#freaky friday fic

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Synopsis: You haven’t gotten along with Tabito Karasu in a long, long time. However, when a chance encounter with a mysterious woman leads to the two of you switching places, you find out that maybe there’s more to him than you realized.

BLLK Masterlist

Pairing: Karasu x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 8.4k

Content Warnings: crack fic, reader is implied to be smaller/weaker/less athletic than karasu, miscommunication of the sort you’d expect from a k-drama, VERY unserious and stupid, crude humor, non-explicit mentions of karasu’s dick, reader explicitly does NOT have a dick, i haven’t watched the movie freaky friday in ages so don’t expect it to follow that plot or anything, random old lady’s divine intervention saves this dumbass girl failure x boy loser relationship

A/N: to be honest i have nothing to say for myself. there is 0 reason for this to be as long as it is considering how legitimately idiotic of a plot it has LMAOAO but i couldn’t help myself from writing it…i watched an edit of **** and ***** from jjk set to the song ‘freaky friday’ and i was like. inspired. idk. if this is your first time reading smth by me i promise i usually am better than this 😭

The margins of your Mathematics notebook were littered with intricate sketches, pretty birds and flowers arcing alongside the equations that you copied down from the board when you remembered to look up at it. If anyone else in the class could see how little you truly paid attention, they’d likely be furious; after all, you consistently had high marks, often even managing to be first in the class despite your constant distraction.

One person in particular would likely have a heart attack, but considering you liked him the least out of everyone in the entire school, the prospect filled you with a sort of joy and determination to continue in exactly the manner you had been. Tabito Karasu — in his honor, you drew a crow next to the swoop of an integral that you had not bothered with solving, and then, for your personal satisfaction, you crossed it out.

“Yo.” You had not noticed the bell ringing, so caught up were you with shading in the petals of a sunflower, the tip of your pencil growing dull from the heavy, repetitive strokes. “My mom told me to tell you that yours left her purse at our house, so if you could come get it after school, that would be great.”

You glanced up at Karasu, who was standing in front of your desk, his bag slung over one shoulder, his lopsided smile noticeably vanished. It always was when he spoke to you, his face never anything but solemn on those occasions.

“Again?” you said. “Sure.”

“Cool,” he said. “See you then, I guess.”

You wrinkled your nose at his receding back, gathering your own things and following him sedately out of the classroom before splitting off to head to your next period, not even affording him a farewell in return for his half-hearted attempt.

There had been a time, when you were both very young, that you and Karasu had been friends. It wasn’t really your choice, of course. Your mothers had known one another since their college days and thus had been determined to raise their children side-by-side, but neither of you had minded too much.

When your minds were innocent and plain, things came easily and simply. You would make castles in the sandbox of the playground by his house, racing one another down the slides as your mothers watched you and conversed. It had been nice. Back then, Karasu had been a person you could be fond of, and so you had been. He had been your best friend, your only friend, really, and he had even sworn to you that he would always be so, interlocking his pinky with yours and saying that it was a promise.

Anyways, promises were easily made and easily forgotten back then. Not so long after you entered grade school, he abandoned you entirely, sneering at you if you dared to approach him, turning away whenever you waved at him in the hallways. You understood quickly enough what he meant by it, and you grew to resent him as much as you had once cared for him.

It had happened long enough ago that now, there was just an awkward sort of tension between you two whenever you spoke. He must’ve known that you didn’t like him, hadn’t for a while, and he never really pressed the issue, though he never did anything to fix it, either. You doubted he cared; after all, he only ever spoke to you if he absolutely could not avoid it, and you operated by the same policy.

“Hey, Y/N, we’re all thinking of staying after school to study for the Chemistry exam,” your best friend said to you as you settled into your seats for Economics, the one class you both shared. “Wanna come? I know you don’t really need it or anything, but it’d be fun if you were around.”

“You just want me to explain everything to you so you don’t have to read the textbook,” you said.

“Guilty,” she said with a grin that suggested she did not feel very guilty at all. “Sorry, but it’s a really boring textbook.”

“It’s a drag,” you agreed. “I’d say yes, but I can’t. My mother forgot her purse at Karasu’s house when she was visiting, so I have to go with him and grab it on my way back home.”

Your best friend winced. “I’m sorry. Will you be okay? I can come, if you want.”

“There’s nothing to be done about it,” you said, shaking your head. “It’ll be alright. You need all of the studying time you can get, so don’t concern yourself with me.”

“If you say so,” she said reluctantly. “Call me if you change your mind, okay? I think my exam grade is well beyond the point of saving now, so I don’t mind giving up some studying time to help you out.”

“All the more reason for you to study longer,” you said. “Seriously, relax. It’s not like I’m planning on staying there for long. I’ll be so quick that there won’t even be any time for things to get weird.”

The day was over before you knew it, and then you were trudging out of the building, scanning the front entrance for Karasu and finding him leaning against the brick wall of the school, gesturing wildly as he laughed at something one of his teammates had said.

You waited for his teammate to leave, and only then did you approach, stopping a distance away from him and folding your hands behind your back as you waited for him to notice you. He did so almost immediately — he was keen like that, ever aware of everything happening in his general vicinity — and his back straightened, the mirth from earlier dropping into the melancholy you were more used to.

“Let’s go,” you said.

“Yes, let’s,” he said. “Come on. If we cut through town, we’ll get there faster.”

“Okay,” you said.

The two of you walked in silence after that, Karasu’s hands shoved in his pockets as he shuffled along beside you. You hugged a never-opened Economics textbook to your chest, your heart beating against the hard cardboard of the cover.

“How have you been?” Karasu said after a while, when the quiet must’ve grown to be unbearable for his typically talkative self.

“Fine,” you said.

“Same,” he said.

“I didn’t really ask,” you said.

“Right,” he said, “Sorry.”

“There’s no need for any of this,” you said. “We’re not friends, so don’t act like we are. I’m going to your house to pick up my mother’s purse, and then I’m leaving. That’s it.”

“Right,” he said again. You thought he must be relieved that you had given him leave to disregard you. Thus assured that he would leave you alone, you allowed your mind to wander, mulling over the assignments you had due the next day and figuring out a plan to complete them that would require the least amount of effort possible.

“Excuse me!”

You both were passing through a part of town that you did not frequent when the door to a storefront swung open, revealing a wizened old lady. Her thick gray hair was gathered in a knot at the nape of her neck, and her posture was stooped over but her expression was no less intense for the age she showed. You jumped at the abruptness of her exclamation, and you sensed Karasu had been equally as surprised, though he remained far more collected than you had.

“We don’t want to buy anything,” he said bluntly, without even waiting for her to explain.

“It’s not wares I sell,” the woman said. “It’s fortunes.”

“Not interested,” he said, though not without glancing at you, so briefly that you almost believed you had imagined it.

“Listen, boy, I don’t look into the future for just anyone. It’s a rare soul that attracts my attention, and here I have two in front of me! You’ll avoid a lot of misery if you agree to it,” she said.

“We’ll take the misery,” Karasu said. “Like I said, we’re good. Leave us alone, old crone.”

“Be careful who you’re rude to,” the woman said, her irises gleaming. “It’s already cost you once, hasn’t it?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched from how hard he grit his teeth at that. “You’re just saying things.”

“Ma’am,” you said, finally deciding to speak up. This entire conversation was such a waste of time, and furthermore if Karasu was irritated, then you felt as though there was a chance he’d lash out and you’d be the unfortunate victim. “Every minute we are delayed here is another minute I must spend with him, and considering I don’t like him all that much, I’d prefer if we could get on with it.”

“Is that the case?” she said, and then she beamed at you, her lips peeling back in a more sinister form of the expression than she ought to have been capable of. “But wouldn’t you give anything if you could go back to how things once were? I know that he would.”

“Shut up,” Karasu snapped, his face uncharacteristically red. “What the hell do you know about me, anyways? About either of us?”

She began to laugh, and it was a rattling, wheezing sound which made even your own chest ache. Karasu glared at her, but she ignored him completely, cackling and cackling, slapping her knee as if he were an award-winning comedian who had just made the joke of the century. Despite yourself, you inched towards him; he was far from your preferred partner, but you thought that if she were to suddenly lunge at you or something, he was probably your best bet at survival.

“I have seen many versions of you in my lifetime, and you have all said the same. What do I know about you?” the woman said. “Well, well. I’d wager I know quite a bit about you, indeed. How about this? I’ll give you a gift — on the house, of course. Then we’ll see who knows what.”

“We don’t fucking need any gifts,” Karasu said. “Y/N, let’s get out of here. She’s crazy.”

“You can’t deny a gift that’s been freely given!” she shouted gleefully after you as you strode away. “It’s yours, whether you like it or not. Enjoy yourself, baby crow — you may thank me yet!”

Whether it was a placebo borne of the woman’s odd behavior or a symptom of the atmospheric pressure dipping before an out-of-season storm, you noticed that there was a headache mounting behind your left eyebrow. You kept silent about it as you dutifully followed Karasu towards his house, but it was definitely uncomfortable, and whenever he looked away, you’d press the pads of your fingers against the source of the pain in a fruitless effort to alleviate it.

Neither of you said anything until you reached his porch; he had been jarred by the conversation with the woman, though he disguised it with a scowl — it was obvious from the tension of his shoulders, however, and as for you, you relished in the tranquility, which was what you had been seeking the entire time.

“She was full of shit,” he informed you as he unlocked his front door and motioned for you to go inside. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was you, but you had long ago come to the conclusion that the woman was just searching for a way to make a quick sale, so you were unruffled.

“I didn’t think otherwise,” you said. You hadn’t been to his house in a while, but it still looked the same as you remembered it, down to the Siamese cat curled up on the couch — although, of course, far more gray peppered her muzzle than the last time you had seen her. You scratched her under the chin as you waited for Karasu to return with the purse, and without even opening her eyes, she purred at you, rubbing her face against the back of your palm.

“Here you go,” he said, tossing the purse at you. You reached up and caught it with the hand you weren’t using to pet his cat, and then you offered her one last stroke in farewell before heading back to the front door.

“Thanks,” you said.

“Right,” he said. “Anytime. Later, Y/N.”

You glanced at him over your shoulder before nodding, figuring there was no harm in one final act of politeness. No matter the grudge you held against him or how justified it was, you supposed you could be the bigger person this singular time. “Later, Karasu.”

The walk between your houses was not so long, but for some reason, it dragged on and on — a symptom of your headache, maybe? By the time you reached your own doorstep, the world was spinning, and after returning your mother’s purse to her, you stumbled up to your room, flopping face-first on your bed.

A few minutes later, there was a knock. With a groan, you rolled over so that you were lying on your back, a hand covering your eyes so that the fading twilight did not worsen the pounding that had spread from your left eyebrow to your forehead and the back of your neck.

“Come in,” you mumbled out. Your mother poked in her head, a bowl of soup in her hands, a kind frown on her face.

“Are you alright?” she said, sitting beside you and setting up your pillows so you could lean against them.

“My head is killing me,” you said. She pressed her hand against your brow, pursing her lips.

“Doesn’t feel like a fever,” she said. “Here, have this.”

She handed you the soup, which she must’ve been making for dinner. You accepted it gratefully, the heat of the bowl against your skin helping, if only slightly. Taking a sip, you sighed and offered a smile.

“Thanks,” you said. “I’m just going to do my homework and then sleep early. Hopefully it’ll be gone by tomorrow.”

“It looks like there’s going to be a nasty storm tonight, so that could be what’s messing with you,” your mother said, confirming your earlier thoughts. “On the bright side, your father and I won’t have to water the plants.”

“That’s good,” you said as she got up, pressing a kiss to your forehead and closing your curtains so that only your dim, warm lamp lit the room.

“Text me if you want me to bring up some ibuprofen for you,” she said. “But finish that soup first. It’s not good to eat on an empty stomach.”

“I’ll keep you posted, but I think just getting to bed is going to do the most good at this point,” you said. “Thanks again, mama.”

“I miss when you used to call me that all of the time,” she said. “Now my baby’s growing up. Soon you’re going to get married and leave your father and I all alone.”

“Not for a while,” you said with a smile. She scrunched up her nose and blew you a kiss.

“I’ll leave you alone. I hope you feel better soon, honey. Try not to work too hard,,” she said, shutting the door gently, so that it did not slam.

Your homework took you a couple of hours, and it was dark by the time you finished. Only the thought of the further aggravation it would bring should you not complete it managed to push you through the maddening exercise, as your headache had not lessened any in that time. If anything, the steady process of your schoolwork only made it worse, and it was all you could do to get ready for bed before diving in between your sheets and burying your face back in your pillow, drifting off to sleep almost immediately.

You had many dreams that night, most of them unrelated, though the common thread was Karasu. He was in all of them, whether in the background or as a main focus, and indeed when you woke up gasping and in a sweat, his face was the only thing you remembered.

Based on the sun streaming through the window, you had slept for the entire night. An unfamiliar alarm was blaring from your nightstand, and you reached out to silence it before pausing.

The room you were in was not your own. It was different, the sheets a deep navy shade, the blanket a plain gray, an L-shaped desk with a PC on it in the corner. There was a shelf beside the desk, books shoved in between gold soccer trophies — soccer trophies?

“What the fuck?” you said before clapping your hands over your mouth, your jaw dropping as you scrambled out of the bed, your limbs flailing about when the drop ended up being smaller than you had anticipated. Grabbing your phone off of its charger — what the hell was with that bland case? — you raced over to the mirror propped up by the closet.

Upon seeing the reflection in it, you screamed, because for some reason, instead of your own body, it was Tabito Karasu’s staring back at you. You raised one hand and then the other, hoping and praying that it wasn’t real, that you were hallucinating or something, but the reflection followed your movements exactly. When you pinched yourself, that, too, hurt, which meant that somehow, this was happening.

