#helpimstuckwriting

[helpimstuckposting]

From Santa

Prompt: Magic | Rating: G | Wordcount: 2,957 | AO3 | @steddiebingo

Steve was seven when he found out that Santa did not exist. He tried, once, the whole ‘Santa’ thing. After hearing the stories from kids at school, he ran over to Melvald’s and bought a tin of cookies with his allowance before skipping excitedly home. Some of the kids mentioned feeding the magic deer, because flying took a lot out of them obviously, and Steve wasn’t quite sure what magic deer ate, but he left out a few carrots in the yard just in case.

He was so excited, setting out the cookies in front of the big tree in the living room and hoping he’d wake up to find a present underneath, just for him. Maybe it would be a cool Hess Truck like Tommy wanted, or maybe it would be an action figure, or comic books, or maybe his parents would come home. The other kids said Santa was magic, that he could do anything, so Steve wasn’t picky.

He went to bed excited and could barely close his eyes to sleep, but the other kids said Santa didn’t come if you were awake so Steve tried his very best. He finally fell asleep with the taste of ginger snaps on his tongue (there was a whole tin, and Santa had hundreds, maybe thousands of cookies every night, so he didn’t think Santa would mind one less).

He woke up to a spotless and quiet house, no puddles from snow on Santa’s boots, no bites out of the cookies, and no present under the tree. No parents either. Steve didn’t have any more cookies that day. He couldn’t bear it.

When his parents arrived a week later, Steve was greeted not by hugs and exclamations of how much his parents missed him, but by his mother loudly and forcefully demanding answers to why her yard was scattered with gross old carrots, drying and cracking and covered in mud from the melted snow. So he told her. He told her about Santa and how he wanted him to come, how he went to bed early like a good boy, and waited all night. How he didn’t show up.

She laughed.

It was cold and icy, like the shards still hanging from the gutters on their roof. She told him he shouldn’t be impatient for his presents — they were in the car like always — and really, Steven, it doesn’t look good for a boy to be so demanding, and the presents certainly weren’t from Santa because the man did not exist.

Santa didn’t exist.

So yes, Steve knew from a young age that the jolly man in the coat and hat was simply a lie — told to children to excite them and give them something to look forward to. He didn’t really get it at first; were the presents not enough? Was the week off from school not exciting? Did they not look forward to Christmas morning without the story of a man sneaking down the chimney? But he’d also fallen for it. He was so excited, he liked the idea of feeding the magic deer, and leaving a treat out for someone delivering gifts out of kindness. He liked the story, that a man with so much power wanted to use it to make children happy. He liked being thought of, liked being remembered by someone he didn’t even know, liked that it was a reward for being nice throughout the year.

But it wasn’t true. And that was fine, Steve tried to convince himself. He still got the presents, and he still got his parents, even if they were a week late. He still got a hug from his nanny, and his mom let him have the rest of the ginger snaps, and he didn’t even have to clean up the carrots from the yard.

His parents left again, and school started again, and it was fine.

It was fine, until Tommy came barreling through the door with his Hess Truck held high and the praise of Santa spewing from his lips, and Steve noticed that not everyone shared in Tommy’s delight. Most of them did, and a lot of them brought their favorite toy to school just like Tommy, but a few kids (maybe three) sat still in their chairs — like they could avoid any questions if they blended into the background. They ducked their heads and they sank in their seats, and Steve wondered if they also found out Santa wasn’t real.

But Tommy singled one kid out at recess. He dragged him out, to the center of the playground, and told everyone that Santa didn’t go to trailer parks, that the kids in Forest Hills didn’t get presents from Santa, because only good kids got presents, and how could they be good if they lived in a junk yard. Those words didn’t sound like Tommy, but he was always repeating things his dad said, copying him and taking his word as gospel.

The kid, scrawny with a shaved head and angry brown eyes, sank into his shoes. Not in retreat, not in a cowering way. He sank into his shoes like he was grounding himself, like he was making sure his footing was firm and steady, and he shoved Tommy right into the ground.

Of course, only then did a teacher interject, and only the boy Steve didn’t know the name of was dragged away to the office. Tommy angrily scrambled to his feet and spat at the ground where the kid had stood, remarking that he was right and the Forrest Hills kids were definitely on the naughty list, Steve, wasn’t he right? Did he see that? What a freak that kids was.

Steve rolled his eyes and didn’t say anything. He knew interrupting Tommy was just more hassle than it was worth, and Tommy was wrong anyway because Santa wasn’t real. He’d figure it out eventually, Steve supposed, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

It was his walk home that gave him an idea. He saw the bus pass by as he trudged along, down the road and off in the direction of Forrest Hills trailer park. He wondered if that kid from recess was there, if he saw Steve out the window as he passed, if he really didn’t get any presents. He thought about all the gifts his parents gave him that were still packaged up in his closet because he had too many and he didn’t really like them all. And he thought about how much he wanted someone to think about him on Christmas, with no other purpose or desire but to make him happy.

So, with an inkling of an idea creeping its way through his head, he ran the rest of the way home and pulled out the phone book from the hallway table, as well as his yearbook from the previous year. There weren’t many numbers from Forrest Hills, but he did find the three kids from his class and a couple from the year above. He picked out which of his unopened presents he thought they’d like the most, and he wrapped them crudely in leftover paper he found in the study. He ripped off a few pages from the note pad by the phone, and wrote out in his best writing:

From Santa, sorry I was late

And then:

P.S. my elf wrote this

Because his best writing was still pretty bad.

It took him a couple days to plan and gather things, but in the dead of night — after his neighbors clicked off their porch lights — he piled all five presents into a little red wagon and tied the wagon to the end of his bike. He took off toward Forrest Hills, a little list of names and addresses crinkled in his pocket. He tip-toed around the dirt paths, freezing in fear every time his little wagon’s wheels squeaked, and placed the presents and the notes from ‘Santa’ on the doorsteps that matched his little list. He checked it twice, just for fun.

He felt lighter on the ride back home, and not just because his wagon was empty.

Steve was seven when he decided to become Santa himself.

It wasn’t obvious, the next day at school, and Steve didn’t do it just to listen to kids whisper about Santa visiting Forrest Hills a week late, but he did notice something. The three kids who had sunk low in their seats the first day back, who avoided talking to the others to brag about their presents, were no longer trying to blend into the background. They sat comfortably in their seats, and whispered among themselves, eyes twinkling a little more than they had a few days ago. Steve was ecstatic. He sat, buzzing silently with excitement as he tried to keep his face blank and neutral. Santa had to be kept secret, after all.

He did it again the next year, adding the newest kids to his list from the years below him, and saved up his allowance to get some cuter presents for the girls; some nail polish and art supplies, some coloring books and beads. This time he wasn’t late, and his handwriting had improved a lot from the year before (though he still blamed the elves for his wonky letters).

He had fun, learning how to wrap the paper around each gift, saving up his money to pick out presents he hoped the other kids would like, wondering what their faces looked like when they opened the door to find a present on their front step.

He was a little worried that the kids would be concerned Santa hadn’t made it inside, being magic and all, but he also noticed that none of the trailers had chimneys so maybe that was okay. He also learned that most of the kids in Forrest Hills did get presents, and he felt a little stupid for assuming they didn’t just from Tommy’s dumb comments, but he also knew they weren’t the fancy presents other kids got like bikes and new games.

He tried making his Santa presents a little more extravagant. After all, why would Santa give Tommy a brand new Lego set, but give Willie across town a pack of baseball cards? Steve just wanted to even the playing field a bit, knock Tommy down a peg or two when he tried humiliating another kid on the playground and that kid said Actually Tommy, I got the new Hess Truck from Santa, too! And Steve remembered wrapping it up, much neater this time, and almost getting caught on the stoop when a dog started barking at him. He muffled a giggle into his hand when Tommy floundered for something to say, coming up empty handed.

As the years passed and the kids in his grade stopped believing in Santa, he scratched their names off his list. He kept adding to it as well, though. He paid attention to the new kids in each grade, noticed if they had a little less than those around them, noticed if they were on the outskirts or if they looked a little nervous as the holidays drew nearer and nearer. He left presents for the Byers one year when he heard that Jon’s mom lost her job after his dad left. He left presents almost all over town, had the phone book highlighted with every address he wrote down in his notebook — a much needed upgrade from the crumpled piece of paper in his pocket. He wrote a list, he checked it twice, and he made sure to slip through the dark like a shadow, avoiding anything that might give him away.

He was always surprised when no adults tried to stop him. Surely, the stoop presents were well known throughout town by the time Steve reached high school, but maybe they didn’t want to know who was behind it. Maybe they wanted to keep the magic alive, too. Either way, Steve played a successful Santa for nearly two decades before anyone found out.

It was Eddie.

It was always Eddie.

Eddie, the boy who knocked Tommy clear to the ground that first winter. Eddie, the boy who made Steve want to help. Eddie, the boy who received the first ever gift from Hawkin’s own Santa, though Steve kind of hoped that was a secret he could keep.

They were putting up the tree in their apartment, the first Christmas they were spending together. Eddie had brought several old ornaments from the trailer, ones that he stole from right under Wayne’s nose because lord knows the man wouldn’t want to part with them if he didn’t have to — a collector, that man was. Steve picked up one that, at first, had been unassuming, a clear bauble filled with glitter. Hanging it on the sad twiggy branch of their Charlie Brown tree, however, he noticed a little piece of paper inside. It was aged and a bit crumpled, but not too shabby for how old it was.

From Santa, sorry I was late, it read in squiggled, messy handwriting, the wonky letters leaning to one side more than the other.

P.S. my elf wrote this

Steve stared at it for entirely too long, catching Eddie’s attention as he hung the last ornament.

“Wayne made that one, if you can believe it,” Eddie said, tapping the plastic bauble with the nail of his pointer finger. “I mean, not the note,” he clarified, “that was Santa.” He whispered the last part conspiratorially, as if letting Steve in on a huge secret. Steve felt like he was going to cry, suddenly, the tears pricking behind his eyes. With a start he realized, selfishly, that he didn’t want Eddie to know. He wanted to keep this mystery alive for just a little longer, like a parent too sad to let their child grow out of the world of magic and wonder, like it was too soon though the secret had been brewing for nearly twenty years.

Eddie wrapped a cautious arm around Steve’s shoulders, unsure of where his sudden teary-eyed expression came from. Instead of facing his questioning look, Steve tucked his head into the crook of Eddie’s neck and listened as the man regaled him with the story of his first ever gift from the Santa Claus.

That year, Wayne had lost his job as a trucker because Eddie had fallen into his lap. He couldn’t leave the kid all alone, had to stay and take care of him, and he was between jobs until the holiday snuck right up on them both. They had a tree, just as shabby and sparse as the one they currently stood in front of, but there was no money to spare for gifts. Wayne had apologized, and Eddie had been very understanding for an eight year old — after all, he had been learning not to rely on adults, anyway.

He’d gotten in trouble when the school year resumed, however, for shoving an insufferable Tommy Hagan to the ground during recess. Of course Tommy hadn’t gotten in trouble, since vigilantism was an under appreciated form of justice, Eddie declared. Steve snorted into Eddie’s neck, just imagining the ranting tirade the skinny boy with a shaved head must have gone on, trying to defend himself to the principal.

Eddie was furious as he got back home, pissed off at Hagan, pissed off at his parents, pissed off at the world. And then — what to his wondering eyes did appear — two days later, Wayne had opened the door to the shittiest wrapped present he’d ever seen. Steve bit his tongue. It was for Eddie, according to the name scribbled onto the wrapping paper, and the little note declared it was a lost gift from Santa.

“Like magic,” Eddie smiled.

Steve had no idea that was his first Christmas at Wayne’s, and he had no clue what that first shove on the playground could lead to. He could still picture Eddie’s scrunched brow as he glared daggers at Tommy, could still remember the way he sank into his shoes and grounded himself for a fight, like he was used to it, like he knew what was coming. He wished he could picture Eddie’s face as he realized Santa hadn’t forgotten about him.

“Anyway,” he said, startling Steve from his thoughts, still tucked away in Eddie’s neck, “Wayne kept that note, and I think he’s got the one from the next year, too. He’d saved enough money for a couple presents that year, but I think he was grateful for a little extra help.”

Steve pictured himself, a tiny little thing, curled up in the living room, all alone on Christmas Eve as he wrapped up presents and wrote out his Santa letters. He remembered feeling less alone for the first Christmas in forever, because he was too busy sticking too much tape onto glittery wrapping paper and worrying about not getting caught to care that his parents weren’t home again.

He thought about the bag full of presents, tucked away in the back of the closet so Eddie wouldn’t find them, and his list of kids he collected from the library’s giving tree. He had planned on sneaking out, planned to slip away from Eddie’s prone form and deliver the gifts alone, like always, but Eddie squeezed his shoulder and kissed the top of his head and he realized that he didn’t have to be alone anymore. Maybe this year there could be two Santas, delivering gifts to the children of Hawkins in the dead of night. Maybe this year he could have some help. Maybe this year, there could be twice as much magic as the year before.

—

Bingo Prompts

[steddieunderdogfics]

For Challenge Monday: Two Minute Notice by helpimstuckwriting on AO3!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/59079538/chapters/150626230

Two Minute Notice by HelpImStuckWriting

Rating: Mature

38,246 words, 9/9 chapters

Archive Warning: No Warnings

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Upside Down (Stranger Things), Famous Steve Harrington, Famous Eddie Munson, Established Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Secret Relationship, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Eddie Munson Has Anxiety, Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Steddie Big Bang 2024 (Stranger Things)

Summary:

Eddie Munson knew he was destined for greatness, even if every adult and peer in Hawkins told him otherwise, and after years of hard work it looked like maybe those people were right. But, despite a major setback that brings them right back to stage one, Corroded Coffin climbs their way up the ladder. Making it big in the music industry was at the top of Eddie’s list, and the success as he stood at the peak of his career tasted so sweet. He had the fame, he had his band, he had the love of his life — but how long until his luck catches up to him and he brings the whole band crashing down? How long until the world realizes he’s not good enough? He can’t afford to lose it, can’t afford to be anything but perfect, he needs to be perfect, and he absolutely cannot afford to lose Steve Harrington.

Thanks for the rec!

This rec is a part of Challenge Monday. The challenge this week was Fics with 5+ chapters, fewer than 50 comments.

Know a fic that deserves extra love? Submit through our asks or the submission box!

[helpimstuckposting]

You’re an Idiot, Eddie Munson

Prompt: Sick Fic, Roommates, Idiots to Lovers | Rating: T | Wordcount: 13,765 | AO3 | @steddiebingo

Eddie’s an idiot. He knows he’s an idiot. He was an idiot when he asked Steve to move to Indy with him, despite his massive crush on the man. He was an idiot when he got used to Steve in his space, cooking dinner and being an all-around perfect man. He was an idiot when he started turning people down at the bar he went to on Saturdays, and he was an idiot when he stopped going all together, just so he could join Robin and Steve’s movie nights in her apartment.

He got used to Steve in his space, Steve in his plans, Steve in the kitchen in the mornings making coffee for them both; Steve taking naps on their shitty couch as the sun leaked through the window in the afternoon, bathing him in gold like some kind of coveted Greek statue; Steve laughing on the floor as Robin shoves her hand down his shirt to fetch the popcorn he’d dropped. He got used to Steve in every aspect of his life and he was an idiot for… forgetting.

Every time Steve touched his lower back when he dodged Eddie in the kitchen, every time they walked to get groceries and Steve wrapped an arm around his shoulder, every time Eddie lost himself in the jokes and the teasing and the flirting and Steve didn’t push him away, he forgot that they weren’t… well… together. That this was all just Eddie being caught up in his head. 

Because he’s an idiot.

Of course his delusion couldn’t last forever, he just… you know, hoped. But when Eddie came home from work early to a pair of high heels by the door that were decidedly not his and probably not Steve’s, and some less than savory sounds escaping from the muffled confines of Steve’s room, Eddie couldn’t exactly shove reality away any longer, lest he want to end up in an asylum.

He found himself on Buckley’s doorstep instead, pathetic brown eyes begging entrance.

“Steve brought a girl over?” She asked, rolling her eyes as she dragged him into the apartment.

He nodded miserably, heading straight for her couch and face planting into the cushions. It was a ratty old floral embroidered thing the three of them pulled off the side of the road, dragged up three flights of stairs, and did everything in their power to clean until it was presentable. Robin loved it. It had tears and loose threads and a slightly wobbly back leg and it was perfect. Perfect for catching Eddie’s tears at the moment, but good for other things, too.

Like movie nights where Robin laid her head in Steve’s lap, and Eddie sat on the floor between Steve’s legs as he carded his fingers through Eddie’s hair. He smushed his face further into the couch. Maybe if he suffocated, he’d forget Steve Harrington ever existed.

“Alright, whiny baby, spill,” she demanded, lifting his legs up so she could slip underneath them.

“There’s nothing to spill,” he mumbled into the fabric, not even lifting his head.

“You haven’t told him how you feel yet, have you?”

“Whuh- no!” He shrieked, pulling his face free and almost kneeing her in the gut as he flailed onto his elbows.

“Hey, watch it, Gumby, I have precious organs in there.” Robin shoved at his knobby knees, rubbing at her stomach like he’d stabbed her.

He rolled his eyes, kneeing her again on purpose until she nearly threw him off the couch, electing to sit on his lanky legs instead of risking bodily injury. Eddie grunted, newly immoble and tried to wiggle his way out from under her before giving up and flopping back down in surrender.

“It’s not fair,” he whined, wiggling his legs under her butt.

“It’s unfair because you literally haven’t said anything to him, you moron.”

“Agh!” he clutched at his chest, wounded like he’d been shot through the heart and he was bleeding out over the faded floral fabric. “That’s rich coming from someone who’s never once told a crush how she feels!”

She squawked and squeezed his side, slapping back as he retaliated. There was something healing about a kindergarten slap fight between friends, at least enough to distract him from why he was on her couch in the first place; why he’d left his own apartment in a flurry and practically sprinted to hers, why he’d had a lump in his throat the size of indiana itself. It slowly dissipated as he dodged her hits and light slaps, the sting against his arms, and the creeping numbness in his legs as they remained squished tightly under Robin.

She gave up with a huff, flopping her entire body on top of his. They both breathed heavily, as if they’d run a mile instead of just attacking each other out of nowhere. He revelled in it. Basked in the tightness of his lungs and the reddening skin of his arms. If he thought too much about why he was here, it would all creep back up his throat like an alien poised to burst through his chest.

But he did come here to talk, to vent, to fish for sympathy about his pathetic crush as it tore through him, the visions of what could be happening behind Steve’s closed door running through his head like a repetitive nightmare that wouldn’t leave him alone. He thought about those pointed high heels that were sprawled where his shoes were supposed to be, and whatever gorgeous girl was previously attached to them before weaseling her way into their apartment.

He felt sick.

“Have you ever thought maybe he’s fooling around because he doesn’t know how badly you’re pining over him?” Robin finally mumbled, face buried in his rumpled Metallica t-shirt. He focussed on the weight of her draped over him, grounding him like a layer of blankets, or a shiny shock blanket placed over his shoulders so he didn’t spiral into nothingness as his life burned around him.

“No,” he mumbled. “Why would I think that? It’s just wishful. He’s straight, we both know that. I’m not going to torture myself with ‘what ifs’.”

“Oh? But you’ll torture yourself with bad ‘what ifs’, like ‘what if he gets a girlfriend’ and ‘what if he moves out’ and ‘what if he discovers my big gay loser crush on him’.” She dropped her voice low in imitation, mocking him with every shot to the heart.

He groaned, “Those are different! Those are realistic! Those won’t get my hopes up only to crush them into dust to scatter across the globe like the ashes of my lifeless corpse.”

“Wow,” she said flatly, lifting her head and looking him in the eye with raised, judging eyebrows. “You’re even gayer than I thought you were.”

Eddie squawked, using the last of his energy to lift himself into a sitting position and toss Robin aside. She grunted as she hit the ground, leaping back up to slap him in the chest one more time for good measure.

“This is serious! This is important! This is heartbreak!” he shouted.

“This is desperate,” Robin muttered to herself, plopping back down on the couch. “Listen. I know he hasn’t exactly said it, but I’m not entirely sure Steve is straight in the first place. Sure, he’s only ever slept with women, but…” she softened, sagging into her cushion, “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Eds.”

Eddie shook his head, unkempt hair tangling as he rubbed it roughly against the fabric beneath him. “No. Nope. Don’t say that.”

“But it’s true!” she begged, clasping a hand around his ankle and shaking it enthusiastically, wishing she could just shake some sense into his whole body. “What straight boy acts like he does?!”

“I don’t know, Buckley, a nice one?” he shrieked, hands twitching to cover his ears like a child and shout out ‘la, la, la,’ to drown out her hopeful pleading.

“He calls your uncle every week for check-ins! He knows your schedule by heart, and he makes dinner for you every single time your shift goes overtime. He knows your favorite foods, he gets you treats sometimes just because he thought about you. I mean, you literally fall asleep on the couch together all the time!” She was whining now, voice propelling into a shout the more she listed, mind scrambling to lay out every single thing that made Eddie fall in love with Steve in the first place, as if that wasn’t entirely too torturous for Eddie to keep listening to.

“Buck, tell me right now he wouldn’t do all of that for you, too, and I’ll concede,” he demanded, crossing his arms over his chest to appear collected, even if he just did it to keep himself from falling apart.

She was quiet. He could see all of her points running through her head, all the moments Steve was generous and kind to everyone he cared about, all the times he did those things for people who weren’t Eddie. She seemed to deflate, just like him as she realized he was just that kind to everyone, and Eddie only got the brunt of it because they lived together. Of course Steve paid attention to him, they spent nearly every moment of the day orbiting each other, that didn’t mean he was special.

“He looks at you the way he used to look at Nancy,” she whispered. Her eyes were pleading, desperate for him to understand even though he couldn’t, he didn’t.

“Buck… I- I want to believe you, I swear I do. God, I want to believe you, but I just can’t,” he pleaded right back, “What happens if I do believe you, and I get my hopes up, and I do what you tell me to and confess and he just… just looks at me. Like he doesn’t know what to say, like he doesn’t know how to turn me down, or he doesn’t know how to talk to me anymore. Because I know he wouldn’t be mean, I know that. But it would be worse to see him not want to turn me down, just because I’m his friend and he feels sorry for me.”

He couldn’t handle it if Steve just looked at him with those wide eyes, mouth agape with words he didn’t know how to say. He didn’t want to watch the conflict in Steve’s eyes as he debated how to let Eddie down gently, how to not hurt his feelings when every single thing he could say would. He didn’t want to flit around the apartment and awkwardly pretend that it was okay, that he was fine, that Steve could be normal around him and everything would be fine, because Eddie didn’t know how to do that.

“So much for not torturing yourself with ‘what ifs’.”

Eddie shook his head. He didn’t understand why she kept pushing, she knew what it was like to pine after a straight person, or presumably straight person. She knew this, the feeling of desperation as she watched from afar, trying to stay sane as the other person dug themselves further and further into her heart like they were carving out a scar that would take years to heal, if at all. She sighed, patting his ankle one more time before she reached for the remote and conceded to ignoring the issue all together. She had tried her hand at persuasion, now it was time for distraction.

They watched a few reruns on TV in silence, until Robin kicked him in the shin, glancing at the clock. “He’ll probably be wondering where you are if you don’t head home soon. It’s been a few hours, I’m sure it’s safe to go back.” She looked sympathetic, her eyes just as wide and sad as he imagined Steve’s would be if he confessed. He nodded, dragging himself from the safety of Robin’s living room. She followed him to the door, sad puppy eyes maintaining their place. He knew she was frustrated with him, too, but she didn’t show that right now as she hugged him goodbye.

“Just think about it, okay?” she parted with and he nodded, if only to placate her. But he did think about it, he thought about nothing else the whole walk back to his apartment as he psyched himself up to see Steve. He knew Robin was right about some things, Steve was an anomaly of a straight man to Eddie. Sometimes, when they were cooking together or cleaning on a Sunday it felt painfully domestic as they shifted around, weaving in and out of each other’s spaces like they’d known nothing else. Sure, sometimes it felt like the smile he gave Eddie was different than the one he gave Robin or the kids, but he also knew that the tension he felt whenever they were close was one-sided, just Eddie unable to look away as Steve went about his own business like a magnet pulling his cheap metal rings toward him with every motion.

He kept thinking about Robin’s list of reasons, of the tug at his heart every time Steve came home with Eddie’s favorite snacks just because he was at the store and saw them — thought of Eddie when he wasn’t there. He tried to tamp down the hope as he remembered the man doing the same exact thing for Robin, or stocking the fridge up with Dustin’s favorites every time the kid mentioned coming to visit. Steve was just like that, Eddie knew. He knew not to get his delusions confused with reality, no matter how much he wanted Robin’s world to be the right one.

When he opened the door to the apartment, he was greeted by the relieving absence of a certain pair of heels, no evidence that they’d even existed in the first place. He chucked off his shoes, kicking them messily into a pile directly where the high heels had been, like some petty dog marking his territory. She wouldn’t even know — neither would Steve — and yet it made him feel just a bit better to see his beat up work boots shedding dirt next to Steve’s keds, where they belonged. There wasn’t a girl invading their space, no perfume floating around for Eddie to choke on as he pretended everything was okay.

Instead, the smell of a warm dinner wafted from the kitchen, the clanging of pots and pans telling him exactly where Steve was. As he rounded the corner, he could see the man flitting around from pot, to frying pan, to fridge, stirring and grilling up what smelled like Eddie’s favorite dinner.

He didn’t look dishevelled, didn’t have any hickies dappling the skin of his neck and Eddie chose to be thankful for that instead of wondering whether there were other marks in places he couldn’t see. His hair was damp, fresh and fluffy, drying with a slight curl that he never left the house with and Eddie wanted to card his hands through it, drag his nails across his scalp and feel the soft strands against his palm.

Steve whistled as he stirred the sauce in the pot, and Eddie breathed in deep, trying to melt into the scent of Steve and chopped tomatoes and chicken, shoving away the talk with Robin and the sounds he heard as he fled the apartment. He cleared his throat, leaning against the arch of the kitchen doorway to appear casual and collected, like he hadn’t just had a crisis of the heart. Steve startled, catching his eye with a smile and Jesus H. Christ, Eddie was doomed. He was like the sun, he was like beams of warmth shining through clouds after a storm, the sky parting to deliver him like god down to earth for Eddie to reach out and touch, only to brush fingers and be thankful.

Jesus, maybe he was gayer than Robin thought.

“Hey, Eds,” Steve pulled Eddie from his thoughts. He could probably wax poetic about Steve Harrington for every hour of his life, though that kind of behavior would definitely make him run for the hills, leaving Eddie to wallow in his own obsessive tendencies.

“Hey. Whatcha makin’?” he asked, though he already knew.

