#eddies really going through it guys

[strangersteddierthings]

Bad News First, Eddie

Part One 🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇FInal Part

This was getting longer than both Steve and Wayne's parts combined, so I'm gonna break it into 2 parts. Posting part 1 now, and part 2 should be up within a day. Thank you everyone for the wonderful replies/reblogs. I screenshot them cause they keep me going haha.

Trigger Warning: Child abuse referenced, as well as one scene of a child being slapped. Use of slurs in a derogatory manner.

-

Bad news first, Eddie thinks to himself as he swings the trash can lid turned shield, this is a fuckton of bats. Good news, Dustin is safe.

The bats are overwhelming but he's holding his own. He can do this. He can buy them more time. He's done running away from the things that scare him.

-

Bad news, Eddie thinks, watching Dustin sob above him, I'm gonna die here.

-

Eddie dies. He knows this because all the hurt stops. The world has faded into itself, dimming to a blackness deeper than Eddie's ever known.

The afterlife is a bit disappointing if he's honest. He's not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't nothing. Endless, unfathomable nothing.

He kinda hoped he'd see his mom or something, but that's delusional. If the afterlife was heaven or hell, he wouldn't end up in the one his mom went to, that's for sure. Too many sins under his belt for that.

Death is pretty boring though.

-

Time is impossible to track. He's tried a few times, counting seconds to make minutes but that's so boring he loses his train of thought. Ends up humming some tune or another before repeating the process.

The day he finds himself humming a Wham! song has Eddie a little panicked. He doesn't listen to Top 40 stations. He spent a good deal of time avoiding learning any Wham! songs, actually, so now that he's somehow gotten one such in his head...

This has got to be capital H Hell.

Well. Everyone in town thought he was on the road straight to it. Laugh it up, Hawkins. You were right. The Freak went straight down.

-

Eddie misses Wayne. He can't remember the last thing he'd said to him. When did he last tell his uncle he loved him? Wayne knew it though. He had to know it. They didn't say it out loud but they didn't need to. Right?

-

In the distance, Eddie sees something. A light? He's not sure what it is but it's something new. Something different.

The light leads him back into the Upside Down. The bats are swarming and he just crashed the bike- fuck fuck fuck, run. Run, Eddie, get the fuck out of here!

He's screaming at himself to run but instead his body stops. Turns. Pulls the shield and spear from his back and screams at the bats.

Eddie rips himself back, away. Crumples to the ground, folding into himself. Not that. Anything but that again.

-

A soft humming sound. Gentle, warm.

Loving.

Eddie unfolds himself to see what it is.

His mom smiles down at him, reaches out to ruffle his hair as she hums. Eddie knows the danger has passed and he is safe now because Mamma only hums that when it's safe.

"There's my handsome boy," she moves the hand from his hair to boop the tip of his nose. "How about we play a little game, hmm? The floor is lava!"

She scoops him up and plops him on the kitchen table. There is a crunching sound beneath her feet as she moves. Lava sounds an awful lot like Dad's broken beer bottles but if Mamma wants to play pretend then Eddie can do that for her.

-

His mother is beautiful. The most beautiful woman in the world. He takes after her in a lot of ways. Matching curly locks, the same face scrunch when they're angry, their noses, big brown doe eyes. Eddie even shares her voice, just a different pitch. The point is, Eddie's mom is beautiful and he's got enough ego left at four years old to think of himself as beautiful, too.

The problem, then, is that Eddie makes the mistake of saying it in front of his Dad. 'As pretty as Mamma,' he'd said. They'd, he and Mamma that is, were sitting crosslegged on the floor in the living room. Dad had been in the kitchen, Eddie could hear him puttering about. Mamma had booped his nose and called him the best looking kid in all of America.

Eddie nodded fiercly, "yeah! As pretty at Mamma."

It used to be a fuzzy memory, what happens next. A flurry of movement and shouting. Now he's witnessing it with terrible clarity. His dad's hand curling around his upper arm and yanking him into the air, crushing hard enough to bruise. His dad's shouting at him. He remembers not remembering the words but now they hit him like the slap his dad delivered to his face. "No son of mine is going to be a fuckin' fag, thinkin' he's some pretty little girl. Is that what you want, you little shit? To be a little girl?"

"Stop it! Stop it! Let him go, he didn't mean anything like that!" he hears his Mamma plead but his Dad won't stop shaking him and screaming. He bursts into tears because it hurts and he's confused and his Dad's never hit him before- "Hit me! Hit me! If you're gonna hit someone, hit me!"

Eddie gets tossed aside. He lands on back and sees as his Dad does exactly as his Mamma demanded. Eddie's never been so scared in his life, he can't watch. He scampers down the hall as fast as he can and crawls under his bed to hide.

-

If Eddie had to guess, that's the memory that ingrained his need to run.

-

He's reliving his memories. He's a little embarrassed how long it takes him to figure that out. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. They don't tell you that the quote flash unquote takes a really fuckin' long time. Like, you know, your whole life long time.

It's so strange to witness, too. Like he's both watching the memories as an outsider, but also through his own eyes. He has both the knowledge that he had when he died, and also no experience beyond what he's seeing in the memory.

-

He watches his Dad beat his Mamma, beat him, but also watches his Dad push him on the swings and slow dance around the kitchen with his Mamma. And that's the worst part, he thinks. That his Dad could have been an awesome one. If he'd stayed sober like he kept promising. He didn't though, couldn't. Hell, maybe it's even a wouldn't. He watchs Wyatt fucking Munson pick beer and drugs over him and his Mamma time and time again.

Couldn't even put them down long enough to be there when Mamma got sick.

-

Eddie is seven. He's just had his head shaved, bald as his Mamma now. He regrets doing it as soon as he sees his Mamma's smile falter when Uncle Wayne drops him off at the hospital.

"We match, Mamma," Eddie says shyly, eyes downcast. "I wanted to match..."

"Oh, baby, come here," and she's scooping him into a hug, genuinly smiling again, "I love that we match. So long as it was your decision to cut your hair."

Eddie realizes now why her smile had faltered. She thought Dad had shaved his head against his will, probably because long hair was for woman, as he liked to say. Eddie in the memory didn't know that, though, so he just cuddles closer and says, "Yeah. Uncle Wayne did it for me, so it would be nice and even, he said. Wanna hear what we did in school today?"

-

There is something looming at the edges of his vision. Eddie can't seem to make whatever it is come into focus. It's not a memory because those always focus. It's something else. Something new.

-

His dad teaches him to hot wire a car. Makes him learn how to pick the lock on car doors and handcuffs. When he sees how easily Eddie took to lockpicking, he makes him learn other locks, too.

Eddie misses out on school because his dad can't be bother to enroll him and Eddie doesn't know how to do it himself. He's too scared to, anyway. Afraid his dad will start swinging and won't stop until he's dead.

-

When Eddie is eleven, a lot happens. It was a pivitol age for him. He got his first crush (a boy named Jimmy) and a first kiss (a boy named Jeramiah). Eddie also ends up in the hospital because his Dad caught him kissing Jeramiah.

It's not his Dad that picks him up from the hospital, though.

Eleven is the age he is the day his Uncle Wayne moves him to Hawkins, Indiana.

He's also eleven the first time he hears Black Sabbath.

Eddie is also eleven years old when he decides that he wants good news delivered last. To end with something good.

-

He relives becoming himself.

Catching up in school because he's not stupid, but falling behind because he is kinda dumb (schoolwork never seemed as imporant as hanging out with friends, or starting a band, or playing dungeons and dragon, or any other number of things).

The relief he feels the first time he meets another person like him, learns there's another word besides faggot for what he is. Gay. The immense pleasure of feeling truly seen the first time he says that out loud to someone (it's his best friend, Jeff) "Bad news, Jeff. You might hate me for this. Good news, I'm gay."

Good, good news. Jeff doesn't hate him!

There's a fear that Wayne might be like his Dad regarding all this, so he can't tell him; won't tell him.

But then Wayne comes home unexpectedly when Eddie is a freshman and catches him with another boy's tongue in his mouth. Eddie has a panic attack that winds up with him in the hospital.

He remembers the paralizing fear when Wayne came to pick him up upon his release. Eddie had walked to the pickup numb and afraid. He climbed in, buckled the seatbelt, and waited for the worst.

Wayne climbed in and started the pickup but didn't put it in gear. Instead, he spoke, "Life is gonna be rough for you, boy. Rougher than it should be."

Eddie cannot make words form to reply. Can't do anything but shake.

"Eddie," Wayne says and he feels the seat move as Wayne shifts to turn towards him, "the bad news is, life is gonna be rough, but the good news? Living under my roof isn't. Won't be. Eddie, my boy, I love you. And nothing, absolutely nothing, will change that."

Eddie breaks, like a puppet with its strings cut, sags in the seat and sobs. Never, never had Eddie ever bothered to entertain the idea that this might be Wayne's response.

-

Eddie is a sophomore the first time he notices Steve Harrington. It's fucking awful. It's also amazing.

Because noticing Steve Harrington means noticing Steve Harrington. He's immidiately popular because he's good looking and good at sports.

Eddie's not gonna claim to know Steve, he doesn't. There's just these little clues that King Steve isn't a default jerk. For one, Steve doesn't partake in bullying. He stays silent. Lets it happen.

But Eddie's also been witness to two times when Stever did step in; both times when it was escalating to be a phycical altercation.

"Hey, Tommy, don't," Steve had said, not quite stepping between Tommy and the other kid, but enough to be within Tommy's line of sight. "The game is tomorrow. You throw that punch and your hand is gonna hurt like a bitch through the whole game. And I swear to God if we lose this game because you can't handle it-" Steve didn't finish the sentence, didn't have to. Tommy lowered his arm and scoffed. Walked away mutter about how the kid wasn't worth it anyway.

The other time, it had been Jeff he'd defended. Jeff hadn't even been doing anything. Just stumbled into some asshole from the basketball team and knocked him over. Eddie had been the one who'd shoved Jeff (because Jeff was teasing him) and he was ready to place himself in the way when Steve had beat him to it.

"Fucking relax, it was an accident," Steve stood face to face with Roger. Eddie and Jeff just stared at the back of Steve's head. "It's not Jeff's fault that barely tapping you knocked you down like a house of cards. Right, Jeff?"

Eddie and Jeff blinked at each other in a sort of stunned silence because since when does King Steve know either of their names? Steve turned to look over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. Jeff stammered out, "R-right. It was an accident. Sorry, man."

"See, he's even sorry."

Eddie reached out, wrapped his hand around Jeff's wrist, and tugged him away. He could not stay here and witness anymore of Hero Steve or he was going to embarrass himself infront of the entire cafeteria in the worst way possible.

-

That was the tipping point for Eddie. When he finally had to admit he wasn't just noticing Steve Harrington. He had a full blown crush on the dude.

Fuck.

-

Watching his memories play, Eddie realizes he spent far too much time in high school trying to get Steve's attention. Bumping into him on purpose, being antagonistic to his friends just get a response, or trying his best to use Jedi mind powers to make teachers pair them together for projects in the rare few classes they shared (this never worked; teachers liked Steve too much and hated Eddie).

Steve changes between junior and senior year and still doesn't notice Eddie. Eddie's kinda bitter about it.

Then Steve graduates, but doesn't leave. He's always hanging around, bothering the freshman Eddie's taken under his wing. He's not jealous that Dustin Henderson thinks Steve hung the moon. He's not. (he is).

Anyway, the bad news. Steve graduates but doesn't leave and Eddie can't get over his stupid crush. Good news, he and Steve share a mutual friend in one obnoxiously lovable freshman, so that's like one step closer to Eddie being Steve's friend, right?

-

The thing that's looming finally comes into view when his most recent memories come up. Or, more accurately, it -she- makes herself seen.

He's holding a broken bottle to Steve's neck demanding to know what he's doing here and then the scene pulls away from him until he's watching himself threaten Steve. The memory moves in slow motion.

"Eddie?"

He screams because Jesus H Christ nothing else in the afterlife has ever spoken to him.

"I am sorry. I did not mean to scare you," she says. Eddie can see her now. She doesn't look like either an angel or a demon. She just looks like a regular person, a girl with shoulder length brown hair, wearing jeans and a yellow shirt that looks too big for her.

"Uh, it's fine?" Eddie says, because what else is he going to say? "Who're.. who are- what are you?"

"I am Eleven. It has been difficult to reach you, Eddie. Had to try, though."

"What?"

Eleven nods, like someone has said something he can't hear. There is a long pause before she speaks again. "Do you want to wake up, Eddie?"

"What do you mean wake up?" Eddie feels like he might start having a panic attack.

"I am not good with words. Not delicate, Mike would say," Eleven says, "so I will be frank. You are alive. Can be alive. Doctor Owens says you retreated into yourself. To protect yourself. But it's safe now. It is all safe. The Upside Down cannot hurt you again."

Eddie feels the panic set in almost instantly at those words. The memory explodes into black and the girl vanishes.

-

The more Eleven shows up, the more aware of other things Eddie becomes. Occasionally the sound of conversation drifts in but it's far away, muffled. He can taste food on his tongue that he had not eaten. Feel a brush get stuck in his hair.

They don't really talk, he and Eleven. She takes her queues from him and since he's got no idea what's happening he doesn't know what queues to give.

"So, you're not here to like... send me on, or something?" He asks. They're sitting cross-legged in front of each other. Eddie in the outfit he died in and Eleven in shorts, a crop top, and an oversized jacket.

"Where would I send you?"

"Y'know. Like... Hell or wherever."

Eleven is silent a long time before she says, "I don't want to send you anywhere. I want to bring you back."

Back. He can go back? That doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem like it should be an option. "You mean like, back to Hawkins?"

"Eventually."

Eddie's not sure what to make of that. Is he gonna be a ghost? Because if it's Hell or being a ghost, the latter sounds infinity more fun. Plus, as a ghost he could probably check in on Wayne.

"Alright. You win, Eleven. Take me back."

Eleven stands up immediately, offering a hand to help Eddie up. "You have to want it."

"Want to be a ghost?"

"No. You have to want to be alive."

That makes sense, Eddie supposes. Wanting to be alive is probably what makes ghosts be able to like, be ghosts. "OK. OK. I can do this." He does a full body shake, dancing from one foot to another to pump himself up. "Alive. Alive. I want that. I want to live. I want to see my uncle again. Want to give Hawkins a big fuck you for thinking I'd end up in Hell. I want to see Jeff and Gareth! I want to haunt the fuck out of Dustin Henderson for trying to follow me! I want to know if Robin, Steve, and Nancy won! I want to know if they made Vecna pay!"

He is yelling by the end of it, and Eleven is beaming at him like she's proud of him.

"Yes! Yes! Now, wake up!"

-

Eddie does wake up. Sort of. He's already awake, sitting in what appears to be someone's living room. He blinks several times before exhaustion washes over him and he sags back into the chair he's sitting in. "Wh-" he tried to speak but his vocal chords don't seem to want to work.

"Holy shit." A voice says off to his side. It's vaguely familiar. Like a distant memory. "Call Owens! Call Owens right fucking now!"

-

Bad news is this. He's been stuck in his own head for several years. His fucking body has been moving around without him yet the amount of physical therapy he has to do is torture. Fucking Owens won't let him contact anyone until he gets the all clear from his new therapist. Oh, and his uncle believes he's dead.

Good news is this. He's alive.

[daffi-990]

Tease Tidbit Tuesday 🏙️

Tagged by @diazsdimples & @tizniz. Make sure to check out what they shared today! (and maybe send James a virtual hug or a stupid punny joke? He’s been sick for 3 weeks and I’m sure he could use some cheering up 😘)

I have been wanting so desperately to write the past few days but a cold has my sinuses putting so much pressure on my head I feel like it’s going to explode, plus it’s school holidays and it’s been raining so I’ve got two very energetic kids with cabin fever running around causing mayhem 😅.

BUT! I did manage to write a little something for LA Lonely so yay (even though it may not be great, at least it’s words)

Pre snippet here

Buck is woken up by the shrill sound of a phone ringing. The bed jostles, Buck letting out an annoyed grumble as the warm body that is wrapped around him disappears. There is a kiss pressed to his naked shoulder, a whispered apology and then the rustling of the blankets as the person leaves the bed, answering the phone with a quiet hello.

Rolling over to check the time, Buck’s surprised to see that it’s almost 9. Usually his body clock wakes him up at 7am everyday, whether he stayed up late or not, so sleep-ins are a rare thing. He rolls onto his back, groaning as he stretches his arms up above his head. There’s a slight ache in his ass but it’s a reminder of the fantastic sex he had last night and honestly, Buck doesn’t mind the discomfort.

He hears footsteps on the stairs, the wood creaking slightly and then the most attractive man Buck has ever laid eyes on is standing at the foot of his bed wearing nothing but underwear and a soft apologetic smile that has Buck’s tummy swooping.

Eddie.

The man’s name is Eddie, Buck remembers. And remember he should because he was moaning it loud enough last night.

Eddie has a phone pressed between his ear and shoulder as he picks up his jeans and begins to awkwardly shimmy them up his legs. “I told you, I overslept. But I’m getting ready now and can be there in —” he looks down at his wrist and frowns, his eyes sweeping over the discarded clothes on the floor before zeroing in on Buck’s second nightstand where a clunky watch sits. Eddie grabs the watch, quickly checking the time before he begins strapping it on. “I can be there in 20 minutes, 15 if the traffic is good.”

