#stancy ficlet

[steddieasitgoes]

written for @eddiemonth Day 16 Prompt: Library & Curious a/n: This one might be my favorite one I've written yet! It's set at the start of season 2! read on ao3 | link to my ao3 Edde Month series

Eddie’s well aware there are a lot of stupid classes that Hawkins High requires its student body to take. Algebra (there’s no reason for the alphabet and numbers to mix, except in very rare cases, like D20 type cases), Physics (what more do they need to know beyond what goes up, must come down), French (as if anyone from Bumfuck, Indiana could afford to go to France — okay maybe some can, but Eddie’s certainly not one of them that’s for damn sure), goddamn Physical Education (only way he’s running is if someone is chasing him, thank you very much). But the stupidest class of all has to be Study Hall.

An entire class dedicated to doing work for other classes? What kind of idiot dreamed this one up? Instead of letting them out an hour early, some guy, probably in a suit because all bad ideas come from guys in suits, decided to hold them hostage to do more work. It’s ridiculous. Not to mention, it’s one of the few times, outside of lunch, that the grades get to mingle with each other. Sure, lots of studying goes on in between freshmen drooling over seniors and sophomores paying juniors for last year’s test answers.

The only time Eddie actually liked study hall was during his sophomore year when he had it first period and could do all the homework he neglected to do the night before. It’s the only time it actually made sense. And the only time, thus far in his high school career, that Eddie actually turned in more assignments than not.

But now, he’s a senior stuck with study hall as his last class of the day, and he wants to die. Okay, maybe not die die. But die in the sense that he’d rather risk bodily harm escaping the hellscape that is the Hawkins library during 6th-period study hall than sit here. His freedom is so close — nothing but a few windows and a brick wall separating him from the brisk late-October air. Eddie can’t risk it, though. He’s already reached his detention quote for the semester, and if he wants to keep using the drama room for Hellfire meetings, he has to sit in this damn library seat and at least pretend to get some work done.

Which, honestly, isn’t the worst thing in the world. At least it gives him time to work on his latest Hellfire campaign without the prying eyes of Jeff and Gareth or the unnecessary questions from Freak. Sure, he’s supposed to be working on an essay for English Lit, but he doesn’t think Ms. Washington is going to appreciate his take on Frankenstein, so he’ll worry about coming up with a dumbed-down idea another day.

Besides, even focusing on his new campaign is hard enough with the idle chatter going on that the librarian is either pretending not to hear or is too tired of shushing them for.

It’s the usual sort of study hall gossip. Who’s screwing who. What teacher is going to pull a pop quiz tomorrow and become the biggest asshole at Hawkins High. The occasional nervous whispers of the geeks actually studying.

It’s all mindless chatter that drifts into the background when the topic of Tina’s Halloween Bash comes up. That’s the real gossip of the night. Who got the keg, and what other alcohol is being provided? Who is going to be the best dressed? What couple is going to get caught screwing in Tina’s parent’s bed? Are there going to be any good fights or breakups?

Eddie rolls his eyes. Jesus H. Christ, can’t anybody be original around here?

Unfortunately for Eddie, there’s no escaping Tina’s Halloween Bash since he’s been summoned to provide some extra party favors, as the “cool” kids like to call them. Eddie, never one to back down from being a thorn in a “cool” kid’s side, always responds with the same spiel: “Drugs. What you want is drugs, right? Or should I go raid Melvald’s for you?”

Whatever. Money is money, and Eddie can take all the money he can get his grubby hands on if he wants to get out of this shit-hole town when he graduates in June.

Glancing at his watch, he tips his head back in a silent groan of annoyance. Only ten minutes have passed since he slunk into the uncomfortable library seat. Christ, why does time move so slow, sometimes? Eddie tries to focus on his Hellfire notes in front of him, and he’s successful for all of thirty seconds before something catches his attention in the corner of his eye.

Nancy Wheeler and the former Hawkins High King, Steve Harrington, are whispering to each other by the pencil sharpener. He rolls his eyes. Of course, no one else in the library is paying them any mind. And why would they? Harrington fell from grace last year, and Wheeler isn’t exactly the “look at me” type. Still, Eddie finds them morbidly interesting in a way he finds all the tragic heterosexual couples in this stupid small town interesting.

Before Eddie has a chance to fall deeper into his cynical outlook on this stupid Hawkins High couple, Wheeler starts tugging Harrington toward the private study room in the back of the library. It’s a move that shocks Eddie to his core. Don’t get him wrong, he’s heard all bout Harrington’s little trysts in that very room over the years (thank you gossip mill for the very cheap porn), but he never would have assumed Wheeler would be the one tugging him toward it.

It’s that detour from who she’s supposed to be that has Eddie peeling himself off his chair.  At least, that’s what he tells himself as he saunters toward the stack of books in the back of the library closest to the private room. If he hears moaning or anything remotely sounding like they’re hooking up, he promises himself he’ll leave. He’s a freak in many ways, but a creep, he is not.

Glancing over his shoulder, Eddie can see the two of them in the small room. They’re close but not close enough to be doing anything beyond talking. From the look on her face, doing anything of that sort isn’t even on her mind.

Interesting.

Eddie creeps closer.

“Barbara. It’s like nobody cares. Except her parents. And now they’re selling their house.”

“Nance—“

Wheeler rants about something, but he misses most of it. Only catching the very end.

“It’s destroying them.”

No shit, Eddie thinks with another dramatic eye roll. Of course, losing their only daughter is destroying them. The Hollands are one of the few families around here that actually have a heart. At least they did before Barbara tore it from them by running away. Or so the story goes. Eddie’s always been a bit suspicious of Holland’s disappearance. He knows the runaway type, and a straight-A girl, with a well-off family who loves them like Holland had doesn’t fit the bill.

“I know. Okay? I get it,” Harrington says, glancing away from Wheeler to peer out the window. Eddie grabs the first book on the shelf and buries his face in it. It must fool Steve because he starts talking again. “But listen, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Yeah, we could tell them the truth.”

“This isn’t some game, Nance. If they found out that we told any…” He trails off again, and Eddie reaches for another book.

Eyes peering over the pages, Eddie watches as he shuts the blinds before presumably returning to Wheeler. With the blinds shut and their voices even lower, he can no longer hear what they’re talking about. Which is a damn shame because Eddie’s never been more curious about what the disgraced King was about to say than right now. 

+ + +

“M’telling you guys. It was weird,” Eddie says through a mouthful of Doritos.

They’re hanging out in Gareth’s garage. Jeff sits in the old recliner while Gareth stays perched behind his drum kit. Freak is running late, as usual, though Eddie’s not too pressed about it today. Too distracted filling the boys in on what he overheard in the library.

“I don’t know man; it sounds like she was just concerned about her best friend,” Gareth says, lightly tapping his drumsticks on his snare.

“Yeah, those two were inseparable, remember.”

“All the more reason why it’s weird she’s been mopping around lately. Obviously, she knows where Holland is. Or what happened to her.”

“Not this again,” Jeff groans, sinking further into the recliner.

“Yes, this again,” Eddie retorts, throwing Jeff an intense glare. “This town is weird as shit. If the Byers kid can come back from the dead—“

“I thought they proved it wasn’t actually Byers they found in the quarry,” The Freak says, finally joining them in the garage. 

“They did, but Eddie still thinks—“

“Shut up!” Eddie shouts, taking a moment to throw a Dorito at all of their heads. “Let me level with you for a second, okay? Yeah, sure, they said that kid wasn’t Byers, but they never said whose kid it was, which is weird. And then right after that, they “find” Holland’s car? It’s too coincidental, man. You know a story isn’t right when it’s too easy.”

“This isn’t one of our campaigns,” Gareth sighs. “Sometimes things really are just accidental coincidences.”

Eddie shakes his head, running his Dorito-stained fingers over his face. “Nah, man, m’not buying it this time. Harrington and Wheeler know what really happened to Holland. And I think they’re responsible for it.”

“So, what?” Jeff asks, leaning forward so his elbows rest on his knees. “You think they made her disappear or something.”

“Maybe Harrington got Holland knocked up, and his family gave her money to leave.”

“See!” Eddie shouts, slapping his hands together as he jumps on the balls of his feet. “Freak gets it! That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

“Okay, but if Harrington knocked Wheeler’s best friend up, why would she still be dating him?” Jeff asks.

“And why would they both be hiding her from her parents?” Gareth adds.

Okay, so maybe these are valid questions, but Eddie doesn’t appreciate the doubts they’re throwing at him. “I don’t appreciate you doubting me,” he says plainly. “You’ll see. M’gonna figure this out.”

“Right, just like you figured out that Ms. O’Donnell was actually failing you for a reason and not because she had some vendetta against Wayne for not dating her.”

“Hey. That was a good theory, okay. One I still think is true, by the way.” Turning his back on the boys, Eddie crosses the room and tosses the empty bag of Doritos into the trash bin before heading towards his badly parked van.

“I thought we were practicing!” Gareth shouts after him.

“Just let him go,” Jeff sighs. “He’s impossible to work with when he’s in conspiracy theory mode.”

Eddie flips Jeff off, climbing into the van. “I’ll see you boys tomorrow.”

+ + +

Eddie’s been at Tina’s party for an entire hour and a half, and there’s still no sign of Harrington or Wheeler. Not that he’s actively searching them out, of course. He’s just had some downtime in between upselling Hagan for the world’s shittiest pot he could get his hands on, and explaining to some cheerleader how Special K hits differently if you snort it. Plus, his supply ran out about ten minutes ago, so he’s just buying time before someone notices him lingering and kicks his ass to the curb.

He’s about to save himself and whatever jock gets thrown his way the trouble, when he spots Harrington and Wheeler arguing by the punch bowl. He’s too far away to hear what they’re saying, but he has a sneaking suspicion it has less to do with the conversation he heard in the library and more to do with Wheeler’s drunken state. Case in point: the red liquid she just spilled all over her blouse.

Chasing after her, Harrington cuts through the crowd and makes his way toward one of the bathrooms. Eddie waits a minute before following them down the crowded hallway. Thankfully, no one is in line for this bathroom — still too early in the night for the alcohol to have hit their bladders — so he’s first in the unofficial bathroom line. Leaning casually against the wall, Eddie angles his ear closer to the door so he can hear inside.

It takes a minute for his ears to tune out the music and nonsense chatter, but when they do, he can clearly hear Wheeler slurring her words.

“You’re pretending like everything’s okay. You know, like we didn’t… like we didn’t kill Barb.”

Eddie’s never experienced shock before, at least, he doesn’t think he has; the early days of his life are a little hazy around the edges, but that’s the only word he thinks fits what he’s experiencing right now. Part of him wants to shove his ear closer to the door to continue listing, while the other part of him wants to run for the hills, screaming in victory. And if he’s straight with himself, maybe screaming in fear a little, too. Harrington and Wheeler murderers? Who knew?

He knew, that’s who!

He knew there was something shady going on between those two.

Pressing his ear closer, he can hear Wheeler slurring more words, though he’s not exactly sure what she’s saying. Honestly, he doesn’t really care what she’s saying. He’s listening for Harrington’s response right now. What does the mighty King have to say about the bomb she’s just dropped?

“This is bullshit,” she slurs.

“Like we’re in love?” Steve asks.

Huh, clearly, Eddie missed a step or two in his shocked state.  He’s not exactly sure how the conversation strayed from them killing Holland to their, clearly, toxic relationship, but the fact it did is all the proof Eddie needs. If they didn’t kill her, Harrington would have been vehemently denying her claim. And yet, he sounds like a kicked puppy dog right now because she doesn’t love him.

Join the club, Harrington.

The doorknob starts to jiggle, and Eddie bolts. It’s not that he’s afraid about coming face-to-face with the two who apparently killed Holland. It’s just that, well, he needs a minute to think about the information he’s just learned.

+ + +

With Gareth and Freak both busy supervising their siblings around Hawkins and Jeff on candy duty for his family’s house, Eddie has no one to share the good bad news with. RIP Holland and all that, but he’s sitting on some serious dirt right now.

The good part of Eddie’s brain knows he should head straight for the police station. Pull good ole’ Chief Hopper aside and gloat about how he did his job for him. But Eddie’s spent enough time at the stuffy station to know no one is going to believe him especially not against Harrington and Wheeler. He’d have better luck marching in there and turning himself in for her murder. Not that he’s going to do that.

He supposes he could tell Wayne about it, but he doesn’t need to be dragging his uncle into any more of his messes. And since Eddie has no proof beyond overhearing a drunken confession, a mess it’ll surely turn into.

So, he opts for the third option and heads out to Skull Rock to do some thinking.

Maybe Freak is right, and it was some sort of jealous rage brought on by a Holland-Harrington pregnancy. Or maybe Holland saw something she shouldn’t have; the possibilities are endless, and Eddie’s imagination is limitless.

Eventually, he circles back to what he’s supposed to do with this information. Should he turn them in? Maybe not Wheeler; she seems like she’s experienced enough guilt as it and the girl has a bright future or whatever it is the teachers are always talking about. Harrington, though? Harrington, he should turn in, right? I mean, he didn’t even seem phased when Wheeler brought up the murder. Eddie’s watched enough horror movies to know that’s psychopath behavior right there. Besides, it would be nice to see the King behind bars. But then again, he hasn’t been the King in a while. And Harrington’s never really done anything to Eddie beyond standing idle while Hagan threw slurs at him. But he’s not hanging out with Hagan anymore, so maybe he should cut him some slack.

Though they did murder someone.

Jesus H. Christ.

Maybe this is why they say curiosity killed the cat — Eddie’s head is throbbing. He’s about to take another hit from his joint when he hears leaves crunching in the distance.

Shit.

Someone’s coming.

Snubbing out his joint against the rock, Eddie tries his best to make it seem like he’s just here, escaping the busy Halloween night. Which, like, he definitely is, but he can’t be too safe. Especially not when there are two teenage murderers on the loose.

“She thinks m’bullshit? She’s bullshit! Bullshit.”

The voice is unmistakable.

Jesus H. Christ could tonight get any weirder.

Eddie’s only escape is to run deeper into the forest, and he’s not about to do that so he makes himself comfortable on top of Skull Rock like a fucking sitting duck. Searching the pockets of his vest, he yanks out a pack of cigarettes and his lighter. Neither of which he was looking for. Of course, he left his pocket knife in his van. Stupid. So stupid!

There’s a moment of silence before Harrington emerges from the clearing. The moon is bright above them, making Steve’s tear-stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes glow in the otherwise dark forest.

Maybe he is feeling guilty after all.

“Ah, fuck,” Harrington groans, stumbling to the ground.

Eddie watches as he rolls around for a moment, struggling to find his footing. If Eddie were a mean person, he might let Harrington suffer. But something about his behavior reminds him of a wounded animal, and Eddie’s always had a soft spot for bruised and broken things.

“Shit, Harrington, you okay?” Eddie asks, jumping down.

Eddie’s boots crunch against the leaves, startling Harrington. He manages to pull himself into a seated position and brandishes a near empty beer bottle in Eddie’s direction. “Stay back!”

“Woah, man,” Eddie yelps, hands raised in surrender in front of him. “Don’t kill me.”

“Oh, s’you,” Steve says, slumping against the tree behind him. He tosses the beer bottle aside and runs both his hands over his face. “Jesus. Why does everyone think I would kill s-someone?”

“Uh,” Eddie stutters, glancing around. Now’s his chance to make a break for it. Put those hours of physical education to good use and sprint to the van before Harrington has a chance to make him his next victim. But there’s something in Steve’s sad eyes and dejected voice that makes Eddie stay. “‘Cause you have killed someone before?”

“Man, what the hell are you talking about?” Harrington snaps, fumbling to get out of his jacket. “I’ve n-never killed anyone.”

“So, you didn’t kill Barbara Holland, then?”

“No! Jesus, ‘course not. Barb was… Barb was nice. She was good. Like Nance. Better than Nance, maybe. I don’t know,” Harrington whines, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Barb she’s… yeah, man, she’s dead. But I didn’t have anything to do with that. N-not in the way you think I did, at least.”

Harrington’s not making a lot of sense, which only spurs Eddie’s curiosity on more. Closing the distance between them, Eddie hops to a squat in front of him. “But you did have something to do with what happened to her?”

“Shit, man,” Harrington groans, words slurring more more. “S’complicated, okay. I can’t talk about it with you or her parents or anyone. Or else they’ll come for me or Nance or our families and then we’ll all be toast like Barb. And that… that thing that came out of the Byers’ wall.”

Complicated? Jesus H. Christ, Eddie’s never heard anything more complicated than the jumble of words that just left Harrington’s mouth. He can feel his heart racing in his chest, the realization that they’re alone in the woods talking about something someone doesn’t want Harrington talking about.

“What?” Eddie says more to himself than to Steve. “Harrington, what thing in the Byers wall? You’re not making any sense!”

“The thing. You know, the… the,” Steve hiccups. “The thing we can’t talk ‘bout, else they’ll come for us next.”

Someone will come for him and his family if he reveals what happened to Barb? And the thing in the Byers wall? He wants to ask who would come. What would happen? Is he being blackmailed? There are so many questions dancing on the tip of his tongue, but none of them win the war.

“Harrington, man,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “Are you in trouble? Do you, like, need help or something?”

