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anipgarden · 11 months

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Things to Do that Aren't Related to Growing Plants

This is my second post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert--just an enthusiast--but I hope something you find here helps!

Some of us just don’t have much luck when it comes to growing plants. Some of us simply want to aim for other ways to help that don’t involve putting on gardening gloves. Maybe you've already got a garden, but you want to do more. No problem! There’s a couple of options you can look into that’ll help attract wildlife in your area without even having to bring out any shovels!

Provide a Water Source

Oftentimes when I see ‘add a water source’ in informational articles about improving your backyard for wildlife, it’s almost always followed by an image of a gorgeous backyard pond with a waterfall and rock lining that looks expensive to set up, difficult to maintain, and overall just… not feasible for me. Arguably, not feasible for a lot of people. And that’s okay! There’s still ways to add water in your garden for all kinds of creatures to enjoy!

There’s tons of ways to create watering stations for insects like bees and butterflies. A self refilling dog bowl can work wonders! Add some stones into the receiving tray for insects to land on or use to climb out, and you’ve got a wonderful drinking spot for all kinds of insects! You can also fill a saucer or other dish with small stones and fill it, though it’ll likely need refilling daily or even several times a day during hot times.

I've seen people online use all kinds of things to make water features. Some go with terra-cotta pots, pebbles, and a cheap pump to get a small and simple fountain. Others use old tires, clay, and a hole in the ground to create an in-ground mini pond system. If all else fails, even a bucket or watertight box with a few plants in it can do the trick--though do be wary of mosquitoes if the water isn’t moving. In situations like these, a solar-powered fountain pump or bubbler are great for keeping the water moving while still making it a drinking option for wildlife (it not even more appealing for some)--and these items can be obtained fairly cheap online!

Bird baths are an option as well--a classic way to provide for birds in your area, they can be easy to find online or in a gardening store! The only downside is that a good, quality bird bath can be pricey up-front. However, a nice stone bird bath should last a long time, be easy to clean and refill, and be enjoyed by many birds! I’ve also seen tutorials on how to make your own with quickcrete! Bird baths will be a welcome sight to birds, as they provide a space for them to drink and bathe to regulate the oils in their feathers for flight and insulation. Putting a stone in the middle will also help insects to escape if they fall in, and provide a place to perch so they can get their own drink. You’ll want to change the water and clean the baths regularly--as often as once a week, if you can manage it.

If possible, it’s highly encouraged to fill and refill water features with rainwater instead of tap water. Tap water is often treated, so instead of using hoses or indoor kitchen water, collecting some rainwater is a great alternative. Collecting rainwater can be as simple as leaving cups, bins, or pots outside for awhile.

Butterflies and other creatures will also drink from mud puddles. If you can maintain an area of damp soil mixed with a small amount of salt or wood ash, this can be fantastic for them! Some plants also excel at storing water within their leaves and flowers (bromeliads come to mind), making them an excellent habitat for amphibians as well as a drinking spot for insects and birds.

Bird Feeders and Bird Houses

Some of the fancy, decorated bird feeders are expensive, but others can be pretty low-cost--I got my bird feeder from Lowe’s for around 10 dollars, and a big bag of birdseed was around another 10 dollars and has lasted several refills! If you don’t mind occasionally buying more birdseed, a single birdfeeder can do a lot to attract and support local birds! If you’re handy, have some spare wood, and have or can borrow some tools, you may even be able to find instructions online to make your own feeder. You may not even need wood to do so! Even hummingbird feeders, I’ve found, are quick to attract them, as long as you keep them stocked up on fresh sugar water in the spring and summer!

An important note with bird feeders is that you have to make sure you can clean them regularly. Otherwise, they may become a vector for disease, and we want to avoid causing harm whenever possible. Also keep an ear out and track if there’s known outbreaks of bird diseases in your area. If local birding societies and scientists are advising you take your birdfeeders down for awhile, by all means, do it!

Bird houses are naturally paired with bird feeders as biodiversity promoters for backyard spaces, and it makes sense. Having bird houses suited to birds in your area promotes them to breed, raise their young, disperse seeds, and generally engage in your surrounding environment. Setting them up takes careful selection or construction, preparation, and some patience, but sooner or later you might get some little homemakers! Keep in mind, you will need to clean your birdhouses at least once a year (if not once per brood) to make sure they’re ready and safe for birds year after year--you wouldn’t want to promote disease and parasites, after all. But they could be a valuable option for your landscape, whether you purchase one or construct your own!

Again, do make sure you're putting up the right kind of boxes for the right kinds of birds. Bluebird boxes are some I see sold most commonly, but in my area I believe they're not even all that common--a nesting box for cardinals or chickadees would be far more likely to see success here! And some birds don't even nest in boxes--robins and some other birds are more likely to use a nesting shelf, instead! Research what birds live in your area, take note of any you see around already, and pick a few target species to make homes for!