Buck feels a pang in his chest and then instantly chastises himself. This was just another hookup, a one night stand —nothing more than that. He was foolish to think that what he felt last night with Eddie was anything real. It was just the hormones.

Eddie may have stayed, but that was probably because he was hoping to get lucky again this morning. Or like Buck, he slept in and didn’t get a chance to sneak out before Buck woke up.

No pressure tagging: @hippolotamus @puppyboybuckley @spotsandsocks @lover-of-mine @loserdiaz @wikiangela @athenagranted @thewolvesof1998 @exhuastedpigeon @monsterrae1 @wildlife4life @watchyourbuck @elvensorceress @eddiebabygirldiaz @evanbegins @goforkinard @rainbow-nerdss @theotherbuckley @try-set-me-on-fire @dangerpronebuddie @disasterbuckdiaz @devirnis @donationwayne @shitouttabuck @sunshinediaz @princessfbi @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @fortheloveofbuddie @giddyupbuck @homerforsure @hoodie-buck @honestlydarkprincess @jesuisici33 @king-buckley @captain-hen @bekkachaos @bigfootsmom @ladydorian05 @nmcggg @mellaithwen @missmagooglie and as always, anyone else who wants to share something -> consider this your official tag

[rose-n-gunses]

Hellcheer au where they're in the same college class and keep responding to each other's discussion boards because they're both convinced the other person is a genius because they just. have the most beautiful insightful things to say and they're infatuated with the thoughts they have and connections they make in their discussion posts

They've never met in person and only know each other by name and their tiny canvas profile picture or whatever until they do meet somehow, maybe in a different class or through mutual friends OR maybe one of them works somewhere on/near campus and the other shows their student ID to get the discount and the one working like. quotes one of their discussion posts at them or something idk

[cowgirleddiediaz]

Buck & Eddie in 6x13 +  ↳ some very interesting lighting choices

[thefuseoftemptation]

Eddie is the type to take a step back, put his hands on his hips & look something over when he's through w it only for you to stand by & question if he ‘got it?’ & then him tell you "no."

[emma-d-klutz]

You know, I feel like Batman is really into riddles and solving them. So he actually low key enjoys the hell out of whatever utterly convoluted games Nygma sets up. However, they also involve property destruction and putting people's lives at risk so he has to be like….

Now you've gotten me started.

I see it as so much more ridiculous than just that. Batman loves puzzles and mysteries and trivia, so he should be having fun. However, he is on the job doing Batman hours, so he must dedicate his time to stopping threats which endanger people, and he does not have time for any distractions from this very important work. They only serve to irritate him and slow him down. So he ignores the Riddler's stuff until Eddie goes, "Do I need to kill people for you to come play riddles? Because I will kill people if you will come play riddles. I can get a bomb collar within the hour, fucko." You're either ignored or you're thrown in Arkham, and he never stays for the lobstar; there's no winning with this guy! He's not friendly no matter what, even if you're offering to help.

Bruce can't have intricate fun. He's Batman. He's on the clock. He's got three other violent rogues actively terrorizing different boroughs and three more planning a team up somewhere. Oh shit two of the former group met in the middle, and now Harvey's gang is shooting in the fucking street! "Bluebird, come in. Evacuate everything below 112th and... what do you mean you're busy with Punchline? What's she doing?"

If only they weren't frenemies at best with loads of identity stuff and bad blood in the way, I think Eddie could've just publicly abducted Bruce Wayne from Gotham Fashion Week and thrown him in a death maze (with the tacit understanding that nothing he does here gets out), and both of them would have a funtastic time. They should invent the most convoluted board game to ever exist together and play it in a basement sometime. They can have the upstairs bugged. They can multitask. They can talk to each other in their own little codes. The amount of times Riddler opens the door for them to infodump to each other that the big, brooding Bat just will never take... tragic. If only he had got him in his off hours. His down time. If only they had that sort of trust. If only he had asked Bruce Wayne, found mostly asleep and delirious faceplanted in a Belgian waffle at the Gotham Majestic Diner, about the hound symbolism in S3E12 of the old 70s Grey Ghost tv show and how it ties into the infamous H fantheory.

They are the bestest buddies that never were to me.

[steddiesupportgroup]

Pairing: Steve/Eddie

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 5k

Additional tags: Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Cuddling, First Kiss, Nightmares, Dissociation, Steve Harrington has PTSD

Warnings: Mentions of Gore/Wounds, Panic Attacks, Weed Usage

Summary: Steve has nightmares. Bloody, gut wrenching things that keep him up at night and threaten to suffocate him. Panicking and convinced he’s dying, he rushes to Eddie’s place in the middle of the night without meaning to. He can’t bear to be alone, and realizes that in Eddie’s arms is exactly where he wants to be.

⚡️The laundromat fic is up!! There’s some angst but a whole lotta fluff to make up for it. I also made up a backstory for Eddie that I think is really interesting. Hope you like it!

[gangsterscraft]

after everything.

[unnecessarilygrandiose]

.

[bizaar]

hiii youuuu!! any updates or teasers about cruel summer?

Hiiiiieeeee I can report that I’m very nearly finished with the chapter and it should be up early this week at the very latest — thank you for being so patient!

[candied-cae]

And Who Are We At The End Of The World? - Please, Be Gentle with My Breaks - III

Chapter 18/? - - - Read it on AO3

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]

Word Count: 10,480

Summary: There's a difference between being broken and having a few breaks. But a lot of these kids and been dealt a lot of blows, and not just from physical monsters of the Upside Down. There's still a lot of stuff hidden just under the surface that they haven't been able to show just yet.

TW: Depictions of PTSD - Triggering events and flashbacks

More ST Fics

-----------------------------------------------------

Friday morning - the morning Family Video was set to re-open its doors and begin taking business again - had finally come.

It was a sunny morning. The kind that starts with birds chirping from the trees and the smell of coffee drifting from the kitchen. Robin and Steve had made plans to be at the store early, a few hours before opening, to eat breakfast together in the back office and take care of any possible final business that could come up. It was going to be a very good day. They'd decided that much.

Robin was still asleep and a little while away from starting that very good day when a noise that was less pleasant than birdsong rattled through her window.

It had been a week since the morning after the earthquake, and the construction crews had finally made their way to the suburbs near the Buckleys to take care of refortifying, structural concerns, and general repairs. One such house that required their attention, was the neighbor's from right behind them. The one that happened to be closest to the wall of Robin's room.

She was woken up when the racket started.

There was yelling, the workers shouting across distances and making their plans. Her neighbor's house had a lot of worry. She usually wouldn't mind the yelling that much. She could ignore it until Steve arrived to whisk her away. But she had been asleep and would've liked to stay that way. And all the noise outside made it impossible to fall back asleep. So she rolled out of bed and pulled her thin, red curtains closed, trying to block out just a little bit of the early morning sun.

It was about then that the foreman of the crew grunted with displeasure and came to a decision.

“Too much mess here. The whole foundation's got cracks in it, I don't like the way these wooden support beams are splinting, these warps in the flooring don't look good, and that roof damage is only going to get worse with bad weather. Call the homeowners. They can bitch about the facts all they want, but this house is going to be next with the demo team and need a complete reconstruction before anyone moves back in.”

Robin had already finished getting ready. She was washed up and dressed, and finally, the noise softened. Maybe they were done for the day. And she probably had another hour before Steve would be rolling around. So she dove back under her covers and tucked them in around her. Closing her eyes and drifting back off to sleep for just a little bit longer before she'd be taken away from her warm, comfy bed, and would be made to face the daunting trials of customer service.

Maybe forty minutes later, Robin was in that slippery state between sleep and awareness while the heavy machinery of a demolition team rolled down the street. All at once, those titans of force began to unmake the house right behind theirs. So close to where she peacefully slept. And the house did not go down easy.

Robin was startled awake in a red-tinted room, with the impossibly loud sound of destruction erupting from right behind her. The strength of it was rumbling the bed under her body, accompanied by the shriek of over-used and under-cared-for mechanical parts.

And all of it just sent her.

It felt like Thursday night. In the Upside Down. Where the red-tinted sky opened up above her, and the ground shook under her feet so hard she almost fell over. When the groans of an old house moved around her and filled up her ears. Until it all became echoes of screams instead.

Lucas's screams.

“Erica! Call for help!”

She felt it. She felt the fear again. Like it was all occurring to her for the first time.

Max was dead. Lucas was hurt. Eddie was going to die.

Her hands started shaking. She felt the sweat stick to the back of her neck, on her forehead under her bangs. Her arms and legs almost felt numb- or maybe they felt disconnected from her? They didn't feel right. Or useable.

She was frozen. And she tried to reason with herself. Thursday night was Thursday night. It was over a week ago. It all already happened, and she's supposed to be fine. She's in her room.

But as she looked around, none of it seemed familiar. It all looked foreign. Alien. It even started to look like the room was covered in vines, and dust, and cobwebs.

And she was alone. Steve and Nancy weren't there with her. By her side. Helping her run through the terror anyway.

She was alone.

A tear slipped down her cheek, and then one of the neighbor's walls went down. Everything shook even worse. And while she was petrified just a second ago, she was then thrown into urgency. She all but pushed herself out of the bed and backed up under the frame. In the little space between the floorboards and the box spring. She just tried to crawl further and further back, closing herself into something small and hidden.

Nothing bad should be able to find her under there.

She started crying harder.

Somewhere in it, her parents started asking questions. Asking if she wanted any breakfast before she left. Trying to make sure she was still up. Wondering why she wasn't answering. But none of it reached her. She just stared straight forward, trying desperately to cover her ears and make it stop. She just needed it all to stop. But all she felt was the tremble. And all she heard were the screams.

Her dad opened her door. He and her mom poured into her room and kneeled on the floor to find her down there under her bed. They tried talking to her. To figure out what was happening. None of them understood why it was happening.

Max was dead. Lucas was hurt. Erica was in danger. Eddie was going to die. Dustin was limping. Steve was bleeding.

Nothing was okay. And Robin was alone.

Steve's car rolled to a stop in front of the Buckleys. But Robin wasn't sitting, waiting for him on the stoop. She probably just woke up late and needed another minute, or two, to finish getting ready. They were going in early anyway.

Steve wasn't in any rush.

So he just sat in the driveway. Letting the radio play through “You're Much Too Soon” by Hall and Oats. But still, as the song ended and the host announced that The Cars would be playing next, Robin wasn't outside.

Which was starting to seem unusual. He'd never waited very long for her to run out. It's not like she was someone to go to a rager and be hungover the next morning. And there was no way she had something with Vickie that went so late she couldn't wake up. At least no way she wouldn't have mentioned it to him.

He wasn't sure what her deal was, but he still didn't really want to risk getting Mrs. Buckley's stink eye by knocking on the door. A person only makes that mistake once. So he shrugged to himself and honked his horn in two short bursts. To make sure she knew he was there. Not to sound passive-aggressive, but maybe she forgot what time they planned on leaving.

And in that dark space between what was happening and the memory playing over reality, Steve's car broke through.

Robin knew that beep.

From all the times she was already packed into his car after closing, and he was taking too long to lock the door to Family Video, so she'd lean over to the driver's seat and honk at him from his own car. From every time they'd gotten talked into running one or a couple of the kids somewhere, and they were taking their sweet time, so he'd honk at them. From any time someone peeled out past a stop sign in front of them, Steve would curse, ask how much they think his car is worth, and he'd honk at them because he couldn't expect an answer.

Robin knew the sound of Steve's Beemer.

Which meant Steve was there.

That was the only thing she could grasp and hold on to. Steve was there. Somewhere out of sight, but there. Steve was there, so she wasn't alone.

“Steve? STEVE?” she called for him. Past her parents that didn't fit the picture in front of her, she yelled for her best friend to fill in.

Just when Steve was really starting to wonder what was up, he saw Robin's father open the door.

“There's something wrong with her!” he shouted, looking more scared than grown-ups usually let him see.

And Steve didn't even think he'd ever run so fast for anything. Before he could even worry about what specifically could be wrong, before he could worry about the Buckleys not being his biggest fans, before he could worry about not technically having been invited inside their house - he was through the front door and following the sound of Robin's voice down the hallway to her room. Where her mother was crouched on the floor trying to reason with where Robin must've been under her bed.

He just shucked the jacket off his arms and scooted himself under there beside her.

“Hey. Hey, Rob. I'm here. It's me.”

She looked at him. And he made sense. As much as all of it didn't make sense, Steve being there with her while she felt terrified? That made sense.

Robin's fingers released a sweater that had been lost under her bed and instead grabbed onto the short sleeve of Steve's white shirt.

“Steve. Steve, it's- i- it's shaking. Everything is…”

“I know. I know, it is.” He nodded with her,” But, hey, I’m right here with you. Okay?”

There was barely enough room for the width of their bodies under there. But even so, Steve untucked his arm from beside him and pushed it into the space over Robin. He held her tight around her shoulders, her hand still twisted in the fabric of his shirt. She was probably going to stretch it out, but Steve wasn't even a little worried about it then.

“It's so loud…” she whispered, trying to cover up one ear without letting go of Steve.

“That's okay. That's okay, because…” Steve reached over to his discarded jacket. In the pocket was his walkman and one of his mixes he was keeping on him until he made the one specifically for Vecna. He slipped the headphones over her ears with a little difficulty, due to the angle and tight quarters. But after he got it on, he'd quickly sped through the first third of the tape, because ABBA's “Lay All Your Love On Me” should've been the fifth song on it.

He pulled her tighter against him while she listened to the music and spoke right into her hair,“ I’m right here. And I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

She continued to cry.

Robin's parents just looked at the two in shock. They knew that they had gotten close, but they never imagined… Steve was the kid in town with a reputation for getting around. They always assumed there was something there, something he was chasing her for. They weren’t happy about it but figured - maybe just maybe - Steve Harrington got drawn into Robin’s refusal of his advances and it just made a game for him after they worked together at the mall.

But the way he was looking at her, it was love.

And not a romantic or lustful thing. It was just love in its purest form. Like they were two halves of the same person. Destined to link their arms together for the rest of their lives, despite whatever husband and wife they would get tied to down the road. It was something bigger than her parents understood.

But they were starting to.

Robin eventually stopped shaking so badly, and stopped crying so hard. Steve asked them if the construction crew could stop what they were doing. Even for just fifteen minutes. Just long enough to let Robin calm down some and get out from under the mattress and put some distance between them.

And the parents left them to each other. Somehow, they completely trusted that all Steve Harrington wanted to do was help their daughter feel better. When they told the crew that their kid was having something of a nervous breakdown, they were incredibly apologetic and immediately shut off all the equipment. Mrs. Buckley brought out some lemonade for them as a thank-you while they killed a little time.

“You doing better, Rob?” Steve asked when she looked like she was coming back to herself.

The room didn't look so scary anymore. Her mind wasn't covering her floor and walls in leathery tentacles. She couldn't hear kids screaming and crying in her ears. She knew Max was safe in the hospital, and Eddie was right next to her recovering. Lucas, Erica, Dustin, and Steve all made it out with bumps and bruises, but they were fine.

Robin pushed the headphones off of one of her ears and nodded to Steve, wiping off her face,” Yeah. Yeah.”

“Do you wanna get up?” he offered.

She thought about it. But her legs still felt like jello, and she still had an icky feeling making her hair stand up. It didn't look like the Upside Down anymore, but she was still scared it would again as soon as she made it to her feet.

“Not yet? It feels safer down here. Closed in, nothing can surprise me.”

“Okay. We’ll stay down here for a few minutes.”

Robin shook her head. She felt silly. “We’re going to be late to work,” she told him.

“Fuck work.” Steve remarked, and she laughed through a sniffle,” I’m the manager now. I say Family Video can re-open tomorrow.”

But then the worry hit her again,“ But, Steve, if I stay here all day and they start again, I-”

Steve just shrugged against her shoulder,“ We can go wherever. Wherever you want.”

And she relaxed again.

They got her up off the floor, splashed some water on her face, and got packed into the car after Robin hugged her parents. Told them she was going to be fine.

They blared music from his car and stopped back at his house first to grab snacks. She met the Antonovs while Steve stole a boombox and a handful of cassettes from his room. And then they made quick goodbyes and were off again. Steve figured a good place to go, to get away from everything, was that junkyard past the quarry.

They drove up the gravel road, around the big open water, into the break of the trees, and out through the clearing of abandoned cars and scrap.

“So, this is where Dustin took you, huh?”

She'd wondered what kind of place made for a demodog trap and makeshift fortress to hunker down in. Not enough to actually ask for a visit to a place that screamed serial killer central, but she'd wondered about it.

“Yeah. Except we came from the tracks and walked the whole way from town.” Steve told her.

Robin crinkled up her nose at the idea,“ If you're gonna bring me to the edge of the world, I'm not walking there. Only way you're getting me all the way out here is if I'm riding in style.” She leaned back in the seat, popped her feet up on the dash, and closed her eyes. Like she was trying to become the picture of luxury.

Steve just smiled softly and hummed,“ Of course, you are.”

