#Dreamwalker Subconscious series

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story)

Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Steve’s POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. Eddie wakes up alone in the Upside Down, not knowing how he survived, and unable to reach anyone topside in Hawkins. Wounded and alone, he finds shelter at the Harrington’s house (the place is a damn fortress after all), and while hiding out there discovers that he has gained the ability to walk into other people’s dreams.

((unbeta'd snippet from Chapter 03 that probably has some incorrect information in regards to the Upside Down/history of the show but I haven't gone back to fact check just yet. Also remember Eddie does not have some information that the others do so there are missing pieces there as well: for instance, he is calling the Demogorgon a Nazgûl (because we are doing lots of LotR references, and he never actually saw a Demogorgon in the show). He is currently hiding at the Byer's old house, and ends up falling asleep there while the creatures ourside are hunting. This is the first chapter where Eddie doesn't dreamwalk with Steve -- but with someone else. And therefore learns that he can walk into anyone's dreams. Also sets the tone for the rest of Eddie's story. There's 15 chapters total, if that helps paint the picture of how much more there is untold. Another stupidly long snippet, but it will probably be my last one for Eddie for a while. I'm wishy-washy on when the fic will be posted, and the logistics of formatting dreams vs. reality, but more info will come when the time nears. For the purpose of this snippet, the dream is in italics and reality is in regular))

—

Eddie dreams, and almost immediately he knows it’s not his own.

After finding himself walking through Steve Harrington’s dreams, Eddie discovers they feel very distinctly different from experiencing his own. It’s less confusing, for one thing, and he’s more sure of himself and his body as he moves around within the dreamscape. But he’s only dreamed with Steve twice, both when sleeping in his bed in his home, and there’s something very not Steve about this dream.

For one thing, he’s back in the woods. Not the Upside Down version of the woods, either, because the trees are intact and the air smells less foul, and there’s a different hue to the darkness here. Almost like it’s lighter, more familiar, nostalgic to his rattled senses.

He spins around, hands in his jacket pockets, once again wearing his battle vest (he misses it a lot, maybe Harrington kept it for him) and his Hellfire shirt. His armor. His go-to outfit. If he was to be drawn like a cartoon character in Scooby-Doo or some shit, wearing the same thing every frame, this is what he’d have on. And when he looks out into the darkness, he finds himself alone. Very much alone.

But this isn’t his dream.

How does he know this? Don’t fucking ask him. Eddie can just… feel it. Like when you step outside and can tell it’s about to rain. The atmosphere is just different.

He can also tell this isn’t Steve’s. Steve’s dreams feel like wearing a warm sweatshirt, they are crisp and confined and comforting even when they are facing something scary. But this… this feels more brittle. More watery. Smaller.

Then, Eddie sees him.

A little boy, standing in the woods. The towering trees seem to press in on him from either side, the forest floor is a shag carpet of leaves, roots and dips in the ground that could swallow that kid whole. He looks so small, and lost. Eddie had been lost in the woods before, when he didn’t know that if you just keep walking in one direction you’ll eventually hit a road. So he makes his way towards the boy, and only pauses when his vision fails him.

Well, it must have, anyway. Because Eddie could have sworn it was a little boy, about nine years old, and then like a movie-frame shutter the boy ages a few years. And then the click shutter happens again. It’s very ghost-story-esque and Eddie isn’t sure he wants to get much closer after that. The boy shutters between ages: maybe 10 years old, then 12 years old, 15 years old, and back to 10. If he had to guess.

But his presence doesn’t go unnoticed, the kid turns to him and looks at him with wide eyes. He’s got a rather unfortunate bowl-cut and big watery eyes and is looking at Eddie like he’s one of the Nazgûl come to eat him alive. So Eddie raises his hands in the universal gesture of ‘I come in peace’ and – it takes him a moment to realize he’d done something similar to Chrissy all those months ago. Trying to make himself not look so scary for a moment, when he spends most of his time otherwise doing his very best to have ‘Fuck Off’ stamped on his forehead.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he tells the kid, who about trips over his own feet to back away. “I’m not gonna hurt you. What’s your name?”

The boy licks his lips in nervousness, shutters between 10 and 12 again, a courage in his eyes as he finds his voice. 

“Will Byers.”

…Oh, shit. 

Eddie’s eyes are a little wider, now, and he lets out a deep breath as he tries to gain his bearings. He’d fallen asleep in mini-Byer’s room, and now he was in his dream.

So that’s how it works.

“Will Byers,” he murmurs, still a little shell-shocked. “Your friends with Wheeler and Henderson.”

He blinks and the kid is 15, almost as tall as he is, looking at him with more curiosity now. But then he’s 10 again, fingers clenched at his sides, suspicious and untrusting.

“Who are you?” he asks, his little voice doing its best not to shake.

“My name is Eddie.” He’s usually good with little kids, and he’d get down to the other’s level if he didn’t have a tendency to switch between four feet and six. But the spark of recognition is worth the softer tones, because the kid immediately connects a bunch of information Eddie isn’t privy to. But he gets the same look in his eyes that Henderson does when he figures something out.

“Eddie who died?” Will Byers asks, confused, hopeful.

“Yeah, Eddie who died,” he says back, and wow that feels like a kick to the chest. He puts his hands back in his pockets and leans on one hip heavily. At least they still talk about him, topside.

“Why are you here?” Will asks. Eddie just shrugs in response.

“I don’t know, man. It’s your dream.”

There’s a noise off in the distance, a dark guttural growl and heavy footsteps – both Eddie and Will look to it, snapping to attention and not moving an inch. ((This is a dream.)) Eddie reminds himself, like he has to do every single time. But the Nazgûl and Vecna could probably penetrate dreams as well as minds, so who’s to say that the thing in the distance wouldn’t be able to hurt them, here.

Will’s back to a small child, the same face and wide eyes that had been on missing posters three years ago. And he’s looking up at Eddie, whispering so as not to be overheard by the monster in the forest. “Do you know somewhere safe to hide?”

It takes him a moment to consider it. In fact, Eddie almost retorts with the same line as before. It’s your dream, kid. But then again, Eddie did have more control of himself so maybe… maybe he did know a safe place. Max had hidden from Vecna in happy memories, right? Dreams were just a compilation of memories and imagination. Eddie knows how to weave a tale, so yeah – why not?

He nods, steps closer, and offers his hand to the kid.

“This way.”

The woods are dark and dense and kind of lovely in their own way. The two can hear the Nazgûl in the background, although Eddie really wants to ask what the kids called it instead, and as he walks through the woods he just… focuses on the areas of the forest he knew well. In particular, the place he set up shop almost every day of the week.

And like magic, it appears.

They step into a small clearing in the woods, and there’s the picnic table he had last sat at with Chrissy Cunningham. Making a fool of himself to get her to laugh so she wouldn’t look so scared of him. Now he knows she wasn’t really scared of him at all, but the hallucinations Vecna had plagued her with. He swallows thickly, not wanting to think about Chrissy now – not when his very thoughts are driving where they walk – and then they are rounding the bleachers of the high school football field. Crossing the parking lots, and ducking through the East Entrance doors. Will had changed again, he’s older now, maybe 12 or 13, and looking around in curiosity.

Interesting.

“Have you ever been here before?” Eddie asks, because he needs to know. If Will had never been to Hawkins High, then he wouldn’t be able to dream it at all. That would mean that Eddie could create things out of thin air in a head that wasn’t his own. Both a very cool and very scary thought.

“Only a few times for school stuff. The others knew it better than I did. When I was lost they had El do her mind-walking here, so she could search for me. They made a sensory deprivation tank in the gym.”

Mind-walking. Eddie is even more interested now, and he wants to pry every little bit of information out of mini-Byers head if he can. “That’s the girl with superpowers?”

“Yeah, she’s like my sister.”

“And she can walk through minds?”

“Kind of,” and woah the kid’s voice dropped. He was older now, and taller again – probably the actual age of Henderson and Wheeler and Sinclair. “She walks through dimensions, but she can also walk through memories.”

“What about dreams?”

He almost doesn’t ask, but he also doesn’t get an answer – because then they make it to his hideout.

Eddie opens the door to the Drama room, where (low and behold) the Vecna Lives! Campaign is still set up from the night of the basketball game. The night Chrissy died, and Eddie’s entire life with her. The stage lights are set low, he’d created the perfect ambiance, and the table is still full of the havoc of their campaign. Those little shits won by the skin of their teeth, all thanks to Erika Sinclair. He’d never expected that. But it had been such a wonderful, delightful surprise. It’s a good memory, and Eddie holds onto it, lets it warm his chest and ease a smile onto his face.

“Woah!” Will’s face is pure awe, and there’s a handsome little smile on his face as well as he looks over the entire board. “Is this… you did all this?”

“It’s the night before I became a fugitive. My last and greatest campaign,” Eddie laments, shutting and blocking the door (just in case the Nazgûl decides to take up tracking) and then circles round to his Dungeon Master throne. Flops down in it with his legs hanging over the arm, and relishes in the familiarity of it. It’s the throne the props people built for a few plays over the years, and Eddie had to beg the Drama teacher to let him keep it for Hellfire. It was perfect. Set the tone immediately. All the other players got little folding card chairs, but Eddie was in charge and this was his domain. The throne never let them forget it.

Will looks around the board with skilled eyes, taking in each part of the story, and then his gaze lands on Henderson’s seat, where the character sheets and books are still set up. He must recognize the name, or the handwriting, because suddenly he’s frowning. The seat next to Henderson is Wheeler, and the frown deepens.

“Those shitheads,” he mumbles. “I begged them for months to play D&D with me last year, and as soon as I’m gone they join a club for it with a kick ass DM.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment” Eddie tells him with a wave of his hand, like the royalty he’s trying to be. “But yes, that was rather shitty of them. They told me all the time about how you’d wreck the campaign. Your presence was missed, Will the Wise.”

And it was true. Henderson had often shouted to the D&D heavens when Eddie’s hidden monsters would destroy half their party and demand to know where ‘Will the Wise’ was when they needed him.

“So,” he draws out the question, wanting to get back to the mind-walking girl, but he can see there is something still bothering the little Byers. “Did Henderson take over the campaigns? Or did you fill my empty throne upon your return?”

The smile falls from his face like a cinder block, and Will sits down in Wheeler’s seat heavily, gaze still roaming the complex board on the table.

“No, there’s been no games since everything happened.” He sounds sad about it, but Eddie gets the feeling it doesn’t actually have to do with D&D at all. 

“How come?”

“Well, it’s kind of a… sore spot,” Will admits, and then he glances guiltily at Eddie. Who doesn’t get it for a minute.

Oh.

Oh, crap.

It must show on his face that he knows it’s because of him. He was the ringleader of Hellfire, after all.

“Dustin doesn’t even really like talking about it,” Will confides in him. “But he doesn't really talk to anyone about anything, we don’t see him that often. Mostly just at mom’s family dinners when Steve drags him there.”

“I heard about those,” Eddie murmurs, picking at the flaking black polish on his nails to mask the guilt clawing at his chest. “Good ole Steve.” 

“He’s trying so hard to take care of everyone, but I know he spends a lot of time with Dustin. And Max. I really should visit Max more,” he murmurs now, his gaze going further away, and Eddie isn’t sure if he’s waking up from his dream or if Eddie is actually losing him in all this maudlin talk.

“She’s in the hospital, yeah?”

“The doctors aren’t sure if she’ll wake up,” Will tells him. “She’s just… in a coma. El is worried she’s stuck somewhere between the realms, but everyone else is worried she’s just… gone.”

Okay, they needed a topic change.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Eddie says, nearly flipping out of the throne in a manner that might have been a little over the top, but it shook the sadness from Will’s eyes and that’s what Eddie was going for. Court Jester, extraordinaire. It worked on Chrissy, it’ll work on little Will Byers. (Although not so little anymore.)

“Sure?”

He fumbles upright, and sits down in Henderson’s chair so he can finally level with the kid.

