#steddie time loop

[thefatedthoughtofyou]

{ the song (I Just) Died In Your Arms came on at work today and then this happened. }

Warnings: aftermath of time loops, like years after, hurt/comfort, angst, allusion to sex and loss of virginity (its really more of a fade to black situation tho 👍🏻)

🍒🍒🍒

"Eddie?" Steve calls, dropping his bag and all his crap by the door, and toeing off his shoes.

"Kitchen! Rob's at Chrissy's tonight so I thought we'd do dinner and a movie?" Eddie's voice calls, and Steve can already smell something cooking. Hears the sizzle of a something as well, and the radio playing something, the sound just a low rumble in his ears.

"Sounds good. Watcha makin?" Steve calls, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it over the back of the couch, he knows Eddie will grab it later and hang it by the door. He leaves it there anyway, smiling to himself at the thought as turns toward the kitchen.

"Oh just the ol Eddie Munson special. Gourmet grilled cheese. It soothes the- Steve? You okay?" Eddie's voice is quiet now, Steve's sure his eyes are wide too but he can't see them. Not really.

He's staring at the radio. The low murmur of music finally hitting him, stopping him in his tracks, his blood running cold, like icy fingers trailing down his back. That fucking song. He could kill whoever wrote it. Who needs a song about someone dying in their arms?

"Steve?" Eddie asks, again. Steve nods. Takes one step backwards. And then bolts for the bathroom.

He hits his knees hard, slaming down in front of the toilet, losing the small amount of food he'd had for lunch, his stomach heaving. He's shaking when he stands, his knees buckle twice on the short walk from the bathroom across the hall to his room. He shuts the door softly when he hears Eddie's footsteps coming.

"Steve? Are you okay?" His voice is small, and Steve can see him, with his long sleeves pulled down around his hands, worrying the material between his fingers as he shuffles from foot to foot outside Steve's door.

"I'm fine Ed's. Just, keep cooking. I'll be out in a few for the movie okay?" Steve calls, yanking his clothes off and grabbing one of Eddie's old t-shirts that he'd stolen maybe a year ago. Eddie had never asked for it back. And Steve liked the way he blushed when he saw Steve wearing it.

Eddie does, sort of. He goes back to the kitchen, turns everything off, and then walks back to Steve's room. He slides down the wall outside his door and sits on the floor. He can hear Steve moving around in there, just shuffling around his room doing god knows what.

He does this sometimes. Eddie never knows what to do. Or say. Or how to stop it. He tries. But Steve won't talk to him about it. Just ignores that it happens. Or talks to Robin. They share little looks, he sees them, never knows what they mean.

It makes him uncomfortable sometimes, like they're telling jokes behind his back. He knows they're not. That they wouldn't. But there's something. And until now, he's never asked, never pushed. Just sat back and worried and tried to ignore the feeling that he'd done something wrong.

"Steve?" He asks, voice low. He hears Steve stop moving.

"Yeah?" He calls, sounding suspicious, or nervous maybe, or like he's been caught doing something he shouldn't.

"You know I'm not stupid right?" Eddie's chest burns, fire crawling up his throat, his eyes burning.

"I- what?" Steve answers, voice muffled, Eddie can almost see him standing in the middle of his room, staring at the door.

"I'm not stupid. I know something's wrong." He presses his finger to the floor, rubs at a knot in the wood, listens to Steve walk closer to the door.

"I told you I'm fine. Really it's-"

"Don't lie to me." Eddie cuts him off, doesn't yell, doesn't even raise his voice. He thinks he hears Steve gasp on the other side of the door. Can't be sure.

"Please just-" he closes his eyes, clears his throat, wills the tears away. He's so tired of crying about this.

"Just talk to me? I know- there's something you're not telling me." He hangs his head, worries at his shirt sleeves, his hands in his lap.

"It's been three years. And I thought it would stop ya know? Thought maybe I was imagining things. Or just, had to get used to the enigma that is YouAndRobin. But that's not it, is it?" He lets his head fall back and hit the wall.

"It's me. It's something I'm doing. Or like, multiple things? And I've tried to stop. Ya know? Tried to figure it out on my own cuz you guys clearly don't wanna share." He sighs.

"But I just keep fucking up. And then you guys give each other those looks, and lock yourselves away for hours, or fucking days, at a time. And I try so fucking hard not to do those things again." His voice is strained now, he clears his throat again, tucks his knees up under his chin and keeps talking, knows if he doesn't say it now he never will.

"But it's fucking impossible to figure out what I'm doing wrong if you won't talk to me Steve. I just- I feel like I'm hurting you somehow and you just- you just fucking sit there and take it and pretend it not happening when it really fucking clearly is! And it makes me feel insane!" He shoves his lips against his knee, tries to hide the whimper that claws its way out of his throat. He closes his eyes, tries to breathe, opens his mouth to speak again and hears the door open.

He looks up, watches Steve look forward and then down, finding Eddie on the floor, his own eyes shining like Eddie knows his are too.

"It's not you." Steve says, whispers really. And Eddie can't help the eyeroll. Or the huff. Looks away from Steve, drops his chin onto his knees and closes his eyes again, pushes the palms of his hands against his eyes.

"You're lying." He croaks, voice tight.

"I know you are. I just don't know why." And he hates it, that whine in his voice. And then Steve is on his knees, next to Eddie, his hands hovering near him as Eddie glares at him.

"I- I'm not. I promise I'm not. It's not you. It- it's complicated. I don't-" he sighs.

"Just say it! Just try!" Eddie's hands flail, his voice desperate as he looks at Steve. He stares for a moment, eyes wide, and then falls to sitting next to Eddie, his own knee tucked up to his chest, back resting against the door frame.

"I watched you die." Steve says, quiet. Eddie frowns.

"I know. And then you carried me out of hell and saved me. I know that. What are you-"

"No. Not- not that time." Steve shakes his head, grimaces when he looks at Eddie. He shakes his head, he doesn't understand.

"Before that. So many fucking times before that. Over and over. You died. No matter what I did. Or what I changed." Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, shoved a knuckle into the corner of his eye. He let his head fall back as he looked at Eddie, his hands falling palms up on his thighs, helpless.

"You died. Over and over and over. And everytime. Every single fucking time. I ended up covered in your blood." He closes his eyes, opens them again. Says nothing else.

"I-" Eddie starts, stops, takes a deep breathe, moves one hand over his chest, resting his palm against the scar on his side, a nervous habit he has now. His fingers drum against the thick skin there.

"That's- you're talking about a time loop." Eddie says slowly, and Steve, he fucking laughs. There's no humor in it, just a bark, and a wry smile as he shakes his head at Eddie.

"What? You are, right? I mean that's- why are you smiling?" Eddie flails again, hugs his knees tighter. Steve just shakes his head again, bites his lip to hide a smile.

"Robin told me I should tell you. That you'd understand. Or like, get it. And I knew you would I guess, I just- couldn't." Steve sighs again, gives a little helpless shrug.

"Why not?" Eddie rests his chin on his knees, watching Steve. The tension he'd been holding in his shoulders for what seems like years seems to melt away.

"At first I was scared. That if I said something. It would start again. And then it just-" he takes a deep breath, smiles the saddest smile Eddie's ever seen and says,

"It just hurt too much." He shrugs again, a tear falling down his cheek. Eddie stares, watches his fall onto his shirt, watches it bleed into the fabric.

"Why did it hurt? Cuz of me? Cuz I keep reminding you of it somehow? Right? That's what all those little looks between you guys have been?" He wraps his arms around his legs tighter, his lip wobbling again. He knew he'd been fucking up.

Steve looks at him, brow furrowed, and reaches out, his hand warm when it curls around Eddie's bicep.

"I didn't know you noticed that. And I'm sorry. But no. It wasn't that. I mean maybe a little. Just small things. Like, deja vu, sometimes." He shrugged.

"But tonight it was the song. That stupid fucking song." He sighs, shakes his head and laughs again. The sound hollow in his chest.

"The... song." Eddie frowns, trying to think what song had been on when Steve came through the door. And oh, yeah.

"Oh. Kinda... right on the nose that one. Sorry. It was just on the tape I found. It wasn't even my tape. I think it was one of Dustin’s old ones." Steve squeezes his arm, heads him off before be starts really rambling.

"It's okay. You didn't know. You couldn't have. Cuz I didn't tell you. And I should have. I'm sorry." Steve bites his lip again. Eddie nods, sniffles, untangles his arms from around himself and scoots a little closer to Steve, their legs pressed together.