The Beemer was parked and the two climbed out together. Robin's first instinct was to comment on the mess. The broken glass and the dented-up metal. Steve pretended it was all damage from the demodogs. She didn't know any better to push it. But they sat down in an open spot. Dug into the leftovers of Claudia's brownies while they just talked and looked out over the hill.

And then Robin brought the conversation back to something she considered to be of high importance.

“So, what's the plan with Nancy?”

Steve completely turned away from her, echoing her question like that'd make her drop it,“ What's the plan?”

And, as if she didn't even hear the annoyance in his tone, she agreed,“ Yeah. What's the plan? What sort of idea do we have on the docket?”

“Robin. Her boyfriend is sleeping on my couch right now.” Steve reminded her.

“Which is why I want to know the plan. Situation's gotten complicated.” Robin crossed her legs and popped a bit of brownie into her mouth.

But he declared,“ There is no plan.”

And she almost sounded disappointed. "Steve.”

“You guys keep trying to open that door - and maybe you could entertain the idea while Jonathan wasn't around - but it's different now.”

“You guys?” Robin pointed out,” Who else has been talking about you and Nancy?”

Steve muttered,“ Munson might've said something stupid…”

Her eyes widened,“ See! Multiple people-”

“Just the two-”

“Multiple people think there's something there! So why aren't you going for it? We got your confidence back, you're acting like the hot commodity you are again. Don't get why you're wasting time.”

He tried to redirect her,“ Why don't we focus on the Vickie front?”

She argued,“ The Vickie front is fine!”

“Oh? So what are the two of you then?” Steve pressed.

Robin got quiet before eventually saying,” I don't know.”

“That doesn't sound very fine.”

Which thankfully seemed to pull her away from Nancy Wheeler.

“How do I broach that topic then, Steve?” she asked.

“Well, you're gonna wanna get all dressed up, look real nice, lean in close, and then you're going to ask her where this thing is going.”

“And if she doesn't think 'this thing' is going where I want it to go? Then I've just outed myself and started the countdown until I become the town pariah.”

“You just gotta be covert enough it's safe, and direct enough you get a clear answer,” Steve advised. Which sounded like an impossible balance to strike.

And Robin was at least a little bit annoyed he'd even say such a thing. “Oh? Is that all?“

“That's all it takes!”

“Then…” Robin leaned over and got all in Steve's space before she put on a husky voice,“ Where do you think this Nancy thing is going?”

Steve cried out “Shut up!” and shoved her shoulder. They both fell into boisterous laughter while they lay out on the grass. Leaving behind the horrors of that morning and knowing full well that Family Video wasn't opening by 10 am as they planned.

Karen got a phone call that morning from Theresa. Robin's mother mentioned that they'd had a rough morning at their house, and asked if Karen had noticed Nancy going through anything after the earthquake. Seeming like she was reliving it at all, or stuff like night terrors? Karen truthfully told her that she hadn't seen any of that from Nancy, but what she kept to herself was that their kids didn't just face an earthquake. Karen knew they'd seen more than they needed to.

And with her soft heart, knowing that Robin got really shaken up and quickly left with Steve that morning to get away from the ruckus, Karen decided she'd pay the two of them a visit. Offer a little kindness and remind them that - even if they couldn't turn to their own parents for help - she was on their team now. Like what Nancy had said the night she found out what was going on.

So Karen baked a batch of fresh cookies in the oven. Her oldest daughter was pouring over her school work, the new and the old, and paying extra attention to her essays. Karen slid a plate on the dining room table to Nancy as they came out. Still warm and gooey, practically falling apart as Karen warned her to let them cool a minute so she didn't burn herself. And then she headed out the door. Packing herself and her Tupperware container away while she drove over to Steve's place. Where surely the two of them would have gone after Robin's fright.

The oddest thing was, as she came up to the front porch and knocked on the door, it wasn't either of them that answered. Nor was it Hopper or Joyce, or any of the kids. Instead, there was a man she'd never met before. A very attractive man, for the record, wearing a pretty skimpy pair of cut-off jeans that were halfway up his thighs and what probably used to be a tee shirt until the sleeves were snipped off to the shoulder and the bottom cropped until it almost showed skin.

Which was a little out of the usual considering Spring just started and nobody else in Hawkins would be dressing like that for weeks, if not months. Just wasn't warm enough for it yet. But there this mystery man was, looking like he was ready to host a Summer cookout and work on his poolside tan.

He pursed his lips under a crisp mustache and asked, with a strong, deep voice and accent,” Yes?”

“Uh, yes, I- uh- I’m Karen. Wheeler. Mike and Nancy’s mom.” she explained. Remembering herself after a moment and shifting the cookies onto one arm, reaching out with her other hand to shake his. Friendly, polite, and mannerly. Maybe a little more bashful than she should be.

He smiled kindly and shook it with a firm grip,” Dmitri. I am Mikhail’s father.”

“Oh, yes, I’d heard- that, um, that we had someone new coming into town.” she made the connection and thought to herself that she was being silly. Stuttering and sputtering for no reason.

“Ah, yes.” Dmitri nodded,” Once your government sends me some papers, I may move out of this boy’s home. Maybe then we will even be neighbors, yes?”

Karen smiled and agreed,” Yeah, maybe.”

It was quiet for only a moment before he wondered,“ Was there something…?”

“Oh! Yes! Sorry, um, I assumed Steve and Robin would be around. Wanted to drop off a snack for them.” she motioned to the container she held.

“That is very kind of you. They are out, but I can put it in the kitchen.” he offered.

She handed the sweets over with a simple “thank you,” but she didn't exactly want to run back home so quickly. And she thought it was only reasonable to try and get to know him. Being another adult on the end-of-the-world team and all.

“How- how are you and your son adjusting? To Hawkins? I'm sure it must be a big change.”

“It is fine,” he assured her. “Mikhail wishes he were in school. Also wishes he had his own room, but that will change in time. We are fine. Much better away from where we were. And I, myself, am most enjoying all the time free from work and the warm temperature.”

Dmitri remarked on it all with a smile. Pale, blue eyes shining under the midwest sun. Which must've been a stark difference compared to the snow-covered country he'd called home just days before. He really seemed happy to have completely turned his whole life around.

It wasn't like he had much of a choice. By the sound of it from Murray, Hop, and Joyce, he had to leave. There wasn't anything left for him or his son in the Soviet Union after he was imprisoned, escaped, and every person at his workplace - convicts and guards alike - was killed. He was a renegade, no matter what. So he had to pack up his kid and him, board a sketchy helicopter, and come with the people he'd become loose companions with. Chasing “hope of a better life” and “the American dream” as far as it'd take him.

It sounded terrifying for Karen to imagine putting her own family through. But here, the man stood. In the door of a teenage boy's home because it had a spare room to borrow. In a country he didn't know. Without a clue about what exactly was going to happen in the coming days, weeks, months, or years. If they made it that long.

And he smiled under the sunshine. Because he was away from work, and they had nice weather in Hawkins, Indiana. And that was enough to be happy about.

“Really?” she asked him.

“Oh, yes. Certainly. If I could spend the rest of my days like this, though in a home of my own, I would. Waking up early, making food, spending time with Mikhail and sending him off, enjoying this lovely weather… it is all I need.”

Karen had to laugh to herself. It sounded like the life of a housewife this man was wishing for. And she knew it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. It wasn't as easy or as fulfilling as it seemed like it was when a person summed up in one clean sentence.

“Your son must be better behaved than mine.” she joked.

But Dmitri's eyebrow raised, and he leaned in closer to drop his voice,“ You think too highly of Mikhail. He is still a handful.” He sat back and mentioned,” Though, I suspect I am lucky to just have the one. You manage two.”

“Three, actually.” she corrected,” I have my youngest, Holly, too.”

“Three, then. Miss Wheeler, you are a mother of considerable strength, to do so on your own.”

“Oh, I’m not on my own. My husband, Ted, he-” Karen stumbled for a second. Not exactly sure how much she could speak to her husband's adequacy as a father. Not when it came to the softer parts of childcare. “Well, he supports us. Has a good job and brings home the bacon.”

“But you manage the home and children?” the man restated.

“Uh, yes, I guess, he mostly catches the bills, and I manage the house. And the kids. The day-to-day. If you want to look at it like that.”

“Then that makes you strong,” he argued.

Karen just averted her eyes and brushed her hair off her shoulder. “You’d be the first to think so.”

“Americans do not think their mothers are strong?”

“It’s-” She didn't get very far.

“They should. I believe you are very strong woman, Miss Karen Wheeler.” Dmitri said with full sincerity.

She couldn't help but notice he didn't correct to “Mrs.” even though she brought up her marriage. But it was nice to hear the rest of that sentence too. She was a strong woman. Seriously spoken, because it was no laughing matter.

Karen also couldn't help but ask a question she's wondered a few times by herself.

“Was it easy? To work and take care of your son on your own?”

It seemed a little rude to ask. She'd only known the man for a few minutes, and she only knew he was a widower or some kind of divorcee because it was sort of the elephant in the room. You don't think to grab the kid and not the mom if everything is going well. So he was in the parenting game on his own. And maybe sometimes Karen wondered if she could do something like that.

“Absolutely not.” he answered honestly,” My wife passed many years back. And my job it- it kept me away from home a lot. Only way we got through it was our sweet neighbor watching him when I could not. I only hope I may find way to tend to him more now.”

“You’d want to be a house-husband?” she asked, surprised.

“If I could? Absolutely. Just be a little… little trophy for the Missus to show off while I take care of the home and my boy.” he mused. “Sounds like a fine life to me.”

Karen only let out about half a laugh. “You’re a very interesting man, Dmitri.”

“What? You do not agree?”

“I can see the appeal, from the outside view. I’ve been in the housewife spot for a while now. It can be nice at times, but I definitely miss…” her eyes wandered,” the freedom.”

“I take it you have a passion then? One you put away to take care of your family?” Dmitri leaned against the door frame. His exposed bicep squished against woodgrain, though Karen tried not to notice, and he watched her carefully. Listening.

She admitted to him,“ Yeah, I did. Once upon a time. Many, many years ago.”

“Well, I hope you find it again, Miss Karen.” There it was with the “Miss” again- “Maybe your kids straighten up and give you time to chase it? Or your husband takes over some responsibilities of the house?”

“Oh, that’ll be the day.”

“You think Mr. Wheeler is not strong enough for the job?”

“He does his job.” Karen had to defend her husband. She began to count on her fingers,” Provides the roof over our heads, food on the table-”

But this Dmitri wasn't having it. With one hand, he gently closed his grip around hers. Only enough pressure to stop her, so he could say,“ If your husband leaves you so dissatisfied, then I do not believe he does his job very well.”

And Karen could feel the heat in her cheeks go hotter. He was close. And touching her hands. And serious but not afraid to laugh. And sweet in the way he talked about his kid. And attentive to her in a way no one has been since she and Ted first met.

It swelled something in her chest that scared her.

She smiled politely, and pulled her hands back,“ Sorry to have taken up so much of your time. I wasn't planning on more than a quick drop-off. But I’m happy to hear you’re both settling in. Feel free to help yourselves to the cookies as well.”

“Thank you,” he said, smoothly. No hint of dismay as she backed out. And then he added,” But it was no bother to speak with a beautiful woman on a nice day. Especially if she's brought over her own baking.”

In a moment of bravery, Karen agreed.

“It was no bother speaking to you either. I’ll see you again sometime.”

“Until then, Miss Karen. To your free time and the rise of house-husbandry.”

And Mr. Antonov stayed at the door while Karen returned to her car. He popped open the top and swiped himself a cookie in the wait. Watching as she opened the door and slid into the driver's seat. He only closed the front door of Steve's house once he'd seen the engine turn over fine. Making sure she'd have no problem getting home.

A length of care just beyond what was necessary.

It'd been a long, long time since Karen felt like anyone had extended that attention toward her.

Not that it mattered much. She was a married woman. A housewife. A stay-at-home mom. And Dmitri didn't convey much confidence that she was able to be anything else anymore. Not with three children to look out for. Even if Nancy was going to be off to college soon, Mike still had three years left. Hell- Holly was only six.

She needed to get back home.

Get back to what she knew how to do.

Time passed by in the junkyard. The sun rose up and eventually hung high in the sky overhead. Steve and Robin nearly emptied the last of Claudia's brownies. They were probably ready for some real food soon. And to get back to civilization.

But, for the moment, they just lay out on the ground next to each other.

Trying not to think about all the dirt getting into their hair and rubbing into the back of their clothes.

But Robin finally felt like herself again.

“Thank you,” she said to him. Her best friend. Who sat with her through the whole thing. Even though it snuck up on them out of nowhere, and they've never dealt with anything like it themselves.

“For?” he asked her.

She filled in,“ For being there for me.”

“Rob,” Steve rolled over onto his side to look at her,” I always will be. You know that.”

Robin nodded,“ I know. I just…” she started to explain,” didn’t realize it could get that bad. Nothing ever hit me like that after last summer. Nothing was ever similar enough to what happened that I just- I don’t know. But then I was just in my room, and I looked around, and it was just like Thursday night. Like some amalgamation of my bedroom and the Creel house, and the sounds were just- ”

Steve put his hand on hers where she'd started mindlessly ripping grass up by the roots.

“I know. But we’re fine. We’re fine.” he assured her.

“Yeah. We are.”

“So we’re feeling better now?”

“Yeah. We’re feeling better now.” Robin squeezed his hand.

“All the way better, or is there still something you need to be all the way there?”

She chuckled and smiled up at the bright blue sky. A big toothy smile. The kind her mother would've told her to reign in if they were taking family pictures. But the gentle fondness of Steve Harrington could be funny when he overdid it. Like a mother hen checking on his little chickadees over and over again.

And Steve might've been thinking about cruising by a drive-thru to finish off the comfort, but Robin had another solution in mind to settle any lingering anxiety.

“Well, if you’re offering… you know what my favorite thing ever is…”

And that was all the leading she had to do. Steve's eyes narrowed at her. But he didn't resist much.

“… Fine. Since you had a shitty morning.”

And then Steve went to his cassette player and dropped in “Robin’s Mix.” A tape he'd put together some time ago that always got the most runtime when its namesake was with him. It only took seconds for the sounds of ABBA's “Dancing Queen” to come out through the speakers. The first song on it. Robin stood, dusted herself off, and joined Steve by the hood of his Beemer where he'd propped the player. Fully set on turning the patch of seclusion into their own private dance floor.

And as the Swedish singers came in, Steve was quick to mime a microphone of his own. Directing every single word to his very best friend. Just like they had for her birthday.

“You are the dancing Queen, Young and sweet, Only seventeen! You can dance, You can jive, Having the time of your life, Ooooo~ See that girl, Watch that screen, Digging the Dancing Queen!”

They spun around each other. Robin shook out her hair, dropped her shoulders, and grooved side-to-side. Put her hands up in the air and swept them around in smooth motions. Steve was jumping around, posing, and kneeling to bask up at her. Like she was a real celebrity.

They probably put too much energy into it. If anyone serious was looking at them and compared their moves to the music at hand, they'd probably have said they didn't fit together. But to the two of them, it was how the song was meant to be danced to. It's what was right when everything came down to just Steve and Robin. No one else on the planet was invited.

And just being Steve and Robin was the easiest thing most days.

They made it all the way through the song before Robin nearly collapsed against him in giggles. He put away the phony mic, tossing it somewhere behind him to catch her before they both ended up on their asses. “One Way Or Another” began to fire up, but neither was listening too carefully.

“Thank you,” Robin said, almost out of breath.

“You already said that.” Steve pointed out.

“I know. But seriously,” she grabbed his hand and squeezed it like it was the most tangible lifeline she's ever had,” Thank you. For being my favorite person in the whole world.”

He squeezed her hand back, just as much love expressed in the simple act,” Thank you for being mine.”

Eventually, Robin stood back up on her own two feet. And they decided on that drive-thru meal to offset all the sugar and chocolate they'd had in lieu of a balanced breakfast. And interestingly enough, they also decided on going back to Family Video anyway.

They had no plans to open. More so just get out from under the sun before one of them (Robin) got sunburnt. Maybe even avoid the mosquitoes for the rest of the day. And Robin's Mix played through Steve's stereo the whole drive.

It might've only been Friday, and the nurses might've said they wanted to hold on to Eddie through Tuesday, but he was getting stir-crazy.

He hated, hated, hated just sitting there on that bed. He wasn't supposed to get up and move around too much, lest he desire to face Nurse Tracey's wrath. But it was torture. The tv was no adequate entertainment, and it killed him to know that everyone else had something to do. Some way they were healing or fixing things.

Just “getting better” wasn't a good enough assignment.

Not when there was so much at stake. Not when he was laying down right next to Max, who was stuck where he'd gotten out of. They told him it wasn't the same. But it should've been. They both died, and El brought them both back, and they both got to a hospital. But she wasn't awake.

And it pissed him off so much.

She played decoy, and so did he. And they both did their parts a little too well. But she didn’t get up after.

Wayne dropped in and ate breakfast with him on his way to work. Expressed his sorrow about Eddie's ring. Eddie's mom's ring. His fingertips drifted to his right ring finger where he'd always worn it. Not on the left, because that was the spot dedicated to his own engagement one day.

