#ficlets are fun

[onthewaytosomewhere]

Maybe 6 for junora for the ficlet game??? 🥹🥹

thanks for the prompt luv - have another junora going so this is good practice 💚

alright so my first ever written on my phone in the car ficlet - so hopefully I didn't totally mess up anything grammatical....posting this on the app is weird too - so hopefully it's not all messed up 🙂

June throws her phone down on the bed, yet another text message sent to Alex; she really hoped for all their sakes he and Henry figured their shit out – a moping Alex was not a pretty sight. From what they heard from Bea and Pez, Henry wasn’t much better. She is lost in thought and just staring at the tabloid open in front of her, not really taking in any of it, when Nora says it, so quiet June almost misses it. June looks up from where she is lounging on her bed, stack of tabloid magazines in front of her, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

Nora sighs, “I said, What is it going to take for you to realize I’m in love with you? I have been doing my damnedest to get you to realize it, but I’m at my wit's end attempting to figure out what will actually work.”

June sits up, knocking the magazine off the bed in her haste, “Wait, are you saying …” She shakes her head to clear the jumble of thoughts racing through her head, biting her lip in contemplation. “You’re saying …” She’s still unable to finish a thought to get it out. Nora looks at her so fondly that she wonders how she didn’t realize her feelings were reciprocated. Her smile is flirtatious and sweet in a way June didn’t know was possible; it makes her wonder how many times that same smile has been directed her way without her noticing.

“Apparently, being clueless about people being in love with you is a Claremont-Diaz thing, not just an Alex thing. I mean, after the hotel in LA, I thought you might finally realize it, but no, so then I made up that lame-ass excuse about sending the pics of us kissing to Pez. I’ve been hoping you would realize we were something worth taking a chance on for so long now I don’t even know if I know when it started anymore.” Nora sighs, in a hopeful but defeated way that June didn’t know was possible.

“I thought those things were just fun for you; I mean, we all said that our times were just for fun. I didn’t realize you would be receptive to more. Hell, I really am as clueless as Alex, if this isn’t something new. Although I guess it could have just been me attempting to cover up my own feelings that I wouldn’t have noticed. Nora, I’ve been thinking I could be in love with you for so long. I suppose I could pull an Alex and give ya a big romantic gesture if ya want –“

Nora’s lips pressing against hers cut off whatever else she may have said. June’s not even sure when Nora joined her in the bed, but she’ll think about that later. She kisses Nora back, pouring everything she has into this kiss, wanting to show Nora just how much she wants this. They make out for what could be hours but could only be minutes, and as she looks up from the spot where Nora pushes her back onto the bed, she’s just grateful she didn’t have to cause an international scandal to find what could be the love of her life.

*quick edit cuz when i re-read some of the grammar bits were making me sad lolz

[matchingbatbites]

"What the fuck did you do?"

Eddie wasn't expecting hostility when he answered Jeff's phone call, his best friend's usual calm demeanor replaced with open annoyance. And yeah, okay, the annoyance itself wasn’t new, but Eddie doesn’t think he’s actually done anything recently to earn it.

"Well-"

"Actually, no. I'll tell you what you did. You retweeted photos of Steve Harrington - internationally beloved heartthrob actor Steve Harrington - along with the caption 'not to sound like a subby slut but GOD I would be his puppy baby boy in a heartbeat'. So I guess the better question is, what the fuck were you thinking, Eddie?"

Eddie's jaw clicks shut because- yeah, he had done that. Had seen those photos of Steve smoking circling the internet and spent god knows how long just staring at them, had curbed the desire to shove his hand down his pants by posting a single thirst tweet about it.

“I was thinking, Jeff, that I'm allowed to post whatever I want to my private fucking twitter, man. I mean it's a free country, isn't a guy allowed to make a horny tweet about a sexy man every now and then?”

“You are, when you actually post it to your private account and not our award winning band's main account.”

No. Oh no. There's no way Eddie actually-

He rips his phone away from his face to open twitter, and realizes two things simultaneously. One, Jeff is right, he had posted it to the band's account. Not on his private, locked, personal account, but on the account that's actually open and free for literally anyone on earth to look at.

The second thing he realizes is that their notifications are currently flooded with responses to Eddie's tweet, somehow racking up into the thousands in the few hours it's been since. 

Jesus Christ.

“Eddie?”

The metalhead jerks back into the moment and put Jeff on speaker so he can scroll through the horde of replies, says “Fuck, I fucked up. Are we gonna have to do damage control on this?”

In the mess is a reply from Gareth's own personal account: @ corrodededdie stop tweeting from the band account challenge 🙄🙄🙄

”Maybe. There hasn't been any type of response from Harrington or his people, but they might ask us to take it down if it blows up too much.“

Eddie hums, thinking they might be too little, too late about it blowing up too much, and flips over to his main account so he can reply to Gareth's little jab appropriately. He isn't surprised to see that he has a couple of new messages, probably from other people wondering just what the fuck Eddie was thinking, but when he goes to check them-

He's never been happier that he turned on messages from followers only, because then he would have missed this, missed Steve Harrington's little profile picture beaming up at him from the screen of his phone, along with a new message request.

”Jeff, I gotta go,” he says, not even realizing he's cut the other man off.

“Eddie, what-

”Harrington messaged me. I'll call you back.“

Eddie doesn't wait for a response as he hangs up on Jeff, and his hands definitely aren't shaking as he opens the message from Steve. And listen- Eddie is a fan of the guy, that much should be obvious. 

Steve had grown in popularity around the same time Corroded Coffin had; he’d gotten some part in a drama film that had skyrocketed him into stardom, and Eddie fell in love the moment he saw that gorgeous face on the silver screen for the first time. He's never had a chance to interact with the guy, has been in the same place a few times but always missed him, like ships passing in the night, but Eddie's been fine with pining from afar, just like every other person on the planet that's even remotely attracted to men.

Besides, even with how popular Corroded Coffin has gotten over the years - a couple of Grammy’s here, a dozen chart topping metal songs there - Eddie doesn’t expect Steve to just. Know who Eddie is.

With all of this in mind, Eddie is expecting some kind of semi-casual request to take the tweet down, that it's not a good look for his image-

Anything other than what Steve actually sent.

'If you're puppy baby boy, does that make me Master? Or Daddy?'

And Eddie- 

Eddie slides down, sinks into his couch cushion as all of the blood in his body suddenly shifts, rushing to fill his dick like it's a fucking race. The phone almost slips out of his hand and he fumbles it briefly before taking a deep breath. 

Is Steve serious? He wouldn't send that if he wasn't serious, right?

This could be it, could be Eddie's one chance to impress Steve, to get his foot in the door of Steve's interest. He bites his lip and types out a reply, something quick that he sends before he can change his mind.

‘I’m open to either, actually. Do you have a preference, sir?’

He doesn’t expect the typing indicator to come up immediately, and just knowing that Steve is somewhere right now, typing out a response to Eddie, is enough to have him nearly vibrating in his seat.

‘I’m partial to Daddy, myself.’

Fuck fuck fuck.

Eddie takes a breath, tries to think of a response that isn’t just ‘Please, Daddy, can I sit on your massive dick that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since that one indie film you did that just had all of your junk out in the open?’

Steve saves him by sending another message.

‘But maybe we could start with Steve, and possibly dinner? Though I’d be happy to see where things go after that.’

He- What-

Eddie must have stopped breathing, because the next time he takes a breath his lungs burn, his mid races because there’s no way Eddie’s long term celebrity crush just asked him on a date. He sits there long enough that the screen goes dark and he scrambles to turn it back on, sees the message still there, real and unchanged.

There’s no way he can say no to this, to Steve, and his hands shake as he types out a response.

‘Dinner would be great. Just name the time and place, Daddy.’

[starrystevie]

eddie knows his crush on steve harrington is a hopeless cause, okay?

he's somehow been friends with steve long enough to know what he looks like when he's flirting, what he looks like when he has a crush, when his sights are set on someone very non-eddie munson shaped. he also now knows how to hide his jealousy in a fake smirk that he flashes steve's way when yet another pretty girl walks their way with her sights set on him and a smirk of her own.

eddie always watches as steve reaches out a hand just so to gently brush it against a lovely lady's arm with that charming fucking smile and sees how that lovely lady will always melt at the touch. and who could blame her? certainly not eddie, the same eddie who's had his own sights set on steve harrington for what feels like a life time. if anyone knows how painfully a heart can beat when it sees him from across the room and imagines a date and a future and a life with steve, it would be eddie.

but that's where it ends. steve harrington, the ladies man that he is, always stops things there with a smile and a wave thrown in the woman's direction as she walks away. it throws eddie for a loop every time. he would watch the two flirt for minutes that that felt like torturous hours for him only for it to end with a disappointed look on her face and steve turning his attention back to eddie like nothing had happened.

it makes no sense.

"i don't get it, man," he says one day as steve lets yet another girl walk away down to the opposite end of the grocery store aisle they're in. steve's turned back to staring at the shopping list in his hand and is muttering to himself instead of watching her walk away like eddie is, disbelief coloring his face.

"don't get what?" steve asks back, not bothering to look up until the silence goes on for too long. his eyes land on eddie's and he frowns slightly, shaking his head slowly. "... did i miss something?"

eddie reels back, eyebrows furrowing together and motions his arms every which way, from the girl's retreating form to the empty space around them.

"steve, you're just going to let her walk away and not get her number? she was obviously hitting on you, dude."

he watches as steve's face crinkles slightly before smoothing out and shrugs his shoulders, turning back to grab the cat food eddie feeds to the strays off the shelf. he lurches forward and places his hands on steve's shoulders to face him, watching as his eyes go wide.

"what do you want me to say?" steve shrugs again and eddie can feel the movement under his hands. "i guess i wasn't feeling it."

eddie sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face before returning it back to steve's shoulder. "wasn't feeling it... steve, i'm gay, not blind. you two obviously were hitting it off with your fucking charming lines and flirty eyes. you always do this and it makes zero fucking sense-"

"-you're gay?"

steve says a bit too loud for eddie's liking even if they are currently hidden in the pet food aisle. heat floods his cheeks and he throws a hand cover steve's mouth while shushing him to keep him from saying it again. he sees steve's eyes go even wider and feels warmth spreading under his fingers.

is steve...

"you knew this!" eddie accuses in a whisper and tries to breathe evenly while steve's gaze travels all over his face. "we talked about it with robin that one time!"

... is he blushing?

there's a sudden pressure at his side and he looks down to see steve's fingers curling over his waist. eddie takes in a stuttering breath and brings his own wide eyes up to meet steve's. it's like looking in a fun house mirror, seeing his flush creeping up steve's neck and watching steve blink in time with him. he can feel when steve tries to say something, his lips ghosting over his palm and eddie pulls back like he's been burned, but steve's hand stays right where it is on his side.

"i absolutely would have remembered if you told me that before," he says and his voice is a little breathless. "there's no way i was there when you guys talked about it."

eddie thinks back to the party when he and robin were huddled up on their couch together. argyle and nancy were dancing in their socks on the living room floor, bouncing around to some experimental track that had been badly recorded on a cassette. jonathan was sitting at the coffee table snapping photos of them, joint hanging from his lips and easy smile spreading on his face.

eddie's trying to pinpoint where steve is in this memory and that's usually the easiest thing for him to remember, but he can't...

until suddenly he can, because steve walked in through the sliding door with his shirt over his shoulder and his swim trunks low on his hips and water dripping down his chest and a cigarette behind his ear and the sunset bleeding in through the windows was painting him golden and he was walking over to dance with nancy with a wide grin pulling at his cheeks and-

"god, i'm gay," eddie had breathed out. robin followed his line of sight and nodded because she gets it like she has a steve problem of her own and that was that.

eddie focuses back in on steve while they stand in the fucking pet food aisle, focuses on the shrill jingle pouring out of the grocery store speakers and not on the way he can hear his heartbeat in his ears, focuses on the way steve can look good even in harsh fluorescent lights.

