#them indiana boys on them indiana nights

[izzystradlindoesitforme]

Ixzl Appreciation Day

Part VII

"They were fucking hardcore on stage. Izzy was doing knee slides and Axl was bashing down. It was cool, like, 'F**k…'"

Izzy & Axl

Ixzl Appreciation Day

Part VII

You've been breaking down my back and I've been racking out my brain.

It don't matter how we make it cause it always ends the same.

You can push it for more mileage, but your flaps are wearing thin.

And I can sleep on it 'til morning, but this nightmare never ends.

Don't forget to call my lawyers with ridiculous demands.

And you can take the pity so far but it's more than I can stand.

'Cause this couch-trip's getting older, tell me - how long has it been?

Cause five years is forever, and you haven't grown up yet!

Above quote: Slash, describing the first time he saw Izzy Stradlin and Axl Rose performing onstage together. - Kerrang! interview

[loveshotzz]

I guess it’s never really over

mechanic!steve harrington x fem!reader exes to lovers

chapter one -

Late arrivals and big asks

A broken down car, a party at Reefer Rick’s, and a bandaid that needs to be ripped off.

warnings: 18+ drinking, smoking, lots of tension, some king!steve angst in the form of a flashback.

wc: 10.1k

series masterlist | series playlist

June - 

The air is sticky, thick with the kind of humidity only Indiana could have at 9:30 pm. An annoyed breath expands into your lungs as you lean against your car that refuses to do anything but sputter. Despite your irritation, your glossed lips twitch with the nostalgia that creeps into your heart because after all these years it still smells the same.

Crossing your arms, your eyes trail over the clear night sky not polluted with the kind of man-made smog that blankets the city and the stars shimmer like diamonds in its absence. The warmth of the overrun engine is still hot on your exposed calves, the light breeze making the bottom of your sundress dance across the tops of your thighs. White beams emerge, cutting through the dark at the top of the hill, followed by the roar only a tow truck can make, and this time, the smile you fought off before spreads wide across your face.

Robin.

Butterflies wake up in a frenzy deep in your gut, with nerves that twitch from your fingertips at the thought of finally getting to hug your best friend after months apart. You push off the side of your car as the truck approaches, eyes squinting to make out the second outline in the front cabin as it pulls over. You recognize the messy mane of hair that could only belong to Eddie Munson in the driver seat almost instantly and his dimple filled smile brings you back to memories you thought you’d long forgotten. 

“Well, well, well, would you look at what the cat dragged in!” Robin sticks her head out of the window with a wide grin as the big tires slow to a stop in front of your car, “are my eyes deceiving me or is my best friend in the entire world actually in Hawkins, Indiana right now?” 

The rasp in her voice sounds just like it does over the phone and despite the roll of your eyes, your cheeks hurt from how happy you are.

“Shut up, don’t act like you didn’t guilt me out here by saying the fate of your future depends on it.” Uncrossing your arms, you open them wide, “I made the ultimate sacrifice for you, so are you gonna hug me or not?”

Dramatic? Yes. But it works like a charm when she flings open the passenger door and charges at you in a mess of honey blond waves and freckles, almost tackling you with the force of her impact wrapping her arms around you.

Too distracted by Robin, you almost don’t notice the creak of the driver's side door or the filled out frame of the man that used to be a lanky teenage boy walking past as Eddie starts to attach your car to his truck. He’s taller than you remembered even bending down, and despite the navy blue coveralls, you can still see that his pale skin is littered with even more tattoos.

“I can’t believe my guilt trip worked!” Robin beams, finally letting you go, her whole body practically vibrating with excitement as she claps her ring clad hands together.

“I really can’t believe it either,” you laugh nervously, the reality of what it means to come back starting to set in after seeing just one familiar face, but this isn’t high school anymore and you’re definitely not the same person you were five years ago either.

“Thanks so much, Eddie,” you break the ice when he stands back up, and the sound of your voice has his big brown eyes warmed with gold light up just like his face when he turns his full attention onto you. Scruff filled dimples poking even bigger holes in his cheeks.

“It’s my pleasure, sweetheart, I almost didn’t believe Robin when she called me. I thought it was a prank.” He beckons you over with open arms, “now that I know it’s not, you have exactly 10 seconds to get over here and hug me before I change my mind.”

There’s zero hesitation about giving into his ‘demand’ and when your arms wrap around his waist, you’re brought back to afternoons in the woods behind the school with heavy lidded eyes and lopsided grins. 

“Your own auto shop, huh?” You smile up at him, pulling away, “Eddie Munson, the business owner.”

He rolls his eyes but the pink tint that colors in his cheeks tells you he appreciates the praise.

“Yeah, something like that.” He chuckles, “Got a soft spot for that old man in the trailer park, couldn’t bring myself to leave.”

Your heart warms at the fondness that drips from his ton. 

“Okay, as sweet as this little reunion is. You’re late, and we have a party to get to.” Robin interrupts snatching your keys out of your hand, dropping them in Eddie’s.

“A party?” You snap confused, and Eddie takes that as his queue to walk away with a knowing smirk.

“Yes, this is the summer of fun and reckless abandon, this is the last summer of our youth before we have to be adults. Do you understand me?” Her fingers are digging into your shoulders by the end of her rant, with the kind of look in her eyes that you’re absolutely going to have to revisit after a few weeks. 

“This is the part where I remind you that I graduated college last year.” 

Your best friend scoffs at you.

“Just humor me, okay? It’s your grand homecoming.” She pushes out her bottom lip, and makes her eyes big in a way she knows you can’t say no to.

“Fine.” You huff, making her finally let you go with the kind of pleased smirk that tells you she never thought she was going to lose to begin with.

“Great, it’s time to rip the bandaid off anyway.” Robin practically mumbles the last part turning on her heel to head back to the truck.

It takes a minute for her words to stick to your ears and their meaning to ring loud through your head, but when they do it feels like the air is stolen from your lungs. 

“Rip what bandaid off, Robin?!” 

It’s his name tightens in your chest but you refuse to say it, even after all this time it burns coming back up. 

“Since you had to drive for so long, I’ll sit in the middle because I’m just that good of a friend, you know?” She winks with a shit eating grin before pulling herself up and disappearing inside the cab of the truck, ignoring your question, like she’s not asking you to do the one thing you said you’d never do. 

See Steve Harrington again.

I tell myself, ‘draw the line.’

You wonder if Robin can feel the daggers you’re glaring into the back of her head as the two of you walk up the driveway to Rick’s house. Gravel crunching hard under your converse as you keep up with her black combat boots. She looks effortlessly cool in her high waisted jean shorts, and her oversized army green jacket covered in patches. You’d compliment her if you weren’t so mad.

“I can’t believe you guys still have parties here.” You scoff, making your sour attitude known, but your best friend ignores it with ease.

“I can’t believe you forgot to have fun. Don’t you live in the city?” Turning around with a smirk, she can’t help but laugh at the look on your face. 

She stops abruptly, almost making you run into her leaving you both just close enough to the party to hear the bass of the music spilling through the cracks in the windows. The low chatter of people echoes through the trees that surround you and bounce off the lake not that far away. The thought of hearing the calm baritone of his voice mixed in makes your chest tight with the kind of nerves that dare you to high tail it and run.

“It’s been five years.” Robin’s playful demeanor breaks and becomes pleading with a kind of desperation you’ve never seen from her before. “He’s not the person you knew in high school, I need you to understand that. You think I’d call someone like that my best friend?”

“Hey!-“ You object at the title, and it makes her lips twitch despite serious lines that crease her face.

“Stop, you know what I mean,” her painted fingers grab onto yours, squeezing them lightly, “please, just give him a chance. I’m not asking you to get back together or even be friends, just get along enough not to kill each other this summer. I can’t choose between you. I won’t.”

The genuine love she has for Steve is apparent in the way her ocean blue eyes threaten to drown you in their sincerity, and you can’t find it in yourself to say no to her. 

“Fine.” You accept your defeat in practically a whisper, but it makes your best friend squeal nonetheless. The giddiness from before coming back tenfold as she links arms with you, continuing your way up to the house. 

It’s just a summer, right?

The crowd gets bigger as more people start to come into view, between groups smoking cigarettes outside, couples arguing by cars, others making out against them. The smell of beer gets more pungent with each step, the atmosphere a stark contrast to the way the moon glows against the peaceful waters behind the madness of the house. 

Salt N Pepa’s ‘Push It’ plays loud enough for you to make out the words when you reach the front steps, walking through clouds of tobacco smoke to get to the unlocked door. The interior hasn’t changed at all since high school, the smell of stale lime and tequila stinging your nose. The bass of the music vibrates under your shoes as Robin unlinks her arms and you have to fight the urge to yank her back.

“Drinks or …Steve first?” She asks, her nerves about the situation finally showing themselves as she bites at her thumbnail. 

“Absolutely drinks! Is that a trick question?” You half whisper, half yell, looking around as if saying his name out loud might summon him.

“Okay! Okay!” Robin hisses, grabbing your wrist, leading you towards the familiar path to Rick’s kitchen.

Suddenly you wonder what your makeup looks like after a long day of traveling in your car, your fingers tugging at the bottom of your dress before adjusting the front of it so it sits just right. You itch to grab your lip gloss that’s tucked into the side of your bra, but you don’t want to deal with the look you’d get if you went for it.

Rounding the corner to the living room, your heart sinks to the bottom of your stomach before you even have a chance to stop it when your eyes meet that messy head of chestnut hair, and a pair of hot pink nails tangled inside it. 

“Oh - I - god dammit.” Robin groans, when you're met with number two on your list, making out with a pretty blond on the couch.

Despite the years and distance, there’s still a sting that you feel in the corners of your eyes. It’s not enough for any tears to fall, there’s none left for him anymore, but it’s enough for the anger you’ve clung to since the day he broke your heart to boil hot under your skin. It singes the wings of the butterflies that try to take flight when you see the way his frame has filled out, how he’s somehow grown more handsome than the last time you saw him. 

Robin coughs, squeezing your wrist in reassurance.

“Hey, - uh, Steve.” The sound of his name catches his attention, long brown lashes fluttering open to reveal the deep coffee of his eyes that widen when they lock with yours for the first time in years. 

His lips pull from the blond’s with a loud smack, leaving a small trail of glitter on the side of his mouth that he tries to wipe away quickly with his wrist. Black ink you’ve never seen before looks bold on his tanned skin that glows like it’s been freshly kissed by the sun. 

His gaze wanders up and down your body like he’s unsure you’re actually real, and if it wasn’t for the obvious shock of your arrival and the way the color seems to drain from his face, you’d snap at him for the way it lingers over your curves. 

“Um, Robin, what the fuck?” The sound of his voice makes your heart skip a beat, and again when his hand drags through his hair just how you remembered.

“Surprise?” She shrugs, wincing when he scoffs loudly and the warmth that went missing floods his cheeks, turning them bright red. The blond next to him eyes you up while she clutches harder to his waist, and you can’t stop the rise of your brows and the giggle that bubbles past your lips because of it.

Steve’s head snaps towards you, something softening the moss that hides in his eyes when he hears the noise despite the sarcasm that drips from it, and you really get to look at him for the first time since high school graduation. 

God, you wish you could’ve had that drink. 

The jawline that always drove you mad is sharper, peppered with the kind of hardly there stubble that tells you he’s only missed one shaving day. A problem he never used to have, and somehow, it makes him all that much more attractive. 

His hair is a little messier than his carefully crafted look that used to take him a good forty five minutes every morning. It curls wildly at the ends now, tucking behind his ears and fanning along the nape of his freckled neck. It still looks as soft as you remember, though. 

His shoulders are broader, stretching the white cotton of his shirt tight enough across his chest that you can see the outline of a thick patch of hair that had only just started growing when you knew him last. The dark wash of his jeans makes them look almost black, fitting snug over his thighs, cuffed at the bottoms framing the tops of his boots.

Why couldn’t Steve Harrington just peak in high school like he was supposed to?

“So yeah, this is awkward.” Your best friend laughs nervously, “We’re going to get a drink or three because this scenario is by far the worst case and not the way this was supposed to go in my head, but anyway, look who’s here for the summer! We’ll talk later!“ 

Robin grabs your wrist before Steve can respond, pulling you back into the party and away from your ex-boyfriend while the realization of the summer you’ve foolishly agreed to hits you all at once. It turns your body weightless as the two of you weave in and out of the crowd. It tightens in your chest, the music turning muffled hitting your ear drums. Suddenly, you're not the woman who crossed state lines to the one place she said she’d never come back to, happily living the lie that you’d actually forgotten about him to be a good friend.

You’re the girl who let him keep you a secret, and you hate him for it.

Sneakers hit the sticky tile floor that hasn’t changed since 1984, the harsh lighting of the kitchen makes you both squint. It’s calmer than the rest of the house, just a few groups lingering off in the corners, too deep in conversation to care about you and Robin. Letting go of a breath you didn’t know you were holding, your ears start to pop too, Eddie Money’s Take Me Home Tonight coming through crystal clear.

“The band-aid might have been violently ripped off, but hey, it’s ripped off nonetheless.” Robin shrugs, finding the half-drunk bottle of tequila on the counter. “I think we should count this as a win and take a shot to celebrate.”

“A win?! Are you kidding me?!” You hiss, completely bewildered.

“Yes a win - oh no.” Her blue eyes go wide at whatever’s behind you, but it doesn’t take you long to figure out when that familiar spice and cedar of his cologne hits your nose.

“Right so, who’s going to let me know what’s going on?”

His voice comes out close enough to send your lashes fluttering, mimicking your heart. The nerves you’d just gotten over threaten to come back tenfold, but you manage to swallow them down just like in high school, turning around.

“I think it’s obvious what’s going on, Steve,”

It’s not as hard to say his name as you thought it would be, but it is hard to stare at his face from this close. Specifically, the two moles that dot his cheek that you always used to kiss, or the ones on his neck that you hate still taunt you for more. 

“I’m here for the summer.”

Steve Harrington had thought about this moment a lot, but Rick’s house was never the backdrop for it. His eyes take in the features you’ve not only grown into but somehow are even more beautiful than he remembers. Even if they’re twisted in a glare. 

“I meant, why didn’t I know until right now?” He manages to get out with a shake of his head narrowing his eyes at Robin, who’s too busy trying to find clean shot glasses to notice.

“Why would you need to know?” You snap, making a nervous hand card through his hair

“Cause I’ve, uh,  you know, I’ve asked about you a few times,” the last part comes out a little harsher, clearly directed at your best friend, who you know is actively ignoring you both now.

“Why? Why would you need to know anything about me?” Your hostility still shocks him even though he was expecting it. His eyebrows shoot up just like his hands in surrender. “Why didn’t you tell me, Robin?”

She groans loudly, slamming the tequila bottle down on the counter before turning around.

“You said you didn’t want to hear anything about him after you moved, why would I tell you he was asking about you?”

“Wait -“ Steve butts in this time, “seriously?”

“Oh my god, can you two shut the fuck up for a second and take these shots? You’re really putting a damper on the beginning of the best summer of our lives,” Robin snaps before waving a hand in front of three freshly poured shots.

It’s a struggle to tear your eyes from him, your body responding to his presence in a way that feels like it’s turning against you. It has you downing your shot in one quick motion before anyone else can even touch theirs. 

“Wow, okay.” Robin deadpans before shaking her head, wasting no time in following your lead.

“So we’re not cheersing anymore? Isn’t that bad luck?” Steve mutters, shoulder brushing against yours as he leans forward to grab his shot, the slightest touch enough to engulf your skin into flames.

A whole summer? Fuck.

“Robin, pour another one.” You rush with pinched brows as you try to move past the bitter sting of the alcohol going down your throat, taking a step toward her and away from him, you add “and we’ll cheers.”

You refuse to meet his gaze when you say it, but you can feel the intensity of it on the side of your face, begging you to break.

“Rob’s, how are you guys getting home?” Steve finally breaks, giving up his quiet fight for now, and you hate the way his nickname for her softens your heart.

“Huh, that’s a good question, I hadn’t thought that far yet.” She admits, over pouring so tequila splashes against the countertop, looking up at him with a mischievous grin.

“Seriously–

“RECKLESS ABANDON STEVEY!” Cutting him off, she downs her shot in his disapproving face.

“You didn’t cheers again.” Steve sighs, hands finding his hips as you whine an irritated, “We needed to cheers!” At the same time.

Your eyes meet his finally, his knowing smirk twisting the corners of your lips despite yourself. You blame the tequila starting to warm the blood in your veins.

“Well, you need to take yours then if we’re doing another one ‘the proper’ way, or it’s not going to be even.” Robin points at your drink in a silent challenge. 

You know how this game works.

“Fine.” You shrug, downing it with more ease than the last one.

“Oh my god. Stop! Do not pour another one before you answer my question, please!” Steve sounds exasperated, grabbing the bottle from her before she can disobey, “How are you getting home?” 

You try not to focus on how much larger his already big hands are now, or how small the bottle looks wrapped up in his palm compared to your best friends. The second shot takes the edge off your nerves in a way that your shoulders relax. Leaning against the counter, you cross your arms, watching the two of them bicker, catching Steve’s wandering gaze on your exposed legs while he tries his best to keep his focus on Robin. It boosts your ego in a way that has the anger hiding just under the surface go from a boil to a slow simmer.

“I don’t know Harrington, do you know anybody with a car?” She wiggles two thick brows at him, the second shot making her blue eyes glassy, and her smile a little more goofy.

“Why’d I know you were going to say that? And why did I know you were going to do this?” Steve sighs, letting her snatch the bottle out of his hand.

“What? Bring her to the party?” Robin snorts pointing a thumb in your direction, making you gasp.

“Robin!”

“No! What? No. But don’t think,” Steve clears his throat looking at you awkwardly before finishing a little quieter, “don’t think we’re not going to talk about this later.”

“I can still hear you.” You remind him with a sarcastic smirk.

“Yeah, I know you can. Look, I’ll DD for you because obviously tonight is, uhh,” he gestures to you with cheeks that grow pinker by the second, “a big deal. But you gotta stop doing this to me, I need you to get your license you’re out of colleg-”

“Shots! Steve’s driving us home!” Robin whoops loudly, and an irritated Steve pinches the bridge of his nose before walking away. 

Your eyes follow him out the door, shoulder blades flexing under cotton when he runs another hand through his hair before disappearing from sight. You try to push down the small pang of jealousy that makes a familiar home inside your chest remembering the blond girl waiting for him on the couch.

“Okay, okay,” Robin interrupts your inner struggle at the perfect time, sliding an overflowing shot over to you with a giggle that's contagious and it banishes Steve from your mind just like magic. “I’m not going to forget this time, promise.”

“I don’t think I can afford for you to forget again,” you smirk, raising your glass, tequila spilling over the tops of your fingers, “cheers!”

“Cheers!” 

You both down them at the same speed, slamming the empty glasses back onto the countertop with laughter that bounces off the walls and threatens to drown out the music. And for a second you think maybe you can actually do this.

“I’m so happy you’re here!” She squeals, throwing her arms around your neck, doing a terrible job of holding her weight up. Grabbing onto her waist, you do your best to steady her, “Look I just want to say while he’s gone, I know this isn’t easy for you, okay? I know.”

She hiccups before pulling away slightly to look at you as she finishes,“But It means so much to me, and I just wanna say I’m proud of you. I mean, who knows, you’ve changed, he’s changed-”

“Nope, no, you’re done. Where’s the weed? I wanna smoke some weed.” You push Robin away, rolling your eyes at the loud laugh your reaction gets from her.

There’s a long summer ahead of you, but right now, all you need is to find a joint and try not to think about your ex in the next room.

With a few more shots and a couple of hits from a blunt you and Robin you’d stumbled upon being passed amongst a group outside, you start to really feel like you’re back home. Nostalgia hits you hard in the gut as you walk through the crowded living room hand in hand with your best friend, giggling and stumbling back to the kitchen on the hunt for some food. 

“God, I’m so hungry!” Robin practically growls when you hit the harsh lighting again making you both hiss.

An empty bottle of tequila sits on the counter now and red solo cups litter the floor that weren’t there before, and a growing pile of bitten into limes cover the counters in a sticky mess. Alone and left to your own devices Robin begins to raid the cupboards, huffing when she finds nothing behind every door she aggressively yanks open.

“Why is his kitchen always so empty? Like? Do we just always miss the party?” You hiccup, tripping on a tile that’s coming out of the grout. 

You catch yourself on the kitchen island in front of you, a loud laugh bubbling up from your chest, too drunk to focus on how gross the formica feels under your fingertips.

“There’s literally nothing to eat in here, not even like an old bag of stale chips.” She opens the first cabinet one last time before slamming it shut, officially giving up with a thump of her forehead against the wood. “This is why he’s always at the diner.”

“Wait, Rick actually lives here still?” Another hiccup, you foolishly lean your elbows on the counter, something you’ll regret in the morning as you stare at your best friend with a toothy smile, completely unaffected by the news about the missing food that seems to be ruining her entire mood.

“How can he sell weed and not have any food in his house? What happens when he gets the munchies?!” She throws her hands up, ignoring your question and answering it all at the same time. “I’m gonna find a bathroom, and then we’re gonna find Steve - don’t make that face, he’ll take us through a drive-thru.”

“Don’t be gone long, I don’t know anyone here!” You whine with a childish drunk stomp of your foot, still sporting that sour look she told you to wipe off. The carefree girl from moments before now gone in the blink of an eye.

“Literally like five minutes, I swear!” She promises, turning around with a smirk as she crosses her heart with a ring covered finger like you used to do as kids, easily earning the smile from you she was hoping for.

