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strangersmunsons · 2 months

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bark at the moon

there's something suuuuper weird in your garage. your best friend Robin calls up her old pals, Steve and Eddie, to come and take a look.

Contains: Eddie x Fem!Reader. Mix of canon & Modern AU, w/ tweaks to established lore (faithfulness to the source material? I don’t know her). Plot of the show is more or less the same, but focus will be on minor threats escaping from the Upside Down, and no more. Everyone is aged up a bit, timeline of events is kept vague. Reader learns some secrets that are tough to wrap her head around, Eddie is an awkward sweetheart, and platonic!Stobin reigns supreme. Word Count: ~8.1k Warnings: Some brief descriptions of gore. Reader has a mild panic attack. Mentions of food & eating. Strong language. I've been tinkering away at this fic since the summer; it's a little different than the sweet & fluffy stuff I normally post, but I had a blast writing it! So I hope you guys enjoy! 🩷

“Call me when you get home, okay?”

“I will.” You smack a kiss to Robin’s cheek and push your stool back against the bar. “Try not to get into too much trouble tonight. It’s only Thursday.”

“No promises,” Vickie chimes in, grinning toothily at you, cheeks flushed from a mix of joy and booze.

“I mean it.” You jab a finger in her direction, only half-jokingly. “If you FaceTime me again at 3 AM so I can provide ‘emotional support’ while you’re puking your guts out in the bathroom, I’m hanging up.”

Vickie doesn’t even blink. “You won’t hang up,” she replies dismissively.

She’s totally right, but you don’t say so.

“Just try and keep your insides where they belong, please. They should be, y’know — on the inside. Alright? I love you both. Goodnight!” You blow another dramatic kiss in their direction as you saunter out of the bar, weaving between sticky tables over the even-stickier floor to the exit.

Lizzy’s is you, Robin, and Vickie’s favorite haunt, a nondescript dive bar located on the outskirts of town. It’s a squat, dingy little building tucked neatly away into a thicket of trees at the deadend of a backroad. There’s no neighbors or rival businesses in sight, just a small parking lot with a defunct telephone booth that probably hasn’t worked in several decades. The bar is usually only frequented by patrons belonging to one of two exclusive sects: members of the local biker gang, and this random lesbian couple and their one friend.

Truly a hidden gem.

Happy Hour at Lizzy’s has been a tradition for you and Robin (and Vickie, when she chooses to tag along) since you met at work retreat a year ago. When you caught sight of her funky patched-up blazer and choppy hairstyle, you immediately clocked her as the other youngest, coolest person in the room and forced your friendship upon her in the name of survival. Who else were you gonna hang out with for an entire weekend — Matt from HR who, ironically, was on probation for sending a coworker unsolicited dick pics? No way.

“Hey, can you hold the other side of my bag open for me? I’m gonna jam these cookies in there — quickly, while no one’s looking.”

Two peas in a pod, stealing extra goodies from the complimentary snack table and gossiping in the back row during presentations when you should’ve been listening. You’ve been attached at the hip ever since.

Full of mirth from the quality time spent with your best friend, you hum cheerfully to yourself as you push through the exit and step outside. The door whacks shut behind you, closing you off from the bar’s warm interior, and immediately, you take notice of two things.

First, you’re met with a surprising chill in the air. It’s been pretty temperate so far this week, and pleasantly warm earlier in the day, but it’s become startlingly cold in the mere hours you were inside the bar. You swear you can see a frozen puff of breath each time you exhale. You hug your arms around yourself, frowning slightly. Gravel crunches under your feet as you walk to your car.

The second thing you notice is that it’s obscenely dark out. A single orange streetlamp flickers in the parking lot, illuminating little more than the fluttering moths bashing themselves stupidly into the bulb. There’s no moon in the black-velvet sky; it’s just a blanket of darkness above. You glance at the watch on your wrist, but the time is indiscernible without proper lighting. I guess it’s later than I thought?

The hairs stand up on the back of your neck. There’s a gross, inexplicable feeling of nakedness as you cross the lot; the cold, unexpected dark and loss of time has you feeling disoriented and exposed. Naturally, your mind begins dredging up scenes from every horror movie you’ve ever watched, and you pick up the pace. Reaching the car, you wrench open the driver-side door, eager to be within the safe confines of the vehicle.

You slide in, and release a relieved breath you didn’t even realize you were holding. Slumping back against the seat, you think, Man, I gotta lay off the slasher flicks.

The moment doesn’t last long. Another bolt of paranoia suddenly shoots through you — you whip your head around, searching the backseat for a killer lurking in the shadows, waiting to slice your throat open, possibly with a machete, or maybe even a hook attached to a stumpy wrist.

Nothing there. Totally empty. Not even an extremely trim, flexible murderer contorting themselves out of view down on the cramped floor space.

“It’s fine,” you say aloud to no one in particular, turning forward again. You start the car and ease out of the lot, switching the radio to a pop station — your last line of defense. No one ever got brutally murdered while listening to Britney.

Thankfully, the ride is uneventful, and nobody pops up behind you with any instruments of violence. The further you get into town, with its familiar lights and gentle hum of nighttime traffic, the more at ease you feel. Your mind drifts, thinking of work, what you’ll make for dinner tomorrow, whether or not Vickie will be throwing up within the next hour. Any mundane topic that’ll help calm your nerves.

Eventually you reach home and pull into the garage. It’s a miracle you can even still park in there, it’s so full of junk — old furniture and hardware tools and odds and ends you haven’t had the energy to try and sort through.

A sigh escapes as you cross the threshold that separates the garage from the house. The sweet, homey kitchen is a welcome sight to enter. You put a kettle on for a cup of tea before bed, and decide to dial Robin while you wait for the water to boil.

She picks up after several rings.

“Hello my love.”

“Hi Rob. I’m alive.”

“Oh, good. That would’ve been awkward if it was someone else calling me.”

“Are you still at the bar?”

“Yeah, we’re leaving in a few. Vickie says she’s fine, but she’s got that look in her eye, so…”

There’s a faint “I am fine!” in the background and you snicker. “Good luck with that.”

Robin snorts. “Thanks. Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

Robin bids you goodnight, and you feel a rush of affection for her. Your roommate recently moved out to go live with her boyfriend, leaving you as the sole tenant of the house. Although you reassured her endlessly that you had no issues living alone, Robin was insistent on constantly checking up on you lest you ‘get SVUed’ — her phrasing, not yours.

The kettle starts whistling, and you pour the steaming water into a mug with a bag of chamomile. You plop down on the soft cushion tied to the kitchen chair, letting the weariness of the day settle in your bones.

You scroll idly through your phone while sipping your tea, ignoring the slight burn it leaves on your lips and tongue. The old house settles and creaks while you relax, making those soft noises that you’ve become accustomed to over time. In fact, you’re so used to it by now that in your sleepy state, you don’t even register the odd sound in the garage, a sort of thunk, not unlike that of a confused bird flying into a picture window.

When the last drop of tea is gone, you place the mug in the dishwasher and head for your bedroom. You go through the steps of your night routine as though on autopilot before finally crashing into the plush bed. Within minutes, sleep takes you.

The sound of your alarm is innocuous enough — a small tinkle of bells or chimes or whatever cheerful twee instrument it is that Apple is using.

It’s incredible how something so innocent can sound so ungodly. Ugh.

Barely lifting your head up off the pillow, you drag the trilling device towards you with snatching fingers and turn it off. Maybe you’ll get up when the second alarm goes off, but let’s be honest — it probably won’t be until the third, and even then you might steal a few extra minutes under the covers.

Eventually you manage to pull yourself upright and, with a huge yawn, lurch out of bed. You shuffle down the hall, thinking of little more than the bagel you’re gonna demolish before jumping in the shower, and make your way back into the kitchen. Your bare feet pad softly across the linoleum floor, cold and sticking slightly to your heels. The sky outside the window is a dark, deep blue.

Then finally, in the stillness of the early morning, you hear a dull thud.

You pause halfway to the toaster.

Ten seconds go by. Silence.

Okay, that’s fine, it’s probably noth–

Thud.

Goddamn it.

There’s a stab of alarm as the sound repeats again, then twice more in rapid succession. You take a deep breath, willing yourself to remain calm, and grab the softball bat you keep propped up by the door. Safety first.

You tiptoe cautiously to the door separating the kitchen and the garage, thinking it’s probably a raccoon or something, he slipped inside when I drove in last night. Actually, there’s so much shit in there, he’s probably been living there for weeks. I really should call a Junk King –

You push the door open slowly, peering around the edge, prepared to fight. Your self-defense weapon is made of bright pink aluminum that catches the dim kitchen light emanating from behind you, glinting in your hands. You’re pretty sure it’s a little-league number so, clearly, it’ll be an even match for whatever it is that awaits you.

At first, nothing appears out of the ordinary. There’s no human silhouettes lurking in the dark. Everything is more or less the same as it was last night. The car is right where you left it, and the windows are intact. The spare furniture crammed against the perimeter is still there – nothing is missing or vandalized. But the room is still too dark for you to make out any less obvious differences, so you reach for the lightswitch on the left side of the doorframe.

And then, from the far corner of the room, up towards the ceiling, there’s an ear-splitting screech that nearly stops your heart.

Before you even have time to blink, a shadowy mass is suddenly flying straight at you. It’s still mostly obscured in the dark — whatever it is — a nebulous blur that swings in a low arc across the room. It’s moving so quickly that the air whistles as the creature cuts a path through it.

You let out a shriek of your own and spring backwards, slamming the door shut. It’s just barely closed when it collides into the wood with a frightening crash. You lock the door with numb fingers and slump back against it with your heart in your throat, and a hot, loose feeling in your lower stomach that, in the midst of your hysteria, you manage to acknowledge as a warning that you might shit your pants.

You lurch forward and spin around, now watching the door with wide eyes. The noise from before, which you now understand must have been that thing flinging itself against the walls, resumes with a fervor that makes you sick with fright. It slams into the door relentlessly, and you physically cringe with each hit.

With shaking hands, you pull one of the kitchen chairs out and prop it underneath the door handle. You really don’t think it could be strong enough to break through, but…

At least you don’t think —

“Robin, I’m about to die.”

“...at six-thirty in the morning? Can you put it off until this afternoon, at least?”

Robin’s voice is still thick with sleep and there’s no doubt that she’s irritated by your early phone call, but right now, you could care less.

“I think there’s some kind of cryptid in my garage.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the phone.

“Come again?”

“Like, I think the fucking Jersey Devil is in there, or something. When I got up this morning I kept hearing this weird noise, so I put my big girl panties on and went to investigate –”

“By yourself? Are you dumb? What if someone was in there?”

“Hey, I had protection, okay? Besides, I figured it was probably a racoon. If it had been a person planning on hurting me, they weren’t being very discreet about it –”

“Alright, alright. Continue.”

“So I open the door, and next thing I know, this thing screams and starts fucking flying directly at my head. I didn’t get a good look at it, Rob, it was too dark, but that thing is out for blood. It keeps flying into the door. Listen to this shit.”

You put your phone on speaker and hold it out, standing as close to the door as you’re willing to get.

“Um, I can’t hear anything.”

“...well…it was doing it earlier...”

“...right. So, what, a bird flew into your garage?”

“A bird? Maybe.” That sort of fit, right? Whatever it was, it had wings. It was kind of big. It made noise. You consider. “Could be a bat, I suppose.”

Across town, Robin suddenly sits bolt upright in bed. Vickie mumbles incoherently next to her, half-awake from hearing your too-early conversation.

“I’m coming over,” Robin says abruptly, and hangs up.

Flinging herself out of bed, Robin begins dressing frantically, scrambling to pull a pair of jeans up over her bare legs. Drawers and closet doors bang open and slam shut again. Vickie groans from beneath her pillow. “Could you keep it down, please?”

“No, sorry babe. Gotta go. I’ll explain later.”

“Are you kidding me?”

You rub your temples in irritation and throw yourself back down on the couch. You’ve taken refuge in the living room while you wait for Robin, and have spent the past fifteen minutes going back and forth with animal control. Trying to convince them to come get this thing out of your house? An exercise in futility.

A frantic knocking makes you jump, before you realize it’s coming from outside the house. You cautiously enter the kitchen again and when you see Robin’s face through the small pane of glass in the front door, your whole body sags with relief. You fling it open breathlessly and throw yourself at her. “Thank God!” The words are muffled, as your face is pressed into her shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay!” She slings her arm around you in a hug and pats your back. “We’re gonna take care of this.”

You release her and start venting your frustration. “Yeah, we’ll have to. I tried calling animal control and apparently they can’t do anything since it’s not a dog or a cat, and they kept telling me I had to call a wildlife removal agency instead, and they just kept going on about how they have to send a professional who specializes in birds or bats or whatever the hell it is, and that it’s gonna cost me like at least two hundred bucks –”

Robin cuts off your rambling. “I don’t think you should call anyone.”

You huff. “I certainly don’t want to, if it’s gonna cost me that much. I thought this was what animal control did. What am I paying taxes for?”

Robin’s been here all of two minutes and you already feela little better. The run-in earlier had frightened you, certainly, but you’re no longer alone in the house with an eldritch horror.

Robin shakes her head. “No, I mean I already called someone.”

That stops you, and you squint at her in confusion. “Who? You know a guy who handles this kinda thing?”

“...actually, I know two.”

Eddie’s green-and-white van screams around the corner, practically making the turn on two wheels.

“Jesus, Munson, slow down!”

“Relax, Harrington. I’m a certified expert driver. My insurance company said so.”

A Megadeth song that Steve doesn’t know thumps out of the speakers at a deafening volume. Eddie drums his hands on the steering wheel in time with the music, headbanging as vigorously as he can manage without taking his eyes completely off the road.

Steve reaches for the stereo knob and turns it down. Eddie shoots him a disgruntled look from the driver’s seat. “Hey, man —”

“We got somewhere to be, alright? I told Robin we’d get there ASAP. The last thing we need is for you to wrap this thing around a telephone pole.”

“If she didn’t move so far away, we would already be there,” Eddie complains.

“Dude, she lives like an hour away now. Hour and a half, tops.”

“Well, that’s a long drive when it’s this early!”

Waiting for Robin’s reinforcements to arrive provides ample time for her to shatter your world. You sit together on opposite ends of the couch, staring at each other in intense silence. Your brow is deeply furrowed, eyes nearly shut from the force of the expression.

“Are you being for real, or is this an elaborate lie you’re making up that you’ll laugh at me for falling for later?”

Robin drags her finger across her chest, drawing an imaginary X. “Cross my heart and hope to die. Trust me, I know how crazy it sounds.”

You let out a high-pitched laugh that sounds more like a wheeze. “Yeah, it sounds fucking crazy!”

Robin’s expression turns resentful. “Hey, you’re the one who called me saying Mothman was in your garage this morning –”

“I said the Jersey Devil, actually, but c’mon! An interdimensional monster. Is that real? Can that really be real?”

“Listen, just think about what you saw. You were pretty freaked. Did it really seem like some rabied-up household pest?”

It didn’t. The odd, kite-like shape, the speed with which it flew, and the utter determination — there was no doubt in your mind that it had dived at you deliberately, with the malicious intent to bite and scratch and hurt. You remember the hot taste of fear in your mouth, like a bitter pill dissolved on the tongue.

“No, it didn’t,” you admit quietly. That thing, whatever it was, was weird. But that doesn’t make Robin’s story any easier to swallow.

When it came to the supernatural or…whatever this was considered, you were neither a believer nor a skeptic. You weren’t willing to fully corroborate the existence of such things until you had experienced something like it yourself, but you still took others’ reports in stride; if someone claimed that they felt cold spots in their grandmother’s bedroom after she died, or that their belongings often ended up in odd places despite no one moving them, then you rolled with it. Who were you to deny their experiences? You wouldn’t tell them they’re wrong.

But Robin’s Upside Down, well…it’s giving less childhood ghost story and more Stephen King novel. One of the weirder ones too, that he wrote when he was still snorting a ton of cocaine. She’s on some Tommyknockers shit.

