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weekend-dreamer7 · 8 days

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Trailer park Steve AU part 62

part 1 | part 61 | ao3

cw: violence, off-hand mentions of drug use

Light bleeds through the cracks in the boathouse walls. Max is the one who found it, spotted the glowing bulb over the door and called them down the slope behind the house to check it out, and now Steve leads the group inside and clings to his nail bat in a way he hopes is reassuring but is probably just putting everyone else on edge.

Can’t really be helped, though.

Place gives him the creeps.

It's dark and dank, overwhelmingly humid, with a smell like mildew and old food over a layer of fear sweat, and the wood groans beneath their feet while the walls sway with the breeze. Makes it feel like the room is breathing, like they're standing inside of a haunted lung.

Steve braces himself in the middle of the room, head on a swivel while the group fans out around the edges, dipping in and out of shadow. Dustin calls for Eddie. Max checks the latch on a window. Robin points her flashlight at a pile of food wrappers and says, "This looks new."

Steve flexes his fingers on the bat; picks up an oar, too, just to be safe.

"What?" Dustin snorts. "You gonna dual-wield against your boyfriend?"

Steve rolls his eyes. "He's not my—"

"—Ex-boyfriend, then, whatever. Still can't believe you never told me about that."

“Okay,” Steve huffs. Dustin’s grumpy muttering sounds more hurt than he’s letting on, but he’s letting on plenty, and Steve’s too keyed up to do this right now. “Can we just—” He gestures around the room with the oar to illustrate how completely not the time for this it is. “Can we not?"

"No,” Dustin protests, voice rising, “no, we can't not, Steve, because you—" He steps into Steve’s space, jabbing a finger against his sternum and backing him up to the edge of a tarp-covered boat. "—are a liar. You have been lying to me for months! And now it looks like you're gearing up to try and bludgeon my good friend with two blunt objects!"

"Shut up!” Steve snaps. He takes a deep breath; lifts the blunt objects in question, giving them a little shake. “First of all, it's not the boyfriend I'm worried about using these on, and secondly—"

He doesn't get to finish that sentence.

He doesn’t get to plant his feet.

With a noise like a war cry, something blue blurs at the edge of Steve’s periphery and launches him across the room, shoving him backward over tarps and tackle boxes until his back slams against the wall and knocks the wind out of him, and his skull smacks the wood and sets off a snow storm in his vision — muffled ringing in his ears, tornado warning wailing through a thick layer of cotton. Steve’s friends are all shouting, and there’s something sharp against his throat, and someone is barking questions at him; hot, stale breath over his chin; a fist balled up in the front of his shirt.

“Are you real?” the voice demands, hand twisting in Steve’s collar and tugging him against the sharp thing. “ARE YOU REAL?”

Steve blinks. Blinks and sways into the sharp sting beneath his jaw until the dizzy spell ends.

The scene before him comes into focus slowly.

Steve thinks, for the millionth time that day, that he must be losing his mind. That he must have lost it already.

The blurry, shouting thing is Eddie. Eddie, who is glassy-eyed and drooling like a wild animal, who is pinning Steve to a splintered wall with a shattered bottle to his throat; whose face floods Steve with such intensely euphoric relief that he thinks he finally gets why people do hard drugs.

Even now, even like this, the only thought in Steve’s head is how lovely Eddie's face is.

How grateful he is to see it again, even if it might be the last thing he ever sees.

Beside them, Dustin speaks in low, placating tones, holding out his hands and encouraging Eddie to back off. Promising that Steve’s not gonna hurt him, that they’re all just here to help as Eddie’s eyes slip over and past Steve and his body tenses for the kill.

“Not real, not real, not real,” Eddie mumbles, spit shining on his shaking lip.

The bottle knicks Steve’s skin.

“Eddie!” Dustin begs. Max and Robin's eyes are huge. And Steve—

Steve laughs. A soft, hysterical thing, barely voiced, because of course Eddie’s going to kill him. Of course he is.

He’s already been doing it for weeks.

"What happened to your knife?" he jokes wetly, tipping his head back to bare his throat.

The question snaps Eddie back to himself. Steve watches from under his damp lashes as Eddie's eyes sharpen on him, darting all over his face with sudden, painful awareness, with something dangerously close to hope.

The hand holding the bottle trembles. "...Baby?" Eddie whispers, wet eyes searching still.

Steve holds his gaze. Nods against the jagged edge.

Glass shatters on the floor as Eddie collapses into him.

