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#piratewrites
piratefishmama · 11 months
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Angel | Steddie Oneshot
Eddie Munson never believed that he’d go to Heaven. Sure he’d been raised in a catholic household, his uncle was religious, he’d been raised to give thanks for the food they ate, to pray before bed that should he not wake, his soul the lord take an all that jazz.
Wouldn’t believe it to look at him, to hear the songs he sang, the music he played. Wouldn’t believe how he’d been raised if one were to go by covers instead of contents.
But despite his upbringing in the very catholic Munson Trailer of Forest Hills Trailer Park, he never believed he’d go to heaven. Something about queers and submitting to sin and blah blah blah it’d been a long-ass time since his last confession, but Uncle Wayne stopped reminding him a few years back, so he had an excuse to keep ‘forgetting’ to do it.
Turns out, one did not need to go to confession to make it to heaven!
Angels would just. Turn up, apparently.
Maybe he’d done something good that he wasn’t aware of, he did go to that Make A Wish thing a few weeks back, DM’d a whole one shot for the kids, he’d spent hours there, a whole dang day just… hanging out with sick kids.
Maybe that was it. Maybe that was what brought this heavenly creature to his side.
To cut a long story short, he was on stage one minute, belting out the lyrics from the final verse of the last song in their set ‘Into the Underdark’, Jeff was slipping into the ending guitar solo, Eddie was gearing up for an end of gig crowd surf and the next.
The next he was looking into a bright, blinding light that kept moving between his eyes.
He’d always been told not to go to the light. If you see it? Don’t go to it, going to it would make whatever trip you were going on a one way ticket, there was no going back when you reached that light. Just hang back, wait for the resuscitation, it’d happen, someone would breathe life back into you, or whack you with enough voltage to get that heart kickin again, just don’t go into that light.
That light was way too close to his eyes, and he couldn’t swat it away. His arms felt tied down. Rude.
And then the light was gone, had he reached it? Was that it? One way ticket stub punched, sorry Earth, Munson out. “Mr Munson? Can you hear me?” Oh what heavenly chorus, the light had momentarily blinded him but shit… when his sight came back, at least enough to make out the vague shape of a very square jaw, of angular features, of warm hazel eyes, and a luscious head of hair surrounded by a halo of brilliant white light.
Angel. He had an audience with an Angel. It could only be an Angel. Neat.
He’d enjoy the ‘I Told You So’ he got from his uncle whenever the old goat made it up there he hoped it wouldn’t be soon though, he’d prefer a longer wait than a short one, thanks.
“Mnn… I hear you big boy, are you sure I’m in the right place though? I’ve been told Heaven wouldn’t want me” it sounded smooth in his head, but he was pretty sure he slurred half the words.
How could he have a slurred voice in Heaven? That didn’t seem fair.
Oh he’d forgive the slurred speech bit if the angel kept making that wonderful music with his vocal chords, that little giggle of a laugh, so bubbly and sweet, yep. Somehow he’d weaselled his way into Heaven. Suck it soccer moms. “Well, at least you can summon the strength to be charming.”
He was charming? An angel thought he was charming? Hell yeah, he’d rock this heaven shit, he already had an in with the big, winged boys!
“I can summon the strength for other stuff too, worship ain’t ever really been my thing but, baby I think I can learn for a literal Angel” he’d subject himself to an afterlife on his knees gladly if it meant he’d have his hands curled around this creature’s thighs, his mouth on—
“Oh wow…” Eddie couldn’t really see it properly thanks to the lovely blinding spots in his eyes that was no doubt his eyes adjusting to heavenly light, but he was sure his angel was blushing, he sounded a little breathless. Good. “You’re uh… wow”
Eddie hadn’t had much charm before becoming world famous but, he’d gained a little experience. Women and men alike throwing themselves at him, knowing he wasn’t all that fussed, babes were babes. All genders welcome to hop on and take a ride. He knew it was mostly the fame, he was still the same nerd he’d been back in high school, but… if fame got him laid then fame got him laid.
At the very least it gave him the experience to flirt with one of Gods pretty little birds. Maybe even score if the reaction he got was any indication.
So much for lust being a punishable sin, huzzah.
Steve was having a day. Okay no, Steve was having a whole week. The only upside to his overtime riddled ass, was that Robin had been on the majority of his shifts with him, so they could at least talk in the ambulance while they roamed the streets waiting for chaos to drop.
Monday, it’d been a seven car pileup on the highway, a few lost limbs, no fatalities but one hell of a close call on two accounts.
Tuesday, it’d been a tumble at a care home resulting in a popped hip and some heavy flirting from a few old ladies. Poor Robin suffering it from a few old men trying to shoot a shot they didn’t have.
Wednesday it’d been crisis after crisis resulting in him not finishing his shift until six hours after he was meant to finish his shift.
Thursday he had one blessed night off, thankfully his on-call status hadn’t dragged him in, and he got a decent six hour nap in.
Friday, another car wreck, he didn’t want to think about that one.
And now Saturday.
Dispatch sent them to the sold out arena, some idiot had leapt off the stage likely for a crowd surf, his foot tangled in an amp chord, it reduced his air time dramatically and he brained himself on one of the guard rails.
Excellent. At least he wasn’t dead.
Which given how easily one could wind up six feet under from such a whack to the head, he was lucky.
They parked by the side exit, shuffled in by security, and right through into the arena. The patient hadn’t been moved as per dispatchers instructions to the person who’d called. No moving the idiot until the professionals arrived and determined it safe.
Cameras, flashing lights, big beefy security guards standing in front of them blocking the majority of what was happening from view, there was… quite a bit of blood there. It didn’t look pretty in that lighting. “The crowd’s too much, let’s get him to the ambulance.” Robin’s patience didn’t exist when it came to large crowds.
Too many people. Plus she’d been on shift five hours longer than he had.
“Alright, you two, c’mere” Steve singled out two of the big security guys “we’re gonna need you to help us get him onto the gurney, we’ll look him over in the back of the ambulance.” There were no broken bones, nothing stopping them from moving him just enough to get him to the ambulance unscathed.
And then, somewhere between writing out paperwork, checking vitals, and Robin googling who this guy was, said guy… woke up.
Steve, being closer, was quick to check responsiveness, pupils reacted well to light although a concussion did look likely, they’d cleaned up the blood and found the cause to be a cut just above his left eyebrow that’d probably make a kickass scar and oh.
Without the blood. Oh. Oh he was pretty. Pretty plump lips, long lashes, deep brown eyes, faint freckles across his nose. All that hair. He was pretty.
“Mr Munson? Can you hear me?” He’d asked, while shining that little torch into those pretty brown eyes, left to right to check the responsiveness. And then he spoke and Steve— well. Robin was eyeballing him judgementally pretty damn hard given how fast his face flamed red.
Her head in her hands, her fingers plugged into her ears as Munson rattled off promises of worship and good lord— Steve didn’t know what to say, what to do, what does one do when a hot yet slightly delirious rockstar offers to worship your ‘angelic body’?
What does one do with that?
One awkwardly stutters through thanks while bright red and toasty until they can part with the guy at the ER wishing he’d met him under better circumstances cause it’d been a long ass time since anyone even touched him let alone worshipped him but accepting that he’d probably never see the guy again, so it didn’t really matter.
Until a few days later when the official Corroded Coffin account slid into his DM’s on Instagram, apologised profusely, and requested very sweetly to make it up to him with dinner the next time he was free.
Signed Eddie. With a little angel emoji. How on earth could he say no to that?
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kaizoku-pirateking · 3 years
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Roronoa Zoro x Insecure Fem!Reader
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event masterlist/main masterlist
tw: Insecurities
rq by: @piratewritings
Zoro would become aware that's something's happening to you because your depressed for the past few days
You always go to the bathroom and that's what Zoro notices he's gonna talk things out to you and ask what's happening and if probably he could help
Your very sensitive on the topic, you don't want to talk to anyone to this but you trust Zoro, he's your boyfriend after all
“What's up with you the past few days?” He asked sitting in the railings of the ship gaze never leaving your body
You but your lip not in panick but in fear of rejection what if he knows, will he break up with you? What will happen after all this things go by? All these thoughts were interrupted when Zoro called your name once more
“I.. I've gained weight for the past few days since I have always eaten lots and have lots of ugly marks that's with me always so..so I'm scared that you won't like me back anymo-” Before you could talk once again Zoro pulled you into his chest a relief washing over his face which made you confused
“I thought it's something very serious” He snorted which made you quiver in fear of rejection and humiliation
“I don't mind if something happens in your body what's important is what's inside you, that's what made you beautiful. Not the outside but the inside what's holds more” He lightly poked your forehead making you go teary on his words
You would have never expected Zoro would never care about it what's important to him the most is the inside
“Stop crying already I thought your strong? Let's go now eat” he said before you nodded wiping away the tears
Zoro may have not been good at his words and actions but if he knows something's wrong he always goes to the right decision.
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piratefishmama · 5 months
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There was just something magical about a good Renaissance Faire. Something in the air that set Eddie’s little crow brain alight with excitement. Especially around December when Christmas loomed around the corner and snow dusted the ground.
Be it the shiny trinkets dangling from wooden hooks amidst the old wooden stalls, be it the haggling voices of stall vendors and customers, all dressed in garbs they’d likely sewn, dyed, modelled themselves, the smells of the food stalls, the glow of twinkling fairy lights reflecting on the snow, the music played on lutes and sang from haybales for gathering crowds, be it the energy of likeminded folks all there to be a little bit weird, joyously, freely, without shame or judgement.
He could be himself there.
Dressed to the nines in layered fabrics purposefully aged and torn to simulate era appropriate wear and tear. His hair held silver trinkets, tied up by lengths of dark fabric in a messy up-do that’d taken Wayne a good few hours to figure out, and would no doubt take them both a hell of a lot of huffing and puffing to remove without cutting it out later. He had a cloak made out of a thick set of curtains he’d thrifted, dyed, and repurposed.
He had his bag, something he’d sewn himself out of extra fabric from those curtains, made with plenty of little pockets and places to put his spoils, he’d saved up for months to get as much out of this faire as possible because things weren’t CHEAP there.
Most things were handmade, most things were lovingly crafted by gifted individuals. He didn’t even want to haggle, he had money specifically for the faire! He was going to spend money on the endlessly talented individuals at the faire!
He got himself a new journal, leather bound with thick blank pages for sketching in. it was embossed with intricate swirling patterns around a pentagram that he’d absolutely get shit for if he ever pulled it out in public but it was beautiful, and it had a cool swing lock clasp.
He got himself a pretty necklace, wire wrapped with a fancy gem that he’d keep safe to use as a prop at some point.
He found some beautiful homemade dice, made in such a way that it looked like liquid moved inside of the dice, little flecks of glitter sloshing around a cloudy liquid inside the green tinted gold leaf inlaid resin with every roll, beautiful, eye catching, immensely satisfying to his little crow brain. Surprisingly enough they were the most expensive purchase he’d made at the faire, tiny little dice, fifty whole dollars. Not the most expensive thing he’d seen there, but definitely the most expensive thing he now owned from the trip.
They came with an incredibly pretty velvet dice bag though, which he hadn’t expected to get as a little freebie but the girl at the stall winked at him when she handed it over and wasn’t that a trip. The fabric was dyed to look like some kind of galaxy, with little silver and gold stars embroidered into it.
It made those dice a steal and he would treasure it and them, always.
He perused the fabric stalls, getting himself a cool hand painted scarf, detailed with a beautiful dragon that he’d find a good frame for later to hang up because it would not be worn, no siree. He grabbed a cool hand carved wooden mug for Wayne that looked like something straight out of a Viking’s mead hall, he’d give it to him for Christmas.
He got himself some food. He watched a joust, got a photo with the riders and their horses, one of which tried nibbling his hair, tipped the riders, and very quickly found himself running low on cash.
All that scrimping, and saving, and dealing… worth it. So very worth it.
So sue him if he looped back around and walked through again, he couldn’t afford much of anything else, he’d spent his last ten spot on a fridge magnet, had five left for gas station snacks on the way home, but that was fine, he could take photos, he’d borrowed Gareth’s camera, Gareth would have come but his parents had one stipulation for him attending the faire, and that was taking his failing grade in biology, and upping it to something that at least predicted a pass before thanksgiving.
He’d failed, and no amount of grovelling could fix it. No Ren Faire for you good sir!
Jeff was out of town with his family on some ‘visit all the out of state family members before Christmas snowstorms lock everything down’ country wide tour. And Dougie couldn’t get the time off his part time job to go.
So Eddie had promised plenty of photos to show them what they missed out on.
It was the very last stall at the end of the strip that caught his attention. Maybe it was the way the dying sunlight hit it, or the way the wind caught the chimes dangling from its flimsy rafters, he felt… called to it. Drawn to it like a moth to a flame and who was he, but a lowly little moth, to ignore the call of the fire?
So he wandered over, let himself be drawn in, offered a friendly little finger wave to the greying woman sat behind a makeshift counter wrapped in shawls and decorated in silver jewellery that jingled as she worked a single crotchet hook into a slowly coming together wine red shawl. The woman offered him a simple bow of her head and a small smile in response but no sales pitch.
No conversation of any kind really, she simply sat there while he looked, crocheting away without a care in the world. He could appreciate that, not being bothered by pushy sales tactic, especially when he had so few funds left to play with, he always felt guilty when he couldn’t afford what they were selling.
