#v v hawkins

[kaxenart]

Pater being like the baby/lil bro of the group, on account Hawkins calls him "son" as a term of endearment and he also mentions O'Keeffe helped him out.

But Pater is also like "if one of you dies, I get a promotion!"

[hitlikehammers]

Early November, 1984 and all Eddie wanted was to light up behind the Byers' place in peace🚬

he went all that way and all he got for it was a maybe-dead💀-but-definitely-unconscious-king👑-slash-maybe-babysitter(?), plus some shithead children directing his van🚐 to those fucking abandoned labs that may as well be lit up in neon lights screaming 🚨THIS IS A FUCKING TRAP🚨

Eddie shouldn’t be here. Like, not in a it’s forbidden kinda way, but more in a, there’s no real reason for him to fucking be here.

Save for the obvious.

It’s just…after the whole dead-not-dead thing with the youngest kiddo, the property around the Byers house has kinda turned into no-man’s-land; easy place to get high when Eddie wants a change of scenery, basically, with no one trying to break his nose, or call the pigs.

Or snatch his supply.

But when he hears that fuckface Hargrove call out, the tone on him—and Eddie’s real sensitive to tones, he can guess between the lines for everything he can’t read—he perks up; listens in. Stays put out of sight.

(And no, he does not cream his pants when Harrington calls back, Jesus; taunts like the cocky prick that he is—

And no it is not a close thing or…whatever.)

Point being: he hears more than sees what happens. Up to and including a gaggle of literal fucking children dragging Harrington toward wha Eddie thinks is Hargrove’s eyesore of a car, one of the sheepies crossing around like they’re planning on driving it, and Eddie’s not one for the rule of law or anything—definitely not if it’s Hargrove’s property that’s on the line—and fuck yes Eddie’s driven without a license, and far below the age to get one, but, but—

He’s tripping over himself to turn the keys in his own ignition and swinging the van around quick enough to kick up dirt before he leans over and throws open the passenger door.

“Hey,” he hisses, low but not quiet, he needs them to hear but he doesn’t know if Hargrove’s gonna storm out any second, it’s a delicate balance; “hey, get in,” and he’s crawling over the seat to open the back, too, to push things to the side to mostly leave it flat, tossing blankets to the middle with no care for their cleanliness because there’s no time for that shit, there’s no time and then he’s grabbing the hinges of the doors and flinging his whole top half around to eye this hoard of strange ankle-biters and what’s revealed quickly to be their still-weirdly-attractive-when-beat-to-shit charge in Steve Motherfucking Harrington, trying to project some degree of meaningful trustworthiness, because he is trustworthy, here and now, but they’re kinda in the fucking clock of crazy-eyes-Mc-West-Coast stumbling out of the house, so Eddie’s kinda gotta urge these rugrats with real feeling, waving his hands to the point where his fucking wrists hurt:

“Get in.”

And of course these little urchins still and just, raise a fucking eyebrow at him. Like they’re not working on an inexact sort of fucking timeline—

“Who the fuck are you?”

Yeesh. He wasn’t off when he said they were ankle biters; the little lambies have teeth.

“I just wanna help,” Eddie tries to say it with as much of the genuine concern that he really and truly feels, and not get weighed down with the probably-suspicious-off-the-bat vibe of pulling up in a random van just to start the exchange out with waving some strange kids into the back of it.

Jesus, that sounds terrible, wow, okay.

He gets it.

“No,” oddly, not the ringleader girl who eyed him first but it’s the curly headed boy now who stands up, squares his shoulders, and stares Eddie down with an only-slightly-less-menacing glare. “No, you’re not gonna hurt Steve.”

“I don’t want to hurt him, I swear,” Eddie’s honestly surprised by how unmuddled his tone bleeds put as desperate, versus irritated by this motley crew of munchkins trying to fight him when he is risking his own neck to help them.

And…King Steve, but then: can he be that motionless, hanging awkward from the noodles limbs of a handful of preteens (at most)?

“I just want to get you out of here, somewhere safe,” Eddie bites his lip, wonders where the fuck he intends to go and realizes he was probably just going to drive toward his home and hope for the best; “Er, somewhere safer than here,” and they don’t fucking budge, little assholes, and Harrington doesn’t fucking twitch, and just, just…

Ugh.

“Come on,” he urges them again, just shy of begging; lets how fucking nervous he’s getting seep clear into his tone a little, but he honestly doesn’t think he’d have convinced them to move if not for the crashing of something in the house behind them, and—well.

Nothing like impending doom to speed shit along.

