#liminal steddie

[flowercrowngods]

oooohhh liminal spaces my beloved,,,,

I would LOVE to see you write number 3 (moving out and checking your now bare rooms if you left anything, either it be materials or memories) with Steddie!

klausi! 🥰🤍 thank you for indulging me, beloved! this got a little too introspective and too projecting but oh well

no. 3 — when you're moving out of a house and checking your room when it's almost or completely empty and sorted out

It takes him a while to realise what that feeling is that overcomes him; what to call that weight that’s been so firmly lodged inside his chest that he feels like his steps and movements have actually slowed down lately.

A lump in his throat and a heaviness in his bones is not necessarily new in this house, not a new sensation to feel within these walls, reinforced day by day, morning by morning, night by awful night.

But now, seeing it like this, there is a new emotion. A new heaviness. And Steve takes it all in as he lets his gaze roam over the empty floor, still dirty and dusty because he hasn’t the strength or the energy to clean it all again. He takes in the walls, splotched with light and shadow and the echo of pictures and posters that hung there for years, leaving behind only a trace of their shape on the wallpaper, untouched by sunlight for years.

They’re spectres of who Steve used to be. Spectres of versions of him — genuine and pretend alike.

He stares at the spot where a picture frame hung for as long as he can remember, just a tad off centre from the plaid wallpaper in a way that never ceased to make Robin complain.

He wonders, staring still, if he will hang up the picture frame again in his new place. If it will be off centre again, just for Robin. Just for a reason to smile. If he will keep that version of him, or if it will stay behind as a spectre within these walls, too.

One last victim for them. One last thing for them to take.

It’s a silly thought. Dramatic, really.

Just as dramatic as Robin, who refused to come upstairs with jim again for one last check, claiming If I go upstairs with you again and have to deal with your melancholy face, Steven, I will actually burn this place to the ground.

She’d flicked her Zippo at him in a way that was almost cool, and it almost made him tear up right then and there.

He will hang up that frame again. Maybe replace the picture, take one of Robin with her Zippo, put it right above the front door, just a little to the left.

Steve‘s eyes begin to sting as he tries to take a deep breath, tries not to give the awful wallpaper its old power back, tries not to feel so small. So big. So displaced.

His knees buckle at the same time as his resolve does, and he sits down on the floor, the plush carpet a familiar sensation against his palm.

He hates this room. He’s going to miss it so much. It was his prison. It was his sanctuary. It was never his, and yet he hates the idea of it becoming someone else’s. Nothing good happened between these walls. Every happy memory he has are linked to them. He is a stranger to this room. It knows his every secret.

He wants to burn this place to the ground and leave and never return. He wants to sit here forever and watch the discolouration deepen.

He wants this place to be his home. And yet he knows it never will be. He doesn’t know if he can make a home.

A tear runs down his face, and he doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s relief. Maybe it’s regret. Maybe it’s grief, or overwhelm; or maybe it’s all of them and more.

There is a knock, gentle and careful, sounding against the door frame. It has never been tapped like that. Will it know such gentleness again?

“There you are,” Eddie says, lingering behind Steve, his steps not approaching. Not encroaching upon Steve and his heavy little moment.

He wipes at his face and turns around, flashing what must be a pathetic rendition of a smile.

“Yeah, I’m here, just…” He clears his throat. “Just checking, y’know?”

Eddie smiles, kind and patient, like he sees right through him. “Checking and getting stuck, hm? Happens to me all the time.”

Steve shrugs.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure. I’m done anyway.”

Eddie hums, murmuring something that sounds a lot like No, you’re not. And Steve sags into Eddie as soon as he comes to a stop beside him, leaning against his leg and feeling the soft fabric of Eddie’s worn denim against his cheek. Like this, his head is at the perfect height for Eddie to run his fingers through his hair.

“You wanna talk about it? Or just sit in silence ‘til getting up is an option again?”

Steve doesn’t say anything, too focused on feeling all these things that the emptiness of his childhood bedroom makes him feel. All that fear, all that relief, all that anxiety and the nervousness and the excitement and the freedom and the yearning. For a home.

For picture frames off centre, for candles and fairy lights not just around Christmastime, for dinner with friends and finding that you don’t have enough dishes yet for everyone and then just eating stew out of a mug when all the bowls are gone already. Late night dancing and conversations and singing not just in the shower, arranging and rearranging a room until it’s just right and realising that a year or two has passed already and you’ve still not changed the makeshift lightbulbs in the hallway.

He wants a home. And he wants to make it, to create it, to build it from nothing but hope, love, and just enough craziness to not give up after the first failed attempt.

“Hey,” Eddie says at some point, and Steve didn’t realise there are more tears now until Eddie’s wiping them from his face, the warmth against Steve’s cheek gone now; replaced by the sleeves of Eddie’s hoodie. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

And he does. Steve falls forward now, into Eddie’s arms, and clings to him.

“I wanna make a home.”

“You’re gonna make a home, sweet thing.”

“But what if I can’t? What if it’s always gonna be like this?” Steve pulls back, wiping at his face, looking at Eddie now, whose hands are now in Steve’s lap, keeping him so, so warm. “So full of… nothingness and regret and just. Just empty.”

Eddie smiles and leans forward, his nose almost touching Steve’s. “You’re the least empty person I know, Stevie. You’re moving in with Robbie! That place is gonna be a home the moment you two set foot in it. And then we’re gonna paint your walls, we’re gonna go to the hardware store seven times a day because you two suck at decision making, but it’s okay, because it’s a process. And you’re gonna be so, so good at it. And you’re gonna have a home, okay? You’re gonna make it. Build it. Create it. And you get to start over and over and over until it’s right.”

Eddie’s hands have found their way into Steve’s hair again, lightly scratching at his scalp in soothing circles.

“And you know what’s best about homes?”

Steve shakes his head, hanging on Eddie’s lips and his words and all of his warmth.

“They’re a community effort. Meaning you have us to help you. You ain’t gotta do it alone. Robbie and I are gonna build your home just as much as you will, yeah? And we’re gonna be so annoying about it.” He ends his little speech with a manic little grin that never fails to get a laugh out of Steve, even if this one’s a little watery.

He breathes a little, and sighs at last, the tears finally stopping. “Do you really mean that?”

“What that I’m gonna be so annoying?”

“No, that one I know,” Steve grins, and Eddie cackles at that, leaning in to kiss him on the nose. “No, I mean… Do you really think I can do this?”

Eddie’s expression sobers into something more genuine. “I do. If there’s anyone who can make a home, it’s my boy Steve fucking Harrington. And do you wanna know why?”

He nods.

“Because you’re my home.”

The smile he gives Eddie before closing the gap between them for a proper kiss is one that these walls have never seen before.

The afternoon sun comes streaming in through the windows one last time just as Steve gets up, pulled into Eddie’s arms. It leaves the room tinged in gold for Steve one last time.

It’s goodbye. It’s farewell. It’s Steve, moving on.

🌷🤍 the prompt list

[wednesday-the-writer]

(not) Okay

Stranger Things | Steddie | One-shot, Hurt/Comfort | 960

@ wednesday-the-lover 2023, do not repost, modify or translate my work, carrd link

summary: Steve vists Eddie in the hospital, yearning ensues<3

requests/inspo: 'i just wanted to make sure you're okay.'

warnings: Wounds, swearing, mild sexual humour

a/n: ooooh the pressure, first fic posted on this account /hj

Okay was probably the last word Eddie Munson would use to describe his situation right now. He was hooked up to a bunch of wires and machines he didn’t even know the names of, his stomach hurt like a bitch and he was handcuffed to his hospital bed, and not in a fun way. A cop had been stationed at his door since he’d arrived, and how he’d arrived? He had no idea. The last thing he remembered was throbbing pain, demobats and blacking out in Dustin’s arms. 

“Hey, would you just let me through, man?” The sound of a scuffle sounded outside, it sounded like someone had been pushed against his door. 

“Only close relatives can go in at this time, sir,” the police officer said tiredly. 

“Would you just-”

“God, just let him in?” Eddie called out to the two. 

“Sorry sir, that’s not allowed,” the officer called back. 

“You have my permission, man, give him a break.”

“It’s protocol, sir. An permission from a murderer isn’t exactly reassuring.”

“SUSPECTED!” The voice on the other side yelled. “Suspected murderer.”

“Harrington,” Eddie muttered under his breath. “Sorry about that officer,” Eddie raised his voice again. “My uncle must have forgotten to tell you, he wanted to send Steve in to check up on me while he’s at work. He misses the visiting hours sometimes.”

“Is this true, sir?” 

“Yeah, yeah that’s true,” the panic sapped out of Steve’s voice.

The officer was silent for a few moments, “I suppose I could give you a few minutes.” 

There was a click as the door unlocked and a creak when it opened, and there stood the man himself - Steve Harrington. His hair was ruffled, greasy and unkempt - which was strange considering the amount of pride he took in it - and his outfit was far from his normal style; a black sweatshirt and dark grey jeans. To put it nicely, he was a mess. 

“What’s up, man?” Eddie was the first to break the awkward silence that had settled over the hospital room. 

“I… uh, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he shuffled awkwardly, eyeing the camera in the corner of the hospital room. 

“Never better!” The curly-haired man replied sarcastically. 

“What’s with those?” Steve motioned to the handcuffs that tied Eddie down to the bed. 

“Oh these?” Eddie shook his hands a little, making the metal clang against the bed frame. “I’m a felon, Harrington, they’re not exactly gonna let me run free. Just wish I was wearing them under better circumstances,” he lusted jokingly. 

“Keep it in your pants, Munson,” Steve dragged a plastic chair from the side of the room over to the bed. “So…” 

“So?”

The two held eye contact for a few drawn-out moments. Eddie’s mind went blank, focused on every detail of the eyes of the man in front of him. The intricate lines, the peanut brown colour with a ghostly pale green tinge to it, the way he squinted under the harsh hospital lighting. Eddie’s eyes darted around the room, looking for something else to focus on, the flutter of butterflies in his torn-up stomach filling him with anxious dread. 