Like why was he even there if he had no money to spend?
The old woman didn’t do that, allowing him to wander through her surprisingly large stall full of little trinkets and goodies uninterrupted, which was for the best because had she spoke, he might not have stayed long enough to spot it. Amidst the little boxes decorated with carved patterns and pretty gemstones, amidst the scarves, crocheted bags, amidst the leather work belts, and wallets sat a single, solitary little bottle.
Sealed with a cork coated in wax and pressed with a decorative seal in a shape too worn down to really make out but obvious that it’d at one point had a shape. The bottle was hand blown, not manufactured, lightly frosted a dark brown to a brilliant amber around its square base, the colour crept up the smooth sides towards its seal, like a diamond in shape.
The bottle wasn’t empty either.
Much like the dice that’d caught his crow brain hook line and sinker earlier, this little bottle was filled with some kind of liquid. It swirled like a galaxy inside, and at the centre a brilliant light that looked like it held its own sun, always at the centre of the swirl, never distorting or shifting out of place, eternal in its circular flow.
It was warm in his hands. He didn’t even realise he’d picked it up.
“Two dollars.” Eddie damn near jumped out of his skin, whirling around, the bottle tight in his grip. That old woman had moved. And she’d done so with a quiet stealth some might attribute to a ninja, which was impressive considering how much jewellery she wore.
“Huh?” So eloquent of him.
“Just two dollars, child. The bottle? It is… calling to you, yes?” He couldn’t place her accent, something foreign, European maybe, he had no idea but it definitely didn’t sound any parts American. “I take two dollars for it, will bring you luck.” He looked back to the bottle, eyeing the swirl that still held its pattern even as he’d jostled it, like nothing could knock it out of its gentle swirl, then back to the old woman.
What was two dollars, really?
He had five left, if nothing else the bottle could make a really cool prop, and if it did bring him luck, then hey bonus. Who was he to argue with a mysterious old lady at a Renaissance Faire? “You uh… you got yourself a deal, ma’am.” She smiled brightly at him, eyes alight with both happiness and… something else, something that reflected in the light that he didn’t think hard enough about. She accepted the five dollars he had left, she gave him his change, and a little paper bag filled with tissue to hold his new purchase, which he didn’t really need as he put it right into his own bag after receiving his change, and then she sent him on his way, uncaring as to whether or not he wanted to look at her other wares.
He’d gotten the bottle. Nothing else mattered apparently. Maybe he should have found that suspicious, but why would he?
As soon as he left the little stall, all thought of it seemed to wash away from his mind leaving him freely wandering back to the entrance where his trusty steed, his Van, awaited him to take him home. Blissfully unaware of the little bottle he’d just purchased. Blissfully forgetful of the stall he’d visited, of the old woman he’d just met, of her smile, her eyes, her mysterious accent.
All of which was for the best, really, as if he’d thought about it, if he’d taken a single moment to stop and look back to the little stall at the end of the row, the little stall that held more treasures than it should have been able to for its size, if he’d looked back to wave his goodbyes to the old woman and her treasures, he’d have found nothing.
No stall, no woman, no trinkets or treasures. Just a single row of recycling bins and benches.
But he didn’t look back.
Definitely for the best.
Part 2
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piratefishmama · 5 months
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Nest | Part 17
A Steddie A/B/O ficlet
It’d been a week.
An entire week since Steve had last seen Eddie. He’d holed up in his apartment, spent the majority of his forced holiday time curled up in bed, or camping out on the sofa watching reruns of bad television. Robin had told him mid-way through the week that they weren’t in trouble, Wayne Munson didn’t intend to press for any complaints or legal action, but she’d heard nothing from Eddie.
Steve wasn’t in trouble, Owens wasn’t in trouble, he already had his next shift lined up at the end of the following week, already a new patient on the books to be seen to although he swore to himself that he wouldn’t be remotely as hands on as he’d been with Eddie. He’d do the minimum just like everyone else, he’d be there when he was needed, would provide care as required, but that was it.
He’d already had two complaints from other tenants shoved under his door about the stench though. Depressed alpha wasn’t a good smell, for Steve, people compared it to mould spores. Like walking into a bakery after a month of it being closed, only nobody had taken the produce away leaving everything to rot.
And the smell spread.
It didn’t matter that the owner of the building had boasted proper padding and ventilation in the ‘Alpha Safe’ apartments before he’d moved in, the smell seeped into every single corner, settled into fabrics, snuck under the front door and out into the hallway. He wanted his Omega.
He didn’t even really know his omega, but he wanted him. He’d made promises, promises he couldn’t keep with Eddie so far away. Promises he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to keep and wasn’t that just a terrifying notion. Eddie was alone again. His heat would come again, he’d be alone for it, there was no way he’d be able to get a clinic trip for free again. Freebies happen once and only in dire situations, after that you have a month to sort yourself out an alpha to join you, or you’re on your own.
It didn’t matter if a week of that month was spent recovering from an unsuccessful heat, you had a month, and Steve was well aware of the ticking clock, he spent most of the time just, looking at it on the wall. Ticking away, precious minutes going by tick by tock. It was ridiculous, he’d barely thought about Eddie Munson for years until he walked into that clinic and all of a sudden he was all Steve could think about. He pined, he yearned, he ached to see him, to make sure he was okay, and yet he couldn’t make himself take that trip to the trailer park where he knew Eddie lived.
It was an invasion of privacy, he’d already broken most of the policies at Nest, he didn’t want to break the last one too, even if he didn’t get Eddie’s address from the database at the clinic, even if he already kind of knew where Eddie lived beforehand.
Eddie deserved his privacy, he deserved his space to heal, to figure out what’d happened on his own time, to get himself and his head clear, to—screw it.
Steve had waited an entire week, he was going to get himself up, get himself showered, dressed, apply patches to his scent glands, he was going to open his front door and— stop dead in place because stood there, with a hand raised, poised to knock, was one Eddie Munson, his big brown doe eyes wide in surprise. “Uhm…” Eddie dropped his hand “hey, Steve, can… can we talk?”
“Eddie…” he rocked forwards, hands flexing as if to reach out, only to catch himself at the last minute, releasing a pained little whine from his throat, he wanted to touch, wanted to hold, to bury his face into all that hair and just breathe he was so close, so, so very close and every inch of Steve’s very being screamed at him to pull Eddie closer, to hold him as tightly as possible and never let him go again, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he wasn’t allowed, he didn’t have permission, he didn’t—
“It’s okay, alpha… you can touch, it’s okay” the dam broke in an instant, the second those consenting words reached his ears, he was wrapping Eddie up in his arms and holding him as tightly as he could, face buried into the side of his neck, arms squeezing him tight, if he could get any closer, if they could merge into one being, he’d do it. “Christ, big boy” Eddie huffed into his shoulder, even as he curled his own arms around Steve, even as he buried his nose into the fabric of Steve’s sweater and breathed deeply, letting himself be held.
Steve whined, squeezing him to his chest, desperate to smell him, but unable to, the Omega had patches on, hiding his scent from the world. Fuck he hated those blasted little things. “How are you here?”
Eddie eased back, forcing Steve to loosen his grip just so Eddie could look at him face to face “Buckley came by the trailer… can… can we go inside?” Robin. You scheming, rule breaking, beautiful human being. “We can talk in the hallway if you want but I’d rather—”
“No! Yeah, uhm. Yes, come in, sorry.” He stepped aside, motioning with his hand to let Eddie in, if he could think about anything other than the fact that Eddie was there, maybe he’d have felt self-conscious, maybe he’d have worried about the mess that’d built from him just wallowing, but no, he was just glad Eddie was there. No longer drenched in the sweet smell of heat, but still everything Steve could ever want.
He was back to his old self, leather, ripped denim, his rings clunky on his fingers, he didn’t look like an omega and likely sure as hell didn’t act like one either.
He was still the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen in his life. Maybe that was the rose tinted glasses, Steve didn’t care. Eddie was there, in his living room, making himself comfortable on the couch, seemingly uncaring about the smell.
“You can close the door, Steve, I’m okay.” Right, he’d been holding it open. He closed it, they were together. In the same room. Eddie had closed himself in with Steve voluntarily.
Honestly he could just cry. Eddie was there, he was safe. He was okay.
“Eddie I— I didn’t—”
“Didn’t hurt me, I know, Steve. I know you spent the whole night holding me while I slept, making sure I was okay. I know. I know you’re a good Alpha Stevie, I know.”
“You… you know?”
“Mmhm, Buckley. I mean… I kind of figured, once my head cleared up a little, nothing felt different and I wasn’t in any pain, which… I figured I probably would have been had you—y’know, but Robin came by with a tape from your boss. It just confirmed what I figured out myself. I’d have come sooner but… well, cramps. Can you sit down?” Steve startled into action, quickly sitting himself down in his arm chair, opposite where Eddie had sat on the couch to give him some space. “Look… I uh… I know… I know things were said at the clinic, and like… I get that you had a job to do, and that included making me feel better an all that shit, so—if—if you want, I can just—just forget that you said anything, y’know? Just… I don’t expect anything from you, I mean… You were just doing your job, an I was super inappropriate with you like, the whole time, the shit I said—I—I’m sorry dude, I—I wasn’t in my right mind an I know you were probably just bein nice an I appreciate that—”
“Eddie, what the hell are you talking about?”
“You said you wanted to spend my next heat with me, right? An uh… other stuff…” Stuff that’d made his knees weak when he’d remembered it. When the memories of Steve so close, his firm body pressed so tightly against his, when he’d remembered everything, when it’d all slammed back into his brain at breakneck pace leaving him horny and breathless, desperate for something thicker than his own fingers, endlessly frustrated that he didn’t have anything close to what he needed. “But I figured that was probably just to make me feel better or some shit, an I get it, I get that, I mean… there’s no hard feelings, I don’t expect anything from yo—”
“Eddie, do you want me?”
“What?” The poor Omega struck just a little stupid by the abrupt question.
“Simple question” Steve slipped from the arm chair, lowering himself down to his knees in front of his Omega, he reached both hands up to cup those perfectly soft cheeks, in awe of how beautiful Eddie was up close, the way those plush lips parted ever so slightly to breath a little heavier, the way his beautiful doe eyes widened, chocolate brown disappearing as black pupils blew wide, locked on Steve, the way his cheeks warmed under Steve’s palms. He only wished he could smell him. Wished Eddie hadn’t come out wearing those blasted patches. “Do you want me?”
“If… If I say yes will you finally kiss me?” There was only one way Steve could possibly answer that question, and that was by closing the gap between their lips, finally claiming the very first of many promised kisses still to come.
Part 19 (The End)
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piratefishmama · 11 months
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Nest
A Steddie A/B/O ficlet
Contrary to popular belief, Alpha heartthrob of Hawkins High Steve Harrington never managed to find himself a suitable mate. He tried, he tried multiple times with many different omegas, tried with Betas, hell he even tried with another Alpha! However, he never lived up to their expectations, he was never what they expected or hoped for, those he tried to court always eventually told him he was too soft.
He lacked the aggression, the ‘slam you against a wall and take you’ kind of rough edges a typical Alpha would have that made the act thrilling for his partner, that created that kind of primal need to submit that they desperately longed for.
He lacked the primordial Alpha need to take, to claim. Some even claimed he ought to have been born an Omega, that the Alpha didn’t suit him, that somehow he’d been born wrong, that his secondary gender didn’t fit him, it wasn’t right.
He was too soft, too affectionate, too clingy too— too much.
Everything about him was bullshit.
Nancy, his one attempt at a relationship with another Alpha, had been drunk when she’d said that to his face, and she didn’t actually remember saying it the day after, but… it still stuck with him years after it’d happened. Years after they’d become friends, years after she’d settled into a Poly relationship with a sweet, if a little awkward omega, Jonathan and his ridiculous (read: weirdly charming, Steve loved him) Beta mate, Argyle.
So he didn’t have a mate. No big deal, it wasn’t like he longed for one or anything, it definitely not like that at all. It wasn’t like he wanted a big family, to be loved, to be wanted, to be welcomed into a nest made of a mixture of his and his mates clothes, his and his mates blankets and pillows and—it was fine. He was fine.
He wasn’t fine, but within that failure, came opportunity. Alphas came in all shapes, sizes, and thankfully, as much as people liked to doubt, temperaments, which given how soft he as an alpha was, made him perfect for Nest. A clinic for unmated Omegas who struggled with their heats, Omegas who had nowhere to turn, no-one to help them through the worst week of the month.
An alpha helped. Even if he didn’t touch them, and usually he didn’t, having an alpha there, their pheromones permeating the room, just existing in their space, sometimes it was enough to help ease the pain of having no-one to fulfil the other needs.
He wasn’t allowed to touch them intimately, it wasn’t a sex thing, it was a comfort thing. A thing some Omegas needed, especially if they’d never had an alpha with them before.
Sometimes, never having one was worse than having one once and never again. You craved something with no frame of reference for why or how to recreate it, you’d go mad going in circles trying to figure out why this part of you needed something so badly despite never having had it.
It could get bad. Some went mad over it. Hence the Clinics.
Hawkins had one. Singular. Just one. It was linked up to the hospital, deeply underfunded and regularly had protesters outside claiming the alphas inside to be sex workers.