You watch her disappear into the party, staring after bouncing honey waves until they’re out of your sight. 

Suddenly alone for the first time in hours, the kitchen feels quiet. The bass of the music is distant, and your thoughts are heavy just like your feet as your last shot of tequila settles with the rest. Your brain wanders to places that you thought you’d banished from the corners of your mind for years. It takes you to the pink fullness of his lips, and has you biting the bottom of yours. Then it’s the freckles that dot the bridge of his nose and explode across his cheeks, even leaving their mark on the bottom of his earlobe.

You’d found that one the night you’d tried to count them all. You never finished.

Then you remember the blond on the couch, and how her pink nails dug into the thick chestnut of his hair that you used to tug on when his kisses got to be too much. She turns into Nancy Wheeler and those stolen looks in the hallways at school, and suddenly, you hate him all over again.

“Jesus, you’re in here alone? Where’s Robin?” Steve’s voice makes you jump at the worst possible time, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scar-“

“Seriously?!” You snap, turning around with crossed arms. Leaning against the counter, you hope that you don’t seem as drunk as you are, but the way his lips twitch regardless of your attitude tells you that it’s not working. “She went to the bathroom and then was going to look for you.”

“So, it just makes sense for me to hang out here then, right?”Steve raises his hands in a silent plea for permission. 

His big boots take heavy steps towards you, and just like on cue, has your body betraying you. The plush dough of your thighs pressing harder together each time he gets closer to closing the gap. 

Cautiously taking the spot a few feet away from you, he keeps his hands up till he feels safe enough to shove them in his pockets. The spice of his cologne smells fresh, and you wonder if he sprayed it before walking in here. It overpowers everything else around you, invading your senses and committing itself to memory despite you.

“I um, I really hope this is okay to say,” he stammers watching the way one of your eyebrows arches up, and it doesn’t take long for his hand to escape from his pocket to run through his hair again, “but it’s, it’s good to see you. I m-missed you, Robin’s missed you.”

“Shouldn’t you be hanging out with your girlfriend?” You ignore him and tuck his words away to unpack another time with a sober mind.

“Cassie? She’s not my girlfriend.” He answers without any hesitation, something sparking alive inside the gold of his eyes that has one side of his mouth tugging up. 

“Does she know that?” 

“I’m pretty sure she does considering she left with another guy not that long ago.” He snorts, the confidence you’ve always known him to have finding its way back, and you don’t miss the way he scoots closer. 

So you scoot back.

“Sucks to suck, Harrington.” You sigh, impressed with how well you’re playing off the victory lap you’re shamefully running in your head at the new information.

“There you are!” Robin rushes in, face flushed and out of breath, interrupting the moment you weren’t ready to have yet at the perfect time “Somehow I got roped into like a keg stand and I think it’s really time for us to go home guys.”

“Robin!” 

“What?!”

She tries to shush you, but even you can see from across the room the way sweat starts to bead across her forehead, the blush in her cheeks going pale before she runs to the trash can. Steve pushes off the island without any hesitation, rushing to the other side of the kitchen, gathering her hair in his hands to hold it back.

“What were you thinking?” Steve scolds her in the softest way possible, rubbing her back as all the beer finds its way out of her body.  

Those big eyes of his that you’re sure are going to haunt your dreams meet yours, and in that moment the room decides it wants to spin. You’re not sure if it’s the night of tequila with nothing but a weed chaser catching up to you or if it’s the onslaught of feelings you’ve successfully suppressed for the last five years coming back to seek their revenge. The deadly combination of both comes to a head the more you watch the gentle way Steve handles Robin and it makes you realize it’s time to go.

You manage to pull yourself together enough to help Steve get Robin in his car, heart almost stopping when you walk up to the same Maroon BMW he took your virginity in. It takes everything inside of you not to abort the mission, run to Robin’s apartment by figuring your way through the woods you used to play in, do anything but sit in those leather seats. But your best friend’s drunk rambles of how happy she is to have her ‘two amigos and how that it makes three now’ while professing her undying love for both of you has you putting on a brave face, and then your big girl pants when you have to sit in the front seat next to him.

It’s in perfect condition, just like the morning he pulled into the parking lot Junior year with it. Your stomach twists in the kind of knots that have you wrapping your arms around your waist. The smell of leather and pine pulling on the back of your throat, and all the memories that come with it. He keeps the radio low, and you can hardly make out the faint sounds of whatever late night talk show was on over the soft snores of a passed out Robin in the backseat. 

“I thought you’d have a different car by now.” You grumble sinking further into your seat, keeping your eyes trained on the trees that zoom past your window.

“You’ll have to pry her from my cold, dead hands, honey.” Steve chuckles, relaxing a little more into his own, a big hand finding a new resting spot on the stick shift.

The endearment sends you reeling, the tequila making it hard to bite your tongue.

“Don’t call me that.” Quickly realizing that staring out the window does nothing to help your already dicey equilibrium, you decide to finally look at him, but you’re not sure if that’s any better.

‘What? Honey?” He asks, fully knowing the answer but egging you on just the same with a ghost of a smirk on his lips.

Narrowing your eyes, you turn fully in your seat doing your best to ignore the way the street lights bounce off his sharp features as you face him.

“What? So you just make out with girls that you’re not dating and get away with it?” 

Steve snorts, licking his lips and meeting your angry gaze with an amused one. 

“I am twenty-four and single.”

Scoffing at his answer, you pause to collect your words that keep getting tangled on the tip of your tongue from too many drinks and how the whites of his teeth start to show in a grin as he glances in the rearview mirror to check on Robin.

“You think you can do whatever you want don’t you?”

“No -“

“What? Because you didn’t peak in high school like you were supposed to, you somehow just got hotter, you think the rules don’t apply to you or something?”

“Good to know you still think I’m hot.” Steve’s face cracks into a smile, turning into an apartment complex you’re assuming is Robin’s. 

“You’re the worst,” you try to deflect weakly, turning back in your seat with a huff.

“I definitely used to be,” he mumbles mostly to himself, putting the car in park, both of you jerking forward slightly. The sudden lack of movement makes Robin groan in the back, lashes fluttering open to look at her surroundings.

“Oh, thank god, I think I’m gonna be sick again.” Her throat sounds hoarse when she finally speaks, but it’s all she can manage before a dry heave has the boy next to you scrambling.

“Not in my car! Not in my car!” Steve’s quick to jump out of the driver's seat rushing to get your best friend out of the back, leaving you alone to fight with your seatbelt. 

Frustrated, you blow a breath out from between your pressed lips tugging on the smooth material while your thumb smashes the release button. It doesn’t budge and the cedar starts to pick at your nerves. An angry noise squeaks from the back of your throat catching Steve’s attention who finally gets Robin on her feet. The spice of his cologne swallows you whole when he emerges back into the car. Leaning over the console he’s gentle when he pushes your hand away. You don’t protest his help this time, eyes tracing the gold chain that slips out from under his shirt. It shimmers everytime it swings from his neck when it hits the moonlight, clicking the button with ease, releasing you from your self imposed trap.

“Thanks,” you grumble, using a wobbling arm to open your door, clambering out less gracefully than you intended.

“Are you good to follow me? I don’t think Robin’s gonna make it up the steps on her own.” Closing the car door, he leans over the top of it, his eyes watching the way you maneuver around his car like you’re walking on thin ice.

“I’m fine,” you growl, right as you lose your footing catching yourself with an open palm on the hood of his trunk.

“Seriously, I can help I just have to take you both one at a -“

“Steve, I said I’m fine. I don’t need anything from you.” You interrupt and if you weren’t so focused on putting one foot in front of the other, you’d see the way the harshness of your words make him wince.

He stares at you for a minute longer before muttering a quiet ‘whatever’ scooping Robin up and tucking her into his side. You follow them at your own pace up the cement steps to the second floor, thankful that her apartment isn’t too far from the landing when you get to the top. Your legs start to feel like Jell-O waiting for him to unlock the door, the long drive from New York and the night finally catching up to you in a way that makes your eyelids heavy as Steve pushes open her front door. 

“Bathroom! Bathroom!” Robin manages to get out when she and Steve cross the threshold first, a string of cuss words spilling out of his mouth as he tries to hurry her to the place she was begging to be taken to.

You use the full force of your weight with your back to the door, closing behind you with a loud slam. The navy blue couch in the middle of her living room begging you to sit down, an invitation your clumsy steps accept, leading you to the fluffy cushions. Collapsing onto them with a satisfied hum, you sink into the foam, lashes fluttering and eyelids getting heavier with each second that passes, and soon you find yourself giving in with a warm cheek pressed into the arm rest.

You don’t know how much time has passed when the feeling of your laces being tugged loose stirs you awake. Trying to focus with vision still blurry from sleep, Steve’s messy head of hair comes clear into your line of sight. Long fingers pull the white strings from the metal eyelets of your converse, a warm palm wrapping around your ankle that sends a shiver up your spine as he slowly wiggles your sneaker off your foot. The white tube socks that cover your feet make him smile with a thumb that dares to rub a small circle on your skin before dropping it to work on the other.

“Steve,” you manage to get out, voice still thick with sleep.

“I’m just tucking you in, that’s all hon- and then I’ll get out of your hair.” He clears his throat after the nickname that set you off earlier burns like acid dying on his tongue.

You grumble something unintelligible, rubbing the mascara off your eyes as he pulls your other shoe off the pad of his thumb doing the same thing to your other ankle making your toes curl. Both his hands find their way to your calves squeezing softly at the muscles before he starts to lift them up.

“Come on, let's get you laying on your side.” He coos, helping you adjust so you’re finally horizontal. You groan a little, reaching out for him on instinct, the softness of his touch making a very drunk you crave more. 

“I’d love to cuddle but I think you’d actually kill me in the morning,” he laughs to himself knowing you won’t remember any of this when you wake up.

You make some more noises that he can’t figure out if they're supposed to be words or not as he drapes Robin’s thick throw blanket over you. Grabbing the material in your fists when you feel it, you pull it even closer, a low satisfied hum spilling from between your lips that still sparkle with leftover glitter from your gloss. He watches the way you curl into yourself, fingers twitching at his side to run his knuckles over your cheek.

“Steve,” his name comes out clear as day, kicking up his heart rate.

“Yeah?” He squats down next to your face, the warmth of your breath hitting his face while your eyebrows furrow in your sleepy state trying to get whatever you want to say out.

“You really broke my heart, you know that?”

Your words punch the air out of his lungs, just like your unexpected arrival. Something he’s fantasized about happening more times than he’d like to admit.

“Yeah, I know.” He sighs defeated, giving into his urges for comfort with knuckles that brush against the warmth of your skin, a familiar burn stings his eyes when you subconsciously lean into it. 

You don’t say anything else to him, the furrow of your brows smoothing out as your face finally starts to relax under his touch. He watches the way your shoulders move with each deep breath that pulls you further into sleep and away from him. 

He takes a selfish minute to stare at you uninterrupted, tracing your cheekbone one last time before he stands up to leave, he knows he won’t get any sleep, and the words you won’t remember saying are already haunting him like a bad dream.

“Do you really wanna love me like you say you do? Give it to me like you say you do? Cause it’s hard enough you gotta treat me like this, lonely enough to let you treat me like this. Do you really love me?”

Steve was late, glancing down at pink the digital watch on your wrist, fifteen minutes late. Five lockers down from his, you wait for him at what’s been your meeting spot for the last eight months. Far away enough from his locker that no one would suspect you waiting for the King of Hawkins himself, but close enough to the janitor's closet for him to steal you away from sight without anyone noticing for the forty-five minutes of study hall. 

Hushed argumentative whispers catch your attention, nerves making your feet move from side to side unsure if you should abandon ship and just go and study for the final in your last period. Nancy Wheeler's eyes meet yours as she rounds the corner with her best friend Barb, the corners of her lips pulling up ever so slightly giving you a small wave which you return as she tries to ignore her friend.

“He’s just trying to get in your pants! Come on, you have to be smart enough to know that.” Barb points at the note Nancy is clutching in her hand so hard that the whites of her knuckles show.

“It’s not like that, I’m just tutoring him.” She argues but the blush that creeps across her cheeks and spreads down her neck gives her away.

I’m just tutoring him.

That simple sentence is enough for your world to tip off its axis, chest tightening at the realization of who they're arguing about. All the canceled plans the past few weeks with the excuse of extra tutoring starts to feel like a knife to the gut. Prince Charming rounds the corner holding and twists the handle with a bright flirtatious smile that used to be just for you, only now it’s flashed at the dainty brunette who melts under it because no one is immune to Steve Harrington. 

It takes him a minute to see you, too wrapped up in Nancy who’s back is pressed to the lockers, caged in by Steve’s big hand splayed against the metal by her head. They’re too far to hear what he’s saying to her, but the confident way his teeth flash and the sweet giggle he earns from it tells you everything you need to know. Tears burn at the corners of your eyes, but you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing them fall. Fists clenched at your sides, the blunt ends of your nails dig into your palms as you hold in the sob that threatens to give you away as you walk past them, meeting his guilty eyes before you round the corner.  

The pounding in your head wakes you up before the sun that leaks through Robin’s small kitchen window. Your hangover rings in your ears with a vengeance, and has you letting out a pained groan. Everything after the joint you shared outside at the party is nothing but a blur, a scattered puzzle with pieces missing as you try and figure out how you ended up back home and tucked into the couch. 

“Are you alive out there?” Robin’s voice calls out weakly from down the hall in her room. 

“Barely,” you grumble, agitation kicking in from dehydration and the old wounds your dream decided to rip open.

“I’d say I’m never drinking again but we both know that’s a lie,” she says, muffled by what sounds like a pillow.

A giggle tries to escape, but it only makes you wince, clutching your forehead willing the pain to subside.

“How’d we even get home?” You croak, rubbing harshly at your eyes before attempting to sit up, covering them with a cupped palm as your surroundings get brighter.

“Steve,” Robin’s voice comes out right next to you, surprising you by appearing in the entryway. 

Hearing his name out loud sends the kind of rage that scorches through your veins, it burns from your fingertips remembering the look on his face when you broke up a few weeks after that day in the hallway your dreams so sweetly reminded you of. 

It was Pity.

Your best friend ignores your silence and the sour look on your face as you silently take a trip down memory lane while she shuffles into the living room wandering to the attached kitchen. 

“How far is Eddie’s shop from here?” You grimace watching her chug from a carton of orange juice.

“Oh, super close. You can walk from here.” She answers, wiping her upper lip with the back of your hand, “they opened like two hours ago, I’m sure he’s already looked at your car.”

“I think I’m going to shower and go over, do you want to come with me?” Raising your hands above your head, you stretch your sore muscles as a yawn comes out in the middle of your question.

“I think I need to rot in bed for a little while longer before I go walk amongst the living, I promise I’m all yours after I don’t feel like a freaking crypt keeper.” Your yawn is contagious, giving you a view of all her perfectly straight teeth.

“I demand something greasy for lunch when I get back then.” You point at her finding your footing on the carpet, noticing your converse are tucked nice and neat against the couch next to you. The feeling of Steve’s knuckles is a ghost against your skin, details starting to come out clear from the murky waters. 

Heat rushes to your cheek at the memory while your emotions start to go at war with each other over what to feel towards the man who tucked you and your best friend in last night, but also broke your heart in a way you don’t think you’ll ever quite forget. 

“I’m on it boss, god, I wish Benny’s was still open.” Robin interrupts the inner struggle she’s oblivious to you having as she walks past you flinging herself on the couch you’d just won the battle of leaving “But I’ll think of something good, I promise.”

Just like your yawn, the smile she gives you is contagious despite the sharp pain you get in your head from moving too much and you both laugh wincing when it only gets worse. 

Ibuprofen first, then your car.

Birds chirp loudly, mocking the headache that's turned into something more annoying than painful after a handful of ibuprofen. The sticky air is still suffocating even in a pair of black biker shorts and an oversized loose fitting tee, while the sun shines golden against the cerulean sky without a cloud in sight to hide you from its light. 

The heat warming off its rays makes beads of sweat start to collect at the crown of your head and the nape of your neck, while the incline Eddie’s spinning auto body sign sits on top of threatens to take your breath away. Unwanted thoughts of Steve Harrington keep your pace quick, stewing over the last twenty-four hours and everything it’s unraveled.

The small parking lot is empty when you reach it, kicking small rocks with the toe of your sneaker as you cross it. The double garage doors are open, Metallica’s Seek and Destroy echoing loudly, tugging up the corners of your lips. Your Chevrolet Caprice is the only car semi-lifted in the air with a pair navy coverall-clad legs underneath it.

Opening your mouth, Eddie’s name dies on your tongue before you get a chance to shout it, clocking him and his wild curls sitting in the glass office inside. Those big brown eyes meet yours from across the way, a dimple filled grin lighting up his face waving excitedly from his chair before standing up.

“Glad to see you’re alive, princess.” He teases stepping out of his glass case, with coveralls that are gray today.

“Honestly, it’s a miracle,” you laugh, confused eyes darting to the large boots under your car that don’t seem to have any reaction to the sound of your voice.

“Oh, I heard all about your first night back home. In fact my shop opened thirty minutes late because of it,” he chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans against the open metal frame where the door should be. Faded bats that you remember when they were fresh dancing across his arm with his movements.

“Wait, what?” You ask, confusion pinching your brows together right as the mysterious pair of legs start pushing out whoever’s under your car.

“I didn’t get back to my place till almost four in the morning after getting you two home and in bed,” Steve emerges flashing you his million dollar smile as he sits up on the dolly, the sleeves of his own coveralls tied tight around his waist and hair wild like he’d just rolled out of bed, “I slept through my alarm.”

The immediate glare that hardens your face when you see him has Eddie's eyes light with obvious amusement. 

“What are you doing here? And why are you touching my car?” You snap, trying to push the worries about what you look like deep under the irritation and the distraction that begs to steal your anger with his arms on full display like this. Or how the patch of chest hair that peeks out the top of it shines with sweat. 

“I work here,” Steve snorts like it’s the most obvious conclusion, because, well, it is, “and I volunteered to look at it, Eddie’s got his hands full.” 

That was a lie, he begged him.

“Since when do you know anything about cars?” Snorting, your attitude makes him roll his eyes, pushing himself off the ground.

It’s a struggle to hold his gaze when he stands at full height, biceps flexing with his movements practically daring you to look. He pulls out a faded maroon rag from his pocket and starts wiping off the fresh black from his hands that’s already stained under his nail beds. The hard bottoms of his work boots making their way across the cement floors of the garage. 

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me anymore, that’s what happens when someone leaves for five years.” Steve antagonizes, his lack of sleep leaving him with thin patience.

He stops just close enough for you to smell how the woodsy spice of his cologne mixes with the sweet bitterness of the oil that seems to find a way to leave its mark on every surface in here. Including him.

“I’m going to finish balancing the books, why don’t you tell her the good news first and then the bad,” Eddie pours ice over the tension that threatens to boil over before it can turn hostile, catching the way both of your nostrils flare and shoulders square up.

“Wait, there’s good news and bad news?” Your focus on Steve shifts as Eddie’s words sink in.

“Like I said, I’m going to finish balancing the books.” The metal head reminds you, giving a half salute with two fingers while simultaneously shooting a stern look to Steve who’s mouthing something behind you. “Your mechanic’s going to go over everything with you, we can talk about pricing when it’s all said and done.”

“Seriously?” You bluster as Eddie shrugs with the kind of nonchalance that sends you reeling before sitting back down, tuning the dial-up on the radio in his office. End of discussion.

“Look -“

“How do I even know that you know what you’re talking about?” You interrupt, making his full lips set into a straight line.

“Are you going to be like this the whole time?” Steve sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose before crossing his arms, the tops of his shoulders moving with them. 

A pleading expression softens his features instead of the hard combative one you were anticipating, and it helps your blood pressure return to normal. The realization hitting you that maybe skipping breakfast with a hangover probably wasn’t your smartest idea.

“N-no, sorry, I just feel like -“

“Shit? Yeah, I bet.” He chuckles, and your jaw clicks. Maybe if you count to three…

“Just tell me what’s wrong with my car, Steve.” It comes out clipped, but it's an improvement from your fingers twitching to rip that handsome head right off those shoulders that won’t stop trying to distract you.

“How about you tell me the last time you had your oil changed?” He counters, taking a few steps back to sit on the hood of the rusted baby blue Buick behind him. 

“Uhh, I- I think,” All the blood rushes to your cheeks, warming your skin as you try to wrack your brain and not focus on the way his legs spread wide to keep his balance. “Maybe, like, six months ago.”

“Six months?!” The number must be worse than whatever Steve was preparing for when a dirty hand runs through his hair, “and then you drove it three states to get here?”

“Yeah, I - I mean, hearing you say it out loud,” you grimace thinking of all the weeks you ignored that flashing orange light on your dashboard.

“So then you shouldn’t be surprised when I tell you that your engine locked up.” 

“Is this the bad news?” 

“Kind of,”

“What do you mean kind of?”

“Look, the good news is that I can fix it, the bad news is that I have to order a few parts that could take up to three weeks to get here, then the job itself is going to take me probably another week.” He sighs standing up, starting back towards your car with you quick on his heels.

“That’s the whole summer!” You argue like it could possibly make a difference, frustration pricking at the corners of your eyes watching him pop open the hood.

“More like half of it, but hey, you’re lucky I can even get it running again without having to replace the whole thing.” He meets your gaze from under his lashes leaning over the engine, long nimble fingers unscrewing the cap where your oil should go.

“So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to get around?” You know that part isn’t his problem, this entire mess is your own doing but it doesn’t stop it coming out in a whine. You blame your hangover.

“You’re gonna be just fine, city girl,” Steve grins up at you before reaching even further under the hood, muscles flexing with him, “besides we both know I can’t say no to Robin.”

He pulls at a small tube that’s purpose is unknown to you but you keep eyes trained on his movements like you have an idea, anything to keep the focus off the gold chain that dangles from his neck. 

“Or you.” The last part comes out so quiet, a focused look pinching his brows together as he continues his investigation.

“Me?” 

He doesn’t look at you when he shrugs, pulling at something with a little more force that makes you both flinch. 

“How much is this going to cost me, Steve?” Your defeat shows in your tone, as the question slips quietly from between your lips that you wish you’d have put gloss on now.

He grunts at the same time something pops against metal under his hands, muttering a string of curse words under his breath before standing back up wiping his palms on the white cotton of his tank top. Charcoal stains fill the small grooves in the fabric with each swipe of his hands, pulling the collar further down every time. It’s a losing battle not to look at his chest when every motion reveals more of the thick curls underneath. 

Steve clears his throat, letting you know that you’ve been caught and it’s at this moment you wish you could walk in front of the moving truck that drives loudly past the shop, only exaggerating the silence that follows.

“Don’t stress about that today,” he smiles, letting you off the hook for now, something mischievous dancing in his eyes for another time. “Like Eddie said, we’ll figure it out.”

“Don’t stress about it?! Have you met me?” You huff, the money you’ve saved up for the summer starting to dwindle right before your eyes. 

“I have actually,” Steve chuckles, stepping close enough for the tips of your shoes to touch his boots. He feels bold when you don’t make any attempt to move away like at the party or retreat when he closes the gap. A thumb and forefinger finding their way to your chin, tilting your head up to meet his gaze, “and you’re going to be fine, I promise.”

Your lips part on their own, the full force of his face from this close stealing the breath from your lungs. You can smell the coffee he had this morning and the mint from his toothpaste still lingering on his breath. The stubble that lines his sharp jaw is even more noticeable today, tapering off at the top of his neck making the cluster of moles that live there stand out even more. A pink tongue runs over his full bottom lip and it has your lashes fluttering against the tops of your cheeks.

“Now go get some food, grumpy,” his voice comes out low, a teasing edge to it that reminds you of what it’s like to have Steve Harrington flirt with you. “I’ll call when I get the parts, okay?”

It’s like detention junior year all over again as you turn into putty in his hand. Still too attractive for his own good, all you can do is nod while all the fight you had left inside you disappears as the pad of his thumb swipes soft against your heated skin just under your pouted lip before letting you go. He turns on his heel after that, walking back to the box of tools he has spread out over his workbench before adding,

“Do me a favor and tell Robin she owes me a new shirt.”

beta’d by @sweetsweetjellybean

🌻 chapter two

[imfinereallyy]

“Sing me to sleep.” Steve mumbles, head falling onto Eddie’s chest. They’re lying in the back of Hop’s old pickup truck; he had sold it to Eddie not long after the van finally gave out.

Steve is drawing circles on Eddie’s shirt, following the constellations up above. Hawkins isn’t good for much, but nothing really beats the clear night skies during an Indiana summer.

Eddie hums above him, not even bothering to laugh at Steve’s request. Instead, the small huff of air sounds almost endearing.

They haven’t really talked about it, this thing between them. How they have been slowly drifting closer and closer to each other as the months pass. It feels almost inevitable, the two of them. But not in a bad way—not like a car crash or a meteor falling into earth. No, Steve and Eddie are inevitable, like in the way the sun will always eventually rise; how it’s always there in the darkness waiting to shine. How even in days of grey, eventually, the rays will peak through.

Steve and Eddie are like the sun always rising because the only thing able to stop them is the end of time.

Maybe it is a twisted way of viewing being bound by love, but Steve doesn’t care. He thinks it makes sense for them—he thinks it’s kind of beautiful.

“What kind of song do you want to hear?” Eddie doesn’t tease him. His voice is soft against Steve’s ears as he plays carefully with the ends of Steve’s hair.

Steve ponders for a moment what he wants exactly. Something nice? Something soft? Something about love?

None of it sounds right.

But then Steve tilts his head up, away from the stars, to stare at the beautiful boy before him—his Eddie, who is like the sun.

“Something warm.”

A soft smile breaks across Eddie’s face as he leans down to brush his lips across Steve’s hairline.

Steve’s eyes flutter in anticipation, but a kiss never comes. Instead he gets something better, feeling the brush of hot air across his skin.

“For you, there'll be no more crying…” Eddie starts to sing. Steve’s eyes finally fall shut, no longer caring about the stars, only needing to listen to Eddie’s voice.

“For you, the sun will be shining

Because I feel that when I'm with you

It's alright, I know it's right.”

[upsidedownwithsteve]

A soulmate AU: Steve Harrington x fem!reader [3.7K]

THE TIMELINE

"There was something 'bout you that now I can't remember, It's the same damn thing that made my heart surrender. And I miss you on a train, I miss you in the morning, I never know what to think about. I think about you."

- About You By The 1975

V. HAWKINS, INDIANA: 1988

Two years had passed since the last gate had closed and despite the aftermath of the “earthquakes,” Vecna had yet to make any sort of reappearance. 

Max’s bones healed, eventually, and she regained most of her sight, relying on thick lensed glasses when she grew tired or the words in her books turned blurry. Nancy went to college, Jonathan tried it for a year, Hopper took El on a month-long camping trip to see something other than the town repairing itself and Lucas went to therapy. 

Soon, each kid followed suit, attending sessions that eventually helped them sleep a little better because even though they couldn’t tell the person on the other side of the coffee table about monsters and the world under their feet, there had been enough death and suffering to fill the hour with regardless. 

Dustin told Steve he should go too and Robin agreed. After Eddie’s funeral, the one where they all stood with Wayne, a guy from the garage Eddie worked at on weekends and the remaining Hellfire members beside a small gravestone, they had another one. 

A second ceremony near the woods behind Eddie’s trailer, close to where he died, to where Dustin had found him bleeding and proud. The kids cried and Joyce held on tight to Will while Jonathan hugged Nancy and Dustin punched a tree trunk. It felt better than the first one, easier somehow, when they didn’t have to lie and hide the guilt they had at knowing each and every one of them felt a little shame in having a hand in someone’s else’s death. 

But it was closure. 

The town healed, roads were repaired, houses rebuilt, new flowers planted in the park in memory of those who had been lost in the accident - the natural disaster that made headlines, the one that no one could have predicted. 

Steve helped Dustin clean Eddie’s grave when the spray paint covered the dead boy’s name. Robin stopped crying when she looked in the mirror each morning. Jonathan left his room. 

The kids got better. They smiled more, went to the new arcade on opening day, shared slushies and rode their bikes around town again. Joyce visited Wayne when she could, took him pies and meatloaf and eventually got him out of his armchair and into a coffee shop for a full hour. Hopper got his job back, had a ceremony that preceded the funeral he had years before and Robin managed to get her and Steve a sweet gig at the record store that replaced Family Video. 

It felt fresh. New. Clean. 

So why was Steve still dreaming about gates?

For the third night in a row, he woke up gasping. A yell stuck in his throat that tasted like metal, like blood, and he was drenched. Shirtless, his sheets stuck to his chest, the weight of them tangled around his legs in a sickly familiar way, vines tugging at his ankles. His room was dark, the house empty, too quiet. Quiet enough that his breath ripped from his lungs in harsh pants, his head pounding from the exertion of running in his dream, back in a place that he hadn’t seen in almost twenty one months. 

At first, he dreamt of death. 

Of Eddie and how they found him lifeless and in Dustin’s arms. How Max was barely conscious in the attic of the Creel House, her body broken in ways that no doctor could understand. He dreamt of how he had pulled Lucas away from her, the boy sobbing and yelling, fighting with more strength than he knew he had as Steve tried to restrain him just enough for the paramedics to get Max into the ambulance. 

Then the dreams turned empty. He dreamt of losing everyone, Robin, Dustin, Hop. El was gone, Will too, Mike nowhere to be found. Nancy’s house was empty, Joyce and Jonathan didn’t exist and Steve sat alone in a town that turned grey, crumbling to dust until the vines came back and the clouds turned red. 

He ran miles every night, searching for his friends, his family. Woke up to shaking breaths and sore legs like he’d really sprinted across a town that was no longer home and each morning when the sun rose, he sat with a coffee and his bare legs dipped in the pool in his backyard. He stared at the water until the ripples blurred and wondered how long it would take for Barb to come haunt him too, if she’d reappear in his dreams despite the years that had gone by, if she’d come crawling back out of his pool like she used to, dripping wet and with no eyes. 

But Barb never came and he stopped dreaming of the kids, stopped hearing Lucas’ screams, stopped seeing Max in a hospital bed with blood coming from her eyes and eventually, one night, he dreamt of a gate that he’d never seen before. 

It didn’t even really look like a gate. 

Not the ones Steve knew. It wasn’t framed by dead vines, it didn’t pulsate, it didn’t have a red glow coming from its innards. This one didn’t look like rotting flesh, like a wound in the earth that couldn’t be healed. This one wasn’t at the bottom of a lake, lined with wet moss and cracked rocks, it wasn’t in the Munson trailer nor in the middle of the woods. 

This one opened on a blank wall in Steve’s bedroom, replacing the shelves where his old basketball trophies sat, where he usually left his pile of clothes before falling into bed. In the dream, it started as a crack, a crumbling of plaster and blue plaid wallpaper and Steve watched it open, a yawning thing that split the room and bathed it in light. It was too bright at first, like blinking into a summer sun. And once the white-hot of it cleared from Steve’s eyes, he saw blue skies and he could smell the ocean. 

There were trees he’d never seen before in real life, something out of a movie, tall and green and narrow as they swayed in a breeze he couldn’t really feel from his spot on his bedroom carpet. The buildings were a pinky-peach colour, like clay, with orange slate tiles and there were foundations and statues carved into the walls, water trickling from the mouths of gods and vases that stone faced women held in their marble arms. 

It was like looking at a painting, a canvas between his bed and his old desk, framed with olive branches and large, red fruits that protruded from the gates mouth. 

Pomegranates. 

Steve could smell them, a sweetness that mixed with the ocean air, a kind of freshness that you couldn’t find between the fields and farms that surrounded Hawkins. In the dream, he wanted to move closer but found that he couldn’t, his eyes wide and his bare feet rooted to the spot as he stared at the scene. It felt like a memory the more he looked, the buildings becoming familiar, a baby blue door that looked like somewhere he’d once owned the keys to and the cobbled streets became a well walked way home. 

Then, as if he weren’t supposed to really see it, he spotted something move in an upstairs window. Two houses from the front of the gate, with rusted shutters and white linen curtains, he saw a girl stand between them. 

A pretty girl, with eyes he knew he’d seen before, in a white dress that he was sure he remembered the feeling of. 

The sight of her made Steve’s heart hammer, the dream making him dizzy, the realisation that he knew that girl making the line between unconsciousness and reality a little blurry. He didn’t know her name, or where he knew her from. He didn’t even know where he was looking or why the gate was there. 

But he stared and stared until the girls eyes met his and before he could lift his hand, or even try to speak, there was a crack that seemingly came from the sky - the one above Hawkins or the one inside the gate, he didn’t know - but something flashed, the gate went dark and the rip in his bedroom wall stitched itself back up. 

He woke up feeling like he’d remembered and forgotten something all at once. Like a book he’d read back in middle school, a photo he’d once misplaced, a song he hadn’t heard in years but still remebered some of the words too. 

He knew her. He knew her. 

Steve thought about the girl so much, so often, that it didn’t take him long to think of her, to refer to her, as you. You were someone he’d once known, from a memory or another dream, he wasn't sure. It was the same feeling as watching a movie and seeing a pretty actress on screen, in a different outfit with different hair but knowing her face and wondering what show he’d seen her in before. 

Except with this, there was an aching want that buried itself in his chest at the sight of you, an awful feeling that grew larger each night. And every time his wall cracked open again, it seemed like his ribs did too. A crushing feeling, a yawning expanse inside his body that made room for the way his heart seemed to grow and grow at the sight of you. 

Yearning, that’s what he thought it was. A slow, burning build of it. 

The second night, he dreamt of you in a garden. A sprawling, green lawn with a pond so green-blue it made his eyes hurt. There was an awning beside it, a pergola of sorts made of white stone and it had ivy growing between the pillars, covering the roof and reaching down to trail its flowers in the water below. You were closer than before, than you were in the window, and Steve could see the way your lashes hit your cheeks as you looked down, stitching something that you held in your lap. 

There was a wicker basket beside you, a loaf of fresh bread wrapped in a cloth and he could still smell pomegranates, sweet and tart. There was a space beside you on the blanket, enough room for two but no one else came. 

You were always alone. 

Steve tried to talk to you, to reach out and see if this gate worked like the others, if he could walk through into this other world, this other dimension, but it didn’t work. 

Not yet, anyway. 

You seemed to notice him more on the fifth night, as he watched you walk along the edge of a lake. Your hair was shorter now and your clothes had changed. They look more modern, more like his, the cabins behind you reminiscent of a summer camp, a holiday lodge or something. He could hear music, a song he swore he heard on the radio not too long ago and that night, you watched him back. 

It seemed like you were waiting for someone. And when Steve saw your face light up with a smile, his heart stumbled. You raised your arm, reaching out a hand to the edge of the gate, off to the side as if someone else was in Steve’s walls. He saw another hand reach for yours, larger, definitely male, with a freckle where the thumb joined the palm. 

The jealousy he felt was unmatched, a burning thing that scorched his chest and his throat, hot needles at the back of his mouth. Before the man came into view, the crack in his wall trembled and the gate stitched itself closed once more, leaving plaster dust and flakes of paint on his carpet. 

Apart from the small mess, no one would have ever guessed another world opened up inside of Steve Harrington’s bedroom each night. 

It took him a week and half to notice his hand had a freckle in the same spot. A small beauty mark he’d never really paid attention to before, painted in the space that joined his thumb to his hand. He tried not to read too much into it, tried not to hold onto the hope that maybe it meant something - because none of this made sense, not really. 

They were just dreams. Strange things, brain scrambling things. But it was a welcome reprieve from death and darkness and vines that held onto him too tight. He no longer woke up in a cold sweat, he no longer wished for morning to come, no matter how tired he felt when he opened his eyes. 

Steve wondered if anyone else was experiencing these kinds of dreams. If the rest of the party were getting glimpses of other worlds, other timelines. He wasn’t sure what they were, too scared to ask, too afraid to make everyone else worry. The thought that these dreams could be a trick crossed his mind more than once, a new tactic from Vecna, an infiltration of his sleep that was meant to lull him into some kind of false sense of security. 

Safety - an unknown feeling. 

But everyone else spent their days talking about school and their new bosses, the fair that was coming to town to celebrate the town hall finally being rebuilt. No one mentioned Vecna or dreams or gates or girls they knew from somewhere they couldn’t place. 

So Steve accepted the fact that whatever these dreams were - whatever they meant - they were just for him. Which meant that you were his too. 

Weeks went by with Steve viewing you from the split in his wall, sometimes hearing music, sometimes hearing your muffled voice. Never real words, never loud enough to hear and it didn’t seem like you could hear him either. But Steve watched, enraptured, following you around different parts of the world, new countries and scenes that he could never really place but, oh my god, each one felt like home with you in it. 

Then one night, he saw himself. 

He felt the surge of panic flood him even in his sleep, his body jolting against his bed as he saw the familiar face, staring back at him, nonplussed. He looked a little different, maybe older. His hair was shorter at the back, cropped closer to the nape of his neck but the biggest difference was how happy he looked. 

This Steve, the one in his dream, inside this gate - this Steve from another time, another life - he looked lighter. He didn’t have purple smudges under his eyes, no deep lines settling across his forehead from frowning so much. His clothes were different too, looser, less fitting, the colours more muted. He wore a pair of jeans that looked much more comfortable than his tight Levi’s, a soft burgundy sweater that had the sleeves rolled up. 

Steve didn’t recognise where this dream took place, but he knew it wasn’t Hawkins. America, yeah, the street signs and licence plates on the cars in the street giving that detail away, but he wasn’t too sure where. The buildings were bigger, shinier, more glass than brick but the skies were still blue and it looked peaceful, warm. 

Safe. 

Dream Steve strolled down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, looking back over his shoulder every now and then as if to make sure the real Steve was following him. He walked past storefronts and stopped to pet a dog, a golden retriever who was waiting for his owner outside of a bakery. When he came to a bookstore, Steve could see a large building in the distance, a huge billboard atop it that looked like it was advertising a new movie, or a show maybe. It didn’t have much details on it, no actors nor dates to tell what year this was supposed to be. 

Certainly not 1988. 

It only had lettering across it, big and bold and red against a pristine white background: “ANOTHER LIFE.”

The bell to the bookstore jingled and then Steve saw you. As pretty as you had been in every other gate, every other world, every other lifetime. Like a figurine inside a snow globe, like something from a fairytale. Steve had never seen you this close before. 

He watched your smile, the way it widened at the sight of his counterpart, this other version of him. You were so pretty that his breath got caught in his lungs, his sleeping body kicking out in shock when you lunged at the dream version of him, throwing your arms around his shoulders in greeting. 

Steve watched the two figures embrace on the street, he watched how this luckier man got to bring his hand to your cheek and hold to there to kiss, how his lips - Steve’s own lips - met your own and parted them, mouths melting together in something that was so much more than a quick hello. 

Steve didn’t have it in him to feel jealous then. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to. He watched the hand that held your jaw, the thumb that caressed your cheekbone as you grinned into him, your own hands clutching his waist now. There was a freckle, the same as the one he had on his own hand, in the matching spot on yours. This Steve took that hand and kissed that very mark, smacking kisses across your palm and up your wrist until you were laughing, head thrown back, eyes bright. 

Steve hadn’t seen anything so happy. 

He woke up before the dream finished, before the gate closed. Steve woke up with tears stinging at the corners of his eyes, his vision blurry in the navy gloom of his bedroom. It wasn’t yet morning. There was no gate on his bedroom fall, no new city between the plaid striped wallpaper. 

He thought it could’ve been Chicago, maybe New York. Perhaps Philadelphia. 

He wondered if he left and went looking for that bookstore, that street, that billboard, he’d find you too. If he was supposed to, if you were real, if this life was all he was supposed to get. 

Something told him otherwise, that open crack inside his chest that made him ache for hours after he awoke. He never forgot about you during the day, each life he’d watched you live, how you had grown your hair out and then cut it, how you seemed to change your clothing depending on where you were, from old petticoats to jeans and shirts with logos on them he’d never seen before. 

Steve felt like he’d lived a thousand lives with you. 

He wasn’t sure what he had to do to get you in this one. 

After two weeks of dreaming of this life with you, one that he was so sure would happen, he spoke to Joyce. He waited until the kids dragged Hopper out into the yard to help them with some sort of rocket they wanted to make and he found her in the kitchen. It was the closest kind of feeling he had to home - bar from the sight of you, but he wasn’t really sure if that counted when he was asleep. 

So he tried to sound casual when he leaned over the Byers kitchen counter, elbows avoiding the jelly stains that Mike had left after making a sandwich, and asked, “hey, uh, do you believe in soulmates?”

Joyce blinked at him, flour and butter between her fingers as she tried to turn the page in her recipe book back to the instructions for apple pie. The book flopped shut when she let go, her hands reaching for a rag instead. Her eyes never left Steve’s. 

“Uh, well. I guess so,” she paused, head tilted to the side as she watched the younger man, how his cheeks turned pink and his gaze fell to the floor. “I haven’t thought about it all that much. Why’d you ask?”

Steve didn’t know what to say then. So he floundered, flushed in the face and nose scrunched as he ran his fingers through his hair too harshly, hoping that no one else walked in. What was he supposed to say? That he was dreaming of gates in his bedroom walls? But it was okay? ‘Cause these ones didn’t have monsters or creatures set out to kill him, no, these gates held something that he thought he’d once had, that they held something he was so sure he was supposed ot have again?

Maybe, just not in this life.

Maybe, this time, something was broken. Wires were crossed, cut, unravelled. Maybe the upside down messed up a timeline, maybe it ripped apart whatever plan it had originally laid out for Steve Harrington. 

He didn’t know. But he knew it sounded crazy, even in his head.

So he shrugged and said, “no reason.”

And then that night, after Joyce gave him funny looks over the dinner she served him and the rest of his friends, the kitchen table full, he went home and lay on his bed, hardly bothering to pull the sheets over his bare chest.

He counted his breaths, hoped for sleep and wished for you.

Like always, his room grew darker, his lids heavier and the crack in his bedroom wall crumbled and split until the dust settled and he saw your face. You were alone this time, pretty as ever and in the same looking city he’d last seen himself in. The skies were blue behind you, the buildings still tall and shiny looking, all glass window panes and metal framework. If he concentrated enough, he could smell summer.

Hot tarmac and sunscreen, fresh fruit from one of the stores behind you, tart lemons and freshly ground coffee. 

You were looking right at him and even in his sleep, Steve smiled. Your eyes were pretty, too pretty, the colour bright and your gaze excited as you gazed at him. Like you’d been waiting. You held out a hand, coaxing, kind, soft, patient. And for the first time, when Steve reached out too, his hand slipped through the gate. 

He was right, about the season, about it being summer. The air inside this world was warm on his skin, like the sun was on him despite being sprawled out in the blue gloom of his dark bedroom. It felt like a July morning, right before the heat hit. 

