Stranger Things and Ramblings 🍉

AU where Eddie cracks his head off the ground and temporarily gets mind reading powers. He goes to school the next day thinking that this might actually be fun, and it is for a while.

And then he hears bloodcurdling screaming - except only he hears it so, “That’s in someone’s head?”

He follows the sound out down the hall, pass his own classroom. The screaming getting louder and louder until, “Steve Harrington?”

“Yeah?” Steve blinks back into reality in the back of his history class. The screaming dims but doesn’t go away. Steve’s still got those bruises on his face but otherwise doesn’t look distressed, “…You want something, Munson?”

“Um…um, no,” He says. “I - no. Nothing.”

Steve narrows his eyes and a whisper of a voice just under the screaming thinks Eddie is fucking with him.

Eddie barely acknowledges it because he’s stuck on how Steve looks normal. Not anguished. Not tortured. But normal. Bored.

“Well, uh. Well, I’ll see you around, Harrington.”

And Eddie means that too.

(Adding on from this)

Eddie kinda assumes that Steve would stop sleeping over since he got a…friend? Girlfriend?

He didn’t see much of Steve or Robin after all of the funerals that summer but when he did, they were glued at the hip. Steve was dropping her off at school. He was eating lunch with her in the parking lot. They worked together again.

And that’s great.

Where he hasn’t seen Steve, is asleep in his bed. So Eddie assumed he found a new place to rest. No big deal.

It was always going to be a temporary thing.

So, it’s a little surprising when he comes home from Hellfire to see Steve’s Nikes lined up neatly by the door. His coat thrown over the arm of the couch.

He smiles at it like a dork and then follows the trail back to the holy grail.

There, in his bed with a pillow crushed under his head and his hands tucked into his sweatshirt, is Steve. His hair is flat against one side of his head and drool in the corner of his mouth, and Eddie knows he needed this sleep.

He can’t help himself, reaching out and ruffing his hair where it’s gone flat. He likes the way it bounces back to its former glory. He likes the way it feels against -

“What are you doing?” Burst out of the closet in a mess of limbs and flash photography.

Eddie jumps about a foot in the air turning around to where Robin was standing, also sleep-rumpled, with his camera in hand.

She takes another picture of him before Eddie finds his voice enough to ask, “Were you hiding in there?”

“Yeah, obviously,” Robin replies, ignoring the metaphor of both their lives behind her. “Does Steve know that you watch him sleep?”

Steve Harrington, who has a very “in name only” relationship with his parents, the people who claim they love him lots but have simply given him cash for his last six birthdays without bothering to send a card. 

Steven Harrington, who lost his connection to the only adults in his life who actually parented him when he had his final fight with Tommy and Carol-- not that they ever really did that much. Having an adult put a bandaid on his knee and complimenting him for being tough was plenty enough. 

Steve Harrington, who drove Dustin and co. to the Byers house that one Christmas and was told by Hopper not to come in; that Joyce was still mad at him about the ‘demodog in the fridge’ and figured his exclusion was fair--it wasn’t like Hopper actually liked him. Joyce certainly had no reason to. It wasn’t like he was doing anything for Christmas anyways. 

Steve is having a bad blood sugar day. He’s either spiking super high or he’s dropping too low. He gives himself a correction, monitors himself, and then sees that he’s 70 double down with no rise in sight.

He feels useless and sad and pissed off that he can’t just exist like regular people do. Steve just wants to eat a cupcake without worrying about the amount of carbs is in it in order to input the correct amount of insulin.

He hates pricking his finger because no matter what he does, it always leaves a small bruise and an ache for days after.

He hates having to put a new pump on because it always hurts and Steve always cries a bit.

Eddie finds him on the couch, his diabetes pouch empty with all of the contents sitting on the coffee table in front of him. His omnipod sitting on his thigh and a faraway look on his boyfriend’s face.

Eddie takes his shoes off in the doorway and hangs his coat before making his way towards Steve.

