#i vaguely understand that everyone likes mike

[sword-day]

A SCENE FOR EVERY EPISODE — 9/63 BETTER CALL SAUL | 01x09 | PIMENTO

[crepesuzette2023]

Beatles Books as vaguely defined friends and relatives at a party you attend with a new crush, whose name you keep mispronouncing.

The longer you stay, the more trouble you have remembering what the occasion was.

The lights keep changing. Shortly after you arrived, your crush shrunk to the size of a mouse, and scurried away. You’re on your own.

The Beatles (Bob Spitz) greets you, an attractive silver fox who seems to be shunned by most of the others. You wonder why. It’s as easy to imagine him as a crying wreck as it is to imagine him on a golf course. Here, There, and Everywhere (Geoff Emerick) disrupts your musings by pulling tapes from his mouth. Seeing your discomfort, he stops and hands you a photograph of John Lennon and Paul McCartney singing into the same microphone. As he does, his pupils take on the shape of hearts. Someone called George announces his intent to poison him.

Anthology (The Beatles) saunters in, puts eight arms around you, and promises to tell you the whole story. They proceed to speak in tongues, and throw popcorn at you. Stu Sutcliffe jumps from a pendant around their neck, lands on the floor, and scurries after your crush.

“It’s always like this,” says Body Count (Francie Schwartz). “I assume you don’t want to listen to my story about a gifted woman who got locked up for depression? That’s fine, I can also talk about frottage, and a certain man’s curves.”

“Oh, stop it,” says John (Cynthia Lennon). She turns to you. “My advice is: Turn around and run as fast as you can.” She demonstrates what she means by disappearing, leaving behind a purse filled with cheerful letters and drawings of herself getting married and giving birth. Everything smells of olive oil. Francie spots Loving John (May Pang), and rushes to her, greedy for gossip. Loving John (May Pang) is everyone’s favorite, because she doesn’t really know anyone very well, but she knows how to make everyone feel comfortable by saying things that make sense in the moment.

Living the Beatles Legend: The Mal Evans Story (Ken Womack) ends up taking her home; they both live at The Fringes. Her home is a little further than his, which is just this side of Weird whereas she’s all the way in Montauk, but he’ll make sure she gets there safely.

To make up for the disappearance of your crush, Remember (Mike McCartney) cuts your hair. Each snip of the scissors slots a black-and-white picture into your field of vision. Windows in time blow noise and heat in your face, and visions of a screaming band that looks a bit like the young Beatles. Then there’s the quiet heat of summer, towels rippling on the line, and a drain pipe screwed to the wall of a house. He talks about childhood, and you’re almost there, but you never will be, because he won’t let you in. His more verbose twin, The Macs (Mike McCartney), recites letters his brother and John wrote from Hamburg, but you can barely understand what he says, because he stuffed a tissue into his mouth.

“It’s only a story,” says The Lyrics (Paul McCartney). “Pleased to meet you. I’m a storyteller myself.” He sings a love song. “I must have thought about these things when I wrote it,” he muses. “Interesting. What a mind, as Linda used to say.”

He tears a few pages from a diary he kept in Paris in 1961 and hands them to you without comment.

At this point, the party is dissolving. Crocheted furniture floats away and stretches.

“Am I too late?” Skywriting by Word of Mouth (John Lennon) squeezes himself out of the lowest drawer of an antique desk, where, judging from by his crinkly pajamas, he slept. “I’m in pieces. Mend me with glue.”

“I will, I will!” Tune In—All These Years, Vol I (Mark Lewisohn) yells ecstatically. “I’m so glad you could make it Sit down with me and celebrate the heritage of Liverpool.”

Skywriting drapes himself around Tune In, who starts purring and rutting against him.

“Excuse me?” It’s The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story (Vivek Tiwary), torero boots clicking on the invisible floor as he strides towards the couch. A spotlight follows him. “I’m managing this show, and I insist on expanding the scene.” Around them, a hotel room forms.

Skywriting lights a cigarette. “Join us in bed, Bri.”

“Yes,” moans Tune In. “I’m so lonely. I’m the oldest of a triplet, or so they say, but the other two haven’t been born yet.”

The Fifth Beatle sits down and observes the unhinged biography losing himself in the friction of rubbing against the shapeshifting Skywriting. Finally, things reach a conclusion.

“And so,” says The Fifth Beatle, “what partially was, finished.”

“Stop repeating lines from a bad movie, Brian," says Skywriting, "you’re better than that.”

As you try to plot ways to escape through the skylight, The McCartney Legacy, Vol 1 (Sinclair & Kozinn) slides out from under the bed, a broad-shouldered lady in a bright red dress. A half-hatched alien with long legs and sunglasses squirms between her breasts, and makes mouth percussion sounds.

“Gentlemen.” The McCartney Legacy retrieves a very, very long rosary from her pocket. “Is anyone interested in an exquisitely crafted, finely wrought chronology?”

At the sound of the word “chronology,” The Beatles (Hunter Davies) crashes through the ceiling.

“Don’t fall for it!” The Beatles snatches the vocalizing baby alien from The McCartney Legacy’s chest, and kills it by wringing its neck. “Time stopped in 1968. The only valid extension are my own salacious additions. Strictly off the record.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” says The Fifth Beatle.

You exchange a glance with Skywriting, who is plucking pieces of Tune In from his body like children snatch pieces of dough, and sticking them in his mouth.

A camera clicks.

“Excellent.”

The Eyes of the Storm (Paul McCartney) lowers the camera, and changes into a suntanned, gleaming likeness of George Harrison. Then he changes into a fish.

“Everyone looking at the pictures will think they know,” the fish says. “They’ll have no idea!”

The floor dissolves under you. You fall into a pool, just in time to save your crush from being sucked into the drain, and after a barely audible edit you find yourself back home, with no memories at all, the taste of chewing gum in your mouth, and wearing matching tops saying, I visited Fellini’s Satyricon, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. (ETA: I can't believe I forgot about Dreaming the Beatles (Rob Sheffield). I guess I'll have to include him in the inevitable sequel to this...thing, as the +1 of John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs (Ian Leslie).)

[deathbecomesthem]

Cat and Mouse | 1.8K

Eddie Munson x Preacher's Daughter!Reader

*This was a fic I wrote ages ago, and left orphaned. It was a Wheeler!Reader fic. I'm going to consider rewriting it as a more vague reader for inclusivity.

Warnings: Some suggestive language and ideas. Future chapters, if I continue this story, have lots of disturbing ideas about religious subjugation of women and girls.

Cat meets mouse when you see him. All rough edges and open hostility, but you see through it to his soft and sticky center. He is a treat that you want to bite into. A feast for your eyes. You know how to do this thing. How to make him weak in the knees with only a soft blink and tilt of your pretty neck. You brush a finger down, down to your collarbone, as if to brush away a stray hair, showing him where you want his lips to wander. This one will be easy; you think as you watch his glassy eyes follow your fingers.

This game is more than fun for you. It is necessary. It is life giving. It affirms your value in the world. To have a man at your mercy is powerful; you crave it just as you crave the feeling of flesh on flesh. Mouth on neck. Cock in hand. Fingers in your heat with pleasure vibrating down your spine to the tips of your fingers and toes. You know how to please yourself, of course, but to make a man come undone before you is bliss.

                                                                                   **                                                                       

“Who is that?” Eddie can’t take his eyes from you, head leaned close to Steve’s ear so no one could overhear. He knows what you’re doing, it’s so obvious. In his mind, you might as well take your top off and throw your bra in his face.

“That is Nancy’s cousin. She’s hot, right? She’s also the sweetest person I’ve ever met. The kids love her.” Eddie blinks and tries to see it, any possible resemblance to Nancy or Mike. He can’t make it happen. He tries to think of this girl, this succubus, as a sweetheart that everyone loves. Can Steve not see that you’re playing with him?

“Uh, Steve, are you getting any vibes coming this way from her?” Steve cranes his neck to look back at Eddie in bewilderment. Apparently not is the thought that passes Eddie’s brain before Steve can form the words to reply.

“Uh, no man. No vibes.” His concern turns into frustration after he notices the hunger Eddie has in his eyes while he looks at you. “Listen, don’t. She’s an absolute saintl. Her dad is a minister, she teaches Sunday school for god’s sake. Just don’t even think about it.” With that, Steve heads across the room to pull you away from Nancy and lead you, protectively, outside to sit by the pool with Dustin and Will.

                                                                                   **

Angel my ass. Eddie is the most perceptive person in the party. Sure, he has an impossibly hard time understanding certain social niceties, but he can read body language. He picks up on miniscule facial expressions that give away what a person is really thinking when they’re saying they’re fine, it’s all good, how about that weather, did you catch the sportsball game last night. He knows he’s not wrong about this. Steve, on the other hand, could be as dumb as a rock when it came to those subtleties.

Eddie sidles up next to Nancy and Robin as smoothly as possible, hoping to steer the conversation with delicacy. “Hey, beautiful ladies, how are we doing this gorgeous summer afternoon?” His giant grin is met with dramatic eye rolls from both girls. Delicacy failed.

“Laying it on pretty thick today, Munson.” Nancy wraps her arm around Eddie’s midsection in a gentle squeeze while Robin moves on to join Will and El in the next room. Nancy and Eddie had become thick as thieves in recent months to the absolute bafflement of the rest of the group. Opposites on the surface, yes, but just below the two were kindred spirits. Neither were likely to miss a trick.

“So, I see we have a guest in our midst today.” His eyebrows are raised with his signature grin still plastered on his goofy face. Nancy huffs a laugh and nods, knowingly.

“I see. Yes, she's my cousin. Kinda sorta. Her dad and my mom grew up together in the same church, closer than family. She’s truly, my best friend in the world.” Her eyebrows are quirked back to mirror his and a pinch of warning between. “Were you hoping to join the Bible study she leads on Friday nights?”

His sniggers are what finally breaks Nancy’s serious demeanor. A friendly smack lands on his shoulder. “Listen, Stevie tells me she’s a little innocent angel, but I swear the look she was giving me… It’s like she was eye fu-“ Nancy’s hands are in Eddie’s face to shut him up.

“Nope, don’t tell me.” The annoyed look on Nancy’s face makes Eddie’s guilt rear up. This was not something he should be talking to her about; he’s realized far too late. “Here is what I’ll tell you. Only this, and you never say anything like that to me ever again.” Her finger is pointed directly at Eddie’s nose and there is a flash of warning in her eyes. Eddie nods in assent and waves his hand for her to continue.

“She is the kindest person I know. Generous to a fault. She’s great with kids.” Eddie’s eyes are rolling. Steve has already said all of this to him. “Steve is clueless, like pretty much everyone else. Her parents are super strict, as you can imagine. But, no, she’s not as pristine as they think.”

Nancy can see Eddie gearing up for another question, and Nancy’s hands fly to her ears. “Nope, no more. Figure it out on your own. She’s just a girl, talk to her.” Nancy makes her way to the patio doors and turns back with one last piece of advice, “For gods sake, don’t listen to Steve about anything related to girls. He’s a hammer looking for any nail to pound and doesn’t understand nuance.”

She leaves Eddie giggling to himself and feeling at least a little relieved that he wasn’t imagining things. That angel had clocked him as soon as he walked in the door. The game seemed like it might be fun. And, also, a really stupid thing for him to try to play.

                                                                                   **

The sun reflected off the pool so brightly, you could feel your skin beginning to burn. The first to succumb to the heat were El and Robin with the younger boys following shortly behind. Sweaty clothes are in piles around the pool, everyone seemed to have the same idea to wear their bathing suits to Steve’s. You and Nancy packed suits in a backpack that sat inside the house. A drip of sweat started moving down your nose, and you relented.

“Nance, I’m going to get changed. I can’t sit out here like this anymore.” You leave Steve and Nancy to whatever petty argument they were having at the moment. It isn’t until you’re opening the door to the kitchen that you realize you haven’t seen that hot guy, Eddie, since Steve had whisked you away from your flirtation earlier. That won’t do.

Rounding the corner to the front of the house, you smell it. Naughty boy, you think as you spot him sneaking in the front door. As if a deer in headlights, he freezes, and relaxes when he realizes it’s not one of the younger kids, but you.

“Well, hello there. We haven’t met yet, have we?” Eddie’s eyes are twinkling at you. Pretty man, you think. He pushes himself away from the side of the house, and he starts to move towards you. He’s stalking, that’s the word, stalking, his way into your space as he gives a dramatic bow. On his way back up, he is slowly taking in your form, with no attempt to hide what he’s doing.

You offer your name and your hand and are greeted with a gentle kiss along your knuckles. Oh, this was going to be fun. “I’ve heard so much about you.” Your eyes have gone big, and you flutter your lashes, “Although, I guess most of it can’t be true or Aunt Karen would never let her kids near you.”

The Cheshire Cat had nothing on the grin Eddie was giving you. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe I’ve got her fooled.” Up close, this boy was beautiful. His eyes are chestnut pools rimmed red from the pot smoke that still clings to his skin. The wrinkles at the edges of his smile speak to you about his humor.

“I doubt that very much.” You’re slinking past him on your toes, face turned up towards his own. Your backpack is behind him. With a hand on his arm, you bend down, allowing your Eddie an excellent view of your posterior. “There it is. Are you going to swim with us, Eddie?”

“Uh,” Eddie clears his throat, “I didn’t bring a suit. I’m not much of a swimmer.” There is a slight flush starting at the apple of his cheeks while you stare him down with your doe eyes. You give him an exaggerated frown.

“Oh, Eddie, how sad.” Sitting on the couch, you rustle through the bag to find your suit. *zip* not in that pocket, *zip* not there either, one last *zip* with no luck and you turn your gaze back on the curly haired boy that’s still watching your every movement. “I must have forgotten my suit.” With a big sigh, you add, “If only someone would be willing to run me back to Aunt Karen’s house to get it.”

“Hmm, that’s too bad. Maybe you should go ask Nancy to take you back.” Eddie’s head is tilted at you with a little pout. There was no way he didn’t know what you were doing, but he wasn’t biting. Fine, be that way.

“I don’t want to ruin her fun; her suit is right here.” You hold up her pink suit to emphasize your point. “You’re not planning on swimming; would you be willing to give me a ride?” Eddie can barely contain himself with the looks you’re throwing his way, but this was not a game he would give in to that easily.

“Oh, I don’t know, Angel, I bet your Daddy wouldn’t be too thrilled to hear about you taking a ride with me. Maybe you should just hang out with me in the loungers and while the others swim.” You’re considering your next move, thinking about making him take the bait. You can see how close he is to relenting when the back door swings open with a dramatic clang.

With a scowl on her face, Nancy approaches you with a hand outstretched. “There you are. I was looking for my suit. It’s hotter than hell out there.” She rummages through the bag, pulling out a black and white polka suit in triumph. “Come on, let’s get changed.” She says, nodding in the direction of your pink suit.

A chuckle from Eddie rang through the room, “Cute suit, Angel. Can’t wait to see you in it.” With a wink, he’s heading through the house while your cheeks burn.

[anarcoqueer1994]

Dustin does not expect to see Steve sitting on his couch, shirtless, covered in blood and shaking when he got home from Hellfire. He was supposed to be spending the night at Mike's with the other guys but he forgot his bag, so he was going to stop home and grab it, Eddie waiting outside, offering to drop him off. He wasn't expecting Hopper, in uniform talking to his mother. He wasn't expecting Joyce Byers to be sitting next to the almost canatonic Steve, fussing over him, wrapping bandages over large gashes on his arm and shoulder. There were bruises everywhere, arms, stomach, face.

No one noticed him yet. And he was freaking out. He needed to tell Eddie, he needed to understand what was happening. Most of all, he needed Steve to be okay. Steve looked different. These weren't battle wounds from the upside down or Russians. This was something worse.

Without thinking, he runs back out the door to Eddie’s car, everyone but Steve looking up as the door slammed shut. Eddie immediately saw the panic in Dustin's face. He gets out of the car.

"Dude, what's wrong?" Eddie asks

"It's Steve...." and for the first time since Eddie knew Dustin, it looked like this was to much for him. Unfortunately, Eddie wasn't much help, panic filling him at the sound of his boyfriend's name being spoken like that. Steve can’t be hurt, Steve was supposed to be waiting for him at his trailer."What do you mean? Dustin...What is happening?"

~~

They came home unexpectedly. Steve was just stopping by his seldom lived in home to grab some clothes and a few VHS tapes he wanted to show Eddie. But they came home. His father called him into the kitchen. He looked angry. His mother sat silently by, not even looking at him.

"Had a conversation with Mr. Hagan. He said Tommy told him you were hanging out with that murderer, Eddie Munson." His dad says.

"He's not a murderer and he's my friend." Steve says plainly, hoping they don't know more.

"Cut the bullshit, Steven. Tommy saw you two kissing behind the movie theater like a couple of faggots." Mr Harrington says sternly, the cruel word leaving his lips.

"Tommy doesn't know what he's talking about." Steve tries to brush him off.

Suddenly Mr Harrington is on his feet grabbing Steve’s shoulder hard enough to bruise. From this distance Steve can smell the alcohol on his father’s breath. "I don’t like liars, Steven. " he crushes his grip further into Steve’s shoulder making Steve wince at the pain. "You are to stopping seeing Eddie. Even you deserve better than trash like that. And no son of mine will be a faggot."

The toxic words hurt Steve more than his father’s grip. "No? Then I'm not your son. Eddie is a better person than you will ever be and I fucking love him." He spits.

With that Steve is on the floor, when he tries to get back up his father pushes him back down landing painful punches through out his body, the trauma leaving bruises and open wounds. He grabbed a beer bottle from near by when Steve tried to fight back, busting it over his head and digging the jagged end of the bottle into his shoulder. When Mr Harrington finally stands up, he lands one more painful kick to Steve's stomach. "Get out! Get the fuck out here now. You are going to fucking die you know? All you fags eventually die of AIDs. Good riddance And don't take the car, it's in my name." His mother sat quietly doing nothing.

Steve can barely make out what his dad said, just knowing he had to leave. He struggles to get himself up, limping painfully to the door, holding his torso. He is vaguely aware of the blood trailing down his body.

He makes it outside. He doesn’t have a plan on where to go. He just starts walking, but eventually 3 blocks later walking gets hard, and he collapses cradling his stomach. He throws up, it's too much. But then a car drove by, headlights hitting him. It's Claudia.

"Oh my God, Steve!" She says getting out of the car. He can't even respond. He lets her usher him into her car, taking him back to her house. He knows she calls the ambulance(and the Sherriff, Hopper.) She asks him what happened but he can't talk. Everything is too much.

Joyce shows up with Hopper, delicately pulling him into a hug. He doesn't fight it. He is aware Claudia is talking to Hopper, aware of Joyce, but he just wants to die. This wasn't supposed a burden. He wasn't supposed to make this there problem.