Blatant ignorance at work there, but Steve stopped caring about his public image before he’d even left school so on each shift he’d walk through the throng of idiots, with his head held high, greet his best friend Robin at the front desk, a quirky Beta with zero brain to mouth filter and the gift of gab.
She probably wouldn’t call it a gift, but Steve adored her. Had a bit of a crush on her at first, quickly replaced by platonic love after she’d drunkenly came out to him in a public restroom at a Christmas party.
She liked women. Omega women to be specific. He’d never asked her to elaborate on why not male Omegas, she had a type, that was that.
Steve liked both, he liked all. Steve wasn’t fussed, Omega, Beta, Alpha, male or female? It didn’t matter to him, he’d tried all in his search for a mate that’d stay and found himself enjoying all.
He just needed one to stay.
He’d walk in, greet Robin, if he didn’t have an Omega already, he’d grab a clipboard with his new assignment on it and head straight there. It was one of those days.
His last Omega, an awkward little thing that Steve sort of recognised from high school, he’d been a freshman during Steve’s last year, had left the night before, content and at ease, had spent most of the coherent hours talking Steve’s ear off about a table top RPG game he played with friends, Dungeons and Dragons.
Steve didn’t mind, he asked questions, let him bounce character ideas off of him, helped him pick a race out of a mix of words Steve didn’t really recognise but it made the Omega, Gareth, happy.
They came up with Galgrun the Giant together. A Dwarf with a height complex and a really big hammer.
He liked Gareth. Gareth was sweet, soft, bit too young though. Reminded Steve of the gaggle of kids Nancy’s little brother would hang around.
His new assignment was older.
Older than himself by one year, which… wasn’t unusual but it definitely wasn’t a normal occurrence either. Usually the Omegas that used the facility were younger, younger and in desperate need of comfort.
“They’ve put him in room 69, he found that hilarious.” Robin chirped when Steve looked up from his clipboard. Another him. Not that that was a bad thing, sometimes they alternated. “He’s a little… jumpy, very nervous, I could smell him a mile away and you know what my sense of smell is like.” Most first timers were, he checked out the clipboard again, no previous alpha, no sexual history, no… nothing.
For an omega older than himself to have zero experience in intimacy with an alpha, even the soft non-sexual kind? No wonder he was jumpy. “Alright, says here he came from a referral?”
“Yeah, GP basically threw him at us after he turned violent during his last heat an damn near mauled his uncle, he mentioned Gareth when he came in, that’s why they gave him to you.” Not just because he was one of the best Alphas there, but because Gareth had said nice things, the omega had asked for him. “Go get him tiger.”
Part 2
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piratefishmama · 5 months
Text
Nest | Part 16
A Steddie A/B/O ficlet
“WHAT THE HELL KIND OF OPERATION ARE YOU RUNNIN HERE?!”
Steve felt… numb. He was tired. He was hungry. He felt… lost. It’d happened so fast.
No amount of rational thought could have fixed the conclusion Eddie’s confused mind had come to. No explanation could have cut through the panic, the fear, the pain, that radiated from the omega, the air that’d been filled with such a sweet desire replaced far quicker with pain, anger, confusion and fear he’d been choking on it, the air vents unable to clear it quick enough, he’d been struggling to talk, struggling to breathe when the doors had opened.
Security had gotten him out. A Beta dragged him out by the scruff of his shirt while another two worked to keep Eddie's panicked, inconsolable self corralled away from him.
It happened so quickly. And now he sat there, his back against the wall, sat on the floor, head in his arms, a patch on his neck to mask the stank of Alpha negativity that'd undoubtedly have choked anyone in his immediate vicinity, a scrap of fabric in his hand, and Robin beside him, unusually quiet, her arm wrapped around his shoulders as they listened to the eldest Munson react as any guardian would in this situation.
He’d left his nephew at a clinic to be taken care of, under medical advisement, had undoubtedly spent the majority of the week worried sick, and then receive a call from clinic security claiming something had gone wrong. Wayne Munson had turned up in a rusted old pick up truck that screeched as it pulled up into the carpark ten minutes after security had completely ignored Owens's instructions to leave it alone, and did their job in contacting him.
nobody could blame them, it was their job to contact Eddie's next of kin should something go wrong.
It all happened so fast.
He couldn’t see Eddie. Eddie who was still in recovery, Eddie who still needed him. Eddie, who wasn’t done with his heat yet and needed to be taken care of and soothed by his alpha for at least another day or so, it wasn’t healthy to cut it short there.
Eddie still needed him. He could go into another spiral, he could hurt himself, he could—
He couldn’t hear Owens replies, could only hear Wayne Munson, the man rightfully furious that they’d allowed an alpha into his nephews room when the man was at his most vulnerable. It didn’t matter that Eddie was a grown adult man, it didn’t matter that he didn’t need a guardian.
And it didn’t matter that nothing had happened. Eddie thought something had, and in the state he was in, nothing could convince him otherwise.
The door opened, both Steve and Robin looked up in unison, both shrinking back as Wayne looked down at them both with understandable fury, nothing they could even argue against, and turned to Owens with a clipped “I want my nephew here in two minutes ready to go” Owens opened his mouth to argue, hell Steve opened his mouth to argue but Wayne simply held up his hand cutting them both off, “I don’t give two flyin fucks what you lot think, my nephew is coming home. Now. The worst is over, I’ll handle the rest.” Steve shrunk back under his harsh glare, too exhausted to formulate a reason as to why that was a bad idea.
It’d be fine. Wayne was family. The worst was over he was right, and sure the next twenty four to forty eight hours could go in either direction, he had to trust that Wayne could handle it.
That didn’t stop him from scrambling to his feet the moment Wayne turned to walk away though, desperation in the voice he barely managed to find “W-wait! Wait, please… Mr. Munson, I swear… I didn’t hurt him, an I know—I know that’s hard to believe, I get that, but—but could you… could you give him this, at least just—it’ll help, it’ll help him” Wayne looked at him through cold eyes, his expression damn near thunderous, silent for a moment, he dipped his gaze to the scrap of fabric in Steve’s hands, the towel.
Just a little towel.
A towel Eddie had clung to throughout the night, so close to his face, a comfort. Something still drenched in Steve. Wayne looked down at it with narrowed eyes and for a moment, Steve thought he’d refuse.
That he’d shoot him down without mercy, but something in him just couldn’t seem to do that.
That cold gaze softened, just a little, his shoulders relaxed as if acceptance had won some kind of internal battle inside of him, then wordlessly he took the towel with a subtle nod, and made his way out to wait at the front.
Security would bring Eddie out. He wasn’t a danger to anyone but himself in the final stage, not really. The final stage of a heat was just… recovery. An Omega needed comfort, they needed something or someone familiar, in shared heat situations they needed their alpha to take care of them or they could spiral.
They needed to be pampered. To be reassured. To be loved.
Every fibre of Steve’s being ached to be the person doing that for Eddie. He felt untethered. Unmoored, lost. He needed to be doing something, but he couldn’t and there was nothing even close to that something to fill the gap not doing it left behind.
He didn’t even get to say goodbye. Barely caught a glimpse of the Omega as he was guided through the barren halls toward the exit, dressed in clothes that’d no doubt be uncomfortable, itchy, scratchy on his sensitive skin, his head down never once looking up, never once looking his way.
The halls had been cleared of staff for Eddie’s safety. He still smelled like an Omega in heat.
It shouldn’t have happened like that. Eddie should have still been in his room, should have been able to wake up peacefully in his nest, should have woken up to a warm, comforting embrace, but instead it’d been panic. Fear, and confusion and Steve didn’t even know if it’d been avoidable.
Maybe if another alpha had been there, maybe if it wasn’t him. Maybe everything would have progressed as it normally should have.
“Go home Steve” Owens placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, voice so soft Steve barely caught it. “You should uh… take some time off, okay?” Steve barely managed to tear his gaze away from the doors Eddie had walked through, but when he did it was with eyes full of unspoken panic. “You’re not in trouble, Steve. We kept watch all night you… you’re an exemplary Alpha, truly a credit to your kind… your self-restraint is… well, I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it for myself, but I think it's best if you still take some time off. Use some of those holiday days you’ve built up, paid, of course, I think two weeks should cover it.”
“But—”
Owens held up his hand to silence him, before turning to Robin, who’d been doing her best to keep Steve grounded with her presence alone. It worked. Kind of. He wasn’t stinking up the hallway, but that could have probably been due to the patch covering his scent glands rather than anything she was doing. “Miss Buckley, take him home would you?”
“I uh… I can’t drive but—but sure, yeah, I’ll uhm, I’ll get him home. Should I come right back, orr—”
“Take the rest of the day. You’ve earned it.” She hadn't actually gone home much like Owens, so technically she'd have been due to start a new shift in around half an hour, but... alright.
And then he was gone, walking back into his office, and closing the door behind him, leaving both Robin and Steve alone in the hallway, none-the-wiser about what he was going to be getting up to in there, but neither having enough energy to really care.
“I told him after his heat we could… that we could—” be together, that all Eddie had to do was wait one more day, one more. And they could be together, that it’d be okay then… “I promised him, Robbie…”
“I know, Stevie… let’s just get you home.”
"...Okay." As if he had any other choice.
Part 18
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piratefishmama · 11 months
Text
Fake it 'till you make it | Prompt
When Steve Harrington came out to his parents, he expected a few things to happen. Jumping back a little, he hadn’t even meant to come out. His parents meant well, they did. He couldn’t deny that they meant well.
They knew he was lonely when they were gone, they knew he was the type of person who kind of… needed someone around. He wasn’t a lone wolf, he wasn’t someone who could just go it alone, while they were away for months, and while Robin was lovely, Robin was also a lesbian.
So Robin was out of the question.
So it fell to the women they knew. Through their connections. And unfortunately those women tended to be, for lack of a better phrase, ‘Daddies money is how I intend to live for the rest of my life’, and completely comfortable in switching out who Daddy was.
Steve… didn’t have a daddy kink, thanks.
Okay maybe he did a little but not in the call him daddy kind of way. More the other way around.
After the fifth attempt to throw some business partners daughter at him, a woman who’d actually kind of impressively deep throated a hot dog at the office barbeque while looking directly at him before he’d even gotten her name. Impressive, kind of terrifying.
An image of his life consisting of an unhappy marriage where his wife used sex as some kind of transaction rather than the big family full of love that he wanted flashed before his eyes.
He'd had enough. So when the sixth one came up, Vivian, he hadn’t even been able to wait for them to explain who she was, which business associate she was related too, it just. Came out.
Or rather he came out. Spectacularly.
“I’M GAY!” Okay less spectacular initially, more manic desperation. He expected a few things to happen after he realised what he’d blurted out.
He expected anger, he expected disappointment, he half expected disownment, not fully expected, his mother would probably be on his side. He expected violence, judgement, demands of him to tell them it wasn’t true, or demands that he hide it, keep pretending for appearances sake. He’d heard the coming out horror stories.
He did not expect—
“Oh oh! What about Jonathan!! From Tennis club, honey you remember Jonathan right? Peter’s son?” His mother turning to look at his father, who’d turned a little pale. That was it, his father would be the one to blow up, his mother was in his corner that was sort of expected but his fa—
“Lynda he is not dating someone with the same name as me, that—no. No, I don’t think I’d recover if those thin walls at the chalet struck again.” Goddammit. “What about Timothy, Dorothy’s nephew? Didn’t she say she’d caught him with some punk boy on that family holiday to London?”
“Yes but she was trying to get points around the water cooler for being hip and homophobic, did you not hear what she called the poor boy? I’m not associating with Dorothy, good heavens.”
“I hadn’t heard, why have I not heard? Lynda we’re trying to create an inclusive work environment, I can’t have homophobic people working in HR!” And John was up, newspaper down, and off to his study to deal with Dorothy muttering about how he was sure the monthly office newsletter, which included the updated company values, would have weeded the bigots out by now.
“…Did my coming out just get someone fired?” Steve finally broke his shocked silence, his mothers attention turning back to him, her eyes wide, mouth puckered in a little, silent, oh.
“……Maybe.” His shoulders slumped, expression dropping to deadpan, she moved quick to reassure him “Don’t worry about it, Steven, she really wasn’t well liked.” It didn’t make him feel better… okay maybe it did, one less homophobe in the workplace. “Oooh, what about—”
It didn’t stop the matchmaking. The potential suitor pool just got bigger. Especially when he quietly, defeatedly corrected himself, revealing it was bisexual, not just gay, accepting his fate.
So it was no longer Vivian, Jessica, Bethany, Barbara, Carol, etc.
It was Vivian, Thomas, Jessica, Peter, Bethany, Robert blah blah blah
“Okay but you know some people would kill for that kind of support right?” Robin spoke the truth while rewinding the latest batch of returns. And maybe he was whining, maybe he was being overdramatic, his parents were supportive and were trying to make sure he’d be happy while they were gone on their long business trips.
Honestly they could have probably just let him get a dog. It’d have been easier. Less expensive than any of the people they were suggesting.
“I know… it’s just… they could at least try and find out what my type is. Instead it’s like they’re trying to throw a whole Indy gay bar at me in hopes that one person just kinda sticks. And now I’ve got a whole week with them coming up in some remote chalet, what if they bring someone, Robs? What if they bring someone and try an set us up an—”
“Can your parents just… adopt me?” She wasn’t listening “I’d kill to have the dating thing simplified for me, I can’t even talk to girls, you’ve got your mother doing all the work for you. I’d appreciate them, tell them I’d appreciate them.”