Solitary Bee Houses

A bee house or bee hotel is a fantastic way to support the solitary bees in your area! For a few dollars and some annual cleaning, you can buy a solitary bee house from most big box nurseries. Alternatively, you can make one at home, with an array of materials you may already have lying around! You can even make them so that they’ll benefit all kinds of insects, and not necessarily just bees.

Though you don’t even necessarily have to break out the hammer and nails, buy a ton of bricks, or borrow a staple gun. Making homes for tunneling bees can be as simple as drilling holes in a log and erecting it, or drilling holes in stumps and dead trees on your property. You might even attract some woodpeckers by doing this!

Providing Nesting Area

There are tons of different kinds of bees, and they all make different kinds of homes for themselves. Not all of them make big cavity hives like honey bees, or will utilize a solitary bee house. Bumblebees live in social hives underground, particularly in abandoned holes made by rodents--some others nest in abandoned bird nests, or cavities like hollow logs, spaces between rocks, compost piles, or unoccupied birdhouses. Borer, Ground, and Miner bees dig into bare, dry soil to create their nests. Sparsely-vegetated patches of soil in well-drained areas are great places to find them making their nests, so providing a similar habitat somewhere in the garden can encourage them to come! I do talk later in this document about mulching bare soil in a garden--however, leaving soil in sunny areas and south-facing slopes bare provides optimal ground nesting habitat. Some species prefer to nest at the base of plants, or loose sandy soil, or smooth-packed and flat bare ground. They’ve also been known to take advantage of soil piles, knocked over tree roots, wheel ruts in farm roads, baseball diamonds and golf course sand traps. You can create nesting ground by digging ditches or creating nesting mounds in well-drained, open, sunny areas with sandy or silty soil. However, artificially constructed ground nests may only have limited success.

Providing Alternative Pollinator Foods

Nectar and pollen aren’t the only foods sought out by some pollinators! Some species of butterflies are known to flock to overripe fruit or honey water, so setting these out can be an excellent way to provide food to wildlife. You may want to be cautious about how you set these out, otherwise it can help other wildlife, like ants or raccoons. Butterflies may also drop by to visit a sponge in a dish of lightly salted water.

Bat Houses and Boxes

Big or small, whether they support five bats or five hundred, making bat boxes and supporting local bats is a great way to boost biodiversity! Not only will they eat mosquitoes and other pest species, but you may also be able to use the guano (bat droppings) as fertilizer! Do be careful if you choose to do that though--I’ve never had the opportunity to, so do some research into how strong it is and use it accordingly.

Provide Passageway Points

If you want your area to be more accessible for creatures that can’t fly or climb fences, allowing or creating access points can be an excellent way to give them a way in and out. Holes in the bottom of walls or fences can be sheltered with plants to allow animals through.

In a somewhat similar manner, if you’re adding a water fixture, it’s important to provide animals a way to get into and out of the pond--no way in, and they can’t use the water. No way out, and they may drown. Creating a naturalistic ramp out of wood beams or sticks, or stepped platforms out of bricks, stones, or logs can do the trick.

Get or Keep Logs and Brush Piles

I’ve already mentioned logs a good handful of times so far in this post. To be used as access ramps, or as nesting areas for solitary bees. But they have value as much more than that! Logs on the ground provide shelter for all kinds of animals, especially depending on size--anything from mice, reptiles, and amphibians to things like turkey vultures and bears will use fallen logs as shelter. Inside of a decaying log, there’s a lot of humidity, so amphibians are big fans of them--meanwhile, the upper sides of them can be used as sunning platforms by things like lizards. Other animals can also use the insides of logs as nest sites and hiding places from predators too big to fit inside. Fungi, spiders, beetles, termites, ants, grubs, worms, snails, slugs, and likely much more can be found inside rotting logs, using the rotting wood as food sources or nesting places. They can then provide food for mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. They can also be regarded as a landmark or territory marker as wildlife get more familiar with your space.

So how do you get logs for cheap? Try Chip Drop! I talk about them more in a future post, but you can mark saying that you’d like logs in your drop, so they’ll give you any they have! In fact, you may even get a drop faster if you're willing to accept some logs. You may also be able to approach arborists you see working in your area and ask for logs. There may also be local online listings for people selling logs for cheap, or just trying to get rid of them. If there’s land development going on near you, you may be able to snag logs from trees they cut down to make space. Do keep in mind, you don’t need to have huge gigantic logs laying around your property to make an impact--even small logs can help a lot.

