they were not about to separate the two of you, not after how badly Bucky had yearned to get you back. 

“Bucky” You wept, your mind still piecing together how you were back but it didn’t matter, not when he was holding you again. 

“Hi baby” He whispered against your hair, wiping your tears with his thumb, cupping your face, kissing you all over before capturing your lips again, relishing in your touch, feeling your fingers card through his short locks. You lost yourselves in each other, the rest of the world no longer existing. 

“Okay white wolf, When do we get to say hi to our girl” Sam snorted, sniffling seeing you tucked in Bucky’s arms, the brunettes lips curved into a smile for the first time since you’d been gone. Bucky loosened his hold around you, helping you to your feet, giving you one more kiss before letting go. 

“Come here” Steve scooped you up immediately after, struggling not to squeeze you tight, “We missed you sweet heart, so much”

“Hasn’t been the same without you” Sam gave you a once over, determining you were well enough for a slightly bone crushing hug before having you grabbed away by Tony. Tony wasn’t able to say much, biting his bottom lip to keep it from trembling, hugging you the longest, reluctant to let you go. You were engulfed in Nat’s arms as she wept, squeezing you like her life depended on it. 

“You saved me” She whispered in your hair, her tears falling onto your skin, “Don’t ever do that again” She hissed sternly, grabbing your face to look at her, “Don’t ever ever do something like that again” 

“Give me my baby back” Bucky grabbed you, tossing you over his shoulder as soon as everyone had gotten their hugs and kisses, not interested in giving anyone a second longer when he needed you so badly. You squealed, giggling as he carried you straight down the hall towards his room without glancing back. As soon as he locked the door, his hands were all over you, holding you tightly to him. 

“Your baby?” You shyly whispered as he rested his forehead against yours, nodding and chasing your lips. 

“M’never letting you go again doll, never” He trailed kisses down your neck while unbuckling the straps of your gear letting it drop to the floor. “I want to love you, I want to hold you, I want to make love to you, I want it all with you” 

Bucky tore your clothes off, hoisting you up to wrap your legs around his waist as he carried you over to the bathroom, turning the hot water on, hot water pouring over both if you. The steam made you woozy, your body turning into jelly under his touch as he massaged your muscles with delicate touches, his lips ghosting over every bruise and scar that had marked your skin. You let out a needy whimper, staying close to him, your butterflies erupting in your tummy every time he touched you. 

“Bucky please”

“I want to love you so badly baby, love you the way you deserve” Bucky willed himself not to take you right there, focused on rinsing off and grabbing a towel, carrying you over to his bed. He tossed to towel off, climbing on top of you, neither of you having the patience for a slow build or teasing. Your belly clenched feeling his hard length rut and rub against your bare cunt, your slick coating his cock. 

“I need you” He rasped while you whined, wrapping your legs around him, bucking your hips up. “You have no idea baby, God I need you” His eyes were pleading with you, his cock starting to leak feeling your arousal. 

“Wanna feel you Bucky” You spread your legs for him, your breath hitching feeling the tip of his cock rub through your folds before pressing into your entrance. 

“Gonna make love to you so good sweet girl” Bucky whispered as he started to push his cock in, his heart beating faster, cock growing harder feeling your heat pull him in deeper. He groaned, letting his body weight fall onto you as he started to thrust, pleasure consuming both of you immediately. 

“JAmessss” Your gasp melted into a moan, your head pressed against his pillow as he filled you, stretching you open, letting you feel every ridge and vein of his cock. “Stretching me to so good Buckyyy” 

“Yeah? You feel so good wrapped around me baby” He rasped, his orgasm already creeping down his spine as he pressed sloppy kisses all over your face, overwhelmed with emotion and the feeling of you under him. Your moans made him twitch, nearly growling when he felt your nails dig into his skin as he kissed your cervix with each roll of his hips. 

“I missed you so much baby, didn’t know what to do with myself, I-I couldn’t breathe without you, couldn’t live-” Bucky could feel tears brimming his eyes, struggling to keep them away, “Fuck I missed you so much, I felt like I was drowning every single day” 

You sniffled over his words, your heart connected with his, squeezing your thighs around his waist, desperate to keep every inch of his body pressed with yours. 

“It-it was always you” He kissed your forehead, as he kept you caged under him, moaning against your skin.

“I love you” you cupped his cheeks, brushing his tears away, his nose lightly bumping against yours. You pulled him down for a sweet kiss, only pulling away for air. All of it was so much all at once, the quietest cries and softest kisses, feeling every inch of each other, making up for lost time. Bucky pulled the covers over you both, wrapping you in a cocoon of warmth, hiding you from the rest of the world, savoring this moment with just the two of you, his sweet girl back in his arms again. 

He let his arms roam across your body, stroking your waist, your thighs, gently cupping your breasts, softly suckling your nipples, his body trembling as he tried to hold his climax off and make this moment last forever. 

“M’gonna marry you, you know that?” His hands came to lace with yours, pinning you against the bed, eyes locked with yours. His pace didn’t falter, thrusting into you, loving the way your pussy fluttered around his cock, rolling his hips so he could push into you deeper. “W-will you? Will you marry me babygirl” 

He knew you had just come back but he wanted nothing more, unable to stop the words from slipping out. You let your own tears fall down your cheeks, pulling him impossibly closer. 

“Yes” You whimpered, sniffling back sobs as he stroked your head, smiling against your lips. 

“Gonna make you my wife baby, marry you and take care of you until my last breath” He started to fuck you faster, panting, the muscles in his body tensing. 

“Tell me more Bucky, please?” You whined, your heart aching for more, everything you’d always wanted with the one person you’d always been in love with. 

“Oh baby, M’gonna get you pregnant sweet girl, have a family with you, everything with you, take care of your swollen belly, make love to you even when you’re full of me, show you how much I adore you princess” You gasped as he braced himself, his grunts growing louder, his body heat radiating off him, unable to stop the pleasure that was growing. 

“Tell me your mine baby” He whined, wrapping his arms around you while you threw your head back, your eyes rolling back at the feel of his pubic bone rubbing your sensitive bundle of nerves with each thrust. 

“I’m yours Bucky” 

“Fuck don’t stop y/n, please, I need it” His voice was needy, desperately clinging onto your body, craving to hear nothing else. “Say it again doll”

“I’m yours Bucky, all yours soldier” You moaned louder, your legs shaking around him “I’m gonna cum” 

“Cum with me baby, same time, please” 

“BuckyBuckyBucky- You cried our, your walls staring to flutter, ready to fall off the edge with hi. 

“M’right here, I got you, togther, c’mon, cum with me princess” Bucky rolled his hips, pounding you into the mattress, biting down onto your neck as he felt your nails scratch down his back while white hot pleasure tore through you, your pussy milking his cock. 

“FUCK JAMES” Your body trembled as he fucked you through your high, burying his face into your neck, his lips brushing by your ear. 

“YES, Yes baby, my good girl, my sweet girl, s’perfect for me, yes, I’m gonna give you my cum, get you pregnant, have a baby with you, take care of you, love you, all of it with you baby, fuck- I LOVE YOU- UGGHHH- 

Bucky collapse on you, filling you with his cum until the bed was damp, his body jolting from sensitivity each time you fluttered around him while kissing his temple. He hardly moved, a steady stream of cum still pouring into you, staying connected to you the entire night, cuddling you next to him. 

“I finally have my baby back, my sweet sweet baby, she’s back” 

It has been nearly a week since you were back but you hadn’t left Bucky’s room once. You only took a few moments to eat and sleep, the rest of the time wrapped up in each other, connected in the most intimate way possible, while whispering sweet nothings, 

It was everything Bucky needed. Emotional. Warm. Soft. Loving. 

He couldn’t help the tears every time he was inside you, he finally had you back, wrapping his arms around you every time you made love, making sure you knew exactly how much he had always adored you. As much as he wanted to take you apart in every way imaginable, he couldn’t help but slip into missionary every single time, wanting to see your pretty face, feel your body, have your legs wrap around him as he came inside you. 

*****

You threw on your coat while Bucky slipped his arm around your waist while you both made your way down, passing through the living room on our way out. 

“Damn future Mrs. Barnes” Sam whistled, along with the rest of the team, everyone gathered for a night for a movie. “Where you off to?” 

“The three of us are going out for dinner” Bucky smiled with a child like grin, snickering to himself while the team looked at you with confusion. 

“Three?” Steve cocked his head, noting the way you shied into Bucky’s chest, giggling while he kissed your head, his hand slipping down to brush over your belly. “THREE?”

Steve’s eyes grew wide as he shot out of his seat, pointing at your tummy. “THREE” He whipped his head to Tony, Nat, Sam and Clint who slowly connected the dots. “THREE” 

“For fucks sake, it hasn’t even been a month Barnes” Tony snorted, while everyone pilled onto you both, a large mess of hugs and tears. 

“You didn’t waste any time, huh” Sam wiggling his eyebrows while Bucky wrapped his arms around you, his hands splayed on your tummy. 

“Never again” He whispered, tilting your chin to kiss you deeply, “Never ever again” 

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[steddiealltheway]

Part Two out of Six of Meddling ;). Part One. AO3 Link.

“That’s good! Now Steve, don’t look like you’re in so much pain.”  

It’s only been about five minutes, and Steve is already tired of the pictures. Robin has put them in so many awkward stock photo poses that he has started to wonder how this could ever be fun like Eddie said.  

What makes things worse is he knows that Eddie feels the same way because he’s so damn tense. Honestly, the whole thing feels fake and unnatural, and for some reason, it upsets Steve although this is exactly what he signed up for.  

Nancy winces at the most recent photo she’s taken and says, “Okay, how about we take a break?”  

“Thank god,” Steve sighs in relief and sits on the couch. Eddie ends up sprawling out next to him until he shoves him a bit.  

“Move a little so I can get comfortable.”  

Steve nudges him back. “It’s an L-shaped couch. Take the other side.”  

“I’m not moving away from that sweater. Come here, my love,” Eddie says dramatically while reaching out to the sweater.  

Steve rolls his eyes again and sprawls out next to Eddie until he’s basically spooning him. “Close enough to it?”  

Eddie pulls him in a little closer. “Maybe now.”  

Steve smiles a bit to himself and closes his eyes. He doesn’t know why the pictures have been so exhausting, but he’s glad it’s led to this moment.  

The camera shutter goes off again. Steve cracks an eye open.  

Nancy smiles at him and walks away, staring at whatever picture she just took.  

Steve feels himself begin to doze off when Robin shakes him awake. “Break time is over.”  

Eddie groans behind him and squeezes Steve - or rather his sweater - one last time before hesitantly getting up.  

“I have an idea,” Nancy announces. “I’m going to take some candid photos of you two. No more poses. Just you two hanging out.”  

“While still acting like a couple, right?” Steve asks.  

For some reason, the comment is funny to Nancy who tries and fails to hide a laugh behind her hand before she confirms, “Yeah, of course.”  

Eddie must miss it though because he just nods and replies, “Okay. So, what do we do?”  

Robin holds up two very ugly Christmas sweaters with a big smile. “It’s Christmas time, and you two are going to dance.”  

Steve shoots Eddie a look. What have they gotten into?  

-:-:-:-:-:-

Robin starts playing Christmas music over their speaker as Steve and Eddie prepare to slow dance.  

It had taken them a while to get here after Eddie insisted on saying a very tearful goodbye to his sweater. Steve had even cut it short by offering to wear it during the fake double date with Veronica as long as they stayed inside.  

Robin had agreed to have the date at their place and keep it simple – just dinner and a movie. Nancy had even thrown in the idea of having a practice run where she would pretend to be Veronica. Honestly, it all kind of eased the tension for Steve, so he agreed quickly.  

Now, he wishes he would’ve stalled as he takes his place in front of Eddie and awkwardly holds his arms out. “How are we supposed to do this?”  

“You think I know?” Eddie asks as his hands begin to move to hover over his shoulders then his waist before repeating the process, just as unsure about where to put them.  

Steve shrugs. He’s had his good share of slow dances with girls at prom and homecoming growing up, but the only experience he’s had dancing with men has been at bars when he’s been fairly intoxicated.  

It’s not that he doesn’t want to slow dance with guys. He’s a romantic. But he’s just... never had the opportunity. And here’s Eddie standing right in front of him giving him that opportunity.  

He doesn’t want to mess it up. But does he put his hands around his shoulders or his waist or??  

Eddie’s arms slowly slide around Steve’s waist as he pulls him close. Steve’s arms automatically come up to wrap around Eddie’s shoulders. It reminds him of the way they hug, but he’s still able to see Eddie’s face.  

It feels right.  

“Silent Night” comes on, and Steve smiles and sways to the very slow beat.  

Eddie smiles back and gently rests his forehead against Steve’s. “I’ve never done this before.”  

“Really?” Steve pulls back to ask.  

Eddie nods and looks down at his feet.  

“I’ve never done this with a guy,” Steve confesses.  

It seems to lessen Eddie’s tension a bit as he melts into his arms. He drops his head to Steve’s shoulder, and Steve closes his eyes and rests his head against Eddie’s, letting himself stay in the moment for a bit.  

When the song ends and transitions into “O Holy Night”, yet another slow Christmas song, Eddie’s head comes up a bit and he whispers, “I’m having a bit of an impulsive thought.”  

Steve turns to whisper back. “Care to share?”  

Eddie giggles – like actually giggles – then says, “I want to squeeze your ass.”  

Steve throws back his head and laughs loudly.  

“My hands are down there already! You can’t blame me!” Eddie protests with a laugh.  

Steve looks back at him and says, “Go ahead.”  

Eddie’s jaw drops open slightly then closes. “You’re not joking?”  

“Let me know what you think,” Steve says with a wink.  

Eddie laughs again then his hands slowly slide down to lightly cup his butt, then he squeezes.  

“Okay! Next activity!” Robin yells.  

Eddie startles as much as Steve which only results in him grabbing his ass again. Steve laughs as Eddie’s hands snap up in surrender. “Oops,” Eddie says looking equal parts guilty and proud.  

“I need to wash my eyes with bleach,” Robin comments as she walks off somewhere. “But before that, I have a very special request.”  

Steve reluctantly looks away from Eddie only to have all his senses fill with horror as Robin slowly lifts up a leafy looking plant out of a box on their coffee table that he hadn’t noticed before. “Mistletoe,” Robin says with a big smile.  

Steve freezes.  

“Come on, guys. You’ve been dating for two years. You have to have some pictures of you two kissing. We already have one of Eddie groping you,” Nancy says as if that helps.  

Steve cringes. How did he forget that there’s a camera capturing his every move? He’s terrified to see how the pictures turn out since he’s going to have love written all over his face.  

Maybe Steve can convince Robin that she’s the only one who needs them. Or he can just select a few to send to Eddie where his face is hidden. He really doesn’t want to ruin their friendship.  

Robin shakes the mistletoe again, and Steve suppresses a groan. This is definitely going to ruin things.  

“It’s just a kiss. People do it all the time. Platonically,” Eddie reasons.  

Steve swipes a hand over his face and looks at Eddie. “Can I talk to you alone please?”  

Eddie nods and follows him to his room. While Steve opens the door for Eddie, he shoots Robin an I know what you’re doing look that he will discuss with her later. Then, he closes the door behind him.  

“Steve, we really don’t have to kiss. We can fake it and make Nancy take it at an angle that makes it look believable. We can also just tell Veronica that we’re not super big on PDA, so we don’t take pictures like that.”  

All of what he’s saying makes perfect sense, and they’re the perfect excuses.  

But instead of taking any of it, Steve says, “I’m fine with kissing you. I just don’t want my first kiss with you to be in front of Nancy, Robin, and a camera. No one deserves that.”  

Eddie’s eyes soften a bit at the admission, and he smiles softly. “Okay.”  

Steve takes Eddie’s hands and slowly approaches him. Then, he pauses and backs away with a thought. “Wait.” He hurriedly strips off the ugly Christmas sweater and ignores Eddie’s, “Uh, are we kissing shirtless or something?” Then, he digs to where he carefully hung his yellow sweater and tugs it off the hanger again before putting it back on.  

“I don’t know what it is about this sweater that makes you so-”  

Steve is cut off by Eddie kissing him.  

His hands cup his jaw and slide into his hair while Steve finally snaps back into reality although he feels like he’s in a dream. His hands come up to grip Eddie’s shoulders as he deepens the kiss, tasting the candy cane Eddie had snagged earlier from Robin’s décor.  

The thought has Steve remembering why he’s even gotten here in the first place, so he begins to slow down the kiss as if to help ground himself. But he’s hopeless when Eddie’s lips move gently against his until they reluctantly pull away before moving to kiss him again. Then, again.  

Steve pulls back so he can rest his forehead against Eddie’s, and he can’t help but think how they’re almost mirroring how they appeared earlier when dancing. He lets himself drown out the rest of the world as he listens to his and Eddie’s heavy breathing start to even out and slowly go back to normal. But Steve’s heart is still pounding in his chest the same as it was when Eddie was kissing him.  

He thinks he may never be the same.  

There’s a loud knock on the door that makes Steve desperately want to say Go away!  

But then Robin is asking, “You two didn’t die in there, did you? I’m not forcing you two to kiss if you don’t want to just to be clear!”  

