Literally Everyone Out Here Acting Like Eddie's The Flirty One? Did We All Miss The "its Only Been An

Jealousy Looks Different On You

[Part One] ✨ [You Are Here] ✨ [Part Three]

Steve can be a jealous man. He can be.

Just not in the same way that Eddie seems to thrive on it. Steve doesn't have a right to jealousy outside a relationship, so even if he feels jealous, he'll never act on it.

He thought it was just one of the many ways Eddie and he were incompatible romantically.

It was the same song and dance when they'd go out. Eddie would drag someone onto the dance floor and spend most of the dance making eyes at Steve until his catch of the night got jealous enough to pull Eddie out of eyesight.

Steve is used to that. That's the routine.

Except.

Well, except Eddie's broken the routine now, hasn't he?

Flipped the entire script by saying the things Steve has wanted to hear for years. I wouldn’t have rejected you and Jesus, Steve, you’re the only one I’ve really wanted.

Steve knows Eddie well enough to know that Eddie believes he's telling the truth or believes he really does want what he's saying to be the truth.

And now, sitting in silence in the back of a taxi that Eddie's gotten them, Steve can't bring himself to hope about it. Eddie's not a liar, as far as Steve knows, but that doesn't mean he actually wants Steve. Not for real. Not in the long run.

Steve can't give Eddie all the things Eddie seems to enjoy most. He's heard enough about Eddie's sex life to know they aren't super compatible in that department. And as far as he knows, Eddie's never even had a relationship. Just one-night stands and friends with benefits situations, which, y'know, Steve's not judging him about because Steve had all that once, too.

And maybe it's shitty of him to think but because Eddie's never been in a long-term monogamous relationship, Steve's not sure that one between them will work.

Okay. It's a lot shitty for him to think.

There's no real basis for Steve to think this other than that everything Steve wants out of a relationship, Eddie's shown him he wants the exact opposite.

Maybe Steve's just thinking shitty thoughts because it's easier than hoping that this might work.

The ride to the apartment is awkward only for Steve. They can't exactly talk about liking each other romantically in the back of a taxi where a stranger can clearly hear them, so they don't. Instead, Eddie chats up the cabbie about everything and anything that comes to his mind and Steve sits with just his thoughts.

Which are not being kind.

God, he's kind of a shitty person, isn't he?

Steve lets them both into the apartment and it feels different now. It's not like Eddie's never been in Steve's apartment. Hell, he's been sleeping in his old room for this whole 'break from the LA stress' he's taken. Has been here three days already, so this isn't even the first time this week that Steve's let them both into the apartment.

It's just different now that Eddie knows. Steve's been living his life with the assumption that Eddie knew but now he knows and everything is different.

"You, uh, want a beer?" Steve asks as he toes off his shoes, stalling because he doesn't know how to start this conversation. Isn't even sure he wants to because having this conversation means there is no going back. He won't be able to unsay these things, Eddie won't be able to unhear them. It'll be out there. All his hurt and love and fear and hope.

"Steve," is all Eddie says, in a tone that says 'we need to talk'.

So, Steve swallows thickly, nods, and heads for the living room. It's so stupid but he suddenly feels exposed, so he picks up a throw pillow from the couch before he plops onto it. He turns completely sideways, back to the armrest of the couch and legs crossed, pillow in his lap to act as a barrier of some sort. Something to feel less exposed.

Eddie takes longer to join him because, unlike Steve, he'd gotten completely done up for the bar and that includes full lace up combat boots that he can't easily slip out of.

Eddie finally joins him in the living room, pausing when he sees Steve before he moves to sit on the couch, one leg folded under him and the other on the floor. He leaves a respectable foot of distance between them and Steve's not sure if he's disappointed by that or not.

There is a tense silence that falls on them, neither brave enough to really begin the conversation that could be the end of everything.

"Steve, I- I don't even know where to start, man," Eddie finally says, running a hand through his hair.

"Me either," Steve says, looking down and picking at the pillow. "You were the one who said we needed to talk."