But he hurts. His body is on fire. And the thoughts of his parents finally confirming what he already knew, that they do not love him, is destroying him. His father thinks he'll die of AIDS.

A thought crosses his mind. Oh no, he was supposed to meet Eddie. Eddie is going to worry. He tries to speak but finds that no words come out. Then he hears the door slam but he can't acknowledge it. Moments later he loses consciousness.

~~

As Dustin stands at Eddie’s car trying to explain what he saw, they both see an ambulance pull up. Thier worry gets worse, both instinctively follow the paramedics inside. There they see it. Steve unconscious on the couch, Claudia, Joyce and even Hopper panicking. They all watch helplessly as Steve is loaded on a bed and rushed out of the house.

They all crowd into Claudia's car except Hoper, giving them a police escort to avoid the lights. It's a long night of waiting in the ER, as doctors try to stabilize blood loss and the concussion. The waiting room gets fuller as Dustin and Eddie get ahold of thier friends. Around 4am, the doctor comes out, says he's stable but sleeping. Tells them they could go home. Of course, none if them do.

When the hospital tries to say that it's family only for staying over, Hopper flashes his badge. All of them crowd into a tiny hospital room.

~~

Steve wakes up around 8am. His head is killing him and the rest of his body doesn't feel much better. He's bandaged up covering the wounds from the glass. He feels tight bandages against what he is sure is broken ribs. Memories from last night flash into his head, guilt and shame flooding in.

He feels a weight against him. He turns his head gently to see Eddie laying next to him in the small hospital bed. Eddie is careful to lay against but not aggravate any of Steve's wounds. He carefully looks around, and he wants to cry, not sure out of happiness or guilt.

All his frineds were there...his family, asleep. Joyce and Hopper were crowded onto a hospital pull out cot. Robin took the chair near his bed, Nancy on the floor with her head in her lap. Claudia sleeps in a chair in the corner. The kids, Dustin, Max, Lucas, Mike, Will, El, and even Erica were sleeping against the wall on the floor. Jonathan and Argyle were even there, sleeping against the other wall.

His movements must have been enough to wake Eddie, who admittedly could barely sleep anyways. When he sees Steve is up, he whispers "Thank God..."

This is enough for Steve to look at him. Yellow and brown bruises staining his beautiful features, and Eddie, afraid to touch him, carefully puts his hand against Steve's cheek. "Baby..." He whimpers, on the edge of tears " I am so glad you are awake. I was so fucking scared, Stevie."

Steve tries to flash a smile but it falters when he sees the fear in Eddie's eyes. "I'm sorry...I didn't want to worry you."

"Oh sweetheart" Eddie coos, heartbroken that Steve is apologizing. "You have nothing to say sorry for. That bastard who did will be fucking sorry though." Eddie’s voice goes uncharacteristically dark, hatred boiling up for who ever did this.

"No Eds..." He whispers. "He isn't worth it.. "

"Who was it?" Eddie asks, fully intending on going after them.

"My dad..." He says softly. "And if you go after him, " his voice starts to shake "He's got the money to lock you up a long time....and then I'll lose you too. " A stray tear rolls down his face, causing Eddie to pull him in gently, whispering "Okay baby...I won't....you won't lose me."

Robin is the next to wake up, hearing Steve and Eddie talking. She immediately stands up, walking closer to the bed, waking up Nancy. "Steve..." her voice sounds hoarce, like she was actually crying.

Steve looks at her, and smiles "In the flesh..."

And just like that, she is ducking down hugging Steve. "You had me so worried, dingus." Steve wraps his arms as tight as he can given the circumstances, not wanting to let go.

After they finally pull apart, Nancy is squeezing his hand saying. "I'm so glad you are okay..."

One by one they all wake up, relief covering their faces seen Steve awake. Claudia immediately offers her home, knowing about the Harringtons and taking an educated guess on what happened, suspicions confirmed when Steve has to give his statement to Hopper.

Dustin's eyes were blood shot when he woke up, obviously having cried. He see came up to Steve, smiling but a little tear still in his eyes, seeing Steve like this. Steve flashes him a smile "Going soft on me, Henderson." He jokes.

"Shut up." He laughs before leaning down and hugging Steve. "I am so glad you are alive. Who else is going to drive me around?" He laughs but hugs Steve like his life depended on it.

The other teenagers all hug Steve, so happy he is alive. Everytime Steve tries to apologize for making them worry, they brush them off.

Over the next week, Steve stays at the hospital to recover. They all pop in to visit, with Robin, Eddie and Dustin practically living there. Unfortunately, due to money and lawyers, his dad is going to get away with it.

But it's okay, he has his real family. He comes home to Claudia's house, guest bedroom set up for him. Eddie and Robin are there everyday helping him recover. Eddie even spends the night, just holding him, drowning away the nightmares he has replaying that night.

But overall he's happy. He has people that love him, he has "parents" that love him. He does not need Mr. and Mrs. Harrington. He has all the love he needs right here.

[sp0o0kylights]

Being from PNW as I am, I really want to do a Polybius AU with Steddie (I just don’t want to write it lmao) 

We begin with Eddie being absolutely attached to this growing urban legend. An arcade cabinet shrouded in mysterious gameplay, awash with rumors of kids disappearing or even dying, and men in black “collecting” something from the cabinet every week? 

Throw in his own little weird encounter with an arcade game as a kid, one Eddie cannot for the life of him find again and yeah, he’s salivating over this shit. 

Hellfire’s tired of hearing about it. This has been Eddie’s white whale since they met him, they’re done listening to him chase down rumors and insist the game was checking for psychic powers in the population. (Or testing a “mind weapon” or six other things.) 

 He gets met with nothing but groans and complaints when he catches wind that something like Polybius popped up on the west coast, igniting the rumors all over again, but this is a new tale for Hellfire’s freshmen.

They sit, enraptured  and asking six million questions, by something everyone but Mike thinks is just some silly bullshit story--but it’s so out there that Lucas and Dustin placate him. 

(“Why on earth would Brenner use an arcade cabinet when he was just kidnapping kids at birth Mike, you just want an excuse to see El…”)

Obviously Polybius IRL takes place in Oregon, but let’s say things have grown a bit. Extended, like the growth of a disgusting, pulsing vine, into California. 

Will is walking home when his hand flies to the back of his neck, a buzzing overtaking his ears as this weird, black arcade cabinet from a nearby shop seems to slide into his focus.

Slowly, like a camera lens being focused, it pulls him in until El yanks him out of it and he realizes he hasn't been breathing.

 Later he tells Mike--because he has to tell someone that isn't Jonathan and isn't El and absolutely isn't his mom-- and Mike absolutely loses his shit. 

This, of course, accumulates into a blowup at lunch, in front of the rest of Hellfire. 

Who are rolling their eyes because oh God, not only has Eddie infected the freshman with this, they’re now doing that thing they do where they get all secretive and try to talk in code words. 

(As if all of Hellfire isn’t aware they think “Mike’s girlfriend” who is about as real to them as Suzie is, has superpowers. 

The party is good at a lot of things, but whispering isn’t one of them.)  

There's an argument about whether this means Brenner, or someone like him, is collecting kids again and if so, do they have a responsibility to stop it, and that this isn't the Upside Down this is human horror, but what if it is actually the Upside Down, they don’t know--and it goes round and round between the Party in Hawkins and El & Will up in California, via phone calls. 

The Hawkins crew decides they need to go to California, together. 

They just…have to figure out a way to get there, first. 

Will & El on the other hand, decide they can’t wait, because they can save kids.

They can make a difference--prevent this shit from happening in a new location all over again.

El doesn't want to be like Kali anymore, but she understands what Kali was trying to do and she feels that same sort of responsibility to stop what she can. 

They disappear. 

Jonathan calls everyone he can, frantic, because he thinks Will and El have decided to go back to Hawkins, and his mother just left with Murray to do something she was extremely vague about and Argyle does not have enough weed for this.

If you guessed this accumulates with a Eddie + the Extended Party (Nance/Steve/Robin) going on a road trip you’d be right. 

Also they collect Suzie on the way because no one ever uses her in stories and fuck it she’d be fun to bring in. 

With them being in California you have Max’s past coming into play, as well as Eddie’s own mystery with the arcade cabinet, everyone crashing together at the Byers house (one bed or no bed either is hilarious for Steddie) and as we left the rest of Hellfire back at Hawkins to try and dodge six million questions about where like, ten people vanished off to (“Uh….camp?”) we get to have some fun there too. 

Throw in Eddie’s massive ass crush, “out of Hawkins”  Robin + Steve (who is perhaps a lot more chill with things than Eddie realized) and a need to go “undercover” at a gay bar purely for selfish reasons on my end (I want to see Steve flirt shamelessly with men and watch Eddie blue screen bc of it) and you have a lot of fun with the entire groups dynamic. 

I don’t have an ending other than Eddie at some point needs to play Polybuis and Steve drapes himself over Eddie’s back, whispering encouragement in his ear as a way to keep him from getting pulled into it the way Will was while the kids work together to kill whatever it is the government's unleashed this time (not Brenner, but instead another branch or faction who took his research and ran) but I’d love to parallel Eddie more to Will, on both the gay and supernatural fronts.

[strangeswift]

happy birthday to my best friend in the world, @elekinetic. pretend i finished this on time 🫶

Nancy Wheeler doesn't like hospitals.

There’s death and disease around every corner, it's always freezing cold, and the fluorescent lights give her a headache.

Plus, the vending machines always eat her quarters.

Most people don’t like hospitals, she knows that. But most people haven’t been chased through the sterile halls by a creature made of exploded human corpses, so Nancy likes to think she has an exceptionally good reason.

It’s that memory that haunts her now. It follows her down the brightly lit hospital corridor and makes her heart race as she walks a little faster, casting cursory glances over her shoulder. With every glance, she's half expecting to see a large mass of flesh and jagged bones gaining on her, leaving a trail of blood in its wake, staining the pristine white tile.

There’s nothing there, nothing but the memory, but she feels the bile rise in her throat anyway.

She focuses her attention on the numbers on the doorframes as she passes – 242, 244, 246.

248 - Maxine Mayfield.

She pauses outside the open door, taking in the sight. Bracing herself, maybe.

Max is almost alarmingly pale, though the dark circles under her eyes have cleared, making her look a little less sick and frail. Her arms lay at her sides, the casts having been recently removed. She wears a white hospital gown.

Max Mayfield has always looked like a sad kid, from the time she first moved to Hawkins – but seeing her like this is something entirely different. Laid up in a hospital bed, staring blankly ahead, her irises a milky blue color that betray her lack of vision. She looks helpless. Broken.

As shitty as it sounds, it’s hard to look at her. She’s just a kid – a kid that Nancy should have protected, but instead sent her to die. And she did. She died.

You’re just a kid, a voice that sounds something like Nancy’s mom tells her. But it's not true. It hasn’t been true for a long time.

“Who is it?” Max calls, in the vague direction of the door, “You’re supposed to announce yourself.”

She sounds frustrated, like it's a rule she’s reiterated several times before. It’s understandable, wanting some level of control.

Nancy clears her throat. “It’s Nancy.”

The scowl drops from Max’s face. “Sorry,” she says hurriedly, “I thought you were Mike.”

Nancy blinks. “You thought I was Mike? Why?”

“Your footsteps,” Max explains, “They sound like his.”

Nancy remembers having her mom and dad’s footsteps memorized, always listening for them during late night phone calls. Her mom’s were delicate and quick, while her dad’s were heavy and sluggish. She imagines having to experience the world that way, listening to the cadence of footsteps.

She steps into the room, acutely aware of the sound of her feet on the tile. “Can I sit?” she asks, resting her hand on the back of the chair next to Max’s bed, waiting for permission.

“Yeah,” Max says, granting it.

Nancy sits on the edge of the seat, her posture perfectly straight. She's stiff, she knows. Hopefully Max can't tell.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Shitty,” Max answers, “and blind," she adds.

Nancy grimaces and gives a nod of acknowledgment before she remembers that Max can't see it.

“Sorry,” Max says, to fill the silence, “I’m just– I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to be fine,” Nancy says, shaking her head.

Max sighs deeply. "I know that."

She's heard it before, clearly.

“Everyone misses you,” Nancy tries, “Lucas and the boys, and Eleven.”

“El,” Max corrects automatically.

“Right. El,” Nancy amends.

Since Max woke up —since El got her back, that is— everyone's been taking turns visiting, so she's almost never alone, unless she asks for it. While Max was out, Lucas practically lived in her hospital room. He's moved back into the Sinclair house now, though he still visits twice a day. Nancy thinks he'd still be at the hospital all day if Max let him.

"Can I ask you something?" Max asks suddenly.

"Yeah," Nancy answers, "Yeah, of course."

Max pauses for a moment. "Vecna, and the monsters, and just– all this Upside Down shit we've dealt with," she says, "I've never seen you back down. From any of it. I've never seen you hesitate for a second. You just grab a gun and blow their heads off. I mean, you're like a total badass. It’s like– Like you're not afraid of anything."

Nancy shakes her head, a surprised smile creeping onto her face. "Was there a question somewhere in there?"

Max exhales sharply through her nose. "How do you do it?"

Nancy sees the way Max looks at her, almost reverent. And it's a little silly, she thinks, until she considers herself from an outside perspective. She thinks of herself at fourteen, the quiet girl who kept her head down and had just one friend. The girl who everyone thought was a priss. If that girl had seen her older self, feet planted firmly to the ground, firing shots into a demogorgon's gaping mouth as it roared, she thinks she'd probably be a little awestruck too.

Nancy remembers the first time she shot a gun. Standing in a field next to Jonathan Byers, gaze locked on a beer can, spurred on by the knowledge that her parents would disapprove. She remembers feeling like she was outside of herself, watching this girl who looked like her and felt like her but couldn't possibly be her, because this girl wielded a deadly weapon with measured confidence.

When she stops to really think about it —something she hasn't had the time or energy to do in years, constantly in survival mode— she almost doesn't know how she does it.

But the girl who fell through a tree into another world, who trembled and cried out for a boy she hardly knew, was not fearless. The girl who watched Will Byers, her little brother's sweet best friend grip his mother by the throat was not fearless. The girl who looked Henry Creel in the eye was not fearless.

Nancy Wheeler is not, and has never been, fearless.

Max fidgets, noting Nancy's lack of response. "I hate the way he was able to control me," she admits.

There's no question as to which he Max is referring to.

"When– If he comes for me again–"

"We won’t let him," Nancy interjects, her gaze fierce enough that she wonders if Max can feel it.

"We both know," Max says carefully, "that neither of us can stop that from happening."

“Okay," Nancy allows, "you’re right.”

"If he tries to get in my head again," Max says, "I want to be ready this time."

"It's not something you can be ready for," Nancy responds.

Max's face scrunches up, and Nancy can almost hear that's easy for you to say.

So she takes a different approach.

"When he got to me," she says carefully, "he showed me things." She pauses, takes a breath. "Do you know about Barb?"

"Like– a little," Max says with a shrug.

"She was my best friend," Nancy says, "My only friend, actually. And the demogorgon took her. He took her, I mean, just like he took Will. Only, she died in the Upside Down. Scared and alone."

She recounts Barb's death with a flat affect, like an investigator listing the facts of a case, the way she's heard Hopper or Murray do. She's thought about it so many times she almost feels numb, but in the icy, pins and needles kind of way.

"We were at Steve's that night," she continues, "and Barb wanted to leave. She wanted to leave and I– I told her to go without me, because I wanted to go upstairs with Steve."

She pauses. Max doesn't react.

"That was the last time I ever saw her. Until Henry– he showed her to me, and she was–" Her voice breaks, she takes a breath.

Do you remember what you did, Nancy? Or have you already forgotten?

That's how she knows he was taunting her. He can see her thoughts, and her memories, and so he knows. He knows she didn't forget. He knows it hangs over her like a dark cloud and casts a shadow over everything good in her life.

When I kill someone, I never forget.

"It was awful," she says quietly, "and it paralyzed me. There was nothing I could have done, because that's what he does. He uses your weaknesses against you."

Max closes her eyes, tilting her head back for a moment.

"It was Billy," Max says, opening her eyes, "He showed me Billy."

Immediately, Nancy knows that Henry taunted Max in the same way he did her.

"You couldn't have saved Billy," she says.

"Maybe not. But I could have tried," Max says bitterly.

"You would have died trying," Nancy argues.

"I used to wish he was dead," Max says bluntly.

Nancy's protests die on her tongue, caught off guard for a second.

"Before Starcourt," Max explains, "Before everything. I hated him."

"Max," Nancy says gently, "Billy was–"

"He was an asshole, I know," Max finishes, "A real fucking asshole. That doesn't make it okay."

Nancy shrugs. "I don't know, I think I've wished my dad would drop dead a few times before, and the only thing he ever did to me was not give a shit."

Max's eyes widen and she lets out a startled laugh. Nancy can't help but smile as she watches the tension leave her face. But it comes back just as quickly.

"He wasn't a good person," Max says, "and he sure as hell wasn't a good brother, but–" she takes a breath, "I wanted him to be. So badly. And just– now he never will, I guess."

Nancy thinks, for a moment, of Mike. She wonders if he's ever wished for her to just be an older sister. It's not the same, obviously. She's not Billy, not some abusive creep. But she's not Jonathan either. Mike isn't at the center of her life the way Will is for Jonathan. He's never needed her to prioritize him that way. At least, it didn't seem like he did.

"Whatever, it's stupid," Max finally says.

"It's not stupid," Nancy responds immediately.

Max reminds Nancy a lot of Mike. High strung, short tempered, a habit of pushing people away. But things are different with Max. Easier. There's no guilt that lies just below the surface, that builds and builds until it feels almost insurmountable, so you keep it buried.

And really, how is she supposed to talk to Mike when she's pretty clearly the last person he wants to talk to? She feels powerless with him. She feels powerless all of the time now. Her brother just got dumped by his girlfriend and he refuses to talk to anyone about it, her own relationship with Jonathan feels destined to fail, Steve Harrignton is making plans concerning her that she definitely had no say in–

Oh, and the world is ending.

There's nothing she can do to make any of it better, because she's not a great sister, or an exceptional girlfriend, or some kind of hero. She's not even the person Max Mayfield thinks she is, she's just–

She's just Nancy.

But she can talk to Max. Max is hurting and she needs someone, and Nancy can talk to her.

Max's eyes are glassy now, tears threatening to spill over.

“Hey,” Nancy says gently, “It's not stupid, okay?”

Max nods and takes a shaky breath. “Okay.”

[mike-haters-dni]

Scalding, unnecessary take that I'm going to use as an excuse to yap about my hyperfixation characters more than anything, but El's character is actually impossible to stick into coffee shop fanfiction No Supernatural Shit AUs. That's Jane you're writing about. Jane and El are not the same person. At all. And like, Jane is interesting to think about, don't get me wrong. I have thought about Jane. I love Jane. She's adorable and vaguely autistic. But Jane != Eleven.