How long could he lean against this doorway until it was weird? Had he already been standing here too long? Did it look obvious that he was trying to act natural, only for him to overthink his naturalness to a point of being unnatural? He cleared his throat and walked over to the kitchen table. He couldn’t fuck up sitting, right?

“Grilled chicken parm!” He seemed light, carefree, satiated if Eddie wanted to torture himself more than he already had tonight.

“Mmm, my favorite.”

“I know,” Steve winked. He winked, and Eddie wanted to throw himself out of the window. He wanted to walk up to Steve and wrap his arms around him, he wanted to kiss his neck and trail his fingers down his arms, pretend that they lived together because they loved each other and not just because it was convenient to split rent.

He wanted a lot of things.

“Oh!” Steve startled, turning to point his spatula at Eddie, “I got your favorite cereal and some Yoo-hoo, and we haven’t had ice cream in a bit so I got a couple pints and I figured we could get high and watch a movie or something? Robin gave me a bag of tapes she wanted me to watch, because apparently I’m uncultured,” he mocked, voice going high at the end as if mimicking Robin’s voice, though it sounded nothing like her.

Eddie’s giggle came out high and grating, ripping through the air just to torture him. He wished he could grab the sound and shove it back down his throat, erase it from existence. He just cleared his throat instead and hoped that Steve hadn’t noticed how fucking weird he was being.

He just kept thinking of Robin’s insistence that Eddie should tell him the truth, should tell him that he’d been embarrassingly gone on the man since he’d dragged him out of hell itself. And it was embarrassing, just how much Eddie waited with bated breath every time Steve leaned in close, any time they shared air and he was close enough to count the other man’s moles and freckles, close enough to see the flecks of gold and green and whiskey-brown that call Steve’s eyes their home. If any of his friends gained the ability to read minds, he would be fucked. He got teased enough, he didn’t need to add the nonsense poetry he waxed about Steve every moment he had a spare thought.

The other man didn’t seem to notice his crush-induced spiral, turning back to the stove and humming as he continued to stir the sauce. Eddie should call Wayne. It’d been a while — a week, maybe — and if anyone could handle his sad pining, it was his uncle.

Instead, he picked up the book he left on the table that morning and pretended to read, glancing ever so often at the man who seemed to be synonymous with favorites. Favorite foods, favorite snacks, favorite ice cream, favorite movies, favorite person.

The fact that Steve didn’t already know how Eddie felt was kind of ridiculous, especially since Robin hounded him about his pining every time they were together. He knew Buckley wouldn’t betray his trust like that, though. No matter how much she bitched and whined about him, she had his back — even against her other half.

When the food was ready, it was easier to fit back into their usual banter. If ever Eddie got too close to blurting out the truth, he just shoved more chicken and pasta into his mouth and chewed until the impulse went away. Steve talked about his day and his classes, how the students were always hard to reign in when the weather got nicer and no one wanted to learn about history. Eddie thought he'd probably have graduated the first time, if Steve Harrington was his teacher.

You haven’t told him how you feel yet, have you?

He shoveled more food into his mouth.

Steve never mentioned the girl he brought home, or the shoes that were at the door, or the noises he’d heard from Steve’s room. He did mention the cafe he went to for lunch, the sandwich he’d ordered that ‘Eddie you’d love it, it reminded me of that place we went to right after moving here, you remember?’ and he mentioned the store he’d noticed near the grocery, one that just opened and had mini figures and card games and D&D stuff, ‘all that nerd shit you and the kids like, we should check it out some time.’

Eddie wanted to scream; he had no more food to shovel. So, instead, he collected the dishes and stacked them in the sink, and made his way to the living room — busying his hands with the task of rolling a few joints for their movie night.

Steve grabbed a plastic grocery bag full of tapes that he’d left by the door, and went through each movie one by one, holding them up for Eddie to see and judge. Robin was apparently on a John Waters kick, and while Eddie was down for Cry Baby, if Robin wanted Steve to watch Pink Flamingos, it was going to have to be on her terms, thank you.

He watched as Steve fed the tape into the player, and broke out the ice cream pints from the freezer — little spoon for Eddie because he preferred it for ice cream. It was calm, it was domestic, it was torture, and Eddie loved every moment with Steve. He took his glances where he could, when Steve was turned away, flicking his eyes back to the rolling papers whenever he was close to getting caught. He rolled two, figured that was enough to make him act normal again — to relax and get his shit together so he stopped acting like a twitchy little squirrel, hoarding anything Steve would give him.

He gave Steve the first hit, if only to be a creep and feel the dampness of Steve’s spit on the filter. He watched as the smoke left his lips, touching where Eddie wished he was allowed, before it cascaded out and filled the room. He took one more hit before passing to Eddie, fingers lazily brushing as the joint left his hands.

Eddie looked away as he drew in his breath, the dampness of the filter a thrill as well as a condemnation. He’d always felt like a freak, always wore that label with pride, but he’d never felt more like a freak, than when he was around Steve Harrington.

He focussed on the red-hot burn of the cherry as he pulled in a breath, the smoke burning through his lungs as he held it longer than he needed to — holding it there just to feel the white hot cloying at his throat, and grounding him before he did something stupid like lean into Steve’s space and say something flirty.

You haven’t told him how you feel yet, have you?

Buckley, if only it were that easy.

Just think about it, okay?

Actually, he should stop thinking about it. Before the words started spewing from his lips with no interference from his brain, before his heart stopped beating in his chest and came up his throat to speak the words itself, before he had those stilettos by the door wedged into his brain like a lobotomy.

“Eddie?”

He looked over to Steve, who was holding out the joint again. He hadn’t even remembered passing it back after his hit. 

“You good, man?”

“Yeah.” He took the joint once more, and tried to stay in the moment. Drifting was for later, right now was for man and dude and buddy.

It was mid way through joint #2, when Steve got cuddly. He always drifted closer, leaned in more to talk about the movie, whispered commentary even though they were home and there was no one else to disturb in the theater.

I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Eds.

He looked at him like he looked at Robin, Eddie thought. He looked at him with warmth and kindness, with a deep affection that was reserved exclusively for those closest to Steve Harrington. He looked- 

He looks at you the way he used to look at Nancy.

He was close, close enough to lean against if Eddie just let himself; close enough to brush his nose against Steve’s forehead, close enough to–

Eddie took another hit before handing it back to Steve. He held on to this one, too, until the burn of it took his mind off those too close thoughts. Steve’s lips wrapped around the filter, and in Eddie’s hazy, floaty mind it looked like something he should pray to — the smoke drifting around them, caressing Steve’s skin as gently as it dared, just a whisper as it passed. It was like that, that, you know, the renaissance art style where everything is blended and smokey and otherworldly. Like the Mona Lisa. Steve was the Mona Lisa, and Eddie wanted to breathe in all the smoke that touched his skin.

Steve was giggly now, loose and light headed as Johnny Depp cried glycerin tears and his love interest pleaded ‘please Mr. Jailer, won't you let my man go free?’

He giggled and sang along to the repetitive lyrics and shifted both legs onto the couch cushions, scooting himself closer again, leaving him resting against Eddie’s side. He was warm, so warm against the cotton of Eddie’s t-shirt and he thought maybe if he took another hit or two, he’d be able to blend into the warmth of Steve’s skin and melt together into one person.

The joint was in the ashtray on the coffee table; Eddie would need to lean over to grab it. He glanced at Steve, cuddled up nice and sweet into his side, and he didn’t want to disturb him — like a cat in his lap when he desperately needed to use the bathroom. Steve stretched and snuggled closer, eyes focussed on the TV and not on Eddie’s dilemma.

He was never known as a problem solver, his three years as a senior in high school showed the entire town of Hawkins that he wasn’t exactly the best scholar, but even Eddie didn’t think he was stupid enough to miss what would happen next.

He wiggled his arm under the man, just to grab his attention and not to jostle him free. He thought, oh, Steve would definitely just know what he wanted, because sometimes he forgot that he wasn’t a part of Steve and Robin’s creepy Shining Twins mind-meld. So instead of the man just reaching over to grab the half-smoked joint, he turned his head toward Eddie. Which, obviously that wouldn’t be an issue if Steve hadn’t been snuggled into his side, practically one leg in his lap, but — lo and behold — the movement brought his nose right to Eddie’s cheek.

He could feel his blood rush to the point of connection immediately, lighting his cheeks up like a bright red neon sign — like Eddie was some kind of brothel in the red light district signalling to the public just how horny he was for the man next to him.

He turned slowly — so slowly he wasn’t sure if it was just the weed, or if the whole world was turning in slow motion — just enough to see Steve’s face out of the corner of his eye. He thought maybe Steve didn’t realize how close he was until he turned, just like Eddie, but he still hadn’t pulled away. He smiled lazily at him instead, eyes unfocused and hazy, squinting at the corners like he was still laughing without actually doing it.

“Little close there, Sweetheart,” Eddie whispered, because anything louder than that felt blasphemous, to cut through the sleepy peace of the angel next to him.

Steve giggled, leaning back to actually focus his eyes on Eddie. He could feel the cool air in his absence, Steve’s nose no longer against his cheek.

“Whoops,” he laughed, voice just as small as Eddie’s.

“Could you grab the joint for me? I didn’t want to move you.”

Steve did as he was asked, grabbing the joint and the lighter next to it, and lighting it up for Eddie without him having to even ask. He took one small pull before handing it over, and Eddie fought with himself to hold back a moan as he savoured Steve’s saliva as it once again touched his lips. If only there wasn’t a barrier between the two, if only he could taste it from the source, feel it as he drank Steve in with the desperation of a man lost in the desert.

Steve settled himself back into Eddie’s side, and Eddie did his best not to jostle him as he finished off the joint, thankful that Steve had drifted off to sleep before he did it. At least with Steve asleep, he was safe from the confession that kept springing to the tip of Eddie’s tongue.

The taste in his mouth as Eddie woke up was stale. It felt like cotton on his tongue, dry throat clicking as he swallowed. His thoughts were soupy and his eyes were crusted, joints aching as he stumbled off the couch. He should have tried to fall asleep in his own bed, he wasn’t 20 anymore and the crack of his neck as he stretched took the breath out of him for just a moment. He dragged himself into his room to tug off the jeans he was still wearing, keeping his Metallica shirt and his briefs on from the day before, but he hadn’t bothered with pulling on a pair of sweats — his pale thighs out and about for the world to see.

Steve was in the kitchen, no doubt being the most desirable housewife in all of Indiana by making breakfast for them both. Eddie could smell the toast and butter, the thick scent of coffee drifting through the hallway to his room. He smacked his dry lips in anticipation.

They shared small smiles as Eddie made his way to the table, Steve’s hair sticking up wildly in the back. He looked soft and sleep-rumpled, a small yawn pulling itself from his lips, and Eddie looped his ankle around the leg of his chair to stop from draping himself across Steve’s back. Robin’s words were still floating around like an evil spell, compelling him against his will. If only he could ignore it, shove it into a lock-box and pretend they’d never talked, that she’d never told him to confess in the first place–

The phone rang.

Steve looked from his hand holding the spatula, to the one holding a cracked egg currently spilling into the pan.

“I’ve got it,” Eddie chuckled, squeezing Steve’s shoulder as he passed because he was nothing if not self-indulgent.

It was one of Wayne’s neighbors on the other end.

The call didn’t last more than five minutes.

Eddie hung up the phone, gripping tightly at the plastic handset. He didn’t let go. Couldn’t do much of anything except focus on the racing in his mind. He needed to leave, he needed to call off work, he needed to get back to Hawkins as fast as he could.

“Eds?” Steve asked, voice hesitant and unsure. His eyebrows were drawn together and he had stopped his cooking, clicking the stove off, one hand still wrapped around a spatula and the other halfway to reaching out for Eddie, to touch, to help, to comfort.

“Wayne had a heart attack,” he whispered.

Steve abandoned the breakfast, giving in to the want of reaching out, to cradle Eddie’s elbow in the most gentle touch, like that would help like that would make it better instead of feeling like barbed wire on his skin.

Eddie pulled away, slipping his arm from Steve’s reach and the other man’s hand remained in the air, stuck, like he didn’t know what to do next. They were both still, unusual for them, and it felt suddenly like there were glass shards in the air between their bodies, just waiting to slice them open at any sudden move.

“Is he okay? Eds?”

Eddie nodded, that’s what the neighbor said. That’s what he said. Wayne was okay, Wayne was fine, he went to the hospital on time, he was back home, he was okay.

But, Eddie wasn’t there. He couldn’t be sure, he didn’t know.

“He’s… he’s okay, he’s fine, he’s back home,” he repeated, like a mantra, like he needed to hear the words out loud in order for them to be real. Wayne was fine, Wayne was home.

“Do you want to go, to take care of him? We can stop by the grocery store and pick up some things, I can take a few days off and drive down with you,” Steve was rambling, creating plans and asking about Wayne’s favorite foods, talking about leafy greens and no red meat, about soups he could make and how much PTO he had left, and we, and us, and Eddie wanted to scream. 

“Stop.”

Steve did. He cut himself off, hand still raised to where Eddie’s elbow used to be, but he didn’t step forward, didn’t reach out again — kept himself silent. For Eddie. Because he asked.

“Stop,” he said again, watching as Steve’s eyebrows pinched in confusion. He finally put his hand down, standing in the kitchen with his arms at his sides.

“Stop… what?” He asked, and of course he didn’t know, he didn’t know why his desperate need to help, to comfort, to ease Eddie’s worries were just clawing at him with every word, digging into his skin like thorns and dragging, dragging, dragging until his insides were torn to ribbons.

You haven’t told him how you feel yet, have you?

“Stop acting like this, this perfect guy who outshines everyone else.”

A wobbly smile stretched over Steve’s face, mistaking Eddie’s distress for his typical dramatics. He looked like he wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or roll his eyes, not understanding that Eddie was serious because he didn’t know, he didn’t know.

“I want you to stop being nice to me.”

Steve squinted his eyes, “This feels like a trap, is this a trap?”

“No.” Eddie was shaking his head, clearing it out to make room for what he wanted to say, what he needed to say. He needed to put distance between him and Steve, he needed to go help Wayne and take that time to break this stupid crush and maybe, maybe, when he came back he’d be able to act normal around Steve again. “No, this isn’t a trap.”

“Okay… Well, I’m not sure how to stop being nice to you–”

“Well you need to figure it out. You need to– to be meaner, because I can’t keep going out and meeting guys and comparing them to you because they’re not you, they’re nothing like you. And I can’t keep going on dates and wishing they were over so I can just come home and hang out with you and Robin, and I can’t keep coming home to some girl's shoes by the door and pretending that doesn’t kill me just a little bit.”

Steve looked adrift in their kitchen, untethered and unsure. This wasn’t Eddie’s normal dramatics, this wasn’t Eddie throwing out a backhanded compliment to Steve, this wasn’t a ‘god, Harrington, you’re so perfect it must be exhausting’ with a laugh and a wink. This was Eddie in genuine distress, like the call about Wayne had snapped some kind of barrier between him and everything he’d been holding back.

“What are you saying?”

You haven’t told him how you feel yet–

“I love you.”

He blinked.

It was out.

He said it.

“I love you, I’m in love with you. Not like the way you love Robin or Dustin or how I love Wayne,” his voice cracked on his uncle’s name, the panic about hearing ‘he had a heart attack’ still fresh in the air, still squeezing his lungs. 

“I love you, so–,” he chokes on his words, trying desperately to hold back the flood of tears that threaten to burst; he has to say it, he has to say it, and then he can leave, he can go to Wayne and he can take a few days to figure out what to do after he just crushed his whole life into pieces, “–so you gotta stop being nice to me, or you gotta fall in love with me, because I can’t do this anymore.”

And Steve did exactly what Eddie expected him to do. He stood. He stared. He looked at Eddie like his brain had paused and he was being wholly rewired just to turn back on again, like he mentally needed to smack the connection back online or wiggle the antenna.

The kitchen felt like it was closing in as he watched Steve blink back to himself, and then glance around the room as he thought of what to say, as he thought of how to let Eddie down gently.

Eddie didn’t want to be let down gently. He didn’t want the pity or the shame or the guilt that was no doubt swimming in Steve’s head as he tried to think of a nice way, a sweet way to ease Eddie’s confession away because Eddie knew, he knew, that Steve wasn’t going to reciprocate. The sad glint to his eyes and the pinched corners of his lips told Eddie all he needed to know.

“I…” he sighed, still desperately avoiding Eddie’s eye contact. “I mean… I’m not… I’m sor–”

“I know,” Eddie whispered back. He didn’t want to hear the stuttered, stilted apology. He had nothing to apologize for, this was all Eddie’s fault. “I know, you don’t have to say anything, I just… I had to tell you.”

“It’s not that I don’t like you, Eddie, I’m just not… I don’t… I’m not into dudes that way–”

“Steve, seriously, please don’t say anything. It’s not going to make this any better, and I just… I don’t want to hear it right now, okay? So, just… Let me leave and take care of Wayne and I’ll come back in a few days and we can just forget about it.”

The other man looked like he wanted to argue, to say something else, to keep apologizing and explaining and assuring Eddie that it wasn’t him, it was Steve and that was the absolute last thing he wanted to hear. So, he turned on his heel and walked back to his room to pack a small bag, leaving Steve in the center of the kitchen with his mouth agape, spatula still in hand.

He was still standing there when Eddie passed, grabbing his coat and shoving his feet into the work boots he’d left scattered next to Steve’s sneakers. The space would be empty again for any high heels that wanted to stop by, and Eddie wouldn’t have to be here to see it. He knew that Steve would call Robin immediately, that she’d know Eddie opened his big stupid mouth and took her advice and that it backfired exactly the way Eddie had told her it would. She’d probably call the trailer at some point, and he’d wallow with her then. Right now, though, he had an uncle to take care of.

The drive was shorter than he’d remembered — a couple hours south of their apartment — and Eddie was thankful there wasn’t any solid traffic he had to wade through. He didn’t think the drive would end well if he had to sit in his van and wallow in his own head. The music blasting through his speakers could only drown out his thoughts for so long.

All-in-all, he did make it to Forest Hills without bursting into tears on the way, so Eddie counted that as a win. Though, the second Wayne opened the door for him, looking tired and a bit more harried that he had the last time they’d seen each other, the dam couldn’t hold the water works back any longer. He felt a little bad, having his uncle console him even though it should have been the other way around — it was Eddie’s turn to take care of Wayne, that was the whole point of being here. Still, he was distraught enough that it overwrote his guilt, and he just sank into his uncle’s hold, instead. Wayne dealt with it the way he always did, patting Eddie’s back and mumbling soft and gruff that he was fine, Eddie was fine, everything would be okay.

When Wayne told him something would be okay, it always felt more real than when he said it to himself.

After the crying session, Eddie insisted that Wayne sit down in his recliner and take it easy, that Eddie was here to let him rest for a bit and take care of things. He’d learned a lot by living with someone who cooked so frequently, graduated from someone who only knew how to boil hotdogs and follow directions on the back of a box, to someone who actually knew how to cobble together a respectable salad. Wayne scoffed at first. Eddie and salad had never really been paired in the same sentence, but he was an adult, and he could take care of his uncle’s diet for a few days, goddammit, he could. He would. He’d be the best goddamn caretaker this side of the Mississippi River had ever seen, regardless of his own mental state.

And his mental state was rough. Taking care of someone was a good distraction, though. He’d called the shop the second he got to Wayne’s and told them he’d need a few days off for family reasons. His boss, Tom, was always pretty understanding, probably the most understanding boss that Eddie had ever had, and he insisted that Eddie call back and take more days if he needed them.

“Lord knows my nephew could use a few more days of responsibility to knock some screws into place,” he’d muttered over the line.

Wayne wasn’t exactly thrilled to be waited on hand and foot, though. He’d always been a laid back sort of guy, but only in the way that he’d take what life gave him and go with it, make the most of whatever it was, and let the rest wash off of him like water off a duck’s back.

“I’m not some helpless little princess, Eds, I can still make my own damn coffee.”

“Actually you can’t,” Eddie whistled from the kitchen, stirring some honey into the steaming mug on the counter. He held back a smile at Wayne’s put-out grimace as he rounded the kitchen counter and made his way to the recliner.

“Well what the hell is this, then?”

“Tea!” he chirped, darting back to the kitchen before Wayne could do anything drastic like trip him in retaliation. “It’s good for you, your doctor said no caffeine and I haven’t been able to go to the store for decaf yet.”

“Pfft,” Wayne mumbled, “Decaf.”

Eddie could hear the eyeroll in his tone, but he wanted Wayne around for a long time, and he wasn’t going to let the stubborn bastard take himself out of this world with a damn cup of coffee. He could drink the tea, and Eddie would go over the list of foods that Wayne’s doctor had left him with. He needed to grocery shop, because Wayne was supposed to relax as much as possible.

The trailer was nearly the same as he’d left it, the only difference being that Wayne had his room back. Eddie had taken all of his clothes and posters and knick-knacks when he moved to Indy with Steve and Robin, leaving Wayne in peace with his own space returned to him.

Though Wayne probably didn’t think of it that way, it was hard for Eddie to see it any differently. It was Wayne’s trailer to begin with, and it was generous of him to give Eddie the only private room, but Wayne deserved his own comforts at this point in his life. And that included being waited on hand and foot when he was sick, despite his protests.

He called out to Wayne once he collected the doctor’s list of ‘heart healthy foods’, and made his way to the store. Of course, returning to the town that tried running you out of it came with a… not unnoticeable amount of stares and whispers. He tried ignoring it as he wandered down the isles, tried to look calm and collected as he grabbed shit like whole wheat bread, and plain cheerios. His cart looked like he’d stolen it from one of the mothers yelling about satanic panic by the time he was done. Eddie didn’t think he’d bought this many vegetables in his life.

The teenage girl at the checkout counter paid him no mind as she scanned his items, bubblegum popping like she was hired straight from the background of a daytime sitcom. The line of three suburban moms behind him, however, were not as unconcerned. There was something absurd about hearing the continued accusations of satanism as he loaded bags of low-fat yogurt and kale back into his cart. At this point, it felt like he could be rescuing kittens from a tree and still catch dirty whispers about him putting them up there in the first place.

He couldn’t wait to get the fuck back out of Hawkins.

Of course, that’s when he remembered exactly what was waiting for him outside of Hawkins. And you know, maybe being the poster child for Satan himself wasn’t that bad, maybe it was even a calling, maybe he’d find it endearing after a few days or weeks or months. Maybe Wayne would grow to like being a couch potato and Eddie could be his butler permanently, you know? Give back to the community that raised him, and all that.

Eddie shook his head as he unloaded the grocery bags from his van, piling up his arms with every bag so he wouldn’t have to make two trips — even if that meant he was using every ounce of strength to make sure his arms didn’t fall off.

Wayne was still in his recliner, cup of tea empty despite his earlier complaining. He was watching some basketball game on the TV, and Eddie listened passively as he emptied the bags one by one. It was all familiar, like he was back home with Steve and he hadn’t shoved both his feet in his mouth before booking it out of the city. He didn’t know anything about the terms being flung around, or the people attached to those terms, but he could almost smell the dinner Steve had cooked the day before, and feel his fingers against his elbow. If he listened to the announcers drift in from the living room, he could almost feel the breath against his neck as Steve squeezed past him to the fridge.

He opened his eyes, unaware that he’d even closed them as the fantasy washed over him. And it was a fantasy, now, since he’d just fucked it all up. He shook his head, taking out the last item from his grocery bags and balling them up to put under the sink. He wondered, absently, if the bags felt at home nestled together inside a bigger bag or if they felt suffocated being squashed in together like that. Did they feel cradled or stifled? Maybe Eddie would feel cradled if he was surrounded by more people like him, people who understood him in a way that Steve couldn’t. Maybe they were just too different.

The ring of the phone on the wall pulled him from his thoughts. It drowned out the commentators on the TV as it rattled away, and for a second Eddie hesitated because what if it was Steve? What if he picked up the phone and it was Steve’s soft tenor voice that crackled through his ear, and made Eddie want to both drive the two hours back to Indianapolis and simultaneously dissolve into a puddle on his uncle’s floor?

“Boy, if you don’t get that damn phone, I will,” Wayne called from his armchair, and Eddie unstuck himself from his spot.

“Munson residence,” Eddie drawled, trying desperately to push away the anxiety from his voice, “We got felons, accused felons, or upstanding citizens, to whom may I direct your call?”

He could hear Wayne’s exasperated ‘ah, Christ’ as he tried to maintain his composure.

“So, you told him, then,” a distinctly non-Harrington voice crackled through the line. He sighed with his whole body, slumping against the wall.

“Robin this is all your fault, you’ve got some balls to call ‘round these parts, you hear?”

“Okay, can it, Houdini. I know you’re defaulting to humor because you’re stressed, but your little disappearing act has really freaked Steve out.” Eddie could practically hear her eyeroll through the phone, could picture her sprawled across her floral couch in her fuzzy ice-cream pyjamas as she pondered how else to ruin Eddie’s life.

“Freaked Steve out? Buck, I panicked! I’m still panicked! He did exactly what I told you I didn’t want to see. He tried apologizing, for Christ sake.”

Eddie slipped down the wall, tucking his feet underneath him on the cheap linoleum tiles. He pulled at the winding phone cord, twisting and twirling it around his finger as he waited for her to respond. He wondered how long Steve had waited until he called her, or if he just went straight to her apartment after Eddie left. Did he stand there in the kitchen for a while, at a loss for what to do? Did he think about following Eddie, or did he try to shove the confession completely from his mind?

Robin’s sigh crackled through the line. “Not that kind of freaked, Munson. I told him to think about it—“

“Have you considered maybe not telling people things from now on?”

“—And I’m sure he’s having a gay little crisis in that big empty apartment, all by himself.”

“Robs, it’s barely 800 square feet, I wouldn’t exactly call it big or empty.”

“That’s what you focus on? Not the big gay crisis?”

“If anyones having a crisis it’s me! I’m gonna have to find a new apartment, a new job, change my name, maybe even flee the country!”

“Okay, that’s a little much, even for you.”

“Nothing’s too much for me, Buck, I’m the definition of much.”

“That didn’t even make sense.”

He huffed out a breath, hitting his head against the wall behind him a couple times to try and knock some semblance of sense back into this conversation.

“Alright, listen. I know you think you’re some matchmaking messiah or whatever,” he could hear Robin scoff over the phone, “But I really, really don’t want to hear it right now. I have to focus on Wayne.”

Thankfully, after a small pause, Robin graced him with a change of topic. She clearly wanted to keep talking about Steve, though, and Eddie knew that she was just trying to be helpful, but he’d figure it out… eventually. He’d figure it out eventually, and that was not today. Probably not tomorrow, either.

She sighed, “So, how long are you gonna be back in Hawkins, then?”

“Eh, right now I’ve got until Tuesday, but… I don’t know Robs.”

