#same steve we can just be Digging Holes

[stevieharringtonwifeguy]

my sibling is teaching me to crochet and i think the amount of rage i've generated towards tiny metal hooks and tangles of yarn has allowed my brain to see through the white noise of the universe and arrive at some unequivocal truths

[stevie-petey]

episode five: dig dug

“You like Y/N?” Dustin asks at the same time as you ask, “You like me?” Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, barely. She’s on thin ice. But you, little Henderson? You just stole the flowers meant for my girlfriend, so backseat you go.” “Yes!” You cheer, pumping your fist in the air as you flash Steve a smile. “Thanks, Harrington.” He rounds the front of his car and opens the driver's side door. “Yeah, don’t get used to it. Like I said, you’re still on thin ice.”

Summary: you and dustin bury a body and con your mother into fleeing town, great sibling bonding time ! you play hockey with a monster, dustin gets ghosted by his friends, and now it's your turn to kidnap steve (technically dustin does, but you don't stop him) who later gives you some terrifying realizations.

Rating: general, swearing and slight violence

Warnings: blood, use of y/n, fem!reader, animal cruelty technically, weapons, cursing

Words: 7.5k

Before you swing in: hello ! late chapter update, but here ya go lovelies !! lots has happened recently, i got a sick ass job and im super excited and :))) so updates will definitely slow down again some more, but i promise i will update whenever possible. for now, please enjoy !

–

“Remember how angry I was at you about hiding El from me last year?”

“Yeah?”

“Visualize the anger, multiply it by ten, and then take three steps back from me.”

Dustin trips over his feet to scramble away from you.

You’re currently in your own room, the door locked, with Dustin standing several feet away now as he heeds your warning. Never in your life have you felt such rage before, such blinding fury, and you thought you knew what anger was when your dad left.

But this? This is a new type of anger, one you know that only the older sister to Dustin Henderson could ever feel.

As soon as Dart had lifted its head up at you and screeched, you’d immediately snatched your brother’s hand into yours and ran out the door, door slamming behind you. Now, you’re hiding out in your room with no fucking clue what to do.

“You killed our cat.”

“Technically Dart did.” You glare at Dustin. You had actually liked Mews, she was the sweetest cat in the world and a gift for your fifth birthday. Your brother, sensing he’s only digging a deeper hole for himself, coughs. “I mean… Yeah. I killed our cat.”

Stepping back, you find your desk chair against your legs and fall into the seat. Exhaustion sweeps over you. There’s no time to grieve the loss of your cat. Not when there’s a baby demogorgon in Dustin’s room eating said cat’s corpse still. “What do we even do in this situation?”

“Not tell mom?” Again, you glare at Dustin and he squeaks in fear. “Well I mean, that’s all I can think of right now!”

A headache forms. “I should’ve gone with Jonathan and Nancy.”

Dustin thinks for a moment. “Where did they go, anyways?”

“No. You don’t get to ask any questions right now.”

“Yes ma’am.”

You sigh, a vague idea forming in your mind. “Okay, first we need get Mews out of the room. She was mom’s favorite child, we can’t just leave her in there to be diminished to bones.”

Dustin nods. “Obviously. We can do that… right?”

“We have to. Once she’s out of there, we just… leave Dart in there. At least for now. It’s already late in the afternoon and we need so much help from the party.”

“We can’t tell the party–”

“You’re right. We can’t,” Dustin sighs with relief, but you give him an evil smile. “But you can tell the party. You’ll radio everyone tomorrow, clean the house, and make a plan from there.”

Dustin tries to argue, but you hold a hand up. “You brought a baby demogorgon into our house. You lost every arguing privilege there is to lose.”

He groans, knowing you’re right. Next time, he’ll be better at hiding things from you because you’re a total buzzkill whenever you inevitably find out.

Together, the two of you hatch a plan. You’ll walk into Dustin’s room first, knives out and ready just in case, and Dustin will follow once the coast is clear. Then, he’ll lure Dart away from Mews’ body with chocolate (you don’t want to ask why), and once he’s gone you’ll snatch your cat’s body and flee the room immediately afterwards.

It’s a good plan.

That is, if it works.

“Ready?” You’re standing in front of Dustin’s door, your knives flicked open in your hand, ready for possible war with a foot long little demon.

Your brother pats your shoulder. “Don’t die, sis.”

“I’m holding knives as we speak. Touch me again and die.”

“I hope Dart eats your face.”

You smile. “There’s my brother. Okay, as soon as I’m inside the room, close the door. Then, when I knock three times, open it again and enter.”

“Wait for two knocks–”

“Three.”

“Three knocks. Right.”

You steady your breathing. Around the corner, you can hear your mom humming to herself as she makes dinner. She has no clue what’s going on, and you envy her for it. Your hand on Dustin’s door knob twists slowly, then, before you can psych yourself out, you turn the knob and throw yourself inside.

Quickly the door slams behind you, so at least Dustin did something right.

Your eyes, which had previously been squeezed shut, open slowly. When you don’t see any sign of Dart, you exhale. So far, so good. You walk towards the couch and find the creature still eating away at your dead cat, which you gag at.

Poor Mews.

You rap your knuckles against the door three times, alerting Dustin to come inside.

He opens the door and walks in, his hands fisted against his face as if that would do anything to keep him safe. You roll your eyes and flick his head, which he whines at. “Grab the chocolate and distract Dart, please.”

Dustin runs over to his desk and grabs a Musketeers bar. When you see the candy’s name, you want to slam your head against the wall. You know exactly why the monster’s name is Dart.

“Let me guess,” you say, your tone mocking. “D’Artagnan?”

“Don’t you have a corpse to collect?”

You scoff at him but step aside so that he can dangle the chocolate in Dart’s face. You watch, alert for any signs of danger in case you need to step in, but the monster seems to be pretty friendly with Dustin. You guess they really did create a bond.

Once Dart is far enough away from Mews, you run over and snatch up her body. You try not to think about the possible cat guts now all over your sweater. That will be a later issue. Like a lot of things in your life recently.

“Go, go, go!” You push Dustin towards the door.

He doesn’t need to be told twice, throwing the last piece of the candy bar at Dart’s face and running out the door right behind you. Once you’re both out the room with the door closed, you both lean against the wall and exhale deeply.

“Good job. Now onto phase two.”

Dustin makes a face. “Why do I have to distract mom?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you hold up Mews’ bloody body. “Do you want to be the one to hold our dead cat?”

“Good point, I’ll go distract mom.” Dustin leaves, rounding the corner to go hopefully distract your poor mother in a sane way. With your luck, Dustin will spew some weird bullshit that will only make her more worried than she already is.

Right on cue, you hear Dustin say from the kitchen. “Mom, I think I broke my arm.”

The scream of fear your mom lets out would’ve been comedic had you not been holding her beloved dead cat.

Your mother runs around the kitchen, fretting over your brother, and the second she isn’t looking, you slip out the front door and quickly throw Mews’ body into your bush. You feel a bit bad about that, but there’s nowhere else to hide her body in broad daylight.

When you walk back inside, Dustin is being swaddled by your mother. “What did I miss?”

“Oh, Y/N!” Your mom sighs. “Dusty said he thought he broke his arm, but the silly boy seems to be okay.”

Dustin pats her back. “Ha, right. Silly me!”

Your mom looks up and then squints a bit, eying your sweater. You look down and your heart drops. It’s covered in Mews’ blood.

Fuck.

“Y/N, what’s that all over your sweater?”

“Paint!” You say while Dustin sputters, “Ketchup!”

“We… Were painting with ketchup.” You lie, sending a quick glare your brother’s way. Out of everything red, why ketchup?

“Oh, alright.” Your mom looks uncertain, but doesn’t say anything else about it. “Well, dinner is almost ready. Why don’t you go wash up, honey?”

The second you’re dismissed, you run into your room and yank the sweater off. You’ll burn it tomorrow. First chance you get.

A few seconds later, there’s a knock on your door before Dustin’s head pokes inside. “Dinner’s done.”

“Great. Holding your dead cat definitely works up an appetite.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Dustin tries to play it off, but you see the genuine upset in his eyes. He hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, and you know he loved Mews too.

You sigh and walk over to him and kiss his curls. “It’s okay. Next time, let’s not hide a monster from the Upside Down, yeah?”

“Deal.”

–

Dustin spends the night in your room, which you explain to your mom as needing some “serious bonding time”. She tears up at this, unaware of the fact that you’ll be making your brother sleep on the floor as punishment.

The next morning you and Dustin hatch yet another plan: get mom out of the house. Before you two can do anything else, you both agree that your mom cannot be anywhere near Dart. Plus, she’s already noticed Mews’ absence, so it’s only a matter of time before she finds the body in the bush.

“Alright, you’ll fake the phone call while I start gathering the supplies.” You tell Dustin while your mom calls for Mews outside. She’s at the bottom of the driveway, Mews’ favorite toy in her hand, shaking it around, unaware that the cat’s dead body is in the bush next to her.

“Got it. You remember where my old hockey suit is?” You nod at Dustin’s question, and he’s about to say something else before he sees your mom start walking back towards the house. ���Shit! Game time, go!”

Dustin fumbles for the phone and you run to the living room closet. Just as you’ve entered your positions, your mom walks through the front door.

“Mewsy! Dusty, Y/N, sweethearts, you’re sure she’s not in your rooms?”

“No, mom.” You shake your head at her.

Holding up a finger, Dustin presses the phone to his ear and motions for the woman to remain quiet. “Uh-huh. Thank you so much, Mr. McCorkle. Thank you so much, you are a true lifesaver.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes. He’s laying it on pretty thick.

“Alright, this was great. Thank you, have a good one. Bye-bye now, all right. You too.” Dustin pretends to hang up the phone and smiles at your mom. “Alright, great news!”

“They found her?” Tears of joy lace your mother’s voice. You have to turn away, you know she’d notice the discomfort on your face. It feels horrible to be lying to your mother like this.

Dustin seems to be thinking the same thing, because he lowers his voice and gently approaches her. “No, but they saw her wandering around Loch Nora.”

More tears flow down your mom’s face. “How did the poor baby get all the way over there?”

“I don’t know, lost I guess. But they’re gonna look for her, and–and Y/N and I will stay here, just in case they call again. Right, Y/N?”

“Right!” You call from the closet, now quickly grabbing everything you can think of. Would a hammer be necessary?

“And you’re gonna go help look. Yeah?” Dustin’s only response is a relieved hug from your crying mother. “Yeah, give me a hug. Go get her!”

Your mom quickly composes herself and grabs her glasses. She presses a kiss to your forehead and seems to be in better spirits. “We’ll find her!”

“Mews will be home soon, mom!” You cheer, and your mom blows you another kiss.

“I love you,” Dustin sends her a thumbs up.

“I love you, kids.” And with that, your mom clutches her purse to her chest and sends one final kiss your way before shutting the door behind her.

As soon as the door shuts, you and Dustin scramble. Dustin heads to the backyard to open your cellar doors and you grab the remaining hockey gear from the closet. While you drag the uniform out to the living room, your brother begins to look through the fridge for any possible bait.

“Think Dart would like bologna?” Dustin calls over his shoulder as he digs around.

You groan, dropping the heavy goalie pads. “Last I checked, he wasn’t my secret Upside Down pet.”

“Touche.”

Dustin grabs the bologna and starts making a trail from his room towards the front door. While he does that, you start sorting through your own pile of gear, soccer to be specific. Dustin liked hockey, you preferred warmer sports. As you’ve finished lacing up your cleats and shin pads, Dustin returns.

“Okay, the bait is all set up. Got my hockey stick?”

You hand him what he needs. “Here, and your helmet is on the couch.”

Dustin gets ready and you retrieve some oven mitts from the kitchen. When you hand them to the boy, he looks at you like you’re insane. “What? Extra protection. Can’t hurt.”

He sighs and swipes them from your hand, putting them on. Once he’s ready, you help him stand up. He looks ridiculous in his old hockey gear, but you suppose you don’t look any better with your shin pads and Dustin’s spare shoulder pads.

“Alright. We all set?”

Dustin pats his helmet. “Ready.”

You walk towards his room, and once you’re there, Dustin pushes past you and bends down a bit so he can speak through his keyhole. “Alright, Dart. Breakfast time.”

“Do we have to mention breakfast right before we set him free?" You mumble, but your brother ignores you.

Slowly, he reaches towards the door handle and then flings it open. As soon as the door has been moved, Dustin practically knocks you to the ground in his haste to escape. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

His mantra reminds you of Steve’s from last year at Jonathan’s. Seems like the two boys have something in common: they’re idiots.

You follow quickly behind Dustin, terrified but at least trying to hide it, while your brother just repeats “oh my god”, and “shit” over and over again as he stumbles over the bait and out towards the front door.

If the situation wasn’t so grave, you’d be giggling at how dumb Dustin looks waddling over bologna on the floor. However, Dart could very well be right behind you, so you run after the kid equally as terrified.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit–”

By this point, you’re nearing the tool shed outside.

“I will push you down these stairs Dustin Henderson.”

Dustin shuts up and, as soon as you’re inside the shed as well, locks it behind him. Once he’s sure you’re all cleared, he lets out a breath of relief. “Okay, now we wait.”

You walk towards the wood panels, squinting as you peek through a gap to see outside. “I don’t see anything.”

Dustin does the same. “Come on, I know you’re hungry…”

Everything remains still outside, and you’re starting to worry that maybe Dart doesn’t like bologna after all, until you see his scaly body walk out the door. He gobbles down the bologna pieces one by one, which you cringe at.

“Yeah. He likes bologna, alright.”

Dustin silently cheers. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!”

Dart makes his way down the trail, eating every piece he finds, and soon he scampers down the steps and hovers over the cellar doors. In an odd way, the little guy is kinda cute if you forget about the fact that he killed your cat.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Dustin continues to chant as you watch Dart. The creature just has one more piece of bologna left, he just needs to take a few more steps inside before you can slam the doors shut.

But, because nothing can ever be easy for you, Dart suddenly turns and looks straight at you and Dustin. “Shit!”

You flinch back, knocking into a bucket of nails that spill everywhere. “Shit again!”

Dustin tries to shush you but you grab him by his shoulders and force him behind you. Your knives are out, their blades gleaming in the sunlight that creeps through the wood panels. You peek through them to find Dart slowly approaching the shed, his mouth almost watering.

“Well, this isn’t good.” You take a breath to lessen your fear. “Stay here, I’ll try to distract him–”

“AHHH!” Dustin shoves you against the opposite wall, your body flinging back with a harsh crash, and breaks through the shed’s door. With one solid wack from his hockey stick, he flings Dart into the cellar.

“What the–Dustin!” By the time you make it out the shed, your brother has flung himself on top of the cellar doors, panting.

“Got him,” he informs you, as if it isn’t obvious enough. Dart begins to screech with anger, and Dustin sighs. “I’m sorry, you ate my cat.”

“You’re an idiot, Dustin.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just give me five seconds to catch my breath, please.”

–

With Dart safely locked away, you and Dustin are able to finally bury your cat.

It doesn’t take long, but the early November heat is just warm enough to make you annoyed as you dig through the soil in your backyard. Dustin has his walkie with him, trying to find the right frequency so he can call the party and inform them of what’s going on.

“Guys, this is Dustin again. Does anyone copy?” You stab at the ground with your shovel and your brother groans when he gets no response. “This is a code red. I repeat, a code red!”

Sweat trickles down your brow and honestly it should be Dustin burying the cat, but you’ve never learned how to radio the party so you just sigh and throw more dirt upon your dead cat. Dustin tries a few more times to contact the party, but no one responds.

“Damn it!” He shouts, frustrated.

“Language,” you huff out, more sweat forming.

It goes on like this for a while, Dustin trying and failing to reach anyone, as you two begin to clean the house of any blood and Mews guts. He tries again while you guys grab the cleaning supplies, then again while you’re on your hands and knees scrubbing his carpet in his room.

“Alright, it’s Dustin again. Seriously, I have a code red.”

“Maybe they don’t know what code red means?” You offer, your nose scrunched up due to the bleach fumes.

Dustin scoffs, “sure, and they also don’t know who Luke Skywalker’s father is–”

Suddenly Erica’s voice comes through the walkie. “Can you please shut up?”

“Erica?” Dustin stops scrubbing and straightens up. “Erica, is Lucas there? Where is he?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” Erica has always been such a lovely girl.

“Is he with Mike?”

“Like I said, I don’t know and I don’t care.”

You and Dustin share a look. It worries you that Mike hasn’t been responding all day. From what you’ve heard and seen, he’s spent every day this year camped out in his fort in the basement trying to contact El with the radio frequencies.

It’s not like to Mike to just disappear.

“Listen, Erica.” You speak up, trying to sweet talk to the girl. You’ve babysat her a few times and you’ve even managed to convince her you’re kinda cool, so maybe she’ll respond better to you. “Did Lucas mention anything else? Maybe… Maybe like a girl he went to see?”

Dustin frowns. “A girl? What–” You shush him and wait for a response.

Erica snorts. “A girl? Please, as if. He’s been gone all day. That’s all I can tell you.”

Your brother closes his eyes and sighs. “Please tell him it’s super important. Please tell him that I have a code–”

“Code red?” Erica interrupts.

“Yep, code red. Exactly.” Dustin smiles, then covers his mike to whisper to you, “seems like she likes me more than you–”

“I got a code for you instead. It’s called code shut-your-mouth.” Then, Erica switches off the walkie.

Dustin stares at nothing, dumbfounded. You go back to scrubbing the carpet, a pleased smile on your face. “So, you were saying?”

He’s quiet for a few seconds, processing the fact that clearly no one in the party will answer, before letting out an obnoxious groan. “Damn it!”

“Are you gonna help me clean, or–?”

“Can’t you just call Jonathan?” Dustin asks, grasping at straws. “Maybe he can be useful for once and help.”

You shake your head. “No, he’s out of town right now with Nancy.”

“And you’re okay with this because…?”

“Because,” you roll your eyes, “they’re on a secret mission to take down Hawkin’s Lab. They’re at some detective’s house right now, so I have zero way of contacting them.”

Dustin rubs at his eyes tiredly. “How did we get stuck with a cat eating baby demogorgon while Jonathan and Nancy get cool spy work?”

You pinch his leg, causing him to wince and move away from you. “Because you purposefully hid the baby demogorgon. Any other stupid questions?”

“Sure,” Dustin throws his hands up in defeat, obviously joking when he asks, “got any other friend we could call for help?”

A sarcastic laugh escapes your lips and you’re about to tell him that he has more friends than you’ve ever had, but then a thought occurs to you.

Steve.

Technically speaking, you’re friends. Well, sort of. Sure, he had wanted space yesterday in the lunchroom, and yeah he’s still mad at you and things are awkward at best between the two of you, but still…

He’d been at Jonathan’s house last year, he had fought by your side and saved your life and even bought you a vending machine full of snacks. If anyone else could understand the situation you’re in right now, it’s Steve.

You hesitate though. He still seemed really hurt at lunch, but you also saw the way he lingered even after dismissing himself. He doesn’t hate you, at least not really, and without Jonathan or Nancy to call, he’s the only person you have left right now.

It can’t hurt to try, at least.

“Actually, yeah.” You respond after a minute or so. “Be right back.”

Dustin asks questions as you head towards the living room, but you don’t respond. If Steve doesn’t answer, then you can make up some lie about the phone being broken or something to save yourself the embarrassment.