If possible, creating and leaving brush piles on the edge of your property can be a great boost to biodiversity--even if you may not see the wildlife using it. They’ll provide shelter from weather and predators, and lower portions are cool and shady for creatures to avoid the hot sun. The upper layers can be used as perch sites and nest sites for song birds, while lower layers are resting sites for amphibians and reptiles, and escape sites for many mammals. As the material decays, they also attract insects, and as such they’ll attract insect-eating animals too. As more small animals find refuse in your brush pile, their predators will be attracted to them as well. Owls, hawks, foxes, and coyotes are known to visit brush piles to hunt. Making a brush pile can be as simple as piling branches and leaves into a mound, as big or as small as you want. You can even use tree stumps or old fence posts near the base, and keep stacking on plant trimmings and fallen branches. Do note that you don’t want to do this near anything like a fire pit.

Don't forget, with all of these, your mileage may vary for any variation of reasons, so don't worry if you can't take all of even any of these actions! Even just talking about them with other people may inspire someone else to put out a bat box, or leave a few logs out for wildlife!

That's the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about ways to get seeds and plants as cheaply as possible. For now, I hope this advice helps! Feel free to reply with any questions, success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!

#biodiversity #solarpunk #environmental stewardship #gardening #outdoor gardening #(i know this is literally the Dont Gotta Garden post but these could also be excellent additions to a preexisting garden so)#ani rambles #out of queue #the biodiversity saga #here in the tags to once again emphasize your mileage may vary with all of these #my mom is scared of bats theres no way in hell shes gonna let me put up a bat box #but I have been able to put out a shallow bird bath and a little solarpowered hummingbird bath fountain #do what you can! every bit counts! You may be able to do something that I or your neighbors can't!#for example my nextdoor neighbors have literally no trees in their backyard where the hell would they put a bat box #meanwhile i have trees in my backyard but still can't put up a bat box. maybe the neighbors next to me could!#similarly brush piles are a no go for my family but someone somewhere else could set one up!#i am rambling in the tags now uh long story short do what you can don't stress about what you can't

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flowercrowngods · 3 months

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who did this to you. part 3

🤍🌷 read part 1 here | read part 2 here pre-s4, steve whump, protective (but scared) eddie. now with robin!

The number rings in his head, echoing off the inside of his skull and sinking lower and lower until his heart strings join the symphony that leaves him shaking as the memory of Harrington’s slurred voice is drowned out by the dial tone that feels harrowingly like a flatline right now.

Said I’ll go blind. Or deaf. Or just… die.

Eddie doesn’t really feel like his body belongs to him anymore, or like there’s anything left inside him other than panic and fear and that stupid, stupid shaking that he can’t suppress even as he bites his knuckles. Hard.

The pain helps a little not to startle too much when the dial tone stops and a female voice begins speaking to him. Still he almost drops the phone, cursing under his breath as he pulls his hair to collect himself and get his voice to work.

“H— Hi, hello, Mrs Buckley? This is, uh. I. I’m. A friend of Robin’s, could you, uh—“

“Oh, of course, dear,” the woman says, and Eddie feels his eyes beginning to prick with how nice she sounds even through the phone.

Does she know Steve, too? Would she worry if she knew? Would she curse Eddie for not taking him to the hospital right away? Would she blame him if anything happened?

“I’m sorry? What did you say your name was?” she asks, repeating herself by the sound of it.

He blanks, for a whole five seconds, before he spots a note stuck to the fridge saying Don’t forget to eat, Eddie :-)

“Eddie,” he croaks. “Uh, Eddie Munson.”

“Alright, Eddie Munson, I’ll see if I can grab Robin for you. You have a good day, dear, yes?”

No. “Thanks.”

The hand clenched in his hair pulls tighter and tighter until the tears fall and he can pretend it’s from pain and not from— whatever the fuck is happening.

He waits, phone pressed to his ear with a kind of desperation he’s never really felt, and never wants to feel again. He doesn’t even know what to tell Robin; what to say. It’s not like they ever hang out or have anything to say to each other, so why would she—

“Munson?” Robin’s voice appears on the other end, a little too loud for Eddie’s certain state, and he does drop the phone this time, scrambling to catch it and only making the situation worse as it dangles by his knees.

He drops to the floor, pulling his knees to his chest and reaching for the phone again.

“Hi.”

“What do you want? How’d you even get this number? I swear, if you—“

“It’s Blue. I mean, Steve. Harrington.”

That shuts her right up, and Eddie clenches his eyes shut for a moment, hoping to keep the tremor out of his voice if only he takes a moment to breathe.

The moment stretches. And Robin’s voice is wary and quiet when she speaks again.

“What about Steve.”

Eddie rubs his face, leaving more dirt and grime to fill the tear tracks, and clenches his fist before his mouth.