“I wanted to drive,” the redhead’s muttering with a scowl as they heft the body they’re barely keeping off the ground and awkwardly feed Harrington head-first up to Eddie where where he’s crawled properly into the back of the van to help, and Eddie thinks these little fuckers just might be more wild and feral and insane even than he originally would have guessed for how they make to scramble behind their Steve; only just manages to steady and lower the royal body as careful as he can before the hoard clamors in and denies Eddie so much as a moment to press his finger under Steve Harrington’s flop of bloody hair and touch below his jawline where those stupidly infuriating moles of his speckle his skin, marks that Eddie’s hasn’t ever really paid attention to ever, nope, Eddie only needs now to assess whether he’s just accepted a dead fucking body into his van but: no.

Maybe a little sluggish, but pulse’s strong. Which: Eddie doesn’t care about past the legality of it all. Beyond getting saddled with a murder charge or some other bullshit.

No other reason. Of course. Yeah.

The only thing that floors him more than the Hardy Boys-plus-Girl on steroids tearing onto the cushions around where their unconscious charge is laid out, as Eddie shifts into gear and makes to get the fuck out of dodge, like, yesterday, is the even-louder voice in his head that asks probably the most pressing question:

The fuck did the King do, and how, and why, to make these children this loyal?

What follows all that is quite arguably—actually more than that; definitely a strong contender for—the most surprising thing that’s ever happened to Eddie. That could maybe ever possibly happen to Eddie, in any circumstance for any reason within any universal construct or reality. And he’d been really marinating in his Munson Doctrine this year, too, having been forced to reevaluate some shit after the letter arrived to hammer the most disappointing nail in the coffin of Eddie’s first senior year, but then…fuck everything, then there were the stupid little sheepies and their stupid gorgeous goddamn babysitter—which still, still: what the fuck was that, who the fuck even was Steve Harrington?—and Eddie’d barely even put the ink down to dry before all of them banded secretly together and shredded that motherfucking document before it could even properly take root in Eddie’s brain.

All while something else entirely started to take root in his chest, in his hea—

Well. Something. Something that wasn’t even remotely recognizable inside his most recent—and most polished to date, if he does say so himself—draft of the Doctrine like, at all.

Which is the point.

Because Harrington was indeed alive, and did indeed wake up, and clocked Eddie quicker than expected, even by name—Munson? What the fuck?and hell if that hadn’t fluttered between Eddie’s ribs an indefensible amount that no one would ever know about ever, thank you very much, but still: Jesus H. Christ—

But all his own humiliating discombobulation at the not-even-hands-just-voice-and-presence-of-the-golden-boy aside: it’s a damn good fucking thing Harrington wakes up, and is definitely not dead, because Eddie knows where the King lives, and he knows he’s not driving in that direction but had instead been foolish enough to give these shitweasel munchkins the benefit of the doubt here, like that there maybe was a safe house or some shit, fucking sue him, he was a little prepccupied, yeah—by the threat of a chase with that Hargrove fucker and then by the absolutely spectacle of Harrington screeching at the wayward waifs like a harried mother at the stovetop, because fuck, but Eddie nearly crashes them into three ditches and at least five trees for for trying to watch and he can’t even pretend otherwise—but the end result is definitely not a fucking safe house, and these little asshats have directed him in the wholeass wrong direction, if the undeniable fact of the old abandoned labs at the edge of town looming big through his windshield, looking at least slightly less abandoned (as if that’s not goddamn terrifying in and of itself), what the fuck has he literally driven into, is he an accomplice, and to what, and just, just Jesus—

“Hey.”

Eddie is honestly wholly jolted out of his spiral for a lot of reasons, here. The low tenor exhale of a sound in a voice too kind and open and invested, to much like music given what it does to Eddie, what music means to Eddie and what this voice shouldn’t fucking mean too straight out the goddamn gate. The proximity of a body close enough to feel the warmth of each breath. The indefensible feeling of it being nearly erotic out of nowhere and with no justification at all—just the reality of Eddie’s world right now, to feel the barest brush of the side of a body alongside his, leaning forward where he’s still in the driver’s seat. All of that would tip his world at the very least into a different sort of spiral pattern, breathless in a completely other way.

But.

What knocks Eddie hardest and most effectively in one go is the hand on his shoulder, braced to comfort and steady, and the realization in the flesh of how fucking big it is, how the span of that palm, those fingers, because Eddie knew those hands looked big, not that he’d studied them with any real…attention or anything but feeling them was something entirely other, and the touch, the touch is…is—

“Hey,” and Harrington’s breath is close enough then to tickle Eddie’s hair, goddamn: “breathe.”

And where Eddie hadn’t been wholly aware that he wasn’t, y’know, doing the breathing thing so well, either for the absolute insanity of the evening or the ominous spread, all proper D&D-style foreshadowing of nope don’t go there not now not ever waiting where these menaces had directed him to drive; but whatever the reason, where Eddie now takes a gulp of air in now that fucking burns, there’s Harrington, leaning over a little more, a second hand on Eddie chest to steady him as he falls all while he’s fucking squeezing Eddie’s shoulder, only a second before he’s getting ready to jump out of the van like he wasn’t just beaten unconscious like, five fucking minutes ago.

