#give me vecna any day

[ickypuppi3]

anyway the scariest character in stranger things, to me, is neil hargrove

because not only is he such an accurate depiction of an abusive parent who gets away with their actions by making their child look like the bad guy

not only is he the definition of a wolf in sheeps clothing who has the ability to fit neatly into society while causing unimaginable pain behind closed doors

not only does he have the ability to control the people around him like puppets, pitting them against each other and essentially being able to create his own narrative through this

but he also gets away with it all

he gets away with it in the show, he gets to leave as soon as his number one victim dies, he gets to sound sympathetic when they give a reason for him leaving

but he also gets away with it in how people talk about billy, he gets away with it every time someone minimises the harm neil did and pushes the entirety of the blame onto his son, every time someone pushes the ‘billy is a bad victim’ or ‘billy deserved it’ lines, he gets away with it every time someone compares billy to lonnie, brenner and vecna and neil’s own name gets left out

there were absolutely no consequences for neil’s actions in the show and there never will be

and isn’t that all very realistic

[bylertruther]

"there's no basis or case to be made for will having powers" okay then genuinely please explain any of the following now after watching season four:

why does the upside down look like hawkins and is presumably stuck on the day will arrived despite the fact that vecna was there first and has been residing there this whole time? if vecna was capable of reshaping the world, as he's stated he wants to do, why hasn't he done it in his own world? why is he so intent on seeking out the person for whom time apparently stopped if it's all just coincidence? if will didn't do that and he doesn't have powers, then why didn't time progress or the setting change once the teenagers got there? why was time only influenced by will and will alone if he has no powers whatsoever?

how was will able to call joyce multiple times? the only person we've seen so far be able to do something similar is eleven when she would channel what she heard through the radio. electricity doesn't work in the upside down, so how did will do that? why did it cause a shock and ruin the phone, the same way that the radio went up in flames when eleven did it, if he doesn't have powers?

how did he manage to wake joyce up at one point? (it could've been her imagination, but the show made it pretty clear that joyce had been right about everything the entire time even though everyone thought she was crazy, and will was wearing the same outfit but he looked and sounded distressed + exhausted like he may have been while hiding in his upside down version of the house.)

how was will able to see his mother and guide her with the lights to the place he was hiding?

how was will able to see the letters she wrote on the wall?

how was will able to light up the lights that fast and sometimes simultaneously? especially with the lights that were on the ceiling? the way he communicated with joyce isn't totally similar to the way the teens communicated with the party in season four. he's too short to reach the ceiling and he doesn't have elasti-arms or super speed, so he couldn't have been touching that many lights that fast all by himself with his own hands. if anything, it's more similar to the training exercise brenner had the lab kids do, because they didn't need to touch the lights (obviously) to control them. so, how do you explain that if he has no powers?

how did he acquire true sight before his possession? the doctors thought it was ptsd and all in his head, but just like with joyce, we come to learn that will had been right the entire time. the mind flayer was real and it was coming for them all and eventually it did. how did he know that? how could he have had such knowledge before it ever melded minds and bodies with him? no other powerless human could do that, so how do you explain it?

if will is truly a powerless human being, why did vecna hunt him down? we know that vecna stalks his prey before he strikes. we know that "the monster" followed will from mike's house all the way to the shed where they vanished without a trace. we then saw it stalk will again and eventually possess him. will said that vecna wanted to kill everyone else, but not him. why? we know that vecna doesn't care about people. so what did will have that he wanted so bad? what was it about will that made him more valuable to vecna—a self-perceived god among useless, pitiful, and brutish men—alive than dead? what was it about will, a supposed powerless and normal human boy, that made vecna want to spare him and use him? if he wanted access to the lab, weapons, or tools that could bring down entire nations and rendered millions around the globe defenseless to his attack, then he wouldn't have picked a sweet twelve year old boy who lives a tiny little life in a tiny little town who just wants to hang with his friends and play games. unless... he was the key to achieving his plans? but according to this argument that will is just a normal boy, why is it then that vecna did all of that if will isn't capable of anything?

additionally, we know that gates are opened with a psychic connection. when the psychic connection was made in that shed, will entered the upside down. there, he was hunted for a week. why did the demogorgons kill and eat everyone else, but never will? why did they only carry him to the library aka the source of it all? why didn't they treat him roughly or eat him like they did all of the others? will didn't suffer any serious damage from the upside down, so he couldn't have been "dead" for long when his parents found him. why was it different with him? why did he get special treatment even in hell if he's just a boy?

why does will still sense the creatures of the upside down even after he's been exorcised? how is it that the psychic connection is still there? how is he still able to know what vecna is feeling, the kind of state that he's in, and what it is that he's planned? how does he have this connection still even though he shouldn't if he's Just Some Guy?

if will was just a normal, powerless boy... then why did a self-proclaimed god try so hard to recruit him more than once? why did it hunt only him? why did this god want to kill everyone but him? why did this god deem him more worthy and useful in life and at his side than in death? why did it seek him out and not eleven, a girl who actually has powers, powers that were once stronger than his own even and that he clearly wanted as we saw in s3? why is the upside down stuck on the day will went missing, despite it clearly being inhabited by other creatures that we assume to be more powerful than him? why is will going to be central to season five, the season where it will all come to a close and we'll be learning about the upside down and more, if... he's Just Some Guy that had to brave it for a week and that's it? why did season four (and the show overall, but said outright and explicitly here in 4x09) reiterate that it has always been vecna and that will has always been his victim/in his sights/connected to him? why did vecna choose will byers, who some of you claim to be Just Some Boy, of literally all people on planet fucking earth to achieve his plans?

vecna stalked will. he hunted him. and when his plans were foiled, he tried again. when he couldn't do it his way, he sought to kill eleven so that he could absorb her powers (s3). and now, they're back in each other's heads. the silver cat fed when blue met yellow in the west, but they're back now and we've been told that this is only the beginning. if will is just another powerless human, then what is the point of any of that? how do you explain everything that we've seen? how do you explain the choices these characters have made and continue to make? how do you explain away the connection that they keep drawing our eyes to? the connection that shocked the duffers and made them ask jamie if he'd seen the scripts when he brought it up (that it all goes back to will, how everything and everyone is connected to will)? the connection that they themselves are saying we'll see clearly in season five?

that isn't even scratching the surface of all the obvious instances where they make it clear that will is vecna's narrative foil, because that would make this already gargantuan post thirty miles longer.

they wouldn't have done everything that they've done over the span of multiple seasons now if it was just for nothing.

it doesn't make sense if will is just some normal kid and a random fluke in the master plan. the writers could've had vecna pick anyone. they could have made it so that will's connection was severed or lessened, but they didn't. they could've admitted that will was just a meaningless casualty, but they didn't because he wasn't. it wasn't a random animal that took will, he wasn't possessed for shits and giggles, and he doesn't continue to have that psychic connection for no reason. they don't tell us that nothing is a coincidence and they don't have the characters themselves remind us that they need will just for it to be... nothing.

will knows what's coming, what's happening, and the condition of the person who will do it all. why have him experience all of that, and even be able to in the first place, if he's... powerless? how do you even explain the connection in the first place? no other character, not even the ones cursed by vecna, are able to do what he's done. how is that not considered a power? and how do you write off the hours of content that you've witnessed as nothing?

clearly, at some point you have to realize that something is going on, no? like, you don't even have to take my (one-too-many) word(s) for it. jamie and the duffers themselves have been saying it over and over again. so... honestly, what's not clicking?

[rainylana]

“Goodnight, Ed’s.”

Eddie Munson x female reader

summary: you’re stoned and drunk, so you suck eddie’s dick.

warnings: oral male receiving, language, smoking of weed, drinking.

You loved late nights like this. Drunk, stoned and watching tv. Pizza boxes and Chinese food piled up on the counters. It was almost four in the morning, the living room was glowing with the illumination of the tv playing Poltergeist, a smoky steam and the smell of weed and booze strong and prominent.

You and Eddie were sat side by side, watching, giggling together, stoned out of your mind. You hadn’t said anything in hours, just enjoying the company of each other. You’d been through so much together. High school bullies, the trauma of both of your childhood���s. You had shared that with him, and he, you. Vecna. What you both had become after Vecna.

You shifted your neck and looked over to him, smiling softly. His eyes were dropping. He was getting tired. You lifted your arm and played with the back of his hair, twirling the curls and watching him relax under your touch. He closed his eyes and hummed, too tired to thank you.

You rubbed at his neck, scratched his skin lightly and circled the area behind his ears, giving him all the attention and affection you could give. You stifled your own yawn, leaning over and swooping his hair over to expose his neck.

You gave him a sweet, soft kiss behind his earlobe, scooting close so your legs touched his. You kissed and caressed his neck slowly and softly, moving up to his chin and back down. He groaned happily when you nibbled on his skin.

“Baby,” He barely opened his eyes, peeking over at you. “You know I’d love to, but I’m…so tired.” He fought off a yawn.

You pulled away, turning him toward you with a single finger under his chin. “Then let me do the work, darlin.” You pecked his lips with a wet sound, not so gracefully falling to the floor in a heap at his knees. You weren’t near as drunk as he was, but the effects of the marijuana had you dizzy and giddy, and more importantly, ready to suck his dick.

You struggled to take his belt and jeans off, and he was too out of it to be of any help. His hands fumbled with yours, and you slapped him away so you could do it yourself, eyes squinting in the poorly lit room. Once you got his belt undone, you pulled his pants down to his ankles, and his boxers were the next to go.

Once finished with removing his clothing, you sat up on your knees and leaned over, pressing a kiss to his thigh, then switching to the other. You could feel him watching you. You licked his skin with your tongue, the sound of someone screaming behind you on the tv. The light of the screen made him look angelic, eyes slouched and red rimmed, shoulders hunched over, cock hard and ready for you to suck dry.

You looked up at him. His arms were folded behind his head, leaning back with a small smirk on his face. “Well?” He asked.

You blushed at the deepness of his voice. It made your pussy throb. “Just waitin’ for you to ask me nicely, Ed’s.”

He pushed air out between his lips, rolling his head back till it hit the sofa. The couch had seen better days. It was covered in stains of all kinds. “Please, honey?”

You hummed happily, tossing your hair back and twirling your hands against him. “Sure, honey.”

You wrapped your lips around the tip of his cock, sucking and puckering so hard he nearly jumped clean off the couch. “Ah,” He whined, gripping the cushions beneath him. “Oh, baby,”

You took his length in your mouth, moving down his shaft until he hit the back of your throat. You wrapped your hand around the base, moving up and down slowly, puckering him with your lips.

Your other hand kept you held upright with his thigh, your head going up and down in a steady rhythm. He held your hair, wrapping your locks with his fist to guide you where he wanted. He sniffled, tilting his head to look down at you.

“So good to me, baby, god,” He whimpered, his thighs tensing underneath you. “That feels so good.”

You swirled your tongue against the prominent vain along his shaft, hollowing your cheeks so you could get every inch of him inside of you.

“Fuck, baby, keep doing that.” He squinted his eyes closed, his hand dropping from your head to fist the sofa cushions. “Yeah, y-yeah, that,”

He panted, looking up to the ceiling as he felt his balls tighten. “I’m gonna cum, baby,”

You did what you knew best and paid special attention to his tip, the space beneath and massaged him with your tongue. He cried out, spilling himself down your throat with a salty taste.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” He cursed in cries, biting his hand with his pearly teeth. You sucked him dry, taking in everything he had to offer.

You smiled, wiping the corners of your mouth. His eyes were closed, chest heaving with pants and his arms cast lazily at his sides.

“Goodnight, Ed’s.”

[milf-harrington]

i read a fic yesterday (return of the king) where Steve swapped with Eddie at the last second at the end of s4 and ended up being the one who died and had to be left behind and then he came back as a vampire and it just got my brain TICKING.

So role-reversal AU where steve is the one who comes back basically kas-ified as is the common trope with eddie, but where eddie goes to steve, steve goes to robin.

lets say, for funsies, that they managed to kill vecna and max only ended up hospitalised for a broken elbow and a twisted ankle (from falling on it), so everyone has the time and space to grieve.

Steve’s death hits Robin the hardest because he was her person. He was her i-wish-we-could-just-merge-into-one-being. Her ride or die. Her soulmate. And he’d been taken from her, torn apart and left to rot in the very world he’d tried so hard to protect her from. 

The others give her space to let her mourn quietly in her bedroom, dressed in steve’s clothes and listening to his music like if she just tried hard enough she could still merge them together and let him use her lungs to breathe, her heart to pump his blood, her head to share his thoughts. that she could single handedly go from a me to a we.

And then, one day, Robin starts acting weird. She doesn’t know the Wheeler’s phone number and on her way to find it in the phone book, she found the Munson’s first, and when Eddie picks up it’s too a very chipper Robin asking for a lift to the shops where she proceeds to buy an alarming amount of red meat and refuses to answer any questions.

And she’s just- happy. She’s weird and happy and keeps calling Eddie to ask him about Dungeons and Dragons lore and if he can take her to the library or to the butcher and if he can let her borrow his jumper please? I get cold easily. And then she just keeps stealing clothes, from everyone. Sometimes she asks, sometimes she’ll just take a jacket off of the back of a chair and act like nothing happened, sometimes she just sneaks off to go rooting through washing baskets.

Then comes the day she invites Eddie over, probably a week or so after her initial journey into Weird-Ville, nervously rambling about nothing right up until she closes the front door behind them and runs into Eddie’s back because Eddie’s just spotted Steve-fucking-Harrington peering at him from around the corner. 

Apparently, a not-exactly-dead-anymore Steve crawled through Robin’s window one night and has since taken up residence underneath her bed. 

“He was kinda- not all there, at first.” She tells him, chopping a steak into cubes and dropping them into a blender. Steve, winged and fanged and tailed, leans against the counter and watches her with sleepy eyes. “But we’ve been working on it.”

After the initial pants-shitting shock of having her dead best friend re-appear as a creature of the upside down, Robin had simply accepted it and moved on. Happy to have Steve back no matter what it looked like. 

And what it looked like was blending raw meat, and reading together in the bathroom to bring back his ability to talk, and stealing clothes for the veritable nest Steve was building in her closet. The next step in her plan to re-domesticate her best friend, had been to introduce him to another person: Eddie, evidently. 

Steve promptly spends 5 minutes being a feral little creature, scenting Eddie within an inch of his life like he’d done to Robin, and then attempting to plant him in his nest like a little ornament. 

Just. idk. feral kas!steve seeking out robin for safety, who slowly re-introduces him to his humanity and then his future boyfriend.

[corrodedbisexual]

@waning-croissant well... I had to.

"Nope. Outside of D&D, I am no hero," Eddie talks as he keeps walking, a step ahead of Steve. "I see danger and I just turn heel and run. Or at least that's what I've learned about myself this week."

Eddie's not even sure what he's saying anymore, he just knows that if he doesn't keep talking over the nightmarish ambience of this hellscape, he might actually go insane. Hearing his own voice, he can at least pretend like he's just narrating a game, and the rest is his overactive imagination. Not that he actually believes that, of course, it's just... irrationally comforting.

"Give yourself a break, man."

Steve reaches for him, but Eddie's body reacts on autopilot to an unexpected touch, practically slapping the boy's arm away. He's on a roll here, words still spilling right over the all-too-late pang of regret in his chest. It would have been nice to experience, that pat on the chest or squeeze on the shoulder, whatever Steve was going for, if it weren't for Eddie's perpetual skittishness.

"See? The only reason—"

"Did you hear what I said?"

"—I came in here was 'cause—"

"Eddie!"

Eddie's head snaps to Steve as he cuts off the rest of his semi-planned speech, which was suddenly inspired by the sight of Nancy Wheeler ahead of them. If he was the cowardly bard in the story, the least he could be useful for is cheer on the real hero of it. Give the courageous bat-biting paladin the motivation to keep fighting.

"Huh?"

"Do you ever stop running your mouth and listen?" Steve's brows are furrowed, but his tone isn't mean, and there's an amused smile playing on his lips. "You're almost worse than Dustin, Jesus Christ."

Eddie opens his mouth, lets his jaw hang for a second, and closes it again with a click of the teeth, as he processes the words he would have perceived as an insult, had he not been piecing together what the kid meant to Steve for the past several days. It was a bit of a revelation that their relationship ran far deeper than just some giant one-sided platonic crush on Dustin's part, like Eddie had mistakenly assumed throughout most of this year.

Steve takes a small step closer, the first one to invade Eddie's personal space for once, after Eddie's been doing it for the better part of their walk together. Unconsciously, like his body just decided that being tucked into Steve meant safety from the bloodthirsty bats, and the creepy vines, and that Vecna guy they could run into any minute.

"We all ran, all four of us. Just now, when we saw that giant swarm of bats in the distance, remember?" Steve speaks softly, waving his arm vaguely in the direction behind them. "Because sometimes, running and surviving is the only thing you can do."

Eddie doesn't know what to say to that. He just focuses on looking at the boy's eyes, like a normal person, and trying not stare at his lips moving. But then, when he pauses, Steve's eyes flicker down, and... huh. Huh. Wait, what?

"Of course you've been running. You couldn't have fought Vecna when he took Chrissy. Or Carver's crazy mob, or the entire police force of Hawkins," Steve keeps talking intently, looking into Eddie's eyes again like his gaze never wavered south. "Any more than we could fight that whole swarm. Because we'd definitely be dead now if we tried, no matter how metal you think I am," he adds with a tiny smug smile that's entirely Eddie's fault. "So there's a difference between being a coward, and acting stupid and reckless."

Steve pats his shoulder twice, then turns and keeps walking, and Eddie moves to follow him like on a tether, before his flustered brain even catches up.

"H-hey, I never said you were metal! I said what you did with that bat was metal," he grumbles, thankful for the darkness concealing his undoubtedly flushed face.

"I beg to differ," Steve turns around to tease, grinning, and pointedly tugs on his own collar. "You're the resident metalhead, and I'm wearing your vest, that does make me at least a little bit metal."

Yeah, thanks for the reminder, Harrington. Eddie's not sure what possessed him to throw that thing at the boy. At the time, he only thought of how he wouldn't survive the whole ordeal of Steve's hairy tits on display for much longer, but him in Eddie's clothes? Even worse.

"Fine," Eddie rolls his eyes and shoves his hands into his pockets, catching up to Steve in three quick strides. "Only a little bit though." He sneaks a glance at the boy; Steve's not looking back, once again on guard, surveying their surroundings with his flashlight, but the pleased smile makes its way to his face regardless.

"Doesn't matter why you jumped after us, Munson, you're here now. And don't try to act all modest when you've just saved a guy's ass. Which, by the way..." Steve turns his head to Eddie again. "Nice job with that oar. Too bad you hate jocks, you'd have made a fine hitter on the school baseball team."

Eddie gasps and grips his own chest in mock offense, even as warmth spreads up his neck and pools in the tips of his ears, thankfully hidden beneath his hair.

"How dare you, with these vile insinuations."

"I'm just saying," Steve shakes his head, laughing. "You're pretty... bat-ass, too, Eddie." He glances over again with a shit-eating grin. "Get it? Bat-ass?"

"Oh no, Steve Harrington is actually a dork with terrible puns," Eddie mumbles to himself and sighs, rolling his eyes up to the dark sky.

"Shut the fuck up, my puns are amazing." Steve elbows him in the ribs and chuckles. "You know what, I'm starting to understand why Henderson was obsessed with getting us to hang out."

What is that supposed to mean?

"He... he was?" Eddie gapes.

Another earthquake saves him from the mortifying ordeal of re-assessing the whole Munson doctrine, for the hundredth time this week. And as they hurry along to catch up with the girls, and Steve's hand grips his bicep whenever he falls behind, Eddie wonders if maybe he should just set fire to the doctrine and let it turn to ash.

[oneforthemunny]

Can you do more mafia!eddie and if it’s not asking to much pregnant!reader??

ofc! here's a little blurb <3 slight smut at the end. pregnant!reader x mafia!eddie so some mafia type themes but nothing graphic. mainly fulff!

Eddie huffed, a ringed hand grabbing at his curls, buzzing with adrenaline filled nerves. His voice was beginning to shake from the tightness in his throat with every shout of your name, echoing off the walls without a response.

Panicked thoughts flashed through his mind at rapid speed, sickening what-ifs and other horrific scenarios conspired by his own mind. The damning thoughts overpowered the rational, jumping to every possible worst case scenario about what could have happened to you, to the baby, the dogs that were no where to be found as well.

Eddie was ready to give up, ready to call Gareth, command a search, a war if he had to. Frantic steps towards the phone, his hands shook when he picked up the phone, Eddie was halfway through jamming Gareth's number in when he heard a bark.

Muffled, but loud and defilingly crisp enough to know it was Diablo's. Letting the phone fall, Eddie jogged towards the back door, pulling it open with such a force the hinges groaned. His free hand on his hip, pulling his gun out, flicking the safety off in a fluid motion that was muscle memory at this point.

His eyes scanned the garden, over the pool, towards the spacious back yard, lowering his gun at the sight. The boys running around, yanking and tugging their toy, running beside you to give you their toy for you to run while you walked- marched, was more like it. Arms pumping, heavy, purposeful steps up and down the length of the backyard, not slowing to toss the toy for them to fetch.

Eddie pressed his lips together, shoving the gun back in his holster. "Baby," Eddie called, trying to keep his voice light, a coo. You were sensitive these days, the slightest quip in his tone had you in tears.

You turned, continuing your walk up the grass, knees high with every step, nearly touching your swollen stomach. You were ready to pop, baby Bea due any day now- past due, really. There were talks of a C-Section, of inducing labor if she didn't come on her own.

"Baby," He tried again, walking to meet you. The sun was starting to set, but the heat hadn't eased up.

"What're you doing, sweetheart?" Eddie's voice was still tight, a forced coo to try and mask his heart that was still climbing back to a normal beat.

Vecna jumped up, letting you grab the rope toy, tossing it and sending them all running after it. "Walking." You huffed, a little out of breath from the pace. It was harder now, with a giant baby bump in your way.

Eddie swallowed a groan, taking a deep breath before jogging besides you. "Did you not hear me yelling? I was looking for you. I didn't know you went outside-"

"-I can't stay inside all day, every day, Eddie." You snapped defensively, continuing your stride, trying to ignore the burning in your back and calves. "I needed some fresh air."

Eddie bit back a huffy comment that your doctor told you to take it easy, knowing it would not be received well. Instead, he grabbed the toy from Lucifer when he brought it, flinging it far this time, trying to keep up with you in his Armani shoes.

"I know, I just couldn't find you." Eddie said, a hand reaching out to your lower back out of near instinct. "I just got worried when I couldn't find you."

You seemed to like that answer, eyes flashing and gleaming sweetly at him. A mood swing, there had never been a truer word, Eddie decided.

"I was just out here, baby." You cooed, slowing your pace, chest heaving a little, winded.

"I see that." Eddie looked at you carefully. "What are you doing? It's a little hot. Do you have a water?" He turned scanning for a cup, a water bottle, anything.

"I read that walking can get your water to break." You were nearly shuffling, eyes closed, letting your heart beat settle. You paused, looking down between your feet for anything, any sign that it had broken. "I don't think it worked." You frowned.

"She'll come when she's ready, honey." Eddie cooed, rubbing a hand on your back gently, guiding you towards the patio, desperate to get you to sit down. "You don't need to overwork yourself. It'll happen when it does."

"I'm not overworking myself." You snap, huffing with an eye roll that had Eddie flinching. Still, you let him guide you to the small patio table, settling into the cushioned chair.

"I just want her to come already." You muttered, running a hand over your swollen bump. "It feels like it's taking forever. Like she's never going to get out."

"She'll come when she's ready." Eddie snatched the water bottle of the stairs, putting it in front of you.

"She'll be here soon, sweetheart. Just don't-don't stress about it." Eddie hesitated, watching you carefully.

Your lips twitch in a snarl before bringing the bottle to your lips. Him telling you not to stress when that was quite literally all he had done felt hypocritical, but you decided against telling him that, right now, anyways.

"Maybe I should try the workout tape again." You hummed, spinning the water bottle around on the table lightly. "Or maybe you should just fuck me like the doctor said." You said bluntly.

Eddie blushed, lips twitching in a grin at your boldness. "That is not what he said."

"He said penetration." You glared at Eddie.

"He also said it could hurt you." Eddie countered. "That you're-you're softening down there or whatever-"

You rolled your eyes, scoffing loudly. "I mean, you can't fuck me mean, but you could be gentle and it would be fine." You glared at him for a moment. "But you won't because you think I'm disgusting right now."

