Artset For You Were Not Born Here (but This Is Where You Belong)

fairy porn crisis

for @steddieholidaydrabbles prompt 'bookstore au' wc: 964 rated m cw: dirty talk, implied sexual content tags: bookshop owner eddie, steve is having a sexuality crisis but subtly, flirting, getting together, modern au

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"Thanks for covering for me, Wayne," Eddie said as he set his bag down behind the front desk, slightly out of breath from running from the bus. "Won't happen again."

"'S alright, son. Everything go okay with the counselor?" Wayne sipped from his mug, probably his fourth or fifth cup of coffee since he opened the shop that morning.

"Yep. Still on track to graduate in May."

Wayne's stipulation when he "sold" the bookshop to Eddie was that he still get his degree as backup. "Bookselling is a dangerous game and I won't have ya strugglin' if somethin' fails."

"Thatta boy," Wayne clapped him on the shoulder. "Been a slow morning. But your favorite customer is in the back."

Eddie felt his face heat up.

"He's not my favorite."

"Sure he isn't." Wayne rolled his eyes. "I'm off to get a beer with Dave. Call if you need me."

Eddie gave him a thumbs up as he checked over his emails, the one thing Wayne was terrible about doing when he was covering the store. There weren't many, never really were on Tuesdays.

He waited for Wayne to leave, the door chiming with his exit.

He jumped up and made his way around the counter, walking towards the back room hastily.

He found Steve sitting on the beanbag placed in the corner, book in his lap, face bright red.

Eddie squinted until he could see what book he was reading and nearly passed out.

His Ring was the first book in a series focused entirely on a group of queer mythical creatures. It was the only book of the series Eddie had read, and he'd only admit it under risk of death.

It wasn't that it wasn't good. It's just that it was basically porn.

And this one in particular focused on two male fairies, one who was gay and one who spent the entire first half of the book having a bisexuality crisis.

Steve was reading it with the prettiest blush on his face.

Steve, who up until this moment, passed as the straightest human being Eddie had ever met.

"Have you gotten to the part where Ereldi has to sit on Brelend's lap for an entire dinner?" Eddie asked.

Steve jumped and slammed the book closed, pushing it under his legs as if Eddie hadn't already called him out. "What are you talking about?"

"Stevie, I'm the last person to judge your reading habits. But I do have to ask why the sudden interest in queer fairy porn? You're usually reading sports memoirs and doing word searches."

In other words, 'are you interested in testing out your sexuality with me? I can pretend to be a mythical being if needed.'

"Just needed a change of scenery?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

Steve's blush deepened, and fuck, Eddie was about to be so unprofessional. Hopefully he wouldn't lose a customer over it, but it was a risk he had to take.

It's just that sometimes Eddie could swear Steve was watching him while he shelved books or swept the front room floors. And sometimes he caught him staring at him during his weekly storytime for kids where he gave out free books and cookies.

And Eddie always wanted to have Steve in his lap.

So.

"I." Steve refused to make eye contact, a sure sign that something was going on. "I just got curious. Heard someone talking about it and wanted to see if they were telling the truth."

"And were they?"

Steve didn't answer, so Eddie decided it was now or never.

"You know," he took a few steps closer to Steve. "I'm not usually one for those books. But there's something about the way they paint a very clear picture of how Ereldi rides Brelend in the forest that just draws me in." Another few steps. "Actually, Ereldi reminds me a bit of you."

Steve visibly gulped.

"But you wouldn't be interested in riding someone would you, Stevie? Prefer women to hop onto your lap and go for a ride?" Eddie's heart was racing.

And then it stopped completely when Steve gave the most unexpected answer he could have possibly given.

"I'd be interested in riding you."

Steve's wide eyes stared back at Eddie, daring him to make a joke, daring him to laugh.

Eddie wouldn't joke or laugh about this. He wasn't wasting this chance.

"Is the forest a requirement or could I go lock the front door and take you upstairs?"

Okay, so he couldn't not make a little joke.

"Forest sounds messy. Upstairs."

"Oh, I plan to make a mess of you regardless of location, sweetheart," Eddie leaned over Steve, foreheads touching, smirk growing as Steve's eyes closed. "Won't even have to get you hard, huh? The book did all the work for me."

Steve tilted his head back, lips puckering, searching for contact from Eddie's.

Eddie pulled away. "I close up in ten. You know the way upstairs?"

Steve's eyes blinked open as he nodded.

God, he was gonna be fun.

"You wanna be a good boy and wait for me up there?" Steve nodded and stood from the chair, wobbling slightly as he tried to gain his balance. "I want you naked in bed when I get up there, got it?"

"Um, I've never-" Steve started.

"Oh, sweetheart. I know. It's written all over you. I'm gonna take real good care of you, though. Better than anything you would read in that book."

"Eddie?"

"Yeah, sugar?"

"I really like you."

Eddie heard what he wasn't saying, knew without a doubt that he had to do this right or risk scaring him away from more than just the store.

"I really like you, too, Stevie." Eddie kissed his cheek. "You're in good hands."

"I know."

don't you forget about me (part six)

(part one)(part two)(part three)(part four)(part five)

Steve allows himself a brief mental breakdown in the shower when he gets home. He lets the water mix with his tears as he curls his arms around himself and wishes with everything he is that they were Eddie’s. There’s nothing he wouldn’t give right now just to be held by him again, just to feel Eddie’s arms around him one more time. All it took was a tiny kiss on the back of his hand for Steve’s skin to remember just how much it missed that feeling. Now Steve’s entire body craves Eddie’s touch, and he shakes in its absence like an addict in withdrawal. 