The door chimed, neither of them looked up, too engrossed in what they were doing. If a customer needed their help, they’d make it known.
They’d just adjust language used to not out themselves to strangers.
“You tell them! Pretty sure they’d find you someone.” Apparently his parents would be thrilled to help. He wanted to be happy about that, he really did, it was just exhausting having to fend off people who were interested in him but only for the last name, the business connection, the money. He wanted someone who wanted him for him, and none of those ‘potential suitors’ fit that bill. “Robbie I’m serious here, what if— what if they try when I can’t escape. I can’t spend a whole week in the woods with some stranger they’ve thrown at me, I think I might actually perish.”
“Then take a date.” Both young adults turned to look at the culprit behind the door chime.
“Henderson!” Steve’s favourite of the brat pack. Having met him while ferrying the kids home when Jonathan couldn’t pick Will up from Mike’s on a night when Steve had been hanging out with his at the time girlfriend Nancy. The kid was hilarious, a little bit of a know it all, but when you actually know it all, you’ve kind of earned the right to be obnoxious about it. “What did you hear?”
“That someone’s setting you up with people? Which is that a bad thing?” He directed the second question to Robin who shrugged and rolled her eyes.
“Not in my book lil man, not in my book.”
“Okay It’s not the attempt that’s the problem, it’s the quantity of attempts, and the quality of people they’re throwing at me! Quantity and quality are the issues here, people, it’s not that they’re doing it,”
“It’s that they’re doing it badly.” Dustin finished, Steve pointing at him with clicked finger guns.
“Exactly… and I don’t want my parents at my future wedding claiming they were responsible for getting us together cause that’d be weird! And pathetic. I want a fun first date story, a meet cute, or a ridiculous ‘yeah we were trapped in an elevator for like, three hours and bonded’ kind of story, I want an ‘I met them on a train’ or ‘they hit on me at the bar, and it just worked’ not an ‘my parents set us up in a remote cabin in the woods’, do you get me?”
“I can see your dilemma, but remote cabins in the woods can be really roman—"
“Nobody wants to hear about you and Suzie again! We get it, she’s your soulmate and future nerd wife you lucky little shithead.” Long distance and tricky as it may be, they were kind of perfect for each other. “Now what were you saying about taking a date?”
“Exactly that, take a date with you. Tell them you’re bringing someone and just… bring someone.” Dustin let his eyes flick to robin purposefully, quirking his head a little to subtly nod at her “you could take Robin” as if to say now’s your chance, dickhead, take it.
“Somehow I doubt Robin would be able to convince them that we were dating.”
“Cause we’re not.”
“And will not be.”
“At all.”
“Eh—"
“—ver”
“You guys make no sense.”
“We make perfect sense, my strange little child friend. You just don’t have all the information to make it make sense.” Robin wiggled her fingers at him as if it was some kind of mystery, it was to Dustin but that wasn’t important. “He does have a point though, you could take a date, there’s plenty of people in Hawkins who’d kill for a rich person get away, just gotta let them know that it’s a pretend date situation. Or… actually find a date. If you can.”
The "you suck" board flashed into his mind momentarily. He couldn’t. Not within the time frame he had. He was so far off his game his parents were matchmaking for him.
Dustin’s voice broke through his thoughts once more, offering salvation. “I know someone you could hire for that…” hallelujah, Dustin Henderson everybody.
Part 2
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piratefishmama · 6 months
Text
Nest | Part 15
A Steddie A/B/O ficlet
For Eddie, it was like he knew he needed something, he knew his body needed something, but had no real idea of how to go about getting it, and in his confusion, he’d forgotten why he’d wanted the nameless mystery thing in the first place.
He’d made one attempt at presenting himself like instinct would guide him into doing, but when the alpha present didn’t take the opportunity, he found himself unsure of what to do next. His alpha just about managed to catch the downward spiral of rejection before it spun out of control, comforting him, reassuring him, but it all left Eddie feeling a little bit… lost.
He didn’t have the experience to try something else.
Had it been anyone else. Anyone with experience. An Omega who’d shared their heats before, or at least gotten laid once or twice, Steve would have been in trouble, Eddie would have had just enough knowledge to try harder, but with the complete lack of such knowledge… it had the Omega simply settling into Steve’s side, and basking in the presence of an alpha’s comforting scent for what should have been the most stressful part of his heat.
Too unsure of what else he ought to be doing to be stressed about doing it. Sure, he was a little uncomfortable, absolutely, but his alpha was right there. Big, strong, his arms wrapped comfortably around him, he had the little towel drenched in his alphas scent direct from his gland so it was easy to let himself drift off.
Even with the ache settled low in his tummy, even with the slippery, warm, slick sensation between his legs, the uncomfortable ache in his gums and the urge to bite something that came along with it, and of course, the feverish heat his body radiated, he knew he wanted something. His body definitely wanted something, an uncomfortable aching hunger that niggled in the back of his mind to be satiated, but… he could wait for… whatever it was, surely it’d show up eventually if it was that important.
It wasn’t as unbearable as he’d been so sure it’d be. He wasn’t even in any pain. It wasn’t hurting him.
He was content, he was cosy, he was safe. Protected. And with his alpha ever so gently stroking his fingers through Eddie’s damp hair, fingertips occasionally grazing his scalp in a way that had Eddie chirruping softly in his light doze… he could comfortably succumb to sleep.
For Steve… there was no sleeping when Eddie was like this.
Steve couldn’t close his eyes and rest, even with Eddie’s own eyes closed, the Omega’s body, while relaxed, felt like it was on fire. Steve could feel every inch of him, he radiated heat, skin clammy, slick with sweat, his hair clinging to his body in a way that could never be comfortable but was likely the very lowest on the totem pole of problems Eddie’s poor incredibly fragile mind was focusing on, even though Steve did try and stroke his fingers through it to give him some comfort.
Eddie seemed to be able to rest, his eyes were closed, and while yes, his body still shook, still shivered, he still appeared deeply uncomfortable, and he still wriggled in Steves arms, he looked like he’d slipped into a light slumber.
Steve couldn’t rest. There was no possible way he could even relax less it accidentally lead to sleep. The last thing Steve needed was to slip under and come to with Eddie taking advantage, he wouldn’t even know it was wrong, wouldn’t even be able to consider what his actions actually were, driven solely by primal instinct, right and wrong lost to him.
Sleep wasn’t safe for either of them.
So he laid there in the nest, Eddie curled up into his side, his warm breath fanning across Steve’s neck in short, laboured little puffs of humid air, his fingers curled so tightly into the towel Steve had given him hours ago that they also dug into Steve’s shirt beneath it.
Steve was focusing entirely on the steady whirr of the vents, loud and somewhat irritating, but there, keeping the air in the room from becoming unbearably thick. Keeping the scent Eddie was still giving off from becoming overwhelming even at such a close proximity to the source.
He was hungry. His stomach rumbled in protest, he hadn’t eaten properly. Too anxious, having been sinking into his own little spiral of despair over not being there for his Omega, he’d totally ignored the one meal he could have had before this whole mess and now… now he had no way of getting food. Any attempt made by anyone outside the room to sneak something in ran the risk of Eddie’s territorial rage. It was just him.
Just him, his thoughts, and his prayers to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in that Eddie would just sleep through it all. That his body would settle for just Steve’s presence and nothing more, because so far it was working.
Eddie wasn’t producing nearly as much slick as he would have been had they being actively going for it, his thighs were damp, the materials of his nest wet beneath his body, but it wasn’t an overwhelming amount, it wasn’t nearly enough for him to comfortably take even an average sized knot. He wouldn’t have even been able to comfortably take the smaller of the heat aids with what he was producing.
He wasn’t begging, he wasn’t pushing, or demanding, he could sort of talk while awake, and he was coherent enough to understand what was being said to him even if he couldn’t retain the memory of it being said.
He was like… a blank slate. A confused animal uncertain of its purpose, made evident by the fact that, as Steve made damn sure to check, Eddie had actually fallen asleep.
While he should have been at the very height of lust, at the pinnacle of need, desperate to be filled, desperate to feel full, to be bred, and doing everything during the short period of time he had to achieve it, he’d… fallen asleep. Nestled into the crook of Steve’s neck, breathing a little heavily, sure, but he’d fallen asleep.
Looking like he had nothing more than a fever, maybe a light flu, he slept.
And he kept sleeping.
Even while Steve stared at the ceiling, listening to the whirr of the air vents, listening to the faint sounds of the clock on the wall as time went tick by tock. Eddie slept soundly all the way through until his status as a human radiator began to slowly subside, as time passed them by reducing the risk with each tick of the clock until sunlight filled the shadows in the room, filtering through the curtains of the frosted windows.
The only warning Steve had that his omega was finally coming too, was the subtle furrow of his brow, and a soft grumble of a sound, before bleary eyes opened to take in the world around him with a little more clarity than he’d had when he’d first closed them.
His pupils were still blown, his skin was still warm and clammy, but he had enough strength to ease himself out of Steve’s arms, the towel he’d been clutching falling into his bare lap, alerting him to the fact that it was there to begin with. He took in his surroundings, his nest was a mess, he took in his physical state, naked and confused.
And finally, he took in the alpha still residing to his left, who watched him with barely concealed alarm. Steve. Steve was in his room.
His nest was a mess.
He was naked.
And Steve, an Alpha. Was in his room.
“Steve…?”
“It’s not what it looks like.” And then came… the panic.
Part 17
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piratefishmama · 1 year
Text
Forgiven not Forgotten | Prompt
Steve Harrington was eleven years old when he learned what Homophobia was. It wasn’t through other people making jokes, it wasn’t his parents, who actually found Steve’s little crushes cute as all hell, his mother joking around about how he’d make the perfect little housewife someday as she had him helping with dinner, Steve wearing his own adorable little ‘head chef’ apron as he struggled with the garlic press, her comments made much to his father’s exasperated amusement.
Nobody ever made him feel bad about it. The crushes. Nobody ever put him down or made him feel like it was wrong. Kids didn’t care until close minded grown ups made it a thing. Kids minds were wide open ready to be shaped. It wasn’t a bad thing...
Until Eddie.
Eddie was one of the bigger kids on the playground. Quiet and mysterious, he came to Hawkins halfway through the year from places unknown, his hair buzzed close to his scalp, now growing back thick, brown, and soft enough for Steve to crave touching it. He’d never seen Eddie up close, they didn’t share any classes but… from a distance he was clearly very pretty. With big dark eyes, soft cheeks, and a cute nose, he was perfect.
Steve was sure he’d caught sight of dimples once. DIMPLES.
Lynda Harrington was about five minutes away from being done with dimples, Steve talked about them that much.
Eddie didn’t talk much, he had no friends to speak of, kept to himself in the playground, either reading an impossibly thick book with a pretty picture on the front that Steve couldn’t quite make out, sat under the jungle gym, or laid under the jungle gym scribbling things into a black notebook covered in stickers and scribbled paint marker marks.
He carried a big guitar case sometimes, and Steve occasionally caught him coming from the music rooms, but he’d never heard him play. He wanted too, but hadn’t quite worked out how to make that happen without being forced to talk to him.
And that. That was just far too scary.
He was an older kid from seventh grade, and from what little he’d heard him speak, he had a nice southern twang to his accent that made Steve’s hands all clammy and his chest feel so full of butterflies that he feared he’d float away.
Too scary basically. But he could watch from afar! Afar was safe. Afar was—
“Hey trailer park FREAK!” Oh boy. The biggest kids. Eighth graders. Eddie was just going to the jungle gym, notebook in hand to get a little light doodling in, when they descended upon him. The sporty kids that dominated in dodgeball, the mean ones that picked on the nerds, the popular ones his parents had told him to steer clear of.
“They’re bad influences” his father would say. “Just focus on your classes and keep your distance from those troublemakers.” Steve was happy to do just that. He had a couple of friends but… he kept to his studies and steered clear.
Eddie was quiet, he had no friends, he hung out in the same place every day doing the same thing, he was an easy target. Steve looked for the teachers, any teachers, any grown-ups, but they were all busy elsewhere, Eddie didn’t have any friends to stand up for him, anyone to back him up as the big kids descended, shoving him against the jungle gym’s climbing net, he barely even complained, just told them to leave him alone, which obviously they weren’t going to do, leaving Steve with a choice to make.
He could stay there, where he was, and keep watch from a far as his crushes notebook was stolen, the panic kicking up a notch from Eddie as he rushed forward to try and get it back, demanding “Not my notebook!! Give it back! Please give it back!” To no avail, the two flanking the main bully just shoving him back against the netting while the main bully roughly ransacked through the pages, uncaring as to the damage he was doing despite Eddie’s continued cries for him to stop, he looked again, any adult, any adult would do.
How had no adult noticed yet?!
Steve found himself crossing the distance before he could even think about it, just in time to watch Eddie be thumped in the gut by the biggest of the three, “trailer trash nerd” spat down at him, his torn notebook thrown to the floor, papers torn free from the seam falling out across the woodchip floor, Steve was too late to stop the worse of it but— he could do something.
“Hey!” All three eyes were on him, Eddies not included, he was too busy clutching his gut and trying to reach for his book at the same time “U-uh… uhm” Steve turned his head and holy shit hallelujah “teachers coming! Better scram before she catches you!” She wasn’t even coming, she was just there, close enough that it made a difference.