If you were in Karasu’s body, then what about your own? Was he in yours, or had it just vanished or something? You turned on his phone, unlocking it using Face ID and opening the call app. You doubted he had you saved as a contact — after all, the two of you had stopped being friends long before either of you had gotten cellphones — so you went straight for typing in your number, pausing for a moment as it suggested a contact name.

Y/N <3

“What?” you said. There were so many things that needed to be unpacked there, but you decided it wasn’t even worth considering. You had more pressing issues; namely, how had this preposterous situation even developed?

Clicking on the Y/N <3 contact, you held the phone up to your ear, hoping that whoever currently had possession of you would pick up instead of ignoring the call.

“Hello? Who is this?” Hearing your own voice on the other end of a call would ordinarily have been one of the most disconcerting things to happen to you in the last twenty-four hours, but considering you were still reeling from whatever body-swapping nonsense had just transpired, it ended up being kind of underwhelming.

“Karasu?” you said. There was a pause on the other end of the line, and you prayed they would not hang up.

“Y/N?” he said after a moment.

“Yes!” you said.

“So you’re in my body? I was wondering what might’ve happened to me…” he said, trailing off thoughtfully.

“What the hell is going on? Why am I you, and why are you me?” you said. “More importantly, how do we switch back?”

“How would I know? I’m just as lost as you are. By the way, um, why don’t you have my number saved?” he said.

“That’s what you’re choosing to focus on?” you screeched. “There is a dick attached to me! I have a genuine, bona-fide dick right now, and more specifically, it’s your dick! How about we focus on that?”

“Sorry,” he said. “But also, I was trying not to think about that. This is already weird enough, why’d you have to make it worse?”

“I’m trying to impress upon you just how dire our situation is,” you said. “By the way, while we’re on the subject, don’t even think of looking down my shirt. I’ll kill you if you do.”

“I wouldn’t,” he protested.

“Uh-huh,” you said. “Whatever. What are we going to do now?”

“How did this even happen?” he said. “Maybe if we work backwards, we can figure out what we have to do to fix it. What were you up to last night?”

“I just did homework,” you said. “And then I slept. I had a really bad headache, so I didn’t do much.”

“Wait, I had one, too,” he said.

“That doesn’t really mean anything. It’s not like headaches are uncommon,” you said.

“It’s a start, okay? I’m trying here! Why can’t you be cooperative for once?” he said.

“Why can’t you be cooperative for once?” you muttered under your breath, finding that the mockingly high-pitched voice sounded much more derogatory in Karasu’s harsh tones than it ever had coming from you. “Fine. When’d your headache start?”

“While we were walking back from school,” he said. “To my house.”

“That’s about when it happened for me,” you said. “Now that you mention it, it was right after—”

“—right after we talked to that old lady,” he completed for you. “Two steps ahead of you.”

“No, you just cut me off. That doesn’t mean you were ahead of me,” you said. “It just means you’re rude.”

“Sure, sure, whatever,” he said. “Do you think this is that gift the old lady was talking about?”

“Hm,” you said. “You think she was serious about that?”

“It’s as good a guess as any. Back then, I figured she was full of bullshit, but what if she actually does have some kind of supernatural powers?” he said.

“Then this is all your fault!” you said.

“What?” he said.

“You heard me. Why’d you have to be such an asshole to her, huh? Like always. Jeez. You can’t help but be a jerk and fuck things up, can you?” you said. “Well, we’re going to be late for school if we don’t get a move on, so I guess the only option we have is getting through the day and then going to visit her after classes.”

“I don’t — do you really think so?” he said.

“Obviously? She’s the biggest suspect at the moment, but I’d really prefer if we didn’t miss school. What with board exams and all coming up…” you said.

“Never mind,” he said. “Anyways, why do you care? It’s not like you do anything but draw in class.”

“How’d you know that?” you said. “Are you some kind of stalker or something?”

“I’m not a stalker. I just…pay attention to people,” he said.

“Sure,” you said. “And you put little heart emoticons after everyone’s contact names, too. How’d you even get my number?”

“You saw that?” he said.

“How do you think I called you?” you said.

“Oh,” he said. “We were in a class group chat together in seventh grade.”

Now that he mentioned it, you did recall something along those lines, although of course, you had not saved his number in return. You hadn’t seen a need to — out of everyone in that class, you would’ve texted him for help last.

“Okay,” you said. “Bye.”

You hung up immediately, finding the entire discussion to be unproductive, and then you sighed. It seemed that, for now, you were stuck as Karasu; massaging your sore jaw, you gave up on procrastination and began to get dressed for the day.

Somehow, you were able to get through it with minimal embarrassment, and you even shaped his hair into the style he preferred, which you were particularly proud of, given how absurd it was. You could only hope he was showing your own body the same kindness you were reluctantly giving his.

“Good morning, Tabito,” his mother said absently when you strolled into the kitchen.

“Morning, Mrs. — Mom!” you said. “Mom. Good morning.”

It would be a little strange if Karasu began referring to his own mother as Mrs. Karasu. You had to keep in mind that to everyone else, you were no longer Y/N L/N, and if you didn’t want them all to treat you like you were insane, you had to play the part of Tabito Karasu in a convincing manner.

“Time for breakfast?” she said. You nodded.

“Do we have any cereal?” you said. She furrowed her brow at you.

“Cereal? You made us throw it all away because it was too sugary, remember? Your energy bars are in the pantry, though, and there’s apples in the fridge if you want,” she said.

Your eye twitched. A health freak, really? His body and soccer career were impressive, but did both really take so much maintenance that he restricted himself from even cereal?

“Thanks,” you said, rifling through the pantry, picking out a random bar and an apple to snack on as you walked to school. “See you later!”

“See you,” Mrs. Karasu said, not even looking up from the laptop she was working at. You frowned, used to your own mother, who always responded with as much energy as you gave her. Brushing it off as the relationship she and her son must’ve had, you bit into your apple and vowed not to think about it further.

The energy bar was absolutely disgusting; you weren’t sure how Karasu could stand to eat them on a daily basis. It was some German brand with an umlaut in the name, and it tasted like cardboard coated in glue. You were barely able to force it down your throat, but you knew a mere apple wouldn’t last you until lunch, so you had no other choice. Still, it put you in a foul mood and set the tone for the day, which, considering what tone had already been created by your migration into Karasu’s body, was not a good thing.

“Karasu! Hey, Karasu, wait up!” You had no idea what his name was, but as soon as you walked into the school building, a boy was shouting out after you, panting as he sprinted to catch up. From your vague knowledge, he was one of Karasu’s friends and soccer teammates, though not one he was particularly close with. “You deaf or something, man? I’ve been trying to get you to slow down for ages! What’s the rush?”

“Rush?” you said.

“Why’re you walking so fast? First period doesn’t start for another ten minutes,” he said.

“Sorry,” you said. There had been no intention behind your pace, actually. It was just that you were unused to the length of Karasu’s stride and so found yourself going along at a far greater clip than you meant to. “I didn’t realize.”

“Okay, Captain,” he said. “I get it. Some of us are just average guys, you know, so let’s keep it nice and easy, alright?”

“Yup,” you said. His friend squinted at you.

“You’re being oddly nice today,” he said. “I don’t like it one bit.”

“We’ve been speaking for all of two minutes, how can you tell that already?” you said. His friend cocked his head at you before elbowing you in the side. You blinked at him. He blinked back, and then he punched you in the arm. You barely even felt it, so you didn’t react, which only caused his friend to wail.

“See? What are you plotting? You only act this nice when you’re planning to be really mean later! What did I do to you? Is it because I went and studied with L/N’s friends? I’m sorry! Just hit me, please, and let’s get it over with!” he said.

“Why would I care if you studied with my — with L/N’s friends?” you said. “And I’m not hitting you, dude, calm down.”

“You’re always calling them mediocre,” he said. “Though I guess you call everyone mediocre, so that’s not really saying much.”

“Of course,” you said dully, unconvincingly. “Mediocre. That is what I think of them. Absolutely.”

His friend shrugged. “They’re not that bad, though, in all honesty. You shouldn’t be so hard on them just because you wish L/N was friends with you instead. She doesn’t even like you, bro. You should just give up.”

Your mind went blank at this. “I wish that who was what with who now?”

“Oh, are we back in the denial stage? My bad,” his friend said.

Karasu wanting to be friends with you? It was a laughable idea. He was the one who had left first. Your dislike was only a symptom of that, of the act which he had never explained nor apologized for, and he knew that as well as you did. He was popular, too, even more popular than you were — which was saying something — so what use would he have in befriending you? This boy was delusional. Or maybe there was another Y/N L/N at the school. You doubted it, but wasn’t it technically a possibility? At any rate, it was more plausible than Karasu harboring any kind of affection for you.

When you entered your first period classroom, you almost made the mistake of walking to your normal desk. In fact, you were about halfway there when you realized that your desk partner was giving you an odd look, her face souring with every step you took. For a moment, you considering asking her what was wrong, since the two of you usually got along well, but then you remembered — you were Karasu at the moment, and though you had never told her in your own body how much you detested him or why, she had picked up on it through the course of the semester.

Turning on your heel, you made a beeline for Karasu’s normal seat. His partner was unfamiliar to you, but you couldn’t recall Karasu ever talking much to him, so it probably didn’t matter much that you had no idea who he was.

“’Sup, Karasu,” his partner said.

“’Sup,” you said, omitting his name and hoping he didn’t find it strange. Thankfully, his partner only nodded at you before returning to his homework, which he was completing in the seconds before the bell, for some reason. You rifled through Karasu’s bag and pulled out his own paper, which was perfectly done, missing all of the adornments which often littered your assignments. You believed that this week, you had drawn a little cat playing with a ball of yarn next to your answers. You were sure it would delight your teacher immensely, at least based on her reactions to the previous doodles you had included, though you also had a sense Karasu would judge you when he saw.

The class passed by even slower than it usually did. If you started drawing to while away the time, you’d make your desk partner suspicious, so you had nothing to waste your energy with, bar watching the minute hand creeping along against the clock.

After all, Karasu was an attentive person, raising his hand in class to answer every question the teacher asked, the first to know how to solve a problem and the first to explain it upon prompting. It was another one of those things that made him so well-liked; despite his brusqueness, he really was willing to help people out if they needed it, in his own insolent way.

It was unnerving. When did you learn so much about Karasu? You thought you had been ignoring him quite successfully. You could hardly even tolerate him, so why were you so knowledgeable on the kind of person he was, his routines and friends and quirks? Was it an old habit that, even now, you could not quite put out of your mind? A remnant of that former friendship? You had not understood until you took on this new role how much of him you were still familiar with, how much of him was still the same as you had remembered.

At lunch, you headed over to the table where Karasu’s friend group was waiting, giving your own friends a mournful glance as you did so. Karasu was sitting in your normal spot, listening to your best friend as she ranted about something. There was a small frown on his — your? — face, as if she was saying something that he didn’t agree with but was too scared to speak up against.

“Bro, enough with the longing stares. This shit is embarrassing.” You were shocked out of your trance by someone socking you in the abdomen. Doubling over with a cough, you glared at Karasu’s best friend, wondering why every one of his relationships was so violent.

“What was that for?” you said, shoving your shoulder into him so that he would move over. He did so willingly, albeit not without a snicker as you set your lunch down beside him.

“Just saying,” he said. “Now that we know what your deal is, you can hardly expect us not to mention it.”

“My deal?” you said.

“Told you he’s back in the denial phase! As if we didn’t just have an hour long confessional video call last night,” Karasu’s teammate from earlier said.

“Huh?” you said. Karasu hadn’t mentioned anything about an ‘hour long confessional video call’ when you had been discussing what you had done the night before the body switch. Actually, he hadn’t mentioned anything at all. You had brought up your headache before he had gotten the chance, and then the two of you had jumped topics to the old lady, so he hadn’t needed to.

“You don’t remember?” his best friend said, clearing his throat and lowering his voice in what you were sure was meant to be an impression of Karasu’s. “I miss Y/N so much. Sooooooo much. Sosososososo much.”

He burst into laughter, high-fiving their teammate. You gave them an unimpressed look, which only made the duo laugh harder. The rest of the table seemed similarly amused, though they had the dignity to not giggle about it aloud.

“It wasn’t like that, exactly,” a different one of Karasu’s teammates said, taking pity on you. “But I definitely recall you going through a crisis about how you wished you could be friends with her again, and how you secretly miss her and whatnot.”

“You mentioned some freaky lady, too,” his best friend said. “That’s what prompted you to spill your guts to us, wasn’t it? She started going on about how she knew your past, and then L/N said she didn’t like you and didn’t want to spend even a minute more with you, which made you so depressed that you yelled at the old lady and L/N.”

“Um, I don’t think I yelled at Y/N — L/N,” you said. As far as you could recall, he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary to you, though perhaps it was just that you were used to him being caustic and had brushed it off.

“What’s with you?” his best friend said. “Just yesterday, you were throwing a fit about how you’d never be able to fix things with her, and now you’re all nonchalant about it? You need to see a doctor.”

“Why would I even want to fix things with her?” you said. “We’ve not liked one another for a while.”

His friends all exchanged looks before his best friend, apparently the designated spokesperson, shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Are you feeling alright?” he said.

You could not answer this truthfully. Of course, you were, at the moment, feeling the furthest thing from alright, but how could you say that to them? Oh, actually, I feel shitty, mostly because I’m currently stuck in someone else’s body. Wait, did I forget to mention that? Well, surprise, I’m Y/N L/N! Not Tabito Karasu. By the way, am I supposed to aim when I take a piss, or is this like a freestyle thing? They would have you hauled off before you could say ‘creepy old bat with possible witch powers.’

“I’m fine,” you said.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Did you, uh, get into your dad’s liquor cabinet last night by any chance?”

“Not that I know of,” you said, which was as sincere as you could get. Whether Karasu was an underage drinker or not was none of your business, but for what it was worth, you didn’t think that you were hungover at the moment, so either he complied with the law and stayed sober, or he handled his alcohol better than he probably ought to at this age.

