#but after getting to know el and realize she is her own person

[space-invading-pigeon]

Everyone jokes about Steve being the babysitter or the mom friend, but no one actually appreciates everything he does until he gets sick. Steve is the epitome of a doting parent; sure, he's only twenty and the seven kids he's adopted aren't actually his in any legal way, but those kids are his pride and fucking joy. Anyone who sees Steve with those kids can tell that he loves them deeply, which is why Steve is the only person in the Party that can convince their parents to allow anything- their parents KNOW that their kids will not only be well looked after, but they'll be genuinely enjoying themselves too.

Because he's a single mom except he's actually just barely out of his teenage years with no kids, he gets a lot of shit from everyone about it; he's known almost exclusively to the Party as Mama Steve (when he isn't in earshot of course). That's all fine by Steve, he always wanted a big family and now he has it. The problems start to appear when the Party realizes that Steve Harrington flat out ignores his own needs until they're so pressing that he's physically unable to do anything.

It all starts when Robin is told by Keith, of all people, that Steve has called in sick. Robin, of course, panics and calls him, and when he doesn't answer she calls Eddie to check on him. He and Steve had gotten closer since spring break, so it wasn't unusual for a member of the party to call either Eddie or Steve to check in on the other.

Eddie checks in to find Steve Harrington, badass warrior prince incarnate, sobbing from a blanket mountain on the couch in his living room. No one has ever actually seen Steve cry before, so Eddie freaks out, but it's just the result of a high fever and watching Old Yeller by himself. After calming the sick man, Eddie managed to coax some medicine into him and call Family Video to let Robin know that, yes, Steve is alive and no, he wasn't going to die of fever, but he only manages to get Steve to sleep by reading to him (Eddie finds it disgustingly adorable, even more so later when Nancy mentions that Steve loves stories but struggles with what he calls "moving letters"). And for the next two weeks, Steve is down for the count. Joyce and Claudia Henderson take turns making sure Steve is alright (Joyce because Steve is one of Her Kids, and Claudia because Steve is the Older Son she never had) while Eddie, Nancy, Jonathan, and Robin all try to take his place.

By the end of the first day, Nancy calls it quits: Mike is a bullheaded terror who only ever seems to like Will, El, or Eddie, and even then he doesn't always listen to them, so the Wheeler siblings fight even more ferociously than usual. She can't get El or Erica to listen, either; Erica is a force to be reckoned with, and El will only nod passively before doing what she wants anyway. By the end of day three, Jonathan is out. He won't say what happened, but he told Max to be nicer to the Party one time and, ten minutes later, he was tearfully saying that the kids were little monsters.

Robin lasts longer, almost an entire week, by chattering at the kids until they give up and listen to her. She meets her match when Dustin and Erica try to commandeer the Family Video computer again: Dusting sneaks past and almost breaks the computer just trying to get to it while Erica does Erica and argues until Robin the Rambler runs out of words. The morning of day seven is very dark for her.

Eddie, through what he believes to be the universe's acknowledgement of the depth of his affection for Steve and also sheer force of will, lasts the whole two weeks, but just barely. Mike argues over everything, no matter what; Will is skittish at the best of times and disappears constantly (thankfully, not like his Upside Down episodes - the boy just can't stop getting distracted and wandering away from the group), only to reappear directly behind Eddie and scaring him into an early grave; Lucas gets frustrated easily and can never seem to find the right words to communicate his thoughts and feelings, so he snarks and lashes out before awkwardly trying to mend the situation; Erica is so completely herself that it can be dizzying when the full force of that hurricane is directed towards Eddie; Dustin practically follows Eddie around like a little duckling, demanding updates on Steve or ranting about one of his many interests; El spends most of her time with the Party learning about how girls her age act through Max or practicing her braiding on Eddie. The worst of them all, though, is Max. Despite having healed up, she's still in physical therapy to rebuild her muscle strength and dexterity, and her eyesight is bad enough now that there's talk of her getting a service animal. It isn't that she needs a little extra attention that makes her the worst, though: it's that somehow, she still chases the most mischief. Eddie has only narrowly managed to keep her from assaulting no less that nine people in the two weeks that Steve is sick, and he knows she's definitely tried to commit arson at least twice that often.

Finally, after two weeks, Steve feels better enough to return to his usual activity, and Eddie begs him to never get sick again.

#steve harrington #babysitter steve harrington #steddie #the party #stranger things headcanons #mike wheeler #will byers #lucas sinclair #erica sinclair #max mayfield #dustin henderson #eleven #el hopper #eddie munson #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #argyle

[baddiewiththebook]

STUFFING AND SAUCE [18+]

-> It's Thanksgiving, and the gang is all together under one roof: the Henderson house. While Mrs. Henderson and Wayne battle the turkey in the kitchen, Eddie fights his own urges with the older Henderson sibling. You're home for the holidays, and Eddie's hungry. . . but, not for turkey.

-> eddie munson x you (she/her)

-> hookup to lovers, angst, smut

-> warning - explicit content [18+]

a/n -> This is reuploaded and heavily edited from last year.

-> <-

"You keep looking in that mirror and I'll break it," Dustin warns.

Robin's hair stands on end. "You can't be serious? That bad luck is transferable, you know?"

Dustin rolls his eyes at her superstition because honestly they've all come to an agreement to help set the table for Thanksgiving dinner party that his mother has offered to host this year. And, with Eddie's lack of partaking because he's too busy blotting down his hair in the mirror, Dustin doesn't understand why Eddie's come to his house in the first place.

The older boy fidgets with the end of his shirt, and not long after Robin comes to his ear to tell him that you'll love how he looks tonight. That's right, you're coming. He's totally forgotten that Dustin's sister is in town for Thanksgiving. Eddie's hair dangles over his cheeks, so that hopefully no one sees him blush.

"When does your sister get here?" Max throws herself onto the couch next to Steve, whom scoots a seat over from her. Lately, he realizes, she's been a bit too clingy to him.

"She's late," Dustin checks the clock that hangs high above on the wall ticking the time away. "She should have been here an hour ago- Eddie!"

Eddie abandons his task once again to dash over to the front window facing the street. Frost makes the drying grass and the limp trees appear shiny like glass. Foggy car headlights grow larger as they near. Seeing your Honda pull up the short drive brings back memories from the summertime.

Last summer was a record high in heat, which left you with barely any clothes to wear that didn’t leave your skin sticky and hot. Especially when Eddie was bent over the hood of your car and knuckles deep in your engine. Greased up hands and all, he wiped the sweat from his brow to tell you that your car was fixed. When you offered him cash as payment, he declined to the manor of being friendly not as the professional Eddie Munson - mechanic. You chewed on your bottom lip while batting your lashes in his direction.

Eddie’s unsure how you can make him melt, while simply being you. But, eventually, you worked out a payment that both of you were happy with. And, you continued that payment damn near every week. In his office. In his garage. In his van. In his kitchen. In his shower. In his bed.

No space in his shop or in his apartment are left sacred to either of you. And, when the summer was done, you were off to college. No calls or texts from either of you.

“She’s here!” Max spins in the front hallway. You are her idol. She swears you are the coolest person she’s ever met (aside from El).

Dustin shoves Eddie out of the way to observe for himself that in fact his sister has come home for the holidays. Not long after, their shared mom runs out of the house with her apron around her neck like a cape in her sprint.

“Hi, baby!” Your mom peppers your face with her kisses.

You whine. “Mom!”

“Okay, okay!” She pinches your cheeks until they’re glowing, but she does let you go.

Following her is your little brother, Dustin, who grabs you around the waist and he pulls you in tight. He’s gotten much taller since the last time you’ve seen him, but that can’t be right. You’ve only been gone for a few months!

“Hi, Dusty!” You ruffle his hair.

He grins. “What did you bring me?”

“I barely have enough money for books!” You snort.

Dustin drops his grip and then he fans you away. The little sucker grumbles, and avoids helping you with your suitcase despite your mom’s request. But, Steve and Robin dogpile you with warm greetings and Steve offers to help with your bag.

“I need all the dirt on college,” Robin whispers. “Are there really stains on all the sheets?”

What she means to ask is much raunchier. But, your mother is still picking at your clothes because you haven’t ironed this shirt. She’s got this look upon her face like you’ve been away at sea for years and years, and not like you’ve spent two months away at college.

Steve lugs your suitcase inside with you in tow. The rest of your brother’s little friends have also crowded around to get a piece of you. You’re like a celebrity in your own home. Even Wayne’s got his arm around you, whom you didn’t expect to see (but, you’re not complaining - you love Wayne).

Wayne’s got himself stuck in the kitchen with your mom to help her with the turkey. You’re the top subject right now, but soon he dashes off to make sure the bird isn’t drying out in the oven. Conversation begins to swirl like normal, and you’re on the lookout for the one person you might have missed a little more than you should.

You sit on the living room couch between Nancy and Steve with Robin at your feet, and the kids are running about the home hiding a can of whipped cream from your mom and Wayne (who are the only adults capable of reprimanding them of course).

“Do you have any plans while you’re in town?” Nancy asks.

You hope she doesn’t see your neck crane over her curly head. “None, but I’m here for the weekend and Monday since I don’t have classes.”

“What’s your schedule like?”

Nancy overloads everything she can while you’re around. No offense to the other people in your friend group, but they didn’t invite intellectual conversations like you and she did. She’s got too many questions for you, while you’re overthinking that the mid-length skirt you wore is too much.

“Have either of you seen Eddie?” Wayne poses the eye opening question that has the whole gang bobbing their head back and forth like meerkats.

“I saw his van outside, right? I’ll check there,” you stand away from your spot on the sofa.

Robin wants to make a sly comment about your willingness to brave the cold for this shaggy man, who seems to have taken a full shower, shave and added cologne to his washed outfit for the evening. She bites her tongue.

“Bathroom?” Nancy suggests that she go upstairs, and Robin will check this floor.

Steve hauls himself from the couch. “I’ll check outside.”

Steve secretly wishes that Eddie be there smoking a joint that he could bum off of. Holidays aren’t Steve’s favorite because his family isn’t around either. He’s here because he can’t say ‘no’ to Mrs. Henderson.

To no knowledge of Eddie, however, is anyone looking out for him. He’s snuck out to his van while everyone else stays distracted by your arrival. Watching your chest bounce while you laugh, or your skirt flutter while you twirl - you’re a God damn tease and you know what you’re doing.

Knock, knock.

You wrap your knuckles against the glass of his van’s driver’s side window. This must be Eddie’s lucky day, and you’re thinking the same by the way you twist in front of him.

“What’s up?” Eddie nods.

You pout. “Well, you didn’t even say ‘hi’ to me and you’re already bailing?”

“I’m not bailing,” he assures. “Besides, do you think that the way we greet each other is appropriate to do in public?”

A part of you is quite offended that he hasn’t addressed the elephant in the room. Not only did he neglect to call you in the past few months, nor did he greet you at the door like the rest of your friends had done earlier. But, the other part of you is winning over this tug of war. You haven’t had sex in months, and shining your own shield only goes so far.

During the summer, you got what you wanted. You and Eddie screwed like rabbits. When you left, a nagging itch was left that couldn’t be scratched. Admittedly, you got cozy in his apartment. Your sleepovers became ‘Good Morning’ with a side of eggs and toast. Soon began you washing the dishes after, and Eddie asking about what you’re studying for school.

After a while, his apartment became a second home and you no longer had to ask where the bathroom was. You pretended that this little game was to keep Dustin’s watchful eye out of sight, but sipping your morning brew without asking Eddie to add anymore cream or sugar became a bit more than you bargained for.

You’re leaning forward now to press a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. But, before you have a chance to pull away, Eddie slots his lips to yours like he’s made his way home.

“You want to take advantage that there’s no one parked behind me? Like old times?” Eddie pinches your chin with his index finger and his thumb.

It just so happens that the Beyers family is running a tad behind schedule. Will couldn’t find his Christmas sweater, and Johnathan had to second his shower because according to his mom, he still stunk like a skunk had run through their house. But, as they finally do pull up to the lively home with Christmas lights twinkling on the roof, Joyce Byers spots the eldest Henderson twisted in close conversation with the Munson boy.

Joyce parks their car halfway onto the sidewalk because Johnathan is jolting out of the car murmuring something about the food smelling so good. This leaves Will to juggle the grocery bags full of potatoes and Mac and Cheese into the house. But, Joyce stops to interrupt the conversation you’re having.

“Hi, Miss. Byers,” you pull away from the conversation to greet her warmly.

“Joyce, honey! Joyce!” She corrects. “I didn’t mean to- oh, I’m sorry. Hello, Eddie!”

Eddie waves his hand in her direction. That’s not to be rude, but he would rather not have Joyce see him in a pair of tight denim with his dick as hard as it is right now.

“We’re just going out for a last minute grocery run,” your lie leaves a sour note on your tongue.

Joyce knows very well that the last grocery store to stay open on Thanksgiving has closed about thirty minutes ago. But, she doesn’t tell them that she knows this. She quite fondly looks back to her own memories of when she snuck out of her family ‘s Christmas party with her boyfriend at the time.

“Be safe,” Joyce winks, then turns on her heel to go inside.

You’re quick to hop into the passenger seat of Eddie’s van. An old bitter cigarettes scent stains the interior of the vehicle like a thick layer of butter on toast. You buckle up, then kick your feet out in what little room he has under the dash. Eddie’s abused the passenger side of his van for fast food wrappers and travel mugs he hasn’t taken inside for however long.

Aside from a tire whining, Eddie cuts the headlights to sneak out of the drive without anyone noticing from inside.

Eddie places one of his hands across your thigh, “Grocery shopping?”

"What was I supposed to say?" You shake your head

You’re biting at the edge of something wonderful here. Looking on to your left, Eddie’s got his lip tugged between his teeth. His eye on the road. His mind in the gutter. The hand he’s got squeezing against the fat of your inner thigh dances dangerously across your skin. Your spine arches straight back. Eyes shut blissfully as you let a whine escape you.

Then, he dares flick your awaiting clit while driving solo with one hand on the wheel and an eye on the road. Not to be crude, but he’s been here before with you. Tight on time. Sneaking about like high schoolers still. You’re on his mind most of the time these days because he wants to know if what you did with him all summer is what you would do in college with other people. He’s subjected himself to exhausting torturous hours at work just so he doesn’t have to think about you in your back getting railed by a random dude.

Somehow he’s got you here now, and your putty under his fingers. Your eyelashes flutter. Brows furrow. Your chest rises and falls at the lightest touches from him.

Clenching your legs against his large grip he's got on you, Eddie pulls off to the side of the road. He’s waited far too long to revisit this little charade. Pulling in behind a few trees, he doesn’t have to ask because you’re already climbing into the back.

You land on a set of blankets he hasn’t taken out since you left.

Eddie crawls into the back after you. Kisses like he never left. Nostalgia makes your heart skip inside of your chest. He keeps you there under his touch, and squeezing at your sides as you sink deeper into his embrace.

“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” Eddie breathes onto your neck, before attaching himself there and nibbling into your flesh.

Your whines acknowledge that he’s got just the right spot - like he could have forgotten. The embrace is so familiar that your chest burns for him.

“More,” you beg into his hair, while gripping your hands into fists of the fabric on his back.

If there was more time, Eddie would have stayed there all night just to hear your heart beat against his eardrum. Yet, he’s undoing his belt, the button on his jeans and pulling the zipper down to match you flipping up that sinful little skirt you wore just to tease him. Wetting his fingers, he then hooks his pinky in your underwear to move them to the side. Rubbing your clit, Eddie hears your moans bounce from each side of the van. You’re on full display. Deliciously beautiful and all for him.

You’re both aware of this, so there’s no need to say anything.

“Eddie,” except you do. “Please. I need you!”