Eleven is the way she is almost entirely because of her experience/trauma of growing up in the lab and having supernatural murder powers. Her main characters traits are being a self-sacrificing hero and not being sure who she is due to the fact she grew up in an isolated sterile inhuman environment. Unless you're directly translating those things into something unsupernatural (like growing up in a fucked up cult or something and like fighting her way out and now she'll fight to protect other people from similar experiences or something idk) you're writing about Jane the normal gorl who got to grow up with a normal personality in a normal world. And like, you can do that. It's fine it's fandom do whatever u want. But personally, the first thing I come up with when I birth an AU is what crazy powers and fucked up backstory we give Eleven here. Also how do we make her and everyone else really fucking cool but that...might be beside the point idk.

The powers have to basically ruin or have had ruined her life at one point. They have to be a curse that she either reclaims or gets rid of at the end. If she isn't tortured she isn't Eleven Stranger Things lmao

And then yeah yeah my next step is to figure out how Mike AND THE OTHERS OK but mostly Mike get involved in this. Which brings me to my next point: Jane and Mike have no real reason to talk to each other. Mike x Jane is just Normal Gorl x Normal Boy which is like, fine sure if that's what you want, but also you kinda just erased everything interesting about their dynamic. You wanna know what makes El and Mike's relationship so compelling? Objectively? I'm objectively right about everything I'm about to say here? Ok their dynamic is this: Eleven is the most important person in the world, and Mike is the only boy who will ever love her. And yeah that second one sounds really sad but 1. yeah it kinda is :) 2. its not really true that's just what El thinks which is like a major theme for her character TO ME, her underestimating how 'normal' she is esp in her later years 3. it also is kinda true because he's the only boy romantically interested in her who actually understands and experienced all the supernatural/lab trauma bullshit and is actively fighting beside her through the plot of the show, and 4. he's literally perfect and also the only boy she'll ever love and need so it all works out.

And to explain the first one, I mean, you know she's saved the world twice right? She kinda literally is the most important person in the world considering its up to her to stop the apocalypse probably in the end? But its not the being important exactly that makes Mike love her ok, that's more of a meta character thing. Like she doesn't have to literally be the key to saving the world and the most powerful being in the universe. Its more that she has to have something really special about her that draws Mike specifically to her and binds him to her permanently and inseparably and he belongs to her forever and ever and they die in each other's arms. Like she deserves. In canon I imagine objectively and correctly that it went like this: Mike is a natural outcast collector and protector due to his pervasive unconscious need to be needed and his fear of losing the few people who like him, who meets the ultimate outcast girl who literally has nothing and needs him in a very real way, and this gives him an excuse to just pour his entire self into her, fulfilling one of his deepest interpersonal needs. The best part is that she's super selfless and amazing and she loves him the same right back so its actually a beautiful thing they get going. Basically the idea of being anything less than perfect for her is so sad and horrible due to how fucked her life was that it drives the already caretaking Mike into overdrive to make her happy. Not at the cost of him still being an individual person, mind you. But that's the vibe. Also let me just say, all the self-sacrificing vibes and obsession and desperation can become toxic under certain circumstances and that is absolutely a feature not a bug. Sorry you don't like watching your faves yell at each other but we are not the same.

Anyway what the fuck was I talking about? AUs? Yeah ok so when translating Mike (AND THE OTHERS...and the others) into other stories there's more flexibility u kno because he's mostly just Some Guy. He really just needs (TO ME) an excuse to be fighting with Eleven (she has to be fighting something with the powers I know you gave her). He shouldn't be directly involved with whatever gave her the powers but he should generally know of and be somewhat affected by it. Or become aware of it/involved with it over time. Like in the show. You get it. Honestly his only real consistent character traits are being kinda moody and being the leader of the party in whatever vague or not way. And being intelligent. Like he has to be leader for a reason. I guess that's a decent base for a character right there.

oh right side note: you have to do something fun with her name. like she was basically branded Eleven by the freak that gave her the powers so u gotta take that energy and translate it into another branded name that has el in it because she needs to get the nickname ofc. unless its a cyberpunk au in which case Eleven is a pretty normal name and she can just go by that lmao.

So the point ig is Jane and Mike break up when they go away to different colleges and don't talk to each other again until their next high school reunion, while Mike and Eleven are...well you should know by now.

[chirpsythismorning]

Noah saying, "I don't think Mike likes Will back" doesn’t equate to him not knowing about byler being endgame, and here's why.

Noah and a majority of the main cast have been given a rough idea of how the show will end, broadly in terms of the entire story, but also more specifically in terms of their personal character arcs.

Actors are out here acting. This is nothing new.

Any of the the main cast insisting they have no idea how the show ends at all, are lying. This is because their safest bet is playing dumb.

There's nothing safe about them revealing they know how the show ends, least of all to an audience that is dying for any spoiler they can get their hands on. It just puts them in a position to have to think very carefully about everything they say, which is something they already have to do regardless.

It's a lot easier to just say you don't know, because then you can give vague answers or even just flat out lie and get away with it, as opposed to saying you know and then having everyone take whatever you say as gospel since you admitted to knowing what's coming.

David is pretty much the only actor who goes around explicitly saying that he knows how the show ends, which is something he's been doing consistently since s2 premiered back in November of 2017.

Something David has also mentioned on a few occasions since then, is how much input the Duffer's let him put into his character. He's literally praised them for having a collaborative process, because it allows him to play Hopper more authentically.

And so yes, I do think it's safe to assume that the Duffer's extend this approach to their other cast-members as well, at least among the main cast-members. I do not at all think this is some exclusive treatment only David gets, because this seems like more just something the Duffer's do out of respect to the actors. How else can they expect them to portray their character accurately if they don't know what they're going through or what their motives are or what's right for them going forward?

We obviously won't know all the details about who knew what at what times or how long they've known certain things, until they themselves come out and reveal after the fact, if they even do it at all.

Still, I do think that when it comes to byler actually happening, it's going to be very satisfying for fans who saw it coming.

This is because we're dealing with something the Duffer's are predicting a good portion of the ga will be bitter about, with the main argument at the forefront being that Mike and Will came out of nowhere.

And so, how do you think they're going to combat that?

With the literal proof.

They have David, who has been used happily as their main scapegoat through the years, whose words are literal proof that things were planned for quite some time. We have him saying all the way back in 2017 that there are easter eggs in the first season which we won't understand until the end, how it's beautiful and surprising and it will explain why certain characters acted certain ways...

Not only that, but there's just no way people are going to be able to use the whole 'it came out of nowhere' argument (at least without looking like idiots), because we'll have the Duffer's themselves out here confirming shit like blue meets yellow in the west and other theories that were entirely intentional (as we predicted).

And because of this, I think I can guess roughly how things will go moving forward and it's honestly already panning out in some ways I expected.

Because while season 4 ends in a way that seems to be leading towards Mike and El ending up together from the perspective of the ga, there are numerous details in the subtext and just outright in the literal text that's trying to tell us this is not actually the case.

And so now the Duffers and everyone who knows are in this limbo of tricking their audience in plain sight, hoping to keep this act going for as long as they can, and that's obviously not easy to do.

What I think makes it most difficult is that they want to surprise fans, but they also want them to be satisfied and happy with the ending.

And that is why the whole Milkvan straight bait is indeed very near its end.

If they want ST to live on as a cult classic with rewatch value, they can't keep this straight bait going on into the last season.

They'll want Mike and El to definitively give off platonic elmike for s5, with byler being endgame and Willel being wonder twins.

This is why Mike and El's dynamic HAS to blatant in a way that will come across as platonic to the ga in s5. And the shift needs to be immediate, otherwise byler will not be satisfying.

I feel like a lot of bylers already predict this, which is why a lot of us assume that the milkvan breakup with happen (or be acknowledged as having already happened) as early as 5x01 or 5x02.

Honestly, I do think that Will's painting being plastered on merch recently was one of the big moments which is representative of a shift we're already seeing start to happen. We're going to continue to see milkvan be promoted as elmike, while byler is being promoted in a way that is, well byler.

What I think is most noteworthy in terms of how they're approaching this conflict going forward, is how the actors themselves have talked about it when asked.

For example, there was one Con specifically that I remember Noah attended right around when Vol 2 dropped, where he mentioned byler at least 3 times. Two times when asked and one other time unprompted.

And no one ever talks about this, but full serious you guys, it was dead silent at that con whenever he mentioned byler. There were maybe a few hoots and claps, with Noah literally looking kind of worried. It was obvious he noticed the silence the first time it got brought up, and so he felt the need to mention it a second time when asked about what he shipped and then AGAIN, with a note of defensiveness in his voice:

"Byler is just, at it's peak right now, okay, so definitely ship that--"

And while in the background, all you hear is maybe 2 bylers supporting him, otherwise, it's mostly crickets...

Let's try to remember that while Byler is a lot bigger now undoubtedly, unless you're active online, most of the ga does not see it coming. And so byler is by no means fan-service. If anything it's show-runner service.

This means Noah had literally no obligation that day to go all out with referring to byler in a positive hopeful light, nor does he still. And yet he did and he hasn't slowed down much since.

His approach makes sense. Because his character has been revealed in canon to be in love with the other, he can freely say he ships it and even take the opportunity to hype it up in an attempt to open peoples minds to it, who might not have considered it before. And he can also do this because in canon, Will assumes Mike doesn't love him back, so Noah can just co-opt Will & the ga's assumption that Mike doesn't feel the same, and get away with it, without anyone whose close-minded giving it a second glance as evidence.

If they wanted to avoid queer-bait and get people to not look at byler that way, they had the chance to. A majority of the ga didn't read byler romantically and so they could've just kept things casual by not bringing it up, nor humoring it at all.

The byler tag didn't even hit 30k followers until AFTER vol. 2 dropped! Most people were oblivious (including bylers).

Undoubtedly, Noah in particular around that time, was a big part of why people started to look deeper on their own and it's how a lot of people ended up here, now with 277k of us.

Like seriously, listen to me ya'll, Noah would NOT put himself in a position to broadcast his support for byler like this and the Duffers would probably be begging him not to, knowing he would be subject to a lot of criticism in doing so, if byler was not in fact where the story was going. Point blank, period.

His tweet "vol 2 got me shipping byler over everything' has to have been the most obvious stunt of all. He was not saying that to be quirky or to appease a few thousand people, he was saying it to wake up the hundreds of thousands that might be open to it, and who just need a push to see what's right in front of them.

Then we have Millie's approach. Her approach for a long time has been to say stuff that she thinks the audience wants to hear, that being anything pro-milkvan. And up until Vol 1, she was still mostly on board with referring to it in a super positive light.

She also insisted during s4's run that she has no clue how the show will end (lies, Millie is a good actress pls give her more credit), and this also explains why she's tended to feel somewhat comfortable lying about milkvan positively...

Though as Vol. 2 neared and ever since, a shift has started to happen, where in interviews Millie is getting a lot more into depth and real about El's personal arc. She mentioned right before Vol 2 dropped that El was insecure in her fight with Mike at the start of the season because she thought he only considered her a superhero and didn't see her as more than that.... Then more recently she has doubled down saying that she is her own superhero, having been shaped a little too much by the men in her life.

SHE IS OUT HERE SAYING WHAT WE'VE BEEN SAYING FOR MONTHS (SOME YEARS)! SHE KNOWS HER CHARACTER BETTER THAN ANYONE!

Honestly, even though I understand they are trying to trick people into thinking they're clueless and so I guess I'm happy for them that they've succeeded in that, I can't help but admit I feel a little disappointed upon hearing some bylers say that they are convinced Millie doesn't know, but that Finn does and even Noah does, but that she's entirely in the dark about it and that they're okay with this I guess?

First of all, why would anyone be okay with that? Why would we be okay with Millie not having insight into where her character is going. What, do you guys think they're just going to pull up on her at the last minute like, "yeah sorry we didn't tell you sooner, but this is where your character is going to end up. anyways back to byler!...."

I don't care, it would seriously be fucked up to keep her in the dark about this because El IS important to the story and Millie, just like everyone else, deserves that closure so that she can understand her character better and therefore perform to the best of her ability. She also deserves a say somewhat in where she feels her character should go, just like David has said the Duffer's afford them.

Now lastly, when it comes to Finn, I think most assume at least he is aware of byler, and I do agree he knows, so let's start there.

Again, we don't know when they found out and so for now I don't feel like going too far into guessing the exact point and so I won't. However, I do think that Finn also as of late has had an approach that manages to somehow be very different from both Noah and Millie's, and for reasons that also make a lot of sense.

Because Finn's character is assumed to not return Will's feelings, he has to be more careful than all of them. This is arguably why he goes to the least cons out of everyone (most recently everyone attended a con in person, with Millie present over zoom even, but no Finn or Noah... seems very intentional at this point).

Why I think they need to be more strict with Finn in particular is because he's in the exact opposite situation as Noah.

His character is assumed to not return Wll's feelings, and so he can't go very far with what he reveals. What we've got up to this point is actually quite revealing enough as it is, which is why that's all we're getting for now.

What I find interesting is that Finn's approach is quite similar to David's. I know Noah is known for spoiling things, but arguably Finn is just as bad, he's just a lot more sneaky about it. He has a harder time lying, which is why I think he actually looks uncomfortable when asked milkvan questions. Not necessarily because he doesn't ship it like lots of bylers assume, but because he's having to dance around and lie outright and he probably feels bad.

His most common approach though is that he likes to make jokes and say things that could be looked at from multiple perspectives, where it could be looked at now as milkvan evidence, while simultaneously being looked at from the future as byler evidence. Him saying 'I think everyone knows how Mike feels about Eleven' was him quite literally gaslighting the audience just like Mike did with El in s4:

'I care for you so much" "I say it" "You know how I feel about you--"

But do we? Do we really? Or does the audience THINK they know, and so Finn can get away with saying something cryptic and vague like that? When really, in the future, everyone will be laughing looking back because to Finn and all the cast, it was actually abundantly obvious Mike's feelings for El were platonic and his feelings for Will were romantic.

Same for his response when asked if El and Mike would be together and happy in season 5. He dances around it, doesn't deny it, but also doesn't confirm it. Instead of just being like yes they will (which is what we're being led to assume is inevitable at the end of s4, and so he has no reason to dance around it), he starts by deflecting, talking broadly in terms of the stories overall ending, only to say he hopes they find happiness... Again his answer fits with the ga's assumptions now, but it also fits with the surprise of byler in the end as well.

Also important to note that Finn and Noah are the ones to repost about the show most out of everyone from the main cast. A LOT. In fact, they were the only main cast-members (besides Brett LOL) out of everyone to repost about the episode title name for 5x01 being released on ST day...

And it's because THIS is their character's big revelation going into the final season and they had a say in it going this direction. Even if it's what the Duffer's wanted all along, they still gave them and everyone to an extent, a say in things. And now that it's all slowly happening, they are front and center standing by that decision, because they insisted they could do it and wanted to.

I can't say for certain that things will just be smooth sailing from here on out though, by no means is everything just going to shift completely.

There is still undoubtedly this element of the Duffer's and everyone wanting to have the pleasure of tricking the audience. In an industry where everything that happens is usually expected and predictable and therefore rarely exciting, and with an audience that is always figuring stuff out before their supposed to through leaks and stuff, byler is something they have finally been able to successfully trick most of the audience to think will never happen. And that is fucking impressive when considering the heaps of evidence.

And yet still, they don't want to be yet another show that is considered to have a bad ending.

So, going forward, I think things will continue the way that they are, but we'll slowly see them be more comfortable in this element of acknowledging endgame in a way that will be easy to look back on positively when everything is all said and done.

Because if byler is endgame, IF they want people to look back and go oh Oh OH during all those moments where they misread things, but now they can see the other side of it, there needs to be more of an approach that gives Byler equal playing field and allows the ga to actually start to appreciate it and even want it and root for it. Which means buh bye predictability and heteronormativity and hello surprises and gayness (but also be open ended about it so the homophobes will stay tuned until the last second).

[daboyau]

i haven’t gone to bed yet so i’m counting this as being on time. :)

here’s part 2 of the very special and fun collab with @boots-with-the-fur-club! It was such a great experience getting to join in on her wonderful ideas. 💚 you can find part one here:

And here is my part! Hope you enjoy it!! @tmntaucompetition

There’s a warmth to Mikey’s simulation. A candle bright glow around the edges of reality, seeping into the world and warming the air itself. It feels almost stifling, making each breath heavy and hard to draw without their lungs burning from it. Mike doesn’t seem to notice, though, his smile big and bright as he stands at the head of the room, talking animatedly to his captive audience. They all stand close together, faces plastic and bright. Nothing but smiles all around as they ooh and ahhh at the art that Mikey is showing them. Each piece is a vague blur of color, a shifting landscape of shapes and shades that only make sense in the world of dreams. Mikey is glowing with pride, though, to the point that it almost makes Donnie feel a little bad for wanting to wake him up and break him out of this moment. 

He scans the crowd, searching for the shades of himself and his brothers, and when his eyes fall upon the smudge of green he heaves a put upon sigh. Of course they’re all the way up at the front of the room. He braces himself and begins to make his way through the throngs of bodies, shoving against humans and yokai and mutants alike. The smiles never fade from a single one of their faces. 

“Mikey!” he yells, struggling to be heard over the indistinct chatter of the crowd. He hasn’t seen a single one of their mouths moving. His little brother doesn’t even glance in his direction, seeming to not hear his voice. 

“Mikey! If you don’t answer me I will put all of your cringey 15 year old moments online for everyone to see! I know you know I recorded every single one!” 

Nothing. Instead, Mikey turns and steps into the horde, being swallowed by the mass of colors and textures. Donnie curses, and his shoves begin to get more violent as he fights to reach his brother. The bodies bend and ripple like jello when he pushes against them, making his skin crawl and his stomach churn, but he persists. There’s a flash of orange, a familiar laugh, and Donnie zeroes in on his target. 

“Mikey!”

His brother turns and for one wonderful second Donnie thinks that his voice has been heard. That hope dies a quick and resolute death when he realizes that there is no recognition in Mikey’s fever bright eyes. An arm is thrown over his baby brother’s shoulders, and his gaze is pulled back to the fake family that is vying for his attention. Donnie grits his teeth and shoves closer, trying to duck around the bodies blocking his way. 

“Mike. Miguel! Michelangelo, I swear to Marie Curie, if you don’t get it together right this moment—“

Donnie breaks through the crowd, and when he catches sight of who his brother is talking to, he feels his breath catch in his chest. He feels his heart plummet and his stomach twist as his vision goes blurry. 

“Oh,” he whispers. “Papa.” 