He might take Tom up on his offer and call back requesting more days off. He just couldn’t stop thinking about that face Steve had made, lost and confused in the middle of their kitchen, his arm raised like the confession had shut his brain off entirely. He could hear the stilted apology that he’d cut off, because that was the last thing he needed from Steve — an apology for just being who he was, an apology for something he couldn’t control, something he didn’t ever have to apologize for because it wasn’t his fault. He could imagine the same face greeting him at the door once he finally gathered the courage to go back to their apartment, wide eyes looking for something to say to make it right. He didn’t want to see it; he didn’t want to hear it.

“So, if I don’t hear from you in two days, can I send over a search party?” Robin cut through his thoughts, pulling him back to Wayne’s kitchen, and not the one back in Indy.

He knew the party were still in their senior year, he was planning on catching up with Dustin at some point while he was back. He’d need to do that before Robin called any of them, though, just to prove he wasn’t the sad sack she made him out to be.

He was. To be clear, he was the sad sack she made him out to be.

The party didn’t need to know that, though.

“Yeah, yeah, call in reinforcements. I’m fine, I just need a few days to, like… think things through.”

“You’ve been thinking too long, Doofus. Just, don’t go thinking yourself into any holes, okay?”

“Well, there’s one hole I could–”

“Okay, bye!” she shouted before he finished deflecting with a dirty joke. He always knew how to get under people’s skin, it was a talent he’d honed for decades.

He let the phone hang, resting it on his shoulder as he continued playing with the curling cord. He could hear the dial tone droning on faintly by his ear, and he sat on the tacky linoleum, listening and worrying the cord between his fingers until the dial tone had dug its way into his eardrum.

He sighed, planting his feet more firmly on the ground to pull himself back up. He put the phone back into its cradle with a soft plastic click, and made his way into the living room.

The couch sank underneath him, years of use wearing it down until it was both perfectly soft and lumpy with uncomfortable springs. It was like a hug from someone you love, with really boney elbows. If the rest of Hawkins wasn’t waiting outside the door, he’d stay here indefinitely.

“You done usin’ me as an excuse, now?” Wayne’s voice grumbled out next to him. He was reclined back in his chair, feet kicked up with a small hole on the heel of his sock. His eyes were still trained on the television, but Eddie knew he didn’t imagine the question directed toward him.

“I’m not using you as an excuse, old man.”

Wayne chucked, though his face was blank, and reached out for his mug, setting it down once more when he remembered it was empty. Eddie made a move to get up, to refill it, but his uncle waved him back down.

“I know you’re here to help, but you don’t gotta push away yer friends to do it, kid.”

He never really knew what to say when Wayne went into parent mode. It was nice, and Eddie knew he needed it sometimes, but he never really grew up with it. It wasn’t until the start of high school that Eddie had moved in with Wayne, and by that time he was used to parents bailing at any opportunity, or just pretending he didn’t exist. He was used to staying up late by himself, and pretending he owned the place just to make it feel a little less lonely that there was no one in the other room. He was used to the occasional call just to ask if he was up for helping on a ‘job’, and then the dial tone if he said no. He was used to Al Munson.

He wasn’t used to the calculating eyes that were only calculating how to help. He wasn’t used to the silence that preceded genuine understanding, and the desire to find out what Eddie needed to get off his chest. Wayne was always there to hold Eddie’s hand through his worries, to give advice about anything he didn’t understand. Eddie wasn’t used to that when he moved into the little trailer, and he didn’t think he’d ever be used to it, even now.

“I’m not trying to push my friends away,” he answered, instead of saying the other things that were running through his head.

“Just Steve, then?”

Eddie rolled his eyes, sinking further into the faded couch. Were all parents this perceptive? Or was this just a Wayne specialty?

“I know somethin’ happened t’make you drive all the way down here–”

“Uh, yeah, you had a heart attack–”

“–But it shouldn’t keep you down here, s’all I’m sayin’,” Wayne nodded his head, as if that was that. But it wasn’t, because even without Steve, Eddie would have booked it to Hawkins. Even if everything was fine, and he hadn’t made a fool of himself in that stupid little kitchen — even if he was dating Steve, for Christs’ sake, he would have dropped everything to drive down here, and if his van crapped out on him he would have hitchhiked to do it, too. Maybe he was paying special attention to the food lists and doctor instructions, and maybe he was focusing a little more on cleaning up and making Wayne comfortable, and holding himself back from ripping the nosey suburban moms a new one, maybe he was doing that to keep his mind off of Steve and his hovering hand and his sad eyes, but he was here because he loved Wayne.

“Wayne, I’m here for you, alright? I’m here because… because you’re the only dad I’ve got s’far as I’m concerned, and I need you to be okay.”

If Wayne had heard the little crack in his voice, he didn’t comment on it, but the misty haze in his eye that he blinked away told Eddie that he had. Yeah, he was distracting himself from Steve, but that had nothing to do with making sure Wayne was okay.

“Well, I, uh…” he cleared his throat, turning back to the game on the screen, “I ‘preciate you, kid.”

Eddie nodded, because that was that, and he got back to his feet to bring Wayne’s mug to the kitchen for a refill. He’d bought decaf coffee at the store, and Wayne deserved it, even if it wasn’t really what he wanted at the moment.

He spent the next two days doing much of the same. He cleaned Wayne’s room, cleaned the kitchen, used up the leafy greens for a few salads that Wayne insisted he hated, even though he cleared the plates. He wished he knew how to make the soups that Steve did when he was sick, but he wasn’t about to call and ask. Robin didn’t call again, though Eddie could practically feel her hovering by the phone two hours away.

He stared at the phone, sometimes, just imagining what it would be like to call their apartment and hear Steve’s voice. He’d probably sound relieved, happy that Eddie had checked in, though once that excitement bled out of his system, he knew it would be awkward again. He didn’t want to stand there and listen to the cracking electricity through the line, as Steve tried to figure out what to say. He hated not knowing how to talk to Steve. He’d never once been speechless in his presence, never once looked into his eyes at a loss for what to say. He hated it.

He contemplated calling Tom back, too, and asking for Wednesday and Thursday off, just to delay the inevitable. That was closer to happening than him calling Steve.

The dishes in the sink were piled up from an attempt at the grilled chicken parmesan that Steve made, but he’d fucked it up in the end and burned the sauce. They still ate the chicken, but it made Eddie miss the before — before he opened his mouth, and halted everything in its tracks; before he obsessed over Robin’s words, and blurted everything out; before he cut Steve off, didn’t let him finish talking, and fled from the whole city.

Whatever happened to not running anymore? When did Eddie throw that away again, just to disappear the second things got difficult?

He called Tom and asked for Wednesday off, too.

The next day, the dishes were still in the sink, and the groceries were down to just cereal and yogurt. He should have spent more time with Steve in the kitchen; he should have paid attention to recipes and figured out how to do things for himself without Steve around. He’d been self-reliant for so long, he hadn’t realized when he became dependent on another person again, until it was too late.

He sighed – he seemed to be doing that a lot lately – and handed Wayne a new mug.

“I’m gonna go back to the store, okay? Then I think I’ll stop by the Henderson’s or Wheeler’s to say ‘hi’, since it’s been a while.”

Wayne nodded, taking the tea without complaint. “That’ll be good for ya, see someone besides your old man.”

“I’ll be back around five, probably, just so you’re not wondering.”

Wayne grumbled an affirmative, and Eddie took his leave. He had more of an idea what to buy this time, avoiding the things he’d already fucked up cooking and grabbing more simple snacks. The suburban moms still gave him a wide berth, though their whispered gossip still made its way to his ears. He knew they were aware of Wayne’s heart attack, it wasn’t exactly a secret with high security clearance, and this was a small-as-fuck town — and yet somehow, Eddie coming to take care of his sick uncle wasn’t worth any praise to the Stepford Wives. No, only scrutiny was reserved for the Munsons.

He missed Steve.

He didn’t end up seeing any of the kids, either. Maybe Robin was right, though he’d never tell her that. Maybe he was a sad sack that needed saving. He drove to the park, instead of subjecting some poor kid to his shitty mood, leaving the bags of groceries in the car as he trudged his way to the swingset. It was surprisingly empty on a Wednesday, though he supposed it was just barely after school hours. There was also a playground at the elementary school, so maybe this one wasn’t used as much in general.

Either way, he let the breeze pass him by as he scuffed his shoes into the dirt. He should probably call Robin back before she really did call in the party to drag him out of Hawkins. Maybe Steve had figured out what to say by now. Maybe five days was enough time to ignore the giant gay elephant in the room. Did he want to ignore it, though?

Kind of.

But he also didn’t. Robin was right again (though he’d seriously never tell her). The confession was a long time coming, and Eddie should have done it months ago. He should have just sucked it up and said it the second he realized, just so he could squash it early and they could get back to normal. He wanted Steve’s hand in his hair again. He wanted to watch shitty movies on Robin’s trash couch again, all squished together on the two-seater as if they belonged to one body. He wanted to come home and smell Steve’s cooking.

Wayne had a check-up the next weekend, one he’d already insisted several times that he had a ride to, and Eddie didn’t need to be there for. He kind of felt… untethered, in the middle of the playground with his feet swinging idly. It was nice out, the breeze was warmer than it had been for a while, and it didn’t make him feel any better. He was glad Wayne was okay, obviously, but he kind of wished the old man would ask him to stay. Eddie didn’t even want to stay in Hawkins, but he wanted to feel like he was needed somewhere.

Maybe this was how Wayne felt all those years Eddie yelled about ditching Hawkins at the first opportunity. Maybe this was payback.

He shook the stale thoughts from his head, remembering there were a few dairy products in his van and he should probably get back to the trailer to unload them. He was probably ready to go back to Indianapolis tomorrow, probably ready to face the music, as it were.

Wayne wasn’t in his recliner when Eddie got back, but he did hear the tap running and dishes clacking in the kitchen sink.

“What did I tell you, old man? Leave the dishes to me,” he grumbled, kicking his sneakers off as he juggled the grocery bags. They rustled in his arms as he gracelessly fought his way to the kitchen, bags piled high to once again avoid a second trip.

They all nearly toppled to the floor when he saw Steve at the sink, a stack of dishes already in the drying rack as he scrubbed another.

He wanted to swear at god himself, if he believed in any of that crap. He said he was probably ready to go home, not be ambushed in Wayne’s kitchen with his arms full of groceries. He didn’t even know what to do. He kind of felt like running again, feet itching to move and get him as far away as possible, but he couldn’t exactly run to the car with all the bags in his arms. They called his attention, nearly cutting off the circulation at his wrists as they begged to be put down somewhere, anywhere.

Steve was just as frozen, though he must have heard Eddie come through the door. He still had a cup in his hand, suds dripping from his fingers as he paused to watch Eddie malfunction in his presence.

“Hi,” he said eloquently, putting the cup back in the sink and wiping his hands on the towel hanging from the stove handle. 

“Uh,” Eddie added helpfully. He glanced at the empty kitchen table, feeling like his arms would break if he held onto the grocery bags any longer, and yet weirdly feeling like they were the only things between him and Steve, like the glass panel at a prison visiting center.

He swallowed around his pride and the lump in his throat, and carefully placed each bag on the table, one by one. Steve was still staring at him as he finished. Just an hour ago, he could have sworn he was ready to talk, to move past this weirdness between them, and yet faced with the man of the hour, his words all dried up on his tongue.

He was still fiddling with one of the plastic bag handles, tearing off the loose tags in the plastic to avoid looking at the man in front of him.

“Wayne’s across the street,” he offered, gesturing to the door. Eddie nodded. “I’m… uh. I brought a couple different bowls of soup and a casserole. I wasn’t really sure what things Wayne liked, but I tried to go for something more classic, just in case. And, uh, I figured I could wash some dishes while I waited for you. I mean, Wayne didn’t seem to mind, so–”

“What are you doing here?” Eddie cut him off. He seemed nervous, shuffling from foot to foot, wringing his hands out now that they were empty of dishes. It was the awkward silence he was dreading, the stuttered responses and stilted words. Steve sighed, looking back at the sink longingly, like he’d rather be slaving away just to avoid Eddie’s eyes.

“I’ve been thinking…,” Steve trailed off, shoe scuffing against the linoleum.

“So I’ve heard.”

“Robin called?” He looked up, meeting Eddie’s eyes.

“Oh, yeah,” he nodded, glancing at the phone like she’d somehow know he was talking about her.

“What… uh… what did she say?”

“Mostly just called us idiots,” he lied.

“Yeah, she’s… she’s been doing a lot of that.”

Steve went quiet again, sneaker still scuffing along the kitchen floor. He cleared his throat, opened his mouth to say something, and then clicked it shut again. God, the silence made Eddie feel like he was full of ants, crawling up and down his legs and wiggling between his toes.

“Steve, you don’t have to make any of this better, okay? It isn’t something that needs to be fixed.”

“I didn’t know,” Steve blurted out, suddenly still in the kitchen like he had been that day in their apartment. His hands were still clasped together, and his foot was still pointed like he wanted to keep grinding it into the tile, but he was still, unmoving. Just his eyes darted back and forth as he looked at Eddie.

“I know, that was kind of the point, Steve,” he sighed, crossing his arms. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“No, I mean, I didn’t know you could like both,” Steve corrected, swallowing. Eddie could hear the click of his dry throat as he did it. “I didn’t know.”

Eddie wasn’t really sure what he meant by that. He glanced to the sink, a pesky water drop dripping into an empty pot, and then looked back down at the grocery bags on the table. He didn’t really know what to ask to clarify, either.

Steve grumbled, like he was frustrated with himself for his choice of words. He was always mad he couldn’t make the right ones come naturally, like Eddie could. But Eddie could only think of the right words when it didn’t matter, when it wasn’t important.

“I only ever liked girls, Eddie. I mean…”

Was this it? Was this the start of the rejection Eddie knew was coming? Steve liked girls, Steve had always liked girls, Steve didn’t like Eddie.

“I thought that liking girls meant that I couldn’t like you, because I didn’t know you could like both,” he emphasized again. Steve stepped forward, dropping his hands to his sides.

Eddie… thought he knew what he was saying. He thought he understood what those words meant, but it was so far out of left field that it didn’t make sense, it was so far past what he’d ever hoped to hear that he was more convinced he was hallucinating than anything else.

“Do you know how many times I brought girls over wishing they were you?”

Eddie blinked. He shook his head. He wasn’t sure he understood English anymore.

Steve took another step forward.

“I don’t want to stop being nice to you.”

He said it with weight, like it meant something, like he was saying something else, and Eddie couldn’t quite put his finger on it — couldn’t read between the lines when he wasn’t even sure he could read in the first place anymore.

He took another step forward, and Eddie had the irrational urge to throw one of the grocery bags at him to keep some distance. He wasn’t prepared for this, he wasn’t ready for this, he didn’t even know what this was, really.

“You said… you said I should either stop being nice to you, or fall in love with you,” he repeated, “and I don’t want to stop being nice to you, Eddie.”

Steve took another step forward, reaching out for Eddie’s hand, and he couldn’t help but compare it to the day he bolted. Instead of stunned and stuttering, frozen in place, Steve looked determined and sure of himself. His eyes weren’t wide with confusion or darting around for a way out, or a way to turn Eddie down that wouldn’t crush him. He stared at Eddie with a sharp focus, still reaching out to touch, but not afraid of the contact. He was so close, only a couple inches between them, and Eddie shook his head to dislodge the barrage of Steve, Steve, Steve running through his brain.

He took a step back, hip hitting the rounded corner of the kitchen table, but his hand didn’t slip from the other man’s grip. He needed space to get his thoughts in order, because he didn’t have any when he was standing this close to Steve.

“I’m not sure you really know what you’re agreeing to right now.”

Steve shook his head, still holding onto Eddie’s hand, grip tight like he was afraid Eddie would run again.

“I do, I know exactly what—”

“I want to have sex with you,” he blurted, snapping back to himself at Steve’s confused blinking. He took a breath, trying to collect himself so he didn’t fuck this up any further, so he could explain to Steve what being nice to him meant, so he didn’t just take Steve at face value and grab onto him desperately, without him knowing the full picture.

“I don’t just want you to be nice to me. I don’t just want everything to go back to how it was, I don’t want to freak you out when you realize how gone on you I am,” he said, begged. He took another breath, wrapping it around his lungs like a blanket and fortifying his resolve. He stepped back into Steve’s space. The hand around his slackened but didn’t let go.

“I want to kiss you,” he whispered, flicking his eyes down to Steve’s lips and noticed with a thrill of satisfaction that Steve did the same. “I want to hold you,” he took another step forward, nearly chest to chest. He could feel Steve’s heartbeat though the soft cotton of his T-shirt, pounding away like it was trying to escape this time.

Steve was still staring at his lips, and with the beating of his frantic heart, Eddie started to believe maybe he did know what he was getting into. Maybe Robin was right, again — Jesus Christ — and Steve really had been freaking out through a sexuality crisis for the past few days. All by himself in their big, empty apartment.

That didn’t sound like the start of a porno when Robin had said it, but now? With Steve looking at him like that? His eyes dark and eyelids drooping with unconcealed desire, still focused on Eddie’s lips like the thought to look away hadn’t even crossed his mind. He licked his lips. Steve tracked the motion, and deliriously Eddie thought of a lion in a nature documentary, stalking its prey. What he wouldn’t give to see Steve drooling over him.

“I want to touch you,” he continued to whisper, the air in the trailer dense and heavy, squeezing around them like the walls themselves were pushing them together. He couldn’t quite tell which one was being trapped anymore, he or Steve. Steve’s palms were starting to sweat. Eddie swallowed.

“I want to hear you moan underneath me, like those girls you brought home.”

He was so close he could feel Steve’s knees nearly buckle, his hand gripping tighter against Eddie’s to keep his balance. He swallowed, blinking back to himself, eyes drifting sluggishly to Eddie’s and away from his mouth.

“Can I be nice to you, now?” Steve whispered, so quiet that Eddie wouldn’t have heard him at all, if there was any space left between them.

The air was so heavy, dripping around them like molasses and he couldn’t get the words back out of his throat. He barely dipped his head in a nod before Steve pushed forward, the screech of the cheap metal table legs only background noise as Eddie was crowded against the wall. His lips were warm, just like Eddie had imagined so many times, soft and sweet. He’d pictured these lips taking him apart in their apartment, on his bed, on Robin’s old floral couch, in the grocery store every time Steve grabbed one of his favorites. Favorites, favorites, favorites; these lips were his favorite.

He could hear the soft breaths escaping Steve’s mouth, feel the hot air against his lips — another favorite. Steve’s hand let go of his, fitting against his hips like he’d already carved out a place for them in Eddie’s skin, perfectly molded to grab and hold and never let go. He could barely grasp onto any fleeting thought floating through his head, all so intangible and opaque, like a mirage drifting in and out of view. But Steve’s lips were an oasis, and Eddie was desperate to drink him in — catalogue every noise and feeling and taste like a new collection of favorites that only Steve could provide. This was infinitely better than chasing any last remnant of Steve on the filter of the joints they shared, better than the passing slide of Steve’s hand on his shoulder or his back as he passed.

He was so preoccupied by the feeling of Steve’s everything sliding and gripping and licking and sighing and clicking into place like a missing piece, he didn’t hear the creak of the step outside, missed the rusted rasp of the handle as it turned just around the corner.

“Well, I’m glad ya’ll’ve figured yourselves out, but it’s a small trailer and I was hopin’ for a beer if you don’t mind.”

After sharing the same space, the two steps back that Steve rapidly took — a sheepish, panicked smile on his face — felt like an entire continent. Eddie gripped tightly onto his hand so he couldn’t get far.

Wayne was standing to the side, face blank but Eddie could still see the twinkle in his eye — like interrupting was a form of entertainment — and he knew the excuse was a lie. The old fart probably just wanted to see their faces being caught red handed. Wayne couldn’t even have beer right now.

“I do mind, actually,” Eddie said, gathering his wits faster than Steve, “The doc said a month, old man, you’re not weaseling a beer outta me.”

Wayne shook his head, muttering about being treated like a flower, and snagged one of the trucker hats from the wall before heading back to the front door. Fucker didn’t even need to get past them, Eddie knew what he was about, he could read that old man like the back of his hand.

“Goin’ for a walk with Fred, don’t wait up,” he called out before making his way back to the neighbors.

“Is that alright?” Steve asked, pointing at where Wayne had just been.

“Yeah, the doc said he should start doing light exercise and they mostly just gossip, anyway. They’re almost worse than the suburban moms.”

“No I mean…,” he stumbled over what to say, looking back and forth between the door and Eddie and their hands clasped together and oh, his eyes were still a little panicked.

“Oh yeah, totally, Wayne’s known about me since middle school, he’s not gonna say anything.” Eddie paused, thinking back to the twinkle in his eye, “Actually I’m more than certain he set that up in the first place.”

Why else would he have let Steve do the dishes alone while he made himself scarce? He’d probably seen Eddie’s van return, and waited a few minutes before checking on them like some fucked up puppeteer, pulling their strings behind the scenes. He was a sneak and a weasel and Eddie loved him more than anything.

He glanced up at Steve — hand still pointed to where Wayne was — and caught his eye once more. His cheeks were flushed, lips slightly parted, and it hit him all at once that he could have that, he could have Steve. The other man smiled at him, and Eddie could feel all the worry and anxiety crash to the ground like a wave, pulling away from him in the high tide of Steve’s happiness. And he did look happy, flushed and alive, and so relaxed in the trailer that Eddie had called home for so long.

He didn’t have to keep his distance anymore, didn’t have to pretend that Steve’s hand on his shoulder or brushing against his lower back was anything less than revolutionary, and he didn’t have to stop himself from wrapping his arms around the man and holding on tight. He squeezed the hand still grasped in his, and revelled in the firm squeeze he received back.

“Do you want to help me make dinner, or do you have other plans?” Steve asked, no longer whispering, but no less intimate in the small space they shared. He wiggled his eyebrows like a dork and Eddie felt like he could burst.

“I can think of a few things to do,” he smirked, pulling on Steve’s hand to urge him forward, but only if he wanted, only if he took the step to do it himself.

Steve chuckled, looking down to Eddie’s hand like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and that would have made Eddie panic, before. Before he’d made a fool of himself, and before he’d run from the apartment, and before Steve came all the way to Hawkins just to get him back, and before Steve was his to tug and grip and hold onto. Now, he just felt the same. Like he’d wake up any second and be back on their couch, half-smoked joint in the ashtray and a campy John Waters movie dancing away on the TV screen.

He caught Steve’s eye again and the man relented, stepping forward to crowd Eddie back against the wall, leaning forward to claim his lips again, slower this time. It wasn’t hurried and frantic like it had been just moments ago, it was sweet and gentle and indulgent and Eddie added another favorite to his list. He was sure there would be more favorites to come — favorite ways to hold, and favorite ways to spend time, and favorite ways to annoy Robin and make her regret ever pushing them together. He smiled against Steve’s lips.

They could go on lunch dates to the deli that Steve found, and take the kids to the game shop, and melt together like the ice cream Steve grabbed whenever he wanted to make Eddie’s day. They could cook without Eddie worrying about being too much, or too obvious, or too awkward, and he’d never have to see another shitty pair of high heels where his shoes were supposed to be, taking up space next to Steve’s.

He couldn’t wait to start collecting favorites.

—

Bingo Prompts

[helpimstuckposting]

Dungeons and Dipshits

Prompt: True Love's Kiss | Rating: G | Wordcount: 4,701 | AO3 | @steddiebingo

Thank you so much for your D&D help @sourw0lfs and @tinytalkingtina !!

The party creeps as quietly as they can into the stone chamber, the guards outside surprisingly easy to distract, a little suspiciously easy to distract. This was supposed to be the end goal, right? Everything they were here for? The king was nowhere to be found, the castle was packed with guards that fell one after the other, like dominos after the slightest tap. The chamber was the end of the line, allegedly filled with the gold stolen from countless families in the name of lining the crowns pockets, and the medicine that Nog’s family needed to survive, hoarded for only the highest bidders. Of course, who could bid on it, when every last penny had already been extorted from the families that needed it most?

This vault should be the hardest obstacle yet, after everything they’d been through to get here. Instead, the guards outside are all unconscious, and Beeve carefully pushes open the door to their glory. Nog, ever the paranoid, is adamant there’s a trap around the corner of some kind, something they need to watch out for, so he insists they go quietly, gently, trying not to disturb anything that may lay in wait. It’s dark inside, hard to see much past the crack of light that spills in from the hallway.

Bobbin is surprisingly lax about it all, unconcerned and certain that this is it, there’s no trap at all beyond the door or the darkness, and the chamber is theirs for the taking. Typically she was hyper vigilant, always the first to check for danger, but this time? She’s sure it has to be safe.

“I’m serious, guys, I think we’re totally overreacting. Everything is fine, clearly there’s nothing wrong here,” Robin cackled, the sparkling “1” in front of her the only thing to show for her perception check.

“The dust has gone to her brain,” Mike mumbled, shaking his head in dismay. “Okay, what about me? I got a 22,” he shot a glare toward Robin, like she’d rolled a 1 on purpose just to slow them down.

Eddie nodded, gesturing to the scattered dice on the table, an eager glint of anticipation in his eye. He seemed too happy, relaxed, which meant something was about to go wrong. “Tayr, on a 22, follows Bobbin a bit more cautiously—”

Mike grinned a smug little smile, flicking his sights to Robin, who rolled her eyes and reached across the table to smack him in the arm. Mike scoffed, shoving her away, and the table dissolved into a fight of playground-level hair pulling. Eddie rolled while they were distracted — shimmying excitedly in his seat — before loudly clearing his throat to grab their attention.

“You feel… unsettled. You know it can’t be this easy—“

Tayr steps forward, shoving Bobbin out of the way with a roll of his eyes. He seems more cautious than he was just a moment ago, but he can’t put his finger on why. It’s floating around him somewhere, the answer, a prickle at the back of his neck like something isn’t quite right here. He feels like he’s being watched, but not from the darkness ahead.

There’s a small bowl on the wall to his right, and upon placing the lit end of his torch within, more fire rises from inside it, tracing its way along the walls of the chamber, and lighting the way through an intricate path outward, until the entire room is visible.

It’s empty.

The whole chamber is empty. The party looks from member to member, wandering further into the chamber in confusion. Where is everything? Had they fallen for a decoy and aimed for the wrong room? Is the real vault elsewhere in the castle? No wonder the guards outside were so incompetent, they weren’t guarding anything.

“Wow. Told you so,” Bobbin taunts, shoving Tayr’s shoulder as she passes him. He glares at her, that suspicious feeling still prickling away up his spine. Their cleric, Will the Wise, pats his shoulder in sympathy, but he knows something else is going on.

“So… where is everything?” Fraudiem wonders aloud, making his way further into the empty chamber. They’d collected him along the way, stumbled across him in the forest as they planned their route into the castle. He’d become particularly attached to Beeve, who follows along behind him toward the center of the room.

At first Bobbin had just shoved Beeve toward the stranger to distract him from the party’s conversation, but Beeve’s first instinct in a bind is just to flirt his way out of it. Which… surprisingly worked, much to the party’s chagrin and Beeve’s insufferable smugness.