"I do not-"

"-Clearly you do." You huffed, lip wobbling, a burning forming in your chest and throat with tears. "You won't even fuck me when the doctor is telling you to."

Eddie fought an eye roll, standing to pull you into him. Your head buried into his midsection, sniffly and furious, but allowing his affectionate touch. Another swing.

"I do not think you're hideous. I have never, not once in my life thought you were hideous, so I don't want to hear you say that anymore." Eddie's tone clipped with authority, your thighs pressing together at the sound. You'd missed it, missed him talking like this.

"I don't want to hurt you-"

"-You won't-"

"-I don't want to." Eddie lifted his voice over yours, pulling back, a hand cupping your chin to bring your gaze to him. "So you have to let me know if it's hurting you. Anything."

Damn those pregnancy books. Of course he'd read them cover to cover, front to back, taking in every bit of information he could. It was endearing, really, until times like this when he handled you like you were glass.

"I will." You nodded, holding his gaze with yours. "I promise."

Eddie relented. Of course he did. Truthfully, he'd been in agony for the past few weeks, willing himself not to fuck you in fear of hurting you and the baby. The oral was good, great even, but just not as good as the real thing.

So Eddie willed himself still, hands gripping your hips, trying to support you while fighting the blinding urge to slam you on his length, when you sunk down on his cock at a painfully slow pace.

[andvys]

Dancing with our hands tied | S.H.

Chapter fifteen ⭐︎ I thought the plane was going down, how’d you turn it right around?

Warnings: slight angst, fluff, a lot of fluff, alcohol consumption, clingy!reader, drunk!reader

Pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Summary: Steve gets to know a side of you, you have never shown him before, and he takes the final step towards realization.

Word count: 10k+

Author’s note: SO @hellfire--cult and I have been waiting for this chapter (and especially for the next one). I'm so happy that we're finally here, and as always I'm giving a special shoutout to my lovely Roe, who not only helped with ideas but also wrote the whole last paragraph, the drive home and all the fluff at Steve's house. Give her all the love she deserves ♡ ilysm roe thank youuuu

Series Masterlist ⭐︎ Previous Chapter ⭐︎ Next Chapter

♡

Red, white and blue colors flash before your eyes, everywhere you look as you walk through the grocery store with Max. You can’t even bear to look at the holiday themed snacks and decorations on the shelves. All week, people have been preparing for a holiday, you used to love, now it’s nothing but a reminder of what you lost – of what Max lost. 

You avoided going to Big Buy’s all week, for this exact reason. 

But now you were the one who offered to go inside, when Eddie was the one who wanted to get the pre-drinks, you don’t even know why you did it, maybe it was to get away from Dustin’s and Lucas’s banter, or maybe you just wanted to prepare yourself for something much bigger. 

The Fun Fair takes place this year, just as it did, last year. And you friends wanted to celebrate the Fourth of July there. You don’t mind, you really don’t, but every place you turn today, reminds you of a dear friend you lost. 

Max walks beside you quietly. She looks around with heavy eyes and tension in her shoulders, she’s fidgeting with the bracelet that Lucas gifted to her, and keeps her eyes on the ground. 

You didn’t say anything yet, not wanting to trigger any more sadness. You’re surprised that she even offered to go inside with you, she could’ve waited and stayed with the guys, but she didn’t. 

“This day sucks.” 

These are the first words she spoke out loud, ever since you stepped inside the store.

“Yeah,” you mumble, quietly, not knowing what to say, because all you can think about is Billy, and how he died on this exact day, one year ago, when you were still so unaware of the dark truth that lied beneath this town, when you thought that it was the fire that killed him and not one of Vecna’s creatures. 

You weren’t even there, but thinking about it makes you sick and angry. You can’t even imagine what Max must’ve felt like that night. Or what she is feeling now. 

When you stop in the drink aisle, you look around for the beer Eddie asked for, but instead your eyes fall on the one brand that Billy always used to buy. Sometimes he’d bring a six pack over and leave some cans in your fridge for some other time, you are pretty sure that there are still two leftover cans hidden behind all the other drinks in your fridge. 

A sigh falls from your lips, “yeah, it does.” 

She glances at you, sadness settling into her features, when she sees the way your eyes fill with grief. 

“Billy would roll his eyes at us, right now,” she mumbles, trying to crack a joke. 

A small chuckle escapes you, and you turn to look at her with a weak smile on your face, “yes, he would.” 

She purses her lips as she looks at the beer, “are you gonna let me drink tonight?” 

You scrunch your nose, and shake your head, “are you crazy?” You scoff, as you step forward and reach for the beers, Eddie asked for, and the ones Billy would have gotten for himself. “How about you turn twenty one first, and then I’ll let you drink.” 

Max laughs at you and rolls her eyes. 

“You’re not even twenty one, and you’re drinking – oh! And buying the beers with a fake ID probably!” 

“Shush,” you wave your hand at her when an employee walks past you, giving you both a weird look. 

“I’m very close to twenty one,” you whisper. 

“You’re not even twenty yet–”

“I’m turning twenty, this year. Now stop arguing with me, and get yourself a coke or something.”

Max groans at you, “fine,” she murmurs as she follows you, “why are you even getting any drinks now when you can buy some at the Fair?”

“I’m pretty sure that Eddie doesn’t want to buy any of those overpriced drinks that taste like absolute shit.” 

She snorts, “he shouldn’t even be drinking, he’s driving.” 

“Don’t worry, he’ll walk you all home if he gets drunk.” 

Her jaw drops, and annoyance flashes in her eyes, “are you serious–”

You laugh at the look on her face, shaking your head at her, “I’m just kidding, when does Eddie ever get drunk?” You chuckle, “he’ll have one beer tops, no more, he’ll sober up till then, and if not then uh… Steve will drive you home.”

“Okay,” she sighs, as the momentarily amusement leaves her face again, and the sadness begins to sink back in, making you much more aware of your own. 

“Hey, Max?” 

She turns back to you, and raises her eyebrows in question. 

“If you feel overwhelmed at some point, you can find me and we can leave, at any time, okay?” 

She smiles a little and nods her head. 

“Okay,” she whispers, “same goes for you, if you want to leave, I’ll go with you.” 

“Okay,” you smile at her, “now let’s go pay for these and get out of here,” you mumble as you gesture to the beer in your hands. 

You feel relief rushing through you once you are out of the busy store again. The golden evening sun hits your skin, still blessing it with warmth, the air around you smells like summer, like fresh cut grass, hot pavement and honeysuckle. The wind kisses your skin and blows through your hair, it’s warm yet refreshing, it feels nice. 

“Did you buy that for me?” Dustin grins at you, pointing at the beers when you get into the passenger seat. 

Eddie glares at him through the rearview mirror. 

“Very funny, Dusty Bun.”

Lucas laughs at the nickname, nudging his shoulder against Dustin’s, “Dusty Bun,” he cackles, wiggling his brows. 

“Shut up, dude.” 

“You kids are too young to even think about trying beer,” you glare at the three teens in the back, most specifically at Lucas, who’s had some before. 

His smile falls a little, and he clears his throat, “that was one time.”

“Yeah, it better stay that way,” you point at him. 

Max snorts at the glare on your face. 

“Yes, mom.”

Eddie and Dustin chuckle. 

Your jaw drops, and you furrow your brows at the teen who is squished between Max and Dustin. 

“You act like a mom sometimes!” Lucas raises his hands up in surrender, shrugging at you. 

“No, I don’t!” 

“Yeah, you do, you’re mama bear,” Eddie snorts, making Dustin laugh louder. 

“Yeah, you’re not fooling us with your grumpy act.” 

You squint your eyes at the curly head, who is grinning happily at you. 

“Just accept it, Sweetheart,” Eddie chuckles, “you’re the mom of the group.”

“No, I only joined this group a few months back, there has to be a different mom–”

“Oh no, we only had single dad Steve,” Lucas giggles, wiggling his eyebrows at you, “but we got a mom and a dad now, so…” 

The smug look on his face, and the teasing in his eyes, isn’t exactly hard to miss. You know exactly what he is going at, what he has been going at for the past few months now. 

Sometimes, you can’t help but wonder if he somehow knows about your feelings for Steve, if he always knew about them, or if he is simply just teasing and still in the dark about everything. 

You are good at hiding your feelings, you always have been, no one ever found out about your feelings for Steve unless you wanted them to, but if there is someone who you wouldn’t underestimate, then it’s definitely Lucas, he is too smart for his own good, sometimes.

Eddie snorts beside you, mumbling, “mommy and daddy.” 

You elbow him, into his side, earning a groan from him. 

“That wasn’t very nice!” Eddie grumbles as he shoots you a glare, and presses his hand against his stomach. 

“Don’t be so dramatic, Edward.” 

He squints his eyes at you. 

“Who is Eddie then?” Dustin asks. 

“He’s the cool uncle,” Lucas shrugs. 

“Damn right, now stop yapping,” Eddie mumbles as he takes a look over his shoulder, “are you ready to throw up Hot Dogs after going on the roller coaster?” 

All three of them groan in disgust, scrunching up their faces, making him laugh. 

You shake your head at him when he starts laughing. 

“You’re such a menace.” 

Eddie only chuckles at you, he starts the car and turns up the music, and he rolls down the windows before he speeds out of the parking lot. 

You embrace the moments of peace before the chaos of the fair hits you, screaming children, crowds of people, and the overwhelming smell of food on every corner are something you are not looking forward to despite the hollowness in your stomach. You couldn’t get anything down the past few days, you nearly threw up this morning when you walked into the diner with Eddie, and the smell of Bacon hit you. 

The wind weaves through your hair as Eddie drives down the main road. 

The sound of music distracts you from your sad thoughts. 

The thought of him, filling your heart with life and your soul with hope.

He grounds you in your worst moments, and he doesn’t even know it.

-

The fairground is alive with music and screaming children, the sound of the roller coasters moving, conversations and laughter from every corner. The dazzling lights are a stark contrast against the dark sky, the smell of food wafts through the air. 

Robin and Vickie are standing next to Steve, giggling about something as they sip on their mixed beers. He is looking around, trying to catch sight of you, but you are nowhere to be found, and he is beginning to worry. 

Max and El had dragged you away for a roller coaster ride, but that was over an hour ago, and he hasn’t seen you ever since. 

Max had warned him before, when she reminded him of what this day means to you, of what happened a year back, of what and who you had lost. 

Steve doesn’t know how you deal with grief, how you feel on these kinds of days, there are too many of them in your life. He doesn’t know how you cope, he wishes that he could be there for you and give you a shoulder to lean on – but you aren’t very good at showing your true feelings or emotions, he only saw a glimpse of the truth that you hide behind those high walls you built around yourself and he doubts that you would come to him for comfort. 

A dreadful feeling is gnawing in his chest the more time passes without you being seen. 

“Hey Dingus, we’re going on the Ferris Wheel,” Robin nudges his shoulder, grinning at him. 

He blinks, tearing his eyes away from the crowds, he nods at his best friend. 

“Sure, have fun.” 

Robin furrows her brows as she takes in the sight of his frown, “are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he murmurs and plasters a smile on his face, “go and have fun with your girl.” 

She hesitates, her smile becoming weaker now, “you should go find Eddie or Dustin.”

“Yeah, I will, in a second.” 

“Your feet are not glued to the ground are they?” Vickie asks, chuckling. 

“Yeah, you’ve been stuck in this spot for like thirty minutes now!” Robin exclaims as she points her ringed finger at him, eyeing the way he is leaning against the wall with tension in his body. 

Steve chuckles, and brings his hand up to the side of his face, cupping his cheek for a moment, “I’m just looking out for the kids.”

Robin snorts, though she gives him a suspicious look. 

“Ah, but they’re not around,” she says, tilting her head as she gestures to all the strangers that surround the field, instead of the teens. 

“I told them I’d be here if they needed anything,” he shrugs and waves his hand at her, “now go and have your kiss on the top of the Ferris Wheel.” 

Robin slaps his shoulder, her cheeks taking on a deep red color, as Vickie giggles behind her. 

He chuckles at her, wiggling his brows and smirking at his best friend. 

Robin rolls her eyes and turns away from him, she offers her hand out to the redhead, who reaches for it, though with a blush on her cheeks and a shy smile on her lips. 

“See you later, Dingus,” Robin waves at Steve, not giving him the chance to respond before she drags her girl away and pushes through the crowds with her. 

Steve’s eyes follow them until he can no longer see them as they get lost in the midst of the chaos. Laughing children run around, chasing each other, a group of teenage boys carrying drinks they shouldn’t be allowed to buy, two young women walk past him, giggling amongst themselves as they eye him with interest in their eyes, Steve pays no mind to them, not even bothering to spare them a look despite the very obvious glances he is getting, even as they had already passed him. 

His eyes follow a different sight and his ears perk up at the sound of giggles that sound like yours, his lips twitch at the sound and his heart flutters wildly in his chest. 

He pushes himself off the tree he is leaning against and turns to look around. Steve’s hazel eyes soften the moment he finally sees you. 

You are standing in a circle with Eddie and his bandmates who all keep pestering you over something. Eddie leans closer to you and pinches your cheek, while Gareth jumps around you like some hyper puppy, his curls bouncing and his face flickering with amusement when you keep waving your hand at him. 

Steve smiles at the giggle that falls from your lips when Eddie swats your hand away after you ruffle his curls. 

He watches the way your lips move as you stare at him with a smug look on your face, saying something to him that makes him clutch his chest and gasp dramatically. 

Steve shakes his head as the metalhead lunges at you and you squeal in surprise before you turn around and run off with a giggle, bolting into the crowd with Eddie and Gareth hot on your heels, while Jeff and Grant follow the three of you slowly, shaking their heads in amusement.

Surprise lingers inside of him, Steve had never seen you so playful before, he had never witnessed you letting loose and having genuine fun. You are always on guard, always hiding away behind your brooding act that is slowly becoming less and less visible. 

Something has changed, something in your behavior has shifted in the past few weeks. You seem happier, you seem to smile more, you seem to be kinder to the people around you. 

Your walls are still up, but the foundation has begun to crumble, just like his did. 

You let him see a glimpse of something he never thought was even there, he saw your vulnerable side and your soft one, he saw how lovingly you treated your baby niece, he saw how sweet and gentle you could be – he saw the real you and it only made him weaker than ever before. 

There was always a part of him that left him feeling weak whenever he was with you – it wasn’t a bad kind of weak, but it was one that scared him. 

It doesn’t scare him anymore. 

He embraces the weakness now. 

Something, someone crashes into his chest, making him stumble back from the force, when he looks down, he finds you staring up at him, with your arms now wrapped around his waist and a softened look in your eyes as a smile rests on your lips. The dazzling, colorful lights from the rollercoaster and the ferris wheel only brighten the color of your eyes, making him get lost in them so easily. 

He feels your arms around his torso, and your hands on his back, your chest is now pressed against his and if he didn’t know any better, he’d say that the look in your eyes is a dreamy one as they look into his. 

The warmth in his chest blooms, the smile on his lips grows bigger, something in his stomach flutters when you stand on your tippy toes and remind him of the height difference between the two of you. 

“Hi Stevie,” you say softly. 

He would be lying if he said, he isn’t caught off guard by the tone in your voice and the look in your eyes, by your arms that are wrapped around him and your body that is pressed against his, so tightly and intimately, despite all the eyes that could see. 

“Hi Blondie,” he smiles as he slowly wraps his arms around you and acts on his feelings, when he brings you closer. 

The smell of your perfume is intoxicating and it does nothing to weaken the fluttering in his stomach. You smell like the cotton candy that you had shared with Max earlier and the beer you probably had been drinking all night, which is surprising, considering how much you despise the bitter taste of beer. 

“I missed you.” 

His eyes widen in surprise, and his eyebrows shoot up, the fluttering in his stomach now growing even stronger than before. 

You woke up in each other's arms this morning, you even sat at the kitchen table and drank your morning coffee together before you left to meet up with Eddie. 

But you missed him. 

You missed him, like he missed you.

Maybe it’s the alcohol talking, or maybe not – he hopes not. 

“Yeah?” He whispers. 

You nod, your eyes flicker to his lips, before they move back up, to meet his. 

“I missed you too, Blondie.”

He nearly crumbles when your smile grows even bigger and a blush creeps up on your face, a breathy, small giggle falls from your lips. And then, you surprise him once again, when you bury your face in his chest and hug him tightly. 

His heart rate picks up and his breathing becomes heavy from all the emotions inside of him. 

He certainly never met this side of you before,and he never even knew that you could become much softer than what he had already seen of you. 

Without looking around to make sure that you are away from prying eyes, he wraps his arms tighter around you, and hugs you in a way he wanted to all night. 

Confusion, adoration and happiness floods through him, all at once. 

Here he thought that this day would bring out some darkness in you, that you would hide in a corner and try to drink away your sorrows but instead the alcohol in your system brought something else out in you. 

As Steve holds you in the middle of the fairground and you slide your palm over his chest, resting your hand above the place where his heart beats strongly, he feels himself falling into your embrace, losing all his vision of the people and the things before him, losing all the sounds around him, no longer feeling the ground beneath his feet – all he sees is you, all he hears is the beating of his own heart, all he feels is you, only you. 

And as though, it didn’t hit him hard enough already, you place your chin on his chest and you tilt your head up to look at him, giving him a sweet smile, “kissy?” You ask, puckering your lips. 

He could melt into a puddle, right then and there. 

Despite not wanting to, he lets his eyes roam the space around you, making sure that none of your friends are watching, before he leans in to place a kiss on your lips – one that is way too quick for your liking, the pout that follows your puckered lips makes his heart burst. 

You look at him with literal puppy eyes, glinting with a pleading look. 

He almost doesn’t recognize you – you are not the Blondie that he saw a few hours back, but he is not complaining in the slightest, he really likes this side of you. 

Cupping your cheeks, he rests his large palms against your skin, his fingertips getting lost in your hair as he leans down to kiss you again, smacking his lips against yours, he delivers a loud kiss, one that makes you giggle when he pulls away again and looks down at you with a lazy smile on his face. 

“How much did you drink?” Steve asks, chuckling when you keep staring at him with a big smile. 

“Just a little bit,” you slur, and raise your hand to show him as you furrow your brows and hold your thumb and pointer finger into an L shape, “so much.” 

He laughs as he tucks your hair behind your ears, “alright.”

“I want something else now.” 

“What, more alcohol?” Steve asks, raising his brows. 

You shake your head, scrunching up your nose in a way that makes him smile as he looks at you adoringly.

“No, I think I had too much already.”

“Yeah, I think so too, honey,” he murmurs, the nickname rolling off his tongue easily, almost normal, “you don’t feel sick, do you?” 

“No, just thirsty.” 

“Alright, let’s get you something to drink then,” he says, unable to stop smiling, when you look at him this way. He moves his hands away from your face and he reaches for your hand, sliding his palm against your own, he entwines his fingers with yours, and you welcome his action, happily. 

Steve isn’t drunk, he didn’t have a single sip of alcohol this evening, not a single drag of Argyle’s joint and yet, he feels as though he is under the influence of something strong, his mind is in a haze, that careless and freeing feeling lingers in his chest, happiness and giddiness rushes through him and he feels as though he is floating with you. 

He can’t even find it in himself to care if anyone sees him with you like this – smiling at each other, hugging and kissing one another, holding hands, and acting like a couple. He knows your friends are here, but Steve just doesn’t give a damn – not even when Heidi walks past him with her friends and they all look at you weirdly. 

He hears the hushed whispers, he sees the squinted eyes as they look you up and down and their eyes fall on your entwined fingers. He pays no mind to the way they look at him, but irritation sparks at him when they keep staring at you. He can see the judgment, and the jealousy, it’s so obvious. 

Steve holds back the eyeroll and he grasps your hand tighter as he begins to drag you away from the prying eyes and the whispers of envy. He would rather kiss you and flip them off but he cannot risk this, he can’t risk you two getting caught. Rumors would circulate, words would get twisted and it would only be a matter of time until all your friends would find out. 

And he isn’t ready to get caught, he isn’t ready to lose this, to lose you. 

He glances down at you, seeing the smile that didn’t leave your face just yet. You are unaware to all the eyes on you, to the looks you were given, you are still holding onto his hand as tight as before, stepping closer to him when a group of boys rush past you. 

You turn to him and raise your head to glance at him, shooting him a sweet smile as you squeeze his hand, causing his heart to flutter and his smile to reappear. 

You are so cute like this. 

He pulls you closer and shields you from anyone who brushes past you as you walk through the crowd together, getting lost in the chaotic field, where the music is louder and the people are too. 

Steve looks around, trying to catch sight of the teens or Eddie and his bandmates but he only sees the town people that he couldn’t care less about while you follow him like some lost puppy, clinging to his side and looking up with big eyes, every few seconds or so. 

You both get in line at the drink stall, your hands are still joined, fingers entwined and arms still pressed together. You stumble into him, prompting him to hold you a little tighter. 

“I’m sorry,” you slur as you reach your free hand up to grab his arm. 

“It’s fine,” he chuckles at you, adoring you a little more and more as the seconds pass. 

You are drunk – not tipsy, not slightly drunk, no, you are genuinely and definitely drunk. And as he stands here with you, eying you closely and watching the way you keep looking up at him with your widened pupils and your lazy smiles, he realizes that he had never actually witnessed you being drunk – high and tipsy? Sure. But never drunk. 

“Why’d you drink so much, Blondie?” 

“I didn’t even drink that much,” you shrug, “I’m just not used to drinking that beer.”

Steve raises his brows, knowing how much you despise the taste of regular beer. You only drink it when it’s mixed with something. 

“What kind of beer?” 

You furrow your eyebrows, your eyes flash with confusion, you seemingly can’t remember the name of it. 

You look down and your eyes widen when you find a discarded can on the grass, you point your finger at it, “that one.”

Steve’s eyes follow your gaze and the direction your finger is pointing at, he raises his eyebrows again. 

“You don’t even like beer that much,” he mumbles and turns back to you. 

“Billy did,” you shrug. 

Oh. 

His features relax again and his shoulders slump a little, realization flickers in his eyes. 

You didn’t drink for fun, you were trying to forget about the sadness and the grief that must’ve lingered all day. 

He is surprised that the alcohol didn’t have a negative effect on you. Drinking while feeling sad can worsen those emotions, the alcohol can transform them into a darker sadness or even into anger and despair. 

But you seem fine, happy even. 

If only he knew that he is the reason for it. 

“The fireworks are about to start,” you say, pulling him out of his thoughts. 

He blinks. 

“Yeah,” Steve nods. 

“Do you want to watch them with me?” 

His heart skips a beat at the softness in your voice, at the hopeful look in your eyes and the sweet smile on your lips. 

Of course he does. 

“Yeah,” he smiles, nodding. “I’d love to.”

Your eyes crinkle as you beam at him, stealing his breath away with simple reactions like these. 

Steve is not even sure if anyone had ever looked at him this way, no one has ever even made him feel this way, no one had ever stolen his breath away just from simply looking at him the way you do now. 

You take him by surprise when you stand on your tippy toes and lean closer to him to place a kiss on his cheek, leaving him a blushing mess. 

Your giggle sounds like music to his ears, your touch drives him crazy as you squeeze yourself against him and lay your head on his chest as your arms come around his torso again. 

He could fall to his knees right here, right now. 

Is this the real you? 

Is this the side you’ve been hiding from the world? 

Is this the way you would have always been with him, had you not experienced so much loss and pain? 

Steve wraps his arms around you, unable to hold back from showing and giving you the affection that you are blessing him with in this moment, even when the anxiety of getting caught still lingers. 

He cups your cheeks and leans closer to your ear, “where do you wanna watch the fireworks?” 

“Maybe the woods? Or the big field?” You ask as you look at him with big eyes, “so we can be away from all these annoying people?”

He laughs when you gesture to the loud fairground visitors.

The lights that flicker around you kiss your beautiful face and your skin that he wants to feel on his at any time, your lips that always look so inviting, you look so delicate, so soft, so gorgeous, you look like someone that could ruin his life and right in this moment, he doesn’t even mind it, he would let you. 

It hits him, in this second, it hits him just how bad he’s got it for you. 

Steve Harrington is down bad. 

Down bad to a point in which he almost calls you ‘my girl’ when he is about to order your drink, he catches himself just in time but he can’t hide the blush that creeps up on his face. 

You don’t seem to notice though, you swing your joined hands back and forth and look around with a contentment in your relaxed features. 