Your fingers press Steve’s long remembered number. He had given it to you his first week of visiting you at Bookstrordinary, assuring you that you could call him whenever. After a while, you took his word on it and started calling the boy every time you were bored and alone at work.

The line rings for a few seconds, and you bite your lip in anticipation.

This is a horrible idea, and yet your heart flutters when Steve answers with a groggy, “hello?”

“Hey, Steve.”

“Y/N?” He sounds surprised.

You can’t blame him, he did quite literally yesterday tell you he’s still upset with you and that he needs space. And yet here you are: calling him early on a Saturday afternoon. “Yeah, it’s me. Listen, I really need your help–”

A sigh. “Normally I’d love to, but I’m kinda in the middle of getting ready to go to Nancy’s.”

“Nancy’s? Steve, she’s not even home–”

“Can we talk later? I… I’d really like to talk, if that’s alright with you.”

This throws you, and for a second you forget about the reason you called. “Of course we can talk, Steve.”

“Great,” you can hear a smile in his voice, which warms you. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Then you remember Dart and the blood on Dustin’s carpet and you frantically try to stop Steve from hanging up. “Wait, no! Steve, Nancy isn’t home and I really need you to–”

The line goes dead, and you slam the phone down. “Damn it!”

Dustin, hearing the commotion, wanders into the kitchen. “Take it the call didn’t go well?”

“No, it did.” Sure, Steve didn’t necessarily offer his help, but he did tell you where he’s going to be in about twenty minutes. You’ll ambush him there and demand he listen to you and help. As a bonding exercise, of course. “We’re going to the Wheeler’s.”

“Why?”

“Steve’s heading there.”

Dustin trips over his shoelaces. “Steve Harrington?”

“Long story,” you sigh, dreading that you’ll have to explain all of this eventually. “C’mon, let's get our bikes.”

–

You and Dustin get to the Wheeler’s before Steve does, which makes no sense to you but whatever. He’ll be here soon enough and you’ll ambush him with all your charm and maybe a bit of groveling. You’re not beneath it, if you’re being honest.

Dustin goes up to the front door while you stay behind, keeping an eye out for Steve. Ted opens the front door and while you can’t hear what he says to Dustin, you know he’s unamused by his presence. The father has never been your favorite parent within the group, honestly.

You watch as they exchange a few more words before you see Dustin sigh and angrily march back towards you. Then, right as he’s grabbed his bike, a familiar red BMW pulls up. Just seeing his car makes your heart skip a beat.

The car parks and a frazzled Steve steps out, carrying flowers and mumbling to himself. You aren’t able to hear everything he’s saying, but you can hear the words “what the hell am I sorry for?” and your stomach twists.

So clearly he’s not in a good mood. Still.

The flowers, which you now can see are roses, hang by Steve’s side as he fixes his hair. He hasn’t noticed you yet, and it takes everything within you to pull your eyes away. He looks good today, too good.

There’s a monster currently locked in your cellar.

“Steve!” You rush over to his side.

He does a double take when he sees you. “Y/N? What are you doing here?”

“Well–”

“Are those for Mr. or Mrs. Wheeler?” Dustin now joins you two, pointing at the roses in the boy’s hand.

Steve looks between the two of you. “No…? You’re Dustin, right? Y/N’s brother?”

Dustin snatches the roses out of his hand. “Good, and yeah, I am.”

“Hey, what the hell?” Steve looks at you for help, but you know there’s no use trying to reason with your brother. He’s in a mood, similar to Steve, and you just sigh and follow Dustin. “Hey!”

“Nancy isn’t home.” Your brother informs Steve.

“Where is she?” Steve asks, and you hit his shoulder.

“I tried telling you over the phone!”

Dustin claps his hands at you to get your guys’ attention again. “It doesn’t matter where she is or if you tried to warn him, Y/N. We have bigger problems than your love lives.”

He’s at Steve’s car now and opens the passenger side door. “Do you still have that bat?”

Steve whips his head towards you. “Bat? What the hell is he talking about? Y/N, what are you guys doing here–”

“The one with the nails!” Dustin interrupts, exasperated.

Again Steve looks at you. “Why?”

“You’re not gonna like it,” you confess, and this only makes Steve feel worse.

“We’ll explain it on the way.” Dustin goes to sit in the passenger seat but he’s quickly stopped when you grab his hood and yank him out.

“No, absolutely not. I deserve the passenger seat, not you.”

Dustin slaps you away. “I got here first.”

“I was born first–”

“But I was literally about to sit down–”

“Hey!” Steve shouts, effectively shutting you and Dustin up. “It’s my car, and right now I currently only like Y/N, so she gets the passenger seat.”

“You like Y/N?” Dustin asks at the same time as you ask, “You like me?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, barely. She’s on thin ice. But you, little Henderson? You just stole the flowers meant for my girlfriend, so backseat you go.”

“Yes!” You cheer, pumping your fist in the air as you flash Steve a smile. “Thanks, Harrington.”

He rounds the front of his car and opens the driver's side door. “Yeah, don’t get used to it. Like I said, you’re still on thin ice.”

He says it with annoyance in his voice, but you can see the smile he’s trying hard not to let slip, and you feel giddy. Steve obviously can’t be too mad at you if he wanted to talk later and is willingly letting himself be kidnapped by your brother.

Dustin, on the other hand, can’t believe any of this is happening. As soon as you’re all in the car he asks, “Since when did you two become friends?”

“I have a life outside of you and the boys, you know,” you tell him, but you avoid Steve’s gaze. It’s not like you intentionally hid this aspect of your life from Dustin, but… It also never came up, either.

“Sure ya do, but… Wait,” Dustin remembers something. “Oh my god, you have Steve Harrington’s number memorized?”

Your face heats up and Steve hides a smirk, but you see it anyway. You ignore his smugness and respond to your brother. “Like I said, I have a life outside of you.”

Dustin gapes at you. “I have so many questions–”

“I have an even better one: where am I taking you guys?” Steve asks, and suddenly you remember everything at stake.

“My house,” you tell him as you buckle up. He nods, although with some confusion, and then starts the engine. “You know how I called you earlier?”

“Yeah…?”

“Dustin, why don’t you tell Steve here what you found.”

Your brother sighs from the backseat. “A few days ago I found this… lizard of sorts.”

“A lizard.” Steve says, unimpressed.

“Oh, just wait,” you quip.

Dustin turns his head to glare at you and you give him a thumbs up. He scoffs at you before carrying on, “Yes, a lizard. I named him Dart and he was super cool, okay? I thought I had discovered a new species and that I would be super famous and better than everyone else.”

Steve glances at you next to him, raising his eyebrows and whistling low. “Wow, does humbleness run in your family, Y/N?”

“I’d say so, yeah.”

“Anyways,” Dustin interrupts, ignoring Steve’s laugh at your response. “Turns out, Dart is from the Upside Down.”

“The Upside Down?” Steve asks, extremely confused. He looks at you again in the mirror and it hits you that no one explained to him the events from last year. You assumed that Nancy would’ve, seeing as how they’ve been together for a while now and Steve had been with you guys at the hospital the night you brought Will back.

However, from his disbelief and confusion it’s clear that she hasn’t. If you had to guess, Steve probably went home that night and blocked out everything that had gone down with no questions asked.

You respect his repressing skills, honestly.

Dustin groans, beginning to grow impatient with Steve. “Yes, the Upside Down. If you have the bat still, how could you not know–”

“Do you remember that… thing we killed at Jonathan’s last year?” You cut your brother off before he can get too mean. You love the kid, you do, but he isn’t the kindest person when others aren't understanding him.

A dark look passes over Steve’s face and his fingers tighten around the steering wheel. It’s night now, and the atmosphere in the car becomes tense. “I remember.”

You clear your throat, “Well, this creature–”

“Demodog.” Dustin corrects from the backseat.

“Demodog?” You turn in your seat to face him. “That’s what we’re calling it now? Seriously?”

He shrugs. “It’s a baby demogorgon, it looks like a dog, so… Demodog.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Alright. Okay. Whatever, this demodog is from the Upside Down. It’s this parallel universe, basically. Creepy shit happens there, and last year a monster–”

“The Demogorgon.” Dustin once more interrupts.

“Dustin, if you want to catch Steve up then for the love of god, please shut up.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, embarrassed.

A smile tugs at Steve’s lips and you take a deep breath to calm yourself before continuing. “Look, I don’t know how much Nancy told you about that night at Jonathan’s, but all that you need to know is that the Demogorgon took Will last year and we had to fight it in order to save him.”

Steve nods slightly as he follows along, “Nancy mentioned something about a monster at the hospital… she told me it’s what killed Barb, but never told me it had a name.”

Another silence falls between you guys in the car. The mention of Barb brings back bad memories for you both. You had liked Barb, she had always been nice to you, you guess. Hawkins is a small town. Everyone knows everyone, and in the end the smallness of the town is what makes the Upside Down so hard. You lose people close to you, one way or another.

And as for Steve… The roses he bought for Nancy lay wilted in his backseat.

Dustin shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and your heart pangs in understanding. He misses El, and you do too. The closer it gets to the anniversary of her disappearance, the more you miss the sweet and caring girl; but you know that the boys, Mike especially, haven’t given up hope for her.

“So…” Steve motions for you guys to continue explaining, and Dustin sits up in his seat to begin again.

“So flash forward to now: I didn’t realize Dart was a demodog until he grew like three damn sizes bigger than when I found him. Y/N and I almost died trying to lock him in our cellar.”

“Wait, you guys have a cellar?”

Dustin rubs his face, “That’s what you focus on, Steve?”

“It’s a valid question–”

“Guys!” You lurch yourself forward and wave your hands around wildly to break up their bickering. “We really don’t have time for this. Can we please just focus on the task at hand? Dart has probably grown even more during the course of this stupid conversation.”

Your brother’s hand pushes your shoulder back so that you’re now once again sitting, and you swat him away with annoyance. “Y/N, I’m trying! Blame Steve, he’s the one asking stupid questions–”

Steve speaks up, “What the hell? They aren’t stupid questions–”

“Well…”

Steve shoots you an offended look, “Y/N, I thought you were on my side.”

Dustin scoffs, hurt. “She’s my sister, you idiot!”

“Again, we seriously don’t have time for this because, once more: Dart is getting really big.” Your voice is louder this time, and thankfully it shuts everyone up. Then, just because you can, you add, “and I’m on Steve’s side right now. He’s the one with the car, plus… Well, I owe him.”

Steve fist pumps the air. “Suck it, little Henderson.”

“Do not call me that,” Dustin threatens him, then turns his attention to you. “First Jonathan, now Steve? Can’t you befriend anyone I like?”

The mention of Jonathan gets Steve attention. “Wait a sec, where is the guy? You never actually told me where he and Nancy went, Y/N.”

You sigh, knowing there’s no use keeping anything else from him. He’s already driving you and Dustin home to help with Dart, and you did promise to tell him where they were later, but life seemingly got in the way. “They’re playing detective right now.”

“Detective?”

“Yeah, the guy Barb’s parents hired… They’re currently at his place, exposing Hawkin’s Lab.”

A tense silence follows. Steve stares straight ahead, eyes on the road, as his expressions morph from hurt, to reluctance, to eventual acceptance. “Nance didn’t think to ask me to join?”

His voice wavers, just a bit, but you hear it. Knowing that Dustin is watching from the back, you decide to forget any possible boundaries for once and grab Steve’s hand. He’s hurting. The car smells of roses and there’s no girl to give them to. “She tried, Steve.”

He swallows. There’s hurt in his eyes and you want to reach out and stroke his cheek and tell him that it isn’t his fault. “I know…”

“Ahem,” Dustin coughs, clearly uncomfortable with whatever is going on. “So… Back to Dart.”

You clear your own throat, but your hand remains wrapped around Steve’s, who nods. “Wait a sec, how big are we talking?”

Without meaning to, you close your eyes and brace for Dustin’s witty remarks, but he surprises you by answering with a demonstration and zero mockery. “First it was like that,” he opens his fingers a few inches before using both hands to show about a foot in length. “Now he’s like this.”

Steve still looks doubtful. “And you’re sure it isn’t some weird lizard?”

A headache begins to form and you pinch the bridge of your nose again. “It’s not a lizard, Steve.”

“Well how do you know?”

“Because his face opened up and he ate our cat.” Dustin says bluntly.

This seems to shut Steve up and he nods his head in defeat. It’s silent in the car for the remainder of the drive, and just before Steve parks in your driveway, he looks over at you and sees your eyes closed in pain, and before he knows it he squeezes your hand and says, “sorry about your cat, by the way.”

Despite the pounding in your head and your utter exhaustion, his words make you laugh. “Just park, Steve.”

He smiles, feeling proud for getting you to laugh, and does as he’s told. Before you know it you’re standing at his trunk, staring at the baseball bat that saved your life last year. Dustin has already gone over to the cellar, waiting for you and Steve to follow.

The bat stares back at you, and you shiver as the memories come back. Though you had tried your best to forget that night, that entire week, honestly, it’s been useless. The nightmares still haunt you. You obsessively research trauma in children now to compensate for your own guilt from last year.

“Why’d you keep the bat?” You ask as Steve grabs it, giving it a practice swing. Your own blades are out again and he eyes their gleam.

“It’s kinda sick, don’t ya think?” He swings it again. “I look badass with it.”

He’s dodging, but you sense that he kept the bat for the same reason as why you kept the switchblade. You’ve been waiting in fear for something else to happen. “You don’t look too bad with it.”

Steve blushes a bit, which your stomach flutters seeing. “I, uh… Guess we can’t have that talk tonight?”

“No, not unless we somehow manage to deal with Dart in a timely manner. However, if I recall, nothing ever goes our way.”

“Nope!” He closes the trunk and tosses you a flashlight. Then, he sticks his hand out for you to shake. “But for now… Truce?”

You giggle. “Truce.”

His hand is warm, and even though you had just been holding it in the car moments earlier, his touch still fills you with a gooey warmth that you’ve come to associate with him. As soon as you and him are alone, away from Dustin’s nosy ears, you’ll really apologize to Steve. He may be being nice to you now, but he’s still guarding himself from you.

You hate it. You miss how open he used to be with you.

“Ready to go re-live my nightmares?” Steve asks.

You give him a thumbs up as you start heading towards Dustin. “Always, let’s go.”

“Took you guys long enough.” Your brother mutters when you and Steve arrive at the cellar, weapons in hand. You flash him an apologetic smile while Steve simply ignores him.

Steve approaches the door and listens for a second, “I don’t hear shit.”

You frown and listen as well. He’s right, it’s eerily silent. You shoot Dustin a questioning look and he shrugs as well, “He’s in there.”

“Duh, I know that much, You almost knocked me out when you shoved past me to get Dart in there.” you remark, before softly adding “he’s gotta be in there.”

Your words don’t reassure Steve, who begins to use the tip of his bat to bang against the locked doors. When nothing happens, he bangs harder against them before sighing in annoyance.

“All right, listen kid.” Steve begins, and you start to rub small circles into your scalp in a vain attempt to lessen your headache, because you already know that the next words out of his mouth will start yet another fight. “I swear, if this is some sort of Halloween prank, you’re dead.”

“Steve…” He ignores you and stares down your brother, shining the flashlight directly at his face in what you assume is meant to be a threatening manner.

“It's not a prank,” Dustin tiredly replies, squinting his eyes against the light. “Get it out of my face.”

Steve complies, still hesitant about the situation at hand, and turns to face you. “You got a key to this thing?”

You nod and fish the keys from out of your pocket and unlock the cellar doors. Steve bends down to investigate, and without him having to ask, you hand him the flashlight and step forward so that you’re next to him.

He flashes the light down the stairs and all that the three of you can see is darkness. An uneasy feeling creeps over you. Something isn’t right, but you really hope that you’re wrong.

“He has to be further down,” you say, more so to reassure yourself than the others.

Dustin shuffles his feet next to you and says, with an extremely unconvincingly “brave” voice, “I’ll stay up here in case he tries to… escape.”

Both you and Steve look at him in disbelief. Dustin stands his ground, however, and looks at the two of you expectantly. Steve shakes his head while you sigh in defeat. Your brother is such a pain sometimes.

“You do realize that if Dart eats me, you’ll have to deal with mom all by yourself, right?” You ask him.

The boy shrugs at you. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take, Y/N.”

“Yeah, love you too.” You mumble, before you begin to follow Steve down the steps.

“I’ll be thinking of you!” Dustin calls out, his voice echoing against the cellar walls.

You trail behind Steve, and the flashlight he brought does nothing to illuminate the dark area, so it’s a relief when he reaches above his head to turn the light on. As your eyes adjust to the light change, you scan the room to find the missing demodog. However, all your eyes land on is a long, thin sheet of film on the ground that you can only assume is molted skin.

“Oh, shit…” you breathe out. “This isn’t good.”

Steve picks the skin up with the tip of his bat and examines it and shakes his head. “Please tell me this isn’t Dart.”

“Actually, it’d be easier if it was him.”

Steve doesn’t laugh at your joke; he continues to look around the room before his eyes widen. You turn your head to see what’s caught his attention, and when you spot the problem, your knees weaken.

There’s a giant, Dart-sized hole in your cellar wall.

“Steve? Y/N? What’s going on down there?” Dustin’s voice carries down to you guys, and you and Steve share a nervous glance.

“Dustin…” You call up to him, your voice weaker than you’d prefer. You wish you could be braver for him at the moment, but right now it takes everything within you not to crawl into bed and shut the world out. Why did it always have to be giant monsters?

While you’re reeling, Steve walks over to the bottom of the steps and flashes his light at Dustin, instructing him to come down. Once the boy has joined you guys, Steve guides the light to his bat so that Dustin can see the skin.

“Oh, shit.”

“Funnily enough, that’s what your sister said, too.”

Then Steve shines the light to where the hole in the wall is, and you watch Dustin’s face go from concerned to horrified. “Oh, shit!”

The three of you crouch closer to the hole, and when Steve shines the flashlight through it, your heart stops and you gasp, “It’s a tunnel.”

“No way…” Dustin says in awe.

It’s hard to see exactly how deep the tunnel goes, but something tells you that there’s more to it than meets the eye. This wouldn’t be some simple fix like you had desperately hoped it would be.

Now you really, really wish Jonathan were here. And Nancy. Definitely Nancy.

But they aren’t. This time, you’re on your own with only Steve and Dustin by your side. No one else in the party is available, you don’t even know where they are or if they’re even safe, but right now that doesn’t matter.

What matters is that Dart has escaped.

And it’s happening again.

Everything you’ve tried so hard for the last year to ignore, to move on and pretend never happened to you, has come crashing back into your life.

Steve, seeing your apprehension, grabs your hand and pulls you in close. “Hey, we’ll figure it out. I’ll be here, okay?”

Even though you don’t deserve his kindness, his sincerity, you believe him.

-

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[passivenovember]

(sharing again because I'm so proud of this one)

When Billy Falls in Love

--

Max's hair is twisted into a rough pink towel when she answers the door. She’s got a berry sorbet sunburn peeking through the angry red flush on her cheeks, freckles looking like they could peel off at any moment. It’s the same way Billy gets in the summertime, but he turns gold in seconds.

Max stays angry red. 

