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scoops-aboy86 · 4 months ago

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If You Were Serious (Secret Admirer pt 7)

Okay, so there will be more than seven chapters. For now, please enjoy Steve on painkillers and creative mix tape shenanigans.

(The crossed out thing after the first "Dear" is the first line of an E.)

wc: 3226 / rated: T / set end of/after season 3 / also on ao3

Dear I

Dear Secret Amdirer,

Sorry, painkillers kicking in. I got pretty banged up in the mall, in the fire. Well, less the fire and more getting hit by stuff. Mall fell down. I have ribs and eye and nose, and concussion this time so I had to stay over at Robin’s because someone had to keep an eye on me sleeping and my parents are still out of town. Dustin said I won at upper body injury bingo but I didn’t even know I was playing, that sounds like really a shitty game.

Anyway, I haven’t been home so I don’t know if you tried to call. If you did, don’t worry!!! I’m not mad. I don’t not like you anymore just because you’re you. And this isn’t the durg drugs talking because I read your letter first before they kicked in, but I have to write this ASAP so it can get to you faster.

You could’ve called back that night but if you needed some time to breathe I get it, it’s cool. And I kinda had a feeling after that you might be a guy? Like, shit, man, they’d eat you alive in this town. Not me, I learned my lesson after Jonathan wrecked my face after I called him and his family some bad things. I deserved that. Kinda funny how the next year he stole my girlfriend and now I like you. If you could still be interested in somebody who used to be like that.

I know I like you because when you hung up I was really worried, you sounded like you were breathing really fast, maybe a panic attack? I have those after nightmares now. Robin too. (Don’t worry, we bonded and she’s like my sister now, she says we’re playdoh soulmates

“Oh my god, I knew explaining who Plato was was a bad idea. It’s platonic, Steve, not Play-Doh.”

“Stop reading over my shoulder! … How do you spell that?”

“P-L-A-T-O-N-I-C.”

“Thanks Robbie.”

she says we’re playdoh soulmates platonic soulmates.) I was worried about you and thought maybe you might be a guy but, that wasn’t as important as wanting you to be okay, you know? You still wrote me all those nice letters. You’ve made me feel really good about myself, why does it have to be different just because you’re not a girl? I can’t tell you why Robin knows about this stuff but she says I might be bysix bisexual. Not sure why I need a big fancy word for it when I didn’t have one for liking girls, I just know I care about you a lot and want you to like me.

And you’re not a coward, you’re very very brave. You reached out first, you went for what you wanted even when I didn’t get it and tried to ask for too much too soon. And then you kept coming back to try again, even though I kept doing that. That’s so brave.

I’m not feeling so awake anymore so I’m going to stop and have Robin mail this for me. (No way am I going out dressed like this. Her dad wears grandpa shorts dude, it’s pretty bad.) I’ll write more when I’m feeling better. Are you okay? Hope you weren’t anywhere near the mall the other night. Thanks for the rainbow song I will look for it.

Love Steve

Once Eddie is done reading, he screams into his pillow for a different reason. Several, actually.

First, he’s been so sure for the past week or so that he would never hear from Steve ever again. The only reason he’d checked his mail today was because he should have another zine coming in soon. He didn’t, but there was a yellow envelope with familiar, if slightly messier than usual handwriting on it. And inside that, stationary with colorful geometric shapes along the edges that Eddie now surmises is Robin’s.

Second, Steve isn’t even writing to tell him to fuck off right to hell. Because yes, Eddie had heard the rumors about Steve calling Jonathan Byers a queer. The irony does send a seam of semi-hysterical laughter through his screams. It’s fine. It’s fine!

Third, Steve hasn’t been avoiding his calls. He just hasn’t been home. He’s hurt, and it sounds like his head and torso took quite a beating. Eddie remembers seeing him around school both times after the other concussions and that had looked bad enough, and that had just been his face. This sounds worse.

Fourth, Steve is… still interested? Has talked to someone about this and might be bisexual?! Eddie’s never had anyone talk to someone else about him, has always been completely anonymous with a possible option of becoming a dirty little secret. And then the letter ends with ‘Love Steve.’ Love? Love Steve?!

Fifth, Robin knows he sent Steve that ice cream. Eddie doesn’t know what all “platonic soulmates” entails, but what if she tells him? What if she already has?!

Sixth, despite being injured, and having panic attacks apparently, Steve is still asking if he is okay.

Seventh, beneath his name Steve had also doodled a lopsided happy face with what he can only guess is an ice pack balanced on top. Or… maybe it’s hair. Or some kind of hat.

Any of these would be enough to make his head spin on their own, but it’s all happening at once and he doesn’t know what to do. So he screams into his pillow for a while longer, kicking his feet for good measure.

He wants to rush out and find Steve, wherever he is. Wants to call him, but doesn’t know what he would say even if he did know the number to reach him right now. What he could say. Wants to wrap both arms around him and kiss his poor head better. Hell, if he’s turned Steve gay he doesn’t just want, he deserves to make that guy the little spoon for the first time in his life probably and just. Hold him.

Except… he’s not sure he’s ready for face to face yet. He will be! Soon. Once all the emotions bubbling in his chest have settled a little. And after he’s pinched himself a few million more times just to make sure. But until then…

A thought occurs to him, and Eddie rolls over to frown consideringly up at the ceiling. He’s sent Steve words to comfort and reassure him before, right? Maybe there’s something else he can send, a different way of offering a part of himself to Steve until he works up the nerve to face him for real.

It’s just going to take him a little time, and some recording equipment.

Dearest Steve,

I hope this address is still okay to write to you while you stay with your friend, but I don’t know where she lives.

You have no idea

Holy shit man. Holy shit. Are you serious? No, strike that, you’ve been nothing but genuine in these letters and I trust you, I do. Holy shit though. It’s you. Clearly I never thought I’d actually have a chance, from the way I approached this whole thing, so you must forgive me for how utterly poleaxed, completely flabbergasted, and genuinely gobsmacked I am.

And shit, I’m still sorry for hanging up on you. That golden years line—and this heavy secret of the most basic fact of who I am weighing on my shoulders, pressing down so hard I couldn’t breathe. I wish I’d just said something. But you’re right, I needed… space? And a push, to work up to writing the last letter I sent you. I got yours the day I put that in the mail, by the way, and that spun me even more because what if you read mine and took it all back?

But you didn’t. You didn’t, sweetheart. I’m still reeling in the best possible way. Again, axed like a pole, flabbers gasted, and gob thoroughly smacked.

Enough about me. More than enough about me. You’re concussed; I ought to wrap that gorgeous head of yours in bubble wrap and offer to fight all your battles henceforth, even against falling buildings. I’m glad you have someone out there who’s looking out for you though. I guess… you’ve told Robin about some things? Maybe these letters? Which is absolutely fine, by the way. It’s great! Fuck knows it wouldn’t have occurred to me to explain what bisexuality is, since I hardly dared to dream so big and only swing the one way myself. You’re an amazingly open-minded person by the way, Steve; I hope you know how rare that is, especially in a place like Hawkins. And Robin too, apparently. Please give her my highest regards, she is an angel among mortals and an inadvertent champion of this sad wet rag of a human being (me).

At any rate, wishing you the speediest of recoveries and I hope you’re already feeling at least a little better. My condolences on the grandpa shorts, although personally I’m convinced you could wear a trash bag and still look like an Adonis.

It’s taken me a little longer than I’d like to send this because I made something for you. Enclosed is a tape with some of the songs from our call that you said you liked, played acoustically by yours truly. Rainbow In The Dark is one of them. You mentioned having nightmares, and whenever I had bad dreams as a kid my mom would play for me until I calmed down. She’d hum instead of doing the words, to make it more like a lullaby. I hope it’s at least a decent distraction, sweetheart.

Let me know if you like it? I can make one of your favorite songs too, just you let me know what they are. In the meantime, I remain, as always—

Your Secret Admirer

“You should tell him that you know,” Robin whispers, at some point during the fourth night in a row they’ve ended up crashed on the same bed listening to the Anti-Panic Attack Metal Mix.

Her dad sleeps like the dead and her mom sleeps with earplugs in because he snores, so they get away with it, but Steve always insists on laying on top of the covers anyway. The friendship is still new, for all that they’re trauma bonded, and he wants to make sure she knows he’s not getting any funny ideas, that he gets the whole lesbian thing, that even though he’s new to being into a dude he’s committed to it and not wishy-washy or greedy or whatever.

He fiddles with a loose string on the blanket for a minute before answering. “No… I don’t want to freak him out again. It’s all going to be on his terms from here on out, no more pushing.”

“Well you’ve got to do something. Come on Steve, I’m invested now. Ask to meet him.”

He rolls his eyes. “What did I just say?”

Immediately he gives an inward wince, because that came out bitchy. But Robin just snorts and murmurs “Fine,” sounding amused rather than offended, so he relaxes.

They exist in silence for a while, side by side. Just close enough to not feel alone, drifting on the soft notes and low, rich hum. It’s soothing.

“What if,” Robin starts, and ignores Steve’s huff. “What if you go somewhere you know he might show, and then give him the opportunity to talk to you?”

“Oh yeah,” he scoffs, “like what?”

“Summer house party.” Her whisper picks up a little in excitement as she warms to her own idea. “I bet we can find one that’s coming up soon. Everyone knows that Munson sells, it’s one of those never invited but always welcome things. Then if he doesn’t come to you, just buy some weed and see if he says anything.”

“No,” Steve whispers back.

She rolls over to squint at him in the dark. “Just think about it, okay? You wouldn’t be forcing him to do anything, just… providing an opportunity. Come on, Stevie-evie, this is my chance to see a gay love story go right.”

“Vetoing that nickname.” With a sigh, he rolls onto his side too, facing her. “My face still looks like raw hamburger meat, Robs. I have like zero charm right now.”

The swelling has gone down, at least to where he can open his eye again but the bruising remains spectacular. It looks like a sunset exploded across the side of his face, and not in a good way.

Robin rolls her eyes. “You’re more than just your face, dingus. It wasn’t your rugged jawline, sculpted cheekbones, or pimple-free forehead that wrote those letters, it was you. Steve.”

He goes to wrinkle his nose at the descriptions, but quickly remembers that’s still a bad idea with a swallowed grunt. “Please, never describe me again.”

“I make no promises. And anyway, if you’re willing to try makeup I think we could get most of it covered so no one’ll ever notice. Not at night, anyway.”

That gives him pause. He rolls onto his back again to think about it, staring up at the ceiling of Robin’s bedroom and tracing imaginary constellation lines between the glow in the dark stars she has up there. Beside him, he feels her settling on her back too without having to look.

It’s not like when he’d found a little brother in Dustin—who has visited pretty much every day during Steve’s convalescence, sometimes with Erica or Mike, Lucas, and Max in tow, spouting off things he’s read in books about the various still-healing injuries. As annoying as it is, Steve appreciates that the little dork took the time to study what’s wrong with him enough to provide armchair diagnoses and give him advice about things that he already knows.

Robin is… more of a twin than a sister. (Which, yeah, twin sister, whatever. That’s not the point.) They’re on the same wavelength in a way he’s never experienced before, not with Tommy or Carol or even Nancy. The closest thing Steve has ever had to this was during basketball games, in the heat of a play where everyone on the team knew where everyone was and where they’d be and how to work together as a unit, perfectly in sync. Only with Robin, it’s all the time. Sometimes they can even finish each other’s sentences—though they try not to do that around her parents, in the interest of not wanting them to think they’re a couple.

They’re more like a pair of bonded kittens at the pound, Robin says. Must be adopted together. (“Okay, but why can’t we be dogs? Dogs are cooler.” “Because, dingus, you have a one-hundred-and-twenty-seven step hair and skin routine and you’re incredibly aloof when you want to be. I could go either way, but you’re one hundred percent cat.”)

“Maybe,” he whispers finally.

He’s not sure she’s still awake—he’s not sure he’s still awake, with the soothing music lulling him back to a calm he hadn’t felt even before he’d gone to bed the first time. But he wants to think she hears it, just like he wants to think that he’ll run into Eddie and find out what it’s like to hold his hand, maybe even kiss him, all in the same night. He’s worn lip gloss, he can deal with a little makeup.

“Maybe I’ll go.”

Dear Secret Admirer,

Thank you for the tape, it’s perfect. It helps me get back to sleep because it feels like you’re there, watching over me. Like nothing bad can happen. Sometimes the nightmares still come back after but I think it’s getting better. It takes a while, you know? Last time, after the after Billy after my last concussion it took a while to stop having bad dreams. I guess the mind needs time to heal too, even if the stuff that happens to it isn’t as “real” as breaking a nose or a rib. Who knew?

I really am serious, yeah. Even though I’m me. Whatever that means. I don’t really know what to do with myself or what I want right now. (Except you. Kind of cheesy, but maybe you like that about me? I guess it’s something I always tried to hide before because the guys would’ve made fun of me, fuck knows Tommy did all of junior year, but I kind of like the idea that maybe you saw it anyway.) Once my face heals up me and Robin are going to try and get jobs together somewhere else because we’re cats that have to stick together or we’ll get stressed out and claw all the furniture. Other than that I don’t know what I want to do except leave Hawkins someday. But stick around to make sure it’s to see the kids graduate. Dustin’s starting high school in the fall, maybe you could keep an eye out for him? Curly hair, no collarbones, ego bigger than the whole state, total nerd but in a good way, even if he’s sometimes a butthead about it. He plays that game with dragons and those weird looking dice, do you know it? Him and his friends Mike and Lucas are kind of bully magnets. (Max is starting freshman year too but she can take care of herself in that department.) They’ve all been pretty down after the mall and with Will and moving away and everything. Erica, Lucas’ little sister, I guess I’m her “babysitter” now too, is still in middle school but I don’t know if she’d be glad or insulted if I waited around to see her graduate. She can take care of herself too. She and Dustin were with us for most of the Starcourt burning down and it was a lot, but kids are resilient. I don’t think she gets nightmares, not that she would ever admit to anyone if she did even though in her own words “we’ve bled together.” She’s getting into the nerdy dice game too and is planning her campaign for President of the USA as soon as she turns, what, 40? 50? Whatever age you have to be before you can do that. I’ll probably still be in a town like Hawkins with another lame retail job by then, but she’s got my vote. She’d do a hell of a lot better job than Regan, that’s for sure.

Is your mom My mom never sang to

Also, you are really good at guitar, man. I still think about your hands, I bet you have long fingers. Really… What’s a word for ‘good with his fingers’? I think about that sometimes. I don’t really know what kind of stuff two guys can do together except the obvious but I think about that a lot. I want you to play me like your guitar. I’d let you fight my battles too, at least until my ribs get back to normal and then we can both fight both of our battles. You know I’d do that for you, right? If you ever need me. I really like these letters. I really like you.

Love, Steve

P.S. If you were serious about making me another tape (which you really don’t have to, this was already going above and beyond), my favorite songs are…

Tag list (and if you missed the earlier chapters check the "#secret admirer steddie" tag on my blog): @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @tangerinesteve @steviewashere

@cryingglightningg @theresebelivett @sleepy-steve @rozzieroos @lunaraindrop

@just-my-latest-hyperfixation @wheneverfeasible @swimmingbirdrunningrock @yesdangerpls @matchingbatbites

@ihavekidneys @p0lybl4nkk @grtwdsmwhr @cheesedoctor @whalesharksart

@thetinymm @envyadams-vs-me @practicallybegging @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @dauntlessdiva

@nerdyglassescheeseychick @fuzzyduxk @chaosgremlinmunson @greatwerewolfbeliever @goosesister

@dolphincliffs @friendlyneighborhoodgaycousin @beckkthewreck @pitrsattabhaadmeinjao @kurofuckingshi16

@bookworm0690 @millseyes-world @live-laugh-love-dietrich @the-tenth-mus-e

#steddieweek2024 #scoops words #secret admirer steddie #steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #robin buckley #platonic stobin

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lovelybucky1 · 1 year ago

Note

Jonathan Crane taking the reader hostage after a drug deal gone wrong (thinking of the "buyer beware" scene from the Dark Knight Trilogy, here: https://youtu.be/Wu-Jj8xRiEI?feature=shared - like how cocky he is here xD) and I'll let you take it from here 👉👈

my inbox is open for cillian characters!

warnings: gender neutral!reader (no pronouns or physical description) mentions of drug use/addicton, kidnapping, shitty boyfriends, creep!jonathan, dubcon, implied smut, degradation

masterlist

you knew it was a bad idea going to a drug deal with your boyfriend. you hadn’t even been dating that long, there was no reason for you to let him drag you into this life. he had just wanted a little, enough for a week to help him study for finals. you tried to talk him out of it, telling him that getting high off some mystery stimulant wasn’t going to help him, but he refused to listen

it was after midnight when the two of you went out. you followed his lead, and you eventually ended up in a dark alleyway between a liquor store and a furniture store. a cliché scene, but unfortunately it was real and not some shitty movie.

you and your boyfriend waited and waited, and just as you suggested to leave, a white van pulled to the end of the alley. a man in a burlap mask climbed out of the drivers seat and approached the two of you.

“i see you brought a friend this time,” the man in the mask said. you inched behind your boyfriend, trying to keep a distance between you and the man. you wondered what he meant by this time.

“where’s the stuff?” your boyfriend asked instead of acknowledging his comment

“not a fan of a small talk i take it? fine, fine,” the man huffed. “five hundred dollars.”

“what!?” your boyfriend exclaimed. “i dont have that kind of money.”

“the price is the price.”

“last time it was only a hundred.”

“last time you got coke. this stuff is more expensive,” the man spits, and even through the mask you can imagine the sneer that’s evident in his voice. “do you want it or not?”

your boyfriend huffs and scrubs his hand down his face. “yes..”

“but?”

“but i don’t have that kind of money.”

the man stands still, almost unnaturally so for a moment before turning to look at you. the only visible part of his face is his eyes, and his stare chills you to the bone.

“i think we can come to some kind of an arrangement,” he says, looking bad at your boyfriend. “i don’t usually trade, but you’ve been a loyal customer for a while now.”

“what do you want?” your boyfriend asks, and there’s a sick feeling in your stomach that tells you exactly what he wants.

“them,” the masked man says, pointing a long, thin finger at you.

you gasp in horror and cling to your boyfriend, but he doesn’t offer any comfort. “they’ll cover all of it?”

the man chuckles. “i’ll even give you a discount on your next purchase.”

your stomach churns. how could your boyfriend actually consider giving you to this lunatic just for some drugs?

“okay,” your boyfriend says, extending his hand for the man to shake, but he doesn’t. your boyfriend then grabs you and pushes you forward towards the man.

“what the fuck? let me go, asshole! you can’t fucking do this to me!” you shout, but neither man seem to care

the man grabs you by the shoulders and turns you to face him. you’re looking right at his mask, and from this close, you can see bits of his skin through the holes in the fabric. you struggle against his hold but his grip is firm.

“what a pretty thing,” he says. he then reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a vile of clear liquid. he hands it to your boyfriend with a chuckle. “buyer beware.”

the man takes you by the wrist and drags you towards the van, ignoring your protests and screams for help. you shouldn’t be surprised that no one came to help, though. this is gotham, after all.

the man slides the door to the van open and pushes you inside, sending you tumbling onto the vehicle’s floor. he climbs in after you and shuts the door behind him, putting you in complete darkness.

through the car door, you can hear muffled screams of terror coming from outside. you shake with fear and you feel the lump in your throat growing as the reality of the situation hits you.

suddenly, a light turns on and you can see the inside of the empty van, save for the man that sits in front of you.

“would you like me to take off my mask?” he asks. you’re not sure what you want. the mask is frightening, but you’re afraid that what lies underneath is even worse. “not a talker, huh?”

the man pulls off his mask anyway, and reveals an unmarred face. he has sharp cheekbones and a strong jawline, plush lips and piercing eyes. if it wasn’t for the mask and the kidnapping, you’d think he was a regular guy. an attractive guy.

the man grins at you as he watches you take in his appearance. clearly he knows he’s good looking, because he preens at the attention.

“since we’ll be spending a lot of time together, why don’t you tell me your name?”

you dont answer, instead you lean back against the wall, trying to stay away from him. unfortunately, he leans forward so your attempts were futile.

“i’ll go first. my name is jonathan, but you can call me whatever you want,” he smirks

“asshole,” you spit.

“this is the part where you tell me your name.”

again, you refuse to answer. the less he knows about you the better.

jonathan sighs. ��it wouldn’t take me much effort to figure it out. but unless you want me to uncover every single detail of your life, identify, dirty secrets… i suggest you tell me.”

you tell him, gritting your name out between your teeth. he grins back at you, all teeth and he looks like a predator about to eat his prey.

“i’m sure you know that i didn’t trade you for my very expensive formula just to learn your name”

“what are you going to do to me?” you ask, trying to keep the tremble out of your voice

“so eager,” he licks his bottom lip. “i was thinking we could get to know each other a little better.”

jonathan places his hand on your thigh and you flinch, which makes him chuckle.

“i’ll scream,” you say.

jonathan leans close to your face. “and no one will hear you,” he spits. “even if they did, do you think they’d give a shit? you know how many people are murdered in this city every day? no one would bat an eye at a stupid little slut screaming for help in an alleyway. hell, they probably won’t even notice you’re gone.”

his harsh words make tears well up in your eyes. you try to fight them back, not wanting to cry in front of him, but before you can stop them, they’re spilling down your cheeks.