"Because we do?" Eddie sounds confused. "I, fuck man, I basically accused you of being in love with me and you confirmed it. We gotta talk about that."

Steve frowns because he doesn't agree. They don't have to talk about it. As far as Steve was concerned, they've been successfully not talking about it for years. Nothing has really changed from Steve's perspective. "What's there to talk about?"

"That you love me! And that I was, am, in love with you, too! That feels like a big deal!" Eddie cries, voice not loud enough to bother the neighbors yet but he can easily get that way. "You- why don't you seem as happy about this as I am?"

"Because I'm not," Steve says, stern and biting as he finally looks up from the pillow. "How am I supposed to be happy about this? This is going to change everything between us. Everything! And I've been- I've made peace with how this wasn't- with how things were between us."

Eddie stares back at him, eyes wide and mouth agape in his shock. It takes him a moment to recover. "I don't... understand. Why, why aren't you happy? Of course this will change things between us, but you make it sound like it'll be for the worse? I thought-"

"What? You thought you'd tell me you love me too and I'd jump into your arms?"

"Well, kinda," Eddie starts, but Steve doesn't want to hear it.

"I can't! Eddie, I can't. I'm not- I-I get that you, that you've just realized I loved you, but I've been living with the assumption that you already knew. I thought you knew for years. And now you're sitting here, telling me that you've felt the same. What, this whole time?"

"Yes! For longer, probably!" Eddie argues back, anger and hurt mixing on his face. "I've never known you to not go after the person you want, so why did you say anything sooner?"

"Why didn't you!?" Steve shouts, feeling the heat of tears in his eyes. He throws the pillow at Eddie and jumps from the couch to pace the living room. "We lived together for years! And I watched as you brought home guy after guy after guy. I listened as you waxed poetry about the perfect man for you; a fellow metalhead who would want to go to concerts with you, someone who'd play DnD with you and enjoyed your other nerd things, and-and-and," Steve stutters over the word, fighting back making a sobbing sound because it's one thing to let Eddie see his tears; it's an entirely different thing to let him hear the whole sob-fest Steve's fight back. "And a laundry list of all the kinks they have to b-be into so you don't get bored. I- God, you'd laid out your incredibly long list of standards that I didn't fit before I'd even realized I liked men. That I liked you! Why would I even try when I already knew I'd never measure up?"

He's pacing still. Movement helps him push the urge to cry down and makes the tears dry up. It takes him a while to realize that there's been no answer from Eddie. So, Steve finally gets his emotions under control and turns to look at the couch, to see Eddie's response.

He's not expecting to see tears falling down Eddie's own cheeks and wearing a face of heartbreak and regret.

Two days after they nearly lose their daughter to a fire the Buckley’s open the door to find a woman with curly red hair on their porch step. Claudia Henderson. They’ve heard the rumors, Hawkins does so dearly love them, about why she moved to Hawkins when her child was six. They’ve heard the rumors about rumors. About how her boy is friends with the boy who did but didn’t. They’ve seen her out and about. Mousy. Timid. Flinching when yelling gets too loud and over protective of her boy. For a moment, just a brief one, they think she’s here to blame their hatchling. Their fledgling. Backs straighten, mouths flatten.

“I do hope I didn’t wake Robin, knocking on your door,” is what they get instead. The mousy, timid woman not as noisy and timid as they thought as she manages to smile and talk her way into their home. Robin is still asleep.

“Now I’m sure we’ve heard the fire story.”

They nod. It felt wrong, smelled fishy. Dottie has never been a fan of the government and River saw the damage to the Harrington boy. No falling debris could cause that.

“I don’t know much. Dusty won’t say much and always looks so scared when I ask. But it’s a load of cow manure. Something happened though.”

Claudia talks in a soft low voice, even when agitated and upset. Her hands moving in eclectic patterns. She tells them what she’s seen, what she’s guessed, put together with the Sinclair’s and oddly enough Ted Wheeler.