What the actual flying fuck.

If Eddie weren’t a goddamn idiot, he’d put the van in reserve before anyone could get out the back, fuck the way they’ll be thrown against the sides, at least they won’t be walking—willingly—into whatever the fuck’s waiting, all angry red and kinda…pulsating in the distance in a way that may or may not be a trick of his own paranoid mind, and then spewing little glowing motes into the air like lightning bugs.

Which could be charming, if it weren’t way fucking past the season for that shit.

And in fairness, the whole experience of Steve Harrington touching him and leaning close and breathing near him and telling him to breathe? That shit does carry him through—mostly—the hours that will follow, cliche and genuinely fucking embarrassing as it is, as it will be, to acknowledge at all.

But in the now—

“Thanks, man.”

And…oh, well, fuck.

As in point number one: that hand—bothhands—really are distracting as all hell but then also, simultaneously, very much point number two:

What the actual fuck.

“What?”

Apparently sending Eddie-usually-eloquent-enough-to-spin-some-pretty-bullshit-on-demand-Munson reeling outta nowhere is this fucker’s MO. Probably for the best that Eddie’s been writing him off as a pretty airhead for years now—if for nothing more than his own sanity.

Or else, like…relatively speaking.

“You got us here,” Harrington gestures out the window and…yeah.

“Here?”

That’s the relative part. And the insane part to be thanked for. Because where they’ve ended up is definitely the DoE labs that were supposed to have shut down or whatever, after people disappeared and came back and disappeared again and also didn’t and were never gone and fake bodies and whatever.

No one thanks anyone for bringing them to a place like this.

“And it’s more than I could have asked someone to do,” Harrington’s going on like it’s a casual thing, a favor like walking his goddamn dog and not more like what’s actually staring them down inside the fencing, namely the building that doesn’t look as abandoned as advertised by half, and definitely doesn’t at all look like the only thing it’s missing is a big neon sign blinking TRAP! FREE TRAP! IN THE MARKET FOR A QUICK PAINFUL DEMISE AT THE HANDS OF THE WORLD’S SHITTIEST TAINT FACTORY EAST OF ARMPIT-IAPOLIS? STEP RIGHT UP! ALSO REMINDER: CLEARLY A TRAP!

“Harrington,” Eddie doesn’t love the way his voice trips over a bonafide gulp. “Steve.”

He also doesn’t love how much feeling sneaks into that part because one, where the fuck’d that even come from and two, he…

Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever said this guy’s first name out loud. As in…ever.

He doesn’t love how nice it feels, how scary but bubbly-warm it tingles at the base of his throat and the pit of his stomach.

So there’s all of that.

Still set inescapably under the threat of the non-existent-but-no-less-real-neon-sign-of-death and…stuff.

“We know what we’re doing,” Steve’s pats Eddie’s shoulder again, moves the hand from his chest like he’s pulling away, like he’s leaving to go toward the trap and Eddie whips his head around just in time to catch Steve shrug sheepishly and add:

“Like, mostly.”

It is not at all lost on Eddie, how Steve doesn’t even try to sidestep that he’s walking into the gaping maw of probably death, here.

That might be the most terrifying part of this yet.

“I could,” Eddie’s voice is a crackle, so he tries clearing his throat, licking his lips; “I could at least try to help.”

That comes out a little stronger, but not steadier, and he doesn’t really think he’s making his point very well at all.

But then there’s Steve, and his hand back full on Eddie’s shoulder, saying:

“You could,” like he believes that; “and we’d be grateful,” added in like he means that too.

And most unbelievable of all of it, what he tacks on last with a squeeze of his hand and a lower pitch for no reason Eddie can figure save to catch inside the clench of his pulse so it takes to jittering like fucking mad as the King himself exhales:

“I’d be grateful.”

And what the fuck does that mean, said with eyes so bright when the night’s so dark?

And what the fuck does it mean when Eddie’s heartbeat starts jittering, a butterfly between cupped hands, until:

“I need you to be safe though,” and the words have physical form, brush Eddie’s frizzled curls straight behind his ear like…tenderness, delicate.

What. The. Fuck.

Eddie blames the way his heart goes form butterfly to battering ram, ready to crack through his ribs for no reason save a feeling he can’t justify, but’s too real to pretend away as less when he half-fucking-moans:

“What about you?”

Because Steve’s shepherding the kiddos. He’s keeping Eddie on the sidelines, safe. He’s charging into battle with a handkerchief and a bat and a goddamn pair of rubber gloves found from somewhere, sticking out his back pocket like he’s flagging in day-glo, holy hell—

But who takes care of Steve?

“I’ll see you at school,” Steve winks, leans this time to bump one shoulder straight to Eddie’s and then he’s jumping out the back of the van, and he’s moving too fast and—

“Harrington,” Eddie calls, suddenly forgetting he’d ever been trying to keep quiet, to avoid attention of whatever they’re going out to face, Hargrove or harbingers of worker fates, or both at once; “fuck, fuck,” he hissed as he trips over shit that got shifted back in his way as he stumbles to the doors and yells:

“Steve!”

