A snippet from a future fic I'll probably never write, where Steve is a widower with two teenage kids, and he and Eddie randomly meet up, rekindling their old flame. This is when they've been together a while:
“Thank you,” Steve says, coming up behind Eddie at the bathroom sink.
Eddie pauses, catching Steve's eye in the mirror. “What for?” he asks, mouth foamy with toothpaste.
Steve slips his hands along Eddie's hips, hooks his chin over Eddie's shoulder. “For loving my kids.”
“You don't—” Toothpaste dribbles down Eddie's chin and he stoops to spit what's left in his mouth into the sink, gathering his hair to one side. He rinses his mouth out, wipes his face with a towel, then turns to Steve. “You don't have to thank me for that. Of course I love them.”
“Not everyone I've dated has.”
“They're idiots.” Eddie grabs the hem of Steve's shirt, pulling him close. “I mean, first of all, they're part of you, and I don't think I could love you and not love them. But...” He trails off, a small smile tilting his lips. “They're amazing kids.”
Pride swells in Steve's chest; he slides his arms around Eddie's waist and says, “They are.”
“And I'm pretty damn honored I get to be part of their lives,” Eddie says, “so thank you,” and he butts his head gently against Steve's.
Steve huffs and slides his hands up Eddie's back, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I love you.” He presses a kiss to Eddie's neck.
“I love you too.”
“And they both love you as well.”
Eddie lets out a shuddering breath. Steve knows how nervous Eddie was, when they started dating, that he wouldn't be welcomed, but it's almost like he's always been part of their family now. “Good to know,"”Eddie says.
Steve holds Eddie a little tighter. All those years ago, back in Hawkins, when they ended things, Steve thought he'd never see Eddie again. But here they are, together—a family—and Steve's never letting him go this time.
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Inspired by this post where the older kids get walkie-talkies
“Hey Birdie, is the Master with you?”
Steve’s call got no response, even though he knew Robin never went far without her walkie-talkie.
“Birdie? Is the Master with you?”
Steve was about to get irate until he realize why she wasn’t responding and let out the biggest sigh and eye roll.
“Is the Master with you? Over.”
Finally a crackle came on. “He is indeed. Over.”
“Can you tell him to bring some chocolate chips when you guys come over? ....Over.”
“Can do! Over.”
“Excuse me”, Eddie’s voice came on the line. “Why doesn’t Birdie get the shopping list? Over.”
“Because she’ll either forget to go to the store, or go and get distracted and buy everything except what I asked for. Over.”
“You know me so well~ Over.”
“This is blatant favoritism. Over.”
“I’ll give you the first pick of cookies for your troubles. Over.”
“Complain rescinded.”
Steve smiled. “What was that?”
“Complaint rescinded. Over.”
---------
It had started with Nancy giving them the walkie-talkies, which seemed out of character for her until she gave the reason. They were only able to save Max because they had instant communication. And when they couldn’t reach the gang in California, it felt hopeless. So it had been a precaution. If anything happened, they’d have these. Spring Break came and went. As did the rest of spring. And their purpose quickly went from emergency communication to anything that came to their minds. The first time the kids found out about it, they decried copying.
Nancy was quick to say theirs was more serious. And it was true to an extent. They had codenames, they had protocols they followed. No one ever said Code Red without meaning it. The one time it had been used, Steve called on it after Robin got hit by a car trying to save a kid. If you asked anyone else, they would’ve said he was hysterical. If you asked Steve, he was appropriately concerned for his friend who was hanging by a thread. She walked away with a bruised rib and a couple of stitches.
“This is Wave Rider, asking for permission to land. Over”, Argyle said.
“This is the Master, you are granted. Over.”
Both boys gave each other goofy grins as they stood across from each other in front of Eddie’s trailer.
“Nancy would kill you two if she saw you using them in close proximity”, Jonathan said.
“What she won’t know won’t kill her, right?”, Eddie said.