"Will you tell me now? All of it? Please? I need to know what happened. Kinda really wanna know how you saved me." He feels his cheeks burn, his ears too. He can't look at Steve. Not right now. Knows he'll see too much.

"I'll tell you. But not on the floor." He laughs again, a real one this time, and gets to his feet. He offers his hand to Eddie and pulls him to his feet. Their hands stay together, Eddie's cheeks burn with a fresh wave of color and Steve smiles, tugs him into his room, and tells him everything.

~°~

"A whole year?" Eddie's staring at the ceiling, knows he sounds breathless.

"Yep." Steve says, pops the P.

"And you spent it with me?" Eddie asks, sounds unconvinced.

"Yep."

"And we-"

"Yep." Steve huffs, turns onto his side and looks at Eddie.

"Hey. Look at me." Eddie swallows, isn't sure he can. He let's out a shakey breath and does it anyway.

"Hi." Steve says, smiling, his cheek squished against his arm curled under his head.

"Hi." Eddie echoes.

"You and me?" Eddie asks, his brow furrowed, his throat burning again.

"Yeah. I uh... I wasn't expecting it. Or maybe I was. I'm not sure anymore. But I'm glad it happened." Steve shrugs, reaches out, his finger brushing a curl away from Eddie's face.

"Why didn't you tell me? We could've- I mean I would've-" Eddie swallows, not sure what he would've. Steve smiles that sad smile again.

"Because I'm an idiot. I thought I had to like- let you make your own choices. Not- tell you what you did before. And you didn't remember. Because it- it didn't work, that time. I didn't-" he pauses, clears his throat, wipes at his eyes.

"I didn't save you that time. I lost you. And it- fuck it hurt Ed's. It hurt so much." His throat catches on a sob, his palms shoving into his eyes and Eddie can't take it anymore. He surges forward, wraps his arms around Steve and pulls him close.

"I'm right here. I've been here. I'm not going anywhere." Eddie whispers, presses the words into Steve's hair as he clings to him.

"How many times after that one?" Eddie asks, his hand in Steve's hair, soothing.

"Two. I lost you two more times and then it worked. I woke up by your hospital bed instead of at my house. And you were there. Alive. And Robin was alive. And Dustin and Nancy. Everyone. More or less." Steve's voice is muffled, Eddie can feel his shirt getting wet from his tears.

"Steve I-" he takes a shakey breath.

"I don't know what to say." He sighs, keeps soothing his fingers over Steve's scalp. He pulls back, looks at Eddie, his face wet and blotchy.

"You don't have to say anything. I'm just glad you know now." He shakes his head, sniffles, drops his head back onto his pillow, eyes on Eddie.

"This um... this other Eddie. The one you spent a year with." Eddie draws.

"He wasn't 'another Eddie'. He was you. Just, before we really met." Steve snorts, rolls his eyes.

"Right. Right. So this Eddie you spent a year with." Eddie says, Steve fucking giggles and squeezes his eyes shut, nose all scrunched up. He opens his eyes, blinks a few times.

"What about him?" Steve asks, his teeth dragging over his lip as he smiles. Eddie shrugs, best he can laying on his side.

"Was he... I mean was he really like me?" Eddie asks, his voice sounding, doubtful. Steve hums, thinks for a moment.

"He was. And he wasn't." Steve shrugs too.

"That's very descriptive." Eddie says, voice flat. Steve laughs, rolls onto his back and then back to his side to look at Eddie.

"He was... different. Calmer. Less traumatized. At the beginning anyway. But he was still you. Still stubborn. And loyal. And kind." His shoulder twitches again.

"Was he nice to you? This other me?" Eddie asks, chewing on his lip, eyes locked on Steve's face. His cheeks flush and Eddie feels heat crawl over his skin.

"He was yeah. After awhile. He was... very nice." Steve's voice is soft, low, that little smile tugging at his mouth.

"Did he love you?" Eddie doesn't mean to say it. Not really. But he can't stop it. He has to know. Steve said they'd been together. But it was just a year. But a lot can happen in a year, Eddie knows all too well.

Steve eyes go soft at the question, a fondness in them that Eddie knows well, his stomach flutters at the realization.

"He said he did." Steve nods, scoots a little closer.

"And did-" Eddie swallows roughly, blinks a few times,

"Did you love him?" He asks, voice barely above a whisper. Steve nods, slow, his hair splaying against his pillow, his hand lifting to his mouth, teeth worrying at his thumb nail.

Eddie feels a breif spike of jealousy peak its head up and then feels ridiculous. And then he feels something else, something that blooms in his chest and wraps itself around his ribs warmly. Something he thinks might be hope.

"Do you-" he bites into his lip, hard. His hands shaking on the matress between he and Steve. Steve's hand moves away from his mouth, his knuckles brushing Eddie's before lacing their fingers together.

"Say it." Steve whispers, his eyes shining. He smiles at Eddie and Eddie can't not smile back. Can't not ask.

"Do you love me?" He hears his voice, hears how he clearly doesn't believe that. But Steve nods, a giddy smile on his face.

"You do? Why?" Eddie blurts, and Steve laughs, curls closer to Eddie, his hand cupping Eddie's cheek, thumb moving over his skin softly.

"I'm not sure I ever had a choice." Steve breathe between them.

"I think it was just always meant to be you." Steve moves his thumb over Eddie's lips, then up over his cheek again, wiping at the tear that runs over Eddie's skin.

"But he's not- I mean I'm not- we're not the same person. I don't remember it. I don't remember getting to have you. I did get to have you right?" Eddie asks, his chest shuddering as he tries to keep his breathing steady. Steve nods, crowds impossibly closer, his knee slotting between Eddie's own.

"You had me. You had me then and you have me now. And you are the same person. That's why me and Robin always give each other those looks. Because I told her everything. Anything I could remember. And you do things. Things that you did then. When you were mine." Steve smiles. Eddie laughs out a sob.

"When I was yours." He says, mocking, his voice wet and wobbly.

"Yeah. You were mine. Do you wanna be mine?" Steve's fingertips move over his face, like he's trying to memorize him.

"Pretty sure I've been yours since I woke up to you reading The Hobbit by my bed in the hospital." Eddie smiles, more tears falling.

"Dustin told me it would help." Steve shrugged again his thumb back on Eddie's lips. He nodded, closing his eyes to warmth of Steve's skin on his. 

"I wanna be yours." Eddie breathed, gasped when he felt Steve's thumb press into his lip.

"Yeah?" Steve was so close now, Eddie opened his eyes and he was right there, his nose almost touching Eddie.

"Please." Eddie wasn't sure what he was begging for, but he trusted Steve to give it to him.

"Yeah. Anything you want." Steve sighed, closing the space between them.

His lips hit Eddie's and his whole world tilts. Steve holds his head and kisses him sweetly and everything slams into him at once. Thoughts. Feelings. Memories. Memories that aren't his. Things he's never done. Not with Steve. Not with anyone.

But they crash into him, wash over him like a wave and blend into him like they're his. Things he said to Steve, the way he touched him, the way he loved him, during that year that never was. All of it filling him and becoming his. His and Steve's. Just another piece of their story, another peice of their love.

Eddie gasps, pulls back and finds Steve's eyes on him, wide, his brow furrowed.

"Did you?" Steve asks, his head tilting.

"I remember. Or... I saw it. I felt it. Or like, an echo of it. I love you." He laughs then, breathy and sweet, and Steve laughs back, nearly tackles him back onto the bed, arms curled around Eddie, face buried in his neck.

"I love you too." He sounds giddy. The way Eddie feels. He buries his hands in Steve's hair and pulls him up, so he can look at him. Steve comes willingly, looking down at Eddie with adoration.

"Our lives are so fuckin weird. You know that right?" Eddie asks, his nose scrunching. Steve snorts, bites his lip, and smiles.

"Oh yeah. But would you want it any other way?" Steve asks, his nose scrunching too.

"I'll take it whatever way lets me have you." Eddie says, his finger moving down the line of Steve's nose. He bites at Eddie's finger when he drops his hand on his chest.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to ask. And that you were stuck for so long. Back then." Eddie nods to the side, like that time in '86 is right beside them.

"I'm not. I learned a lot about loving you back then." Steve smiles down at him, pushes his bangs back off his head, Eddie leans into the touch.