“You were stuck in the Upside Down when you went missing, right?” He knows he’s right, Henderson had gone into great detail about how it all started, but that's not the point of asking the question. Will nods, confused but intrigued. Super. “Okay, so – how did you hide and like… stay sane? You were just a little munchkin and all but you were in there for days.”

“Time moves differently there,” Will points out, but then shrugs and thinks about it. Looking up at the stage lights in thought. “I hid in this old fort of mine in the forest, it was something I had built myself and it didn’t make me feel so alone.”

Castle Byers, Eddie had seen it. He nods and motions for Will to continue with an exaggerated hand flourish that makes the kid smile. 

“So, here's my theory – after talking with El and some of the others about it, and about how Max hid from Vecna – I think maybe because it held such good and safe memories for me, it protected me like no other house could. I think that’s how I wasn’t caught again.”

Now that, that gives Eddie pause… because his safe spot right now was Harrington’s house. But he had never slept in Steve’s bed before in his life. (Dreamed about it? Of course, but Eddie had only ever stepped foot in his kitchen to do business during house parties. There was no connection to the property itself.) So why was it safe now? Was it Steve’s memory that made it so? A combination with the fact there were no vines inside? It was a lot to mull over, and Will was taking his silence as a go-ahead to continue on.

“Basically, if I had to give any advice,” Will draws out, trying to see what Eddie was angling for. Yes, advice would be greatly appreciated. “The Upside Down is a direct mirror of Hawkins, so go and find the bits of yourself that still exist out there. Things that make you feel more like yourself, and less like you’re living in hell. Clothes or pictures or books. Something that’s not dangerous to carry around, but reminds you of home.”

That makes a lot more sense than Eddie had expected it to. 

He looks back to Will, and gives the kid a grin that is equal parts impressed and appreciative.

“Thanks, kid. I think I’ll just have to do that.”

Will beams at him, a little hero-worship shining in his eyes that Eddie has witnessed before from his little hellion sheep. But then a spark of something like recognition crosses those wide eyes and Will’s gaze narrows at him in suspicion.

“Wait, why would you want to know that?” he questions, and Eddie doesn’t answer. Stays kind of tight-lipped about it because… he could just tell mini-Byers that he’s alive in there and that he should get Good Ole Steve-O and Nancy Wheeler and superhero girl to come rescue his ass. But would he believe him? Or remember?

And he recalls how fast the Nazgûl attacked once he fucked with the lights. The gate was closed, opening it could open up a whole can of worms or whatever that no one was ready to deal with.

Maybe… maybe he should just sit tight, for now, and see if he can help them all out somehow?

((Where was all this self-righteous bullshit coming from?))

Analysis time would also be a problem for Future Eddie.

“Let’s just say, it’ll come in handy for me,” Eddie relents. A little hint. Knowing those shits they’ll figure it all out anyway.

Instead of elaborating, he extends his hand, and waits for Will to clasp it like all good boys had been taught to do.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Will the Wise.”

He’s slow to smile again, but it’s a genuine thing and Eddie takes it for the little speck of Gold it is. “I’m glad I finally got to meet you, Eddie the Banished.”

And Eddie knows he has Henderson to thank for that nickname, but he would wear it proudly for the rest of his days if he ever manages to make it out topside again. 

Although Byers might give Henderson a run for his money on ‘favorite child’, at this rate.

—

When the blood red morning dawn creeps in through Will Byer’s windows, and Eddie crawls out from underneath his bed, there’s a lot of thoughts tumbling around his head as he gathers his things.

In particular, the thought that trying to contact the other side might not be the best idea at the moment. 

For his health? Yeah, possibly. He can’t actually live on moldy food the rest of his days, however short that may be, but he has to think of the bigger picture here. Everyone was having a rough time topside, in a completely different manner to Eddie’s own, but that old saying really rang true to him – shit was tough all over. They were all trying to heal, and knew there was a fight on the horizon. Eddie knew that eventually, everyone else would make it back to the Upside Down to finish this fight. He just had to live long enough to see that day.

So… why didn’t he just use his placement as an advantage?

Why doesn’t he do what he imagined himself doing, and really commit to the bit of espionage? Eddie could commit to the bit so hard he got himself in trouble most of the time. No use switching that up now.

So he gathers his things, tip-toes through the house, and runs right back into the woods. He has quite a few stops to make, but there’s one he needs to do first and foremost.

It takes the better part of the day, but he finally comes to the trailer park. The chasm splitting open the Earth glows and pulses with an intense heat, and there’s things prowling all around, but Eddie stays pressed to the backs of the trailers and dips and ducks around as best he can. Avoiding bats and rats and dogs and what might be a cat-like creature but he’s not entirely sure. Margaret’s trailer is much further down the road, where he’d biked when the bats chased him, so her bunker of Doomsday materials would have to wait.

Will said to find the things that reminded Eddie of himself, so that’s what he was going to do.

Uncle Wayne’s trailer is split in two, but Eddie’s room had been at the back end so it survived – to a degree. He crawls through the wreckage, picking through stuff that’s burnt and probably leaking radiation or some shit (seriously how has he not dropped dead at this rate?) and finally finds the tiny space that used to be his closet. It’s full of shirts and clothes he hasn’t seen in a couple years, but at the bottom is an old metal tool box that he’d stashed a bunch of sewing shit inside of. Patches. Bits of old band T-shirts, and sure enough – he lifts the lid, and finds the very origins of his battle vest. It’s still a jean jacket, at the moment, with sleeves covered in patches and safety pins – he ripped them off the summer between his second and third senior year – but on the back is the freshly hand-stitched Dio logo taking up the entire back panel. It’s gorgeous, and he immediately slips it on under Steve’s leather jacket. He’s lost enough weight the past few weeks it still fits, but he has a feeling he might be ripping off the sleeves sooner rather than later. Because he has some work to do, and some weapons to practice with.

But not before he goes and retrieves the final missing piece of himself.

His sweetheart is lying on the ground, covered in ash, some of the strings rusted. He whispers apologies to her as he picks her up out of the rubble. She’s a beautiful blood red Warlock NJ Series electric guitar that he spent two years saving up for, and as soon as he clips on a strap and slings her across his back, he feels more at peace than he had in a long time. Will the Wise had been right, he feels like he could take on the world with these bits of himself restored.

Harrington’s house was twenty miles away, and sundown was in only a few hours. He had errands to run, a distance to cross, and a realm of monsters in between them.

But he also now has a bike (discarded in a pile from Spring Break just waiting for him to pillage), and his guitar, and his battle jacket. 

Fuck Vecna and his minions. This was Eddie’s world now.

Time to get to work.

—

tbc

—

Series Snippets:

- Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5)

- Subconscious (Steve’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

[godidontevenknowwhat]

Series Masterlist

What is happening to me? What is happening to us?

Avatar!Jake Sully x Omatikaya!Reader

Part 1 - Pretty Like the Sun (WIP)

Set from the mind of Jake Sully as he arrives on Pandora, experiences his Avatar body for the first time, survives an encounter with a raging Thanator, becomes Neytiri's student in all that is Na'vi and most importantly, meets you.

Part 2 - Pretty Like the Wind (WIP)

Set from your mind as you learn to accept the new presence in your clan. The dreamwalker Jake Sully confuses you, you don't understand his language or the way he behaves.. or why he looks at you the way he does.

Part 3 - Shine on Everyone (WIP)

Extra lessons in the Na'vi language are starting to pay off, Grace has had her suspicions on his sudden eagerness to learn but with her help, Norm's help and the help of Neytiri he's finally able to talk to you confidently. He asks you for help with weaving, a selfish way to get close to you and it works. A bond develops in the blink of an eye.

Part 4 - Better body, better skin (WIP)

Jake has been neglecting his human body in favour of his Na'vi one and Grace forces him into taking a few days to recover some strength. He can barely look at himself anymore, he feels like this body isn't his, that this version of reality is where his subconscious is trapped but he belongs in the forest, belongs with you and the Omatikaya. He never expected you to see him like this, never wanted you to either.

Part 5 - Every time you touch me (WIP)

Jake has been giving you the cold shoulder since that day at the link shack, he passed his Iknimaya, tamed his Ikran.. all without a second glance your way. You try not to think about it, try not to look at how he dances with Neytiri, at how he smiles with your clan as he settles in his rightful place among them. But in the end you have to tell him, tell him that he's still Jake no matter the body and tell him how you really feel.

Part 6 - I'm so selfish and you're so kind (WIP)

You find out the truth about Jake Sully.

[boop-le-snoot]

I woke up at 10 minutes ago and still have whiplash. I was lucid for 95% of this dream and morbidly curious. What is my subconscious on lmfao

I had seen a comic called nya-nya affectionately by its fans, it was just an anthology series about people getting murdered by demons in a very gruesome manner, with a very loose plot, and then I was in one of those stories/recognized the plot.

The victims were a mother with a baby (~3mo) + a 9/10 year old kid. The demon lived in an abandoned mansion on the side of a park. It was hiding in the decrepit mansion for ages; it was very large, had long thin grey fingers & a human was the size of a mosquito to him.

I saw this weird cutscene with it sucking the innards out a human with no effort. The whole park was infested with mosquitoes that stung a lot when they bit.

Acc to plot of a comic, it began to rain and the mother would seek shelter from rain in the mansion.

I spotted her & prevented her from doing so and tried to get her to leave the park. The demon resisted my efforts by making everyone hallucinate the baby was deformed (two heads connected to each other) but I drew a cross on the baby's foreheads and said "you have no power over me here, demon" & said I was a dreamwalker.

The demon hated it and attempted to kick me out of the dream but I just clapped my hands twice, stabilizing it. Demon possessed the older kid for like 3 seconds but I quickly drew a cross on his forehead, then did something to the mother but I woke up cuz my landlord came lmao

[attollogame]

Dw with ❝ I love you so much I’m going to let you kill me. ❞

The steak is rare.

It sits on a plate in a puddle of red that oozes over the edges as you cut into it. Candles flicker and burn on a table that's adorned with an assortment of foods; figs, pomegranates, oysters, and the scent of saffron hangs heavy in the air. You stare down at your plate in resolute silence.

He sits across from you at the other end of the table. You can feel the burn of his stare on your form as the scraping of his own knife against the plate cuts through the silence. You swallow, your mouth dry despite the wine that sits in the cup beside you.

If you look closely enough, the illusion flickers, and you see that it isn't actually wine that's in the cup but another thicker, darker red liquid.

That's what this entire dinner is—an illusion. You know that you're asleep but you're unable to wake up, as is often the case when Dreamwalker enters your mind. He sews the exits of your subconscious shut with a bitter, black thread, and only he has the scissors that can cut them open once more.

"Is it to your liking?" His voice is soft, so disarmingly warm, when he finally decides to speak. You spare him a brief glance before looking back to the piece of meat that sits on your fork. The illusion flickers again; you see a maggot squirming between the thick brown folds. Your stomach turns and you set the fork down.

"It's delicious." The lie falls easily into the world, but he doesn't care for your response anyway. You hear the scraping of his chair pushing back as he rises from his seat, folding his hands behind his back as he does so. You glance at him again, and your eyes fall to the picture behind him; a lambs head on a golden platter. Its black eyes stare lifelessly at you, as though pleading for you to leave before you end up like it. It's a perfect combination of beauty and horror.

Where have you seen that image before?

"It's been a while since we had dinner together." He's beside you suddenly. You didn't even notice him moving, and you quickly chalk this up as another one of his illusions. He sits back on the table as he looks down at you, his golden eyes glimmering with mirth. His thumb comes up to swipe your bottom lip and pulls back coated in red.

You watch in enraptured silence as he sucks the liquid off the digit before leaning back. "I've quite missed it."

"I haven't." Another lie that falls easily into the world. The sting of rejection—of disregarded texts and awkward restaurant outings where it's just been you and two glasses on the table—sits at the forefront of your mind. He hums sympathetically at your proclamation and reaches out to cup your chin.

"Ah, I work so hard for you, you know. I work so hard just to see you smile." He leans in and presses a series of butterfly kisses along your neck and jaw.