Then he puts himself back together, gets dressed and styles his hair and heads off to work. 

They’d defeated Vecna before he could split the world into pieces or whatever his diabolical plan had been. So while Steve’s whole world may have been torn apart, while Steve’s whole world lays bruised and bandaged and amnesic in a hospital bed, the rest of the world carries on none the wiser. The rest of the world still rents VHS tapes and has movie nights and date nights and no fucking clue that they were seconds away from being dragged down into a hell dimension a couple weeks ago, so Family Video is still open for them. Fuck that. 

“You’ve gotta handle the customers today because if someone starts asking me stupid questions I can’t promise I won’t snap at them,” Steve tells Robin as he drives them to their shift. 

“Aw, but it’s so funny when you snap at them,” Robin quips. 

“Robin.” He gives her his best I’m so fucking serious look. 

Her humor dries up immediately and she nods solemnly. “Alright, yeah. I got it.” 

Steve sighs, pulling into the parking lot. “Thank you.” 

He busies himself with cataloging and reshelving and rewinding returns while Robin takes over the customer service part of the job. It’s mindless - mind-numbing - the monotony of the tasks exactly what Steve needs to dull out the thoughts in his brain and distract himself from the way the back of his hand still tingles from Eddie’s kiss. 

When the afternoon rush dies down after a few hours and the store is all but empty, Robin sidles up next to him where he’s putting away a stack of fantasy films. “Hey.” 

Her voice cuts through his focus and nearly startles Steve out of his skin. “Jesus! Don’t sneak up on me like that.” 

“Sorry.” She grabs half the stack of tapes and starts helping him shelve. “Just wanted to check in with you, we haven’t gotten much of a chance to talk today. How are things going with Eddie?” 

“It’s fine. He’s fine,” Steve grumbles, glaring down at the tape in his hands. It’s got a dragon on the cover. He thinks Eddie would probably like it. “He still doesn’t remember me, but he’s starting to see me as a friend now at least, so.” Steve shoves the movie into its spot on the shelf. “That’s something, right?” 

Robin raises her eyebrows at the sharp bitterness in his tone and how forcefully he put the tape away. “Okay. Yeah. So I see we’re in the anger stage of grief now,” she comments. 

Steve scoffs. If this is a stage of grief, he thinks he’s been going through them in the wrong order, or maybe all at once - a neverending ebb and flow of denial and anger and depression all swirled together into one fucked up cocktail of grief. “I’m not angry,” he says, rubbing his hands over his face. “I’m just tired- emotionally burnt out, I don’t know. I just miss him and it’s not fair and I’m so fucking sick of feeling like this.” 

“Yeah, that’s anger, Steve,” Robin says, infuriatingly blunt. She slides the last tape in her stack into its place and then leans against the shelf. “Did something else happen to set this off, or are you just generally overwhelmed?” 

Steve sags against the shelf beside her. “Both. I don’t know. It’s stupid, it’s so fucking stupid. He just- he kissed my hand this morning, that’s it, and it wrecked me.” 

“He what?” Robin questions, curiosity widening her eyes. 

“He kissed my hand,” Steve repeats. He sighs and adds context, gives her a full recount of the events of that morning.

“Oh my god?!” Robin practically squawks as she backhands Steve’s arm, which is definitely not the comforting words or touch he needs from her right now. 

“Ow!” he yelps, rubbing his arm. “What the hell was that for?” 

“Dude. He was flirting with you,” she tells him, eyes even wider now like she’s trying to explain to him something obvious. 

“What? No.” Steve shakes his head, looking at her like she’s crazy. “He definitely wasn’t.” 

“Ughhh,” Robin lets out a long, dramatic groan, dragging her hands down her cheeks and pulling down her eyes. “I cannot do this with you two again. He totally was.” She drops her hands from her face so she can use them to illustrate her point as she starts to lists off, “First of all, he literally called you daddy-” 

“As a joke,” Steve interrupts to protest. 

“Yeah, a flirtatious one,” Robin retorts. She continues, “Then he said you have a magic touch, and then his heart literally started racing for no reason-”

“Because I was stressing him out!” 

“Only after his heart rate went up in the first place, which, as I was saying, was for no reason other than the fact that you were smiling at him and holding his hand-” 

“That literally doesn’t-” 

“And then, he kissed your hand - pressed his lips to your skin - and told you that you were his good luck charm,” Robin finishes, looking smug like she’s said something novel and not just completely reiterated exactly what Steve had just told her only with more emphasis. 

He sighs wearily. “Your point?” 

“He likes you, dingus,” she says, whacking his arm again. “Don’t you get it? His mind may not remember still, but his heart is starting to.”

Steve doesn’t know what to do with that. A lump rises in his throat, a rush of jumbled emotions chafing against his already frayed edges. “Don’t say that. You don’t know that.”

“I think you should tell him what you were to each other,” Robin suggests. 

“Right, yeah, okay, sure,” Steve scoffs, somewhere between sarcastic and hysterical. “And while we’re at it, I think you should tell Vickie that you like her. Because telling people things like that is so easy, isn’t it?” 

Robin gives him a withering stare. “That is not the same thing at all, and you know it.”

“No, yeah, you’re right,” he agrees. “Because I know Eddie, and he would not take that news well. He already gets a little weird whenever I seem to know too much about him - if I tell him I know him biblically too-” 

“Ew, don’t tell him like that!” 

“Doesn’t matter if I tell him like that; I say we’ve been together for 9 months, he’s going to assume we’ve-” 

“God, okay, I get it!”