“You’ll see,” Robin promises. “When we kill it, you can get a good look at it.”

“Right, about that. Steve is your himbo friend from home, right?”

Robin smiles proudly. “The one and only.”

“But he’s good at this? Getting rid of these things?”

She nods eagerly. “Oh, very. I know I say he’s a himbo, but I’m selling him short, really, he’s the best. Best guy I know, in fact.”

You hear the pointed lilt in her voice, the one that’s always there when Robin mentions Steve to you. You roll your eyes. “There’s a monster in my garage, and you’re worried about getting me a date?”

Robin throws her hands up in defiance. “I’m just sayin’! He and his girlfriend Nancy broke up.” Her face suddenly lights up as she remembers a bit of gossip. “She’s bisexual now, by the way! Shame she didn’t realize it when we were in high school together, I had a huuuuge crush on her.”

“I thought you had a huge crush on Vickie in high school?”

“I did,” she says, as though there’s nothing contradictory about that fact. “Listen, I’m a complex, multifaceted lesbian, with a lot of —“

She’s interrupted by the knocking at the front door, and both of your heads turn automatically towards the sound.

It’s your second house-call of the day. Robin jumps up, winking at you. “It’s gonna be fine,” she whispers, and takes your hand, giving it a squeeze.

You follow her back into the kitchen, where you’re promptly welcomed by the sight of two boy-faces smushed shamelessly against the glazing in the door.

Robin rolls her eyes and yanks it open.

Without the door in place to support him, one boy loses his balance and topples forward, crashing into the kitchen. The other boy, who pulled back in time, laughs openly at him.

“Hey, dinguses, this isn’t my house, remember? Don’t be weird.”

“There’s not a day in Munson’s life that he hasn’t been weird.”

The one pulling himself up off the floor grunts out, “I resent that.” When he’s fully upright, he gazes at you with wide eyes and a slight frown, not saying anything.

Robin steps in and they each take turns embracing her in greeting. One of them even ruffles her hair affectionately, and you watch the three of them with interest.

You’ve seen enough pictures of Steve Harrington by now that you could pick him out from a mile away. Of the two boys he’s taller, and more classically handsome, with his pretty features and artfully-sculpted hair. In his neat green pullover and pressed jeans, you can totally picture King Steve as he was in high school — athletic and rich and preppy, with his equally rich and preppy girlfriend.

While you recognize Steve immediately, this other boy you know less. He looks only vaguely familiar, perhaps a background figure in Robin’s photos. His dark hair is long, curly and disheveled, and his eyes are huge and starkly brown against his pale skin. Despite the early hour they must’ve left at, he's taken the time to deck himself out in black leather and loads of silver jewelry.

After he releases Robin, Steve introduces himself. He saunters forward confidently, one hand extended out towards you. “I’m Steve,” he says with a charming smile. He cocks his head slightly to the side, and there’s a brief pause for dramatic effect. “Steve Harrington.”

In your peripheral vision, you can see Robin holding a hand over her eyes in embarrassment. The other boy shoots him a dirty look.

You shake his hand politely, mildly amused. “Nice to meet you, Steve.”

When Steve releases your hand, the dark-haired one gives you an awkward wave. “I’m Eddie.”

The name rings a bell. You wave back and smile at him kindly. “Hi, Eddie.”

He shuffles his feet, Reeboks squeaking against the linoleum, not quite meeting your eyes.

“I’m really glad you both are here,” you add, glancing between the two boys. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“Our pleasure,” Steve replies. “Always happy to be of service —”

“So,” Eddie cuts in, “where did you find this little fucker, anyway?”

“The garage.” Your voice is soft with trepidation. “The door’s right there.”

Three sets of eyes, blue and hazel and brown, follow the line of your pointed index finger. The chair is still jammed underneath the knob in a feeble attempt to barricade the door.

“Alright, we just need to grab our stuff from the van,” Eddie tells you. “And we’ll take care of it. If there’s only one, it shouldn’t take us long at all.”

You nod, like this is all good and normal and not the weirdest morning of your life. “Okay.”

When they move to head outside again, Steve eyes your little pink aluminum softball bat, back in its place in the corner. He smiles. “Hey, I got one of those!“

Eddie jogs lightly to catch up with Steve as he strides to where the van is parked outside.

“Hey,” he hisses, reaching out and grabbing his shoulder to get his attention. “You didn’t tell me this was Robin’s hot friend.”

“Huh?” Steve squints at him, disgruntled. “Who else would it have been?”

“I don’t know, literally anyone?”

“If I’m talking about Robin’s friend, then I’m talking about her. I didn’t realize I had to clarify.” He yanks the trunk open, and his voice takes on a more taunting tone. “Why? You nervous that a girl is actually speaking to you for once?”

Eddie steps back, visibly stung. “Hey, fuck you, man.”

Steve and Eddie’s friendship is not as tenuous as it once was, but sometimes old habits die hard.

Steve softens immediately, face painted with regret. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” he mutters, swiping a hand through his hair. He sighs. “I bumped into Nancy at the store yesterday, I’m not in a good mood.”

Eddie nods awkwardly, not really sure how to answer. “I’m sorry that it didn’t work out, um…again.”

“Thank you…for that reminder,” Steve replies, voice dripping with sarcasm. He turns to Eddie with narrowed eyes. “That we dated twice, and then also broke up twice.”

Eddie just smiles and claps him on the back. “I’m here for you, brother.”

From the kitchen window, you can see Steve and Eddie trudging back towards the house fully armed. Steve is holding a wooden baseball bat hammered-through with nails, and Eddie has what appears to be a makeshift spear — really, it’s just a big stick with a knife jerry-rigged on the end.

Robin takes in your open-mouthed shock. “You good?”

“Yeah,” you reply, dumbfounded, staring. “This is fine.”

The boys reenter. Steve smiles brilliantly at you, face clearing of some previous sourness you don’t know the cause of, and gestures with his bat to yours. “We can upgrade that for you, if you want,” he jokes.

You chuckle uneasily, panic setting in as you stare at the lethal-looking spikes of the nails. “Heh…maybe later.”

Eddie watches you carefully, the way your fingers scrunch nervously into the fabric of your sleep shirt, and the occasional, rapid twist of your head that you can’t seem to control, like you’re desperately trying to clear your mind of something awful.

Robin glances down at her buzzing phone, Vickie’s name and face popping up on the homescreen for the hundredth time this morning — apparently, she’s now awake and frantic that her clumsy girlfriend may have yet again gotten herself involved in some wild, life-threatening shenanigan.

“Just give me a minute, she’s freaking out,” Robin mumbles, pushing past you and into the living room for privacy.

Steve turns his back to you as he goes to remove the chair from under the knob, and Eddie takes this small opportunity to move closer to you. He wonders if he’d be going too far if he took your trembling hand in his.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he murmurs. “We’re not gonna let that thing get at you.”

You manage a nod, overwhelmed. Eddie reaches out and pats your arm but pulls back quickly, like he’s afraid to touch you for too long.

Steve calls your name, and you turn to him, distracted.

The chair is back in its place at the table, and he gestures to the now-unprotected door. “Is it crowded in there?”

“Very,” you confirm. The untidy chaos in the garage would normally embarrass you, but given the circumstances, you’re a little beyond caring. “Sorry.”

“That’s fine,” he reassures you. “We’ll try and be really careful about your stuff.”

“But no promises,” Eddie adds, a smile touching his lips for the first time.

You try to smile back, still feeling bizarrely distraught. “Just try not to break my windshield, please.”

He laughs softly. “Sounds like a reasonable enough request.”

“Okay, Munson, you ready?”

“Yeah.” Eddie joins him by the door. There hasn’t been any more noise from the garage since you heard it this morning — you don’t know what that bodes for them.

They brace themselves, weapons raised and at the ready. With a flick of his wrist Steve opens the door, which slowly creaks open. Shoulders hunched, he crosses the threshold, and switches the light on. You watch with bated breath, anticipating the sharp cry to be uttered at any moment.

Nothing happens.

Both Steve and Eddie cautiously enter the garage, watching for any signs of life. Steve starts jabbing at the little nooks and crannies amongst your things, trying to poke it out of hiding.

Eddie crouches down on the ground and peers underneath your car.

“See anything?” you ask hesitantly.

“Not yet,” answers Eddie in a low voice.

Steve peels a dusty tarp off of an old end table, opens up a discarded cabinet. “Come on,” he mutters.

Three agonizing minutes go by as they pick their way through the room, searching under and over and behind every bit of junk, neither boy finding what they’re looking for.

“Maybe it got out,” Steve muses, standing upright, relaxing his grip on the bat, letting it rest casually against his shoulder.

You shift uncertainly, still hovering from your post at the half-open door. “Would that be good or bad?”

“Good for us. Bad for the neighbors,” says Eddie.

Suddenly a streak of dark gray erupts from behind Steve.

You barely have time to yell; Steve, feeling the ripple of wind on the back of his neck, whirls around.

The creature beats its leathery wings and it’s moving up and up until it reaches the ceiling, circling the room, no doubt gauging which angle it should dive at and towards who.

Instinct tells you to slam the door shut, like you did earlier, but then Eddie and Steve will be trapped. Instead you leave the door ajar, crouched in pathetic terror. The boys recover their stances quickly, muscles tensed, ready to swing and jab their respective weapons the moment it comes within in striking distance. Their faces are twin mirrors of fierce determination.

The creature goes for Steve first, swooping down on him; you’re horrified to see its open mouth is full of concentric rows of spiny teeth. You utter a sharp cry, almost unable to look, certain that he’s about to be mauled by this terrible thing.

And the creature is fast.

But Steve is faster.

There’s a horrible sound, a meaty thwack! as the baseball bat smashes into the monster, sending it careening over your parked car like a gnarly fastball. It hits the wall and slides to the floor.

Eddie wastes no time in slamming one heavy boot down on a tattered wing, pinning the dazed thing into place. With one sharp jab, the knife pierces deep into the creature’s belly. He gives the spear a swift jerk, dragging the knife down, and cleaves the body almost completely in two. Its oily flesh is taut, but fragile; the thin skin surrounding the wound peels back, and it splits open like an over-full garbage bag, glistening, red-black insides seeping out onto the hard concrete floor.

Eddie whistles. “Goodnight.”

Gobsmacked by what just unfolded, you tiptoe into the garage. “Is…is it dead?”

“Yup,” says Eddie, nudging the thing with his foot. “This is kind of a small one,” he calls over to Steve.

Steve’s puffing slightly, shoulders heaving with adrenaline. “I noticed that. Probably not doing too hot out here in the real world.”

You gape at them both, eyes flitting between the two boys. Small?

You creep closer to the pulpy mass, getting your first good look at your uninvited guest. If you were right about one thing earlier, it’s that this is certainly no common house bat; it’s gray and rubbery, made of slick naked flesh, with a long twisted tail like braided rope. Its wings are shot through with six spidery limbs, its small head little more than a gaping maw lined with razors. And despite Eddie and Steve’s comments, to you? This thing seems enormous.

Eddie smiles at you proudly. “And just think — we did it all without breaking your windshield.”

Steve grimaces. “Yeah, about that…”

There’s a dent in the passenger-side door of the car. You’re sure if you were to hold Steve’s bat at the right angle against the dinged metal, it would fit in the depression like a glove.

Robin appears seemingly out of nowhere, leaning casually against the doorframe, sliding her phone into the back pocket of her jeans.

“Hey. What’d I miss?”

The cleanup process is quick but dirty. Eddie scrapes up everything he can with a snow shovel of all things, and dumps the carcass unceremoniously into a Hefty bag — the real heavy-duty kind, with the red strings — as it was politely held open by Steve. Meanwhile, you scrub at the blood left behind, but it doesn’t do much. The ominous stain is likely etched into the garage floor forever.

Maybe you can throw a rug over it or something.

Robin yawns as she watches you work. “Can we go get breakfast? I’m starving.”

“I’m down,” says Steve, motioning for you to hand him the scrubber clutched in your hand.

You hand it over, but warn him, “I don’t think this is coming out.” He starts scrubbing anyway.

Eddie pipes up. “Are there any good diners around here?”

You wince. “We just threw an eviscerated monster in the trash. Don’t you need, like, a refractory period to deal with that level of gross?”

He thinks it over for a moment, then smiles and shrugs. “No.”

Laughter bubbles up and spills over your lips uncontrollably. It starts out normal, but then you can’t stop, and then it sort of feels like maybe you’re hyperventilating.

Robin, your soulmate, bless her, is always in tune with your emotions. She reacts quickly, kneeling down beside you on the cold floor, and wraps an arm around you. “Hey,” she says gently. “Relax, just breathe. I know everything you heard and saw today is literally insane, but it’s all okay.”

Robin’s hick hometown. Parallel dimensions. Little girl with superpowers. Monsters. Something about a gate...Monsters. Monsters from said-parallel dimension. Monsters from said-parallel dimension finding their way inside your home. Monsters in your home.

“Jesus,” you gasp in frustration, knuckling stupid tears at the corners of your eyes. “What is this?”

“It’s a lot to take in, is what it is,” says Steve sympathetically. “But that thing’s dead, and you’re safe now, and that’s what matters.”

“The big bad stuff is already finished,” Eddie adds. You didn’t notice, but he’s crouched down right next to you, mirroring Robin’s position on your other side. “Not to mention,” he nudges you playfully, “you’ve got two pretty damn good exterminators on speed dial now, huh?” He places a hand on your shoulder, and you can feel the warm metal of his rings through your shirt.

You manage a weak mile. “True. That was pretty impressive,” you sniffle. His fingers give a reassuring little squeeze, but — again — is quick to let go.

He glances at Robin and Steve. “You know,” he starts in an accusatory tone, “you guys were definitely not this nice to me when I had to find out about all this shit.”

“We were in a time crunch,” Robin says dismissively. “You had to get with the program.”

The hysteria starts to wane; your body slumps a little under the combined weight of Robin and Eddie’s arms. “I changed my mind.”

Robin’s brow furrows. “About what?”

“…I want breakfast now.”

The ride to the diner gives you a chance to mull over the bizarre nature of the morning’s events. You let your head fall back on the seat and close your eyes; a stranger thing has never happened to you.

Part of you wonders why Robin never told you all this but you immediately dismiss the thought. Why would she, unless it was absolutely necessary, like today? In addition to being pretty far-fetched, the whole thing also sounds pretty fucking traumatic.

“What do you guys call those things again?” you mumble, turning to Eddie, who’s sitting next to you in the backseat of Robin’s car.

Eddie’s face turns pink when he hears you address him, though you can’t fathom why. “Uh, demobats.”

“Demobats,” you repeat. “How’d you come up with that?”

Steve pipes up from the passenger seat. “The first monster we saw from the Upside-Down was called a demogorgon. Some nerds named it.”

“Oh,” you say faintly.

“We can talk about something else,” says Robin. She looks at you anxiously in the rearview mirror, suspicious that you’re going to fall apart again.

“I’m fine, Rob. I’ve made my peace with it.” You pause, and amend. “I’m making my peace with it.”

“Oo-kay.” She drags out the first syllable, letting it be known that she doesn’t really believe you.

“Are there very many of these things?”

Steve seems to hesitate before he answers. “We don’t think so. Only a dozen or so managed to slip through the gate before it shut, and we think we got most of ‘em when they were still flapping around Hawkins. We found one that nearly crossed over the border into Ohio — we were keeping an eye on the papers — but other than that, this is the furthest out of town we’ve heard of them going.”

You process this, not really sure what to say. There’s not really much you can say. Instead, you turn your head to the window and watch the world race by through the glass, letting it slide past your eyes in a blur of green and blue.

The diner’s parking lot is mostly empty. Work should have already started for most — only a handful of elderly patrons are inside, sipping coffee at the bar and reading the paper.

The matronly waitress wiping down a table lets you know that the four of you can sit anywhere you like. Robin immediately slides into a booth by the window, well away from the other customers.

Steve takes the seat across from her, hoping you’ll sit on the bench next to him, but you plop down tiredly next to Robin instead. Eddie takes the last open spot, opposite from you.

