#nevermind you know the local power plant lol

[sp0o0kylights]

Part Two / Part Three

Ao3

It's 8:45 am. 

The Red Barn, which is neither red nor a barn, has been open since 7, catering to the early morning crowd with rounds of coffee and pancakes.

It was no Benny's, but given the size of Hawkins and the lack of alternatives?

No one was complaining. 

They were all too happy someone had opened up another watering hole for the working class man (or lass, as Foreman Shelly will dutifully remind you) which meant the place was packed with both day and night shift regulars, passing each other in staggered waves. 

It also meant Wayne was sharing the packed breakfast counter with a warehouse worker by the name of John Cheese on one side and Police Chief Jim Hopper on the other.

He doesn't mind it.

Wayne's a man on a budget thinner than his shoelace, but he's also a man who understands that small indulgences need to be made in life or you didn't truly live it.

This is how he convinces himself to get a coffee at the Barn after work everyday, reading the morning newspaper and chatting with the other regulars before he heads home.

Bonus, it gets him out of the rapid-fire franticness that is his nephew in the mornings.

(All the love in the world wouldn't change the fact that all that Eddie came with a lot of noise. 

The kind of noise that was a tried and true recipe for a headache right after a long shift.)

As a trade off, Wayne went to bed early so he could wake up in time for dinner with Eddie.

 It was a nice little system that worked for them. 

A routine Wayne was reminiscing fondly on, when the pager on Chief Hopper started to chirp. With a sad moan, the man fished out a few crumbled bills and threw them on the counter, abandoning his coffee to trudge out to his truck.

This was not unusual.

Particularly recently, given they were but a scant few weeks past that whole mall ordeal. A fact all too easy to remember when one caught sight of the Chief’s still healing face. 

What was unusual, was when he came storming through the doors a minute later, face now a furious shade of red with his hat clenched in his hand. 

The energy in the room shifted, taking on something a little watchful as Hopper swept his gaze from side to side, like a dog on the hunt.

Judging by the way he stilled when he caught sight of Wayne, the latter assumed he found what he was looking for and could only pray it was the person behind him. 

(He liked John, but Wayne had enough trouble this year and he wasn't looking for any more.) 

"Munson." Hopper called, striding over and dashing all his hopes. There was a choked fury emitting off him, and given the way John audibly scooted his chair away, Wayne knew everyone had clocked it. 

"Chief." Wayne greeted, inclining his head towards him.

Idly he wondered what the hell his nephew had done this time.

'So help me if he stole all the town's lawn flamingos and put them in that damn teachers yard again….'

Wayne didn't even get to finish his threat, the Chief was already next to him. 

"Mind if I have a word outside?" 

Dammit Eddie.

"Ah hell, what's he done now?" Wayne asked with a sigh, eyeing the coffee he had left morosely. 

There was still almost half of it left and the pot had tasted fresh for once. 

"What?" Hopper said, and then Wayne got to watch as the man ran through an entire chain of thoughts, each one punctuated by things like; "Oh," and "No. " 

"This is something else." He finished, flushed and fidgeting, anger making him antsy. 

Wayne stared up at him. 

"Something else?" He repeated, not sure he heard.

"Yes, something else." Hopper snapped impatiently, before leaning forward, voice dropping low. "This doesn't involve your nephew, but we both know you owe me for how many times I've let that kid off, Wayne. That's a damn big favor I've been doing you and I'm calling it in." 

If it were any other cop, it'd sound like a threat.

It was Hopper though. The same Hopper who Wayne had gone to school with.

They'd never been friends exactly, but they had been friendly and remained so. Even now, after Wayne had taken Eddie in, who’d gone on to be an undeniable pain in the local PD’s ass. 

Hopper really did let the kid off easy. 

Wayne really did owe him. 

So he put down his coffee with a sigh, passed his newspaper over to John and stood up, motioning for Hopper to lead the way. Got into the Chief’s truck when he waved him in, and didn’t make a big fuss when Hopper tore out of the parking lot like hell was about to open up under them. 

"Not a lot of the kids involved in the mall fire could be identified, but a few of them were." Hopper started, which felt nonsensical given the utter lack of context. 

Wayne hummed to show he’d heard. 

“Some of them got banged up more than others, and a lot of people wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t make it.” 

A pause, Hopper white knuckling the steering wheel as he swung the truck hard around a turn. 

“For certain people, those kids dying is the preferred outcome.” 