“you poor little thing,” he says, tone now gentle as he strokes your cheek, wiping away your tears. you can’t help but lean into his touch. his hand is large and comforting, and his fingertips are cool on your hot cheeks. “let me make you feel better.”

before you can answer, jonathan is leaning in and pressing his soft lips to yours. you resist at first, but when he deepens the kiss, you melt into it. he’s dominant, claiming your mouth for his own as he explores you with his tongue, and for some reason, you let him.

he finally breaks the kiss and looks at you with wide, lust-blown pupils. “we’re going to have lots of fun together.”

his hand creeps towards your groin, but you slap his hand away. he grabs your wrists in either hand and holds you tightly so you can’t move them. “you’re not going to stockholm syndrome me,” you say.

“oh, of course not. it’s much more fun when you hate me. i’d much rather you struggle than give in.”

his tone sparks fear inside you, but along with that fear comes a strange pang of arousal.

“i’m going to break you,” he grins, pushing you back against the van wall.

part 2!

#jonathan crane #jonathan crane headcanon #jonathan crane smut #jonathan crane x reader #scarecrow #scarecrow x reader #nolanverse #cillian murphy #cillian murphy headcanon #cillian murphy x reader #cillian x reader

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hbyrde36 · 19 days ago

Text

Steddie | R: Explicit (for eventual smut) | WC:4541 | AO3

Chapter 1: Ghost of Yesterday

Two days after they failed to defeat Vecna, after Max died and came back, after Eddie died—and didn’t. Two days after they were forced to leave his body behind in the Upside Down because everything had gone to shit, a bright yellow pizza delivery van that looked like it’d been through its own apocalypse pulled into the Wheeler's driveway.

Jonathan, Mike, Will, and El finally made it home to Hawkins with the help of a friend.

On day three, Max woke up.

She’d have a long road to recovery, but the doctors seemed fairly confident she’d walk again. Though, no one could be sure how much of her eyesight would return, if any. The same day, in a twist no one saw coming, Joyce showed up, fresh off a plane from Alaska after escaping Russia—yes, Russia—with a miraculously alive and mostly well Jim Hopper.

And four days after the world both did and then didn’t end, the ghost of Eddie Munson appeared in Steve’s living room.

The kids and older teens, including the newest member of the doomsday squad, Argyle, were having an off-the-books meeting. After everything they’d done and been through, the so-called ‘adults’ were attempting to pull their same old shit, trying to sideline the younger set for their own, supposed, safety.

Steve sort-of agreed about Dustin and the others, they were still too young and had already lost so much, but if Hopper, Joyce, and whoever the hell else thought they were going to bench him? They had another think coming, and he was pretty sure Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan felt the same way too.

But, whether he agreed or not, what he wouldn’t do was stop the kids from helping to come up with a plan. Because damned if he knew what the hell they should do next.

Dustin leaned forward from his spot on the couch wedged between Erica and Will, steepling his fingers together in front of him. “So let me test my understanding. You set him on fire, and shot him—multiple times. He fell out of a third story window, and he just went… poof? Vanished without a trace?”

There was a collective groan from the room, everyone except for Lucas and El who were at the hospital sitting with Max, and of course Dustin himself.

Robin rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, yes, Dustin. How many times do we have to go over this?”

“I’m just laying out the facts!” Dustin snapped back. “Clearly we got something wrong here. We underestimated Vecna, and by a lot.”

“And how is repeating our obvious failure helpful?” Nancy asked, a little defensively.

Steve understood the attitude, he'd also been wresting with his guilt since that fateful night.

“The scientific method!” Dustin answered with a bit of the same slightly forced cheerfulness he'd been displaying ever since Max woke up. He held up a hand, ticking each step off on his fingers as he spoke. “Question, research, hypothesis, experiment, data analysis, conclusion.”

“I got a question—“ Erica pursed her lips, giving Dustin such intense side-eye Steve wondered if it was actually painful. “Why are you such a nerd?”

Dustin sighed, as though it were everyone else annoying him instead of the other way around. “The question is—if Vecna is just a guy with powers like El, how could he have survived this long in the Upside Down? What’s keeping him alive?”

Okay, fine. Attitude or not, Steve hadn’t really thought about it but maybe the kid had a point.

“The hive mind!” Robin offered up.

“Possibly.” Dustin nodded to her. ”Probably. So, what does that tell us?”

Erica crossed her arms, leaning back heavily into the couch. “I don’t know Mr. Clarke, you wanna share your thoughts with the class?”

“I didn’t say I had all the answers.”

“That’s a first,” Robin mumbled.

“I’m just trying to get us brainstorming here!”

A flutter of movement pulled Steve’s admittedly already drifting attention away from discussion at hand. Something in the corner, the air there shifting and bending strangely, a little like the way heat shimmers off a sun drenched black top. He watched through his periphery, not daring to actually turn his head to look as a familiar figure materialized there.

Fuck.

Though he looked confused and disoriented at first, it wasn’t long before the long-haired apparition tried approaching one of them.

Steve swallowed hard, his throat growing painfully tight. He fought to keep his face neutral as the ghost raised a hand in front of Dustin's face, calling the boy's name loudly before moving on to Erica, then Nancy—and Steve panicked, knowing he had to do something before the figure tried the same with him.

“Water,” he muttered, mainly to Robin as he rose and bumped her shoulder. She was the only one really paying attention to him anyway, while the others still argued the physics and limitations of the alternate dimension.

Steve fled for the relative quiet and safety of his kitchen. He just needed a minute alone to get his shit together, but he should have expected the phantom footfalls that followed him across the tile floor to the cabinet.

As he took out a tall glass with shaking hands, the ghost hopped up to sit on the counter just beside him and started talking to himself.

“What the hell does a guy gotta do to get a little attention, huh?” The figure held up his slightly transparent hands in front of his own face, turning them over and back again. “I-I’m kinda freaking out here.”

Under the show of irritation he sounded sad, and a little terrified.

“They can’t see you,” Steve muttered softly, regretting it the second the words passed his lips.

He knew better than to engage with ghosts.

Since the moment he’d first shown signs of the gift, he’d been taught by his late grandfather to leave the spirit world be, and mind his own goddamn business.

He’d only broken the rules one other time, about a month or so after they learned the full truth of what happened to Barb and he’d seen her essence lurking around his pool at night. That experience had only served to further prove the old man’s point.

Nothing good ever came from acknowledging the dead.

But this was Eddie.

They’d fought together, bled together. Eddie was his–his ally, his compatriot, his friend.

And towards the end there Steve was even starting to think that maybe… maybe one day they could be more, if he ever got up the courage to flirt back.

Not that it mattered now.

“No shit, Harrington!” Eddie spat. “I’ve been waving my hands in front of their faces, screaming Dustin's name at the top of my lungs and getting jack squat back in return. I mean what the fu—”

With a sad little smile Steve turned, finally looking straight at the other boy just in time to see his eyes go impossibly wide.

“Wait—holy shit! Harrington, does this mean you can see me?!”

Steve winced, grimacing at the sheer volume of Eddie's voice. “And hear you, unfortunately.”

Who knew the loudest guy he’d ever met would be even louder in death.

Actually, that tracked.

“Steve?” Robin’s voice filtered in as she called out to him from the other room.

Steve took a deep breath, locking eyes with the adorably confused looking ghost haunting his kitchen as he shouted back to her. “Yeah?” He raised a hand to his head, rubbing at the bridge of his nose just as Robin appeared in the doorway.

“What are you up to in here?” She asked.

“Oh, just…” Steve trailed off, trying and failing not to track Eddie’s movements as he hopped down off the counter and began to stalk towards Robin, a determined, mischievous glint in his eye.

“ …talking to myself.”

Her eyebrows furrowed in concern. “You okay?”

“Are you okay she asks,” Eddie grumbled, tipping his head mockingly from side to side. “Pfft—I’m the one who’s invisible. Why isn’t anyone asking if I’m okay?”

“Um,” Steve fought to keep a level expression and not laugh, even as Eddie blew wet raspberries and made increasingly silly faces inches from an oblivious Robin’s nose. “No, actually. I think I might have a migraine coming on,” he lied.

“You want me to get everyone to leave?” She asked.

Yes, good plan!

In fairness he wasn’t exactly feeling his best. He was exhausted. It had been a long few days.

A long… week and a half?

Years.

It had been a long few years.

And he needed some time alone with Eddie, to talk.

“That'd be great, yeah. Thanks, Rob.”

“Sure thing. Why don't you go get in bed with your eye mask on, and I'll bring water and painkillers up?”

“Oooh,” Eddie crooned. “His majesty sleeps with an eye mask? Fancy.”

Ugh, why were all of Steve’s favorite people such fucking smartasses? He glared at Eddie before he could stop himself. Which meant he was staring daggers at a blank wall right now, right in front of Robin, leaving her looking more concerned than ever.

Shit.

He should have known she’d wanna stay behind and take care of him.

“I—um, t-that’s okay,” Steve stuttered out. “M-maybe you should just go on home too.”

Her face fell.

Hacking and wheezing, he forced a fake coughing fit in her direction, only barely covering his mouth with his hand.

“Very convincing,” Eddie commented with clear sarcasm.

Robin wrinkled her nose, recoiling like the germaphobe Steve knew and loved.

“Sorry, I think I'm coming down with a cold or something actually. You should get out while you still can.”

Robin bit at her lip, looking mildly dubious, but eventually she nodded. “Fine. Just promise you’ll call me if it gets any worse, or if you need anything?”

“I promise.”

While everyone cleared out, Steve hid in the kitchen, finally getting that drink of water he so desperately needed—his throat was on fire now that he thought about it—and splashed some more cold water from the sink on his face for good measure.

“You sure you’re not actually coming down with something?” Eddie asked, sitting back up on his perch on the counter. “You don’t look so hot.”

“I’m fine,” Steve said with practiced ease, though his head was beginning to throb a bit. Maybe that migraine thing wasn’t as much of a lie as he’d thought.

With the house now safely empty of prying eyes and ears, he ventured back out into the living room, with Eddie hovering along behind, and locked the deadbolt on the front door before plopping down hard on the couch, letting his head rest against the back of it.

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Eddie asked, pacing back and forth along the floor in front of him.

Steve let his head loll to one side. “Plan?”

Eddie groaned, stopping in his tracks to throw his head up to the ceiling. “Why couldn’t it be Henderson who can see me.”

Okay, rude.

“A plan, y'know?” Eddie went on. “To get me back? To get me out of the Upside Down or whatever purgatory I'm currently languishing in?”

Steve could only stare at him blankly for a moment as the words sank in. “Eddie—” he began hesitantly, sitting up straight.

“What? Don't tell me you’ve all given up on me already?”

Oh.

Oh, no.

Steve had heard about this, how sometimes spirits don’t realize they’ve passed on, but surely Eddie had to know. What other possible explanation could he have for suddenly becoming invisible and incorporeal?

“Eddie, what is it you think is happening here, exactly?” He asked, praying he was wrong but bracing himself for the worst. How on earth do you go about telling someone you care about that they’re dead?

“Well, clearly I–I'm…” Eddie sputtered haughtily for a moment before looking away. “I'm not sure. I’ve been separated from my body somehow, obviously. S-so It’s gotta be some weird Vecna shit, right? And uh, you can hear me and see me b-because… because we both got bit by the bats and it gave us, like, our own little freaky hive-mind type… thing?”

He sounded less and less sure as he went on, and Steve’s heart ached for him. He remembered the bats attacking him part, but not the dying part. That just seemed cruel.

“Eddie, um,” Steve cleared his throat, rubbing his hands together nervously. “I don’t know how to tell you this but you… you died.”

“Bullshit,” Eddie snorted.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true. We came back from the Creel house and you…” Steve paused, struggling for a second to force his words past the sudden lump in his throat. “Dustin was sitting there with your—”.

“No.” Eddie shook his head roughly. “No–no, because, if I'm dead… then how is it you can see me? Huh?! Explain that!”

“It runs in my family. My dad doesn't have the gift but my grandfather was able to see ghosts, and his father before that.”

“Suuure, Harrington,” Eddie’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “So—not only am I supposed to believe that I'm dead, but also that you’re descended from some long line of ghost whisperers? Is this a joke to you?! I’m in dire need of–of fucking rescue, and you’re over here trying to fuck with me? Not cool, man. Not cool.”

Steve stood, almost reaching out as he itched to comfort the other boy in some way, but he knew well that it was pointless. “I’m not, I swear I'm not messing with you. I know it’s not what you want to hear, and I'm so sorry but I'm telling you the truth. Dustin, he—” Steve’s voice cracked. “You didn’t have a pulse, Eddie.”

“Stop it!” Eddie snapped.

“I’m sorry, really. I–”

“I said stop!”

With a choked off sob Eddie moved to shove him away, only to stumble when his hands found nothing solid, or rather, as Eddie’s ghostly and very not solid form passed right through Steve’s body.

Steve held his breath as he waited for it, the sensation of being doused in a bucket of ice water, the spine tingling, creepy crawly thing he’d felt the only other time he’d let a ghost near enough to touch.

But this was nothing like that.

Eddie felt… warm. And while Steve still shivered it wasn’t because the failed touch had been bad or painful. Quite the opposite, actually. He was left with a pleasant buzzing in his core, the initial warmth lingering, wrapping around him like an embrace before fading slowly.

Maybe all spirits were different. Maybe Barb had felt cold because she’d hated him, because it was his pool she died in—his fault she was out there in the first place.

But Eddie was…

Oh shit—Eddie.

Steve spun to find him on the floor with his knees pulled up, hugging them to his chest, his huge brown eyes shining with unshed tears.

Could ghosts cry?

Steve knelt down next to him, biting back a wince as the movement pulled at the bandages hiding beneath his shirt. He’d need to change those again tonight, they felt tacky with dried blood.

Eddie's voice shook when he finally spoke again. “I’m—dead?’

Steve bowed his head in a solemn nod. He would have given anything in that moment to be able to wrap his arms around Eddie.

“T-the bats?”

“There were just too many of them,” Steve explained. “It looked like you put up a hell of a fight, but I think you bled out.”

“My uncle, Wayne, do you know if he—” Eddie trailed off, worrying his bottom lip.

“Dustin talked to him. He couldn't risk telling him everything, but he gave him your guitar pick, and told him you were a hero. That you died a hero.”

Eddie barked a wet laugh, shaking his head.

“It’s the truth," Steve said, hoping his tone left no room for doubt. "If you hadn't distracted them we never would have made it into that attic. And If you hadn’t led them away when you did…” He didn’t need to say it, they both knew Dustin could—and likely would—have been hurt or worse, and those things would have gone through the gate and into the right side up.

It was exactly what Steve would have done too, had their roles been reversed.

“How long has it been?” Eddie asked, quietly.

“Three? No–no, four days.”

“And Vecna?”

“Down, but not out. We wounded him for sure but he got away. That's why everyone was here tonight.”

“Okay,” Eddie blew out a long breath, rubbing hard at his eyes. “What happens now? Do you like, help me find the light or something?” His eyes darted around as though some doorway or portal might appear right there in the living room. “Or maybe I'm going the other way. I can think of a few reasons the big guy might not let me upstairs, but what do I know, maybe self-sacrifice gets you a free pass?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Isn’t this your legacy or whatever?”

“I’ve never done,” Steve waved a hand, gesturing between the two of them. “This before. I was taught to ignore the dead. Pretend I can't see them just like everyone else and let them go about their business.”

“How come?”

“Grandfather said if you get too involved, if the dead find out you can see them they’ll never leave you alone. That it’s dangerous. The dead linger for a lot of reasons, but the most common are unfinished business and revenge. Lots of angry spirits out there according to the Harrington journals.”

Eddie tilted his head thoughtfully. “Am I really the first ghost you’ve ever talked to?”

Steve thought of Barb again, the way her face had morphed into a rage-filled mask when he revealed he’d been able to see her all along, but he pushed it forcefully out of his mind.

And lied.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I just told you, my grandfather—”

“No,” Eddie cut in. “I mean why, after a lifetime of ignoring ghosts, did you choose to acknowledge me?”

“B-because, you’re—“ Steve faltered, not knowing quite how to put it into words. He wasn’t sure even he totally understood. Yes he’d started developing a crush on the guy, but it was more than that. They had a connection, Steve felt it, even if Eddie didn’t. And maybe it was normal—inevitable even, when you get thrown into this shit together. But whether it was all just trauma bonding or something more, Steve couldn’t deny the pull.

“You’re—” he tried to say again as he pushed himself to his feet, only to double over, sucking air through his teeth as the dull pain in his sides turned searing and sharp.

“Steve?” Eddie shot up as he spoke, sounding worried.

“‘M fine,” Steve grit out, managing to straighten his posture without another outburst. “Jus' tired.”

Eddie raised a single eyebrow, but thankfully didn’t argue, silently following Steve as he headed for the staircase and began to climb.

Of course, this was Eddie, so he was only capable of being silent for so long.

“Hey, how come I can’t touch you, but I can walk up the stairs?”

“I don’t know,” Steve huffed out, breath stuttering as he neared the top landing.

Just a few more steps.

“Do you think I could, like, sit on a couch, or—or lay in a bed?” Eddie asked.

“I don’t know,” Steve repeated, trying not to sound as annoyed and in pain as he felt. He just had to make it to his room, get these stupid wounds cleaned and then he could pass out for a few hours. Maybe then he’d be able to answer questions and figure out what to do about all this.

“What if I—”

“Eddie!” Steve barked from the top step, whirling to face him. He nearly lost his balance before catching himself with a hand on the wall. His sides were screaming at him and the throbbing in his head was getting worse too. “I really don’t know any more than you do. I don’t know all the ins and outs, or why things work the way they work. Can you please just give it a rest for a minute?”

Eddie wilted, dropping his gaze to his feet. “Sorry.”

Fuck.

“No,” Steve sighed. ”No, I'm sorry, I shouldn’t be… y’know, when you’re—”

“Dead?!” Eddie snapped, raising his head again. He looked hurt.

“Sorry.” Steve sucked his lip between his teeth.

“Whatever.”

“Eddie—”

Eddie stomped past him and into the upstairs hallway. “Spare me the pity party. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m telling you, if I was dead, I'd know it.”

Steve opened his mouth to argue but snapped it shut again without another word. He didn’t have the energy, and If that was what Eddie needed to believe for now to get through this, then who was he to tell him what to think? It wouldn’t change the facts but if it made him feel better, what was the harm?

Somehow Eddie had guessed the right door. He waited, leaning up against the opposite wall and very deliberately didn’t look at Steve as he walked over, and pushed into his bedroom.

Steve went right through to the bathroom to get this over with, not bothering to close the door behind him, assuming Eddie would be able to walk right through anyway if he wanted to.

Eddie did follow, still silently brooding as he found another piece of wall to hold up.

Steve ignored him for now, he felt awful but he’d try to apologize again later once the other boy had calmed down, and carefully peeled his shirt off as he stood in front of the mirror.

The bandages at his sides looked gnarly and gross. He’d bled again, and it looked like there was something yellow seeping into the huge squares of gauze too. He turned his body to the side, looking over his shoulder to see how the road rash on his back was doing. It looked better than the front, but that wasn’t saying much. The skin around the wide scrapes was red and inflamed. He couldn’t cover those on his own and could really only clean them in the shower, but they were shallow at least and would eventually heal on their own, he figured.

A quiet gasp reminded him of his audience, and a quick glance over through the mirror showed Eddie staring at his torso with wide eyes.

“It looks worse than it is,” Steve said quietly, quickly looking away. Which wasn’t exactly true but the last thing he needed right now was another person trying to force him to go to the hospital.

He knew some first aid.

It was fine.

Turning back to face the sink, Steve ran water over a washcloth and held it to each of his dressings to soak them off. The air stung when it finally hit the wounds, as though they'd been freshly opened, and, sure enough, there was definitely some pus seeping from the edges.

No problem. He’d just have to clean them extra thoroughly.

Gritting his teeth, Steve poured a hefty amount of peroxide on a new clean washcloth and began to gently pat his right side.

The pain was instant and excruciating.

Bile rose in his throat, a cold sweat breaking out across his body as the world around him swam. Steve swayed on his feet, dropping the cloth to the ground as he himself began to fall.

A sudden warmth at his back, and strong hands wrapping around his chest were the only thing that kept him on his feet. Carefully avoiding the worst of his wounds, Eddie had caught him, holding the bulk of his weight until the spinning in his head stopped.

The moment Steve could stand on his own again Eddie jumped back as though he’d been burned.

Steve’s eyes snapped up, locking with Eddie’s in their reflections as he realized with a start what had just happened.

“How?” He whispered. He could still feel the imprint of Eddie’s hands where they had cradled him to his chest. He’d felt so… real, so solid, so—alive for that handful of seconds.

“I-I don't know!” Eddie said, a little too loud in the small space. “I didn’t even think, or-or like, I forgot that I couldn't. I saw you about to go down and I didn't want you to hurt yourself.”

“I didn’t think it was possible." Steve took a step towards him. "You should try to do that again.”

Eddie tucked his hands behind his back, moving as far away as he could without actually leaving the room. “Don't we have more important things to worry about? Like maybe getting you to a hospital?”

“No.” Steve shook his head. “I told you, it looks worse than it is.”

It was abundantly clear that Eddie didn’t believe him, but something about the accidental touch had freaked him out enough that he let it go.

As quickly as he could, Steve finished cleaning the ruined expanse of his stomach and got both sides wrapped in fresh bandages, managing to do so without nearly fainting this time, and threw a clean t-shirt on to hide the evidence. Hopefully that would stop Eddie looking at him with those big brown fucking sad worried eyes of his.

Out of sight, out of mind, and all that.

As much as he liked Eddie’s attention on him, these weren’t exactly the circumstances he would have hoped for.

Steve shut the lights off, and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to his chin.

“We should try it again,” Steve mumbled through a long drawn-out yawn.

Eddie laughed softly from his corner hiding spot. “What was that, big boy?”

Steve wished he’d try to join him on the bed, but didn’t know how to ask. He untangled one of his arms from the sheets, reaching a hand out in Eddie’s direction. “Touch me?”