A hush falls over the group while you peruse the menu. The waitress comes and takes orders; waters all around, coffee, and juice, a blueberry short stack for Robin, French toast for yourself, a breakfast burrito for Steve, and fried eggs and sausage for Eddie, with a bottle of hot sauce, please and thank you.

Polite chatter resumes, and quickly devolves into familiar banter around mouthfuls of food, though you stay quieter than the rest, thoroughly worn out. Steve and Robin’s camaraderie takes up the bulk of the conversation, anyway, both of them firing back and forth at each other with ease. You decide that you like Steve — he’s clearly grown into a genuinely nice guy, different from the high school boy Robin told you he once was, but it seems he’s retained just the perfect amount of bitchiness. It’s easy to see why she’s so fond of him.

You’re content to watch and listen to them with mild amusement (though Steve periodically directs his comments towards you, subtly watching your reaction to what he says) and it seems that Eddie is, too. You can’t tell if he’s used to being their third wheel or if he’s just being shy because there’s a new person around.

Robin and Steve enter a fierce debate about something or other — the prospective music career of someone named Tammy that you vaguely recall being a former crush of Robin's. You face Eddie and ask in a hushed tone, “Are they always like this?”

He swallows a bite of gooey, Tabasco-smothered egg. “Pretty much.”

“I wouldn’t have the energy,” you marvel.

Eddie chuckles. He shifts in his seat, and his leg bumps into yours under the table. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, turning pink again.

“That’s okay.” You study his face, which is angled down towards his plate, decidedly away from your gaze. His eyes are big and dark and warm, like sticky-sweet molasses.

“You have very pretty eyes,” you tell him matter-of-factly, just as there’s a lull in Robin and Steve’s argument. In tandem, both of them turn their heads to stare at you.

Surprise flickers across Eddie’s face when he realizes you’re speaking to him. His face warms to an even deeper red, but he looks pleased; and you’re glad for it.

“Thank you?” It comes out like a question.

“You’re welcome.” You nod and give him a soft smile, which he returns, and for a moment you might as well be the only two people in the room.

Unbeknownst to you, Robin watches the exchange with her head cocked to the side, eyebrows raised in surprise. You return to eating your breakfast, and she casts Steve an apologetic look. Eddie tries to keep his expression neutral, hiding his glee.

You excuse yourself to the restroom. As soon as you’re gone, Robin says, “Sorry, Steve.”

He just sighs in defeat, slumping back against the booth’s cushion. “Whatever.”

Eddie stabs a fork in his direction. “You’re not even over Wheeler yet, anyway. Let me have this.”

Robin’s brow furrows. “You’re still hung up on Nancy? Steve, come on.”

Steve’s mouth drops open. “You’re the one who said we should get back together!” he cries.

Robin’s mouth pulls to the side in mild guilt. “Which was a mistake on my part, I will admit.”

“Just wasn’t meant to be,” Eddie chimes in.

Steve turns his incredulous look to Eddie. “And don’t even get me started on what you told me about her —”

“I’m the last person you should be taking relationship advice from,” he interrupts nonchalantly.

Steve gapes at his so-called friends. Robin plows on.

“I’m sorry, but if you’re not over Nance, I’m not letting you near my girl. She’s not gonna be your rebound; she deserves better than that.”

“Yeah,” concurs Eddie, the word garbled around a forkful of food, “like me.”

Steve drops his head onto the table.

“And stop trying to flirt with her, so I can.”

“Yeah, because you’re doing such a great job at that so far,” says Steve sarcastically, forehead still pressed against the formica.

“I’m gettin’ warmed up! Just give me a second, Christ.”

Steve, though snarky on the outside, is still soft on the inside, and so feels a pang of sympathy — he knows why Eddie’s nervous around girls. One drunken night he, Eddie, and Dustin had been shotgunning cans of shitty beer in the Hendersons’ backyard, and he’d spilled his guts about the abysmal reality of his love life. Not that Steve’s is going much better, obviously. But Eddie had deep-rooted fears that went beyond Steve’s understanding, insecurities that harkened back to his childhood and twisted into trickier and trickier knots the older he got.

Eddie has his reasons to be nervous.

“Alright,” says Steve, finally yanking his head back up off the table. “I give, she’s all yours. But I’m gonna remind you — and don’t take this the wrong way — that all she’s done so far is give you a single compliment. Don’t get carried away.”

“Too late,” Eddie replies dreamily. “I’m already planning my proposal.”

Robin starts laughing, just as you approach the table again.

“What’s so funny?”

“Boys,” she replies without hesitation. She takes another sip of coffee. “I’m so glad I’m gay.”

You finish the rest of your breakfast. When the waitress offers to bring the checks around, you’re quick to foot the bill.

“Please, it’s the least I can do,” you say among the chorus of protests. “I don’t know what I would have done if you guys hadn’t shown up.”

“Ended up in the Weekly World News,” Eddie teases.

“What a high honor that would have been.” You roll your eyes. “I think I’ll pass.”

Steve drives everyone back to the house, and a wave of sadness washes over you as you all pile into the kitchen once more. The prospect of the boys’ departure fills you with a strange kind of emptiness; it hits you that you really don’t want them to leave. You’re already feeling attached.

You suppose being rescued from a monster is just one of those things that brings people closer together, like a family barbecue, or making a blood oath.

And truth be told, you feel slightly…uneasy. Discombobulated. Though the events of the morning are still fresh in your mind, the steps of your daily routine are drifting hazily back to you through the fog of shock. Normally at this hour, you’d be plugging away at work. You have an explanatory email to write to your boss for missing today, and you imagine Robin will be submitting something similar. A nine-to-five job, running errands, going to happy hour — they all seem so trivial. How are you supposed to go back to all those things as though nothing out of the ordinary happened? Knowing that your best friend used the free time she had between finishing high school and working retail to help save the world from monsters and government conspiracies and God only knows what other crazy shit?

It’s all too surreal. You grip the edge of the kitchen table with one hand, steadying yourself. Easy girl.

You glance around, then choose to settle your gaze on Eddie, soothed by all his dark, warm colors.

Steve checks his watch, sighing. “We should probably head back. I got the afternoon shift today.”

Robin shakes her head in disbelief. “I cannot believe that Family Video is still fucking open.”

Steve ignores this and immediately turns to you instead. “To clarify, I have a real job, too — I was part-time at my company, and now I’m transitioning to full-time.” He’s needlessly defensive. “Managing the video store’s been a nice side gig, but I swear I’m retiring.”

You blink. “You don’t have to defend Family Video to me, Steve. It’s a very respectable establishment.”

“Yeah,” agrees Eddie, “Fuck the government, you’re the real backbone of our society.”

“Fuck off, Munson.”

“Well, this has been a grand old time,” Robin interrupts their bickering, yawning and stretching her arms dramatically. “But I think I need to go home. Smooth things over with the wife before she starts panicking again.” As though suddenly remembering your earlier distress, she turns to you, frowning. “Do you need me to stay with you?”

Not wanting to burden your friend who is being oh-so-chill about the science-fiction film that is literally her life, you immediately lie. “No, I’m okay.”

Her bright blue eyes narrow, not believing you. “I’ll stay,” she says decidedly.

“No, Rob, I think I’m just gonna go to sleep, honestly.” You are tired. Your bones feel weary; you want nothing more than to collapse back into bed and slip into unconsciousness again. “You go ahead and go home.”

You shift your attention towards Steve and Eddie, who are both hanging quietly by the door.

“Again, I can’t thank you guys enough. Really,” you tell them again, stepping forward with arms outstretched. It doesn’t matter that you just met; you need a proper goodbye from both of them. Right away Steve obliges, and wraps his arms around you, patting your back gently before stepping away again.

Eddie hesitates, looking bashful when you turn to him next, and you lower your arms in embarrassment. You don’t want to make him feel like he has to hug you if he doesn’t want to. But before you can feel too stung about it, he steps forward and embraces you tightly.

It’s oddly intimate — his arms are low, circled around your waist, and his cheek presses against your hair. He sighs, a soft exhale that you can’t see or hear but rather, you feel. The creeping sense of loss grows stronger when he releases you again.

“See you soon, I hope.” Steve gives you a final wave, when he’s halfway out of the house. “We should all get together sometime. Y’know, on non-monster related business,” he jokes.

“For sure,” you promise, fluttering your fingers back at him.

“And if you ever need anything,” Eddie’s low voice is suddenly close to your ear, “just let me — us — know. We’ll be here before you know it.”

You let out a small, shuddery breath. “Thank you,” you whisper gratefully, touched by his attentiveness. Eddie seems to be the only other person who understands the gravity of what you’ve seen. Robin and Steve have been in the game too long, perhaps, and although they’re understanding, the remarkability of their Upside Down has worn off.

Eddie, however, doesn’t appear to have achieved quite the same level of nonchalance that they have, and when he looks at you, his concern is tangible. It’s etched in the set of his frown, practically staring out at you from those big eyes of his. Those big, pretty eyes.

“See you around,” he says softly.

And with that, he’s gone.

thank you for reading!!! 🦇💙

taglist: @kores-mun-son-n-more

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson reader insert #eddie x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson series #god i hope this pacing is okay? this is the longest fic I’ve ever written #can’t tell if I’ve jammed too much in here or not enough 🤷🏻‍♀️

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thefreakandthehair · 7 months

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@eddiemonth prompt, oct 12th: Soulmates | Eight - Sleeping at Last | Perceptive a/n: steddie, soulmates au (phillia + eros). eddie & jeff as platonic soulmates, stobin soulmates mentioned always. un-betaed because I’m challenging myself to write these in under an hour. read on ao3 | link to masterpost on ao3

Soulmates, Eddie scoffs to himself as he doodles in his notebook at the back of the coffee shop. Bullshit.

He knows it’s actually not, that people walk around every day hand-in-hand with beautiful, swirling tattoos that grow in intricacy and detail the more time they spend with their soulmate. Most days, Eddie doesn’t mind that the simple snake design on the inside of his wrist never so much as slithers, but today? Today, he minds.

Dating in the world of soulmates is challenging. He tries to just focus on how feels, on if the person sitting across from him is compatible with his lifestyle, on if there’s any kind of spark, but it’s inevitable that at some point, both he and his date look down at their wrists to find nothing.

His coffee date had gone well enough but, like always, was a dead-end. How many paths can one person try before the destination seems moot?

So he sits and scribbles in his notebook, hoping that perhaps staying in the coffee shop rather than returning home to the apartment he shares with Jeff will provide some inspiration. That tattoo, the one that’d started as a small star on his ankle, has grown into a whirling galaxy since moving in with Jeff– a philia connection if he’s ever seen one. But if his eros tattoo won’t build upon itself naturally, he’ll do it manually with a tattoo gun.

It also helps that the barista is perhaps the most beautiful man Eddie’s ever laid eyes on, enough so that it’s… actually a little intimidating, if he’s being honest with himself. Intimidating to the point that Eddie’s yet to approach him for a refill since the girl who’d given him his first sugary abomination finished her shift. Besides, the mystery barista must’ve already found his soulmate. His entire left arm, from fingertip to at least his elbow, is covered in delicate, colorful designs that twist and wind about his skin, curling around each finger and looping gracefully up his arm.

I can still enjoy the view, he justifies to himself, taking a sip from his cup and remembering for the third time that it’s empty.

He sighs and sets it back down, clearing his throat. It’s as good a time as any, he supposes, as he stands from his little corner table by the window and strolls across the room to the counter.

“Hi, what can I get started for ya?” The barista asks, his name tag now visible and proclaiming Steve.

“Uh,” he starts. “Salted caramel mocha, please?”

Steve’s smile is bright and he leans on the counter, leveling it straight in Eddie’s direction. All Eddie wanted was a refill on his sweet treat disguised as coffee and instead, it feels as though he’s smacked in the head.

“Comin’ right up,” Steve replies, turning around to get his order going. “You’ve been sitting over there for a while, how’d that date go?” He asks with the confidence and familiarity of someone Eddie’s known his entire life.

“Watching me, were you?”

Steve grins over his shoulder, shrugging. “A little.”

“I’m flattered. Well, I’m still here and they’re not so that oughta tell you everything.”

Steve hums and turns back to the machine, finishing up his order. Eddie’s heart beats rhythmically, somehow slowing and quickening all at once and his lungs feel buoyed by something more powerful than his breath. When Steve faces him again and hands him his cup, exchanging it for the empty one in Eddie’s hand, they both freeze.

Eddie’s snake begins to move.

A clear, serpentine movement at the center as small, geometric lines begin to appear in the background.

“Holy shit,” Eddie whispers, setting his full cup down so he doesn’t spill it.

“Yeah, holy shit.” Steve places his other arm on the counter, the blank one, and Eddie sees that it’s not blank. There’s a small, barebones tree on his forearm whose leaves begin to blossom and shake, different shades of greens and oranges appearing before his eyes.

“But– your other arm?” Eddie chokes out, eyes flickering between his own wrist, Steve’s forearm, and Steve’s other, fuller arm.

“Philia. That’s Robin. But this one, this is eros.” Steve smiles again, matching the one Eddie can feel spreading across his own face as he looks up from his forearm. “I’m Steve.”

Steve smiles again, matching the one Eddie can feel spreading across his own face as he looks up from his forearm. Eddie looks in wonderment, searching for any sign of lie or trickery in Steve’s eyes and finds nothing but warmth and familiarity.

“I’m Eddie.”

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eds6ngel · 8 months

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I'll read anything you write for the teacher au. But yeah I need to know how their first date was and how Alena reacts to it <333 They just deserve to be happy :')

thank you so much nonnie! and they do :)) i hope you enjoy ♡

warnings: dad!steve. singledad!steve. 90s!au. fem!reader. mention of cleavage. swearing. food mentions. alcohol mentions. very fluffy. pet names. mutual pining. platonic stobin being my favourite duo in the world. rovickie being cute as always. alena being the biggest shipper on planet earth. it's just super cute and fluffy really! [2.8k].

full 'when i kissed the teacher' masterlist.

If Steve was being honest with himself, he was scared shitless to go on a date with you.

He tried every possible way to come up with some crappy excuse to say he was busy, but Robin and Vickie egged him on to their heart’s content.

So, that’s where he was now. Robin and Vickie had picked up Alena just over an hour ago, huge purple backpack disproportionally sitting on her body, the seven-year-old toddling out the door with the couple to spend the night at theirs, Steve’s date with you ending past her bedtime.

He felt like he checked himself in the mirror over one hundred times, or maybe he did, he’d lost track at that point.

And once he arrived at your doorstep, he spent five minutes arranging every hair on his head in the rear view mirror, mumbling to himself, “Goddamn Farrah Fawcett, why aren’t you working?”

And from the other side of the door, you were just as nervous as him. Styled in a long, sequin-covered, dark blue dress that reached the floor, hair done up in a loose bun, you almost felt that you were overdressed.

But, with Steve taking you to Enzo’s, a very posh restaurant on the outskirts of Hawkins, you felt you had to look the part.

And thank God you did, because when you opened your front door to him, he was wearing a full-blown suit. White shirt, black tie, black blazer and trousers, he was the smartest you’d ever seen him.

“Jesus…” he mutters to himself, taking in how beautiful you looked. He thought you looked pretty in your modest, child-friendly uniform, but the dress you were wearing? The gorgeous slit up the leg and the v-neck that showed just the perfect about of cleavage? It was enough to make him fall head over heels in love.

You smile at him, replying with a giggle, “Hello to you too, handsome.”

“Shit, um… Yeah, you just… God, you look beautiful. Like… so beautiful.”

You place your hand to your chest, beaming back, “Thank you!” And that’s when he noticed your nails. The overall colour was a gorgeous cream, but the tips matched up perfectly with the colour of your dress. You had been planning this out all week.

“Um… shall we get going? Reservations at 7:30,” he asks.

You hum, “We shall. How far is Enzo’s?”

“Around thirty minutes. You good with that?”

He helps you into the car, making sure your dress doesn’t get caught or tangled, you replying, “I’m good with anything, Steve.”