He was almost touching your fingers when he woke up alone again.

[flowercrowngods]

it's yearning steddie get high with the others and make out about it hours (smut-ish)

Eddie hates being reminded that making promises to himself, and only himself, is pretty much useless if the only person holding him accountable to stick to his promise is one Eddie fucking Munson. Because that guy can’t be trusted. 

Especially not when it comes to Steve and his stupid perfect hair, his stupid perfect dimples, his preppy fucking everything, and — perhaps most importantly — the breathy note his voice gets when the boy replaces his beautiful piece of brain with Eddie’s finest weed. 

Steve in all his sober glory is unbearable at best, sure, that’s old news. But high? When the pained frown he’s not even aware of until he complains about a headache smoothes out and the tension in his shoulders disappears? When his scars no longer pull at every movement and he can hold himself again in the way he used to before everything — broad movements with a clumsy little edge to them that have Eddie’s heartstrings play rope skipping with his sanity.

That. That’s it. That’s it for Eddie. 

And it’s no surprise that it’s also what leaves him helpless in the face of Nancy hopefully suggesting they get high again tomorrow night; all of them. Offering Eddie the chance at getting to see that tension fall away again, and that pale smile be replaced with an easy, genuine, lingering one — dreamy and so fucking pretty. 

Luring Eddie with the most beautiful insanity.

So he says yes, despite having promised himself that he wouldn’t. Not after what happened last time. With Steve all the way up in his space, brushing his hair behind his ear with wonderment, trailing his hand down that lock until he forgot what he was going to say. What he was going to do. 

Forgetting, too, that Eddie was sober, because he wanted to watch Steve without getting caught — but Steve, all high and sweet and tactile, apparently decided to do the same. He looked. And touched. And smiled and breathed and stayed right there. Fingertips dancing around the frayed ends of Eddie’s hair.

Something shifted — first between them, then around them. And then between them again when Eddie stepped back and turned away, in desperate need of a cool drink to stave off the feeling of being caught, of being trapped, of being so fucking gone on the prettiest god-damn boy in all of Indiana. And of having said boy look at him like that. 

They shouldn’t get high again. They shouldn’t. 

But he knows it helps with the pain like their meds never do; he knows it helps Nance sleep better, breathe better, exist in this post-apocalyptic world that doesn’t even remember the apocalypse, whose only reminders lie in the scar tissue of some teenagers and some graves that nobody knows are empty. 

He knows that if he says no, they’ll find someone else to provide; and he doesn’t like the thought of that. Not one bit. 

So it’s not even the thought of Steve’s dazed little smile that gets him to agree, nodding at Nance with an easy smile, saying, “Sure, let’s do it.” 

But it is the thought of Steve’s dazed little smile, his breathy voice, his tactile nature that comes out even more when he’s high out of his mind like he knows he’s floating and needs someone to anchor him, and the memory of that stolen little moment, that makes Eddie curse himself to all hells once Nancy’s blooming smile is out of sight and he’s free of judgment to kick the kitchen counter beside him with a hearty curse. 

He can do it. He can. All he needs to do is not stay sober this time, take the edge off and get out of his head about all of this, because he’s actually far less likely to do anything stupid under the influence, and also not look at Steve All Eyes On Me Harrington. 

Easy. 

Right? 

Totally. 

Except, as it turns out, ignoring Steve is both easier and harder than Eddie expected. The thing is, he’s good at diving into any conversation with just about anyone, making it larger than it needs to be until everyone in the room will give him funny looks but still roll with it, because Eddie Munson is just Like That, right? 

But Steve doesn’t give him funny looks. Oh, they’re far from fun. There’s something in there that reminds Eddie of a kicked puppy in those fleeting moments that he lets his eyes meet Steve’s, never letting them linger, never letting them take him in and hold him and bask in the sunlight that is stored in those… Those beautiful, beautiful eyes. And that pretty, pretty face. 

A face that shouldn’t look so sad. 

He wants to ask what’s wrong, ask him if it’s a bad pain day, ask him if he didn’t sleep last night either, or if something happened. But how is he supposed to ask, to let any words come out of his mouth, when Steve just won’t look away. When he’s looking at Eddie like that again, when the little something that has shifted between them suddenly becomes massive enough to steal all the air away from his lungs and make his arms tingle in a way that he knows will only get better if he gets to wrap them around Steve. 

He can’t. So he doesn’t. He doesn’t ask. But he doesn’t look away either, and he knows he’s already lost. He knows he broke this promise he made to himself. 

But it’s fine, maybe, if the slight twitch in the corners of Steve’s lips is anything to go by. Like he, too, wants to say something but can’t. Like he knows Eddie is the same. Like his heart is racing, too, and he tried not to look but they’re so stupid and looked anyway and now they can’t— 

“Guys?” Robin interrupts their little moment, the bubble bursting with a loud snap of her fingers that makes Eddie physically flinch. 

He looks at her, spooked to shit and gasping because he does not do well with sudden loud noises or the impromptu bursting of bubbles — not after everything that happened. 

“Shit, sorry, oh my God!” Robin’s there immediately, reaching for his hand, Nancy laying hers on his shoulder, Jonathan making himself known with a gentle little, “You’re fine, man.” 

Eddie regains his footing and breathes away the panic, thinking that maybe getting high today wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He hands Robin the baggie and stuffs his hands into his pockets, making himself a little smaller by muscle memory alone. 

Steve’s hand comes to rest between his shoulder blades — reassuring and warm. Like a flower, Eddie rises to follow it. He catches Steve’s smile out of the corner of his eyes and wants to rest his face against it. Wants to feel it against his skin. Wants to feel it shift into something deeper. Something real. 

God, he’s so hopeless. 

Good thing that Robin’s got the blunt under control, because Eddie does not trust his hands right now. 

They grab the snacks and drinks and head outside to where Steve and Robin laid out pillows and blankets on the lawn, framed with dimly glowing white Christmas lights that Robin insists upon whenever they do this. Makes it feel a little less fucked up for her. Like we’re doing this because we want to, and not because we need it to sleep or to cope with the pain or whatever, you know? Put pretty lights anywhere, and it’s a choice. 

Eddie has to admit that she has a point there, but the truth is he’ll smoke anywhere, fairy lights or no. Although there’s something, a capital-s Something about watching Steve framed by a thousand little lights smoothing out the worry lines on that beautiful face and making him seem all the more angelic for it. 

Eddie actually called him angel once — the first time they did it like this. Made Steve smile like nothing else Eddie’s said to him since. Or anyone else for that matter. If he were any better at feeling the ground beneath his feet and the air in his lungs, he’d call him that again. Make him smile like that again. 

But the ground is shifting and air is always scarce these days, with Steve’s hands on his body so fleetingly, so accidentally leaving marks on scar tissue, making Eddie wish he could feel more of Steve’s warmth there. 

Making him wish he could ask. Touch me higher. Lower. Longer. Make it last. Make it count. Let me feel it, just for a second. Let me feel it where they didn’t steal chunks of my skin and my soul and, apparently, my sanity. 

Argyle is the first to spread out on the blankets with a hearty groan that leaves everyone with a fond smile, gathering around him in a semi circle of amusement. He makes grabby hands at Robin, or maybe at the unlit joints she’s safekeeping — but either way, she follows suit, cuddling up to Argyle and in turn making grabby hands at Steve, who does as he’s told and laughs in that gentle, melodic way that they so seldomly hear these days. 

Steve’s eyes fall on Eddie then, but a surge of worry and panic overcomes him, half expecting Steve to follow Robbie’s and Argyle’s example and reach for Eddie next. Or not reach for him. Either way, Eddie doesn’t want to find out, his heart beating in his chest at the endless possibilities stowed away in his overactive imagination. Instead of waiting for Steve’s next move, he sits down right here at the opposite end of the blanket, reaching for one of the pillows so he can hug it to his chest and have something to hold on to, just to keep his hands busy. 

“Just don’t crush the goods there, birdie,” he grins, watching Nancy and Johnathan find a place to sit, too. He scoots over to make room for them, moving further from Steve in the process and feeling the distance in his chest. It’s so stupid. Fucked up, really. 

“Oh, the goods are plenty safe, my dude,” Argyle says, earning himself a giggly groan from Robin that sounds a lot like, Gross!

Jonathan throws a pillow in Argyle’s face, which he deftly catches with just as salacious a grin. 

Eddie tunes them out for a moment as he catches Steve’s eyes boring into him. He cocks an eyebrow and inclines his head, silently asking him what’s up in way less magical a way than he has with Robin. 

He doesn’t really expect Steve to react in any way other than maybe a shrug or a brief, reassuring smile that really has no meaning other than, I’m fine, except for all the ways you know I’m not. 

But Steve doesn’t smile. And he doesn’t shrug. He keeps his eyes on Eddie and fucking pouts. Looks like he’s not even aware of it, his eyes a little glazed already, seeming far away. Far away and right here and looking so fucking sad about it. About the few feet between them and Eddie being all the way over there. 

It’s a bit like the moment they shared earlier, with Steve looking so sad and Eddie wanting to do something about it. He couldn’t then. But now… 

Eddie’s breath hitches a little as he mirrors Steve’s position, falling backwards and leaning on his elbows., never once dropping his eyes. Stretching out his legs until he can nudge Steve’s ankle with his foot. Watching as those eyes snap down to the briefest contact in surprise, watching as Steve looks caught. And watching, too, as his lips twitch and his foot slowly, incrementally moves closer to Eddie’s like he can’t help it. Like he needs to touch him. Always, always needs to touch him. 

And Eddie can feel it there, so he doesn’t move away. He wants to hold his hand, wants to run his fingers through his hair and for Steve to do the same. He wants to breathe him in, wants to live in a Steve-filled world and feel welcomed in it. 

But he can’t. Because they’re not like that. And because this moment is not like that. And Steve is… Well, he is like that, he’s pretty sure. But maybe not for Eddie. Maybe not like that. 

Steve’s foot is warm against his, pristine white baseball socks so stark a contrast against Eddie’s;  threadbare and black, with more holes than fabric these days. He can’t really help the wave of embarrassment that washes over him, or the urge to pull back his feet and hide them in his shoes again. Sacrifice the warmth for safety.

But then Steve seems to notice just a second after Eddie does, and he smiles. Huffs a little with it, like it just bubbles out of him. Eddie wants to lean across the blanket and chase it. Chase the fondness and keep it there forever. 

And that’s another thing about Steve that is so very fucked up: he doesn’t let Eddie hide. He doesn’t let him trade warmth for security, because — smile in place — Steve slowly moves his feet along the side of Eddie’s like he’s playing fucking Connect the Dots with the holes in his socks. It’s ridiculous. 

It’s ridiculous, and Eddie is helpless. He’s so gone, a hundred percent. He’s so fucked up over that silly boy and the way he smiles at the most lamest of things. 

It’s not his fault that he leaves his feet where they are, the warmth of Steve’s slow, teasing touch shooting electricity up his legs that leaves him with goosebumps and a sudden case of uncomfortably tight jeans.

He’s glad there’s still a pillow in his lap. And he’s glad, too, that the night is dark enough, the fairy lights not bright enough, to reveal the flush rising to his cheeks as it feels like the bravest thing he’s ever done stay like this. To have Steve looking at him like this. Eyes hooded and intense. Like he sees right through Eddie. Like he likes what he sees. 

With a dull click, Robin’s Zippo pulls him back to reality in what must be the gentlest of ways, and Eddie manages a smile as he watches her gently place the doobie between Steve’s lips before she lights it, one hand on his cheek. Their faces light up, leaving the rest of the world in the dark, and Eddie is struck with how good they are together. 

There’s something in the way she lights the joint for him, some kind of love language from the girl who burnt down the hell dimension below them and left it in ashes, and the boy who held her hand through it. 

She holds his eyes as the flame dies and something passes between them as Steve slowly closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Takes that first hit. 

Eddie’s smile falters as he watches, the glowing cherry coming to life and lighting up Steve’s face, revealing that relaxed little smile on his lips as he holds it in for five, six, seven before exhaling  around it in a slow, drawn-out way. He blows it in Robin’s face like he always does, and Robin laughs and shoves him back, like she always does. 

And Eddie wants to trade her place. Like he always does. Eyes transfixed on Steve as he takes the next hit and pulls the joint from between his lips. Holding his breath again. And Eddie wants to be held like that. Wants to fill Steve’s lungs like that, wants to leave an aftertaste that is both sweeter and biting as he does to Steve what that first hit does to him. Leaving him all soft and gentle and so, so at ease, his eyes droopy and all those lines of pain and worry smoothed out by him. Eddie. On his lips. In his mouth. Fuck, anywhere, really. Everywhere. 

He follows Steve on his exhale, his head getting a little dizzy with the lack of air, but still he is slow to breathe in again. It feels strangely intimate, watching him like this. Watching as that tension falls away and he hums a little around the bud — relaxed and relieved and appreciative. It feels like they’re the only people left in this town, in this state, maybe in the whole world. 

Eddie wants to stay alone like this forever, chase Steve’s breath and wish it would hit his face like that, caress his cheeks until the air around them claims it and erases all traces of Steve; but not from Eddie’s skin. Never from his skin. 

But they’re not alone. And Steve opens his eyes. And Eddie is caught. 

Still he doesn’t move, doesn’t look away as Steve blows out the smoke, sweet and earthy in the air between them as it slowly finds its way to him across the blanket. He imagines that he can feel it as the smell grows stronger, imagines the smoke to feel warm against his cheek as he breathes it all in, holding those hazel eyes in the dark that refuse to look away from him. 

It’s like that moment the other day in Steve’s kitchen when he was so close Eddie could smell all of him, frozen as he was, rooted to the spot — too scared to move and reveal himself, reveal all of himself, all the ugly truths and dreams. His wishes. His desires. 

Why do you keep looking? Eddie wants to ask. What are you looking to find? Am I just an experiment to you, are you looking at yourself through my eyes? Say something. Anything. 

But Steve doesn’t. He never does. Steve Harrington isn’t really the type to just say what’s on his mind, too used to Robin by his side to just read it all and react in her own way. Too used to Dustin, who’d do the talking for him. Too used to just letting his eyes, his arms, his posture convey his message. 

Too used to people knowing him. Getting a good read on him. But not Eddie, because Eddie never learned how to fucking read people like Steve Harrington cast in pretty light and relaxation. Angry, he can read him no problem. When he’s pissed, when he’s annoyed, when he’s sad. Tense. Worried. 

But not this. Never this. This intensity, this steady gaze resting only on him. He never looks at Robin like that, and he doesn’t fucking look at anyone else lately. 

It’s driving Eddie insane. 

It’s too much. 

He snaps when Steve passes the joint back to Robin, and sits up to pull his feet back to himself, covering them with his hands to pretend the warmth is still there. Frowns at the holes in his socks, feeling more exposed than ever. He curls in on himself a little, pretending to be very fascinated with a little thread that’s come loose in the blanket beneath him while the others hold casual conversation around him. 

This was a bad idea. He’s so fucked. 

Part of him debates if he should leave, if he should just call it a day and bid them goodnight. The other part of him wants to just close the distance between him and Steve and settle in beside him so the weight of that gaze won’t fucking wear him down any more. 

But knowing Steve, that wouldn’t work. 

Knowing Steve, nothing works. 

Feeling pathetic and small, Eddie lets himself fall to his side, hiding his face behind Nancy, whose hand comes to rest in his hair, combing through it just a little bit. Allowing him to collect himself. This isn’t new, and they don’t really question when Eddie just randomly lies down anywhere, or if he just stops talking all of a sudden. 

It’s why they do this, after all. No judgment. No questions. Just the sweet, sweet release of Mary Jane. 

It helps, having her hands in his hair like this, grounding him. It helps, finding no question or worry in her eyes as she looks down at him with a little smile — her way of including him in the conversation. He smiles back, just a little bit, and closes his eyes to better focus on her hand rather than the moment. She chuckles when he begins to purr, and then the smile stays a little longer. 

After a while, when she offers him the joint, Eddie shifts to lie on his back and gazes up to find the clouds have cleared and revealed the night sky behind them. It’s pretty, the summer sky, and he takes a long drag trying to think of nothing else. A hot wave of smoke hits his lungs, and it tickles a bit just like it always does, but the urge to cough it back out has been gone for years. These days, his lungs allow the warm embrace of the smoke and allow him to hold his breath as long as he wants, feeling a pleasant buzz after the fifth drag. It’s the good stuff after all. Munson’s Finest. 

He passes the joint back to Nancy, too comfortable to get up and pass it to anyone else, trusting her to do it without complaint. She does. She’s an angel like that. Puts her hand back in his hair and plays with his overgrown bangs a little while Eddie just stares up at the sky. 

Steve’s talking, but the words don’t really translate. It doesn’t matter, though. Just hearing his voice is enough for Eddie to sort of drift into a pleasant sphere of nothingness, his chest tightening a little with it. Always, always tight when he hears that voice. Like his heart has grown three times its size and his ribcage didn’t get the memo that Eddie Munson is hopelessly, helplessly, endlessly gone for a boy who refuses to look away. 

The thing is, Steve has always looked. Always. Even in the Upside Down. The first time, and the second. And then, the third. And Eddie wants it to mean something. Wants it to mean everything, or at least carry that possibility. 

But there’s no way to find out. There’s only him and the stars and Nancy Wheeler’s hand in his hair after his life took several wrong turns that left him with more scar tissue than skin these days, and the horrible realisation that, after the world ended and rebuilt, he can fall in love. That he can want. That he can have these cravings that he’d always heard everyone else talk about, wondering if that was just another layer of freak to him, or if he was simply Like That. 

They’re lonely realisations, he finds. Alienating, in a way. Because not only does he not know how to navigate Harrington, no, he’s a riddle even to himself right now. 

All he knows is that he wants to touch. To hold. To kiss. To crawl into him, on top of him, beneath him, and pull his own name from those lips in tiny little gasps that have nothing in common with the frantic gasps of panic after their first stint with the hell dimension. He wants a do-over. He wants a chance. A real fucking chance to have all these smiles, all these looks mean something. 

Arm outstretched, he reaches for the blunt again, taking it from whomever has it right now, aiming to shut off his brain a little more. Not to suppress it, but to shut it off. Even if that means he has to finish this thing. It’s fine. They have more. They always have more, because Jon and Argyle have an unreal fucking tolerance. 

With a chuckle, Nancy bypasses his hand and puts the joint between his lips and ignores his indignant hum. 

“Treat yourself”, she says, her voice wonderfully slow and lower in pitch. “I’ll be right back, yeah?” 

“‘Kay.” 

The warmth of her hand leaves his scalp, and with her body gone — getting up in way too swift a motion even for sober people — the night air seems a little colder. Eddie shivers a little, refusing to look at anyone, and just takes drag after drag, deciding he’ll finish this one. It’s his weed after all. 

By the sounds of it, Robin is already lighting the next one. Good girl. Smart girl. Best fucking girl in the whole wide world. 

Thick clouds of hot smoke waft through his lungs and all the way through his body up to his brain, leaving his arms and legs with a tingling feeling and his head with a pleasant buzz and tunes out most everything else around him. It’s great. It’s good. It’s wonderful. 

It’s why he doesn’t realise that the air is warm again and a body shielding him from everyone else until there’s a hand in his hair again. He opens his eyes to snark at Wheeler, but— 

It’s not Wheeler. It’s Steve. Knees pulled to his chest, chin resting on top as he smiles down at Eddie. 

Neither of them says a word, but Eddie’s breath hitches. Stops, stutters. Just like his heart. And yet all he can do is stare up. Wonder if it’s real. Wonder if it’s real. 

“Is this okay?” Steve whispers, fingers barely touching Eddie’s skin as he sort of plays with his hair. 

After a beat or two, Eddie nods, careful not to move too much. Careful not to chase those fingers and all the things they could mean. 

“Good.” 

And then Steve pulls the joint from between Eddie’s lips, and Eddie wants to warn him because this one’s close to the end and bound to be stronger, but it doesn’t seem to faze Steve as he just sucks in the smoke like it’s the first lungful of air he gets after a long day stuck inside. Smiling around the bud as it dies between his lips, he presses it into the grass beside him, extinguishing the last of it. 

He exhales, and Eddie can make out a tiny cloud of smoke against the night sky, watching as it wanders toward him. He waits for Steve to say something. There is what feels like intent in the movements of his hand, in the sudden appearance by his side, and in the way he— he fucking looks at him again. The sky is full of stars, the backyard full of fairy lights, and Steve Harrington is looking at him. 

“You okay?” Eddie asks at last, breaking the silence, wondering if his voice always sounds so small, so quiet, so endlessly tiny. Wondering if Steve even heard. 

But he did, because he smiles again. He did, because his hand stills. Touches Eddie’s skin. His scalp, his temple. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, looking from Eddie’s eyes to his own hand with something akin to wonder. Or marvel. 

And Eddie shivers again when that hand travels down. Caressing his cheek, definitely with intent. Electricity shoots through his body again, and the intensity in Steve’s eyes leaves him with goosebumps. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t dare. Barely even swallows as Steve bites his lip absently and moves on, trailing from Eddie’s cheek down to his... 

He’s touching his lips, and Eddie doesn’t breathe. Steve runs his forefinger along Eddie’s bottom lip, and in another world would he open his mouth and nip on his fingers or gasp at the touch and be better at this, be so much better at everything. But in this one, he lies motionless as Steve just fucking… explores. 