"Oh yeah? Well I look forward to reaping the benefits." Eddie says, tongue poking into his cheek.

"Yeah? Well I look forward to taking your virginity. Again." Steve smirks down at him. Eddie squaks, tries to shove Steve off him and gets pinned to the bed instead.

"How dare you! I'm not even- that's- I mean... absolute hearsay!" Eddie stammers. Steve laces their fingers together and straddles him, leaning down over him, that smug look on his face.

"You trying to say you're not?" Steve asks, his tongue moving over his teeth.

"I- it's just- I mean that's not fair." Eddie squeaks, looking up at Steve with wide eyes.

"Seems fair to me. Like a really nice reward." Steve boasts, leaning closer and closer.

"It feels like cheating. Like not that kind of cheating. Just... I've never- done stuff. And you're just... you have. With me. That's not-"

"Hey. I'll take good care of you." Steve breathes, presses his lips to Eddie's genlty and pulls back, settles himself on Eddie's thighs.

"I know. I have the memory. But it's like... I dunno, like it's foggy. Like a dream. I can see it, in my head, but I can't feel it." Eddie sighs, looks away.

"Forget about it." Steve says.

"Oh okay. I'll just forget about the images I now have burned into my brain of you, naked, on top of me." Eddie scoffs, tries to take his hands from Steve's and fails, Steve squeezes his hands tighter.

"Why are you so strong?" Eddie kicks his feet, feigning attempts to break free. Steve laughs, lowers himself back into Eddie's face.

"You can hold tight to that new old memory. Or we can make some memories of our own. Pick one." Steve brushes his nose against Eddie's and smiles when Eddie bucks up into him.

"New memories. Absolutely. We should do that. Let's make new ones. We should do that right now." Eddie nods frantically, lifting up and trying to kiss Steve, both of them ending up sitting, Steve in Eddie's lap, finally letting his hands go to snake his arms around Eddie's neck.

"New memories. Got it." Steve kisses him, sweetly, pulls back, just a fraction of an inch.

"You've got shit memory anyway baby. I'll get rid of those in no time." He breathes the words into Eddie mouth like a promise. Eddie moans and grabs at his back, pulling him closer.

"Holy shit. Okay." He huffs, shivering as Steve presses him down onto the bed again, laughing against his lips.

"I'm gonna take this slow. Be real sweet to you." He peppers kisses across Eddie face.

"You're gonna fuckin torture me you mean?" Eddie whines, his hips jumping and stuttering everytime Steve rolls his down against him.

"Trust me. You'll love it." Steve whispers, his lips ghosting over Eddie's, teasing.

"I love you." Eddie says, both of them freezing. Steve just stays there, looking down at him, his eyes shimmering again. Eddie reaches up, wipes the tears away.

"I love you too." Steve breathes, his body dropping onto Eddie completely, tension leaving as he kisses Eddie, slow and deep, both of them moaning into each other's mouths.

Steve's true to his word. He takes Eddie apart slowly. And then puts him right back together. Three years of longing, and lost time, and impossible memories passing between them. A slow ebb and flow, like the tide, like the ocean and the moon, moving through them both, pulling them together after so long apart.

Steve falls asleep on his chest after, small sounds falling past his lips as he nuzzles into Eddie's skin. Eddie holds him there, one hand in Steve's hair, one moving slowly up and down his back.

He holds Steve close, watches him sleep, and thanks whoevers listening that he gets to have this. Have him. And thanks them again for bringing him through it all, all the monsters, and the time loops, and everything else. Just for him to end up in Eddie's arms.

Eddie's certain it's where he was meant to be all along.

[cuips-not-cute]

There's a sound of breaking glass. And a boy pressed against him. The momentum with which Eddie always shoves him back falters. Stops completely.

Steve doesn't even touch the wall.

Eddie'd dropped the bottle. And his hands are on Steve's face, caressing, touching, feeling.

"Steve."

He doesn't move. Eddie does, though, pulling him into the hug of all hugs, his lithe body shuddering.

He remembers. Eddie remembers.

"You're okay." Eddie breathes. "It restarted. You're okay."

And then Steve's hugging him back. Clutching at Eddie's leather jacket, fingers digging in. Eddie's skin is warm beneath it. His pulse thrumming in his throat, a steady beat against the edge of Steve's nose.

Steve doesn't have to do this loop alone.

excerpt from ch9 of my fic, cyclical❤️

[travelingtwentysomething]

Lol I've got mine now and I will absolutely be ready if there's ever a time loop

[attempting to flirt] if i was stuck in a timeloop id desperately explain my situation to you every single reset

[sp0o0kylights]

If there are two stranger things scenarios I will NEVER tire of it is

1) drugged Stobin at Starcourt crashing into Eddie/Hellfire/Hopper literally anybody but the kids

And

2) Hellfire having a totally average 80s sitcom style day as The Nerdy Kids until Steve and the plot come crashing in at Mach 40.

[paperbackribs]

Eddie is crouched against skull rock, everyone talking around him about fantastical creatures and he can barely breathe as they discuss terrible things like they're normal happenings.

Max has earphones resting at her collarbone and Eddie thinks he might go crazy with every opening beat from Kate Bush that he can only just hear over their planning, but somehow that still makes it worse.

His breath is wheezing in and out when he feels a heavy hand land on his shoulder.

"Are you alright, man," Steve Harrington asks him in the forest clearing like it's natural for the king to talk to the freak. He easily squats down, knee to knee with Eddie and regards him with a steady gaze. "This is pretty fucked, right?"

Eddie laughs wetly, rubbing at the corner of his eye even as he fiercely hopes that it stays dry. "Fucking A, yeah."

It's Steve's turn to be amused, exhaling in a short puff like he hadn't expected that Eddie would make him laugh. Especially, he muses darkly, in the middle of a man hunt against him.

"We'll get Vecna," Steve promises, looking down the barrel of Eddie's panic that will be soon to rise. "We always get 'em."

And it's the darndest thing, especially for Eddie who's open to the fantastical but closed to hope in the real world, but he believes him.

Steve stretches out an arm, resting his palm over the back of Eddie's hand, the sensation as new as he wants it to be familiar, and Eddie feels himself unlock, unfurling like a bloom turning to the sun that is Steve.

"You promise?" It's ridiculous. Eddie knows how stupid it is to ask a mortal boy to vow that their awful adventures will result in a happy ending. But gods' blood above, Eddie feels like a blessing now will unravel an unexpected truth within.

A moment passes. A millisecond. A half of a half of a half, but Steve regards him with a heavy weight. His hand rising and thumb barely grazing his cheekbone, "I promise, Eddie Munson. You will live beyond this moment. You will survive and thrive and leave this piss-ant town behind. I promise. I goddamn swear that I will make it happen if it's the last thing I do in this life."

Steve's eyes are blazing. In the dim light of the shadowy trees, Eddie is hopeless but to fall under his words and believe the earnest beat of them.

And, even after he wakes up one hundred days earlier, he has no idea why he has the vague feeling that if he encounters Steve Harrington today that he should trust him.

But he will.

[stevesbipanic]

Eddie gets stuck in a time loop but has no idea why, his day is normal, there's not even a test that day that he can use this to pass. After a few time loops he says fuck it let's start doing fun things, starting with talking to his crush, the lovely Fallen King Steve. After a few loops Steve starts talking back, soon there's whole loops with just them hanging out.

Little does Eddie know, Steve is in a time loop too trying to stop the Upside Down once again, he's just having a hard time caring when there's this sweet metalhead chatting him up everyday. Maybe he deserves to waste a few loops.

[tartarusknight]

Time Loop where it's Eddie stuck. He wakes up after dying by the bats and thinks it's just deja vu. Only during the third, he thinks maybe he's in hell. That he's forced to repeat the worst moment of his life for the rest of eternity. That maybe his dad was right and heaven and hell was real. That being gay was a sin and that now he's paying for it.

Yet by the fifth repeat, he tries something new. He thinks fuck it and does what he wants. He first with Steve Harrington who blushes easily and freezes like a rabbit in a headlight. He doesn't make Eddie feel like an abomination, in fact, it seemed to Eddie that he got flustered by the attention.

Which well, if this was hell, why give him a moment of light in the dark? So it isn't the only thing he does differently. No. When the bats come swarming in Eddie takes out a can of hair spray stolen from the camper and lights the fuckers on fire. He laughs even as one attacks him from behind.