He missed it. The black gem, cut in too many facets that it caught the light too much. It didn't have the same mystique as domed, smooth onyx that seemed more like a void set in silver than a stone. He'd looked at some in pawn shops and understood the appeal.

But as much as his mom's ring didn't exactly fit the idea of what his aesthetic "should" be, it was better.

And it was gone.

He didn't cry when Wayne mentioned it. Didn't cry when Wayne said he was going to ask around, keep an eye out, and look wherever he could think to. Didn't ruin it for him by saying," I know I wore it into battle. I fucking kissed it before climbing up a twisted version of our trailer and starting my set. So if it's gone, it's gone in another dimension. And, honestly, it was probably eaten by a demobat, given how much they bit at me. So it had to be fucked up for good after sitting in dead monster stomach acid all this time."

No. Eddie just smiled at his uncle. Told him thanks for everything. Said he was going to make it up to him with a spaghetti night when they settled in a new place to call their home again. Wayne smiled and told him not to forget the garlic bread.

"You know that's the best part." he laughed.

Wayne's eyes caught on his watch, and it was time to go. He laid a hand on his boy's shoulder, kissed him on his forehead, and told him to just keep getting better. Try not to worry about anything in the meantime.

Eddie didn't promise him anything.

He finished his re-read of The Hobbit. Sniffled at the end like he always did. He looked over old notes and put together new ones for a campaign. The boys, including Josie and Erica, and even Will, all came by. It was nice.

It wasn't a very complex storyline he'd thought up, but for a one-shot, it would do. The gang of nine players packed around his bed was given the task of sneaking into a masquerade party held in a castle. The queen had received word that her daughter was in danger, but she didn't know who it was. It could've even been a member of their own royal guard. So she'd hired the band of adventurers to make sure the princess would be safe. The hard part was, she'd survived an insane labor of nine. Yup, nonuplets. So there were nine identical princesses to keep an eye on and protect while they tried to find the bad guy. And just as fate would have it, one of them died.

It was only thanks to Will's impeccable notetaking that they figured out it was not actually Daphne in the pale green dress, but Rowena who'd swapped their clothes and taken the place of her sister. A scheme worked up with an assassin she'd fallen in love with to steal the title of "eldest daughter" and have the first claim to the throne. She had been the youngest of nine, after all, she was far down the list before she'd see a crown.

But they solvest the mystery. Earned a good chunk of change from an incredibly distraught royal family who not only lost one child, but a second too. Everyone cheered for each other when they got the confession and defeated the enemies in combat. Tucked away the characters with mentions that it might be nice to dust them off and revisit the theme again another time. Make a regular habit of these Sherlock Holmes-like mysteries dipped in a little bit of fantasy flair and ass-kicking to close it all out.

It was fun. Mostly. But holding the session around his bed, where he felt like he was some weak little thing he didn't think he was… it hurt Eddie in a way he wasn't expecting. It itched against all the other feelings he was holding on to. And he didn't like it.

He was feeling cagey.

So, after they all said their goodbyes, he made a break for it.

Or, more exactly, he told Tracey he had to get out of there and begged for any way to make it happen. She was not happy. Looked at him down her hooked nose, through her thick glasses, from under crumbling mascara that rimmed her eyes. A scornful expression like she was trying to intimidate him into pulling up his covers and saying how much he actually liked it there.

But he stood his ground. And she admitted, him being a legal adult and all, that he could fill out an Against Medical Advice form - meaning he couldn't sue if he fucked himself up for leaving early - and he'd be free. So he asked her, very nicely, to fetch such a document for him. And she did. She still pestered him about calling or coming in the minute he felt bad. To watch himself for a high temperature, upset stomach, sweating or chills, bleeding, puss, or extra sensitivity around the injuries. So he swore up and down he would.

And he made it out.

His car was still at Wayne's hotel, wherever that was exactly, so Eddie just hopped the bus and made it downtown. He didn't have an exact plan, but he was not going to go home. That trailer was practically a fallout zone and wouldn't make for much of a shelter at that point. And he also didn't want to even figure out where Wayne was pitched up at. Because he was bound to go stir crazy there just the same as he had in the hospital.

He ended up on the idea to stop by a certain video store to annoy a certain pair of employees and whatever poor souls decided to shop there on the day Eddie Munson became a truly free man.

“What? Am I not pretty enough for you, Robin?” Steve asked.

His voice dripped with offense, like the discussion at hand was the cruelest thing anyone had ever said to him. They'd been making plans for Robin to ask Vickie on something more obviously a date. To help bridge that gap between girl friends and girlfriends. Robin had suggested something more like what she and Steve do anyway, getting together at someone's house when there are no parents home for a movie. But that also painted what they do as being inherently romantic and she gagged. Now, Steve was on some tirade about being a wonderful date and she should be so lucky.

He leaned against the shop counter and struggled to pop his hip out in a way that could even come close to feminine. But none of the shapes were there, and Robin could only look at him with pity. Not an admission of defeat.

“As much as I love you, Steve…” she tried to soften the blow,” You already know the key thing keeping us apart is my particular interest in…”

”Oh, right.” Steve's tone dropped, and he cupped his hands on his chest as if it was the first time the thought had occurred to him,” Boobies. I don’t have those for you.”

The comment caused Robin to crinkle her nose in a sharp cringe,” Stop calling them that!”

“Why?! It’s what they are! Not my fault you can’t handle the proper word for them!” he pushed.

“ANYWAY!” she tried to take control of the conversation,” I like them a lot, so stop pressing it. It's starting to get really sad.”

“Alright, alright, I'm hearing you, but what if I turned like this.” Steve turned around and arched his back as he shyly looked over his shoulder at Robin. Trying to pull off a more pin-up pose. Like, because she couldn't see his front, she could forget he was missing the pair features they both enjoyed so much. Like it made him girly enough at all.

Robin tried to hold back her snickers at his display. Steve closed his eyes and shook out his hair behind him for effect. He put on a pretend sultry voice before asking her,“ Does this do it for you?”

“What did I just walk in on?” Eddie froze in the open doorway.

As Steve's brain registered that the question didn't come from Robin, he snapped open his eyes and jumped out of the pose. Some kind of less-than-manly shriek flew up from his mouth, and all too quickly he practically tumbled over the countertop and crossed his arms over his chest to cover himself behind it. As if he was even topless in the first place. He wasn't, but he still felt pretty exposed.

“Can't you read the sign?!” Steve griped. A pointer finger shot out to where the “closed” side of the board was clearly facing out the door to any foot traffic on the sidewalk.

Robin was less focused on Steve's cause for concern and complaint. Instead, she joyfully exclaimed,“ Eddie! You’re out of the hospital!”

“Yup, doc declared me as less than ‘healthy as a horse’ but not likely to bleed out at any moment, so I've been released on good behavior for bedrest at my own home while the wounds, you know, do their thing and scar over.”

“If it’s bedrest, shouldn’t you be, ya know… in a bed? Resting?” Steve questioned him. Maybe a little pointedly, but hey, he was allowed to feel a little sour over Eddie walking in on his and Robin's nonsense. That stuff's supposed to be private.

“Didn’t really feel like hitching a ride across town for a quiet hotel room packed with Wayne's and I's stuff while he finishes the rest of his shift.” Eddie excused,” Plus I’d miss out on whatever the hell all this is. So I’ll ask again; what did I just walk in on?”

“Steve’s just really sad that he’s not pretty enough for me.” Robin mused teasingly. Figuring that context was innocuous enough for the present company.

“Oh, man. Tough break, Princess Harrington. My condolences.” Eddie said, putting one hand over his heart and the other on Steve's shoulder like he actually meant to console the man's wounded pride.

Steve swatted away the gesture immediately. And then he decided something new about Eddie being a member of the party.

”You two are insufferable!” he said with a pair of aggressive finger-pointing,” I don't like this duo! I don't need the two of you ganging up on me! It's unfair!”

“Wait till we get Dustin in on the action too. Three on Steve seems like fine odds.” Eddie added just to see the way it made Steve twist up his face. He even started getting a little red!

Through it all, Eddie and Robin found some kind of understanding between the two of them. An understanding of how fun it was to push all of Steve's buttons. And somehow, they still secured invites to his place for dinner. Maybe it was their wicked pair of sad eyes, maybe it was more of that “feeling way too bad for everyone” gene he's got, but Steve let them both pile into his car while he made his way home.

Eddie met their European guests, shook more hands, and made more small talk. And by the end of the meal, Steve would say he narrowly survived the onslaught of teasing. Steve ran Robin back to her place and stayed parked right outside until she buzzed him on the walkie and said she wasn't having a panic attack in her room again and he needed to clear out before someone accused him of stalking. Eddie and Steve laughed, and as the driver wondered where he was sending Eddie off, he admitted he didn't know.

Still hadn't even called his uncle to find out which spot across town he was camped up in.

And somehow… that conversation ended with another invitation to Steve's house. That time, one to spend the night. Eddie was eager to accept. A bustling house of kids and the most random assortment of adults sounded like the exact opposite of falling asleep to the sound of his heartbeat beeping on a machine next to him, and Max's a few feet away.

And thanks to an already stacked dance card - the Byers and Co. on the couch, Joyce and Hop sharing the master, Murray laid claim to the first guest room, the Antonovs in the other - there was really only one place with any spare room without tossing one the injured men to the floorboards.

And that was to partner up and share Steve's bed with him.

It started with Eddie trying to break the ice. Pointing out the grid pattern painted on Steve's walls and hung up on his curtains. Mentioning that it was nothing like how he imagined the King of Hawkins slept. It looked more like a cage than anything else.

Steve shrugged, agreed with the sentiment, and tried to focus on grabbing his own pajama options and getting the night over with. As awkward as it was shaping up to be. But drawing attention to his closet, drew attention to the desk and chair right in front of it. And the denim vest hanging on the back of that chair, which rightfully belonged to Steve's most recent guest.

“There it is!”

Steve turned around and followed Eddie's eyes to the battle vest he'd accidentally borrowed for too long.

“Oh, right! Sorry.” he picked it up from its perch. “Didn't mean to steal it. Just forgot it was there a little.”

“Wow. I let you dress yourself in my battle vest - watching out for your delicate purity so that it might not be besmirched - and you forget about such a deep moment we shared?” Eddie lamented the tragedy. Wondering to himself if it would be too much to try and force a tear.

“I didn't mean I forgot about it like that. Just- I was trying to figure out what to do with it, and I forgot to give it back.” Steve quickly handed it over,” Here.”

Eddie barely looked at the item before he asked,“ What to do with it? That sounds a little spooky. Did you have some kind of black magic spell in mind that you needed it for? You're not gonna steal a lock of my hair after I fall asleep, right?”

“No. Absolutely not. I, just, I was wearing it while I was all gross and sweaty and bleeding, so I figured the same rules as borrowing gym clothes applied, and I should wash it before I gave it back.” Steve tried to explain,” But you have so much stuff on it I didn't want to get ruined, and I wasn't sure how to go about it, and everything has been so insane all the time-”

“I get it. Worry not, Stevie.” Eddie tried to release him from whatever pressure he put on the idea. “Plus you don't really wash a battle vest. It's kinda supposed to go through hell and come out the other side with some authentic grime.”

“But another guy's blood and sweat? That's pretty extreme.” Steve commented. But his face said he leaned more towards 'nasty' than just 'hardcore.'

“You don't understand the culture. That's okay.”

“Alright. Well, then I guess my dilemma turned out for the best.” Steve ducked back into his closet.

Eddie more carefully examined his vest for all the wear and tear it saw. None of the patches or pins looked like they were in danger, but there were some new loose threads he could think about playing with. As he looked it over, he commented with a chuckle,“ Yeah, if you wanna uselessly panic about other stuff and wind up saving the day through inaction, there's the Vecna guy I don't know if you've heard about. I think those magic powers could really speed things along and get us all to summer break in one piece.”

Steve quickly turned out of the hanging garments and urged Eddie,“ Don't let Murray hear you strategize, or he'll barge in and spend an hour actually trying to make a plan out of it.”

He said it so seriously Eddie couldn't even get a response ready while Steve slinked out of the room to go across the hall. To change into the jammies and take care of his nightly routine in the comfort and privacy of his own bathroom. And before Eddie knew it, he was left alone in Steve Harrington's room. Sitting crisscross on the edge of his bed, a pile of denim in his lap, and far too much awareness of how fresh their friendship really was.

The rest of the house had gotten pretty quiet. They'd all turned in for an earlier evening after a long afternoon of work at Hop's cabin and some folks still adjusting their internal clocks to Hawkins time. A big, big house, packed with people, and yet there wasn't much noise.

Steve came back to his room just after a few minutes. He tossed his clothes from the day in a dirty laundry hamper and sat on the other side of the bed. Pushing down the covers before he swung his legs up under them. Eddie followed suit. Standing up to put his vest back on the desk chair for the time being, and climbed into the bed next to his roomie for the night.

And then Eddie and Steve were left to each other. In Steve's bed. Laying still as statues to get some well-deserved rest.

And it was nerve-racking. All of Eddie Munson's nerves were racked. He couldn't help thinking about how the whole situation was so far off the map for him a few weeks ago. On the 22nd of March, Eddie Munson held a broken glass to his neck, and everything's been so strangely on the up and up since. Minus the whole almost-dying part. They'd been forging a bond, a weird one, given such a distinctly separate history. But there they were. Having a sleepover in the famed King's bedroom.

And it wasn't any easier for Steve to deal with. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. It shouldn’t do or mean anything to him. Steve's done this sort of thing with Robin tons of times. Falling asleep next to someone you’re not attracted to should be easy and simple. But it wasn't.

Like, with Robin, they were both allowed to stretch their limbs out in all directions and hug the night away before they tried to kick one another off the bed. But, with Eddie, they were both practically on the edges of the mattress with their backs to each other so they wouldn't accidentally touch or even look at one another. And Steve wasn’t falling asleep. Instead, he felt like he couldn’t move without bothering Eddie.

What if his stitches were still super sore? What if he was lying about the vest and was actually bothered about the condition it was in? What if he was mad about his mom's ring?

And all of a sudden, Eddie started talking.

“You didn’t, by the way.”

Which didn't exactly make any sense as the first thing either of them had said in almost thirty minutes.

“What?”

“Stomp on me.” he clarified.

And it didn't immediately click. But after a second, Steve remembered what he said while Eddie was still in the coma. The part about “I was a bully,” and “I hope I didn't bully you,” but “I wouldn't really remember,” and “Tommy called it stomping on the ants” like that excused any of it. So that was the stomping Eddie was thinking about.

“Oh… so you…“

“Heard that bit?” Eddie finished for him. “Yeah. When our girlie woke me up in my head, some stuff outside started coming through. When there were a lot of you in the room, I couldn’t really follow any of it or understand what you were saying. But you stopped by on your own. Said that bit. It was easy to hear then.”

“Sorry. I honestly didn’t think you’d catch any of it.” Steve tucked his hands in closer to his face. More thankful than anything else that they couldn't see one another for this conversation.

And yet, Eddie joked,“ You planned to waste such a moving monologue on deaf ears? For shame, Harrington, for shame.”

“I just-” he tried again,” I’m sorry-“

But the other wouldn't hear it. “I just said you didn’t do it. Alright? Nothing to waste ‘sorry’ on.”

“But I must have, at some point.” Steve reasoned.

Unsure why his idea was to argue that, no, no, Eddie, actually he did mistreat you, you must be mistaken, think harder. But Eddie didn't waver. His voice was sure and even. And he simply affirmed the fact.

“You didn’t.”

“But-“

“I’ll admit, I convinced myself once or twice that you orchestrated all of it. Sent out your legions of jocks and goons to carry out your dastardly demands for you while keeping your hands clean. But, I know now that I was wrong about that idea.”

And with a pang of guilt that gnawed at his ribs, Steve spoke quietly,“ But I know I’ve said it.”

Freak. He called him The Freak. He knew he did. Hell, he said it just weeks ago when Dustin invited him to the game. He knew that.

But Eddie didn't dwell on it. Didn't deem it the important part.

“Not to me. Not once did you shove my face in it.”

“I’m still sorr-“ but Steve felt a smack on his shoulder. Carefully, he looked over to see that Eddie was laying face up, no longer with his back to Steve. The wall of air between them was gone, in one way or another. So Steve shifted over, joining him in laying back until he was looking up at his ceiling too.

“And do you always do that?” Eddie asked as he tried to get comfortable.

“Do what? Apologiz-”

“Talk through movies?” Eddie interrupted, steering the conversation way out into the left field,” I mean, I was unconscious, but I still heard your whole commentary on Grease. Very strong opinions you have on that one.”

“Okay, Sandy did nothing wrong and shouldn't have had to 'compromise' with Danny at the end just because he lied about their relationship to his guys for points. Had her story been about actually wanting to be less of a goody-two-shoes for her own reasons-”

Eddie stopped him before he really got going,“ That is what I'm talking about. Seriously, dude? And you had something specific to say every minute of it. Was practically watching it with you even with my eyes closed because you'd remind me what beat we were on without fail.”

He bumped into Steve's shoulder with his own. Small laughs bubbled up. And the whole situation didn't feel so awkward and stilted anymore.

“Yeah, I guess.” Steve agreed with a smile,” Rob and I are usually pretty chatty when we watch ‘em together. I think I picked it up from her.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re a real Chatty Cathy, Steve Harrington.”