Steve’s hand flies up to his mouth as he muffles his laugh. Eddie whispers, “Stop it, you’re going to make me laugh, and that’ll give us away.”  

Steve hides his face in the crook of Eddie’s neck, but his shoulders start to shake.  

“We’re about to come in if you don’t answer,” Nancy warns.  

“Don’t worry! I just wanted to give Steve’s sweater another speech because I missed it! Why did you have to put us in these ugly things, Buckley?” Eddie lies quickly.  

“Because I love torturing you. Now hurry up!”  

Steve pulls away reluctantly and grabs the hideous red sweater. He leaves the yellow one out this time though – just in case.  

They both take a few more seconds to not appear so frazzled before they go back to the living room. Robin gives him a questioning look, but Steve looks away. He’s not going to spill the stuff about Eddie right now with both him and Nancy in the room. Plus, he doesn’t want to give Robin the satisfaction of knowing that she finally made him deal with his feelings for him. She can suffer a little longer not knowing.  

Eddie walks right up to the mistletoe and grabs it. “This seems like something I would do more so than you,” Eddie says.  

Steve crosses his arms. “And why’s that?”  

Eddie smiles and walks up to him. “Because you love acting irritated about stuff, especially in front of other people.” Steve can’t begin to defend himself before Eddie turns to Nancy and asks, “Camera’s ready?”  

“Ready,” she confirms.  

Eddie looks at Steve. “You’re sure this is okay?”  

Steve nods. He thinks he’ll take any excuse to kiss Eddie again.  

So, Eddie holds up the mistletoe in his right hand, and Steve wraps his arms around his shoulders. He leans forward and slowly kisses Eddie.  

He barely hears the camera go off.  

When he pulls away, he looks Eddie in the eyes and almost kisses him again. But Eddie puts the mistletoe down and digs into his pocket. “Wait, I want one that’s not so professional or whatever,” he says as he pulls up his phone and swipes to the camera. “One more?” he asks.  

Steve nods and lets Eddie kiss him this time so he doesn’t take him off guard when he takes the picture. When he pulls away, he and Eddie turn to his phone and watch as Eddie presses on the picture gallery.  

Steve’s heart starts pounding so hard, he’s sure Eddie can feel it based on how close they are.  

Eddie forgot to hold up the mistletoe this time, but... they look perfect together.  

“Okay, next up is our outdoor dates. You’ll have to take some of these from your phone instead of Nancy’s nice camera to make it more realistic. But this also means we can’t sit near you where we’re going next.”  

Robin really needs to learn how to read when the moment is over, but it seems like she has a whole day planned with a tight schedule, so he can’t blame her for pushing things.  

“Where are we going?” Eddie asks. He swings one arm around Steve’s waist to keep him close.  

“You’ll see,” Nancy says with a suspicious wink. “But pack your clothes. All casual things.”  

Steve reluctantly steps away from Eddie to find a duffle bag to put their clothes in. Although he doesn’t want to admit it, he’s actually starting to look forward to the rest of the day.  

Part three

Tag list <3:

@little-gae-shit @dreamingtheimpossibe @leethegay @lazyavenuewhispers @olibxr @thegayestpersonever

[sp0o0kylights]

Steve And Robin Are Stuck in A Timeloop AU 

Steve's lost track of which time loop this is.

Had lost track pretty much instantly, because it turns out when people die repeatedly in front of you, it kinda takes precedence in your memory. 

Besides, Robin has a list in her head, memorized via some kind of musical code, alongside all the dates and times they wake up in. 

(Steve doesn't see what difference it makes if they wake up at 7:15 am the day of the Championship or 8:25 am, but Robin's insistent that even the slightest variations could mean something.) 

He’ll have to ask his soulmate when he finds her though, because presently Steve has determined they're having one of their weirder loops.

Typically, when the two of them get kicked back in time, they wake up the day of the Championship game. Occasionally it will be the day right before or the day after, but sometimes? 

Sometimes they’re sent back someplace, some time, that isn’t related to 1986 at all. 

Thus far, the Starcourt loop had been the worst. 

("If it happens a third time I'm killing myself." Steve had told Robin after they’d failed that one. 

Robin didn’t even look at him, the two of them huddled up together in Steve’s bed. "No you're not Dingus, not without shooting me first."

"How come I have to shoot you!? Is it because I'm a man? That's not very feminist of you."

"No its because you've seen me shoot, I would miss!") 

Steve had even woken up in an odd place. Not his bed or the couch, but the driver's seat of the Beamer, seated in the high school parking lot.  

It made him immediately uneasy. 

The chair is reclined all the way back, the mass of cars indicating it was a school day. Steve struggled to recall when he's ever taken a nap in his car as he got out of it, trying to decide how he wanted to go about things. 

Felt his pocket and was surprised to find it full of a packet of smokes. 

The sheer implication of that had him pulling out a cig and lighting it before the knowledge that he'd officially quit buying his own cigarettes in 1985 sank in.

Panicked and chainsmokes three, before deciding his best course of action was his usual one. 

Find Robin. 

Which of course means that he found Eddie instead. 

xxx

He’d started his first lap, walking out if the parking lot and round to the more shaded, empty parts of the building when a voice he knew yelled. 

The kind of yell he’d grown intimately familiar with, the one Eddie used when he was terrified and using anger to hide it. 

Steve turns automatically, following the taunts and loud, pained breathing until he finds a handful of jocks encircling the metalhead. He's down on one knee, snarling like a wildcat caught in a trap while some guy Steve barely recognizes holds him by the hair, laughing. 

Red coats his vision instantly, and any thoughts Steve had about being stuck in time (sort of) vanish from his mind entirely. 

The world shrinks down, to that white knuckled grip on Eddie's hair, the way it’s pulling the older boy’s face up so that Steve can see the straining muscles in his throat. 

The protective creature that lives in his chest and likes to punch it’s way out of problems awakens, and a thrum goes through Steve as he feels its demand for blood. 

"Hey fellas " Steve calls joyfully, striding directly into the crowd. "What’re we doing?" 

Two part before him like fish seeing a shark,and a faraway inner voice identifies them as members of the swim team. 

Which likely meant the other two were football players, and for all the tackling they did they were surprisingly easy to scare, if you knew how to play it right. 

Steve absolutely knew how to play it right. 

"Fuck off Harrington. This isn't your business." The one holding Eddie's hair spits. 

"Well that would be where you're wrong." Steve was still keeping things conversational as he positioned himself, arms nice and loose at his sides. He lets the thing that lives inside him, who made him turn right back around all those years ago and charge back into the Byers house, out a little more. Feels the need to protect, to save, to destroy the things that are his, fuel him.  "Seeing as all of Eddie's business is my business."

Eddie stares up at him, wide eyed at the declaration. 

Feeling entirely out of control of his body, Steve sends him a wink. 

"Since when!?" The other football player asks. 

"Since now." Steve declares cheerfully--and then smiles. 

It isn’t a nice smile. 

Thoroughly unnerved, his swim team members shrink back. He’ll have words for them later if he has time--Steve can't ever recall the swim team members being dicks but who fucking knows. 

His memory wasn't the best before he and Robin got stuck in time. 

"You fucking into drugs now or wha--" Their ringleader, still holding onto Eddie by the hair, doesn't get to finish his sentence.

Mostly because his mouth is too busy catching Steve's fist. 

Fighting, he knows, is something he does best when it's too the death and he's armed with something. 

Bonus points if his opponent is a horrific monster from another dimension. 

He has gotten better though, and here the rapid pace he sets feels almost too easy. 

The first guy goes down on the ground before the rest pick up on it, giving Eddie time to lurch backwards as Steve turns and torpedoes into the next jock. 

This one gets in a good shot--Steve staggers with a blow to his side but it's not enough to wind him. He keeps to his feet and advances, delivering one more punch before the swim team guys are trying to call him off. 

"Come on man, you're gonna kill them!" 

Steve almost laughs-- he hasn't come close to killing either idiot-- but backs away, keeping himself between them and Eddie. 

They wave their hands, getting ahold of their bloodied friends as they slowly ease between them and Steve. Make apologizes and promises that it was a poor joke, Munson just got to them, hot heads you know? 

Steve snarls at them to fuck off, and glares until they're gone. 

"What the hell just happened?" Eddie asks him, and Steve turns to find him on his feet, leaning heavily against the brick wall of the school. 

As far as he can get away from Steve. 

"Our football quarterback can't hit for shit." Steve informs him, having finally placed an least one of the guys. "It's probably why we always lose." 

Eddie gives him such a freaked out face it almost makes him laugh a second time.

The effect isn't helped by the fact that Eddie's normally long mane is hovering just over his shoulders, the curls somehow poofier than normal. Clearly he’s still trying to grow it out, but it just makes him look like one of those frazzled dogs. 

Adorable. 

On instinct Steve reaches out to playfully pull a few strands, then freezes when Eddie flinches from him. 

"Sorry." He keeps his hands up, as he takes in Munson's face. "Shit dude, he got your nose good." 

There's blood smeared under it, and given the look of the skin surrounding it? 

Eddie's gonna have an impressive bruise soon enough. 

Steve gets a glare sent his way. "Why do you care?" Eddie spits, back very much still up, and-- right. 

Right. 

Time travel. 

"I'm really bad at explaining it." Steve warns, running a hand through his hair. He did this part plenty without Robin (meeting Eddie that was--Robs usually tackled Nancy.) But he also typically did in it 1986, and with at least three of the kids, not whenever they currently were. 

"We usually start with facts only you'd know, but I don't actually know when I am right now." He finishes, and realizes immediately that it doesn’t make a lick of sense. 

"When you are?" Eddie asks, because of course he clocks that part immediately. 

"Ye--eah." Steve says, dragging out the word. 

He looks at Eddie desperately, like the metalhead will tell him the exact information he needs. 

Eddie just stares back. 

"Look, it sounds really stupid when you say it out loud." Steve says finally, because fuck, it does!

"Comparable to all the other times you talk out loud?" Eddie snips, voice full of venom. 

"Shut up.” Steve replies automatically, but his tone holds no heat. He’s too used to trading banter with Eddie that is friendly.  “I'm gonna preface this by saying I can prove it."

"Oh wow preface. Such a big word for you! Did Nancy Wheeler teach you that one?"

"Robin actually." Then, "Nancy?"

The look Eddie gives him could melt steel beams. "Yeah man. Nancy Wheeler. Your girlfriend." 

"Oh--oh god." Steve says, because that means they're way back. Possibly to the beginning. 

Or worse, before he and Nancy had broken up.

"I can’t handle that breakup a second time." He says wide eyed, the panic gripping him for a second. “I could-no, no I could get Robin to tell her!” 

Because that sure would work. 

Steve can just imagine it now. Robin, sauntering up to Nancy and going ‘Hey, we really haven’t met yet but you’re gonna dump Steve, if you haven’t already and to cut through all the drama, I’m here to just tell you on his behalf that it’s over. What was that? A coward? Why yes, he is one!’

You know, provided she didn’t just laugh in his face and then cuff him over the head when she realized he was being serious. 

“Dude.” Eddie says, sinking a world’s worth of judgment into the single syllable. 

“Yeah, you’re right, bad call.” Steve says, and whatever Eddie was expecting it clearly wasn’t that. 

“Are you on drugs right now?” Eddie finally asks when Steve reverts back to looking to him as if he’s going to help. A bad habit, and one Steve knows he needs to stop doing. 

Even if Eddie, in the original timeline and every one after they got him on board, eventually becomes someone Steve can rely on like that. 

“You can tell me if you are, man, you know I won’t judge.” The hateful air around him is fading into something more confused, and then into something else entirely. The persona Eddie pulls when he’s hurt and trying to hide it with jokes and rants. “Unless you and your buddies bought from someone that wasn’t me, in which case I get exclusive rights to judge.” 

He’s shifting as he finally stands up off the wall, and Steve doesn’t miss how he hugs one hand to a rib. 

Shit. 

He needs to get Eddie up to speed and he needs to do it fast.

Steve sighs and just starts listing Eddie Munson Facts like an unprepared kid who was called on in class. 

"Okay, so your uncle collects mugs, right? And--fuck I don't know when you get all the tattoos,” Steve makes a vague gesture around his chest, “but you have bats on your arm and you gave them all names." 

Eddie's eyes pop wide again, jaw slacking as Steve volleys off a few more Munson Facts. 

"You have this weird fear about red ribbon necklaces because of a book you read in third grade, your first guitar has this giant ugly--sorry dude, but you cannot write legibly to save your life, 'This machine slays dragons' quote across it and--oh!"

 He was so fucking stupid. The answer was literally staring at him in the face, dangling around Eddie's neck. 

Steve snapped his fingers excitedly. "The guitar pick on your neck is your moms!"

Eddie’s mouth open and closes like a fish, long enough that the smile slowly slides off of Steve’s face.  

"How the fuck do you know all that?" He manages after a long, tortuous moment, looking like he’d been sucker punched. 

Again. 

With the most pained look his face can manage, Steve finally answers. "Time travel."

Eddie blinks.

Then blinks again. 

 "Time travel." He echoes faintly. 

"Yeah. I'm from 1986, where things kinda got really fucked up."

"No kidding?" Eddie says, right before he erupts into giggles. 

"Did they get you in the head?" Steve asks, abruptly concerned, as Eddie collapses back against the wall in a growing fit of laughter.  

Concussed Eddie was not a road he wanted to go down but Steve knew better than anyone what happens if you ignore such things. 

"I think my weed just hit." Eddie explains as he wipes away a tear, and Steve wants to shake him, but knows it won't get him anywhere. 

"That's great. That's just great."  He grumbles, hands going onto his hips. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"To get you a bandage. And then find Robin.” 

Robin, Steve decided, could handle a high, concussed Eddie.

[alaskan-wallflower]

Theater kid curis bros

YES.

Darry definitely loves musicals……I feel like their mom loved music and would play piano with him as a kid…his mom used to tell him of her dreams to go to a real live theater to perform and so the Curtises used to put on little plays for their mama and papa and that’s what introduced them to theater! I headcanon Darry likes to volunteer to help out with the sets at Pony’s school, like if he has the time he’ll paint the sets and even build them-he likes working with the other people and he does such a good job that the Soc parents sometimes tip him. So it’s nice. Plus the painting relaxes him and he’ll sing along to the songs (DARRY CAN SING THIS IS NONNEGOTIABLE-i see you brent comer…) some of the girls definitely crush on him, he’s very popular in the school’s theater department. He also likes to sing along to his records when he’s home alone…soda walked in on him once and it was one of soda’s favorite records and y’know that scene in zootopia where claw haydee walks in on chief bogo playing the gazelle app? it’s like that. it’s literally just like that lol

RIP Sodapop you would’ve loved modern musicals…this boy would fuck up legally blonde and mamma mia and grease…Sodapop was definitely into the arts…he was never really into sports because it was kinda rough on him (I headcanon he used to play soccer as a kid but it just wasn’t for him) but he found a safe haven in drama. Ngl he was always type cast as the comedic relief or the love interest but he didn’t care. i feel like the dancing and singing and acting helped him work out his extra energy. I feel like he used to keep up with soccer but it kinda confined him with how many rules there were and such and he just never felt free. he felt more free in drama club because h expuso just do what he wanted with his character and really make it his own. He’s really good at dance. He probably got shit from Steve about it for a bit but Steve doesn’t care. If Soda is happy he’s happy. Darry definitely went to all the shows no matter how busy he was and he’d always cheer the loudest. The Curtises were obnoxious at those plays but they’re just supporting Soda. I feel like Soda also just randomly starts singing. Doing the dishes, working, whatever. He’s just always doing something.

Not exactly theater kid but I love the Ponyboy in choir headcanon. I feel like while Darry was taught piano Pony had no interest…so his mom taught him guitar so Pony knows how to play guitar. and another thing is when Pony’s parents died he was what, in eighth grade? And I feel like after that things got really hard but he picked up guitar again and started singing to try and relieve the pain. (a lot of Pony’s coping mechanisms revolve around drawing or reading or singing or writing poetry and when he got back into guitar he started writing songs…even if they were little and unserious it helped him cope) Darry walked in on Pony singing something once…probably a song he wrote (Ponyboy definitely writes poetry and songs in his free time) and encouraged him to join choir because he thought it’d be helpful and it honestly was. He would rather die than tell the gang (only Johnny and his brothers know) but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it. He accompanies their music sometimes too. I can see Pony doing painting sets or something with Darry! I don’t know if he’d do acting just because he’s rather do something to destrezas him and being in cast can be stressful…It’s a bonding activity when Darry has time to show up.

That’s what I have lol-I love artsy boys 💜

[ladykailitha]

Royal Pain Part 15

Hello!! We slowly but surely cranking up the tension between the two boys and it's going to be delicious.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14

***

Eddie had every intention of telling Steve about Seth Thursday, but he was thwarted by Robin.

Steve was running a little behind because a tattoo was taking a little longer than he thought it would, so Eddie was in the waiting area for his turn.

“So, don’t blame Miranda for this,” Robin began with a wince. “But she told me about Seth.”

Eddie took a deep breath. “I’m a little disappointed she told you, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Mandy likes to talk.”

Robin hurried around the desk and knelt in front of him. “I only bring it up, because I have a different opinion about telling Steve.”