Finally, freeing himself from his jacket, Harrington lifts his head and looks up. There’s a moment where Eddie’s life flashes before his eyes, but then the sad replay of his life is interrupted by Harrington’s hand on his cheek. A dopey-looking grin on his face as he squints up at Eddie.

“You have pretty eyes, M-m-munson. Anyone ever tell you that?” Steve slurs before promptly passing out against the tree.

What the hell has Eddie gotten himself into?

#eddiemonth #eddie munson #eddie munson fic #eddie munson ficlet #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #steve harrington ficlet #nancy wheeler #nancy wheeler fic #nancy wheeler ficlet #stancy #stancy ficlet #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things season 2 #implied steddie #steddie #dani writes

[transmunsons]

Eddie doing a deal with Steve at that picnic table after school. Eddie’s on his second senior year and pissed off about it. He’s trying to be cordial to Harrington, but he keeps remembering how the basketball team messes with his Hellfire kids.

So he up charges him, gets a little petty revenge; he’s sure Harrington can afford it anyway. The extra money can go toward Eddie’s T payments.

Something rustles in the woods and Harrington freezes, listening. Some kind of wet, furless animal jumps out of the trees in a blur.

Before Eddie can react, Harrington grabs his hand and pulls him up, heading to the closest sanctuary, the high school. Eddie’s freaking out. They run into the building, and Harrington pulls them into the janitors closet. He lunges to the back, reaching for a mop, but Eddie hears a wet skittering in the hallway and slams the door shut. Harrington whips around at the noise and the sudden darkness. Eddie holds his breath until the creature passes.

“What the fuck is out there?” He hisses at Harrington. The closet is cramped and the floor is littered with cleaning supplies. They're right up on top of one another in the small space. “This is crazy, this is so fucking crazy—”

“Calm down!” Harrington hisses back, closer than he expects, breath brushing against Eddie's cheek.

“Calm? Why are you calm, what's wrong with you?” Eddie's heart is pounding so hard he thinks it might burst out of his chest. He can't breathe. “We just almost got attacked by some fuckin' thing!” He flutters his hands to emphasize 'thing' though Steve probably can't see it in the dark. He smacks a shelf.

“I've seen something like it before, it's some kind of demogorgon.” Harrington says. Eddie splutters. The king of Hawkins High just made a DnD reference.

“How do you—that is not a demogorgon, Harrington! Demogorgons don't exist and even if they did, they don't look like that!”

“Hey, you asked and I answered. And my name is Steve.” He reaches around Eddie and tries the door handle. He's practically hugging him.

Steve swears and flicks on the light switch, illuminating the closet. “It's stuck.”

Eddie can see Steve's face properly now in all its glory. The overhead bulb gleams off Steve's stupidly long eyelashes. He almost wants to turn the light back off. His breathing is still restricted.

“Guess we're trapped in here until somebody comes by.” Steve says.

Eddie balks at the thought of being stuck with Steve in close quarters for so long. “No we're not, just gimme a second.”

Eddie shoves a hand up under his Dio shirt so he can pull his bindings a little away from his chest.

“What are you doing?” Steve sounds alarmed. His eyes are wide.

“Don't get excited,” Eddie winks because apparently he has a death wish, “just need to breathe. Get me a flathead screwdriver. The door opens inward.”

Steve snaps his fingers and points at him, “Right, the hinges!” He turns around to rustle through the shelves, which Eddie, uh, doesn’t mind. Goddamn.

He faces Eddie again with a flathead in his hands and a triumphant look. Eddie grabs it with a ‘thanks’ and goes to work prying pins out of the hinges. He can feel Steve watching him. Eddie gets the door loose and shoves it open, catching it so it doesn’t make noise.

Steve stalks past him wielding a mop like a weapon.

“Where are you going?” Eddie stage whispers.

Steve looks over his shoulder at Eddie, hair artfully falling out of place. “I’ve gotta find that thing, I’m not gonna let it roam the school.”

Eddie looks at Steve, looks back at the exit, looks down at the tile floor.

“Shit.”

He follows.

#trans eddie munson #eddie munson #steddie #steve harrington #ftm eddie munson #steve x eddie #monster hunter steve harrington #set vaguely after the stancy alleyway breakup #steddie ficlet #autistic eddie munson

[unclewaynemunson]

Pt2 to this post

'Is something wrong?' Nancy asks, not long after the two of them have taken their familiar spots on the hood of Steve's car. They're basking in what might be the last warm sunlight of the year, looking out over the quarry, at a safe distance from the edge.

It's become a tradition the two of them share, ever since they reconnected back in March. It calms them both, to just sit here and take in the view, no one around but each other. Nancy is one of the few people Steve can share a comfortable silence with: sometimes they sit here quietly for what feels like hours, side by side, listening to music or to nothing but the birds singing around them. But they also have their best conversations here: it's the place where Nancy entrusted him she wanted to break up with Jonathan; it's the place where they talked about their shared past and decided they would always love each other as friends; it's the place where they finally talked about Barbara in a way they couldn't when they were younger. It's where Nancy talked about the ghosts still haunting her and Steve talked about how lonely he sometimes felt.

Steve huffs. 'How did you guess?'

'When you frown, you always do it with your whole face,' Nancy notes. 'So it's hard to miss, really.'

Steve glances at her side profile. There's a serenity to her features that's still relatively new. It means she's healing, slowly learning how to be happy again. It means she stopped waiting for the end of the world and started believing in a real future again. It makes Steve proud of how far they both have come.

'I had a fight with Eddie,' he confesses. 'And with Dustin, I guess.'

'What happened?'

He sighs. 'It's complicated.'

'Wanna tell me about it?'

The look in her eyes is kind and inviting. Steve hesitates. He wants to, but he doesn't know if he can. It's a risk. It's scary.

But he can't imagine Nancy Wheeler ever being careless with his secrets. He can't imagine her judging him, can't imagine her being as small-minded as most people in this town.

He was planning on telling her anyway, because things had been going so well with Eddie lately and – no, he shouldn't think about that right now. But maybe it would actually be nice to talk about it with Nancy.

'So, um...' His throat feels tight and his hands are sweaty. 'I recently discovered some things about myself. I-' The words get stuck somewhere on the way to his mouth, and he clears his throat.

Nancy doesn't push, but only gives him an encouraging nod, waiting for him to find his voice again.

'I found out I like boys,' he finally manages to confess. 'And I need you to know that – that that doesn't mean that what I felt for you wasn't real. It was. I loved you, and now I fell in love with a boy. And-'

'Steve.' Nancy's hand suddenly covers his, causing him to finally jerk his head away from the view over the quarry, to focus on her face again instead.

Her eyes are wide, and she squeezes his hand.

'You don't have to explain yourself to me,' she tells him. 'We're good. But thank you for telling me. For trusting me with this.'

Steve heaves out a relieved sigh, and Nancy smiles; it's that genuine kind of smile which reveals all kinds of dimples and soft lines across her face.

'We might be more similar than you thought,' she tells him, a faint blush spreading over her cheeks.

'Really?' Her words make his breath catch in his throat. He squints at her, trying to see her in this new light. 'Are you saying what I think you're saying?'

She shrugs. 'I don't know. I'm not sure yet,' she admits. 'Still figuring things out.'

'Take your time, there's no rush,' he tells her. 'But...' He bumps his shoulder against hers. 'When you're done figuring it out, talk to me, okay?'

She nods. 'Okay.'

For a while, it's quiet between the two of them. Some kind of raptor circles high above them in the sky. They both follow it with their eyes until it disappears among the tree tops west of the quarry.

'Is it Eddie?'

Steve blinks dumbly a couple of times.

'Wha- what?'

'The guy you were talking about. The one you fell in love with. It's Eddie, isn't it?'

'Jesus, Wheeler, what kind of sorceress are you?' Steve exclaims.

Nancy laughs again. 'You're not being as subtle as you think,' she tells him. 'The two of you have been hooking up for a while now, haven't you?'

Steve huffs dramatically. 'This is unfair. You know everything; I can't even tell you my own secrets anymore!'

'So what happened?' Nancy asks. 'You said you had a fight with him?'

'It's fucking stupid,' he sighs. 'Dustin was getting way too excited about the fact that I was gonna be hanging out with you, so I told him I was seeing someone. Next thing I knew, he was telling Eddie all about how I was seeing a girl.' He waves his hands around to make annoyed air quotations. 'I wanted to tell Eddie it was a misunderstanding, but Dustin was there, so I couldn't out us just like that, and he looked so betrayed and heartbroken... He didn't wanna listen to me.'

Steve sighs; he still can't manage to forget that look in Eddie's eyes when Dustin delivered the big news. 'I wish I would've talked about what I felt for him earlier. I should've been honest when I had the chance, y'know. But I was afraid he wouldn't wanna label what we had, that he wouldn't feel the same way – and now we're in this whole mess. God, he must hate me right now, Nance.'

To his surprise, Nancy gives him an unexpected slap against his arm.

'Ouch, what the hell was that for?!'

'What are you even doing here with me, Steve? You should've gone after him, tell him how you feel!'

'I tried, obviously, but he didn't wanna listen to me!'

'So make him listen! You're in love with him, he obviously feels the same way about you, and you let him leave to wallow in a broken heart he doesn't even need to have!' She rolls her eyes and slides off the car, adding something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like an exasperated 'Boys!' before she pulls Steve off the car as well. 'C'mon, time to get your ass over to the trailer park. Right. Now,' she says through gritted teeth. And, well, Steve knows better than to argue with a determined - and truthfully quite terrifying - Nancy Wheeler.

Read the last part here Taglist: @withacapitalp @ultimatedreamer104 @irregular-child @jcmadgirl @estrellami-1 @myguiltyartpleasure @hallucinatedjosten @jaybren @thew1ldblueyonder @melodymeddler @alycatavatar @zoeweee @lolawonsstuff @fairy-princette @saramelaniemoon @phirex22 @krazyperson @xxsky-shockxx (I only put people on this list who explicitly asked to be tagged. That's really no problem, I love to do that so dw about asking, but I got a lot of relatively vague reactions to the previous post that i'm not gonna dissect and interpret, bc I don't wanna clog anyone's notes unwanted. So just to be clear: i consider it a huge compliment if anyone asks for a tag but please do it clearly if you do!)

#look i can and i will exploit the miscommunication trope until yall are sick and tired of it #bc steddie is actually the perfect couple for keeping that trope believable #they're idiots with terrible communication skills it's canon #they WOULD #“can't you just talk to him?” “wait what i can????” IT'S SO THEM OKAY #nancy is the only sane person here i don't make the rules #don't mind me rambling about stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #platonic stancy #(i love platonic stancy they mean the world to me) #(i truly didn't mean to trick anyone into reading about them this just kinda. happened. idk) #this is making me wanna write more about their friendship actually they deserve their own fic #stranger things #fruity ficlet

[hairmetal666]

TW for internalized homophobia and related bad decisions

Steve is 12 and he thinks about finding his soulmate all the time.

You're supposed to find them through touch; your life together will flash in front of your eyes. They're rare, though, soulmates. So rare that most people never find theirs. So rare that some people say they're made up.

Steve wants to be one of the lucky few. He wants it to be a true, unbreakable bond, a love he gets to have forever.

He wonders if he'll find his soulmate at school. He's popular, he thinks. Tommy would say they were popular. But Tommy's definition of popular mostly has to do with the number of kids he can get away with being mean to, and that's not really Steve's deal. Tommy is like a prey animal, the way he can find weaknesses.

There's a new boy at school. Steve doesn't know his name, but they have English together. He's too thin, with huge brown eyes, and all his clothes are too big. His head's been inexpertly shaved and he never looks anybody in the eye. It's only a matter of time before he catches Tommy's interest, and Steve wishes he could stop it somehow, but he's never been good at going against Tommy.

The day comes, of course. They're standing in the hall, the new boy walking towards them, head down, as always. Tommy nudges Steve says, "What a loser."

And Steve shrugs, starts to ask Tommy about football, if the Colts can make the Super Bowl, but the boy is nearing and Tommy is cackling.

"Watch this." Tommy sticks his foot out.

The boy doesn't react fast enough. He falls forward with a bitten off yelp, and Steve moves without really thinking, only knows he can't stand to see him fall. He catches the new kid beneath his armpits, Steve's thumbs brushing the soft skin his arms.

The world around him falls away at the touch.

---

He's sitting on the floor in the band room, Eddie--the boy's name is Eddie--next to him. Eddie's hair is a little longer and Steve's in a green polo he doesn't recognize, and he's never been in the band room in his life. They're leaning into each other and laughing and Eddie's so beautiful.

---

They're in the woods--Skull Rock, Steve thinks. Eddie's hair is curled and frizzed around his chin, and he's laughing, his cheeks pink, his dimples prominent. He tries to pull his hair in front of his face, but it's not long enough yet to reach. Steve is overwhelmed, wants to kiss him so bad. He's never had to wait to kiss someone, or been unsure, or--

He wants to kiss Eddie.

So, he does.

It's hard, desperate, not the first kiss Steve expected, but then they've been waiting for so long.

---

Steve stands in the hallway of Hawkins High. He's wearing a striped, beige short-sleeved polo, and flirting with Nancy Wheeler.

He likes Nancy, she's pretty and smart and fun. And it's easy. He can hold her hand. Can introduce her to his parents. Can take her on dates and kiss her in public.

She bats her big blue eyes at him, and he can't help but kiss her.

He pulls away gently, brushing his thumb against her cheek, and when he looks down the hall, Eddie is there, frozen. His mouth is wide, his eyes glassy.

Steve thinks the way his heart stutters must be what dying feels like.

---

He's sitting on his diving board, facing away from the pool. He smokes a cigarette and there's a bat studded with nails at his feet, what the fuck. Music thuds, shrieks and laughter seep into the cool night air.

He should be playing the gracious host. He should be having a good time. Instead, his eyes search the woods and he taps another smoke out of the pack.

"Harrington?" The voice makes him jump, hand flexing around the bat handle. "It's freezing out. What are you doing?"

He recognizes the voice now, doesn't turn, doesn't respond, can't stand to see another person he let down; another person who could call him bullshit and be 100% correct.

"Do you not have a jacket? C'mon, man."

Something warm settles over his shoulders, and he inadvertently breathes in weed and leather and cedar. He squeezes his eyes shut, like that will make the comforting, familiar scent go away. He'll have to move to shrug off the jacket, though, which would mean acknowledging Eddie's presence.

"Can you at least say something, Harrington? You're freaking me out."

"I'm fine, Ed--Eddie." The nickname falls from his lips too easily. He doesn't miss how Eddie flinches.

His hair is long now, down to his shoulders, brittle looking in the cold. He's wearing a t-shirt and worn flannel, arms wrapped around his chest for warmth now that his jacket is draped over Steve's shoulders.

Steve is an idiot. He's such an idiot. Chasing after Nancy when Eddie is--

"I'm sorry," he says. He turns to face his soulmate, then. "I'm sorry about Nancy, I--"

Eddie jerks back like he's been hit. "Fuck you, Harrington," he snarls.

---

He sits in the back of an ambulance, eyes swollen shut, face throbbing. He's wearing a sailor suit for inexplicable reasons, which is almost more upsetting than the ambulance. He smells like puke and something toxically sweet.

A girl is with him, one he doesn't recognize, but he feels deeply, instinctively protective of her. He holds her shaking shoulders tight, tries to whisper comfort to her through his busted and bleeding mouth.

He's pretty sure he has a concussion.

"Steve!" Someone screams over the sounds of the EMTs and firefighters, of the building burning and collapsing behind them.

Eddie bursts through the gathered onlookers and past the ring of police cars enclosing them. He's falling into the ambulance before Steve has a chance to react.

"Sweetheart," Eddie sobs. He tries to cup Steve's face, but his fingers flutter around the damage. "Sweetheart, oh my god. I came as soon as I heard. Are you--what can I--"

Steve stares at him--his hair falling from its messy bun, his cutoff Metallica tee, concern and love leaking from those brown, brown eyes--and bursts into tears.

---

They sit on the roof of his house, sharing a joint back and forth. It's chilly, bordering on cold, winter just on the horizon. They're laughing, leaning into each other, and Steve is--he's happy. Elated. Could float away with it.

Robin--Robin-- is in the bathroom, or maybe in the kitchen for snacks, and it's just them for now. They're looking at each other, smiles wide, eyes bright.

They're taking it slow. Steve knows it's important, after what he did. They talked about it, his abandoning of Eddie for Nancy, chasing what his dad told him was normal and expected.

He doesn't want to cross any boundaries, wants to do this right. How Eddie deserves. But they're leaning into each other and they're smiling, and he's so in love. Intoxicated with it, lost.

In the end, he doesn't know who makes the first move, just that they're kissing and it's like coming home.

---

He's in a building, a shed or something. It's musty and dirty, smells like oil and gasoline and a building left closed up too long. Eddie's in his arms and he's talking through hiccuping sobs.

"I didn't save her, Steve. I didn't help. I just left her there! She was broken in pieces and I--I--"

Steve holds him close, tight, squeezes his eyes closed to stop his own tears from falling. He never wanted this for Eddie, never wanted him involved. Thought he could protect him from all of Hawkins's terrible things.

They aren't alone. Robin is there, coming up to hold Eddie too, plus a redheaded girl and curly haired boy he doesn't recognize.

"We'll figure this out, Eddie." The boy promises.

"We won't let anyone hurt you. We know you didn't murder Chrissy," the girl says.