Actually, butterfly kisses may be an exaggeration—you can feel the sting of his teeth in more than one of them.

"You love me, don't you?" His words come out as a whisper against your ear as he moves closer, pinning your body in the chair. "Will you say it? Will you tell me how much you love me?"

You clench your jaw and pull back to look into his golden eyes. The illusion flickers again, and for a moment you see what lies beneath the facade—that horrible, twisted undertow.

"I love you," you finally murmur, looking away towards the picture of the lamb head once more. "I love you so much I'm going to let you kill me."

A tear of scarlet drips from the lamb's eye, and that's all you see before Dreamwalker is crushing his lips against yours.

[ao3feed-destiel]

Subconscious Perdition

Read it on AO3 here!https://ift.tt/2ldYQWa

by galaxypants

“These aren’t Dean’s thoughts, are they?” he asked.

“No,” Castiel said. “They’re memories.”

---

Dean has been affected by a djinn, and the hunter is trapped in his own head. Sam and Castiel enter his mind to try and break him free of the spell, and unexpected secrets are revealed.

Words: 6578, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Supernatural

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Mary Winchester, Apocalypseverse Bobby Singer, Jack Kline (mentioned), Benny Lafitte (mentioned), Bobby Singer (Mentioned)

Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester

Additional Tags: Dreamwalking, Djinni & Genies, POV Sam Winchester on Castiel/Dean Winchester, Angst with a Happy Ending, Alternate Season/Series 14, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond

Link: https://ift.tt/2ldYQWa

[ao3feed--destiel]

by galaxypants

“These aren’t Dean’s thoughts, are they?” Sam asked.

“No,” Castiel said. “They’re memories.”

---

Dean has been affected by a djinn, and the hunter is trapped in his own head. Sam and Castiel enter his mind to try and break him free of the spell, and unexpected secrets are revealed.

Words: 6624, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Supernatural

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Mary Winchester, Apocalypseverse Bobby Singer, Jack Kline (mentioned), Benny Lafitte (mentioned), Bobby Singer (Mentioned)

Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester

Additional Tags: Dreamwalking, Djinni & Genies, POV Sam Winchester on Castiel/Dean Winchester, Angst with a Happy Ending, Alternate Season/Series 14, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond

via AO3 works tagged 'Castiel/Dean Winchester'

[ao3feed-castiel]

Subconscious Perdition

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2ldYQWa

by galaxypants

“These aren’t Dean’s thoughts, are they?” he asked.

“No,” Castiel said. “They’re memories.”

---

Dean has been affected by a djinn, and the hunter is trapped in his own head. Sam and Castiel enter his mind to try and break him free of the spell, and unexpected secrets are revealed.

Words: 6578, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Supernatural

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Mary Winchester, Apocalypseverse Bobby Singer, Jack Kline (mentioned), Benny Lafitte (mentioned), Bobby Singer (Mentioned)

Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester

Additional Tags: Dreamwalking, Djinni & Genies, POV Sam Winchester on Castiel/Dean Winchester, Angst with a Happy Ending, Alternate Season/Series 14, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2ldYQWa

[readingontheedge]

Morgan L. Busse for

Days of Fantasy for Christmas

Mark of the Raven

(The Ravenwood Saga #1)

By Morgan L. Busse

Christian Fantasy

Paperback & ebook, 352 Pages

November 6th 2018 by Bethany House Publishers

 Lady Selene is the heir to the Great House of Ravenwood and the secret family gift of dreamwalking. As a dreamwalker, she can enter a person’s dreams and manipulate their greatest fears or desires. For the last hundred years, the Ravenwood women have used their gift of dreaming for hire to gather information or to assassinate.

 As she discovers her family’s dark secret, Selene is torn between upholding her family’s legacy–a legacy that supports her people–or seeking the true reason behind her family’s gift.

 Her dilemma comes to a head when she is tasked with assassinating the one man who can bring peace to the nations, but who will also bring about the downfall of her own house.

 One path holds glory and power, and will solidify her position as Lady of Ravenwood. The other path holds shame and execution. Which will she choose? And is she willing to pay the price for the path chosen? 

Goodreads│Amazon│Barnes & Noble│Book Depository

Character Interview

 1. Who are you?

 I am Lady Selene of House Ravenwood, first daughter and heir.

 2. What is your family’s gift?

 That’s a secret. But since you seem to already know, we are known as the House of Dreamers. We can walk inside people’s dreams. How do we do that? By touch. When I touch a person while they are sleeping, I slip into their mind, into their subconscious, into their deepest memories. Seems like a pretty awesome gift, right? Until you find out that your job is to search out secrets within a person’s mind or…or find their worst nightmares and make them relive it over and over again until their heart gives out. *shudders

 3. What is your greatest wish?

 Greatest…wish? Well, um, I wish that I might rule together with my sisters, and maybe find a better way to use our gift of dreaming. The problem is Amara and I don’t get along very well. Mother is always praising me and hardly ever speaks to Amara. Amara resents me for that. The thing is, I never wanted Mother’s praise or attention. I wish Amara could see that.

 4. What is your greatest fear?

 Aren’t these questions a little personal? All right, fine. My fear is becoming just like my mother. When I dreamwalk, I create an emotion connection to the sleeper. But in order to make them relive their nightmares, I must bury my emotions or else they will overtake me. I think at some point, my mother’s heart died. How else can she be so callous about hurting others?

 5. What do you hope for your future?

 I want to have the freedom to pursue why we were really given the gift of dreamwalking. I can’t believe it’s only to hurt others. There has to be a better, nobler reason. But I can’t do that under my mother’s control. So I will need to escape someday. But I don’t know when I’ll have the chance.

Flight of the Raven

(The Ravenwood Saga #2)

By Morgan L. Busse

Christian Fantasy

Paperback & ebook, 352 Pages

April 30th 2019 by Bethany House Publishers

 Selene Ravenwood, once the heir to House Ravenwood, is now an exile. On the run and free of her family's destiny, Selene hopes to find the real reason her family was given the gift of dreamwalking. But first she must adapt to her new life as wife to Lord Damien Maris, the man she was originally assigned to kill. 

 While adjusting to her marriage and her home in the north, her power over dreams begins to grow. As the strongest dreamwalker to exist in ages, her expanding power attracts not only nightmares but the attention of the Dark Lady herself.

 With a war looming on the horizon and a wicked being after her gift, Selene is faced with a choice: embrace the Dark Lady's offer, or search out the one who gave her the gift of dreamwalking. One path offers power, the other offers freedom. But time is running out, and soon her choice will be made for her. 

Goodreads│Amazon│Barnes & Noble│Book Depository 

About the Author

Morgan L. Busse is a writer by day and a mother by night. She is the author of the Follower of the Word series, the Carol Award-winning steampunk series, Soul Chronicles, and the Ravenwood Saga, a new fantasy series from Bethany House coming November 2018. During her spare time she enjoys playing games, taking long walks, and dreaming about her next novel.

Website│Goodreads│Facebook│Twitter│Instagram│Pinterest│BookBub 

Tour Schedule

(Links won't work until the posts go live.)

 December 1st: Launch

December 2nd: Gillian Bronte Adams - The Songkeeper Chronicles

December 3rd: Morgan L. Busse - Mark of the Raven

December 4th: Evangeline Denmark - Curio

December 5th: Kate Avery Ellison - A Gift of Poison

December 6th: J.M. Hackman - Spark

December 7th: Ronie Kendig - Embers

December 8th: C.E. Laureano - Oath of the Brotherhood

December 9th: Belle Malory - The Twelfth Keeper

December 10th: Melissa McShane - Voyager of the Crown

December 11th: J. Ellen Ross - The Remembered Queen

December 12th: Jennifer Silverwood - Silver Hollow

December 13th: Melissa Wright - Blood & Brute & Ginger Root

December 14th: Morgan Wylie - The Age of Alandria Series

December 15th: Grand Finale 

Tour Giveaway

Grand Prize #1: Winner will receive a FIRE HD 8 TABLET along with the following ebooks (open to those who are eligible for the Fire Tablet in their area can receive Kindle gifted copies of ebooks):

- CURIO, MARK OF BLOOD and ALCHEMY (The Curio Prequel), and THE ICE CHILD (a holiday novelette) by Evangeline Denmark

- A GIFT OF POISON by Kate Avery Ellison

- THE TWELFTH KEEPER by Belle Malory

- SERVANT O THE CROWN or VOYAGER OF THE CROWN (winner's choice) by Melissa McShane

- THE REMEMBERED QUEEN by J. Ellen Ross

- SILVER HOLLOW by Jennifer Silverwood

- THE FREY SAGA (Books 1-3) ebook box set by Melissa Wright

 Grand Prize #2: Winner will receive the following print books (open to continental US residents):

- ORPHAN'S SONG by Gillian Bronte Adams

- MARK OF THE RAVEN by Morgan L. Busse

- SPARK by J.M. Hackman

- ABIASSA'S FIRE 3-book collection by Ronie Kendig

- The complete set of SONG OF SEARE TRILOGY by C.E. Laureano

- SILENT ORCHIDS by Morgan Wylie

 Ends December 19, 2018

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b9a55db3333/? 

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Subconscious (Steve's Story)

Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Eddie's POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. No matter what he does, no matter who he is with or what is happening in the aftermath of their failed battle with Vecna – Steve Harrington can't stop thinking about Eddie Munson. He's even begun to see him in his dreams…

(unbeta'd snippet from Chapter 01. Steve has taken it upon himself to keep track of all of the members of their group as they recover in the aftermath of Vecna, but Dustin is the one that really needs him. He's taking it the hardest out of all of them, and trying to hide it in a way that isn't quite working. After Eddie's death he can usually only be found at his house, in his basement, which at least means Steve always knows where to find him. But it's getting to the point that there needs to be an intervention.)

--

Two months and nine days after they tried and failed to kill Vecna, Steve Harrington found himself waving marrily to Ms. Henderson as he dragged her son out of their house by his ear. There was lots of loud complaining from the high school sophomore (or soon to be, after this summer. Ask Steve again how old he feels?) so they didn’t get to exchange words of parting. Dustin had that covered in spades.

“Steve! SteveSteve sonofabitch that hurts STEVE! Let me go!” He only obliges after he’s opened the car door and deposited the surly teenager in the passenger seat of his BMW. 

“You can scowl at me all you want, but family dinner means family dinner so you’re going,” he reprimands, pointing at him through the window before rounding the vehicle and sliding back behind the wheel. “Next time it would have been Hop coming to drag your ass out of your basement, not me.” And no one wanted that. 

Joyce Byers was hosting frequent dinners where all the kids could be in one place, and the newer adults, as well as themselves. All the people who understand what’s really going on in town. It was just as much to keep tabs on the situation as well as making sure everyone in their inner circle still has their head above water. Vecna/Henry/One is not dead. Steve has wrapped his head around this fact, despite the elaborate backstory of how Vecna came to be. He got his four sacrifices, even though Max lived through the ordeal, and the portal was open. The Upside Down was spilling into their own world. But other than that, there have been no moves made. No creatures hunting Hawkins townspeople in the dead of night. (Yet.) But they were not going to be caught unaware, not this time. 

However, wrangling a bunch of teenagers who are possibly presenting signs of early onset PTSD was a whole other ballgame that needed addressing. The group as a whole was a mess at the best of times, but they were able to band together and felt stronger when all in the same location. So if Steve’s sole job today was to get Dustin within shouting distance of his friends, albeit against his will, then by God he was going to do it. 

The mere fact he had to drag Dustin to the Byer’s place was in and of itself a red flag. It wasn’t like him in the slightest. 

He’d left Robin with Joyce to help get things set up, for this very reason. Steve and Dustin needed to talk. They’ve done a lot of talking over the past two months, but this was starting to reach a worrying level of solitude. 