And it’s like maybe saying his name does something to Steve himself, too, because he pauses, and even for the distance, the little curve of his lips isn’t a smirk, it’s a smile.

It’s fucking beautiful.

And then he’s saluting cockily before he turns on his heel with just one last parting shot;

“See you on the other side, Munson.”

And the tunnels beyond only let him watch so long, see so far. The weird shit in the air, and the bandanas he can see a scuffle over, to make sure they’re tied over noses and mouths, lit by weird pulsing colors, obscene squelching noises he can hear the echoes of even this far back and just, just…

Typical eldritch fuckery from a monster manual.

That doesn’t belong in real life.

It’s a fucking trap, Admiral. Good fucking god.

And Jesus H. Christ, but Eddie hadn’t even had the chance to light up tonight as he’d planned, as he’d explicitly driven out to do.

For fuck’s sake.

>>>part two 💚

For @miraculousmultifan, who requested Post-S2; 'Now, I’m not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty. But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know you, I began to realise that beauty was the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your goodness. I was drawn in by it' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST—very late, obviously, and MID-S2, rather than post but it ENDS UP being post-S2, promise 🖤

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @ajeff855 @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @bookworm0690 @bumblebeecuttlefishes @captain--low @depressed-freak13 @dragoon-ze-great @dreamercec @dreamwatch @estrellami-1 @finntheehumaneater @goodolefashionedloverboi @grtwdsmwhr @gunsknivesandplaid @hiei-harringtonmunson @hbyrde36 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @kimsnooks @live-laugh-love-dietrich @mensch-anthropos-human @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notaqueenakhaleesi @ollyxar @pearynice @perseus-notjackson @pretend-theres-a-name-here @pukner @ravenfrog @sadisticaltarts @samsoble @sanctumdemunson @shrimply-a-menace @slashify @stealthysteveharrington @swimmingbirdrunningrock @theheadlessphilosopher @theintrovertedintrovert @themoonagainstmers @theohohmoment @tillystealeaves @tinyloonyteacups @tinyplanet95 @warlordess @wheneverfeasible @wordynerdygurl @wxrmland @yesdangerpls @yourmom-isgay @1-tehe-1

divider credit here

[feelingpure]

The Many Faces of Tim (Skippy)

FELLOW TRAVELERS 1.03 ‘Hit Me’

[harbingersecho]

countless days pass by immeasurably;

anniversaries gutter in the maelstrom

[rabidrobbioli]

"so why do you like one piece"

[crypt1dcorv1dae]

my fav virichie dynamic is

richie, realizing he Like Likes his best friend: oh, huh... well that makes sense. anyway...*goes back to acting exactly the same*

virgil realizing he Like Likes his best friend: OH SHIT. OH FUCK. OH MY GOD WHAT AM I GONNA DO???? DO I TELL HIM??? DO I KEEP IT TO MYSELF TO SAFE OUR FRIENDSHIP??? DO I GET ADVICE???? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[biillys]

billy 'i just washed and styled my hair this morning' hargrove vs heather 'i'm on day one of my period' holloway. 73 dead 108 still drowning

[m1xtcpes]

continued with @freakarus

"If they can't handle being called a reject in this room by a fellow reject then perhaps this is simply not the club for them," Ronnie said taking her seat to Eddie's immediate right. Tossing her bag down by the feet of her chair she leaned back in her seat, her long lean limbs sprawling outward as she stretched. Her gaze washed over the table.

"Oh, shit, were you waiting on me?"

[cannotfly]

@shadowedvales

❝ your hair is very pretty, ❞ johanna whispers to her friend, gently easing each strand into sections. they aren't seated in the most comfortable of positions: she, on the porch and poor jane having to sit on the paved path in front. but as long as jane is happy, chattering away the way johanna knows she can, she doesn't mind. the last time she got to do someone else's hair other than a doll's ( and she's eighteen now, in a rather adult situation, she doesn't play with toys anymore ) was... well, never. she can't hide her delight, as much as she tries to bite back her grin. ❝ it's curly, like mine, ❞ she continues as if jane wouldn't know her own hair texture. ❝ what kind of braid did you say you wanted? ❞ finally, she stops biting her lip to let herself smile. lay in the beams of pure joy. she gets to do her friend's hair. ❝ do you want to do more than one? two maybe? ❞

[cannotflyarc]

@nanlanmo sent: [ silence ] sender lays a finger over their lips, telling receiver to stay quiet

fingers absent-mindedly playing at her curls, she can't hardly hear herself rambling. if she is rambling at all ( by this point in her life, she assumes every sentences that exceeds three words is a ramble ). partner projects aren't exactly her forte, nor is talking among her classmates. her position at this school is simply a girl in the crowd. the girl in the crowd doesn't get in trouble. girl in the crowd gets her homework done on time and wistfully looks at the posters for every dance, despite knowing she hates dancing and no boy in a million years would ask her to one. if her guardian would even approve of her going to any teenaged event.

eyes widen as she notices her partner's finger over her lips. oh, dear. how long had she been in that stance? is the teacher talking? was she talking and stopped to look at johanna with a shake of her head? is she going to sent her to the principal's office? or worse, call her guardian? but as she glances around the class, everyone is either busy getting to work or letting their partners do the work for them.