“See? It would freak him out,” Steve concludes, crossing his arms. “Even if he does…like me again or whatever, he definitely wouldn’t anymore and it would just generally make him uncomfortable. So I can’t tell him. I just have to keep waiting for him to remember on his own, even though it’s fucking killing me,” he says, his voice harsh as he tries to keep it from breaking. “It’s what’s best for Eddie.” 

“Steve-” Robin starts, frowning like she’s only just beginning to realize she may have pushed him too far, but whatever it is she was going to say is cut off by the ringing of the bell that announces the front door being open. 

“Customers.” Steve points his chin towards the couple who just walked in, a bitter jealousy boiling in his stomach as he watches them walk hand in hand towards the romance aisle. It’s not fucking fair. He shoves himself away from the shelves and mutters, “I’m taking my break.”

He stalks to the breakroom, closes the door, and sinks to the floor with his back against it. The tears in his eyes feel like they’re made of acid, like they would carve tracks into his skin if they were to spill down his cheeks. He wraps his arms around himself again. The thoughts in his head are made of acid too, bitter and burning and cursing everyone who gets to enjoy their lover's touch while he suffers without his. 

Steve’s brain feels corroded, corrupted. “He likes you,” Robin’s words echo there too, “his mind may not remember still, but his heart is starting to.” Would Eddie touch him now if he asked? Would he trace his fingers across Steve’s skin, kiss more than just the back of his hand? Steve digs his own fingers into his sides. He feels gross, he feels rotten. It wouldn’t be right to ask that of Eddie without him knowing the truth, to take advantage of him like that. It wouldn’t be the same, anyways. The superficial touch of a boy with the beginnings of a crush is not the tender lover’s caress that Steve craves. 

That is if Robin is even right about Eddie redeveloping feelings. Which she probably isn’t.

Steve’s just being stupid and selfish again. He wants to remove his brain from his skull so he can stop thinking, tear his heart from his chest so he can stop feeling; both so burned and decayed he thinks if he held them in his hands they would dissolve and crumble to dust and ash and sludge between his fingers. 

Fifteen minutes pass, and Steve forces himself to be fine. He peels himself off the breakroom floor and returns to work, continues the tedious tasks that he hopes will numb him out again. 

Robin catches his eye from across the room where she’s sorting a customer’s cash at the register. I’m sorry, her expression says, I didn’t mean to make you upset. 

Steve gives a tiny shake of his head and a small smile. It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault, his own expression reassures her. You meant well. I’m not mad at you. 

They don’t talk about Eddie again that day. The next time there’s a lull in customers and they’re able to chat again, Steve tells Robin he honestly just needs a distraction right now, and he lets her ramble on about Vickie and band and school and her impending graduation and the movie she watched last night and whatever other random thoughts are bouncing around that hyperactive head of hers. Her voice fills in the cracks in Steve’s brain, keeps it from falling apart completely. She’s always been good at that, and he’s grateful for it. 

Then he drops Robin off after work and he drives away alone in silence because all the songs on the radio are love songs, and he drives back to the hospital - back to the source of his grief again and again like some sort of fucking masochist - because Eddie needs him. Because Steve loves him.

~

Eddie cannot help the way his face all but beams the second Steve walks back into his room that evening. “There you are, Stevie! How was work?”

Steve returns the smile, genuine, but there’s a tiredness to it. “It was alright. Bit boring, really, uneventful. How are you doing?” 

“I’m good,” Eddie says, adding with a jaunty grin, “All the better now that you’re back.” 

It comes out a bit more flirtatious than he intended, but thankfully Steve just laughs it off. “Alright, smoothtalker,” he scoffs through a chuckle as he takes his usual seat by the bed. “It’s nice to see you again too.”

“Oh, the actual doctor came in to talk to me today. Good news, don’t worry,” Eddie tells him, the last bit tacked on quickly before that concerned crease can appear between Steve’s brows. “She says I’m healing up nicely, and I might be able to be discharged soon. A few more days’ observation and then they're gonna see how well I can actually move since, you know, the bats chewed through half the muscles in one of my legs. But, yeah, I could be out of here by the end of next week.” 

“That’s great, Eddie!” Steve brightens. 

“Yeah.” Eddie smiles. “I can’t wait to be somewhere familiar, feel normal again. Or, well,” he amends, smile falling a little as he realizes, “as normal as I can feel given that I’ll probably be walking with a limp for the rest of my life and be covered in nasty scars all over.” 

A strange expression crosses Steve’s face then, something happy and sad and sympathetic all at once, and his voice is soft as he says, “We’ll match.” 

Eddie blinks at him. “What?”

“The scars,” Steve clarifies. “The bats got me too, you know. I was lucky, it wasn’t as bad for me as it was for you, but, uh- yeah, we’ll match. See?” He stands and pulls his shirt up a bit. 

Eddie’s heart rate immediately kicks up again, blood growing warm, as his eyes snap to Steve’s stomach, to skin and muscle and body hair and- oh. Two giant, jagged red scabs cover Steve’s sides, the edges fading into skin bumpy and pink and white with the beginnings of scarring. The bite on Eddie’s own side twinges in sympathy. “That’s-” He swallows back the word hot, and breathes out instead, “Holy shit.” Without really thinking, he finds himself reaching out to skim his fingers over the ridges of Steve’s scars. 

Steve gasps - full body shudders - at the touch, and Eddie instantly pulls his hand back, afraid he’s hurt him. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“No, it’s fine,” Steve manages, though it sounds a bit shaky. “You didn’t hurt me, I just- I wasn’t expecting it.” 