He hands you the ice cold pepsi after placing the ten dollar bill on the small desk, telling the teen behind the counter to keep the change. 

“That was nice of you,” you say as you both start walking away from the drink stall and from the crowds.

“What, letting him keep the change?” 

You nod and let go of his hand to open your can. 

“Poor guy has to work on a holiday, he should get a good tip,” Steve shrugs, already missing the feeling of your hand in his, he raises his arm and wraps it around your shoulder instead, pulling you closer against him. 

Your lips twitch at that, a smile forms on your face. 

“Still, that was nice of you, you’re a nice guy,” you giggle. 

“Well, I gotta make up for all the times I wasn’t a nice guy.”

You don’t say anything to that, you can’t. Steve doesn’t even blame you, you witnessed him in his worst moments, you were his target, more than once. 

You shot back at him but your words weren’t hurtful, your insults and your jabs were never personal. You got under his skin, but not in the way he got under yours. 

He truly wasn’t a nice guy to you and that might be one of his biggest regrets. He was mean, awful even and now as he looks at you, at the cute frown on your face as you pop the can, at the way you take a sip of your favorite drink and smile afterwards, he can’t understand how he could ever treat you so unkindly, how he didn’t see you before.  

You might’ve been rough, snarky and unapproachable but there was never denying of how beautiful you are, how beautiful you have always been. 

How come he never asked you out? 

He might’ve never seen this side of you before and he only ever knew one side of you, but your snarkiness wouldn’t have kept King Steve away from you, if anything, your little act should’ve made him more intrigued. 

And now he can’t help but wonder what things would have been like had he not treated you the way he did, had he asked you out and fought for a chance with you. 

Could’ve things been different then? 

Would you have fallen in love with him? 

Would you have prevented the heartbreak that Nancy had cursed him with two years ago? 

The pain from his last relationship no longer matters to Steve, not since you, but this question still lingers. 

“This spot is perfect.”

You pull him out of the past and back into the presence with a tug on his hand. 

Steve looks around, you are no longer surrounded by people, instead it’s the trees that are around you and him, you’re at the edge of the forest, not far enough to drown at the music and the chatter but quiet enough to hear your voice clearer now, it’s much darker out here but he can still see you well enough. 

You close your eyes and drink your pepsi, completely unaware of his unwavering glances. A sigh leaves your lips and you place the now half full can on the ground before you step closer to him and reach for his hand again, taking a look at the watch around his wrist, you squint your eyes and lean down closer, “it’s about to start any minute.” 

He smiles at you, nodding his head slowly, “yeah.”

Steve feels the urge to pull you tight against him, to hold you and kiss you like he never did before. 

You look up and meet his eyes when you notice his staring, a smile appears on your lips, “what?” You ask with a soft giggle. 

He shakes his head and shrugs, “nothing.”

You bite your lip and he wants nothing more than to grab your face and kiss you breathless. 

You raise your eyebrows at him and stare back at him, stumbling over air as you try to take a step closer to him, making you both chuckle at your drunken clumsiness, your hand falls against his body, while he grabs your waist, steadying you on your own feet, “whoa, easy tiger.” 

You giggle at the nickname, making his own smile widen. 

“You’re really drunk, aren’t you?” 

You don’t even deny it, in fact, you don’t even answer the question as you keep staring up at him, keeping your hands against his chest as your eyes flicker from the spitcurl that hangs over his forehead, his eyes and his lips. 

Steve’s stomach flutters just the way his heart does, his skin tingles beneath from your touches, the look in your eyes makes him want to kiss you even more. 

“You’re feeling okay though, right?” He whispers as he slowly brings his hand up to the side of your face and he cups your cheek. 

“Yeah, I’m okay now,” you nod, leaning into his touch, “I-I just… I miss him.”

Steve might never understand the friendship you had with Billy, he only knew the ugly sides of him but you knew more, you saw deeper, you were his friend – something Steve didn’t even know Billy had, he was sure the guy didn’t even know what the term ‘friendship’ even meant. 

“And that’s okay, Blondie,” he says, giving you a sad smile, “it’s okay to miss people and to grieve for them.”

Tears well up in your eyes and your lips curl downwards. 

Steve didn’t mean for this to happen, he didn’t mean to make you cry. 

“Hey,” he whispers, pulling you closer as he catches the first tear with his thumb, “it’s okay, honey.”

You sniffle and roll your eyes at yourself, “he would punch me in the face for crying,” you joke.

Steve can’t help but laugh. 

“And he’d make fun of me for being with you, he would like–” you pause and lean in to peck his lips, “he would smack my head if I did that in front of him!” You say with a giggle, despite the tears that still keep falling.

His cheeks heat up at the kiss, the need for more growing strong in his chest. 

“He really didn’t like me, huh?”

“Not one fucking bit, Stevie,” you chuckle sadly. 

Steve wonders how things would be if he was still here, would this thing between you even work out? 

Would Billy keep you away from him?

“But nothing could take me away from you, he’d just have to suck it up,” you whisper as you peck his lips again, shutting down the worries in his head. 

He almost feels his pulse in his throat as his heart beats faster, your words doing little to calm the beating of his heart. 

“Oh?” Is the only thing he can say as all the other words freeze in his brain. 

You nod as you look into his eyes deeply, refusing to break eye contact. He notices the way your chest starts moving faster as your breathing gets heavier, he sees the way your smile transforms into a nervous frown and your throat bobs as you try to come up with words. 

His breath hitches in his throat when you whisper his name shakily. 

“I–”

Whatever you were about to say gets lost in the wind as the loud explosion in the sky cuts you off and tears your attention away from him. The colors pop in the sky, illuminating the darkened space around you both.

You tilt your head to watch the lights that reflect in your eyes, the smile you wore before makes its way back into your pretty face, the tension in your body disappears and you relax into him again. 

But while your drunken mind gets distracted by all of this so easily, Steve only really sees you. He doesn’t look up just yet, he lets himself admire you for a moment. 

Your eyes light up as they meet his for a brief second, flashing with awe. 

His heart could jump out of his chest from how hard it’s beating, his knees could give out any moment now. 

“Look!” You beam at him as you point your finger at the blue colors. 

His gaze follows yours but it returns to your face so quickly, something about you pulls him in, a magnet, a string, a strong connection – he can’t identify it yet, but he feels like his whole being yearns for you and not just sexually. 

He wants to keep doing this, he wants to keep holding your hand, he wants to keep hugging you, he wants to keep spending time with you like this, he wants to stand under the night sky with you, and he especially wants to do this. 

“Hey,” he whispers as he cups your cheeks with both hands, pulling your attention back to him. 

You greet him with an adoring smile, “hi,” you whisper.

Steve caresses your cheek, he is starting to lean in closer, fading out the colors that flash in his peripheral vision, before his lips can even touch yours, you throw your arms around his neck and beat him to it, pressing your lips against his over and over again before you move on to both of his cheeks and even the tip of his nose as you start showering him in kisses, catching him off guard completely. 

Steve giggles in surprise, his cheeks match the colors that lighten up the sky as they glow red. 

And then, you finally pull him into a longer kiss. 

You close your eyes and he does too, your lips start moving slowly, passionately. You rest your hands on his neck and steal his breath away by deepening the kiss as you slip your tongue into his mouth and let him have a taste of your sweetness, the cotton candy and the pepsi still linger on your lips. 

Your noses bump into each other and you break the kiss with a giggle, giving him a sweet smile before you lean back in again, kissing and continuing to steal his breath away, not knowing what you have just done to his poor heart, how much life, how much hope you have filled it with. 

A smile, a giggle, a simple kiss with you is all it takes for all the defense around him to crumble into dust. 

Something he thought he lost seeps back into his heart, something he thought that stayed in the past and to never be touched again blooms in him. 

Everything inside of him screams in joy, his stomach doing somersaults, his skin prickling from the excitement, his lips tugging into a smile even through the kiss that he deepens more and more. 

This kiss is different from all the other ones you have shared before, this one means something, this one won’t lead to you tearing each other’s clothes off. No, this is just a kiss. 

A kiss that means everything. 

A kiss that changes everything. 

You stole his breath completely and made it your own, you stole his heart, his soul, his whole being. 

And the noise of the fireworks, the sparks igniting from them, match those in Steve's heart. Just exploding, bursting, burning him from inside out.

And he embraces the feeling fully.

He wants more of this, more of you. 

He wants to cross a line, he wants you in a whole new way and he is no longer ashamed to admit it to himself. 

It feels like forever as you stand there beneath the sparkling sky, kissing and staying in each other’s embrace as you both savor every second of this moment, only pulling away to catch your breaths before you lean back in for more. 

The fireworks stop, but only those in the sky. 

Your lips are still moving with each other, your tongues still mingling together, whines and whimpers fall from you – tonight, they don’t fill him with lust and need, no, tonight they fill him with adoration. 

Your arms tighten around his neck, your nose is flush against his as you refuse to break the kiss but the lack of air makes it impossible and it forces you away from him, though you don’t pull away too far, only enough to catch your breath.

Steve leans his forehead against yours, slowly opening his eyes to look into yours, his heart flutters yet again when he sees how wide your eyes are, how they flicker with deep emotions. 

Unable to hold back, he leans in to peck your puffy lips one more time. 

“Steve,” you whisper as your hands begin to slip from his shoulders to his chest. 

“Yes?”

“Can I be with you tonight?”

He furrows his brows at your question, he wants you to be with him tonight, he wants you with him every night. 

“Of course, Blondie.”

You smile at him though it’s a weak one and it makes him frown. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” you shake your head, scrunching your nose. 

“Are you feeling sick?” He asks, tilting your head up. 

You shake your head again, “just really tired.”

Your words are still slurred, the alcohol still deep in your system. 

“Let’s go home then.”

“Do you want to go?” You ask, looking at him with a cute frown on your face as you tilt your head to the side, “I-I can still wait if you want to stay here longer.”

Steve smiles at you, shaking his head, “no, I want to go home with you.”

The smile on your lips replaces the frown. 

He brushes his thumb against your bottom lip and stares at you adoringly. 

“Come on, we should tell Eddie.” 

You pick up your discarded drink before you slide your fingers through his, intertwining your fingers with his again. 

“Let’s go,” he whispers, squeezing your hand. 

You follow him without a single word, walking beside him quietly as you make your way out of the woods and back into the fair where the lights are bright and he can see you better now. 

It’s still just as crowded as it was before and just as loud. 

Steve keeps you close, glancing at you, he notices the squinted eyes and how displeased you look by all the noises and the people around you. 

He holds your hand tighter, giving it another reassuring squeeze. 

“I can’t wait to go to sleep,” you mumble, taking the last few sips of your soda before you throw it into the trashcan you pass by. You wrap your free hand around his bicep and squish your cheek against it.

Steve’s smile widens, his eyes glint with nothing but fondness. 

“There you are!” 

Steve turns to find Eddie walking towards you both, throwing his hands up with a worried look on his face that slowly begins to disappear when he realizes that you have been with him all this time, though his eyebrows pull together when he sees your entwined hands and the closeness between you. 

Steve expects you to run away from him and into your best friend’s arms, but you don’t, you stick to his side. 

“Hi Eddie!” You mumble lazily as a smile appears on your face. 

You all halt in your tracks once you meet in the middle. 

“Hey sweets, are you okay?” He asks, eying you up and down one more time. 

“Peachy!”

“Where have you been?” 

Steve clears his throat, “we watched the fireworks from the woods and now I’m gonna take this one home, she’s tired.”

Eddie squints his eyes at him, giving a once over now – the way he has been doing it for some time now, like he is suspicious of his actions, like he wants to figure him out so he can protect you from him and irritates Steve. 

“I can take her home,” Eddie shrugs. 

“No!” You protest, clinging to Steve’s arm, you hold him tighter not wanting to be pulled away from him. 

Steve chuckles softly, he looks down at you adoringly. 

“Don’t worry, Eddie. I’ll take her home to sleep, maybe shove some coffee down her throat, see if that helps. I am sensing I’m having a hungover Blondie tomorrow.” 

Eddie raises one eyebrow at him, he crosses his arms over his chest, defensively. And Steve notices it from the corner of his eye, causing the smile to leave his face as a frown etches into his features instead. 

“I’m not doing anything if that's what you’re fucking thinking, Munson.” 

Eddie raises his hands up in surrender, “sorry, can’t blame me for caring.”

That… Stings. 

That actually hurts his feelings. 

He may not be as close to Eddie as you are to him, but Eddie knows him well enough to know that he would never do anything like this. 

“You really think I’m that disgusting?” Steve asks, not bothering to hide the hurt in his voice. 

Eddie sighs. 

Of course he doesn’t. 

He is just protective of his best friend, of her feelings. 

Neither of you notice the way you keep looking between them, completely lost and confused. 

“I don’t know what kind of deal you both have, Steve, but I’m allowed to care. I would’ve given her the same look if the roles were reversed.” 

“She’s not like that,” Steve argues instantly. 

Eddie sighs again, uncrossing his arms, he drops them to his side as he takes a look at the sky with a long sigh. 

“I know she’s not, I know you’re not. Just… take care of her…”

Steve is still hurt by Eddie’s reaction, by the accusing look in his eyes, like Steve would do anything to hurt you. 

He knows that it might only be because you are his best friend, because he feels protective of you, because he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you – but to know that he was worried about you while you were with him makes him feel sick. 

Steve would never do anything to hurt someone, let alone you. 

“Can we go now?” You ask, looking up at him with big eyes. 

A weak smile appears on his face as he looks down at you, “yeah, we can go.”

Steve doesn’t notice the way Eddie’s squinted eyes linger on him, the way he looks down at your hands, watching as Steve pulls you closer despite you being glued to his side already. 

He can’t help but sigh when he sees the way you look at him, the dreaminess and the love is so evident and it worries him, your feelings for Steve worry him because he fears that he will break your heart, that he will rip it out of your chest. 

Eddie is so focused on his worries, he doesn’t even see the way Steve looks at you. 

“I’m gonna call you tomorrow, Eds.”

Eddie smiles at you, “yeah, alright.” 

Steve nods at Eddie, only giving him a small smile as he starts pulling you away. 

“Bye man,” Steve mumbles as he brushes past him. 

“Bye Eddie!” 

“Yeah, sleep well, sweets.” Eddie smiles, waving at you. 

Walking away from the fairground and leaving behind the crowds of people and your best friend feels like a relief to Steve. He can’t move past the glances the metalhead gave to him, the worried looks he spared you as though you were in some kind of danger with him. 

He can’t confront him, he can’t talk to him about it and tell him how wrong he is though, he would give away his feelings and he can’t do that. 

You walk beside him quietly, not a single word falls from your lips, you just keep holding his hand, looking up at him every once in a while until you make it to his car. 

Steve opens the door for you, begrudgingly letting go of you so you can get inside, he helps you buckle in your seatbelt, a surprised chuckle falls from his lips when you use the opportunity to kiss his cheek and he can’t even help himself but do the same to you, smacking his lips against your cheek to give you a loud smooch, one that makes you giggle. 

He can see the tiredness in your eyes, the way you slowly blink and how you sink deeper into the car seat as you yawn. 

“Let's get you into bed, honey.”

Steve keeps the music on low during the drive home, you keep dozing off as your head keeps falling to the side but every time you open your eyes again, you look at him and you keep your eyes on him, making him blush beneath your softened gaze. 

And then, you make his heart swell and his chest vibrate when you place your hand on his thigh and smile at him sweetly. 

Everything about you drives him crazy today. 

Every glance, every touch, every word, every kiss. 

You have brought something out in him, something that was buried deep inside, hidden and locked away but you have found the key, you unlocked it, you brought something back that he thought was impossible to ever resurface again and you made it yours, you made him yours, all yours. 

And now, he wants to give you everything. 

He wants to take care of you, he wants to shower you with affection, he wants to be the one for you. 

You’re making things complicated but in the most amazing of ways, in the most beautiful of twists that he couldn’t believe would happen again for him. Your small glances are enough to turn a flame in his entire body, your hand on his thigh as he parks at his home enough to send butterflies in his stomach, butterflies that he swore died when Nancy broke his heart.

Your touch is enough to make him tremble and make his knees buckle, when he helps you out of his car, both of you laugh as you almost fall right on your ass, even with his help. He is happy. He is content. He is extremely giddy when he is with you, as if he were fourteen all over again.

Even when you are not like this, when you are not this bubbly uncaring self, he still enjoys his time with you. He enjoys the accidental snorts that make him laugh as you swat him to try to stop him from laughing. The happy delighted moans you give when you try his cooking. The out of nowhere conversations in the mornings that you two now share together. 

He likes it when you put on that strong wall, it makes you look cute, it makes him want to break it down. He loves the small banter, the pretend fights when you two are with the whole group, the way you pinch his side when you walk past him when no one is looking. He adores it.

When he finally manages to get you inside, he immediately urges you into the kitchen, making you drink water, not pepsi, despite your pouts and your teary eyes which almost make him become a puddle on the floor. He also gives you a leftover chicken sandwich he had in his fridge so you would eat something to absorb the alcohol.

“Eat at least half of that.” He commands and you just grumble something, cutely so, underneath your breath as you take a bite. He knew you probably didn’t eat anything at the fair, a possible reason for your drunkenness.

“I’ll eat… if you give me a kiss.” And just like that you pucker your lips his way and his heart can barely handle it. He licks his lips before leaning towards you and placing them on yours in a soft peck, a quick one. You smile before taking the first bite, and when you swallow it seems as if it turns on the hunger in your belly because you devour that sandwich in seconds.

He hopes you keep it down your stomach for the whole night and that it helps you feel okay in the morning. He wonders how you will act tomorrow, if you’ll remember all of this, if you’ll remember how much you kissed him, how you made him feel. He should tell you… He should…

But what if it’s the alcohol doing its thing?

“Okay, let’s go to bed.” And doing so turns out to be a challenge because as soon as you finish your food and water, your eyelids start to drop. Getting you off the stool and dragging you upstairs is easy but keeping you sitting up as he tries to change you into his clothes, that is another issue.

“I don’t wanna…” You mumble as you throw yourself back down onto the mattress, chest bare. He would have gotten riled up, if it weren’t for the fact he felt domestic, fluttery, and his chuckles came out easily out of his lips when looking at you.

“You have to, it’s just the shirt, come on.” His voice is soft as he talks to you, making you raise yourself up again, sitting in front of him and raising your arms up for him to slide his shirt on you. As soon as it’s on, you bounce back and get comfortable in his pillow with a contented sigh. He smiles at you as he takes off his shirt and starts unbuckling his belt in order to get comfortable. His own tiredness is starting to take a toll on his body.

He doesn’t notice that you had turned your head to look at him again, and a wolf whistle is heard in the room, making him turn to look at you. You have a cheeky smile on your face and he feels himself blushing slightly as he laughs, taking his pants off next, leaving him in boxers only. 

“As if you haven’t seen it before.” He says and it only makes you whistle again as he saunters over with a shake of his head, a smile still plastered on his lips.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t adore it everytime,” you whisper. 

And that makes the smile drop, but in shock. Your words went deep, soothing over wounds that had been created long ago, and he doesn’t mean his scars. He has to clear his throat in order to walk towards the bed and get inside right next to you, only for you to immediately crawl on top of him, laying your chin on his chest, looking at him.

It holds so much adoration for some reason, a sparkle that makes Steve’s stomach turn, hope that rose in his throat like vomit, ready to come out, overwhelming him. You are looking at him as if he hung the stars for you, as if he were your only person in the entire world. 

And he knows he is looking down at you in the exact same way.

“What now?”

“You’re just so pretty… It’s stupid how pretty you are.” He chuckles, making his chest rumble and for you to bounce up and down with it. 

You pout but it’s followed by a smile, “it’s true, you are.”

“I’m not told that very often Blondie.” He honestly replies and that makes you raise your head up and look down at him with determination in your eyes. “Wh–”

He can’t even finish his question because your lips start going crazy on his face, but softly, caring, taking extra time on following the lines of moles he has on his jaw. He is startled, shocked, for no one ever did this to him, not even his own mother. No one ever showered him with affection, with kisses. 

And as though that wasn’t sweet and surprising enough, you nuzzle your nose against his, giggling when a big smile appears on his face. 

You are cute. You are so fucking cute. 

It is an overwhelming feeling, one that almost makes him feel like crying. 

Your lips pressed on the tip of his nose as you pulled away, a proud smile on your face, and he wonders what is going through your mind right now. If it it’s all true, fuck, he wants it all to be true. He needs it to be true. He needs and desires that you are doing all of this intentionally to him, despite the alcohol. 

“There, now you know.” 

You really are beautiful, so beautiful. He feels drunk on you, seeing you, feeling you… his hand rises up, not able to contain himself as it runs through the back of your head and pulls you down to his lips, letting him give you a deep kiss. A kiss that made the fireworks he saw earlier explode inside his room again. 

You follow his lips with a hum, and he doesn’t want to pull away. He needs it all. He needs you. Not in the way he has been having you the past month. Not at all, not even close.

He lets you pull away, and his hand caresses your cheek, pulling your head down to rest on his chest again as your legs intertwine with his underneath the sheets. He wonders if you can hear how fast his heart is beating. If it bangs your head from how hard he feels his chest being hit with it. 

“Sleep Blondie.” He wishes anything but that, but he needs the silence, the time alone.

“Hmm… night Stevie…” And he knows your eyes are closed, that you mumble that with the last bit of strength you had. His eyes remain on the ceiling as his mind starts working, gears going round and round, going overtime.

He had been running from the definition of the feeling, even if he knew it was there, even if he accepted everything else that came with it. He kept running and running, and now he had hit a wall.

So it’s time to stop and turn around to face you.

Steve Harrington decides to stop running as he looks down at you and his lips press at the top of your head while his arms hold you tighter. You whine in your sleep, yet your cheek nuzzles even more into his chest. 

He can’t deny you anymore. Not when you look like this in his arms. Not when you peppered his face with kisses he never received. Not when he saw you in a vulnerable moment of yours. Not when he gets to see you moan in pleasure because of him. Not when he gets to see you have fun with everyone else. Not when you saved his life, going headfirst for him. Not when you already send smiles his way that make his heart stop.

And if you wake up tomorrow with a headache, he will be waiting for you with coffee in hand, an advil, and some food, ready to help you. To take care of you. He will let you lay in his bed all the time you need, all in order to make you feel better.

Because Steve Harrington started feeling again.

He likes you. He terribly and adoringly likes you… and he is afraid because–

It’s nowhere near little. Not at all.

“Can’t believe I fell for you, Blondie.”

♡

tagging friends and mutuals!

@prettyboyeddiemunson @taintedcigs @mysticmunson @corrodedcorpses @maroon-cardigan @thecreelhouse @ibellcipem @joekeerysmoles @munsonlore @sherrylyn628 @munson-mjstan @agirlwholovesrockstars

[the-winter-spider]

Good Guy | S.H

Word count: 1k

Warnings: None? Angst?

A/N: Yall i havent posted in ages, im still very much active reading everyone elses writings buuut im deciding to go thru and post everything i have in my docs, maybe finally fix my master list 💀🤭 we’ll see! Enjoy

—

You were sitting on the edge of his bed, your legs dangling over as you turned to look over your shoulder at him snoring peacefully while you were holding your breath trying to savour this moment before the reality of what happened last night crushed you.

You knew what it was, it was ‘the world is most likely ending and the girl ive been in love with since high school still doesn’t love me back’ sex. Because there was no logical way Steve had feelings for you of any sort that would make him want to tear your clothes off and litter your bruised and scarred body with such tender kisses, whispering the sweetest of words in your ear, then proceed to hold you in his arms while he falls asleep.

There was no way in any world upside right or down that it was anything more than that.

You sighed, finally pushing yourself off the bed, tip-toeing around his room to gather the pieces of your clothing, ushering as quickly and quietly to his bathroom as you could. You wanted to avoid the mirror so bad, you were disgusted with yourself, not for sleeping with him, no but for letting your self think for a mere second that it was anything but sex to him. In all honesty it was probably just an itch he wanted to scratch, you were probably just a flavour of ice cream he was lingering on for a while something no one else in their right mind would pick but once you’ve tried all the other flavours you were the only one left.

Pathetic. That's all you were, you slipped off his boxers letting your tears hit the ground with them. The cotton fabric catches your salty waters as they hit the tile.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid” you whispered to yourself pulling on own clothes, before sliding out of his room and house.

The morning spring air hit you refreshingly as you closed your eyes, stopping to gather your thoughts for a brief moment, steadying yourself and the whirlwind of emotions going through your head.