“Maybe it’s… hidden?” Beeve answers, spinning in a circle like he’ll suddenly find the treasure if he stares hard enough.

Frau giggles, staring at him like a lost little puppy, “You’re so cute when you’re confused.”

“—Ugh!” Dustin groaned, “enough with the flirting!”

“Hey! I didn’t complain when you tried to flirt with that bar maiden for information,” Steve shot back.

“Yes! You did! Repeatedly!”

“Yeah, because you were bad at it, not because flirting doesn’t work.”

“It only works when you do it because you’ve got a plus 12 on persuasion,” Dustin grumbled, spinning the die under his fingers.

“Actually, I think it would work even if he had a minus 12,” Lucas grumbled back, staring at Eddie’s star-struck face like it personally offended him.

Eddie cleared his throat, clapping his hands for attention. “Alright, enough about the flirting. Beeve and Frau are minding their own business, you should be concerned with the treasure and not someone else’s relationship. The chamber is empty. Will, Tayr, Nog, and Sundar, you’re still by the door, correct?”

Will, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas nodded their heads, eyes on the board and their miniatures.

“We stepping into the chamber or back into the hallway?”

Dustin shook his head, “There’s gotta be more here, like a secret door that leads to another vault or something.” The other three boys nod, a steady focus to their eyes.

“Alright,” Eddie clears his throat once again, slipping into his DM voice. “The chamber is quiet, nothing but the flickering flames against the walls to light your way—”

They split up, checking the walls for traps or hidden doors.

“I just don’t get it, all the signs pointed to here,” Nog grumbles, shuffling around and smacking his axe against stones to check for movement.

“Maybe someone just isn’t as smart as they think they are,” Bobbin whistles, making her way closer to Beeve and Frau. Sundar laughs at her nonchalance, smothering it with a cough when Nog glares at him.

“Oh, like anyone else had a better idea?”

“I swear to god, that fucking tone,” Frau grumbles toward Beeve, who can’t help the smile that breaks out at his exasperation. Frau pulls a strand of hair over his mouth to cover another giggle and Beeve swears he’s never been more infatuated with anyone in his life. No one else had fit into their group so quickly and it’s so endearing the way he snarks at the kids, if only to see the smile it brings to Beeve’s face every time. He winks at the paladin, making him smile even harder as the rest of the party are content to ignore them.

“Maybe it’s an illusion, and we just can’t see what’s in this room,” Will adds as he, too, steps further into the vault.

“Guys,” Sundar hesitates, stepping forward at a much slower pace than the rest of his party, “I’m not really sure we should be here. I mean, Tayr said something didn’t feel right and I’m kind of inclined to agree with him. If—“

Sundar is cut off as the heavy metal door slams shut behind him, locking the party into the room with seemingly no exit.

“I’m gonna need you all to roll initiative,” Eddie boomed, his voice practically bouncing with amusement.

“WHAT!” Dustin shouted, slapping a hand against the table — the miniatures jumping at the impact.

“How?!” Mike yelled, “We didn’t even do anything!”

“There’s no one else here! We checked!” Lucas smacked his hands against the sides of his head, cradling it in his suddenly clammy palms.

“You said the only thing here was the torch lights! On a 22!”

“Ah, ah,” Eddie tutted, his grin practically bleeding off of his face, it was so wide. “I said someone was watching you, it’s not my fault you couldn’t tell from where.”

“It’s literally your fault!”

Eddie cackled, thriving in the chaos of his own making. Steve couldn’t help but look on in amusement, Robin kicking him under the table. He knew he was being obvious about his crush on Eddie, but he couldn’t exactly care when this whole campaign gave him the perfect excuse to flirt with the man any chance he got. Steve was willing to take certain liberties, and if that meant mooning over the weird gremlin man while the rest of the party lost their minds, then so be it. Eddie didn’t seem to notice much, anyway.

The party grumbled as they rolled, shouting out their numbers for Eddie to write down on whatever secret papers he had hidden behind his screen. He cleared his throat, ready to continue their little journey.

“The chamber rattles with the sudden slam of the door—”

Sundar is startled the most, the stone behind him still and solid, as if it had never been open in the first place. He steps forward, awkwardly trying to reach one of his friends, to not be alone by the ominous door. The chamber is silent, still, aside from their party. It doesn’t seem like anything at all is about to happen.

Will the Wise tries to detect other magics that might be in the room, but once again they’re left with no leads. This is the quietest start to a fight they’ve ever had. Nog tries for another trap door somewhere, something that a threat could come out of, and yet that leads nowhere as well. He’s left standing bereft in the empty room, looking from friend to friend with no idea where to go next.

Out of nowhere, the room quickly starts filling with fog, a creeping sort of mist that obstructs their view. It’s like the room has been completely engulfed in a sickly yellow cloud, and no one can see anything past their own noses. It’s thick, heavy, clogging their throats with its poison.

“—I want you all to put on these,” Eddie said, cutting off his own dramatization of their surroundings. He held out a plastic bag, gesturing to the squares of fabric inside with a grin.

“Blindfolds?” Dustin gasped, excited to see what props Eddie brought. Steve rolled his eyes, sharing a glance to Robin. He couldn’t tell if she looked excited or irritated, but he knew she’d go along with it — she was just as dramatic as Eddie most of the time.

“Why,” Lucas whined with his head in his hands, drawing out the word until it was thin and completely muffled by his palms.

“For the drama!” Eddie shook the bag at them, holding it closer to Steve’s face until he caved.

He sighed, reaching into the bag to pull a bandana out, folding it into a long rectangle. He promised to be a nerd for one campaign, he promised he would go along with it all, he promised — so he sucked it up and tied the fabric around his eyes. The things he did for a stupid crush.

Once they were all successfully blinded, Eddie returned to the game.

“Uh, guys?” Beeve calls out, coughing as the fog enters his lungs; his hands are held in front of him like he can somehow find Frau and Bobbin, though he knows they’re a few feet away, still. He feels around, trying to grab onto someone, anyone, just to know he’s not alone. Bobbin was right near him before the fog broke out, he should be able to feel her if he just crosses a few feet, but the fog is so dense and Beeve can’t tell which direction he’s facing — she could be anywhere. He has to get to them, he has to find them, but before he’s able, the sound of Tayr breaking into a coughing fit jolts through the chamber. His breathing is ragged and shallow, his knees hitting the ground with a dull thud as he fights to regain some air in his lungs.

Bobbin’s gasping breaths pierce through the fog next, and right into Beeve’s chest, but there’s silence that follows — no sound of her being knocked to the stone floor.

“I’m okay!” she shouts, and he nearly hits the ground from sheer relief. They’re not going down as quickly as he’d feared, which is good — great, even — but if they can’t get out of this somehow, it’s only a matter of time.

It’s a blind fight, whatever is hidden in the mist is waiting for them to succumb to the poison bleeding through the room. Sundar is still standing; he tries to make his way toward another party member, and Will tries to disperse the fog, to no avail.

“I don’t know what to do!” the cleric yells, letting out a frustrated groan. “I could conjure a gust of wind, but I don’t know where anyone is. I don’t want to throw someone into a wall by accident.”

Nog calls out to reassure his friend, but the gas is too much for his small lungs. He’s the next one to hit the ground in a coughing fit, axe skittering across the floor as it falls from his hands.

Another voice rings out, much closer. Frau coughs like Bobbin had, choking for a moment but ultimately fine. Something clatters against stone, like another weapon is thrown or dropped or wielded and Beeve can’t tell what’s caused it. There’s a yell, and then a few moments of silence, aside from his own footsteps wandering around, hoping to find someone else in the party, to collect themselves, to reassure.

He feels useless, his only weapon is a club and that’s not exactly useful when he can’t see whatever threat he should be aiming for. Tayr gets back to his feet, thankfully, but the coughing still doesn’t sound good. The mist is starting to sting their eyes, as if the obstruction itself wasn’t enough, and this wouldn’t be so terrible if they hadn’t just fought a whole fleet of the king’s guards before entering the chamber.

Nog’s axe makes another noise, scraping across the stone like it’s been kicked.

“I found Nog!” Bobbin calls out, wheezing through the mist. If they don’t get out of this soon, they’re all going to succumb to the poison before they even figure out who’s doing this. They can’t blindly start swinging, hoping to hit an enemy they can’t see, or they might accidentally strike each other. Sundar is the next to go down, and as far as Beeve remembers, Will is the closest party member to him.

“Will! Forget the wind, can you heal Tayr or Sundar?” he shouts. There’s no answer.

“Will?” Tayr calls out, a bit of panic slipping into his wheezing voice. There’s still no answer. The clatter of something against stone from moments ago is becoming unfortunately clearer with every second of silence that follows.

Nog yells, frustrated with their inability to figure out who’s doing this. “It’s one of us!” he shouts, “There’s no one else here, it has to be one of us!”

“What?!” several voices call back. “How—

“—How can it be one of us?” Mike yelled across the table, blindfold still covering his eyes like the rest of them.

Eddie didn’t respond with an answer, and Steve could imagine him sitting just to his right with a shit-eating grin on his face, excited to continue.

“Silence!” he boomed, with a loud noise — probably his hand hitting the table. “The mist is all consuming, your eyes burn and your throat threatens to close. Dustin, give me another constitution saving throw.”

Nog’s coughing isn’t as bad as before, and it’s hard to tell if they’ve lost anyone but Will yet. He’s still not answering, and Tayr is still panicked, muttering to himself from wherever he is in the fog. Beeve hears footsteps to his right, knows that it must be Frau because he was the only one near enough when the cloud appeared, since Bobbin had branched out to heal Nog. Something itches at the back of Beeve’s mind, a pesky little voice that says Frau is the only member of the party that hasn’t answered their call-and-responses. They’ve all been shouting out for each other, but other than Frau’s occasional coughing, there’s been no other sound, no check-in to say he’s okay like the rest of them, no attempt to reach out and help.

He shakes his head, tries to dispel the thought from his mind because it couldn’t be. Frau is one of them, one of the party, Frau is Beeve’s other half, just like Bobbin and he knows that neither of them could betray the party like this. He steps forward, catching up to the sound and finding the man he’d called his for months now.

“Beeve!” Frau yells, “Thank god!” but his eyes are panicked, like he’s trying to hide something, like Beeve’s interrupted his plans.

He watches Frau’s eyes shift from side to side, though neither of them can see farther around the fog. He can’t believe it. Can’t believe that he could be tricked like that.

“It’s Frau!” he calls out to the rest of the party, and the panic in the other man’s eyes turns sharp. “Frau is the one doing this.”

“—WHAT?” The party yelled around the table, chaos erupting at Steve’s declaration.

“Are you kidding me?!” Mike whined, hands shooting up like he was about to pull his blindfold off, but he kept his hands away. He was just as passionate about all this as Eddie, and he wasn’t about to ruin the illusion just because he was caught off guard.

“How could you do this?!” Lucas shouted next, and Robin shoved Steve’s shoulder, incomprehensible noises bubbling up from her throat.

“You’re dead, Munson,” she screeched, “You’re so fucking dead!”

“Steve, Steve!” Dustin shouted at the other end of the table. “Cloudkill is a concentration spell, if you break his concentration then we’re fine!”

Steve groaned, slumping in his seat. How could he break Eddie’s concentration? He couldn’t even figure out how to help in all of this, and apparently it was his fault to begin with, because he’d been the one to insist Fraudiem join their party. So much for flirting being his secret weapon, he’d doomed them all.

He heard Robin scoff next to him, mumbling to herself. “Frau, oh you slimy little skeezeball, frau means fraud in Latin. I hate you so much.”

He could imagine Eddie batting his eyelashes in response, giggling to himself for being found out. God, Steve wanted to wipe that smile right off his face, even if he couldn’t see it. He knew the man was vibrating in his seat, a plan come to fruition, and there was one thing that had shocked him, one thing that had him at a temporary loss for words, and scrambling to get his plans in order because Steve had thrown him an action he hadn’t expected — and that was when he’d flirted with Frau in the first place.

Eddie’s eyes had gone wide, mouth open like a fish out of water and it had been so satisfying to make the other man quiet — a feeling he’d been craving for the rest of their sessions. Steve sat up in his chair again, a new determined set to his jaw and he hoped his sudden concentration threw Eddie for another loop. There was one thing that might break Eddie’s concentration, if the dice played out like he wanted them to, he just had to ask.

He cleared his throat, turning to Eddie, though he couldn’t see the man past the blindfold. “I’m standing right next to you now, right?” he asked.

“That’s right, pretty boy,” he taunted. Steve thought he could hear someone fake-gagging across the table — probably Mike — and that spurred him on even more.

“Could a kiss break concentration?”

“Are you kidding me?” Mike shouted, “Now is not the time! He’s evil!”

“No, no,” Robin jumped in, slapping Steve’s arm a couple times, “Let the man speak!”

He desperately wanted to rip the blindfold off and see Eddie’s face, see the expression of shock or confusion. Were his eyes wide, eyebrows drawn tightly together? Was he sitting there with his jaw slack, brain having yet to catch up, to answer Steve’s question? He hoped so.

Eddie cleared his throat, tapping his fingers against the table before he giggled nervously.

“I guess?” he sounded hesitant, unsure if he should humor Steve or put his foot down instead. “But!” he shouted over Mike’s complaints, “It has to be a significantly high roll, I’m not just going to give it to you!”

“Yeah, right,” Robin mumbled, and Steve elbowed her in the side.

“Fine!” Steve lifted his blindfold only enough to find his d20, making sure not to spoil the illusion by looking at the board or at Eddie’s face. He gripped it in his hand before letting go of the blindfold, allowing darkness to fill his sight once more.

He was going to do this right, he was going to take a chance he probably shouldn’t take, but when had Steve ever held back when it came to pursuing what he wanted? Plus, he was a little annoyed at Eddie for that twist, and if he wanted the man shocked, he was going to really shock him. Give it that Harrington charm, do something he couldn’t just ignore.

Steve fumbled around with his empty hand, waving it through the air until he felt Eddie’s arm graze the tips of his fingers. He gripped the man’s wrist, could just hear the quiet, confused whine that left Eddie’s lips as he loosened his hold and trailed his fingers up the man’s arm, across his shoulder, and gripped the back of his neck.

He leaned forward, giving Eddie only enough time to gasp before he was tasting the air from his lungs. He heard the whine again, a little louder than the first, and he hoped he could hear it several more times tonight — maybe once the session was over and he asked Eddie to stay.

“No way,” someone mumbled across the table, and it was just loud enough to remind Steve why he did this to begin with. He let go of the die in his other hand as he squeezed the back of Eddie’s neck, pulling back into his own space after he heard the rattling piece of plastic settle in its place.

The table was quiet, everyone still blindfolded as far as Steve was aware. He heard Robin rustle next to him before she shot up from her seat.

“No way!” she shouted, gripping Steve’s shoulder and shaking him. “Blindfolds off!”

Steve pulled the fabric from his eyes, searching for wherever his die landed as the others did the same.

“NAT TWENTY!” Dustin yelled, pointing at the die just a few inches in front of Robin.

The table erupted, several people jumping from their seats just like Robin had, and she kept shaking him, grip like steel on his shoulder. He did it.

He could still feel the tingle of Eddie’s lips against his — the warmth that he’d pulled away from just a few seconds before — and he glanced over toward the DM to finally gauge his reaction. He was staring at nothing but Steve, eyes wide and lips parted just like Steve had wanted, just like he’d hoped to see once the blindfold was off. He was so flushed, so red and frozen in place and deliriously, Steve thought maybe if he leaned back in — if he kissed Eddie’s cheek — maybe it would taste like cherries based on color alone.

“Hello? Earth to Eddie?” Dustin called out, waving his hand back and forth to catch his attention.

“Whuh— huh?” Eddie blinked.

Steve could barely feel his cheeks, he was smiling so wide. He’d made Eddie speechless. Eddie. Reduced to nothing but empty thoughts and wide eyes. Robin scoffed next to him, and Mike groaned loudly across the table, head hitting the back of his chair as he slumped in his seat. Lucas was busy hiding his laughter behind the palm of his hand, and Steve started to count as the seconds passed, just to see how long it took for Eddie to blink himself back to the present.

“You, uh,” Eddie glanced down at the die, golden ‘20’ practically glowing where it sat. Twelve seconds. It took twelve seconds for Eddie to look away and remember he was in the middle of a campaign. Steve would never let him live it down.

Eddie cleared his throat, giggling nervously as he looked from the die to Steve and back again, trying to remember where he’d left off. “Right. You- uh…” he cleared his throat one more time before shaking off his stupor and sitting up right in his chair. “Frau’s concentration snaps like the thin branch of a tree, shattered under the lightest pressure—”

“Oh, get a grip,” Mike mumbled, ignored by the rest of the table.

—Frau slowly drifts back to the present, eyes locked onto Ste– Beeve’s brown eyes. He’d been too distracted to remember the spell, too caught-off-guard to push Beeve away and keep his concentration. This was meant to be quick, a simple plan — all he had to do was infiltrate the rebel group and trap them here for his father. And yet. He hadn’t expected this party to weasel their way into his head.

He stumbles back as the poisonous fog fades away, revealing the rest of the party in various states of disarray. Will is the only one left unconscious, though he’s not too far from Bobbin and her healing magic. They made it through, and are relatively unscathed — now they just have to take care of the real threat.

Frau looks nervous as they all turn to him, the element of surprise no longer there to cloak his intentions. He can’t believe he’s been beat out by a stupid kiss, that the other man had gotten so far under his skin that he could rip this perfect opportunity out from under him. It was like… like…

“True love’s kiss?” Steve offered with a smirk, revelling in the emotions that flashed across Eddie’s eyes as he tried so hard to keep his own concentration. Steve bet he could get the upper hand one more time, could roll another natural 20 in real life and get his house cleared out in minutes. Maybe this dragon game wasn’t as far removed from reality as everyone thought.

He leaned forward with a grin, and watched Eddie swallow nervously.

“You really screwed us over there. Maybe you can make it up to me?” he whispered, eyes dropping down to Eddie’s lips. “If you can think of something.” He flicked his tongue out, a flare in his gut as he watched Eddie’s eyes flick down to follow it.

“Session over!” the DM shouted, not even taking his eyes off Steve’s mouth.

“What?!”

“Why?!”

“Are you kidding me—”

“—Session over!” he repeated, slipping back into his DM voice as he pinned Dustin, Mike, and Lucas with a glare that could probably set them all on fire.

They’d have to finish out the campaign another time, bribe them with apologies and probably never hear the end of it, but Steve had other plans for tonight. He’d just have to remind them that he was the only reason they were still alive to see another day — and if they didn’t let up he’d lay it on thick, slide in next to Eddie, and bat his eyelashes, and drown in the sea of fake gags and endless complaints as he blamed true love’s kiss.

That was bound to keep the kids away for at least another week.

—

Bingo Prompts

[helpimstuckposting]

What Happens in Vegas

Prompt: Bet, Vegas | Rating: T | Wordcount: 2,789 | AO3 | @steddiebingo

It started as a joke, a taunt, and a bet. Or at least, that’s the extent of what Steve remembered. He remembered visiting Las Vegas because Eddie and his band had a residency for the next few months and the party had been invited to see a show or two. He wasn’t able to come with Dustin, or when Mike and Lucas went, or when Jon and Argyle drove out. Corroded Coffin were nearing their last couple weeks of shows, and Steve couldn’t let himself miss it.

So, he called out of work for a week (or… well, Robin called out for both of them, since their manager wouldn’t listen to a word of Steve’s requests, even if he begged on his knees), and they booked their tickets to Nevada. Nancy, somehow, also got dragged along, and Steve figured he’d be responsible with Nancy around — someone to curb his and Robin’s dumb ideas, someone to be the rational mind as they wandered the streets of Sin City, someone to pull him back and say ‘Don’t be an idiot, Steve Harrington.’

Evidently, he was fully capable of being an idiot, even with Nancy Wheeler around.

He remembered settling into their hotel room on the strip, fully paid for as guests of Corroded Coffin, and he remembered Eddie touring them around backstage before the performance. That’s where the first of their drinks were handed to them. And, according to his unbearable hangover the next day, it was the first of many.

Eddie was phenomenal, as always. He was mesmerizing up on stage, the blinding lights cascading around him like he was singing underwater. His face was flushed, tendons in his neck taut as he screamed into the mic and his black shirt hid the sweat that seeped into the cotton and clung to his shoulders like a second skin. Steve couldn’t pull his eyes away, even as the alcohol rushed through his head and made him dizzy. Or maybe Eddie made him dizzy.

Dizzy enough to only see the rest of the night in hazy glimpses, to remember meeting Eddie backstage and not much else. Dizzy enough to wake up with his face smushed into the soft white cotton of Eddie’s sheets, the man wrapped around him, his arms tight around Steve’s waist.

It wasn’t abnormal to wake up in bed with Eddie, especially after a long night of drinking. He could imagine they probably went back to his penthouse suite and drank half the contents of the mini bar, probably shit talked the shit-heads back home and enjoyed the luxury that came with not babysitting any kids for the weekend. Robin and Nancy were probably sprawled across each other on the couch or the floor and Steve just wanted to waste away for a few more minutes as his headache pounded at his temples. His bladder had other plans though, and he couldn’t ignore it unless he wanted to wake Eddie up in the most embarrassing way possible.

Alcohol could excuse a lot of things, but it couldn’t excuse that.

Peeling himself from Eddie’s side was almost as difficult as wading through the thick, vine covered forest of the Upside Down. He felt like sludge, like his veins were filled with tar and he could barely move without his stomach rolling around in protest. He only stayed on his feet until he felt the cool tile press against his soles, then he crawled to the toilet and hoisted himself up to relieve his bladder. There was no use pretending to be a functioning human person when he was alone in the bathroom, and the hangover pounded through his head for attention.

He scrubbed his hands against his face, squishing his eyes in to alleviate some of the pounding. The stale taste in his mouth and the sloshing around in his stomach would pass, he just needed to sit for a second. He twisted the ring around his finger anxiously, eyes still closed against the harsh light of day. Something wasn’t settling right in his head, and it wasn’t just the alcohol. Something was different, something he couldn’t put his finger on with the headache pounding away.

He twisted the ring around his finger.

He twisted the ring.

His eyes shot open, hangover shoved to the back of his mind as something else sprang to the forefront instead.

He flushed the toilet and washed his hands, eyes focused on the gold band making its home on his finger. It was plane, shining bright and new, and Steve had no fucking clue where it came from because he certainly wasn’t wearing one last night.

“Eddie!” he yelled, throwing open the door to the bathroom. The man in question shot up from the bed, hair a mess of tangled curls. He blinked blurrily against the light, eyes squished and blank as he tried pushing the hair out of his face, tangling it more in the process. Eddie looked like a fluffed up poodle that someone had tossed in the trash, and there was a suspiciously matching gold ring on his own finger, out of place amongst the silver bands that surrounded it.

“What kind of joke is this?” Steve demanded, pointing to his own finger. He pointed to the one on Eddie’s, “What kind of a joke is that?”

Eddie blinked at him, blinked at the pair of rings, and then nearly fell off the bed trying to scramble to Steve’s side.

Another crash rang out from the living room before two screams joined the cacophony and Robin slammed through the door with a matching look of manic confusion on her face.

“What kind of joke is this?” she yelled, holding up a piece of paper in her hand. It was crumpled at the top where she clung to it, and yet the large “NEVADA STATE MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE” was clear as day, followed by both Steve and Eddie’s signatures at the bottom.

Steve saw his life flash before his eyes, and yet the remnants of last night were still foggy and faded. He remembered the bright golden lights that lined the strip as they walked from hotel bar to hotel bar, stopping occasionally to play a few slots for free drinks along the way. He remembered laughing at the tacky chapels and people with little veils clipped to tiaras, the conversation of marriage following their laughter.

“I’m not quite sure you’re husband material,” Steve had scoffed, finding it hard to imagine that the boy who stomped on tables and declared marriage a government farce would subject himself to walking down an aisle. Though, if he suddenly decided to throw that bit of the Munson Doctrine out, then Steve thinks that maybe he’d be a pretty good husband, actually. He was kind, caring, attentive–

Eddie had flung himself onto the stone wall outside of the Bellagio, presumably from the shot to the heart that Steve caused, if the hand clutched to his chest was anything to go by.

"This is blasphemous! This is sacrilege! This is unconstitutional!"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Eddie, you failed history twice, what do you know about the constitution?"

The musician scoffed, sinking further down to the pavement, as if he could melt right into the sidewalk and end the humiliation. The cup of beer in his hand sloshed around, like the fountains dancing toward the sky behind him.

“And anyway, what do you care? You don’t even like marriage!”

“Well, yes, Stevie! Because you shouldn’t need the government’s stamp of approval on your relationship, and it’s used as a form of oppression for millions of Americans! But,” he emphasized, popping up onto his elbows just to point a menacing finger at Steve. “If I were married, I’d be a great husband!”

“Yeah? And how long could you be a great husband before you request a divorce because… I don’t know, ‘monogamy is a stain on the freedoms of the individual,’ or whatever the hell words you string together just to yell about something.”

Eddie gasped again, hand once more clutching at his heart like every word out of Steve’s mouth was a knife, slicing right through him. He glanced back at a passing bachelorette party, stumbling along in the golden cast of the city’s nightlife.

“You know what, I bet I’d be a great husband! And I can prove it!”

I can prove it.

Steve smacked his hands against his face as the moments came back to him. “Eddie are you fucking kidding me.”

“What! What did I do!” he yelled, still looking at their rings like they were about to burn their fingers clean off.

“You’re the one who made a stupid bet!”

“Yeah, well, you’re the one who went with it, apparently!”

“You’re both idiots,” Robin cut in, waving around the paper that cemented their stupidity in writing.

Steve turned on her next, pointing at the witness lines with a shaking finger. “Oh, like you’re both innocent in all of this? What’s that?!” his finger jabbed repeatedly at the squiggling lines that wrote out both Robin and Nancy’s full names.

They devolved into arguments, finger pointing, and arm slapping like they were children on the playground instead of grown adults pushing through hangovers, the adrenaline rushing around their veins and staving off the dizzying headaches, nausea rumbling around Steve’s stomach for a different reason than just moments ago. This was crazy, this was insane, this was not what they’d planned when they flew out to see Eddie perform.

“Shut up, shut up!” Eddie yelled, pushing through his friends to stop the slap fight.

They huffed and puffed, Steve and Robin’s hair sticking up in all directions. It was suddenly quiet in the suite as the sound of their slapping and yelling and accusations stopped all together. Eddie had his arms out between them, staving off any more fights, and his eyebrows were turned downward in thought. He chewed on his lip as his mind raced through the position they’d found themselves in, trying to figure out what to do about it, if they even needed to do anything about it.

“Okay, let’s just calm down, right? I mean, what’s the big deal, anyway?”

“What’s the big deal?” Steve and Robin shrieked in tandem.