The room was dark, and it could have been that Steve was a little delirious but he was pretty sure a light blush crept over Eddie's cheeks as he took a step closer, his own ringed hand outstretched.

The sight set off butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

Steve waited to feel the tips of their fingers brush, was desperate to feel Eddie’s touch again if he was honest, but it was no use, Eddie’s long digits passed right through.

“Maybe we have to–” Steve interrupted himself with another deep yawn. His body still ached but now that he was tucked in and warm in his bed, it was getting hard to fight the inevitable.

“Just go to sleep, man,” Eddie said, his lips quirking into a small crooked smile. “It's not like I'm going anywhere.”

It should have been awkward, or weird to know someone would be there all night, lurking around while he slept, but as Steve drifted off he felt safer than he had in a long time, oddly comforted by the fact that Eddie would be there watching over him, even if he was just a ghost.

Thanks as always to @penny00dreadful for being the best beta and an absolutely amazing cheerleader!

Permanent taglist(open): @penny00dreadful @pearynice @hitlikehammers @bookworm0690 @wonderland-girl143-blog

@goodolefashionedloverboi @themagicalari @awkwardgravity1 @rocknrollsalad

Fic taglist (open): @sidekick-hero

#steddie fanfic #ghost eddie munson #reluctant medium steve harrington #happy ending #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington/eddie munson #steddie fic

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frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe · 8 months ago

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it's finally here! one month late, and a couple thousand words more than i thought it'd be! happy leap yeap!

Here's my entry for Lex's (@thefreakandthehair) Spicy Six Winter Fanworks Challenge! I had dialogue prompt #22 "Guess we’re the only two without dates, huh?”

pairing: steddie | word count: 10,446 | rated: E | on AO3: hey you really turn me on

Why in the hell did he agree to this? It’s 20 fuckin’ degrees out and he’s outside?? In the snow?? Voluntarily?

If the boys could see him now.. “Who are you and what’ve you done with Eddie?”, “Since when do you do shit outside?”, “All this for Steve fuckin’ Harrington…”.

And that’s the rub, it is because of Steve. Hopeless crush aside, Steve is the reason he’s there. Why they’re all there in the first place.

When Steve got the call, Eddie and the other older teens of their world-saving group were just hanging out; movies, beer, snacks, a little weed, music playing low…all in all, a great kick-back.

Then the phone rang.

It was relatively late too, 10 maybe?

Steve went to answer it of course, the conversation muffled through the living room and kitchen walls, but after a minute or so he came back. The long phone line stretched across the hall back to the hook in the kitchen.

“When is this again?” Steve says into the receiver, waving towards the sound system. Robin had scrambled up immediately, nearly falling back on her face to turn the volume down.

“Uh huh. And you and Dad won’t be there? Mm hmm.” he nods.

Eddie looked over to Robin first, eyebrow raised. She only shrugged, as does Nancy when he turned the look to her.

“And how many rooms?” Whatever the answer is causes Steve’s brows to shoot up. “Wow, okay, yeah we–”

Eddie was closest to him, previously starfished out on the carpet, but had sat up and leaned back on his palms when Steve returned, so he could just barely hear the sound of another voice on the other end of the line.

“Yeah of course, that’d be great, we definitely will. Thanks Mom.”

Steve had sounded actually…happy to be talking to his mom. And here Eddie thought the Harringtons were objectively the worst.

“No, they’re going to love it, Mom, I promise.” another pause, “Nope. They’ll all be on their best behavior.” Steve glances down at Eddie, “We all will be.”

He scoffs up at Steve from his spot on the floor. Rude.

Steve only waves him off with a smile, “Yeah, the usual.” he says, “Rob, Nance, Jon, Jon’s friend Argyle–yeah, he’s the one from California, and Eddie.” Steve’s eyes flash down to Eddie again and his stomach twists sharply. Aw fuck, here it comes; the scolding, the yelling, the berating about how Eddie’s no good for him to be associating with, why are you stooping to his level, he’s a murderer, yadda yadda yadda.

“Yeah, he and Wayne are doin’ much better now, I’ll have to tell you about it next time, okay?”

Uh.

What?

“Yeah, that’d be great if you don’t mind! Yep, Wheeler, Henderson, Sinclair,” He looks again at the other people in the room, they’re still just as puzzled as he is. What do the kids have to do with this? “I’ll talk to Hopper and Joyce, and I’m sure Ms. Mayfield would let Max go. Oh absolutely,”

Steve starts back into the kitchen, and Eddie can hear him all the way back to the hook. “No–Nope, it’s fine, I actually have a couple people over right now so I want to–yeah. Yep. Okay, love you too. Bye mom.”

Eddie looks around at the others; Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, even Argyle, though he’s not looking around wide-eyed at what all just occurred like the others are.

Steve comes back into the living room. “So…” he lets out a long breath, “How do you all feel about skiing?”

-x-X-x-

So yeah. Here they all are, at some ski resort up in Michigan. Boyd Mountain…or Bowie? Something with a ‘B’.

Turns out, Steve’s parents had a four-room cabin rental set aside as a perk for some deal they were trying to barter. It fell through though, and they wouldn’t be back from Colorado themselves until after the reservation would’ve expired so they offered it to Steve and whoever he’d like to invite.

They took care of everything too; got lift passes, boot and ski rentals set aside for each of them, even sent a whole ass passenger van to be dropped off in the Harrington driveway for them to make the drive; A huge 15 passenger one that even with the three extra seats, still barely held all their crap for the long weekend.

All of them piled into the van in the dark on a Friday morning, sleepy-faced and crusty-eyed; Robin as Steve’s co-pilot, and each of the rest of the older teens and the party piling in wherever they could (they’d fight about their seats when they woke up more, Eddie was sure of it).

The first rest stop on the way up went by without incident, but by time they stopped for late breakfast/early lunch at another, everyone was stir crazy. Sandwiches were passed out, gas was gotten, bathroom breaks were taken, and almost as soon as they got back in the van, Robin was snoring.

“Damnit, if I knew she was gonna tank like that I would’ve had someone else sit up here.” Steve had groused.

“I’ve gotcha big guy, I won’t let you fall asleep.” Eddie said, now seated next to Dustin and El on the first bench behind the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, me either.” Dustin agreed.

He was snoring an hour later, El leaning into him for her own nap.

“That’s cute.” Was the first thing Robin said after waking back up.

All in all, not a bad drive. The worst part was tramping through the snow to the cabin after they’d arrived.

“Goddammit Steve, How am I supposed to get through this week in only my jeans?”

Steve sighs, “Eddie, you have made the same argument ever since my mom called; and every time you did, I told you everything would be here for you.”

He finally gets the door open, shoving it wide for them all and gesturing them in, “Get comfy guys, I’m going to grab the cooler with our groceries.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Jonathan says, following Steve back out to the van.

The large open main floor has a full kitchen with a raised bar counter and four stools, tall peaked ceilings, a fireplace on one wall with two couches and a rocking chair situated around it, and a sliding glass door to a balcony off the back side of the building overlooking the trees below.

There’s stairs too, a set going up and a set going down, and at least one bathroom here on this floor, off the kitchen.

Eddie wanders into the living room, picks out some pieces of kindling from the bucket on the stone beside the fireplace and a couple logs from the stack nearby, and busies himself with starting the fire while the party pokes around the place.

He glances over his shoulder when he hears the fake leather of the couch cushions squeak together, only to see Argyle has perched himself on the backrest, squashing a cushion beneath his feet.

The fire takes less than no time at all, and once it’s going and he’s re-situated the trifold metal screen back in front of the fire, he sits down beside Argyle’s shins and is immediately entranced by the flames.

Steve and Jonathan return not long after, lugging their things with the cooler hanging between them.

“So how do y’guys want to split up the rooms?” Robin asks aloud, ignoring the yelling the other teens are already doing about the same thing.

“I’m not picky.” Eddie shrugs, standing up to stretch again, deciding he really did not want to be sitting anymore.

“Me either sister, whatever you decide is cool with me.” Argyle agrees. “What’re the rooms like?”

“There’s a master up here!” Max calls from above them, looming over the log railing at the top of the stairs with El.

“We walked right past it, but there’s a room with a queen off the front hall there,” Jonathan says, shuffling his bag against the kitchen bar.

“Hey! Assholes!” Steve yells down the steps, the boys must’ve gone down there. “Go get your shit out of the van and we’ll head over to the main lodge!”

The four thunder up the steps, how any of them can understand any other over the other is beyond him.

“Will,” Nancy calls as he rounds the stairs last, “There are bedrooms down there?”

“Yep!” he grins, “Two rooms with queen beds, and a bathroom.”

“I don’t mind taking one of the queens,” Nancy says, “Robin, wanna share with me?”

Robin starts to splutter, still somehow not convinced that Nancy’s got a thing for her. It’s obvious to him, but he and Steve have both tried to tell her this. To no avail. Even after Jonathan and her had confirmed they’d split and that he was moving back to California with Argyle come spring.

Steve rescues Robin from her spluttering. “It’s only fair that Argyle gets next dibs, since he’s the one that’s offered to cook for us.” he says, lugging the cooler over to the kitchen to unload it.

He’d insisted on picking up groceries for their stay, saying “There’s a restaurant, sure, but that’d get expensive quick and we’ll have a full kitchen so why not?”

“Appreciated my man; y’wanna bunk with me, Jonny?”

Eddie follows Steve, leaning on the bar across from the fridge from him, “So where’s all my snow gear, Stevie?” he asks the back of Steve’s head.

“Eddie, I swear to God.” Steve huffs in return, bending down into the cooler at his feet to fish out a couple of cartons of eggs.

Eddie does not watch how the denim of Steve’s jeans pulls tighter over any part of him, thank you very much.

“Mom called ahead and has everything we might need set aside in the main lodge, we’ll go there first before we hit the slopes.”

“Oh my god, did you really just say that?” Eddie asks as Steve stashes away two jars of jelly, one strawberry, one grape.

“Say what?” Bacon and some packs of lunch meat are next.

“Like, that’s an actual thing that people say? It’s not just in the movies?”

Steve sighs, finishing off the groceries with a couple 12 packs of pop stashed on the bottom shelf. “What is just like the movies?”

“‘Hit the slopes.’? Really?”

“You’re super annoying, you know that, right?” he says, closing the fridge and pushing the lid back onto their cooler.

“Awe, c’mon baby, you don’t mean that.” Eddie coos, slipping around the counter to cup Steve’s face in his hands, “What happened to the man who loves me for my antics, huh?”

“Get off me, dude,” Steve laughs, batting Eddie’s hands away, his cheeks tinged pink.

‘Yes! Success!’ When did he decide he was trying to fluster Steve? Eh, whatever. No harm, right?

“So, did you guys figure out the sleeping situation?” Steve asks the rest of the group, walking back around the bar.

Eddie follows, leaning back on the counter in his previously vacated spot.

Nancy nods, “Jon and Argyle will take the room on the main floor, us girls will take the two downstairs, you can take the master, and the boys will take the couches.”

The boys return with their bags then, and Mike immediately starts complaining about being relegated to the fold-outs. Eddie also hears Dustin and Lucas trying to talk him down, saying things like “Dude, that means we’ll be close to the fire!”, “We can throw things in it!,” and “We can make s’mores!”.

Steve doesn’t seem to hear them though, otherwise he’d be shutting that shit down. Instead, his face only scrunches in confusion, “What about Eddie?”

Nancy looks surprised for a blink, then disgruntled, like she’s pissed she forgot someone.

“I’ll just crash out here on the floor with these losers, no worries.” he shrugs.

Steve turns toward his voice, a deep crease between his brows. “That’s not fair.”

“I promise I’ll survive Stevie,” Eddie chuckles. At least he’ll be the warmest out here in front of the fireplace. “I’ve slept on worse, believe it or not, I’ll be sleeping like a king compared to then.”

Steve’s brows scrunch almost all the way together, then spring apart and settle into determined lines. “You’ll sleep with me.” he says with a nod, his arms folding across his chest.

A beat passes.

Eddie can’t resist.

He leans close to Steve’s side, “A bit presumptuous, Stevie darling,”

Steve’s face practically glows with the flush that appears in the next beat, mumbling something to himself as he walks to the door and starts to pull on his coat and boots.

Eddie pushes off the counter and follows, obnoxiously holding a hand up to one ear. “What’s that, sweetheart?” he teases, walking to his own tossed-aside boots, “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“We going to the lodge now?” he hears Lucas ask as he passes.

“Finally.” Mike adds, unhelpfully.

Steve huffs, standing up again and leaning close to Eddie’s cupped hand, “As if you hadn’t thought about it, darling.”

Four of the other ten are in their coats and boots and out the door after Steve before Eddie comes back online.

-x-X-x-

So here he is: outside. In the snow. With skis strapped to his feet. All because of Steve and his surprisingly generous parents.

He watches, amused, as Robin stands as still as she possibly can, arms spread wide, while Nancy helps strap her into her skis. As soon as the skis had gotten remotely close to being attached to her, it was discovered that no matter what section of ground they may be standing on, Robin would start to drift away. Sliding down some sort of unseen incline backwards, frontwards, and/or sideways.

Jon and Argyle are already almost to the closest lift, and Eddie watches as they do a weird half-jump onto the bench as it comes up behind them.

The gremlins had scattered after Steve’s ‘be careful’ lecture, telling them all when to be back to the van by, or back to the cabin if they will be coming off the slopes near there, telling them all to be safe and to keep to pairs or more so they can be radioed.

They’d all brought their walkies with them, and Eddie can see where the boys are still huddled together, swapping out their batteries.

He watches them split off soon after, Dustin and Lucas pushing off to where Max and El are waiting at the standing lift to the top of the training hill.

Mike and Will scoot off together in the opposite direction, toward the centermost lift a few dozen yards away.

“Guess we’re the only two without dates, huh?” He says as Steve slides to a stop on his own skis beside him.

He’d meant it jokingly, was probably going to follow it up with some jabs about being Steve’s wingman if he needed (there were already a few ladies he’d seen giving Steve some looks while they waited for their gear in the main lodge), but Steve shrugs and says: “I’ll be your date this weekend, Eds. Wouldn’t want you to feel left out or anything.”

Eddie whips his head around to look at him, “That’s not–” he starts, but cuts himself off at the look Steve is giving him. His goggles have been haphazardly pushed up his face, trapping a few loose locks of Steve’s hair between them and the roll of his beanie, his cheeks are already bitten red with the cold, and he’s smiling so painfully sincerely under that damn teasing smirk that all Eddie can do is acquiesce.

“You better be the best date here then, Stevie,” Eddie chides, starting off toward the lift Jonathan and Argyle had disappeared up, “I won’t settle for anyone other than the bes–” he pitches forward suddenly, one of his skis sticking to the snow under it more than it should’ve.

Steve catches him, of course, and says “Will I get points taken off as ‘Best Date Ever’ if I make you go on the training hill?”

They do go to the training hill, lovingly called the Bunny Hopper, but he and Robin are thankfully saved from the embarrassment of actually being taught by the volunteers there; Steve and Nancy taking them to the slightly taller ‘big kid’ hill and teaching them there.

Surprising even himself, Eddie picks up on the motions and the feeling of being on skis easily. The whole ‘pizza’ thing about stopping was still iffy but the rest is no problem. Fun, actually.

“That was great, man! You’re a natural!” Steve beams at him, his grin lopsided from the meat of his cheeks being squashed under his goggles.

“I just had a great teacher,” he brushes off the compliment, elbowing Steve playfully.

Steve somehow grins even bigger, and Eddie’s heart stammers.

“You ready to go to the real hill now?” “This isn’t a real hill?”

He’s positive Steve just rolled his eyes under his goggles. “C’mon smartass, let's get in line for the lift.”

Eddie bows him forward, “After you, sweetheart.”

He follows Steve to the end of the line; thankfully it’s not too long, now that it’s late afternoon and will be getting dark soon.

Steve seems to notice this as well, lifting his goggles off his face again. “We’ll have to call the gremlins back sooner than I thought. It’ll be dark soon.”

“Stop reading my mind, Stevie.”

Steve looks over at him, squinting hard and pursing his lips (Eddie’s stupid lizard brain has a split second thought of those lips pursed around something). “Ugh! Ew, gross Eddie, what would make you think about that?!”

He feels his face blanche and scrambles to recover. “I was only thinking about our good friend Robin, Steve-o, you saying Robin is gross?” He pitches his voice higher and glances down the line to where he can see Robin and Nancy.

Robin flips her mitten up at him, and he can infer the gesture just fine, thanks.

“Shut up, asshole.” Steve laughs, pushing him out of the line on his skis.

They’re the next to hop up on the moving bench, and Steve’s…everything…seems to seize up as soon as they’re seated and on their way.

“Could you imagine?”

“Hm?” He’s still looking down anxiously, so Eddie scoots just a bit closer, pressing what he hopes is comfortingly into Steve’s side.

“If we could read each other's minds? If the bats biting us both somehow linked us together?”

It works a little; Steve tears his eyes away from the ground as it drops away from them, huffing out a short laugh, “I don’t think I would survive inside your head, it’d be even more chaotic than you already are.”

“As if your head would be any better.”

“Hey, my head is great!”

Eddie grins wickedly, “You get told that a lot, Stevie?”

Steve seems unphased, smirking slowly. “I do, actually. Why? You tryin’ t’see if it’s true?”

His cheeks start to prickle, “You offering, big boy?”

“Maybe I am,” Steve shrugs then leans closer, “Now the real question is if you’re gonna take me up on it.”

Eddie’s head reels in the couple seconds he takes to respond.

Where in the hell is all this coming from? Is it just part of the ‘date’ thing? There’s no fuckin’ way Steve is actually into him, is there? He’s always been flirty, just like Eddie is himself, but there’s no way there are any actual feelings behind it… So there’s no harm in playing along.

“I’m gonna have to now, aren’t I?” he grins back, “Gotta see if it lives up to the hype.”

Steve smirks, his eyes hooded. He’s good at pretending, he’ll give him that.

His eyes glance away, then back to Eddie’s face. The sultry look he’d been hamming up for his sake is gone, just an easy smile remains. At least this sudden flirting Steve’s decided to do isn’t going to ruin their surprisingly solid post-apocalyptic friendship.

“It’s almost time to get off, ready?”

Eddie looks ahead to where the couple on the bench before them are hopping off. They stand up off the lift easily and don’t end up in a heap, but he is starting to feel the anxiety Steve was feeling only minutes ago. How’s he supposed to get out of the way fast enough, isn’t there a drop? That looked way too easy.

“As I’ll ever be,” he gulps.

“Give me your hand.” Steve says, not waiting for a response and snatching up Eddie’s hand in his, “Okay, when I say so, you just gotta stand up. Ready?”

“Stand up, what do you mea—” he feels his legs lift a bit as the ground rises to coast under his skis, and it makes sense.

“Now!”

Wait, no! He wasn’t ready!

He stands just a breath after Steve, but isn’t fast enough, the lift continues up on its path and catches him again, forcing his butt back into the seat.

“Eddie, you gotta–”

He tries again at the same time Steve pulls him forward and he pitches forward, landing with an “Oof–” on top of Steve and forcing the breath from the other man’s lungs.

“Aw fuck, sorry Stevie!” He rolls off of him and out of the path of the upcoming lift chairs. “That went exactly as well as I thought it would.”

Steve wheezes out a breathless laugh, standing back up on his skis with no problem at all. Wait, how did he do that? How’s he supposed to get up with these things on his feet?

“Here,” Steve arranges his skis for him, putting one long side of each onto the snow, “Give me your poles, and push yourself up with your hands. You want to get your feet under you.”

He does as he’s told and walks his weight around on his hands to the fronts of his skis until he’s bent forward at his hips, standing straight out of the bend.

“...Huh.”

“Good job, man!” Steve grins, handing him back his poles, “Getting up on skis can be a bitch and a half; way to catch on quick.”

Eddie grins mischievously, deciding to be a little shit. “I dunno, you’d think my date would like seeing me bent over for him, huh Stevie?”

Steve just rolls his eyes, snapping his goggles back down with a smile, “C’mon, asshole, let’s get out of the way; the run to the right of the lift looked shorter on the map.”

Thankfully, the chair behind them had been empty, but the next one had a full four people on it and it was coming up fast.

“‘Sides,” He says, pushing off toward the top of the run, waiting for Eddie to scoot in next to him at the crest before leaning in and murmuring low into his ear, “I’d rather wait ‘till we’re alone to bend you over properly.”

Steve’s a good 20 feet away by time Eddie comes back to himself enough to follow.

They get about an hour and a half in on the hills, a grand total of six wipeouts under Eddie’s belt, and a couple others under Steve’s, with one successful landing off one of the jumps on the main drag to finish off the day.

“Didja see that?!” Steve yells, pulling down the balaclava he’d unceremoniously added to his getup about an hour ago.

“Hell yes Stevie!” Eddie calls, breathless, still coasting to the bottom of the slope after him. “You landed it!”

“I landed it!”

Steve holds his arms open as Eddie once again fails to slow himself down properly, and catches him at the bottom in a crushing hug. His cheeks are flushed with adrenaline, bitten with the cold, his eyes bright in the setting sun and smile nearly as beautiful.

Damn he’s pretty.

Courteous as ever, Steve waits until Eddie’s arranged his feet the right way again before letting him go to spin the pack off his back for their assigned walkie.

Steve radios the party, and everyone is packed away in their van a scant ten minutes later. The older teens had already made it back to the cabin, letting themselves in off a run near there, so it was only the similarly flushed and excitement-filled younger teens babbling away in the back seats.

There’s overlapping stories of their own wipeouts (including one Robin took that Max swears was hilarious), Dustin insisting he saw a brown bear through the trees at one point, and all six debating whether or not they’d want to go to the main lodge for the waterpark tomorrow instead of back onto the hills.