You knew you had to hurry home and change to be ready to meet at the Wheeler's house for 9:00am sharp to discuss your next moves with Vecna, and arriving with Steve while you were still in yesterday’s clothes would raise suspicion, questions and leave you open for friendly banter and teasing but more importantly you didnt wanna still be at Steve’s house when he woke up, you couldn't handle seeing the pure regret in his eyes, the shame that would be radiating off of him, surely that would be your tipping point.

You looked at your watch, 9:00AM “Shit” you mumbled, downing the rest of your coffee like it was a shot at a party, you quickly tied the laces on your converse before running across the street to the Wheelers.

You let out a huff of hair, running your hand through your hair before knocking, the door whipped open revealing Robin “Oh! I'm so glad to see you” She grabbed your arm, yanking you inside, “We've been here all but maybe 10 minutes and everyone is already arguing” She threw her hands up “Can you believe that? it's too early for this!” You reached the door to the basement as Robin loudly started troting down “Y/n is finally here!”

You reached the bottom of the stairs giving a small wave and smile looking everywhere but the brown haired boy in the corner whose eyes you could feel piercing into you “Hi” your voice quiet before manurving your way to the side, far away from Steve.

You were sitting legs crossed on the wheelers couch, you could hear a buzzing surrounding you, squeezing your eyes shut, rubbing your temples you weren’t sure if at this point if it was the headache you’ve been nursing for a few days, the lack of sleep, or all the tears you cried this morning in Steve’s bathroom. All the voices of your friends overlapping one another mushing into a single sound.

tick, tick, tick, tick

“So we now know Max is one of Vecna’s targets, we just have to.…” Nancy spoke her voice trailing off as you tuned it out. Their chatter immersed into one inconvenient noise to you, the pounding in your head overpowering the conversation no one cared that you weren't taking part in. Even though you have always been more of a listener, never giving suggestions because someone always had a better one. You were just here to do as you were told and make sure no one else got hurt because they all had families, parents, people who loved them, you didn’t. And if one of your dumb ideas led to the possibility of one of them getting hurt or worse ending up dead, you would never be able to forgive yourself, so you stayed out of it.

You found picking at your pant leg was a better distraction, wasting all the energy you had on making the hole in your pants bigger than it already was, revealing a scar on your knee that you obtained last year running from russians, when for a brief moment the buzzing stopped and your sense zeroed in on the trickling cool wetness you felt on your upper lip and your eyes growing wide as you watched a single droplet of blood land on your jeans.

You moved your hand to catch the rest of the droplets when you looked up your eyes met Max’s, her eyebrows raised in shock before they softened as she watched a tear run down your cheek “Guys” she spoke, her voice could barely be heard over Steve arguing with Nancy that he didn’t want to be a babysitter anymore “GUYS!” she screamed even louder as all eyes turned to her

Steve and Nancy both turned their heads to her yelling “What?!”

Max lifted up her hand, directing her finger to point directly at you, suddenly one by one all pairs of eyes turned to you

“Holy shit” Dustin muttered “Holy shit!” He got louder as he pieced it together.

“No” Steve froze “No, no, no” He was panicking suddenly the room felt heavy, the air was leaving his lungs as he watched blood dripping from your nose.

[klausinamarink]

The Munson Jinx

rating: T | cw: Eddie’s near-death experience, blood, mention of anxiety attack | tags: hurt/comfort, happy ending, getting together | wc: 885

written for @steddieholidaydrabbles | Dec 10: First kiss

Eddie hates first kisses.

In his experience, kissing a stranger’s lips always goes wrong. You can ask Isabelle Thesault, the first and only girl he’d kissed who never spoke to him again after he threw up on her face in seventh grade and ruined her Barbie t-shirt. Or Riley Nicks, who immediately punched him in their freshman year. Or David Young, a drunk jock who threw up in Eddie’s mouth and ruined his appetite for two days. Or Mortimer Lee, who bit Eddie’s lower lip and tongue too hard. Or that one older guy at the Bloomington bar which gave Eddie an explosive anxiety attack. Or-

You get the gist.

Hence, first kisses have snuck into the Munson Doctrine. You shall not passionately make out with another man. Remember the Isabelle incident if you’re tempted.

That is not to say that Eddie still yearns for that kind of romantic connection. There’s really nothing more intimate than letting the barriers down and allow another person to come close and gently kiss you. But that’s all Eddie can do: imagine a perfect scenario where nothing happens and the Munson jinx doesn’t foil another kiss.

Then the Munson jinx seems to move on from let’s make Eddie’s every first kiss horrible to let’s turn Eddie’s life a literal nightmare where bone-breaking interdimensional wizards exist.

At least Steve Harrington’s in it this time.

To be honest, Eddie doesn’t have much to say about Steve. Sure, he thought the old King of Hawkins was a douche, but after seeing him try and help out with Eddie’s new life as a murder suspect and kill a demon bat with his bare hands-

To say that Steve is a nice guy might be an understatement.

But he squashes down the newborn puppy crush. He’s seen how Steve’s gaze lingers on Nancy recently, back on the boat and here as they walk through the Upside Down. He thinks about how lonely Steve had been a couple years back after the breakup. So Eddie tells Steve about going for that second chance and this time, Nancy Wheeler will stay.

Except while Eddie is talking, he notices that Steve’s just looking at him. His eyes are briefly unfocused, flickering twice to Eddie’s lips-

Oh no.

Eddie just stands there with wide eyes like an idiot, panicking internally, thinking back to Isabella and Riley and that Bloomington man as Steve starts to lean closer-

When a tremor sends them falling on their asses, Eddie’s thinking how lucky he is that this happened before Steve’s lips touched his.

They don’t talk about it. It’s been a blur of frantic panic and cold planning to kill Vecna once and for all that Eddie kind of forgets about the incident.

Until he lies bleeding on the frigid ground with Henderson weeping over him, only for Steve’s head to shove into Eddie’s blurry view.

The first thing he feels is Steve’s lips on his, breathing a lungful into his coppery mouth.

Immediately, Eddie jerks away. Stupid flashbacks of spoiled kisses flash before his eyes, which were way worse than his own life.

“Don’t move, idiot!” Steve shouts at him, hands pressing firmly against one of Eddie’s bite wounds on his side.

Eddie tries to say something back, but instead spits out a gross glob of blood and mucus and promptly blacks out.

—

“Any five’s?”

“Go fish.”

Eddie grumbles and drops the cards on his lap, “Now this is unfair. Taking advantage of a hospital patient like this.”

Steve gives an amused huff as he takes Eddie’s cards and reshuffles the deck. It’s been part of a weird routine once Eddie had woke up and slowly regained his motor muscles. Steve visits, they talk about whatever (mostly the kids or Hawkins gossip), play some cards, share a questionably tense staring contest, and Steve leaves.

This time, Steve breaks it and asks, “Are you still okay with me?”

Eddie blinks at him, fighting off exhaustion, “Hm, what?”

Steve just stares down at the cards. “You know that I tried to kiss you. Back at those woods.” He says with clipped words, almost like he’s trying to suck out any hint of emotions. “Just say you’re not comfortable with me and I’ll get out of your hair, man.”

Eddie stares at him. Steve, the man who tried to kiss him once and then again just to save Eddie’s life even as he nearly choked on his own blood. Steve, who does everything for his kids and friends, including Eddie who’s still too new to this shit.

Steve, who sees something desirable in Eddie and wanted to kiss him.

Before Steve can get up, Eddie shifts closer and cups the man’s face with his palm. He closes his eyes, barely catching Steve’s startled look, and leans in.

For a moment, nothing happens. It’s good because nothing is going to be ruined. But then it’s bad because Eddie can feel how stock-still Steve is. However, just as he starts to pull away, Steve seems to spark to life and his lips chases after him. His hand gently grips onto Eddie’s bicep, making Eddie smile at the contact.

As they safely make out in the sterile hospital room without either of them throwing up or freaking out, Eddie mentally gives the finger to the Munson jinx.

[super-cosmic-library]

staring at you staring at me

written for @steddie-week day 3: mutual pining

wc: 1085 I rating: G I tags: alpha steve harrington, omega eddie munson, courting, happy ending I [ao3]

“If you don’t stop staring at him, I’m going to tell Keith you’ve been slacking on the job.”

“You wouldn’t,” Steve says, turning away from watching Eddie examine every single VHS in the horror section of Family Video.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Robin agrees. “Did you know he tried asking me out again?”

“What the fuck? What’s wrong with him?”

“I could give you a list. First off, he needs a better deodorant, his sense of humor is abysmal, he thinks that women can hold their periods in like pee, he doesn’t know what the Loch Ness Monster is, he . . .”

Steve glances back at Eddie as his best friend continues to prattle on about their manager’s flaws. Eddie’s examining the same copy of Friday the 13th he’d looked at the day before. Steve loves the way the omega’s face scrunches up as he reads the synopsis before putting it back on the shelf and moving on to the next film.

Eddie’s attention flickers over to them, catching the alpha’s eyes. Steve gives him a little finger wave, which has Eddie pulling a chuck of hair in front of his face to hide behind.

“Steve, are you even listening to me?”

“Uh, yeah,” he whips around to look back at her, trying to recall the last thing she’d said. “Keith calls mashed avocados guacamole.”

“It’s just avocado, salt, and lime juice, Steve! That’s not guacamole!”

“Yeah, no, totally.” His gaze wanders back to Eddie, who’s now examining Fright Night.

“Just court him already.”

It’s a discussion they’d had repeatedly over the past several months. Steve had come up with excuses to not court the omega every time, ranging from giving him time to heal from his demobat wounds to having to kill Vecna again to Steve just having a bad hair day.

“My hair can’t be a mess if I’m going to start courting someone. It’s my best feature.” Steve had said.

Now, though, after months of excuses, he doesn’t have the energy for anything less than the truth. “What if he doesn’t want me?”

Robin raises an eyebrow at that. “Really? You think that Eddie doesn’t want you?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not exactly the type of alpha a guy like Eddie would go for. I mean, you’ve heard his cafeteria rants. I represent everything Eddie hates in the world.”

“He hates secretly nerdy guys who fight monsters and mother pups that don’t belong to him?”

“Preps,” he gestures to his starched polo and jeans. “He hates preps and rich kids.”

“Well, you’re not exactly rich anymore.”

She’s right. His parents had cut him off back in June when they found out once again that he’d not been accepted into any of the colleges they’d wanted him to apply for. In the year since he had graduated, his parents had expected that he would use the free time to round out his character and develop more “real world” experience to make his college applications more appealing to admissions boards. Unfortunately for them, the colleges they’d demanded he apply to required better greats than the ones he’d eeked by with. So his dad decided to cut him loose. Now, he rents the Henderson’s basement from Claudia, happy to help out around the house and get more time to torment Dustin like a real brother would.

“Come on, Steve. He’s in here practically every day for hours at a time, browsing the same selection of movies and making eyes at you. I mean, have you ever even seen him rent a VHS?”

“That’s because I rent them for him with my employee discount.”

“Does he even watch them?”

“Yeah, we watch them in the trailer for our weekly movie nights. I’ve told you about them, Rob.”

“Uh huh, uh huh,” she nods. “And how, exactly, do you two sit when you ‘watch’ these movies? Opposite ends of the couch? Separate seats entirely? Cause I’m willing to bet that not only do you cuddle during them, but Eddie initiates it.”

She’s right. But friends can cuddle without being romantically interested in each other. He and Robin cuddle sometimes. He and Tommy used to cuddle all the time before they drifted apart. Cuddling doesn’t mean Eddie’s interested in being courted by him.

He repeats the sentiment to her.

“I’m just saying, I think he’d be interested if you court him.”

“She’s right.”

Steve practically jumps out of his skin. He hadn’t heard Eddie approach the circulation counter. Embarrassment floods his cheeks. “Eddie, what–”

“You know I can hear everything you guys say, right? This place isn’t that big, and your voices are loud.”

Steve wants to shrivel up in a hole and die. He’s going to have to change his identity and move to a different state in order to escape his mortification. He’s going to have to–wait. Did he say . . .

“Did you say she was right?”

“Yeah. I feel like I’m going crazy with anticipation for when you start courting me,” Eddie easily admits. “I would have started courting you, but you seem like the kind of guy who’s traditional in that sense.”

Oh, god. He gets to court Eddie. Eddie wants him to court him. This revelation makes him want to sprint home to grab the gifts he’s been accumulating over the past few months and give them all to him at once.

Calm down, tiger. No need to rush it. Eddie deserves a proper courting ritual.

“So, when I ask to court you, you’re going to say yes?” His thoughts are in overdrive. He needs the confirmation before he gets ahead of himself with planning.

“Yes,” Eddie smiles.

Steve takes in a deep breath. “Eddie, sweetie, I’m going to need you to leave.”

The omega’s face falls. “What? Why?”

“Because I’m going to start freaking out in a really embarrassing way, and I don’t want you to see it. And,” he shoots him the signature Harrington smile. “I’ve got to start planning out our first date.”

Eddie pulls his hair in front of his face, swaying on the balls of his feet. “Will I still see you for our movie night tonight?”

“Wouldn’t dream of missing it. You still want Beetlejuice?”

Eddie nods.

“See you at eight, then.” He gives him a wink.

As soon as the shop door closes, Steve turns on Robin, eager to start talking through all his ideas until he comes up with the world’s best and most perfect first date.

The beta slumps against the counter. “Oh, god, what have I done?”

[rogueddie]

Disabled Steve / Eddie Fics

Important: READ THE TAGS! Also, leave a comment and kudos! These fics are amazing and I love them and I hope y'all do too 🦻

give me a sign

findmeinthewychelm

It was sweet torture the way Steve was pining over him. Robin was sick of listening to him talk about Eddie, but she also hadn’t stopped him yet.

Words : 4,235 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : General Audiences

AO3 : x

what would you trade the pain for (i'm not sure)

Library_of_Gage

Steve doesn't bother anyone with his chronic pain; it's something he'd rather keep to himself. And then it spikes in the Upside Down, in front of Eddie Munson, and Steve slowly starts to learn that, sometimes, sharing what hurts does help.

Words : 8,230 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen and Up Audiences

AO3 : x

Our Love is Shown in the Letting Go

Xxbottlecapxx

Steve’s mother comes home and has to deal with the fact that she has no idea who her son is, and maybe never will.

Words : 10,189 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Not Rated

AO3 : x

Who Am I to Say What Any of This Means?

IndigoFudge

Eddie’s eyebrows are raised. He’s speaking deliberately. “My first grade teacher set up a meeting with Wayne and told him she thought I had autism. So Wayne took me to the doctors and it turned out she was right.”

He is still looking at Steve. Oh. Steve’s been staring at him like an idiot for forty seconds instead of acknowledging this important, incredibly personal detail that he has just shared. Steve remembers eye contact––one, two, three––then answers. “That’s cool.”

“Steve,” Eddie says, carefully. “Have you ever been tested? Because I’ve been noticing… When I look at you, I kinda see some signs.”

Words : 7,371 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen and Up Audiences

AO3 : x

she'll know me crazy, soothe me daily (better yet, she wouldn't care)

jewishrat420

Eddie doesn’t really cry about this anymore. He’s long since shed his own personal tears of pity, spent enough time mourning a different life. He’s accepted it, for the most part, doesn’t really give a shit about being normal or whatever. No one’s normal.

But this…Eddie’s not used to this. He’s never had someone hold his face in their hands, look him dead in the eyes and say, “Eddie Munson. For better or for worse, and fuck, I know this is worse, I want to know you.”

Words : 3,988 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen and Up Audiences

AO3 : x

the beginning of a bad joke

alligator_writes

At the beginning of his rant, lecture, whatever, Hottie stares right at him. He has a really intense stare. Pretty brown eyes set in a prettier face with even prettier hair on top of his head. Eddie gets distracted by all that pretty and by trying to make his point.

And he doesn’t notice until halfway through that Hottie isn’t looking at him anymore. He’s looking at his friend.

Eddie looks at her, too. Looks at her confused and focused expression. Looks at her hands moving rapidly.

Oh. G-d.

Hottie’s deaf, isn’t he?

Words : 7,083 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen and Up Audiences

AO3 : x

I Took The Good Times, I’ll Take The Bad Times (I Take You Just The Way You Are)

steddieeddie

In 1984, Eddie Munson told Steve he was going to marry him one day laying in the quiet confines of Steve’s room.

In 1985, they broke up. It wasn’t because they wanted to, but because Steve thought they had to. They spent almost an entire year apart, hurting, wondering about what could have been.

In 1986, Steve Harrington was almost fatally injured in the final attack against The Upside Down, against Vecna. He spent seventy six days comatose, and then almost an entire year in the hospital learning how to be a person again. He learns how to open and close his hands, hold things, and how to feed himself again. Steve learns how to stand, how to walk, going from walker to cane by the time he is allowed to go home.

In 1987, he did just that. He goes home.

It was a slow process. Way slower than Steve wanted it to be, but it was worth it.

Sure, his hands were never going to work the same, there was constant pain in his arms and left leg, and he would never walk without a cane, but at least he’s alive.

He made it.

That was what mattered.

Words : 30,101 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Mature

AO3 : x

[missingexaltation]

A few years after Vecna, Steve gets invited back to the high school to play in a charity basketball match with (and against) other Hawkins basketball alumni. It's for charity, and he misses the rush of playing (and he kinda wants to see if he's still any good), so he agrees.

He asks Eddie if he'll be there, but although Eddie's somewhat enthusiastic to Steve's face, he whines about it for days to Wayne. He fucking hates sports, why did he have to fall for a fucking jock, of all things. UUUGH! Wayne puts up with it for a while before realising that Eddie's not going to talk himself around, and gives him a blunt, verbal kick in the ass.

"You think your boy enjoys watching your dungeon and dragons shtick, son?" He asks, sipping at his beer.

Eddie's offended, immediately.

"He's never missed a session, course he loves it." he says. "And i know he pays attention because we talk about it afterwards and he's always..."

"And how's that make you feel?" Wayne interrupts.

"Fucking amazing." Eddie grumbles, knowing what's coming, and hating it.

"...and how do you talk about his hobbies?"

Eddie sighs and covers his face. Wayne carries on, knowing he's made his point but hammering it home nonetheless.

"Your boy loves his sports, he's always here just in time to watch the games with me nowadays. And don't think I haven't noticed how bored you are when it's on. I reckon he's noticed too."

Eddie's silent, starting at the ceiling with a dramatic, melancholy pout.

"Ah shit." He sighs. "I'm a bad boyfriend, aren't I?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But learn from it if you want to be better." Wayne shrugs. "He makes you happy by indulging in your hobbies, maybe you should think about doing the same. Guarantee it'll put a smile on your boy's face, if nothing else."

So next time Steve brings it up, (tentatively, like he knows Eddie will complain) Eddie is much more genuinely enthusiastic. Steve's surprised for a split second (and doesn't that hurt), before he's beaming and looking absolutely delighted. And shit, yeah ok. It does make Eddie feel good to see Steve happy. Course it does.

The game rolls around, and hell yeah, it's boring to watch. Eddie's been reading up on the rules, so he's not entirely confused, but it just seems so pointless. Steve's good though. From what he's seen (and he's totally not biased, thanks) Steve's running rings around the other team, and Eddie's so fucking proud! It helps that Steve's in those shorts, showing off damn near the full length of his legs.

More importantly, he looks so fucking happy while he's playing. He keeps shooting Eddie these big, beaming smiles when they've scored a hoop, or point, or whatever they're called, and Eddie finds himself melting where he sits, face aching from smiling so much in return.

By the end of the game Eddie's fully invested. Sure, he barely understands what's going on, but even he knows enough that getting the ball in the hoop is a good thing, and Steve does it loads. Their team wins, and there's a huge group hug, pats on the back and other sporty, manly things before they all part ways and start making their way out to the parking lot.

Eddie stays put. He knows Steve will come right to him, and he does. They walk back to Steve's car together, and Steve's on some sort of winner's high; all smiles and cocky strutting. It's kinda hot. Screw that, it's totally hot, and suddenly Eddie's glad that Wayne's working tonight and they've got the place to themselves.

"Surprised you lasted the whole game, Eds." Steve says, teasingly, before he just downs a water bottle. "Thought you'd have died of boredom halfway though."

"Pssh." Eddie waves him off, trying not to feel embarrassed. "You know, Stevie, you're pretty amazing at that." He waves his hand vaguely back towards the court. "That shot you made from almost the centre? Chills, baby, full on chills."

Steve doesn't even bother checking to see if anyone's watching. He slams Eddie against the side of his car and kisses him, cradling Eddie's face with his hands, as though he'd die if he didn't have full body contact.

And Eddie knows the feeling. Like when Steve had recounted a particularly awesome moment from his campaign, and all Eddie had wanted to do was drag him right to the bedroom.

Steve pulls away.

"Get in." He said, opening the car door for Eddie like the gentleman he is.

And fuck, if this is the reaction he gets for paying attention, then he's definitely doing it more. If he's honest with himself, he should have been doing it from day one, but yeah sometimes he's a bit dense and needs a push in the right direction.

So basketball's boring as shit usually, but when Steve's playing? Hell yeah. He'll even put up with listening about it (and even football), if it puts that smile on Stevie's face. That's the price for dating a jock, he guesses, but it's miniscule, and it's fucking worth it.

[lunartadpole]

Eddie learned about two months into dating him that Steve is an active sleeper.

He was always a bit hurt when Steve wouldn't stay the night at the trailer park; dreaded watching Steve's car drive away after a night in. At first, Eddie thought it was a hit and run situation, a one night stand that spans more than one night. And yeah, it makes sense; King Steve probably just wants a new way to get his dick wet, got tired of all the babes and such. Of course this thing they have - whatever that is - isn't serious. It makes sense and still, Eddie's hurt.

But then he starts noticing things. Like Steve's reluctance to leave but his refusal to fall asleep no matter how late it is. And it's not just with Eddie either. He's noticed that Steve always seems to clock out early at any overnight event their little group have - DnD nights in Wheelers basements, Dustin's sleepovers, hell, even Buckley's movie nights. Steve is always first to arrive and first to leave.

Eddie just can't figure out why.

He goes as far as to ask Robin. Because if anyone can give any insight into the mysterious life of Dethroned King Steve Harrington, it's Buckley. But even she has no idea. She says she hadn't even noticed.

He gets his answer a week later.

They're in Eddie's trailer. Steve drove around after his shift, they're lounging in his room, Steve sitting up again the headboard, Eddie practicing his guitar, and it's midnight, bordering on Steve's usual check out time. But Harrington's been complaining about a rough day at work - something about being swamped and Buckley ditching her shift for boobies, Munson! She ditched me for boobies - and Eddie can see his eyes fluttering and his head lolling before quickly shooting up again. Rinse and repeat. Until Steve finally begins to bustle up and leave.

Eddie begs him to stay, half because he wants him to and half because there's no way it's safe to drive home when you're two fleeting seconds away from dropping comatose. They argue back and forth, Steve typically reluctant and a bit…nervous? Scared? Eddie doesn't know. And it doesn't matter because he wears Steve down and soon enough Steve is wearing Eddie's pajamas and the two of them are cuddled up in bed together.

Using Steve as his own personal Teddy bear, Eddie sleeps soundly that night.

At least, until about three in the morning.

Ever since Vecna, Eddie hasn't been the heaviest of sleepers. So when he hears banging in the kitchen rattling through the thin membrane walls, he's upandatem pretty quickly, abruptly women up to the fact that his boyfriend isn't beside him in the bed anymore. Another bang comes from the kitchen.

Okay, he's panicking.

Armed with the old tire iron he keeps by his bed for just an occasion like this, Eddie creeps towards the kitchen, mind racing. Who the fuck is here? Did someone break in? Something? From another dimension? Images play in head like worn film, images of Chrissy Cunningham floating in his living room, the sound of her bones snapping eerily similar to the banging now.

What he is met with in the kitchen is nowhere near as scary, but ten times more weird.

Because Steve 'The Hair' Harrington is in the middle of his kitchen surrounded by what little pans and pots the Munson's own.

"Uhm…Stevie?" he calls, ever so softly. And then louder when he doesn't get a response. "Steve?"

Steve stands like a ghost in the shadows. Eddie can't help but stare at his face, so relaxed unlike anything he's ever seen before.

Then. He speaks.

"I swear I left it here…" Steve mumbles, to himself or maybe to the dark shadows surrounding. The words come out slow and monotone. Hushed, slurred together in a broken string of consciousness. It does nothing to ease Eddie's worry.