Eddie tentatively starts to reach back out; Steve nods. He slowly traces the outline of the wound again, every uneven edge, feeling the evidence of hurt and the evidence of healing and the ripple of each breath Steve takes - breaths that echo in the quiet that falls between them. Eddie doesn’t realize just how intimate this silence has become as he runs his hands across Steve’s skin, until he glances up to find Steve just…watching him. It’s impossible to tell exactly what emotion is behind his eyes, but it’s intense and it’s devastating, and Eddie suddenly feels like he can’t breathe. 

“Uh-” A nervous laugh stutters out of him. He rescinds his touch. “Twin scars, huh?” he remarks, cracking a crooked smile and attempting to change this strange, suffocating energy with a joke. “Hell of a matching tattoo. Next time let’s just exchange friendship bracelets like normal people do, yeah?”

Steve huffs, a short burst of laughter that escapes from his chest like it’s been punched out of him. “Since when have you ever done anything like a normal person?” he teases in return as he pulls his shirt back down.

Just like that, blown away by Steve’s playful smile, the weird tension lifts. Eddie grins back. “Alright, fair point.” He adds, “Those are gonna be some pretty metal scars, Stevie.”

“Not as metal as yours,” Steve says warmly, settling back in his chair and kicking one leg over the other. “You’re the one that literally survived death, Ed. It doesn’t get any more metal than that.” 

“Now who’s the smoothtalker?” Eddie smirks, and he hopes he isn’t blushing. Steve Harrington calling him metal with so much pride and affection in his voice is doing numbers on his heart. Curse this stupid fucking crush.

Steve eyes divert briefly to the heart monitor, which has not once calmed down since the second he’d lifted up his shirt, and Eddie is so sure that he knows then, that he’s finally made the connection between what’s got Eddie’s heart racing, but he doesn’t say anything, just laughs it off again, smiling like everything’s completely normal as he looks back at Eddie and rolls his eyes and mutters in return, “Shut up.” 

“Make me,” Eddie mumbles, not quick enough to bite back the words before they fall from his mouth, only managing to lower his voice enough that maybe Steve didn’t hear him. 

“What?” 

“TV?” Eddie grabs the remote, pretends like that’s what he’d said in the first place. Real smooth. 

“Oh, sure.” Steve shrugs. If he noticed Eddie’s slip, he gives no indication of it. 

Eddie turns on the TV and they spend the next hour or so laughing and making fun of the bad acting on the show that’s playing. Easy, normal, platonic. Eddie’s heart rate stabilizes, remaining even so long as he doesn’t look too long at Steve’s smile. 

When sleep starts lapping at Eddie’s consciousness, he doesn’t fear it anymore. Silently, he holds out his hand, and Steve takes it, wrapping him in the warmth and protection that allows Eddie to let himself drift off undaunted. 

And in his dreams his hands skate across Steve’s skin again.

(part seven coming soon)

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(one day I’m) gonna cut it clear

have this sad stuff I wrote last night to try and cheer myself up :)

(Sorry for any mistakes this was copied and pasted from photos of notebook proper :/)

TW: mentions of past trauma and paternal abuse

The first time that Eddie had cut his hair short, he had been eight and messing around with his mom's fancy brass scissors—the ones where the blades were a beak She used him to cut string from her quilts, and to trim his uncle’s hair when the man wasn't out in his boat. Eddie had used them to chop his hair off, watching The long brown curls fall onto the rug that his dad had bought as a wedding present for his mom.

It was rough and scratchy. Probably cheap, too. 

He sat there on his knees, one hand curled around the scissors, the other feeling through his choppy strands, staring down at the loose hair on the floor.

His dad had hit him for that, grabbing him by the arms and shoving him into his room with a sharp “the hell were you thinking, girl?” before he had locked the door.

Eddie had cried all afternoon, begging to no one, because he was sorry and he didn’t want his hair short anymore. Because he had cut it to stop people from calling it pretty but he knew they still would. Because he didn’t want to be trapped in the suffocating Georgia summer heat that was seeping in through the windows anymore.

When his mom had come home from Auntie Lacy's house—not his real aunt, but she got sad if Eddie didn't call her that, seeing as how she was close enough to family as is—he still remembered how broken she had sounded, finding Eddie laying on the wood floor in just his underwear, tucked away in a corner, panting.

She had drawn him a cold bath, hushing him softly when he complained about the cool water.

“My baby,” She had whispered, her accent seeping through her words. It wasn't like the southern one that she put on for his dad—some kind of Eastern European that he couldn't remember. She never talked about where she came from

"Your hair was so pretty.”

Eddie had turned to press his face into his mom’s palm, whimpering, “Don’t want it short anymore. M’sorry, mama, m’sorry.”

She had fixed his hair after that—made it look more even and neat. She had let him curl up in her lap afterwards, the bird scissors on the coffee table and the chopped strands gone from the rug. Her thin fingers pet through his hair—but there really wasn’t anything to pet through anymore, just gentle touches smoothed over his scalp, kisses pressed to the lop of his head where he could nearly feel her lips.

"It will grow back, iubirea mea," She assured him, rocking him in her arms as his fingers dug into the folds of her white dress. She smelled like cinnamon and sunscreen, and that incense that Auntie Lacy always burned. "It will grow back, Edith.”

"Eddie," He had whispered, his words unsure and choked as he closed his eyes and waited for her to hit him—to lock him back in his room with his bolted windows and stiff mattress.

But she just kissed his hair again, taking nis hand and rubbing her thumb over his knuckles.

"Eddie," she agreed, holding him tighter when he sobbed and nodded, her fingers soft and warm against his. “My sweet Eddie. My baby." 