“Karen is of the opinion we should wait for the children to tell us. She listens in but doesn’t offer anything. It’s sweet really,” she says and they both notice that her cheeks get the same pink tint that Robin’s does when she talks about Tammy or Heather or Vickie or even Chrissy. Dottie raises an eyebrow, River tucks his chin.

They’re interrupted by noises coming from upstairs. A thump like a body hitting the floor. Followed by two sets of running feet. A door opens, closes, a few minutes later the toilet flushes. They wait and listen as two try to become one on the walk back to Robin’s room.

“Steve likes to think he’s sneaky, but his nightmares give him away. He’ll… he’ll probably cycle through houses. Will try not to be seen. Especially now.”

“Now?” River asks because he’s always been nosier than Dottie.

“Him and Hopper.”

There were rumors, some nastier than others.

“Hopper had practically adopted him.”

Dottie makes a pain filled noise. She’d had a different upbringing than River. His grandmother joining the little commune of hippies and nature lovers, those who wanted peace and a greater feeling of unity, than her parents. And the parents that had basically adopted her.

“We shared custody, Hopper and I. So he comes through my front door. He’ll collapse on me and cry. He probably won’t with you. I know he doesn’t with the others.”

It’s not quite what they left behind, what grief caused them to flee. But it’s still a village and Claudia is there to welcome them in.

—/—/—/—/—/—

Later. Not even a year later. They, and the others, stand up in town hall. Call Jason Carver a fear mongering asshole and condemn anyone who believes him. Jason calls them satanist sympathizers. They aren’t quite run out of town but people side eye them. Some of the more religious threaten them.

They’re there when Claudia get the call Dustin and Steve are in the hospital. There to take Steve’s place protecting the Munson boy. Worry deep set on their faces when he faints the moment Dottie takes the nail studded bat from his hands.

They’re there when Steve flatlines twice and Eddie does thrice. They’re there when Wayne Munson gets the Claudia treatment. They’re there because that’s what family, what a village does.

This is gold.

I would love to read more about it.

Maybe, I can write myself more. If I am allowed I can share it…

Steve, who is born into a long line of shifters, but unlike the magnificent creatures his parents and grandparents before him became when they turned, he turns into an ordinary house cat.

Steve, who is an embarrassment to the Harrington name amongst the secretive society of shifters and so is essentially abandoned in Hawkins to fend for himself.

Steve, who is deeply ashamed that his shifting animal is a fucking cat until he meets a Demogorgon and then suddenly, being a cat - aka, the perfect bear trap bait - is the best animal he could have asked Magick to become.

Steve, who quickly becomes the Party's self-appointed emotional support person (cough cough, cat) and makes sure that he checks on his kids and is there to provide snuggles when needed.

Steve, who is really nervous about his kids starting high school - especially El and Will - and who sneaks his way into the school when he's not working and hides out in the drama room.

Steve, who is caught off guard when he bumps into Eddie Munson in his cat form, and then keeps bumping into Eddie Munson in his cat form, and pretty soon he can't keep pretending like it's not intentional but he likes listening to the guy when they're both hiding out in the drama room, and it doesn't hurt that he has excellent hands that give excellent tummy rubs -

Steve, who is present at the kids' first Hellfire Club meeting, and who is caught off guard by the disdain in Eddie Munson's voice when he talks about "King Steve."

Steve, who hops onto the game table, makes eye contact with Eddie Munson, and shoves his DM screen onto the floor with a loud crash.

Steve, who spends the rest of that session (and the next) on Jeff's lap, because Jeff's tummy rubs are pretty damn good and Jeff has only ever had nice things to say about Steve Harrington. (Take that, Eddie.)

(Eddie, who pouts the entire time and shows up at their third session with some catnip toys and an apology, even though he really doesn't understand why he has to apologize to this cat about Steve Harrington or why his new sheepies think this whole thing is hilarious.)