“Dude, you have to talk to me,” Steve tells him, after five minutes of straight silence. Not even the radio on in the background. “You can’t keep doing this. Trust me.” He puts emphasis in his tone and in the solid hand on his shoulder that he can relate, that he’s been here before, through slightly different circumstances. “If you keep ignoring your friends, eventually… they stop calling.” For him, it had been on purpose. Leaving Tommy and Carol and ‘King Steve’ in the dusty halls of Hawkins High where they belonged. But Dustin was doing it out of grief, and he needed those other knuckleheads. They needed each other. 

“They wouldn’t do that,” Dustin mumbles, but his threat had gotten the kid’s attention. 

Steve sighs. “No, they wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t let them. But hiding in your room listening to metal and not talking to your friends is not how you’re going to get through this.” 

“That’s not all I’m doing,” he defends. 

“Oh really?” Steve challenges. Drawing Dustin out of his shell with baited words like it was his day job, it worked every time. “What, pray tell, is there to do in that basement besides ruin your eardrums and make illegal spy radios?” 

“Hey, we’re going to need those radio frequencies! Someone has to get them set up and ready before –” 

The car goes quiet, and Steve finds it suddenly hard to swallow. And Dustin, never one to leave the unspoken alone, finishes his sentence with a dead-like tone that breaks Steve’s heart to fucking pieces. 

“ – before next time.” 

Because of course there will be a next time, this isn’t over. They all know it. 

God damn it all. These kids shouldn’t be living their lives with the next battle constantly hanging over their heads. It isn’t fair. Steve leans his elbow against the open car window and rubs at the blossoming headache behind his eyes. They are kids… just fucking kids. They shouldn’t be mourning dead friends and preparing for war. It isn’t right.

“Steve?” Dustin breaks the quiet, because even when he is trying to be the adult Steve still can’t get his shit together. “I’m trying. I am.”

“I know you are, buddy,” he says quietly, and the sentiment reflects in his own voice. They’re all trying.

“I just can’t pretend that we aren’t waiting for the other shoe to drop. Vecna is still out there, the portal is still open.” He’s looking down at his knees instead of out the window. From pretty much anywhere in Hawkins they could see the eerie glow of downtown, hear the helicopters in the distance, taste the stale air as the dark particles drift further and further on the wind with each passing day. “And… I still miss him.” 

Eddie.

Dustin had watched Eddie die. A friend and person he looked up to, a hero in his eyes before he ever became one in that field, and he’d died right there next to him. Even without the threat of the next big one coming at them – that isn’t an easy thing to forget. It’s not something he can just shake off. 

And Steve wouldn’t ask it of him, no one had any right to.

“I do, too.” It’s the first time he’s even admitted it to himself, and this time when he reaches over and puts a hand on Dustin’s shoulder the quiet isn’t so tense or full of resentment. “I really do.” 

Not in the same way; they had all built different friendships, and seen different sides of each other, during the days they fought Vecna’s curse. But those few days felt the length of a lifetime, and Steve mourns the loss of the people that should be there with them every time Joyce hosts dinner. As if he'd actually known them all his life.

Maybe that’s why Dustin doesn’t want to go. 

“We aren’t the only ones,” Steve tells him, assures and holds tight to the fact it’s true. It should be true. He and Dustin aren’t the only ones that miss Eddie. Sure, it’s hard with Max in a coma and the pure relief at seeing Hopper alive after having a fucking funeral for him the year prior. It’s a tangled web of feelings that Steve isn’t the best at navigating, but he’s good at being there. He’s good at standing in one place and holding anyone up that can’t seem to find their footing. Like now. “Talk to them tonight. You’ll see.” 

“Will hadn’t even met Eddie before,” Dustin reminds him, sadly.

“Will would have loved Eddie.” Steve gives him a look when it’s safe to do so, a long stretch of road that’s a mere block from the Byer’s house. “I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to listen.” And that gets a small smile out of the kid beside him, thinking about all the stories that would catch Will’s attention and remind the others of the good times. That’s what they should be remembering about Eddie, their dumb Dungeons and Dragons games. Not the demobats. Not the wanted posters. All the trash people say to this day. That wasn’t the Eddie Munson they knew.

His memory deserves better than that.

--

tbc

--

Series Snippets: - Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) - Subconscious (Steve’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Steve’s POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. Eddie wakes up alone in the Upside Down, not knowing how he survived, and unable to reach anyone topside in Hawkins. Wounded and alone, he finds shelter at the Harrington’s house (the place is a damn fortress after all), and while hiding out there discovers that he has gained the ability to walk into other people’s dreams.

((Content warnings in tags))

(un-beta’d snippet of Chapter 2; Eddie made it to the Harrington’s house in one piece last chapter, and hasn’t tried to step outside of it ever since. It’s safe, he has room and food and endless supplies (make-shift or otherwise), and he’s still pretty injured and needs to rest. But idle hands and all that, plus adjusting to living in the Upside Down isn’t exactly a walk in the park.)

--

It takes over a week before Eddie leaves Steve’s house.

To be fair, he sleeps a lot of it. (Still healing, and all that; blood loss is no fucking joke.) He doesn’t dream of Steve, or with Steve, in that time. In fact, he’s not dreaming much at all, thank Jesus, because when he does… it always ends with the bats. 

Gnawing, swarming, rows and rows of teeth digging into his sides, going for vital organs. A tail around his neck, more pulling at each limb, like he’s being drawn and quartered. Screaming as teeth sunk into him over and over again. Being disemboweled alive – sounds metal as fuck. Actually sucks balls. 

He wakes up far too many times to a double tap of paralyzing fear. First shot – being eaten alive in his dreams, not knowing if it’s real or if it’ll stop. Second shot – not knowing if he’d screamed when he woke up, and what might have heard him if he did. It’s enough to make anyone curl up in the fetal position and shake.

But then Eddie focuses on trying to contact Steve. After a few days of rest, his head no longer swimming, and his wounds in the gross, early stages of healing and scarring, Eddie realizes he needs out. No one was going to come looking for him here, at Harrington Manor (now Casa de Munson), so if he wants the rescue party to locate him he’d have to send up some flares. Discreetly. 

He tries the lights. He tries the doors. He tries the TV (à la Poltergeist), and the stereo system in Steve’s room. The walkie-talkie radio that is obviously Henderson’s handiwork. He even tries Harrington’s fucking hair dryer. God knows he’d noticed that thing on the fritz. He lets his hand pass through the drifting bits of tickling light whenever Steve actually deigns to be home and turn something on, but half the lights are too high for him to reach (damn rich people’s homes and their fucking vaulted ceilings) and the rest don’t seem to have any kind of impact on the guy.  

Eddie calls Steve many unflattering names this particular morning, specifically after the hair dryer incident. He messed with it until the damn thing blew a fuse, and it yielded results he never in a million years would have predicted. It seems Steve did in fact notice this, and then? Then Eddie could hear Steve, loud and clear. Just like they had with Henderson when they were stuck over spring break, as if he was trapped in the walls. Steve yells right back at him, or to God or whoever, some choice words very similar to Eddie's own a moment ago. And it was so dramatic and so… good to hear a voice again in the pulsating nothingness of the Upside Down that Eddie laughs until he cries. 

Sometimes in the mornings (when he can’t bother to pull himself out of bed) he could hear Steve and Buckley talking in the kitchen, but he hasn’t heard Steve’s parents and most of the time Steve doesn’t talk at all when he’s home. It gets to the point where Eddie starts to worry he might have to make the trip to Henderson or Sinclair's house. If any of those little brats has the intelligence to count on in a dire situation like this, it’s Sinclair’s 11-year-old sister. (Heaven help him.)

The biggest problem with that plan is… there are things out there. The bats swarm daily; when they pass over the house it sounds like a tornado is about to take off the roof. There’s creatures that stalk about between the trees, taller than a normal man, and scavenging creatures of all sizes. Dog-sized, rat-sized, more he can’t even make out. The vines creep and move, try to wiggle under the doors of the house sometimes but can’t make it past the weather seals. And there’s something huge, vaguely Jabba The Hut shaped, that slithers about and Eddie is fucking terrified it might move faster than it looks.

There’s more, too, he knows this. He hears the cries and shrieks in the night of the creatures hunting each other. If that’s not a terrifying enough scenario for you, imagine how Eddie felt the moment he realized they eat each other and are still a hive mind. They are starving. No wonder they are so hostile and ravenous for human flesh. It’s food that doesn’t hurt to eat. 

It’s about this time that Eddie starts to take notes. A day or two before he makes his first venture outside the house. His mind is a maddening buzz of information and fears and observations and questions. He can’t think, he can’t put anything in order, it makes him want to knock himself out just for a moment of peace. But the risk of nightmares starts to deter that. So he finally does the one thing he swore he would never do; he takes the long suffering advice of his old middle school guidance counselor. The one he was too full of anger to hear properly, at the time.

He writes it all down.

It starts as stream of consciousness, dumping all the chatter and words in his head onto paper just to put it somewhere. To save his dwindling sanity. And soon his brain, trained and honed like a broadsword blade by his DM campaigns, begins to group information on instinct. Ideas. Categories. Plans.

Ten hours and a hell of a cramp in his hand later, he actually has a plan. He might have… started to lose it a little by then, too, because the layout sounds a bit like the intro monologue to one of his campaigns:

Eddie the Banished has been left behind; not out of hate or convenience, but out of circumstance. He doesn’t blame his party for doing so. They are at war with a fearful, deadly foe. They thought he’d been vanquished. Defeated. 

Alas, he endured.

He survived.

Eddie the Banished was now in hiding, behind enemy lines.

He found himself in quite an advantageous position — and if this were a D&D campaign, he knew just what he would do. He’d do reconnaissance. He’d make maps and creature dossiers, stash weapons and provisions, he'd be the best ‘presumed dead’ spy a campaign had ever asked for. He could do so much good, getting everything ready.

So what was stopping him doing the same, here?

Easy:

Fear.

The very real reality that he could be eaten by a monster.

The fact he’s a storyteller, not a fighter.

The pros and cons list literally began to write itself, filling pages in Steve’s (very worryingly unused) high school notebooks that Eddie had commandeered. But the pros are a lot longer than the cons.

In summary: 

Pros = prepare everyone for what comes next. (If his brief glimpse of downtown was anything to go by. They still had a boss battle to fight.)

Cons = he’s a coward at heart, who knows how to keep himself alive first and foremost.

… It takes him rereading his own notes until the wee hours of the morning to realize… that may be a skill, and not a flaw. The ability to keep himself alive. At least here, it was. In the Upside Down. And wasn’t that the coolest adaptive mindset ever, enough that it propelled him into preparatory action. All the way to the following morning, where he stood just inside the interior door of the Harrington’s garage, working up the nerve to step outside.

—

tbc

—

Series Snippets:

- Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

- Subconscious (Steve’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Subconscious (Steve’s Story)

Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Eddie’s POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. No matter what he does, no matter who he is with or what is happening in the aftermath of their failed battle with Vecna – Steve Harrington can’t stop thinking about Eddie Munson. He’s even begun to see him in his dreams…

(unbeta'd snippet from Chapter 01; follows almost immediately after the snippet from part 1. Joyce has started having mandatory "family dinners" for the kids and young adults that are in their inner circle. They serve as ways to share information on what's happening in town, keep an eye on each member as they deal with their own repercussions of the past few months, and gives everyone a place where they don't have to hide. Steve makes sure all the kids can make it there and back home again, no matter what, but often forgets that he is also on the health check radar. Not just for Robin, either. Oh no. He's not that lucky.

Robin and Steve just finished checking in with each other, while watching the kids gather under the trees of the Byer's backyard to talk about how much Dustin has been missing Eddie. Because sometimes that stubborn kid actually takes his advice...)

--

“Harrington!” Hopper interrupts, when Robin starts to head inside without him – Nancy and Jonathon are visible through the kitchen windows, and every time Steve sees Nancy these days it makes him stop in his tracks. Their time together during those few days in Spring Break seem like a lifetime ago, now. And all the tense ‘what-if’ moments are eclipsed by what happened, what was lost – and for some reason when he looks at her now, Steve only thinks of another person that should be there, also with wide eyes and a head full of curls. But it’s still just Nancy, with Jonathon by her side. The last ones to arrive. 