The second time his hair was cut he was thirteen. He had cried the whole way to the shop, gripping at the hair that fell just past his shoulders, like if he held on tight enough, it wouldn't have to go away.

“Stop crying,” his dad had snapped, his hands tight on the wheel of his Chevy truck. "If you wanna be a boy so bad, then fuckin’ act like one. Gonna look like one soon, too.”

He pulled Eddie out of the car. “This’ll show you. I ain’t raise my girl to be no fuckin’ queer,” he spat. “That was all that bitch’s doin’, ain’t it? Good thing she’s gone.”

“Don’t talk about mom like that,” Eddie sobbed, barely forcing the words out before he had stumbled backwards, face stinging and red from where his dad had hit him.

“She ain’t your mama no more. Ain’t that right, girl? Now fuckin’ get in there and tell the lady you want it all gone, or I ain’t letting you out of your room for a week,” his dad threaten, grabbing the collar of Eddie’s shirt. “A fucking week, you hear?”

That was the day that Eddie had left with Wayne for Indiana. His dad—no, Al, he wasn’t Eddie’s fucking dad anymore—hadn’t cared that Eddie had left. He had probably told all of his drinking buddies that “the other bitch is finally dead,” just so no one who might miss him in the town would go looking and bring him back. It would have only been Auntie Lacy. He still missed her sometimes.

Wayne hadn’t minded that Eddie didn’t want to wear the dresses or the skirts that he had packed from Georgia—took to buying him jeans when he had the money for something extra.

He had saved up for two years, working extra shifts and on holidays, so that when Eddie turned sixteen he could take him to the doctors and get him the stuff that made his voice drop. Eddie didn’t remember what it was called—hadn’t been able to hear the doctor over the ringing in his years from how hard his jaw was clenched as he tried not to cry in front of her and Wayne.

“Gonna get you fixed,” Wayne had said on the ride back to the trailer, and Eddie had laughed, but it sounded more like a sob.

“M’not a dog, Wayne.”

He had let Wayne do the shots, since anytime he tried to do it himself, his hands would snake too much.

“Haven't even done it yet, boy," Wayne muttered, his face annoyed, but his tone soft and sympathetic. "Just breathe."

Eddie did, but he had still flinched away again, just one more time.

The third time it was cut would be soon, if Eddie could just force himself to fucking man up and do it. He had just driven back from the antique shop down the road, bought those scissors he had seen nestled in between the old watercolor tins full of white chalk sticks and the black and white photos of men in long coats and hats—women with their hair up in a portrait studio, loggers standing on the planks stuck into trees as they worked, children sat on stools and chairs with dead-eyes.

They were bird scissors, brassy-brown and shining, still sharp. Like his mom used to have.

He looked out at the trailers he drove past. Two mail boxes until home. His stuff was in the back of his van, all the important stuff anyway, packed away into three boxes. Three.

And then he was home, into the house and then to the bathroom. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. And maybe he was crying. He was so fucking sick of crying.

His arms ached as he stretched the scars to reach up and grab a strand of hair, cutting. It was only an inch or two off the bottom, on a piece that he could easily tuck away and hide, but he still broke down—dropping the scissors and sobbing into his hands as he sank to the bathroom tiles on the floor.

He didn't want to cut his hair, but he had to. And he didn't know why he had to, which made him cry harder—hysterical sobs and gasps that no one but the nearly-empty shampoo bottles strewn sideways on the drain on the shower floor could hear.

He sounded like he was dying.

Maybe he was.

He Knew what it felt like to die — to have the skin ripped away from his insides, his body bloody and aching.

This hurt worse

It hurt worse than the hell he had been through.

It hurt worse than hearing Steve cry and break over him in the hospital, when his body was too sore to move—to cradle him gently like his mom used to do, brush a hand over his hair and whisper gentle names in a language that he didn’t know—a quiet "just breathe, my baby. Lucrul meu dulce. You can be sad, but don't let it choke you. You can cry, but don't let it make you forget how to live. How to breathe. How to smile."

Eddie pulled himself up, dragging himself out of the bathroom and over to the phone on the wall in the kitchen.

He spun the rotary, hearing it whir and click after each number. A number he had whispered to himself night after night until he was sure he wouldn't forget it. But now his brain was fogged as his breath caught on a whimper, and he couldn't remember if it ended in a six or a nine.

Six. He spun to a six and watched it move back, the phone gripped in both hands as it rang.

“Hello?” And Eddie sobbed again at the sound of Steve's voice.

"Hey," he choked out, willing his voice To be level and his breathing to be calm, but to no avail.

‘Baby," Steve breathed, and god, Eddie didn't think it was ever possible for him to grow tired of hearing Steve call him that. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Eddie shook his head as an instinct, his eyes squeezed shut and his jaw set, strained words coming out as he spoke again. "Need you to come over. Want to cut my hair.”

"Your hair?" Steve parroted back, his voice unbelievably soft, so soft that it made Eddie's chest ache a bit inside.

"Yeah."

Steve didn't ask why, even though he knew that Eddie's hair was important to him. He did offer to do it for Eddie—being the one out of the two of them who was more knowledgeable on the subject—but Eddie declined, saying that he needed to be the one to do it himself.

“I just need you to be here when I do it," Eddie whispered. He would have asked Wayne to sit with him, but Wayne was at work, and Eddie wasn't supposed to bother him unless it was an emergency.

He knew that Wayne would have come straight home if he had called to ask, though.

