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berenwrites · 2 years ago

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Connections - Stranger Things - Steddie

Connections: Voice from the Other World

A/N : For @steddie-week day 3. So, when I started this one, I was going for First Kiss, but then it became a bit more serious and ended up Discover instead. Thank for stopping by.

Prompt: Discover / First kiss / Kiss On My List by Hall and Oates

Summary: Steve hears Eddie voice in his head. At first he thinks it’s guilt, but that soon changes. Now all he needs to figure out is if it’s one of Vecna’s games or something else.

Also on AO3

When Steve first heard Eddie’s voice in his head, he thought he was processing his guilt of having to leave Eddie behind. Afterall, Eddie was dead and if he’d been a bit faster, or objected to the plan, maybe Eddie would still have been alive.

The second time he knew it couldn’t be just guilt. It felt too real, too like the real Eddie. Vecna took his victims into himself, that’s what he had heard as the others talked about it. He went to El.

“Okay, Steve,” El said, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him, “just close your eyes and relax. I’ll do the rest.”

He nodded before following her instructions. Relaxing was kind of hard, what with everyone sitting around staring at him, but he did his best. It was weird, but he felt something shift before a hand touched his arm. Opening his eyes automatically he realised he was no longer in Hopper’s cabin’s living room. Instead, he seemed to be standing in his own backyard.

“What?” he asked, looking around.

That was when he spotted the trees in part of the forest. They were gnarled and twisted like the Upside Down.

“It is okay, Steve,” El’s calm voice grabbed his attention before he could panic.

“What’s happening?” he asked, focusing on her.

“We are in your mind,” El told him.

“Why is there a patch of Upside Down in my mind?” he asked, eyes flicking back to the starkly different part of the landscape.

“I do not know,” were not the words he wanted to hear, “but we will find out,” El assured him. “Can you hear Eddie?”

That helped him centre his thoughts at least. Taking a deep breath, he made himself calm down and listen.

“Steve.”

The echo-like call came to him over what felt like a long distance. However, it filled him with dread as he turned towards it and found himself looking right at the patch of forest he did not want to face.

“It’s coming from in there,” he said, almost sure this was not going to be good. “Did you hear it?”

El shook her head.

“I think I heard something, but it was not clear,” she told him. “You will have to lead the way.”

Without any preamble, she slipped her hand into his. Pushing away his fear, Steve gave her fingers a squeeze before they set out. The first thing he noticed when they reached the weird trees was the fact there were no vines. It gave him a little hope.

He had no idea how long they walked. Time didn’t seem to make much sense with the sun moving in the sky almost randomly. It was disconcerting knowing it was his own mind and he didn’t seem to be able to keep things straight.

“Is it always like this?” he asked, because he needed something to do other than thinking.

“I have mostly been inside other people’s memories when inside other minds,” El told him perfectly openly. “When I find people, I am in the Void, so outside their thoughts. I was in Henry’s mind like this when I piggybacked using Max, but it was not like this. I do not think everyone’s minds work in the same way.”

Steve’s first thought was thank god he wasn’t like Vecna, but he chose not to voice that out loud.

“Steve!”

Eddie’s voice echoed around him, louder now they were in the fake Upside Down.

“He called you again,” El said.

“You heard it?” he asked, looking round at her.

“No,” she replied, “not clearly.”

“Is it Vecna?” he asked.

They stopped for a moment as El’s brow crinkled in thought.

“I sense otherness,” she said eventually, “but it is not him.”

“Do you know what it might be?” was his next question.

She gave him a small, apologetic smile.

“Sorry, I do not,” she said, “but we will find out.”

Trusting himself to her knowledge, he led them off once more in the direction he felt they should be going. For a little while the trees thickened, almost blocking their way except for a single path. It was dim as the branches blocked out a lot of the sun, until they stepped into a brightly (well at least for the Upside Down) lit clearing. The area was a barren mound. And right in the centre stood a familiar figure.

Eddie looked exactly as he had done the last time Steve saw him: leather jacket, vest, bandana, ripped jeans, boots. Steve could even see the holes and blood stains the bats had caused in the clothing. But Eddie was facing away, so Steve couldn’t see the other man’s face.

Looking to El, he did his best to ask what he should do without saying it out loud. She touched her mouth and pointed to him then Eddie. Doing his best to forget about the fizz of nerves in his stomach, that wasn’t even really there because they were in his head, and now he was deflecting, he opened his mouth.

“Eddie,” he said, a little louder than his normal speaking voice.

What he didn’t expect was Eddie to spin round so fast he almost lost his footing. Large, scared eyes stared at him as if Eddie didn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

“Steve?” Eddie said, arm winding around himself like protection. “Is it really you?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he replied, unable to tear his eyes away from the seemingly healed wounds on Eddie’s face and neck.

They looked far older than his own, which were still wrapped under gauze to make sure he didn’t reopen them.

“We thought you were dead,” he added.

“Think I was,” Eddie replied. “He brought me back, wanted to use me to get to the rest of you. A game to give him time to heal. I woke up downtown with him. I think he’s using the fissures to collect energy or something, but nothing big can get through them yet. He had to send me to one of the four gates to cross over, but his control slipped. The closer I got to a gate, the more I could feel you, not him.”

“Hello, Eddie,” El said from beside Steve.

“Um, hi,” Eddie said, clearly unsure.

“This is El,” Steve introduced.

“Oh, supergirl,” Eddie said.

“She got her powers back,” Steve told him, hoping El would forgive him for underselling all she had been through.

“Do you know where you are physically, Eddie?” El asked.

“Near the water gate,” he replied. “He made the bats attack me when he realised he wasn’t controlling me anymore, but some of them turned on the others and protected me. Couldn’t get through though. We’re hiding.”

“You and the bats?” Steve asked, kind of shocked.

Eddie nodded.

“Can feel them too,” Eddie admitted. “Primitive little bastards, but loyal.”

When Eddie mentioned it, something stirred in the back of Steve’s skull. It was faint, but he couldn’t ignore it.

“I think I can feel them,” he said and looked at El.

El’s brow crinkled in concentration for a few moments before she nodded as if something made sense.

“You are connected,” she said, stepping towards Eddie and, hence, forcing Steve along too, “like the hive mind,” he went cold, “but different. Eddie, do you know where we are right now?”

Eddie shook his head.

“I only know that when I call for Steve I come here,” he replied.

“We are in Steve’s mind,” El told him without preamble. “Please reach out your hand.”

Eddie’s eyes flicked between Steve and El, wide with anxiety, but he finally pulled one of his hands from beneath his other arm and held it out.

“Steve, please take Eddie’s hand,” El requested, polite but insistent.

When she let go of him, Steve felt bereft, but he wasn’t about to stop listening to her now. Sharing a nervous glance with Eddie, he did as he was asked. The moment his fingers touched Eddie’s all hell broke loose in his brain. His surroundings flashed like a movie edit, showing him somewhere else, somewhere darker and more sheltered. The animalistic sense in the back of his brain solidified into something real. Distantly something else was yelling in fury. But most of all there was Eddie.

He could smell Eddie, he could feel Eddie, and he was swamped by him. For a little while he felt like he was Eddie, or rather he and Eddie were one being. It was terrifying and wonderful at the same time. Luckily for his sanity the two visions of his surroundings stopped swapping and superimposed themselves over each other, and he came back to being just himself kneeling on floor.

He wasn’t alone on his knees either. Eddie was collapsed beside him, and they were leaning against each other vaguely holding each other up.

“Holy fucking Christ,” Eddie said.

“That about covers it,” he agreed.

“What did we just do?” Eddie asked, not making a move to put any distance between himself and Steve.

“You have solidified the link between you,” El said with a calm certainty Steve really wished he could possess too.

“And we wanted to do that why?” Eddie asked.

“Because it is much stronger than the hold Henry had on you,” El said, “and now you should be able to move away from the gate without him controlling you.”

“Holy shit,” Eddie said, “you’re a genius.”

El gave him a small smile for that.

“We must go now,” El said, much to Steve’s shock. “Stay hidden and safe. We will contact you when we have a plan.”

It was even more shocking when Eddie simply nodded to that.

“Don’t take too long,” was all he said.

“We won’t,” Steve assured him.

There was no way Steve was leaving Eddie in the Upside Down any longer than he had to. At least Eddie wasn’t alone, and that was such a weird thought it set him in motion, so he had something else to think about.

“See you soon,” he said, looking directly into Eddie’s eyes.

“Wake up now,” El said and it was like flipping a switch.

Steve blinked open his eyes to find himself once again sitting on the floor in Hopper’s cabin.

“Well?” Dustin asked, because of course it was Dustin who demanded answers.

“Eddie’s alive,” Steve said and couldn’t help the little fizz of joy as Dustin whooped and threw his arms around him.

“We must speed up the plan,” El said looking up at Hopper. “Eddie says Henry is drawing energy from the fissures. We must attack him before he has a chance to regain his strength.”

“And we are sure we can trust Eddie, why?” Hopper asked. “How do we know he’s not one of Creel’s creations?”

“He was,” Steve replied, “but he broke free. We’re connected now.”

“Bat bites?” Dustin asked.

Steve shrugged; it was the most logical option.

“Probably,” he said, “and he has some of the bats protecting him now too.”

“Bet Vecna is pissed,” Robin said from her position on the couch.

“Something was definitely angry when we solidified the bond,” Steve agreed.

“You did what?” Joyce asked, sounding horrified.

“It was the only way to prevent Henry from taking over Eddie again,” El said simply. “Now, we must plan.”

Steve had no idea what came next, but for the first time in days he felt like they were moving in the right direction. Eddie was alive. Vecna was weakened. They had a chance. It was more than he had hoped. That he had the feeling of Eddie and the animalistic demobats in the back of his brain was disconcerting, but he’d take it over the alternative any day.

When this was all over, he was taking Eddie back to his house where he could look after him, make sure he was safe, and they could wait out clearing his name in peace. They had really only known each other a few days, but after the mind-meld, and Steve was pretty sure he’d picked up that term from Eddie’s brain, it was a whole different story. It wasn’t as if he suddenly knew everything about Eddie, he was pretty sure that would have driven him crazy, but he felt like he had seen the essence of the intense young man.

It had ignited a hunger in Steve for more. He wanted Eddie to be his friend. He wanted Eddie to be more than his friend. And he was pretty sure he would have something of a freak out to Robin about that at some point. There was no denying it, however.

First, though, they had a madman to take down. For good this time.

The End

Find my other steddie fanfic listed here in my pinned post.

#stranger things fanfiction #steddie #steve harrington/eddie munson #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #eddie lives #stranger things #fanfic #post season 4 #steddieweek2023 #hive mind

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wroteclassicaly · 3 months ago

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18+

Summary: Eddie considers his feelings and the chances he needs to take.

Warnings: Language, & alludes to smut.

A/N: Just a little something, cause’ I missed him.

“You know,” it’s said through a pause, wisp of smoke sizzling between milky whites, before it’s continued, “I love having time with you.”

You give one short snort, tilting yourself towards the man to your right. Shaking your head, you deadpan. “Well, considering we’ve been doing it for almost a year now, I would hope so.”

A picture of perfection in your eyes, is what you see. He’s on his stomach, curly hair in disarray, sweat glistening through his curls from previous activities. With a cigarette in one hand, the other splayed palm flat on his notebook he’d been scribbling in. He’s still naked to match you, a feast that you allow yourself to indulge in. His scars from death’s door two years ago, they remain, but blend with his ink - old and new.

Eddie Munson is watching you look at him, something he will never be used to experiencing. You make him feel like he’s the creator of the universe and you’d happily accept any fate he’d give you, what treasures he shall bestow upon you. It’s not just that you’re the only one that’s made him feel this way, it’s that it is you. And within the past year, all mind blowing sex aside - he’s fallen ass her elbow for you. Love for a Munson, that’s scarier than a thousand hive minds and a bat bite death all over.

If he lets you in, if you break his heart, Eddie doesn’t think he’ll survive this. But dammit, he craves to try. Do you feel this weird thing too? Or is it just sex? He’ll take fights, tears - every single bit of it just to have you. He hears Henderson and Harrington’s voices in his head.

Don’t waste anymore time.

Look what almost happened.

Dude, she’s been waiting for something for a long time, I think that something is you.

You’re as lost in him as he is in you, the dips in his hipbones that trail into the swell of his ass. Finding your regained solace back into the beckoning of his chocolate eyes. Big and wondrous, guiding you into seeing the world in new ways - you’re toe over tit for him.

Eddie swallows, stubbing out his cigarette as he coughs on a smoke wrapped confession. He levels with you, pinching your fingers into his own. He’s looking down when you push the curls from his face, patient and more beautiful than any princess Eddie’s imagination can ever create. You’re real, you’re here. He smiles softly, toothily, thumb finding your wrist bone to stroke.

You’re almost sure that he can feel your racing pulse point. He catches your attention once more with his words. “Not… Sweetheart, it’s not just the sex. As much as you blow my mind and my back out…” You both share a grin at the trail off.

You break in, noticing how over stimulated his confession is making him. You understand, you match. You take a deep breath and unfold. “I love having time with you too, Eddie.”

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loveinhawkins · 1 year ago

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Steve’s bat bites start to bleed again during the drive out of The War Zone.

It’s a slow realisation, a creeping dampness on his skin.

He stays as still as he can, keeps his movements small and contained when turning the steering wheel; he thinks he mostly gets away with it, manages to park the RV and pitch his voice on just the right side of normal as he tells the kids to scram.

Awareness of his surroundings grows a little fuzzy around the edges, but he senses enough to know that he’s alone—the silence feels heavy, makes his ears ring.

He lifts himself up out of his seat, one hand clinging onto the headrest for balance. The ringing gets sharper, more high-pitched; he shakes his head to try and clear it.

One step forward, then another, and another.

There’s a slight rocking motion under his feet. It feels a little like he’s in a boat that’s docked, constant movement even in the gentlest of waters.

His palms brush against the bathroom door.

“Okay,” Steve whispers to himself.

He hangs onto the sink to keep himself upright—feels the room sway, as if the waters underneath have suddenly become stormy.

With one hand, he finds the knot in the bandage.

“Okay, okay…”

Pulls.

Steve doesn’t think he blacks out, not quite, but there’s a shift, a dizzying tilt… and then, somehow, he’s sitting on the closed toilet seat.

And…

The bat bites must cause hallucinations or something.

Otherwise, Steve cannot explain why Eddie—who notoriously threw up and passed out during a dissection in Biology—is currently pressing a clean bandage against his stomach, staring down at the blood like he can’t look away.

“You’re good, you’re good,” Eddie’s saying.

He’s clearly trying to sound calm, but it’s just coming out strained, like what he really means is this is all a fucking nightmare actually, but we’ve gotta find something to be optimistic about.

“Think it just needs some more pressure,” he goes on. “Yeah, there, see? It’s stopping. Oh, thank God.”

Steve feels more gauze getting wrapped around his middle—if he wasn’t injured, it’d almost be a nice sensation, Eddie’s touch somehow the perfect mix of both firm and gentle.

As he works, Eddie hums nervously.

“Talk to me Harrington,” he says in a shaky sing-song. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging, man, gimme some awkward small talk. Got any hopes? Dreams? Anything I should know?

Oh, so many things, Steve thinks, still light-headed.

But then he really does mull that over: his mind goes to The Upside Down, to belatedly telling Eddie about the hive mind, and oh shit.

“Hey, weird question,” Steve says, “but I’ve not been, like, asking you to make it cold in here or, um, anything like that?”

Eddie blinks. “Uh. No?”

“Okay.” Before he lets the relief of hearing Eddie’s answer sink in, Steve adds, “If I ever do, you need to lock me in here and get out. Tell Nancy.”

Eddie’s staring at him like he’s grown a second head. “Sure. Cool. Cool! Uh, for any particular reason or—?”

“Just in case—like, I don’t feel any different, but—one time, Will Byers, when he was in The Upside Down it, like, infected him? Like a virus. Except more… possession. And they had to kinda… burn it outta him.”

“Ha,” Eddie says. A beat. “Oh fuck, you’re serious.”

“I really don’t have the energy to be messing with you, dude.”

“Sorry. Sometimes you all just say things, y’know? And if I don’t get it, I’m like, well, they’ve been living through this for a while, maybe they’ve got a code going on.”

“I mean,” Steve says, “we kinda do.”