—

tag list in separate reblogs under '#trailer park steve au taglist' if you'd like to filter that content. if you want to be added please comment and let me know (must be over 21; please either verify in the comment or have your age visible on your blog)

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weekend-dreamer7 · 15 days

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I want to see a fic where Tommy meets Taylor for some reason, and she says something rude/nasty about Buck being needy (in a relationship/sexually) and Tommy comes to his defense. Idk I just need that.

#911 #evan buckley #tommy kinard #anti taylor kelly #bucktommy

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weekend-dreamer7 · 20 days

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Part One Two Three Four

TW Human trafficking discussions of injury

The front door is locked.

Eddie is almost winded, hobbling all this way on his sore feet. There’s a neat little screen on the wall that, briefly, woke up and flickered an angry red when Eddie had tried the door handle. Like that wasn’t hugely unsettling.

He found he just didn’t have it in him to try it again. Where would he go, anyway? Just getting to the gate would take him hours, and he doesn’t have any fucking shoes; he’s still wearing the white nightdress and nothing else.

Eddie eyes the curve of the sweeping staircase. No. No way. He’d have to go up it backward and on his butt to even make it, one slow step at a time. Steve said he’d got Eddie a room ready but...no.

No.

There’s probably fifty fucking rooms up there anyway, what with the size of the place; Eddie wouldn’t stand a chance, and he definitely doesn’t feel right snooping around like that. The back of his neck prickles at just the thought of doing something like that.

He needs the bathroom though. Too much bread, too much dairy. The milkshake, the creamy pasta. Eddie’s not one hundred percent sure if he’s going to vomit or just straight up shit himself, but there’s something uncomfortable happening. The stabbing, trapped wind type feelings occasionally taking Eddie’s breath away, they’re so sharp.

Okay. Logically this place is so fancy, there has to be a downstairs bathroom; which there is, Eddie finds it on the second try, after fully ten minutes of slow, painful shuffling.

It turns out to be a horrendously explosive shit, which Eddie is kind of glad about because being sick is the worst, and he feels much better after a traumatic twenty minutes in one of the fanciest bathrooms he’s ever seen.

Eddie tries his best to hunt around the lounge, but the TV and sound system are so sleek and stylish, Eddie can’t see an obvious way to control either. He’s frightened to touch the books in case they’re like, collectors items, or something. He sighs wistfully at them anyway; he hasn't been allowed to read a book in years. Well behaved Omega most certainly don't read. They might start...having aspirations and thinking for themselves and stuff like that, so it was absolutely not permitted at the ranch.

His feet are throbbing, but he didn’t think to ask for painkillers. There’s nothing for him to do but sit on the couch and feel sorry for himself.

He tells himself this is better than the ranch. It’s better. He’s safe here. He’s going to see Wayne again. Hagan’s probably been arrested already; everyone else has been rescued too. Well at least, Eddie hopes so. All of that being a lie at this point...why would Steve go to so much effort to fabricate a lie like that?

It’s a slippery slope, that thought, so Eddie tries not to entertain it. He’s spoken to Hopper himself; seen his FBI card. It has to be true, surely? Everyone is okay, Eddie tells himself on repeat.

Everyone has been rescued.

Eddie just has to...endure. He can do that.

He’s been doing it for years.

The couch is too soft to sleep on. The beds in the dorm had mattresses so thin they might as well have been a folded over blanket, so Eddie has gotten used to the creaky noises and sleeping on something almost completely solid, no give at all in the wooden slats of the bed frames.

It’s quiet here. No movement, no breathing, no whispered conversations between Omega or the footsteps of guards on patrol. Nothing.

It’s been dark for a while when Eddie realizes he’s getting cold; the thermostat, or however this place works, must have turned over to it’s night time setting.

Eddie finds blankets in the big fancy Ottoman. The room feels...too big. Too big and empty. All that fancy glass reflecting the room and making it look twice as big. He feels defenseless, open. It’s not a nice feeling.

The silence is oppressive.

Eddie shifts the Ottoman, it takes a huge effort to push, the thing is heavy, but he manages to butt it right up into the corner of the ‘L’ shaped couch. Eddie lays one blanket out on the rug, snugged right up in the small space he’s made for himself between the Ottoman and the couch, Eddie nests in the protected little triangle of space. One blanket to lie on, the warmer one pulled over top of him. He does take one cushion off the couch, for his head.

He’s warmer, and feels safer, here. It still takes him hours to fall into an unsettled and fitful sleep.

Eddie didn’t reach any kind of deep sleep; he knows he didn’t. He knows because he’s blinking, alert and awake from the noises he can hear. The front door, keys being put down, footsteps.