---

Steve is in a world he doesn't understand, and Eddie is his arms. Eddie is in his arms, and there's blood everywhere. He's not awake, he's not--his heart beat is soft and slow, too slow, and his breathing stutters, and Steve can't--

"Baby, stay with me." He begs as he runs across the dead and rotting landscape. "Eddie, please. Wake up, okay? Wake up for me. I need to--I need to know that you're alright."

Eddie stays limp in his arms.

"Please," he begs. "You can't leave me. We promised, remember? We promised we'd be together forever. The rest of our lives. Me and You. Our six little nuggets. You promised."

The portal back to Hawkins is less than a dozen feet away, he's so close. Eddie gasps to consciousness, but his eyes are still hazy.

"Hi, sweetheart," he mumbles.

"Hey, hi, you're doing so good. We're almost out, okay? We're almost out and we'll get you to the hospital."

Eddie reaches out a weak hand, touches the edge of Steve's jaw. "Love you, Stevie," he whispers. "Glad you were mine."

He goes still in Steve's hold.

---

The images come faster now--

A hospital room at Hawkins General, Eddie hooked to machines. Steve holds hands with an older man. They wait in terrified silence

Eddie propped in a bed, a bunch of kids around him, Steve and Robin at his side. His eyes keep sliding to Steve, like he's making sure Steve's real, that he's still there

Their bodies tangled together in a bedroom Steve doesn't recognize

Steve down on one knee in a marble room lit only by black and red candles, Eddie standing in front of him

Hand-in-hand on a cliffside overlooking the ocean. The Chief of Police, Jim Hopper, stands in front of them with tears in his eyes and a beaming smile on his face

In a big, green yard behind a cozy little house. A little boy with Eddie's eyes and curls riding on his shoulders. Eddie sprinting around with a tiny girl giggling after him, perfect imitation of the King Steve hair-do on her tiny head

In a park, surrounded by family and friends. Steve has a little bit of a paunch and wears glasses. Eddie's hair streams around his shoulders, going grey at the temples. There's a banner strung between trees proclaiming 'Happy 20th Steve and Eddie!' They're surrounded by everyone they love and it's perfect

---

The images flash too fast for Steve to catalog after that, seconds-long glimpses of a shared future, and then he's back in his body in the hallway of Hawkins Middle, still holding too tight onto Eddie's arms.

Eddie rears back, face pale and terrified, and Steve is too shocked to do anything but let him go.

Tommy's yelling, but Steve only has eyes for his soulmate, who scrambles to his feet and throws himself down the hall away from them.

"What the hell, Harrington? Why'd you catch him? That was about to be funny as hell! I bet he'd have broken his nose--you ruined it!"

Steve isn't listening. He's trying to hold on to the memories of their life together, the ones that are already fading.

The last thing he remembers is that, sometime in the not-too-distant future, he'll find his way to the band room, Eddie Munson, and the rest of their lives.

#steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #ficlet #soulmate au #fluff #angst #angst with a happy ending #childhood sweethearts #canon divergent au #everyone lives/nobody dies #glimpses of the future #getting together #break up #getting back together #first kiss #brief stancy #platonic stobin

[withacapitalp]

(Okay I saw a post about a premise similar to this but I cannot find it for the life of me. Anyway I loved it so much that I had to write a version of it myself. A post s2 AU!) Now with Part Two

Steve was never exactly the most perceptive person in the world. 

He missed all of the signals that Nancy had given him, every sign that had pointed to their failing relationship. He hadn’t seen the moments that proved she was right about everything going on in their town either. Steve overlooked important details in his college applications, and took shots in basketball that almost always missed. He even sometimes walked right into walls these days, because his spacial awareness had kinda been shot since Billy smashed a plate over his head fifteen days ago. 

A lot of that could be forgiven, but, this…

Well this was a little bit obtuse, even for him. 

“You know you’re sitting at our table, right, King Steve?” 

Steve looked up from his Tuna Surprise, resisting the urge to flinch at both the blinding light from the windows in the cafeteria and the nickname he hated so much. Eddie Munson stared back, carrying a lunch tray in one hand and his signature metal lunch box in the other. 

“Your humble court is awaiting you on the haves side of this blessed cookery. This side is where the dweebs and the nerds parlay. A single place we get a reprieve from the endless bombardment of the average” Munson continued, flinging his arms to and fro, gesturing to the group of teens behind him who were staring at Steve like he was dirt under the bottom of their shoes. 

He hadn’t understood the majority of what Eddie had just said to him, but those looks were enough to give Steve the gist. He was not welcome here. 

“Sorry,” He muttered, grabbing his tray and sliding it to the other end of the table. He took a deep breath the second he was alone again, letting the tension melt away from his body as he collapsed back in his seat. 

Even though he was no longer welcome to sit at his old table, Steve probably could have gone and eaten in the library with Nancy and Jonathan. They had awkwardly invited him to join them a few times since everything had gone down, but he always said no. 

It was better this way. Better to be alone. Better to not have to watch the two of them try and hide how much happier they were now that they could be together. They deserved that happiness, Nancy deserved that happiness, and Steve refused to be the one to make her try and stifle any of that. 

He had hurt her enough already. 

“What happened to your face?”

Once again Eddie dragged Steve out of his thoughts. He was standing over Steve’s head, nearly hovering on top of him, watching Steve like he was trying to work him out. Like Steve was a particularly complex puzzle that he could solve just with his eyes. 

Nancy had always looked at him that way. Steve had hated it when it was her, and he hated it even more coming from Munson now. 

“Got into a fight,” Steve grunted, stabbing at his shitty cafeteria food and hoping that his abrasiveness would be enough to get Munson to leave him alone.

He wasn’t exactly sure what he could say now that they had all signed another round of NDAs, but he was pretty sure even talking about this was toeing the line. It was safer all around to get Eddie to go away as quickly as possible. 

It wouldn’t be all that hard. Usually all it took were a few well placed bitchy comments to get people to see the picture and give up on him. The only group of people who hadn’t been perturbed by Steve’s spikiness was the kids. They had shown up at his house pretty much daily since the gate had closed, and had even taken to begging on him for rides to and from school. 

Dustin in particular seemed determined to stay latched onto him like a barnacle, but Steve found that he didn’t really mind their clinginess.

 It was nice to be needed, even if it was only a group of pre-teen smartasses. 

“With who?” Eddie asked, leaning his hip on the table next to Steve and crossing his arms over his chest, “Cause Billy Hargrove is telling everyone he can that he beat your ass for messing with his sister,”

“I would never do something like that,” Steve shot back instantly, feeling the fading bruises on his face twinge as his jaw clenched in fury. He couldn’t help the words spilling out of his mouth, unable to stop them, “Billy’s a racist jackass who tried to put his hands on one of my fucking kids,”

Shit. 

“There is…so many confusing parts of that sentence,” Eddie stated, blinking in shock.

“Whatever,” Steve murmured, biting his cheek to stop himself from saying anything more and hunching his shoulders up around his ears. They weren’t exactly his kids, per say, but Steve was invested in keeping them safe now. The idea of doing anything to hurt any of them was painful, and the thought of Billy spreading that kind of rumor made bile rise up in his throat. 

Fuck Billy. Fuck this. Fuck his life honestly. 

“Look, Munson, I’m really not in the mood right now,” Steve sighed, hating how weary he sounded. It would have been better to fight his way out of this. Steve was crappy at fighting though, and there wasn’t much spirit left in him. Not after two weeks of perpetual stress and tension. 

“Harrington-”

“I moved down, I’m not in your way, isn’t that good enough?” Steve bit out, halfway to just grabbing his tray and throwing it in the trash. He was barely eating anyway, might as well go to the gym to shoot some hoops instead of sitting here being interrogated by drug dealing  extraordinaire, Eddie goddamn Munson.

Couldn’t he just let Steve eat in peace? Everything else was already so goddamn difficult these days. Could Steve at least manage to eat a mediocre meal without the entire world demanding something from him? 

By the grace of whatever god was potentially out there, Eddie took the hint, pushing off of his resting place and stalking back over to his group of weirdos on the other side. Steve let his eyes slip shut and dragged in a heavy breath, utterly exhausted. 

He was contemplating skipping the rest of the day and going home to sleep when a blue plastic tray identical to the one in front of him bumped his right hand

“What are you doing?” Steve wondered aloud, raising his eyebrows and fixing Eddie with a confused look as he sat down right next to Steve and began to dig into his meal. 

“Eating lunch alone sucks?” Eddie offered, shoveling Tuna Surprise into his mouth and shuddering, pushing the rest of the disgusting concoction to the far side of his tray, “Plus I’m hoping that if I get in your good graces you’ll give me your pudding cup,”

Steve stared at him for a few more moments, waiting for whatever prank was about to be pulled. But Eddie didn’t budge, continuing to eat around his main dish with strange efficiency and ignoring Steve’s gaze. 

“Go nuts,” He finally said, offering the plastic container over to Eddie who grabbed it and gave Steve a big smile

“Mazel Tov, Eddie said, hoisting the pudding aloft and tearing into it, “So, you have children?”

“I- I babysit,” Steve stammered out, completely perplexed by the strange set of circumstances that was playing out in front of him. Eddie paused with his spoon midair in front of him. 

“You babysit,” He repeated, turning his head towards Steve. The younger teen nodded and Eddie hummed. He put his pudding down and licked his spoon clean. When he was done, he hefted it aloft, bringing it down on the back of his right hand with a smack that echoed all around the cafeteria. 

“Ouch!” Eddie yelped, flapping his hand around in the air to try and get rid of the sting. Steve looked frantically to and fro as the rest of the room stared at them, whispering behind their hands. 

“Why would you-” 

“Had to make sure I wasn’t dreaming,” Eddie explained, interrupting Steve’s furious whisper with a breathless little laugh, “Because I just heard the words ‘I babysit’ come out of King Steve’s mouth,”

“Would you cut it out with the King stuff?” Steve snapped, beginning to lose his appetite, “It’s been a while since I was King of anything, and it was a stupid fucking idea to begin with,” 

There was a beat of awkward silence as Eddie gave him another one of those soul searching looks. 

“What are you doing Thursday afternoon?” He finally asked when he found whatever he was looking to find. Steve startled, dropping his fork. 

What kind of question was that? 

Was Munson asking him on some sort of date?!

“I’m…benched from basketball ‘cause of my concussion. So nothing, I guess,” Steve said cautiously, carefully picking his words and trying to avoid the spike of hurt that shot along his chest as he said them. 

It wasn’t much, but basketball was one of the only things Steve really thought he was genuinely good at. Not having it was kind of pure torture. 

Almost as bad as not having Nancy in his life anymore. 

“In that case, come to Hellfire,” Eddie offered, glancing at the clock on the wall and grabbing both of their trays. Steve scrambled to grab his backpack, hefting it onto one shoulder and jogging to keep up with Eddie. 

“What?”

“Hellfire?” Eddie repeated, dumping their trash into the bin and stacking the trays next to it, “It’s the club I run,”

“What is it?” Steve asked, curious but unwilling to commit just yet. There was still a part of him that was kind of convinced all of this was some elaborate ruse to fuck with him. 

But before Eddie could say anything the bell chimed all around them. The rest of the student population moved as one, and the sound in the lunchroom immediately went from dull roar to cacophonous mess. Steve’s left ear started to ring again, and he winced, shying away from the sudden noise. 

“You’ll have to come and see,” Eddie said, waggling his eyebrows, completely ignorant to Steve’s pain. He turned on his heel, raising a hand in a wave behind him as he loped towards the rest of his friend group.

“Thursday after school! In the drama room, don’t be late!”

#Steve harrington #Eddie munson #steddie #steddie ficlet #Steddie au #Steve joins hellfire au #post s2 #st #stranger things #stranger things ficlet #Nancy wheeler #post stancy breakup #Liam speaks up #Writing(withacapitalW)

[stevesbipanic]

Steve and Nancy had caved.

It had a been a few months since Nancy and Jonathan had broken up, agreeing they were better as friends and wanted different things in life. Since then the kids had pestered them to no end to try dating again, claiming they were more mature now and "perfect for each other".

So here they were at the diner, they'd gone to the movies and very respectfully just held hands through the movie. It was fun, they liked hanging out together, they had become good friends over the years which is why the kids wanted them to be together again, Dustin was particularly enthusiastic, Mike of course was not.

Steve drove her home, let her pick the tunes, chatted about the movie. It was a normal date, and a normal date only ended one way. Steve pulled up to the Wheeler house and Nancy turned towards him.

"So."

"So?"

They laughed, this was it they guessed, they leaned in towards each other.

"Wait!" They said together, blinking wide eyes open.

"I'm sorry, Nancy, I can't do this."

"No, no I can't do this either."

"Robin?"

"Eddie?"

"Yeah," they said smiling.

Steve smiled to himself as he drove to the trailer park after helping Nancy up to Robin's window.

Mike regretted complaining about Steve dating Nancy when he showed up to the next Hellfire meeting with Steve in Eddie's lap.

#hahaha plot twist #its gay #steddie #ronance #anti stancy #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #ficlet

[dontcallmeeds]

Part 2 of Eddie Making Jewelry For Steve; Part 1 here / Part 3 here / Part 4 here

Steve had figured it out after the second little box that was left on the Family Video counter.

He didn’t see Eddie leave it, he was too involved in his conversation with Robin that happened to be about his panic surrounding Eddie.

See the thing is, he knew there were bisexual people and he knew he liked men for years.

But saying it outloud and falling for his best friend? Well, that was a whole other thing.

The way Steve figured it out was the handwriting on the little notes. It felt a little crazy comparing his Family Video card paperwork to the notes, but Robin was the one who suggested it.

Eddie looped his lowercase Es tightly, to the point they almost looked like Cs. And his Is were always lowercase with a circle instead of a dot.

It really just had to be him leaving the beautiful pieces that made Steve’s heart melt and his stomach fall out his ass. Although, he still had his doubts. There was no way his dream guy was just being that fucking perfect, that wasn’t usually how Steve’s life went.

But oh god did he sure have hope.

Steve thought he was being obvious that he knew, wearing the ring that he had fallen in love with in front of Eddie. He even fidgeted with it and caught Eddie staring at it before the other man quickly looked away.

He couldn’t help but tear up in the Beamer after the outing, asking Robin for advice only resulted in drunken living room karaoke, not a plan.

Steve tried to ask where he got his pieces once so maybe him and Robin could run surveillance like old times, but Eddie ended up being vague and elusive.

When Steve brought Nancy into the secret op, she suggested a stake out which felt like stalking. She started a board with dates and drop off locations and roughly estimated it was every 2-4 weeks on dates Steve was usually busy.

It was coming up on almost a month since the last drop and Steve was practically showing off with the last chain, making sure his polo was just open at top enough for Eddie to see.

The flushing across Eddie’s cheeks into his chest was everything, but still his metalhead said nothing.

It was time for Nancy’s plan.

Steve dropped days he’d be busy, watching as Eddie seemingly made a mental note of them. His feigned disappointment was shaky, Steve hoping he’d just blurt it out without confrontation.

But alas, nothing.

Nancy put on her ‘undercover journalism best’ aka a literally just a black sweater and black pants, borrowing her parents car instead of using her own. And I’m that moment Steve felt—

“Am I crazy? Is this whole thing crazy?” Steve paces the Family Video aisles between romance and comedy, which felt pretty fitting considering his love life was a joke.

Robin places a hand on his shoulder and gives him that all encompassing look between the fact that she thinks it’s completely sane, but also really fucking crazy.

“You want to know for sure, right? Not just the handwriting or little weird glances?”

Steve sighs and then nods slowly, he really did want to know for sure. But the problem is what came after.

“Okay then, we’ll just see what Nancy says then hmm? For all we know it could be a boring—“

As if on cue, the walkie they stole from the kids crackles.

“Steve—it’s for sure him, he just—“

“HE JUST WHAT?! WE NEED ANSWERS WHEELER,” Robin shouts into the speaker before Nancy can even finish, Steve grabs the walk-in out of her hand with a scoff.

“Say sorry to your eardrums for her Nance— so wait, what happened?” Steve tries to shove down his nerves, but his fingers on the device tremble.

“He leave something in your mailbox, do you want me to—“

“Steve, GO!”

He really needs to teach her what an inside voice is.

“Are you—“

“I’ll cover you, if Keith comes back I’ll—I’ll make up a dead aunt or say you ripped your pants, I don’t know! I’m not good under pressure, you know how I get Steve. Goddamnit, just go before I start rambling!”

Steve nods and handing her the walkie, running out the door. He knows he breaks the speed limit on the way home, knows if he gets pulled over he can just use the Hopper card. He normally wouldn’t, but extreme times and all that.

Nancy is pulled into the drive when he gets there, popping out when she sees him pull up next to the mailbox.

“Hey I wanted to stay, for you know, support,” she says with a small smile, seeming to enjoy this all way too much.

“Nance, you didn’t have to—“

“Yes I did, Steve. Now fucking open it before me and Robs burst a blood vessel.”

Steve nervously chuckles, his fingers twitching on the mailbox door before pulling it down to a little red box.

‘Stevie, something different,’ is all it reads.

He shares a glance with Nancy, before pulling it out.

