#and the bracelet mentioned is a friendship bracelet matching with robin

[mustlovesteve]

I loved the first commission so much, I couldn't resist ordering another one as a parallel of sorts! This lovely drawing is by @toktopus-art. It's based on a scene from Chapter 26 of my vamp!Eddie/Steve-gets-Vecna'd fic, laughing at the broken glass.

Scene excerpt is below, and the AO3 link to the fic is on my pinned post.

Steve wished they could just stay like this, but there were only two more songs left on this A-side. “Hey, can I see your bracelet?” Eddie asked. If not for his all-too-casual tone, Steve wouldn’t have suspected anything. “Pulling out all the stops, huh?” Steve asked wryly. Eddie flashed a shameless grin at him. Chuckling, Steve tugged his sleeve down before lifting up his wrist. To his pleasant surprise, the glow-in-the-dark effect was actually noticeable. Eddie took a moment to share in the admiration of the bracelet before grabbing Steve’s hand and tugging it down. “This is better, yeah?” Eddie asked. “Huh?” Steve turned to look at him again, but Eddie was staring straight up at the sky. “Than just sitting in your car in the freezing cold by yourself, I mean.” “I had Freddie Mercury with me.” “I’m serious.” Eddie finally turned his head to face Steve again. His expression certainly matched his words. Steve couldn’t help but tense up at the shift in tone, though he was swiftly eased by the way Eddie’s thumb brushed across his knuckles. “I...hate that you even have to ask.” Steve managed to smile, even though Eddie frowned at that. “Yeah, this is better.” One song left. It wasn’t fair.

[harringtonswriting]

Okay what abt “just to clarify: me holding your hand doesn’t, like, mean anything, by the way. not in that way, at least. unless you want it to mean something. i don’t mind. that’s cool.” with Robin. This one has big robin vibes with the rambling omg

omg bestie this prompt was SO cute and yes it definitely has big robin vibes !!! i loved it so much and i hope you do too!! it's my first time writing for robin and it was so, so fun !!!

...

You hadn’t expected the mall to be this busy.

You could tell Robin hadn’t, either, from the grimace on her face as yet another person bumps into the two of you. Realistically, though, when she’d suggested heading to Indianapolis on a Friday afternoon, you probably should have known this would be the case. But you could never say no to Robin, and when she’d mentioned wanting to visit the big bookstore there because it would definitely have a better selection than the small one in Hawkins, you almost immediately told her you’d go with her.

The smile on her face was absolutely worth it, though, even if Eddie did tease you about it for the entire week leading up to your excursion. You’d do anything to see her smile, like really smile, where her mouth turns almost perfectly, prettily heart-shaped and her freckled cheeks squish up under her beautiful, bright blue eyes and you can’t help but smile too. So that’s why you’re here, on a terribly busy Friday afternoon, trying to weave through the crowds together while Robin tells you about the fact that old man Linley was in there for the third time this month to rent Sorority Sluts.

“And he thinks if he puts E.T. on top of it we’re not gonna notice! Like, come on, it’s already super obvious with the beads in the doorway to the back room,” she tells you, and you laugh at the image. You can see her and Steve now, sharing one of those looks you’ve seen them shoot at each other, where they don’t need words to communicate, as one of them rings through the older man and his… questionable choices. “Steve says that’s, like, one of the worse ones back there too. Which I then proceeded to call him a pervert for because, like, has he seen all of them? And knows how good they are? Like, how good can those movies actually be?”

That’s not something you’ve ever really considered, and you’re not sure you want to know. The two of you continue walking through the bottom floor, eyes looking out for the bookstore Robin wants to visit. You weren’t exactly sure where it was, but she’d said she knows where it is and was supposed to be leading the way. The two of you were going there first, and then you’d wander around for a bit before getting something to eat. But you could honestly listen to her talk all day, seeing how animated she gets and the way she moves her hands around to express her ideas and to really emphasize what she’s saying. It was one of the things you love about her–not that you’d mention that. Sure, she confided in you that she likes girls, but that doesn’t mean she likes you. You could (and would) dream that you’d be so lucky, but being able to be her friend and spend time with her was more than enough.

You’re drawn out of your reverie when yet another person pushes between the two of you, their shoulder knocking into yours, as you pass by a record store next to a little clothing boutique. You sigh, waiting for them to pass before turning to smile apologetically at Robin.