Foot steps on the stairs.

And Eddie didn’t experience any of the confusion that comes with being woken from decent sleep. No. He’s awake, fully alert, and he knows exactly where he is and what’s happening.

He hears those same footsteps come back down the stairs, “Eddie?”

“Here,” Eddie forces himself up, bracing his arms on the couch, knees both clicking after being curled up tight for so long.

Steve looks like shit. He definitely hasn’t slept. But then, neither has Eddie, not really, and considering Eddie’s now eaten two meals and slept a night wearing a practically see through white nightdress, there’s no way he looks any better himself; he’s got to be grubby.

Steve also looks aghast, “Eddie, I’m so sorry. I got...distracted. That’s not an excuse for just...leaving. Did you sleep there the whole night?”

Eddie nods, there doesn’t really need to be an explanation.

“Shit. Shit, okay. Okay, lets...you hungry? I’m starving. I know we ordered you clothes, but I should have given you something better than-” Steve sighs, a sharp sound, before rubbing at his forehead for a second. “Right, breakfast first? Anything you want? Pretty sure I have the stuff for cheese omelettes? And I know I’ve got sausage and bacon.”

Eddie can’t help but wince at the thought of yesterdays fecal catastrophe. It must show, Steve frowning at him from under his floppy preppy hair, “all the rich food it, uhm, gave me a tummy ache? So...just some scrambled eggs would be really, really great.”

Steve looks at him for a long moment, probably rethinking yesterday, “yeah, yeah okay, scrambled eggs,” and he heads off into the kitchen, Eddie forcing himself to limp weakly along behind.

Steve does make a mean plate of scrambled eggs, and it really does hit the spot. Eddie dodges the coffee, having a glass of OJ instead. “Okay, so lets...lets figure what to priorities here. Shower, you can borrow some of my clothes, and I’ll check your feet, does that sound okay?”

“Yeah...but you, you look real tired Steve, I mean it can wait-”

“No, no it’s fine. I won’t be able to rest if I don’t know you’re okay, plus...you look kind of tired there yourself...which isn’t surprising considering I abandoned you and forced you to spend the night on the floor-”

“Steve.”

“I...sorry. Again. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve ripped pretty much everything Hagan owned right out from under him. Or at least I will have, by lunch time today.”

And yeah...to be fair. Eddie does feel better. It’s cold comfort, but Eddie can be small and spiteful and bitter with the best of them so...yeah. Imagining Hagan sat in a cell somewhere, knowing his empire is being dismantled brick by brick. Yeah. Why not? Eddie can enjoy that for a minute. “Yeah, that’s...really good to hear.”

“Good.” They smile at each other for a long few seconds. And then Eddie yawns. And Steve yawns. And it sets off a horrible cycle of them yawning at each other across the table.

“Okay, lets get you sorted out.”

Eddie braces himself for the limp to the stairs, which he manages, shuffling gamely along with Steve hovering. For the split second Eddie allows himself to stop concentrating and actually look up at Steve...he sees Steve watching his move very intently, but also guilty as fuck.

The stairs are another matter. Having all of his weight on one foot while he lifts the other is...horrible. Stepping up is even worse, so much so that Eddie flinches from it the first time and nearly falls off the first step.

Steve steadies him.

On the second wobble, along with a pained hiss, Eddie finds himself just being...scooped up. Just straight up lifted, and he flails for a second before what’s just happened catches up to him, and his flailing ends with his arms locked around Steve’s neck.

Eddie will forever deny the panicked ‘yip’ noise that had come out of him.

Steve heard it though, and Steve’s grinning from inches away as he, very effortlessly, carries Eddie up the stairs.

Which, first of all, what a bastard, and second of all Eddie will not think about how fucking hot it is that Steve can throw him around if he wants to.

Steve has laid out a bunch of towels ready, and a change of clothes; just sleep pants and a tee shirt, a pair of boxers, but it looks like absolute heaven to Eddie. So does the whole of the bathroom, if he’s being honest. Even though this is a guest room and guest bath– which blows Eddie’s mind all on it’s own, he’s pretty sure that with a bit of inventive interior design, a family of four could live comfortably in this space.

So yeah, Eddie is able to sit safe and sound on a ledge in the bath and hose himself down. It’s not a proper shower, but Eddie doesn’t want to stand for that really, especially not with how it would soak his scabs, so this is perfect for now.

He finally feels clean after, which is a huge improvement.