“Right, then,” he said. “Just let us know if anything changes and you need to skip practice or something.”

Practice? There was no way you could go to practice. Even if you were piloting Karasu’s well-conditioned body, you had nothing resembling his soccer know-how or field awareness. You’d fail miserably if you had to attend, and what then? He’d get kicked off of the team and be denounced as a fraud, maybe, and it’d be your fault. It was a worst-case scenario, but it was still a scenario, and one you didn’t want to consider further.

“You know, I do feel a bit queasy. Maybe you guys are right,” you said. “I think I’m off today.”

“For you to be admitting that aloud means the problem is worse than we realized,” one of his friends said.

“We’ll let the coach know you had to go home sick,” his best friend assured you. “Don’t worry about it. You haven’t missed a practice yet, so he won’t be mad.”

“That’s right! Rest up, Captain. We need you at your best for our game this weekend,” another teammate said.

They were kind of sweet when they weren’t pummeling one another, you thought. It wasn’t in the warm, affectionate, supportive way of your friends, but they showed their caring in whatever manner they could. You didn’t prefer it, but you could see how someone would.

It wouldn’t have seemed like a role reversal to anyone else, but you alone recognized it for what it was. Waiting in the spot that Karasu had been yesterday, you made designs in the dirt with the toe of your left sneaker, periodically glancing at his phone for the time.

“You waited for me!” he said.

“Ahh!” you said, jumping backwards, your back smacking against the wall. Being this close to your body, hearing your voice and knowing it wasn’t coming from you, was perturbing, and you narrowed your eyes, leaning forward and inspecting it. “Hey. Looks like you didn’t fuck things up too terribly. My hair is its original color, and I’m not breaking out anywhere, so it’s a success story in the end.”

“What about you? D’you go around doing dumb bullshit to make me seem like an awful person?” he said. Though it sounded like you, the words were so utterly Karasu that it was obvious he was the one speaking.

“Why would I do that?” you said.

“Dunno,” he said. “Apparently you hate me more than I realized.”

“And that came as a surprise?” you said.

“Kind of,” he said as you began walking towards the part of town where you had met the old lady. “I thought you were just indifferent to me. Didn’t know it was that bad.”

“Do you even know why?” you said. “Or do you just think I’m mediocre and unreasonable and annoying?”

He looked at the ground instead of at you. “Yeah, I get it.”

“You don’t,” you said. “You went and you made your new friends and that was that.”

“Wait, what?” he said in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about? What are you talking about? I’m referring to why I don’t like you, of course,” you said.

“Isn’t it because I’m not good enough?” he said. Before you could stop yourself, you were scoffing at him. His shoulders slumped.

“Are you fishing for compliments? Save it, jerk. You haven’t changed a bit,” you said.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “That’s the reason, right? You’re Y/N L/N. You draw all over your homework and are still the teacher’s favorite, you’re good at school without even trying, and you only talk to people you approve of.”

“What about you?” you snapped. “You think I’m perfect? You’re the captain of your fancy-ass soccer team, everyone at school loves you, you’re smart and talented and good-looking, and you know it! You walk around like you think you’re better than everyone — like you think you’re better than me! You told your entire group how you wished you could be friends with me, right? We were friends! Until you decided that, for some reason, we couldn’t be.”

“I didn’t decide that,” he said. “You stopped talking to me.”

“What did you expect, that I’d just keep hanging around someone so horrible?” you said. “You completely ignored me once we started school. I tried to talk to you, to acknowledge you, but you just acted like you had no idea who I was. Why would I ever, ever be friends with someone like that?”

“That’s why?” he said. “You’re mad about how I acted when I was six? That’s a little immature, don’t you think? We’re obviously not in grade school anymore. I mean, it’s a little unwarranted for you to be holding a grudge for this long.”

“You were my only friend back then,” you said. “You were my only friend, and you left me alone. I don’t want anything to do with you. You were a pain as a child and you’re a pain now.”

“A pain?” he said. “You wanna talk about being a pain? You decided you didn’t like someone when you were a kid, and you’ve refused to change your mind about them in the years since. It’s not like I haven’t tried! Do you think your mother was incapable of driving over and grabbing her purse? Do you think mine suddenly forgets the route to your house every time she leaves something there? I want to see you. I make up excuses to be with you, but you’re so damn hostile that it doesn’t matter! What am I supposed to say? Hey, Y/N, I really like you. I think you’re cool. I wish that things were as effortless for me as they are for you. And that side-eye of yours? Totally appealing.”

“Because appealing to you is my life goal,” you said, rolling your eyes.

“I don’t think appealing to anyone is in your playbook,” he said. “You just do what you want, and it works out somehow.”

“As opposed to you?” you said. “Whether it’s an innate skill or an earned talent, at least I don’t have a stick up my ass about it. I would ask you if it’s uncomfortable, but considering I’m in your body right now, I can answer that it’s not, really, which is impressive, considering how big it must be. Got some preferences you want to share?”

“Seriously?” he said. “You’re pulling out that kind of joke now?”

“Just trying to method act,” you said. “Since I’m you and all. It’s your modus operandi, isn’t it? You can’t help but criticize people, even when they’ve done nothing wrong. Even when you’re the one who's done something wrong. You’d rather blame me than apologize, but despite what you say, it doesn’t matter how long ago it happened. It hurt my feelings. The fact that you don’t recognize that is all the proof I need that you’re just as self-centered now as you were back then. Forget about trying to be friends with me. You’re right: I only talk to people I approve of, and you’re not one of them. The second we’re back in our original bodies, I want you to leave me the hell alone.”

Karasu’s body’s superior athleticism allowed you to put enough distance between you two that you could clear your mind. This was the first time that either of you had had anything resembling a proper conversation since you were kids, and it had not exactly gone the way you had wanted it to.

What had you wanted? You weren’t sure. Maybe for him to apologize. Grovel and tell you that he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant any of it, that he had an explanation for why he had treated you like a stranger instead of a friend, some magical clarification that would make everything better again.

Somehow, he caught up to you. You must’ve slowed down as you were thinking, the speed of your mind and the length of your stride not quite correlating. He was huffing, though, which did bring you some measure of gratification — which vanished when you remembered that it was your body which was struggling in comparison to his and not the other way around.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, I am. I didn’t want to hurt you. I know that I did, but it wasn’t — it wasn’t my intention. It just happened, and then before I knew it, it was too late for me to stop things from blowing up. And once they did, I avoided the mess I had made as best as I could, because I was too afraid of facing your distaste to do anything to remediate it. I thought it would be worse if I brought it up and you still kept avoiding me than if I never made an attempt at all.”

“Why’d you even do it in the first place?” you said.

“You want an explanation?” he said. You nodded. He shrugged. “I’m sorry. There really isn’t one. Sometimes it’s just like that. I was dumb, and when the other boys in class told me it was lame to be friends with girls, I believed them. I know it’s not right, but that’s really all there was to it.”

“Oh,” you said.

“Expecting fairness from a six year old is a little much, don’t you think?” he said, not unkindly. “I should’ve apologized earlier, I would’ve, but I didn’t realize that that was the reason you spurned me at all. I thought it was because, well, I mean…you’re so you. You’re amazing, and now that I’ve lived your life, that fact is only all the more evident to me. You’re so wonderful, Y/N, and I’m just the mediocre Tabito Karasu. It was only natural that you left me behind. I’ve spent this entire time trying to become someone you’d look at again, but no matter how much effort I put forth, it was never enough. You never did.”

You both had wanted the same thing. For all those many years you had run from one another, you and he had only ever wanted to be with each other. But you had thought Karasu had abandoned you, and he had thought you were too good for him, and so you both had denied yourselves that very thing, which had always been within your grasp, if only one of you had made a genuine effort to reach out and take it.

Stopping, you turned to face him. Squeezing your eyes shut — it was a little awkward, after all, gazing into your own eyes when you were being so vulnerable — you extended your pinky finger out to him, waiting for him to interlock his with yours, like you had when you were children.

“Let’s be together again,” you said, the moment he did so. “For good this time.”

“For good,” he agreed. A cold, slimy sensation slithered down your back, and you opened your eyes with a shiver, only to find yourself looking up at Karasu’s face, his actual face, not the one he had borrowed from you. His lashes fluttered open, and when he noticed you standing in front of him, back in possession of your own body, his eyebrows drew together in confusion before his expression cleared with understanding.

Not even bothering to detangle your pinkies, he interlaced the rest of his fingers with yours. Then, for the first time in years, he gave you one of his sweet, genuine, lopsided grins.

“What the hell? I could’ve sworn this was where she was!” Karasu said, pointing at the storefront where you had encountered the old lady. Somehow, miraculously, it had vanished, replaced with a bustling restaurant that seemed to have been there forever.

“How’d they set up a new restaurant in the span of a day?” you wondered. “That wasn’t there before, I’m sure of it.”

“I was going to give that woman a piece of my mind,” he whined.

“Watch your mouth, baby crow,” you said. “Who knows? Next time you yell at her, she might turn you into one.”

“Would you kiss me and turn me back into a prince if she did?” he said, puckering his lips at you.

“Prince, my ass. You’re still on thin ice, so don’t push it,” you said.

“Alright,” he said amenably. “You know what? Maybe it’s for the best that she’s gone. I think she’s one of those people that you’re only meant to meet once in your life.”

“Very wise,” you said. “The time you spent in my body must’ve had a positive effect on your mentality.”

“Ha, ha,” he said. “Hilarious. C’mon, you have to hang out with me today. You’re the reason I’m missing practice, so entertain me.”

“I guess I don’t have that much homework to do, so I don’t mind,” you said. “Okay. Your place or mine?”

“You pick,” he said. “Though we are over halfway to my house already. And my cat does miss you. Just saying.”

“Convincing argument,” you said. “Lead the way.”

As the two of you turned in the direction of Karasu’s house, your conversation flowing as easily as if you had never not been friends in the first place, the owner of the restaurant ducked out to flip the sign from open to closed.

“Oh, are you shutting down for the day already?” a young man said, frowning at her. The old lady only smiled at him mysteriously.

“Once my work’s done, it’s done,” she said. “Why would I stay open longer than that?”

The man gave her an odd look before wandering off, perhaps aware that arguing with the eccentric old lady would be more trouble than it was worth. The old lady paid him no heed, folding up a stray menu and holding it to her heart as she watched you and Karasu disappear into the distance, chuckling self-indulgently all the while.

Welcome to Freaky Friday! Ask your server about our special — critics call it life changing!

[nevvaraven]

Out of Body (Traumatic Experience) Act 3

For @inevitablestars :))

[sleepy-steve]

@steddieangstyaugust 09/08 // upside down

wc: 2.6k // rating: M // cw: excessive description of injury/blood/wounds // tags: previous first kiss, canon divergence, post-s4, steve harrington whump, this man is so injured it’s crazy, so injured and so self-sacrificing

part two to day 8 but can be read alone ♡

divider credits @steddiecameraroll-graphics

Steve drops down into the unfortunately familiar grey-blue atmosphere of the Upside Down. His feet hit the ground, and despite the bandana covering his nose and mouth, he feels the death and decay enter his lungs as he surveys his surroundings. It’s much worse than before. It’s heavier, like inhaling steam, but sits cold in his chest. A sign that he shouldn’t have returned. A reminder of how dangerous this was. The ground shakes with tremors as Steve pulls on the rope, testing its stability before tying it to the nearby destroyed remains of a trailer. In this state, he couldn’t be sure whose it was. The giant crack in the earth had all but destroyed the trailer park, but it was close enough to where they’d exited those days before, panicked and rushed, Dustin near inconsolable about having lost Eddie.

“Buddy, buddy, look at me,” Steve had said, grasping his shoulders. “We’ll come back for him, okay? I will come back for him.”

“No!” Dustin cried. “No, Steve! I can’t lose you too!”

Steve wouldn’t promise it, but he let the matter go at the time. He waited until after he’d been admitted to the hospital, receiving treatment for an infection in the bat bites. Bringing it back up once they’d all received medical attention only had several people yelling at him. He was warned, commanded, begged—repeatedly and earnestly—to not go back into the Upside Down. That it wasn’t safe. That he needed time to heal. That there would be no point. That Eddie was gone, and even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t want Steve to risk his life going back in to find him.

“Steve, you’re literally in a hospital bed,” Nancy had said, her steely tone covering her concern. “You can’t be serious.”

“Listen, Harrington,” Hopper had sat beside him, voice stern. “You are not to go back there. Do you understand me? We can’t lose any more people.”

But Steve wouldn’t be swayed. And so he was alone. Searching the Upside Down for a man that was believed to be dead.

His flashlight swung in an arc, illuminating the destruction around him. Deep, cavernous fissures in the ground are lit up by the flashlight. Eddie couldn’t have gotten far, with how seriously he was injured. Once the earthquakes started, Dustin said he tried to drag his body out of the wreckage, but it was almost impossible. He took cover until the shaking ground settled enough for him to walk. When he went back, Eddie’s body was gone. Steve pulls debris aside, the movement tugging on his barely healed scars, searching areas that someone could hide in. The scar around his neck burns. Steve had to find him.

Mike, Will, and Eleven were looking for Dustin, after having visited Max, when they showed up at Steve’s hospital room. As Dustin readied to walk them out, Steve asked Eleven to stay back to ask her a question—earning some distinctive looks from the others—and once the boys were gone, handed her one of the Missing Person posters that Wayne Munson had hung up around the relief centre.

“Can you look for him?” Steve had asked, desperate at that point. “If he’s still… if he’s down there, will you know?”

Eleven gave him a quizzical look, but nodded. “If he is there, I can find him.”

He’d waited patiently—tried not to fidget, to keep quiet—while she put a blindfold on, the small radio Dustin had brought to Steve set to static. The seconds ticked into minutes as Steve watched intently, waiting for an answer.