A mix of fear and warning swopped low in Wayne’s gut. 

"Jim." Wayne said, dropping the use of a last name because if any situation called for it, it was this one. "What exactly are you saying here?" 

The Chief chewed on his split lip. 

"I know you're smart, Munson. I know you, and plenty of others are aware that something's happening, been happening in this town." 

Which was a hell of an understatement if you asked Wayne. Plenty of the upper classes might be able to bury their heads when it came to the military parading about and the flow of “accidents” they brought in their wake, but then, they didn't see all the other signs of trouble. 

The absolute oddity that was Starcourt’s construction. 

How it had been built using primarily outside crews and anyone who'd taken a singular look at the site could tell you they were building it weird. 

Weird as in it looked like it would have a multi-level basement, and not what a mall should have. 

Then there were the constant electrical problems. The backups upon backups that failed. The late night delivery vans headed out to the Hawkins Lab. 

The things in the woods that kept spooking all the deer and the weird markings they left behind that unnerved even the hardest of hunters. 

This didn’t even touch the Russian military that more than one reputable person swore was hanging around. 

The very same Wayne himself had seen, on more than one occasion. 

(And you couldn’t deny it; those boys were military. Past or present, it didn’t matter. They moved like a threat, and Wayne treated them like one, staying well clear.)

"Yeah." Wayne admitted. "I also know better than to stick my nose in it." 

"That makes you a smarter man than me.' Hop complained under his breath, but the anger was self directed. 

"The point is, there are some government types crawling around, doing shit they shouldn't be doing, and more than a few of them are in the business of making people disappear.” 

This was absolutely not where Wayne had thought this was going. 

Hopper took a breath. Than another.

A third.

It was starting to make Wayne nervous, in a way he hadn’t felt since a social worker had brought Eddie to him for the last time and final time. It was the feeling that things were about to shift in a way that would change the course of his life. 

"Steve Harrington is sitting in my office right now, beat to absolute shit.” Hopper admitted.

Wayne gave him the floor to talk, letting him go at his own pace without interruptions. 

“He's there because some of those government types finally figured out his parents are never fucking home.” 

Wayne sucked in a breath. 

"We both know his parents, Wayne. Harassing them to come back and take care of their kid won't work, and frankly, I’m beginning to think all the phone lines are tapped anyway.” He winced here, like voicing such a thing pained him, and Wayne understood.

It sounded a little too out there, a little like he was buying into a conspiracy. 

Except he wasn’t. Wayne knew he wasn’t. 

Jim Hopper might have been an alcoholic, a man living in pain and unconcerned with his own life, but if there was one thing he was solid for, it was shit like this.

He didn’t jump to conclusions. Didn’t believe the first thing people told him. Even at his worst, he did the work to see what was really happening, and made his decisions from there. 

(Even if that decision was to accept the occasional bribe, or drive an intoxicated 13 year old Eddie home instead of hauling his ass into the drunk tank.) 

“Harrington won’t admit it, but he’s got a hell of a concussion if not a full blown brain injury and he’s not reacting as well as he should to Suites trying to run him off the road.” Hopper continued. Angrily, he added, “Damn kid didn’t even come to me until they tried to break into his house last night.” 

His fingers squeezed the wheel so hard Wayne heard the leather creak in protest. 

“I’d take him, but my cabin is being renovated from…” He trailed off, heaving a sigh.

 “A storm, so me and my kid are bunked with the Byers right now and we’re full up.” 

Hawkins hadn't had a storm like that in years, but Wayne wasn't going to call him out on the blatant lie. 

“I need a place to stash him for the next few weeks, until I can work with some of the higher ups sniffing around, and get them to call off their attack dogs.” 

“And you want to stuff him with me.” Wayne finished. 

“I know you don’t have the room.” Hopper admitted easily, stopping his truck at a red light and locking eyes with the other man. “But I also know you’ll be the last place anyone would look for him.” 

'Ain’t that the damn truth.'

“You’re really gonna go this far for a Harrington?” Wayne asked, instead of the million of other questions leaping to the forefront of his mind. 

This one, he figured, was the most important. 

“He’s not his dad.” Hopper said, as firm as Wayne had ever heard him. “He’s not either of his parents, and he saved my little girl.” 

Wayne hadn’t even known Hopper had another little girl, but he also knew better than to ask where the guy had found one. 