"Left what here?" he asks, looking around at the mess for some item of Steve's he might've lost. All the while Harington just stands there, dazed.

Then. "Flowers. Told Eddie I'd get him flowers."

Eddie furrows his eyebrows, pushing forward into his boyfriend's space and thoughtlessly cups his face in his hands, making him look at him. Steve's eyes are just barely open, and they're glazed over with this lost, far off look. He doesn't look at Eddie, rather through him.

And somehow, Eddie catches up, a scoff of disbelief leaving his lips. Who would've thought?

"Okay, alright sweetheart," the grin is prominent in his voice, dripping with fondness. "You're still asleep, huh?" Something inside him surges and he finds himself grazing his other hand faintly across Steve's forehead to brush his bed hair out of his face. His eyes are all the more clouded over in sweet nonsense as Eddie pushes his hair into something that doesn't resemble a sad brown mop.

"I can't…remember where…" Steve mumbles, trying to break free from Eddie's hold but ultimately failing. He lets his head drop against Eddie's neck.

"Okay, let's get you back to bed, alright?" Because that's what you're supposed to do with people who sleepwalk right? Never wake a sleepwalker, that's what they say isn't it? "Hold my hand, it's OK Stevie." Pressed up close against him, Eddie breathed in the smell of Farrah Faucet spray and citrus shampoo and led Steve back into his bedroom, hand in hand.

"How about you try to stay in bed now," he says, leading Steve as he leans against him, skin warm and citrus and weary against his own, feeling a little too much like something Eddie wants to keep holding onto.

"Got somewhere to be,"

"Not right now, cmon," Eddie gently eases Steve down onto the bed, and surprisingly, Steve lets him. Not long after, Eddie is beside him, holding onto him tight once more.

In the morning, Steve wakes up confused, like he's surprised he managed to stay in one spot all night, but doesn't mention anything about sleepwalking. He does ask Eddie, "Did you sleep well? I didn't wake you, did I?" and Eddie just kisses him, tells him, "Best sleep I've ever had. You should stay around more often."

And when Steve agrees, Eddie decides not to bring it up.

It happens a few more times after that. Not all the time but more often than not Steve will stay over Eddie will wake up to him wandering about the house. The majority of the time it's stupid stuff; Steve sluggishly pacing around the room, Steve mumbling sweet nonsense to himself, Steve trying to take a shower in the hallway. Pretty harmless stuff.

Except for the time it isn't.

That time, they're in Steve's house, big and empty. That time, Eddie wakes up at 4am and just barely catches sight of Steve's fleeting figure down the stairs. Like most times before, Eddie is quick to follow him down the stairs towards the living room, staring blankly out the window. A metallic glint flickers across Eddie's eyes. His eyes widen with concern when he realises it's a kitchen knife. Steve doesn't move, but he's breathing real heavy, like he's just waiting for something to happen.

"Steve, darling." He begins, hating how his voice is cracking. "Will you come back to bed? Please?"

This time, Steve shakes his head. Frantic. Paranoid. Eddie watches his grip on the knife tighten.

"Can't." Comes the raspy, hoarse reply. "The lights. It's out there. Swear I saw it. I swear-!"

Softly, Eddie shushes him before he can get more worked up. He stays put a good six feet away, entirely out of self preservation. Harrington's deadly with a weapon in his consciousness and Eddie wouldn't like to find out what he does in his sleep, thank you very much.

"Saw what, love?"

"I heard a thud. It's so cold."

Oh. Oh shit okay.

Eddie isn't unfamiliar with nightmares. God, after what he saw it'd be weird if he didn't have them. After Mike's apparently real psychic ex-girlfriend cut ties with The Upside Down, Eddie was a mess. He couldn't sleep, plagued with visions of terror bat's tearing away at his flesh bit by agonising bit. He can't count the number of times he called Steve in the late hours of the night in need of reassurance. To tell him that it is over now.

Steve was a rock for him. Eddie almost envied him, with how easily he managed to readjust back into normality. Never did it cross his mind it might've all been a facade.

"Steve," Eddie begins, firmly and unwavering. Slowly, he begins to etch more into Steve's space. "Listen to me. The gate is closed. Vecna and the rest of his little hell beasts are gone."

In front of him, Steve doesn't move. He doesn't even appear to have heard Eddie at all.

Eddie swallows, trying to push the thought that maybe, after so near death encounters, Steve's finally gone mad, come undone at the seams, and this is what his mental state has come too: armed with a scarily sharp knife, ready to fight any sudden movement.

"Do you think you could put down the knife, dear?" Eddie suggests lightly, gently touching the outside of his hand incase Steve needs some sort of anchor to come back to. Underneath the edges of his fingertips, Steve's touch is warm, his pulse comfortingly steady, and Eddie holds onto it, selfishly, a little longer than he should have, that tightness he is becoming so acquainted with returning to his chest. He then slips his hand further within Steve's own, carefully taking the knife from Steve's grip and interlocking their fingers as if it were the most natural thing ever. As if it had always been that easy.

"There we go," Eddie praises as he places the blade down on the coffee table. "See? All better now."

"Better…"

"You're safe, Steve. I'm safe. Everyone is safe. Those things can't hurt you anymore."

"But- the lights-"

"Are fine." Steadily, Eddie begins to back out of the room, gently pulling Steve along with him. "Now let's get you back to bed, yeah? You still gotta get your full twelve hours of beauty sleep don't you?"

A dopey smile ghosts across Steve's lips as he huffs a laugh. It's barely anything. But it's enough for Eddie.

"Yeah you do," he teases. They're in the bedroom now. Eddie guides Steve underneath the duvet. As soon as he hits the soft cushions, he curls around himself like a child, protecting himself from the intangible cold or phantom nightmares, while refusing to loosen his grip on his boyfriend's hand. Eddie feels his throat close.

He has questions. How long has Steve been having these nightmares? How many of them result in sleepwalking? How many of them are violent enough to grab a fucking kitchen knife? Why didn't Steve tell him sooner?

But they can wait until morning.

[sattlersquarry]

the great divide (steve harrington x fem!reader)

Summary: (Post Season 4 AU, the sequel to orange juice) After your miraculous return to the land of the living, you aren't doing well.

Word Count: ~12k

Warnings: 18+ PLEASE!!!! for language, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. The reader has panic attacks and intrusive thoughts about Not Wanting To Be Alive. If that will be triggering for you please don't read this (read my happier bloom series instead). there's also an allusion to a relapse, slut-shaming, and allusions to sex (although there's no smut, it just gets slightly steamy). this fic is angst + hurt/comfort with an optimistic ending. inspired by noah kahan's music (including this amazing demo on instagram).

a/n: please let me know if i missed any warnings. please don't read this if you think it will be too triggering. the last thing i want is to make someone upset! but writing this was cathartic and helped me work through some things, i think. writing is magical!

🫀🫀🫀

THE GREAT DIVIDE

SOMETIME IN 1987

You aren’t sure how long it’s been since you last saw your friends. It feels like a fucking long time.

You woke up on the ground of the Upside Down, covered in dried blood and terrified at the sight of Vecna towering above you.

He brought you back to life. He wanted to send you back home and use you as a soldier and spy, the same thing he did to Will, Billy, Heather, and countless others.

“If you do this,” Vecna had growled, “You can once again see your family. Your friends. Your beloved Steven. Otherwise…you will die here.”

You refused, not interested in being his lackey. He tried to flay you anyway, but he was weak from the hell Nancy, Steve, and Robin rained down on him, allowing you to escape his clutches.

He stalked you for days, finally catching up to you—but you got the upper hand, using Eddie’s spear to stab him. Repeatedly.  

Killing Vecna caused the gates he opened to sew themselves back shut before you could get through. You were glad that your friends no longer had to worry about Vecna and his army of monsters pouring through the four gates, but it meant you were trapped on the wrong side of the universe.

Vecna gone meant the Upside Down could revert back to what it was before he arrived. Now, the sky of the Upside Down was a buttery yellow, and it was much warmer. You saw patches of green grass and flowers starting to grow in various spots around town. But it still felt like a nightmare.

You wander the Upside Down each day with a routine: avoid monsters, forage for food and clean water, and visit the gates to see if any of them reopened. Food and water aren’t as hard to find as you feared, since the world isn’t so much of a poison, desolate nightmare anymore. But the gates stay staunchly shut, much to your chagrin.

You miss your life. You miss Steve. You miss his laugh, his smile, his kisses, his touch. You would do ungodly things to see him again.

You hope he’s okay. Any time you want to give up, you remind yourself that if roles were reversed, Steve would keep fighting to come back to you no matter what.

And, to your pleasant surprise, he does just that.

🫀🫀🫀

AUGUST 1987

It’s been three months since you returned to the land of the living. You’re not taking it well.

Surviving the Upside Down meant constantly being in fight-or-flight, scrambling to find food and clean water while avoiding demo-creature attacks. Without Vecna’s evil influence, the animals weren’t so bloodthirsty—but they still needed to eat.

You were able to avoid them, surviving yourself off disgusting canned food from the Upside Down’s version of the Big Buy and whatever houses you ransacked. It wasn’t very appetizing. It made the meal you were serving up today seem like a 5-star, 5-course delight.

It was neither of those things. It was for a church potluck that your mother had a hand in throwing. Lots of casseroles and carbs. She dragged you along to volunteer in hopes to get you out of the house.

Ever since you left the hospital in May, you’d only ever left the house to go to doctor’s appointments, therapy appointments, and Steve’s place. Your parents wanted to encourage more of a well-rounded life and schedule, and although they’d never admit it, you figured they hoped you’d turn back to your normal self. To the person you were before it all happened.

You think she might have died.

As you plate some macaroni and cornbread for your next patron, you sense eyes on you. You glance over and see two women at a table a few feet away. To your chagrin, they’re gossiping about you.

“I mean, it’s appalling,” an old bat named Shirley hisses. “She claims to have lost her memory after the earthquake and gotten lost, but it’s obvious that she just ran away.”  

“Probably thought she was grown up, that she knew better than her parents,” Mildred says with a sniff, adjusting her too-big glasses.

“I can’t believe she left poor Steve Harrington high and dry,” Shirley adds.

Your heart clenches at the fact that these women see you as a villain, as an irresponsible idiot who up and left everyone who loved her out of spite. If they knew the truth…if they knew the nightmare you’d survived…

It only gets worse from there.

“You know what Cynthia told me?” Mildred says. “That her cousin’s roommate’s friend’s brother saw Y/N working a street corner in Manassas. It's just shameful.”

Anger burns through you, hot like hellfire. So, what? You’re not just a flake—you’re a slut to this people now, too? What happened to ‘loving thy neighbor’ and ‘forgiveness’ and all that shit?

“Can I get some more of that?” an elderly man says.

It snaps you back to your task at hand: dishing out food to hungry churchgoers.

“Ah, yeah,” you say. You dump macaroni on his Styrofoam plate. “Sorry. Here you go.”

The man smiles and ambles off. You take a deep breath and try your best to tune out the whispers of the chattering hens.

Your mother must notice the scowl on your face. She makes her way to you, practically floating, as graceful as ever. She’s totally in her element. She deserves a daughter who doesn’t clomp and stumble her way through life. Who doesn’t jump at every loud noise and sleep with a hunting knife under her pillow.

“Doing all right?” your mother asks you, giving you that sympathetic look that you think you might despise by now.

You muster up a smile of your own and nod.

Your mother can’t tell its fake and beams.

“See?” she says. “I knew getting you out of the house would turn that frown upside-down!”

She doesn’t know about the Upside Down. She thinks you got injured in the earthquake, stumbled through the Indiana woodlands, and got found by cops two states over. That you couldn’t remember where you came from due to amnesia, that since they pronounced you dead no one assumed you were the missing girl from Hawkins until your memories came back.

You let her comment slide and fake a smile, figuring it’s better to pretend you’re fine than feel it all.

🫀🫀🫀

That night, you chat with Steve on the phone. He’s gone back to college for the fall semester and you miss him terribly.

He promised he’d come back to Hawkins every other weekend. He knows how hard it’s been for you coming back. Or, he says he knows. Sometimes, you get the idea that he doesn’t really understand.

How could he? Every time he tries to get you to open up about what happened and what you went through, you shut down.

However, when he asks how your day was, you decide to be honest.

“It sucked,” you say. You blow out a huff of air. “These old crones were being total bitches at the church potluck. Apparently, the new conspiracy theory is that I was turning tricks in Virginia.”

“Ugh, I’m so sorry Y/N,” Steve says. For some reason, the sympathy in his voice makes you wince.

“But it’s fine,” you say quickly. “I don’t care what they say about me.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line.

“It’s okay if you do, you know,” Steve says, speaking slowly and carefully as if he’s worried about setting you off. (For good reason; you’ve been prone to outbursts of anger lately.)

“I know!” you say, defensiveness seeping into your tone. “But I don’t give a shit. Really.”

“Good,” Steve says. But he sounds unconvinced. “You shouldn’t.”

Another pause. It lasts a little too long for your liking. You clear your throat.

“I should probably shower and head to bed,” you say. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah, totally,” Steve says. You don’t understand why he sounds almost intrigued by the prospect of your boring nighttime routine until he says, “A shower with you sounds like heaven right now…”

Shit. You’re really not in the mood for phone sex. Even if that’s not what Steve is angling for, just slightly flirty banter doesn’t sound fun to you either.

Steve has been a total gentleman ever since you got back. You’ve kissed a little, but anytime he tries to take it further, you stop him. As much as you longed for him in every sense while in the Upside Down, you don’t feel ready to re-engage in those kinds of activities—like you’ve been shot back to the insecure, unconfident person you were before you started dating Steve.

He respects those boundaries and never, ever presses for more. But you worry he’s getting bored and wants to get back into old habits, possibly evidenced by his shower comment.

You’re a coward. You don’t tell him outright that you’re not in the mood, afraid he’ll have an out-of-character reaction and chew you out for being a prude or a tease.

“Huh?” you say. Steve starts to repeat his salacious comment, but you interrupt with: “Bad…connection…can’t…better…”

You hang up the phone and let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

🫀🫀🫀

OCTOBER 1987

It’s a Thursday in October, and you’re taking a trip for the first time in a long time.

“You have everything you need?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Toothbrush? Extra socks? Lambchop?”

You huff and roll your eyes, crossing your arms like a petulant teenager.

“Mom! I’m an adult. I do not need a stuffed animal.”

“But you packed her, right?”

You mumble out a “Yes” as she pulls up to the parking lot near Steve’s apartment building.

You applied for spring admission at the University of Indiana. Your lovely boyfriend invited you to stay with him for a few days so he could show you around campus for homecoming weekend.

Tonight is the unofficial campus tour with “Tour Guide Steve.” Tomorrow, you’ll help him and his friends put the finishing touches on a homecoming parade float, and Saturday is the big football game.

Before your disappearance and assumed death, your parents were insanely strict about you staying the night with Steve and wouldn’t have allowed it. Now, they’ve mellowed out—but you hate thinking it’s because of some kind of twisted pity.

Steve must have seen your mom’s minivan pull up from his apartment window, because he jogs over to you before you’ve even grabbed your bag from the trunk.

“Hey, babe!” he says with a beaming grin; the picture of exuberance. You can feel his excitement roll off him in waves. You feel like an asshole for matching his energy. Even though you’re excited for time with Steve, you have a pit in your stomach at the thought of being away from home for so many days.

Of course, if you get accepted to U of I, you’ll be away from home for weeks at a time. You try not to think about that.

Steve hugs you tightly, and you hope he can’t sense your apprehension.

He seems not too, still smiling as he gives your mom a quick hug and then offers to carry your duffel bag for you.

You give your mom a hug goodbye, promising to call if you want to get picked up early.

You and Steve wave as your mom drives away. After dropping your bag off at his apartment, Steve takes you on an abridged campus tour that ends at the dining hall. He wants to introduce you to his friends.

He has friends here. Of course he does, you’re glad he does. No one should feel like they don’t have friends, or like their girlfriend is their only friend. But what does it mean that your boyfriend is your only friend lately?

Nancy’s off at Emerson. As for the Hawkins crew, Jonathan’s busy with family stuff, helping Joyce and Hopper renovate their new house. Eddie’s preoccupied with his band, trying to get Corroded Coffin off the ground after a he-was-accused-of-murder hiatus. And Robin’s a student at Roane County Community College, spending her days with marching band and classes and clubs and work.

They’ve started inviting you to things, and sometimes you go. You usually don’t have much fun, distracted with your own anxieties and unable to think of anything interesting to say.

So, the fact that Steve seems to have moved on from everything so easily and has a pack of friends at college makes you feel pathetic, even though it shouldn’t.

At the dining hall, Steve introduces you to his buddies. When Steve lived on-campus last semester, Gus was his roommate. Now Steve’s moved into his own apartment off-campus, but the boys still hang out often and play together on a club basketball team.

Jessica is Gus’ girlfriend. She has a kind smile and compliments your sweater.

The last friend in their clique is Rochelle. She’s tall and slender, like a supermodel. Apparently, she and Jessica grew up together and are good friends.

Everyone greets you happily when Steve introduces you—except Rochelle, who looks you up and down like she’s inspecting you. It makes you uneasy.

You immediately start to dislike her more when she laughs loudly at Steve’s jokes and squeezes his shoulder flirtatiously.

“You are tew much, Harrington,” Rochelle says, flipping her shiny hair over her shoulder.

It makes you feel tense and jealous and angry and sick all at once.

You’re completely content to listen in silence while the others chat, but then Jessica asks where you go to school.

“Oh, um, here, in the spring,” you say. “Uh, hopefully.”

“That’s awesome!” Gus says. “You get the full Hoosiers homecoming experience a whole semester before having to pay tuition.”

You chuckle and smile. Any good feelings you have about this interaction come crashing down when Rochelle asks, “So, like, if you aren’t a student right now, what do you do?”

“She’s working at Sonic,” Steve says. “Saving up money. Right babe?”

You turn to him, face falling. You’re not working. You tried to apply for a job at Sonic and had a panic attack when you saw the gap in your resume from your 15 months in the Upside Down, so you roller-skated your way home to unemployment.

Did you not tell Steve that? You suppose you “forgot” to tell him about that panic episode.

“Uh, actually no,” you say, furrowing your brow. “Not anymore. I’m just taking a semester off.”

Surprise flashes behind Steve’s eyes, but he recovers quickly. He throws an arm around your shoulders and says, “Right, of course.”

The rest of the conversation is mostly you smiling and nodding along to the funny stories and inside jokes the group shares. When you and Steve get back to his place later that evening, you apologize for not updating him on the Sonic situation sooner.

Steve waves away your apology.

“Don’t even worry about it,” he says.

“But I feel bad,” you say, fidgeting with your fingers while you sit next to him on the couch. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you.”

(You didn’t truly forget. You were embarrassed and didn’t want him to know.)

“These things happen,” Steve says. “I totally get it. For a few months after Vecna and…you, my brain was like scrambled eggs. I’d drink myself to a coma every other night. I definitely didn’t have the sharpest mind.”

You appreciate him for understanding. Except you feel shitty because you’re lying to him about forgetting. It’s a vicious cycle.

The two of you put on a movie, and while you’re lying on the couch with him, you start thinking of something you haven’t done in a long, long time.

You lightly trace your hand up and down the arm that’s wrapped around your middle.

“Hey,” you say quietly. “Would you want to…”

You clear your throat.

“What?” Steve asks.

You aren’t sure how to ask for what you want without sounding wholly desperate and/or pathetic and/or like the horniest bastard alive.

“Go to your room?” you say.

“Sure, if you want, we can go to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”

You laugh lightly.

“No, I mean. You know.”

You wiggle your eyebrows and Steve’s jaw drops. Mouth agape, like a goldfish, his brains seems to short circuit.

The air is charged with something you haven’t felt in a long time.

“Are you sure?” Steve says, a barely audibly whisper. His hand cups your cheek so delicately, and you feel cherished. Love. Seen.

“I am,” you whisper back, before pulling him closer to you for a kiss.

It’s the kind of kiss you dreamed about while you were trapped in another universe.

It makes you feel electric, the same way your first kiss had. That iconic kiss happened because Steve found out you’d never played spin the bottle. In his kitchen late, late at night, he took an empty soda bottle and spun it on the countertop.

He had maneuvered it just right and stopped it with his hand when the bottle neck pointed right at you, like a compass needle finding truth north.

“Well, what do you know,” Steve had said at the time, with a dopey grin on his face. “It’s you.”

“If you wanted to kiss me so bad,” you had quipped, “you could’ve just asked.”

And then you two kissed like crazy, amongst other things.

Back in the present, all your hesitancies and qualms about re-engaging in intimacy and sex with Steve are thrown out the window when you feel his lips on yours.

Giddy as if it’s the first time (because, in a way, it kind of is), the two of you break apart and practically race down the hall to his bedroom. Thank goodness for no roommates, because when you’re in there, Steve slams the door and presses you against it to kiss some more, closing the gap between the metaphorical great divide that you’ve placed between you both.

You tug at his shirt, and he pulls it off before the two of you stumble into his bed.

Things heat up, and they’re going great. Steve is kissing and biting your neck, probably leaving a hickey or two, but you don’t mind. His hands are gripping your waist, practically leaving scorch marks in their wake.

You’re loving this. You’re having a great time.

Until you’re not. The trains of thought in your brain all rush from the station at the same time, colliding at a junction on the tracks.

What if you give Steve an infection? Not an STD, but like, an Upside Down sickness. You could be a carrier and not even realize it. Is that a possibility? What did Dr. Owens say last time you saw him?

He advised you not to get pregnant. He said there’s a possibility your future children could have birth defects after your time in the Upside Down. Birth defects! You’re only 21 years old and your body is poisoned. Not enough to harm you in the short term, but the long term effects on you (and your progeny) could be terrible to deal with.

But Steve really wants kids. What if he finds out you can’t give him children and he leaves you? You really, really don’t want him to leave you.

You don’t realize it, but you start breathing a little harder. To Steve, it seems like you’re insanely turned on. Mentally, your brain is on a different plane of existence.

He’s going to leave you because he’s better off without you. He doesn’t realize it yet but one day, one day. He will.

Vecna was right. Vecna said Steve would get tired and bored of you. That’s why the monster tried to recruit you, to flay you. That’s why he pursued you across the Upside Down for days, hunting you like a dog until he cornered you at the quarry.

Steve finally takes notice of your erratic breathing pattern. You’re not reacting how you usually do to his kissing. He ceases the lovefest and leans up on his elbows.

“Y/N? You okay?”

You don’t hear him. You continue to hyperventilate, your eyes screwed tightly shut.

And when you stabbed the beast through the chest with the spear Eddie left behind, you didn’t even feel sorry.

Is that the kind of person you are? A sick, violent freak?

But it was self-defense!

But if you hadn’t tried to draw the demobats away, you wouldn’t have been in that situation. You went against the plan. You caused all the bad things that happened to you.

You’re a bad person. A bad omen. A bad girlfriend. A bad daughter. A—

“Hey, can you hear me? Y/N?”

Steve’s soft, slightly panicked, voice brings you back down to reality.

You nod, eyes still shut.

“Sorry,” you say. “I don’t—I don’t know what happened.”

“It’s okay,” Steve says, still speaking quietly as if he’s afraid to scare you. You don’t feel his hands on you anymore, but you sense he’s still close. “It’s okay. Can you sit up? I think you should drink something.”

You sit up slowly and open your eyes. Steve looks frazzled, but he musters up a smile when he hands you a glass of cold water.

“Sorry,” you mumble.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

You don’t respond, just take a sip.

“Can we just go to bed?” you say after a moment, voice cracking.

Steve nods and gives your knee a gentle squeeze.

“Of course. And, hey, listen, we don’t have to have sex anytime soon, okay?”

“But—”

“No, seriously,” Steve says, shaking his head vehemently. “I mean, of course I like having sex with you. Probably too much.”

You snort and shake your head, a small smile pulling at the corners of your mouth.

“But you know I don’t mind waiting. Right?”

You nod.

“Yeah, I know.”

But as you lie awake, tossing and turning, your brain continues feeding you lie after lie, and you find yourself believing the opposite. Prude, tease. Bad girlfriend. Bad person.

🫀🫀🫀

The next morning, you, Steve, Gus, Jessica, and Rochelle work on a homecoming float for the club basketball team the boys are on.

It’s fun at first. The parking lot is filled with floats for all different student organizations. Someone is playing music a bit too loud, but the energy is electric.

It takes a turn when Steve rushes off with Gus to get more supplies.

