🤍🌷 @stevesbipanic and @the-winged-doe asked to see ugly unpolished unrefined words, soo—
cw & tags: past major character death, grief, attempted time-travel fix-it(s), eddie&robin besties || potential wip
Eddie takes a long drag of his cigarette, the biting hot smoke hitting the back of his throat and clawing its way into his lungs, going as deep as he allows and leaving a permanent mark that brings neither relief nor calmness tonight. His fingers shake where they’re pressed to his lips, but the rest of him is unmoving where he sits on the front porch of their new trailer.
It’s quiet out here. It’s always quiet in Hawkins these days, the city a fucking ghosttown.
And he knows it’s not because of the one they lost. He knows it’s not because of him. But still the emptiness is stark and the silence oppressivem more so than it ever has been.
Everyone still looks for him, months later. Dustin still begins to speak, cutting himself off mid-sentence, and Robin still stands with enough space to either side, like she expects him to just show up and invade her space like the home he made for himself in there.
And somewhere among all that is Eddie. With his very own history. Or, non-history, as it turns out. But history and non-history leave wounds alike, and the memories feel just as real. A small mercy, at the end of the day, for them to feel real when they’re all he has left anymore.
He takes another drag, not quite exhaling before he obliterates the cigarette and fishes for a new one before the butt even hits the ground.
Fumbling with the lighter in his pocket, he only gets as far as placing the butt between his lips before a hand snakes into his field of vision to snag it from his mouth.
“Hey,” he complains halfheartedly but makes no attempt at getting it back, watching instead as Robin comes up to sit beside him, grimacing at the stink of tobacco that must be heavy around him.
“You’re disgusting,” she says with no real heat behind her words.
Eddie shrugs, because yeah, sure. He’s been called worse things. Robin’s called him worse things. This is her being nice. Her complaininig about his incessant smoking is nothing new. What is new is what she does next, placing the cigarette between her own lips and reaching for the light he’s been holding in a loose grip since she arrived.
She starts coughing immediately, pulling a face at the disgusting feeling of smoke in her lungs and tobacco on her tongue. But she keeps going. Eddie can only watch in surprise and mild horror.
“These things’ll kill you,” he says then in an echo of her usual sentiment, aware that he sounds as bewildered as he feels.
“Well,” Robin says, aiming for casual, but quickly interrupted by a wheeze and a cough that’s almost adorable. “Let them try.”
Eddie huffs, a pale little smile lingering on his lips as he leans back against the stairs behind him, resting his weight on his forearm to watch her. There is something captivating about her. Eddie always wonders what it is, wants to study her forever.
Maybe it’s only the lingering traces of Everything Steve Harrington that clings to her every breath, her every move, her every fucking cell, with how much he was a part of her and she of him. Maybe it’s their shared grief that has made Eddie fall a bit in love with her and with the way the moonlight catches in her hair and in the smoke wafting from her cigarette.
But somehow he refuses to believe that all he loves about her is merely the memory of Steve.
Robin, in turn, is kind enough to let him stare. Kind enough to let him find out what it is between them. If this friendship is more than a misguided projection of grief and mourning and trauma; more than co-dependence and the obsessive will to keep this one person in your life. This one person who understands.
After a while of Robin just holding the cigarette between her fingers, becuase no matter how strong her will to self destruct, she never quite got it right with the smoking, Eddie snatches it back before it goes to waste completely. As if pulled in by a string attached to his hollowed out chest, Robin leans back and into him in one smooth motion. It’s too calculated, though, and Eddie can feel how much she sags once she doesn’t have to hold herself up anymore.
He’ll hold her. It’s fine. She gets to rest if she wants to. God knows she needs it.
The night is warm for mid-September, but still Robin shakes against him. Eddie holds her closer.
Silence settles over them, and it’s not an easy one. Silence is never easy anymore, especially with them. He feels so deeply hollow that even the silence echoes in there, creating an ever-present, uncomfortable thrumming of apprehension and anxiety within him. A certain sense of doom, one that can’t quite decide if it’s only an echo itself.
“I wanna stop time,” Robin says at last, the cigarette long dead between Eddie’s fingers, but he somehow can’t bring himself to flick it away. “I don’t want tomorrow.”
I don’t ever want a new day. I don’t ever want another tomorrow. I just want Steve.