She wasn’t at the pool today. Steve knows because he was at the pool fifteen minutes ago, and Billy wasn’t there. And if Billy’s gone so is Max, and if Max is here-- 

“He’s not here. What’s with the flowers?” Max wonders, with her teeth pulling at the wrapper of a Scoops brand popsicle as she eyes the poorly picked and assembled bouquet of daisies and weeds Steve managed to convince the gardener to let him snag. 

Steve can tell she doesn’t really want to know what the deal is. Maybe she already knows. 

Max is fourteen and a perpetually bored pain in the ass, already moving to shut Steve out of the house when he jams his foot so the door won’t close. 

Max tugs on it. Groans. “Steve,” Max says, sounding tired.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know because we don’t keep tabs on each other, you psycho.”

“Bullshit,” Steve says. Neil’s car isn’t in the driveway, he almost points out.

Doesn’t.

Max almost cracks a smile, seeming to hear him anyway. If Neil’s gone that leaves Billy to play guard dog. “If you care so much about my stupid brother all of a sudden--”

“--All of a--”

“Get in your stupid shitty car and go drive around until you find him,” Max says, like. Get lost.

They’re so similar it burns. Chars licking over Steve’s skin in the shape of how they sneer and heckle the same, and they’re both so smart that Steve has to do math and study chemistry, and perform mental gymnastics just to keep up.

There’s a lot to latch on to, Steve’s hands slip over it like a gymnast missing the high bar. 

The way she’s looking at him, the way Max said all of a sudden like Steve’s done something wrong--

“He used to drive you around,” Steve says, like. Aha. “Don’t you give a shit?”

About him? 

About his bones and blood. 

Max shrugs. “Why should I?”

And. Steve’s an idiot but he remembers how it was before, back when this whole thing started. His lips, red and tender from sucking on any piece of Billy he could find. His fingers, tugging on worn belt loops and begging for a night on Loch Nora and that dull, exhausted phrase gotta watch my sister sinking a hole in Steve’s hope.

“It’s summer,” Max says after a minute, irritated, “We have an arrangement in the summer. June to Labor Day I do what I want, Billy fucks off for a bit, and we always show up here right when--”

“His car's gone,” Steve says. Because she owes it to him and his months and months of blue balls at her lack of self-preservation. She owes it to Billy.

“His car’s gone because he’s not here, Steve, we just went over this--” 

Max moves to slam the door and Steve holds it open, trying to ignore the hollow feeling that spreads through his stomach. “Why are you acting weird?” Steve demands.

“I’m not acting weird, you’re the one who’s trying to break into my house because Billy stepped out for five minutes,” Max tugs on the door, groaning dramatically, “C’mon Steve--”

Steve clutches the bouquet of flowers close to his chest. “We’re supposed to go see a movie.”

Max stops pulling on the door, all the attitude cut from her with something dull. 

Steve swallows. His nails dig into the palm of his free hand. Steve feels blood swell, but it’s probably just sweat. “Billy. He’s not on a date--”

“Look, Steve,” Max says suddenly, sounding. Much older and wiser than she did five seconds ago. “I like you. You’re cute and dumb but you’re annoyingly sweet and thoughtful. You’re tall, too. You’ve probably failed freshman biology a couple of times.--”

“--I--”

“Shut up,” Max tells him, and Steve swears there’s a bit of green swirling in all that red, embarrassment mixing like watercolor. “Can I be honest with you, Steve?”

Steve nods. He takes his foot from the door jam and rubs his hand on his jeans. Shudders as the feeling in his stomach ebbs and swirls and gets so much worse.

“You’re not his fucking boyfriend,” Max says, and slams the door in his face.

--

“Well. To be fair, she’s not wrong.”

Steve grips the steering wheel. The leather crackles and squeals with the skin of his palms, giving way to the rumble of the engine when he turns the car onto Park Avenue. 

“Jesus,” Eddie snaps, his free hand scrambling to brace against the passenger door while the bouquet teeters dangerously on his lap, “You don’t have to take the turns so fast, Harrington--”

“I can’t believe she said that.”

“--Fucking Evel Kenevil--”

“I mean. I’m practically his boyfriend, right?”

“Sure, and you’ll still be ‘practically his boyfriend,’ even if you drive at the speed limit.”

“Thought you said Max wasn’t talking out of her ass, Munson?”

“Look, I’m allowed to take things minute by minute. I’m just saying,” Eddie tightens the seatbelt against his chest, “You haven’t exactly popped the question.”

“You think Billy’s the kind of guy who--”

“Yeah,” Eddie says casually. “He’s exactly the kind of guy who wants to be asked out. I’ve seen the way he picks flowers and puts them in his own hair when he thinks no one’s looking.”

Steve snorts. “When has he ever done that?”

“We hang out, you know,” Eddie tells him, in lieu of an answer. “When you’re not around, we hang out loads--”

“Maybe you’re Billy’s mystery man,” Steve says only half serious. Mostly joking. 

Eddie flushes deep red, “Anyway. This bag of weeds is a good start,” He mumbles, twisting the fat head of a dandelion gently between two fingers.

Steve doesn’t have it in him to unpack any of what that might mean.

They’ve been driving for what feels like hours. The sky has turned hazy, floating in that honey-dipped place between dayglow and starlight. The world will be gold, soon, and then dark. Midnight black. 

Hawkins is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair. A shithole. Billy only has a handful of places to hide.

Steve presses a little harder on the gas, knowing in the very pit of himself that this is crazy. This is insane, driving around like a bat out of hell with Eddie Munson, but Billy likes Eddie Munson. Steve tolerates him. And Robin’s at camp, so.

Eddie clutches the door again with another sharp, sudden turn. “Harrington--”

“I’m not dropping you off until I find him.”

“Alright,” Munson grumbles. He lights a cigarette and stares out the window for half a neighborhood block and then says, “How do you know he’s not at home, already?”

Steve grips the steering wheel, convinced Eddie wasn’t listening the first time. “Maxine said--”

“That was an hour ago.”

“Neil doesn’t get off until seven, if Billy’s gone he wont be back until six-thirty at the earliest.”

Eddie checks the dash. “It’s six-thirty now.”

“Do you wanna die today, freak?”

“God, you’re so unpleasant,” Eddie says, handing his cigarette over, anyway, “You’re the worst, actually. Worse than I ever imagined and I’ve imagined it a lot when Billy and Dustin yap their fucking gums about how great you are.”

Steve takes a harsh pull from the cigarette. Coughs and hands it back. 

Eddie takes it from him. Ash gathers on the cherry but he’s got no self-awareness. 

“If you get ash in my flowers, Munson--”

“Jesus Christ, would you give it a rest? He’s gonna love them. He’ll probably cry, once he’s done beating the shit out of you.”

Silence falls, lurid and uncomfortable, and Steve realizes Munson is watching him. Staring at him, 

“This is insane boyfriend behavior, Harrington,” Eddie says.

“So, you admit I’m his boyfriend?” Steve tries weakly, in lieu of what he means. Why Should I Take Advice from You?

“I’m saying this is boyfriend behavior but you won’t be a boyfriend for long, once he finds out what we’re doing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Steve grits his teeth. “What are we doing that’s so wrong, Munson?”

“Hunting him. Like a couple of crazy fucking bloodhounds.”

“We had a date,” Steve tells Eddie again. For the eightieth time. “Billy’s never missed a date so he’s either dead or dying or riding some other guy’s--”

Eddie bangs his head against the window.

Steve rolls the window down for him if only to protect the integrity of the Beemer. “Look, I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but I know Billy. And he wouldn’t just disappear without--”

“You’re not his dad,” Eddie tells him, and Steve.

Steve doesn’t have time to get into all the reasons that’s spot -fucking-on. He’s not Billy’s dad, because Steve loves Billy. To his bones and beyond, a little knob of heartache swirling around each nucleus of every atom in the very core of him.

Steve loves Billy so much it gets him into trouble.

Eddie sucks down his smoke again, like, “You’re really doing all this for a missed date?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m just saying,” Eddie shrugs, “I heard stories about you and the Wheeler chick. Seems like she missed a lot of dates at the end and you never did anything like this for her.”

“Billy’s not Nancy. Billy’s not like anyone, he’s--”

“Holy shit,” Eddie says, coughing. “You. You’re not just blowing smoke up my ass, you’re serious about him.”

And.

Munson says it like it’s a shock. 

Like Steve Harrington’s not capable of loving anything but himself. His hair and his house on the hill and this stupid fucking car and maybe that’s what the losers at Hawkins High think, but they’re wrong. 

Way wrong. Stuck four years in the past.

Steve has to bite down against every harsh word on the tip of his tongue, tear the sentences apart and swallow them down because of course he’s worried.

Steve’s worried all the time about a lot of things when it comes to this crush he’s been nursing for a year and a half. Steve worries if Billy sleeps enough, for one. If Neil was in a good mood today. How many new bruises Steve will have to cover with hickies the next time they see each other, paint all that hurt over with something good.

It makes him crazy.

Steve worries all the time if Billy loves him. If actually saying it makes a difference.

Steve wonders most of all how much money and begging it’ll take to get Billy out of that house on Cherry Lane. Steve’s spent many restless nights doing the math in his head, staring at the popcorn ceiling as he imagines taking Billy away from here. And if Steve’s taking Billy home, to the coast, then he’s taking Max, too.

So whatever number, whatever dollar amount Steve’s gotta hoard to make it happen--he’d better take it and multiply it by seven, because. Steve’s going to lasso the moon and give it to Billy in a bouquet of yellow daisies. 

If it kills him. 

He’s going to find Billy tonight and tell him the truth if it kills him--

“We’ve gone down this street, already,” Eddie says.

“You’re not helping.”

“I'm just pointing out the obvious.”

“And I’m just pointing out--”

“Look, if you care about Billy so much, why don’t you respect his privacy?” Eddie demands. Somewhere, along the way, he ashed his cigarette on the dashboard.

Steve wants to check the flowers. 

Can’t find it within himself to be angry about that. “I just want to make sure he’s okay. If something happened to him and I wasn’t there to make it better and figure out how to stop it from happening again--”

“God, you’re such a brownie,” Eddie snaps, turning from the window. “What if he ditched you because he’s not into you anymore, Harrington?  What if Billy got tired of waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass and stop obsessing over him where no one else can see it? What if he’s sick of being the plaything you fuck in the dark?”

Steve swallows. Feeling so, so small.

“Everyone says you’re a changed man,” Eddie gets closer, somehow. Looms. “What if Billy thinks you’re bullshit?”

Steve pulls the car to the side of the road. In front of them, hazy with the dregs of the afternoon, a coal brown sign announces that Hawkins will soon be a spot on a map left somewhere far, far away. 

Everything in that shitty little town hangs over him. Feels so huge. Max and Neil and his parents and graduation and the last month of summer, sitting bigger than the sky. 

The engine thrums underneath them and Steve swallows, turning against his seatbelt. “If Billy doesn’t love me,” Steve says, easy and slow, “He can say it to my face.”

Eddie blinks. 

Steve can sense the cogs turning, underneath all that hair. Brown like his, curly like Billy’s. “It won’t change how you feel about him?” Eddie asks. 

And Steve realizes, like a punch to the gut, that Eddie Munson cares about this.

About Billy.

He’s worried, too, in his own twisted, guard-dog best friend kinda way. It reminds Steve of Robin. Dustin, too, always baring their teeth at Billy because they’re not fully convinced that this thing between them will survive the summer.

That Steve would survive losing this. 

He wishes, a deep ache thrumming in his chest, that everyone would either get it or fuck off.

“I love him,” Steve says easily, “Love isn’t something that stops just because the other person’s come to their fucking senses about how much of a loser you are. It isn’t something you say because you want to hear it back. I’ve loved him for a year and a half and I’ll love him even when he realizes I’m not half good enough.”

Eddie smirks. It’s slow and terrible.

“Alright, Harrington,” He leans back in his seat and nods, satisfied. “I think I know where our boy is hiding.”

--

Duane county used to house to the only mall within a hundred miles until Starcourt. 

It’s a small and bustling and annoyingly progressive city, compared to Hawkins, and Steve isn’t the least bit surprised that Billy would run to a place like this to hide for a while.

What surprises him is that Billy knows how to skateboard. 

He’s riding the half pipe, so focused on the concrete that laps like waves under the wheels of his long, colorful board that Billy doesn’t notice when the Beemer’s engine cuts and Steve opens the driver’s side door. 

Eddie doesn’t move. 

“You coming?” Steve asks, frowning when Eddie sparks something too pale and skinny to be a cigarette.

“Nah, you go ahead.”

“You don’t wanna give me your blessing?” Steve wonders, suddenly terrified that Billy won’t go steady with him if he doesn’t see the irritatingly awful face of his best friend giving the thumbs up. 

Eddie hands Steve the bouquet. It’s crushed and it smells like dope.

“Billy’s gonna take one look at these sorry fucking flowers and break up with me,” Steve grumbles, his nose scrunching, and.

Eddie smiles at him. 

It’s soft and real, and kind of beautiful, and Steve gets why Chrissy Cunningham is apparently head over heels for the guy. 

“He loves you, too,” Eddie says, like, “Go on. Quit stalling. Don’t think your big love confession will feel the same if I have told your hand through it.”

Steve slams the door, and Billy floats to the top of the half-pipe with the echo of it. He looks like an angel in the clouds, shirtless with his skin golden in the setting sun, jeans slung low on his hips. The curly, bronze tendrils of hair Steve will always remember the feel of are swooped back in a scrunchie.

Max’s scrunchie.

Billy squints across the parking lot and recognizes Steve, his expression clouding over immediately. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He demands.

Steve waddles across the parking lot, “Eddie’s here,” He calls, like an idiot.

“So?” You fucking him now?”

“No, I--”

“What are you doing here, Harrington?”

Steve almost trips over himself, knees with with nerves. Billy does that to him, always. Forever.

The half-pipe is huge up close, looming like the mast of some ancient, terrible ship and Billy is the pirate waiting to throw him overboard. “We had a date,” Steve says.

Out of breath.

Weak.

“I had to get out of that house,” Billy shades his eyes with one hand, holding the long board aloft with his bare foot. He doesn’t say anything for a long, terrible moment and then he says, “Whatcha got there, pretty boy?” 

“Flowers,” Steve tells him.

“Flowers,” Billy mocks softly. There’s no bite.

He considers the moment. The Scene. Steve Harrington, with flowers clutched to his chest and the dingy little park beyond that and Eddie Munson, probably, hanging from a cloud of marijuana smoke as the afternoon crashes into nightfall.

As Steve crashes and burns.

Steve holds his breath. Billy glides down the half pipe, seeming to ride on the wind until he comes to a delicate, perfect stop in front of him. 

He smells like peaches. 

He’s been eating peaches. Billy’s hands are sticky when he grabs the bouquet, and Steve’s skin lights on fire from his touch. 

It’s so usual. It’s brand new every time.

“You bought me flowers?” Billy asks, pinning Steve with a clear, vibrant stare. 

His eyes are so blue. So beautiful--

“I didn’t buy them, I. I picked them,” Steve says dumbly, “The gardener was going to clear them away, but. I wanted to pick some for our date. I always pick you up on the way but I never bring anything, and I thought. Maybe Neil wouldn’t notice who they were for if it seemed like someone just picked them from a garden. Or the side of the road,” Billy snorts, and Steve nearly breaks an ankle trying to recover, “But I’ve thought about it, and they’re almost out of season, so the gardener--”

“--Right--”

“And. I see them every morning, from my bedroom window, and they remind me of you. Pretty and. Golden, so. I caught the gardener just in time, and i had to pay him $5 to let me pick ‘em before he cleared them away. They’re pretty. Right? I wanted--”

Billy sniffs the daisies first. His eyes close, lashes casting long, noir shadows over the cinnamon freckles on his cheeks and Steve aches to live forever in this moment. To scrape the image into his mind so it can live there, in a house made in Billy’s image. 

“Some of these are weeds,” Billy tells him.

“I--”

“Are you in love with me, Harrington?” Billy rubs the petals of one flower with his thumb, watching as the stems knock together. He’s holding the bouquet like it’s made of glass. Like it might shatter and crumble away if he’s not careful, and Steve.

Feels that way about Billy.

“I,” Steve tries again,

“Thanks for the flowers,” Billy says, and he turns to go.

“Wait,” Steve says. Begs. He almost reaches to stop Billy but he doesn’t want to hurt him. 

Billy stops. Waits. 

Something sharp and fragile sits there, just under the layer of indifference Steve was always too stupide to notice before, but.

“I love you,” Steve says. He sounds strangled. Drowning. 

It hurts.

It hurts and it really, really doesn’t when Billy flushes red. “I love you, too.”

And. 

Steve’s going to catch on fire at any moment. “You love me,” He repeats, testing the words. He doesn’t trust them to hold his hope. Doesn’t think Billy means it how Steve aches and dreams he does. “You love me, like. How you love Max? Or Eddie? Like a friend who you want to suck off sometimes--”

“Eddie and I are just friends,” Billy says, quickly. His gaze is steady on Steve’s face. “I don’t need anyone else for that, I have. You.”

He does. 

He really does.

Billy’s watching Steve like he’s expecting him to say something else, and maybe he is. Has been, for as long as they’ve been sliding inside of each other. Steve was just too dumb to get it before now. 

So he straightens his spine. Clears his throat. Says, “Well. I love you like I want to take you on dates. And introduce you to my parents. I want you to go steady with me and wear my letter--”

“We can’t do that sort of stuff, Harrington.”

“I know.”

“Well, then, why’d you say it?”

“Because it’s what I want,” Steve snaps. Like, “You’re so annoying.”

“It was your idea,” Billy smirks. It’s beautiful. It’s Steve’s second favorite thing, second only to his laugh. And the soft curve of his lips. Billy fiddles with one of the weeds and says, “You don’t even have a letter to give me.”

“Neither do you, asshole,”

“So now what?” Billy demands, his arms flaring wide, “You’re gonna say you want to go steady with me and we’re not gonna do it? Tease.”

Steve rolls his eyes to the heavens, grumbling as they plop wetly on the sun-warmed earth. Billy’s still barefoot and Steve wonders how his toes aren’t burning. “How are your toes not burning?” He demands.

“They are,” Billy tells him, annoyed.

And then. 

Steve gets an idea.

He sits on the ground and pulls both shoes off.

“What are you doing?” Billy snaps, but Steve can hear a smile in his voice, curling tendrils through the teasing annoyance that has made him so different from anyone Steve has ever loved before. “Steve--”

“Here,” Steve says, standing to hold the shoes out in front of him. He hops from one foot to the other as his heels start to burn.

Billy stares at the Nike’s as if they’re coiled snakes. Like if he takes them, they’ll burrow under his toenails and poison him from the inside out. “I don’t get it--”

“I don’t have a letter, but. People might see you in them and get it, right? When has anyone ever seen Billy Hargrove in a pair of Nike’s?”

Billy blinks, confused.

“You’re mine,” Steve says. “So they’re yours. Take them,”

Billy considers him for a long moment and then sets the bouquet on the ground. “Wait here,” He says, and skates off around the bend in the half pipe.

Steve’s feet are on fire.

He’s hopping dramatically, and in the distance he can hear Eddie laughing, and Steve’s going to kill him, but then.

Billy’s back and he’s holding his boots in his hands. “Here,” He says, “Eye for an eye, right?”

And Steve doesn’t need to be told twice. He slips into the worn leather, pleasantly surprised at how comfortable they are. His feet thank him, the raging fire finally simmering.