"well, now you know," is all he can breath out.

steve smiles, all white teeth and crinkled eyes, and his fingers curl even tighter around eddie's waist as he takes a half step even further into his personal space.

"you're why," steve says back easily and eddie reminds himself to breathe as the other side of his waist suddenly has a hand covering it, too. "i don't take their numbers, i don't give them mine, i don't go on the stupid dates they ask me out on because..."

the fingers dance up his side and eddie can't breathe.

"... they're not you, so why would i?"

eddie sends up a silent thank you to whoever is listening that they're hidden away from prying eyes in the pet food aisle so he can lean it and learn for the first time what steve's smile tastes like.

[imfinereallyy]

Eddie’s on the couch shirtless, and Steve is having a full-on crisis.

Eddie’s bare chest is on full display on Robin and Steve’s couch, and Steve is having a full-blown, how did this not click til now, crisis.

Steve knows he’s staring. Knows he needs to stop staring. Eddie is going on a rant to them, something about society or something metal (he got distracted when Eddie whipped his shirt off), and Steve should really pay attention because he knows Eddie is going to quiz him after.

For someone who hates school so much, Eddie sure likes to test Steve.

Robin comes up behind Steve, slurping her slushy. “Oh no. I know that face. It finally caught up to you, didn’t it?”

Steve breaks his state to give Robin a wide-eyed look. “What—how—I—“ Steve’s shoulders sag; there is no point in hiding from Robin. “How’d you know?”

“Please, babe, I’ve been waiting. Glad to know you actually sped-run this. Was thinking you were going to pull a me and wait til Jenny Rodriguez asks to practice the stage kiss with you before you realized.”

“I have so many questions.”

“Don’t bother; nothing happened except me falling off the stage at rehearsal.”

Steve laughs but then chokes when he glances back at Eddie. “I think my brain just exploded, Robs. What do I do?”

Robin pats his back sympathetically, “There, there. Nothing you can do, bud. Just got to ride the gay thoughts wave.”

Steve makes a distressed noise. Robin rubs circles on his back.

Eddie interrupts their moment (clueless to the evident lesbian bisexual solidarity happening), “So what do you guys think? Should I get the sword here?” Eddie drags his hand slowly down his sternum.

“I need you to take it back.” Steve whips his head torwards Robin.

“Take it back?”

“The crisis, take it back.” Steve all but begs Robin.

“Sorry, there is a no refund policy. You can use it or push it to the side; it’s up to you. But either way, that baby is yours.” Robin uses her straw to emphasize her point.

Eddie tilts his head confused, “Uuuh guys? The tattoo?”

Steve waits a moment before responding. “Good.”

“I’m going to need more than that Stevie.”

“Good. Will look good on you. Anything looks good on you.” Steve has to resist shoving his face into his hands. He can feel the rush of heat up to his cheeks.

Eddie’s face breaks into a brilliant, and a little smug, smile. “Awe, thanks, sweetheart. Glad to know I got the Harrington approval.”

“You don’t need my approval to look good.” Steve was going to throw himself off the roof of their apartment. That didn’t even make any sense.

Eddie snorts, “Okay big boy. Whatever you say.”

It comes off flirtier than Steve thought a sarcastic comment could be. This time instead of responding, Steve just caves into the embarrassment, turns around, and starts lightly thumping his head into the wall.

“Eddie, c’mon, you broke him! Now I’m going to have to reboot him…again.”

Steve doesn’t see his face but doesn’t have to look to know that Eddie’s face is downright giddy. “Sorry.”

Steve doesn’t think he’s very sorry at all.

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

I was just thinking about how Ozzy Osborne joined a Christian protest against himself at one of his concerts, and I was just thinking Eddie would totally do that. Just imagine him walking into Steve’s house afterward, dragging a sign with him.

"Why are you wearing my clothes?" Steve asked, his eyes narrowed. "What did you do today?"

Eddie was wearing tight jeans and a polo tucked into them. His hair was slicked back into a tight bun at the nape of his neck, with glasses perched on his face. Steve almost didn't recognize him. Eddie grinned and held up the sign: 'Eddie Munson sucks' was painted on it in red.

"There was another protest outside the police station, and I decided to join in!" Eddie said with a grin.

"I don't even - did you have fun?" Steve asked with a sigh.

"I did!"

[loveinhawkins]

There’s perks to working a summer job where there’s seemingly no manager. Steve got an at most five minute interview with an overly smiley dude who said, “An independent workforce is very important to us,” and didn’t even check his references before telling Steve that he was hired.

So it’s down to him and Robin alone to open and close Scoops Ahoy. And the lack of any boss—not even a supervisor—is mostly great, means that no-one’s hovering over their shoulders droning on about ‘company policy’, means they can take their breaks as and when, and no-one’s tapping their foot with an eye on the clock.

But then there’s the times where it’s absolutely swamped with customers, and the statistical likelihood of having to serve an asshole skyrockets; and most assholes don’t tend to think of teenagers slinging ice-cream as being worthy of even the tiniest shred of respect.

“Are you wilfully this stupid, missy?” a douchebag snaps at Robin during the lunchtime rush, after she added chocolate sauce on his sundae instead of raspberry.

She remakes the order with a look that, if there was any justice in the world, would make him drop down dead on the spot. But instead, he just scoffs when she passes him the new sundae.

“Have a spectacular day,” Robin says acerbically, and if it was any other time, Steve would be ducking down behind the counter, pretending to check on stock levels so he can hide his laughter.

Except Robin’s also doing that thing where she blinks a lot, and Steve knows she’s fighting tears of frustration because he privately does something remarkably similar.

There’s a sinking feeling in his chest coupled with what’s becoming a steadily frequent flare of protectiveness. That one usually comes with the kids and The Upside Down—except Robin is a girl who’s round about his age, so he half-heartedly assumes it must be because he has a crush on her.

But he’s not even thinking about said crush at all when he gently bumps her towards the break room with his hip and says, “Take yours first, I’ve got this.”

For half a second, Robin’s eyes seem to shine in gratitude before she puts a hand over her heart and declares, dripping in sarcasm, “You’re a god among men, Harrington, I never believed what anyone said about you.”

“You’re wel—hey, what did they say about me?”

The door to the break room shuts, but not before he hears Robin let out a genuine snort of laughter. He smiles and pivots back to the register.

The line’s calmed down; Steve recognises a substitute teacher waiting to be served: Mrs Greeves, who’s been at Hawkins High since the sixties, at least. There’s no other adult in the shop, so it’s presumably her little granddaughter who’s running about the place, without so much as a glancing eye on her.

But Steve doesn’t have to worry about a potential lost child scenario, because a guy suddenly slips out of the booth he’d been sitting in, bending down to the kid’s eye level and subtly ensuring that she doesn’t hightail it out of there.

It takes a few seconds for Steve to recognise him; he’s still getting used to the whole phenomenon of seeing people without the high school setting behind them. Like, Robin used to be just a name from a class he can’t even recall, and now he knows her for her dry wit and love of cryptic crosswords.

And this Eddie Munson is sort of a different beast from the guy Steve saw stomping around the cafeteria tables.

He’s dressed pretty much the same, (Hellfire shirt sans the leather jacket must be the ‘summer look’, Steve reckons), but he’s quieter as he chats with the little girl, letting her try on one of his skull rings to distract from her obvious boredom. His grin is softer, too.

Mrs Greeves clears her throat, and Steve promptly puts on his vacant ‘delightful customer service’ smile.

“Afternoon, Mrs Greeves, what can I do you for?”

She orders a simple strawberry cone for the kid, Abigail, and two scoops of lemon and vanilla in a cup for herself—appropriate, Steve thinks, because her face looks like she’s sucking on a lemon half the time.

As he prepares the ice-cream, he’s quickly remembering why she’s on the list of substitute teachers that students dread, even if he’s only had the ‘pleasure’ of being in a class supervised by her once. He has vague memories of how she’d talk with other teachers in a scandalised stage whisper about students from ‘broken homes’—he’s pretty sure she’s still an austere teacher at the Sunday School, too.

“Abigail,” she says sharply, when Steve finishes the cone, and she finally seems to realise her granddaughter isn’t by her side, “what have I told you about—”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Eddie says hurriedly. Abigail hands him the ring back, very carefully dropping it into his palm, and he gives her a gentle smile. “I don’t mind—”

“—not talking to strangers?” Mrs Greeves finishes, as if Eddie hadn’t spoken.

“But,” Eddie says with tiny frown, “you know me, ma’am, I’m—”

“Let me be plain then, Mr Munson.” She finally turns to favour Eddie with a scathing look. “I meant that I don’t want my granddaughter around a corrupting influence.”

There’s an awful silence while Abigail collects the cone.

“Oh,” Eddie says, still crouched down by the booth. He sounds very small.

And Steve’s view of Mrs Greeves quickly turns from a general dislike to an icy hatred.

“And here’s yours,” he says, sliding the cup over.

She looks down. Her mouth goes all pinched in displeasure.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“It’s your ice-cream,” Steve says, playing up a confused blink. “Is—is this not what you ordered? I’m terribly sorry for the—”

“Don’t be obtuse, Mr Harrington. These scoops are tiny; they barely fill the cup!”

Yup, Steve thinks with a savage satisfaction. They’re the size of a melon ball, and even that’s being generous.

“Mrs Greeves, I’m afraid it’s store policy. Nothing to do with—”

“What kind of policy could possibly justify—”

“Rudeness,” Steve says smoothly.

Eddie’s head jerks up at that, his mouth slightly agape.

“Mr Harrington,” Mrs Greeves says, her face turning puce, “I would like to see your manager.”

“The manager,” Steve says flatly. “Okay, sure. I’ll go get him.”

What he does next, compared to everything else that’s happened in his life thus far, isn’t all that stupid.

Well. Maybe a little.

It’s worth it though, to see the way Eddie Munson’s eyes widen at the sight.

Making sure to have zero expression throughout, Steve mimes walking downstairs, throws off his hat while crouched behind the counter, then re-emerges with a quick ruffle of his hair.

“How can I help you?” he asks, like they’ve only just met.

The cup of minuscule ice-cream is soon up-ended as Mrs Greeves storms out, barking over her shoulder, “Abigail, come here!”

Eddie stands to let the kid out of the way, who seems blissfully ignorant with her cone. Steve’s sure he hears him mutter under his breath, “Jesus, she’s not a dog.”

“I’ll be reporting you, Steve Harrington, make no mistake!”

Yeah, good fucking luck. I sure as hell don’t know who really runs this place.

“Uh-huh,” Steve says. “Looking forward to it. Harrington with two ‘r’s one ‘n’, ma’am.”

“Shit, Harrington,” Eddie drawls. He’s leaning next to the booth, hip cocked, and if it weren’t for the fact that he’d seen it himself, Steve might’ve been convinced that the Eddie from a moment ago was a different person. “That was not worth getting fired over.”

“I’m not getting fired,” Steve says—although honestly, if that had been a real threat, he thinks his actions would probably have been the same. Huh. “I meant it, dude, there’s no manager here.”

Eddie nods slightly, looks up at the Scoops Ahoy sign and grins. “So you and Buckley are the skeleton crew on this ship.”

“Uh, I guess?”