While you’re kneeling by the float trying to staple tinsel trim around the edge, you hear Rochelle and Jessica whispering conspiratorially on the other side. They can’t see you due to a large papier mâché basketball blocking you from view.

You're awash with embarrassment, feeling warm head to toe, when you realize they’re talking about you.  

“You know what Mollie told me?” Rochelle said. “When she and Steve were hooking up last year, he called her Y/N, like, three times.”

Your heart shrinks. You didn’t know Steve had been involved with anyone while you were gone. In fact, he said the opposite.

“That’s kind of sweet though, when you think about it,” Jessica muses. “But I wonder what caused Steve and Y/N to break up and then get back together. I’ve never dreamed of breaking up with Gus.”

“I heard some other super freaky stuff about her,” Rochelle says. “My sorority sister, Tina, is from Hawkins too. Apparently, Y/N had, like, amnesia or some shit after that earthquake thing. And she was like missing.”

“Damn,” Jessica says. “That’s crazy. How’d she remember stuff and get back home?”

“Who gives a shit?” Rochelle scoffs. “That’s obviously a cover story. Tina said the real story is probably something much simpler. Like she ran away to become a stripper but couldn’t hack it because she doesn’t have a good body. And, well, we’ve seen that firsthand.”

Anger and shame courses through your veins, and you tug on the hem of your sweatshirt. You’re comforted only a miniscule amount when you hear Jessica come to your defense.

“Don’t be such a jerk. And we have no idea what really happened so stop making shit up, mkay?”

“I’m just repeating what I heard. But Tina’s right, her whole deal is so weird. I can’t believe she’s Steve’s girlfriend. He deserves better.”

Those words echo in your head. He deserves better. He deserves better. You’ve been thinking that a lot yourself lately.

You don’t care if Jessica and Rochelle see you when you toss your stapler onto the ground and stomp off.

“Oh, shit,” you hear Jessica say. “Nice going, Roche.”

“It’s not my fault! I didn’t know she was creeping around!”

As you beeline through the throngs of float-makers, you bump into Steve, holding a box of glittery something. He grins at you.

“Hey, where’s the fire?”

When he notices the grim look on your face, he sobers up.

“Whoa, what happened?”  

“Who’s Mollie?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

Steve pales. He swallows hard, grip on the box loosening. He gingerly sets it on the ground next to him and shrugs.

“No one.”

“Liar.”

Steve glances around before leading you away from the crowd to a secluded spot on the outskirts of the parking lot.

“She really was no one,” Steve repeats. “Just some girl I had a class with. I was lonely and she liked me, so we went out twice.”

“I heard Rochelle say you hooked up with her,” you say. You cross your arms and try to keep angry tears at bay. “You told me you didn’t find anybody else.”

“I didn’t!” Steve says, a little louder. He clears his throat. “I meant that. We almost hooked up, but I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”

You sigh and shake your head. You want to believe him so badly. But the voice in your head that’s been so cruel to you lately isn’t convinced.

“Do you still think about her?”

Steve scrunches up his face, wholly confused at your line of questioning.

“What? No, of course not. Like I said, we hung out twice, had one near-miss, and then never spoke again. Babe, is everything okay?”

He reaches a hand to your arm and you flinch away. Your action makes him frown deeper.

You rub your forehead.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you say. “Just tired.”

A beat. You think Steve’s going to accept your answer, until: “Why are you lying to me?”

“I’m not lying!” you say, irritation creeping into your tone. “I’m just tired. Okay, Steve?”

Steve fidgets from foot to foot. He’s starting to look as agitated as you feel. With an annoyingly calm, even voice, he says, “I think you’re not being honest.”

“And I think you should shut up,” you fire back, before you can stop yourself.

Steve’s face contorts into a frown, the line between his brows deepening.

“Whoa, what the hell?” he says. “Why are you being like this?”

“Because I just found out you lied about not being involved with someone while I was gone!”

Steve rubs his face with his hands, as if he’s trying to scrub away whatever he’s feeling. He takes a deep breath, another one, and then finally speaks.

“Y/N, I thought you were dead,” he says, voice strained. “You can’t seriously be jealous of me spending time with someone else because to my knowledge, I was never going to see you again.”

You know you should apologize for your outburst. Tell him about your insecurities, now dialed up to 1000 thanks to Rochelle’s comments. Rejoin his friends at the float like the normal girlfriend he probably wishes you were.

But instead, you find yourself voicing one of the fears that’s been swirling in your brain since June.

“It would be so much easier for you if that was still the case, right?” you ask, softly.

“Excuse me?” Steve asks.

“Do you ever regret it?” you ask. “Bringing me back?” He doesn’t react, doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. You clear your throat and, louder, add, “Because it would be so much simpler for you to date a girl like Mollie or Rochelle.”

“Jesus, Y/N,” Steve groans. “Don’t bring Rochelle into this.”

“Why not? She’s obviously obsessed with you!”

“Yeah?” Steve scoffs. “Well, I don’t like her. I like you.” He shakes his head, as if he’s short-circuiting, and corrects, “I love you!”

Too late. You already heard the Freudian slip of your worst nightmare. He doesn’t regard you in the same way he did before your so-called death. You’ve changed too much.

You shake your head vehemently.

“No,” you say. “No. You loved the girl I was before it all happened.”

“You’re still the same girl!”

“I’m not!” you shout. You’re so angry, so upset, so emotional, you can’t stop. You’re floating above your body and watching yourself speak when you say, “I’m not. She’s gone, and sometimes I wish you’d never brought me back so I wouldn’t feel like this.”

Steve goes still once more. When he finally replies, his voice is dangerously quiet: “How dare you say that.”

You hadn’t expected that. You’d expected him to swoop in with comforting platitudes. To hug you and promise it would all be okay. To truly hear the words you’re saying—the thoughts you’ve been too afraid to voice in therapy, thoughts you’ve sugarcoated in your mind to lessen that bitter feeling on your tongue when you finally speak them aloud.

“What?” you whisper. Your eyes sting, unshed tears collecting on your lash line.

“How dare you say that,” Steve says, shaking his head. He’s angrier than you’ve ever seen him. He runs a hand through his hair and barks out a laugh so hollow, you can practically hear the echo in his ribcage. “That’s so fucking selfish that you wish you were still down there. I was miserable without you. I didn’t want to go on. I didn’t think I could!”

He's not getting what you’re trying to say. You open your mouth to reply, to apologize, to try and fix things, but Steve continues.

“So for you to be so callous, to think so little of me, to think I’d rather date some vapid airhead just because it would be ‘simpler’? To think I somehow can’t love you anymore because of what you went through? That’s just…bullshit!”

You heave out a sob as tears roll down your cheeks. Steve’s expression morphs into one of guilt. He swallows hard.

“Y/N, I—”

“You don’t get to tell me my feelings are bullshit!” you snap. You sniffle and roughly wipe your tears away, before jabbing a finger into his chest and pressing in. “Ever since I’ve been back, it’s all about how everyone else feels about it. You and my parents are so much happier, and you seem to think I can snap back to how I was before and forget it all happened and be grateful that I survived. Well, I can’t!”

Despite your distance from the parade planning festivities, you see a few curious students glance in your direction. You can’t be bothered to care.

“I don’t know how to go on with life like normal after 15 months in that hell, and no one understands what I’m going through!” you yell. “No one has been through that! And I’m miserable and scared and anxious and I’m lying to my therapist week after week because I can’t even verbalize what I’m thinking without feeling like I’m losing my goddamn mind. So sorry if sometimes I wish all this would go away.”

Steve’s facial expression cracks your heart in seventeen pieces. He looks devastated and confused.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, somewhat cautiously. “You’re right. I’m not handling this well, not seeing it from your point of view. But this is the most you’ve expressed how you’re feeling about it all. For the past few months, I—I don’t know. I thought you were feeling okay.”

You sniffle again and shrug.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Y/N,” Steve says. He clears his throat. “This is good, I think. Well, no, it’s not good that we’re screaming at each other in the quad. But getting our feelings out is—”

“I want to go home,” you say, cutting him off.

Steve closes his eyes, sighs softly, and nods.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll drive you back to Hawkins tonight.”

“No, I want to go now,” you say, voice cracking as you try not to cry harder. “I want my mom to come get me.”

Hurt flashes on Steve’s features. “Babe, are you sure? I really don’t mind. I want to, actually. The drive will give us more of a chance to talk.”

But you’re too tired and overwhelmed to talk anymore. Steve understands, though his shoulders are slumped as the two of you walk back to his apartment.

He offers to pack your bag while you call your house. Your mom picks up on the second ring.

“Hello, Y/L/N residence.”

“Mom?” you sniff. “Can you come get me?”

“Oh, of course sweetie!” You hear the jingle of car keys. “Wait, are you crying? What’s wrong? Was it another nightmare?”

“I just don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Did you and Steve have a fight?”

“His friends were really mean,” you say quietly, deciding not to disclose that you indeed got in an argument with Steve. “This girl, Rochelle, said one of her friends from Hawkins is telling everyone I was a stripper.”

“Oh, don’t you listen to that.”

You can’t hold back tears as you begin to cry harder.

“How come everyone makes up those dumb rumors?” you say through sobs. “And if people on campus already know them, how much worse will it be if I’m a student here?!”

Your mom soothes you over the phone before promising to get there as quickly as possible. As you hang up the phone, Steve comes in from down the hall, frowning and carrying your now-packed duffel. He doesn’t even try to be subtle about his eavesdropping when he asks, “Why didn’t you tell me Rochelle said that to you?”

You shrug and look down at your feet.

Steve closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I keep replaying our conversation in my head,” he says, “and I feel like an ass.”

“You’re not, Steve.”

“No! I am. I absolutely am. You were honest and vulnerable, and I immediately got mad. I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you say flatly. Admittedly, you’re not sure if you forgive him yet. But you know you didn’t treat him well either, so you say, “I’m sorry too. I was insensitive. I know you had a hard time while I was gone—”

“But it’s nothing compared to what you were dealing with,” Steve says. He steps closer to you and intertwines your hands together. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?”

“My mom’s already on her way,” you say. “And you should rest up. Tomorrow’s the parade, and the homecoming game.”

“I don’t need to go to the game.”

“Steve—”

“I’d rather come back to Hawkins this weekend,” he continues. “Spend more time with you. Talk things through, you know? Maybe I can just ride with you and your mom, and Munson can bring me back Sunday.”

He’s sweet. But you aren’t sure how to tell him that you really, really don’t want to be around him right now. You don’t want to be around anyone, really.

You take a deep breath, gently drop his hands, and say, “I think I need some space.”

You can’t look Steve in the eye, but you hear the pain in his voice when he says, “Oh. Um, okay. Yeah. Of course. Space.”

You two sit in awkward silence while you wait for your mom to arrive. When she gets there, Steve continues to be a gentleman, carrying your bag for you and politely making small talk with your mom. He gives you a hug goodbye, but it doesn’t linger the way his hugs usually do.

As your mom drives away, you watch your boyfriend get smaller and smaller in the side mirror.

Before leaving, you promised him you’d call him that night.

You conveniently “forget” to do that.

He leaves a message at 9:37 p.m., asking you to call him back.

You don’t.

🫀🫀🫀

NOVEMBER 1987

“Hey, babe. It’s Steve. Again. I know we agreed on ‘space’ but I haven’t heard from you in three weeks…I don’t want to rush or smother you, but I’d really like to talk, even if it’s for, like, five minutes. So please call me back. I love you, Y/N.”

-

“Hey Y/N. Are you doing okay? Robin says she saw you and your mom at the store the other day and you just seemed kind of…out of it. To be honest, I’m worried about you. Listen, even if you don’t…even if we…even if you’ve decided you don’t want to be with me anymore, or something, I still care about you. And I’ll always be here for you, no matter what. Please call me. Bye. Love you.”

-

“Hi Y/N, I’m coming back to Hawkins for Thanksgiving. Can I come by after you and your parents have dinner? I want to check in. On how you’re doing, and on how you’re feeling about ‘us.’ Let me know, okay? Bye, Y/N.”

-

“Hey. I’m going to swing by your place after I’ve finished Thanksgiving dinner with the Buckleys. Robin told me you’ve been avoiding her too. And Eddie, and Jonathan. I know you’re going through a tough time, but don’t try to do it alone. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way last year. I’ll see you tonight, all right?” 

🫀🫀🫀

You’ve spent the past month and a half wallowing. All you really do is sleep, eat, shower, and take short walks around your neighborhood for exercise. Any time Steve calls the house phone, you tell your parents to let it ring and let it go to voicemail.

It’s shitty of you, but you aren’t sure how to dig yourself out of this hole that you’ve found yourself in. You’re still feeling rather undeserving of Steve.

So when he shows up on your doorstep on Thanksgiving, wearing that maroon sweater that you’ve always just adored, the first thing you do is apologize for your radio silence. Then, you offer him pumpkin pie.

“I won’t say no,” he says. “As long as you split it with me.”

While your parents cuddle on the couch and watch It’s A Wonderful Life, you and Steve sit on the kitchen counter and eat slices of pie with whipped cream.

For a few minutes, you exchange small talk and pleasantries. Then, Steve gets down to business.

“How have you been doing, really?” Steve asks.

“Fine. Just tired.”

“Y/N,” Steve says with a sigh. “Please just be honest with me.”

You suck in a breath.

“Okay. You want honesty? I’m having a really hard time.”

“I know,” Steve says gently. “And I want to help. Can you talk to me about what’s going on?”

You consider it. You consider wrenching your heart open for him and admitting all your fears and insecurities. But last time you broached this subject with Steve and tried to be wholly honest about what you were feeling, you didn’t explain it right and he took it the wrong way.

And you also hear what sounds like Rochelle’s voice in your mind: He deserves better. He deserves better.

You save yourself the trouble and say, “I need to get my shit together. And I’m not being a very good girlfriend while I do, so I think we need to break up.”

Despite your best efforts to stay strong, you feel tears coming on. Everything only worsens when you hear Steve whisper, “What?” 

He deserves better. He deserves better. He deserves better than you.

“I have to focus on myself right now,” you continue as the tears roll down your cheeks. You stab your pie with your fork and say, “I’m sorry. I love you so much—”

“I love you too, Y/N, so I—”

“—but I need to deal with this on my own. It’s not fair of me to treat you like this.” You clear your throat and add, “You deserve someone who can give you everything you want.”

“You’re what I want,” Steve says. You can’t look at him, but you get the impression that he’s tearing up too. “I mean, if this is really what you want, I’ll respect your decision completely, but I just have to know—is there anything I can do to change your mind?”

You don’t want to do this—

—but he deserves better.

“I’m sorry, but no.”

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Steve says after a beat. “Even if we aren’t together anymore, I’m still here for you. You know that, right?”

You nod, still decimating your pie slice with your fork.

“Okay, good.” He sniffles.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to keep apologizing.” 

“Sorry. Ah, I mean—”

Steve chuckles, despite everything. You two share an awkward hug goodbye before he leaves.

You stay in the kitchen and hear him wish your parents “Happy holidays.” As you hear the front door open and shut, as you hear his car turn on and drive away, you try to convince yourself this was the correct choice. That shutting him out means he’ll live a happier life without you.

The pit of emptiness like a chasm in your soul will go away eventually, right?

🫀🫀🫀

FEBRUARY 1988

It’s been 3 months since you broke up with Steve.

You decided to defer your U of I enrollment. Steve, being a good friend, calls a few days before the semester starts asking if you’d like help moving into your dorm, and you break the news to him. He understands but sounds disappointed. It makes you feel terrible.

But this is the right choice. You aren’t ready to be away from home, away from your parents, even if it’s just a couple hours away.

You start taking community college classes to fill your time and get some credits, along with working at Bradley’s Big Buy as a stocker. It’s mindless, monotonous work. It’s kind of perfect.

What isn’t so perfect is your therapist, Elaine. She’s nice enough. But she doesn’t seem to get it. You aren’t able to fully tell her what you went through, considering she knows nothing about the Upside Down, so she can’t really help you.

When you start opening up about the dark thoughts worming their way through your mind, Elaine advocates strongly and staunchly for putting yourself out there and making new friends to fill the void. You’re starting to wonder if you’re wasting your time shelling out $50 a week.

You do think a better social life would be good for you, so you invite Robin, Eddie, and Jonathan to come over to your place for a horror movie marathon. (Nancy would be invited too, if she wasn’t away at school.) You’ve rented a D-level slasher trilogy about a man in a hockey mask attacking pageant queens. It’s small potatoes compared to what you’ve actually been through.

Jonathan agrees, but both Robin and Eddie tell you they can’t make it. Robin because she’s got the flu. Eddie because he has band practice all afternoon and into the night.

It stings like a barb ripping you open when you swing by Melvald’s for cheap movie candy and spot the two of them across the street, laughing as they head into the Hawk with…Steve, who must be home from school for the weekend.

So they do want to have a movie night. Just with Steve and not you. Message received.

You wonder if Steve said something to sour you in their eyes. You thought the breakup was amicable. You know he was upset by it, but he respected your decision. And he doesn’t seem like the type to badmouth an ex, especially after all you’ve been through together.

But anxiety rolls through your nervous system the rest of the day. As you and Jonathan watch the crappy movies, you just feel numb.

“Jee-sus!” Jonathan yelps as the killer’s chainsaw hacks through someone’s limb.

He glances your way, eyebrows raising. “What? That didn’t scare you?”

You shrug. “I’ve seen worse.”

Jonathan’s brow furrows. He leans over and pauses the movie.

“Hey, is everything okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? We can watch something else. Or, if you’d rather be alone, I can head out.”

You pick at a loose thread on the pillow in your lap.

“Are Robin and Eddie mad at me?” you whisper.

“What?” Jonathan says with a laugh. “You’re, like, the nicest person in a fifty-mile radius. Why would they be mad at you?”

The old you was nice. The current you is moody. But Jonathan is also pretty moody, so maybe your moodiness is baseline in his eyes.

“They both said they couldn’t come tonight,” you continue, “but then I saw them just an hour ago in downtown Hawkins heading into the Hawk with Steve. Why else would they make up excuses not to come unless they were mad?”

Jonathan takes a long, slow sip of his grape soda and shrugs.

“It’s probably because they don’t want you to think they chose Steve over you in the breakup.”

“But that’s exactly what they did!”

“Maybe not,” Jonathan says. “Maybe they just made the plans with Steve before you invited us over and it’s easier to turn down your invitation than cancel on him.”

That’s a very logical way of looking at it, but it still stings feeling like you’ve lost two friends since you and Steve aren’t together anymore.

You and Jonathan continue watching, but his mom calls halfway through the second movie, forcing him to leave early—something about El using telekinesis to turn her bed into a bunk bed and it backfiring horribly.

You try to push your worries out of your mind, but paranoia takes a hold. As you toss and turn in your bed that night, clutching Lambchop for a semblance of comfort, your brain bullies you.

Robin and Eddie are pissed at you. Probably because you haven’t gone to any Corroded Coffin shows since you’ve been back. You’ve been a little preoccupied.

A little selfish, more like. It doesn’t matter what you’re going through. You should still support your friends.

But why? You don’t like drinking alcohol anymore because you don’t like feeling out of control. And the Hideout is the only place Corroded Coffin plays, and that place reeks of booze and cigarettes and bad decisions.

Maybe that’s why Eddie’s mad. Is Robin mad by proxy? Did Steve shit-talk you to her? How did he describe the events of the breakup?

Were you a bad girlfriend? Are you a bad friend? Bad person?

Yes. You’re a bad person.

🫀🫀🫀

You happen to run into Robin on the community college’s campus the following Monday. You can’t help but ask if she���s feeling better.

Her eyes widen and she plasters on a smile.

“O-oh, yeah!” she says. “I’m feeling loads better. Tons! Tons better.”

“Your sinus infection is gone?” you prompt, knowing full well she told you it was the flu.

“Yep! All gone. My sinuses are as healthy as can be. I feel like I could live to be 100!”

You exchange a few more pleasantries and shuffle off.

🫀🫀🫀

MARCH 1988

There’s a dark cloud hovering over your mind. Most days, you’re lethargic. You go to classes and go to work, and you do start going to the Hideout on Tuesday nights with Jonathan and Robin to watch Eddie play with his band.

But that’s the extent of your social life. You’re feeling lonely and drained.

Things take a turn for the worse in March. It was a cold, cold winter in Hawkins, and spring is shaping up to be warmer but just as gloomy. Really bad thunderstorms shake the windowpanes of your house most days, and the streaks of lightning remind you so much of the grayish-yellow Upside Down sky, it makes you sick.

You can’t help but find yourself thinking you want to disappear to escape it all. Not die, exactly. But fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. Maybe when you woke up, things would be better.

You try to explain what you’re feeling to Elaine the Therapist, and she doesn’t understand what you meant in the slightest.

“Have you gotten checked for narcolepsy?” she asks.

You give her a tight smile and say you’ll ask your doctor about it at your next checkup.

A bright spot is when Robin invites you to a party at her apartment. You forgot her and Eddie’s little white lie from a few weeks ago and RSVP yes.

The party is going well. You’re having a nice conversation with Jonathan and Eddie when Steve walks in, and he’s not alone.

Your heart sinks to your feet, through the floor, and all the way to the core of the earth when you see Steve is joined by Rochelle.

You don’t even hear any of the conversations happening around you. You quickly excuse yourself to the kitchen for a glass of water—and because you need to be alone.

You get about 15 seconds of a reprieve before Steve enters.

“Listen, it’s not what you think,” he says quickly.

“Hello to you too, Steve,” you say. You can’t even look him in the eye, choosing instead to study the ice cubes in your glass.

“I’m not here with Rochelle,” Steve continues. He runs a hand through his hair. “I mean, yes, she’s here. And I’m here. And we’re here together. But not together together! God, I’m not making any sense, am I?”

“None at all.”

“She needed a ride to her parents’ house for the weekend,” Steve explains. “She lives just forty-five minutes from here. But I guess they were out of town, and she didn’t have a key, so she’s staying with me. And she didn’t want to spend all day in my house alone, so—”

“She’s here,” you finish for him. You finally look him in the eye and force a smile. “That’s fine, Steve. You can hang out with whoever you want.”

“Trust me,” Steve snorts. “I’d rather not be hanging out with her. I’m just doing her a favor because she’s friends with Jessica and Gus.”

Before you can respond, Rochelle saunters into the kitchen. She smiles like a shark—all gums and teeth.

“Oh, it’s you!” she says. “Y/N! How have you been?”

“Fine,” you say politely. “How about you?”

“Oh, just great. Really great. Sad to not see you around campus, though. I thought you enrolled?”

She has the impressive capability of making everything single sentence sound like an insult.

“I’m going to community college instead,” you explain. “But I really should get back out there.”

You give Steve and Rochelle a wide berth before stepping back into the living room.

The rest of the party goes by fine. Except you can’t quite contain your rage watching Rochelle throw herself at Steve all afternoon.

She sits too close to him. She constantly whispers in his ear and giggles, like they’re sharing inside jokes and secrets. While Robin’s putting on a movie for everyone to watch, you swear you even see Rochelle put her hand on Steve’s thigh.

The only thing that makes you feel better is that Steve blocks every one of these advances. While Eddie regales you all with a Corroded Coffin storytime, you even notice Steve's slotted himself in between Robin and the wall, forcing Rochelle to stand off to the side near a potted plant.

When the party’s over, you wish Robin well and try to slip out unnoticed. Unfortunately, Steve has a terrible habit of noticing everything about you, and he follows you out.

“Hey, wait up!” he calls, jogging behind you as you speed walk to your car to avoid the sprinkling rain.

“Sorry, I have to go,” you say, struggling to unlock your car door.

Before you can get it unlocked and make your escape, Steve places a hand over the driver’s side door handle.

“Hold on,” he says. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“Well, I have to get home—”

“This’ll take five minutes,” Steve promises. He traces an X over his heart. “Cross my heart, hope to cry.”

You scrunch your nose in confusion. “It’s ‘die.’”

“Huh?”

“It’s ‘Cross my heart, hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye.’”

Steve’s eyes widen and jaw drops, affronted. “Jesus Christ,” he grumbles. “Why would anyone ever want to do that?”

“That’s the point!” you say, and you can’t help but laugh at the appalled look on his face. “You don’t want to do that, so you keep the promise.”

“Ah. Okay, well, I’ll be fast. I just want to see how you’ve been doing these past few months. I—I miss you, you know?”

You swallow hard. The rain’s starting to pick up now. You don’t want to wait too much longer to drive home, or else it’ll be too hard to see. And if you see lightning, you’ll probably have a panic attack behind the wheel, making you a danger to yourself and others.