Steve watches Billy. 

The careful way his fingers lace the Nike’s onto his feet. How his hips shift his weight when he stands. Billy walks in a slow, timid circle, “Shit, Harrington,” He says thickly, “I’ve never been someone’s boyfriend before.”

Steve shrugs, “I’ve never had a boyfriend, before.”

“Think we’ll be any good at it?” Billy asks. He squats deeply, popping back up with a wide, beautiful smile planted pretty as a forest on his face.

It beams itself, magically, onto Steve’s. Startles a bright, hysterical laugh from somewhere deep inside of him. 

“You’re perfect,” Steve says. Nothing has ever felt more true.

[libraryofgage]

Mermaid/Pirate Steddie Four

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Hi hi! It's been kind of a long week for me lmao but here's the next part! You'll def wanna stick around to the very end of the post; there's a very fun surprise for y'all lol

Also! If you like my writing or want to see a quicker update of this or another series, I've opened commissions (student loans are hitting a lot harder than I expected orz). If you're interested, you can find more information in this post

Even if you don't commission me, I appreciate your likes/comments/reblogs of my work! They keep me going and make me really happy ^_^

Anyway, now for the good stuff. As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

----

Sinking a ship takes skill, intense planning, and strong tails. Or, if you're Robin and seven guppies, it takes incredible, unbridled rage and a worry that could kill a Kraken. A ship that should take half the day to sink only takes the group two hours, their tails bashing against the hull and claws ripping planks to let seawater surge inside. Dustin is particularly brutal, recruiting Lucas and Mike to help him use the same net that caught him and took Steve to drag the ship beneath the waves.

Between tending to Dustin's wounds, lying to the pod about why they're going to be away for a while, and actually tracking the damned thing, it took Robin and the guppies a few days to catch up to the ship. And as they scavenge the drowned wreckage, pushing past broken doors and through holes in the hull, it becomes increasingly clear that they're too late.

"Where could he be?!" Dustin shouts, his gills flaring and bubbles rising in an enraged pattern above him. He takes a spear and jabs it into a water-bloated plank. "If he's not here, that means he escaped, right? So why hasn't he found us yet?"

"Steve could have been taken by another ship," El points out, her head poking from behind a mast. She's gained a dagger with a jewel-encrusted hilt and is currently using her nails to dig the jewels out and drop them into a seaweed bag.

Robin frowns, swimmingly anxiously in circles. She's not the one that's good with guppies. That's Steve. If she's the fun caretaker that encourages them to play Scuttlefish with sharks, Steve is the one a tail's-length behind dragging them back to the pod before they can get hurt. He's the one who knows how to keep the guppies calm and healthy. Robin is the one who keeps them energetic and chaotic.

"He was definitely here," Will says, swimming out from a cabin on the ship. He stops in front of Robin and holds his hands out, letting her see the dull, blood-stained scales sitting in his palms.

With a shaking hand, Robin takes the scales and turns them over, hoping they're somehow not Steve's. But he's her partner. Robin could recognize him by the flick of his tail alone. So, of course, she knows they're Steve's scales at a glance.

She turns, her tail creating a small current that brushes over the guppies and forces them to look at her. "If he's not on this one," she says, "then we'll just keep sinking ships until we find him."

"Let's start with the other ship," Erica says.

"The other ship?" Robin asks.

Erica nods, pointing in the direction they'd just come from. "A few leagues before we found this one, I saw another one that was sailing in the other direction. Maybe they crossed paths."

For a brief moment, Robin wonders how she missed the other ship. But then she remembers how she's been caught between her own worries and keeping the guppies from spiraling, and she gives herself a break. "Yeah," she says, nodding as she closes her fingers over the scales. The edges cut into her palms but don't draw blood. "Let's go track down that ship. But don't keep something like that from me next time."

The guppies all nod in agreement, and Robin looks at the wreckage around them. She's half-tempted to let the guppies loot the rest of the ship, but she knows they're all aching to find Steve already. So, Robin herds them away from the sunken ship in the direction Erica pointed and hopes Steve can hold on for just a little longer.

----

Excerpt from "The Lovelorn Fool's Guide to Merfolk Courtship"

Song Types

There are several song types that merfolk are likely to use in their lifetime. While the human ear cannot distinguish the intricacies of the songs, it can tell the major categories apart.

As newly-born guppies, they know only how to vocalize wordless sounds based on their needs. These sounds are referred to as Guppy Songs. These songs are generally lacking in any real melody or rhythm. They are rough and unskilled, but many caretakers consider them precious.

Pod songs are shared tunes and melodies among the pod to communicate big news. When hearing a pod song from a lone merperson, it will sound incomplete. Pod songs usually require at least one other merperson to support or respond to the initial measures, which creates a complete and satisfying loop.

Individual songs are varied and unique, as the name suggests. They cover a range of emotions that simply can't be communicated through regular speech or bubble patterns (to learn more about bubble patterns, please see Part I: The Basics). Among these songs, the most important to know is the courting song, which can actually be multiple songs using the same opening measures and melodies with slightly different tones.

Now that you know the most basic kind of songs, we can move to harmonizing. Truthfully, a human's ability to harmonize with a merperson is nearly impossible. However, it can be done with an instrument, which can reach ranges the human voice cannot. So, if you don't know how to play one, I'd suggest learning. Harmonizing is a key step in the courtship process, after all.

----

Steve shrieks as Eddie spins him around, the sound high and grating, and clings tighter to Eddie's neck. His tailfin slaps Eddie behind his knee, hard enough to make him falter and slip on the rain-soaked deck. He falls on his ass, Steve safely in his lap, and laughs. The charms in his hair knock against each other, and Steve idly reaches up to brush his finger against one. "What was that for?" Eddie asks, the words slightly breathless.

"You surprised me," Steve says, frowning slightly as raindrops catch in his eyelashes and make them heavy. He holds a hand above his eyes and then does the same for Eddie.

"You just looked so pretty, sweetheart," Eddie says, grinning at Steve like he knows what bubble pattern his fluttering gills would create (flustered and flattered).

He rolls his eyes, looking at the sky and sea in the distance. The ocean is surging, and waves and sea foam collide as the wind picks up force. Dark clouds hang over the sea, and Steve would be concerned if he didn't know the storm would clear up soon. He can tell from the sound of the ocean and the taste in the air: the water isn't angry enough and there isn't enough salt on his lips.

The rain is still going to turn brutal, though, and Steve would prefer they weren't on deck when it happens. He overheard Asher and Jeff talking about the last time Eddie got soaked to the bone and got sick. He's not sure what a "cold" is, but he doesn't want Eddie catching it again.

"Let's go back to the cabin," he says, looking back at Eddie with a light smile. "I want to hear you play that, uh, gee-tare."

"Guitar, Stevie," Eddie corrects, holding Steve tight as he stands. He has an excited smile, something expectant in his eyes that Steve still hasn't figured out.

Steve hums, knowing very well how it's pronounced, but he likes to see the somewhat dopey smile Eddie gets whenever he mispronounces something. He gets the feeling Eddie also knows he's doing it on purpose, but he's not said anything yet.

Eddie carries him down to the captain's cabin, kicking the door shut with his foot. "Where do you want to be, sweetheart?" he asks.

After a moment's consideration, Steve gestures to the bed, looking forward to the soft pillows and even softer sheets. When Eddie places him down, he wiggles until his tail is curled comfortably, soaking the sheets beneath him, and looks at Eddie expectantly.

"Any requests?" Eddie asks, clearly amused as he grabs his guitar and hops onto the bed next to Steve. His knee brushes against Steve's tail, drawing Steve's attention briefly to the faint scar that lingers across his scales.

He's been healed for almost a day now, and Steve should probably start bracing himself to say goodbye, but he'd like to remain in denial a little longer. He doesn't want to leave. Even if he knows he'll come right back with Robin and the guppies, Steve doesn't want to be away from Eddie that long. They haven't even confirmed their courtship. Leaving before they do means any merperson with half a brain could see how much of a pearl Eddie is and try to steal him away.

Steve forces the thought away, forces himself to focus on answering Eddie's question, and shakes his head. "Just play something," he says.

Eddie nods and thinks a moment as he tunes the guitar. "Could you hum something?" he asks.

When he looks up at Steve again, there's something oddly intense in his gaze. He looks determined, as though something very important is riding on this moment. Steve isn't sure what it is, exactly, but he knows he doesn't want it to pass him by. Steve nods and starts humming a soft and familiar tune, one he's used a lot more after meeting Eddie.

It must be the right choice, because Eddie practically lights up, a grin tugging at his lips and crinkling the corners of his eyes as he listens. After a few seconds, he starts plucking strings on the guitar, adding a gentle accompaniment that makes Steve's humming rock back and forth like the ocean currents.

Usually, Eddie plays fast, his music filling Steve with the same heat and energy as an underwater volcano in the middle of an eruption. But this is slow and sweet like the honey Steve tried a few days ago. It creeps through him, his gills fluttering with each note that Eddie pulls from his guitar. He feels soft and happy, his voice shifting to follow Eddie's lead as inspiration hits him.

They trade the lead back and forth between them, and Steve starts to actually sing at some point. He doesn't know when he opened his mouth and started to vocalize the notes instead of just humming them, a sweet melody forming as his voice resonates with the guitar. It just happens as naturally as swimming. Steve can no longer tell where his voice ends and the guitar begins. They've fallen into sync, strumming and singing together without missing a beat.

Steve leans closer, his heart pounding against his ribs even faster than usual. They're harmonizing. He realizes it suddenly, but it doesn't catch him off-guard. It's just a whisper in the back of his mind, a little nudge that makes him smile and move without thinking beyond the desire to be closer.

The song doesn't end naturally. In fact, Eddie is in the middle of a particularly lovely string of notes when Steve kisses him, still humming low in his throat. Eddie's fingers fumble, a sour note pulling from the guitar, but Steve doesn't care. He's too busy wrapping one hand around the back of Eddie's neck and placing the other on Eddie's chest.

He can feel Eddie's heart beating just as rapidly as his own, and Steve presses closer. He's barely balancing on his tail as Eddie moves the guitar from his lap, pushing it to the side of the bed while he kisses Steve back. Eddie pushes his hand into Steve's hair, tangling his fingers in the strands.

Steve's humming happily rises in pitch, and he finally loses his balance, his weight pressing entirely on Eddie and causing him to fall back on the bed. The kiss breaks when Eddie bounces slightly, their foreheads knocking together, and Steve can't help laughing.

"You're fucking gorgeous, sweetheart," Eddie whispers, his free hand trailing to Steve's waist and settling on his back. His fingers brush against the line where scales meet skin, and Steve shudders, his mouth going dry, and he kisses Eddie again before he can say another word.

----

Tag List (the tag list is full! I wasn't able to fit everyone, so if you aren't on here, I'd suggest following #high seas steddie. I think you should still get updates on your dash if you do)

@mugloversonly, @raisedbylibrarians, @thegirlwiththelibrarybag, @savory-babby, @vankaar, @beckkthewreck, @itcanbepalped, @imfinereallyy, @finntheehumaneater, @mightbeasleep, @weekend-dreamer7

@whenindoubtb72, @troublemaker2azz, @just-a-tiny-void, @upallnightogetloki, @mxmakessense, @ellietheasexylibrarian, @haelreadsshit, @y4r3luv, @starman-jpg, @littlewildflowerkitten, @estrellami-1, @stevieschrodinger, @gaelicblue, @they-reap-what-we-sow

@5ammi90, @noodle-shenaniganery, @acrolius, @hallelujahimatheist, @rainbow-freckle, @desidrarry-wolfstarshipper, @goodolefashionedloverboi, @79chevyimpala, @aliea82, @hopefulcookieoperatorpersona, @sani-86, @queenie-ofthe-void, @goosesister, @hello-fellow-nerds, @luthienstormblessed, @xtkxkrzrizir, @potato-of-the-lord, @geekymagicalpotato, @child-of-cthulhu, @aizawa-emma, @m-owo-n, @newtstabber, @cartercaptainofthemoon, @spectrum-spectre, @a-little-unsteddie

And, if you've made it this far, here's a little meme for your entertainment

[katyawriteswhump]

Livin’ the dream (steddielovemonth day 3)

After High School, Eddie and Steve’s lives don’t exactly go as planned… For @steddielovemonth day 3 prompt: Love is being terrified but not letting that stop you from taking a leap (@unclewaynemunson) Thank you <3

Rating: M. CW: Unhealthy/abusive relationship (NOT steddie!) Tags: No Upside Down AU, angst. WC: 2,225

…

“I’d never have dreamed,” said Eddie one morning, during his daily stop at Dave’s Diner, “that Steve Harrington pouring my coffee would become the highlight of my day.”

Steve smirked. “Wasn’t exactly how I saw my future either, Munson.”

While Steve poured, Eddie left his hand on his coffee cup. He always did—even if the cup got too hot. Even if it scalded him. He’d not miss a chance to have Steve that close. Nor to enjoy staring at those lickable arms, today exposed to the shoulders by a snug-fitting vest top.

“I guess you really dig lousy weak coffee, man,” said Steve.

“Sets me up for a busy day fulfilling my childhood ambition of hauling bricks, darlin’.” He’d gotten away with ‘darlin’’ last week. Steve didn’t chew his head off today, either, so… “Living the dream, huh?”

Steve sighed hard, started wiping the counter near Eddie, over and over, as he always did. “How’s your pay?” asked Steve quietly.

“It’s a day rate. Not stellar, not the pits. Why? You looking for other work?” Panic rocked through Eddie. “You’re not leaving this place?” Though it would be awesome if we worked together. Eddie was already fantasising about those hot summer days on the construction site, when Steve might strip his shirt off.

“Nah, not really,” said Steve, “I’m kinda tied to this job.” He ran his free hand distractedly across his eyes. Tied to this job—what the heck did that mean? Steve often seemed world-weary and withdrawn. Incongruously so, given the confident guy he used to be. But that was adult life, so it seemed. It sucked.

All the same, Eddie experienced an uneasy urge to probe deeper. Steve got in first: “Hey, how’s the band?”

Eddie beamed. Yeah, there was one other thing, other than coffee with Steve, that he lived for: “We got a gig Saturday night.”

“Let me guess—the super bowl came begging?”

“Haha, just you wait, big guy. It’s at that new bar in town. You wanna come?”

Steve paused his scrubbing. Something sparked in the depths of those big, beguiling eyes that made Eddie’s throat tighten, and his pulse beat faster. “I’m working,” said Steve. I’ll try and get away aft—”

“Hey, kid! You gone blind or you really this lazy?” That was Steve’s boss, Dave, who’d gotten the biggest arms Eddie had ever seen. “There’s more than one punter in this place. If you can count that high?”

“Jesus, he can be such an a-hole,” mumbled Steve. He shot off, even as Eddie bleated: 

“See you tomorrow?”

…

Only seven people turn up for Corroded Coffin’s gig. It was a total dud, and Eddie didn’t give a shit. 

Among the seven, was Steve. 

The crappy too-bright venue lighting revealed Steve undressing Eddie with his eyes, as surely as Eddie undressed Steve. Eddie was so blown away, he almost messed up the finger work on his most bodacious solo.

After the final number, Eddie placed down his guitar and made a beeline for Steve: “Hey, you made it.”

“Figured I might as well. Jon Bon Jovi wasn’t returning my calls.” Steve snickered, and Eddie literally drooled. Metal thrummed through his every vein, and his blood rushed madly—most of it heading south. Steve Harrington CAME TO MY GIG AND STAYED FOR THE NON-EXISTENT AFTER-PARTY. Steve’s vest top was sadly missed, but his tight t-shirt still afforded Eddie a glimpse of that tasty chest hair, and the skin-tight jeans were… Gnnng! And as for the touch of eyeliner? 

Slayed Eddie dead.

“You wanna come backstage?” Eddie’s voice came out embarrassingly high-pitched.

“I’d like a drink. Preferably something stronger than coffee, and that I don’t have to pour.”

After his sixth shot, Eddie went in for the kill: “You are literally the hottest fucking thing I have ever goddamn seen.”

“Not exactly slick.” Steve leaned close, and Eddie inhaled his fast, bourbon-spiced breaths. “But I guess it’s a step up on ‘do you come here often.’” 

Eddie silenced him with a blockbuster kiss, which Steve returned instantly. Within moments, Eddie was up off his barstool, hands roving wildly over Steve’s delicious torso. Okay, also wandering around to pry under his tight t-shirt, and to grope that mega-hot denim-clad ass. Steve pawed Eddie with equal enthusiasm, setting his barstool rocking till it toppled back. 

He jumped off, straight into Eddie’s arms. Wow! There was nothing better than kissing somebody roughly your own height. Back at school, he’d figured Steve was a lot taller than him—like most jocks, he’d had that early spurt of growth, Eddie guessed. Then Eddie had more of less caught up, and now..? Yeah, everything had changed, all his preconceptions thrown to the winds. Best of all, Steve had turned out to be a good dude.

Also, the best kisser ever.

They made out like their lives depended on it, tongues sliding together, slickly and keenly. Meanwhile, despite the hotness, all those sweet moments over coffee crammed together in Eddie’s head.

You are the highlight of my life… The light of my goddamn life! How come this took so long?

Then, as abruptly as it started, Steve broke the kiss. He staggered back into his stool, setting it rocking again. “Shit!”

“Oooookay.” Eddie felt like he’d been punched. “Used to that in gig write-ups, but—”

“Oh God, no… It’s not you. It’s so not about you. This was a terrible idea.” He knocked Eddie’s fingers from where they lingered on his hip, and sidestepped, placing the barstool between them.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s about me, Munson, so you can quit the goddamn kicked-puppy-dog eyes.” Erm, back at ya, Harrington. “I’m with another guy, okay?” He laughed, and somehow, it was one of the most miserable sounds Eddie had ever heard. “I didn’t think we’d… Look, I really shouldn’t have come.” 

With that, he bolted.

…

Eddie got to the diner super-early on Monday morning. He’d barely thought of anything other than Steve, who was no longer simply his secret crush. Or even the light of his life. 

Without exactly knowing why, Eddie was pretty much dying with worry for him.

Steve didn’t pour Eddie’s coffee. He dumped the pot on the counter, emoted unwelcomingly with hard-set features, and hurried off to take a table order. Which he then headed out back to prepare.

Eddie waited. He was gonna be late for work, and his boss would give him an earful, and he really couldn’t give a crap.

The diner emptied out, and eventually, Steve emerged from the back, mouthing:

“What the Hell?”

“I needed to see you, Steve.” Steve glared at him, and Eddie did a double take. Steve looked more exhausted than ever, shadows stark as bruises around his eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Saturday was a big mistake. Huge. Had an argument with my boyfriend about it, that’s all. Scram, will you?”

Steve’s boss came out from the back. Steve emoted wildly again, shooed Eddie, and the truth dawned. And was slammed home when Dave slapped Steve’s butt—scowling at Eddie, as he did so—then grabbed Steve’s shoulders, spiralled him about, and shoved him off in the direction of another table awaiting service.

“Either you place another order, or get lost,” said Dave to Eddie.

Eddie ordered pancakes and waited.

“Dave? Seriously?” hissed Eddie, when he finally got Steve’s attention again. He begrudgingly admitted Dave was okay looking. All the same: “He’s a dick! And he’s gotta be old enough to be your dad.”