“I see him,” she finally said. “He’s… hurt. Lost.”

Steve’s heart was in his throat. “Is he… alive?”

Eleven nodded. “Alive,” she confirmed.

Feeling like the air was being sucked out of his lungs, Steve’s hands went to his hair. He’d hoped, god, he’d prayed, that it was true. That they hadn’t lost Eddie. But that meant he’d been stuck down there for almost a week now.

“D’you—can you see where he is?” Steve asked.

She was still for several moments, mouth pulled into a frown, before she shook her head. Trying not to be disappointed, he focused on the important part. Eddie was alive. For now, at least. But he had to work fast.

“Okay, uh, listen,” Steve said. “Can you please, uh, not tell anyone else? That you know this.”

When she pulled her blindfold off, she gave him a look that was far too knowing. “Friends don’t lie, Steve.”

“I’m not asking you to lie,” He quickly clarified. “But this is to keep everyone else safe. If the others find out that he’s alive, they’ll try to go back in to find him.” He takes a breath. “It has to be me, no one else.”

“Steve, it is not safe there.” Eleven looked over him. “You are still sick. It will get worse.”

“I know, kid,” Steve sighed. “But I have to save him.”

In the end, Steve convinced her to promise to keep it to herself—unless someone asked directly, and unless he hadn’t returned within six hours of going back—with the added compromise that he would tell Robin where he was going. He checked himself out of the hospital that afternoon, signing multiple forms that indicated he knew he was going against medical advice.

Telling Robin of his plan was never in question. He couldn’t lie to her. Sitting her down at his house, he asked her to please not tell anyone, to only involve anyone else if he hadn’t returned in six hours, as he promised Eleven. Robin begged him not to go through with it, reaching an almost panicked state as she tried to convince him to stay. He can still hear her tearful voice in his mind, looping over and over, a reminder of what he’s sacrificing.

“Steve, please, you can’t do this, at least not without someone to help you!” She’d held onto his arm, stopping him from loading items into a backpack.

Steve turned to her. “I’m not going to drag anyone else into this with me, Robin. This is my decision. Everyone’s already made it clear they don’t think it’s a good idea. I gotta go alone.”

“At least let me come with you!” Robin tried, following him as he searched for a flashlight. “At least you wouldn’t be alone.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders, stopping her. “I can’t let you do that for me. It’s too dangerous.”

Robin shrugged him off, tone growing angry. “So what are you doing then?! Going alone when it’s too dangerous for me to come with you? You’re not even fully healed yet, Steve! You could die down there!”

“I have to try, Rob,” Steve sighed. “I have to. He’s trapped down there.” 

“We could organise a rescue, just don’t do this alone!” Robin yelled, reaching the end of her patience.

He took her hands in his. “No one else needs to put themselves in danger. Hopper was right, we can’t lose any more people, but I can’t just leave him down there. I can’t, Robin.”

Steve knew Robin would understand, at least, why he needed to do this. The kiss. The one that haunts him. The one he and Eddie shared behind the RV, right before they marched back into hell and they lost him. Robin knew—more than anyone—what Steve would do, that his mind wouldn’t be changed. Not for something like this. Because Steve was self-sacrificing to the point of harm for anyone important to him. And this was bigger. There was more at stake—she could tell by the way he spoke about it, with how serious his tone was. She cried and held him tight, finally demanding that he come back at the first sign of danger, and promising him that they could regroup and try again. Just as long as he came back.

Heart aching as the conversation replayed in his mind, Steve shook himself. He needed to focus. The increasing pain of his scars was distracting enough, and he couldn’t afford to lose time. Already having searched for what felt like hours, Steve’s strength was starting to waver. The crimson storm clouds rolled overhead. The weight of his emotions—the guilt, the wish that he’d handled things differently—was starting to feel impossible to carry.

It ate him alive, the way it all went down. The connection between them had been undeniable, Steve constantly finding himself drawn to Eddie, and Eddie endlessly getting back up in his space. It all culminated in a shared moment that turned into a timid kiss, which quickly turned desperate and heavy. It all became too much, too fast, too real—

Steve had panicked and asked him to stop, but it just came out wrong, and Eddie wouldn’t hear him out. He’d wanted to keep going, god, he’d never been kissed like that. Not with so much heat and desire and need. But he also didn’t want it to just be that. He felt something between them that was magnetic and electric and set his heart ablaze in a way he hadn’t felt before. He just couldn’t get the words out. Left speechless by the feeling of Eddie’s tongue in his mouth and his body pressed up against him. He wished he’d just been able to verbalise what he felt. I don’t want this to be meaningless. I’m not just trying to get a quick lay at the end of the world. I think this could be something special. I want it to be.

If only his mouth had cooperated with him. But Eddie had misunderstood his faltering for rejection, and ran away… And they had more important issues to deal with. Despite wanting to approach, to explain himself and set the record straight, Steve knew it would have to wait. Except Eddie had done the very thing Steve told him not to do. Ran right into danger, played the hero, and sacrificed himself. Yes, it meant Dustin was saved, and for that, Steve would always be grateful. But Eddie was gone—lost.

Lost but alive. This is the thought that keeps him moving. Keeps him searching despite his body screaming in agony. Some of the wounds feel open, the sickly cold seeping under the bandages and mingling with his blood. His back burns and aches—the abrasions from being dragged on the ground, dry and splitting—the pain of it sinking deep into his muscles. Making it harder for him to move. Every breath is laborious, he feels like he’s drowning. Steve pulls down the bandana, coughing heavily. The strange particles in the air get sucked into his lungs as he tries to catch his breath. The wounds around his stomach bite into him, feeling worse than when he arrived at the hospital, where infection was starting to take hold. He can’t give up.

Every second feels precarious. Steve hasn’t heard the chittering or hissing of any creatures down here, thankfully, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. The atmosphere alone is dangerous enough. Like the Upside Down was rejecting his presence, and the longer he stays, the more it tries to destroy him. How could Eddie be alive in this place?

It’s been hours now. The flashlight illuminates another chasm in the ground, reminding him of how unachievable his task is. Steve drops his backpack to the ground and leans against a more solid looking destroyed trailer, the back of his head hitting it as he looks to the red-clouded sky. His legs ache from walking. Daring to look down, he notices dark spots starting to stain his shirt. He swallows heavily, mouth dry, the taste of rot on his tongue. A wave of nausea rolls over him. He wills it down, knowing that if he vomited now, the pain in his wounds would only grow, and he’s not sure he can handle that. 

Dread starts to seep in, and for the first time since he arrived back here, Steve starts to think that maybe he can’t do this. Maybe he can’t rescue Eddie. Not on his own. Not in his current state. Even if he found Eddie now, how would he be able to help? He can barely support his own weight right now.

Steve slides down the side of the trailer, hissing in pain as it drags against the scars on his back. The ground trembles beneath him. Another reminder of the impossibility of what he’s trying to do. He checks his watch. Three hours since he left, half of his time is already up.

“Fuck…” Steve breathes, trying to keep his cool. He could do this. He had to do this. He reaches into the backpack, pulling out a bottle of water. The plastic cracks as he twists the lid off. The water does little to ease his nausea. It’s with his eyes closed, praying for some strength to return, when he hears it.

A… gasp?

Steve’s head turns sharply toward the echoing sound. He drops the water bottle back into his bag, pulling out his nail bat and scrambling to his feet. The sound comes again from his right. He steps slowly, bat raised. His heart hammers in his chest. Following the sound, pain temporarily forgotten, Steve makes his way carefully around the destroyed trailer, avoiding debris.

The sound gets louder. Steve approaches a chasm in the earth, two half destroyed trailers on either side. Shattered glass and half melted metal litter the ground. With the bat in his hands, the flashlight is tucked under his arm, shakily brightening the space ahead of him. He leans over the edge, feet planted wide, and looks down into the darkness. It’s shallower than he thought, cracked with blocks of earth jutting out of the walls. 

With no immediate danger in his eyeline, he lowers the bat and aims the flashlight down into the cavern. As the light shines over, he sees dark splatters over the rocks, and Steve hopes it’s not blood. He looks lower, brows pulling together as he follows the splatters deeper into the rift. He hears what sounds like a rattling inhale, head snapping up, a few feet ahead of where he currently stands. Taking a couple tentative steps, he scans the depths carefully, searching for the source of the sound.

The splatters are larger, darker, decorating the earth as he follows the light. An odd shape catches his eye, and he directs the flashlight at it. Steve squints, trying to make out the object, as the light barely illuminates that far down. It takes a moment before he recognises the familiar pair of boots, anything else hidden by another overhanging piece of earth.

Steve doesn’t hesitate, shoving the flashlight between his teeth, and sliding down the edge of the chasm. He shakily drops to a set of rocks a little ways down, looking for a safe enough spot to move down again. Leaning against the rough walls, he shifts another step lower, pain in his back and sides screaming at him. It’s a precarious descent, but he manages to reach the bottom. Steve shines the flashlight ahead, brightening the space. When his eyes adjust, he takes a few cautious steps before dropping to his knees, bat falling to the ground with an echoing clunk.

Eddie lays on his side. He’s covered in dried blood, clothes torn, curled defensively with his knees up to his chest, eyes squeezed shut. Unable to see any sign of movement, Steve’s chest tightens, fearing the worst. Was he too late?

He reaches out with a trembling hand. “Eddie?” he breathes.

Eddie jolts, eyes snapping open, taking in a deep, rasping breath. His breathing settles. He focuses on the man above him. “…Steve?”

[blorbocedes]

For the prompt game: woke up in the wrong body? Clonecest? German twincest? They get freaky friday'd? Whatever your heart desires

Lewis doesn't actually notice anything’s wrong until Nico says, “Don’t worry, we’ll be good. Right, Lew?” to Toto at the end of the Wednesday debrief, flashing a sunny smile.

Lewis stiffens immediately. Nico hasn't called him that in years. What angle is he playing at here? And since when does he joke around during debriefs? Thinking back, Nico had been bouncing around the garage, peeking at both their cars’ suspensions and chatting animatedly to the engineers, even on Lewis’ side of the garage.

The meeting ends, with Toto and Paddy dispersing the team and Nico hangs around, lingering.

“What was that back there?”

Nico sways, shifting his weight from one heel to the other. “Just being good teammates. Buddies, friends.”

Before Lewis can react, Sebastian Vettel storms in with his Ferrari race suit unzipped at the waist, snapping in rapid German.

Nico looks guilty in a sheepish way, says something back that Lewis can only make out his name from.

What the fuck is going on?

Lewis turns to Seb because he doesn't want to deal with Nico being weird. “Hey, man, you're not supposed to be here.”

Seb grimaces, it looks all wrong on his mouth. And his hair is… styled? Coiffed, almost. Lewis wasn't aware Sebastian owned a brush. Nico, on the other hand, had completely unstyled hair today, bangs falling over his eyes like he air dried after taking a shower; not his usual put together self. Lewis doesn't think about him or his hair routine to wonder why.

“You are right,” Seb says with none of his usual playfulness. His mouth is flattened into a thin line. “Nico, a word?”

“Am I in trouble?” Nico quips. “I barely even looked at the cars! Seriously, might be better for your championship chances if you're not dangling your balls in the pool.”

It's a pretty nonsensical remark, especially from Nico who uses controlled diplomacy as a double edged sword. Sebastian, on the other hand, frowns – eyebrows scrunching and mouth going in an almost perfect displeased scowl. It doesn't suit Seb, but it's a face he’s seen a million times on Nico, has teased out of him, has put it on every time he misses a pole, a win, a podium. The way Nico’s standing, his hair, the way he's carrying himself – it's all wrong.

Lewis grabs Nico by the arm. “You're not –” Lewis doesn't even finish his accusation because it's absurd.

Nico looks at him, surprised, and then breaks into a shit-eating grin, self possessed and cocky. “He really doesn't give you enough credit. He thought you wouldn't notice.”

“I shouldn't have trusted you to act normal.” Is Sebastian’s sullen reply, eyes narrowed and zeroed in on where Lewis is holding Nico’s arm. Lewis lets go, suddenly self-conscious.

He hates this, being talked over like he's not even there. The mechanics are starting to notice from outside that Sebastian Vettel in red in their conference room, as if Silvia’s going to come chasing after him any minute. Lewis’ curiosity wins over the facade of being cool and not cracking in case Sebastian and Nico woke up and decided to become best friends and pull an orchestrated prank on him.

“Will either of you tell me what the fuck is going on?”

“Lewis, we need to talk. Somewhere private. Your motorhome.” Sebastian’s tone is bossy, standing arms crossed. He doesn't wait, setting off with a determined ease like he knows exactly where it is.

Nico follows suit, adding in a stage whisper, “By that, he means sex.”

[idk-bruh-20]

Irondad fic ideas #139

NWH AU where Tony's been in a coma this whole time. He still is. But the world thinks he's dead.

One day, Rhodey is in some science place (maybe SI, maybe a community college where he was giving a speech?) and he sees this kid tinkering who looks exactly like Tony Stark. The teen Tony Stark from when he first met him at MIT. Even down to the mannerisms. He goes up and has a brief conversation with this stranger, just curious. Then he leaves.

Unbeknownst to the kid, Peter, Rhodey managed to grab something for a DNA test. The kid just looked too much like his best friend. Like seeing a ghost

When they analyze the DNA, they learn that this kid is in fact Tony's biological son

Rhodey goes back to find the kid, this time bringing Happy. Peter gets to have the super fun conversation where two people who should know him but don't tell him that the person he saw as a father was his actual father, only it's too late

They convince Peter to come with them eventually. And Peter gets the shock of his entire life

Over the next little while, at Tony's bedside, Peter gets to know Morgan (who he would've seen as a sister anyway but this is insane). He also gets reacquainted with Rhodey, Happy, and Pepper, who all admittedly find him a bit sus with how much he seems to know.

But...this is Tony's kid. His son. So they let him be there, let him talk to Tony and hold his hand. 