Eddie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not against it as a whole,” she said gently. “Bad exes are bad business and that kind of shit can ruin things. I’m just saying not today.”

“Why...?”

Robin sighed, and sat next to him. “Look, you’re a great guy and I totally ship you and Steve. But don’t you think it’s a little early for the seven evil exes talk?”

Eddie snorted. “Thankfully only the one.”

She nodded. “I don’t think you should hide it from him. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying have more fun with each other before you going trauma dumping.”

“But I–”

“Want to move slow and don’t know how to say that without trauma dumping?” she finished for him.

He waved his hand in front of him. “Yeah, that.”

She nodded, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Just say you had a rough go at dating the last couple of years and just want to go slow. He’ll understand. Okay?” Eddie nodded. Robin paused for a moment. “And also maybe not do it while you’re in the middle of a literal business transaction.”

Eddie mouthed the word, ‘oh.’ “Point taken. I keep making mistakes like that.”

“That’s because your job isn’t usual,” she explained. “Getting up on stage and playing music for hoards of people every weekend for cash is the dream for a lot of people, but other than the bar owner you really don’t have a boss and your co-workers are your best friends.”

Eddie laughed. He hadn’t heard what he did described that way before, but it was true. His job wasn’t normal, but even though the product wasn’t the usual thing, what Steve and Robin did was essentially retail. They provided a service to a consumer at a price.

He smiled. “Point well and truly made. Thank you. I probably would have fucked it up between us again if I told him about Seth while sharp needles were near my person.”

Robin cocked her head. “That too. I keep saying it but seriously I’m Team Steddie, okay? But Steve has never been wooed and doesn’t know what to do when someone is interested, just at a different speed then he’s used to going.”

Eddie played with his rings. “Steve’s never been wooed?”

Robin shook her head. “Even when he was dating men, they always seemed to expect Steve doing all the romancing. That’s why he forgave you so easily. You went out of your way to remember things about him that even he had forgotten himself. That’s a really big deal for him.”

Eddie blushed. “Jeff and Mandy said to go big, so I just did what I would have wanted to get as an apology.”

She hugged him. “I’ll be sure to tell him that if he ever needs to apology to you.”

Eddie leaned his head back. “Let’s pray he never has to, yeah?”

Robin nodded. “And look, you have this shitty past that means you want to take it as slow and steady as you can but don’t want to hurt his feelings and lose your chance with him. Does that sound about right?”

Eddie took a deep breath and let out with a shuddering sigh. “That about sums it up, yeah.”

She let him go and he slumped against the back of the chair.

“So this is what we’ll do,” Robin said with a small smile. “You’ll hold off telling Steve until Saturday after the gig. Probably on the way to the club and then have a good time with each other knowing you two like each other. How does that sound?”

“Yeah, okay,” Eddie said, his voice shaking a bit.

She patted his hand. “Let me go see how much longer he’s going to be, because we might have to reschedule.”

He nodded.

She got up and went back to Steve’s room. She came out a minute later.

“He’s pissed it’s taking so long to get the colors right,” she informed him. “So because he has to reschedule, he’s willing to do it Sunday before he goes over to Dustin and Suzie’s.”

Eddie’s eyes went wide. “He doesn’t have to do that.”

“I think I pretty much established how much he wants to be with you dude,” Robin told him. “So come to the shop around noon and he’ll work on your tattoo.”

“Yeah, okay,” he breathed. “I’ll you guys there at the bar on Saturday?”

“Yup,” she said cheerfully. “Me and Chrissy will be dressed appropriately. Steve will continue being Steve.”

Eddie shoved his hair in front of his face. “Which is one of the reasons I like him.”

She grinned, wrinkling her nose. “Sap. Now get out of here before you get it all over the floor.”

Eddie laughed. “Yeah, yeah. See you Saturday.”

Robin shooed him out of the shop to his laughter.

“I’ve never seen two stupider people in my life,” Erica said, leaning against the wall to the hallway that led to her and the other apprentices’ rooms.

Robin looked over at her with an even bigger grin. “Well, they are men.”

Erica bobbed her head back and forth. “That’s fair.” She walked back into her room and Robin followed her to check on Argyle and Chrissy.

“How goes the practice?” she asked Chrissy from the doorway.

Chrissy looked up and smiled. “I think I’m getting the hang of knowing how deep I’m going.”

Robin smiled back. “That’s great. I’m glad you’re finally getting the hang of it.”

“Steve a really good teacher,” she said. “I’ve learned so much since I started here and it hasn’t even been a whole week.”

Robin chuckled. “He’s like that. That’s why I love him.”

“How long have you guys been friends?” Chrissy asked. “Because I know you guys weren’t friends in high school.”

Robin laughed. “Actually we were. If you count the last half of his senior year and he absolutely does.”

“You guys don’t look like you could have been friends in any life time if I’m honest,” Chrissy admitted.

Robin cocked her head and shrugged. She moved further into the room. “Everyone says that, but they forget I was in marching band and soccer in high school. It’s not as though we’re complete opposites.”

“That’s true I guess,” Chrissy agreed. “You said your first job together burned down?”

Robin grinned. “Oh yeah. I’ll tell you about it later, I really have to get back up front.” She hesitated before turning on heel and scrambling out of the room, nearly hitting her head on the door frame.

Chrissy giggled.

*

Steve was vibrating in his seat at the table in front of the stage. Apparently, this table was reserved for friends of the band. The only reason Mandy didn’t show them to it last time was because she knew how loud it could be and didn’t want to scare them away their first night.

So now he can see every drop of sweat, every lip quiver, every finger placement. He gulped. He really wished that he had the foresight to sit in the back curve of the table and not the front. His brain was running a full commentary of all the things Steve found gross to keep his dick under control.

Steve was pretty sure he failed when he caught Jeff’s smirk. He was going to die. There was nothing for it. He was going to spontaneously combust, right here in the middle of this lovely bar.

And then Eddie winked. Steve let his eyelids flutter closed and tilted his head back in agony. He was grateful that was the song was the last in their set, because he was about to burst.

He stayed polite and waited for them to exit stage left, before he ran to the restroom. He ran into a stall and with two quick pumps he was coming into a bit of toilet paper. He carefully cleaned up and walked back out there a lot calmer, but embarrassed to the hilt.

Thankfully it was only the girls waiting for him and only Robin gave him a sly side eye about his mad dash to the restroom. So he was grateful for that. He just knew he was going to hear about it when he got home.

Finally band came out and Steve was relieved to see that Eddie had changed into something a little less ‘sex on legs’ and a little more ‘not kill Steve’.

Eddie looked good. He always did. But damn, that outfit he wore tonight on stage was a heart attack wrapped in leather and mesh.

“You guys ready for the club?” Gareth asked, bouncing on the balls on his feet.

Steve laughed. “I’m glad you guys had fun last time. But yeah, I’m ready.”

There were nods and agreements across the board.

“So where are we going?” Chrissy asked as they filed out into the parking lot.

“We decided to walk this time,” Jeff said. “It’s not very far and not worth the gas it would take to get there.”

Robin hopped up and down. “It’s this nifty little club that Stevie and I found when we first moved to Indy. It’s not strictly a gay club but it’s very friendly. It’s called Rainbow High and it has the best cocktail called Evita and it has...”

Steve tuned her out as she rattled on to Chrissy about the club with a fond shake of his head.

Eddie sidled up to him and nudged him with his shoulder. “I think your girl has a crush.”

Steve looked back up at the two girls walking in front of him. He huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. I think she does, poor Miranda.”

Eddie threw his head back and laughed. “I think she’ll live not being pursued by a Robin.”

They walked in silence a moment or two.

“God,” Eddie said, tilting his head back and rolling his shoulders, “it feels good to go out and not have to look over my shoulder every minute of every day.”

“Crazy fan or evil ex?” Steve asked lightly, trying to keep the concern out of his voice. In the back of his mind he kept chanting, go slow, go slow, go slow.

Eddie scoffed. “I’ve had both unfortunately, but no this one is an evil ex.”

Steve winced. “That’s rough. Nothing like a bad ex to make you want to run for the hills. It must take a lot of courage to keep taking a step forward every day.”

Eddie blushed. “I sometimes still feel like a coward, breaking it off with him, but everyone else in my life tells me I did the right thing.”

Steve took Eddie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Sometimes it’s hard to see how bad it looks in front of us, until someone else shows you.”

Eddie squeezed his hand back before reluctantly letting go. “You sound like you know from experience.”

Steve nodded. “My parents, unfortunately.” He ran thumb over the warmth Eddie’s hand left behind in his palm. “It wasn’t until Robin pulled me aside and made examine the relationships her and most of my other friends had with their parents and see that how they treated me wasn’t right.”

“That why you two ran away together?” Eddie teased.

Steve laughed. “Something like that. Her parents were really supportive.” He watched as his best friend laughed and made wild hand gestures for a moment. “Sometimes we think they love me more than they love her.”

Eddie leaned in close. “What’s not to love?”

Steve blushed.

***

Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Epilogue

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[klausinamarink]

Prompt: “new beginnings” (discord drabble from STWG) | ao3 link

a day late since I’ve been working on other stuff but also a gift to the amazing @pearynice! hope your birthday was awesome

-

Despite being a Tuesday, the tavern’s gotten busier as the hours inches towards the evening. Eddie feels the headache coming as more patrons demand beers their way. The strong stuff, they always request, even though Eddie’s been serving in this place for nearly five years and he still has no fucking clue what that’s supposed to mean.

There’s some prep shuffling onstage but Eddie doesn’t turn around to check. Very few so-called musicians in this place make him peek over his shoulder. The ones that do turn out to be disappointing.

Turns out that playing Master of Puppets to distract a horde of interdimensional demobats that would later chew out half of your body can set up high standards in music. 

“Hey, Quinn,” Jessie, one of the other servers, calls him, “clean up the tables, would ya?” 

Eddie nods, grabs an empty container, and goes over to collect the abandoned drinks. When he rounds to the third table, Eddir hears the mic being tapped before the mediocre singer of the night speaks.

“Hello, folks, my name’s Joey and I’m happy to share some of my original songs with you.” 

Eddie pauses. His brain is rattling with recognition. But for some reason, he cannot place where or why that voice sounds so familiar.

“Hopefully, someone I’m searching for is here today.”

They clear their throat. Starts playing on the keyboard. It’s slow and melancholic like a lullaby. Then-

“I can’t stand the storms when it flashes red. It just shows how much they hate the sun.”

Eddie slowly turns around, hands gripping the container’s edges so tight that it probably cuts his fingers. 

But none of it matters more than the sight of Steve Harrington onstage.

It doesn’t look like him. But it sure as hell sounds like him. But Eddie can’t be sure of that either because he had heard Steve talk, not sing like an angel. 

“I grab my bat and run to your side. Like an avenging angel, but all I earned was the loss of my wings. And maybe my tears too because I sure can’t cry anymore.”

For once, the tavern has fallen silent. Everyone is captivated by the long-haired stranger exposing his broken heart so casually. All the while, Eddie is stunned.

The longer he listens to Steve’s song, the more difficult it becomes to hold back the tears in his eyes. It brings him back to the day when the government suits told Eddie and the entire Upside Down crew that not only Hawkins will be scrubbed off the Indiana map, but they would be given new identities and homes somewhere in the country. On any other day, Eddie would’ve been avid. But instead, he stared at nothing and nobody as everyone’s cries of protest and outrage faded into static in his brain. 

Eddie had looked up once. His gaze had landed on Steve, who looked like he was either seconds away from snapping the closest suit’s neck or seconds away from bursting into tears. Eddie had wanted to follow the internal plea to walk over to Steve and hug him. Maybe whisper some comfort in his ear that the Party would still find contact. But he hadn’t - he was still too shocked and tired from his healing injuries to even get up.

That was the last time anyone had seen or spoken to each other.

“The storm continues. I keep walking, the bat in my hands. Hoping to-” Steve brings his gaze up, eyes flickering through the crowd. 

And, like a magnet, they land directly on Eddie.

Eddie is half a room away from the stage but he sees the exact second of Steve’s expression changing from painful reminiscence to disbelieved shock. Eddie himself feels his heart stopping mid-beat, unable to move or even try a silly wave back. 

The crowd applauds, mistaking Steve’s silence as the end of his song. It’s by then that Eddie hurries outside. 

-

Eddie’s on his second cigarette when the side doors swing open. He expects the manager Ripley to give him shit again, but it’s only Steve with his keyboard slung over his back. 

Steve stares at him again. When the door closes with a click, he says hoarsely, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Eddie greets back.

They both stare at each other, taking in the sights. Eddie had long cut his hair short and kept his curls trimmed behind the ears. Steve’s hair had grown (as if it wasn’t already long when Eddie last saw him) and appears to be sun-bleached. Even their clothes got reversed; with Eddie wearing polos (as per tavern guidelines) while Steve’s clearly taking denim vests and a darker palette. 

Eddie expects the change. But it still hurts him somewhere that yeah, it’s been six years. 

“Sorry, it’s weird to see you without long hair.” Steve breaks the silence, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. 

Eddie laughs, “Well, when you got a name like Joseph Quinn, you gotta try and look like the guy.”

Steve raises his eyebrows, “That’s what they renamed you?”

“Yep,” Eddie nods solemnly, “But I’m still Eddie Munson at heart. What’s yours?”

Steve looks away, a blush rising on his cheeks. “It’s terrible.”

“Dude, you literally introduced yourself as Joey just now.”

“That’s how terrible my government-mandated name is!”

“Tell meeee!” Eddie starts poking at Steve’s ribs, making the other man burst into laughter. Steve grabs onto Eddie’s wrists, stopping him just inches from his face. Eddie catches his breath, unable to stop himself from briefly glancing down at Steve’s lips. He sees Steve doing the same, even licking his lips.

“I got a trailer parked in one of the lots nearby.” Steve says softly. “If you want-”

“Yeah.” Eddie’s voice catches in his throat. He swallows and says again, “Yeah. Of course.”

They walk together, forcing themselves to keep their hands at their respective sides. Eddie’s heart pounds in his chest as they arrive at Steve’s trailer, a Winnebago that’s smaller than the one Eddie had hotwired for him years ago. The moment they step inside, Eddie lurches forward and pulls Steve into a sheering kiss. Steve moans and grips his hands on Eddie’s hips while Eddie tangles his fingers into Steve’s hair.

Eddie lets Steve take him apart first, squeezing his hand tight as Steve whispers sweet nothings to his skin. Then Eddie flips them over and does the same to Steve, telling himself to go slow even though Steve is urging him the opposite. After they’re both spent, they stay in each other’s arms, gulping down air and tears. 

“I never thought I would see you again.” Eddie confesses quietly, tracing nonsense patterns between the tiny moles and rough scars on Steve’s arms. 

“I couldn’t just live this new staleass life without seeing everyone again. Even if it would take me decades to find them again.” Steve’s eyes are soft and sad as he stares into Eddie. He has a finger circling around the puckered scar on Eddie’s cheek. 

“So you go around the fifty states singing on the keys hoping to see one of them at a bar?” Eddie asks.

Steve huffs, “This is my side gig. But yeah, I guess you can call that wishful thinking.”

“Where did they send you?”

“Oregon. Too wet there.”

“That’s what he said.” Eddie can’t resist saying, earning a playful flick on the cheek. He hears himself turn somber when he asks, “Did you find anyone from the Party?”

“Robin in ‘88. She was in New York.” Steve smiles, undoubtedly proud to reunite with his platonic soulmate. “She refused to let me leave for a whole year.”

“Good for her. Who else?”

Steve falls silent and shifts his gaze up to the ceiling. “I haven’t found anyone since. Probably because I’m too dumb-”

“Don’t even say that.” Eddie cradles a hand on Steve’s cheek, tilting him to face him again. “You’re not an idiot, Steve. You should give yourself credit for actually finding Robin and me, even if it was dumb luck with me.” He wipes a thumb underneath Steve’s eye as a tear trails out. “Besides, it’s the government’s fault for thinking they can separate us all forever.” 

Steve gives a wet laugh. “So much for new beginnings, right?”

Eddie presses another kiss on him. One on his lips, then two more where the twin moles lay on Steve’s cheek. “Not if we keep searching together.”

Steve stares at him. His eyes go wide before they soften. “Together?” 

“And ever.” Eddie confirms. Steve makes a small disbelieving voice before leaning in to kiss Eddie, holding them together as long as they can.

It tastes like a vow.

[atinylittlepain]

Of Saints and Sinners - Chapter 7

Joel Miller x f!reader/f!oc

series masterlist

warnings | 18+ SMUT (yeehaw), angst, canon-typical violence

a/n | happy TLOU night, y'all :) at long last, Joel fucks, but not until after some serious angst

It’s been two weeks since she first came over to listen to records. Since Joel finally made a fool of himself for her. She spent the night with Joel, after that shared moment, just holding onto each other, talking. She’s spent the night every day since, listening to music, lazily kissing like teenagers. Joel’s learning how to talk to her, draw her out, without pressing too hard to the point she shuts down. He doesn’t ask about the childcare center, though he hears from Maria that she’s been visiting daily. He doesn’t ask anything about Steve or Alex, or her time in Seattle. She likes to talk about Ellie, whom she’s grown pretty fond of, and they can trade stories about the girl. He lets her ask a lot of questions about him and he does his best to be open, even telling her about Sarah. And if all else fails, Joel’s figured out that she can talk about music until she’s blue in the face. 