Steve edged close, talking so fast and hushed Eddie strained to follow. “My parents threw me out. I was on the streets! Dave was… good to me, took me in, and now… I’m kinda stuck. He takes my rent out of my wages, and there’s never anything left, and—”

“You need to get away from him, man.” Eddie felt sick. Somehow, he burbled it out: “Leave the son-of-a-bitch. Right now. You can crash with me.”

“You live in your uncle’s trailer! He’d be beyond thrilled, I’m sure, and Dave would…” Steve’s mouth hung open a moment. He’d what? Come after you? “Look, I’m okay. Dave’s all right, really. Gets grouchy sometimes, that’s all.”

Eddie spouts the next question before he can stop himself. “Do you love him?”

Steve tossed his arms up in despair: “What kinda dumbass question is that?” Yeah, Eddie wants to facepalm. In retrospect, it was truly dumb! “Look, he doesn’t know who I saw on Saturday, but he’s already bitching about you hanging around too much. Just fucking go already!”

Eddie didn’t drive on to the construction site. Instead, as his brain screamed, You’re batshit crazy, he pawned all his meagre possessions, even his beloved Warlock. His plan only faltered when Wayne caught wind of him going to a loan shark. His uncle literally dragged him from their office and insisted on lending Eddie all his scant savings.

Eddie refused. Wayne refused harder. They headed to the second-hand dealership and purchased the cheapest RV in the yard.

Next morning, Eddie trundled his rusty 1960s Volkswagen into the forecourt of Dave’s Diner. He gritted his teeth, squared his shoulders, and moseyed through the door like a gunslinger and about to unleash hell. One that was also trembling like jello, packing zero heat, and practically pissing himself.

“Got my own place now,” he said to Steve.

Steve looked mad, refused him even a coffee cup, though Dave didn’t seem to be around. Yet. “This isn’t happening, Eddie.”

“My place has got wheels, darlin’.” Eddie motioned to the RV outside, dropped his voice to an undertone. “It’s a big country. We can go anywhere. I’ll park up half-a-mile along the road. Wait all day. All night, if you need.”

Steve eked tight words from between gritted teeth: “Look, I don’t wanna sound ungrateful. It’s still a ‘no,’ man. You must have gone cuckoo. I mean, what about your band?”

Yeah, that brought a pang to Eddie’s chest: “Honestly? The rest of the guys are losing interest fast. I can fly solo. As long as you’ll fly with me?”

Dave strode out from the back. The flash of fear in Steve’s eyes cut Eddie to the quick, because it also hollered, You’re making things worse!

Oh God, what’ve I done?

“You’re barred,” yelled Dave at Eddie. “I see your long-haired loony mug one more time, you can kiss my fist.”

“Subtle you ain’t, asshat.”  Eddie retreated, literally a mangy, kicked dog. He drove the RV that half-a-mile along the road and waited. And waited. By midnight, he felt like his heart had been wrung dry, and eventually, he fell asleep.

A loud thudding roused him. He sat up, blinked at his unfamiliar surroundings and then… Shiiiit! He dashed to the door.

Steve perched on the step, his wide eyes glowing with something… unfamiliar. Some sparkle that might just be hope. He’d gotten a very small bundle slung over his shoulder.

“I hope you were serious?” asked Steve.

“Deadly serious, darlin’.”

Steve took Eddie’s face in his hands, and kissed him, briefly, almost chastely. Totally mind blowing. “So good to do that without feeling guilty,” he murmured, smoothing kiss-wetted lips together.

Eddie grinned; he wasn’t even quite sure if this was real: “Let’s get the Hell out of Dodge,” he said.

They hit the road, and they never looked back.

…

Three months later

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” cooed Eddie, as the Hawkins pawn shop owner handed his Warlock back across the counter. “I missed you soooo much.”

“Ugh, seriously?” bitched Steve, as soon as they exited the store. He blocked Eddie’s path along the sidewalk, planted his hands on his hips: “Should I be jealous?”

“Nah. We’re a proper family now.” With his guitar safely stowed in its case, he slung an arm around Steve, and they walked on toward where they’d parked the RV. “Tho’ when we get to Wayne’s, I might have a moment with my long-lost beloved. While you two watch the game.”

“No funny business, Sweetcheeks, or I’m absconding with a second-hand Yamaha keyboard.”

Eddie beamed broadly. It felt so weird, being back in Hawkins, and with hope, at least, for a better future. Not even having to worry about… “You know, I kinda want to thank Chief Hopper in person for arresting your douchebag ex.”

“Yeah, well, he put a guy in the hospital.” Steve shuddered. “They’ve charged him with attempted homicide.”

God, I’m so relieved it wasn’t you, thinks Eddie.

Steve rattled out a joyless laugh that Eddie hadn’t heard for some time, and said, “Jesus, I’m so happy it wasn’t you.”

Suddenly, Eddie’s eyes brimmed with tears. It’s too much. He can’t bear to think of what might have been. “Love you so much,” he blurted, fumbling for the keys for the RV. He couldn’t get up the steps and inside with Steve fast enough

“Love you too,” whispered Steve, once the door was closed, and sounding slightly choked, also. Which isn’t like him.

They clasped each other tighter than ever, and did their darndest to kiss the bad memories away.

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 78

Part 1 Part 77

Eddie always thought he’d be in jail before all this hard labor bullshit starts. Still, here he is, chipping away at the cold earth with a shovel Mama Byers stole from Merill’s shed. And it’s all to save the same man who’s busted his balls more times than he can count.

But Steve had pointed, and Eddie’d started digging. 

He’s sitting now, criss-cross as he stares down at the ground like he can see through it, feet crossed, and t-shirt on backwards. Eddie had thrown it over his head as Steve walked out of the house, while While stuffed his sockless feet into his tennis shoes as best as he could. It’s not right. He’s not right. 

Eddie can still feel the thread tying them together, but it’s brittle now, obvious next to the nylon still twined between Eddie and Will. 

Steve’s barely there at all.

He’s always lived in an empty house, been an empty house. The thing inside him is just the first to take up residence – to fill the vacancy. 

Eddie wants his empty house back.

He’d spent a year watching Steve blossom, filling that emptiness with laughter and cooking and someone to come home to. Eddie’d helped Steve move in, rearrange the furniture in his mind and feng shui that shit until the sun was always shining. He’d seen the curtains begin to open.

It’s jarring, now, to look into his eyes and see the glassy windows of an abandoned home. 

So Eddie does all he can; he digs. The hole grows bigger and bigger, growing at the same rate as the blister on the side of his right thumb. He takes turns with Mama Byers, her lithe frame hiding surprising strength. 

She’s the one at the mantle when the shovel strikes air. She pushes it down hard, gasping as it falls straight through, clattering somewhere below with the dull thud of metal on packed earth. 

“Well, shit,” she says, staring down at the far-too small hole in the earth, just big enough to lose a shovel in. 

Eddie peers down with her, eyeing the loosened sides and the distance of the drop. “Think we can stomp the rest out?”

“I don’t think that’s–” Mama Byers starts, but Eddie’s already stomped down.

The dirt crumbles easier than he expects, like all it wants is to tumble down into the unknown with the shovel. Eddie’s whole foot goes through, and he tumbles down with it. 

It’s not far, but he lands on the handle of the shovel, feels it reverberate up his spine. He closes his eyes against the pain, groaning as he rolls away from the impact site. 

“Eddie?” Will and Mama Byers both call down to him. He opens his eyes to look up at their worried faces, haloed by the dim gray of the November sky. Steve doesn’t make an appearance, but he can still dimly feel him up there.

“I’m fine!” he calls, hoisting himself onto knees and hands and hoping it’s true. 

His ankle twinges as he gets it under him but it holds his weight as he levers himself upright. He barely even notices the pain because then he sees him: Hopper. He’s on the ground, and he’s not moving, as the vines writhe around him.

“Shit!” Eddie cries, rushing over and dropping down next to the man. “Shit, shit, shit!”

He says it like a mantra, barely noticing Mama Byers calling down at him, demanding he tell her what’s happening. 

Eddie yanks at the vine, trying to wrench it from the man’s throat with little success. He sobs when Hopper croaks out a quiet, “knife.” It’s the first sign of life the man’s shown and Eddie will take it with both hands. 

“Where?” Eddie cries. “Where is it?”

“It’s there!” Mama Byers calls. She’s collapsed on the ground, winded from her own fall into the tunnel. Eddie follows her pointing finger to his right.

He lurches for it as Mama Byers crawls up to take his place holding the vines away from Hopper’s windpipe.

Eddie saws at the vine around his neck, around his torso, around his wrists. He loses time to hacking away, barely noticing the viscous black blood that oozes out of it and splatters his clothes, hands, face. 

All he knows is Steve’s barely there at all anymore, and this is the same fucking thing that had slithered down his throat

 and made its home inside him in the first place. 

He can hear Hopper coughing, Mama Byers calling his name, but it’s all muffled, like he’s under water. Like he’s still in the Harrington pool, drowning. Like he never made it to the other side. 

Maybe he didn’t. 

Maybe he’s still down there, sucking down chlorine like it’ll quench his thirst. At least down there, he’d had a hold on Steve. But, now, he can feel the tether turning to ash in his mouth. He’s so thirsty. He wants to swallow the world.

“Munson”

He keeps hacking away at the vines, like they’ll stop strangling Stevie. Like this will be the thing that saves them.

“Eddie.”

Like they’re what’s strangling him, smoke and helplessness clogging Steve’s esophagus and making a home within him. 

“Kid!”

There are warm hands gripping his wrist, hard. Warmer than Steve’s been. Eddie looks up, and Hopper’’s staring at him, ragged and dirty and panting, but alive. Eddie looks down at the wrist he’s holding. Hopper’s knife is clutched hard enough that it hurts. 

“You got them,” Hopper says, voice that soothing, gruff timber he uses on little kids, and victims. “You can let go.” He squeezes Eddie’s wrist before loosening his hold and running his thumb up the veins of his inner wrist. “You saved me, kid. You did good.”

It hurts when he drops the knife, tendons protesting the change of position after he knows how long clenching down. Hopper drops his wrist, clasping his shoulder and squeezing that instead. “You did good,” he says again, and then again, like that’ll stop Eddie’s shaking. It doesn’t.

Eddie nods, still looking down at the knife. His hand clenches on air. He feels bereft, so he pulls on the threads that bind. One made of titanium, and one made of dust he can barely feel at all. 

He jerks his head up at the ceiling, straining his neck to see Steve and Will’s faces. He needs to know that they’re both still there, waiting for him to come back. That Steve’s still Steve, waiting for Eddie to save him. 

Steve’s always dying. Eddie’s always trying to save him. 

But Steve’s not there at all. 

There’s just dirt, only a shovel as proof of the morning spent digging a hole. Digging a grave for them to disappear in. 

“No, no, no!” Eddie cries, scrambling up. 

“Munson, what–”

“He’s gone!” He lurches forward, grabbing for the shovel, like he can somehow dig his way back. He hears Mama Byers gasp as he pushes the shovel up into the dirt. It doesn’t give. He pushes harder.

“Eddie, sweetie.” Mama Byers says, reaching up to pat his shoulder. “Will’s got him.” 

Will’s got him. Will, who’s bright light he can feel at Steve’s side, just above. Will’s got him.

Eddie drops the shovel on a sob, still looking, up, up, up.

“But how are we going to get out of her?” Eddie asks. No one answers because no one knows.

Digging a hole and escaping a grave are two very different things. 

Like the answer to a prayer Eddie would never send up, there’s a shout behind him. “Go!”

Eddie spins, and there’s a man in a Hvac suit, with a gun pointed straight at him. He stumbles back, feels Mama Byers’ steadying hands on his lower back. 

“Get out of here!” the man calls, voice muffled through his helmet. He gestures with the butt of his gun behind him. “Go! Go!”

Eddie flits by him, keeping as much distance as the small tunnel will allow just as something inhuman begins shrieking behind him. 

He doesn’t hesitate anymore. He bolts, Mama Byers and Hop hot on his heels, visions of Demogon’s on his heels pushing him faster. 

He passes more suits and more guns, and keeps going. The ground begins sloping upward toward the light of an open tunnel. He stops for a second, shocked by an end to the darkness.

The safety of right-side-up is steps away. The warmth of light and air and his people are so close, he can almost taste it. 

That’s when the screaming starts, from a voice he would know anywhere. Even like this. Even loud and wretched with pain. 

Eddie runs toward the sounds of his angel screaming. 

Part 79

Taglist: @deany-baby @estrellami-1 @altocumulustranslucidus @evillittleguy @carlprocastinator1000 @1-8oo-wtfbro @hallucinatedjosten @goodolefashionedloverboi @newtstabber @lunabyrd @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @manda-panda-monium @disrespectedgoatman @finntheehumaneater @ive-been-bamboozled @harringrieve @grimmfitzz @is-emily-real @dontstealmycake @angeldreamsoffanfic @a-couchpotato @5ammi90 @mac-attack19 @genderless-spoon @kas-eddie-munson @louismeds @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @pansexuality-activated @ellietheasexylibrarian @nebulainajar @mightbeasleep @neonfruitbowl @beth--b @silenzioperso @best-selling-show @v3lv3tf0x @bookworm0690 @paintsplatteredandimperfect @wonderland-girl143-blog @nerdsconquerall @sharingisntkaren

[apomaro-mellow]

King&Prince 3

Steve didn't know how long he'd been in here between being knocked out and the fact that there was no window to help him tell the time. But it must've been a few hours at least, because someone came down to feed him. The person was nondescript besides the scowl on their face as they pretty much tossed the tray at him. It skid across the floor and Steve saw that it was some bread and some soup.

Steve reached for the soup first, wanting something to warm him only to find that it was just barely above his own body temperature. And something slimy was in it. He winced, making his deliveryman laugh.

"Eat up, your highness", he sneered before leaving him to it.

Steve tried the bread next. It was only slightly stale and he wondered if he should be rationing it. This could be his only meal for the next twenty four hours. They intended to return him home but that didn't mean he had to be in perfect condition. They could keep him on the brink if it suited them.

In the end, he decided to finish it all now. He looked at what he was left with. A spoon, a bowl, and a tray. He could probably use any of the three as a weapon, but that did nothing for his locked cell. Steve spent the next few hours, formulating a plan.

He would've thought about it longer, but that was when someone came to serve what must be dinner. That is unless they served bread and soup for breakfast here. It was someone different, but they handed him the tray in much the same way, sliding it in small space under the bars.

"I need to relieve myself", Steve announced.

"And? You've got four corners."

"So I'm just supposed to shit in the corner?"

"Enjoy your slop", he said, turning to leave when Steve grabbed an arm through the bars and twisted it behind his back and raised the spoon to his throat. It was probably the least threatening thing ever but his current warden was frozen.

"What the hell!?"

"You're going to let me out. Or else."

"Or else what? You'll spoon me to death?", he let out a choke of laughter as Steve pressed down.

"I think that's exactly what I'll do", Steve said as he slid the spoon up his neck, up his face and towards his eye.

"Waitwaitwait! I don't even have the keys! Only the king can let you out!"

"Are you lying to me?", Steve asked, his voice low.

"No! I promise. He's the only one with a key to this place. We don't keep a lot of prisoners!"

Steve waited a moment to see if there were any tells that might show dishonesty before dropping the spoon and backing away from the bars.

"In that case, I request an audience with your king. A prisoner I may be, but these current accommodations are not to my standards."

His guard gave him an incredulous look as he caught his breath and regained his wits. "Are you serious? You're making demands?"

Steve crossed his arms. "I am not going to shit where I sleep."

"No one here gives a fuck about what you want. Get used to that prince."

He spat out the word 'prince' like it was a slur. Steve didn't have a huge flock of fans back home, but the blatant disrespect was so foreign. He was left alone to figure out how he was going to keep his cell from smelling like a latrine.

Eddie sent out a letter the very day he had Steve in his keep, flying on the wing of one of his demobats so that there was no mistaking who the letter came from. Steve didn't know how things were going outside his limited scope though, and tried to make the best of his situation. He considered positioning his stream outside the cell and also leaving his solid waste as close to the bars as possible just to piss off whoever came down here, but considering that meant it might touch his food, he refrained.

There wasn't the smell of rot or waste here, so that could only mean prisoners weren't meant to be here long. That either meant they had different cells for long time stays. Or...

Steve brought a hand to his throat. He wouldn't think of 'or' right now. He paced around, considering trying to dig a hole in the softest part of the stone (what an oxymoron), when his foot stumbled against something. There was a small panel, it seemed. And when he opened it, it was a bottomless, black hole. Well what better place for waste to go?

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

Steve was pretty sure a couple of days had passed, just from the amount of meals he'd been given. But he knew he looked more destitute than that. A side effect of having to choose between tearing up his blanket to wipe himself with or tearing his own clothes. And only one of those was comfortable on his ass.

It was probably about three days in when he got a new visitor. This one still brought food but he was also significantly younger than the others. A literal child.

"Whoa. So you're the guy who tried to kill someone with a spoon?" The boy tilted his head, inspecting Steve. "You don't look that dangerous."

"Give me a spoon and let's test your theory", Steve said, sitting against the far wall, waiting for the tray to be passed over. It seemed fitting that a demonic king would be using child labor.

"Spoons are too easy", the boy said. "Now if you could threaten someone wiiiiith your pinky! Yeah if it was your pinky that would be intimidating."

"My pinky?"

"Yeah", the boy nodded, flopping his brown curls around.

Steve held up his pinky. "You could poke someone's eyes out, hold them up by the nose, break their other fingers with enough force, just to name a couple of things."

"That's almost every orifice. I guess the ears aren't too vulnerable. But what about the ass?"

Steve's face scrunched up, confused as to what the boy was talking about and why he was having this conversation. "What about the ass?"

"You could stick a finger up there. Really disorient a person."

"...Yeah it'd do that. But you wouldn't really do that to an enemy."

"Why?"

"How old are you?", Steve asked.

"Thirteen."

"Ask someone when you're older."

"Oh come on! I'm not a baby."

Steve cracked his first smile in days. He thought of himself back at thirteen. It wasn't that long ago but he was both embarrassed and nostalgic for that age. "Just hand the food over, kid."

"You and Eddie. One day the youth will rise you know", the boy said as he pushed the food over.

Hearing that definitely made Steve feel older than he was but he tried to ignore it. What was harder to ignore was that the kid kept coming back. Steve had gotten used to a new face every time a new meal was delivered. But this kid, who he learned was named Dustin, came every time now. He asked Steve questions about how to kill people.

Steve told him flat out he'd never killed anyone, was just trained to. So Dustin rephrased to ask how he would kill someone. It still seemed like a morbid topic to have with someone locked up, but it wasn't like Steve had anything else to do. So he told Dustin what he knew. About people's typical weak spots, about the best weapon to use for what sort of damage he was looking for.

He never considered that Dustin might be performing espionage. He was just a kid after all. And when Steve wasn't talking about headlocks versus full body grappling, Dustin was talking about his friends. It was mostly Will, Mike, and Lucas. Sometimes and El was thrown in there. And then there was this Eddie character. Someone who drove Dustin up the wall but also clearly had the boy's admiration.

Apparently Eddie told stories to Dustin and his friends and let them insert their own characters, and gave them a chance to interact with the story. It was fun and Eddie challenged them with obstacles. But it was frustrating when they couldn't decide on the best course of action and Eddie bested them.

