#Steve gets vecna’d

[juiceicicles]

Mean and Scary | Chapter 1: King of Hawkins High

AO3 Link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48053206/chapters/121165750

Pts: 1, 2, 3

As he traipses through the woods, Eddie tries to get a bearing on what is about to happen and what his plan is for when it inevitably goes sideways.

Dealing pot to Hawkins Royalty like King Steve isn’t entirely out of the ordinary, but doing it alone at a picnic table in the middle of the isolated woods? Yeah, not Eddie’s smartest decision for a meeting place.

In his defense, he’s only a hop skip and a jump away from the high school, and he couldn’t be assed to drive any further for what’s likely going to be a one time payment of $20. $25, if he overcharges Steve (which, he absolutely plans to do.)

Eddie finally gets to the clearing and Steve jumps when he notices him, finally looking away from a tree he was seemingly having a very intense staring match with.

“Whoa, hey, hey, hey! Sorry,” Eddie chuckles a bit awkwardly, trying his best to subconsciously communicate that he is not a threat, because he really doesn’t wanna get his lights punched out right now “Didn't mean to scare you.”

Eddie sits down and his metal lunchbox clatters onto the table —Steve flinches again. Boy, Harrington is jumpy— and sits across from him. He opens up his Pail-o’-Drugs and watches as Steve drums his fingers on the table.

“There's, uh... There's nothing to worry about. Okay? No one ever comes out here. We're safe. I promise.” Eddie honestly didn’t expect Steve Harrington to be worried about being caught, considering that Steve apparently used to hold daily house parties.

He still can’t believe it. King Steve goddamn Harrington sitting there, in all his douchey glory. Or at least, that’s what Eddie expected. Instead he sort looks exhausted. His eyes keep flitting around, and he looks like he just saw a ghost.

You see, Harrington was never a dick to Eddie, specifically. However, he sure as hell didn’t treat the freaks of Hawkins High with any sort of sympathy. Hence Eddie’s original plan to act like the biggest asshole he possibly could without scaring off a rich customer. But something about Harrington’s eyes, a sort of dull terror etched into the hazel brown, is making Eddie reconsider that decision.

“So, how does this work, exactly?” Steve sort of mutters. This is so utterly different from everything Eddie heard about him. Steve always roamed the halls with a sick sort of ironclad confidence, with his two jackals Tommy and Carol following his every beck and call. The boy across from Eddie though? He seems so haunted. Like a flickering projection of someone. A puppet with its strings cut.

“Uhh just like any other old sale, except cash only, and for obvious reasons, no receipts,” he gives Harrington what he hopes is a reassuring smile, “I'll do you a half ounce for, uh... 20. What do you say? Plenty of bang for your buck. Should last a while.”

A squirrel skitters up a tree in the background, and Harrington gasps quietly and whips around to track it. And then, finally, it clicks for Eddie.

Steve’s worried about being seen with Eddie the Freak Munson. Figures. He shouldn’t have expected anything less from King Steve.

“Hey, we don’t need to do this. Just give me the word, and I’ll walk away.”

“It’s not that, I don’t want you to go.” Steve starts, tentatively. He’s still looking around, like somethings about to pop out of the woods. “It’s just…Do you ever feel like you’re loosing your mind?”

And, of course Eddie feels like he’s lost his marbles. He’s a super senior with the nickname the Freak. Obviously he sometimes feels a little crazy. He’s a little surprised that notorious cool guy Steve Harrington feels that way, though.

He makes the decision right then and there to see this out, because even if Harrington’s afraid of being caught, there’s something here that Eddie’s missing.

“You know on a daily basis. I feel like I’m loosing my mind right now,” screw it, might as well be honest, go big or go home right? “doing a drug deal with Steve Harrington, former king of Hawkins High.”

“Ah, well, I haven’t been king for a while…” Steve trails off.

Eddie remembers Billy Hargrove. Remembers how he made him want to beg every god there was for Steve to steal back the crown. Billy Hargrove was mean to Eddie. He was mean to everyone. And he wasn’t highschool-mean either, he was Larry Munson mean. He was a jackass who wasn’t afraid of anyone and wanted you to know it.

Unprompted, Eddie remembers the first time he met Steve. Before he was Hawkins Royalty, before he was a jock and a bully, before Eddie was the freak and not just a freak. Eddie had just gotten to Hawkins, his old man had been put away and the US government dropped lil’ Eddie on Wayne’s doorstep. He’d met some friends and formed a shitty garage band. They’d played at the middle school talent show, and Eddie had lost his guitar pick. A boy about his age had given it back, told him his name was Steve and he had found it underneath his chair in the seats.