He messes around during the next loop and the one after that and the one after that. But on the 10 or maybe 12th loop, he thinks that maybe it's not hell. How could it be when he gets moments with his friends and can flirt with a boy that might like him back.

So he starts to change more after that. The first thing he does is save himself. Being sick of his painful end, he gets him and Dustin out of the Upside Down the moment they get into the trailer. Then through the trailer and hidden a little ways down.

That's when he learns that not only does he die, but they still loose in the end. He's forced to accept that he had been dying for nothing. That they needed him alive and they needed a better plan.

So in the next loop he tells the group when he wakes up in Max's trailer. He explains it all and no one believes him. No one but Steve. Steve who tried to ignore Nancy's vision and repeated told Eddie through the loops that everyone would work out. Steve who raised a bitchy eyebrow at Dustin when the kid talked about electromagnetic fields and shit.

And as he tries again and again, he knows another constant. Steve trusts him readily.

[steddiehyperfixation]

let the sun rise

this is pure self-indulgent angst sorry. inspired by this post; written for @steddiebingo prompts: time loop + established relationship + saying goodbye | 2.9k words | T | ao3 |

Steve has been living the same three days over and over again. Just before the sun rises on Thursday, March 27, 1986, the day they’re supposed to defeat Vecna, he wakes up again in the Wheeler’s basement on Monday, March 24. He’s been at this for a long time now and he’s gotten pretty good at blending in with each loop, letting all the major events play out more or less they way they’re supposed to and being careful not to do or say anything that might make anyone think there’s something weird going on with him. But sometimes he slips. Sometimes, just sometimes, he loses track, the days all blend together and he says something he shouldn’t—a mention of Vecna’s plan that won’t be told to them until the sunrise that will never come, an offhand comment referencing a conversation that only happened in a previous loop and not the current one, or an exhausted complaint about going through something again. 

It’s always Eddie who notices these slips, always Eddie with his big worried eyes and careful attention who demands to know what’s going on with him and won’t let up until Steve either tells him the truth (which rarely ends well) or gives him a believable enough excuse (which is no small feat either; Eddie has always known how to see right through him). 

“I'm in a time loop,” Steve grudgingly admits this time, too tired to come up with anything else as he crawls into Eddie’s haphazardly remade bed, fresh bat bite wounds still aching. It’s been a while since he’s told the truth, and the loop will reset soon anyways. All they have left now are these few quiet hours while Nancy collects herself after her Vecna vision and the rest of them try to sneak in a couple precious hours of sleep. 

“Oh shit.” Eddie believes him instantly, always does. Still standing at the opposite side of the bed, he looks down at Steve with wide eyes. “For how long?”

“Dunno. Years, probably. It’s a three day loop and I lost track of how many there’ve been a long time ago,” Steve answers boredly, dismissively, hoping maybe this time Eddie won’t make a big deal out of it. “It doesn’t matter. It’ll reset soon and I’ll wake up on Monday.” 

“On Monday? Steve- sweetheart, why the hell didn’t you say anything sooner?” Eddie seems agitated already, hands moving fretfully as he speaks. So much for it not being a big deal. “You should’ve told me—the kids, Nancy, Robin—we could’ve helped you get out of it! We could-” 

“I don’t want to get out of it,” Steve cuts him off. It comes out a bit sharper than he intended, but it succeeds in giving Eddie pause. 

Eddie freezes, blinks, frowns. “What do you mean you don’t want to get out of it?”

“I asked for this,” Steve says. “I chose this.” 

“The fuck you mean you chose this?”

“I mean I chose it, Eddie. It's not a riddle.” 

(Steve couldn't cope after Eddie died. They got back from the upside-down, the hospital declared Eddie DOA, and Steve shattered. Not just his heart and his soul broke, but his mind snapped too. He put on a good face in front of the others, like a mask with artfully placed cracks to let only the appropriate levels and displays of grief through, but behind it he'd gone mad. He'd become obsessed. In private, he pored through books of ancient mythologies and occult rituals, lighting candles and chanting nonsense and spilling his own blood. Because if psychic kids and monsters from parallel dimensions exist, then surely there must be other things out there too—surely there must be something that could bring Eddie back. 

For weeks nothing happened, nothing worked, but Steve kept on trying, again and again, the very definition of insanity, until finally something did. Something came to him. In the dark, in the candlelight, the shadows gathered into a shape just at the edge of his peripheral. It hurt his eyes to try to look at it, and so he closed them. He didn’t need to see it, didn’t need to know what it was—spirit or demon or god; there was only one thing that mattered: “Can you bring him back?” 

It spoke to him in a soundless voice, words that bypassed his ears and slithered straight into his brain. I cannot, it said. 

“Then what’s the fucking point of you!?” Steve shouted, hands clenched into fists, fingers pressing into the gash in his palm.

I cannot raise the dead. I cannot undo what’s already been done. But I can give you more time, the thing whispered. He felt its presence move closer. I can take you into the past, let you relive the days before his death as many times as you need to. You will not be able to change anything, try though you might, but you can see him again, touch him and hold him as he was, alive. I can give you that, if you wish. 

Steve shuddered, the shadowy entity cold at his side. “Yes,” he exhaled. “Please. Take me back.”)

Eddie shakes his head, a refusal to accept that answer. “Why would you do that?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” Steve sits up and reaches across the bed to take Eddie’s hand. “Just come here and get some sleep. Please.” 

“Tell me why.” Eddie squeezes Steve’s hand but doesn’t budge, standing firm. “Why the fuck would you willingly choose to relive three of probably the most stressful days of your entire life over and over again?”

“Eddie.” Steve tugs at his hand, begging him one more time to drop the subject. 

“Why?” Eddie insists. “Why would you do that to yourself?” 

“Because you die, Eddie!” Steve blurts out, emotion getting ahead of his better judgement. “Because you die tomorrow and there’s nothing I can do to change it except make sure that tomorrow never comes. Because if I let this next sun rise, it’ll be the last one you ever see, and we didn’t get enough time. We deserved more time. So- so I was given a choice and I took it, I had to. This was the only way I could be with you again. This was the only way I could keep you alive.” 

(That’s as much as he can say without giving away his insanity. He told Eddie the full truth once, only once, in one of the earlier loops when he was still half-mad, manically pouring out the whole story of his grief and obsession and witchcraft. Eddie had backed away from him as if from something monstrous. “Steve, you’re scaring me,” he said, and Steve made sure to never tell that story again.)

“Fuck, Steve,” Eddie mutters vehemently. He drops Steve’s hand and turns away from him, raking his fingers through his hair and exhaling a sharp, heavy breath through his nose. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

Steve lets his dropped hand fall onto the bed like it weighs a ton, as heavy as the air between them and the words he’s confessed. “Please don’t get angry at me,” he pleads. He doesn’t want it to be a fight this time.

“What did you expect?” Eddie whirls back around. “You’ve been in this loop for years, I take it we’ve had this conversation before. So tell me, honestly, has there ever been a version of me that isn’t upset to learn that not only am I dead, but also that I’m the reason that you have been basically fucking torturing yourself for years?”

“No,” Steve admits. He doesn’t always act the same, so Eddie doesn’t always act the same—but whether it’s loud and angry or quiet and sad or somewhere in the middle, there has never been a loop where Eddie has reacted positively to any of this. And yet Steve still finds himself here, in loops like this one, desperate to make Eddie understand. “But it’s not like that. It’s not- I did this for you, so you could live!” 

That only makes things worse, it always does. 

“What, are you expecting a fucking thank you?” Eddie shakes his head, mangy curls flying. “You didn’t do this for me, you did this for you. Don’t you dare try to pretend like it’s anything other than purely fucking selfish. You haven’t given me any more life or any more time; I just reset, for you. You get to have all these extra years with me, but I’ll only ever have these three days with you.” His voice, though harsh and bitter, cracks; his eyes, though they blaze, are fractured and watery. “That’s not fucking fair, Steve. That isn’t right.” 

“It’s not right that you’re gone either! It’s not fucking fair that you died and you left me!” 

“Of course it fucking isn’t! But that doesn’t mean you go and stick yourself in a time loop, you idiot-!” 

“Fuck! Just stop yelling at me!” Steve sags back against the headboard, scrubbing his hands over his face and his stinging eyes. “I know, I already know. You’ve said all this before. I get it.” He drops his hands into his lap, tips his head back and closes his eyes as he sighs. He’s too fucking tired for this. Too fucking tired and in pain, and all he wants is to fall asleep in his boyfriend’s arms and wake up last Monday with this conversation erased from Eddie’s mind and a fresh loop ahead of him.  