Steve had never heard of interactive storytelling like that. And he had to admit it was a good way to engage with kids, not that he had much experience with that.

Around the fourth day since Dustin's arrival, probably about a week or so in to Steve's stay, he really took in Steve's appearance and it surroundings.

"I should ask Eddie about getting you some new clothes. And maybe, I don't know freshen things here? We've never kept somebody down here this long."

Steve figured that. "How is Eddie going to get me anything?"

Dustin looked at him like he was a child. "He's got some pretty big pull around here."

Steve doubted that. Eddie sounded like perhaps a servant with a soft spot for the children of the castle, regardless of their station. Maybe he was a knight and Dustin had been downplaying his nobility? Either way, Steve wasn't going to hold his breath. It didn't matter who Eddie was. King Edward was like stone, he was sure. Listening to no one.

Part 5

Tag Team

@thesuninyaface @only-evanescent @snakeorsquid @ignoremyworld

[weird-an]

There is a crossroad just outside Hawkins, where corn grows so high it's hidden from anybody's view.

Blood runs down Billy's temple and his head pounds like Neil didn't stop hitting him. Neil who found his Mandate magazine and went fucking crazy.

Billy can't go back. Billy can't go back or he's going to get fucking killed. By his own father. He had never seen Neil so angry - and Neil has always been angry, but not like that.

He has thought about it for a while. It's just some make belief, some hocus pocus, but Billy needs a miracle. He doesn't wear shoes and pebbles tear his holey socks apart. He just grabbed the box and ran.

It's eerily silent. Almost midnight - he thinks. He doesn't have a watch. He digs through the ground with his bare hands. He buries the blue box he stole from Max in the hole. It's a jewelry box she never uses. He has gotten a bit of dirt from the local graveyard, a cat bone from a school's exhibit and an ugly photo from his last school in California where he had to smile while his back was still aching.

A fat drop of crimson blood drips on his fake smile. He wipes his forehead, before he can remember that his hands are dirty.

He stands up. Nothing happens.

It's a cold night. His breath forms little clouds, floating into the night. The moon is gone, waiting to get reborn. An endless circle of birth and death.

"What a surprise." Steve Harrington stands behind him. Same as usual, wearing a pastel blue and pink polo shirt and his ever perfect hair fluffy and only slicked back a little.

"Billy Hargrove needing help?" he scoffs - and it's almost as if they were on the court and not on a crossroad, about to make a deal. "Wanting to gift me his soul?"

There's a red shine in his eyes, but more in the way that it seems like a reflection.

"You're a... demon?" Billy asks. Maybe that's some stupid prank. Maybe that's an explanation why Harrington is so unearthly pretty. "And you're going to High School?"

And sucking at it, is something he doesn't add, but he knows how many classes Harrington is failing. Tommy won't shut up about it. He would have rather expected Hagan to be a fucking demon and not Harrington who now gives him a goofy grin.

"Oh, well..." Harrington says. "Let's say I made a deal a few years ago and then I unfortunately died early."

There's a headline Neil had read out loud to them before they moved here. About a girl, Barb Holland, being thought dead for three weeks - and then rising from the dead, ringing at her parent's door like she just went out to buy some milk.

"God has blessed this place," Neil had said. Apparently Hawkins is about as cursed as Billy feared it is.

"Enough about me." Harrington tilts his head. "What do you want?"

To live, to be free pops into Billy's mind, bright and colorful like a rainbow.

Billy thought about it a lot. First he thought he wanted his dad dead. So that he can never touch him again, so that he doesn't have to be afraid anymore. But if Neil dies, he doesn't have a father or a mother.

The thought is a dark shadow, making him sick.

"I want him to stop hurting me," he says instead. It won't heal the scars, it won't unbreak his bones, it won't make it forgotten, but maybe more bearable. It's what he wanted when he was five, when he turned ten, what he wants to today and what he always wished for whenever saw other people blowing out the candles on their birthday cakes.

Harrington's eyes flicker to Billy's bloody mullet and his dirty socks.

"You need to tell me his name," he says, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "I'm just a demon, not a mindreader."

"My dad," Billy grits out. "Neil.. Hargrove."

There is pity crossing Harrington's face, something he has always been afraid of, but it's gone within seconds, maybe only been a shadow and gets replaced with a red glow, irises more crimson than hazel now.

"Let's seal the deal." Harrington smiles, teeth shining white. "You know how we do it, right? Your soul for me doing you a favor."

Billy heard the stories. Billy didn't expect to become a part of them. Billy doesn't think he has a soul and if he does, it can hardly be worth anything.

Harrington smells like expensive aftershave and smoke.

Billy presses a kiss on Harrington's soft lips. It's a rush, a relief. He feels something shift, something clicking into space.

Harrington laughs into the kiss. "The deal is already done, Hargrove."

Which means Billy's soul is Harrington's now and Neil won't ever hurt him again. The blood on his temple dries. The cut on his scalp stopped throbbing, there's only a faint sting reminding Billy of its existence. He feels like he just jumped into the ocean on a hot summer's day.

He licks across Harrington's mouth, hungry for more.

"Greed and lust are sins, Billy." It almost sounds like a compliment.

Billy's throat turns dry and he wants to pull away, humiliation burning away the cool calm that has begun to spread inside his chest.

It's just a deal - and that's closed now.

Harrington tugs on his bottom lip, sharp pain joining the sweet sensation.

"If you ever feel like sinning, come and find me," Harrington purrs -

and then he's gone. Billy stands on the road, lips tingling, still smelling Harrington's aftershave on him.

He walks home. It's one of these nights when spring is about to fade, summer's heat lurking around the corner. Still cold, but not that he's shivering.

Cherry Lane is deserted, a few lights flickering when Billy comes home. The door is open. He doesn't hear Neil shouting at the TV.

He washes the blood off his face and goes to bed. He wonders if he can dream without a soul. He wonders if it's working. His lips burn and he still feels Harrington's mouth on his.

[urlocalnonbinarybastardwrites]

Can u do the Curtis gang +curly with a f!scene reader plz!!!! :3333

Ofc Darlin!!! I’d freakin loveeeeeeeee to!! We love our scene queen x gang requests!!

The Gang + Curly Shepard x F! Scene Reader

Ponyboy Curtis

-he thinks you’re soooo cool

-super intimidated though

-he’s memorized your entire schedule before he actually talks to you lmao

-he’s down sooo bad

-he started listening to scene music too just for you

-after doing hours of research to find out your style

-and one time you were in the library and he played the music just a little too loud in hopes of you noticing

-“Is that <insert band name>?! I LOVE them!! I didn’t think anyone else here listened to that stuff…”

-he acts chill about it like he didn’t just start a week ago when he saw you

-once he finally gets the guts to ask you out you say yes

-he goes on music + reading dates with you

-he’d try to match bracelets, bandanas, belts, rings, anything subtle

-probably the most expected couple

Johnny Cade

-LOVES your style

-he sees you one day walk by when he’s sitting in the lot and his eyes pop out of his skull

-he loves everything. He loves your hair, your skirt, your bright fishnets, all your jewelry, your makeup

-it’s so big… and obnoxious in the best possible way

-he loves too

-he doesn’t stop thinking about you after that

-it isn’t until dally and ponyboy get tired of him mentioning you that their like go talk to her man

-so he finally does, and he thinks you’re sooo cool

-scene doesn’t really work well on him, but he tries to match you in subtle ways like pony too

-matching bracelets fsfs

-Fr if you make him a few bracelets he will never stop wearing them

-when you finally start dating he really likes a lot of the music

-and if anyone has to say anything about you

-they can welcome Johnnys fist to their face

Sodapop Curtis

-he was shocked when he saw you walk in to say the least

-he’s never seen anyone like you before

-super intrigued

-he gets surprised when after a few days he realizes he has a huge crush on you

-he usually dates girls like cherry, but with you…. He’s definitely willing to make an exception

-you have the rare ability to make him nervous

-and falter in his usual effortlessly charming manner

-and one day he gets enough of a pep talk from Steve to ask you out

-and he does, giving the biggest, stupidest grin

-when you guys date it’s so cute

-he tried to let you do makeup on him one time

-it didn’t end well

-he can’t sit still 💀😭

Darry Curtis

-the least expected couple

-he’s a very traditional dude

-so seeing you is kinda like 🤯🤯🤯

-when he sees you walking down the street

-his jaw drops so low you have to dig a hole in the ground 💀💀

-he’s just stunned by you’re mere existence

-he asks Sodapop and Ponyboy about you at dinner

-and there both like OoOoOoOOoh someone has a crushhhhhh

-he’s in denial fr

-but he finally goes up to talk to you one day when you’re both shopping

-and asks a bit awkwardly “So… uhm… what’s with your outfit?”

-then realizes how rude he sounds “WAIT not like it’s not amazing- I mean you’re amazing- beautiful too- wait-“

-you giggle at him and smile “Oh, I just really like dressing in the same culture as my music taste”

-that gets the ball rolling and you two actually get along pretty nicely

-you both turn heads for real though

-and Sodapop and Ponyboy see you as a really cool aunt/older sister

-matches belts and jewelry with you

Dallas Winston

-now, he has never seen a broad like you before

-was secretly a bit intimidated

-but he’s not gonna show that………..

-he probably went up to you on a dare though

-made some rude jokes

-and you furrowed your brows

-“You know, it’s really not cool to make those jokes. You don’t like it when people assume things about you for being a grease hm?”

-he’s super surprised at your reaction

-and for once in this ever loving man’s life he reflects on his actions

-he sighs “You’re right, doll. What’s your name anyway, princess?” He says with a smirk

-matches belts and jewelry with you

Two Bit Mathews

-he saw you

-and instantly made jokes

-it’s two bit you guys what you expect

-“Do you come out of bed like that or…”

-“Damn, what unicorn threw up on your clothing?”

-“You’re gonna cut off your circulation with that much jewelry doll.”

-of course it’s all good fun, and you roast him back with equal wit

-which is kinda when he realizes he’s in love

-he asks you out

-you say yes

-he absolutely wear matching belts, jewelry and even shirts with you

-you made a Micky Mouse scene outfit and showed it to him

-and he LOVED IT

Steve Randle

-oh girl

-you rocked his whole world whenever you walked towards him

-he looks you up and down for a full minute

-like omfg she’s sick

-he tries to hold back his excitement when he talks to you

-he thinks you’re style is so cool

-asked multiple times to touch your wig

-he grins so hard when you let him

-he asks you out the soonest

-you guys are very cute together

-you give him something interesting to look at while he works on cars fs

-he loves your wigs so much

-kisses your hair all the time

Curly Shepard

-thinks you’re styles kickass, and you’re a total bad bitch

-I mean he’s a bit punk/grunge himself

-probably the most familiar with alt styles in general out of everyone

-he hits on you almost immediately

-checking you out with a smirk and a whistle

-loving the way your fishnets and skirt makes your legs and thighs look

-you guys are a scary ass couple to encounter

-the punk/grunge and the scene

-he matches belts with you and you both take a little bit from each other

-you mix a bit of his punk/grunge in your scene fits

-and he mixes some scene into his punk/grunge fits

-and he sometimes does matching eyeliner with you

-and it looks super kick ass on him

[rainydayathogwarts]

congrats on 1k!!! could you please do steve harrington with dialogue #3 and prompt #4? that would be amazing :)

Steve Harrington

Thank you bae :)) Join my 1k celebration here!

"It's not a double date, we're just third and fourth wheeling." & Realising you don't hate each other at all.

You felt as though your eye was nearly twitching, playing with the fries in front of you as you stared at Nancy, cuddling into Jonathan's shoulder and giggling at the unfunniest thing he was saying. You fake laughed along with them, eyeing Steve, who sat stiffly next to you. He caught your eye and you both shared an awkward smile, immediately turning back to face the flirtatious couple. Nancy put a hand on Jonathan's chest, who looked at her proudly, as though he had done something to impress her. You made a face at them, only for Nancy to finally look at you and Steve, noticing the lack of chemistry you shared. Why did she think that of all people, Steve would be your perfect date for the night? King Steve, who always made it a point to flirt with your friends whenever you were around, or who always tried to one-up you no matter the situation. King Steve, who would always scoff at you since you befriended the enemy. Or at least, Billy Hargrove.

"Oh come on, this is a double date, I'd expect you guys to try to make some better conversation here." Both you and Steve scoffed at the same time, muttering things under your breath. "It's not a double date Nance, we're just third and fourth wheeling." Steve let's out a half-hearted laugh, nodding along before adding "Yeah and I bet if I took a look under the table right now, we'd be doing a lot more than just that." Both you and Nancy gasp, but for different reasons. She's becoming red in the face and shuffling away from her boyfriend, but you've turned to look at Steve with raised eyebrows in admiration of his boldness. "Gross! But he's right, we should leave you guys alone." You're glad for the excuse, and you both quickly slip out of the booth, ignoring Nancy's attempts to call you back to the table.

You and Steve stop when you're outside the diner, chuckling slightly. "What kind of hosts are they, am I right?" You say, trying to fill the silence in the air. "Hosts who were probably interrupted while having sex today." You cringe, looking back to see Nancy's in Jonathan's arms again, this time uninterruptedly kissing in the otherwise empty booth. "Good thing we left when we did." A hum of agreement comes from Steve, who returns his attention to you, running a hand through his hair. He notices how you shiver when a gust of wind hits you, your hands digging deeper into your pockets. "You're cold, take this." he hands you his jacket "Least your date can do." You both grin, and you take the denim jacket from his hands, pushing your arms through the holes.

The denim fits loosely around your shoulder but you sigh in satisfaction, welcoming the warmth. It's only when you see that Steve himself is trying to warm himself from the breeze that you remember an important detail. "Hey, I have the keys to Nancy's car!" A devilish grin spreads on Steve's face and he puts his hand out once again, and before you know it, you're getting payback on your friend, even though you know she'll be going home with her boyfriend. Steve immediately turns the car heater on, and adjusts the radio before he's driving away in a direction you're not very familiar to.

You can't help but stare as he sings along off-pitch to some bad music from a local band, smiling to yourself before you join him, opening Nancy's car compartment to steal her mint gum. "Ooh, me, me!" You laugh at Steve, who's waiting with an open mouth, and drop the piece of gum into it. He hums as he chews it, savouring the flavour. As though he could feel your eyes on him, he turns his head to face you, a glint in his eyes you haven't seen before. "You know, you're not too bad Harrington." You state, turning back to face the road ahead. "Yeah, I'm pretty aware of that."

[lady-lostmind]

lamb part two

Rating: E (eventually) | CW: Vampire!Eddie so probably like, blood and stuff.

part one

read on ao3

Dustin pulls back to stare at him with tear-streaked eyes, clearly not believing what’s standing right in front of him, which, okay. Fair. Eddie doesn’t really believe it himself, honestly.

“Wh–What–” Dustin stammers, head shaking slightly in disbelief. “You were–Eddie, you were dead.” His eyes go wide on the last word, like speaking it aloud will make Eddie disappear, make it true again.

Eddie huffs out a laugh. “Thought I still was, to be honest.” Eddie swallows hard, suddenly very aware of how much his throat is burning. He reaches up to rub his hand up and down his neck, desperate for a little relief, drawing attention to the puckered skin there. Dustin zeros in on the scar, watches him track the way it trails up the side of his cheek, disappearing below the torn collar of his shirt. He knows he must be remembering what it looked like when it was gaping open, spewing all his damn blood out onto the ground. Onto him.

Dustin raises his hand cautiously, pointing to Eddie’s neck. “That’s impossible. ” His eyes flick back to Eddie’s, a question clearly forming behind his eyes. A loud bang nearby startles them back into reality. Back to the fact that they’re standing out in the open, next to a demolished trailer, in the middle of the night. Not suspicious at all. Dustin seems to have the same realization as him, concern flashing over his face. “We need to get you out of here before someone sees you.” He grabs Eddie’s arm, tugging him back into the trailer. He glances over his shoulder, back toward where his bike lays discarded on the ground. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.” For a second Eddie panics, thinking Dustin is going to leave . That he’ll be alone again, wondering if this is even real. But then Dustin is climbing back through the hole in the wall, walkie talkie in his hand. He pulls the antennae up and Eddie hears the crackle of static as he pushes the button to talk. “Steve, you up? Over.” Eddie shakes his head wildly. “ No, no, no! Henderson!” He tries to grab the walkie out of Dustin’s hand who waves it around trying to keep it out of reach, a look of pure confusion on his face. “WE NEED A RIDE, EDDIE!”

Before Eddie can get ahold of the walkie Steve’s voice is ringing out around them. “This better be good, Henderson.” His voice is raspy and drawn out with sleep. Dustin shoves his hand in Eddie’s face, keeping him out of the way as he hurriedly answers Steve. “STEVE! I’M AT THE TRAILER PARK. I NEED A RIDE.” He beams up at Eddie, knowing he won’t have much of a choice now. Either go with him and Steve or…what? Hide out and make the kid sound like a lunatic? Spend his first night back from the dead alone? He sighs and rolls his eyes, slumping against the wall. He rubs at his throat again, trying to clear it, the burning starting to become overwhelming instead of just annoying. “What the fuck are you doing there this late?” Dustin grimaces, looking guilty as he sighs. “Just come. Please.”   There’s a long pause and then Steve is back. “On my way.”

Dustin looks back to Eddie. He can see the bombard of questions return to his eyes, fighting to break through the surface. Eddie shakes his head “I don’t have any answers for you kid, I’m as in the dark on this as you are.” Dustin nods and gives him a sad smile. He comes to sit next to him and they slip into an uncomfortable silence, waiting to dig into anything further until Steve arrives. By the time they hear Steve’s car pull up outside, Eddie is pacing around the room, trying to distract himself from the burning fire in his throat. Dustin eyes him curiously every time Eddie reaches up to rub his throat, trying desperately to find some relief. When Steve’s door shuts with a soft thud Dustin rises from his spot on the floor. “Stay here.” He mutters quietly before he hurries back out into the night. Eddie fidgets with his fingers (where the fuck did his rings go?) as he waits to hear Steve’s reaction, hovering by the hole in the wall, ready to make an appearance as soon as Dustin breaks the news.

“What are you doing here, Henderson? I told you to stop going out on your own at night like this.” Eddie’s brow furrows as he listens to Steve’s concerned voice. How long has it been since he… died ? How long has Henderson been riding his bike out to this demolished piece of scrap metal in grief?  “I know, I know, I’m sorry but-” Dustin pauses and Eddie swears he can almost hear the uptick in his heartbeat. His throat gives him another flare of pain and he winces. “I need to show you something. I– You have to stay calm, okay?” “Henderson wh–” Eddie takes that as his cue to step through the hole in the trailer and shoot Steve a wide, cocky grin. “Hey there, big boy. ” Steve’s face goes pale and he freezes in shock for a half second before concern floods his features and he’s moving forward. He grabs Dustin’s arm and wrenches him away from Eddie, pushing him behind his back to stand protectively in front of him. “ Steve! It’s okay He-”“Was DEAD , Henderson. He was dead.” His eyes lock onto Eddie like he’s waiting for him to lunge at them. Eddie raises his hands in front of him, trying to show he means no harm. That he would never hurt him or Henderson. Because yeah, okay. He gets it. This is fucked up. “Easy there, Harrington. I won’t bite.” He glances around, checking to make sure no one has gotten curious about what’s going on out here. A lot of the trailers were destroyed by the gate. But he can see lights on in a few of them that are still standing. Dustin tugs on Steve’s arm to get his attention off Eddie. “We don’t have time to freak out. He can’t stay here, Steve.” Steve looks between Dustin and Eddie before sighing heavily. “Okay, yeah, let’s go to my place.” His eyes meet Eddie’s and he asks, with no hint of sarcasm or humor at all, “Do I need to get the bat out of my trunk, Munson?” Eddie pushes the urge to make a joke out of that away. Steve needs to know he’s not putting Dustin in danger. So he just shakes his head. “No bat necessary, Harrington.” Steve nods once, accepting it at face value, and walks back to the driver’s side of his car. “Let’s go, then.” he says as he climbs in and starts the engine. Dustin smiles softly at Eddie before getting in the passenger seat. Eddie lets out a breath of relief before climbing in the back, shuffling down in the seat as much as possible so no one will see him through the window.