The drive there had Steve panicking like crazy. Did he put his hand on your thigh? Or was that too soon? Maybe it was too soon. Hold your hand? No, both hands on the steering wheel, he doesn’t want to crash.

And if he wasn’t overthinking that enough, the choice of restaurant was freaking him out even more. Was it too formal? Did you want something more simplistic? Was it too much for a first date?

But, there was no time to worry as he turns left into the parking lot of the restaurant. After being a gentleman, taking your hand and helping you out of his car, you don’t seem to let go, letting your fingers interlace with his. His hands match the softness of when your lips first touched his, delicate and gentle.

“Hi. Um, two for Harrington?”

The waiting staff smiles, directly the two of them to a small, dainty table; covered with a red cloth decorated with golden flowers; in the back corner of the restaurant.

Steve pulls out your chair, you quickly thanking him as he sits opposite you, careful not to waste the woman’s time.

She lays the two menus on the table in front of you, “Here are your menus. Feel free to look at our wine list for the evening. Someone will be over in five to take your orders.”

You both thank her as you open the menus, Steve looking utterly confused at the very well described options.

“Okay, what the hell is an Ore— Orecchiette ai Cime di Rapa? Or a… Vermicelli Alla Puttane— Puttanesca?”

You giggle at him, “Pasta dishes, Steve. I can help you out if you want? I’m pretty accustomed to Italian names.”

He looks up at you in shock, “You speak Italian?”

You shake your head, sighing out, “I wish. I’ve been to Italy before though. So, I’ve done my research into the Italian names for pastas.”

He breathes out, smiling away, moving his hair out of his face with his hand, “I mean… I was thinking if you did, then…” He whistles, making you flirt back, “Better start taking some Italian language courses then.”

Before Steve gets the chance to reply, the waiter returns asking for your drinks. You tell her the fancy name of some simple red wine, Steve ordering the same, even if it wasn’t his drink of choice. He was trying to make you feel as comfortable as possible.

After explaining the different types of pastas they had on offer, he ends up ordering the Tagliatelle al Ragú Alla Bolognese, noticing the key words of foods he likes. You order the Pesto alla Genovese, deciding to add in some well-needed greens into your diet. It was very apparent that you and your roommate Amy had not been the healthiest as of late.

Once the waiter leaves, you lean your head on your hand, laughing to yourself as you ask, “God, this sounds so stupid… But, tell me about yourself, Steve. I mean, I sort of only know you as Alena’s dad, I would like to know about you as a whole.”

“Of course, yeah…” he pauses for a second, trying to make himself sound as interesting as possible. He doesn’t want to steer you away. But, what he doesn’t know is nothing could ever steer you away.

“I grew up here in Hawkins, went to Hawkins High and everything. Worked at an ice cream store and met my best friend Robin there, and then we moved onto working at a video rental store because the mall we worked at burnt down. Stayed there for a couple years until Alena was around two years old. Well, more than a couple… more like seven years,” he chuckles, “Then I moved onto being a bagger at Target, and have been ever since.” He smiles, before shrugging, “I know, I’m a pretty boring person with a pretty crappy job, but I am what I am.”

You reach out to rub your thumbs over the top of his hand, calming the boy, although he wasn’t presenting it on the outside. “I think you’re super interesting, Steve.”

He can’t help but let the smile creep onto his face, “Thank you. I’m sure your life is a lot more interesting that mine though.”

You wave your hand, brushing off his smooth compliment, “Oh please, you wish! Well, I grew up in Missouri, so not super far from here. Had a pretty average childhood, doing average childhood things. But, somehow, on a complete whim mind you, I got onto the education program at Perdue University. Still don’t know to this day how I did that, but nonetheless,” you smile, “Got my college degree and then worked at Hawkins Elementary. And, well… you know the rest of the story.”

He raises his eyebrows at you, “You wish, my ass. That is so much more interesting than mine!”

You open your mouth up in fake shock, “I guarantee you it is not! I’d rather work at Target than be studying 24/7.”

He snorts, “I’d rather do none.”

“Makes the two of us. I’m guessing you’re not much of an academic then?”

The mention of his academics bring back memories he forgot he even had stored in his brain. “You think an academic guy would be working as a bagger at Target?”

You hold your hands up in detest, “Hey, I’m not one to judge! It could’ve been your personal choice!”

“Definitely not.”

The rest of the date went amazingly well. A little too well for your liking. You were waiting for Steve to hate the way you eat, or for you to spill wine down your dress, or trip up on the way out of the restaurant. But, none of that happened. It went perfectly.

Your conversation points varied from favourite childhood memories, to favourite movies (which you judged immensely), to life goals and everything in between. And with each answer Steve gave, you fell more and more in love with him, as did he with you.

The car stops in front of your apartment block, Steve already getting out of the driver’s side and running around to your door, taking your hand and walking you up to the main entrance.

“I— Um, I had fun tonight,” he nervously says, looking down at his feet scuffing along the floor.

“I did too,” you smile, a small blush forming on your face as you grab his right hand, “And I was wondering if you’d like to go out again sometime.”

“Sure,” he blurts out a little too eagerly for his liking, “I’m pretty much free any night of the week. Just need to check with a friend if they can have Alena for the night first.”

“Of course,” you say, “Um… Do you have a pen or anything? I could write down my number and then you can let me know if whatever day we choose is fine? I was thinking maybe Wednesday? We can plan out the details on the phone.”

“Yeah, I do… At least I think. One second,” he pauses, sprinting back down the steps and to his car, leaning through the open window, you giggling at his rushed manner, obviously not wanting to leave you standing there alone for too long.

He returns, holding up a pen and smiling brightly, “Got it! Just, uh…” he pulls up the sleeve of his blazer, “Write it on my forearm.”

“Are you sure? Ink poisoning can be a dangerous thing.” Jesus, you were the cutest.

He brushes it off, “I’ll be fine. And if I do, I’ll happily let you nurse me back to health.”

With a messy scribble of numbers written in blue on the inside of his arm, a part of you was now etched into his skin. It felt like a connection, even if it would trickle right off in the shower he has later tonight.

“There you go!” you smile, clicking the pen off and passing it back to him. Biting your lip, you place a tender kiss to his left cheek, making the poor boy turn bright red. “Thank you for tonight, Steve. I’ll potentially see you Wednesday?”

“Yeah…” he breathes out, “Wednesday.”

And before he knows it, he’s left standing outside your apartment block with a blue pen loosely held in his hand, you leaving him to enter your home.

It was safe to say that you were not leaving his mind anytime soon.

With three raps at the door, it swung open, Alena grinning at him, bouncing on her toes as Robin and Vickie stand tall above her.

“Daddy!” she beams, body-slamming herself into his leg with full force, looking up to him with bright eyes, “How was the date?”

He couldn’t help but tell his daughter the minute he got home from the grocery store earlier that week about his date with you. Let’s just say that he had a very happy child zooming around his house for the next five hours, slightly regretting sharing the news when it took her an extra two hours to fall asleep.

“It went well, pumpkin! Miss. L/N was super nice. She’s a very lovely woman.”

It felt strange calling you by your last name, but he felt you should be the one to share that information with Alena, not sure how quickly you wanted to move past the barrier of being her former teacher.

“Yay!” she bounces, shaking his leg all over the place, him ruffling her hair to calm her down.

“So, did you two kiss?” Robin asks, wiggling her eyebrows at her best friend with a smirk plastered on her face.

“Ew, gross Robin!” he grimaces.

“What?” she defends herself, “You’ve already kissed before! It’s not like I’m way off the mark with that or anything.”

He shakes his head, pinching the bridge between his brows, “No, Robin. She kissed my cheek, that’s it. You happy?”

She scrunches up her face, before blinking rapidly and shaking her head, “You straights are so weird. I kissed Vickie on the first date and we had our own apartment three months later.”

“That’s because you lesbians move exponentially fast!”

“Hey!” Vickie butts in, “I’m bisexual.”

“Fine,” Steve scoffs, the couple knowing that he was only joking with them, “You women… who love other women move exponentially fast!”

“I would just say the straights move exponentially slow…” Robin mumbles, scratching the back of her neck.

Steve shakes his head, “Anyway, we are planning another date next week, so I was wondering—”

“Yes,” both girls say in sync.

“You didn’t even know what I was gonna ask,” Steve asks with a look of confusion on his face.

“Yes, we can look after Alena,” Robin playfully rolls her eyes.

“There’s a second date?” Alena beams.

Steve chuckles, ruffling his daughter’s hair once again, “Yes, pumpkin. There’s a second date.”

“Yes!” she exclaims, clenching her fists together and jumping up and down. “I wanna know about this date, and the next date, and all the dates ever!”

“Of course sweetpea, I’ll tell you during the car ride home, okay?”

She simply giggles, squeezing her eyes tight and showing off all of her teeth, or at least the ones that were there. Her front two were currently missing, her reaching the age where her baby teeth had started to fall out, mysterious dollar notes appearing underneath her pillow every few weeks.

“Besides, I was going to ask because I thought Vickie had that work meeting next Wednesday?” Steve queries.

But, Vickie instantly brushes it off, “Yeah, but Robin can handle her for a few hours on her own, can’t you babe?”

“Of course my love, this little cupcake is the easiest to look after, unlike her father,” she looks up at Steve with a deadpan expression, him sticking his tongue out right back at her, the most age-appropriate gesture he could think of with his seven-year-old attached to his leg. “We’ve got her for the afternoon, overnight, two days, a whole month, however long you need.”

Steve replicates her deadpan expression as she shrugs, “What? If it took you two five years to suck each other’s faces off, I will raise your daughter for the rest of her childhood.”

“Robin!” he shouts at her, signalling down to his little girl, warning her of her more mature use of language.

“Sorry,” she holds her hands up, pursing her lips.

“What my beautiful wife is meaning to say is we will happily have your daughter over whenever you have a date with your girl,” Vickie steps in, taking a more adult approach, Robin’s immaturity still shining through after all these years.

“Thanks Vic,” he smiles, hoisting his daughter up onto his hip with an overexaggerated grunt, pretending she is much heavier than she is, making her giggle, “Right, I better get this toothache home, I’ll see you guys on Wednesday!” He begins to turn around, before looking back and pointing to Vickie, “And good luck with that meeting!”

“Thanks Steve! See you on Wednesday!” she waves at him, Robin smirking and yelling at the top of her lungs, “Bye dingus!”

He shakes his head as he opens the car door, placing Alena down in her car-seat as he makes his way around to the driver’s side. He barely makes it two inches off of Robin and Vickie’s driveway before Alena shouts, “Tell me everything!”

“All right, all right,” he replies, trying not to get too scared by his daughter’s outburst, “Let me get onto the road first and then I’ll give you every last detail, okay?”

“Okay!” she giggles, kicking her feet.

And not only did the questions last the car ride home, but they continued for the rest of the day. Alena wanted to know absolutely everything that went down, from the minute he saw you to the minute he bid farewell. But, he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it. It was you after all, and even if it was to his seven-year-old daughter, he would talk about you for the rest of his life.

hope you enjoyed!! ♡

taglist: @livsters @bakugouswh0r3 @nix-rose @ihatepeanutss @cats00089 @suitelif3 @clincallyonline17 @crowssixof @starkeylover @eris-rose-86 let me know in the comments if you want to be added/removed from the series spinoffs!

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fic #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington comfort #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington one shot #steve harrington oneshot #steve harrington drabble #dad!steve harrington #singledad!steve harrington #stranger things #eds6ngel

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shares-a-vest · 3 months

Text

He's Gonna Save Me, Call Me 'Baby'

wc: 1.1k | Rated: T for alcohol consumption (not excessive) | cw: post-breakup, angst with a hopeful ending

Tags: Future Fic (mid-90s), Post Stancy Breakup, Steve Harrington Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Platonic Stobin, Jeff (Stranger Things), Eddie Munson, Corroded Coffin, Implied Future Steddie (only bc the end is a little vague)

Written for the @strangerthingswritersguild Hozier Project. I chose the song, 'Jackie and Wilson'. Thank you soooo much to @subbaculture for setting up this event and making the banner!

(Read on ao3)

“Look alive, Dingus.”

Robin turns around to Steve and pats him square in the chest. He perks up, even though his best friend turns straight back to the entryway of The Hideout to wave at Jeff. He thinks it would be easier if Robin’s head were on a literal swivel with the way she has been whipping back and forth for the past hour.

Steve grumbles into his beer, pushing through the burn in his throat that still lingers years later as he laments the lack of Eddie following behind his bandmate.

He knows they had arrived too early for Corroded Coffin’s show, but Robin’s summer break from teaching came just in time – sue him for needing to spend every possible moment with his best friend.

Though he’d decided as soon as Robin announced her return to Hawkins that he wouldn’t mention the flowers he ripped up in haste in the back garden last week.

He’d done so straight after arriving home from the real estate agent, head hung in shame as he fully accepted yet another hard thunk on the head courtesy of Nancy Wheeler.

Well, it wasn’t so much a thunk this time as it was what Steve might consider, ‘divine intervention’.

He was in the backyard, tending to his small and still very much intact flower garden when a piece of guttering fell clean from the house, smashing through the window of the spare bedroom Nancy was using as her office – a room they’d falsely promised each other would be used for an entirely different reason.

But, much like his childhood home (which endured a mighty crack right through that cursed goddamn pool during Spring Break of ‘86), Steve found himself existing in a not-so-perfect house. One that grew increasingly cold as years of Upside Down dust and fog and smoke cooled Hawkins’s atmosphere.

A house that, with a broken and rusted gutter pipe, decided to remind them that shouldn’t – couldn’t – be playing house.

That’s all it really was: a pretend white picket fence dream that isn’t what Steve had meant by his vision of vacationing with a brood of Harringtons, Nancy by his side.

A dream that Nancy never wanted and got dragged into until her office window smashed in.

A dream that Steve thought was dead and buried the day Nancy rightfully picked through shards of glass for her things and left.

Buried until Eddie called him, saying that he had been talking to Robin (because of course, they kept tabs on him). He said the band would be back in town and that Steve and Robin should meet them.

And so, with a few beers warming his belly, burning his throat and sending a prickling sensation up his scar-covered sides, Steve found that nagging hope bubble up again.

He shakes his head, scoffing at his hopeless self as the sound of rhythm and blues music over the bar’s jukebox almost drowns out Jeff’s and Robin’s chattering.

Maybe he should be talking himself out of it. Finally acknowledging that years-old fleeting something between him and Eddie.

But he wants it.

And Lord knows he acts on a mere fleeting feeling.

Maybe history won’t repeat itself this time. Maybe the rusted gutter was one last divine thunk.

Maybe it won’t just be a first date. Or meaningless sex. Or bullshit.

He should have known that love with Nancy – a love long sucked down his old pool drain along with Barb Holland’s life – couldn’t prosper in the aftermath of an almost apocalypse.

They thought they were supposed to try, is the thing.

Staying in Hawkins. Keeping things at bay. Watching. Perhaps waiting for it all to come back.

But then it didn’t.

It all just lingered.

And they were left to pick up the pieces.

Right mistakes.

Move on.

They just didn’t need to do it together.

Steve pivots on his barstool, leaning an elbow on the bar top to get a better (hopefully seemingly more casual) view of the entryway.

He has seen Eddie over the years. Every Christmas at the Hendersons, sporadic visits home, a phone call here and there. The band hadn’t exactly made it big – at all, really. But they made enough to move around. Tour. Always returning to The Hideout for a one-off Tuesday Night gig as if nothing changed.

Steve looks around, thinking there might be three more drunks than the last show –

And there he is.

Eddie enters the bar with Gareth and George in tow and Steve swears a summer breeze flows in with him.

He looks good. Leather-clad as always. Pants impossibly tight. Jacket chains jangling. His hair still a river of wild curls.

But Steve sinks back on his seat as the trio makes a beeline for the stage, Eddie’s bright eyes turning into a dark frown as he orders the boys about, barely carrying a thing himself.

