#or the past

[thisapplepielife]

All Across the Universe: Chapter One

Rating: Eventual E | CW: Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence | Tags: Post-Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2, Canon Divergence, Eddie Munson Lives, Time Travel Fix-It, Blundering Through History, Platonic Stobin, Revolving Door of Characters, Mixed Media

limitless undying love, which shines around me like a million suns, it calls me on and on across the universe, Across the Universe, The Beatles

1987

Steve is comfortable on his back, laying against the trunk of his car, looking up at the night sky, when he sees a shooting star rush across the vastness of space. It was right there in front of him a second ago, and then gone in the blink of an eye. 

Like it maybe never existed at all.

It was pretty, the few moments he got to spend looking at it, and he wishes Robin could have seen it.

Hell, he wishes Eddie could have seen it. 

The last thing Eddie saw was that awful, bat-infested, red sky of the Upside Down, and that’s a fucking shame. Steve quickly thinks: I wish we'd had more time. I wish you'd gotten a different ending, a different life. I wish I could have fixed this. 

But he can't fix this. They didn't have more time. And Eddie barely got to live at all. They came up with a plan on the fly, a little too unprepared, and Eddie didn’t come home at the end of the night. And as much as Steve hates it, regrets it. That can't be undone. 

Steve can never unsee Eddie's body on the ground, can never unsee Dustin crouched over him, protectively. Dustin tried. Steve tried. Nancy tried. Robin tried. Nothing they did was gonna change it. 

Eddie was just gone, and they couldn’t fix that.

They were too late.

And it can't be fixed that the gates started closing before they figured out a way to bring him back through. To bring his body home. It's a regret Steve lives with every damn day. You don't leave a man behind, and he did exactly that. Against his will, maybe, but it still happened on his watch and he feels like that's on him. 

Robin was screaming, pulling on him. Trying desperately to drag him along with her, trying to get him to let go of Eddie's body. He didn't want to give up, and he was barely hearing Robin, or Nancy, as they were both yelling at him to come on, right now. Nancy kept turning her head, screaming at him, as she helped walk a limping Dustin towards the trailer. Steve thinks that Robin may not have been able to get him to stop trying to lift Eddie, if they hadn’t used Dustin as the reason he had to go, had to move. Now.

Something was happening, and it felt like the beginning of an earthquake. Small tremors, rolling under their feet. Steve stood, barely able to keep his balance. Taking one last look at Eddie, in apology. In sorrow. 

In regret, for what would never be. For Eddie. For any of them. 

Eddie had cut the sheet, and now Dustin needed help getting back up and through the gate, and the girls couldn’t do it alone. So, Steve went. Followed them, helped. Found a step stool and pushed each of them up through the gate, and back into the real world. 

He'd turned, and looked towards the door, considering. 

And Robin had been standing there, above him, crying. Begging him to just come through. Hand stretched out, holding the remnants of tied together sheets for him to grab. He stepped down one rung on the ladder, and she had shrieked at the same time the ground buckled, groaning, as it got ready to give way, and he grabbed a hold of the sheet, and pulled himself through. 

They crawled out of the trailer in the real world, just as it started to split, getting devoured by the fiery earth below. 

And that was that. 

They had a war to fight, to win.

And they did.

Vecna is gone, but so is Eddie. 

And now the shooting star is long gone, too. 

Steve looks at the stars left behind, just like him. 

But maybe Eddie did see it, somewhere. Steve's learned that nothing is impossible. Not now. Things happen that can't be explained. Walls open in bedrooms and monsters crawl out. There can be tunnels underground, well-worn paths just for monsters to travel deep beneath your feet. 

And there can be a gate at the bottom of a lake that greedily sucks you under, and spits you back out into hell.

Weird shit happens in this world, that's just a fact.

So, there's no reason he couldn't believe that Eddie saw that shooting star, somewhere else, in space and time. 

But Steve doesn't believe that, not really, but for a brief moment he can pretend he does. He really wants to believe that somewhere, in some other universe, Eddie was looking up at the same night sky. One that wasn’t red, wasn’t bleeding with the color of devastation, of evil. One that was full of bright, beautiful stars. Full of potential. Of a life yet unlived, undreamed, with endless possibilities laid out before him.

Eddie was only twenty years old. He hadn't really lived life, not yet. Hadn't got the chance to see the world, to see that there are things beyond the narrow-minded confines of Hawkins, Indiana. 

Steve's twenty now, too. Almost twenty-one. His birthday came and went, with little fanfare. No longer a teenager. He's caught up to Eddie, and very soon, he'll surpass him. 

He swallows, trying to shove the emotion of that realization down.

It's been a hard year, harder than any of the others. 

Because Steve’s become fixated, canonizing this man he barely knew. Robin has tried, desperately, to get him to stop obsessing. To let the guilt subside. He doesn't know Eddie Munson. Not really. And now he never will. 

And that's a whole bunch of horseshit. 

He feels a strange pulling in his stomach, and before can even sit up, he pops out of existence. 

they tumble blindly, as they make their way across the universe Across the Universe, The Beatles

Continue reading on AO3.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

"hang on i think youre calling me from the control room" 13s side of this relationship summed up

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[spockvarietyhour]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "Past Tense, Pt. 1"

[loathsome-sickness]

"people show their true colours in life threatening situations" no, they show you what they act like when they're mortally terrified, an emotion notorious for literally turning your entire brain off to the point where people who go into those situations as a profession need to be literally trained on how to not have that happen

[intezaarlily]

the ache of nostalgia

[taffywabbit]

they should invent a new type of "staying in bed for 2-3 hours after you wake up repeatedly opening and closing apps on your phone" where it makes you feel awesome and energized and emotionally fulfilled

[whyissupernaturaltrending]

a former US president gets shot at and rather than trend himself he causes supernatural to trend instead because everyone is sharing the news via the destiel meme. unparalleled

[wizard-laundry]

QUICK REMINDER

In the US: threatening government officials is a felony under federal law (the president in particular is protected under 18 U.S.C. § 871). Even memes.

be careful with your jokes if they spill over to active officials.

[i23kazu]

how i feel when someone reblogs my stuff with a really really nice tag

[beepboopappreciation]

Is this anything

[bananonbinary]

also worth noting that "abusive" doesn't actually mean "irredeemable" either.

there's a lot of people that have done things in the past that were bad, because they weren't taught any better, or they were in an overall toxic situation where EVERYONE was shitty (like a cult), or they were just at an especially low point and hurt others for it.

you don't have to forgive them. you don't have to ever speak to them again. you can be angry with them until you die if you want.

but society cannot function if we don't allow them to move on. to change their behavior and fuck off somewhere else and build meaningful relationships without bothering you again. we need a path for people to change, or nothing ever will.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

'nice to have gone through a traumatic experience together hope to see you again some time’

[starbuck]

i say i like tragedies and everyone’s all like ‘why do you like sad stories? are you depressed?’ and never ‘how was the catharsis? was the catharsis fun?’

[crimewave420]

[caffeinatedopossum]

Me when I remember something I said ages ago that was wrong or my values no longer align with