Eddie shakes his head. “So when Buckley said she dealt with a human-flesh-based monster, and the one before that was smoke-related, that wasn’t just, like, a really fucked up metaphor?” Eddie’s eyes are wide, pleading. “Please say it was a metaphor.”

“Sorry,” Steve says sincerely.

Eddie sighs through a lacklustre chuckle. “You’re fine, Steve. As for, uh, being possessed, I don’t think so. You’re no weirder than usual, but—”

“Wow, thanks. Means such a lot coming from you.”

“—you were a bit, like, out of it for a few seconds, but it just looked like you were gonna faint on me. Um. How’re you feeling now?”

“Good,” Steve says. When Eddie raises an eyebrow, he tacks on, “As good as I can be, I guess. Still.” He groans slightly as he stands, goes back over to the sink. “Better check.”

“Check? What?”

Steve runs the water as hot as it will possibly go, until the steam is evident. He sticks his hand right into the stream, hears Eddie hiss as the water scalds his skin.

“Okay, yup. Not possessed.”

“Fucking fantastic. Now I want it cold,” Eddie says.

He takes control of the faucet, nods for Steve to put his hand under the now cold water.

After a minute or two, Eddie sighs and collapses onto the toilet seat himself.

There’s a squeak as Steve turns the faucet off—his skin’s probably not had the good of the cold water for nearly long enough, but it’ll do.

Eddie’s tipped his head back so he’s facing the ceiling, eyes closed. Steve watches him with sympathy; he really must hate blood.

“Eddie. You can go.”

“Mm, nope,” Eddie says without opening his eyes. “I’m fine right here.”

“Suit yourself.”

Steve turns back to the sink, frowns at the tiny mirror above it; there’s black spots on the glass, but he can make out enough. Christ, the bags under his eyes are horrific.

“Relax, Casanova,” Eddie says, almost as if he’s heard Steve’s thoughts. “You look good.”

“Uh-huh. Think your brain’s fried from being on the run.”

Steve leans against the sink with one hip, finds Eddie looking at him with a small smile.

“Yeah, probably. Or maybe being on the run just suits you.” Eddie’s eyes flicker down. His smile falters. “You know, in an ideal world,” he says conversationally, “you’d be in a hospital getting stitches.”

Steve scoffs. “In an ideal world, I’d be in bed sleeping.”

“Amen to that,” Eddie says lightly. But he still looks sombre. “Seriously, though. If it gets… you know. I’d drive you.”

“To the hospital? What are you gonna do, Eddie, wander up to the front desk? Sounds like a real interesting way to get arrested.”

But Eddie doesn’t leap at the chance to make a joke.

“Steve,” he says softly. “I mean it. I wouldn’t care.”

“That would sorta ruin the whole priority of hiding you.”

“That’s—” Eddie huffs. “That’s not the priority.”

“Huh, that’s funny, cause it is in my book.” Steve nods at the door, to his whole world just outside. “One of many.”

Eddie’s eyes narrow. “And your name better be right at the top, Harrington.”

Steve hums.

“In bold. Underlined.”

“Whatever you say.”

Eddie groans quietly, runs a hand down his face. “You worry me, man.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“I know. Just…” Eddie hesitates. “Don’t go off alone. You know?”

Steve thinks it over. He steps forward and offers Eddie his hand.

Eddie takes it.

When Steve pulls him up, he stumbles a little, as if he feels like he’s on a boat, too.

“Oops, sorry.” He grabs onto Steve’s forearm for balance. “Think this should be the other way round, man.”

“Hmm, I don’t think so.”

Steve leads the way out of the bathroom—doesn’t mention the fact that, really, they’re both holding each other up.

There’s a bottle of water left in the back. Steve twists the cap off. Drinks.

“You too,” he tells Eddie.

“Huh?”

Steve considers him—thinks of the little flare of panic he felt when watching Eddie walk through the woods, tiptoeing around vines. How he had a sudden instinct to catch up to him, to make sure he wasn’t alone.

“I’m making a deal,” Steve says. “I won’t go off alone if you don’t.”

He lifts the bottle up as if making a toast—drinks again then passes it over to Eddie.

For the slightest of moments, their fingers brush; Eddie’s rings skim over Steve’s knuckles.

“So what’s this?” Eddie asks. “Legally binding magical water?”

Steve shrugs. “Cool metaphor,” he replies.

You say you just turn heel and run, Eddie. But sometimes I think if there was a fire, you’d run towards the flames if it meant no-one else got hurt.

Eddie smiles. Tilts the bottle towards Steve.

“Guess it’s a promise, then,” he says.

He drinks.

Steve prays that it holds.

#reciprocal hurt/comfort & protectiveness because they notice each other and care so damn much. with a side of banter of course ❤️#pre steddie #steddie ficlet #steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie

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carolperkinsexgirlfriend · 1 year ago

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Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 35

Part 1 Part 34

The shower Eddie finally takes, after over a week of rotting in Steve’s clothes, should be a relief. His head is no longer itchy. He washes the ash out of his eyes, and Steve’s blood out from beneath his nails. Replaces grime with the smell of the clinical nothingness that is the toiletries the hospital provided.

His breath no longer feels like it’s wilting the air around him after he brushes his teeth. The scrubs he changes into are stiff, but clean and dry.

It should be a relief. But, Steve is out of his sight, quiet and small in his hospital bed.

Wayne will keep him safe, he knows. But who will hold his hand if he wakes up again, delirious? Who will sooth him back to sleep?

He hurries the whole process, bangs plastered to his forehead, hair dripping down the back of his borrowed scrub top.

When he rushes out of the bathroom and into Steve’s hospital room, Wayne’s closer to Steve’s bed then he was when he left him, hand clasping Steve’s own, and staring down at him with a look on his face that Eddie’s only ever seen directed at him before.

It’s just like when Eddie’d kicked the hole in the plaster of the trailer. Or when Wayne had been called in by Hopper after one infraction or another. Or when he comes home after a session of Hellfire, and regales his uncle with the beat-by-beat replay of the action.

Like fondness and exasperation are warring for space in the purse of his mouth.

“What happened?” Eddie asks. The linolium is cold on his bare feet as he walks over to retake his own seat at Wayne’s side.

“Your boy woke up just long enough to ask how you were and then pass back out,” he says, glancing at Eddie, eyes twinkling.

“Did he seem–” Eddie starts, looking down at Steve’s relaxed face. “Is he okay?”

The doctors won’t tell them anything. They’re not his emergency contacts, not family. No one seems to care that no one’s been able to contact the Harrington’s for the two days Steve’s been rotting away in the hospital, alone, save for them. Eddie’s mind drifts back to the way Steve had hid so instinctually in his closet, like he needed a safe place in what should have already been safe, and wants to wring their skinny necks.

Wayne gently maneuvers his hand out from beneath Steve’s own. Steve’s fingers curl into a loose fist, grasping at air, like he’s seeking the warmth of Wayne’s skin even in his sleep. Wayne sits back in his seat, crossing his ankles as he settles with a sigh.

“He’ll be just fine,” Wayne says, turning in his chair to try to catch Eddie’s eyes. “That boy cares about you.”

He says it like it’s a revelation, but Eddie’s not surprised. He can feel it in the tug at his sternum. The way Steve’s eyes had looked through Eddie’s tears as he’d pressed his forehead to his. Like recognizes like.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “He does.”

The Eddie of two weeks ago would’ve been standing on a table top about it. Saying jocks are a monolith, and Steve is the most jock of them all. He would’ve rioted about King Steve Harrington and his corrupt court of lackeys trying to buy his way into Eddie’s good books. For drugs. Or clout. Or something fucking stupid. Eddie would’ve raged against the machine, a riot in the making.

But that’s not his Steve. Maybe it was never Steve at all. Things look different from up close, and their lunch tables were always so far away.

Will Steve sit with him at lunch? He doesn’t look much like Steve the Hair Harrington anymore. His hairs been shaved down to the quick. They’d had to, just to get to the wound trailing up Steve’s forehead and into his hair. He can’t imagine this Steve, hurt and small, sitting with the jocks, throwing fries at Tommy Hagan.

The thought of school after all of this is like hives crawling up his spine. They’d died, risen back up again to end up back at fucking high school.

“I want to go home,” Eddie says. But he means his trailer a week and a half ago, before he was split into thirds. Before Steve Harrington and Will Byers. Before.

“You can,” Wayne says, scooting over in his chair so he can wrap his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, dragging him uncomfortably over the arm rest for a pseudo hug.

Eddie looks down at Steve’s sleeping face, wonders when home stopped just being a trailer and Uncle Wayne. Things change so fast when you’re running.

It’s a long night.

Eddie sleeps uncomfortably, propped up in his chair. Wayne drapes a scratchy blanket over him on his way out the door, off to work.

His dreams are full of shadows spilling out of the ground. Chasing him, and he’s always running but never getting anywhere. Of Steve’s back and Steve’s blood and Steve’s vacant eyes.

He wakes up to fingers combing through his hair, head pillowed on Steve’s hospital bed, blanket slipped off and onto the floor. It’s dark. One of the nurses must have turned off the lights.

The first day Eddie’d refused to leave, they’d given him his own oxygen mask and deluge of tests, propped up in his seat with Will similarly chained to his side. The second day, they’d tried to get him to go home, get out of the way.

They’d stopped trying to kick him out the day before.

The fingers move through his hair, pulling at the knots Eddie hadn’t bothered to comb out. Uncle Wayne must be back from his shift. Or maybe, it’s Mama Byers again, checking up on him again, as if she owes him anything at all.

“Hey.”

His heart ba-thump, ba-thump, tugs. He turns his head, smooshing it into the rough sheets to look up at the head of the bed. Steve’s eyes are open. He smiles hazily down at Eddie, uncoordinatedly petting at his head.

Eddie’s lungs heave, trying to vacate his body all together with the pressure of their seizing. He sobs, raising his hand to trail up across Steve’s cheek, impossibly soft after everything. “You’re such a fucking prick,” he says, heat lost in the way he’s blubbering into the sheets.

Steve smiles, like he’s never seen anything as great as Eddie Munson making a mess of himself at his bedside. It’s probably the morphine. “I know.”

“I dared you to stay alive,” Eddie says. “And then you just–”

He’s choking, too much to finish, like Steve’s not breathing in front of him again, or bleeding out in front of him. Steve’s always dying, and Eddie’s always crying about it.

“I did,” Steve says, still petting his head. It hurts a little. Eddie’s hair’s a mess of tangled curls atop his head. He never wants Steve to stop touching him. “I said I’d come home.”

Eddie cries. He’s not a cryer, but something’s flipped in him, making him weepy. Like the expectation of grief unrealized keeps bubbling up his throat and bleeding out his eyes. Steve Harrington, his own living ghost, smiles down at him.

“I’m so tired,” Eddie says. It’s a whine, the consonants drawn out and wet at the edges.

Steve’s still smiling, dopey and tired and perfect. He pats the spot next to him. “Come here.”

It’s a bad idea. Steve’s hurt. But Eddie’s so weak. The thing in his ribs tugs. Eddie follows it.

He crawls under Steve’s shitty hospital bedding, tucking his wet face into Steve’s neck, arm slung carefully over his chest. “You’ll still be alive when I wake up?” Eddie asks, trying to make it a joke. As if Steve’s lifeless eyes aren’t still looking at him from dreamland.

“Promise,” Steve says.

It feels like Steve’s lips on his forehead, quick and fleeting. In the wee hours of the morning, Eddie and Steve fall asleep.

Part 36

#steddie upsidedown au #eddie munson #steddie fic #my fic #steve harrington

524 notes · View notes

maelialuv · 2 years ago

Note

oh my god. can i pretty please get a part two to Call It What You Want (steve harrington)? steve fails to disregard his feelings towards the reader after sleeping together, but how long can he go until he breaks after seeing she’s completely neglected his existence. smut! (rough sex, but very passionate cause why not lol, perv!steve, jealous!steve and pls add anything if you’d like! thank you love :’)

So It Goes, Steve Harrington .

(part two to Call It What You Want)

Sumarry: Hooking up with your old bully was never on the cards. But Steve Harrington has a habit of getting in the way of plans.

Warnings: SMUT! this is FILTHY! slowburn! breeding kink! perv!steve (a teeny bit), angst! steve is hopeless with women, fluffy ending <3

Word count: 9.5K (ohmygod)

It had been one week since you'd done it. One week since you'd done the most reckless thing in your whole life. Seven days since you'd lost your head and slept with your old bully. Seven days since you'd slept with your, supposed, best friend's ex-boyfriend. Just seven days since you'd slept with Steve Harrington, King of Hawkins High.

The morning after replayed in your mind like a broken tape, in torturous clarity thanks to not having a hangover. The way you ran from the Harrington residence played behind your eyes without end. The walk home, unkindly long and silent with nothing but your thoughts - memories of him, and the way he touched you- to keep you company. The way you ran to your bathroom, stripping down and tossing his clothes in your hamper as if they were toxic waste, and the way you scrubbed your body in the shower as if the soap would somehow remove the feeling of his hands on you from your head. You didn't know if you were more disgusted with yourself for doing it. or for the fact that somewhere inside, you wanted it to happen again.

You felt different, like someone else, as you got ready in the mirror each day that proceeded the party. Felt guilty as you looked at the arch of your neck, the feeling of Steve’s lips there still as strong as they were that night. You felt a pit in your stomach as you looked at your nose, remembering the way Steve had placed a delicate kiss there , feather light, as he washed your skin in the shower. You now saw yourself as a reckless idiot, driven by some unknown desire for what? Closure? Or was it power that your subconscious so desperately wanted?

You only hoped your mindless scrubbing in the shower, skin red as you zoned out, would tell you the answers. You found no solace in the space between the tiles, only lime build up.

You wouldn't tell a soul. Your parents were none the wiser, as were your friends, to the battle your brain was at with your heart.

An aggression had settled over you, a dark looming cloud any time he was mentioned. You became snippy, unjustifiably short. Chrissy assumed you were pissed off about the party, still reeling from the belittling interaction with Carol and Tommy, as well as Steve.

She had apologised relentlessly in the days following. On and on, despite your reassurance, Chrissy swore she would never let "the redheaded witch and her flying monkey" talk to to you ever again.

The week had gone that way, Chrissy sending you an apologetic glance any time Harrington, the party or anything relating to them was mentioned. You felt guilty that she felt guilty, but you could never tell her what happened. You already felt like a massive hypocrite, you couldn't bear to have another person know it too.

You'd been stood by your locker, thankful for the lack of a certain basketball player in the halls, having had been able to avoid him for the full school week, when Chrissy bounded over to you. Without a word, she grabbed your hand and - with surprising strength- dragged you into the nearest bathroom.

"Did you hear?" she said, voice a mix of shock and curiosity. Immediately paranoia spread over you like hives, certain that Chrissy was doing damage control. "Steve and Nancy broke up at the party on Saturday." Her voice was even, no hint of suspicion or knowledge or anything, or anyone, that you had done.

"Woah," you said, hoping only you heard the waver in your voice as you tried your best to keep your face void of guilt, "what happened?" you asked, knowing that any account you heard would never be as accurate to the front row seat you had to the argument.

You hardly heard Chrissy as she spoke, her animated words falling on deaf ears as you realised that nearly every person was going to be talking about Nancy and Steve. The It Couple, King and Queen of the school, had fallen apart. Every girl was going to be fawning over Steve again- not that Nancy had stopped them, now they would be more overt- and Nancy would be the One that Got Away. You felt angry when Chrissy mention there were whispers that Steve was holed up in his house, heartbroken over the split. You felt even worse when she told you that Nancy was already dealing with a rehash of last years cheating rumours.

Nancy had to hold you back from ripping Steve's head off last fall over the, now, infamous 'Nancy 'The Slut' Wheeler' graffiti.

This wasn't part of your plan. You'd made such good friends, come out of your shell, cemented yourself as a somebody. Nancy was happy, you were happy and everything was fine just the way it was.

And Steve Harrington was messing it all up.

Your first classes went by in blurry seconds, your attention focused on the cracks in your desk or the clouds outside as you thought about the whole nuclear explosion of a situation. You wished you'd never agreed to go to the stupid party. You wished you'd just shrugged out of Harrington's grip and run downstairs and gone home. You wished you hadn't kissed Steve back when he leaned in, wished you'd pushed him off instead of tugging him closer.