“So, what have you been up to, man?” The bed-ridden boy asked blandly. 

“Oh, um, not much really,” Steve’s gaze turned to the floor. “Just helping out around town, lots of people are homeless from the, uh.. Earthquake.”

“That’s sweet man, that’s… real good of ya.” 

“Is it bad?” Steve cut to the chase, his eyes looking up at Eddie’s and then down to the man’s bandaged stomach, loosely covered by a black singlet. 

“Wish I knew,” he sighed. “Hurts like hell, but I haven’t seen it since.. Well, I haven’t seen it at all, really.” 

Steve scooted forward, his hands hovering over Eddie’s hips at the hem of his singlet, “May I?” 

“By all means.” 

Eddie’s heart jolted when he felt Steve’s fingers brush against his hips and lift up his shirt, folding it up over his chest. His fingertips traced over the bandages, finding the spot where the nurses had tucked in the end to stop it from unraveling and tugging it out, slowly undoing the bandage. He slid his hand under Eddie’s back and lifted him slightly, pulling the bandage out from underneath him and finally lifting up the bloodied dressing to reveal two large, nasty gashes. Steve’s mouth opened slightly, speechless.

“There’s some around my chest too, I can feel it,” Eddie stared up at the roof as he felt Steve lift his shirt a little more, tracing over the bandages there too but not removing them. 

Steve was silent as he took in the extent of Eddie’s wounds. Shallow scrapes on his face, paired with deeper ones that trickled down his neck, more scrapes and gashes over his arms, whatever the hell had happened to his chest and the two deep gashes on his stomach, plus whatever else there might be over the rest of his body. All the wounds still looked bloodied and wet, despite the few days since the incident.  

“Jesus christ…” Steve’s fingers ghosted over the wounds, not daring to touch them, just observing.

“Yeah,” Eddie bitterly stared up at the roof. “Not too hot now, huh?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Steve said absent-mindedly. 

Eddie quietly examined Steve’s face to see if he was joking, but there was no lie in the man’s concentrated expression. Eddie’s heart softened a little, surprised that his childhood enemy was now turning into, well… something else. Steve’s hand landed on the bed, inches away from Eddie’s waist as the injured boy sucked in air fast, wishing Steve would move his hand even a centimeter closer. Maybe if he did, the boys would both feel a little more okay.

[spencerbegins]

spencer stop writing car confession scenes challenge

[rosewaterandivy]

masterlist

* = 18+ MDNI

series

all honey, no suckle (wip)

careful fear & dead devotion (wip)

hit me like a hook of the right* (wip)

in the woods somewhere (wip)

a light on in chicago* (wip)

the kids aren’t alright* (complete)

oneshots

sugar & mint*; petrichor*

heart like a kickdrum

sings like a church with a choir in it*

pushin' daffodils*

drabbles/blurbs

dad!steve thought

crack me like a glowstick

local werewolf annoys town

lothario chronicles - I & II

pornstar!steve

dragon!steve

steve headcanons tag

series

everyone but you* (wip)

it’d be cooler if you did (wip)

notes on a scene* (wip)

oneshots

sings like a church with a choir in it*

fightin' to get better*

dick so good we be callin' him nyquil*

blurbs

all in

masseur, m'lady

dragon!eddie

three times a lady

pornstar!eddie

liminal

a jade’s trick

eddie headcanons

series

through me (the flood)* (wip)

modern love (wip)

oneshots

TBD

blurbs/drabbles

tactile

hybrid

steddie headcanons

prompt lists [1, 2, 3, & 4*]

"stay there. i’m coming to get you.” (s.h.)

keep the windows open wide (s.h)

summersong request-athon!

backburner/under construction m.list

lies and luster

aim low, aim true

[hitlikehammers]

dearest-mine (until next)

a Fae-King!Steve/Human-Prince!Eddie fic for @thequeenofcarvenstone in the Steddie Valentine's Day Exchange ✨ ao3 link here

part i: until next

“Dearest,” Steve whispers gentle, ever-so, against the hidden space behind his beloved’s ear; “dearest-mine,” he exhales as a song, lilting; tender if not wholly devoid of the barest sorrow as he rouses his lover before the dawn as he must: “until next.”

With which he wakes his dearest, his Eddie, every morning he is blessed to spend wrapped around and within: he will not bid farewell, the parting already too raw; he cannot bear the heartbreak of permanence etched in harsher words. And yet: part they must; fae magic is firm.

The morning light seals the liminal space to solid. To remain beyond the dawn means to remain forever.

“What if I were to stay?”

Eddie’s voice comes itself like a song, though the words more a temptress; as if he hears Steve’s own thoughts tucked deep in his chest.

“You know you mustn’t,” Steve says it as he says it every morning, swallowing his own regrets and wishes deeper than his thoughts as he strokes fingertips delicate through his beloved’s hair, soft without need for Enchantment’s touch; “you have a kingdom which depends upon your kind hand in guidance,” and it is true: his beloved stands to inherit rule of the kingdom that curls east-and-north to the borders of Steve’s Realm, should the Realm be given space within the mortal plane. It is how they met, fortuitous by the hands of chance to other eyes but Steve: Steve believes otherwise.

He believed in destiny only for the fact of Eddie beside him; that after millennia now of feeling only passing warmth within him, and surface satisfaction of the flesh, he aches in perpetuity, now, for the expanse beneath his breast, the way Eddie sits on a wholly other throne beside Steve’s heart: Steve has lived and breathed beside Enchantment his entire life-length, and will for what remains, but he has never had reason to ponder and marvel at the true extent of its powers before this.

Infatuation is a lesser word by leagues, and yet: love too is so far beyond this feeling.

Though, for the immediacy of feeling: Steve stills when the touch of his lover slips lower, his lashes dancing, the blood high on the sculpt of his cheekbones.

“I believe,” Eddie whispers, near-devious: “my kind hand,” he echoes Steve’s words in a wholly other fashion, and Steve feels the desire that never fades with his beloved, he feels it stir to rising, to sprinkle the flesh of him up from the ends: “may better be suited to,” and he lays a palm at the join of Steve’s hips, lets the weight of his touch settles meaningfully, warm where heat is no matter, Steve already walks an inferno beside him:

“Other tasks.”

Steve’s blood whirls riotous between the chambers of his chest, a dancing ribbon on Lughnasadh in the blood of him, the life of him celebratory and yet—

“Darling-mine,” he forces his own hand to cover Eddie’s, and laments the way his fingers curl to lift that hand to his chest to feel the hum there, not-quite-human but not so unlike, simply broader, less predicable and more married to the whims of the World-Rhythm, and here beside his One-True—though he has not spoken such, and will not for the unbalance of thus speaking clear his own heart, should he stumble into tempting Eddie to move in kind; for where no consequence lies for Steve to bare his love within his own borders, for Eddie it would tempt Enchantments older than even Steve can fathom, laid by the crueler of his cousins long gone from these lands though the roots, the soils retain the memory, and deeper-still the danger. Yet Steve has known for some time the gravity of what he feels, of what this truly is—

“Your nation lays its demands upon you by daylight,” he presses lips against his beloved’s jaw, holds to feel his lifeblood and smile there for the fact of it: “my heart remains forever at the ready for your return by evenfall.”

For this is how it is, for them; this is how their worlds must spin: there is no more, and no less, nor should there ever be, for to quantify it on any scale, human or Deeper, is folly, and ill-fitted. What they are is this, in its unquakable wholeness. It can be no other.

“I miss you terribly in the interim,” Eddie says, the soft heart of him in his eyes as he confesses the depth of this in simple words that cut every time, that clench in Steve’s chest and make him wish…

Make him wish things he cannot wish. Eddie is a Prince, with a Kingdom that will await his ascension in due course. Eddie is a human, a beautiful mortal soul, perfect for all that he is and ever will be, just so. Steve could barely hold the notion of asking someone to forsake their homes, their lands, their families and peoples to join the world he reigns over: he cannot ask this man, the only one he would desire to pose the question, not when he holds in him a greatness of his own that Steve cannot presume to measure to, no matter what titles or powers he himself might offer in exchange.

“I misspoke,” Steve settles on, and draws Eddie’s hand to his lips to kiss soft, then his chest to press true: “my heart does not wait at the ready,” he breathes, and lets Enchantment swell in his veins to be felt and held for the touch:

“It goes with you, always, whole-of-my-heart,” Steve exhales the vow of it, the love of it, careful but long-kept and nurtured to be open, always, and wholly but safe, held mindful and meticulous and offered so as to have none of the ties of Fae-Kind that may sway Eddie’s mind, or his heart; that would unfairly, and unmeaning, ask for things Steve will not ask, sacrifices he will not so much as hint toward Eddie considering, no matter the outsized wanting within him.

“So there is no need for longing in these hours,” Steve breathes out, and wills the weight of what he gives between them swell with breadth and feeling, as he’s practiced long to master so that it skirts all wiles of his Winter brethren, and even his own sun-soaked kin—a magic here without twists save to hold as dear; an oath sworn that asks nothing in return: “never a need, dearest-mine, however long those mournful hours may deem fit to stretch.”

Eddie considers him, lips parted as he breathes in the warmth of evocation Steve is gifting into the space between them, with every exhale and pulse-flutter: the flush high on his beloved’s cheeks for it is all he asks for, if not all he desires—if he cannot claim the latter, he will treasure the former with all that he is.

“Impossible, though,” Eddie finally exhales, thready and awed as he slowly turns their twined-together hands and brings Steve’s to his own chest, now: there is no Enchantment singing beneath his breast save for the fact and marvel of him, but that could never mean it’s less a song, and Steve craves it wholly, the wing-beat of it so untethered, so free—Steve relishes it with his full being, even for the reminder that in its freedom, it is proof pressed into his hand of what he can never, will never even hint at mentioning, to choose and tot bind and to join Steve here but to lose far more: he will never so much as suggest the notion, lest his resolve crumble, or the worst of his nature take selfish tacks to keep.

