#steddie brainrot continues

[infinite-orangepeel]

recently turned this gym partner steddie ficlet into a fully fledged 6.5k ao3 fic. feel free to check out the added filth here <333 mwah and thank you again to anon for the prompt that inspired it !

(read the rest here: pt. 1, pt. 3)

pt. 2 of my gym partner steddie ficlet

“y’know,” steve whispers hotly in his ear, licking the shell of it and nibbling on the lobe, “i’ve heard sex burns a decent amount of calories and since you were doing a lot more staring than lifting today, i’d say that might be a good way for you to make up for it.”

if this is a dream, it's a certainly a very realistic one bc eddie can definitely feel the firm, muscled line of steve's hot, wet body pressed up fully against his own. and it stirs such heady interest in his cock that a dollop of slick spurts out and covers his lower abdomen; dripping down onto steve's thighs, which they both audibly moan at. not caring or stopping for more than a second to wonder if anyone else in the locker room will be able to hear them.

"you'd--you'd want that?" eddie stammers, completely enamored with the way steve's rolling his hips against his thigh.

his cock is huge, way bigger than eddie could ever have anticipated, and he's leaking milky pre from the soft pink tip. whimpering and tugging at his own hair.

god, he looks good.

"want anything you'll give me, eds," steve nips along eddie's jawline and kisses the corners of his mouth, teasing the idea of more, "i'd let you do anything to me. just want your cock. need it. really fuckin need it."

transfixed and still questioning the legitimacy of this reality, it takes eddie a moment before he fully processes what steve is offering.

"anything?" he asks dumbly; blinking through the steam of the shower and trying not to cum from the feeling of steve harrington's stiff cock rutting against his leg.

it's a challenge that's for sure.

"anything," steve repeats lustfully and moves eddie's hands to cover his chest; wordlessly encouraging him to play with his perky nipples.

"you feel so good," eddie mumbles, letting his hands wander, "fuck, steve. you're so hot. can't believe this is happening."

steve twitches underneath him and his own dick kicks up, as he circles steve's nipples with skilled fingers and pinches the hardened buds.

quickly learning and loving how responsive steve's body is to his touch. steve mewls and thrusts his hips in cute desperation. he's clearly needy for more, but eddie's not quite done playing with him yet.

"showing off for me, princess?" he teases, as steve turns around to arch his back against eddie's chest, pressing his rather, perfect ass directly into eddie's cock and grinding in slow, deliberate circles.

"maybe," he says in a bratty tone, "maybe not. guess you'll have to keep going to find out."

eddie shakes his head and laughs to himself.

"stevie, have you ever been fingered before?" eddie checks, rubbing a palm down the plump curve of steve's ass and squeezing a greedy handful. the skin turns red beneath his fingers and he desperately wants to spank him.

"tried it a couple times by myself, but couldn't the angle right," he says a bit shyly and then, "why? are you gonna teach me how to make it feel good?"

"mmm," eddie sucks onto his throat and licks a stripe down to his collarbone, "i'd like to."

"please," steve whimpers again, nosiy as can be without a care in the damn world, "please, please, please."

and the thing is, steve's so good. he's so well-behaved and sweet that eddie can't deny him the pleasure for another second longer.

so he sticks a finger into steve's mouth and tells him to suck on it. which steve does deliciously well, spitting and wrapping his tongue around eddie's finger to gather as much saliva as possible. gagging a little bit when eddie meanly prods towards the back of his throat.

"it's gonna be tight at first, okay? might hurt a bit, but trust me, once we get past the pain it'll feel amazing," eddie coos, petting a hand down steve's spine in an effort to calm any nerves he may have.

"don't care if it hurts. i know i'll like it 'cause it's you," steve sucks in a breath as eddie spreads his cheeks open and teases around his hole, "oh fuck."

eddie chuckles and slyly sneaks a chaste kiss onto steve's lips, finally allowing their mouths to fully connect for the first time.

"you can stop me at any time," eddie tells him in a more serious tone, "focus on my lips and let it feel good, baby. i'll help you ride it out. i'll be right here the whole time."

he tilts steve's face towards him from behind and kisses him deeply. which steve instantly sighs into and returns the pressure of his own lips. it's sloppy and dirty and full of lip biting and tongue sucking and it's heaven (as far as their both concerned).

eddie uses the welcome distraction and opportunity to work steve open. kissing him all the while, as he slowly inches the tip of his finger into steve's hole. past the tight squeeze of the muscle and down to the first knuckle. steve contracts around him, but doesn't pull away. instead he groans into their kiss and breathes a sweet breathy sigh into eddie's mouth.

"good boy," eddie praises and delights in the way steve sinks back further onto his finger at the compliment, "such a good boy for me. how's that feel?"

"good, so good," steve pants, "want more, gimme more please. i can take it."

eddie kisses his mouth shut, silencing his begging, because he knows two fingers will probably feel like quite the stretch. especially for someone who's never really done this before.

carefully, he inserts a second finger. minding the cues steve's body gives him along the way. pausing every so often to allow him to adjust to the intrusion. he's so tight and warm inside, eddie can't wait to get his dick in him.

"more. need more," steve whines, breaking the kiss and fucking himself onto eddie's fingers, "stretching me out so good, eds."

he's a natural. steve really is. rolls his hips so gorgeously and makes the most pornographic sounds eddie's ever heard come out of someone in the real world.

eddie hardly has to do anything after a certain point because steve takes his fingers all the way down to the hilt and bounces on them like he's riding a cock.

"fuck, never knew it could feel this good," he cries and eddie has to bite his lip not to scream at the pleasure he's getting from just watching steve, "feels so full."

and just as eddie starts to work a third finger into steve and gets ready to prep him for more, the flimsy shower curtain is moved open and a third party enters the small stall.....

to be continued as long as you want to keep reading it, my loves !! lmk and hope you enjoyed this little installment <3333

oh !! also if you’d like to be tagged for the update lmk !

[bigskyandthecoldgun]

killer frequency

based off of this idea i had

1 2 3

ao3

words: 3.8k

The pristine BMW looks out of place among the company of the beat-up sedan and the rusted van in the parking lot, but that’s par for the course, honestly. Steve’s only parked here once when the parking lot had been full—noon on a Wednesday for his reluctant not-an-interview with Owens, who runs the radio station in this backwater town—but it hadn’t been much different then, either. Hawkins is full of cars that don’t hold a candle to his beautiful baby, full of people that, quite frankly, are only slightly weird on the best of days and outright give him the creeps on most others.

Steve sighs and glances down at his too-expensive watch, a gift from the station in Chicago, back before he’d been unceremoniously fired, and he’s incredibly dismayed to find that he’s here a whole twenty minutes early. Though, he supposes, it’s not as if there’s much else to do in Hawkins. Especially not this late at night, not so close to midnight.

He probably could’ve gone to that diner that’s open twenty-four hours for a shitty cup of coffee, but they’re starting to know him by name there now, and not in that starstruck, wow, it’s Steve Harrington, from the radio! way that he’s used to. It’s the same at that Rise & Shine coffee place across the street from the KFAM building. Honestly, he could’ve probably done with a cup of coffee to warm him up. It’s a cold November night, and Steve shivers, feeling the breeze through his jacket.

Awaiting him in what’s probably the only up-to-code building in Hawkins is 189.16–The Scream.

The only station that would hire him after his on-air disaster in Chicago.

What a joke.

“What the hell are you standing out in the cold for?” someone yells from the front doors, and Steve looks up to see Robin, the station’s late-night phone-in show co-producer and one of the few people in Hawkins that makes this damn town bearable. He can see the scrunch to her nose from all the way across the parking lot, and he can picture the way the path of her freckles distorts.“Get inside, dingus!”

Steve sighs and locks his car before heading in after her, sunglasses flicked up to sit pretty in his hair when she snorts at the sight of them. “So, what’s on the docket for tonight?” he asks her, glad that the station is always at a decent temperature, that Owens has the decency not to skimp on heating.

Robin pulls a clipboard out of seemingly nowhere and pouts thoughtfully, humming as she taps her pen on the edge of it. “Walk with me,” she tells him, like she’s a big radio exec in a suit with too-large shoulder pads and not a producer of a tiny radio show in a tiny town in the most oversized men’s blazer Steve’s ever seen. But he walks with her anyway, because he thinks Robin is easily the coolest person in town, and she starts heading up the stairs, towards the door with the currently inactive On Air sign hanging above it. “So, we’ve got ‘Guess that Scream’ up first, then some tunes, take a couple of callers, then a paid promotion, yadda yadda, you get the gist.”

She’s practically frog-marching him into the studio, and he’s not fighting her on it, which has become a daily—or nightly, Steve supposes—occurrence for the two of them. “Alright,” Steve says, “is that segment another—”

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite radio host,” a teasing voice says over the speakers, and Steve preemptively rolls his eyes.

Eddie, while generally a pretty nice guy and very easy to bounce banter off of during these long nights, just loves to push Steve’s buttons. Not to mention, he doesn’t even know what the guy looks like, considering he’s in the booth by the time Steve gets here, no matter how early Steve gets here. Part of Steve wonders if Eddie just…lives in the booth or something. He’s the show’s other co-producer and hasn’t made any mistakes as sound engineer yet, which gives him points in Steve’s book, because his last sound engineer somehow screwed up so royally during a show once that Steve’s mic had been muted for half an hour.

But as good at the job as he is, Eddie also gets a kick out of Steve’s disgraced career, and he tends to joke about that more than anything else, just to get a rise out of him. Steve’s, like, half-tempted to strangle the guy most nights.

“Hi, Eddie,” he greets in the direction of the mic with a sigh, and there’s a slight snicker over the intercom before it gets cut off. Steve turns to Robin. “Any new records I should be aware of?”

“A couple,” Robin says with a shrug. “We finally got Love Shack, and that redheaded kid, the one that’s friends with our intern, brought in two Kate Bush singles at around…noon, I think. Said you might as well play some good music for once.”

The intercom crackles. “I’m still of the opinion we should have Owens shell out for—”

“No one in Hawkins wants to listen to Iron Maiden other than you, Eddie,” Robin cuts in, rolling her eyes at Steve, who grimaces sympathetically. She clears her throat and runs a hand through her hair. “Do you guys care if I take tonight off? I mean, you’re all set up, and me and Chrissy were hoping to watch a movie when she gets back from her jog, so…”

Steve shrugs. “Not like the station’s ever busy enough to need both producers,” he says, and that earns him a laugh. “Eddie and I will be fine.”

“You won’t drive each other up the wall?” Robin asks, eyes narrowed in the direction of the booth, and she receives a silhouetted thumbs-up as an answer. Robin gives Steve a bright grin and a pat on the shoulder. “Right, well, cover for my ass if Owens asks, m’kay?”

“You got it,” Steve tells her. “Go home, have fun with Chrissy.”

She squeezes his shoulder and gives both him and the tinted window to the booth a wave before heading out, shutting the door behind her. “And then there were two,” Eddie drawls over the intercom, and the feedback squealing a little makes Steve wince. “Sorry! Sorry. Bumped into the mic, that’s my bad.”