“Hey baby, you doing okay?” Eddie asks. He’s rubbing a hand up and down Steve’s back, trying to give him space if he wants it, while also offering comfort.

Steve shrugs. Then he sighs. “Rough day.”

Eddie nods. “I can tell. Do you need anything?”

He knows it’s a lost cause asking this. Steve is close to dissociating and needing Eddie to handle things for the rest of the day.

Steve shakes his head.

“Okay, my love.” He kisses the top of his head. Then, he pauses. “I’ll be right back.”

Eddie hopes that Steve won’t mind that he’s grabbing Miss Pebble, his favorite stuffed animal. (She gets sprayed with Eddie’s cologne whenever he leaves for a while).

He goes into the sharps bin and grabs a discarded pump that’s empty and holds no insulin. It’s still sticky, but just to be sure, Eddie grabs some of his quick drying super glue he uses for his dnd figures and glues it onto her leg.

Once it’s dry, he goes out to Steve and hands him Miss Pebble with her newly adorned pump. She matches Steve.

Steve looks down at his lap, looks back at Eddie, and begins to cry. The tears start slowly, but then pick up in speed to full-on sobs. He climbs into Eddie’s lap and places Miss Pebble between them while he grasps onto Eddie’s shirt and clings to him, face pushed into his neck that is getting soaked with tears.

“I know, baby. I know.”

Eddie wraps his arms around his lover and just holds him, letting him take whatever he needs.

Steve will drop lore on Eddie in this ‘everybody knows this, catch up’ kinda way when it painfully clear that everybody absolutely did not know this.

Like, Eddie asks Steve to move his chair so he can slide passed him like three time in the middle of a party at the Byers and is being ignored. Finally, he’s like, “Ground control to Major Asshole. Can you hear me?”

Steve’s only notices him because he kicks his chair in the process and is like, “Oh, sorry, man. Gotta talk on my other side. I lost my hearing on this side.”

Which, great.

Eddie feels like an asshole but he can actually put that to the side because the whole table is just like, “…what? Since when?”

“Um…” Steve says, like. Yeah. This is common knowledge. “Two years ago?”

One time in the middle of the summer, Eddie is ogling the freckles across Steve’s shoulders at a pool party when Steve yawns. Eddie jokingly asks if teaching Robin to drive tired him out that much and Steve’s like, “Nah, I had a seizure this morning. Those tire me out for days. It’s so annoying.”

“Woah,” because Eddie didn’t even know that was something on their radar. Neither did Nancy judging by the whole plate of hotdogs she just dropped on the ground.

Steve causally mentioned that he didn’t have his appendix anymore a couple weeks after they closed the gate officially. Eddie asked when he had the surgery expecting an answer to be when he was a kid, but Steve gives him a weird look like, “Uh, couple weeks ago.”

“A couple - what?” Jonathan sputtered from across the room. “A couple weeks ago, we killed Vecna.”

“Yeahh???” Steve rolled his eyes. “And then I had my appendix taken out. That’s what happens when you’re stabbed.”

“You were stabbed?!?”

“C’mon, man. You were there. Keep up.”

Eddie is shut up mid-sentence by lips against his and, wow. Whoa. Steve Harrington kissing him right now and Eddie should definitely kiss back but, “You like guys? I’ve had a chance this whole time?”

“I’m literally bisexual.”

AU where Steve hears that his girlfriend is cheating on him with the town freak but never suspects it’s with his good friend Jonathan.

So now, Eddie had a sad jock at his door threatening to beat him up but like, through tears. A lot of tears. He’s crying pretty hard and it’s getting really awkward.

Aww Eddie :3

The first time Wayne meets Steve Harrington, he is nine years old and it's Career Day.

Every year a bunch of people crowd into the gym to tell the kids what they do for a living. This year, Wayne drew the short straw and was sent to represent the plant he works at.