The boys got out of there, each one pushing the other to move faster to get out of dodge before the teacher came. At least Steve hadn’t had to stand up to them, just… make them leave. They were probably about to go anyway, given they’d already done enough damage to put their point across.
Eddie was right there, nursing his wounds, trying to gather his papers up, so close, Steve could feel his palms clam up, his heart beating a thousand miles a minute. He pushed through, bending down to pick up a scrunched up ball of paper, he gently began unfolding it. It was nerve wracking, every second he spent in Eddies presence, the boy watching him hesitantly, big dark eyes rimmed red with unshed tears, brown. His eyes were brown. Steve gulped down his own saliva.
“You should uh… you should ignore those guys.” WORDS! He managed words. Okay. He could do this.
“Yeah? What’s it to you?” Eddie was upset, he probably didn’t mean the bite to his tone, it was okay, it’d be okay.
“I just… I mean, it’s not bad, y’know. To be like… nerdy and stuff, you shouldn’t listen to them. They’re just jealous cause you’re… y’know, creative and uhm… an smart, an really talented at drawing and—and people really like that.” He offered the creased paper back as Eddie rose to his feet, wrecked notebook tightly clutched in his arms, he took it back, not quite snatched but… it wasn’t taken gently.
“Yeah, what people? So far things ain’t exactly been makin me feel welcome here.” He shoved the paper full of… god Steve didn’t even know, but Steve knew they were doodles of some kind, winged things, and skeleton monsters, they were cool! Eddie could draw! Steve couldn’t draw, he could barely make stickmen work, the legs were always mismatched lengths, and the arms were never coming from the same point of the stickman’s stick body.
“I mean…” Steve fumbled with his own fingers, warmth decorating his cheeks, pinking the tips of his ears this was it! He could do it, he could tell him, and it’d be fine, and maybe they could hold hands or something, that’d be neat “people… people like me… I—I like you, I mean… I like you a lot and—and I just… I was just wondering if—if maybe—”
“Ew” Steve stopped dead, eyes snapping to the other boy, the other boy who looked at him with an icy disgust that wrapped its frozen claws around Steve’s heart and clenched “that’s gross. Boys can’t like other boys, that’s so fuckin weird!” Weird? It was weird? Steve looked around him, panic filling his very being, from his head to his toes every inch of him felt wrong all of a sudden, his heart beating faster and faster only this time it wasn’t good “and they call me a freak, freak.”
His small fist connected with Eddie’s face without thought, right in the nose. Instinct to fight rearing its head for the first time in his life, panic replaced so swiftly by an anger so unlike him he was consumed by it, and the resulting pained cries filled him with a sick sense of satisfaction that he enjoyed far more than the panic, than the sense of wrong in himself at Eddie’s words.
He didn’t say anything else to Eddie, he just, left him there by the jungle gym, crying in pain holding a bleeding nose. His book dropped to the floor, ruined papers strewn across the woodchip.
And his dimples?
Never to be thought of again.
—Until the boathouse in '86 when everything went to shit for the fourth time in a row.
Part 2
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piratefishmama · 1 year
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Give me spicy six having an "we avoided the end of the world" party with alcohol and truth or dare and spin the bottle just a bunch of adults who never got to enjoy their late teens or early twenties because Creel wanted to throw the mother of all bitchfits.
Give me Steve boldly shooting a shot he doesn't know he can shoot by slowly sinking into straddling Eddie's lap on a deck chair out by the pool while everyone else rapidly becomes otherwise occupied, the man beneath him wide-eyed, the paper of the joint they'd been passing around clinging to his bottom lip.
Give me Steve leaning in, only to steal the joint, take a deep hit of it, and stand back up with the flourish of a man who knows he's the hottest thing in the room (or in the whole damn town) eyes still on Eddie from over his shoulder as he heads for the door. Depositing the joint into the closest ashtray for someone else to grab as he goes.
Give me Eddie looking around for a moment as if to see if anyone else caught that before deciding to hell with it and chasing him into the house.
Give me Steve taking Eddie apart, blowing his little virgin mind piece by piece, holding his hand through it well into the early hours when the noise outside has died down and everyone else has gone to bed.
Give me them waking up tangled limbs wrapped up in blankets and each other, to a new day, a fresh start, and a promise of a future together after the hell they faced to get there.
Just give me a good ending.
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piratefishmama · 7 months
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Nest | Part 13
A Steddie A/B/O ficlet
It was like walking directly into a wall. The moment that door opened Steve took one step inside, and had to immediately step back again as his senses were assaulted with the scent of pain, of fear, of discomfort, and distress.
A shake of his head later in a fruitless bid to shake that painful mixture of scents from his senses, he pushed himself through it. The door closed behind him.
The vents were working overtime to clear the air, but the more they cleared, the more replaced it. Eddie was just a small bundle of negativity, of suffering, and Steve had just left him there.
He knew it wasn’t his fault, knew he wasn’t responsible, but he felt awful.
He felt awful knowing that he should have stayed. Even though he knew that he couldn’t have, he knew it was against all the rules, knew that someone would have tried to drag him out had he stayed, that it wasn’t up to him, he felt like the worst Alpha. Like a failure. He’d left his mate to suffer, he didn’t deserve to be in there, didn’t deserve Eddie’s forgiveness, didn’t deserve the right to be the one to help him through his distress.
He shook his head again, the air so thick, so full of negativity that it was dragging him down with it.
The corner, he’d seen Eddie on the cameras, one quick look around the room gave him the location of the one camera still active, the blinking red dot telling him they were being watched. “Eddie?” He followed the line of sight to the wall, the darkness of the room and the mixture of scents filling every single crevice made it difficult to see clearly.
The whine was what gave him away.
A soft, pitiful little whine from the corner semi-muffled by fabric, Steve was there within seconds, down on his knees before his bundled up Omega, the other man trembling within the thick fabric of the weighted blanket that’d already long since lost the scent Steve had meticulously rubbed over it, lost to the overwhelming scent the omega was giving off in his distress.
His eyes were dark and unfocused, blown pupils rendering them almost black, half hidden by sweat-damp hair, his breathing was shallow, skin flushed, slick with sweat “Ah—Alpha?” There was no strength to his voice, a whisper of sound amidst weakened breaths.
Steve had suffered many a heart break in his life, so many trials and errors with partners of the past, but nothing could compare to the break he felt when Eddie struggled in vain to reach out to him from within the blanket, the omega struggling to find enough strength just to lift an arm against the weight of the fabric.
Anyone else, Eddie would find the strength. If anyone else had walked into that room, Steve knew that he’d have found the strength to attack, the fact that he hadn’t yet, was enough to tell Steve, not that he couldn’t… but that he wouldn’t.
It was all the confirmation Steve needed to take action. “Alpha’s here, m’here Eddie” voice soft, he moved closer, arms curling under the weakened omega, one under his knees and the other cradling his back. At Eddie’s inquisitive little chirp, Steve pressed a kiss into the sweat-damp curls at the crown of Eddie’s head “I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you.” And they were up. Steve rose to his feet without strain, an action that for the briefest of moments, had desire pouring from the Omega in his arms.
He was strong, capable, he could just… pick Eddie and that blanket right up regardless of how much they weighed combined.
“Need…” Eddie breathed, head heavy against Steve’s chest “m’hot… too—too hot—hurts” could barely open his eyes, Steve could feel the warmth radiating through that blanket, he was too warm, maybe he’d have been okay if he’d have used the heat aid once but… it felt like he was burning up.
“I know, sweetheart, I know, we need to cool you down, that’s what I’m doing okay? M’gonna get you to the bathroom and we’re gonna cool you down.”
The nest was a wreck, Steve didn’t know what’d happened between when he left hours before and that moment, but the nest had suffered. Blankets were thrown, clothing had been pulled from the framework and tossed away, the shirt Steve had eventually given him was now caught on the edge of a set of drawers, thrown away.
The alpha in him mourned whatever Eddie had been thinking that made him throw it away.
Eddie didn’t verbally respond, instead he curled in on himself tighter, pressed his face closer to Steve’s chest, his breathing still shallow, still weak, he wasn’t shaking anymore.
Steve used his shoulder to turn the light on in the bathroom, it took a couple of tries to hit it just right, but once light flooded the room he was quick to get Eddie to the large bath yet gentle in how he removed the blanket once he’d managed to climb in, after lowering both himself and Eddie into the tub and shower combo.
At Eddie’s defensive groan and his attempt to keep the blanket close, Steve gently shushed him “Shhh shh, it’s okay, Omega, I’m here, you don’t need the blanket.” It was only making it worse, hotter, it didn’t even smell like Steve anymore.
Just of Eddie, of his sadness, his discomfort, his fear. He threw it over the edge of the tub, letting it land in a heavy heap on the floor.
Steve had never seen an Omega like that before. Lost to lust absolutely, an Omega at the peak of their heat was usually a stunning thing, beautiful, almost glowing in their radiance, enough to make an Alpha go wild with want, but this wasn’t that. He’d never… he’d never seen one look like that.
It was terrifying, it took all he had to not panic. Eddie had been alone for four hours, steadily getting worse and worse, what if nobody had checked on him? What would have happened if they’d have waited longer to look at those cameras?
What if they’d just left him? What if they hadn't noticed?
The omega slumped back into Steve’s arms, the fight in him lost, head back against him, his chest still rising and falling double time in an effort to breathe.
“Eddie, Imma need you to stay with me, okay? Keep your eyes open, alright?” Although out of focus, Eddie’s eyes remained open as he nodded, weak, the movement minimal but he managed. “I need to get your shirt off, can you lift your arms?” He shook his head, movement so slight if Steve had blinked, he’d have missed it. “Alright, okay, clothes on.”
It wouldn’t be fun, he knew it wouldn’t be fun, but with a little twist of his body, Steve reached up and twisted the dial on the shower, and grabbed Eddie tightly just in time for the Omega to snarl his objection when cold water rained down upon them suddenly.
Life slammed into the boy in his arms with a startled yelp, eyes suddenly wide, sharper than before yet still so very dark, he struggled, he snarled, he snapped, and scratched at the arms holding him down, scoring deep welts and bloodied tracks down Steve’s arms in an attempt to free himself from the hold to escape the cold spray that splashed over the edge of the bath soaking the floor and the blanket that’d fallen to it.
Non-verbal but violent in his struggle, Steve kept him down, held him tight though the stinging pain until the water began to warm, held on so tightly until the boy began to calm, until warmth rained upon them, not too hot, not too cold. Right in the middle, the sweet spot where warmth touched cold but didn’t quite intertwine. Soothing on a too hot summers day.
Eddie stopped struggling, slumping back against his chest once more.
The water stung against the wounds inflicted, but Steve would live. Eddie hadn’t done too much damage in his struggle. “You with me, Eddie?”
“Mnnnghh” it was stronger than before, still weak but… there was more of Eddie’s voice in it. Less breath. The water kept running, Steve hadn’t put the plug in, so it’d just drain away, but it kept running, raining comfortable summer shower-like warmth upon them. “…Steve?” Eddie turned in his place, Steve’s arms falling lax enough for him to move, albeit slowly, and with a little squeaking from the friction against the sides of the bath tub, but he could move. “Why—why are you… why are you here? You… you can’t be—can’t be here.”
Steve ever so gently lifted his hand to Eddie’s face, to tuck stray, wet curls out of his face, behind his ear. His skin was still so red, still so warm to the touch, but he was there. Steve let his hand linger when Eddie leaned into it, his whole body seeming to press closer to that morsel of contact, breath leaving him in a soft whimper, he was there…
That was the important part, his mind was mostly there, shocked back into place by the cold water, temporarily maybe, but it was enough.
“M’here for you. You weren’t okay, Eddie… why didn’t you use the aid I gave you?” The question had Eddie opening his eyes once more, although they dipped to the space between them, he sagged, his shoulders drooping, defeated.
“Didn’t—didn’t want to—to be a failure.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a bad omega…” he sniffled, then lifted his hand to rub at his nose, breath hitching as he spoke “bad at it all… nobody—nobody wants me—I didn’t wanna—wanna accept that my only option… was a stupid heat aid… I didn’t—I don’t want that.” Omega’s were sought after, alphas naturally flocked to them, courted them, fawned over them, yet Eddie had never had the attention of any alpha. Even at the bars he and his band played at, even among his own people…
Nobody wanted him.
He’d failed at the most basic part of being an Omega, being wanted. Having to use a heat aid because he had literally no other option was just… the final nail in his coffin. The proof that he was worthless. He thought he could hold out, could just wait a little longer, he had Steve’s scent on that blanket, he had the shirt in his nest, Steve’s heated promises for after his heat, but no, it’d taken half an hour for the pain to overwhelm.
He didn’t remember much else besides the agony of watching Steve leave the room. Leave him behind. Abandon him. It felt like he’d been rejected. Like his Alpha didn’t really want him, like none of it was real.
The blanket had stopped helping too quickly. The shirt felt like it no longer belonged, nothing belonged, nothing was right, his nest was wrong. He didn’t remember tearing it apart, but he knew he had. Knew he didn’t have a nest to hide in anymore. He was a bad Omega.