She’s been turning up around the same time every night, dusk settling in. She’s still strangely polite, knocking lightly on the door, even though Joel has started unlocking it right around sunset for her, told her to just come in. When he opens the door to her, she’s always got this worried look, a warbly smile and furrowed brows, like she’s questioning if she’s still welcome. It’s no different tonight. Joel easily pulls her in by her wrist, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her in tight. She’s quick to slip out of his hold though, and Joel can see that worried look is still on her face.

“Don’t even ask me,” Joel speaks first, before she can needle at him.

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask,” she huffs, stepping back and crossing her arms over her chest.

“You were gonna ask me if I’d talk to Tommy about getting you back on shifts. The answer is still no.” Steve’s been doggedly working to keep her off of patrol and Joel can see that she’s getting restless, the last two nights asking him if he’d talk to his brother about getting her back on the schedule. 

“I’ve been back for almost a month, I feel fine, all the bruising is practically gone, but everyone’s treating me like I’m fucking broken or something.” 

“You’re not broken. We’re trying to keep you safe.” She scoffs, “I don’t need to be looked after like a child. I can handle myself perfectly fine, I was handling myself perfectly fine. I just… slipped.” 

“So why risk slipping again? There’s plenty— “ Her eyes flash at Joel and she’s instantly up in his space again. “Do not tell me there’s plenty of work around town when you know that’s not what this is about.” He huffs, stepping back and dragging a heavy hand down his face.

“No, of course not. It’s about some sick pride you have in constantly putting yourself in danger. People love a martyr, right? And you’re more than happy to give them one. Pfft, you worried people are gonna stop calling you the saint? Is that what it is? Some sort of self-righteous bullshit?” She swallows hard, getting small, and Joel realizes too late he let his frustration push too far. He goes to reach for her, but she shuffles back, bumping into the banister at the foot of the stairs. She keeps her gaze on the floor as she speaks.

“I didn’t ask for that, any of it. I did what I’m good at, tolerating danger, pain, risk. That’s what I’m good at. I don’t give a fuck what sorta meaning people give it. That’s not my business. But don’t you ever suggest that what I do is done for pride because lord knows I haven’t got any.” Joel’s come to find that she doesn’t really cry, her voice gets a little shake to it and her eyes get watery, but that’s it, no tears fall. That’s the state he sees her in as she says this to him, harshly scrubbing at her nose afterwards.

Joel opens and closes his mouth a few times, drowning in what he wants to say. Before he can get anything out, she sighs, “Think I should probably just go home.” 

“Oh, right, because god forbid anyone push you even a little bit. You act so tough, but really if someone so much as looks at you the wrong way you wilt. What you said? About being good at tolerating pain? That’s bullshit. You ain’t as tough as you think you are, darlin. You’re just real good at running.” The frustration in Joel has snapped, and now it’s all just racing loose in him. He knows he’s going to regret what he just said, but right now, all he feels is relief in telling her how he sees it. She shoves at his chest, a hard push that makes him stumble back.

“Fuck you, Miller. Stay the fuck away from me.” She cuts towards the front door, Joel still too stunned by her seething anger to do anything but watch her slam it behind her.

Joel lets out a ragged exhale. What the hell just happened? He knows what he said came out all wrong, but he also knows there’s some truth to it. He was walking on eggshells around her, worried he’d bring up the wrong thing and she’d spook. It seems like it finally happened, he pushed too hard and she bolted. He had been open with her, was it so wrong to expect the same thing in return? 

Joel doesn’t sleep that night. When Ellie comes home later, she finds him, sitting on the stairs with his head in his hands.

“You messed up, didn’t you?” She’s smirking at him. “Is it that obvious?” 

“You’re looking pretty pathetic, old man. That and I saw her shooting darts with Steve at the bar. She only does that when she’s really pissed.” He huffs at that, standing up with a groan.

“Got any advice, genius?” Ellie shrugs, “not really, just don’t let her stay mad at you too long. If she doesn’t like you anymore she might stop spending time with me.” She’s already shuffling off to the garage as Joel mutters “gee, thanks.” 

…

Things go back to how they were before, and Joel is embarrassed to admit how agonizing it’s been. He only got close to her for a blink of time, but it was enough that her absence feels like a physical wound. He goes out on patrol, and goes straight home most days. She left her albums at his house, and he listens to them all night, even though he doesn’t like either of them at all. He can picture her listening to them, that content look she’d settle into, and sometimes it’s enough peace to send him to sleep.

Ellie tells him that she’s back on patrol shifts with Alex. No raids anymore though. He supposes that’s her idea of compromise.

Finally, after two weeks of what Ellie has been referring to as his “recluse routine,” Joel is coaxed out to the bar by his brother. There’s a small group formed around Roger, that young man Joel had started taking shifts with previously. The town was in a bit of a stir, heard that Roger had handled a proper hoard of clickers that morning up at the dam. Watching Roger, Joel thought to himself that the kid was acting a little too big for his breeches, regaling his audience with his over-dramatized kills. He also saw her, throwing darts in the back with Steve. Joel did his best not to look at her too long. Johnny Cash was playing tonight.

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

I keep my eyes wide open all the time

I keep the ends out for the tie that bands

Because you’re mine, I walk the line…

Joel’s only partly engaged in the conversation he’s having with Tommy, keeping an ear to Roger’s musings.

“You know, I think we’re all capable of killing, really, when it comes down to it. It just gets drawn out of us by different things. I think for most it’s purely a matter of survival. When it comes down to life or death, I think we’d all kill.” Joel watches her and Steve pass off the darts to another pair, sitting down at a table in the back. Both seem keenly interested in what Roger’s spouting off, sipping idly from their glasses.

I find it very, very easy to be true

I find myself alone when each day’s through

Yes, I’ll admit that I’m a fool for you

Because you’re mine, I walk the line…

“Now, don’t get me wrong, there are other folks that it doesn’t take much to get them to kill. Loose cannons.” She’s getting up to leave, squeezing Steve’s shoulder before starting to push through the crowd. 

As sure as night is dark and day is light

I keep you on my mind both day and night

And happiness I've known proves that it's right

Because you're mine, I walk the line…

“Take the saint, for example. Now, if you ask me, that one’s got a dark streak in her. I don’t care how holy you folks think she is. I’m telling you, that girl’s got a few screws loose.” Joel’s already on his feet, ready to shut Roger up himself, but she beats him to it, spinning on her heel where she stands and walking back to his table. Everyone parts for her and she hoists him up by the collar, punching him square in the jaw. Roger falls to the ground and she’s on him in a flash, jostling him by his shirt.

“You better watch who you talk about Roger, those loose cannons are prone to friendly fire.” She stands abruptly, briefly catching Joel’s gaze before shoving out of the bar.

Joel looks to Steve, “you gonna go check on that?” The young man shrugs, taking a swig of his drink, “don’t see the problem, she handled it. No use talking to her when she’s mad.”

Joel huffs, shouldering his way out of the crowd and into the cooling night. He finds her out back of the bar, leaning against the wall, head tipped back with her chin jutted at the sky.

She glances at him as he nears, sighing.

“Busted my fucking hand on that asshole’s face.” Joel snorts at this, “He had it coming, way he was running his mouth.” She scoffs, “gonna be the talk of the town tomorrow.”

Joel presses his back against the wall next to her, their shoulders brushing. He grasps her wrist, pulling her hand up to study the damage across her knuckles.

“Why don’t you come with me, get this cleaned up?” She nods mutely and lets Joel lead her back to his house. 

They’re in his bathroom. Joel has her sit on the edge of the sink as he stands between her legs, daubing a washcloth at her bloodied knuckles. She’s keeping her focus on her hand, not glancing up at him.

“How have you been?” He pauses, lets out a humorless chuckle, “you’re asking how I’ve been?” She just shrugs, “haven’t seen you around.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted,” Joel murmurs, getting ready to wrap some gauze around her knuckles. She sighs, bringing her hand over his.

“I need to apologize, Joel. For how I reacted that night.” He stops his ministrations, flipping his palm to let their hands entwine. “I’m sorry too. Shouldn’t have said all that, let my frustration get to me.” She shakes her head, looking up at him.

“No. What you said. It hurt. But it had some truth. I am good at running. I’m always running. From everything, everyone.” She lets out a shaky exhale, “but I don’t wanna run anymore, not from you, if you’ll still have me.” Joel feels his shoulders slacken, not even realizing the tension that had been simmering in them. He swallows thickly.

“Don’t even gotta ask. Even if you did have a few screws loose like Roger said, I’d still have you, darlin.” She laughs wetly at that, and Joel didn’t realize how badly he wanted to hear that sound again. 

They fall into a simpering silence as he finishes wrapping her hand. When he’s finished, he rests both his palms over the tops of her thighs, giving a light squeeze before stepping back to let her hop down from the sink. She brings her hand to the side of his neck, thumb brushing the curve of his jaw as she draws him down to a fluttering kiss. She whispers a thank you before taking his hand, drawing him out into his bedroom. Joel feels like he’s in a hazy dream as she gently presses him to sit on the end of his bed, standing in front of him.

Joel’s breath hitches as he watches her start to work at the buttons of her shirt. She keeps her gaze fixed to his, and he doesn’t dare look away, only catching glimpses of skin in the periphery as she reaches the last few buttons. And she finally slips the shirt down her shoulders, letting it fall around her feet, and Joel’s heart is hammering so hard he thinks she can hear it. She’s smiling and Joel can see the nerves jumping in the corners of her eyes, her lips, as she reaches behind her to unclasp her bra, letting the straps slide down her arms until the fabric falls to the floor as well. Suddenly, Joel is painfully aware of the fact that it’s been a long time since he’s seen a naked woman. His hands are shaking where they’re balled in the bedsheets, and he has to remember how to breathe for a second. 

She steps forward, gently grabbing his wrists to pull him up with her. She guides his palms to splay across her stomach, fingers curling around her waist. He can feel the push and pull of her breath, the way it’s catching on each inhale. Slowly, he lets his hands wander, mapping the curve of her sides, grazing over her ribs, flickering over the birds tattooed below her collarbone. He drags his fingertips across her shoulders, down her arms until he tentatively circles behind her. He takes in the expanse of her back and can feel how she tenses under his gaze. The scars that he remembers glimpsing are there, both heartbreaking and breathtaking in the endurance they suggest. Joel drops his head, letting his lips drag across the tops of her shoulder blades, the hilt of her neck, from one shoulder across to the other, murmuring the word “beautiful” like a prayer into her skin. She draws in a ragged breath before turning in his hold, pulling him in by his neck until they meet in a hot tangle of tongues and teeth. The way she licks into his mouth draws a low groan from Joel’s throat, wrapping his arms around her to pull her in deeper. She draws away for a moment, fumbling with the hem of his shirt before he’s quick enough to yank it over his head by the collar. When they pull back together they’re pressed skin to skin in a way Joel thinks he could become addicted to. He walks her back until they both stumble onto the sheets, huffing with the awkward shifting and tangling of limbs before they’re meeting each other again, dragging desperate kisses. 

She lets her nails graze down his torso before settling on his belt. Joel pulls back when he hears the metal clinking as she undoes it. Her eyes are blown wide as she looks him over.

“Is this ok?” Joel can barely get an answer out, just grunting an “mm-hmm” and then she’s smiling as she pops the button of his jeans, moving her hand through the thatch of curls there before taking him in the softness of her palm. He lets out a broken moan, head falling into the crook of her neck where he starts to leave bruising kisses that make her gasp his name. She’s stroking him as best she can in the confines of his boxers and he’s letting the most pathetic whimpers ride from the back of his throat. He grasps her wrist, drawing her hand to rest by the side of her head. 

“Too much?” He breathes a laugh, “just don’t want it to be over too soon.” She smiles, craning her neck to peck the corner of his mouth. He presses back so he’s kneeling between her legs, drawing his palms down the sides of her torso until settling at the waist of her pants. He looks to her and she nods, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, hiding the quirk of her lips. His hands are shaking again as he unzips her pants, whispering a hoarse “hips up, darlin” as he slides them down her legs, shuffling back so he can get them all the way off. Joel’s mouth goes slack. She’s left before him, bare, save for a pair of plain cotton underwear. He leans back in before he can think too hard about this being the prettiest sight he’s ever seen, resting his elbow beside her head before meeting her for another drawn kiss. He lets his other hand wander down the center of her chest, fingertips grazing over her peaked nipple before sliding further down the dip and swell of her stomach, finally slipping under the band of her underwear. He swipes through her folds, drawing the wetness pooling there to slide over her clit, and she preens, stretching out her neck and pressing her head back into the sheets. Joel rests his chin on her sternum, watching how her brow furrows, the little whines he can draw out of her with how he moves his fingers through her. 

“So wet, baby. It’s all for me?” She gasps as he slips one finger into her curling it just so. “Yes, Joel. It’s all you. All for you.” He grins big at that, pressing another finger into her, knees feeling a little weak at the stretch, the tightness. He lets his mouth smear across her chest, head dipping to take one of her nipples into his mouth, grazing her with his teeth. The noise that draws from her, from the back of her throat, makes his cock pulse.

He can feel her getting tighter around his fingers as he brings his thumb to swipe over her clit. “I want you to come for me, baby. Can you do that? Come undone for me?” She nods hard, gasping as he continues to thrust into her, eyes scrunched shut.

“Yes I wanna come for you– please don’t stop– p-please don’t stop,” her one arm has come to wrap around Joel’s back, nails digging into muscle. 

“Open your eyes for me, baby. Wanna see you when you come. Let me see you, darlin,” her eyes blow wide, staring up at Joel as he dips down to kiss her. And then she’s pulling away, letting out a broken cry and Joel can feel how she flutters around his fingers. He works her through her high, pulling away only when she starts to squirm. Her eyes are bleary, chest heaving as she cards her fingers through his hair. He leaves kisses along her jaw, her cheeks, before settling for a firm peck at her lips. She smiles up at him.

“I wanna feel you. I want you.” His head spins at her words. He leaves one more kiss on her lips before slowly standing, shedding his jeans and boxers in one sweep, finally aware of just how painfully hard he is. She shimmies her underwear off her legs before sitting back on her elbows, feet planted on the mattress with her knees bent wide as she watches him stroke himself a few times. The image is obscene. The image is divine. He kneels back between her legs, drawing her ankles to wrap loosely at his low back while he hovers over her. Her hands fall at his shoulders, one reaching up into the back of his hair, scratching lightly. He slides his cock through her wetness, both of them breathing ragged, trembling. He slowly starts to press into her and she gasps, a broken whimper in her throat. Joel stills.

“Did I hurt you?” She shakes her head, looking up at him with watery eyes, “just need it slow. Been a long time.” He nods, pecking her temple before tentatively starting to press further in, drawing gasps out of her with each experimental thrust. How he hasn’t come already is beyond him, the way she’s throbbing around him. Their hips finally meet and she lets out a sharp sigh, pulling him down to wrap her arms fully around him.

“Need a minute like this.” He nods into her neck, leaving light kisses across her collarbone. Her grip on his neck slowly loosens and he presses up to gaze at her. She nods, letting him know he can move. Joel groans as he pulls out, letting his hips roll back into hers, keeping his pace slow and drawn out. She’s a vision beneath him, flushed and preening, little pants of his name as he finds a steady rhythm to push and pull them to. 

He reckons that nothing has ever felt like this before, so terrifyingly right. He dips back down, keeping her close, chests brushing with each thrust, limbs tangled and slick with sweat, lips swallowing each other's sighs.

Pleasure is pulling taut at the base of his spine, his pace starting to falter. “‘M sorry, baby, gettin close. Need you to come for me. Need to feel you, darlin.” His voice is thick, whatever’s left of his Texan accent rolling deeply now, making his words feel like molasses in his mouth. She grips the hair at the nape of his neck, drawing a low groan from him as she nods desperately, “gonna come for you, Joel. Please– make me come.” He brings his hand back to her clit, a firm and fierce pressure that makes her clench around him. His eyes roll back at the sensation, and he can vaguely hear himself muttering please, please, please into her sternum, feeling himself teetering at the edge of release. She gasps his name when she comes undone and it takes all his strength for him to pull out, stroking himself a few times before he’s releasing over the soft planes of her stomach. They’re both breathing hard as they come down, Joel shifts to the side, laying down beside her. 

“Get you cleaned up in a minute. Just– need to not move– for a little while.” She laughs at that, throwing a forearm over her eyes before glancing over at Joel. He feels like he’s died and come back, white noise behind his eyes, heart still racing.

He finally starts to calm down, turning his head to look at her, being met with her very smug appraisal of him. “Thought you might be done for, Miller.” He scoffs, rolling over to stand up and walk around to her side of the bed, pulling her up by her hands. “Can you blame me?” She blushes at that and he dips his head to give her a brief kiss before leading her back into the bathroom.

They shower together, both touching the other like they might break. She still flinches when his hands pass over her scars, but she’s also starting to soften. Joel has never felt anything as gentle as when she washes his hair for him, letting her guide his head back into the stream of water. All clean, he gives her one of his t-shirts and a pair of his boxers to sleep in. They slip into the sheets and she rests her head on his bare chest, right above his heart. He reckons it’s all hers anyways. He lets his fingers idly brush along her arm. She clears her throat.