Finally, finally, Tony wakes up.

And it turns out, being in a coma and thought dead by the entire world, including wizards, makes one exempt from certain magic

Bonus:

As he sits by Tony's bedside, Peter has to grapple with a lot of emotions. One of them is the realization that he was never actually related to Uncle Ben, which makes him feel like his uncle and aunt died for nothing

Pepper helps him through it. Even not knowing him the way she once did, she knows plenty about guilt complexes and chosen family. She assures Peter that he's still a Parker, no matter what, and that his aunt and uncle wouldn't have given him up for the world

Another thing Peter deals with is the fear of Tony waking up and not knowing him. It breaks his heart just thinking about it.

Cue THE most relieving hurt/comfort reunion ever imagined

[eleventhhourfactor]

If you like Friday the 13th shenanigans, Freaky Friday scenarios, and magic carpets that don't fly, then I've got just the fic for you.

This piece has everything...

Bowuigi

Wholesome fluff

Fury unleashed like the crashing of a thousand waves

So if you needed something nice, new, and free on a Friday night, then maybe give it a read. It was fun for me to write, so hopefully, it's just as fun for you, the reader.

[n33dlew0rk]

..and very old men, they dream of summers

rated G | 1102 words | cw: major character death, mention of drug use, hurt/little bit of comfort

for @steddieangstyaugust prompt “ghosts” (day 2)

Vaguely and very creatively inspired by “Ghosts” by The Presets

Remnants of snow are clinging to the ground as a few shy flower buds slowly emerge, following the sun like Eddie is following the gravelly road back home.

Strangest walk of shame to ever be treaded the one you take after an entire life of big cities, sparkling lights on blurred faces, extremes explored and barely survived to.

Strange because c’mon who runs back home after more than forty years on the road? What even is home when the only sense of belonging you ever found was in the lingering spaces between too many words spoken, in the quiet hours before sun dawn, in the foggy and fuzzy brains chasing drug-induced highs that claimed to self-fulfil all of one’s youth-driven naive dreams?

Strangest because never in all of his nine cat-like fast-burned lives would Eddie ever have said that it was the Indiana torrid and unforgiving blitzkrieg summers he wished to warm his old bones to. Mid-May’s traitorously cold spring tail end was kicking his ass, but Eddie could be patient for this. 

Wayne’s old trailer looked like a vintage memorabilia, something straight out of the eighties. Eddie bought it out of the city-owned land for way more money than it was worth it because they were a sentimental little clan, the Munsons. More like a duo maybe. Now a one-man band since Wayne passed nearly a decade back. 

Eddie had briefly come back then, just to retrieve his beloved uncle’s ashes, scattering most of them over Wayne’s favourite fishing lake and keeping some to melt into a customised guitar pick because he was a morbid gremlin like that, Eddie.

Thing is ‘course this is home like he spent the majority of his young life between those tin-foiled pressed baking tray walls mock-off, how could he not think back with nothing but fondness about it, slowly climbing the porch steps and sitting down, hugging his cane like he once held a too big guitar during endless strumming-filled nights.

But as a few weeks pass by, the first seeds of summer expanding warm late afternoons into longer comforting nights, when the sun packs its bag for the day and grazes the horizon, Eddie knows he has another ghost to chase before he can settle for good, before old deeds are taken care of, before he can rest.

-- in peace?

You see memories are kind of a funny thing when half of your brain has been fried by poor life choices you don’t really regret but sometimes wish could have left you with some more cooperative neurons.

So when Eddie spots the familiar mop of hazelnut hair he sighs and gets up from the old deck chair, aching bones rattling and all. He could take the car, but he knows it would kill half the fun despite what his knees have to say.

Once he reaches the road outside the trailer park, it’s a solitary basketball rolling down the asphalt guiding him.

“You know I’m not picking it up, right?”

A light phantom laugh travels in the breeze, mid-June still a short way from summer, but the air feels warm and playful.

Eddie sees shoulders shrugging in a yellow sweater, a smug smile, happy crinkled eyes. 

The still waters of Lover’s Lake shine behind him but no that’s not right he’s still walking down the street, the woods are in the opposite direction. 

Colourful neon lights make it difficult to focus on his face but that’s not right either, this is not San Francisco, this is Hawkins, Indiana.

-- you really are old.

So Eddie keeps on walking, no basketball in sight but a quiet whistling reaches his ears, Fleetwood Mac maybe?

“Oh so your music tastes finally got better at least, that’s a relief”.

Vespertine nostalgia coats the inside of his mouth with smoke and cheap beer and he needs a moment to catch his breath because now it’s the weight of arms around his neck that makes it difficult to keep walking, the weight of a hug he hasn’t felt in a long while too much for his battered back.

“How much longer?”

-- just a little bit more, Sunshine.

Eddie scoffs at the willful unending mission of never acknowledging his Prince of Darkness nature just to fuck with him.

 there’s no darkness in you when you smile at me.

“You’re very talkative today”

-- you’re home, closer now.

Eddie lifts his gaze to meet the rusty gates of the old cemetery greeting him, creaking their welcome. As he goes through them, they merge with the glass sliding doors of a big fancy house, humidity radiating from the pool in front of him sticking to his skin. 

His brows knit in confusion and he stares at the headstones further away. He starts to walk around the pool to reach them, but a soft hand to his chest stops him.

-- no need to, loverboy, just walk beside me.

So Eddie follows and as he looks down, there’s actually no pool, which ok weird, just wet patches of grass, Spring’s late goodbyes he guesses.

“I’m cold.”

-- I know, just a few more steps.

His cane gets stuck in the mud so he drops it, kind of stumbles forward, closing the distance between him and his destination.

             Steve Harrington

October 17, 1966 - March 27, 1986 

       Beloved and dutiful son.

best friend

brother

babysitter extraordinaire

Eddie sits down by the grave, shivering a little. He traces the dates and the scratched cliches devoid of any actual feeling his parents left there, smiling at the way the truer later contributions by the ones who truly loved Steve steal the spotlight.

“I miss you, y’know?”

-- I know, Sunshine.

“I’m sorry I didn't come back sooner”

-- sooner wasn't the right time, rockstar.

“Do you ever think about how things could’ve been different?”

-- no, because they couldn't.

Eddie sighs once more but stays silent, regret is an ugly parasite to eradicate.

-- Life does what life does, nobody could've known. I’m glad you got to live a full life, Eddie. More stories to tell me, now.

Eddie lets a small sad smile fight for space on his wrinkled face. “I guess”.

He didn't even notice the sun slowly spilling into a new day in full force, warming his skin.

-- I wanted to wait so you could feel Summer instead of Ghosts.

Eddie laughs, a hearty low rumble escaping his smoke-fatigued lungs. He lifts a hand and rests it on the gravestone, patting it with affection.

“Oh but you are both, sweetheart. And I dreamed about it for a very long time now”

        Edward W. Munson

June 21, 1965 - June 21, 2035

            Beloved freak.

Sunshine

[saiyanmazen]

Screwed - a Vegebul body swap

New update every Friday (or if I get too impatient)

[hyde2012]

Finally did some fanart for my favourite fanfic 🙏

‘Broke The Mirror’ is basically a freaky Friday with Holt and Jackson in their attempt to separate using a potion. Stuck in each others body, they have to gather the ingredients needed to remake the potion to fix the mess, while trying to fool everyone into thinking they’re themselves.

Dude you have no idea how much I love this fic. It’s on fan fic.net but I’ll link it here as well lol

Anyway

It’s mostly just loosely based atm

I defo wanna redraw a scene at some point but I’m easing myself back into drawing after not doing so for like a year lol

But yeah xoxo

I like to think I left subtle nods to the fic but they can also just be seen as little design choices haha

I’ll also tag the creator below so you can check out their blog and other stuff :D

@puff-pink

[mymoonss]

daily jegulus fic rec :) 10/19/24 | black friday by gildedingold

ch:11/12 (on 10/20 the final chapter should be out) wc: 63,767

summary:

“So, you’re in my body and I’m in your body. Why don’t we like…” Sirius claps his hands together, trying to demonstrate what Regulus thinks might be two bodies colliding by force.

“Yes, yes, I see what you’re saying. A–a jolt!” Regulus says, catching on. “Okay, you go over there, and I’ll go over here.”

Sirius nods enthusiastically, like this is the best idea in the world, and heads over to the other side of the Astronomy Tower. He takes his position, looking back at Regulus. “On my count. One, two, three!”

OR: Regulus and Sirius Black wake up to find their bodies magically swapped. As the brothers stumble through each other's lives, hijinks ensue, and they are forced to confront their fears, navigate their romantic lives, and uncover hidden truths to work toward forgiveness. Inspired by Freaky Friday (2003).

srry for the lack of post i’ve been sick (fun times) ill try to post another ch for the jeggie exes to lovers au tmr :)

[tripthelightfatality]

For Freaky Fic Friday, I shall give y’all a snippet of my upcoming Sanny fic 😈

MINORS DNI!!!

TW: HEAVY BDSM AND SLAPPING

A loud gag ripped through the air as Danny pulled out his fingers from Sam’s throat; The saliva covered digits glistened in the dim light.

“Be thankful that I’m even helping you take my cock down your throat. I should just let you choke on it like the little fuck slut you are” Danny huffed while wrapping a hand around Sam’s neck.

Sam coughed and shivered at Danny’s words. His hands were bound behind his back and knees were digging into the concrete floor. Being a disobedient brat always led to a punishment but being dragged into the dungeon meant you fucked up royally.

“T-Thank you…”Sam rasped out. He looked up with teary eyes and saw just how upset Danny truly was.

As a swift hand cracked against Sam’s cheek, Danny’s grip on his neck tighter ever so slightly. His other hand tilted up his chin so Sam could actually look him in the eye.

“You know how to address me. Try again”

“T-Thank you, Sir…” Sam quickly corrected himself

[m1ckeyb3rry]

NOO I LOVED IT SM!!! I’m fr sick a sucker for this trope I love how it’s kept like the essence of the tension in the relationship but still distinguishes itself from fwtkac!! I’m never getting over the childhood friends addition though it’s just so ugh >>>>> I think that really helped spice up the dynamic too to keep it diff!! And I MISS MY WIFE KARASU SHDGS so real what a sappy loser I love him

Bro is so whipped he’s spilling his heart out to her the minute he gets the chance to talk to her LMAOOO

LMFAO I’m not gonna lie that “I WAS SIX” line hit me like I was fully like team y/n then he says that and I’m like oh yeah wait huh he kinda has a point

Also I LOVE HOW YOU WROTE HIS MEDIOCRITY COMPLEX!!! It reminds me of the light novel scene where Hiori is like you’re amazing and flawless but karasus like nah bro I gotta juggle school life friends etc which now it’s clear he said that because of how hard he works to not be mediocre (Lowk the puzzle pieces are coming together now that we see him interacting with Nagi a bit too) but I cannot lie the effortless genius plus the hardworking achiever will always have a special place in my heart… like part of him admires the natural born geniuses but another part of him feels conflicted and envies them for the way they’re so extraordinary…goodbye

Karasu is SO bf material i swear every post i see doing the flags trend shoves him into red flag and im here sitting like did we read the same series..?

HIS FIVE FANS Karasu nation we will grow trust….here stanning both Karasu and Mira in Mira we trust!!! I seriously don’t know if I would’ve made it to s2 if I hadn’t found your blog like

LMAOOO they were so foul but so funny but omg Lowk scared about what’s gonna happen to yuta but im hoping for a miracle

Baya having a side hustle so true…

THE KARASU CAT SHSHSHSHSH SO TRUE but also THE SIAMESE CAT ugh so real this is kinda unrelated but this fic reminded me how much I want to know more details about Karasu’s family and home background like please give us more crumbs epinagi

Anyways I ate that up so fast I cannot wait to see what you write next

-Karasu anon

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS MY FAV DYNAMIC FR omg i love it sm i will insert it into literally any fic possible (although i haven’t written it for a longer project in a hot sec 😭💔). i think it really does magnify any dynamic 10x — like angst, fluff, romance, etc all becomes more intense when it’s childhood friends involved (which is why a certain someone’s request for a childhood friend’s fic w otoya has me pumped asf HEHE once i finish up my event stuff i’ll probably work on that next)

I MISS MY WIFE KARASU SO REAL SO TRUE imagine he’s in bllk like emo asf and otoya is like yo what’s wrong…and he’s like “i miss my girlfriend 😭😭😭😭😭😔😔😔😔😔💔💔💔💔💔” and he’s so dramatic abt it that otoya thinks she’s dead?? so he’s like damn sorry 4 ur loss but then he sees her during the break and thinks she’s a ghost or smth LMAOAOA

NO FR like okay y/n you have a point you ate you did in fact gag him a bit i fear…but also bro was six why are you still mad to this DAY!! like i said they both had points and it really was more of a miscommunication thing because in the end both of them just wanted to be friends again but were too stubborn to speak up about it

i actually think freaky friday y/n is quite similar to nagi just to a much lesser extent (because she. yk. has friends and parental figures and whatnot) so i do think that karasu envies her as much as he did nagi/other prodigies — however he’s simultaneously so in love that he doesn’t care because he’s too busy being awed by her that he could never truly hate her yk…like he wants to be someone on her level but not necessarily her?? idk. i think you could also delve into how y/n admires his work ethic and attentiveness and wishes she was as relatable and likable as him because the envy kinda goes both ways w them!!