“I’ll leave now, alright?" Steve whispered. “Ten minutes, You go rest, get yourself a drink. Whatever you need to do baby, then I'll be there. Promise.”

“Okay" Eddie whispered, and even though Eddie wanted a reason to procrastinate this further, he hung up the phone, listening to the dial-tone sound off for a few minutes before shuffling over to the living room and pressing his face into a scratchy pillow. 

He tried to calm his breathing while he waited for Steve.

Should I make a part two? Maybe?? If you guys want??

Permanent taglist: @anne-bennett-cosplayer @estrellami-1 @here4thetrama @goodolefashionedloverboi

STWG Prompt: I Couldn't Lose You

Happy birthday @hitlikehammers, you deserve the world!

AO3

“He’s dead.”

Something must have been wrong with his brain. Maybe all those hits to the head had finally caught up with him. Maybe his audio processing was fucked or he was hearing things.

He had to be.

Because there was no way in hell this doctor just told him Eddie was dead.

“He’s what?” Steve asked with a slight shake of the head, like that would dislodge whatever was making him hear this incorrectly.

“He’s dead, Mr. Harrington.” The doctor repeated, his fingers tensing around his clipboard.

Steve could feel the crease in his brow, his confusion was probably plain all over his face. 

It didn’t make any sense.

“How could he be dead? He can’t be dead.” He replied. “I only just saw him.”

There was no devastation, no heartbreak, no clawing grief and no screaming agony. 

Because it didn’t make any sense.

The doctor looked on in sympathy. “Mr. Munson took a very quick turn-”

“A turn of what?” Wayne snapped, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at this ‘doctor’. “How did he turn?”

Steve glanced behind the doctor to look into Eddie’s hospital room again. The empty bed, the crisp sheets, the quiet monitors. Flowers gone. Cards gone. Eddie’s stuff sitting in a chair near the door.

It was almost like he’d never been in there.

When did they have the time?

Steve and Wayne had only left his side for ten minutes. It was the first time Eddie had been left alone since he came into the hospital, half dead and bitten to hell.

And Steve and Wayne had come back to find a doctor waiting for them by the door.

A doctor that Steve didn’t recognise. In a town with less than 5,000 people.

“His fever got quite high-”

Wayne scoffed. “Eddie didn’t have no fever.”

“Sir.” The doctor sighed out, frustrated. “Your nephew was very sick. And gravely injured. Situations like these can turn fast.”

Steve and Wayne glanced at each other, the both of them seeing the same suspicion reflected in each other's face.

There had been no alert over the PA system. The nurses station hadn’t been scrambled. If Eddie had taken a sudden turn, if Eddie had died… a young twenty year old suddenly dropping dead would have had half the floor flooding in trying to save him.

Not to mention Steve was pretty sure that doctor, if he was even really a doctor, was breaking the Hippocratic Oath by telling him this information.

Steve wasn’t family, he had no right to that information. The doctor hadn’t even asked Wayne before he started talking, he just started talking.

Steve could be anybody. 

Something super fucked up was going on. They needed to find Eddie and they needed to find him fast. 

“I understand this must be very hard for you.” The doctor said with a solemn face. It was very convincing. He must have gone to acting school. “Would you like to see him?”

Steve’s mind screeched to a halt again.

“Excuse me?”

“He’s down in the morgue.”

Bullshit he’s down in the morgue. But Wayne’s face was remaining hard and with one curt nod, he began to follow the doctor down the hallway.

It only took a glance back for him to communicate that he wanted Steve to follow him, to come with them. Either as backup or as emotional support if it did turn out that Eddie was dead.

Which it wouldn’t.

Because it couldn’t.

Because he wasn’t fucking dead.

Steve also really didn’t like the idea of leaving this floor unmonitored. He just felt… there was something in the back of his head telling him that he needed to keep eyes up here.

As they approached the nurses station and by extension, the elevators, his saving grace turned the corner.

“Just one second.” Steve said to the two of them. “I need to talk to my girlfriend.” 

Wayne snapped his head over to him and when Steve nodded in Robin’s direction there was a moment of complete and utter bewilderment on his face before he masked it.

With a small nod, he sent Steve off and Steve could see all of the questions running through Wayne’s eyes but he didn’t have time. 

Robin’s eyes got wider and wider as he approached, opening his arms up for a hug and a weary, “Hey baby” before he pulled her into him, turning them so her back was to the doctor.

“Code Red. Eddie’s missing.” He whispered into her hair, keeping his nose buried into her neck to hide the movements of his lips. “They say he’s dead. We’re going down to the morgue. I need eyes up here.”

He just fucking hoped she’d be able to keep a straight face, that she’d get it, that she’d go along. 

Though he should have never doubted. 

Not for one second.

Robin was silent only for a moment before she ran a hand up and down his back with a little sombre nod. “Remember. Will’s body was found in the Quarry.” She whispered back.

Steve didn’t have time to figure that one out, Robin was untangling herself from him with a sad smile.

“I’m so sorry, honey. I’ll tell the kids.” 

She turned his head to kiss him on the cheek and then gave him a light push back towards Wayne.

Steve leaned against the elevator wall and he stared down at the floor. The three of them were carried down in silence, but Steve’s mind was whirring.

Was Robin suggesting there might be a body down there?

A fake Eddie? Made to look dead?

But how could he tell? How would he be able to tell?

From what he’d heard, Will’s fake body was like a clone of him. Hopper had only been able to find out it wasn’t actually him by cutting into him.

There was no way he’d be able to get close enough to cut in. He probably wouldn’t even be allowed to touch. They might try to keep him at a distance. 

And there was no way to warn Wayne about what might be coming. 