The ride is silent. But the air is full of tension, and it smells kind of weird in the car. Not like, bad weird . Just something Eddie can’t quite place. And his throat. His throat fucking hurts. What is he supposed to do about his throat?Steve pulls into the drive to his house and jumps out to unlock the door before Dustin and Eddie follow him. Eddie tries to keep low and hurries quickly over the short distance between the car and the house. The chances of being spotted here, in the wealthy neighborhood, even with half the residents leaving to escape the disastrous town, are much higher than when they were at the trailer park. Steve steps in and waves them in, eyes scanning the street as he mutters ‘ Come in.’ under his breath. He shuts the door quickly behind them and locks it, peering through the little window at the top to see if there’s any sign they were seen. He sighs, running a hand through his hair when he doesn’t see an angry mob come barreling toward the door, and turns to face Eddie with furrowed brows.

Eddie tenses under his gaze, expecting a string of questions, and maybe accusations to come flying his way, so when Steve steps forward and slams into him with a tight hug he’s shocked, arms stiff at his sides where they’re trapped beneath Steve’s. He sucks in a deep breath, trying to steady himself and… oh. There’s that smell again. Only now it’s invading every cell in his body. Steve smells… amazing . He feels his mouth salivate. Like he’s actually about to fucking drool all over the guy who’s still clinging to him like…well, like he just came back from the dead. Eddie’s throat flares angrily as he takes in another breath and he feels a sharp prick on the inside of his lips. A pained whimper escapes his mouth and Steve’s face pulls back to look at him with concern, stepping back from him. “Sorry…I just–We thought…” He trails off, putting more distance between them and looking a bit awkward from his sudden outburst of affection. Eddie smirks at him. “No, no. I get it.” He forces is smile to widen, trying to move past the strange interaction when– “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?” Dustin is suddenly very close to his face, and staring at his mouth. Eddie jerks his head back in disgust. “Henderson, man. Boundaries. ” He nudges Dustin back a few inches only for him to get knocked into Steve who is also standing too close, again, and ogling him like he just grew a second head. “ What the fuck is your–AHH”   Steve is reaching around Henderson and has his fingers in Eddie’s mouth. Why is he…he’s tugging his lip up as Eddie tries to back away from them. Eddie watches as their faces shift to something of terror, and then he’s wrenching Steve’s hand away to replace it with his own, feeling around for–okay what the fuck is that? He prods at the protruding tooth…because okay, yeah, that is attached to his gums and– “ Fuck!” He pulls his hand away, watching as a dark (very dark, that’s not normal, why is it so dark?) bead of blood wells from a small cut on his thumb where he touched the end of his tooth. His eyes shoot up and flick between Dustin and Steve who are both staring at him with slack jaws. “Do I have…” He can’t even say it. It’s too ridiculous. He must be losing his– “ Fangs. ” Dustin and Steve say at the exact same time. A hysterical cut off laugh from Eddie startles them and they finally look up from his mouth. “Well, shit.”

[passivenovember]

When Billy Falls in Love

--

Max's hair is twisted into a rough pink towel when she answers the door. She’s got a berry sorbet sunburn peeking through the angry red flush on her cheeks, freckles looking like they could peel off at any moment. It’s the same way Billy gets in the summertime, but he turns gold in seconds.

Max stays angry red. 

She wasn’t at the pool today. Steve knows because he was at the pool fifteen minutes ago, and Billy wasn’t there. And if Billy’s gone so is Max, and if Max is here-- 

“He’s not here. What’s with the flowers?” Max wonders, with her teeth pulling at the wrapper of a Scoops brand popsicle as she eyes the poorly picked and assembled bouquet of daisies and weeds Steve managed to convince the gardener to let him snag. 

Steve can tell she doesn’t really want to know what the deal is. Maybe she already knows. 

Max is fourteen and a perpetually bored pain in the ass, already moving to shut Steve out of the house when he jams his foot so the door won’t close. 

Max tugs on it. Groans. “Steve,” Max says, sounding tired.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know because we don’t keep tabs on each other, you psycho.”

“Bullshit,” Steve says. Neil’s car isn’t in the driveway, he almost points out.

Doesn’t.

Max almost cracks a smile, seeming to hear him anyway. If Neil’s gone that leaves Billy to play guard dog. “If you care so much about my stupid brother all of a sudden--”

“--All of a--”

“Get in your stupid shitty car and go drive around until you find him,” Max says, like. Get lost.

They’re so similar it burns. Chars licking over Steve’s skin in the shape of how they sneer and heckle the same, and they’re both so smart that Steve has to do math and study chemistry, and perform mental gymnastics just to keep up.

There’s a lot to latch on to, Steve’s hands slip over it like a gymnast missing the high bar. 

The way she’s looking at him, the way Max said all of a sudden like Steve’s done something wrong--

“He used to drive you around,” Steve says, like. Aha. “Don’t you give a shit?”

About him? 

About his bones and blood. 

Max shrugs. “Why should I?”

And. Steve’s an idiot but he remembers how it was before, back when this whole thing started. His lips, red and tender from sucking on any piece of Billy he could find. His fingers, tugging on worn belt loops and begging for a night on Loch Nora and that dull, exhausted phrase gotta watch my sister sinking a hole in Steve’s hope.

“It’s summer,” Max says after a minute, irritated, “We have an arrangement in the summer. June to Labor Day I do what I want, Billy fucks off for a bit, and we always show up here right when--”

“His car's gone,” Steve says. Because she owes it to him and his months and months of blue balls at her lack of self-preservation. She owes it to Billy.

“His car’s gone because he’s not here, Steve, we just went over this--” 

Max moves to slam the door and Steve holds it open, trying to ignore the hollow feeling that spreads through his stomach. “Why are you acting weird?” Steve demands.

“I’m not acting weird, you’re the one who’s trying to break into my house because Billy stepped out for five minutes,” Max tugs on the door, groaning dramatically, “C’mon Steve--”

Steve clutches the bouquet of flowers close to his chest. “We’re supposed to go see a movie.”

Max stops pulling on the door, all the attitude cut from her with something dull. 

Steve swallows. His nails dig into the palm of his free hand. Steve feels blood swell, but it’s probably just sweat. “Billy. He’s not on a date--”

“Look, Steve,” Max says suddenly, sounding. Much older and wiser than she did five seconds ago. “I like you. You’re cute and dumb but you’re annoyingly sweet and thoughtful. You’re tall, too. You’ve probably failed freshman biology a couple of times.--”

“--I--”

“Shut up,” Max tells him, and Steve swears there’s a bit of green swirling in all that red, embarrassment mixing like watercolor. “Can I be honest with you, Steve?”

Steve nods. He takes his foot from the door jam and rubs his hand on his jeans. Shudders as the feeling in his stomach ebbs and swirls and gets so much worse.

“You’re not his fucking boyfriend,” Max says, and slams the door in his face.

--

“Well. To be fair, she’s not wrong.”

Steve grips the steering wheel. The leather crackles and squeals with the skin of his palms, giving way to the rumble of the engine when he turns the car onto Park Avenue. 

“Jesus,” Eddie snaps, his free hand scrambling to brace against the passenger door while the bouquet teeters dangerously on his lap, “You don’t have to take the turns so fast, Harrington--”

“I can’t believe she said that.”

“--Fucking Evel Kenevil--”

“I mean. I’m practically his boyfriend, right?”

“Sure, and you’ll still be ‘practically his boyfriend,’ even if you drive at the speed limit.”

“Thought you said Max wasn’t talking out of her ass, Munson?”

“Look, I’m allowed to take things minute by minute. I’m just saying,” Eddie tightens the seatbelt against his chest, “You haven’t exactly popped the question.”

“You think Billy’s the kind of guy who--”

“Yeah,” Eddie says casually. “He’s exactly the kind of guy who wants to be asked out. I’ve seen the way he picks flowers and puts them in his own hair when he thinks no one’s looking.”

Steve snorts. “When has he ever done that?”

“We hang out, you know,” Eddie tells him, in lieu of an answer. “When you’re not around, we hang out loads--”

“Maybe you’re Billy’s mystery man,” Steve says only half serious. Mostly joking. 

Eddie flushes deep red, “Anyway. This bag of weeds is a good start,” He mumbles, twisting the fat head of a dandelion gently between two fingers.

Steve doesn’t have it in him to unpack any of what that might mean.

They’ve been driving for what feels like hours. The sky has turned hazy, floating in that honey-dipped place between dayglow and starlight. The world will be gold, soon, and then dark. Midnight black. 

Hawkins is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair. A shithole. Billy only has a handful of places to hide.

Steve presses a little harder on the gas, knowing in the very pit of himself that this is crazy. This is insane, driving around like a bat out of hell with Eddie Munson, but Billy likes Eddie Munson. Steve tolerates him. And Robin’s at camp, so.

Eddie clutches the door again with another sharp, sudden turn. “Harrington--”

“I’m not dropping you off until I find him.”

“Alright,” Munson grumbles. He lights a cigarette and stares out the window for half a neighborhood block and then says, “How do you know he’s not at home, already?”

Steve grips the steering wheel, convinced Eddie wasn’t listening the first time. “Maxine said--”

“That was an hour ago.”

“Neil doesn’t get off until seven, if Billy’s gone he wont be back until six-thirty at the earliest.”

Eddie checks the dash. “It’s six-thirty now.”

“Do you wanna die today, freak?”

“God, you’re so unpleasant,” Eddie says, handing his cigarette over, anyway, “You’re the worst, actually. Worse than I ever imagined and I’ve imagined it a lot when Billy and Dustin yap their fucking gums about how great you are.”

Steve takes a harsh pull from the cigarette. Coughs and hands it back. 

Eddie takes it from him. Ash gathers on the cherry but he’s got no self-awareness. 

“If you get ash in my flowers, Munson--”

“Jesus Christ, would you give it a rest? He’s gonna love them. He’ll probably cry, once he’s done beating the shit out of you.”

Silence falls, lurid and uncomfortable, and Steve realizes Munson is watching him. Staring at him, 

“This is insane boyfriend behavior, Harrington,” Eddie says.

“So, you admit I’m his boyfriend?” Steve tries weakly, in lieu of what he means. Why Should I Take Advice from You?

“I’m saying this is boyfriend behavior but you won’t be a boyfriend for long, once he finds out what we’re doing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Steve grits his teeth. “What are we doing that’s so wrong, Munson?”

“Hunting him. Like a couple of crazy fucking bloodhounds.”

“We had a date,” Steve tells Eddie again. For the eightieth time. “Billy’s never missed a date so he’s either dead or dying or riding some other guy’s--”

Eddie bangs his head against the window.

Steve rolls the window down for him if only to protect the integrity of the Beemer. “Look, I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but I know Billy. And he wouldn’t just disappear without--”

“You’re not his dad,” Eddie tells him, and Steve.

Steve doesn’t have time to get into all the reasons that’s spot -fucking-on. He’s not Billy’s dad, because Steve loves Billy. To his bones and beyond, a little knob of heartache swirling around each nucleus of every atom in the very core of him.

Steve loves Billy so much it gets him into trouble.

Eddie sucks down his smoke again, like, “You’re really doing all this for a missed date?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m just saying,” Eddie shrugs, “I heard stories about you and the Wheeler chick. Seems like she missed a lot of dates at the end and you never did anything like this for her.”

“Billy’s not Nancy. Billy’s not like anyone, he’s--”

“Holy shit,” Eddie says, coughing. “You. You’re not just blowing smoke up my ass, you’re serious about him.”

And.

Munson says it like it’s a shock. 

Like Steve Harrington’s not capable of loving anything but himself. His hair and his house on the hill and this stupid fucking car and maybe that’s what the losers at Hawkins High think, but they’re wrong. 

Way wrong. Stuck four years in the past.

Steve has to bite down against every harsh word on the tip of his tongue, tear the sentences apart and swallow them down because of course he’s worried.

Steve’s worried all the time about a lot of things when it comes to this crush he’s been nursing for a year and a half. Steve worries if Billy sleeps enough, for one. If Neil was in a good mood today. How many new bruises Steve will have to cover with hickies the next time they see each other, paint all that hurt over with something good.

It makes him crazy.

Steve worries all the time if Billy loves him. If actually saying it makes a difference.

Steve wonders most of all how much money and begging it’ll take to get Billy out of that house on Cherry Lane. Steve’s spent many restless nights doing the math in his head, staring at the popcorn ceiling as he imagines taking Billy away from here. And if Steve’s taking Billy home, to the coast, then he’s taking Max, too.

So whatever number, whatever dollar amount Steve’s gotta hoard to make it happen--he’d better take it and multiply it by seven, because. Steve’s going to lasso the moon and give it to Billy in a bouquet of yellow daisies. 

If it kills him. 

He’s going to find Billy tonight and tell him the truth if it kills him--

“We’ve gone down this street, already,” Eddie says.

“You’re not helping.”

“I'm just pointing out the obvious.”

“And I’m just pointing out--”

“Look, if you care about Billy so much, why don’t you respect his privacy?” Eddie demands. Somewhere, along the way, he ashed his cigarette on the dashboard.

Steve wants to check the flowers. 

Can’t find it within himself to be angry about that. “I just want to make sure he’s okay. If something happened to him and I wasn’t there to make it better and figure out how to stop it from happening again--”

“God, you’re such a brownie,” Eddie snaps, turning from the window. “What if he ditched you because he’s not into you anymore, Harrington?  What if Billy got tired of waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass and stop obsessing over him where no one else can see it? What if he’s sick of being the plaything you fuck in the dark?”

Steve swallows. Feeling so, so small.

“Everyone says you’re a changed man,” Eddie gets closer, somehow. Looms. “What if Billy thinks you’re bullshit?”

Steve pulls the car to the side of the road. In front of them, hazy with the dregs of the afternoon, a coal brown sign announces that Hawkins will soon be a spot on a map left somewhere far, far away. 

Everything in that shitty little town hangs over him. Feels so huge. Max and Neil and his parents and graduation and the last month of summer, sitting bigger than the sky. 

The engine thrums underneath them and Steve swallows, turning against his seatbelt. “If Billy doesn’t love me,” Steve says, easy and slow, “He can say it to my face.”

Eddie blinks. 

Steve can sense the cogs turning, underneath all that hair. Brown like his, curly like Billy’s. “It won’t change how you feel about him?” Eddie asks. 

And Steve realizes, like a punch to the gut, that Eddie Munson cares about this.

About Billy.

He’s worried, too, in his own twisted, guard-dog best friend kinda way. It reminds Steve of Robin. Dustin, too, always baring their teeth at Billy because they’re not fully convinced that this thing between them will survive the summer.

That Steve would survive losing this. 

He wishes, a deep ache thrumming in his chest, that everyone would either get it or fuck off.

“I love him,” Steve says easily, “Love isn’t something that stops just because the other person’s come to their fucking senses about how much of a loser you are. It isn’t something you say because you want to hear it back. I’ve loved him for a year and a half and I’ll love him even when he realizes I’m not half good enough.”

Eddie smirks. It’s slow and terrible.

“Alright, Harrington,” He leans back in his seat and nods, satisfied. “I think I know where our boy is hiding.”

--

Duane county used to house to the only mall within a hundred miles until Starcourt. 

It’s a small and bustling and annoyingly progressive city, compared to Hawkins, and Steve isn’t the least bit surprised that Billy would run to a place like this to hide for a while.

What surprises him is that Billy knows how to skateboard. 

He’s riding the half pipe, so focused on the concrete that laps like waves under the wheels of his long, colorful board that Billy doesn’t notice when the Beemer’s engine cuts and Steve opens the driver’s side door. 

Eddie doesn’t move. 

“You coming?” Steve asks, frowning when Eddie sparks something too pale and skinny to be a cigarette.

“Nah, you go ahead.”

“You don’t wanna give me your blessing?” Steve wonders, suddenly terrified that Billy won’t go steady with him if he doesn’t see the irritatingly awful face of his best friend giving the thumbs up. 

Eddie hands Steve the bouquet. It’s crushed and it smells like dope.

“Billy’s gonna take one look at these sorry fucking flowers and break up with me,” Steve grumbles, his nose scrunching, and.

Eddie smiles at him. 

It’s soft and real, and kind of beautiful, and Steve gets why Chrissy Cunningham is apparently head over heels for the guy. 

“He loves you, too,” Eddie says, like, “Go on. Quit stalling. Don’t think your big love confession will feel the same if I have told your hand through it.”

Steve slams the door, and Billy floats to the top of the half-pipe with the echo of it. He looks like an angel in the clouds, shirtless with his skin golden in the setting sun, jeans slung low on his hips. The curly, bronze tendrils of hair Steve will always remember the feel of are swooped back in a scrunchie.

Max’s scrunchie.

Billy squints across the parking lot and recognizes Steve, his expression clouding over immediately. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He demands.

Steve waddles across the parking lot, “Eddie’s here,” He calls, like an idiot.

“So?” You fucking him now?”

“No, I--”

“What are you doing here, Harrington?”

Steve almost trips over himself, knees with with nerves. Billy does that to him, always. Forever.

The half-pipe is huge up close, looming like the mast of some ancient, terrible ship and Billy is the pirate waiting to throw him overboard. “We had a date,” Steve says.

Out of breath.

Weak.

“I had to get out of that house,” Billy shades his eyes with one hand, holding the long board aloft with his bare foot. He doesn’t say anything for a long, terrible moment and then he says, “Whatcha got there, pretty boy?” 

“Flowers,” Steve tells him.

“Flowers,” Billy mocks softly. There’s no bite.

He considers the moment. The Scene. Steve Harrington, with flowers clutched to his chest and the dingy little park beyond that and Eddie Munson, probably, hanging from a cloud of marijuana smoke as the afternoon crashes into nightfall.

As Steve crashes and burns.

Steve holds his breath. Billy glides down the half pipe, seeming to ride on the wind until he comes to a delicate, perfect stop in front of him. 

He smells like peaches. 

He’s been eating peaches. Billy’s hands are sticky when he grabs the bouquet, and Steve’s skin lights on fire from his touch. 

It’s so usual. It’s brand new every time.

“You bought me flowers?” Billy asks, pinning Steve with a clear, vibrant stare. 