It wasn’t his business, just as nothing else Jim was involved in, was his business.

Except, apparently, Steve Harrington. 

“I’m gonna need my own truck if I’m takin' Harrington home.” Wayne said easily, instead of bothering to ask anything else.

If Jim said the kid was different than his daddy, then he was--because when it came to things like that, Jim didn't lie.

No point in it. 

“I know. Just needed to talk to you first, without anyone overhearing.” Jim said, before swinging the police truck around and heading back to the Barn. 

“I’ll stay in contact with you, and I’ll make sure Harrington pays you for the pleasure of your hospitality. Just--” Here Jim cut himself off, looking like he was struggling an awful lot with the next thing he wanted to say. 

Once again, Wayne waited him out.

“Don’t let Steve fool you. He’s good at fooling people, letting them think he’s okay. Too good at it, and between the two of us, I have a real good idea of the reason why.” 

A memory came to Wayne unbidden, of Richard Harrington and Chet Hagan, beating some poor kid in the highschool bathroom bloody. The grins on their faces as the poor guy wailed for them to stop.

How they almost hadn’t. 

“Alright.” Wayne agreed.

Hopper swung back into the Barn's parking lot, and Wayne moved right to his own beat to shit truck, ready to follow Jim back to the police station.

He wasn’t a praying man, not anymore, but Catholisim wasn’t a thing that let you go easy. 

He found himself sending up a quick prayer, fingers flicking in a kind of miniature version of the sign of the cross. 

Considering his own kid’s history with Harrington, and the sheer small space of the trailer? 

Wayne had a feeling it was needed.

#this has like t wo more parts #pre steddie #wayne as a BAMF #wayne and Hopper both as psuedo parents to Steve #ya'll are gonna have to put up with my weird ass jumping all over the place warm ups sorry lol #Gary's fourth piece is coming no worries #and then this will either take its place or the other one I have will #you CANNOT look me in the eye and tell me all the blue color workers arent aware shits going down #like 100% local crews took one look at starcourt and went what the fuck #nevermind you know the local power plant lol #and with demo critters running around its not like they were tearing through brushes and shit #your local hunters are gonna know somethings up #anyway #beat to shit Steve Harrington #my beloved #hes gonna show up busted to shit with a major grade concussion and Eddie is gonna shit himself #steve harrington #steddie #I spelled collar color and im not changing it #outsider pov #wayne pov #I will write the first person who knows where I pulled John from a prompt of their choice #catholic wayne munson #jim hopper

[princepokemon]

I’m BACK. Again. 😨 Between my VERY long trip away from home and school, it’s been hectic but hopefully I can get back to posting semi normally again!

Figured I’d start out with a dump of DnD doodles from my last campaign featuring my favorite boy, Mani :)

Anyway, Mani! He’s a tiefling merchant who doubled as the group's pack mule. His travelling companions were Benny the gnome archeologist and Rahm the goliath Vagabond. 

I had a great time with my friends but unfortunately our DM dipped mid campaign and I haven’t played for some time.

Here’s the character background/motivation piece I had to submit for anyone who’s into that kind of stuff. It’s sloppy but it gets the job done lol

—-

Fear is a powerful motivator. Fear of failure and death, fear of beasts and blood or the fear of being known; Manok Rhodara has molded his entire life around fleeing it.

Born into a small family of laborers in a very large city, he spent his younger years watching his parents trapped in the endless cycle of poverty. They’d toil away with seemingly no end in sight yet he still longed for something greater. Nevermind the nobles that paraded around in their carriages adorned with jewels, the simple merchant walking the streets with a full belly and spare coin was something he could wrap his brain around. His elder sister Nefaria had mocked him for his ambitions, but he kept his head down and did his best to observe the shopworkers he admired, emulating them in his precious free time.

Dreaming and doing are two different things however. His mother, a talented painter, had never successfully sold a single painting. Manok would watch her weep in their room after a day of fruitless peddling; tears muddying the beautiful discarded landscape. No one wants to sully homes with the work of an impoverished devil kin. He held out hope that the world outside the city walls didn’t hold these grudges. A fateful afternoon with his father would quickly extinguish these thoughts though.

He had so often felt the stares of disdain from the other races that he rarely acknowledged them anymore but that day he remembered them feeling particularly sharp. As they strolled through the city making their usual stops to resupply, Manok pleaded with his father to visit the local jewelers. The shopkeep was a shrewd elf who had recently lost his apprentice and Manok was confident he could wrangle a position if he could just get his foot in the door. 