Come on, man, Steve thinks, as Eddie keeps up the wide grin like it’s a shield. This isn’t the high school cafeteria; I’m not about to hit your lunch tray or whatever.

Out loud, he calls into the back, “Hey, Robin, the chocolate’s low. I’m just gonna put in a new batch if you want some of the old stuff.”

The sliding doors open.

Robin sighs as if she’s just had a very relaxing facial, but she’s actually holding a folded newspaper with the cryptic crossword all finished.

“I am so chilled out,” she says, with a delivery that could rival Eddie Munson’s trademark dramatics.

“You’re so weird,” Steve says mildly while making up a cup with the leftover chocolate ice-cream.

“You’ve just got no taste, Harrington.” She waggles the crossword at him. “You should give ‘em a try.”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “I’m no good at that code-breaking stuff.” He passes her the cup, goes to start assembling his own and pauses. “Hey, Munson, you want some?”

“Oh, uh, I’m good,” Eddie says, sounding suddenly wrong-footed. “Sorry, I’m just, uh, killing time before my movie starts. The other stores said if I wasn’t buying anything I should get out, so…”

“So you’ve come to our oceanic sanctum,” Robin deadpans.

Steve rolls his eyes. “You know, just ‘cause you do crosswords doesn’t mean you have to turn into a dictionary. Ow.” He doesn’t quite duck in time to avoid the newspaper smacking him in the face. He turns to address Eddie again, who appears to be fighting back laughter. “What’re you gonna see, Munson?”

Eddie’s eyes glance away for a second. “Something very scary and befitting of my stature, Harrington.”

Robin, who’s made a habit of memorising the mall’s movie schedules, checks her watch and narrows her eyes. “Return to Oz?”

Eddie’s cheeks start to glow. “Fuck off, Buckley, I’ve never liked you.”

“You’re such a liar, I’ve heard your applause at band practice—”

“Okay, but,” Steve cuts in, jumping up onto the counter with one hand. “I thought the whole point was Oz was a dream. How can she return to—?”

“Christ, I don’t know, Harrington,” Eddie says. “I didn’t pick it for critical analysis; the poster had a dude with a pumpkin head on it, and I thought it looked cool.”

“Oh, I saw that,” Robin says. “Made me think of when all those pumpkins went bad. Like, imagine if they had faces.”

Unthinkingly, Steve says around his ice-cream spoon, “No way, I’m not dealing with that, too.”

“Excusez-moi?” Robin says.

“Hmm?” Steve says innocently.

“Hey, you missed quite a show earlier on, Buckley,” Eddie says. “Reckon Harrington deserves a tally in the ‘you rule’ column.”

Steve glares at Robin. “I told you to keep that outta view of the customers.”

“Ah, but I’m not buying anything,” Eddie points out, “ergo, not a customer.”

“Ergo,” Steve mimics.

“That board is strictly for romantic successes,” Robin says.

Eddie snorts. “Aw, that’s hardly fair. I think it should have more… rounded criteria.”

Robin’s eyes narrow again. “Eddie Munson, you’ve never complimented a jock in your life, don’t start now.”

“Hey,” Steve says, overselling a ‘wounded’ expression. “I’m more than that, y’know. I contain multitudes.”

“Sure,” Eddie says, smiling. “Folks, we’ve got Hawkins’s own Whitman right here.”

Steve flips him off and, on a whim, decides to channel his inner Dustin.

“Maybe I just see the world more clearly than you two ‘cause I’m free of societal constraints.”

“You’re working in a mall,” Robin says.

“High school societal contraints. I am unshackled and ergo, free.”

“Damn,” Eddie says, patting down his pockets for an imaginary pen, “I should use that.”

“Stop inflating Harrington’s ego and go catch your totally scary movie,” Robin says.

Eddie checks his own watch. “Oh, shit. Um.” And Steve thinks that it almost looks like he’s reluctant to leave. “Time flies, I guess. Better go ashore.” He catches Steve’s eye, gives a tiny little salute as he leaves. “May your summer continue to be mundane and manager-less.”

“You’re a poet, Munson,” Steve says, even though Eddie’s already out the door.

“So what was the show I missed?” Robin says. “I couldn’t hear anything back there.”

“Nothing that exciting.”

Steve tells her, and even though a smile tugs at her mouth as he re-enacts his mime, for some reason her eyes are kinda sad for most of it.

“Good job, Popeye,” she says thoughtfully—and though it directly contradicts her own words, she marks up a singular ‘you rule’ tally for the rest of her shift before wiping it off.

Eddie doesn’t re-appear after the movie—not that Steve’s keeping track of time, or anything—but at least they don’t have anymore nightmares for customers. As Steve mops, he thinks about how Dustin’s return from Camp Something Something is approaching—and the fact that he’s circled the date with a goofy smiley face is between him and his bedroom calendar.

He smiles to himself while clocking out of the now ghostly mall, recalling Eddie’s parting words.

The thought of a mundane, manager-less summer stretching before him sounds pretty damn good.

[stevebabey]

"Alright, here we go!" The bartender announces, leaning up to place the drinks on the bar.

"That's one whiskey, neat—" He says, sliding the lowball cocktail glass with amber liquid in front of Eddie.

"—And one Whammin' Slammin' Booty-Bangin' Pina Colada."

He places the extravagant cocktail in front of Steve. It's decorated to the nines with a straw, an umbrella, a piece of pineapple, and a little bit of tinsel on a toothpick. A whole party decoration in a drink.

"You guys have a good night." The bartender says warmly, already moving down the bar to tend to other customers.

Eddie stares down at the whiskey in the glass before him and pouts a little. Beside him and watching his boyfriend closely, Steve rolls his eyes.

"Oh, quit being dramatic," Steve says, sliding the cocktail across the bar so it's in front of Eddie, who had ordered it. He steals the glass of whiskey back at the same time.

"It happens every time."

"It happens most times."

"That isn't much better!" Eddie protests, even as he leans down and takes a long sip from the straw while they both get to their feet and leave the bar. Steve's hunting for a table they can snag, his eyes narrowed in focus. Eddie follows him blindly, his cocktail cupped in both hands.

"I'm serious, Steve! What is it about this adorable face—" He says, gesturing to himself, barely letting go of the straw to talk. It doesn't seem to faze him that Steve doesn't even glance back. "—Says I don't want to enjoy a Whammin' Bammin' Big Booty Colada?"

Steve comes to a stop, pausing his search for a moment to look back at Eddie. His expression seems unimpressed on the surface but Eddie can see his lips twitching up at the corners.

"We've had this conversation too many times, babe." He sighs halfheartedly and takes a quick sip of his own whiskey, eyes casting back out across the bar. "You have scary dog energy, you know this. You specifically dress like this on purpose."

Eddie picks up the pineapple wedged on the edge of his glass and bites into it, sending it down with another sip of his cocktail as Steve leads them further into the back of the bar. He finally spots a spare empty table.

"C'mon, I think I found one." Steve urges, one hand snaking back to make sure Eddie's following.

"Is it a crime to wish to not fall victim to stereotypes?" Eddie prattles on, following Steve duly by slipping his hand into Steve's outstretched one. His cocktail wobbles precariously as he takes another gulp.

"Like when that waitress gave me your awful black coffee! And you got my delicious delicacy that I paid extra hard-earned money for..."

+

i like to think that when steve and eddie go out, people always lean into their assumptions and are like hmm ok preppy boy with the polo? oh he gets the fruity cocktail! and eddie is always like >:( i don't want this expensive puddle of piss gimme the bonanza supreme cocktail pls. like excuse me i paid for that.

[unclewaynemunson]

Alt version of this post bc too many people asked for both <3

It's Saturday night and, like almost every Saturday night, Eddie wishes he didn't have to be at some jock party. The flashing lights, the scent of cheap mixed drinks, the incredibly mediocre loud music... And worst of all, the fucking jocks. Everywhere.

'Eddie!'

He looks up to find Steve, with a dopey smile on his face, basically skipping towards him and throwing his arms around his neck. Oh. He didn't know Steve still went to parties like those. Hadn't seen him at any of them in a while. But as soon as he gets wrapped up in an enthusiastic full-body hug, he decides there's one jock, and one jock only, that he doesn't mind running into at those parties.

'Eddie, what're you doin' here?' There's an unfocused look in his eyes and he wobbles on his legs a little bit, grabbing tighter onto Eddie for support. The touch burns through Eddie's t-shirt and he tries to ignore the shiver running down his spine.

'I didn't know you liked parties!' Steve drops his voice, slurring: 'I thought you hated the jocks.'

Eddie can't help but smile. 'I hate all jocks but one, big boy,' he tells Steve. 'Not here to party, only to get some cash.' He rattles with the metal lunchbox in his hands to illustrate his point. 'Can you let me go now so I can get on with my business, pretty please?'

'Noooo,' Steve says with an exaggerated pout. 'I'm too happy you're here! Dance with me!'

Eddie chuckles. 'I don't think you're in any state to dance right now. Jesus, Stevie, I don't think I've ever seen you this wasted before. Thought you were planning to pick up a girl tonight?'

'I was,' Steve says, suddenly sounding oddly serious. 'But it doesn't matter. Just needed to forget. The rum helped, too.' He frowns. 'Til you showed up.'

'Forget what?' Eddie asks, trying to make sense of this drunken string of words.

Something happens; something that's been happening quite often lately. Steve's eyes flash downwards, just for a second, right to where Eddie's lips are.

Eddie's heartbeat involuntarily picks up speed.

'What did you need to forget, Steve?' Eddie asks again.

'Can't tell you,' Steve mumbles so softly that Eddie can barely make it out over the loud music. 'I don't wanna make you feel guilty. I'm not judging you, y'know. 'S fine.'

He abruptly lets go of Eddie and takes a step away from him, stumbling right into some girl who pushes him back with an annoyed scoff; if Eddie weren't still standing right behind him, he would've fallen on his ass for sure.

'Alright, you're not making any sense tonight, big boy, but I can't in good conscience let you stay here by yourself. How 'bout I'll drive you home?'

Eddie glances at his watch. If he hurries, he can probably still be back to do what he came here for before the good part of the party is over. He does kinda need the cash.

'Can't,' says Steve. 'Can't go home with you.' Something in his voice is breaking and suddenly there are tears in his eyes, and Eddie still doesn't understand what's wrong; he feels like he's overlooking something huge, something that should be obvious.

'Let's just go outside to talk, then?' he suggests.

'Can't. Dance with me, Eddie.'

But when Eddie starts gently tugging Steve towards the open door leading to the garden, Steve easily lets himself be led outside. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath when the cool night air reaches his lungs, as if one gulp of fresh air will instantly make him sober up. But he's still swaying on his feet, making Eddie grab onto him tighter.

Eddie likes to think of himself as moderately strong, but unfortunately, hauling 180 pounds of muscled jock around is starting to take its toll on him. He spots a bench in a secluded corner of the garden and guides Steve towards it.

'This better?' he asks.

'Yeah,' Steve breathes out. Even now that they're both sitting down, Steve keeps clinging onto him. 'Look at the stars, Eddie.'

Eddie looks up at the scattering of lights twinkling far above them - but he can feel Steve's eyes still burning into his face.

When he directs his gaze back to the guy sitting next to him, Steve's face is even closer than before. The starlight is reflected in his hazy eyes, tiny specks of silver hidden in various shades of brown and black.

'I wish I could kiss you,' Steve whispers, looking at Eddie with nothing but admiration behind that glassy drunk gaze.

Eddie almost forgets to breathe. He knows that it seemed like he and Steve were headed exactly toward something like this for a while now, but he still can hardly believe that it is real. That Steve Harrington is really looking at him like he's just as precious as the stars in the sky above them.