“That such a bad thing?”

Eddie paused to think on it. But quickly decided otherwise. “Nah. I wouldn’t say so. Felt way less lonely with someone talking.”

Steve felt some pride settle back into himself,“ Then you’re welcome.”

“Oh, great,” he groaned,” Now I went and gave you a big head about it.”

“I think most people would tell you I already had one.” Steve pointed out.

“A big, stupid head.” Eddie took a finger and poked Steve right on the side of his forehead. But before Steve could really say anything else, he tugged the blanket up and rolled over in the bed. His back was up again, but it didn't feel so insurmountable. It was comfortable.

“Go to sleep,” he commanded. As if he wasn't the one that started their discussion in the first place.

Steve rolled onto his own side,” You go to sleep.”

A comeback fit for a first grader. My, how the mighty have fallen. But sometimes falling could be a good thing. Brings a person back down to Earth. Reminds them of all the other people that didn't climb too tall on their high horse.

And that kind of falling, the kind that Steve Harrington did, didn't make him shatter into broken pieces on the ground.

Some parts of a person need to break. Explicitly so they can put themselves back together. And maybe the breaks were always going to be there. But maybe he'd be the better for it. Maybe they all would.

[mrsbarnesblog]

for you

masterlist ko-fi ao3

Summary: Mattheo gets into another fight with a new guy and when Professor McGonnagal surprisingly do not punishes your boyfriend for it, you discover what she really thinks about your relationships.

Word count: 2.6k

Warnings: established relationships, protective boyfriend Matty, fights, insults and creepy guys, language, mentions of blood, hints of sex at the end.

Author's note: idk, the summary kinda sucks, but I couldn't think of anything better. basically it's just me being McGonnagal's fan and a simp for Mattheo 😘

Mattheo was sitting with his friends on one of the benches outside the castle. He was partly listening to whatever Blaise was saying about the next Quidditch game, more thinking about you and about the fact that he almost didn’t see you during the day. 

He was completely lost in his thoughts until he heard your name slip out of the new guy’s, Eddie's, mouth. He and another Ravenclaw student were sitting not far away, and Mattheo’s attention was immediately drawn to their conversation.

“Yeah, that girl Y/N, right? I tried to talk to her during the lecture but she acted like a total bitch.” The guy laughed, elbowing his housemate as if he said something funny. Mattheo’s fist tightened, and he tried to hear more to figure out whether they were talking about you or not. 

“Wait, dude.” The other guy chuckled, almost in shock. “You mean that Y/N? Riddle’s girl? You tried to hit on her? Nah, you better drop that shit. It’s like serious between them and all, no one usually bothers her because Riddle goes crazy about it.”

“Don’t care, man. I’ll find a way to get to her. I know she’s gonna be a total freak in bed, I will find a way to fuck her.“

Mattheo just snapped, jumping out of his place in a matter of seconds. Before one of his friends or even Eddie realized what was going on, Mattheo had already dragged him to the floor, punching his face. 

“Wanna repeat what the fuck you just said about her?” He hissed at the guy, making another hit into the jaw. 

“I said that she looked fuckable.” 

It turned into a total mess, with them fighting on the ground and other students staring like it was some kind of show. The crowd got bigger, but Mattheo did not care about it at all; he was too busy with the way his knuckles met that ugly face. 

Only a few minutes later, Blaise, Theo, and Draco dragged Mattheo away, while a few Ravenclaw students restrained Eddie. 

Mattheo was almost uncontrollable, puffing and trying to escape from the firm hands that were holding him in place. 

You heard that your boyfriend got into another fight, but as Luna said, it was something bigger and that he was even more violent today. 

You brushed through the crowd, immediately standing before Mattheo’s eyes to catch his attention. You placed both of your hands on his chest and quickly nodded to his friends to let him go. As soon as he became free, he tried to push forward, almost radiating anger. The fact that Eddie was proudly smiling behind your back did not help the situation. 

“No. Mattheo, stop it. What’s going on?” You felt the way he was breathing, as if he had run a few miles, and it was mostly anger. His face had a few drops of blood; the brow and lip were cut, and you knew that you would have to clean them up later, but now you only wanted him to calm down and speak to you properly. 

“Hey, baby. Remember me?” The voice behind your back made you turn your head around, only now seeing the guy your boyfriend was fighting with. It was a new student from another school who was annoying you during your class and almost got you two in detention. You wanted to slap him so badly for the way he was talking to you, but you knew that the best way to deal with such people was to ignore them. They were always thriving on any type of attention. He looked much worse than Mattheo. Already blossoming bruises under his eye, on the jaw, and blood running out of his nose, and when he gave you that nasty smile, you saw his red teeth too. "C'mon, that’s why you were ignoring me, huh? Voldemort’s son? You could find someone better to fuck.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill him.” You felt how Mattheo moved forward again, but you slightly pushed him back. You lifted one of them to his cheek, caressing it in slow circles. 

“No, you’re not. He's not worth it, Matty. Hey, look at me, please.” You put a slight pressure on his face to distract him and make him set his eyes on you. You had seen him during the fights before, but this time it was different. The way Mattheo’s eyes were completely dark, slightly narrowed, and full of rage, his face expression was so cold and nothing like you got used to. For a moment, you understood why sometimes even his friends preferred not to step in. 

Eddie pissed you off during the previous lesson, where he decided to sit with you, chat, and flirt. You tried to pay as little attention to him as possible, completely uninterested in the jerk with no manners and a big ego. He got to school just a few days ago but you already hated him with your whole heart. 

Though you couldn’t let your boyfriend start the fight again. Eddie was clearly provoking him with that weirdly satisfied grin on his face and rude words, probably so later he could say that the Dark Lord’s son was trying to kill him. 

Mattheo's eyes were ruining between your face and Eddie behind your back, as if he were trying to make a decision. Your fingers didn’t stop moving in slow motion on his jaw and you thought that you felt some tension leaving his body. 

“I hate the way he was talking about you.” He said it roughly, trying to control his body and emotions. Yes, Mattheo’s eyes were full of anger, but there was something deeper. He was hurt. 

“I know, Matty, I know.” You stepped a bit closer to distract your overprotective boyfriend. At that moment, you almost forgot that you were in front of everyone and all the students are going to gossip about your interaction for the next week. “He’s provoking you. He wants to make you the bad guy. Don’t let him do that, please. We should just leave, okay?” You almost whispered, not breaking eye contact.

“Yeah, Matty, listen to your little girlfriend if you don’t want to—”

“Mr. Carmichael!” The loud, stern voice of Professor McGonnagal interrupted whatever he wanted to say and everyone went quiet for a few seconds. “You are not allowed to speak in this tone inside our school. Mr. Carmichael, Mr. Riddle and Ms. Y/L/N, follow me to my office, and everyone else must go back to their classes.”

“But Professor, Y/N didn't do anything wrong!” Mattheo protested, on instinct, placing his hand on your back and stepping closer. 

“I said all three of you should go to my office, Mr. Riddle. Now.” Without another word, she left. Mattheo cursed near you, blaming himself for getting you into trouble, but you gave him a reassuring smile and, interlacing your hands, led him to McGonnagal’s office. 

As soon as you walked in, Mattheo stood, separating you and Eddie so he wouldn’t be able to talk or even look at you. 

“Are any of you willing to tell me what exactly happened there?” McConnagal sat in her chair, observing all of you. You stayed in front of her in silence.

“I punched him because he was saying inappropriate things about Y/N, Professor.” Mattheo briefly looked at you and you slightly squeezed his hand in yours in return. You saw how McGonnagal looked at your hands but you did not pull away, willing to show your boyfriend that you weren’t mad or blaming him. 

“Is that so?” She looked at you. 

“I wasn’t there when the fight started, but Eddie was bothering me earlier during the lessons. He made a few comments about me, even though I asked him to leave me alone, so I assume that it might’ve been the reason for Mattheo to do it.” 

“Liar.” 

“Mr. Carmichael, you are not in the position to talk back right now. That is quite impressive that you were able to get into the fight without even being here for weak. You are getting a detention, plus you’ll help Professor Snape after tomorrow's lesson. He’ll be happy to deal with you, I’m sure. Also, 20 points from Ravenclaw.” McGonnagal ignored his dramatic groan, now looking at Mattheo. Judging by the tension in his body, he was ready for the worst. “What about you, Mr. Riddle…” She briefly looked at you, and you didn’t really understand what it meant. “This time, I’m only giving you a warning: in Hogwarts, we do not support any kind of violence. You may be free.” 

“That’s unfair! I’m covered in blood because of him. Are you really not going to punish the Dark Lord’s son? He could’ve killed me!” 

“One more word and I’m taking away more points. You both are free, but you, Ms. Y/L/N, please stay for a few minutes.” 

“But she— Professor, please don’t do this.” Mattheo stepped closer to her desk and you thought that he sounded as if he had suddenly panicked. It was strange. 

“Hey, Mattheo, don’t worry about me. I promise, it’s okay.” You pulled him back, curiously looking at his weird behaviour. “Just wait for me outside, please. It won’t be long.” He stared at you for a moment, but then kissed you on the cheek and went out of the room. 

“It’s truly magical to see the kind of love you two share, my dear.” McGonnagal softly laughed and you felt the heat on your cheeks. “Come sit here, please.” McGonnagal pointed to the chair in front of her desk. 

“What did you want to talk about, professor?” 

“Well, I know that this is not my place to interfere, but I wanted to say that you and Mr. Riddle share something really rare and special. And while I do not support his physical way of dealing with problems, I know that he deeply cares about you, darling, and this is how he expresses it.” It was weird to hear such words from someone else. You always respected Professor McGonnagal and the fact that she said that made your heart fill with even more love. 

“Was it the reason why you didn’t punish him for the fight?” She nodded. 

“Mattheo is a really smart boy with a kind heart and a good chance to have a really successful and wonderful life. The only thing that may ruin it is his family; I'm sure you understand that.” McGonnagal looked at you with a soft smile on her lips. “I see the way you affect him. How he became less distant during the lessons, started smiling more, and that you two are always connected no matter what. Everyone noticed it, even us professors. You may be the only bright thing in his life, my dear; that’s why I want you to ask to be there and not let him slip into the darkness. I just know that such love is so pure and strong and I hope it’ll live as long as the world exists.”

“Um– thank you, professor. I don’t even have enough words to express myself, but I appreciate your support. I’ll do everything in my power to save it.” You suddenly felt extremely emotional after this talk, and the only thing that you wanted to do right now was to be in your boyfriend’s arms. 

“Now go. He's probably losing his mind because of you being there for so long. 

Mattheo did wait for you near McGonnagal’s office and when you walked out of there with slightly glossy eyes and a soft smile, his facial expression changed into something sad and cold, which you did not quite understand. As usual, after his fights, you went into his dorm, but the walk there was weirdly quiet. 

When you walked into his dorm and then to the bathroom, where you usually cleaned his wounds, he just followed you, hopping onto the counter near the sink and waiting while you prepared the first aid kit.

“Are you okay?” You stepped in between his legs, holding his face with your left hand and the wet towel in the other. You wiped the dried blood and then applied salve. “You’re acting kind of weird.”

He stayed silent for a few seconds, as if he were considering his words. “Are you going to break up with me? If so, then just say it right away and don’t torture me. I fucking hate it.” His eyes were locked on your necklace with the letter R, while your hand froze in the air in shock. 

“Wh– Matty, what are you talking about?!” He finally looked up, meeting with your eyes, and you understood that he was trying to be casual and careless about it, but in fact he looked hurt.

“Isn’t it why McGonnagal asked you to stay? To say that I’m bad for you or something.”

“This is why you didn’t want to leave me there? I saw the way you looked at me… Oh, baby, no, I’m not going to break up with you.” You gently cupped his cheeks; now the tension had partly left Mattheo’s body and he finally put his hands on your waist. “In fact, McGonnagal told me quite the opposite.” Your fingers gently rubbed a bruise on his jaw while he looked at you in disbelief. 

“What do you mean?” Mattheo slightly frowned. His hands unconsciously tightened around you, causing you to step even closer to him. 

"Well, she said that you are really smart and that you have a lot of opportunities in the future if you’ll make the right decisions. She told me that you need someone like me to be here for you… and that what we have is really pure and magical.” You almost whispered the last part. The silence in the bathroom became almost too heavy, and the way Mattheo was looking made your stomach tighten with a weird feeling. 

“I thought she hated me.” 

You shook your head. “There’s no reason for her to hate you, Matty. You are not your family. You can live your life how you want to, without any burden or darkness, and I’ll be here for you. Always.” Mattheo’s hand reached for your face, slowly touching your skin. He looked almost mesmerized by you—those pretty brown eyes soft with so much love and feelings for you. 

“Merlin, I don’t know what I did to deserve you.” He drew you closer, your foreheads touching in an intimate gesture. “I love you so fucking much. You’re my everything, Y/N. I know that it might be hard dealing with me, but I’m trying. For you. And I’m sorry for today. I just cannot let anyone disrespect or hurt you, my love.” 

“That’s okay. I’m not mad. Just don’t want you to get hurt too. I love you, Matty. No matter what.” You smiled, closing your eyes, and finally properly kissed him. It was slow and delicate and it felt as if that moment was so significant for your relationship. You were always sure of your’s and Mattheo’s love, but right now it has become serious on another lever. And both of you could not be more happy. 

Mattheo kissed you passionately, pulling you in close and sliding his tongue across your bottom lip. You moaned into his mouth, burying your hands into the messy curls and scratching the scalp. “I hate to say it, but you actually look kind of hot when you’re fighting…”

“Fuck, baby. Let’s stay here for the rest of the day and skip the classes. I want you so fucking bad.” He groaned, lowering his mouth to your neck.

“Are you trying to seduce me, Mattheo Riddle?” You pushed him away, slightly pulling his hair to enjoy those glossy dark eyes and swollen lips. 

“What if I say yes?” Mattheo’s hand slipped under your skirt, teasingly stroking your thigh. 

“Then I'll let you do it.” 

[hairmetal666]

Eddie thought inviting Steve to the Grammys would be fine, cool, no big deal. And it should be, but Steve is walking out of the suite's bedroom wearing a burgundy tuxedo that fits him like a fucking glove. His shirt is unbuttoned just enough to let chest hair peak out, and Eddie thinks he might faint.

He's always been attracted to Steve, of course, but never let it go further than that. Like, sure, Steve was hot as fuck, and sure he was the best guy Eddie had ever met, and sometimes, yeah, he did have to force away thoughts of Steve when he jerked off, and in other circumstances he'd totally be head over heels. Just, Steve is straight, the straightest, a fucking arrow.

Eddie tears his eyes from Steve's body. "You look great, man." He slaps Steve's back. Keeping it cool; keeping it so cool.

"Psh," Steve says. "Have you looked in a mirror? Oh my god." His eyes are saucer wide as they travel down Eddie's body.

"Is it too much?" Eddie crosses his arms over his bare chest.

"Are you kidding? You're--fuck, man. You look good as hell."

He's wearing a silky burgundy shirt, open to show off the necklaces around his throat, his tattoos, the silver in his nipples. His pants are leather, tight, sitting low on his hips and putting the cut of his pelvic bone on full display. They have a lace-up closure that comes dangerously close to showing pube.

Heat rushes to his face at the compliment. "It's--you know. Hazard of the job."

"Yeah, hazard, sure. Guess it's a hard life having hot dudes literally throwing themselves at you."

Eddie barks out a laugh. "That's a vast exaggeration."

"Is it?"

He blushes harder. "You're my date tonight, Steve."

"My point exactly."

His manager and publicist usher them out the door before he can ask what the hell that meant.

---

The ride is giddy and playful, Steve popping champagne to celebrate Eddie's nomination for Song of the Year, even though there's no chance in hell he wins.

Steve is happy. His face is bright with joy, eyes shining, laugh loud and infectious. He's gorgeous, knows it, will be an absolute menace on the red carpet. He's been with Eddie to parties and stuff before, doesn't have any anxiety in front of the camera and isn't obsessed with musicians like Eddie is, unafraid to meet them.

Or so Eddie thought.

Because now they're standing at the edge of the red carpet, Steve very nearly trembling next to him.

"Harrington?"

"That's--That's Madonna." Steve points to her. "We're not even ten feet away from Madonna." He gulps. "Eddie. Madonna."

Steve has met famous people before with Eddie. Ozzy, briefly, Janet Jackson, Dave Grohl, James Hetfield, and he'd always been fine. Barely batted an eye. But get him within reaching distance of Madonna and he falls apart.

Eddie doesn't think about it, grabs Steve's hand, twines their fingers together. "Okay?"

The smile Steve throws him, grateful and a little embarrassed, stabs straight through his heart. He calms as they make it up the carpet, but he doesn't drop Eddie's hand, even when they pause for pictures. In fact, he leans into it, drapes his arm around Eddie's shoulders, or around his waist, seeming to thrive the closer they are. Eddie feels this dangerous pull to indulge in it, to let himself believe it means something, and he doesn't quite have it in him to turn it off.

By the time they reach their seats, Steve is relaxed back to his normal charming and handsome self, doesn't bat an eye as Eddie introduces him around.

