The Harrington mansion is always dark.
Steve never really noticed it when he was growing up, not until he started dropping off Dustin and the kids. No matter how late it is, there's always a light on the porch for them. Like a sign that someone is waiting home for them.
It doesn't matter if his parents are out of town or not, it's always dark in the house. His parents doesn't care enough to leave a light for him. He won't leave it on for himself, because that feels pathetic.
Steve forgets about it, there's so many other things he should worry about.
He forgets about it until he starts dating Eddie Munson the summer of '85. Steve thanks the blue Scoops Ahoy shorts and the Corroded Coffin members for letting Eddie come in to the shop everyday for the whole summer until they finally start dating and making out at the parking lot.
Eddie starts hanging around Steve's house. Every night that Eddie stays at his house, Steve comes home to a house with a light on the porch.
The first time he notices it, he sat on his car crying for 30 minutes before finally caving in and entering the house. When Steve tells Eddie about this, Eddie visibly melts, scooping him into a hug before saying, "Oh sweetheart, as long as I am here, there's always going to be a light left on for you."
It's Eddie that makes the house a home. Steve doesn't care if he's living in a cardboard box, as long as he's with Eddie, it's home.
And that's why Steve's been standing in front of the dark porch for almost an hour now. Nancy's going to pick him up in a few more hours, so they can go back to the hospital and watch Max and Dustin.
But he can't— can't push himself to enter the dark house, knowing that Eddie's light and warmth is never going to touch it again. There's still blood stained on his hands, blood from when he had to leave Eddie's lifeless body in the Upside Down.
Steve wonders— morbidly— if Wayne has a light on in the trailer porch, waiting for a son that's never coming home.
Maybe it's weariness or maybe Steve just wants to peek inside and see if there's still a hint of Eddie floating around the house. Steve lets himself in the dark house, sliding down against the door as he sobs into Eddie's battle vest.
Outside, the porch light flickers. It blinks three times.
Rapidly. Slowly. Rapidly.
The flickering stops and the light stays on.
Because as long as Eddie Munson's alive, there's always going to be a light left on for Steve Harrington.
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the thing about being the highest-ranked and most-decorated officer in any GAR/Guard capacity, fox thinks, is that unsurprisingly nobody could give less of a shit or listen to anything he says. it’s not like he earned those medals and recognitions and perfect test scores or anything, now is it, kote?
or, after the zillo beast disaster, the coruscant guard medbay just so happens to be much closer than the GAR one, and surprise surprise, senators don’t want meatdroids to be treated in their facilities after they’ve just protected them with their lives. fox tries to reason against this. fox is unsuccessful, because no one listens to fox.
which is how he finds himself crammed into a corner along with cody, ponds, bly, rex and their jedi, looking out across a medbay which is quite frankly a goddamn disaster rivalling the fight with the zillo beast in proportions. skywalker tries to step out towards one of the medics, and has to be pulled back by the collar of his shirt by amidala, squawking loudly when he’s nearly rammed over by mauler, crucifix and a shrilly screaming crash cart.
it’s not like fox said this would be a bad idea or anything.
“um, vod”, cody begins, unsure, “what’s - is that guy sewing wooley up with thread?!”
meathook, who is in fact sewing wooley up with thread, and looks about as happy about it as his patient, and who fox honestly thought was going to cry when he announced the influx of patients about to descend on them, snaps something about triage over his shoulder at hound, whose arm is decidedly bent in a way it shouldn’t be, jerking his head to gesture at the rickety cot next to cody’s ARC. fox is pretty sure they salvaged the thing from a dumpster. he slaps a bandage on the stitches that fox fears might be from the same dumpster.
“putting those advanced reconnaissance training skills to use, kote”, says fox, who invariably turns into the worst possible version of himself whenever cody opens his mouth within a klick of his vicinity.
skywalker harrumphs, evidently at the end of his impressive patience. “well, why?! hey, trooper! these men need bacta!”
“do they, now? i’m sorry, i hadn’t noticed”, a low voice hisses angrily behind them, and fox is the only one who doesn’t jump on account of he’s too dead inside to be scared of his CMO anymore. a grave error, he’s sure. “i guess i’ll just go pull some out of my ass along with a tank and painkillers, then! hadn’t thought of that yet!”
warcrime, whose eye is twitching and who is holding a bloody saw in visible consideration of using it, pins skywalker with a look that has had shinies all over the guard peeing themselves. “we don’t have any fucking bacta, you absolute numbskull.”