WHENEVER I SEE KARASU BEING PUT AS A RED FLAG I SCREAMMMM BRO HE IS NOT!! he, yuki, barou, hiori, nanase, and MAYBE isagi are like the only green flags in the entire bllk program the rest are varying shades of yellow to red tbh 😭 barou and karasu might be rude on the field but they both are like canonically respectful to women they would be GOOD BFS leave my men tf alone 😰 karasu literally still remembers his first crush don’t lump him in w otoya and aiku just because he’s a sarcastic black haired baddie 😕

HAHA omg yay i’m glad you found me 💖 karasu nation will multiply as SOON as he scores on rin and shidou’s team LMAOAO i know for a fact so many people will convert to tabieitaism just because they’re shown to be so cool during the third selection (going to take so many screenshots of karasu being all “😒 so immature 😒” @ shidou vs rin) i can feel it in my bones…but we have BEEN here hehe putting in the work fr

I JUST NEED TO SEE KARASU’S SISTER 🙏🏻 and yesss cat owner karasu agenda needs to spread he’s such a kitty cat coded man LMAO (so is hiori but in the opposite way somehow). actually on the subject i also need to see otoya’s siblings…and mayhaps a baby nagi panel or two…so many things that epinagi needs to deliver to me w a swiftness

YAYY thank you sm i will hopefully have some more stuff out soon!! the next few requests i have to do aren’t bllk-related unfortunately but after that i have two hiori requests left from my event and then i get to yours!! plus hopefully more hollyhock and maybe even a peregrine comeback…dare i say…don’t get your hopes up but also i miss nagi UGHHHH

[nevvaraven]

I just read your latest chapter of the out of body fic and loved it ofc !! The scene between James and Sirius so cursed (in a positive way) but even more so the Shrek thing, this was the funniest most unexpected thing ever 😭 Amazingly written chapter anyways and I hope you have a good week !!

The pathetic little happy wiggle dance I just did because of you anon you’re so sweet !! That James and Sirius scene is so so cursed 💀 it’s also the whole reason this fic exists like that was THE scene that made me want to write this fic so I’m so happy you liked it !!

The shrek thing…..oh if you knew the story behind the shrek thing anon so many horrors

Thank you so so so so much for being so sweet to me ily lots and hope you have a fantastic week too MWAH xxx

[sleepy-steve]

why are you never real?

@steddieangstyaugust 02/08 // ghosts

wc: 6.1k // rating: E // cw: suicidal ideation, sexual content // tags: angst with an ambiguous ending, ghost eddie munson, dream haunting, dream sex, mild suicidal ideation, nightmares, post-s4 but vecna died, inspired by sleep token’s the apparition

divider credits @steddiecameraroll-graphics

well, i believe // somewhere in the past

something was between // you and i, my dear

“You’re gonna wake up soon.”

Steve sighs, the motion feeling exaggerated, as most things did here. “Already?”

Eddie cocks his head and smiles sadly at him. “You know how it is, time works—”

“Time works differently here, yeah.” Steve cuts him off gently, having heard the words many times before. “Still… I wish I could stay here.” The with you is unspoken, but in his dreams, Eddie always seemed to be able to read his mind.

“Don’t say things like that, Steve.” Eddie’s tone is soft, but concerned. “It’s too easy to get stuck here, and they—the kids, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan—they need you.”

Steve scoffs, looking back out over the trailer park. It’s night this time. It wasn’t always. But at least they were in the Rightside Up. Sometimes they were in the Upside Down. Eddie said it depended on Steve, his moods, how his day had gone, how much pain he was in from his residual injuries, physical or otherwise. “They don’t need me. Maybe for someone to get his ass handed to him to buy time for more important things.”

Eddie grips his shoulder, a strange sensation still, no matter how many times Steve’s felt it. “Don’t undersell yourself that way. You’re way more important than that. They need someone who’s gonna look out for the reckless ones. How many times would Henderson or Mayfield have thrown themselves into danger if you hadn’t’ve stopped them? How many of them have you saved by looking out, making sure they didn’t do anything stupid?”

Steve looks back at him with a pained expression, head tilted slightly. “I didn’t save you.” His voice is soft.

“That’s not fair, Steve,” Eddie’s sympathetic gaze goes right to Steve’s soul. “You couldn’t have known… I needed to—Henderson… I couldn’t let him get hurt.”

“I know,” Steve sighs, the many times they’d had this argument echoing in his head. “I just… You deserved to make it out. As much as any of us did.”

Eddie’s hand moves from his shoulder to his hand, grasping tightly. If Steve thought about it for too long, the feeling would change, would start to become unnatural. “C’mon, big boy, time’s almost up,” Eddie teases, the humour falling a little flat.

Steve looks from where Eddie’s hand is placed over his, back up to his soft gaze. And as most of these meetings ended, they look at each other like they want to say more. Each of them with unspoken words barely held back, communicating something with near imperceptible shifts in expressions, eyebrows slightly raising and pulling together, tiny shy smiles. “I’ll see you soon?” Steve asks, the same way he always does.

“Of course, as long as you want me to be here, I will be,” Eddie answers, the same way he always does.

Everything shifts, warps, fades. Then Steve is awake, and Eddie is gone.

Steve knew. He knew he was getting too attached. Was starting to just wait for the days to end so he could enter his dreams and see Eddie again. Starting to pull away from his real life and crave the night, crave the warm feeling he got there. Like there was nothing else to look forward to aside from sleeping and dreaming. He knew the others were starting to catch on, to notice Steve’s detachment. He could only blame his ongoing migraines so many times before they’d start to get concerned and demand he see a doctor. But he couldn’t help it. It was like an addiction.

The first few times Eddie appeared in his dreams, those few months ago, Steve wasn’t even aware of what—or who, rather—he was seeing. It was more like a feeling. A level of awareness deep in his subconscious mind that let him know something—someone—was there. Seeing him. With him. It wasn’t until weeks later when he was hit with an exceptionally vivid dream, something he only experienced with night terrors after his experiences with the Upside Down, that he realised who it was.

To have a vivid dream that was calm was its own exceptional experience. Weirdly, he found himself in the trailer park. He was walking around alone at night, the area quiet aside from wind rustling and insects chirping. Steve walked aimlessly for what felt like close to an hour, until he heard a very quiet humming that made him stop and look around. He eventually looked up and saw a figure sitting atop a familiar trailer, swinging their legs and looking up at the stars. The humming got louder as Steve approached. The figure turned their head, and Steve saw a big smile he knew, crinkling the corners of eyes that he last saw as glassy and lifeless.

“Eddie?”

Steve woke up with a gasp, the sight of his own bedroom jarring after waking so abruptly. He rubbed his eyes with trembling hands and shook his head. Despite the fogginess of his mind, he remembered flashes of the recent dreams he’d had, all those weird-feeling ones, and it hit him. Steve didn’t know how exactly, but he was sure that all those weird-feeling dreams he’d had were also about Eddie. They all felt the same, somehow. The same… energy, or something.

Steve dreamed of Eddie again the next night. In that one, Steve was standing below the Munson trailer, already looking up at Eddie, who was still on the roof. Steve called for him, less shocked than the previous night. Eddie smiled down at him, the same as before. Though he only got to say, “Hey, Harrington,” softly, kindly, gently, before Steve startled awake again.

It took two more nights of the same—each wake up just as jarring, hands shaking for long minutes afterward—before something changed. The first difference was that it was daytime, the sun shining down over the trailer park. The second was that, instead of the roof, Eddie was sitting on the small porch of the trailer. Once Steve appeared, Eddie patted the step beside him, inviting Steve to sit.

“Good day today?” Eddie asks, lighting a cigarette.

Steve thinks for a moment, struggling to connect his dream mind to his conscious memory. He did have a good day. Both he and Robin had the day off work, so they took the kids to the movies. “Uh, yeah? How’d you know?”

Eddie waves vaguely at the sky. “Sun’s up,” he says around a puff of smoke. “I’m here instead of up there.” He points to the porch, then the roof of the trailer. “You didn’t wake up the second I opened my mouth.”

Holding out the cigarette, Eddie lets the smoke exhale from his nose like a dragon. Steve accepts it, taking a drag. “Yeah, wonder why that keeps happening…”

“It’s your dream, man,” Eddie shrugs.

Steve only hums, taking several moments to think about it. “I guess there’s no use asking why you’re here then?”

“You wound me, Harrington!” Eddie slaps a hand over his heart. “Am I such an unwelcome presence in your dreams?”

Steve laughs and looks to the ground, tapping the ash off the cigarette. “Of course not, man. I… I’m happy to see you. Even if you’re not, y’know, real… Are you?” He looks back with unease.

“Ah…” Eddie smiles in an odd way. “I guess that depends on your definition of real.” He throws up finger-quotes.

Handing the cigarette back, Steve gives him a quizzical look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Eddie takes the cigarette, inhales the smoke, and lets it out slowly. ��You believe in ghosts, Harrington?”

The world shifts as Steve takes in the question, vision warping, colours blending together, physicality feeling both weightless but somehow very heavy.

“Woah, man, hey, stay with me, Harrington.” Eddie places a hand on his shoulder, but it feels wrong. Both too tight and too distant, like it’s not his arm at all but also like it’s inside his arm. Steve meets Eddie’s worried stare and tries to focus. The world settles around them. Eddie’s hand feels less foreign on him.

“You’re a ghost?” Steve finally asks.

“Ta-da…” Eddie does a weak imitation of jazz hands, cigarette between his teeth.

“And you’re, what? Haunting my dreams?”

“Aw, c’mon, man, don’t make it sound like that,” Eddie laughs. “But yeah, I guess something like that. It was more just to, y’know. See. What would happen.”

Steve thinks back on all the weird-feeling dreams. “It’s been, uh, couple of weeks? Right?”

Eddie is defensive, but there’s humour behind it. “Hey. I only popped in a couple of times, but then you started calling for me. And who am I to ignore the call of King Steve?”

Steve frowns and plucks the cigarette from Eddie’s fingers, pointedly ignoring the nickname. “Calling for you?”

“Yeah, I guess once you realised it was me and tried to see me again. It’s kinda like, I dunno. A sense? Or something. I can just feel it when it happens. And I know to come here.” Eddie gestures vaguely, hands moving with his words.

Steve exhales, smoke shooting low out of his mouth. “Sorry, man. Didn’t know I was doing that.” It sounds silly now that he’s said it, but he didn’t really know what else to say. What do you say to the ghost of your kinda-friend who is being called to your dream world?

“Nah, it’s cool,” Eddie brushes it off, taking the cigarette back again. “It’s not like I don’t have a choice. Like you summon me and I get dragged from wherever I am into your dream, nothing so dramatic. But, y’know, not much else to do. Ghost life isn’t exactly the most exciting existence.”

Steve looks at Eddie, who’s looking ahead, seemingly seeing something other than the trailer park. “Where are you when you’re not here?”

Eddie drops the cigarette butt into the grass below them and squashes it with his boot. “Other places.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Steve doesn’t ask. The silence stretches between them for several long moments before Eddie breaks it. “You’re taking this surprisingly well.”

Steve hums thoughtfully. “We’ve seen weirder shit. Besides, I’m not even sure I’m convinced this isn’t something my whacked out brain cooked up for me.”

Eddie looks like he wants to say something, but laughs softly instead. “I guess I’ll have to find a way to prove it to you.”

Steve mulls over what he’s learned, and remembers what Eddie said when he arrived in this dream. “Are you around when I’m awake?”

Eddie grins at him. “Sometimes.”

Another vague answer, but Steve can’t stop the matching grin that grows on his face.

“Alright,” Eddie says suddenly, looking out to the middle distance, then up at the sky. “Time’s almost up, you’re waking up soon.”

“Wait, what? Really?” Steve was sure it had barely been an hour.

“Time works differently here,” Eddie says. “Sometimes it’ll feel like five minutes, other times, five hours. Just depends.”

Steve feels his brows pull together. “On what?”

Eddie gives him a half smile. “On you, mostly.”

“Are you gonna always give me super vague non-answers?” Steve asks. There’s no heat behind it.

Eddie grins again. “Maybe.”

Steve scoffs and then shoves him softly with his shoulder. Another question creeps to the front of his mind. Overhead, the sky grows grey. “Are you… am I gonna see you again?”

Eddie gives him a curious look and then shrugs. “Sure. As long as you want me to be here, I will be.”

“Okay, okay, cool,” Steve sighs, the surprising bloom of panic settling back down. “I guess, uh. I guess I’ll see you soon?”

“Sure thing, Harrington,” Eddie says with a light laugh. It’s the last thing Steve hears before he wakes up.

Steve jolts awake, but doesn’t sit up immediately. The memory of his dream fresh, not fading quickly the way they usually would, and with it, a lot of confusion. Was that real? How would he ever know if it was and not just some delusion? His hands shake for twenty minutes before settling down. The questions and confusion plague him all day until the next dream.

When Steve arrives, it’s night again. But he’s on top of the trailer, standing a few steps behind Eddie, who is back to sitting over the edge. Greeting him with his usual grin, Eddie pats the spot beside him, same as the night before. Steve sits and joins him, looking up at the stars.

“Wasn’t sure if you’d want me back,” Eddie jokes.

Steve huffs a laugh. “Well, I have some questions.”

“Oh?” Eddie turns fully to face him, crossing his legs. “Do share.”

Steve turns too, pulling one knee up to lean his elbow on, other leg still dangling. “Have you worked out how to prove that you’re actually a ghost?”

Eddie hums, looking off to the side, out at the trailer park. “Sadly, I’m stuck on that one. I could tell you stuff I saw around you today, but that doesn’t really prove anything.”

Steve nods. “So I just… have to believe you? Take you at your word?”

“I mean. You don’t have to believe it, you could tell yourself it’s all in your head and banish me from ever returning to your dream world. If you wanted to.” Eddie shrugs, but continues pointedly looking away from him.

“I wouldn’t—I don’t want to do that,” Steve sighs. “I guess I just don’t want to have my hopes up. That you’re still around in some way.”

Still facing away, Eddie side-eyes him with a small smile. “Can’t imagine anyone being happy about getting haunted.” There’s something beneath the joke. Something soft.

“I guess… it’s nice? To think that you’re there. Here.” Steve coughs a little, struggling with the sincerity that seems to be pouring out of him. No filter in his dreams, apparently. “And in my dreams,” Steve continues. “Because I’m… inviting you?”