You wished you could rewind time and not allow him to touch you, make time stop and slap yourself for loving it so much. You hoped you would forget how he made you feel; the white hot burning on your skin as his lips travelled across your stomach, the gentle touch of his hands as he dried your hair and dressed you in his clothes.

You hoped you would forget everything about Steve Harington.

Deciding on a healthy dose of ditching, you made your way out to the school's parking lot, intent on walking home and enjoying the empty house whilst your parents worked.

Then you saw him sat on the hood of his car, a cigarette dangling from his lip as he brushed a frustrated hand through his hair. Your feet felt as though they were glued to the floor as his eyes met yours, unable to move like his gaze willed you to stay there. It was the first time you'd seen him since then. It was only when he raised the carton to you - a peace offering- that you were able to move your limbs and walk over to Steve. He was wearing a blue sweatshirt and jeans, and your mind was cast back to the sweatshirt sitting in your hamper getting buried under clothes like that would make it disappear. When you took a cigarette, Steve held the lighter out and lit it for you. An entirely too flirtatious gesture given the gossipy climate.

"You took off on Sunday," he said, a statement and not a question. His voice was indifferent, but his brows furrowed as he spoke. "Left your clothes behind."

"Yeah, I did." You took long drags, hoping the edge in your voice was a clear enough message to Steve that you didn't need to talk about that. He scooted over on the hood, an invitation to sit. You remained standing, and Steve pursed his lips.

You didn't need to be told to relive the awkwardness you felt when you'd woken up. The way Steve was already awake , tall silhouette in the doorway as he brushed his teeth in the bathroom. The room was suddenly too small, Steve's clothes suddenly suffocating. You heard the shower turn on, sensing time for escape. You'd thrown on your shoes, crept out of the room and booked it out of the Harrington house. Steve had watched as you disappeared down the street from the bathroom window. You'd caught a glimpse of his figure as you threw a nervous glance over your shoulder, fearful of prying eyes seeing you do a walk - or run- of shame from the house.

"Been looking for you, you know." He said, almost shy as he squinted into the sun.

"Not very hard, clearly." you scoffed. When Steve just looked at you, eyes soft, you went on. "Why?"

"Why do you think," it was Steve's turn to laugh, though his was not mocking. It was sincere, too kind. Real. "I want to talk to you."

Knots formed in your stomach, and your brows knit together in a tight line. "What is there to talk about?" you said harshly, feeling a pang of guilt as Steve recoiled, "we slept together, Steve. It happened, cool. End of story." You said, turning to walk away when Steve reached for your elbow.

"Well, hang on there a second," Steve said, stubbing his cigarette out and standing, hands on his hips, "I think there's some stuff to talk about." He looked around, nervous for prying eyes. "Like the fact that that," he said, astounded, "was the best I've ever had." He took a step closer to you. You shrugged him off when he rested a hand on your arm. "There's clearly something between us, here."

You hated to admit it, or agree with him in any way, but Steve was right. You'd had your share of guys, but Steve was unlike any of them. The sex was incredible, as was the chemistry. You'd had to re-live it, in excruciating detail, most nights since the party. But Steve was not a good guy to get involved with, and not someone you could forgive yourself for forgiving. So you remained stand offish, cold, to the boy.

"Sex is sex , Steve, you'll find another 'best' in a month." You dismissed, wishing you'd ignored him and gone straight home. His face was pleading, and it made him look younger, like a lost child looking for their mother. “Look, it was a one time thing. Go back to Tommy and Carol, and forget it ever happened. Got it?”

Steve’s face contorted, a mix of frustration and confusion and a little bit of anger. This wasn’t how it was meant to go. He was meant to find you the day after, be there at your door with a speech prepared about how truly sorry he was for how things went. But he was so taken a back by your escape, the only proof that you had been there being your clothes strewn about across his bedroom floor, that he just sat by his pool staring into space. He was meant to call you, convince you to come over so you could talk it out. But then he couldn’t find your number - and god forbid he call Nancy to get it.

Steve was conflicted. He was heartbroken about his breakup with Nancy. He loved her , or thought he loved her, with everything he had. But this part of him, this nagging part that wouldn’t shut up, was more hurt by you leaving. Upset that he couldn't drive you home or kiss you goodbye or convince you to stay just a little longer. He regretted not saying more in the moment, because maybe then you wouldn't have skipped out on him. If he'd just talked more, maybe stood up for you a little, then perhaps you would have stayed.

"Can we just go somewhere and talk?" he said, eyes pleading and a little desperate. "Please?"

His begging made your stomach churn. You had to get away from him, before whatever magnetic bullshit he had on you went into full effect and you threw yourself into his arms and agreed to hear him out. You stubbed your cigarette out with your shoe.

"I'm going home, Steve."

You hoped that your curtness would deter him. A nagging part of you felt bad, worrying that maybe - just maybe- you should have heard Steve out, that you were robbing yourself of some kind of closure both for your past and for that night. The other, more logical, half felt firm and strong. Finally, finally, it was you making Steve Harrington feel defeated. For once it was him feeling wronged.

You threw his clothes in the laundry when you got home.

It was seven thirty when Chrissy called you, and you were laid back on your bed. Her sudden excitement caught you off guard. "Woah, Chris, slow down," you said, "in English please."

"We're going to a pool party tomorrow!" she all but yelled, and you could imagine her riffling through her dresser for swim suit options. "And before you say no, it's the last pool party of the season before it gets so cold that we have to look like artic explorers for the next three months." There was a clunk, and then Chrissy let out a euphoric squeal. "Found it!"

You rolled over on to your side, twirling the phone cord in your hand as you laughed at your friend. "Okay, okay, I'll go. Who's throwing a pool party this close to Halloween?" you asked, face screwed up at the thought of the late October breeze on bare legs.

"It's Steve Harrington!"

You sat right up in bed, almost dropping the phone off the side of the bed. Of course, of course, he was throwing another party. And of course, you'd already agreed to go. "Oh," was all you could say.

"Look, I know Saturday was pretty intense," Chrissy argued, not realising just how correct her statement was, "but you can just stick with me, and even Eddie is going so he'll be there if you feel the urge to kick Harrington into the pool."

The knowledge that Munson - a long time friend and supplier of party materials for you and Chrissy- would be in attendance made the nausea somewhat subside. But the thought of going back to the Harrington residence, the thought of seeing Steve there again after the way today had gone, made bile rise in your throat. "Okay," you said to Chrissy, knowing you would be able to show your face for twenty minutes before convincing Eddie to let you smoke in the back of his van before getting a ride home, "I'll see you tomorrow."

You fell back on the bed, wishing the mattress would swallow you. It was like you were an alcoholic going into a bar, or rather a masochist for allowing yourself to relive what had caused you significant pain. You didn't even know if you had swimsuit still.

Digging through your dresser, finding sparkly denim from middle school, you thought your search was over. But then, in the very back of the bottom draw, you found your old prized possession.

The red sports illustrated bikini from 10th grade.

You'd bought it as a joke on a hot summer's day in 1983, a mall trip with Nancy on one of the many days you spent together attached at the hip. The poster next to the rack of bikinis had Brooke Shields, posed flirtatiously on a rocky beach, in the red suit. "You should get this for the pool!" Nancy had suggested, picking up the material and holding it to your chest. "It would look amazing!"

Your eyes practically bulged out of your head as you looked at it in Nancy's hands. "Are you kidding?", you exclaimed, holding the flimsy bikini in your hands, "it looks like an eye patch!" You fought with Nancy over it, citing that your mother would have a heart attack if she saw you wearing it. In the end, Nancy bought it for you, told you that you should save it for "knocking boys dead in college." At the time, you agreed with her. Looking back, it was a put down.

Nancy was an expert at the accidental back handed compliment.

Holding the suit in your hands, your senior body much more equipped for the top than your 10th grade self, a sly smirk etched its way on to your lips. You were going to knock the boys dead, after all.

You had arranged with Eddie that he would pick you up the next night at 7:30, parked down the street near the pay phone. The Munson boy called you at 7:25, letting you know he was on the corner of your cul-de-sac, ready to roll. When you walked to his car, Eddie rolled down the passenger side window with a slack jaw. He looked you up and down without shame, eyes wide. You were wearing a pair of denim shorts, the red bikini top and a denim jacket.

"How much for a ride around the block, sweetheart?" he smiled wolfishly, fishing his wallet out of his jeans.

You smacked his shoulder as you buckled your seatbelt, though you knew he was being tame. "Careful , Munson, before my mother hears you from the house." Eddie let out a hysterical chuckle.

"Oh, I think we both know you can drop the innocent act, sweetheart. Let's not forget I've seen you dance on bars after some Special K." He started the engine, music blaring through the speakers. Turning the corner of your street, he looked at you. "You're not fooling anyone."

You hoped you would fool some people, as the ride to Steve's house seemed impossibly shorter than the week prior. You gripped the seat next to you as Eddie found a spot on the street to park. You felt worse than last Saturday, entirely out of your depth and swallowed by nerves. Eddie cut the engine, a worried knit in his brow. "You good?" he asked, waving a hand in front of your eyes.

"Eds," you said, worried waver in your voice. "What...have you got on you now?" You said, eyes speaking the words the nausea prevented you from saying. "I think I need a boost."

The crinkle between his brows deepened. In the years that Eddie had known you - both loner and in your party days- you had never asked him for supplies before a party. There was a small, but concerned, frown on his face. "What's going on man?", he asked, turning completely toward you, "you freaked or something?"

You wracked your brain for any excuse other than the obvious. You'd known Eddie a long time. If anyone was going to let you spew your guts, without judgement, it was Eddie Munson.

"Listen," you started, " I did something really stupid at that party last week. Like, catastrophically stupid." When Eddie stayed silent, you went on. "I'm going to tell you something, and you have to swear you won't tell anyone."

"Who am I gonna tell?" He laughed, cutting himself short when you face hardened. "Okay," he said, "I swear. Girl's Scouts honour."

You told him everything. From the interaction with Carol and Tommy, to hearing Steve and Nancy break up. You told him about the kiss, the bathroom counter.....the shower. You told him how you'd run the next morning, how you'd been so sick from guilt. You told him every last excruciating detail. Eddie's eyes were wide, in an unreadable mix of shock, confusion and almost pride.

"What....the fuck," he whispered, a teasing smile on his face. "That's intense, and I'm not judging, but," he leaned in close, whispering to you. You leaned in as well. "You let Steve Harrington shoot his load in you?"

The way he said it, unforgiving and entirely true - making you realise just how reckless the entire thing was- made you cringe inward, hiding your face in your hands. "Eddie!"

"Hey, no judgement....," he grimaced a little, another laugh causing him to smile, "except maybe a little judgement here, the dude's a tool!" When you continued to hide your face, Eddie pulled a small bag out of his pocket. "Just a little alright? Lord knows I'd need it if I were you."

That's how you ended up doing a few bumps off a Motley Crue CD in the passenger seat of Eddie's van. You were raring to go, the nausea lurking back into its hiding place as you went through the side gate to Steve Harrington's back yard. You called Chrissy's name from the pool steps when you saw her playing chicken with Jason and a few of the other cheerleaders. The moment Chrissy locked eyes with you across the pool, her own jaw went slack.

"HOLY SHIT."

Her exclamation made almost every head turn your way. You'd taken off the jacket, giving Eddie the job of holding your things - which he begrudgingly excepted-, your red bikini top now on full display. Several eyes on you at once, the buzz of Eddie's special K and the continuous thrum of the music made you feel exceedingly alive. What's more, you felt a certain someone staring daggers into the side of your head, having noticed him in the corner of the pool the very second you stepped foot into his back yard. You kept your eyes forward, looking anywhere but at him.

This was a party.

Chrissy jumped off of Jason's shoulders, sending him flailing back into the water as she swam over to you on the side. Hoisting herself up, she enveloped you in a dripping wet hug. "Just where have they been hiding, huh?" she said, eyes darting to your chest and back again. You laughed at her candour, her inability to hide her every thought. "Don't just stand there, come get a drink! Mind if I steal her, Eddie? Promise I'll give her back." She said with a giggle, swaying your connected hands between the two of you.

"She knows where I'll be," he said, placing a hand on your shoulder. "Come find me if you need me, alright?" He said. You smiled at him, thankful that he had been there for you. You felt tons lighter now that someone else knew your secret.

Chrissy dragged you to the make shift bar on a table by the grass, coolers of beer and the notorious punch bowl calling your names. She grabbed you a glass, giving you a generous ladle full of punch that was so strong it had a resemblance to the smell of paint thinner. "So," she said, getting herself a drink, "what's going on with you and Eddie?" You nearly choked at her words.

"Me and Eddie, no way," you said, turning to look at the boy. He was wearing dark swim trunks and his guitar pic necklace. His chest full of tattoos was on full display, earning him the attention of several girls. "There's nothing going on there." Chrissy was watching you intently, the way your eyes travelled down Eddie's toned chest, lingering on the ink closest to his hip bones, pool lights accentuating their v shape. "No way."

"His eyes are up there, babe." She said, giggling as you turned back to her with a face the same colour as the red solo cup in your hand.

Eddie and you had been friends for too long, seen each other in every awkward phase, to be anything more than close friends. Sure, you both found each other attractive. That much was clear from the occasional oggling you each gave each other. You had even kissed once in 9th grade, the memory of said interaction haunting you both so much that any thought of being anything other than each other's friend sent a ghostly shiver up your spines. You'd been denying dating accusations from your mother and Eddie's Uncle Wayne for years. Uncle Wayne still had his suspicions, citing that no two teenagers needed to spend that much time in Eddie's room with a locked door. He just didn't know you were doing Special K and not each other.

"No way," you said again, taking a large swig of your drink, "way too much history there." Beside you, Chrissy smirked. With a quirked brow, she looked from you to the Munson boy, then back to you.

"Whatever you say," she said , tone full of disbelief. She bumped your shoulder with her own, prodding a teasing finger into your still flushed cheeks. "But I've got a radar for these things."

You held back a laugh, self deprecating and and entirely inappropriate, as you thought of how off Chrissy's radar was last weekend, how you and a certain brown eyed boy had completely forgone her so called sixth sense.

The party was in full swing by the time someone suggested a Keg Stand. You were in the pool with Chrissy and the other cheerleaders, laughing as the boys - including Eddie, which made you smile as he'd never gotten along with Jason and the basket ball players- relentlessly splashed you. All the while, you continued to feel a pair of eyes on the back of your head. You hadn't spared him a glance , enjoying the water and the company and the drinks without the reminder of the pit in your stomach. A circle was gathering round the edges of the pool as Tommy was picking his contenders for the Keg Stand, always too much of a coward to attempt and embarrass himself. "Jason, my man! Come on, show us how its done!"

Jason rolled his eyes at Tommy's antics. "I don't know man, someone's gotta be a designated driver."

"Come on, don't be such a pussy, Jase."

A serge of confidence - maybe down to the heat of the moment, or maybe the two bumps in Eddie's van- made you raise a high hand.

"I'll do it. I'm not driving." You were already hoisting yourself over the edge of the pool as Tommy stuttered over his words, trying to find a reason to say no, or a way to put you down. It was every guys fantasy - a girl in a dripping wet bikini on a keg. You may as well have been the sports illustrated cover you bought the swimsuit from.

"Alright, then. Steve!" Tommy called, and a cold jolt rain through you, "we found you a competitor!"

You felt him stand next to you, felt the heat of his body radiating toward you. You didn't dare look at him. An awkwardness threatened the air, looming. You risked a word.

"May the best man win."

You were hoisted up on to your keg by Jason, the rest of the basketball players gathered round and cheering you on. Steve was thrown on by Tommy, Carol next to him, and a gaggle of girls had come to watch. "Alright, " Tommy began, "two minutes for the whole keg. No breaks. Loser has to leave the party."

"It's my party, dip shit." Steve barked, frustration clear through his gritted teeth.'

"Guess you better win then, Harrington."

Your hands tightened on the side of the keg, knuckles going white with nerves. Tommy counted down from three, blowing a whistle to mark the start of your time. You were never a beer girl, but in the face of loosing to Steve Harrington in front of a crowd of people it could have been mistaken for your favourite drink. You chugged the cheap booze like you were a desert explorer stumbling on an oasis. The cheers of the crowd were silent on deaf ears, your only focus being the tube in your mouth and your grip on the keg. Your eyes were closed, the world drowned out. You were definitely going to puke, and you were definitely going to loose. Your brows scrunched in anger at the thought of the humiliation. Steve Harrington, getting the glory again. It made your eyes burn with the threat of angry, embarrassed tears. It made you question why you'd even agreed to come tonight.