He brings up a hand, gently caresses Steve's soft cheek.

'Maybe you don't have to wish,' he whispers back, unable to stop his eyes from flashing towards Steve's beautiful lips for a moment. 'Tomorrow. When you're not drunk anymore. If you still remember this.'

'No.' Steve shakes his head, so fiercely it makes his hair flap in all directions and his complexion at least two shades paler. 'Can't.'

'Why do you keep saying that, Steve?' Eddie asks softly.

'Cause.' For a moment Eddie thinks Steve is gonna grab his ass, but then... he randomly frees Eddie's handkerchief – the one with the skulls – from his back pocket.

'Cause of the Russians.'

Eddie can only stare at him in confusion.

'They tied me up,' Steve all but whispers. Eddie hates how small and broken his voice suddenly sounds.

He has always known – broadly speaking – about what happened to Steve and Robin miles beneath Starcourt last year. He's never actually heard Steve talk about the details, though. All he knows is that he and Robin were captured by Russian spies and somehow made it out alive. He could always see how difficult it was for Steve to talk about it whenever it came up, but he never wanted to pry. And now here they are, at some goddamn high school jock party of all places, and all of a sudden Steve willingly brings it up.

'I was with Robin,' Steve continues, still in that scared and broken voice. 'And they tied us to a chair. We couldn't move. And they – they hurt me. They hit me. 'Til I was bleeding all over. I thought I was gonna die. Robin thought I was dead.'

'Jesus Christ, Steve,' Eddie breathes out, tightening his grip around Steve's torso.

'So I can't,' Steve mumbles, holding up Eddie's handkerchief as if it's some kind of logical explanation for whatever it is he's trying to tell Eddie.

'Wh- What?'

'I know what it means, Eddie,' he says, as if he's even remotely making sense right now. 'You know John?'

'Who the hell is John?' Eddie only keeps finding himself more and more lost in this conversation.

'My cousin,' Steve says, like it's obvious, like he's ever talked about some cousin named John to Eddie before. 'The one in New York. He knows all about that shit, right? He sends me the good magazines sometimes when my parents aren't home. That's how I know.'

'Know what?'

Steve only waves around with that stupid handkerchief again.

'You're flagging, aren't ya? You like pain. Like BS... BM...'

Eddie feels his jaw drop.

'What the fuck are you talking about?' he asks. 'It's – this is a metal thing. It looks metal. I literally have no idea what you're – flagging?'

Now Steve's face finally mirrors the confusion Eddie has been feeling for the past ten minutes.

'Are you serious?' he asks, for one second showing more clarity in his eyes than Eddie has seen all evening.

Eddie nods.

'So it's not...' Steve stops himself, swallows, frowns. 'You're not into, like, hurting people and shit?'

And finally, it all clicks together in Eddie's mind: the repeated chorus of I can't, the story about the Russians, the goddamn handkerchief... Flagging. BDSM.

'Why the hell would I get off on hurting you, Steve?' is all he can get out of his mouth.

And Steve honest-to-Satan starts giggling; it sounds so relieved that Eddie kinda feels like giggling too, scary metal image be damned.

'I dunno, it's more common than you think,' Steve mumbles. 'I wouldn't judge you, alright? But I knew I could never give you that. No matter how much I like you. And then you'd get bored of me.'

'Oh, Steve,' Eddie whispers out. 'You don't need to worry 'bout that, I swear. For all I care, we can have the most vanilla sex in the world forever. Or never have sex at all. As long as it's with you... I'm good.' Eddie cringes as soon as the words leave his mouth: it sounds too cheesy, too sincere. He kinda hopes Steve will have forgotten this particular part of their conversation tomorrow morning.

But Steve doesn't look at him like he thinks it's stupid at all: his eyes are wide and he's smiling a soft smile.

'You sure? You won't get bored?'

Eddie chuckles. Now that he's being too goddamn cheesy anyway, he might as well double down on it. 'I can't imagine getting bored of getting to hold this body in a million fucking years. In any way you'll have me.'

Steve heaves out a relieved sigh before he buries his head against Eddie's chest.

'Can I bring you home, now?' Eddie asks.

There's a twinkle in Steve's eyes when he lifts his head again.

'Ooohhh... You wanna have the most vanilla sex in the world with me now?'

A chortle escapes Eddie's lungs.

'Um, maybe tomorrow, when you're not drunk off your ass,' he answers with a wink. 'For tonight, just lemme get you to bed, 'kay?'

'Okay, big boy,' Steve answers, and Eddie can't help but laugh before he presses a kiss against Steve's forehead.

[sailing-through-hawkins]

hello friend here is a potential lil thing for you: kas!eddie who’s a Good Boy for steve but is still growly at the others (think ‘it don’t bite’ ‘bitch yeS IT DOES’) (it’s a wip, steve is trying his best)

this ended up a lot...sweeter than i intended? and i'm not too sure about the ending but i had to stop it there or i'd end up trying to write a full fic (≧∀≦)ゞ hope you enjoy, friend!!

“And he’s here because?”

Steve pats Eddie’s head when he hands the paprika over, smiling at his goofy (and fanged) little grin. He starts to sprinkle the spices over the pan, not even looking over his shoulder to reply, “He likes to help me cook.”

There’s a long moment of silence so Steve switches off the heat and turns around, thanking Eddie when he gives him a dishcloth to wipe his hands with. When he looks back to the group seated at the island, he has to blink to register all their faces of disbelief.

“You took our Dungeon Master,” Mike starts patiently, which Steve will give him credit for. “Who has been accused of several crimes and then got turned into a terrifying, awesome bat-man with, like, wings and teeth and shit -”

Steve could have sworn Mike used to be better at description whenever they play their sessions.

“And you’ve turned him into your sous-chef?”

Blinking, Steve looks to Eddie, who gives him a preening smile and takes the dishcloth away, and looks back to Mike, whose face is getting paler every second. “Uh,” he shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Steve, I swear by all that is -”

Mike’s tirade is cut off by a growl and Steve lets out a sigh. “Hey,” he admonishes, nudging the rumbling bat-man with his elbow. “We talked about this, no growling at the kids.”

Eddie huffs and ducks his head down to bap his forehead against Steve’s shoulder. He moves his head from side to side so he’s basically rubbing his forehead into Steve and wisps of Eddie's hair brush against his neck, making Steve bite back a laugh.

Clearly, Eddie caught that and rubbed even harder into Steve’s shoulder until he broke into laughter, black eyes glancing up at him with a mischievous smile.

“You were right.”

Steve looks over to see Dustin staring at Mike’s fuming red face, deadpan. Eddie pauses.

“He’s tamed him.”

“What?” Steve sputters, choking out a laugh when Eddie moves in closer to nuzzle at his neck, hair now tickling at his nose. “Who tamed who?”

Mike sneers. “It’s whom, dumbass -”

And just like that, Steve is being held tightly against Eddie, who hisses at Mike. Thankfully, he's used to it by now and just rolls his eyes.

“Whatever.”

“Eds,” Steve pats the hand on his chest that presses him into Eddie. "It's okay, he's just having a Michael Moment."

"What the fuck did you just -"

Of course, the little shit can't keep his mouth shut and that just aggravates Eddie even further and well, time for damage control.

"No," Steve says firmly to Eddie, who blinks and stares at him. He then turns to the kids and points a finger at them. "What did we say about name-calling?"

"Bite me -"

"Dude," Lucas, golden child that he is, shakes his head and shoves at Mike's head. "Just shut up and eat your muffin."

"Thank you, Lucas," Steve grins and Eddie huffs, still holding Steve tightly against him. With a fond sigh, Steve wiggles around and manages to face Eddie, smiling at his fanged pout. "Thank you for trying to protect me, Eds."

It's something he started doing after a few days hiding out at Steve's place. At first, he was wary and would hiss whenever Steve got too close, only letting Dustin in his space, only really caring about Dustin at all. And it wasn't...unpleasant, Steve would rather he care about the kid more than anyone else than not at all. It did make cleaning him up difficult but having Dustin sit with him and ramble about whatever the hell he could seemed to help.

Then Dustin had to leave and it was just them.

And then Steve, eventually, figured out it was like trying to befriend a scared cat. Obviously, Eddie was terrified and just needed some time, space and a little bribery to adjust to the new...everything that he was.

So with some of that time and space, Steve got a chance to make his way into Eddie's exceptions and barely gets hissed at anymore, unless it's playful. Sometimes Steve hisses back, and the first time caught Eddie so off-guard that he held Steve down while sniffing around, like he was looking for whatever made the sound.

It made Steve laugh but just confused Eddie, so he did his best to imitate Eddie's chirp, the one he does whenever Dustin asks a question, and Eddie was so flabbergasted that he started chirping back without a thought. He looked half-insulted at the fact and that just set Steve off again.

Once Eddie figured out it was Steve making the noises, he got so excited that he'd always chirp at him, jumping into Steve's space and doing goofy things to make him laugh. It'd always work, duh, cause Eddie's a funny guy, even when he's half-Upside-Down-monster.

He also ended up liking Steve so much that he gets pretty overprotective, which - it's sweet, it makes Steve feel wiggly, but they're still working on who exactly Steve (and Dustin) need protecting from.

That one time when Eddie growled at Nancy for elbowing Steve would be hilarious if it wasn't so terrifying.

...It was pretty funny though.

"This is terrible." Mike says, and Will lets out a sigh. Mike gapes at him and throws his hands in Steve's general direction. "You can see how this is terrible, right?!"

"Brat," Eddie croaks under his breath, right next to Steve's ear and he doesn't even bother holding back, breaking into a bout of laughter that has him clenching at his stomach for relief. He can feel Eddie's excitement buzzing under his skin, right where his cheek rests against Steve's. "Snooty brat."

"Is he saying something?" Dustin asks excitedly and Steve has to wave him off half-heartedly, still reeling from the pain of laughing too hard. Dustin then sounds deadpan again as he says, "Oh, he's talking shit about us, isn't he?"

"Ressspect your elderrrrrs," Eddie hisses into the air with a grin and god damn, the look of pure devastation on Dustin's face -

"The first words he speaks to us since turning Demo-Eddie and it's about being respectful." Dustin hides his face in his hands. "What has the world become?"

"He gets his dramatics from you," Steve says to Eddie, who looks back at him smugly and nudges his nose into Steve's face. "Ow, hey, watch it -"

"Getsss hisss courrage f'om you," Eddie presses his lips to Steve's cheek and -

Huh.

Well.

That's new.

Wait -

"Oh my god," Steve stares at Eddie, who preens under the attention. "I have a monster boyfriend."

The kitchen breaks out into chaos and all Steve can think about is how pretty Eddie's eyes are when he's smiling.

[yabakuboi]

merman steve pt 2

a continuation of this for @spectrum-spectre, now with some pre-steddie~!

Henderson is skulking around in the cereal aisle when Eddie spots him.

The kid has been a bit of enigma to Eddie since he met him at the beginning of last fall semester. Dustin had a tight group of friends, but often times, he caught the gang of them sans Henderson and the fact seemed to annoy the hell out of them.

"He just goes off on on his own sometimes," Baby Beyers would say.

"He won't tell anyone where or why or with who," Mini Wheeler would snarl.

"And it's definitely not to talk to his girlfriend, because we hear ALL about that," Big Sinclair would sigh, rolling his eyes.

So catching kid creeping around the grocery store minus the rest of his party, after hearing many complains of his mysterious disappearances? Color Eddie intrigued.

"Hendersooon," Eddie sang, wrapping an arm around Dustin's neck to keep him from escaping. "Whatcha doing?"