“I’ll never stop needing you,” he finds your lips again, as he pushes himself deep inside of you.

Groaning together, your core aches a familiar feeling. Tightening your grip against him like you’re scared he’ll run away. He’s got his eye not on your eye, but on your soul. Reaching far beneath the depths that anyone could ever fall into, and at its core is you. Your being is the only part he’ll ever need - the only thing he longs for. And so, as he’s fucking you at a punishing rate, he holds on tight for he’s afraid to let go.

You break the eye contact when you toss your head back. Stars form in your vision, as you topple over the edge of bliss. Following soon, you hear Eddie groan one last time and he’s spilling inside of you.

“Shit,” he rolls onto the blankets trying to catch his breath.

You’re doing the same, and with one long exhale, you swing yourself over so that you’re laying across his body. Eddie drowsily opens his eye to see the most beautiful creature he’s laid his eye on. Lipstick smeared. Mascara smudged. Your heart sounds as though it’s going to burst from your chest.

“Hi,” you say breathlessly.

Eddie chuckles. “Hey, beautiful.”

Beautiful. That’s an unspoken word between you two. Usually, after sex, the two of you either dress in silence or roll over and go to sleep. You miss the feeling of being wanted, and you’ve got your fingers crossed that he’s not just playing his cards.

Eddie’s hand finds the small of your back to bring you closer.

“What are you thinking about?” He touches your forehead with his index finger.

You nibble at the inside of your cheek, before bravely making the leap to ask. “Did you mean it?”

“What?”

“That you’ll never stop needing me,” you swallow thickly.

Eddie’s fingers make patterns along your bare back. Eyes locked onto yours, he studies your face through the shadows of the arriving evening. All this time you’ve been away, you’ve been on his mind. If he knew what dorm you live in, he’d be there in a heart beat to keep you warm during these cooler months.

“I’ll never,” he folds your fingers in with his just so he can bring your hand to his mouth, and so he can kiss every knuckle on your hand, “stop needing you.”

“Oh, Eddie,” you lean in for a kiss.

Someone bashes a fist against the back door to the van, and you know your screwed. Red and blue lights flicker and flash outside the window.

"Shit!" You scramble to pat down your hair, and your skirt.

Eddie tucks himself into his pants, while muttering curses to himself.

“Police!” Jim Hopper’s voice is easily recognizable. “Come on, Munson. Don’t make me come in there.”

With a few run-ins with the law, and making a reputation as the “freak” of Hawkins High School, Eddie’s van became a staple around town. Even the police knew just about where ever he is at any time.

Tumbling over each other, you’re sure the guilt is written all over your faces. Nearly blinded by a flashlight to the face, you shield your eye away from Jim Hopper, who squints at you two. Clearly caught in the act of a wild youthful fantasy, Jim clicks off his flashlight and speaks to you both;

“I was on my way to your mom’s house,” he makes a point to stare you down, before continuing, “when I was radioed that there’s a suspicious van lingering off the side of the road. Care to explain?”

Not like there is much explaining to do. The story is pretty black and white, but that doesn’t discourage Eddie to come up with an aching bumble of lies.

“We were just on our way to the grocery store when we ran out of gas,” he began with your earlier plot. “We ran out of cranberry sauce.”

“Right,” Jim grunts. “I better give you a ride back.”

Walking back into the house to explain why you and Eddie disappeared has been mute to your ears. All of the funny faces from the younger kids, or the suspected glances from the older friends. God, you’d never hear the end of this from Robin. She’s been on your behind about fixing you up with Eddie for a while.

“You okay?” Eddie nudges you.

Jim says with his back turned, “Come on, kids. No use standing around a dead car. I’ll see what I can do about getting you back here with a gas can in the morning.”

“I’m fine,” you're embarrassed, but you're warm knowing where you stand with Eddie.

You’re crammed in the back of Jim’s Chevrolet with Eddie. Also stuffed between you two, is a sizable Tupperware full of mashed potatoes. El twists around in the front seat to let you know that she made them this year.

Bumps in the road weigh heavy against the beating inside your chest. You’re not speaking a language that Eddie totally understands, but he knows where your head is at. He touches your pinky with his sending a few jolts straight to your heart and your stomach flips. You continue to manage the Tupperware from tipping all over the seats.

The Sheriff spins the wheel to turn down your street. That empty spot Eddie left has Jim’s name written all over it.

Somehow the home has become busier than when you left earlier. Sounds of laughter bubble through the chill of the evening. The blinds are drawn, so you can see the Christmas tree in the living room lined with a calamity of decorations that have been collected over the years. Tinsel shines against the living room lamps draped across doorways, and the window frame. Your mom insists on putting the decorations up the day after Halloween.

You can almost hear Wayne’s boyish laughter that he’s never quite grown out of, while he tortures the young kids. He’s cornered Lucas and Max with a fake bushel of mistletoe in his hand. Max squirms when Lucas kisses her on the cheek, but later blushes while no one is looking.

The car tilts as the group climbs out and down onto the driveway. You’ll never understand the love for a lifted truck like this.

Despite wanting to be useful, El takes the mashed potatoes from you.

“I’ll be taking that!” She announces proudly.

With El and Jim both taking the lead, Eddie sneaks in to tug at your hand.

The front door swings open.

“Jim Hopper,” Wayne announces. “And- erm, Eddie?”

You poke your head around Jim’s back, and Wayne’s mouth draws agape.

“Their grocery store run ended on a flat tire, so I brought them back here,” Jim says.

“Thank you for rescuing them,” he replies. “Well, come in. Dinner is just about ready.”

Jim, El and yourself enter the home without too much inquiry from Wayne. But, you hear a thunk and Eddie’s protest, so you can imagine Wayne just knocked some sense into the back of Eddie’s head.

“You must be cold, darling,” Wayne snaps his finger. “I’ll bring you some hot chocolate. Go on and sit by the fire in the living room. Your friends have been waiting for you.”

Pinching Eddie on the ear, Wayne drags him away to the kitchen where you just know he’s getting scolded.

You bite the bullet, and find your friends in the living room surrounding the fireplace. Steve’s fought for and gotten the prime spot, so that his back is to the flame and he’s heating up in the knitted sweater that Nancy made for him.

Johnathan is still unhappy about the exchange by the way, even if she knitted him a pair of socks later. You can’t imagine a world where Johnathan and Steve might get along anyway. Nancy has false hopes.

“There you are!” Nancy worries like a mom who’s lost sight of her kids for more than five minutes. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Really?” You plop down next to Robin on the couch, who’s got this grin that you beg won’t start talking.

“Won’t you enlighten us?” Robin bats her lashes.

Steve clears his throat. “Don’t think she’ll have too.”

“Warm up with this,” Eddie’s come from the kitchen with hot chocolate in hand. He hands it to you, and kisses the top of your head.

“Shut up!” Robin yells. “Really?”

“Really what?” Dustin pokes his head from around the corner before Eddie can snake his hands away from you. “Oh, damn.”

-> <-

tags: @ali-r3n

#eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things imagine #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson preference #eddie munson fic #eddie munson one shot #eddie munson smut #stranger things smut

[luckybyler]

My observations on the VR game re: Byler, including a couple of things I haven’t seen mentioned yet

I just saw part of a game walk through on YouTube (I can’t afford VR), and hoo boy!

1. The Mike that says El is so amazing and Will wouldn’t get it isn’t the real Mike, it’s the Mike that Vecna shows Will to terrorize him: In Chapter 3, Vecna possesses Will. Will resorts to a happy memory (Mike and him in Castle Byers), where Mike gives him a a ViewMaster. Will starts playing it, but Vecna makes every memory awful, full of spiders and particles. He distorts scenes, showing things like everyone ditching Will after calling him weird and other things that blatantly didn’t happen. Then he tells him he’ll show him suffering and shows that scene where Mike talks about El while particles fall down.

2. Will is confirmed to be a human being with wants and needs of his own: During that scene, Vecna goads him to tell Mike how he feels, and that he doesn’t want to meet El at all. At this point Will and El hadn’t met in the real world, and Will didn’t wish harm on her or anything, he just didn’t want her to be there, which is a normal and natural thing to feel about your crush’s hypothetical crush.

3. Vecna’s full of shit: In chapter four, Vecna tries to possess the four boys from the Party, and fails. He tells Dustin he puts double the effort into the friendship than the other three boys do, but Dustin turns him off with the TV remote (is Dustin’s happy memory watching tv?). Then he basically tells Lucas “you’re black and people judge you for it”, but he’s in a memory of a movie date with Max (at a drive-in theatre somehow) watching happy memories of the Party. Lucas does see the monster (so it somewhat hits?), but Max says it can’t do anything and they easily shut Vecna down. He also taunts Mike by telling him he’ll never see the most awesome person he’s ever met (El) and it’s his fault because he didn’t try hard enough, but he’s in the middle of a DnD battle with the boys and doesn’t even pay attention. A couple of dice bring Vecna down no problem.

4. Mike lovingly tends to Will’s nosebleed: Vecna does almost succeed in possessing Will, but he’s with the boys playing DnD, and Mike soon realizes Will’s nose is bleeding. He takes Nancy’s shirt and uses it to clean the blood/attempt to stop the bleeding, and admonishes Lucas and Dustin for not going to get a towel. Notice that in season 1 the boys saw El have nosebleeds and Mike was never as precious about it, unless she passed out of something and then they all helped. Lucas and Dustin are even heard in the background pointing out that nobody dies from a nosebleed. There’s a funny moment when Vecna tells Will he will always be alone right as Mike sweetly asks him if he’s ok while holding his face.

5. Brenner is training Vecna (???) and points out that he’s full of shit: I don’t know if this means anything for the show’s canon, but it’s interesting. Before Vecna tries to possess the boys, Brenner points out that they’re too young and untroubled, and afterwards he makes fun of Vecna for losing against children, again.

6. Will isn’t the weakest link, he’s the link Vecna knows best: Brenner points out to Vecna that the reason he could possess Will easier is because he already knew him (from the Upside Down) and knows the nature of his fear. When Vecna tries to possess Will, he does tell him to help him find out about Lucas’, Dustin’s and Mike’s fears, and actually asks him “what is Mike afraid of?”, indicating that he knows jack shit about them. Which leads us to:

WHERE THE LEDE IS BURIED:

7. LOSING EL ISN’T MIKE’S BIGGEST FEAR. OR SOURCE OF GUILT.

It might be a fear or regret of Mike, but it’s not THE fear.

Turns out Vecna was attacking Lucas, Dustin and Mike based on superficial knowledge, suppositions and stereotypes (Dustin’s the newest of the group, Lucas is black, Mike met El), not an actual, deep knowledge of their minds. Yes, good memories helped them keep Vecna at bay. Yes, those things Vecna told them might bother them. No, those aren’t the things that are at the core of their fear and guilt, or the right angle to drive them to either the dark side or suicide if pushed about them enough.

P.S.: At some point (that I haven’t seen yet, Max tells El that she doesn’t need to be a superhero all the time, that she’s more than fine as Jane, her friend. I think this might be literal, as in, superpowers are not the key to defeating Vecna. This is a psychological thriller disguised as supernatural horror, therefore the weapons to defeat him might be more psychological.

TL; DR: Vecna will be defeated with the power of Cognitive Behavioral TherapyLove and Friendship.

#stranger things #st vr game #byler #will byers #mike wheeler

[fazedlight]

Supergirl the show poses a question: Who is the real Kara?

Kara Zor-El, Kara Danvers, Supergirl. Who's the mask?

In the beginning, Kara doesn't even know. In the aftermath of Krypton's and Kenny's deaths, she did everything she could to appear as normal as possible - there was little room for her own innate traits to shine through when she was being as nondescript and people-pleasing as possible.

But that's not who Kara is.

We get the first glimpse of who Kara really is during Flight 237.

This is not about her being Supergirl or her powers (though both are relevant). Kara has suppressed herself for over a decade. She's not going to make waves - until she has to. Our first real insight into who Kara is now is as a devoted sister. It wasn't until Alex's life was at risk that Kara started breaking out of her shell (and then there was no holding back).

Our protagonist is a mid-20s adult - this isn't a coming-of-age story in the traditional sense. But it is a story of finding oneself and what it takes to get there.

And it starts with defending found family after a lifetime of loss.

So Kara creates the Supergirl persona. I think the cape is a crutch.

People say "a crutch" like it's a bad thing. But crutches are actually pretty fucking useful. They support you when you need it, whether it be short-term or long-term. They help you get around when you otherwise may not be able to.

Kara was deeply traumatized by losing everyone and everything she ever knew, being thrown into a world that overwhelmed her senses and made even her most casual movements into dangerous ones, and was told she needed to suppress everything - who she used to be, what she was going through now - to survive.

To find herself again, maybe she'd need a tool to get past what she had been through! The cape became that tool. She was able to unbury the heritage she had been hiding, she was able to embrace the powers that had burdened her, she was able to find her own bravery (and reactivity, she's got flaws in there too).

Keep in mind, in the scene above, Kara isn't "human for a day". Kara is powerless... just like she spent the first 13 years of her life. Her bravery isn't about her powers or Supergirl; they just help her get started.

That's not where her growth ends.

Kara's instincts for helping people start getting unburied in season 1, and she is excited to tag along someone else's quest to figure out where future threats may lie, or figure out how she can use her powers in service to the DEO.

But it's not until this moment that she realizes that Kara Danvers can be more, too. Lena unintentionally launches Kara's career - a second pathway for Kara's desire to help people, growing into a passion she is going to pursue (even if she gets fired). Her worth is no longer just about her sun-granted powers or being Superman's "younger" cousin.

In season 4, we even see her realization that Kara Danvers can be more powerful than Supergirl, because some fights can't be won by fists. That's a real discovery for herself.

Which I think, looking back, might becoming especially baffling for her... because Kara Danvers was originally an identity imposed on her when she needed to hide.

It's important to note that, while Kara Danvers was originally a facade that Kara gets at thirteen, she doesn't stay a facade - even in the suppression era.

We don't see enough of who Kara is when she's on Earth, left to her own devices. But we see glimpses - we know she likes baking (and we know we shouldn't try what she makes), we know she paints, we know she listens to NSync and Britney Spears. She's a goofball (even when she puts on the cape). Kara Danvers starts as a facade, but becomes a vehicle for Kara to continue developing her personality, now in her new context.

Would she have the same interests on Krypton? Maybe some and not others, maybe some new ones that don't exist on Earth. We're all products of our environments, after all. Her interests as Kara Danvers aren't necessarily fake just because they're different than what she expected.

Though she'll never know who she would've become on Krypton.

Which brings us to Kara Zor-El - the identity that is frozen.

Most people aren't the same person as an adult that they were as a child. Interests, tastes, personality, world outlook, philosophy - all of these shift over time, sometimes dramatically.

Parts of her are going to be deeply rooted in Krypton, and she's going to have ties to a culture that no one else on Earth has. It's not an aspect of herself that she can erase. But it's also not an aspect of herself that was able to develop for the remainder of her childhood and early adulthood.

She, like all of us, was destined to lose pieces of herself. But some of her loss was very sudden, and the pieces she lost probably weren't going to be the same on Krypton. Of course, she has no way to know.

And I think that frustrates her.

I guess my answer to "Who is Kara?" is that the three personalities clash with and harmonize with each other. None of them are truly her. All of them inform who she is.

There's a young Kara Zor-El as her root that was torn from the ground before she could ever grow.

There's a Kara Danvers who formed the bulk of her life - a mask that was given to her, the only vehicle for her personality, who ultimately became someone she could embrace as worthwhile in her own right.

There's a Supergirl who distinctly separates from those around her, but lets her move past her numbness and reclaim her heritage.

And it's that clash that makes her a particularly compelling character.

Maybe that's a cheating answer to the original question.