#CLIFFHANGER BITCHES #tag list will be in the reblog!!! #my best friends funeral is Sunday so uhhhh dont know when part 3 will be out #WOWOWOW DID NOT EXPECT PART ONE TO BE SO LOVED!!! #i really don’t like part 2 but I’ll survive #I’m usually confident in my steve but I’m like ehhhh bc ficlet form #BUT YAY STEVE IS PINING TOO!!! #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steddie #stranger things 4 #steddie ficlet #codependent stobin #platonic stobin #platonic stancy #AS IT SHOULD BE #im actually like a super huge fan of platonic stancy #CAN I GET AN AMEN FOR #self aware bi steve???? #SEMI SELF AWARE he’s just not like ‘what are bi people’ but also i have friends who didn’t know it was an option #im very protective of previously unaware gays its valid!!! #steddie ring ficlet #part 2 of steddie ring ficlet

[blushweddinggowns]

Nancy had to give it to him. In around a few months time, Steve had her wrapped around his finger just as much as every other girl in school, maybe even more so. She hadn’t even meant for it to happen! She had tried to keep things in a strict tutor/student zone but then Steve had to be all…him. He had looked so devastated when he realized they had classes together, and the way he tried to make up for it was too cute for words. 

She just…never thought he would be the way he was. Before they’d met she just knew him as basically Eddie Munson’s personal bodyguard, who just happened to be too hot and good at sports to completely fall out of popularity. He was notorious for being a master at making people cry, and was surprisingly quick-witted for someone who had never gotten above a C- in English. He was a heartbreaker with a killer smile and a horrible attitude. So how did all of that end in Steve Harrington being the sweetest guy she’d ever met?

The massive crush she had on him was completely out of her control. It was his fault for being all nice and funny and handsome and…God. She sounded like the girls she and Barb used to make fun of. They used to call it the Harrington disease. Nancy just hadn't realized how contagious it really was. 

Though she stood by the fact that whatever was going on between her and Steve was different. She had heard a lot of rumors about what it was like dating Steve Harrington, and most of them involved him being all handsome and charming until he got what he wanted, then he’d dump you first thing. The others were a little weirder, stories about him being completly standoffish and maybe even a little germaphobic? There were some girls that swore that he never even kissed them during their short time together and they would have to fight for something as insiginfigant as a hug. Nancy wasn’t quite sure who to believe, no one did. Steve was kind of mysterious like that, another reason why so many girls were obsessed with him.

But with Nancy, it didn’t feel like he was using her for something else. It didn’t even feel like Steve was purposefully romancing her. They had gone from a study session once a week to actually being friends. They ate lunch together nearly everyday, she was invited over to movie nights with him and Eddie, which was great for when Barb was stuck at band practice. He even started taking her to school in the morning sometimes. And she always got to pick the music, no matter how much Eddie jokingly whined about it.

How could she not like him? Hell, she even liked how good he was to his friends, especially Eddie. The two of them were nearly inseparable and it never mattered to Steve that Eddie was…well, pretty far below him in the world of high school cliques. And it’s not that Nancy thought Steve could do better. Eddie was great! They were good for each other, especially after he told her more of how they first met as kids. It made a lot more sense on why Steve was so protective over him, and why he got so pissed when people acted like they couldn’t understand what Steve saw in him. 

It was the same way some people looked at her and Barb. And Nancy hated that. Like being twenty pounds overweight was some kind of crime. But Steve never looked at Barb with disgust. He knew what it was like to see people for who they were; he understood the value in that. And he was always so nice to her. Steve wasn’t the first guy who had wandered into Nancy's life, but he was the first one who didn’t try to box her best friend out at every oppruntunity. 

She loved that about him. She kind of loved everything about him. The past two months had been the most fun of her young life. Because Steve was fun and so much better than she had ever imagined. 

And while technically, they weren’t officially dating it still felt like something was going to happen, and happen soon. Maybe then they would get some more alone time without Eddie around. And she liked Eddie! She really did. He was hilarious, impossible to embarrass and weird as all hell, but it worked. He was a sweet guy when you got right down to it, even if he was a little on the scary side. She just…liked Steve more. A lot more. 

Everything with him just felt so…good. Like they were just falling for each other naturally. They just needed a small push to get them past the friend zone.

“Earth to Nancy? Hello?”

The sound of Barb’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She had a brow raised at her, hand on her hip as she waited for an answer to a question that Nancy had definitly not been paying attention to.

But Barb saw right through her. She always saw right through her, “You weren’t even listening were you?”

“Sorry, sorry, I was just-”

“Thinking about Steve. Yeah, I know.”

Nancy leaned against the locker with a pout, “Come on! I think he might like me. Like, like me like me.”

Barb sighed, just the slightest bit annoyed. Though in her defense Nancy had probably said that same sentence ten times in the past 4 hours, “Nancy he’s a player. And yeah he’s nice and I’ll give it you that he’s not nearly as annoying as we thought he’d be, but can’t you get with someone who isn't so…out there?”

Nancy rolled her eyes, “Yeah because so many guys are just dying to get with me. And what do you mean out there? He’s totally normal.”

“Are you actually trying to tell me that Steve Harrington is normal? The dude who has dated the entire cheerleading squad? The guy who laced Alex’s weed with acid last year for looking at Eddie wrong? That guy?”

Nancy rolled her eyes, “Oh come on! Rumors like that are almost never true. And they were never able to prove the Alex thing! And everyone knows the Carvers will say anything for attention.”

“I just don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I won’t! Come on, you know me. I would never get involved with someone who's actually dangerous. Do you really think he’d hurt me?”

Barb groaned, “You know what I mean! Not physically but yeah. Emotionally I think he can cause some damage. I’m not even saying he’d do it on purpose! But-”

“But nothing,” Nancy interrupted, “Look as sweet as it is that you’re worried about me I’ll be fine. And Steve’s a good guy. You know he’s a good guy. I mean god, you guys have hung out without me before! Doesn’t that show that he’s not just trying to use me?”

“That was one time! And it was literally just a ride home after band practice!”

“And was he or was he not the perfect gentleman?” 

Barb sighed, “Okay, fine. In the vacuum of what we’ve seen he’s fantastic. I’ll give you that. But we don’t live in a vacum! And I just think there are some…things that you purposely don’t want to see.”

Ok, now she was just grasping at straws, “Well maybe I’ll have a chance to see them this weekend. Did I tell you that he invited us to a party at his house Friday? I think he’s finally going to ask me out.”

Barb narrowed her eyes at her, “Invited us or invited you and you made him include me?”

“I mean us. He said your name thank you very much. Plus, Eddie’s going to be there too. You know I would never third wheel you like that.”

Barb narrowed her eyes at her, “Oh but you’d take me as your Eddie buffer? Are you serious?”

“What? He’s nice!” Nancy exclaimed as she started dragging Barb towards their next period. They were going to be late at this rate, but she needed to know that she was going to come. Half because…yes she needed an Eddie buffer but mostly because she just wanted her there. And on the off chance that Barb was right and this was all a terrible idea, having her there would certainly soften the blow. And she knew Eddie would make it his personal mission for her to have fun, so it was a win-win in Nancy’s book. 

“I’m not saying he’s not! But he’s kind of…intense isn’t he? Especially when it comes to Steve. They both are. It’s always Steve and Eddie. Eddie and Steve. Don’t you think…that’s kind of weird?”

Nancy rolled her eyes, aware of exactly where Barb was going with that one. Tommy Hagan had been making it his personal mission to convince the whole school that those two were gay for each other, like a little creep. No one really believed him anymore, not after Steve’s dating rap sheet started, but it still came up every now and then. 

“Well we’re always Nancy and Barb and Barb and Nancy. Is that weird?”

Barb opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, a tell-tale sign that Nancy got her, “I-okay. You win that one.”

“So you’ll go?” Nancy asked, as they sat down at their desks, barely beating the bell.

Barb smiled at her, reaching out to ruffle her hair a bit, laughing when Nancy batted her hand away, “Yes, I’ll go. But if you ditch me to make-out with Steve I’m going to be so pissed.”

Nancy grinned, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

When Friday rolled around Nancy was beyond excited. It was the first time she had ever snuck out of her house and so far, it had turned out to be very worth it. She was having the time of her life, and so was Barb thank god. The alcohol had certainly helped even if it turned out that beer tasted horrible. She was actually glad that Steve had taken the firm stance to limit them at two each.

“I don’t want your first brush with alcohol to end with you puking in the pool like mine did,” He had said with a laugh when Barb asked about it, “You ladies are better than that!”

Eddie had immediately taken that as permission to call Steve a grandpa, but Nancy thought it was sweet. And it took a little bit of the pressure off. This wasn’t exactly a party in the traditional movie sense, but it was the first time Nancy had been with boys her age completely unsupervised. Plus it was better than the movie version anyway, way more calm and comfortable. They spent nearly two hours playing truth or dare in their backyard, all of it culminating in Nancy pushing both boys into the pool, then Barb pushing her.

She was the only one who managed to stay dry and then proceeded to be the judge of all of their subsequent swimming races. She was always sure that Nancy was the winner, no matter how far behind she’d been. They all had to get out eventually and Nancy was not above rubbing how much fun they were having in Barb’s face when the boys left to get towels. 

She shook out some of her wet hair right over her, giggling when Barb yelped at the cold feeling, “I told you it would be fun.”

Barb tilted her head back to look up at her with a grin, “Yeah, yeah. You win this round Wheeler.”

“And I might just win a boyfriend tonight too. But now I’m freezing. You want to come inside with me?”

Barb shook her head, “In a little bit. Feels nice out here.”

She was perched on the end of the diving board, feet dipping into the water. She looked happy, happy and relaxed and Nancy couldn’t help but preen at that a little. Who would have thought that getting her best friend out of her shell would actually pay off? 

She walked back into the house calling out, “Steve? Where’d you go?”

She smiled when he suddenly popped his head around the corner, towel in hand with Eddie in tow. He handed it over to her before looking her up and down, “God you look like you’re five minutes away from freezing to death. I probably have something you can wear? So you can stay warm while your clothes dry. It might swallow you whole but it’s something.”

“Uh, sure!” Nancy said, way too loudly. But the idea of wearing Steve’s clothes was making her feel some type of way. And his smile wasn’t helping things either. He pointed her up the stairs, taking a second before following behind. She watched as he started to dig through his drawers, noticing for the first time just how easy it was to make out the muscles of his translucent shirt.

God, this guy was going to give her a heart attack. 

He kept his back turned while she changed, which was a plus for her. Because the last thing she needed was him seeing her sniff his shirt like a creep. But it smelled just like him. And her wearing his clothes had to mean something right?  

“Okay, I’m done,” She shakily said, nerves back in full force, “Do…you want to head back downstairs?”

Say no, say no, say no.

“Actually…would you mind if we just talked for a second?”

Nancy nodded, not trusting herself to speak as she watched Steve sit on his bed, patting the spot next to him. She almost tripped in her haste to get over there, but lucky for her Steve missed it. He was too busy staring at the ground. He looked…nervous. He actually looked nervous because of Nancy.

He took a deep breath before starting, still refusing to look at her, “Nancy I…well. Okay. You know, I’ve never met a girl like you before, right? You just…seem really open-minded. And smart, but like in a real way. If that makes any sense. I like that about you.”

He was going to do it, Steve Harrington was going to ask her to be his girlfriend, officially.

“And I think I really want you in my life, but…I don’t want to lead you on.”

Huh?

Nancy furrowed her brow, confused and more than a little bit worried on where this conversation was going, “Lead me on?”

Steve nodded, “Have you ever um…heard those rumors? About Eddie and I?”

“Which rumors?”

Steve sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, and for the first time Nancy realized he was actually shaking, “About us, uh, doing stuff? Like…being gay?”

Was that what this was about? Was he afraid she thought he was gay? 

“Steve, no one believes that. You have nothing to worry about-”

“They’re true.”

Nancy could feel her heart stop in her chest. She was surprised she managed to say anything, let alone something that was coherent, “W-what?”

He still wasn’t looking at her, “It’s true. We’re gay. For um, eachother. And have been for years. Well that’s not even right. We’re like…in love. Like really, really in love. And it’s not a phase, it’s not an experiment. I just love him and he loves me.”

Nancy stared at him, mouth hanging open while a million and one thoughts raced through her head. But she couldn’t focus on any of them because he was still talking. 

“And I know that’s probably like really out there because of all of the other crap people say but I’m not some kind of Casanova. I haven’t even had sex with a girl before. All of those dates never got past first base, if that. But we needed a way to not be obvious so that’s how that happened.”

Nancy had never felt dumber in her entire life. 

“And I really like you Nancy, and I felt like you deserved to know because I want us to be friends. Like real friends and…you’re the first person I’ve ever actually told this too, because it just feels like I can trust you and…yeah. So um, yeah. That’s about it.”

He finally turned to look at her and the hopeful look on his face was too much for her to handle. She was on her feet before she even know what she was doing. But one thing was for sure, she needed to get out of here before she started fucking crying. 

“Are you okay?”

Nancy ignored the question, half because she was very close to being choked up and half because she could barely hear anything through the blood rushing through her ears. 

“It’s getting late!” She said instead as she backed her way to the door, “And I should probably go find Barb a-and I won’t tell anyone so sure! We’re good!”

“But wait, you’re clothes-”

Nancy was already out the door before he could finish his sentence. She raced downstairs, stopping when she was suddenly face to face with Eddie. Steve’s Eddie. Because they were together and she was delusional apparently. 

He narrowed her eyes at her, “Uh, are you okay?”

“I-It’s fine! I’m fine!” She reassured as she hurriedly put on her shoes. Somewhere in the back of her head she was aware that Barb was probably still out back, but she couldn’t risk going out there to get her. One more look at Steve and she’d start breaking down, and she was not going to die of embarassment on top of everything tonight, thank you very much. 

She went for the door, pausing to look back at Eddie. He looked…hurt. Which was not helping how messed up she felt inside, but it did get her mouth moving, “And I um, won’t tell anyone so you don’t have to worry. I um, yeah. Bye.”

“Wait, I can give you a ride-”

But Nancy was already on the other side of the door before he could finish. Was walking home in the middle of the night in November a good idea? No, but was she still going to do it? God, yes. 

She barely made it a block away before she was crying. But at least she was alone. She didn’t do crying infront of other people. Not even Barb. Barb who she freaking just left to deal with the awkward aftermath in her place. God, she was going to be so pissed at her. 

And then she’d have to explain the whole stupid thing to her. Except she couldn’t. Because that wasn’t the kind of thing you could tell other people was it? 

She wrapped her arms around herself as she walked, sniffling. She was happy that Steve had at least chosen a sweatshirt for her, otherwise she might actually be at risk for hypothermia here. God, she was still wearing his stupid clothes. She can’t believe she thought that meant something. None of what happened between them ever meant anything. 

The guy she was on the verge of being in love with was freaking gay. Gay and taken. Every time the three of them had been together she had been the unknowing third wheel, completely deluding herself. And Barb had warned her. She had fucking said not to get her hopes up and here she was, being a moron and leaving her to clean up the mess.

God, she was awful. She was too depressed to go through the effort of sneaking through her window. She just went through the front door instead, beyond grateful that her parents slept like the dead. The first thing she did was change, because the thought of smelling like Steve all night made her sick. She crawled into bed, praying beyond hope that she’d wake up the next day and this would all be a really bad dream.

~

Part 1 Part 1.5 Snippets from an unfished chapter of this fic

Part 3

This whole saga will have one more part that does not end sadly! Except for Barb dying but blame the duffers for that one.

@a-little-unsteddie @ghost--enthusiast @jestyzesty

@dustcommander @attic-cat-blog @dinosareawesome2137

@obsessivlyme @missarte-beltane

#platonic stancy #steddie #steddie ficlet #the universe trapped in your skin #stranger things #steddie fic #nancy wheeler #i swear this is going somewhere that isn't just heartbreak but our girl isn't through the woods yet #secret relationship steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #at least barb had fun before she was murdered right? #yeah she's still getting murdered #steddie childhood friends au

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

If you guys are scared of Stancy, just add a dash of Eddie, and it becomes less scary. Just imagine, if you will, Eddie hiding behind both Steve and Nancy.

"Oh, it's just a tiny little mouse, Eddie," Steve scoffed.

"It is NOT a tiny little mouse! I said it was a mouse sized spider!" Eddie shrieked.

Suddenly, Steve was also hiding behind Nancy.

"It's okay, guys, I got this," Nancy said, rolling her eyes in amusement.

"You always do, baby," Eddie said. "You always do."

#stranger things #stranger things s4 #eddie munson #joseph quinn #eddie stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson lives #steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #nancy wheeler #nancy wheeler x steve harrington #steve x nancy #stancy #nancy wheeler x eddie munson #edancy #nancy wheeler x steve harrington x eddie munson #stedancy #ficlet #stranger things fanfiction #rueleigh writes

[steddieasitgoes]

written for @eddiemonth Day 6 Prompt: Crush cw: period typical homophobia read on ao3 | link to my ao3 Eddie Month series

The Hawkins High Library is somehow both quiet and bustling. There’s not a free table in sight; students hunched together in groups of twos and threes. Loners are forced to share with others. All of them with their noses deep into study guides, highlighters perched between tense lips. Some flip through flashcards, mumbling answers as the librarian watches over with a stern look, ready to shush anyone who dares make a sound. 

The sun beats down on the small room, rays of warmth promising free days to come. Summer break is on the horizon. All that stands between them and three months of endless freedom is finals. 

Finals, which, in Eddie’s case, don’t just promise a summer of freedom. But a life free from high school altogether. Assuming he manages to finally pass Mrs. O’Donnell’s chemistry final. 

