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sp0o0kylights · 2 years ago

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Part Two / Part Three

Ao3

It's 8:45 am.

The Red Barn, which is neither red nor a barn, has been open since 7, catering to the early morning crowd with rounds of coffee and pancakes.

It was no Benny's, but given the size of Hawkins and the lack of alternatives?

No one was complaining.

They were all too happy someone had opened up another watering hole for the working class man (or lass, as Foreman Shelly will dutifully remind you) which meant the place was packed with both day and night shift regulars, passing each other in staggered waves.

It also meant Wayne was sharing the packed breakfast counter with a warehouse worker by the name of John Cheese on one side and Police Chief Jim Hopper on the other.

He doesn't mind it.

Wayne's a man on a budget thinner than his shoelace, but he's also a man who understands that small indulgences need to be made in life or you didn't truly live it.

This is how he convinces himself to get a coffee at the Barn after work everyday, reading the morning newspaper and chatting with the other regulars before he heads home.

Bonus, it gets him out of the rapid-fire franticness that is his nephew in the mornings.

(All the love in the world wouldn't change the fact that all that Eddie came with a lot of noise.

The kind of noise that was a tried and true recipe for a headache right after a long shift.)

As a trade off, Wayne went to bed early so he could wake up in time for dinner with Eddie.

It was a nice little system that worked for them.

A routine Wayne was reminiscing fondly on, when the pager on Chief Hopper started to chirp. With a sad moan, the man fished out a few crumbled bills and threw them on the counter, abandoning his coffee to trudge out to his truck.

This was not unusual.

Particularly recently, given they were but a scant few weeks past that whole mall ordeal. A fact all too easy to remember when one caught sight of the Chief’s still healing face.

What was unusual, was when he came storming through the doors a minute later, face now a furious shade of red with his hat clenched in his hand.

The energy in the room shifted, taking on something a little watchful as Hopper swept his gaze from side to side, like a dog on the hunt.

Judging by the way he stilled when he caught sight of Wayne, the latter assumed he found what he was looking for and could only pray it was the person behind him.

(He liked John, but Wayne had enough trouble this year and he wasn't looking for any more.)

"Munson." Hopper called, striding over and dashing all his hopes. There was a choked fury emitting off him, and given the way John audibly scooted his chair away, Wayne knew everyone had clocked it.

"Chief." Wayne greeted, inclining his head towards him.

Idly he wondered what the hell his nephew had done this time.

'So help me if he stole all the town's lawn flamingos and put them in that damn teachers yard again….'

Wayne didn't even get to finish his threat, the Chief was already next to him.

"Mind if I have a word outside?"

Dammit Eddie.

"Ah hell, what's he done now?" Wayne asked with a sigh, eyeing the coffee he had left morosely.

There was still almost half of it left and the pot had tasted fresh for once.

"What?" Hopper said, and then Wayne got to watch as the man ran through an entire chain of thoughts, each one punctuated by things like; "Oh," and "No. "

"This is something else." He finished, flushed and fidgeting, anger making him antsy.

Wayne stared up at him.

"Something else?" He repeated, not sure he heard.

"Yes, something else." Hopper snapped impatiently, before leaning forward, voice dropping low. "This doesn't involve your nephew, but we both know you owe me for how many times I've let that kid off, Wayne. That's a damn big favor I've been doing you and I'm calling it in."

If it were any other cop, it'd sound like a threat.

It was Hopper though. The same Hopper who Wayne had gone to school with.

They'd never been friends exactly, but they had been friendly and remained so. Even now, after Wayne had taken Eddie in, who’d gone on to be an undeniable pain in the local PD’s ass.

Hopper really did let the kid off easy.

Wayne really did owe him.

So he put down his coffee with a sigh, passed his newspaper over to John and stood up, motioning for Hopper to lead the way. Got into the Chief’s truck when he waved him in, and didn’t make a big fuss when Hopper tore out of the parking lot like hell was about to open up under them.

"Not a lot of the kids involved in the mall fire could be identified, but a few of them were." Hopper started, which felt nonsensical given the utter lack of context.

Wayne hummed to show he’d heard.

“Some of them got banged up more than others, and a lot of people wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t make it.”