"Eddie!" he said brightly, grinning at him. "Just buying some snacks. Hey, which cereal do you think a fish can eat?"

Eddie stares at him for a moment, blinking. "Uh..."

Henderson's face scrunches up. "I guess he's not really a fish though, so I'll try whatever." He grabs a box of Honey Combs from the shelf.

"Dude, are you keeping a sea turtle at your house again? You know that's illegal."

"No!" Henderson snaps, flushing. "And I was going to take Dart back after show and tell, I had already promised Steve!"

"Steve?" That was a new name. Eddie hadn't heard Henderson talk about a Steve before, and the guy was kind of a motormouth and a terrible liar. The only time Eddie had seen him actually avoid a topic was when his little disappearing acts were brought up. "Who's Steve?"

Henderson's eyes go comically wide. "No-one! I don't know any Steves!"

Eddie knew at least three Steves, and two were in Henderson's grade. "Uh-huh."

"Anyways," Dustin says, clutching the box of Honey Combs to his chest as he backs down the aisle. "I gotta go man, nice seeing you, bye!"

Bemused, Eddie watches him go. He's planning to give Henderson a five minute head start before he goes to tail him, but apparently, he needn't to have planned a stake out after all. Henderson finds him again, two aisles over, panting and red-faced.

"Actually, can you give me a ride?"

🧜‍♂️

"Eddie," Henderson says, voice even more serious and deadly than the time the party took on Vecna last month during their campaign. "I need you to swear that you will never, ever tell anyone about what I'm going to show you."

Eddie cocks a brow at him. "Is this a drugs thing? Dude, you—"

"No!" Henderson snaps. "This is not a drug thing! This is a very serious life and death thing, and I need you to swear on you life you won't tell anyone about it."

"Dude," Eddie says, a little in awe. He stares out his windshield for a moment where they're still parked just outside of town. He can hear sounds of the ocean just past the ridge, waves crashing on the cliffs. It's a remote little area, opposite of the tourist favored beaches. Eddie, in fact, deals just a few miles down the shoreline from here. "Did you bring me out here to kill me? Are you the world's dorkiest serial killer?"

"Eddie." Eddie turns to look at him. His face is grave, brows furrowed with real worry. "I'm serious."

"Okay... Okay, then."

"You have to swear."

"I swear."

And just like that, Henderson's face breaks into a bright smile. "I knew I could trust you!" he crows, grabbing up his bag from the store and kicking open his door.

Eddie stumbles out of his van after him, listening intently as they pick their way over the rocks.

"He's so cool, Eddie, you're going to love him. He totally saved my life when I was like ten and I got pulled out on a rip tide. Like, I really almost died dude and then he just swims up out of no where and helps me catch my breath. Helps me float there while I'm freaking out too until the life guard finally came out to get me. It was crazy! I come out here all the time to visit him, I think he gets a little lonely. So it's good you're here, I've been trying to think of someone else to introduce him to, but it's hard to figure out who's going to freak out and try to sell him to Sea World, or something."

They crest over the hill to a tiny little cove bitten out of the rocky shore, and carefully begin to make their way back down to the water's edge. Eddie's still not entirely sure Henderson hasn't brought him here to die. Maybe Steve is the serial killer and he uses Henderson as bait.

"Okay, okay," Dustin says, once they reach the water. It's calmer here, the cliffs cutting this spot off from the larger waves. "Are you ready to see the coolest thing EVER?"

"Uh, sure, kid—"

Eddie doesn't get the chance to finish his sentence when he starts yelling.

"STEVE THIS IS EDDIE I BROUGHT HIM TO MEET YOU I PROMISE IT'S SAFE!"

"Jesus Christ," Eddie hisses, covering his ears. The lungs on this kid! "What the fuck dude— WHAT THE FUCK!!"

Because when he looks down, there is a face in the water. Eddie falls back on his ass, uncaring of the water soaking his jeans, and screams when the face in the water rises up out the ocean.

It looks pissed.

"Dustin," it says, glaring at Eddie. Eddie screams again, because it—the guy—the mermaid lifts himself fully onto the rocks, and he doesn't have any legs. Because he has a fucking tail.

A fucking fish tail.

"Steve!" Dustin cheers. "You came out."

"You sure?" the goddamn mermaid asks, finally taking his piercing, alien eyes off of Eddie to look at him. "Sure it safe?"

"Absolutely," Dustin says hastily, crouching beside Eddie to put his hands on his shoulders. "Eddie just screams a lot, I promise you, he's totally safe."

"R-Right," Eddie says, because he does not want to be eaten. Maybe Dustin's been dragging unsuspecting victims here to feed his pet goddamn mermaid instead of a serial killer. "Totally safe, that's me."

Steve, the goddamn fucking mermaid, looks him up and down doubtfully, and it's terrifying having those eyes on him, unnaturally yellow surrounded by black. His face is distressingly human, nose and mouth and ears with a mop of dark hair on his head. He has these bright shimmering scales across his cheekbones that dot down his jaw and neck, iridescent and glimmering in the afternoon sun. Eddie can't bring himself to look down further, scared and enraptured all at once.

Steve is terrifying and beautiful to look at.

"Fine," says Steve and pushes himself gracefully back into the water, disappearing into the dark depths.

"What the fuck," Eddie breathes. He looks up at Dustin with wide eyes. "Dude, what the fuck."

Dustin just grins down at him. "Isn't he the coolest?!"

[forsaire]

no but I've been thinking about Soap with temporary Prosopagnosia (face blindness) after his injury

---

Price had put Soap on medical leave after he got out of the hospital, his only responsibility being rest and recovery. Of course Ghost took time off to be with him as well. He didn't even need to ask either, Price just did the paperwork for the both of them at the same time.

Some days were better than others. Sometimes Soap had trouble remembering words or doing delicate tasks with his fingers. Ghost always waited patiently for him to work it out, only helping when Soap asked him too.

For the past hour, Soap had been lying in their bed, his lighthearted laughs filing their flat as he watched something on his phone. Ghost was sitting in the other room and reading a file Price had sent over, informing him on their continued investigation to find Makarov.

Ghost heard a particularly loud laugh before the box spring squeaked lightly, the sounds of Soap shuffling off the bed following soon after. He heard footsteps begin to approach him and he glanced over.

"Ghost!" Soap said cheerfully as he looked down at his phone. "You have to see this funny cat vid-"

Soap abruptly stopped speaking as he looked up, the words getting caught in his throat. The wide smile that always spread across his face with enough brightness to light up Ghost's entire world suddenly fell, swiping down in one smooth motion. His eyes widened slightly, almost as if in shock, and his mouth dropped open a sliver. His eyes locked onto Ghost's face, but there was no warmth to be found.

It was fear.

"Who are you?" Soap choked out, taking an apprehensive step backwards.

Ghost was immediately on his feet, the look on Soap's face shattering his heart. He raised his hands out in front of himself and curled his shoulders in, trying to make himself look less intimating.

"Johnny... it's me..." Ghost said slowly, the words coming out calmly despite the rising worry in his chest. "It's Simon."

Soap tilted his head as a deep furrow scrunched up his brow. His eyes jumped back and forth across Ghost's face, refusing to focus on one thing.

"What..." he let slip from his lips, breathless and confused. "I... I don't..." He squinted slightly. "...Simon?"

"Yeah, it's me," he said quietly, taking a careful step forward. Thankfully, Soap stayed where he was and he let Ghost approach him, although he still looked unsure, small.

Ghost gently took Soap's hand and placed it up against his face. At the same time, he wrapped his arm around Soap's waist and pulled them closer together. Once their bodies were pressed up against one another, Soap let out a shuddering sigh and he dug his face into Ghost's neck.

"I..." Soap started hesitantly, holding Ghost back tightly. "I don't recognize you..."

His usual confidence was gone, the words coming out weakly, almost broken in shame.

"But you recognize my voice?" he asked.

Soap nodded in silence.

"Okay..." Ghost said quietly, letting his fingers trace up and down Soap's spine. "Just close your eyes then. Listen to me speak."

Soap closed his eyes.

"I got you," Ghost murmured soothingly. He wanted nothing more than for his imperfect words to reach Soap and rid him of his fears. He wanted Soap to feel safe. "It's me. Just listen to my voice, love. Everything's going to be okay. I won't let go. I love you, Johnny."

[slashmagpie]

Pearl and Gem glance at each other. Then, as one, they glance back at Tango, who is, evidently, not Tango.

“Do we have an amnesiacold on our hands?” Gem asks. 

“Maybe,” says Pearl, glancing back at Tango again. “Tango, buddy, you feeling alright?”

“I—” Tango opens his mouth. Closes it again. “I mean, I’m a little under the weather, to tell you the truth—I ate a South African sausage and it disagreed with me.”

Pearl hums. “And it’s messed with your memory a bit, right?”

“Yes! I mean, no—I mean, how did you—?”

“Would you say that you have a bit of an amnesiacold, Tango?” asks Gem.

“Amnesiacold?”

“You know. Amnesiacold!” Gem says. “When you get sick and forget everything and feel like somebody else?” 

“Ah.” Tango pulls himself to shore. Frowns. “It’s more of an amnesia-food-poisoning, if I’m honest.”

Pearl winces. “Your poor digestive system.”

“It’s not very nice Pearl, I’ll tell you that much,” Tango says, voice low, one hand pressed against his stomach as he pulls a face.

“Okay, that’s enough, I don’t need to hear about your gut issues,” Gem interrupts. “But—you have an amnesiacold! You know, I was an amnesiacold last season.”

“You mean, you had an amnesiacold?”

“No, I was one.” Gem winks. “Like—Tango has an amnesiacold. But you? You’re the amnesiacold. You know?”

Tango’s shoulders hike up with discomfort. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m Tango. And I think you guys should—should skadoodle somewhere else. Should bother-someone-else-ificate. Begone.” 

“I had an amnesiacold last season, you know,” Pearl says. “Gem was one. You can tell us, buddy, we’re not gonna tell anyone.”

“Promise,” Gem says with a nod. “This is a safe space! You don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not with us.”

Tango stares at them for a long, long moment, then sags, face falling. He looks exhausted, suddenly, and Pearl feels a rush of sympathy. It can’t be easy, being thrown into the game halfway through, with no context for anything.

“It’s been rough, dudes,” Tango says, voice cracking. “It’s been really really rough. I forgot how hard it was to get anything done on this server! There’s so much chaos, and—”

Wait.

“Ren?”

Not-Tango grins. “In the flesh,” he says with a bow of his head. “Or… not my flesh, exactly.” 

“Ren?” Gem asks, tilting her head in confusion.

“Oh, that’s right, you’ve never met…”

Gem and Ren peer at each other for a moment. “You do look familiar,” Ren says eventually.

“Yeah,” Gem agrees. “I mean, obviously you look familiar—you look like Tango!—but… yeah.” 

They stare at each other for a moment more.

“Maybe we met in a dream?” Ren says at last.

Gem nods. “Sure. Makes as much sense as anything else.”

Pearl glances between them, rocking awkwardly back on her heels. She clears her throat, drawing their attentions back to her. “Welcome back, buddy,” she says to Ren. “Good to see you again.”

“I wish that I could say the same,” Ren says morosely. “I thought I was—I was done, Pearl.” Now that she knows it's Ren, she can hear his cadence in Tango’s voice, voice dropping rough and low with drama as he bows his head. “I was done. No more games, not for the ol’ diggity dog. And now… Here I am!” He laughs a little, stretching out his arms to indicate the server at large. “In a body that’s not mine, in a world I’ve never seen, in a game I do not understand.”

