#writing prompt ficlet

[steviesbicrisis]

Gareth is in charge of the Corroded Coffin official TikTok account, being the only one who actually uses social media on a daily basis.

He's playing Fuck Marry Kill with the three random celebrities generator and trying to make the other guys join as well.

When it's Eddie's turn, he's having none of it "they're just gonna get mad at me because I know no one! let me live in peace!"

Gareth insists until he shoves the phone in Eddie's face, giving him no chance to escape. The filter generates three pictures on top of Eddie's face.

"I have no fucking clue who these people-" he stops talking as his eyes focus on the last picture, it's a man around his age with voluminous hair and beautiful features. Eddie pulls the phone up close, ripping it out of Gareth's hand, to have a better look.

"you okay man?" Gareth asks, out of frame.

"Kiss, have sex with, marry, and adopt a puppy with him," he says, pointing at the guy on the screen "kill the other two."

"That's not how you play man, the fuck??" Gareth appears in frame and looks at the celebrities "you mean the third guy? are you serious?"

Eddie glares at him sideways "have you fucking seen him? he's a fucking-" but the video is cut off by the time limit.

The most liked comment under the video is by none other than famous baseball player Steve Harrington:

"I'm more of a cat type, but how about we discuss it over dinner? ;)"

--

More of this story here

[matchingbatbites]

For @steveshairychest and based on their post here. I read it and just couldn't resist <3

The thing is, Eddie knows that Steve is straight. Honestly, that's the only reason Eddie is as bold as he is, why he starts flirting with him in the first place. He's got years of repressed feelings towards the younger boy, and now they're friends, good friends, and Eddie feels comfortable letting loose some of that pent up attraction, knowing that Steve won’t shun him for it.

He does start off small, just to be safe, with pet names and terms of endearment like handsome, honey, sweetheart. Just little things that make Steve's mouth quirk in a smile, nothing to make him feel uncomfortable. The longer Eddie goes, though, the bolder he gets.

The first pickup line is a joke. They’ve been talking about some new beach movie that's just been released onto video when Steve mentions his lifeguard certification, and before Eddie can stop himself he says “It's a good thing you're a lifeguard, because I'm drowning in your eyes.” 

Steve laughs at that, not mean, just surprised, and is still grinning as he gives a half-hearted “Shut up, Eds,” and turns back to what he was working on. 

And, oh, Steve has no idea what he's done, because Eddie is instantly obsessed with the need to make Steve laugh, to pull out that playful side of him that’s so rare to witness. So Eddie pulls out every dumb pickup line in the book, tries his best to make him laugh again.

“Hey, Stevie, your hand looks lonely. Can I hold it for you?”

“Did you just come out of an oven? Because you're too hot to handle.”

“Is your dad a boxer? Because baby, you're a knockout.”

Most of the time Steve just rolls his eyes and grins, but every so often he’ll make that surprised laugh, or god forbid, he’ll giggle, and Eddie mentally crows in victory every time it happens.

The kiss thing is spur of the moment one day, when Eddie has been hanging out just to be around Steve, and causing a little bit of a racket in the store. After a while, Steve playfully shoves at Eddie's shoulder and says "Get out of here before you get me in trouble, man," and Eddie just grins as he leans into Steve's space. 

"What? No goodbye kiss before you send me off into the world?" 

And oh god, Steve actually blushes this time, his cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink, and oh fuck, Eddie is such a goner. Steve shakes his head and tries his best to hide a smile as he says "In your dreams, Eddie." 

"In my dreams it’ll be, then, handsome," Eddie replies with a grin, giving a mock salute on his way out the door.

It becomes a usual thing, Eddie hanging out and flirting and asking Steve for a kiss before he leaves. Every time, Steve's response is the same, that delightful blush covers his cheeks as he grins and pushes Eddie away with a "Keep dreaming," or a "You wish,” or even a half-assed “Fuck off, Eds.”

It all comes back to bite him in the ass when, for once, Eddie arrives at the video store to pick up Robin, instead of just doing his usual lazing about and bothering Steve.

Walking in, he doesn't see Buckley immediately, but he does spot his favorite person behind the counter and he beelines to Steve. He leans on the counter, elbows on the clean surface and chin in his hands as he bats his eyelashes at Steve.

"Hi Stevie! How's the prettiest boy in Hawkins today?" 

Steve looks over at him and Eddie feels like a deer in headlights when the man gives him a sly grin. He leans on the counter, arms crossed as he presses into Eddie’s space.

"I dunno, gorgeous, how are you doing?" 

All of Eddie's higher brain function just stops as Steve speaks. It’s such a stupid response, something that anyone else might have said if asked the same question, but for some reason it makes Eddie go dumb, cheeks flooding with color and mouth dropping in shock.

Steve’s grin widens and he tips his head to the side, looking like the cat who got the fucking canary. He reaches up and grabs a curl that had fallen from the messy bun Eddie had thrown his hair into, and twists the lock around his finger as he leans even closer.

"You look so fucking good today. Drives me crazy when you wear your hair up like this, sweetheart. Puts your whole neck on display, all that pretty skin just begging to be bitten and marked up."

And yeah, Eddie's brain must be leaking out of his ears, because it’s him, it’s Eddie, the master wordsmith who always has something to say, and all he can manage to get out in response is a single, stupid sounding "Uh.”

Steve's expression shifts to something more condescending and god, Eddie is so into it when he tugs on the curl again and coos "Aw, got nothin’ to say, baby doll? Can't take what you dish out?" 

An embarrassing whine finds its way into the air between them and fuck, Eddie has to go. He needs to leave before he makes an even bigger fool of himself than he already has, because Steve is looking at Eddie like he wants to eat him and his knees feel like jello and where the fuck is Robin??

As though summoned by just a thought, Robin breezes through the shop and throws out a casual “Steve, can you stop? I need him to drive me home and he can’t do that if his brain is mush.”

Eddie glances over as she walks past them, thinks Traitor! as she leaves him at Steve’s mercy and heads outside to his van. He looks back to Steve, at those hazel eyes alight with amusement and tries to get his brain to work.

“I need- uh- Robin-” he stammers, unable to even complete a thought as Steve smirks and leans in even closer, his nose almost brushing against Eddie's when he asks, "Can I get a goodbye kiss?" 

And Eddie could never say no to Steve, especially when the other is looking at him like that. He nods dumbly, hoping he doesn't look as desperate as he feels, and there's another tug on that curl.

"I need you to use your big boy words, sweetheart," Steve says, still tinged with condescension, and Jesus fucking Christ, this whole dynamic is really doing it for Eddie, more so than he ever thought it would.

"Yes, Steve- Please-" he says, fully prepared to start begging if he has to, if he can find the words to, but he's given a bit of mercy when Steve closes the gap between them.

It feels like he’s being electrocuted, and that's all he needs for his brain to get with the program, for his hands to finally respond as they fly up and tangle in honey locks as he kisses back.

Steve groans and presses closer, his tongue bullying its way into Eddie's mouth and Eddie can feel his limbs turning into goo as Steve kisses him thoroughly, those old King skills being put to good use as he wrecks Eddie with just this.

A car horn sounds from outside the shop and Steve pulls away, smirking again at Eddie's soft whine of protest. “You better go before Robin pitches a fit.” 

Eddie nods, still dumbstruck from the last few minutes and says "I- Yeah, okay. Uh, call me? Tonight?"

Steve hums and stands up straight, and Eddie can feel his brain power returning with the little bit of distance now between them. 

“Why don’t you come over after my shift? Say, 9?” Steve asks, giving Eddie that hungry look once again, and Eddie’s breath hitches.

“Yep, yes, I can- I’ll definitely do that,” he answers, taking a few steps back and trying his best not to stumble. “I’ll, uh, see you then, Stevie.”

Steve calls out “See you later, baby doll!” as Eddie scrambles for the door, and oh god, Eddie is fucked.

[starry-bi-sky]

Stuck in the middle of a forest made of

Flesh and bones and they're all scared of

A lost little boy who has lost his heart

Fear's not enough, they have to

Tear him apart —-------

There are two things Daniel Fenton knows that his family knows as well: 

He’s adopted.

He can’t remember anything else before that.  

‘Adoption’ is a loose term, implying that they went through the official legal processes and troubles of adopting a child into their home willingly, and with the full intention of doing so going into it. That is not what happened. What happened is that Jasmine Fenton found a half-dead child, in strange clothing, in the middle of the woods at her Aunt Alicia’s cabin, and then she went and got her parents. 

What happened is that a twelve year old Danny woke up in the same cabin, wearing clothes much too big on him that didn’t belong to him, and with very little memory of before that moment. He wakes up like a spring being set loose, sitting up so fast he scares the daylights out of Jasmine Fenton sitting next to him. He wakes up, reaching for his sleeve for something that isn’t there, and when it isn’t his mind stutters, like he’s tripped at the top of a steep hill. 

When they ask him for his name, he tells them, clearing muddled thoughts from his mind; Danny. He’s twelve.

(He thinks that’s his name, at least. It sounds right; it feels right. If he thinks really hard about it, he thinks he can remember someone calling him that, utter adoration in their voice. So it must be his name.) 

The Jasmine girl convinces her parents to take him home with them, and they give him the spare guest room upstairs. He has nothing to fill it with.

It’s… a strange experience, to go to a ‘new’ home when he doesn’t even remember his old one. 

The official adoption process… happens. He can’t say it’s easy, or difficult. He’s oblivious for the most of it, Jasmine intends on helping him settle in and Danny can’t say he enjoys the smothering. He learns that he is stubbornly self-independent, that’s one new thing he knows about himself. 

His adoption papers say ‘Daniel J. Fenton’. Danny remembers staring at the name ‘Daniel’ for a long, long moment, something curdling sour in his sternum. His name is Danny, that he knows. But it’s not Daniel. But he doesn’t know any other way of saying it, so he keeps his complaints to himself.

(Jack Fenton boisterously claps his hand on Danny’s shoulder and jerks him around, grinning wide as he welcomes him into the Fenton Family. Danny’s mind blanches at the touch on his shoulder, an instinct snapping like the maw of a snake, telling him to cut off the man’s fingers for daring to touch him.) 

(He keeps the thought to himself, tension rising up his shoulders the longer Jack Fenton’s heavy hand stays on him.) 

They found Danny in the summer. It’s a perfect coincidence, Maddie Fenton says before she goes back into her lab with Jack Fenton. She says it’s enough time to allow Danny to adjust; that they’ll enroll him into the school year in the fall. Then she stuffs a canister of ectoplasm onto the top shelf, and disappears like the ghosts she studies back down the stairs.  

(There’s something eerily familiar about the ectoplasm sitting in the fridge, something unsettlingly so. Danny knows what that stuff is, but he doesn’t know where. When the house is empty, he takes a can from the fridge and inspects it.)

Jazz wants him to leave the house. Danny doesn’t want to step foot outside of the FentonWorks building until he has something that quells the feeling of vulnerability he gets whenever he does. He tried to once, and he felt exposed. Unsafe. 

He turned back around and went inside.

—-------

Where do we go

When the river's running slow

Where do we run

When the cats kill one by one

—------

One day, when the house is empty — or, as empty as it can be; the Fenton parents down in the lab, and jazz out with friends. Danny is making a sandwich, and he caves into the urge to flip the knife in his hands between his fingers. A childish impulse, but one he falls for nonetheless. It comes to him easily, like second nature, in fact. The slip of the blade between his fingers is seamless, flowing with an ease like water running down the wall.  

He’s almost startled by it; his body holds memories that his mind does not. Muscles that know which way to move and twist, limbs that know how to hold and how to throw. He continues twirling it, fascinated, as if he were a scientist discovering a new species of animal. 

It’s not for a handful of minutes when a new thought hits him; an impulsive thought that pops in the back of his mind like a firecracker; Danny moves without thinking. 

He turns, and throws the knife. The pull of his shoulder, the flick of his elbow, is familiar like a hug. He knows when to let go, and the blade flies through the air in impressive speed, embedding itself into the wall with a hearty, loud thunk. Sinking into the drywall like butter. 

Danny stares at it in shock, he feels relieved — about what? — before he feels the guilt. He scrambles across the kitchen to pull it out, heart racing in his chest at being caught, and prays no one notices the hole it left behind. 

(He runs up the stairs before anyone can find him, food forgotten, and hides the knife beneath his mattress like a guilty murder weapon.)

After that, he leaves the house more. It’s more out of fear of being caught than the desire to leave. But Danny is quickly learning that among all things, he is someone who was dangerous, before he lost his memory. Even with his mind in fractures, he is still dangerous. 

He’s not sure how to feel about that — he thinks he should be scared. He feels a little proud, instead.

—------

Hazel beneath our claws

While we wait for cerulean to cry

Unsettled ticks run through time

Enough for the hunt to go awry

—-----

There’s another thing he learns about himself. That he knows about since he woke up. He knows that he left someone behind. He doesn’t know who, but he knows they must have been close; he’s always looking down and finding himself surprised when the only shadow he sees is his own. 

He thinks that he must have sung to them a lot; he finds himself humming familiar melodies when he’s lost in thought. Lullabies lingering at the tip of his tongue, an instinct to turn and sing them to someone beside him. He can’t remember the lyrics, but his mouth does, it tries to get him to say them when he’s not thinking. He can’t. 

Danny’s found himself humming under his breath more times than he can count, trying to recall whatever it is his mind is trying to claw forward. 

(“That’s a pretty song, Danny.” Jazz tells him at breakfast one day, Danny screws his mouth shut. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “What is it?”) 

(Something mean and possessive rears its head on instinct, uncoiling like a snake from its ball. His shoulders hunch defensively, he bites his cheek to prevent himself from baring his teeth. He doesn’t know what song it is, but it’s not for her. “I don’t know.”)  

He misses his person. Dearly. He knows, the longer he is without them, that they must have been close. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing a chunk from himself. He wouldn’t be turning to someone who's not there; reaching for a hand that’s missing, birdsong on his tongue, a story to tell. 

A dream haunts him one night. Warm and familiar, he’s holding onto someone smaller than him, they’re tucked into his side like a puzzle piece. He’s humming one of his songs that is always playing in the back of his mind, an unfinished tale of a harpy and a hare. Danny can’t remember their face, not all of it. He remembers green eyes, hair dark like his own, skin brown like his. 

He loves them more than anything else in the world, a fact he knows down to his soul. He loves them so much it fills his heart with sunlight. Danny squeezes them tight, nuzzling into their hair; he makes them laugh. Then, he proudly boasts something. That when he takes something of their father’s, that his person — a sibling? That feels right — will be… the word fades from Danny’s mind before he can make sense of it. 

His person hugs him tight, his… brother? And their mother — a woman whose face he can’t remember either, but who he loves like a limb nonetheless — appears, smiling. Her hands reach for them both, voice calling them, ‘her sons’. There’s ticking in the distance, it sounds like the fastening of chains.

Danny wakes up cold, tears streaming down his face. The details of the dream already fading from his mind like the cold pull of a corpse.   

—-------

Harpy hare

Where have you buried all your children?

Tell me so I say

—-------

When school starts that Fall, Danny joins the sixth grade class, and quickly learns more things about himself. One of those things being that he’s smarter than the rest of his grade, whatever education he had before, it was better than the one he’s getting now. 

Everyone knows he’s adopted right off the bat. He tells them when the teacher forces himself to introduce himself, but it’s not like they needed him to tell them for them to know; he never existed in their little world before now, and the Fentons are pale as they come. Danny is not.

He befriends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley; they ask him about the scars fading up and down his arms, they ask him about the scar carved diagonal across his face.

Danny, as politely as he can, tells them he doesn’t remember. He thought kindness would come second nature to him, his dream burned into his mind where he hugged his brother so sweetly. Apparently, his sweetness is only second nature to people he considers his own. 

(It becomes even more apparent when Dash Baxter tries to bully him later that day, and Danny ruffles like an eagle threatened. His mind whispers, hissy and agitated, sinking like a shadow at his shoulder, several different ways Danny could kill him for talking to him like that, and fifteen more ways he could cripple him.)

(Danny ignores those thoughts, up until Dash Baxter tries to grab him. Then he breaks his nose on the wood of his desk. It’s easy how quickly the rest of his grade sinks him down to the status of social pariah.)

(At least Sam and Tucker still talk to him after that. When Danny goes to the principal’s office later, he wisely doesn’t mention the worse things he could’ve done than break Dash Baxter’s nose.)  

—--------------

It clicks and it clatters in corners and borders

And they will never

Hear me here listen to croons and a calling

I'll tell them all the

Story, the sun, and the swallow, her sorrow

Singing me the tale of the Harpy and the Hare

—-------

More dreams come, of course they do. Each one halfway to forgotten whenever he wakes up, ticking faint in his ears. He is many different ages. He is young, shorter than a table. He is older, holding onto his little brother. He is singing in almost every single one. He is singing to his brother. 

Danny can barely remember the lyrics, he’s begun leaving a journal by his bedside so that it’s the first thing he can write down when he wakes up. He’s a storyteller, he learns. He feels like a historian, trying to piece together a culture long dead and forgotten. 

His most vivid dream-like memory is not a happy one, and for once he’s almost relieved he barely recalls it. He is somewhere that isn’t home, but his mother and brother are there. He is dressed in black, blades keen in his hands. 

They are atop a moving train. They are fleeing something. His brother is struggling to keep up, he is small, and young. It’s beautifully sunny, they are somewhere green and lovely. 

It is a fast dream. 

His brother stumbles on something, and Danny, fast as a whip, snatches him by the back of his shirt and hoists him up to his feet before he can fall. “Watch your feet, habibi.” He murmurs low, a hand on his back. It’s hard to hear, there is wind in their ears.

His brother, face obscured in all but his eyes, which are green as emeralds, nods. 

The dream blurs, but Danny falls behind. His foot catches on air — impossible, it should’ve been, at least. He never trips. — and he lands against the roof with a thud and a grunt. His mother and brother stop, and turn for him. 

The train hits a turn before Danny can get up, and he shouldn’t have, something pulls on him, he swears, but he slips. He can’t find the purchase to pull himself up, cold fear hits him as his nails scrape against the metal. 

His mother and brother’s horrified faces are the last thing he sees before he disappears off the side of the train. 

(The ticking is at its loudest when he wakes up, pounding against his inner skull. He only manages to write down ‘train fall’ in his journal, before he’s flipping over to press his head into his pillow to get the pain to stop.) 

—---  

She can't keep them all safe

They will die and be afraid

Mother, tell me so I say

(Mother, tell me so I say)

—-------

When Danny is fourteen he is still humming songs he can’t remember, his mind still in a broken puzzle. But his room is now decorated with stars and plants in every corner. He has a guitar he keeps in the corner of his room, and he plays the lullabies in his head on the strings over and over again. 

The ectoplasm in the fridge still unsettles him, still reminds him of a past he can’t recall. The knife beneath his mattress has returned to the kitchen — he doesn’t need it. He found a box in the attic last year, it had his name on it, and inside he found familiar, strange clothes, and more weapons than he thought was possible to carry on one person. 

(Even without knowing that the Fentons prefer guns to blades, Danny knows, instinctively, that they were his weapons. He was — was? Is — a dangerous person. He takes the box down to his room to sort through. The weapons all fit into his callused hands almost perfectly — the grooves worn to fit his palm. They’re just a little small.) 

(He tentatively takes a small blade with him to school one day, and feels much more comfortable with it sheathed beneath his shirt. He’s kept it on him ever since, like he’s reunited a lost limb to himself.)   

Danny doesn’t have a name for his person, his little brother, nor does he have a name for his beloved mother. He’s haunted by dreams every few weeks, many of them repeating. He’s ingrained the words he can remember to memory, and the ones he doesn’t, he writes down in his journal. His little brother; Danny calls him a bird, he can’t figure out what kind. His little bird of some kind; when Danny takes something from their father — what, he can’t remember what — then his little brother will be a little bird. 

(He doesn’t have a name for his brother, yet, but he’s calling his birdie in his head. It’s better than nothing.)

—------

Seeker, do you ever come to wonder

If what you're looking for is within where you hold

Will you leave a trail for them to follow a path

You'll soon forget

Home

—---------

When he’s fourteen, Danny dies. It does nothing to fix his fractured memories, much to his consternation. It just confirms something he already knows; that he was someone dangerous, and that he still is. 

When the shock of death has worn off, Danny inspects his ghost in the metal reflection of the closest table. It’s blurry, hard to see, but shock green eyes pierce back at him, green like the portal. Lazarus, Danny’s mind whispers, and he blinks rapidly.

‘Lazarus,’ he mouths to himself. It’s familiar. Sam shows him with her phone what he looks like, joking that he looks like an assassin. Danny doesn’t think she’s that too far off. 

He doesn’t tell her that. He tucks the thought away with the rest of his secrets, and fiddles with the hood gathering at his neck, attached to a cape with torn edges swinging down to his ankles. He pulls it over his shock white hair. It shadows over his face impossibly so, until all you can see are his green-green eyes peering out like a wolf hiding in the brush.

He ends up calling himself Phantom. 

(Maybe now he can start putting lyrics to his lullabies; his memories may not have returned, locked away with the sound of a clock, but the dead can talk. One of them may just have answers.) 

----------

Home is where we are

Home is where you are

Home is where I am

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

Dedicated to @gascansposts for being the one who introduced me to the band Yaelokre, and thus being the whole reason I was inspired to write this in the first place >:] Those lyrics at the line breaks are all from their album Hayfields.

[half-bakedboy]

Number 2 from the 50 cliché tropes and prompts

Your shirt/jumper was in the laundry pile and I couldn't help but steal it

Buck never understood why he had lost so many sweatshirts and button-downs to past girlfriends. Nine times out of ten, they didn't even remotely fit their figure and they were only worn in the comfort of Buck's home anyways. 

Then he started staying over Tommy's house more and more. He'd always come prepared–an overnight bag filled with an extra LAFD shirt, a pair of jeans, a pair of chinos, and two shirts, one with a collar and one without–just in case he needed to rush out in the morning. 

This morning, he isn’t quite as prepared as he wishes he had been. Tommy’s in the shower after sleepily kissing Buck good morning and Buck promised he’d run Hercules–Tommy’s ten-year-old retired racing greyhound–outside before Tommy dropped Buck off at work. Thunder crashes outside and rain pounds on the roof, and Buck didn’t even think to bring a jacket. 

He looks around the bedroom closet, careful not to invade the private space too much, but he doesn’t see anything that might help. He knows there’s an umbrella waiting beside the door, but he’s already shivering from the chill sneaking in through the closed windows and Buck knows he’ll need something to protect his skin. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a pullover laid neatly on top of the laundry pile. It’s similar to his LAFD one, but a lighter blue that matches Tommy’s on-duty uniform. It won’t keep him dry, but it’ll keep him warm and keep the water off of his skin which is all he has time to care about. He snatches it up and shouts to Tommy that he’s taking the dog outside even though he’s not sure he’s heard. 

Before he gets too far, Buck pauses to get the pullover on. The first thing he notices is how much bigger it is on him. He’s not a small guy by any means, and he’s not much smaller than Tommy–at least he thinks–but there’s so much extra fabric that he has to bundle it up at his waist. He can also tell that the back doesn’t stretch taut against his shoulder blades and that the neckline slouches a little in the front. 

It’s strange to wear something so unfit for him, but at the same time, Buck can’t help but feel giddy. He glances at himself in the mirror and feels small, but not in the way he usually does. It doesn’t make him feel inconsequential or overlooked, but like he’s protected and well-loved. It stirs inside of his stomach until the joy begins to bubble in his chest. 

He notices that Tommy’s name is embroidered just over his heart, and he brings his fingers there to trace over the lettering. It takes everything in him not to whisper his name combined with Tommy’s last and he wonders if this was how his old girlfriends felt when they stole his LAFD shirts that had his name brazen on the back. 

Where he expected to be a bit embarrassed at the claiming nature of it all, he can’t help but feel… powerful. Yeah, there’s something powerful about wearing someone else's name, like he’s screaming to the world that Tommy is off-limits because he’s Buck’s. 

He’s Buck’s. 

He’s too busy thinking about what exactly that means for him to hear the bathroom door open and a freshly showered and shaved Tommy emerge. Another figure beside Buck’s reflection startles him but Tommy’s reassuring hands slide around his waist. It’s strange how normal it feels to have strong, long arms wrapped around him and a broad chest waiting to hold him up as he leans back against it. 

“You’re wet,” Buck says, feeling the dampness on Tommy’s unclothed chest. He’s in sweatpants like he’s ready to lounge around for the day, but the bare skin of his upper body is clearly on display where Buck’s body isn’t hiding it. He wants to pull away just so he can take another peek. 

Tommy doesn’t seem to notice nor care that Buck is analyzing them because he’s too busy doing the same. There’s something in his eyes, though, that sends an eruption of warmth to Buck’s face. Tommy tugs at the extra fabric at Buck’s waist like he’s having the same realization as Buck did, and then he slides one hand up Buck’s chest to trace his name. He whispers each letter like a secret into Buck’s ear, piercing eyes never leaving Buck’s in the mirror. 

Buck shivers, pressing back against Tommy and leaning his head back so that it plops on Tommy’s shoulder comfortably. Tommy finishes his name before dragging a finger to the neckline of the pullover and letting it hang there like a weight that keeps Buck grounded.

“You’re wearing my jumper,” Tommy points out like he doesn’t already know. Buck suddenly feels anxious, like he’s made a horrible mistake, and stands back up straight. He turns to look at Tommy as he speaks. 

“Is that okay? I didn’t bring a jacket so I figured—” 

Tommy kisses him before he can finish, and Buck can only hope it becomes a pattern. 

It’s just as soft as their first kiss and every kiss they’ve shared since then, but it grows in passion second by second. Tommy is gripping the fabric at Buck’s waist like he’s deciding whether he wants to pull it over Buck’s head or leave it on his forever. Buck holds his naked shoulders, palms sliding down the hard planes of his chest then his abs, before sliding underneath the waistband of his sweatpants. 

When a cold nose hits his hand, Buck jumps back, out of breath and startled. Hercules is staring up at them like he’s let them have their fun and he’s done waiting to go outside. Tommy swipes at his face as he chuckles and Buck leans down to pat Herc’s head. 

“I’m sorry, Buddy. Am I stealing all of your dad’s attention?” Buck coos, and he can almost hear Tommy’s good-natured eye roll. 

“Well, if Evan here is done distracting me, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to take you outside, huh?” 

“Oh, if Evan is done distracting you? Like you didn’t just walk out of the shower half-naked and damp and looking like you wanted to drop to your kn–” Buck inhales deeply when Tommy glances down then back up and raises his eyebrows. “Alright, I’m out of here. Be right back,” he promises, pressing one last kiss to Tommy’s reddened lips. 

“Mhm,” Tommy hums, watching him start to walk away. 

“Do you want your pullover back?” Buck asks, because he figures that’s what he would’ve wanted to be asked. 

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s yours now.”

It sounds a lot like I’m yours now, but Buck doesn’t dare ask. Instead, he takes Hercules out, ignoring the storm rumbling above him, and strokes his thumb distractingly against Tommy’s name over his heart. He guesses he’s Tommy’s now, too.

(now on ao3)

[hannibaldjarin]

Before the Upside Down, Steve Harrington could sleep like the dead. Once he laid his head on the checkered pattern pillow, Steve would be oblivious to anything happening in the world around him as he found solace in his dreams.

Steve would never admit it to Tommy H or Carol, but his dreams were his only safe place. In Steve's dream world, he wasn't the son to absent parents or the perfect King Steve; he was whatever version of himself that would've never been allowed around the Harringtons or the population at Hawkins High. Steve was comforted by the anonymity that was created as he slept till an alarm or the sunlight peeking through his curtains woke him.

Before the Upside Down, Eddie Munson would laugh as he told the rest of Corroded Coffin about how much he slept during the weekend. But, groan when Uncle Wayne stomped into his bedroom at 4pm wondering, "Boy, since when did you become a vampire?"

Basically, Eddie found it hilarious that he could sleep 16 hours a day and still go to bed at 9pm every night. One thing about Eddie Munson before that fated afternoon with Chrissy Cunningham, he could sleep like a corpse and never worry about sleep avoiding his clutches. Because as Uncle Wayne or a member of Corroded Coffin could tell anyone, Eddie loved to sleep and would theoretically kill anyone who tried to disrupt his slumber.

After the Upside Down, Eddie Munson and Steve Harrington found solace in one another as they struggled to remember who they were before circumstances led them to emotional, mental, and physical scars. Steve could no longer find comfort in his dream world as it replayed his most traumatizing moments from the last couple of years. Eddie could no longer sleep like the dead since he actually knew what it felt like to lay limp and face death.

Eddie and Steve stare into one another's eyes as they share a pillow in Steve's massive bed. Eddie whispers to Steve about how envious he is of his past self as he dramatically recounts Uncle Wayne's stomps or Corroded Coffin's scoffs. As Eddie spoke, Steve wonders if Eddie could be trusted with his deepest secrets about who he wishes he could be.

As Eddie's giggles fade into the dark of the night, Steve clears in throat and begins to tell Eddie about the lack of safety he has felt since turning 12 and being handed bundles of money that were to be budgeted until his parents came back home from whatever business trip Jonathan Harrington needed to attend. Steve mumbles about Tommy and Carol, or anyone else, never being able to fill the hollow space that was this mausoleum of a house until Dustin Henderson hijacked Nancy's roses and forced Steve to go on a wild demo dog chase. With a smile that actually reaches Steve's eyes, he tells Eddie how he finally knew what a mutual love felt like when Robin refused to get a new job without Steve.

Eddie desperately wants to read between the lines and believe himself to be someone who brought something into Steve's life. The begging words he sends up to whatever universal force doesn't want to continue fucking his life are interrupted as Steve looks Eddie in the eyes and admits, "Eddie Munson, you brought light and noise into my life."

Steve Harrington never understood how significant it was to feel the sun on his skin until Eddie woke up from his coma after his encounter with the bats, and begged for the blinds in his hospital room to be opened. Eddie's smile changed as he adjusted to the new scars on his skin, but Steve has never seen something so beautiful in his life.

Steve flinched in noisy environments when he remembers how angry his father would get if Steve existed too loudly. But, since Eddie took Steve to the middle of nowhere and convinced him to just scream, Steve has found himself seeking out music that taught him to release his emotions instead of pushing them further and further down.

Steve Harrington finally found safety in the real world when Eddie Munson whispers, "Stevie, please let me kiss you."

[steddiewithachance]

Vampire Pancakes

A response to this writing prompt. Thought it was too cute, had to write it! @dwobbitfromtheshire

🥞🫐

No one really knows what to do with Eddie right now. Everyone is jittery around him, going so far as to hold their breath when he so much as twitches. Even Dustin is squinting at him with calculating eyes; he's analyzing Eddie for threat.

Eddie will continue to courteously ignore the hand that Nancy is keeping stationed on her belt conveniently close to the little pistol everyone knows she's hiding. It doesn't matter that Eddie helped them kill Vecna, or that he saved Baby Byers' life. It doesn't matter when he has sharp teeth, dark eyes, and a thirst for blood. He can't blame 'em for being scared.

Eddie thinks about his dad. Wonders if even Al would see Eddie as a monster now.

Eddie got picked on a lot as a kid and he'd often come home from school tired and weepy. Al would look up from the couch in that black tank top he always wore. He'd set down whatever he was smoking to pat the spot next to him.

"What happened Ed? Was some little shithead mean to ya?"

Eddie would nod and slump into his father's side, eyes burning from the spicy, smokey air. When Eddie pressed his face into his dad's arm, Al would pull back and pat his head with sorrowful eyes. Al didn't really know how to comfort a kid or maybe he thought that being distant was in Eddie's best interest.

"You're too soft, Ed. Ya gotta make those kids think you can pack a punch. Chin up, eyes mean, shoulders back. Make 'em intimidated, make 'em fear ya."

So like any kid who thinks their dad's word is law, Eddie listened, or tried his best at least. But his dad never said that mean eyes, dark clothes, and loud music would get him accused of witchcraft by a bunch'a angry jocks and chased straight into hell.

Now his sheepies -his kiddos- are looking at him like they're scared, like they can't trust him and that is a fucking gut punch. Because pretty early on in his high school career, he decided that his purpose was gonna be standing as a shield for other kids like him. He wanted to be a source of safety and warmth in an otherwise cold and unforgiving storm.

Being feared is lonely and sad, Eddie has discovered, and he worries this is his new permanent reality.

Eddie quietly sits through his friends hammering out the logistics of a nighttime schedule to organize sleeping shifts so someone always has an eye on him. It's sick. Eddie has to excuse himself to cry about it. He has no uncontrollable urges to eat anyone here, Steve does smell appetizing, but he wouldn't jump the guy.

He can still eat human food apprently, it barely does anything for him, but it's something. Eddie thinks it's enough to quell any feral urges he may or may not get. He thinks the party is being unreasonable about their safety precautions, but really, he'd probably do the same if there was a monster in the same house as him.

🥞🫐

It's a long night, he can't fall asleep but he'll pretend to so that everyone can relax a little. The changing of the guard chafes at him and makes his lip quiver. He bites his lip to prevent a wounded sound from slipping out when Robin nudges Steve awake and says it's "his turn on hell shift". Eddie jolts because he remembers he has real sharp teeth now, and biting his lip does, in fact, hurt like a bitch.

"You're not asleep, huh?" He hears whispered into the air of the big living room after Robin has settled back into sleep. It's Steve's sweet and melodic voice.

"I'm trying." He responds, brokenly.

"Wanna get some fresh air with me for a minute? I need'a smoke." Steve is already shrugging the sheets off of him and carefully stepping over his sleeping friends towards the back door. Eddie doesn't think he has a choice, but to follow. Stepping out of this stuffy room does sound like a relief though.

Eddie makes the same journey through the sea of teenagers sprawled across Steve's floor and out the sliding glass door. When he steps onto the patio, all of the crickets stop chirping around him. The night goes silent. What the fuck? Is that because of him? He loves the sound of crickets, though.

He walks over and curls up in one of the Harringtons' fancy-loungy-pool-chairs. Steve stays standing, leaning artfully against the side of his house next to the glass. He flicks open his lighter and the small flame illuminates his square jawline with a warm glow. He's so achingly handsome. He's like a movie star, or a model.

"You okay?" Steve asks conversationally.

"Not even a little."

Steve sighs and pushes off the wall to walk towards Eddie's chair. He sits at the foot of it and swivels so he's looking at Eddie.

"I'm really sorry Eddie. I can't even imagine how you must be feeling. I won't pretend to." Steve sets a hand on Eddie's ankle and Eddie could cry from the small gesture of comfort that he's practically writhing for. "I feel like what happened to you is all my fault. I know that 'sorry' wont cut it, but for the record, I am. Completely and utterly sorry." That's a silly thing to think.

"It's not your fault, are you kidding? How do you reckon it's your fault?"

"Sending you with Dustin? Alone? Putting all that responsibility on you?" Steve looks down at his cigarette with disgust. He twists it into the cold concrete next to his socked foot and looks back at Eddie. There's no fear in his expression, and for once Eddie is grateful for his reckless bravery.

"It was the best plan and we all agreed to it. Don't sweat it, Harrington." Eddie feels like he's not all there. Feels like maybe if he was more composed he could comfort Steve better, but he's hungry and dazed, sad and tired. Steve nods solemnly, and clears this throat.

"And about everyone being kind of on edge... It'll pass. I think they're all thinking about when Billy Hargrove got possessed by the mind flayer and went homicidal on us. He tried to kill all the kids."

Eddie desperately wants to hear all the other Upside down stories one day. He keeps trying to stitch together all these scraps of lore that keep getting dropped on him. He has no right to ask about something so traumatic, so he'll just be patient and wait for more lore to drop.

"Everyone's just being cautious. Vecna's dead though, so I'm not really sure who they think would possess you." Steve finishes and squeezes Eddie's lower calf where his hand rests.

"I get it. Kinda hurts my feelings, but I get it." Eddie mumbles and feels his eyes getting heavy. He wonders if he could fall asleep out here. Maybe if the crickets were still chirping and it wasn't so goddamn quiet.

"I'm sorry, Eddie." It's fine, this might not even be the worst thing that's ever happened to him.

🥞🫐

In the morning Eddie curls himself into Steve's little kitchen nook. Eddie kind of loves the window seat, it's something his mom would have wanted, Eddie theorizes. She was always looking out windows, probably daydreaming about escaping. Eddie does it too.

The kids seem warmer this morning. There's no more hushed whispers or pointed looks. They're talking and moving around the house less cautiously. Hopefully, the stiffest interactions and the worst of their distrust is behind them. Nancy's still watching him like a hawk though.

Steve shuffles into view, his socks are bunched up around his ankles. It's cute.

He holds out a plate for Eddie with a dumb smile on his face. When Eddie reaches for it, he sees a stack of pancakes and the top pancake has a little face made out of blueberries and two whipped cream fangs. It's a vampire pancake. Steve made Eddie a sweet little vampire pancake.

"Oh my god, you're so adorable." Eddie squeaks and makes a grabby hand for the fork Steve's holding. Steve blushes and hands over the fork.

"Do you like it?" Steve asks coyly. The pancakes feel like a hug, they feel like an apology that Steve doesn't even owe.

"I love it, chef." Eddie pokes at the pancake-vampire's cheek. "I don't know if I can eat him. He's too cute." Eddie giggles. Steve looks up at him with bright sparkly eyes. God he's perfect. Eddie's hungry for him in five different ways.

Robin and Dustin come up beside Steve to look down at the plate.

"I want one!" Dustin announces loudly. Steve turns around and heads back to the stove, he looks so proud of himself.

"You can have normal pancakes. Those are special for Eddie." Steve says with a wink. Dustin looks down at Eddie and pouts at him as if Eddie has any say in who gets what kind of pancake.

"Dustin had to watch it all happen, he should get one too." Eddie tells Steve earnestly while Steve is pouring more batter into the pan.

Dustin gloats and yells "Exactly! Thank you, Eddie."

And it feels like things are gonna be okay.

[diazsdimples]

Hiiii James 💕💕💕💕

buddie + Why are you even here?

-❤️🪐

Hi Saturn!! I hope this is what you were looking for!

"Why are you even here?"

Eddie flinches at the ice in Buck's tone. It's not like he's never heard Buck angry before - there's been plenty of times where Buck's anger has been displayed, but always directed towards others. Never at him.

Eddie licks his lips and wills his mouth to work. It's hot out here, hotter than the hallway in Buck's apartment usually is. Eddie dimly wonders if he's coming down with a fever.

"Can- can I come in?" he asks tentatively. He clutches at his fingers, twisting them together in a way that's uncomfortable enough that it gives him something else to focus on besides the way his heart is thundering in his chest.

Buck stares at him, eyes dark and unreadable, his body language radiating an energy that makes Eddie's stomach twist into knots. He's got one foot braced in the door, leaning against the door jamb. Eddie feels trapped in the doorway, like a rabbit caught in a snare, waiting for the final blow to kill it.

He thinks Buck is going to say no, and honestly, Eddie wouldn't blame him. He's the last person Buck probably wants to see.

Except then, Buck steps aside, allowing Eddie to shuffle his way into the apartment. He shuts the door behind Eddie and the click of the lock engaging is louder than a gunshot in the otherwise silent apartment.

"I-"

Eddie stops, unsure of how to go about saying everything that he wants to. He's got no clue where to start, or if Buck even wants him to talk. Eddie just knows he needs to apologize, and explain, and beg for forgiveness if that's what it takes to get Buck back in his life.

Buck leans against the kitchen island and raises his eyebrows. He's waiting, waiting to see if Eddie will grovel, get down on his knees and plead Buck to forgive him. And he would, too. He's not beyond doing anything if it means he gets his Buck back.

But he hurt him. Eddie hurt Buck with his words, and he doesn't know how Buck could ever forgive him for it. He wanted to take them back the moment they'd left his mouth, hanging in the air like a poisonous gas. He'd watched Buck's face crumple, the light leave his body, and Eddie felt like he was going to throw up because it was him that did that to Buck.

"I was hoping we could talk," he finally manages. Buck drops his head and lets out a dry, derisive chuckle, and Eddie feels like all the air has been sucked from his lungs.

"What more is there to say?" Buck demands. "You were pretty clear earlier."

"I wasn't - I didn't - please, if you'd just let me explain-"

"Why? There's nothing to explain, Eddie, why should I listen to-"

"Because I love you!"

It's bursting from him before he can stop it, exploding from his chest with all the force of a tsunami, the words crashing through the space between them, and Buck recoils as though he's been physically hit.

"You - what?"

Eddie runs a hand through his hair, clutching at the strands and pulling. The gentle sting is enough to centre him, to give him a moment to focus and breathe, and figure out what the fuck he's going to say next.

"I love you, Buck," he repeats. "A-and I know what I said earlier. I panicked. I've never - I haven't ever, you know, been with a man or even considered that as a possibility before you, and I've spent years trying to convince myself that you didn't want me. That I wasn't good enough for you, or that I was too broken for you."

Buck lets out a wounded noise in the back of his throat at that, and Eddie can see tears threatening to spill over. His own throat is tight, making his voice high and constricted, but he presses on. He needs Buck to hear this. Tentatively, he takes a step forward, slowly closing the gap between them.

"A-and then you asked me out, and I was so scared, Buck! Because what if we tried this and you realised that I wasn't right for you, or my relationship trauma was too much for you, or something happened and we broke up. Because I can't lose you, Buck. You and Chris - you're everything to me. I can't live a life without you by my side, as my best friend or as my partner. So you asked me out and I - I panicked. I said no because I didn't want to fuck this up with you and then lose you. And I thought - I thought that maybe I could live with you angry at me but still my friend more than I could live knowing what it would be like to have you, but to never experience it again."

It's silent now. Buck stares at him with wide, glistening eyes, and Eddie feels like his skin is crawling with nerves. He's laid himself bare here, in front of Buck, bared his soul and his love and every deep, intimate part of him he'd hoped to hide, and now all he can do is hope that it was enough. That he wasn't too late.

Buck lets out a shuddering breath, and his shoulders slump. He looks exhausted, and Eddie wants nothing more than to reach out and hold him. But he can't. Not until Buck says something, and Eddie can find out if this is fixable or if he's already lost the most important person in his life.

"Eds," Buck sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You're the biggest self-sacrificing idiot on the planet, you know that?"

"Yeah," Eddie laughs wetly, "so I've been told."

Buck takes a step towards him, and then another, until there's barely a foot between them. He can feel Buck's breath ghosting over his face, and there's something in his eyes that Eddie can't quite pick out. But he doesn't look angry. He looks... sad? Hopeful, maybe.

"You're more than enough for me," Buck whispers, reaching out to cup Eddie's face. Eddie sighs shakily as Buck's thumb strokes over his cheekbone, and he leans into the touch, his throat tightening as he fights back tears of his own.

"You always have been. And you would never lose me. I-I'm not going anywhere, Eddie. Because I love you too. I have done for years. You and Chris, you're my family. My life. So I would never let anything happen that would jeopardise that. Sure, we might have fights. It might be messy, b-but that's what relationships are, right? So we - we'd work it out together. "

Buck crooks a finger under Eddie's chin and tilts his head up, forcing eye contact. His thumb brushes over Eddie's lower lip, and Eddie lets out a shuddery breath.

"If - if you really don't want to, if you think we'd be better off as friends that's fine, I just -"

"No!" Eddie cuts in. It takes him by surprise but he's damned if he's going to fuck this up again. "No, I don't want that. I'm sorry I said I did, I'm sorry that I hurt you. I want you, Buck. Fuck, I need you."

Buck's hand slips from Eddie's chin and curves around the back of his neck, pulling him close until their foreheads rest against each other.

"Jesus Christ, Eddie, you can't just say things like that." His other hand comes up to cup Eddie's jaw, stroking over the days worth of stubble he's grown. "Can I - can I kiss you? Please?"

Eddie nods frantically, unable to get any words out past the lump in his throat, and then Buck is kissing him, his lips sliding against Eddie's and oh.

Oh.

The world tilts on its axis, spinning rapidly around him as everything he's ever known or believed crumbles, only to be rebuilt anew. It's just Buck's lips against his own, nothing more, and yet it feels like the whole universe is crashing into place. Like his entire life, everything he's gone through, the struggles, the pain, the loss, has led him to this exact moment.

The hand at the back of his neck slips up and tangles in his hair, holding him firmly in place, and Eddie lets out a quiet whimper, the sound swallowed up by Buck's mouth against his.

And then Buck pulls away, and Eddie's eyes snap open, a whine catching in his throat, until he sees the look on Buck's face. It's full of love and adoration and awe, and it takes Eddie's breath away.

"We're okay?" he breathes, and Buck nods, his bottom lip trembling. "I-I'm so sorry I hurt you, Buck. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course, Eddie. I will always forgive you, no matter what," Buck assures him.

"Can I kiss you again?"

"Please."

Eddie was such an idiot if he ever thought he could live without this. His best friend, his Buck, by his side forever. Because this is where they belong. They were made to be together, and this solidifies it. He will never let Buck go again. Not as long as they both live.

[the-broken-pen]

“Oh my god—“

“Not quite, love” The antagonist smirked. “If you ask nicely, however, I may be inclined to play along.”

“You’re—“

“A villain, yes.”

The protagonist tried to stop their hands from shaking as the antagonist looked them up and down.

“Why are you in my neighborhood bodega?” The protagonist said finally, and the villain quirked a brow.

“Even famous people need to eat,” the antagonist tucked their hands into their exquisitely tailored suit.

The bag of chips in the protagonists grip crinkled, and the villain inspected them.

“Not the healthiest choice.”

They gave an unamused laugh. “The cheapest.”

The antagonist’s eyes ran over their face, as if taking in their slightly gaunt cheeks.

“Heroism doesn’t pay well, it seems.”

The protagonist looked them up and down.

“Villainy does, it seems.”

At that, the antagonist chuckled, eyes glimmering like they had finally found something to peak their interest.

Behind them, the check out counter beeped and spit out a receipt, which the antagonist promptly crumpled and threw away.

“I’ll be watching,” they said with a nonchalance that did not match the threat of stalking, and disappeared out the sliding doors.

The protagonist stood in front of the machine, slightly awe struck and slightly afraid, until a clerk sidled up to them.

“Old friend?” The clerk asked.

The protagonist glanced over at them, then back towards the door.

“Not quite,” they answered.

They paid for their chips and left, hands pink with cold by the time they got to their apartment.

Attached to their door was an cream colored envelope full of money, and a note in elegant handwriting that simply said “Buy yourself more groceries. Your fridge is a tragedy.”

The protagonist never quite got rid of the antagonist after that.

[the-angst-chronicles-fanworks]

Wayne comes home one day to Eddie behaving unusually - loudly narrating everything every time he leaves his room, playing his music quieter than usual but making abrupt loud noises when he’s in his room, checking on Wayne every ten minutes or so to make sure he’s enjoying his shows and asking if he wants tea, and generally bearing his biggest, wettest puppy dog eyes.

Now Wayne’s done this song and dance a few times, so after a few hours he gets up and makes his way to his nephew’s door, takes a moment to stop and listen-

And sure enough, he can hear the hushed whispers and giggles. Heaving a sigh, Wayne raps his knuckles against the flimsy wood. It’s immediately met with a flurry of scrambling from the other side.

To Eddie’s credit, it doesn’t even take until Wayne’s count of 10 before the door swings open, revealing his very ruffled nephew sporting a sunny grin and doing his best to look like he’s not taking up the entirety of the doorway on purpose.

“Alright, what’re you hidin’ in here this time?” Wayne asks, glancing at the bed. It’s a favourite hiding place of Eddie’s - where he’d hidden the stray cat, the raccoon, and any number of other strays he’s picked up.

“Hiding? I -uh - what are you talking about?” Eddie says it smoothly enough, but he’s eyes dart to the left briefly before he catches himself and looks back at Wayne, pulling his hair in front of his face in a display of nerves. Wayne glances over. The closet this time then.

“I ain’t born yesterday kiddo,” he says, shaking his head. “Now why don’t you quit bullshittin’ and open up that there door”

Eddie’s gaze follows his gesture to the closet, and then he turns back to Wayne, giving an indignant huff and puffing up like he’s gearing for a fight.

Wayne meets his gaze with an even one of his own and, after a moment, Eddie deflates. "Fine," he huffs and makes his way to the closet, shooting Wayne betrayed wounded-bird looks over his shoulder. Wayne just crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow.

He's prepared for a lot of things, but what he's not expecting is for Eddie to swing the cupboard door open to reveal some fancy-looking lad, looking sheepish as all get out.

"Ed-" he says, slightly lost for words. Eddie and closet-boy exchange a glance, and Wayne feels shock go through him as he suddenly places that face. "Is that... is that the Harrington boy?"

Immediately, a guilty look crosses Eddie's face and Wayne groans. "Jesus H. Christ," he groans, putting his hand over his face.

When he looks up again, Eddie is giving him that wide-eyed pleading face of his that always comes with the strays. "Eddie, he ain't some stray you can just take in!" He protests.

Eddies face hardens just a little with that stubbornness he got from his mother. "C'mon Uncle Wayne. His parents are terrible when they even bother to be around!” he argues. "And I mean it’s probably for the best that they’re not there because they’re the worst kind of people but it's almost Christmas and he can’t just be there alone on Christmas! Did you raise me like that Wayne? Did you?"

Harrington seems to get past his surprise at Eddie’s sudden rant and he frowns, opens his mouth to protest. Eddie, apparently sensing this, claps a hand over his mouth and turns to Wayne , his righteous indignation switching right back to his best puppy-dog eyes cranked to full effect at Wayne.

And Wayne... well, he's never been able to say no to any of the strays Eddie's brought home yet.

[thefatedthoughtofyou]

{ @devondespresso it took me a bit cuz i got a cold but i did it!! Thank you soooo much for the prompt i LOOVVEEDD it!!! It got away from me but i'm really proud of this one!!! }

It's sort of an au mixed with canon. Set after s3 and there's no vecna, so all the upside down stuff is settled and this is where their lives are going (and a little bit of where they've been 😉)! Eddie works at an outdoor haunted house as a scarer in the cornmaze! Steve has a brief panic attack.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN Y'ALL!!!

Steve knew it was a bad idea. Going to a haunted house on a blind date. It's technically not a house, and he vaguely knows the date. Or knew the date. Before she'd ditched him. For her ex. Whom she'd apparently just been using Steve make jealous.

So now here he was. Wandering around a corn maze in the middle of fucking nowhere. In the dark. Surrounded by screams. Of laughter. And terror. And he's taken four right turns now and that can't be right. His chest is feeling a littl tight now. His fingers tingling.

He's not a fan of the dark. And the screams aren't helping. He's fine when he's with people. But the person he'd come with had left him, had had no real interest in him. Just using him. Like always. Who the fuck would have genuine interest in Steve Harrington these days.

He clenches his fist when he sees something in the shadows ahead. It jumps out at the group of girls about 20 feet in front him. They scatter and scream, laughing as they run away hand in hand. The shadow, some creepy fucking scarecrow thing, chases them for a few feet and then stops.

Steve freezes. The scarecrow turns, twitches really, in Steve's direction, arms held out like he's out guarding a field, and then stops moving again. Steve takes a hesitant step. The scarecrow's head twitches, but it stays still. Steve can feel his heart beating in his ears, loud, like a drum. His hand twitches, he wipes it on his thigh and takes another step.

The maze is empty is now, in this area at least. The silence pounding in Steve's ears louder than his heart. He takes a few shallow breaths and starts walking. The scarecrow drops its arms. Steve keeps walking, until his foot hits a root and he trips. His hands hit the ground hard, dirt digging into his palms. A strangled noise crawls out of his throat.

He hears footsteps running toward him. From the direction the scarecrow had been. His heart hammers louder, fingers dig into the dirt as he curls into himself further.

"Please don't- I'm just- I can't-" Steve pants, trying to fend the thing off.

"Whoa whoa hey. It's okay. You're okay. Are you okay?" A gentle, hesitant, hand falls on his shoulder. Steve flinches away, involuntarily, the hand disappears.

"Okay no touching. That's okay. Can you stand? Or like.... sit back maybe? You arm's are shaking pretty bad man. Just try to breathe." A voice says, steady, to his right.

Steve's eyes move in that direction and he sees something on the ground by his hand. Something almost the same color as the dirt he'd fallen in. Steve's blinks, hard, sucks in a few deep breaths. It's a mask. A straw mask. Steve lets out a shuddering breath, lets himself fall back onto his butt in the dirt.

"There we go. Okay. That's better." The same calm voice. And then,

"Harrington?" The voice says, full of disbelief. Steve looks to his right and sees a mop of dark hair and pale skin above an incredibly detailed scarecrow costume.

"Eddie?" Steve feels the tension leave his body almost at once. Eddie says nothing. Just stares at him.

"What?" Steve shakes his head a little, looks into his lap.

"Wha- nothing, sorry. I just- I uh... just a little shocked you remember my name." Eddie says, and it sounds almost like a laugh. Steve frowns, looks at him again.

"We went to school together for like... ever, man." Steve says, still frowning. Eddie shakes his head, wraps his arms around his knees where he's crouched next to Steve.

"No yeah I know. Just... we never talked really. Or anything." Eddie shrugs, he doesn't seem mad. Maybe even seems a little amused.

"Right." Is all Steve can think to say.

"Hey. You think you can stand now? There's some picnic tables right outside here. I can take you. Make sure you make it alright." Eddie pushes himself to his feet, holds his hand out to Steve, smiles when Steve looks up at him. His eyes wide, waiting. Steve swallows heavily, reaches up, takes Eddie's hand, and let's him pull him to his feet.

Eddie guides them out of the corn easily. Let's Steve sit for a minute before going to grab them some water. He comes back with two bottles of water and two corn dogs.

"Thought maybe eating might help." Eddie throws himself onto the bench across from Steve, grabs one of the corndogs and takes a huge bite. Steve snorts a laugh in suprise and grabs the other one, takes a much smaller bite. He watches Eddie eat, his cheeks poofed out like a chipmunk.

Steve waits for Eddie to take another bite, lets him chew as they sit in amiable silence, before he says,

"We have talked before." Steve says, quietly, and takes another bite.

"Hmm?" Eddie hums, his eyes wide, cheeks full, head tilted, he looks a bit like a puppy.

"We've talked. Before. I mean." Steve takes a sip of water, tucks his free hand under his thigh.

"You said we hadn't really talked. But we did talk. A few times." Steve elaborated, smiling down at his lap at the memory.

"Umm. Yeah. Yeah no I know we did. I just-" Eddie swallows, hard, he looks a bit... guilty. He shrugs, takes a drink, picks at the table top with his fingernail.

"I just didn't think you'd remember." Eddie shakes his head, his brows furrowed.

"Didn't think I would remember which one?" Steve asks, trying to coax Eddie out of this shyness. Eddie scrunches his face though, shakes his head again.

"Doesn't matter." He mutters.

"Didn't think I would remember buying weed from you after Billy beat the shit outta me? And the way you gave me a handful of free pain meds?" Steve says, Eddie glances up at him, eyes shining through his bangs.

"Didn't think I'd remember you helping me save a kid from drowning at the pool that summer?" Steve asks.

"He was fine. Just panicking. You did most of the work." Eddie mumbled, his eyes locked on Steve now. Steve nodded, hummed.

"And what about the other time? The first time we talked?" Steve bit his lip, took another sip of water, Eddie staring at him the whole time.

"The- the first time? When- I mean... back then?" Eddie takes a shaking breath, sounding winded the way Steve had been about an hour ago.

"Mhm. Back then. In the woods. At the creek. With the turtles and the crawdads." Steve says, smiles softly at Eddie, watches Eddie blush and look away.

"Kinda hoped you'd forgotten about that one I guess." Eddie whispered, his voice so low Steve barely hears him.

"I didn't. Don't think I ever could. I definitely wouldn't want too." Steve bites his lip, worries it between his teeth. Eddie blinks at him.

"W-why not? I mean you could've-" Eddie snaps his mouth shut, his eyes looking a bit watery as he looks at Steve.

"I'd never do that. I'd never tell anyone. We made a promise remember?" Steve sits his elbow on the table, holds his pinky up, and feels relief wash over him when Eddie smiles.

"Yeah. Just us and the turtles and the crawdads. Just between us." Eddie sets his own elbow on the table and hooks his pinky with Steve's.

"I think about that day a lot. Is that bad to say? Weird I mean? I don't wanna make you uncomfortable." Eddie says in a rush, Steve tightens his pinky around Eddie's, hold it fast.

"You don't make me uncomfortable. Kind of the opposite actually. It's always been that way. I feel... nice. When I'm around you. It's like you clear my head." Steve shakes his head, smiles down at his lap. A group of girls run by laughing, hand in hand, stopping by the concession cart. Eddie tries to pull away, tries to hide. Steve keeps their fingers hooked but lowers their hands to the table, out of sight in the dark.

"That's a new one. Usually I just annoy people. Kinda why this is the perfect job for me. I get to annoy people all night." Eddie teases, wiggles his wrist so that he and Steve's hands shake. Steve snorts, shakes his head.

"And yet. You still calmed me down." Steve bites his lip again. Watches Eddie do the same across from him.

"I guess. We keepin this one a secret too?" Eddie asks, his eyes on their linked pinkies. Steve unlinks them, slides his hand into Eddie's.

"I dunno. No turtles around." Steve says, tapping his fingers against Eddie's wrist.

"No crawdads either." Eddie says, his lips tilting at the corners.

"Nope. Just us." Steve confirms.

"Well maybe we should... have a meeting?" Eddie wonders, his voice going a little high.

"A meeting?" Steve asks, frowning dramatically.

"Mhm. At the creek. Get the turtles and the crawdads up to date. Keep them in the loop an all." Eddie explains, his fingers curling up around Steve's wrist, his eyes darting around Steve's face, like he's looking for something.

"We wouldn't want them out of the loop. That'd be terrible." Steve agrees, nodding and wiggling their hands like Eddie had done.

"Mhm. Yeah." Eddie hums, his teeth sinking into his lip to stop the smile threatening to spread.

"EDDIE! BACK IN THE MAZE! NOW!"

Their hands fly apart, Eddie nearly falls off the bench he'd been sat on. He stumbles to his feet and spins toward the shout.

"ALRIGHT ALRIGHT I WAS HELPING A GUEST IN NEED!" he shouts back, arms flailing dramatically. He turns back to Steve, cheeks flushed red.

"Heh. Sorry. I have to... go. Back to work. But um... we could... I mean if you want. If you were serious. I could- or you could? If you want." Eddie stammers, grabbing for his mask and holding it to his chest as he slowly backs away, step by swiveling step. Steve smiles at him, brightly.

"I'm free on Thursday." Steve says, cheeks hot.

"I love Thursdays!" Eddie yells, looks around, laughs breathily.

"I can pick you up at seven."

"Seven's great! Love seven!" Eddie calls, waving his mask over his head.

"EDDIE! NOW!"

"I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A CONVERSATION AND AM GOING OH MY GOOOODDD!" Eddie screams into the dark toward the shouting voice. He waves to Steve, yanks his mask back on over his head, and runs toward the maze.

"See you Thursday!" Eddie yells, turning to wave at Steve before ducking back into the corn. Steve laughs, drags his hand through hair, his palm and wrist missing the touch of Eddie's skin.

He walks to his car slowly, a smile on his lips as he remembers that day in the woods, by the creek, where he met a boy catching turtles and crawdads. The day they played in the water til the sun began to set, catching critters and setting them loose again. The day two sad boys found each other, and shared their first kiss in the creek before running home, laughing into the dark.

[disasterbuck]

Oohhh for the prompts I'd love to see Buddie with the sidewalk rule 👀🥰

I'm so glad you chose the sidewalk rule because I had an idea for that one right after I reblogged the prompt post 😂

I hope you like it!! 💕

the sidewalk rule

established Buddie | 645 words

Buck was chatting away, his hands waving this way and that, and Eddie had a smile on his face as he walked beside him. They'd decided to walk down to the coffee shop on the corner of Buck's street together, to treat themselves after their long shift before Eddie had to leave to pick Chris up from school.

As he talked, Buck walked backwards in front of Eddie for a few steps before ending up on his other side.

"—and then it was introduced to England in like, the late 1700s," Buck was saying. How he'd gotten started on the history of dominoes, Eddie didn't know, but he definitely wasn't complaining. He could happily listen to Buck talk for hours about anything. "And it was all over the world by 1889! And although it originated in China, it's now way more popular in France and Belgium."

"And the Buckley-Diaz household," Eddie chimed in with a wink, referring to the set of dominoes Buck and Chris had been playing with for the past three weeks and making Buck blush.

While he was briefly distracted, Eddie gently took hold of Buck's wrist and guided him to the other side so that he was back on Eddie's left and Eddie was walking beside the road.

Buck frowned, then just continued talking about dominoes. But a few steps later, he cut across Eddie's path with a little spin so that he was back on Eddie's right.

With a scowl, Eddie stepped behind him and to the side, forcing Buck left. A giggle left Buck's lips and he ducked in to kiss Eddie quickly, distracting him, before taking the spot on the right again.

"Would you stop?" Eddie exclaimed, coming to a halt.

"Stop what?" Buck asked innocently, a bright grin on his face.

"You know what," Eddie said with a sigh. "Stop swapping sides!"

"Why?" Buck asked, a cheeky twinkle in his eyes.

"Because…" Eddie trailed off, feeling his face grow warm with embarrassment. A particularly fast car sped past and he automatically reached out to grab Buck's arm, pulling him further away from the road.

"I didn't know you knew the sidewalk rule," Buck teased.

"The what?" Eddie asked, baffled.

"The sidewalk rule," Buck repeated, as if saying it again would bring any further insight. Thankfully, seeing Eddie's face, he went on – "It's the idea that your boyfriend should walk on the side closest to the road to keep you safe from any hazards."

"I have never heard of that in my life," Eddie said, mouth twisting slightly in disgust. "It sounds misogynistic. And besides, we're both the boyfriend in this relationship."

"Sure," Buck said easily, giving a one-shoulder shrug. "But then, why exactly don't you want me walking on this side?"

Eddie slid his hand down to Buck's, twisting their fingers together. He didn't want to tell Buck the truth; he didn't want Buck's bright and happy mood to be brought down. But…

"Because of Shannon," he said softly. "Because she… I know it doesn't make sense. We're in way more dangerous situations every day. And she wasn't on a sidewalk but on a crossing, so it was different—"

"Hey." Buck stepped right up into his space, cupping his face with his hands. "It's okay. It makes sense to me. If you want me to walk on the other side, I will."

"I do," Eddie admitted.

"Then I will," Buck said. Closing the distance between them, Buck kissed him softly and earnestly.

When they parted, Eddie was surprised to find that Buck had somehow turned them during the kiss without him noticing. He was once again standing between Buck and the road.

"Come on," Buck said, taking Eddie's hand in his and pulling him along the path.

Content, Eddie gently squeezed Buck's hand and listened as he went back to discussing the history of dominoes.

Tags:

@dluoser @taketheplanspinitsideways @loudenthusiastic @wallywise @mxrcjqckspnchqsc

@i-am-married-to-my-fandom @therosesaredying @stillfuckingtired @classtrialguru @speggle

@awesome-igi @natnuszsstuff @olliesrants @crazyfangirlallert @delirium1995

@brah3280 @meanceclosetohell @anythingeverythingallofthetime @izzysbeans @jesuiscenseedormir

@darkrose6578 @veronae-buddie @steadfastsaturnsrings @loveyouanyway @inell

@spicyrottingbrains @gnoeltop @idealuk @donationwayne @lemotmo

Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed 💕

[metalhoops]

“I think I’m seeing things, man,” Eddie spoke from his spot on the Harrington’s couch. His white skin appeared paler still against the brown leather. 

Steve didn’t blame him. He was on all kinds of painkillers. It’d been two weeks since the world fell apart. Two weeks since Vecna disappeared. Two weeks since Eddie almost died. 

Steve liked to treat those memories as others treated head-on collisions. It was better not to look at them directly. It was better to treat it like it’d never happened. 

“What’re we looking at?” Steve asked from his spot on the floor, following Eddie’s line of sight to the gap in the curtains. 

“Don’t know. Thought I saw somebody outside,” Eddie confessed. 

The Harrington house had always been filled with spectres, whether that of partygoers, like front lawn flamingos in need of an exorcism or the body in the backyard pool. But those were Steve’s hang-ups, not Eddie’s. 

If all it took to be a ghost was to haunt, Eddie might be included in the ranks of his own private phantasmagoria. He kept checking each night to make sure the boy was really there, that he’d really gotten out. People shouldn’t have that much blood in them, and they definitely shouldn’t have that much blood out of them. 

Steve went to the window because that was something he could do for Eddie. He wasn’t sure why he kept feeling the need to apologise. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but hell if Steve knew if he’d done anything right either. He’d gotten Eddie out of the Upside Down. He’d put his hands inside the boy’s body, shoved his shirt beneath his skin and held it in the dark cavity that oozed and throbbed warm blood like the rise and fall of the tide.

Don’t think about it. Check the window. His hands at his side felt cold. He wondered if they’d ever be warm again. There was a figure across the street. 

A boy in a basketball jersey circled passed the house. 

Things never ended smoothly. Steve liked to think once Jason went down the rest of the vigilante crew would stop looking for Eddie, but there were some stragglers who hadn’t got the message. 

Hopper had his hands full trying to clear Eddie’s name. Eddie’s uncle was still looking for him. The whole town was holding their breath in the midst of destruction, waiting for someone to blame. Steve shut the curtains, turned the lights off and moved to Eddie’s side in the darkness. 

“Hounds of hell still circling then?” Eddie guessed after one glimpse at Steve’s face. 

“I’ll call Hopper,” Steve reasoned, reaching up to squeeze Eddie’s knee. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it. Maybe to make sure he was real. Maybe to tell him he was sorry. 

“Don’t worry about it, Steve,” Eddie spoke, reaching out and snagging the hem of Steve’s sweater.

“No one thinks I’m here. If the cops show up at the Harringtons’ it’s going to turn some heads,” Eddie reasoned, and he was right.

So where did that leave them? Sitting alone in the dark with Eddie fading in and out of sleep and Steve watching car headlights dance across the curtains, waiting for the moment everything went wrong. 

“Steve?” Eddie breathed beside Steve’s ear in the blackness. He hadn’t realised they were so close. 

“Yeah?” Steve moved his eyes from the window to look at Eddie. 

“I think I’m crashing,” he noted, a grimace dancing across his face. Steve had never felt smaller. 

“Doc said we’ve gotta wait six hours,” Steve replied, hoping he didn’t sound as worried as he felt. 

“How long’s it been?” 

“Three.” 

Steve always wanted to appear cool in times of crisis, but he had no idea what he was doing. Some of the government agents Steve had signed countless NDAs for over the past four years had patched Eddie up as best they could and had started scrambling for a cover-up. 

In the meantime, Eddie would stay at Steve’s place. It made the most sense. Eddie was nobody to Steve. No one would go looking for Eddie at the Harringtons’, and unlike the other older teens, he didn’t have parents to answer to. Big house. No parents. Perfect place to lie low. 

Steve was nobody to Eddie and yet for the past week, they’d been an island unto themselves, trapped indoors together, watching shadows on the walls and trying to keep each other alive and sane. He felt completely unprepared. 

“Alright. Come on. Let’s go to bed,” Steve muttered, kneeling in front of Eddie. He watched the boy rise to a sitting position over his shoulder. Eddie snorted.

“What exactly is the plan here, Steve?” 

Eddie had been stuck oscillating between the living room, kitchen, and downstairs bathroom for days. They could both use a change of scenery. 

“Piggyback,” Steve spoke, trying not to think about the connotations that the word had garnered. He wasn’t going to think about Vecna. Not today. 

He expected the boy to argue, but instead, he felt Eddie’s arms snake around his throat. He held tight, but not as tight as he should. Steve had to hold on to his forearms like backpack straps as he stood. Eddie’s legs were stronger. They held firm around Steve’s waist. 

Eddie’s head flopped against Steve’s shoulder blade, nuzzling into the space. He was warm as the sun. Too warm. He was running a temperature. Steve tried not to think of the last time he carried Eddie. The boy was uncharacteristically quiet. Steve needed to do something. 

“Saddle up, buckeroo,” Steve spoke, hoisting Eddie further up his back. He felt a puff of air against his neck, a barely there laugh. 

“Hi-yo, Silver,” Eddie grumbled against Steve’s skin. 

Steve moved deftly through the dark, taking the staircase slowly and methodically. The last thing either of them needed was another broken bone. 

“I think I owe you one once all this is over,” Eddie noted. Steve was already shaking his head.

“You stick around, and I’ll call it a favour. I think Henderson would kick my ass if you died.” 

“The kid’s got spunk. I’ll give him that,” Eddie noted as the two reached the top of the stairs. 

“He’s got an attitude and a problem with authority,” Steve corrected, taking Eddie to his bedroom.

He moved to the edge of his bed and let Eddie extract himself. When they broke apart, Steve felt cold again. 

“That’s our boy,” Eddie chuckled, shooting Steve a lopsided smirk. He was definitely still high on painkillers.

Steve rolled his eyes and helped lower Eddie down onto his favourite pillow, the one worn down with age but all the more comfortable for it. He pulled the covers up around the boy’s shoulders.

“Yeah, our boy,” Steve echoed in a too-fond tone. 

He’d never let Henderson hear the term of affection. The kid had a big enough head as it was, but in the too-quiet world of just himself and Eddie, he felt okay admitting it. Once it looked like Eddie was settled in, Steve sat on the edge of his bed, feeling as he always did, like a stranger in his own home. 

“When did you last get some shut-eye, boy wonder?” Eddie asked, his foot tucking beneath Steve’s thigh.  

Friday. What day was it? Sunday. Not good. 

“Well, come on then, don’t make a guy beg. Lay down, Steve. It’s your bed. I could sleep in the spare room if it’s a problem.” There was something cautious about the offer Steve didn’t understand. 

He flopped down beside Eddie, so close the two shared a pillow. It changed the shape of the thing. It made the familiar strange. 

“You know, I had this dream last night,” Eddie began, his dark eyes still open, glued to the ceiling. He cringed, knowing all the ways dreams could go bad, but Eddie shook his head.

“Not that kind of dream,” He insisted, his hands balling into fists on the bedsheets. 

“I had a dream I was a pinball machine,” the boy stated plainly. The absurdity of the statement shocked a laugh out of Steve. 

“These painkillers are legit, Harrington,” Eddie spoke, shooting Steve a sidelong glance. 

“What kind of pinball machine?” 

“You know the Centaur one? It’s black and white, mostly. The arts got this topless guy who’s half man, half motorbike,” Eddie explained. 

Steve had no idea what he was saying, but it was nice to hear him talk. 

“Wait, if you were the pinball machine, how did you know what you looked like?” 

“Great question Steven. I’ve got no clue. Dream logic,” Eddie reasoned.  

Steve screwed up his nose at the use of his full name. Only his dad called him Steven. Eddie raised a brow, seeming to take note. One of them had shifted closer. Steve wasn’t sure who. Eddie’s hand brushed against his side as he played with the sheets. 

“Remind me again why I needed to know about your pinball dream?” Steve asked. The sound of the wind in the trees outside his bedroom window set his teeth on edge. 

“Because you’re too damn serious and I thought it’d make you smile... Which it did.” Eddie added the last part in quietly and Steve rolled his eyes. 

Eddie craned his head to look around Steve’s room before screwing up his nose. 

“Anyone ever told you your wallpaper is gaudy as hell? Your curtains match your walls. Dude, I thought rich people were meant to have taste,” he observed, the boys’ shoulders pressed together. 

“This coming from the guy who eats cereal out of the box with his hands,” Steve countered, no heat in his voice. 

“Are you still mad I used to stand on your lunch table?” Eddie muttered, shoving Steve’s shoulder before tensing. When had Steve last checked his dressings? 

He flipped the bedside lamp on, leaning over Eddie to do so. He’d been helping the guy shower for days now. Privacy was a word reserved for other people. Intimacy was a necessity.  