But there's still a missing piece to the puzzle - because it's not just about Who is Kara? but also about Who does Kara want to be?

I think Supergirl is something that could fade if needed. If Kara lost her powers, she would find a new normal, so long as she was able to pursue her desire to help the world in some capacity.

But the truth of her is somewhere between Kara Danvers and Kara Zor-El. The truth of her is in what Supergirl allowed her to unbury, even if not directly tied to Supergirl herself. But Danvers and Zor-El are burdens, in a way. Lena is one of the few people who sees the person in between, who understands Kara on her own terms. Which is why Kara is terrified of Lena's rejection.

I think it's one of the most telling lines in the show - to be just Kara is to be free of her own baggage, to be able to embrace herself despite the pain in her history. Something I think we all want, that is never entirely possible.

But the pursuit is still a worthwhile one.

#kara danvers #supergirl #character study #headcanon #longpost #mel stuff

[auroralwriting]

just like me ౨ৎ

ellie williams x fem!reader

synopsis: after you get bit, you knew you’d be alright. ellie, though, had no clue. after all, no one but tommy and maria knew..

the pain you felt was immense. even though you couldn’t get infected, that shit still hurt. the feeling of rotting teeth, half fanged and sharp, dig into your hip hurt like all hell. those damn clickers sure did have a nasty bite.

you tried your best to hold back a yell, truly, you didn’t want that attention on you. but you just couldn’t help it.

footsteps rushed upstairs, gunfire right next to your ear as the clicker on you fell limp to the floor.

“holy shit,” ellie commented, seeing the blood on your hip. “holy shit!”

the calmness on your face made her panic. why the fuck weren’t you freaking out? you were surely going to die!

“ellie, don’t freak out,” you say slowly. she walked up to you and pulled your pants’ waistline down to see the nasty bite.

“don’t freak out?!” she yells, “you just got fucking bit!”

“i’m okay, els,” you try to ease her.

she looks at you confused, but with tears in her eyes. “how the hell are you okay?!”

you take a deep breath, “i’m immune. this’ll be my second bite.”

“y-you- your, what?” ellie stands up, her face filled with too many emotions to name. “immune?”

“i can’t infect you, or hurt you,” you slowly explain. “all that’ll do is scar. i’m gonna be okay.”

ellie now grabs your face, your cheeks slightly smushed in her hands. “are you fucking joking?”

“no,” you reply, face still mashed.

“you’re immune. holy shit, you’re immune!” she looks happy, the realization setting in. “why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” she asks, a slight bit of anger taking over. “i’m your best friend and you didn’t tell me?”

you sigh, taking her hands into your own and letting them fall to your sides. “tommy found me when i was seven. i was a little thing with an old bite on the back of my neck. he instantly knew i was immune, but not safe. he knew people would want me. but i was just a kid, you know?” you explain. “so, he took me in. told me not to tell a soul. you’re the third person to know besides maria.”

“i guess i can’t blame you,” ellie sighed. “joel told me the same thing.”

“us and our father figures, hu-wait, what?” you joke fell flat as you heard her words in your mind. “ellie, what are you saying?”

ellie smiled a bit, laughing. “those fuckers have been putting us together for patrol knowing we’d be alright!” she cried out in laughter.

“are you-”

“yeah.”

woah. you were both immune. you and your best friend. “ellie, holy shit!” you started to laugh with her.

“fuck, you had me so worried,” she sighed after a while of laughing, pulling your forehead against her own.

“i was worried you were gonna fucking shoot me,” you laughed softly.

ellie pulled back, eyes staring into your own. “i’d never do anything bad to you.” she replied, but this felt a lot different from the tone she usually takes with you.

actually, you’d seen her look like this at kat way back when she got that tattoo.

“ellie..” you say softly, eyes flickering to her lips.

“i’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered, lips hovering just over your own. you could feel them ever so softly.

slowly, you pressed your lips together. it felt magical. you didn’t even know you were waiting for this moment until it happened. maybe ellie felt the same.

after pulling away, ellie cleared her throat. “uh, well,”

you looked outside “should be getting back, yeah?” ellie nodded, only one hand leaving yours. the other still was firmly holding yours.

“what a damn story this would be if we could tell it,” ellie chuckled.

“damn right.”

#ellie fluff #ellie x y/n #ellie x you #ellie williams x you #ellie williams x reader #ellie x reader #ellie tlou #ellie the last of us #ellie williams #ellie x fem reader #ellie williams tlou #the last of us part two

[ladykailitha]

Batshit Soulmates: Prologue

Welp. That certainly got a reaction last time. We don't even start the story yet in this one. Sorry about that.

Just a bit of setup and world building here.

In Medias Res

***

Soulpairs were just one of those things you grew up knowing that eighty percent of the population had. It wasn’t special, or pretty, or unique, what it was, as far as Steve Harrington could figure, a giant pain in his ass. His parents were soulmates, one of the rare ‘true pairings’ where they couldn’t live without being in each other’s pockets 24/7.

Steve had gone throughout high school without meeting his soulmate. He knew that Nancy wasn’t it, but he still loved her anyway. He just wished she had been honest about who hers was, though. It would have saved Steve a lot of heartbreak in the long run.

Nancy had a little camera on her hip, which didn’t pair with his at all, especially considering his was on his forearm. He had seen it the first time they had sex. And every time afterwards, too. He still hadn’t connected the dots when he found out that Jonathan had been taking pictures of their first time.

He still hadn’t connected the dots when Nancy came back to Steve that December. He figured that she had just thought that Jonathan was it, but he wasn’t. He stupidly believed that until it was revealed Jonathan and she were soulmates after she had cheated on Steve.

It also hurt that he had watched all his kids (well, all but Erica, but she was too young for that sort of thing anyway) get their soulmates, too. Mike had Will, Dustin had Suzie, Lucas had Max...well, most of the time. Max had broken up with Lucas four times since they found out they were soulmates. She had seen the damage soulmates who were completely destructive could do. After all, her mother and Neil were soulmates.

Max had straight up ignored hers when it had began to glow. She had a basketball on her right ankle and when she met Lucas she straight up pretended it didn’t happen. Lucas was too struck by the pretty red-head to realize that the warmth on his ankle was anything more than his stupid socks slipping into his shoes again. His was a little skateboard on his ankle. But it wasn’t things with Billy had escalated that Max admitted she knew Lucas was her soulmate. Lucas had been a little hurt by that, but when Max explained that her exposure to soulmates hadn’t been good, he had been more understanding. He even took her to meet his parents so that she could see some good soulmates. It worked.

Most of the time.

Dustin had been super ecstatic when he came home from Math camp or whatever the hell it was babbling about how his little honey bee lit up when he met this girl with the molecular structure of honey on her shoulder, just like where his honey bee was. Steve admitted it was a little hard to believe that one, because supposedly she was from Utah. But when Dustin showed him the bright yellow glow around his bee, Steve had to own up to the fact; Dustin had gotten his soulmate before he did.

Mike and Will were little bit more complicated because it didn’t seem like their soulmarks matched. Will’s was a broad sword and Mike’s was a wizard’s staff. But Mike was the one that figured it out. Mike had always felt a warm feeling the middle of his chest when he was around Will but didn’t realize what it meant until Will moved to California. He knew that El wasn’t his soulmate because she didn’t have a soulmark. She was part of the 20% of the population that didn’t need a soulmate.

And then Steve met Robin. Beautiful, smart, witty Robin. She had to be his soulmate. But when she confessed that she knew who her soulmate was and that that person was in a relationship with a boy, Steve’s stomach sank. For both of them. If her soulmate wasn’t looking for her, that had to hurt. Robin showed him the clarinet on her right shoulder. And Steve showed her the bats on his right forearm. They weren’t soulmates in the strictest sense of the word, but they were anyway. Because Steve hadn’t met his and hers didn’t want her.

So everyone Steve knew had their soulmate, (even if in Robin’s case, Vickie didn’t seem interested) except him. So he did the only thing he could do, throw himself into working at Family Video and fob off flirting attempts. Most people who hadn’t found their soulmate yet covered their soumarks so that people wouldn’t leer at them. But Steve didn’t. He hoped that it would catch someone’s eye. The right person’s eye.

All that changed when the younger kids entered high school. They got in with this D&D club and all they would talk about was how awesome and cool their new DM was and how Steve would get along with him. Steve seriously doubted that. Eddie “The Freak” Munson made Steve his mortal enemy their senior year (a second go for Eddie). Even after his fall from grace, Eddie’s rants seemed to point directly to Steve.

The kids had taken to trying to set Steve up with everyone. Robin had been their longest target but when she pointed out that her soulmark wasn’t on her forearm, they were forced to give that one up. They tried so hard that Robin was sure that they had resurrected her You Rule/You Suck board from Scoops Ahoy.

One day around Christmas time, they were trying to set Steve up with someone he knew had a known soulmate that he told them to knock it off. He went out and bought the most expensive, high end soulpatch he could find. It was a soft and supple dark brown leather that was broader at the top than its base. Robin helped him set it so that Steve could easily put it on every morning and Steve did.

Most of the kids were grumpy with him about hiding his soulmark, but Dustin in particular was the worst. He kept going on and on about how happy he was now that he found Suzie and he just wanted Steve to find his soulmate. He just wanted him to be happy, Steve.

Steve was close to threatening to knock out the kid’s freshly in front teeth if he didn’t stop.

In hindsight, he really should have known better than to bet against that kid. If he had broadened his horizons to more than just girls, he probably would have hit on the right person almost immediately. Not that Steve was going to tell Dustin that. The kid’s ego was already too much of a problem.

Steve’s whole world turned upside down for the final time one horrible Saturday morning when Dustin burst into the Family Video demanding Steve help him find a clearly innocent Eddie Munson.

****

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Epilogue

The reason El doesn't have/need a soulmate is that she is for all intents and purposes ace/aro. Much higher than our universe average, but meh.

Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @artiststarme @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gregre369 @pyrohonk ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @goodolefashionedloverboi @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence @i-must-potato @danili666 @carlyv @rozzieroos @wonderland-girl143-blog @justforthedead89 @emly03 @bookworm0690 @itsall-taken @vecnuthy @bookbinderbitch @redfreckledwolf @littlewildflowerkitten @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @scheodingers-muppet @mira-jadeamethyst @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @genderless-spoon @anne-bennett-cosplayer @irregular-child

#my writing #stranger things #steddie #soulmate au #byler #jancy #robin x vickie #dustin/suzie #lumax

[repentarium]

a waste of paint

read on ao3

“Just do your middle finger, Stevie, it’ll be, like, punk rock.”

“Right, because he is a beacon to anarchists all over the state of Indiana.” Max rolls her eyes, but Eddie is already tossing a tiny bottle to Steve. He tosses it back without looking at it. 

“You’re being a real spoilsport.” Eddie tsks at him and walks on his knees to sit at Steve’s feet. After a brief tug of war, he’s got Steve’s left hand secured and is using his teeth to unscrew the top of the bottle. 

“Waste of paint, man. I’m just gonna scrub it off.”

Eddie frowns at him smally, a tug down at the corners like he’s Thinking, like maybe he’s gonna shuffle back over to the girls, and Steve changes his mind with a sigh and shoves his hand closer to Eddie. 

El and Max are still over near the coffee table. Max is painting something rich and blue onto El’s fingertips and they’re chatting casually. Steve thinks it’s important they have this, something a little normal. El’s hair has grown out some since spring break, enough that she’s clipped a piece of bright plastic into it to keep it from falling across her face. She gets these headaches sometimes, and Max has glasses to help with her vision and a walking cast still on her left leg, but they’re here and they’re okay and they’re painting their nails. 

By the time he looks back down at Eddie, he’s finished a layer of golden yellow paint and his lips are pursed to blow gently across it. He looks up at him through his lashes and catches Steve looking back and smiles, and every part of Steve’s body is like electric-shock levels of tense.

And look, that’s normal , at least lately, at least for Steve. Normal to have to pull your eyes away from your pal, then look back as he starts painting again, the tip of his tongue poking at the corner of his lips just so in concentration.

All on the up and up, very above the board and even boring, maybe. A normal bodily reaction. Not a big deal. Cool as a cucumber. 

He’s talked to Robin about it - well, he’s talked around it in Robin’s general direction, he hasn’t jumped off the diving board per se, which is fine because there’s nothing weird here. Anyway, he told Robin that he thought Eddie was really cool is what happened if you want to know the exact details, and Robin said ‘Yeah, I think so too!’. So that was like proof that it was normal, you know. Everyone thought Eddie was cool. 

Steve is a liar. He is lying to himself. He does that sometimes, and he’s trying to get better about it, but it’s easier to not understand something than to dig into all the messy feelings. So the nail polish? He could have removed it, he maybe should have, but it’s like a physical something-or-other, and looking at it, or catching it on accident from the corner of his eye, gives him that same electric jolt he gets when he catches Eddie looking at him from across the room, or when he realizes the bell over the Family Video door ringing is actually heralding his loitering presence. 

Anyway, he’s a liar, mostly to himself, mostly for convenience, but this whole nail polish thing is wrecking it, it’s making it harder and harder to lie about it, even in the comfort of his own thoughts. 

He went on a few dates with Marie Thomas the summer before sophomore year, and she was like a vampire. She’d latch onto his throat and chew and it wasn’t like he wasn’t into it, but the real secret thrill was that he’d then catch the little bruises she left on his neck when he passed by the mirror. He hadn’t really thought he should cover it up, didn’t get why it was weird or whatever until Carol noticed on a Monday and started calling him a slut. He’d just liked that it was a physical and visual reminder that he had felt something, that he’d had a connection with another person. He liked pressing his thumb against a bruise and feeling the little bit of pain and he liked the way the purple bled out past the collar of his shirt as it healed. He and Marie didn’t last much into the school year, but he thought about the bruises sometimes. 

So looking at the yellow of the polish on his finger for the next few days and feeling that same thrill, like some kind of weird neon sign that flashed and told him ‘Eddie was kneeling at your feet the other day, remember? He was looking up with big eyes through his bangs and blowing gently on your finger and he was real and it happened’ as if some sort of hot and heavy backseat-at-the-drive-in action happened when it was truly something boring in a room full of people in his mom’s living room? 

It’s almost the same thing, really, and that feeling makes it harder to lie . 

By the time the golden-sunshine-yellow paint is chipping off the tip of his finger, he’s spiraling into a real conundrum of truths. It’s a Wednesday, and he is late to pick up Robin for work because he honestly truthfully spent ten minutes looking at the fresh chip in his paint. He’d been wondering if that was Eddie’s little bottle, if he’d had yellow fingertips like this before, or if this was from the girls’ collection. He’d been wondering if, if he went to the trailer park, Eddie would give him a touch up. If he’d sit at his knees while he did, or if they’d sit across from each other on his bed at the new government trailer, legs crossed and hands held like highschool girls holding a seance. 

It took the phone ringing to shake him out of it, Robin yelling at him for not being there yet. 

So it was toeing into his shoes, snatching his keys off the counter, and speeding to Robin’s and then to open the store. Busy with his body but his brain still whirring around with honest-to-god honesty. He liked Eddie, sure, but he also likes Eddie, the way he’d liked Marie Thomas or Nancy Wheeler or any of the girls he’d gotten handsy with. Pants feelings. 

And, maybe scarier, heart feelings. His terrible idiot of a heart whispers to him about how brave Eddie actually was and how kind he actually was and how good he actually was, how he treated the kids and how he nearly died to save the town that hated him and how he’d carefully held his hand and taken the time to do two coats of paint and to blow across the tip so that the sunny color looked Just Right and smooth even though Steve had (out of his mind, maybe) said he’d just wash it off. Like he’d been painting something special, maybe one of the tiny creatures for his game, instead of an ungrateful little jerk of a guy. 