“You know, this isn't the first time that we've, um... Hung out.”

“No?”

Eddie lets out a little chuckle. Of course Steve wouldn’t remember. “It’s alright.”

He clutches at his heart like he’s been shot with an arrow and flings himself off the bench and into a pile of leaves behind him. He hears Steve let out a little gasp before he hops back up.

“I wouldn’t remember me either, Harrington!”

Steve looks a little amused, and Eddie catches a light brown blob in his peripheral vision. He combs his fingers through his hair and dislodges a dead leaf.

“Honestly, do I have stuff in my hair?”

Steve lets out a little chuckle as Eddie starts to gets into his story. If there’s one thing Eddie Munson is good at, it’s story telling.

“Middle school, talent show. Carol I think did this cheer thing? You know the thing the,” Eddie mimed some pom poms. Steve was smiling a little bit, so Eddie continued his spiel, “and I- I was with my band.”

Suddenly Steve pipes up “Corroded Coffin! Oh my god!”

Eddie’s bewildered that Steve apparently remembered their weird prepubescent metal show. He claps his hands excitedly and points to Steve. “You do remember!”

“Yes, of course! With a name like that, how could I forget?”

“I dunno. You’re a freak.” Eddie’s pretty pleased with himself when his lack of brain-to-mouth filer apparently doesn’t offend Steve. In fact, Steve breaks out a smile. It’s less Harrington Charm then Eddie expected, more of a dorky toothy grin.

“No you just- you looked so-“

“Different? Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, my hair was buzzed, and I didn't have these sweet old tatties yet.”

“You played guitar right?”

“Uh-huh. Still do. Still do.” And since Eddie is an impulsive mess and isn’t totally hating this interaction, he does something that totally spits in the face of the tried and true Munson doctrine and invites a preppy jock to a metal concert, “You should come see us. Uh, we play at the Hideout on Tuesdays. It’s pretty cool. We- we actually get a crowd of about five…drunks.”

Steve laughs a bit and clamps a hand over his mouth, like he’s a bit startled by the noise. Eddie doesn’t blame him, he’s a bit caught off guard too.

“It’s not exactly the Garden, but, you gotta start somewhere, right?”

Steve looks at Eddie with a considering gaze for a moment, like he’s trying to figure Eddie out.

“You know, you’re not what I thought you’d be.”

“What, a total freak?”

“No, no. Honestly? I thought you’d be mean. And scary.”

“Me? Steve Harrington thought I’d be scary?”

“Yeah! You’ve got this whole, I dunno, chains and leather vibe. Thought you wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

“Yeah, well, I thought you’d be mean and scary too.”

“Yeah?”

“Terrifying.” Eddie’s hit with the sudden realization that he’s completely forgot about the drug deal he came here for and plops himself back down at the picnic table. “Uh, so, in other good news, flattery works with me, so... Twenty-five percent discount for the half. Fifteen bucks. You're robbing me blind here, you know.”

“…do you have anything maybe stronger?”

[imfinereallyy]

Steve getting Venca’d is a plot line I thoroughly enjoy, but I feel like there is a path I haven’t really seen taken yet. Like, I’ve seen canon divergence where he gets vecna’d instead of Max, or he takes Max’s place, or I’ve seen it written as a season five (with Eddie back, of course), but hear me out, hear me out…

What if Steve starts the symptoms of Vecna (kind of like Vecna’s backup plan), but Steve never gets used? Like, they do their original plan in season four. Steve doesn’t really notice his symptoms until it’s too late; they are already in deep with spring break. Steve thinks about volunteering in Max’s place, but he knows if he says something, then the party has two people to worry about, and he knows Max would be too stubborn to change the plan. So he proceeds on. They go forth with the plan (Steve gets some horrible visions throughout spring break but manages to keep it to himself. Eddie notices something is off but is too focused on not dying to ask questions), and everything works out kind of the same as before except they win and everyone makes it (Eddie and max are still messed up, close to death but they make it).

After a few weeks (months probably), everyone is starting to heal and move on, but Steve just can’t. He’s still really messed up from his visions. The way they manipulated his trauma (about his parents, about being valued only with sex and money, Nancy, the kids, and his sexuality). It haunts him every day. He didn’t die like the other teens. He didn’t get to confront it like Max. Steve is just stuck in this mental hell and doesn’t know how to move on. Doesn’t know who to talk to. If he even should talk to anyone.

At this point, I feel like Eddie and Robin would notice him slipping. Robin is his platonic soulmate, his capital P, she may be frazzled, but she would most definitely notice when her best friend is not himself. Robin gives him space at first, but she can tell it’s only getting worse and decides it’s time to do something.