He probably had some theatrical excuse about his outfit, punctuated by manic hand gestures and a pout or two.

Steve watches as they dump their equipment by the one-step platform, each maneuver creating cacophonous thuds that reverberate through the bar. Jeff grimaces at the sight before shooting an apologetic glance at the manager and barkeep. The boys always did saddle him with sweet-talking the staff.

“Someone’s eager,” Robin teases, catching Steve’s smirk.

Jeff quirks a brow and stifles a smile.

“Shut up,” Steve chuckles into his glass before he downs the last of his beer.

“Eddie is really excited to see you, man,” Jeff nods, offering a nonchalant shrug just as Eddie begins making his way towards them.

Steve’s heart quickens.

There’s that something.

A something that is reflected in the glint in Eddie’s eyes as he smiles wide and waves.

Steve wiggles his fingers in greeting, shaking his head at himself almost instantly causing a lock of his hair to flop out of place.

George not-at-all subtly drags Gareth in Jeff’s direction.

“Over here, Gare,” Robin commands loudly through gritted teeth.

“Hey, Steve,” Eddie says, his voice low as he steps forward to stand just close enough that yeah, Steve decides to roll with that hope again.

He reaches up to comb a hand through his hair but Eddie gets there first.

“Sucks about Wheeler, babydoll,” Eddie continues, allowing his fingers to scrape his scalp, carefully looking him over as he does so.

Eddie always is too much.

Everything.

A lot. All at once.

Seeing him.

Steve hums and Eddie soon stops, an embarrassed set of dimples dotting his cheeks as he likely thinks better of it given their current location.

“It was... all a mistake,” Steve admits, taking Eddie’s retreating hand.

He intertwines ring-adorned fingers with his own, refusing to let go of the hope tethering them, ready to start again.

#okay so this one is really different for me and... idk how i feel about it tbh 😅#steve harrington #steve harrington angst #stancy #steddie #stranger things #lily writes a fic #stwg #steve harrington fanfic #stwghozierproject #tw alcohol

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steddieholidaydrabbles · 5 months

Text

Week 1 Masterlist

Week one is done and you guys have been doing an incredible job! Whether you pre-wrote and scheduled posts or have been writing every single day, you deserve a hug and forehead kiss!

Please check below for the full masterlist of week one. Check the tags on them (especially for Came Back Wrong day, that was a heck of a round of submissions) and don't forget to support writers and artists by reblogging their work!

DAY 1 - OPEN MIC NIGHT

a bit of tear inducing nerd music by @lingeringmirth | Rated G | no cw | tags: modern au, fluff, lotr references, steve harrington can sing, smitten!eddie munson, nerd!steve harrington

your heart sings to mine by @steddieas-shegoes | Rated M | cw: alcohol, implied/referenced recreational drug use | tags: mutual pining, idiots to lovers, love confessions in the rain

You Say Bark, I Say Bite by @thisapplepielife | Rated T | cw: language, smoking | tags: pre-s4, pre-steddie, platonic stobin, corroden coffin

checking it twice by @cranberrymoons | Rated T | no cw | tags: coffee shop au, modern setting, established relationship

Untitled by @redlegumes | Rated T | no cw | tags: open mic, karaoke, queer bar, holiday season, Christmas

A song for the night by @atimeofyourlife | Rated T | no cw | tags: pre-steddie

I want you to want me by @sidekick-hero | Rated T | no cw | tags: exes, open but hopeful ending

open mic by @yellowsweater-bluevest (art)

DAY 2 - CAME BACK WRONG

beautiful in all its wrongness by @lingeringmirth | Rated G | cw: kas!eddie, angst, self-sacrificing steve | tags: one-sided crush (or is it?)

hide away by steddieas-shegoes | Rated M | cw: mentions of blood, canon-typical violence | tags: vampire eddie munson, emotional reunion, soul bond

sometimes dead is better by @thisapplepielife | Rated M | cw: canon death, monster!eddie, body horror | tags: horror, hurt/no comfort, dark, pet sematary vibes, dead dove:do no eat, post-s4, steve pov

Untitled by @redlegumes | Rated T | no cw | tags: steve harrington has bad parents, found family, christmas cards, holiday cards, return to sender

In the ruins by @just-my-latest-hyperfixation | Rated M | cw: apocalypse, off-screen character death, imprisonment, body horror, blood and gore, hurt/no comfort, starvation, vampirism | tags: darkfic, came back wrong, vecna won, unreliable narrator

Break it first by just-my-latest-hyperfixation with art by @house-of-the-moving-image | Rated M | cw: mind-control, brainwashing, possessive behavior, referenced character death, aftermath of trauma, aftermath of injury, kidnapping | tags: kas!eddie munson, dark eddie munson

a small surprise by @atimeofyourlife | Rated T | cw: steve has bad parents, diet culture | tags: de-aged steve harrington

peppermint chocolate by @cranberrymoons | Rated M | no cw | tags: vampire eddie, morning fluff, established relationship

disoriented and afraid by @lingeringmirth | Rated T | cw: major character death, vampire eddie, dark, dead dove: do not eat | tags: post-s4

ruins of a future once held sure by @lingeringmirth | Rated G | cw: major injury | tags: hurt eddie munson, angst, grief, injury recovery, hopeful ending, pre-steddie, post-vecna

let the impulse to love and the instinct to kill entangle to one by @sidekick-hero | Rated T | no cw | tags: fluff, first kiss, kas!eddie

his lips still blue by @klausinamarink | Rated T | cw: hypothermia, supposed character death | tags: established relationship, supernatural/horror vibes

DAY 3 - MUTUAL PINING

Pining for the Fjords by @lingeringmirth | Rated T | no cw | tags: matchmaker robin, monty python references, getting together, kissing, bisexual steve harrington, eddie munson lives

if you call me back by steddieas-shegoes | Rated T | cw: angst with a happy ending, mention of being drunk | tags: mutual pining, long distance friends, friends to lovers

Loving from afar by @atimeofyourlife | Rated G | no cw | tags: mutual pining, pre-steddie

Obviously by @thisapplepielife | Rated T | cw: brief period-typical internalized homophobia | tags: dual pov, post-season 4, idiots in love, just make a move already, platonic stobin, eddie and gareth are best friends

Take my hand (we'll make it, i swear) by @just-my-latest-hyperfixation with art by @house-of-the-moving-image | Rated G | cw: steve getting vecna'd, some violent imagery | tags: idiots in love, fluff and angst

speak a little louder by @cranberrymoons | Rated T | no cw | tags: fluff, flirting, nerds in a basement

Stolen Pine by @redlegumes | Rated E | no cw | tags: idiots in love, pining, christmas tree without glasses, light theft

DAY 4 - MEET CUTE AT WORK

stumbling into you by steddieas-shegoes | Rated M | cw: sexual innuendo, semi-public handsy making out | tags: making out, getting together, rock star eddie munson, modern au

Art by @house-of-the-moving-image

Punch me out by @just-my-latest-hyperfixation | Rated E | cw: Blowjobs, dirty talk, slight degradation kink | tags: no UD au, company christmas party, bathroom sex

Get a Grip on Yourself, Munson by @lingeringmirth | Rated T | no cw | tags: transfem stevie harrington, trasnmasc eddie munson, dad eddie munson, everyone's bi, fluff, flirting

Baby, You Can Drive My Car by @thisapplepielife | Rated T | cw: weed, language | tags: mechanic!eddie, business guy!steve, fluffy meet cute

Cats know best by @atimeofyourlife | Rated G | cw: mention of animal injury and amputation | tags: pre-steddie

hey sweetheart by @cranberrymoons | Rated E | no cw | tags: modern au, line cook eddie, waiter steve, hooking up

There can only be one Santa driving a DeLorean by @redlegumes | Rated T | no cw | tags: mechanic au, matching sweaters, bad flirting

Love Over Box Labels by @klausinamarink | Rated G | no cw | tags: modern au, no Upside Down, the romanticisms of working at warehouses

DAY 5 - FREE SPACE (DOMESTIC FLUFF)

never take it for granted, this domestic bliss by @lingeringmirth | Rated G | no cw | tags: domestic fluff, singing, baking

won't ever learn by steddieas-shegoes | Rated T | no cw | tags: tooth-rotting fluff, established relationship, steddie dads

The biggest, brightest, gaudiest display in all of Indiana by @just-my-latest-hyperfixation | Rated G | cw: one slight mention of PTSD | tags: Post-Vecna, everybody lives, pining, steve harrington has a crush on eddie munson, christmas

A Solid Plan by @thisapplepielife | Rated E | cw: sexual content | tags: established relationship, teamwork makes the dream work, if you build it: he will come, idiots in love, silly sex mishaps, first apartment, flat pack furniture

the scrooge who stole christmas by @cranberrymoons | Rated T | no cw

Breakfast in bed by @atimeofyourlife | Rated G | no cw | tags: established relationship, fluff

DAY 6 - COOKING TOGETHER

powdered sugar nose by steddieas-shegoes | Rated M | cw: food as a way to flirt, allusions to sex, fade to black sex | tags: established relationship, fluff, subtle praise kink

Art by @house-of-the-moving-image

Hungry for you by @just-my-latest-hyperfixation | Rated M | cw: sexually explicit language | tags: No UD AU, modern au, record shop owner!eddie, restaurant owner!steve, sexual tension, top steve, bottom eddie

Mixing it up (Moving us on) by @katyawriteswhump | Rated T | cw: alcohol and drug use, implied chronic pain/illness, angst | tags: fluff

Catch Fire by @thisapplepielife | Rated M | no cw | tags: established relationship, idiots in love, first home, cooking mishaps

Life lesson: Never share a kitchen. by @atimeofyourlife | Rated T | cw: angst, ambiguous ending

have a cup(cake) of cheer by @cranberrymoons | Rated T | no cw | tags: future fic, rockstar eddie, teacher steve, evil pta moms

Tradition by @maxinemaxmayfield | Rated T | no cw | tags: first kiss, post-s4, getting together, friends to lovers

and they dance by @lingeringmirth | Rated G | no cw | tags: domestic fluff, established steddie

Crepes and Cake Batter by @klausinamarink | Rated G | cw: post-domestic argument | tags: stress baking, hurt/comfort, sad steve

DAY 7 - HANUKKAH

the fifth night by steddieas-shegoes | Rated T | no cw | tags: non-practicing jewish eddie, getting together, first kiss, flirting

You Know Why by @thisapplepielife | Rated T | no cw | tags: canon divergence post-s4, eddie munson lives, gift giving, mutual attraction, flirting and wooing

Kindling the light by @atimeofyourlife | Rated T | no cw | tags: jewish steve harrington

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddieholidaydrabbles #stranger things #masterlist

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atimeofyourlife · 4 months

Text

Steddie holiday drabbles masterlist

All my entries for @steddieholidaydrabbles | total wc: 23,855

Warm up rounds | wc: 3446

August- Old face, New place prompt: high school/ college AU rated: t | tags: disabled Steve Harrington, pre-Steddie

September- As the leaves start to fall prompt: fall | rated: g | tags: established relationship

October- The treat from trick or treat prompt: Halloween |rated: t

November- Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice bakery au | rated: t | tags: pre-steddie

December prompts | wc: 20,409

A Song For The Night prompt: open mic night | rated: t | tags: pre-steddie

A Small Surprise prompt: came back wrong | rated: t | cw: mentions of Steve having bad parents and diet culture | tags: deaged steve harrington

Loving From Afar prompt: mutual pining | rated: g | tags: mutual pining, pre steddie

Cats Know Best prompt: meet cute at work | rated: g | cw: mention of animal injury and amputation | tags: pre steddie

Breakfast In Bed prompt: free space/ domestic fluff | rated: g | tags: established relationship, fluff

Life Lesson: Never Share A Kitchen prompt: cooking together | rated: t | tags: angst, ambiguous ending

Kindling The Light prompt: hanukkah | rated: t | tags: jewish steve harrington

A Group Thing? prompt: no upside down au | rated: t | tags: no upside down au, pre-steddie, steve x corroded coffin

My First Kiss Went A Little Like This prompt: first kiss/ first time | rated: t | tags: first kiss, getting together, past Stommy

A Royal Escape prompt: royalty au | rated: t | tags: trans Steve Harrington, trans masc Steve Harrington, royal Steve Harrington, royal au

Sharing A Night In A Shitty Apartment prompt: only one bed | rating: t | tags: pre-steddie

A Trip To Remember prompt: roadtrip/ vacation | rated: t | tags: pre steddie

Learn To Forget Your Biases prompt: angst with a happy ending | rating: t | tags: hurt/comfort, eddie munson being an asshole, hurt steve harrington, angst, hopeful ending

Wake Up This Morning To This Groundhog Day prompt: time travel au | rated: t | tags: time loop au, pre steddie

We've Met Before, It's Different Now prompt: modern au | rated: t | cw: mentions/ fear of transphobia | tags: modern au, tinder au, trans steve harrington, transfem steve harrington, trans eddie munson, transmasc eddie munson, pre steddie, first date, t4t steddie

Lost In Time, Lost In Space, And Meaning prompt: platonic stobin | rated: m | tags: platonic stobin, dr who au, minor robin/vickie, minor steve/tommy/carol, minor buckingham, minor steddie, alien fucker steve

Come One, Come All To This Tragic Affair prompt: hurt/comfort (heavy on the hurt) | rated: m | cw: minor character death, car accidents, death of parents | tags: established steddie, emt steve, death of steve's parents

The Weather Outside Is Frightful prompt: snow | rated: t | tags: fluff, childhood memories

She Shoots, She Scores prompt: sports au | rated: t | tags: lesbian steddie au, genderswap steddie, soccer au

Time After Time prompt: uncle wayne adopts steve | rated: t | cw: reference to abuse, reference of canon fake suicide | tags: steve harrington has bad parents, steve harrington needs a hug

The Day Before Christmas, A Day To Forget prompt: birthday | rated: t | cw: reference to neglectful parenting | tags: steve harrington has bad parents, surprise party

Oh Ho, The Mistletoe prompt: Christmas | rated: g | tags: pre steddie, getting together, mistletoe

I'll Help Your Pain prompt: "who did this to you?" | rated: t | cw: canonical injuries, recovering from a head injury, mention of neglectful parenting & medical neglect | tags: concussed steve, steve has head trauma, pre steddie

A Coffee Delivery prompt: coffee shop/ tattoo au | rated: t | tags: coffee shop au, tattoo au, tattoo artist eddie munson, barista steve harrington, pre steddie

I Love You Though You Hurt Me So (I'm Gonna Pack My Things And Go) prompt: proposal | rated: t | tags: failed proposal, break up, angst, hurt/no comfort

Size Doesn't Matter prompt: spicy/mature | rated: m | tags: established relationship, steve has a small dick

Happy New Year prompt: new years resolution | rated: g | tags: minor steddie

A Kiss For The New Year prompt: new years eve | rated: t | tags: past stommy, past stancy, steddie dads

#steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steddieholidaydrabbles #atimeofyourwrites

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steviewashere · 4 months

Text

Now and Then and Next Time

(also on ao3)

CW: Major Character Death, Mentions of Cancer, Animal Death (Nothing Graphic)

wc: 2,572, Platonic Stobin Tags: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Parallel Universes, Best Friends in Every Lifetime, Platonic Soulmates, Growing Old Together, Dying Together, Unlikely Friendships, Bittersweet Ending, 5+1 Things

---- 1

There are two dolphins at the aquarium that are always considerably close. Not in a romantic way at all. But as a couple of buddies.

When one gets a mate, the other dolphin is still there. Huddled in close. Constantly brushing under the other’s fin. Sometimes chittering at one another as if having an active, long going, unwinding conversation. They share mealtimes and sleeping spots. Their noses bump each other’s.

One gets too close to the glass of their tank, it crushes its nose. The other immediately forgets what it’s doing and rushes over, nuzzling, cooing, wrapping itself as close to the other as possible. And then they go off together.

Simple as that.

A male and female dolphin that refuse to romantically intertwine. But they appear to be the best of friends. And nobody knows their names, but it doesn’t even matter, they’ve created their own language in which to call one another.