“You don’t need to tell him twice”, Argyle grinned.
Jonathan gave him a good-natured nudge while the three of them went inside.
------
Steve and Robin had left Family Video and now worked at a nearby convenience store. The You Suck/Rule board had returned. Dustin vaguely remembered it. When he saw all the You Suck tallies, he figured Steve was repeatedly striking out with girls again.
“Maybe you should give up on chicks for a while”, he said one day, when he came for a slushie. “Doesn’t seem like it’s your forte nowadays.”
Steve slumping onto the counter made sense. But Robin’s raucous laughter, not so much.
“This is Birdie to Jonner-Than-You, come in. Over.”
“Jonner-Than-You here, Birdie. What’s your status? Over.”
“Apparently Loverboy here needs to give up on women. Dusty Buns says they’re not his forte.”
Dustin was about to argue that call sign when he heard Jonathan laugh the loudest he had ever heard.
Unbeknownst to him, the board wasn’t for whenever Steve struck out with girls. It was specifically when he struck out with Eddie whenever he came into their little corner of 7-11 heaven.
------------
“Big Wheel to the Master. Come in. Over.”
“The Master reporting. What’s up? Over.”
“Is Mini Wheels with you? Over?”
There was what could only be described as indignant squawking on the other end of the line. That confirmed her brother was indeed on the other end of the call.
“That’s a roger on that. Over.”
“Tell him that even if he’s in high school, he still has a curfew. And I’m not covering for him again. Over.”
“I’ll make sure he gets the message. Over.” Eddie looked over to Mike. “Hey Mini Wheels!”
“Stop calling me that!”
---------------
The six of them had gotten together for an afternoon hangout that slowly trickled down. Nancy had to get home, Jonathan left to meet up with a study group, and as day turned to night, Argyle drove Robin to her shift at the store. Which left Eddie and Steve alone at the Harrington Residence to finish off the movie they’d started.
Steve could do this. He could be smooth. He’d been striking out because the fact it was Eddie and not just some random girl made the stakes higher. Made him doubt himself. But the King Steve shit hadn’t been totally a lie. He could bring back just a bit. Enough to get Eddie to melt in his hands.
It started with playing with his hair and giving him meaningful looks. He’d made out with girls while a movie was on a bunch of times. Depending on how ready they were, it could be easy to pull them out of it.
When Eddie looked for too long at his lips, Steve knew he had him.
“Can I try something?”, Steve asked while curling a long lock around his finger.
Eddie nodded hesitantly before swallowing. “Y-yeah, go for it, dude.”
Steve leaned in slow, giving Eddie a chance to back out. He didn’t. The kiss was slow and warm and Steve’s hand went deeper into his hair. When he pulled away, Eddie came with him for a second kiss. This one went deeper and had Eddie pushing Steve back against the couch. When they parted this time, Steve felt like he was in a daze, when a realization came to him.
He jolted up, nearly knocking Eddie off the couch as he reached for the walkie-talkie. “This is Loverboy to Birdie. Put a point down for I rule cause Harrington’s still got it baby!”, he said, snapping excitedly.
“Bullshit”, Robin replied.
Eddie took the device from Steve. “This is the Master, confirming the Harrington does in fact, still have it. Over.” He then dropped the walkie-talkie onto the floor and went back to kissing Steve.
Argyle had made the astute observation that Robin had put down a tally right after he’d done a transaction with Steve, but Eddie hadn’t wanted to believe he had anything to do with that scoreboard.
-----------
“This is Jonner-Than-You, confirming the retrieval and delivery of five nuggets and a tall drink. Over.”
“Loverboy responding, it’s supposed to be six nuggets, a tall drink, and three sides. Over.”
“Mad Max went off to have dinner with Lucky Number and the sides are not cooperating. Over.”