“I mean! I mean! Like, I’m not exactly planning on getting married anytime soon, are you?” he asked Steve, who shook his head and opened his mouth to respond before Eddie cut him off, “And!” he held up a finger to Steve’s lips, squishing them closed again. Steve levelled him with a flat glare, but didn’t try to respond. “I mean… it’s kind of funny.”

“Funny?!” Steve yelped, shoving Eddie’s finger away.

“Yes! It’s funny! Is it not funny? I mean…,” Eddie laughed, looking at the ring on his finger again, and flicking the one on Steve’s. “What are the fuckin odds, right?”

Steve rolled his eyes, arms crossed tightly across his chest. “I don’t exactly think this is very funny right now.”

“What about tomorrow?” Eddie tossed out a cheeky grin, clearing his throat awkwardly when Steve didn’t share in his amusement.

Nancy shook her head behind Robin, looking decidedly more amused than Steve did, and held up her phone. On the screen was a clear shot of Steve and Eddie hand-in-hand last night, a zoomed in crop of the rings adorning their fingers overlaid on top. Steve groaned, snatching the phone from her hand to scroll through the carousel that fucking TMZ had posted just hours ago.

“No, no, no,” he muttered to himself, handing the phone to Robin when she shoved in next to him.

“I’ve got an idea,” Nancy cut in, the smile still on her face a sharp contrast to the anxious muttering coming out of Steve’s mouth.

“Pretend none of this ever happened and catch the next flight home? Great idea,” Steve nodded, beginning his march out of the bedroom when Eddie caught his arm.

“You’re just gonna leave your poor husband behind? You’re going to abandon your spouse in a time of need? What ever happened to ‘til death do us part!’,” he yelled, swinging Steve’s arm to-and-fro like he was a puppet.

“You don’t even remember those vows, asshole!”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not true. I thought I was proving my husband capabilities, here?”

“I thought you were supposed to say ‘yes, dear’ when your wife was upset,” Robin mumbled.

“Yes, dear,” Eddie responded.

“I’m not your wife,” Steve pointed to Eddie, “and you don’t have to prove anything, we were drunk.”

“I dunno, that feels like a cheap win.” Eddie let go of Steve’s wrist in favor of crossing his arms petulantly over his chest.

This was ridiculous, Steve was used to being the rational mind while surrounded by high schoolers, but this? How was he even supposed to go about rationalizing anything when his name was next to Eddie’s on a marriage license, and Nancy and Robin’s were on the witness lines. Nancy? Of all people, the infamous ‘Miss Priss’ herself was fending off a smile as Steve tried his very hardest not to deck Eddie right here.

He’d probably call it domestic abuse.

Nancy cleared her throat, pushing Eddie out of the way for center stage. “We’re here for a week, right?” They all nodded. “So, I don’t know, why not just pretend for the week? Eddie gets to be dramatic—“

“Hey!”

“—Steve gets to be the center of attention—“

“Hey!”

“—And Robin gets to lord this over you both for the rest of eternity.”

“He- oh no wait, that’s good for me,” Robin nodded, pointing at Nancy.

“And what do you get out of it, huh? What does Miss Priss get from this arrangement?” Eddie scoffed, turning to the one person Steve had expected to keep them all in line, who’d immediately failed him the second his inebriated mind took over.

Nancy shrugged. “I get to be entertained, and not have to worry about putting a mess back together for once in my life. Do you know how hard it is to be the oldest daughter of a multi-child household?”

Considering all three of them were only-children, they all shook their heads, waiting for her to continue.

“I was five the first time I had to change a diaper. I was eight when I had to pick Mike up from school by myself. I do most of the chores around the house because god forbid my dad put down the newspaper for one second, and Holly is ‘too young’ even though she’s older than I was, the first time I started doing them.”

She was on a roll now, picking up steam and tempo, like the more she said, the more she thought to add. There was a nervous sort of shift to her eyes, like the dam had opened and she couldn’t quite figure out how to stop — and for the first time that morning, Steve realized she looked just as frantic as the rest of them.

“For once, I don’t want to be the person that cleans up after people’s messes. Hawkins Nancy would lay out all the details and come up with a way out of this, but I think Vegas Nancy is going to sit back and laugh, actually. Eddie’s right, for once—“

“Hey!”

“—This is funny, and I want to see how it plays out.”

When she finished, she put her hands on her hips, second guessed that, and then crossed her arms instead. Robin was staring at her like she was half in-love — heart eyes near-popping out of her head — and Eddie just looked a little smug. Without further ado, Nancy turned on her heel and stormed from the room, her exit a little less intimidating than her speech as her gnarled bed-head followed her out.

The three left in the bedroom stayed silent, letting her words marinate in the stale air. Fine. If Nancy wasn’t going to be of any help, and Eddie was still determined to win a bet, and Robin was on board with using this whole situation as perpetual fodder against him, then Steve was giving up.

What happens in Vegas, or whatever.

That didn’t stop him from grumbling a little bit like a child, and flinging a “Close your mouth, you’re drooling,” at Robin over his shoulder as he followed Nancy out of the room.

If they were all on board without him, then Steve was going to milk this for all it was worth. Nancy apparently already thought he craved attention, so it wouldn’t hurt to make Eddie give it to him, right? He wanted to be a husband, fine. Steve would be the best husband a woman… or man, could ever ask for, and Eddie wouldn’t know what hit him.

—

Bingo Prompts

[helpimstuckposting]

Alright MILF lovers, come get yalls juice

I’m a ghost and you are a shadow

Part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven | part twelve | part thirteen | part fourteen | part fifteen | part sixteen

—

Abort, abort, abort, his mind was screaming now to try and drown out the danger, turn back before it’s too late.

The silence that followed could drown a fish, and Steve felt like drowning right along with it.

Eddie nodded his head, knocking his knuckles against the wooden table.

“Well, I can’t do two all-nighters in a row anymore, so I think I’m gonna head up to bed,” he said. Steve couldn’t relate, he’d had more all-nighters in his adult life than he ever had as a teenager, he was used to running on a few hours of sleep at a time.

“You should, too. You need to sleep,” Eddie said, looking at him with far more concern than Steve could handle at the moment. He looked away and nodded, not intending to follow through. Eddie seemed to know that, though, and stayed at the table for a few more seconds. Steve could feel the weight of his eyes on him but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to the man’s face.

“Right,” Eddie sighed, finally getting to his feet.

Steve didn't watch Eddie leave the kitchen. He just listened to the soft footsteps disappear up the stairs, the gentle creak of the floorboards at the top landing. He sat at the table, no intention of going to bed like Eddie had suggested. He knew he still wouldn't be able to shut his mind off enough to slip into unconsciousness.

He was tired, exhausted, and he knew he should listen but he also knew he wouldn't. Maybe he'd be able to take a nap tomorrow. He didn't think the kids would be showing up for the day again, knew they had work and lives to get back to while they figured out next steps.

Christ, they weren't meeting up for another four days. What was he going to do for four days? He was a dead man walking, literally. There wasn't anything he could go out and do.

So, instead of going up to bed like he should have, he sat in the dimly lit kitchen and let the hours pass as he spiraled. He'd felt reassured earlier that day, by Eddie's insistence that he could stay here, that he didn't have to leave if he didn't want to, that they'd fight for him to stay. But what would happen if he did? He didn't have a life he could step into, he couldn't use his birth certificate or even use his name, what kind of life could he possibly have?

Maybe when he wasn't so panicked, when he had his head on straight and he was actually safe and permanently on this side of the dimensional tear he'd be able to collect himself and talk to Hopper. Did this Hopper also come back from the dead? Would he know what to do? Would it even be right to come back from the dead, to replace the Steve of this world, or should he start over from scratch? Though, he wouldn't be able to explain having the same face and fingerprints so maybe starting over was out of the question.

The thoughts and questions wouldn’t leave him alone, rattling around in his head like he’d expected. His eyes burned, but they never drooped, too high off the nervous anxiety that accompanied all his questions. When he heard the creak of the upper landing again, he expected Robin to come stumbling in like the previous morning, or Eddie storming in to check if he’d gone to bed or not.

Instead, the dainty figure of Linda Harrington stepped quietly into the kitchen. Her hair was up, but not in a tight bun — all flyaways slicked back into perfection — it was messy and drooping, stray hairs trying to flee the confines of her elastic. She wore sweatpants and an old white t-shirt, no silk robe tied neatly around her waist. She looked cozy. Steve wanted to reach out and hug her again, commit the feeling to memory, but he held back and stayed in his seat at the table.

Quietly, softly, she took the place Eddie had vacated across from him. He watched her, she watched him, and he wondered where she’d been for the past 24 hours. He hoped she wasn’t avoiding him, uncomfortable in her own home. His confidence in staying wasn’t exactly unwavering if he’d already caused two people to lock themselves away to avoid him, like he was some kind of lurking monster, creeping in the shadows.

Linda looked around, tapping her nails on the table. Her eyes locked with the clock above the stove, a muttered “oh jeez,” slipping from her lips. Steve kept watching as she did what Eddie had, looking all around to avoid Steve’s eyes. She tapped away at the table, glanced from the teapot, to the empty mugs, to the honey bear. She reached out to turn it, little button eyes sliding off of Steve and onto Linda instead. She stared at it, still tapping away, and he wondered if she was gathering up the courage to say something, to tell him that she couldn’t handle him here, that he should go back to where he belonged, or if she had something else to say.

“Do you know why they picked a bear for the bottle shape?” She asked, still looking the honey in its eyes.

“No, why?”

She blinked, finally flicking her gaze to meet his, and quirked one corner of her mouth up into a smile — a little dimple popping out in the low light.

“Oh, I don’t know, I was hoping you would," she shrugged, as if she hadn't just baited him into that response. It startled a laugh out of him, sharp in the dark and quiet kitchen, but his mother didn’t flinch from the sound. She seemed to preen a bit, sitting a little straighter in her chair. He was awed once again, by the figure in front of him — so familiar and yet the least familiar person he’d come across so far. If anything in the world could convince him of alternate dimensions it wasn’t Eddie’s longing smile, it wasn’t the photos hung in every corner, it wasn’t even the sudden resurrection of everyone he loved. It was her. It was her smile and her soft laugh lines, the warmth in her eyes, the flush of her cheeks as she chewed on her lip, searching for something to say.

She was everything he ever wanted in a mother, and yet nothing that he was ever capable of imagining. The Linda he’d daydreamed as a child, arms out for a hug and icy eyes melted with adoration, was nothing more than a cardboard cutout compared to the person in front of him. He didn’t think he’d ever stop feeling like that little boy in her presence.

The silence dragged on as they both continued to take each other in; just watching, just looking, just being present with someone they never thought they would have again. Eventually, Linda broke the moment, eyes sliding away to the bear bottle as she chewed on her lip once more. She fidgeted a little in her seat, soft wrinkles in her forehead creasing with her downturned brows.

She cleared her throat. Steve watched as she pulled out a folded paper from under her leg. No, as she pulled it into the dim light Steve realized it was an envelope. It was white or yellow, hard to tell in the dark, and she flipped it over and over in her hands. Linda took a few deep breaths, staring at the letter like it would burst into flames, but unable to look away.

He was nervous, like somehow whatever was in that envelope would seal his own fate. He knew she wasn’t the same, he knew she wasn’t his mother from his universe, but that didn’t stop his heart rate from ratcheting up like a chronic flare-up. He’d dampened his own emotions for so long, everything he felt here was thick enough to choke on. If his father knew how many times he’d cried in the last two days, Steve would have been sent to a shrink or maybe even an asylum. Richard would ship him off, finally free of his pansy-ass disappointment of a son.

But the look in Linda’s eyes wasn’t angry or vengeful, it was contrite. She was sad about something, something she thought was her fault. And wasn’t that just the theme of tonight? He hoped Eddie wasn’t crying alone in a spare bed upstairs. He should really talk about switching rooms, it wasn’t fair that he was taking Eddie’s, even if it was technically Steve’s as well. He could take the spare, the room didn’t mean anything to him.

“I wrote this letter before you were even born,” Linda started, cutting through his thoughts.

He looked down at the paper in her hands. She was still staring at it, like she could read right through to the words underneath. It was pristine for a letter written nearly 24 years ago, no bends or creases, no tears or stains. He wondered if this was where she’d been hiding all day, searching the attic for a small square letter that had never been opened.

“I was so excited to have you. I wrote down every name I could think of, I spent hours and hours going through baby name books trying to pick out the perfect one,” she laughed. He didn’t think it was that hard to settle on Steven. Pretty generic. But his mother was smiling down at the letter like it held every good memory she’d ever experienced, so he kept his mouth shut. Who was he to question the baby name process? He didn’t have children, and it didn’t seem like he’d ever get there. So.

“Your father wanted a junior. Another Richard running around to stake his claim on,” she muttered, a bitter lilt to her words. His eyebrow twitched, picking up the flat tone. That was interesting. He’d figured she would have some kind of nostalgia wrapped around the Richard of this world, the distance of time enough to dampen whatever kind of man he was before Steve came along. He didn’t think he would have been that bad. He thought — guiltily — that he’d been the reason his father was the way he was. That Steve just wasn’t good enough, didn’t try hard enough, couldn’t be enough to please him. That, somehow, it was Steve’s fault.

Linda rolled her eyes. “Your name was the only compromise he ever made, now look where he is.” She was still mumbling, like she’d forgotten why they were talking about Richard in the first place, or his name itself was enough to snap her into gossip-mode. Steve politely cleared his throat, urging his mother forward, and she shook her head like an etch-a-sketch clearing the thoughts away.

“Anyway,” she continued, “Robin filled me in about where it seems like our timelines split. I’m not really sure how any of this works, really, but she said Dustin was very adamant, and he certainly was while he explained the parallel worlds… thing.” She lightly clapped her hands as an imitation of Dustin — eyebrows drawn tight into a confused glower — and Steve couldn’t help the soft smile tugging at his lips as he watched. ‘It’s his tone, right?’

“Yeah, he’s a real butthead sometimes,” Steve mumbled back.

Linda laughed, eyes briefly softening as she looked at him. She shook her head again, blinking down at the envelope, “Well, it seems like this letter was written before that, so… your mother probably has this same one somewhere in your world.”

She swallowed a few times, blinking her eyes nervously, like she wasn’t sure where to go from here. She looked again at the clock above the stove. The words seemed harder now, as if she could choke on them if she wasn’t careful, and the blinking seemed less like she was clearing her head, and more like she was holding back tears.

“This letter…” she paused, clearing her throat, “I never showed it to my Steve, but I want you to have it. We were the same woman once, and she could have been me. You could have had a mother who was there for you, a mother you deserved,” her voice cracked and even in the dimly lit kitchen, Steve could tell her eyes were red-rimmed and only a second away from tears, now. “You should have had that,” she whispered.

Steve tried to blink his own tears away, clenching his jaw to ease the sting in his eyes and the stiffness in his throat. He thought back to Eddie’s breakdown just hours before, the way his hiccups sounded like knives and hoped he didn’t have to witness another breakdown so soon; hoped this time that squeezing his nose and willing the tears away would work and he could keep some thread of composure.

This almost felt more painful than anything his own mother had inflicted on him. Somehow, blatant neglect was easier to swallow than the emotions currently clogging his chest. He wished Robin or Eddie were still here to pull his head above water. Linda cleared her throat and wiped gently under her eye. No tears for either of them, yet.

“And as much as she could have been me, I could have been her. I could have been absent and rude and indifferent, and I can’t erase that. I’d like to think we’re different people, but honestly I don’t know what kind of person I would be if Richard was still breathing down my neck. That’s no excuse, I know, but Steve, I just… I just wanted to say,” she took another deep breath, reached out to grab his hands and held them tightly in her own, “I am so, so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said.

It was his turn to look away, now, unable to take the intensity swimming in her eyes as she stared him down, pleading for his forgiveness though she wasn’t even the one who’d done anything wrong. He’d wanted this. He’d wanted an apology for the way his parents treated him, but he wasn’t sure he wanted it like this. It wasn’t this Linda’s fault. She was right, she could have been his mother, under different circumstances, and Steve experienced first hand what she was capable of, but that Linda would never beg his forgiveness. That Linda was too broken to acknowledge what she’d done, that Linda was going to take her silence to the grave whether that grave be her’s or his father’s.

He took the letter. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever actually open it, wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was inside, but he couldn’t just leave it there. That felt like he was rejecting her, turning away from her sincerity, and he didn’t want to do that. So, he took hold of the soft paper envelope, felt the edges of the folded letter within, and looked back up at her. She smiled softly at him, and he didn’t know what else to say.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

She nodded, squeezing his hands. He squeezed back.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, thankful to have gone at least one day here without more tears, “I should probably go to bed before Eddie finds out and kills me.”

She sagged into the table, giggling softly. “We wouldn’t want that,” she whispered back.

—

Guys, I gotta say, it was a struggle trying to make it not sound like Steve was in love with Linda because *I'm* in love with Linda. I've had the letter handoff of this part written since like... june of last year lmao I'm so excited it's finally out here

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[helpimstuckposting]

I’m a ghost and you are a shadow

Part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven | part twelve | part thirteen | part fourteen | part fifteen

—

Steve didn't think it would be that hard to ignore the part of his brain that wanted Eddie. It had only been a couple days, after all. Nevermind the fact that every time he spoke to the man, he wanted to keep talking, to keep learning about him, to spill his guts because he finally felt comfortable for the first time in years. He had plenty of experience pretending he was fine, this was no different. If he could look at Nancy after she ripped his heart out, he could look at Eddie and ignore the tightness in his chest.

So he listened to the man talk about OtherSteve, and clenched his jaw until it hurt. He wasn't going to do anything stupid. It was fine, and it was going to keep being fine.

"I guess the rest is history," Eddie chuckled softly, the humor only there on the surface. "Literally," he added, staring sadly at the water, “S’all history, now.”

Steve shouldn't ask. He really, really, shouldn't ask. It would be incredibly insensitive to ask, but his mouth was moving and he wasn't able to stop it in time before a strangled "How...-" managed to escape. He shook his head, tearing his eyes away from Eddie’s deflated form. How did he die?

He let the silence speak for him. Eddie knew what he hadn’t asked, it was up to him whether he’d answer or change the subject.

In the end, he sighed, nudged Steve on the arm, and stood up. “C’mon, let’s go inside, it’s getting cold as shit out here,” he muttered, and Steve followed. Instead of walking away entirely, abandoning Steve for his bed and leaving him to stew in The Question That Shouldn’t Be Asked, Eddie lead them both into the kitchen and pulled a tea kettle out of the cupboard above the stove. He had to lift himself onto his tip-toes in order to reach it, and Steve refused to find that cute.

He sat at the counter, just like the night before, and watched as the man before him filled the kettle with water and placed it onto the stove — the igniter click-click-clicking until the flame whooshed to life. Eddie kept his back to Steve and leaned over the stove, palms braced on the edge of the counter. Steve didn’t know what to say, how to bring the conversation back around and release the awkward tension that simmered through the air like the water currently placed on the burner.

So he sat, kicking himself for letting that word escape. How. More like, how did Steve get himself into this mess? How did Steve always get into messes he couldn’t fix? How-

“It wasn’t the Upside Down, if that’s what you were thinking,” Eddie mumbled softly, back still facing Steve. He held his breath, worried that another misstep would make Eddie shut up for good.

“It was a-,” he cut himself off, head shaking back and forth. He laughed once, sharply, the sound so much like a knife in Steve’s ears that he nearly flinched away. “It was a fucking car accident. Like some kind of stupid daytime soap opera.”

He was still shaking his head, like he just couldn’t believe the sheer audacity of the universe to throw something so mundane at his feet.

“We… My band,” he clarified, as if Steve didn’t know he had one, “we had a gig that night, just a town over. Steve couldn’t swap his shift at work so he was running late, said he’d meet us there.”

Steve clenched his thighs tight against each other, the ache in his muscles keeping him grounded in his stool. He watched Eddie, and waited, and didn’t move, and watched Eddie, until he noticed that the man was no longer still. He was still fidget-less as he hovered by the stove, but as Steve watched he saw his shoulders start to tremble and then shake as he hunched in on himself, becoming smaller. The light in the kitchen seemed too bright for the emotions currently clawing their way out of Eddie, but still Steve couldn’t move from his seat.

“I told him,” Eddie muttered, “I told him not to rush, that there-,” he hiccuped, and Steve winced because it sounded like it hurt, tearing up his throat from the inside, “that there would be other gigs he could watch.”

How would it feel if they’d all successfully made it out of the Upside Down, only for one of them to be ripped away again? From something so normal, so common. Would it feel less real than the monsters that haunted his dreams? He couldn’t take the way that Eddie’s shoulders trembled. He always seemed so solid, so calm in the face of Steve’s worries that he’d almost forgotten the face he’d made when he pinned Steve to the wall; the furrowed brow, the steep downturn of his lips and the way his nostrils flared with rage. Even then, his shoulder hadn’t trembled, his grip on the kitchen knife was steady and sure.

“I didn’t even know until after the set,” he cried, and Steve couldn’t stay seated any longer. He rounded the counter and took Eddie’s shaking shoulders into his arms, squeezed until he couldn’t feel the trembling anymore. He felt Eddie’s arms wrap around his back and cling to the sweatshirt that didn’t belong to him, clutch it tightly in his hands so hard it probably hurt. It didn’t seem like Eddie was about to stop talking, but should he? Should Steve let him? Maybe he needed this as much as Steve had needed to talk about his dad, maybe he just needed someone to hold him through it and let him be. Had he talked about this with anyone else, or was Steve the first to see it?

“Linda called the bar,” he choked into the crook of Steve’s neck, warm tears tickling at his skin. “I yelled at her, I said-,” he hiccuped again, “I said that she could fuck off, that she had to be lying. That you- he was fine, he had to be fine,” and Eddie’s voice cracked, it practically shattered, and Steve didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t something he was used to anymore — comforting others. Hell, he was terrible at it even before, so bad at knowing what to do that Nancy called him bullshit for pretending nothing had happened at all. Clearly, being alone hadn’t done him any favors since then. So he tried to keep quiet, he held onto Eddie as hard as he could and prayed that he wasn’t making it all worse.

Eddie’s wracking sobs tore Steve up inside as he thought himself in circles. It had only been six months, Dustin had said. Six months where Eddie had lost a love that other people yearn for, six months where he’d probably stared at the pictures on the wall for hours and didn’t touch the other half of his closet. Six months of blaming himself, if he was anything like Steve. Because he would. God, he would blame himself so much if someone died on their way to see him, if he was the reason they were on the road, and then he never saw them again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into Eddie’s hair, and the full weight of the man collapsed into his arms. It probably wasn’t his voice he was hearing, but if Eddie needed to picture OtherSteve saying it in order to pull himself together, then so be it. Steve could be that for just a moment.

The teapot squealed, Eddie flinching in his arms before taking a breath, two breaths, and detangling himself from Steve’s arms.

I’m sorry, he wanted to say again. I’m sorry he’s not here, I’m sorry I’m here instead, I’m sorry to be opening these wounds that haven’t even healed yet. I’m sorry.

But instead, he kept his mouth closed and walked back over to the stool he’d vacated, sitting down to watch Eddie bumble around for mugs and tea and honey. Steve didn’t know anything about tea, didn’t even know if he owned a kettle, but Eddie’s movements were practiced and swift. He sniffled every few seconds, wiping away his remaining tears with his bare hands while the tacky saltwater airdried on Steve’s neck.

With two mugs in hand, Eddie walked past Steve and set them down on the breakfast table behind him. He sat down, looking anywhere but at Steve, and spooned one scoop of sugar into both mugs, followed by a generous squeeze of honey. It would be more awkward if Steve didn’t follow, and having Eddie at his back after such an emotional moment didn’t sit well with him. So, Steve slid off of the stool, wandered over to the stove to turn the overhead light on, and made one more stop to flick the rest of the kitchen lights off before joining Eddie at the table.

If Eddie didn’t want to look at him after that, maybe some darkness would feel less vulnerable. If not, then Steve could make eye contact with the honey bear bottle instead or whatever. It’s not like Steve had any dignity to stand on after crying his eyes out all day previously. Jesus, he cried in the kitchen with everyone on the floor, outside with Robin, being held in his mom’s arms as he cried like a baby, and then again with Eddie by the pool. How did he have any liquid left in his body? He’s lucky he didn’t shrivel up into a raisin by now.

So he stared at the bear. He traced over its little painted on eyes, contemplated its origin. Why a bear? Did bears even like honey? Or was that just Pooh? Was the bear Pooh? Or was that a copyright issue?

He sipped at his tea in silence, mirroring Eddie as he still avoided his eyes. By the time Eddie spoke again, the tea was gone and Steve had spent entirely too long cataloguing every scratch and dent and imperfection in the plastic honey container.

“Sorry,” Eddie muttered into the lip of his cup. Steve rolled his eyes, looking at the man across from him for the first time since sitting at the table. He raised his eyebrow and gave him the flattest look he could muster, channeling the look Carol had taught him to master all the way back in middle school.

“Right, because I’ve never cried in my life and I’m really questioning your manliness right now,” he scoffed.

Eddie’s shoulders drooped, like a string had been cut. He rolled his eyes back, and grabbed the two empty mugs as he stood. Steve watched as he went through the motions of making two more cups of tea, draining the kettle on the stove.

“You know, you’re a lot bitchier than I thought you’d be,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. Steve snorted, could practically hear the honey bear laugh at him, too.

“Comes with the territory,” Steve responded as Eddie wandered back over to the table. He thought back to the Munson Doctrine that he’d heard so many years ago and still somehow remembered. “Rich parents, popular, girls love me,” he listed, locking eyes with Eddie before he reached for the sugar. “Sometimes I’m a douche.”

Eddie laughed, sharp and startled, pausing in his actions.

“No sugar please,” Steve added, flicking his eyes down to the spoon still in Eddie’s hand. He blinked, confused for a second before shaking his head and looking down at the sugar, then back up at Steve.

“Right… right,” he muttered to himself, only adding a spoonful to his own cup before sitting down again. Steve still squeezed a little honey in. He liked the flavor in the tea. It was… flowery, reminded him of a dewy field in the springtime, bees buzzing about.

His eyes burned a little, drooping where they hadn’t just an hour ago. He could feel a yawn climbing its way out his throat, but he swallowed around it, trying to keep it under wraps. Eddie gave him a knowing look, bringing the tea to his lips to hide his smirk.

Steve quirked an eyebrow again, “you poison me, Munson? I thought we got past this?”

He chuckled, closing his eyes as he took a few big gulps of the warm liquid. He was soft in the darkness, light from the stove painting shadows across his face — shadows that highlighted his dimples, that made his eyelashes look unbelievably long. Steve blinked a little slower as he watched the man set his cup down and gently open his eyes.

“It’s chamomile,” he whispered, pointing to the mug in Steve’s hands. “It’s good for sleep.”

Steve looked to where he was pointing, the soft golden liquid still as it sat in his cup. It sparkled in the low light, just like the water in the pool outside and Steve was reminded of summers as a lifeguard, high on his tower. He could marry the warmth of the tea with the sun that had shined on his face, prickling at his skin as new freckles bloomed.