The tug on your legs brought you back to earth, jovial cheers from both Chrissy and basketball teams as they pulled you down before lifting you on to Eddie's shoulders being the first indicators to your short circuiting brain. You'd finished your keg in one minute and thirty two seconds. The pool was alive with celebratory splashing. The crowd around the kegs began chanting your name, following Eddie's lead as he cupped his hands and heckled.

"All hail the new Queen of Hawkins!"

You caught Steve's eye as he glared at the scene unfolding around him. He tossed his cup on the ground - you had to hold back a laugh at his childish antics- as he stormed off, disappearing inside the open door at the edge of the house. A smug grin stretched from one ear to another as Eddie let you down to the ground. "You showed him who's boss, that's for sure," he chuckled, eyes following Steve's retreating figure. "Who knew he was such a sore loser."

"Maybe I should go and talk to him." You said, the beer telling you it was a fantastic idea. The devious smile on Eddie's face told you otherwise. "Oh yeah, because there'd be so much talking going on," he said, making an O shape with his hand before shaking it, "so much to talk about, isn't there."

You nearly ripped his arm off. The look on your face was murderous, and Eddie's laughter only grew louder.

"I'll be back in ten minutes."

"Ouch!", Eddie cried, devilish grin driving you nuts, "Lucky boy!"

You made your way to the kitchen of the Harrington house, which was the last place you saw Steve go. He wasn't there, no body was. The whole lower floor was desolate, every room a ghost town of empty cups and discarded shoes. You braved a peek up the stairs, craning your neck to see if he was lingering on the landing, to no avail. You crept up the stairs, foot steps leaving damp spots on the carpet and creaking on the old wood. Just as the rest of the house was, it was deserted.

All doors were shut tight. Harrington clearly did not want to be found. You would allow him space to wallow in his loss, already missing the glory and attention of the pool. You were reaching for the banister when a warm hand grabbed your shoulder and dragged you back into a linen closet.

With a yank of a light, Steve's face was illuminated. His face was stony, annoyed, eyes dark. It would have been scary, had you not just seen him throw a tantrum like a toddler.

Your hair dripping water on to the floor of the closet was the only sound other than the both of you breathing ragged, laboured breaths. There was a long silence before either one of you spoke.

"You sure have a flare for the dramatic," you said, gesturing to the light and the confines of the closet. "You couldn't fit in the pantry?"

Steve just looked at you, jaw set in a tight line. His eyes, however, darted all over your face; your eyes, lips, nose, cheeks. Bored of his silence, you tried for the door. He stepped in front of you., You got a dreadful sense of deja vu. "Okay, we're not doing this again."

"Hell yes we are," Steve finally said voice gruff. He had a brooding stare in his face, eyes frustrated and a little desperate - fearful. It looked as if he were worried you'd skip out on him again.

You glared up at him, irritated beyond measure.

"I came up here to see if you were okay after your little outburst out there, but you're acting like a real entitled douche here, Harrington." You pushed his shoulder - a little harder than you intended, only meaning to move him. He stumbled back a bit, the stacks of towels on the shelves cushioning his back. "Get out of my way."

He finally stepped to the side.

You were twisting the door knob when he spoke, barely above a whisper and muffled by the sounds of the party. "I cannot, and I mean cannot - as hard as I try- stop thinking about you."

Your head was screaming at you to go. To run down the stairs, say goodbye to Chrissy and find Eddie to drive you home. Every part of you was telling you to go. The door was open a crack, you could hear the voices of people outside more clearly now.

"You're all I can think about," Steve continued.

'Move', you thought. 'Move, god damn it.'

You felt Steve behind you. You could feel the warmth of his skin brushing against yours, feather light in touch, as he stepped closer to you. When you didn't move away, not an inch - part of you electrified at the scene unfolding before you- Steve's arm came over yours, hand resting on top of your own. "Close the door," he said, lips against the shell of year as he spoke. You shivered as his breath tickled your skin. With deliberate slowness, his hand on yours closed the crack in the door, shrouding the space in the warm glow of the singular lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

It was as though your whole body was on fire. Every nerve in your body on full throttle, tingling with anticipation.

"I tried to stop," Steve began, "thinking about you, I mean." His voice was quiet, soft. Ridiculously alluring. "Tried going back to how it was before. Tried to hate you again." He looked down at this feet, as if the words he was so desperately trying to say would be written in the carpet. "But I just couldn't stop thinking about it. Us."

"Steve-"

"Then you show up here with Munson? Of all people, to what, rub it in my face a little? Make me feel worse?" He raised his voice a little, his sudden and overt jealousy making your stomach flip. "Felt like my chest was gonna explode, I was so pissed." He sighed, crossing his arms and leaning on the wall. "Munson, of course." He muttered.

"There's nothing going on with Eddie, Steve."

"Oh, spare me," he said, "I saw you two together. The way he touched your shoulder? Earlier, by the pool?"

"Oh god, not my shoulder." You said, voice mocking.

"Come on, I see the way you guys watch each other." Steve argued, arm waving up in annoyance. "He looks at you like you're his girl!"

"And that bothers you because?"

Steve was silent after that, unable to speak the words he really wanted to without sounding like a jealous lunatic.

You took a step closer to him. His eyes met yours, frustrated and wide and even a little tormented. In a strange way, you liked it, that he was so beaten up over you. It made you feel a little better about being so haunted by the encounter, as well. Another part of you was revelling in the knowledge that Steve Harrington was hung up on you, after only one night. With a gentle hand, you grabbed Steve's wrist. "Steve," you said in a low voice, "there's nothing going on between Eddie and I. Okay?"

"How do I know that for sure?" he whispered, insecure.

You lifted his hand, eyes on his, and placed it on your shoulder. When you let go, his hand remained there. "Because," you said, " a shoulder means absolutely nothing."

Steve visibly relaxed, his shoulders became less hunched and he took a big sigh of relief. All the while, his hand remained on your shoulder.

You took another step toward Steve then, brain screaming at you to run, but the fire in your stomach telling you to stay, stay, stay. You leaned up on your tip toes, lips an inch away from his ear. "Besides," you said, "my shoulder is reserved just for you."

Steve sucked in a ragged, deep breath.

"You really shouldn't have said that." His voice was hoarse, gruff. It fanned the flames in your stomach to a blaze.

"And why's that?" you taunted, head cocked to the side as you looked up at Steve. A wicked, wolfish grin had stretched across his lips. He backed you into the wall, almost no space between you as his nose brushed against the shell of your ear. "Because," his lips grazed over your temple, "if you thought before was good," his hand grabbed your chin, making you look him in the eyes. "We're just getting started."

It was as if a switch flipped inside him as Steve crashed his lips to yours. While he was passionate before, now he was animalistic. He was all teeth as he kissed you, nipping your bottom lip in a way that said 'this is something only I get to do', and it made you groan aloud. Your hands crept up to his hair, only for him to grip your wrists and pin them above your head.

"Uh uh," he said, teasing and with entirely too much enjoyment. "Those stay right there."

You panted, out of breath, staring into Steve's lust blown eyes. You were completely shocked by this side of him. It was, quite possibly, the hottest thing you'd ever witnessed. In the brief pause, the quiet catching of breath, Steve's face came closer to yours.

"Is this okay?" He said, concern on his face, realising he may have been too intense. His brows were knit together in a soft V shape. You nodded, slow and sure. You were perfectly content to have Steve do anything he wanted to you. "Yeah, it's okay." You whispered. The teasing smile crept back on to his face. "Alright then."

And then he was kissing your neck, most definitely leaving marks as he sucked and nipped the skin on the hollow of your throat. You bit your lip at the thought of having to hide them, of being marked by him, thankful for the approaching cold season and the invention of turtle necks. One hand on your wrists, Steve's free one crept up your sides and found purchase on your hips, gripping them tightly. "God," he groaned, "do you have any idea," - a particularly hard bite on your collar bone- "how much I've thought about you this week?" His grip on your waist was impossibly tighter in the moment, pulling your hips into his own. Your only response was a breathy moan as he bucked into you.

He loosened the grip he had on your wrists, allowing your arms to slide down the wall and into his hair - he fell apart at the way you touched him, having thought about it all week. "I thought about you," he dropped down to your chest, placing kisses there. "Every," - a kiss to your torso- "single"- one to your stomach- "night." He sank down to his knees, staring up at you with swollen lips and blown out eyes. "It's like I was haunted by you. Couldn't get you out of my head." He kissed his way back up to your lips, his fingers tugging on your bottom lip with a twisted smile. "Thought about you so much, had to throw out your panties."

"You pervert." You said against his mouth, but the thought of Steve, bent over in pleasure, as he jacked off into your panties made you throb.

His hands toyed with the strings on your bikini bottoms, the flimsy material begging to be ripped off. He raised an eyebrow at you - a silent ask- and you nodded hurriedly. He pulled the knot free at an agonizingly slow pace, taunting you as your chest heaved in anticipation. He was torturous. Devilish, even. You loved it. He ripped the other knot open off hastily, making you gasp. Your lower half was completely exposed. "Do you want me?" he asked, and though his voice was hoarse and undeniably confident, his eyes wavered as he looked into your own with the slightest hint of uncertainty. You nodded, breathless and a little desperate. Steve tilted your head with his hand, thumb resting on the column of your throat, mocking smile on his lips. "I'm not touching you 'til you say it."

"Yes, God yes, I want you Steve."

"How much?" He was getting cocky then, and as much as it irritated you, it turned you on immensely. "Tell me how much."

"I thought about you, too," you said, breath hitching as he trailed a finger up and down your leg. "Couldn't help myself." That same wicked smile was on Steve's face as you spoke. "Couldn't get the feeling right again, tried so hard."

"Show me."

When your eyes darted to his, you could hardly see his irises. His eyes were practically black with lust, mouth agape as he took you in. When you didn't move, half embarrassed and half in disbelief, he guided your hand to your centre. "Show me how you touched yourself," he pushed your hand down, thumb swiping your clit. You gasped, desperate for any friction as the ache in your stomach flared. "He placed a kiss right under your belly button, eyes boring into yours. "Show me."

You felt the heat of embarrassment creep up your neck and on to your cheeks, thankful for the dim light. You sank you hand down, closing your eyes to save some semblance of your dignity. Steve Had other ideas. "Uh, uh, uh," he said, taunting. "Eyes on me."

You opened your eyes to see a completely, utterly hypnotised Steve. Every twitch, every half-movement was caught by his eager eyes. Knowing that you had so much power over him gave you a power trip, a major boost of confidence. The sight before you - a wild haired, wide eyed, practically drooling Steve Harrington- drove you crazy.

You dropped your hand down your stomach, fingers tracing the skin as they got ever closer to where you needed them most. You thought back to the nights after the party, the way you'd arched your back off your mattress pretending it was Steve's fingers getting you there, that it was Steve making your legs tremble.

You grazed your clit with your index finger, sighing as you made small circles there. You moaned, your pace picking up as you grew more impatient that Steve wasn't the one touching you and more embarrassed as time went on. You rested your head against the wall, gazing at Steve across the small space. He was shifting the front of his swim trunks around, growing impossibly more aroused every second he looked at you. Your chest began to tighten with short breaths as your hand grew quicker, the band in your stomach on the brink of snapping. You were sent over the edge at the sight of Steve palming himself, mouth in a silent 'O' shape as he watched you fall apart. The small closet felt like a sauna as you caught your breath.

"Jesus Christ," Steve said, a hoarse whisper as though his throat was bone dry - which it was. He'd never seen anything so hot in his life. "Get over here."

You launched yourself at him, throwing your arms around his neck as his own caught your waist. Your lips met in a brawl of need, smothering yourselves in one another. Steve gripped your face with a strong hand, guiding your chin so that his tongue could slip into your mouth with ease. He backed you against the wall, hands roaming all over your skin. You may as well have been on another planet, the raging party below having no influence on either one you letting out loud moans and groans. You felt on fire, sure that if you opened your eyes and looked down your body would be a scorched mess. Your core ached, desperate for any friction as Steve's clothed front rubbed against your centre.

"Steve," you whined against his lips, loud and high pitched. He was pressing into you now, and you felt you were going to go crazy if you weren't thrown on a bed in that very second. "Let's go somewhere else." When he pulled away to look at you, he quirked a brow cheekily.

"Aye aye, Captain."

Stuffing your bottoms in his pocket, Steve cracked the door ajar and peaked out. The coast was clear. He threw you - naked from the chest down- over his shoulder, and ran to the bedroom closest to the closet. It was his own, thank god. The door closed with a slam, and then you were against it, head cushioned by the coats and towels hanging from the hook.

"If you don't do something in the next thirty seconds," you said, voice desperate as Steve kissed your neck whilst his hands trailed up and down your bare back - fingers fiddling with the draw string of your bikini-, "I'm outta here, Harrington."

"Oh yeah," Steve challenged smugly, "to do what?"

You felt like pushing his buttons, testing him. His dominance displayed in the closet made you unbelievably wet, and you were hoping it was going to reappear. "Well," you began, voice full of mock innocence, "not what, rather who." Steve's arm tensed up around your body. His head whipped toward you, eyes darkening with lust and annoyance. "Who knows, maybe Eddie can help me out-"

You didn't even have to finish your sentence before Steve was scooping you up in his arms, limbs wrapped tightly around your middle as you both crashed on to the mattress. He was hovering above you with the most addictive expression on his face - a look that said "I need you, I crave you,"- and you wished that every time you closed your eyes you would see that look. Steve ripped off his shorts in a flash, stroking himself as he leaned down to you.

"You think it's funny, huh? To tease?" he said, voice wracked with desire as he watched you. You'd begun to slowly peel off your bikini top. He pulled the strap back and let it snap against your skin, grinning when you yelped. "You're in for it, babe."

The nickname had your stomach swirling with arousal, and you were sure you were leaking on to Steve's sheets from how turned on you were. He made his way between you, knee up against your clit as he ground in to you. When you bit your lip, he smiled. He sat up on his knees, stroking himself as he looked down at you. A rosy glow had donned your cheeks, both from the heat of the room and the heat of having a very attractive man tease himself in front of you. A sheen had begun to cling to your hair line. You looked entirely wrecked, and Steve had hardly touched you. His stomach flipped at the sight. He pushed your legs apart with his knee, pressing the head of his cock through your folds , delighting in the whiny pleas you let out.

"Say something for me," Steve asked, hissing as his head brushed your clit as he bucked into you.

"Anything, god, please, Steve." You would recite a whole Shakespeare play in that moment if it meant that he would fuck you. "Anything."

"Say you forgive me."

You suddenly weren't miles away. You were now hyper aware that you were in Steve's bed, in Steve's house, with Steve. Steve, who had ruined your life for so many years. Steve, who had stood by people and watched as they hurt you. Steve, who had taken your best friend from you. Steve, who had bared a piece of himself to you. Steve, who had wanted you. Steve, who had shown you who he really was. Steve, who you also desperately wanted, despite your complicated feelings about the past you both shared. The room was silent for a nano-second, before you grabbed his face in your hands.

"I forgive you."

In the midst of a very heated moment, Steve leaned down and pressed a very gentle kiss to your lips. "Thank you" he said.

Then he pushed into you, all the way, without warning and your choked moans filled the room. The stretch, while slightly painful, was glorious. Steve filled you up entirely, and you felt as though you were being split open while simultaneously feeling whole. With both hands beside you head as he hovered over you, Steve panted ragged breaths. "Oh my god, you feel amazing," he groaned. His face contorted in pleasure as you clenched around him. "God, can I move? Please, baby, can I?"

"Yes, god, move." Was all you could stutter out before Steve was rocking into you , pace wild and hard. The head board of his bed clanged against the wall, and you were thankful for the thrum of music outside. You held back screams as Steve hit that spot inside you with every single thrust.

Your legs felt like jelly as Steve grabbed your thighs, pulling himself into you with vigour. "Fuck," he moaned, unapologetically loud and undeniably hot, "fuck, I'm not gonna last long." You hands were gripping the sheets, hardly aware that he was talking as his stomach grazed your clit with every movement.