Steve shakes his head and hangs his jacket up on the coatrack, rolling his sleeves up just past his elbows and heading over to his not-so-organized work station. He tucks the headphones over his ears, lamenting the way it squishes down his hair, and he adjusts some of the settings on his soundboard until they’re just right. There’s very few other radio show hosts in Hawkins, and Keith, the guy who hosts a movie critic segment a few hours before Steve’s call-in show, often screws with the settings when he’s done, just to give Steve a hard time.

“You with me?” he asks, hearing an affirmative hum through the headphones, and Steve grins, flicking through the selection of vinyls that Robin’s prepped for tonight. He’s about to say something else, but something cuts through the air, some muffled sound. Even lifting his headphones off his ears, he can’t quite make it out. Maybe…a yell? A shout? A stray dog howling? He shrugs, settles them back on his head, but he’s still kinda concerned. “You, uh…you hear something, Eddie?”

“Huh?” Eddie asks, his voice much clearer over the headphones than over the intercom. “Hear what, exactly?”

Steve glances up to look at Eddie’s silhouette. Even shrouded in shadow, another person’s presence is somewhat comforting in the eerie hours of the night, especially in a town like Hawkins. He plays it cool, though, because he’s not about to admit that some weird noise outside has him paranoid. “Thought I heard someone yelling, or—I dunno, maybe howling?”

Eddie snorts. “You’re lucky you’re pretty, Steve, because your jokes aren’t very funny,” he says, and Steve frowns.

“No, I—Eddie, I could’ve sworn I heard something,” he insists.

He can practically hear Eddie rolling his eyes amongst the slight shuffle over the mic. “Jesus H., I almost thought you’d ease up a little,” he mutters. “You probably just heard some cats or something.”

Yeah, whatever that noise had been, Steve is certain it hadn’t been a cat. “Cats?” he scoffs, utterly unamused.

“You know, four legs, whiskers, tails?” Eddie teases, and Steve clicks his tongue. “Uh, not dogs—”

“I know—! I know what a cat is, Eddie,” Steve says. “But, I mean…does Hawkins have, like, a stray cat problem or something?”

Eddie laughs. “Not since those rats moved into the abandoned ironworks building,” he says, so casually, and Steve is so horrified, because he drives past that place literally every night to get to this godforsaken radio station. “Anyway, you ready for the pre-flight checks?”

Ah. This bit. Not one of Steve’s favorites—one of the more annoying bits Eddie does, in fact—but he’ll deal with it over Robin’s microphone dinosaur bit any day. “Do you have to do this every night?” he sighs.

“Every night for the rest of our lives, sweetheart,” Eddie croons, and Steve makes a face at the insinuation he’s going to end up stuck in Hawkins for the rest of his miserable life. “Besides, Owens is paying us to check the equipment before each show, which means you get paid to put up with my pre-flight check bit. But if you’re sure you don’t want to…”

He trails off with a lilt in his voice, as if the offer isn’t supposed to be enticing. Steve just pinches the bridge of his nose, though, because he does want to make sure all his sliders are in the right place before they start. “Alright, alright, fine. Let’s…get through this,” he says.

“Alrighty! This is your captain speaking—”

“Eddie.”

“C’mon,” Eddie whines, “just let me have my fun! My bits aren’t hurting anyone.”

“They’re hurting my sanity,” Steve tells him. Eddie does a few melodramatic sniffs. It’s stupid, but it’s kind of charming nonetheless; that’s what most of Eddie’s antics are like. “Fine. Go ahead…captain.”

There’s a delighted cackle filtering in through the headphones. “Buckle in, folks! My co-captain’s about to spin some painfully vanilla hits—”

“Eddie,” Steve warns.

Eddie sighs over the mic. “Fine, fine. My lovely co-captain—whose incredibly pretty face is utterly wasted on radio—is gonna make sure our record player’s in tip-top shape,” he says, and Steve’s cheeks burn as he slides out a vinyl from its sleeve and lets it play for a bit. “Alright, that’s good. It’s working. Hit stop?”

Pulling a face, Steve does just that. “That’s gonna damage the record, y’know,” he warns, and Eddie blows a raspberry.

“Yeah, well, it’s on Owens’ dime. I don’t mind spending his money,” he says dismissively, and Steve snorts. Eddie’s pretty funny when he’s not poking fun at the worst experience Steve’s had in radio. “Alright, up next—phoneline buttons! Your captain will be waiting to take your call on line one.”

“Thought we were co-captains,” Steve says, trying not to sound like he actually cares that much about a slight at his imaginary status as co-captain in a remarkably stupid bit.

Eddie clicks his tongue. “Semantics, my dear Stevie, semantics. Now hit that button,” he says.

With a sigh, because he refuses to let this go on without forcing Eddie to acknowledge his annoyance, Steve hits the button. “Alright, Eddie, ready for you on line one,” he drones.

“Who’s Eddie? This is Captain Donald Key calling. Call me Don,” Eddie says, voice lilting up the way it does when he’s making a stupid, stupid joke, and Steve kind of hates that he knows the shifts in Eddie’s voice well enough to recognize that. Then again, it’s not like he can see the guy’s face, so voice is all he’s got to go off of. Eddie snickers. “Get it? You get it?”

He scrubs a hand over his face. “Yeah. Don Key. It’s a riot,” he says flatly. “Anything else?”

“Well, button two’s line two, it works the same. But let’s move to the Eddie button,” Eddie says.

Steve rolls his eyes, because he knows exactly which one of Eddie’s dumb jokes is next in the lineup. “The producer line,” he corrects, though it’s fruitless. There’s no stopping it.

“Like I said, it’s the Eddie button. You know the drill, press it if you need my help during the show, yadda yadda. But for you, pretty boy,” Eddie drawls, and Steve sees his silhouette toying with something behind the window, “you can push my button anytime you want.”

Of course. Steve hums. “Is there an Eddie mute button?”

“They haven’t invented it yet,” Eddie says, deadpan. “Go on, Steve. Gotta press it. Gotta test to see if it works.”

There’s a tiny little post-it that’s always on the third button—the Eddie button, but Steve’s not calling it that—and it says Press 4 Eddie. The adhesive’s definitely worn by now; Steve is half-certain that Eddie keeps taking it off after they’re done with the show and re-sticking it whenever he gets in the next night.

It’s kind of charming, though. That Eddie goes through all that effort for a dumb little joke between the two of them.

“Press ‘four’ Eddie,” Steve sighs.

“This is your brain, Steve,” Eddie says in a lofty, snooty voice, dragging the vowel sound in Steve’s name out. It sounds like he’s doing an impression of Steve with a sitcom rich guy accent thrown on top. “Sorry I made you such an un-fun turkey.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’m a turkey now? What happened to the airplane—you know what? Don’t answer that,” he says. “We almost done? It’s getting close to time.”

Eddie tuts. “Sound blaster,” he reminds Steve, and Steve wrinkles his nose.

“Can you be normal and call it a soundboard like literally everyone else does?” Steve asks as he hits a button at random. It’s the womp-womp horn. It’s dumb, but it’s good for a cheap laugh.

“Nope. Sorry, sweetheart, you’re stuck with me, and I happen to enjoy fun. Go ahead and check those volume sliders for me,” Eddie tells him.

Steve cranks the volume of his mic up all the way, leans as close to it as possible, and grins. “Hey there, Eddie,” he says, and he watches the silhouette in the booth jump a foot out of his seat. He laughs, and there looks to be what he’s pretty sure is Eddie’s middle finger joining the usual shape of his silhouette. Steve slides the volume back down to a decent level. “I get you with that every time. We done, captain?”

There’s a bit of rustling as Eddie settles back down again. “We sure are! Coming in for landing, local time—”

“I should not encourage you,” Steve groans.

“I knew you had a fun side, Stevie,” Eddie coos, and Steve balls up a wad of legal pad paper to throw it into the trash can across the room. He makes it. “He shoots, he scores! And with that, why don’t we get our show started, tiger?”

Steve raises a brow, even though he’s pretty sure Eddie can’t make it out from all the way in the booth. “‘Tiger?’ That’s new. Thought I was a turkey,” he remarks, playfully snide. “Alright, introduction first—”

“Then it’s Guess That Scream!” Eddie whoops.

To be perfectly honest, Steve had thought that had been part of Robin’s ongoing joke of telling him outlandish fake segment names. A couple of times, she’d even gotten him to announce them on air before Eddie had been forced to correct him. “Uh, was that not part of Robin’s bit?” he asks, genuinely confused.

There’s a long, dramatic sigh blowing through his headphones. “Nope! This one isn’t even my fault, it was Owens’ idea. He insists we do it tonight. Play a scream, they call in,” Eddie tells him. Owens is a weird guy, and an even weirder boss. He’s nice, sure, but he’s also barely ever at the station. He’d showed up for Steve’s first show and has been in the wind ever since. Eddie clears his throat. “Okay, Steve, you’re live in three, two…”

The ‘on air’ sign above the window to the booth hums to life, the neon buzzing just loud enough to be heard through the headphones. Steve thinks it’s a wonder it can’t be heard on the actual broadcast. He presses the button on the soundboard for the station’s jingle and takes a deep breath to get himself focused.

“Good evening, Hawkins, Indiana,” Steve says, and he admittedly puts on a voice for radio, one that’s much smoother and slightly lower than his natural speaking voice. Robin pokes fun at him for it after every show. “This is your host, Steve Harrington, and you’re listening to 189.16—The Scream. Before we start taking your calls tonight on Hawkins’ only late-night phone-in talk show, I need to let you all know about a special competition we have for you this evening. It’s”—he barely holds back a sigh, but he’s a professional, goddammit—“Guess That Scream.”

“This is actually one of our station manager’s better ideas,” Eddie adds, and Steve’s noticed that Eddie puts on a voice for their shows, too. Steve’s not used to his producers being performers; Robin doesn’t put on a voice, and his producers back in Chicago hadn’t either, but Eddie’s honestly not half bad at it.

He adjusts the headphones a bit. “Here’s how it works, folks. I’m gonna play you a scream, then you call in and…Guess That Scream,” Steve explains, and this is such a dumb premise for a segment. It’s not like he’s above this kind of stuff anymore, though. “We need you lovely people at home to guess why they’re screaming. Did they stub their toe? Maybe…cut a finger off while chopping vegetables? Or discover the corpse of a loved one?”

“Ooh, good one, Steve,” Eddie says. “Now hit ’em with the tape!”

“We’ll play that tape in just a second. Alright, Hawkins, listen close, and then call in to…Guess That Scream,” he says. He’s sure that, judging by the way the sign has switched off, Eddie’s playing some jingle on his end and has their mics muted while Steve looks around for the tape. This is bullshit. He used to have a guy playing tapes for him back in Chicago. He glances up. “Eddie, where’s the tape?”

There’s an annoyed sort of grunt from his headphones. “I gave it to you yesterday, Steve. You could not possibly have lost it in that short of a timeframe,” Eddie says. The tips of Steve’s ears start to burn in embarrassment. “Steve, seriously?”

“Eddie—let’s face it, Guess That Scream is a terrible idea anyway,” he says, and he can sense the irritation in the silence that follows. Steve winces. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t have the tape.”