❝ sorry, ❞ she whispers, hoping that's alright. ❝ sorry. ❞ she shouldn't have spoken. oh, goodness. oh, dear. ❝ i didn't meant to start talking after you---sorry! i'll just stop! ❞

[thatslayer]

hawkins worst ; @freakarus

He's a mean little drunk, ain't he? She can't leave him here like this, because he's got boy brain and boy brain is clearly incapable of decisions that lead to survival ---- and she might drag him out, kicking and screaming, if he keeps acting like a damn kid.

The fuck is his problem, anyway? Men always have to get so damned emotional.

He pins it on her --- it was her idea. Hers. Faith's lip curls into a little sneer and she straightens up, having about what she's gonna take of his crap, "Uh, no, Genius. My idea was we come down here, have a few brews, get some chow then head out to the lake to set off fireworks and mess around. I got a whole lunchbox full of firecrackers from that pawn shop we went to. Now I get to spend my frickin' Saturday night making sure you don't end up on Unsolved Mysteries. Come one, Jackass. You owe me for this." How long has he known her, and he doesn't know she'll completely beat his ass in front of these bikers?

[kittenchrissy]

Look look this is my first attempts to do vp

These are such inept attempts to photograph my V

At that time I didn't know about the existence of AMM yet

But I love the fact that each of these boys has at least one trait of Christian's appearance

Oooh this is Christian in the first version This was the first time I used AMM Huh then my kitten had a completely different path to which he came after his corpo past (look mysteriously in the direction of Aldecaldos) AND HE WAS A NETRUNNER

my beloved, old treasures that are dear only to me🥰

[hitlikehammers]

Seriously though, ALL THAT EDDIE MUNSON WANTED in Early November, 1984 was to get a little high and maybe make it through senior year this time 🎓

...but if by mid-November of 1984 he maybe felt a little more strongly about wanting something someone else because 👑Steve fucking Harrington💗 is maybe his surprisingly (?) squishy heart's 🫀 fucking kryptonite🧪 and maybe, unthinkably, impossibly 🚨THIS IS NOT A FUCKING TRAP?!?!?!?!??!?!🚨 What THEN?!?!?!?!?

<<<last time:

“See you on the other side, Munson.”

And the tunnels beyond only let him watch so long, see so far. The weird shit in the air, and the bandanas he can see a scuffle over, to make sure they’re tied over noses and mouths, lit by weird pulsing colors, obscene squelching noises he can hear the echoes of even this far back and just, just…

Typical eldritch fuckery from a monster manual.

That doesn’t belong in real life.

It’s a fucking trap, Admiral. Good fucking god.

And Jesus H. Christ, but Eddie hadn’t even had the chance to light up tonight as he’d planned, as he’d explicitly driven out to do.

For fuck’s sake.

Eddie’s fingertips are numb from drumming the steering wheel so long, cuticles biting from biting too hard for too many minutes, maybe even hours. He can’t turn on the van, can’t risk the noise.

Wishes like hell he could, to drown out the stray growls, the screams, the howling, the definite fucking explosions of something, the…ripping.

He doesn’t know how he knows that’s what the sound is, the low screechy rumble. But he knows.

So he’s about three gasps of too-shallow breath from sicking up whatever he ate today when he hears something else.

Footsteps.

Motherfucker.

His legs are half-numb, asleep from staying so still, so unobtrusive for so fucking long, but he dives for the still-half opened back doors, doesn’t bother with the windows because part of the whole production was being able to hear something, no matter how sick it sloshed around his veins every time there was anything to hear, and he scrambles blind for something to swing, to hit with, whatever’s finally coming to his door but then it’s too late, the the hinges are creaking and—

His intruder’s just as struck dumb as he is, but Eddie has pure fucking adrenaline on his side, so he pants out while he crumbles like a string-cut puppet, so much for that tattoo idea—

“What,” Eddie spits, shaking his head more like a spasm, hair going everywhere and catching in his mouth; “and I do not ask this idly, Harrington,” then he’s wheezing kinda humiliatingly; “but what,” and he gestures wifey at the still crimson-tinged woods beyond, now lit brighter with actual fucking flames farther back, plus the not-dust clusters floating on the breeze and that’ll definitely be what Eddie blames for the way he coughs out hard:

“Actual fuck?”