When he looked back up, Eddie was staring at the bowl of sugar with another one of his unreadable expressions. His eyebrows were scrunched down in the middle, mouth moving in little motions like he was chewing the inside of his cheek. He looked as if he were solving math problems in the granules or counting them one by one.

“You take your coffee differently, did you know that?” Eddie whispered. He sounded almost in awe, like the difference was important, like it meant something.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the man in front of him now, his hair a mass of black in the darkness, eyes just as infinite and deep.

“I mean,” Eddie huffed out a laugh, “Steve had always copied his mom since he was little, and Linda… Linda loves sugar, I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of freaky compulsion at this point because it’s just… wow. The woman can’t get enough of it, I think her coffee order is just a milkshake at this point.” That startles a laugh out of Steve, picturing his mother shoveling spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee. The Linda from his universe didn’t even drink coffee, as far as Steve saw. She’d usually stick to wine, no matter the time of day. ‘It’s more ladylike,’ though he no longer knew if that was his mom’s thoughts, or his dad’s. Or maybe she was hiding behind it, like Steve had with the whiskey cabinet.

“And Steve,” Eddie continued, “he always took a lot of sugar and milk in his, not as much as her - obviously - but it was still gross,” Eddie laughed. Steve couldn’t help but smile at the look on his face, remembering happy times and funny memories, instead of the bad ones that had him pressed into Steve’s shoulder, tears puddling in the crook of his neck.

“But you,” he said.

“I take it black with one spoon of sugar,” Steve finished. Eddie nodded.

“Is that… I mean do you think you got that from-“

“My dad?” Steve nodded as he said it, thinking back on everything he’d learned since stumbling into this world. “I guess I just… never realized how much he really influenced me over the years.”

Eddie looked over his face earnestly, like he had with the sugar, like he was trying to calculate something on Steve’s forehead or count each mole dotted on his skin. He sighed, leaning forward, hands clasped tightly around his nearly empty mug. “You’re nothing like him, though, you know that?” He said

Steve scoffed and rolled his eyes, settling them back on the golden liquid in his cup and away from the intensity in Eddie’s. “You didn’t even know him.”

“I know you, though.”

“Do you? We only met a couple days ago.” And you didn’t even speak to me that first day, he didn’t say out loud.

“I know a version of you. I know you’re different, I like that you’re different, but you’re not separate. You are Steve Harrington. And I know Steve Harrington.”

‘You are Steve Harrington,’ he remembered Linda say when she’d first seen him, ‘and any Steve Harrington is my baby.’

He blinked the thought away, downing the dredges of his tea to avoid looking Eddie in the eye. He couldn’t put those thoughts to the man in front of him, because if he did, if he kept thinking ‘any Steve Harrington is my baby’ he’d picture Eddie saying it. He’d picture the words ‘baby’ slipping out of his lips like the sticky sweet honey in the bear bottle that was still staring at him, judging him as if reading his mind. And that was dangerous.

—

Okay, this part was getting very very long so I ended up dividing it between this part and the next one. I know some people are wondering about Linda, and we'll find out about what she's been up to shortly!

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[helpimstuckposting]

I’m a ghost and you are a shadow

Part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven | part twelve | part thirteen | part fourteen

—

Four Days. They agreed to leave it and re-evaluate in four days. Steve's not sure they'll be any closer to figuring it all out, but the teens did have their own lives and jobs to get back to. At least the few days would give him time to think, to talk to Eddie, to hang out with Robin, to think some more.

Eddie had shown back up when the party was leaving, he didn't stay hidden like he had the first day. Steve was thankful for that. He didn't know if he would be able to gather the courage to find him, wherever he'd gone off to.

It felt a little awkward as the teens, Jonathan, and Nancy shuffled out the door; Eddie pointedly avoided Steve’s eye contact, Robin pointedly seeking out Steve’s eye contact as much as she could. As the door clicked shut, she nudged Steve once more, twitching her head in Eddie’s direction — her very-much-conspicuous movements grabbing the latter man’s attention. He rolled his eyes, she rolled hers back, and Steve stepped between both of them.

“Alright, alright, this silent attempt at conversation is bizarre and frankly very Three Stooges of you both.”

The two children dressed deceptively like adults shared another look, frantic argument crossing their features before they both blurted out, “I’m Curly!”

Robin glared, Eddie glared, the silent conversation between them had practically gained sentience of its own, staring on as the two alleged adults played tug-of-war in their minds. He could swear they’d start slap-fighting each other if he weren’t still standing in their way.

“Neither of you are Curly, and you know it,” Steve cut in, fondness bubbling up in his chest as they turned their glares toward him. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he was grateful for their banter. He’d felt uncertain as the party left — the tension of his next conversation with Eddie looming in the background — but the tension disintegrated temporarily as Robin mimed poking Eddie’s eyes out, and he stopped her with a flat hand between her fingers. Robin looked annoyed, but Steve knew she was doing it on purpose; antagonizing Eddie to respond so Steve wouldn’t feel as nervous. Maybe Eddie was Curly, but he’d never say it out loud. He was certainly endearing enough.

As they finished their slapstick routine, Robin made her way upstairs for bed.

“Goodnight, Dingi!” she shouted, and Steve prayed an awkward silence wouldn’t take her place.

Instead, Eddie made his way to the living room — sharing a conspiratorial glance toward Steve — and whispered, “She’s totally Moe,” as he passed.

“I heard that!” Robin yelled from upstairs.

“There’s no fucking way she heard that,” Eddie grumbled, following after Steve as he ignored their antics and made his way past Eddie to the back door, sliding it open and leaving it for the other man to close.

He sat down once again by the edge of the pool, watching the sparkling ripples over the surface as he waited for Eddie to join him. He wasn’t sure where to start — it seemed like there was just too much to say, too much to ask, always so much to ask. Steve didn’t think he’d ever feel settled here until there were no more deep conversations to sort through, until he was known here and he knew them in return. He’d keep feeling like an imposter until then.

It was silent when Eddie took his place by Steve’s side, as they both watched over the water. Something about watching over it, of being present in the silence made him feel like a guardian. He watched now, because he didn’t then. Even though here it was a different gate, a different place, different circumstances. He watched, he guarded, he apologized for who he was in the past, over and over again, to a girl who’d never hear it.

Eddie sighed and Steve could feel the man’s eyes boring into the side of his head. How could humans do that? Feel someone’s eyes, like a tingling in their gut. What kind of electricity did a gaze hold? It was like trailing fingers just above his arm, never touching, never grazing, just hovering with a distinct tension between the two surfaces. He remembered, suddenly, the way El and Will would react to the Upside Down; the way goosebumps would prickle along Will’s skin and he’d clutch the back of his neck like someone had breathed against his skin, the way El would twitch and look around like she was seeing something that wasn’t there. He wondered if that was the same tension, the same prickling against your periphery, the same trailing electricity as Eddie staring at him across a room, or right next to him.

He broke his eyes from the water, catching Eddie’s, taking him in with the same reverence that Steve was being shown. He looked good, all things considered. He had shadows under his eyes — probably from their late night — but there weren’t deep bags, dark shadows carved into his skin like Steve was sure Eddie was seeing on his. He wondered how shitty he looked, grief soaked into his skin, hair unkempt and greasy, eyes probably drooping from lack of sleep for who knew how long, now. His last peaceful night of sleep was probably years ago. Before their final showdown, the one he wasn’t present for, the one he’d slept through, the one they didn’t bother to tell him about until it was too late, until he watched the gates close with his kids, his people, his Robin on the other side.

He blinked away the tightness in his eyes, looked back at the water. He could fall into the depths of Eddie’s eyes forever. It was dangerous. The water was safer. The water wasn’t as deep.

“Why here?” Eddie’s voice cut through the quiet, startling Steve out of his thoughts.

“Why where?”

“Here, by the pool. Seems like it’s always your go-to place,” he clarified, sweeping his arms out to encompass the whole area.

Before the Upside Down, before everything, he would come out here to relax, to think, to contemplate, to escape. It was easier to think with the sound of the water rippling against the tiled edge. It was peaceful, it was somewhere he could be alone that wasn’t lonely. It felt alive out here with the water whispering secrets into the air, with the trees rustling their whispers back. It felt like a conversation, even if Steve wasn’t a part of it.

After…. Well. After, he didn’t have the energy to clean it, to maintain the crystal clear waters and the area he used to escape to was no longer an escape. It was a reminder. So the water was drained, and the pool no longer whispered to the trees, and the grass grew too long, and the leaves fell and withered, and Steve stopped coming around.

Here, in a different world, it felt reborn. It felt new. Untouched by Steve’s issues, the water sparkled once again and lapped against the pool’s edge, and whispered to the trees, and the trees whispered back, and Steve felt safe whispering his own secrets to whoever would listen. Old habits and whatever.

“You remember what I said about my dad?” Steve asked. Of course he’d remember, he’d only told him yesterday. Yesterday. It felt like weeks.

Eddie nodded.

“Well, I was captain of the swim team because it was the only time my dad couldn’t bruise me up. Speedos don’t exactly provide the best coverage,” he chuckled to himself, trying to dampen the gravity of the statement. He looked at Eddie again. He was blinking more than usual, eyes seeing something Steve couldn’t. He seemed to blink himself back to the conversation, eyes clearing to lock with Steve’s.

“You were captain of the swim team?” He asked. Steve rolled his eyes, deflating from the build up.

“Is that really what’s important?”

Eddie shook his head, miming zipping his mouth and throwing away the key. Steve had somehow managed to surround himself with bonehead comedians in multiple universes.

“Yes, I was the swim captain, okay? I wasn’t in band, I did sports, I had a nanny-“

“You had a-“

Steve cut him off with a glare. So much for the zipped lips. Now they were tight, pulled taut into a sheepish line.

“Sorry,” he whispered, like the quiet would make him less guilty. Steve rolled his eyes. Peas of a pod, he and Robin were. It was really no wonder Steve and Eddie were dating in this universe, he was practically made for Steve; gorgeous and head-strong like Nancy, big brown doe eyes, and the same exact humor and attention span of his platonic soulmate. How did Steve not see that until now? How did he not know that was an option?

Steve sighed, shaking his own tangent away to focus back on the conversation. They’d get to the whole Eddie-and-Steve thing in a moment.

“Anyway,” he started again, “it was the only way I could think of to stop my dad, and it worked. So, I practiced every chance I could, I made sure he didn’t have a reason to talk me out of it. I spent a lot of time in the pool, and I guess I just… got used to being here.”

Eddie nodded, still silent, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to talk yet.

“I came out here to think a lot. S’just a habit, I guess,” he added, not wanting to stew in the silence and hoping Eddie would take that as the end of Steve answering his question. He did, thankfully, and started humming as he thought of what to say next.

"You tellin' me you were a jock, Harrington? What else don't I know about you?" he settled on.

Steve rolled his eyes. Of course Eddie Munson, of the Munson Doctrine, was harping on the fact that he was a jock. It seemed like that was one more point to his differences between he and OtherSteve. It didn't feel bad, this time. It felt... nice, teaching Eddie about himself. It felt like he wasn't the only one learning new people, learning about Eddie. He liked that Eddie could learn about him, too, in a way he hadn't before. Steve was done with stalling this conversation, though. It was his turn to learn, now.

"Speaking of things I don't know about you..." he trailed off, letting the weight of his silence settle into Eddie's bones. He looked guilty, eyes darting around to avoid Steve's as his mouth thinned once again into a tight line. Steve thought Eddie had a pretty good poker face back home, but this one? Not in a million years.

"Right," Eddie muttered. "Well."

Steve waited patiently, letting Eddie work through his thoughts until he was ready. They both knew where the conversation was going. They both knew why they were out here in the first place, and why Robin left them to themselves. They both knew what was in the physical and metaphorical closet.

Eddie sighed, leaning back on his hands. He looked toward the sky, as if the stars could tell him where to start. Maybe they did. It wasn't much longer until Eddie looked back at Steve and started talking.

"Steve and I... We... Well... Shit," he muttered. The stars clearly had not offered their wisdom, in the end. So, Steve took pity on the man, and asked what had been poking at the back of his head since he saw the shared closet, held Eddie's leather jacket in his hands, and found those polaroids.

"You and Steve were together? Dating?"

Eddie nodded, bottom lip tucked between his teeth as he gnawed on the skin in leu of more words.

"When? I mean... For how long?"

He sat up again, hunched over and twirling his rings around and around his fingers. He chewed on his lip for a few more seconds before sighing again and releasing it, the flesh red and raw.

"We started dating secretly in high school," he started, "I failed it, the first time, and Robin wouldn't let me repeat that so she forced us into study sessions after school. Steve was struggling too, wasn't really great at the math and science parts."

Or English, or history, or Spanish, Steve thought bitterly.

"So, we went from hanging out during school, to hanging out nearly every day afterwords, weekends too. Sometimes, Robin wouldn't be able to make it because of her parents or soccer or whatever, but Steve and I would still meet up.

"With the whole... you know, Upside Down thing you kind of cling onto the people who know," he said, glancing toward Steve because he did know, he felt the same about Nancy and Jonathan.

"So how did you get together?" Steve asked, a little tired of Eddie beating around the bush if he were honest. But he didn't want to push too much, knew this conversation had to be hard for Eddie considering the fact he was telling it to someone with his dead boyfriend's face.

"I mean," Eddie started, cringing a bit as his eyes went wide. He cracked his knuckled and shook out his hands, the epitome of nervous energy. "It's kind of embarrassing, so you cannot laugh," he prefaced.

Steve laughed anyway, just from the warning. "Sorry, no promises."

Eddie groaned, back to twisting his rings around his fingers. "Fine, whatever. It was one of those stupid, cliche experiments, okay? I let it slip that I'd... you know, never kissed anyone, and Steve had offered to... to teach me."

"He was your gay Yoda?"

Eddie squawked, fidgeting halted by his sheer surprise at the statement. He stared at Steve, blush high on his cheeks as he opened and closed his mouth like a fish. Steve held his breath, trying desperately to maintain a blank face and appear as serious as possible.

"I did not have a gay Yoda!" He insisted. "It was a perfectly normal situation, okay? He'd kissed someone before, I hadn't, that was it!"

"If it were normal, you wouldn't be this embarrassed about it," Steve caught him out. He kept blinking and floundering, mouth wide in disbelief, and Steve couldn't hold in his laughter anymore. It bubbled out of him as Eddie smacked his arm in retaliation, shoving him off-balance when he didn't stop laughing.

"Okay! Okay!" Steve chuckled, righting himself as he shoved Eddie away, putting his hands up in surrender. "Sorry, it was a totally normal, non-Yoda teaching moment."

"Dick," Eddie muttered to himself.

"Sorry, continue? Please?" He nudged the other man's shoulder.

"Right," Eddie caved. Though he rolled his eyes and reached out to shove Steve one more time, his shoulders were more relaxed than when he started. He wasn't fidgeting or stalling as much as he did before, and Steve thought that even if it annoyed him a bit, the teasing was a good choice.

"Well, that lead to hooking up and Steve's big Bi awakening, and Robin and I coming out and it was a big sob-fest for all three of us, okay? It wasn't until after the second run-in with the Upside Down that we actually started dating.

"It was like..." he paused, trying to pick out the right words again. "When he was unconscious in my lap after Billy beat his face in, I kept thinking. You know... what if he doesn't wake up? What if he doesn't know about this huge stupid crush I have? What if I don't get to kiss him again?"

Steve watched, nearly mesmerized, as Eddie's tongue flicked out to lick his bottom lip. It wasn't red and swollen anymore from his biting, but it was damp now, glistening like the water and suddenly Steve felt thirsty. He swallowed, couldn't peel his eyes away as Eddie continued.

"So yeah, when he woke up I told him he was never allowed to be get beaten up again, we took the twerps through the tunnels, and I told him he was my boyfriend."

"You told him?" Steve scoffed.

"Yep," he said, popping the 'P' and nodding his head. "He was mine, and there was nothing he could do about it."

Steve could picture it. Could picture Eddie there with him in the tunnels, the concerned glances as he pitched to the side and hid it from the children, as his vision swam and he held himself together long enough to get the kids to safety. He could picture Eddie pulling him aside after they set it all on fire, telling him — not asking — telling him that they were dating now and Steve had to stay safe because he belonged to Eddie. His heart squeezed in his chest. It would work on him, too. If Eddie's eyes were full of concern and his hands gently touched the cuts on Steve's face, and he stepped in so close that Steve could feel his breath glide over the dried blood, and he told him. 'You're mine, Steve Harrington.'

It would work on him, now, he realized; his breath caught in his throat as he watched Eddie's tongue dart out again and wet his lips. Fuck. He was fucked.

He glanced away, breath shuddering from his mouth as he let it out. He felt jealousy in the pit of his stomach, felt it burn like shame as he realized he wanted that. He wanted Eddie.

He took a deep breath, holding it until it felt steadier, like it wouldn't shake as it left his lungs. He couldn't think like that. He was just confused because of the circumstances. Eddie wasn't his. This one, or the one gallivanting in California in his own world; they weren't his. Steve didn't have anyone like that, and it wasn't fair to Eddie to want it. He'd already had a Steve. Had already lost him. He was a different person, and that wouldn't change.

—

Oh boy oh boy oh boy, I really loved writing this one! I'm so excited to be back on this bullshit, I have so many plans 👀

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[helpimstuckposting]

I’m a ghost and you are a shadow

Part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven | part twelve | part thirteen

—

Robin’s eyes darted between Steve’s own as she assessed his mental state or whatever it was she was looking for. She seemed to find an answer though as she stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

She sank into it, using all of her weight to blanket him within her arms. Even though she was smaller than him, lankier in her awkwardness, she was so warm. Again, he felt that settling feeling, like pieces he’d been missing were clicking back into place, making him whole again.

She sighed against his neck, rubbing her cold nose into him, sending a short chill into his spine. He jerked his shoulder in response, squeezing her head into the crook before pulling away enough to look her in the eye again

“Jesus!” he startled, pinching her side. “How is your nose so cold?”

“My feet are colder,” she said, sticking a foot into the air and trying to slide it into the cuff of his sweatpants. He yelped, stepping backward onto a different stair as she wobbled forward. She still had a grip on his arms and tried wrestling him toward her, one foot precariously in the air as she balanced on the steps, one wrong move from disaster.

“No wrestling on the stairs!” Eddie’s voice called from the living room.

They both froze, sharing a look. ‘Don’t say anything’ and ‘don’t worry, I won’t’.

It was easier said than done, though, when he stepped off the staircase and rounded the corner to the living room. Eddie’s eyes caught his sweatshirt just like Robin’s had and Steve watched as he took a deep breath before looking Steve in the eye.

He tried to give a reassuring smile — tried to show he wasn’t mad they’d been keeping a secret from him — but he thinks it probably fell flat. He couldn’t quite get the corners of his mouth to relax the way a smile should fall; he was too stiff, too awkward. He felt like he was trying to play pickup sticks, gently guiding the twigs to freedom without touching the rest of the pile. It wasn’t working.

Eddie pulled his eyes away, focusing back on his conversation with El. Luckily, Steve didn’t have time to open his mouth and say something stupid before the front door swung open and the rest of the party stormed the castle.

Dustin came barreling in, a thousand questions on his tongue, and Steve tried insisting they didn’t have all the answers. He was glad for the distraction though, didn’t really want to be diving into the abyss of questions his own mind was providing.

He couldn’t help but avoid eye contact with Eddie, though he could practically feel his eyes burrowing into the back of Steve’s head. He just didn’t know how to look at him without dragging him away to talk, without the pile of sticks crashing down on top of him before he could wiggle the one thread of conversation he needed out.

For now, he sat down on the couch as everyone filed into the living room, scattering around the room once the couches were filled. Steve had Robin squished in on one side, El burrowed into the other, and the three remaining adults were on the second couch. Will and Mike leaned against the wall as Max and Lucas sat down on the coffee table and Dustin paced the length of the living room. His sneakers were scuffed and dragging faint lines of dirt across the beige carpet.

A thought briefly flashed through Steve’s mind; his mother yelling about the stains, complaining that Steve doesn’t care for his possessions, that he’s ungrateful and should leave the house spotless next time.

He wonders again where this Linda wandered off to.

“So what do you mean you ‘think’ you found it?” Dustin settled on his first question.

The group of four looked back and forth between each other, no one immediately volunteering their information.

“Well,” El started, “it’s like it’s… closed?”

“That’s good, right? That it’s closed?” Mike asked, eyes darting from El to Dustin and back again.

El glanced back toward Steve and shrugged. “It’s only… kind of closed. It opened when Steve touched it.”

Steve felt all their eyes on him, and he squirmed under their weight. This felt like another reminder that he wasn’t meant to be here, that he was different from the rest of the party. Eddie’s words drifting through those thoughts was the only thing easing his immediate anxiety. Do you want to stay here, Steve?

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with the gate but I don’t plan on going anywhere,” he assured them, liked how the words sounded out loud.

He glanced toward Eddie, saw his approval in the reassuring smile and the relaxed set to his shoulders. We’ll do everything we can to make sure you do.

“If it’s closed when Steve’s not around it, maybe the issue is already solved,” Eddie cut in, the eyes in the room slinking off of Steve and over to the man on the other couch.

“Maybe I can see why it reacted to him,” El said, standing from Steve’s side and addressing the room. “Maybe if I try and… and… talk to it, or at least locate it myself, I can find out what it means. It should not be too hard, now that I know where it is.”

“Now there’s a plan, Supergirl,” Eddie said, snapping his fingers in her direction.

The rest of the teens shared their own looks, weighing the option in their heads. If Steve didn’t know any better he’d think they somehow gained a hive mind through all the Upside Down shit… Though, Steve didn’t actually know better so who could say?

“Okay,” Mike finally relented, breaking the silence, “Fine, El can check out the gate with her mind, but what about Steve being a key? What if we have to shove him into the lock in order to really close the door?”

“Hey!” Eddie, and Robin shouted at once — Robin practically half out of her seat.

“I don’t want him gone either, assholes!” Mike yelled back. His eyes darted back and forth between the two adults, pointedly avoiding Steve’s. He stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against, arms held tightly across his chest.

“I know I wasn’t close to him like Dustin or you guys, but he was still our babysitter. He was still like a brother to me.”

Steve’s heart didn’t skip at Mike’s declaration. It sort of… wobbled, like it was so shocked it contemplated stopping all together before thudding into action again. He looked at Robin, gaping like a fish still on the hook, and he looked at Eddie, not much different than Robin. Then he glanced at Nancy, compelled by the Wheeler bloodline or maybe because he always used to look at Nancy when he didn’t know what to do, and she looked… proud. She smiled at Mike like they’d never fought a day in their lives, like the Norman Rockwell Christmas paintings that Steve used to stare at as a child, wishing his parents cast their happy smiles onto him just like the pictures. She smiled in a way that Steve had almost thought didn’t exist until he saw it on Mrs. Byers and Jonathan when they looked at Will. Like how family was supposed to look at each other, but Steve hadn’t learned that until 1983.

Mike himself was resolutely staring at the floor, avoiding eye contact as Will pat his shoulder and Dustin started rambling again to peel everyone’s eyes away. Everyone except Steve, who kept watching as Mike glanced up and caught his eye. He mouthed a soft ‘thank you’ to the teen before diverting his attention onto Dustin once more.

He was helping El to the floor as Max and Lucas started shoving the coffee table out of the way. Someone clicked on the TV to a vacant channel, screen buzzing away with static. Eddie pulled a bandana out of his back pocket and wrapped it gently around El’s head, whispering softly to check if it was too tight or if she could still see. Once she nodded and gave him a blind thumbs-up, he stepped away again, and the room turned their attention to the girl with superpowers.

Everyone was silent as she sat there, doing god knows what in that little head of hers. Her fingertips twitched as they rested against her knees, and she moved her head around as if seeing straight through the bandana. Steve didn’t know why, but for some reason he got the impression that she was confused — like she was looking too hard at a map and struggling to find her destination. She raised her hand toward him, curling her fingers twice to beckon him forward.

She gasped as he grabbed her hand, fingers clenching tightly around his. She squeezed them tighter and tighter, sitting ram-rod straight now as his fingertips went fuzzy like the TV screen. She gasped again, this time much deeper like she was coming up for air after a swim and she dropped his hand all together, pulling the bandana from her eyes.

El looked around the room at everyone, and Steve was transported back to his own world for just a moment — watching a little girl come back to herself as she sorted through things only she could see. This El before him — nearing her 20s, no longer 14 years old — looked up at him with a question she hadn’t quite answered yet. He nodded, trying to encourage her with his eyes, nudge her to sort it out aloud.

“I saw,” she started, looking once again from person to person, “I saw gates. Lots of gates, every gate that was ever opened in Hawkins.”

“Like… open now? Again?” Max asked.

El shook her head, still a bit confused herself. “No. Not open. More like… whispers? Like memories. Except, when I touched Steve’s hand I saw even more.”

“Also not open?” Dustin clarified.

El nodded, then tilted her head and squinted before shaking it. “Kind of? They were all scattered, different than the ones I saw by myself. It was like they were whispers of whispers, like I was seeing them through a dirty window. Except one.” She looked at Steve again.

“It was like… two gates, on top of each other. It was the tree gate, but… it looked layered? Does that make sense?”

The group mumbled their confusion, varying degrees of ‘not really’ and ‘no’. But Steve thought about what Robin said, about scars and the body constantly keeping old wounds closed. He thought about what Dustin said about parallel worlds living side by side, and El saying it was like looking through a dirty window, he thought of locks and keys and doors.

“What if the foggy gates are from my world, and the tree gate was an overlap from both? Like, a doorway works both ways, right? What if the other gates are just… opening to brick walls?” Steve looked up from the floor, catching everyone’s eyes on him. El was nodding, accepting, but the rest were on a spectrum from confused to contemplative.

“Did I… did I say something wrong?” he asked, trying to parse if Dustin’s look was leaning more toward denial or agreement.

They all looked between each other, going around the room and locking eyes, muttering to themselves, locking different eyes, nodding, muttering some more. Steve felt something creeping up his spine that he hadn’t felt for a long time, not since Dustin had asked “Do you need to be told everything? You’re not a child,” and his father telling him he needed a job for the summer or he wasn’t welcome at home anymore. He felt it when Nancy looked over his college paper and tried letting him down gently, and when Billy knocked him down during gym and everyone just watched.

But then Dustin nodded again, a more certain look in his eyes as he snapped his fingers and pointed at Steve.

“That’s gotta be it,” he said, and Steve felt the creeping thing slip away, falling from his shoulders like a cloak. “It makes sense, right? A scar on top of a scar, opening the wound again. That’s gotta be why Steve can open it but El can’t, she’s got the wrong key, she’s not from Steve’s universe.”

He didn’t flinch that time. Maybe it was exhaustion from the day’s adventure, maybe it was what Eddie said, still floating through his head. Maybe he was just getting used to it, his otherness. Whatever it was, he didn’t flinch when Dustin said Steve’s universe.