“Eddie that doesn’t make you a failure—”
“You don’t get it!!” Steve flinched back as Eddie snapped at him, the omega fully capable of violence, Steve had the scratches down his arms to prove it, and he could see the elongated canines sharp enough to puncture skin, normally used in bonding rituals but fully capable of tearing through flesh in both defence and offense. “You’ve never failed at the ONE thing your stupid alpha self is naturally meant to be able to do. People FAWNED over you, Steve, people wanted you, people threw themselves at you. Nobody wanted me. An unwanted Omega… have you ever heard of such a pathetic thing? An unwanted Omega? You know I went into heat once at school? Nobody even noticed.”
He'd spent the whole day stuffing his face until the school nurse had caught wind and sent him home, he’d not even been trying to hide his scent, just watched as people kept a wide berth, nobody wanted to touch the freak. Even during the time of the month when he was supposed to be the most attractive to the Alphas around him. Nobody.
Among failing everything else in life, he’d failed at the one thing he should have been born able to do. He was worthless. A worthless Omega.
His only saving grace in the moment was that the water hid the freely falling tears on his face.
“Eddie...”
“You don’t get it... how could you get it?” He put up such a good front, hid behind his loud, expressive, ridiculous self, but he just wanted to be wanted. Just once. Once would be enough just to prove that he could. That he wasn’t a complete failure, just once.
Steve’s other hand joined the first, both palms now cradling the other man’s face, Steve moved, pitched forward and shifted positions until he was on his knees in front of his Omega, awkward and slippery but he managed. “I want you, Eddie” those big dark eyes were on him, red rimmed and heartbroken. Steve leaned in and pressed a kiss to his forehead “I do” another kiss to the tip of his nose “When this is over, I’m going to court the fuck out of you if you’ll let me” another kissed pressed to his cheek, he could feel Eddie relaxing, could feel him falling lax in Steve’s hold. “Gonna give you every quarter I find on the floor cause I know every time you see one you get all giddy about it, I’m gonna get you flowers, wild ones, cause I’ve seen you pick dozens over the years along the sides of the school carpark, I’m gonna get you pretzels covered in chocolate, and every silly Garfield related thing I can find” He’d never ignored Eddie. Not completely.
Sure he didn’t remember Eddie ever going into heat at school, but he’d never completely ignored him.
He was impossible to ignore, always there in his peripherals, doing silly shit in the background of Steve’s life. Steve had been unknowingly learning things about Eddie for as long as he’d known Eddie existed. It’d just taken a while for all that stuff to become relevant.
“When it’s over?” His voice was losing its strength again, the warmth sinking into his bones, haze returning to his gaze as he leaned more and more weight onto Steve, eyelids heavy.
“Just one more day, that’s all I need you to wait, an I’m not going anywhere, Eddie. I’m here, I’m staying. I’ll be with you through the whole damn thing, m’not letting you go again, okay?” They’d have to tranquilize him to get him out, and doing that opened them up to attack from Eddie.
“Nest—Nest is—” his voice broke, weak and full of sadness as he pitched forwards, face slipping from Steve’s hands as he fell forwards into his encircling arms instead, leaning heavily against Steve’s broad chest “gone—broke it—I—I broke it, it’s ruined” bad omega, couldn’t even keep a nest intact.
“I’ll fix it, baby, I know how we did it, I’ll fix it all for you, okay?” Steve stroked slow lines through drenched hair, holding him steady, voice soft, trying so hard to soothe “it’s gonna be okay, Eddie I promise, it’s gonna be okay.”
He just had to get Eddie through one more day.
"Need—need alpha—" One more day.
Part 15
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piratefishmama · 7 months
Text
Nest | Part 12
A Steddie A/B/O ficlet
To be security at a clinic like Nest, there were particular requirements. One of the main ones, was that you had to be a Beta. An Omega or an Alpha couldn’t be security at a clinic like Nest because stereotypically, both could be swayed by pheromones very easily.
One of the other main requirements, was that you could not allow yourself to be intimidated by an Alpha. You could not allow yourself to show fear in the face of a swayed Alpha, you had to be strong, had to be capable, and above all else, you had to have nerves of steel.
Funnily enough however, those requirements weren’t actually that commonly required at the clinic. Much to many outsiders surprise, their Alphas didn’t just go nuts in the presence of an Omega in heat, it was only the unfortunately loudly broadcasted instances of a few that took advantage of such vulnerable members of society, and thus... it was actually kind of terrifying when it DID happen.
When an Alpha turned up, especially one the size of Steve Harrington, chased by one of the reception Betas and the Beta in charge of the entire facility, it was easy to forget the second most important requirement of being security at a heat Clinic, and lose your nerve in the face of one of the largest and most prominent Alphas in the building.
Even if he were usually a giant teddy bear.
“STEVE!” There was Robin, running faster than the elder Beta struggling behind her, “Steve will you stop!”
Steve clearly wasn’t paying any attention to her, something had his focus locked on that door, leaving the two Betas guarding it wide eyed and frankly terrified. Sure Steve wasn’t known for fighting, he wasn’t known for being very proficient at fighting, in fact as far as pretty much everyone in Hawkins knew, Steve wasn’t a fighter in the slightest.
He’d won maybe one fight in his entire life, and that was against another Alpha at the mall who’d insulted the very Beta currently chasing him. It didn’t make him any less terrifying when they were guarding an Omega currently in the most vulnerable of heat stages.
“Move.” He was upon them before either of the two Beta’s could draw their weapons, taser like cattle prods that’d deliver just enough volts to knock an Alpha on their ass long enough for them to be subdued. Barbaric but deeply effective.
“We can’t!” The one on the left found just enough of his voice to squeak out. “You can’t go in the—”
“You don’t understand he needs me, he needs help.”
“Steve!” Robin came up the rear, hands on her knees, chest heaving as she panted her exhaustion “Steve for the love of Christ you can’t go in there!” Her arrival giving just enough of a distraction for both Betas to quickly pull their weapons, holding them defensively. “What exactly do you plan on doing?”
“I don’t KNOW I just—I know he needs me Robin, I cant just leave him like that and you shouldn’t ask me to!” Both guards looked at each other in confusion, Steve wasn’t… acting like an Alpha overcome by pheromones, he wasn’t acting out of his mind. He didn’t even seem that angry, just… determined, their stances faltered.
“Do you even know that it’s safe? That he won’t attack you if you go in? He attacked his uncle, he went for the guys throat and you think he’s just going to accept you into his space like that?”
“If he attacks me, then he attacks me, I have to TRY! I can’t—I can’t just leave him. I can’t. I won’t.” Steve made it all of two steps toward the two baffled Beta guards when he was bodily tackled by Robin, sending him to the floor with an impressive crash and a startled yelp.
Note to selves, don’t fuck with Robin Buckley, she’s a jock in disguise.
“Stop struggling and just—will you just—Steve STOP!” They knew they ought to help, but they were just rooted to the floor, staring in wide eyed bafflement.
“Get off! Robin I swear to God, get OFF me!” Yet no matter how loud Steve raised his voice, he never made any move to force her off. He could have, he could have so very easily hurt her, he was large, he was an alpha, Robin was a sturdy Beta who regularly took zero shit, but she was nowhere near as strong as Steve and he wasn’t in a state where Beta pheromones would stop him.
He was coherent. He was himself. He just pushed against her hold as if he couldn't harm her.
“Miss Buckley let him up!” Owens finally caught up, clearly out of breath.
“But—”
“Let him up, he’s not even fighting you.” They did look quite the sight, like two siblings play fighting without any intent to harm, like a sister had pounced on her brother to stop him from getting her diary, or answering the phone with some crazy embarrassing excuse as to why Robin couldn’t answer it. “He’s harmless.” The only thing missing was laughter. “He’s also right, Mr Munson cannot spend his heat like that, it could cause him irreparable psychological damage” undoubtedly it’d been how he’d always spent his heat.
It was a wonder he’d lasted as long as he had, at least at home he'd been in familiar settings.
“But Steve can’t be the one to go inside” Robin argued as she extracted herself from atop her best friend. “What if he—”
“Steve... you have to know that if anything happens to Eddie while you’re in there. I cannot help you.” Owens ignored Robin entirely as he reached down to help the Alpha up “if he’s harmed in any way, if he leaves this place afterwards and complains, if he pushes for charges to be pressed, I cannot help you. I will undoubtedly be removed from my position as well the moment it’s investigated. Do you understand?” There were rules in place, he’d have broken the rules, Steve would be prosecuted as a dangerous alpha, and Nest would be submerged in scandal.
It’d not only be career ending, but it’d also be life altering in the worst of ways.
“I won’t hurt him.” Steve knew the risks “but I understand” and he knew the consequences of taking those risks and having them blow up in his face.
“Steve...” Robin tried as she pushed herself to her feet “how much of this is your attraction to him? Think about it, would you have done this for anyone else?”
“...Nobody else has needed me to, Robs.” Even if he would have, nobody had needed him. They all seemed to work fine by instincts, they knew what they had to do and had almost no qualms with doing it first time or not.
Eddie wasn’t that. He wasn’t comfortable In the slightest, he didn’t feel right, he wanted a fairy tale, not an unfamiliar room, a weighted blanket, and a fake knot.
He wanted to be pampered, to be loved. So desperate for it that he’d put himself through hell waiting for it to happen.
“But would you if someone had?”
“Yes.” The worst part was, she knew that. She knew he would. He was just that kind of person, he’d always put others before himself. He’d always risk it all to save someone else, he’d take on the world, no matter if he’d known them for years or for mere minutes. If someone needed him, he’d be there, zero hesitation. “You know that though, don’t you?”
Her silence was telling. She knew him better than anyone.
Owens turned to the guards, who’d been silent throughout the interaction, their batons held lax, both curious but unmoving “stand down boys, hand over the key card” their attention snapped to him and his outstretched hand.
“But sir...” the one on the left started, looking between the three hesitantly, “I don’t thi—"
Only to be cut off by “You heard me, hand it over.” They couldn’t say no. Owens was in charge. The key card was deposited into his hand without further argument. “Alright, you’re both dismissed. Neither of you will be involved in this.” For their own good, it was likely that Owens would wind up on the chopping block too if something happened, there were cameras all over that facility for obvious reasons, all an investigative team needed to do was check the footage to see Owens letting Steve into that room. Sure they'd be disciplined for just handing over the card but... that'd be all.
It was a career ender for Steve and Owens. No matter. Owens was due to retire soon anyway.
The two Betas nodded and made their escape without further argument. Owens then turned and offered the card to Steve.
“...Are you really sure about this, Doc?” Robin asked, her voice quiet, full of concern and hesitance.
She knew Steve, knew he’d never hurt anyone, never take advantage, he’d never attack anyone, but... She’d also seen Alphas just snap. Alphas who’d never done anything wrong before, suddenly needing to be taken down by force. She didn’t want to see that happen to Steve, didn’t even want to risk it.
But even she had to admit that Eddie needed help.
“I’d stake my career on it. Steve, just to reiterate, you know the rules… whatever you do in there, if you break them, you’re liable for immediate dismissal and felony charges should it be taken further by the Omega in question and he will have every right to do so. Do you understand?”
“An you’ll be fired too?”
“Oh yeah I’ll be extremely fired.” He handed Steve the keycard “make good choices.”
Part 14
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piratefishmama · 7 months
Text
Nest | Part 11
A Steddie A/B/O ficlet
“Doctor Owens?” The enquiry followed three firm knocks on the slightly ajar door to Owens’ office, his open door policy ensuring the door remained open whenever possible, only when he was in a meeting, or absent from the office, was it ever shut.
“Come in” Owens lifted his gaze from the papers atop his desk to look at the Beta who entered carrying a small manilla folder “Ah, Miss Buckley, what can I do for you?”
“You uh… you told me to inform you when Eddie dropped into the third stage of his heat? I… may have forgotten to do that initially and uhm… he dropped about four hours ago now?” In Robins defence, Steve had been lingering around the cafeteria instead of going home and well… she couldn’t just leave sad Steve on his own. He had those puppy eyes that made everything hurt an he was clearly trying to hide how distressed he was, it wasn’t working at all, but he wouldn’t leave so— “Steve’s been… distressed so I’ve just been a little—” distracted.
“Yes, yes of course he is, of course, he’s out of the room then?” Owens was already rising from his chair, this was… uncharted territory at Nest. A pair of scent mates separated from each other so late into the heat was… okay so anything regarding scent mates was kind of uncharted territory, so to have an observable pair?
Goldmine. It was like a goldmine, but the gold was knowledge, and he was an academic!
“Yep, he’s not left the facility though, he’s just—he’s just in the cafeteria.” It wasn’t too far away from Eddie’s room. And he was bumming everyone out.
It stank of musty, mouldy bread and nothing was bringing him out of it.
“So he could leave without negative effect, good. Good okay, that’s good, walk with me Miss Buckley.” Robin stepped out of the way to allow the elder beta to pass by, quickly closing the door behind them, she hurried to fall into step beside him.
“I wouldn’t say there’s been no negative effect, Steve is—well he’s a mess, and I dunno how Eddie’s doing if—if he’s doing well at all I mean, before the cameras turned off it looked like he was crying an—”
“I merely meant negative as there were no violent outbursts, that Steve was able to leave without being physically harmed, or without Eddie trying to harm himself. I understand there’ll be some distress from both sides of this. Do you have the measurements from the levels in the room?” She handed the file to him, allowing him to check over the enclosed documents with an experienced eye. “…These… are… from how long ago?”
“I got them about ten minutes ago.”