“Munson?” And the way Steve says his name sounds like it should be accompanied by a frown, or at least more confusion, but what Eddie seesinstead is something like the…good sort of surprise.

Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever been even just a part of anything like a good sort of surprise. The suggestion of it alone here any nows heady as all fuck.

“What are the hell are you still doing here?”

And, well. He, that’s…

That’s a very interesting question.

“Umm,” and holy fuck, is Eddie glad it’;s as dark as it is, it has to be impossible to see proof of how hot his cheeks have gotten.

“Well, it seemed pretty intense, whatever you were,” he clears his throat, tosses his wrist again at the still-very-glowy maybe tunnels or maybe rips in spacetime, fuck if Eddie even knows.

“Wanted to try and come help but,” he shrugs, hides a little behind his hair; “not really my forte, but getaway car,” he reaches and knocks on the wall of the van, a little proud: “that I am a sought after professional so, I figured,” the he shrugs again because…what the hell did he figure? What the fuck use is he in whatever the fuck this actually is, which, which…

“But I’m gonna ask one more time,” because Eddie is nothing if not obnoxiously curious, so:

“What the actual fuck?”

And Harrington? Steve?

Motherfucker just snorts, and grins a little, despite the soot and blood and the swelling from the whole getting beat unconscious not so long ago.

“Gas leak, I guess,” Steve huffs something like a laugh that’s not actual funny, but feels more like an inside joke Eddie doesn’t get, but desperately wants to; “probably what’s been causing all the weird shit around here.”

“Oh, wow,” Eddie covers the weirdly gnawing ache to know, know, know this man and his little secrets; fuck, also his big ones, all his secrets, all of him, what the fuck. “Didn’t know you were a goddamn comedian, save some for the rest of us,” he rolls his eyes when Steve frowns a tiny bit, tips his head like a puppy who doesn’t understand and good fucking god is it adorable.

Eddie’s so fucked, isn’t he, and out of nowhere.

“King can’t also be the jester, man,” Eddie takes pity on him, explains, wonders if giving his secrets will merit him the pleasure, the privilege of learning Steve’s the way he wants, or finding something in the inklings he’s feeling that are real and not just wishful thinking or heightened emotions in an impossible night that makes no sense so maybe any possible future for what Eddie’s got sparkling at the edge of ever single one of his veins is just as nonsensical too, and fuck—

“You mentioned a getaway car.”

Eddie stills; and that’s not mean feat.

“And seems like I was maybe a little incapacitated in the way here so,” Steve leans in, close enough that Eddie smells smoke, and sweat, and might fucking faint because it’s fucking intoxicating. Eddie’s not even mad he didn’t get a joint in before the night went to shit in the maybe-best-and-most-fantastic of ways.

If it’s not just nonsense, and a blip of the impossible on the radar of Eddie Munson’s deeply unimpressive life.

But Harrington’s eyes are twinkling, and when Eddie gets over the thumping of his heart and hears the squabbling of tweens approaching, the question Steve’s teeing up comes straightforward, but then full of layers all at once.

“Up for giving us a lift, then?”

If Steve’s involved?

Is he fucking ever.

—

Dropping the little barnacles off doesn’t take long, even if they’re kinda scattered around town. Eddie gets an earful and a half about D&D, which isn’t the worst thing, though he mostly relishes see Steve’s reactions, listening to his little interjections for the shitheads to can it. It’s…there’s just something about it.

Something about him.

“My house isn’t this way.”

Eddie…realizes that.

“Yep.”

So fucking eloquent, Munson. Jesus.

“Pretty sure yours is, though”

Oh, look. All this time Eddie’s tried to write him off as stupid and pretty and he’s actual a paladin fighting dragons with an actual brain under that gorgeous hair, son of a goddamn bitch.

“I’ll sleep better,” slips out of Eddie’s mouth without thinking, because of the two of them left in the van, seems like Eddie is the one who’s fucking brainless.

“What?”

He really wants to bang his forehead into the steering wheel but…that would be a good chunk of what’s driving Eddie, literally, toward Forest Hills.

“Your head,” Eddie taps his own temple, keeps driving, keeps his eyes on the road because he thinks he won’t be able to look away if he even gives himself the slightest taste in this moment.

“You look alright now but like,” Eddie sucks a sharp breath through his teeth, because:

“Not gonna pretend you didn’t scare the fuck out of me, not to mention your brood,” because that’ll soften the really fucking telling confession, obviously, score one for Eddie not being a whole-ass sap about someone he barely knows and—

“Oh.”

Eddie breaks his own rule not to look in a fuckking instant, because that single word, more a breath exhaled, is…wondering.

“Oh, you’re,” and Steve looks like he’s working from something bigger than just Eddie making a fool out of himself for worrying over Steve Harrington’s wellbeing. “You wouldn’t sleep well because,” and Jesus H., Eddie stepped in this shit because now Steve’s spelling it out, but then at the same time…he’s spelling it out like he wants to see all the letter laid plain to…

Marvel at.

