badcaseofcasey

[badcaseofcasey]

kinda I want to (steddie, 1.5k, T)

Eddie gets home from work to music playing louder than usual from the kitchen. It’s not Steve’s latest obsession, at least—the guy gets fixated on one single record at a time and listens to it over and over again, singing along with his regrettably beautiful voice until Eddie’s learned every fucking word to every fucking song in Dream of the Blue Turtle against his will. It’s a problem. 

He hangs his leather jacket over Steve’s blue-and-purple hoodie on the overcrowded coat rack, straining his ears. It feels vaguely familiar, but he can’t quite—

It’s nothing of Robin’s he can immediately place, either. Synth-pop, kind of dancey, except not New Order-bouncy. He takes off his boots and starts making his way to the kitchen. It kind of sounds like Depeche Mode? But the voice is wrong. Tougher, a little strained, a little… whiny? What the fuck is it?

He still hasn’t placed it as he gets to the kitchen. Steve doesn’t hear him approach—he has his back to the door, hands plunged into the suds-filled sink and he’s humming along to the mystery music. Eddie doesn’t step into the room yet. He needs to listen a bit longer, buy himself some time. Steve will think he knows what the tape is, and he’ll ask about it, and Eddie will have to admit that he doesn’t, and—

It’s a matter of principle, okay? He’s a musician and he works in a record store! He should be able to place whatever his less musically-educated roommate is listening to! Harrington catches him by surprise all too often, even after the nightmares they survived, even after moving to the city together, even after sharing this apartment that Eddie might refer to as shitty to get street cred with his intimidating goth co-worker at the store but is actually really nice, and warm, and by now probably, if Eddie’s being honest, feels more like home than Wayne’s, due in no small measure to Steve’s endless thoughtful little touches. The pink bathroom and the pale yellow walls here in the kitchen. The basil and mint on the windowsill. The mismatched wooden chairs, painted a glossy dark brown, set around the aqua blue formica table. It is but one of many surprises that Steve is just, like, weirdly good at—

The next song starts, and Eddie knows what they’re listening to. It’s something Pearl, the aforementioned goth co-worker, put on at the store a few times last week. Nine Inch Nails. Great band name, Eddie’ll give them that. Phallic and blasphemous at the same time? He’s almost jealous, honestly. They’re not metal, though, so it doesn’t count.

Eddie feels himself relax. He actually opens his mouth to finally say hi like a normal person, but then Steve starts bopping along to the beat. His legs bounce lightly, the movement rippling rhythmically through his thighs, his back, up to the soft curve of his shoulders. And it’s like Eddie can see what will happen if he announces his presence—Steve will turn to him, and smile, and say hi back. He’ll stop dancing. He’ll be embarrassed.

So Eddie stays right where he is. He doesn’t say a word, barely breathes at all, really. He surreptitiously leans one shoulder into the doorjamb because he needs some support during this difficult time. Steve is energetically brushing away at a gross saucepan, and his humming has turned increasingly coherent. “Your kiss,” he sings along with the second repetition of the refrain, shaking his hips. Your fist,” he croons, rinsing off the saucepan. “Na-na-na, na-na, under my skin.”

Because the thing is—and Eddie had noticed it already, pointed it out to Pearl in fact, who’d agreed with him, it should be noted—these lyrics are, uh, pretty gay? And so, and so, this, plus the dancing, isn’t helping one bit to rein in Eddie’s inconvenient, unrelenting crush on his roommate cum best friend cum life-debt beneficiary. He usually does a pretty good job of it, if he can say so himself, but it’s a daily struggle, of course, what with Steve looking like that, and being so sweet, and funny, and delightfully bitchy. There have been times—times! Moments, even. Steve coming out of the bathroom, freshly showered and drip drip dripping on the hardwood floor. Steve coming in after a run, flushed and sweaty and smelling like—

Eddie has turned out to be a much stronger man than he thought he was, let’s put it this way. Also, a constant source of free entertainment for their other roommate, who laughs in his face daily and slings baseless accusations about being able to cut the sexual tension with a knife in this fucking apartment.

Robin Buckley is unhinged and dangerous and should mind her own business.

As if the gay lyrics and the dancing weren’t enough, Steve’s wearing the good jeans, too: the Levi’s that send Eddie’s brain straight (ha!) back to the hallowed halls of Hawkins High, to his own sneaky, risky, guilty looks and the way light-wash denim clung to—not that Steve has any bad jeans, as such. And not that these could be the same jeans he had in high school: that pair was painted on, Eddie remembers it well, and Steve’s not as svelte as he was back then. (Personally, Eddie thinks he looks even better now, but that’s neither here not there.)