"Let me on top then," you said, and Steve wasn't a religious man, but he swore that was the moment he died and went to heaven. Steve flipped the two of you over, his back against the head board with your chest in his face. 'Heaven,' he thought as you swung your legs over his and grabbed him in your hands, sinking down on until he was all the way inside of you. "Oh my god." You said breathlessly, the feeling entirely different and absolutely better than before.

You used Steve's shoulder for leverage as you moved up and down on him, whining out high pitched moans as he thrusted up to meet you, gripping your hips tightly. You felt the coil building in your stomach. You looked down at Steve, his eyes drawn to where your bodies connected. "That's the hottest thing I've ever fucking seen," he said, eyes dilated and face red. He was right, it was unusually hypnotic to watch as your aching centre swallowed Steve's cock with every movement.

Steve's brows were knit together, determined to last but the reality that the two of you were going to come undone was fast approaching. "I wanna fill you up, wanna see my cum drip out of you. Can I cum inside you, baby?" he panted into your hair, pulling you close and wrapping his arms around your torso as he sat up, thrusting even harder up into you.

"Yes, yes yes, please Steve," you cried as his fingers crept down and began fast, tight circles on your clit. "Cum inside me, fill me up, god, please please please."

Steve let go the second you did, one final - particularly deep- thrust sending you over the edge and into Steve's chest. You felt as hot ropes of his cum shot deep into you, felt as it began to drip out o you and down your thighs. You panted into Steve's ear, chest heaving as you both came down from your highs. His hand, still between your legs, swiped up your centre, gathering the mixture of your arousals. He ran the same finger across your lips. "Open, " he said, grinning wickedly as you sucked his finger clean. "Dirty, dirty girl."

You hopped off of Steve, legs numb as you collapsed next to him on the bed. You didn't bother to cover up, the two of you no longer shy. There was a brief pause, and you felt like the prickly stickiness of sweat- and other things- on your skin. You mustered the strength to stand, stretching as you did, and made you way to the bathroom connected to Steve's. When Steve remained in bed, you turned over your shoulder as you stood in the door way. "You coming?"

Steve moved faster than you'd ever seen, practically tripping over himself, to meet you in the bathroom. Gazing at the shower, you opted to run the taps of the bath instead. The room quickly filled with steam, the mirrors fogging up. Once the tub was full, you hopped in and sat down, sighing as the warm water covered your sore legs. Steve sank down behind you, legs coming to rest beside your own, and you didn't move when his arms wrapped round your waist. Instead, you leaned back and rested your head on his shoulder.

Steve's hands ran soap up and down your arms gently, rinsing and repeating with mindless softness. he just wanted the excuse to hold you longer, feel you against him more. When his hand came down your arm again, you caught it. You fiddled with his fingers, a shyness washing over you slightly. Steve just intertwined your hands, and continued to rinse the soap off of your skin.

"What is this now?"

Steve's question hung in the warm air like the steam clung to the mirror glass. It was like you could see it in front of you, floating in a taunting cloud. It was the thing neither one of you wanted to ask, perfectly content to stay in the bath and ignore every nagging though that urged both of you to ask the other 'do you want me outside of these walls?'

You sucked in a deep breath, turning to look at Steve from where your head rested on his shoulder. "I don't know." You admitted. You didn't want to say the wrong thing and ruin the moment. "We can talk about that, though."

Steve smiled gently, resting his head on top of yours. "What do you want it to be?" He asked softly, your hand still in his.

"Is this your very long winded way of asking to be fuck buddies?"

"No," Steve chuckled to himself, "no, it's not." He sat up slightly, facing you more. "I'm saying that," he paused, struggling for the right words. "I know how I felt when I thought you and Munson were, whatever I thought you were." He said, eyes soft as he looked at you. "I know how much I missed you being round after you left."

You dropped your gaze , ashamed of your behaviour. Steve's hand moved your chin to meet his eye again, smiling that stupidly attractive smile. "I know I want you."

"I want you too, Steve." You said, almost sadly.

"Then we have something in common," he smiled again, and you rolled your eyes at him. "We can start there, and see where we go."

You didn't talk about what people might say, how you'd probably have to hide in his room or yours, secluding yourselves in VHS tapes in living rooms and candle lit dinners in kitchens. You didn't talk about how hard it would be, to keep the secret, to not talk about one another for a while. You didn't mind though. The two of you enjoyed the idea of the coming winter, the cover of darkness that meant you could walk to one another. The image of you huddled in one of Steve's sweaters as the first snow fell flashed through Steve's mind, and he felt his heart thud in his chest as he looked at you.

Warmth spread through your chest as you imagined Steve beside you on the tiny couch in your living room, fighting over the last slice of pizza as the credits rolled on a cheesy movie he'd rented. You revelled in the thought of getting to know Steve, not the King of Hawkins High, just Steve. And the thought of him knowing you as you were now, the matured and hardened version of you, made you stomach do flips as you looked at him.

"We'll see where we go." You agreed.

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

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paperbackribs · 3 months ago

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He was going to ask for a glass of milk

"I've got to have something," Eddie mutters, "I still have Steve in my mouth."

"You're a pig, don't you dare even say it--" Robin groans at Steve as he perks up next to her. She falls back with a dramatic eye roll against the couch while somehow conveying a sense of comraderie to her hive-mind twin, faintly gesturing for him to continue onwards with an indulgent hand movement.

"You mean...?" Steve asks meaningfully, voice earnestly hopeful even while sweet hazel eyes deepen over a dirty smirk.

Eddie quirks an eyebrow over the second lot of homemade cookies halfway to his mouth, clueless until he suddenly, horrifyingly understands how the dynamic duo had interpreted his words.

"You mean..." Eddie echoes incredulously, waiting for the two of them to jump up, do jazz hands and cry out: 'surprise you homo, Steve Harrington is not into you.'

Instead.

Oh my god, Eddie thinks, as they turn and nod at each other, heart beating harder as Steve's face firms in a familiar determined expression, as if Eddie's a goal to be stolen away from the home team.

Swiftly, and in an almost professional manner that has Robin clapping Steve between his shoulders, she swiftly exits their apartment. The slap of the door slamming behind her echoes through the place and Steve steps forward, eyes mischievous in a way that has Eddie's knees near buckling.

"Want to have a real reason to wash out your mouth?"

#I didn't add it to the story but Steve is fiddling with his belt when he says this like phwoah #confident steve harrington #stobin supremacy - they are my snarky love forever #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #paperbackribs writing #robin buckley #platonic stobin

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togeprinxess · 6 months ago

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Pleaseeee 🥰

Everyone should come join our Harrington Hive Group!

We made a group like 6 months ago on facebook called the Harrington hive and were just trying to bump up some numbers. We post every single day and its all about Joe Keery, sooo yall should come join lol everyone welcome.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/794618698815733/

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rogueddie · 1 year ago

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Nancys torn shirt was a poor excuse for a bandage and Steve should have changed it as soon as they got out of the Upside Down. He should have cleaned it, best he could, and rewrapped his sides in clean bandages.

But he didn't do that. He'd forgotten all about his injuries as soon as Nancys eyes rolled back in her head.

It didn't feel important after that. They had stopped hurting during the bike ride to Eddies. If the cloth tied around his waist wasn't covered in dry blood and rubbing uncomfortably against his skin anytime he moved, he would have forgotten all about the bites.

After losing Max... and Eddie... he couldn't bring himself to care. He was still on his feet. He still felt fine. He mostly felt guilty, still high on the adrenaline that always comes with a fight with the Upside Down.

It was Robin who told a nurse that Steve was also injured and needed seeing.

But the bites were... good. They were easy to clean and no where near as deep as Steve remembers them being.

"You're lucky here," the nurse told him. "You need to keep wounds clean, no matter how small. If these got infected, you could be in big trouble."

It was only a week later that he started to feel it. And he knew he should tell the others. Robin, Nancy, Will, anyone. He knows the signs. He knows what it could mean.

He feels cold.

There's a buzzing building in the back of his head.

The portals cutting through the town call to him.

He's hungry.

"I just don't feel well," he lies. "I'll sleep it off, I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

He can hear Robin frowning through the phone. It almost makes him ache, knowing how much it must be upsetting her that he's drawing back.

"I'm sure," he says. "I'll call you, the second I feel better."

"Not good enough, Harrington. I want a call every single day, I don't care if you're too sick to talk. Breathe at me or something."

"I'll try." Another lie.

"I miss you, Stevie."

"Miss you too, Bobbie. So much."

He hangs up, and immediately wishes he hadn't.

There's a crack at the bottom of his pool. He can feel exactly where it leads and, without Robins voice in his ear tethering him, he can't think of a reason not to.

It's too tempting. Too easy.

Crawling into the Upside Down, all he feels is relief. It's like he can finally breathe again. The spores make his lungs finally feel clear.

"Wh- Steve?!" Someone yelps.

Sat at the edge of his pool, legs dangling off the edge and covered in blood-

"Eddie?"

"What the hell are you doing here?" He says, sliding down into the pool. The vines move to help him. "You gotta go back, man, you can't be here."

"You're alive?"

"Not really, but that's not important. Harrington, you have to leave. Whatever this hive shit wants you for, it's not good."

"Hive? What?"

"Yeah, the... Jesus, dude, what did you think was drawing you in here?"

"I don't know... I didn't really... I couldn't..."

"Hey, Steve, snap-"

Eddie steps forward, trying to scare Steve back by getting in his face, but he freezes mid sentence when they're barely a step apart.

Before Steve can ask, Eddie is pulling his head to the side by his hair, nose almost pressed to his neck. Sniffing him.

"What the hell?" Steve chokes out, once Eddie draws back.

He doesn't step back though, one hand still clutching his jacket and the other resting on the side of his neck. He looks scared.

"They weren't drawing you in. They were calling you home."

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steddie fic #ficlet #unfinished

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otteranha · 2 years ago

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Eddie’s trying not to beg Steve to stay. Harrington’s already gone above and beyond for him, he deserves a night to sleep in his own bed. But God, does it have to be now? No one will talk about it except to pat his hand and tell him with tight lipped smiles that there’s nothing to worry about- legally the mob can’t do anything. Eddie’s been declared innocent, a tragic victim of the copycat killer.

It doesn’t change the fact that there’s been a group of people standing vigil outside the hospital since he got there. It doesn’t change the fact that the group has been growing in numbers until all of Hawkins seems to either be fleeing in desperation or taking up camp four floors below the room where Eddie lies unable to walk as far as the bathroom without help. It doesn’t change the energy of the mob, steadily humming louder, faster, with the intensity of a hive about to swarm.

“Should have known he’d be hightailing it when trouble came,” Wayne tells him. He’s furious on Eddie’s behalf that Steve would leave now, when the police protection detail has been declared no longer necessary. When the mob below is bigger than ever and angry enough that Eddie can feel it all the way up here.

“He didn’t want to go, he needs to sleep.” Eddie saw how badly Steve wanted to stay, how he was sweating and jaundiced and worse looking than he had since that first fight with the demobats. Steve needed to go home, deserved to go home. But part of Eddie, most of Eddie, wails inside for Steve not to leave him. Not tonight, please not tonight. He’d tried not to let Steve see it, doubted how well his subterfuge had worked.

“I wish I could stay but I just can’t, not tonight. I’m so sorry. But I promise- Anything goes wrong Eds, I’ll be here. I have to go now but if anyone needs me, if you need me, I’ll be here, I swear it.” He’d done a strange thing then, pressing Eddie’s hand to his brow before kissing the back of it like something out of one of the tales of courtly love Eddie had devoured as an Arthurian-legend obsessed kid. And then Steve was leaving. It was almost nightfall. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at Eddie, his face anguished.

True to form, Eddie rallied. “Go on, and don’t worry about lil’ old me. I’ll be fine.”

The mob waits until just after midnight, then comes for him. They drag him from his bed, and Eddie has an insane thought apt to this insane situation that he’s glad he wore sweatpants under his hospital johnny so at least he’s not going to die bare-assed in front of the remaining population of Hawkins. Or maybe he jinxed himself by assuming the worst when he decided to wear them that night.

He sees the kids being held back by their parents, screaming for him as he’s hauled to the elevator, hopes desperately that Claudia and Karen and Sue and Charles will be strong enough to restrain them. The kids aren’t babies anymore; they’re tough and too used to fighting to protect their own. But this isn’t a fight they can win and he prays that parent-adrenaline will be enough let them wrangle his stupid, brave friends away from his side. He couldn’t keep Wayne away, they’d shouted at each other, all terrified love, him trying to make Wayne go, until the moment the door broke down and he was being dragged, his uncle’s grip still white-knuckled on Eddie’s wrist hard enough to bruise.

Everyone is shouting, himself included. He’s pleading his innocence, swearing he never hurt Chrissy. Until he sees the pyre and all the words evaporate inside him and he’s just screaming. They’re jeering at his tears, his terror. Calling him killer, devil-worshipper, Satan himself and worse. And then- something in the atmosphere shifts.

Eddie doesn’t see why the mob’s screaming changes, he’s hypnotized by the pyre. Do I weigh more than a duck? He thinks. You can’t burn me if I weigh more than a duck and then oh I’m hysterical.

“Get away! Get away from it!” They sound higher pitched now, a note of vibrato in the clamor. The shift in his captors’ tenor finally seeps in and Eddie looks around. The number of people buffeting him to a hideous end is shrinking, people peeling off and running. He can hear gunshots and then-

Snarling. Crunching sounds. Someone- something roaring into the night. It’s just the men holding Eddie now, Carver’s crew mostly. Wayne’s run up beside them and they don’t spare him a glance as he wrenches Eddie away from them. There’s a wolf. Massive, tawny, scarred, absolutely furious- lunging for them, slashing them with razor sharp claws until none of them are left standing. When the last of the mob is gone the wolf pads close and presses against Eddie’s side with a whine.

The kids come sprinting to him. “Jesus Christ, Steve! Well now they’re definitely going to think Eddie’s the lord of evil!” says Mike.

Eddie looks down at the wolf. He still feels like he might have a heart attack any minute, but the warm, soft fur is grounding. Steve Harrington looks up at him under the light of the full moon and wags his tail.

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #stranger things hc #stranger things au #werewolf steve harrington #mob violence #violence cw #steve/eddie #st steddie

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jadoue1999 · 3 months ago

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The monsters in the shadows

Part 1 Part 2

Note: Hey guys!! Here is the first part of my fae!Steve and Vampire Eddie story! I had to split it in two parts because of how long the story is but the next part should be posted on Tuesday. I hope you enjoy it!

Summary:

“Hey there, big boy,” he says, trying to coax a reaction out of his prisoner.

“Hi,” simply answers Harrington. There’s something weird with the teen. His voice sounds different from what he remembers it to be; less pitchy, more authoritative. Kas feels obligated to listen. Moreover, Harrington looks… Different, taller, his features are sharper than usual. His eyes feel like they're piercing whatever soul he has left. He doesn’t focus on that, charting the changes to his recent transformation.

Somewhere far within himself, he notices Harrington’s neck, it’s smooth and unblemished, and yet something tells him that the strangulation scar should still be there.

Or: Eddie wakes up as a monster, but it seems like he may not be the only one.

Words: 3635

Part 1

The day Eddie Munson dies, it’s not the end. Well, it is for Eddie, but not for what now resides in his body.

He calls himself Kas.

Kas is Creel’s loyal soldier. He starts out without a name, and one cause: killing anyone that ventures too close to the gates. This task is easily completed, thanks to his now increased strength, speed, and agility. He does so well in fact that he is promoted in no time to be Creel’s right-hand man, and in the process, a deep part of him whispers his new name: Kas. He gains new abilities with his new rank, namely the ability to control the vines, the bats, and all the creatures connected to the hive mind.

The first time he sees someone from the gang Eddie used to consider his friend, he freezes. It’s Robin, the clumsy one, and she freezes too when they lock eyes. She eyes him up and down and notices his scarlet red eyes and his darkened fingers. There’s no mirror in the Upside Down, but Kas knows he looks like a corpse.

“Eddie?” Breathes out the girl. “Is that really you?”

He grins, showing his fangs and delights when she steps back in fear. “It’s Kas now, actually.”

Buckley takes a moment to gather her thoughts, but then, it’s all spilling out. “Oh my God, I can’t believe you survived! You have no idea how everyone’s been since you died. Dustin is a mess; he barely leaves his house and doesn’t talk to anyone. And Steve! He's bad too but you know him, he doesn’t show it. But not being able to save you, or Max is really taking a toll on him. I can see it in his eyes. And—”

“Buckley,” he interrupts, he’s heard enough. “Let me make something clear.”