“You tell the rest of that club that they better get their asses in that van. Nancy, Argyle, and I didn’t slave over a hot stove just for them to-”
Jonathan held up the walkie to the rest of the Hellfire club to hear all of Steve’s tirade. No one turned down an invitation to Sunday dinner. No one.
----------
The six of them laid out in the middle of a field, blissed out. For once, none of them had anywhere to be or anything to do. A perfect opportunity to waste time by passing a joint and watching the sky.
Jonathan picked up his walkie-talkie. “This is Jonner-Than-You reporting in. I love you guys.”
“Birdie to Jonner-Than-You, I love you too.”
“Um, Loverboy to Birdie. You’re supposed to love me best. Over.”
“Wave Rider responding. There’s enough love to go around. You should know that Loverboy.”
“You guys are high as fuck. Over”, Eddie said.
“Big Wheel to the group. Quit wasting your batteries. Over.”
“Birdie to Big Wheel. Not until you admit you love us. Over.”
That started a chant of “Love us. Love us.” through the walkie-talkies which made it reverberate even more until Nancy was covering her ears and everyone ditched the walkie-talkies to dog pile on top of her. Only then did she admit she loved these idiots.
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Scum Villain fic where Shen Yuan wakes up out of a coma and realizes that he just had a very, very vibrant dream about his boy and that web novel he hatereads.
When he gets back home after observation it's so... surreal. He feels so much older now. He's practically lived a lifetime in that dream, even if only a few months have passed.
His room is so... cringe is the word he wants to use, but he can't help but find his past self endearing about it all. Except that line of thought makes... no sense at all. His past self is just him from a couple months ago.
He decides to check up on the story he'd been dreaming about and finds out that, though there were a dozen more chapters, they had stopped updating completely without warning just a few weeks after his own coma.
(The comments after his coma, a few mention him, calling him out or cheering for him finally giving up on the story. Some people even speculate he might have died.)
His old comments were so embarrassing to read, but there's a part of him that... sees his love for Luo Binghe even in these.
Wait, why is he suddenly okay being gay for this protag??
He thinks he probably shouldn't be quite so chill about it.
He wonders what happened to Airplane. He stops himself from thinking too hard on the possibility it could all have been real. That was ridiculous!!
Meanwhile in the world of the system....
Luo Binghe is flipping OUT. His husband his shizun his beloved just up and went POOF. No trace of him, no clue left behind.
(Or is it worse if he dies? The original goods died that night he qi deviated and was replaced by Shen Yuan, so there's no soul there to replace him. Luo Binghe has had to deal with dead Shizun before but this time it's... different.)
Either way, after a whole lot of everyone flipping out, Shang Qinghua seems to know a little too much about... something.
The truth comes out. Luo Binghe admits he's suspected something like that for a while now, but thats not important. He needs his shizun back, so how..?
Cue dimension hopping shenanigans.
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Part SEVEN of "Clone Danny"
Red Robin, Danny recognizes, steps away from him as he sits up. "My name is Phantom," he signs, blinking the exhaustion out of his eyes. (From Red Robin's perspective, it looks like he has no eyes. There lacks his signature green glow.) "I'm not a gang member, just an out-of-town vigilante."
Red Robin frowns at him, an uncertain grip on the bō in his other hand. "Phantom?" He repeats, no lacking amount of suspicion in his voice. "How can I believe that?"
Right. Yeah, okay, that's fair. Danny shrugs at him, and slumps against the wall. "Google search?" He gestures, he's been out in the daytime before and he's seen the news articles about him.
Red's eyes narrow at him and Danny simply draws his knees up and faceplants into them, half-listening to Red's murmurs into his comm while also trying to get some extra-shut eye.
("Oracle, can you pull up anything on a vigilante named Phantom? The guy here is claiming to be one." Tim says.
"On it."
"Is this Phantom wearing a white mask?" Bruce asks, his voice gruff like an aftershock. "There's a vigilante who shares the same name, but he resides in Illinois."