And Eddie, despite how much his past self would beat him over the head for it, likes Steve. He’s a good guy. Saves Eddie’s ass more times than he can count, even after the whole Upside Down thing. He likes to spend time with Steve; actually, almost all his time that isn’t spent with the kids and Wayne he spends with Steve, so of course, he notices Steve wasting away. Eddie noticed that Steve only really perks up when everyone is together in one place (Also, Eddie only has like slight romantic feelings for him at this point; his motivations at first are purely innocent, but as time moves on, he starts to fall for Steve and vice versa). So Eddie decides to spend more time with him one on one. Give him a safe space.

I’m not really sure how the rest of the plot would go. The party definitely gets involved, but they don’t notice for a while and make it worse at times (they are kids, after all), and the adults do their part too. I also think it’s an opportunity to talk about everyone’s unresolved trauma, like it doesn’t all go away magically after the defeat of the big bad. I think Steve having unresolved vecna visions is a perfect example of that.

Give Steve the breakdown he deserves and the support he clearly needs. And, of course, make it Steddie.

———

maybe I’ll write it, I’ve got so much to write, but maybe I’ll DO IT.

[helloitisiafellowgay]

i need to actually hold myself accountable so have an excerpt of a steddie fic i’m working on where Steve gets Vecna’d and Eddie finds out:

——————————————————————————

”I’m not going to let you die in silence,” Eddie whispers into his hands. “I can’t.”

Steve looks wrecked, a unique kind of hopeless. His mouth opens, slides shut without a sound. They both know that he will make no promises, no reassurances; he values everyone else too much, or rather himself too little.

They don’t say anything else, just linger in a silence too poignant for meaningless platitudes.

Even so, Eddie resigns himself to the devastation ahead. He knows in his bone marrow, knows like breathing, that Steve Harrington will slip through his walls like a marauder, pocket everything of value, and reduce the whole building to studs.

He holds Steve’s hand within both of his own, and he can already feel this boy slipping through his fingers.

When the others get back, Jason and his fellow teammates on their heels, they find themselves swept up in the chaos.

Dustin appears in front of the two adults, pulls Steve to his feet and shoves him towards the driver’s seat. “Come’on, we gotta go!”

Eddie’s lips part, ready to protest that someone experiencing regular bouts of hallucinations might not be the best driver, but Harrington’s already behind the wheel, shifting it into gear and directing the beast of a van onto the road. No one’s listening; talking over each other, too wound up.

Maybe if Eddie had said something then, made them all listen—

But Steve’s tired eyes meet his through the rearview, and he keeps his mouth shut.

He keeps his mouth shut.

———————

When the rest of the Party inevitably find out, Eddie sits back and says nothing, just looks at him with these dark eyes. There is something inconsolable in his gaze, a quiet mourning of a body that doesn’t realize it is becoming closer to vacancy every moment.

Eddie stares at Steve like he’s already lost, and Steve, despite everything, wants with a ferocity he cannot reckon with, for that to mean something.

If he were to bolt right now, he wants to know that this enigma of a boy will follow him over the edge of the world. Steve doesn’t know anyone that has ever loved cared about him enough to not just give chase, but to lead him back to a safe harbor.

Steve almost wishes they hadn’t talked earlier, just so he can forget the warmth and scrape of raw callouses on his biceps, the intensity of Eddie’s concern. Two palms wrapped around his own, a silent plea to stay and fight.

That small scrap had settled in his belly like warm ambrosia, settled on his palate like divinity. Now that he’s had a taste, he’s ravenous for more.

He doesn’t deserve it. God, he doesn’t deserve it. But he wants, and that has always been the worst of his crimes. He pickpockets attention like a petty thief, knows that he can survive on crumbs but he’s never been satisfied. Never felt full, never escaped that insatiable pit in his stomach.

Eddie has ruined him; called attention to the scrambled puzzle of his own existence, traced out the edges with a soft surety that has only made him aware that no one has ever bothered to dust off the box in the first place. Steve wants him to sit down and sort out all of his pieces, fit them into place and assemble him into something that makes sense. That someone might find interesting enough to assign value, beautiful enough to frame like a loved memory.

He wants to be worth something, and damn this boy for making that seem like a possibility, like a feeling worth staying for.