It all has him itchy, tapping one hand on the counter and staring at the other, the truthy yellow of it all, while Robin complains about the shitty movie she’d chosen to throw on the tv. He knows that she knows that he’s in his head about something, they basically share the same head, and he’s grateful she’s keeping it light and surface level so he can dwell and hiccup over all the sticky stuff. 

The bell over the door rings, and Steve’s head snaps up (with hope, he recognizes the fluttery little wings of it and it’s like a carrier pigeon with a notarized message, the  contents inside enough to make him gulp) and of course it’s Eddie, he���s always around, especially on Wednesdays when the store is at its emptiest. Steve swallows again when he sees him, forces out a ‘Hey, man!’ and holds his hands steady on the counter, palms to the glass.

Eddie looks good, of course he does, eyes and teeth bright and sparkling and his hair backlit by the late morning light so it’s like a halo. He’s fizzy with energy, like he always is, and he comes up to lean against the counter directly across from Steve. Close, like always. In Steve’s personal space, like always .

“Hey yourself, man .” Eddie smiles at him and raps his knuckles against the glass. 

“Thank GOD you’re here, Munson, my brain is leaking out of my ears and Steve has been brooding and just so boring all morning.”

“Unfortunately, my dear Buckley, I’m on a mission today. I’ve gotta go out of town to get something for Wayne’s truck, so I can’t stay. Just wanted to check in with my adoring masses, a tough tour, you know how it is.” He raps again, and Steve’s eyes fall to their hands, Eddie’s rings clacking together and Steve’s sweaty palms pressed into the glass just an inch or so away. “Broody, huh? Run out of your fancy-boy hair gel?” 

Eddie frowns with pomp and drama and tucks his head down to make Steve look into his eyes, and he’s looking through his lashes again, just like when he was painting his nails. It makes him clear his throat, and clear it again, and think about Marie’s bruise on his neck, wonder if Eddie would bruise him like that, if he would rather Steve mark him up, and then he’s looking at the long line of his neck and the way it slides into the curve of his shoulder before it disappears into the stretched-out collar of his once-black shirt. He clears his throat again , and then, as if Eddie can read his mind (God no, please), he looks down at Steve’s hand and taps at the nail polish. 

“You need a touch-up, Stevie, that yellow is just falling apart. It’s called Sun Day, you know, that color. Two words: Sun Day.”

Steve hums at him and looks back at his hands again. Feels the ghost of the little tap he’d touched against his nail. 

“ Anyway , my friends and fellow freaks, I am a little overdue on this old thing.” He struggles into some hidden pocket under the flannel tied around his waist, turning his shoulders enough that Steve feels like whatever spell he’d cast is maybe broken and he can breathe again. 

He presses the plastic case onto the counter with what Steve just knows he thinks is his most winningest grin, but it only works because it’s created this silly stretched-out grimace that Steve finds charming, okay, it’s silly and it’s charming. 

“Fine! Okay, fine, you got it, what fees?” Steve shakes his head at him, one hand finally lifting from the counter to run through his hair and the other finding home on his own hip. He hopes there isn’t some sort of sweaty mark on the counter but he can’t look to check without showing his cards. 

“My everlasting thanks, sweet Stevie.” Eddie bows low and backs up a few steps, turns around as Robin says goodbye, taps the top of the door frame as he leaves and shoots a wink over his shoulder back at Steve. Steve stares too long, raises his hand in a wave after Eddie is already out of sight. 

Robin is snapping up Eddie’s returned VHS to rewind it; you’d think with his friends cutting him so much slack with the rentals he’d be-kind-rewind them at least, but he never does, and the worst part is that Steve doesn’t even care. He’s fully complained to many a customer with his arms crossed pissily about rewinding their spoils, but for some reason Eddie’s disregard is just another Cool Thing about his Cool Guy Persona. 

Something about that’s the final straw. When it crosses his mind, he crosses to the front of the store and flips the closed sign, locks the door, and turns off the display lights. By the time he’s turned around again, hands in his hair and his heart pounding in his throat, Robin is looking at him with an eyebrow raised. She doesn’t seem panicked, but Steve is starting to feel panicked, so he comes around the counter to lean next to Robin and then slides down to sit on the floor. It feels right. It feels even more right when Robin slides down the wall across from him and kicks her scuffed up Converse against his sneaker. 

She’s quiet and watching him with big eyes. It’s uncanny. 

He has a few false starts, big breaths and an open mouth before reeling in whatever he was going to say and snapping his jaw closed again. 

Finally, after minutes of Robin just Looking and Steve floundering and feeling warm, he looks at his painted nail for courage and just spits it out. 

“I like Eddie. Like I think I want to kiss him and hear about his day and touch his butt and stuff.”

“God,” says Robin, “of course you do. Have you seen the two of you dancing around each other? It’s like you pinball from middle school crush to old married couple and back again.”

Steve sputters. “You knew ? Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“Like that wouldn’t have totally freaked you out. You had to figure it out in your own time.” Steve would bet she thinks she looks wise, but to him she just looks constipated. 

“Well so. So what do I do? What now?” He’s chewing on the skin of his thumb, not the one who is neighbors with the Sun Day, he’s got enough presence of mind for that .

“What do you mean?”

Steve sighs in frustration and then his hands are tugging at his hair again, elbows balanced on his knees. “Is he even. Does he. What if he doesn’t like me back? What if he does ?”

“Breathe, Steve. He definitely likes you, he just thinks you’re straight ‘cause of, you know.” She gestures vaguely at him. 

“So did I.”

“Yeah, uh. Are you, like, freaking out?”

“I… don’t know. It snuck up on me. I just. He painted my fingernail.” Steve flips Robin off to show off the sad and chipped polish. 

“Yeah you showed me. Multiple times.” She has a pretty unimpressed expression on her face for someone who is supposed to be helping him. “ That’s what made you realize you liked his dork ass?”

“I mean, it was a series of things, I guess. I don’t know.” He’s looking at his silly fingernail again. “He’s really good. Like better than anyone maybe.”

Robin is gawking at him. “That’s not how you talk about girls, Steve. You haven’t mentioned his boobies like, at all.”

Steve groans and slides sideways to lay on the floor, sprawled out and looking at the cobwebs fighting to cover the overhead lights. Gross. 

“I’m sure his boobies are lovely, Robs, I just… wanna spend time with him, and listen to his weird stories and his weird music and look at his eyes when he talks about all the things he likes. And. Maybe he’ll like me like that too, you know? Like maybe he’ll feel the same way one day and I’ll be able to look at him and just know .” 

“Ew, you suck, Steve.” But her face when he looks is soft and caring. 

“Should I like. Talk to him? No. I don’t even know if he’s. You know.”

“You won’t know for sure until you talk to him, but I wouldn’t encourage you to talk to him if I didn’t think he was safe. And also like completely obsessed with you. But even if he wasn’t! He’s a good guy and he’s a good friend, you know. He’s not gonna be weird about it.”

“Hmm.”

Robin puts a hand on his knee and shakes it side to side. “Look at us ! You basically said you loved me and I’m still here, and we’re even closer than ever.”

Steve frowns at her, but he knows she’s right. Eddie’s a good guy, that’s the whole point.

“I guess I’m gonna talk to him.” Even saying it out loud to Robin like this makes him nauseous, makes his pulse pound, but she smiles at him in encouragement. 

“Yes! A great idea. You can turn on the old Harrington Charm, maybe-”

A pounding at the closed door and a muffled voice interrupts her. They both scramble to their feet, and Steve sees old Mrs. Burke pressing her face to the door, talking through the glass and shielding her eyes from the glare. 

“Coming!” Robin yells and darts to the door, lets her in and flips everything to open again. 

“You’re supposed to be open!” Mrs. Burke gripes. 

Steve mutters a ‘yeah, yeah’ and lets Robin take over. He’s usually fed to the Mad Old Lady Wolves but Robin loves him and lets him go sit in the breakroom for five minutes while she helps her find whatever romantic comedy she needs so badly. 

That means he gets to sit on the ratty old sofa and stare at the walls and wring his hands because it sure doesn’t feel like it’s as easy as flipping on some sort of charm switch. He’s got indigestion thinking about it, actually. 

And okay, the whole ‘King Steve “the Hair” Harrington, Master of Charm and Suavity’ was… a little bit of a farce, actually. It worked for him, but from an outside perspective, especially lately? Let’s just say it’s a little lackluster. Nancy told him one time, giggling in a way that didn’t hurt his feelings, that the reason he was charming was because he wasn’t charming, just sincere. That was after he successfully(?) charmed her with shotgunning the beer by the pool and before the big breakup, so that means something, right?

When the bell over the door rings again (Steve’s ears are trained to recognize it) he gets to barge out into the main room and say “Robin, do you really think I’m charming or are you joking?”

Luckily there’s no one in the store again, and he just finds Robin between the aisles pausing her restock to look at him with wide eyes. 

“I’m being serious, I’m having a crisis.” he continues when she doesn’t immediately respond. 

“Steve, buddy, I hate to be the one to tell you this. You’re a total dweeb.” It’s delivered with the gravitas of a doctor giving a horrible diagnosis, and it feels that way to Steve. “But!” she continues quickly when his face definitely flashes with the fall and the crash, “I have incredible news for you! I personally mean that as a term of endearment and, maybe even better, everyone you know is a dweeb, and ? Best of all? One Eddie Munson is maybe the biggest dweeb that’s ever existed”

Steve is still frowning. It’s kind of a lot to absorb, that the common perception of yourself is so… unsmooth. 

“You’re very sweet, Steve, and everyone likes you. Well, mostly.” Robin stiffly pats his shoulder. 

“Should I like, buy a leather jacket or something?”

“Steve it’s June. Also I don’t think you need to pull a Sandy Dee. Actually, please don’t. Just, you’ve got your whole… thing… and it’s maybe a little uptight? But it’s your thing ! You don’t wanna change for a person, you know, you’d tell me the same thing.”

“I want him to like me. Suddenly. Very badly.” 

“That’s the nature of a crush, Steve-o. It’s evil.”

“I need to go lay down for a few days. Maybe this’ll blow over, like…” he thinks and snaps his fingers, “temporary insanity.”

“Oh, honey. It’s been a while I guess, what with the world always ending, but I don’t know if you can sleep this kinda thing off. You probably have to talk to him.” 

He stands and stares and thinks while Robin putters around doing menial movie store tasks around him. It’s hard work, standing and staring and thinking, especially when he’s interrupted to take care of customers, so really it takes him the rest of the afternoon and all the way up through quitting time. 

It’s like he blinks and he’s pulling into his driveway, no memory of dropping Robin off. He shakes himself and turns the engine off, stumbles up his steps and through the front doors with legs that feel asleep and a brain that’s still all fogged up. 

It’s not even an Eddie is a boy and this makes him Different kind of freak out; that’s not it at all, he’s somehow leapt straight past that like hurdles in track and is standing facing a brick wall of but he’s Good and maybe you Don’t Deserve This . 

Steve knows he’s a lot, see, and he falls hard and fast, and Eddie is fun and light and not weighed down with all the guilt and anxiety and bullshit Steve’s dealing with; Eddie has his band and his game and his friends and he’s going to community college and working part time at a garage in town and figuring his shit out. Steve is working at Family Video (still), floundering his 20s away with no hopes or dreams or friends older than teens, and he also almost got a significant percentage of them, including Eddie , killed. Very recently, actually. 

Like Eddie is a glowing light and Steve is a cold dark box that puts lights out. Like he’s become his shitty, empty house. 

He’s still standing in his dark entryway, breath kicking up into something that’s sure to be a real doozy of a panic attack, when there’s a firm and rhythmic knock at the front door. He eyes the bat leaning against the wall (in case of emergencies), then flicks on the lights and opens the doors to find Eddie standing there, arms weighed down with bags and a hand raised to knock again. 

“Hey Stevie!” 

“H-hey? Hey, Eddie! What’s, um. What’s going on?” He tries to channel coolness, suavity, leans against the wall next to the open door and doesn’t almost fall. 

Eddie pushes past Steve without being invited in, typical behavior, and slides his wares onto the counter in the kitchen. 

“I brought us a feast.”

“A feast?” Steve’s stomach grumbles, reminds him he skipped breakfast and lunch, only split marked-out snacks with Robin all day. “What’s the occasion?”

“Kinda you are.” Eddie is unloading takeout containers from what smells like some Italian place. 

“I’m… confused.”

“Your birthday!”

“It’s definitely not my birthday, Eddie.”

“No, but we’re celebrating it today because I don’t know when it is.”

“That doesn’t make, like, any sense, man, my birthday was in April.”

“No, that’s perfect! I was probably recovering from the whole near-death then, so. Birthday.” He grins cheesily at him and Steve feels like all of his insides are scrambling to leave his body via a new pathway up his throat. “I hope you like pasta!”

“I love pasta.” Steve manages to mumble, and his feet move him towards Eddie on their own, his eyes snoop on their own, his hands pull out a stool on their own. It’s like he’s haunting his own body. Eddie is mumbling song lyrics and pulling out plates and dishing out pasta and salad like he belongs in his kitchen, like he’s more at home there than Steve has pretty much ever felt, and that combined with his day of Thinking and the snare of the stupid yellow polish on his nail that has him still feeling breathless when he says, watery and all in a jumble: “Eddie I think I really like you. Please don’t make fun of me.” 

He feels the panic on his own face as he just pauses. He didn’t mean to just say that, and now Eddie’s stopped, still as hell and facing away from him, carton of breadsticks lowered to the counter. He tries to school his face (cool, suave) as Eddie slowly, so slowly, turns around and leans against the edge of the counter, as he crosses his arms in front of him, but he just knows he looks like he’s seen a ghost or like he’s on fire because he still kinda feels that way. 

“You okay Stevie? You look a little. Well, you look a little freaked out.”

“I just, ah. I just mean.” He sinks fully into the stool, grateful it has a back to catch him because otherwise he’d end up on the floor for sure. His knees are basically on strike. He’s so warm. He keeps clearing his throat. 

Eddie is still looking at him with worry making the line between his brows creep below his bangs. He turns again to run some water into a glass and slide it across the island to Steve, who grabs it and makes himself sip mostly for something to do with his hands. But now Eddie is leaning across the whole island, pushed up onto his toes for sure, pushing into Steve’s space just enough that he knows he’s blushing. It makes him feel ridiculous because this is just Eddie, his friend, one of his best friends. Eddie who, god bless him, has never had a firm grasp on personal space and it’s never really been an issue before right exactly now.

Steve’s talking into the glass and avoiding Eddie’s eyes when he says, “I mean. It’s. I don’t think. I just. You don’t have to say anything. I’m, like, working through something.”

“Hmm. Did you mean it, Steve?”

Steve gulps again. “Yeah. Yeah, I did, I mean. I do. Like you. Like more than a normal amount. And it’s okay if you don’t, and I’m sorry if that’s not…”

“Stevie, breathe.” 

Steve can hear the chuckle in his voice and it finally makes him look up, which was a terrible idea, actually, because now he’s stuck again, caught on looking into Eddie’s stupid beautiful eyes as he laughs at him. “Please don’t laugh at me. This is. A lot.” Steve feels small and tiny and miniscule and he wants to go hide under the covers like when he was a kid and his parents were yelling. 

“Sweetheart. I am not laughing at you.” Eddie’s voice is firm through the grin that’s still there, and he reaches out slowly like Steve is a startled horse and lightly - lightly - touches the side of his face. It’s like walking through a spider web in the park if the spider web was cotton candy instead. “Oh my god. Steve Harrington, you’re such a dweeb.”

“That’s what they say.”

Slowly, to keep from startling him any more, he’s sure, Eddie leans further across the island, hand still on Steve’s face, and presses a gentle, feather-soft kiss against his lips. It’s nothing, really, not even close to the kinds of kisses that led to hands or bruises, but it’s like fireworks catching on all his nerves and he can feel all his hair stand up. It’s like superpowers and swimming and drowning, and he knows a little about all that. 