He understands now why Mikey is so happy here. Why he has been harder to catch the attention of. Their father is healthy and smiling here, one hand resting on Mikey’s forearm as he guides the family around, gesturing broadly towards the artwork with a huge smile on his face. Draxum is trotting at his side, smile just as broad. At times, he leans down to whisper something in Splinter’s ear and the two of them laugh together like they never had in the real world. The fake Donnie and Leo are walking arm in arm, smiling as they discuss the artwork. Seeing themselves getting along better than they have in years makes Donnie feel vaguely ill, the sting of longing and guilt mixing painfully with the grief he hasn’t let himself feel since—

“This is amazing!” a voice booms, familiar but warped. Younger than it should be, and echoing strangely through the heavy air. “Good work, big man!” 

A facsimile of Raph swoops in and hoists Mikey onto one shoulder, and their dad on the other. Mikey laughs, nuzzling closer, one hand linked with their dad’s. The fake Leo bounds after them, head thrown back, laughing more freely than he has since he was a teenager, back before the weight of life and leadership and loss had settled too heavy upon his chest. The fake Donnie and Draxum follow close behind, locked in deep discussion, smiling easily as they talk. From out of the crowd, April materializes, clinging to Raph’s forearm as she twists to shout something over her shoulder at Leo and Donnie. 

They’re all smiling, happy, and together for the first time in years. It hurts to see it. Donnie didn’t realize how much he’s missed it until it is right in front of him, but still out of reach. Unachievable with mystics or science, no matter how hard he may try. He swallows hard, bracing himself for the pain and the grief and the way Mikey will look at him with betrayal and hatred when Donnie forces him to wake and face reality once again. 

“Hey,” he says, quiet, as he steps closer to fake-him’s back. The imposter doesn’t turn to look at him, its routine set up already to revolve around Mikey and Mikey alone. Donnie flexes his fingers, mystics flaring as a glowing purple bo forms, settling comfortably in his hands. He breathes out, a blade forming on the end of it, and runs his double through. 

He winces as the fake Donnie crumples to the ground. None of the others miss a step. Donnie joins their march, weapon still held tight in his hands. Beside him, fake Draxum does not miss a beat. He continues to talk, pausing occasionally like he is listening to a response. His voice is strange and garbled, though, like a scratched record playing backwards. The sound makes his skin feel too tight and he shudders, turning his attention instead on the imposter Raphael’s broad shoulders. 

Their dad’s tail swings with each of Raph’s steps, tail curling in the same way it always did when he was happy. It hurts to see it, and yet it feels like a violation that Kendra knows this tiny detail and chose to use it against them. Mikey’s laughter fills the air around them, his head tilted back, his face brighter than it has been in years. The sound is like music to a man hearing for the first time, or food for someone long starved. Donnie allows himself a moment to soak it in, and it feels like heresy to get to enjoy Mikey’s joy again when the cause of it is a sham. 

The defeated slump to his brother’s shoulders is gone. Donnie feels guilty that he hadn’t even realized it was there until that awful weight had been lifted. 

“Mikey,” he calls again, soft and sad. For the first time that night (the first time in years), his little brother turns and looks right at him. There is adoration in his gaze, though it turns slowly to confusion as he sees the bo and the serious expression on Donnie’s face. 

“Dondon?” he asks, head tilting. He looks so young here, with none of the deep worry lines that he’s developed in the real world. Maybe this is what he could have looked like if Donnie hadn’t had his freakout. If he hadn’t panicked and run and fucked it all up. 

Donnie smiles at him, and he knows it must look awful because Mikey’s brow creases with worry in response. He tugs at Raph’s bandana, trying to get him to slow, to notice that something is wrong, but there’s no indication that he notices Mikey’s attempts. 

“I’m sorry about this,” Donnie says. 

“What are you—“ Mikey begins, but before he can finish the thought Donnie is swinging, the blade hitting fake-Draxum in the side of the neck and sending him crumpling to the floor. The world goes pixelated and iridescent. Mikey’s scream echoes around them, and as he leaps from Raph’s crumbling shoulders to race to Draxum’s side, his markings already beginning to glow, all Donnie can think is how grateful he is that he didn’t have to kill dad a second time to make his point. 

.

Mikey jerks awake with a horrible, shuddering gasp. He scrabbles for the headset, breaking off into a violent coughing fit as he manages to pull it from his temples and throw it across the room. Donnie is at his side immediately, hand hovering just over his shell. He wants to rub circles on his baby brother’s back, just like he used to do for him after he was sick or had a bad dream when they were kids, but he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to anymore. Mikey’s foggy gaze finds his, and his mouth opens a closes a few times, throat clicking dryly whenever he tries to speak. Finally, he manages to croak out a scared little whisper. 

“Donnie?” he asks, and his voice is so broken, and suddenly all Donnie can think of is the night before the funeral, Mikey sitting lost and alone in their dad’s bedroom. They had all been so caught up in their own grief. Their own hurt. None of them had leaned into one another for comfort, each trying to handle things on their own. None of them had stopped long enough to sit with Mikey as he grieved, alone and lost, in the empty room. 

“I’m here,” Donnie promises, saying it now because he hadn’t been able to force the words out from behind the lump in his throat back then. “I won’t be going anywhere.”

Mikey’s eyes are glistening, and Donnie’s pretty sure that he would be sobbing if it weren’t for how dehydrated he is. They both would be. Donnie gently, hesitantly, allows his hand to fall and rest on Mikey’s shell. That’s all it takes for his little brother to crumble, falling unsteadily into his arms, trembling and whimpering as he hugs Donnie tight. 

“I missed you so much,” Mikey sobs, his voice hoarse and wet. Donnie wishes he had water to offer him, but he contents himself with hugging back, squeezing as tightly as his malnourished arms will allow him to. 

“I did, too,” he whispers, burning eyes squeezed shut. “I’m sorry I left. I won’t do it again.”

“You dumbdumb,” Mikey warbles. “You can live your own life. You just have to make sure you come back, and that you call us every week, and see us on holidays and birthdays.”

Donnie wheezes out the ghost of a laugh, pulling his little brother impossibly tighter before he says, “Just the major holidays, or will I need to buy a plane ticket for every bank holiday, too?” 

“Shut up, Donnie.” 

Mikey chokes on his own giggles, fingers curling almost painfully against the leathery surface of Donnie’s shell before he shoves him playfully away. He smiles warmly and looks into Donnie’s face, eyes searching, before his gaze wanders towards the rest of the room. Donnie sees the moment he finds Leo and Raph, because the way that warm expression twists into one of terror makes him feel vaguely sick. 

“What’s happening?” Mikey asks, struggling to stand on shaking legs. Donnie clambers to his own feet, and they lean on one another for support as they shuffle towards their brothers. 

“Purple Dragon,” Donnie murmurs, eyes roaming towards the faint lavender glow emanating from one of the discarded devices. “She trapped all of us in some kind of…simulation. A dream world. Something to keep us from interfering with her plans, though I don’t know yet what those might be.” 

“And what about them?” Mikey gestures towards Leo’s slumped form. His eyes are open wide, staring at nothing, pupils and irises gone as they glow a pale white. 

“Leo mind melded with Raph, trying to break him out of it. Just like I did with you.”

“Can we do anything to help?” Mikey’s fingers find Donnie’s hand, intertwining them, holding him tight like he’s afraid that his brother might slip away again. Donnie squeezes back. A silent promise. “Should we also go in there and try to get through to him?”

Donnie considers it, then shakes his head. He grimaces as he does so, obviously not liking the answer any more than Mikey does. 

“The simulated worlds seem unstable. I don’t know what would happen if too many of us tried to all fit inside the same one at once. For all we know, Kendra might have even anticipated something like this would happen and included some kind of failsafe that would fry all our brains if the device detected that all four of us were inside the same simulated dream.” 

“So what? We just wait here and do nothing?”

“I didn’t say that. While we wait for Leo to do his thing, let’s see if we can find food and water, and a way out of here. We all need it.”

Mikey frowns, but after smacking his chapped lips a few times, concedes. Donnie smiles and ruffles the messy tufts of thinning hair on his brother’s head. The sight of it is a painful reminder that how much he’s missed of his brothers’ lives already. He makes a silent vow to be there when Mikey inevitably circles back around to being bald. 

“They’ll be okay,” he says out loud, trying to inject a confidence he isn’t completely feeling into his tone. 

“They’d better be,” Mikey mutters, glaring at Raph’s twitching form. His voice is suspiciously tight as he turns away and mutters, “Or else.”

.

The sound of dripping is the first thing Leo hears when he finds himself inside Raph’s mind. He squints against the dimness, turning slowly to try to gauge where he is and what’s going on. A strange sense of nostalgia overtakes him as he realizes that he sorta recognizes the sewer tunnels he’s standing in. They’re the same ones that he and his brothers would play in when they were too young to go to the surface, but their dad had still shooed them from the lair with the order to go stretch their legs. Which was of course just code for “go be loud somewhere else.” Leo allowed himself a brief, fond smile at the thought before pushing it away and getting back to business. 

“Helloooo?” he calls, and listens to his singsong voice echoing eerily back to him. “Raph? You here, man?” 

He tilts his head, trying to discern anything besides the distant rush of water and his own echoing calls. He wets his lips, and wonders suddenly if this is going to be harder than he thought it would. Donnie had made it sound so easy! Just come in, rile the big guy up a little so he’ll use his ninpo, and badabing badaboom, problem solved! That won’t work if he can’t even find the big lug! 

He groans and spins slowly in place, eyes squeezing shut as he listens intently for any sign of life. Finally, down one of the multitude of side tunnels connecting to his own, he hears the faint sound of voices. Leo grins triumphantly and begins his march towards them, already preparing his speech for his grand entrance. 

“Alright, hermano!” he shouts as he enters the chamber he’d heard the voices coming from. “Prepare to get a face full of my fists and the biggest wake up call of your—“ 

A tiny figure runs past him before he can finish, no taller than his knees. Leo yelps and stumbles back, shell crashing against the wall with a thunderous bang. None of the others seem to notice. He stares at the three of them, jaw hanging open, as he tries to process the fact that he’s looking at the tiny little baby versions of himself and two of his brothers. 

Well, maybe not babies exactly, but definitely freakishly young. Way before they ever went topside, at least. 

Before they ever awakened their ninpo or their mystic abilities, for sure. So much for this being easy. He’s going to complain to Donnie about this for the rest of their lives, loudly and for long periods of time. 

“Eugh, boy,” he mutters as another of the tiny figures run past him, laughing uproariously. Leo sidesteps this second one, only to almost trip over a third as little baby Mikey follows hot on their nubby little tails, hands outstretched, giggling with a gap toothed smile. It’s painfully adorable and Leo is already dreading the nightmares this encounter is sure to give him when it’s all over. 

The fake baby him, fake Donnie, and fake Mikey are all laughing together, chasing one another through the chamber without ever splitting off into any of the side tunnels. If Raph was in his right mind, that would be a dead giveaway that something about this situation is wrong. They always split up when playing tag as kids, even though the rules and dad both said they weren’t supposed to. Looking back, Leo can’t help but be a little impressed with their past selves for surviving childhood with decision making skills like that. 

Real Leo watches them for a moment, waiting impatiently for real Raph to join in. As weird as this situation is, he can’t deny that it’s gonna be hilarious to see Raph’s massive self trying to play tag with these guys. He’s pretty sure little Mikey wouldn’t even reach the top of Raph’s ankle. Leo huffs a soft laugh at the mental image, and turns away to peer into one of the numerous and constantly shifting side tunnels for his missing brother. It’s unnervingly dark inside, and a thin layer of fog swirls eerily across the wetly glimmering ground. The sparkles might lure a lesser mutant, but Leo keeps his feet planted firmly in the less creepy chamber that he’s currently in.

“Rapherella?” he calls, squinting to see through the gloom. His voice doesn’t have an echo anymore. Everything looks all strange and wobbly the further out it goes, like the only solid thing in the dream tunnels is right here in front of him. It makes him a little nervous that Raph isn’t here, too, if that’s the case. What happens if Raph or Leo wander too far away from the fakes? Will they fall off the edge of the dream-world? 

“Come play with us, Raphie!” tiny Leo yells, grinning upwards with sparkling eyes. 

Damn, Leo can’t believe how adorable he was back then. How dad had ever been able to say no to those squishable cheeks and big eyes, he’ll never know. Then, the actions of little-fake-him registers and he follows fake-him’s gaze up up up. 

“Raph!” he calls, seeing a dark form huddled in the mass of pipes leading to nowhere at the top of the tunnel. There is no response, but that’s never stopped Leo from rambling before and it sure isn’t going to now. “Hey, big guy! How about you and me get outta here, huh? We can get some pizza and rip Donnie a new one while we’re at it!”

It’s been a long time since they went out for pizza together. It would be nice to finally do it again.

“Raph, we’re waiting for you,” little Donnie says at the same time, his words almost a whisper. Somehow, his creepy little voice seems louder than Leo’s showboating. The way his pudgy hands tap excitedly at his thighs belies his happiness, and Leo wonders if Kendra really knows so much about them that she can add little details like that into this weird simulation-dream-thing, or if their minds just betray them by filling in the blanks and making everything so much more believable.

“Okay, okay,” Raph’s voice says from the shadows, soft enough that Leo almost doesn’t register it over his own musings. “Raph’s comin’ down.”

The three fakes all cheer as the sound of claws scrabbling against metal rings throughout the tunnel. There is a sharp grinding, then a loud thump, and Raph lands on the floor between Leo and the little fakes. 

“Oof, I take back the big from big guy,” Leo mutters. 

Raph is just as young here as the others, though he stands a little taller. Even all puffed up like he is, he barely reaches Leo’s hip. Still, he’s big enough to charge forward and sweep the other three up into a hug and spin them all around without any effort at all. Leo catches a glimpse of a big, carefree smile when Raph turns his way. The chasm between his eyebrows is gone. The worry lines around his eyes and the scarring that still makes Leo’s heart sink whenever he sees it have disappeared. Leo almost doesn’t recognize his big brother without the evidence of never ending stress and the burden of responsibility weighing him down. He’s never considered how much it would hurt to see it before now. 

“Oh, buddy,” he murmurs, and quickly swipes at the wetness he can feel gathering at the corners of his eyes. There’s no time for that now. He can think about this glimpse into a lost childhood later, once they’re all out of the woods and have some food and water in them. He’s definitely not looking forward to the dehydration headaches they’re all going to be dealing with when this is over. Not to mention the emotional fallout. Talk about a nightmare. 

“Raph,” he says again, trying to use the firm I-Mean-Business voice he has to bring out to get the rowdier kids at camp to listen. “We need to leave. It’s time to go home, to the real world and our realbrothers. C’mon.” 

He reaches out a hand, trying to grab this strange, half-forgotten version of his big brother by the shoulder. Before he can grab him, Raph ducks out of reach, crouching down to grab fake Mikey up into another hug. Mikey squeals and hugs back, arms only wrapping halfway around Raph’s spiky little shell. Fake Leo pounces on them, climbing up Raph’s shell to plant a sloppy little kid kiss on the top of his head. Leo’s heart squeezes a bit, and he wonders when the last time was that he did that. 

With a frustrated grunt, he grabs for Raph again, only for the little guy to sidestep the swipe as he rushes over towards fake baby Donnie, dragging the others along in his wake. He grabs his little hand, all wrapped up in purple and pink bandaids, and together the four of them begin a march in the opposite direction. Leo frowns and puts his hands on his hips. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were doing this on purpose, young man.”

He gets no response, but that’s fine, he’s more than used to it. It’s easy to catch up to them, considering his legs are ten times the length of theirs. He sighs, heart already sinking at the thought of what he’s going to have to do to break his brother out of this trance he’s in. He was hoping to avoid it, but Leo’s always been good at knowing when to throw in the towel and admit defeat. What’s one more nightmare, right?

He feels like a predator, like a monster, as he watches the four of them march hand in hand down the never-ending sewer tunnel. Seriously, this thing just goes on and on and on and on! 

“Eeny, meeny, miny…” he already knows which of the four he’s going to grab for first. There’s only one of them he can even think about ripping away without feeling like he’d rather die a thousand terrible deaths. It still sucks, still makes him want to puke, but at least it isn’t going to give him any nightmares he hasn’t already had.

“Moe,” he whispers, and lunges forward like a lightning strike to pluck the little Leo from their daisy chain. It’s too easy, and the tiny creature is helpless as he yanks it roughly away from the grasping hands. 

The little Leo cries out, eyes wide as it is turned to face the real deal. Those wide eyes go strangely empty once they’re turned towards Leo. The red markings are beginning to run at the edges, and its pupils blur and bleed until its eyes have gone completely black. Leo grits his teeth, ready for the little thing to start screaming or fighting back. 

Instead, it begins to dissolve in his hands, black ichor leaking from its nose and mouth and eyes. Its little hands come up to clutch at his own, malformed fingers like claws as they dig into his hands. He cannot feel any pain from their grip. It flashes a sharp toothed grin, a final goodbye as it melts, and he finds himself staring at hands now stained with red blood and black tar. 

“Oh,” he says, feeling a little numb. That was maybe a little worse than he was hoping it would be. At least he didn’t have to yeet it himself?

A scream rips through the tunnel, echoing and amplifying as it grows and grows. Leo cringes away, hands instinctively raising to cover his ears. They feel sticky and warmer than usual, but not quite wet. It makes him shudder and bite back the urge to retch as it stings the back of his throat. He can taste blood on his teeth. 

“Raph!” he shouts, trying to be heard over the horrible, unnatural screams. The fake Donnie and Mikey are staring straight at him, eyes black and emotionless, mouths hanging wide open as they wail. Their arms hang limp at their sides, and Leo notes that their fingers have begun to lengthen and now glint with needlelike points.

Raph has scrambled backwards, shell pressed tight against the curve of the tunnel wall, his eyes massive and glassy as he stares at the scene before him. He doesn’t wipe away the tears that race each other down his cheeks, too busy trying to block out the horrific sound with those chubby little hands of his. Leo can’t help but stare at those hands, unable to stop himself from marveling at how soft they look. No callouses from years of learning to fight. No crooked fingers or scars from the endless battles, all for the sake of an earth and its people that wouldn’t do the same for them if given half a chance. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Leo lies, hoping that his little big brother will be able to read his lips. “I’m going to make it all better.” 

Slowly, Raph shakes his head. The fakes have begun to settle, their screams more like the air raid sirens instead of the falling bombs. The same black that fake-Leo had wept is leaking from their eyes, mocking the tears that Raph is shedding on their behalf. Leo can feel his own eyes watering at the sight of his indomitable big brother so small and scared. Scared of Leo. 

He slides past the two remaining fakes, doing his best not to brush up against them. They turn in unison to watch him pass, but thankfully do not try to touch him. As one, their mouths snap shut and the tunnel falls blessedly silent. His ears are still ringing, but at least he might be able to hear himself think now. 