The odds of this happening, though, are not very great. Especially since he’s already failed her chemistry class once before. (Honestly, Hawkins High should just hire a new chemistry teacher and stop putting everyone through her miserable class.) 

But it’s okay because Eddie’s actually been trying this semester. 

As in, he finally suffered through the mortifying ordeal of asking for help and landed himself the best tutor that Hawkins High has to offer: Nancy Wheeler. 

With her help, he’s managed to bring his F up to a low D- which isn’t great, but it's the closest he’s ever been to passing. Now, all he has to do is get a C on the final and submit some lame extra credit essay, and he should be able to turn that D- into a D+ and pass the class. 

At least, that’s the plan. 

Which is why he’s currently tucked away at a library table opposite Nancy and the King of Hawkins high himself, Steve Harrington, instead of bumming around in Jeff’s garage planning their summer Hellfire campaign. 

“Okay,” Nancy says, pulling his attention away from the giant library window. She’s holding an index card in her hands. Her usual pristine manicure chipped. Nails bit as short as possible. Eddie supposes the stress of finals even gets to the nerds. “A proton has what kind of charge?” 

“Positive.” 

She nods, not one for verbal praise, and flips to the next card. “What happens in an endergonic reaction?” 

Shit.

He should know this one. 

Eddie taps his pencil against the table. Tilts his head back until his eyes are focused on the ugly popcorn ceiling of the library as if it holds the answers. It doesn’t, unfortunately. Frustrated, he buries his head in his hands for a moment before peering up at Nancy with his big brown eyes and a solemn look on his face. 

Steve scoffs beside Nancy, looking up from his own study guide to throw an arm possessively around her. 

Eddie’s about to call him out on his weird macho man behavior when his stomach starts to growl. Jesus H. Christ. He knew he shouldn’t have skipped lunch today. 

Nancy sighs, shaking Steve’s arm off of her as she stands. “I’m going to go grab us some snacks from the vending machine.” 

“You’re the best, Wheeler!” Eddie smiles, watching as Nancy walks away. 

When he turns back to the table, ready to flip the flashcard over to learn what an endergonic reaction is, Steve is glaring at him. His arms are crossed tightly across his chest as he leans back in the chair. Eddie can tell he’s trying to look casual and unbothered, but the tension in his jaw and the rage in his eyes say otherwise. 

“What’s got your panties in a twist, my liege?” 

Steve scoffs, shaking his head. “Do you think I’m stupid, Munson? I can see you flirting with my girlfriend right in front of me.” 

Eddie stares at Steve dumbfounded, wide eyes blinking as Steve continues to glare. There’s a rumble in the pit of his stomach, one that stems from laughter instead of hunger, but Eddie bites the inside of his cheek to keep it at bay. Something tells him laughing at Steve isn’t going to end well for him. He might have a bad track record when it comes to fights, but the only punch Eddie has ever thrown was accidental at a haunted house. And he ended up bruising his own hand instead of the clown’s nose. 

“I don’t have a crush on Nancy.” 

“Sure you don’t,” Steve hums sarcastically, crossing his arms even tighter. 

The stupid sleeves of his striped polo strain against the bulge of his biceps, and Eddie tries his best not to stare. Oh, if only you knew the truth, Harrington.

“Every guy here has a crush on Nancy. Especially since they know they can’t have her.” 

This time, it’s Eddie who scoffs. Objectively, sure, Nancy’s cute and all. But, the audacity of Harrington to think every guy wants her just because he has her is more irritating than comical. He doesn’t think Nancy would be too thrilled about it either. 

“I don’t know what to tell you, Harrington, but I don’t think about Nancy like that.” 

“So, what are you a queer then?” Steve snaps. 

Eddie feels his skin heat up like the blood is rushing to his cheeks and his ears, and then, as quickly as the temperature rises, it sinks, sending him into a numbing cold. Judging by Harrington’s wide eye gaze, Eddie assumes he looks like a guy who’s two seconds away from hurling or passing out on the floor. Both of which he’d welcome. Anything is better than having this conversation with Harrington. 

“Wait,” Steve says as if Eddie has the strength to get up from his seat. “Shit, I’m sorry. I— I don’t know why I said that. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m really sorry, man. I’m trying not to be this asshole, and then I go and say asshole shit like that. I just—“ Steve drags both hands down his face as he groans.

“You’re in love with her and don’t want another freak stealing her from you?” Eddie supplies, totally caught off guard by the sound of his own voice. Honestly, he’s kinda proud of himself for stringing together a coherent sentence, let alone a dig like that, after Steve’s insult-turned-apology. 

Steve doesn’t say anything, just stares at Eddie with those stupid wide eyes, and his even stupider lips barely parted. 

“What? It was kind of hard to ignore the little lover's quarrel you and Byers got into last winter. But trust me, Harrington. You have nothing to worry about. All I want from Wheeler is her help passing chem. As soon as I get that, I’ll be out of both of your hair.” 

Eddie can tell Steve’s thinking of a way to respond to that, but he never gets the chance because Nancy reappears just then. She dumps a handful of “brain food” on the table  — mostly trail mix concoctions and a lone Snickers bar — and passes each of the boys a bottle of water. It’s not exactly what Eddie was hoping for when she left for snacks, but he’s not about to complain. 

“Okay, so, endergonic reactions.” 

+ + +

Truthfully, Eddie should stop making plans since they never seem to go his way. What was supposed to be a chill, music-filled spring break has turned into quite the opposite. 

Instead, he’s spent the last two days in hiding, with only a handful of people keeping him safe, including Harrington and Wheeler, of all people. 

So much for staying out of their hair, he thinks manically, as he walks in tandem beside Steve in the actual hell-like version of Hawkins. They trail behind Robin and Nancy, Eddie rambling on and on about Steve, but he just can’t shut up. Maybe it’s the nerves, maybe it’s the memory of the three of them back in that library, maybe it’s just Eddie self-sabotaging because seeing Steve in his vest is doing things to him. Things he doesn't have time to deal with, especially not when Wheeler is right there.

Whatever it is, Eddie’s about to do the stupidest thing he’s ever done, aside from jumping into Lover's Lake in the first place.

Steve stops walking the minute Eddie starts talking about why he followed them here. They stop beside a tree, and Eddie angles his body so he’s in front of Steve. Probably closer than he should be, but Eddie’s not about to step backward. Not when there could be a creepy vine ready to trip him and give their positions away to the hoard of bats in the sky. No, thank you. 

He presses on instead, talking about Nancy and her incredible reaction time to Steve being dragged deeper and deeper into the murky waters. 

“Now, I don’t know what happened between you two, but if I were you, I would get her back,” Eddie says, eyes locked with Steve’s. “Because that was an unambiguous a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen.” 

With a hand clasped over his heart, Eddie watches as Steve glances towards Nancy’s direction. There’s a moment where Eddie thinks Steve’s actually going to listen to him. Run after the girl of his dreams and professes his undying love to her in the middle of the hell dimension version of Hawkins. But then, he slowly turns his head back toward Eddie and shakes his head. 

“I don’t...” Steve hesitates, eyes flickering to Eddie’s lips for the briefest of seconds before settling back on his eyes. He shakes his head. “I don’t have a crush on Nancy, man.” 

Eddie cocks his head in surprise. Lets a cackle of a laugh escape his lips as he stares back at Steve in disbelief. “You don’t have to bullshit me, man. It’s pretty clear you still have a thing for her. I mean, every guy in Hawkins has a crush on Nancy, remember.” 

Steve’s brows knit together, lips agape in that same stupid thinking face he gave Eddie all those years ago in the Hawkins High library. It’s aggravating how cute it is, even now when Steve’s covered in blood and grime and God knows what else. 

“Yeah, well,” Steve says, eyes slowly tracking Eddie from head to toe and back up again. “Turns out you were right. Not every guy has a crush on her. Some of us have eyes for someone else.” 

Just as Steve starts to lean in, the ground beneath them starts to rumble and shake, sending them both toppling to the floor. Whatever moment just happened between them disappears as the reality of their situation hits them again.

There’s no time for crushes when their lives are at stake. 

#eddiemonth #eddie munson #eddie munson ficlet #eddie munson fic #steddie #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #stancy #stancy fic #stancy ficlet #nancy wheeler #nancy wheeler fic #nancy wheeler ficlet #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #steve harrington ficlet #eddie munson & nancy wheeler #dani writes

[ghosttotheparty]

platonic soulmates eddie and nancy getting high and steve being Responsible; ty for the help @spectrum-spectre and @username-i-guess <3

---

The door swings open a few seconds after Steve knocks hard. (Probably a little too hard given the time of night, but someone down the road from Eddie’s trailer is playing music that Steve would be able to sing along to if he knew the words, so he didn’t worry about it.)

Nancy’s hair is frizzy, and her cheeks are flushed, her eyes glassy and red. A smile is teasing at her lips. Steve’s stomach twists as he looks at her. She’s wearing a Slayer t-shirt, wrinkled and too big for her, falling to her knees and hiding whether or not she’s wearing shorts underneath.

“What the hell’s going on?” Steve asks sharply. It’s cold out, and it’s late, and the last thing he was expecting while staring at the ceiling was to hear Nancy’s voice over the phone, sluggishly telling him to come over to Eddie’s as soon as possible. (And if Nancy is telling him something so pressing, of course he’s going to listen.) But as she grins up at him, flushed and sleepy-looking, he wonders why the fuck she’d invite him over for this. Which is something he really never would have seen coming. Nancy and Eddie.

“We’re high,” she says, and he blinks.

“You’re…”

“He’s higher than me,” she says, and Steve’s never heard her voice like this, mumbly and slow and almost childish. Her lashes flutter as she blinks, gesturing with a lazy hand. “But ‘m also high. But you’re not.”

Confusion tangles with frustration in Steve’s chest, and she can see it on his face as he looks her up and down again, his eyes skimming deftly over her bare legs and Eddie’s fucking t-shirt and her tangled, frizzy hair.

“We didn’t fuck, Steve,” she says too loudly, looking at him like he’s being ridiculous, and he splutters out, “You can’t— You can’t blame me for thinking that!”

“Oh my god,” she says, exasperated, and he huffs.

“Why am I here? It’s like three in the morning.”

“Look,” she says, looking at the ground, holding a hand up. “I made brownies. We had one each, and then we shared two blunts, and then Eddie got hungry and forgot there’s pot in the brownies. And now he’s too high.”

“You made… pot brownies,” he says slowly, his mind reeling. Her expression changes, shifting into a terrifying combination of annoyance and frustration.

“Focus, Steve,” she says loudly. “He’s too high. I’m too high to help him.”

“Why’d you call me?”

“You’re, like— the mom!” she says, tossing a hand in his direction, gesturing aimlessly.

“Wha— Why?”

“You were a lifeguard.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“What, would rather I call Mike?” she asks, throwing a hand again.

“Why are you shit-talking your little brother?”

“Everyone else does.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t, he’s your brother.”

“Steve,” she almost shouts. “You’re not focussing.”

“Oh my god,” he says, exasperated, trying to push past her. “Where is he?”

“Sofa,” she says, pushing the door open further and moving aside so he can come in. “I can’t move him, he’s too heavy.”

Steve steps inside. The smell of weed hits him hard, and he holds back another Oh my god.

Eddie is laying on the sofa, looking up at the ceiling blankly, his eyes glazed over and unblinking. One of his arms is up against the back of the sofa and the other is hanging down, his fingertips brushing the ground.

“Eds,” Steve says, crouching by the sofa and nudging his shoulder. “You in there?”

Eddie stares at the ceiling, silent for a moment before, “…Steve?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“…Where are you?” Eddie asks lightly, his eyes searching the ceiling like he’s going to find Steve on it.

“Turn your head,” Steve says, begrudgingly amused as Eddie turns his head slowly to face the back of the sofa. “Other way, Eddie.”

Eddie’s bloodshot eyes widen when they find Steve, and Steve suppresses a smile as Eddie breathes, “Wow.”

“How you feel?” Steve asks softly.

“Goo-o-o-od,” Eddie slurs, grinning deliriously. “Nancy’s a baker.”

“Is she,” Steve says dryly.

“Mm. Nancy baker. Good ass baker. I’m a baker. I’m baked. Steve, I’m baked.” He giggles, his whole face lighting up, eyes squeezing shut as his cheeks squish up, the lines in his skin deepening beautifully.

Nancy is giggling behind Steve, and without turning to look at her, he calls, “Nancy, don’t you touch those brownies.”

There’s a moment of silence, except for Eddie’s giggling, and then she huffs and there’s a clatter of a knife on the counter.

“Mom,” she calls back, and he rolls his eyes.

“Steve,” Eddie stage-whispers. “Do you wanna bake?”

Steve blinks at him.

“No, Eddie,” he says calmly. “No, I don’t.”

“But it’s so fun-n-n…”

“I know, Eds, but someone’s gotta keep you in check.”

“‘S nice of you, Stevie.”

“Eddie!” Nancy calls from the kitchen, and Eddie beams at the sound of her voice, his eyes closing as he lifts his chin and says her name back. “Steve thought we fucked.”

“Nancy,” Steve snaps, looking at her with wide eyes as Eddie gasps dramatically.

“I would never,” Eddie says loudly. “Nancy Baker is a beautiful woman, but she is not my type, ‘m afraid.”

“Nancy Baker,” Steve repeats under his breath, turning back to Eddie as Nancy laughs in a way Steve’s never heard her laugh, open and loud and childish.

“Why?” Nancy says, her voice teasing. “Why am I not your type, Eds?”

“You be quiet,” he says to the ceiling, closing his eyes, his face red.

“Tell him!”

“No.”

“You can tell him!”

“I’m not gonna,” Eddie sings loudly.

Steve huffs.

“Nance, leave him alone,” he says. “Eddie, you don’t have to tell me anything.”

“Eddie,” Nancy sings back, ignoring Steve. “Tell him!”

“I am not telling Steve Harrington I’m gay, Nancy.”

Steve’s breath catches in his throat, and Nancy claps a hand over her mouth.

“You said it,” she says gleefully after a moment as Steve stares at Eddie, his stomach fluttering, because Eddie’s gay. Because he didn’t want to tell Steve.

“I didn’t tell Steve, I told you.”

“Steve is in the room, you dumbass.”

A few seconds pass before Eddie’s eyes widen at the ceiling, and his face flushes darker, and he looks at Steve, his eyes shining with a fear that Steve fucking hates.

“It’s okay,” Steve says quickly even though he’s still reeling. “It’s cool, Eddie, I don’t— I don’t have a problem with it.”

Eddie blinks at him.

“It’s okay,” Steve says again, nodding. “‘S fine.”

“I told you,” Nancy says from the kitchen.

Eddie rolls onto his side, hiding his face with his hair, groaning, and Steve takes a moment, lowering his head to the sofa cushion and exhaling shakily. He can feel Nancy watching him, but he can’t even bring himself to care.

“Okay,” he says after taking another deep breath. “Bedtime, Eds, come on.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Come on, Wayne’s gonna be here in a few hours,” Steve says. “He doesn’t wanna sleep in your bed.”

“…You know Wayne’s schedule?”

“Yeah,” Steve says softly. “Of course.”

Eddie is quiet, still hiding from Steve.

“Eddie, get up."

“Can’t move,” Eddie mumbles into the sofa.

Steve sighs, rubbing his cheek as Nancy snickers.

“Come on,” he says, standing and wincing as his knees pop, tugging at Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie just groans loudly, and Steve sighs again. “I’m gonna help you, Eds, c’mere.”

He leans down and picks up Eddie’s arm, pulling him up so he’s standing, and he’s heavy on Steve as Steve wraps an arm around his waist. He’s soft.

Steve stumbles down the hall with Eddie, whose head falls forward as he groans, his hair hiding his face, and Steve calls to Nancy to not touch the brownies. He smiles when he hears her blow a raspberry at him.

“Oh no,” Eddie says when they sway together, and Steve stops before the doorway of his bedroom.

“You feel sick?”

Eddie stares wide-eyed at the floor, unblinking, unmoving.

“Eds?”

Eddie hums quietly, standing still before his head turns in Steve’s direction slowly, his eyes following behind after a moment.

“You gonna be sick?” Steve asks when he doesn’t say anything.

“…No.”

“You okay?”

Eddie exhales, his glassy eyes skimming over Steve’s face.

“Yeah,” he breathes.

“Bed,” Steve says. “Come on.”

“‘M coming…” Eddie mumbles, and then he giggles. “Coming.”

“Jesus,” Steve mutters, his cheeks flushing.

He gets Eddie into his room and into bed, carefully lowering him so he doesn’t flop, and Eddie writhes, pushing his face into his pillow. The room is dark, lit up by the hall, and Steve flicks on a lamp.

“Where’s Nancy?” Eddie says, his voice muffled by his pillow. “Nancy. ‘S a pretty name. Nancy Wheeler Baker. Nancy. N’ncy…”

Steve gets up to call Nancy’s name down the hall, and she appears after a moment, after flicking off the lights in the living room.

She climbs onto the bed next to Eddie as Steve watches. Eddie wraps an arm around Nancy’s waist, hugging her and grinning as she looks down at him, poking his cheek.

“Edward…”

“Nancelot,” he slurs, and Steve scoffs, raising an eyebrow. “Pretty lady.”