Once he’s dressed, resting on a thick and fluffy towel Steve had considerately left on the toilet seat, he waits. Steve had been for his own shower real quick, once Eddie was settled safely, and he comes back toting a first aid kit in a green bag with a white cross on the side.

Steve takes a towel to cushion his knees, again not seeming worried about kneeling in front of an Omega, which is a nice change of pace.

“Oh,” Eddie says, at the same second Steve freezes in place, “the thing I could smell…” Steve has showered, and he couldn’t have reapplied blockers. Steve’s scent is only vague in the house downstairs, just a nice background scent; Alpha and comfort and home and safe...but now it’s hitting Eddie full in the face. Eddie sways forward mindlessly, trying to get closer to the source, Steve reaching out to steady him by the shoulder.

Eddie almost feels like he’s blinking awake, and Steve is right there. Like, two inches away, licking his lips and looking at Eddie with eyes so blown they’re almost back, “yeah,” Steve swallows thickly, and then visibly jumps when his phone rings. He looks startled by the noise, “sorry. Sorry I should- yeah, what is it, Henderson?”

And Steve leaves the room. Eddie feels kind of foggy, but also all kind of wonderful. Steve’s scent is...it’s good. It’s real nice. It’s...probably perfect. Smells like home and safe and mate and all that good shit Eddie had secretly dreamed about in the darkness of the dorm room at the ranch, trying to keep himself sane.

Eddie can hear Steve talking, “yeah, multiple accounts. Yeah, I know, but there wasn’t enough in there so I cleared out...no, no, you think Eddie only cost a quarter mil?” Steve laughs, “yeah, it was quite a bit more, yeah.” Steve sighs, “shut up, Henderson. Oh my god, no I did not get a receipt.”

@stylelovechild @steddieonthen @marklee-blackmore @sticknpokelightningbolt @resident-gay-bitch @somegirlsomewhere @mugloversonly @weekend-dreamer7 @lololol-1234 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @mx-jinxous @goodolefashionedloverboi @bogwitchlesbian @lunaraquaenby @steddieinthesun @pluto-pepsi @disrespectedgoatman @i-eat-spinal-cords @waelkyring @kal-ology @grtwdsmwhr @v3lv3tf0x @itsall-taken-blog @nrvscig @dragonmama76 @scarletyeager @slv-333 @abstractnaturaldisaster @tinyplanet95

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weekend-dreamer7 · 21 days

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Trailer park Steve AU part 61

part 1 | part 60 | ao3

cw: mentions of canonical minor character death

Chapter 14

It's twilight by the time they make their way to Rick's place — gnat clouds swarming, sun dipped low, Lover's Lake an inky smudge beyond the blur of passing pines. Steve’s not totally sure how they got here, this dusty service road that's more pothole than pavement; one minute he's bitching about doomed love and double VHS, the next he’s taking the scenic route to a drug den.

There were some important moments in between, he’s pretty sure.

He’s also pretty sure he blacked out somewhere around the moment the morning news reported that an-unidentified-Hawkins-student-who-very-well-could-be-Eddie-Munson was found dead in his fucking trailer.

Kinda difficult to resurface from that one.

Feels like his soul’s got swimmer’s ear.

Even hours later — after Dustin and Max burst into Family Video talking a mile a minute about how Eddie was alive and they needed to use the phones; after Ernie stupidly gave a reporter Steve’s name, swearing up and down on the TV that his neighbor Steve Harrington was an upstanding young man who would never do something like this; after they spent an agonizingly long afternoon lying low and taking backroads to avoid the cops because the cops probably suspect Steve of murder now, oh god—

“It’s this next right up ahead,” Max says from the back seat. There's a map spread over the bench between her and Dustin, and Steve blinks himself awake; gives her a nod in the rearview.

Beside her, Dustin’s munching on Twizzlers he stole from the store — window down, easy slouch, just way too chipper for the situation at hand. "So Steve," he says conversationally, "now that you're a fugitive, does that mean—?"

Steve cuts Robin a pleading look.

Robin reaches back and smacks the little twerp upside the head.

"Ow!" Dustin whines.

"Shut up, please," Robin smiles.

Max makes a sound like she's trying not to laugh and checks the map again. "Right here," she says, pointing. "After that weird tree stump."

They turn onto another road that could be generously described as paved, once, several decades ago, and eventually, the winding path lets out onto a slightly nicer street. Aging but cared for, Holland Road is a crowded row of little lake houses, trailers and shacks with manicured shrubs and chipped fence paint, weeds growing through the sidewalks beneath pristine American flags. Steve pulls into the driveway of #2121.