The gang is all here.

((Almost.))

“Come over here. Help me with this damn grill.” Steve sees the ploy for what it is, he doesn’t know anything about grills in the slightest. But he stands beside Hopper and accepts the beer offered to him. The irony enough to draw half a smirk from his lips that might be genuine.

“I think the last time you and I were in this situation you were taking the beer away from me,” he points out as he tips back the bottle neck. 

“Yeah, I don’t need you to remind me of how fast I’m aging, Harrington.” The man shuffles the burgers and chicken breasts along the searing hot grill, and then – with no preamble whatsoever, and only a slightly softer edge to his tone – he says, “Tell me about Munson.”

In four words, Hopper had requested the information Steve wished everyone else had the guts to ask. It meant so many things, between the lines, that Steve grew silent as he parsed them out. ‘Tell me how Eddie Munson got caught up in all this mess. Tell me how he handled it. Tell me who he was, when it counted the most. Who he tried to be for the kids. Tell me why he stayed involved when any sane person would have lit out of town and never looked back.’

Tell me about Eddie Munson.

Steve didn’t even know where to start.

“Did you know him?” he asks, instead, because the familiarity was hard to miss in Hopper’s question.

“Yeah, I knew that punk,” he says, a growl of a thing that almost sounds fond in a sad way, poking at the burning coals of the grill with a little more aggression. Channeling frustration, the unfairness of it all. “I’d picked him up far too many times over the years. Only had to process him once. All the rest I just dumped him in Wayne’s lap.” 

He spoke of Wayne Munson like they were friends. Steve wouldn’t be surprised if they were.

“... Mr. Munson still puts up missing posters,” Steve tells him, a confidence that aches even as he speaks. Hopper looks even more angry at that. Not at them. At everything.

“He loved that kid.” 

Steve looks up at the group, still huddled together. Having a moment that was giving way to memories, laughter and tears that coincide somehow in the messiness of it all.

“We all did,” Steve mutters, and Hopper is looking right at him, again. Steve has noticed this more and more with every passing ‘family’ dinner. Hop treats Steve like a man, now. An equal. He’s out of school, sure, but it probably has more to do with the fact that he’s somehow adopted six rowdy high school kids and has been taking care of them when their parents couldn’t. And as much as Steve appreciates that, it’s still difficult to level with him and have a serious conversation. To explain everything going on in the group, or in his head, when he couldn’t always make sense of it himself. No matter which way you looked at it, the whole situation was terrible. It sucked. Steve hated being the adult more than he hated being the babysitter.

Really, when it all boils down, he didn’t mind being the babysitter at all. Not after knowing what it’s like to face the consequences and have to deal with the aftermath. Dustin sobbing over Eddie on the ground, the kid not even able to walk with his messed up ankles. Steve doing CPR, time slipping through their fingers. And then… Steve having to drag Dustin away because the gate was closing.

“We didn’t even get to bring his body back,” Steve reveals, swallowing thickly. “We had to get out, I couldn’t –” he couldn’t carry both Dustin and Eddie, so he had to choose. Dustin was alive. Eddie’s body was cold. 

“You did what you could, kid,” Hopper says. The far-away look in Steve’s eyes more telling than anything else the past few weeks. “No one blames you for that, not even Wayne would. Eddie was dead before you left, right?” 

It’s the first time anyone has asked that question. And Steve had never questioned it before. Eddie wasn't breathing, Steve hadn't found a pulse, Dustin's words on the radio echoing in his head to this day. ((Eddie's dead.)) He’d died in Dustin’s arms, and Steve knew Dustin would have done everything possible to shake him back to life if he could. Steve had tried, battered and bruised as he was, to no avail. There was no other answer.

So why did the guilt feel like it was going to eat him alive?

“Yes, he was dead,” Steve murmurs, downing the rest of his beer and wishing it was something stronger.

–

tbc

–

Series Snippets:

- Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

- Subconscious (Steve’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Steve’s POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. Eddie wakes up alone in the Upside Down, not knowing how he survived, and unable to reach anyone topside in Hawkins. Wounded and alone, he finds shelter at the Harrington’s house (the place is a damn fortress after all), and while hiding out there discovers that he has gained the ability to walk into other people’s dreams.

(unbeta’d snippet from Chapter 02; the second dream that Eddie encounters where it belongs to Steve and not himself. He’s still learning the ropes on the dream-walking, rules tbd. Some more information is revealed on both sides, although Steve still believes Eddie is dead, and Eddie is just glad to be around another human being. Especially one that is comes in the shape of Steve Harrington. There are talks about his death, as well as some characters that appear or are mentioned in the dream that Eddie does not know are alive/hurt/dead, and in this particular fic Eddie is gay instead of bisexual. I personally support all orientations for him. We just love Eddie given the chance to love in this household, no matter what shape or form that comes in.)

—

When Eddie dreams that night, he’s surprised to find himself in a very vivid version of Hawkins.

It’s evening, and the sky is a beautiful watercolor dusk of blues and pinks and purples. It’s not too hot, like summer, but no chill of autumn creeps under his clothes, and if he’s not mistaken – he can hear the sound of laughter and bike wheels clicking just down the road. He blinks himself into awareness, sitting atop the picnic table outside of his trailer like he’s done many a night with his Uncle Wayne. Smoking cigarettes and talking about everything and nothing at all. But Wayne isn’t there, and when he looks over to the road that runs alongside Forest Hills Trailer Park he can see Max booking it around the corner with her skateboard under her feet and the rest of their crew on their bikes waiting for her. Looking up to no good. Eddie’s favorite kind of activity.

He tosses his cigarette to the gravel, and starts making his way over – hoping to catch them – and finds another person walking along the road a few yards ahead of him. A very familiar person, and Eddie (God help him) actually grins at the sight. Ever since the first time he’d dreamed of Steve (or with him, jury’s still out on that one) Eddie had had nothing but nightmares and the deep sleep of blackness that was almost just as scary. Steven Harrington was a sight for sore eyes.

“Harrington!” he calls into the evening air, making Steve pause and look back at him. He’d been keeping an eye on the kids, the group making their way somewhere on this side of town with the kids doing wheelies and trying to hop the curb while Max flipped her skateboard and schooled all the boys with her skills.

“Munson,” Steve greets him, a smile curling at the side of his mouth handsomely and hanging back until Eddie caught up to him. Such a gentleman. “I see you’ve decided to join us.” 

Eddie has no idea what he is talking about, but it’s a dream and Eddie was born to role-play so he just shrugs his shoulders and gives Steve a grin that’s more devil-may-care than mischievous (like he was going for). “Yeah, well, I figured it was time for me to make an appearance in the land of the living.”

Steve frowns at him, hands in his pockets, and the change in expression is so quick it's comical.

“That’s not funny.”

Eddie cackles, despite himself. “It’s a little funny. I almost died, man, let me own it.”

He doesn’t mean to say it the way he does; but just like that, the tension leaks out of Steve’s stupidly broad shoulders – and the dream makes sense once more. It can continue without bringing up the awkward fact that Eddie did die. Out there. But right here, right now, he’d made it, and they were walking the weirdly vacant streets of Hawkins while the sun set as slow as molasses on the horizon.

But it’s nice, this atmosphere around them. The day laying itself to rest, the kids in the background, he and Steve shooting the shit as they walk at a leisurely pace. Yet, the kids never go too far out of sight, and the sun never sets too low, and the streets seem to go on for miles no matter how many blocks they walk. Eddie eventually pulls out a blunt and lights up, offering it to Steve as they walk. Only about a foot of space between them, shoulders bumping when they meander too close.

“So where are we going, again?” he asks, taking the blunt back from Steve after letting him have the green hit. The guy's lung capacity from being a swimmer all those years really comes in handy, there, the cloud of smoke he lets out is impressive to say the least.

“The Byers place? Family dinner?” Steve says it like questions, although they are very much statements. Eddie had no clue that was their destination. “Joyce and Hopper have them all the time, and you better be glad you decided to come tonight before you got on their bad side. You’ve missed too many already.”

Hopper.

This really was a dream.

Eddie coughs on his exhale, choking on it more like, and spits onto the ground frantically to get the taste of marijuana out of his mouth. “Shit! Jesus Christ.” He immediately puts out the blunt on the bottom of his dirty white high-tops, hopping on one foot to do so while Steve hovers nearby incase he topples over. “You coulda warned me! Fucking Hopper.” But Eddie is all smiles as he says it. Because Hopper, man that had been a blow to the gut when he’d died last year. He missed that man’s hard-ass mug, even more so during the whole ‘hiding from the police’ incident that just occurred. Eddie couldn’t help but think that if Hopper had been around he wouldn’t have been on the run, or hunted down so viciously by all of Hawkins. 

“He’s not a cop, anymore,” Steve informs him, laughing at his scatter to hide his contraband.

“Yeah but he’s busted my ass far too many times for me to show up at his HOUSE reeking of the devil’s lettuce.”

Steve laughs loud and carefree into the night, and Eddie wishes he could bottle up that sound and keep it forever. He doesn’t know if he’s ever heard it from Steve before.

He spends the rest of their walk doing his utmost best to get him to laugh like that over and over again.

Eventually, they make it down the rows of suburban houses and into the wooded outskirts. Where the Byers live. Everyone in town avoided it after the youngest Byers kid died and then came back to life. Eddie never really got to ask the more in-depth questions about that, Henderson and Mayfield had kind of glossed over it. But it definitely had something to do with the Upside Down.

Then, before he could blink, they arrived at the little one-story house hidden beneath towering trees and bracketed by the forest. Eddie has never been here before. He imagined a decrepit place, after it being empty for so long and no one buying the property. But it looks well cared for. The driveway is full of cars and the kids' bikes are tossed in the grass, and there’s laughter coming from the backyard. And Eddie hesitates. This place, this home, it feels so established. There’s so many details. Is this what was actually happening out there, right now?

“So this is your dream, is it?”

Steve stops when Eddie speaks, turning around to find him still standing in the middle of the driveway among fallen leaves and not taking another step towards the house. He looks at Eddie weirdly, confusion creasing into his expression as he squints his eyes.

“What?” It would be a weirdly specific question, if Harrington realizes he’s dreaming. Eddie isn’t sure, so he swallows and kicks at the leaves on the ground. 

“This,” he nods to the house. “This is what we fought for? No one is dead. Everyone is here. Family dinners.” It hurts Eddie’s empathetic little heart more than a bit, that this is what Steve dreams of. This is what makes him look so content, unlike the state of stress and distress he’d seen for days on end over Spring Break.

“Yeah, Munson. This is it. This is everything I’ve ever wanted.” Steve tries to say it sarcastically, it sort of comes out that way, but the real meaning behind the words shines so genuinely in his eyes Eddie feels fondness blossom in his own chest. ((This is everything he’s ever wanted. Family Dinner. Everyone alive and safe.))

God, Eddie was so fucked. And about Steve fucking Harrington, too. How was this his life?

“...are you sure I should come in? I mean,” Eddie kind of gestures to himself. Every inch of his appearance screams he’s someone that doesn’t exactly fit into a ‘family dinner’ scenario. He’d spent a long time cultivating that look, don’t get him wrong. But he’s not exactly the guy you bring home to meet the parents, anyway. Drug dealer, three-time senior, closer to being able to buy beer than getting his diploma or a real job. Eddie has no illusions about his situation.

Steve looks legitimately offended.

“Of course you should come in.”

As if there was no other explanation. No argument whatsoever. Not to him. It makes butterflies the size of those damn demobats start to flutter about in Eddie’s stomach. He covers the sensation the best way he knows how.

“Aww, Harrington,” he coos, twisting a little and swaying like a schoolgirl in pigtails – dragging a strand of hair across his face for good measure. He can pantomime with the best of them. “You’d miss me that much if I wasn’t there?” 

“Yes.” 