“And you say he’s been dropped for about four hours now?”
“Yes.”
“…Shit.” And the pace picked up into a jog, all the way to what looked, for all intents and purposes, like a closet. Robin had passed by that door, pretty much every single day since she’d started her job, it had a keycard slot on the door like most doors in the facility, but nothing else, a completely ordinary closet.
Except Owens had the keycard to it. “Uhm—” they stopped outside of it.
“Do me a favour Miss Buckley, go get Steve for me, okay? Bring him here and uh… use this on the door when you get back.” He handed her the keycard after using it to open the dark room, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the hallway staring at a little blank plastic card. It had no room number on it, no identifying marks, just… a completely blank, white card.
Somehow she felt like she held the key to the universe. And while she was not prepared for that level of responsibility, Owens had given her a task, and the task involved getting Steve, she could get Steve.
Even if Steve had to be dragged from the cafeteria stinking of mouldy bread, releasing thee most pitiful whines as she dragged him by his hand down the hallway back to that room, going a little bit of a longer route around because the original route passed by Eddie’s room and that’d have just been a disaster.
He was a big alpha! She didn’t want to have to bodily shove him down the hallway away from the room!
That’d have been way too much like a cartoon where someone tried to push a big box or a boulder and just. Ran in place for a bit before flopping to the floor in exhaustion. She wasn’t built to force Alphas into doing things.
He was only allowing her to pull him because he was so sad.
He was breaking her heart, it sucked. But they made it with only limited staring from other staff members which was nice. “Robbie where are we?”
“Owens’ special closet I guess, I dunno he just told me to bring you here.” Keycard inserted, door unlocked, and the dark room had been lit up by a single overhead light, Owens, back facing them, sat in a chair at a desk with many monitors but only one on. “Doctor Owens? I’ve brought Steve” The Beta in charge switched the monitor off and turned to face them.
“Well, you weren’t kidding about the distress, eugh, come in the both of you, bit of a tight squeeze but please close the door behind you.” Robin and Owens weren’t exactly the biggest of people but Steve… Steve was pretty broad. He was the one taking up all the room. “Alright… after today, you both should forget this room exists, usually to enter this room, you need be a Beta, to have several degrees in medical sciences, a psych evaluation every two months, and consent to random spot checks on all your electronic devices both personal and professional done by an external government official. Really only I’m qualified to be in here. Now I only bring you both in… because Miss Buckley, you are closest to Steve, and so could probably get through to him in a crisis, and Steve… because this pertains to your scent mate. Normally, you… really shouldn’t be in here.”
Silence, complete silence, both beta and alpha staring at him in wide eyed confused silence. At least Steve’s sad alpha smell seemed to be dissipating with the distraction.
He continued, “Miss Buckley, the readings you gave me were… strange, usually at this point in an Omegas heat, in layman’s terms, the ‘sexual pheromones’ in that room should be in the red.” Four hours in? That room should be drenched in ‘I’m ready for a knot!!!!’ “It’s not, not even close. It reads like he’s having a nightmare. And these levels here, this… this shouldn’t be so low either, this is unprecidented” he pointed to another bar neither were close enough to read the label of.
“Sorry, sorry, what is this room?” Steve was too busy staring at the papers in Owens hand in complete bafflement as if staring longer would make it make sense. Robin was focused more on the monitors.
“This is a secondary monitoring station, none of the monitors are currently on because you are not qualified to see into those rooms. In cases such as Mr Munson’s, difficult cases, there’s a health and safety addition to the admission papers, it simply means a qualified person is allowed to observe in the third stage of a heat to ensure the omega remains safe during it. Mr Munson is aware that this is in place, and consented to it before his heat began.”
“And… an you’re the only one allowed in here?”
“I’m the only one with the keycard yes, I’d like that back now.” He held out his hand and motioned to give it back, which she did. “Thank you.”
“Why are we here?” Steve finally managed to speak “what’s… what’s this got to do with me?”
“Steve… Eddie isn’t using the heat aids.” Owens reached back behind him, and clicked that monitor back on, going against pretty much every single rule in the rulebook just to show one very soul crushing, grainy image.
Eddie Munson, wrapped up in a weighted blanket cocoon, pressed into the corner of the room away from his nest, head down, face buried in the fabric of the blanket, shaking like a leaf desperately holding on through a hurricane.
Steve was out of that room before either of them could stop him.
Part 13
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piratefishmama · 1 year
Text
Forgiven Not Forgotten | Part 1
Steve wished he could say that that particular moment in his life hadn’t irreparably changed it, worsened it, he wished he could say that who he was, the whole of him, that part of him he now buried deep, deep down, that burying it didn’t cause problems.
Of course, it did. The chain reaction of it caused more problems than anyone could have ever expected. He wasn’t the same after that day.
Nothing in his life was the same after that day.
His mother tried, gods she tried so very hard to get him to open up, to try and get him to talk about what had upset him so much but… it was wrong. It was gross. He was gross.
His parents had always been clean and tidy, always priding themselves on their appearances, he couldn’t be seen being gross why… why did they let him just… keep doing that? Why would they let him keep making them look bad?
Why would they let him make himself look bad?
They should have known it was wrong, right? They should have known it was bad! They should have… they should have told him, but… they didn’t. They set him up for heartbreak, for humiliation, for pain, and he hated them for it.
He pulled away from his parents. And they, baffled as to why, were unable to keep him from withdrawing, were left with a mere shell of the bright little star-kissed boy they’d brought into the world.
Talking to him became difficult, he didn’t talk about his crushes anymore, he didn’t talk about anything to them anymore.
His new friends, Tommy, and Carol, they were… an interesting pair, but… their little boy had friends, so the Harringtons tolerated them, even when they convinced their little boy to go after the sports teams,  to sign up for basketball try-outs and swim team, even when Steve came home with a spot on both, seemingly proud of himself.
Lynda Harrington could see that something was missing. A bright spark, an ember that’d been slowly building, that’d been slowly growing larger and larger as he grew until she’d hoped it’d become a sun had been snuffed out by things unknown. Her baby wouldn’t speak to her like he used to, wouldn’t wear his cute little chef apron, or do ‘girl stuff’ like play dress up or help his mama with her makeup anymore, it was like, overnight, their son had been replaced with an imposter.
John Harrington hated it the most though. Struggled to keep himself in the house, made excuses to stay at work, unable to handle the fact that he could see his son reshaping himself into something he’d never been before, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.
He hated the sports teams, although the men who worked for him often congratulated him on having a star athlete for a son. He hated the people that came with them, the people his son claimed to be friends with, they were awful children, who grew into awful teenagers, the majority bullies, those bad influences gradually influencing their son into something his friends dubbed King Steve. A boy he and his wife no longer recognised.
A boy who threw parties at the house while his parents weren’t home, forced away on business trips they couldn’t get out of and couldn’t take him along with thanks to school, allowing them to come home to precious possessions smashed, beer cans littered around the house, around the pool, the stank of marijuana clinging to their soft furnishings.
His own wife now questioned their marriage, his faithfulness, all because she’d found a bra in their bedroom that didn’t belong to her, spoke to her friends about it before confronting him. All John could assume was that one of Steve’s little parties had included teens getting up to no good in the bedrooms.
Safe to say the entire closet of bed linens had been burned, new were bought immediately, and cameras were installed around the house. Lynda still didn’t trust him.
And then work picked up. John Harrington’s firm went global, their money increased tenfold, but so did the workload, and with Lynda no longer trusting him, she was always by his side, watching, waiting for a sign, any kind of hint, a scrap of infidelity to prove it to herself… John hadn’t ever so much as looked at another woman, how could he? He’d married his high school sweetheart and even through her paranoia, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
It meant Steve was alone more often as he grew older, but… John couldn’t spend too much time around his son anymore anyway, he wished he could. He wished he could sit his boy down, wished he could wrap him in his arms and tell him it was going to be okay, that whatever it was that’d done that damage so long ago, they’d face it, they’d deal with it, and they’d put it behind them.
It was too late. His son had grown up. His bright star of a little boy was gone and neither he, nor his wife, could get an answer out of him as to why. John never claimed that to be good parenting either, avoiding the problem, he knew he was taking the cowards way out, it ate at him more than he ever allowed show. That didn’t help their home life.
And then a young woman disappeared from their pool. The cameras around the house picked up nothing, the image flickering with static, showing the poor girl there one moment, then gone the next, no sign of where she’d gone between the brief flicker of static. The government had shown up and confiscated the tapes before the police could come by. Not that the police knew about the cameras.
They weren’t exactly obvious.
And Steve, for the first time in his life, came home with a girlfriend. And a face full of injuries. But a girlfriend! Something steady, something stable, with someone from a respectable family, someone with brains, someone with a good head on her shoulders, something that spontaneously combusted about a year later.
Disappointing, but the face full of injuries was more important. Even if Steve wouldn’t tell them about it.
Steve dropped the swimming team.
Then came Steve’s spectacularly bad grades in school leaving him graduating but going nowhere fast in terms of college. Then came John Harrington putting his foot down, demanding Steve get a job, he’d even grabbed a ‘We’re Hiring’ flyer from the new mall after he and Lynda had gone shopping the day before.
Then the mall fire. More bruises, this time scars. The nightmares that woke their son up, and them, in the middle of the night with his screaming that he’d never explain. This time eye doctors, otolaryngologists, their boy suffered a ruptured eardrum the doctor claimed would likely get worse with time, that he’d eventually need hearing aids, another concussion, he couldn’t get his son to explain where the blunt force trauma had come from, but John swore never to force his son into work again.
Steve still grabbed a new job with his new friend Robin at the local Family Video store. A glimmer of that ember they’d thought had died out, peeking through the cracks in the walls Steve had long since put up.
The Harringtons had been proud, for the first time in so very long, they’d been proud. Thrilled. They’d spent much longer in Hawkins after that, attempting to build bridges that’d long since been destroyed, before they’d had to go again, “There’s utter chaos in the London branch, Steve, we’ll send you money for groceries every week and don’t forget to water the plants! We should be home by the end of the month okay?”
Then came the serial killer.
The Earthquake.
Then, the phone call.
“Mom, just… just stay out of Hawkins okay, just… just stay on your business trip with dad, alright?” The line was crackly at best, Lynda on the phone from their hotel room in London, John close by, listening as best he could.
“Sweetheart we saw on the news, that girl, the Earthqua—”
“Yeah, yeah mom, it’s… it’s bad here, look just stay there. Wherever you are right now, just stay there until I call again, alright? Just don’t come home. I’ll stay in touch as best I can okay? Just sta—”
“Steve? Steve?! Steve!!” Lynda pulled the phone away from her ear, the steady beep of a call disconnected going off from the speaker. Her panicked gaze turning from the handset to her husband “John!”
“Give me the phone, I’m getting us home.”
He wasn’t able to get them home. Not all the way. Hawkins was locked down solid. They got as close as six miles away, holed up in a motel close enough to see the plumes of black, billowing up into the skies above filled with angry red lights flashing intermittently like lightning, as if a volcano had erupted and the pyroclastic flow just wouldn’t stop, helicopters circled the town daily but reports never made it out of the little town.
They heard nothing for weeks, for months. There was no news on Hawkins anywhere on the channels, it was as though the place had vanished from the face of the Earth despite constant surveillance, but they watched from a hill high enough to see the town in the distance.
They watched it every single day, a radio on, the TV on, waiting for news, waiting for something, anything. Months turned into a year, in that time the Harringtons moved their things from the motel into a town a few miles further south, renting a modest two bed there, watching the smoke, waiting for a call, for anything to say their son was okay.
Anything to say that he was alive.
A year turned into two. Arguments led to tears, led to apologies, led to promises that if, if he were alive in there, they’d try harder, they’d figure it out. They’d get their little boy back, the one that loved freely, openly, the one that talked to them, the one that played house, played dress up with his mom, who cooked with his little apron on, they’d get their little boy back no matter what it took.
That they wouldnt stop hoping until news came to tell them he was gone.
And then just like that. The smoke disappeared. Swallowed up, gone. The skies slowly cleared above a dead Hawkins, revealing shrivelled trees, a horrorscape of a place that looked as though it'd been left to rot decades ago.
Lynda’s incredibly expensive mobile phone rang.
“…Mom?”
Part 3
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piratefishmama · 7 months
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Fake it 'Till you Make it | Part 14
“Eye Spy… with my little eye… something beginning wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith T”
“Is it tree?”
“God, how do you keep doing that?”
“That’s been your fifth tree in six rounds, Eddie.”
“There’s loads of trees!!”
Steve was driving, he’d taken the driver’s seat of the rental car, Eddie calling shotgun putting his parents in the back seat, which neither really minded as they still had a few things to work out that they’d put on the back burner to allow Steve and Eddie to take those middle seats on the plane.
“Okay my turn, eye spy, with my little eye, something beginning with… T.”
“Is it tree?”
Steve sniggered but shook his head no. “No it’s not tree.”
“Can I have a hint?”
“It’s black.”
“T and black… can I have another hint?”
“You only get two hints are you sure you wanna use it now?” It was actually quite cute how Eddie hesitated, hand lifting to his chin, fingernails caught on his bottom teeth. “Maybe try another guess?”
“T and black…” Eddie looked down, and around himself, there was nothing outside that fit the bill, so it had to be inside the car. “T… and black… it’s definitely black, and begins with T… Teeelevision?”