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

steddie brainrot taking over me fr

Mmm think I'm gonna be evil tonight. Think I'm gonna write a fic of Steve and Robin slowly distancing themselves because their lives get so busy. Of Steve not knowing what to do because he wants this relationship to stay alive, it's the only real friendship he's had since high school. It's the only friendship that's ever mattered to him. And now it's just falling apart right in front of his eyes. So he keeps trying and trying and trying. And Robin's trying, too, but their schedules don't line up anymore.

Robin's in college.

Steve is working full-time minimum wage.

Robin's got a girlfriend and a whole group of foreign language friends.

Steve has Eddie, but Eddie works, too. He has Dustin, but Dustin's got school. And so does Max. And Nancy's in college with Jonathan.

So he writes letters. Postcards. Makes whole journal entries of his seemingly boring, stupid mundane life. Stuffs whole orange envelopes with his silly journal entries and polaroids he takes while hiking and a list of all the movies he's checked out from Family Video that months. He keeps Robin up to date with frequent customers they both hated. He just keeps trying.

Robin writes, too. About classes and final exams and when she's coming home for holidays—how she's only spending time with her parents because she can't stay for long. But it's too sporadic. Steve tries to respond, leave a message for her about getting her letters.

It's just not enough.

They both tried. They both called. They both wrote. They both gave it a shot.

But their conversations go dry. Their free time now dwindling.

It hits him, like a punch to the sternum, they're not going to last. After all this time, the trauma they shared, the conversations on bathroom floors...he can't save the friendship, she can't save the friendship. It's a matter of time until they stop talking.

And all they can do is hold on.

Blankie

Steve has a blankie. It's his blankie. Worn and threadbare over the years. His grandmother had sown it for him, simple and plain.

But Steve loved it. Could never be without it.

"I threw it out,"

Steve had been gone the weekend. Checking the places over in Indianapolis that they could maybe afford. He'd been gone two days. Two fucking days.

"You what."

His mother doesn't even look up at him. She never has actually, paid him much attention.

"God Steven, don't make me repeat myself. I threw it out. With a bunch of your baby things. It was old and ratty. I should have thrown it out sooner really-

Steve doesn't listen, he's out the door before she's finished her sentence.

"Steven!"

He can see them, the boxes, chucked out by the mailbox. For anyone to just pick up. He tears open the first one, doesn't care that he's throwing baby toys across the yard.

It's at the bottom. Torn in half.

He walks back to the house.

His mother looks at him with disgust. He can tell. It's the same way she always looks at him when he's acting o u t.

Steve's lips twist into a shadow of his former self and he walks past her. He smashes the number he now knows by heart into the receiver.

It rings once before a click "I'm coming. Now. Forever."

And then he hangs up.

"Steven?"

She doesn't sound so sure now, he voice quivers slightly as he tears through the house, grabbing what little he actually has left there.

Then he makes a last turn around the kitchen, his mother hovering as he grabs the bread, Dustin's favourite cereal and the expensive chocolates from his dad that Eddie loves stealing.

"Steven it's just a blanket what are you doing?"

Steve whirls on his mother.

"Once a month, on the third Tuesday, your husband goes to a bar just out of town and fucks the youngest thing he can find. Boy or girl, he doesn't really care. It's not just a blanket it's the only proof I have that I was loved, goodbye Mother,"

And as he slams the front door he doesn't look back.

"Steven."

He doesn't pause.

Eddie's van is turning the corner.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Steve clenches that blanket to his chest.

"It's worth shit,"

Part 2

staying close w people long distance really is about the mundane stuff. i get texts like "made quesadillas" "spilled mop water all over the floor :(" "lady on the bus has not one not two but three tiny dogs in her purse" andits like wow. i love you more than words can express

“I don’t want to be a burden” you’re more like a relief, a gift, a blessing actually

I love to write this Kinde of comments or when a word is missing/not fitting in []. People who beta for me or are allowed to read my wips seem to love these little insights and comments. I can recommend it for the writing process and also as Entertainment for early readers.

me, struggling to write: hmm, this part is a little difficult. maybe i should check my planning document, which i created as a helpful tool for my writing process!

the planning document: