Steph's Year of Recovery
So! Danny noticed that a new face had made it's way into town. Two new faces actually, an older lady known as Dr Leslie, and a girl about his age called Steph.
He first met them when he was at the hospital for one of his parents. They had stood too close to an explosion again, and he met them while he was in the waiting Area.
Dr Leslie was a strict but obviously caring older woman, who seemed to be the one taking care of Steph as a kind of maternal figure, or maybe more like an Aunt. She greeted him simply and then walked away to talk with the Secretary, leaving him to talk to Steph.
Steph was a blond girl in a Wheelchair, and he could see bandages piking out of her clothes as he talked to her. She explained that she had been in an Accident a few weeks ago that left her wheelchair bound for a while, and that she had come to Amity for their surprisingly good Medical Centers.
He and Steph got along really well, and by the end of it he asked her for her Number so they could continue talking later. They stayed in touch, and when she was finally permitted to leave the Hospital, he introduced her to his friends. They all got along like a House on Fire, both figuratively and in one memorable case very literally (Vlad had pissed them off okay!)
Eventually Steph recovered enough that she moved from a Wheelchair to Crutches, and their shenanigans got even more chaotic (Vlad hadn't even pissed them off, this time was just for fun)
The only thing Danny could complain about was the fact that Steph was hiding something from them.
She said that she had been in an Accident a while ago, which was why they had come to Amity in the first place. But Danny knew it was more than that.
He could sense lingering traces of Death coming from her after all.
...
Steph honestly loved her current life.
Sure she had lost everything, her home, her health, her friends, her life, but she had gained new things too! Like Danny and the Gang! They were honestly some of the best friends she had ever had, and for some reason they just clicked with her instantly.
Danny was interesting and funny, Sam was vegan and a badass, Tucker was smart and witty, they all fit with her personality perfectly! It almost felt like she bad been friends with them for years. (She ignored the way her heart skipped a beat when she saw them)
But she still couldn't shake the sense that they were hiding something from her.
She knew it had something to do with the Ghost Problem in the town. And wasn't that a kicker, there was a whole Supernatural Ghost Outbreak in this Town and nobody knew about it. Dr Leslie had said that Amity was off the map enough to hide from Bruce, but she hadn't mentioned it was hidden from the Justice League itself!
Danny, Sam, and Tucker definitely knew more about it than they let on however. Whenever a Ghost Attack would happen, at least one of them would rush off with some practiced excuse and return after the Ghost Attack was over all dirty. She could guess what was going on, and she really didn't like it.
(This had killed her, she had died doing what they were doing, she didn't want to lose them)
Eventually she had to confront them, coincidentally on the same day they decided to confront her.
"Are you Vigilantes?" / "Did you die?"
"..."
"What?" / "What?"
794 notes
·
View notes
Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 78
Part 1 Part 77
Eddie always thought he’d be in jail before all this hard labor bullshit starts. Still, here he is, chipping away at the cold earth with a shovel Mama Byers stole from Merill’s shed. And it’s all to save the same man who’s busted his balls more times than he can count.
But Steve had pointed, and Eddie’d started digging.
He’s sitting now, criss-cross as he stares down at the ground like he can see through it, feet crossed, and t-shirt on backwards. Eddie had thrown it over his head as Steve walked out of the house, while While stuffed his sockless feet into his tennis shoes as best as he could. It’s not right. He’s not right.
Eddie can still feel the thread tying them together, but it’s brittle now, obvious next to the nylon still twined between Eddie and Will.
Steve’s barely there at all.
He’s always lived in an empty house, been an empty house. The thing inside him is just the first to take up residence – to fill the vacancy.
Eddie wants his empty house back.
He’d spent a year watching Steve blossom, filling that emptiness with laughter and cooking and someone to come home to. Eddie’d helped Steve move in, rearrange the furniture in his mind and feng shui that shit until the sun was always shining. He’d seen the curtains begin to open.
It’s jarring, now, to look into his eyes and see the glassy windows of an abandoned home.
So Eddie does all he can; he digs. The hole grows bigger and bigger, growing at the same rate as the blister on the side of his right thumb. He takes turns with Mama Byers, her lithe frame hiding surprising strength.
She’s the one at the mantle when the shovel strikes air. She pushes it down hard, gasping as it falls straight through, clattering somewhere below with the dull thud of metal on packed earth.
“Well, shit,” she says, staring down at the far-too small hole in the earth, just big enough to lose a shovel in.
Eddie peers down with her, eyeing the loosened sides and the distance of the drop. “Think we can stomp the rest out?”
“I don’t think that’s–” Mama Byers starts, but Eddie’s already stomped down.
The dirt crumbles easier than he expects, like all it wants is to tumble down into the unknown with the shovel. Eddie’s whole foot goes through, and he tumbles down with it.
It’s not far, but he lands on the handle of the shovel, feels it reverberate up his spine. He closes his eyes against the pain, groaning as he rolls away from the impact site.
“Eddie?” Will and Mama Byers both call down to him. He opens his eyes to look up at their worried faces, haloed by the dim gray of the November sky. Steve doesn’t make an appearance, but he can still dimly feel him up there.
“I’m fine!” he calls, hoisting himself onto knees and hands and hoping it’s true.
His ankle twinges as he gets it under him but it holds his weight as he levers himself upright. He barely even notices the pain because then he sees him: Hopper. He’s on the ground, and he’s not moving, as the vines writhe around him.
“Shit!” Eddie cries, rushing over and dropping down next to the man. “Shit, shit, shit!”
He says it like a mantra, barely noticing Mama Byers calling down at him, demanding he tell her what’s happening.
Eddie yanks at the vine, trying to wrench it from the man’s throat with little success. He sobs when Hopper croaks out a quiet, “knife.” It’s the first sign of life the man’s shown and Eddie will take it with both hands.
“Where?” Eddie cries. “Where is it?”
“It’s there!” Mama Byers calls. She’s collapsed on the ground, winded from her own fall into the tunnel. Eddie follows her pointing finger to his right.
He lurches for it as Mama Byers crawls up to take his place holding the vines away from Hopper’s windpipe.
Eddie saws at the vine around his neck, around his torso, around his wrists. He loses time to hacking away, barely noticing the viscous black blood that oozes out of it and splatters his clothes, hands, face.
All he knows is Steve’s barely there at all anymore, and this is the same fucking thing that had slithered down his throat
and made its home inside him in the first place.
He can hear Hopper coughing, Mama Byers calling his name, but it’s all muffled, like he’s under water. Like he’s still in the Harrington pool, drowning. Like he never made it to the other side.
Maybe he didn’t.
Maybe he’s still down there, sucking down chlorine like it’ll quench his thirst. At least down there, he’d had a hold on Steve. But, now, he can feel the tether turning to ash in his mouth. He’s so thirsty. He wants to swallow the world.
“Munson”
He keeps hacking away at the vines, like they’ll stop strangling Stevie. Like this will be the thing that saves them.
“Eddie.”
Like they’re what’s strangling him, smoke and helplessness clogging Steve’s esophagus and making a home within him.
“Kid!”
There are warm hands gripping his wrist, hard. Warmer than Steve’s been. Eddie looks up, and Hopper’’s staring at him, ragged and dirty and panting, but alive. Eddie looks down at the wrist he’s holding. Hopper’s knife is clutched hard enough that it hurts.
“You got them,” Hopper says, voice that soothing, gruff timber he uses on little kids, and victims. “You can let go.” He squeezes Eddie’s wrist before loosening his hold and running his thumb up the veins of his inner wrist. “You saved me, kid. You did good.”
It hurts when he drops the knife, tendons protesting the change of position after he knows how long clenching down. Hopper drops his wrist, clasping his shoulder and squeezing that instead. “You did good,” he says again, and then again, like that’ll stop Eddie’s shaking. It doesn’t.
Eddie nods, still looking down at the knife. His hand clenches on air. He feels bereft, so he pulls on the threads that bind. One made of titanium, and one made of dust he can barely feel at all.
He jerks his head up at the ceiling, straining his neck to see Steve and Will’s faces. He needs to know that they’re both still there, waiting for him to come back. That Steve’s still Steve, waiting for Eddie to save him.
Steve’s always dying. Eddie’s always trying to save him.
But Steve’s not there at all.
There’s just dirt, only a shovel as proof of the morning spent digging a hole. Digging a grave for them to disappear in.
“No, no, no!” Eddie cries, scrambling up.
“Munson, what–”
“He’s gone!” He lurches forward, grabbing for the shovel, like he can somehow dig his way back. He hears Mama Byers gasp as he pushes the shovel up into the dirt. It doesn’t give. He pushes harder.
“Eddie, sweetie.” Mama Byers says, reaching up to pat his shoulder. “Will’s got him.”
Will’s got him. Will, who’s bright light he can feel at Steve’s side, just above. Will’s got him.
Eddie drops the shovel on a sob, still looking, up, up, up.
“But how are we going to get out of her?” Eddie asks. No one answers because no one knows.
Digging a hole and escaping a grave are two very different things.
Like the answer to a prayer Eddie would never send up, there’s a shout behind him. “Go!”
Eddie spins, and there’s a man in a Hvac suit, with a gun pointed straight at him. He stumbles back, feels Mama Byers’ steadying hands on his lower back.
“Get out of here!” the man calls, voice muffled through his helmet. He gestures with the butt of his gun behind him. “Go! Go!”
Eddie flits by him, keeping as much distance as the small tunnel will allow just as something inhuman begins shrieking behind him.
He doesn’t hesitate anymore. He bolts, Mama Byers and Hop hot on his heels, visions of Demogon’s on his heels pushing him faster.
He passes more suits and more guns, and keeps going. The ground begins sloping upward toward the light of an open tunnel. He stops for a second, shocked by an end to the darkness.
The safety of right-side-up is steps away. The warmth of light and air and his people are so close, he can almost taste it.
That’s when the screaming starts, from a voice he would know anywhere. Even like this. Even loud and wretched with pain.
Eddie runs toward the sounds of his angel screaming.
Part 79
Taglist: @deany-baby @estrellami-1 @altocumulustranslucidus @evillittleguy @carlprocastinator1000 @1-8oo-wtfbro @hallucinatedjosten @goodolefashionedloverboi @newtstabber @lunabyrd @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @manda-panda-monium @disrespectedgoatman @finntheehumaneater @ive-been-bamboozled @harringrieve @grimmfitzz @is-emily-real @dontstealmycake @angeldreamsoffanfic @a-couchpotato @5ammi90 @mac-attack19 @genderless-spoon @kas-eddie-munson @louismeds @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @pansexuality-activated @ellietheasexylibrarian @nebulainajar @mightbeasleep @neonfruitbowl @beth--b @silenzioperso @best-selling-show @v3lv3tf0x @bookworm0690 @paintsplatteredandimperfect @wonderland-girl143-blog @nerdsconquerall @sharingisntkaren
190 notes
·
View notes