“Eddie,” Robin demands, dangerous now. Nothing left of the rambling, bubbling mess he knows her to be on the school hallways. “What. About. Steve.”

“He… He’s hurt.”

There’s a bit of a commotion on the other end, before Robin declares, “I’m coming over. You tell me everything.”

“You— I mean, he’s in the hospital with my uncle, so—“

“I am. Coming. Over,” she says, enunciating every word as though she were making a threat. Maybe she is. But the certainty in her voice helps a little, anchors him the same way that Wayne’s calmness did. “And you tell me everything.”

Eddie finds himself nodding along, knowing intuitively that there is nothing that could stop her now. Knowing that he doesn’t want to stop her.

“‘Kay.” It’s a pathetic little sound, all choked up and tiny. She doesn’t comment on it.

One second he hears her determined exhale, the next she’s hung up on him and Eddie is greeted by the flatline again. He lets out a shuddering breath and leans his head back against the wall.

Breathing is hard again, but it’s all he has to do now, all that’s left to do, so he focuses. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold. His lungs are burning and there’s something wrong about the way he pulls in air and keeps it there, desperately latching onto it until the very last second, his exhales more of a gasping cough than calm and controlled.

It takes a while. Longer than it should. But with Harrington’s blood still on his hands, with his heartbeat in his ears so loud he can’t even hear the words Wayne used to say about breathing in through the mouth or the nose or… or something, he—

He’s fine. He’s home. Wayne’s got Blue, and Buckley is on her way, and… He’s fine.

People don’t just die.

They don’t.

He’s fine.

Eventually, Eddie manages to breathe steadily, the air no longer shuddering and his hands no longer shaking. It’s stupid, really, being so worked up over someone he doesn’t even really know. Sure, everyone knows Steve fucking Harrington, and everyone sees Steve fucking Harrington — whether they want it or not. He has a way of drawing eyes toward him even if all he does is walk the halls with his dorky smile and that stupidly charming swagger he’s got going on. Always matching his shoes to his outfit.

Eddie can relate.

Always reaching out to touch the person he’s talking to; clapping their back or shoulder, lightly shoving them in jest, ruffling their hair or chasing them through the halls, moving and holding himself like teenage angst can’t reach him. Like he belongs wherever he goes. Like he’s so, so comfortable in his own skin. Like the clothes he wears aren’t armour but just a part of him; a means of self-expression.

Again, Eddie can relate. He can relate to all of this.

It’s almost like the two of them aren’t so different after all. Just going about it differently.

And now he’s… Bleeding. Slurring his speech. Wheezing his breath. And Eddie feels protective. Eddie feels responsible. Like he should be there, like he should get to know more about him. About Steve. About Blue.

But he can’t. And he won’t. So he gets up with a groan that expresses his frustration and the need to make a sound, to fight the oppressive silence that only encourages his thoughts to run in obsessive little circles, and he hangs up the phone that’s been dangling beside him all this time.

He needs a smoke.

He needs a smoke and a blunt and a drink and for this day to be over and for time to revert and to leave him out of whatever business he stumbled into by opening the door to the boathouse and, apparently, Steve Harrington’s life.

But unfortunately, the universe doesn’t seem to care about what he needs, because just as he steps outside and goes to light his cig, he catches sight of a harried looking Robin Buckley, standing on the pedals of her bike as she kicks them, her hair blowing in the wind to reveal a frown between her brows. A wave of unease overcomes Eddie, an unease he can’t really place. Maybe it’s the set of her jaw, or the tension in her shoulders, or maybe it’s the worry and anger she exudes.

It never occurred to him before that Robin Buckley might not be a person you’d want to set off. And not because of her uncontrollable rambles.

“Munson!” she calls over, carelessly dropping her bike in the driveway and stalking toward him.

Almost as if summoning a shield, Eddie does light the cigarette. Pretends like the smoke can protect him.

She doesn’t stop at the foot of the steps, though, climbs them in two leaps and gets all up in his space with that unwavering look of determination — so unwavering, in fact, that it almost looks like wrath. Cold. Eddie wants to shrink away from it, not at all daring to wonder what could make her look like that upon hearing that Steve’s hurt.

I don’t wanna die, Munson. I never… I didn’t. With the monsters or the torture.

But those are the words of a semi-conscious teenage boy beat to a pulp, they can’t— There’s no way. Eddie misheard him, or Steve was talking about some kind of inside joke, using the wrong terminology with the wrong guy. It happens. It happens when you’re out of it, really! The shit he’s said when he was shot up, canned up, all strung out and high as a kite… He’d be talking of monsters, too, and mean some benign shit.