That’s when you feel something warm and soft grab your hand, and when you look down, you can see the familiar chipped purple nail polish and silver rings that normally adorn Robin’s hand. Your eyes move up a little further, and you see the yellow friendship bracelet you’d made her, one that matches the green one on your own wrist. Then you move your eyes higher and see Robin’s cheeks are flushed a very pretty pink, and her eyes are looking everywhere but at your face, and you feel your own cheeks get warm.

“I just don’t want you to get lost, you know? How much would it suck to finally make it to the bookstore and you’re not there because some rude jag off doesn’t know how to say excuse me?” she says, her voice higher pitched than normal as her words come tumbling out of her mouth. She tugs you forward by your intertwined hands, starting to walk and pull you along with her. You let her, a little surprised but not hating the way her hand feels in yours. “Just to clarify: me holding your hand doesn’t, like, mean anything, by the way. Not in that way, at least. Unless you want it to mean something. I don’t mind. That's cool.” The words keep coming, though these ones aren’t exactly what you’re expecting. Robin’s always been a talker, and maybe she didn’t mean for you to be paying complete attention to her this time, but you are and did she just say she doesn’t mind if holding your hand means something? Maybe you didn’t hear that right over the noise in the mall. But maybe… Well, if you heard right then you want to make sure she means what you think she means. What you want her to mean. 

“What if I want it to mean something?” you interject, and you tumble into Robin’s side as she stops walking immediately. She doesn’t let go of your hand, though, even as you apologize. Her blue eyes are wide, her lashes stark and black against her face, as she stares at you with her mouth slightly open. It’s the first time you’ve stunned her into silence, and you relish it for a few seconds before she starts speaking again.

“Do you want it to mean something? I mean, you know, I would be okay with that. More than okay! If you mean it. Steve’s been saying I should probably tell you how I feel but I also don’t want to scare off one of the only girl friends that I have because, like, we are just friends and we also live in a small town and people are seriously not cool there. Aside from you! And Nancy, she’s pretty cool, but she’s with Jonathan and I’m not even into her, I swear!” She’s gesturing again, but she hasn’t let go of your hand; in fact, her grip has only gotten tighter and she’s using your hand to gesticulate with her own.

People keep pushing around the two of you, but you don’t move out of the way for them this time. You feel warmth bloom in your chest, under your ribcage as your heart pounds, because Robin is absolutely adorable when she’s flustered. You could listen to her talk for hours, even about Nancy Wheeler, who you’re kind of glad to hear Robin doesn’t have a crush on. That eases a knot in your stomach you don’t like to think about. But is Robin actually saying she likes you? Like, likes you likes you? You think so. And… wow, okay, you were very glad you offered to drive Robin to Indianapolis. “Also, like, I didn’t mean girlfriend, unless you want me to mean girlfriend, as in not just a friend, but I don’t want to weird you out.”

She seems to be drifting off in her trains of thought, so you squeeze her hand where it’s still gripping yours, and it stops her mid sentence. “Robin,” you say, and her eyes meet your own. Her eyebrows are furrowed and her nose is scrunched, and in the sunlight coming through the mall’s skylights her freckles stand out like tiny kisses along the bridge of her nose and the soft planes of her cheeks, and you’ve never thought she looked prettier. “Yeah, I want it to mean something. I do.”

There’s that smile you love, back on her face and this time her tongue is sticking out just slightly from between her teeth. She pulls you in just a bit closer, before you start out again to head to the bookstore with her hand never leaving yours.

And if you spend a little too long hidden between bookshelves in the back, quiet giggles and the smell of paper lingering around you, well, that’s just fine with you.

[friends-to-lovers-tournament]

Friends to Lovers Tournament: Round 1, Side B, Match 17

propaganda under the cut!

Chrobin:

Imagine finding a stranger on the ground, picking them up, and saying 'you are one of us now!' That's Chrobin for you! Chrom quite literally found Robin laying in a field unconscious and decided to bring them along on his little routine mission but one thing leads to another and Chrom is never without Robin. The two fight off medieval zombies, travel the continent, suffer and heal together as their story goes on. The core of Robin and Chrom's relationship is their friendship but the game gives you the option to have them get married and wow, Chrobin real!!! I could ramble about their tragedy or their silliness but it all leads back to their friendship and how they stick together no matter what life and death throws at them. In a later game in the series their souls are imprinted together in an ancient weapon. What's more romantic than being a powerful magical bracelet together?