“I-I’m gonna try– to let you in. And I’m probably gonna do a shit job at it. But I’m gonna try.” Joel pauses, holding his breath, before he dips slightly to press a kiss into her hair. Words fail him, so he settles for holding her a little tighter and bringing his hand down to entangle with hers giving a firm squeeze that she reciprocates. 

Both of them sleep soundly, wrapped up in each other. A silent understanding settles between them in the still of the night.

[translatemunson]

track two — the ex tapes

warnings: not proofread. this is not a fluff series, so be ready for some angst and angry characters.

author's note: thanks for the love on track one! also, i'm creating a taglist for the series, so let me know if you want to be tagged on track three!

series masterlist

What were the odds of walking into the studio and finding your famous ex boyfriend? He doesn’t even like pop music. How the hell?

You should’ve known that you were walking into a trap when your manager told you it was an impossible to miss opportunity to explore new genres of music. But you should’ve known better that LA was smaller than Hawkins. And that, one day, you would find yourself face to face with Edward Munson.

You can’t hear what people are saying at the entrance, you’re already leaving and never looking back. To hell with the good opportunity for your career. To hell with working for Corroded Coffin. You rather work on a stupid store than write with Munson.

You open the trunk of your car and throw your guitar case there. Your journal is full of drafts of ideas you’ve crafted while in traffic. But you want it all gone and buried deep inside your bag.

“Hey, Charlie, wait!” Eddie is running in your direction, but you couldn’t care less about him. You’re just glad he’s not calling you by your real name. “Please, let’s talk.”

You get inside your car in no time. You turn the engine on and begs for the stupid car to heat up as fast as possible. You need to get the fuck out of there.

“C’mon, let’s talk.” He’s closing the distance between the two of you.

“Fuck you, Munson. No, I’m not helping you with the thing that destroyed our relationship.”

You put the car in reverse and leave the parking lot without looking back. The streets to your apartment are blurry in your mind, the anger mixing with the pain, and you only register you’re at home when you open the door and it’s greeted by a very lazy Steve.

“Edward Munson booked me to write a song for his shitty little band” you announce, throwing your bag on the kitchen table and taking your shoes off.

“Edward Munson in like Eddie the freak Munson?” Instantly Steve is up on his feet and walking towards you.

“The one and only.” You press your palms to your face. 

“Why you?” Steve knows the reason why you mostly work for the pop music field. Because even though the synthesizers and catchy melodies aren’t your thing, it’s better than working with your ex.

“Because I’m the ballad songwriter of the moment. I forgot to add Corroded Coffin on my Never Working With list, fuck me,” it’s all your fault. You might not know with which artist you’re working until you arrive at the studio, but your manager knows and keeps some of them out of your schedule. Sorry, she can’t work with you right now, but we’ll look forward to another opportunity. “My manager told me it was a good opportunity, but I just can’t!”

“Don’t do it. Or like if you want to I could take another day off and go with you. I’ll make sure to kick Munson’s ass.” Steve owns this small cafe a few blocks from your apartment. He works there most of the time, but always takes some days off to relax. Today is one of those days and you wish he was working.

“No, I’m cancelling it. Fuck him and his stupid band, I’m not getting in a studio with him.” Your body falls into the couch. “Stupid Munson.”

“Ok, it’s your call. Fancy some tea?”

“Yes, please.”

Steve is your best friend. He was there when Eddie left everything behind, including you. He knew you would do anything possible to not see Eddie’s face again, but there you are, reality happening right before your eyes. He sits next to you and holds you in an awkward hug — because you’re holding your legs to your chest and hiding your face. 

Your tea gets cold. The moment you get out of your position, Steve is leaving the house to have a night out. He got your acoustic guitar from your car because he knows you’re gonna end up locked in your room writing new songs. That’s how you process your feelings.

You get some leftovers from the week, a bottle of wine and your cold tea. You refuse to let this nightmare get the best of you. So you write your heart out until you hear the phone ring. You hope it’s not Steve calling you to ask for a ride because you’re down 3 glasses of wine and driving is the last thing you wanna do.

You walk over and answer the phone.

“I’m not giving you a ride, I am-”

“Hi, sweetheart. Can we talk?”

You’re killing whoever gave your number to him. 

“Wrong number, asshole. Never call me again.”

You hang up on him and go back to your room. Pages and more pages of your feelings. You might need to find an artist to sing about it, but you do not care. You wanna drag Edward Munson in the mud because of everything he did to you. He must’ve found out you are Charlie, because there’s no way someone booked a pop songwriter for a rock band.

The phone rings again. 

“Hello?”

“Please, don’t hang up,” Eddie asks. “It’s just a business call, I promise.”

“How did you get my number?”

“Does it matter, sweetheart?” He pauses. “So, business. I can schedule a studio tomorrow morning.”

“No, Munson, I’ve told you: not working with you. Can’t you get a no for an answer?” You wish you had brought the wine glass with you.

“No, I can’t. How did you end up on songwriting? I thought you were going to college to study biology.”

“Chemistry,” you correct him. “I’ve given a song I wrote to a singer I was seeing back in Chicago, he recorded it and my name was on the credits. The song was a huge success and the next thing I know I’m moving to Los Angeles to write for other people. Why do you care?”

“And how’s that been going for you?”

“I can pay my rent and I’m saving up to leave this country. Canada, Europe perhaps. Last time I was in Hawkins I saw Wayne,” you remember the encounter with Eddie’s uncle. You were both in the same market and he called you from the end of the aisle. He looked better than the last time, and said his cousin bought him a house. “Have you visited him?”

“No, I haven’t. Been busy with writing the album and touring. But he’s coming to LA soon, I bet he would like to see you.”

“Don’t.” You stop him. “Don’t act like it’s all fine. And only a few people back in Hawkins know about Charlie Roger.”

“Who? Robin? Nancy? Steve?”

They were the ones who encouraged you to keep writing, to try to be a singer yourself, but you just couldn’t. Nancy and Robin are coming to visit you and Steve in a few weeks and you can’t wait to try to convince them to move to LA again. The gang back together. Or at least most of it.

“They know, yes. But to everyone else it is like I’ve left everything behind because of what happened.”

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I really am.”

“I don’t wanna hear your excuses, Munson. State your purpose or I’m hanging up on you.”

“I wanna work with you.” He’s quick to answer you. But you can imagine him, on the other side of the line, holding his face and staring at some of the most beautiful views of the city. “Even before I knew you are Charlie, I found your lyrics really good. I mean, Charlie’s lyrics. I still loved your poems tho. I’ve been doing fine on my own for, what, 3 records now, but I need some help to finish this one. One song is all I’m asking.”

“No, I can’t. Sorry, Eddie. Goodbye.”

“Good night, sweetie.”

He hangs up before you can. 

It’s gonna be a hell of a night.

taglist: @lokiofasgard616

(message me/coment here if you wanna be tagged on future updates of the series)

[lollaika]

Chapter 4 Of The Agony Is Here!

Chapter 4 is out, we've reached the halfway point (at least if you count in chapters and not in words)

With a lovely drawing by @cuips-not-cute (seriously, you should check it out, for all your nsfw needs)

Featuring: Steve's parents, Steve's sailor outfit, and Steve's tears!

For a sneak peak, look beneath the read-more!

His parents stay for a week. Steve talks to them but shares nothing of importance. He goes to prom, two days after graduation and gets voted prom king. He hadn’t even tried for the title, but he goes through the motions, laughs, thanks people, dances with Carol Perkins, the prom queen, who’d definitely done her best to ensure the win. It’s a little more difficult to ignore Tommy’s looks and her very pointy and painful shoes while twirling her around, but he does, knows that he looks effortless and graceful, just like he’d been trained to be, and feels empty.

After prom, his mother goes job hunting with him, because his father doesn’t have time, is always on the phone to Chicago. He applies to a lot, glad that the new mall will open soon, which is giving him a lot more options and takes the job at Scoops Ahoy instead of the music store. He tells his parents that Scoops pays better and allows him to be more flexible with his hours, but the truth is that a lot of the music on sale in that music store reminds him of Hargrove and ice cream does not. Also, the air conditioning is a lot better. Steve runs hot, and he’s going to work through the summer.

When his parents leave it’s with a car filled with all the truly expensive artwork, with the drinks his father has reserved for his business associates and his mother’s family jewelry. Steve tries not to take it to heart, knows that they’re right to do it, that he could not defend and keep these items, if Hargrove wanted to take them. But it’s difficult, knowing that he’s lost their trust, trust that he’d had all his life. At least they don’t seem overly happy when they leave, but they do seem cautiously optimistic that he’ll change his mind relatively soon. Steve hates to disappoint them even more but he knows he will. There’s no way he’s going to leave Hawkins until he knows that it’s safe for the children, or that the children have gotten out themselves. If that means that he’s staying here forever, then so be it.

It’s a little funny but a lot sadder that he’s got more trouble saying goodbye to Dustin, when he finally leaves for his nerd-camp. Sure, he drives the other kids around, too, when their parents have better things to do, or even just when Steve has the time for them, but Dustin is the only one who comes to visit him. Dustin is the one who talks to him, who includes him, who tells him about his day and all the new things that happened. It’s only a few weeks, Steve knows. He’s going to get through it.

And then he’s alone in the house. Echoing silence, emptiness, memories of laughter, memories of pain. Hargrove continues to visit. Other people continue to not. Steve is fine. As long as he is breathing, he is fine.

[undreaming-fanfiction]

With This Ring (9)

Chapter 8 here, Ao3 here

Please see @mcdadarts stunning illustration for this chapter HERE!

When the screeching of car tires finally quieted down, Dart approached Eddie and shook his little head. “So much for inconspicuous. Do you even know what that word means? We might as well have used the local announcement system to scream out into the world that you’re back and you’re dead. How do you suppose you’ll record your music now, hm?” 

Eddie scratched his head, wincing. Steve knew he wasn’t feeling any pain, but he supposed touching the dried bloody wound couldn’t be comfortable. “I…I wasn’t thinking that much,” he admitted and Steve had to admire how quickly Dart’s icy stare got Eddie under control. He never thought it was possible. 

“Of course you weren’t,” said Dart and Ozzy nodded, supporting his older friend. “By the everlasting cat, Eddie. I understand wanting to give Richard Harrington a heart attack, I really do. But after that little stunt you pulled? We’ll have an exorcist knocking on the door before you even get to hold a guitar.”

“I don’t think that’s happening.” 

It wasn’t Eddie who said it. It was Steve. He had to lean against the closet door to relieve his injured ankle, but other than that? He felt strangely calm. Maybe it was the shock of Eddie really driving the point home that he was dead, maybe it was the confrontation with his father, the unexpected care in his mother’s eyes…or he’d just seen too much bullshit in less than a day to care. But most likely, it was a panic attack in the making.

“It won’t happen because it would ruin my father’s reputation,” he clarified. “He’ll never tell anyone such a ridiculous story, can you imagine it? My father, in his suit, with that perfect shave and expensive cologne. He’s never done anything interesting or rebellious in his life, he uses the stock market and insurance policies for his small talk. And now he’d come to the church where I messed up everything I could to the point of damaging our family name, and he’d say: my son is married to a corpse.” Steve started laughing and it might have had a tinge of hysteria, but he couldn’t help it. The thought was beautiful. 

Dart scratched his ear, lost in thought. “He might have a point,” he admitted. “It sounds stupid even to me. Maybe he’ll keep quiet.” 

“I don’t know about that,” said Eddie and crossed his arms. “He seemed pretty freaked out.” 

The cat slapped his foot with a paw. “Because you stabbed yourself, Eddie. And then made him stab you too. Where are your manners?” 

“You stabbed yourself.” That immediately stopped Steve’s laughter. He’d known Eddie was dead before Richard Harrington ever entered the door, but still. Seeing it proven so nonchalantly, it hurt in so many ways. “You shouldn’t have done that.” 

Eddie shot him a nasty look. “Do I look like someone you can order around, Harrington?” 

But Steve shook his head. Leaving behind the safe support of the closet door, he carefully walked towards Eddie and grabbed him by the shoulders. The smell of soil and rotten roots was almost overwhelming. “You should not have done that, Eddie,” he repeated, and there was something in his tone that wiped anger off Eddie’s face. “You…you matter, you idiot! Why would you hurt yourself just to prove a point, huh? To someone like him?!”

Eddie gently laid his hand over Steve’s. “Steve, it’s fine.” 

“No, it’s not!” Apparently, the anger had not disappeared. It had just moved on to Steve. His fingers were grasping Eddie’s shoulders so tightly they were digging into his jacket. “You keep saying that. It’s fine, please breathe, I’m okay with being dead. It’s fine, I’m okay with stabbing myself to prove a point to your father who is the biggest douchebag on this planet. Just how little do you think of yourself? You matter! He doesn’t!” 

Eddie’s cold fingers were running circles over Steve’s, relaxing his hold. “It’s just a fact, Steve,” he whispered ruefully. “I’m dead. Can’t change that. As for the stabbing thing…I didn’t have it planned, sure, but it didn’t hurt. I swear. It just tickled.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Steve said, and it was so quiet it might not have been directed at Eddie. “You never should have done anything because of him. Not after…” 

But then Dart rubbed against Steve’s healthy leg, and the spell was broken. “He’s right, but there’s no use crying over spilled milk. We just need to hope Steve’s got a point and that Harrington’s pride won’t let him discuss this small…incident with anyone.” He narrowed his eyes and studied Eddie. “But we can’t afford another one. So I suggest we do what I heard you planning during your sneaky walk here - we should make Eddie blend in. Make Harrington sound crazy if he decides to tell someone.” 

The corpse in question scoffed. “Funny. I wasn’t able to blend in even when I was alive. How do you exactly intend to do that? Dress me up in his clothes?” The disdain for Steve’s wardrobe was tangible. 

Dart hissed at him. “Stop being a brat for a few seconds. What I’m saying - Steve has a functioning bathtub, a washing machine and a clothes dryer, no?”

Steve blinked. “How do you know that?”

“Your family is rich,” stated Dart the obvious. “But I also have…personal experience. Warm clothes are the best spot for napping. If you can get to them unguarded.” 

Eddie stared at the elderly cat. “Dartolomew.”

“That’s not my name.” 

Eddie ignored him. “Are you sitting here, looking like the epitome of innocence, and telling me that I stink?! That I’m dirty? That I look like something a cat dragged in?!” 

Dart slowly blinked at Eddie. Steve would learn years later that this was a sign of cat affection. “No, Edward. I didn’t say it, but I’m saying it now. You stink, you’re dirty, and yes, I absolutely did drag you in. Steve can wash and dry your clothes while you soak off all this dirt. We don’t need you to look amazing, you just need to pass for a living being.” 

“You hurt my feelings.” 

The cat disregarded the theatrical grasping at Eddie’s chest. “Spare me the scenes, I know you already agreed. I heard your small…discussion on the matter. I do believe keeping the good people of Hawkins in the dark is the way to go. And that requires you, Eddie, taking a bath.” 

Steve had finally collected himself and was now listening to Dart. “We’ll do that. I might also have some makeup here that mom probably forgot to pack in her rush. We could cover up some of that…uh, unhealthy color?” 

The cat gave him an appreciative nod. “Good. Make him look presentable again, I and Ozzy will make sure your next destination is safe. The Buckley house? Does it have everything you need?” 

Steve thought about it for a few seconds, then agreed. “Should have. Her parents are musicians and have almost everything you can think of. Even a trumpet. I just needed the equipment, but that’s all from here. They should also be away for the weekend.” 

“Perrrrfect. If anything, Ozzy will let you know.”

There was an annoyed squeak that sounded like a question. 

“It has to be you because you can fly and I am old. Now, let’s go. You,” said Dart and pointed his paw at Eddie, “behave.” 

The dead man scowled at him. “Do I even have any say in all this?!” he spat out. 

“No.” 

And with that, the cat and the bat were gone, leaving Eddie and Steve alone.  

“So, uh…” started Steve and wished this hadn’t been as awkward, “...would you like me to bring you a towel? The bathroom’s just to the left of my door. Maybe you can take a quick shower and then stay in the tub for a bit? Just to make sure all of that…grime lets go.” 

Eddie looked ready to murder someone, but he must have realized that Dart’s idea was for the best. He just shrugged off his jacket and handed it to Steve. “I hope you have some good detergent, Steve. I like my clothes soft and fluffy. Like my pancakes.” Then he added, “but if you even try to machine wash my leather jacket, I’ll raise hell.” 

Steve rolled his eyes. “I’m not that stupid, Eddie. Your jacket will be fine, I’ll find another way to clean it. Leave your clothes on the floor, I’ll come for them in a bit. The washer is there as well, so if you’re worried about your decency or something, use some foam. It’s that pink bottle.” 

“Of course it’s fucking pink,” muttered Eddie and made his way to the bathroom. 

Steve made himself busy. He went to their garage to get a new box of washing powder, gathered some cleaning supplies and rags to clean Eddie’s shoes as well. For a moment, he wondered if the weird smelling stuff his parents used to clean silver - of course not themselves, but the lady they hired - would be a good idea for Eddie’s rings, but he quickly abandoned that idea. Not perfect, just presentable. 