A pause, Hopper white knuckling the steering wheel as he swung the truck hard around a turn.

“For certain people, those kids dying is the preferred outcome.”

A mix of fear and warning swopped low in Wayne’s gut.

"Jim." Wayne said, dropping the use of a last name because if any situation called for it, it was this one. "What exactly are you saying here?"

The Chief chewed on his split lip.

"I know you're smart, Munson. I know you, and plenty of others are aware that something's happening, been happening in this town."

Which was a hell of an understatement if you asked Wayne. Plenty of the upper classes might be able to bury their heads when it came to the military parading about and the flow of “accidents” they brought in their wake, but then, they didn't see all the other signs of trouble.

The absolute oddity that was Starcourt’s construction.

How it had been built using primarily outside crews and anyone who'd taken a singular look at the site could tell you they were building it weird.

Weird as in it looked like it would have a multi-level basement, and not what a mall should have.

Then there were the constant electrical problems. The backups upon backups that failed. The late night delivery vans headed out to the Hawkins Lab.

The things in the woods that kept spooking all the deer and the weird markings they left behind that unnerved even the hardest of hunters.

This didn’t even touch the Russian military that more than one reputable person swore was hanging around.

The very same Wayne himself had seen, on more than one occasion.

(And you couldn’t deny it; those boys were military. Past or present, it didn’t matter. They moved like a threat, and Wayne treated them like one, staying well clear.)

"Yeah." Wayne admitted. "I also know better than to stick my nose in it."

"That makes you a smarter man than me.' Hop complained under his breath, but the anger was self directed.

"The point is, there are some government types crawling around, doing shit they shouldn't be doing, and more than a few of them are in the business of making people disappear.”

This was absolutely not where Wayne had thought this was going.

Hopper took a breath. Than another.

A third.

It was starting to make Wayne nervous, in a way he hadn’t felt since a social worker had brought Eddie to him for the last time and final time. It was the feeling that things were about to shift in a way that would change the course of his life.

"Steve Harrington is sitting in my office right now, beat to absolute shit.” Hopper admitted.

Wayne gave him the floor to talk, letting him go at his own pace without interruptions.

“He's there because some of those government types finally figured out his parents are never fucking home.”

Wayne sucked in a breath.

"We both know his parents, Wayne. Harassing them to come back and take care of their kid won't work, and frankly, I’m beginning to think all the phone lines are tapped anyway.” He winced here, like voicing such a thing pained him, and Wayne understood.

It sounded a little too out there, a little like he was buying into a conspiracy.

Except he wasn’t. Wayne knew he wasn’t.

Jim Hopper might have been an alcoholic, a man living in pain and unconcerned with his own life, but if there was one thing he was solid for, it was shit like this.

He didn’t jump to conclusions. Didn’t believe the first thing people told him. Even at his worst, he did the work to see what was really happening, and made his decisions from there.

(Even if that decision was to accept the occasional bribe, or drive an intoxicated 13 year old Eddie home instead of hauling his ass into the drunk tank.)

“Harrington won’t admit it, but he’s got a hell of a concussion if not a full blown brain injury and he’s not reacting as well as he should to Suites trying to run him off the road.” Hopper continued. Angrily, he added, “Damn kid didn’t even come to me until they tried to break into his house last night.”

His fingers squeezed the wheel so hard Wayne heard the leather creak in protest.

“I’d take him, but my cabin is being renovated from…” He trailed off, heaving a sigh.

“A storm, so me and my kid are bunked with the Byers right now and we’re full up.”

Hawkins hadn't had a storm like that in years, but Wayne wasn't going to call him out on the blatant lie.

“I need a place to stash him for the next few weeks, until I can work with some of the higher ups sniffing around, and get them to call off their attack dogs.”

“And you want to stuff him with me.” Wayne finished.

“I know you don’t have the room.” Hopper admitted easily, stopping his truck at a red light and locking eyes with the other man. “But I also know you’ll be the last place anyone would look for him.”

'Ain’t that the damn truth.'

“You’re really gonna go this far for a Harrington?” Wayne asked, instead of the million of other questions leaping to the forefront of his mind.

This one, he figured, was the most important.