KohaAi:

first of all they were online friends before their introduction to the game where they lost contact with each other after a while. they first met in real life after moving into the idol dorms where they met by chance. aira, meeting kohaku for the first time, LITERALLY CALLED HIM PRETTY AND WHEN HE WOKE UP IN THE MORNING, HE THOUGHT HE WAS DREAMING BECAUSE OF HOW PRETTY HE THOUGHT KOHAKU WAS. and they also think each other's names (and each other) are beautiful! theres also the fact they love each other's company and hang out just with just the two of them all the time (and theyre each other's first person to hang out with). theres even an official 4-koma where theyre basically going out on a date for crepes and boba and kohaku's cousin, tsukasa, steals his boba and kohaku WALKS OUT OF FRAME HOLDING AIRA'S HAND. FOR WHAT REASON !!! not to mention theres an official scout story where they had to act romantically together for a job and didn't even act any different and the director was like yup! perfect! that was romantic! and i will never recover. theyve shared food together, they like getting gifts for each other, and always believe theyve got each others backs. kohaku also canonically is very weak to aira. aira wanted kohaku to do a dance trend with him and he thought it was embarrassing but then aira started pouted and kohaku was like NOOOOO I CANT SAY NO TO THAT FACE. and speaking of aira's face, kohaku has CANONICALLY admitted that he loves seeing aira's happy faces and even referred to him as "a special person" (translated) using a term meant for people you really love, and usually is in regards to lovers ! and last but certainly not least, the yoru ni kakeru cover they did with their units! their lines were:

Both: Even so, someday we'll surely, we'll understand each other 

Kohaku: I believe that

Aira: In the troubling days, I became unable to smile

Kohaku: You are truly beautiful in my eyes

there might be more but these are the ones off the top of my head

[infinite-orangepeel]

‘It’s Rotten Work’ Pt. 7 Excerpt: Eddie & Robin Talk About Steve While He’s Sleeping

cw: brief mentions of eddie’s childhood experiences surrounding his parents’ addiction

(click the link above to read the rest of the chapter !!)

Eddie crouches and warms his hands in front of the hearth. His knees crack as he bends. Robin doesn’t say anything for a while. Flips through expired deals, taps her toes, and looks at him sideways as if she’s trying to figure him out. His aims. His motives. What his intentions are with her pomme d’amour.

Boy with the candy apple soul.

“You make him happy,” she blurts, at last, “it scares me.”

Eddie winces, because this conversation was always bound to be difficult. He’s been nervously anticipating it since she showed up on the porch earlier with bags of provisions in hand.

Let’s not talk about this, he wants to say, He’s sleeping, he’s dreaming, we’ll ruin it. Let’s not ruin it. Let him dream. Let him go wherever his imagination takes him. Far away–far, far, away. He’s with the seagulls and the ocean. He’s safe.

Supplication isn’t Eddie’s forte. Pride keeps him on his feet.

“He deserves to be happy, but you’re plenty justified in not wanting him to find that happiness with me. I get it. Even I don’t think I’m the best choice for him, but he's here and I can’t abandon him. He needs someone. He needs help. He’s—he hurts too much when he’s alone.”

Perhaps, he’s said too much.

Perhaps, he should excuse himself and go to bed. It’s getting late. The moon’s out. He has no hair to hide under anymore. Buzzcut sticking out the cold of winter. He misses his curls and warm July and his mother’s arms.

And, the thought of violating Steve’s trust makes him sick to his stomach. But Eddie’s grown so tired of pretending everything’s okay.

Nothing is.

He was raised to spread lies to the suits of social services; ‘Mommy’s sleeping. She has the flu,’ ‘Daddy’s on a trip to Philadelphia for business,’ and ‘No one ever hits me. I got this bruise on the playground–fell off the slide.’

His growing pains consisted of pricing out baggies of cocaine and aluminum foil wrappers of heroin while his feet dangled from the kitchen table. Broken crayons pushed to the side so he could do his job. Not yet tall enough to touch the blizzard on the carpet. Child labor laws don’t do shit when you’re in the ‘safety’ of your own home.

He can’t lie anymore.

Robin sighs. Pulls her hair into a small bun at the nape of her neck and twists. ABBA hits the halfway point on the vinyl–‘Knowing me, Knowing you’–for the second time that evening. She fiddles with the matching friendship bracelet on her wrist. The knots aren’t nearly as tight as the ones she made on Steves’.