Finally, he returned to the upper floor after the shower had stopped running. That was also exactly the moment he realized he never gave Eddie the promised towel. 

Blame his experience with sports and locker rooms, but Steve never waited too long to enter other men’s spaces. He just knocked on the bathroom door and opened it a second after. He didn’t really pay attention to Eddie’s frame crouched in the bath. “Sorry, I forgot to give you the towel, here you go…do you need anything else?” 

But Eddie didn’t respond. He was sitting in the bathtub, clutching his forearms as if the water was hurting him somehow. Steve finally looked at him and noticed how pressed thin his lips were, how there were still patches of skin covered in more persistent dirt. And most of all, he saw that Eddie avoided getting his hair wet, even though he absolutely needed to wash the dried blood out of them. 

He was glad that Eddie’s forearms covered his chest. He was terrified of what he might see. 

Steve walked up to him and gently touched his shoulder. “Eddie? Are you OK, man?” 

With a jolt, Eddie turned to Steve and splashed him with water. “I…uh. Sorry,” he muttered and pulled his knees even closer to his body. “Yeah, it’s just…it’s warm.” 

“Too warm?” Steve reached towards the tap to pour in some cold water if needed, but Eddie stopped him. 

“No. Just…warm. I forgot what it felt like.” He stared at his knees, his chest, biting his lip. “I remember my skin used to turn, like, really red when I took a shower.”

Steve had no idea what to say. Eddie’s body was just as pale as it had been when he’d crawled out of his resting place. As he touched his shoulder, he felt some warmth, but it just felt wrong. Not the warmth one would feel from touching another living being, but - and Steve hated himself for this comparison - like reheated leftovers that hadn’t been in the microwave for long enough. He searched for a fitting word to describe the feeling and found one - artificial. 

He turned away and started picking up Eddie’s clothes, tossing them to the washer with more care than he’d ever had for his own clothes. 

It was only when he turned on the washing machine and prepared to leave that Eddie asked, “Did they ever look for me?” 

It was a whisper that Steve could barely hear over the whirring of the wash cycle, but it was there. He couldn’t see Eddie’s face, he was curled in on himself, and his forehead was resting on his knees. 

He considered his answer. A simple “yes” wouldn’t do. “For a while they did. Mostly as a person of interest though, they wanted to question you about Chrissy. Pricks.” If Eddie chuckled at that, Steve couldn’t hear it. “Wayne was pushing them a lot, you know. He basically camped outside of the station every day after work. Chief Hopper did everything he could to support a further investigation, he thought the whole thing was fishy as hell. But then they had to stop.”

Eddie raised his head and met Steve’s eyes. “Why?”

“They had a witness that saw you leaving the town.” He hated himself for how plausible it had sounded back then. When Dustin came to Steve, heartbroken that Eddie left without even saying goodbye, Steve consoled him. He tried his best to explain that Eddie was better off without this town, without the constant judgments. That Eddie would definitely reach out when he felt more settled in, more confident. He thought Eddie had the right idea, envied him even! How stupid he’d been. “It was one of the guys from the basketball club, I think? Andy. I guess he just got the date wrong, but he was sure he saw you going to Indy.” 

“That was the week before.” Eddie was shaking his head in disbelief. “What a fucking luck.”

Steve continued. “After that, they dropped it. You were an adult, they said, and they had no right to drag you back. Hopper fought back against it, but Chrissy’s case demanded more funds and more attention.” 

Eddie was quiet. The washing machine began sounding too loud to Steve’s ears, and he felt like he should let Eddie process everything in peace. He began walking towards the door when Eddie called out to him. 

“Uh…could you maybe stay?” 

Steve gestured in Eddie’s general direction. “Don’t you want…like…privacy to wash yourself?” he asked. “Because I can stay, absolutely, but I don’t want to make things awkward for you or…yeah.”

“Ah. Hm. Good point.” Eddie was fidgeting in the water, and Steve had only now noticed that he took off his rings. A quick glance told him that they were now soaking in the bathroom sink, which was very much needed. But now Eddie was even more restless than usual, twisting his fingers and wrists. “Maybe…like, can you leave the door open and stay there? You can sit down so you don’t mess up that leg of yours even worse?” It sounded like a plea.

Steve just stared at him. He wouldn’t pretend he understood Eddie’s thought process, but he wanted to help him calm down, so he walked to the corridor. “Uh…okay? Can do.” 

Eddie’s forehead hit his knees again. “Sorry, it’s just…it’s so stupid. But I don’t want to be alone now. I was down there for so long, I got used to it all. The dark, the cold, the waiting…I guess I just wanted someone to find me, you know? But now that you did, I don’t even know what I want anymore.” 

Sitting down and settling himself against the wall in the hallway, Steve made a low “hmm” sound. Just to show Eddie he was still there. “Don’t you want to move on?” 

“That’s what I thought.” The bathroom was still quiet apart from the whirring. “But now…shit, I understand why everyone warned me not to go up here again. I’ve been meaning to visit that whole year, you know. Bob, Benny, Dart, even Ozzy…they all told me not to, that I’d regret it. That I’d only grow bitter about all the things that I lost. That someone took from me.” 

Steve sucked in a deep breath. He simply had to ask. “Eddie…do you know who did it?” 

No answer. 

The silence stretched out to the point of discomfort, and maybe Eddie didn’t hear him? Maybe he’d have to repeat the question. Or maybe he just didn’t want to answer-

“No. I never saw them. They struck me from behind, and then…I woke up in Benny’s bar. Bob told me it wasn’t the blow that killed me either. It was being buried when I was unconscious. If they just left me there, maybe I would have made it.” 

Steve risked a peek into the bathroom. Eddie was sitting in the tub, staring at the ceiling lights. If he only could embrace Eddie, make things better…or hunt down the bastard that took Eddie from the world. Steve never considered himself a violent person, but now? God, now he understood the urge to kill. 

If Eddie had been aware of Steve’s internal turmoil, he didn’t show it. “That’s the worst part of it, you know. It wouldn’t change anything if I knew who did it, I’d still be stuck down there. But for some reason, I just can’t let go of the why. I knew people around here didn’t like me much, but enough to murder me? To follow me into the woods, to sneak up on me, bury me alive…I just want to know what I did to deserve this.” 

“You didn’t do anything, Eddie. Please don’t…” Steve’s throat felt raw, constricted. But he wouldn’t cry. It wasn’t his place to break down, he was here with Eddie, for Eddie. “...don’t ever think you deserved this. You never deserved anything you got from this shitty town.” He gritted his teeth and added: “And from me.” 

Eddie still wasn’t moving in the bathtub, but at least this time he responded. “What did he promise you?” 

“Huh?” 

“Your dad. That’s yet another why that I’m missing. I mean, me? Sure, I could see you letting go of that. But music? Shit, Steve. You loved it as much as I do.” There was a slight shift, splashing of water. “So how did he make you give it up?” 

Steve’s hands tangled in his own hair and gripped it tightly. He did that a lot nowadays, a sharp tug intended as a punishment when no one could see him. But it was more than that - pain was better than facing his shame. “He didn’t promise me anything, Eddie. He couldn’t promise me anything that would make it worth losing you and what we shared.” 

One more splash. Steve could imagine Eddie leaning over the edge of the bathtub, peering into the darkened hallway. “So what was it?” 

“He…” Steve tugged on his hair again. He wanted to face Eddie, but how could he? Eddie had believed this whole time, alive or undead, that it was him who was inconvenient to Steve, when the truth was exactly the opposite. 

Well. At least he could give Eddie this closure. 

“He told me that if I keep meeting with you, he’ll get Wayne fired and destroy your reputation. He’d force you to move.” 

There, the truth was finally out. As if a dam burst in his head, words started spilling from his mouth, unorganized and jumbled, no other thought behind them than to let Eddie know that none of this was his fault, that he was worth everything to Steve, that letting Eddie go was the most painful thing he’d ever done. 

“That’s why I decided to do it, Eddie, because you and Wayne don’t deserve any of this shit, but my father, he…he would do it, I thought. I wasn’t sure, but how could I risk it? You told me you only had Wayne, that you were constantly moving around before settling in Hawkins.  The job was stable and easier on his health, and Wayne is such a good man. He made me that absolutely disgusting cake for my fifteenth birthday when my parents wouldn’t come home. He tried to learn cooking to make you eat more healthy stuff, and his food was horrible, but he kept trying. And you just seemed so happy and free with him. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t be the reason why everything you had crumbled.” 

He heard Eddie take a sharp breath. “Oh. That’s-” 

Steve continued, not giving Eddie a chance to get a word in. “I wanted to send you a letter or something, but it felt like he had eyes everywhere. I was terrified that I would make things worse. So I just…you said it before, Eddie. I’m a coward. I never told you because I couldn’t bear you knowing that you did everything right, you were so kind to me, you and Wayne, and all it did was nearly destroy your lives.”

He finally let go of his hair. No pain could fight the remorse he felt, the helpless anger at his father, at Eddie’s killer, at the world. “It was just a few more weeks,” he said. “I thought…just a few more weeks and Nancy would be free. She’d graduate, and with her diploma she could escape this hellhole with the…the person she loves. I would have fulfilled my promise. And then…then I’d tell my dad to fuck off, that he was done controlling me. I’d pack my bags and go to Indy. I’d join Wayne and find you, tell you everything. Say I was sorry. I’m so sorry Eddie.” 

He could hear Edie laughing, a soft sound that was equally bitter and amazed. “All this time,” he said, “I thought you never cared. That I was just a way to pass time to you. I was another thing for the town’s rich boy to toss away when he got bored of it. And you’re telling me…it was to protect me? Me and Wayne? What am I supposed to do with that?” 

Steve shook his head, frowning at the floorboards. “Nothing. I just…I wanted to give you some answers. You deserved to know.” 

“Right.”

After a few minutes of silence, Eddie spoke up again. “You can close the door now, I’ll be fine. I’ll come out when I’m done, it shouldn’t take long.” 

Steve scrambled back to his feet. He felt heavy. “Yeah, okay. I’ll get things ready.” 

“Oh, and Steve?” 

He stopped in his tracks. “Yes?” 

Eddie was still sitting in the same position, but his hands were more relaxed. He was resting over his knees, not gripping them. The foam had already dissolved. 

“Thank you,” he said. 

Steve nodded and closed the door. 

Eddie wasn’t lying, he really didn’t take that long. It was impressive, he managed to scrub himself clean and wash his hair too in such a short time, although the bathtub has seen better days. Oh well. Priorities. Steve just started the dryer cycle and labeled the tub as the future Steve’s problem. 

After Steve’s stubborn insistence that Eddie needed to dry his hair and Eddie’s rebuttals that he couldn’t catch a cold if he was dead, Eddie lost to Steve’s sincere “please Eddie, just this one thing.” He begrudgingly went to battle with Mary Harrington’s hairdryer and emerged mostly victorious. “That’s all you get, Harrington!” he growled as he shook out the last droplets of water from his hair. 

Steve could accept that. 

In fresh clothes and washed clean, Eddie should have looked better. But with the grime and dried blood gone, his appearance had shifted from a creature out of a horror movie to…something else. And not in a good way.

Steve remembered seeing some weird show with Dustin Henderson that he couldn’t fully remember, he just recalled that the robots, supposedly human-like, just made him feel weirded out. Dustin had called it “uncanny valley” and gave Steve a detailed explanation that he barely understood. But as he was looking at Eddie now, he finally understood the concept. From far away, Eddie could pass for a living human. Up close? Not a chance. 

Eddie noticed it too. He was studying himself in a large mirror, scowling at his own reflection. “I hate to admit this,” he said, tugging at his cheeks, his under eye circles, “but I might need that makeup.” 

Steve huffed a short laugh and moved closer with a sponge and Mary’s liquid makeup. She was pretty pale and rarely tanned, so the shade might just work for Eddie. “Face the light and stay still. We’re so lucky your hair is this long, otherwise I’d have to paint your ears too.” 

The dead man flinched as the sponge touched his face. “You leave my ears out of this. Ew, this is disgusting.” 

Even though Steve was putting everything he knew into doing Eddie’s makeup, the result wasn’t anywhere near as good as when he did Robin’s makeup for her prom. It wasn’t just Eddie’s stubble - it seemed as if the skin was just refusing to soak up the product. He remembered a movie he’d seen recently, Death Becomes Her. The unlucky guy there said something…something about makeup acting differently on corpse skin, and he also said-

“I should have bought spray paint,” he muttered as he willed the makeup to accept its new purpose. 

Eddie gasped with indignation. “I’ll have you know that when I walk through the Pearly gates, my face will be sparkling clean, just like the day I was born. No spray shall touch this fair skin.” 

Steve pressed the sponge to his upper lip to stop him from talking. “Funny, considering that even today you were keen on keeping your grime and dirt well into the afterlife.” 

“Mffft.” 

“That’s what I thought.” 

The end result was…acceptable. The skin texture wasn’t great and the blending on Eddie’s neck left something to be desired, but then again Eddie wasn’t going to a photoshoot. Through insults and muttered complaints, Steve cleaned his eyebrows and applied tinted balm to Eddie’s blue-ish lips. 

One final check in the mirror and Eddie gave his newly alive look a reluctant okay. “I mean. The eyes still give it away. But the blush kinda helped.” 

Steve stretched his back and yawned. It was killing him after crouching in front of Eddie for what felt like forever. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. If we’re lucky, people will only see you from a distance. And if I’m not standing right in front of you, I can’t tell. Worst case scenario, people will think you have a really bad hangover.” 

Eddie flung himself against the mirror and gasped. “Me? Edward Munson, drunk?! Unheard of!” 

Once again, it felt too easy. Too comfortable to ever let go. But Steve leaned into it this time, laughing at Eddie’s antics. “Ah yes, the famously alcohol-averse Edward Munson. The Edward Munson who puked his guts out after finding and drinking most of my dad’s rum.” 

Eddie winced. “Ugh, don’t remind me. I’ll forever call that one spot in your garden my shrubbery of shame.” 

Steve had finally finished packing everything they needed. A small recorder, a bunch of empty tapes…it wasn’t much, but it had to do. Robin’s living room had pretty good acoustic and a well-tuned guitar. “Okay, we can go.” 

He didn’t even have a chance to protest when Eddie grabbed the backpack and slung it over his shoulder. Eddie tutted at him. “You should learn by now. No limping on my watch.” 

“No guarantees.” 

They exited the Harrington house and started making their way to the final stage of their plan. 

Chapter 10 here

[theladycarpathia]

Empty Places Chapter 5 - Manifestation

Back to Chapter 4

“Steve?” Robin shouts and Billy echoes her call, their voices bouncing off the walls. Panic is starting to trickle in, the worry that Steve might not escape these walls. “Steve, stop fucking around! Steve!”

“Fuck!” Billy screams finally, and kicks at the wall. He’s exhausted and heart-sore and they were so, so fucking close. Steve isn’t answering, and that probably means that wherever he is, he can’t.

“Where is he?” Robin asks, looking on the verge of tears. Her hair is mussed and her eyes are bloodshot. None of them have slept or even really eaten for hours. “He was right behind me.”

“Something took him,” Billy mutters, pacing back and forth. Indecision and desperation to find Steve is clouding his mind. He doesn’t know what to do, save for tearing down every inch of this useless, crumbling foundation until he brings Steve back. Screw supernatural forces, he’s never once been without Steve and he’s not about to start now.

“But what? Henry or the other thing?” Robin asks, twisting her head back and forth down the dark hallway, as though she expects Steve to appear. But it's just dark there and it occurs to Billy that they should be keeping an eye on it, just in case whatever took Steve feels like a second and third course.

“Does it matter?” Billy asks in frustration. When he feels like this he wants to scream obscenities, rip down walls, and draw blood, but he can’t do that. Not with the ghost of Neil so fresh in his mind. He doesn’t want to become that. “It’s not like either one is a good option!”

“I’m just trying to figure it out!” Robin shouts, and that’s startling in itself. Robin doesn’t shout. She gets squeaky, she babbles, and her voice occasionally rises to a pitch only dogs can hear but she doesn’t shout. Unlike Billy, she lacks the tightly wound springs necessary for such an act…or she had, until today. “If we work out what took him and why, maybe we can get him back!”

“The ‘why’ doesn’t matter…” Billy starts to say and then stops. Maybe the why does matter. God, they’ve been such idiots.

“Hang on…” Billy says slowly. Something has clicked in his brain, the memory of the dank breath of not-Neil wafting across his face. He’s tried so hard to not think about it, because so much of it was about him. The weak parts of Billy that he doesn’t want his friends to see.

But there was something else that the thing had said. What was it?

“Repression out of the wazoo…” Billy says finally, the words slamming into him. He remembered them because they’d sound so odd coming out of Neil’s mouth. Robin stops pacing long enough to give him a confused look.

“That thing…” Billy explains hurriedly. Jesus, if he’s right, then the monster did take Steve for a good reason. “When it was wearing my dad’s face. It said you guys had your own problems, and then it said Steve had repression out of the wazoo. Those exact words.”

“And that’s important?” Robin asks skeptically, confusion written all over her pale face. Billy shrugs. They don’t have a lot else to work with. Just decades of death, violence and pain.

Or maybe that is something.