They are still debating amongst themselves when they pull into the driveway. “Alright dorks,” Steve calls over the bickering, “Go inside and hang up your shit next to the fireplace so it can dry out.”

Eddie follows the troop into the living room and watches them pile all their outerwear together on the two hooks closest to the stone fireplace, then tear off downstairs where he heard there may have been a Nintendo stashed in one of the bedroom dressers.

Jonathan and Robin start methodically re-arranging the coats and snow pants on the hooks so they’ll dry easier, while Argyle pushes up off one of the couches to start on dinner.

“C’mon Eds, get comfy,” Steve says, coming up beside him and gesturing to the loveseat directly across from the roaring fire. Eddie can already feel the burn of it across his frigid skin, “I gotta make sure I get you unthawed before I get you into my bed.” Steve murmurs into Eddie’s ear.

And isn’t that a whole new type of torment. They will actually be sleeping in the same bed tonight…the next three nights!

Steve turns back to the kitchen when Eddie drops cross-legged onto the sofa, and the tingling feeling in his cheeks has nothing to do with the fire.

It’s half from Steve’s scarily earnest-sounding flirting, but also about half from the look Robin is giving him while she takes the spot next to Nancy on the other couch.

“What? What’s the look for?”

Robin shrugs, picking up what must’ve been her discarded book from the end table between them (which she’s got the already read half curled backward around its spine, like a heathen), “Nothin’ at all, Eds.”

His face is burning hotter than the fire by the time Steve returns.

He passes them each a mug of cocoa, then flops down on the floor in front of Eddie’s knees.

“What’s cookin’ good lookin’?” Eddie asks, surprised at the nonchalance he was able to muster up. He reaches forward and tugs on a lock of Steve’s hair without even thinking about it (and ignoring the muffled giggle coming from somewhere to Robin’s left. Oh great, Nancy’s in on his torment too?).

Steve lets out a contented hum, dropping his head back to lie heavily in Eddie’s lap, “Argyle’s whipping up some burgers.”

Eddie leaves his fingers in Steve’s hair, absentmindedly pulling them through a few tangles left behind by his hat.

Steve’s head lolls around in Eddie’s lap with the motions of his fingers for a whole thirty seconds before he snaps it back up, “Oh–ugh–wait, don’t do that,” Eddie pulls his hand away immediately, an apology on his tongue, but Steve continues, standing up and saying, “I’m all gross and sweaty, man, at least let me take a shower first. Be right back.” Steve grins, and heads upstairs to the master bedroom.

Eddie blinks into the space left behind by Steve’s departure, then Nancy is standing as well; “That’s a good idea,” she says, unfolding from her spot at Robin’s side and walking around the back of the couch, “I’ll be back up soon.” She gives Robin’s shoulder a squeeze, and heads downstairs.

Not a full five seconds pass before Robin says, “So...Steve’s super into you.”

Eddie balks at her, his eyes darting around the room automatically. Jon’s helping Argyle chop up toppings for their burgers, the two of them paying less than zero attention to him or Robin, there’s a yell from downstairs followed by laughter, the sound of a shower starting from the open balcony to the upstairs bedroom..

“You can’t just say shit like that, Birdie.” he whispers, his tone harried.

“What, the truth?”

“He is not into me.”

She nods in sarcastic understanding, “Ah, so you’re into him.”

“No I’m—” she levels him with a look. He sighs, glancing around at the no one around them, “Okay fine, yes, I am super into him. But he is not into me.”

Robin shrugs, going back to her book. “You don’t have to believe me, but I think he is. And I think you should make a move.”

“Make a mo—He’s straight as fuck, Robin!”

She gives him a glance, her brow furrowing for a split second then smoothing out. “Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to.” he says, sinking back against the cushions.

She doesn’t say anything else, and he goes back to staring at the fire.

“If you make a move on Steve, I’ll finally make a move on Nancy.” she says a handful of minutes later.

He processes that slowly, takes a deep breath, then shoves his hand towards her without looking over.

She takes it, giving it one hard shake.

As soon as he takes his hand back, Argyle lopes into view with a plate in his hand, “Food’s ready my dudes.” He says, sinking into the armchair closest to the glass balcony door.

Robin snaps her book shut and sets it down on the little end table between them (the cover curls back up immediately, the poor thing), standing up and heading into the kitchen.

Eddie has just let his feet fall to the floor and has scooted to the edge of his seat to stand up himself, when Argyle yells out “Nice tits!”

“Whose tits are out?” Eddie asks, following his gaze automatically.

Argyle goes back to his plate. “Steve’s.”

Uh…Yeah…He can see that for himself now.

Steve is standing at the railing of the upper floor in nothing but a towel. One hand is flipping Argyle off, and the other is preoccupied with scrubbing a second towel over his damp hair.

The towel wrapped around him is slung low on his hips, and Eddie’s eyes start to roam on their own.

Steve’s stomach is solid yet soft-looking with all its faded pink scars, and it and his chest are still as hairy as Eddie remembers; strong shoulders, solid jaw, dusty lips that pull up into a smirk, all of him is so fucking perfect.

“Hurry it up, dingus, food’s ready!” Robin calls, startling Eddie out of his gawking.

His face goes hot with embarrassment, chancing another glance up to Steve and hoping he didn’t get caught…

Steve winks at him, then turns out of sight, disappearing just as his hand comes down to grab the towel twisted around him.

His face burns, and doesn’t stop burning until long after Steve returns from upstairs.

He makes up a burger for himself, and once each of them have theirs, they call the rest of the hoard upstairs. The six teens all but destroy the remaining burgers, two whole bags of chips, and would have gulped down at least one whole 12 pack of Coke if Nancy hadn’t relegated them to one can each.

Steve’s about to herd them back downstairs when El pipes up and says that they’ve decided they want to go to the waterpark in the main lodge tonight instead of tomorrow. Surprisingly, Steve agrees to drive them over there on the condition “you shitheads are careful, and are ready to go as soon as the pools close at midnight. Got it?”

“Agreed.” they say in unison, splitting off in all directions to grab their swim stuff.

“I’m surprised at you, Stevie, letting them go off on their own.”

He just shrugs, “There’s lifeguards.”

The troops are back in the living room within ten minutes, and in their boots and out the door in 12.

Once they’re out the door, Robin goes back to her book, Jon and Argyle step out onto the balcony to smoke, and Eddie follows Nancy into the kitchen without even thinking about it, grabbing up the hand towel hanging from the oven door and placing himself to her right.

“Thanks,” she says, handing him the first wet plate from the mess of suds in the sink.

They work in silence for a few minutes, listening to the crackling of the fire, the clanging of silverware in the sink, the muffled voices of the two on the porch.

“Nancy?”

“Yeah, Eddie?”

“If I–If Ste–” he wasn’t sure how to ask this, how to even approach the topic, “Robin said—”

“He’d be lucky to have you Eddie, and you him.” She says, not looking up from the sink.

“How’d you–?”

“Robin tends to ramble when she's nervous, have you noticed?”

He stares down at her, dumbfounded. Her lips quirk into a smile. “She’s like that around me a lot, actually.”

“I’ve noticed.”

They fall back into silence again; on the last plate, she says, “Robin’s already had this conversation with Steve about me, so I only assume it’s fair that you have it with me about him.” She passes the last plate to him and pulls the drain from the water.

“Just remember Eddie,” She pauses and turns to face him, one hip cocked over to lean on the edge of the counter. “If you’re gonna go for it..Steve loves with all of him at once. Don’t take it for granted.”

He sets the dried plate onto the rack beside the sink as she passes behind him, patting him on the shoulder as she does.

He wants to take a moment to process all that, but just his luck, Steve returns then, passing in behind him where Nancy just left to grab up a six-pack.

Steve hands one to Eddie as he leaves, “You okay, Eds?”

“I’m good, thanks Stevie.” he says, fixing his face into an easy smile.

The six of them lounge around the rest of the evening, slowly sipping on their drinks while they play cards in front of the fire, but there’s a catch: Eddie’s going absolutely insane.

Steve’s touching him everywhere. His thigh and foot are sitting comfortably under Eddie’s own thigh where it’s crossed above it, his arm is draped across the back of the couch behind Eddie’s shoulders and methodically twirling long lengths of dark hair between his fingers.

Eddie’s been doing his damndest to ignore it, and succeeds, actually, for short periods of time while they are playing Uno, but every time Steve leans back from dropping his next card on the coffee table, he casually puts his arm back where it was, and grabs up a new lock of Eddie’s hair to torture him with.

And each time he does, Robin gives him the same knowing look.

It’s. Agony.

He wants to relax, wants to scream, he wants to swing his leg over Steve’s lap and press him into the cushions with heated kisses, he wants to haul the other man upstairs and throw him onto the bed…be thrown onto the bed.

Finally, Nancy calls it, breaking their little bubble to stand into a long stretch around nine. Steve hops up off the couch after Robin to gather up all the rest of the cans, and Eddie helps Jon and Argyle pull apart the couches enough to fold out the beds for when the goblins come back.

He escapes upstairs after a short goodnight to the two, Robin and Steve are still bickering in hushed tones about something in the kitchen, and pulls out his bag. He’s fishing out a new pair of boxers when Steve finally gets upstairs, shutting the room’s double doors behind him and heading into the ensuite.

He left the door open in his wake, so Eddie grabs up the rest of his things and follows. He drops his pile of stuff onto the closed lid of the toilet and shucks his shirt unceremoniously, tossing it to the floor.

The glass door of the huge half-walled stone shower squeaks softly on its hinges when he opens it to start the water, squeaking again when it swings closed. He reaches up to a shelf above the toilet to pull down one of the provided towels, turning to hang it on the hook beside the shower.

It’s while he’s turning back to the hook that he chances a look at Steve.

Steve, frozen at the sink with his toothbrush hanging listlessly in the air and a glob of foamy toothpaste slowly drooping off his lip, is staring.

Unabashedly.

At Eddie’s bare torso.

Eddie caught and cataloged this in the split second it took Steve to realize Eddie was staring back, but it was enough.

The flirting had been one thing, a natural, goofy continuation of their friendship that led to their ‘date’ today, the soft touches and hair-playing had been another, something Eddie could explain away just as easily. Steve is a touchy guy once you get close to him, and had been with Eddie since they’d gotten closer after spring break.

But this?

He’s looking at him with the same wide-eyed look Eddie’d given him earlier: gobsmacked and slightly hungry.

Steve turns away quickly, spitting into the sink and mumbling something under his breath while he finishes rinsing out his mouth.

Eddie snorts, shaking his head and finally hanging up his towel.

“Oh, what, now you’re gonna be all shy?” he grouses, twisting around to scowl at the back of Steve’s head. Steve looks over his shoulder to glare at him in return, his cheeks glowing red. “Really? The guy who was joking about bending me over only a couple hours ago? The same guy who was winking at me in nothing but a towel earlier?”

Steve flushes darker, and it irritates him to no end. “Honestly Steve?” Eddie starts, turning back to the shower and pretending to fix how his towel is hanging, “If you’re into me, just do something about it. Otherwise, just…back off, okay? I’m super into you but I can be a big boy about it because honestly, I’d rather keep you around as a friend if nothing else and—”

His rambling is cut off by the click of the bathroom door closing.

Eddie lets out a long breath, “Yeah.. that’s about what I expected.” Robin was wrong.

He takes a moment to collect himself, but just as he pops open the button on his jeans, Steve’s voice breaks through the sound of rushing water.

“Were you being serious?”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Eddie yelps, spinning around to face the man who’s still very much in the bathroom with him. “What the fuck, Steve?”

“Were you?” he asks, pushing off from where he’d been leaning back on the door.

“...About what?”

“About how you’re ‘super into’ me?” he grins.

Eddie crosses his arms across his chest defensively, “You don’t get to be an ass about it, Steve.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve says softly, reaching out to unfold Eddie’s arms. His fingers follow the length of them and grasp Eddie’s in his, “I wasn’t trying to be, promise; I’m just surprised is all.”

“Surprised?”

“Well yeah,” he shrugs, “The super hot metalhead you’ve been mooning after since March confesses he thinks you’re also super hot? That’s kinda hard to believe.”

He can feel Steve’s shirt brushing faintly against his stomach now. “I never said you were super hot.” he manages to say.

Steve catches his eyes, smirking at him with an obnoxious head tilt, “Didja have to?”

“Shut up..” Eddie snorts out a laugh and pushes lightly at Steve’s chest; he’s laughing too. “Okay, okay, now leave me alone so I can shower.” he says, pushing a bit harder this time. “I’ll be out soon and you can do with me what you wish.”

Steve’s leaning his weight against him, fighting going back to the bedroom, “Or…”

“Or?” Damn, he’s heavy what the fuck!

“I could, maybe, if you want..Icouldgetinwithyou.”

Eddie stops pushing.

Steve scratches at the back of his head in embarrassment, “I mean, I’ve been wanting to get you naked for months now and there’s a perfectly good reason right there, and I think it’d be nice to shower, y’know…together.. and wow, I am being super awkward, actually..so I’m just gonna…yeah.”

Steve gestures over his shoulder toward the bedroom but he doesn’t even move to turn before Eddie is pulling him back the other way.

He lets him go a couple steps away from the glass shower door, “Better get t’stripping big boy, can’t shower very well with clothes on, can you?” he winks, then faces away from Steve to finally shed his jeans (and for his own sanity).

Eddie can hear the split second it takes for Steve to start pulling off his clothes, taking another second for himself before pushing his jeans and boxers off his hips.

He had been trying to be in the shower under the spray before Steve was even out of his clothes, but one of his legs got caught, then he had to pause further to pull off the stubborn sock that decided not to come off with his jeans.

Which of course led to him nearly toppling over.

He caught himself on the wall, but not before Steve’s hands caught him around the waist too. “Careful, Eds.”

Oh fuck. Steve’s hands should not feel that good against his skin..also, dammit! He was trying to be all suave and cool by getting in under the water before Steve could see him fully, and now his bare fuckin’ ass is out for all to see…

Eddie laughs to himself.

“What?”

“Nothin’, I just thought I’d be…better? At this?”

“At what?”

“Stupid fuckin’—” Eddie finally gets his sock off, then sighs, “I dunno, being sexy, or mysterious I guess? Coy maybe?”

“Why would you need to be any of that?”

Eddie shrugs, stepping out of Steve’s hold and into the shower and under the spray, staying faced away from the door while Steve follows.

“Are you gonna look at me?” he asks, voice devoid of anything but concern.

Taking a breath, Eddie steels himself and turns to face Steve in the large shower.

Steve’s expression is calm, open, but skews slightly into concern under Eddie’s gaze.

The long lean lines of his torso are just the same as the other two times he’s seen them, but they’re close now, and in good lighting too; Eddie can see a few other scars other than the ones from the bats, others he’s gotten over the years protecting the heard of goblins they’ve been co-parenting since last September.

He watches rogue droplets of water slough down the now-damp hairs on his arms, his legs, his chest, the ones that follow the path of darkening hairs down his stomach to his—

Steve steps closer, sharing the warm, wide spray of the shower with him.

He lifts his hand and brushes the damp hair back from the scar that marrs Eddie’s face and neck, stepping forward fully and cupping the puckered flesh in his palm when the hair settles wetly behind his shoulder

Eddie feels time stop for a brief moment.

All of Steve is pressed into him and they line up perfectly, like they were made to share the same space. Steve’s other hand slides onto Eddie’s hip and it tugs him closer. Steve's half-hard length slots into place beside Eddie’s own, into the crevice where his crotch meets thigh.

Eddie shudders a breath at the feeling, opening his eyes to study the planes of Steve’s face and the way he is seemingly drooping forward into Eddie’s orbit.

Steve’s smiling softly at him, the soft spray of water reflecting off their chests is misting up onto his cheek and lashes. His eyes are so much more green than he’d thought before, besides how little of the color he can see around the much larger pupil.

“Gorgeous.” Steve says, his voice is breathy and low, full of admiration, of longing…and it takes Eddie out of his reverie.

“Wha?” He says, eloquent as ever.

“You’re gorgeous, Eddie.”

Then, Steve’s lips are on his, tentative and sweet; soft, but becoming heady fast.

The next time their lips meet, it’s punctuated with a short huff of air from Steve’s lungs when Eddie spins them, pressing Steve into the stone wall beside the shower knobs. He parts his lips to mumble out an apology, but Steve’s tongue decides to fill the space instead.

The hand Steve had on Eddie’s jaw snakes down to grab hold of his other hip and pulls him even closer, using the both of them to roll Eddie’s hips into his.

Their tongues slide languidly against the other, the fast pace they’d been building into falling off in exchange for slow, sanguine kisses instead.

Eddie lets out a shaky breath when they do part, blinking across the short distance between them at Steve’s kiss-bitten lips for only a second before letting his eyes fall shut with the exhale.

“Steve…is this—Is this real?”

Steve breathes out a shaky laugh of his own, “Why wouldn’t it be real, Eddie?” He asks, gently tracing the length of Eddie’s nose with his.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve had this exact dream before; are you sure I didn’t snap my neck during one of those falls earlier?”

The younger man laughs fully this time, and Eddie relishes in the slippery feeling of the wet skin of Steve’s stomach rippling against his own. He can’t help but grin in response to both the laughter and the funny feeling, his eyes opening without a second thought.

Steve looks like he’s floating, his face soft and dripping with a bright beaming smile..

“Do you need me to pinch you?” Steve asks, finally coming down from his brief fit of laughter.

“I don’t know if I want to find out this isn’t real.” Eddie grins in return.

One of Steve’s large hands leaves his hip then, snaking around to pinch the underside of Eddie’s asscheek.

He sucks in a short hiss of pain and lets out a soft whimper of something else (holy shit, when did that become a thing??) in the same breath.

“Okay…” he gulps down a mouthful of nothing, “Not a dream.”

“Not a dream..” Steve repeats.

There’s a beat, two full breaths of more nothing before Steve spins them around and pushes Eddie back into the cold stone instead, his arm wrapped around him and up to cup the back of his skull protectively against the tile.

He presses a thick thigh between Eddie’s and does three things almost simultaneously.

The first, a second before the other two: He locks his heavy-lidded gaze on Eddie’s; two and three: presses the thigh between Eddie’s legs up, and pulls the hand at the back of his skull down along with a fistful of dark curls.

“Aahhh—ohhh fuck, Steve…” The sting from his scalp pulls a moan from his exposed throat, and Eddie scrambles to grab hold of something.

His nails dig into the slick skin of Steve’s back automatically, and he opens his mouth to apologize the same moment Steve latches onto his neck with a low groan of his own.

The hand not tangled in Eddie’s hair is starting to pull him down in waves against Steve’s thigh and hips, both of them hissing in pleasure with each pass of the other’s length against theirs.

“Mmmm, Eddie..” Steve moans, unlatching from the bruise he’s sure to have left on Eddie’s throat to lave his tongue and lips against his jaw instead. “Baby, you feel so good against me.”

“AAaahh—mmm..”

“Ooh, and you sound so sweet..” His lips trail down from his jaw back to the definitely sore spot on his neck, one that he prods lightly with the tip of his tongue before continuing on to nip at the taught skin of his collarbone, kiss lightly over the skin of his scarred pec, finally landing tongue first onto Eddie’s remaining nipple.

The reaction to this is immediate; Eddie arches his chest further into Steve’s mouth. Steve, the sonofabitch he is, suctions his lips away from Eddie’s flushed skin in response.

“Hhnng—what the actual fuck, Steve?” Eddie glares best he can though the panting, “Get that mouth back over here.”

Miraculously, Steve obliges, sliding forward into a saccharine kiss and pulling Eddie away from

the wall and back under the spray of water.

“C’mon Eds, tilt your head back before the hot water runs out.”

Eddie just gapes at him, at his dick, both their dicks, still standing at attention, back up to his face.

Steve just purses his lips together as if holding back a grin and tugs Eddie’s head back by his hair again, soaking the strands through under the water.

He lets Steve turn him this way and that, reveling in the feeling of the other man’s hands in his hair, slick with soap on his skin, the gentle nudges and pulls relaxing him further into this weird world where Steve’s totally into him and also they’re naked in the shower together.

Finally, when Steve tilts his head back for the final time to rinse the conditioner out of his hair, Eddie decides to be a little shit, pushing his hips forward to clash their (still half-hard) dicks together.

“What are you—really? A sword fight?”

Eddie lets out a long cackle, “What? You knew what you were getting into with me, didn’t’cha Stevie?”

Doubt crashes into Eddie’s chest the instant the words escape his mouth.

He did, didn’t he? He likes him for his antics right? Oh fuck…How long would it take for Steve to get sick of his shit?

Despite Eddie’s near-crushing doubts, Steve smiles and says, “That I did.” easy as breathing, then pulls Eddie flush against him in another heated kiss.

Steve walks him backward after a moment, and Eddie drops his hands behind him to feel for the inevitable press of cold stone on his back, shuddering when it finally makes contact.

His gasp from the cold tile only seems to egg the other man on, hunching down to grip him around the backs of his thighs.

Eddie’s legs lock around Steve’s waist in panic, but pleasure shoots through him with the motion too, the horny thrill of being picked up so effortlessly along with the pressure of Steve’s stomach against the underside of his dick.

“Mmph—Steve holy shit,” he’s only just managed to thread the fingers on one hand into those sleek brown locks when he has to stifle down a long groan with a bite to his knuckle. “Hnngh–Steve, Steve, you gotta—oh fuck..”

The muscles of Steve’s stomach bunch under him as he grinds up in slow, torturous rolls..

“Oh, fuck—” the words spill out of his mouth, loud and long; his palm snaps up to hold them in as Steve pushes his shoulders into the tile behind him and leans back, leaving Eddie’s body balanced between strong thighs and shower wall.

The tile hits hard on the back of his skull when Steve wraps one of those hands of his around both their lengths. Eddie manages to look down, only to knock his head back again at the sight.

Even with the added height of being on top of Steve’s thighs, their heads are exactly level, disappearing over and over again into the water-warmed skin of Steve’s fist.

Steve hunches forward again, pressing kisses into Eddie’s sternum. “Gorgeous.”

“Steve...” he whispers in return, grinding as much as he can against the length slotted along his.

Again, too soon, Steve is pulling away, releasing his grip on them both.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asks, already moving to drop his legs back to the floor.

Steve stops him, hoisting his legs back around him and lifting him off the wall. “I’m taking you up on your offer.” He says, twisting off the now-cold stream of water and carefully stepping over the lip of the doorway through the glass door.

“My offer?”

“You said that after your shower, you’d come back out here to the bedroom and I could have my way with you.”

A half whine, half moan curls out of Eddie’s throat to his utter embarrassment.

“D’ya like that idea, sweetheart?” Steve says, grinning mischievously.

Eddie manages to scowl at him as they leave the steamy bathroom, and is dropped down onto the mattress soon after.

“Aw shit!”

“What? What happened?”

It’s cold as shit, that’s what.” The air-cooled temperature of the covers against his skin has him breaking out in goosebumps.

Steve winces, “Sorry, I didn’t think about that.”

What was calm and collected confidence flickers off his face, and Eddie can’t have that. “Jus’ come over here and warm me up, big bo–wait,” He sits up and stops Steve when only one of his knees has made it onto the bed. “Lemme look at you.”

He looks down at Steve, and yep. Big Boy is very accurate. He’d felt it against him already, Steve’s too-gorgeous-to-be-real dick; he’s longer for sure, cut and curved up like something out of a wet dream.

“Oh, definitely big boy,” Eddie grins, looking up at Steve’s somewhat embarrassed expression.

“It’s nothing special.” he shrugs, his cheeks heating up as he climbs up Eddie’s damp body. He lowers himself down lay between his legs, his dick slotting itself beside Eddie’s once again.

He hunches over to kiss lightly up the scars on Eddie’s left side, lips brushing along the healed edge of the biggest one. It tickles, then it doesn’t, then does, then doesn’t, his lips pressing halfway onto skin and halfway onto puckered pink flesh.

“Steve..”

“Yeah baby?” he responds after a few more kisses.

“You’re giving me more goosebumps.” Eddie says, somewhat breathless.

Another kiss, “Mmmm.. You’re welcome.”

That shocks a laugh out of him, “You’re such a dork.”

Steve takes one of Eddie’s hands where it lays on the mattress, lacing their fingers together and pressing them back into the mattress beside his head.

“Says you.” he affirms, locking those ridiculous hazel eyes on his.

Eddie’s about to crack off another one liner, say something to…all that, but it’s completely erased from his mind when Steve ducks his head down to find his nipple again.

“Oh fuckin–nnng..” his hips buck up hard into Steve’s, who presses down into him in return.

He can feel it when Steve grins against his skin. “Shut up, asshole, that fee–ee–els so good.”

“Hmm, tell me about it, baby.” He’s grinding down slowly now, adding to the exponentially increasing Steve-addled brain fog he’s currently experiencing.

“Ahhh—I want to but–”

“But what?” Steve’s breath over the spit-slick spot on his chest sends a chill through him.

“Oh fuck–If any of them hear us, we’re never going to hear the end of it.” he tries to warn around another stifled moan.

The Menace is undeterred, swirling his tongue around the little nub open-mouthed and hot once more before moving upwards, trailing his lips up Eddie’s breastbone until he’s sucking kisses into his throat once again. He continues up along the length of his neck until he reaches his ear, “Then you’d better keep it down, huh?”

Well that didn’t help. He lets out a long moan in response, clamping a hand over his mouth way too late.

“You sound so good though,” Steve says, continuing his slow grinding, “I can’t wait to get you alone so I can fuck you properly.”

That pulls another moan from behind Eddie’s palm. “Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie bucks his hips up as much as he can, but Steve's palms move down to hold him in place.

“Can’t have that now, can we?” Steve chides, trailing his lips down his stomach as he slides back to the edge of the bed, his eyes locked on Eddie’s.

“Wh–Why not?”

“Because I’d prefer,” a kiss above his belly button, “to choke,” a kiss below, “on my own accord.”, then swallows Eddie down in one go.

“Oh fffuuck—”

Steve hums in agreement around Eddie’s dick and the vibrations course up his spine to rattle around in his brain.

“Oh shit, Stevie, that feels so fuckin’ good.” He breathes, twisting his fingers into Steve’s hair.

In response, Steve starts to bob his head, swirling his tongue around Eddie’s on the upstroke, and sucking with fervor on the down.

“Steve, sweetheart–fuck–if you keep going I’m gonna—haah—”

“And what if I want you to?”

“And what if I want to to-together?”

Steve releases him with a wet pop, kissing his way back up to Eddie’s lips, humming in satisfaction when he reaches them, like kissing Eddie is the best part of all this.

And doesn’t that make his head spin.

“All you’d have to do is ask.”

Eddie pulls Steve back to his lips and bucks up into him again. “That’s me asking.”

Steve grins down at him and re-starts his slow, tortuous pace.

He’s rock hard against Eddie’s thigh, and this is getting fuckin’ ridiculous.

“Alright, you know what,” Eddie pushes his hips up hard and flips them over, straddling Steve’s thighs in no time at all.

“Holy shit—“ Steve blinks up at him in astonishment, like he’s surprised that he’s been flipped so easily.

Eddie grinds down onto Steve, “You don’t get to tease me like that, big boy.”

“Is that so?” He chuckles, then groans when Eddie wraps his hand around their lengths. His hands grip onto Eddie’s thighs, squeezing tight to match the hold on them.

Eddie fucks forward into his fist, pulling his hand down to meet each thrust and watching as Steve’s head drops back onto the mattress.

He lets out a long groan. “Eddie…”

“Yeah, Stevie?”

Eddie runs his fingers over both their heads, adding to the slight slip of pre with a well aimed glob of spit that makes Steve hum out a short breathy moan as it makes contact with his head.

More noises of appreciation are pulled from the man under him as he rubs the pad of his thumb through the mess and under the head of Steve’s cock in small circles.

“Mmhm oh fuck..”

“You like that?”

“Mmhmm,” he nods dazedly “Keep moving though, feels so good, Eds.”

“You got it, sweetheart.” Eddie grins, wrapping his palm around them again and pushes forward into his fist.

Steve’s head drops back onto the pillow beneath him, “Just like that Eddie, fuck.”

He gives them a few more strokes, then Steve’s hands start to move; his warm palms skirt along the wiry hair on his legs, one traveling around to grab onto Eddie’s horribly non-existent ass, and the other comes up to his remaining nipple, pinching it between two digits.

That did it. The hot coil of pleasure already broiling in his stomach twists even tighter. “Ahh—Stevie..I’m so close, Jesus Christ…”

“Me too..”

“Yeah? Well c’mon sweetheart, give it to me.”

A scant two passes of his hand later, Steve shoots hot across his stomach, and Eddie follows a half stroke later.

He sinks down to the bed against Steve’s heaving ribs, tucking his shoulder under the other man’s arm.

After a few more breaths, Steve pulls Eddie into him and presses his lips to Eddie’s still-damp forehead.

“Ew gross, don’t do that, I’m all sweaty.”

“Don't care.” Steve mumbles softly into his hairline.

In return, Eddie wipes his soiled hand off on Steve’s stomach.

“Ew! Gross!” Steve laughs, shoving Eddie away with no actual intent behind it.

A few minutes later, Steve breaks the comfortable silence. “So,”

The word sinks heavily into Eddie’s gut. “So?”

When Steve doesn’t continue, Eddie turns his head to find Steve gazing at him with soft eyes, and even softer smile.

It morphs into a teasing smirk. “Did it live up to the hype?”

—--

One snooze and another heated shower later, Eddie crawls back into their bed and gets comfy while he listens to Steve pull his clothes back on to go down to the main lodge for the hellions.

He hears a short shuf when Steve’s leg skirts around the end of the bed. “I’ll be back in 15,” he says, kissing the damp hairs on Eddie’s temple. “Go to sleep, Eds.”

“Hmmm…” he hums in return, cozy as ever, and is out as soon as the door clicks shut.

Too soon, the sounds of the shitheads scrambling into the house interrupts his dozing, the door to the bedroom squeaking open not long after.

“Eds? You awake?”

Instead of answering, Eddie simply opens his arms.

He listens to Steve strip off his clothes, beckoning the man forward again when he feels the end of the mattress sink under the other man’s weight.

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’, hold your horses.”

“My horses have been patient enough.” Eddie grumbles as Steve finally shuffles between the sheets and into his waiting arms.

-x-X-x-

“Dude! What the hell happened to your neck?! Did you get attacked by a vampire?”

“Henderson, you are way too loud for how early it is.”

“It’s 10 am, Eddie.”

“Exactly.” the barstool creaks as he climbs onto it, gratefully accepting the plate of eggs and bacon Argyle passes him.

“Leave him alone, guys.” Steve says, coming up behind Eddie on his stool and kissing his cheek as he passes into the kitchen with his empty plate.

There’s three whole seconds of silence before the younger teens burst out into a cacophony of various outbursts.

“Aw, what? Eddie! Steve’s way too lame for you to be dating!”

“Steve, did you fuck my DM?!”

“I fuckin’ knew it. I told you they’d get together, didn’t I? Dustin, you owe me 10 bucks.”

“I don’t owe you shit, Maxine.”

“Holy shit, congrats guys.” Lucas is his new favorite… Will and El too, nodding along to Sinclair’s assessment.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough; All those heading back to the waterpark better be ready to go in T-minus three minutes otherwise I’m leavin’ without you.” Steve calls out over the noise.

The complaints follow him out of the kitchen and into the tiny laundry room off the entryway.

“Why don’t you guys get yelled at?” Eddie grumbles, poking up a forkful of egg.

Robin snorts a laugh, “Because none of us are sleeping with the babysitter.”

okay, some notes:

steve's mom is a lawyer in this canon and she's the one who paid for eddie's legal counsel/helped with clearing his name after s4

wha?? steve harrington has good parents?? insanity

"canon" hawkins is about an hour outside of indianapolis so i used shelbyville, indiana as my base and from there to boyne mountain is about a 7 hour drive. if they left at 6 am from hawkins, they'd get to the resort around 1 or 2 and have a good couple hours to ski before it gets dark again at 6 (daylight hours in the midwest during winter are a bitch.)

i did way too much research into the ski resort i based this at, only to realize that neither the cabin itself OR the waterpark were there in the 80s. so...let's all just pretend, okay?

the map above is a trail map of the resort from 1985

when i asked my husband what i should add to 'my most recent blorbos' he said 'nice tits!' so that's why that line lmao

who'da thought this'd go from skiing to shower sex? cause i didn't

i got stuck on the smut part of this for way too long and i am so glad i am a) done with it and b) that it actually turned out relatively coherent.

on that note though, i have been looking at this damn fic for so so long that i don't know if it's actually good or what. 'cause to me, it's complete garbled garbage

the title of this is from 'Object of My Desire' by Starpoint

lex i am so sorry this is late ilysm 🫶

104 notes · View notes

dearanakin · 1 year ago

Text

"Bad Reputation" - Steve Harrington x f!Reader

Summary: You wanted to pretend you were going out with someone as the guy from school insists on hooking up with you. Among the people at a party, you choose Steve Harrington, who has a bad reputation.

Warning: Cursing, fluffiness, alcohol

Word count: 3.1k

Someone from school was throwing a party you weren't supposed to be at, but you went to anyway. Robin made you go with her so you would do something on the weekend.

And then she dragged the whole gang with her, including the kids - the kids were actually 18 now.

Among too many people, you were trying to squeeze between them so you didn't bump into Riley, because he was insisting too much on hooking up with you for weeks.

You were thinking about hitting on someone just so you could get rid of him, but the only guys available, which you would hook up, included Eddie, who was getting high with his friends.

Jonathan, but he was too preoccupied with Nancy, and... Steve Harrington. You didn't know him well enough, and he was really involved in just talking with Dustin and Mike and some other guys, drinking some beer.

The fact he wasn't hooking up with any girl was weird, but understandable.

It's not like he was still that guy who would make a line so girls with kiss him. His bad reputation ended up making him become different than that guy.

You thought to yourself, that maybe if you could ask him a favor, you could make Riley give up on you.

Not that it was the greatest idea, but Eddie wasn't actually really into hooking up at parties and you were somewhat friends.

You walked towards the boys and Dustin and Mike ceased the conversation just to have a look at you. Henderson gave you a smirk and you thought it was cute.

You noticed Steve made the same course as them and stared at you. Well, you made it halfway, might as well just finish it.

"You're Steve Harrington, right?", you asked as he nodded, puffing his chest. He was "retired" from being a jerk, and now the girls would usually hit on him.

"Yeah, that me", he said as he gave a side smile to the other boys. Both of them gave him a grimace look, leaving you both alone. "And who are you?".

"I'm (Y/N). Can you do me a favor?", you were looking around you as you tried to find Riley. Harrington wasn't really getting your point, but nodded anyway.

"I'm trying to get rid of a guy, can you pretend we're going out?". You spoke close to his ear as the music was too loud.

"Uh, sure. But you know I have a bad reputation, right?", he questioned, like it's a warning. You honestly don't care at all, because you don't judge people either way.

"I don't mind, really. And I don't see it that way". You smile at him, you really didn't.

"You're not pranking me, are you?". He sounds really suspicious and it almost makes you gasp.

"Why would I do that?", you seemed kind of offended, he was playing defensive. "Look, are you gonna help me or not?".

Steve looked like he was having a meltdown, he took too long to think and you were already giving up your decision. Maybe it would've been better to ask Eddie, he's always doing crazy shit anyway.

"Fine", he gave in. "And what's in for me?", Steve asked and you grinned at him, sipping on your beer. "You know what? I've got something better. I pretend to be your hook up, and you help me get my good reputation back".

You almost snorted, why would he, of all the things he could ask for, want to have a reputation after all?

Although you knew he was always a jerk to girls, he would always be the least of the romantic, always getting in trouble for going out with committed girls as well.

Maybe it wasn't a bad idea after all, he was nice, you've heard. Robin was his closest friend and she sure would never lie about him.

You found Riley walking around with a friend and immediately crashed your lips against Steve's. He wasn't really waiting for that so it was a sloppy kiss at first, just pecking.

He wrapped your waist with one of his arms while holding the beer with the other. He tasted like cinnamon as he was chewing a gum and it made you melt down under his kiss.

You opened one of your eyes slightly as you watched Riley leave. You broke the kiss and looked and Steve, who was still shocked by your sudden approach.

"Wow, could've warned me first", he said as he rubbed one hand against his soft hair and you chuckled.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were expecting it", you used your thumb to clean up your smudgy lipstick on his lip.

"Not that fast, honestly", he gives you a nervous grin. "Who is the guy, by the way?". Harrington asked as he followed you to the kitchen. You were looking for something stronger. You needed something to get through the night.

"Riley Edwards he's on the band group. Robin probably knows him". You found a bottle of Gin and decided to make yourself a Gin Tonic.

Steve was just behind you as you were making the drink. You probably didn't know what to do next, you just know you're supposed to be kissing when the guy is around.

But other than that, what are you going to do when he's not around? Maybe kiss him again properly would be nice.

"I already said no to him. But he's too persevering", you finished your drink and almost chugged it entirely.

Steve watched you with his brows furrowed. "Jesus, easy with that".

"You're not playing boyfriend here", you provoked.

You laughed at his sudden worriness and offered him the cup. He grabbed it and sort of savored it first before drinking it. His face went bloody red and he almost choked.

"Fuck, this is strong as hell, (Y/N)", you were still chuckling watching him scrunching his nose.

"Yeah well, don't act like a baby girl", you drank the entire cup and decided to make another one, while he rolled his eyes to your response.

"We said we'll help each other out, right. How am I going to pretend to be your hook up if you're hammered?", Steve had a point though.

And then you decided you would slow down on the alcohol. Maybe later probably. You found a tequila bottle and placed it on the sink as you looked for shot glasses.

He looked at you and shook his head. "Nope. No, no, no. I am not drinking that. Forget it".

You gave him a side smile, Steve still held a grumpy face because that wasn't what he signed up for.

You filled the glasses and went looking for some lime, only to find all of them were already in the trash.

Harrington was still in disbelief. "Fuck, I don't drink that without a lime".

"Oh my gosh, how do you want a reputation if you can't even fucking drink a tequila shot?".

"Well, I don't drink tequila shots, for starters", he retorted.

"If you do it, I'll flash you", you saw his eyes brighten up and he downed it all. He hissed at the taste and chugged on his beer.

You did you shot and closed your eyes. This was probably the strongest tequila you've ever had in your life. You leaned against the sink and took a deep breath.

"Now flash me", Harrington sat on the table, making a "come here" gesture and you burst out into laugh.

"Oh, Steve. I was just kidding", you squeezed his cheek and he frowned. It made you laugh harder.

"You manipulated me!", he shook his head as he watched you still laughing at him.

"Maybe I'll do it, who knows?", you respond.

You opened the fridge looking for a beer, grabbing one bottle and leaving to the backyard holding Steve's hand. He was on your tail still trying to get rid of that horrible taste.

Madonna was blasting outside and you saw Robin dancing with a girl, you couldn't but hold a smile at her.

She was having so much fun and she deserved to. Steve grabbed you by your waist while dancing and you thought it wouldn't be a terrible idea to dance with.

The alcohol started to make its way through your system and you knew it will soon hit your head. But you didn't care at that moment, because you wanted to have fun as well.

He was intently resting his face against your shoulder and you laughed at the way he was playing an affair so perfectly. Or maybe he was already too drunk too.

You spinned around to face him and he definitely had a drunk smile on his face. His hair was kinda messy and he smelled like Calvin Klein and tequila.

"How am I doing?", he asked as he still danced, twirling you around him and you chuckled.

"Better than I expected", you said. "How are you not hitting on girls in this place?".

He had a different look in his eyes as he shrugged his shoulders. Steve sipped the rest of his beer and licked his lips. Suddenly you felt very attracted to him.

"I don't care about that anymore. I just want people to realize I'm different now".

"And yet you still want to rebuild your reputation", you retorted him and he leaned against the wall. One of his knees bent over as he rested his foot there.

"I don't wanna be the bad guy anymore", he seemed upset. Things with Nancy didn't go well either, that was when he realized he needed a change.

"You know what I think?", you asked as you got closer to him. He raised his eyebrows waiting for your answer. "I think you look very pretty right now".

You grabbed him by his colar and he stiffened against your touch. "And you don't seem to be a bad guy at all. But I'll help you fix it". As you finished your line he leaned on to kiss you.

It was an intentional kiss with a mixture of booze and desire. He was obviously very attracted to you as well and made it clear as his tongue touched yours.

He grabbed your hip firmly with one free hand and deepened the kiss, tasting every bit of you. You gritted his tongue between your teeth and heard him groan, amused.

Harrington twisted you around and pulled you against the wall, almost merging into your body as he started to kiss you faster. You were lightheaded over the alcohol and the kiss, nibbling on his lower lip and he rubbed his finger against your skin.

It didn't last too long as you heard someone behind you. "Well, holy fucking shit", the voice said. You and Steve both opened your eyes at the same time, he even loosened his touch against you.

Billy Hargrove stood behind you and laughed along with his friends from the basketball team. "If it isn't King Steve fucking Harrington working his way up to someone's pants".

His words were nasty and you felt Steve growing mad in front of you. He turned his torso around and faced Billy, who was holding a sarcastic smile on his face.

"Just get lost, Hargrove", he said, feeling a little groggy from the tequila and the other one laughed. Everyone around stopped their dancing to stare at them.

"No, you know my favorite hobby is to never leave you alone", Billy stated, sipping on his beer.

You couldn't be more stressed over this, you just wanted to have a good time. You should've known he was going to make an entrance and make someone's life a living hell, and it always had to be Steve.

"Whatever man, I'm not playing your game", Harrington said and faced you. He tried to ignore Billy but the guy just wouldn't stop being an asshole. "I'm sorry you have to go through this".

His words were so soft and warm and it made you feel angry by the way Hargrove just makes someone uncomfortable and it wasn't right. It was just so messed up.

"Why don't you go find someone's pants yourself, hm? You think you're so different from everyone else but you're just another asshole", you pointed at him and he furrowed his brows, still chewing a gum.

"Steve Harrington is a great guy. He's mature enough now to realize he was a jerk and he's not like that anymore. Now, if you'll excuse us, you're disturbing my moment with him, at least he's getting in someone's pants", you finished as you pulled Steve close to you.

On purpose, of course, you made him grab your ass as you gave him a feral kiss and he responded to it the same way as you. Harrington felt his head pound over the stress and the way you pulled him against you.

You heard when people around you booed Billy and cheered, throwing plastic cups over him and the basketball team. You waited until he left to break the kiss, but Steve kept on going, squeezing your ass and moving his tongue too fast.

A moment after that and he had to pull some air into his lungs, laughing. "Shit, you just- that was so wild". He pecked your lips, licking them.

"Think you still want a reputation?".

"Fuck no, doesn't matter if it worked or not", he gave you an honest smile, holding your waist too close to him. You felt that part of your skin become numb.

"That's good for you. You don't need to be so dependen-", he cut you off as he cupped your face and gave you another kiss.

Steve took his time to taste you with a slow kiss, holding you against his firm hands, savoring your taste. You didn't have time to react as he grabbed your hands and dragged you inside the house, going upstairs.

Obviously you knew what was going to happen, and unlike you thought, you were hoping for it. Not because it was Steve, but because the way he's been treating you the whole night.