Eddie sighs. “Well, it may be a stupid idea, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. We’re gonna need a scream tonight, Stevie,” he says, clearly building up to something. He hasn’t dropped the performative voice. “And, uh…you’re the one at the mic. So…”

Oh, he’s gotta be joking.

“Really, Eddie? You want—you seriously want me to scream? You know this show depends on my voice, right?” he huffs.

“Just do it! We’ve had enough of this stupid jingle, just think of a scream and let it rip,” Eddie tells him, and the sign switches on again.

Steve scrambles to think of something. “Sorry about that! I’m back. Had to step away there for a second. Listen close, and then call in to Guess That Scream,” he vamps, and he settles for what is definitely a terrible idea. He starts off pretty close to the mic and yells out, leaning back from it and going quiet in a poor attempt at mimicking someone falling off a cliff. Cheeks burning, Steve leans back in. “Well, folks, there you have it. Call in with your guesses, and if you get it right, you could win…two tickets to the Amazing Maize Maze, held at the Hawkins Fairgrounds, and one free fried…dough. Fried dough? Uh—just call in at 555-239-KFAM with your guess. Now, here’s some music while you get dialing…this is ABBA’s SOS.”

He slides the vinyl out from its sleeve and replaces the one on the turn table, setting it to play and putting the other one back, and his shoulders slump in relief when he sees the sign turn off again. “Oh my God, Steve, that was…surprisingly adequate. Didn’t take you for a big improv guy. I cannot wait to hear what people think that was,” Eddie says.

“Yeah, well, thanks,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. “How the hell did I get into this mess?”

“Uh…by freaking the hell out and berating one of your guests live on air because he pissed you off,” Eddie snickers, as if Steve needs the reminder of that mortifying day. “Never actually heard that broadcast, but I did hear it was worth listening to. But lighten up, Steve! That Looney Tunes scream is gonna be the highlight of my week.”

Steve balls up another piece of paper and tosses it. He misses. There’s a long couple of minutes of silence before Steve actually gets the balls to say something about it. “Yeah, well, if you don’t actually know what he said to me, maybe you shouldn’t—”

“Oops,” Eddie interrupts, and the sign glows once again, “you’ve got a call coming in. Line one, sweetheart. Fade the music out for me and take the call, will you?”

Of course. Steve gradually slides the volume of the turntable down before turning it off and taking the call. Showtime…again. “Welcome to 189.16—The Scream, caller. You’re talking to Steve Harrington, what’s going on with you tonight?” he asks, trying to keep the tones in his voice as dulcet as possible.

“Steve! Thank God I made it through. My name is Joyce Byers,” the caller says, a little urgently, and Steve wonders if Eddie and Robin know her. In a town as small as this one, they probably do. “I’m the 911 operator and police dispatcher for Hawkins.”

Weird details about her job, but alright. “Welcome to the show, Joyce. Are you calling in to Guess That Scream? As a 911 operator, you probably have an educated guess, right?” he jokes, and it’s a little morbid, sure, but it’s not like he’s raking in ratings anymore. No public opinion to worry about now, really.

“What? No! Look, I found a body, and I need your help.”

[malibuhabits]

hiiii, this is a snippet from my new (and first!!) fic on ao3 (chevymalibu.)

Chapters 1 & 2 are up now!

Dead Asleep (Dreaming Away Your Life)

In the Rutherford Bench area of Napa Valley, California, the February sky is clear and sunny despite the rainy season, and Nancy Wheeler has been offered an outdoor tasting and vineyard tour on Eddie Munson’s secluded grounds where he lives tucked away from prying eyes.

The 53-year-old musician purchased his $20.3 million Mediterranean-style estate surrounded by budding vines and vibrant green hillsides a few years back. Behind a sturdy gate hides a six-bedroom, nine-bathroom abode that underwent extensive renovations by the current owner, including giving it a rustic ’plucked straight from the south’ décor. Available only to those within Eddie’s inner circle, the property contains a hush-hush storage unit that holds approximately 500 of the rocker’s favorite sips—some being produced and fermented by his own personal team of specialists.

A bottle is opened. Eddie fills a glass with the burgundy nectar and hands it to Nancy, but does not pour one for himself. ”Dr. Erica Sinclair would be kickin’ up a fuss if she heard I was drinking before noon,” he explains, “supposed to be doin’ this shitty thing called ‘Drynuary’. Ever heard of it?”

“The challenge where people abstain from drinking alcohol during January?” Nancy asks, eyeing him curiously.

“And February,” Eddie answers but it’s comical how quickly his eyes widen, “just January, ain’t it?” he waits for a confirmative nod before cursing under his breath, “Dr. S is one sneaky lady, fuckin’ Christ,” he laughs.

Still, he seems to be content to remain without a drink. Nancy wonders if perhaps his latest visit to rehab had finally given better results—how badly the previous attempts had failed are only one Google search away. But as Eddie tells her, he is far from perfect, has made mistakes and is “slowly becoming a person he likes.”

They are soaking up the sun in a brick-laden backyard bordered by hedges and trees that provide ample privacy. The stone patio wraps around a glowing swimming pool that complements the surrounding landscape and reminiscences of Old Hollywood glamour.

Nancy places a digital tape recorder between them on the poolside. Eddie splashes water around with his foot like a child. Pulls his other knee up and presses his cheek against it. Hums a melody vaguely familiar.

He looks healthy. Very different from the scrawny, vampire looking guy who might just drink your blood—in a romantic way, of course. Now he looks more mellowed and balanced, has a corny sense of humor and good (or at least better than before) manners. He’s still ostensibly dark and charismatic, though.

“Where do you want to start?”

Eddie gives a conspiratorial grin, “don’t think that’s my call, o’ great interrogator.”

“Okay,” agrees Nancy, “let’s start with the Callahan ‘93 campaign.”

“Straight to the commercial, huh?”

“Well, that is how you first met Steve Harrington, right?”

Eddie’s grin changes, turns into something softer, something sadder, his eyes gaining a distant, faraway look. “That’s right.”

“Then that’s where we start,” Nancy musters up a smile she hopes looks like an encouraging hand pat. “Are you ready, Eddie?”

Eddie nods, all his piercings flickering sunlight, his mane of curls swaying, “yup, but I bet you aren’t.”

[libraryofgage]

Steddie brainrot continues to worsen to a concerning degree but here's a crack idea that is absolutely sending me:

Famous Spicy Six in which Jonathon is a director who decides to work on a passion project: a Scooby-Doo movie. His ideal cast is as follows:

Nancy Wheeler (investigative journalist with a few special appearances on crime dramas) as Daphne Blake

Argyle (an actor with a habit of playing small parts; he acts only because he thinks it's fun, so he's not concerned with significant roles) as Shaggy Rogers

Robin Buckley (a well-known voice actor who is more well-known for her social media posts and clap-backs) as Velma Dinkley

Steve Harrington (basketball star who is also more well-known for his social media clap-backs and for being Corroded Coffin's number one fan) as Fred Jones

Eddie Munson (frontman for Corroded Coffin, an insanely popular metal/punk/rock band and "infamous" for unashamedly posting Steve Harrington thirst tweets) as the voice of Scooby-Doo

Corroded Coffin is also creating an entirely new, original soundtrack for the movie

And because I think it's funnier this way, this is also an AU where the Upside Down still happened, so Jonathon just calls his friends up and is like "Okay, so hear me out"

The absolute insanity that breaks out when both the movie and cast are announced because nobody can figure out how Jonathon managed to convince all these powerhouses to join his movie.

The further screaming online after one of the movie promo interviews where a reporter asks how they all agreed to the movie and Nancy hits them with, "Well, Jonathon asked, and he never asks for anything."

Which leads to the discovery that they all knew each other in high school, and the reporter jokingly asks if that means they've all dated each other, too, which leads to Eddie jumping in with absolute delight like, "Well, that's a funny story, there. See, Stevie here dated Nancy, who then dated Jonathon when they broke up, who then dated Argyle after they broke up. And I thought Stevie and Robin were dating, so I was very confused when I saw Robin and Nancy kissing. But then I found out that Robin was a true-blue lesbian, which meant Stevie here was open for the taking, and we've been banging ever since."

and Steve is just sitting there, head in his hands while Robin cackles and decides to tell the reporter all about Steve's "fuck I have a crush on Eddie" crisis

This interview, of course, leads to even more freaking out online and comments like "I know I asked for poly Scooby gang, but this is ridiculous," and "I can't believe that in this, the year of our lord 20xx, ScoobyXFreddy became a canon ship," and "if I had a nickel for every romantic relationship the Scooby gang actors have had with each other, I'd have five nickels, which is way more than any of us fucking expected to have," and "suddenly Eddie Munson's thirst tweets make a lot more sense, but can we talk about Steve Harrington's CC tweets now," and "everyone say thank you to Eddie Munson for revealing that mess of a relationship map," and "finally, the canon lesbian velma and daphne we deserve"

The movie is a box office hit, btw, and bloopers from filming roll with the credits, among which is Eddie Munson making Steve Harrington lose his shit laughing on set while dressed in a Scooby Doo onesie and singing Corroded Coffin songs with his Scooby Voice

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

ope.. i got brainrot while driving into work again so here's a rockstar!eddie steddie blurb that goes with this song.

cw for possible refrences to suicidal ideation depending on how you interpret the lyrics (more literal or more metaphorical)

pairing: steddie | word count: 840 | rated: M

The first time Eddie tells Steve he loves him, it’s while they’re awash in the afterglow; Eddie’s still half sprawled over Steve’s bare back with his finger tracing patterns idly over his skin.

“I could trace enough constellations on you to get from here to Mars.” he says as if voicing a thought rather than to Steve.

“Oh yeah?” He snorts.

“Mmhm. And I’d love you from here to there too.”

The steady movement of Steve’s back shudders to a stop, his breath faltering. “Oh yeah?”

A new featherlight touch grazes the skin between his shoulder blades. Eddie’s lips. “From here to Mars, sweetheart.”

Mars becomes a thing between them, and between them alone; “Love you to Mars, Stevie,”, “I love you all the way back home, Eds.” or after some bigot gives either of them grief over their relationship, “Let’s just run away.”, “To where?”, “Hmm. I dunno, maybe Mars?”

So when Eddie has enough of Hawkins, when he does run, and his note is devoid of any reference to their neighboring red planet, it’s crushing.

Steve finds out from Wayne that Eddie and the boys had gone to New York, a two album contract for their band too good of an opportunity to pass up.

He’s jaded and hurt for a long time. Well into Corroded Coffin’s rise to worldwide stardom, and the feeling lasts until a headline in the aisle of the grocery store catches his eye. It screams ‘CORRODED COFFIN’S NORTH AMERICAN TOUR CUT SHORT.”, but there are more: “Frontman Eddie Munson checks in”, and “Eddie Munson: More substance than substance?”.

He and Robin are in Chicago now, running a small bookstore/coffee shop, and Jeff gets in contact with him.

“He’s okay, he’s already doing better. I figured you’d want to know.”