[theshippirate22]

okay i’m just spitballing shit here but listen:

stranger things 5. vecna has realized that steve is the protector of the group and one of the biggest threats to his mission. I mean, steve stopped max from getting vecna’d the first time, he fought the bats and generally won, he helped take down possessed Billy, he took a baseball bat to the face of a few Dogs, he got the kids out of the tunnels before they could get taken, etc etc. he’s not only the muscle, but the actor, the one that takes initiative once a plan has been formulated, AND more importantly, he’s the staple. he brings the groups together to be one big team (i mean come on y’all he’s the connection to nancy and robin and the party he’s literally the only one that can do that besides like. will.) he’s IMPORTANT.

So vecna targets him next and wow for a guy with so much ab he’s mad vulnerable emotionally and it should be really easy to get to him, BUT he’s the protector. he’s got to live to save these guys and he knows it so he’s not going down without a fight.

now all this, just so i can have a shot of steve driving the beemer full of kids, Take On Me by A-ha (that’s his vecna song fight me) BLASTING so he doesn’t get taken while a pack of demodogs chase them.

like the insanity. the cinematography. the agony. and like his inner turmoil because if he goes down, there’s no hope. he HAS to live. and vecna is haunting him with everything he’s got.

(also if we want to be super cruel, all of his vecna visions that are supposed to twist reality and freak him out aren’t distorted at all. they’re just his memories. vecna doesn’t have to change a thing)

[imsociallyanxiousgetoverit]

(Just a little something)

Meadows of Hope

—

“Steve, no. C’mon, Steve, you gotta come back. You can’t leave me alone again. Please, Steve, don’t leave me alone again! I need you, Steve! We haven’t even finished planning the wedding!”

—

“No, no, no, no, no”

Robin climbs back through to the Upside Down with no hesitation. She scrambles to Steve’s side and is holding his face in her hands.

“Steve, no. C’mon, Steve, you gotta come back. You can’t leave me alone again. Please, Steve, don’t leave me alone again! I need you, Steve! We haven’t even finished planning the wedding!”

There’s was a gasp from Nancy behind her but Robin doesn’t care right now because she needs her best friend back. She can’t lose him. It might just kill her if Steve dies. Suddenly, there’s hands on her shoulders and she’s turned around. Nancy looks determined.

“What’s his song, Robin!”

She realizes and tells Nancy, quickly turning back to Steve and praying if she keeps saying all the important stuff Steve has to know, has to remember, that he’ll come back to them.

“Steve, you gotta come back. We need you! You have kids to come home to. You have me and all your friends to come home to! C’mon, Steve, remember Eddie? He’s right there on the other side of the gate waiting for you to come home and valiently sweep him off his feet. God, please don’t leave me, Steve.”

She rests her forehead on his as she keeps talking. Praying that he can even hear her while no music is playing.

“Steve, you- I can’t lose you. You’re my Iris, remember? Think of all the Sunflowers, Steve. They’re all waiting for you. You gotta run to the Sunflowers- to your Iris -Please! Create a damn meadow in your mind’s eye if you have to, but don’t stop fighting!”

About halfway through her second bout of trying to reach her best friend, Eddie comes in on his guitar with Steve’s song. She knows he definitely can hear her now, so she doesn’t stop.

“Steve, we’re having a fall wedding, remember? Cuz we both know I’ll already be sweating through any dress I’d end up wearing, but why make it worse with a ceremony in Summer? You have to be here to marry me, Steve. You promised you-“

Robin realizes for a brief moment that she’s completely lost control of her face at this point. She’s sobbing and snotting all over both of them. Knowing Steve, he’ll come back and tell her that she has to do all the laundry once they kill Vecna for covering him in snot again. Hopes he will.

“-please, I can’t be alone again! Don’t leave me on the roof, please, Steve! You’re the only person I have, please! Without your laughter I’d go blind! Without your eyes I’d go deaf! You remind me to keep going! You keep me from just giving up! You can’t give up, Steve!”

When she realizes that Nancy has started to sing into Steve’s ear right beside her, Robin joins in. Maybe he needs them to sing more than he needs to remember why he has to survive this. Anything to keep him from defying gravity and leaving her.

“Well, you came in loving me

And now there's so much more I see

And so by the way

I thank you”

[katrinacastillo]

I wish I could explain why this is my new favorite ao3 tag

but I can’t

[robindium]

Steve: You've got to learn to love yourself Max: But don't you hate yourself? Steve: Yeah, but this is about you. Stay focused

[leeemon22]

i love that (at least) 3 stranger things actors are also music artists. it really helps to fuel the obsession, ya know?