Almost like…almost like he doesn’t know what to do with it. And if he doesn’t, if he didn’t know what to do with being cared about, what the fuck did that mean for Steve fucking Harrington—

“Sure,” Steve finally says, pulls Eddie from his thoughts, his wonderings, the way he’s fucking appalled at the implication that maybe no one’s ever shown Steve enough regard to fucking care.

“Sure I can,” and Steve’s feeling the words out like they’re precious and not just…basic; like maybe he’s afraid they’ll go away:

“Stay.”

Eddie shifts into park and runs around to open the goddamn door before he can think twice of being that absolutely and indefensibly insane, makes sure Steve steps down from his seat without incident, without a single bump of scrape.

Holds himself back from guiding him with a hand at the base of his spine to the door but like…only just.

He throws a pair of jammies that look like they’ll fit and pretends to take time in the bathroom that not mostly just freaking the fuck out about the wave of, like, just…feeling things about the fact that Steve Harrington is in his house. In his room. Will be in his clothes when he convinces himself to breathe, and walk out of the safe space near the shower.

“Okay if I wake you up,” Eddie makes himself enter with words, lest he get caught up in just staring, and never find his way back out. “I think that’s what they say you gotta do for hits like that to the noggin.”

Steve snorts, but nods, and only winces for the motion a little.

“Yeah, dude,” Steve says, and it’s…fond. Good god.

Addictive, more than anything Eddie’s ever sampled, and he’s not as experienced as he talks a game for, but like, he’s had his share.

“What are you doing?”

Eddie looks up from where he’s shaking a blanket out to stretch across the floor. It’s cold enough that he’ll need it, is all.

“My uncle sleeps on the couch,” Eddie says, because it’s really that simple.

“Then let me,” Steve reaches for the threadbare blanket, grabs at the corner and scrambles up from where he’d sat on the bed like he damn well was supposed to, because he’;s got a fucking head injury.

Also he’s a guest, even if kind of a…guest brought here under some degree of duress. Eddie didn’t exactly give him too much of a choice. But he doesn’t, can’t dwell, because Steve grabbed for the blanket.

And his hand touched Eddie’s hand in the process and made it inconveniently accurate that now they both have brain injuries of one kind or another, goddamn.

“Get the fuck up here,” Steve finally sighs, but again, like it’s fond, and how, and why, as he pulls Eddie up by where they’re both holding the blanket still; “not kicking you out of your own bed,” he mutters, shifting to the side that Eddie doesn’t use. Like he knows.

Eddie’s maybe vibrating from the fucking cells of him until sleep finally comes in the form of Steve’s steady breathing, and the warmth of him inescapable and so fucking like comfort, wrapped in the worn blanket Eddie’s mama made when he was still small.

—

Anyway. That’s how it starts. Being anything, in the vicinity of Steve Harrington.

Waking him up dutifully four times before it makes sense to get up and go about the day; or else, for Steve to. Eddie isn’t into mornings.

But he does tail Steve out the door before realizing that Steve doesn’t fucking have his own car here, and then he’s shoving bare feet in his Reeboks and taking Steve to Loch Nora, where he’s still sleepy enough—probably, or at least it’s a decent excuse—to ask if Steve’ll call him a couple times today, just to make sure his head’s still okay.

And Steve does the…fond-marveling look that skips in Eddie’s chest, fuck all, and agrees. And waves at him with a secret little grin—and Eddie wants all the more to know those fucking secrets—and then, know what that fucker goes and does?

He calls. On the hour, every three hours until they both agree to go to bed. Like he knew somehow that Eddie was waiting, the whole goddamn day. Even if he doesn’t wholly understand the why.

But then of course Eddie can’t leave well enough alone, even after the sees Steve off that next morning and through the calls that follow after; can’t fucking sleep in the days that follow, not like he managed that first night, when objectively he should have been freaked the fuck out the worst, given even the hint of what he thinks maybe he saw in the woods—but whatever. Point is, he realizes real quick that he needs to know if Harrington is alright, with his own two eyes. Under his hand when he dares touch his skin just a little to see if it’s still warm and…stuff.

And yeah, okay, he might not know all the details or the context, but he’d picked up enough to know things were peachy in the most wholly fucking sarcastic sense possible, and the idiot is in fact at school that Monday when he absolutely should not be, if the state his face is still in is anything to go by, but…yeah.

Eddie corners him in the locker room, where Eddie doesn’t go because he cuts gym like he gets paid to—wouldn’t that be nice, he’d be rich—and he’s gonna call it a public service more than a vaguely stalkery act because hey, he’s a super senior but he thinks, just maybe, that sport-ing with what’s undoubtedly a concussion isn’t the best idea.