He crouches in front of Raph, knees creaking with the motion. God, he feels old just looking at this fresh faced little guy. He’s not even wearing a mask yet! Just a little red and green Christmas scarf tied around his head like Rambo. Trying to be an action hero, even back then.

“Hey little guy,” he murmurs, reaching out carefully to rest a hand on his brother’s shoulder. Raph flinches away like he’s afraid of Leo, and he feels his heart threaten to shatter under the weight of his guilt. He forces himself onwards, trying out a smile for size as he asks, “Do you recognize me?”

Raph responds by winding back and clocking Leo in the jaw with enough power behind it to have him spilling backwards, head and shell colliding hard with the floor. Ouch? Why did that feel like getting a brick to the face, when the fake-him had tried its best to turn his hands to mince meat and he didn’t feel a thing? That just doesn’t seem fair. 

“Mikey!” Raph is screaming from somewhere behind him, and Leo hears the slapping of tiny bare feet through puddles and against stone. There are no answering voices. “Donnie! Leo! Where are you guys?!”

Wow, rude. He can’t believe his name was last on that list. 

Leo struggles to flip himself over, cursing the fact that the turtle on its back thing does very much apply to mutant turtles, too. With a groan that echoes eerily through the dream world’s tunnels, he manages to stumble gracelessly to his feet. With his heart beating its panicked, angry rhythm against his insides and each breath tasting like rot, he frantically scans the tunnel for his brother. 

Raph didn’t manage to get far, thank the giant pizza pie in the sky. Leo races after him, cursing himself for not knowing how else to handle this. He had really been banking on one good shock being enough to get his brother out of this mess, but apparently neither of them are going to be that lucky. All aboard the trauma train! Next stop: whatever the hell Leo was about to do. 

“Hey!” he shouts, reaching out to grab Raph. He scoops him up and winds up getting pummeled in the face for his troubles. He spits out the little foot that had somehow ended up between his teeth and holds Raph out at arms length, ready to give him an earful of the frustration he could taste like acid sitting on his tongue and eating through the enamel of his teeth. 

The look on Raph’s face stopped him short. There was terror, yes. Tears running thick and unending down his chubby little cheeks, and snot bubbles that grew and shrank with each of his heaving breaths. Leo had been prepared for that. He knew that they weren’t going to get out of this mess without a few tears. What he wasn’t ready for, though, was the awful, horrible, familiar sorrow. 

It was the same look Raph had bore when they lost their dad. The same helpless devastation that Leo himself had felt, deep and cold and alone, as he drifted through the prison dimension all those years ago. The horrific, uncomprehending, unyielding pain of grief. The silent, even worse realization that this is forever, and you will never get them back. 

The hairline fractures of Leo’s heart finally imploded, shattering the remnants into a billion tiny shards. Every bit of frustration, every compounding hurt from over the long years, every declined dinner invitation and ghosted movie night, everything negative he’d been holding onto melted away. The tears overflowed. 

“Raph,” he whispered, and he pulled the struggling form of his big brother closer. “I’m sorry.”

Raph went still in his arms. The world around them was silent, and the darkness was creeping closer, lapping at the corners of his vision. Everything felt so fragile. 

“I couldn’t protect them,” Raph whispered, his voice so small as the words tickled Leo’s cheek.

“It’s okay,” Leo soothed, squeezing him a little tighter and shifting them so he could tuck the top of Raph’s head beneath his chin. “Those guys weren’t real. I promise nobody got hurt.”

Raph made a small, hurt noise and shook his head. He was trembling, and Leo could feel the tears as they dripped onto his shoulder. Each of his panic-quick breaths felt too cold against Leo’s neck, raising goosebumps across his flesh.

“Not them,” Raph whimpered, and Leo went very still. He swallowed hard, struggling to speak around the tightness in his lungs.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s so much easier here. We were always safe in the tunnels, but the world is so big,” Raph whispered like he was telling Leo a horrible secret. “And there are so many things that want to hurt us.”

“Oh. Listen, you don’t have to worry about that. Those guys are all gone!” 

“They hurt them. Hurt…hurt you. It’s my job to keep everybody safe, and I couldn’t do it. I failed over and over and—“

“Hey, no. No, no, we are not doing this.” Leo sank to the ground, sitting cross legged and shifting his little big bro around so they could look each other in the eye. The darkness glittered. It felt hungry. “Listen to me. You did the best you could, which is what matters most. You kept us all alive and got us out of trouble again and again no matter how many stupid things we did to make that harder on you. But — and this is important — that burden should never have been on your shoulders. Do you hear me, man? You were a kid, just like the rest of us, and I….”

Leo paused when his voice cracked, taking a deep breath. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get himself under control. When he opened them again, he found Raph staring up at him, wide eyed and trusting and nothing at all like the beaten down adult he knew. It was too much. 

“I’m sorry,” Leo croaked, and he covered his face, not wanting this version of Raph to see him like this. Still, he forced the words out through hiccuping breaths and a tight throat, hating himself a little more with each one. “I made things so much harder on you. I was such a little shit, and I hurt you so many times. I helped put that burden on you, and you never even complained even though I never helped you carry it. I should have done more, I should have told you how much you meant to us, but instead all I did for so long was find ways to tear you down. You were never alone, but we made you feel like you were. I don’t know why— I never really felt— ugh! I want you to know that I never—“

“Leo,” Raph’s voice breaks through his rambling grief, and his name sounds safe in his big brother’s mouth. Leo lifts his gaze, and the broken remnants of his heart twists when he finds himself staring into a more familiar face. Raph’s undamaged eye is warm, full of so many emotions that Leo fears he might suffocate beneath the weight of them. “That’s enough. It’s okay.”

“Raph,” he croaks, and then stops, suddenly at a loss for words. He wants to keep apologizing. Wants to make up for the years lost to infighting and hurt feelings. Wants his big brother to know—

“I love you,” he says, and watches Raph’s face light up with that big grin that he’s missed so much. 

“I already knew that, you knucklehead,” Raph laughs, and he pulls Leo in for a hug. It is tight and warm and Leo melts into it, letting himself relax for the first time since the funeral, since the last moment he saw all three of his brothers in one place. “I love you, too.”

As the warm, familiar red glow of Raph’s ninpo envelopes them, Leo smiles. His heart feels like it’s begun beating again, and for the first time since the funeral, he’s looking forward to waking up from his dreams and facing real life.

This time, at least he knows that his brothers will be right by his side again.

[v-i-r-i-d-i-a-n]

YOU WANNA KNOW SOMETHIN

Y’ALL ACTUALLY WANNA KNOW HOW I FEEL ABT MIKE WILL AND EL??

I just want them to be happy

I started watching stranger things because of the hype of S4, I watched the first season with my parents in 2018 but didn’t rlly remember anything abt the plot and I didn’t get past episode where Jonathan’s camera was broken because I physically couldn’t watch anything with embarrassment at that point in my life

Anyways all I remember is that I didn’t care abt milkvan, like at all, I had no emotional attachment to them, I thought they were vaguely cute? But I felt like I had seen this formula a million times before and it was boring at that point, so I just didn’t really care abt them, I loved the characters don’t get me wrong but their relationship just never really felt that important to me, I always preferred them as friends anyways, their platonic interactions were always my favorites

I knew that I just wanted these little fuckers to be happy and if Mike and Eleven being together made them happy so be it, even then tho I was starting to realize the differences between Mike/Will and Mike/El but I could’ve passed off S2 Byler was platonic if they wrote Mileven super cute, but at that point I hadn’t seen them together on screen enough to rlly have any attachment to them

And then I watched S3, and S4

And I realized if I want these characters to be happy they cannot be together- they’re relationship does not work, it is not healthy, it’s not good for either of them- and it’s not good for Will

THEY COULD’VE SALVAGED IT IN S3 WRITTEN THEIR PROBLEMS OFF AS IT BEING MIKES FIRST RELATIONSHIP AND HOW HES STILL A KID AND DOESNT ENTIRELY UNDERSTAND AND HOW EL DOESNT ENTIRELY UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS TO BE A PERSON YET

BUT THEN WE’RE SHOWN EL LITERALLY AT HER HAPPIEST WHEN SHE ISNT HANGING OUT WITH MIKE?? WE’RE TOLD MIKE AND HER DO NOT HAVE PROPER CONVERSATIONS ABOUT EACH OTHER- ABOUT THE THINGS THEY LIKE TO DO- THE THINGS THEY JUST LIKE- AND IM SUPPOSED TO BE ROOTING FOR THEM???

We’re shown El giggling and having a good time after breaking up with Mike, we’re told that El see’s him as “her first boy friend” which means she thinks she’s gonna get another eventually- we’re SHOWN El being happy without Mike

We’re shown that Mike keeps El in a holding place she doesn’t want to be in anymore

AND THEN WE’RE SHOWN WILL BEING DEVASTATED WITHOUT MIKE, WE’RE SHOWN AND TOLD THAT WILL LOVES MIKE AND WE’RE SHOWN THAT WILL KNOWS HIM AND HOW TO HELP HIM AND HOW TO MAKE HIM FEEL BETTER AND WE’RE SHOWN JUST HOW DIFFERENT AND IMPORTANT THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS

EVEN JUST THE ENDING OF S3 WHERE MIKE AND WILLS CONVERSATION ENDS WITH THEM SWEETLY SMILING AT EACH OTHER WELL MAKING PROMISES TO NEVER REPLACE EACH OTHER WELL MIKE AND ELS ENDS WITH THEM KISSING AND MIKE HAVING HIS EYES OPEN AND EL WALKING AWAY FROM HIM WELL HE STANDS STARING LOOKING VAGUELY DISGUSTED WITH THE INTERNAL DIALOGUE OF “what’s wrong with me” ?????????

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ROOT FOR THE COUPLE THAT HAS BEEN SHOWN TIME AND TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO BE BETTER OFF AS FRIENDS??? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ROOT FOR THEM WHEN THEY DONT SEEM TO MAKE EACH OTHER HAPPY??? WHEN THEY KNOW LIKE NOTHING ABT EACH OTHER? WHEN ONE OF THEM IS ALWAYS SAYING THEY DONT LIKE THE OTHERS INTERESTS?? WHEN LOOKING OBJECTIVELY AT IT THEIR PERSONAL ARCS GO IN LIKE OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS???

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO NOT ROOT FOR THE COUPLE THAT HAS BEEN SHOWN TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO KNOW EACH OTHER THE BEST OUT OF EVERYONE??? TO HAVE SOME OF THE SWEETEST SCENES AND HEART TO HEARTS AND PARALLELS SO MANY CANON COUPLES ?? WHO MAKES OOGLY EYES AT EACH OTHER AND SMILE AND PROMISE EACH OTHER THEY WONT REPLACE ONE ANOTHER

I just want El and Mike and Will to be happy and looking objectively at it Mike and El breaking up seems to be when El is the happiest, and Mike and Will being together is when they’re at their happiest

[ftwdb]

Don't Say Go.

Chapter 13.

Summary: Soulmates find each other through what is known as The Pull. A sense within a persons body that their soulmate is within reach that guides them to find them. You find yourself following this Pull, guided by vague dreams of a man you can't quite see, until you collapse in the wild and are found by Troy, your soulmate, who has been following the same feeling toward you for days.

Once connected soulmates are able to share emotions through their bond, as well as being able to sense where the other is. But how this force works is very much a mystery still, it can vary from soulmate to soulmate, and just sometimes a connection too deep can lead twist a bond from something beautiful to, well...

Warnings: Dark themes, sexual content, violence, non-graphic description/implications of SA, child abuse and domestic violence. References to addiction. Unhealthy love/obsession/relationships. Soulmate AU. Eventual smut.

You lay in your bunk staring into nothing. Cooper was stationed outside your door on Troy’s orders. Troy was…

You reached for him, trying to locate him on the ranch. You closed your eyes as your senses felt like they were stretching out into fog, blindly scrabbling for the warmth that usually came with your connection.

You could feel him, but he was somewhere beyond your usual reach. You scowled and opened your eyes. Perhaps he had left the ranch entirely.

You couldn’t help reliving those moments by his fathers desk. You had demanded Cooper take you to Jeremiah and although the man who was easily twice your size had initially refused you’d somehow managed to convince him. Perhaps it was out of some loyalty to Troy, or that he could simply see the desperation in your eyes and took pity on you, but you couldn’t stand by and let Troy take the blame for a mess you’d created.

You felt awful as you saw Mike limp away with Jake, but at least he wasn’t dead. Once you had calmed down you realised he must have seen you running from the tent and been trying to help, and you’d almost gotten him killed. Perhaps Jeremiah was right about you. You were just a burden to everyone on the ranch, including Troy, who had barely said a word to you once his father had dismissed you all from his sight.

You’d avoided looking at him when he’d taken you by the elbow and steered you through the door, down the steps and toward the bunkhouse. Thankfully the militia had dispersed those who had been drawn to the ruckus so you had no prying eyes upon you now. You’d glanced up at him as Troy signalled for Cooper to follow, unsettled by the empty expression on his face.

Your stomach dropped. His fingers around your arm became painful even though he held you gently. You dropped your eyes to the floor and remained silent as the bunkhouse came into sight.

“Cooper, I want you on watch until sunrise. Do not leave this spot, do you understand?”

Cooper stood tall, nodding as he replied with a firm, “Yes, sir.”

For a second you couldn’t breathe.

“Where are you going?” You managed to say.

Troy didn’t answer right away. In fact he didn’t even look at you. Cooper, who had a knack for pretending he had gone suddenly deaf and blind, tried to blend into the wood of the bunkhouse.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.”

You opened your mouth to speak again only to be met with a more forceful, “Tomorrow.” Before Troy turned and walked away.

You were frozen to the spot, staring after him as he disappeared into the dark. You heard Cooper clear his throat and the familiar creak of the door opening before you tore your eyes from where Troy had faded from sight and bolted inside, locking the door behind you.

You’d washed up, dumped your clothes on the floor and wrapped yourself in fresh clothes before crawling beneath your covers.

Cooper’s shadow at the door was a small comfort as you wondered what was happening now. What would they do with the body of the man you had murdered? What would they tell people?

And Jeremiah… his reaction had both surprised and confused you. You’d expected anger, for his declaration that he’d been right about letting you on the ranch being a mistake all along, but instead he’d actually reacted with what could almost have been… compassion? Oh, he’d offered no solace or comfort, but you’d seen his eyes change and his expression shift as you’d began to speak of your past with the burned man.

Your stomach clenched. Would they figure out that you were the one to cause his injuries? Or had the man already spoken of you when he’d been found in the wild?

Your thoughts wouldn’t allow you to sleep and you were still staring blankly at the wall when the sun began to rise. Outside you heard voices, Cooper was speaking to someone. You were on your feet in seconds and pulling back the bolt on the door, hoping it would be Troy making his return.

Your eyes fell on Jake and the disappointment on your face was obvious. He bid Cooper goodnight before asking if he could join you inside.

“It’s your property,” you said weakly, and stepped aside.

It was like deja vu when he closed the door behind him and took his usual seat at the table. He pulled back another chair and gestured for you to join him. You did, without comment. Dread was heavy in your heart and you only wanted to know where Troy had gone.

A terrifying thought crossed your mind. Had he sent Jake to tell you to leave?

The older brother must have seen the fear in your eyes as he leant back quickly, giving you your space.

“I’m not here to hurt you, or berate you for what happened,” he said quickly. “Troy asked me to relieve Cooper at sunrise. Since you’re awake it might be a good idea for us to talk.”

Your relief was short as anxiety made you tremble. You clenched your palms together tightly, feeling your nails digging into the skin.

“We need to understand what happened tonight. I know you spoke to my father, but we need the whole story…”

You almost couldn’t speak your mouth had gone so dry.

“Troy,” you said hoarsely, “I’ll tell Troy everything when he comes back.” He was the one you owed an explanation to. The one who, as your soulmate, would surely understand…

Jake looked at you, his expression soft and almost pitying.

“I remember what it was like, you know. The Pull. The way it consumes you entirely, makes you think you can’t breathe without your other at your side…”

You stared at the floor. Yes, there had been moments when the force that had led you here, to Troy, had stolen your ability to think straight with its intensity. But you’d assumed it was part of adjusting.

“Does it get… easier?” You asked.

Jake’s gaze shifted to the window, he looked lost in thought for a moment as a sad smile pulled at his lips.

“I wouldn’t know.”

You could have kicked yourself. Of course you knew what had happened to Jake’s soulmate. She had died mere months after they’d found each other. Jake had spent the entire time knowing he would lose her.

You couldn’t imagine knowing for certain that Troy would be taken from you. It felt like there would be nothing left inside you; you’d be a shell, a husk. Barely any better than the dead who wandered aimlessly.

Jake looked back to you, the sad smile gone.

“You can tell me, or write it down if that’s easier for you. But one way or another we need to understand… we need to know.”

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath.

As your story left your lips it was as if you were listening to someone else speak, retelling a movie they had seen or a story they’d heard on the news. You were blunt, factual. You’d been separated from your parents in the military camp, and when the bombs dropped and the fires spread they were trapped.

You didn’t tell him how you’d begged your parents to just try. To try and escape. To live. So scared they were of one dying without the other that they had chosen to stay together where they knew they’d die in each others arms.

They’d abandoned you.

No, Jake didn’t need to know that.

And so you explained how you’d walked aimlessly for days, avoiding the burned out areas and scavenging what you could to survive. You’d been at the edge of the city, unsure of where to go next when they had come upon you…

Jake listened to your story without a word. His expression was calm. Even when you’d gotten lost in the memory and been unable to stop yourself telling him how the father had held you down and told his son to “be a man”…

You could hear it in your ears as if he were standing beside you. You shivered before dropping to your knees, a wave of sickness overcoming you.

Jake was there at your side, his hands hovering but not touching. You breathed deeply as he began to count and you found his voice urging you to breath in time with him made the dizziness stop.

“Sorry… I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning…” you made the excuse.

“It’s okay. I know this is hard, but you’re safe.”

You looked up from where you were hunched on the floor, your fingertips digging into the wooden floor.

“Am I?”

Jake, the first truly kind face you’d seen for so long since this whole disaster began, carefully laid a hand on your shoulder and, when you didn’t flinch away, smiled.

“As safe as I can promise you can be in the apocalypse.”

You almost cracked a smile, especially when he continued.

“After all, as Troy’s soulmate you’re practically my sister now. I always wondered if having sister would have been… different.”

You sat back on your heels, feeling steadier but not ready to stand just yet.

“What do you mean?”

The carefully controlled expression was back and Jake shook off what he had just said.

He made himself more comfortable on the floor beside you and you knew it was back to the questions about your past.

“I need you to tell me honestly…”

Your heard skipped a beat.