And his touch is so light, it’s so gentle, so sweet on the rough scar tissue, and yet so absent, it doesn’t have to mean anything. He could pull back his hands now and claim that Eddie had something there. He could pull back and live his life unchanged. Leave Eddie behind in this state of paralysis, changed irrevocably, and be safe. 

But that’s not what Steve does. 

Steve was never one to choose safety over bravery, and he has the scars to prove it now. The permanent stiffness of his back that barely lets him feel anything these days. The set in his jaw when he breathes through the pains phantom and real, the crease between his brows when the memory pains flare up. 

But his back is hunched in comfort now rather than in pain, and his shoulders are at ease. His lips are lightly ajar around a barely-there smile, and the skin between his eyes is smooth. Eddie wants to reach out and trace it, wants to caress it in the hopes that it’ll stay smooth forever. 

He’s so pretty. Golden light catching his skin in all the right ways, leaving him positively glowing with that look he gives Eddie. That look. 

Eddie’s never felt so exposed. So vulnerable. Laid bare, ready for dissection and willing to be taken apart in the hopes of letting him find what he wants and take it. Rip it right out of his chest. Now that he has Steve’s hand on his skin in the lightest of touches that’s anything but fleeting, he knows he would let him take anything he wants. Knows he would be helpless to stop him. 

Helpless in the face of that gaze that trails down to his lips now, if only to follow his fingers. 

“Steve,” Eddie breathes, barely moving his mouth at all around that single syllable. 

Golden hazel eyes flit back to his, and they widen a little. Like suddenly it’s Steve who’s caught. 

What are you doing? Eddie wants to ask. What are we doing? Don’t stop. Never stop. 

But words are for moments lighter than this one. Words are not meant for a world that’s changing. 

Maybe that is why Steve puts his hand on Eddie’s chin, tipping it up and turning his face toward him in a gesture so tender it’s almost possessive. Electricity shoots through Eddie again and the air between them is sizzling with it, sizzling because Steve is moving, shifting, dipping his head, his hand coming to rest on Eddie’s throat to keep him from moving away — except there is no force in his touch, and Eddie could still run. 

He could. He should, maybe. Like last time. 

But he is suspended in time, chained to the ground by the weight of Steve’s gaze and the hand on his throat, and his heart is beating so hard, so fast, that he is sure Steve can feel it. Imagines that those fingers move to find his pulse. Imagines that they find their home there, imagines that they hear the tales of stolen hearts and desires that leave his blood rushing. 

Imagines that Steve falters a little, hovering just above Eddie. Dreams of it all, dreams that this is real and that he can have this, just for tonight. He nods, and it’s a tiny little thing, far from enough to ruin this moment or wake him from his dream.

But then Steve captures his lips with such care that Eddie snaps back into his body and realises that this is no dream. Steve is kissing him. Hovers above him with one arm resting in the grass above Eddie’s head, his other hand pulling Eddie’s face towards himself and being oh so gentle about it. 

A whimper escapes him when this new reality settles inside his body, leaving him reeling and pulled towards a world of possibilities as those lips, those warm lips, rest so indulgently against his. 

No longer chained, Eddie carefully lifts a hand to Steve’s head, because Steve can feel him there, too, and because he doesn’t want this to end. Because he needs to touch. All night, all week, all this time he has needed to touch. To cradle. To hold. 

To keep. 

Steve hums, and those lips pull into a smile before closing around Eddie’s bottom lip. The first touch of Steve’s tongue has jolts of electricity and arousal zinging through Eddie’s body again, lingering this time and making a home in his legs that begin to tingle with want. 

Eddie opens his mouth, tilting his head a little to get a better angle, and is rewarded with the careful, addictive touch of Steve’s tongue against his. It makes Steve smile again, just for a second — but long enough to make Eddie’s heart jump. 

He chases those lips when they pull back, capturing them with a little hum as he realises he comes more and more unchained, regaining feeling and control over his body, his mind, his scared little heart. Steve doesn’t hesitate to reciprocate, pushing Eddie’s head down into the grass again with an urgency that Eddie is beginning to understand matches the hunger he’s feeling. 

The hunger that is reserved only for Steve. It leaves him breathless, leaves him with the sudden need to gasp for air, but then Steve’s tongue is in his mouth again and maybe he doesn’t need to breathe ever again. 

He loses himself in the wet slide of their tongues that feels so sensual it’s almost obscene, and all he can do is tangle his fingers in Steve’s hair and keep him right where he is while Eddie himself lies boneless, all the blood rushing down, down, down. Every nip of Steve’s teeth as he devours Eddie so entirely and yet so innocently, so sweetly, so carefully, and every time he sucks on his lips or his tongue results in another wave of intense arousal. And Eddie is stuck in the riptide of it. 

It doesn’t take long for the first moan to break the silence, a gasped little thing, almost like an afterthought, and he’s not sure if that was him or Steve; but he doesn’t really care either way, because he’s so hard, he feels like he can come from just Steve sucking on his tongue alone. 

And isn’t that an enticing thought. 

“Steve,” he whispers, not entirely sure what he’s going to say, or if that’s really all he needs to say. All that’s left to say. Steve, Steve, Steve. 

The only response he gets is a breathy little, “Fuck,” and it sounds like a revelation. Like an epiphany. And Eddie wants to hear it again, wants to swallow all the little noises and murmurs and everything Steve will give him. 

“You’re so—“ Steve begins, interrupting himself with another deep, hungry kiss. “Fuck. You’re…” 

“Yeah?” Eddie counters, breaking the kiss by pulling on Steve’s hair a little. “I’m what?” 

Steve hesitates, panting breaths dancing over Eddie’s skin and he smells so fucking good. Eddie wants to lick the aftershave and perfume and sweat off his neck and keep the taste on his tongue for days. Dark, blown eyes wander over his face, and the hand that was on his throat comes up to rest on his cheek again in a gesture so gentle that it almost gives him whiplash. The hunger is gone — or, not gone, but unimportant now. 

Steve smiles, hazy but genuine and so, so sweet, eyes zeroing in on Eddie’s no doubt swollen lips. 

“Been wanting to do that forever.” 

Eddie’s heart jumps, falters, falls. Just a little. Just the rest of the way. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah. Wanna kiss you forever.” 

“Yeah, well,” Eddie breathes, voice barely there because his breath has well and truly been taken away, and this moment feels so fragile. So easily broken by quick movements or thoughts that are just a little too loud, just a little too soon. “‘M not gonna stop you.” 

Steve’s eyes snap back to his, and there’s something in there that not even the weed could ease away. “Yeah?” 

Eddie nods, frowning a little, wondering what makes him so unsure. 

“Cool,” Steve says, and it’s almost nonchalant and definitely charming in that way he always is. Makes Eddie laugh a little, his other hand coming up to wipe a strand hair out of his eyes. “So…” He trails off. 

“Hmm?” 

“Wanna stay here? Or go inside, or…” 

And then it’s not arousal that overcomes him but worry. And guilt. And a bit of fear, because that’s not what this is for him. Not like this. Not when they’re high, not for the first time. 

He swallows, schooling his face to cooperate and not give it all away right now, not give away how helplessly gone he is for that boy and how he would do anything Steve wants, how he would take anything he can get and try to make it be enough. But instead of choosing the easy thing and betraying himself, he moves his hand from Steve’s hair to his cheek, melting at the way Steve leans into it, moving his face to press a kiss to Eddie’s palm. 

“Steve,” he says, and his voice is shaky again. And small. So, so small. “That’s not what this is for me. I don’t… I wanna kiss you forever. And more. Much more. But not… I don’t—“ 

“Not while we’re high? Inebriated?” He says the word with a chuckle, referencing the way Robin will always use big words when she’s hammered. There’s a gentle sort of understanding on his face after the chuckle, though, and Eddie melts a little again. “Wanna do it right, hmm? Wanna treat me right and make sure I won’t regret it, angel?” 

Eddie whimpers at the sudden use of that nickname, because he’s not, but he does. He didn’t realise until Steve said it how scared he was — is — that Steve will regret this. The kiss. And anything that might follow. 

Not trusting his words right now, he can only nod, wondering if his eyes are as blown as Steve’s are. If Steve thinks he’s pretty, too. 

“God, you’re unreal,” Steve whispers, coming down again to press a kiss to Eddie’s forehead, brushing them down to the tip of his nose. He leans into those kisses, tips his chin up to chase it, but Steve pulls away again, his thumb tracing the pout he leaves behind on Eddie’s lips. 

“You’re one to talk,” Eddie grumbles, watching the delight on Steve’s face and deciding that he’s addicted now. Fuck the weed, fuck everything else. Steve can get him just as high. 

Along with that thought, reality works its tendrils into Eddie’s consciousness again, and he looks around the backyard around them — but there’s only him and Steve out here on the blanket, framed as they are by the fairy lights. 

“Hang on, where are the others?”

Steve huffs, his face shifting into an expression of fond amusement and gentle annoyance. “Last time I checked, Robin and Argyle were raiding the fridge, Nancy was lying on the living room carpet, marvelling at how soft it is, and Jonathan was just kinda spaced out on the couch with a bowl of chips. Don’t think they’re gonna come out here again in the next half hour or so.” 

“How convenient,” Eddie grins, wondering just how obvious the two of them had been all this time. Wondering, too, if it can really be that easy. If he can have this. If they can; after everything they went through.

“Hmm,” Steve hums, his body shifting so he’s half lying on top of Eddie now, positively vanishing any and all thoughts Eddie could have spared anyone else. He would worry about the hard-on he’s sporting, but it becomes obvious very quickly that Steve has the same predicament. It’s enticing, feeling him against his thigh like that, and Eddie has half a mind to do something about that, especially when Steve keeps shifting against him. “So. Do you wanna make out some more before we light the next baggie? It’s fine if not. We can just… I don’t know, cuddle or something.” 

“Steve,” Eddie says, pulling on his hair a little bit to underline his deadpan. “What about I wanna kiss you forever was unclear?” 

“Hey, I said that first,” Steve retorts, digging his fingers into Eddie’s sides, making Eddie squeal and squirm right into his arms. “I also kissed you first,” he continues, sounding so damn smug about it. Eddie’s never wanted to kiss him more. “So I’m winning.” 

“Hmm, I don’t know about that,” Eddie murmurs, pulling Steve all the way on top of him, his hands finding his way to those magnificent thighs, so firm underneath his grip. “‘M feeling pretty lucky right now.” 

“You think you’re so smooth,” Steve hums, dipping his head to hover just above his lips. 

“Is it working?” 

“Unfortunately.” 

They’re both laughing when their lips meet again, but that doesn’t deter them from kissing and tasting and swallowing moans like they’ll find new purpose in each other. Like they’ve already found it. 

Just like Steve’s hand finds his, weaving their fingers together and pressing him further into the grass. Eddie holds on tight, not ready to let him go anytime soon, and marvelling at how sensitive his hand has become. 

There is no urgency in the way Steve slowly begins to move against him, grinding their crotches together in slow, sensual motion like waves of the ocean gently lapping at the shore. Eddie meets him right where they both need it most, not once breaking their kiss even when it becomes open-mouthed panting and moaning that the other is trying to chase and swallow and keep only for himself. 

“You feel so good,” Steve rumbles, catching Eddie’s tongue between his teeth and pulling a high-pitched whimper from him. “So fucking good, Eddie.” 

“Don’t stop, Stevie, fuck.” He’s panting, his legs tingling with want and need and a weightlessness he’s never known before. “I know I said— We can stop. We can stop, we can, but— fuck, I’m close.” 

“Yeah?” Steve taunts, and oh, there’s purpose now in the the way he’s lifting his chest off Eddie, putting his weight behind the way he’s grinding into him. “You gonna come in your pants, baby? While the others are still inside? Means you’re gonna do this with me again later, right? Try again when we’re not high, hmm?”

“Yes,” Eddie rushes to say, working his fingers into Steve’s belt loops to keep him from stopping. “God, yes, I wanna—“ 

“I’ve got you,” Steve says, kissing the words right out of his brain, chasing his own pleasure, too. “God, you’re so pretty. So fuckin’ pretty, Eddie. Wanna come with me?” 

“Uh-huh,” Eddie can only nod and moan around all the words he wants to say, all those cheesy fucking words that leave him all the more vulnerable for how true they are. The tingly feeling builds in his legs, climbing to his core, and he wonders for a split second if Steve can really make him come like this — worries that somehow it’s not enough and that he’ll ruin this, that he’ll fuck it up and make it awkward between them because he doesn’t actually have any idea how his body works when someone else is taking the reins. 

But then Steve kisses him like that again, sucking his tongue into his mouth, holding his hand and groaning when Eddie moves in just the right way, and the sizzling pleasure finally finds its release. 

Eddie comes with a broken groan that Steve swallows greedily, panting into his mouth as, shortly after, his hips begin to stutter in their movements and he follows Eddie off the brink of this beautiful madness. Steve was always beautiful, there’s no question about that. But like this, face slack, kiss-swollen and spit-slick lips open around a silent moan as he grinds his trapped cock against Eddie’s, wrecked with aftershocks as his orgasm washes over him? He’s a fucking revelation that makes Eddie’s eyes roll into the back of his skull, over sensitive as he is  and yet so helpless against Steve’s aborted little motions. 

Getting high on weed doesn’t compare to getting high on Steve. It’s a high Eddie wants to chase forever, and he starts by wrapping his arms around Steve and pulling him down onto his chest again, just to hold him. Steve purrs as Eddie’s hand finds its way into his hair, combing it away from the sweaty skin it sticks to. He cages him with his legs, too, tingly as they remain on either side of Steve’s body. 

It’s stupid, maybe, and a bit much, but he wants to keep Steve like this for a little longer. Putty in his hands, his weight on top of him grounding him after that high, and allowing them both to come down slowly. 

“Man,” Steve says after a while, just letting that word hang in the air as he regains conscious thought. 

Eddie hums, prompting him to say what’s on his mind even though he’s scared he won’t like what he’s about to hear. Still, it’s only fair to let Steve say what he wants. 

“I like you so much.” 

Eddie holds his breath as he waits for the but. For the regret. But none follows. That’s really all Steve’s saying; and soon Eddie can’t fight the wave of giddiness that overcomes him. 

He hugs Steve a little tighter, not entirely ready yet to look him in the eyes and face this new reality they’ve kind of just created, needing to be a little scared for just a bit longer. But still he laughs, because scared is no longer all he’s feeling. There’s so much more now. So much more. 

“I like you so much right back.” 

Now it’s Steve who hums, shifting to lift his head and look at Eddie, but Eddie closes his eyes before Steve can catch them. 

“Said it first again.” A hand lands on his cheek again, just above the ugly scars that Steve doesn’t seem afraid to touch. “So I win.” 

And Eddie is looking now. Dares. If only to drive his point home when he says, “God, you’re so fucking lame.” 

“Is it working?” Steve grins, and Eddie never stood a fucking chance. 

“Unfortunately.” 

@izzy2210 here you go darling hehehe 🤍

[sideblogofthcentury]

Steve was flipping through a magazine on Eddie’s bed when the thought came to him.

He looked over at Eddie where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor playing around on his guitar. He’d been working out some part of a song while Steve half-listened. He said Steve “helped him think,” whatever that meant.

Steve had realized he didn’t know Eddie’s name. Or at least, what it was short for. He’d become quite close with the older boy since the spring, since he carried his lifeless body out of the upside down, since El closed the gate and burned Vecna and the entire second world to the ground.

Steve didn’t quite understand how he felt about Eddie yet. He knew he really liked him, felt drawn to him, enjoyed his presence, his personality, his appearance.

Okay so maybe Steve knew more than he was willing to admit to himself.

Eddie’s guitar made an unsatisfactory noise and Eddie shook his head, rubbed his forehead in frustration, and looked up at Steve. He smirked when he saw Steve already looking back, and raised an eyebrow. “Can I help you?”

Steve rolled his eyes, letting the snark roll off his back. “Yeah, actually. I’ve been wondering something.”

Eddie raised both eyebrows this time. “Oh? I never pegged you as the curious type.”

“Alright, keep the sass to yourself, Munson.”

Eddie threw his head back and laughed, his curls falling behind his shoulders to expose his long neck.

Focus, Steve.

“What’s Eddie short for?”

Eddie’s light smile turned into a wolfish grin. “Trying to fill out the marriage license?”

Steve groaned and threw the magazine at Eddie, hitting him on the knee.

“Whoa whoa Steve, watch the baby.”

“See you’re clearly already married to that stupid guitar.”

Eddie gasped theatrically, folding himself around the guitar as if to protect it from harm. “He doesn’t mean that dear, you’re a very smart guitar.”

“Booooooo”

Eddie almost fell backwards with laughter. Steve couldn’t help but giggle a bit himself, charmed by Eddie being so proud of his own joke.

“Eddie.”

“Steve.”

“You avoided the question.”

Eddie chuckled, resting his forearms on the guitar. “Clever boy.”

Steve would be lying if he said his breath didn’t catch, if his heartbeat didn’t quicken, his entire body didn’t feel a bit warmer.

Yes, Steve would continue lying for today.

He shook his head. “Eddie. Just tell me. Is it embarrassing?”

Eddie smiled up at Steve, revealing nothing. “Absolutely not.”

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“Now where is the mystery in that?”

Steve groaned again and fell back on the bed. “You’re so difficult. You know that?”

Eddie threw the magazine back at Steve. “I’ve been told a few times.”

—

Movie night at Steve’s, waiting for Robin to return with her popcorn:

“Edward?”

Eddie let out a sharp laugh. “No.”

—

Family Video, rewinding tapes while Eddie sewed a W.A.S.P. patch onto his new, non-blood-stained battle vest:

“Edison?”

Eddie recoiled. “What? Oh. No.”

—

Picking up the rugrats from Hellfire, leaning on Eddie’s van:

“Edmund?”

“Steve. Gross. No.”

—

Laying on the hood of Steve’s car at Lover’s Lake, stoned and looking up at the stars:

“Edwise?”

“What?”

“Edwise? Edwise Gamgee?”

Eddie cackled out into the night sky, echoes of his joy calling back at them from the trees. “Okay, who gave you access to Lord of the Rings?”

Steve shrugged. “I had to call in backup.”

Eddie rolled onto his side to face Steve, propping up his head on his hand. “You asked the kids what my name was?”

“Yeah.”

“And the best thing those little geniuses could come up with was goddamn Edwise Gamgee???”

Steve giggled. “They’re such nerds.”

“Absolute fucking losers, Harrington.”

They both laughed until they were out of breath, panting out steam in the fall Indiana night.

“No but seriously, Eddie? What is it?”

Eddie sighed, straining a smile as he stared up at the night sky. “It’s pretty fucking lame.”

“Lamer than Edwise Gamgee??”

That made Eddie giggle again. “No, I guess not.”

They sat in silence a moment, Steve patiently waiting, and Eddie gathering courage.

“It’s just Eddie.”

Steve turned to look at Eddie’s profile. He was beautiful in the cool near-darkness, the moon hitting his face at just the right angle to sharpen his features.

“Just Eddie?”

Eddie nodded. “Just Eddie. Nothing special or interesting or exciting. It’s just plain, boring old Eddie.”

Steve blinked.

Steve blinked again.

And before Steve knew it, he was taking Eddie’s hand in his own.

Eddie’s breath caught and he continued to look up at the sky, too afraid to meet Steve’s eyes.

“Eddie. I hate to break this to you, but I am pretty sure you are physically incapable of being boring.”

Eddie snickered and stopped himself.

“I mean it. You might be the craziest person I’ve ever met. You refuse to fit in to a box you’ve outgrown. You’re too goddamn stubborn to do what people expect of you. You stand up for yourself and people who need you. You’re kind and gentle with the people you love.”

Steve took Eddie’s cheek with the hand not holding his and turned Eddie to face him. “You are the most exciting, interesting, and special person I’ve ever met.”

And with that, Eddie had heard enough.

Eddie kissed Steve.

And Eddie did not stop kissing Steve until he was bent over him, knees straddling his waist and hands in his hair.

Steve gripped Eddie’s hips and pushed him back, pausing to catch his breath. Eddie panted above him and laughed down at him, his lips reddened and his eyes blown wide. He looked absolutely insane. Absolutely gorgeous.

“Hey Eds?”

“Yeah, Steve?”

“You never asked me what Steve was short for.”

Eddie’s eyes narrowed. “What is Steve short for?”

Steve panted a light laugh. “It’s just Steve.”

Eddie paused.

And Eddie laughed.

And Eddie couldn’t stop laughing for a very long time.

—

The next year, Eddie signed a Valentine card “To: Just Steve.” and “Love: Just Eddie.”

—

That winter, Steve arranged restaurant reservations under the name of “Just Eddie”

—

The following summer, Eddie got down on one knee and asked “Just Steve” to marry him, and when Steve asked “What about the law?” Eddie said “it’s Just the law.”

—

The spring after, Steve read his vows in front of his entire chosen family. His voice faltered as he said “You’re Just Eddie the way the sun is Just a star. The way the moon is Just a rock. The way the earth is Just a planet. You are my home. You are where I belong.”

Three years after Steve carried Eddie out of the Upside Down, Eddie carried Steve across the threshold of their tiny apartment in Indianapolis.

[c-is-for-circinate]

It feels like there's this narrative that fandom keeps wanting to explore, with Steve Harrington, about this very specific type of martyrdom where self-sacrifice is an expression of a lack of self-worth. And, like, yes, write the narrative that's meaningful to you, and yes ok Steve does admittedly get beaten up a lot, but -- legitimately I do not think this narrative is actually Steve's story.