Before he can get his brain on the same channel, Eddie is pulling away with a soft pat to Steve’s cheek. Steve makes a very sad noise at the back of his throat and he knows he’s pouting but Eddie has turned away already, is humming again and grabbing plates and saying “Let’s eat some pasta, babe. I’m starving.”

He watches as Eddie grabs plates, balances a box of breadsticks on an arm, asks him to grab the Cokes. Steve grabs the bottles on autopilot, cracks the caps open on the counter the way his mother would kill him for, and follows Eddie into the living room where he’s seated on the sofa, plate in his lap and pasta in his mouth. 

He’s got a numb almost-feeling as he clinks a Coke down in front of Eddie and takes his plate, sits stiffly. His brain is sloshing around as he eats his spaghetti. 

“How are you normal?”

Eddie raises his eyebrows over his Coke bottle. “No one has ever asked me that before.”

“I just mean. I guess I don’t know what to think. Usually people say something when you say you, well. Say you have feelings for them. Or…”

Eddie puts all his things down on the coffee table, no coasters, and curls his legs up onto the couch. 

“Stevie, I’m sittin’ right here with you. You don’t have to say or do anything, you know? I’m here, and I’m not goin’ anywhere. We can eat dinner, we can talk about it.” He shrugs a shoulder, totally not bothered.

They’re words, just words, and they shouldn’t strike him so hard, but his face feels warm and he still feels like his brain is spinning around, like he’s at sea. Eddie frowns at him. He seems to see how lost he is suddenly because in the next breath he’s taking everything away from Steve to put it next to his own stuff. He grabs his hands and tells him to breathe. “Oh. Yeah. Okay.”

“You are freaking out. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m fine, I’m just.”

“It’s okay not to be fine. I think you’ve given this all a little more thought than I thought.”

“I’m serious, I was serious. I even told Robin. I think I, well, I know… I like you a lot. Like in a way I don’t usually like guys.”

“Oh. Wow.” Eddie is looking at him, and now he looks like he’s seen a ghost. Hands gripped, seance-style. “Okay, I’m not gonna lie, Stevie, I kinda thought you were just trying to say I was your… pal.”

“So you kissed me on the lips.”

“Pals kiss! And okay, cards on the table I guess, I know I feel a certain way about you , that’s not news to me. I wanted to do that for years, since even before you saved my life. I just don’t exactly expect any kind of… reciprocity.”

“Like?”

“Like you’re not gonna look at me and see me the way I see you .” By the end of the sentence his voice has fallen to a whisper.

And, well. Now Eddie is looking away and blushing and Steve feels a little more balanced, feels like this is something he can participate in. Not so much confidence, but familiarity, a comfortable sweater. “It depends how you see me, I guess, but I’m a little obsessed with you.” 

Eddie lets out a loud laugh in surprise and tries to pull his hands back but Steve flips them around so he’s grabbing Eddie’s hands and keeping them safe. It’s like holding small birds.

“No, stop. I mean it.” He’s picking up steam, pulling out the things he was turning over in his head all day. He mirrors Eddie, knees touching knees. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Robin’s tired of hearing about it. Being around you is easy, you make things easy, like it gets quiet even though you’re loud as hell.”

“Shut up, man.”

“I won’t.”

“You’re not like, joking with me right? Because that happened sometimes in the hallowed halls of Hawkins High and gotta tell ya, not a fan. I’m not a good fighter and I like you too much to wanna hit you but I would be very sad , and-”

“Eddie, it’s not a joke.”

“-like, I just wanted to bring you dinner because it looked like you were having a bad day and we all know how that goes, and this is all feeling very weird actually-”

“You were so cool a minute ago, it made me think I was losing it-”

“-maybe I got into a horrible car accident and died and this is like the last firing of my synapses or whatever.”

“-but this is actually more of an Eddie response. Is this okay?” Steve is ecstatic, actually, this is going so well, way better than he thought, and he can feel the smile on his face as he reels Eddie in closer to him, as he plans to redo that kiss in the kitchen. 

“God, yes.” Eddie laughs, and then he shuts up as Steve presses his lips against his. 

And okay, it’s more teeth than it should be, what with all the smiling, and it’s a little garlicky from the pasta, but it’s Good in the way that all first kisses are but it’s Better because it’s with Eddie. 

By the time they get back to their pasta it’s cold but they’re still smiling and the little worried line between Eddie’s brows is gone completely. 

They’re laughing as they eat, and they’re laughing as they clean up, and they’re laughing as Steve stops Eddie at the door to pull him into another kiss, and it’s easy . 

When he goes to bed that night, he runs his thumb over the chipped yellow polish in the dark and he thinks wow, Robin was right , and he thinks oh no, Robin is going to be so annoying , but he falls asleep with a smile anyway. He has incredible dreams for a change, dreams where everything is all Sun Day Golden Yellow and cotton-candy-sweet and he has this dork of a guy next to him holding his hand.

It’s all pretty punk rock. 

-----

i have been on several work trips and am in the process of moving so i have been s l a c k i n g, esp here and on my longer fics, but i haven't abandoned them! This is an older short lil story i edited and posted when i couldn't sleep

xoxo

#steddie #steddie ficlet #steddie fanfiction #steddie fic #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #mine

[therainscene]

It’s funny that Bylers are so often accused of being delusional, because I was at my most delusional when I was anti-Byler.

I spent most of S4 refusing to acknowledge that Will had romantic feelings for Mike, despite knowing damn well what all that love triangle imagery and sad gay pining was implying. I convinced myself it was just bros before hoes drama; that perhaps Will wanted to come out to his best friend but felt nervous after six months of radio silence following “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”

The van scene forced me to accept that he really was in love, and it pissed me off because what was even the point of making him fall for a straight boy?

Mike’s bizarre “no homo” behaviour was clearly a symptom of growing up in a conservative 80s household, and witnessing Will’s sacrificial act of love in the van was the shitty lesson he needed to get over his homophobia.

I saw a typical straight male protagonist in an 80s coming-of-age film getting to coast his way to self-actualization on the back of queer suffering; a cruel and homophobic trope I thought we’d moved past by the year 2022.

But then the NINA reunion scene rolled around--

--and I immediately picked up on the heavy parallels between Mike and Will in how they greeted El. The realization hit me like a tonne of bricks: Mike feels the same way about her as Will does.

I thought, “wait, does this mean I was wrong about...? Oh my god. No way.

No fucking way.

Will was in love with El this whole time?? What the fuck, he’s been gay since S1 and she’s his sister this is BULLSHIT I will personally strangle the Duffers--”

Heteronormativity is a hell of a drug, kids.

Let this be a lesson to those of you who think media illiteracy is to blame for Byler denial -- how well someone understands the mechanics of storytelling is irrelevant if they insist on treating Mike’s supposed heterosexuality as an axiom instead of an evidence-based conclusion. The issue lies with bias, not literacy.

I was stubbornly anti-Byler because I knew I’d immediately fall in love with this ship if I allowed myself to have hope it could be canon, and the general state of queer rep in mainstream media meant I was all but guaranteed to get hurt if I was so stupid as to have hope. But in my desperation to cling to the “safe” heteronormative outcome, I only ended up hurting myself with my own silly assumptions.

We’ve seen both canonically gay characters in the show make exactly this mistake, needlessly hurting themselves with their silly but self-defensive assumptions about their love interests.

Stranger Things absolutely nails its depiction of the subtler ways internalized homophobia can manifest -- Will may feel like a mistake and be prone to beating himself up, but he isn’t some pitiful self-loathing queer who wishes he was straight, either. He’s just so crushed by heteronormativity that he accepts it as an inescapable fact of life and lets it guide his beliefs and actions.

Don’t get me wrong: Will, like Robin, is very sensible for being cautious in such a horrifically bigoted environment -- trying to openly defy that level of homophobia by yourself, especially when you’re young, is a bad idea.

But unlike Robin, he clearly struggles to accept that he has the right to chase his same-sex love interest. He's no longer simply exercising caution, but conforming to homophobic standards -- much in the same way I thought I was sensibly refusing to be queerbaited, when really I was just agreeing with the heteronormative status quo.

I realize now that this is the real reason Will was written into a homophobic 80s trope: not to teach Mike an outdated lesson in acceptance, but to maneuver Will into position for the lesson he’s going to learn in S5 about resisting conformity.

Will needs to learn that castrating himself to make straight people comfortable is a bad idea too. Not only is that a miserable way to live his life, but what sort of world is he leaving for the next generation of queer kids if he never questions these homophobic standards?

It’s just the cycle of abuse scaled up to the societal level.

This is what gives me confidence in Byler endgame. Queerness isn’t just an incidental element of Will’s personal arc, but suffuses the show to its very core -- it’s in its themes, its allegory, its characters.

So Will getting the boy isn’t just nice fan-service for Byler shippers, but a necessary ending if the show’s most important lesson is to land:

That it’s rewarding to make the difficult choice of standing up to bigotry in the face of forced conformity. Of choosing love.

Could it be the case that I was right the first time, and Stranger Things is going to turn out to be yet another heteronormative mainstream show that doesn’t commit to its own themes? Sure, maybe. But that wouldn’t invalidate the valuable lessons this show has already -- and apparently accidentally lol -- taught me.

Anyone who calls us deluded for hoping a mainstream show is going to have a gay pairing as its main couple just doesn’t realize -- or doesn’t care -- that they’re contributing to the very problem they’re describing.

#stranger things #byler #will byers #mike wheeler #robin buckley #my analysis

[artiststarme]

Come to Poppa

Based on a prompt sent to me awhile ago from @yaoiprofessoryuki. I'm sorry it took so long but I hope you like it!

~*~*~*~

Steve was never close to his dad, not like a father or son should be. They never played catch in the front yard or camped out in the woods. They certainly never talked about sports or girls. The closest they ever got was performing elementary science experiments at the kitchen table until his mother scolded them both over their own laughter. One day though, everything changed. Out of nowhere, Steve became less of a son and more like a roommate that coexisted in the same house.They lived in the same house and their paths intermittently crossed when they were both in the house at the same time, but their relationship was gone. 

Nevertheless, all Steve wanted after fighting the demogorgons with the kids was to see his dad. He craved the comfort that only a dad could give through all-consuming hugs and emotionally stunted advice. His dad was a scientist, surely he could ask him just what the fuck those monsters were. If anyone could understand, his dad would. 

But after waiting up all night and into the next day, his dad didn’t come home. His secretary didn’t pick up the phone when he called and the hospital had no records of him. His dad was just gone, disappeared just like all the evidence of the demogorgons. Steve’s mom filed a missing persons report with the Sheriff’s office but even their investigations were moot. It was like his dad fell off the face of the earth. 

***

After their 1984 encounter and getting the absolute shit kicked out of him by Billy, the kids start hanging out at his house. His mom had taken to leaving for weeks at a time at the drop of a hat to avoid thinking about his father and Steve was climbing the walls in order to escape some of the oppressive loneliness that the house seemed to ooze. He thought the kids would find it fun to have a big house to themselves to make a mess in and just be kids away from the responsibilities of the Upside Down. He was wrong. 

Eleven froze as soon as the door swung shut behind her, her eyes on the family portrait that hung in the living room. In it was a sixteen year old Steve, his mother in her nicest dress, and his graying dad. It was one of the last pictures that they all looked happy in. But Eleven wasn’t looking at the picture in happiness or curiosity, she was looking at it in horror.

“El? What’s wrong, what’s going on?” Mike stood between her and the photo, his hand comfortingly rested on her shoulder.

All the kids surrounded her and Steve just followed her gaze and looked at her in confusion. When Dustin saw him looking back and forth, he snuck a peek before his eyes widened in sudden realization. “Holy shit, guys! Look at the picture! Steve, how the hell do you know Dr. Brenner?”

Steve’s eyes scrunched in confusion, “what? I don’t know a Dr. Brenner.”

“There’s a picture of the two of you right there!” Lucas flailed his arm towards another picture of the two of them in black suits at his cousin’s wedding. 

“And right there,” Max added, pointing at a picture of Steve holding a report card with straight A’s and his dad beaming with pride to his left.

“That’s not Dr. Brenner, that’s my dad. Martin Harrington, not a Brenner,” he said while rolling his eyes in exasperation. The imagination of these kids was going to make him lose his mind one day. 

“No, papa.”

“Eleven, that’s not the man that hurt you. That’s my dad. He was boring and dorky, he wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“Papa!”

“I think she would know who experimented on her for years,” Lucas said, rolling his eyes. 

“Not if she thinks it's my dad!” Steve was really reaching his limits. He’d just wanted the kids to have fun for a day, he hadn’t expected slander against his dad. 

“What if it's the same person? Your dad and Dr. Brenner,” Dustin pondered. 

Steve just shook his head. “There’s no way, my dad worked at the Department of Energy for the government. He ran research experiments on electricity and water and shit. He never worked with kids!” 

“The Department of Energy was just a cover up for the experiments on kids!” Mike screamed.

That was the last line for El. As soon as Mike raised his voice, she flinched and threw the family portrait to the ground with a flick of her wrist. The frame splintered and the glass shattered upon contact with the fireplace tile. Most disturbingly to Steve though was the long tear in the photo separating his dad from him and his mom. An unfortunately positioned shard of glass had separated his dad from his family in the portrait just as an unknown force had in reality. 

“Hey! That’s one of the last pictures I have of him! He disappeared last year and you just ruined our last picture together. Fuck Eleven, he’s not your papa.” Steve dropped to his knees next to the broken frame without regard for the glass and fretted his hands over the portrait. 

“He’s a monster!” El yelled, an accusing finger pointed directly at the ruined canvas in his hands. All of the pictures on the walls fell to the floor with a deafening crash. In a single moment, all remnants of his dad were erased from the living room. 

“No! You’re ruining everything, stop! My dad was just a nerd that loved science. He might’ve been a little strict about grades but other than that, he’s a good guy!”

“Steve, we are telling you that that is Dr. Brenner. I don’t know why he has a different name at work or why you don’t know what he did at work but it is him. We met him last year and he’s missing because… Well, we’re pretty sure El killed him or at least really hurt him. That’s why he didn’t come back.” Dustin delivered the news as gently as possible but his words still registered like a knife in the back. 

“What.”

Suddenly, Steve saw everything differently. The missed basketball games, the unexplained absences and late nights at work, the weird interest in his experiments. It felt like the loving dad that he grew up with was a stranger he never knew at all. The kids didn’t seem to notice his shock or the fact that they had just ruined his life. They continued arguing amongst themselves until Steve tuned back in. 

“What if Steve knew about it? For all we know, he could've had a part in it! Maybe that’s why he wanted to join the Party. He could be reporting back to Dr. Brenner right now!” Mike ranted. Jesus Christ, Steve hated that kid.

“You really think Steve had something to do with it? I’m pretty sure he’s failing at least three classes right now. There is no way someone would use him as an accomplice in a conspiracy this big,” Dustin shook his head and sent a wink at Steve as if he was defending him. But Steve didn’t take it that way. 

They knew about his dad’s disappearance and were now insulting him? Fucking shit, he’d risked everything for these kids; his reputation, his old friends, his relationship with Nancy, his life! And they still doubted him and saw him as an idiot. They saw him as a traitor that would work as an accomplice to torture other kids. Fuck it. 

“Get out.”

“Steve, Mike didn’t mean-”

He cut Lucas off with a glare. “Get out! I don’t want you here. Just get out!”

They all walked out with varying degrees of guilt until Steve was left alone with nothing to do but look at the ruined family portrait with its shards of broken glass and cry about the injustice of it all.