How long will it last? How long until the threads snap from straining past their breaking points?

“It’s just—you’re his whole world, I think. He looks at you like you’re the answer to every hurt he’s ever felt. I’ve never seen him so— infatuated —with someone.”

Infatuation isn’t love. Like Stevia isn’t sugar. Like cocaine isn’t a mother’s lullaby.

She never sang him to sleep.

Mama.

Eddie sang himself to sleep. Curled knobby knees into his chest under damp blankets, because there was a leak in the ceiling they didn’t have the money to fix and sang snippets of Beatnik tunes.

Words he was too young to understand the true meaning of gave him something to hold onto in the dark. Junkyard hymns and wolves howling to hush the quickened hearts of black lambs.

“It works for now, but he’s running away, Eddie. You can’t– we can’t–ignore his bad habits as much as he may want us to.”

“He’s trying to get better—”

Eddie’s not sure he believes that, himself. He says it because it sounds like the right thing. He says it because it’s what he thinks Robin, Steve’s best friend, wants to hear.

“You’re right, but who is he trying to get better for? Steve–the thing about him is–there’s milkweed in my mom’s garden–”

“Milkweed? The plant?”

In middle school, Eddie’s neighbor paid him ten bucks–one Saturday a month–to mow the lawn and pull Milkweed among other invasive species from his yard. However, his side gig had ended when the man asked him to use a BB gun to ‘remove’ ground squirrels from the property. In tears, he’d biked home and refused to ever go back.

Eddie was ten.

“The plant, yes. A few years ago, my mom asked Steve and I to spend an afternoon spraying weed killer around the perimeter of the garden so it would stop growing, but Steve wouldn’t have it.”

“Why not? Too much work? Didn’t wanna fuck up his hair?” he jokes.

Robin doesn’t laugh.

“The butterflies,” she points to a pair of butterfly wings in black ink on the side of her red shoes–he must have drawn them earlier today, “He cried, Eddie. Not a lot. Not sobbing, but there were tears on his cheeks when he told us that we couldn’t touch the milkweed, because caterpillars like to spin their cocoons on it. If you’d told my high school self that Steve Harrington would be crying in my backyard over the lives of the local butterfly population someday? I’d never have believed you. But, he did. He blocked off an entire section of the garden and bought all this fancy wiring so the birds couldn’t get to them while they grew. He came back every other day to check on them. Sometimes I wasn’t even home.”

Eddie can see it. Has seen it–many times. Steve champions the underdog without question. He’s done it for Eddie. He’s done it for the kids. The only person he won’t do it for is–

“He’ll go to war for anyone, but himself. I mean–the guy fought a Demogorgon, the Mind Flayer, and Vecna to protect Hawkins. Those kids are his world. He’ll fight for them and me and Nance and you and the butterflies, but he sees no reason to fight for himself.”

A pack of Lucky Strikes beckons to Eddie from the coffee table.

How many times in one life can you make the same mistake? How many times does it take before your brain catches up to your heart?

“Steve was supposed to go to college, make friends , get out of Hawkins,” she trails off, grinding her teeth together in frustration like a nutcracker caught on a stubborn walnut, “I don’t know what to do. As long as you’re here, he’ll stay. And, if you leave, it’ll kill him. I feel like I’m staring down a dead end street with a gun to the back of my head and my hands tied. It keeps me up at night, because he saved me–more than once–but I’m at a loss now. What kind of best friend does that make me?”

A memory arises. A flight to Kentucky to stay with Wayne’s second cousin for a family wedding. Thirty-six thousand feet in the air, Eddie focused on two things to keep his mind off of sudden death–complimentary pretzels and the flight attendant’s warning to ‘ put your own mask on first, before helping others.’

Recited it in his head like a prayer. He prepared for the worst, ate through three bags of pretzels, and only found peace when the plane touched down in Louisville.

Steve had flown all over the world. Eddie traveled vicariously through his descriptions of European villas, relics he’d only seen in history books, the blue waters caressing the Mediterranean coast.

‘Put your own mask on first, before helping others.’

Thousands of dollars in airfare, the best hotels money could buy, and numerous upgrades to first class. Mr. and Mrs. Harrington’s cash clogging the drain while Steve drowned in exotic porcelain bathtubs.