Like, without gendering things too much, there is something in the Steve fanon that I keep seeing that's so reflective of the specific kind of sacrifice and societal pressures exerted on girls, specifically -- this story of 'you make yourself worthy and worthwhile by carving pieces out of yourself', of believing that you must always give and never receive to justify the space you take up in the world. Yes, boys can experience this same pressure (and obviously trans and nb people of all genders run into it as well! sometimes a lot!), but especially in the mid-1980s cultural context where Stranger Things takes place, it's just...really not likely to be a dominant narrative for Steve to be operating under? It doesn't even really match the Steve we see on screen -- who is happy to make sacrifices for the sake of others, yeah, when needed, but who's not particularly kind or giving unless somebody asks first.

And Steve does get hurt a lot on other people's behalf! And this is a problem! It's just a completely different problem than the one fandom keeps writing.

Steve, and I'm going to say this forever, is a story about toxic masculinity, which the show may or may not even know it's writing. The archetypes influencing Steve's character as it shows up on the screen (and the stories and messages that Steve would actually be surrounded by in his actual life) are not deconstructions of suffering heroes who never should have had to fight in the first place and were destroyed by it. That's the Buffy the Vampire Slayer story. Steve's not Buffy. Steve's cultural context is Indiana Jones.

Steve is The Guy! And part of being The Guy is that you're expected to take the hits -- not because Steve is less important than the women-and-children he's supposed to protect, but because, the story says, he will get less hurt. Why should Steve get in between Billy and Lucas? Because Steve is an eighteen-year-old athlete and Lucas is in middle school, and of the two of them, Steve actually stands a chance. (And yes, Steve got badly hurt there, and Max had to save him -- but if Lucas, if Max had taken that beating they would not have been running through those tunnels later.) Was somebody else better-qualified to dive down to the uncertain bottom of a cold lake in the middle of the night? Steve doesn't list his credentials there as a way of justifying some ideal of martyrdom; he is literally the most likely person on the boat not to drown.

And make no mistake: when Steve's pulled into the Upside-Down, he survives the bats long enough for backup to get there. Realistic or not, he's apparently tough enough that he's physically capable of hiking barefoot through hell without much slowing down. Steve is the tank for the same reason as any tank: because he literally has been shown to have the most hit points in the group. You cannot honestly engage with Steve in this context without dealing with the fact that he's right.

AND THIS IS A PROBLEM! This is still a problem! But it's not the same problem that fandom seems to expect. It's not an expression of caretaking or the need for self-sacrifice; it's not an issue with Steve valuing himself less. It's an issue of toxic masculinity so ingrained that Steve doesn't even recognize he's suffering from it, because one of the tenets of toxic masculinity is that Big Strong Guys don't suffer. It's just a concussion, it's fine, he'll walk it off. It's not that Steve thinks he deserves to get hurt, or even that he's less deserving of safety than the others. It's that absolutely nothing in his cultural context allows him to admit that he can be hurt in a significant way.

There's still so much tension that can be gotten out of this situation, I swear. There's so much that can be explored in writing! Hell, the show itself is deconstructing some of this trope, believe it or not, by giving us a Steve who absolutely can take all the hits thrown his direction but still doesn't know what the fuck he's doing with his life. It turns out that doing his job as The Guy is only mildly helpful in horror movie situations (mostly by buying time for smarter, squishier people to do the damage from behind him), and somewhere a little worse than useless in everyday life.

But Steve does not go out of his way to self-sacrifice, he really doesn't. He just does his job. He's The Guy. Of course he's not going to let a kid or a girl or some scared skinny nerd who just learned about monsters yesterday take the hits. Of course Steve's got this.

[moonstruckme]

Hey bestie! I hope your day is going great! If you're open to it could I get some comfort from Steddie? I hate storms, always have and I unfortunately live in the Midwest. We are under tornado watch right now and could use something else to focus on. I wanna live vicariously through my beautiful Indiana boyfriends 😩. If you're too busy I totally understand. Thank you!!!

~😈

Hope your day is going even better ml!

cw: reader get anxious during storms

Steddie x fem!reader ♡ 717 words

You flinch when a piece of hail hits the window, and Steve tucks you closer against his side. 

Eddie shakes his head. He jiggles his keys as he stands from the couch. “I’ve gotta go get the van.” 

“No, no way,” Steve says, not for the first time tonight. “We’re all staying here.” 

“The closest tornado’s way off.” Eddie waves a hand, getting his boots from by the stairs and pulling them on. “I’m just gonna bring her here to take cover in your fancy garage so she doesn’t get fucked by the hail all night.” 

“So what, you think you’re gonna walk home and drive back?” Steve is incredulous. “Tornadoes can form anywhere, dipshit. On the road’s the worst place to be.” 

You tense as the winds pick up outside, and he tightens his grip on you as if he can contain your panic. You’re all holed up in Steve’s basement, the constant drone of the weather channel covering up the whine of tornado sirens outside. It’s probably overkill to have gotten out of bed to come down here this early—because Eddie’s right, the tornadoes are nowhere near you yet, you’ve only got the storm that the weatherman on channel 4 says comes before them—but there was no way you were going back to sleep after the sirens started anyway. Steve knows you feel safer down here, where the only windows are small and nearly at the ceiling, restricting your view of the outside to rain-pelted grass and occasional flashes of lighting. You get a bit freaked about this stuff. 

“Don’t go,” you say to Eddie, pleading. 

Eddie hesitates by the stairs, and Steve looks right at him as he says firmly, “He’s not.” 

The other boy heaves a great, dramatic sigh, kicking his boots off and tromping over to flop back down beside you. You’ve got your legs curled up underneath you, and Eddie lays his head on your thigh, looking up at you with his eyes extra big. 

“You’ll help me take care of the dents tomorrow, won’t you, hot stuff?” 

“Mhm.” You nod readily. Steve thinks you’d agree to anything right now if it’d keep him from going outside. 

He watches Eddie realize this, the other boy’s expression sobering slightly before he doubles down on the teasing. His eyes flick up to Steve. 

“Or I guess you could always pay to get any damage fixed, huh?” 

Steve scoffs, using his free hand to brush a curl away from Eddie’s eye. “Yeah, right.” 

“What? Is my old gal not in the budget?” 

“Your gal’s sitting right here.” 

Eddie’s gaze moves back to you, and Steve thinks he sees you going a bit shy as Eddie makes a show of taking you in. Good. You could use a distraction. 

“Nah,” he says after a minute, quiet in an intentional way that makes Steve grin and you squirm. “That there’s my girl. Don’t insult her like that, Harrington, I’m talking about my old gal.” 

You turn to hide your smile in Steve’s shoulder, and he and Eddie share a look. It’s knowing, contented, grateful on one end and shit-eating on the other, and because you can always tell when they’re conspiring without you you mumble a not-unhappy, “I’m too tired for flirting,” into Steve’s skin. 

“Liar,” Steve accuses fondly. You’re basically flirting with him right now, the way you’ve got your arm snaked around his middle, anxious fingers fiddling with the hem of his pajama bottoms. “Why don’t we just spend the night down here?”

“Ooh.” Eddie turns onto his side, getting comfier on your thigh. “I like it. Whaddya think, baby? We can put on a movie, and that way you can stay here and keep feeling Harrington up.” 

You sigh. “That’s not what’s happening.” 

“Sure.” Steve drops a kiss on your head, and when you try to let go of him he holds you close.

Eddie gives your thigh a conciliatory pat. “We’ve all been there.” 

“If we watch a movie,” you say, and Eddie grins at your obvious attempt to change the subject, “can it please be something not scary?” 

“Sure, honey.” Steve rubs your arm, shooting Eddie an apologetic look when the other boy pouts. “Your pick.” 

When the next strike of lightning flashes in the window, you don’t seem to notice. 

[lighteyed]

it's no big surprise you turned out this way

steve harrington x fem mayfield!reader

[3.7k] steve comes over for family dinner. it is absolutely not your idea.

disclaimer- no mention of blood relation to max, no physical descriptors of reader, they are sisters in any way you want them to be. trigger warning for shitty parents and billy h*rgrove. this is not a billy safe space.

dividers by @saradika-graphics and @cafekitsune

thanks for reading if you do <3 enjoy teehee

You drop a kiss on Steve’s head in greeting, which he accepts with a thrilled, in-a-new-relationship, glowing smile, before dropping down beside him and subsequently dropping your news, or rather, your request that’s not really your request, on him. “Neil wants you to come over for dinner.” You tense at the utterance of your stepfather’s name, even if it’s your own mouth doing the uttering.

   His smile dissipates. Only a little, but enough for you to wring your hands together. You want to scoop all the words you’d just said back out from his ears and spoon them into your mouth again. Make him forget it’d ever happened. “Like, like family dinner?” He asks. He can’t fathom a world where he sits placid across the table from Billy Hargrove and passes him the salt respectably and doesn’t end the night with his fist colliding with his face (regardless of the outcome).

   “No, it’d just be you and him, he’s dying to take you out on a date,” you deadpan in response, shaking your head. Steve rolls his eyes, no malice intended. “Obviously family dinner, Steve. You, me, Max, my mom, Neil… Billy.” You force out the final name. He swears he hears your teeth grinding as you say it.

   “Don’t get grouchy on me.” He reaches over and smooths out the upset crease between your brows. Your shoulders relax in response. You’re always so wound up he’s made it his mission to give you that ease he knows you crave. He’s quite good at it, on days where he can steal you away and keep your mind occupied with the lovelier things in life. But there are some things he can’t spare you from, as much as he tries.

   Really, he can only keep you out of that house for so long before your family starts demanding their 17-year-old back.

   For the most part you keep away. Max roams the new mall all day with her friends now that June’s here and summer’s entered Hawkins in full swing, and you drive them there with your mom’s car if she doesn’t need it for the day, or Steve drives you all there and then home again if he’s not at work already that morning. If he has work you loiter in Scoops the entire day, lugging a stack of books acquired from the library and settling in a corner booth, popping your head up once in awhile to check on him and his misery in his new position in that ridiculous uniform. You brighten his days just as much as he brightens yours. And he really, really does. (And you like the uniform, as silly as it is, for the record).

   “’M not grumpy,” you deflate, pressing your forehead into his shoulder. He rubs your back in a nice, soothing way when you lean into him. Ever since he asked you out he’s been taking every excuse to touch you and you’re not complaining in the slightest. He has the softest hands you’ve ever held and they’re perpetually gentle and kind. All the love in the world encased in the hands of some boy from Hawkins, Indiana, a place you never expected to find a home in, let alone find a boy. The boy, if you thought about it long enough. Early days to be thinking about it but you did think about it. Often. For hours. You sigh quietly. “I can tell ‘em you’re busy, you don’t have to come.”  

   “Max knows I’m not busy,” he points out.

   “She doesn’t wanna be there, either. Look, I’ll just say you can’t come-“

   “But I can.”

    You lift back up, wary, but hopeful. A new flower poking its petals up from the earth, tilting right toward the sun.  “I don’t wanna make you miserable.”

   “That’s stupid,” he scoffs. He kisses your head this time, the perfumy scent of your shampoo fogging his brain up in a nice, lovey haze. “How could you make me miserable? You’re like, the best thing I’ve ever had, by a mile.”

   You smile in spite of your gloomy mood. “The fuckin’ Hargroves have an innate knack for misery.”

    “It’s a good thing you’re not a Hargrove then, hm, Mayfield?” He brushes your hair away from your face and  takes your chin in his hand, angling your face up properly to meet his, and he kisses you like he well and truly means it, firm and adoring. You can feel his grin seared into your mouth when you pull away, in spite of your reluctance and Steve’s attempts to pull you back in.

   . “You really wanna come? It won’t be fun. It’ll probably be shitty, actually.” You ask him in a tiny, hesitant voice, too overcompensating to someone who do anything you asked of him. Having Steve there sounds better than not having him there, and better than having to explain why he’s chosen not to come, but you know it’ll be weird. Worse than weird. After what happened back in November, him and Billy go out of their way to ignore one another, and it’s so deliberate it sucks the air out of a room. And even with that, Billy still makes it a point to direct snide remarks to you about Steve every chance he gets: alone, in front of Max, in front of your parents, in front of Steve himself while pretending he’s not there. And it’s gotten worse since you admitted to your mother in confidence that you and Steve were together now, and she told Neil, and Neil told Billy. But there’s no running from being at the same dinner table as him. You know you’re asking a lot. You wouldn’t be asking if Neil hadn’t insisted. In a loud, pointed voice, with a stare that unnerved you. You’d agreed to it hurriedly after that.

   “Well,” Steve leans back, playful, “want to is a bit of a stretch but I can make an exception for ya-“

   “Steve-“ you groan, pushing his chest, but he laughs, pushing himself back forward, smacking another loud kiss on your mouth.

   “Kidding, I’m kidding, c’mere,” his fingers grip your waist feather-light, tickling, as he laughs, and you can’t help but laugh too through your head shakes and faux-exasperated sighs.

  “I’m really asking you if you want to, I know it’s a lot asking you to make nice with Billy.” You interlace your fingers with his and he places them on your lap, all big brown eyes blinking up at you affectionately. You’re a sucker for his eyes. You can tell what he’s going to say before he says it.

   “Nothin’s too much for you,” he says in his sweet, low voice, another kiss pressed to your cheek, his stamp of agreeance left blazing there on your cheek.

   Late into the next day he arrives on 4819 Cherry Lane, as he has so many times before, but he parks right in front and gets out this time. He doesn’t sit by the wheel waiting for you to come running out, sometimes with Max in toe, usually by yourself, breathless and beaming, ready for him to whisk you away as fast as he can without breaking a million laws. He knows it’s not the gentlemanly thing to do, having a girl come to the car by herself instead of going up and ringing her bell, and normally he would, but you insisted he didn’t, not wanting to draw attention to yourself or him, and you were already waiting outside on the front steps when he got there most of the time, anyway.

   And this time, too, you get the door before he can ring the bell, almost ripping it off the hinges when you throw it open to greet him.

   “Thank God,” you mutter. You go to take his hand but remembers yours is sweaty and pull back. The sweater you’re wearing is pretty, complements your eyes and complexion and your everything, and your hair is down and soft-looking. He’d run his hands through it in other circumstances. “It’s not too late to make a break for it,” you lead him into the house quietly, throwing your head back and casting a dark look down the hallway. “Just say the words and we can flee, I won’t blame you.” He’s dressed so nicely, and you don’t even have the time to properly admire him. He did his hair all perfect (he always does but you can tell he put a little extra sparkle into it tonight), he’s in his nicest jeans that mold against his legs slim and fit, his sweater is a navy blue and it’s such a good color on him you might cry. You can see effort written in everything he does, tonight especially. His desire to make a good impression rings in your heart. You want to regard him warmly and turn your gaze on him with the utmost veneration but your skin buzzes with anxiety and it feels like one large, domineering fist is clamped around your intestines. 

   “It’ll be fine,” he says, squeezing your hand. He doesn’t even notice that it’s sweaty, though your anxiety is palpable and he amps up his happy exterior to balance you out. He’s probably just as nervous as you are, deep down. “Parents love me.” It’s an insistent sentence. “And I’m gonna turn on my charm.” He makes a clicking sound with his mouth and snaps his fingers around a little. You stare at him, blank. Neil is rumbling around somewhere in the distance and for the time being you are utterly immune to Steve’s banter.

   Not completely, but enough. “I don’t know if that’s the kinda charm we need here,” you pat his shoulder.

   “But it can’t hurt,” he points out with a raised eyebrow, pointing a finger gun at you.

   “Oh, it can hurt alright.” You steer him into the living room anyway. “Steve is here.”

   You announce it to the open air, waiting to see who comes when you call. Your mom, immediately, rushes out of the kitchen to greet him. She’s never met one of your boyfriends before. Her greeting is enthusiastic, to say the least. And she’s a hugger. It’s nice, actually, Steve thinks, no matter how embarrassed and nervous you are, to be embraced kindly by a mother. It’s familiar, like some distant dream from a faraway past. You have your qualms with Susan, he knows that, but he knows you love her hard, and that’s why you take so much issue with the way she lets herself be treated. It’s difficult to watch you grapple with all of this, all of the time.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Steve, or Steven? Whatever you want,” she rubs his back as she takes him into the kitchen alongside you.

   “Steve is great, thank you, Mrs. May-“ he clears his throat, “Mrs. Hargrove, I mean.“ It’s hard to reconcile this woman in front of him with the domineering men bearing that same last name. It’s hard to distinguish her as anything but another piece of you and Max. A good piece.

   “The girls talk about you all the time,” Susan says, still smiling.

   “I do not,” Max huffs as she comes out of her room, abashed. She’s in a nice outfit, too. Not as dressed down as she usually is. She tugs at her tied back hair like it hurts.

   “Ma, how tight did you do her hair?” You ask, beckoning Max over.

   “It pops out of every scrunchie!” Susan says, patting her on the head with such clear affection it makes Steve ache a little.

   “Maxie.” You open your arms for her. She stands in front of you obediently as you loosen the hold her hair ties have on her unruly locks, smoothing them out nicely as you tie it back up again, looser.

    Everything’s so nice and homey that the shift in the atmosphere is almost imperceptible when a door creaks open a bit away from you four. But it’s there. He sees you draw back into yourself, your smile, at him talking to your mom and being so sweet, at Max, at the normalcy of this moment, sliding right off your face as Neil walks into the room. You’d almost forgotten him. You could’ve stayed in a bubble with your mom and sister and beautiful boyfriend forever. But Neil comes out from the hallway, from Billy’s bedroom, and Billy follows behind, fully clothed for once, his shirt buttoned all the way up his chest, his expression dark and cloudy. His jaw is tight as his gaze fixes on Steve.

   But Steve, so gracious, sticks his hand out to shake Neil’s, smiling like Neil’s spawn isn’t the worst person Steve’s ever encountered as he introduces himself. “Nice to meet you, sir. Steve Harrington.” He keeps his mouth upturned sweet and polite even when Billy snorts in the background. He doesn’t even look in his direction.

    “Nice to meet you, too, Steven.” Neil’s handshake is more like a clenched fist. You stare at their clasped hands like you want to commit murder. Steven.

   “Steve, not Steven,” you mutter. Max touches your arm in warning before Steve can. You can’t help it. If there’s anyone you’re defensive over besides her, it’s him.

   “Steven’s fine,” he chimes in, keeping that same old good-natured Steve smile on his face. He’s too appeasing and Neil has never deserved it. He rolls his shoulders back and talks to himself in his head. Just one night. For her, for her, for her.

  “It’s the name your parents gave you, of course it’s fine,” Neil claps him on the back, and you know he doesn’t mean anything by it but you and Steve both flinch. From the words and the tap alike. Neil ignores your remark completely as he continues to talk to Steve in a way that makes your skin crawl. He brings Steve over to the dining room table and the rest of you follow suit, settling in around each other. You make sure you sit next to Steve, but you second-guess it when Billy takes the straight across from him. Neil drones on. “Y’know, it’s interesting how all this time, you’ve been driving the girls around for months now, but this is the first time we’re meeting.”

    Steve checks on you out of the corner of his eye. Your jaw ticks. He squeezes your knee but before he can answer, you do it for him. “He’s been busy, that’s all.”

Neil looks toward you. For once. It is not a pleasant look. “For months?” He tucks his hands under his chin.

   “I know you don’t like having strangers in the house after you work,” you say, placating in a way that turns your stomach.

   “That’s true,” Neil says. “Billy doesn’t seem to get the memo on that, so I’m glad someone in this house is paying attention.” The degradation of Billy at the dinner table is nothing new. And you feel bad about it. You’d feel worse if he wasn’t so nasty and hateful to everyone because of it. Neil had run into Billy’s latest flavor, Miranda Brady from your Calculus class, while she was rummaging through the fridge the other night, and he hadn’t been happy. He was polite to her until she’d been hurried out the door by Billy, and then he’d reamed into him in colorful, awful ways. Max and Susan both hadn’t been home, but it was one of those nights where you had been, and you’d lingered by your bedroom door awkwardly, making sure it didn’t get too out of hand. You weren’t sure either of them even knew you were there. Accepting the praise seems wrong. You nod stiffly.

  Billy, however, turns his gaze on Steve, the first acknowledgement he’s gotten in months. “Say, Harrington, you used to be quite the ladies’ man yourself, yeah?” A sick grin creeps up on his face. Steve sees your hand tighten around your fork. You’ve barely shoveled your pasta into your mouth. Max gapes at her stepbrother, her mouth still full of food.

   Steve clears his throat. “I had a steady girlfriend for about a year, actually. I’m sure you remember that.”

   “Yeah, but I mean,” Billy rocks his chair back. “That’s not what they were calling you King Steve for, is it?”

   You lurch forward. Steve drops his hand over your knee again. “I think it was because of the whole captain of the basketball team thing. Or the captain of the swim team thing, I can’t remember when it started. Youngest captain the Tigers had seen in a decade, actually, when I got it sophomore year.” Steve grins again and the cocky charm he possesses but hardly uses much anymore comes out to play, just for a bit. You settle down again. You eat what’s in front of you, calmly. You hear Max gulp down her own food across the table. It’s almost cartoonish.

  “Max, chew first,” Susan admonishes gently.

   “I am,” she retorts, but she’s inhaling everything in front of her.

    Billy  cuts in. “See, that’s interesting, I thought it was because you hooked up with a lot of girls. Like half the class.”

   Steve doesn’t even blink. He takes a sip of his water. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

  “Are you trying to upset your sister?” Neil asks him with raised eyebrows.

  He goes quiet again, hardened. “No.”