He didn't stop between groups to show off, he didn't brag about winning another night.

He made a mental note to himself he wouldn't fuck anyone at the party, but the way you were looking at him and the way you reacted to his touch gave him fuel to his body. Maybe it was also because of the alcohol.

He never liked to mix drinks because of the way he tends to act around people, like it would be different this time. He found a spare guest room and closed the door with a kick, hovering over you in the bed.

Harrington hit his knee on the corner of the bed and yelped, making you laugh. "Fuck. Shit".

"Such a smooth way to get into someone's pants", you say as you chuckle, looking at the stare he gave you.

"Shut up or I'll rip your clothes off", he warned before leaning over you, spreading wet kisses on your skin.

"Yes, please", you whine. Steve feels his body shiver by the way you say it and sucked on your neck. If it gets a hickey or not, you will not care about it on the next day.

He took a long time on the crook of your neck, inhaling your perfume and the smell of your skin. His hands were properly rubbing your inner thighs and your core squeezed.

His bulge started to grow and he felt an intense urge of pounding on you all night. But something inside his guts tells him otherwise and he breaks the contact, and you flinch.

"Everything okay?", you squeeze his wrist lightly and he rubs his hand against his silky hair. He hums before sighing heavily.

"Yeah, fuck. Sorry. Shit", you don't understand squat he's complaining about. His dick is pressed against his jeans, almost crying for help.

"Steve?", you coax. He looks at you like he's having trouble fixing his thoughts.

"I don't wanna be this guy. Like, this", he mentions with his index fingers, pointing at him and the bedroom. "God, I wanna make things right. I wanna have sex, not fuck around".

Okay, he's drunk. But this talk is kind of nonsense to you.

"Is this because of what happened? Because I don't give a single fuck", you explain, watching him sit next to you. He shook his head.

"No, not at all. I don't wanna fast forward moments like that, around too many people. Yeah I think it's hot as fuck and I'll probably cum in like three minutes, which is exactly my point here. I wanna appreciate things", he made a speech you were not in the mood to hear because you wanted to suck on him so bad.

But then you realized what he meant. It's supposed to be a fuck and nothing else, and that wasn't what you really wanted. You wanted a relationship, a commitment.

"Maybe this is a drunk talk but I've been feeling like that for a while. And on that note I realized you didn't come after me because it was me, because obviously you would find someone better than me. Eddie would be a nice option", he grasped one hand on your thigh, softly.

"But I look at you and I see you don't care about how people look. And I really dig that", Steve wouldn't shut up and you just wanted to kiss him. But if you laughed he would be offended, so you let him speak. "And now I feel such a douche, I look so needy when I'm drunk. Fuck me".

You laughed at the way he said it and he looked at you, chuckling.

"Steve, I get that. I get you. I don't like it either, but I just thought 'why not?'. And it's okay to not want that. I mean your crotch says otherwise, but I understand it", you joke about his bulge and he leans against the bed, hiding his face with one hand and holding his crotch with the other.

"Fuuuuck. Alright, show's over. I'm definitely going to need a thousand shots after that". Harrington got himself up and walked to the the room. "Care to join me?".

"Hm, I have a better idea", you grab his hand and pull him across the house, making your way outside.

"Where we going?".

"To my house. We're going to listen to some nice and less loud music, eat some snacks and then maybe have proper sex". You stop walking, only to look at him as you speak into his ear. "Without anyone else around".

His face brightens up and he pulls you closer before you can walk again. "You just made your way to my heart instead", he says giving you a soft and gentle kiss on your forehead.

"I wanna pick the songs", Steve stabilished while grabbing your hand, walking on the sidewalk by your side.

You didn't care you left the party with King Steve, per se. He was definitely getting under your pants, but with a meaning. You laughed at the way he said he wanted to pick the music, and then it came to your head that this is the result of a great idea you had, only because someone wouldn't stop being so annoying.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x female reader #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fluff #stranger things #steve harrington drabble #steve harrington imagine #joe keery fanfic #joe keery fanfiction #joe keery fluff

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findafight · 2 years ago

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I think, despite his former King Steve persona, that the parent Steve is actually afraid of becoming, is his mother.

Hear me out. S1 Steve flips out when he thinks Nancy is cheating on him. Like full crazy ex girlfriend shit and letting his friends spraypaint shit on a marquee and goading the guy he thinks she cheated with into a fight.

And then. He tries to fix it. He tells his friends off, he helps clean up the graffiti, he goes to Jonathan's house to apologize for the horrendous shit he said. And then gets pulled into the supernatural monster killing plot.

So it's clear he knows his insecurity spiral was bad. He does his best to fix things before he ever has to save Nancy and Jonathan's lives. In S2 Nancy and Jonathan are friends, and while we don't see it until the "no, that must have been your other boyfriend" line, Steve's probably still a bit insecure about that friendship but doesn't mention it.

Like. He saw he went off the possessive insecure temper tantrum deep end, and decided that along with being a less assholish 16 year old, he was also going to trust his partner not to cheat on him even if he was still a bit uncomfortable with it.

Given what we know about Steve's parents, that his mom often or usually goes with his dad on his business trips because she "doesn't trust him", he's probably seen his mother paranoid about his father's infidelity as well as desperately clinging to a relationship that is untrusting at best. So he's seen his mom do possibly the exact same as he did in S1 (though less public) and thinks he's not gonna be that.

He is getting his act together. He trusts Nancy and, to an extent, Jonathan (fighting an interdimensional monster together really has a way of at least building respect for each other). He isn't going to flip that Nancy has a boy who is a friend who also clearly has a crush on her. It's fine. Nancy is great, and he can't fault Jon for his feelings. He trusts them. He's trying to move on from the upside down, and he's trying to be a better person, and he's trying not to become his mother.

Then, of course, S2 happens.

#steve Harrington #stranger things #st4 #stranger things meta #steve Harrington meta #character analysis #i have many thoughts on this #and i havent seen anyone brong up steve actively not wanting to become is mother but knowing he probably is #finda's rambles #finda writes stuff #fuck it lets put tags on it #stancy #because its relevant sort of.#steddie

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gerrystamour · 2 years ago

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i could be honest, i could be human [Chapter 3]

Rated E | Steddie

[ FIRST PART ] [ NEXT PART ]

Summary: “God actually hates me, He has to,” Steve muttered darkly, tipping his head back to look up at the sky. “Kinda rich, coming from God’s favourite Golden Child,” Eddie said, coming around in front of Steve. Seeing his tears, Eddie’s grin faltered. “Shit, who hurt you, Harrington?”

Chapter Three: October 1984

If it didn’t suck so much, Steve would probably laugh about his situation.

Once again, he felt sorry. Not for himself at the moment, even if it felt like he had been gutted, his chest hollowed out with a dull knife. Mostly, he felt sorry for hurting Nancy all over again. The first time he hurt her, it was him being cruel because he was hurt. This time, it was him trying so hard to make things normal for both of them again.

Maybe he felt a little sorry for himself, he thought sadly, his heart heavy with hurt.

He sat at the far side of Tina’s backyard on a bench that faced the forest, smoking a cigarette and trying really hard not to actually cry.

“Hey, Steve?”

Looking up at the sky, Steve blinked rapidly to compose himself before he glanced over his shoulder. “Hey Jonathan, what’s up?” he greeted, his voice only a little shaky.

“Is everything—I saw you come out here, and Nancy is—?” Jonathan stopped abruptly when Steve blinked a tear loose and it streaked down the cheek he could see.

“Shit,” Steve hissed as another tear fell and he scrubbed at his face roughly. “Fuck!”

“Is there some way I can help?” Jonathan asked, soft and genuine, and Steve wished he could be mad at him. If this happened a year ago, he definitely would have snapped at him, maybe even hit him just for seeing him cry.

Blowing out a gusty breath, Steve nodded. “Can you get Nancy home? She’s had a lot to drink and she doesn’t want me—my help,” he said quietly.

“Hey, don’t say that, she loves—” Jonathan started, and Steve cut him off with a sharp sound.

“Jonathan, please. I don’t—just… Make sure Nancy gets home okay?” Steve nearly begged, pinching the bridge of his nose as another stupid wave of tears welled up.

“Yeah, man, totally,” Jonathan said and he grabbed Steve’s shoulder with a gentle firmness that went a long way toward comforting him. “You okay to get home too?”

“I live down the street, man, I’m fine,” Steve chuckled, his voice still wavering and a bit watery.

“Oh, right, I guess I forgot,” Jonathan laughed, and that actually brought a bit of a real smile to Steve’s face. He must have been doing something right over the past year for Jonathan to forget that his parents were rich. “See you at school?”

“Yeah, see you at school,” Steve replied with a nod, patting Jonathan’s hand where it still held his shoulder before the other boy let go.

With a heavy sigh, Steve leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, hanging his head while his forgotten cigarette slowly burned down. He had been quitting that stupid habit, which he’d only picked up in the first place because Tommy smoked. Nancy always made a face when he would lean in to kiss her, even hours after he had smoked, so he gradually just stopped entirely. Of course, now that he was apparently cut loose from that relationship, he was back to his old habits. Would he go back to being King Steve, supreme asshole of Hawkins High? Reclaim his throne from that piece of shit Billy Hargrove?

Was he only a good person because he thought Nancy Wheeler was in love with him?

A new wave of tears welled up and he choked around a sob that stuck in his throat like shards of glass. He let the tears happen this time, staring listlessly down at the ground between his feet, miserably trying to figure out where his performance for Nancy ended and his actual personality began.

When he couldn’t immediately determine that answer, he let out a sighing sob.

He was probably too drunk to be thinking about it.

A shoe scuffed the ground just behind Steve and he tensed, screwing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. Of course Jonathan didn’t actually walk away, too soft to leave his former-bully and sort-of-friend crying on Halloween.

“Byers, I swear to God, if you don’t go take care of Nance like I asked, I’m going to barge into the dark room every time you’re in there until I graduate,” Steve threatened half-heartedly. He somehow already did that more often than he cared to admit, but that was neither here nor there.

“Not Byers, Your Majesty.”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve hissed, sitting up to take a long drag from his cigarette.

Eddie chuckled behind him. “Damn, you’re bad at this, Harrington. Guess again.”

“God actually hates me, He has to,” Steve muttered darkly, tipping his head back to look up at the sky.

“Kinda rich, coming from God’s favourite Golden Child,” Eddie said, coming around in front of Steve. Seeing his tears, Eddie’s grin faltered. “Shit, who hurt you, Harrington?”

Steve bristled, and the thought of telling Eddie anything about what happened in that bathroom… he would legitimately rather take on a Demogorgon again.

“Can we just get this over with, Munson?” Steve asked tiredly, wiping the tears off of his cheeks. To his frustration, they were immediately replaced with fresh ones.

“Get what over—?”

“Y’know, where you laugh at me, call me a bitch or a pussy, and then leave me alone,” Steve said, trying for angry, but he was apparently too sad to muster it and just sounded depressingly resigned.

When Eddie didn’t immediately say anything, Steve met his gaze. The other man’s expression was startling, honestly. It wasn’t the gleeful, delighted expression Eddie had worn outside The Hawk, or any variation of the smiles that seemed to be a permanent feature on his face. He looked… afraid?

At least that would be how Steve would normally identify the wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression. Then again, Steve had determined over the past year of casually noticing Eddie that wide-eyed was more like his default setting.

Eddie finally shut his mouth to clear his throat before shaking his head. “Nah, man. It’s only funny when you’re bleeding,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his worn leather jacket.

“What?” Steve scoffed, sneering up at Eddie.

“I don’t like laughing at people who’re crying,” he elaborated with a shrug. “It feels like punching down, even if they probably deserve it.”

“Gee, how fucking kind of you,” Steve grumbled, tossing his cigarette to the ground and snuffing it with his shoe.

“Seriously, Harrington, what’s this all about?” Eddie asked, and Steve hated how genuine he somehow made his voice. Like he actually cared. “Did Byers do this too?”

“Jonathan?” Steve laughed, shaking his head and chewing the inside of his cheek. “Nah, he was just checking on me. I was like this before he showed up.”

After a few moments of silence between them, Eddie sat down next to him and leaned back, spreading his long arms across the back of the bench. “If it wasn’t Byers, who was it?” he asked before affecting a knowing look. “Was it that dick, Billy? Did losing your title as King Douche of the Keg do this?”

Steve laughed and something fluttered in his chest at Eddie’s pleased expression. “For the record, no, this has nothing to do with that bullshit—” Steve cut himself off, sighing heavily and tipping his head back to look up at the sky again. Nancy’s words came back to him in a rush, about the party being bullshit, him being bullshit, their love being bullshit. Steve shook his head and said, “it doesn’t matter. I did this to myself.”

“You… made yourself cry?”

“Yeah, because I’m just… bullshit, y’know?” Steve said, frowning as he idly tried to identify whatever constellations he could remember.

“Well shit, Harrington. I could’ve told you that years ago and saved you the drunken epiphany,” Eddie teased, lifting a hand to shove Steve’s shoulder lightly and knocking another proper laugh out of him.

“You’re not wrong, Munson,” he murmured with a little smile. Despite that, more tears spilled down his cheeks and he hissed, “fuck, I hate this. I just want to go home.”

“How about you just go home then?” Eddie asked as he draped his arm around the back of the bench again.

Steve sighed, rolling his eyes. “Can’t go home like this,” he replied.

Eddie tilted his head. “And… why not?” he pressed, and Steve jumped when he felt Eddie’s thumb begin to idly stroke the cap of his shoulder.

It was a motion that seemed thoughtless, like it was just what you did when your hand was resting near someone else. It was weird for a guy to be doing that with him, and Steve knew he should probably pull away, but it felt… nice, especially with how upset he was.

“Hello? Earth to Harrington?” Eddie crooned in his ear, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Sorry, what?” Steve said, shaking his head a bit.

“I asked why you can’t go home like this,” Eddie reminded him, an eyebrow raised.

‘Because my dad might still be up.’ “I just can’t, Munson, drop it,” he finally replied, fear and shame twisting in his gut along with his heartbreak. When he returned his gaze to Eddie’s, the expression on his face was a mixture of skepticism and understanding.

Silence stretched between them, Eddie’s thumb switching from rubbing Steve’s shoulder to lightly tapping out a beat. “Want a joint?” Eddie asked suddenly, and Steve blinked at him in confusion.

“I don’t have cash on me, man,” Steve managed to say after a moment when his tipsy brain caught up. “I wasn’t planning on—”

“I’m not trying to sell you anything,” Eddie interrupted, shaking his head. “I was going to smoke one anyway. We can share.”

Steve glared suspiciously. “What’s the catch? There has to be some kind of catch,” he accused. Finally, Eddie’s mean smirk rose to his face.

“Why? Because there’d be one if you were offering?” he asked and Steve reared back a bit at that, properly angry.

“What? No! People who don’t like me generally don’t offer me free shit, Munson,” Steve bit out as he stood up to glare down at him.

Eddie glowered right back up at him, his mean smirk slipping. “I just felt bad for you. Was trying to be nice,” he said sullenly, and Steve felt a little bad for snapping at him. Only a little, though, because pity? From Eddie “The Freak” Munson? That was enough to fire him back up, even if he withered at his own unkind thoughts.

“I don’t need or want your pity, Munson,” he practically growled, hands balling into tight fists at his sides.

“Then why’re you out here crying?” Eddie snapped, his face twisted in a mean scowl.

“In here feeling sorry for yourself, Stephen?” The sound of belt snapping. “I’ll give you a real reason to cry.”

Steve swatted at an imaginary bug to disguise his flinch. Eddie was watching him with those stupid, wide brown eyes that seemed to notice and understand too much. He didn’t want to give him more ammo, more ways to get under his skin.

“Yeah, I was crying out here alone for pity,” Steve spat sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he turned around to leave. He would take his chances calming down in the forest, maybe get eaten by a Demogorgon or something. That would definitely spare him any more embarrassment.

“Harrington, wait.” A hand closed around Steve’s wrist, the grip firm enough to stop him but immediately gentled so Steve could pull away if he wanted. The cool, slender fingers and cold metal of Eddie’s rings against his wrist were grounding, kind of comforting, so Steve didn’t immediately pull away. Again, it struck Steve as something that was probably weird for two guys to be doing, but the physical touch did wonders to settle his head a bit.

“What?” Steve asked, his anger and embarrassment slowly bleeding out of him.

“I offered because I figured it might help you calm down, that’s it,” Eddie said, his big brown eyes looking up at Steve earnestly. “I do actually feel bad about you crying, because I mean it, I don’t like seeing anyone crying. And feeling bad isn’t always pity, y’know?”

Steve thought back to all the times he had insisted Jonathan share his lunches with him over the past year, always making excuses about not liking half of it or lying about eating too much breakfast. It was never out of pity that he did that. He had genuinely cared and wanted to share because he had enough to do so.

All of the anger left Steve at once, leaving him feeling hollow and exhausted. Numb. “I can’t just accept free shit from you, Munson, even if you want to pretend to share it with me,” he said after a few moments with a tired smile, then he shrugged. “That, and I can’t go home high either.”

Eddie watched him unblinkingly for several moments before he nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay. Makes sense,” he conceded, his thumb idly stroking the inside of Steve’s wrist.

The gentle touch sent goosebumps up Steve’s arm, right up the side of his neck and onto his scalp. His eyes flickered down to watch the movement, getting lost in it. There was a weird, warm weight that settled in his gut as he watched that thumb shift, each sweep making that feeling crawl up into his chest. Heat rose to his cheeks and that embarrassed fluttering returned to his chest.

Pulling his wrist away suddenly, Steve cleared his throat. “Thanks, though. For the offer,” he said, the words a bit stilted. “And I guess for getting me to stop crying after all.”

“Oh yeah, I guess I did,” Eddie laughed, and Steve was taken aback by how big his true smile was up close. How bright Eddie’s eyes lit up with it, and how deep the dimples formed in his cheeks. Steve had only ever seen that smile from across the cafeteria, and he had never had it directed at him. “How’d I manage that?”

“Being a dick, mostly,” Steve retorted, his tone teasing. The joke landed just the way he had hoped, keeping that huge grin on Eddie’s face as he laughed. The embarrassed fluttering got stronger in his gut.

“I’ll be a dick to you any day of the week, Harrington. Whenever you need it,” Eddie said, winking up at Steve when he scoffed.

“How generous of you, Munson,” Steve chuckled, rolling his eyes before taking a step backward. “See you around?”

Eddie’s grin settled into a smile. “You know it, Harrington,” he replied, spreading his arms wide along the back of the bench and tilting his head.

Steve glanced down the long line of Eddie’s body before clearing his throat. Waving awkwardly, Steve turned around and quickly left, practically jogging home.

When he got there, the house was dark and silent, his parents already in bed. No doubt he would have to deal with a lecture the next morning, but he would just get up early for a run and hopefully avoid them before he went to school. He paused in his plan, trying to do the mental math to figure out how early he would have to wake up to have time for a run and have enough time to pick Nancy up before school.

Steve abruptly stopped that train of thought; did he even have to pick her up? Should he?

The thought of showing up at her house in the morning to give her a ride to school after what she said was nauseating. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his composure if he had to be alone with her in his car which would be humiliating at best.

And what if she didn’t even remember what she said?

No, he wouldn’t be able to handle that first thing in the morning. He shouldn’t be expected to handle that first thing in the morning.

A spark of anger finally ignited inside him at that thought.

Steve was fucked up from everything that happened last year, too. Maybe not the same way Nancy was, but his pain mattered, too, didn’t it? And yeah, maybe the way he had been dealing with it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t any worse than how Nancy was, right? It was completely reasonable to try to find some normalcy, to move on, to try to stop seeing a dead girl every time he looked at his pool, or glanced at the woods behind his house. It was reasonable and sane to just try to survive his senior year.

Steve didn’t have to feel bad for not mourning Barb or carrying the guilt of her death the same way as Nancy. He didn’t have to feel bad for being scared of the people who made them sign confidentiality paperwork while armed guards stood over them. He didn’t have to feel bad for just wanting to keep his head down, graduate high school, and get the hell out of that town.

Despite all of those self-righteous thoughts, Steve went to bed feeling sick to his stomach with his guilt and shame, thinking of all the ways he could have done better by Nancy, no matter the cost to his peace of mind.

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love-kurdt · 6 months ago

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Swooping, Sloping, Cursive Letters: 21

word count: 966

PLEASE READ THIS IS ME TRYING FIRST, AS THIS STORY RELIES HEAVILY UPON THE CONTEXT OF TIMT

May 17, 1989

Dear Will,

Today started out pretty rough, since one of my tires on my bike popped when I was halfway to your house. And given how quickly Hawkins has become a fucking sauna over the past few weeks (thanks, rural midwest), it was not a blast to push my bike the rest of the way on foot. Again, I could have taken my car to begin with, but I think in some way shape or form, we crave that element of our childhoods, riding bikes through the neighborhood like old times. Plus, Lucas and I are the only ones who have cars right now, so majority rules. Anyway, I still wound up at your house about half an hour early, and we spent that time trying to figure out how to patch up and refill my tire. No dice, unfortunately. But our hands brushed a few times, so it wasn’t too inconvenient.

Jonathan ended up coming into the garage at one point to grab a few tools (he’s been helping Hop out with some home projects, like a new shelving unit for your living room and a deck out back— but you already know that, why am I going on about this?) and suggested I just share your bike with you. You laughed so loudly that I thought I was gonna puke. I forced my anxiety back down and reminded Jon of how tall I am (last time I went to the doctor they said I was 6’3”– no, I’m not kidding), and he insisted that I, “just try and sit on the handlebars, or something.” I thought the idea was insane, but you seemed to be pretty entertained by it, so I shook my head with slight embarrassment before I motioned for you to mount the bike.