Eddie did though. He looked from Dustin, to Steve, to the sweatshirt Steve was wearing, and then he shot a desperate look to Robin before mumbling about the bathroom and slinking from the room (very obviously walking in the complete opposite direction of any bathrooms, though no one else seemed to be paying attention). Steve hoped they could end this soon, because his feet were itching to follow Eddie, to talk about whatever the other Steve was to him. Though, he knew what they were. The Polaroids in the closet were burned into his brain.

But then Mike asked again about the key and the door and what they would do if Steve had to be put back, if the gate couldn’t close without him, and Steve knew it would be a while yet until he could talk to the man who put such a warm smile on OtherSteve’s face.

—

Sorry for the delay! I was focussing all my time on my steddie bang for a good chunk of the year so this update was slow going. I'm so excited to jump back into this one!

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[helpimstuckposting]

I’m a ghost and you are a shadow

Part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven | part twelve | part thirteen | part fourteen | part fifteen | part sixteen | part seventeen

—

Steve did go upstairs to bed, but he did not go to sleep. He slipped out of the kitchen with the envelope clutched in his hands, waving an awkward goodbye to Linda, and slowly made his way up the stairs.

It was quiet on the second floor — no creaks or shuffling to be heard, aside from Steve’s socks on the hardwood — but he was half expecting Eddie to be leaning against the wall scoldingly, ready with a lecture on why Steve should have been in bed an hour ago.

He wasn’t.

Steve made it inside the dark room unhindered, not bothering to put on a light. He could make out the vague outlines of furniture as the glow from the moon outside cast a dim blue hue through the window. It was too quiet. Right about now, in the darkness, in the silence, was when he would crack open a bottle of whatever to blur his thoughts. He would drink until the room was a swirl of unidentified objects, out of focus enough to slip through his fingers, darkness creeping at the edges until he slipped under into blissful nothingness.

He couldn’t do that now. The outlines, even in the dark, were too clear for his sober mind. As his eyes adjusted, he could still make out the posters plastered to one wall, and the closet door he’d accidentally left cracked in his haste to leave before Robin caught him red handed, rifling through things he shouldn’t. There were no shuffling noises around the house to ease his mind and remind him he wasn’t alone, though he knew — he knew — that there were three other people in the house.

He sat on the edge of the bed.

The comforter was still rumpled from his first attempt at sleep the night before, and he could so easily sag into the soft blue sheets and close his eyes. He should, too; should listen to Eddie, should close his eyes, should drift away and let his mind rest.

He sat. He looked at the posters. He took in the differences like a Where’s Waldo book, skimming the similarities until he found what was new. There weren’t any trophies. No sports plaques, no car magazines. The darkness leaking from the cracked open closet kept drawing his attention as he stroked his thumb over the softened edge of the paper, still grasped in his hands.

Now wasn’t the time to read it. Maybe it wouldn’t ever be the time, but he should keep it somewhere safe, somewhere important. He stood and made his way to the closet. He closed himself inside, just like earlier, and pulled down the shoebox on the top shelf, gently placing the letter inside — nestled between the figurines and the rocks and the Polaroids, nestled where other important memories from this world belonged. It may have been delusional, but it felt like maybe if he put it here, the other Steve could read it, too. Maybe he could see how much his mother loved him, or maybe he already knew.

Steve sighed and placed the top back on the box, lifting it back up, onto the shelf. He stood, silent, looking around the closet, not entirely willing to leave yet. It seemed cliche now, after learning about the Steve and Eddie of this world, that he liked being in the closet of all places. It felt safer, here, in the enclosed space; able to see every corner — even as he stood in the dark. He didn’t feel the need to make sure his back was secure, that he wasn’t vulnerable, that nothing would sneak up on him, because he knew he was covered. He would sleep in his own closet in the other universe, sometimes. When the world seemed too big, and the house was too empty, and he felt the missing pieces of his friends like limbs that were ripped from his body, he would shut himself away and pretend the world was smaller, that he didn’t feel the ache as much.

The closet dampened noise — the clothing a barrier from the outside world, muffled it in a way that made him feel safe. He could smell the fresh detergent clinging to the cotton that hung around him, and the smoke that soaked itself into the leather, and the weed that was probably tucked safely away inside a pocket or two. Steve reached out for the leather jacket on Eddie’s side, slipping it off the hook.

It was heavy. It weighed his arm down as he pulled it closer to himself, holding it in front of his nose to breathe it in. It was peppery with age and cologne, acrid but familiar tobacco permeating his senses. It smelled like the vest he’d refused to throw out, the one still hanging in his closet with bloodstains and mud caked into the fibers. He slid to the floor, leather pooling in his lap, back against the wall as the jackets and sweatshirts tucked him safely away.

He wished he could hear Eddie snoring softly through the wall, or Robin shuffling around as she kicked off her blankets. He wished he could hear Linda puttering around in the kitchen, maybe making herself a cup of that sugar-water-coffee Eddie had told him about. For now, though — without the reminder of other people in the house — he laid himself on the floor, leather jacket tucked around his face as he breathed it in, and tried to get at least a couple hours of sleep, so Eddie wouldn't be disappointed with him when he woke up.

He didn't actually expect to fall asleep like that — a sneaker shoved uncomfortably into the back of his thigh — but the next thing he knew, Robin was shaking him awake in concern, her eyebrows creased and looking half a second away from tears.

"Are you okay? Steve?" she called, squeezing his shoulder so tight Steve thought it might leave a mark.

"Whuh- Robin?" he rasped, eyes feeling heavy and crusted over. He could have sworn that only seconds had passed from him laying down in the closet, to her shaking him awake.

She sagged in relief, letting go of his arm, but laying herself over Steve instead. She rubbed her face into his bicep, breathing him in until her heart rate had calmed. The cotton of his sweatshirt bunched under her nose, the heat from her breath soaking into his skin through the fabric. She sat up again, staring at him, taking him in, assessing that he truly was alright as he rubbed his eyes hard enough to see stars. Once she'd determined he was okay, she smacked him in the shoulder — entirely too hard for someone she'd just been panicked over, in Steve's opinion.

"God! I thought you'd keeled over or something! You weren't in your bed, and it looked like you hadn't gone to sleep, but your mom said she saw you go upstairs and you weren't in the kitchen, so I didn't know what to do, and-"

"Robs! Robs-," he tried to interrupt, sitting up and clutching at her shoulders, "deep breath, okay? I'm fine."

"What are you doing in here? Why didn't you sleep in your bed, or-," she paused, spotting the crumpled up leather jacket that Steve had been using as a pillow. He cringed, watching as her expression went from pinched in panicked anger, to confusion, to a sad kind of understanding.

“Oh, Steve.”

He rolled his eyes and pulled his knees to his chest. “Yeah, I know, I’m pathetic,” he mumbled, resting his forehead against his knees so he didn’t have to see the pitying look in her eyes.

He felt the clothes shift above him, and Robin pressing against his side as she joined him on the floor. It was almost like they were in the bathroom at Starcourt again, though it wasn’t her and it wasn’t him who’d become best friends on that tiled floor. He glanced to the side, catching her eye, and he was surprised to find no pity there, just understanding.

“You’re not pathetic,” she insisted, voice firm with conviction.

He didn’t deign to reply, just kept watching her as she waffled over what to say next. She kept flicking her eyes to the leather jacket, still rumpled in a heap, and Steve hoped it wouldn’t be noticeably wrinkled when he hung it back up.

“Did you…,” she started again, trailing off. “I mean, you were surprised about Steve and Eddie, right? So you aren’t… I don’t know, together in your world? At all?” She was chewing on her lip, tapping her fingers nervously against her own corduroy clad knee. “Like, I know you said it before but, I mean, it’s kind of hard to picture in my head.”

He shook his head, burying it once again in his arms before answering. “Robs, I didn’t even know he was gay. I didn’t even know I liked guys, and Eddie’s got his own life to worry about anyway. I haven’t seen him in months.”

“So this is our scoops moment, huh?” She asked, and Steve had to laugh. Of course she’d be thinking the same thing he was, of course he wouldn’t even have to say it. He slumped to the side, resting his body against hers in the cramped space, and stretched his feet out — soles pressed flat to the opposite wall.

“Yeah, this is our scoops moment.”

“Are you like… coming out of the closet?”

“No, I kind of like it in here, actually. It’s cozy.”

Robin laughed and shoved her shoulder into his. “I know everyone kind of already knows, but you can still be you at your own pace, here. You can be… Straight Steve or something.”

“Straight Steve? I’m Straight Steve, now? You want me to go around saying that to everyone I see, ‘hello! My name is Straight Steve and I’m definitely not overcompensating for anything,’ get it together, Buckley." He rolled his eyes, rolled his whole head with it, bumping back into her shoulder as he did it.

“Shut up!” she squeaked, gripping his arm and shaking it in her hands like she was imagining it was his neck she was wringing. “You know what I mean, Dingus.” Her voice dipped, softer as she tried to squeeze every last drop of sincerity into it.

“I mean, you’re allowed to be your own person and do things on your own time. Even if some asshole already came out for you.”

“Wow, can’t believe your Steve was reduced to ‘some asshole’ so quickly.”

“I know you’re trying to make light of this very important conversation by being a bitch, but it’s not going to work. I’ll say it as many times as I have to until it’s drilled into your poofy, well protected skull. He may have been my Steve, but you’re my Steve, too. None of this ‘mine’ and ‘theirs’ and ‘others’ crap, alright? If we’re keeping you, then you’re mine. That’s final, I don’t make the rules,” she sniffed, head raised like she was just stating facts and it was all out of her hands. Her hands were still gripped around his bicep, too tight compared to her indifferent expression, and Steve knew she was just as desperate to keep him as he was to stay.

“Aren’t you literally making the rules right now?”

“Shut up, Eddie’s making breakfast and he told me to grab you, so let me get to grabbing.”

She stood up, releasing her hands from his arm and leaving a cold spot in their place. Hand out, presented like an offering, she towered over him and wiggled her fingers, “Come on, chop chop, coffee’s not going to drink itself.”

He sighed and reluctantly — though not at all reluctantly, he did not need to keep sitting in this closet alone like a weirdo — he took her hand and let her pull him to his feet. She tried dragging him out of the closet, but he dug his heels in and doubled back, making sure to grab the rumpled leather jacket and hang it back where he found it. He tried to make it presentable, to shake all the wrinkles out, but it still looked a little more frumpy than it had the night before. He just had to hope that Eddie either wouldn’t see it, or wouldn’t notice as he followed Robin out the door.

—

@devondespresso @machete-inventory-manager @sirsnacksalot @space-invading-pigeon @aliea82

@goodolefashionedloverboi @anti-ozzie @13catastrophic-blues @estrellami-1 @cinnamon-mushroomabomination

@likelylad @aellafreya @wxrmland @shunna @howincrediblysapphicofyou

@1-8oo-wtfbro @grimmfitzz @queenie-ofthe-void @redheadchimechild @bread52487

@inikokoru @fangirltofangod @jinojiboundagain @bookworm0690 @n0-1-important

@emly03 @stevieboyscoffee @fracturedfaultline @dauntlessdiva @theohohmoment

@dotdot-wierdlife @tartarusknight @ellietheasexylibrarian

[helpimstuckposting]

WIP Weekend

Okay as usual, send me an emoji and I’ll write 3-5 sentences. If you send me a secret fic*, I will write for an additional WIP and share that snip instead (if you want a specific snip, send me that emoji with the secret one) let’s gooooooooo!!!!

Ahhhhhhh tagged by @tinytalkingtina @hbyrde36 @stellarspecter and @sourw0lfs !!!!

🍦— Steve Harrington Big Bang*

🤫 — Steddie Big Bang*

👻 — I’m a Ghost and You Are a Shadow

⏰ — Time Loop, Scoops (Steddie Bingo)

💋 — True Loves Kiss (Steddie Bingo)

👨‍🍳 — Competition, Recipe (Steddie Bingo)

Tagging: @medusapelagia @pearynice @estrellami-1 @hairstevington @fuctacles

Snip of 👨‍🍳 below the cut!

“All right, all right, out! Gremlins to the car. Mike — call Nancy and tell her to meet us at the frozen yoghurt place, I can’t deal with all of you by myself.”

“But what about—”

“—They’re busy,” she cut Dustin off.

Steve didn’t even glance anywhere else as Robin filed the party out of his house. He could only keep his eyes on Eddie, looking at him like Steve was a puzzle with a missing piece. His eyes were squinted, analyzing, reading Steve like one of his worn out paperbacks, cracked and folded and soft with repeated use.

He rounded on Steve the second they heard the door click shut.

“Talia? Who’s Talia, how do you have her recipe?”

“She was my nanny,” he said, hands up like Eddie was pointing a gun right at him, interrogating him for answers.

“Your—” Eddie took a breath. He stepped back, like he realized Steve was wound tight — flashbacks to the boathouse and Eddie with a broken bottle to his throat flashing through his head. “Your nanny? What was her last name?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed, as honest as he knew how to sound. He stared at Eddie as he processed, the calculations still flashing over his face, the puzzle piece still missing.

He carded a shaky hand through his hair, his other hand fidgeting with the rings on his fingers, twirling them round and round and round. Steve was hypnotized, waiting for Eddie to respond. He nodded to himself, pulling out his wallet, chain dangling and clanging together in the silence of the recently cleared-out kitchen. He pulled something small from the cracked leather, a card or paper of some kind.

“Is this her?” he asked, holding it up. It was a picture — a polaroid. It was faded and worn, a little dirty around the edges and frayed where the wallet’s opening had left it exposed.

It was Talia. Steve’s Talia. She smiled up at the camera, a small baby in her lap. Her smile was bright, just like he remembered, and her hair was down, spread over her shoulders in a mess of curls. He could almost hear her laughter again, echoing through the empty hallways of his big house. He could almost feel her fingers carding through his hair as he cried, her soft voice whispering in his ear that he was okay, he wasn’t alone, he was loved and cared for. His chest squeezed painfully, throat tight all of a sudden — just from a picture. He hadn’t seen her face in years.

He looked at the baby, the small one cradled in her arms. It was staring right up at her, big eyes focused on nothing else. He looked back at Eddie.

“You—”

“—Talia was my mother. Talia Munson. It’s her recipe.”

Steve trailed his finger along the soft edge of the picture, eyes not leaving Eddie’s. They were no longer calculating — the puzzle piece had been found, way faster than Steve would have discovered it. Eddie was always so smart, so quick, so fast to find answers and conclusions. He was so smart, and he was so nice, and he had curly hair and big brown eyes and his laugh felt like home. Just like his mother’s.

Just like his dead mother.

[helpimstuckposting]

I couldn’t get my earlier post out of my head, and then this happened so… I hope you enjoy a little famous!Eddie and dingus!Steve ficlet (ft platonic soulmate Stobin)

Part one | part two | part three

—

Steve and Robin had lived in Indy all of their lives. They shared the same schools, same teachers, same jobs, it would never end. They were platonic soulmates in a way they understood but couldn’t explain to anyone else, and that was okay. It worked for them.

Since they graduated, they’d been ice cream scoopers, movie rental employees, pizza makers, delivery drivers, movie theater security, bartenders, and now - surprisingly - musicians.

They had originally started messing around with song covers during their bartending era. Every Thursday was karaoke night, and they were both too competitive to see it as anything other than a chance to win, both trying to upstage the other. After a while, Steve started writing songs in his free time and Robin wouldn’t let anyone but her sing them. She posted their songs on Tiktok and Instagram just to see what would happen, and eventually they made their way onto Spotify and other streaming services.

A few of their songs went viral enough that they had a steady stream of listeners, and spent their free time putting more and more songs together. Their boss even let them play live at the bar on Wednesdays (and of course they’re still just as passionate about karaoke night).

It was a few months into their Wednesday shows when he showed up. Eddie Munson. It was just another bar in Indy, just a stop on their tour, just a coincidence that he happened to choose Robin and Steve’s bar. Steve noticed him during their set, and he was so glad in that moment that Robin was the lead singer because he was absolutely sure his voice would have cracked. Corroded Coffin was one of Dustin’s favorite bands, the kid wouldn’t shut up about them any time a new album or single was released.

Steve knew they were in Indy on tour, he’d witnessed Dustin’s spiral about not being able to afford a ticket, but he couldn’t believe they stopped in this bar. Dustin was gonna freak.

Once Robin and Steve finished their set, they went back to the bar to resume their actual jobs and Steve was once again stunned when Eddie Munson walked right up to him for a drink. Obviously Steve should have expected that, what else was someone going to do at a bar? But seeing someone he knows from the multiple posters plastered over Dustin’s bedroom wall, right in front of him - in the flesh, was beyond anything he could have predicted. Internally, he was absolutely freaking out.

Externally, he tried to keep his professional mask on. Munson was a regular customer, just a guy buying a drink, Steve could handle it without a meltdown. But man was the guy attractive. His band tee was ripped at the hem, jean vest with all its pins and buttons catching the light, and Steve could see the tendon in his neck pull as he laughed at something his band mate next to him said. Steve wanted to bite it.

He finished a customer’s drink, collected their card, and braced himself as Munson stepped up to the bar, a dimpled smile on his face that made Steve’s heart flutter like a dying butterfly in his chest.

“Nice set, man, your friend’s voice is gorgeous,” he said. “Can I get three rum and cokes?”

Grabbing three glasses from the bar, Steve began on the drinks. “Absolutely,” he said, his smile probably nowhere near Eddie’s level. “Are you here often, or just visiting?” Steve asked, attempting to play it cool, like Eddie was just any other person. This is ridiculous, Steve’s gonna throw up. Keep calm.

Eddie looked him up and down and smirked, “Just visiting for the weekend,” he said. A growing lump in Steve’s throat made him want to scream ‘I know!!! I know why you’re here!!! I know who you are!!! Hi!!!’ but he shoved that down as far as it could go, ready to choke on it if need be.

Steve set the finished drinks on the bar in front of Eddie, the musician handing over his card in exchange. “Open or closed?” He asked.

“Open. So, are those songs originals?” Eddie leaned into the bar, putting his face just a bit closer to Steve’s. He was gonna have a heart attack before the night was over, for sure, if Eddie kept this up.

“Oh, yeah, I uh… I wrote them,” Steve stuttered out. This was insane, he could pinch himself, there was no way this situation was happening. Eddie was gorgeous, dimples firmly in place because he wouldn’t stop smiling or smirking, his curls just begging for Steve to bury his hands in them and bring their faces closer. If Steve hadn’t been on the receiving end of hundreds of Dustin’s rants about Corroded Coffin, he knows he’d still want to drag Eddie out back and see what those lips tasted like, if they felt as much like sunshine as they looked.

Eddie nodded appreciatively and looked Steve up and down once again. “I’d love to hear more some time,” he said as he turned to leave, three glasses balanced in his hands.

“Well there’s karaoke here tomorrow night,” Steve blurted out, all attempts at remaining calm flying out the window because was that Eddie flirting with him? How did we get here? “You could stop by if you’ve got any free time.”

Eddie laughed, amusement flickering in his eyes and suddenly Steve remembered chasing fireflies in Robin’s backyard when they were kids. He started walking backwards towards his friends, “I’ll see what I can do!” he said with a raised voice, flashing one more smile that made that butterfly in Steve’s chest absolutely flip out. He was frozen in place, the shock of the whole situation settling deep in his bones. Honestly, Steve wasn’t sure he was still alive. Did he choke somewhere between the stage and the bar? Did he even make it to work in the first place? What day was it?

“Earth to Dingus!” Robin shouted at the other end of the bar. “A little help here?” she frantically gestured around her to the rising number of patrons.

A pretty decently sized mob was forming around the bar, snapping Steve out of his rock-star-induced-coma. He could freak out later in the privacy of his own home, right now he had work to do. And if his brain short circuited every time Eddie ordered drinks, that was nobody’s business but his own (and Robin’s).

—

Thank you so much for the encouragement !

[helpimstuckposting]

Strangers All Around Me

Prompt: Amnesia | Rating: T | Wordcount: 3,407 | AO3 | @steddiebingo

Steve wasn’t… entirely sure what his problem was. He woke up, worked at a shitty retail job, avoided his weird coworker, and then took his sorry ass home. Every day. That was just… his life since graduating high school. And that was fine, don’t get him wrong, it was fine. It wasn’t ideal by any means, but it’s not like his life was stressful or in peril or anything, it was just… it was fine.

But lately he kept thinking that something was wrong. Something… vague and unattainable. It was just niggling in the back of his mind like a whisper or some misty haze that he could almost see, but not quite. It kept hovering in his periphery, poking him for attention, always just out of sight; if he tried focusing on whatever it was, then — poof — it was gone, like it had never been there in the first place.

It wasn’t always there, either. Usually, he’d just go about his day like a mindless zombie and wish that he was on good terms with Carol and Tommy again, just to have something to do. He felt their absence like a missing limb, like part of him was gone but he could still feel his fingers somehow, a phantom itch on his wrist that he couldn’t scratch because it wasn’t there. Or at least, he thought that feeling was the absence of his once-best-friends, because what else would it be? His parents? He hadn’t missed them since he was twelve.

But sometimes that itching, cloying absence would just fester like an open wound, calling to him — begging him to fill it with… something.

And he couldn’t figure out what that something was.

It might have been Nancy, too. Things were weird with her, though he couldn’t remember if they fought at some point or another. It felt like… like maybe they’d broken up without ever actually saying it. She was avoiding him, too, so it must have been a mutual… whatever it was.

So, he didn’t have friends, he didn’t have a girlfriend (maybe? Jury was still out on that one), and he didn’t know what scratched at the folds of his brain every so often. Big deal.

And if that was everything, he probably wouldn’t think much of it. People drift away, they leave, they move on and leave Steve behind, it’s happened basically since the dawn of time — or, the dawn of Steve Harrington, at least. He was used to it.

But that wasn’t all that was weird. Sometimes he woke up with a scream on his lips, his arms and legs sore from thrashing, and a massive black hole where the nightmare was supposed to be. Sometimes he flinched when the lights flickered, and he could feel panic clawing its way up his throat with sharp talons, digging its way into him until he was gasping with it. Sometimes he’d wake up two hours before his alarm, 6 AM on the dot, scrambling for his bedside clock because he thinks he’s late, but late for what? He hadn’t woken up that early since high school, when he picked up Nancy before first period sometimes.

It just didn’t make sense, and Steve had the thought every so often that he was going a little bit crazy. It was still easy to ignore most of the time. Like he said, it was just a whisper, just an intangible mist that floated around his brain until he focused on it and it disappeared again.

It was… fine. He just wasn’t sure what the issue was.

To be honest, it could have just been residual weirdness from the earthquake. Lights flicker during natural disasters, right? Yeah. And everyone has their own losses and emotions to grapple with from the event. Even his weird coworker, Robin, flinches sometimes when the lights aren’t steady, so really Steve had nothing to worry about, right? Everything was normal.

Everything was normal.

Except when his hands shook and his breath escaped him and he felt like he shouldn’t turn his back to the room; except when he looked at raw meat and felt a rolling in his gut that he never felt before; except when he saw Robin duck to grab something off the ground, and he covered the corner of the Family Video counter with his hand so she wouldn’t bump her head.

She looked at him like an alien for that one, and that was saying something — she usually looked at him like he’d stepped in dog shit right before clocking in. If Steve had been watching himself, he was sure he’d have made the same exact expression, because he’d never done that before. Not for anyone. It had never even crossed his mind until that point, because why would it? He felt like some kind of mom on a daytime sitcom, it was weird.

Robin had brushed it off with an eyeroll and a scoff, acting like the small gesture was something condescending, something he’d done to mock her clumsiness.  And that… that also didn’t feel good. It sort of prickled in his chest, another barb that poked and prodded and said this isn’t right. But it was right, it was normal, Robin had always assumed the worst of him since the moment she saw him walk into Scoops. They were on opposite sides of the high school hierarchy, and she took any moment to knock him down a peg or two.

Which was fine, again. It was annoying and it was stupid but Steve never really cared, never paid attention. If she couldn’t stand being around him, she could just quit and get a different job, there was no reason to stay at Family Video if she really hated him. It was already a little weird that they’d accidentally ended up at the same store twice, but… small towns, Steve guessed.

Or she was a stalker. Either way, it was her choice to leave, so she couldn’t really hate Steve that much. Though, sometimes it certainly felt like she tried. He didn’t want to deal with the barbs, the pointed return of the You Rule/You Suck board, which she’d started to use again in order to tally pretty much everything. Flirting with other girls felt weird, presumably because he still wasn’t sure if he’d broken up with Nancy or not. It made his stomach roll — just like raw meat occasionally did — and it usually caused that weird prickling in the back of his mind again.

Robin had resorted to teasing him about every dorky thing he’d done instead, filling up the “You Suck” side multiple times a week. He made a dumb joke in the absence of anything to talk about? Tally. He miscounted the candy in the storage room? Tally. A girl came in and blatantly flirted with him, and he didn’t flirt back? Tally! He surely thought that would give him another mark under “You Rule”, but apparently he was wrong. He’d gotten exactly one tally in the “You Rule” column, a few weeks ago, and never again.

Some kid he thought might be friends with Nancy’s little brother had wandered in with his mom, making odd faces and gestures as his mother laughed and rolled her eyes. He did this weird thing, where he’d brought his shoulders together like he was made of rubber, and Robin had whispered ‘oh my god, what the fuck,’ under her breath in shock.

“It’s cleidocranial dysplasia,” he’d whispered to her, and she’d reeled back, looking at him once again like an alien had snatched him up and inhabited his body.

“Huh?”

“No collar bones,” he said with a shrug.

She looked at him appraisingly for a moment, eyes combing up and down like maybe he was hiding a textbook under his shirt just to spout random facts and fuck with her.

“How did you know that?” She squinted at him, backing up another step like that one piece of information was a weapon she didn’t know how to disarm. He scoffed, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms. She was being ridiculous, over dramatic and a little bit mean, assuming Steve couldn’t possibly just know things sometimes.

Except… he shouldn’t have known that. He didn’t know that. But… clearly he had?

He shrugged, that wriggling little worm of annoyance squirming around in his head again. “Must have read it somewhere.”

“You can read?” Robin gasped, acting for all the world like she’d expected him to be illiterate. And like, rude? He may not have graduated with any honors or prospects, but he did the damn thing. He’d passed English every single year, for fucks sake.

“You can read?” He mocked back, voice entirely too high and whiny to sound anything like the girl in front of him — but if she was allowed to be a bitch, then so was he, goddammit. ‘If you can’t take the heat’ and whatever.

So she’d scowled at him for the impression, and begrudgingly picked up the whiteboard to scrawl the tiniest little tally she possibly could, right in the “You Rule” column. He was shocked for a minute, but the smug smile he wore for the rest of their shift felt good, for the first time in a while something felt almost right about their teasing. Robin had scoffed every single time she caught him smiling, which inexplicably made him smile more. His cheeks hurt after that shift.