Steve doesn’t hesitate, and doesn’t take the bait of Eddie trying to twist this into an unserious scenario. Hell, Eddie isn’t sure Steve pauses to breathe first before he answers. And Eddie’s eyes go a little wider when that about knocks the wind out of him. His charade shattered and broken apart in his hands. 

But Steve doesn’t act any wiser to Eddie’s minor melt down, just shakes his head with no playfulness in sight. He can’t seem to look away from Eddie for anything, either. It’s so quiet his ears ring. Even the slight breeze has stopped blowing against them. 

“It’s not right. If you’re not here. With all of us. With me.”

Eddie feels like he’s having heart palpitations.

“You… you died, Eddie,” Steve presses, earnest, and when did he start walking closer? “You actually died down there. I did CPR on you forever trying to bring you back.”

“You did?” Eddie asks, the words nearly lost by the hum of the evening air around them.

“Yeah. I did.” Steve blinks, a shutter of a thing, and then he smiles at him softly. “Thank God, right?” And then the dream story tries to slide back into place, a little more disjointed than before, and Eddie isn’t quite sure Steve believes it to be true either. Grasping at it desperately, for his own sake. Not knowing that Eddie is aware it’s a dream, too.

But that’s an existential ideal for another day. Eddie still has to recalibrate everything that just transpired for a minute. Holding up a hand to get Steve to stop talking for a moment so he can wrap his head around it.

“You,” he points to Steve, then turns the finger back to himself, “gave me mouth-to-mouth.”

“Yeah,” Steve shrugs. Completely unbothered. “I’m certified. Lifeguard, remember? Co-captain of the Swim Team?”

“How could I forget,” Eddie laughs, a lightly maniacal thing, running his hand through his hair just to ground himself. “Jesus Christ, Steve Harrington gave me the kiss of life and I wasn’t even awake to appreciate it. My poor little gay heart, high school me would be devastated.”

“You’re still in High School,” Steve points out with an incredulous smile, Eddie flipping him off on instinct. But then Steve does a full physical double-take. “Wait – what did you just say?”

Eddie stares at him like a deer in the headlights for all of 2.3 seconds.

Okay, dream-sharing time is over.

“And that’s enough for this round of ‘Eddie Munson Opens His Big Fat Mouth’.” He steps up into Steve’s space, turning him by the shoulders and backing him up against the side panels of his own BMW. Eddie would know that damn sedan anywhere. “Time’s up, big boy. Back to bed.” Steve looks confused, as if Eddie is speaking in tongues, and a spark of alarm grows in his widening brown eyes. Eddie is close enough to watch it dawn on him. Like he remembers. 

Can’t risk that shit.

So Eddie winks at him, all bravado, and taps the other man twice on the cheek. 

“Until next time, Harrington.”

—

tbc

—

Series Snippets:

- Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

- Subconscious (Steve’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

One day this Steddie fic duology is going to be done and then you all will see. You will see everything I've been wanting to scream for months on end.

I'm going to be the most impatient novel writer ever, if I succeed in doing that when I grow up. I can't wait this long for validation xD

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Dreamwalker (Eddie's Story)

Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Steve's POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. Eddie wakes up alone in the Upside Down, not knowing how he survived, and unable to reach anyone topside in Hawkins. Wounded and alone, he finds shelter at Steve's house (the place is a damn fortress after all), and while hiding out there discovers that he has gained the ability to walk into other people's dreams. As long as they are asleep in the same place on either side of the gates. He just happens to find this out after sleeping in Steve's bed, now to figure out how to get himself rescued...

(unbeta'd snippet from Chapter 04, because that's what I'm working on right now. Eddie just spent over a week away from Steve's house using his newly discovered gift of Dream-Walking to gather skills he needs to survive however long he's stuck in the Upside Down. Nancy Wheeler taught him how to shoot a gun, Gareth helped him raid Mr. Emerson's toolshed and commandeer his four wheeler, and Wayne taught him the basics of surviving in a warzone. But Harrington House is Home Base, and has been since he'd woken up post-demobat massacre...)

--

"Honey, I'm home!” 

Eddie calls out into the empty Harrington house, and his voice is rough – scratchy from not being used and his newly healed parts of his neck and chest. But it’s still him, and it feels good to speak out loud once more. Even if no one answers him. Which is both a relief (nothing moved in while he was gone) and a disappointment. It’s not like Steve was going to just magically appear out of the blue, with a four course meal and the ability to procure hot water from the faucet. But a guy can dream.

The multiple bags of supplies he’d gathered get thrown onto the Harrington’s kitchen table, and Eddie starts to sort through it all as he hums to himself a song he’d been plucking out over the past few days. His guitar is still across his back, the weight of it as comforting as the house surrounding him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the towering manor until he’d seen it sitting proudly like a castle on a hill this morning. Now he had some things to help liven it up a little. Clothes, weapons, food and drinkable items, first aid (that was sorely needed), as well as his miscellaneous items of guitar maintenance and D&D books and hair ties (Erica could never know). He also grabbed a calendar, and outright nailed it to the wall in the kitchen. Ruining that beautiful paint job and sprinkling drywall dust all over the expensive tile floor. 

He has no idea when he’d woken up compared to when he’d died, and the calendar is from 1983, so he takes a sharpie to it and makes his own timeline. From the moment he woke up on the ground outside the trailer park to today, back home after dream-walking with a handful of friends and loved ones. By his count, he’d been awake about six weeks. He thinks. He couldn’t have been unconscious on the ground for that long, could he? And Will said time moves differently in the Upside Down, so for all he knows years have passed out there. He really hopes not, otherwise that would mean all his friends stayed stuck in fucking Hawkins. He wouldn't wish that on anyone.

But he knows for a fact that Steve is still in this house. His parents’ house, even though his parents haven’t been here in all the time Eddie has been hiding out in it. He would have heard another voice, unless they were also just as insanely quiet as Steve was – which is a very sad and depressing thought. He moves about the kitchen, still humming, but also keeping an ear out for Steve. It’s the middle of the day, he’s usually not home during the day, but when he is there is always a person with him. Robin, the majority of the time. She at least could make the guy laugh, and God did he have a nice laugh. 

He catches himself smiling at nothing and smothers it, returning his focus to the clothes he’d found and brought with him from Jeff’s place. He’d been wearing Steve’s clothes the past few weeks, and they needed to be cleaned – he’d stolen a couple bars of Fels-Naptha and taken a few gallons of distilled water from the convenience store. There was more where that came from, but he could only carry so much even on Mr. Emerson’s four-wheeler that Gareth had helped him steal via scouring the dream garage. He’d get on that sooner rather than later, because the guest bathroom upstairs had been turned into his make-shift laundry hamper and it needed to happen badly.

But also, Eddie really liked wearing Steve’s clothes. They were close to the same size; Steve had broader shoulders but Eddie was a couple of inches taller, so it evened out. Jeff was the only other person he visited that had clothes that would even fit Eddie; poor Gareth was about as tall as the freshmen, and probably wasn’t going to be getting any taller. Steve was kind of perfect to steal T-shirts from, and didn’t that just send super inappropriate butterflies tumbling through his stomach. He wondered what the other man would think about that, and decided (out of self preservation) that it was best not to think about it too much.

Except, that was kind of hard. Not thinking about Steve. Eddie is practically surrounded by him on a constant basis, except when he leaves the house to go on his little adventures – but even then, he’s wearing Steve’s socks, or Steve’s shirt, using Steve’s backpack and Steve’s old school notebooks. As much as he has SO MUCH ELSE going on around him and on his mind, Steve is a constant presence that Eddie really doesn’t mind one bit. He thinks about the other more than he really should, or admits to himself. 

That way lies madness, after all.

So he finishes setting up his new pantry of barely spoiled foods, and turns the guest bath tub into a giant washing machine and does an insane amount of laundry by hand, which is then hung on a clothesline inside that he ties to the staircases because that’s the most open-aired area he has that he can reach.

It’s a long fucking day, of chores. Wayne would be speechless, if he could see him now.

So, needless to say, Eddie is bone-tired when he finally, finally crawls into Steve’s bed that night. And it feels more like home than it has any right to. He buries himself in the sheets and blankets, Steve’s pillows, in his jock-themed room doused in shadows and now has bits and pieces of Eddie mingling in all the once vacant places. His rings, his bandana, his sweetheart and all her fixings (those strings needed some help after all the rust), his notebooks and pens and random sheets of paper with drawings of town and creatures of the Upside Down. It’s Steve’s room, but it feels like their space, and Eddie likes the way that makes him feel. A little too much.

He can’t help but sigh as he drifts off to sleep, not worrying about his safety, not needing to go through the house one more time or check out the windows for what might be lurking. He knows the inside of the Harrington house now as much as he’d known the inside of Wayne’s trailer. Thinking to himself that…

It feels good to be home.

The one home he has left.

--

tbc

--

Series Snippets: - Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) - Subconscious (Steve’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Steve’s POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. Eddie wakes up alone in the Upside Down, not knowing how he survived, and unable to reach anyone topside in Hawkins. Wounded and alone, he finds shelter at Steve’s house (the place is a damn fortress after all), and while hiding out there discovers that he has gained the ability to walk into other people’s dreams. As long as they are asleep in the same place on either side of the gates. He just happens to find this out after sleeping in Steve’s bed, now to figure out how to get himself rescued…

(unbeta'd snippet from chapter 01; Eddie has only just made it to the Harrington's house and deemed it safe enough to call his hideout for the foreseeable future. He's still very much wounded, and has been in Flight mode for the past several days. It's the first time he's been able to close his eyes and know without a shadow of a doubt that he is safe. He just wasn't expecting the dream that takes place the moment he does.)

—

Eddie wakes up, and he’s in Steve’s bed.

It’s still the Upside Down, he’s sure, except the bed feels much more comfortable for some reason, less mold and dust, and more well formed lumps in the mattress belonging to someone who sleeps there every night. As he looks around in the dark, he also feels like there are less cracks in the walls, more vibrancy to the shadowed colors of the posters.

But then he sees what woke him in the first place. Light.

It’s coming through the slivers surrounding the bedroom door, the small gap beneath it. But it’s not the eerie glow of neon red he saw earlier in town. At the bottom of Lovers Lake days ago. (Or was it weeks?) It’s golden, like sunlight.

His lips part, he sits up and stares with wide eyes, but before he can move the door opens.

It’s blinding, the difference, so Eddie never gets to see what’s on the other side. Because in walks Steve Harrington, decked in tough army surplus clothes coated in sand and blood like he just stepped out of a Mad Max movie. He’s out of breath, flushed, the warmth of a blaring blistering sun soaked into his clothes, and there is red splattered on his face and hands. It looks more like paint than blood; they both knew all too well how thick and black blood can get. Tacky and sticking to every line and crevice in your hands. Outlining your fingerprints and palm lines.

He doesn’t see Eddie. He just shrugs off his jacket, golden white sand particles falling to the dark carpet, and looks around his room in dazed recognition. Face blank, exhausted, but he doesn’t turn to the bed – his eyes lock on the window. The single solitary window Eddie nailed shut hours before he fell asleep. Steve’s eyes stay trained there, and don’t look away.

This is weird.

This is beyond weird.

And as Eddie shifts to swing his long legs over the side of the bed, he notices he’s different, too. Dressed different. His bite marks aren’t there, his clothes aren’t filthy and in tatters. He’s wearing his Hellfire Club shirt, ripped jeans and too many rings. There’s no dark particles tangled in his hair, and no blood caked under his fingernails. 

But this still feels like the Upside Down, maybe even more so than before.

((I’m dreaming)), he concludes. Eddie had heard the stories from the others, saw first-hand what creatures here could do even in dreams. Even in your own head. But movement brings him back from his spinning thoughts, back to center, as Steve moves closer to the window. Eyes narrowed and searching. He can see something out there, in the dark, and like hell is Eddie going to let the dark look back in. 