You swung your leg over the bar and rested your feet on either side, a huge grin on your face. “Do your worst, Wheeler,” you told me. I was so tempted to dramatically fling myself over the handlebars like a ragdoll, but then again, I didn’t feel like throwing out my back at the ripe age of eighteen. I turned so my back faced you, reached behind me to grip the handlebars, and hoisted myself up as best as I could, while you reached a hand out to hold my side and keep me steady. I must’ve looked like a fucking praying mantis or some shit, with my knees almost hitting my chin because of how I was balancing my toes on the front fender, but I didn’t care, because your reaction was fucking priceless. You were hysterically laughing, and I couldn’t help but begin to laugh as well.

Before I knew what was happening, Jonathan had disappeared and come back within record speed, and a bright flash hit my eyes as he clicked the button on his camera. I glanced back at you, and thankfully, you didn’t look fazed at all. In fact, you said to Jonathan, “please tell me I’ll get a copy of that,” while catching your breath from laughing so hard.

After that whole debacle, we actually tried riding the bike with me in front, but you couldn’t really see on account of the top of your head barely reaching my shoulders. So we eventually gave up on trying and just walked to Dustin’s to meet the rest of the Party, since his house isn’t too far away from yours, and Jon was still busy with his project and couldn’t drive us. Which I was totally fine with, because… duh, time alone with you is time well spent. We played D&D, and I kind of got a little too invested in your campaign. I think I just love seeing you so happy. I don’t think I could ever get tired of watching you in your element.

Once the session ended, Lucas gave us a ride home (I love how I just referred to your house as my home, I might’ve gotten a little emotional just now while writing it). We walked into your living room and saw Jonathan sitting on the couch with a bunch of photos spread out across the surface of the coffee table. Apparently, he’d gone and processed all of his films at Melvald’s while we were at Dustin’s; there were two copies of the photo he’d taken earlier.

He gave me one before asking if I wanted to stay for dinner. As much as I would’ve loved to, I actually did need to take care of Holly tonight, since our parents are in Ohio right now at some conference for my dad’s job. You offered to drive me back to my house, and I tried not to look too excited as I said yes.

Once we arrived in my driveway, I leaned over the center console and hugged you, telling you I had a great time with you today. You hugged me back (you hadn’t for the first few seconds and I nearly had a panic attack) and said you had a great time with me too. I went inside, holding the freshly printed photo of us in my hand.

So… I might have framed it. I know, it’s weird and frankly kind of stalker-y, but… deal with it. You’ll never actually know about this anyway. Not unless I leave the frame sitting in plain sight when you come into my room, or if I recklessly forget to hide these letters detailing where exactly my copy of the photo went, as well as the countless times I’ve talked about wanting to kiss you. For now, I’m keeping it under my pillow.

Okay, I’m gonna stop writing now in order to stop myself from sounding like even more of a creep than I already am.

Love,

Mike

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scooby-review · 1 month ago

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The New Scooby Doo Movies Season 1 Episodes 5 - 8

5. Guess Who’s Knott Coming to Dinner

This episode follows the gang arriving at Moody Manor, hoping to ask for directions, but are instead mistaken for Moody’s Nieces and Nephews, throwing them into the mystery of where their supposed uncle has gone.

The guest star for this episode is Homer Pipsqueak! Who is undoubtedly the best element of this episode. Don Knotts (the actual guest star) plays a series of characters in this, dressed in different disguises, however, he isn’t Don Knotts, he’s the aforementioned Homer Pipsqueak, a Sherlock parody, dressing in disguises in an attempt to solve the mystery.

Don Knotts two appearances in The New Scooby Doo Movies landed him as an almost mascot for the series, and guest stars in the show in general, going on to appear in the game Scooby Doo! Night of 100 Frights, all the way in 2002. The actor/comedian is likely best known for his work in shows like Three’s Company and his appearance in It’s a Mad, Mad World, a three and a half hour movie that also starred Jonathan Winters.

Throughout the episode, Homer appears in different costumes, and it’s one of the best aspects of the entire episode, and I do enjoy the fake out of him being Homer rather than Don Knotts! Alongside this, I also love the more gothic aesthetic this episode returns to, even if this series feels like a large leap away from the horror aesthetics of the original series, I do appreciate the episodes that return to these moments.

This episode’s villain, Captain Moody’s Ghost, is probably the most interesting design we’ve seen so far. The ghost has a snowy white face, floating in his muddy tan cloak, it reminds me a lot of Ghostface actually, although the origins of the two aren’t related. The villain also appeared in the video game alongside Don which is super fun! I’ll have to check it out soon.

Although this one is more enjoyable, it still ends up being kind of a drag, almost all of these episodes are tedious in some way, and while this one manages to be okay, holding some fun moments, but ultimately not enough to salvage the episode for me! I left most episodes without any or many notes, so these reviews will likely be on the shorter side - as is, this one is okay.

6. A Good Medium is Rare

A Good Medium follows the gang meeting a lost dog, who they subsequently return to his owner, guest star Phyllis Diller. While at her mansion, they learn that someone is attempting to steal her jewels, staying to aid in solving the mystery.

I actually enjoyed this one a lot! This goes the complete opposite direction to many other episodes, where this one throws so much at you, it’s almost suffocating how swiftly ideas and concepts will rise and fall, it’s truly great!

Phyllis Diller is such a great character in this, she pairs so well with all her characters, and despite being a character who is mostly reliant on the same joke - having had a lot of husbands - it works in the context of the episode. She’s zany enough to keep my attention in a way the heavily watered down comedy acts don’t tend to be! Phyllis was a stand up comedian and actor, along a myriad of other things, defined by a striking style and appearance, she had many voice acting roles including the queen from A Bug's Life, and went on to win six awards for her work.

I haven’t seen any of her work outside of this episode, but I found her comedy and style to work perfectly in this world. Her appearance certainly makes her such an interesting character alone, but she felt entirely herself here, or at least, entirely her character.

The same love cannot be shared for the villains, the phantoms and gargoyle. The phantoms have fine designs, which I mean in the most basic way possible. They wear brown jackets and hats and have striking blue faces, they don’t quite clash as much as the Scarecrow’s design, but I still can’t say this looks great! Meanwhile the gargoyle is a completely fine rendition of the creature, which were placed on houses to act as gutters. They always have such interesting designs regardless, this design does nothing special with it, instead giving a kind of awkward style to the creature.

I do enjoy the gothic mansion and discussions of ghosts and seances, it pushes the story back into the show's horror roots which I will always appreciate. It’s something I’ve found them moving away from within this series, which I think also acts as an ode to my boredom throughout!

I really enjoyed the ending magic show. It's a great escalation of the episode and pushes it in a new and unique direction that still works and feels on form for the episode, at no point did I sit and wonder why we were here, and it genuinely got laughs out of me! I love this part, and I think the humour mixed with the characters fear of the situation make it all the better; Shaggy finds himself terrified of the tricks, and as such, he messes them up, infuriating the villain, like it’s perfect!

I really enjoy this episode, even if a lot of my reasoning comes down to finding the guest and general storyline funny and entertaining. Not perfect by any means, but certainly a great episode!

7. Sandy Duncan’s Jekyll and Hyde

I actually like this episode too!

We follow the gang on the set of guest star Sandy Duncan's new movie, the set of which is being torn down soon, however, someone keeps disrupting the set, causing delays.

Sandy Duncan is an actor and comedian, best known for her roles in the Fox and the Hound, The Cat From Outer Space and the 80s MLP movie. Despite this episode's setting, she’s never acted in a horror movie before! I like Sandy Duncan as a character here, she feels like a more fleshed out Candy Mint (Never Ape an Apeman), being a real person and all, although I think it’s important to note that unless stated otherwise, all these actors play caricatures of themselves, therefore when I talk about them, I’m talking about this fictionalised version of them.

This setting takes the Where are you episode (Never Ape an Apeman) and pushes it further, allowing us to live on this set. It’s one of the only times I enjoy the large cast of villains! Usually, the large amount feels like it’s compensating, all of them are bland and it’s difficult to keep track of, giving the episode an unfinished and confusing feeling. In contrast, I found it to aid this episode’s feeling of being a set, we see costumes used all over the place, from the titular Hyde (from the movie Sandy is starring in) to Ghosts, Lions, Dragons and Pirates.

The main villain is Hyde, his design far closer to the 1920s silent movie than the 1931 movie, while the previous Hyde (Where are You, Nowhere to Hyde) feels closer to the more animalistic design of that movie, the green in the poster likely a direct inspiration. Thus design instead is far more human, but the differently shaped eyes is likely an ode to the design of the character in the silent movie.

Skimming through the other characters I don't care much for, or who lack many interesting ideas, we have a Native American (similar in design to episode one of this season), the pirates, the mummy (similar to in Where are You, Scooby Doo and a Mummy Too), the ghost and Sheik.

This leaves the lion, bear and dragon. The lion and bear are simple, they are the animals, there’s nothing too exciting beyond them being these animals. At the very least, they are character types we haven’t seen yet in the series, but even in comparison to the following episode, they are wholly uninspired. However, I do enjoy the dragon, painted in violet and mauve, the creature is operated by the villain and breathes real fire, the decision to just have a dragon here is so out there that I can’t help but love it!

Within the episode itself, there’s some fun ideas! We see the stunt double looking the same as Daphne, therefore forcing her into the role later on, which I like as a way of assimilating the gang directly into danger and the throws of the mystery. And the setting is perfect for the gags and constant chases the episode bestows on us.

I can see myself adoring this episode if only it were shorter, but theres at least ten minutes here that drags! However, usually, I find myself bored for at least twenty minutes so truly I was happy with this one!

And the villain is an old silent actor, it’s such a fun motive and I love how this is integrated, we’ve come a long way from every villain being greedy! Kind of.

Also! There’s a sequel episode in Guess Who!, which is a long way away, but something super exciting to me.

8. The Secret of Shark Island

For context, there are five episodes in the entirety of the New Scooby Doo Movies that I placed as “good” or above on my rating scale. Three of those were in this set of four!

The episode sees the gang meeting Cher and Sonny during their honeymoon at an island resort. However soon they learn of a shark man lurking nearby.

As guest stars, I like Cher and Sonny! They’re characters on their honeymoon, constantly telling people who they are but asking for no attention, which they never receive anyway; it presents them as egotistical and self-centred, a great concept for one of these guest stars. They also feel pretty separate from the gang for a good chunk of this, so while I enjoyed the time we did spend with them, they never overstayed their welcome. While at times they could be kind of tedious, the episode is constantly moving, it ends up being one of the best paced in the season! Funnily enough, all my favourite episodes in this iteration of Scooby-Doo are the ones that have this faster pacing, always moving somewhere!

Cher is best known for her music, sometimes referred to as the Goddess of Pop! With that being said, she has a lot of acting credits, starring in Moonstruck and The Witches of Eastwick. She was married to Sonny at the time, but the two got a divorce in 1975. The two formed a band for a while, but outside of music, Sonny is maybe best known for his work in politics as a member of the republican party.

I really enjoy the monster here too, a little group of shark men. Somewhat anthropomorphised by their legs and arms, these characters feel so involved in the episode, it gives it so much more intrigue and makes me enjoy it so much more! They’re sharks, that’s mostly it, probably inspired by great whites, although their shade of grey is certainly darker.

I was pretty shocked by the fact this came out before Jaws. During the cold war, the US military were paranoid about sharks interfering with their water based operations, with this fear seeping into the general population in the 1960s, although it still was nothing major. In fact, before this, there wasn’t too much of a widespread fear of sharks. However, after the release of Jaws, the fear and hatred of sharks blew up, they became a common target with, on average, 100 million sharks killed a year. In contrast, there’s, on average, roughly 60 shark based fatalities a year. I think the fear mongering is important to put into perspective, because sharks aren’t really a threat to people, but their presentation in the media often influences many to be afraid of them, which only leads to their rising deaths.

Taking place before the release of Jaws gives these shark men a different perspective, which I appreciate. The anthropomorphisation for a start makes them unique and stand apart from the real animal, and generally makes for a more interesting design. I love these guys! They’re so cute and angry looking, they look so fun swimming and running around the island, they truly aid in making this episode great. Again, their more frequent appearances allows for the audience to feel their presence, this episode as a whole ends up feeling closer to a Where are You episode which is only a positive thing in my eyes!

The island resort setting is also a nice change of pace. As much as I miss the gothic and brooding backgrounds we used to receive, I’d take the varied locations any day over drear and repeated places. I think that’s something important to give this series credit for! It nails its variety of locations.

Glad to end on a positive note!

Episodes Ranked:

A Good Medium is Rare

The Secret of Shark Island

Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hyde

Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner

Villains Ranked:

Shark Men

Ghost of Captain Moody

Gargoyle

Phantom

Dragon

Bear

Mr Hyde

Mummy

Pirate

Ghost

Sheik

Wolfman

Native American

Previous Review: New Scooby Doo Movies Season 1 Episodes 1- 4

Next Review: New Scooby Doo Movies Season 1 Episodes 9 - 12 (Upcoming)

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xlxvesxckx · 2 years ago

Note

Hi! I saw your were taking requests? Hopefully you are still... um if so, could I ask for a lil fic with Jonathan x Reader?

Jonathan falling in love with a store owner of some kind? Like a flower shop or cafe? And he ends up going to said shop frequently cause he can't help himself?

If not that's ok

Hii!! I am still taking requests! Actually, you're my first request! So I'll make sure I make this extra special for you!

The idea is so cute! Jonathan is such a gentleman and a sweetheart!

≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺

"Good Afternoon Mr. Joestar! How are you?"

"I am fine, now that i've seen your face Miss Y/n."

Jonathan watches as you giggle and head to the back to get his normal bundle of flowers. Jonathan single handily kept your little business alive. You owned a flower shop in the middle of town, and yu did get some business from others, but Jonathan was the most frequent person you've seen.

You've always thought that what ever woman in his life was lucky. As he came in twice a month, always asking for what flowers you recommend.

You couldn't help but feel a little jealous of the woman that got his affections because Jonathan was a very attractive young man. His bright blue eyes and matching hair caught your attention and you loved seeing him come in so bubbly.

So when you came back to the front, only to be greeted with a bunch of flowers, you tilted your head in confusion.

"Do you want me to assort these Mr. Joestar?"

You watched him fiddle around with his hands before a hand went to rub the back of his neck.

"U-um..no, these are for you Miss Y/n!" You gasped softly and grabbed the bouquet from Jonathan. It was a collection of flowers that you recommended to him for his "special lady". They were wrapped in a pretty bow with a box on it.

"Jonathan..you didn't have to.."

"I had to...If you don't mind me.." Jonathan grabbed your hands and smiled down at you. "Each time I come into this shop..I feel like a regain a part of me...and when I have to leave, i feel as if im leaving a part of me behind.." He says, rubbing the back of your hands.

You feel a blush coming across your cheeks and raise up to place a kiss on his cheek, catching the male off guard. "Thank you Jonathan..."

Jonathan smiles and pulls you into a hug, he then pulls away to take one of the flowers and places it in your hair.

"Now come on Y/n! I have an amazing day planned for us~!"

You giggle as you nod and rush to the back to close up shop for the rest of the day.

You had your flower boy right where you wanted him...

In your arms...

≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺

I hope you enjoyed it! I made it short and sweet and fluffy, because flowershop au's are the butter to my biscuits.

#jjba x reader #jjba x y/n #jjba x you #jjba fanfic #jjba au #jonathan joestar x reader #jonathan joestar #jjba scenarios #jjba headcanons #lxve's writings ^~^

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geekygee01 · 1 year ago

Text

Won’t you be (mine) - Chapter 1- An Introduction

Series Masterlist

Pairing/s: Steve Harrington x Reader

Chapter Summary: After Nancy chooses Jonathan, Steve resigns himself to a life without love, until you walk through the doors of Family Video. He’s never felt this way about someone before, if this is what love feels like he never wants to let you go. There’s only one thing standing in his way, your fiancée.

Steve had first met you on a boring Wednesday afternoon. It had been another slow day at Family Video, made even worse by the fact that Steve had to open and somehow ended up needing to cover the closing shift too. Stupid Keith, all he could think about was finally clocking out of this nightmare. Although he'd just be leaving one nightmare for another, his cold and desolate home where he'd end up eating some shitty microwave meal whilst watching crappy reruns until he passes out. Only to rinse and repeat the process every other day, except Friday. On Friday night he will go on some unfulfilling date with a girl who's name he won't even remember in a weeks time.

This shift was meant to get better as Robin was scheduled to work the close with him, but all she had done since clocking in was complain about her day at school. There's only so much a person can listen to flute drama in a high school band before going insane.

"Are you even listening to me?!" Robins fingers wiggled right in Steve's face, jolting him out of his thoughts.

"Yes! Yes of course, Brenda is super annoying and can't even play the flute." Steve agreed with her points, trying to calm her down.

"Brenda plays the piccolo and that was the topic of conversation like five topics ago," she rolled her eyes at this so called 'best friend' "if you want me to shutup dingus just say so."

"What? No, I'm sorry, just a lot on my mind. I didn't mean to ignore you Robs."

"What's going on in that head of yours? Too many babes to keep track of?"

"Ha ha Robs, you know I'm not really into that serial dater scene anymore, I just want-"

"Yeah, yeah. You wanna meet your soulmate, I know. You say it every Monday and then come Friday you're off on another terrible date with the first pretty girl that gave you some attention," Robin sniped.

"Okay that may have happened in the past but this time I'm serious. I want a proper serious relationship with someone I could love, and I don't just mean the next pretty girl to walk through those doors-" Steve's rant was cut off by the little bell above the Family Video entrance signalling the arrival of a very pretty girl.

...

You rushed into Family Video, one arm weighed down by a bag of groceries and the other clutched some overdue movies. You walked up to the front desk and dropped your returns in front of a wide eyed employee. Even with the thud of cases in front of him he still didn't blink.

"Um, is he okay?" you asked the familiar female employee leaning on a counter next to him.

"Yeah, he's fine, he's just a dingus. Wait," she stretched herself out and kicked his shin, snapping him out of... well whatever was going on.

"HI!" he shouted "sorry, welcome to Family Video." His face flushed bright red which made you smile slightly, it was actually kind of adorable. "Um how can I help you?"

You glanced down at the movies you'd placed in front of him "I'd like to return these?"

"Right! Yes of course, you're returning these movies that you'd like to return," the girl by his side started laughing and he tried to subtly push her away.

"Yep that's right-" you glanced down at his name badge and froze. Steve? As in Steve Harrington? You tried to match this goofy video store employee with the asshole jock you went to school with, it's like some freaky body snatchers thing was going on. Was this the same guy? The badge didn't have a last name, but it had only been a year since he graduated and now that you thought about it he hadn't changed that much. Its surprising it took you that long to notice who he is, though its not like you ever really ran in the same circles. He probably didn't remember you either, if he ever even knew you to begin with. You wouldn't put it past King Steve to not even realise you existed, even if you did grow up in the same small town and share classes since first grade.

You were quick to empty those thoughts before your silence dragged on too long and got weird "that's right Steve," you smiled up at him and hope he didn't notice your weird lapse.

"Let's see, muppets, E.T and Scooby-doo which are... two days overdue," he looked up from the screen in front of him and you tried to hide your embarrassment,

"I know, I know. They were due Monday but between school and work and family drama it just completely slipped my mind, I am so sorry, how much in overdue fees do I owe?" you fiddled with the coins in your wallet and tried to avoid any form of eye contact.

"Uh, nothing at all. Yep it's a new policy, we don't charge late fees until after three days."

"Really?" you asked dubiously "Keith didn't mention anything about that when I rented them."

"Well that's Keith for you, very forgetful guy. Not sure why they put him in charge, it's a wonder this place is still running," Steve laughed awkwardly.

"Well I guess they must have impeccable employee Steve to thank for that," you smiled, still not completely convinced he was telling the truth. He tucked his hair and bashfully looked away.

"I don't know about all that," he deflected "are you looking to rent another movie?"

"Oh no not today, but I'll probably be back Friday," you smiled at the two workers and started heading for the door "I may just see you then."

It's only after you had left the store and the door had shut behind you that Steve whispered "can't wait."

...

You came back the following Friday to rent some films and Steve stumbled awkwardly through the entire interaction. His plans to flirt and charm had gone right out the window. He's not sure what happens when he's around you, it's like he's a different person.

He tried again the following Monday. And then Friday. And before he knew it it's been a month of seeing you twice a week and yet he's no closer to asking you on a date.

There's a tentative, easy friendship there and Steve enjoys getting to know you, but he just wants more. He wants more from the pretty girl with the great sense of humour. That finds his (and Robins) brand of awkward endearing instead of annoying. He's not sure how he never noticed you before, because to him you're perfect, but he's glad he's met you now.

"Today's the day," he announces "I'm going to do it."

"Do what?" Robin looks up from the magazine she's been flipping through.

"I'm going to ask out y/n."

Robin laughs and Steve is quick to scowl at her. "You've been saying that for weeks and yet you can barely get out one pick up line before blushing and stammering like a fool," Robin teases him.

"This time is different," he insists "now that we're friends it's easier to talk to her, which means it will be easier to flirt and then ask her out."

Robin just rolls her eyes and goes back to reading her magazine. Steve in turn rolls his eyes at her lack of faith and support.

Right on schedule you walk through the doors, sending a wave his and Robin's way. Steve is quick to wave back with a big smile. You briefly peruse the shelves before making your way to Steve, placing two movies down.

"The muppets and the Thing, bit of an odd combination," Steve smirks as he scans your films "you know I've heard The Thing can be quite creepy, might not want to watch it alone." he tries to subtly hint.

"Oh that's for my friend, he's been wanting me to watch it with him for a while and I've run out of excuses, so don't worry about little old me."