He slams her against the tree, and she gasps out his name, his old name, like a plea.

“I told you, it’s Kas now, sweetheart.” He clasps a cold hand around her neck and squeezes slightly. Instead, he glares at her. “And I’m not coming back. I’m loyal to Lord Creel now. Loyal,” he insists, his voice surprisingly bitter. “As in: I would never abandon him to a painful and lonely death.”

He stares into her eyes and revels in the pain. It’s only now that he’s actually paying attention to her that he notices that there’s something strange about Robin. But no matter how hard he looks, he can’t quite put his finger on it. It’s like a form of energy, something far more dangerous than Creel, but he doesn’t know what it could be.

He’s still lost in his contemplations when she whispers. “We didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” he counters, his voice dripping with venom. His own anger surprises him but he’s quick to brush it off. “I’m letting you go, but I want you to give a message to Supergirl. Creel is giving her three days to surrender. If she doesn’t, he will make sure she watches as everyone she loves dies, starting with that boy she considers her brother.”

Robin is terrified, so terrified in fact that it takes her a few seconds for her to realize that he is not choking her anymore. Then, she wordlessly leaves, never taking her eyes off of him until she’s out of sight.

***

Nothing happens on the first day which infuriates Creel. You’d think that a guy in his late 30s, monstrous or not, would be able to control his temper, but he’s practically boiling with anger, which puts the whole hive mind into a snappy mood, Kas included. He patrols the gates to pass the time and kills a person or two who are stupid enough to get close. Nothing really happens on the first day; the second day though it’s different. On the second day, the vines alert him of a trespasser. Kas heads there, without hesitation, Creel’s anger still lingers in his mind and he’s looking forward to sinking his claws into something.

This “something” turns out to be none other than Steve Harrington himself.

He’s trapped in the vines; they have been pinned against a tree and Kas takes a moment to drink in the sight in front of him. Eddie Munson once had… maybe ‘crush’ is too strong of a word, but he certainly had a fascination for the young man. A little flame that could have become more had they given it the time and attention. Eddie Munson had trusted that Steve Harrington was good, but Kas knew better. Creel had shown him how many of his fellow soldiers had died by Harrington’s hands, showed him the murderous glint in his eyes whenever he threw himself in the line of fire to protect his kids, Kas had felt the swings of the nail bat, the hit of the fireworks, and the oar, and the way the Molotov cocktail had burned Creel’s flesh. Steve Harrington was not to be underestimated.

But right now, weaponless and restrained, the teen isn’t dangerous.

For the entire time, Kas has been staring. Harrington has stared right back. He seems… Curiously nonchalant about his situation. Even now that he stands in front of him, a predator, looking at its prey, Harrington isn’t even struggling. How peculiar.

“Hey there, big boy,” he says, trying to coax a reaction out of his prisoner.

Somewhere far within himself, he notices Harrington’s neck, it’s smooth and unblemished, and yet something tells him that the strangulation scar should still be there.

“You’re not the one that's supposed to surrender,” he grins, making sure to flash his fangs. Maybe he’d get to see Harrington scared.

The young man stares at him unimpressed. “I’m not surrendering, I want to make a deal with Creel.”

A deal? How interesting. “And what could you possibly offer that’s worth more than what Lord Creel has wanted for years?”

Despite the tightness of the vines, Harrington manages to straighten up. “That’s between Creel and I.”

Anger boils in his veins, more than just his master’s. “Whatever you want to tell him, you can tell me.”

“I need his word.”

“I am Creel’s right-hand man,” he spits out. “Speaking to me is like speaking to him.”

Harrington narrows his eyes at him and Kas can feel the sudden tension. “Is that so?”

Something about his demeanor screams ‘trap’ but it’s impossible, he’s the prisoner here, not him. “It is.”

“Give me your name,” orders the teen in a tone he’s never heard coming from him before. “Robin said you didn’t use Eddie anymore, so give me your true name.”

The air around them is vibrating with an indescribable intensity, similar to the energy before a particularly powerful storm. Every instinct in his body is screaming at him to be careful, but he doesn’t care. “Kas.”

Harrington grins, and his pupils shrink to slits. For less than a second, his whole face shifts. His mouth is filled with pointy teeth, his eyes are bigger, and his ears are pointier. Kas blinks, and Steve is back to normal, leaving him to wonder if he hallucinated the whole thing.

“Then you can accept a deal on Creel’s behalf, and it being as valid as if he made it himself?”

“Yes,” he answers sharply.

The teen looks satisfied. “Good,” he grins. “I want to settle this petty fight once and for all. So, here’s my deal: I fight against Creel’s champion, no weapons. A fight until someone bleeds. One drop, no need for more bloodshed.”

Kas considers the deal before pouting. “And what does the winner get?”

“If I win, Creel has to leave Hawkins, the world, and, most importantly, Eleven alone. He cannot send any of his monsters in his place to do his bidding either. And I want him to free Maxine Mayfield’s mind. If Creel wins, he gets Hawkins, but the children, namely, Maxine Mayfield, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Erica Sinclair, Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, and Eleven are under my protection.”

Kas scoffs. “And what makes you think you could protect them? You couldn’t protect poor little Eddie.”

He sees the dark glint in Harrington’s eyes, warning him to back off. “I’m not worried about appearances anymore.”

There’s a weight attached to these words. Kas can’t shake the feeling that the game has shifted. He knows that should make him at least fearful, but he can’t figure out why.

“Do we have a deal?” Asks Harrington. He looks smug and Kas wants nothing more than to wipe his smirk off his face. He decides to humor him, for old time's sake. Harrington probably doesn’t know that he’s Creel’s champion and even if he did, the guy couldn’t put up a decent fight against the bats, he’s not going to last against the newly improved him.

“Sure,” he grins, showing his fangs for good measure. “You have a deal.”

Harrington’s face cracks into that uncanny smile again, and Kas has trouble connecting this face with the worry-filled teenager dotting over the children that had charmed Eddie a lifetime ago.

“Good. Take me to Creel.”

It sounds a hell of a lot like an order, so he decides to be petty. He orders the vines to retreat, and he barely gives the teen enough time to take a few steps on his own before he orders a smaller vine to coil around his wrists. The plant is small enough that Kas can cut it off, and the hive mind feels no pain. Even dead, though, it’s still wrapped tight enough to keep the teen moderately restrained.

Harrington raises an unimpressed eyebrow at his predicament. “Seriously?”

Now, it’s his turn to smile smugly. “Prisoners don't get a choice on how we get there.” Then he invades his space, like Eddie had in the stolen RV, and says in the same tone. “Plus, bondage looks good on you, big boy.”

As expected, Harrington flushes red, but there’s also anger in his eyes. “You don’t get to call me that. Only he could.”

“Aw,” he pouts mockingly. “Did I hit a sensitive subject?”

The brunette doesn’t meet his eyes, and it’s all he needs to realize something else. He lets out a dramatic gasp. “Don’t tell me that King Steve actually had a crush on Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson?” Steve is fuming, but Kas sees right through it. “You did!”

“Doesn’t matter,” grumbles the teen. Kas delights in the frustration he feels coming off of him in waves.

“If it makes it any better, he did too,” he adds, knowing I'll only add fuel to the fire. He sighs exaggeratingly. “Then again, he didn’t think he could be loved. And it never would’ve worked out between the two of you. Especially since the… You know the ‘leaving him for dead’ part.”

“Back off,” snaps Harrington, and strangely enough, he doesn’t mind changing the subject.

Instead, he grabs the brunette by his shoulder and shoves him forward. “Walk.”

They walk in silence for a while, neither of them wants to be the one to break the peace. If he used his powers, they’d be there in less than five minutes, but he wants Steve to imagine what’s going to happen, he wants him to simmer in his own fears until they get there. He doesn’t seem very scared, though. In fact, he even looks annoyed. They pass through a clearing full of Demobats, some snarl at the trapped teen, but most either stay back or plainly fly away.

“They remember you,” he realizes, as he feels the anger and fear of the flock.

“Ozzy, right?” answers Harrington, with no amusement in his voice. There’s a few seconds of tension before he speaks again. “We came back for you. Just three days later, you weren’t there.”

Some deep part of him melts at the confession, overjoyed to know that he hadn’t been forgotten about. His friends had come back for him. But Kas quickly shoves that feeling as far as he can, instead, choosing to turn the knife in the wound. “You were too late, again.”

Harrington quickly shoots him a dirty look. “When did you get so mean? Dustin would be really sad to see you like this.”

He doesn’t like how guilty that remark makes him feel. An echo of Eddie and Dustin’s last conversation echoes through his mind.

“I love you, man,” Eddie chokes through blood and tears.

Dustin’s voice trembles. “I love you too.”

Kas snarls as he chases the memory away. He’s tired of the mind games Harrington is trying to pull on him. “That little shit abandoned me just like the rest of you did.” He shoves his prisoner forward, delighting in the way that he stumbles, even if it looks forced. “Keep annoying me like that, and I’m gagging you.”

“Geez, sensitive much?” counters the teen, but there’s a noticeable triumph in his voice.

They keep walking, in silence this time, and Kas can’t help the feeling that he’s playing right into Harrington’s hand.

***

Harrington still isn’t scared when the imposing house gradually appears on the horizon. He keeps his cool and walks straight ahead. It almost feels like the teen is leading Kas to the house. Suddenly overcome with anger, he grabs the brunette’s shoulder, keeping a tight hold on his shirt.

“I lead the way,” he hisses.

Harrington doesn’t answer, but he does roll his eyes. They walk up the stairs that lead to the attic, and he can see the teen trying to avoid the vines that slowly extend towards him, curious at the new visitor. His helplessness gives him great satisfaction. When they finally reach Lord Creel, the creature is already waiting for him.

And he’s angry.

“Kas,” he says, his voice dripping with venom. “Why did you bring that thing here?”

Creel’s disgust toward humans is something he’s well aware of, but never had he referred to them as ‘things’ before. As he approaches his master, he knows he’s done something wrong. In a last ditch effort to save himself, he kicks Harrington behind the knees to make him kneel. The impact of his bone on wood resonates loudly around them, and Kas is relieved when the brunette doesn’t try to get up. An unruly prisoner is the last thing he needs right now.

“I found him close to the East gate.”

“Your orders were clear,” growls Creel. “So why is he not dead?

That’s a good question actually. He should’ve gotten rid of the team's protector. So why didn’t he? “I… I thought he’d make a good hostage.”

“I do not need a hostage; I need Eleven’s head on a stick.”

Kas’ stomach drops when Harrington speaks up, a chuckle in his voice. “You’ll never have her.”

Creel's head snaps down, his face slowly turning into an expression of annoyance. “Oh? And why is that?”

“Because we made a deal,” smugly answers the teen. He quickly explains the terms they’ve agreed to, and Creel’s face darkens.

“I did not agree to this deal, it is not valid.”

He may be kneeling, but Steve speaks with the confidence of someone who’s already won. “No, but your right-hand man did. And he, like everything else linked through the hive mind, is an extension of you. Therefore, the deal is valid.”

Creel’s burning rage is suddenly on him, and his dead heart jumps in his chest. “M— Master, it’s just a deal, why is it so important?” he continues to try to justify himself, barely registering when Harrington slowly gets to his feet. Kas does notice how quickly Creel is losing whatever cool he has left.

“It matters because he’s a fae!” His master explodes.

A deep part of him demands attention at the mention of fae. It whispers of how dangerous they are, that he needs to be careful with his words because faes are tricksters. But most importantly, it warns him to never make a deal with them because the price will always be higher than expected. And Kas just made a deal with Harrington. He looks at the teen, he’s staring right back at him. He’s got that twisted face again, except it’s so much worse than before because now he knows that he’s not hallucinating. His teeth look even pointier, and his eyes glint with what seems to be malice. One of his long nails slices right through the vines keeping his wrists bound and he exaggeratingly rolls his shoulders.

“Cat’s out of the bag.” His face morphs back to the more human-looking one, but Kas can still see the small details that don’t quite add up. “Let’s get this over with. The kids are waiting for me.” Steve turns to him and winks, but all Kas can see are the not-quite-round pupils. “Ready, champion?”

Uh. So, Harrington knew about him. No big deal he’s still stronger than him… Right?

Creel doesn’t say anything, but Kas can still feel his threat linger in the air. Win, or die. He swipes first, trying to catch the teen off guard, but he simply moves out of the way. Kas tries again, and again, but Harrington dodges him every time. It looks all too easy for him, almost like he’s playing a game. It’s at that moment that he remembers his earlier words.

“I’m not worried about appearances anymore.”

Was this what he meant? Was this the shift he felt?

Suddenly a long nail slices his cheek open, making thick, black blood drip down his face. Kas looks at Harrington, whose face hides in no way his satisfaction at his victory. “I win.”

The house shakes with Creel's anger. He towers over Harrington, who doesn’t even seem worried. “You may have won this fight, but who says I’ll let you leave? Maybe the deal is broken if you die.”

Anger flashes across Steve’s features and the illusion of humanity breaks for a split second. “Would you really risk breaking a deal with a fae? He spits out his tone firm and unwavering. “Not even you would be that stupid.”

Kas is surprised to see actual fear in Creel's eyes. It lasts barely a second, but it’s enough to know that everyone has seen it. His master tries to hold onto his powerful façade and stares down Harrington in an attempt to intimidate him. But if Kas remembered one thing from when he was alive, it’s that Steve Harrington doesn’t get intimidated easily.

As expected, Creel loses the battle and lets out a deep sigh. “Go,” he orders.

Steve smiles and starts to head out, Kas following behind him. He’s not sure why he’s doing it, it’s just something he feels like he’s supposed to do.

“Not you, Kas,” Creel sneers, and he knows he’s fucked. Because he didn’t just lose a fight, he’d also inadvertently foiled all of his master’s plans for revenge. And now he’s going to pay for his mistake. Kas is sure that he’s not going to kill him, but he’s going to make him wish he did. He walks to his master with his head down, he’s terrified, but he knows there’s nothing he can do.

“Kas will be coming with me,” interrupts Harrington. He places himself between him and Creel and the creature stares at him with eyes full of fury.

“And why would he do that? I made him who he is, he belongs to me.”

The teen is not deterred. “Does he?” He challenges. “Reach into the hive mind, he may be a part of you, but is he still yours?”

Lord Creel doesn’t say anything and Kas fears that he might call Harrington’s bluff. He has to be bluffing, right? His master eventually closes his eyes and concentrates. It takes barely 10 seconds before he reopens them with burning anger.

“What did you do?”

“Me? Nothing,” dismisses the brunette before gesturing towards Kas. “But your loyal soldier gave me his name. Willingly. That means you no longer have any claims to him.”

Creel roars in anger and lunges at Harrington. Vines goes to grab at him, but Steve doesn’t even flinch. However, his face darkens, and the temperature around them drops colder than Kas has ever felt it to be in this place.

“Attack me and see what happens,” hisses Harrington, his voice sharp and cutting. “This place has existed longer than you have, and it will exist long after you’re gone. Don’t make me speed up the process.”

Everything stills around them, and Creel seems to ponder on the words. He’s never seen him this powerless before. He’s not sure he likes it.

“You wouldn’t dare,” taunts Creel.

“Try me.” Harrington doesn’t move. “You have hurt people I love; you have killed innocents by the dozen. I am giving you the chance to walk away and leave us alone. Do not waste it.”

“I will spend the rest of my life, trying to find loopholes,” threatens the creature, his former master.

Steve simply smiles at him but there’s no amusement in his face. “I’ll be waiting.” He then turns to him and nods his head to the side. “Come on, time to go home.”

Harrington starts walking and that familiar feeling, that one that made him follow in the first place is back, except this time he knows what it is: ownership. He is not Creel’s anymore, but he is not free, because he gave his name to Harrington.

And Harrington kills monsters.

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #fae steve harrington #vampire eddie munson #stranger things fanfiction #vecna stranger things #henry creel #robin buckley #steddie fic #steve and robin #stranger things fic #joe keery

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familyvideostevie · 8 months ago

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5k celebration: emma's garden

THIS IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED! YOU CAN FIND FINISHED FICS AT THE BOTTOM.

thank you so much for being here. i know this blog has changed a lot since i started it about a year and a half ago, but it means so much to me that even one person wants to hang out, let alone this many. writing is deeply personal and sharing my work with you continues to be both cathartic and also a challenge. i will never stop being grateful. none of this happens without you, so, please celebrate with me! : )

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so, let's celebrate! send me any of these ⬇️

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you do a little bit of work and i'll do the rest! pick a character from my guidelines, an au theme, and a prompt and i'll write a blurb (<1k words) for you. use this post or come up with your own!