He hadn’t gotten another ‘You Rule’ tally since, but her teasing did seem a little less mean from then on, and he’d take whatever win he could get.

It wasn’t until a few days post-tally, that he’d had another… thing to add to his list of Weird Shit Going On.

Eddie fucking Munson.

Munson, king of the freaks, lord of the… the fucking cafeteria tables or whatever. Steve had never even talked to the guy — never even had a class with him, he thought. Though, Steve supposed he wasn’t exactly the best at paying attention. 

Now, though. Now, he couldn’t stop paying attention. He’d caught one glance, one glance at the guy from across the strip mall parking-lot and he felt like he was choking on his own heart. He saw the mass of curly brown hair and all of a sudden, felt like he was trapped in a bubble and couldn’t breathe. The wiggling little weirdness in his head was clawing, tearing at him to pay attention but the more he tried to understand it, the worse the pain in his head became. It wasn’t a wiggling anymore, wasn’t an itch or a mist, it was a pickaxe chopping away and he still couldn’t see what it was picking at.

His heart squeezed in his chest and he had the most irrational urge to step forward, to push through the swinging glass doors, to… to… do something. And then Eddie turned, catching Steve’s eye through the glass, and he felt the tension at the back of his skull snap, like a rubber band against skin. What the fuck was he doing? Why was he staring at Munson of all people?

He shook his head, swallowing a few times to dislodge the lump in his throat. It was another tick in the ‘something’s weird’ column, another thought with nowhere to go, another shadow at the edge of his mind. It was gone again when he glanced out to the empty parking-lot, no Munson in sight.

“You okay?” Robin’s voice cut through the silence like a needle poking right through his bubble, bursting the last bit of haze in his periphery.

“Yeah, fine. Why?”

He blinked a few times, looking back down at the stack of tapes to rewind. What the fuck was that? He’d never once felt… whatever that was — that desperation, that jolt of… something. Maybe it was anxiety. Maybe he’d seen the back of Munson’s head, and thought it was Nancy? Maybe he was anxious about seeing her, after avoiding each other for weeks.

“You were staring at Eddie like you were about to burst through the door and… like, tackle him like it was one of your sports things.”

He rolled his eyes. First, that was ridiculous. And second, that was ridiculous.

“I played basketball, Robin. There was no tackling involved.”

“I played basketball, Robin, bluh bluh bluh,” she muttered, voice deep and grumbled, low enough that Steve assumed she didn’t mean for him to hear it. Whatever.

He shook his head again, and returned to the task he was actually being paid to do. There was no sense in fighting with her, or analyzing the weird reaction he’d had to Munson. It was behind him, it didn’t matter.

Except that every single time since then, any passing glimpse of that curly brown hair, or jingle of chains on his jeans, every rumble of a van way too old to function and Steve’s heart was right back in his throat, struggling desperately to escape. If he thought about it at all, his migraine returned, so Steve did his best to shove it away.

He had never once, in the entire span of time he’d known of Munson’s existence, felt anything but vague annoyance or general indifference. He was just that guy that stood on tables, the weirdo who interrupted lunch when no one really cared what he had to say except his own friends. He’d maybe weaseled a few extra bucks from Steve every so often for… party supplies. But he’d never, not once, weaseled his way into Steve’s head this persistently.

But hey, that was a thought. Maybe this was all just residual stress from losing his closest friends, and the mall fire, and the earthquake, and the blank-space nightmares, and the weird Nancy thing. Maybe he just needed to relax a little bit, and his brain was subconsciously connecting Munson to the solution. That had to be it.

Which was why, the next time he caught a heart-skipping glance of that head of hair outside of Melvald’s, he dropped what he was doing and followed Eddie into the parking lot. He probably could have done it more tactfully, could have waited by Eddie’s picnic table and done this all a bit more professionally, but he wasn’t even sure the man still claimed that table, after the earthquake forced Hawkins High students to relocate classes a town over.

It was just… he was desperate for some kind of relief. He just wanted his mind to float away instead of poking at him; he wanted to forget about all the weird shit for just a second, and maybe it would jumpstart his brain back on track.

But cornering the guy was probably not his smartest move. When he rounded the corner to where he’d assumed the van was parked, his back hit the brick wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. It felt like whiplash as he was pinned down, hot breath ghosting over his face and brown eyes dark, squinting with suspicion, as they stared him down.

For a second he had the insane thought that Munson would bring a knife to his neck, could almost feel the cold edge as it pressed into his skin. Instead, both of Munson’s hands were clenched into Steve’s cotton polo, keeping him tight against the wall.

“What are you doing, Harrington? Hmm?” He asked, clenched teeth making the words come out muffled and stilted. His eyes flicked back and forth between Steve’s own, and that stupid fucking itching in his mind was back, cataloguing the details, twisting his stomach like deja vu — like he’d done this, like he’d been here before.

He’d taken too long to answer, Munson’s hands tightening in his shirt, and the rough edges of brick were digging at Steve’s back. It felt significant.

“I don’t remember pissing anyone off lately, so either tell me what you want, or get lost. I’m not really in the mood for a fist fight, got it?”

Steve probably should have expected the reaction, he’d followed a drug dealer practically into an alleyway and though Munson wasn’t exactly known for violence, he was pretty skittish. Steve shook his head with a tight smile, hands up by his head like he was surrendering to the man before him.

“I’m cool, I’m cool, I wasn’t like… I wasn’t trying to start anything.”

“Sure, and I graduated the first time,” he scoffed, not letting go of Steve’s shirt. His hands did loosen their grip, but Steve wasn’t sure that was a sign of peace.

“What. Do. You. Want?” His words were sharp, digging in just like the brick at Steve’s back, and he had the absent, bizarre thought, that if Munson just leaned in a little he could probably smell the cherry gloss on Steve’s lips.

“Do you still sell?” he breathed, quieter than intended, like Munson’s intimidations were working. Which they weren’t, Steve was just caught off guard.

With a huff and a groan, the man loosened his grip on Steve’s shirt and stepped back. Steve felt like — if he’d let himself — he could fall to the ground right here, knees giving out from the sudden loss of pressure. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. There was no way he would fall to his knees in front of Eddie Munson, of all people.

“Jesus H. Christ, you gave me a heart attack for a dime bag? Learn some decorum, Harrington.”

Steve scoffed, subtly adjusting his shoulders and trying to appear more collected than he felt. His hands were trembling from the abrupt slam against the wall, the proximity of Munson’s breath against his face, the absent feeling of a sharp blade against his neck like he’d felt it before. He tucked his hands into his pockets.

“Sorry, I just…,” he floundered for a second to come up with a plausible reason, something that wasn’t ‘I just needed to talk, because it feels like I’m going crazy and I figured weed might help the gaping hole in the back of my head and for some reason my feet keep wanting to walk toward you, like you have the answers to everything.’

“I just haven’t been having the best time lately, and I wasn’t sure where else to find you,” he settled on.

Munson watched him for a second, dark eyes raking over him from head to toe, like Steve was hiding something — like Eddie knew he was hiding something — but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

The parking-lot light flickered above, and Steve was too stiff to flinch, holding himself tight so he wouldn’t give anything away.

But Eddie flinched.

He looked up at the light like it personally offended him, shaking his head to collect himself. He tugged at his jean jacket, and smoothed it out before addressing Steve again.

“Fine. I assume even the king knows where Forrest Hills is?”

Steve nodded, following along as Eddie jerked his head toward the van. Steve was parked around the corner, still in view of the beat up van that Eddie tossed his small bag of groceries into. He watched — a bit anxiously, leg shaking the whole car as he bounced it in the footwell — and waited for the hunk of metal to start.

He took a deep breath. It would all be okay. He’d follow behind in his beemer, he’d buy a whole fucking ounce or even two, and he’d smoke away the itch and the weirdness for at least a few hours.

He slipped out of the parking lot as Munson’s van finally growled to life, squealing as he braked for Steve to follow him. He couldn’t really tell if he was anxious, excited, or nervous. He knew he could dull the itch, fill the empty spaces with smoke and leave it there, and that was an exciting prospect — to finally have a moment of peace where he wasn’t drowning in confusion over his own brain. But that wouldn’t last forever.

Eventually, the smoke would clear and he wouldn’t be drifting through the fog, eventually he’d run out of weed and have to go back for more.

He could keep ignoring it, find his way to Munson’s trailer again and again until someone forced him to stop. But something was weird in Hawkins, something had to be going on in those blank spaces that his mind seemed to drift just outside of — and eventually, Steve didn’t think he’d be able to ignore it any longer.

—

Bingo Prompts

[helpimstuckposting]

Okay man idk idk this worm wouldn’t leave my head I just love making Steve miserable and tbh he’s not even sad enough here so I’m still not satisfied, I want that man ripped in two

I’m a ghost and you are a shadow

Part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven

—

“Steve Harrington is dead! So what the fuck are you?” Eddie screamed in his face. The world froze for a second. Not the same frozen-in-time that Steve got from downing a bottle of whiskey, where he was the only one on earth and it didn’t matter what happened to him. This was like ice down his neck. Like a shock up his spine. Steve stared at Eddie like he’d just grown three heads.

“Dead?” He repeated back. “What the fuck do you mean dead? C’mon Eddie, seriously you’re freaking me out!”

Eddie just stared at him, and in the silence Steve could hear people at the front door, yelling over each other, calling out to Eddie, checking if he’s okay. He thought he recognized the voices, but that didn’t make any sense. There were always ghosts at Steve Harrington’s door, but they were just in his head. Now, they were banging on the wood as someone fumbled for a pair of keys, and Eddie glanced nervously in their direction. Steve couldn’t get any words to choke out past the growing lump in his throat, couldn’t get any air into his lungs to beg Eddie to tell him what was going on.

The key finally clicked through the latch, and the door swung open with a bang. A stampede of feet trampled their way into the kitchen where Eddie still had Steve pinned to the wall, still stared at him without saying anything.

Steve frantically turned his head toward the people he’d seen die, the people he couldn’t protect, who haunted his every waking thought. He didn’t even care that the motion dug the knife into his throat. They were there. They were right there. Dustin and Eleven, Max and Nancy and Robin. Robin was staring at him, holding Dustin back by the shoulders, and looking like the world was crashing in on her. Steve knew his own expression was the same, couldn’t believe his eyes. Eddie’s grip on him loosened and Steve slid to the floor, unable to hold himself up anymore on wobbling legs. He kept staring up at them all, noticed the age that hadn’t been on their features when they’d… when they’d left him. He took in every line, every scratch, every healed over scar that spoke of years and years of life, life that Steve knows they didn’t get to live.

The air still wasn’t making it past the lump in his throat and he tried to breathe deeper, tried to grasp onto one breath, one lungful of air, but it wasn’t enough. The kitchen swam around him, and he was certain that people were yelling or talking or making noise but Steve couldn’t process any of it, he just saw Dustin eaten alive by demobats, wounds too wide to heal. He saw Robin and Nancy pinned to the wall of Henry Creel’s house, the air getting squeezed out of their lungs and they were gasping just like him, pulling in air that wouldn’t come and listening to the blood rush through their ears. He saw it. He was there.

Until he wasn’t.

Until Eddie was in front of him again, hands on the side of his face, telling Steve to breathe and count the pictures on the wall. His eyebrows scrunched up, pictures on the wall? What pictures?

But Steve looked behind Eddie to the usually bland kitchen wall. There used to be a large painting of nothing, some pretentious gold accents that his mother liked, but he had burned it in a drunken moment of pain. The painting he remembered wasn’t there either, and instead of a blank wall there were dozens of pictures. They looked like family pictures, photos of him and the kids, of the kids by themselves, of him and Robin. There were even pictures of he and Eddie — which Steve knew they never took — and blank spaces that were clearly waiting for more. Waiting for more memories, for more additions and times to look back on.

“Steve, Steve are you with me?” Eddie asked, begged, pulling Steves attention back to the man’s face. He didn’t look angry anymore, but Steve couldn’t tell what emotion was there. He’d never seen it on Eddie’s face before. “How many pictures? Steve?”

“Th-Thirty-Eight?” he whispered back. Eddie nodded, hands still clutching Steve’s face but they were gentler now, not directing his view or holding him still, they were just… touching.

“Is it really you?” Dustin asked from where Robin was still holding him back. Steve glanced over at him, taking in the age and the height, the features that were so new to Steve he seemed almost like a stranger. Whatever had happened, Steve knew he wasn’t dreaming or dead or hallucinating, because through all of his nightmares, the ghosts never aged. They all stayed exactly the same as they’d died, Steve couldn’t even picture them aged if he’d wanted to, all he ever wanted to do was forget. But there they were, there they were, and Steve didn’t know what to think.

He nodded at Dustin’s question. His cheeks were cold, Eddie’s hands had dropped from his face and he was standing by the kitchen counter, arms crossed. The distance between them was suddenly an ocean and Steve was almost sad to see it. Eddie was the only familiar thing in this room to him, the only one who wasn’t impossibly here, the only one who didn’t make Steve feel like the world had ended and was now taunting what he could have had. He still looked like he didn’t believe it, like he was calculating something in his head and didn’t trust Steve at all. He wished Eddie’s hands were still on his face.

Still, no one moved toward him and he couldn’t really blame them. He didn’t know what was happening but he hadn’t ruled out some kind of trick yet. This could all be a trap somewhere in his mind, and if it was, it was the cruelest trick Vecna had ever played. But Eddie had said the same thing, right?

“Well we can’t just leave him on the floor,” Robin said. Her voice was quieter than Steve had ever heard it before. The usually boisterous voice that spoke a mile a minute was soft, hesitant, like she was trying not to wake a sleeping dragon — or agitate a dead man.

She slowly stepped out from behind Dustin and walked over to Steve. He watched as her sneakers stopped an inch away from his own, the gap both too close and not close enough. She stuck her hand out, and his eyes flicked carefully between her outstretched hand and her face. What if he reached out and she disappeared? What if he grabbed her hand and she pulled him into a trap? What if she disintegrated into dust the moment their hands touched? But she was right, he couldn’t stay on the floor.

As if she were made of tissue paper, he slowly and delicately reached out his hand, stopping just a breath before touching her palm. He glanced back at her face, took in the gentle curve of her lips as she tried to give him a reassuring smile, however small it was. He placed his hand in hers.

She was so warm. Her hands were soft, though callused in a few places Steve didn’t remember, and she gripped onto him like a lifeline. Her trembling fingers sank into the rough edges of Steve’s hand, and he could feel the dirt caked under his nails but she didn’t seem to mind, just gripped his hand harder. He couldn’t believe how much he craved that touch over the years. He ached for it. Blood pounded through his ears, as if he were underwater, and the only thing keeping him from drowning was the grip Robin had on him, keeping his head above water.

She was so warm. His heart was in his throat, and Steve was choking now for a different reason. It had been years since he felt Robin’s touch — since he felt anyones touch, really — and his eyes burned, throat clenching around the sudden sharp pain that spoke of unshed tears.

He didn’t think he would ever have this back, assumed he would drink himself into an early grave, assumed that the only way he’d see everyone again is if he died as well. If he followed them into the next life, then he’d get his family back.

But here they were. Here Robin was, hand in his, and she was so warm.

Instead of pulling Steve to his feet like she’d intended, Robin sank to the floor with him. He gripped her hand, her arms, her shoulders, he gripped her so tight just to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere and he could feel her damp tears against his neck, soaking into the collar of his shirt.

“I missed you,” she whispered into the fabric, voice as raw as Steve felt.

“I missed you too, Robs. I missed you so much." He clutched at the back of her shirt, face buried in her shoulder and prayed to a god he didn't believe in that this wasn't a trick, that he really had his family back.

—

A little more comfort in this part. I still don't have a plot in mind but I guess my brain is just winging it because I keep thinking of scenes and I just gotta write them down. I've already got most of a part three done, because this part was getting long and I cut it. Stay tuned, folks.

@weirdandabsurd42 @sirsnacksalot

[helpimstuckposting]

I’m a ghost and you are a shadow

Part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven | part twelve

—

They made their way back to the Harrington house in relative quiet. Steve didn’t feel as panicked as he had that morning thanks to the talk he'd had with Eddie. Though, whatever reaction the gate had to Steve was… concerning to say the least.

He felt grimy and sweaty as he trudged through the last few trees and into his backyard. Wearing the same clothes two days in a row wasn’t Steve’s best idea. He was glad no one had commented on it, though he was a bit surprised even Mike hadn’t said anything. He kicked off his muddy shoes at the back door, following the rest of the Jabberwocks into the house.

Yesterday he had felt too weird about going through OtherSteve’s closet, though right now he just felt kind of desperate to change. The others congregated on the couches in the living room while Steve headed straight for the stairs, calling out that he’d change and be right back down. It would be a bit before the rest of the party joined them anyway.

He felt a little more comfortable in the house on his second day, a little less worried that OtherSteve would pop out like some cosmic entity and scold him for the intrusion. It still didn’t feel like he belonged, would take a while for that to happen — if he even got the chance — and Steve was only just beginning to imagine himself staying long enough for that to happen. If Eddie was right, if they figured out a way for him to stay, if he didn’t have to leave, his life would be so different. Maybe he could be okay again.

He walked into the bedroom, closing the door gently behind him, and made his way over to the closet. It was a simple wooden door, nothing fancy, not even a mirror hanging from the frame.

He paused when he opened it, unsure of what he was really seeing at that moment. Half of the closet was full of henleys and soft-looking cable knit sweaters, light colored t-shirts and various colored jackets he’d expected from basically his own closet, but the other half was clad in leather and ripped black tank tops, band tees and torn jeans. It looked like Eddie’s clothes. It looked like Eddie lived here.

Did Eddie keep clothes in Steve’s closet? Why? He looked back over his shoulder at the wall of posters full of bands he didn’t know, eyes flitting back and forth between the few posters with names he’d recognized before, the bands from Eddie’s battle jacket.

Was this actually Eddie’s room? But then why didn’t Eddie tell him, force Steve into one of the other spare rooms last night instead of taking one for himself? He clearly knew this was the room Steve expected to be in. There were also trinkets that definitely belonged to Steve on the desk and nightstand, and half the closet were clothes Eddie would never touch, let alone wear in public.

Steve stepped dazedly into the small space, thoughts running around in confused tangles of yarn that weren’t quite connecting. He thought back to the photos on the kitchen wall with Steve and Eddie wrapped around each other, and the countless times since he woke up here yesterday morning where Eddie looked at him like something was missing, like he was thinking of something specific that Steve couldn’t put his finger on.

If Eddie had simply moved into the Harrington house for some reason, that still didn’t explain why this room seemed to be half his, like they shared it. It just… well, Steve wasn’t stupid, he was there when Eddie had come out to him just that morning, he knew what this room and these things implied. Everything here pointed to a life lived together, but Steve was straight as far as he knew so could that be right? Sure, Eddie was comfortable to be around no matter which universe he was in. He was… gentle, despite his loud demeanor, and he was good at quieting the bad thoughts rattling around in Steve’s mind.

Even throughout their first stint in the Upside Down together, a brush of their sides or a squeeze to the shoulder, the soft dimpled smile Eddie had tossed his way, it all settled something in Steve’s chest. He’d thought this Eddie and Steve were closer, really close judging by the way Eddie had disappeared the day before but this was more than he’d ever expected. Was it even possible? Was Steve just reading into things?

Slowly, he reached out to touch a leather sleeve in front of him. It was soft, worn. He thought about today in the woods, how he kept focusing on Eddie’s lips, how he remembered doing that before, too. How often had he been sneaking those glances? Even without realizing?

Steve brought the sleeve to his nose, slowly breathing in the scent of tobacco and leather, and hints of the cologne Eddie sometimes sprayed when he remembered. This was definitely Eddie’s stuff, no doubt in Steve’s mind. This single closet smelled more like home than Steve’s whole house ever did, and maybe that meant he and Eddie weren’t so out-of-left-field as he’d thought.

He stepped back, letting the sleeve drop and opening his eyes. He hadn’t even realized he’d closed them. He’d ask Eddie about this tonight, after the party left and they were alone. For now, Steve turned to the other side of the closet and swapped his shirt for a Hawkins high school band sweatshirt and a pair of gray sweatpants. If they were about to have another planning session that could change Steve’s life, he might as well be comfortable.

He tossed the dirty clothes into a hamper at the back of the closet and turned to leave, his eye catching briefly on a lone shoebox sitting on the top shelf. It was on Steve’s side of the closet, sitting among what he assumed were just boxes of clutter. It would be easily overlooked, a shoebox in a closet, but Steve had the same exact one in his own closet.

It was an old box, weathered at the corners but still sturdy. He’d put every happy thing inside of it; his favorite movie tickets, the yoyo his nanny bought him for his seventh birthday, a pressed flower from his first boutonniere. He’d put photos of him and Nancy inside, some sparkly rocks that Robin had just placed in his hand and called pretty, one of the miniatures the kids had painted and left in his living room one day. Little things. Things that mattered. It’s the box he would grab if the house caught fire.

Hesitantly, he stepped forward and tugged the closet door closed, arms reaching out to grab the box from the shelf before he had even made up his mind. He shouldn’t look. He really shouldn’t look, he didn’t have the right to. But… he was Steve. He should know the kind of life he could have had, he should know what kind of things he’d find important or meaningful. Right?

He took the lid off the box.

It was full of trinkets, just like he'd expected, but the stories they told were of a different life. Instead of a yoyo, there was a little book of nursery songs for beginners to play on the saxophone. There were three miniatures instead of one, painted in matching color palettes. He found more sparkly rocks, different than his own, and friendship bracelets made from chunky beads.

In the corner of the box, tucked away neatly, was a small, clear container with polaroids inside. Steve turned his back to the closet door and slid down it, setting the box in his lap as he hunched over to look.

He picked up the little container with both hands, sliding the pictures out with care. They were just like the photos in the kitchen, of trips to the beach and sleepovers, of pool parties and birthdays. The party in various groups showed up, Robin was in most of them. Eddie was in every single one.

He and Steve stood close, draped over each other or with faces squished together. In some, they were looking directly at the camera or making faces. In others, they looked at each other. There were pictures where Eddie looked at the camera while Steve looked at him, and Steve… Steve looked at him like he hung the moon. Like the sun rose and fell only to see him, like the stars themselves couldn't shine as brightly. Like every other cliche that’s been written and sung and professed about since the dawn of time.

Steve had never looked at anyone that way. Nancy was right, he was just bullshit. Is that how she felt with Jonathan? Is that how it’s supposed to feel?

He traced his own expression, completely enamored. How many times had the Steve of this world sat right here, holding these pictures, seeing the way he looked at Eddie? Did they look at these pictures together? What did it feel like to wear that expression? It was hard to look away, to pull himself from the trance his own face had him in, but there was one more picture and when Steve saw it, it was like the world stopped around him.

They were kissing. He and Eddie. They were kissing. Steve's hand was threaded in Eddie's hair, the brown tendrils curling through his fingertips. Their eyes were closed, fully immersed in the other, lips together in what was definitely not a chaste kiss.

As he stared, he couldn’t help but wonder what Eddie’s lips tasted like, what they felt like to be pressed against his. Eddie knew what they tasted like, knew what he tasted like. Steve wondered if he thought of that every time they locked eyes. Was Eddie the type to kiss fast and hard? Would he push forward with the confidence of all his tabletop lunchroom rants? Would he press hard like he stamped his combat boots into the dirt?

Or did he kiss soft? Soft like the way Steve’s eyes looked in the previous pictures. Soft like the sunset over lovers lake, soft as the tendrils of hair OtherSteves fingers carded through as they kissed.

Steve squeezed his eyes together to stop the burning. He shoved the stack of pictures back into the small container, shoved the image to the back of his mind, too. The Steve in those pictures was dead. The man who looked at Eddie with stars in his eyes was dead. He shouldn’t be thinking about Eddie like that, it had only been six months, he couldn’t image what he was going through, how much Steve’s presence was fucking with him. No wonder he spent the whole first day avoiding Steve, he’s surprised Eddie had spoken to him at all.

He sighed, breath pushing through his lips in a shuddered rush while he tried to pretend his heart wasn’t clawing its way up his throat. Steve carded his fingers through his hair, shoving it out of his face. He reached out to put the Polaroids back into the box and paused. In the crowded corner he’d pulled the pictures from, there was another box. It was small and black, just a cardboard box with a lid, and it was just small enough for the Polaroids to cover up. Or to hide?

He swallowed, suddenly his mouth was too dry. He shouldn’t look. If OtherSteve was hiding it, he shouldn’t look. He shouldn’t be looking at any of this.

He reached out to it, fingers tracing over the plain black lid.

“Steve!” Robins voice shouted from the staircase landing.

He jumped, choking on the heart in his throat and worried that Robin would burst into the room to find him snooping, but no further noises wandered toward his ears. He quickly shoved the Polaroids back into the box, refusing to look at the little black box he just covered back up.

“Just a second!” He called out, carefully putting the shoebox back on the top shelf, hoping it looked like he hadn’t touched it at all.

Robin was waiting for him at the bottom landing of the staircase. The second he looked her in the eye, Steve could tell she was desperately trying to seem casually uninterested. She leaned against the banister, eyes trying to cling to his own but she kept taking glances at his sweatshirt. She knew. She knew he went into the closet, that he saw Eddie’s half. He kept eye contact, knew she would crack eventually, especially as she fidgeted more and more.

She glanced past the stairs, into the living room before darting her eyes back to Steve’s, then the door behind her. The other two groups would be back any minute.

She stepped forward, dropping the façade of ignorance, and put a hand on his arm.

“Ask him when the kids leave, okay?” she whispered, glancing down at the sweatshirt again. He nodded. He’d ask tonight, when the house was cleared and silent, and they were wrapped in the compelling embrace of the darkness. It was always easier to speak honestly at night, whether it was the calm brought by the silence or the dark that obscured your vision, it didn’t feel as vulnerable. It felt safe, like the darkness itself could keep your secrets. He’d wait until then to talk to Eddie.

—

More midnight talks on the horizon for our boys, but next up is figuring out what the fuck that weird tree is doing

@devondespresso @weirdandabsurd42 @sirsnacksalot @space-invading-pigeon @aliea82 @goodolefashionedloverboi @emly03 @bestwifehaver @mentallyundone @13catastrophic-blues @estrellami-1 @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @likelylad @aellafreya @wxrmland @shunna @fangirltofangod @howincrediblysapphicofyou @1-8oo-wtfbro @grimmfitzz

[helpimstuckposting]

⏰ — Time Loop, Scoops (Steddie Bingo) please!

Continued from (x)

The king and his duckling were back to hushed whispers, and Eddie tried to be discreet as he took a table near them to eavesdrop. He added ‘secret Russian communication??? (from child, unverified)’ to his notebook page, and sank into his seat to appear smaller. He wasn’t used to being discreet, too used to using his lack of shame as a shield to protect the quiet ones, to take the attention onto himself because he could take it; but spying and time travel probably required discretion — lest he want to be chased down by the feds or the fucking KGB or whatever.