But the way Harrington looked, none of that was benign. The bruising all over his face, the blood still dripping from the wound by his temple or his nose, the way he held himself, breath rattling in his lungs, or—

“Hey!” Buckley demands his attention, giving him a light shove; just enough to catch his attention, really, and just what he needed to snap out of it. Still the smoke hits his lungs wrong and he coughs up a lung, further cementing his role of the pathetic little guy today.

“Hey,” he says lamely, his voice still croaking as he crushes the half-smoked cigarette under his boot. “Sorry.” He doesn’t know for what. But it feels appropriate.

She shakes her head, rolling her eyes at him as she crosses her arms in front of her chest.

“Tell me,” she says at last, and even though there is a tremor in her voice, she sounds nothing short of demanding. “I want the whole story, and I want it now.”

And so he does. He tells her everything, bidding her inside because he needs the relative safety of the trailer even though the air in here is stuffy and still faintly smells blue. He pours them both some coffee and some tea, because asking what she wants doesn’t feel right in the middle of telling her how he found her supposed best friend beat to shit in the boathouse he went to to forget about the world for a while.

She stills as she listens to him, staring ahead into the middle distance somewhere beneath the floor and the walls, her hands wrapped around the steaming mug of coffee. Eddie stumbles over his words a lot, unsettled by her stillness, her lack of reaction. She doesn’t even react to his fuck-ups. People usually do.

He wants to ask. Where are you right now? What have you seen? What’s on your mind? What the fuck is happening?

But he doesn’t ask, instead he tells her more about Steve. About how he seemed to forget where he was. About the pain he was in. About the smiles nonetheless. The way he reassured Eddie.

That one finally gets a choked little huff from her, somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

“Yeah, that sounds like him alright. He’s such a dingus.”

There is so much affection in her voice as she says it that Eddie can’t help but smile into his mug.

“Dingus?” he asks, hoping for some lightness, hoping to keep it.

But the light fades, and her eyes get distant again. Eddie wants to kick himself.

“Just a stupid little nickname. An insult, really.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t know what to do with that. If he should ask more or if he should say that he has a feeling Steve might appreciate stupid little nicknames. Especially if they’re unique. Especially if they’re for him. But what right does he have to say that now? What knowledge does he have about Steve Harrington that Robin doesn’t?

So he bites his tongue and drinks his coffee, cursing the silence that falls over them as Robin mirrors him, albeit slow and stilted, like she doesn’t know what to do either. Or where to put her limbs.

“Wayne’s got him now. I took him here, after the boathouse, because I didn’t know what to do. He said he didn’t want the hospital, said there’s…” He trails off.

Robin looks at him, her eyes wary but alert. “Said there’s what?”

It’s stupid. Don’t say it.

“Eddie?”

With a sigh, he puts his mug on the counter and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “He said there’s monsters. In the hospital, I mean. He said that.”

Instead of scoffing or at least frowning, Robin clenches her jaw and nods imperceptibly, her eyes going distant again. Eddie blinks, the urge to just fucking ask overcoming him again, but with every passing second he realises that he doesn’t actually want to ask. He doesn’t want to know, let alone find out.

He just… He just wants to go to bed. Forget any of this ever happened. But he can’t do that, so he continues.

“Brought him here and Wayne took one look at him and convinced him he needed a doctor. And, Jesus H Christ, he was right. I’ve never… I mean, those things don’t happen,” he urges, balling his hands into fists even in the confined space of his pockets. “Right? I mean… Shit, man.” He bumps his shoe into the kitchen counter; gently, so as not to startle Buckley out of her fugue like state.

“You’d be surprised,” she rasps, staring into the middle distance again and slowly sinking to the floor. There is a tremor in her shoulders now, barely noticeable, but Eddie knows where to look. Without really thinking about it, he grabs two of his hoodies he’d haphazardly thrown over the kitchen chairs this morning while deciding on his outfit and realising that it was altogether too warm for long sleeves today. But now, right here in this kitchen, the air tinged with blue, they’re both freezing.

Because fear and worry will take all the warmth right from inside of you and leave you freezing even on the hottest day of the year.

She barely looks at him when he holds out his all-black Iron Maiden hoodie to her, freshly washed and all that, but she takes it nonetheless, immediately pulling it on. It’s way too large on her, her hands not showing through the sleeves, her balled fists safe and warm inside the fabric. It would make him smile if only it didn’t highlight her stillness, her faraway stare, and the years he has on her. She’s, what, two years younger than him? Three?

It seems surreal. Everything, everything does.

Robin Buckley in his home, sitting on his kitchen floor, swallowed by a hoodie that is a size too large even for him, but it was the last one they had in the store and he doesn’t mind oversized clothes, can just cut them shorter when the need arises or layer them or declare them comfort sweaters for when he wants to just have his hands not slip through the sleeves on some days. And now Robin is wearing his comfort hoodie because her best friend was bleeding in his car earlier and then on his couch and now in his uncle’s car, and they never even talk, but he knows that Robin’s favourite colour is blue, but not morning hour blue because that makes her sad; only deep, dark blues.