The show passes quickly with all the performances and Steve whispering jokes in his ear. It's the best time he's ever had at an award show, like he should have been bringing Steve along this whole time. He's so distracted that he's not really ready when Paula Abdul comes out to announce Song of the Year.

His name is read off as a nominee and Steve grabs his hand, squeezes tight. Eddie's heart flips in his chest. He's not paying attention when Paula opens the envelope, too focused on Steve's strong hand holding his. He hears her say, "And the Grammy goes to--" and everything goes fuzzy.

Steve is saying, "oh my god, oh my god, Eddie. Get up, get up."

And his fucking song is playing and everyone is cheering, a couple people slap his back, and oh shit, oh shit, he fucking won. He stands, Steve with him. He thinks they're going to hug, that's what you do in these situations, but Steve is kissing him. Not on the cheek and not a quick peck, but lip-to-lip, soft and sweet.

Steve just kissed him and he has to get on stage and give a speech. He has no idea what he says because Steve just kissed him. On the lips. On purpose. His ears are ringing and words tumble out of his mouth, thinks he says, "couldn't have done it without you, Stevie," before tripping over his feet to get backstage.

Interviews, photographs, congratulations all help him settle. He's still buzzing with the win, but aware enough now to think the kiss had to be an accident. They've been friends for nearly a decade and Steve never seemed interested in men generally or Eddie specifically.

It takes a while to finish up the backstage business, but when he makes it to his seat, Steve just beams at him. He doesn't mention the kiss, which makes Eddie think he's overreacting. It wasn't a big deal. Sure, he could still feel Steve's lips, warm and soft, against his own, but it didn't mean anything. He's just too in his big gay feelings to be objective.

They don't get a chance to really talk until they're back in the limo and on their way to the after-party.

"You won," Steve says.

"I won." Eddie smiles. "Crazy."

"You deserved it."

He shrugs. "I don't know about that."

"Doesn't matter. You did." Steve fidgets with the cuff of his jacket. "About earlier, um. The kiss. I--"

Eddie feels his face heating, heart kicking up. It was nothing, he knows, and Steve shouldn't have to-- "It was an accident. It's okay. I know you don't--it was the heat of the moment and--I know you're not--you don't--"

Steve blinks a lot, emotions flashing across his face faster than Eddie can categorize.

"What if I do?" Steve asks. His voice is too soft, eyes locked on the cuff link he's fiddling with.

"You--what?"

"What if I did mean it?"

"You're straight."

Steve goes pink. "I'm really not."

"Steve?" He shrieks. "Since when?"

"Um. Since you invited me to this?"

"What the fuck?" Eddie shoves him. "What the fuck, man?"

"I know, I know!" Steve pulls his hand through his hair. "You invited me and I freaked out and I didn't know why, and Robin made the saddest little face at me. Said, 'oh, dingus, you didn't know?' How the fuck was I supposed to know!"

"I think you wanting to fuck me should've been a pretty good indication!"

"I thought that happened to everyone!"

"It doesn't!"

"That's what Robin said!"

They're both yelling.

"Jesus christ. Jesus christ," Eddie keeps repeating.

"Look, I get it if you don't want me too, dude. I know that's not how it works, but I've been pretty crazy about you without realizing it for a while now, so--"

He doesn't mean to, he really doesn't, but he laughs. Like, super loud. Like a donkey bray.

"Okay, can the driver let me out? Like, can I go? I can't--"

"Wait, wait, sweetheart." Steve's gotten up, like he's about to knock on the partition, but Eddie grabs his wrist. "Of course I want you back, you idiot, oh my god."

"Oh." Steve's ears are pink. "Oh. Well. That's good."

Eddie huffs. "Just good? I won a Grammy and the guy I've been pining over for years wants me back. I'm having the night of my life."

"Shut-up." Steve's smile is so big, his eyes so bright.

He raises an eyebrow. "Make me," he says in his lowest register, but he's truly not prepared for it when Steve clambers over to him and lowers himself to straddle Eddie's hips.

"Holy shit," Eddie whispers. "Holy shit, Steve."

He give a wry little smile, eyes locked on Eddie's mouth. "Baby, can I kiss you?"

"Yes." Eddie clears his throat. "Yes, please, do that. Yeah."

Only, he doesn't. He's straddling Eddie, they're so close their breath mingles, and Steve's eyes flicker between Eddie's mouth and his eyes, lips so close to touching but not.

"C'mon, asshole," Eddie says.

"I knew you'd be a brat." He whispers. He wraps his hands into Eddie's hair. "Been dying to do this."

And then they're kissing. They're kissing and it steals all of Eddie's breath and his thoughts, and it's new but it's also like they've been kissing forever, like their lips and tongue know each other, like coming home.

He whines, high-pitched and breathy, and Steve laughs, kisses him deeper, moves closer, and Eddie feels how hard Steve is, the persistent pulse of him. And shit Eddie's close, on the brink just from this, from nothing, oh my god.

Steve's hands drift down Eddie's torso, mapping his chest and his stomach, coming to rest at the laces of his pants. "These have been driving me insane," Steve breaks the kiss to say. "Been thinking about undoing them all night."

"Fuck, sweetheart, you can't say shit like that," Eddie groans.

"Why not?"

"Because--because," Eddie sputters but then Steve's lips are on his neck and he's rolling his hips for friction.

Steve's fingers find the laces again, trace against them. Eddie's legs fall open, arching into the touch. "We're going to be so late," he murmurs as Steve's fingers get to work.

[waitimcomingtoo]

A Film By Peter Parker

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Synopsis: Peter gets back into making little videos once the two of you start hanging out

warning: extreme 2017 homecoming era nostalgia

Masterlist

Of course he went for Liz.

Liz was the ingénue. She was perfect in every possible way. Perfect grades, perfect face, and the perfect boy pining after her. You’d been crushing on Peter since the third grade but with Liz around, he never noticed you.

But Liz was gone now. She had moved to Oregon following her dad’s arrest and taken Peter’s feelings for her with her. Now that she was gone, you decided it was time to stop pining after Peter from afar and start pining from up close. And so, when you walked into the cafeteria that day, you didn’t sit at the end of the table like you usually did.

“Oh, hey.” Peter smiled in surprise when you sat down next to him. Smiling was good. Smiling meant he wasn’t creeped out by you sitting so close. You gulped before giving him best smile back.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing here?” Ned asked, making Peter give him a look. You immediately regretted your decision and wished you’d just stayed in your usual spot.

“What do you mean? She always sits with us.” Peter pointed out.

“No, she always sits down there. She’s never actually sat with us before.” Ned replied and gestured to the end of the lunch table.

“Yes, but I’m sitting here today because I needed Peters help with the chemistry homework.” You said and put your chemistry notebook on the table. You knew you couldn’t just randomly sit with them without a reason, so you came prepared.

“Oh, for Mr. Eddie’s class? It’s easy. I’ll show you my notes.” Peter’s offered with a smile. You returned the smile as he pulled out his own notebook. It was a win/win for you since you actually needed help with the homework and it would start a conversation with Peter. While he was explaining the problem to you, you never once looked down at the notebook. You were too focused on the curve of Peter’s suspiciously long eyelashes, the longest you’d ever seen on a boy. Ned noticed the way you were staring his his best friend and frowned a little.

“Does that make sense?” Peter’s asked when he was done explaining.

“Yeah, it does. Wow, thanks Peter. It sounds so easy the way you explain it. I wish this stuff came as naturally to me as it does for you. You’re so smart.” You said as if you had listened to a single word he had said.

“That’s nice of you to say but I’m really not that smart. I just like chemistry.” He replied as he blushed from the compliment.

“Oh, come on. You’re the smartest guy I know. You’re the only one that answers questions in that class. And you always get them right. When Mr. Eddie asks if anyone has any questions, I don’t raise my hand because I don’t even know what I’m confused about yet.”

“That’s I feel in English. I can barely make it through the first line in a poem and you’re already going back and forth with Ms. Teague about Pindaric odes or whatever they’re called.”

“You listen to when I talk in English?” You asked with a soft smile.

“Of course I do.” Peter shrugged. “I always find the reading boring until you raise your hand and talk about how you interpreted it. You make it interesting.”

“I liked that book we read when the kids ate the other kids.” Ned said and interrupted the moment. Your smile dropped as you and Peter looked at him with disgust.

“The one with the flies-“

“We know.” Peter cut him off.

“Anyways, thank you for helping me with the homework. I’ve been stuck on it all week.” You said to Peter.

“Ugh. That’s been me with my paper for Mrs. Teagues class. And it’s due tomorrow.” Peter groaned.

“Oh, the analysis essay? I could help you with that.” You offered.

“Really? You’d help me?” Peter smiled in surprise.

“Yeah. I already wrote mine. It would be no problem.”

Ned was watching this back and forth conversation for a while until it clicked it in head. He gasped and slapped the table, making you and Peter look at him.

“Oh my God.” Ned said. “That’s why you’re sitting here. You have a-“

“Can I talk to you for a second, Ned?” You quickly cut him off when you realized where that sentence was going. Before Ned could even answer, you grabbed his arm and pulled him outside the cafeteria to talk in private.

“You like Peter!” Ned whispered harshly. You clamped your hand over his mouth and pushed him up against the wall.

“You need to keep your mouth shut.” You hissed. “Yes, I like Peter, okay? I’ve had a crush on Peter since middle school. He never noticed me when Liz was around but now that she’s in Oregon, I might finally have my chance. I don’t want to scare him off so just keep your mouth shut and let me handle this.”

You took your hand off Ned’s mouth and he started to gasp for air.

“Oh, please. Your nose wasn’t covered. You could breathe just fine.” You said with a roll of your eyes. Ned stopped pretended and straightened up.

“So you actually like Peter? For his personality?”

“Yes. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Kinda, yeah.” Ned admitted.

“I like everything about him. And I’m gonna tell him that. Just please, don’t say anything before I do. I’ll tell him when I’m ready.”

“Are you going to cast a love spell on him using a lock of his hair?” Ned whispered to you.

“What? No. Why would you even ask me that?”

“Because you’re a witch.” Ned said like it was obvious.

“I’m not a witch.” You groaned. “I just accidentally cackled that one time but it was only because I had phlegm in my throat.”

“Then about that time on the bus?”

“We’ve been over this. It was just a coincidence that that biker fell off his bike after I gestured with my hand. I didn’t move him with my mind.”

“And that one time in physics?” Ned narrowed his eyes.

“I still don’t know how that guys shirt caught on fire.” You shrugged. “It’s a mystery to me.”

“It caught on fire after he made fun of you for being a witch.” Ned pointed out.

“Maybe he was just standing too close to the flame.” You shrugged.

“He was standing in the doorway. There was no flame.” Ned reminded you.

“The magic of science.” You shrugged again.

“But what about that time-“

“Don’t bring up the nosebleed.” You whined.

“I am gonna bring up the nosebleed.” Ned hissed. “In sixth grade, our Spanish teacher got a nosebleed right after he told you to stop staring out the window and made everyone laugh at you. How do you explain that?”

“You’ve made your point, okay? Now are you gonna tell Peter or not?”

“Look, I’m not gonna expose your gross secret feelings, as gross and secret as they may be.” Ned sighed. “But Peter is still my best friend so I have to look out for him. I don’t want any spells cast on him.”

“That’s fine. There will not be any spells.” You held your your hands in defense. Just then, Flash walked by and laughed when he saw the two of you talking.

“Woah. What is this, the friendless loser convention?” Flash snorted.

“Shut up.” You snapped. Flash immediately tripped over his feet and fell to the ground, making Ned look at you with wide eyes.

“Witch!” He whispered harshly as he pointed a finger at you.

“Shut up. Let’s go back inside.” You rolled your eyes and pulled Ned back into the cafeteria.

Later that day, you met up with Peter in the library to go over your assignments. You started with his English essay and finished that within an hour before moving on to your chemistry homework.

“You can plug the numbers into your formula now using the method I taught you. And then you just solve for x.” Peter explained as you worked out a problem together.

“Hm. You make it sound so simple.” You sighed and leaned on your hand. Peter saw the way you were staring at him in his peripheral vision and felt his face heat up.

“It’s, uh, it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it. I never liked the way Mr. Eddie taught it. I figured this out myself and it’s worked much better for me.”

“Thanks for helping me. You’re a good teacher.” You said and put your hand on his arm. Peter laughed shyly at the contact and cleared his throat.

“Thanks. And so are you. That was the best essay I’ve ever produced. I honestly worry she won’t believe I wrote it.”

“Well if she says anything, I can vouch for you. You put in good work on this essay. You deserve the credit.” You assured him, making Peter blush all over again. It occurred to Peter that he never realized how pretty you were. You’d been classmates since 3rd grade so he always looked at you as just another girl in his class. Now that you had his full attention, he didn’t feel like looking away.

“Thanks. I appreciate you helping me write it. I know it can be frustrating to work with me because of my dyslexia.”

“It’s no problem. And it wasn’t frustrating at all.” You shrugged. Peter smiled at felt better about how long it took him to write the essay.

“Thanks.” He said. You had successfully gotten him to spend time with you one on one but now you needed to commence the next phase in your plan which was to hang out in a non school related setting.

“Would you ever want to hang out socially?” You blurted.

“Like, and not do homework?” He asked. You nodded your head and he smiled before nodding as well.

“Yeah. Sure. I’d love to.”

“Cool. Me too.” You smiled. You hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that but it worked nonetheless.

“Does this weekend work?” He asked you.

“Yeah. What do you want to do?”

Hard cut to that weekend. You were on the subway with Peter and he had his phone out to record himself.

“Firts social hang out with a girl. A film by Peter Parker.” He said in a low voice before flipping the camera to face you.

“Staring me.” You smiled and waved to the camera.

“Are you sure you’re cool with me filming this?” Peter asked as he flipped the camera back to himself.

“Yeah, of course. The other ones you showed me were so cute. But why did it seem like there were so many missing parts? You were always talking about something cool that I didn’t get to see.”

“Uhhh, no reason.” Peter said and looked to the side. He had skillfully edited out any incriminating superhero activity that you were not ready to see yet.

“Well I like it. I feel like I’m on Modern Family.” You said and posed for the camera.

“Which family member would you be?” Peter laughed and zoomed in on you. With his phone blocking his face, he could shamelessly admire your face on his screen.

“Duh. Lily.”

“I can so see that.” He chuckled. The subway lurched suddenly and you both grabbed onto the pole, coincidentally putting your hands in top of each others.

“Oh, sorry. Our hands touched.” You laughed shyly.

“Oh my God. So romantic.” Peter joked, making you blush and look into his camera.

“Stop it.” You laughed and covered his phone with your hand. He laughed as well and put his phone away.

After learn you had never been, Peter decided to the Lego Store. He’d been hyping it up to you all week over text and now that it was finally happening, he hoped it impressed you. You walked in together and Peter heard you gasp.

“Big Lego Aladdin.” You gasped and ran to stand under the giant magic carpet and Aladdin made of Legos.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that string of words come out of someone’s mouth.” Peter laughed and went to stand under it with you. You looked over at him and were surprised to see he was already looking at you.

“This is even better than you described it. You need to show me everything.” You said and excitedly shook his arm.

“I can do that.” He blushed and nodded his head towards some of the sets.

Peter took out his phone to film you as you looked at everything in the store. The way you were looking around like a little kid brought a smile to Peter’s face. He zoomed in on you and caught himself staring at you fondly through the camera.

“Come on. I haven’t even showed you the coolest part yet.” Peter said and brought you over to the build your figure own station. He laughed when you gasped again and started to excitedly rummage through all the pieces. Peter didn’t bring his phone out again until you had built each other.

“Show me what you made.” He laughed from the other side of the phone.

“Looks! It’s a little Peter. He has a backpack and a beaker.” You said as you proudly showed the camera the little Peter figure you had made.

“This is Y/n. I can’t believe I found the shoes you always wear.” He said as he filmed the figure he had made of you.

“You notice my shoes?” You asked with a smile. Peter didn’t catch it because he was too busy fitting the hands of your Lego figures together.

“Look. They’re holding hands.” Peter gasped.

“Aw.” You laughed. “Us on the subway.”

“We should give them some privacy. They might not want us to hard launch their relationship.” Peter said and put his phone away.

“You’re so cute.” You laughed without thinking about it. Peter looked up at you with rosy cheeks and you gulped when you realized what you said.

“I mean-“

“Come on. I wanna take you somewhere else.” He cut you off before you could explain. He brought you to Delmar’s and ordered his usual for you to split. You sat together inside and you tried your best to remain calm. You always wondered what Peter got up to when he wasn’t at school and now you were in one of his favorite places and eating with him.

“Okay, this is Y/n’s first time eating at Delmars since he reopened. Let’s get her reaction.” Peter said as he filmed you unwrapping the sandwich.

“Wait, why is it so flat?” You laughed and held the sandwich up.

“Oh, sorry.” He chuckled. “I forgot to warn you that he always squishes it for me. But you’ll like it. Trust me. It’s much better when it’s squished down real flat.”

“Well I’m glad I now know you like your sandwiches to be squished. I would not have expected that about you.” You said and took a bite of your half before giving him a thumbs up.

“Yeah? You like it?” He asked hopefully.

“I do. Your squishy sandwich was surprisingly good.” You admitted.

“Well, I’m very pleased to hear that.” Peter smiled and phone away. “So to make it even, you have to show me one of your favorite places next time we hang out.”

“Oh.” You smiled coyly. “I didn’t realize there would be a next time.”

“There better be. I had a lot of fun with you today. How come we’ve never hung out before?”

“I don’t know. I always wanted to but you were busy running around with Ned or staring at…” You trailed off and chose not to mention Liz in case he was still hung up on her.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad we’re friends now.” You said instead.

“Me too. I’ve never had a girl friend.”

“What was that?” You said and started choking on your saliva.

“All my friends in my life were guys. It’ll be nice to have a female influence in my life.”

“Oh. Girl friend.” You smiled tightly.

You hung out another hour before taking the subway back to your respective apartments. Peter walked to you the front doors of you building and you had an awkward moment where you didn’t know if you should hug or not.

“We uh, we should probably get an ending for your film.” You said with a timid smile.

“Oh, right. Thats a great idea.” Peter smiled and pulled out his phone. He pressed record and you waved to the camera with both hands.

“So, can you give our first time hanging out a rating?” He asked you.

“9/10.” You grinned and held up two thumbs.

“What? Why’d I only get a 9?” Peter scoffed and pretended to be offended.

“I had a 10/10 time but I have to deduct a point because we saw that guy cutting his hair on the subway and I was scared he was gonna throw the scissors at us.”

“Well I would’ve just protected you with my lightning fast reflexes.” Peter said simply. You smiled at him through the phone and he smiled back. He put the camera down and looked at you with a content smile on his face.

“Seriously, though. When’s the next time we’re hanging out?”

It ended up being just a few days later. And then again a few days after that.

“Peter’s first time!” You cheered as you filmed him during one of your hang outs.

“Trying boba.” He clarified. “I don’t understand this drink. Do I eat the balls?”

“Yes. Sip it slowly so they don’t all go down your throat.” You instructed. Peter took a big sip and immediately started choking.

“Peter! I said slowly!” You said as you slapped his back until he stopped choking. You quickly put the camera down to help him recover.

Your hangouts started getting more and more frequent and Peter soon considered you a best friend. Your weekends became each others and school days were often spent together in the library or at one of your apartments. You were quickly moving up the ranks in Peter’s life, just as you hoped. And the closer you got, the more Peter could not believe he had never noticed you before.

Little did you know, Peter often found himself watching the footage he had taken of you during your hang outs with a big smile on his face. He’d rewatch the videos he had taken and realize that they were slowly becoming less of a documentary and more of a highlight reel for you. He never imagined a girl as cool as you would for him so when he realized he was starting to fall for you, he quickly repressed his feelings. Little did he know, the feelings were mutual.

“Did you always make these little videos?” You asked Peter one day as he filmed you trying to balance on the curb of the sidewalk.

“I used too make them all the time but I hadn’t for awhile. I only started them again when we started hanging out.”

“Really? Why?” You wondered and stumbled off the curb.

“I don’t know. You remind me of the time before my life got crazy. It made me want to do these again.” He shrugged. You couldn’t help but smile at that information and turned around to look at him.

“So I could be the star?” You asked and posed for the camera.

“Exactly. You’re my muse.” He played along, making you laughed shyly. When he watched the video back later that night, he knew he had meant every word of that.

Peter sat in his bedroom one day and filmed himself wearing your glasses while you did homework at his desk. He looked over you every now and then just to admire the back of your head.

“Don’t break those.” You called without looking up. All you needed to hear was the sound of your glasses case opening to know what he was doing.

“I’m not even wearing your glasses.” He lied and admired himself in the camera.

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not. But yes, I am.”

“Knew it.” You snorted.

“Hey, how come girls always smell so good?” Peter wondered. “Your hair hit me in the face when you turned too fast before it smelled like a baby in a damn meadow.”

“It’s just my womanly essence. Now can you stop looking at yourself long enough to help me with my chemistry homework?”

“It’ll be hard but I can try.” Peter dramatically sighed and set his phone down. You got yo from the desk and went over to the bed with a cheeky smile on your face.

“Incoming.” You announced and patted your elbow twice like a wrestler.

“No, don’t.” He pleaded. You ignored his pleas and jumped on top of him. He groaned and pushed you off, leaving you laying in the bed beside him.

“Ow. My ribs.”

“You’ll heal.” You rolled your eyes. “Now can you help me with number 7?”

“Oh, yeah. No problem. Can you check this email before I send it?” He asked and handed over his laptop. You handed him your worksheet before reading over his email draft.

“Oh, honey.” You grimaced just a few words into the email.

“Is it bad?”

“Good evening, Mrs. Howard. I hope this email finds you well. I’m so sorry for bothering you. I was just wondering if I could possibly have an extension on my midterm paper? No worries at all if an extension is not possible. I apologize for any inconvenience this email may have caused. Thank you for reading, Peter Parker.” You read out loud.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“After your name, you included the name of the class, the time you have it, and a description of yourself. She knows who you are!” You laughed and turned the laptop around to show him his mistakes.

“She may have forgotten.” He pointed out. “I can’t take any chances.”

“Peter, this email is way too submissive. You sound like such a bottom.”

“Well excuse me, genius.” He said sarcastically. “How would you write it?”

“Here.” You said and handed the laptop back after retyping his email.

“Oh, wow. That’s actually really good.” He said once he read your updated version.

“This is why we are such good friends. You have all the math and science knowledge in this little, beautiful head of yours-“

“Little?” He interrupted.

“You’re right. Sorry, I was just being nice. What I meant to say is that your head is huge.” You corrected. “Anyways, you have the math brain and I have the literary brain. It’s like you’re Einstein and I’m Victor Hugo.”

“Who the hell is that?” He laughed as he peaked at your mirror to see if his head was actually huge.

“The guy who wrote Les Mis.” You said like it was obvious.

“Never heard of it.”

“What? You’ve never seen Les Misérables?” You asked in a thick French accent.

“Huh?”

“We have to watch it. It’s so good.” You said and snatched his laptop back. You pulled up the movie and handed it back to him.

“Oh my God. It’s two hours and 38 minutes long? And a musical? Hell no.” Peter shook his head and pushed the laptop away.

“But it’s so good.” You urged. “We can just leave it on in the background while we work. It’s super light and easy to watch.”

“Really? What’s it about?”

“Oh, you know. Just war torn France.” You mumbled.

“No. Absolutely not.”

“But you’ll like it! There’s prostitution and con men and um…oh! And orphans! You can watch it and feel represented.” You said and shook his arm.

“I hate you.” He laughed but nearly gave in to your request just to see you happy.

“Fine.” You huffed. “I finished editing your midterm paper, by the way. You don’t actually have to send that email.”

“And here is your completed chemistry homework.” Peter smiled and handed your worksheet back.

“Aw.” You gushed. “Look at us. I love cheating with you.”

“So do I. We make a great pairing.” He chuckled as he looked over at you. You looked back at him and gulped. You hadn’t realized how close you were with your arms and legs pressed against each other as you sat together in your bed. Peter knew his sheets would smell like your perfume that night and smiled at the thought.

“Now that we’re all done with our work, you know what we should do?” He asked as he moved in closer.

“W-what should we do?” You stuttered now that he was right there.

“You know what I’ve been dying to do with you for a long, long time?” He asked.

“No. I mean, I don’t know. What?” You laughed nervously. Peter moved in even closer and right when you thought he was gonna kiss you, he reached over and grabbed his laptop back.

“I wanted to show you a real musical. Not this French miserable bull crap. Have you ever seen a little movie called Hair-“

“No. I’m not watching Hairspray with you again. You scream-sang every lyric last time and I couldn’t even hear it.” You cut him off and reached over home to take the laptop back. He pulled it away at the last second and you ended up on top of him. You looked into each others eyes and both froze in the positions you were in. Your faces were almost touching but neither of you tried to pull away. Your eyes were going back and forth between his lips and eyes and he was doing the same. Like magnets, you two started to lean towards each other but before your lips could connect, May opened the door.

“What did you guys want- oh! Sorry! I didn’t realize I would be interrupting something. My bad.” May smiled sheepishly and pretended to cover her eyes. Peter burned bright red as you quickly climbed off of him.

“May.” He said warningly.

“Sorry. But maybe lock the door next time. And use protection.”She whispered the last part before shutting the door.

“May!” He groaned and threw a pillow at the door. There was a long, awkward silence before you were even able to look at each other. When you finally did, you smiled awkwardly and kept your distance.

“That was so weird. What did she think we were doing?” You laughed nervously to break the silence.

“Psh. I know.” Peter scoffed. “She said she was interrupting but we weren’t even doing anything.”

“Yeah. What did she think? That we were gonna kiss or something?” You asked and laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing you could ever suggest.

“Us? Kissing? How silly. Imagine that.” Peter forced a laugh as well and looked to the side. The awkward silence returned and you struggled to look at each other.

“Do you think she made dinner?” Peter asked after a beat of silence.

“Let’s check.” You said and quickly got off the bed.

You didn’t discuss the almost kiss and went home shortly after. You couldn’t sleep that night because you couldn’t stop replaying the moment in your mind. No matter how much you wanted him to like you back, if Peter reciprocated your feelings, he would have kissed you.

Your pity party didn’t last long because on the subway the next day, you felt Peter put his earbud in your ear. You heard the Les Mis soundtrack playing in your ear and looked up in surprise. Peter was already filming you with a huge smile on his face.

“This guy 24601 should stop stealing bread and stick to singing. He has serious pipes.” Peter said.

“You listened to it?” You melted into a smile and held your hand over your heart.

“Yep. I stayed up all night watching lyric videos because I couldn’t understand what they were saying with their accents. It’s actually really good. I love Eponine. I just wish Marious wasn’t such an idiot. How does he not see that his best friend is clearly in love with him?” Peter asked with exasperation. You looked directly at the camera and hoped it picked up the irony before looking at Peter again.

“He’s not an idiot. He’s a romantic.” You sighed. “He doesn’t notice Eponine because he’s in love with Cosette. And course he is. She’s prettier and richer and has perfect hair. He doesn’t even see Eponine.”

“Good hair isn’t everything. Eponine is way better than Cosette.” Peter scoffed. “I’m team Eponine all the way.”

“Are you really?” You asked hopefully.

“Oh, for sure. I see why you like this stuff. These songs are awesome.” Peter said and put the other earbud in his ear. He then flipped the camera around to film the two of you sharing earbuds. As Heart Full Of Love played in your ears, you couldn’t help but longingly staring at Peter. The fact that he had stayed up late just to listen to something you suggested made you overcome with fondness for him. If he had done something like that, maybe he actually did feel the same.

“I forgot how good this album is. I haven’t listened in a while. I used to listen to it all the time back when you…” You stopped short when you realized you were about to say too much.

“When I what?” Peter wondered. You looked him in the eyes and decided that it was time to be honest. The song ended and a new, much louder one began to play in your ears.

“Back when you liked Liz. She was Cosette. I was Eponine. I was the one pining after a guy who never noticed me because he was in love with another girl. You were never mine to lose.” You admitted. Peter stared at you for a minute before pulling his earbud out.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear a word you just said. Master of the House is such a banger. What did you say?” He asked you.

“Never mind.” You smiled. “It wasn’t important.”

He smiled back before getting a text on his phone. You looked at his phone when you heard it buzz and realized he was still recording. In other words, he had just recorded you saying you liked him. Your eyes went wide but you only had a second to panic when you read the text he had gotten.

“Did Liz just text you?” You asked in a quiet voice. You felt like you were about to throw up. Years of crushing on a boy who liked another girl turned into months of pinning for your best friend and now turned into a rock in your stomach. Peter stopped recording the two of you to answer her text, which felt a little like a slap in the face.

“Oh, yeah. We’ve been talking lately.” He absentmindedly replied to you as he laughed at whatever she had written.

“You have?” You asked with a dry mouth.

“Yeah. She says Oregon is pretty cool. But she wants to come back and visit this summer to see everyone.” He told you.

“And see you?” You asked with a sad smile.

“I guess so.” He shrugged. “It would be nice to see her.”

“Yeah. Totally.” You said weakly. “So how long have you guys been talking?”

“I don’t know. A few weeks? She texted me a little while ago and we’ve been catching up.”

“That’s awesome.” You lied.

“I know. I didn’t think I’d ever hear from her again after she moved.”

“Neither did I.” You said through a forced smile. You needed to get off the subway and away from Peter before you started crying. So as soon as the subway doors opened, you bolted out.

“I gotta go. See you later.” You called to him before running through the subway station. You wiped tears as you went up the stairs and didn’t stop moving until you were in a bathroom stall at school. You gave yourself five minutes to be upset before drying your face and leaving the bathroom. It sucked, but it could have been worse. Now, Peter never had to know how you felt about it.

Peter was beyond confused by your exit on the subway but he wasn’t about to get any answers from you. You dodged his texts throughout the day and didn’t dare go into the lunchroom where you knew he and Ned would be.

“Y/n isn’t here yet?” Peter’s huffed as he sat down at your usual lunch table.

“Not yet. Actually, I haven’t seen your girlfriend all day.” Ned realized.

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Peter blushed. “And I’m pretty sure she’s avoiding me. She’s been so weird ever since this morning. Everything was fine on the subway until we got to school.”

“Well did anything happen on the subway that would weird her out? Oh no. Did you graze her boob with your hand again?”

“No. That was one time. And it was her boobs fault, not mine.” Peter whispered harshly. “We were just listening to music together and I was filming her like normal. But she could not get away from me faster once the doors opened. It was so weird.”

“Did you say anything weird to her? Girls don’t like it when you say weird things to them.”

“I know that. I didn’t say anything weird.” Peter replied as he pulled out his phone. He watched the video he had taken on the subway with no sound to see where he had gone wrong. All he saw was you looking at him with heart eyes which made his face heat up. But still, no evidence of where he messed up.

“I knew it. We were having a normal conversation about Les Mis and then I got a text from and then she ran. It makes no sense.”

“What was the text? Was it May saying something weird?”

“No. And stop saying weird. It doesn’t sound like a real word anymore.” Peter ordered. “And the text was just from Liz.”

“Oh shit.” Ned said when he heard this.

“What?” Peter wondered.

“Oh, Peter.” Ned sighed. “Peter, Peter, Peter.”

“What?” He asked again, annoyed now.

“Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter.”

“Are you gonna tell me what happened or just keep saying my name?”

“I can’t tell you. I’m sworn to secrecy. And I don’t want Y/n to put a hex on my family.” Ned said and held up his hands.

“Y/n swore you to secrecy? About what?”

“Can’t say.” Ned shrugged and zipped his lips.

“Does she not like Liz? And doesn’t want me to know?”

“Dude. Dude, dude, dude, dude. You are so close but so far.”

“So she does like Liz? Oh my God. Does she a crush on Liz? And she’s jealous that Liz texted me and not her?” Peter whispered with wide eyes.

“You’re getting colder.” Ned waved his hand. “I don’t even know how you got there.”

“That was all my guesses. Just tell me.” Peter whined.

“Hell no. I don’t want Y/n to curse my crops and make not grow for all of eternity.”

“You don’t have crops.” Peter pointed out.

“I could develop some.” Ned snapped.

“I just don’t understand what she would tell you something but not tell me. We’re best friends. She usually tells me everything.” Peter said right as his thumb accidentally hit the volume button on the video. Your confession to Peter on the subway was heard loud and clear by the two boys. Both of their jaws dropped as the video ended with you asked if Liz had just texted Peter.

“Well I wouldn’t have beaten around the bush like that if I knew you had video evidence of her saying she liked you right in your hands.” Ned sighed dramatically.

“I need to find her.” Peter said and ran out of the lunchroom. He looked around the school until he found you under the bleachers in the gym. You were sitting with your back against the wall and your knees drawn to your chest with your earbuds in your ears. When you saw Peter coming up to you, you quickly pulled them out.

“Hey.” He said and waved cautiously.

“Hey.” You smiled sadly as he sat beside you. You sat in silence for a minute as neither of you knew what to say.

“What’s going on with you? I haven’t seen you all day.” He started off. You looked at your hands to avoid making eye contact and sighed.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’ve been talking to Liz?” You asked quietly.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t hiding it. I just didn’t think it would interest you.”

“Well you have no idea how interesting I found it.” You laughed dryly. “What do you guys talk about anyway?”

“Well, she originally texted me to ask me to confirm I had an internship at Stark Industries because her boyfriend didn’t believe her when she told him she knew a guy who worked there. Apparently he’s been trying to get an internship there for years and he wanted to know how I landed mine. Then we just started catching up. I only talk to her here and there, though. And it’s only ever about school or work.”

“Oh. I thought you guys were talking talking.” You couldn’t help but smile a little when you heard the word “boyfriend.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Just regular talking. When you saw her text on my phone, she was telling me about her cat getting spaded. And I didn’t know what that meant so she had to tell me. I should’ve just googled it.”

You laughed softly at that and he did too. The tension was let out of the conversation and you could finally breathe again. When you stopped laughing, you finally looked in his eyes.

“Do you still have feelings for her?” You asked quietly.

“For her? No.” He laughed. “Those are long gone. I have feelings for someone else now.”

