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that green light, i want it

Epilogue

“Just like that,” Steve guides El’s hands, making a minor adjustment, “good. That’ll push people away, it’s a good defensive spell.”

“This is like Mister Miyagi.” El says, looking up at Steve with a soft smile.

“Yeah, you’re a real karate kid, Hopper junior,” Eddie says from his spot on the porch stairs. He snaps his fingers. “Hey Steve, you should call her young grasshopper.”

El doesn’t look like she understands that reference, but her smile grows into a grin that makes her look like sunshine incarnate, nodding at Steve regardless.

Steve rolls his eyes. “You two are trouble together.” He looks over at Eddie with a faux stern look and points a finger. “Stop encouraging her. This isn’t karate, it’s magic.” 

“You can’t get mad at me that your hand signals look dumb,” Eddie says, bumping shoulders with Nancy beside him on the steps. “Nance agrees.” 

“Putting you two together was even worse.” Steve groans, rubbing one hand down his face. “Call the coven and complain to them, I didn’t make this shit up.” 

“Language,” Nancy chides, grinning at him mischievously. “There are children present.” She points a thumb in Eddie’s direction. 

“Yes, and my sensibilities are so fucking delicate, sweetheart,” Eddie calls out, leaning back on the stairs and crossing his legs at the ankles. 

“Munson, are you corrupting my kid?” Hopper says walking through the front door while wiping his hands on a towel. He stops behind Eddie and Nancy, looking down at them with a sour look on his face. Steve can see his mustache twitching from here, though. He’s fucking with Eddie on purpose, then.  

Eddie scrambles to sit back up straight, almost whacking his head on the railing in the process. “Uh, no sir. A-and Steve started it,” he points a finger accusingly, “He said it first.” 

Steve tries not to laugh in Eddie’s face. Hopper’s about the only adult that scares Eddie, a remnant of his past dealing drugs, but Steve gets it. Hopper has the kind of authority that you want to respect because he protects the right people. That take-no-shit attitude has helped them far more than it hurt them. Steve was glad to have him on their side. 

“Don’t knock yourself out, kid,” Hopper finally cracks a smile. “Everyone inside, it’s time to eat.” 

Hopper helps Nancy up and leads them inside, El trailing behind them. Eddie hesitates to follow, watching Steve with knowing eyes, reading his thoughts before Steve can even pull him aside. 

It’s been several months since everything happened. Hopper got them through the investigation and offered them a place to lay low from the coven. They’ve been hanging out at his cabin ever since, working through issues with the coven and how to move forward. 

One of those issues was Steve’s unknown power. Nancy’s helped him research it, but there’s still a lot of unanswered questions that they need the coven’s library to answer. 

They haven’t done anything to harm them, but Steve doesn’t trust them after learning that they actively participated in the ritual to kill Barb. With their ring leader dead, they’re not as much of a threat, but Steve’s not taking any chances. Now that they know Steve’s a druid, they seem unwilling to double cross him. They almost treat him with reverence or fear, his powers othering him in their minds. 

Another issue was what to do about El’s growing powers. She was already bursting at the seams with power at an uncommonly young age, but Steve didn’t realize how much until he started training her. It didn’t take long to figure out she was more like him than Nancy. 

She’s already more powerful than Steve, but she’s naive. She doesn’t quite grasp why defensive magic is the most important thing she can learn, or that she can’t share this with anyone. They told her what happened, and she knows about Hopper’s involvement, but that doesn’t exactly make it real in the mind of a thirteen year old girl. 

The other issue was Eddie. It was an issue that Steve trusted him so fast, let him in too quick. He was scared that Eddie would see too much, get scared, and run away screaming from the insanity of Steve’s life. But, he hasn’t. 

In fact, Eddie’s been right by his side every day since the graveyard incident. He takes learning about magic in stride, poking fun at it and making Steve laugh. The circumstances under which Steve learned magic were stressful, trying to get answers for an unsolved murder and trying to keep Nancy and himself alive while he was at it. He never had an opportunity to take in how magic could benefit him outside of that. 

Eddie helps him see it as a gift, instead of a burden. When Steve was at his lowest, Eddie stepped in and helped him pick up the pieces. No one’s ever been that crutch for him. He has the ability to flip the script and put everyone around him at ease, especially Steve. 

It didn’t take long for Steve to stumble upon grounding techniques in the druid manuals the coven lent them. Even in magic, someone can use a person or an object as their anchor, something that pulls them back from the brink of magic enveloping them. But druid’s need it. It’s essential to their ability to function. 

