Prologue? Pilot? IDK Man I Just Work Here
(part 1.2)
{hey so uhhhh
i have finals coming up and its the last week of classes and im lowkey failing two of mine right now, so unfortunately im going to have to go on hiatus for a bit- even though i literally just started, ugh- while i try to catch up and deal with... all that
that said, ive decided to split the prologue up into three parts instead of two and just go ahead and give you what ive got so far of the rest of it
this and the third (and hopefully final) segment is where we really start setting up/contextualizing the "full house" premise of the fic
link to part 1.1 here}
~~~
So, over the next several weeks, they come up with a plan.
Most of them aren’t exactly happy about the plan, but… oh well.
The parents are determined to move their children- who have proven themselves to be prime targets for the supernatural- out of town, to relocate them somewhere they’ll be well-removed from the apocalypse unfolding in Hawkins. Caught up to speed about the history of Hawkins Lab and Owens’s involvement in everything, they all but order him to help with the arrangements.
And he delivers. Calls are made, blueprints are drawn, and before they know it, a plot of land has been secured two thousand miles away in California for a house to be built on. And it’s going to have to be a pretty big house, considering it’ll be home to six teenagers and a pre-teen.
The kids are dead set on not being separated again; it’s one of their conditions for agreeing to leave. Steve can’t blame them, honestly. After everything they’ve been through together, he doesn’t want to be apart from them either. In fact, he’s been feeling a bit paralyzed by the thought, has had a little trouble breathing since the move was decided.
He’s sort of out of it the next time everyone gathers at the hospital to hash out the details, to be honest, but in his defense, his head isn’t quite what it used to be before all the hits he’s taken in recent years.
But then the ongoing discussion turns to who will look after the kids, and well, that certainly gets his attention.
There’s a military blockade taking shape around the area, keeping the threat contained- but also the citizens. It’s only through Owens’s connections and influence that they’ll be able to sneak the kids out, and just that in itself is going to be risky. As much as they’d like to, they can’t take everyone.
The parents have agreed to join the resistance that’s starting to form, a force of townsfolk who have finally realized what’s really happening and are banding together to find a solution, or at least hold off the Upside Down from taking over for as long as they can. Hopper and Joyce have taken it upon themselves to teach everyone as much as they can about what they’re up against, and a few of the others are helping out with pooling resources and organizing community childcare.
For various reasons, their families won’t be coming along.
“Who’s going to take care of you all?” Sue asks, her question directed more towards the room at large than the kids themselves. “None of you are older than fifteen; I don’t want you out there on your own with no adult supervision.”
Karen starts to say something, probably about how she doesn’t intend to let Nancy stay behind either, that there will definitely be at least one person over fifteen present, but Steve cuts her off in his eagerness. He practically jumps out of his seat, actually, but he’s held in place by his desperate grip on the sheets of the hospital bed he’s still stuck in until he’s done recovering from the demobat bites.
“I’ll do it!”
Once again, all eyes are on him, and they’re broadcasting confusion, surprise- in the case of the parents, that is. The kids mostly look relieved. None of them will say it- the little shits- but he’s pretty sure they were just as worried about leaving him behind as he was about sending them away.
Claudia tilts her head at him in question. “You? What, by yourself?”
Steve figures the faintly bitter disbelief in her voice has less to do with him and more to do with Dustin’s deadbeat dad, so he chooses not to take it to heart. But before he can make a remark about how some men are actually interested in fatherhood- although he’s not entirely sure what his brain even means by that- Karen Wheeler speaks up.
“Not by himself, no. What I was about to say a moment ago was that Nancy is going too. I don’t want my daughter staying here after being involved with all this pretty much since the beginning. But, Steve, even then, you’re hardly adults yourselves- Nancy only just graduated high school last week. I don’t think you two should be left to basically parent seven kids all alone; it’s too much responsibility.”
(While she does have a point, and he’s certainly not opposed to having Nancy out of harm’s way, it’s also important to note that the daughter in question is currently busy giving shooting lessons to a sizable portion of the resistance. Nancy is no stranger to responsibility, but she isn’t exactly the motherly type, either. Regardless, Steve wants both roles for himself- at least on a subconscious level. He’s not quite aware of it yet, his rightful place as both mom and dad to the party, but… he’ll get there. He thinks of himself more as a glorified babysitter, really, but it is a position he takes very seriously nowadays.)
Mistaking Steve's spacey expression for something else, Dustin mutters smugly beside him, “I bet you would looove that.”
Steve rolls his eyes and shoots back, “Can it, kid. We’ve been over this. Nance and I are not getting back together.”