“Oh, Ren…” Pearl frowns. She doesn’t know what to say. 

Gem jumps in. “Hey, it’s okay! It’s just one session, you know? You can do one session!”

“I suppose I must.” Ren looks up at them, jaw tightening. “If I am here—I suppose I must.”

“I’d never been in any of these games before I was Cleo for a bit last season,” Gem says. “So you have an advantage there! And, hey—maybe you can come back next season, and we can meet for real?”

Ren shifts uncomfortably. There’s something heavy hanging about him, something Pearl can’t quite understand. She remembers the last time she’d seen him, skull caved in from the dripstone spike dropped on his head. She remembers her own amnesiacold, the exhaustion that had dragged at her before it had settled in, the memories that had plagued her and just wouldn’t go away. And she wonders—

Just how exhausted would you have to be that your body would have to leave as well as the rest of your self?

Just how sick would you have to be before you didn’t want to come back?

Still, Ren steadies himself. Quirks Tango’s mouth into a smile. “Maybe,” he says, meeting Gem’s gaze. “That would be nice, to meet for real.”

[blushweddinggowns]

Idea expanded, adult siblings Eddie and Robin who are close (Both raised by Wayne, sorry Robin's parents I'm killing you off), even when Robin goes to another state for college. Eddie stays back, has his slut era, that unfortunately ends in him being a single dad. Or fortunately depending on how you look at it because he adores his kid. But it's still hard to manage everything. He's trying to go back to school part time, all while still working at his uncle's garage, and things are just hard.

But lucky enough for him, Robin moves back home at the perfect time. She gets an apartment with her mystery best friend from college who oddly enough she refuses to let Eddie meet. But oh well, he's just happy to have his sister back. Especially since she's always up for watching her favorite niece.

Though a day comes when she gets stuck at work, and Eddie has a final he can't miss with an asshole professor who definitely wouldn't let his three year old come with him, and he's desperate. Desperate enough for Robin to begrudgingly admit her mystery roommate is actually a daycare worker/nanny who is out of work. And she'll only ask for his help if Eddie promises to keep their relationship strictly professional. Which is weird and dumb but Eddie agrees nonetheless.

But then he meets the guy. And it only takes one shy smile and a simple, Hi, I'm Steve, and in an instant Eddie finally understands why Robin had been so adamant about them never meeting. Because holy shit he's gorgeous. Exactly his type. And it doesn't help when his daughter freaking adores him instantly. And like the brat she is (like father, like daughter) she only wants Steve to babysit for her from now on, all from spending less than four hours with the man.

But Eddie goes with it, mostly because he wants to get to know the guy more and because he is insanely cheap for someone so good at his job. And he learns that Steve is funny, and likes to cook, and has infected his daughter's mind with a brand new love for sports and the outdoors. But that's okay, because that means that Steve goes with them to all of the random WNBA games she wants to see. And shepherds them on ill-advised hikes that always leave Eddie's clumsy ass covered in dirt and bug bites. But it's all fun. Really fun. And Eddie gets to know Steve more and more, and likes him more and more, and starts to disrespect Robin's original rule more and more until it becomes undeniable that he's falling for the guy.

And Robin is not happy about it. She loves Eddie, but she also loves Steve. To an insane degree. Insane enough to not want to risk their relationship over the chance of him getting heart-broken over her notoriously bad at relationships brother. And Steve feels what Eddie's feeling, but he loves Robin more and agrees with her. And it doesn't help that he's heard a few unfortunately true stories about Eddie's past.

So cue to Eddie having to do an unscheduled emotional character arc just so he can get the privilege of dating Steve, with Robin acting as basically an overprotective sibling to the wrong guy, with his adorable daughter along for the ride.

[starry-bi-sky]

Stuck in the middle of a forest made of

Flesh and bones and they're all scared of

A lost little boy who has lost his heart

Fear's not enough, they have to

Tear him apart —-------

There are two things Daniel Fenton knows that his family knows as well: 

He’s adopted.

He can’t remember anything else before that.  

‘Adoption’ is a loose term, implying that they went through the official legal processes and troubles of adopting a child into their home willingly, and with the full intention of doing so going into it. That is not what happened. What happened is that Jasmine Fenton found a half-dead child, in strange clothing, in the middle of the woods at her Aunt Alicia’s cabin, and then she went and got her parents. 

What happened is that a twelve year old Danny woke up in the same cabin, wearing clothes much too big on him that didn’t belong to him, and with very little memory of before that moment. He wakes up like a spring being set loose, sitting up so fast he scares the daylights out of Jasmine Fenton sitting next to him. He wakes up, reaching for his sleeve for something that isn’t there, and when it isn’t his mind stutters, like he’s tripped at the top of a steep hill. 

When they ask him for his name, he tells them, clearing muddled thoughts from his mind; Danny. He’s twelve.

(He thinks that’s his name, at least. It sounds right; it feels right. If he thinks really hard about it, he thinks he can remember someone calling him that, utter adoration in their voice. So it must be his name.) 

The Jasmine girl convinces her parents to take him home with them, and they give him the spare guest room upstairs. He has nothing to fill it with.

It’s… a strange experience, to go to a ‘new’ home when he doesn’t even remember his old one. 

The official adoption process… happens. He can’t say it’s easy, or difficult. He’s oblivious for the most of it, Jasmine intends on helping him settle in and Danny can’t say he enjoys the smothering. He learns that he is stubbornly self-independent, that’s one new thing he knows about himself. 

His adoption papers say ‘Daniel J. Fenton’. Danny remembers staring at the name ‘Daniel’ for a long, long moment, something curdling sour in his sternum. His name is Danny, that he knows. But it’s not Daniel. But he doesn’t know any other way of saying it, so he keeps his complaints to himself.

(Jack Fenton boisterously claps his hand on Danny’s shoulder and jerks him around, grinning wide as he welcomes him into the Fenton Family. Danny’s mind blanches at the touch on his shoulder, an instinct snapping like the maw of a snake, telling him to cut off the man’s fingers for daring to touch him.) 

(He keeps the thought to himself, tension rising up his shoulders the longer Jack Fenton’s heavy hand stays on him.) 

They found Danny in the summer. It’s a perfect coincidence, Maddie Fenton says before she goes back into her lab with Jack Fenton. She says it’s enough time to allow Danny to adjust; that they’ll enroll him into the school year in the fall. Then she stuffs a canister of ectoplasm onto the top shelf, and disappears like the ghosts she studies back down the stairs.  

(There’s something eerily familiar about the ectoplasm sitting in the fridge, something unsettlingly so. Danny knows what that stuff is, but he doesn’t know where. When the house is empty, he takes a can from the fridge and inspects it.)

Jazz wants him to leave the house. Danny doesn’t want to step foot outside of the FentonWorks building until he has something that quells the feeling of vulnerability he gets whenever he does. He tried to once, and he felt exposed. Unsafe. 

He turned back around and went inside.

—-------

Where do we go

When the river's running slow

Where do we run

When the cats kill one by one

—------

One day, when the house is empty — or, as empty as it can be; the Fenton parents down in the lab, and jazz out with friends. Danny is making a sandwich, and he caves into the urge to flip the knife in his hands between his fingers. A childish impulse, but one he falls for nonetheless. It comes to him easily, like second nature, in fact. The slip of the blade between his fingers is seamless, flowing with an ease like water running down the wall.  

He’s almost startled by it; his body holds memories that his mind does not. Muscles that know which way to move and twist, limbs that know how to hold and how to throw. He continues twirling it, fascinated, as if he were a scientist discovering a new species of animal. 

It’s not for a handful of minutes when a new thought hits him; an impulsive thought that pops in the back of his mind like a firecracker; Danny moves without thinking. 

He turns, and throws the knife. The pull of his shoulder, the flick of his elbow, is familiar like a hug. He knows when to let go, and the blade flies through the air in impressive speed, embedding itself into the wall with a hearty, loud thunk. Sinking into the drywall like butter. 

Danny stares at it in shock, he feels relieved — about what? — before he feels the guilt. He scrambles across the kitchen to pull it out, heart racing in his chest at being caught, and prays no one notices the hole it left behind. 

(He runs up the stairs before anyone can find him, food forgotten, and hides the knife beneath his mattress like a guilty murder weapon.)

After that, he leaves the house more. It’s more out of fear of being caught than the desire to leave. But Danny is quickly learning that among all things, he is someone who was dangerous, before he lost his memory. Even with his mind in fractures, he is still dangerous. 

He’s not sure how to feel about that — he thinks he should be scared. He feels a little proud, instead.

—------

Hazel beneath our claws

While we wait for cerulean to cry

Unsettled ticks run through time

Enough for the hunt to go awry

—-----

There’s another thing he learns about himself. That he knows about since he woke up. He knows that he left someone behind. He doesn’t know who, but he knows they must have been close; he’s always looking down and finding himself surprised when the only shadow he sees is his own. 

He thinks that he must have sung to them a lot; he finds himself humming familiar melodies when he’s lost in thought. Lullabies lingering at the tip of his tongue, an instinct to turn and sing them to someone beside him. He can’t remember the lyrics, but his mouth does, it tries to get him to say them when he’s not thinking. He can’t. 

Danny’s found himself humming under his breath more times than he can count, trying to recall whatever it is his mind is trying to claw forward. 

(“That’s a pretty song, Danny.” Jazz tells him at breakfast one day, Danny screws his mouth shut. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “What is it?”) 

(Something mean and possessive rears its head on instinct, uncoiling like a snake from its ball. His shoulders hunch defensively, he bites his cheek to prevent himself from baring his teeth. He doesn’t know what song it is, but it’s not for her. “I don’t know.”)  

He misses his person. Dearly. He knows, the longer he is without them, that they must have been close. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing a chunk from himself. He wouldn’t be turning to someone who's not there; reaching for a hand that’s missing, birdsong on his tongue, a story to tell. 

A dream haunts him one night. Warm and familiar, he’s holding onto someone smaller than him, they’re tucked into his side like a puzzle piece. He’s humming one of his songs that is always playing in the back of his mind, an unfinished tale of a harpy and a hare. Danny can’t remember their face, not all of it. He remembers green eyes, hair dark like his own, skin brown like his. 

He loves them more than anything else in the world, a fact he knows down to his soul. He loves them so much it fills his heart with sunlight. Danny squeezes them tight, nuzzling into their hair; he makes them laugh. Then, he proudly boasts something. That when he takes something of their father’s, that his person — a sibling? That feels right — will be… the word fades from Danny’s mind before he can make sense of it. 

His person hugs him tight, his… brother? And their mother — a woman whose face he can’t remember either, but who he loves like a limb nonetheless — appears, smiling. Her hands reach for them both, voice calling them, ‘her sons’. There’s ticking in the distance, it sounds like the fastening of chains.

Danny wakes up cold, tears streaming down his face. The details of the dream already fading from his mind like the cold pull of a corpse.   

—-------

Harpy hare

Where have you buried all your children?

Tell me so I say

—-------

When school starts that Fall, Danny joins the sixth grade class, and quickly learns more things about himself. One of those things being that he’s smarter than the rest of his grade, whatever education he had before, it was better than the one he’s getting now. 

Everyone knows he’s adopted right off the bat. He tells them when the teacher forces himself to introduce himself, but it’s not like they needed him to tell them for them to know; he never existed in their little world before now, and the Fentons are pale as they come. Danny is not.

He befriends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley; they ask him about the scars fading up and down his arms, they ask him about the scar carved diagonal across his face.