“I leave my heart with you,” Eddie murmurs, and leans to rub his cheek to Steve’s, the gentle prickle of scruff delicious on Steve’s soft skin. “I question often, whether it remembers still how to beat without you near,” Eddie breathes as a confession and Steve own heart trembles for it, to be cared for so deeply in kind: a revelation. Novel beyond his ken.

“It is well-done then,” Steve can only whisper back, just as delicate; cannot break the gentle spell cast wholly of they two alone, and the beating of life between them, Steve’s for Eddie and Eddie’s…possible some proportion of him, too, for Steve: unfathomable—and yet.

“Of course there is not life without a heart,” Steve mouths now against Eddie’s jaw, soft and tender until he raises shivering; delicious; “and yet we endure through the cold hours,” and he fastens his mouth then to the delightful pump of the pulse at Eddie’s throat, a buoyant little wave of feeling: “safe in hand of hearts given,” Steve kisses there reverent and breathes: “happily so.”

“Joyfully so,” Eddie counters, reaching then to cup Steve’s face and meet his eyes with such weight in their fathomless gaze:

“You are dear to me in ways I never dared to dream,” Eddie tells him with his full chest, uncannily breathless for the strength he holds inside the sentiment, audible and tangible in the air as he speaks and it fills Steve to bursting just to be privy to it, let alone to be the intended recipient of such unutterable gifts.

“Take this then, beloved,” and Steve kisses him thoroughly, with all intention and his own choice gifts: “and be well in your journey.”

Eddie raises a brow at him, his lips quirking impish.

“What was it this time, then?”

And Steve meets him, smiling warm where he could not resist if he tried, and would not dishonor this moment or the depth of it all in his chest to make such attempts—of course his beloved has learned the sensation, now, of Enchantment working upon him, even in bare hints.

“Simply safe-keeping,” Steve smooths hands down Eddie’s arms, and kisses his lower lip so to coax the flesh just so into full-dark bloom: “it would do poorly should I fail to protect my heart in its travelings,” he adds playfully, though it may shoot afar its mark: too sincere, too much of heart in it by necessity alone.

“And?” Eddie forgives whatever undue weight Steve may have let dampen the tease, or else maybe he simply accepts it for all that it is; but he moves onward, and presses further—so bright, his dearest, so keen.

“Subtle fortune,” Steve admits, gathering his hands to hold, to squeeze: “your negotiations today,” for they had spoken: Eddie’s Kingdom seeks trade and alliance with their neighbors at the furthest reaching leyn-lines of Steve’s borders, and Steve would see it done for the best of both his own people, and Eddie’s in turn—though he would see it done no matter, were it Eddie’s wish.

“My uncle needs that more than I,” Eddie shrugs the sentiment a bit but pinkens, ducks his head and buries in the fluff of his curls, sleep mussed and wild and adored.

“Beloved-mine,” Steve feels himself compelled from the heart of him to speak it, to counter the hiding, however endearing; to banish so much as the hint of feeling less-than deserving, contexts aside, not least as the deep-dark of the sky starts to soften with bare hints of amber, their moments dwindling:

“You carry the whole of me as companion,” Steve frames his face and speaks true, feels the welling of his devotion, the depth of how much of himself is offered in his touch and in his words, and he suspects his eyes flash opalescent for the way it trembles as truth through his skin to bone, the whisperings of the Elders ebullient in his voice as he speaks: “and yet that is a trifling thing compared to the whole of you.”

Eddie stares at him as if he is a wonder, a true child of something rooted deep in the movings of being, in the seasons of the world and the glories no longer spoken aloud as the tongues are long lost but life on in the flesh of those like Steve, and that is a truth: but here. Here, before Eddie, next to Eddie, Steve is really but one thing alone: his.

Steve belongs solely and wholly, here, to him.

“You speak nonsense, my liege,” Eddie finally murmurs, eyes still stretched almost unfathomably wide, as if seeing Beyond: “of us two I am the one who wakes in your arms and wonders endless what heaven I’ve stumbled upon,” he reaches to cradle Steve’s face much as Steve had done in turn, and Steve has never learned before this man to feel adored, or valued for what he is, for who he’s grown to be, rather than what influence he wields, and what power he can enact, as if his rapport now with Enchantment is some coercive thing: no. No, Eddie sees Steve, not a King, not a Fae, not a means to an end. And the strength of his feeling is somehow palpable through the leaves, on the wind itself: for Steve alone, just as he is.

It is a heady revelation that has never yet grown old, or less miraculous.

“To be so blessed as to behold you,” Eddie toys idly at his hair with the softest curve to his lips, his pulse strong, full at his neck; “let alone—“ and his voice breaks a little for feeling, and Steve chest cracks open a touch to take it in safe, to wrap it around his own heart and covet it close, gifts-upon-gifts.

“Now who speaks nonsense, dearest-mine,” Steve teases, though he knows his eyes still glow with the world-craft of his birthing, its power awakened to press firm the truths deeper than his words: this man is all things, in Steve’s chest and in his blood and of his soul he is all things; “what wild notions you have, to think you are less the revelation,” he chides, and flips a thick tangle of Eddie’s hair to puncture the point before he leans close, catches Eddie’s hand again close to his chest to measure the significant in moments’-moving blood beneath:

“That you are less my heart entire.”

Truths. May well have been drawn in the roots of the world-tree at creation itself. And Eddie looks at him in such a way that he must, he must feel grasped and held to Steve’s heart under his palm, for the leaping and the drumming-divine that takes up its song through his chest as Eddie licks his lips and looks to Steve like he is unfathomable and immutable, like he is everything there is to be somehow; his eyes gleam bright and his lips part slow, near-worshipful:

“I love—“

And Steve leans to kiss him, to claim his lips and still his words, to keep them inside his lungs and deep near his heart because as much as Steve wishes them, he wishes nothing of what they may bind to, what they may be taken by Enchantment to mean: a debt. A claim. All that Steve strives with the whole of him to keep his dear one safe from: the dangerous edges that are axiomatic to all Fae is varied in their shape and magnitude; edges Eddie skirts by his nature, so fond of the risk to the point that it pricks often in Steve chest for fear, even as he knows he will never live to let harm visit upon this man, not a single curl upon his head will come to hurt under Steve’s eye, but this: this is not a mere hurt.

This is a sentence for all of time; a condemnation underscore in terms beyond forever. And he will not subject Eddie to such ruin; he would not leave such ends to this man who never needed to stake claim upon Steve to have the whole of him.

And Steve will never risk stealing the claim of eternity in return, no matter how his heart longs to hear those words.

“Sunlight hastens,” Steve moves his lips against Eddie’s; breathes protection into him soft so that he knows love in the motion, but caution in what Steve has sealed back into his lungs: safe and unspoken, risking none of the radiant humanity in Eddie’s precious veins as he cups that dear-held cheek:

“Hasten in kind, beloved.”

Until next, indeed.

✨ part ii: here✨

✨ ao3 link here

permanent tag list (comment to be added): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson

💜

divider credit here

[sidekick-hero]

Let’s get it on (if you believe in love)

(steddie | explicit | 1.9k | @steddie-week | prompt: established relationship | AO3)

Steve feels eyes watching him, their gaze heavy on his skin as if stepping through velvet curtains. And sure enough, when he turns his head, his eyes find Eddie's across the room. They look dark, hungry, even from where Steve is standing a few feet away from him.

It reminds him of the first time their eyes met, the heat that pools in his belly is still the same, even after years and years and years of feeling those eyes on him. To be wanted by Eddie, loved by Eddie, still excites him.

"Earth to Steve. Did you hear any of what I just said?"

Robin snaps her fingers in front of his face, and he reluctantly pulls his eyes away from his husband - his husband - to his best friend and platonic soul mate.

"Huh?" he blinks, trying to piece together what she just asked him, "Of course I heard you, Robs."

She doesn't look impressed by his answer, but then her face softens. He sees her own eyes go to where Nancy is talking to Joyce at the bar for a moment before going back to Steve and she rolls her eyes at him, but her mouth smiles, fond and exasperated.

"Go over to him, I know you want to."

Steve smiles, presses a quick kiss to her cheek and tells her, "Thanks, Robs," before turning to do just that. As he starts to walk away, he hears her muttering to herself, "Jesus, I hope Nance and I aren't that bad," and he shakes his head fondly. They are, but he doesn't call her on it. He's a good best friend after all.

Eddie watches him approach, body still but eyes reaching for him, pulling him in, and Steve goes willingly. He doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms around Eddie's neck when he reaches him and presses his lips against his husband's.

He hums and opens his mouth, letting Steve slide his tongue in, oblivious to the room full of friends and family. They all know how Steve and Eddie are around each other, learned years ago to look the other way because Eddie doesn't care who sees how much he loves having Steve in his arms. It's one of the things that Steve has fallen for the most, the way Eddie never allows even the slightest doubt about his devotion to Steve.

The world around them fades away and it's just them in the room as they lose themselves in each other and Steve never wants this moment to end. He's so grateful that the universe gave him this, gave him Eddie and allowed Steve to keep him, that he has to pull back, has to look into those loving eyes and tell him.

Eddie beats him to it.

He bumps Steve's nose with his own, dimpled smile and all, and whispers in the liminal space between them, "Hi." It sounds like I love you.

"Hi." I love you, too.

"And how are we feeling this fine evening, Mr. Munson?" Eddie asks him and a shiver runs down Steve's spine at the way Eddie's tongue curls around the words Mr. Munson. He's never felt more thoroughly owned and the waves of desire that always dance along the shores of his self-control when he's near Eddie come crashing down like a tsunami, flooding everything in its path.

"Desperate for you to come down my throat."

Eddie makes a sound like he's dying, groaning deep in his throat, his hands gripping Steve's biceps as if he's afraid he'll topple over without the support. Steve licks his lips and smiles when he sees Eddie's eyes, wide with lust, following the movement.

"We're at a wedding reception, Steve. Our wedding reception. People will notice we're gone."