It looks abandoned. Dark inside and out, a truck parked on the curb that's likely been there for a while, its tires sagging in a mulch of old wet leaves. There’s an autumn wreath on the front door.

“You sure this is the place?” he asks as they climb out of the car.

Max sasses him for questioning her navigation skills, Dustin unsuccessfully tries to land a revenge slap on Robin — a move that earns him a retaliation wedgie and a wrestling match he was never gonna win — and Steve pops the trunk and feels a hundred years old. Feels every bit the exhausted dad trying to keep the family road trip together as he grabs his nail bat and slings his duffel over his shoulder.

"You planning to spend the night?" Dustin teases from Robin's armpit, still bent double where she's got him in a headlock.

"No, just-" he drops the bag at their feet with a grunt, “doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

Dustin’s eyes bug out. “Is that a can of goddamn bear mace?”

“Keep your voice down!” Steve hisses.

“You keep your voice down!”

"Should I just go ahead and choke him out?" Robin offers.

Steve considers it for a second: knock 'em all out, stuff 'em back inside the car. Go do this shit quietly by himself.

He rolls his eyes and puts his hands on his hips.

"You're no fun," she pouts, but she lets Dustin go.

Dustin grabs flashlights and walkies out of the bag, passes them around the circle. They take a moment to steel themselves — huddled together in the dark, shoulders tense, the creepy house looming ahead. Sharp shadows stretch toward them. Croaking sounds creeping from the edges of the lake.

Robin puts her flashlight under her chin like she's about to tell a scary story. "Alright, kiddos," she says in a deep, ominous voice. "Let's go rescue Steve's ex."

Stunned silence in the sudden vacuum her words create. Steve lets out a tired sigh. Dustin’s jaw is on the curb.

“His WHAT?” Dustin shouts.

Oh, my god. “He’s not my ex."

Robin rolls her eyes and says ‘sure’ under her breath, and Max turns to Dustin, laughing. “You didn’t know they were a thing?”

“We’re not—” Steve tries again.

“What were you trying to get them back together for then?”

She seems genuinely curious. Dustin seems three seconds from spontaneous combustion. “What was I WHAT?!” he yelps, limbs everywhere. Reminds Steve of Eddie so bad it hurts.

“Okay,” Steve interrupts, clapping them both on the shoulder; drops his voice to a harsh whisper. “In case you two forgot, we’re here to rescue Eddie.”

“Who you’re dating.”

Dustin’s voice is small, disconnected, his gaze far away. Like he’s shellshocked.

“Jesus Christ.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “I— Yes. No. It’s complicated.”

Max snorts at his answer, Dustin makes a series of faces like he's gonna need seven years to process, and Robin interrupts his crisis by waving her flashlight like a traffic guard, walking backward up the hill as she directs them toward the house.

“Why don’t we just go find him first?” she suggests, making a rainbow with her hands, flinging light through the grimy windows. “And then Stevie here can answer alllll your big gay questions.”

Steve glares at Robin. Dustin glares at him, narrowed eyes for a full ten seconds like 'yeah, you fucking better,' and then he takes off up the driveway hollering Eddie's name.

—

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weekend-dreamer7 · 23 days

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Trailer park Steve AU part 60

part 1 | part 59 | ao3

cw: reference to canonical minor character death

Max slams the phone down, knocking her forehead against the wall. Sixteen calls in a row and still no answer. “I give up,” she sighs. “You should just go.” “Seriously?” Steve protests. “And just leave you here? Alone? After—?” After all that? He throws his hands out like an umpire calling a safe. “No. No way.” “Look, my mom will be home soon, you can’t—” “—I’m not letting you get hurt—!” “—What are you gonna do? Fight my nightmares for me?”

“Maybe I will,” Steve mutters under his breath, pissed off and replaying the conversation on repeat while he gets ready. Feels like a psycho for doing it; feels certifiably unhinged just going about his evening after everything that happened, putting on a clean shirt and choking himself in a cloud of Farrah Fawcett spray so he can go pick up the sweet-but-stupid girl named Brenda he promised to take to the game tonight; so he can go cheer in the bleachers like he didn’t almost die.

(Or like, very vividly hallucinate his own death, which... Yeah. Doesn’t feel any less horrific.)

But whatever. Max is right. Without El, there’s really nothing to do but wait. Hop’s dead, Bob’s dead, Joyce is thirty hours away. Owens is off the table, too. What’s Steve gonna do? Call the government and tell them to come nuke the boogeyman? He doesn’t have any proof.

He also doesn’t want to freak Dustin or any of the other kids out without knowing for sure what’s going on and what, if anything, can be done about it, so...