Danny, as politely as he can, tells them he doesn’t remember. He thought kindness would come second nature to him, his dream burned into his mind where he hugged his brother so sweetly. Apparently, his sweetness is only second nature to people he considers his own. 

(It becomes even more apparent when Dash Baxter tries to bully him later that day, and Danny ruffles like an eagle threatened. His mind whispers, hissy and agitated, sinking like a shadow at his shoulder, several different ways Danny could kill him for talking to him like that, and fifteen more ways he could cripple him.)

(Danny ignores those thoughts, up until Dash Baxter tries to grab him. Then he breaks his nose on the wood of his desk. It’s easy how quickly the rest of his grade sinks him down to the status of social pariah.)

(At least Sam and Tucker still talk to him after that. When Danny goes to the principal’s office later, he wisely doesn’t mention the worse things he could’ve done than break Dash Baxter’s nose.)  

—--------------

It clicks and it clatters in corners and borders

And they will never

Hear me here listen to croons and a calling

I'll tell them all the

Story, the sun, and the swallow, her sorrow

Singing me the tale of the Harpy and the Hare

—-------

More dreams come, of course they do. Each one halfway to forgotten whenever he wakes up, ticking faint in his ears. He is many different ages. He is young, shorter than a table. He is older, holding onto his little brother. He is singing in almost every single one. He is singing to his brother. 

Danny can barely remember the lyrics, he’s begun leaving a journal by his bedside so that it’s the first thing he can write down when he wakes up. He’s a storyteller, he learns. He feels like a historian, trying to piece together a culture long dead and forgotten. 

His most vivid dream-like memory is not a happy one, and for once he’s almost relieved he barely recalls it. He is somewhere that isn’t home, but his mother and brother are there. He is dressed in black, blades keen in his hands. 

They are atop a moving train. They are fleeing something. His brother is struggling to keep up, he is small, and young. It’s beautifully sunny, they are somewhere green and lovely. 

It is a fast dream. 

His brother stumbles on something, and Danny, fast as a whip, snatches him by the back of his shirt and hoists him up to his feet before he can fall. “Watch your feet, habibi.” He murmurs low, a hand on his back. It’s hard to hear, there is wind in their ears.

His brother, face obscured in all but his eyes, which are green as emeralds, nods. 

The dream blurs, but Danny falls behind. His foot catches on air — impossible, it should’ve been, at least. He never trips. — and he lands against the roof with a thud and a grunt. His mother and brother stop, and turn for him. 

The train hits a turn before Danny can get up, and he shouldn’t have, something pulls on him, he swears, but he slips. He can’t find the purchase to pull himself up, cold fear hits him as his nails scrape against the metal. 

His mother and brother’s horrified faces are the last thing he sees before he disappears off the side of the train. 

(The ticking is at its loudest when he wakes up, pounding against his inner skull. He only manages to write down ‘train fall’ in his journal, before he’s flipping over to press his head into his pillow to get the pain to stop.) 

—---  

She can't keep them all safe

They will die and be afraid

Mother, tell me so I say

(Mother, tell me so I say)

—-------

When Danny is fourteen he is still humming songs he can’t remember, his mind still in a broken puzzle. But his room is now decorated with stars and plants in every corner. He has a guitar he keeps in the corner of his room, and he plays the lullabies in his head on the strings over and over again. 

The ectoplasm in the fridge still unsettles him, still reminds him of a past he can’t recall. The knife beneath his mattress has returned to the kitchen — he doesn’t need it. He found a box in the attic last year, it had his name on it, and inside he found familiar, strange clothes, and more weapons than he thought was possible to carry on one person. 

(Even without knowing that the Fentons prefer guns to blades, Danny knows, instinctively, that they were his weapons. He was — was? Is — a dangerous person. He takes the box down to his room to sort through. The weapons all fit into his callused hands almost perfectly — the grooves worn to fit his palm. They’re just a little small.) 

(He tentatively takes a small blade with him to school one day, and feels much more comfortable with it sheathed beneath his shirt. He’s kept it on him ever since, like he’s reunited a lost limb to himself.)   

Danny doesn’t have a name for his person, his little brother, nor does he have a name for his beloved mother. He’s haunted by dreams every few weeks, many of them repeating. He’s ingrained the words he can remember to memory, and the ones he doesn’t, he writes down in his journal. His little brother; Danny calls him a bird, he can’t figure out what kind. His little bird of some kind; when Danny takes something from their father — what, he can’t remember what — then his little brother will be a little bird. 

(He doesn’t have a name for his brother, yet, but he’s calling his birdie in his head. It’s better than nothing.)

—------

Seeker, do you ever come to wonder

If what you're looking for is within where you hold

Will you leave a trail for them to follow a path

You'll soon forget

Home

—---------

When he’s fourteen, Danny dies. It does nothing to fix his fractured memories, much to his consternation. It just confirms something he already knows; that he was someone dangerous, and that he still is. 

When the shock of death has worn off, Danny inspects his ghost in the metal reflection of the closest table. It’s blurry, hard to see, but shock green eyes pierce back at him, green like the portal. Lazarus, Danny’s mind whispers, and he blinks rapidly.

‘Lazarus,’ he mouths to himself. It’s familiar. Sam shows him with her phone what he looks like, joking that he looks like an assassin. Danny doesn’t think she’s that too far off. 

He doesn’t tell her that. He tucks the thought away with the rest of his secrets, and fiddles with the hood gathering at his neck, attached to a cape with torn edges swinging down to his ankles. He pulls it over his shock white hair. It shadows over his face impossibly so, until all you can see are his green-green eyes peering out like a wolf hiding in the brush.

He ends up calling himself Phantom. 

(Maybe now he can start putting lyrics to his lullabies; his memories may not have returned, locked away with the sound of a clock, but the dead can talk. One of them may just have answers.) 

----------

Home is where we are

Home is where you are

Home is where I am

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

Dedicated to @gascansposts for being the one who introduced me to the band Yaelokre, and thus being the whole reason I was inspired to write this in the first place >:] Those lyrics at the line breaks are all from their album Hayfields.

[rogueddie]

If Eddie survived s4, he'd probably be left with so much anger. The whole town turned on him, people were literally hunting him down to kill him. His uncle being put in the worst position because of it, his friends being beat for information... all while an interdimensional monster is trying to murder everyone? A monster that kids younger than him are being forced to fight alone? Eddie would be enraged.

[loveinhawkins]

Every so often, Eddie will get the bus to Starcourt Mall (because what else is there to do?) and watch the world go by.

It’s not like he’s above a cliché or two—maybe he wants to indulge in being a lone figure within the crowd. Maybe he just feels like wallowing in the aimlessness of it all, damn it.

This is where Wayne would point out that Eddie is exactly the opposite of aimless, what with how he’d stormed into the trailer last month, failed test results in hand and snarled, “Next year. I’ll fuckin’ show ‘em.”

But there’s a long time between now and the new school year starting, the summer stretching out before him like taffy. He’d tried to start his reading list early again, but that’s never done him much good; this time he’d gotten through one chapter of Moby-fucking-Dick before despairing.

So. People-watching at the mall it is.

It’s surprisingly not all that terrible an activity, apart from discovering which teachers are suddenly very passionate about jazzercise—a sight Eddie could’ve blissfully lived the rest of his life without seeing.

There’s also the confirmation that the Starcourt commercial he saw was not a vivid hallucination—that Scoops Ahoy is, in fact, real.

And so are the ridiculous sailor outfits.

Well, I’ll be damned, Eddie thinks.

Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington are an incredibly unlikely duo. It’s like the universe abandoned all sense, spun a wheel and paired them up just for the fun of it.

When he joins the line for ice-cream, Eddie initially thinks he’ll find the whole thing laughable: seeing people forced to work together when usually the laws of the universe (and Hawkins High) would keep them as far apart as possible.

But then he discovers that the ice-cream parlor is packed, one hell of a bottleneck forming right up at the counter, where folks are waiting for a seemingly never-ending amount of floats to be poured.

It takes a while for Eddie to near the front of the line; enough time passes that he honestly feels kind of bad for even taking up a spot, for adding to the workload that has Robin shouting herself hoarse with every, “Next please!”

He strongly considers just leaving, but he hesitates for a moment too long, and unintentionally meets eyes with…

“Hi,” Steve says, pleasantly enough, if a little distracted as he prods at the soda machine. He smiles apologetically. “Be with you in a sec.”

Eddie almost wants to tell him you know it’s me, right? He doesn’t.

It’s not that he expects Steve to be mean, exactly; it’s just that he’s getting more than familiar with the whole post graduation routine. It’s like there’s a secret page in folks’ yearbooks, instructing them to look at anyone still attached to high school with either indifference or embarrassment—or both.

Steve must not have got the memo.

“Next!”

Robin beckons Eddie forward with a sweeping arm gesture, looks somewhere behind him and sighs in relief, puffing out her cheeks.

“Oh, thank God. You stopped the tide.”

Eddie glances over his shoulder; sure enough, he’s the last person left to order.

“Don’t think I’ve got that power, Buckley.”

Robin raises an eyebrow. “Debatable.”

Eddie almost laughs. There was a rumour in his first attempt at senior year that he could curse people: it only came about because he ominously whispered some Pig Latin he’d once overheard Robin herself use during History, and Molly Pritchard crossed herself in horror.

“I’ll have a vanilla cup.”

“Ooh,” Robin says dryly, “adventurous.”

“Nothing wrong with a classic,” Eddie says.

Robin smirks as she rings him up. They don’t know each other that well, but there’s admittedly something nice in the distant familiarity they share; at the very least, she’s not gonna add to any potential awfulness when school starts again.

While Robin hands over his change, Steve is filling up a cup—Eddie would say he’s uncharacteristically quiet, except for the fact that he doesn’t actually know what truly is characteristic of Steve Harrington.

Plus he’s stuck on the fact that he only paid for one scoop, but the amount of ice-cream Steve manages to cram in is almost double that.

And he does this ridiculous little twirly thing with the scooper before he even reaches for the tray of vanilla.

Eddie tells himself he notices just because the move is so stupid; it’s definitely not because he’s noticing Steve’s hands in general. It’s just… eyes get drawn to movement. That’s all.

“Syrup?” Steve asks, nodding his head at the dispensers.

“Sure,” Eddie says. “Strawberry.”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “Oh, don’t do that, man. Get it with butterscotch.”

Robin’s eyes rise to the heavens, as if some longstanding argument has begun once again.

“And why should I do that, Harrington?” Eddie says.

“Because,” Steve says, like he’s patiently explaining that two plus two equals four, “butterscotch is better. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Robin parrots mockingly. She closes the register drawer and says, “I’m taking my break, Popeye. Try not to judge the customers too hard.”

Eddie’s pretty sure he hears Steve mutter under his breath as she leaves, “Seriously? You’re worse than me.”

His cup of ice-cream is under hostage, apparently. Steve still hasn’t pressed down on the damn syrup pump.

“This your usual sales technique?” Eddie says. “Browbeating the customers?”

“Only the lucky ones,” Steve returns mildly.

Eddie scoffs. “Fine. Gimme the damn butterscotch then.”

“Knew you’d come to your senses,” Steve says.

He hands the cup over without any more quips; just as he’s done with the syrup, a large family swoops in with multiple sundae orders.

Eddie eats the ice-cream while waiting for the bus back home. He grudgingly has to admit that the butterscotch isn’t bad.

But that’s not really what’s bugging him.

He has to know if it’s a fluke—if maybe, just maybe, Steve Harrington only deigned to talk to him because he was, like… delirious or something. Maybe the flood of demanding customers scrambled his brain.