Relenting, his father agreed on the condition that they never step foot in the store again if the master rejected him. Though unimpressed, the shopkeeper miraculously agreed to start training him as an errand boy after some smooth talking and a bit of pitiful begging (until he could find a “suitable” replacement he’d said). In the owner’s words, “Put a hat on and you could pass for an elf. If you keep that tail hidden and your mouth shut you might have a chance at doing this right.”.

An unusual victory was quickly dashed by an unusual misfortune as an insidious bystander took advantage of the irregular pair, swiping a handful of gems and planting a few on his father. It wasn’t long before the situation quickly devolved into a heated shouting match with police in tow and that was all it took to throw his family’s life out of kilter.

The remaining Rhodaras were scrutinized by the law after his father was branded a thief and thrown in prison. Stall owners rejected their goods and they were banned from many parts of the city. The places they could walk freely, judgmental eyes followed their every move and attempted to imprison them over minor insurrections. His sister swore revenge while his mother fell into a deep depression. Confused and scared for his life, Manok did the only thing he felt he could do. Run. So he did.

He ran for weeks and weeks stowing away on boats and picking through trash. In the forests he drank rainwater and foraged familiar plants and bark he could recognize from the markets back home. He didn’t know the full extent of his travels until he was much older but he had trekked an entire continent away to the Forest Islet.

It was there deep in the woods untouched by man, that he stumbled upon a grand weeping cherry and the fae within it: Punella. It had been decades since a sentient soul had wandered their way into her mystical grotto and even longer since she had formed a pact. A glance at his sniveling face was all it took for her to pity the boy enough to reveal her form and administer her guardian test. Three simple trials to expose his true nature. He was reserved, studious, observant and very afraid but when the kind-hearted dryad offered her guidance, he recognized a great opportunity and never looked back.

He would maintain responsibility for her grotto and in exchange for his dedication she would grant him knowledge, magic and, most crucial of all, companionship. He spent the following years learning the arts of crafting and deception while honing his hunting skills. By the time he could truly call himself ‘self-reliant’ he was nearly 17 and his thirst for knowledge was full throttle. 

His favorite of all was illusory magic, creating baubles and trinkets to decorate his camp and make him smile. What started as a hobby grew into something marketable and it wasn’t long before he was imbuing attractive charms into delicate crafts he made from the surrounding forest. Even his patron was impressed.

The woods had their own charm, but camping in a shabby hut he pieced together haphazardly had gotten old long ago. To really make a change, he’d need materials he couldn’t find surrounded by the trees. For materials he’d need someone to supply them and….. money. After some gentle encouragement, he hatched a plan to try his hand at the market once. 

Once he mustered up the confidence to venture out, he traded pelts for books. Many, many books. He spent months pouring over encyclopedias and cultural commentaries. The main subject of his study was covering elves. He knew some of their mannerisms from his time in the city but his end goal would have him immersed in their lifestyle. His time in the city taught him that tieflings are easy victims and if he was finally getting the chance to delve into the world of commerce, he was going to do it right. He didn’t need to be perfect immediately but he had to appear legitimate enough to sell enough junk to build an adequate home.

With that, the life of Manok Rhodara was snuffed out and the adventure of Manolari Nym began. Despite spending his early teens isolated in the woods, he was able to appear warm and personable to the closest neighboring townsfolk. It wasn’t long until he developed a rapport with the local craftsman and was regularly completing projects with them during his trips out from the woods. He would never stay long and his mysterious nature prompted some rumors but somehow, impossibly, the world he’d dreamed of was within his grasp.

On cold nights he thought back on his time with his family and wondered what he could have done differently. He remembered the despair and panic; He remembered how he abandoned them to escape it. But he was happy now. His days with Punella were carefree and her gentle presence was a gift. The guilt could be aching, but Mani was willing to live that and far greater if it meant keeping what they had built together.

Life is a lottery with impossible odds. If you’re lucky enough, you might get to draw again. How far would you go to protect that second chance?

#DnD #dnd oc #Dungeons and Dragons #Tiefling #OC #Gnome #Goliath #Mani #Benny #Rahm #Nefaria #my art #I've been lurking and liking stuff still #But it's been weird not having a PC for 2 months #I'll probably get distracted playing games instead of posting tbh #😭😭 I'll try