“The man said he was attacked. His burns… you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

It was like a mask slipped over you, a shield between you and Jake who had just referred to you as his sister. You wanted to trust him. To believe his intentions were good, but the last time you’d put your trust in a stranger… it had led you to this.

“No,” you said.

Jake’s eyes changed, his brow knitting together as he watched you thoughtfully.

“No one would blame you.”

Really? You thought. You’d set two sleeping men on fire and run. Although you felt no guilt for it you knew it wasn’t the sort of thing normal people would have done… would they?

You could have just escaped. You could have stolen a gun and shot them as they slept… but you’d chosen to burn them.

To make them suffer.

Didn’t that make you a monster too?

“It must have happened after I escaped.”

Jake continued to watch you before nodding once. He seemed to believe you.

“Okay.”

“What about Mike?” You remembered suddenly, feeling a little guilty at having forgot the injured man.

“He confirmed what you said, and so did the other guard who should never have left you alone in the tent.” Jake said with a scowl. “He was running late to takeover watch when he saw you running. He went after you when you didn’t respond to his call and, well, I suppose it’s understandable Troy assumed what he did.”

You fidgeted with your fingers in your lap, sighing tiredly.

“I feel terrible. I’m so sorry. Will he be okay?”

Jake smiled.

“Troy could have killed him if you hadn’t stepped in. Instead, Mike just lost a pinky toe.”

You blinked before a snort of laughter escaped you. Jake did the same, looking baffled for a second at your reaction before chuckling quietly too.

“I’m sorry, that’s not funny.” You admonished yourself.

Jake shrugged, “It’s a little funny, the way he was wailing… I was scared he’d lose his foot until we got his boot off.”

This time you really did laugh. The feeling was strange, in fact you felt a little woozy, as if you were drunk. You put it down to exhaustion and hunger as your eyes began to water with a mixture of relief and amusement.

Jake let you have your moment as you wiped the moisture from your cheeks, your smile slipping as reality began to set in again.

“Will you tell people what happened to me?” You asked. You didn’t know if you could handle people’s pity. Or their judgement.

Jake shook his head.

“My father is a hard man but he understood what you told him last night. He won’t need the details. No one needs to know what happened. We’ll tell people… the man died of his injuries, he turned and you fled in a panic. With it being dark Troy thought Mike was one of the dead coming after you…”

You wrinkled your nose, unsure of the lie but grateful that Jake would cover for you.

“And Mike’s okay with that? He’s not mad at us?”

Jake shrugged.

“He’s in pretty deep shi- trouble for not being on time for guard duty. I think a little white lie will even things out.”

Jake continued when you looked unconvinced.

“He and Troy have been friends a long time. He’s seen some of the worst of my brother and still…”

Jake stopped, leaving you curious about what he meant. People had a lot of strange things to say, or not say, about your soulmate and you were beginning to think you weren’t the only one with secrets.

“Will you tell Troy?”

Jake didn’t need to ask what you meant. He scratched at his head, a habit you recognised from Troy when he was unsure, before speaking.

“I think maybe he’d be better hearing it from you. But of course if it helps, I’ll tell him whatever you need.”

You smiled, feeling genuine affection for Jake. Was this what having an older brother was supposed to feel like? Like someone really had your back.

“I don’t know about that. He seems… really mad.”

Jake’s eyes widened before he frowned.

“Troy? You think he’s mad at you?”

You nodded.

“Why wouldn’t he be? I’ve brought him nothing but trouble-“

Jake shook his head.

“Trust me. Troy isn’t mad at you.”

Jake was being annoyingly cryptic. Who else was there to blame?

You weren’t able to question him further as the door to the bunkhouse swung open and Troy suddenly appeared, standing still in a halo of soft light as the sun rose behind him.

He stared at you and Jake and you realised what an odd sight it must have been with both of you sat on the floor.

His brother lifted himself to his feet and drew himself up to his full height as he regarded Troy carefully. You’d have done the same if your legs didn’t feel like jelly beneath you.

“Brother.” Jake said oddly formally in greeting.

Troy gave a small nod of his head in return. Jake glanced back at you, where you still sat unable to take your eyes off Troy as you noticed he hadn’t yet looked directly at you.

“Perhaps we should talk first-“ Jake began before you cut him off.

“No,” you pulled yourself unsteadily to your feet. “I can do it. I can explain.”

Jake hesitated and you could tell he wasn’t sure if it was best to leave or not.

“It’s okay.” You said with as much of a reassuring smile as you could muster.

With one last look Jake nodded before passing his brother to exit the bunkhouse. His hand momentarily gripped Troy’s shoulder and gave a brief squeeze before he was gone, the door closing quietly behind him.

It was just you and Troy now.

In the silence you could hear your own heart beating, the sound of your own uneven breathing.

“I’m so sorry,” you began, forcing your voice to remain steady, “if you want me to leave, I’ll go. I’ll understand.”

Troy stared at you, his eyes managed to glow with intensity in the pale light of the sun.

“Go?” He finally croaked. “Why would I want you to go?”

You dropped your gaze and tried to keep yourself steady.

“Because of what I did. Because of what almost happened to Mike because of me.”

Your eyes shot up as footsteps moved toward you. For the briefest of moments you wanted to take a step back, to avoid the outstretched hand Troy had reached out to you with as if his touch might have harmed you in some way. You must have flinched, the sharp intake of breath seen by Troy as he stopped in front of you and slowly dropped his hand.

Your eyes were fixed to the floor. Your socked feet so close to his dusty boots.

“Look at me,” Troy said softly. It wasn’t a command but you were unable to resist the request regardless.

Your chest ached as your eyes met with his. His face looked tired, the curls of his hair were in need of taming as if he’d been running his hands through them all night. You noted the shadows beneath his eyes as guilt enveloped you.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Perhaps The Pull wasn’t always right. Whatever force joined two people together must be wrong sometimes. For you to be such a burden on your soulmate was unbearable. You’d always thought the love you’d seen between your parents was what was to be expected, they had brought each other both peace and happiness.

You’d brought neither to Troy.

Your frantic thoughts were interrupted when Troy placed two fingers gently beneath your chin and tilted your face upward.

“If you want to leave, I won’t stop you. If… if you want to go…”

You swallowed, the movement in your throat unmissable to Troy whose eyes followed your every breath.

You wanted to shake your head No, but the touch of his fingertips on your skin burned so pleasantly you couldn’t bare to risk losing the contact.

“I’ll understand,” Troy continued, “you were supposed to be safe here. I was supposed to keep you safe.”

You frowned as Troy dropped his hand from your chin and took a step back. Jake’s words came back to you, how it wasn’t you that Troy was angry with.

“You’re blaming yourself,” you breathed.

Troy could no longer look you in the eye.

“I should never have brought a stranger into our home. I should never have left you alone-“

“Stop it-“

Troy ran a hand over his head, pulling roughly at the dark curls between his fingers just as you’d guessed he’d been doing all night. You closed the space between you and reached up for his hand, untangling it from his hair as you gripped it tightly to stop him pulling away.

He looked at you now with a slightly wild expression on his face. You realised just how exhausted he was. You knew what that level of stress and tiredness could do, he wasn’t thinking straight.

“You helped someone in need. Just like you did with me-” you began before Troy cut you off.

“I’d been looking for you. Even though I didn’t understand why at first…”

You couldn’t help the small smile on your lips.

“You couldn’t have known who he was. It’s not as if I’ve been entirely honest with you about my past.” You admitted, trying to ignore the squirming in your gut and slight tremor in your voice.

Troy looked at you now with such intensity you almost forgot how to breath. “You can tell me anything. I… I’ve done things too. Things I had to do.”

You nodded in understanding. The world was now a dark place and although you hated to admit it, sometimes embracing that darkness was the only way to survive it. You remembered the choking sounds of the man whose throat Troy had watched you cut. He’d told you you’d looked beautiful, a statement most would find odd or frightening in such a situation. It hadn’t frightened you. It had made you feel like an avenging Angel in Troy’s eyes.

“I never meant to cause so much trouble.” You said honestly.

Troy shook his head as a smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. “It’s about time someone else round here caused some.”

Your heart was no longer thundering in your chest, but it was beating hard as Troy’s fingers brushed over the back of your hand where he still held it tight.

You noticed as he began to sway ever so slightly, exhaustion finally overcoming him. There was still so much you wanted to say, to ask him, but perhaps right now was not the time.

Instead you took a steady breath and licked your suddenly very dry lips.

“Would you stay with me, here, to sleep?”

Troy blinked at you, glancing to the bunk you’d claimed as your own and back to you as if it were taking some time to process your request.

He had slept in the bunkhouse with you when you’d first arrived, but he had kept a respectful distance. There hadn’t been much physical contact between you yet, other than when you’d jumped into his arms when Mike had frightened you it had mostly been brief spells of holding hands when you walked outside the bunkhouse. And neither of you had minded, there was no need to rush things after everything you’d been through and Troy wasn’t exactly used to displays of affection. So when he nodded it was because his voice had suddenly failed him. The bunk was small, perhaps he was expected to sleep on one of the other empty ones…?

You made your intentions clear when you walked over to your bed and slid beneath the blanket before holding it open for him. Feeling dazed Troy kicked off his boots and placed his jacket over the nearest chair. He sat on the edge of the bunk before stretching out beside you.

He’d been right. The bunk was too small for two but you didn’t seem to care as your hand found his again and wound his fingers between yours.

The only sound for a few moments were those of your own breathing and the first songs of the birds from outside. As Troy’s eyes began to slide shut you spoke quietly as the morning sun began to fill the room.

“Troy?”

“Hm?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere without you.”

You didn’t see but the muscles in Troy’s face twitched as he almost smiled in his half-awake state.

“Then don’t.” He said just as quietly.

You did smile then, and for the first time since you’d set eyes upon your soulmate you felt a knowing in your heart and in your gut that The Pull had been right, because you were finally home.

[light-lanterne]

This story follows the general concept of @foodiewithdahoodie's cannibal Will / serial killer Mike AU, the likes of which is vaguely inspired by 'Bones and All' and other cannibal and vampire media. It’s important to note that this story is rated Mature and gets quite descriptive and dark, so please be mindful when reading. For context, this happens after S2, with Will finally free of the Mind Flayer and things returning to normal… except Will didn't return quite "right", and now has an insatiable hunger he can't quench with normal food. CW: cannibalism, murder and violence. - - - - - - - - - - - - - ☽ - - - - - - - - - - - - - 𐕣 read on ao3 (tba) || support me on ko-fi! 𐕣 @foodiewithdahoodie's posts: i - ii - iii - iv - tag 𐕣 @fluffyfangirl's incredible art: ♡ - - - - - - - - - - - - - ☽ - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This wasn’t supposed to happen, was the first coherent thought Will had since he abruptly left class earlier, thoughts fuzzy and limbs heavy after wandering the empty hallways of Hawkins Middle School in a daze for what felt like hours. He vaguely remembered someone calling his name, followed by some snickers and the louder voice of Mrs. Grabowski trying to catch his attention as he exited the classroom, not a word spoken to justify his sudden departure.

Of course, it was weird, and one would think that considering the circumstances someone would’ve said something or even chased after him. But no, no one followed him and why would they? No one in that classroom was his friend. After all, he was Will Byers, the quiet kid that had never really fit in and, more recently, the boy that had gone missing and had mysteriously come back to life. The weirdo. The freak. Zombie Boy. An abomination, someone who’d been acting strange for a while and was finally back to school for the first time in a week. Unwelcomed. Unwanted. Unknown.

Different.

Will was different and everyone had been able to tell for a long time, except his oddity now extended far beyond what his classmates, teachers, friends and family could ever imagine and he himself found it hard to understand what was happening to him.

All he knew was that ever since he was freed from the Mind Flayer’s possession, things had been strange.

He first became aware of it when he woke up in the hospital, Chief Hopper somehow managing to convince his mom to take him there to spend the rest of the week recovering. And it made sense, to a degree, for his possession hadn’t been too different from a terrible flu and he really needed all the help he could get to recover.

But the second he woke up he could tell something was wrong. He could tell something was not quite right the second he noticed his own eyes lingering as a nurse walked by the door with blood bags in hand, stomach rumbling with a vengeance at the sight. Naturally, this then prompted the nurses to fetch him something to eat, and Will was immediately invaded with memories of one of his last “meals”, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he remembered the snacks he’d eaten all those days ago, in Mike’s basement during Halloween night. Back when everything was normal and he was still just himself, the son of Joyce Byers and brother of Jonathan; friend of Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, the new girl Max Mayfield, and Mike Wheeler. He could almost savour the cheesy Doritos and sweet Kit-Kats; the fizzy Fanta and the delicious Reese’s snacks Mike had collected and slipped into his candy bag all throughout the night.

A stark contrast to what he’d been given to eat then, by the nurses.

And hospital food was never supposed to taste good, he knew this, but it was at the very least supposed to be filling and it’d been weird to find out just how empty he still felt even after what was objectively a rather full meal. Not even three jellies had been enough to quench his hunger and the nurses believed it to be a side effect of his week-long illness, their reassuring words directed at his mom moreso than him because it was clear she was beyond concerned.

But Will had known better. Even if he hadn’t had a name for it then, and even if he still couldn’t grasp the reality of the situation, he knew that wasn’t the reason behind his insatiable hunger.

It wasn’t hard to figure it out, to be completely fair. The dreams… the nightmares he’d been having were enough to clue him into the severity of his condition, visions of death and murder a clear indicator that something was terribly wrong with him. Pictures of himself hunched over, feasting on the rotten corpse of the sweet Barbara Holland something that would haunt even the strongest of men. He looked… Animalistic. Desperate. Hungry.

(He’d been hungry as he bit into Barbara’s side, once the Demogorgon was gone and his starving twelve-year-old self was able to eat something for the first time in days.)

It was… wrong. He was wrong. An error. A mistake, just like his dad had always said he was, except his depravity was now far darker than anything anyone could’ve foretold. Flawed. Messed up. Fucked up. So very fucked up.

And at first, it had repulsed him. Humans were not supposed to dream about killing and eating other people, and the fact that Will was having these confusing fantasies was enough to scare him into not wanting to eat any meat for the rest of his time in the hospital, his refusal a constant point of contention between himself, his mom and the nurses. ‘You need to eat if you want to go home,’ they’d tell him, and he’d shake his head with vehemence and bury himself under the covers until they agreed to let him have more soup instead. He’d find excuses and lies to tell Jonathan whenever their mother sent him in to try to convince Will of giving up his fight.

But he couldn’t lie to himself for much longer, not when the hunger was so strong, and not when the nightmares became a part of his daily life. When the yearning for blood became the only thing he was able to think about the whole day, eyes trailing over the translucent skin of those around him in the search for blue veins, fingers twitching to wrap themselves around frail necks and press until life vacated its vessel… Not when his mouth salivated at the idea of ripping skin open and snapping people’s bones to expose what laid within, and certainly not when his heart picked up speed whenever the desire to sink teeth into supple flesh and bite and tear and feed popped back up in the forefront of his mind.

Will was not a liar by nature, and each passing day he found it harder and harder to deny that whoever his mom, Jonathan and Nancy had rescued was not the Will they’d known. They’d gone into the cabin searching to get rid of the parasitic entity that had invaded him, and had left with something that was not entirely human. Not fully. Not anymore.

It was sad. He should be sad. Life had thrown him nothing but punches ever since he had memory, and this felt like the biggest middle finger the universe could have possibly ever given him. It wasn’t enough to send him into another dimension full of nothing but fear and agony, a monster constantly hunting for him for some reason and his home —the place he was supposed to feel safe at— suddenly a maze of horror and desperation. It wasn’t enough to let him listen to his loved ones search for him relentlessly, their pain everything he could hear as he hid from the horrors, their voices a constant reminder of the love and life he was sure he’d lose for there was no way they could reach him in that purgatory. It wasn’t enough to bring his misery back a year later, his body becoming host to the very creature that was behind everything that had happened to him since that horrible night in November when he was only twelve, his mind slowly slipping away into oblivion as everyone he loved succumbed to his treason.

No, that hadn’t been enough. Now he was cursed and tainted and was infested with something from Hell itself and he had no way of escaping it. This terrible emptiness that now riddled his twisted soul was a constant reminder of everything bad that had ever happened to him, and he should be angry at the way fate kept mocking and taunting him at every waking moment.

He should be annoyed. Pissed. Enraged.

And he was, at least for a bit. Bitter, that was. But he stopped caring as soon as he realised something. Found something. And it wasn’t anything he thought he’d ever have, but the fact that he did was enough to ease his pain and loneliness and transform them into something much better. Much purer.

Mike’s acceptance.

Granted, he hadn’t necessarily been searching for it and he was still in absolute disbelief that Mike had even found out about it in the first place, but it was a fact that Mike was okay with… whatever this was, and Will wasn’t going to pretend that it wasn’t the best feeling in the world to know that Mike still thought of Will as a friend, despite what he knew. That Mike still saw him as someone worthy of his affection and care, despite Will’s new… nature.

It’d happened a few days earlier, on Will’s first day out of the hospital and back home. The rest of the Party wasn’t there, for everyone thought it’d be better to let him readapt slowly, but Mike had always been stubborn and Will’s mom had found it really hard to send him away the moment he showed up in their front door with an armful of snacks and the entirety of the Star Wars film saga shoved into his backpack, right under Mike’s sleeping bag and pajamas. Will’s mom had always had a soft spot for Mike, after all, and it wasn’t like Mike hadn’t been of huge help during the entire Mind Flayer ordeal, so he’d definitely earned his way into spending the night over.

For the first few hours, things were normal, their favourite movie playing as they whispered useless gossip to one another in between chips like they’d always done. Then everything got awkward for a few minutes, when Luke lost his hand on screen and Mike interpreted Will’s sudden tension as fear, as opposed to overbearing hunger and desire; excusing himself to the bathroom in order to try and regain some semblance of composure, Will then spent a good ten minutes staring into his reflection, eyes dark and hands jittery as he imagined himself consuming the flesh off of someone, anyone’s bony hand. After what felt like forever, he was able to return to the living room and it wasn’t easy to convince Mike that everything was okay, but eventually Will managed and they finished the rest of their marathon in peace.

And that’s when things changed. When Will couldn’t control his urges any further.

In retrospect, there was no way he could've held back, no matter how hard he tried. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, for him to grab Mike’s finger after the lovable idiot cut himself with the edge of their Cocoa Puffs box, Mike’s skin always so soft and delicate that the thin cardboard was enough to cause him such an injury. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, for him to bring the slender finger close to his lips, the motion not too different from what they both did to each other as kids whenever they got hurt, except this time Will wasn’t planning on giving the injury a little peck. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, for him to open his mouth and slowly, tenderly, lap at the small cut with his tongue not unlike a cat cleaning itself, the fact that he’d just grabbed Mike’s hand to taste his blood only registering in his mind well over a minute after he was done savouring the delicious, forbidden crimson nectar that he’d been craving all week.