“I miss you too,” you say. “But I really, really need to get home now.”

You think of leaving it at that, but your heart feels as sad as the look on his face, so you add, “But you can come by my house later tonight and we can talk? Uh, how’s 8 sound?”

Steve’s face brightens. He gives you that smile that always makes your stomach do a backflip.

“I’d like that,” he says.

You smile back and open your car door. Before stepping in, you turn to him and say, “Do not bring Rochelle.”

“Cross my whatever and hope to who-gives-a-shit!” Steve says as he walks backward away from your car. You give him a small wave, which he returns, before getting in the car and driving off.

As you suspected, the drive home is much, much too anxiety-inducing. Thunder seems to shake the whole frame of the car as you drive across town. Rain falls in pails, as if angels are taking buckets and throwing them on your car specifically. Your windshield wipers can barely keep up, and cars are honking and passing you since your fear is causing you to drive about ten under the speed limit.

You try not to let that bother you as your hands grip the wheel for dear life, the muscles from your fingers up to your shoulders impossibly tense. There’s a reason your mom drove you everywhere last summer and fall. Getting back into the habit of operating a motor vehicle isn’t easy, and everything seems to scare you now.

Despite everything, the drive is going fine—until one of the cars passing you cuts a little too close as they swerve back into the right lane. They almost clip your front bumper, which causes you to panic and swerve off the road near the now defunct trailer park.

Your tires squeak on the wet grass and you slam on your breaks, heart pounding. Shuddery breaths draw in, out. In, out. You try and collect yourself and turn your left turn signal on to merge back onto the main road. However, something gray out of the corner of your eye causes you to whip your head in the direction of the trailer park.

This is where you died and were resurrected—well, the version of this in the Upside Down. In Hawkins, the area is cordoned off. No one can live there anymore, thanks to the big cracks in the earth. Once gates, they were now sealed, but they upended some trailers and tore others in two.

You see a flash of movement between two broken trailers. The gates are supposed to be closed, and there aren’t supposed to be Upside Down creatures in Hawkins anymore, but you can’t help but wonder alternatives. You feel compelled to check it out. 

You turn off your car’s ignition, grab the flashlight from your glove box, and clamor out, ducking under the “CAUTION” tape and jogging into the park. You squint in the rain, the beam of your flashlight scanning the surrounding area. You step over uneven earth, wondering if you’re wasting your time and should just—

“GRRRRRROWWWLLLL!!!!!”

You whip around and gasp. The gray creature you saw wasn’t a demo-creature, but a mangy, stray dog with muddy fur. It snaps its jaws and you see three little puppies cowering under a bush behind it.

An overprotective mama dog wouldn’t have scared you two years ago. You would’ve known exactly how to handle the situation without freaking out. But now, your fear spikes and you remember the few run-ins with hungry demodogs you had in the Upside Down. The dog is blocking your way back to your car, so you turn on your heel and run in the opposite direction, toward the imposing forest.

You can’t think clearly. Your mind is on fire. All you can think is Danger! Danger! Danger! And it’s keeping you from making any rational decisions.

You swear you hear the dog chasing behind you, snarling and ready to attack. You zig-zag between trees and glance behind to see if you really are being chased.

You lose your footing on slick mud, left ankle twisting painfully as you fall to the ground. Your flashlight skitters out of your grasp and rolls away, blinking out.

Now, you’re stuck in the rain, in the dark, with an injured ankle and no flashlight. Thankfully, the dog wasn’t following. But you feel powerless, hoping you can muster any survival instincts from your time in the Upside Down to make your way back to safety.

🫀🫀🫀

At 7:58 p.m., Steve parks outside your house.

He’s more nervous than he needs to be. He tries to remember that this isn’t a visit to win you back, as much as he wishes it was. No, he’s respecting your decision. But he’s glad he has the chance to just talk to you.

After you dumped him, he spent way too much time overanalyzing that fight you two had in October. It solidified the fact that he was an ass, completely misunderstanding you and getting mad for no good fucking reason.

Admittedly, he was tempted to throw away all his progress and drink away his misery. But he didn’t, channeling that energy toward more productive things. His mind is clearer than it was, and he’s going to make it right this time. Steve wants to check on you, the way his friends checked on him while he was having a tough time. Their support was invaluable.

Steve rings your doorbell, shaking out his umbrella.

The front door swings open. Your father looks expectant, before he frowns.

“Steve, hello,” your father says. “Is Y/N with you?”

Steve’s brow furrows. “Uh, no,” he says. “I’m supposed to meet her here.”

Your father curses and puts his head in his hands.

“Is it her?” your mother says, rushing around the corner with the cordless phone tucked under her shoulder. When she sees Steve, her shoulders slump. She speaks into the phone, “Hopper, she’s still not back.”

“What’s going on?” Steve asks, heart sinking. “Y/N’s missing?”

“She never came back from Robin’s party,” your father says, stepping aside to let Steve in. “You saw her leave, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve says with a nod. His mouth feels very, very dry.

Your mother continues murmuring on the phone with Hopper, and your father continues grilling Steve: “How was she? Did she seem upset?”

“A little nervous, maybe,” Steve says. He swallows hard. “I, uh, I think she was freaked out by the storm.”

You should’ve driven her home, Steve thinks. You idiot. If something happens to her, it’ll be your fault.

“She’s been so quiet lately,” your father says, voice strained. He clears his throat. “And so jumpy. But she said she wanted to start driving again. We thought she was getting better…”

Your father looks like he’s beside himself. Steve is unsure what to say to make things right.

Your mother hangs up the phone and sighs. “Hopper’s going to go look for her,” she says. She chokes out a sob. “Oh, Roger…she’s been so down lately. What if she…”

“Let’s not speculate,” your father says firmly, though he looks anxious about the possibilities.

Your parents decide to drive around looking for you, and Steve joins the search in his own car as well. He can’t sit idly by knowing you’re out there, possibly in distress, possibly in danger.

🫀🫀🫀

While you’re sitting against a tree trunk trying to shield yourself from the rain, there’s a morbid part of you that’s okay with this.

You wanted something bad to happen. You wanted to be in some kind of distress, because you being hurt means people have to care about you. Right? They have to really, truly see that you’ve been struggling but haven’t been able to ask for proper help.

You snap yourself out of that thought process, trying to remind yourself that people do care about you. But it’s hard to feel that way when you’ve put so much distance between yourself and the people you love.

You aren’t sure how long you sit in the rain having a pity party, watching your swollen ankle get bigger and bigger. You need to ice it and elevate it. And anytime longer in this rain, you’ll catch a cold.

So, you crawl on your hands and knees and find as sturdy a branch as you can on the forest floor. You use it as a pseudo walking stick to help you hobble back toward the trailer park. You know the way, thanks to your time traversing the forest daily in the Upside Down.

As you get closer to the break in the trees, you hear people calling for you. You shuffle there faster.

“I’m here!” you yell, stumbling through the tree line. “I’m here!”

It’s Chief Powell and Hopper, and they look relieved to see you. Officer Callahan and an animal control worker are trying to coax the mama dog and her three pups into crates.

“What happened, kid?” Hopper asks, sitting with you in the backseat of Powell’s truck while the other man radios for an ambulance and a tow truck for your car. The usual gruff timbre to Hopper's voice has a softened edge to it today, like he can sense your emotional fragility.

“Some jerk pushed me off the road. And I thought I saw…I—listen, the mud made the dog’s fur look gray, and I thought it was—”

“One of these hellhounds?”

You nod.

“I’m not sure if you realize this,” Hopper says. “But it’s been two years to the day since you…you know.”

You swallow hard.

“I didn’t remember,” you admit. “I mean, I knew the anniversary was coming up soon, I just…”

“We were all worried you…did something,” Hopper continues cautiously.

“I wouldn’t,” you say, much too quickly. “I mean, I feel like shit a lot of the time, but…no. I wouldn’t.”

Hopper nods, eyeing you. He doesn’t quite look convinced.

When the ambulance arrives, he rides with you to the hospital. Then, your parents meet you at the ER, while a doctor looks over your ankle.

It’s sprained, but not broken, thankfully. They send you home with a brace, some crutches, painkillers, and instructions to elevate and ice.

The whole drive home, your parents give you a speech about how much they love you and how they want to know how you’re doing, and that if you ever feel low, to talk to them because they can help. Normally, that kind of thing would annoy you, but after today—the fear of seeing what you thought was a demodog, of being back in the wilderness by yourself, even just for a few hours—you appreciate the gesture.

It's after midnight when you get home, and the rain has finally let up. Your dad helps you up the porch stairs, leaning the side with your bad leg against him the whole way. You almost don’t notice the note tacked to the front door until your mom points it out.

It has your name on it. You open it. Parts of it have been scratched out, but you can still read it all.

Hey, Y/N. I was driving around looking for you when Hopper found me. I’m so glad to hear that you’re going to be okay.

I’ll swing by tomorrow to chat, if you’re still up for it. If not, no worries. I know it’s a tough time. I just want you to know that I miss you I care about you more than you know I’m here.

-Steve

🫀🫀🫀

When Steve comes by the next day, he’s not alone.

You’re surprised to see him and Max Mayfield standing on your porch.

“Uh, hello!” you say. “How are you, Max?”

“Pretty good,” she says, “now that Steve is taking us for ice cream.”

You raise your eyebrows and adjust your stance on your crutches.

“Oh!” you say. You look to Steve. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Everything about his posture is tense, nervous. You wonder if this is an intervention or something—if you’ll arrive at the ice cream shop and be bombarded by the rest of your friends and a licensed professional promising a “safe space.”

You tell your parents where you’re going, promising a million times that you’ll be careful, and hobble down the porch steps to Steve’s waiting car. He’s a gentleman, one hand hovering behind your back and ready to catch you if you fall.

Max lets you have the passenger seat, likely due to your injury. On the ride over, you consider (politely) asking what she’s doing there, as you expected this conversation would be about the nature of your and Steve’s relationship.

A part of you deep, deep down had hoped he would beg you to take him back. A part of you deeper down felt selfish for that, but it was what you wanted.

You made a huge mistake letting him go.

Steve ends up taking you both to Sonic, pulling into one of the parking spots and pressing the “Order” button. Max leans up from the backseat, sticking her head between the two front seats, and rattles off a complicated order of hot dogs, fries, slushies, and ice cream into the speaker.

“I thought this was just ice cream,” you say with an eyebrow raised.

Max smirks.

“Moneybags Harrington is paying,” she says, patting him on the shoulder.

“I resent that,” Steve grouses. But there’s a sparkle in his eye.

When the food comes, Steve divvies it up amongst the three of you. However, he quickly comes up with a shoddy excuse to step out of the car—something about the fries being a medium instead of a large.

Max climbs over the center console to settle in the driver’s seat.

You aren’t sure what to expect when you’re alone with Max, but it’s definitely not, “Dying and coming back really sucks, doesn’t it?”

Your burger immediately tastes like sandpaper. “Oh, let’s not talk about that,” you say. “Let’s talk about fun things. Have you learned any new skate tricks recently?”

“Don’t deflect,” Max says, waving a french fry at you for emphasis. “Steve said you were having a hard time because no one could relate to you, and I’m probably the only person in the world who can.”

She’s not wrong. After your return to the right side of the universe, you learned that Max woke up from her coma, completely healed, after you killed Vecna and the gates closed. You hadn’t thought about how the two of you had similar, paralleled experiences.

“It does suck,” you say quietly, swirling your spoon around in your ice cream cup. “And I kind of feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“For me, it was a lot of anger,” Max says. She fidgets with her own food as she continues. “I couldn’t understand people’s priorities anymore. Like, what do you mean you’re worried about a chem test, Dustin? A few months ago, the world almost ended!”

“I totally get that,” you say, and your heart already feels lighter. “And my parents don’t understand what really happened, so they just don’t get me at all. Why I get so scared, so angry. So jumpy. It makes me feel like I’m a freak in their eyes.”

“I feel like my mom doesn’t even see me anymore,” Max says. She clears her throat and you catch a glimpse of tears gathering on her lash line before she roughly wipes them away. “Like to her, I’m a ghost.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” you say. She scoffs.

“And there’s another annoying thing,” Max says. “The empty platitudes to make us feel better. That shit doesn’t fix anything!”

You’re not offended by her outburst, because you honestly agree. The two of you lament a bit longer, and by the end of the conversation, you’re feeling on top of the world. Sure, nothing is really fixed. But you finally realize that you have a kindred spirit in all this.

You and Max make a plan to do things together more often. You’re seeing her as a de facto little sister already, and you’re hopeful that your planned meetings will be just as beneficial for her as they are for you.

Steve comes back after what seems like a millennium, shooing Max back to the backseat.

“Took you long enough!” she says.

He just smiles.

🫀🫀🫀

JUNE 1988

It’s the first day of summer.

And it’s been a year to the day since you returned.

You expect to feel more anxious than you do. Instead, you feel peaceful.

You’re doing a lot better, genuinely. You found a new therapist (sorry, Elaine) and since it’s someone who worked with Dr. Owens, you’re able to spill all the gory details of your past and your trauma. Healing isn’t easy, but you feel yourself slowly sewing yourself back together again.

You and Max stick to your word and take weekly trips to Sonic. You talk about the heavy stuff, but also the normal life stuff. You sometimes have guests. This past week, Lucas and Mike tagged along, arguing the whole time about what should happen in the Ghostbusters sequel that’s supposed to release next year.

You and Steve…ah, what’s there to say. You want him back, but you imploded the relationship and it feels selfish to waltz up to him and say, “Hey, hot stuff. Wanna get back together?”

However, you’ve officially enrolled for the fall semester at U of I. While he’s home from Hawkins for summer break, under the guise of asking for tips about campus life, you spend a lot of time with him.

You also spend time in the library, doing some studying to catch up before you start your classes in the fall. Your high school graduation was a lifetime ago. Literally.

Steve, Robin, and Jonathan join you for those summertime study sessions, although Jonathan and Robin usually bicker over the music theory books and Steve doesn’t get much done except for doodling in his notebook. But sometimes you catch him staring at you, and then his cheeks flush pink in that adorable way that makes you want to do something stupid, like beg him to take you back.

If only you knew if he really felt the same…

…which you find out he does, during the summer solstice.

You’re at the county fair with your friends, but they’ve all run off to watch the fireworks, so it’s just you and Steve at a picnic table downing sodas and cotton candy.

Your fingers wrap around the cool glass of a now-empty Coke bottle, and you place it on the tabletop. You attempt to look nonchalant as you spin it slowly.

Once it’s picked up momentum, you let it go, watching it spin a few more times before stopping it with your hand when the bottle neck points at Steve.

“It’s you,” you whisper, attempting to recreate that magical first kiss moment from years and years ago. You clear your throat at Steve’s dumbfounded expression. “Ah, sorry. You don’t have to kiss me. I was just…”

To your pleasant surprise, Steve’s face splits into a grin. “Well, gee, Y/N,” he says. “If you wanted to kiss me that bad, you could’ve just said so.”

A million canaries titter a love song in your heart as he leans forward.

The two of you kiss, for the first time in a long time.

The great divide in your soul is starting to seal. And everything feels right.

THE END

🫀🫀🫀

a/n please lmk what you thought 🩵

tags; @aloneinthehellfire @starry-eyed-steve @hollandweather @wisdomssdaughterr @huffledor-able541 @springautumn

@sunshinesteviee @curiositydooropened @crappymixtape

[lesbianrobin]

you were warm when everything was cold

5,470 words

lucas/max, steve/eddie, lucas-centric

Lucas can't stop staring.

“Whaddya think?” Eddie twirls, showing off every angle of his borrowed letterman jacket with Harrington embroidered across the back. “So, Harrington? Gonna take me to the prom?”

Steve laughs, taking Eddie's outstretched hand and spinning him around again. “What, are we going steady?”

Eddie gasps. “Why, Steve, what kind of girl do you take me for? Of course we're going steady, I don't just go parking in cars with any old boy!”

Steve dissolves into laughter, pulling Eddie close by his belt loops and resting his forehead on his shoulder until the laughter subsides. Eddie runs his hands through Steve's hair aimlessly, playing with the strands, and shit, Lucas needs to look away, but he just can't.

“It looks good on you,” Steve says, so low that Lucas can barely make it out. He raises his head from Eddie's shoulder, leans in close so their foreheads are pressed together.

“Would you be mad if I added a few patches?”

“You can add patches if I can fix up the rips in your jacket.”

Eddie frowns. “Hey, I earned those rips.”

“And I earned my letterman.”

Eddie hums. “You'd make a good housewife.”

“How's that?”

“Well, you like to sew.”

“It's a basic life skill!”

“That you often practice for fun. You do all the cooking, you look after the kids, you love to clean…”

Steve clicks his tongue. “Only one problem there, Munson.”

Eddie raises his eyebrows. He's doing a terrible job of hiding his smile. “Oh really? What's that?”

Steve lightly grabs Eddie by the front of his jacket. “I'm not doing all that for a bum.” He pushes Eddie back a little just to pull him back in, knocking their foreheads together.

Eddie gives up on hiding his smile. “Oh, a bum?”

“That’s right. I need a man with a good job. Steady paycheck.”

“I provide.”

“You think I'm gonna raise children with a drug dealer?”

Eddie laughs, shakes his head, leans even closer to Steve, and—Okay, yeah, Lucas has gotta look away. He turns back to the pile of clothes he and Max have been sorting through.

Max is looking right at him, single eyebrow raised. Lucas’s stomach drops. “What?”

Max shrugs innocently, looking down to the stack of clothes in her lap like nothing happened. “Nothing. You like this?” She holds up a dark blue turtleneck sweater.

“Uh, for me or for you?”

“You, I can’t stand stuff around my neck like that.”

It does look soft. “I’ll try it.”

Steve apparently has an infinite abyss for a closet. Every time Lucas thinks Steve must have brought down the last of it, there’s another box, another armful of sweaters and t-shirts and polo shirts that Steve doesn’t need anymore even though they’re functionally indistinguishable from the stuff he wears every day. He’s got a lot of jackets, too, and Max has already claimed three for herself while Lucas has yet to snag one. Probably because he’s been distracted from their treasure hunt by… Well. He’s not sure what.

There’s something about watching Steve and Eddie that makes his chest ache, just a little bit. Something that feels like it’s just out of reach, like if he could just jump an inch higher he could grasp it and know what it is, have a name for it, figure out what feels like it’s missing with Max. He never felt like something was missing with Max before. She was perfect. She is perfect! Like, sure, not actually perfect, because nobody’s actually perfect, but she’s perfect for him just like he hopes he’s perfect for her, and they’re perfect together.

Maybe Lucas is overcompensating.

Max has been more present lately. More herself. Honestly, if anything, she’s more herself than ever. Vecna gave her this… confidence, sort of. Sureness in herself. Like, she just has this aura now, like she’s been to hell and personally kicked the devil in the nuts, and even though he knows it’s because she did essentially go through hell and personally kick the devil in the nuts, Lucas still kind of loves it. It’s like he’s dating the actual Max Max, or Ripley from Alien.

And yet. Even though Max isn’t hiding anymore, even though they talk now, even though their relationship is objectively better than ever, sometimes Lucas is just a little bit sad.

—

Movie nights are becoming worryingly essential to Lucas's mental wellbeing.

It doesn't have much of anything to do with the movies. It's how he feels safe surrounded by all of his friends, how the darkness forms a blanket to block out the rest of the world. Everyone that matters is right there in the glow of the TV. He knows they're all safe.

Right now, half of them are asleep.

Erica conked out early. So did Robin, who's curled up into a little ball and snoring lightly against Steve. Steve is awake, but Eddie is asleep in his lap, Steve's arms around his waist and chin resting on his shoulder. Dustin is awake, but he keeps jerking his head suddenly, like he's trying to keep himself up, and Lucas figures it's just a matter of time before he's out, too.

Max is awake. She's lying on him, and Lucas knows from experience that his arm is going to fall asleep pretty soon if she doesn't move, but what kind of guy asks his girlfriend to get off of him? Maybe a guy who doesn't even like girls.

But he definitely likes girls. Like, that's not even remotely up for debate, and it's not some deep-seated repression thing, it's just the truth. He loves when Max lays on him, up until the point where his arm gets numb and tingly. So what gives? What's the problem?

Lucas closes his eyes. He tries to picture Max with short hair, although Eddie's hair is long, and El's is short, so maybe that doesn't mean anything. He imagines her with a sharper jaw, although Dustin's jawline is soft, and Nancy's is sharp, so that probably doesn't mean much either. He imagines a Max with broader shoulders, maybe an inch or so taller than him, a Max he has to lean up to kiss, a Max with more than just peach fuzz on her upper lip.

He's not particularly into it, but he's not repulsed, either. Franken-Max is still beautiful. Handsome. Lucas still loves him. But that's a bad example, probably, because he already has feelings for Max, and changing some superficial stuff doesn't change the feelings. Who's a hot guy celebrity? Max likes Ralph Macchio. When he thinks about Ralph Macchio, though, all Lucas really feels is jealousy, maybe a little bit of disdain. So he thinks of Han Solo. Lando Calrissian. Luke Skywalker. They aren't bad-looking, sure, but Lucas doesn't feel too strongly about any of them, appearance-wise. Maybe he just can't find guys in movies hot.

His mind drifts, as it often has lately, to Steve and Eddie. It's not the way they look that has Lucas obsessing over them. He knew Steve and Eddie both long before they were Steve-and-Eddie, and he never had this kind of fixation on either of them before. Well, sure, maybe he's spent some time looking at Steve's arms, but that was more of an athletic inspiration thing than anything else. What is it about the two of them together that's so fascinating?

So many little scenes are burned into Lucas's brain. Eddie holding the door for Steve, calling him sweetheart and babydoll and a thousand other little nicknames that make Lucas's face and ears go hot. Steve carrying Eddie piggyback through the rain because Eddie was wearing those ratty old Converse with the floppy sole and Steve was worried that if he stepped in a puddle he'd get frostbite or trench foot. The two of them sharing clothes, wearing each other's jackets. The way they move, how sometimes when the radio's on they'll dance, and first Eddie's the girl, and then Steve's the girl, and neither of them is actually a girl, and it doesn't even matter, it's all just whatever's fun in the moment, whatever makes them feel good, and holy shit. Oh, shit. Oh, God.

Lucas wants to fall asleep during movie night in Max's lap. He wants her to drape her jacket over his shoulders when he shivers. He wants her to put her arm around him, hold him like he's precious. He wants Max to want all of that, too.

His arm feels numb. If Lucas were a girl, or if Max were a boy, he'd ask if they could switch places. But he isn't, and she isn't, and what kind of guy asks his girlfriend to get off of him so he can use her as a pillow instead? Lucas isn't sure if there's a word for a guy like that. If there is, it probably isn't very nice.

So he lets his arm go numb. He tries not to look at Eddie, at the way he nuzzles into Steve's chest and Steve just holds him closer.

“Hey,” Max whispers in his ear. Lucas jerks a little in surprise and she huffs out a laugh. “You okay?”

“What?”

“You've been spacey lately,” she murmurs, “Usually you'd be trying to figure out the logistics of all the Muppet action.”

She's not wrong. Lucas is fascinated by how they make the Muppets ride bikes and stuff. There must be a lot of wires and people involved.

“Everyone's asleep,” Lucas whispers back, “Didn't want to talk. You know Erica hasn't been getting much sleep lately, didn't wanna mess it up.”

Max shifts, pulling Lucas' arm around her shoulders so she can snuggle into his side. It's a bit better, but now he's gotta endure the pins and needles phase.

“You're sweet.”

He can almost hear it, sweetheart like how Eddie says to Steve, but that isn't Max's style and it's silly of him to even think about it. It's not like he wants her to change. It's just nice to imagine a world where none of the gender shit really matters and they can be like Steve and Eddie, and Lucas can be held and feel safe because the real-life Ripley's got his back.

God, he's pathetic. Lucas sighs, flexing his arm to encourage that terrible tingling to run its course. He has an amazing girlfriend and he's whining about nothing. Well, whining to himself. In his head. It still counts. It's still total pussy behavior.

Lucas pulls Max closer, kisses the top of her head. He can feel her head turn to look up at him, but he keeps his gaze leveled at the TV, and she doesn't say anything. They're fine. He and Max are fine.

—

“You know you can talk to me, right?”

“Huh?”

Max turns her head sideways to take a bite out of her hot dog. It's cute. She always gets ketchup and mustard smeared on her nose if she just bites straight into it.