The thing had said that Robin didn’t have enough to push down. Robin is an open book, always blissfully, freely herself. She’s gay and, unlike Billy, at ease with it. She wears her quirky clothes, and adores her niche brand of cinema, indie music and queer fiction. She says every word that passes through her mind and loves and hates indiscriminately. She doesn’t push any of it down.

Billy, on the other hand, spent years hiding who he is. He puts on masks as easy as breathing and some days it feels like he’s a Russian nesting doll, a mask hidden under another mask. He hides his identity from Neil and tries to pretend to himself that it doesn’t bother him. He lets boys put their hands down his jeans, steals his mother’s lipsticks, and sticks rainbow stickers over his laptop. He hides, but apparently not enough to be of true interest to the spirits residing in this house.

“I think it feeds off repression,” Billy says, and it’s like puzzle pieces slotting into place. He thinks back to every death he’s ever heard of happening here and thinks that maybe he’s not wrong. Robin’s face still doesn’t untwist and he hurries to explain it to her. “No, listen. It didn’t come after you. Just me and Steve. I get why me, but it seemed really interested in Steve. It said Steve had it as bad as I do.”

“Oh?” Robin says, and doesn’t catch Billy’s eye. Something sinks in Billy’s chest.

“But it’s Steve,” Billy says, in disbelief. “What the fuck does he have to repress?”

“Maybe more than we think,” Robin says quietly. “He doesn’t have to tell us everything, you know.”

Something sharp pierces itself right through Billy’s heart. Whatever it is, Robin knows. She knows, and they both kept it from Billy.

It’s fine. He knows that she and Steve have a slightly different relationship. It’s his own fault, back from the days when Neil was being an absolute shit and he distanced himself from them. Somehow, without him, Robin and Steve had grown together in another way and it shouldn’t hurt so much as it does.

“Right. Fine,” Billy says, stung. He turns his back on her and turns his own torch down the dark, empty hallway. “Let’s go. We need to find Steve.”

“Billy,” Robin pleads and he can hear her hurried footsteps chasing him down the corridor. “It’s not my place to tell!” Billy snorts.

“I said, it’s fine,” he snaps. Which of course means he’s as bad as he can be, trapped in this house, with his best friend missing and keeping secrets from him. There’s always a chance for jealousy with the three of them. Three best friends still leaves an opportunity for someone to be a third wheel.

He just didn’t think that it would mean they’d keep shit from each other.

“Billy, please…” Robin pushes, sounding genuinely upset. “Billy, I don’t mean to…Jesus Christ!” Billy slams to a halt, mere inches before he plows right through the little ghost girl that’s appeared in front of them. He swallows heavily, willing moisture back into his mouth.

“Shit, kid, give us some warning,” he says shakily. He’s never going to get used to how Alice isn’t there one minute and is the next.

Alice merely tilts her head curiously at him. Billy exhales and takes a small step back, choosing to let Robin deal with the dead kid. She may be benevolent but Billy’s pretty done with supernatural things.

“Can you help us?” Robin asks, crouching down to look the little girl in the eyes. “Our friend is gone and we need to find him before we leave.”

“She doesn’t talk, Ro,” Billy says, because he’s not going to count on a ghost to help them get out. For all they know, she could be leading them down to be monster-chow. Steve vanished right after they went down into the tunnels that she directed them to, after all.

“She does!” Robin protests, looking annoyed. “She spoke to me before. I just don’t think she has the energy for it.”

“Ghosts don’t have batteries,” Billy says wearily and checks over his shoulder. Something slinking up behind them in the dark would really be horror movie material. But everything is black and still, no spiders on the walls, no ravenous teeth glinting off the torchlight.

“I don’t think it’s that,” Robin says, sounding thoughtful. “I think she’s being pushed down by the other spirits in here.” To Billy’s immense surprise, Alice nods and Robin beams.

“When did you become the ghost whisperer?” Billy asks curiously. But Robin has turned her attention fully onto Alice, bouncing a little on her heels.

“Do you know where our friend has gone?” she asks eagerly. “Is he still down here?”

A beat. Billy holds his breath. He’s pissed but he wants Steve back. More than anything.

Alice nods and points down the corridor. Robin looks past her ghostly figure, looking apprehensively into the space not lit by their torches.

“What’s down there?” Robin asks and then looks up at Billy. “You were down here before. Did you see this bit?”

“I wasn’t in this section,” Billy says, frowning. The basement appears to be much larger than the house above and he wonders if that’s by design or by some strange dimension twisting logic. He doubts very much that it was down to Andrew Newton. But he certainly didn’t encounter this particular tunnel earlier, and he doesn’t even know for sure if it connects to the original basement. “I don’t know where this leads.” Robin pulls herself up and takes a deep breath.

“I think we’re going to have to find out,” she says.

XXX

Steve wakes up and immediately regrets it.

“Fuck,” he groans and tries to lift his head. Whatever he’s got his face on is cold and slightly damp and smells like the back alley behind Family Video.

He manages to roll over, his head thumping with every movement. Finally, he’s able to lie flat on his back and just breathe. The air here is slightly musty and faintly stale. There’s an odd metallic tang to it, something familiar that Steve just can’t place.

He was in the basement. He climbed down the ladder with Billy and Robin. They were going to get out. But then someone had called his name from the blackness behind them. Something determined to not let him go and he hadn’t been strong enough to fight it.

He lifts his hand and gently probes at his forehead. While doing so reveals a large tender lump, his hand doesn’t come away covered with blood so he feels a little bit better about that.

Eventually his vision stops swaying and he’s able to focus on a familiar rug, fraying at the edges. He’s in the dining room of Creel House.

“What the fuck?” Steve asks blearily. How the hell did he get back up here? He was in the basement and now he’s staring at the old wood paneling that surrounds the room. He’s lying on the same patch of rug he tripped over earlier, just under the portrait of the Creels.

He peels himself off the floor, stopping to lean against the table when his head spins. He breathes in deep through his nose, ignoring the rank smell that he inhales when he does so. Fuck, did something die up here while they were running for their lives? It hadn’t smelled like that earlier.

“Billy?” he tries, his voice coming out as a dry croak. He coughs and tries again. “Billy? Ro?”

No answer.

Steve curls his fingers around the edge of the wood. This isn’t good. It feels like another trap somehow. He gets the vague feeling that trying to get back to the kitchen and the trapdoor again won’t end well for him.

“Alice?” Steve tries, hoping that their little guide can at least hear him, even if his friends can’t. But there’s no sudden ghost appearing in front of him, just the silence of an empty house.

Shit. He casts an anxious look back over his shoulder at the portrait, like he half expects the eyes of Henry Creel to be watching him. He’s going to have to do something. He can’t stay here.

That’s when he notices the other portraits.

Previously, the only portrait in the room was the sole one of the Creels - obnoxious and terrifying, taking up a large space directly over the dining table. But now every available section of space on the walls has been filled. A variety of frames of age, design and size scattered across every wall.

The one to the right of the Creels’ portrait is of a beautiful blonde woman. Her hair is curled around her heart-shaped face, her huge blue eyes sweet and sad. She’s wearing an old fashioned dress of a pale pink color, the collar neat and prim around her long neck.

The portrait to the left is of a middle-aged man with thinning red hair. He has brown eyes and a birthmark over his eyebrow. He’s wearing a brown velour suit that looks like something Steve’s dad had back in the seventies. When Steve looks around the room, every other portrait is the same. Some pictures are photographs, some black and white, some in color. Other frames hold actual paintings, like the one of the Creels. Most of them contain only one person but every so often it holds a couple. One closer to the door has a stern looking man with a burn across the hand that he drapes around his wife’s shoulder. Another has two similar looking women with matching dark skin and full mouths, possibly sisters.

Frowning Steve turns his head back to the portrait of the blonde woman and notices the faint inscription at the bottom of her frame.

Peggy Schaffer, 1948.

Steve’s legs hit the table as he takes a hurried step back. To anyone else that name might mean nothing. But Steve has spent weeks researching Creel House, stared at every newspaper and every name of whoever had once lived here. And in late 1947, the Schaffer family moved in with their teenage daughter, Margaret. She was known as Peggy and she later slit her wrists in the bathtub. She left the water running and the bath had overflowed with red water all the way down the hall.

Open-mouthed, Steve stares around the room. There are so many. The house has existed since the late eighteen hundreds but clearly not every case has been documented. As he wanders around, taking in every name, for every one he recognises there are least two that he doesn’t. He knows the Newtons, Elizabeth, Peggy and Richard. But he’s never heard of Chandra and Meera, Payton and Harry, Luisa and Andrew.

It’s like a strange sort of graveyard, portraits labeled with names and dates of death. Because that’s what this is - the blood that spilled over and over in Creel House. Andrew Newton in 1888. Elizabeth Strand in 1919. Peggy Schafer in 1948. Sebastian Hayes in 1975. Alice Creel in 1986. Isobel Reyes in 1997. Over and over, every person who ever stepped into this house.

Okay, fuck this. He’s getting out.

He bolts from the dining room, intent on reaching the door this time. He doesn’t care what might get in his way.. He’s going and when he’s out, he can open up the cellar door to the basement to find Billy and Robin. He’s pretty sure that they’re still down there, maybe wandering in the same labyrinth that caught him before. They don’t have much in the van that could help but there are tool sheds out back that must have something in that he can use.

But he slams to a halt in the hall. He can hear voices carrying clearly from the living room.

It’s another trick. An illusion. He’d know Billy and Robin’s voices anywhere and these ones definitely aren’t the sounds of his friends. But he goes to look anyway, gripping tightly to the doorframe as he peers around.

It’s Christmas. Before the room had been derelict and dusty and now it’s gleaming with twinkly lights, a massive fir tree taking pride of place in the corner. The mantlepiece bears four stockings, all trimmed with faux fur, and the people that sprawl across the floor passing presents back and forth are the same ones that left and never looked back.

Steve reels. Okay, he definitely hit his head. He had to have done and now he’s suffering from some weird concussion induced trauma that’s giving him hallucinations. Because he knows these people. Their photos are still stuck to every wall.

A pretty Korean woman, with her long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, digs under the tree for another present. Her husband - a tall man with curling brown hair and wire glasses - sits on the couch, watching his son run a toy train across the floor. It’s the kind of disgusting family scene that Steve never really had. The matching family slippers. The dog chewing on a toy bone on the rug. The hand painted ornaments on the tree.

“Open this one next,” Mrs Packard says, handing the gift to her daughter as though she can’t see Steve lingering in the doorway. Maybe she can’t, and this really is just Steve’s twisted hallucination.

Their daughter tears into the wrapping paper and judging by the names stitched onto the stockings, her name is Emma.

Emma rips through the wrapping paper the way that kids do, until it’s shredded in pieces on the carpet. But when she tugs open the box, the inside squirms and ripples like a pulsing heartbeat. For a minute, Steve doesn’t quite understand what he’s seeing. But then something small and shiny crawls out onto Emma’s hand.

“Fuck!” Steve shouts, because no one else seems to notice. Mrs Packard is still looking for presents under the three, the little boy runs his train back and forth across the rug. Emma just stares as the mass judders and spills over the cardboard box and her tiny fingers.

Emma turns to face him and to Steve’s shock, her eyes are as black as the shiny shells of the cockroaches. One skitters up her neck and vanishes into her dark hair.

“You’re all going to die in here,” she says simply, and Steve runs.

He’s dreaming. He has to be. He must still be lying in the fucking basement with a concussion and that asshole playing tricks with his head again. None of this can be real.

When he finds Neil Hargrove in the kitchen is the moment he knows for certain that it’s all in his head.

It’s still the Creel Kitchen, strange and caked in dust, sunlight rippling off the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, but Neil and his new family sit around the table, passing over plates of bacon like nothing is wrong. Susan Mayfield sweeps a dead spider off the table top and then sticks her knife in the butter. Steve feels bile rise in his throat as he sees the curled dead legs clinging to the butter on her knife before she smooths it across her toast.

Little Max, Billy’s stepsister, reaches for the ketchup bottle. Steve’s only ever seen a picture of her, all wild red hair and fierce blue eyes. She’s wearing shorts and a striped t-shirt, neat red plaits down her shoulders. She shakes out the bottle and clots of blood ooze down onto the plate instead. Like her mother she doesn’t notice, smearing a piece of bacon into the blood before placing it in her mouth.

Neil sips from his coffee cup before he even addresses Steve. It says a lot that Steve doesn’t feel any fear looking at this man. Billy might, but all Steve has is hate.

“You can’t fix him,” Neil says abruptly, and Steve curls his fingers into a fist. He’s always hated Neil, even before he knew what that asshole was doing to Billy.

“I’m not trying to fix him,” he snarls. As far as he’s concerned, Billy doesn't need fixing. He’s not something that can be fixed, no matter what Neil says.

“He’s not going to fix you either,” Neil says mildly and this time Steve seriously considers stabbing him with one of the knives on the table. This probably isn’t the Neil that Billy saw but this is the one that Steve remembers. The passive aggression, the snide comments, the badly veiled disdain. The man kept his temper in front of guests but only just. Even Steve’s father never spoke to his wife the way Neil spoke to Abigail.

“I’m not asking him to,” Steve says, because that’s not how this works. He has no illusions about it, that being with Billy isn’t going to fix all of their problems. It won’t mend Billy’s trauma, won’t vanish Steve’s insecurities. Relationships don’t work that way, and they shouldn’t.

Neil wrinkles up his nose. For a moment, his hand with the cup in tilts and Steve gets a glimpse of the strange black liquid within. It’s not coffee.

“It doesn't matter anyway,” Neil says, sounding bored. Susan takes a bite of toast, ignorant of the dead arachnid that is mulched into the butter. “You’re all going to die here.”

“You keep saying that!” Steve spits in frustration and Neil smiles.

“But it’s true,” he points out. “You’re never going to get out of this house. You walked willingly into this web, like all of those before you. We’re not going to let you go. You can thrash and fight to escape all you like. But you put your foot down onto the silk and woke us up and now you can’t get out. And you know why, don’t you?”

Steve swallows and it feels like knives all the way down, his mouth is so dry. With a sinking feeling, Steve suspects that it has been true ever since they walked through the front door. The spiders, the door, the tunnel…it all fits.

Which means that it’s all Steve’s fault.

Neil crows in delight and claps his hands, a slow, sarcastic applause. Steve looks down at the stained floor and feels a bitter sting come to his eyes. Fuck. It’s been him all along. He’s the reason that they didn’t get out when they tried the first time.

“Stupid boy,” Neil says, disdainfully. “You’re too far gone. You’re not going to escape. We’re hungry and love makes you weak.”

“It’s not making me weak,” Steve insists, because while loving Billy has made him a lot of things, it’s never once made him weak. “I’m not sure if you’re Neil or that fucker that was in my head earlier but it doesn’t make you weak. And you wouldn’t know because I don’t think you’re capable of it.” Neil, or Henry, or whatever else lives in this house…they’re all the same breed of monster in the end. The kind that Billy fears he’ll be and the kind that Steve knows Billy could never be. Incapable of love.

Neil’s mouth splits open and there are too many teeth crammed in behind his lips. There’s something familiar about the cold, dead look behind his eyes and that’s when Steve knows for sure. This is the creature that’s already been inside his head. This is the spider advancing on the fly bound in the web.

“Love isn’t power,” Neil continues, the cup slipping from his fingers. The black liquid inside seeps across the table and whatever it is, Steve doesn’t think that it’s safe to touch.

The fork suddenly clatters out of Max’s hand and she turns her head to look at Steve. Neil’s face has taken on an expression of fury, like the scheduled program is not going as he would like. Steve isn’t quite sure what’s going on until he gets a good look at Max’s face.

“Run,” Max says, and Steve doesn’t hang around.

It’s only when he’s racing back down the hallway that he realizes that he doesn’t know where to go. He can only go around and around in this house of horrors. And if it’s a dream then he’s really fucked. He doesn’t know how to get out of a dream.

But whatever happened back there wasn’t meant to happen and he remembers Alice trying in vain to keep him on track back in the tunnel.

The living room is empty again, the Packard’s one and only Christmas in this place wiped clean. Steve goes for the stairs, even though he’s not sure what nightmare waits for him up there.

He stumbles into Robin’s bedroom.

“Oh fuck,” Steve mutters, as he stares down at the three of them from four years ago. Robin in a pilfered sweatshirt, fast asleep on the bed, Cheeto dust still clinging to her fingers. Down on the floor, lying side by side on the spare mattress, is Billy and Steve. The TV flickers on whatever DVD they’d left in, now no longer being watched by any of the occupants in the room.

Mesmerised, Steve steps forward. Billy looks so young here, the faintest hint of a fuller face, before Billy had grown up. His hair is already starting to get longer, the curls clinging to the back of his neck. He’s half asleep, lashes fluttering against the curve of his cheek.

Steve had felt so raw that night. So unbalanced. They’d been friends for eight years at that point and he’s still not sure what it was about this night that made him start to look at Billy differently.

Steve turns to look at the younger version of himself and he can already see it on his face. He knows that it’s going to be a long, hard fall from here but he can’t stop watching fourteen year old Steve stare in awe as Billy breathes.

“I’m going to find a way back to you,” Steve promises his sleeping friends. Because he got them into this mess in the first place. They would have been able to walk out of the front door without Steve and his stupid head. He’s kept it all hidden for too long and he never should have let it get this far. He was afraid of losing Billy and it kept him from even trying.