He’s up and across the room in an instant, hand grabbing Steve’s wrist – not hard, he doesn’t want to startle him. The man has weapons strapped to 60% of his person. Weapons that he shouldn’t have been able to buy at War Zone, Eddie knows now that he’s close enough to see them. That, with the combined outfit and war paint on his face, makes the dots line up pretty quickly in Eddie’s head. Almost immediately, he understands; made all the more clear when Steve doesn’t even seem to notice that Eddie is touching him.

((This is Steve’s dream.))

“Harrington,” he says, his first word in days. There’s a flinch at the sound of his voice from Steve, but the trance-like stare doesn’t move from the window. He heard him, but not enough to knock him free. There’s a sinister red glow somewhere out there, and Eddie can see it reflected in Steve’s brown eyes. That can not be good.

“Steve.” He tries again, this time, and that gets Steve to look down where Eddie is still holding onto his wrist. Eddie’s ring clad fingers and chains and black leather wrist cuffs, black nail polish and guitar-string calluses on his fingers. Trying to pull him back. The gaze travels up his arm to Eddie’s face, and the look that crosses Steve Harrington’s face could floor mountains. He’s relieved, he’s afraid, he’s shocked and sad and it’s all moving and shifting within itself like a kaleidoscope in his eyes. 

“ –Eddie?”

Like he can’t believe what’s in front of him. 

((That makes two of us.))

So Eddie gives him a sardonic, admonishing smile, a tilt of his head, and tries again to pull Steve away from the window. 

“C’mon, Harrington. There’s nothing out there for you. Go back to sleep.”

He’s not sure why he said it. But it feels like the right thing. Steve came here, almost walked right into the actual Upside Down, through his dreams. A rather bad-ass dream, by the looks of it, and if not for Eddie somehow being a literal guardian between the doorways, something out there could have seen him looking in.

“Go back to sleep,” he repeats. It’s easier, now, pulling Steve with him into the room – though Eddie’s not sure if he should be pulling him towards the bed, or back through the bedroom door.

“Sleep?”

“Yeah, hot shot, sleep. The thing all humans need? Looks like you were just kicking ass and taking names, you probably need it.” And that earns him a smile; a true smile from Steve Fucking Harrington, who isn’t looking away from Eddie for anything. ((This is a dream.)) And now, he is the focal point. “Did you get the girl? You macho hero types always get the girl.”

“I’m not a hero,” Steve says, so plainly it couldn’t be anything but what he believes to be the truth. And Eddie about chokes on his own tongue when he says it. Steve Harrington is like romance novel cover levels of heroism, everyone knows that. “You’re the hero here, Eddie.”

He feels his stomach drop to his shoes. Can’t quite believe he heard those words come out of the other man’s mouth. From Steve, who is in a trance state with red paint on his face because blood is meant for nightmares, and has zero filter between his brain and his speech. Eddie does his absolute best to ignore the blossom of warmth filling his entire chest cavity and spilling over to his limbs. Head to toe. And fucking hopes he can’t do stupid shit like blush in the middle of a dream that isn’t even his.

“Now you’re talking nonsense,” Eddie scolds. Misdirects. “Time for bed, big guy.” Steve almost looks like he’s going to protest, and Eddie is having none of that. Hands on his shoulders, making him sit on the edge of the bed that isn’t really Eddie’s in the first place. “Just – just go back to sleep, Harrington. You’ll forget all about this in the morning.”

And isn’t that just the fucking cherry on the cake for him.

He actually tucks Steve into his own bed, like a little kid that needs secured blankets to coax him to sleep, and then – then Eddie turns and glares at the window. 

It mocks him in the dark. Eddie is nothing if not a cautious, paranoid fucker — and he isn’t going to let whatever is out there weasel it’s way back into someone’s subconscious. He creeps over to the window as quietly as he can, just to the side of it so nothing on the other side will see him approaching. He can just make out the eerie red glow, movement in the yard that writhes and slithers, that wants to be let in. That is hungry. Eddie plasters himself to the wall, out of sight, and reaches over as slow as he can. Tugs on the accordion string that slams the blinds closed. Cutting them off; and washing the room in sweet, blissful darkness.

—

tbc

—

Series Snippets: - Dreamwalker (Eddie's Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) - Subconscious (Steve's Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Subconscious (Steve’s Story)

Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Eddie’s POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. No matter what he does, no matter who he is with or what is happening in the aftermath of their failed battle with Vecna – Steve Harrington can’t stop thinking about Eddie Munson. He’s even begun to see him in his dreams…

(companion to this Eddie Snippet)

((Unbeta'd snippet from Chapter 02. I wasn't going to do another entire dream sequence, but this shows the difference between the stories in comparison to Eddie's version of the same dream. So this is super duper long. Not sorry. Steve's had a Day™ so he's already in need to a dream that's not a nightmare. Luckily for him this one is just jam-packed with nostalgia. The only parts of the snippet that might not make sense are 1. Joyce Byer's bought back her house, hence the Byer's family dinners. It's covered in the first chapter. 2. There's a conversation with Robin in Steve's kitchen that takes place and is referenced a few times in Steve's inner musings. 3. There's also references to the first dream with Eddie, which I have Eddie's version in a snippet that can be found [here], but I haven't posted Steve's version as a preview yet. See tags for CW/TW.))

—

When Steve dreams, he’s usually driving.

Nightmares always begin as something else. Running, hiding, breathing so harshly his throat feels scraped raw. He feels bites, he feels punches, sharp instruments about to cut into his skin or pull his fingernails out one by one, he feels his body thrown against a wall, or something cold and flesh-like wrapped tight around his neck until he thinks he’s going to pass out. Nightmares are always full of the fear induced fleeing for his life, for the lives of the ones he cares about.

But in this dream he isn’t driving. And he isn’t running. He’s walking.

He recognizes Hawkins like he would recognize the shape of his own hand, or the feel of walking around his house knowing where every turn is and which steps on the stairs creak. It’s instinctual, looking up to see a random suburban landscape and knowing for a fact it’s how the houses are laid out Northeast of Maple Street. He knows the trailer park is just behind him, he knows that if he keeps following this road it will take him around town, past the rows of cookie-cutter houses, and into the woods where the Byers house resides. Further on the outskirts of town. If he was in his car, he could be there in 20 minutes.

But he’s walking along the empty street. His car is nowhere in sight, and oddly that feels okay. He’s not worried about it. Up ahead of him, he can see the kids messing around on their bikes, and Steve suddenly knows without a shadow of a doubt that they are going to Mrs. Byer’s house. The one she shares with Hopper, now, and with all of them on any given day of the week. The kids are taking their sweet time, jumping the curb and circling back slowly – he’s almost pleasantly surprised, thinking they are waiting for him.

Then Max speeds past him on her skateboard, and Steve forgets how to breathe for a second.

Max.

She looks over her shoulder at him, a smile escaping her despite every effort to smother it, red hair pushed back by the early evening breeze and mocking him with a tongue stuck out. Then she’s with the boys, schooling their asses on her skateboard even though they could leave her in the dust with their six speeds. They wouldn’t, though, and if Steve hadn’t already been walking he probably would have stopped at the sight. Only the momentum of one foot in front of the other keeps him moving.

He’s missed seeing her with the kids. Seeing her keeping them in line and on their toes, her presence was grounding, and the boys greet her like she had never been missing at all. Like she hasn’t spent every day of the past three months in a hospital bed, with no change and eyes closed. Lost in a dreamless sleep. (He hopes.)

No, he wouldn’t think about that now. Not with the sight in front of him. This… this was how it should be. The sun setting on Hawkins, all of them rounding themselves up and then heading to the one place they are allowed to be themselves. All parts of them, good and bad, strong and damaged. No one left behind.

“Harrington!”

That makes him stop. Steve suddenly doesn’t know how to move his feet. He turns and looks back towards the trailer park, hands in his letterman jacket pockets, and watches Eddie Munson jog up to him. Smiling, whole, as suitable to the late summer evening as anything ever has a right to be. He fits, in his ripped denim and metal band T-shirt, blues and pinks and purples of the sky making him stand out starkly.

“Munson,” he greets, smiling back and it feels more fond than it should. As if they’ve been friends for years, and not days. As if he’s always around to join them on their walk to the Byer’s place. Always around for Family Dinners.

Like he should be.

Steve teases him about it, because even in the dream it feels like Eddie has never been to those pushed together second-hand dining room tables in the backyard. Never been there to help pass food around, or fight the kids for the best hamburger patties, or chuck potato chips across the table to make his point about whatever he and the kids would argue about. Nerd stuff. Dungeons and Dragons. Steve wouldn’t know what the hell they were talking about, but he’d give anything in the world to be able to listen in. “I see you’ve decided to join us.”

“Yeah, well, I figured it was time for me to make an appearance in the land of the living,” Eddie shrugs at him, a handsome smile spread wide across his face. But his words make Steve’s insides go ice cold.

Always joking, even about his own fucking death. “That’s not funny.”

But Eddie cackles with laughter, like the madman he is, who just missed meeting his maker. “It’s a little funny. I almost died, man, let me own it.”

And God, it could be so easy. This would be the easiest conversation to have. It sounds so much like him, and Eddie is so much more vivid here than he is in the nightmares. His words are so authentic Steve isn’t even sure how his brain came up with them. ((This is a dream.)) he reminds himself. It’s only a dream, and dreams have to make some kind of sense if they are to continue. Steve doesn’t want to let go of this dream, with Max and Eddie there – where they should be. So he accepts Eddie’s easy quip, and tries to make himself believe that this is how it could be. Eddie almost died. But he didn’t. Maybe Steve had still done CPR, and maybe this time Eddie’s chest had started to move on its own, maybe he’d been able to help both Eddie and Dustin limp out of the Upside Down. Maybe he’d gotten the other man to a hospital.

Maybe Eddie Munson could have lived.

Maybe, instead of being the government’s scapegoat, they could have created a bullshit cover story like they had when Will ‘came back from the dead’, and he’d still be living in that shitty trailer park with his Uncle and bitching about trying to pass finals with Robin this year. Maybe this year could have been his year to graduate.

Maybe, just maybe… it could have all been so different.

They walk forever, it feels like. But Steve could have lived inside that moment for the rest of his days. He and Eddie talk shit about everything and nothing, the kids are up ahead but never so far that he can’t see them. Their voices trailing back down the street, Max’s laughter louder than all the rest. He doesn’t even remember the last time she laughed in the past year. Eddie is smiling at him, teasing him, pulls out a joint and lights it for Steve to take the first hit. Leaning in close and not caring about personal space in the slightest. It’s so easy. It’s so comfortable. It’s the best day Steve has had in weeks.

“So where are we going, again?” Eddie asks after what feels like hours. Steve has never thought of someone as such a weirdo in an affectionate way until a couple years ago. Dustin, Robin – of course, but Eddie has it in Spades. He owns it to the point that Steve can’t help but lean into it. Can’t help but think that only Eddie would walk for blocks and blocks with him without even asking where he was off to. Just along for the ride. Even though this particular evening was something that Steve had been wanting Eddie to be a part of for a long, long time.

Family Dinner. Mrs. Byer’s house; sweet little Mrs. Byer’s who barely came up to his shoulder and had more strength in her pinkie finger than half this damn town. She welcomes in everyone her boys bring home with open arms and big sympathetic eyes and an air about her that makes Steve think she must have been cool as fuck in high school. And the way she bossed Hopper around was a sight to see. They argued like an old married couple, even though there is some on-going inside joke about an unfulfilled date at that Italian place downtown. (Mostly because it’s not even there anymore, lost to the Upside Down. Steve had taken a few girls there back when his parents were funding his weekend excursions, it wasn’t cheap. And was not re-opening any time soon. So instead the two made spaghetti all the time and talked about Enzos like it had been a person they both knew.)

Eddie flips out when Steve mentions Hopper will be there, scrambling to put out the blunt and spitting saliva on the sidewalk like they would be able to smell it on his breath instead of all over his clothes and long hair. “You could have warned me! Fucking Hopper.” He says it with a smile, and Steve notices he doesn’t say ‘Officer Hopper’ or even ‘Chief Hopper’. Like he knew him before all of this.