They ring in his head still, another echo that only hollows him out further every time it reaches him — Robin, overcome with hysterical grief, screaming and crying, curled up on that hospital floor, her cries quieting down and making Eddie wish she would be loud again, because the quiet was what killed him. The quiet, the whispered words, the declarations that tomorrow could go fuck itself if it came without Steve made him wish, irrationally, desperately, that their roles were reversed. That he could have died and Steve could have lived, and Robin would never have to wish tomorrow never came.
He’s not entirely sure if she remembers the words, too. If she even said them in this world.
So he takes a deep breath, breathes away memories and non-histories, feels the heavy weight of his guitar pick hanging around his neck, resting on the scarred flesh of his chest, and tries not to think of the one string left on his acoustic guitar. Tries not to think of his one last attempt. One last try.
“I know,” he tells her. “Me neither.”
He peers over her head, lifting his left wrist to check his watch. Ten minutes until midnight. Ten minutes until Steve’s birthday.
“It’s not tomorrow yet,” he tries lamely, and Robin huffs — the sound wet and bitter and hopeless, making Eddie’s eyes sting.
“It’s always fucking tomorrow,” she rasps, her voice flat and wavering, and Eddie knows her well enough to know she’s about to cry. And she knows him well enough to do it.
“I know,” he says again, and reaches for his necklace through his shirt. One more attempt. One more try. One more chance. His eyes burn.
She turns to him after taking a moment to compose herself, peering up at him through her lashes.
“Tell me again?”
His heart falls, the tense apprehension vanishing from the air, bur quickly replaced by something a lot more heavy. Something that looks and smells and feels like grief.
They both know he’ll do anything she asks. He can’t really bear saying not to her. And not about this, anyway — she’s the only one who knows.
She’s the one who should have had the chance.
“Which part?” he asks, holding a new cigarette out for her to light it. She does, and the both follow the flame of the lighter Robin always keeps in her pocket these days.
She leans forward and takes a drag. Eddie lets her.
“All of them.“
Eddie sighs, pain welling up inside him, and he closes his eyes against the night sky. “Robbie,” he pleads, but he doesn’t finish his plea. He’ll do it. He’ll do anything she asks.
But before he starts recounting the tales of how he almost saved Steve Harrington, he finds himself saying something he never thought he’d tell her.
“There’s one more.” The words hang in the air, and Robin doesn’t react. Has no idea what’s coming; what he’s about to tell her. The guitar pick is heavy on the necklace around his throat. “There’s one more try. One more chance. I’m… I have one more—“
He can’t even finish the sentence. Can’t bring himself to say it, lest it all be jinxed forever. He doesn’t want to hope. Wants to carry this weight for all eternity and never think about all those times he failed to save someone he was never meant to save at all. People like Eddie, they’re not made to save anyone. Hell, they can’t even save themselves.
Steve was supposed to be the one doing the saving.
And he did. God, he fucking did. But he was never supposed to—
Cold fingers wrap around his own as Robin fits their hands together.
“I hate you a little bit for telling me.”
Eddie nods, trying to focus on the cold hand and the nicotine in his lungs, trying not to let panic and grief and guilt and the heavy weight of one more chance win. “I know.”
“Hey, Eddie?” Robin says after a while, the silence stretching on, and it’s almost midnight now. “Can you— Would you do something for me?”
He turns his head, flicking the butt of his cigarette out into the darkness beyond them. “What’s that?”
“Don’t— Don’t try to, to save him. Don’t— Just… Just maybe, could you celebrate his birthday with him? Make sure he knows he’s… God, make sure he knows he’s loved? Last year, no one really made time on his birthday and we just moved it backwards but God, could you— It’s almost midnight, and—“
“Robbie,” Eddie interrupts her, his voice hoarse and wavering, his eyes burning with tears as he tugs her close and holds her to his chest. “You should go. Don’t you wanna…”
But she’s shaking her head against him with a vehemence that can hardly be misunderstood.
“No,” she cries, and it’s more of a sob than anything. “I think if I ever saw him again, I’d… I don’t know what I’d do. Burn the whole fucking world to the ground for him or some shit, I can’t— I’d probably just cry all the time and that wouldn’t be helpful, really.” There’s a weak, wet laugh that bubbles out of both of them, and Eddie’s wiping at Robin’s face, drying the tears and making way for new ones to fall.