Fuck.

Fuck!

He gets dressed; he goes out. Picks up Brenda and does his best to be nice to her even though she gets on his nerves the moment she gets into his car, and he buys them sodas at the gas station and doesn't say a word when she spills Sprite down the side of his passenger seat.

The school is packed when they show up — the crowd in high spirits, the marching band leading chants. Nancy's reporting from the sidelines, Lucas is laughing with his teammates on the bench, and Steve leads Brenda toward the bleachers and does his best not to think. Not about the graveyard, not Max, not the looming threat of cosmic terrors. Not about the fact that Eddie is somewhere in this building, probably looking all hot and menacing while he leads tonight's campaign. Probably perched on a prop throne drinking Mountain Dew from a painted chalice like a fucking dork; probably making it look sexy, anyway. Tight jeans, legs spread, an air of casual command…

Steve could go find him. He could make everyone else leave; he could get on his knees and crawl between Eddie's legs—

"Does it bother you that we might win the championship, like, right after you graduated?"

Reality comes back like a slap in the face. "Yeah, that's an excellent question, Brenda, thank you so much for bringing that up."

They get settled into their seats, and Steve wishes he were more excited when the ref throws the jump ball, but he mostly just wants to go home. ("You always want to go home," the Robin in his head reminds him, and the Robin in real life throws him a weird look when she catches him snorting to himself about it.) He's just tired. Worn down in his bones, hollowed where he thinks his marrow should be, and he's clinging to normalcy with a sort of sweaty desperation that he’s pretty sure Brenda can smell on him because the date just sucks; it’s so bland, so mutually boring and bored. He spends most of the night mouthing stupid shit at Robin or keeping a sharp eye on the court — anything to ignore his proximity to Eddie; anything to drown out his messed-up head and heart.

When the game finally ends Brenda gets a ride to a party with some friends. Steve goes back to Dustin’s place and paces a hole into the carpet. Stays up until 3 A.M., humming a Fleetwood Mac song.

In the morning, he tells himself as he drifts into fitful sleep.

In the morning it’ll be fine.

In the morning Max will come by the store like she promised, and they’ll keep trying until they get ahold of El, or Owens, or someone, and that someone will know what to do and how to help.

—

In the morning the TV tells him there’s a dead girl in his house.

—

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weekend-dreamer7 · 26 days

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fucking love when I'm on a call with someone and they start to do a little errand or go somewhere else and they say "and you're coming with me" like. absolutely I am let's go on an adventure I've been spirited away

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weekend-dreamer7 · 1 month

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Trailer park Steve AU part 59

part 1 | part 58 | ao3

cw: canon-typical horror/gore (like for real this time), emetophobia, reference to minor character death. ty to @thisapplepielife for indulging my weirdly specific research about headstones

Steve tries to follow her — gets shot down before he even gets within speaking range, Max shouting at him to give her a minute the second she spots him coming over the hill. He backs off, hands raised in surrender, and then…

Well, then he’s already out of the car.

Well then his feet know where to take him.

His dad’s grave isn’t far. Maybe a football field away, close enough that he’ll be able to hear it if Max calls for help. He moves toward it without thought, his legs carrying him past simple overgrown markers in the oldest part of the park — crumbling remnants of civil war soldiers, farmers and shopkeepers and factory workers, people who worked the mines, people who died before his grandfather was born. People who might have been loved once, before time and moss and water stripped their names off of the stones.

Up the next slope, the markers get more elaborate, shift from bronze to granite to marble, to monuments and mausoleums and a fucking obelisk; ostentatious displays of the town’s oldest money. The coal barons, the oil tycoons. Rotten bastards, Wayne might say.

The Harringtons aren't that rich. They're further down the hill in a neatly manicured row of Indiana limestone; fresh flowers on each grave, the weeds plucked, the grass trimmed.

Dad's buried right next to Grandpa Otis.

It almost looks nice.

Crisp, clean, dry. Nothing to suggest the messy wet red of his father's demise. Steve shoves his hands in his front pockets and steps up to his dad's plot, toes the edge of it, the rounded lump of earth, sparse grass and loose soil where his father's bones are laid. The ground gives a little under his weight, the dirt compacting. Could he dig this up with just his hands? Could he claw through until he reached the bottom, pry open the box and peer inside? Unbidden, the image forms in his mind: worm food and rot, half a man left inside, somehow still frowning in disappointment with his jaw bone shining clean.

Steve's stomach turns. A sick shiver runs through him, saliva flooding his mouth, sweat beading at his hair line.