Because Eddie’s wrong, he’s not torturing himself. Yes, they spend each loop in a near constant state of fear and stress, but they can still seek comfort in each other in the quiet moments; and even a panicked breath is still a breath, even a racing heartbeat is still a heartbeat, and Steve will treasure every second, every moment of proof he can get that they’re both still alive, together. That’s not torture when it’s all he’s got left. That’s worth everything. 

“There’s only a couple hours left of this loop,” Steve mutters wearily. “Can we please not waste it arguing with each other?” 

Eddie sighs in surrender, a slow, controlled huff like he’s still seething a little, but Steve can feel the worst of his anger beginning to curb into something softer. After a moment, the bed dips beside him and an arm slides around his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” Eddie says. He tugs Steve close and presses a kiss into his hair. “I don’t think you’re an idiot. I think you’ve just got too much heart for your own good, and I’m flattered that I mean so much to you. But…I also think that you need to let me go.”

Steve opens his eyes to Eddie’s soft, sad ones. It’s unbearable. He ducks his head, settling it onto Eddie’s shoulder and burrowing even further against his side. “Yeah,” Steve exhales a humorless laugh, “you’ve said that before too.” 

“And you’ve never listened,” Eddie says the obvious part out loud.

“No,” Steve confirms. His eyes close again, exhaustion pulling at him. “I don’t want you to die.” 

“Well, shit, sweetheart,” Eddie gives a dry, shaky laugh of his own, “I don’t want me to die either. I’m kind of really fucking terrified actually. I mean, given what we’re up against, I’m sure it’s gruesome and horrible—and don’t tell me,” he adds quickly when Steve starts to open his mouth to comment. “But you already know, don’t you, because it’s already happened for you. I’m already dead. I’m just…I’m nothing but a ghost to you now.” 

“No, you’re real,” Steve insists. He shifts to wrap both arms around Eddie’s waist and rest his head against Eddie’s chest, right over his heart. It’s beating a bit fast now—contemplating your own mortality will do that to you—but it’s beating, it’s beating. “You’re not a ghost. You’re alive.” 

“Only for these three days,” Eddie says, quiet with the effort of keeping his voice steady. “That’s not living, that- that’s not life, it’s just an echo of it. Countless echoes, but the real me is already gone. You have to let me go.”

“Don’t say that.” Steve holds him tighter, desperately, throat closing up with panic and grief just at the thought of losing him again. He buries his face in the dingy, unwashed fabric of Eddie’s Hellfire Club shirt like an ostrich burying its head in the sand. “Stop saying that. Just let me keep you.” 

“Oh, Stevie,” Eddie whispers, and he holds him tighter too, his other hand coming up to run gentle fingers through Steve’s hair, “my Stevie, I’d let you keep me forever. But not like this. Not if I can’t keep you too, and especially not if keeping me is keeping you from living your life. I need you to live, Steve.”

“And I need you to live, Eddie,” Steve counters, mumbled petulantly into Eddie’s chest. This conversation is going in circles and Steve wishes Eddie would just let him sleep. He’d be lulled off in seconds by Eddie’s warmth and his soft hands if only he’d stop talking and making Steve want to cry.

“Steve-” 

“Stop,” he begs, voice breaking into something just short of a whine as it passes through the lump of emotion in his throat. He doesn’t want to hear this anymore. 

“Steve, look at me.” Eddie tugs lightly at Steve’s hair to get him to lift his head, pushes gently at his shoulder to peel him away from Eddie’s side. Steve tries to fall back into him, but Eddie’s hand slides from his hair and holds his chin up with firm fingers, forcing Steve to remain locked in Eddie’s intense gaze. Which would be incredibly hot if only the circumstances weren’t so devastating. 

Steve has to look at him now, no matter how tumultuous an ache it leaves in his chest. Eddie’s face is tear-stained, water tracks tracing streaks in the layer of grime left there from all the trials of the past few days, but his expression is hard-set, determination and resolve pulled tight over all the quivering emotions behind it. Steve has never seen him look so grave, so serious and sad and scared all at once. And even like this, he’s beautiful. 

“I don’t want to die. There is so much more I want to do with my life, and if I have any choice at all in the matter, I’m gonna fight like hell to keep it; I can promise you that,” Eddie tells him, words a little rough around the edges with how much he means them. “But if everything you’ve told me is true—if I really am doomed, if I’m already dead—if I can’t live, then you have to. Not just the same three days on repeat, none of this time loop bullshit, I mean really, actually live. If you do anything for me, do that. Let the sun rise, let me have my last day, and go have the best fucking life.” He speaks emphatically, urging, demanding, pleading. His unwavering eyes never leave Steve’s, even as fresh tears well up and collect in beads on his lashes. “Please. Can you promise me that?”

Steve manages a tiny, noncommittal nod and pitches forward to pull Eddie into a kiss—if nothing else just to shut him up, but also, maybe, just in case this time it might really be their last. It certainly feels like a last kiss, has all the desperation of one, all the clumsy fervor and salty taste of tears.

But Eddie recognizes it as the evasion it is and doesn’t let him get away with it. Though he indulges the distraction with equal, if not more, desperation for several long moments, he soon pushes Steve back. “Promise me,” he says again, a bit breathlessly now but still just as serious. “I need you to promise me you’ll let the sun rise. Don’t just placate me, don’t just shut me up, promise me.” 

Steve’s stubborn tears finally spill over as for the first time he finds himself truly considering it. For the first time, his denial is not as immediate; for the first time, Eddie’s words and pleas have started to sink in somewhere he can’t ignore, and he knows, somewhere deep, that he should let go, he should move on. If only the idea didn’t make his whole body shake and the monster of his grief tighten its claws around his heart.

They look at each other with haunted eyes, hold each other with trembling hands. Just a couple of scared kids—Eddie scared to die and Steve scared to live without him, both of them trying hard to have the courage to face the inevitability. But Eddie has always been the braver of them (though he’ll never quite know it), and being in a time loop has made an excellent liar out of Steve. 

“I promise,” he says, with enough softness and sincerity that Eddie lets him kiss him and curl up close again without any more argument. They whisper goodbyes to each other instead of goodnight as they lay down to sleep, Steve settling his head back on Eddie’s chest and finally drifting off wrapped blissfully in his arms. 

He wakes up on Monday, March 24th, and he tells himself it’s only for a little while longer. 

[lovelylittlegrim]

I don’t want to write a Steddie time loop fic BUT this part wouldn’t leave me alone. (Mentions of mcd, not written tho)

~~~

Eddie is frowning. “So,” he says slowly, “we’re in a time loop.”

Steve nods. “Yeah.”

“Because I keep dying?” His brows raise. “That— Yeah, that really fucking sucks to hear, Steve. Not gonna lie.”

Steve slumps against the side of the mobile home. “Yeah, it really fucking does.”

Steve scrubs at his face, feeling more exhausted than he’s ever been in his life. Seven loops, seven weeks of terror and blood and failure, and Steve doesn’t know if he can do it much longer.

“Man, you must be real tired of telling me about this,” Eddie says suddenly, pulling Steve from his thoughts.

“I’ve never told you before now,” Steve admits. He’d thought about it, but telling a guy he keeps dying doesn’t sound like the greatest idea. “I thought I could figure it out, or fix it on my own, but…”

“Wait,” Eddie stands up, mouth twitching into a grin. “So this is the first time you’re looping me in?” The grin turns into a wince almost immediately, “shit, okay, I’m just going to apologize now because I know I’m going to make that same joke in some way everytime you tell me about the time loops.”

Steve snorts out a quiet laugh despite the grief that clings to him a little harder every loop. “Sure, apology accepted.”

He’d rather have awful jokes than more blood on his hands.

He gets both.

Again and again and again.

~~~

(Okay, less funny than I imagined it being but I love the idea of Eddie munson making the same god awful pun or a variation of it every single loop he finds out. Steves tired of hearing it. He’s tired of eddie dying too tho.)

[jewishrat420]

Steve always thought Eddie was beautiful.

He never let himself linger too long on it in fear of what he might see if he let himself look. If he let himself dust off the dirt that lay on top of it, too overwhelmed by the possibility that he really hadn’t had himself figured out the way he thought he did.