“I’d light a fire for you,” Eddie says, the same weak smile on his lips that Robin meets him with now. “Nineteen fucking fires, you hear me?”
She laughs again, then buries her face in his neck in a way that never quite fit. In a way that Eddie always knew was supposed to be someone else’s neck.
But he’s not here anymore. And Eddie can’t get him back. No matter how much he aches for it, no matter how much he learned over and over and over again how easy it is to love Steve Harrington and how hard, how fucking impossible it is to lose him. Over and over and over again.
And to live without him. This one fucking time they all get. It’s not fair.
And now Robin is asking him to go back one more time and make sure that Steve knows— That he knows.
Somehow the thought of that feels nobler than any attempt to save him, to bring him back; to rewrite history from a lonely boy’s perspective and hope that no one else is reading along.
It feels right, too. Fundamentally and suddenly, and with such an intensity that Eddie knows the decision has been made the second he started telling her.
Still he hesitates. Robin’s sobs have calmed down, and Eddie’s hand finds its way into her hair.
“Do you really mean it?”
She nods.
He nods, too, but slower. Like he’s trying to sway himself. Which way, he doesn’t know.
“Make him happy.”
“Okay,” he decides after a while, feeling hollow and desperate, but feeling purpose burning underneath his skin again. “One last time.”
He unwinds his arms from around her and heads inside to grab his acoustic guitar. The last remaining string, badly untuned because he never dared to touch it, stares back at him in both mockery and invitation. A dare. A chance. A promise.
Outside, Robin is waiting for him, looking anxious. Eddie wants to hug her. He doesn’t, only tightens his grip around the guitar’s neck.
“Listen, Eddie, if this is goodbye or something—“
“It’s a birthday party, Robsie,” he interrupts her, aiming for light, aiming for brave. “I’m coming back right here.”
“I know,” she rushes to say, taking a step toward him and wringing her hands. It’s endearing. It’s genuine. Eddie really is a little in love with her. “But, y’know, you don’t mess with time, and I don’t know what all you already changed before and I don’t wanna know but… If this is goodbye, if something happens, I just wanna tell you that I’m gonna miss you. And that I think you’re really cool. And that Steve’s— he’s really missing out, okay. Okay?”
Eddie breathes, taking in her words and letting them soak into his body, his every last fibre.
“Okay,” he smiles. “Thank you. You’re… I’m kind of in love with you, Robin Buckley. So there had better be no change in the universe, ‘cause that would really suck.”
They smile at each other, Eddie with his guitar and Robin with her lighter, and somehow this feels like a deja-vu. The antithesis to a moment forever burned into his memory.
Make him pay.
Make him happy.
Eddie tugs on his necklace and plays the string before he can think about it too hard; before he can decide otherwise.
Distantly, he hears the church bells announcing midnight as the world around him fades.
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cw: this got long sorry 😔 but creepy/perv bakugou, recording, film major bkg x art major reader, masturbation, coercion, dubcon before it just becomes con, voyeurism/exhibitionism
as an art major, you typically did some works for a few students on campus; for their plays, as background pieces while they danced, a cover for their released songs. it wasn’t out of the ordinary for people to ask you to create something for them, and you enjoyed it more often than not. but, you weren’t usually the art itself.
Bakugou is a friend’s friend that you’ve seen a few times, ran into at the library or at coffee shops. he’s a film major, and always looks so unhappy about the whole thing, as if he didn’t choose it himself. you joke to Mina that you think he’ll graduate and become one of those directors that hate everything and yell at the actors constantly and later on get sued for being a dickhead. you never say it to him though—you’ve never spoken more than a couple words to the man.
it’s why it shocks you when he approaches you one day. it’s after one of your painting classes, and he stands outside the door with a frown and his hands shoved in his pockets, his eyebrows scrunched as if pissed at the mere sight of you. he asks you, in that low and gruff tone of his, if you could star in his final project for the semester. says it’s supposed to be a film made with this criteria and that, but, you’ve kind of checked out on the conversation after the first sentence.
“You mean, you want me to create something and that be the star of your film?” you ask him, feeling so intimidated at his stature. he always seems to loom, his hair shadowing the lights above, creates a cast over a portion of his face, makes his eyes look…unsettling. like they’re looking straight through your flesh, can find the marrow in your bones. he scoffs like you’ve offended him, rolling his eyes into his skull, mouth pulled tight.