He wasn't expecting his measly poster board to attract a lot of attention compared to the other booths with their models and hangouts. So, it's a little surprising when a kid with big eyes and wild hair marches straight up to him and asks, "What do you do?"

"Plant work."

The kid tilted his head, "Like a gardener?"

"More like an electrician."

The kid stood up a little straighter. His eyes went a little wider the way that his nephew's eyes do when he was interested in something, "Like lightbulbs and wires?"

"Yeah," Wayne answered, and then was immediately assaulted by a series of questions.

The questions were specific like the kid had read a book on electrical work but hadn't quite wrapped his head around it. It made Wayne think of Eddie, many miles away with Al, and all his many weird special interests. He smiled but then the kid asked, "But what if you can't turn the electricity off first? Will you die? I'm Steve, by the way."

"Hi, Steve," Wayne said and then made it very clear, "You should not be messing with any wires without adult supervision. It's very dangerous and you can get hurt."

Steve just huffed at that and then ran off when he saw Mr. Hagan at his booth. He was giving out toothbrushes.

Wayne doesn't think much of that kid after he leaves the school. He doesn't have much reason to until there's a loud insistent knocking on his front door an hour after he got off shift a couple days later.

"...What are you doing here?"

"Hi, I'm Steve. We met before..." The kid said, fidgeting when Wayne just stared at him bewildered. "I asked Mrs. Byers at Melvards where you live. I see you there sometimes."

Wayne raised an eyebrow and Steve rushed, "I need a grown up with super-vision."

This was how Wayne found himself on Saturday morning in the front hall of the painfully empty Harrington household. Steve was beckoning him along and showing him a burnt outlet. He gave Wayne a very serious look, "I need help fixing it."

"Why don't you wait until your parents get back from...?"

"No!" Steve snapped at him. "I'm in charge! Dad said that I have to take care of the house and, and-"

"I don't think he was referring to something like this, kid."

"Yes, he was!" Steve insisted. "Cause I - 'Cause I told him that the lights were flickering when Mama called and he said to figure it out so. So, I got you. That's deli-gate-tion."

And that was how Wayne found himself standing in the Harrington basement with a flashlight and a kid with a death grip on his pant leg. Wayne was looking at the marks on the breaker box where the kid clearly tried to pry it open with a screwdriver when Steve tugged on his leg, "Can you see inside it with your super vision?"

Jesus, Wayne thought and then dedicated the rest of his day to showing this kid exactly why he should not be messing around with electrical wires and maybe. Just maybe, inspiring a future electrician. 

Part 2 of this post:

Steve probably could’ve handled it.

He wouldn’t have liked it and he’d bitch the whole time about the handcuffs, but annoyance did a lot to starve off panic. He could’ve been fine.

Let Eddie get his joke in and then disappear into the background. It’s not like he didn’t deserve to be the butt of a joke or two.

He could’ve done that but then Eddie touched his face.

He put his hand on his cheek and pressed his thumb against his chin, and Steve’s vision fizzled out into punch, punch, punch, questions and no answers, pliers and fingernails, needles and Robin. Fear.

All he could hear was his own ringing ears echoing around his skull like an empty house. It takes his a second to realize that someone is talking and another second to realize that it’s him. Words pressed together, breathing short, “I work at Scoops Ahoy, I work at Scoops Ahoy, I work-“

Awareness floods back like a tidal wave - all at once - and everybody is yelling. Telling Eddie to hurry up. Steve only connects the urgency to the handcuffs once they’re off and a hand is clasped over his wrist when the metal cut in.

He must’ve struggled. He struggled last time too.

Steve looks around, wide eyes on a lot of faces but not - “Where’s…?”

“At home,” Dustin said readily. “Robin is at home. And she is safe, and - and alive.”

Steve nods and then the numbness breaks, embarrassment floods him. This isn’t the first time Dustin has caught him in the middle of a panic attack but it’s the first time anyone else has and, yeah.