“I only answer the call as I hear it,” Eddie says, closing his eyes and holding a hand out to the side, palm up. Steve snorts, and they both laugh. There’s a brightness in Eddie’s eyes. 

The dream doesn’t last long. They spend some time looking at the stars before Eddie notes that Steve will be waking up soon.

“How do you know that?”

Eddie shrugs. “Dunno, just do. Same as you calling me. Just a feeling.”

Steve has no choice but to accept that answer. “So… I guess I’ll see you soon?”

“Sure thing, as long as you want me to be here, I will be.”

Eddie’s smile fades and warps before disappearing completely. Steve is awake and alone again, unsure of what to make of his most recent dream. It was nice to think that Eddie’s ghost was around, that he wasn’t completely gone, but how much could he rely on that? Sure, they had seen plenty of weird stuff, but Steve never believed in ghosts before this. If he wasn’t real, was Steve going crazy, having vivid conversations with the image of a—what? Friend? Steve wasn’t even sure what to call their relationship. This distinction held him up for longer than thinking about whether or not he even believed in Ghost-Eddie’s existence. Both thoughts hung over his head all day like his own personal dark clouds. He found himself wondering if Eddie was around during his shift at work, his car rides, picking up Robin or the kids. It was ever-present, and that thought alone started to make him believe that maybe Eddie really was there. Like his presence was forcing Steve to think about him.

Eddie visits his dreams every night. Days and nights at the trailer park, sitting on the roof or the porch, sharing cigarettes, talking about their lives, their pasts. Eddie claims to see a lot of what the group gets up to, and is always keen to share with Steve his thoughts on conversations, fights, misadventures he sees. (“It’s so good being able to tell someone what I thought!” Eddie says, grasping both of Steve’s shoulders. He feels heat growing in his cheeks at the sight of Eddie’s delighted eyes, but assures himself that it’s nothing.) Steve still finds himself questioning the reality of it all, but he starts looking forward to his dreams more and more each evening.

Then he has a nightmare.

The night terrors weren’t anything new, not since eighty-three. Though it had been a while. The knowledge that Vecna was defeated certainly helped, but there was something else. Steve tried to convince himself it was not the comfort of knowing Eddie was waiting for him. Of knowing that he was never truly alone in his dreams. No, it was definitely not that.

When he arrives at the dream-trailer park, Steve almost jumps back, almost trips over a familiar vine. The sky is a haunting blue-grey, red lightning striking in the distance. The trailer is covered in vines, exactly the same as it was that night. Fog covers the ground all around him.

“Woah, Steve, what happened?” Eddie’s voice comes from his right, causing him to flinch instinctively. “You okay?”

Steve swallows, heart pounding. “Yeah… Yeah, I just…” He took a breath. “Migraine.”

Eddie nods in understanding, looking around them. Steve had told Eddie about the migraines that struck him regularly since his run-in with Billy Hargrove, then doubled after his beatings below the Starcourt Mall. He’d suffered through one today, falling asleep with it pounding behind his eyes and feeling like his skull was splitting in two, cold cloth over his forehead doing little to ease his pain.

Eddie looks back to Steve, concern in his eyes. “You feeling okay now?”

Steve turns his shaking hand in a so-so motion. Thankfully, he wasn’t feeling the physical pain here, but it was clearly showing itself in other ways. Between the visuals of a place he hoped to never see again, the way his heart pounds in his chest, the way he couldn’t seem to take a full breath, he knew he was in a night terror—or at least, something like one. He didn’t know how that changed with Eddie being there. “Been better. You?”

“Fine, aside from seeing the place, y’know…” Eddie waves in the general vicinity, grimace settling over his face. “Like this.”

“Yeah…” Steve exhales, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry about that.”

Placing a hand on his shoulder, Eddie gives him a look, one that Steve was starting to become all too familiar with, huge brown eyes filled with sympathy. “It’s not your fault, Steve. You don’t—”

A low growl stops Eddie’s words, both of them turning sharply towards the sound. The sound of a creature creeping in the grass alongside the growl awakens something in Steve’s memory. “Shit.”

“What?” Eddie’s expression is slowly turning to panic. “What is it?”

“Quick.” Steve turns to the trailer. “On the roof. Go—now!”

He grabs Eddie by the elbow as he rushes to the railing. Steve sets his knee up for support, pulling Eddie forward to go up first. Eddie pulls himself up with surprising dexterity, quickly turning to offer his hand down to Steve. The growling gets louder. Steve grips Eddie’s forearm, using his foot to push off the railing and pulls himself up to the roof. They only get to look at each other in relief for a brief moment before the sound of something heavy hitting metal startles both of them into looking down.

“What the hell is that?!” The panic comes clear in Eddie’s voice.

“You remember when I told you about the demo-dogs in the junkyard?” Steve says, voice unsteady. “Nineteen eighty-four?”

The dog below them opens its face, hissing horribly, drool dripping from its many teeth.

“Jesus, yeah, okay.” Eddie rubs a hand down his face, seemingly unable to look away from it.

Another two demo-dogs join the first, all hissing and jumping at the side of the trailer, sending tremors through the structure. The rattling and sounds of flesh hitting metal send a chill down Steve’s spine. “You think they can hurt us?”

Eddie scratches the back of his neck. “I mean. This is a dream, and I’m, y’know, already dead, so technically no.” He peers over the side of the trailer, legs wide to keep him steady. “But uh, it’ll hurt until you wake up, I’m sure.”

Steve joins Eddie in looking over the side, mirroring his stance. From the fog, another group of demo-dogs joins the others, seemingly larger than the first ones. One of the big ones looks up at them—and how was it looking at them with no eyes?—opens its many-flapped face, and screeches.

Before he can register it, or stop it, Steve grabs Eddie’s hand, instinctively pulling them closer together. He’s unsure if he’s trying to protect Eddie or himself, he just knows he wants him near. Taking a small step, Steve ensures Eddie is behind him, further away from the creatures.

“They can’t get us. Up here.” Eddie’s reassuring tone changes quickly. “Right? They can’t like, fly, or something?”

“Shouldn’t be able to,” Steve says, more steady than he feels. His heart is still slamming in his chest, his breathing is still short, and his hand is still in Eddie’s. Somehow the last fact is the one sticking to the front of his mind.

One of the creatures rears up before taking a leap. Steve grips Eddie’s hand tighter. It reaches high, but not high enough, missing any possibility of getting to the roof by half a foot. He feels Eddie tug on his hand, pulling him slightly back. Finally dragging his eyes away from the creatures, Steve turns to see Eddie pulling him down to sit.

“Maybe if they can’t see us, they’ll piss off,” Eddie says, leaving their hands joined.

Steve follows him, sitting close. “Yeah…” Steve lets out a shaky breath. “Maybe.”

Loosening his fingers slightly, Steve tries not to watch, tries not to see if Eddie immediately takes his hand back after being released from Steve’s tight grip. He doesn’t. He just squeezes gently, reassuring. They sit cross-legged across from each other, while Steve tries to control his breathing.

“You saved the kids from those things?” Eddie asks, fear still lingering in his eyes.

Steve laughs shakily. “Yeah… yeah, like, five of them? Seven, maybe? Had Dustin, Lucas, and Max in the bus. Just whacked the dogs with the bat.”

“Ah, the fabled nail-bat,” Eddie says with grandeur. “Devastated I never got to see it. Pretty metal, Harrington.”

Steve can tell Eddie’s trying to make him feel better, distract him from his own mind, and Steve is willingly lulled into it, a small smile creeping onto his face. Their hands are still clasped together, Eddie now tracing little circles with his thumb on Steve’s skin. It’s all so comforting. So comforting but so temporary. So unreachable. The thought makes his smile drop slightly.

“Hey, you okay?” Ever-observant, Eddie notices the shift.

Steve tries to bring the smile back up, but he’s sure his eyes betray him. “I just… worry, y’know? That you’re not real. That it’s all in my screwed up head. I…” Steve sighs, looking down at their hands, voice growing small. “I want you to be real.”

“Steve…” Eddie’s voice is thick. His other hand reaches out, hesitates, then his fingers are softly around Steve’s jaw, gently guiding his gaze back up. “I know I can’t prove it, but I’m real. As real as a dead guy can be.” They both laugh softly. “I promise. I see you.”

Heart pounding rapidly, Steve tries to blink away the tears pooling in his eyes. “What if I go to sleep one day and you’re not here?” The question comes out quickly, out of Steve’s control. Like he can’t hold anything back.

Eddie pulls his hand out of Steve’s, who mourns the loss for only a moment, before Eddie brings it to the other side of his face, the cool metal of his rings softly pressing into Steve’s skin. “I promise,” Eddie says, voice serious. “I will always be here if you want me to be. Okay?”

“Okay,” Steve whispers, nodding between Eddie’s hands, before they trail back down to Steve’s.

The dream doesn’t last much longer, and Eddie prompts him to go quickly—“It’s a lot easier to get stuck in a nightmare.”—despite Steve’s quiet protests. Eddie brings his knuckles up to Steve’s face again, softly grazing his cheek with another promise to be there the next night, before he fades away and Steve wakes up.

Steve doesn’t have another nightmare for a long time after that. Weeks blend together in a mess of dream memories, Steve finding himself eager to get to sleep each night. He doesn’t tell anyone what he’s experiencing. It’s not that he doesn’t think anyone will believe him, but he doesn’t know how he’d explain why Eddie comes to him every single night. What possible reason could he give for that?

It’s a few weeks later, when they’re laying side by side on the roof of the trailer, Eddie’s hand softly tracing little shapes on Steve’s arm, when Steve finally asks a question he’d been thinking about for far too long.

“That day, back when you were hot-wiring the RV…” Steve starts slowly. Eddie hums for him to continue. “Were you… flirting? With me?”

Eddie doesn’t pull his hand away, but does keep his eyes firmly on the sky. “I—well, yeah. I was.” It’s hard to tell in the low light, but Steve swears Eddie’s cheeks are a little pink. “I just thought—y’know, we’d already seen so much shit. Thought it might, I dunno, make you laugh? But yeah. I was.” The silence stretches for a long moment. “Did you—is that—um, were you…?”

Eddie lets the question trail off into nothing. Steve takes his hand firmly in his, watches as Eddie looks at him and looks away just as quickly. Steve joins him in looking up at the stars. “It took me by surprise, for sure. But I, uh. It was—I hoped. That you were.” His cheeks feel hot, and he can feel Eddie’s eyes on him, analysing him. Steve doesn’t look back, scared to have said too much.

Neither of them say anything, but Eddie squeezes his hand. They stay that way until Steve wakes up, as always with a promise that Eddie will return the next night.

It’s another week, when they’re sitting side by side on the trailer’s roof, before Eddie struggles to ask a question that has seemingly been on his mind for days, hands more jittery than usual as he lets his fingers trail over Steve’s skin.

“Do you think… if I hadn’t—if we’d been able… that maybe,” Eddie clears his throat. “Maybe we could have…?”

Steve doesn’t need to hear the words to know what he means. “I think… yeah. There was something. Between us. I could, I dunno. I could feel it.”

He can’t explain it, the thing that Steve felt. Some electricity, some pull that dragged him into Eddie’s orbit starting the second Steve’s back was shoved into the wall of the boathouse and a shard of glass was pressed up against his neck. He found himself constantly in Eddie’s space, and was sure that Eddie felt it too. The lack of needing to distance themselves from each other. It was present, and the more Steve thought about it, inevitable. If they’d had more time, been able to explore it… 

“Okay,” Eddie exhales heavily. “Yeah. Me too.”

They lock eyes, and Steve sees barely concealed grief, longing, in Eddie’s. The almost imperceptible widening, irises shining, the slight pull of his mouth, all says more than anything either of them could put into words. Eddie breaks the moment, letting his head rest on Steve’s shoulder, hand clasped tightly around his.

It’s one of the longest nights Steve’s had in his trailer park dreams.

It gets much worse after that. Steve constantly pulls away from his real life, like it’s just time to fill until he can get back to his dreams. He often says how much he wishes he could stay. He doesn’t say why, but Eddie knows. Despite how gentle his tone is, Eddie reminds him to think of his real life, to not let himself get stuck in his dreams. But Steve sees the resolve slipping, the way Eddie doesn’t even seem to be able to convince himself when he tells Steve how important it is to stay present, with the people that love him.

Steve opens his eyes to his dream to see night, as it often is, though the sky is clouded. No sign of the stars he and Eddie usually spent the nights looking at. He knows why the clouds are there, his earlier argument with Robin echoing in his mind. Eddie is where he usually is, sitting with his legs dangling off the roof of the trailer.

“Hey,” Eddie calls softly. “You okay?”

Steve shrugs before moving to the railing to pull himself up to join him. The silence settles between them, Eddie waiting patiently for him to start talking. Steve doesn’t say anything, instead looks at his own shoes beside Eddie’s.

“C’mon…” Eddie brings his face close to Steve’s, leaning down with a small smile. “Tell me what happened.”

Sighing softly, Steve doesn’t bother to ask how Eddie knows something happened. He always knew. “Just had a fight with Robin. It was stupid. I’ll apologise to her tomorrow.”

“Why was it stupid?”

“She just…” Steve runs his hand through his hair. “She knows I’m hiding something from her. Said I’ve been distant. And I got mad about her asking. The whole thing is my fault.”

Eddie is quiet for several moments, studying him. “That doesn’t sound stupid to me.”

Steve sags a little at the words. “Yeah… but if I had just told her… maybe not all of it, but enough. I dunno. We probably wouldn’t have fought.”

“Steve…” Eddie’s voice is so soft, Steve knows he doesn’t want to hear what he’s about to say next. “You can’t… you can’t keep doing this. I’ve told you before, it’s too easy to get stuck here—”

“Well maybe that’s what I want!” Steve snaps, cutting him off and immediately regretting it.