Steve shifts so that his body shields Eddie from view before he moves his hand to Eddie's dick, already half hard in his tailored tuxedo, and rubs the head with his palm.

"Better make it quick then, huh? Think I can break my record?"

Eddie catches his hand and pulls it away from his dick, but not before Steve feels it twitch at his words. He knows what it is that gets Eddie going, and the way Eddie uses the same hand to drag him out of the reception hall and down the corridor to a broom closet proves him right. Opening the door, Eddie pushes Steve inside hastily before following right behind him, closing the door as he does so.

Steve is on him as soon as he hears the latch close.

"You want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid, sweetheart." Eddie pants, his hands roaming Steve's back as Steve sucks what will be an impressive hickey into the pale skin of Eddie's neck.

"Shut up. We're fucking married, you dork, I think it's obvious I wanna fuck you," Steve tells him before apologetically licking the bruised skin, having gotten a little carried away.

He's surprised when hands frame his face and pull him away from Eddie's neck. It's dark in the closet, just a sliver of light shining through a small crack at the bottom of the door. It's enough to see Eddie's eyes go wide.

His voice is filled with wonder when he says, "We're married," as if he still can't believe it, as if he's floored by the thought. Too good to be true. Steve knows the feeling.

He kisses Eddie's nose, then his cheek and lips, before dragging his open mouth over the other cheek to his ear and purring into it, "We're married." He pauses, letting the words sink in between them before continuing. "And I really wanna blow my husband, if you don't mind."

With that, he sinks to his knees and works Eddie's button and fly open. He reaches into the black briefs and pulls out the hard flesh, licking his lips again at the slippery feel of the head already dripping with pre-cum. Steve hums, a deep rumble in his chest as if he's been starving and is presented with his favorite meal, ready to be devoured.

"Don't mind if I do," he mumbles, mostly to himself, before bringing the thick head to his lips and painting them with the dripping pre-cum. Above him, Eddie curses, the sound muffled by his own hand. Steve knows they have to be quiet, because even though he's sure at least some of their friends like Robin and Nance can guess what they're up to, and will even know when they see the massive hickey on Eddie's neck, it's still different than catching them in the act.

That doesn't stop him from doing the one move he knows will make Eddie scream.

He opens his mouth, suckling on the head for a bit to lull Eddie into a false sense of security before suddenly flattening his tongue and sliding his mouth down Eddie's dick in one smooth glide, opening his throat as much as he can. He feels it flutter around the sudden intrusion and knows from personal experience how fucking good that feels.

The choking sounds in the cramped closet are no longer coming from him alone, for Eddie, trying to stifle his moans and whimpers by swallowing them convulsively, is choking in his efforts to be quiet. Steve gagged on Eddie in sympathy, swallowing around the hot flesh in his throat, feeling already dizzy from the lack of oxygen in his lungs.

As much in tune with him as ever, Eddie notices. He cups Steve's face in his hands and slowly pulls him away, telling him to "breathe, love, breathe for me," and when Steve does, he uses his hold on Steve's head to pull him back in and feed his dick into Steve's mouth again.

This time he doesn't take Eddie to the root. Instead, he starts bobbing his head, the copious amounts of spit and pre-cum slicking the way and making for an easy glide. His tongue drags along the pulsing flesh with every up and down, sometimes flat, sometimes the tip tracing the thick vein on the underside. With every other stroke, his tongue also circles the head, teasingly dipping into the slit before Steve's mouth engulfs him once more.

Steve is achingly hard, his length pressed against the cool metal of his zipper, having decided to forgo his underwear today and go commando. It's supposed to be a surprise for Eddie when they get to their wedding night, but of course they never get that far before pouncing on each other. He can feel how close Eddie is already, and the choking sounds coming from him, combined with the familiar weight of Eddie on his tongue, have Steve on edge as well.

It's easy to undo the button of his pants with one hand while his other strokes the parts of Eddie's length his mouth can't reach, a practiced move after too many hasty make out sessions in public places like this. They both revel in the thrill of it, the hunger and desperation, the dirty way they have to get each other off as fast as possible, the constant threat of someone catching them. It's intoxicating. They never last long.

He dips his hand into his pants and pulls himself free before jerking off with quick strokes, his grip almost painfully tight, the glide only aided by the pre-cum he gathers. It's too dry, too rough, and Steve feels his orgasms come crashing down on him out of nowhere. He moans helplessly, his whole body jerking with it as the aftershocks rip through him.

"Fuck, Steve, did you just -" Eddie asks, his voice raw, as if the sounds of his desire had grown talons and clawed at his throat every time he swallowed them.

Steve whimpers, still stuffed with Eddie's dick, his mouth as slack as the rest of him as he comes down from his climax, feeling spit and pre-cum spill from beneath his lips. He can't feel his body, he's floating above it, and with a Herculean effort he grabs Eddie's hand and brings it to the back of his head.

Asking Eddie to do what he cannot finish.

"You sure?"

Another whimper, more pleading this time, and Eddie takes it for what it is. Please, take it. Make me yours. I want it.

Holding Steve in place with a hand gripping the hair at the back of Steve's head, he begins fucking in and out of Steve's mouth while Steve grips his thighs and holds on for the ride. It doesn't take long, it never does when Steve gives himself up like this, and soon Eddie is spilling down his waiting throat. Eddie holds him down, his other hand at Steve's mouth to catch the spilling fluids before they can stain his tuxedo.

Only when his hips are finally still does Eddie slip out of Steve's mouth, his hand catching more of the cum Steve hasn't been able to swallow, and Steve feels rather than sees him wipe it on the wall where Steve is sure will be a disgusting stain later. That's his husband, thoughtful and caring to the people he loves, but also a fucking menace to society.

Point in case, as said husband pulls him up against himself and carefully tucks him back into pants.

"Going commando, huh?"

"Wanted to surprise you on our wedding night. So much for that."

Eddie kisses him lightly and nuzzles his cheek.

"Darling, you surprise me every day in a million different ways. Giving me the honor of being your husband is just one of them."

The all-consuming heat in his belly turns to the warmth of a hot cup of cocoa, the warmth of a cozy blanket on a freezing winter's day, the warmth of home.

"You're such a sap."

"Well, you married that sap, which makes me your sap."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, Mr. Munson."

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

Big shoutout to my dearest @yournowheregirl for the idea and to my platonic writing soulmate @legitcookie for her awesome cheerleading and sleep analyzing skills 💜

[formosusiniquis]

WIP Weekend

I wasn't officially tagged by anyone this week, but I have got to get some work done this weekend so I'm jumping in!

The Rules:

In a reblog (or a new post w/ rules attached) post up to five (5) file names of your wips. Not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to post!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can’t share from (for example, an event fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. If you tag me in your post, I will send you an ask request!

The WIP:

Labyrinth AU (Steddie Bang)

And that's it, just the one it's the illusion of choice. Snippet and a tag list below the cut

She mutters something into the feathered crown of the bird that isn’t his. Something that sounds like it ends in ‘so fucking stupid’ but deciphering the what becomes a lot less important when she asks, “Do you want to see where he’ll be recuperating?”

“Yeah! Can I?” his fingers tap the desk in a rhythm he can’t place, nervous energy expending out of himself and into this weird liminal space. Dart had been a stray and Ma had saved Mews from the Walmart parking lot; they'd never adopted anything that hadn’t made its way to them first. He is his own third example that proves the Munson way.

Maybe all animal shelters were like this. Large empty lobbies with big desks that block off access to their single mysterious doors. Buildings that weren’t concerned with things like electricity bills, the air on high enough that it’s got every hair on Eddie’s body currently standing on end: goosebumps down his arms, the hair at the back of his neck is on end.

“Great,” she smiles. There’s something off putting about it, like the mouth that she’s got doesn’t fit right on her face. A grin cut out of a magazine and pasted on a different picture.

No pressure tags: @cauldronoflove, @augustjustice, @eriquin, @aparticularbandit, @lingeringmirth, @sevenmerrymagpies, @fuctacles, @adhdavinci + anyone else who is looking for an excuse to be productive

[ecrivainsolitaire]

The Steddie fandom seems to be doing the Wandavision plot to Stranger Things where all fanon exists in a sort of liminal genre-shifted limbo that the characters are trapped in as a sort of coping mechanism to avoid dealing with the death of [REDACTED].

[fastcardotmp3]

.ficlets

[back to main masterlist]

I've written so many ficlets and blurbs etc for these little weirdos that I could never find again once I posted them, so here's all of (what I could find) in one place! (mostly for my own organization and sanity, but hey, you can use it too mwah!) full-length fic masterlist meta and analysis masterlist ao3

Platonic and/or Pre-Slash

the Munsons' Indy 500 tradition

Max & the Munson family

Uncle Eddie

Spider-Eddie AU

Music Industry Stobin meet Tour Journalist Eddie

He's been here before, he'll be here again

Nancy & Eddie pre-S3 meeting

"The Bear" AU

Nancy & Barb "When your best friend dies young..."

Nancy "Comphet" Wheeler goes to a gay bar

Nancy & Eddie & Barb

Jonathan & El sibling bonding

Robin's second coming out

TLOU inspired apocalypse AU

Truman Show inspired AU

Steve & Barb reunion

college radio AU

The West Wing AU

Conspiracy Theorist outsider POV

Steve & Nancy: Adventurers

Nancy & Mike: No More Secrets

Stobin on the run

Nancy & Eddie: Christmas at the cemetery

Liminal space: Robin, gas station on a long mountain road

Ronance

Ronance meets Immortality (part 2 here)

Ronance Letters AU

Kiki's Delivery Service AU

fool's gold

Good Omens AU

Generational listening

Horror Filmmaker!Nancy

Childhood Friends AU - Femslash Week 1

Getting together at the wrong time (and then the right time) - Femslash Week 2

Steddie

One-Hit Wonder Eddie

the beauty of a steddie slow burn

Steddie non-soulmate soulmate AU

post-S4 memory-wipe AU

Steddie New Years Eve traditions

beauty and tragedy

pre-S4 Steddie, but Eddie still dies

Gilmore Girls AU

Model!Steve

Graphic Novelist!Eddie

Russian Doll AU

here we go again (microfic challenge, July)

butter cake (microfic challenge, August)

wildfire (microfic challenge, September)

more for your money (microfic challenge, October)

rest stop (microfic challenge, November)

fluke (microfic challenge, December)

Guts

long haul trucker Eddie comes home

Dancer!Steve AU

Jargyle

Jargyle and the mortifying joy of Being Seen

Stonathan

How could you think, darlin', I'd scare so easily?