  “It seems like you’re trying to.”

   His jaw ticks this time. “I’m not.”

   “Do you remember what I said to you? About a half hour ago?”

   His jaw ticks again. His eyes meet Steve’s over the table. Steve feels the merest twitch of embarrassment for him. He knows all too well what it’s like to have a dad who takes a weird sort of pleasure in berating his son. “Yes, I remember.”

   You stare down at your plate, pinching the skin of your palm.

   “If you remember so well, then you should stop talking.”

   Billy stops talking. Neil turns to Steve again. “So, captain of two athletic teams, that’s impressive. I’m sure your college plans are impressive as well.”

   Steve stutters in his answer and you hold your head aloft in your hands, suppressing a groan. Max finishes her food so fast, she’s excused from the table and gone within minutes of that conversation starting. You nearly fall out of your chair in your attempt to kick her shin under the table. She holds her hands up in her retreat while nobody’s looking, mouthing that she’s sorry at you and running away into your shared bedroom. You suppress a groan again.

   Outside, after another grueling hour of Neil dominating the conversation and making dinner unenjoyable for everyone, you walk Steve to his car, fiddling with your hands again. He props himself up against his window and wrestles you out of the knot you’re in.

  “That sucked, I’m sorry,” you say, knocking your foreheads together, your mouth drawn in a thin, perturbed line.

  “It was fine, you’re fine,” he whispers the last bit. That’s what you’re more worried about, after all. You’re worried he’s mad, planning to leave you for someone with a more normal family, people who are warmer, someone capable of being warmer. You’re plenty warm around him, but you suppose you could be better. You start running over all the things you could do better and all the ways he could do better in your head. “Stop thinkin’ so much. Everything’s okay.” He nudges your foot with his.

   “No, I know, it’s just, it’s awkward, it’s not fun, shitty way to spend your night, shitty way for anyone to spend a night.”

   “It’s okay. It was good. I was good, wasn’t I?” He kisses your palm where you’d pinched it earlier.

   “You were great, you’re always great.” You stroke his cheek, lingering on his lips for a second. “You look really nice, by the way.” You’d almost forgotten to tell him. “I like this color on you.” You smooth over and down his arms.

   “Yeah?” He grins, lopsided, tilting his head.

   “Looks good with your hair.” You reach up to tug on the strand that hangs down like an art form over his forehead. You’re the only one he lets play around about his hair.

   “You look beautiful, too, for the record.”

   “I was trying to make this about you.” You poke him.

   “I like when things are about you.” He pokes you back.

   “I hate when things are about me.”

   “Yeah, I’m trying to fix that.”

   You chuckle. “Good luck.”

   He gestures back to your house. “I’m makin’ progress here. I think I get you a little bit better now, after all that.”

  “And what exactly do you get?” You wrap your arms around his waist.

  “Why you’re always so tense and grumpy.” He cups your cheeks like he’s holding the most delicate thing ever to be held.

   “I’m not grumpy-“

   “Just tense, then.”

   You accept that, begrudgingly. “I’m pretty on edge most of the time, I guess.”

   “I try to talk you out of it,” he says softly, stroking your face.

   “You’re the best, I hope you know that.”

   “I try,” he says again, and you nod. “It’s not easy. Night after night.”

   “It’s not.” You bunch up his sweater.

   “I get it, you know? They’re not here as often as yours, but I get it.”

   “Dinner with yours next time?”  

   “Yeah fucking right.” He kisses you for it, though, because you mean it, you’d have dinner with them if he asked just like he did because you asked, a long and languid kiss that he hopes no one’s shifting around the curtains to be privy to. He withdraws first and says, “Your mom is sweet, I’d have dinner with her again.”

  “I’ll let you know when she’s free, take her out, show her a good time,” you tease.

    “If she’s anything like you I’m a goner,” he laments.

    “You’re a flirt, is what you are.”

     You kiss him again, beaming, heart swollen with affection.

    When you go back inside and Susan tells you how wonderful and handsome she thought Steve was, how good he seemed for you, that rush flows through you all over again. You even bring her in for a hug.

thank u for reading ur super hot n sexy n we're kissing rn

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Ready to roll?

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles, day 9

Prompt: No Upside Down AU

Rated: T

CW: one mention of masturbation bc Eddie is a horny little shit

Tags: Future fic; Flirting; Record label owner!Eddie; Waiter!Steve; Steve in rollerblades

Notes: Another collab with the amazingly talented and creative @house-of-the-moving-image - check out their art!

"What?" Eddie says eloquently, tearing his eyes from the laminated menu. 

The waiter is hovering next to his booth, pen tapping against the notepad in his hand. He looks annoyed. Probably pissed at Eddie for interrupting his quiet night shift. Well, tough luck, pretty boy. 

"I said …" the waiter pauses, heaves a brief but heartfelt sigh. "Are you ready to roll?" 

Eddie blinks. 

"Listen, dude!" The waiter says flatly, but there's a blush blossoming on his neck. "I'd ask if I may take your order, but I'm, like, contractually obfuscated to say … this instead. Goes with the theme, y’know?" 

He gestures at the entirety of himself. The cheerfully colored shirt and tiny shorts. The little apron around his waist. The knee-high socks disappearing into a pair of chunky, red-and-white rollerblades, and … oh, right. 

"Well?" 

Eddie snaps his eyes back up and shit, for how long has he been staring at those legs like a creep?

The waiter is scowling at him. He really is pretty. Exactly Eddie’s type. Gold-flecked eyes, stupidly voluminous hair, pink lips twisted into a bitchy little scowl. Eddie imagines pushing him up against the wall on those stupid wheels of his, sucking and biting that scowl right off. 

"Hm," he makes instead. "The guys at the label said I'd enjoy the cake, but I'm starting to think they weren't talking about the menu." 

The scowl deepens. 

"Cheeseburger and fries," Eddie says. "And a strawberry milkshake." 

One elegant eyebrow arches. 

"... Please?" 

Waiter boy smirks at him, a brief flash of perfectly white teeth. Eddie wants to lick them. 

"Coming right up." He jots the order down, shoves pen and notepad into his apron pocket. As he does, Eddie catches a glimpse of the name tag attached to his uniform shirt. (Which has nothing to do with him ogling the way the fabric stretches over that toned chest, because he wasn't doing that, thank you.)

It says "Hi, I'm Steve. :-)"

Wait, what? 

The whirr of rollerblades on the floor tiles jerks him out of his stupor. He's glad he didn't take off his sunglasses, because holy fuck, he must be gawking like an idiot right now. 

Because he knows a guy named Steve. Or knew. 

A guy named Steve with perfect, caramel hair, tan skin littered in moles and an irritatingly pretty, aloof smile. Not that Eddie was ever at the receiving end of that smile. The closest Eddie ever got to him was back in eighty-six, when he was dealing drugs out of his van. In the driveway of that palace in Loch Nora, while the King and his court partied inside. 

Eddie watches how waiter boy comes gliding out of the kitchen, wipes down tables and refills napkin holders. 

It can't be. 

Steve Harrington is back in the hellhole that is Hawkins, Indiana - or maybe at some college halfway across the country, preparing to take over daddy's business. He's most certainly not wearing rollerblades and a pair of stupidly short shorts, waiting tables in a cheap twenty-four hour diner in Seattle. 

Then again, back in eighty-six, who would've thought that Eddie Munson would be owning his own record label one day? 

When waiter boy arrives with his order and leans in to put it down on the table, Eddie peers over his sunglasses to cast an inconspicuous look at his profile. 

There's a pair of moles on his neck, near identical in size, spaced apart like a perfect little vampire bite. 

Well, slap his ass and call him Sally. 

Eddie knows these moles, has spent entire nights jerking off to the thought of sinking his teeth into them. 

"Staring costs extra," Steve mutters at the milkshake. 

Before Eddie can say anything, the phone on the counter rings and Steve rolls over to answer it. Eddie chews on his too-salty fries and can't help the grin that tugs at his lips as he watches the boy twirl the cord around his fingers while taking the order. 

The night just officially got interesting.

Steve looks over, catches him staring and gives him the flattest, most unimpressed look Eddie has ever seen on a person who just realized they were being checked out. The blush has reached his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. Eddie winks and Steve rolls his eyes before he turns his back on him. Eddie doesn’t complain. That ass does look fantastic in the shorts.

He takes his time with the meal. The burger is nothing to write home about, but the view more than makes up for it.

When he is done, he saunters over to the counter, pulling out his wallet. Steve is busy counting mayonnaise packages and muttering under his breath. He blinks in confusion when Eddie slaps down a fifty, starts digging for change in his apron. 

"Nah," Eddie says. "Just keep it." 

Steve frowns at him. "That's way too much." 

"Don't sell yourself short. I thought staring was extra?"

Steve opens his mouth. Hesitates. Closes it. Pockets the money. 

"Thanks," he murmurs, eyes trained at some point behind Eddie's shoulder. "Roll by again."

Eddie just barely manages to turn the incoming snort into a grin.  

"Sure will,” he mutters, leaning across the counter and into the boy’s space. “Maybe I'll try that cake next time." 

"Oh, please," Steve huffs. "As if you could afford me, Munson." 

Eddie feels his jaw drop. "Wait, you knew who-" 

The doorbell chimes. 

"Hi there!" Steve chirps at the guy in the door. "You called, right? I'll check if your order is ready." 

And then he's gone and Eddie is staring at the still swinging kitchen door like an idiot. 

It isn't until he's back out in the dark street that his confusion morphs into something else. His majesty wants to play coy? Well, Eddie can indulge him, can't he? 

He makes his way home with a new spring in his step. Looks like he's found his new favorite dinner spot.

Part 2

All my holiday drabbles

[izzystradlindoesitforme]

Ixzl Appreciation Day

Part III

“We sat down, and I was like, ‘Hey, I got some really depressing lyrics.’ He was like, ‘I got a really depressing guitar part.’ I was like, ‘Perfect, we got it made.'”

Ixzl Appreciation Day

Part III

Izzy and Axl

You know, just like a hooker, she said, nothing's for free

Oh, I tried to see it your way I tried to see it your way

Yeah, they still love each other.

[lexirosewrites]

popping in for slick sunday again with another bit on a fic im working on :) i hope you enjoy :)

(warnings ahead for mpreg, angst, and some medical stuff that probably doesn't make actual sense bc i possess no more than a basic knowledge)

this fic's big focus is secret pregnancy. steve and eddie are not dating, but they have this more "friends with benefits" type thing going on. that is, until eddie leaves. he's off with Corroded Coffin, trying to make a name for themselves in the industry. what eddie doesn't know, and what steve finds out a few weeks later, is that steve is pregnant (with twins).

steve decides to keep it a secret because he doesn't want to "ruin" eddie's life. he knows eddie would come back the second he knew, and he didn't want to be the reason eddie gave up on his dream. steve doesn't tell anyone for the first month or so, and then slowly, their friends start being pulled into the loop. robin first, of course. everyone promises not to tell eddie, even though most of them aren't happy about it. eventually, even wayne and the rest of corroded coffin find out about it.

wayne insists on being part of their lives, if steve will let him. which obviously he does, because he loves wayne and would never want to keep him out. so then it's weekly dinners at the trailer, and wayne offering to babysit when steve has to work, and wayne coming over to their apartment often. the twins spend a lot of time with wayne, and he spoils them whenever he can. he's really the only grandparent figure they have, and he's more than happy to take on the role.

when eddie does, eventually, find all of this out, it's not under the best circumstances. it's been about six years since he left hawkins without looking back. the band is at the studio, recording for the new album, when eddie gets a call. the first time he's heard from steve since he left. his entire world is flipped when steve drops the news. eddie has pups he's never known about, and one of them is sick. really sick. the doctors don't think she has much time, and she needs a bone marrow transplant, but finding a match is taking longer than they'd hoped. eddie might be the only option left to save her.

of course, eddie's on a plane back to indiana that same night, no questions asked. well, very few questions asked at least. his mind is reeling the whole time. he doesn't have the full story. all he does know is that he has to get back. he meets the twins separately. first, his daughter, before she's taken for more testing. she lights up, so excited that he's there and asking 100 different questions all at once. he loves her so much already. he meets his son a little later, and it's different. he's more closed off, wary. he's sitting on steve's lap glaring daggers at eddie across the room. it's clear that he holds some resentment, and eddie can't say he blames him. when eddie tries to explain that he's there to help, that he'll be there however long they need him, the boy blows up. he's angry, spitting back at eddie that they don't need him, they never did. steve immediately tries to step in, but eddie stops him. he's right, and eddie knows that. he deserves this.

it may have been steve who kept the twins from eddie, but eddie's the one that never bothered to come back. never called. never visited. he's just as much to blame, and he knows that. all he can do is try to make up for his own shortcomings, and hope it's enough.

happy slick sunday!

oh my god my heart is broken😭

[mcdynamite]

Nancy Wheeler has always been observant. It's something she prides herself on, if she's honest. It's what she knows will make her an excellent investigative reporter one day. It helps her make connections that other people might miss and remember the smallest of details that could make or break a story.

Perhaps most importantly, it's what makes her good at reading people – their micro-expressions, their body language, what makes them tick. She's good at it with anyone, but especially when it comes to the people she knows best.

So it's only logical that she's the first to notice when Steve starts to fall for Eddie Munson.

The signs are subtle, at first, but they're there, and Nancy can see them from a mile away. She's got the added bonus of having been the object of Steve's affections, once upon a time, so she knows what to look for. She knows that with Steve, it always starts with the lingering glances. He's never been able to keep his eyes off the people he wants, and it's this that first clues her in on the whole thing.

She's at Penny's Diner with Steve, Robin, and Eddie, and their waitress is laying it on thick, flirting relentlessly with Steve, batting her eyelashes dramatically and swaying her hips more than is objectively necessary whenever she walks away. And sure, Steve hasn't gone for any of the girls that act this way around him in a long time, but he always, always looks. Hell, even Nancy looks, sometimes, when a girl is objectively pretty. She's big enough to admit (to herself, at least) that boys aren't the only dating pool she's interested in, now that she and Jonathan are done.

But that day at Penny's, Steve doesn't give the poor waitress so much as a second glance, because that day, Steve can't seem to stop looking at Eddie.

At first, Nancy is sure she's imagining it – the way Steve's eyes linger on the dungeon master like he can't bring himself to look away – but it gets harder and harder to deny the longer they sit there sipping their milkshakes. Eddie is debating something silly with Robin, and Steve is just... watching him.

Steve's got this fond little smile on his face, and it's a look Nancy recognizes immediately. It used to be directed at her. And honestly? She's a bit relieved it's not, anymore, because she loves Steve, but not like that. Not the way she was worried Steve still loved her... the way she wonders if Steve might be falling for Eddie.

She sort of keeps an eye out for things, after that day – the little things that give Steve away when he's crushing hard on somebody. The lingering glances. The soft smiles. The brief touches. The flimsy excuses for stepping into Eddie's space, like the day Steve sees Eddie struggling with the lighter, and instead of just lending Eddie his own, he steps forward until their shoes are practically touching and holds up the flame for him.

She sees it all and wonders how in the world nobody else has caught on yet. Even Robin, Steve's best friend in the entire world, seems puzzled by the sudden lack of dates on Steve's calendar. Sometimes Nancy wants to grab her by the shoulders and tell her to just think a little harder.

(Nancy wants to grab Robin by the shoulders for other reasons, too – reasons that involve pulling Robin closer and kissing the living daylights out of her – but that's neither here nor there.)

But no matter how long Steve's pining lasts, no matter how obvious he's getting, nobody else seems to notice. It's mildly infuriating, but Nancy isn't about to talk to anyone else about it. It's dangerous being queer in this part of Indiana, and even though she knows that their little monster-fighting family won't care, it's still not her secret to tell.

It all comes to a head at a bonfire one night, midway through the summer, when the kids are once again grilling Steve on his sudden lack of a dating life. And it's Max who first cottons on to the most plausible explanation.

"Oh my God, wait, you like someone!" Max gasps midway through Dustin's interrogation.

There's a brief silence, and then the kids are all shouting.

"Oh, shit, Max, you're right. He totally does!" Dustin cries.

Steve tries to protest, but it's useless, because ever since Steve shed his royal persona two years ago, he's been a truly terrible liar. He looks like a deer in headlights, eyes wide and vaguely panicky, but Dustin Henderson has never been very good at letting things go.

"You have to tell us who it is!" Dustin presses. "We're your friends, Steve. Friends tell each other things. Unless..." Dustin gasps dramatically. "Unless she's someone we know..."

That shuts everyone up all at once, even Robin and Eddie, who have been having their own little conversation off to the side. Everyone stares at Steve, and then half of their eyes go to Nancy herself, and the other half land on Robin. It might make Nancy laugh, if Steve didn't look so close to throwing up.

"Right, well this is stupid," Steve says, smacking his hands on his knees and pushing up out of the chair. "I'm going to get another drink, and when I get back, we're dropping this."

He turns and hurries into the house, and Nancy glances around their little circle. Robin looks confused, but mostly worried. Eddie looks vaguely sick. And most of the kids just look shocked. They all start to murmur amongst themselves after the door slides shut behind Steve's retreating form. Nancy sees the way his whole body seems to sag, watching through the glass, and decides she's had enough.

She gets up, ignoring the way the murmuring gets louder as she walks, and follows him.

She finds Steve bent over the kitchen counter, palms pressed into the granite and head bent towards his chest. He looks like he's on the verge of panicking, and her heart aches for him. He's been through so much – some of which Nancy knows is her fault – and God, she just wants him to be happy for once.

"Steve?" she says softly.

Steve flinches at the sound of her voice, like he was so lost in thought he didn't even realize she'd followed him.

"There's something I wanted to-"

"Before you say anything, it's not you," he interupts flatly before she can finish. He pushes off the counter to look at her with sad, earnest eyes. "I know things were, like, weird when we were in the Upside Down, and we never really talked about it, but... I don't feel that way about you anymore. So you don't have to worry."

Nancy just blinks at him.

"That... that's what you wanted to talk about, right?" he asks.

"No, actually," Nancy says carefully. "I sort of knew you didn't feel like that about me, and I don't feel that way about you, so that's a non-issue, but..."

Steve looks relieved for a second, then tenses up again. "But...?" he says, raising an eyebrow.

"I, um... I think I might have an idea who it is – if Max is right, that is, and you really do like someone," she says.

Steve sighs. "It's not Robin, if that's what you're thinking."

"No," Nancy says softly, shaking her head. "No, it's not."

Steve frowns and averts his eyes, arms crossing protectively over his chest. He doesn't say anything.

Nancy considers her options. She wonders how she should play this, how to go about bringing this up. In the end, she just goes with her gut.

"Did you know I like girls?" she asks. It's the first time she's said it aloud to anyone, but it feels good. It feels like the right time. Besides, she wants to do this for Steve – to make him feel more comfortable. It's the least she can do.

Steve's eyes snap up to look at her again.

"I still like boys, too, but yeah... I like both, so..." She takes a deep breath. "If there was anything you wanted to tell someone about how you feel about... someone else... I'm not going to judge you."

Steve bites his lip. He looks painfully conflicted, and a little bit like he might cry. "I, uh..." he stammers. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath… clears his throat. "Okay first of all, thank you for trusting me with that, and you know I support you. I just want you to be happy, Nance."

Nancy nods, because she knows. She's always known. "That's what I want for you, too," she says. She takes a step forward and takes one of his hands in hers, because Steve's eyes are getting watery, and she hates seeing people cry. "You don't have to tell me, but if you want-"

"I think I like Eddie," Steve says suddenly, voice whisper-soft. He looks terrified when he meets Nancy's eyes again. "I, um... yeah. I like Eddie."

Nancy offers him what she hopes is an encouraging smile and nods. "Yeah, I kinda figured."

"Shit, am I that obvious?" Steve says weakly, and Nancy can't help but laugh softly.

"God, no," she says. "Well, to me, you are, but to everyone else? God, they're clueless. I promise you that nobody else has any clue, and it's been driving me crazy."

To her relief, Steve huffs out a soft laugh, as well. "Yeah, well, you've always been sort of freakishly observant, haven't you?"

It's true. She's always been like this, and that's precisely why she feels confident enough to make her next statement.

"You should tell him, Steve," she says.

Because Steve isn't the only person she's been watching for the past few months.

She's been watching Eddie, too, so she's seen Eddie's dopey, smitten smile whenever Steve makes a terrible joke. She's watched Eddie pull his hair in front of his mouth bashfully after Steve teases him. She's seen the blush on Eddie's cheeks whenever Steve steps into his personal space.

Steve Harrington isn't the only one who's been busy falling in love.

As usual, nobody else has noticed.

"No, absolutely not," Steve says, pulling his hand away and running both hands through his hair instead. "Are you crazy, Nance? He'll hate me!"

Nancy is pretty sure she deserves an Oscar for keeping her expression neutral, because the urge to roll her eyes is physically painful to resist.

"Steve," she says calmly. "I love you, and I love Eddie, but the two of you are idiots if you can't see how hard you've been pining over each other, and I am not above physically knocking your heads together to get you to realize that."

Steve's eyebrows disappear behind his hairline, and Nancy almost laughs. "Jesus, when did you get so threatening, Wheeler?" he grumbles, but there's a hint of a smile on his face. It's quickly swept away by fear, though, and Nancy's heart breaks a little when Steve looks at her with those puppy-dog eyes of his and asks, "What if you're wrong?"

She's only just opened her mouth to reply when the sliding door opens again, and someone else joins them in the kitchen.