"That's great, wouldn't want you getting scared," Steve mumbled dejectedly, pushing your two films across the counter. But he's not backing out this time, you may not have picked up on his subtlety so he will just have to be more direct. "So listen, this might be weird or creepy and if it is you can totally ignore me and we can pretend this never happened-"

You can instantly see where this is headed and are quick to interrupt "I have a fiancee," he freezes and looks at you wide eyed "thank you for the films, now I need to get going because my daughter is a bit of a pyscho without her muppets fix." You quickly rush out of the store before things get too weird, or before you have to see Steve's crestfallen expression.

"A fiancee?" Steve mumbles to Robin, completely shocked "Wait! Daughter?!"

#stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things reader #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #reader insert #robin buckley #eddie munson

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theyaregayyourhonor · 2 years ago

Text

Gates, portals, birth and rebirth

Aka: Yes, Will and El are twins from birth (also I'm pretty sure Vecna cherry-picked our cast from different timelines)

Ever since I saw El's vision of her birth I've been having trouble with it and I couldn't figure it out for the life of me until I saw this image again:

I have to be a bit vulgar but my first thought was that it looked a whole lot like a vagina. Which made me think about how we have in the first and second season three people enter and exit the UD and the whole thing about birth/rebirth

So I was bugged by this idea until it started to fall into place.

So firstly I have to establish something

Portals: they are opened from the UD by Demogorgons and they are closing up just fine, not leving behind cracks =natural birth

Gates: they are opened from the RSU by humans and if they close up they leave behind cracks but if they don't they can spread and fester =c section

That's when I stopped because if I'm correct than El's rebirth or escape from the UD is fishy.

According to everything we know she was born with an emergency c section do to complications around her birth, so why did she exit the UD through a portal and not a gate? You can argue that than portals are equalling c sections, but portals are created from inside of the UD or womb, by something that is part of it. Portals are natural, gates aren't.

If gates were natural they wouldn't leave behind cracks or scarring, but they do and they are created by an outside force instead an inside.

But I have more proof.

Nancy Wheeler

I know this one come out of nowhere but we actually see our first birth/rebirth thanks to our girl. In her case it's more metaphorical and it's ends when she is back in the RSU and I also believe that is it here more, to show how a natural birth/rebirth should look like in contrast with the other two.

So Nancy Wheeler decided to climb into the tree portal left by a demogorgon, she wanders in, spends a little time there than she sees the demogorgon, she is the first one to move, she indicates the escape as she is frightened by the beast, that's when the demogorgon sees her and starts chasing her until she gets to the portal, she yells for Jonathan who is waiting for her on the other side and helps her out of the UD into the RSU and the portal closes.

If we traslate it into the birth/rebirth metaphor.

We have Karen and Ted Wheeler deciding to have a kid (Nancy willingly went inside) the baby spends nine month in the womb (Nancy spends the amount of time that she is not stuck here, but still sees the place and the demogorgon) than the water breaks (Nancy starts to leave) and the mother's body helps her (demogorgon start to chase her) the baby is born with the help of others and there are people waiting for her arrival (Jonathan)

Also real birth is fucking traumatazing so good job on that one too Duffers

Now like I said with Nancy its more metaphorical, like she saw hell and that made her change as a person.

But that's just makes El's whole ordeal more confusing. First El is draggeg into the UD by a Demogorgon that she demateralized with her powers.

Than in s2 we have El calling out to Mike as she wanders the UD, but there is no Demogorgon (aka help from the mothers body) as she tries to get out, but in the end she escapes through a portal, like Nancy.

I'm going to circle back in a minute

William Byers

So in season one we have Will being kidnapped, that is the first episode and the whole catalysts of the show. Now like with El, Will is dragged into the UD involuntary by a demogorgon, he spends most of the first season there and in the end he is saved by Hopper and Joyce who are bringing him out through the gate in the laboratory.

So we have two kids, whom are in the first season established to be look alikes, so much so that they could've be confused to one an other. They are both dragged into the UD by a demogorgon and they are trapped there, El enters the place on her own through a portal but Will is stuck and has to be carried out through a gate.

Demogorgons

Something that I've been stuck on is the whole thing about El and Will being dragged into the womb by something that is from the womb and I might be crazy but I think Will and El are tube babies.

In that case we would have a mother and a father desparate for a baby but it's just not coming together. That's when they hear about a doctor who could help. Doctor Brenner takes from the mother and father and the zygotes are made than they are put in the womb of the mother in hope that at least one stuck. They got lucky there is two zygotes that now growing and it all seems fine.

But they don't know something.

The demogorgons are under Vecna's control that he achived with the MF, demogorgons are our zygotes and they are infected with 001 powers (not DNA, Brenner has been trying to recreate him for a time now so he does a science thing that ends with artificial powers or something like that) via Brenner.

El openes the Mothergate which is the reason why Vecna can reach Will, the Demogorgon can open portals thanks to the gate being open and the Demo going through it.

Now El we know after being in the UD comes out premature, she was supposed to stay as the UD wasn't reacting to her escape, the body of the mother wasn't helping with the birth, El still struggles out in the natural way.

On the other hand Will is stuck in the UD, he can't born in the natural way, that's when the emergency c section is in motion, El coming prematurely (probably thanks to Brenner messing with the pregnancy and the zygotes) coused problemes with the other baby, Will. That's when the s section happened.

El opening up the mothergate=El borns early

Will stuck in the UD thanks El opening the mothergate=emergency c section because of the complications

Both times the person responsible is Brenner. Brenner is the one manipulating the pregnancy and the one making El going into the in between place.

Enter season 2

First I thought that I was crazy, than I remembered what happens next season with the characters.

So Will is in the hospital for a while, than he is brought home by his mother who is fussing over him and being protective and she is so scared for him and for good reason. Will is not fully okay, the whole ordeal left it's mark on him. He is sick, can't sleep well and he just can't seem to get any better.

In season 2 he still has the connection to the UD and he also gets possessed by the MF, which is what happened to him. Having Vecna's power and Brenner manipulating the pregnancy and the birth left their effects on him and his life.

While El after birth ends up in the hands of a random man, she doesn't know, who locks her up, has a bunch of rules she has to follow and becomes her Papa/father. Of course Hop is not Brenner, but still there are the parallels and that is what happened to El. After she was born, she was kidnapped by Brenner who locked her up, abused her and get her to call her Papa.

The big difference is that Hopper is acting that way because he already lost a daughter, he doesn't want to loose El, and it is dangerous for her outside. But he grows and learns and fails and apologies for his mistakes, he actually becames her father. I'm mean he is her father so I hoped he would grew into his role.

Vecna is cherry-picking

There is this gate called Twelvegate, according to that Will is twelve and the twin brother of El, and I saw it plausible especially with how I think Stranger Things is really built up.

I think Hopper and El from the same timeline, which follows.

Hopper and Joyce are married, they are struggling to have kids so they end up getting the help of a doctor, Brenner, he manipulates the pregnancy and the birth, El is born premature but strong, Will is stuck. Hopper demands the doctors to help Will, in the mean time El disappears (she is taken away by commands of Brenner by a nurse maybe Terry?). Brenner does the emergency c section, Will comes out dead so they have to revive him, something that they claim didn't work.

Hopper lost both El and Will, Joyce and him and up breaking up, meanwhile Will and El are raised in the laboratory as Eleven and Twelve.

Vecna picks out this Hopper and El, putting them in his little game he created with time travel and stolen powers. He messes with Hops memories thus Sara is created. She is the fuson of El and Will. A little girl who died in cancer, she wasn't breathing and they couldn't bring her back. Sara is Will and El on that fucked up day he lost two child at once.

El is from this timeline too, she and Will were trapped by Brenner but unlike Will she survived the massacre in 1979. That is why El recognises Will in season 1, because she knows him, they grew up together.

I also think that season 1 El and season 2 El are not the same person, that's why we never learn how she knew Will. Either that or when she was in UD Vecna started messing with her memories and Will and Twelve became two separate person.

I'm also trying to figure out if Jonathan would be from a timeline where Joyce and Lonnie get together and he is their son, or if he is from a reality where Hopper and Joyce got lucky. Like Jonathan literally being a miracle to them.

I'm also curious if you think the whole this is a patched together timeline from others thing true (or just like to entertain the idea) what do you think, who is from what timeline?

#st theory #st 5 theories #twelvegate #timeline theory #will byers #el hopper #willel #wonder twins #they are literal twins #jane hopper #byler #hopper byers family

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perexcri · 2 years ago

Text

there’s nothing more cruel than to be loved by everybody but you - [byler week - day 5]

yeah so i thought this fit the secret identities thing until i wrote it and realized it uhh. isn’t quite that. so enjoy whatever this is i guess - lots of miscommunication and a fun set-up for potential enemies to lovers

also it’s my personal headcanon that Will is a music snob, so if you don’t like that then uh,,,,i guess skip this one idk

title from: wilson (expensive mistakes) by fall out boy

dedicated to: the listening party for fall out boy’s new album that i went to last week in a city an hour away from me; i came up with this stupid idea on the drive there! indie record store in [city redacted], you were very nice, and thank you for having a decent selection of poetry i could pick from :]

Don’t ask Will how this ended up being his job, because he honestly doesn’t know. One day, they had a meeting for the university’s queer artists’ zine where he was complaining about everyone’s responses to the new U2 album (yes, it sounds different from other U2 albums, but obviously if you look at the lyrical and metatextual themes of Achtung Baby, it’s still very much U2), and then BAM–suddenly he’s in charge of doing the cover art for the zine and writing music reviews.

Sure, he could probably turn it down, but nobody else will take the job.

Also, he’s pretty sure they wouldn’t do it right, because, as much as he loves this group, their music tastes are…well…not everybody has an older brother like Jonathan Byers who makes sure they grow up with proper music opinions.

So, if anything, Will does this to keep the spirit of reviewing and recommending underground artists in New York City alive for the zine, and also because he doesn’t think anybody else could do it justice, no offense to them.

But Will is loathing this job for their upcoming edition. He’s sitting in that weird liminal time between class periods where people are in the chaotic throes of rushing around or throwing their notebooks open to prepare for the lecture; his elbows are pressed into the desk that’s just a little too small, and his head is in his hands. He’s staring down at the one submission he’s been putting off for precisely three semesters, because the president of the zine said it needed to be done before they moved on to new submissions, so could you please just lower your standards for one night and go listen to them play so you can write the damn review?

The Fellowship of the Ring, the submission card reads in faded pencil. Scratched under it in the slightly-fresher ink of the zine’s president’s pen, it reads: Thursday - The Purple Hall - 8 PM.

And, God, Will wishes this show was just gonna be a live reading of the Tolkein book. It would be so much better than what he knows it actually is.

The Fellowship of the Ring is a local, up-and-coming act in the underground venues of the greater New York City area that everybody loves because they sound like Nirvana and, you guessed it, throw out Tolkein references like they’re Led Zeppelin. They’re huge on college campuses, where students pass around live-recorded tapes of their supposedly-legendary performances all the time, gushing about how even the bass sounds, the peeling shrieks of guitars, the way the vocalist wavers between grumbles and ethereal, falsetto howls. They even gush about the lyrics and how they truly capture the experiences of Western youth in these first few years of the new decade: malaise, boredom, this sense that there is no great struggle for the future left for them, only an endless drowning in comfortable excess.

Will had even seen a girl with the band’s logo tattooed on her shoulder.

Which is…fine. He guesses.

If you like shitty music, that is.

See, that’s the fundamental problem here: Will likes doing these silly little reviews for live music around New York because half the time, the music is passably decent, and even if that doesn’t work, the lyrics can make up for it. There’s so much creativity in the air, and people are doing so much with it.

Not The Fellowship of the Ring, though.

Where everybody else sees innovation, Will sees reductivity; where everybody screams about the charm of the lyrics and the pop culture references they sneak in, Will sees a demeaning pandering to an audience. Every single time he has been subjected to the squawks and out-of-tune guitars of The Fellowship, he’s spent his time thinking he would be better off to save himself the time and just listen to Nirvana’s Nevermind for the millionth time, because that’s all The Fellowship’s trying to do, anyway, and at least then Will could listen to something good.

Yeah, Will hates The Fellowship of the Ring, and now he’s squeezing his temples so hard that the letters on the submission card are beginning to swim in his vision.

“Hey!”

Thankfully, Will is saved by his very friendly, incredibly good-looking neighbor in History of the American Constitution, Mike Wheeler.

“Hey!” he says, trying to gain back the energy that seeing The Fellowship’s submission card had unwittingly drained out of him.

And honestly, seeing that flash of Mike’s smile and how the fluorescents dance in his eyes, Will feels like he has enough energy to power the sun now, even if they are going to have to sit through yet another lecture about Article II–whatever the hell that means.

“What’s got you so down?” Mike asks, head tilted to the side, some of his hair tumbling into his eyes, and all Will wants to do is push it away–

But, no, he has to have a coherent conversation right now, so he shakes his head and tries his best to return Mike’s smile. “Oh, nothing…Just something for that zine I work on.”

“Oh, yeah!” Mike snaps his fingers, causing some of the buttons on his jacket to rattle together. He always wears a leather jacket no matter the weather or the rest of his attire, and today, paired with plaid pajama bottoms, held-together-by-duct-tape converse, and a baggy Care Bears shirt, it shouldn’t work, but in Will’s eyes, it does. “I think I saw one of those around! I wanted to grab a copy, but somebody else did before I could get to it.”

“I can bring you a copy of the next issue,” Will says, then, remembering the task at hand, groans and puts his head back in his hands. “That is, if I even survive it.”

“What, are they making you skip classes for it?”

“No, worse: they’re making me listen to a band I hate.”

Mike winces. “Yikes.”

“Yeah.”

“That sucks.”

“Right?”

“Can’t you just, like…push it off?”

“I did. For three semesters.” The professor wanders in with a mumbled greeting and a steaming cup of coffee in hand, and Will lowers his voice in anticipation of the lecture beginning. “That’s why I have to do it now.”

“Maybe it would help if somebody went with you?”

Despite having flirted with each other mercilessly all semester during this one shared class of theirs, they haven’t hung out much outside of it, so to be faced with the possibility of something that could potentially be labeled as a date between them is shocking. For a moment, Will can forget about the future torment awaiting him Thursday evening at The Purple Hall’s listening stage, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, having somebody to talk to over the drone of the lazily-played guitars could make the evening slightly more bearable.

“Yeah,” Will finally says, a grin stretching across his face. “Of course. Yeah, that’d be awesome!”

Mike returns the look twofold, and one of his legs begins to bounce. “Awesome! When is it?”

As the lecture begins, Will resorts to a torn piece of notebook paper, like he’s a kid passing notes in class again to survive the boredom. He scribbles The Purple Hall - Thursday 7 PM, then hands it to Mike, who responds with a quizzical look at the paper, scratches something out, and hands it back to Will.

The Purple Hall - Thursday 7 PM 6?

Will shoots him a thumbs up, prays it wasn’t too awkward, and then folds the sheet of paper up and sticks it in his pocket.

And if he carries it around there for the rest of the week, then that’s his business alone.

---

The pros: this is one of Will’s favorite music venues, there’s several bands to look forward to tonight, and Mike seems wholly invested in the idea of this being a date, if him leaning closer and the playful hand on Will’s knee mean anything.

The cons: Will has to listen to the fucking Fellowship of the Ring in approximately ten minutes.

He’s able to put the thoughts off for the first hour. After all, The Fellowship isn’t set to perform until 8–he and Mike had met at 6 as planned, and Will has spent the first hour and a half trying to be blissfully unaware of the torturous fate awaiting him.

Even as his skin begins to crawl at the thought of having to hear those plucky, out-of-tune guitars and the lead singer screeching about the Gulf War under the guise of Star Wars references, he does feel a little settled. Mike’s fingers are surprisingly warm, and the alcohol they’ve been nursing makes his chest glow with warmth. It’s easier to laugh, to be focused solely on Mike and these wonderful, looping conversations they’ve found themselves ensnared in.

“This one’s good!” Mike half-shouts over the drum solo of the current act, consisting of just a drummer and a bassist crooning over their heady rhythms. They’re called the Jazz Squares, or something like that. Whatever.

At least they’re not The Fellowship.

“The drink or the band?” Will queries. His own head’s spinning with the beer he’s been sipping on for the better part of an hour, and he already feels lightheaded, because he’s a lightweight, and Mike’s got something to do with these pulses of courage thumping in his chest, right?

“Both!” Mike takes another long sip from his Jolly-Rancher-blue mixer. Will had asked him what was in it earlier, and all Mike had responded with was Coconut-something and a whole lot of rum!

They’ve talked about so much already–their families, their majors, their hobbies. Mike comes here a lot, he reveals, and he mentions that he plays guitar, too. He keeps it a playful secret when Will asks for more information, though: how long have you played? Do you write, too? Are you in a band, because I could put you in the zine if you wanted–

It’s a surpriseee, Mike had drawled in response, a stupid grin twisting his mouth as his fingers had vacated Will’s knee momentarily just to ruffle through Will’s hair.

As the Jazz Squares’ set finally dies down to some spotty applause (this is more of an alternative scene, after all, but a gig is a gig), Will lets out a groan, melodramatically knocking his forehead into the table, and finally drags out his notebook.

“What’s that for?” Mike asks, eyebrows high on his forehead.

“For that review I have to do,” Will grumbles.

“But isn’t that act on in, like, two hours?”

Will blinks a couple of times. He supposes he hadn’t actually told Mike which group he was here for, but he thought the fact that he originally proposed a meet-up time of 7 would have communicated enough that it was somewhere around then. “Um, no? I didn’t say anything, I guess, but I think they’re up next.”

Mike’s fingers begin to nervously tap on what remains of his electric blue potion. As his and Will’s gazes snag together for several heady seconds, he purses his lips, then throws back the rest of his drink, swallowing the last of it in just a couple of gulps.

Will slowly draws his notebook out, flipping to the page he had specifically marked The Fellowship of the Ring with a disheartened, frighteningly life-like frowny face scrawled next to it. “Is something wrong?”

Mike drags his wrist across his mouth, smearing any remaining drops of blue onto his leather jacket’s sleeve. “So this band you hate that you have to review…It’s The Fellowship of the Ring?”

“Yeah.” Will taps the top of his paper. “I didn’t say anything, but…Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“Um.”

Will quirks an eyebrow up. “I mean, do you like them? That’s fine, of course, I mean–people have different tastes and what-not. I’d just have to seriously question your judgment in all matters music-related, I guess.”

“Um,” Mike repeats, fingers now tapping a dangerously fast staccato against their bartop table. It makes the remaining beer in Will’s bottle slosh around. “Um…This is bad.”

“What? Are you a super fan or something?” Thanks to the alcohol, Will feels bold enough to scrunch his nose up with disgust. “I mean, fine, whatever. But seriously, if you want a second date, I’m gonna take you to a record store so you can hear some actually decent music. If you’re impressed by that fucking band’s reductive bullshit, you’ll be positively amazed by a group like The Clash or Smashing Pumpkins or–hell, even fucking U2–”

“Excuse me!” the MC calls over the mic; when the feedback whines, he takes a second to tap at the mic, then announces: “Calling everyone’s favorite up-and-coming group, The Fellowship of the Ring, for soundcheck–their set starts in five!”

The club erupts into raucous cheers. Will has to hide the involuntary groan of annoyance he lets out behind his hand.

Mike casts a nervous glance at Will, then pushes his chair out and looks like he’s going to walk away, the buttons on his jacket clicking together. He nearly trips over the saggy laces of his converse, and through the tears in his jeans, he almost looks like he’s shaking.

“Hey, wait!” Will says, reaching forward and grasping Mike’s wrist. It makes the other guy stop, a blush creeping up into his cheeks, and Will tries to push down his distaste for the band and lets out a sigh. “Listen, I’m sorry–I was being stupid. It’s just a band, after all. If you like them, that’s fine, and I will…” he swallows here, and it hurts, taking on this insurmountable task of trying to push his music-snob’s pride down. “I won’t make fun of you for it. I promise.”

Mike blinks a couple of times before a reassuring grin overtakes his features. “Uh…Nope. That’s okay, Will. It’s not for everyone. I wasn’t like…trying to run out on you or anything.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’m still gonna be here.”

“Then why are you getting up?”

Mike points at the stage, where a drummer and bassist are setting up their instruments, their eyes scanning the room in search of their infamous guitarist and singer. “Didn’t you hear? We have soundcheck. The set starts in five.”

Will slowly nods. “Yeah. Then the next act starts, and I have to scratch down whatever notes I can think of for them, and then we can get back to our date.”

Mike stares at him for several seconds.

And then it all catches up with Will.

“Oh, shit–”

Mike’s grin turns into something playful, his eyebrows shooting up beneath his bangs. “Can’t wait to read your official review of my fucking band’s reductive bullshit!” he says with a two-fingered salute, then spins around to make his way to the stage. He’s bathed in the dim lighting of the stage, hunching over his guitar the second he straps it around his chest, and Will wonders how somebody who was brave enough to wander around in a leather jacket and a fucking Care Bears shirt and look that good could be involved in a band that’s just–

This bad, Will finishes for himself as Mike strums his first cord, its electricity shaking the walls of the club, and he begins yet another signature Fellowship song that’s nothing more than various John Hughes and horror movie quotes juxtaposed over warring drums and guitars.

Of course Will would be stupid enough to fall for the lead singer of his most-hated band in the greater New York City area.

#byler #bylerweek2023 #ficlet #did not feel like messing around with html for line breaks today so sorry for the extra dashes :)))#also the will being a music snob thing is a headcanon so like #pls don't crucify me i just think it's a silly thing to write about #anyway #i think this could be secret identities if i'd been willing to commit more words and planning but i wasn't so <3

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