“I’m sorry. I should have called you. I should have explained. I never meant for it to be like this. I showed up at his house and he was scared out of his mind. He was having a panic attack for fuck’s sake. He looked at me and I hardly recognized the guy standing in front of me, Robin. I–I couldn’t leave him.”

Steve looked so frail that day. Oversized t-shirt hanging off his hunched shoulders, eyes shot red from crying, dead boy walking–Eddie never stood a chance.

Broken wings needed fixing and Eddie Munson was good at putting things back together.

More than that, he knew how much it hurt to be broken. He knew how much it ached to be alone. The nights were long, the calls came few and far between, no one told you not to burn yourself on the stove when you stopped feeling real and went looking for a quick fix.

Only the howls of the wolves keep you company when everyone else walks away.

It didn’t help that Steve was also so fucking beautiful.

Covered in snot, tears, dripping blood, scars, flesh wounds, brain damage, vomit–he was Eddie’s sun. Only able to flourish due to the blessing of his golden rays. Like Milkweed and butterflies and strawberries for flaky pie.

[missingspaceships]

For the weirder asks, 1, 19, 42, 49 👍

:D hi druuuu

who is/are your comfort character(s)?

i mean eddie munson of course (honorable mention to steve and robin my loves)

sophie hatter from howl's moving castle (best book best movie i love it)

peter parker <3

cecil palmer (that man's voice is so ! i feel so safe around him)

ricky matsui from the unsleeping city (emotional support himbo)

i think one of my early comfort characters was the doctor. i haven't really watched doctor who since high school but back then he was def a very strong comfort character of mine

19. imagine we’re at a sleepover, would you paint my nails?

i mean to be honest i do not have very steady or precise hands so if i did it would probably be messy! but i would love to make you a friendship bracelet or wear matching pjs <3

42. an app you frequently use besides this godforsaken site?

i mean it's a cop-out but spotify. i love my music i love my podcasts. also i've been playing a weird amount of tetris lately

49. can you skip rocks?

see "my hands are clumsy" above. but not for lack of trying! there's this house on a lake that i've been to with my cousins a bunch of times and there'd always be shenanigans like skipping rocks and catching frogs and chasing each other around in the water :)

[kikihargrove]

THINGS BETWEEN IRIS AND THE OTHERS YOU MAY HAVE NOT KNOWN ABOUT:

Iris definitely treats Eddie like a child and she is his therapist. They are D&D besties and wont fail to try to one up each other. Not to mention Eddie is Iris dealer which mean they spend quality high time with each other just making fun of the popular kids.

Iris twin brother constantly hides her makeup by putting it in Dustins room and blaming it on him. And he turns off the hot water when she is showering meaning she then accidentally pours bleach on his favourite shirts when she is washing the clothes.

Billy fell for Iris because she punched him in the face for saying her outfit made her look like a slut. Billy also hates the fact she has so many male friends and wont hesitate to put his hands on them if needed. They are secretly romantic<3.

Lucas and Iris always and i mean always play 1v1 in basketball so that Lucas can train because nobody wants to play with him. She also gives him tips on how to communicate better with Max.

Erica makes Iris teach her how to cook because Mrs.Sinclair always says Iris makes the best cupcakes and sweet treats. As well as Iris always babysitting Erica when Mr and Mrs Sinclair are busy at work or other events.

Iris and Kat have secret stick and poke matching tattoos on their inner thighs but nobody knows except them because they are slightly faded. They have a secret club that hides to skip classes, among many many other things.

Max didn’t know how to feel about Iris at first because she thought that Billy was playing her but now they skateboard together and sing the cringiest songs while Iris helps her get ready for dates with Lucas.

Jonathan had a crush on Iris in middle school and Joyce told Claudia Henderson (her mom) which made everything very awkward for Iris and Jonathan while growing up. They are friends now so its not as bad.

Will always looked for Iris when he needed advice and didn’t know who to talk to because she is like a mother figure to him as well as a therapist. Because Will struggles with figuring himself out and Father problems he feels open to talk about them with Iris as he knows she has also been through some things similar to that.

Dustin gets jealous of the younger kids liking Iris because he wants to be his sister’s favourite. Iris always tucks Dustin into bed at night and he made her promise not to tell anyone.