Her favourite colour. Her favourite person.

It’s so fucking surreal.

He drops down beside her, leaving enough space between them so neither of them feels caged, and mirrors her position: knees to his chest, chin on his forearms. Staring ahead.

And silence reigns.

“Your uncle,” she says at last, finally breaking the silence that’s been grating on Eddie’s nerves and looking at him, really looking as she rests her cheek on her forearms crossed over her knees. “Tell me about him.”

There is a gentleness to her voice now despite how hoarse it is. Maybe she’s just tired, too. And scared. At least the shivering has stopped.

Still Eddie frowns, confused as to why she should be breaking the silence to ask about Wayne when everything today has been about Harrington. About Steve. About deep and dark blues.

“Uncle Wayne?” he asks. “Why?”

“Because,” she begins, and sighs deeply, works to get the air back in her lungs. Eddie wants to reach out, but instead he just clenches his fingers a little deeper into the fabric of his hoodie. “My best friend is hurt very badly and the only person with him is your uncle, and I need to know that he’s in good hands. Or I swear to whatever god you may or may not believe in, and granted, it’s probably the latter, but still I swear I’ll give into my arsonist tendencies and burn down this city, starting with your trailer if you don’t tell me that your uncle is a good man who will do anything in his power to make sure that boy gets the help and care he needs. And deserves.”

Her jaw is set and her bottom lip trembles, but it doesn’t take away from the absolute sincerity in her threat.

“So, please,” she continues, her voice breaking just a little bit. “Tell me. Tell me about your uncle.”

Tell me about your favourite person.

Eddie swallows, and mirrors her position once more, so she can see his eyes and know he’s sincere. Because he’s learned something about eyes today, about how much in the world can change if only you have a pair of eyes to look into.

And he nods, looking for somewhere to start. “He’s the best man I know. He’s the best man you’ll ever meet.”

She clings to his eyes. Searches them for the truth, beseeching them not to lie. He lets her.

“Took me in when I was ten, because my dad’s a fuck-up and my mom’s a goner. Took me in again when I was twelve after I ran away. Makes me breakfast and I pretends the dinner I make him is more than edible.” He smiles a little, because how could he not? “He’s my uncle, but still he’s the best parent anyone could wish for. Writes those little notes that he sticks to the fridge, y’know, the one with the smiley face? Tells me to eat, because I forget sometimes. I tell him to drink water, because he forgets. First few years, he’d read to me. And the man’s a shit reader, has some kind of disability I think, and at some point I learned that he wasn’t reading at all. He was telling me stories all the time, conning me into thinking that the books were magic, and that every time I’d try to read the book for myself, the story would change.”

There’s a lump in his throat now, and his eyes sting again. But Robin doesn’t seem to fare any better than him if her wavering smile is any indication.

“There’s no one,” Eddie continues, “who will make you believe in magic quite like uncle Wayne. Or in good things. And d’you wanna know what he told Blue when he said he was scared of going to the hospital?”

Sniffling, Robin shakes her head.

“He said, Okay. Then we do it scared. And all of that after he just… with that patience he has, told him everything that was gonna happen. And that he’d be there with him through it all. That he knew the doc and wouldn’t let anyone else near him, and that there’s no need to be scared at all.”

He sighs, breathes, stills. Swallows, before looking back at Robin.

“So, if there’s one person who’ll make sure that boy gets the help and care he needs and deserves…”

“It’s uncle Wayne,” Robin finishes his sentence, her voice still hoarse, but Eddie likes to think it’s for a different reason now.

“It’s uncle Wayne,” Eddie says, nodding along as he does.

There is something like understanding in Robin’s eyes now, and Eddie hopes it’s enough. Enough to calm the spiking of her nerves, enough to settle the coil of freezing nausea that must reside in the pit of her stomach, enough to let the next breath she takes feel a little more like it’s supposed to be there.

He wants to say something more, wants to reach out and reassure her that everything will be okay, but he can’t know that. He doesn’t feel like it’s entirely true, let alone appropriate right now.

There’s something in Robin’s eyes, in the way she holds herself, like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like she accepts his words at face value but doesn’t really believe them. Like she’ll only rest when she’s got her best friend back in her arms and hears the story — the whole story — from him.

And Eddie doesn’t fault her, because the thing is, he doesn’t know what happened. Steve said that Hagan came at him, but that’s really all he got out of him before he started talking about death and shit, and Eddie really didn’t want to ask any more questions then.