When the male dies first, the female follows closely after. She swims with the dead one for a while. Until the keepers find his body. But she doesn’t let up immediately—actually, she doesn’t let up at all. They have to sedate her, which isn’t their favorite thing to do. And even after they remove his body, she just remains angry. Until, eventually, she just…stops moving.

The tank is empty after that.

---- 2

News headlines are calling it an unlikely friendship.

A squirrel and a fox? No way.

But they’re right, it’s unlikely and it’s unusual and it goes against the matters of nature. The hierarchies and whatnot. The fox, he should be slaughtering that squirrel and leaving its guts somewhere safe to eat for later. He should be loitering in the forests with fur hanging from his mouth. He should be killing her, that’s what they all think.

Instead, though, she brings him fruit. He brings her nuts that fall off of the trees. They sit in the same clearing of grass, bathed by the warm glow of the sun, eating their share of food, and huddling close for comfort when they finish. It’s the same routine day by day.

In the winter, when she hibernates and he has nothing to do, he just sits under the tree he knows she’s nesting in. Lays out a pile of nuts that he burrows under the snow and the dirt. And he just waits. His nose up towards the tree. Eyes unblinking. And he only leaves every once in a while to get fruit that she would’ve brought or to hunt down a few small rabbits. But he always comes back. And he’s patient.

Yet, he ends up waiting for a long time. This winter, it was harsh. There weren’t many nuts to give to the squirrel during this season. Even if he brought more than necessary. Or at least, he thought he did. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t even enough.

So, he waits. And he waits. And he waits. Until he grows too impatient. Chittering softly. Yapping up at her tree. But there’s nothing in return.

He just sits. Lays down over the pile of food he’s brought. And falls asleep.

Until, people now realize, neither wake up.

---- 3

A farmer is tugging up the weeds in his garden. Long dandelions that grew out over the summer. He’d let it happen. He’s getting too old to keep up the work on his land, dirtied and sweat stained by the end of every day. And by the end, his joints are sharp with pain, burning under his skin. He just can’t keep up anymore.

He’s finishing the last of the dirty maintenance work before he sells the plot. Before he drives somewhere else and retires. And it’s these pesky weeds that are the last thing on his to-do list.

They’re all a bunch of balls of fluff. Ready to be blown away. Under the guise of granting some wish. And he wants to be greedy with it.

Picks one. This one freakishly long, freckled too. It’s fluff is prominent and almost insurmountable. As if it’s coiffed hair, teased up and stuck still in time by an entire can of hairspray.

He closes his eyes. Feels the wrinkles on his forehead settle. His nose twitches. And he puckers his chapped, smile-lined, thin lips. Blows. The next time his eyes are open, the soft tuft is gliding away from him.

The next one he goes after, he intends to spend on another wish. But before he gets the chance to do so, it blows away naturally.

Tufts combining with the other. Until it’s just a flurry of soft, white movement over the dipping horizon of this farmer’s cleaned up farmland. Never to return. Always to remain with one another.

---- 4

Robins like to eat bugs. And fruits. And seeds. But especially bugs.

So do bats. Only flying bugs.

And though bats don’t come out during the day, the nocturnal creatures that they are, there’s one that likes to spend its time with a particular robin. They sit on the same branch. And it comes along with two beetles in its mouth.

It’s some routine, any outsider would be able to recognize almost immediately.

Because the bat scoots close to the robin. Makes a soft sound. And waits for the bird to open its beak. One beetle goes into the bird’s mouth. The other remains for the bat.

They chirp and make soft sounds amongst each other. Up until the sun sets and the Robin goes off to sleep. The bat returns to its dark cave and settles in for a full night as the other bats travel out to find food. It’s weird that the bat is so different from the others, but it doesn’t mind, because there’s a friend waiting for it in the morning.

That is, except one morning. The bat goes out and picks up two fat, juicy beetles that the others have missed. It flies as fast and as steady as it possibly can, twirling under branches and doing especially fantastic tricks to get to where it needs to go. A tall, simple tree towards the far end of a forest. One nest sitting far up. Supposed to be housing just one robin, no other birds or eggs or anything, really.

And as it flaps itself to a slow stop, settling deep into the twiggy, leaf filled nest, it realizes that there’s no bird to greet it. No sign of a struggle. Or any other birds coming in to mess with the bat’s favorite bird. It’s just the bat in a nest that’s not its own. It tries to make sound, echolocating, hoping for the bird to chirp back at it. Not that the bird would naturally respond, but still, the bat tries and tries and tries. And when there’s nothing left to do, no sounds coming to greet it—it looks over the side of the nest to the forest floor.

There, among fallen leaves and pinecones and heavy tree limbs, is the robin. Unmoving and silent and so, so still.

The bat immediately dives down. Chucking the beetles off to the side. And it wraps its wings over it’s bird. Remains there.

Remains there and remains there.

Even when the snow begins to fall. And all that’s left is a pile of beautiful, off-white, little bones.

---- 5

This shouldn’t be how we get separated, Robin thinks. Not in a room that’s so white and so sterile and so clean. With thin curtains and windows with thick glass and machines that make constant noise. She shouldn’t be thinking about climbing into bed and wrapping herself around Steve’s wrinkled body, feeling the scratchy coldness of his hospital gown, his white stubble itching the skin of her forehead, and his voice grow quiet and quieter under her ear.

She just shouldn’t. But she is. And he looks so different than when they first met. And she knows that later today, she’s going to go home and wish with every morsel of blood in her body that she could’ve befriended him sooner.

There’s almost something funny about how they’re the last to go. Their partners long since passed. Friends that have entered and left their lives. People they haven’t spoken to in a long while, who will converse with her over his casket some time in the next couple weeks. But it’s not funny and she’s biting the inside of her mouth to prevent herself from crying and she’s trying so hard to not pick at her fingernails or scream herself hoarse or rip at the thinned hair on her own head.

Yet, this is reality.

He’s got some stupid cancer that’s going to take his wonderful life and Robin was told to come. Because he requested for her. Because he didn’t want to be alone. And he had asked, in a hushed voice with a raspy gasp and a sated glow to his eyes, to be let go.

So, here she is. Taking off her sneakers. Peeling off her cardigan. And leaning down over his thin, scrawny, sagging body. Tapping his shoulder. Whispering, “Can I lay with you? Is that okay?” He just nods. And she watches him struggle only for a second to scoot over. Until there’s enough space for her, too. So she takes her spot. Under Steve’s left arm, his hand nestled over her hip, her head burrowed into his chest, and their legs tangled together. Like they always were in every bed they’ve ever shared, on every floor they’ve watched movies from, in the crevices of every couch where she laid overtop him. And she thinks about how perfectly they fit together.

She thinks about Back to the Future and laughing themself silly. Throwing up in adjacent stalls. Mocking Muppets and Tammy Thompson. Burning their uniforms in his backyard. Singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” until their voices couldn’t even be heard.

Of Family Video and her tape choices. His groaning. His reluctance. The way he’d stand close to the TV and watch anyway. Sharing a box of Sno-Caps that they stole from the sale rack. To which neither ever paid.

Vecna and flambé and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Saturday mornings after a week long battle with final exams when they attended community college. Holding their hands as they got the confirmation that they were graduating. The first time they had space from each other when Robin moved to Brooklyn to be a translator and Steve went to Seattle to be a school counselor. Nightly phone calls and weekly paper letters. Eventually, Facebook pages and MySpace blogs and Twitter accounts, to which they responded to only one another’s posts.

Thanksgivings and Christmases and New Years. Good food and warmth and each other.

Robin’s wedding when she moved to Massachusetts in 2007. Where Steve was her best man and he shared an embarrassing, simplified story of the night they shared in the bathroom. At the complimentary bar where he got just a little too buzzed and loosened his bowtie and unbuttoned his dress shirt and danced to Madonna, to which Robin jokingly called him a slut.

Steve’s wedding in Seattle. To a very beautiful man in 2017. Robin was, of course, his best man instead of bridesmaid. She had a story about the time he came out to her; a tub of ice cream and Star Wars and his confession about Han Solo being so unreasonably hot, to which she made surprising and accurate similarities to his new spouse. The children he eventually adopted. That Robin grew to love. Her cats and his dogs and their interactions online and phone calls and text messages at their fingertips.

When they retired. Both of them moving back to one another’s orbits in the southern part of California. Where he was diagnosed with brain cancer. And she cried like she already lost him. And they were both told that there was not much the doctors would be able to do. He stuck with chemotherapy, for a while, until it stopped working. Where the tumor was declared inoperable. Where he confessed that he wants to go now, on his own terms, after he’s found his peace. And the only person that he wants there—Robin. Because his kids already know and he’s said his goodbyes and…all of them didn’t want to be here when he went, which would’ve been brutally scarring.

Of course she came. Of course she was going to be here.

Her chest has been hurting all of the last few days, today included.

The doctors have already taken care of what they needed to. It’s just a matter of waiting for him to go. But Robin’s not ready. She’s never going to be ready.

“I’m going to miss laughing with you,” she whispers.

“Me too,” he mumbles. Voice already straining, so quiet. Barely vibrating in his chest.

“I had butterscotch ice cream for breakfast. It’s not the same as the one you liked back at Scoops. Is it weird to say I kind of miss it?” She doesn’t get a response, but knows that he’s still listening. She nuzzles in closer. “Watched Back to the Future, too. Remember how confused you were after it? I think I finally understand why you were. That movie is fucking hard to follow sober.” Nothing. He’s still breathing. And it’s so raspy. But his thumb is rubbing against her side. So she thinks it’s alright. For now, it’s alright.

“Back when I first met you, I thought you were annoying. You know that. But I’d give anything to go back in time and knock myself over the head and make myself get to know you sooner. Could you imagine how many other inside jokes we’d have by now? We could make a career as stand up comedians, I just know it,” she insists. “I’ve thought about being your friend for much longer. Sometimes I wish humans could live forever. Like—we could go to your house and force your adult children to build a pillow fort with us and we could go on our phones and send the most horrendous, out of date The Office memes back and forth to each other.”

She lifts her head. He’s looking at her. Eyes filled with tears. More on his cheeks. One of her hands comes up to wipe it all away. “Don’t cry,” she murmurs. “You’re still here with me.”

“Not for much longer,” he chokes out. So quiet.

She shakes her head. “No,” she agrees. “But I still have you.” Her mouth ticks into a tiny smile. “I wonder…Do you think we’re friends in every universe? Like, best friends?”

Steve nods against his pillow. “I hope so.”

“Good,” she whispers. “Because I’m going to be the annoying one in your next life.”

“You already are,” he laughs out.

And she laughs, too. Because she’s going to miss this. She’s going to miss this so bad, it makes her physically ache. He’s not gone, but he almost is. He may as well be. But he’s still breathing.

She lays her head back down on his chest. His heart still thumping under her ear, albeit slower than before. She hums. “I liked being your schmuck,” she admits.

And all at once, the sound under her ear stops.

It’s just her and this ache in her chest.

And she goes, too, not much later.

---- + 1

Two rocks sit on a cliffside overlooking the setting horizon.

---- <3

#stranger things #fanfiction #platonic stobin #platonic soulmates #steve harrington #robin buckley #bittersweet ending #major character death

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domsaysstuff · 11 months

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(ronance, robin(/a lil bit stobin too)-centric, side steddie fic idea)

So I'll probably at this point will never write this idea but I still wanted to share it with the fandom so I'll just dump my ramblings abt it here

I've been toying with the idea of actually nancy falling for Robin first and also Robin's queer adolescence and how Robin's trauma goes into her relationships

Specifically her relationship with Vicky

I just want her to care? To feel like the world is breaking because it's her first relationship??? like i want her to try and try to make this relationship work and still it doesn't because vicky wanted a clumsy cute normal girl and robin is all of that but also, also she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, there are days where she needs to keep holding steve's hand to be okay, to remind themselves that they are real and here and alive and she has a group of people that she's very codependent with, a group of people that vicky will never fully be absorbed with and like all of this is fine if it's something vicky could take but she doesn't want and she doesn't have to!! but like it still hurts robin deeply because vicky is kind and she likes her back and she's her first love and to lose that slowly, to see vicky get overwhelmed with all of this is killing robin, it's making her feel even more broken and it hurts but also, it's just how things go

sometimes you fall in love and you get loved back and it still doesn't work out

it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt tho

so i just want her to care i want her to be hurt deeply in a way only first relationships hurt

Like I want Vicky and Robin to be cute and together and I want Robin to like her so fucking much and I want it to fail anyway because that's how it sometimes is no matter how smitten Robin is, how much they want it to work and it hurts, it hurts because it's unfair and it hurts because it's just how it goes and there is also just nothing special about it

And like Robin understands, but it hurts and it feels like there is just one more wrong thing with her, before she couldn't connect with people because of her being a lesbian and now when she found a girl that likes her she can't connect with her because of her trauma and it feels unfair, so fucking unfair

And at the beginning from Robin's side Ronance is platonic because she's preoccupied with Vicky and also because Nancy is Robin's first female friend

The thing is that Robin has grown up weird, it's like everybody could smell the queer on her before she could even understand it herself and so at first ronance from robin's pov is just a lot of being grateful for having a girl friend, for experiencing girl nights and sleepovers and Nancy doesn't make her feel like a freak and it feels safe and girly in a way Robin has never allowed herself to feel, always just too uncomfortable around girls even before she knew why, so she's kind of reliving her girlhood and honestly i think she deserves it

Meanwhile Nancy in the background is just working through her compulsory heterosexuality and figuring out she's a lesbian and she has been halfway in love with Robin since the Creel thing

Also I feel like Vicky would try to be supportive but she wouldn't get it but Nancy does

i have this scene

in my mind

like robin's nightmares are fine for vicky, it's when she's waking up all panicky and she needs steve in a way Vicky just doesn't get why, it's not that she doesn't try to be supportive but she doesn't get it

but one night when robin sleeps over at nancy's and she wakes up with steve's name on her lips, she gets nancy's hand on her back drawing small circles, little movement reminding her she's not alone and nancy calling steve on the walkie, not because robin asked but because nancy knew it was what robin needed, robin fell asleep again with nancy's arms around her and steve's voice on the walkie that night

and then in the morning nancy is like "don't mention it, sometimes i need to call jon, just to hear his voice, i understand the need" bc i'm a firm believer that jonathan is to nancy what steve is to robin and i will take no criticism (but i will accept that it might also be eddie and not jonathan but like also they are both her bestfriends you honor)

but robin is like feeling this queer dissonance bc she still doesn't know nancy isn't straight and it's like, yeah, but it's different. It's always different for me. you call jonathan because he's your boyfriend, that's what couples do, i call steve because he's an extension of me i didn't knew was walking outside of my body before i found him and suddenly i was whole again, i don't want to ever kiss him but i want to spent my life with him but she doesn't say that, because nancy might be kind and understanding, but she still was nancy the priss wheeler and robin doesn't want to lose girls' nights and sleepovers in one bed and this easy friendship because she's different again, so she just smiles and later when steve arrives to pick her up she cries in his shoulder

Like this scene is mostly a foreshadowing of how much Nancy fits and gets it

Also Steve and Robin platonic soulmates supremacy so a lot if this is also platonic soulmates stobin because Robin realizes she's going to leave for college soon and she doesn't want to leave without Steve, even if he won't be alone in hawkings bc he has the kids and Eddie (bc Eddie lives, ofc, i'm not killing my baby, lmao, also there is a steddie sideplot, imma talk abt it in a second)

But Steve is hers and she is Steve's first and she doesn't want to leave him, can't imagine, feels like leaving half of her body and it's not fair, but also can't take it upon herself to ask him to leave with her because she doesn't think she can handle it if he says no

And so like the fic would starts in late April/early may and Robin is trying so hard with holding the ones she has so close because she's going to leave and she's trying to grasp on the last crumbles of her teenage years and onto her relationship with Vicky and throughout all of this Nancy is this constant that just is there, steady, safe and becoming actually one of her best friends

And it surprises her, because it was easy to be friends with Eddie once they bonded over being gay and also caring for Steve, it was somewhat comfortable to have a budding relationship with Jonathan and Argyle, caring for the kids came with caring for Steve because they are somewhat also a part of him and he is part of her so they are also hers but Nancy always was so unreachable, so far away so untouchable, except she wasn't

Except she was there inviting Robin to sleepovers and over milkshakes and stupid diners and going over college application with her and talking about Steve and Jonathan and Eddie with fondness because these are their boys and somehow Nancy has become an integral part of Robin's life

And so a lot of the first part of the fic is Robin trying to hold onto all those things before she moves to college

And then Vicky breaks up with Robin in the middle of july, and it's a nice weather, Robin wishes it was raining and the thing is that even when breaking up with her Vicky is just so sweetly nice, so perfect and Robin wishes she could hate her, that she could be mad, but she only feels sad, so incredibly fucking sad, it feels like something that she saw coming, because she did, she knew it was going to end like this, but even when breaking up with her Vicky wasn't mean, was nice enough to tell Robin, to lie, she just doesn't want to do long distance

it's when Steve is comforting her abt the break up that Robin ask him to come with her, she already had her heart ripped out once today, it's a little bit self-destructing, it's maybe her punishing herself for her codependency that in her eyes cost her her relationship, but he says yes, is ecstatic, because wherever she goes he won't hesitate to follow, they are a package deal after all, somehow they also rope Eddie into it and it makes sense, it makes sense to leave with both Steve and Eddie that have become such vital parts of her, steve is an extension of her outside of her body, but Eddie is someone who understands and fits between the spaces that she and Steve leave behind seamlessly, it would make sense to leave and take them with her

quiet interlude to explain the steddie side plot because it's now kind of necessary

so i have this in mind that like steve knows he's bi before the whole vecna, he figured it out with robin after starcourt

and robin already feels like having one other queer person in hawkings is extraordinary but then vecna happens and eddie joins the crew, eddie with his bandana, eddie with his big boy and chains and jokes and attitude and robin and steve argue back and forth if he is queer or not, while also steadily forming a friendship with him and it's just robin wants him to be so bad, because a part of her feels like eddie understands the queer parts of her that steve bless him never could, bc steve somehow could hide behind the heteronormality but robin and eddie never had a choice, they were always too weird, too different for that, but robin is afraid, it's steve, brave steve that ends up coming out to eddie first in a comment that he plays of as nonchalant but robin sees right through him, he's afraid and yet, and yet he barrels through, holds himself under eddie's gaze and is brave because that what steve is, brave

and so they're my three queer best friends and i love them

Also this is once again me pushing Steve is a brave, beautiful boi agenda

and robin sees how eddie looks at steve and steve at eddie and she thinks that maybe steve just is oblivious (i mean after they all came out to each other, thanks to steve) but then she talks to steve about it

and the thing is that steve knows that eddie wants him, that he's attracted to him, but steve actually fucking likes eddie, might actually fucking love him

and after the whole being bullshit and all the girls that went out with him because they wanted king steve and not steve he doesn't know, doesn't trust himself to know if eddie likes him the same way

He doesn't trust himself to not be bullshit again

and eddie is a bit of coward, like let's face it, that boy is ready to pine his whole life for steve harrington if it gets him to just exist in his space

and so steve just doesn't let himself have this

because he would rather to have him as a friend than an ex-hookup and he couldn't have handled it if that's all what eddie wanted to be, so they're like tragically pinning, they're my idiots you honor

So then the summer is ending and so they organize a party to celebrate the last days they have together, the whole party and when there is only a spicy six left Robin, my baby comes out as a lesbian!! And she's so afraid of Nancy's reaction, but Nancy, beautiful, kind, stubborn Nancy just takes her hand and says with a smile that she's glad that she told them and her smile is beautiful, happy and Robin feels like a weight is lifted off of her because now, now she doesn't feel like she might lose her friendship with Nancy too, because she was so afraid that once Nancy will know, it will be the end of them, it's why she waiting until both of them are going away, until the pain of missing her won't be as visible because Nancy isn't supposed to be there with her anyway

So after that

Nancy ofc goes to NY

Robin, Steve and Eddie somehow land in Chicago and my boy Eddie is a mechanic for sure bc i love the idea, Robin ofc will be studying and I haven't decided what Steve will be doing

And Jonathan and Argyle will stay in Hawkins, taking their gap year

Robin thinks it's partly why Steve wasn't as afraid to come with her, knowing Jon will be there keeping an eye on Hawkins, on the kids, because it's not that Steve doesn't trust Joyce and Hopper but he doesn't trust them to call them when things go bad, and kids are always too preoccupied to call when things go wrong and he trust, trusts Jon to call when things go code red in Hawkins, also i think Jon deserves a gap year, let that boy relax please

And so Nancy calls, all of them do actually, the kids and Jonathan with Argyle, I kind of like to think that like sometimes all three Robin and Steve and Eddie are gathered around the phone talking with whoever calls, like Steve is painting Robin's nails while listening to Eddie and Jon arguing about some music thing on the phone while Robin keeps adding her opinion only to stir shit up even more and sometimes it's Eddie and Steve parenting Dustin while Robin just lays next to them doing her school assignments

But Nancy calls when she also knows Robin is just there alone, Nancy calls and asks her about Chicago and college and it's good, it's good talking with her

Also I have this scene in my head where Nancy and Robin talk about Barb, it's late and Robin is alone in the apartment, Eddie and Steve gone somewhere together and Nancy is talking about how sometimes she finds it hard, knowing that Barb probably wouldn't have recognized her now, that she changed, grew up and she isn't the same person that Barb was friends with anymore (my personal headcanon is that Nancy didn't even want to be a journalist before Barb's death, but after seeing how they covered it up, how the press twisted and manipulated the truth she wanted to be the one good one, for Barb, a sense of justice paid to her through others, it's why she wanted the facts for Eddie so hard)

And Robin asks her how she deals with it and Nancy says that she just has to, it won't go anywhere, she won't stop aging, "besides" she says "eddie recently told me something and, don't tell him that, but it was actually pretty smart"

"Impressive for him" Nancy giggles and it's good to know her giggles make her feel the same feeling of accomplishment even through the phone

"Anyway, he told me that we survived so we could change. That we are the lucky ones that get to change, dead people don't change. So it's good, to sometimes, become something new"

And it sticks with Robin and she somehow that leads her to asking Steve to cut her hair even shorter because hair holds memory and she wants to have space for new ones, the good ones, she wants to see them grow (one of this days I will think of a sapphic idea that doesn't involve hair, i swear, but today is not the day) also both Robin and Steve dye a strand of their hair pink, for platonic soulmate unity reasons

so anyway chicago is good, good for her and Steve and Eddie and they're thriving and they're finding queer bars and are growing up, becoming adults together and like Robin manages to hook up with a girl and meet more queer people, grow into herself and there a set backs and bad days, like once a girl started roleplaying a cop as a part of foreplay and asked "where do you work" in a voice that reminded Robin too much of the russians and the torture, she cried for an hour and a half on the girl's floor, before she managed to exhaust herself and only then she managed to give out their number so the girl could call Steve to pick her up, she cried in Stevie's arms the whole night after that because she just felt broken like yes she could move, she could grow up, she could experience new things but the trauma will always be a part of her

and so then! we have like two important seeing nancy moments

one where everybody comes back to hawkings for smh idk if will be holidays or smh or smh different, but even if nancy and robin called on a regular it's the first time she's seeing her since they went away for college and during that time robin finally catches up to nancy and realizes she's in love with her

But she thinks it's hopeless because Nancy hasn't yet came out to Robin (in my mind Eddie helped her in figuring it out during summer, she came out to Jon in the meantime after moving but before this coming home and during the stay in Hawkins she will come out to Steve but it will be unnecessary bc honestly Steve suspected that Nancy liked Robin since fucking the first words of the fic) and so Robin pulls away

Also during this visit is when she asks Wayne how he dealt with dating people after going to war, did he ever manage to separate his trauma and his dating life and he tells her that there are people who will understand and love her with her trauma not despite of her (with like a heavy look towards Nancy bc Uncle Wayne knows what the fuck is up)

Oh also per Chicago being good for the boys, it's where Steve finally allows himself to be loved, it's where they come home to each other, it's where they stay with each other, it's where they slow dance together in the kitchen, it's where Steve realizes that Eddie is here to stay, when Steve tells Robin he kissed Eddie over dinner, they both cry, simply because they are happy, Robin is so glad that Steve finally, finally is happy and healthy and is letting himself be loved how he deserves

and then we have a second time where the whole spicy six gather in New york to celebrate with nancy i'm thinking maybe new year??

and then nancy comes out as a lesbian and like than robin realizes what nancy was doing all this time, she realizes that they are steve and eddie (because eddie has waited, all this time until steve was ready, was right beside him when steve blossomed into someone who could trust that eddie wants him back, eddie waited and nancy... nancy waited too) and it's like the both of them go to bed together ofc and robin has this like feeling of, they had time, they finally have time, and they could take it in whatever pace they want, this like finality of feeling that they are finally on the same page and the rest is like fluff

Also something something Nancy belonging to NY and being even more beautiful somewhere where she is healthy and happy and thriving, something something about rosy cheeks and long coats and frosty kisses

So i guess i just want Robin to like grow into herself and who she is in relationships and have experience and grow comfortable in herself before she let herself love Nancy, i want them to be friends first and also i want the slow burn of it all

#i'm putting this here bc i kind of want attention but also i have so many unwritten fic ideas that i never shared here only with my friends #that its just #and like i said ill probably never write this one bc recently i have been distracted with a nancy-centric ronance fic idea in my head but #i still love this one a lot also i have still so many ideas abt it that i havent written out like the whole steddie side plot lives rent #free in my mind #btw if you follow me for a while you've probably seen me talking abt screaming fic ideas into my friends dms and if you ever wondered how #it looks like this is literally plugged from one of my dms with my friend sbsjsn so now you know #dom's au idea of the day #ronance #platonic stobin #steddie #fruity four #stranger things #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #steve harrington #eddie munson #fic idea

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schrijverr · 1 year

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A Behind the Scenes of: Steve and Robin's Wedding Party

Jonathan gives an insight into the lavender marriage between Steve and Robin of 1989.

On AO3.