“Once you stood in my mashed potatoes. It was disgusting,” Steve uttered, gently peeling up the hem of Eddie’s tee shirt. Really, it was Steve’s, but it seemed strange to make distinctions. 

Eddie’s eyes trailed down to Steve’s fingers, half-hooded and slowed with sleep or inebriation, Steve didn’t know which. He wondered how much of all this Eddie would remember when he got better. He would get better. 

“You never ate the potatoes. You’d bring your stupid bagels from home,” Eddie remarked, as Steve carefully unwound the bandage and gauze. It was stained brown with dried blood, but it looked better than it’d been a few days before, no longer as red or swollen.   

The bagel comment made Steve look up. Seemed like Robin wasn’t the only one that’d been watching him. Maybe Eddie had a crush on Tammy Thompson, too. Maybe it was something else. Steve’s friends had crappy taste in women. Eddie could do better. 

“What’s the verdict, doc?” Eddie questioned, noticing Steve’s sudden silence. 

He cleaned the wounds as best he could. Eddie’s fingers had found their way to Steve’s thigh, gripping so tight he thought it would bruise. It would be another to add to the collection. Steve hadn’t been thinking of how his battle wounds were healing. He was in triage mode. Eddie’s wounds were worse than his. 

“We're going to have to amputate,” Steve deadpanned as he found the first aid kit he’d hidden beneath his bed years before, starting to redress the wound. 

“How the hell can you amputate a side?” Eddie asked with a shaky laugh, his breathing more ragged again. 

“Well, you see, there’s this new experimental procedure that lets you transplant your brain into a pinball machine,” Steve began and felt Eddie’s elbow in his side. 

“Screw you.” 

Steve laid back beside Eddie, less space between them than before, if it was at all possible. They braced against each other, the contact grounding Steve. Eddie was alive. He was alive. Maybe one day they could look at each other and not think about death. That day wasn’t today, but Steve could hope for it. 

As Eddie drifted to sleep, his head fell on Steve’s shoulder. He wouldn’t sleep for long that night, but he was used to that. He knew the weeks and months after a run-in with the Upside Down were full of fitful sleep and nightmares, but they never lasted. 

On a long enough timeline, you could get used to anything. It was strange how short that timeline was when it came to getting used to Eddie. 

More days came and went with the same imperfect routines. The two boys woke at all hours of the night and spent the daylight hours behind closed curtains, trying to heal. 

By the third day, Steve got sick of the quiet. A sombre mood hung over them, shifting and changing like the phases of the moon. It never entirely disappeared, but there were moments it seemed almost absent.  

One of these such moments arose when Steve hijacked the boombox from the living room and dragged it upstairs to his bedroom, where a slowly healing Eddie sat bored out of his mind, aching and itchy. Steve knew the feeling. The wound on his neck had scabbed and begun to fade into a scar. 

“Hey, Munson?” Steve spoke, sitting beside Eddie, spreading his tape collection between them. 

“You wanna hear some real music?” He asked, watching Eddie’s nose scrunch and his teeth worry away at his bottom lip.

“These are all horrible, Harrington.” 

Eddie turned over several cassettes in his hand, treating them gently as though they were something special.  

“You have every WHAM! album, dude. The Outfield. Halls & Oats. Tears for Fears,” Eddie listed off, his tone one of disgust. 

“You’re going to have to pick something, or I’ll pick WHAM! out of spite.” 

Eddie rolled his eyes and shuffled through the tapes, tossing one Steve’s way. 

“Bowie isn’t horrible,” Eddie mumbled as Steve placed The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, into the player. 

The two sat shoulder to shoulder, as always, listening to the quiet swell of drums. Steve realised too late it was a song about the end of the world. He realised, later still, that it was a love song. Eddie’s fingers drummed against his knee. Steve tried to ignore the way the action made his heart swell. 

Steve couldn’t sit still any longer as Moonaged Daydream began. He remembered another life in Nancy Wheeler’s garage, asking her to pretend things were normal for a couple of hours. God, he wanted that. He needed a few normal hours.

He wasn’t the same person he’d been back then, but parts of him had stayed the same. He didn’t know how to change them. Nancy Wheeler faced problems head-on, but Steve? The passage of time had taught him how to stand his ground in the face of danger, but he hadn’t yet learned how to stop being chased. 

He caught Eddie’s eye and watched as a wicked grin spread across his face. Without words, he knew exactly what Steve was about to do. He grabbed the nail bat he kept by the bed, the same one from the Wheeler’s garage and sang, using the gnarly weapon as his makeshift microphone. He was a little too loud and a little off-tune.  He sang about alligators and space invaders, lyrics he knew off by heart, without understanding them.

He watched as a grin threatened to crack Eddie’s face in two. There was a reckless abandon to his smile. It was different from the glazed-eyed, half-high smiles of the past week. His eyes were keen and sharp as he watched Steve fling himself across the room in the way only someone who’d learned to dance drunk could.

By the time the album finished, he’d worked up a sweat. Eddie joined in, singing a couple of lines when he could before tugging Steve back to bed, his hand in Steve’s hair, smoothing it back in place. The action was intimate, yet familiar.

“Alright, Starman. Maybe Bowie doesn’t suck so hard, but when I’m not on the run from the law, I’m going to show you what real music sounds like.” 

“Promise?” Steve asked, his chest heaving. 

Then, Eddie did something so unlike anything the populous of Hawkins would expect. To them, he was a Satanist and a murderer. Steve had always known better, but he’d seen Eddie as a wildcard. He was loud and rough around the edges, but he also had the capability of being endearing when the moment called for it. Still, Steve had never expected Eddie to roll over, extend his pinkie and link their little fingers together. 

“I promise,” He assured, placing his lips to the knuckle of his thumb as though sealing the deal. 

The action was equal parts childlike and intense. Steve looked down at their interlaced fingers and knew he was in over his head. Warmth pooled in Steve’s fingertips. 

“Eds, I—,” A knock at the downstairs door made the words die on Steve’s lips. The boys pulled apart. Steve was cold. 

“I’ll get it,” Steve spoke, picking up the discarded nail bat and trudging down the stairs. 

He hoped it was one of the door-knocking jocks. Some primal part of him felt like hitting something. Years before, he would have questioned if he was the kind of person who could do it, but now he knew he could. 

Steve clutched at the bat hidden behind his back as he swung open the door, coming face-to-face with an older man dressed in too-short jean shorts, holding an armful of paper bags. He looked familiar. He’d seen the man with Hopper. A furrow etched its way onto his brow. 

“Aren’t you going to let your beloved uncle in, Steve?” The man spoke, loud enough for the people in the next neighbourhood to hear. 

“Right,” Steve mumbled, pushing the door open and stepping to the side. 

The man walked through the house as though he’d grown up within their walls, dropping the paper bags on the countertop, switching on the lights and examining the space. 

“Hopper sent me with supplies. It’d draw too much attention having the feds at your front door, but a visit from your favourite Uncle Murray? That’s incognito. I’ve got groceries and painkillers, slipped in some vodka too, on the house. Personally, I was thinking of making my homemade ravioli for dinner. Trust me, it’s to die for. Where’s the other one by the way?” The man, Murray, breathed, spinning on his heels to examine the interior of the house.  Steve let his nail bat fall to the floor.

“You really should invest in a gun, kid...Was I interrupting something?” The older man asked, gesturing absentmindedly to his balding head. Steve touched his hair and found it still out of place. He ran his fingers through it in an attempt to tame it. 

“No, we... I was sleeping. Eddie’s upstairs. I think he’s okay, but I could use another set of eyes. I don’t know exactly what I’m doing here. Are you staying?”

“I’m just staying for dinner. It’d look strange if your uncle only showed up for a few minutes, wouldn’t it?” Steve didn’t dignify that with an answer. 

“There’s the man of the hour,” Murray spoke, glancing up at the top of the staircase where Eddie stood, leaning heavily on the banister. 

“What happened to staying up there?” Steve spoke through gritted teeth, making his way back up the stairs. 

“You were taking too long,” Eddie muttered with an unbothered shrug. 

“And if it’d been one of Jason’s asshole friends, we’d have been screwed,” Steve rebutted, letting Eddie lean on him as they made their way to Murray in the kitchen. At least he could walk.

“But it wasn’t,” Eddie huffed, his breath warm on Steve’s neck. 

Steve kicked out one of the kitchen chairs and lowered Eddie into it. The older man watched them as a scientist observes a specimen. There was a morbid fascination to it.

“I see you two are getting along well,” He spoke. 

He’d found where Steve’s mother had stored their pots and had begun some strange kitchen alchemy. Steve had made risotto. This guy looked like he was completing a summoning ritual. The ingredients were splayed out on the countertop like objects of adoration. 

Steve sat down in the chair beside Eddie. It felt strange having someone else in the house. For what seemed like a lifetime, his world had consisted of one other person. He missed Robin, Dustin, and the rest of the kids, but he hadn’t let himself dwell on it. He’d known their isolation couldn’t last forever, but he’d never have guessed Murray would be the first person he’d see.  

“Tense mood. Why is it I always end up in the middle of couples in denial?” Murray breathed to himself. 

Eddie’s head snapped up with a speed Steve hadn’t seen him manage all week. Steve didn’t look at Murray, he was too busy trying to unpick the pained look on Eddie’s face. His eyes searched the boy’s body for some torn open wound he’d missed. 

“What? Don’t look so surprised. Contrary to what kids these days think, we did have homosexuality in the sixties,” Murray informed before pausing. He gave Steve a once-over that made his skin crawl. He felt as though he were a bug, pinned beneath a glass plate. 

“And bisexuality,” He clarified. 

Steve averted his eyes and reached over to squeeze Eddie’s knee. He was hopelessly lost in the conversation, but he knew something was wrong with Eddie. The boy jumped at the sudden contact and Steve pulled his hand away as though burnt. 

“So, what’s the problem? Still in denial?” Murray asked, levelling Steve with a knowing look. He scowled back at the man, ready for him to leave. 

“No. I think you know how you feel, maybe even how he feels.” Steve didn’t know how to respond. 

“You, however,” Murray continued, turning his attention to Eddie, the boiling pot on the stove, forgotten.

“I don’t think you have a clue. Self-esteem issues, maybe. You try to hide it, but you couldn’t imagine that someone in a house like this would look at you twice.” 

“What the hell, man?” Eddie breathed with a huff of indignation. Murray showed no signs of stopping. His eyes were back on Steve. 

“So, what’s holding you back? You got your heart broken after Nancy Wheeler. Let me guess, you keep saying how much you want commitment, but you keep dating the wrong people, people who don’t want to be tied down. That, my boy, is self-sabotage and him,” Murray spoke, indicating Eddie with a wooden spoon he’d been using to stir the rice. 

“He looks like a long-haul kind of guy.” 

“Dude,” Eddie interjected. 

“What? You’re both obviously attracted to one another. Don’t lie. I have eyes. You’re telling me that all this near-death stuff hasn’t made you re-evaluate your life a little? It’s just been you two, locked away together at the end of the world, helping each other heal. Seeking comfort in one another. You’ve got shared trauma. That kind of thing bonds you for life.” 

“Leave it alone,” Steve said, standing as he spoke. The chair scraped on the tile floor. A nails on a chalkboard kind of sound. 

Steve pushed past the older man, pulled the pot off the stove, and let a tense silence settle over the three of them. The subsequent dinner dragged on in uncomfortable silence. Steve and Eddie kept their eyes glued to their plates. Murray talked but neither paid attention. He gave Eddie’s wounds a once over, appearing as lost as Steve. He didn’t seem concerned, so Steve took it as a good thing. 

He thought he’d known what tense silence between himself, and Eddie felt like, but he’d known nothing compared to the moment Murray left. His whole body was on edge. Eddie wouldn’t meet his eyes. They needed to talk, but neither wanted to be the first to cave. 

“I was thinking of turning in early,” Steve spoke, not knowing what else to say. 

“Yeah. Me too.” 

The boys lay side by side, but sleep didn’t come. Eddie’s body was wound tight as a tourniquet. This time, Steve was the one bleeding out. 

He wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. Maybe that he was sorry. Murray was right. Steve had known Eddie liked him and he hadn’t said anything because it wasn’t a problem he could throw himself in front of. It’d be easier if he thought telling Eddie would end up with him getting hit. There were worse things. 

Eddie’s feelings had become more apparent as their time together wore on, but on some level, Steve had known long before. When Eddie had leaned over into his space smelling of cigarette ash, dried earth and sweat and called Steve some god-awful pet name, he’d known. He also knew the feelings weren’t one-sided. 

That revelation came later. Eddie had been fading in and out of consciousness. Steve had shaken him awake to redress his wounds when it happened. The boy awoke, shooting him a lopsided grin, gazing at Steve with his drowsy, doe eyes.

He’d crooned, ‘Good morning sunshine’. And that had been enough. 

Steve’s heart had stuttered to a halt as it had all the times before when a pretty girl had called him a prettier name. 

As much as Steve hated to admit it, Murray had been right about a lot of things. There was one thing Steve desperately wanted him to be wrong about. 

He and Eddie were bonded because of what they’d been through. That’s what the man had said. Shared trauma. Was that all they were?

Steve was back in the bathroom with Nancy, her white shirt, red. The whites of his eyes the moment she left, red. 

He knew where shared trauma got him. He’d try to bury it. To move past it. He wanted to be more than what was done to him. People would say he was running. He was bullshit. 

How was he meant to sit with the kind of stuff he and Eddie had been through? How was he meant to fight it? Would Steve always look at Eddie and see his death? Would Eddie always look at Steve and feel like dying? 

“I wished I’d met you later,” Steve spoke to the dark room. Eddie’s locked body loosened, and as it did, he started to shake. In a moment, he’d start to bleed too. 

“You know, normally people say they wished they’d met you sooner.” 

“I mean... I wish we’d met after everything with The Upside Down. That you hadn’t gotten dragged into it. I wish that we’d gotten to know each other the normal way,” Steve explained. Eddie snorted. 

“Can you imagine me doing anything the normal way?” He had a point. 

Steve didn’t know how to say what he wanted to say. The silence was back, looming large as a lunar eclipse. 

“You aren’t... weirded out by what he said? About me liking you?” Eddie’s voice was small. The only time Steve heard Eddie whisper was when he was dying. 

“I think he also said something about me liking you back,” Steve replied, glancing at Eddie’s profile only to find the man was already watching him. His face was contorted in confusion. 

“Then... what’s the problem here, Stevie?” 

Steve had never been good with his words. 

“What if we’ve ruined it?” He tried. At seeing a frown cross Eddie’s face, he knew he hadn’t done a good enough job at explaining. 

“With what’s happened between me and you. You never would’ve looked at me twice if I hadn’t saved you, and what if that’s all we’ve got? Shared trauma.” 

Bullshit. What if all they had was bullshit? Eddie finally understood.

“I don’t like you because you saved me, Steve. I like you because despite all the terrible shit you make me want to laugh.  I love that you’re shit at dancing, but you do it anyway. Also, screw that guy your risotto is better than his. You’re a good cook. Your stupid hair makes me want to slam my head in a car door and before you say anything, that’s a compliment. You care so damn much about everyone.” To Steve’s surprise, Eddie’s hand reached up to touch his cheek. 

“I don’t like you because we’ve been through bad shit together. I like you because you make me feel like one day, we’re going to get out on the other side of it, that things aren’t going to be like this forever,” Eddie finished.

Steve’s heart was a cardinal, beating itself bloody against a windowpane. 

“Can I kiss you?” Steve breathed. For the first time in a long time, he was nervous. 

Eddie’s smile was a lightning strike, bright, beautiful and something they’d shape gods after. 

“I thought you’d never ask.” 

Eddie’s lips were warm. 

[kaenith]

Color Fall 2023 - #3

That scene in the Temple of Darkness where Red and Blue are too wrapped up in their argument to notice the Big Poe always amuses me xD So... this is that, but with Pokemon!

Also, my piece for FS Fright Fight week two: hoax vs haunted

[thechaosdomain]

Prompt: The Beemer

Word count: 377

characters/ships: Steddie

Pulling into the trailer park Steve is not at all surprised to see that Eddie is in fact not ready and waiting out front like he had promised yesterday when he’d asked (read begged) him for a lift. Parking the car he presses the horn once and waits for the metalhead to appear.

After a few minutes Eddie spills out the door of his trailer looking like he’d only just woken up. Stumbling towards the Beemer he pulls the front door open.

“You’re sitting in the back.” Steve tells him, meeting his eyes. Eddie freezes a confused frown on his face as he tries to figure out if Steve’s joking or not.

“Why?”

“Robin sits in the front.” Steve tells him mater of factly turning the key in the ignition, the beemer jumping to life.

“But you picked me up first.” Eddie says still standing in the open passenger side door.

“It’s not me you need to fight it’s robin.” Steve tells him and something about that sentence makes Eddie draw his cheek into his mouth and squint at Steve as he thinks.

“But I’m your boyfriend.” He says

“So.” Steve asks, meeting his eyes.

“So I should get to sit in the front, not Robin.” He argues and Steve glances at his watch checking how late they’re going to be picking her up.

“Look it’s not me you have to convince. Just get in the car.” He says placing his hands on the steering wheel.

“Ugh fine.” Eddie huffs out throwing his head back dramatically before slamming the front door.

“Hey don't slam my door.” Steve calls as Eddie pulls open the back door.

“Just cause your van broke down doesn’t mean you need to take it out on mine.” He adds as Eddie throws his back pack into the seat before sliding in and sitting in the backseat behind the passenger seat.

“This is unfair.” He grumbles

“Yeah yeah it must be such an injustice to have to sit in the back seat.” Steve meets Eddie's eyes through the rear view mirror, a smirk on his face, he laughs when Eddie sticks his tongue out at him. Shaking his head Steve slowly turns around and starts the drive to pick up Robin.

[elf-kid2]

Listen to me. Listen.

Shen Yuan dies, and he reincarnates in the world of 'Proud Immortal Demon Way.' Fortunately, he's an NPC! A random extra! An Original Character!

That's right, he just popped out of the ground like a mushroom with a fully-formed body, a decent preinstalled cultivation base, and NO ties with any of the Main Characters! Score!

Wait, why is the treacherous Lord of An Ding Peak out for his blood?!

...Apparently, when he popped out of the ground, newly-transmigrated, with a fully-formed body, he was inadvertently stealing from the Peak Lord's secret patch of ultra-rare, valuable, hard-to-grow Sun-Moon Dew Mushrooms.

Shang Qinghua is super mad about it! And due to his status as a Scum Traitor, he has contacts in the Cultivation World, AND the Demon Realm!

So much for Shen Yuan's dreams of living an anonymous life as a Rogue Cultivator/Monster-Researcher and avoiding the Plot as much as possible; now he has a BOUNTY on his head!

Why did Shang Qinghua even have those Sun-Moon Dew Mushrooms?! Why was this never mentioned in PIDW?! When even ARE they, in the Plot? What's Luo Bingge up to, these days?

...Research indicates that these particular ultra-rare, ultra-valuable, hard-to-grow mushrooms have only a handful of uses. 1) Creating a New Body for someone-- a Dream Demon, for example-- who'd lost their original corporeal form. 2) Resurrection/Necromancy purposes. 3) World's Least-Convenient Method of Making a [Baby/Son/Daughter/Heir].

(The book also said that these mushrooms were considered too delicate and hard to cultivate to be a practical method Gardening Your Own Army of Thralls. If you wanted to do that, you'd use different ultra-rare herbs.)

So! Shen Yuan's got no backstory anyone knows about, he's made an enemy of a Peak Lord with surprisingly far reach, AND his new body may require some special maintenance!

It could be worse! At least he hasn't been in contact with The Protagonist yet!

...Oh No.

[strangersteddierthings]

ooo can i suggest prompt six? "Did you lie to me?" hehe

Thanks for sending a prompt, Nonny! It's my daily ficlet for today!

Daily Ficlet 6

Steve's never been a secret before. He's too likeable (or hateable) for that. He's never had to hide a relationship before because what girl wouldn't want to be with him? All his friendships are well known, or were, back when he was in high school. There weren't even secret rivalries!

So, it's an adjustment, keeping this thing with Eddie a secret. But he's trying. Even though all he wants to do is hold his hand every hour of every day he refrains because. Because?

Well, he's not really full on those details. He knows it's partially because Eddie isn't out to anyone in the group except Steve. He's not even out to Robin, and Steve thought for sure they'd figure each other out and bond over it but that hasn't happened yet. Eddie's also said something about keeping it to themselves so they can just be themselves, together, without other people. When Eddie had whispered that it had sounded so sweet and romantic. But that was, like, two months ago and it's.... it's still romantic, but Steve wants to ramble about how beautiful Eddie is to Robin.

Also! This secret keeping is causing Robin to worry! He can't keep secrets from Robin, he never has. He told Robin he thought he might like guys exactly 0.4 seconds after he'd realized it! In fact, he's so bad at secret keeping that he's told her he has a boyfriend. Won't say who, and Robin won't push. All he had to say was his boyfriend wasn't ready to come out and that was that.

He's out to the Party, too. Mostly as an accidental outing he didn't back down from even when Will offered him an out with his quick thinking. Jonathan knows, too. That was an on-purpose telling after Will came out to Steve when they were finally alone, and Steve learned Jonathan knew about Will.

Anyway. Steve's never been a secret before. He doesn't want to continue being one. He just wants Eddie's permission to tell Robin. He'll be fine with waiting even if Eddie says he's not ready for Robin to know, of course, but he just. He wants Robin to know who the amazing person he rants about is.

So, imagine his surprise when, halfway down the stairs to the basement at Eddie and Wayne's new house to talk to Eddie about telling Robin, he hears his name.

"-because it's Steve Harrington, y'know?" Gareth's voice floats up the stairs to Steve and he freezes. Is Gareth a goddman psychic!? How did he know Steve was here?

"That's your reasoning? Because it's Steve?" Eddie asks, and oh. They don't know he's here. They're talking about him. Steve should make himself known. He shouldn't just stand here and listen. But. Well, if Eddie's finally telling his friends about them, he kinda wants to hear it. Want to hear Eddie spill the secret so they can quit being so secretive.

"Well, yeah. You're the one who's always saying people don't change. Did you lie to me? To us? Has Steve changed?" That's Jeff's voice, and his questions make Steve gut twist. But Eddie's not Nancy. He's not- they aren't bullshit. Eddie knows that. He'll defend Steve. He'll tell them the truth. There's silence, though. Eddie doesn't defend him.

"What's with the silence?" Frankie asks, when Eddie's been quiet too long. Funny, Steve wanted to ask the same thing.

"I'm trying to not snap at you all," Eddie says, and he sounds angry. "I get that you guys might still be hesitant or whatever, but you don't get to come here and throw accusations when you haven't even tried to be friends with him! This is why I don't invite him to come hang out with us! 'Cause you can be a bunch of dicks sometimes!"

Steve feels a warmth bloom inside him. He knew Eddie would defend him, he did. It's just hard to believe sometimes, and he's not going to make that Eddie's problem. But hearing it. Hearing that Eddie does defend him even when he doesn't know Steve's around to hear it. Fuck, it makes him want to kiss Eddie so bad.

"Hey, man, I'm sorry," Jeff says, "you're right. We are being dicks, and pretty standoffish with Steve. We aren't giving him a fair chance."

"You're not!" Eddie agrees aggressively. "Even if he wasn't my b- my friend, he's still the reason I'm even fucking alive. So, respect that at least."

Steve stands at the midpoint of the stairs until the conversation turns to a different topic before he tiptoes back to the top of the steps to turn around and thunder down the stairs loudly, giving everyone in the basement a warning to his arrival.

He'll tell a lie, that he was driving around because he was bored and thought to stop and see what Eddie was up to, and get invited to stay and hang out. Eddie's friends are more open with him than they usually are and Steve doesn't waste the opportunity to try and really engage with them, get to know them.

He can be a secret just a little longer, he supposes, when he looks away from Jeff and catches Eddie staring at him with the same adoration he sees on Eddie's face when they're alone. And judging by the almost slip up earlier, Eddie might be getting closer to not being a secret, too.