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help spread the love and make a beautiful bouquet for someone else. send me a fic rec/author rec/gush about your favorites here.

please reblog to spread the word! thank you :)

CELEBRATION FICS (coming soon):

roommates!au with steve harrington: trying to not hit anything or each other, when there is a power outage and it’s way too dark | 1.3k

coworkers!au with bradley bradshaw: it's hard to hide your relationship from your coworkers, when your whole team is a tight knit group and basically one big family.

friends with benefits!au with bradley bradshaw: they have been friends long before the benefits came along and they don’t know if they’re ever able to go back to just being friends

#emmas5kgarden #joel miller x reader #steve harrington x reader #eddie munson x reader #james potter x reader #sirius black x reader #remus lupin x reader #rooster bradley bradshaw x reader

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fizzigigsimmer · 21 days ago

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I am in a moody place, and as usual writing soothes me. I have no idea if there will be more of this, but have some broody post apocalyptic King!Steve.

The King Unbroken.

Jonathan was right. They must have crossed the border into what used to be California some time ago. Steve stared down at the old sign, half lodged in the dirt against a pile of twisted tree limbs. An old sign, more rust now than interstate green, nearly unreadable with vine cover. He could still just make out the faded off white letters that read: Little Valley. Five miles.

Sneering, Steve nudged aside the sign with the toe of his boot, revealing the dark opening of a small narrow room hallowed out in the stump of a once great tree - now dead, like so much else. He took one final sniff, spine tensing as he caught that faint whiff of salt that had followed him since they’d veered off route eighty. Maybe it was just sea air, carried in by the rain they had earlier that week. Or maybe it was something worse - like Hargrove.

He saw again, sharp blue eyes peering at him from behind the holes of a wooden mask - no doubt lifted from some museum - white paint highlighting the strange swirls and embellishments carved across the smooth surface of the wood, with brightly colored plumes of feathers jutting out from the top, more frightening than beautiful. It should have been cheesy - a jumped up kid with blood colored handprints staining his skin, trying to invoke fear by wearing the relics of some tribe long gone.

It wasn’t.

Hargrove’s reputation for brutality spoke for itself. And those eyes, that had been so focused in their hunger and unapologetic in Hargrove’s base desire to watch something weaker than himself squirm, had said the rest. Billy Hargrove had scared the piss out of Steve and that was saying something, given that between a choice of being handed over to a savage alpha in exchange for safe trade passages, or facing the flesh eating faceless monsters that roamed freely outside of the compound; Steve had chosen the monsters.

Fuck Billy Hargrove. Fuck his dad too. If the apocalypse had taught Steve anything, it was his value. He wasn’t good for much, but he could be a damn good shield for others. Funny it took the world ending for that to sink in. Because it didn’t matter anymore what his grades were or that he’d never been ‘the best’ at anything besides making others feel small while he stumbled down the path laid for him by his family status and his father’s money. None of it mattered because life was now a brutal game of survival, may the biggest asshole win, and even before the monsters gave him a reason everyone said that Steve Harrington was king asshole.

It wasn’t like Steve had gone through any great big revaluation or soul change. Turning over a new leaf had been literally as simple as turning over in his bunk the first night in the compound and accepting that none of the petty shit he used to care about mattered. Only, in the morning he’d still be alive while better people were dead, so either it was swallow the gun still resting on his nightstand or try and find a little good to do. That’s it. All he was living for. The chance to save a few better people and protect them for as long as he could. Maybe if humanity was lucky, one of those people might be the one to figure out how to deal with the monsters for good.

Everyone in the pack was in awe of the omega who carried a bat full of metal teeth and led raids against grey-dog hives, enemy packs and everything in between, like death couldn’t touch him and his heart was made of stone. There were plenty of people who would swear that Steve was heartless - even some of the ones he’d saved from the outside and brought into the pack himself - but he wasn’t. Not really. He kind of thought that if there ever was a moment that he felt safe enough to really think about everything he had been through since Day One, and everything he had done in between to survive, he’d probably lose it. It might break him, and then he truly would have been just a waste of space.

Which was precisely why he shoved it all down and never thought about it for too long. What was the point? Crying about the dead wasn’t going to bring them back. Neither would feeling guilty over the lives he’d taken. The kind of use the pack had for a soft sentimental omega, one who couldn’t or wouldn’t kill to survive was the stuff of nightmares. He’d seen it happen to most of the other omegas in his life. To his own mother. Only the strong survived here. Nothing was given for free. Anything of value on the other hand could always be taken, or traded.

Steve had proven that he could be more useful than just as a source of amusement and slick. That he could soldier with the best of them. He could get hit, kicked, knocked down, clawed full of holes, and drag himself back up every time. Since their first raid together his team had lost the fewest members and they still had the highest success rate of any party in the pack. Steve had carefully selected each member, because he’d always been good at surrounding himself with people stronger and smarter than himself, and convincing them somehow to care for him.

It was his one skill, besides hitting things. But by god he’d earned the right to say he’d proven he could make good use of what he had. He hadn’t survived watching those beasts tear apart his friends, seeing his mother passed around like a party favor for oil, just to end up sharing her fate. Traded off to a savage alpha to be bred and brutalized in an endless circle of hell until he died.

Fuck that!

Pushing the memory of the alpha aside, Steve knelt down onto his hands and knees and crawled inside, backward, tugging the heavy sign back into place after himself, and plummeting the den into darkness.

Breathing deep, the scent of dirt and rot filled his nose, and Steve Harrington breathed his first sigh of relief in days. It was stupid to think he would - no matter how much his dad complained about having to negotiate with a kid, it wasn’t Hargrove that needed them - but if there were any chance that Billy was following him, he wouldn’t be able to find Steve now.

Dead or not, the walls of the oak were thick. The natural scents of decay overpowered those of an unwashed human body. Even one of an omega flushed with heat and damp from exertion. Feeling around in the dark Steve’s fingers found the strap of the backpack with supplies that Robin had stashed there for him. It wasn’t much: a ratty old blanket (cheap in this warm climate). A water bottle (expensive anywhere). And a little plastic packet of Advil (worth more than gold these days).

But it’s more than most people have. Steve had always had more than what most people have. Even before the monsters came and civilization as he knew it crumbled around him. It wasn’t fair maybe, but life wasn’t fair. If it was, shitheads like him would have been the first to go in the apocalypse; the base of their power destroyed and unable to adapt to whatever new society emerged from the rubble. But that wasn’t what happened when the world as he knew it ended.

What happened was rich guys like his dad who survived long enough after the first appearance of the monsters, bought up resources while they fled to whatever approximation of safety money could buy them. They threw even more money at stocks and whatever else they hoped would make them richer once the danger was passed, and the smart ones stockpiled what they knew would become better than money in the event that the danger never did.

It hadn’t. Steve’s highschool, the stock market, and just about everything else from his old life was gone.

A few pockets of civilization still clung to life in a sea of monsters. Each colony ruled by whatever alphas had proven themselves better survivors than the rest, followed by those who hoped to be protected from a worse fate. Billy Hargrove was said to be one of the strongest alphas in the west.

He’d slaughtered the pack and taken over the territory that once had been their primary source of trade with the east. Steve’s father had offered him a king's ransom in goods for the promise to reopen trade. But Hargrove had only seemed to want one thing. The heartless omega he’d apparently heard so much about.

Curling up tighter in the small space, Steve brought the blanket over himself and shivered, despite the temperature he could feel climbing with each passing minute. His heat could not have come at a worse time but mercifully he’d made it to the den. With Jonathan and the others keeping a watch on the area he could be relatively confident that nothing would disturb him for a few days while he rode it out.

And when his heat was over, Steve had a new mission. Another chance to prove to his father that he had made a mistake, trading him to Hargrove.

Steve closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, trying to drift off to sleep to conserve his energy before the worst of the heat arrived. The faintest whisper of the sea tickled in the back of his nose, more memory than real. Haunting him. Steve gritted his teeth and silently renewed his vow.

He was going to bring his father back Billy’s head, along with the territory that came with it. And when he did no one would ever question again why he’d survived this long, unchained and unbroken.

#harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #do you reckon Billy is following him?#lol Steve has come all this way just for the pleasure of killing him #Sounds like a date to Billy #😆#I am just imagining him going through his arsenal like: ‘Should I wear the russian knives? Is that too much?’#‘What says fuck you! And then fuck me

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augustjustice · 6 months ago

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Cast Adrift

AO3 Link

For week eight of @astrangersummer; prompt: 'pool'

Pairing: pre-Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler (background) | WC: 4.5k | Rating: T | CW: allusions to parental neglect, Upside Down trauma, and drug use; mildly suggestive thoughts | Other tags: Summer of 1984, Lifeguard Steve, Pre-Slash, Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Summer in Hawkins is hell.

Or, at least, it is for Eddie Munson. A guy like him simply isn’t built for summer, his long hair, pale skin, and aversion to the blaring sun not helping him beat the sneeringly whispered taunts of ‘vampire’ that run rampant in the Hawkins High halls.

(Not that Eddie minds that part, really. His reputation precedes him, and that’s the way he likes it. Shit’s safer, that way.)

Plus, the heat fucks with his entire aesthetic. 80 tipping into 90 degree weather makes his usual layers of leather jacket and newly constructed battle vest almost unwearable, although he makes a valiant effort. After all, while he can make a ripped Slayer crop top look totally metal, he always feels a little naked without his usual armor.

So he muddles through most of the first month of the summer of 1984 without incident, splitting his time between the odd jobs they’ll let him pick up at Thatcher’s and selling out of his lunchbox in the park behind the Hawkins Community Pool, a hot spot for deals this time of the year.

But despite the fact that it’s public and his business is close by, Eddie keeps himself at a healthy distance from those tempting blue waters.

Because he’s run the numbers in his head. Even come up with a whole list of pros and cons when it comes to wading in the waters of Hawkins’ number one hot spot in the sweltering summer months, like cataloging all the strengths and weaknesses of a particularly tricky locale during a campaign.

Pro: The cool water lapping at his skin would probably feel like a balm delivered directly from the gods, at this point, offering some of the only true protection against the sun’s incinerating blaze.

Con: The aforementioned popularity of the pool means it is pretty much crawling with bodies, middle-aged moms and screaming kids and Eddie’s classmates swarming the place like ants on a particularly tasty picnic basket.

And in the lifeguard chair, day after day, sits the living embodiment of both categories at once, simultaneously a blessing and a deeply unjust curse: none other than Steve fucking Harrington, the King of Hawkins High himself.

As much as Eddie likes to pretend that the jocks in town are all a faceless, bland-as-white-bread hive mind to him, there’s just really no escaping knowing who King Steve is. The rumor mill runs rampant with every mundane detail of Harrington’s life.

About who he’s dating.

…Preppy school whiz Nancy Wheeler, going steady since last Christmas.

And who he hangs out with.

…Pointedly not Tommy Hagan or Carol Perkins, despite the fact they’d been attached to either of Harrington’s hips since at least middle school. Not since last November, at least, when Harrington had turned up to school with a shiner.

Whatever the story was there, Eddie hasn’t been able to untangle it. Not that it matters to him, of course not, other than the fact that the King has seemed markedly less douchey ever since then. Eddie’s even caught him a couple times, going out of his way to defend whatever poor bastard happened to be on the receiving end of Hagan and Perkins’ usual reign of unholy terror that day. Stark contrast from before, when he’d often turned a blind eye.

And how his hair looked that day.

…Perfectly coiffed without so much as a stray lock out of place, always.

The point is, it was impossible not to know about Steve Harrington. So, yeah, Eddie noticed him…probably in more ways than he ought to.

Like the fact that, even at a distance, Eddie can tell that Harrington’s tiny red swim shorts are obscenely high and tight, adding another check to the con pile.

‘Cause there’s sure as hell no need for him to get any closer to see just how much so. He’s already been subjected to the king in his gym uniform, thank you very much, the way it showed his off tan, fuzzy thighs and well-muscled calves. From here, Eddie can tell the beating Indiana sun has turned Harrington’s skin even more golden hued, and he’s also shirtless most of the time, for fuck’s sake.

Thus his avoidance. As it turns out, for Eddie, the cost just isn’t worth the benefits.

So he restricts his domain to the park, sweat caking his back beneath layers of black denim and leather. And Eddie holds to that, like an unwritten addendum to his personal Munson Doctrine.

…That is, at least, until July comes.

---

It’s coming on 2 am as Eddie crosses the park, heading back after Vicki Carmichael’s post-post Fourth of July party.

(It’s already the 7th.)

His van’s in the shop–and Gareth’s too young to have a license, and Jeff’s on vacation with his family, and neither Frankie nor Ronnie can afford a car, etc., etc.–which means he’s making the long walk home after a busy night dealing. While Eddie hates prep parties on principle and makes his opinions loudly known any chance he gets, the wad of cash currently burning a hole in his pocket makes it pretty clear…compromising his core values is worth it, for some things.

But despite the fact that it’s dead of night, it’s still fucking hot. The humidity hangs heavy in the air, making his too many layers cling to him, damp and cloying.

As he’s making his way past the swing set, out of the corner of his eye Eddie catches sight of those too blue waters. Still lit up even though it’s after dark, like a siren’s call.

Violation of your own damn rules, Munson, he chides himself internally.

But…at least 85% of the reason he doesn’t let himself wade in has been removed, given it’s the dead of night.

With a glance around, he double checks that he’s alone. No cops cruising too slow down the road in the distance, no jocks drunkenly stumbling their own way home in Eddie’s wake. And, nope, there’s not a single person in sight. It’s just him and the dark, surrounded by the monkey bars and empty slides and silence that descended hours earlier on most of their sleepy, small town.

So finally, Eddie thinks fuck it.

Rules were made to be broken. Even his own.

He crosses the park in several quick, long strides. Then, giving his surroundings one final once over, Eddie hops, a bit gracelessly, over the fence. His heels smart a little from the smack of the concrete, where it rises up to meet his landing, but this time the pain is worth the gain.

The water spreads out in front of him like a mirage, the type Eddie’s seen a thousand times on Saturday morning cartoons, when the characters cross the desert and think they’ve finally spotted a beachfront paradise. Except, for once, Eddie’s own little slice of paradise is actually real.

Eddie dumps his lunchbox on the closest lounge chair–cream and beige, so boring, just like everything else in this town. He makes quick work afterward of peeling off his sweaty clothes, unceremoniously dropping them beside it.

Once he’s stripped down to nothing but his plaid boxers, he circles the edge of the pool around to the deep end. With a whoop, Eddie takes a running start, leaping in feet first. The water rushes up over him, submerging him completely and feeling just as heavenly as he’d thought it would.

For several long moments, he lazily treads, letting the slight ripples soothe his sticky, overheated skin. Body relaxing, he slides onto his back to float. Eddie contemplates, for a moment, flipping over into a dead man’s float instead, freaking out whatever preppy little lifeguard on duty came to open things up the next morning.

But it’s an idle thought–obviously, there’s no way in hell Eddie could hold his breath that long. And, besides, he plans to be long gone by the time the place gets anywhere close to operation hours. No doubt whoever found him would just call the cops, and he really doesn’t need that, not with his stash sitting a few feet away.

After floating a little longer, Eddie drops back down into the water and does a few handstands and flips, enjoying the weightless the pool affords him. He makes a couple aimless laps across the pool’s length, time ticking luxuriously by. Finally, once he’s had his fill of swimming, he pulls himself up and out of the water.

He’s got no towel and doesn’t feel like adding the risk of a full blown breaking and entering charge to the evening’s escapades. Eddie settles instead for plopping down into the chair beside his things, letting himself drip dry. The night air feels good on his damp skin now, and the swim leaves him a bit boneless. When his eyes slip closed, he doesn’t even really register it.

And before long, Eddie has drifted off to sleep.

---

Eddie wakes to someone shaking his shoulders roughly.

“Hey! Hey, Munson!” A voice from above hisses. “Shit! Come on, man, please tell me you’re not like…dead on me, or something. Cuz I seriously do not need that in my life right now.”

When Eddie finally cracks open his eyes, he finds Steve Harrington’s own–big and brown, obnoxiously pretty in color–staring back at him.