Eventually, he starts feeling less like he’s fondly witnessing his good friend’s moment of joyful abandon to the music and more like a fucking creep, so he leaves the safety of the threshold to take a step toward the boombox and turn down the volume. Not by much! He definitely doesn’t want to discourage Steve from turning shit up to eleven.

As expected, Steve startles, freezes, and his shoulders rise up toward his ears. He half-turns toward Eddie, doesn’t stop rinsing the saucepan under the tap. “Oh hey,” he says. “I didn’t hear you come in.” He looks caught, as if Eddie had surprised him doing something way more damning than listening to some music that’s a bit out of character.

Eddie clears his throat, steps closer, tries very hard not to look at the water splattered over Steve’s white tee and the enticing tiger stripes of see-through fabric on his belly, pink with skin and dark with hair. “Hey yourself,” he says, normally. “What in the world are you listening to?”

“Oh, this?” Steve says, gesturing toward the boombox with a couple of wet fingers. He sets the saucepan to dry, face down on a towel on the counter. “Just something Jon thought I’d like, I dunno.”

“Jonathan Byers,” Eddie clarifies, taking another step closer. “Lent you his Nine Inch Nails tape?”

“Gave it to me, actually,” Steve says. He shuts the water off and roughly wipes his hands on his jeans to dry them off, turning fully toward him.

“Gave it? To you?” Eddie repeats, less normally. What next, a fucking mixtape? he thinks, scoffing internally. “He’s—giving you music? I—”

I’m the only one who can do that! he wants to say. He also wants to kick his feet like a toddler. He does neither, because Steve steps closer still. He steps closer still, and he tilts his head in such a way that somehow brings him to look through his lashes at Eddie, even if they’re exactly the same height, and he asks, “Why, are you jealous?”

Eddie gulps, swallows nothing. He thinks of Robin’s smug, smug face and resigns himself to being mocked for the rest of his natural life. He would pay a steeper price, honestly, if that means he can— 

“I am,” he admits. “I’m really fucking jealous.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve asks. He presses one hand to his chest. It’s still damp, and the warmth seeps through the fabric of Eddie’s shirt.

“Uh-huh.” He nods, stepping forward so his leg slots between Steve’s. “That’s my job.”

The stupid music is still going, another track change. How can you turn me into this? After you just taught me how to kiss, the guy whines, and it’s a bit too on the nose, right, as the soundtrack to a first kiss? But then Eddie touches his lips to Steve’s and allows himself a cliché: the music fades.

He pulls back, just a second, just to see what Steve’s face looks like from this new vantage point of a handbreadth away, but Steve had his eyes closed and he frowns as he opens them again. “Eddie,” he says, low, serious. “Don’t you want—”

“I do, I do, fucking—of course I do,” Eddie mumbles against Steve’s lips. “Jesus.”

Steve laughs, and then he takes Eddie’s fumbling first kiss and makes it ten thousand times better, angling his own lips and Eddie’s with a gentle hand on his jaw. “God, finally,” he sighs between kisses, pulling him closer.

+

Later, Robin finds them on the kitchen floor, very much not fit to be seen. To her credit, she doesn’t even shriek much.

“Seriously? In our shared kitchen?” she says, looking down at them with her hands on her hips. Unimpressed, but with a smile dancing on her lips. “Happy for you dinguses,” she adds. “I’m ordering pizza.” Then she turns and leaves them to the thirty-seconds walk of shame to their rooms.

Or, well, to Eddie’s room. Steve trails after him and Eddie’s sure as hell not sending him away. Not now, not ever.

[badcaseofcasey]

Now that I’m back working retail, I can’t get the image of Corroded Coffin becoming one of the vintage band tees you see on graphic tee walls. They’d be up there with Metallica and Black Sabbath, made for everyone to wear for the fashion of it rather than their love of the band.