“You are so high,” she says, emphasising every word with a poke to the tip of Eddie’s nose.

“You make good brownies,” he mumbles, his eyes fluttering shut as she keeps poking his nose. “Chef Nancelot.”

“It was a box mix,” Nancy giggles, leaning over his head as he snorts.

“But I could taste your lo-o-o-ove…”

She snorts, snickering and running her hand over his face.

“Are you guys set?” Steve asks, still watching from where he’s leaning against the doorframe. “Am I free?”

“Don’t go,” Nancy says, whining, reaching out and making grabby hands at him as Eddie groans. “Sleepover.”

He stares for a moment, hesitating, and then Eddie says his name, dragging it out dramatically, desperately.

“Stevie-e-e-e…”

Steve sighs, glancing at the dark window, and he gives in, kicking his shoes off as Nancy cheers, clapping happily. He climbs onto Eddie’s bed on his other side.

They’re all too close, Eddie laying partially on top of Nancy’s legs, and Steve leans against the wall next to Nancy, their shoulders almost touching.

Eddie rolls over, against Steve’s legs, and Steve looks at him. His eyes are closed, his lips curved into a happy smile, and Steve can’t help but reach down to the top of his head that’s at Steve’s waist. His hair is messy, tangled, and Steve pushes his fingers into it. Eddie hums.

“Didn’t know you guys were so close,” he says softly to Nancy.

“‘S my best friend,” she says lightly. “You know… your whole thing with Robin?”

“Platonic with a capital P,” Steve says softly.

“Mhmm. ‘S Eddie and me.”

“Soulmates?” Steve says softly. Nancy nods, smiling. “Never would’ve thought.”

She giggles quietly, scrunching her nose.

“Valedictorian and super-super senior.”

“Mhmm.”

“Eddie Munson,” she sings softly, reaching to play with the end of one of Eddie’s curls. Eddie is still smiling, head tilted up into Steve’s hand, and Steve can’t tell if he’s asleep or not.

“Eddie Munson,” Steve repeats like he’s agreeing.

“Never would’ve thought,” Nancy says quietly, almost pointedly, giving Steve a look.

“Thought what?”

Her gaze lowers to his hand in Eddie’s hair, eyebrows raised, and she reaches out to poke the back of it. (Nancy pokes a lot when she’s high, apparently.)

“I’m just…” Steve trails off, unable to find an excuse, and his cheeks flush.

“‘S cool,” she says lightly.

They’re quiet.

Steve listens to Eddie breathe, and as he scratches at his scalp gently, he thinks he doesn’t mind that Nancy called him as much as he did when he arrived.

“Steve,” Nancy says quietly after a while, after shifting and slumping against the wall. She’s resting her arm across Eddie’s chest.

“Yeah,” Steve whispers.

“…You’re too hard on yourself, you know that?”

He blinks, his eyes looking across the room at the mess of posters that are covering Eddie’s wall.

“Oh,” he says.

“You, like…” She sighs heavily. “You’re not… the same. But you keep all that guilt inside you. And you… act like you’re this whole new person, this… this nice guy. But you’re still a bully.”

His chest clenches, and he looks at her, his eyes burning.

“Because you’re so mean to yourself,” she adds after a moment. “I think… there’s a little part of King Steve still inside you, you… beat the shit out of him every day.” She’s mumbling, talking so softly that it’s almost like she’s talking to herself.

“But if you’re— if you’re gonna be Steve Steve, our Steve, the— the Steve that’s best friends with a dorky lesbian and a fourteen-year-old nerd, you gotta… forgive yourself. Let King Steve go.”

Steve blinks tears back, swallowing thickly, exhaling shakily, because she’s right. King Steve lives inside him, like he’s hiding in his ribcage, and Steve won’t leave him alone. He torments him, bullies him. Even though King Steve is just a kid, just a scared, lonely kid without a clue about what or who he is. Even though Steve knows King Steve was pretending the whole time. Lying. Wearing a false crown.

“…You know about Robin?” he asks weakly, his voice wobbly, and Nancy smiles a little bit.

“I know well.”

He looks over at her, and she looks up at him, seeing the confusion in his watery eyes.

“Like recognizes like,” she says softly.

Oh.

His lips twitch into a smile, and she grins.

“Who would’ve thought?” Steve murmurs.

Nancy smiles so brightly that her eyes squeeze shut, and she leans so her head is resting on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve tilts his head to rest on hers.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t love you like I was supposed to,” Nancy says after a while, her voice soft.

“You weren’t supposed to love me, Nance,” Steve says, closing his eyes. “You can’t… You can’t make yourself love someone just because you think you have to. It’s okay.”

“I wanted to,” she whispers.

“It’s okay,” he says again.

She’s quiet again, and he thinks she’s fallen asleep until she speaks again.

“I do love you,” she says quietly. “Just… platonically.”

“With a capital P,” Steve murmurs, and he can practically sense her smile.

“Yeah.”

“‘S cool, Nance,” he says softly. “I love you too.”

He drifts off as she falls asleep, feeling her head become heavier on his shoulder, and at some point they both shift in discomfort on the wall, sitting up straight and groaning quietly. They glance at each other in the dark lighting of the room, and Nancy shifts to lie down on the bed next to Eddie, wrapping her arm around him and sighing. Steve follows, moving slowly so Eddie can shift with him, still laying on top of him on the small mattress.

Steve falls asleep.

He wakes up to Eddie climbing on top of him, and he winces, cracking his eyes open to squint in the bright sunlight that’s shining through the room. Eddie’s legs wrap around his hips and he buries his face in Steve’s neck as he sighs, and Nancy shifts closer to Steve in her sleep.

Steve sets a hand across Eddie’s back, holding him, and Nancy finds Steve’s other arm before he can wrap it around Eddie, hugging it to herself and nuzzling into his shoulder. Steve smiles.

Eddie rubs his face into Steve’s neck again, taking a deep breath, and then he lifts his head, his body tightening and trembling for a moment.

He’s squinting when he looks down at Steve, brows furrowed adorably. He blinks blankly at Steve, whose smile widens.

“You still high?” Steve asks softly.

Eddie stares for a moment before his lips curve into a smile, and he shrugs.

“‘M on top of Steve Harrington in my bed,” he says, his voice rough. “Might be.”

Steve laughs lightly, closing his eyes. Eddie shifts to touch his face, poking his cheek and tracing the bridge of his nose and outlining his lips.

“Feels real,” Eddie murmurs.

“‘M real, Eds.”

“‘M gonna go back to sleep,” Eddie mumbles, sticking his face back in Steve’s neck. His breath is warm.

“Okay.”

#in the morning they find wayne eating a brownie and nancy panics but eddie just starts cackling #wayne assumed they were pot brownies bc he could smell the weed still and he just went for it #nancy is a lesbian in this #steve and jonny were comphet <3 #shes broken up w jonathan but theyre still friends ofc #anyway this was fun #got a lot more emo than i was expecting #steddie #steddie one shot #steddie ficlet #steddie blurb #platonic stancy #nancy and eddie #do they have a ship name (thats not rly a ship name bc its platonic obv but) idk #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington one shot #eddie munson one shot #nancy wheeler #nancy wheeler one shot #random disclaimer ive never actually been high nor have i need around ppl that are high #i fully made all this up idk how weed works in any form #i once accidentally got a little high bc i didn't open the windows while doing an oil painting #and when i describe being dissociated/derealization and whatnot i get told it sounds like being high a lot so i just use that #this is diff from the anaesthesia bc i feel like that's more loopy than weed high #but who knows i could be talking out of my ass rn #anyway high eddie is fun #i think high steve might be fun too i just need a prompt 👀

[patheticgirlsteve]

Everyone expects things to be weird between Nancy and Steve after everything has finally settled, Nancy and Steve included. And, for a while, they’re right. It is weird.

They don’t meet each other’s eyes at group gatherings, they exchange polite and obviously stilted greetings, and they only speak full sentences to each other when they have to discuss the kids.

It’s weird. Everyone notices.

It almost feels like a divorced couple remaining civil with each other for the sake of the kids, but Nancy and Steve know that that’s not right. It’s not that they don’t want to move on and be friends with each other, it’s that they don’t know how.

When the two of them got together in high school they weren’t friends, they were dating, and it’s an important distinction. They never went through a period of getting to know and like each other outside of a romantic relationship. They have no experience in being friends with each other and they don’t know where to start now that everything between them has happened.

It takes a while for them to get there.

Nancy leaves Hawkins, Steve stays. This is expected and no one is surprised.

Nancy goes off to Emerson and Robin decides to go with her, having gotten accepted there as well. They both don’t want to go off to new place all alone with no one who Gets It, but they don’t want to stay in Hawkins either. It makes sense.

Steve stays behind in Hawkins, keeping an eye on the kids and slowly but surely falls in love with Eddie. This is not entirely unexpected, but it’s not particularly surprising either once everyone takes a second to reflect on it. Some prior interactions between the two make a lot more sense with this new info.

Nancy hears news of it through Robin, and she feels like she can breathe a little easier with this new knowledge. She knows Steve, she trusts him, but a big part of her hesitation to be friends with him was that she was nervous that he really wasn’t over her. So when she hears that he’s dating Eddie, she decides it’s the perfect time to reach out to him. Maybe they can just be friends now.

The problem is that she doesn’t know what to say to him. She doesn’t want to just comment on his new relationship because it would be weird to do, as his ex and all. She wracks her brain trying to find something to say, some connection to pull from.

And then she has a sudden rush of memory, a memory of a day spent together. Things weren’t always good between them, but when they were it was nice. Really nice. Steve could be surprisingly quiet and reserved when they were alone together. He would sit with Nancy, their limbs intertwined in some way, while Nancy was focused on whatever she was working on at the time.

Nancy thinks of one of those days, before everything had fallen apart. Steve had had his head in her lap as she read a book, absently running her fingers through his hair, when Steve had turned his face up to look at her. She had paused in her paragraph and was about to tell him not to distract her when he spoke up.

“Read to me?”

He didn’t say it in a demanding way, he sounded nervous, actually. He sounded like he thought Nancy would say no or that she would judge him for asking to be read aloud to. It twinged something in Nancy’s heart.

She remembers that she had smiled at him, as kindly as she could, and said, “I’m in the middle of the chapter, you wouldn’t understand what’s happening.”

Steve had looked disappointed for a fraction of a second before quickly masking it with a casual smile and nodded. “That’s okay, it was a stupid thing to ask for anyway.”

He had laughed, and it would have fooled most people, but it didn’t fool Nancy. She had thought about the request for a moment. It made sense, she had realized, that Steve would ask her to read to him. She knew that he had trouble with reading, he had mentioned that the words on the page always swam when he tried to read them and that it gave him too much of a headache to be able to enjoy reading.

He had always shrugged it off like it didn’t bother him, but Nancy realized then that it did bother him. Maybe Steve wanted to enjoy books too, but he just wasn’t able to. Maybe this was something she could do for him, something small, something kind.

She marked her page and flipped back to the front of the book.

“It’s not stupid, Steve,” She had corrected him gently but firmly. “We can just start from the beginning, I wasn’t very far in yet anyway.”

Steve’s face had shown his shock, but also his delight. They had ended up spending the rest of the day like that, Nancy reading aloud to him, slowly and clearly so that he wouldn’t miss anything, pausing when Steve had questions about the story or the characters or the meaning of a word.

It had been really nice.

So Nancy knows exactly how to reach out to Steve, knows exactly what to send to him. She drags Robin along to the local bookstore with her (Robin goes willingly, not needing to be dragged anywhere by Nancy Wheeler) and asks the woman at the desk if they have books on tape.

When they leave the store, Nancy is carrying a bag full of tapes, one of them being the same book she had read aloud to Steve back in high school. She mails it and another audiobook to him with a short note.

“It’s not exactly the same as being read to, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Let me know what you think of them. -Nance”

Steve is surprised and a bit confused when he gets mail from Nancy. They don’t really talk and she doesn’t send him letters, and she definitely doesn’t send him packages.

He opens it and furrows his brow when two tapes fall out of the padded yellow envelope Nancy had sent them in. He picks one up and sees that it’s the same book he had asked her to read to him that one day, before they fell apart. He’s kind of shocked she even remembers that, to be honest. Had figured it wasn’t as significant to her as it had been to him and that she had simply forgotten about it. But he’s secretly pleased that he was wrong.

He reads her note and smiles. It feels nice, being able to smile about Nancy again. He slips the title that Nancy had read to him into the cassette player he keeps on his bedside table and settles in to listen. It’s not as nice as Nancy’s narration had been, but he finds that he still enjoys it. Enjoys it a lot, actually.

When he goes for his daily jog the next morning, he slips the other book tape into his walkman to listen to instead of his usual mixtape. He gets so drawn into the story that he ends up listening to it when he gets home too, listens to it all day and ends up finishing it before bed.

He writes back to Nancy the next day, thanking her for the tapes and telling her how much he enjoyed them as well hearing from her. He shares his thoughts on the books, is surprised by himself and the fact that he actually has a lot of thoughts about the writing, the plot, the characters, and more things that he remembers being told were important in high school English but had never really understood until now.

Nancy replies with a lengthy response to Steve’s points, and two new tapes. Steve’s grin lights up his whole face.

It becomes a bit of a ritual for them, this sharing of books and thoughts and opinions. Throughout the next few months they exchange a surprising amount of letters, Steve ends up going to the local bookstore just outside of Hawkins and buying books for Nancy too (not on tape, he knows she prefers a physical copy of it to read).

Eddie and Robin watch these developments with relief and with joy. They’re just happy that Steve and Nancy are happy and that the two of them have found a way to be friends, finally. The kids definitely notice Steve with his headphones on a lot more often lately and always with a look of concentration while he’s listening, but they don’t think anything of it.

Nancy and Robin come home for winter break and all of the kids are shocked to see Steve and Nancy greet each other with warm and genuine smiles. Their jaws drop as they watch the two hug and start chatting excitedly. Eddie and Robin just laugh at the kid’s’ reactions while Steve and Nancy just keep discussing their most recent read.

And if the two of them find some time sit together while Nancy reads aloud to Steve while she’s home for the break, well, then that’s their business.

#platonic stancy #they just. mean a lot to me ok #i think they could really be friends if they got the chance #also yeah steve listening to books on tape and you can pry that hc from my cold dead fingers #but he prefers being read aloud to #eddie definitely starts reading aloud to steve more after finding that out #okay. yeha that’s all #steve #nancy #my writing #ficlet #anya.txt

[withacapitalp]

How to Rehabilitate a Jock Pt 20

Part Nineteen Part One Link to ao3

A huge thank you to so many people but it's especially @thefreakandthehair for betaing, being the best, and generally encouraging all of my nuttiness. Also a big shout out to Bowie ( don't remember your Tumblr my lovely!!) for doublechecking some sensititvity reading for me. Y'all rock!!!

Jeff had the decency to wait until Frank was safely in his house before he called Eddie out on his shit. 

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Jeff sighed the second the door closed behind Frank, leaving only the snow, Eddie’s headlights, and two best friends about to have an incredibly awkward conversation. 

“Driving you dicks home?” Eddie tried, hoping that he could fool Jeff into not having the uncomfortable conversation that was already beginning. He kicked the van into reverse, throwing a hand casually over Jeff’s seat as he turned and began to maneuver his way back to the road. 

“Eddie.”

It wasn’t much. It wasn’t anything really. Just his name, nothing more, nothing less, but it was Jeff’s tone. 

That voice, the voice he always used when he was trying to cut through Gareth and Eddie’s bullshit. Corroded Coffin had lasted all these years because of balance. Frank was their rock, steady and sure; Eddie and Gareth were the stream, bouncing and playing and whirling around in a daze; but Jeff was the earth around them. Jeff was everything, and Eddie might be their leader, but Jeff was the one that held everything together. 

And he was the only one who could get Eddie to drop the act with just one word. 

“Honestly, dude? I have no fucking idea what I’m doing,” Eddie sighed, slightly curling in on himself as he focused on the road. The snow was only mildly awful at the moment, but winter in Indiana could turn on a dime and Eddie wasn’t looking to run his van off the road just because Jeff was grilling him about his stupid little completely non-existent crush. 

“Well, what do you want from him?” Jeff asked, dragging the first word slowly out as he thought about what he wanted to say. Sometimes the other members of Hellfire would do things like that— talk slow or choose words carefully, just to try and avoid Eddie’s sparky temper. 

Unfortunately for him, Eddie was already worked up about this particular topic. 

“Great question!” Eddie snapped, going to throw his hands up before choosing to be wise and hold the wheel steady. A small squall was beginning to form around them, and his visibility was starting to cut to next to none.

“Okay, okay,” Jeff said, placating to Eddie’s need to be a bit of an asshat, “So what happened between you and Steve that’s got Gareth so pressed?”

If it was any other person in the car with him, Eddie might have been able to fake it. Even Frank might have fallen for a lie about Gareth’s hatred of jocks and conformity and how Steve was just a representation of that. 

But it was Jeff. Jeff, who was their Earth, who knew that Gareth’s grudge wouldn’t have lasted this long if it wasn’t motivated by protectiveness. That the only reason Gareth wouldn’t have started to warm up even a little bit was his need to make sure his people were safe. 

Few things in life were assured, but death, taxes, and Gareth Winston’s need to protect his own were all a given.  