[patheticgirlsteve]

stranger things rewrite where steve does cheer instead of basketball

[harringtonscoded]

personally i am thinking about dustin’s drastic change if steve gets vecna’d.

we know that being cursed means there is a part of you that doesn’t want to be here anymore. a huge part of you with festering guilt or trauma or pain, and that is written all over steve, but most characters in canon don’t acknowledge it.

i think steve is a prime candidate to be vecna’d — and that is a whole other post for me to make — and if he were, i think it would hit dustin like a train.

the things he’s said just stick in his head in loops, constant, all the time. like the clock scene, or do you need to be told everything? you’re not a child.

and god, the way he would think how has steve been carrying this, all this time? and how did i not notice? how?

anyways yeah that. that is what lives in my little brain.

[morganbritton132]

Everyday I think about how Stranger Things Season 4 had a guy who listened to metal, a guy name Steve, and a bad guy that could be defeated with the power of music and they didn’t play Steven by Alice Cooper.

[juiceicicles]

Mean and Scary | Chapter 2: Ghosts in the Pool

Pts: 1, 2, 3

=======

He had never really intended to tell anyone about the nightmares. The sleepless nights, the tossing and turning interrupted by the absolute worst headaches and the bloodstained pillows thanks to the newly developed nose bleed problem. It made him feel weak. Nobody else was having these problems. Maybe it was karma from his attempt to just forget Barb this first go-around, maybe the numerous head injuries had aligned to create a new way of making him miserable. But Max just looked so tired, and if anyone could relate in their little Party, maybe Steve could.

And apparently, Steve understood almost perfectly. Max had opened up to him too, and confessed that she only really felt sane when she was listening to music. She’d given him her old walkman, the one she used before she realized she needed an upgrade if it was going to become a constant in her life. It was bulky, and the headphones were small and uncomfortable, but the reprieve from his own thoughts was better than any drug.

Well, any drug Steve had tried. Hence the standing in the Munson trailer, waiting to expand his horrisions. It still felt weird to be here. Not the trailer park, or even the trailer itself, he’d seen it from the outside countless times to pick and drop Max off. But here, in Eddie Munson’s living room. Waiting for drugs. After the russians Steve was almost entirely sure he’d never be able to even get drunk again. It felt too similar, felt like he was back in that cold room surrounded by needles and bone-saws. But he needed something or else he’d never fall asleep again, and the two days he’d gone without were already kicking his ass.

Was it smart to go to Dustins newest brother figure in search of illicit substances? No. Was he going to do it anyways? Yes. He just needed some fucking sleep, just this once. (He knew that he couldn’t guarantee that. That if this worked, he’d probably be coming back time and time again. But he was never the sharpest bulb in the shed, and he’s choosing to blame his remarkable lack of decision making on the sleep deprivation.)

There were dozens of baseball caps and mugs covering the walls around him. From sports teams, to shitty diners, to T.V. memorobila, there was everything. He idly wondered if any of the items were ever used, considering they were high enough on the wall that he would need a ladder to access them, and Eddie was about his height.

“Sorry for the mess, maid took the week off.” Eddie was digging around the trailer, looking for whatever it was Steve had agreed to purchase and later on actually take (was he really doing this? Should he be doing this? God, Robin was gonna be so pissed if she ever found out)

“You um,” Steve swallowed, he honestly couldn’t tell you why he was so nervous. He felt like there were livewires where his blood vessels should be, “you live here alone?”

“With my uncle. But, uh, he works nights at the plant. Bringing home the big bucks.” There were various clunking and clicking sounds from where Eddie was opening up what was presumably any container he found in his junk drawer mixed in with the sounds of singing softly crooning from the tinny speakers in Steve’s headphones. His favorite song was playing, and he turned the volume up a little more.

“How long does it take?”

“Sorry?”

Steve took a deep breath to calm his nerves, seriously why was he so anxious? “The- the, uh, Special K? How long to kick in?”

“Oh, uh, well, it depends on if you snort it or not.” Christ, this was so dumb, “Uh, if you do, then, yeah. It'll kick in pretty quick.” This was so, so, dumb. “Ohhh…shit.”

“You’re sure you have it?” the part of Steve that had been desperately begging him to just go the fuck home was silently hoping that Munson just didn’t have any. The other part, the part that hadn’t slept in two days and had been getting pretty shit sleep for the last week and a half, was desperately begging that he did.

“No, no, I got it. Um, somewhere.” Eddie turned around and went into his room, most likely to continue his part in the hide and seek game he was playing with this illegal drug. Seriously, why wouldn’t you keep that somewhere safe?

Tick tock. Tick tock.

Steve whipped around to stare at the window, as the music played in the background to the sound of a clock chiming in the distance.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

Steve really hoped he wasn’t going crazy. That some total whackjob decided to put a grandfather clock in the backyard of their trailer for some reason. But he knew he was kidding himself, it was so clear. Like it was coming from down a long hallway. Except the only hallway in the trailer was to Eddie’s room, and the sound was coming from the opposite direction. All those knocks to the head were finally getting to him. He was officially going insane.