“but that can’t be right”, cody pipes up again, next to a very troubled looking generals kenobi and windu. fox sympathises very much with the patented migraine-glare on windu’s face. “why do you not have any bacta?”
“because i like to smear meiloorun juice all over my patient’s stab wounds, commander”, warcrime says. “it’s a homeopathic medicine thing. because the chancellor refuses to give us any, genius.”
“what?!” skywalker says, bristling. “that can’t be true! he wouldn’t -“ he’s cut off by his comm pinging loudly over the moaning and crying in the medbay, and warcrime leaning close enough to be heard with a whisper.
“well, he would, and if you don’t believe me, there’s a holorecording of him telling marshal commander fox why biological weapons on the homefront have lower priority and therefore half rations of everything. now get out of my medbay or find out why they named me warcrime, sir.”
amidala, the collective braincell holder for both her husband and the senate combined (on occasion), tugs him out of the way of warcrime’s bonesaw and ire. fox, who very much enjoys not being the primary target of a medic for once, unfortunately also has to be the adult in the room. “sirs, a transfer to the GAR barracks medbay might be a preferable- AH, MOTHERFU-“
“get him, stabby!”, rabid whoops from where he’s resetting thire’s nose, who echoes a much more nasal and muffled, “go, ftabby!”
“get kriffing FUCKED, stabby, you absolute-“, fox seethes, trying to swipe for the medic’s head and nearly planting one on cody instead by accident, who unfortunately manages to evade the swing fox is admittedly projecting very obviously on account of the sedation hypo jammed into his flank.
“medbay rules, sir”, stabby calls, dancing away towards mauler and his crash cart, while someone bumps something solid and flat against the backs of fox’s thighs that he can’t help but tumble back on, already seeing two codys and blys dancing around his vision. “commander fox protocol dictates he is to be helped to sleep as often as possible, sir.”
“a desperate but well-founded measure, i’m sure”, kenobi of all people agrees, and fox waves an unsteady hand in what might be the general’s direction to the sound of cody’s scandalized gasp. “as you were, officer… stabby.”
“traitors”, fox slurs, just as his com-unit begins to ping with an urgent notification. before he can try and answer it, warcrime has ripped it off his arm and flung it somewhere out of his sight. eh, it probably wasn’t anything THAT important, fox thinks. and if he wakes up two days later to a near-hysteric meathook kissing the glass casing of the guard’s brand new bacta tank over and over again, he decides to just roll over and go back to sleep.
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The Phantom of the Opera
Jason had hobbies, despite what his siblings believed. One of them was as simple as reading while the other was a bit more...private. It wasn't that he was embarrassed, he just wasn't used to sharing it.
The crime lord loved musicals and theaters, he liked going to plays often, escaping patrols just to see a novice actor perform the life of Mr. Darcy, or the death of Romeo. It was such a simple thing, but one that filled him with joy.
So, when he was invited to a "new" and "unique" play he went immediately. The bright green paper on the ticket didn't seem so strange to him, even though he had never heard of "Amity Park" before.
Unlike Jason, Danny hated musicals, plays and so. But his friends were convinced that it was the best way to introduce "ghosts" to society, a way to counter the GIW and make it look like they were harmless (and had feelings). Danny rolled his eyes, but agreed that having a ghost playing "Phantom of the Opera" was hilarious.
What wasn't so funny, was being forced to play the lead in the play, as Phantom was the only one willing to risk such a thing, but he managed it somehow. The grin Clockwork kept sending him didn't give him a very good feeling, but he ignored it.
Most of the people in Amity seemed to be thrilled to see their hero doing something other than fighting after years. Some of them weren't so pleased, though.
Jason had been to a million plays before, but none in such a strange theater, the lead actor also seemed to be stealing his breath away. He frowned as he felt the pits stir after seeing him, but he was determined not to let that ruin his night.
Of course, when they were halfway through the play something had to go wrong: someone in the audience shot the lead actor (What the fuck?), and Jason got to watch in the front row as the boy watched the attackers in pain as he pressed on his wound, which was bleeding the same green as the Lazarus pits.
Well, that's definitely not how he expected his night to go.
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