“He’s not his dad.” Hopper said, as firm as Wayne had ever heard him. “He’s not either of his parents, and he saved my little girl.”

Wayne hadn’t even known Hopper had another little girl, but he also knew better than to ask where the guy had found one.

It wasn’t his business, just as nothing else Jim was involved in, was his business.

Except, apparently, Steve Harrington.

“I’m gonna need my own truck if I’m takin' Harrington home.” Wayne said easily, instead of bothering to ask anything else.

If Jim said the kid was different than his daddy, then he was--because when it came to things like that, Jim didn't lie.

No point in it.

“I know. Just needed to talk to you first, without anyone overhearing.” Jim said, before swinging the police truck around and heading back to the Barn.

“I’ll stay in contact with you, and I’ll make sure Harrington pays you for the pleasure of your hospitality. Just--” Here Jim cut himself off, looking like he was struggling an awful lot with the next thing he wanted to say.

Once again, Wayne waited him out.

“Don’t let Steve fool you. He’s good at fooling people, letting them think he’s okay. Too good at it, and between the two of us, I have a real good idea of the reason why.”

A memory came to Wayne unbidden, of Richard Harrington and Chet Hagan, beating some poor kid in the highschool bathroom bloody. The grins on their faces as the poor guy wailed for them to stop.

How they almost hadn’t.

“Alright.” Wayne agreed.

Hopper swung back into the Barn's parking lot, and Wayne moved right to his own beat to shit truck, ready to follow Jim back to the police station.

He wasn’t a praying man, not anymore, but Catholisim wasn’t a thing that let you go easy.

He found himself sending up a quick prayer, fingers flicking in a kind of miniature version of the sign of the cross.

Considering his own kid’s history with Harrington, and the sheer small space of the trailer?

Wayne had a feeling it was needed.

#this has like t wo more parts #pre steddie #wayne as a BAMF #wayne and Hopper both as psuedo parents to Steve #ya'll are gonna have to put up with my weird ass jumping all over the place warm ups sorry lol #Gary's fourth piece is coming no worries #and then this will either take its place or the other one I have will #you CANNOT look me in the eye and tell me all the blue color workers arent aware shits going down #like 100% local crews took one look at starcourt and went what the fuck #nevermind you know the local power plant lol #and with demo critters running around its not like they were tearing through brushes and shit #your local hunters are gonna know somethings up #anyway #beat to shit Steve Harrington #my beloved #hes gonna show up busted to shit with a major grade concussion and Eddie is gonna shit himself #steve harrington #steddie #I spelled collar color and im not changing it #outsider pov #wayne pov #I will write the first person who knows where I pulled John from a prompt of their choice #catholic wayne munson #jim hopper

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multiheadcanons · 4 days ago

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BABY’S WORST RESPAWN

scout: normally scout will just wake up in the infirmary and carry on about his day. but there was one time, he had a really weird dream. initially he thought maybe he just got knocked out; he was tossed into the wall head first by the enemy heavy and his vision went dark. his eyes opened to darkness still, and a door. he knew instinctively that door led to the respawn room. but he couldn’t move towards it. a different figure, a similar figure, walked towards the door, and he couldn’t open his mouth to scream as he watched himself enter the respawn room, leaving him there. only as the sound began to leave his mouth did he open his eyes into the infirmary. he wasn’t sure if he actually died or not. he’s still not sure.

soldier: he also normally will just open his eyes and be back in the respawn room. but one time, it was different. he saw this door, and he saw something moving towards it. and it was so hard to move, he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs to yell out, but he forced himself to move. he just couldn’t beat that figure moving in the dark; but he saw that the figure looked oddly familiar, as the thing threw the doors open. and his vision was washed in light, before refocusing in the infirmary.

pyro: it’s always a scary walk for them. a painful crawl of a walk down a dark hallway, and they can never see anything but a set of doors. and they know those doors lead to the infirmary. but they’re unarmed, and it’s so dark. they’ll even take off their mask to see if they can get any more vision. the worst is when they knew they were walking and the doors didn’t get any closer. even sprinting, they couldn’t get any closer to the doors. they just wish they had a lighter, or a set of matches…. anything. anything. anything but this darkness.