Wheelingham

Wheelingham S3 AU/ Chrissy candy striper AU

Chrissy Comes Back Wrong (1)

Chrissy Comes Back Wrong (2)

post-S2 AU

S4 AU Secret Relationship - Femslash Week 3

[berenwrites]

Whole New Us - Chapter Listing - Stranger Things - Steddie - COMPLETE

Whole New Us: Trauma Bonded and Beyond

Summary: Steve has been ignoring his own problems, he’s been busy. They’ve all been busy, preoccupied with fixing everything that was broken. Vecna has been defeated, but the Upside Down is still there, and the gates are not completely closed even though Hawkins has almost returned to normal. It’s been a couple of months and the aftereffects of Steve’s encounter with the demobats is about to come back to bite him. However, it also brings some unexpected hope.

Pairing: steddie (Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson)

Relationships: Steve & Robin, Steve & Dustin, Eddie & Dustin

Rating: Teen (with mature content in a few chapters)

A/N: Thank you to my beta for all her hard work, and thank you to everyone who has read/liked/reblogged/commented on the story.

Whole fic on AO3 

Chapters on Tumblr

Slow and Steady

What is Happening?

Full Disclosure

Going In

Home?

Battle Form

Together We Stand or Sit of Lie or Whatever!

Liminal Times

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Confessions

Friends

Never Alone

Secret Places

None Left Behind

Superpower Unlocked

You Scratch My Back...

Home Sweet Home

Back to the Grind

Just About Perfect

Unexpected Truth

Brighter Dawn

Kind of Weird

Repercussions

Into the Light

Chapter 25 An End & A Beginning (Mature Version)

Chapter 25 An End & A Beginning (Fade to black Version)

[desertpersephone]

Writing Patterns

tagged by no one, I just wanted to do it.

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

blue swallow motel, room 14, 7pm. hope to see you there, secret agent.

M, 3k, marmalade | bathing/washing, conversations

“So what was real?” Steam swirled around the tiny bathroom, and Otis’ toes curled into the fuzzy bath mat thrown down on tile that maybe at one point was white. Now the grout was gray and the tiles were tan and the bathmat was that old kind. The kind grannies have, the itchy kind, and he figured whoever had picked it must have thought it made the bathroom look homey.

He Peels An Orange And I Eat The Fruit On My Knees

E, 7.3k, steddie | valentines exchange, baker steve

There was something special about the early morning. It was quiet, but not quiet in the way that the evening was quiet, not quiet in the way an empty house was quiet. It was its very own kind of quiet. Almost peaceful, hazy and glowing with pre-dawn light. It had some kind of liminal feeling, both day and night or sleep and wakefulness. It was special. Except that waking up early also sucked absolute balls.

syrup sweet and lonesome

E, 17k, steddie | christmas exchange, subspace

The distant sound of cars echoed into the alley, and the frigid air of Indianapolis in the winter started to soak into his bones like cheap brandy. Steve kind of wished he had some cheap brandy to chase it away, to stoke the dying heat in his chest. With brick of questionable cleanness and graffiti against his back, Steve puffed out a lungful of smoke and stared at the phone in his hand again.

I had a feeling that I belonged. I had a feeling I could be someone.

E, 3k, 9-1-1 | eddie diaz character study, fatherhood

The day she tells him feels like the worst day of his life. Something forms in his chest. Tight. Maybe it's the worst day of their lives. She's supposed to go to college, got in at UT in Austin, and the fall semester starts in just a few weeks, and Eddie was going to put some hours in at his dad's company, and then he was going to move to Austin to be with her in a year, and they were going to start their lives — and now Shannon was telling him she was pregnant.

add salt to taste

T, 1.5k, 1/?, steddie | personal chef steve, rockstar eddie

The kitchen was so much quieter than the ones Steve had worked in before. There was no yelling, no work chatter, no fryer, no vents, no water boiling over. The only sizzling came from the one pan he had on the front burner, hot oil welcoming as he lay a nice fillet of catfish skin side down. He could feel eyes on his back, monitoring his process, making sure he actually knew what the fuck he was doing.

we're here tonight, and that's enough

G, 3.5k, steddie | christmas exchange, hard of hearing steve, steddie as dads

Snow fell outside, dimly visible as it reflected the streetlights, the heavy blanket of quiet already starting to enrapture the neighborhood. Eddie always swore he could hear it, when it was landing thick and soft on Steve’s rose bushes under the front window, or on the steps he would shovel for his husband in the morning, or on the plastic slide of the backyard play structure. But right now all he could hear was the quiet Christmas music coming from the living room stereo, echoing gently through the warm house.

Becoming. . .

G, 1.3k, stranger things | spiderman orgin story, spider!steve

Steve Harrington had never liked spiders. Of all the bugs in the world, they were the worst. He didn't really like any bugs — maybe rolly pollies or butterflies, but most of the rest? Awful. And spiders gave him the heebeejeebees.

THESE HANDS ARE GROWING COLD THEY'RE RUNNING OUT OF THINGS TO HOLD

G, 1.8k, stranger things | steve harrington character study, crochet, grief

Steve was intimately familiar with the emergency room at Hawkins Memorial by now. Even more familiar with the long, quiet halls of the nuero wing, with its big, private rooms. The rest of the hospital he knew from growing up there, being relegated to the doctors' lounge or the surgical waiting room when his parents couldn't find a babysitter, or when his mom was supposed to be off work and instead came to loiter around the hospital in hopes of snagging a new case.

rotting like a wreck on the ocean floor

T, 2.7k, 2/7, steddie | merman steve harrington, modern au

The beach after a storm was the best place in the world. There was a strange quiet to the sand and the mystery of what had been blown ashore; logs and ropes, chunks of debris lost at sea, shells and bottles and moon jellies. Eddie had developed quite a fondness for the beach after a storm, to the point that he would get up while his uncle was still sleeping to walk down the short trek to the beach and poke around. Sometimes he would find treasures -- and sometimes he would find trash.

i have never known peace like the damp grass that yields to me

M, 3.3k, the witcher | original character backstory, wounds and amputation

Oberyn hated taking monster contracts. He had always found that there was never enough coin on the other side, and more often than not they were either far too easy — and thusly boring — or too much effort for that little bit of coin. Humans just wanted him to be an exterminator, to come in and clean up their pests, with no understanding of the training that went in to being a witcher.

God I really like to Set the Scene don't I? I like people to Feel where we're meeting our characters before actually being introduced to the plot. Even in my smutty oneshots am taking you on a visual journey. Or I try at least.

[flowercrowngods]

@steddie-week

part 1 (bc this is one big 7 part story)

day 02: bittersweet & angst

1 new message

eddie The Problem munson: engagement party on saturday babyyyy 🥳🥸🕺

Steve’s been staring at the message for two days now. It's sitting in his notifications, staring at him like a painful reminder of what happened exactly seven days ago. A week. It's only been a week, and Steve somehow it feels like it was both only one day or seven months ago.

It's an almost liminal experience, walking through life without texting Eddie every second of the day – because texting him would mean opening his message. It would make this real.

And that's the last thing Steve wants.

"I'm not going," Robin declares as they're cuddling on the couch, wallowing in their misery as Mayday Parade's Oh Well, Oh Well is playing for the eighth time on repeat. "Tell me you're not going, Stevie."

"Robbie," he sighs, squeezing her tighter as she tries to wriggle out of his arms to glare at him.

"Steve."

"I can't not go."

"Yes you can." She pokes him in the ribs, but he doesn't budge. She pokes him again. "Not going to things is literally the easiest thing in the world. It's a hundred times easier than going to things. You should try it sometime, trust me. You go to too many things, and–"

"Bee," he hums to get her out of the rambling spiral before she can get lost in it.

"What I'm saying," he interrupts herself dramatically, "is that you can't do this to yourself. They're engaged. They're getting married. We're going to keep our distance until our brains and hearts and the traitorous little chemicals in our bodies catch up to reality, and then we get over them, and then we can go back and see them ever again. That's the logical thing to do, Steve. But you can't... You can't just go and get your heart broken and talk yourself into thinking it's the right thing to do. It's not."

Steve sighs into her hair and buries his face in her neck. He knows that. Technically, logically, he does.

But not going feels wrong. Wronger than anything else that's been hollowing out his chest and leaving nothing but emptiness and the ghosts of every smile, every touch, every baby, love, sweetheart, sunshine. Every imaginary future, every scenario where Eddie meant it. Meant those words, meant those smiles, meant it when he took Steve's hand to hold it.

But Eddie did mean it. Every time, he meant it; because he calls Argyle and Jeff and Gareth baby and sunshine and sweetheart, too. He takes their hands, too, leans in to kiss their cheeks and just holds them when he needs to. That's just the kind of person Eddie is. Always has been.

To go and assume he never meant it would be unfair.

To go and hope it could ever mean more when Chrissy has always been right there would just be stupid.

Well, good thing Steve has that kind of reputation with a few people anyway, so it's not even a statistical outlier, that one. It's not even worth a side note.

"I know," he rasps, his eyes beginning to sting as the next lyrics are carved into the empty space of where his heart used to be.

Oh well, oh well I can't live with myself As I'm climbing in your window to get to your bed.

And I'll be what you need, You can call me anything. Just as long as we're still friends.

Tears prickle in his eyes and he doesn't bother to hold them back. Not now, not with Robin. They've both been crying on and off all week, even though Robin took it better than him.

"I know," he sobs, wrapping his arms around her even tighter as she lets herself be held because she knows that's what he needs. "I know, I know, I know. But I have to. I can't just... I can't just stop, Bee."

"I know," she sighs, climbing out of his hold eventually to wrap her arms around him in return as he cries into her shoulder.

The world (read: his Spotify playlist) makes it worse by playing Sum 41's With Me next, ripping out even the newly carved words.

Robin holds him for the rest of the night, even as he finally opens Eddie's message and types out a reply.

—I'll come!

And especially when there's a new message immediately.

—hot 🥵❤️

He leaves Eddie on read after that.

~*~

Saturday rolls around in a haze, and suddenly Steve finds himself looking at the front door of the little house Chrissy inherited after her mother passed a few years ago. It's a nice little house. Quaint. Perfect. Everything Steve could ever dream of, actually. And she deserves it. All of this and more.

There's noise coming from the garden, where people are laughing and having a great time. A happy time, celebrating their friends and all the good things in life that come with a love well placed.

God, what is he doing here? He can't do this. There is no way.

He's just about to pull out his phone and call Robin, tell her he's coming home, or ask her to tell him everything's gonna be alright, when–

"Steve!" Chrissy hurries towards him, throwing her arms around him in a tight, warm, perfect hug. God, he loves her so much. He melts right into the embrace, wrapping his arms around her middle to spin her around with a grin.

She giggles in delight and tells him to let her down again, which only makes him spin for another round, his grin turning into a genuine laugh.

"No, I hate you!" she laughs, but still doesn't step away from him when he puts her down again. Instead, she leans up and brushes a kiss to his cheek. "Hi, asshole."

"Hi."

He grins and takes her hands in his, just smiling at her for another moment before his eyes trail down to a ring he's never seen her wear before. Ah. Right.

"Oh shit! That it?"

"That's it," Chrissy says, looking down at her hand to look at the ring with a fond, happy little smile, her cheeks flushing red. It breaks Steve a little, but it also fixes something inside him to see her so truly, genuinely happy. "Pretty huh?"

"Very," Steve breathes, hiding the lump in his throat with a sound of awe.

Chrissy hugs him again for good measure and then takes his hand to drag him into the backyard the same way she just came out front, through a little gate off to the side instead of through the house.

Steve loves their backyard because it's always covered in sheerly endless colourful strings of light that are wrapped around decorative arches or poles, framing the back doors and the canopy swing set on the lawn, and just give it the most homey and comfortable atmosphere.

"Stevie!" Eddie exclaims immediately and jumps off from his chair, interrupting a conversation he's apparently been having with Argyle and Nancy to run up to him with such a giddy expression that Steve wants to cry. His heart leaps in his chest, coming back to life and saying one last goodbye at the same time.

"Hi," he says, hugging Eddie close before he can so much as think about what he's doing. But no matter how hurt he is, there will never be a world in which he won't want to hug Eddie Munson. "Sorry I'm late."

"No sorries, it's fine," Eddie murmurs into his neck, staying in the embrace endlessly, and Steve takes the chance to breathe him in. He smells so good. So, so good. It clogs his lungs and renders him unable to speak.

But who needs to speak when they have Eddie in their arms? Who needs to speak when all they have to do is never let go?

Eddie squeezes him a little tighter, and Steve wants to cry. He slowly, gently pushes away from the hug and turns towards the other guests, greeting them with a grin, a hug, or a handshake if they're not familiar.

When he gets to Wayne, the man eyes him with a look that Steve doesn't want to read too much, and his embrace is just a little longer, just a little stronger than usual.

“You look tired, son,” he says by way of greeting, and Steve can’t help but snort and shake his head a little.

“Good to see you again, too, old man.”

Wayne eyes him for one moment longer, then breaks into a small smile and pats Steve’s shoulder before stepping around him to go grab another drink.

After that, the night passes in a blur of talking to his friends, trying to understand what the hell it is that has Nancy and Argyle arguing so profusely, but with smiles on their faces. He fails. But it’s good to see them again, so he just basks in it for a while.

Or, he tries, because every second that he’s not talking or listening to someone, his eyes flick back to Eddie. Eddie, who’s lifting Chrissy from behind and smacking a loud, wet kiss to her neck, her jaw and her cheek, accompanied by her delighted squeals and laughter.

Eddie, who’s looking larger than life, a happy grin permanently plastered on his face as he reminds their guests that Chrissy was his bisexual awakening.

“I swear, she just swept me off my feet after years of thinking I was only into dudes. Knew I had to marry her, but man, I don’t know why she said yes.”

“I’m settling, honey,” Chrissy calls from the other end of the table they’re sitting around. “Only in it for that rockstar money and all.”

The whole table laughs at that.

“Hear, hear,” Eddie snorts, lifting his glass in a toast. Steve and the others lift theirs, too, even though Steve’s hand and arm and whole body feels numb and he’s not entirely sure he’s breathing.

A while later, he grabs a drink and retreats to the canopy swing, illuminated in the soft pink flow of the fairy lights wrapped around it. Eddie’s eyes land on him for a second and Steve thinks that he’ll come over and join him — but then one of Chrissy’s friends says something that distracts him and seemingly makes him fall into a monologue of sorts.

Steve watches, feeling only loss and longing as he does. Eddie is a force of nature. A spectacle. Something beautiful, something powerful, something secret that only a select few get to witness. To know. To appreciate.

Staring as he is, blind to the rest of the world, he startles a little when the swing jostles with another weight settling on it. He didn’t see Wayne coming to join him, and he’s not quite sure whether he should be grateful for the company or apprehensive of what the man who’s like a father to him might have to say.

“How are you doing, son?”

He frowns. “I’m alright.”

Wayne only hums, and Steve’s frown deepens. There’s a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that tells him Wayne knows something. That he knows.

“Y’know,” he continues after a while, not looking at Steve but rather at his nephew and his fiancée. “I always figured it would be you.”

Steve crumbles. Yeah, me too, he wants to say, but that would be a lie. Watching the way Chrissy sits on Eddie’s lap with his arms around her, his chin on her shoulder as he tells her something that makes her laugh that cute, pretty, adorable laugh that Eddie then can’t help but join — that’s just something Steve would never compare to. Nothing he’d ever want to come in between.

Eddie and Chrissy are perfect. They’re happy. They fit, they match, they work. They worked so hard and treat each other so right.

They look giddy and serene at the same time, and it makes Steve’s eyes sting. Because he can never make Eddie look like that. He can never make Eddie look at him like that.

I always figured it would be you.

But he couldn’t. That bubbly kind of love, the sunshine kind of love. He knows that’s not for him. Steve’s too much for that. He would never be enough for Eddie — even if without Eddie, there’s nothing left of him.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Wayne continues, unaware of Steve’s thought spiral. “I love that girl, I do. Always will. I think she’s too good for Eddie. Don’t tell him I said that,” he adds hastily, and Steve smiles through the tears that threaten to fall again.

“They’re perfect,” he rasps, laughing wetly as Chrissy starts chasing Eddie, who’s hiding behind a very distressed Argyle, who just wants his brochachos to chill!

Maybe it’s a laugh, maybe it’s a sob. He doesn’t have it in him to find out or care.

“They are. Doesn’t mean they’re right, son.”

Steve sighs and tears his eyes away from Eddie. “Wayne.”

“I know, I know.” He lifts his hands in defence. “Shutting up.” After a long pause of holding Steve’s eyes, he asks, “Will you be okay?”

No, he thinks immediately, the lump in his throat too big to say anything. So he just shrugs and swallows. “Sure.”

Maybe. Hardly. Probably not. Definitely not.

"No matter what happens, you'll always be a son to me. You’ll always have a home with an open door with me, you hear me?"

"I’m not going anywhere, wayne," Steve says, though for the first time ever he doesn't really believe that. Maybe he needs to leave. To leave Eddie behind. Get over him. Cut out his heart and leave it here, run away to heal somewhere else, come back as a new person, or just stay away forever.

The thought makes a tear spill as an empty kind of desperation spreads it’s ugly wings inside his chest, and he's too frozen to wipe it away.

"You hear me?" Wayne repeats, gentler this time, but no less urgent for it.

"Yeah," steve rasps. "Thanks."

Another tear falls as Eddie gently pulls Chrissy closer to him and kisses her in the soft glow of the fairy lights above and around them. Their friends cheer. Steve wants to cry his heart out again.

“I—“ he swallows, wiping at his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. I can’t do this, he wants to say. For the first time, that’s what he wants to say. “I think I’m gonna head home soon.”

“You bring your car?”

He shakes his head, feeling foggy and dazed and empty and endlessly, endlessly sad. “Was gonna, uh—“

“Let me drive you.” There’s no room for debate or argument there, and Steve wants to crumble again, but still he shakes his head.

“Wayne, no—“

“I’m taking you, son. Make sure you get home safe, or I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Don’t wanna keep your old man up all night, do ya?”

Steve concedes with a fond eye roll and a grateful smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“That’s what I thought.”

They sit like that for another ten minutes — and if Steve leans into Wayne’s side a little, then that’s nobody’s business but theirs.

The car ride is quiet, but it feels weighted even as Wayne pretends not to see the way Steve keeps wiping at his cheeks as the silent tears keep falling, leaving him powerless to stop them.

I can’t do this, he keeps thinking over and over again.

“Just a little warning,” Wayne speaks up again as he pulls up to Steve’s building. “I think he’s going to ask you to be his best man, Stevie. Don’t do anything you’re not ready for, okay?”

I can’t do this.

He nods, numb again.

“I’ll do anything for him,” he breathes.

“That’s what I’m afraid of, yeah.”

He gets out of the car before he can find out what exactly Wayne means by that. The car stays where it is until the front door closes behind him, until he’s up in his bedroom and finds Robin already asleep.

Ten minutes later, he cuddles close to her and tries hard not to cry, but tonight’s memories have burned themselves into his mind. And he shouldn’t have gone. He knows. He knows.

I’ll do anything. I can’t do this. I’ll do anything. I can’t do this.

He can’t breathe, and Robin holds him through it, whispering sleepily to him as he cries himself to sleep, wishing for a world where he’s not absolutely and utterly in love with Eddie Munson, but failing to imagine one.

I’ll do anything. Anything but this.

tagging: @sexymothmanincarnate @mcneen come back tomorrow for idk which prompt | read part 3 here

[stobinesque]

A part of why I ended up writing phryctoria is because I've read so many Steddie fics that double as coming out fics, and while I love many of them, and have absolutely no issues with it as a setup, the more I encounter it the more I end up thinking about my own self discovery process and I start to feel alienated from that kind of arc. Because if my first gay crush had liked me back I think that would have ended up being super stressful! Coming to terms with being who you are can be really messy and overwhelming and trying to also be in a relationship at the same time would be so, so tricky. And I do love both the fics that explore that, and the fics that kind of handwave it away. But it does make me crave a story where Steve gets to go through all that messy (and sometimes fun!) self discovery with support along the way (Robin).

In this fic I am writing Steve as a gay man, because I don't see that characterization for him explored all too often. But there's been a few posts recently about how bi!Steve almost doesn't read as bi in many fics, and I think it might actually tie back into the trend of having Steve realize he's queer because of a crush who is also the love interest for the fic—I think people end up marrying two things together when they do this: the romantic trope of "The One," and an attempt at exploring compulsory heterosexuality.

Comphet absolutely affects bi people, and can be a big part of why it takes some bi people a while to recognize their attraction for what it was. (This I think being the source of a lot of bi!Steve set-ups where he genuinely doesn't know it's an option available to him.) For me, I kiiiind of knew I was attracted to girls, but I didn't really notice because there just... wasn't any avenue to explore it. I was attracted to boys and had crushes on them, so I could easily engage in straight society and even if I found the occasional girl pretty, it took a whole lot to break through the noise. Even after knowing I was sexually attracted to women, it still took having an IRL crush to really internalize the fact that I was queer. But that wasn't because the girl I had a crush on was prettier or more awesome than any guy I'd had a crush on. She just happened to be the first person to break through the straight noise.

So when the first boy to break through Steve's straight noise is also the love interest of the story being written, people often end up writing a Steve who is pretty dismissive of his sexual/romantic history with girls. I don't think any of this is intentional: I think writers fall back on typical romance tropes of the love interest being singularly Made For the hero. But instead that gets mixed up with the comphet exploration, and it can result in a Steve who is not-quite-gay but also not-really-bi, because there isn't actually an exploration of Steve's bisexuality, it's an exploration of his attraction to men (or, more accurately, to one man).

And to pull in the biphobia aspect: I think people really just don't know how to write bisexuality (unless they're also writing polyamory). It's a bit taboo for characters in romance stories to discuss their attraction to people who aren't the love interest, so despite the fact that basically everyone I know that's in a (monogamous) relationship still talks about their attractions to other people pretty consistently, in fic you don't really see bi characters talking to other people about people they find attractive or even really thinking about their attraction within their own head. So Steve can only be bi because we know he has a history of sleeping with women—but we also know that outside of Nancy, none of those became meaningful romantic connections. So he exists in this weird liminal space where he can't be gay (because obviously a womanizer such as himself can't be), but he also can't really be bi (because his attraction to women isn't romantic enough). And if that's not the quintessential bi experience I don't know what is 🙃.

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (12-18 Mar 2023)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🥰👂‍The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (The Doomsday Books #1) (KJ Charles, author; Martyn Swain, narrator) - another knock out hit from KJC!!! I loved that most of the conflict was external - they had some shit to sort out but it was not drawn out excessively. Great sense of place. Really looking forward to the next book in the duology, but not because this one left me wanting. [audio narrator's voice was lovely-sounding but the pacing was TERRIBLE - very, very slow with drawn out pauses in the middle of sentences, just weird & annoying. I read it on 1.45x speed and it was just bearable but I mostly read it in text when I could]

🥰 All the Things Money Can't Buy series (Lys ap Adin (lysapadin)) - 62K series (45 main story, rest later vignettes) - Sheith modern sugar daddy AU, complete with a delicious 'snowed in together' section and a cute dog named Potroast 🐶

😊👂‍Death In Irish Accents (The Dublin Driver Mysteries #4) (Catie Murphy, author; Ruth Urquhart, narrator) - Megan just can't stay away from murders - literally opens with a body falling on Megan & her girlfriend while they are having coffee - absolutely love it!

😍Monoclonius (Zenaidamacrouras1) - 62K, stucky AU with single dad/environmentalist Steve & dino scientist Bucky - absolutely delightful, loved loved loved it to bits! Genuinely loved the OCs (including a very important stuffed trilobite; found family vibes off the charts (even outside of S&B)). Also there's a very decent amount of hot sex! THIS FIC HAS EVERYTHING.

😊👂‍Christmas at The Grange (Lady Hardcastle Mysteries #3.5) (T.E. Kinsey, author; Elizabeth Knowelden, narrator) - novella

💖💖 +70K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

Cross (lightgetsin) - Dresden Files: Dresden/Marcone, 33K - haven't read DF in years bc I'm well done with that canon but shout out to the inimitable @drunktuesdays, who threw this pairing onto my radar and 🤯🥵🤯🥵🤯

cybersex series (Adure) - Stranger Things: steddie, 7K - friends-to-accidental-sexters - short, sweet but super hot

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Ted Lasso - s1, e6-10; all season 2; s3, e1 [x2]

Maine Cabin Masters - s7, e10

Schitt's Creek - s2, e3

Dickenson - s1, e1-3

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Menus To Be Buried With - Judgement Day! • Comic Relief 2023

Richmond Til We Die: A Ted Lasso Podcast - I Love You Guys So Very Much ("Season 3 Preview")

Shedunnit - The Trials of Madeleine Smith

Desert Island Discs - David Sedaris, writer

⭐Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - Soundalikes

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Exploring the underworld with Jessica Leigh Hester

You're Dead To Me - Frederick Douglass

⭐Hit Parade Plus - Raise Your Glass Edition

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - NYC’s Most Beautiful Public Bathroom

Vibe Check - I Stand In Exhausted Solidarity

⭐99% Invisible #528 - A Whale-Oiled Machine

You Must Remember This - 1988: Kevin Costner, Sean Young, No Way Out & Bull Durham (Erotic 80s Part 11)

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Manuscript Writing Cafe

Welcome to Night Vale #224 - Liminal Spaces

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Blurred lines with Stacy Horn

⭐Switched on Pop - Modern Classics: Seal - Kiss From a Rose

Into It - Are We Into Tom Cruise Skipping the Oscars, Nancy Meyers, and M3GAN's Sartorial Debut?

Switched on Pop - Switches Brew

You're Dead To Me - The Columbian Exchange

It's Been a Minute - Silicon Valley Bank and the sordid history of 'Palo Alto'

⭐ICYMI Plus - Pedro Pascal Is the Internet’s Daddy

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Remixes

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

TRUSTFALL [P!nk] {2023}

P!nk

Carly Rae Jepsen

Little Freddie King

The Hamilton Instrumentals {2015}

[punkslovepoints]

What Happens at Comic Con Stays At Comic Con - Part 4/9 Pairing: Steddie (Stranger Things)

As he exited the bathroom and made his way his bed, Eddie felt Steve's eyes on him. He wasn't completely sure where they stood with each other. Their earlier moment had been well and truly broken by the arrival of the kids and they'd been dancing around each other since. He almost wanted to exist in that liminal space for a little longer, the thrill of the unknown. Less chance of heartbreak. Then Steve's hand reached out and grabbed his.

Steve agrees to take the kids to comic con. Eddie tags along. Feelings happen.

Steve and Eddie hook up during a weekend away but will they work out what they actually want before they have to head home?

Expect nerdy references, lots of flirting, plenty of pining, dorky Steve, fun tropes (trapped in a stairwell! couples costumes! road trip! sharing a bed!) and a wee bit of light angst.

[read the rest of the chapter on AO3]

[berenwrites]

Whole New Us Ch8 - Stranger Things - Steddie

Whole New Us: Trauma Bonded and Beyond

Also on AO3 | Or here CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 | CH5 | CH6 | CH7 | CH8 | CH9 | CH10 | CH11 | CH12 | CH13 | CH14 | CH15 | CH16 | CH17 | CH18 | CH19 | CH20 | CH21 | CH22 | CH23 | CH24 | CH25 (Mature) | CH25 (Fade to black) COMPLETE

Summary: Steve has been ignoring his own problems, he’s been busy. They’ve all been busy, preoccupied with fixing everything that was broken. Vecna has been defeated, but the Upside Down is still there, and the gates are not completely closed even though Hawkins has almost returned to normal. It’s been a couple of months and the aftereffects of Steve’s encounter with the demobats is about to come back to bite him. However, it also brings some unexpected hope.

Pairing: steddie (Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson)

Rating: Teen (with mature content in later chapters)

Chapter 8. Liminal Times

“How are you doing?” Steve asked when Eddie walked into the kitchen after seeing Wayne out.

Steve had let Eddie and Wayne have time alone, but what he had heard when it was time for Wayne to leave had made it more than obvious it was very hard for Eddie to let his uncle go. Steve would have invited Wayne to stay, but unfortunately, Wayne had to work, and Eddie couldn’t be seen by anyone yet, so that was how it had to be. They’d even decided that Wayne bringing over all of Eddie’s stuff might look too suspicious, so they were going to continue as they were for a little while and worry about details along the way.

“Out of my depth,” Eddie replied after a few moments silence.

“You and me both,” Steve agreed. “Everything’s good with your uncle though?”

Eddie nodded.

“He’s still there for me,” Eddie said, wandering in and sitting on one of the stools at the centre island. “He reminds me of my mom like that, always in my corner no matter what. My dad is a useless piece of shit, but my mom was an angel. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if she didn’t die.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve replied as his stomach twisted for his friend, “I didn’t know about that. Must have been hard.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed with a shrug, “but Wayne picked up the slack. I was even more of a mess than I am now when I got dumped on his doorstep.”

“You’re not a mess,” Steve countered.

“In case you forgot, local drug dealer with a satanic cult,” Eddie said immediately, giving him a look.

“You did what you had to to survive, and you had rules about dealing I have never heard a dealer having before, and only idiots think DnD is a cult,” he responded. “And yes, this town is full of idiots. You helped us save the fucking world, so do not sell yourself short.”

He surprised himself with his vehemence. From the look Eddie was giving him, Eddie was surprised too.

“Sorry,” he apologised, going back to making coffee.

“I didn’t realise you were so passionate about me,” Eddie replied, and he could hear the joke in the words.

He point-blank refused to blush at the teasing.

“I’m passionate about all my friends,” he said without turning. “No one’s going to give us credit for what we had to do, so we’re just going to have to do it among ourselves.”

“I kind of missed the actual world saving though,” Eddie said. “It’s all really hazy. For all I know I was on the other side.”

“You were there for the first half, El made it very clear she couldn’t have finished the bastard off without what we did first, the Upside Down had made him too strong. And I don’t think you were, on the other side I mean,” Steve said, flicking the switch on the coffee maker and moving to lean on the counter so he could see Eddie again.

“You think you would have known?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I didn’t start having the dreams until after El finished off Vecna, but if you’d been against us, I think I would have picked it up. And someone would have seen you. A lot of his minions died because of us, the shock of us taking him down in the Creel house finished them off. He had more waiting, but most of them were immature and the few demogorgons left he used as generals. I think he would have used you like that if he could have, so I don’t think that was an option.”

Eddie looked down at his hands, playing with his fingers almost as if there were still rings there. Where Eddie’s rings had ended up was anyone’s guess. Dustin had taken the necklace from Eddie’s body, but the rings had been lost after that. Eddie’s hand seemed kind of bare without them.

“What do I feel like to you?” Eddie finally asked.

“Right now?” Steve asked.

Eddie nodded.

“Hmmm, you’re like a fizz of energy at the back of my brain,” he decided after thinking about it for a few seconds. “I know you’re there, like the sun on my skin sitting by the pool, a comforting warmth that I don’t really notice until I think about it.”

“I don’t think anyone has compared me to comforting warmth before,” Eddie said, biting his lip. “More like buzzing annoyance. You’re warmth too, but you feel like calm. Not sure my brain is ever calm.”

“Not sure mine is very often,” Steve admitted, “but when I have a purpose, I get focused.”

“And I’m your purpose?” Eddie asked.

“At the moment, yeah,” he agreed, pushing off the work surface and walking over to the island. “I don’t do well without goals, that’s one thing my dad does get right about me. I almost flunked high school because all my goals got torpedoed by everything. I realised I just didn’t want what I’d been told to want anymore, and I completely lost focus.”

“That,” Eddie said, then paused, “that,” he went on, “is surprisingly deep, Stevie. Did you figure out your new goals yet?”

“Not really,” he replied. “Don’t think I can until the gates are fully closed for good and Hawkins is really safe.”

“Not even your six little nuggets and Nancy?” Eddie asked.

Steve laughed and shook his head.

“That was the end of the world talking,” he explained. “I backslid. I love Nancy, but not like that anymore. I’m not sure she and Jonathan are right for each other either, but they’ll have to figure that out for themselves when the Byers move back properly after the school year finishes for Will. Not my business.”

“Not what I expected you to say,” Eddie admitted.

“Just occasionally I can be self-aware,” he said with a grin.

“Awww, don’t go smashing all my preconceived notions about Steve “The Hair” Harrington,” Eddie complained in an over-dramatic fashion. “I’ll have to rearrange my whole world view.”

“Oh no,” Steve replied and put his hand over his heart, “whatever will you do? It’s not like you’ve had to deal with earth shattering discoveries like other dimensions and monsters or anything like that. Oh wait…”

Eddie’s laugh was like music to his ears. It was one of those full body laughs that Eddie seemed so good at, where every part of him seemed to be involved. Steve could bring his own form of dramatics to things at times, but he had yet to perfect such a reflection of enjoyment. The best he could manage was gently laughing along.

Of course, eventually the laughter died and he could see Eddie’s thoughts returning to more serious things.

“Does it bother you, this connection between us?” Eddie asked after a little while.

“No,” Steve replied without having to think about it, “but I would understand if it was bothering you.”

Eddie looked at him for a while, head on one side and tongue slightly poking out. It was utterly adorable, and Steve prayed he wasn’t blushing under the scrutiny.

“Why doesn’t it bother you?” Eddie asked. “You’re suddenly connected to someone you barely know. This doesn’t feel like something that’s going to go away.”

“I know enough,” he said. “I know you’re brave and loyal, you’re funny, talented, and fundamentally good. This,” he waved his hand between them, “is weird, but I’m not going to lie, it’s a damn sight easier having someone to go through it with that understands than if it was just me.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed after a couple of seconds of silence, more a breath than a full-on sound.

Eddie looked away and the coffee maker spluttered, distracting Steve for a moment. He went over to it to check because occasionally it did strange things ever since Dustin had used it for one of his experiments.

“I’m not brave,” Eddie said, drawing back his attention. “That … with the bats, was the first time I didn’t run.”

“When you’re outnumbered, the best thing is to run,” Steve disagreed, stepping back over to the island. “You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met and I’m not talking about all this Upside Down shit. You gather together the outcasts, the bullied, the freaks as you so delicately put it, and you protect them. You stand on tables and shout, and don’t think I don’t know that’s to keep the eyes on you and not them. That takes courage I never even remotely considered until I got some sense beaten into me by Jonathan fucking Byers.”

“Sometimes I stand on tables because otherwise it feels like my thoughts will explode out of my head unless I say them,” Eddie countered.

“Well then, if you ever feel the need, there’s a very expensive table in the other room that would probably benefit from some footmarks,” Steve said.

The tiny smile that that garnered from Eddie was worth all the breath it took to say it.

“Just for the record,” Eddie said, “I think you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met too.”

“Guess we get to be brave together then,” Steve responded. “Now, enough of the deep shit, do you have opinions on dinner?”

“Well,” Eddie said with a big grin.

~*~

Steve yawned, running his fingers through his hair as he realised he’d been dozing off in front of the TV. It had been just him and Eddie for the evening. Robin’s parents didn’t seem to mind how much time she spent with Steve since the whole earthquake and aftermath, but they did like to see their daughter every once in a while.

“Bed?” he asked, turning to where Eddie was clearly also nearly asleep on the other end of the couch.

“Don’t wanna move,” Eddie complained.

“Well, you can sleep here if you feel so moved, but your back with thank you for a nice comfortable mattress,” he replied.

“I am young and spry, I sniff at mattresses,” Eddie replied, but pushed himself up and away from the arm of the couch.

“I can tell, Grandpa,” Steve joked back.

Eddie’s outraged face was a picture.

“How dare you, Sir! I demand satisfaction,” Eddie declared, rising to his feet and drawing an imaginary sword.

“I think you forgot something,” Steve shot back, grinning.

“Another afront,” Eddie continued in equally dramatic fashion. “I shall not be moved, Sir, not until I have you at my mercy.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Steve said and ducked in under Eddie’s dramatically waving arms.

The screech could probably have been heard on the moon as Steve casually threw Eddie over his shoulder.

“Unhand me, Harrington,” Eddie yelled.

“Can’t let a guest put their back out,” Steve replied, keeping a good hold on Eddie’s wriggling form, “so I guess I’ll just have to carry you upstairs.”

“Jock bastard,” Eddie complained, but significantly stopped struggling. “How is it fair we both have superpowers, but you’re still stronger than me?”

“Life’s never fair,” Steve replied, heading for the staircase.

“You know, Harrington,” Eddie said as Steve put his foot on the first step, “if you’d wanted a damsel in distress, all you had to do was say.”

After which Eddie slapped him on the ass, hard. It took a huge effort of will not to react to that as his heart fluttered.

“Help, help, I’m being abducted,” Eddie cried in an outrageously bad Southern Belle impression.

“Just for that,” Steve responded and took the stairs two at a time, before throwing Eddie onto the bed in his room.

“Big boy, are you about to take advantage of sweet little me?” Eddie asked, face flushed and hiding behind his hair, even as he giggled.

“You wish,” Steve replied, laughing back no matter what thoughts that sent flashing through his brain.

Eddie had been through hell, Steve was supposed to be looking after him and making it weird would not help that at all.

“You disappoint me, Stevie,” Eddie said, sitting up on his elbows.

“You’re breaking my heart,” Steve joked back, walking into his ensuite.

He decided to brush his teeth while he pushed down his growing feelings for Eddie. Now was not the time.

“So, we sharing a bed again?” Eddie’s voice carried from the other room.

“Unless you want to take one of the spare rooms,” Steve replied, not wanting to push Eddie into anything he was uncomfortable with.

Nothing came back for a few moments.

“No, I’m good sleeping in here,” Eddie eventually said. “Don’t want to disturb you though. Not sure I’ll make it all through the night.”

“And you think I will?” Steve asked, sticking his head back into the other room. “I can count the number of times I’ve managed to sleep without, at minimum, weird dreams on one hand since the whole end of the world. I was just getting over last summer too, but Hawkins apparently loves retraumatising us.”

He went back to putting toothpaste on his toothbrush.

“Oh, and don’t be surprised if the phone rings in the middle of the night,” he added. “Robin will probably call at some point, or Dustin, but he’ll likely use the walkie.”

“You realise that people our age and younger should not have a need for these coping mechanisms, right?” Eddie asked and Steve looked up to find him standing in the doorway.

“Yeah,” he agreed and shrugged, “but that’s life in Hawkins, so we deal with it.”

Eddie was giving him one of those thoughtful looks again.

“You’re remarkable, Steve Harrington,” Eddie said eventually, “confusingly remarkable.”

Steve wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

End of Chapter 8

Chapter 9