As he scanned the darkness outside the window, the ticking and the chiming just got louder, and louder, and louder, until it felt like it was coming from inside his head. He frantically closed the curtains.

“Eddie?” Steve called over his shoulder, “Did you find it? Eddie?”

Silence. Gone were the sounds of hollow metal opening and closing, or Eddie’s weird ramblings to nobody, or the sounds of another person’s footsteps on the carpet. Steve slowly started to walk down the hallway. Eddie probably wouldn’t want him to see his room, but after years of monsters and possession and all things Upside-Down, Steve would rather take the chance of upsetting him over the chance of anything else. Granted the Upside-Down and the beasts that came with it were not usually quiet, at least from this end of things, but Steve was paranoid. He thinks he’s earned that much for all the brain trauma he’s most definitely had over time.

“Eddie?” He entered the room, only to find that Eddie wasn’t there. In fact, this wasn’t even Eddie’s room. It couldn’t be. This was Steve’s porch. The pool shone a light-blue glow over the surroundings, steam misting off the surface of the water in lazy swirls. The air felt cool, but not cold. Like it always did right before it became too cold to swim even in heated water, right before the Harringtons had to close the pool up. There were empty beer cans littered in a small pile, each with a small jagged hole punched into the bottom, next to some pool chairs with an ashtray situated between them on a small table.

And there, sitting on the diving board of the pool, was Barbara Holland. Her back was facing Steve, but he would have to be blind not to recognize her. Her curly red hair made a dark brown in the low light but discernible all the same, the dark blue denim jacket she had been wearing that night, color swallowed up by the black night around her. Resting her hands on her legs, one cradling the other with blood running down her fingers. Dripping slowly into the water below, the dark red quickly fading into the surrounding blue with each new droplet.

“B-Barb?”

This couldn’t possibly be real. Barb was dead. Barb had died here, on this night, in his pool. She was the ghost over his shoulder, never remembered quite right, and not always at the forefront of his mind, but never really forgotten. She was a scar that would never heal, a guilt that would never fade. Even if he hadn’t ever really admitted it, he agreed with Nancy. What she had said that halloween. He killed Barb, he just didn’t really let himself think about it.

“Still pretending, Steve?” She said, still not looking back. Still swaying her legs casually, sitting at the foot of her grave.

“Still bullshit?” The word reverberated through the air. And even though there were no walls, it felt like it was closing in on him. She finally turned around, and where her brown eyes had once been were milky white pupils, surrounded by black. Water dribbled from her mouth as she spoke. Her face was rotting, water logged and bloated. She didn’t look like a ghost, she looked like a corpse. Slugs crawled out of holes in her skin, and vines wrapped around her legs and propelled her forwards, her muscles too decayed to stand without assistance

Steve turned around and booked it. He slammed the door to the pool closed, drawing the blinds over the panes of glass. Holding his back to the door, he turned around to see that where the Munson trailer had once been, the viney Upside-Down tunnels had replaced it.

The vines slithered over eachother, covering the door to the pool and creating a solid wall of plant matter. Chittering and screeching echoed down pathways, the smell of kerosine and the distinct iron-copper of blood filled the air and choked Steve’s lungs.

“You killed me!” The distorted voice of Barbara Holland filled his head, so loud it was deafening. Steve covered his ears. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be alive! My parents wouldn’t had to bury an empty casket! It’s your fault Steve!”

Steve ran, trying desperately to get away from the voice, but it wasn’t coming from behind him. It was coming from around him, like a bubble of loathing and blame.

“Nancy lied to you Steve! There was no ‘we’. It was all you!” Barb laughed, empty and hollow, “you’ll never make up for it, murderer! One day, they’ll realize! One day, they’ll all know! And when that day comes, nobody will want to see your pathetic face ever. Again.”

There in the diverging pathways of the tunnels stood Dustin, and then Robin, then Max, and Lucas, and Mike, and Joyce, and it just went on, and on, and on. Their sneers, their disgust, their backs turned as they walked away from him.

“If you had just focused on someone other than yourself for one fucking second, I’d be alive. Nancy would be happy! Thank god Jonathan was there for her, to be what she really needed.”

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Barb kept going. She’d finally gotten her chance to say everything she didn’t when she was alive, and she seemed to be making the most of it. “Needed to win over perfect prissy Nancy Wheeler? Needed to prove to your douchebag friends that you could conquer any woman? That nobody could say no to King Steve!”