demo: normally it’s a short wait for demo. he sits in the dark and sometime between the dark and his blinks comes a light and he’s back in the fight, full, whole, and ready to go. but there was a time he swore days went by. he just sat in the dark for hours. because he knows what a couple of minutes feels like in the dark. this wasn’t minutes. this was hours of sitting in the dark. it was only when he got a thought to get up and see what’s going on that he had returned to the respawn room, and he couldn’t stop to think about what just happened. that experience is one he will never forget. it has made him more wary of dying. he knows he pushes his lifestyle. he doesn’t know if it’s worth that wait again to come back to it.

heavy: it’s a slow walk. it’s a walk he’s never scared of. he’s made worse walks. but he’s always alone in there. there was one time he wasn’t. a voice— warped and warbled past the point of recognition cried for him. said they couldn’t make the walk alone. something told him not to, but he offered a hand regardless. and it felt comforting, to know there was someone else here other than himself. it wasn’t until they had approached the doors together, in the dim light of the small window of the infirmary door, he looked behind him to see the hand he held was stretched inhumanly far. far into the darkness. further than he could see. he fought the bile rising in his throat, and gingerly released his grip, watching it slingshot back into the darkness. he just needed to get out of here before whatever that thing was decided to actually follow him this time.

engineer: engie has attempted to keep time in his little pocket dimension in the respawn machine via scratches in the floor, a watch he removed from his body and tossed in front of him; only to come back and feel for these things and they’re gone. there’s nothing for him to do but sit and wait. and that is the worst part to him. the sitting and waiting. and hoping his body is the one that gets picked to go through the doors next. it’s not that he’s afraid of the dark or anything; it’s the dripping. he swears he hears this dripping. it wasn’t there before. but everytime he comes back the dripping sounds stronger. like wherever the leak is is quickly giving way to the fluid behind it. he doesn’t want to be in here when it breaks.

medic: it is almost always a brisk walk in a pitch black labyrinth. but he knows where to go. the faith placed in himself as his boots click mutedly on the ground has never faltered him. even when he hears things crawling around behind him. even past the echoes of screams. sometimes his own. sometimes others. he keeps his eyes forward and walks. there was one time though. he had run into himself. he didn’t think he had made a wrong turn. he even saw the doors past this clone. it threw him off. as he slowly reached out, just to see if his counterpart was okay, it was a low, pained groan that came from the body as the head rolled back, back, back, until eyeless sockets met filled ones. “don’t. don’t come back. don’t come back here if you can help it.” he immediately retracted his hand and hurried on his way into the doors.

sniper: snipes has actually never had a negative experience with the respawn machine. he blinks, he’s back. sometimes he can see his parents. his good ones, not the assholes. but never long enough to even register what he’s looking at. just flashes. a familiar smile. soft eyes. echoes of “attaboy!” “good try, mick!” “almost had it!” “give it another go, mick!”. the brilliant blue skies of home. the tree in the yard. but he’s back in the infirmary, ready to go. it was a little disconcerting the first few times. but he’s grown to really appreciate it. it’s nice to feel support from them, even if they’re across the globe. it’s nice to feel home sometimes.

spy: contrary to sniper, spy has almost never had a good experience with the respawn machine. it takes too long, he always feels himself dying well after he’s dead, he knows nobody else maintains consciousness in their blown up bodies, and he’s had to learn to stop himself from screaming in agony. he couldn’t the first dozen or so times. and judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, they were not experiencing death the way he was through this machine. the burns. the bombs. the gunshots. he can’t shake them. they follow him until he’s lost to shock; and only then does he return to the infirmary, whole once more. it is breaking him. he takes care not to die on the field. but the enemy is getting better. and he’s not.

#team fortress 2 #team fortress two #tf2 sniper #tf2 medic #tf2 heavy #tf2 scout #tf2 soldier #tf2 spy #tf2 engineer #tf2 demo #tf2 pyro #tf2 demoman #i wanted to try something a lil different.#i wouldn’t call myself a gory writer #but sometimes i like to try #i spared sniper this time bc im feeling tender for him #i have other plans for him #thanks for appreciating my hcs if you got this far!

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