“Steve probably doesn’t even remember, so it doesn’t matter,” Eddie muttered, evading the question just as he narrowly evaded a pothole that seemed to appear out of thin air on the road in front of them. The storm was picking back up again, and this was not the conversation to be having right at this moment.  

“Well, do you want him to fuck you?” Jeff asked bluntly, cutting through the fat and straight to the juicy meat of the problem. 

“Jeff!” Eddie blurted out, a nervous burst of laughter escaping along with his name. He took the risk of looking away from the road for a few seconds to give the other boy a wild-eyed look, but Jeff seemed unphased, cool as a cucumber as a lion’s smile began to curl on his face. 

“Do you want to fuck him?” 

Unbidden, a dozen images flashed through Eddie’s head. Steve in his bed. Steve shirtless. Steve underneath him with his hair splayed out on the pillows, wrists trapped in gleaming silver cuffs as he begged so pretty for—

No. 

No no no no no no NO. 

“Dude!” Eddie groaned, turning away from the road again to shout at Jeff. 

And then it happened. 

Jeff’s shit-eating grin disappeared, his eyes growing to the size of dinner plates as he shouted a wordless warning cry and Eddie had less than a second to turn back to the road, slamming his foot on the brake and throwing his arm out to protect Jeff from the inevitable crash. 

There was something on the road in front of them. The snow made it impossible to see beyond the shape, but, whatever it was, it was massive. Huge, and hulking, with a dark shadow that sent a chill down Eddie’s spine, and he was sure his van wouldn’t survive the impact. 

But no impact came. 

His tires skidded, the van turned half a quarter, but no collision, no smashing glass, no pain. Just twin panting from him and Jeff, and an empty road all around them. 

“What was that?” Jeff whispered when he was able to form words again. 

“A deer, I guess,” Eddie murmured back, not really feeling all that sure of his answer. He had never seen a deer like that, but he also hadn’t really seen anything. His wild imagination wanted to run with it, but there was no point. Whatever it was, it was gone, and that’s what mattered. 

He leaned back against his seat, his heart still racing as he patted Jeff’s chest twice, slightly assured when he could feel Jeff’s heart pounding through his shirt as well.

“Sorry.” 

“Shouldn’t’ve distracted you,” Jeff mumbled, lacing his fingers together to hide how badly they were shaking. 

“Hey, not your fault,” Eddie said, knowing how Jeff’s anxiety tended to latch to any blame it could when it got tripped like this. Eddie tested the van, carefully pulling back onto the right side of the road. They stayed quiet as Eddie turned them towards Jeff’s house, driving at a turtle’s pace with both hands on the wheel. 

“I want to help him,” Eddie offered into the silence, eyes firm on the road. “If I can.”

When Jeff didn’t immediately respond, Eddie thought that was the end of the conversation, but as they approached Jeff’s neighborhood, the boy next to him spoke up again. 

“Steve needs the help. Something’s really wrong with him, Eds.”

“You’re turning over to Gareth’s side?” Eddie joked, the words thin and frail and instantly disappearing the second he put them in the air. 

“No,” Jeff replied, no veil of humor over his words. “There’s something wrong with him like there’s something wrong with me.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Eddie said on instinct, hating the bitter scoff Jeff gave. He pulled up to a stop sign and put the van all the way in park, turning in his seat and giving Jeff his full attention 

“Look at me.” Eddie ordered, waiting until Jeff’s dark eyes met his own in the dim light of the streetlamp before speaking again. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Jeff. Nothing.” He said, making sure that there was zero wiggle room in his voice. 

Because there wasn’t, and Eddie hated that his best friend thought there was. There was something wrong with Hawkins, with the country they lived in, with the world. There was something wrong with a species that somehow made color a defining factor in a person’s worth, but there was not, and never would be, anything wrong with who Jeff was.

“Fine, then something wrong happened to both of us,” Jeff amended, a ghost of a smile crossing his face at Eddie’s insistence. “Either way, just be careful with him,” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be giving Steve the shovel talk? Not the other way around?” Eddie joked, putting the van back in gear and turning onto Jeff’s street. 

“When you get him, I’ll give him the talk,” Jeff promised, crossing his heart as he did. 

When, not if. Just one word instead of the other, but a flush of warmth flooded Eddie from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Jeff was right to use the word ‘when’, because Eddie’s chances were not even ‘if’, but he loved the positivity. 

“Have a good night, man,” Jeff said as they pulled into his driveway, holding out a hand for a quick shake as he unbuckled his seatbelt.  

“Hey,” Eddie called, grabbing the edge of Jeff’s coat as he stepped out of the van. “Us freaks stick together. Always.”

It was a little reminder, just a hint of a conversation they had over a year ago, but judging by the way Jeff’s eyes softened and his shoulders lowered, he knew exactly what Eddie was reminding him of. 

“Always,” Jeff echoed, squeezing Eddie’s wrist once before he hurried towards his darkened house and slipped inside. Eddie waited till the porch light turned off before sighing heavily, resting his head against the steering wheel for a moment before reversing again. 

Back to the lion’s den. 

The house was dark as Eddie quietly let himself back in, but the glow of the pool and the embers of the fire crackling in the fireplace gave just enough light to see the aftermath of the party. It wasn’t half as bad as some of the messes Eddie had seen from Steve’s previous parties, but it was still pretty messy. There would be a lot of cleanup coming tomorrow, and Eddie’s heart ached when he thought about Steve spending Christmas Eve alone cleaning up his house. 

Damn this boy. Eddie didn’t even celebrate Christmas, and here he was worrying over Steve about being alone for it. 

Maybe Wayne wouldn’t mind having one more person over for dinner. Usually it was just the two of them, but Wayne loved his strays almost as much as Eddie did, and Steve was an easy guy to care about. 

Eddie would ask him tomorrow morning. Call before anyone woke up and see what Wayne said. Then he would offer to help clean and ask Steve when it was just the two of them. After all, no one should be alone on the holidays. 

Eddie was so lost in his thoughts, that he almost missed the sound of an angel singing somewhere up above. 

Are you lonesome tonight?

Do you miss me tonight?

Are you sorry we drifted apart?

But no, there was no missing that voice. Eddie was a connoisseur of music, but he already knew that almost any other song was ruined for him. He was the cat caught by the canary instead of the other way around, lost in the sound of a voice he hadn’t heard in years. It was deeper now, fuller, grown almost into a man from the boy he had been the last time Eddie heard him sing.  

Does your memory stray to a bright summer day

When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?

He climbed the stairs slowly, drawn like a moth to a flame, knowing it would burn, but needing to be close anyway. 

Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?

Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?

Outside the room now, Eddie could see it all while still staying hidden. Steve was sitting on the floor, his head leaned back against the bed that was filled to the bursting with his sleeping children. 

His entire self was on display for Eddie, not just his body, but his soul and his mind, a gift being given without knowing, and Eddie was too selfish not to take it. 

Is your heart filled with pain?

Shall I come back again?

This was the boy Gareth couldn’t see, but the one Eddie couldn’t stop looking for. A boy who knew their first memory together. Without a doubt. Who had never forgotten, no matter how much Eddie tried to convince himself he had. 

There was no other reason to pick this song. 

Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

And without permission Eddie was thrust into a memory.

Despite it only being his sophomore year, Eddie was more than used to getting detention. In the two years since he had moved to Hawkins, Eddie had earned his ‘problem child’ status at least twice over. This particular afternoon, he was stuck sitting at a graffitied desk in the detention room because he dared to argue when his teacher told him that it was valid to not believe in evolution when it went against your religious beliefs. 

Evolution. The base of all humanity. 

She was wrong, but she was the one with all the power, so Eddie was the one in trouble. 

Still it could’ve been worse. Wayne had given him the van for his fifteenth birthday, so he wasn’t stuck waiting on the steps for a ride home after missing the bus. It wasn’t technically legal, but Hopper tended to look the other way as long as Eddie continued to give him discounts on ‘merchandise’. 

All Eddie had to do was wait out the clock. Mr. Whiter had already fallen asleep at the desk up front and at six, Eddie would be free. Maybe he could even stop at Benny’s. The man always gave him extra fries to bring home to Wayne, and Eddie was making good money now that Rick was in the slammer. He was the last dealer left in town, so things were looking up. 

Well things would be looking up, except the kid next to him refused to stop sniffling. 

Eddie muffled an irritated sigh, sliding his eyes over to take stock of the boy sitting across the way. Clearly a freshman, and obviously his first time in detention. He was looking around the room with wide-eyed horror, slightly terrified of every single thing he saw, and obviously trying to brush tears away from his bruised cheek and busted lip. 

Normally, Eddie would just tell him to shut up. That detention was barely anything to have to deal with in the grand scheme of things, but he had seen the fight that landed the kid in detention, and it had been bad enough to warrant some misery. 

One second he and another boy (obviously a friend given how upset the kid was) were laughing by his locker, and the next second they were exchanging blows. It had been bad, taking three teachers to separate them, and somehow this kid had gotten in trouble for the whole thing!

But Eddie had seen the start, and it was the other twerp that had thrown the first punch. Yet somehow, he was already on the bus home and this schmuck was stuck in detention with the Freak of Hawkins High

The unjustness gnawed at Eddie’s soul, and the longer the kid sat there doing nothing but brush at his already dry cheeks, the harder it was to ignore him. 

Fuck it. There were worse ways to spend an afternoon. 

Eddie grabbed his notebook, slamming it open to a fresh page and dragging his favorite purple pen across the paper, taking a cursory glance at Mr. Whiter’s snoring form before sliding his chair over to the other boy. 

“Hi!” Eddie said, throwing a big smile in the kids direction and hoping that would grease the wheels a little. Eddie knew how intimidating he could look to the rest of the world, and he liked it that way, but it sometimes made it hard to make friends. 

Sure enough, the kid startled the second Eddie spoke, looking at him the way a deer looks at the hunter right before they hear the death shot. He didn’t seem like the type to just outright tell Eddie to fuck off, but he did look massively uncomfortable with Eddie invading his space.  

Oh well, what was the worst that could happen?

“Wanna kill some time?” Eddie offered, holding up his notebook before placing it down on the desk in front of them. A tic tac toe board sat in the middle of the page, and a scorecard was up in the top corner with the word ‘Eddie' on one side and the words ‘Random Kid 'on the other. 

A barely there smile glanced across the kids face as he looked down at the page, and then those big brown eyes were on him. Eddie waited patiently, forcing his body to stay still which was actually a pretty herculean task— not that this kid knew. He had the worm on the hook and the line in the water, and now he was just waiting for the curious fish to bite. 

Whatever the kid was looking for, he must’ve found it because that same soft, shy smile was gifted to Eddie as he leaned down, rooting around in his backpack for his own pen. When he found the one he was looking for, he carefully crossed over Eddie’s purple writing, replacing ‘Random Kid’ with just one word instead. 

“Well, Steve, let’s hope your tic-tac-toe powers are better than your fighting skills,” Eddie joked, pleased when instead of getting mad, Steve’s cheeks darkened in a pretty little blush, and he simply ducked his head with a soft protest and an embarrassed smile. 

They played a few rounds in relative silence, the occasional quiet groan or cheer when one or the other managed to clinch a victory. It was nice, a little boring, but far preferable to what they had been doing before. 

And then Steve’s pen died. 

It was a slow death, long and drawn out with some furious scribbling to try and get one last juice for the squeeze. 

“Here, man, just take mine. I’ve got a spare somewhere,” Eddie offered, not even thinking twice as he gave away his favorite pen, even though he never let anyone borrow that pen. Wayne had gotten it for him on a day trip to Indianapolis for his birthday, just a tiny trinket to commemorate the day, and Eddie loved it to death. 

There was no way Steve could have known that, and yet he was looking at the pen like it was a live snake. 

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Steve asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at the clearly treasured object in front of him. 

Eddie looked up at the other boy, furrowing his brow. 

“Why not?” Eddie said with a shrug, going back to his notebook with a plain black pen. He was scratching out another tic-tac-toe board to add to the dozens that were already on the page, but paused when he saw Steve wasn’t picking up his own pen. 

“People aren’t just nice,” Steve insisted, giving Eddie an unexpectedly guarded look. “They always want something…so what do you want from me?” 

“I want to make this afternoon a little less unbearable, I want to fight the system, and I want to make you feel better.” Eddie offered, quirking his head to the side and picking up his favorite purple pen to offer once more to the other boy, “Isn’t that enough?” 

They stared at each other for a long second, until Steve’s face broke into an incredulous smile and he ducked his head down. 

“You’re really weird,” he said with a soft laugh, taking the pen. It was a lovely sound, like birds singing in the morning, or the first soft strum of a guitar as practice began. 

Eddie needed to hear it again.

From there they were off, talking about everything and anything. Eddie shared about all of the  ridiculous reasons he had gotten detention over the years, and Steve explained that the other punk from the fight was Tommy, apparently his best friend for his entire life. They had lived next to each other since Steve had moved to Hawkins as a kid, and had done every single thing together. The reason Tommy had started the fight was Steve had told him he wasn’t sure he wanted to go to basketball try-outs tomorrow. 

“It’s not that I don’t like it, I just want to try some other stuff too you know?” Steve said, looking up from their game to catch Eddie’s eye, “We’re in high school now, so it’s the time to try something new, isn’t it?” 

“Sure it is!” Eddie agreed eagerly, holding himself back from going on a diatribe about the laundry basket devils that ran the school and instead talking about all of the clubs he was in. He couldn’t really see Steve enjoying Marching Band or Creative Writing, but Drama might be a good fit, or maybe Art. 

“You could even join the new club I’m trying to start if you wanted,” Eddie offered, trying to stay casual but practically vibrating at the thought of having someone else to show Higgins that Hellfire was worthy of a place at the table. 

“A new club?” Steve asked. 

“Yea, it’s gonna be great,” Eddie started, taking a deep breath to start his long rant about the joys of dungeons and dragons, “So it’s called—”

“Alright boys,” a nasally voice droned from the front of the room. “Time to pack it up.”

Both boys jumped at Mr. Whiter’s interruption, and Eddie rolled his eyes, frustrated at being stopped right as he had started to get to the good stuff. The geometry teacher either didn’t notice or didn’t care, too eager to get back to his own home to do whatever geometry teachers did when they weren’t at school. 

If Eddie had to guess, it was probably fucking their wives with compasses while reciting geometric formulas as foreplay. That seemed right. 

“And don’t let me catch you in here again, Mr. Harrington. I would hope your parents had taught you better,” Mr. Whiter said as they trudged past him. His blank potato looking face was only showing the barest hints of disappointment, but that was still enough to make Steve cringe away.

“Yes sir,” he whispered, all joy from the last hour they had spent together vanishing in an instant.

“What? No warning for me Mr. Whiter?” Eddie inquired, batting his eyes and trying to take the attention away from Steve. 

“I don’t particularly like wasting my breath on hopeless cases, Mr. Munson,” Whiter droned, half raising one brow, as if shocked that Eddie would even bother to ask for an admonishment. “Try to get your homework done tonight, will you? I’d hate to add another zero to my gradebook,”

Hot shame rushed down Eddie’s spine, replaced quickly by a lightning fury that made his lips loose and his logic take a quick hike. 

“Well, I don’t particularly like making promises I can’t keep, sorry Tighty-Whiteys!” Eddie declared, grabbing Steve’s hand and dragging him away before they could get in any trouble because of Eddie’s big fat mouth. 

“Jesus H Christ, that guys a dick!” Eddie shouted, both boys laughing breathlessly as they burst through the doors of the school. 

“You gonna do the homework?” Steve said through his giggles. 

“Now? Hell no!” Eddie swore, cackling as he did and jumping up onto the low wall next to the school. “Gotta fight the system however you can, Stevie. Trust me. Listen to your elders.”

“Whatever you say,”  Steve said, continuing to laugh at Eddie’s antics. He idly looked around the parking lot, his mood starting to darken as he looked again, searching the parking lot again, but Eddie wasn’t exactly sure what for. 

Then Steve sighed, plopping down on the curb and wrapping his arms around his knees resting his chin on top of them and rapidly blinking. 

“What’re you doin’?” Eddie asked with concern, shocked at Steve’s sudden turn and hopping down from his spot on the wall. 

“My parents aren’t here,” Steve muttered glumly, staring out at the empty lot instead of looking at Eddie as he sat on the curb next to Steve. “The school called after the fight, and they knew when I was getting out, but my dad’s probably going to make me wait ‘till after dinner or something.”

It wasn’t exactly the most damning thing to say in the world, Eddie could think of a dozen things that his dad had done to him that were worse, but the thought of making his own son wait for hours in the cold and dark still made something in his stomach squirm. He could never imagine Wayne doing anything like that to him.

Steve curled up even tighter around himself, completely unaware of Eddie’s internal struggle. 

“God, I bet they’re so pissed.” Steve whispered into his knees. “And now my dad’s going to have to come get me, and he’s going to be even madder about that—”

“Why don’t I give you a ride home?” Eddie offered in an instant, shocking even himself with the boldness of the offer. He had just met the kid only an hour ago, but Steve’s genuine nature touched something in him, and there was a magnetic pull to want to help him that Eddie couldn’t quite explain just yet. “Then at least they won’t be mad at you about needing a ride, right?”

It would make more sense for Steve to say no, to try and play it off, but instead he was giving Eddie a watery smile and a look of gratitude as he nodded, starting to stand. 