This isn't right.

Something's not right.

There's a sudden chill in the air, frigid wind carrying a smell like roadkill in the summer — heat wafting from the pavement, death clogging up his throat. Steve covers his nose and wills his shoulders down from his ears; tries to mutter words of comfort to himself under his breath. “Just a graveyard, Steve. Just a totally… normal…”

Ice on the back of his neck. Steve tenses every muscle, turns his good ear toward the sound of whatever's creeping up on him; something taller than him, something slithering and wet, its rasping rattles of frozen breath sending goosebumps down Steve's arms. His hands twitch inside his pockets.

Then, a voice — a voice that isn’t his, that can’t be anyone’s, because the man it belonged to is dead. “That Munson boy was right about you."

Steve can't fucking breathe. Dark clouds roll in around him, violent as a blooming bruise, and that voice behind him echoes — distorted, vicious; hungry.

"You are a black hole."

Steve grabs two fistfuls of his own hair and tugs; wills the pain to dispel the nightmare, his eyes swimming from the sting.

The thing behind him laughs. "Look how you ruined your mother," it snarls. "Look how you tore her apart.”

"Shut up!" Steve barks with his hands over his ears.

“Steve…” The voice deepens, beckons, thick with malice and rot. Steve slowly turns to face it, trembling all over, pulse thudding in his ears, and his shoes squelch in the dirt, and when he looks down he sees that the dirt has turned to mud that now turns to oozing red, a viscous river beneath his feet, flowing up over his ankles, pouring from his father's grave. And there, in front of him, a mangled remnant stands. The ruined corpse of Richard Harrington, his skin shriveled and gray, the torn parts of him held together by his clothes. There’s a hole in his torso where the exposed ribs glint like knives.

Steve throws up on himself.

The ground gives way beneath him, goes spongy like rotting meat, and the thing wearing his dad's face cackles as Steve sinks into the earth, the grave swallowing him whole, up to his calves, his knees, his thighs. "Join me," it offers, lipless smile full of teeth.

The glamor peels back to reveal a monster underneath, its scarred skin crawling in mucus-coated vines; naked, long-limbed, stitched together with burnt flesh.

Steve screams as he scrambles for purchase, up to his hips now in the muck, his feet on the lid of his dad's casket. He claws blindly at the loose ground but it’s all thick and wet with red, and the air itself is red; blood in the sky, in his eyes, in his lungs. He's going to die here. The voice tells him so. It's in his head now, a bellowing echo as the monster draws near, one hideous hand outstretched, an all-consuming join me, join me, JOIN ME—

“HEY!!!”

Max shouts directly in his face, shaking him hard by both shoulders where they're crouched on the cool ground, Kate Bush leaking from the headphones slung around her neck. Steve gives a startled shout and jerks back out of her grip, falling hard on his ass, landing harder on his elbows.

The world shifts back to blue. To dry, clean grass. To breathable air.

Steve pants up at the sky. His shirt clings to him where he's soaked it through with sweat. When Max offers him a hand, he stands on shaky legs, looks at the ground beneath his feet and screams again, scurrying back until his ass hits a stranger's headstone.

There’s a dent in the earth where he was standing. A smudge of packed dirt where he really did sink in. Steve stares at it; feels it reaching out for him, the dark patch thudding like a heart beat, spreading out like snaking vines.

He clutches at his heaving chest. Max’s eyes are huge on him.

"Okay, what the fuck?" she begs.

"What the fuck yourself!"

No heat behind the words, but they burn him, anyway, pushed out on a weak gasp. Is this what she was talking about? Is this what she calls nothing?

This doesn't feel like fucking nothing.

“Shit," she says, and her eyes go even wider. Steve can see the veins in them. "Shit, Steve, your nose…”

He swipes his arm across his face.

It comes back red.

—

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weekend-dreamer7 · 1 month

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Trailer park Steve AU part 58

part 1 | part 57 | ao3

@steddie-island said i wasn't allowed to cut this lol. cw: angst, canon typical horror, mentions of minor character death

“Lucas called me a ghost today.”

Steve almost laughs, bitter and sharp. Sure. Why not? What’s one more ghost in his passenger seat?

He doesn't really want to talk to her right now, if he's honest. It's been fifteen minutes and she still hasn't apologized for trying to rob him, or explained where they're going, or what spooked her, or why this car ride was so urgent that he had to risk his job for it — a job he actually needs, considering his, well, everything. She's hardly said anything beyond the occasional "turn here" or "next left" while sulking with her forehead pressed against the window.