Ships: jargancy, steddie, platonic stobin

Warnings: AIDS crisis mention, homophobia mention.

~~~~~~~~~

“Hi, I’m Jonathan Byers, the main photographer and editor of A Collection of Queer Photography,” he starts out the video. “A lot of people liked the video we did about Pride of 1990, so we’re making a few more of these.”

He is already seated at the side, so photograph can appear on screen next to him and he grabs the book from the side, which is already open, as he says: “Uhm, right now we’re going to look at page 50 and pages 52 and 53, starting with Brad and Janet Got Married.”

The photograph in question appears on screen. It is taken on a street late at night, two figures are illuminated beneath a street light. It is Steve and Robin. Steve is giving Robin a piggy back ride and both are laughing like lunatics, they look a little unsteady and tipsy. They just went to a screening of Rocky Horror and Robin is dressed as Brad, Steve as Janet. They both have a red V painted on their foreheads.

“This are Steve and Robin, they got married in 1989 so they could make medical decisions for each other and have job benefits, since neither of them have contact with their blood relatives,” Jonathan explains. “They had a small courthouse wedding and we went out a Rocky Horror screening to celebrate afterwards. Hence the title.”

“I was pretty drunk when I took this picture, so it is a little blurry around the edges as you can see,” he points out. “But I remember fumbling for my camera since the composition in relation to the street light spoke to me so much.”

He goes on: “I saw it and I knew I had to take a picture. You have this dark street and then this point of light and that is where they are, momentarily visible, like in a spotlight. They look so happy in that moment, despite the fact that they’re getting married to avoid homophobic family members having power over them and despite the fact that Steve can’t get married to Eddie. They’re having fun, celebrating their friendship, a moment of happiness, despite all the dark shit. That story aspect is very evocative.”

“I also liked the contrast between their costumes and pose,” Jonathan says. “At the time they chose to dress as Brad and Janet, because they’re engaged in the movie and Robin is of the strong opinion that it is a beard relationship, so it fit them. She really hates wearing skirts and Steve decided it would be fun to try, so it worked out.”

“But in this photo it adds a layer of contrast, which works nicely. Steve is a strong guy and that is a lovely opposition to the delicate dress. Robin is also very strong, but she doesn’t look it. She has always had a more thin look to her, which offsets how she presents herself. Her butch look has always suited her, so for her the outfit doesn’t serve as contrast, but the piggy back does. They’re reversing roles, taking something heterosexual and traditional and twisting it for their own amusement and joy.”

Dammit Janet appears on screen as Jonathan flips the page. It’s of the same night and Eddie is dressed as Dr. Frank-N-Further, grinning cockily into the camera, one hand hitching up Steve’s dress as it disappears under it, holding his thigh. Steve is plastered to his side, grinning into the camera with a dopey grin, Eddie’s lipstick is smeared on both faces.

“This photo is of later in the evening,” Jonathan tells the camera. “I thought calling it Dammit Janet is kind of funny, since in the movie it’s a line from the opening song that Brad says to Janet and later on Janet sleeps with Frank-N-Further, so this makes it seem like Brad, Robin in this case, is saying it to Steve as Janet, because he is sleeping with Eddie, Frank-N-Further, on their wedding night. But Eddie is, of course, his husband, then boyfriend. So, it’s a reference.”

“What I like about this picture is how it creates a little window into Steve and Eddie as a couple, like how they are together. Especially at this point in time. They’re very affectionate and clingy, it’s cute and a little gross, which is clearly illustrated with how Steve is hanging onto Eddie and how Eddie is possessively gripping Steve back,” Jonathan says.

“I’m not going to go into too much detail about it, since it’s not my relationship, but I asked them if I could say a little to explain the photo a little. They said I could,” Jonathan gives as a disclaimer, for what he is about to get into.

“The two of them are part of the BDSM scene, at the time Eddie was big into the leather scene, I don’t know for sure if he still is, but that shines through in many of his outfits in the book,” Jonathan explains. “In this photograph, you can see some elements of their dynamic. It’s pretty subtle, because it’s a drunken snap shot of them, so this is how they subconsciously gravitate to one another when around relaxed with company.”

He moves on to the next photograph. Sidewalk Stop is of Nancy, who is dressed as Magenta and sitting tiredly on a curb. It is taken from the side, the street as background. Behind her, you can make out Robin, still dressed as Brad, talking with Argyle, who is wearing nothing but a golden speedo and a jacket against the night air.

“This is Sidewalk Stop and Nancy is the subject here, even though Robin and Argyle are in it as well,” Jonathan says. “Nancy kind of gives a lonely, contemplative vibe and I wanted to contrast that with Argyle and Robin chatting.”

“As I mentioned earlier, Steve and Robin got married to be able to make medical decisions for each other,” Jonathan repeats. “It was a very scary time to be queer because of the AIDS crisis and that was big topic for us too of course. Nancy had just broken contact with her family and Argyle- Well, Argyle’s family seemed okay, but also just let him walk away. None of us knew what they would do when push came to shove.”

Jonathan continues: “I got very lucky with my mom and dad – Jim, not my actual dad – so I knew I would be okay, they didn’t have that. We hadn’t really thought about marriage yet for ourselves. Me and Nancy both never thought we would get married, since we didn’t want to turn out like our parents, but seeing Steve and Rob got us thinking that we didn’t have to marry to fit that standard, but also to keep ourselves safe.”

“In this photo you can see that contemplation, which is only added by the fact that it is Robin in the background with Argyle. The person that got her thinking and the person she is going to marry,” he says. “She and Argyle are still married, but we consider ourselves partners, not spouses. It’s not something we want for us, but useful on paper. It doesn’t have to be that serious.”

He gives the camera a small smile, implying that clearly it doesn’t have to be serious that is the point of these pages about marriage.

“Then on the page next to it, there is the morning after so to say,” Jonathan moves on after a slight pause. “In a row these pages are the story of the first celebration, going to late in the night and then the sleeping in. First we have Dr. Frank-N-Snoozer.”

The photo appears on screen. In it is Eddie, face down on the couch. He has stripped out the lingerie top, however, he is still in the stockings and panties. His right leg hangs half off the couch, the strap holding up the stocking has snapped open, so it is sagging down. He is fast asleep and his hair is a mess.

“Eddie, Steve and Robin crashed at our place. I don’t know why Eddie ended up on the couch, but I had to take this photo when I saw him in the morning,” Jonathan laughs. “It’s this classical, morning after, don’t know how I got here, I look a mess photo. However, it’s slightly subverted, because it’s usually a girl and this is Eddie, making it very queer, as he often does.”

“I love that in many of these photos, the queering of classical tropes. It might seem silly now, but living domestically and having fun is such a power move when the government doesn’t want you to live at all.”

“Of course, we also had to put the photo of Steve and Robin in here too. They did share a bed on their wedding night, but in the least sexual way,” Jonathan says and Newlyweds replaces Dr. Frank-N-Snoozer on screen.

Newlyweds is of Steve and Robin on a bed. The V’s that were on their foreheads are now just one red blur and they are stripped to their boxers. Robin is on her back, head lolled towards the camera, mouth slightly open, drool escaping. Steve is on his stomach, one leg thrown over Robin’s thighs, head resting on her boob. They are both clinging to each other.

Jonathan goes on: “I like this photo, because it shows how comfortable they are with each other and how much they love each other. These two are on another level of friendship that many can’t ever achieve.”

“Non-sexual intimacy and nudity is something that is so special to get on photo,” Jonathan explains. “Someone has to be comfortable with the camera there and the person they’re with. Steve and Robin are very comfortable together and I am very honored that they let me take photographs such as this one of them.”

“I also think it’s very funny that they’re both wearing boxers,” Jonathan says. “You can’t see it clearly in the picture, but it’s the exact same pair, just different color. We always joke they became the same person over time and it’s details like that, which make photos like this. It’s not obvious, but if it was different, it would be noticeable.”

The video cuts and Jonathan is in the middle again. He gives an awkward wave to the camera and signs off: “Thank you for watching, hopefully this was interesting. Till next time I suppose, since this is a thing now. Uhm, bye!”

A/N:

Jonathan is so awkward and I love him lmao

#rr writing #a collection of queer photography by jonathan byers #a behind the scenes by jonathan byers #jonathan byers #stranger things #eddie lives au #st post season 4 #steddie #platonic stobin #jargancy #steve harrington #robin buckley #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #argyle stranger things #tw: aids crisis mention #tw: homophobia mention

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berenwrites · 5 months

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Dreams in the Night - Stranger Things - Steddie, Chapter 7 of 9

Dreams in the Night: But Vampires Aren't an Upside Down Thing!

Summary: Steve has been having nightmares, seeing through the eyes of a vampire like creature in Hawkins as it hunts. He puts the dreams down to past trauma and too many horror movies at Family video. He’s checked and no one’s been hurt, so even Robin agrees. However, his world is about to be turned upside down yet again as the nightmares become far too real.

Tumblr Master Chapter Listing | Also on AO3

For: @lady-lostmind (lady_lostmind on AO3)

Relationships: steddie, platonic stobin

Rating: Explicit

Wordcount: ~18600

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Tags: vampire!Eddie, Kas!Eddie, hurt/comfort, bisexual!Steve, bisexual!Eddie, platonic stobin, steddie

This fic is a part of the @steddieholidayexchange

Chapter 7: Possessive

“Are you okay?” were the first words out of Robin’s mouth after the others left.

He nodded, turning, and walking towards the kitchen, even though all he wanted to do was wrench the door open and stop Eddie leaving. It was completely irrational and selfish, but it was so hard to push away. Eddie deserved to see his uncle again as soon as possible. It only made sense, especially with Eddie wanting to tell Wayne everything.

That didn’t stop the almost feral feeling in his chest.

“Dingus,” Robin said as he started to make coffee he didn’t even want.

He didn’t respond as he tried to distract himself.

“Steve,” Robin’s voice was very quiet and gentle as she touched him lightly on the shoulder, but it still made him tense up. “Talk to me,” she added.

Stilling, mug in hand, he did his best to just breathe.

“I’m just being possessive,” he said, staring at the wall. “Looks like I jumped straight from we got him back to he’s not allowed to leave. Guess the spoiled brat is coming out to play.”

“You’re not a spoiled brat,” Robin said, not removing her hand, “I doubt you ever were. How about we go for some of the fancy hot chocolate I know you’re hiding in the back of the cupboard, because I don’t think you need more coffee.”

She gave him a quick hug from behind as he tried to push the irrational feelings down.

“Okay,” he said, reaching for the small saucepan hanging from its hook.

At least getting the milk from the fridge, heating it up and then making the drinks would give him something else to think about.

However, by the time he was done, he still felt incredibly on edge. Given the slightest excuse he was pretty sure he would be in his car trying to find Eddie. It was irrational, even for him.

“Come on, Dingus,” Robin said, leading him over to the small kitchen table, “sit down and tell me everything.”

“I don’t think you want me to tell you everything,” he replied, staring at the marshmallows bobbing in his hot chocolate.

“I need to know what’s going on in that head of yours,” she countered, “so, yes, everything. Now spill.”

So, he did. He started with the not-dream, trying to explain how different it had been from the others and went from there. Everything that had happened was still do fresh and raw, but he was still surprised by how much it helped to talk about it. Robin grimaced several times when he got to the sex part, but it felt important to mention it even though he glossed over the details.

Of course, she was supportive as he talked through his personal revelations, although she did grumble that he had managed to land his first boy before she had even kissed a girl. That had lightened the conversation somewhat as he ribbed her about her lack of progress with Vickie.

By the time they had talked it all through, he was feeling more comfortable with everything that had happened and what it meant for him, but he still couldn’t shake the ridiculous possessiveness. In fact, he was regretting more and more that he had let Eddie go, or that he had not gone with him at least.

“Why don’t you go then?” Robin suggested when he confessed his feelings.

“I’d be intruding,” he replied.

“This could be the whole bat thing,” she said. “You two just upped the connection between you in ways we have no clue about, maybe that’s why you don’t want to be apart. I mean, Eddie looked as reluctant to leave as you were to let him.”

“But he’s with his uncle,” Steve pointed out.

“And his uncle is going to have to get used to you sooner rather than later,” Robin said, “because you are so gone it’s silly. I remember what you were like in school with Nancy and, oh boy, this is way worse.”

“It’s only been a day,” he protested.

“Steve, other half of my soul, brother from another mother, I know you and I love you,” Robin told him. “This is so weird it boggles the mind, but you’ve been living weird since 83 and I’ve been living it with you since Starcourt. Everything you have told me points in only one direction and, for you, that direction is Eddie. So, get your butt moving and go claim your man. You can drop me home on the way.”

There wasn’t a lot he could say to that, not when Robin was right.

“Thanks, Robbie,” he said, placing his fingers on hers for a moment.

Standing up to take their long empty mugs to the sink, Steve instantly realised something was wrong. He had to make a wild grab for the centre island as the room span alarmingly. His legs felt like jelly as the world looped the loop around him.

“Robs,” he said kind of desperately as his frantic grip on the countertop began to fail.

“Oh shit,” Robin said, and he felt her arms come round his chest, but not a lot else made any sense.

He really did try and stay upright, but it was hard to tell what that was. As his vision tunnelled and up and down failed to remain where they were supposed to be, he was pretty sure he was falling.

“Steve, dammit, Steve,” Robin’s anxious words followed him.

There was no horrendous impact, so he guessed Robin had stopped him hitting the deck too hard, but the real world didn’t make a huge heap of sense. He couldn’t be sure of anything.

“Steve, Steve, shit, wake up Dingus, please,” Robin’s desperate plea was the last thing he heard as everything went grey before fading to black.

After that there were only flashes.

A sharp pain in his hand dragged him from the darkness for a few seconds. He could vaguely hear voices and he felt like he was moving, but it didn’t last long. Someone held open his eye, waving something bright in it, and he tried to object, but he sank back into blackness before he managed much of anything.

The next time was much less frenetic. He kind of floated up towards the real world, like being underwater and slowly coming up to the surface. Something was beeping and he could feel fingers wrapped into his. He was comfortable and warm, but something was missing. He didn’t have enough brain power to work out what. The need to find what wasn’t there filtered through his brain, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

He managed to squeeze the hand in his, just a little, but then the darkness was reaching for him again.

The third time was much louder. People were shouting. Something was growling and suddenly he was moving. Strong arms wound around him, pulling him against a firm chest. He could have cried as the relief flooded through him. The missing thing wasn’t missing anymore. He curled into those arms against the owner of the chest, bringing his own arm up and draping it wherever he could reach.

One simple move took whatever strength he had. He couldn’t open his eyes, couldn’t do much more than moan quietly as he was once again sucked under. It felt different this time though. There was warmth in the blackness.

When he floated up towards consciousness yet again, it felt much more real, much more solid. The first thing he noticed was his pillow wasn’t that soft, the second rather explained the first when he realised his pillow was breathing. He was asleep on someone, someone who was not wearing a shirt, and there were strong arms holding him in place.

He didn’t need to open his eyes and look to know it was Eddie. He could feel it.

For a while he lay there, soaking in the sensations and the sounds but reluctant to push himself the final step into wakefulness. Everything was calm and simple in his half-awake state. The little voice at the back of his mind was pretty convinced it wouldn’t stay that way if he opened his eyes.

Eventually, however, his mind was moving just enough that he began to feel guilty. No doubt Robin at least had to be waiting for him to wake up. He didn’t know how long he had been out of it. It seemed selfish to just lay there when he was pretty sure he was quite capable of waking up. Finally, he forced his eyes open.

Nothing made much sense, and it was way too bright. Squeezing his eyes shut again, he scrunched up his nose, hoping that would help as he tried again.

“Steve,” Eddie’s deep voice rumbled through his head where it lay against Eddie’s chest, “Sweetheart, are you awake?”

Blinking, he hummed a reply, because, no matter what he had thought, it appeared pushing through into the conscious world was a process of stages. What he had assumed would be easy, was a bit tougher than he had imagined.

When he finally convinced his eyes to focus, he found himself looking at Robin. She was leaning down beside what had to be a bed, her face only a couple of inches from him. The moment he managed to focus on her she smiled.

“Hey, Dingus,” she said, “how are you feeling?”

“Confused,” he admitted, or at least tried to, but his tongue felt like it was glued to the roof of his mouth.

He was about to try for more, but fingers slid into the hair at the base of his skull, massaging gently and it felt so good he lost all train of thought.

“Edward, you’re distracting him,” Robin complained.

“Nice,” was the best Steve could manage.

“Oh no you don’t,” Robin said, reaching out and patting the side of his face. “You’ve been asleep for nearly five days, Dingus. It’s time to wake up.”

That sent sparks of shock through him, which were much more effective in waking him up than Robin’s patting.

“Five?” he asked incredulously, lifting his head from Eddie’s chest.

“Take it slow,” Eddie told him as he tried to push himself up.

He wasn’t feeling overly coordinated, which reminded him far too much of the various concussions he had had over the years. Luckily Eddie seemed more than willing to help him sit up when he failed to do it himself. The way Eddie effortlessly sat up himself, still cradling him, helping him to turn while supporting him the whole way was kind of hot, actually. Not that Steve let himself dwell on that for too long.

He realised pretty quickly he was wearing a hospital gown, and he was attached to various medical devices. Eddie, on the other hand, was in sweatpants and appeared to be free of other adornments.

It also occurred to him that he didn’t feel like he thought he should feel after a five-day coma. His body was working fine, perfectly strong, it was just his coordination that was all off. It was as if his brain hadn’t had time to align with his body properly, which was what was giving him trouble.

“Where are we?” he asked, looking around at the white tiled walls.

“Hawkins Lab,” Robin replied, at which point he noted she was also wearing a grey sweatshirt and pants rather than her usual clothes. “We’re in quarantine.”

He frowned, doing his best to assimilate that information.

“Why you?” he asked.

Him and Eddie he could understand, but not Robin.

“I wasn’t letting you out of my sight,” she said simply, crossing her arms and glaring up at the corner of the room.

There was a camera looking at them.

“They tried to quarantine you and Eddie separately,” Robin added, “but Eddie didn’t like that.”

“The growling,” Steve said as at least part of what he remembered made sense.

When he looked at Eddie, who was still mostly holding him up, he realised Eddie was blushing. He’d have put money on Eddie hiding behind his hair if his hands hadn’t been occupied.

“We collapsed at the same time, you in your house, me in Wayne’s new trailer,” Eddie said. “When I woke up, I had a very urgent need to get to you. I may have insisted on the matter.”

Robin laughed at that.

“What he means is he flattened three goons with guns and broke down two reinforced doors,” she said.

“For me?” Steve asked, which made Eddie blush even more.

It was adorable and only added to the warmth exploding in his chest.

“Awww, you two should come with a sugar warning,” Robin said, but she was smiling when he glanced over at her.

He held out his hand, which she immediately took.

“Did they say how long we’ll be stuck here?” he asked, thoughts turning serious again.

“Nothing specific,” Eddie said.

“But Owens came in here yesterday without all the gear on,” Robin replied, “so I guess they’ve figured out you’re not contagious. I’d prepare to be prodded within an inch of your life, though. You’d think they were the vampires with the number of holes they poked into me.”

“You’re okay?” he checked as soon as she said that.

“I’m fine,” she said, demeanour softening, “just being dramatic. I think they’ve been using me like a control or something.”

“Control?” He didn’t know what that was.

“Baseline,” she told him.

“The normal one,” Eddie added.

“Robin’s not normal,” was probably the stupidest thing he could have said, but that’s what popped out of Steve’s mouth.

That cracked up Eddie as Robin said; “Hey!”

“Normal is boring,” he added. “You wouldn’t be my platonic soulmate if you were boring.”

“I’ll take that,” Robin said, smiling at him again.

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

“You’re the one with the key,” Robin called across the room.

Clearly, she was fed up of being cooped up. The door opened to reveal Owens. Steve had met the man a couple of times now because of the whole end of the end of the world, but he couldn’t say he knew him.

“Ah, Mr Harrington,” Owens said with a smile, “it’s good to see you’re awake.”

“Steve,” he put in. “Mr Harrington is my dad and he’s an asshole.”

Owens’ smile grew a little a that, which was a least one point in his favour.

“Steve,” the man said with a nod, “how are you feeling?”

“Surprisingly good,” he admitted. “Have I really been asleep five days?”

“Indeed,” was the immediate response.

“Why?” he asked the obvious question.

Owens glanced at Eddie and Robin in a questioning way.

“Anything you tell me I’m going to tell them,” Steve said simply.

“As you wish,” Owens said. “From our observations we believe your system went into a kind of hibernation to allow you to undergo a metabolic shift.”

“And that means?” he asked.

“Due to the residual bat venom in your body, your metabolism has altered,” Owens explained.

Steve couldn’t help glancing at Eddie.

“Am I..?” he started to ask.

“No, nothing so drastic,” came back quickly before he could panic. “From what we can tell, Eddie’s extreme changes were due to Henry Creel’s influence. Yours appear to have made you, shall we say, more robust.”

“Robust how?”

“Of course we will need to do more tests, but our initial conclusions are that your metabolic functions have shifted to be more efficient,” Owens told him. “We are unsure exactly how. It should be easier to ascertain now you are back with us. If you are feeling up to it, I will send in one of our medical staff to make you more comfortable.”

Steve glanced at the IV in the back of his hand and the other medical devices attached to him.

“That would be good, thank you,” he replied. He wasn’t going to trust a government doctor as far as he could throw them, but being free of everything sounded like a great plan.

End of Chapter 7

On to Chapter 8

#stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #steve x eddie #steve harrington/eddie munson #platonic stobin #vampires #kas eddie munson #vampire eddie munson #eddie lives #fanfic #fanfiction #dreams in the night - steddie

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