Of course, when Eddie goes back to the mall, it’s purely to test his theory. Strictly observational—educational, even. Like… summer school. (Take that, O’Donnell.)

The bus drops them off a little bit before the mall actually opens, but they’re allowed inside anyway. Eddie inwardly cringes at the sight of grown adults tapping persistently on the windows of still closed stores. Jesus Christ, they’re worse than zombies.

Scoops Ahoy isn’t open yet either; Eddie’s soon witness to a very stressed looking Steve striding over to unlock the place.

He flits in and out of view for a while, taking mops round to the back, filling up the jars of toppings.

Eddie actually considers heading over to Waldenbooks to check if it’s open (it’s not like he’s coming here for one store in particular, obviously), but then he hears metal clacking against the tiles.

When he looks back at Scoops Ahoy, he spots a set of keys on the ground right at the entrance, Steve nowhere in sight.

Goddamn it. He’s gonna have to be a Good Samaritan. Ugh.

Eddie briefly looks up to the ceiling as if he can condemn the ways of the universe from here. Then he sighs, picks up the keys and steps into the store.

“Harrington, you dropped these—”

“Shit,” comes Steve’s voice from the back, followed by an almighty clatter.

Eddie hesitates before his curiosity inevitably wins out.

He goes behind the register, through the door and finds the aftermath of complete disaster: Steve standing in front of an entire vat of ice-cream that’s been dropped onto the floor. It’s splattered all up his legs, cookies and cream clinging to the hairs.

Holy shit, stop thinking about his leg hair, Eddie thinks.

Up until this point in time, he’d believed it was physically impossible to look anything other than comical in that stupid sailor outfit.

(Well. Almost.)

But right now Steve looks absolutely tragic. Like he’s a crew member on the Titanic levels of tragic, and he’s about to deliver the news that there’s simply no more lifeboats.

Steve meets Eddie’s gaze.

“That was limited edition,” he says pitifully.

They both look down at the floor.

“Well,” Eddie says. “It definitely is now. Still, uh, what’s the phrase? No use crying over spilled… ice-cream.”

“Oh, I’m not gonna cry over it,” Steve says. “I’m gonna scream.” For a moment he looks murderous. “Robin’s not coming in.”

“Is she sick?”

Steve snorts. “Sick my ass. No, she’s keeping The Hawk in business—gonna see a movie about an ice-cream parlor, something like that.”

“An ice-cream parlor,” Eddie echoes. “Um. Are you sure she didn’t just make it up?”

Steve shakes his head. “No, it’s one of those foreign—never mind.”

He cuts himself off, lifts up one foot, as if he’s become aware of his predicament all over again.

“I was fine with her ditching, she can do whatever; it’s not like we have managers checking up on us. But I forgot a huge delivery was coming, and it’s Saturday so it’s gonna be crazy, so I’m not gonna have time to put all of it in the freezer or check the stock chart, so it’s all just gonna become fucking soup, Jesus, maybe I should just throw everything on the floor and—”

“I could help,” Eddie interrupts, because apparently a little alien has burrowed into his brain and now he just says things.

Steve stares at him. “Why would you do that?”

“Yeah, uh, sorry,” Eddie says. He wishes his brain-invading alien an immediate death. “Bad idea, just—”

“No, I mean why would you do that? Dude, it’s not like I can pay you or—”

“I don’t really have plans,” Eddie says—oh great, the alien hasn’t died! “Uh, you can pay me with, like, a name tag?” What? Stop talking. “Like a souvenir?” Stop! “Oh sorry,” Steve says, as if on automatic pilot. He pulls at his shirt. “We don’t have—our names are stitched on.”

I was kidding about the name tag. Actually, maybe you should just murder me instead.

By some miracle, Eddie’s expression must somehow still look fairly normal because Steve continues, deadly serious, “Munson. Are you sure?”

This is the time to back out—

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Look, man, it’s no big deal. I can clean this up and—”

A bell starts ringing from the front, being struck over and over again in the most obnoxious way possible.

Something in Steve’s eyes flickers, a shift from panic into planning mode, and Eddie has the sudden bizarre feeling that this is what the basketball team saw whenever a crisis timeout was called.

“You sure you’re okay if I leave you back here?” Steve asks, and the gravity with which he says it threatens to send Eddie into hysterics—Christ, you’d think they were in the goddamn trenches.

“Think I’ll survive,” Eddie says. “I’m basically cleaning up, and putting everything into the freezer?”

Steve nods. “And, um, a stock check too, if that’s okay? There’s a chart pinned up, you just gotta count the flavours and put, like, tally marks next to—”

“Oh my God, not tally marks,” Eddie drawls. “The horror.”

Steve huffs. “I was just—”

The bell rings even more insistently.

“Uh, think you’re needed on the front line,” Eddie says.

He nearly chokes on his own spit when Steve turns to just march right on out there.

“Harrington, wait! Your—your legs,” he says weakly.

Steve has the audacity to look puzzled. “What about them?”

They’re very long.

Eddie gestures silently to the ice-cream on the floor, then attempts a vague hovering motion in the direction of Steve’s legs.

Steve’s eyes go wide in realisation. His cheeks turn slightly red. “Oh! Yeah, um, thanks. Um. I’ll just…”

He disappears into the world’s tiniest restroom, comes back free of cookies and cream before heading out to the front.

Well, Eddie thinks to the mop he finds, this is definitely a situation.

It’s not the worst way he’s spent a few hours, apart from having to listen to a Sailor’s Hornpipe on loop through the speakers (he briefly wonders how Robin and Steve stay sane). He cleans up, gets the rest of the delivery into the freezer, even jots down some tally marks, wonder of wonders.

Steve will occasionally slide back the shutters and pop his head in, passing over a soda.

“Employee perks,” he says, then has to hurriedly retreat to keep serving.

Eddie keeps waiting for the stiltedness to set in, but it seems Steve’s far too busy for there to be any awkwardness.

At midday the shutter slides back again and Steve says, “Hey, can you do me one last thing, and I’ll never ask you for anything ever again, I swear.”

“Harrington, you’ve technically never asked me for anything. Gimme the mission.”

Turns out the mission is just to use some employee only coupons at Burger King so Steve can take his lunch.

Eddie returns to Scoops Ahoy with two burgers to find that Steve’s strategically placed a pile of chairs and wet floor signs at the threshold to deter people from entering.

There’s also a hand-drawn sign on top of one of the chairs: Out for Lunch. Underneath, there’s a horrendously bad drawing of a ship on choppy waves.

Eddie tries very hard to not find it endearing.

He gives Steve a burger, hops onto the table in the back and starts eating his own.

A quarter of the way through, he realises that he could leave now—he’s done everything Steve’s asked, and Steve’s already said he can manage the remaining shift on his own now that the delivery’s been put away.

Huh. Well, he’s already gone to all the effort of sitting here…

Steve’s quiet for most of his lunch. Eddie doesn’t mind; he enjoys his free food, comes up with a half-baked campaign idea before discarding it, counts every tile in the room…

Looks over.

Steve’s sat with one leg hunched up to his chest, a book resting on his knee—the cover’s folded over the back as he reads, the spine broken. Eddie doesn’t know why on earth it’s attractive, but it is; he feels like some mooning middle schooler, entranced by the way their stupid crush eats spaghetti or some bullshit like that.

But then again, there’s always been an easy grace to Steve Harrington.

A beeping noise; Steve checks his wristwatch with a sigh.

“Ugh.”

He leaves the book on the table, at just the right angle for Eddie to read the title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

“Is it good?”

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, I’m only a couple chapters in, so…” Steve shrugs. “Honestly, it’s the most I’ve read since starting high school.”

And Eddie gets that: the senior years he’s suffered through have left him each time with a brain like a wrung out sponge, not even having the energy for Tolkien.

God. At this rate he’s never gonna read for fun ever again.

His face must do something because Steve opens and closes his mouth a few times before saying, a little hesitant, “Hey, I’m sorry you never, uh… made it through, y’know? You—you were so close, man.” Eddie doesn’t bother wasting time on being pissed that Steve knows some of the details: ‘test results’ and ‘confidentiality’ don’t exactly go together in Hawkins High.

“Yeah, uh. Thanks. Here’s hoping third time’s the charm.”

Steve claps his shoulder. “You’ll do it, it was just tough this year. Like, I scraped through, trust me.”

Eddie snorts—he would literally kill to have a handful of Steve’s grades.

“Think my definition of ‘scraped through’ is different to yours.”

He helps Steve disassemble the mountain of chairs, and now it really is obvious that he could just leave; he only has to take a few steps, and then he’s out of there.

But he pauses.

The store is still empty.

Eddie shuffles back from the doorway. “Ice-cream for the road?”

Steve laughs. “Sure. Least I can do.”

He doesn’t ask Eddie what he wants, just serves a vanilla cup with butterscotch syrup.

Eddie suddenly feels himself fighting a smile. “Think you’ve got an agenda, man.”

“Nope. Just giving you the superior choice, Munson.”

Then Steve picks up an empty cup and pours more butterscotch into it, nothing else. He knocks it back like a shot. “Gross,” Eddie says.

Steve flashes him a syrup-streaked grin.

It’s so… juvenile.

If it wasn’t for the fact that they’re in a mall, Eddie would almost think that he’d gone back a few years, made an unexpected temporary friend that goofed off with him in the back of the class.

He finishes his ice-cream as more people flock to the counter; in what seems like no time at all, Steve’s ushering Eddie out, pulling down the security grille.

It feels a bit like a soap bubble has burst. Like the bell’s unexpectedly rung at the end of last period, in a class he was actually enjoying, against all odds.

Steve does say, quite sincerely, “Thanks, Munson. You didn’t have to… you really saved my ass.”

Eddie’s about to clumsily work his way through some reply about how it was nothing, but then they really do have to go, because some stern-faced security guard’s staring like he might vaporise them.

It’s just one day, Eddie thinks. A… what’s-it-called. An anomaly.

But he goes back to the mall the next afternoon. He doesn’t bother to make up an excuse even in his own head.

Scoops Ahoy is somehow even more packed this time—Steve’s serving up samples while Robin’s back at the register, and when she sees Eddie coming, she points at the vanilla, mouths, “The classic?”

He chuckles, nods. “How was your movie, Buckley?”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” she says serenely. “I was very sick.” She coughs delicately.

“Praying for your miraculous recovery.”

He gets vanilla with butterscotch syrup (just because Robin’s the closest to that particular dispenser, that’s all).

It’s so busy that once Robin’s finished at the register, she starts filling orders alongside Steve. When Eddie picks up his cup, they barely look at him, surrounded by other cups and plastic bowls laid out for ice-cream.

Figures. Eddie knows it’s not personal. Just. Soap bubble’s burst, and all that.

He’s almost out the store when he hears a whistle.

“Hey, Munson! Go long!”

“Fuck off, no,” Eddie says automatically, a response drilled into him from many a compulsory Phys Ed class.

But he turns, just in time to see Steve throw something at him. He catches it—it’s plastic, round—somehow manages to keep a hold of his ice-cream, too.

Steve gives a brief thumbs up, before he’s back to scooping. He still finds time to do that stupid twirl move again.

Once outside, Eddie opens up his hand. Snorts.

It’s a shitty white badge, chipped in several places. His name’s scrawled on it in red marker, a cartoony anchor in the upper right corner.

On the bus home, Eddie mulls over the thought of flicking through a couple chapters of The Hobbit, something like that. No pressure, no notes—no imagining the year ahead, a teacher looming over his shoulder. Just for fun.

There’s plenty of time.

He puts his souvenir in his pocket, takes another spoonful of ice-cream.

And he has to admit that butterscotch is pretty damn good.