His eyes are so blue. So beautiful--

“I didn’t buy them, I. I picked them,” Steve says dumbly, “The gardener was going to clear them away, but. I wanted to pick some for our date. I always pick you up on the way but I never bring anything, and I thought. Maybe Neil wouldn’t notice who they were for if it seemed like someone just picked them from a garden. Or the side of the road,” Billy snorts, and Steve nearly breaks an ankle trying to recover, “But I’ve thought about it, and they’re almost out of season, so the gardener--”

“--Right--”

“And. I see them every morning, from my bedroom window, and they remind me of you. Pretty and. Golden, so. I caught the gardener just in time, and i had to pay him $5 to let me pick ‘em before he cleared them away. They’re pretty. Right? I wanted--”

Billy sniffs the daisies first. His eyes close, lashes casting long, noir shadows over the cinnamon freckles on his cheeks and Steve aches to live forever in this moment. To scrape the image into his mind so it can live there, in a house made in Billy’s image. 

“Some of these are weeds,” Billy tells him.

“I--”

“Are you in love with me, Harrington?” Billy rubs the petals of one flower with his thumb, watching as the stems knock together. He’s holding the bouquet like it’s made of glass. Like it might shatter and crumble away if he’s not careful, and Steve.

Feels that way about Billy.

“I,” Steve tries again,

“Thanks for the flowers,” Billy says, and he turns to go.

“Wait,” Steve says. Begs. He almost reaches to stop Billy but he doesn’t want to hurt him. 

Billy stops. Waits. 

Something sharp and fragile sits there, just under the layer of indifference Steve was always too stupide to notice before, but.

“I love you,” Steve says. He sounds strangled. Drowning. 

It hurts.

It hurts and it really, really doesn’t when Billy flushes red. “I love you, too.”

And. 

Steve’s going to catch on fire at any moment. “You love me,” He repeats, testing the words. He doesn’t trust them to hold his hope. Doesn’t think Billy means it how Steve aches and dreams he does. “You love me, like. How you love Max? Or Eddie? Like a friend who you want to suck off sometimes--”

“Eddie and I are just friends,” Billy says, quickly. His gaze is steady on Steve’s face. “I don’t need anyone else for that, I have. You.”

He does. 

He really does.

Billy’s watching Steve like he’s expecting him to say something else, and maybe he is. Has been, for as long as they’ve been sliding inside of each other. Steve was just too dumb to get it before now. 

So he straightens his spine. Clears his throat. Says, “Well. I love you like I want to take you on dates. And introduce you to my parents. I want you to go steady with me and wear my letter--”

“We can’t do that sort of stuff, Harrington.”

“I know.”

“Well, then, why’d you say it?”

“Because it’s what I want,” Steve snaps. Like, “You’re so annoying.”

“It was your idea,” Billy smirks. It’s beautiful. It’s Steve’s second favorite thing, second only to his laugh. And the soft curve of his lips. Billy fiddles with one of the weeds and says, “You don’t even have a letter to give me.”

“Neither do you, asshole,”

“So now what?” Billy demands, his arms flaring wide, “You’re gonna say you want to go steady with me and we’re not gonna do it? Tease.”

Steve rolls his eyes to the heavens, grumbling as they plop wetly on the sun-warmed earth. Billy’s still barefoot and Steve wonders how his toes aren’t burning. “How are your toes not burning?” He demands.

“They are,” Billy tells him, annoyed.

And then. 

Steve gets an idea.

He sits on the ground and pulls both shoes off.

“What are you doing?” Billy snaps, but Steve can hear a smile in his voice, curling tendrils through the teasing annoyance that has made him so different from anyone Steve has ever loved before. “Steve--”

“Here,” Steve says, standing to hold the shoes out in front of him. He hops from one foot to the other as his heels start to burn.

Billy stares at the Nike’s as if they’re coiled snakes. Like if he takes them, they’ll burrow under his toenails and poison him from the inside out. “I don’t get it--”

“I don’t have a letter, but. People might see you in them and get it, right? When has anyone ever seen Billy Hargrove in a pair of Nike’s?”

Billy blinks, confused.

“You’re mine,” Steve says. “So they’re yours. Take them,”

Billy considers him for a long moment and then sets the bouquet on the ground. “Wait here,” He says, and skates off around the bend in the half pipe.

Steve’s feet are on fire.

He’s hopping dramatically, and in the distance he can hear Eddie laughing, and Steve’s going to kill him, but then.

Billy’s back and he’s holding his boots in his hands. “Here,” He says, “Eye for an eye, right?”

And Steve doesn’t need to be told twice. He slips into the worn leather, pleasantly surprised at how comfortable they are. His feet thank him, the raging fire finally simmering.

Steve watches Billy. 

The careful way his fingers lace the Nike’s onto his feet. How his hips shift his weight when he stands. Billy walks in a slow, timid circle, “Shit, Harrington,” He says thickly, “I’ve never been someone’s boyfriend before.”

Steve shrugs, “I’ve never had a boyfriend, before.”

“Think we’ll be any good at it?” Billy asks. He squats deeply, popping back up with a wide, beautiful smile planted pretty as a forest on his face.

It beams itself, magically, onto Steve’s. Startles a bright, hysterical laugh from somewhere deep inside of him. 

“You’re perfect,” Steve says. Nothing has ever felt more true.

[spaceofentropy]

It's almost the end of January, which means that February is impending, which means HARRINGROVE BIGBANG! I'm so excited to read all the great things my fellow writers and the artists they collaborated with have created! You can already see some previews back at @bigbangharringrove, where the mods have posted them and are gonna add more during the next few days.

I'm also very excited because soon I'll be able to unleash on the unsuspecting world you, dear fellow Harringrove fans, my fic, An affinity for dead things, and the lovely @raven-cl and @bigolemantiddies will be able to show you the gorgeous pieces my story inspired them. I'm so proud of what we created, I can't wait to show them to you in their full glory!

In the mean time, why not two or three little sneak peeks?

Let's start with some light and summer, by @raven-cl...

... and then some spooky stuff, courtesy of @bigolemantiddies!

And then, a little excerpt from my fic, what say you?

A lot of people have something they’re good at. Will has drawing and Jonathan has photography. Nancy is damn good at investigating stuff and making Steve feel like an idiot. Dustin built that big radio contraption they used to contact Suzie last month. Max has killing people with just one withering look. Steve Harrington has a knack for dead things. Not exactly the kind of talent one boasts about in résumés or college applications. Not exactly the kind of thing that’s super useful in your everyday life. A bit more useful when you’re busy grave robbing. Steve slams the spade down vertically into the ground and leans against the wooden handle while he tries to catch his breath. It hasn’t rained in days, but the night air is still humid, heavy in his chest. The skeleton on the other side of the hole keeps on digging, Steve stopping is no reason for it to do the same. The upside of an animated skeleton is that it knows no fatigue for as long as the magic holds, and the magic Steve poured into Jason The Lab Skeleton is holding incredibly tight so far. The downside of an animated skeleton is that it’s lousy company and won’t sympathize with you when you feel like your arms are giving up. Jesus Christ, digging six feet down is way harder than the movies make it out to be! "Taking you from the science lab was the best stupid idea I ever had, huh, Jason?" Steve says in a series of panting breaths. The skeleton just goes on with its assigned task, the movements of its spade mechanical, repetitive. A couple of feet away, the boar skeleton and the dog skeleton are digging with much more animation and enthusiasm, even if they’re not much help, not with how deep the hole already is. But they’re having the time of their un-lives, right now, so Steve doesn’t dissuade them from digging and enthusiastically spraying dirt around. It’s family night. Sort of. Fun for everyone.

[oh-stars]

Horizons

Beach

a Stobin Month 2024 prompt | 238 words | CW: N/A | Rating: G

--

“It’s endless,” Steve gasps, leaning forward on the rail of the pier.

Robin presses in closer to him as she does the same, linking their arms together as if that would stop either of them from falling into the glistening waters below. “It’s massive.” 

“Anything could be out there.” 

She squeezes his arm tight. “Don’t say that! We’re supposed to go swimming tomorrow.”

Steve shrugs. “You say that shit all the time! You’re always talking about the krampus and the mastodon.” 

“The Kraken is fictional,” Robin says, “but the megalodon is definitely real and it’s just out there, Steve!” She gestures to the general ocean before them. The waves crash below them, gentle against the pier, and the only real tell between the sea and the sky. They stand there, watching as if the megalodon would break through the surface like Jaws. 

“Now I won’t be able to swim tomorrow,” Steve huffs. 

“We can build sandcastles together,” Robin says, grinning. 

“Or dig a hole.” 

Robin’s eyes sparkle as she nods. “Maybe we’ll dig deep enough to find something.” 

“Like buried treasure?”

“No, dingus,” she bumps their shoulders together again. “Maybe water or a fossil.” 

They pull away from the pier and wrap their arms around one another as they walk back to the pavilion where the rest of their friends are eating ice cream. “Let’s build a sandcastle with the biggest moat possible,” Steve suggests. 

“That sounds perfect.”

--

Thank you @lady-lostmind for beta reading!

Ao3 Link

[moonythejedi394]

snippet from ch19 of into the dark

When they get to Saks, it is closed just like Steve was promised. Darcy, Peggy, and Angie all look horrified.

“Why is it closed!” Darcy whines. “What are we gonna do now!”

“Go in anyway,” Steve says, knocking on the door.

Someone comes to unlock it. Steve flashes his Seyrbakov ring, little that he needs to; his and Bucky’s wedding got leaked to the press by a caterer, so everyone knows what he looks like again.

“Welcome, Mr. Barnes,” they say. “My name is Victoria Hudson, I’m the manager. Please, please, come in.”

Darcy’s jaw drops. “Did you get the whole store closed just for us?”

“Yep,” Steve says.

They file in. Bucky’s right behind Steve and Steve can feel his gaze burning a hole in his jeans. His bodysuit has ridden up and exposes a bit of his back.

“This way,” Victoria tells him. “Your personal shoppers are Janice, Allie, Tisha, and Courtney. Please, anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask. When I’ve shown you to your dressing room, would you like refreshments?”

“What do you have?” Steve asks.

“We have sodas, champagne, and wine – red and white,” Victoria says.

“I’ll take a Diet Coke,” Steve says. “Ladies?”

“Champagne!” Darcy says at once.

“Same,” Angie says.

“Red wine,” Peggy answers.

“I’ll fetch it right away,” Victoria assures Steve. “This way.”

They’re shown to a private dressing room on the first floor. The guards wait outside after inspecting it. Inside, their four personal shoppers bow and Victoria whisks away to fetch their refreshments. The personal shoppers introduce themselves as Bucky takes off his coat and falls onto a couch. Steve, to be mean to him, drops into his lap.

“No touching,” he says.

“G-ddammit,” Bucky mutters.

“Where would you like to start?” Allie asks.

“You’re the lovebirds,” Steve says to Peggy and Angie.

“Lingerie!” Angie says at once.

“G-ddammit,” Bucky repeats softly.

“We have a very wide selection,” Tisha says. “If you would please, we’ll get your measurements and then bring you one of everything.”

Steve gets up, shrugging off his jacket, which he drops into Bucky’s lap and Bucky puts to the side. Each of the four shoppers takes their measurements, then whisk out of the room again. Steve sets himself in Bucky’s lap again and then examines his nails.

“Youse wanna join me for mani/pedis after?” he asks.

“Is that even a question?” Darcy counters.

“Yes,” Peggy says.

“Fuck yeah,” Angie laughs.

Victoria arrives with two other employees and their refreshments. They bring in an entire cooler, filled with ice, Diet Coke, and three bottles of champagne, as well as a bottle of red wine. Victoria personally uncorks the bottles and fills the ladies' glasses. Steve just drinks out of the can. Bucky goes to take a Coke and Steve slaps his hand away.

“Would you also bring waters for my husband and our employees?” he asks Victoria.

“Certainly,” Victoria answers.

“Bucky, wallet,” Steve adds.

Bucky sighs and digs out his wallet. Steve pulls out three hundred dollars and tips all three of the Saks’ employees.

“Thanks!” one of the other two says.

After they leave, Steve then takes the time to count all the cash in Bucky’s wallet. Seven thousand. He puts four thousand aside for the personal shoppers, then tucks the rest away for the time being.

“I’m very sorry,” Bucky says again.

“I heard you the first time,” Steve says.

“What did he even do?” Angie asks.

“I woke up alone, he was working first thing in the morning on a Sunday which is his one day off, and he didn’t take his Xanax,” Steve says. Then whips around. “Did you take it when we got home?”

“Yes!” Bucky says.

“Good,” Steve answers, then turns back to the room.

“Man, I can’t wait to see what you’ll do if he seriously fucks up,” Angie says.

“Vacation,” Steve tells her. “Without him,” he adds with a dark look over his shoulder; Bucky raises his hands in surrender.

“Take us with you?” Darcy begs.

“Sure,” Steve says.

Darcy pumps a fist. Peggy sips her wine.

“I absolutely adore that we had no other friends in high school,” she says to Steve.

“I absolutely adore that we were buddied up in Fang!” Darcy laughs.

Their personal shoppers return, along with six other employees, carrying large baskets of lingerie, two for each of them. Steve gives a hundred dollars each to the other six employees, then gets up and just unzips his boots there. There’s only one changing room.

“You ladies mind a bit of nudity?” Steve asks, dropping one boot into Bucky’s lap.

“Not at all,” Tisha promises.

“G-ddammit,” Bucky hisses a third time.

Darcy grins and yanks off her top. Bucky hastily covers his eyes so he can only see Steve. Peggy and Angie go looking through their baskets first. Steve takes off his other boot, then unzips his jeans. He can feel Bucky peeking at him. Gleefully, Steve shoves them down. His bodysuit is a thong. Bucky sucks in a breath. Steve drops his jeans into Bucky’s lap, too, then shrugs off the sleeves of his bodysuit.

“Nu porți lenjerie intimă?” [Are you not wearing underwear?] Bucky asks sharply.

“Nope,” Steve says, slipping the garment off.

“Dă-ma dracului,” [Fuck me] Bucky exhales.

“Nope,” Steve repeats.

Darcy strips naked, too, and Bucky fully covers his eyes, crossing his legs. It’s nothing to do with Darcy. Steve goes into his lingerie baskets and sorts through items, setting aside everything he already doesn’t like, which is about a quarter of it. Tisha collects that, putting it aside to be returned. Peggy and Angie use the changing room, but he and Darcy are quite content to be naked and to try on everything then and there. Bucky can’t even see what Steve’s trying on because of Darcy and he grumbles about it in Romanian. Tisha assists Steve and Allie assists Darcy in trying on each piece. Steve decides another quarter isn’t worth buying, but takes the rest. Already, he’s spending almost forty thousand dollars. Darcy ends up with about twenty thousand dollars’ worth. Peggy and Angie come back out with armfuls of lingerie to buy and Steve looks over each piece to total them up; Peggy’s spending about fifteen thousand and Angie’s spending nearly thirty thousand. It’s been about two hours at that point.

“What would you like to see next?” Tisha asks.

“I think party clothes,” Steve says, looking at the ladies. “Good?”

“Fuck yeah,” Angie says.

“And matching shoes and accessories!” Darcy says.

“Yes,” Peggy agrees.

The shoppers get their preferences, then take back what’s been rejected and Steve pops open another Diet Coke.

“Do you have your clothes back on?” Bucky asks.

“Nope,” Steve says.

“I’ll put mine on,” Darcy laughs, slipping her top on without her bra.

Steve turns around as Bucky peeks from under his hand. Steve decides to be meaner and knocks Bucky’s ankle off his knee, then sits in his lap to sip his soda.

“Dă-ma dracului,” Bucky repeats softly, looking at Steve’s dick.

“How about we do mani/pedis tomorrow?” Steve suggests. “That way we can take our time here.”

“Boss, can I have the day off tomorrow?” Darcy asks, back in her jeans without her underwear.

“Yes,” Bucky says.

“I’m in,” Darcy says.

“If we do it after five,” Peggy answers, “I’ll be off work by then and Angie doesn’t work Mondays.”

“It’s a date,” Steve says. 

“Can we come over early and use the hot tub?” Darcy asks.

“Sure,” Steve tells her.

“You gonna ask me?” Bucky prompts.

“No,” Steve says.

Bucky sighs. He’s still looking at Steve’s dick and he’s getting hard. Steve will not stop the torture.

“Man, I love free champagne,” Angie sighs. “Pegs, can I get drunk?”

“If you’d like,” Peggy answers.

“Fuck yeah,” Angie says before kissing her.

[dearabby1990]

Chapter 20: Prom preparations

You & Eddie had an amazing morning together you made him your stuffed French toast with fresh berries & bacon he told you he’s starting to feel spoiled eating all the homemade food you’ve been feeding him. You’re just glad to have someone other then yourself and occasionally robin & Steve for movie nights enjoy your food. In fact your so good at cooking both robin & Steve have you making them something at least once a week. Eddie found out the theme of the prom midnight masquerade now you both need to hope you can find the appropriate accessories for your outfits. Eddie heads home because he has a short shift at the shop covering for another worker & you & Robin decided you’re going to head out on the town to try to find the perfect masquerade masks. Falling upon a costume store mostly known for renting character suits for children’s birthday parties window shopping throughout the whole place robin finds the perfect mask for herself white with emerald gems around the cat eye shaped eye holes you see a phantom of the opera mask knowing damn well it’s literally screaming for you to get it for Eddie so you do not finding one for yourself you start to get nervous until Robin comes running through the aisle stumbling over her feet & trying to catch her breath “think-I-found-something” taking a breath between each word you follow her to the glass case in the front inside is an arrangement of costume jewelry brooches & you then see it a black lace mask with littered with rubys the same rubys that are on the tie clip you got for Eddie 2 satin ribbons attached to the sides your eyes light up in excitement especially when you see a few accessory pieces to add with it. On the ride back you both pull in the McDonald’s drive thru for a quick lunch before heading back to your house to check out everything you bought. Robin eyes your haul “that headband is cute!! I have no idea how to do hair or makeup so I’m gonna need your help jame OHHH I love that necklace!! We should definitely put some extra gems on your headband well looks more like a crown but still it’d make it pop more” she’s talking a mile a minute & you love that she feels comfortable enough to ramble away when she’s with you. You both are wondering how you’re all getting there beings robin & Steve are going as friends & you & Eddie are going as a new couple so Robin decided to talk Steve & Eddie both into leaving as a group hoping you all didn’t have to pile in the van in such nice clothes although you love hanging in the van with Eddie it’s certainly not the kind of vehicle to take 4 people out in dress attire. You & Robin dig through all your makeup & hair accessories pulling the perfect pieces for robin to set aside & yourself you’re quite proud of yourself with all you’ve accomplished today. Everything’s set to go with just a day and a half left until the big night. You just hope it’s the magical night you’ve always dreamed of & not the hellish nightmare you experienced at your own but knowing you’ll be with someone who wants to be with you as much as you want to be with them keeps your heart content. If you could control the way things went you’d have Eddie forever & hope he wants to have a forever with you. He’s been calling you almost on a schedule morning hellos and goodnights & sweet dreams you couldn’t ask for anything better. He even invited you to band practice next week & to the Hideout for his next show with his band you’d be lying if you said you weren’t excited you were buzzing with energy lately not wanting this feeling to ever go away. You & Robin decided it’s best to have a girls night tomorrow so you both could spend the whole day getting ready. You gave Eddie the mask you found for him he was elated eyes popping out of his head “princess it’s PERFECT!” You hug him nestling your face into his shirt “you know me so well this is exactly what I was gonna go out & try to find to go with everything I just hope Wayne’s here to help me with my tie I’m used to clip ons” you giggle & you both spend the day watching horror movies together snuggled on the sofa.