The doors dinged open and Steve was out of time. 

Down another hallway and through another set of metal doors, there was already a gurney out in the centre of the room covered in a white sheet, the shape of a body clear as day underneath, like they had been expecting them.

Despite, despite Steve knowing in his bones that that wasn’t Eddie. That that wasn’t his boy under there, the sight still sent his heart lurching.

He could feel the apprehension crawling through his skin and he almost asked them not to show him.

There were two doctors standing by the doors, almost like sentries, big and bulky. Their lab coats were too small on them and they were watching Steve and Wayne like a pair of bouncers.

The doctor they had travelled down with looked to Wayne and with his nod of approval, pulled the top of the sheet back.

Dark curly brown hair spilled over the side of the table. Skin so pale it was almost white in death glared across at them and it was Eddie.

It looked… it looked just like him. 

Wayne took a shuddering breath in, took a step closer and was stopped by a hand on the shoulder.

“Hey man.” Steve snapped, far too loud in the cold metal room, unable to keep his own emotions out of his voice. Because what if he had been wrong? “That’s his family. Get your fucking hands off him.”

The ‘doctor’ holding Wayne back glared at Steve like he was ready to disappear him under a black bag. 

“It’s alright son-”

“No, it is not alright.” If Steve needed to create a scene to get them their way, then Steve was going to create a fucking scene. “Do you know who my father is?” He asked, all but sticking his nose up in the air.

The corner of Wayne’s mouth ticked up ever so slightly. It made Steve’s skin crawl to invoke the status of a man he couldn’t fucking stand, but he needed to do something.

Steve wrenched the doctor's hand from Wayne’s shoulder and he wouldn’t be surprised if he got punched in the face for it, he was almost expecting it but the doctor who had led them down here spoke up.

“It’s- it’s okay, Vince.” He said, a little panicked, like he hadn’t really planned this far ahead and didn’t really know what to do in the face of Steve’s tantrum.

Wayne seized upon the opportunity to take a step closer and Steve followed in his shadow.

He had to know. 

He had to know if that was really his baby lying on that cold and impersonal gurney.

Steve turned his back on the two guards and while the doctor they had come down with watched Wayne like a hawk as he reached a hand out to brush Eddie’s hair away from his face, Steve took his opportunity.

He kept his movements out of sight of the guards behind him, and kept them small enough so they wouldn’t draw the eye of the other doctor in front of him. 

He slipped one of Eddie’s fingers into his hand through the sheet and twisted.

It went easily. Twisting around on itself without any resistance. 

There was no bone in there.

It was like it was just full of cotton.

It wasn’t Eddie.

It wasn’t Eddie.

Steve closed his eyes and felt the tension drain out of him.

But then he heard a sniffle to his left. 

Wayne.

Fuck, how was he gonna tell him?

How was he gonna get him out of this room so they could go find his boy?

They were running out of time.

“I have to go tell the kids.” Steve muttered, with as much sympathy as he could. 

Wayne looked at him, his watery eyes searching, almost offended that Steve wasn’t more upset until it seemed to hit him that there was a reason for it. 

Wayne searched his eyes again, asking a million, million questions, but he must have eventually settled on some kind of trust because he gave Steve a short nod before looking back down at the fake body, his gaze a little angrier than it had been.

Steve didn’t waste a second, couldn’t waste a second.

He turned and left the room as calmly as possible but as soon as he was out of sight of the guards, he ran as fast as possible without creating too much noise.

The ride on the elevator back up to Eddie’s floor was excruciatingly slow, everything was taking too long. Why was everything taking so long?

Eddie had to still be in the building somewhere.

They wouldn’t have had the time to take him out of the hospital completely, they would have needed the people, they would have needed to be sure no one saw them move him down to the ground floor.

The elevator dinged and the doors had barely started to open before Robin threw herself in, furiously jabbing at the button to take them back down.

“Rob, what the-”

“Lucas saw an ambulance pull into the ambulance bay from the wrong direction and it looks brand new, not like any of our usual rust buckets. Jonathan’s got the car running with Argyle standing by. Dustin and Mike think they’ve found the room he’s being held in downstairs but it’s locked.”

“Not for long it’s not.” Steve growled and Robin grinned at him.

“Thought you’d say that.” She plunged her hand into her pocket and pulled out a handful of bobby pins. Steve was forever finding them lying around his car, she always had some on her.

“Perfect,” he said, taking them from her.

“I can’t believe this is how you’re finally gonna use the lockpicking skills Eddie taught you.”

“I can. It sounds like something out of one of his stories.”

Robin snorted and the doors opened. 

The hallway was thankfully deserted, except for Mike, standing at the end and waving them forward.

Steve and Robin followed him through the corridors until they ended up just outside the Ambulance Bay, Dustin hovering next to a closed door.

“In here, in here!”

“How do you know?”

“A nurse was talking to a janitor about why it was locked. He told her there were some chemicals being stored in there but you can’t store chemicals out here, there’s too many temperature variables and the weather-”

“That’s all we have to go off of?” Steve cut him off, but even so he still dropped to his knees and started to fit the pins into the lock.

“He’s in there, Steve. I know it. What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? Stop distracting me.”

“How do you know how to do that?”

“Enough questions, Roast Beef.” Robin pulled the brim of his hat down but then looked around and asked, “Where are the guards? Shouldn’t there be guards?”

“Erica had a seizure.”

“Erica had a what?!” Steve practically shouted, nearly losing his grip.

“Not a real one, obviously.” Mike sniffed. “But the guards were dressed as ambulance guys-”

“Ambulance guys.” Robin muttered.