“He’s not a cop, anymore,” Steve laughs, pausing their walk to let his hands hover near Eddie’s shoulder. The dork is putting the blunt out on the bottom of his high-tops and is not coordinated in the slightest to do so.

“Yeah but he’s busted my ass far too many times for me to show up at his HOUSE reeking of the devil’s lettuce,” Eddie says so matter-of-factly, and it sounds so genuine that Steve busts up laughing. His voice echoes down the street with it, Eddie watching him do so with a grin that’s a little more soft around the edges. “No joking, he would drag my ass to the back of his cruiser and scare the hell out of me driving past the police station. But he always took me home to Wayne, never booked me.”

“I get the feeling Hop never really booked a lot of us for things he should have,” Steve tells him, still laughing under his breath like he has the giggles, the vibration of them caught up in his chest and spilling out his mouth every few words. “He used to break up my house parties when I threw them, but it was always like… right at 10:00 at night. He let us have our fun, but never let it get out of hand.”

“No shit! I always thought those parties were short,” Eddie grins, glancing out into the night where the kids were still circling their bikes just out of ear shot. “In case you were too busy doing keg stands by the pool back then, I was the dealer set up in your kitchen selling blunts and baggies off to any passerby with a couple bucks on them.”

“Kinda hard to see when you’re upside down and chugging beer like oxygen,” Steve points out, but says it like an apology. He’d never known where the weed came from at his parties. It would just appeared out of thin air and in his hands like magic. Eddie nods along, understanding and not surprised. He’s not exactly a forgettable person, but the few times they’ve talked he always seems to think that he blends into the background. That it’s expected that Steve wouldn’t remember him at his house parties. The pang of guilt Steve feels is short lived, because Eddie glances at him with that twist of a smirk that should not be as handsome as it is.

“I also ate all your Oreos.”

“That was you?” Steve exclaims.

“Every time,” Eddie grins that shit-eating grin of his, not looking the least bit sorry. “I thought you were keeping them stocked for me! Your reputation as a host preceded you.”

“I hid them on the top shelf, by the wine glasses!”

“And I was set up in that little nook right by that cabinet, it was like my name was on them!” Eddie gestures widely as he speaks, moving his hands constantly in grand gestures that make it really hard for Steve to look away. He’d have to ask Robin if she’s ever seen Eddie in drama, he seems like he’d be good at it.

He pictures where Robin had been sitting in his kitchen just that morning, and realizes that’s the nook that Eddie was talking about. So it’s really easy for Steve to imagine Eddie there, instead, sitting on the counter with his container of oreos and his old-school metal lunch box full of blunts, dealing when the party was in full-swing. Holding court and maybe even telling people to back off if they asked for a cookie, pushing them back with his feet and doing that thing where he pretends to be more scary than he is.

“You’re something else, Munson,” he chides with no bite whatsoever. Steve hasn’t stopped smiling the whole walk, something like affection swelling up warmly inside him, and it probably has nothing to do with the weed. But it’s an easy thing to blame it all on.

The evening shifts not long after that; the rows and rows of suburban houses melt into trees that tower and stretch off into the distance, and the winding road comes to an end at the Byer’s place. It is a little one-story house half buried in leaves from the surrounding forest, but Hopper and Joyce have been hard at work getting it back into shape after the property being deserted for so long. It is a welcome sight, far more welcome than his own home has ever been; and Steve is so lost in the little details of it that he doesn’t realize Eddie isn’t walking next to him anymore.

“So this is your dream, is it?”

An ice cold sensation creeps into his chest, forcing Steve to stop and turn to look at Eddie. A good 15 feet back, hands in his jacket pockets, looking at the house like it’s something he’s not allowed to have. But it’s his words that strike to the heart of Steve’s confusion. ((Your dream.)) That’s what he said. But how could he possibly know…

“This. This is what we fought for?” Eddie asks, nodding to the house, the crowded driveway full of cars and bikes and the sounds of too many teenagers in the backyard (in the best of ways, not like Steve used to hear at his own home not so long ago). “No one is dead. Everyone is here. Family dinners.” It’s as if he’s reading Steve’s mind, because yes, yes that is what he wants. This is everything that they shouldn’t have, and can't seem to keep, no matter how hard they try to hold on to it – and he just wishes they could. That they didn’t have to try so hard to be happy.

“Yeah, Munson. This is it.” This is everything he’s ever wanted.

It’s the kind of evening dreams are made of, apparently. The watercolor sky gives way to darkness in a manner that doesn’t make his heart thump faster in fear. Stars poking through the inky indigo above them. Eddie is wide-eyed and nervous, but he’s here and whole and God that’s all Steve wanted. That’s all he’s wanted for weeks. Some days it feels like it’s eating him alive.

“...are you sure I should come in? I mean.” He gestures to himself, as if there’s something wrong with him on principle. Ripped skinny jeans and studded black leather belts, long hair and tattoos. Steve doesn’t think he’s felt this personally offended on someone else’s behalf in a long time. What kind of nonsense was Eddie on about now? Walking all the way here and not coming inside?

“Of course you should come in.”

He might have spoken a little more harshly than he intended, because Eddie’s gaze is avoiding him again. Steve can almost physically see the guy recoil and retreat into his natural defense mechanism. Make it a joke, over-exaggeration and all. He croons at Steve like the girls in high school used to, twisting a strand of hair in front of his mouth and swaying a little on the spot, ridiculous and owning it – asking if Steve would really miss him if he wasn’t there for dinner.

As if Steve hasn’t missed his stupid face every single day.

Yes, yes he fucking misses him. Steve can feel the space in the world that Eddie used to occupy, as if it was torn away violently and is still trying to heal.

He doesn’t know why Eddie doesn’t seem to understand that.

((This is a dream.))

And Steve is tired of not being able to say the words that have been screaming inside his head for months.

“It’s not right,” he grits out, shaking his head and he’s not mad at Eddie. But he can’t look away from him and he’s not entirely sure he’s controlling the expression on his face very well. “If you’re not here – with us. With me.”

Eddie’s not moving and hasn’t blinked, but his chest is still moving and he’s breathing a little heavier. Way to go, Harrington. Elaborate, dumbass. (Why does his inner voice always sound like Robin?)

“You…” fuck it all, he can’t stand to not talk about it anymore. “You died, Eddie. You actually died down there.” He’s moving towards Eddie, and thanks whatever lucky stars are making themselves known above them that Eddie isn’t backing up as he does. “...I did CPR on you forever trying to bring you back.”

He has no idea how long it really was. Chest compressions, counting out loud with every push, tilting Eddie’s head back just the right angle so when he pressed his mouth to Eddie’s blood-stained lips he could breathe air into his lungs and not his stomach. He was certified, but he’d never done it on a living person before, and Steve knows he had been a panicked mess. Doing chest compressions so hard he had been scared he was going to break one of Eddie’s ribs. But he did the maneuvers again, and again, and again with Dustin sobbing next to him and the others screaming at them through the radio that the gate was closing. Steve had never felt so hopeless as he had in that moment – because Eddie never drew another breath, and his dark eyes stared at nothing, and Steve wanted to curl up on the ground and cry but he couldn’t because Dustin wasn’t able to walk out of there on his own. He and Dustin never talked about it, but the kid had been near hysterical about not wanting to leave Eddie there on the ground, and really the only reason they made it out at all was because Steve had picked Dustin up and carried him out kicking and screaming – and also because Dustin stopped fighting him when he saw that Steve was crying, too.

He hates thinking about that night. It always comes back to him in vivid technicolor, but right now it’s… it’s not so bad, because Eddie looks genuinely shocked by Steve’s admission.

“You did?” he murmurs. And Steve does his best to not be offended, again. Did Eddie really think that they would just leave him for dead without doing absolutely everything they could to try and get him out of there? Did he think they wouldn’t try to save him?

Steve’s heart hurt as it beat hard against his ribs.

“Yeah, I did.” The dream is pressing in on him, it’s threatening to break apart – he can almost feel himself waking up. So he smiles at Eddie, and pretends just a little harder. Plays along. “Thank God, right?”

Because right now Eddie is still in front of him, so if Steve has to play the part to keep him there then he will. Steve can try and believe that all that CPR training hadn’t been for nothing, that he hadn’t failed both Eddie and Dustin in that field. That everyone had made it home.

Eddie holds up his hand, mind whirling behind his big dark eyes, and the grandiose gestures soothe Steve’s very being.

“You, gave me mouth-to-mouth.”

Well, when he puts it like that. Steve shrugs, plays it off as nothing strange. He was certified a couple times over. Lifeguard, Captain of Hawkins High Swim Team two years running. He just hopes the heat flushing up his neck doesn’t show on his face. Eddie doesn’t seem to be paying much attention, anyway, his awe-struck expression melting into disbelief as he cards his ringed fingers through his hair.

“Jesus Christ, Steve Harrington gave me the kiss of life and I wasn’t even awake to appreciate it.” Steve rolls his eyes at Eddie’s statement, rolls them so hard he’s surprised he doesn’t pull something. Like the novelty of ‘King Steve Harrington’ still held any weight anywhere in this fucking town. “My poor little gay heart, high school me would be devastated.”

“You’re still in High School,” Steve tells him on reflex, Eddie flipping him the bird, and the give-and-take of it all is so instinctual that Steve doesn’t really let anything process in real time. Eddie’s commentary is always so flippant and quick that it’s easy to not take it seriously. But he did hear Eddie, he heard every word, and very suddenly Steve feels like he’s back on the Starcourt bathroom floor with Robin and his world has tilted on it’s axis a bit.

My little gay heart

Gay.

Wait. Did he know about Robin? Did he know Steve knew about Robin, is that why he said it?

((Why is he thinking about Robin right now?))

“Wait – what did you just say?” Steve manages to get the words out, although his brain feels like it’s breaking apart a little bit.

And Eddie looks like he’s in the same boat, because he freezes and stares so wide-eyed at him that Steve worries for a second that they just broke the damn dream. Like a traveling carnival ride. He can’t even open his mouth to say Eddie’s name, or backtrack and tell him it’s cool, because like a flip of a lightswitch suddenly Eddie is moving and talking and his whole demeanor is somehow different than before.

“And that’s enough of this round of ‘Eddie Munson Opens His Big Fat Mouth’,” he laments, crossing the distance between them in seconds. His hands are on Steve’s shoulders, he’s so close Steve can smell the cigarette smoke and lingering marijuana and something that must be Eddie’s aftershave or shampoo. Steve about trips over his feet as Eddie pushes him backward, turns him, and traps him against the side panels of the BMW. Realistically, Steve should have pushed him back when it happened – too many nights thinking about the Russians man-handling him or Billy Hargrove beating in his face have made him skittish and defensive, but this was Eddie and how in the fuck did his brain know not to shove him away? He's not even panicking, not really.

When Eddie pushes him up against his own car, Steve doesn’t really think about anything at all… except the other guy’s hands. On his shoulders, steering him, like he’s done it before –

((Because he has.))

”C’mon Harrington. Go back to sleep.” "Harrington’s got her, don’t ya Big Boy?” ”Now you’re talking nonsense. Time for bed, big guy.” ”Just – just go back to sleep, Harrington…”

”You’ll forget all about this in the morning.”

Steve’s mind focuses, then, a metaphorical pair of binoculars adjusting inch by inch until the vision becomes clear. But he doesn’t focus fast enough for Eddie, who smiles in his face (standing so close), winks at him, and taps his cheek twice. The cold bite of those rings on Steve’s skin nearly jostles him into action. His hands were braced against his car to stay upright, now held tight to Eddie’s vest. The one he’d leant him, all those months ago. The one in Steve’s room, right now, that he can’t get rid of.

“Until next time, Harrington.”

((Next time? When was the first time?))

Wait…

He remembers, now.

—

Steve opens his eyes.

—

tbc

—

Series Snippets:

- Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

- Subconscious (Steve’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)