Jeff says it’d been getting worse and worse until Chrissy (who had long been the Robin to Eddie’s Steve, and who’s now his manager) had had enough and sent him off to get help. “He’ll be back sooner than later, I’m sure.”

The next anyone besides Chrissy hears from Eddie, it’s on the radio. A new song from Corroded Coffin’s Eddie Munson that’s nothing like anyone had ever heard from him. 

Steve hears it first when he’s preparing to open one day, that’s part of the reason why it comes as such a surprise. He has never tuned the shop radio to anything other than the mainstream channels, not wanting this exact thing to happen and hear the voice of the man that broke his heart to pieces.

“Up next, a change of pace from the currently still elusive Eddie Munson of Corroded Coffin fame,” the announcer says as the song starts in behind him. Steve freezes at the name. “You heard of this guy? He and that band of his had been making waves in the metal scene for years now; and he’s reportedly been checked out of rehab for a couple months without anyone hearing anything from him. Until now.”

The song starts for real now, the acoustic fading into the background as a voice so unmistakably Eddie, his real southern twang leftover from growing up in Tennessee shining through, breaks through it.

Steve’s so floored at hearing his voice again, that he doesn’t really register the lyrics until Eddie croons out “What if I run away to Mars?”

“Mars.” Steve breathes out.

Eddie is singing about Mars.

Steve had always assumed he was forgotten. That after the years of fame and years without him, that the memories Eddie had of him would be locked away just as tight as Steve’s of Eddie were.

He can’t even continue to think about it because Eddie keeps going, “Would you find me in the stars? Would you miss me in the end, if I run out of oxygen?”

Eddie’s singing on his own, it’s just him and his guitar and his own backup vocals and he sounds so horribly sad.

Eddie’s not okay. Eddie’s not okay! Where is he? Where did he go after getting out of rehab?

Steve whips his phone out of his pocket, leaning heavily on the front counter now for support, and searches frantically for Chrissy’s number.

He’s hoping she hadn’t changed it when Eddie’s voice comes back in over his guitar, “I can't tell which way is home, I've been gone for so long..It's an empty world up here“

Steve freezes again.

He listens to the entire rest of the song there. Phone in hand, thumb hovering over the call button, and heart however many miles away to where Eddie is.

“Three, two, one, I miss you..I'm sorry I got issues” Eddie sings.

Steve finds himself thinking ‘I miss you too’ and ‘It’s okay.’

Eventually, the song ends with Eddie’s voice only. No backup instrumentals, only his voice crooning harmonically with himself 

“Would you miss me in the end if I run out of oxygen? When I run away to Mars..”

He presses the button.

“Steve,” She says in a surprised greeting, “Hi!”

“Where is he?”

star divider is from @saradika

short little part 2 here! | also on AO3

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  fragilecapric0rn! @fragilecapric0rnn has written 22 fics in the Stranger Things fandom and 21 of them are in the Steddie tag!

@cheatghost recommends the following works by @fragilecapric0rnn:

It Might Be Worth It For Once

clown music at the disco

you can take the heart from your chest to use as a compass when you are lost

Catch Me (I'm Falling)

Anyway, It's About Old Friends

"Sen's body of work is like a truly love letter to the characters. No matter the universe, Steve and Eddie always feel authentic to themselves. Sen's love for classic rom-coms influences a lot of her writing and makes for really romantic, touching stories. It's an absolute delight to dive into a world crafted by this author!" -- @cheatghost

Below the cut, @fragilecapric0rnn answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I think in May of 2022 I was bit by the same bug as everyone else. Before I started writing Steddie, I was on a 4-year fic writing hiatus, and it was like seeing those two interact on screen zapped my brain awake. The chemistry, the potential, the fact that one half of the ship got ripped away from us too soon. All of those components really did something to my brain and I decided I had to write them and I haven’t looked back since!

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

I love a idiots to lovers! These two really have the potential to fit that trope so well!

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Second-chance at romance! If you’ve seen any of my fics, you know that I love and will take any chance to write 90s older steddie, haven’t spoken or seen each other in years, who re-meet and fall in love. It is so them, it is my favorite version of them. It’s the version of them that lives in my head!

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

There are so many good ones to choose from, but I think I have to go with Show Me the Place Where He Inserted the Blade by the incomparable, the magnificently talented and outstanding Cheatghost. Lou, who I am very proud to call a friend, is one of the most talented people I know and I feel very lucky to have had them brought into my life via the Steddie brainrot.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

Is it lame if I say no? LOL. Honestly, I have written almost everything I have felt the need to explore with this pairing. A lot of my ideas moving forward are expansions/continuations of ideas that I already started or have posted before. 

What is your writing process like?

Right now it’s at its most unstructured because I am rawdogging life without my ADHD meds for the first time in 7 years, which has been a whirlwind but I am managing. However, it usually depends on the fic I’m writing! For a lot of my longfic, I have a physical notebook that has an outline and major plot points I want to hit at certain times in my stories. Other times, for the shorter fics/one-shots, I just write them all in one go. It starts with a (usually silly) idea, and then I get possessed by the writing demons, and suddenly, I haven’t moved from my chair in 2 hours and I have four thousand words on my screen. I contain multitudes!

Do you have any writing quirks?

I am a victim of the: One word. One phrase. Lin breaks for emphasis. And I will be doing it until someone who is being paid real money to publish one of my original works tells me to knock it off!

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

Again, asking if it’s bad if I say neither? When I first started posting fic again, I was very much writing it all and then posting it over the course of a few days. But now, I tend to write sporadically and post even more sporadically. And I prefer the latter! Fanfiction, and fandom in general, is a collaborative experience in its heart and soul. One of my favorite things about longfic is posting a chapter and seeing what people take away from it, because 9/10 it’ll be different then what the writer thinks they’re going to take away! And the chance to change and rework and let yourself be influenced by other fans of the ship is taken away when you write it all at once and post it all at once.

Which fic are you most proud of?

Anyway, It’s About Old Friends. Even in its unfinished form, it is my magnum opus. My white whale. I have done some of my best writing in it (chapter 2 MY BELOVED) and the fact that its so close to the end is both exciting and terrifying. It is a fic I wrote and continue to write for me, and the fact that other people are reading and enjoying it is a win!

How did you get the idea for It Might Be Worth It For Once?

HA! So, I was chatting with my friend Emily (JudasofSuburbia) about a potential Pornstar!Steve AU offhandedly back in the fall. Then, I got paired with them for a little fic exchange between friends, and it felt natural to take that one off little conversation and turn it into a fic for her. It was one of those fics that started out as a silly idea and then suddenly it’s been six hours and I wrote the whole thing in one go! After some polishing and editing, it became a Pornstar!AU with not as much smut as I expected. It was so fun to write, made even more fun as it was for a dear friend.

When writing Anyway, It's About Old Friends, what was something you didn’t expect?

I didn’t expect it to change and mold and morph in the way that it did. There is a version of this fic where they do hook-up earlier, there’s a version where they re-meet at gay club and not a wedding, there’s a version where Steve marries a Evie and Eddie is Raul. But, this version feels the most right. It’s a story about heartbreak, about finding love (in all it forms) in unexpected places, and it’s about found family most of all. All of that was stumbled on accidentally! My only intention was to write a Steddie-fied When Harry Met Sally fic, and accidentally flashed my heart and soul. Whoops!

What inspired clown music at the disco?

I used to be an opener at a coffee shop and there is something so disorienting and mind altering about having disco music blasting on the speakers at 4am. But, it was in one of those moments, where I was so tired I was nauseous, that the fic idea came to me! I had already been thinking of writing as my first fic, Steve and Eddie accidentally have a Devil’s Sacrament moment at the gay bar, but the line “But it’s Disco Night”, came to me at the ungodly hour of 4 in the morning. What a time!

What was your favorite part to write from you can take the heart from your chest to use as a compass when you are lost?

The Never Have I Ever Scene! It was the first time I wrote the entire party in one scene and it’s chaotic and a little messy but it was one of my favorite parts of the fic. It also made me realize how much I love writing ensemble scenes! Just everyone trying to talk over each other, chaos in its best form.

How do/did you feel writing Catch Me (I'm Falling)?

I wrote this fic in the span of like almost 3 weeks? I was sick and burnt out for most of the time I was writing it, but it was almost a compulsion. I had the idea and I just HAD to write it. No outline, just vibes and Steve Harrington in a cheerleading uniform! I took it down for a while because I was turning it into something else, but then had a change of heart and put it back up. And part of me is glad that I took it down for a moment because people love to be weird about the feminizing Steve’s character, and even though I was writing him as a cheerleader, I tried really hard to keep him earnestly himself, and in character.

What was the most difficult part of writing Anyway, It's About Old Friends?

Writing about San Francisco while being the most homesick I have ever been in my life. Also writing Eddie in those first few chapters as an asshole but not unlikable. I didn’t want him to be “fine” (because no one is fine in this universe, especially not in the beginning) but I also didn’t want him to do or say anything too bad. I think I got a handle on it pretty well.

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

In Faces Freedom With A Little Fear, the first scene in the hospital with Steve’s sister. She storms in, threatens federal agents, all for her brother. JJ Harrington you will always be famous!

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Just my current WIPs! Anyway It’s About Old Friends; the When Harry Met Sally AU of my dreams. Hand on My Stupid Heart; the modern AU, where the UD exists but everyone has iPhones and Steve deals with his bisexuality!

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Shout out to my boys! Kkpwnall, judasofsuburbia, figthefruitfaeth, gideoncharov, cheatghost, fastcardotmp3, snowangeldotmp3 you guys rule and they’re all so talented!!!! Thank you to whoever nominated me! I feel the love and give it back to you tenfold!!!!!!

Thank you to our author, @fragilecapric0rnn, and our nominator, @cheatghost! See more of fragilecapric0rn's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[goggles-mcgee]

Okay, if you can't tell the Steddie and overall ST brainrot has a GRIP on me.

But like, can y'all imagine if Gareth is super worried for his friend, knows all his spots that he goes to when stressed and just wants to know his friend is okay because he knows Eddie would never kill anyone. So he goes to Reefer Rick's at the same time as everyone else and like that throws everything off.

Dustin is trying to get Eddie to make Gareth leave but Gareth is Eddie's Ride-or-Die. He ain't going anywhere kiddo.

So Gareth is there for everything, he makes sure Eddie doesn't die. They both get a little fucked up yeah but they had to protect Little Henderson, who apparently is basically King Steve's child. Which that was something he could have never guessed. King Steve turning into Mama Steve a mother of 6 or 7 children...and apparently his best friend is coparenting those children.

Him and Robin Live Slug reacting to Eddie and Steve flirting and being oblivious.

Gareth and Eddie losing their damn minds together over the shit they saw and learn about from The Party.

Of course Jared (the friend who completed their trio), as soon as he's able to come back to town as his dad sent him to his grandmas in Indianapolis when everything started, rushes to check over his friends and ask what the fuck happened. Eddie and Gareth want to tell him so bad but like the government did make them sign NDA's and like they haven't run it by the Party but look Steve was visiting Eddie and Gareth at Eddie's new trailer and he can give permission right?

Eddie: "Stevie. Sweetheart. Doll. Jared is the other 50% of my impulse control. We have to tell him! I don't care if we signed NDAs."