He wonders if maybe he is dead. Maybe he drowned at the bottom of the pool.

Or maybe he’s dreaming.

Although…Harrington hasn’t stepped back to peel off those tiny red swim shorts yet, which. Sure doesn’t sound much like one of Eddie’s dreams, he has to admit.

“Thank fuck, dude,” Harrington’s body sags with transparent relief.

Looks like there might be some substance to the dreamland theory after all. Since Eddie really can’t imagine a scenario in which Harrington would ever care enough to be relieved he was still around and kicking.

That moment of doubt is short-lived, however. Because the next second, he’s slugging Eddie hard on the arm.

“Ow!” Eddie immediately rubs at the spot where his fist connected, shooting an accusing glare in Harrington’s direction. “Jesus H. Christ, dude, what the fuck was that for?”

Harrington flaps his hands out dramatically in front of him. “You scared the shit out of me, that’s what!”

“I scared you? You’re not the one who just got rattled into consciousness, Harrington, and woke up to find out somebody’s apparently been looming over you in your sleep!”

Harrington rolls his eyes. “I was not. And I only had to wake you up because you decided to take a nap at my place of business, Munson.”

Eddie snorts. His place of business. Fucking rich kids, they’re completely unreal.

As the fog of sleep starts to clear, he fully takes in his surroundings and realizes that dawn has barely broken, the first few dim streams of light coming over the horizon. In other words, it’s still hours to go before the pool is set to open.

“Seriously, Harrington, man–what the hell are you doing here?”

Harrington huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. The movement highlights his strong, athletic arms, his bare, smooth chest–and Eddie really needs to avert his gaze here, Jesus Christ. Because it turns out he was totally right. Giving the pool the distance he’d afford a radioactive site was exactly what he should have been doing and kept doing all summer long.

“As we’ve already established, I work here. You’re the one that’s trespassing.”

“Well, now, trespassing seems like a strong word. I prefer, uh…” Casting around for inspiration, Eddie snaps his fingers and sends Harrington a crooked grin, playing at innocent and knowing he doesn’t come even remotely close. “...Taking a nap in a creative location. Can’t box me in, man, restricting places with those ‘sleep-appropriate’ labels of yours.”

Harrington’s brow furrows, clearly perplexed. It’s adorable, though it really has no right to be.

“I know you think you’re funny, dude, but I really don’t get it.”

“Come on, man, you can’t crush my dream’s of being the king’s court jester just like that,” Eddie lays a hand over his heart, as though deeply wounded. “Plus, that still doesn’t answer my question. You might work here, but, last I checked, the pool doesn’t open at the crack of fucking dawn.”

The look Harrington shoots him is unbelievably haughty. “Oh, so you do know that there’s a whole set of open hours. Could have fooled me.”

“You’re still dodging the question.”

“I’m not, not really. But, since apparently you just have to know, the owner lets me come in before hours to practice. I mean, I’m on the swim team. Gotta stay fit in the summer, not that I expect you to know anything about that.”

Eddie almost expects the dude to flex, or something, show off his athleticism. But, instead, Harrington just thrusts out his arms in exasperation again. He’s turning out to be way more dramatic than Eddie expected.

“There. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Eddie says wryly, rubbing a hand over the bottom of his face. Something about the explanation is…bothering him, though, tickling at the back of his brain. “But, uh–don’t you have that big fuck off pool back at Harrington Manor? Rumor has it it’s even heated, can swim in it all year round.”

Harrington tenses, lines marring his face–drawn around his eyes, the corner of his mouth. The tension in the air around them ratchets up, going almost icy.

“I don’t…like swimming there. Not anymore,” he explains quietly.

Shit. Rumor had it Barb Holland disappeared last year after a Harrington pool party, didn’t it? Eddie had written it off at the time–how the hell would nerdy Barbara have scored an exclusive invite from King Steve, anyway? But, then again, Harrington and Wheeler had started dating not too long after that, and it’s definitely an explanation for why the guy is acting so squirrely now. But, that revelation begs a follow-up question…

What the fuck could have happened that has Harrington so spooked?

Eddie doesn’t get a chance to even consider asking, because the other teen’s expression wrinkles with confusion again.

“Wait, how do you know I have a pool?”

It’s Eddie’s turn to roll his eyes. “Other than the fact that half the school puts out a bulletin literally every time you so much as take a piss? I’ve been to your house, Harrington. Just where do you think the top tier high everybody gets at your parties comes from?”

“Oh,” Harrington frowns, “I’ve never seen you there.”

“Yeah, well, us peasants try to keep a healthy distance from the royalty, lest we be kicked out on our asses.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Harrington says automatically. When his eyes cut across to Eddie, he looks weirdly earnest, like he really wants Eddie to believe him.

And the truth is, some part of Eddie, deep down, does.

…Now, at least.

“Sure, but…I bet you’d have been singing a different tune last fall.”

Harrington shakes his head quickly. But the tension bleeds out of his shoulders a little, one corner of his mouth twitching, like he’s thought of some private joke.

“No way, man. Tommy needs–well, needed, anyway–something to mellow him out. Otherwise he gets so goddamn insufferable before the night’s out.”

“Starts the evening that way, too, in my experience,” Eddie observes dryly, not sure how it’s going to land.

After all, just because Harrington and Hagan have had it out, that doesn’t mean the guy doesn’t remain more loyal to his brethren than the town freak. But Eddie’s already spent this entire conversation walking a tightrope, posed to plunge any second.

No point quitting now.

Harrington just sighs, though, running a hand through his hair.

He sounds resigned when he says, “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Eddie isn’t expecting candidness, not out of the King, and certainly not an admission that felt brutal and vulnerable all at once. The exchange leaves him, for once, not sure what to say.

So he approaches it the only way he knows how…a little humor to deflect.

(Even if Harrington doesn’t think he’s funny.)

“Noticed you haven’t been hosting too many of those big blowouts these days, though. What gives, man? You’re really cutting into my bottom line here.”

Harrington rubs a hand over the back of his neck, shrugging. “Guess I haven’t been in much of a party mood. Not lately.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue again, questions Eddie’s dying to ask…except this time, with Harrington looking so suddenly wide-eyed and lost, he thinks he might be seconds away from blurting out something phenomenally stupid like, You okay?

The expression is gone almost as quickly as it came, though, Harrington’s face clearing like that haunted flicker in his eyes had only ever been in Eddie’s imagination.

“But seriously, as a reminder, you do get that the pool has, like…normal operating hours, right?” Harrington scoffs.

One corner of his mouth twitches, though, like he’s biting back an amused smile. Now whether he’s laughing with Eddie or at him–well, his personal tract record suggests it’s the latter.

“It is a community pool, after all. And you really shouldn’t swim without a lifeguard around, you know? That’s sort of, like…” he gestures pointedly to himself, “our whole point.”

But Eddie isn’t about to enumerate the very long list of reasons he avoids the pool like the plague in daylight hours to Steve Harrington of all people. Especially not when the very jock crowd Harrington still hangs around with–who have made a pastime out of making life a living hell for guys like Eddie–tops that list. Some people may be into humiliation, but Eddie isn’t looking to get pantsed in front of all the judgmental church ladies and their screaming brats, especially when he just knows they’ll somehow make the whole thing his fault.

It’s not like Harrington would get that, though. He’s probably never been embarrassed a day in his life.

So instead, Eddie shoots him a wide, devil-may-care grin. “Aww, come on now, where’s the fun in that?”

Whatever he says, it makes Harrington go strangely sober all over again.

“It’s dangerous,” his voice is urgent, almost scolding, “being out too late, by yourself. You should be more careful.”

“While I appreciate the whole knight in shining armor routine, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not one of your many adoring fans, my liege. No need to pull out the heroics for little ole me,” Eddie shrugs. “Besides, I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

“I’m serious, Munson.”

The look Harrington levels him with cuts Eddie right to the quick. His words are an understatement obviously, because from the look in his hazel eyes, it’s clear–he’s not just serious, he’s deadly serious.

“People have literally gone missing. And Hawkins, it’s–there’s a lot more to it than everybody thinks.”

Eddie lets out a nervous chuckle, rubbing a hand over the top of his head. Whatever malaise Harrington’s got going on…it keeps popping up in the weirdest, most vaguely ominous ways.

“Look, man–if this is all some ploy to freak out the town freak? Congratulations, you’re totally nailing it. Because what the hell is that supposed to even mean?”

Harrington shakes his head, as though whatever trance he had been pulled into is clearing. This time, when he huffs, he’s back to annoyed, an expression of superiority Eddie is infinitely familiar with from watching King Steve march the halls of Hawkins High.

“Nevermind. Forget I said anything. Like I told Nance, shouldn’t even be talking about it anyway.”

Eddie raises his eyebrows, doesn’t bother to remind himself that curiosity killed the cat.

“Wait a second. You told Wheeler what now?”

“It doesn’t matter. Like I said, forget it.”

Eddie blows out a breath, ruffling his own bangs with the force of it, his turn at being frustrated.

“That’d be a helluva lot easier to do, man, if you stopped being all ominous and cryptic. Pretty sure that’s supposed to be more my style than yours. But, clearly, you wouldn’t keep bringing shit up if there wasn’t something you wanted to say.”

Harrington rubs a hand roughly over his face. Eddie waits for it, fully expecting him to tell Eddie to fuck off, his patience finally wearing thin.

But this morning is full of surprises.

“There’s just…stuff she wants to talk about, but things'll be a lot better for us if we don’t.” Harrington licks over his bottom lip before gnawing at it. “And a lot safer, too.”

His tone goes irritated, tired, but Eddie doesn’t think it’s towards him. The words are clearly ones he’s said before, an argument that’s old and familiar.

A falling out with his friends, fights with his girlfriend, a 180 in key aspects of his attitude–and all somehow connected to Barbara Holland’s disappearance and something being wrong with Hawkins? Eddie’s never been great at math, but even he can tell that all adds up to Harrington having seen some kind of serious shit.

The truth is, deep down, Eddie knows that he’s a bleeding heart. He wouldn’t make it his mission to recruit all the outcasts he could find, take them under his wing, if he wasn’t.

And Harrington? Seriously seems like he could use a sympathetic ear right about now.

“Look, man. I know we’re like…natural enemies, on the Hawkins High food chain,” Eddie pulls a face, hoping to inject a little levity into the moment. “But, I mean. There’s nobody else around. So if you needed to talk, now’s kind of the ide–”

But Harrington cuts him off before he can finish. “That’s the whole point. I don’t want to talk! I just want to forget about it!”

Then, with a dramatic flop, he throws himself down into a sitting position on the concrete and hugs his arms around his knees.

Eddie blinks in surprise. He wasn’t exactly expecting a full blown outburst like that, but–well. He’s no stranger to lashing out himself, especially when he’s feeling anxious and cornered, so he can’t exactly fault Harrington for.

And he can’t help but think of his dad, rotting in a jail cell somewhere. Of the hell he put him through, before Eddie finally got to go and stay with his Uncle Wayne for good. Of all the things he doesn’t talk about, not if he’s got a choice.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, feeling a sympathetic pang deep in his chest. “Okay, man. I get that, too.”

Several long, agonizing moments pass as they sit in strained silence.

Finally, Harrington admits quietly, “I just don’t get it. How everything got so–screwed up.”

Eddie shoots him a wry smile. “Hate to burst your bubble, man, but…world’s always been like that. Maybe now you can just finally see it.”

“How do you deal with it?” Harrington asks as he turns to Eddie, eyes expectant. Like he actually cares what Eddie has to say.

“Harrington, if I ever figure that out–I’ll let you know.” The shrug he sends him is apologetic. “But, uh…if you can think of anything else I can do that’ll maybe help…”

Harrington snorts. “Well, first of all, you could do a lot better job looking out for yourself.”

A laugh bursts out of him, halfway to a scoff. “Fuck, man, what do you care?”

“I mean, what do you?” Harrington retorts right back, eyebrow raised as he gestures between the two of them, their impromptu therapy session.

“Alright, man. You got me there,” Eddie nods in acceptance, the same as he would if he’d just been bested in the middle of a campaign. “Touché.”

Harrington mutters something, so soft Eddie misses it.

“What was that?”

“I said it helps,” he repeats.

“Uh…what does?” Eddie asks, genuinely baffled.

“Just knowing somebody else gets it. And gives a shit.” Harrington huffs, sending him a crooked smile. “Even if it is just the town freak.”

Rolling his eyes, Eddie gives a mocking half-bow. “I live to serve you and only you, my liege.”

Reaching up, Harrington slugs Eddie lightly on the leg, which he’s pretty sure is jock for thank you. Plus the soft, grateful look he’s sending Eddie, his attention trained fully on him, is enough to make Eddie’s heart give a traitorous little flip in his chest.

Stupid heart.

…Stupid sweet jock smile.

Then, Harrington squints up at the sky, shading his eyes with one hand from the sun, which has climbed steadily higher since he shook Eddie roughly awake.

“You know, unless you want the soccer moms stumbling in here and seeing you in nothing but your underwear…you should probably get dressed, dude.”

Eddie glances down, realizing he is still wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. A slight flush rises to his cheeks, realizing that he just carried out a full blown conversation with Steve Harrington while all but naked.

Standing, he quickly shoves his legs back into his jeans–stumbling a little, since they’ve dried stiff from the chlorine–before slinging on his W.A.S.P. t-shirt.

Once he’s fully dressed, he shoves his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. The moment stretches, awkward, now that whatever spell they were under for the duration of the early morning has broken.

“So, uh…thanks, I guess. For, you know. Not ratting me out to your boss.”

Harrington’s face is completely stone serious when he asks, “Who says I’m not gonna turn you in?”

Eddie lets out a long groan, throwing his head back. “Aww, come on, man! I thought we…I don’t know, bonded, or some shit!”

Harrington’s nose crinkles, face breaking into a mischievous grin. It’s like the sun breaking out on a cloudy day, and easily the happiest Eddie’s seen him look all morning long.

“Wow, you’re so easy. I’m just messing with you, Munson.”

“Oh, I see how it is. The king’s got jokes!” Eddie retorts, deadpan.

“Sometimes,” Harrington replies, ducking his head, smile small and private. Then, he jerks his chin. “Now get out of here, man, before I have to tell Mrs. Carpenter and her kids that I recruited you to be the new lifeguard.”

“Yeah, no, fuck that,” Eddie gives a full body shudder at the thought. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

“Seems like I just did,” Harrington teases, voice going a little sing-song at the end.

Eddie just flips him the bird as he heads towards the fence, Harrington’s light laughter following in his wake. He’s preparing to jump over, hoping he doesn’t make a total ass out of himself when he knows he’s still in Harrington’s line of sight, when he hesitates. Glances backwards, mulling something over in his mind.

“Hey, Harrington!”

Harrington spins around to face him again, cocking his head to the side like a curious puppy.

“Drop by the park later.” Eddie shakes his lunchbox. “It’ll be on the house.”

“Why?” Harrington’s forehead creases, sounding puzzled.

“Maybe the jester just wants his king to gain back some of that party spirit!”

Harrington shakes his head. He looks like he’s muttering something to himself before he finally calls back, “See you around, Munson.”

“Later, Harrington,” Eddie corrects pointedly, “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, yeah,” his wave would look dismissive, if not for the way one side of Harrington’s mouth twitches upwards. “Later, then.”

And, even though he knows he’s being a total idiot, once Eddie is past the fence, well out of the other teen’s sight…he gives a single fist pump in victory.

---

For the rest of the summer, Harrington is his best customer. Drops by the park before opening to buy from Eddie, joking he’s trying to make up the difference from all the parties he’s no longer throwing. And, on the rarer occasions, when the stars align and their paths cross just right, Harrington even sticks around and shares a joint with him, after his shift is over and the sun’s gone down.

If Eddie starts showing up earlier and leaving later in a way that corresponds almost directly with the routine Harrington’s built, he doesn’t mention it. He doesn’t mention the weirdness of that first conversation, either, or the haunted look Harrington sometimes still gets in his hazel eyes as he stares out into the middle distance, eyes roving over the dark.

It’s not his business.

And if he takes some pride, knowing he can offer the former king a little bit of comfort from whatever rottenness in Hawkins has cut into him like a claw? Yeah, well.

That’s nobody else’s business, either.

Nobody’s but his own.

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #a stranger summer #my writing #my stuff #my things

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