He pops out in front of Harrington before he makes for the back entrance after coming from his car between classes for fuck knows what reason, maybe cleaning his goddamn pulverised face a little, and shimmies him closer to the tree-line where Eddie’s storefront sits and its weird, or maybe concerning, because Harrington lets him with just the slightest sounds of protest—maybe he’s worse off than expected if he’s this willing, fuck, and what’s Eddie gonna do if the Golden Boy passes out in the middle of the woods, way to think this through—

“Any reason you kidnapped me from phys ed?”

Eddie startles at that voice. Remembers vividly—inconveniently—how broad the hands that the voice comes with are. How arm. How—

“You shouldn’t be having balls throw at you,” Eddie answers, more petulant that’d be planned. And wholly unprepared for the curl of a smirk he gets in return at the wording.

Jackass. His majesty’s just fine, Eddie should have left him. To—

“Knight in shiny armor again, Munson,” Harrington tuts at him, but…once Eddie processes and accepts the flush he knows is on his cheeks, he can actually look at the guy, who’s taken a seat now on Eddie bench, thighs thick how he spreads them wide across the wood.

Wood, Jesus, thank fuck he didn’t say that out loud to make it two-for-two.

“Gonna give a guy ideas, if you keep at this.”

And Eddie’s jaw drops a little at that tone, lewd little, taunting but not for the cruelty of it, more the playfulness like somehow the world’s tipped on its axis and up is down and Steve Harrington can make weirdly-close-to-come-ons in the presence of Eddie Munson. Or, fuck. Not just in the presence of.

Clearly directed at and to, in the absence of literally anyone else.

And he can’t know it, not then, not yet: but giving Eddie Munson an in, giving him the ideas?

That’s a fucking dangerous game.

And the wildest part of all of it is that smirk, that glimmer in those eyes.

Like Steve goddamn Harrington knows it, and—somehow, unthinkable—wants dealt in to play.

>>>part 3/3

For @miraculousmultifan, who requested Post-S2; 'Now, I’m not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty. But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know you, I began to realise that beauty was the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your goodness. I was drawn in by it' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST—very late, obviously, and MID-S2, rather than post but it ENDS UP being post-S2, promise 🖤

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @ajeff855 @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @bookworm0690 @bumblebeecuttlefishes @captain--low @depressed-freak13 @dragoon-ze-great @dreamercec @dreamwatch @estrellami-1 @finntheehumaneater @goodolefashionedloverboi @grtwdsmwhr @gunsknivesandplaid @hiei-harringtonmunson @hbyrde36 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @kimsnooks @live-laugh-love-dietrich @mensch-anthropos-human @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notaqueenakhaleesi @ollyxar @pearynice @perseus-notjackson @pretend-theres-a-name-here @pukner @ravenfrog @sadisticaltarts @samsoble @sanctumdemunson @shrimply-a-menace @slashify @stealthysteveharrington @swimmingbirdrunningrock @theheadlessphilosopher @theintrovertedintrovert @themoonagainstmers @theohohmoment @tillystealeaves @tinyloonyteacups @tinyplanet95 @warlordess @wheneverfeasible @wordynerdygurl @wxrmland @yesdangerpls @yourmom-isgay @1-tehe-1

divider credit here and here

[feelingpure]

FELLOW TRAVELERS 1.03 ‘Hit Me’

[pumpkinstabs-moving]

for the first time in michael’s life, he has a friend. steve harrington started off as someone michael disliked and avoided in high school, to someone that worked at the same mall as him, to a casual acquaintance…. to a friend, to something that feels more than that. they're not dating, of course not, they haven't even kissed yet, but the way they look at each other and pine aren't signs of a normal friendship... but then again, what would michael know? steve has been his first for many things, so michael has nothing to compare their bond to.

earlier today, though-- he heard robin bring michael up while in conversation with steve, and though he couldn't hear the entire thing, it was clear it was a slightly uncomfortable thing to discuss. michael can't help but wonder why, and the worry of it gnaws at the back of his mind all day. "steve-- can we talk?" he doesn't like how steve seemed to just be going home instead of hanging out with michael after closing like he typically does. it's not a good sign, but it could just be a coincidence. // @hairoic

[myfavoritepeterotoole]

Peter O'Toole, Sir David Lean, and "Lawrence-Editor-for Life" Anne Coates at sound-dubbing session in London studio. At top, Peter, Annes, and Sir David look over script. At center, Lean and O'Toole watch restored scenes which require new voice tracks. At bottom, O'Toole re-dubs dialogue for the restored "Seduction" scene. Harris's L.A. assistant Jude Schneider had previously organized lip-reading experts to interpret the dialogue "spoken" on restored scenes with missing sound tracks.

***

Peter O'Toole and Jack Hawkins

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) directed by David Lean

Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence

Jack Hawkins as General Allenby

Lawrence: The best of them won't come for money; they'll come for me.