Gareth: "You know....I actually don't remember signing an NDA. Like I did go into surgery and came out but like I don't remember any Feds."

Steve: "...what?"

Gareth: "No I'm serious! Like unless I don't remember because I was on the good stuff, no spooky Men in Black. Maybe they didn't realize I was part of it? I mean my injuries were bad yeah but Eddie's were way worse. Harrington you get 2nd place for injuries."

Jared: "...what?"

Eddie: "You know you may be on to something Gar!"

Gareth: "You know how much I hate that nickname but continue."

Eddie: "Your injuries looked like they could have been caused by falling debris from an "earthquake" or perhaps some overzealous jock cult members who were known to be going after Hellfire members..."

Jared: "I am so confused."

Steve: "So you didn't sign an NDA."

Gareth: "I did not!"

Steve sighing loudly: "Eddie, Gareth, you two SWEAR he can keep a secret?"

Eddie: "Seeing as Jared has known I like dick since freshman year and hasn't said anything yeah Babe."

Jared: "Babe!?"

Gareth: "Do not ask."

Steve sighing even more: "Technically...I guess we're not breaking any agreements if Gareth tells uh...Jared? Jared everything. I'll let the kids know."

Jared gets adopted into the Party next. Hopper is just shaking his head near tears, why do they keep multiplying!?

[abstractnaturaldisaster]

Steddie Flower Shop / Tattoo Parlour AU

I literally just finished my first fic ever and I’ve already started on my next. The Steddie brainrot is real. I low key became obsessed with the idea of Eddie accidentally becoming a florist after high school after this tik tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wbznewsradio/video/7195608049468312874

The idea isn’t original and there’s probably already a bunch of these AUs but I couldn’t help but through my hat in the ring! Enjoy the beginnings -- I’m working on a longer fic (maybe a valentine’s day plot?)

Also available on AO3!

                                                          ***

Eddie hadn’t meant to become a florist. He’d taken the gig originally as a part time delivery boy in exchange for using said delivery van when his high school band had a show and whatever tips he got. Five years and a high school diploma later, Eddie had ended up running the shop when the original owners, the De Lucas, were getting too old to manage on their own. Another five years and Mr. and Mrs. De Luca had retired and given Eddie the shop so they could move somewhere warmer. Eddie didn’t blame them. Chicago winters were almost unbearable even as a twenty-something. 

If anyone asked, Eddie wouldn’t say he loved his job but he did love the De Lucas and owning a flower shop was a little better than your standard nine to five. Eddie certainly hadn’t dreamed of being a florist. He’d spent high school dreaming of making it big in the metal scene but after high school his bandmates had started becoming productive members of society and coupled with the early mornings at the flower market his rockstar days had slowed considerably. Every once in a while the gang would get together and practice or play a gig for old times sake but corralling Corroded Coffin’s busy schedules got complicated. Eddie still kept up appearances and resolutely dressed like a metalhead even when 4 am meant waking up to barter with Mr. Lee instead of getting home from a gig. He continued to show off his stick and poke tattoos and the closest thing he got to a uniform was band tees and ripped jeans. De Lucas’ Flowers wasn’t in the snazziest neighborhood in Chicago but was starting to get more expensive as more people flooded into the city. Eddie was eternally grateful that the small flower shop included an equally small apartment directly above the stall. 

Eddie had taken after the original owners and kept his staff fairly small. After the De Lucases well and truly retired, Eddie had hired Chrissy Cunningham to manage the books and keep the lights on. Chrissy was an old high school acquaintance who was looking for a job to pay the bills while she wrote the next great american novel. They had run in different circles in high school but had bonded when Chrissy had shown up to one of Eddie’s shows at the Hideout. It turned out Chrissy had decent taste in music even though she spent most of her time with the other cheerleaders and their jock boyfriends who thought Journey was hard rock. Luckily for Eddie this also meant that he didn’t have to change the shop’s soundtrack when Chrissy started working. Metal wasn’t usually what people associated with flower shops but Eddie got most of his orders over the phone or online so it didn’t detract from their client base. He still did most of the deliveries in the old De Lucas’ Flowers van that he had driven in high school even though it was definitely nearing the end of its life. Eddie put more work into keeping the van rolling than he did most of his past relationships and wasn’t ready to give up on the old girl just yet.

“If I have to explain to a winter bride one more time that peonies and dahlias are summer flowers, I am quitting, Chrissy,” Eddie said as he came barreling down the stairs from his apartment.

“Eddie, why don’t you just let me take bridal orders?” Chrissy reasoned.

“Because, Chrissy, last time we did that you didn’t realize there was a difference between a king and queen protea and almost lost us a client.”

“Hey! I’ve been practicing. I made flashcards!” Chrissy pulled out a stack of index cards with colorful printouts of flowers on one side and their common and scientific names on the back.

“And I appreciate it. But I think your talents lie with cooking the books,” Eddie joked.

“Don’t say shit like that. One day someone will overhear you and think we’re money launderers,” Chrissy was kidding but Eddie’s general vibe didn’t always inspire confidence that the flower shop was indeed just a flower shop.

“That’s why I have you, babe,” Eddie said as he blew a kiss Chrissy’s way.

“Gross.”

“Rude, Cunningham.”

Eddie found a hair tie nestled between his garden shears and pulled his hair into a messy bun to get started on the day’s orders.

“Did you see that place across the street got rented out?” Chrissy asked as Eddie was putting the finishing touches on an apology bouquet for what had to be one hell of a mistake.

“Ew. New neighbors. Any idea what it’s gonna be?” Eddie scoffed.

“No clue. Just saw they took down the for lease sign yesterday,” Chrissy added.

“Boo. I liked our quiet street.”

“I don’t think anyone would call this street quiet what with the racket you put on the radio,” Chrissy chided.

Eddie didn’t respond except to turn up the speaker a couple notches.

After finishing up the morning’s orders, Eddie started loading the van to go on his delivery route. It was pretty formulaic, a few big skyscraper lobbies nearby, some office deliveries, and the big apology bouquet that was going to a house in Lakeview. Out of the corner of his eye he caught two people carrying a comically large velvet couch into the empty space across the street.

“Chrissy,” Eddie groaned. “It’s going to be one of those fucking hipster places. They have a pretentious couch.”

“You can’t possibly know what kind of place it’ll be from one furniture piece,” Chrissy shot back.

“Look outside, Chris.”

Chrissy went over to the shop window as the giant green monstrosity was being lifted onto the stoop of the building across the way.

“Okay, fine. That’s an asshole couch,” Chrissy agreed.

“See! We’re going to have to move. The neighborhood is going to hell.”

Chrissy shooed Eddie out to start his deliveries. Eddie flipped her off as he made his way to the driver’s side of the van. He looked back over to the shop across the street and scoffed again. At least whatever hipster nonsense was moving in across the way had picked a moving guy with a hot ass.

Eddie settled into the monotony of his deliveries and the familiarity of his Dio cassette and mostly put the new neighbors out of his mind. He gave them six months before the new business moved out.

Part Two

[hairstevington]

flowers and ink (final part)

Eddie Munson x Steve Harrington

Summary: Eddie and Steve are happy. Chrissy and Robin are happy. Jonathan meets Argyle. Everyone is happy!

Part one, part two, part three, part four part five part six part seven part eight link to Ao3

Word Count: 1100

Warnings: So sweet you'll get a cavity tbh, Jargyle (because why not), they are idiots one last time, also more Gareth!

Author's Note: Awww, it was emotional to close this one out! Thank you to all who have read and followed along. I can't believe this was only going to be 2 parts at first. I am a FOOL with Steddie brainrot. Until next time!!

Steve wasn’t sure what he was expecting when Eddie said he’d gotten him a gift, but it sure as shit wasn’t this. 

“Oh, my god,” Steve said, holding it up to see it in all its glory. A t-shirt with words printed over a rainbow across the chest: Steve & Robin - Not dating, just gay and codependent. 

“Obviously, I have one for Robin too,” Eddie said, tossing Steve a second shirt. 

“Oh, my God!” Steve repeated, laughing this time. It was perfect and so incredibly weird. He couldn’t wait to model them with his best friend and take the most ridiculous not-couple pictures of all time. “This is - I mean, Jesus! I love it, but would you let me be the impressive one for once?”

Eddie looked Steve up and down, then smirked. 

“With those abs? Don’t worry, you’re still the impressive one here.” Steve blushed, then sat up in bed so he could put the shirt on, but Eddie stopped him. “Woaaaah there, what are you doing? You can’t cover up, I’m enjoying the view.” Steve rolled his eyes.

“You’re not going to let me use the gift you got me?”

“Not yet,” Eddie replied. “I’m actually kind of regretting the whole thing now. You should probably never wear a shirt ever again. Can I have it back actually?” Steve chuckled, then smacked Eddie playfully on the arm.

“No way.”

“Steve, you wound me," Eddie joked. "But fine, as you wish."

Eddie and Steve had been official for 2 months at this point, and everything was kind of perfect. They each continued to work their respective jobs, and with their added happiness came enhanced customer service. 

Bob was happy - both for Eddie’s shift in demeanor as well as for the business. They were doing great! Plus, he got bonus points as a step-dad for introducing Will to Eddie and the shop. Will came to visit a few more times, and this time he got to talk to Steve, too. It was clear that seeing a happy gay couple was important for Will. He hadn’t seen much of that in his small town, so seeing Eddie and Steve be so grossly into each other was refreshing. 

And gross.

But mostly refreshing!

One day, Will’s older brother dropped Will off at the shop, introducing yet another cool person into the friend group - Jonathan. By then, Eddie had succeeded in making Argyle his friend, and the two of them spent many nights smoking and watching those stupid stoner comedies together in Argyle’s weird, confusingly giant house that he somehow lived in. 

Seriously, how did the guy have a house like that already? How did he have the money to travel so much with Chrissy? Her show was good and all, but it couldn’t possibly be getting her that much income. 

In any case, Argyle and Eddie were buds, so Argyle also happened to be around when Jonathan walked into Ink About It. 

The bromance between Jonathan and Argyle was pretty much immediate. Eddie would have felt mildly jealous about it if he hadn’t noticed some very familiar (aka queer) vibes between the two. Perhaps Will wasn’t the only Byers grappling with their identity, that's all Eddie was saying - but it was just speculation. Eddie kept his mouth shut (except to Steve, obviously, who fully agreed). In due time, as with anything else. 

So then they all hung out - Chrissy, Jonathan, Argyle, Steve, Eddie, and Robin. They’d formed quite the friend group - all of them getting along with each other beautifully. Argyle even hosted a road trip with the squad in his giant pizza van (???) so that they could all surprise Gareth at a Corroded Coffin show.

That night was epic, and it finally cemented Robin and Chrissy as girlfriends.

After their date, they’d both been super into each other - undeniably so. Yet, because Chrissy was so often moving around, they’d decided it was best to just stay friends. 

Yeah. Eddie and Steve knew that wouldn’t last very long. 