“It goes both ways,” she says, chewing, and it should be gross, but it's not, really, because it's Max. She finishes chewing and swallows before she opens her mouth again. “I'm your friend before I'm your girlfriend.”

“You got some…” Lucas picks up a napkin from the picnic table, leaning forward to wipe a smudge of ketchup off the corner of her mouth. He kisses her, quick, because he's there anyway, and she smiles into it before shoving him away.

“Nice try. You gonna answer me?”

“Answer what?”

Her smile fades. It's replaced by a look of concern that makes Lucas feel nauseous.

“You can talk to me. You know that. Right?”

"Right." Lucas takes a sip of his Coke, just for something to do with his hands.

“I'm not…” Max looks down, sighing before she meets his eyes again. “I'm doing better. I can… you don't have to be okay all the time, you know? You can tell me things. You can tell me anything.”

God, his chest aches. Lucas reaches out and takes her hand.

“I know,” he assures her. “I know.”

He hasn't seen Max look this deeply sad in a while. She looks down and lifts their entwined hands, pressing a kiss to the back of his knuckles, and his heart flutters.

“Okay,” she says. She lowers their hands, drops his, and picks up what's left of her hot dog.

As she tilts her head to the side and gets mustard on her cheek, Lucas gets the distinct impression that she doesn't believe him.

—

When did he start spending so much time around Steve and Eddie?

It sort of makes sense. He used to spend a small amount of time with Eddie, a moderate amount of time with Steve, and then they all went through some shit and bonded and Lucas's Eddie time got bumped up to moderate, and then Steve and Eddie became an annoyingly adorable package deal, and now Lucas can't escape them. He's a little pissed, honestly. Fuck them for being gay and in love and equal and shit. Ruining his life. Lucas has never really been the type to envy other people's happiness, and he feels like maybe Steve and Eddie are making him a worse person. Before, he always figured that if his friends are happy, then he's happy, and that's it.

Upon further reflection, though, it occurs to Lucas that perhaps he just never had friends with much of anything to envy.

“You look adorable, sweetheart,” Eddie states out of nowhere, and some small part of Lucas still expects Steve, with his jungle of chest hair and unreasonably large biceps and many years of womanizing, to shove Eddie away, to reject the sweet kiss Eddie presses to his cheek, but he doesn't. Of course he doesn't.

Lucas suddenly recalls the wild look in Steve's eye, the ferocity in his voice, the strength with which he batted the demodogs away back in the junkyard. It feels like so long ago.

Steve does sigh a little. When Eddie tries to move away, Steve tugs him to his side and kisses the mass of curls on his head. The vibe is kinda weird today. Steve seems… off. So does Eddie, but Eddie is so perpetually strange and erratic that Lucas could just be making shit up.

“Okay, okay,” Robin says, more to herself than anyone around her, “I think this is it? Yeah, this is…” She squints at the binder in her hand. “Okay, yeah!”

She hands over the impressively large binder to Steve and Eddie, who each hold one side so that it'll stay open and Robin can read her sheet music. Robin raises her trumpet to her lips. She pauses.

“Just remember, this is, like, totally unofficial, and I'm only playing one part, so it—”

Mike groans. “Oh my god, just play it.”

Nancy flicks his ear. He bats her hand away.

Robin waves Nancy off just before she delivers what looks like a devastating smack to the back of Mike's head. “No, he's—yeah, I'm gonna play it.”

She raises her trumpet, takes a deep breath, and then Lucas is hearing an incredibly loud rendition of the Star Wars theme reverberating through Mike's basement. It's honestly, like, really impressive. When Robin finishes, Lucas claps and whistles, and Mike says, "Holy shit, that was awesome," and Dustin and Nancy cheer too, and Robin's bashful smile warms Lucas's chest.

“Just imagine it with, like, a bunch of other trumpets and trombones and a tuba and some other horns and I think there's, like, piano and synthesizer and maybe a timpani too, but I think it sounds okay just with the trumpet. I mean, nowhere near as good, but you can, like, recognize it, you know?”

Robin's concert continues. This was supposed to be a big group study session, but Lucas doesn't mind the delay. Steve doesn't even need to study, he's just here because he's Robin's ride, so he'd probably say something if it was a problem. She plays Fly Me To The Moon and a few others that Lucas vaguely recognizes. Eventually, Robin tires, packing the trumpet away and condemning them all to hell.

“This shit sucks,” Dustin mutters, flipping a flashcard back and forth without looking at it.

Mike sighs his agreement.

Lucas shrugs. “At least we're not Eddie.”

All three of them glance over to where Nancy and Robin have been drilling Eddie for the past hour, only to find that he's nowhere to be seen.

“Huh. Guess he had enough.” Mike sounds jealous.

“I'm gonna go to the bathroom,” Lucas says, “Do me a favor and kill me when I get back.”

“Kill yourself,” Mike says.

“Don't worry, I'll kill you,” Dustin says supportively, “I'm a real friend.”

“Thanks.”

Lucas leaps over the coffee table to avoid disturbing the pile of backpacks and textbooks on the floor. He takes the steps two at a time, enjoying the chance to stretch his legs after an afternoon of sitting on Mike's couch. When he gets to the bathroom, the door is closed, and he reaches for the handle but freezes when he hears a voice.

“...didn't mean it like that,” Eddie says.

Lucas puts his hand down, but he inches closer to the door, just shy of pressing his ear up against the wood.

“I know, I already said it's fine.” Steve sounds tired.

“But it's clearly not because you're upset.”

“I'll get over it. You had a point.”

“Well, yeah, but I was being a total dick about it.”

“You know I don't mind a dick with… wait. Wait, I meant… uh, I'm used to your… shit.”

“You're used to getting dick from me? Or… uh, you don't mind a dick when it's mine?”

Steve snaps his fingers. “Yes! Yeah, those. Ugh, you're a genius.”

“No,” Eddie whines, “Don't be nice to me right now, I feel evil.”

“Ed, it's literally fine. You're right, it doesn't matter if I look perfect every time I walk outside.”

“But you do, that was my point, you don't need to worry about—”

“Eddie. Let it go. It's fine. I'm fine.”

“Can I just… Okay, I know this morning it seemed like I was just being an asshole because you were making us late with your hair stuff, but can I just explain what I meant to say?”

Steve sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, go for it.”

“I just… I see you freaking out all the time about how you look, and what people think of you, and it's not that I think it's dumb, because I can understand wanting to feel confident and wanting people to accept you, but the thing is that you don't have to do that. You don't have to. You are the kindest, sexiest, most badass person I know, and that's not something you have to put on for other people, it's just who you are. So it drives me crazy to see you driving yourself crazy over who thinks you're a loser and who thinks you're a douchebag and all of that, because not only does it not matter at all what some random assholes think of you, but, like, when you're just yourself? When you're just being yourself, Steve, everyone falls in love with you, that's how I fell in love with you, and it breaks my fucking heart when you feel like you need to put on some kind of act or have perfect hair or whatever for people to like you, because you don't.”

Silence. Lucas waits, afraid that somehow they realized he was listening, but then Steve speaks, his voice thick with emotion.

“You love me?”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes immediately. “Yeah, I hadn't mentioned?”

“Mm, no, no, I think I'd remember if you—”

“You sure? You forget things a lot, you know—”

“Oh, shut up, I love you.”

“Ardently?”

“If that means a whole lot.”

“More or less. Means passionately. It's, uh…” Lucas can hear the embarrassment in Eddie's voice. He doesn't think he's ever seen Eddie embarrassed before. “It's from Pride and Prejudice.”

Steve laughs. “God, I love you. Then yes, Eddie Munson, I love you ardently.”

“And I you, Steve Harrington,” Eddie says, with a tinge of that regality he uses for upper-crust NPCs, but it sounds sincere at the same time, nothing about it even remotely artificial. “I love and admire you ardently.”

Lucas backs away from the door. His head feels kinda… buzzy, as he walks to the upstairs bathroom. He shouldn't have been listening in. That was a private moment, seemingly an important one, but Lucas has terrible impulse control lately and he has that feeling again, that one like he's reaching up for something that's barely out of reach, his fingers brushing it when he jumps, but he just can't quite jump high enough to get his hand around it and bring it down to his level.

When he gets back downstairs after his overly long bathroom break, he says he's feeling sick and heads home early. Steve seems concerned, but even as he asks if Lucas needs anything, he has this air about him, like he'd float right off the ground if his shoes weren't weighing him down. It's been a long time since Lucas felt like that.

He goes home. He switches out his jeans for sweatpants. He lays in bed, he stares at the ceiling, and he wonders.

Steve has kind of been, like, the pinnacle of being a man to Lucas these past few years. He's cool. He's strong. He's brave. He always goes in first, always comes out last, always puts himself between the people he loves and the source of danger, and Lucas wants to be like that. He's always tried to be a good friend, to listen and empathize and help when he could, but once the world shifted and suddenly bullies weren't the biggest threat in everyone's lives, he was left reeling.

He can still remember fumbling with his wrist rocket, shooting rocks at the Demogorgon because there was nothing else he could do, and he remembers the dawning realization that he was going to fail, and that his friends were going to die, and that it was going to be because he wasn't strong enough.

Steve fought off the Demogorgon.

He had a bat, yeah, and a lot more height and muscle than Lucas, but still. He did it. And if he could do it, then maybe so could Lucas one day, if he just kept working out, kept practicing with his wrist rocket and watching The Karate Kid. In retrospect, Lucas's logic wasn't great, but he was in middle school, so whatever. He's gotten a lot smarter since then. The wrist rocket is more useful for distraction than outright combat, and karate moves aren't really that helpful in a fistfight.

Steve was just… always solid. He always bounced back. He could take the worst beating Lucas had ever seen and then get up and save the world, and he was always okay at the end of the day, always Steve underneath no matter how bloody and bruised he was on the outside.

Lucas has never been hurt like that, but he's still had nightmares for about four years now. They never really go away. They aren't constant, but every time he thinks maybe he's kicked it, they come right back and leave him panting, sweaty, trembling with the lamp on at three in the morning because he needs to have a light or else he won't know that something's coming. He worries about not being strong enough. He worries about not being enough in general.

According to Eddie, all this time, Steve's been worrying too. Worrying what people think of him. Trying to earn his keep and be what everyone else wants him to be. Showing up late sometimes not because he was too cool to care about being on time, but because he was trying to make sure he looked perfect before going out in public. Eddie wasn't just complimenting him out of the blue earlier for no reason, he was trying to reassure him, comfort him, because Steve Harrington has insecurities. It should have been common sense, but the knowledge hits him like a firework to the face, lighting everything up and leaving Lucas disoriented in its wake. What else has he been missing?

When Steve and Eddie started dating, they didn't, like, announce it or anything. They just didn't hide it, and eventually everyone got the memo, and Lucas is still deeply ashamed of the fact that he was one of the last to realize. It was less about the fact that Steve was dating a man and more about the fact that Steve was letting a man stroke his hair and put a leather jacket on his shoulders and call him dollface, like, seriously. Lucas thought it was a joke. In his defense, he thinks a lot of Eddie's little nicknames are jokes, but there's also something painfully earnest about them that he recognizes now, like each one is a little I love you, and it had been hard for Lucas to see Steve as somebody who wanted that, as someone who needed reassurance and affection and wanted to be treated with care.

Maybe Steve has nightmares too. Maybe even muscles and a nail bat aren't enough to keep the demons at bay. Maybe if Lucas stopped hiding the fact that he needs reassurance and affection and sometimes he wants to be treated with care, maybe if he talked to Max… But Max has had to deal with so much worse. It wouldn't be fair to just dump all of his issues on her, too.

God, she'd be mad if he said that out loud. Lucas can almost hear her voice, saying something like, don't decide for me what I can and can't handle, and he smiles, alone in his room staring up at the ceiling, because he's been a little bit of an idiot.

If even Ripley can need some support now and then, why can't he?

—

“You seem lighter.”

“Hm?”

Max nudges his leg with her own. “That thing you've been weird about all month. You figure it out?”

Nobody is paying attention to them, sitting on the floor in front of Mike's couch side by side. The others are all debating something to do with DnD, he thinks, but he hasn't really been paying attention. Max rented The Karate Kid, and the two of them have been focused on the movie while everyone else got distracted.

“I think so,” Lucas says, and takes a chance. He leans over, resting his head on Max's shoulder, and immediately her arm comes up to wrap around him.

“And you're not gonna dump me?”

Lucas sits up to look at Max incredulously. “What? Why would I dump you?”

She looks embarrassed. She leans in and lowers her voice. “Okay, don't be, like, offended, and this might make me sound stupid, but I noticed you've been looking at Steve and Eddie a lot lately.”

“Oh my god,” he mumbles, and Max laughs.

“So, you’re not…”

“No.”

“That’s good.” Her eyes widen a little bit as soon as the words leave her mouth. “Uh, I mean, that’s good for me as your girlfriend, not, like, in general. And I mean, obviously you could like guys and still like me, but, you know, you seemed really deep in thought, so…”

Lucas laughs. “Wait, so you thought I was, like, having a sexuality crisis, and you didn’t…”

“I didn’t want to push you on it,” she shrugs, “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready. But then you just seemed like you were getting more upset about it, and you were doing that thing where you pretend like you don’t have feelings—”

“What? I don’t—”

Max raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, you do.”

“...Maybe.” Lucas sighs. “I kind of was. But that wasn’t… it wasn’t about, like, guys. Trust me, I tried, and the closest I got to being into a dude was you.”

Max’s face scrunches up. “Me?”

“It’s… listen, I was going through a lot of hypotheticals!”

She giggles. “And one of them was me as a guy? Was I hot?”

Lucas shrugs. “Yeah, I wasn’t not into you.”

“High praise.”

“No, it was…” Lucas trails off, unsure of how to say it. He turns back to the TV and lowers his head to Max’s shoulder again. She lets him, wrapping her arm around him, and actually, how did Lucas ever think this would be wrong? It’s Max. It’s only Max.

“I wanted this,” he mumbles.

“This?”

He grabs her hand where it rests on his arm. “Yeah. You know, they always… like, I just wanted you to hold me.”

“Lucas,” Max says, her voice uncharacteristically tender.

“I’m not saying I wanna be all gross like them, but… I don’t know.”

“...Could I give you my jacket sometimes?”

“Oh my god, yes,” Lucas says, and Max laughs.

“You don’t even know how many times I’ve wanted to give you my coat because you never learn—”

“I learn!”

“No, you dress for fashion instead of function and then you freeze your ass off!”

Lucas laughs too, turning to bury his face in Max’s dark blue jacket, one of the ones she snagged from Steve, and she tugs him closer until he’s practically sitting in her lap. He feels light, like he might float away if she wasn’t holding on to him. But she is. She’s holding him, and she’s laughing, and none of their friends seem to have noticed anything different. It’s just Max, and Lucas, and they’re better than ever.

—

Lucas holds the door for Max, letting her enter Family Video ahead of him. Steve and Robin are at the counter, Robin gesturing wildly as usual. Steve raises a hand, waving as Lucas and Max approach. “Hey, nice jacket, Sinclair. Is that one mine?”

“It’s mine now,” Max says, wrapping an arm about Lucas’s waist and pulling him into her side. “He only wore a t-shirt even though it’s freezing out because he needed everyone to see his arms.”

He rests his arm over her shoulders. “I don’t need to bring a jacket, I have you.”

She rolls her eyes. “You know, one of these days I’m not gonna take pity on you and I’m gonna let you freeze to death.”

Lucas hadn’t even been cold when Max took off her jacket and wrapped it around his shoulders. She had just done it out of the blue, stepped back, grinned, and said he looked good.

Robin sighs. “Ugh, you two are adorable. See, Steve, this is what I’m talking about!”

“And I’m telling you, all you have to do is have a conversation like a grown-up!”

“But it’s scary,” Robin whines, leaning her forehead against Steve’s chest and groaning. He pats her head comfortingly.

“I know. Max, I got your stuff on hold right over there.” Steve nods at a small stack of tapes on the counter. “Already checked them out for you.”

“You had stuff on hold?”

Max had spontaneously decided she wanted to have a home movie night instead of going to the theater, and Lucas had assumed it was just because she didn’t feel like going out.

She pulls him over the counter, and Lucas sees all three Star Wars movies in a neat pile.

“Surprise!”

Max isn’t that into Star Wars. She likes watching horror movies on date night, and she hates sitting through more than one movie at a time, but here she is with three space operas and a tentative smile on her face, and Lucas can’t help it.

“I love you.”

Max raises her eyebrows before dissolving into laughter. “That’s it? This is the moment?”

“Yes, shut up!”

She does not shut up. Max continues laughing. “Really? Because I rented Star Wars?”

“Because you know me.” Lucas grins. “You love me.”

“Well, yeah,” Max says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like he’d said that the sky is blue or that El’s a superhero.

Lucas hears a high-pitched squeal, and he turns to find Steve with a hand clamped over Robin’s mouth. Her eyes are wide and excited.

“Go have your little date before she explodes,” he says, waving them off.

“Thanks, Steve.” Max takes the tapes and turns to the door. Lucas jogs ahead to open it for her.

As Lucas follows her outside, part of him feels like he might just float off the asphalt right into the clouds, but he doesn’t worry about it. There’s no need. Max is right there, and he’s wrapped in her jacket, and she’s taking his hand for the short walk from the store to their bikes. No, Lucas won’t float away.

Max will keep him tethered.

[steddie-island]

Do it for him

Written for week one of @softsteddieseptember Prompt: Facing your fears WC: 1,517 | Rating: T | Tags: Hurt/comfort, Steve has a fear of doctors, Eddie Munson lives See ao3 for the full list of tags Dividers by @steddiecameraroll-graphics

It should have been easy, something he didn't need Eddie here with him for, but it wasn't.

The room was cold, and despite the layers of clothes and the crinkly paper beneath him, the table was somehow even colder. There were goosebumps over Steve's arms that weren't brought on by the cool air.

It should've been fucking easy, but Steve was fighting the urge to throw up.

"Hey." Eddie's arm came up and wrapped around his shoulders, tugged him closer. "I'm right here."

Steve didn't trust his voice, could only find the energy to give a quick nod. It wasn't that he didn't trust Eddie, or that Eddie didn't make sitting there easier.

Steve hadn't seen a doctor since Starcourt. Since he and Robin had been tied back to back, since he'd been tortured and they'd come thisfuckingclose to being dissected. Even after Vecna, after he'd been chewed up and spat back out by the bats, Steve had insisted on not going to a doctor. Hopper had gotten it. He'd had stitched Steve up, had gotten him a prescription.

Their experiences might've been different, but the scars and the nightmares were similar enough that he didn't push. Steve had seen the effort it'd taken, too, for him to sit there while he sewed Steve back together. Every comment had been bitten back, the only sign that there was something to hide in the way the sheriff released his breath.

Steve had sat by Eddie's side in the hospital, once he'd been given the okay himself, but that was different. He could watch. Could guard.

Could use his bat if anyone so much as looked at Eddie the wrong way. That'd taken some convincing, too, to get the nurses to let him keep it in Eddie's room with him. Steve still wasn't sure what Hopper had said, but after the second or third day they'd mostly stopped paying him and his weapon any mind.

Steve's grip only loosened when Eddie's eyes opened up again.

It was a long road to recovery. It took a week for Eddie to not sleep through most of the day, then another week for him to eat anything more solid than chicken noodle soup. Week three they (albeit reluctantly) declared everything healed enough for him to get out of bed long enough to be wheeled down to Max's room to sit with her for a while.

After the hospital came months of physical therapy. Steve was right there, making sure Eddie made it to every appointment. Even on the days when Eddie shouted, when Eddie threw his books at the wall to try and push Steve away. Even on the days when Eddie broke down, because it was hard, and it fucking hurt, and the progress was so goddamn slow he was going crazy.

Steve was there when Eddie stopped fighting him, because even though the pain didn't go away he could feel the changes happening to his body, could finally tell that he was getting better.

Somewhere between one appointment and the next, over cheeseburgers and milkshakes and joints shared in the middle of the night when neither of them could sleep, something shifted between the two of them. Neither of them could remember who actually made the first move, but it didn't matter in the long run.

Now Eddie was the one doing the pushing. He was a better pusher, really didn't have to push much when he could just turn those deep, wide eyes on Steve.

"I'm worried about you," he'd whispered in bed one morning, when Steve was in that soft space between sleep and wakefulness. "I know your hearing is getting worse, and you need glasses… I know you didn't get looked at after everything, and I get why, but…" He'd kissed Steve's hair, his temple, his cheek. "I can't lose you. Please, Stevie. For me?"

That was all it had taken for Steve to crumple— something Robin had bitched about later, because she'd been begging Steve to go to the doctor for literal years. Eddie hadn't even had to mention the chronic migraines that put him down for days sometimes.

Once Steve had agreed, Eddie and Robin did the calling around, did the appointment making.

Now there they were, and Steve wanted to be sick. When he'd agreed he hadn't actually expected anything to happen, but of course his soulmates hadn't let him get off that easily. He hated them.

He loved them so much it was a physical sensation deep in his chest sometimes.

"I'm right here," Eddie reminded him. He had time to brush a kiss over Steve's temple before the door was opening and a man in a white coat stepped inside.

It wasn't just one doctor's visit. There were more physicals, there were x-rays and MRIs and visits where they checked his eyes and his ears. Eddie was still right there for every appointment, holding on to him when he could. When he couldn't actually be by Steve's side, he spoke to him from where the doctors said he could stand. That wasn't as good, but it got Steve through without him melting down right then and there.

The meltdowns always happened later, when they were in bed together, when Steve could let the stress of the day go and fall apart in Eddie's arms. Eddie held him, kissed his tears away and whispered how good Steve had done, how proud, and how grateful he was that Steve was taking care of himself, especially since he was doing it for someone else and not for himself.

Sometimes Steve fell asleep with Eddie whispering those sweet things into his hair. Sometimes he calmed down enough for Eddie to let him go, to start kissing down his neck and start sliding down his body, beneath their comforter. "You took care of yourself today, now let me take care of you, too."

Sometimes Steve ended up crying after that, too, but it was for a different reason. It was for how hard Eddie loved him, how softly he was touched, as if he were the most precious thing in the world.

Because Eddie believed he was the most precious thing in the world.

"What do you think?" Steve blinked at Eddie from behind his new glasses. They were simple, round gold frames he'd picked out with Robin.

With his new hearing aid he didn't have to strain to hear Eddie's small intake of breath.

"I didn't know it was possible for you to look better than you already did," Eddie said. He cupped Steve's face between his palms and tipped his head this way and that, getting a look at the glasses from every angle. "You're so fucking beautiful, sunshine."

Steve wrapped his arms around Eddie and buried his face against the worn fabric of his shirt. "Thank you," he murmured.

"For liking your glasses?" Eddie shook his head. "You don't have to thank me for that."

"No, not for— for that." Steve lifted his head and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "For staying with me. For helping me through this. I know it wasn't easy. I wasn't easy, but you stayed with me." His fingers fidgeted nervously with Eddie's shirt. "You didn't have to, but you did."

"Wasn't easy?" Eddie pressed closer, so Steve's back bumped against the counter behind him. "It was the easiest thing in the world for me. I hated seeing you upset, but it meant you weren't letting these things stay unchecked." His thumbs stroked Steve's cheeks, and Steve leaned into the touch. "We have a baseline now, to know if things get worse. You have medicine now, so you won't have to suffer through a migraine the way you did before. That was easy, sunshine."

Steve felt more than saw Eddie's smile as he was pulled against his boyfriend's chest again.

"Even if you would've been as much of a pain in the ass as I was, even if you'd yelled and pushed me away, I would've stayed. Because you stayed, too. You made me take care of myself."

Steve sniffed softly— he wasn't sure when he started crying, but he could feel the tears that weren't trapped behind his glasses soaking into Eddie's shirt. "You fought so hard to stay alive, couldn't let you give up."

"You did, too." Eddie kissed the top of Steve's head. "You've been surviving for so long, making sure everyone else had what they needed. It was time someone returned the favor."

Steve lifted his head, and Eddie brushed over his cheeks again, wiping away fresh tears. "And here I thought that's what you've been doing all this time."

"I had a lot of favors to return," Eddie said. He brushed the tips of their noses together gently.

Steve tried to argue sometimes, when Eddie talked so sweet to him, but as Eddie leaned in to kiss him again, the arguments died in his chest.

Maybe Eddie was right, and it was time to let himself be taken care of after all.

And maybe this time, he would do it for himself.