“No.” his voice is firm, gaze concentrated only on you, like the halls are empty and you’re the focus of his lens. “I want you to star in it.”
his words confuse you—you’ve never presented yourself as an actor before, never alluded to wanting to be in the spotlight if not for what you create with your hands. but he shuffles on his feet, looks desperate even. there’s some hemming and hawing for a minute or so—why not choose Mina?—she’s busy—why choose me?—‘cause you’d be perfect for my short film—what’s it about?—you’ll find out once you get the script.
and even after you hesitantly agree and get the script—you still don’t understand what you’re doing. why you’re here, why you’re the only person, why it has to be a solo film, why there’s damn near zero lines in the entirety of the have-to-be forty five minute film.
the scenes are all so long, and maybe it’s because movies aren’t your forte or chosen major, but you just don’t get it. one scene; you’re staring at yourself in the mirror while Bakugou holds a small, black camera over your shoulder. he’s eerily quiet behind you, whispers out a faint fuckin’ go when you have to wash your face in the sink, makes you do it over because your movements are too jerky and unnatural.
the rest of the scenes go that way; you doing regular at home activities, being put under a lens, quietly barked at to do this and move that way and fix your hair and remember to frown.
“Isn’t there another way to film this?” you ask him on the fifth day of shooting in his spacious loft. there’s a bubble bath scene coming up, one you dont understand the importance of, but Bakugou tells you it’s the most necessary part of the entire thing.
“No,” he grunts out, looking at you from under his lashes as he sits on the lid of the toilet. “But I’ll make it soapy, so the camera won’t see much.” the camera? much? you weren’t worried so much about what the camera captured as you were the man behind it. he looks at you with such intensity, you feel naked already despite the robe you wear that’s suspiciously already your size.
he leaves the bathroom when you sink in the hot water, returns before you can say it’s okay, hears the water splashing and thinks that’s good enough. he kneels on the floor beside you, camera pointed directly in your face, makes your chest hot and your skin feel prickly. the scene passes on regularly enough; you run the water over your arms, tilt your head back as you sigh, whisper the few lines scripted, lean back and close your eyes, sigh again. it’s almost relaxing, makes you forget about the friend of a friend recording you naked right now. almost.
“Touch yourself.” Bakugou suddenly demands, hushed and quiet behind the camera. your eyes immediately shoot open, looking to him in question, how he’s eerily still in his spot hovering over you.
“Huh?” you ask, unsure if you heard him correctly, looking around the rounded lens in your face, trying to ignore the red blinking light. but Bakugou only frowns.
“It’s a masturbation scene. Touch yourself.” he repeats, voice louder, more demanding this time. your stomach twists at the thought of doing something so intimate in front of him. he’s a handsome guy, for sure, even made you consider asking him out after this, figured he was just serious about his work and awkward about certain things. but…something had been off about this entire thing since the start.
“But—but I don’t, I’m not,” you stutter, sitting up a little, the bubbles covering your chest starting to disperse with your movements. but Bakugou only sits a little higher on his knees, finally pulling the camera away from his face for the first time since he’s asked you to do this for him.
“You want me to fail?” he asks, booming voice eerily quiet in the silent bathroom, carmine eyes dull, shaded over with something terrible. “Then do it.” he tells you when you shake your head quickly.
you stare at him until he gets back into position again, camera back pointed at you. when he doesn’t say anything else, you swallow thickly, wondering if the art that will come out of this will be worth it. so you listen, sneak a hand under the water, start touching yourself in a way you never have in front of anyone.
is it bad to say that it’s exhilarating? being watched and recorded by someone who breathes so heavily every time your voice hiccups? being directed to touch your chest next when the suds start to disappear and your nipples start to peek through? is it bad that you want him to send you this portion of his film, only, just so you can watch yourself again and again? make a portrait of yourself with your fingers on your nipples and your knees raising from the water and your head thrown back from the intensity in oil pastels?
“That’s a wrap.” Bakugou announces when you finish, head spinning and still panting. you look over to him, how he closes the camera, the obvious bulge in his pants. “I’ll get you a towel.”
you wonder when’s the next time he’ll need you. or better yet—maybe he could be the star in your final drawing project? you had finished it already but, what was the harm in starting over with him as your muse? as naked as you are? camera not blocking his face so you can paint the similarities of his blushing cheeks and eyes when you direct him to look at you? to touch his chest? to play with himself just like that?
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