It still lasted longer than it should have, and the pining was rampant. Every time they all hung out, the two women wouldn’t stop staring at each other, cracking jokes, and giving everyone else in the room ample opportunities to share knowing glances…

And then they went on the road trip, and they got super drunk, and Robin tended to speak a lot more freely when she was intoxicated. 

She professed her love to Chrissy on the dance floor. 

It was a bold move, but it paid off. Chrissy and Argyle extended their stay in Hawkins, and Robin and Chrissy became an official couple. 

Coincidentally, that night was also pretty huge for Eddie and Steve. Firstly, because Chrissy and Robin had dropped the “I love you’s” before they had, which felt kind of ridiculous, considering Eddie and Steve obviously loved each other. 

“The fucking lesbians stole my thunder!” Eddie yelled from the bar, watching Robin and Chrissy hug each other on the dance floor.

“What are you talking about?” Steve asked, amused at his boyfriend’s antics.

“Ladies and Gentleman!”

Gareth’s voice boomed from the stage. The band had taken a quick break, but were back on. Eddie grinned, then grabbed Steve’s hand.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get closer.” They wandered through the crowd (past Chrissy and Robin) as Gareth continued. 

“We’ve got a surprise for you all. You see, my boy Eddie Munson requested we play a special song tonight. So, this one’s for you, Flower Boy. Lord knows we wouldn’t play this for anyone else.”

Before Steve could even process what was happening, the band began to play. It wasn’t metal, it was -

“I Melt With You,” Steve said once he recognized it. “I love this song.”

“Iiiiii know!” Eddie responded, laughing. He pulled Steve into him so they could swing along to the music. “This was my whole master plan. Was gonna have them play this and tell you I loved you and it was going to be this whole beautiful moment but then Robin-”

“Eddie,” Steve interrupted, laughing. Eddie’s jaw dropped, and then he facepalmed. 

“Oh my god I totally just said it without meaning to,” he said. “I’ve been holding out for WEEKS and -”

“You’ve loved me for weeks?” Steve asked, touched. 

“Well, yeah,” Eddie replied. “Duh.” His eyes bugged out on that last word, his voice taking on a goofy, boyish cadence. Steve smiled.

“You’re so ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head. “And I love you too.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asked, grinning.

“Duh,” Steve replied, attempting to mimic Eddie’s response from before. “Robin didn’t ruin your big plan, by the way. That was all you.” Eddie chuckled.

“You still love me though,” he said. Steve nodded, and then they were kissing. 

I’ll stop the world and melt with you.

Yeah. That song pretty much said it all.

Everything felt just right🌹

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

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[infamoussarcasm]

Steddie Brainrot so real right now. All I want right now is an 80′s romcom style AU where the Fruity Four (maybe spicy six?) all work at some Bougie country club. It’s Nancy and Robin’s last couple months there as they are going off to college in the Fall but Steve and Eddie have no plans for college or any idea what they want to do so they plan on just continuing to work there. Steve knows that he’s going to be miserable once Robin leaves so with her encouragement he decides to try and get to know Eddie better that summer. Goofy shenanigans ensue, including drunken golf cart joyrides and skinny dipping and slowly but surely the boys fall in love.

[scheodingers-muppet]

Welcome back to "Jace has Stranger Things and Taylor Swift brainrot." On today's episode: Red. I'm going kinda out of order, but I honestly think I'll end up doing every album so if you want to see a specific album, let me know

State of Grace: Steddie. "I never saw you coming" "You were never a saint, and I've loved in shades of wrong" They both can be mean and tough, but they were so soft around each other almost immediately

Red: Stancy, from Steve's POV. The relationship was honestly toxic, but it was filled with adrenaline and most likely Steve's first real love. Losing her was hard, since he loved her so strongly. I'm also a "Steve's emotions are too big for his body" person so I might be projecting

Treacherous: Lumax. Max grew up without a strong sense of what a healthy relationship should look like. Her stepdad sucked and was likely awful to her Mom. She's scared of what love and letting people in her bubble mean. Then you add the fact Billy straight up told her to avoid Lucas but she couldn't resist. Then Lucas warning her that getting involved with him could be dangerous. It's not safe on paper, but she loves him

I Knew You Were Trouble: Stancy, from Steve's side. I promise not all the breakup songs will be Stancy. But the line "the saddest fear comes creeping in that you never loved me, or her, or anyone" paired with the fight, her inability to tell Steve she loves him, the strain with Jonathan in season 4. It just fits so well

All Too Well: Mike and El. "Any time now, he's gonna say it's love. You never called it what it was, til we were dead and gone and buried, checked the pulse and come back swearing it's the same." "You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath" and Mike literally keeping her a secret at first. "I'm a crumbled up piece of paper" as an analogy to the letters. "Maybe we got lost in translation" and El feeling like she isn't even the same species as Mike. "The idea you had of me, who was she? A never-needy ever, lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you" Need I continue?

22: Season 3 Elmax at the mall. Just being teenage girls, the way they deserve. Also, imagine them having a sleepover, dancing around screaming this song while Hopper's at work one night. Adorable

I Almost Do: Jopper. I think the idea that Joyce waited for Hopper, for him to mature or whatever it was, and finally had to stop waiting. It tore them both apart, but I think Joyce would have had a similar reaction to this song; through Lonnie (or however you spell his name), Bob. Everything

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: Lumax. My on-again-off-again OTP. Another big slumber party song. They will get back together though, let's be honest

Stay Stay Stay: Platonic Stobbin. I just know Robin would be horrible in an actual fight, she'd get so ready for someone to leave and just snap at them. Steve would try to make her laugh once they sit down to talk it out to relieve the tension. In Steve's eyes, everyone he loves leaves, but Robin stays

The Last Time: Byler. Will has had to beg Mike to give him some attention lately, like in season 4 with the letter fight. "The is the last time I'm asking you this, put my name at the top of your list" "You break my heart in the blink of an eye" "This is the last time I say it's been you all along"

Holy Ground: Platonic Stancy. Like, they've both moved on and have each other as friends in their lives. I love the idea of Steddie and Ronance, with Steve and Nancy dancing together at their weddings

Sad Beautiful Tragic: Jancy. They only started hanging out because of tragedies. Their relationship has only existed because of horrible things, but they found beauty in it. "Distance, timing, breakdown, fighting" and "Could you just try to listen?" with the fight in season 3 and them living on opposite sides of the country in season 4.

The Lucky One: Steve. "You had it figured out since you were in school, everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool" Everyone is quick to tell him he's got it good since he has a rich family and was Mr. Popular, but he's lonely. "Your lover in the foyer doesn't even know you." "You don't feel pretty, you just feel used" "You wonder if you'll make it out alive"

Everything Has Changed: Lumax!! "All I've seen since 18 hours ago is green eyes, and freckles and your smile in the back of my mind" "All I know is a simple name and everything as changed" from Lucas's pov. "All my walls stood tall, painted blue but I'll take 'em down and open up the door for you" "All I know is a new found grace. All my days, I'll know your face" from Max

Starlight: Robin. I think Robin would love space and the stars. We know she loves music, and I think she'd like to dance too. Also the line "worrying so much about things you can't change. You'll spend your whole life singing the blues if you keep thinking that way" fits her so well. And the line "He's talking crazy, dancing with me. We could get married, have ten kids and teach them how to dream" reads to me as Robin playfully joking about Steve's old crush on her, and I think the two of them would totally hang out on Robin's prom night, but Steve would still make her dance because everyone deserves an awkward prom slow dance

Begin Again: Max, not necessarily about a relationship though. This song makes me think of Max's damaged relationship with men and the party helping her heal that. Billy was abusive, her stepdad sucked. We see Steve be that protective figure where Billy was the opposite. Hopper would totally also take her under his wing and show her what a father figure should be. The boys in the party treat her as an equal. They think she's fierce and funny and beautiful, but they treat her as a person too. She's not used to that; the men in her life haven't been good to her. But they're showing her how worthy she is

The Moment I Knew: Byler. I love Mike, but he's severely dropped the ball for Will. Will was so excited to see him in season 4, but he's hardly paying attention to him before everything happens. Add the fact that season 4 should have been over Will's birthday

Come Back... Be Here: Steddie. "I told myself don't get attached." "I don't want to miss you like this" "If I had known what I'd known now, I never would've played so nonchalant" "I can't help but wish you took me with you" "This is falling in love in the cruelest way" "This is falling for you and you are worlds away"

Girl At Home: Honestly, Murray. Why? I Don't know. But it's him.

Ronan: Hopper (I'm sorry) I think we often forget he lost his daughter, and not only that, he blames himself. The little memories we see show how much he loved her.

Better Man: Max about Billy. She wanted to love him but he was so horrible to her and we see in season 4 how she does miss him. "Talking down to me like I'd always be around, push my love away like it was some kind of loaded gun" "I wish it wasn't 4 am standing in the mirror saying 'you know you had to it' I know the bravest thing I ever did was wrong"

Nothing New: Nancy. "Girls go out and have your fun' then they hunt and slay the ones who actually do it" Nancy tried to be a teenage girl and lost her best friend, blames herself for it, got slutshammed to the whole town, and became a monster hunter. She deals with the most sexism, both from other characters and the fandom. "what will become of me once I lost my novelty" "how can a person know everything at 18 and nothing at 22?" "She'll know the way and then she'll say she got the map from me" about Holly or Erica, and feeling so conflicted because these girls look up to her but she feels like a mess who shouldn't be a goal to reach. Especially for Erica, since she got roped into the Upside Down stuff so young.

The other vault songs don't really match in my opinion, so this is all for today

[thesolarangel]

I wanna write more fluff and I'm thinking about going back to Steddie... I think I want to continue this one from 2022... A few chapters of pining, will they, won't they, playing around, the kiddos getting in the middle of everything... Until Eddie finally snaps and asks Steve out😂

Gotta love it when the brainrot comes around a second time!

Feel free to mute the tag "Steddie"!

[mistysharks]

hello! I'm LittleMarySunshine from Ao3! Here to lovingly yell about brainrotting HellCheerington!

Ohoho! Excellent! I very much didn't plan for what to say should someone take me up on it but I am delighted nonetheless <3

But please, yell away! ;D I always love to hear what direction people come into HellCheerington from - Hellcheer, Steddie, or simply a character hyperfixation? I was totally a Steddie girl through and through but apparently my Eddie obsession didn't let me stop there? And there was a lot of good hellcheer fanart not gonna lie... To respond to your comment on Ao3: It is a pretty rare ship which is a shame! I have been talking with a friend about possibly finding/creating a Discord for it which I think could be really fun! I do have some ideas for continuing all you have is your fire actually, I just need a good angle to get into it from! I really enjoyed the setting and would love to explore Chrissy's place within the rest of the party for example, but I feel I also need a different flavour of smut for a part two? Like it would definitely be a smut treated seriously series should I continue haha (but oh, I am already enjoying the concept of slight awkward times as they figure things out between the three of them, especially when they might get back to the rest of the party?? hmmm) Ok I will shut up now haha but anyway, welcome! and thank you for the lovely compliments <3

[hey-moonwtf]

Hi babes, I’m overwhelmed and going though it with university and my chronic illnesses. Sorry I haven’t been on here as much 🥺😭 I promise I’ll be back on as soon as I can for the continuation of Steddie brainrot ✨✨🖤

Feel free to still send me messages and asks, if you would like 💜 I may just be show to respond

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

destiel!steddie brainrot pt. 2

Here's the second part to this destiel/spn themed au (first part here, which has updated and made a bit longer!!)~!

i'm brainstorming titles for this, may keep going with little snippets from this universe as they come to me and post them to ao3 too :)

tw/cw: mentions of suicide and suicidal ideations below; nothing described/graphic, but mentions of characters wanting to/who have died by completing suicide (has to do with this part's monster of the week and Real Steve's story from the first part!). and said monster of the week originally died by overdose; again, not said directly, just alluded to. please read with caution!