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#does the timeline continue as normal after this or does this change everything? #what if Robin takes pity on Steve when he goes back to Mrs. Click's class on Monday and befriends him then? #Eddie sees the fallen king hanging around the Buckley band kid and befriends him too #stranger things #pre steddie #pre robin #steve harrington #eleven hopper #mike wheeler #dustin henderson #lucas sinclair

[panphilosopher]

Fic Idea: Chaggie/Chaggily child AU except it's Vaggie's child when she was a human. (TW: sex violence)

The idea if Vaggie's human origin still happens.

During her time as a sex worker, Vaggie could accidently be impregnated. The idea she didn't realize she was pregnant until at least the beginning of her early second trimester.

Since abortion is illegal in El Salvador and cultural upbringing, Vaggie could be reluctant to have abortion until decided to carry it.

I cannot think of a name, but I'm calling Vaggie's child Mirabel (lol).

Being disowned by her own family fuck Vaggie up psychologically, and decided to raise her (likely have a girlfriend who helped her).

Vaggie absolutely loves her daughter; she dotted her, she was her moon and sun. Gave her endearing names.

Tragically struck; when Mirabel is between 3-5, Vaggie was killed (either to sex violence, struck by vehicle, gang related death, etc).

Vaggie ascended to Heaven (likely having a traumatic life and still caring for her daughter), but Vaggie was devastated because that meant she separated from Mirabel.

Worse, and this part of my headcanon, time is irrelevant in the afterlife. I get the idea from The Good Place; look up Jeremy Bearimy. That's meant Vaggie will not see Mirabel for hundreds of years.

Every year in the afterlife time, Vaggie will have a somber celebration for Mirabel. I would like to say around September to October. Is Vaggie way for her to grieved for not raising her daughter.

Vaggie was also recruited into the Exorcists early, ascended into an angel.

The fic would follow the canon route: Vaggie did the extermination, spears a sinner, and Lute cut her eye and ripped her wings, Charlie would find her, and both fell in love, opened thr Hotel, battle the Exorcists and won. Also, down the line, Emily would fall too and enter a poly-relation with Vaggie and Charlie because I ship Unholy Trinity.

Like three months after the battle, Vaggie and Charlie hold a somber birthday for Mirabel (Vaggie told Charlie when they started dating).

All the hotel residents wondered who birthday is it, and Vaggie tells them its for her daughter.

Cue everybody is going "WHAT" "YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER" and Emily screamed, "Why didn't you tell me?!".

Even Charlie gasped before saying, "Why am I gasping? I already knew that."

I see Vaggie as a very closed person, won't tell people her past unless she trust them, and seeing she openly celebrating her daughter's birthday means she does now. Also, she likely didn't realized she hasn't tell Emily yet.

Now, here comes the angst: a few days after Vaggie's fell (or forced fall), Mirabel ascended to Heaven.

I don't think Vaggie and her former partner will have a healthy relationship. Not fault for either of them: poverty, homophobic society, and that Vaggie being a sex worker. Vaggie decided to keep Mirabel just add another fight between them.

After Vaggie died, her former partner gave Mirabel up to an orphanage. I do see her feeling guilty and likely giving donations to the orphanage, but that's it.

I will see Mirabel being a selfless girl: the big sister of the orphanage, gave her dinner portion to the children who's nearly starving, is known around the town for helping people, things like that.

She vaguely remembered Vaggie, only remembered that her mother loved her, the pet name, and I believed a nursery song that Vaggie sang to her.

Mirabel likely died around 15-17, and I say either to traffic accident or a bullet stray from a gang shoot-out.

After arriving in Heaven, Mirabel will look everywhere and try to find Vaggie. However, she doesn't know her name and not realize she isn't in Heaven.

A month after the failed extermination, Lute discovered Mirabel, and being the sadistic bastard she is, recruited Mirabel into being an Exorcist, making her an angel too.

She gives half lies about Vaggie: being an Exorcist but was killed during the failed extermination by Charlie's paramor. Since Vaggie never actually introduced herself during the Redemption Hearing, and that Mirabel vaguely remembered how Vaggie looked like (especially her afterlife/her fallen angel form if take fanon route).

Cue Mirabel trained and searched for her mom's killer, not realizing her mom is alive and said killer is her mom.

#hazbin hotel #vaggie #hazbin vaggie #hazbin oc #hazbin original character #charlie morningstar #emily the seraphim #chaggily #unholy trinity #unholy virtue #charlie's angels #two and a half halos #tw sex work #tw sex violence #Vaggie's Child AU #lute #hazbin lute #hazbin charlie #hazbin fictive #fic ideas #angst #hazbin emily #fanfic idea #fanfic #writing prompt #fanfic prompt #wlw #sapphic #hazbin fic #hazbin hotel au

[pinkeoni]

I have another take on the monologue. Walk with me.

And I’m not saying that my interpretation is the correct one, but rather, I’d like to look at it from another angle and consider another possibility.

With the script coming out and the monologue recieving all of this renewed attention, I’m starting to think that maybe El did believe Mike’s monologue.

And this isn’t just me looking at the script as proof. And while yes, the script did say that she believed it, you can’t take what’s on the page as cold hard proof versus what is on the screen, BUT I do think that what we do see on screen supports this idea.

Oh, I still think that Mike was lying out of his ass, and many have already elaborated on that idea so I don’t really want to rehash it here. We as the audience know that Mike is lying because we get a much clearer view of everything, but El does not get that view. We heard Mike say in the van that meeting her was just dumb luck, El did not.

While we also know that Mike’s reasoning for not saying “I love you” comes from his internal struggles, El’s belief as to why Mike couldn’t say comes from her own inner turmoil. She believed that Mike couldn’t say it because she saw herself as a monster. She has no idea about Mike’s personal struggles and doesn’t really consider it a possibility just because she is too in her head. I elaborate more in this post about El’s dichotomous thinking and how it drives her in this season.

It might be different if, say, El questioned Mike if there was someone else, that would definitely send a different message. But this isn’t El believing that Mike is love with someone else. This is El believing that she is unlovable.

But if she did believe him, shouldn’t she have looked happy? Wouldn’t she be closer with him and not giving him the cold shoulder? Wouldn’t they have a conversation after to reconcile their feelings?

And I agree. This is not the face of someone who is happy to finally hear “I love you” from her boyfriend.

But it’s not because she didn’t believe him. It’s because she realized it’s not what she wants to hear because she is not in love with him.

I talked about it more in this post where I discuss some Elmike and Stobin parallels. Here’s the main point I want to draw attention to:

I don’t think El is intentionally lieing about her feelings. I think she felt this hole ever since Hopper left, and believed that Mike’s love was supposed to fix everything. That Mike’s love is what she wants to hear. And then she finally hears it, and realizes it’s not what she wants. So maybe the face she is making during the monologue isn’t out of dissapointment, maybe it’s out of realization and guilt.

This would be a perfect parallel to the end of season 3, which I talk about here—

—and I pretty much agree with everything I said before.

And think about it, if El did believe what Mike was saying, that would make this line—

—so much worse than it already was.

Maybe El believed Mike in that moment, and maybe it did give her enough strength to break free of Vecna’s grasp, but the important thing is that she fails.

And what does El’s dichotomous thinking tell us about how she’s thinking afterward? If she’s not a superhero, then she must be a monster. She got her powers back, her boyfriend loves her, and yet she’s still a monster. Everything that she believed would solve her problems, didn’t. So what can she now?

I think when El side eyes Mike in the cabin it can be read through this lens of guilt as well. How can she bring herself to tell the guy that fell madly in love with her at first sight, that she doesn’t feel the same way? Especially when this guy sees her as a superhero, the thing that El wants her to be? Would breaking up mean losing the superhero title along with the girlfriend title?

I guess I like this interpretation because it shifts the focus to both Mike and El’s internal conflicts, rather than placing their relationship faults on the other person. Mike isn’t a nerd who is hopelessly in love with someone who is disinterested because she is way cooler than him, and El isn’t hopelessly in love with a gay guy who can’t love her back (even though he is a gay guy imo). They are both not in love with each other, and it has nothing to do with the other person.

And what great irony would that be if they were in the exact same position. They both believed that what they wanted from the other person was their love, and it wasn’t until they got it when that cold hard truth would hit them across the face. Now they are in this awkward position where they believe the other person is in love with them, and they both care too much to actually break the truth to the other person. It’s perfect.

#i started this when the piggyback script came out and its been sitting in my drafts for a while #and always feel free to disagree with me!! #but like i said #this is me wanting to consider another angle #byler #elmike #el hopper #mike wheeler #anti mileven #anti milkvan #stranger things #stranger things analysis

[sleepiexx]

Right Under Her Nose

Valeria Garza x fem!Reader + Platonic!John “Soap” Mactavish x fem!Reader

Note: This has been a wip for mooonths dude

Summary: Valeria had expected that her girlfriend just wanted space, albeit not so fond of the idea that she couldn’t respond to a simple text, she’d grant her wish and leave her alone. Oh how wrong she turned out to be.

Warnings: Lots of talk about blood, death, and some gore, kind of graphic but not super detailed, Valeria and Reader fight, and the first half is Valeria-less

Word Count: 3859

The only sound resounding in the near empty room was the dripping of blood, a sick echo of the liquid dripping onto concrete. (Y/N) was so out of it that she had originally assumed there was a leak in the ceiling, but she was wrong. She only realized it was the sound of her own blood when she saw the pool of the red liquid under her rippling in tune with the dripping noise.

She knew she was hurt, of course— how could she forget the rigorous hours of torture she had been subject to? But she didn’t know that a person could bleed this much and survive, it reflected in her physical state heavily. Everything hurt, even thinking.

How did she even end up here?

She led a normal life. She lived off of tips and the wage she earned by waiting tables at a cushy place downtown. After long nights and rush hours, she would return home to her apartment and plants. Along the way, she met a woman who she loved with her entire heart and was lucky enough to call her girlfriend. (Y/N) (L/N) lived as normal as life could get and yet somehow, someway, one of those life choices led to her capture and torture by members of the cartel.

“I don’t know anything!” She’d sobbed for hours as they dismantled her physical and psychological being without relent. Drawn out beatings, cuts, slashes, all blended together in her mind as one heaping pile of pain.

One name stuck out. The one that they had asked her about her connection to over and over again: El Sin Nombre.

She had no clue who El Sin Nombre was. She guessed they were some rival to the men who had been torturing her, but she knew nothing more than that and she certainly didn’t know how she fit into the equation.

She didn’t run with any cartels, or do drugs— hard ones anyway, she couldn’t imagine her marijuana use had anything to do with this. She knew for a fact that her plug didn’t dabble in selling or consuming harder drugs either, so it couldn’t have been him. Besides, who gets tortured for enjoying a blunt every once in a while? She was innocent, why couldn’t they see that?

The door pounded, wood splintering and cracking from the pressure. That wasn’t good. The cartel had been angry throughout her interrogation, that much had been clear with the way they had treated her, yet now they were unable to even keep their cool. What happened? Was she no longer “useful” to them? Had they decided she was better off dead? What made it so urgent that they couldn’t use the key and had to knock the door down?

The door finally caved under the pressure. The big group of men that (Y/N) had been expecting turned out to be just one man. One man with a gun.

Panic shot through her veins, a newfound energy along with it. She thrashed around in her chair, desperate to get away from him, yet the restraints didn’t budge.

He stomped towards her, a blank face as he held the gun in a position that suggested he was ready to lift and shoot at the drop of a hat.

She would do anything to survive, grasping at straws for a chance at life, “Hey- hey, wait wait wait- I thought- you need me, you need the information I have.” She didn’t have any information, she knew that, and it seemed so did he.

“Your information is not important.” He huffed, a deep glare etched into his eyes, “Something’s come up, I have to tie up the loose ends.”

His gun raised, aiming straight for her forehead. Tears fell from her eyes, with nothing to lose now she had no qualms crying to her heart’s content. All shame she felt dissipated as she sobbed and begged— begged for her life.

“Please- Please, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did please, please don’t kill me.”

Her throat felt raw as her sobs bordered on screams. She saw his finger wrap around the trigger and she closed her eyes as she heard a loud bang, waiting to feel the pain and then nothing at all.

But it never came.

She felt a spray of hot liquid splashing on her face, which she suspected was her own blood, but confusion consumed her as she still felt very much alive.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. The man who nearly killed her was on the ground, resting in a puddle of his own blood.

“What the fuck?” She whispered, eyes wide. She looked up, met with the sight of a man. He wore a uniform, army, and he had stubble and a Mohawk. He looked like any average soldier and yet after hours of unrelenting torture, you could never be too cautious.

She struggled against her restraints once more but it only proved to be a harder task now that her adrenaline levels were fading and exhaustion was taking over.

“Hey, Hey!” He called out to her, trying to calm her down, “it’s okay, love, it’s over. I’m gonna get you out of here.”

She calmed at the thought, staring at him with hopeful eyes. “Please.” She begged. At this point, she didn’t even know what she was begging for.

He stepped forward carefully, “I’m Soap, I’m going to try and untie your restraints. Is tha’ okay?”

She didn’t like how he treated her like a scared animal but she appreciated him narrating everything he was doing. It made things predictable, less scary that way. She nodded.

Despite getting the go ahead, he continued at a slow pace, in fear of startling her or triggering something. With the state of her blood-stained body, he could only imagine the horrors she had went through in however long she had been there.

She felt nervous as he had to stand behind her to untie her wrists. Out of her line of vision, he was unpredictable. But as a seasoned soldier, he knew that, knew exactly how she was feeling, and he would do anything in his power to alleviate some of the pain.

“The ropes aren’t budging, I’m going to use a knife to cut them off, so I need you to stay real still, okay?”

She nodded.

He sawed the ropes until they fell off with a wet plop onto the soaked floor. She pulled her hands forward, shoulders aching from having been kept in that position for so long. She stared down at the red lines that followed her wrists where the ropes had been. She had struggled so much that she rubbed her wrists raw and bloody.

He walked around to the front of the chair, where he squatted down and did the same to the restraints on her ankles.

Completely unrestrained, she got slightly overzealous and attempted to stand. Her legs were weak, though, having only stood few times in the past however long when the cartel felt gracious enough to let her go to the bathroom. She nearly instantly collapsed and likely would have fallen right on top of the dead man had the soldier not been there to catch her.

“Hey, easy, easy. Don’ think you should be walkin’ on your own just yet.” He looked down at her, trying to help her stand on her own but it was proving impossible in her state, “alright, I’m going to pick you up.”

One of his hands snaked down from where they were on her sides to the pit of her knees, picking her up in a bridal carry. She groaned at the movement, open wounds aching and sending shooting pains throughout her body.

“Steamin’ Jesus, what did they do to you?” He wondered aloud, concerned at the whines and pained moans leaving her mouth.

She didn’t respond, too emotionally and physically exhausted to have a deep conversation. As he carried her throughout the compound, her eyes began to shut, almost succumbing to darkness. Soap instantly took notice.

“Hey, you can’t go dying on me now, love. Gotta stay awake. Talk to me.” He hoped she would start rambling so he could gauge the state she was in without having to take his focus off of the compound in front of him, but she just blinked at him. It was a hard task to ask of a girl who had just been through hell. But Soap was witty, and he had no problem finding another way for her to talk, “What’s your name, hen?”

“(Y/N),” it came out like a whisper, but before this she hadn’t talked to him at all so it was progress.

“(Y/N)? I like it. What’s your favorite color, (Y/N)?”

“Blue,” she murmured.

He smiled, “nice color, I like green.”

“Green? Is your full name Irish Spring?” Her voice was weak, and wavering, so it was hard to get across a tone to match the joke she had made.

He shook his head, not understanding that she was joking, “I’m Scottish actually.”

“Irish Spring, like the green soap.”

He looked down at her and smirked, “I did not think you were capable of makin’ quips like that.”