All he knew was that one moment he was looking at Mike as he got a small paper cut, and the next moment he was blurting out apologies and excuses for what he’d just done, his ranting interrupted only by the way Mike wrapped his secure, grounding arms around Will’s torso, pulling him impossibly close and whispering sweet nothings into his ear, not stopping until he was convinced that Will had calmed down.

He told Mike everything after that. The nightmares, his odd yearnings, his fears. Exposed at last, all laid out for Mike to judge and repudiate him for and to a degree, he wished Mike would’ve told him it was wrong. That he was a monster, a freak, and that they needed to find a way to get Will’s destructive thoughts to end before he ended up hurting someone. That they needed to go to his mom’s room and get her to gather the troops, get a hold of doctor Owens so he could figure things out, something.

Everything would’ve been better if Mike had rejected him. It was the moral thing to do, and Will considered himself a good enough person to recognise this.

If Mike had told him this was wrong, Will would’ve clung to everything he’d ever learned about good and evil, would’ve tried harder to get better, would’ve tried to be satiated with normal food. He would’ve done everything in his power to reject that with which he’d been left behind by the Upside Down, would’ve listened attentively to anything the shady government doctors told him to do… Hell, he would have even prayed every night until he could confidently say that he was over that weird phase of his life and everything was behind him, the fact that his soul had been corrupted for way longer than his strange appetite nothing in comparison to the things he wished he could do to Mike now that he’d tasted his sweet alluring blood.

Mike should’ve told him off. If he had, this wouldn’t be happening.

But he hadn’t and now Will didn’t care that it was wrong. He didn’t care that his desires made him a monster, and he didn’t care that his instincts had taken a hold of him and he’d let go of control the second Troy cornered him in the empty hallway.

Why would he care, anyway? Mike had told him it was okay, that he should do whatever felt right at any moment because it was his body requesting what it needed to recover. The world had already failed them all one too many times, anyway, so it wasn’t wrong for him to take something back, right? At least that’s what Mike had reasoned with him, once he was sure Will finally accepted that he didn’t mind just how weird things had gotten, his eyes warm as he reassured Will into accepting his new needs. His new self. Crooked and perverted. Savage and insatiable. Ready to devour anyone that crossed his path, an emerging predator in a world so full of prey no one would miss a few people.

And sure, part of Will still wished Mike had dissuaded his disturbing thoughts because now it was impossible to muffle them once they took a hold of his soul. Now it was impossible to keep the freak on a leash.

Hence his current conundrum.

But it didn’t matter. What was done, was done and for what it was worth, Will had enjoyed it. Granted, he couldn’t remember all the details of what’d happened, but he knew enough to put the missing pieces together: he’d been aimlessly wandering the halls in a trance, wound up in the closed-for-renovation section of the school, and Troy had tried to mess with him. So, Will had naturally lunged at him and tore his throat open with teeth and nails, blood sputtering out from the carotid and straight into Will’s greedy mouth as they both fell to the floor and Will found enough grip to shred a piece of some muscle apart, nearly choking at the mouthful for he was seemingly too delirious to chew slowly or wait before taking another bite. And then another. And another.

Because that’s what he did now, apparently. It’s what his inner beast demanded and Mike had told him to listen to it, so Will was just doing what he was told and frankly, he should’ve never questioned Mike’s judgement. Mike had always been smart, after all, so Will couldn’t understand why he was so surprised at the fact that following his advice could end up in something that felt so… fulfilling. Ecstatic. It was like watching his favourite film or eating Reese’s Pieces for the first time again, opening Christmas presents or winning a D&D campaign. It felt great, the thrill of each bite bringing him to a new level of euphoria he’d never experienced and he wasn’t sure how he’d ever lived without this. Wasn’t sure how he’d ever go back to an existence without this bliss. And cognitively he knew that this was the Mind Flayer’s fault, and that a month ago he never would’ve wanted or needed to do this.

But now he did, and he couldn’t find it in himself to feel guilty about how good it felt, the pit in his stomach gone for the first time in a week, and his hunger quelled at last. His new self was satisfied, the amalgamation of Will Byers and the being from the Upside Down finally synchronised and united in harmony, and a dopey smile adorning his features as he showered in the rapture of his new awakening.

Even in his floaty state, however, he could tell when someone approached. It was as though he had reached enlightenment, now that his innards were filled to the brim with warm blood and flesh, and he was now suddenly hyperaware of every little movement in his inner and outer world. And of course, he was satisfied with the meal he’d just had —or else he would’ve kept eating until nothing was left behind—, but the idea of eating some more didn’t sound too displeasing. In fact, now that the thought had crossed his mind he found himself… eager. Defiant. It was irrational and dangerous, but he really wished that whoever was coming stumbled across him and what he’d done, if only to get the excuse to hurt and kill and feast again.

He wanted it. Craved it. He’d always been curious and now he really wanted to know if all humans tasted the same or if there were subtle differences and he knew it wasn’t him thinking about these things, it was the beast that now lived within him. But they were now one and the same and Will was ready to let that side of himself take control and paint the walls in beautiful patterns of red as he ripped into someone’s skin once more; ready to let himself fill his stomach with someone else until there was no more room and he felt sick.

Alas, he didn’t get the chance to kill again. Not because he didn’t want to, for he couldn’t ignore that a part of him was really desperate to enact such violence upon his unexpected visitor, but because he couldn’t. Not to him, not after everything they’d been through together and after the promises they’d made.

He owed it to Mike to try to at least be a little normal around him and, perhaps more importantly, maybe not kill him.

“Will?” Mike asked, eyes wide open as he stepped through a plastic sheet someone had put in place to protect the rest of the hallway from dust and now blood. His hair was wild, ruffled by wind as if he’d been running, and it didn’t take a genius to understand that Mike had probably been searching for him, rumours quick to spread across school even if it’d only been about fifteen minutes since he left and everyone was supposed to still be in class.

Mike looked… pretty. With his pink cheeks and parted red lips, sparkly eyes and tender round cheeks. Poking from under his soft sweater, Mike’s slim neck seemed to beckon to Will, the bare skin glistening with a thin layer of sweat in a way that was really hard to ignore, the angle at which Mike had tilted his head exposing the delicious dips and cliffs of muscle and vessels that Will was buzzing with excitement to take into his mouth and destroy. It was hard to ignore it, the urge, but just like the beast had taken control of him, Will knew he could control it back if need be.

So he did. He stood up slowly and didn’t lunge at Mike as he spoke, words slurred like every time he ate a lot and needed a nap.

“I was hungry,” was all he could say, sheepish as the realisation that he’d just succumbed to his twisted desires dawned on him for the first time. The horrors he’d shared with Mike… The nightmares he’d been trying to avoid… It all felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, one he didn’t even try to fight back and couldn’t be bothered to feel bad about.

All he could feel was shame and fear. Shame that someone he cared so much for saw him like that, covered in Troy Walsh’s blood with a potentially mad look in his eyes, and fear that Mike’s promises had been empty and, now that he saw the extent of Will’s insanity, he left him alone.

Once again, however, Will was reminded of the fact that he should never doubt Mike. “I can see that,” his friend scoffed once he was free of his shock, his eyes scanning the scene with apparent disinterest right before setting on Will, warmth inundating them as if he’d just seen a puppy or a beautiful sunrise and Will could almost cry at the realisation that yes, Mike would honour his promise to be by Will’s side as they explored this new side of his and no, he wouldn’t leave him alone.

Despite knowing each other for eight years, Mike Wheeler continued to impress him every single day.

“Sorry; I know it’s a mess,” Will shot back, tentative smile on his lips as he, unreasonably, kept expecting things to go South. After all, he was Will Byers and his luck was never the best. No one should blame him for expecting the worst.

This time, however, his concern was completely unnecessary. “Don’t worry, we can fix it,” Mike simply said, and that was all it took for Will’s smile to become sincere. Smiling back as if they’d just shared a private joke, Mike approached and poked his arm, gentle eyes searching for his as he asked his next question. “Do you feel any better?” He said, and Will could only nod because he was still not sure of how much Mike would want to hear about his little escapade.

“I think it’s what I was missing.”

Mike beamed at his words, clearly happy to see Will recovering his health at long last even if the price was an unconventional one and it took all of Will’s willpower not to jump him and bite into the folds of his smile. “Good,” Mike giggled, then looked around at the small, plastic-wrapped alcove Will had chosen to commit his horrible crime and nodded to himself. “We should get started now. You up for it?” Will nodded again, his smile faltering slightly as he heard what Mike had to say next. “Great! I’m going to need your help; I can’t carry his corpse by myself.”

Right, about that…

“He’s still alive,” Will declared, a frown now between his eyebrows because despite all the damage he’d caused to Troy’s neck and shoulder, the asshole was still very much breathing and —perhaps more importantly— awake.

Awake and with wide eyes, terror clear in his pupils as he desperately tried to yell, say something, make a singular noise. But he couldn’t, not after what Will had done to his throat, not after his larynx was nearly ripped out of his body at the crux of Will’s frenzy, voice box reduced to a mangled mess that Will had only left behind because of how tendony and unpleasant that area had felt when he bit into it, the swelling his failed bite had caused somehow managing to slow down the haemorrhage so much that Troy was still holding on for dear life, a whole five minutes after the original attack.

It was… odd, to see someone so loud and obnoxious like Troy suddenly reduced to a quivering mess, unable to move out of fear of bleeding out and unable to make a sound as if Will had designed his attack to render him powerless in retribution for the years of abuse the entire Party had endured at the hands of his current victim when, in reality, Will had only attacked in blind hunger. Now that Troy was laying in a pool of his own blood, however, Will couldn’t help the perverse satisfaction that took over his brain as he realised that he’d done it: he’d fulfilled his years-long desire to get back at Troy for everything he’d done and no matter how this all ended, it was a fact that the bully would never, ever, touch any of his friends again.

It was deliciously twisted, and the grumble in Will’s stomach was enough indication that such trail of thoughts was reawakening the side of his that would never stop being hungry, the idea of depriving Troy of the arms and hands he’d used to harm them for years almost loud enough to obfuscate Mike’s voice.

Almost.

Like a bee to honey, he could never fully ignore Mike Wheeler, his soft voice doing little to hide the darkness in his words and perhaps that was the reason Will was able to ignore his renewed appetite for a few more seconds.

“Not for long,” Mike mumbled, dark eyes fixed on the writhing shape that laid on the floor in front of them. Noticing he had Will’s entire attention on him, Mike forced a smile and dismissively gestured towards Troy’s body. “Tell me when you’re ready to go,” he said and, when Will only nodded again, he continued speaking. “Good. Give me a second.”

And with that, putting on a gym-class jacket atop his outfit and clenching his hand around the handle of a hammer Will hadn’t noticed he’d grabbed, the sweet, adorable-looking Mike Wheeler he’d known his whole life rose his arm with determination and, after a beat, swung the hammer right into Troy’s head, the mute boy letting out a weak breath in lieu of a scream for Will had already deprived him of the chance to let his death be known to the world. When that didn’t kill him, Mike swung the hammer again. And again. Over and over until Troy’s face became unrecognisable mush, whatever skull structure he’d ever had being reduced to nothing but bone splinters and blood. They could easily leave the body there and no one would ever be able to tell who it belonged to at that point, the viciousness with which his friend turned their once-bully into a pulp something Will had never expected to witness from someone as gentle and kind-hearted as Mike.

It was a brutal attack, one that Will’s dark self very much enjoyed watching, and the satisfaction of knowing that he wasn’t the only messed up one in their friend group was something he’d have to process once they were back home playing with their Atari and stuffing their cheeks full of popcorn.

For now, however, he smiled, watching Mike’s handiwork as his beloved best friend finally let go of the hammer and sank to the floor in exhaustion, a good three metres away from their mess in order to keep his pants and shoes in pristine condition because of course he was smart enough to keep his own clothes clean from the incriminating blood. Eyeing the rise and fall of Mike’s chest as he fought to catch his breath to say something, Will decided this was as good of a time as any to mention the fact that, for some reason, he was once again in desperate need of a snack.

“Actually, I’m already hungry again,” Will spoke, his voice seemingly snapping Mike out of some trance, dark pupils dilated in what Will could only imagine was a mirror reflection of his own. When Mike arched an eyebrow in mild disbelief, Will could only shrug and smirk teasingly. “The less weight we have to carry the better, right?” He asked, and his words made Mike roll his eyes in faux annoyance.

“Just don’t overeat. You know it makes you feel sick for like a week.”

Will chuckled at that, kneeling next to Troy’s incredibly bloody corpse and grabbing one of his hands with both of his, mouth filling with saliva as plans to strip both arms down to the bone formulated in his very sick, very wretched brain. To be entirely honest, Will wasn’t sure he was capable of overeating anymore, the fact that he could probably eat Troy’s entire corpse in a day something he’d be sure to share with Mike later, when they were safe and he was done eating.

Before he took a bite, however, he was mindful enough to shoot his best friend a wide smile and a message. “Thanks, Mike,” he said, then clarified what he meant once he noticed the other’s confusion. “For having my back.”

Mike scoffed, removing the bloodied jacket from his slender body as he light-heartedly replied with two simple words.

“Crazy together.”

The callback had Will smiling from ear to ear.

“Crazy together,” he said, then let go of his conscious mind as his animal side took over and sunk his teeth into the still warm flesh of his and Mike’s first victim. 

And it didn’t make much sense, and he might’ve very well imagined it in his delusional state, but as Will fed he glanced up at Mike a couple times and he could almost swear that he saw Mike’s pupils dilate again as a powerful emotion, one Will had seen a few times in the past, took over his expression. And irrational, feral and insane as he was, he was pretty certain that he’d gotten it wrong but, if Will didn’t know any better, he’d almost think Mike was jealous he wasn’t the one being eaten, torn apart and consumed by Will. Wasn’t the one eliciting such sounds of happiness and delight from him, the sweet taste of human flesh satisfying his body’s new needs and desires.

And despite being certain about the fact that he’d imagined such a reaction, Will couldn’t help but to scoff.

He’d only tasted a droplet of his blood, but Will knew for a fact that Mike was by far the most delicious person in the entirety of Hawkins; one he’d very much like to devour bit by bit, savouring every bite as he reached even higher levels of bliss he knew he’d never be able to imagine, the promise of eternal happiness something he’d only achieve the day he gave into his strongest temptation and gave Mike what he apparently desired.

Mike had no reason to be jealous at all.

[ricky-tiki-tah]

Glamrock Freddy Through The Ball Pit Part 1

(These aren’t particularly chapters, but each post is numbered and tagged ‘#gfttbp au fic’ so it’s easier to get to them)

“Disassemble Freddy!” Vanny screeched, her wide crazed red eyes zeroing in on the bear.

“Gregory, run!” Freddy called out, giving the boy a soft push in the direction he needed to go before taking off towards the many employee hallways to lose the staff bots. “I’ll distract them!”

Gregory gave a determined nod and continued on his way.

Freddy ran as fast as he was able, finding a nearly empty storage room to barricade himself in, tumbling staff bots as he went.

That was a mistake.

It appeared that the staff bots weren’t working alone. The spare endoskeletons had joined in the hunt and started to bang on the door Freddy had hurriedly closed. He looked around in case there was anything helpful in the room.

There, a crowbar! After a moment’s contemplation, Freddy jumped away from the door, racing towards the opposite side of the room, past the abandoned ball pit that seemed to be the only other thing in the room.

He didn’t make it. The staff bots swarmed him and the much stronger endos started tearing into his outer shell.

The bots ripped him apart, pieces flying everywhere. Freddy had barely enough time to hope Gregory would make it out of the pizzaplex safely before one of the bots tore out something he needed to function, and everything went black.

It was the housing for Freddy’s AI coding. The ending that had ripped it out, tossing the bits of metal and wires aside to continue wreaking havoc on the animatronic bear.

No one noticed that the small bit of Freddy that made him who he was landed in the ball pit.

(>*v*<)

Michael was playing hide and seek. Or more accurately, he was hiding in the Fazbear Diner’s ball pit, laying in wait for his little brother, planning to jump out and scare the nearly seven year old.

“Ouch!” Something poked his leg, and Michael put a hand down to feel around for whatever the thing was. It wasn’t safe to leave pokey things where little kids played.

After waving through the colorful plastic balls for a long moment, Mike’s hand closed around something small and slightly rubbery. Confused he surfaced and pulled the thing up to look at it.

The small object appeared to be some sort of charm, missing its chain. It was a light blue, rubbery plastic, lightning bolt. It looked cool.

Michael completely forgot his previous mission of scaring Evan and instead went searching for something to string through the small circle at the top of the pendant. He planned to wear it, declaring in his mind that it was something a cool rockstar would wear.

It wasn’t long before he found a bit of balloon ribbon and had strung the pendant around his neck. He planned to switch the ribbon out for a bit of twine when he went home later that evening.

Speaking of going home…

“Mikey, let’s go! Daddy says we’re leaving!” Elizabeth called out, running past him to join their father and little brother at the entrance.

“Comin’!”

(>*v*<)

Freddy didn’t think he would wake up. Not that the animatronics really slept, but they did rest occasionally. This felt different. Like he was under water or behind a curtain. He couldn’t quite see anything clearly yet, but he heared one voice very clearly.

“Now I look like a superstar!”

He wondered where the voice came from. It sounded excited, and Freddy realized he was excited for the voice as well, despite not knowing who it belonged to. Everyone deserved to be a superstar.

Freddy blinked and everything got a tiny bit clearer. Just enough that he could make out vague shapes around him, but not enough to understand where he was.

“Wait until I show my friends!” The voice squealed and Freddy smiled softly before everything fell dark again.

(>*v*<)

Over time, though Freddy was unsure how much time, he was able to see much clearer, and what he saw greatly shocked and confused the poor bear.

He wasn’t in any sort of machine, be it endoskeleton or computer. He actually appeared to be riding along in a young boy’s head.

He couldn’t do much about this fact, unable to actually move on his own or even speak aloud. He did learn however, over the course of a day or so after the world finally cleared up, that the boy seemed to be able to hear him, at least a small amount. Pausing as if considering Freddy’s commentary at some points.

Freddy learned that the boy’s name was Michael and that he was thirteen years old. He has shaggy brown hair, grey-blue eyes, and a bright smile that lights up his brown, freckle covered face. Michael also has two younger siblings, Elizabeth and Evan. They live with their father, and visit a diner that he owns nearly every day.

Freddy also learns that Michael has three friends. The strange part, he thinks, is that each of them have a mask depicting much older versions of his friends, and even himself.

It’s with these three friends that Freddy finds himself most vocal, quietly scolding when the four boys pick on younger children at school or even Michael’s own brother. He doesn’t know why they do so, but he intends to make Michael aware that it is unkind.