But it’s true.

Like the sky knows clouds that filter in and out of eyesight, like the moon knows the unwavering devotion of the tide, Steve knows this to be a fact as irrefutable as the nature of gravity:

Eddie Munson is beautiful.

It’s in the way his hair bounces with every step. These springy, frizzy little curls that Steve desperately wants to know, intimately, the way he knows his own. Wants to compare them, wants to feel them in the spaces between his fingers, the sensitive parts that nothing else really touches.

It’s in the way he lights up a room as soon as he steps into it, a walking sun that burns so bright that he leaves the hole of every space he was once in great and gaping and singed at the edges. Everything he touches turns to gold, everyone he meets ruined for anyone else.

It’s in the way he carries himself. Tall when people are looking and small when they aren’t, like his body is a show that no one ever willingly buys tickets for but ends up seated front row at regardless.

Steve would buy tickets.

If he had known, if he had been brave enough when it really counted, he would have bought tickets.

There is no one like Eddie, and there never will be again.

But it doesn’t matter now.

Because Eddie is still beautiful, Steve thinks, even when he’s pale.

Even when his skin is sallow and sunken, even when his big brown eyes are tucked behind grayed eyelids.

Even when Steve himself was the one to shut them, but only after he spent nearly an hour gazing into their emptiness.

His hair is shorter now, the frayed edges trimmed by Wayne. He’d laughed as he did it, a sad little hitch in his throat, because apparently Eddie never let him cut his hair when he was younger.

When his blood flowed warm through his arteries, when his skin was still pink.

Wayne said he used to bounce his leg so hard that he was worried he was going to stab the scissors right through his thick skull.

So Eddie grew his hair out, split ends running wild.

But Steve still thought he was beautiful. Frizzy hair and all.

Steve’s never seen him dressed so fancy, not even for his own graduation.

But then again, he never got to try on that suit he borrowed from Wayne. Never got to see just how long the sleeves were, because he never got to be as tall as his uncle, did he?

No, Eddie never got the chance.

Never got the chance to he a normal boy with a normal childhood. To grow into the man he could have become and then into the world that was always too small to fit him.

Eddie Munson: born to die in Hawkins, Indiana.

If only he had tried just a little bit harder.

Fought just a little bit longer.

But he did his best, didn’t he?

Steve certainly thinks so.

Steve thinks he looks beautiful, now, still, always. He tucks a trimmed curl behind his ear, wishes he could have known what it would feel like if his skin were warm.

But it’s okay. He’ll know the feeling one day.

Next time.

Next time, they’ll try again. They’ll try harder.

Next time, Steve won’t be afraid to tell Eddie how beautiful he is.

Won’t be afraid of what comes after, because it will be different.

It won’t end with Eddie, sallow and skinny in a suit six sizes too big for him.

It won’t end with Eddie, pale and pretty as ever, laying in the coffin that’s been on reserve for him since the day he was born.

Next time will be different, see, because it won’t end.

They’ll do it right.

Steve will do it right.

And Eddie will still be beautiful, and Steve will tell him so.

x

original post

[cuips-not-cute]

"What did it feel like?" Steve asks sometime later, a new day ahead of them both. "Dying, I mean. Being dead."

Eddie pauses, dog-earing the page on his book to look up at Steve. He places it down on the couch beside him, scooting closer to lean his head down against Steve's shoulder.

"Not sure I remember, really." Eddie says. "I think it was dark. Like a big void. I'd be there in the real world and something would hurt, hurt bad, and then it'd just...stop. It'd go dark, and then I'd be slamming you into the wall again."

Steve hums thoughtfully. He'd died a few times, too. But he'd mostly just gone to that in-between place as the loops started up again. "You think that's what waits for us?" Steve asks. "When we do die?"

Eddie's quiet, his hand finding Steve's and lacing their fingers together, bringing it to his lips to press a kiss to his knuckles. "I don't think so," Eddie says finally. "I don't think I was ever really dead."

excerpt from the last chapter of my newly completed fic, cyclical❤️

or, read from the beginning <3

[metalhoops]

Read Part 1 Here

As small and unassuming as Eddie’s trailer was to others, it had always been his fortress. It was the last stronghold against the forces of evil, and the bastion of all things metal and macabre. It wasn’t much, but it was undoubtedly his. When you grew up with little, you clung to what you had. 

He’d come to Wayne’s at an age when the world had begun to haemorrhage magic, leaving a realm devoid of colour in its place. His uncle worked hard to stoke the flames of his creativity, buying or borrowing what he could to keep Eddie’s dreams of castles and kingdoms alive.  

He’d spent a small lifetime buried in tomes of fantasy and mythology. He’d whiled away afternoons flicking through books that let him choose the story, always managing to die before finding the right ending. As a child whose mother died young, it was nice to live in a world where death could be undone. 

Eddie managed to cling on to that last spark of childlike wonder into his early twenties. His childhood had been a landscape inhospitable for the companionships of knights and the trickery of wizards, yet he’d made it work. That kind of alchemy didn’t fade easily. 

Yet, with Chrissy’s death tainting his memories of the trailer, he understood his fortress, his kingdom, was nothing but rubble and blighted soil. He was Frodo, returning to The Shire after the destruction of the ring. Eddie’s Undying Lands came in the form of a small bungalow on the edge of town, paid for with government hush money. 

The place wasn’t much larger than the trailer, yet it felt vast in the late hours of the night when Wayne was working and Eddie was alone. They’d only been in the house a week. He still felt as though he were in hostile territory. He sat on his bedroom floor with the curtains half-drawn. 

He’d spent the past half hour drawing them open before pulling them shut. If they were shut, the place looked deserted. People would be less likely to try to peer in, but he wouldn’t be able to see if someone or something was coming. If he left the curtains open, people would be able to see in. Eddie told himself he was being paranoid until he watched a pair of headlights flicker in the distance down the isolated road. 

Eddie was quick to action, darting into the entrance as a knock sounded on the front door. He grabbed a box cutter from the pile of unpacked boxes and peeked through the keyhole. You could never be too cautious, not when half the town thought you were a murderer. 

Standing in the doorway was Steve Harrington, the former king of their ever-changing kingdom, looking lost and worse for wear. His hair, a Harrington point of pride, as good to Steve as a crown to a king, was a sodden bird's nest perched atop his head. Though that wasn’t all. One of his arms hung naked at his side. Steve hadn’t managed to pull it through his polo, leaving half his skin exposed, the other half covered in poorly wrapped bandages. 

They’d both been hurt by the hoard of bats, but Steve's injuries eclipsed Eddie’s. Something about that fact sat wrong with him. It was as though he’d stumbled upon a wrong ending. He wanted to turn back and find a story where Steve was safe. Eddie dropped his makeshift weapon and swung open the door. 

“Steve? Christ man, you’ve seen better days,” Eddie spoke, ushering Steve inside, locking the door behind him. 

“I’ve had worse.” 

Steve, like Eddie, appeared changed from what’d happened to them. He hadn’t known how to explain it. Most of what he knew about Steve Harrington was mythology, a collection of stories which changed depending on the teller. Yet, all those close to him, far closer to him than Eddie, had agreed something about him had changed. This Steve was a broken bone set wrong. Something about him always appeared to ache. 

Buckley had hauled up in the Harrington manor with him after they were released from hospital, helping tend to his wounds and wash his perfect hair. She’d confided in Eddie when he had come to check up on Steve that he was forgetting things. 

Perhaps forgetting wasn’t the right word. Robin spoke five languages, yet she couldn’t find the term to describe what was going on with Steve. He seemed out of place, like a sour note in a once sweet melody. 

Maybe it was one concussion too many, Robin had justified, which was a collection of stories shrouded in contention. How many concussions had Steve had? Nancy swore Jonathan hadn’t hurt Steve badly during their fight. He’d been able to run away, after all. Jonathan admitted he probably had. 

The kids all agreed Steve was knocked out cold after his fight with Billy while Robin recounted what’d happened in Starcourt. She’d later confess Steve had other concussions before Jonathan, though wouldn’t elaborate on their origin. Some stories only hurt the teller. Eddie had learnt how to read negative space.  Occam’s razor told them it was the easiest explanation, but to Robin and Eddie, it didn’t feel like the right one. 

Steve talked about things that’d happened weeks ago as if they’d occurred to someone in another life. Then there was the way he looked and spoke to Eddie. Every time he’d show up at the Harrington’s front stoop, Steve would look at him as though he’d risen from the dead, shook off the grave dirt and stumbled back into his life.