She looked away, feeling some of the effects of the blood loss hitting her. Loopy-ness being the main one, she found herself unable to control her words, “What kind of name is Soap anyway?”

“It’s not a name.” He said, kicking down a door that stood in their way. Quickly checking if the coast was clear before finishing his statement, “It’s a callsign. My real name is John.”

“John,” she mumbled, “that doesn’t really suit you.”

“You can call me Johnny if ya like-“

Just as Soap thought he was making progress, keeping the hostage’s thoughts on other things, he was met with the sound of more cartel.

“Fuck.” He muttered, mind racing through all of his options.

(Y/N) could tell they were coming, her eyes were wide and her heart rate picked up. Fear consumed her once more. Especially as the soldier set her down on the ground.

“I’m going to deal with this, you stay right here.” He explained, not giving her room to speak as he b lined it out of the door, towards the gaggle of cartel members.

All she heard were gunshots, gunshots and screaming. She made an attempt at self soothing by rocking back and forth but it didn’t help that she was wounded to shit, making her movements jagged and painful.

What if Johnny died out there? What if her only hope at escape from this awful place was shot and killed defending her?

She didn’t know if there were more soldiers, or if it was just him, all she knew was that she needed him, desperately.

God, how she wanted to peek so bad, especially when the room went silent. But she knew she couldn’t disobey the soldier. Not when it was his judgement that had gotten them this far.

Like an answered prayer, he appeared right in the doorway.

“Hey, hen.” He smiled at her, trying to cheer her up, but it faltered when he saw just how harshly she had reverted to the nervous state he had found her in.

He walked up towards her, picking her up once more. “I’ve gotcha,” he coo’d, hoping to calm her down slightly. He knew he had to get her out of there, fast, so he sped up his pace.

It went like that for a while, until they finally made it to the evac point.

Soap could see the confusion portrayed by each of his team members as he carried the wounded woman towards them. She was covered in blood and limp, to the team she looked like a corpse, yet Soap could see her eyes staring at any and everything, they still had life behind them.

The masked man spoke first, “what’s this?” His critical eyes analyzing her.

Soap could tell that his teammate’s imposing presence scared the girl, so he nodded him off to the side, “This, Ghost, is (Y/N), the cartel was holding her hostage.”

Shortly after, he turned to (Y/N), not wanting to talk about her with them right in front of her, “this is my team, Ghost, Gaz, and Captain Price.”

The man he had referred to as Captain Price stood at attention as their evac helicopter came inbound. “Plenty of time for introductions on the chopper, Soap.”

He nodded and hopped in the second the aircraft landed. In the short time it took to load everyone in, he called out to the crew who had already been in the chopper, “can I get a medic?” He yelled, gesturing towards the blood coated woman.

Thankfully, of the small crew they’d taken with them, a medic was amongst their ranks. They took to the girl, packing her bigger wounds with gauze as she groaned in pain.

“Oh, fuck!” She called out, face twisting into a grimace.

“What did the cartel want from you?” Price prodded.

Soap went to get onto him for questioning her as she writhed in pain, but Gaz beat him to it, “Jesus, Captain, the poor thing’s gettin’ treated for extensive wounds and now is when you want to question her?”

The men stared at each other, but (Y/N) relented. “I- I don’t know. They kept bringing up some guy in a rival cartel but I don’t- I don’t know anything about it.”

A loud whine left her lips as a particularly deep gash was treated. She couldn’t stop the tear that fell down her cheek from the pain.

Soap frowned, trying to stay positive, “we’re gonna get you home, alright hen?”

And she nodded, reluctant but hopeful.

The rest of the ride was a blur, at some point she passed out, she only woke up days later in a bright hospital room. To her surprise, the Scottish soldier was by her side.

“Johnny?” She mumbled, voice raw and cracking from a lack of use.

His head shot up, staring at the girl who had been asleep for nearly four days. “(Y/N), hey! How are you feeling?”

She groaned, body sore, “like I’ve been hit by a bus.”

He chuckled slightly, “yeah, you look it too. But the doc says you’ll be back to your old self in no time, whatever that is.”

“So nothing too serious?” She asked.

His lips flattened, not liking the way her words discredited what she went through. “You took quite the beating, hen. Nothing deadly or physically altering, but you broke a few ribs, got a couple of deep gashes, and you suffered so much blood loss they had to drug you up until you were fixed.”

She sighed, taking in his words, “fuck, man.”

“But the doctor only let up on the drugs now because everything’s sorted, as long as you follow the doctors orders and get one last physical, you’re good to go home until the next checkup.”

Her expression didn’t change at the good news, “I- I don’t even know where I am. Or how to get home.”

Soap grabbed her hand, “Don’t worry about that, I’ll get you where you need to be.”

She gulped anxiously, but nodded nonetheless.

By the end of the day, Johnny fulfilled his promise. She was discharged from the hospital and he himself drove her back home. He even went as far as to walk her into her house and give her his number, should she ever need him.

She stared at the ground, never good at goodbye’s but still wanting to say her thanks, “Thank you, for everything.”

He pulled her into a hug, “No need to thank me, hen, you get some rest.” And just like that he was out the door.

Unbeknownst to the two, their goodbye had been watched.

Mere minutes after Soaps departure, frantic knocking sounded at (Y/N)’s door. Recent trauma still fresh on her mind, she panicked. A million possibilities flashed through her head, all ending with the cartel knocking down her door and taking her away once more.

That idea was shattered as (Y/N) heard her girlfriend yelling behind the door, “I know you’re home, (Y/N)!”

She hesitantly stepped towards the door, unlocking and cracking it open before Valeria pushed her way into the apartment with anger written all over her face.

Valeria slammed the front door shut, fuming words spewing out of her mouth before (Y/N) could even form a sentence, “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you like crazy for two weeks and you’ve just been gone. No voicemail, no text, not even a note.”

“Val I-“

“How could you just disappear like that? I care about you (Y/N), it really fucking hurts when you can’t seem to tell me you’re going somewhere.”

(Y/N) knew she was pissed. Valeria never talked about her emotions, ever, and here she was baring her wounds to (Y/N). Sure she was regularly angry, but (Y/N) knew her better. She knew that this was worse than any superficial fight they had ever had.

“Valeria-“

“And who was that man you were with, huh? Are you doing something behind my back?”

To (Y/N), this meant cheating, but to Valeria who had met Soap before, she had feared a full betrayal. She only fell short in her words as tears fell from her girlfriend’s eyes.

“No! No, I wouldn’t do that!” (Y/N) sobbed, “I was kidnapped, I barely made it out alive. He saved me!”

“Kidnapped?” Valeria whispered to herself, but (Y/N) heard it.

“I know, I know it sounds crazy- fuck, I feel crazy,” (Y/N) cut herself off, breathing out the last part, “but yeah, I was taken by the cartel because- because they thought I had ties to their rivals but I don’t, Valeria, I swear I don’t.”

Valeria’s face shifted to an expression (Y/N) couldn’t read. Some mix of pity, sadness, and almost… guilt?

She placed her hands on either of (Y/N)’s shoulders, “(Y/N), baby, do you remember who they were asking you about specifically?”

(Y/N) sniffled, “I don’t know, it was something like El Sin Hombre— no, Nombre? I don’t know, one of those. Why?”

Valeria’s face darkened. Her eyebrows knit together and the guilty look deepened. Her glare burnt a hole into the floor.

“You do have a connection to El Sin Nombre.” She muttered.

There was a beat of silence before (Y/N) spoke.

“What?” (Y/N) asked, confusion evident, only making her more distraught.

Valeria’s eyes slowly lifted to meet her girlfriend‘s, “(Y/N), I am El Sin Nombre.”

“No.” (Y/N) mumbled, ever so slightly raising her voice, “No, you can’t be.”

She tried to squirm away from Valeria, but the grip on her shoulders was too tight. Eventually she gave up trying to get away and allowed herself to collapse into her lover’s hold, sobbing into the crook of her neck.

“Please, no.” She cried, “it hurt, Valeria, it hurt. Please god no.”

Valeria pet her hair, tears quietly streaming down her face. The sound of her lover’s pain rang out like rusted church bells, raw screaming echoing off the living room walls.

Knowing that all this was her fault— that all of (Y/N)’s pain was caused by her— it hurt more than any bullet or shrapnel that Valeria had ever felt buried beneath her skin.

“They hurt me so bad. Please, Valeria.” And, god, (Y/N) had no clue what she was begging for but all she could do in this moment was plead— for respite, for love, for an end to her pain. She was reduced to this residual ache, physically, mentally, everything hurt. She hadn’t prayed in years and yet now she found herself yearning for divine intervention.

She choked on her words, yet Valeria heard her loud and clear.

The statement made Valeria shake not only in sorrow, but in a cacophony of despair and rage.

“I’ll kill them.” Valeria’s voice carried a malevolent undertone, laced with venom and spite.

(Y/N) stilled, her eyes trailing to slightly meet Valeria’s despite the way the rest of her face was hidden behind Valeria’s shirt, “What?”

Valeria pulled her from her chest, cupping her hands around (Y/N)‘s cheeks. It was in this moment that she finally saw how bruised and swollen (Y/N)’s face was, the full extent at which those men had hurt her. A rage bubbled beneath Valeria’s skin. “I will kill each and every one of them, (Y/N).”

And it wasn’t perfect. Everything still hurt. (Y/N) still felt like she was splayed out on the floor with her guts ripped open. And yet, it was enough. The promise of healing— of fixing things, however violently things needed to be fixed. And so they sat like that, Valeria holding her lover as she sobbed, for the rest of the night, and many nights after that, as long as it took to heal.

Months later, Soap was working late at the base, filling out paperwork from a recent mission. It was likely he was the only one working this late in this part of the building. That’s why it surprised him to hear a voice from behind him.

“Working hard, soldier?”

He knew the voice, but he thought he had imagined it. He was shocked as he turned around and confirmed his suspicions. She was leaning on the desk behind him, arms crossed.

“Valeria,” he looked the woman up and down, scanning her for weapons, “Why are you here?”

She sat up from the table, uncrossing her arms, “I came to thank you.”

“Thank me? For what? I got you arrested.”

She raised an eyebrow, staring into his soul, “I know that. I’m talking about something different.”

His brows furrowed, “go on.”

“A few months ago you saved a woman who was being tortured for information.”

“(Y/N),” he confirmed.

She nodded, “(Y/N) is my girlfriend.”

His jaw nearly dropped at the statement. “She told me she didn’t have any connection to the cartel,” he frowned, slight betrayal ebbing at him.

Valeria shook her head, guilt coming back as she remembered (Y/N) sobbing the same thing to her, “She didn’t know, I hadn’t told her.”

That made him feel better, but he was still confused, “I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

Valeria’s tough attitude seemed to falter, “I just- Thank you. Thank you for saving her. I didn’t even know she was taken, I fear for what would have happened had she been there any longer.”

He nodded, “She’s a good person, never hurt her.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” And with that, Valeria walked right out of the military base— presumably the way she came in. Soap knew he should follow her, should track her down and capture her so she could be arrested. But when he thought back to (Y/N), he knew he could never do that to the poor girl. So he let her go.

#call of duty fanfic #valeria garza x reader #valeria garza x fem!reader #valeria x reader #valeria garza #valeria cod #valeria garza cod #call of duty valeria #valeria x fem!reader #call of duty x reader #platonic! soap x reader #platonic!141 x reader

[afictionaladventure16]

Pedro Pascal Masterlist

Pedro Pascal x Teen/Daughter!Reader ** PLATONIC **

Best Chilean Soccer Player (Pedro Pascal x Daughter!Reader)

(1.3 k) Summary: Pedro is your little league soccer coach, you both journey from struggling in something you love into becoming the best. (Fluffy)

El Gatito (Pedro Pascal x Daughter!Reader)

(2 k) Summary: You bring home a kitten which your dad is against, but eventually he warms up to the cat. (fluffy)

Broken Promises (Pedro Pascal x Daughter!Reader)

(4.5k) summary: When Pedro breaks a promise, you begin to act out which leads to bad decisions and broken bones. (angsty/lil fluff)

Did You Forget (Pedro Pascal x Daughter!Reader)

(5.2 K) Summary: Ever since the Reader's mother passed away Pedro hasn't paid much attention to her. It isn't until Pedro finds out about the Readers dark side that he realizes what he has done (angsty/Fluff)

Because of You (Pedro Pascal x Teen!Fem!Reader)

(2.3 K) Summary: Pedro is the reader's only support system after her suicide attempt and protects her from her narcissistic mother after a bad family therapy session. (Angst/Fluff)

SERIES

It's the End of the World (Pedro Pascal x Teen!Fem!Reader)

Summary: You had seen The Last of Us and even played the game, but you never imagined it happening in real life, and neither did Pedro. You both meet in unforeseen circumstances and create a pact to help each other get to each other's destinations, but over time a bond is created. Throughout your travels, Pedro slowly realizes that he can't lose another person in life and makes it his mission to protect you.

Pt. 1 (3.1 K)

Pt. 2 (1.5 K)

Taking It All In (Pedro Pascal x Daughter!Reader) ** COMPLETED **

Pt. I (2k)

Summary: Pedro takes his daughter for a hike in Los Angeles, which leads into an emotional conversation. (angst/fluff)

Pt. II (4.3k)

Summary: Months after the hike, Pedro gets in a fight with his daughter, but this fight leads to something bigger as you reveal something big. (Angst/Fluff)

Pt. III (3.9k)

Summary: It was supposed to be a quick trip to the store, but it quickly turned into more than just a trip, leaving Pedro to realize some things. (Angst/Fluff)

Pt. IV (3.4k)

Summary: Your slowly becoming okay with the idea of your mother coming back into your life and maybe even coming to your quinceanera, but will this be permanent or will she leave again? (Angst/Fluff)

Pt. V (6.1K)

Summary: Things take a turn for the worst when you decide to listen to a voice in your heart and get in the car with your mother.

To Build A Home (Pedro Pascal x Teen!Reader)

Pt. I (2.8k)

Summary: Summary: Your mother decides it is time for you to meet her boyfriend of six months, you are defensive at first, but you think you could get used to the idea of having this one around more often.

Pt. II (3.1k)

Summary: Pedro plans out a day for the two of you to bond, but it doesn't turn out the way Pedro and your mother expected it to.

Pt. III (3k)

Summary: Your past comes back to haunt you. You go home in hopes of finding comfort in your mother but you are met with Pedro who tries his best to be there for you in dark times marking the beginning of a movement within you.

Pedro Pascal x Reader

It's the End of the World as We Know It (Pedro Pascal x Latina!Reader)

Summary: After Covid, everyone thought they were safe, they didn't expect a fungal virus to take over the world and create a zombie apocalypse. Now you were fighting to survive on your own until you met Pedro creating a friendship and bond that would be hard to break.

Ch. 1

#Pedro Pascal masterlist

[crappymixtape]

steve harrington • multi-part // series

( LONGER, SERIALIZED OR MULTI–PART FICS, NOTED IF COMPLETE OR IN–PROGRESS, STEVE x YOU // mature content marked appropriately )

🏘 SOFT, SWEET, SOUNDS – ONGOING? ( part 1 ) ( part 2 ) a roommate!steve series that started with one lil soft, smutty blurb and has now shifted into a whole thing – steve’s still your roommate and you’re still friends, right? or is there something more and you two are just too chicken shit to put a label on it? • 18+ | ( 1.5K – roommates -> something?, tiny fluff, medium smut, lots of idiocy, steve x you )

❄️ A VERY MERRY MIXTAPE ( HOLIDAY SERIES ) – IN-PROGRESS a series of little holiday blurbs featuring steve and eddie throughout the christmas & winter season – varies between ST canon, modern!au, and everything in between // three requests and three original prompts.