Nancy and Jonathan broke up after her graduation, for reasons which Steve has decided are none of his business. In some ways, this made the idea of rekindling their relationship- something his friends insisted he should try to do- more of an actual possibility. And yet, somehow, that in itself helped him realize that he doesn’t really want to get back together. And he knows she feels the same, even if there are some weird lingering feelings on both sides of the issue. They simply aren’t compatible, and that’s okay. It took him a while to get here, but now he’s happy just being her friend.
Thankfully, Robin joins in, interrupting that awkward train of thought and providing the solution to a problem Steve hasn't even considered yet.
“They wouldn’t be alone, Mrs. Wheeler. I can help out, too.”
“You would do that? Move across the country and play house with me and these brats?”
“Of course I would, dingus. Where you go, I go.”
The fondness in their exchange prompts some raised eyebrows from the others, but that’s irrelevant. Steve is just massively thankful that Robin is offering to come along. Having to choose between the kids and his platonic soulmate would have torn him apart just as badly as the bats did.
“And I’d say the same about Will and El,” Jonathan says as he joins the group. “So I hope there’s room for a couple more.” He glances questioningly at Argyle, who came in with him.
Argyle just shrugs. “I’m sticking with you, man.” Apparently, his parents turned him out to fend for himself when he hit eighteen, so he doesn’t have much to go back to, and he’s been content staying with the Byers until the blockade is lifted- or for the long haul, it seems.
Karen nods in Jonathan’s direction. “Good, I’m sure Joyce will feel better knowing you’ll be there.”
So that makes five of us. Considering I’ve wrangled most of these guys on my own plenty of times by now, that should be totally manageable. I guess it will be nice to have some guaranteed backup for once.
It looks like the gang is staying together after all, plus at least one new-ish addition.
But, speaking of "new-ish additions" to the group, there is still a six-foot deep hole in the entire plan, which is the question of what to do with a dead man when all his remaining friends are ditching town.
“What about... Eddie?”
~~~
{well folks theres the second installment of the prologue. as for the rest of it... youll get it when you get it. hopefully ill be able to start updating more regularly once i go back home for the summer. things are just kinda crazy right now hahahahaha <-(the deranged laughter of a person whose ass is not passing all their courses this time and is very seriously considering becoming a college dropout)
oh and yeah so eddies dead i guess. not what i had planned but sometimes the plot just does what it wants. you know how full house basically starts off with dannys wife dying in a car accident (offscreen and prior to the events of the actual show anyway)? and steve is like, very loosely the au's parallel of danny? well you might not have known that actually but i just told you. so. yeah. you get where this is going
also, to my unofficial beta readers and lovely mutuals @moreover-clover and @redley-of-many-noodles: i have seen your comments/messages and i appreciate your input, but ive decided im going to try not to take this project too seriously and just have fun with it rather than worry about how polished it is, so i think this is going to be a no beta project from here on out. thank you for the thoughtful commentary/critiques on part 1.1, and i do hope you continue to enjoy it <3
having said that, if anyone happens to notice glaringly obvious/simple typos that i could easily fix, or if any parts are just genuinely incomprehensible, feel free to point it out/ask for clarification if you want to}
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Eyyy it's been a hot minute since I posted to this fic, but... LOOKIE! More adventures of my wol, Bitter Thornrose, in her Heavensward journey. Today she and Ysayle are bonding over Hydaleyn stuff. Kinda sorts. Okay they're squabbling like siblings.
Anyway. My next chapter is written, and I have ideas for the one after that so... maybe I'm back for a bit? If you need a refresher, Bitter, Estinien, and Alphinaud had just decided to leave Ishgard to find Ysayle and parley with the dragons. This picks up after Ysayle has joined their merry band and decided to try and tank Ravana despite not actually being a tank.
Days after setting off from Ishgard, Bitter found herself crouching under a barren tree outside Loth ast Gnath. As adrenaline faded from her body, various cuts and bruises from her duel with Ravana began to assert themselves in her awareness. With a grunt, she untied a water skin from her belt and took a deep drink, then offered the vessel to the woman next to her.
It was a long moment before Ysayle noticed the gesture and took the waterskin in her pale hands. Still, her blue eyes were focused on the village where they’d fought Ravana, her frosty brows knit with concern.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured, not for the first time. “I was - I am Shiva. And yet he barely broke a sweat swatting me down.”
Bitter sighed. “Drink,” she said, nudging the water skin a bit higher toward Ysayle’s face. Not that hydration would fix Lady Iceheart’s doubts, but she had taken quite the pounding during the duel and her body no doubt needed to replenish its reserves. It also saved Bitter the necessity of having a coherent reply.
Continue reading on AO3
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