He had the feeling Steve was always seconds away from telling him something important, but he too, didn’t seem to have the language to convey it. When they stood together in silence, as they did that night in Eddie’s new fortress, he felt as though he almost understood. 

“What brings you to my humble abode, Harrington?” Eddie asked, trying to keep his eyes from Steve’s exposed side. 

“Mostly pride,” Steve admitted with a humourless laugh, ushering to his side, inviting Eddie to look. He did. 

“I told Rob to go home for the night and uh...” Steve cringed as he tried to lift his hand up to pull it through his sleeve. Eddie stepped closer without meaning to. 

“Shit, hold still. Don’t rip your stitches again or Buckley’ll hand my ass to me on a silver platter,” Eddie grumbled. His hand twitched, wanting to touch. Steve took a step forward, inviting him to. Eddie hesitantly brushed his fingers over the gauze, examining the bandages. 

“When did you last change these?” 

“Two days ago,” Steve admitted, leaning against the wall, trying to keep his balance. Eddie cursed under his breath, grabbed Steve by the wrist, and guided him to the bathroom. 

“You don’t have to change ‘em. They’re pretty gross,” Steve protested. 

“Which is exactly why I have to change them,” Eddie argued as he help Steve slide onto the bathroom countertop beside the sink. 

“I’ll get Robin to do it tomorrow. She didn’t throw up after dissecting a frog in junior bio.” Eddie groaned and scrubbed his face with his hand. 

“Didn’t know that was public knowledge, great.”

“Not many people knew. I just... we were in biology together.” Eddie knew they weren’t. 

He knew every class he’d had with Steve Harrington, much to his chagrin. They’d had gym, history, and Spanish together. Like shiny plastic to a crow or jewels to a dragon, Steve always managed to capture Eddie’s attention. He’d like to blame it on the fact he found Steve attractive, but there were a handful of other hot jocks who made Eddie want to shove his hand in a blender. Steve had always been different to him, though he’d managed to keep his affections close to his chest. It’d never do him any good. 

Steve had a habit of rewriting their mythology. Eddie had noticed him doing it often as a way of explaining away little things he’d have no right knowing, by fabricating new pasts. That was a piece of Steve’s new persona, which was reserved only for Eddie. 

He wasn’t sure how to broach the topic. He liked Steve. Hell, the more the two got to know one another, the more Eddie thought he could love Steve, but their relationship felt like an empty hallway in a horror film. It was devoid of any real threat, but it felt as though something was lurking just out of view. 

Eddie blamed his feelings of love for the strange gravity between them. Occam’s razor. He wanted to kiss Steve. He didn’t know what Steve wanted. That caused tension. 

“Why did you come here? I mean, don’t get me wrong, Stevie. The door’s always open,” Eddie said as he peeled back the bandage. 

He felt Steve stiffen and moved one hand to rest on the boy’s thigh. Steve’s hand covered his, lacing their fingers together and surprising Eddie. He tried not to look too closely at the wound. He found their first-aid kit and got to work, squeezing Steve’s thigh each time he pulled the bandaged taught. 

“I miss you,” Steve said, once more sounding seconds from another confession Eddie knew wouldn’t come. 

“I haven’t gone anywhere, dude. I saw you yesterday.” 

Steve muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, 

‘I used to see you every day.’ 

Another past that’d never happened. A reinvention. To make matters worse, Eddie wanted to believe in that past. He wanted Steve to tell him their story, the one that lived only inside his head. Eddie would follow it. He’d do anything to stop the boy from looking so lost. 

“Can I do something weird?” Steve asked, and all Eddie could do was nod. 

Steve hooked his arm around Eddie’s neck, pulled the boy into the space between his dangling legs, and buried his face in Eddie’s hair. Steve’s hands balled into tight fists in Eddie’s shirt fabric, holding him so close he felt his bones creak like wooden floorboards underfoot. 

“You don’t have to miss me, sweetheart. I’m right here,” Eddie assured, feeling the need to do something, say something to make everything better. Steve’s grip tightened.

“Do you ever feel like we’ve been here before?” Steve spoke, his voice muffled by Eddie’s skin. 

He knew the answer Steve wanted. He couldn’t in good conscience give it to him. 

“No,” Eddie confessed. 

“But I wish we had.” 

Steve pulled back so the two could get a better look at one another. Unable to help himself, Eddie leaned forward, trying to smooth down his hair. 

“When you were seven, you scraped your knee so badly you walked with a limp for half a year and ever since you’ve hated the sight of blood,” Steve spoke, not daring to look at Eddie. 

He felt his whole body go stiff. His hand in Steve’s hair froze. He was right, but Eddie couldn’t understand how he knew. He’d moved to Hawkins when he was twelve. His life before that was a mystery to the town. 

“How?” Eddie began, but Steve wasn’t finished. 

“You do that thing when you’re nervous. Yes, that thing you’re doing with your hair,” Steve observed. Eddie had taken a string of hair between his thumb and forefinger and half hidden behind it. 

“And when you’re flirting,” Steve amended. Eddie’s brows drew together. 

“Which you do with me, a lot. Took me forever to work out that’s what you were doing but give me enough time and a good enough thump to the head and I’ll realise it, eventually.” 

Steve knew Eddie liked him. Shit. 

“Took me even longer to realise I liked you too, but everything’s kind of screwed now, isn’t it?” Steve asked, his humourless, dry laugh coming back. 

“Because every time I’m with you, I miss you. And I know that makes no goddamn sense, but I do.” 

Eddie tried to unpick what Steve’s words meant, but he kept coming up short. Steve liked him. That much Eddie gathered. It was enough to send his stomach plummeting into his boots. 

“Tell me what you’ve gotta tell me, Steve. I’m a big boy. I can handle it. Get some of that damn weight off your shoulders,” Eddie mumbled, placing a hand on Steve’s shoulder and rubbing circles into the spot as though to prove a point. Instead, Steve looked at him with a crooked grin and uttered,

“Like Atlas, right?” He hadn’t picked Steve as a mythology geek. Eddie felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, as though he were seconds away from putting it all together.

“We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?” 

“Not exactly, but almost.” 

“Then why the hell don’t I remember it?” Eddie questioned, his voice growing strained. 

“I don’t know. You never do. It doesn’t matter, it’s over.” 

“What’s over Steve?” 

“I’d ask you if you really want to know, but the answer is always yes,” He grumbled, nudging his face against Eddie’s hand. 

Steve took a deep breath and told Eddie everything. He spoke about Eddie’s death, about being stuck in the same day for hundreds of repetitions. He told stories of Eddie’s death while brushing over similar terrors. Eddie knew he was getting a sanitised version of the tale, but still, he understood why the boy was haunted. He couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he were in Steve’s place. 

Stories, where death could be undone with a simple flick of the page and another binary decision, were easy. In practice, with hundreds of little choices and thousands of ways things could go wrong, it seemed more akin to a nightmare. 

“When you said you missed me,” Eddie breathed after a moment.

“Which version of me do you miss?” Steve’s brows pinched together, looking as though he’d been asking himself the same question. 

“I don’t know. I think, shit. I think I miss a version of you that never existed. If that makes sense. I miss what I thought we could’ve been when everything was over. You’re alive. I’m alive. It was supposed to be easy after that.” 

Eddie gave the boy a sad smile and nodded. To Steve, trapped in a never-ending cycle, Eddie had been his kingdom. He’d been a land to defend and a safe haven to return to. Yet, he’d wanted himself to be the same wide-eyed hero who’d left the empire, not the jaded veteran who’d returned home from war. They could never be the uncomplicated love story Steve had told himself to get through the days, but that didn’t have to mean things were ruined. 

“Hey, Stevie? What’s your favourite movie?” Eddie spoke, causing Steve to really look at him for the first time since they’d started speaking of other timelines and death. 

“Star Wars... The one with the teddy bears. Why?” Eddie got a goofy grin on his face, wondering how the hell someone who’d had the reputation Steve once had could love something as nerdy as Star Wars. 

“You know a damn lot about me. Time we even the goddamn playing field.” Steve nodded and gnawed on his bottom lip. His eyes trailed down to Eddie’s lips. He didn’t have to know Steve well to know what he was getting at. 

“Can I kiss you?” He questioned, his hand already tangling in Eddie’s hair. 