“Yes. Ambulance guys and so they had to help. We screamed at them to help.”

Steve drowned them out, focusing all his attention on getting this fucking lock open. If it didn’t open in the next five seconds he was gonna break the fucking door down- 

He felt the lock catch and with a quick turn to the side, the door gave a little creak as it opened ever so slightly.

Steve was barely on his feet again before he burst into the room, being met with cold concrete and steel shelves and a hospital bed awkwardly wedged in between them all, no monitors, no tubes, nothing but a pale body lying in a thin hospital gown.

“Eddie.” Steve called, making his way across in less than two steps, bending down to scoop him up. He was fucking freezing and knocked out completely. “Eds?” 

He shook him just a little, hoping to get him to stir but Eddie didn’t stir, his head lolled against Steve’s arm and he was just dead weight. 

At least he was breathing.

“Is he okay?”

“Why isn’t he waking up?”

“Did they sedate him?”

He shoved his way out of the room, ignoring Dustin and Mike’s questions. 

“Where’s Jon parked?” He asked Robin, already heading towards the Ambulance Bay doors. “Can you take care of-” 

“We’ll get Wayne, we’ll get everyone else. He’s just around the corner.” Robin’s eyes went wide at the sound of footsteps running towards them. “Go!”

Steve took off. 

He’d thank Robin later, he owed her his life.

He clutched Eddie tight to him, shielding him, curved over him and nearly tripping over himself when he heard a door slam somewhere behind him and shouting echoing around him.

But then he saw the car.

Jonathan was behind the wheel and as soon as Steve turned the corner he started revving the engine, while Argyle threw the back door open, twisting over the passenger seat to get to it.

It was a little less than graceful, stuffing Eddie into the back seat and practically falling in on top of him as Jonathan took off, tearing out of the hospital with the door still open and Steve’s legs still hanging out. 

But they got away. 

They’d made it away.

For now.

Steve was able to pull himself fully inside, slamming the door closed behind him and cradling Eddie into his lap.

“Where am I going?!” Jonathan shouted back at him, one eye on the road, one eye in the rearview mirror.

There was no one following them so far.

“I don’t know! I don’t- The cabin!” Steve shouted back. “Get us to Hopper's cabin!”

“This is fuckin’ wild, dude.” Argyle whooped. “Born free!”

Eddie let out a soft little noise, rubbing his face into Steve’s shoulder and curling in on himself. His skin still felt like ice under Steve’s fingers.

“Stevie?”

Steve looked down at him, surrounding him as much as he could, rubbing up and down his arms trying to bring some warmth back in. “Yeah, it’s me baby. I’ve got you, it’s okay.”

Eddie hummed against his neck. 

“They stole me.”

“And I stole you back.” He pressed his lips against Eddie’s forehead. “I’m not letting anyone or anything take you from me.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“I don’t care. I couldn’t lose you. Not again. I couldn’t.”

Eddie grinned up at him. “You didn’t.”

“No,” Steve whispered back. “I didn’t.”

AO3

Big thanks as always to @hbyrde36 for her magnificent beta work and to the @strangerthingswritersguild for their motivation.

read this fic for steve losing his fucking mind

The (Monster-Hunting) Shop Around the Corner

Fic Playlist by @sparklyslug

Read the @steddiebang fic with art by @ahhrenata and @boiiko right here!

1998 vibes for Chicago in the fall, falling in love with your email penpal, and fighting like hell with the asshole from your past.

Listen on Spotify

what does he even think about....

you must like me for me (yeah, i want you)

pairing: steve harrington/eddie munson

rating: teen

word count: 50.8k (4/13)

summary: This is not how Steve expected to spend his summer. After graduating last year, he’d been working nonstop, saving up money to get out of this shithole town since college is definitely not in the cards for him. He had plans. But no, Robin had to corner him after he watched her walk the stage at graduation, saying she found them the perfect summer job. He was supposed to roadtrip to California in his beat up BMW, not babysit kids for weeks at a time. Steve really needs to learn how to say no to her.

Or, Steve’s roped into working at a summer camp and falls in love over the course of thirteen days—give or take.

READ ON AO3

don’t take my heart (don’t break my heart) masterlist

Dustin isn’t allowed to date until his sister, Kate, does. Problem is, he already has a girlfriend. He looks for help in the most unlikely place: the Hellfire Club. (complete)

prequel | my other works | taglist | read on ao3

00. prologue

01. head over heels

02. good old-fashioned lover boy

03. louder than words

04. love is a battlefield

05. bad case of loving you

06. moonage daydream

“Okay,” he says, nodding. “Okay,” Eddie echoes. Steve can’t keep in the noise of surprise he makes when Eddie’s hands shift to hold both of his own. “You know what I remember about you?” He shakes his head, following Eddie’s hands.  “You were on the swim team, huh? You did all that lifeguard shit too, didn’t you?” He waits for Steve to nod before he continues. “I know it might be hard to find it. All that’s gotta be real loud, yeah? But it’s right here, see?” He finds Eddie’s pressed his fingers to the pulse points on his wrists. And Eddie’s right. It’s hard to feel it, but he finds it there.  “Oh,” Steve says. He can’t find other words. Eddie told him to find this. He feels it. It starts out heavy, a little frantic.  But then Steve focuses, and Eddie’s heartbeat reaches out for his ears, steady. It sounds a lot like Rumours always did, gentler than all the rest.

bring me your peace (what of it you have) by @bruxaed

24k | completed | S4 rewrite | mature

sentinel & guide au; steve harrington follows the sound of eddie munson’s heartbeat.