Anger was his anchor before. That burning fire in his gut that kept him searching for answers was enough to keep him centered. But once he had answers, he was left adrift. His powers wonky for weeks before he figured it out and started looking for a new anchor. 

He hasn’t told Eddie about that part, yet. Everything between them is too new and exciting to dump that kind of thing onto him so early. He doesn’t want to come on too strong and scare him away. They only just admitted their feelings to each other a few weeks ago. 

But as he sits there in front of Steve, that sweet, dimpled smile on his face, Steve wants to tell him. He’s already halfway in love with him. Already trusts him more than anyone else besides the people already inside the cabin. He wants to scream about it from the top of the highest point in Hawkins. 

Instead, he slides his hands along Eddie’s shoulders, wrapping his arms around his neck. He kisses him softly, just a quick peck on the lips before he’s resting his forehead against Eddie’s in the quiet cover of dusk. They still have a long way to go, but at least they can face the future together.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Epilogue | AO3

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Steve who accidentally wishes that he never went back to the Byers house to apologize that night, and has to live out a timeline where he’s not directly involved in the upside down happenings. Just an observer of the events from afar and how his removal from the main plot changes the entire trajectory of the story. 

How some of the kids get injured when he’s not there to protect them. How Robin never gets entangled in their mess, but she’s lonelier and has no one to rely on, quiet and mistrustful of people, especially popular kids like him. How quickly Jonathan and Nancy get together when he’s not begging Nancy to forget Barb and dragging her into a bullshit relationship. How he fades from the top of the high school hierarchy after Billy’s arrival anyways, disgusted by him and Tommy. 

It provides clarity in the worst possible way and he thinks it’ll never go back to the way it was, that he’s destined to remain a bystander when every time he tries to intervene fails. That is, until he ends up in the wrong place at the right time, running into the woods when he’s threatened by Hargrove, stumbling straight into Eddie’s hideout for dealing, looking like he saw a ghost when Eddie just raises one eyebrow skeptically. 

Even with that hint of hostility, Steve’s so relieved to have something so familiar that he just starts talking, trying to charm Eddie into being his friend again and it works. It’s the first touch of normal he’s had in this upside down version of his reality, and it’s the key that connects him back to the supernatural events. 

Their friendship leads him back to the kids when they join Hellfire. Robin eventually comes around once she sees Eddie visiting their job every day and learns Steve’s not who he used to be. Nancy catches them studying in the library together so they can both graduate on time and ends up sitting with them. 

At some point, Steve gets lost in the fantasy, lost in the years of friendship he’s developed with Eddie that starts to feel like home, the key to unraveling this mystery he’s found himself in, even if there’s this nagging voice in his head telling him it isn’t real. 

And of course, the magic eventually fades, the monsters under Hawkins come for them all the same, and when Steve makes the sacrifice play, this time it’s for all of them. But it’s also for everything he’s lost out on in this world, the moments he wasn’t there, all the times the people he loved were hurt and he couldn’t intervene because of his own stupid wish. 

He puts himself in danger because he finally understands that even if things were hard, even if they lost people in his reality, those moments bonded them and gave him a family, gave them all a family. Changing the circumstances doesn’t just magically make everything better, and in some ways, it has unintended consequences, even if he had the best intentions wishing all of it away. 

Even if he’s scarred for life and grasping to understand why him. They’re all an important piece of the puzzle, including Steve. So when he dies, looking into Eddie’s anguished eyes as he falls, and wakes up back in his world, a very similar and equally as panicked looking Eddie staring down at him, he doesn’t take that for granted.

He doesn’t have to go back to the beginning to make a change.

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paws. touching paws. reaching out. booping me. booping you

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Riot is jumping onto the boop train.

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tumblr right now

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booped out

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part ii (part i)

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then they kiss (part ii)

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Steve going into the trailer's kitchen, almost totally blind without his glasses on, sees a figure bending to put something in the oven, slaps their ass and says "what's cookin' good lookin'" only for Wayne Munson to turn around and say "Eddie's on the porch"

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Art by aecset

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we are so back.

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#stobinweek day 5 → stobin + someone else

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Steve’s singing quietly under his breath and eddie’s just 🤩 completely distracted.

as always, inspired by @sparklyslug 💕

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Excuse me while I go and have my Will Byers moment