His thumb ghosted over the space between his ear and jaw that always made his breath hitch. Steve knew how Eddie liked to be touched. That was a new revelation. 

“We’ve kissed before, haven’t we?” Eddie questioned, Steve’s breath hot against his face. 

“I haven’t kissed this version of you before,” Steve supplied with a smug grin. 

“No fucking fair. You have the hometown advantage,” Eddie reasoned, and Steve let out a shocked laugh, a real one this time. 

“You’ve never made a sports reference before.”

“So they’re surprises in me yet,” Eddie beamed, sick of the anticipation, he leaned forward and pressed their lips together. 

The kiss was long and desperate. Steve clung to him, kissing him breathlessly, making Eddie weak at the knees. They had to pause when Steve let out a sharp inhale as Eddie accidentally grabbed his still-healing side. He muttered a slew of apologies, peppering Steve’s neck and jaw with kisses. He hadn’t shaved in days and Eddie felt a good kind of ache from the scrape of stubble against his jaw. 

When they finally pulled apart, the two looked decidedly more dishevelled. Eddie caught his breath and whispered, 

“You know, I’ve got Return of the Jedi on tape in a box someplace. You could stay over and we could... I don’t know, re-get to know each other,” Eddie proposed. 

“I like the sound of that.” 

[steddieunderdogfics]

cyclical by cuips_not_cute

@cuips-not-cute

Rating: Explicit

111,111 words, 11/11 chapters

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Tags: Time Loop, Time Travel, Alternate Universe - Groundhog Day (1993) Fusion, Time Travel Fix-It, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Eddie Munson Lives, eventually, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gay Eddie Munson, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Homoerotic Wound Care, Smoking, Shotgunning, Eddie Munson Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has a Crush on Eddie Munson, they will figure it out, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Temporary Character Death, Supernatural Elements, Slow Burn, Making Out, Kissing, First Kiss, Virgin Eddie Munson, he's my sweet little loser boy in this one, First Time, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Time Blow Jobs, Bottom Eddie Munson, Top Steve Harrington, Top Eddie Munson, Bottom Steve Harrington, they're switches bitches, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Inexperienced Eddie Munson, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, put these boys in situations, and by situations i mean extreme trauma, Amnesia, in the sense that only steve remembers the loops at first, Trauma, eddie munson is full of Lust, Mutual Pining, Falling In Love, Rimming

Summary:

There’s a bottle on his neck and a boy pressed against him. Steve should be terrified. He’s shoved higher up the wall he’s pinned to, the boy’s eyes wild beneath his tangled mess of hair, his breath all rasp and spit and fear. The bottle presses closer, harder, almost enough to break skin. Steve knows it won’t, though, because this isn’t the first time he’s been here. Or, Steve keeps finding himself back in the boathouse where everything started, wrapped up in the arms of a boy who can’t stop dying. Saving him means ending his torment, and it also means falling in love.

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[paperbackribs]

"I'll save you," vows Steve.

Digging punishing fingers against his eye sockets, Steve mutters, "I can do this. I just have to figure it out."

Eddie Muson stares down at the co-captain of the swimming team, his body crouched down amongst the fall leaves in the clearing behind the school. The bench Eddie normally deals at to the left of them while he watches the dude he'd discreetly watched at his swimming meets, who also looks like he's losing his mind, muttering to himself and rocking back and forth.

"Dude, what the hell?" Eddie exclaims even as he wants to slap a hand against his mouth because, what the fuck? Can't he even manage a modicum of courtesy to a pretty boy who has stumbled across his humble lair.

"I mean, what's wrong?" he mumbles around awkward teeth and tongue.

Steve surges up and leans forward so suddenly that Eddie topples, falling back on unsteady feet only to be met by firm hands under the small of his back as Steve snakes out sneaky fingers and holds him underneath, secure and unharmed.

"I will save you," Steve vows, hazel eyes dark, intent. And mouth so close they breathe secretive air hotly on Eddie's lips.

He trembles. Eddie feels the shiver of a world unseen ripple down his spine and knows that Steve's next action will change his future forever.

"I will," Steve repeats.

[stevesbipanic]

Eddie liked to joke sometimes to his friends.

"how's the time loop today, pass that test finally?"

"Jeff, stop using the time loop to ask out Heather she's not gonna date you."

"No matter how many times you see the twist of this campaign no time loop will stop your demise."

Never in a million years he ever thought he'd be looking at one Steve Harrington and hearing him ask.

"Are you in a time loop too?"

[tartarusknight]

What if we got a time loop scenario but a different flavor of it... Set after everything goes down during season 4. (Minus the Stancy bit and let Steve have a crush on Eddie)

Steve barely managed to get Dustin away from Eddie's body and everyone back through the portal. He feels Eddie's blood under his fingernails. As Nancy makes a makeshift bandage for Dustin's leg and Robin checks to see if they could make it unspotted to the woods where they hid the camper. But Steve just can't seem to look away from the blood on his hands. He heads to the bathroom silently and doesn't look up at the mirror, he knows he looks like a wreck. But what he does do, is begin the faucet to wash away the blood that feels like it seeped into his bones.

The world is quiet for a long moment and Steve braces himself against the cabinet. For the first time in a long time the world feels still. Yet, it's a terrible feeling. Waiting to hear from Max's team and all of them shocked from Eddie's death. Everything is just... Still.

He reminders the last time he had been in this bathroom, Eddie showing him to the actual first aid kit and carefully helping Steve pull Nancy's shirt from his wounds. Eddie's frown as the could see threads of the fabric left in the wound. But Steve knew he could deal with it. Yet Eddie didn't even let him try. He let Steve just lean and brace himself from the pain. Eddie got his hands bloody from helping him. Steve's hands were just bloody.

He looks up in the mirror. Looking back at him isn't his reflection but himself a couple of days ago. Steve can see himself watching Eddie work and both of their breath catches at the sight. Steve desperately wishes that he could be there, again. To not be in this same room with only a ghost of a memory.

He choked back tears and slammed the faucet off. He took one then two deep breaths before heading out of the bathroom.

Only for the world to explode into noise. He hears the kids all arguing and in front of him is... everyone. "What the fuck," Eddie's voice comes from behind him and he jumps forwards, looking back at the dead man. Only he wasn't dead. No he was alive and breathing and looking at Steve like he was the one in the wrong.

"Steve!" Robin sounds alarmed and then so does everyone.

Steve looks at the group, noticing how Max, Lucas, and Erica are there too when they should still be at the creel house. Why are they here?

Hands cup his face and it's Robin, her lips moving quickly but Steve doesn't understand. He doesn't get what's happening. Why was Robin still in her button up? Where did her cute red hat go? He glances down to see his own looks hadn't changed. No he looked the same but he was the only one.

"You-you were just- and my vest!" Eddie sounds panicked and Steve knows something then and there. He wasn't the only one who hadn't changed. He was the one that had changed.

After all these years someone had listen to his pleas.

Of course shit goes down but instead of a restart Steve has to survive to go back to the start. Slowly wounds begin to join the bat bites and Steve gets worse and worse. He gets Nancy and Robin to make a notebook of everything they do that he can take back with him since it's more like a door through time than a loop. But with every attempt written down, it helps.

Since Eddie had been in the bathroom at the same time, when they finally save his ass from the bats, he manages to walk into the past with Steve and the two of them work together to make sure they win, with no casualties. Oh and fall in love of course.

Steve, being hurt badly from previous loops is the distraction and uses speakers. He hides away until the bats drop down. Robin and Nancy fight Vecna with Eddie at the bottom below the window to cut off the head of the monster before he can get away. And Dustin with Lucas and Max to put the headphones on her just in time. Jason sees Max being set free and stops long enough for Lucas to knock him out. And it works...

But as everyone is celebrating Steve can't help but feel off. He doesn't know why he does it, but he heads into the bathroom once again. In the mirror is himself from the first try. Eddie pops in and can't see Steve's past self but his own. But as Steve leans a little closer he feels his chest go right and everything go black.

Eddie catches him but in his arms was the boy only clad in Eddie's vest. No the one who was one step away from being in a body bag. He pulls them both out of the bathroom.

But as Steve wakes, he doesn't have any memories of the tries. No the last thing he had done was fight the bats. It's now Eddie's turn to catch Steve up and tell him how it all happened. Eddie having to get Steve to fall for him again, like Steve had tried with Eddie 💕