Everyone would expect Eddie to be outraged when it first starts to happen — all these fake fans and posers wearing his merch without knowing who he is at all. And at first, sure he didn’t love it but at the same time… money is money and he’s got kids to put through school. His own are already out of college, with their fancy degrees and stable jobs, but a slew of nieces and nephews, and a few great ones now (Jesus Christ he’s old) from the Party that are even smarter than their genius parents and those tuitions aren’t cheap. Famous Uncle Eddie feels like it’s his duty to help with their tuitions to the ivys or whatever, so if Jenny, the wine mom from down the street, wants to wear a brand new, yet distressed tee with the logo he designed across the chest? Let her!

That being said, he doesn’t start loving it until they eventually reach the toddler section. Suddenly, Eddie — who previously had no opinion on whether or not his kids had kids — is begging all three of their kids for grand babies. And he’s not being subtle about it either. He buys the onesies and toddler tees, leaving them where Steve and the kids can see, shipping new designs to his kids “just in case.” All he wants is to see a baby, preferably one he knows, all done up in his merch, repping the band in a matching metal outfit. It’s not his fault all his own babies are two decades past the baby phase!

Steve doesn’t intervene, no matter how much their kids beg and plead. If anything, he thinks it’s hilarious that suddenly Eddie’s the one all baby crazy after the years of him laughing at Steve’s baby fever. Sue him.

[badcaseofcasey]

i hate when i send someone a meme in another language and they're like "uhm... translate? 😒" fucker i sent you a meme where 90% of the words have an english cognate and/or you don't need to know what they're saying to find it funny. can you at least TRY

[badcaseofcasey]

[badcaseofcasey]

ANNE HATHAWAY & KELLY CLARKSON

playing 'Name That Tune' at The Kelly Clarkson Show.

[badcaseofcasey]

One of my favorite trope for Steddie is Steve hunting down Eddie when the kids join Hellfire and giving him a long list of dos and donts.

At first Eddie thinks he’s just being a prick, and worried he’s going to turn the nerds into freaks like him. Especially when he says not to mention drugs in front of Dustin.

But then he starts pulling out lists of monsters that can’t be in campaigns. And like what??? Why can’t he use demagorgons? They were gonna be in the next combat! He’s tempted to ignore the warnings, in fact he’s all set to, but something about Steve’s face when he was laying it all out haunts him. Something so deadly serious about it. So first he decides to test the waters to see if he’s full of shit.

When the session starts, he makes a throwaway comment, “you’re acting like there’s a mindflayer around the corner.”

All the kids freeze but Wheeler especially looks like he’s going to be sick. He even grabs at the bracelet around his wrist. The one he always said his best friend made him before he moved.

Eddie curses himself for even trying to test it out after that, and immediately bullshits the whole session so he can scrap any hint of demogorgans from the campaign.

After that session he drives straight to Harringtons house and demands they go over all the things he can’t include again, in detail, while he takes notes.

He doesn’t know what’s going on with these freshmen, but he knows trauma when he sees it and well he’d gotten attached to the gremlins.

When he leaves that night, he thinks Steve is looking at him with approval. Like he trusts him with their well-being now.

[badcaseofcasey]

Our baby boy!

[badcaseofcasey]

WE LIVE ANOTHER DAY BITCH. THAT'S MY SON! LEARNING FIRST HAND FROM LIVING LEGEND JOE PAVELSKI. HE IS THE FUTURE OF DALLAS STARS HOCKEY. HE IS THE STAR. LIGHT OF OUR LIVES

[badcaseofcasey]

Okay, we need to have a heart to heart, Eddie Nation... This is a mullet:

Not a mullet:

Mullet:

Not a mullet:

Mullet:

Not a mullet:

Eddie's hair is layered, which the majority of styles in the 80s were (Billy has a mullet, and Steve is pushing boundaries). A mullet--all business up front, and party in the back--was not really the thing for metalheads. Long, flowing, full locks were. Bonus points by the late 80s if it was longer than most women's. Actually, the mullet became a big part of lesbian culture in the 80s.

But, just so we understand one another, Eddie's hair... not a mullet.

[badcaseofcasey]

[badcaseofcasey]

[badcaseofcasey]

when I see something dated 2019 I think “oh that’s not too long ago” and then I remember that 2019 was not only five years ago but those five years have somehow contained several lifetimes

[badcaseofcasey]

[badcaseofcasey]

I laughed so fucking hard at this

[badcaseofcasey]

Ella Purnell as Jackie Taylor Blood Hive, Yellowjackets

[badcaseofcasey]

@lgbtqcreators creator challenge — poster design

JENNIFER’S BODY (2009) dir. Karyn Kusama (in/sp/os)

[badcaseofcasey]