He should have. He should have rolled over and kissed Billy that first night at Robin’s. He should have kissed him under the mistletoe at Nancy's party two years ago. He should have stopped today after he faced down the fake one and told him that Steve is too far gone on him.

Because that’s the thing. There’s no coming back now. He knows in his heart that he’s going to love Billy for the rest of his life. The fall has been too deep, too absolute. Every laugh, every time Billy fell asleep on his couch, every time he fought with Robin over his lipgloss. His sudden stormy moods, his unwavering loyalty, his incredible spirit. Steve is totally and incredibly in love. Being friends just isn’t enough and he knows it.

“You should remember that for later,” comes a voice and Steve looks up to see the gleam of Robin’s eyes in the dark. Even though she didn’t wake up that night, something has made her sit up now with that grave expression, a puppet pulled by someone else’s strings like Max down in the kitchen. “Don’t let go of it.”

“I won’t,” Steve promises, taking one last glance at this chunk of his past. He knows where he has to go next.

The room across the hall is also occupied but Steve steps in anyway.

“I suppose you meant it earlier when you said it was all fake?” Steve asks, waiting in the doorway. Henry looks up from his drawings. Steve can see from here that they’re the same horrid pictures that Robin found, smears of black ink and red pen across the page. The boy himself isn’t much better than the painting. There’s something strange about the pallor to his cheeks, the discontented twist of his mouth.

“It is,” Henry says flatly. And Steve is inclined to agree, the lie of a portrait of the happy family and the son who wished for nothing more than their deaths. It would have been better for all of the Creels if Henry had been drowned in a bucket after birth. He may not have murdered them but it was still his hand behind their deaths in the end. “You should know that better than anyone.”

“Maybe,” Steve agrees. Maybe that was another part that Henry was picking up on, the one similarity between themselves.

Alice sits on the floor, her legs tucked beneath her pale blue dress. She pays Steve no mind, drawing something in a bright pink crayon. So far, Steve has only seen the painting and the ghost versions of her. This one is painfully real, from the runs in her tights to the flush in her cheeks.

“You killed your sister,” Steve says, repulsed. They’d known it before but they never stopped to consider just how evil of an act that it was. It’s all too easy to see - Henry pulling his sister from her bed, smothering her screams for help, dragging her down into this dark space and slicing her open. A sacrifice, a bargain, an offering.

“It was the price to pay,” Henry says smoothly and the coldness of it all strikes Steve down to his core. “It wanted proof of my loyalty…and that I could follow through on my desires. A trait that you seem to lack.”

Steve grinds his teeth. This creature has chased him all around the house, wearing different faces, and he’s had enough of it. The only thing stopping him from punching Henry Creel right in his smug face is the thought that this is just another illusion.

“Well, I’m glad that you have some restraint,” Henry drawls, his eyes glittering. He looks half mad, this small boy with the intense eyes. Steve’s not really one for believing that whole ‘windows to the soul’ gibberish but he thinks that these eyes are definitely showing something. Like the glint of a predator’s eyes in the dark.

“Did you just read my fucking mind?” Steve spits, a little horrified. He should have guessed and the slow, pleased smile spreading across Henry’s face is enough to prove it.

“Did you think I just killed my sister for nothing?” Henry asks. Alice continues coloring and Steve is pretty sure that this one is just an illusion. Just another ploy by Henry, like the Packards, like the Mayfields.

“No, I got a little something out of it,” Henry continues, as though Steve’s presence barely matters at all. “I told you before. Power is what matters. Not love.”

Love had meant nothing to Henry. Maybe he’d never cared for his sister. Maybe he had and slitting her open in front of the demon was the sacrifice he’d had to make. But Henry has been doing the dirty work for the demon ever since 1989. Playing with people’s heads, learning their fears and desires, and driving them right into an open maw.

If there was indeed a spirit that existed in Hawkins before Andrew Newton ever thought to build a grand manor here, then the demon was trapped by the concrete walls, the slabs of modern steel, all of the brick and mortar. Andrew constructed a trap without ever knowing what he had done. But it didn’t matter. The demon didn’t need to leave anymore, not now that food was being delivered right to it.

Some probably took time. Peggy killed herself a mere seven months after she arrived at the house. If the demon was limited to where it could go in the house, then its influence took longer to get inside Peggy’s head. It was the same for the Strands. It took a long year before Winston snapped and murdered his wife. But after the remaining Creels left the house, the time frame for every occupant got shorter and shorter. Isobel Reyes in 1997 lasted three months. Terry Hatcher survived eight weeks before he threw himself onto the iron railings below. The Packards lived here for five months before they fled. That's a long time to survive with a demon living beneath your feet, with a monster trying to tug on your strings, waiting until you’re ripe. Henry is the anglerfish, the siren luring men into rocks with their songs, the woman in white waiting by the side of the road.

The entity in this house has made Henry the perfect tool. He can pick out every dark thought in someone’s head and then use it to manifest their fears, their desires. It would either propel them to act on their repressed thoughts or eventually drive them mad.

A deeply disturbed boy, obsessed with the murders and spiders, must have been ripe pickings for a demon. They’d lived here for a few months before the disappearances. Did the demon whisper to Henry every night? Trickle sweet nothings in his ear, like poisoned honey, promising him blood and power if he would just drag his sister down to the basement and spill her guts before a demon?

“You’re not wrong,” comes a bemused voice and Steve jerks his head up to the large bay window. Before it had been empty, sunlight spilling in across the faded wood.

The man in front of him doesn’t look much older than Steve. He’s maybe a decade older, long and lean with sharp wrists and high cheekbones. There’s something about his blonde hair, the glint in his eyes as he stares at Steve that’s also familiar. It isn’t until the man tilts his aristocratic chin that it all clicks.

“Henry Creel,” Steve says, stunned, and the man gives him a flash of teeth. Steve turns his head back to the young Henry on the floor. The boy is still dragging thick black lines across the page. There’s something familiar about it and Steve recoils. It’s following him, that same black ooze.

“Well done,” Henry says, and it drips with condescension. There’s still something of the dour little boy in the man standing in front of Steve, but he can’t quite believe that this is Henry Creel all grown up. Henry should be older, a man in his fifties at least. But this man is youthful, with fresh skin and shiny hair, and it sits all wrong in Steve’s belly. It could be another part of his dream but somehow, he doesn’t think that it is.

“How are you…?” Steve begins to ask and then stops. “You never left this house, did you?” The horrible truth is that he already knows, and has started to suspect since Robin came down with that metal box in her hands. Two little children vanished from their beds one night in 1986. They were never seen again until 2022 when three amateur ghost hunters wandered into the Creel mansion. Alice looks exactly the same as she did when she lived here and that’s because she never left.

Henry didn’t either but for completely different reasons.

“So no portrait in the attic then?” Steve asks, and Henry smirks.

“I told you that there were benefits to this arrangement,” he says calmly, wandering a little closer to Steve. He looks like any man you’d meet in the street, with tailored trousers and a crisp white shirt. His polished black shoes click across the concrete and Steve shuts his eyes. He’s not sure what’s worse.

“That’s fucked up,” Steve hisses. Steve would never…could never. Not for whatever twisted immortality that Henry has.

“And instead of being devoured by it, you were the only one to make friends with it,” Steve says and opens his eyes. Henry watches him with interest. There's satisfaction there, and a little bit of hunger. There shouldn’t be such an expression of bloodlust on any human.

“Close,” Henry admits. “I was always different. That’s why we moved here. They thought that a nice little town like this could fix me.”

“Can it fix psychopath,” Steve bites out, unable to help voicing the thought that skitters across his brain. Because there’s something very not right with Henry, something that was rotten long before he walked across the demon’s path.

But Henry chuckles. He looks amused by Steve’s venom, and that doesn’t mean anything good for Steve.

“You failed a little,” Steve probes. “Your parents got out.” But there’s a look of grim satisfaction on Henry’s face.

“Not far enough,” he chides. “And not for long. They both died not long after. Quite honestly, I think that they knew what had happened. It wasn’t something that they could really live with.”

No, they couldn’t have. They’d have known what their son was capable of and they’d never have been able to shake their suspicions. It had swallowed Virginia whole and Victor not long after. The guilt. The regret. The grief.

“What about my friends?” Steve asks, because he has to know. Billy was visited by either Henry or the demon…and if Steve had to make a guess, he’d presume the demon. Billy had wandered right into its hunting ground, and he could guess at what thoughts could be skimmed from Billy’s head. The kind of thoughts that would have made it so easy for it to wear Neil’s face.

“They’re around,” Henry says, looking at his fingernails. This is all routine for him, luring people down to be used as food. He’s more demon than human himself now, never aging, able to pick out people’s deepest desires from their hearts. “We really only needed you. If they’re smart, they’ll leave.”

Steve swallows, suddenly very aware of the lump in his throat. They wouldn’t leave. He hopes to God they have but he knows them. They’ve been a package deal all their lives. They wouldn’t leave him behind.

“Why all this?” Steve asks, gesturing to the room, the children, the dream. “I know it’s not real.”

Henry gives an easy shrug and then waves his hand. The children vanish, young Henry and Alice fading away like smoke.

“Why not?” Henry says, like it’s all a game. That this has just been fun for him, seeing how far he can push Steve. “Besides, I don’t think you want what’s real.”

“So how does it work?” Steve asks, trying to ignore the goose-flesh on his arms. The temperature in the room has dropped, a strange dank air moving through the room as though someone left a window to hell open. He’s on borrowed time now. “I run around this stupid dream version of your house until you eat me?”

“I’m not the one eating you,” Henry says dryly. The bedroom door slams behind Steve and he flinches, before grabbing furiously at the handle. It rattles uselessly, even though he knows there’s no escaping anyway. This is Henry’s domain. Steve has no power here.

“No, you don’t,” Henry says coldly and when Steve turns around Henry is right there, a hand shooting out as fast as lightning to push Steve back into the door. It’s a dream, but he can still feel the press of the handle into his spine, the sharp sting of Henry’s nails against his throat.

A hand curls suddenly into his hair and Steve tries to jerk back but can’t. Henry’s fingers are cold and stiff, a familiar feeling from when he’d worn Billy’s face earlier and caressed Steve’s face like a lover. The fact that this time he knows that it’s not Billy, something not quite human, doesn’t help. His blood still pounds with fear as Henry leans over him.

“It’s been a good while since I was able to use these powers,” Henry confides, still gently stroking Steve’s hair like he doesn’t have his other hand gripped around Steve’s throat. “This was what I wanted after all, what I was promised. Before I was ordinary, human, weak.”

“Get out,” Steve gasps, having to fight for each word against the pressure of Henry’s weight. Henry just smiles, his face horribly close to Steve’s and that’s when Steve realizes that he can’t move. Steve automatically squirms but Henry just laughs and it’s by far the worst sound that Steve has ever heard.

“Would this be easier for you if I looked like Billy again?” Henry asks and Steve shudders.

Henry grins, mouth stretched wide and curls his fingers deeper into Steve’s head. They feel longer, bonier, than any normal digit should, each one like an ice pick against Steve’s scalp.

“I hope you don’t mind me having another little look,” Henry croons, before Steve tips his head back and screams.

Onto Chapter 6

[curiositydooropened]

Cheers to lovely happy moods and writing motivation! 🍻

Now, for some Steve headcannons:

When he can’t sleep, when it’s a great day outside, or when he’s bored, he loves driving around back roads and listening to music (he also loves doing this with friends and just decompressing)

He may be portrayed as a dud in the last two seasons, but once he finds his person/someone more flustered than him, that “King Steve” comfidence/charm comes out

He’s always taking care of those around him, so I just know he loves to be a sub; however, when he’s had a really tough day, he will absolutely manhandle you

Will act all macho when first getting to know you, but will 10000% make you kill the spiders later on

Doesn’t like being alone, so even if he’s not in the same room as you, he finds comfort in knowing you’re in the house if he needs you

Aaaaand Eddie:

Absolute toilet humor; will dutch oven you and maniacally laugh

Gets excited about you wanting to learn guitar but is absolutely anal about how you handle his “sweetheart”

Loves reading fantasy/horror to you or reading the same book and chatting about it

Absolute dom energy once he gets past his awkward phase

May put on a cocky façade, but he gets insecure about what people say about him and you constantly reassure him that he’s perfect as is

As for what I’m proud of… hmm. I would say the fact that I started Pilates almost 2 months ago and I’ve stuck with it! I had my daughter almost two years ago and have been suffering with back pain after my c-section and my body whole body feels SO much better and less stiff. Working out in a gym would cause me to literally cry from pain, and this has caused me to cry because I can work out with no pain at all!

Now tell me what hcs you have and what you’re proud of!

Yes, yes, YES, ABSOLUTELY to all of this. I concur a thousand percent to it all, and I'm obsessed. Well, except with Steve making me kill the spiders (don't get me wrong, it's accurate) because I'm also terrified. So it might just be a watch the house burn down kind of situation. 😂

And ahhhhhhhh! I'm so so so proud of you for sticking with it and taking care of yourself and your body's needs and for making yourself feel good!!!!! That's so amazing, and I'm so happy for you!!!

OMG My headcanons okay so...

Steve

is for sure a worshipper, like you said, he takes good care. I'm talking calf massages, I'm talking having stir fry made when you get home, I'm talking bubble bath made to the perfect temperature

loves camping because he didn't get to do it as a kid. Not really. He camped in cabins or at luxury chalets but never in a sleeping bag in a tent on the cold hard ground, and he lives for it

although the nighttime sounds of the woods aren't ideal, and the first night out, he promptly packs up the sleeping bag and hauls you back to the backseat of his car because steel is safer than canvas

is a flirt. Like makes everyone blush, even Robin sometimes, despite her eye roll, cuz the shit he says is smooth

Eddie

is a menace. Absolute chaos demon. Keep lighters away from him because he will burn a rogue napkin and not care enough to stamp it out properly

spent a holiday season as one of those donation takers for the Salvation Army, out in front of Bradley's. (a favor for Wayne) But it only lasted a few hours before he was fired for chasing people down for their cash

gets freaky, I've got to be honest. This boy loves a costume. Wearing one, seeing you in one, doing voices, it's all on the table.

And I'm proud of myself because I stayed up really late last night reformating my resume and writing a cover letter to a dream job. And then I applied. And fingers crossed I get even an interview, but if I don't, I'm really proud of myself for putting the work in and getting my name out there. In the past, I would have been too insecure to even try. But now I'm confident in myself and my abilities, and if I don't get an interview, they really don't know what kind of gem they're missing. 💎🥰

Thanks so much for this, love!!!!! xo xo

[alaskan-wallflower]

Can you do sick Ponyboy headcanons, like with a stomach bug? Ik you did Soda recently <33

yessss these are my FAVORITES (i made a reply yesterday and it got deleted fml

Pony’s kinda used to stomachaches and things of that nature because he’s just always stressed, doesn’t drink enough water, never eats and also the aspirin thing

He’s basically a walking stomachache at that point, but they’re never bad enough to the point he gets actually sick-he’s got a lot of discomfort though

If he has a genuine stomach bug though he’s out for the count, like he always thinks his appendix burst or something with how intense the pain can be

I feel like Pony has a very very very vocal stomach though…like it’s always making embarrassing noises (like sometimes it keeps Soda up at night 😭)

That being said, Soda’s the only one who can tell the difference between when Pony has a genuine stomachache and when he’s hungry

Darry assumes the stomach pain is from hunger, like it always is, so he just makes Pony eat a pretty hefty breakfast and just sends him off

Pony is NOT having a good time in class either like he’s just got his head down and just prays the day will go faster

Its not until lunch that anything really happens because the smell of the cafeteria just makes it so so so much worse

He probably tried to gf into the school from the outside but almost got attacked by some socs and he throws up because they wouldn’t let him leave

He just feels so mortified because not only did he throw up on some soc guys but he also threw up in front of what felt like the entire school

Two Bit took him home evacsue Steve had work after school and couldn’t help take care of Pony

Two literally smuggled him out of the building as if he were some sort of illegal substance lmfao

Pony bets Two not to call Darry or Soda tho because he doesn’t wanna be a burden and he also doesn’t want Darry to get mad at him (he’d never get mad at Pony, Pony just has low self esteem and always assumes the worst)

Two actually is pretty okay at caring for people-I mean, he’s got a little sister and he says “I’m a latch key kid” in the musical which makes me think his parents aren’t in the picture…..so take that as you wish

He did ty feeding Pony chocolate cake tho and then wondered why he threw up

Steve tells Soda tho and Soda tells Darry who of course is VERY concerned and feels VERY bad because he made Pony go to school sick

Pony doesn’t blame him though since he has frequent stomachaches and he himself had assumed the same until he started feeling sick

Pony wakes up in Darry’s arms- he doesn’t wake up until a few hours later and Darry just kisses his forehead and apologizes for bit believing him

Soda gets home and he’s real concerned too and immediately starts barraging Pony with questions and trying to inspect him but Darry tells him to lay off

Pony def tries drinking Pepsi as a way to burp up the pressure but Darry makes him take medicine instead and opts for letting Pony have sparkling water instead to get ACTUAL fluids in him

He’s sick for a few days but he’s okay in the end!

hope this is okay!!