"gold & glitter" REQUEST -> ❝ i’m thinking a little rich!steve harrington, a little spicy somethin, somethin and a holiday play – spicy is right, steve takes you to see the nutcracker, but you don’t even make it to the first act • *18+  | ( 3.1k – smut with a dash of fluff, rich!steve x reader )

"baby it's cold outside" REQUEST -> ❝ what about 🎁 exchanging presents with steve?? i just know he’s a thoughtful gift giver! – it’s been snowing all day, enough to snap the power lines and make the lights go out, and when steve comes over to build you a fire you can’t think of a more perfect time to exchange gifts | ( 1.8k – just honestly pure fluff, sneaky hurt / comfort, modern!steve x reader )

"i want you the most" REQUEST -> ❝ what about caught under mistletoe at a christmas party with steve. at least fluffy, maybe a wee bit more smutty? – steve's never been kissed under the mistletoe, what kind of girlfriend would you be if you didn't make it memorable? *18+ | ( 1.8k – established relationship, tiny bit of fluff, lots of snark, sprinkle of smut, steve x reader )

🦇 COME BACK TO ME – COMPLETE ( part 1 ) ( part 2 ) ( part 3 ) REQUEST -> after steve gets his heart broken by nancy, tommy dares him to try something different as a rebound, someone who isn’t his type at all, and at first he’s doing it to prove a point, but when the upside down gets involved he realizes just how he really feels • 18+ | ( 5.4k – violence / upside down, lots of angst, some fluff, enemies to lovers-ish, steve x reader, king!steve x reader )

🧢 YOU'RE NEVER FAR BEHIND – COMPLETE ( part 1 ) ( part 2 ) // 🎶 playlist on spotify 🎶 REQUEST -> when your dad calls and needs your help at home in hawkins you can't say no, but when you arrive back in town you uncover a friendship you thought you'd lost a long time ago | ( 10.5k, angst, fluff, best friends to strangers to friends to lovers, steve x reader, steve x you )

💫 SOMETHING INFINITE – IN-PROGRESS // 🎶 playlist on spotify 🎶 your mom is out of town for the summer on business and she sends you to live with your aunt joyce and her husband jim in hawkins while she’s gone. joyce works at the library and jim is the town sheriff – the kids, will, jonathan and el slowly warm up to you and it’s after you get in with them that you really start to feel at home, but there’s one person who just annoys you to no end. one person you’d love to just boot off a cliff – steve fucking harrington.

"part one : maybe the world won't end" – steve steals a car and somehow you wind up in hawkins, indiana, a meet cute without the cute  *18+ |  ( 2.8k, angst, verbal abuse, enemies to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

"part two: perfect on the surface" –  you start your summer job at the library with your aunt only to find your new coworker is someone, an annoying someone, you’ve met before | ( 2k, angst, enemies to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

"part three: just wanna see you" –  finally a day off and you’re all heading to the lake to fish and swim and drink and it feels like summer and fresh starts and you’re surprised to find you get one of your own ( 3.3k, angst, tiny bit of fluff if you squint, enemies to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

"part four: the house that built me" – a history of you and steve and your families, all the broken pieces you’re both trying to gather up and put back together are more similar than you think *18+ | ( 2.3k, angst, enemies to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader ) // warning note: the themes written about in this piece can be especially triggering – brief mentions of loss of a parent, neglect, unplanned pregnancy, and other heavy content – read with caution please and be gentle with yourselves!

"part five: easier to pretend" – part five of something infinite – are you and steve finally figuring each other out? it’s obvious you drive each other crazy, but is it possible you’re starting to like it? | ( 3k, angsty fluff, enemies to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

"part six: and it's such a shame" – ferris wheel at 8 and another chance to see where this thing with steve is taking you, but when his friends find out will he be able to handle it?  | ( 4k, fluff, lots of angst, enemies to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

"part seven: i'll promise i'll pinky swear" – steve tries to decide what it is he wants, to keep burying everything down deep and keep it locked away or crack open his chest and trust you with his heart | ( 4.1k, angst, enemies to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

"part eight: say you'll stay" steve did what he thought was right and you're giving him a second chance, but can you both finally open up and be honest with one another? *18+ | ( 6k, smut, a little angst, a little fluff, enemies to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader ).

"part nine: you could have mine" you were unafraid to face steve head on when he fucked up, but now it’s your turn to face the music and it scares you | ( 2k, tiny angst, lil fluff, enemies to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

🛠 COMING SOON!

🌻 NOBODY GETS ME, YOU DO – UNDER CONSTRUCTION when steve started dating nancy and got pulled into the upside down you fell in with tommy hagan after carol leaves for college, but it sucks and tommy sucks and you hate it and you're only doing it because it makes not being with steve hurt less. a friends to lovers line filled with plenty of drama / angst / fluff and smut – smut marked appropriately

"nobody puts baby in the corner" – steve has always been your best friend, nothing more, but when you have a falling out with tommy he finally realizes what’s been there all along •  *18+ | (  3.2k, fighting / physical violence, sad, fluff, angst, friends to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

"this is how it ends begins" – everything between you and tommy comes to a head after you discover what he’s been doing behind your back, will steve be there to catch you? or will he just make it worse? | (  2.4k, angst, friends to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

#steve harrington #stranger things #steve stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #stranger things fanfiction #makeacrappymixtape #steve x you #steve harrington x fem #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington stranger things #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington angst #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington fic #steve harrington x reader smut #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington series #steve harrington masterlist #averymerrymixtape #asks #requests

[talesofliia]

Deciphering the Will-El-Mike Love Triangle: A Personal Perspective

I stopped liking Mileven as a couple way before I started shipping Byler, and the reason had nothing to do with Will, actually.

As someone who appreciates both El’s and Mike’s characters, I firmly believe they were always meant to be friends. They care deeply about each other, but their relationship has felt forced for a very long time. The main reason I stopped liking them as a couple is that I didn’t like how Mike treated El at the beginning of S3, which led El to “dump his ass.” Subconsciously, Mike believed he knew what was better for her and, without realizing it, hindered her from developing her own personality. Also, he wasn’t always good to her in S1 when he used her to find Will and snapped at her a few times. Don’t get me wrong – Mike is not a bad person, and he did many good things for El, but they simply didn’t seem to work as a couple. All they did when things went well was kiss and make out. They didn’t have any common interests or things to talk about, only the Upside Down-related adventures. This is one of the reasons I find their couple boring: when physical attraction is the only thing keeping you romantically interested in someone, it won’t last.

I watched all four seasons as a GA member, and my opinion is based on what I saw from this show. I didn’t even think about Will when considering El and Mike initially – this is just something I noticed when watching the show. Yes, I suspected Will had feelings for Mike since S3 came out but didn’t think they could possibly be reciprocated at that time. My initial thought was, “Aww, poor Will, I feel bad for him.” This thought only strengthened after watching S4. My love for Will as a character grew, and I felt a protective instinct towards him (much like Joyce, haha), but he is not the reason I think Mileven doesn’t work. Observing El and Mike’s relationship in S4 only made me like them as a couple even less. I don’t think Mike was scared of saying “I love you” just because he felt worthless and was afraid of losing her. I think there’s something deeper than that. Otherwise, why did the season finish with El being annoyed at him after his “brilliant” monologue? And let's not forget the reason why Mike finally said he loved El and who pushed him to do that.

I also believe that both El and Mike are incredible characters and their own heroes, but they just don’t bring out the best in each other. El does need someone to care for her and make her feel loved, but she needs a familial kind of love much more than a romantic one. And she has always needed people who would love her no matter what and wouldn’t make her feel like she can only be loved if she’s a “superhero.” She needs someone who would love her regardless of whether she has her powers or not. And she needs someone with whom she would still be independent and her own person. And I don’t think Mike is right for her in this respect.

Likewise, I don’t think El can give Mike what he needs. He doesn’t just want someone to kiss and make out with; he needs more than that. He needs someone who would share his hobbies and interests; someone who would understand him without saying a word; someone who is simply there for him and is always willing to support him; someone who makes him feel loved no matter what. I don’t think that El and Mike can love each other romantically under any circumstances. I think they started a relationship with their ideal images of each other in mind but later struggled because they felt they both didn’t live up to each other’s perfect images of themselves. And that’s what makes this relationship doomed to fail.

And then, you know what happened? It suddenly dawned on me, shedding light on many things I hadn’t quite understood at the beginning. It was that kind of moment when you think, “Oh, so that’s why! It has always been there but it took me so long to figure it out!”

There is exactly the kind of person in the series that can make Mike feel loved the way he wants to. The character that shares his interests and hobbies and is always there for him. The one that loves Mike unconditionally and is always ready to sacrifice his own feelings just to make his love feel better about himself, feel worthy and needed. This character has been there all along, and this character’s name is – you guessed it right – Will. And I wouldn’t be saying all of this if I believed Mike was totally straight, and could never love Will the way the latter loves him.

From the very first season, the show makes it clear that Mike and Will’s relationship is not the same as the one boys their age usually have (compare it to Lucas and Dustin’s, for example). We are both told and shown that Mike cares about Will much deeper than anyone else in their circle of friends, and he’s the one who was losing his mind, thinking he had lost Will but nevertheless never stopped looking. Mike is someone who’s always been ready to do anything for Will, to be there for him when he had nightmares and was possessed, and bike to him through the storm just to apologize for hurting his feelings. Mike has always cared about Will very deeply, and even though with time the societal pressures forced him to set some boundaries of what is allowed between two male friends, Mike often “slipped” and demonstrated his gentleness and attentiveness towards Will. The way he often looks at Will and the things he says to him when they’re alone make me believe he has feelings for him even more. He may not fully realize them yet, he may be confused about those feelings, and he may certainly convince the GA that he’s straight, but those feelings are there and just haven’t come out yet. He needs time to understand himself better and feel ready to acknowledge his feelings.

And returning to El, I strongly believe that her arc is leaning towards independence. She desperately needs to break free from everything and everyone that has been holding her back, to start living for herself at last and become her own person. This is how she can finally get her happy ending. And I think that Mike-friend can help her achieve that much better than Mike-boyfriend. As Max implied, El needs to discover herself without thinking about what her loved ones want her to be, and this is the right way for her character to develop. El is amazing and deserves happiness, as do Will and Mike.

Please note that this is my personal opinion and the impression I got from watching the show. You’re completely free to disagree with me and have a totally different perspective. If you ship Mileven or dislike Byler, simply move on. I’m sharing my thoughts here for those who I know will support them, and I’m not here to engage in ship wars. I’m not going to interact with you if you’re here to spit bile and troll those who don’t have the same opinion as you. Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk. :)

#byler #byler tumblr #byler is canon #byler endgame #byler nation #will byers x mike wheeler #will x mike #will and mike #will byers #mike wheeler #el hopper byers #stranger things #anti mileven #platonic elmike

[kennahjune]

Just got a very unlikely idea but oh well

Steddie AU where they get together cause of Mike.

It’s post-s3 pre-s4 maybe or post-s4 with Alive-Eddie; either way, Steve and Eddie are constantly around each other because of the kids.

And it’s Mike that realizes it first, when he notices that Steve looks at Eddie like how he used to look at Nancy. And yes he would know, Dustin, because he was forced to learn what knocking was after walking in on them one too many times.

But really, Mike doesn’t want to believe it. Because why would Steve be looking at Eddie like that? Adoration Mike can understand— what about Eddie wouldn’t you adore? But unconditional romantic love? He didn’t get it.

Not because they were both guys! Mike was in no place to make any remarks about that. Not anymore. But because they were so different from each other.

Mike was there during every Hellfire meeting when Eddie went on rampages about “King Steve”. He was there at the sleepovers when Steve would utter under his breath about “Asshole Metalheads”. He was there when Steve and Eddie finally met for the first time outside of school, when Steve was picking them up for Hellfire, and Steve looked ready to kill when Eddie brought up “Losing the Crown.”

And sure, Mike may seem oblivious and aloof and “give no fucks” most of them time, but really it wasn’t true! Ok— maybe the oblivious part. But he didn’t “give no fucks”— he has a lot of fucks to give, actually.

And sure maybe he doesn’t seem to care about most things. But he does! A lot more than he should sometimes. He cared when Nancy and Steve first broke up (maybe not for Steve’s side until he knew the full story but still). He cared when Barb died (she was his friend to, maybe not as close as her and Nancy but still!). And he cared when Max got dragged into everything. And he cared when Hopper “died”— and sure, maybe he stopped trying to care after that. Because caring got him hurt in more ways than one.

But Steve and Eddie? They’re things he cares about. People he cares about a lot more than he cares to admit. Steve saved his life on more than one occasion and showed him more affection in a month than Ted Wheeler did in Mikes whole life. And Eddie was the one of the first to show Mike that “hey, it’s ok to be a nerd.”

So yeah, they mean a lot to him.

But them being romantically together makes no sense to him. And when he tries to bring this up to the rest of the Party, he was told he was insane.

“Steve and Eddie aren’t interested in each other romantically,” claimed Dustin, “They’re just friends.”

“Not even that,” called Max from the couch.

Lucas snorted but otherwise said nothing.

Mike looked at Will for help.

“Well— why do you think they are romantically involved?”

Mike huffed. “Do none of you guys see it? Steve might as well have heart eyes!”

El nodded. “I agree. Mike is right.”

Suddenly all eyes were on El. Mikes were shining with hope and everyone looked incredulous.

“But why?” Dustin asked exasperatedly. “They’re— they’re nothing alike!”

“I know!” shouted Mike. He stood and paced. “But Steve always looks so fond of Eddie! And we’ve all heard the typical “King Steve” rant from Eddie and the “Asshole Metalheads” one from Steve, right?”

Max, Dustin and Lucas all answered with a unified “yes” while El and Will answered with a unified “no”.

Mike waved his hand and continued to pace. “But maybe it’s an opposites attract kind of thing? Like Max and Lucas?”

“Excuse me?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Or maybe it’s not! Because nothing about them is really opposite other than their styles.”

“But—“ Dustin was quick to interrupt, “—they are pretty opposite. Jock and Metalhead? Seems pretty fucking twisted to me.”

“Yeah but you’re looking at the cliques,” Will added, finally catching on. “Mikes looking at personality.”

Mike clapped happily. “Yes exactly! They’re both bitchy and quick-witted! They’re both dramatic in their own ways—“

“—they’re both oddly parental and protective,” added Lucas, also catching on.

Mike nodded aggressively.

“Ok—“ Max shook her head. “—say we believe that Steve and Eddie actually are romantically interest in one another. What are we supposed to do about it?” she put extra emphasis on “we”.

Mike looked at them each one by one. Max, who was sprawled on the couch like she owned it. Lucas, who had Max’s legs in his lap and was gently rubbing her thigh. Dustin, who was sat in a chair at the end of the couch with his thinking face on. El, who was looking at Mike with a sly grin— an expression he rarely saw on her. And Will, who was looking at Mike with something like Steve to Eddie.

But none of that right now.

Dustin stood up and walked to stand by Mike. He threw an arm around his shoulders (Mike bending with the action) and loudly proclaimed “We need to get them together!”

Will stood hurriedly and joined them, El right behind him with a grin on her face. Lucas shrugged and looked to Max as if saying “what can you do?” before gently pushing her legs off of him joining them as well.

They all looked at Max expectantly. She groaned and stood to join them, a chorus of cheers ringing out.

…

Idk if I’m gonna continue this or not but eh

#stranger things #steve harrington #dustin henderson #mike wheeler #eddie munson #robin buckley #will byers #max mayfield #lucas sinclair #el hopper #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #steddie thoughts #steddie hcs #steddie fics #steddie idea #might do more #idk yet #mike wheeler appreciation #mike is my sweetheart #I love them sm #mike and steve being involved in each others lives outside of “I/you used to date your/my sister #they can be so personal to me <3