Eddie pushes himself a few inches back, away from Steve, expression unreadable. He pulls his knees up to his chest. “If I think…” His words are slow and measured, “that you are at risk of getting stuck here… I’ll—” Eddie pauses, seems unsure for a moment. “I will have to stop coming back.”

Ice floods Steve’s veins. “What? What do you mean?”

“I don’t want you getting stuck here. You need to live your real life, you can’t just keep waiting to come back here. It’s not healthy.” Eddie hugs his knees. “I don’t want to stop coming. But I will if I have to.”

“Eddie… no…” Steve reaches out but stops when Eddie shakes his head.

“You can’t keep doing this. It’s not your fault that I didn’t make it,” Eddie says, referring to their conversation from the previous night.

Steve feels a wave of guilt wash through him. “We could’ve saved you. I could have saved you.”

“I made my choice that night, you can’t keep blaming yourself for it.” Eddie pulls his legs tighter. “But it’s not just that… is it?”

Steve curls in on himself. “I… I can’t help it. Knowing that we could have had… It’s like this—thing that won’t leave me. It’s all I think about. You are all I think about.”

Over his knees, Eddie gives him a devastated stare, eyes swimming with it. He looks at Steve like he has so many things to say, but doesn’t say any of them. Holding it all back. Holding himself back.

Steve feels the lump growing in his throat. “Please… please don’t leave me, Eddie.”

Whatever resolve Eddie had crumbles, and he shifts close to Steve, taking his hands. “I won’t, Steve. I’ll always be there. But this… it isn’t good for you. If I need to hide from you, for a little while…” 

“Please don’t…” Steve whispers, looking up at him with wet eyes. Their noses are almost touching. “Please…”

“Steve…” Eddie sighs, pained. His brows pull together.

Steve pulls his hands from Eddie’s, placing them on either side of Eddie’s face. He watches the conflicted look fly across Eddie’s eyes before he leans forward slightly. Their lips brush so softly, Steve shudders a breath at the feeling and Eddie groans, eyes closing as his frown intensifies. Steve freezes for only a moment, before surging forward. Eddie is grabbing him tightly, one hand pressing at his back, the other pulling on his shirt. All of their fear and longing felt through the movement of their lips. It’s fierce and heavy and desperate. Eddie’s tongue is in his mouth and he tastes like cigarettes and the salt from Steve’s tears. Letting his hands soften, one cups Eddie’s jaw, the stubble rough against his skin. The other trails down his neck, then to grip at his hair, fingers tangling in the curls.

Steve’s heart races, and everything starts to warp. Eddie is not close enough and he’s so close they’re almost one. Their lips are too soft and too firm against each other. It feels intense and it feels like he’s chasing it. It’s all consuming and it doesn’t feel like enough. He tries not to think about it. Tries to just sink into the feeling.

Unsure how or when it happened, Steve is on his back with Eddie above him. Their hands are everywhere, mapping each other, clinging desperately to one another. Steve pulls Eddie closer so their bodies are flush, feeling the weight of the man he knows in his heart is dead but feels so real and alive on him now. Feels the expansion of breath in Eddie’s chest, the thrum of his pulse in his neck, the pull of his teeth on Steve’s lip. He hears the soft moans from Eddie’s throat, the rustling of their clothes as they move against each other.

Their movements become frantic as hands move to waistbands and zippers come undone. Everything blurs. Their hands are together, wrapped around each other, running up and down their lengths as one. Steve’s lips trail down Eddie’s throat, breath catching as he feels the pulse there again. Every sensation arguing, screaming, that he’s real and alive. Eddie ducks, bringing his lips back to Steve’s, face angled to deepen the kiss until they're both panting into each other's mouths.

Steve tries to look but only sees snatches of detail. Eddie’s eyes, hooded and glazed as their hands move quicker. The redness creeping up his neck. The creases between his brows deepening as his moans grow louder against Steve’s lips. He can’t tell whose groans belong to who as their breath combines between their lips, their hands moving together. Pleasure coils low in his abdomen, his breath hitching as he holds tight to Eddie with his free hand. He moans and cries, lips dragging against each other as he comes, Eddie close behind him. Their hands slow and their breathing softens. Eddie’s weight is on him almost entirely. Everything else feels fuzzy.

They lay there, arms wrapped tight around each other, for what could be hours. Time has never been clear to Steve here. They hold each other as though fearful that one might be snatched away from the other at any minute. Between gentle kisses, Steve looks to see tear tracks running down Eddie’s cheeks—no doubt mirroring his own. His focus starts to return, the warped feeling fading, returning to the clarity of his familiar dream world. Steve remembers what they had been talking about before.

“I won’t,” Eddie says, eyes locked on his. “I won’t leave. I promise.”

Steve has no choice but to believe him, nodding before kissing him again. It might have been one of the longest dreams Steve’s had, but it’s entirely too soon before Eddie warns him that he’ll wake up soon. Steve pulls him tighter, his desire to stay stronger than ever. Eddie is the one who finally pulls away, sitting up beside him.

“Promise me you’ll fix things with Robin?” Eddie tries to ask it casually, but it’s clear he’s avoiding what he really wants to say.

“Yeah,” Steve sits up with a half smile. “I promise.”

Eddie reaches out, letting his hand trail down Steve’s cheek, stopping at his jaw. He leans in for a slow, soft kiss. Everything he wants to say is in his gaze—gentle, longing, pleading.

“I’ll see you soon?” Steve asks, the way he always does, and yet not at all like that. There’s so much more behind it. His voice wavers, afraid that the answer will be different.

“Of course,” Eddie answers, voice breaking. As the dream starts to warp and fade, Eddie’s wide wet eyes blurring before him, Steve hears the promise more earnestly than ever. “As long as you want me to be here, I will be.”

[rhaenin-time]

So back when the TV writing industry was slightly more permeable without connections and TV itself was more episodic, a common way to get your foot in the door was with "spec scripts." Where you'd write your own episode of a show.

You (well, your agent) would never submit a spec script of the show to the show you want to work on to the actual show you want to work on though. Rather, it was only meant to demonstrate that you understood how to write a self-contained story that remained faithful to the overarching story. Consistent in tone and theme and characterization. That not only were you a writer, but a writer able to tell a story someone else asks for, alongside other writers.

So yes, you'd basically submit fan fiction. And your goal was to make it read like a genuine lost script, rather than like... "fan fiction."

Anyways, Julie Plec once wrote a Buffy spec script. And it's EXACTLY what you think.

I mean it, a hellish mix of cringey and boring. All the incompetence and self-indulgence we associate with bad fan fic, but with none of the fun. None of the soul. If you ever feel embarrassed about writing what you consider a particularly cringey fan fic, just remember that Julie Plec not only did worse, but that she wrote it for a professional reason, looked at it, and decided, "Oh yes. This will get me all the jobs." And proceeded to SUBMIT it.

[hlvrfreakyfriday]

(( so i've decided to repost the Freaky Friday fic here on the blog, to have one other place to read it besides just ao3. here we go! ))

HLVRFF: Chapter 1

It all happened so fast, Benry didn't even detect what was going on until after the fact. And by then, it was too late for him to do anything about it.

Being an eldritch horror from the cosmic void, Benrey had a lot of real fun abilities at his disposal. One of those being the ability to 'astral project' as he'd heard humans call it. He never really used this one too much, though. Until he moved in with Gordon, that is. He'd found that slipping out of his own body to go hang out in Gordon's dreams was a pretty sick way to pass the time at night, when nothing else was keeping his attention successfully. Or when he was feeling lonely. Being the only one in your friend group who doesn't need to sleep at night kind of sucks sometimes.

Gordon was… a little unnerved by the brain-intrusions at first. But he never told Benry to fuck off with that shit, as the night time chats with the entity were much, MUCH preferred over all his PTSD night terrors. Dreams never kicked in right whenever Benry was there, including the bad ones, so it was a win-win situation, really. However, if a dream was already in the middle of happening when Benry jumped in, the dream didn't just automatically stop.

He never thought much about it until tonight.

Benry wasn't really feeling in the mood for any video games, so he decided he'd go see what ol' Feetman was up to in dream land. He got himself laid out nice and comfy in his bed, slipped out of his body and into Gordon's.

And soon came to very much regret it.

Gordon was having a nightmare about Xen, looked like. From his vantage point, he could see the man fleeing for his life from something. He didn't see what, but whatever it was, it had the poor guy scared absolutely shitless. Benry could feel all the horrible emotions Gordon was having while sharing a headspace with him, and yeah, no, this was not cool. He needed to calm Gordon down, show him he was just dreaming. If he could get him in a more lucid state, the nightmare would be easy to knock away.

Dream-Xen wasn't set up the same way as the real deal was- but thankfully Benry was able to just clip through everything just like the real one, which allowed him to cut Gordon off as the human frantically made his way through the winding tunnels.

When Gordon rounded the corner and came face to face with Benry, the human let out a strained shriek, and looked like he was about to book it back towards whatever he was fleeing from before. Whu..? Oh, shit, right. Benry was playing the bad guy when they were all on Xen, so of course Gordon wouldn't be very happy to see him, even if he wasn't at the same giant size he was back then.

…Wait.

Benry was the main threat to Gordon and the Science Team when they were on Xen.

So… did that mean…

As if to answer Benry's unspoken question, a massive, pale hand came phasing through the roof of the cave, one of its sharp black talons nearly impaling Gordon as it did. Gordon fell to the cave floor and looked on in horror as the monstrous owner of the hand brought their face into view.

Gordon wasn't having a nightmare about Xen. He was having a nightmare about Benry.

The alien's heart dropped like a fucking rock at the realization. Dream-Benry raised his fist, looking like he was getting ready to crush Gordon, and that's when real-Benry shoved down the sanguine and shadow building up in his throat and dove towards the human. He grabbed Gordon, and then sunk them both down into the floor, escaping into another chamber. Gordon thrashed in his grip, desperate to get away, but Benry held firm, and flipped the man around to face him.

"dude, dude, you gotta- you gotta calm down. that thing- that's not me, you're dreaming-" Benry tried to explain, but Gordon wasn't fucking listening, he just kept screaming at him to let go and get away and-

They were both silenced when the sole of a giant combat boot came down hard directly on top of them.

------------

Benry's whole form jolts as he returns to a more corporeal state of being. God, fuck. Dying was never fun, even in dreams. He lets out a heavy sigh and blinks- wait. His eyes are open? Why is it so fuckin' dark, then? He looks around the room, and does see… a faint light, shining in the corner of the room. Focusing on that light, his eyes begin to adjust a bit more to the dark. It's then he realizes that everything is blurry? He moves to push himself up into a sitting position- oh holy fuck he feels so tired and heavy and weak. What the shit. He brings a hand up to his head to rub at his eyes… and finds that his cheeks are a lot less bony than he remembers. Benry blindly gropes at his face some more, and feels what is very clearly a scruffy beard that he very much did not have before.

"yo what-" he says aloud, cutting himself off instantly when he hears himself speaking with Gordon's voice.

That's… new.

And would explain why he can't see shit all. Benry carefully feels over for where he knows Gordon's bedside nightstand is, and turns on the lamp once he finds the switch, to back up the little light from what he now realizes is Gordon's night light. Okay okay, no longer dark, but still blurry as hell. Squinting at the nightstand, he makes out the general shape of Gordon's glasses, and gingerly picks them up and places them on his face. Ah, there we go, blessed with sight once again. Albeit still pretty fucking shitty sight. This isn't how Gordon's eyes are ALL the time, is it? No, no, can't be. That'd be messed up. His sight, and all of his other senses come to think, are probably just all discombobulated from being forced into the wrong body. Yeah. Totally. He just needs to give it a minute.

Suddenly, a scream rings out in the house, in a voice that Benry recognizes as his own.

Oh shit, Gordon.

Welp, 'giving it a minute' is now officially off the table.

Benry quickly hops out of bed (ignoring the foreign ache in his-Gordon's? legs) and bolts towards the door. It's here that he makes yet another discovery.

His usual powers didn't carry over with him into Gordon's body, apparently, as when he tries to clip through the door because it's faster than opening it, he just fuckin' slams right into the damn thing. He groans, both in pain (so much pain…) and embarrassment, before opening the door like a normal human person and books it down the hall to his bedroom.

Flinging the door open and flicking on the light switch, he's met with a very concerning sight.

------------

Gordon lurches up into a sitting position, reflexively throwing his arms up, as if to hold off the massive boot that was trying to squash him like a bug. It was just a dream, he thinks as he realizes that he's not dead or on Xen. Doesn't do anything to calm his residual panic, though. His heart is still going a mile a minute and… and that's not right. His heart isn't beating right.

His brain finally catches up with the rest of him, and he realizes that he's in an entirely different room than he was when he went to sleep. It's Benry's room from the looks of it, but… it's not right, either. Why is the lighting so weird. The light's not even on, but he can see, he can see SO clearly and- the colours. They're all so much more vibrant, and there's ones he doesn't even recognize. He can't even think how to DESCRIBE them, what the fuck.

Ignore that for right now, Gordon, you gotta calm down, he thinks to himself. Closing his eyes, he reaches a hand up to run his fingers through his hair. Doing such has often helped him ground himself during anxiety and panic. But instead of feeling his long, soft hair, he feels a knit beanie. He does not wear knit beanies. His roommate wears knit beanies. His roommate whose room he inexplicably woke up in just now.

Gordon's eyes snap open and he looks at his hands.

They are not his hands.

"What the fuck," he utters, barely above a whisper, in what is definitely Benry's voice.

No. No? No. No! This isn't happening. This is NOT fucking HAPPENING. He's still dreaming, CLEARLY he's still dreaming! He just needs to wake up. C'mon, Gordon, you can do it. Wake up. Wake up, Gordon. Wake UP, Gordon. WAKE UP, GORDON-

A scream rips out of his throat, as he feels something else in his borrowed body rip.