“Do you see a television?”
“No.”
“No, Eddie, it’s not a television” he clicked his fingers in disappointment, as if it were actually a plausible guess.
“Tuuuuuaardvark.”
“What the hell is a tuaardvark?”
“An aardvark with a Tu at the beginning.” Steve really was trying to focus on the road, but Eddie was so effortlessly funny that it was impossible not to laugh. “Okay gimmie the hint, and make it a juicy one. An I do mean juicy, it needs to rival your—”
“Eddie!”
“Your juicy personality, get thy glorious head and its voluminous hair out of the gutter, baby.” He got a quiet giggle out of Lynda with that one, both parents trying not to get involved. They had things to do, even a getaway had work involved.
“For that alone I’m only going to tell you that there’s a few of them.” But he was going to smile about it, because he couldn’t stop himself from smiling, it was just… to hard to not smile around Eddie. His enjoyment was as infectious as his happiness.
“Awh shit, I always knew I’d be my own undoing. Go on then, put me out of my misery.”
“You sure you don’t want one more guess?”
“Do you think that’d help?”
“I think if you really look you could get it.”
“God you have such confidence in me, where was this support when I was trying to graduate? Okay.” Eddie pulled his long legs up and awkwardly crossed them in his seat, eyes skimming the surrounding area, then dipping down, brows furrowed in thought. A black few things beginning with T… a black few things, beginning with T… Teeee tee-tee-tee-tee-teeeee…teeeeshirt?”
“No, it’s not T-shirt.”
“Shit. Okay, not T-shirt” he reached up his hand and scratched his cheekbone, and out of the corner of his eye— he gasped sharply and yelled, “tattoo!!”
“Ladies and gentlemen of the car, he’s GOT IT!” There was a polite round of applause from the back seat that Eddie turned back to bow to, hands clasped together in victory. “Ooh, we’re almost there, one more round I think, and don’t pick a tree.”
“Okay! Okay lemme think, let me think, leeet me…OOH, eye spy, with my little eye, something beginning with M.”
“It’s mole isn’t it?”
“GodDAMMIT!”
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Eddie had no idea what to expect when they started their journey, he had no idea what their end result would look like, he had a vague idea that it’d probably be extravagant, and that maybe he wouldn’t like the look of it purely going off of the Harrington’s house back in Hawkins, that place looked cold.
It looked empty.
What sat nestled at the end of a long woodland driveway, was nothing like the Harrington House.
Sure, it was large, could probably fit a good few families in there with room to spare, but it was styled like a log-cabin, just, bigger. It was all wood undoubtedly farmed from the surrounding areas, natural stone work making up the foundation and the chimney probably mined from the mountains around them, and glass windows.
It looked… huge but still so cosy.
Like the inside would probably smell a little like Christmas and warm every inch of you just by standing in it.
“Okay,” Eddie turned around in his seat to look into the back, and really did try and school his tone into something as respectful as he possibly could manage “not to disrespect your house in Hawkins but why would you live there in that if you have this out here?” Hawkins was a shithole in Eddie’s opinion, it was full of backwards thinking angry church types with vendettas against fun and honestly nothing happened there.
The most exciting thing to happen in Hawkins in the history of ever, was when an owl attacked Eleanor Gillespie’s hair because it looked suspiciously like a nest.
They had no creepy ghost stories, no weird happenings, no strange people unless you count himself and maybe a few of the hellfire kids, maybe his bandmates, but it was boring. He wanted out. The only thing keeping him there was… well… his Uncle.
“It’s not ours” John answered as the car pulled to a stop outside of the slowly opening garage, the eldest Harrington putting his things back into his bag and unclipping the seatbelt. “It’s Steven’s.” And that wide-eyed stare was immediately switched from the elder Harrington’s to the youngest, the sheepishly smiling Steve.
“It belonged to my grandparents, or well… my grandpa. He left it to me in the will, but we’ve been coming here to spend time with them for years this is just… the second year now without either of them here.” They had a maintenance guy, or multiple guys on retainer who’d go in once every two weeks to keep the place clean, but other than that it remained empty. Eddie couldn’t stop himself from placing a comforting hand on Steve’s shoulder, expression softening, Steve shook his head though, “sorry, that just set a weird mood, let’s just… get inside and get settled, yeah? I’ll even let you pick our room.”
“Room as in… one room? For the both of us? That’s—that’s uhm” he looked back at the parents “that’s okay with you guys?”
“Sure, again it’s not our house.” And even if it was, both John and Lynda figured Steve would wind up in Eddie’s room anyway “we’d prefer it though if you picked one on the other side of the house to ours.” John opened the car door, catching Eddie’s attention again “we’ve been burned by those old wooden walls before.” And then he was out of the car, followed by Lynda who he helped climb out, leaving both men in the car alone while they made their way to the house.
Steve pulled forwards into the vacant garage, the door to shut behind them, and a light automatically switched on, replacing the darkness of the garage with a warm white light.
“They’re not the only ones who’ve been burned, trust me.” Steve shook his head with an amused smile as he cut the engine. “Is the one room okay, Eddie? It’s not like… crossing any lines with you, is it?” His parents weren’t there, they couldnt hear them, there was no reason to pretend, even if he did want to try and make it as realistic as possible as per Robin’s idea, he had to keep checking in with Eddie to make sure he was okay.
“No! No, no it’s okay… I’ve never… I haven’t really… shared a room with anyone before” only child, and Wayne had given him the only room in the trailer “is it like… a two bed situation or—”
“One bed, Eddie… one room, one bed, there’s only one room in that house with multiple beds in it and it’s full of bunk beds from when I was twelve an all the cousins used to visit around the same time… it might seem a bit weird if we pick that one.” He was going to be spending an entire week… sleeping in the same bed as Steve Harrington, in what was essentially a dream house nestled in the woods.
He was going to get used to it. He was going to get used to it all, and it was going to kill him to leave it all at the end of the week. It was going to destroy him to lose it all.
“Heh… maybe—maybe someday we could bring the kids up, they could stay in the bunk bed room” grin and bear it, maybe it’d all work out if he just… went with the flow. Wishful thinking usually went against the good ol Munson Doctrine, but… everything Steve had been doing since they first started their whacky plan had flown in the face of that stupid doctrine so… maybe deviating from it wouldn’t hurt as bad as it could if he just… went with it.
“I mean… we could force them to use the bunkbeds, an that could be pretty funny”
They probably wouldn’t be as psyched to stay in bunkbeds as they would have been back when they were all tiny, squishy middle schoolers, although it’d probably be easier to get their parents to agree to the trip now they were older.
“Payback for all the shit they’ve thrown at us over the years.”
“It’s like you’re in my brain.”
Part 16
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piratefishmama · 7 months
Text
Fake it Till you Make it | Part 17
And adorable.
If one were to ask Steve what he thought was about to happen, he’d be pretty fucking certain that he’d be correct in the fact that Eddie would have kissed him.
He’d have gotten up, crowded Steve against the closet door, and kissed him, and he’d have happily let that and whatever naturally followed happen, had watched in barely contained excitement as Eddie moved, then in deeply fond amusement, as Eddie got himself tangled up in the blankets on the bed and ate shit off the side of it in his haste to get up.
So now Eddie was just lying there, half off the bed, long hair dusting the shaggy rug on the floor, arms over the edge, fingers touching the floor, face down against the blankets, unmoving, wallowing in shame.
Steve adored him.
There wasn’t another word for it. It was a deep, all consuming fondness that warmed his entire being. A fondness that couldn’t allow him to just let Eddie wallow there in embarrassment, so he closed the bedroom door for a little privacy and lowered himself down to his knees in front of the bed. In front of Eddie’s defeated form. “Eddie?” The response was nothing but an oh so sorry for himself little whine. “Oh Bambi… look at me?”
“No. Nope, I’m good here.” Steve huffed a soft little laugh before he crouched lower, hands to the floor, body twisted so he could look up at Eddie from below, using one of his fingers to shift Eddie’s hair out of the way. “Leave me here to wallow.”
“But how will I get the kiss I’m betting my entirely wasted college fund I was gonna get, if you stay there and wallow?” At least that got him to lift his head, surprise flashing across his face as he took in Steve’s position below him “There he iiisss, wanna sit up for me?” It was like Eddie was some frightened animal, expression uncertain, as if expecting ridicule or insult, even as he slowly inched himself back onto the bed, sitting back on his haunches, fingers curled around his own hair holding the strands in front of his face. He looked so small for someone who was actually quite big.
For someone who had the higher position with Steve still on the floor.
So innocent, so perfectly pretty, all dark colours against the white of the sheets and the disarrayed blankets, Steve wanted to ruin him. And then keep him forever.
“You… you want the kiss?” Oh yeah, he was going to get that kiss. Could feel it in the air, the electricity, the calm before a storm where static built before lightning struck. Sure all of that confidence Eddie had momentarily built was now gone, but Steve knew it’d been there. Knew the desire was there. That was more than enough.
“I do if you want to give me one, yeah.” He lifted himself up onto his knees, hands on the edge of the bed, pushing himself up just enough, tilting his head just so, so that if Eddie could feel that same electricity, if Eddie knew to strike, he’d take that chance.
But Eddie didn’t seem as clued up as Steve’s usual hits tended to be. He wanted to, there was no doubt there, but just like in the trailer with their practice, which disappointingly enough they’d not actually needed thus far, Eddie needed coaxing. Needed to be shown that it was okay, he was allowed to want, allowed to take what he wanted, that it was freely up for offer and that all he had to do was take it.
Eddie talked a big game, but present him with a chance at actual intimacy, even something as casual as kissing, and he’d turn into a statue. Or trip over himself and eat dirt. “Can—Can you come up here?”
Steve didn’t miss a thing. One wouldn’t be wrong to call him a little on the stupid side at times, he lacked the intelligence of his small hoard of goblins, but he was observant, he knew what to look for, caught things that most wouldn’t, so when he braced himself, both hands flat on the mattress and pushed himself up, he didn’t miss the way Eddie’s eyes watched his forearms flex. Didn’t miss how he gulped a harsh swallow of gathering saliva, didn’t miss the slight pupil dilation, the flushed cheeks were already there but the rest?
That electricity crackled around them. Eddie didn’t move though.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting it, you know that right?” Steve had to say it as he joined Eddie on the bed, Eddie tracking his every movement yet unmoving, doe eyes wide as if caught in headlights “I mean, I had a little freak out at first too but... remember in the trailer? How easy it became when you just let yourself go?” How he’d just melted into it, the desire was there, the want, bubbling beneath the surface, desperate to break free.
“It’s not that simple, Steve...” no, not to Eddie, it wouldn’t be, would it? Not usually, and certainly not now with the whole... it’s not real thing hanging over their heads. A hurdle they’d have to get over.
Steve caught Eddie’s chin in between his fingers just as the man tried to break eye contact “you’re thinking way too hard about this, Eddie, where’s all that gusto gone, huh?” He wanted those big brown doe eyes on him.
“Buried by shame.” Eddie pulled his head free from Steve’s grip and sat back on his rear. “And that’s probably for the best too, I mean...there’s no reason to, right? It’s just us in here so you—I mean, we, don’t have to pretend in here, do we?” No reason to get caught up in hormones that should have ebbed years ago. “I mean, in front of your parents, if we have to then—then sure, that’s fine, but... in here?” The bedroom was the safe zone, where they didn’t have to keep up the façade.
“Eddie... I’m going to say this once... just once... and then maybe again every single time you need to hear it because I’m very confident in the fact that you want me, very confident there, almost too confident, but that is mutual, the wanting thing, not the confidence thing because you’re clearly lacking that. The want thing? Very mutual, you’re very attractive and it’s very hard to keep my hands to myself, so if you want it, there’s no pretending here, I would—I mean, I also want that.” Steve had no problem going for things he wanted, even if that thing happened to be a very jumpy metal head he wouldn’t have been seen within ten feet of back in high school. “Why torture ourselves when we could be getting something we both want?”
High school Steve could and very much should go suck something long and hard. Probably blow his damn mind.
Eddie, sweet, innocent, somewhat feral Eddie, took a breath, “you uh... you use those lines on all the girls?” and dared a smile, just enough of one to dimple his cheek in that way that made Steve want to smush them with kisses.
“Never had any of em think this hard about it.” Even the ‘good Christian girls’ didn’t think that hard about it. Steve shifted a little in place, shuffling just a little closer to Eddie. “I’m gonna ask, and if you say no… then that’s that, I’ll respect your wishes” he’d respect the boundaries Eddie put in place no matter how tempting it was to cross them “Can I kiss you, Eddie? Not for this whole thing with my parents but… just to kiss you?”
“…You really want to?”
“Really not sure why that’s so hard to believe, man have you looked in a mirror?” Eddie had always been pretty, he’d always been attractive, he was just… also very loud, and argumentative, and he hurled abuse at the jocks like it was his job to do so. Now… he was quieter, still loud in his own way, but… not in the same way, the post-high school life suited him.
“So it’s strictly physical then, I see how it is” Steve snorted a laugh as he leaned in, butterflies flapping up a storm in his chest because Eddie wasn’t moving away, he was leaning in, didn’t pull away when Steve rested his hand on Eddie’s cheek, cupping his jaw.
“Oh shut up” The giggles puffed against his smiling lips right before they connected? Far superior to any lust-charged kiss, any day.
Part 19
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