(>*v*<)

Mike is fairly certain he’s going insane.

He keeps hearing a voice at the back of his mind, asking random questions, noting something he might have missed in schoolwork, and even scolding him for his actions. He wonders if his conscience woke up and gained a voice.

It’s very strange, he thinks, to have a proud voice say ‘well done, Superstar!’ after he’s completed a task, but he smiles at the praise nonetheless.

Lizzie keeps looking at him strangely when he suddenly starts grinning like a loon after washing the dishes. He’s not sure how to explain that the voice in his head is proud of him for doing something so simple as his chores without looking like a nutcase so he stays quiet. It’s not like she needs to know anyway.

Instead, Mike plots his surprise for Evan’s birthday at the end of the week.

[fantasylandloser]

No Rules

Steve Harrington x Reader

A/N: the ending was very rushed/ so sorry :(

warnings: smut/ bad writing/ reader unaware of sex/ praise kink/ dom!Steve? tell me if i missed anything

Word count: 3k

“Hopper please.” You plead, you could see him thinking about it but you wanted a yes.

“It’s just a pool party, I’ve never been to one, also it’s at Steve’s house, nothing will happen there.” You press.

Hopper huffed and crossed his arms. He was being really dramatic about it, saying you needed to stay in the house. “I don’t know, kid. I just don’t think it’s safe for you to be out right now.” He tells you vaguely. 

Hopper watched your face fall and the look of defeat on your face and he knew you were frustrated. You didn’t respond to him turning away to leave and walking to your room, your door slammed when you closed it and Hopper winced knowing you were upset. A moment later it reopened “I didn’t mean to slam the door, I’m not mad at you.” You reassure him softly before closing the door again softer.

You knew Hopper just wanted to protect you but you were frustrated knowing you would never be allowed to live certain aspects of normal teenage life and you really wanted to see your friends outside of life threatening situations. You also really wanted to see Steve, the two of you were close in a way that was different to your other friends. Dustin, who was younger than you, but seemed to know more than everyone combined, told you that Steve was your Mike. You weren’t sure what he meant by that. You knew your sister Eleven was with Mike but you weren’t sure what it meant when he said that to you. 

It also frustrated you how much more freedom your younger sister had than you. But you recently were targeted and that left Hopper worried for your safety. Eleven could tell you about the party when she got home. You told yourself trying to look at the brightside, you knew she would go into detail and that would make it feel like you were really there. 

Outside of your room Hopper was pacing trying to think clearly. He knew you were young and that you deserved to live a life outside of this cabin. When he finally gathered his thoughts he knocked on your door and waited for you to open it, when you did, it was clear to him that you were moping. 

“You can go but-” He was cut off by the elated scream you let out and you jumped up to hug him. “Don’t get too excited, there are still some rules you have to follow.” He couldn’t pretend the shift in your mood hadn’t changed his as well. You nodded along and looked ready to listen intently.

“So rule one, Do not under any circumstances leave Steve’s house. Steve can pick you up. I know he wants to,” he rolled his eyes to himself “but you do not leave until you see me, okay? He looked at you for understanding and you nodded. 

“Rule two, call me every two- no every hour.” You nod and he releases an exhale. “Rule three, you know it and you love it, don’t be stupid.” You grin a little at rule three, a rule he repeated every day. He smiles at your grin in a typical dad fashion.

“Okay so now we’re at new rules okay and these are important too. Don’t drink alcohol. Don’t let a boy you don’t know touch you. Do not under any circumstance go upstairs with a boy. And lastly,” he stopped to grab your head. “Don’t drown, I’ll get you some swimming lessons as soon as I can.” 

Although half of the reasons for those last rules went over your head, you were still perfectly content with obliging. “Okay.” You agree excitedly. “I have to call Steve!” and you were off practically tripping over yourself to get to the phone. 

********

The party had blasted off an hour ago and you were having the time of your life. Steve was being a good host so for a while you’d been hanging out with Nancy and Johnathan. That was until Nancy asked why you didn’t have a swimsuit on and you answered you didn’t have one,  so in typical Nancy fashion she ran off to the nearest store to buy you one. She told you to come with her but you couldn’t because of Hopper's rules so she said she would guess your size.

Nancy came back with a huge bag full of bathing suits. You had gone to the guest bedroom to try them on with Nancy. After you tried on the first swimsuit she’d left and came back with a razor instructing you to shave and how to do it. When you asked why she said it would take her hours to break down the patriarchy and explain the impossible expectations placed on a woman's body. She also told you it was hard to explain why women tried to live up to the expectations. So you just did as she said, trying your best to be gently because she said if you weren’t you’d cut yourself. 

When you continued to try on swimsuits after that it wasn’t hard to find one that you love. It was a simple bikini and it was your favorite color. 

“You look great!” Nancy complimented, putting the other swimsuits in the bag. 

“Thank you.” You didn’t quite know what to do with yourself for a moment, with this much skin showing and you felt a little awkward. 

“Come on, let's go party.” You followed behind her, the awkwardness carrying with you until the moment you stepped outside. A group of girls had come near you and asked if you wanted to go talk to them. Nancy went back with Johnathan smiling like a proud mom as she watched you giggle and joke. You were having fun until you felt like someone was watching you, so you began to look around.

Your eyes connected with Steve’s and you smiled and waved at him. “If you stare at her any harder it’ll seriously get weird dude.” Dustin told him from the edge of the pool. Steve swam to the side just to hit him.  

“Shut up.” He told him, glancing back over at you. 

“Just admit that you think she’s a total babe, so you can stop this constant staring because she’s bound to catch on.” Steve rolled his eyes at Dustin's advice, which he never seemed to stop giving now that he had a girlfriend. 

“We’re not like that, we’re just friends.” Steve defended, running a hand through his wet hair and it was Dustin’s turn to roll his eyes.

When Steve looked up you weren’t in the spot you were just in and he started to search around for you but you began to sit on the ledge of the pool beside Dustin. “What are you talking about?” You ask putting your feet into the pool water slowly. 

“We’re talking about how Will is looking totally lonely over there and how I was gonna go hang out with them so.. Bye!” Dustin said quickly and sent a wink to Steve as he made his exit. You face Steve a weird face as if asking for an explanation, for his weird behavior and Steve quickly deflects. 

“You put on a swimsuit…” He tries his best not to look at it when he makes that statement. “That means you wanna get in the pool with your best pal Steve.” You laugh when he smiles at you all goofy like. “I can’t swim.” You tell him, to which he looks like he’s thinking for a moment.  He moves to stand in between your legs and he pulls you closer to the edge, making you panic for a second but also laugh.

“Steve!” You screech placing your hands on his shoulders to stop you from pulling you in. “Come on, you’ve got to trust me.” He’s all smiles and a smooth voice that melts away all your fear.  Even though he’s very  close to the deepest part of the pool.

“Okay I trust you, but Hopper said I’m not allowed to drown.” You warn him. 

“Would I ever let you drown?” He asked, before you could answer him he was hooking his hands around the sides of your thighs and pulling you in the water. You automatically hooked your legs around his waist, you knew he would hold you up but you were nervous to be this deep in water. Somewhere behind you, you heard Robin yell “finally!” but Steve ignored her, focusing on you. 

 “See, it's not bad.” His arm went around your waist to hold you in place and one of your arms went around his shoulders.  

“Mhmm” You hummed, trying to tame the smile on your face.

“You better hold on tight Angel, or I might drop you.” Steve pretended to let you slip, letting you go for a second. 

“Steve stoppp!” You exclaimed, holding on closer. He laughed to himself hoisting you up again this time bringing an arm around your butt.

“Alright, Alright” Steve chuckled. “Don’t worry sweet girl, I would never let you fall.” He was holding eye contact with you when he said that and you had to look away when you felt your face warm. 

“Good.”

********

Hours later the party had been dying down and you went to call Hopper to see what time he was coming to get you.  When he picked up he sounded exhausted and frustrated.. 

“Hey Hop, the party's over so you can come get me now.” You tell him. He swears on the other end and mumbles about the time getting away from him.

“Kid I got caught up in a case and I can’t come get you, can you stay at Steve’s until morning?” Your heart skyrocketed.

“You said I couldn’t go upstairs with boys.” You reminded him.  Hopper huffed irritably into the phone.

“I’m retracting the rules because I trust you.” He tells you firmly. You liked the sound of no rules.

“Okay.” You said simply.

“Okay kid, I’ll see you tomorrow and you can tell me all the details about your little party.” You smile.

“Okay,” you say again. “Bye Hop.”

When you hung up Steve walked in. “Hopper on his way?” You shake your head no. “No hopper is busy, can I stay with you tonight?” Steve is visibly surprised that Hopper even allowed that knowing some of the ‘talks’ that he’s given him. 

“Of course, Hoppers cool with that?” He questions skeptical.

“His idea.” Now Steve is really surprised. 

Eddie, the last to leave, hears a part of your conversation as he walks into the kitchen.  “You guys gonna bone?” He asks casually, making your eyebrows knit up in confusion. 

“Dude” Steve says, giving him a look that says ‘can you not’. 

“What’s boning?” You ask Eddie, Steve prays that he doesn’t answer.

“You know..,” When you just stare at him Eddie realizes that you very much do not know. 

“Sex.” Eddie tells you confused as to why you didn’t know that. 

Steve groans, running his hand down his face. “What’s sex?” You ask, your eyes squinting and your head tilting in confusion.

Eddie laughs in shock, getting ready to tell you all that you wanted to know.

“Eddie come on man get out.” Steve starts to usher him out but before he’s all the way out you hear Eddie say. “it’s when a guy puts his dick into-“ he was out the door before you heard the rest.

“What’s a dick?” You ask Steve when he comes back. Steve did not want to answer that but he also didn’t want to leave you confused when you were well over the age to know.

“Umm it’s the guy… private part.” Steve tells you, avoiding your eyes and starting to clean up. You nod still looking confused. “And what does it go into?”

Steve choked on nothing at your question wondering how he always got put in these situations. “A pu- a vagina.” He tells you to try to keep it PG-13.  You nod again but still looking confused.

“What’s a vagina?” Steve winced hard, not knowing how to word this to you. 

“The girl, private part.” Your head is tilted and you still look confused. And then Steve was curious. “What do you know about your body, sweet girl?” He asks you, staring at you intently. 

“Umm, I have super powers.” You guess but you had a feeling it was wrong.

“Yeah besides that.” Steve asked and shrugged in confusion. He walks towards you and grabs your hands. “You know that these are your hands, right?” His arms trail up, “These are your arms, these are your shoulders,” the calluses on his hands feel good against your smooth skin. You definitely know all the body parts he’s naming so far but you liked having his hands in you.

“Your neck, your collar bones” his hands brush over you before pausing and he’s back to holding your hand, before he takes it and presses it against your chest. “Breasts” He’s still holding your hand looking at you intently and something in the atmosphere around the two of you has changed into something intense.

He pushes your hand down. “Your stomach,”  then he pushes it down slightly more, and for some reason you felt like this was deeply inappropriate, but you loved it. 

“You know what this is, baby?” His voice had gotten notably raspier, and his grip on your hand was stern and you suddenly felt very naked and technically you were close to it as you stood there in nothing but a bikini. You shake your head no. 

“That’s your pussy. “ He held your hand there, the two of you basically cupping your vagina. 

“Oh” All the questions that were once swarming your brain had suddenly died. 

“Yeah, oh” Steve mocked. Steve couldn’t lie, he loved that he was the one to tell you that.  Knowing that he had taken just a small part of your innocence. 

“Okay..” you pause for a moment,contemplating your next question. “Why is it tingly?” Steve’s composure was beginning to crumple. He moved his hand, resting it on your waist. You whimpered slightly at the loss of contact. The two of you were standing very close to each other and you’d just realized that your breathing had somehow synced up.

“Fuck,” Steve breathed out. He never answered your question, his face swooping in to kiss you hard. His lips were soft as he moved them against yours. 

Steve thought that he was going to combust as he heard the little sounds you were making and felt the way you were moving against. He knew he would need to let you breathe soon but  you tasted so sweet and he couldn’t get enough. 

You gripped Steve’s arm trying to pull him closer to you. You couldn't think of a reason in the world to stop. That was until Hopper's voice came into your head repeating over and over again. “Don’t be Stupid.” You began to wonder if kissing Steve fell under the category stupid. 

Steve felt you retracting yourself and he immediately was worried that he’d crossed a line and you’d been too uncomfortable to say something.  He pulled away from you completely looking a little feral. His eyes were wide and his lips were raw, but under that was concern and guilt.

“I’m sorry.” He tells you, his eyes searching your face for discomfort. You weren’t uncomfortable in any way though just confused trying to remember all the rules,but then a beautiful reminder came to the forefront of your memory. Hopper had retracted all the rules. So just for tonight you were lawless.

And just like that you were all over Steve again. You’d caught him by surprise, grabbing both sides of his face and pulling it towards you. Just like that Steve couldn’t remember why you had stopped kissing in the first place. He circles his arm around your waist pulling your body closer to his. All he wanted at this moment was to be closer to you. To feel all of you. 

“Steve, please.” You beg, even though you haven’t a clue in the world what you’re asking for, but he had stopped kissing your lips and was steadily making his way down your neck. All of these feelings were known to you but the only word you could use to describe them was perfect. 

“Please what? Hmm, use your words sweet girl.” He taunted, because he knew you had no words in your vocabulary to describe what you were feeling or what you wanted. 

“More.” Was all you managed. With that one word Steve was picking you up and carrying you somewhere, his lips back on yours. A few seconds later you were beneath him on a couch somewhere in his house. Something heavy resting on your lap. Steve let go of your lips for a second to readjust his position. 

It took you a moment to realize he was aligning his private parts with yours and whatever he was doing felt good. You still had your swimsuit on and he did as well but your privates were still touching. 

“Open your legs wider baby, my dick wants to meet your pussy.” You obey immediately, the dirty words sending electricity down your spine. “Atta girl.” It’s a simple praise but it has you whimpering. 

He drags his hips up once and back down, making you gasp at the sensation. 

“You like that princess?” he asks to check in with you. 

“Yes, yes!” You encourage, your hands moving to his back. Yes was exactly what he wanted to hear because he goes wild, grinding his hips into yours at an erratic pace.

A moment later he regrets it, knowing that if he would have started slower this could last longer, but he was already close and it was too late to change the pace now. He leaned down to kiss you, slow and sloppy and that must have done it for you because you’re holding onto him tighter now and moaning lewdly into his mouth.

“Stevie,” you gasp “something’s- “ you cut yourself off with a loud moan.

“I know baby just let go for me.” And you do, feeling something in yourself unravel and plummet you into outer space. Steve is only a step behind you groaning through his release as he creamed his pants, but never stopped kissing you.

For a moment you and Steve just catch your breath, still in the same position, until you spoke up with a dopey grin.

“I liked that.” You tell Steve and he grins back at you leaning in to kiss you.

“Me too.”

[byersfanclub]

i guess one of my controversial opinions is that ted and karen don’t know who tf el/jane is and that she’s mike’s girlfriend, i didn’t know a lot of ppl thought that karen and ted know mike has a girlfriend cause it’s literally never brought up and you think it would be since mike is literally like made fun of by everyone including his own dad when it comes to girls. idk y’all, i don’t really understand why ppl think it’s fact that his parents know. it’s all super vague and a jumbled mess and we never get either of them asking about her, talking/asking about how mike has a girlfriend with literally anyone, he never even introduces her at the end of s4 which would have been a perfect time (especially if milven was endgame too) and her name is never even said between any of them. el or jane. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ i mean believe what you want but i find it super suspicious and everything, you’d think it would have been brought up by now.

[azrielgreen]

I apologize in advance, but I have a handful of Touched questions I can't stop thinking about. No pressure to answer, I love this universe regardless, but yah know... any additional crumbs are much appreciated. Thank you a million in advance!! xx

I'm confused why Hopper had to call Eddie about Steve's labor- when Alex was beating up Steve, didn't Eddie feel it through the bond and come running? I promise I'm not trying to be rude, I'd just love to understand the difference between those situations.

With Robin now presenting as an alpha, is she growing a penis in the same way that Steve grew a vagina? I love love loved that last scene, but the obvious suggestion of her knotting.. I guess I'm just a little confused. 

I've heard you say in different asks that you've written this Jason as asexual (so amazing) but in another ask you mentioned him eventually presenting as omega. I'm so sorry, I really don't want to take you to task, but I just love this universe, so I'm curious- if Jason is omega, can he physically go through heats while being asexual? Is he asexual while "sober" (I'm sorry, that's for lack of better word), but then still needs help while in heat?

theoretically- would everyone in this gorgeous family eventually present? Steddie obviously started it, Buckingham is next.. are they all going to follow? I'm mostly curious about like Dustin and Lucas who both seem to be with "outsiders".. will it still happen to them? 

If everyone does present, will there be a hierarchy amongst the fam? Like.. because Eddie in particular was the first alpha, will he be the most in charge? (even though we all know that Steve well and truly runs EVERYTHING lololll) 

Of course, I'm always happy to answer questions!🥰💜💞✨️ please be warned for explicit discussions of bodily transformations Alpha/Omega designation specific.

1) the pregnancy interfered with the bond to a strong degree, taking a lot of Steve's energy and limiting their ability to feel over distance. Eddie could, however, tell something was wrong that morning, but Steve just said he was achy/tired.

2) Robin's Alpha designation means for ruts and Chrissy's heats, she can indeed grow her own version of a dick: her clitoris can transform into a fully functioning penis capable of reproduction and knotting. It can revert to something more medium size in between heats and ruts.

3) Jason going through heats is an evolution for him that takes years to find equilibrium. He does become typically desperate to be knotted but he does also learn to use toys and eventually, they get something custom made for him. His relationship with sex and intimacy and falling in love is a beautiful one; complex and sweet and unorthodox and he actually ends up in a deeply loving asexual relationship with someone in the group, though I'm not saying who🥰🥰🥰

4) So, everyone in the family Steve's age and younger will present. The older ones don't. I think i answered this before, but a vague recap of everyone's designation was: Omega: Chrissy, Steve, Nancy, Jason, Eleven, Will & Mike (who end up in an Omega/Omega relationship later on). Alpha: Dustin, Lucas, Max, Eddie, Robin. Jonathan is a Beta, though he still experiences a few changes too.

I wanted to write the Alpha/Omega dynamics a little different in this, especially in terms of "dominance" so the Alphas don't really fight for who is head of the family, only on jest. If anyone is the Alpha of their pack, it's Eddie, but Steve is sort of the Mother Tree, if that makes sense. A matriarchal structure to the pack made a lot more sense to me while I was mapping dynamics.

Ultimately, the Omegaverse will spread across the earth and everyone will be affected, but it all starts in Hawkins💜💞✨️

Hope these were helpful!💜💜💜