Do two different cases of vengeful spirits make him lucky? Or unlucky?

First it was the damn ‘witnesses’ that Steve told him were part of the demons’ (yes, those demons, but from what he gathered from Steve, were different on the whole from crossroads demons) plan to release Lucifer.

“Ah, Lucifer. Of course.”

“Why do you sound unbelieving?”

“Oh I believe you, I’m just surprised that I’m not surprised by it. Because of course, angels, demons, hell, Lucifer is a given. He’s like THE angel, right?”

“He was the first of my father’s children and the first to fall from heaven if that is what you mean.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m getting at.” Eddie goes to pull his hand through his hair, which gets stuck on his rings and on his hand in general because somehow he forgot that he’d put it up about five minutes earlier.

Now, after dealing with those motherfucking ghosts, helping Wayne put together a pyre for one of his good hunter friends who was killed by her own ‘witness’, they got word of a long string of suicides at a high school in a small Indiana town that had the kids’ parents convinced it was some sort of pact.

“Y’know, I grew up here.” Wayne says as they pass the ‘Now Entering Hawkins’ sign.

“Really?”

“Yep. Good ol’ Hawkins, Indiana. Surprised we haven’t been through here yet, there was always weird shit happening here when I was a kid.”

It’s late morning when Eddie’s van rumbles to a stop outside the motel.

“Boy, we really need to get you a new set of wheels if you’re gonna keep pretending to be a professional at anything.”

“What’s wrong with my baby??”

“Ed, you’re about to put on a suit and pretend to be a professional that works with children, and you’re gonna pull up in an late 70s panel van. What do you think is wrong with your baby?”

“...okay, you’ve got a point. You gotta new set of wheels for me at that junkyard of yours then, old man? I’m not exactly flush with cash.”

Wayne thinks for a moment. “I think I might, got it from a hunting buddy of mine after his brother died.”

Eddie just nods, “Whatever you say, Wayne, now c’mon lets get changed and get to the school.”

This time, they’re pretending to be mental health counselors sent to work with the families of the students who’ve passed. The two of them get through a few interviews each, but it’s one of the students’ little sister that has the first inkling of what they are really dealing with. ‘Best thing about young minds,’ Eddie will tell Wayne later, ‘they are sensitive to, and open to, way more than adults are.’

He and Wayne are in this one together, last one of the siblings at the school, and the snarky redhead calls out her mom’s practiced answer of ‘I never saw anything wrong’, calling her out for never being around and putting the pressure of being the parent to her.

Eddie looks at the young girl, then back to her mother. “Ms. Mayfield, may I have a word with Max here, alone?”

She looks unsure, so he continues “We’ll be right here, you can be on just the other side of the door and watch us the whole time, I promise.”

Ms. Mayfield nods her head shakily, and stands, Wayne accompanies her out, to give her some semblance of security.

“So, Max, Max right?” She just eyeballs him incredulously. “I’m going to just start talking, and you stop me if I’m way off base, ‘kay?” She looks away, but doesn’t say anything to the contrary. 

“I think you know the pattern already, that you know this isn’t just some stupid pact, huh? I think you know who may be a target next; that if this thing, this whatever it is, can wheedle its way under your brother’s skin, that it may get to your…” He looks her over “...friends next. Right? Obviously no one in particular, just your friends, huh?” Her head whips back to him and he leans back in the seat he was given, knowing he’s got her pegged. She’s worried about a crush or a boyfriend, or something. He can tell.

The look she has tells him she’s already putting seemingly impossible pieces together on what he and Wayne are doing here.

“Whatever it is, it’s a bully. It’s going after whoever it thinks it can sink its claws in. Like it’s finding those with the biggest insecurities and driving them to their deaths.”

“You’re very astute, you know that, don't you.”

“Duh.”

“What do you think it is then, Red?”

“My friends have been calling it Vecna.”

Eddie’s brain stalls. “H-how do you know that name?”

“Ah, so you’re a nerd too, huh?”

“Your friends play D&D.” Eddie breathes; Max just smirks at him, but her face falls just as quickly and that just won’t do. “Hey, don’t worry Red, my uncle and I got this covered. We’ll get this bastard taken care of.” And he means every word. Not one shred of this motherfucker is going to lay a finger on this girl’s friends as long as he has anything to do with it.

She looks down at her feet, “Please hurry,” she mumbles “I can’t lose them too.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but she’s up off the little couch lightning fast and heading to the door. He shoots up to follow, “Thank you Ms. Mayfield,” He says when he exits. “She will be just fine. She’s just worried about her friends too.”

“Thank you.” She says, still a bit out of it as her eyes follow Max down the hall.

“Just make sure she knows you’re there for her, and get some more permanent help for the two of you, real help, not just us temp guys.” Wayne smiles at her.

All she does is nod, then moves to follow her daughter.

“What’dja find out, Ed?”

“Super-powered, cartoonishly evil, bully of a ghost named after a D&D villain?”

—-

He and Wayne split up after that, Wayne goes back to the motel to whip up some extra salt rounds for them, and Eddie heads to the Hawkins Library to do some research on deaths in the area.

After some searching, he comes across Jason Carver. Seemingly the small town’s golden boy tragically killed by an overdose. He seems to match the fleeting glimpses that all the witnesses to the students’ deaths were able to give. Cropped blond hair, 6’2” or so, a flash of green that seemed like it could be a Hawkins High varsity jacket.

The dealer that gave him the drugs was found guilty of manslaughter and he got 10 years and a permanent shun from the town. He, Fred, still lived in Hawkins though, in the Forest Hills trailer park.

Eddie calls Wayne at the hotel, “Whatcha find out, Ed?”

“Looks like a good contender for a high school bully ghost, does the name Jason Carver mean anything to you?”

Wayne scoffs, “Sure does, that kid was horrible to me and my buddies back in the day.”

“Not a golden boy?”

“Didn’t say all that. I think I know who we can talk to.” Eddie can hear him shuffling around and the jingle of keys.

“Is it a man named Fred Jameson, lives out at F–”

“Forest Hills, yeah. Be there soon for ya.”

“How’d you– aand he’s gone.” he says into his receiver to only silence.

—

“Of course I knew where you were talking about Eddie, I grew up in this park, Fred was one of my best buds back in the day.”

Wayne pulls into Fred’s drive, behind a well-loved red pickup. The rattle of Eddie’s van must’ve alerted Fred to their arrival, because he met them outside before they could even get all the way out of their seats.

“I thought I recognized that rattle, still haven’t hocked that hunk of junk yet, eh Munson?” Fred folds Wayne into a hug, giving him a couple of pats on the back for good measure.

“Hey, that’s my baby you’re talking about.” Eddie grumbles.

“Damn, that you, Teddy?”

“Teddy? Who in the hell–”

“Yeah, he really looks like Margie, huh?” Wayne crinkles a smile at Eddie’s disgust at Fred's nickname.

“You knew my mom?”

“Of course boy, I knew you both back when you were just a little bean. There were a good few months there, after you were born, that Margie and you were living with Wayne.”

Eddie doesn’t really know what to say to that, but luckily Wayne gets right to it.

“Fred, I hate to do this to ya, but we’re here on business.”

The other man’s face falls sickly and pale in an instant.

“I shoulda known you’d be comin’ ‘round. What do you need to know?”

“It’s about Jason Carver.” Eddie winces at how much worse the man’s expression twists.

“C’mon D, you can’t’ve believed that suicide pact shit.”

“I never believed it. He’s been…” Fred pauses, seeming to look for the right words “He’s been haunting my dreams. Nightmares really, telling me all the things he did to those poor kids. Says it was my fault.”

Wayne and Eddie share a look. “D, it wasn’t yo-”

“Sure it was, Wayne. I should’a just stood up to him and said I ain't had shit.”

“You know what he would’a done to ya if you had.”

“Well now there’s six lives lost, not just one!” Fred snaps. “If I had just stuck with it, told him I couldn’t get it until Reefer Rick was back, I wouldn’t’ve gotten that bad shit, he would still be around, and so would those five other kids!”

“Fred–”

“I gotta get going, Wayne, y’all should too.” He cuts him off “Good t’see ya Teddy.” and with that, he turns and heads back inside his trailer.

The two Munsons are frozen in Fred’s driveway for a moment longer, before they turn back to their van. They drive in silence on their way back to the motel. It’s only when they’re parked in front of their room again that Eddie says something.

“Fred’s next.”

Wayne’s face sets itself further into its frown. “I think you’re right.”

—-

They go out to the graveyard as soon as night falls, finding Carver’s grave easy enough. They run a salt line around the site, and start digging together, but Wayne’s back has him dropping off only about two feet deep.

It’s just after Wayne settles himself onto the handle of his shovel to rest for a bit when they hear something crunching through the dark towards them.

Eddie hops up immediately, Wayne tossing him one of their shotguns. He skirts off between the taller granite and marble stones around him, getting closer to the intruder’s unskilled footsteps.

He peeks around the base of a way-too-large angel statue and whips up his gun. He’s face to face, shotgun to pistol, with a petite woman in a high ponytail.

This woman looks human enough, definitely not ghost-y, probably just wondering why she just caught a couple guys grave-robbing. Better safe than sorry, though, so Eddie tests her.

“Christo.” There’s no extreme reaction to the word, only confusion. “Who are you and what are you doing here?? It’s not safe!”

“I should ask you the same thing! Are you the one causing all these deaths?” her grip on her handgun does not waver.

“Jesus H. Christ, I don’t have time for this.” Eddie says under his breath, dropping his shotgun and walking back to the grave. “Hawkins High has a ghost in it. We’re trying to kill it before it can convince someone else to do it to themselves.” He hops back down into Jason’s grave and tosses his shotgun to the girl who’d followed behind him, gun still raised. Smart. Eddie thinks, then also notices she was able to cross their salt line easily. Human, then.

She catches it easily, blinks once, and says, “Fine, say I believe you. Now how in the hell do you kill a ghost, also how is a ghost causing these deaths?” she un-cocks her revolver and tucks it back in her waistband.

Eddie’s about to answer when the loose hairs around his face are blown into his mouth with an invisible flap of wings “Eddie, I need to speak with you.”

The girl goes pale at the sight of Steve.

“Steve?”

“Yes. Do I know you?” the angel cocks his head at the absolutely bewildered woman.

Eddie has to look between Steve’s confused face and the woman’s heartbroken one a couple times before it clicks.