Steve would protest if he could breathe at all. He felt like he’d been running for days, and he was panting heavily from the strain.

“You’ll never be enough to make up for what the world lost when you took me from it.” Barb's voice sounded farther away, until finally it faded entirely.

Steve slumped down the wall, creepy vines and shit be damned. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe, he just needed a second to get his bearings together and then he’d start looking for a way out.

“Steve”

==

@bowl-o-queerios is me, I just can’t comment on this blog

[familyvideostevie]

good morning I’m going on a date tonight which means I will spend all day panicking about it

[helloitisiafellowgay]

another part of my Steve gets Vecna’d AU, where i provide very little context lmaoo sorry

i’ve been working on this for OVER A YEAR and still have a few scenes to finish 😭 my draft rn is almost 19k so I’ll hopefully get it out before like November at this rate :)

vague context: this is the night before The Big Fight TM and people like JUST found out that steves possessed and eddie is cleaning steve’s demobat wounds

other post

——————

“Do you—“ the drug dealer looks conflicted, debating whether to poke at a neglected bruise. “Why didn’t anyone notice?”

There’s a knot in his throat, a tightening of his larynx. “What do you mean?”

”That you were hallucinating? Having nightmares?” Before, Eddie wouldn’t meet his gaze. Now, he won’t let Steve look away, slowly regaining his certainty, his intensity. “Why was I the only one to even consider anything was wrong? You’re not that great of an actor— you aren’t, don’t look at me like that— and they’ve known you so much longer than I have.”

And isn’t that the question he’d been shoving out of his own mind since the beginning of this whole mess? That small seed of doubt, pushing forward and flourishing now that someone else had stopped to water it.

He knows, he knows— they don’t care about him as much as he cares about them. Sees it in the way the kids dismiss him as soon as they arrive at their destination, only call on him when they want something; the way he gives it every single time regardless.

Each girl in his bed, driving him like a crash-test car; the excuse to leave, the cold sheets in the morning. A freezing bathroom at a party, the echo of bullshit refracting off the cold tile.

The crack of ceramic against his skull, the fist in his sternum, the stifling ash in his lungs in a buried tunnel. Interrogation tactics, missing fingernails, drugged out of his mind; flesh monster, the loss of the one male adult he could actually depend on.

And before it all, the steel door, the silhouette, the—

No.

No, Steve knows that he is, at his core, what he has always been: unloveable.

After the reactivity, the intentional cruelty of his youth, he expects nothing other than a warning label.

Danger: do not interact. Prone to violence.

Steve is his father’s son, after all. They share the same ruthless ferocity, the same scarred knuckles.

He has spent so long convincing the world that anything can be turned into a weapon, and he started with his hands; if he squints long enough, blood pools itself into the crevices of his palms, fingernails curving into sharp edges and the remnants of whiskey bottles.

A product of his environment, no doubt; the weight of his family name, absent parents, superficial friends.

King Steve with a hollow crown, sat in his pristine castle with everything a teen could ask for except anyone to make him feel worth following. Like something other than a cheap toy, a pretty face, a chore to be put off until a more convenient time.

It’s fact of his life, something he felt no reason to doubt when people keep proving it to him, over and over and over.

He’s useful— for rides to the arcade, for a place to hangout when everywhere else has been vetoed, to wield a baseball bat studded with nails, the last line of defense, the one who can be counted on to take the hit— but not their friend. Not wanted, not valuable, and certainly not lovable.

So how can he possibly justify this unwavering loyalty, his propensity to follow them around like a stray dog waiting on table scraps? Why he keeps coming back, offering every part of himself when none of them would do the same for him?

Steve shrugs. “They all have their own shit going on, they can’t help it. I didn’t want to make things complicated.”

The drug dealer frowns, already shaking his head in disagreement. “That’s not— not good enough. They’re not too busy, they just don’t…”

Care.

They just don’t care.

Steve catches the moment that the other boy sees the bundle of scars peeking just over the hem of his boxers. Tears his own focus away from those small, circular burns; old enough to be suspicious, obvious enough that even a ten-year-old could come to the correct conclusion about their origin without much effort.

A kid with cigarette burns— not common, but definitely not rare.

A rich kid with cigarette burns? That just doesn’t happen.

“Doesn’t Vecna go after people with trauma? It’s not like Steve—”

His stomach roils, a distant nausea working its way up his esophagus. The younger teen holds his breath and waits, but Eddie doesn’t ask, just furrows his brow and grazes over the puckered skin with a single, calloused thumb.

Steve shivers, bites his lip, fights the urge to dislodge the soft touch and flee the room. He doesn’t.

Eddie goes back to taping the raw edges of his wounds closed.