Iris didn’t like Steve until she started working with him at Scoops Ahoy and turns out he is not as bad as he seems. He also actually showed up to one of her birthday parties once and gave her a friendship bracelet so him, her and Robin could wear it as the “Scoops Trio” as he called it.

Robin and Iris had a fling at a party once and to this day they joke about it and are pretty close friends. Robin confesses her secret girl crushes to Iris which in turn the blonde tries to help her get with and sometimes it doesn’t work out for the best but they try.

Nancy and Iris dont like each other but they tolerate each other as best as they can although Iris is always offering to beat up Nancy for her being cocky.

Mike and Iris dont get along because of the way he treats his friends however Mrs Wheeler seems to really like Iris and constantly asks her for hair tips since her hair, in Mrs Wheelers words “is always so fantastically done”.

Iris knew Hopper liked Joyce and so one time she made two postcards and sent it to Joyce from Hopper and the other to Hopper from Joyce, she essentially sent them on a date. Which they later found out it was her and Hopper (as her father figure) really argued with her about.

Eleven looks at Iris as an older sister and looks for her when there are mostly girl issues she does not know how to handle which made them get quite close, seen as Iris basically mothers the kids.

•On one note i don’t know if i forgot anyone its just so many people but on another note this is the wholesome content i am living for.

[munsons-mutiny]

You’re right Steve doesn’t expect anything but the other absolutely get him things. Most of them don’t have the money that Steve does, so they go home made and are so anxious Steve won’t like them, but he totally cries a little when he gets them. Gifts include:

• Mike and Will come up with a Babysitter Steve superhero comic. Where it’s Steve taking care of them by day and saving their asses by night. nail bat at his side.

• The idea of Max having bad eyesight after Vecna makes me love her getting into tactile crafts in school like pottery. So for Christmas she makes Steve a #1 Mom mug, she claims it’s totally in jest but can’t stop the small genuine smile on her face when he absolutely loves it.

• Absolutely love the idea you put forth of Steve teaching El to cook and that being something they do together. So she gets him some funny aprons that Hopper helps her pick out. One that says Kiss the Cook and I bake because punching people is frowned upon. Steve groans when he receives them but always wears them when he’s cooking.

• Nancy and Jonathan go in together on putting together a little photo album filled with Steve and the kids. Jonathan spent hours going through all the pictures he’s taken of the group and Steve over the years, and then spent a couple of weeks discretely getting specific photos. Meanwhile Nancy writes out little memories associated with each of the photos for the ones she knows, and conducts mini interviews with the people present for the ones she doesn’t. The last page is of Steve throwing his head back laughing while Eddie stares at him with heart eyes, and the interview just reads the moment I knew he was the love of my life. Steve weeps.

• Argyle’s gift is definitely less personal but the two joke about being on the same wavelength cause he gifts Steve a bunch of Hawaiian shirts, which Steve unironically loves. Eddie is groaning into his hands, unable to understand how he lives this man.

• Lucas whose still a lil self conscious about liking basketball after everything that went down, nervously hands over a woven bracelet he made in Hawkins basketball team colors with Steve’s old jersey number on it, and a little booklet of homemade coupons. They say things like 1 game of horse, or memorably permission for Lucas to miss hellfire to practice basketball with Steve (signed by Eddie Munson).

• Hopper and Joyce get him gift cards to the pizza place he always order from when he’s hosting the kids at his for movie nights. As well as a cookbook filled with baking recipes. When he opens the card he finds a copy of their house key inside. When Steve looks up shocked and confused, Hopper just says so he knows he’s always welcome to come and bake for them. But later, he’ll pull Steve aside and very seriously tell him he never wants Steve to feel like he can’t come to them. That he knows his parents suck and that if anything ever happens he has a place to go. That Steve is just as much as son to him as Jonathan and Will.

• Robin and Steve hold onto their platonic soulmates, one brain cell energy when she gifts him just a hoarde of trinkets she’s picked up thinking about him, as well as a friendship bracelet that she made him. She has a matching one that she’s already wearing. I just love the idea of adhd Robin picking up friendship bracelet making as a way to focus and keep busy during class, and Max making it one of the tactile crafts she tries to learn. She ends up preferring pottery, but Lucas who she dragged with her takes a real shine to it.