"Is this guy from that Amity city you visited ages ago?" Says Tim, before shaking his head. "Don't answer that. Yes, he's wearing some freaky mask. I said it reminded me of Hood's helmet for a reason."
"I've got something," Oracle interrupts, "Bats' right. as usual. The Phantom of Amity Park, not much stuff of this guy but he's only been out for over a year. Apparently, his rogues' gallery consists of ghosts."
"Oh great.")
"Look tell the Batman that I'm sorry for trespassing on his turf," He signs irritably when Red Robin eventually starts talking to (re: interrogating) him again. "It's not like I want to be here."
"How did you get in Gotham anyways?" Red Robin questions, batman was on his way to help deal with the situation but Tim doubted he wouldn't get caught up on the way with dealing with petty crime. "Your turf is nearly a thousand miles away from here."
"Two words." Danny deadpans, "Teleport ghost." (Red Robin winces sympathetically.) "I'm keeping this bastard in the thermos for a month for this alone."
(Danny was ignoring the slow-choking anxiety growing in his lungs over how he was gonna get home. He never takes his phone when he goes out, the risk of breaking it was too high. He had no way of contacting anyone to get him home.)
(He swallows the growing lump in his throat, and buries the feeling in the back of his mind.)
"Thermos?"
Danny unclips his Fenton Phantom Thermos off from his belt loop and shows it to Red Robin. "My ghost-catching device," He says with one hand, tilting it carefully for Red to inspect. "I wish I could say I made it, but its a FentonWorks invention."
(He wasn't sure if it was a smart idea to say who it belonged to, but saying it wasn't his probably loosened up any tracks on him, right?)
"Do you work with these Fentons, then?" Red asks, and something dark and shadowy flickers from the corner of Danny's eye. He glances over, and sees nothing, and his hackles raise.
(Either that was Batman, or a ghost, or Danny's mind playing tricks on him. He couldn't feel his ghost sense building in his throat, so he decided it was either the latter of the former.)
Danny snorts, quiet and gruff. "No." He clips his thermos to his belt again, stifling a smile on his face. "The Fentons hate me actually, I prevent them from catching ghosts themselves. Their son gives me their tech."
He had a cover story, so he might as well stick with it, right?
Batman shows up at that moment, appearing atop the little roof where the door is, and giving Danny a heart attack when he speaks in his low, rumbly voice like thunder rolling in, "Why would they hate you for that?"
Danny shoots up to his feet with a startled yell in his throat, clutching his chest as he whirls around and looks up. He nearly runs into Red Robin, and signs a few choice swears at the Bat.
"wow you're scarier in person, asshole."
"you didn't answer my question."
"Of course I didn't, you scared me." and Danny takes a trembling step back when the Batman jumps down and lands on the roof in front of him. He's faced ghosts before, but somehow the living is always scarier.
"But, um, the reason is a bit.. complicated, I guess." He says, fingers beginning to shake as his adrenaline wears off. God is he tired. He wants to go home. "The Fentons are the local ghost hunters and local crazies. I don't know if I can call them mad scientists because they're harmless to the living."
"But they're extremely anti-ghost. I've heard from their son multiple times the very unethical things they would do to ghosts if they got their hands on one."
Danny 'talks' a little more before calling it quits, even telling Batman that he can't tell him more without putting his identity at risk.
Plus, its getting harder and harder to hide his bone-deep exhaustion and his growing fear of being stranded in the most dangerous city in America with no way home.
"I would love to tell you more, believe me I'm dying to." Danny signs, shaky sarcasm dripping from his fingers. His hands are visibly trembling and he's withholding a slowly growing panic attack. "But I would like nothing more than to figure out a way to get home."
"Do you have no one to contact?"
"Sort of. But only one of them could probably come get me and get me back to Amity by sunrise. And I have no phone."
That one person being Ellie.
=====
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 4.5 (Dani interlude) Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 7.5 (Dan Interlude) Part 8
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