“Oh God. Don’t even tell me. I don’t want to know.” You groaned and buried your face in your hands. Peter looked at you for a minute until an idea came to him.

“Actually, uh, I came looking for you because I was just making another video. Wanna be in it?” Peter asked and took out his phone. You looked at him like he was crazy and could not believe he had just asked that during that moment.

“I’m not really in the mood right now, P.”

“Come on. I can’t make it without my muse.” He said and nudged you slightly. You couldn’t help but to smile at that and reluctantly nodded. He propped up his phone against the bleachers and pressed record.

“In a world where two best friends have no idea how to communicate despite spending way too much time together.” Peter said in a fake deep, gravely voice.

“Okay. Shade. That’s fine.”

“What will it take for them to admit they have feelings for each other?” He kept the voice as he looked at you.

“Wait, what?” You asked and looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. Peter smiled softly at you and shrugged a little.

“What’s it gonna take?” He asked again in his normal voice.

“I don’t understand.” You laughed nervously.

“I watched the video from before. From the subway. I heard what you said.” He admitted.

“Oh shit. You watched it?” You grimaced.

“Uh huh. So if you’re Eponine, I guess that makes me the idiot who didn’t realize his best friend was in love with him?”

“I guess so.” You said with a tight smile and still didn’t understand why he wanted to film this incredibly awkward conversation.

“You know, if I didn’t have a video of it, I never would have believed that you liked me.” Peter told you.

“You wouldn’t? Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t seem possible that the coolest girl I’ve ever met liked me.” He replied.

“You think I’m cool?” You asked skeptically.

“I think you’re the coolest. And you know, I watch the videos I take of you all the time. And half of them are just clips of you existing. So I do notice you. It just took me a second to catch up.” He told you. A smile tugged at your lips as you stared into his big brown eyes.

“You’re my best friend.” You told him. “I’m sorry I want more.”

“I’m not sorry.” He shrugged.

“You’re not?”

“I’m just sorry it took me so long to wake up and find that what I’ve been looking for has been here the whole time.” He said as he hooked his pinky under your chin and brought your face close to his.

“Wait, why does that sound so familiar?” You wondered.

“Don’t think about it too hard.” Peter whispered right before your lips touched. You kissed for the first time under the bleachers but it could have been in a palace for all you knew. The world disappeared around you as Peter slipped a hand behind your head to deepen the kiss. When you pulled away, you rested your foreheads together and laughed nervously together. It was a good nervous, a happy feeling of anticipation.

“Was that Taylor Swift?” You realized when you finally placed where you knew that like from.

“Shh. No.” He shook his head. “But yes, it was. You’re not the only one with good music taste.”

Tag List 🏷️

@thebookwormlife @imanativeofswlondondahling

@tom-hollands-wifey

@whatareyouhidingpeter @takenbyheartstrings

@imyourliquor-youremypoison @andreasworlsboring101

@peterparkoure

@justcallmehitgirl @jackiehollanderr

@emmamarshmellow @unbelievableholland

@sovereignparker @every-marveler-ever @undiadeestos @eridanuswave​ ​

@solarxmoonchild @canyouevencauseicant

@quaksonhehe @lovelessdagger

@thesuitelifeofafangirl @marshxx @nooneinvitedfascistbarbie

@maybemona

@alexxcorona113 @lethal-wisdom

@pandaxnienke

 @officialsimppage @peterbenjiparker @itsemohours

@freakofmusic25 @tomholland85

@olixerwxxd @leilanixx

@whereismytelephone @so-very-asleep @white-wolf1940

@spideyspeaches @hihiweezing

@mathletemadison  

@dhtomholland @insomniac-nerd-posts-things @prancerrparkerr

@hallecarey1 @adayasgeorgia @blackwidowisthebest @imawhoreforu

@ciarahollands

@nellabellaa @pinklxmonade @boogywoogywoogy

[undreaming-fanfiction]

I love a good florist Steve, but what I love even more is a good but naturally bitchy florist Steve.

He'd have his own flower shop and years of dating experience behind his belt. He is not just a good boyfriend, he is THE good boyfriend. Going to his shop isn't just to buy a bouquet of flowers, oh no. It's a whole relationship coaching thing, he teaches husbands to do better, gives courage to teenagers asking their crushes out, gives advice regarding flower language to elderly ladies who just want to be slightly passive-aggressive...you know, the normal thing.

He has a catalogue with flower pictures to help people who have no idea what the flowers are called, they just know they were orange and didn't easily wilt.

He shows a local teenager the cheaper but still fancy options and throws in a bunch of free flowers that aren't really up to his standards. "Okay, you say she likes pink flowers. Does she like things to be a bit more decorated or does she prefer simplicity? You don't know? Okay, can you describe what she normally wears? No, I'm not being creepy, but you can sometimes tell the person's preferences from their clothes. Now answer or leave dateless."

He chats with the elderly ladies of Hawkins when they ask for a flower to gift to their fellow church ladies when they host their meetings. He cackles when he hears some of their orders. "Oh wow, Ethel, a yellow hyacinth? Would you like a gift card with that, something like sorry you're such a jealous hag? No? Of course I know the meaning, it's my job."

"Are you expeting her to say yes to the date with that atrocity on your face? Yes, I know it's a moustache. But it's also an atrocity. Shave it and thank me later. Now, would you like a ribbon for that bouquet?"

And most of all, he grills the unlucky conservative men in Hawkins who come to him for flowers for their wives without any idea what they like. "I see, so you want something pretty. What does your wife like? Flowers? Well, that's not specific. What kind of dresses does she wear? Expensive? Can you tell me anything about your wife's personality? ...nagging. No, I can't just mix something together, unlike you, I take pride in gift giving. Okay. I don't think this is a shop for you. Yes, that's what I'm saying, I won't play a part in your wife's disappointment. Oh sure, go take your money elsewhere, but I can give you this advice for free - you married a unique human being, so treat her like one. And if you really want a happy marriage - maybe come back when you learn something about her as a person. No need for that language, have a good day, sir."

For those that are more receptive, he goes through their partners' personalities and hobbies, suggesting date options and absolutely roasting the bad ones. "A football match. When your girlfriend hates sports. I don't care if it's your boys playing, you can try telling her that this is important to you and you'll take her out another time, but if you try to pass this as a date, you'll be single before you say "sorry". A date is for you as a pair, not for you only."

But the best thing his shop brings him is Eddie Munson, who sneaks in, absolutely ready to be roasted, and asks for a bouquet of bright colorful flowers for his best friend Chrissy. "She just got divorced from her asshole husband and I want to show her that she can have nice things. Platonically. But she deserves so much more. Uh...she really loves warm colors, so maybe yellows and oranges? What are they called...gerberas! She likes gerberas! And she likes things to be a bit messy and imperfect, so maybe some leaves there as well? A green ribbon would be nice."

And Steve just beams at him as he gets to work and says "Oh wow. Whoever your partner is, they are so lucky if you remember all of these things even for your friends. Makes a guy jealous."

Eddie just wiggles his eyebrows at Steve and mutters, "that position's sadly open. Has been for a while. Interested?" and he almost faints against the counter when Steve turns around.

Eddie is ready to run.

But Steve just fluffs his hair, reapplies his lipgloss and asks: "Where do I apply?"

[sp0o0kylights]

Steve Harrington was wearing a Hellfire t-shirt.

It was far too tight on him, the name of the club stretched wide over his chest. The sleeves dug into his biceps, making them pop even more than they usually did, and that was before he crossed his arms. 

Worse?

It was short.

Which meant the damn shirt was constantly riding up to give everyone a nice show of the smattering of hair that trailed down past the band of Harrington's jeans. 

The same hair that Eddie was determinedly not looking at. 

“Henderson, a moment?” He crooked a finger, a smile on his face that was more feral than welcoming. 

Rather than cower or even acknowledge that Eddie was two seconds away from murder, Dustin just gave him a gummy grin, all too pleased with himself and his scheme. 

“Sure Eddie. Steve, don't just stand there, go help set the booth up!” Dustin gestured to Hellfire’s sad little table, crammed all the way in the back of the gym. 

Jeff and Gareth both reacted to the suggestion like a rabid squirrel had been set upon them, nervously inching towards the other side of the booth as Harrington sighed and--shockingly--did as he was told.

‘What,’ Eddie thought angrily, ‘in the everloving fuck.’

“Do you guys mind if I set this down on the table?” Eddie heard Harrington ask as he stormed away, Dustin on his heel. 

They wandered just around the corner, out of sight and hopefully, out of the fallen king’s hearing range.

Eddie wasn't sure if Harrington would try and white knight the very much deserved dressing down he was about to give. 

Didn’t want to chance it, considering the downright weird relationship he had with Hellfire's freshmen.

(While he’d heard many a tale at his table regarding King Steve since the newest recruits had joined Hellfire, most of them dissolved into arguments without ever really going anywhere.

 Best anyone could figure out was that Dustin and Lucas had a bad case of hero worship, while Mike owned a begrudging amount of respect that hailed from a series of misadventures. 

The very same misadventures that, despite all protests to the contrary, was clearly some sort of babysitting gig for Harrington.) 

Either way, plenty of the King’s court would have loved to take this opportunity to fuck with Hellfire.

Given that Henderson was absolutely too old to require a babysitter at fourteen, Eddie would bet his lunch money that was what Steve was here to do.

Something the club couldn’t afford since they were forever and always two seconds away from being stripped of club status and banned from school grounds. 

“I would love to know what went through that all A’s brain of yours when I said,” Eddie whirled on Dustin when they were firmly in the clear, voice low and furious.  “no Henderson, do not invite King Steve to help, he is an invading force and would ruin our peaceful kingdom!?”

He clasped his hands behind his back before leaning into Dustin’s face. “Because clearly whatever you heard wasn’t that.” 

To Eddie’s continued frustration and confusion, Dustin did not treat this like the threat it was. 

None of the freshmen had ever truly treated Eddie like a threat--had somehow skipped that part of the usual onboarding ritual entirely.

Eddie, town freak and drug dealer, who had cultivated his looks and craziness to such a degree that most everyone steered clear, wasn’t used to it. 

Everyone had been afraid of him at some point in this shitty school. Jeff, Gareth, hell even half the staff--and that the dorky trio of fourteen year old's clearly thought this all was play-acting made his eye twitch.

Even if it was--maybe, sometimes--welcome. 

“I know what you said, but I’m telling you I’m right.” Dustin argued immediately, and oh God, he was using that tone again. 

A hand went up into the space between them and Eddie groaned aloud, knowing what was coming.

“First,” Dustin ticked a finger up, “Hellfire really needs the money. Even thirty dollars would get us new figures, but more than that, if we don’t fundraise, we can’t go to Gen Con!” 

Dustin's eyes bored into Eddie’s, full of fire and conviction

“Yes,” Eddie said through gritted teeth, “but--”

“Second!” Dustin cut him off, and God the little shit even threw him a look while he did it, like Eddie was the one being ridiculous here!

“We had to fight just to get our table! Principal Higgins was in algebra today practically begging the mathletes to show up, but then tried to tell us we couldn't be here? That’s messed up!” 

As if denying them a spot to fundraise was the worst thing that asshole had ever done.

Eddie sighed, breath blasting out of his mouth like a dragon’s. 

“Because people think we’re freaks and satanists, Henderson. You don’t typically invite freaks and satanists to the school’s annual Holiday Bazaar. Especially not when all the local moms are paying to hawk their bullshit crafts and tupperware!” 

It was more than that of course. The Hawkins High Holiday Bazaar was a tradition spanning several years now. Starting in the gym and spilling clear into the parking lot, everyone from local artists to even some local shops came to host a small table for the day, thus growing the event from a small school fundraiser to a Hawkins' “must-do.” 

Half the fucking town was here to sell, and the other half was here to shop, which meant Principle Higgins had wanted Hellfire banned from the fucking premise. 

Eddie had been forced to pull out one of his trump cards he’d been saving--blackmail on Higgins that related to the man’s not--so--legal addiction to Percocet that he relied on Reefer Rick for. 

(And bless Rick, that hadn’t been the only tidbit he’d shared with Eddie about Higgins. That information, however, Eddie needed just so the asshat wouldn’t give him the boot from school entirely.) 

The only reason Eddie had pulled it out to secure their rightful spot, was because of Gen Con. 

It was Hellfire's White Whale, their grand adventure, and this was going to be his year to take his friends on one last epic quest to make memories of a lifetime surrounded by people who understood them.

Come hell or high water, Eddie was going to Gen Con--but being able to fundraise by selling wares and baked goods at the stupid Holiday Bazaar would go a long way to help.

Even if he had to listen to the band repeatedly play ear-bleeding renditions of Christmas songs.

“All the clubs get to have a table, and we’re a club!” Dustin continued, like it was that simple. “But you know, I get it. We look scary.” 

He gestured down to his own Hellfire shirt, before gesturing towards Eddie’s entire outfit.

Like Eddie didn't know what he looked like, let alone that he'd made this outfit specifically to scare people away from him.

(And maybe add some rockstar flair to this dinky little hick town.)

“You know who doesn’t look scary?”

Dustin held out his hands and swiveled his body like he was presenting a prize instead of gesturing in the vague direction of; 

“Steve!”

Eddie’s left eye twitched.

‘You can't kill him, you need his character for the campaign.’ He told himself firmly, even if he envisioned strangling Dustin like a chicken.

Cartoon squawking and all. 

“The King isn’t going to help us fundraise, Dustin.” Eddie said, in an effort to break down why Harrington couldn't be here. “He's just going to cause us problems that we can’t afford to have.” 

So many problems, half of which Eddie couldn't think of because if he did, he'd start spiraling.

“Really? Because as you keep saying, Steve used to be the King. People love him, Eddie! Mom’s love him.”

Eddie had pulled himself black up to his proper height a while ago, and now rocked back on his heels while he ran a hand down his face.

There was no getting through to Henderson when he was like this. 

Not unless Eddie really lost it, and it was practically club lore that he only lost it when someone missed an important game. 

One cannot keep a herd of sheep if their flock is terrified of them, after all. 

(“Perhaps you’re just a giant fucking softie.” Tiff, one of Hellfire’s graduating members, told him once. “Honestly dude, I bet you throw up stuffing.”

“Shut up Tiffany, your choker is on backwards again.” He'd spat back, completely offended and not at all trying to distract from how true that was.) 

“We can’t be satanic if Steve’s the one selling cookies!” Dustin finished doggedly. 

“We’re not even selling cookies--that’s not the point!”” Eddie shook his head, hair flying. He was not going to be sidetracked, he wasn’t!

 “Harrington is going to end up siding with all the moms about how we’re all wasting time with D&D, if he even spends the whole time at the table. Is that what you want?” 

He stuck out a ringed finger, poking at Dustin’s chest.

“Every single person who comes by our table has to be convinced D&D is a writing and math based game. Good for the mind and souls of growing, impressionable children. A game that got a bad rep because of  a few silly images.” 

A pitch he and Tiff had come up with during the third or fourth time they had to convince an adult that no, just because their shirts had a dragon on it, didn’t mean they were summoning demons in the drama room. 

“Harrington can’t do that because Harrington doesn’t even know how to play!” 

This Eddie punctuated by throwing his hands in the air. 

Given the startled look of the mother-daughter duo passing him by, clearly was louder than he’d intended--but screw it!

He was right!

Hellfire was in a precarious position to both fundraise and do a little damage control among the slightly smarter members of this shithole small town, and Harrington rolling his eyes and gossiping about how stupid it was would hinder that.

“Okay, first of all, Steve’s played D&D with me and he didn’t even kill his character.” Dustin said it like he was unveiling a smoking gun and not lying through his ass--which Eddie would absolutely be calling him on the second he was done talking. 

Because King Steve? Play D&D?

'Ha!'

“And he’s not gonna say shit because we--me, and Lucas and even Mike!--asked him to help, and he helps when its serious. I know you have some weird grudge with him, but I’m telling you Eddie he’s our golden ticket to Gen Con!” 

“You’re killing me. You are standing here, acting as a friend, when you are bringing a-- a dark force into the midst our of mission--” Eddie hissed, because he was losing the fucking fight and he knew it.

Dustin Henderson was not a man easily swayed. 

Had never been, even when the odds were stacked against him (and Grant and Gareth were howling in his ear.) 

The set of his shoulders and the glint of the little shithead’s eye meant Eddie wouldn’t be able to use him to oust Harrington--if he even could get him out without the dick causing a massive scene anyway. 

As always when outgunned, Eddie flipped to dramatics.

“Betrayed! By my own chosen heir no less!” He moaned, pressing the back of his hand over his eyes as Dustin scoffed.

"Don’t be so dramatic! Steve will help, I promise! Just don’t be a dick to him.” 

 Conversation apparently over, Dustin turned around to head back to the table

Snidely, he added over his shoulder: “Plus we’ve all caught on to the heir thing Eddie. You tell everyone that so they do what you want.” 

The dick.

“You’re too fucking smart for your own good. I’m gonna start feeding you paint chips to bring that IQ down.” Eddie muttered angrily as Dustin went back to their little table.

He gave himself a moment to get his shit together and stomp a foot like a child when Dustin was around the corner and thus couldn’t witness it, before following his wayward sheep back.

Could only pray to any deity listening that Henderson’s meddling didn’t blow up in Hellfire’s face.