So they sit there for a while, the silence oppressive and unwelcome, clumsy and awkward; Robin’s mouth opening and closing a lot, like she wants to ask questions but doesn’t dare to ask them — and Eddie doesn’t know if he’s glad about it or not. Doesn’t know if he wants to hear the kind of questions asked with that kind of stare.

It is only after a long while, when Robin’s shoulders start shaking again and she buries deeper into the hoodie and her own spiralling thoughts, that Eddie breaks the silence again, replaying in his head the last moment between him and Steve.

“He��s not gonna break,” he tells her, aiming for gentle and reassuring.

What he doesn’t expect is the minute flinch, the jolt shooting through her body and the pained expression it leaves her with. What he doesn’t expect is what she says next.

“You know,” she begins, her voice as far away as her eyes, and it’s like she doesn’t even know she’s speaking. “Sometimes I wish he would.”

What?

Eddie blinks, swallowing hard.

“Just for, just for a break. Just so he can rest. Let the rest take over for a while.”

That… He doesn’t— What the hell does that even mean?

“Like maybe then the world would… snap back.” She snaps her fingers, just once. This time it’s Eddie who flinches. “And everything bad would disappear. But it won’t. And he won’t.” She swallows. Then quietly, almost inaudible, “He won’t break.”

And the way she says it… It was reassuring before. And now it feels like a burden. A curse.

Who the fuck are you, Steve Harrington? And you, Robin Buckley.

Eddie shudders, knowing he doesn’t want the answer to that anymore. He doesn’t want the questions either. So he buries his face in his hands, closes his eyes, and breathes. The adrenaline has worn off by now, the repeated panicking that added fuse to the fire has ceased now, leaving him worn out and strung out, tired and exhausted. He pulls up the hood, burrowing into the warmth.

And then he stills. His usually twitching, fumbling, fiddling body falling entirely still beside Buckley.

It’s like time stops for a while there, even though Eddie knows that it’s dragging ever on and on. He’s inclined to let it, though. He’s too tired, too exhausted to really care about what time may or may not be doing.

“Why’d you call me?”

It takes a while for Eddie to realise that Robin’s spoken again, asked him a question out loud, the cadence of it different to the endless circles of questions Eddie’s got stuck in his head since the early afternoon tinged in blue against crimson.

He lifts his head, tucking his hands underneath his chin, and looks over at Buckley. Her hair is dishevelled now, her mascara smudged and crusty. Her lipstick is almost all gone, with the way he sees her biting and chewing on her lips.

“I… It seemed like the right thing to do, y’know? He kept repeating your number. In the car, it was like… Sounds dramatic, but it was like his lifeline, almost. Repeated it so often it kinda got stuck.” He shrugs. “Seemed important, too.”

Robin frowns; a careful little thing. “How’d you know it was me?”

“Well, he just talked about you. Y’know. Tell me about your favourite person, I told him, because that’s the thing you gotta do to keep people, like, talking to you. Not shit about what day it is, or what. Just, y’know. Let them talk about things they like. Things they’ll wanna tell you about. ’N’ he talked about you.”

She’s quiet for a while, letting his words sink in. And Eddie wonders if she knew. That she’s his favourite person. If he ever told her. If maybe he took that from him now. It’s a stupid thing to worry about, really; the boy was bloodied and bruised on his couch just an hour ago, there are worse things at hand for Eddie to worry about. But now he wonders if he just spilled some sort of secret. Some sort of love confession.

“Did you, I mean… Are you guys, like, dating? Did I just steal his moment?”

Robin huffs, but it’s more like a smile that needs a little more space in the room, a little more air to really bloom. It’s fond. She shakes her head, her eyes far away again, but closer somehow.

“Nah,” she says, and the smile is in her voice, too. Eddie kind of likes her voice like that. “We’re platonic. Which is something I’d never thought I’d say. Not about Steve Harrington, y’know?”

And the way she drags out his name… Eddie can relate. Like it means something, but like what it means is nowhere close to reality. Nowhere close to what it really means. Nowhere close to Blue.

Robin sighs, the sound more gentle than it should be, and leans her head against the cabinet behind her. “We worked together over summer break. Scoops Ahoy.” Her voice does a funny thing, and her eyes glaze over as she pauses. Eddie waits, his lips tipped up into a little smile, too; to match hers.

“What, the ice cream parlour?”

Robin hums, her smile widening at what Eddie guesses must be memories of chaos and ridiculousness. “I wanted to hate him,” she continues. “But try as I might, he wouldn’t let me. Or, he did. He did let me. Just, it turns out, there’s no use hating Steve Harrington, not when he’s so… So endlessly genuine. There’s nothing to hate, y’know? And then he…”

She stops, her mouth clicking shut as her eyes tear up a little. The Starcourt fire. Eddie remembers the news, remembers the self-satisfied smirk when he’d heard about it, remembers sticking it to the Man and to capitalism and to the idea of malls over supporting your friendly neighbourhood businesses.