But he can tell she has something she needs to get off her chest, so he swallows his annoyance and offers, "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she says back. Doesn't elaborate.

He gives her another minute to gather her words, watches her open and close her mouth a few times in his periphery, but nothing comes out. She scoffs at herself and abruptly changes the subject. “Eddie was being extra… well, extra today.”

“Was he?” Steve asks, his bones itching under his skin. He doesn't want to talk about Eddie. Doesn't want to think his name.

“Yeah, he, uh- he was kinda manic? He was, like, running all over the cafeteria and starting shit with Jason Carver...” And he's only half-listening, anger simmering as she goes on and on, because she promised that Dustin didn't put her up to this. Said that this wasn't some bullshit excuse to get him to talk about Eddie or hang out with Eddie or think about Eddie or kiss and make up with fucking Eddie, and now she's just talking about him, and it-

And it hurts; god, it still just hurts—

"....Then he started rambling about how he can’t wait to get the hell out of here when he graduates.”

Searing-stabbing-burning-sharp. Steve clutches at the flare of pain in his chest, the crushed soda-can feeling where his heart's supposed to be. His head pounds. He follows her next direction onto a winding, tree-lined road, the canopy suffocating overhead, and his skin feels too dry — too tight, too small, shrink-wrapping him inside of it, because he knows where they are now. Knows the tilt of the rusted lamp shade, the shape of the weather brick paths. He's tasted the metal tang of this stop sign in his nightmares.

Fuck. Fuck.

"Cool," he grits out as he drives through the cemetery gates. Past stone and wrought iron, past the empty central fountain. He hasn't been here since July. “Good for him.”

“Steve-"

“Why are you telling me this?" he snaps. He throws the car in park under an old oak and turns to glare at her, barking a frustrated, "Huh?"

Immediately, he feels bad for raising his voice. Feels even worse for the way she flinches away. The naked fear on her face, her hand reaching for the door. He takes a long, deep breath and lets it out slowly through his nose. “Sorry. Sorry. Just-" There's a leak inside him somewhere; some infected, gaping hole, and his stupid heart keeps pumping all his blood into the wound. "Why are you-?”

“Look,” she says sharply, "I know it sucks. To talk about him." She's staring at the rows of headstones up ahead, her face gone steely with determination, her shoulders squared, her big eyes wide and a little wet when she turns to meet his gaze. “But whatever you were— whatever happened, it just… it really messed him up.”

Good. "You sound like Dustin."

"Maybe Dustin had a point."

"Since when?"

She throws her hands up, nostrils flaring. "I'm trying to tell you that I think he still cares!"

“Yeah? He’s got a seriously fucked up way of showing it if so!”

“Yeah, well some of us don’t know how to show it!”

And oh.

Oh.

Silence blankets them like dust. Eyes locked; harsh breaths. This has nothing to do with him and Eddie, does it?

Lucas called me a ghost.

Steve sighs and slumps forward, his forearms on the wheel, his chin resting on his wrist. The late afternoon sun is warm through the glass, and his head gives another nasty throb as he looks out over the hill, at the polished stones glinting in the golden hour rays.

His dad is buried here.

A lot of people are.

“Hey,” he murmurs, rolling his neck to look at her. The skin under her eyes is red. "Sorry for yelling."

She sniffs quietly. "Me, too."

He reaches over and gives her hand a quick squeeze, keeping his voice low and gentle. "You know you can just talk to me, right? Max, talk to me. Please.”

Her bottom lip quivers. “It’s nothing, okay?” She sinks down in her seat, crossing her arms to shield herself. “Shit’s just been… it’s just been weird all week. Like- like bad weird, and I don't know if I'm just going crazy, or— I mean, maybe Ms. Kelley's right, maybe's it's just— but it feels like…”

"Like what?"

She holds a hand out flat in front of her; flips her wrist over slowly so her palm faces the sky.

Steve's blood runs cold. He thinks of his own nightmares: the weird visions, the headaches, the persistent haunted feeling.

"I don't know anything for sure," she insists, rushing to reassure him before he can fully start to panic. "Seriously, don't freak out; I haven't, like, seen any gates or anything, it's just— bad dreams. Nose bleeds. I don't know." She hoists her backpack onto her shoulder. "I thought coming here might help."

He catches her by the arm, raking his eyes over her face, looking for any signs of danger. "Is there anything I can do?"

She shakes her head no and tugs free of his grip, and then she's slipping out of the car, letting the door fall shut behind her, and Steve watches her crest the hill while sirens wail inside his head.

—

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