Eddie had never really worried about what the van looked like, but as they walked towards where it was, Eddie jogged ahead, trying to throw the multitudes of wrappers and junk into the back where Steve wouldn’t see. Luckily for him, the younger boy seemed enraptured by the simple fact that Eddie had a car at all. 

“I want something cool like a Beemer or a truck, but my mom doesn’t want me to get a car ‘till I’m 18,” Steve said idly, pausing and furrowing his brow as he did, “She’s really weird about me driving for some reason.” 

Hopefully, she wouldn’t feel too weird about a random guy giving her kid a ride home in a kidnapper van. 

“Pick a tape for us to listen to,” Eddie offered as he climbed into the driver's seat, fighting with his seatbelt as Steve perused his choices. Unfortunately, Steve quickly skipped over all of the metal that Eddie had at the front of the pack, but soon familiar notes began to sing, and Eddie’s shoulders relaxed as he recognized the song. 

“Ahhhh, The King. A good choice,” Eddie commented as Elvis’s voice began to croon out into the air between them. 

“Who could hate this song?” Steve asked rhetorically, a wry grin on his face as the tune began to take shape.

“I always loved that nickname,” Steve said off handedly, staring out the window at the rows of corn, “King.” 

“You should steal it then,” Eddie said automatically. Sure, Steve was a kid right now, but Eddie could see it in his eyes. A few years, a couple more inches, and that kid would have the world eating out of his palm. That sweet nature, that funny little humor, ‘King’ wasn’t too hard to imagine when it came to Steve. 

“Maybe,” Steve replied, drawing out the word with a tone that showed that he wasn’t sure about that. He gave Eddie a few more directions, and they got closer and closer to their time being done together. A strange desperation started to make Eddie’s heart race, like he could feel the two of them pulling back into their roles, backing away from whatever they had this afternoon. 

“It’s got a good ring to it. King Steve,” Eddie pushed, pausing and making the turn into Loch Nora before he put his heart on the line. 

“Why don’t you blow off basketball try-outs tomorrow? Come to my club I’m starting instead. You can meet my friends.”

It was a chance, a choice. Steve could make the right one, and be one of them, or he could get sucked into Hawkins and all of it’s hell hole small town bullshit. Eddie was giving him an out. 

“That sounds really fun,” Steve said in a small voice, a secret smile shared between them before it was ruined by a shout from the house in front of them. 

“Steven!”

It was a woman’s voice, and Steve’s entire body stiffened. No more smiles, no more relaxing, Steve was a rod of pure steel, with a blank unaffected face. A man and a woman, Steve’s mother and father presumably, were standing on the porch together, twin faces of disappointed gravity that stole all of the air out of the van. 

“Well, wish me luck,” Steve laughed without humor, his fingers worrying over the straps of his backpack as he started to unbuckle his seatbelt. 

“See you tomorrow?” Eddie asked, already knowing in his stomach that he wouldn’t. 

“Tomorrow,” Steve said, the word so thin and frail now. 

And he was gone. Out of the car, and most definitely out of Eddie’s life. But if he was losing this like he seemed to lose everything, Eddie wanted to at least say a proper goodbye. 

“See you later Alligator!” Eddie shouted through the window. Steve turned back, haloed by the setting sun, looking far too angelic for a gangly fourteen year old. 

“In a while Crocodile,” Steve called back with a slight laugh, just a shadow of his former self, turning and rushing to his waiting parents who gave Eddie one last glare before slamming the door shut. 

Eddie waited a second, staring at the locked door and listening to the song on the radio, wishing that the burning in his eyes would just disappear the way Steve had. 

Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and care?

Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?

Is your heart filled with pain

Shall I come back again?

Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

Eddie opened his eyes again, back in the present, to find Steve already watching him. 

In another world, things worked out differently, but not in this one. 

In reality, Steve didn’t come to Hellfire the next day. Tommy was at his locker bright and early, there to laugh the whole thing off and drag Steve to try-outs come hell or high water. Eddie had seen the whole thing, and he had known then and there Steve wasn’t one of them. Steve’s cheek was still bruised, but there were finger shapes on his wrist that definitely hadn’t been there the day before during detention. He had glanced at Eddie, but quickly glanced away, agreeing loudly that try-outs were going to be awesome. 

When Steve had caught his eye that day, when he had tried to say he was sorry without words, Eddie hadn’t been in a place to listen. He had a thousand chips of his own weighing on his shoulders, and an inability to see anything but his own opinion as right. 

There was no way to be two things at once, not back then. 

But that bruised beat up kid was in front of him again, big hazel eyes begging for forgiveness again. And this time, Eddie finally felt ready to give it to him. 

“Hi Alligator,” Eddie whispered, the words barely able to get out past the lump in his throat. A small smile graced Steve’s lips as his eyes began to shine in the dark. 

“It’s been a while, Crocodile,” Steve whispered back. 

Tag List: @paopaupaus @zerokrox-blog @surferboyzaza @whatever-is-a-good-name@minjintea @addelyin @5ammi90 @hagbaby420 @shinekocreator @bornonthesavage @starxlark @electrick-marionnett @resident-gay-bitch @ash-a-confused-enby @classicdinosaurdeathpose @valon-whomsttf @rotten-lil-goblin @thereindeerlady @love-ya-kash @kerlypride @sparkle-fiend @thefreakandthehair @flowercrowngods @milf-harrington @sadcanadianwinter @gothbat99 @hotcocoaharrington @henderdads @lightwoodbanethings @colorful565 @h0n3y-dw @craterbbox @sourw0lfs @lesliiieeeee @bidisastersworld @tinynebula @ravnlinn @bonescaro @mexmatch @cottagecoredreams @joruni @hellykelly @maegan1116 @farewell-wanderlvst @desertfern @due-to-the-fact-that-im-a-slut @anythingforourmoonyedits @eerielake @fandemonium-takes-its-toll @sidekick-hero

#Steve joins hellfire au #Steve harrington #Eddie munson #steddie #steddie au #steddie ficlet #st #stranger things #stranger things 2 #stranger things au #post stancy breakup #post s2 #Steve and eddie #st au #stranger things 2 au #steve harrington #Writing(with a capital W) #Jeff stranger things #freak stranger things #Steve has ptsd #Flash back #Flashhhhh backkkkkkk #hehehe

[stevesbipanic]

Steve's never been broken up with until now.

If he's being honest he never gave girls the chance to break up with him, too afraid of rejection he'd rather cut it off before they had a chance to look at him with pity in their eyes.

He didn't want it's you not me spiel, his parents gave him enough excuses why he wasn't good enough to know he was the problem.

Nancy had felt different.

Hadn't she?

She giggled at his silly jokes, were those laughs fake too?

Was it all a lie when they kissed? Was the regret about that night just about Barb or was it about him?

Is he bullshit?

Was his love bullshit?

Had anyone ever loved Steve Harrington?

Sally Francis told him she loved him under the jungle gym when he was 7, she also kissed Randall Wills before the bell even rung.

Tracy Parker told him she loved him when he lost his virginity, she also kicked him out of bed when they were done.

Sarah Harrington told him she loved him almost everyday until he was 10, she stopped coming home as much after that.

Richard Harrington told him he loved him but Steve wasn't born yet his mother had just told him it was a boy, he doesn't think he's even heard his father say the word love.

Nancy Wheeler told him she loved him, but that was bullshit, at least she's the first one to admit loving him was pointless.

Steve Harrington doesn't even love Steve, and isn't that the cruelest thing of all.

What do you do when you're broken up with, Steve doesn't know, but he knows what it's like to not be loved, he's got 17 years experience in that, what's another 17 more.

Besides there's more important things happening in Hawkins than loving Steve.

#tw break up #angst #sorry steve im back to throwing you around like a ragdoll and not in a fun way #steve harrington #stranger things #past stancy #break up #ficlet #steve harrington has bad parents

[dontcallmeeds]

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

CW: I cuss a lot in this one, I usually don’t warn for that, but I know some Tumblr fic readers want to be warned!! FINALLY PART 4 IS HERE DON’T COME TO MY HOUSE WITH PITCHFORKS LOVE YALL!!!

Steve blinks at the open box, Nancy’s hand on his shoulder trying to peer around and see for herself.

The piece was different, rougher. Nothing like the original trinkets left.

It was nearly black in color, peaks of silver coming through where it was hammered. It didn’t have one even edge, it looked like Steve could cut himself on it. But it was smooth when he ran a fingertip over the piece.

There was also a wire wrapped around the thinnest part of it, he took the wrapped wire between his thumb and index finger, feeling the curves of it.

Steve realizes he’s just been standing there, marveling at the rugged beauty of it, when Nancy nudges him with her shoulder.

“Wow, Steve, that’s not—“

“It’s not very me, is it?” Steve lightly chuckles, slipping it on to his right middle finger.

A perfect fit, per usual. He admires it, flipping his hand over to see where the wrapped part of it sits on the back of his finger.

It’s silly that something so small could have such an impact on you.

That ring, that gift Eddie had given to him, it opened everything in him.

Flayed him alive and displayed his most buried thoughts on his sleeve. Well, more so his hand.

Steve speed walks into his house, waving Nancy away, stating he needed time to think. The thing was, he wasn’t ready to unpack how he felt in front of his ex girlfriend.

But as the ring was forged, it forged something new in Steve that he wasn’t quite sure how to feel.

Something quite terrifying.

Steve Harrington had spent years not knowing who he was. Extra minutes spent looking himself over in the mirror, feeling like a robot. All the polos he still wore that his mother had bought him, the soft sweaters that truly brought out that babysitter everyone walked all over.

His fucking hair.

The hair was still…him. It was his identity for years. Steve wasn’t ready to give that up.

But something snapped.

Steve got out the trimmer that he never thought he’d use for anything other than…well, not the hair on his head. He knew he should call Robin or tell Nancy to come back, he thinks he heard her car finally pull out of his driveway, it wouldn’t take long.

But he didn’t need to be told no right now.

A shaky breath in, a look in the mirror and the trimmer is buzzing through the right side of his hair.

Steve feels the stray pieces fall onto his shoulders and onto the floor, it feels…good. Like weight plucked off his heavy fucking shoulders.

After the right side is done, he starts on the left side, now on a mission. Hair continues to fall onto his shoulders, the sink, the floor.

A few tears have rolled down Steve’s cheek, the wave of emotions hitting him all at once. Manic laughter bubbles out of him as he stands there after finishing, looking at the new image that he created over a ring.

But it wasn’t really the ring, he knew that. It was was the fact Eddie gave him something to help unlock the facade he had been keeping up for too long.

When Steve is considering going for the whole shebang, the doorbell rings and startles him out of his spell. He had felt like he was forgetting something, he just truly couldn’t remember what it—

“Steve? Honey?” Joyce’s warm voice rings out into the home after the creaky front door opens. He needed to fix that ages ago.

“Joyce, you can’t just burst into a man’s domain—“ he can practically hear the eye roll in Hopper’s voice.

“I’m up here,” Steve weakly calls out, sliding onto his bathroom floor. He hears the stairs creak as well, soft footsteps jogging up.

“Honey, did you forget we’re here for din—“ Joyce stops at the doorframe and slowly takes in the sight in front of her. She slowly lowers to his level, a look of sympathy heavy on her face.

“It was time for uh, a change, I guess,” Steve doesn’t meet her eyes, feeling embarrassed now for how crazy he must look.

“Change, change is good,” she offers, smiling and sweeping some hair off his cheek, “let’s clean this up and get some food in you. We brought Will and El, but we can have Jon come get them if—“

“No, it’s okay,” Steve clears his throat and starts to get up, his hair starting to make his neck itch. They clean in silence, he appreciates that she can always tell what he needs. Joyce Byers was always more of a mom than Steve’s own mother. Which is why he asks—

“Can I—can I trust you with something?”

#PART 4 HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!!!! #sorry i was uhhhh not doing well lmaoooo #I’m not doing much better now but i wanted to get this out!!! #now if you’re keeping track: robin nancy mike and Lucas know #now joyce knows and hopper and the Byers-Hopper kids will know #who am I leaving out…mayhaps on PURPOSE #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steddie #platonic stancy #joyce Byers #Jim hopper #good mom joyce Byers #joyce Byers being Steve’s surrogate mother #steddie ring ficlet #steddie fic #steddie ficlet

[riality-check]

part one part 2

Eddie doesn’t like the look on Steve’s face.

The thing is, Steve doesn’t get angry, not really. He gets annoyed and he gets frustrated and he gets petulant, but he doesn’t get angry.

But now? Steve looks like he’s barely holding himself back from screaming. Eddie hates it, and he hates himself for being the one to make Steve look like that.

Eddie doesn’t like the look on Steve’s face, but he might hate the look on Nancy’s even more.

She’s staring at Steve like she sees the secrets of the universe in his face, and they’re too awesome and terrible for her to comprehend.

He moves to put an arm around her, but she, as expected, brushes him off. She always has to be in the right mood for something like that, and Eddie guesses that sitting on her ex-boyfriend’s bedroom floor at ass o’clock in the morning because Eddie asked her to - well, he doesn’t want to think about it, not when it still has to happen - doesn’t create the right mood for Nancy to be hugged.

He can’t really hold that against her.

“I shouldn’t have sat down,” she murmurs at the same time Steve says,

“Eddie, I heard the clock, too.”

“What?” he says to both of them.

Steve answers first. “The clock in the hall? It just got fixed, and it’s, like, super loud when the house is quiet. I heard it go off right before you got out of bed.”

Oh.

Oh no.

Eddie doesn’t know what to say, not to Steve, who’s messing with his hair in the way he does only when he’s about to lose his shit, and not to Nancy, who’s taken to frowning at the floor.

He weighs out his options and comes to a pretty obvious conclusion.

He nudges Nancy gently and says, “False alarm, Drew.”

She doesn’t crack a smile. She doesn’t even look at him.

“I shouldn’t have sat down,” she repeats, a little louder and more certain.

“What difference would that have made?” Steve asks, sounding a little hysterical. 

Yup, Steve is definitely on the cusp of losing his shit.

Nancy turns to Eddie. “I should’ve gotten you up and moving and talked to you on the way to the woods. Then, we could have figured out it was a false alarm without anyone else around.”

“Nancy,” he says. “It’s okay. We’ve got nothing to worry about. I’m sorry I made you sneak out.”

“No,” she says, finally making eye contact. Her eyes have always been a little unnerving to Eddie. They’re objectively pretty and fit her face well, but they seem old. They see too much.

“It’s not okay,” she continues. “Because if it wasn’t a false alarm, then we could have had a problem. He could have taken you again. You would have gone through it again. You could have hurt someone. And I decided to sit with you and say nothing instead of figuring out if it was real and then doing what you asked me to.”

“What does sitting down have to do with it?” Steve snaps.

“Because I hesitated,” Nancy snaps back.

Silence falls, and this might be the first time in Eddie’s life that he doesn’t feel the need to break it.

Doesn’t matter. Nancy does it for him.

“I hesitated,” she repeats, and oh. Oh shit.

She sounds close to tears.

Nancy Wheeler, close to tears.

What the fuck is this night?

“I’m not supposed to hesitate,” she says, quietly but with conviction. “I don’t hesitate. I figure it out, and I do what needs to be done. That’s what I do.”

“Nancy,” Eddie says softly, pointedly ignoring Steve’s expression of abject horror.

“That’s why you asked me, isn’t it?” she challenges.

Eddie thinks back to getting out of the hospital. Of not going to Steve, or Dustin, or even Wayne first. 

Of going straight to Nancy goddamn Wheeler. They weren’t even on a first name basis then. But Eddie knew he needed ruthless, bold, good Nancy Wheeler for two different favors: be a second set of senses, and - well, he still doesn’t want to think about that.

But Eddie asked her because Nancy wouldn’t lie or sugarcoat anything. She’d figure it out and get it done. Without hesitation.

Eddie can’t look at her, so he tells the floor, “Yeah. It is.”

“Holy shit,” Steve breathes.

Neither of them pays him any mind. Eddie feels bad about it, but Nancy needs him more, and he needs her to understand.

“I shouldn’t ha-”

“You need to ask someone else to do it,” Nancy says. “Because I can’t.”

Steve rests a hand on her arm. This time, she lets it stay.

Eddie wants to tease her about playing favorites, but now is not the time.

“I can’t do what you asked me to, Eddie. It’s why I sat with you. I was trying to prolong the inevitable, and if it wasn’t a false alarm, it could have gotten all of us killed. You need to ask someone else because I can’t do it.”

She ducks her head down and whispers something so low that Eddie almost doesn’t catch it.

But he does.

“I love you too much,” she whispers.

Oh, shit. He’s the biggest asshole to walk the planet.

Eddie knows she means it in a purely platonic way, but that’s what makes it hurt more. Nancy’s already lost one friend to the Upside Down, and she told him that, for the longest time, she blamed herself.

And he asked her to lose another, at her own hands.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

part 4 part 5 final part

ao3 link

tag list: @ashwagandalf @novelnovella @ladyapplejackdnd @silentiumdelirium @resident-gay-bitch @brassreign @starrystevie @henderdads @greyhoundsgirl @thegingerrapunzel @seths-rogens @questionablequeeries @miss-hit @edmunsn @readbythestarlight @scooby-dum86 @deehellcat

#ria writes #smin au #part three of six #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #steve harrington #steddie #platonic stancy #platonic eddie munson and nancy wheeler #stranger things #stranger things ficlet #st #st ficlet #steddie ficlet #angst #i hope y'all are still with me