Guilt and shame overcome him as he realises that they must have been in there when it happened.

“He saved your life?”

Robin’s eyes snap toward him, wide and caught, and Eddie raises his hands in placation.

“In the fire? Were you there?”

“Y—yeah.” She swallows hard, avoiding his eyes. “The fire. He saved me. Yeah.”

Eddie nods, deciding to drop that topic right there; to lay it on the ground as gently as he can and cover it with bright red colours so he never steps on it ever again.

“He must be your favourite person, too, then, hm?” he steers the conversation back away into safer waters.

“He is,” she says, sure and genuine and true. “It’s just. I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s favourite. He has a lot of people who care about him, you know? A lot of people he cares about. Even more numbers memorised in that stupidly smart head of his.” She huffs again, burrowing deeper into Eddie’s hoodie, pulling the sleeves over her hands some more. “It’s stupid, to be so hung up on this. Is it stupid?”

“I don’t think it is,” Eddie says, scooting a little closer to Robin. “Like, I don’t even know that boy, right? But even I know that he’s got some ways to shift your focus or something. Give you a silver lining, or something to take the pain away even when he’s the one who… I don’t know, that’s probably stupid, too.”

“Nah,” Robin says, scooting closer to him, too, until their sides are pressed together and she can lay her head on his shoulder. “It’s not stupid. You’re right; that’s Steve for you. ’S just who he is.”

It is, isn’t it?

You’re so blue, Stevie.

She’ll say something corny when, when you ask her, jus’ to fuck with you. Sunset gold or rose, jus’ to mess with… But is blue.

Blue. ‘S nice.

Yeah. Yeah, he is.

Eddie lets his thoughts roam the endless possibilities and realities that is Steve Harrington, the depths he hides — or won’t hide, maybe, if you know how to ask. Where to look.

Maybe he’ll find out, one of these days. Not about the terrible things that leave him scared of the hospital, not about the horrible things that have him speaking of death and dying like he’s accepted them as a possibility a long time ago.

He swallows hard and shakes off these thoughts, because things like that just. They don’t happen. They don’t happen to blue-smiled boys who trust you to be kind even when they’re beaten straight to hell. And they sure as hell don’t happen when uncle Wayne’s around.

Nothing bad has ever happened when uncle Wayne was around.

And he wants to tell Robin, wants to make that promise. But part of him can’t bear the thought of being wrong. So he keeps his mouth shut and just sits with her, their heads as heavy as their hearts as they wait.

The sun is long gone when the phone above him rings again, spooking and startling them out of their timeless existence.

“Yeah?” he answers, his heart hammering in his chest. “Wayne?”

“Hey, Ed,” Wayne’s voice comes through the phone like a melody. Calm and steady. Robin is scooting closer, and Eddie shifts the phone to accommodate her so they can both listen. Somehow, they ended up holding hands — and holding on hard. “We’re coming home now.”

🤍🌷 tagging:

@theshippirate22 @mentallyundone @ledleaf @imfinereallyy @itsall-taken @simply-shin @romanticdestruction @temptingfatetakingnames @stevesbipanic @steddie-island @estrellami-1 @jackiemonroe5512 @emofratboy @writing-kiki @steviesummer @devondespresso @swimmingbirdrunningrock @dodger-chan @tellatoast @inkjette @weirdandabsurd42 @annabanannabeth @deany-baby @mc-i-r @mugloversonly @viridianphtalo @nightmareglitter @jamieweasley13 @copingmechanizm @marklee-blackmore @sirsnacksalot @justrandomfandomstm @hairdryerducks @silenzioperso @newtstabber @fantrash @zaddipax @cometsandstardust @rowanshadow26 @limpingpenguin @finntheehumaneater @extra-transitional (sorry if i missed anyone! lmk if you don't wanna be tagged for part 4 🫶)

#steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #who did this to you #something has Shifted in this part and i wanna do a literary/meta analysis of it but i dont wanna ruin the fun or be annoying but hhh #also sorry if you don't like this bc it's so different from the other two but the sudden adrenaline crash will do that to ya #we'll get Blue back soon don't you worry 🤍#also eddie's mind is running in circles and he doesn't have wayne to stop him this time sooo if this feels repetitive and redundant???#then let's pretend it should read that way actually (and also eddie is an obsessive little guy he'll ruminate forever if he doesn't have #an outlet sooo)#also rambling fumbly robin going deadly still over an injured steve is the hill i will die on actually like that just makes me feral #dio words

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