Eddie's eyes dart back and forth between Nancy and Steve assessingly, and Nancy has to bite back a laugh because oh. Eddie was jealous.

"Sorry to interrupt," Eddie says, one eyebrow raised. "Just wanted to make sure everything was okay." He focuses his gaze on Steve, eyes softening. It's disgustingly adorable, how earnestly concerned he looks. "You doin' alright, Stevie? Kinda left in a hurry back there."

Steve glances at Nancy, face becoming redder by the second. Nancy smiles.

"Well I'm going to let you talk," she says casually. Steve's eyes nearly bug out of his head, but she puts both hands on his shoulders and looks him straight in the eyes before he can protest. "But to answer your question from before... I'm not wrong," she murmurs softly, so only Steve can hear. 

She pats him gently on the cheek and turns on her heel before Steve can respond, catching Eddie's eye on the way out. He looks perplexed, and she just smiles.

The kids hardly notice when she rejoins the circle around the fire. They've already moved on to topics that don't involve their babysitter's love life, but Robin still looks worried. It's cute. God, Robin is so cute, Nancy can hardly stand it.

"Is he okay?" Robin asks quietly. "He looked pretty upset when he left, and then you guys were gone for a while, and Eddie thought maybe you were getting back together, but I told him that was ridiculous, and now neither of them are back yet, and-"

"They're fine, I promise," Nancy says with a grin, interrupting Robin’s rambling. "They just... needed a little nudge."

Nancy gets to see the moment it clicks for Robin, and it's only a little bit hilarious. "Wait..." Robin says, mouth dropping open. "Steve...?"

Nancy nods, smile widening.

"And Eddie?"

"Yep," Nancy says. Robin looks on the verge of a massive freakout (a positive one, obviously, but a freakout nonetheless), and Nancy doesn't want her to unwittingly out both of the boys to the kids, so she changes the topic. She figures if she's making Steve deal with his feelings, she might as well do the same. You know, solidarity, and all that.

"By the way," Nancy says coolly, quietly, "did you know I'm bisexual?"

She has to cover Robin's mouth with her hand to stop her shriek of surprise, but it's worth it, because Robin instantly turns into a blushing, stuttering mess, and it's so stupidly endearing. Nancy wants to kiss her until neither of them can remember their own names.

It's even more endearing when Nancy tells her, "Yeah, so I'd really like to talk later, after the kids go to bed, if that's okay?" And Robin looks like she might faint when she blushes and whimpers out a yes.

Nancy just grins and threads their fingers together, hands tucked out of sight from the kids.

They're still sitting like that when Steve and Eddie finally come out of the house after a very long time, both boys looking flushed and a bit disheveled, but happy.

"Thought you were getting another drink?" Erica snarks at Steve when they sit down, and Nancy snorts, because Steve definitely returned empty-handed.

Steve's eyes widen and he looks at Eddie sheepishly. "I, uh... got a little distracted."

Only Max seems to recognize the implications, because her jaw drops, but Robin nudges her with her foot before she can say anything, and Max instantly shuts her mouth. She's still got a knowing look on her face, but Nancy knows she won't go outing anyone to the others. She's a good kid.

"God, you have the attention span of a puppy, Steve, I swear," Dustin grumbles, and the conversation quickly moves on.

Nancy is mostly quiet for the rest of the night, silently observing all of her friends and reveling in the feeling of Robin's hand in hers. She watches as Max tentatively rests her head on Lucas's shoulder. Watches Lucas's eyes widen and sees the internal freakout happening in his mind. She sees the way Eddie and Steve sit closer than before, practically on top of each other, faces flushed with happiness while they all make s'mores. She watches her brother look hopelessly confused sitting between Will and El, because he hasn't yet realized that while he is in love with one of them, it's not the one he thinks it is.

And at the end of the night, after the kids are all settled in the massive living room and she and Robin head for the guest room, Nancy catches Steve's eye. He and Eddie are holding hands now that they're out of sight of the kids, and Eddie can't stop staring at Steve like he's some sort of miracle. But just this once, Steve tears his eyes away from Eddie to meet Nancy's.

He smiles, mouths thank you, and gives an approving nod when his eyes land on her hand, which is still wrapped around Robin's.

Nancy just smiles and nods, and watches as Eddie impatiently tugs Steve into the bedroom and shuts the door. As Robin does the same to her, pulling her eagerly into the guest room, she has a wild thought.

If the investigative journalism thing doesn't work out, there's always the option of matchmaker.

She's apparently pretty damn good at it, after all.

And she's always been observant.

[justjensenanddean]

Jensen Ackles | DC Convention, September 22, 2024, Main Panel Summary

(FangasmSPN)

Jensen apparently filmed all night on Friday and flew straight here ??? does he sleep???? (x) JJ to her dad: I miss you so much I can't even function. @JensenAckles : I have a few more years of being the center of her universe #SPNDC (x) When asked what they would tell their 16-year old that wants a tattoo, @JensenAckles "A tattoo is a story. You should wait until you've lived enough life to have a good story." (x) Jensen: at 15 you don't have anything figured out yet so just tell her that (x) “There was a scene where dean gets upset and takes a crow bar to the car… and that hurt. That hurt Jensen. But they actually had a panel there so, just so you know, I wasn’t hitting… ✨her✨” (x) Someone asked if there’s a question that they’re like “ugh i hope they hope people don’t ask this agaINNNNN”and Jared said some of the prank stuff i could kiss him (x) Jensen did say tho that even questions they’ve been asked before they think on them over time and there’s not really an “oh no” question cuz we’re all so respectful and good about stuff and if there IS a problem they’ll be like “not answering that NEXT” (x) Jensen: My partner on this new show is 6’6. a 265 lb rugby player. I look TINY compared to him. Like a little baby boy #spndc (x) Question: "Is there anything you would like people to know about you?" @JensenAckles "I am not a good liar. Being an actor, you'd think I'd be a better liar, but I'm not. @DanneelHarris catches me whenever I try." (x) Apparently Danneel can always fucking tell when Jensen is lying lmfao she’s like “you’re AWFUL at that” (x) .@JensenAckles : I wish these communities of fans existed when we were young. I'm glad they do today. #SPNDC (x) Fan: I have anxiety and depression so i just need advice on how to handle it Jared: i seek professional help. i do! Jensen: I think you’ve already taken a huge step in just admitting it to a room of hundreds. know its a journey. It's not something that just gets fixed (x) Dream roles they’ve always wanted to play Jensen: batman. James Bond. Indiana Jones. and a Jedi. (x) Fan: *ask abt video games* Jensen: Dean would just kill dance dance revolution (x)

[hbyrde36]

STWG Daily Prompt 04/28/24

as chosen by our own @penny00dreadful

Fairytale✨

He was never going to find her.

Steve sighed heavily, letting his lunch tray drop to the table as he plopped down into his seat next to Nancy and Jonathan, the spot he’d been occupying ever since he’d had some sense knocked into him and dumped Tommy and Carol as friends for good. 

He’d gotten a lot of funny looks for that move, not only because he’d nuked his popularity along with his friendships, but because Nancy had dumped him for Jonathan, or so the rumor mill said, and yet here he was beside them. The truth was that their uncoupling had been a mutual decision, they just didn’t care enough to correct the narrative. 

But, back to Steve’s lament. 

It’d been almost a week since he saw her, the mystery girl that he’d spent almost the entire Halloween Ball with. They hadn’t spoken at all, the music had been too loud for that, but they’d stuck close to each other all night, danced, shared a few laughs as they pointed out their classmates' costumes–both good and bad– and shared a brief, but earth shattering kiss in a dark corner of the gym.

Now normally, Steve wouldn’t have been caught dead at one of the school’s dances, but his high school career was rapidly coming to a close, and honestly he was just trying to get himself out there, make some better memories before he was forced to grow up and enter the adult world.

Also… Nancy and Jonathan had made him.

Then they’d ditched him to go make out in the darkroom, but that was fine, It’d all been worth it to meet—her.

Steve only stepped away for a moment to get them a couple drinks, but when he returned to their spot by the bleachers, she was gone, the only evidence that she’d ever been there at all was a ring left behind on the floor. He picked it up, remembering how she’d fiddled with them a lot, her many rings, and must have dropped this one without realizing. 

He pocketed it, knowing it would be the key to finding her again.

Because, and this was his dilemma, on top of not knowing his mystery girl’s name, he also had no idea what she really looked like. While his Indiana Jones costume had left no question as to his own identity, she’d been dressed as a mummy, wrapped up in layers of gauzy fabric, only showing off her long dark curly hair, the biggest most gorgeous brown eyes he’d ever seen, and perfect pink pouty lips.

After spending the last several days combing the school, asking every brunette he came across if the ring was hers—to no avail—Steve had all but given up, assuming the girl had been someone’s friend or cousin visiting from out of town.

“What’s all this?” Steve asked, finally noticing the stack of photos Jonathan had spread out on the table around them. 

Jonathan took a bite of his sandwich, answering with his mouth still half full. “group shots of all the clubs for the yearbook, I just got them developed.”

Steve pushed his own lunch away, not hungry, and pulled a few of the pictures closer to him. He wasn’t really looking, looking, there wouldn’t be anyone in those pictures he hadn’t already seem roaming the halls, or so he thought. Then he spotted a familiar piece of jewelry on the finger of someone entirely unexpected. 

Eddie Munson, head of the Hellfire Club. 

He reached into his pocket and pulled the ring out, keeping it hidden under the table as he looked between it and the one in the photo. Same band, same stone, same black nail polish on the hand’s fingers too.

Dark curly hair, check. 

Big beautiful brown eyes, check. 

Soft pouty pink lips, double check.

Okay, so, the mystery girl wasn’t a girl at all. It explained why he’d had so much trouble finding her at least.

Steve sat with that fact throughout the rest of the lunch period, and by the time the bell rang had decided that it didn’t change a thing. He wasn’t freaked out that he’d kissed a boy, he didn’t even care that it was Munson, certified freak and D&D nerd. He was a little embarrassed that he’d assumed his special someone was a girl just because he had long hair and pretty eyes, but moving past that—

Now Steve just had to woo his man.

“Hey, Munson?” Steve called out as he jogged down the hallway, approaching the other boy from behind just as he was closing his locker. 

Eddie startled, his eyes going wide as he turned to see who had snuck up on him, but recovered quickly.

“Steeeeeeeve Harrington, what can I do for his former-royal-highness?”

Steve stepped in close, glancing around to make sure no one was watching them before he took Eddie’s hand, gently turning it over, and placed the ring in the center of his palm.  

“I think you dropped this.”

Permanent taglist (open): @penny00dreadful @pearynice @hitlikehammers

[corroded-hellfire]

Scout's Honor - Eddie Munson x Reader

Collaboration with my dearest @munson-blurbs

An As You Wish story

Summary: The annual Father-Daughter Girl Scout Square Dance comes around but Eddie and Steve are saddled with some car trouble.

Note: Everyone needs to go thank Bug for this incredibly adorable idea!

Words: 2.1k

[As You Wish masterlist]

Men. 

Can’t live with them, can’t…convince them not to go fishing on the day of their daughters’ Girl Scouts events. 

Eddie and Steve had promised you and Nancy that they would be home in time to take Eliza and Mia to the annual square dance. 

“We’ll get an early start,” they’d said, ignoring Eliza’s insistence that she won’t go with her father if he reeks of fish. He’d just laughed, kissed her cheek, and reiterated that he would shower before the dance. 

Maybe you’re naive for believing him. And yet, when the phone rang and Eddie’s sheepish voice explains that Steve’s car broke down—codeword for ‘we ran out of gas’—you’re wholly unsurprised. 

“I always made fun of Wayne for fishing.” Eddie muses, the payphone crackling as he exhales. “Called it an old man activity. This is what I get.”

You grit your teeth, hand clenched in a fist. “Just…get home,” you hiss, hanging up the receiver and massaging your temples. 

Who could have ever foreseen such an outcome?

While you’re stewing over the men’s incompetence, Mia remains levelheaded—just like her mother—and proposes a solution. “What if Luke and Ryan take us?”

Her suggestion is almost certainly rooted in her crush on your younger son, but it proves to be a worthwhile idea, nonetheless. Eliza’s face lights up, and before you know it, your five-year-old is dragging her brothers from their room. 

“Please?” She pouts sweetly, batting her doe eyes up at them. “Daddy and Uncle Steve can’t make it, and we can’t go all alone.” She lays it on thick, knowing full well she doesn’t have to—the boys would do just about anything for her. 

Ryan and Luke raid Eddie’s dresser drawers for flannels, finding the ones that he had nabbed from Wayne’s trailer. The girls don cowgirl hats, excitedly giggling as they climb into the back of the minivan. It’s still strange for you to see Ryan behind the wheel, but your heart swells with pride as you watch him double-check Eliza’s booster seat before pulling out of the driveway. 

At seventeen years old, Eddie Munson spent his Saturday nights selling cheap weed at high school parties—many of them, ironically, thrown by “King” Steve Harrington. 

At seventeen years old, Ryan Munson is spending his Saturday night taking his little sister and her best friend to the Girl Scouts square dance. 

“Everyone buckled?” He calls back, already knowing that they are. Still, he waits until he receives a chorus of yeses before he drives off. 

Luke turns around from the passenger seat. “Now, do we have to make a perfect square?” He keeps a serious expression, much to Ryan’s amusement. “Like, what if it’s a bit oval-y? Do we get kicked out? Do you two get banished from the Girl Scouts?”

Eliza and Mia are both used to his nonsense, and they burst into a fit of giggles. Ryan cracks a smile of his own, eyes trained on the road. 

Precious cargo and all that. 

When they arrive at the old VFW hall, the girls immediately pull them over to their group of friends. It’s a sea of young girls and their dads—and some moms—but nary a big brother in sight except for the two Munson boys. 

Ryan barely has time to feel out of place. The emcee, a middle-aged woman with bright pink lipstick and a too-wide smile, grabs the mic. 

“Welcome to our Father-Daughter Square Dance!” The room erupts into applause, quieting down only to hear about how this fundraiser supports the Girl Scouts of Indiana. The scouts repeat their pledge, which is met with more cheers, and then a western tune bleats over the old sound system. 

Eliza grabs Ryan’s hand as the emcee calls out instructions. Mia is a bit shyer with Luke, but they still manage all of the steps without stomping on the other’s toes. 

“Liza, I’m sorry Dad couldn’t make it,” Ryan says between songs. 

Eliza gives him a small smile. “That’s okay. It’s kinda cooler to bring my big brother.”

He grins. Just wait until his dad hears that. 

As everyone is getting into position for the next dance, a new song comes on that has more banjo than Luke has ever heard in his life. 

“Oh, yeah. We’re definitely in Indiana,” he says.

Mia chuckles as she peeks up at Luke from beneath the brim of her straw cowgirl hat. A blue ribbon on one of her red pigtail braids is loose so Luke reaches down to fix it for the little girl. Mia’s freckled face blooms as red as her hair. Luke pretends not to notice, not wanting to embarrass her. The big crush on Luke became obvious when she was three, and now at ten, it’s still hanging around. The fifteen-year-old Munson boy thinks it’s flattering and only ever teases her if she starts it first. 

“Ready?” Luke asks, offering Mia his hand.

“Ready!”

“But I didn't realize any of this until I was standing alone. In a barn... wife-less. Now, you can imagine my disappointment when it suddenly dawned on me that the woman I love is about to be kicked out of the country. So, Margaret. Marry me. Because I'd like to date you.”

Both you and Nancy hold your wine glasses, neither moving a muscle as you watch Ryan Reynolds catch up to Sandra Bullock in a New York City office building. An empty pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream sits between you on the couch, two green-smudged silver spoons resting inside. 

With the men out fishing, Ryan and Luke out with the two girls, and Natalie watching the rest of the kids over at the Harrington house, your place became the ultimate Mom’s Night In for you and Nancy. A chance to drink a little, gossip a little, have some snacks and watch some romcoms. 

Your peace has finally come to an end, however, when the front door bursts open and two men who reek of murky water, bug spray, and gasoline come barging in. 

“Jesus, Steve,” Nancy says, face pinching up at the foul odor wafting from your husbands. 

You wave a hand in front of your face as if that will make the smell dissipate any faster. 

“How were the fish?” you ask, turning your head away to give your nostrils a fighting chance.

“We caught a grand total of zero,” Steve says with a sigh, his black fishing boots looking comically misplaced on him. Neither of the men look natural in fishing gear. But when a guy from work offered Eddie the use of his boat for the day, he found he couldn’t turn it down. 

“Did you bring the fishing poles?” Nancy asks, sarcasm lining the amusement on her face.

Both men give her an annoyed side eye before Eddie looks around and takes a step towards you.

“Where are the girls?” he asks. 

“Ryan and Luke took them to the dance,” you tell him. “They should be back soon.”

Steve grimaces and claps a heavy hand down on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Eliza’s gonna kill you.”

Eddie raises his eyebrows and spins to meet his friend’s eye.

“And Mia won’t kill you?”

Steve grins. “Not if she got to dance with Luke.” This is the only time the man has ever been thankful for Mia’s crush on the Munson teen. 

Front door still open from when the men barged in, Ryan, Luke, Eliza, and Mia walk inside, laughing and talking over one another. Ryan is giving Eliza a piggyback ride and Luke has Mia’s too-small cowgirl hat perched on top of his head. The moment Eliza’s wide brown eyes spot her father, she demands answers. 

“Daddy, where were you?”

Ryan gently lets her down and she stomps over in her beige cowgirl boots, stopping right in front of Eddie. 

“Liza, I’m so sorry,” Eddie pleads. “Our car broke down. We tried everything we could to get back in time—”

Tears build up in Eliza’s eyes and Eddie feels his heart constrict in his chest. It might as well be Eliza’s little fist squeezing it.

“You were s’post to go with me!”

Eddie sighs and runs a ringed, smelly hand over his face. “I know. And I promise I’ll go next time. But I’m glad you got to bring your brothers. 

“Did you have fun at least?” Steve asks from behind him. 

Mia nods emphatically and both you and Nancy have to bite your lips to keep from smiling. 

Eliza nods in agreement, although not as enthusiastically as her friend. “Yeah. And Ryan is a good dancer.”

Luke smirks, and if Eddie were looking at him, he’d see the devious glint in his eye. “Not as good as Dad, I’m sure.”

Loud snickers come from you, Nancy, and Steve. Eddie’s jaw drops open as he looks around the room. 

“I can dance!”

“Yeah, Dad?” Ryan asks.

“Yeah!”

“Lucky for you, we’re all right here to witness it,” Luke says with a shrug. 

Eddie scoffs and shakes his head. “There’s no music. And I don’t really think my Metallica is easy to groove to.”

“We’ve got my Billy Joel—” you start.

“Or my *NSYNC!” Mia adds. 

“No,” Eddie says. “Thank you girls, but no.”

Smirk only growing larger, Luke pats his father on the shoulder. “Lucky for you, we’ve got just what you need.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow as he watches his son take a CD out of a Target bag he was conveniently hiding behind his back. 

“How was fishing, by the way?” Luke asks as he wrestles with the plastic engulfing the case.

“Pointless,” Steve says.

“Your uncle didn’t bring enough bait,” Eddie added. Steve is about to refute but Luke speaks before he gets the chance.

“But you would have, Dad? Does that make you a master baiter?” 

Ryan is the only one who is unable to contain his laughter. The joke goes over the girls’ heads, but you give your son a soft glare anyway. Never mind that you found it hilarious, just as you know the other adults did as well, but sometimes you’ve got to be the parent. 

Luke shrugs it off and pops the finally-freed CD into the stereo and the sound of a bow sawing over fiddle strings fills the room. Your second-oldest nods his head to Eliza.

“Go ahead, Lize. Show the old man how it’s done.”

“There’s not enough room to square dance in here,” Eddie says.

Without even so much as glancing at one another, you and Nancy get off of the couch and push it back, making plenty more space in the living room. The two of you smirk at one another and Nancy crosses her arms over her chest.

“Y’know, I don’t think it’s fair that you guys get to reap the benefits of your daughters being Girl Scouts without putting in the work.”

A grin grows on your face as you see where Nancy is going with this. 

“Yeah,” you agree, “maybe you don’t need more Samoas this year.”

Eddie’s face falls, and he looks at Steve, who shrugs in defeat. Gotta hit the guys where it hurts: food. 

“All right, show us the moves,” Steve says.

Mia grins, a bounce in her step as she takes Eliza’s smaller hand and walks to the middle of the floor. “Okay, me and Liza will be partners. Just watch us.”

Steve furrows his eyebrows and looks between the two girls, one with now-messy twin red braids, and the other with a light brown cowgirl hat atop two curly pigtails. 

“Wait, if you two are dancing together, who are Eddie and I dancing with?” he asks. 

Eliza giggles. “Each other.”

“Nope,” Eddie replies. “No way.”

With an over dramatic sigh, you shrug your shoulders at your husband. “No dancing, no Samoas.”

“Damn those little coconut fuckers,” Eddie mumbles under his breath. “All right, big boy. But I get to be the guy.”

“Sure, we’ll play pretend,” Steve quips back. It’ll be a miracle if they both make it through the first dance alive.

Eliza and Mia begin to go through the motions, showing their fathers what to do. Everyone is laughing as they do-si-do and hook arms to swing each other around. 

“Did I earn my cookies yet?” Eddie asks once the next song ends.

“That’s up to your daughter,” you tell him with a shrug. 

Eddie looks at Eliza expectantly, the big puppy dog eyes that he passed down to her working their magic. 

“Almost, Daddy. You gotta dance with me first.”

“Now that, I can do.”