• Finally Dustin and Eddie get him a partial joint gift as well as some separate things. Dustin gets him a pack of Farrah Fawcett spray with a shit eating grin, which Steve bitches about (what happened to bro code man, I swore you to secrecy), but has to look away from when he notices the card says to my big brother. If he pulls Dustin in for a hug just a little tighter than usual no one mentions it. Meanwhile Eddie (whose so nervous cause he just knows Steve is gonna buy him things and Eddie hasn’t been able to sell since everything went down and has no money to spend on Christmas gifts) makes him a mixtape which has a the weirdest blend of metal music and pop (which yes did hurt Eddie’s soul to add). He recorded little narrations of why he chose each song for the tape and had Will help him with the track list art. The real showstopper though is their joint gift. Dustin had gone to Eddie upset one night after the group figured out Steve was dyslexic cause he felt like he had putting Steve down for years over something he couldn’t control. He’d always given Steve shit cause he thought Steve just didn’t want to put in the time to read the books he recommended, meanwhile Steve was trying and just feeling stupid for something that wasn’t his fault. They come up with the idea to make audio tapes of some of the books Steve had wanted to read and some that Dustin and Eddie had recommended to him. By Christmas they’ve completed tapes for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but also for Pride and Prejudice and the Handmaid’s Tale (Which Nancy had recommended and definitely unintentionally made him feel stupid over. Yes she went hard on her Christmas gift partially out of a guilt). Steve absolutely adores them, the two do character voices and go back and forth for dialogue bits. They even occasionally add little asides with extra information. Or before starting a new chapter Dustin will shout about how this next one’s my favorite, Steve pay attention to this next one!

This super got away from me but basically Steve is absolutely shocked and blown away when his family showers him in the same love and care he always gives them. It goes down as one of Steve’s all time favorite memories, and the best Christmas he’s ever had.

Steve is always considered to be the spoiled rich boy of the group, and no one corrects this. They frequently pester him for rides or snacks or movie nights, and Steve always comes through with the best of the best for them, so absolutely everyone in the Party believes that he's this incredibly spoilt only child in a big fancy house, footing the bill for bonding nights because it's the least he can do.

On the first Christmas after Vecna, Steve goes a little overboard getting gifts.

Will gets a premium art kit, high quality paints and new brushes and a few canvases, along with three sketchbooks. The first page of one is covered with a drawing Steve spent weeks perfecting. It looks pretty mediocre, but it's just a cute little picture of Will as his DnD character saving the party from a monster.

Mike gets an electric guitar and amp, along with sheet music to the songs that Mike had been gushing about since meeting Eddie.

Lucas gets a new basketball, a case of New Coke, and tickets to a Pacers game on January 2, 1987. There's two, but Steve insisted that it was for Lucas and Max. He was just the driver.

Dustin makes out like a bandit. He gets a new game console (the NES he had been ranting about for months; Steve has already told Ms. Henderson that it was a gift), a brand new home computer, a full set of haircare products, a new hat, and Steve's house key.

Max gets a fancy dagger. It's beautifully made, inlaid with a starburst-cut emerald, and small enough to fit snugly in her winter boot, so she can feel protected everywhere. She also gets a new skateboard, which is probably her favorite gift.

Eleven gets a thick notebook, half-filled with recipes that Steve's noticed she likes. He promises to teach her how to make them, and how to come up with her own, whenever she wants.

Robin gets about a hundred different little gifts, just trinkets that reminded Steve of her. She also gets a promise that Steve will help her find her own car.

Argyle and Nancy both get less personal gifts; Argyle receives a stack of comfortable, soft sweaters, and Nancy gets a few books written by female reporters.

Jonathan gets another new camera, and enough film to last him until next Christmas.

Joyce gets handmade blankets, soft and fuzzy, and about fifteen different trinkets that Steve insists remind him of her. Every single one of them has to do with motherhood.

Hopper gets a case of beer, a pack of cigarettes, and the deed to the land surrounding his cabin. Steve also promises to help make some additions to the cabin, to make it just as spacious and homey as they need.

Eddie gets a little bit of everything: haircare products, clothes, records, tapes, a new amp, a plastic container full of the cookies he always asks Steve to make him, socks, cigarettes, anything Steve can think of to get him.

Steve doesn't expect anything, and he's not being a self-pitying, spoiled little rich kid convinced that nothing these common folk could get him would be worth it. Steve hadn't received Christmas gifts since he was seven, he knows he's not worth it, and really, he likes seeing how happy everyone is at his gifts; it makes him feel good to see that he can make his family so happy.