A sick, twisted heat takes root in his stomach; invasive and insatiable, it chokes out his heart until it has nowhere left to go except up into his throat, and flourishes in the abandoned cavity left behind.

“Do you think when he chose me… do you think he knew?” Steve’s a conglomeration of dull apathy and the underlying static of panic; he feels like he’s back under the water, suspended in time and trying desperately not to drown. “That I wouldn’t say anything? Wouldn’t want to tell them, you, about… That… that they don’t…?”

The musician pulls out a roll of gauze, presses one end to his rib cage with more care than anyone has shown him in a long time.

“I think that you hide so much from everyone, more than anyone thinks that you do. And I think that, to someone like him, it’s easy to mistake that for shame.”

Oh.

“And what if I am?” Steve clenches his jaw, flattens his lips to disguise their infernal trembling. “Ashamed… of being known? Afraid that people will hate what they find, if I were to let people in— share those parts of myself?”

The last of the sunset dissipates from the sky, leaves the world outside of the window cast in a deep indigo.

A murmur, almost subconsciously, from his healer: “Isn’t everyone?”

He is some sort of wretched thing— must be, to warrant this raw, gnawing ache in his core. The withering, the erosion at the fringes of his being, exposing the live-wire at the heart of him.

Pressure, as the dressing is applied to his wounds. The light brush of skin against skin.

“You aren’t an inconvenience, you know.” Eddie wraps the last of the bandage around his abdomen, secures it in place. “You are allowed to ask for help. And other people want to help, if you let them.”

The babysitter hums, a non-answer, omitted confirmation. Can do little else, lest he wilt under the force of this personification of a star.

“I might not know why none of the kids said anything, but...“ Off to the side, the discarded towel is depositing water on the floor. When Eddie reaches for it, there’s a damp patch on his jeans that the babysitter stares at while his hands are taken, dabbed at with damp cotton. “Robin, Nancy, and I literally followed you into hell. You’re not taking anything from us that we wouldn’t freely give.”

The older boy’s gaze is wild, reverent. From where he is crouched in front of Steve, it must look like he’s kneeling before a monarch, a King.

What a resolute act of devotion: tending to the wounds of a martyr, washing the blood from each finger as if every millimeter of exposed skin is something worth defending.

Steve doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve such absolution; this exoneration from all of the sin coating his fingers and dripping from his teeth. He is nothing more than a child devouring overripe berries in another family’s garden, filling his vacant stomach with sweet crimson nectar that he will never be able to justify aching for.

He is no deity, no patron saint or messiah. He’s barely a king. ”I’m not worth—“

He has never been religious— or, at least definitely not after the monsters came into the picture. But he knew then, knows now— there is no heavenly father, no almighty God, that could give him back that purity, that holy golden ichor.

Whenever Steve had plead to this creator, prayed for help while pinned to the ground under the malicious intent of another— there was no response. Just the echo of his faith, his questions, being tossed back at him, neglected and unanswered.

”You’re worth everything, Steve Harrington.” Eddie’s intensity, his conviction, makes Steve’s heart lurch somewhere in his chest. “There is nothing you could ask from us that you haven’t deserved a hundred times over.”

The cloth, damp and abrasive against his palms, collects strawberry residue within its woven fibers.

His crown must be less hollow than he thought.

There is no god that can restore his virtue, slip the innocence back into his pockets, baptize him in the light of unconditional love— but Eddie… Eddie is just a man.

Just a man, who wiped each of his fingers clean; dressed his wounds with such gentle hands. Just a man, who kissed each bruise, each old scar, without the intent to hurt.

Just a man who held him, who pulled him back when his whole body was on the edge of a precipice.

Who answered his questions without judgement— without stripping him of his divinity, casting him down from the heavenly throne and into the sulphuric pits of eternal damnation.

Just this boy, who looks at him like he is worth more here, in this moment, than he ever would be nailed to a cross.

What god has ever done that for him?

[sunflower-butch]

Haven’t posted this fic over here yet, but if you enjoy the concept of Robin getting Vecna’d, I’ve been working on such a fic! This is actually my first fan fiction, and it’s still ongoing! It’s a pretty long one, considering I’m still new to the fanfic game, and I’m pretty excited about it!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40809171/chapters/104095422

[thatoneguyonetime]

i’ve decided i need the fic where steve joins the dnd campaign instead of erica during the championship game/final battle. does that one exist already? do i need to commission my partner (who i am currently dragging into the eddie munson fandom kicking and screaming) to get back into writing fic for this? do i need to start honing my currently nonexistent writing skills (with my very limited dnd knowledge)?