“Are you kidding me!? You’ve just been using your vessel’s real name? That’s fucked up.” Eddie says around the last few hairs stuck in his mouth.

“It was as good a name as any.”

“Uhm hello? What is happening right now? You’ve been missing for months.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Eddie interrupts, “Eddie, Wayne, you apparently know Steve,” He gestures to the three of them. “Shoot anything that is not us, while I salt and burn this sucker.”

To Eddie's surprise, she steels herself with a roll of her tiny shoulders and cocks the shotgun in her hand, immediately turning her back to him and watching for that damn Jason.

“So, how does a shotgun protect against a ghost?”

“Our own creation, the buckshot is replaced with rocksalt.” Wayne explains, not turning from his vigil.

“Salt repels ghosts?”

“Amongst other things.” Eddie shovels up another pile of dirt. “Steve, my man, I know you needed to talk to me about something, but can you maybe help with this?” Eddie looks at the beautiful man through his bangs, sweaty despite the November chill.

“How would you like me to help, Eddie?” 

Eddie continues shoveling, “Well, there’s another shovel up there, otherwise do you maybe have some special grave-digging angel powers I don’t know about?”

“Angel powers, what are you–” the girl starts as Steve lifts his hand and snaps his fingers.

Eddie’s suddenly standing above a completely cleared out grave, un-sweaty, hair pulled back neatly again from the shambles his bun had been in when he’d started digging, shirt straightened, and his jacket back on. Both shovels are sticking out of the pile of soil nearby.

“Wow..” Eddie breathes.

“Damn, why didn’t you show up sooner? Could’ve saved myself the stress of watching Ed do all that work..” Wayne deadpans to the angel.

“Can it, old man, now help me lift the lid off this thing.” Eddie bites back at his uncle, and jumps back down into the grave. “Stevie, watch her back, make sure Jason doesn’t come barreling in.”

“Her back is fine, Eddie.”

“That’s not what I–you know what, thanks Steve, now watch the opposite side of the grave that she is and make sure Jason doesn’t sneak up on us. Stop him if he does.”

“Oh..” Steve’s voice is quiet at that; he’ll learn eventually.

Eddie helps Wayne climb down and they get to work prying up the coffin lid. 

It’s simple enough work after that, salt, fuel, torch, burn.

Except it never is when you want it to be.

As soon as the first grain of salt hits Jason’s crumbling body, there’s a wail from above them.

“Every time..” Wayne grumbles.

“Everything okay up there?” Eddie calls.

“Yes, we can see him, but he can’t cross the lin–oh shit.” the girl says.

Fuck, he should’ve known this’d happen. Jason has been torturing the poor sensitive souls at his old high school and has thrown things and people. He should’ve known he’d be strong enough to blow a crack through the salt ring.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Damn, why’d he think it’d be okay to leave a random girl that just happened to walk up and what is basically a baby in a yellow sweater to defend against something this strong??

Eddie scrabbles up the inside of the grave out of sheer will, and Wayne tosses one of their pry bars up to him.

“Keep shooting him to keep him back, we just need to stall him while Wayne makes sure he burns!”

Steve and the woman–damn, he really should’ve asked her name–nod at him, and Steve suddenly has some long silver stake looking thing in his hand. 

“Steve! Silver wont work on him, it has to be iron or salt!” Eddie tosses his crowbar to the angel, who catches it easily, turning back to take a swipe at Jason who’d come up from behind him. 

Eddie snatches up Wayne’s salt rifle and takes the third section of the circle, willing the fire to burn faster.

Their new party member seems to be holding her own. She’s found their spare cartridges and makes sure they’re in reach while she keeps aim at the poltergeist’s head.

He only comes at her once, and she fires. That keeps him away long enough for the body in the coffin below to burn enough, banishing him from the mortal plane for good.

Finally, Eddie can relax. They watch as Jason burns down to nothing. “Are you a hunter?” Eddie asks the woman.

“I’m assuming you’re not talking ‘hunter’ in the traditional sense?”

Eddie smirks at her, shakes his head, “You’d be correct.”

“Then no. I have been trying to figure out what’s been happening here for a little while now; I heard there were a couple guys running around asking weird questions so I followed you out here. And NOW I want to know what’s going on with not-Steve.” she directs to Eddie, then turns to said Steve. “Robin is going to be so pissed at you.”

Steve opens his mouth to respond but Eddie cuts in before he even thinks about it “His girlfriend?”

She scoffs, “As if; she’s his best friend.” She looks at Steve with sad eyes, “And Dustin too.”

“Dustin?” Steve cocks his head to the side again. This time it seems like there’s sadness behind his confused look.

“Okay, dinguses, sounds like thi’should be a conversation held over a good meal, not over a fried corpse.” Wayne cuts in. “Name’s Wayne Munson.” He holds out one dirty, time-gnarled hand to the girl.

She smiles and takes it readily, “Nancy Wheeler, sir.”

“None’a that now, Wayne is jus’ fine.”

“Stevie, would you be a dear and fill that back in for us?” Eddie sighs, feeling the adrenaline dropping out of his body, fast.

Steve nods once and snaps his fingers. The hole is refilled and the salt line is gone. The three of them are also cleaned up and straightened out.

“Thanks, Angel, now let's go get some burgers, gotta get our energy back.”

“I do not need to consume anything to replenish my energy.” Steve’s cocks his head.

“I know you don’t, big boy,” Eddie pats him on the shoulder, taking the spare shotgun from Nancy and heading back down to his van.

“I am not much bigger than you in this form, Eddie.” Steve deadpans, as usual, then actual curiosity colors his tone “Have you seen my true form?”

“Can’t say I have, are you much bigger than Steve?” Eddie can feel the double meanings closing in.

“My true form is approximately the size of your Chrysler Building.”

Eddie trips over a divot in the soil. Definitely not over his own feet at that implication.

“Oh, definitely a big boy.” He manages to say, turning to smolder at Steve (What? It’s not like the angel knows the nuance of human facial expressions..) but catches Wayne’s disgusted face and Nancy’s fully amused one (hand over mouth to keep from laughing), over Steve’s adorable confused expression.

“Yes, that is what I am inferring. Eddie, are you alright? Your face is flushing.”

Nancy, the jerk that she is, bursts out laughing. 

“Shut it, Jerk!” 

“Don’t you call me a jerk, Bitch!” she calls back easily.

He grins. Damn, having her around is going to be fun.

—--

“Okay, lemme get this straight.” Eddie says around a mouthful of fries. “You used to date Steve, this Robin chick is his best friend–”

“Platonic soulmate, correct.”

“Right, that, and Dustin is his brother.”

“That’s the best description, yes.”

“So what did you think happened to Steve?”

Eddie sees Steve’s mouth open and claps his hand, that’s not full of burger, over the angel’s mouth, who looks at him with as much anger as he’s learned to express in these couple months on earth. It’s not much.

Nancy gives them a weird look, but starts speaking. “Robin just told me that he drove off one night, one of his bad nights. I don’t know the full extent of what makes a good or bad night, but Robin insists he had been getting better….

“There’s not much more after that, Robin knew where to start looking when he goes off on his own like that, and she found his BMW out at the quarry. Of course, she thought the worst, but they searched every inch of the bottom and no Steve. It was like he disappeared into thin air.”

Eddie nods sadly to himself, thinking as comforting of thoughts he could muster upwards to where Steve had said Real Steve had been brought. Damn, this religious shit being real is really throwing him for a loop. “Nancy, I—EW WHAT THE FUCK??!”

He whips his hand back from Steve’s mouth, now slick with spit. He looks at him incredulously, wiping his palm on his thigh, but his face falters at the absolute dopey look on the angel’s face. Stone-cold blank still, as usual, but his tongue is hanging out between his lips.

Fuck, he’s cute. Damn it! No! Bad Eddie! He’s dead! The real him!

“Where in the hell’d you learn that?”

“The angels have watched humans for a long time, one would pick up a couple things.” He shrugs. Like actually shrugs. “I thought this might get you to remove your hand.”

Eddie doesn’t have a response for that.

“Nancy, Steve was–”

“Wait! Hold on, Stevie, you don’t know this is something she wants to hear.” Eddie murmurs.

“She does; She said as much back at the graveyard. Do you not remember?” Steve retorts in a normal volume.

“Steve. These things are difficult for humans. They’re called emotions. At least ask her first.”

He nods once, still seeming to be confused. “Nancy, you want to know what happened to Steve, correct?” Eddie elbows him, and he feels like concrete against his arm. Steve looks at him confused again, but seems to get what he’s trying to get at. “It may be difficult to hear..?”

Eddie nods, and Steve turns back to Nancy. 

She just looks between the two, confused as all hell. “Uhm, yes?”

“Your Steve did not wish to be of this world any longer.”

Eddie throws his hands up in exasperation. Well, there goes being sensitive about it.

Nancy’s eyes are wide. “...Ah.”

“He offered his body as a vessel, and I brought him to my father’s kingdom of heaven.”

“Oh…Steve..”

“He is being well looked after, I promise. If he would like to return when my mission is complete here, he has the option, I swear it.”

Eddie thinks Nancy is going to be more upset at that, but she just smiles sadly, and nods. “I should call Robin.”

Eddie splutters, “No! No, bad idea Nance!” She’s out of the booth and at the door before he can even say her name. “Damnit, remind me to not sit against the wall next time.”

“Okay, Eddie.” Steve nods.

“Dude! Move! I gotta stop her! Or do you want to explain to this person too why you aren’t her best friend.” Eddie shoves against the shoulder closest to him.

Steve blinks at him once and is suddenly outside the booth, leaving Eddie to fall onto the bench where the angel had just been.

He scrambles up (finally) and heads to the door, only to meet Nancy there, already coming back in from calling this Robin character.

“She’ll be here in about three minutes. Tops.” She grins.

“Jerk.” Eddie grumbles and follows her back to their booth.

“Bitch.” she retorts happily.

He slumps back down into his spot in the booth, wracking his brain about what to tell her.

“Eddie, would you like me to go?”

He snaps his head up to the angel “Hell no! She’s coming here to see you, you gotta be here for that!”

Steve blinks once, then his eyes dart to the door.

“Don’t you even think about i–”

“I will return momentarily.” And with another soft brush of wind and feathers, he was gone.

“That absolute mother fu–”

“So, tell me about this hunting thing.” Nancy says, and tosses a fry into her mouth.

Notes:

Edancy sibling vibes?? Jerk?? Bitch??

Jason having Vecna powers = vengeful spirit in spn land

Wayne calls his friend "D" 'cause, y'know, Fred > Freddy > D

In my head, this is modern AU too so maybe Wayne and his friends dealt with upside-down stuff back in the day and maybe possibly Nancy and current day party have seen some shit too (that's why Nancy's basically unbothered about there being a ghost problem in Hawkins now, too)?

Bobin and Dustin (maybe more?) in the next part!

lastly, i haven't watched spn in what must be a decade now, so continuing on may not follow the show, but just the spn vibes.

Part 3 here! | NOW ON AO3

[very-feral-lesbian]

sooo you’re telling me the makeup artists designed eddies bat tattoos because of steve & his bat attacks….. and they dont want me to ship steddie???