“I have to go,” He says standing up abruptly, shaking off Eddie’s hand. The cuts not so bad but the skin will probably bruise. “You can get a ride with-“

“I got him,” Eddie finally speaks. “Harrington, I’m-“

But Steve is gone and Dustin follows. Neither comes back.

When Eddie asks what the hell just happened, Mike gives him a bitch look and says, “Dude, he was in the mall fire.”

That answers nothing.

I love the “Steve has good parents, they’re just not on camera.”

Steve’s dad walks in on Eddie and Steve making out, both shirtless. Eddie freaks the fuck out and Steve just sheepishly smiles at his father.

“I know I told you not to lock your door, but I take that back because I don’t want to see that again.”

“Thanks Dad!”

“Use protection!”

…

He walks into a house full of random children. The kids and Steve’s dad are just staring at each other.

“You’re paying to feed these kids, right?”

“No, you are.”

“Well shit.”

“Language, there are children!”

“Do I get to know these children who I have financially adopted?”

…

Hopper, who is over at the Harrington house to speak to Steve. Mr Harrington walks in to see the chief of police sitting on his couch. He sees Steve in the kitchen and quickly makes his way over.

“Steve! What is the chief of police doing here?”

“He’s a family friend.”

“What family?” Mr Harrington snaps back, gesturing at himself.

“He’s my friend?”

“I don’t see a world where you randomly become friends with the chief of police”

“I got caught with drugs?”

“Then why isn’t he arresting you?” Mr Harrington points to Steve’s cuff-less wrists.

“Can’t tell you?”

“Why?”

“I signed an NDA?”

“Steve, why the fuck would you do that? I’m a lawyer, you don’t just sign NDAs at a whim.”

“To be completely fair, I was concussed every time or they used a friend to threaten me.”

“It shouldn’t stand up in court then. Who did you sign it for?”

“The US government.”

“Fuck.”

Henry creek sympathetic?????? Henry creek just a lil guy???????

Steve, who has been adopted by every adult he’s ever met: I can’t meet your uncle, Eddie

Eddie: ???

Eddie: It’s not like Wayne is going to hate you

Steve: It’s worse.

Steve: He’s going to love me so much.

bonding with friends over your favourite fictional little guys

Written for @stobinmonth and @corrodedcoffinfest.

It's Tradition

Stobin Month Prompt: Tradition & CCF Spring Break Prompt: Beach | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: T | POV: Robin | Pairing: Platonic Stobin, Steddie | CW: Mentions of Recreation Drug/Alcohol Use, Steve's Neglectful Parents | Tags: Childhood Friends AU, Reuniting

It's tradition. The annual week-long Buckley family trip to the beach. A highlight of the year, until her parents made it clear they didn't want to go anymore.

All good things must come to an end. 

They just couldn't understand Robin didn't want to go somewhere new. That Robin didn't want it to end. That she needed to go to the same house, on the same beach, where she spent a week each year of her childhood. 

That she wanted to go where she last saw Steve. At least one more time.

Even though Steve hasn't been there the last six years her family visited, and she heard the Harrington house sold when his parents divorced. That's the gossip around this small coastal town, anyway.

Either way, the Harringtons are long gone, taking Steve with them.

But he was the best friend she's ever had, and turning up for a week every spring and getting to see him was a staple of her childhood.

So, with her summer job savings she rented the same house her family always did, and sits on the screened-in porch.

Harrington's old house definitely doesn't have Steve in it, instead a family with a bunch of little kids that are loving their time on the water. On the other side, there's a rowdy group, loud at all hours, but closer to her age. She watches them, trying to not be sad that this last attempt was a bust. 

One of the guys is currently swinging his girlfriend around in circles as she screams, delighted. Two others are making s'mores. And the long-haired one is running around in circles like a maniac. Harassing his friends on a loop. At least they're having fun. She's seen them drink, smoke weed, and poke at a bonfire.