giverobinagfbrigade

[giverobinagfbrigade]

Reverse Big Bang Time!! Cheering the cheerleader Masterpost

My Reverse Big Bang with the wonderful @cxwzkeys is out!!

Title: Cheering the Cheerleader

Word count: 22,125

Archive warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Rating: Mature

Paring: Chrissy Cunningham & Eddie Munson

Characters: Chrissy Cunningham Eddie Munson Steve Harrington Robin Buckley Wayne Munson Chrissy Cunningham's Brother Chrissy Cunningham's Parents Nancy Wheeler Jeff (Stranger Things) Gareth (Stranger Things)Unnamed Freak (Stranger Things)Andy (Stranger Things) Chance (Stranger Things) Patrick McKinney

Tags: Lesbian Chrissy Cunningham Gay Eddie Munson Good Uncle Wayne Munson Supportive Wayne Munson Chrissy Cunningham Needs a Hug Past Jason Carver/Chrissy Cunningham Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified Chrissy Cunningham Lives References to Drugs Recreational Drug Use Mechanic Eddie Munson

Summary: Chrissy Cunningham, a small town princess, who had a completely different plan for her life than this. But, when those plans fall through, what's left is building a friendship with town pariah and finding a new life. She'd never expected to find herself at this class either but new friends bring new experiences and this is shaping up to be a lot of fun.

tldr: Chrissy gets out, moves out and joins a circus arts class

Beta Reader: @vthx

The art and the wonderful artist: link to the beautiful art made by the wonderful @cxwzkeys

The author and the fic link : link to the pic written by me!

#platonic hellcheer #stranger things #chrissy cunningham #Lesbian Chrissy Cunningham #Stranger things reverse big bang

[giverobinagfbrigade]

Working with keys was an absolute joy!! 💗💗

Cheering the Cheerleader

Another one for the @strangerthingsreversebigbang ! This time I created a small playlist that reminded me of Chrissy <3 [You can listen to it here] and I was lucky to be chosen by @giverobinagfbrigade who wrote such a fun and nice fic with platonic Eddie and Chrissy 😭💖 [Read it here and leave all the love]

I really had so much fun reading the wips and now that will be complete, I want to sit and read it all again!! <3 Their ideas fit so well what I had in mind and even more so yes, I'm very happy and proud!

[giverobinagfbrigade]

Rating: G tags: post-breakup, angst, hurt, wedding, happy ending prompt: Love is what makes you brave (@sidekick-hero) For @steddielovemonth AO3

Should he be here?

No.

Was he going to continue to be here for as long as he could take it?

Hell yeah.

Sitting behind the wheel of his stupid expensive car that would have stuck out anywhere else. 

But not here.

Not amongst the BMW’s and Bentleys and limos and wedding cars.

It had been three years.

Three long and fucking lonely as shit years since he’d last seen Steve.

Three years of writing songs about him.

Three years of dodging interviewer questions about who the songs were about.

Three years of the fans creating some nebulous phantom person that all the songs must be about because they all fit together like puzzle pieces if looked at correctly.

Three years since Steve broke his heart.

Eddie wasn’t even really sure what had possessed him to be here right now.

He hadn’t been invited.

But some kind of insane impulse had grabbed him when he’d first gotten into the car fourteen hours ago and it hadn’t left him since.

He needed…

He didn’t know what he needed.

He didn’t know what he expected.

His passenger door opening and a figure sliding into the seat nearly scared the life out of him, so lost in thought and with eyes laser focused on the church doors, he hadn’t noticed anyone approaching.

He was forced to remember again that he was no longer some nobody living in bumfuck nowhere Indiana, he was a somebody, with a fucking penthouse apartment in New York City and an extremely recogniseable look.

Maybe he should have locked the doors.

And maybe he should have dressed down a little before he jumped in the car. Gotten rid of some of the jewellery, covered up the tattoos, tied his hair back, not worn the kind of clothes that always got him noticed in Hawkins in the wrong way. He was more noticeable now more than he ever had been. 

He was the most successful person to ever make it out of this shithole town and the town itself loved to pretend they always encouraged him. 

They advertised it proudly.

Like they hadn’t tried to drown his passions at every opportunity.

But it wasn’t some crazed obsessive fan now staring at him from his passenger seat, dressed in a pair of black slacks and an overly frilly lavender blouse, probably a compromise so she didn’t have to be stuffed into a dress.

Eddie tensed his hands around the wheel while Robin continued to stare at him like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, bewildered more than anything. He supposed that was fair.

There was no reason for him to be here after all.

He’d gotten no hint from Steve that this wasn’t what he wanted, none of the kids had said as much either but…

It just didn’t feel right.

It felt like Steve was falling back into a pattern.

Living the life that had been mapped out for him by society.

Go to school.

Get a good job.

Get married to a nice girl.

Eddie didn’t even know if the person that would be meeting Steve at the end of the aisle in about fifteen minutes was a nice girl.

He didn’t know anything about her at all.

Didn’t know anything about Steve either.

All he knew were the little tidbits the kids would occasionally drop by accident when they would forget they weren’t all one tightly knit group anymore.

Not since Steve shoved him out the door and told him that it wouldn’t work, it could never work.

Eddie suspected Steve had been looking at shadows on a cave wall for so long he had no idea there was a whole world just outside. That they didn’t have to live their lives the way everyone else did.

But there was nothing for it, he couldn’t force Steve to take him back. 

He’d told Eddie he didn’t want him anymore so…

Eddie went and got the life he’d dreamed of since he was a kid. He got the success and the accolades and he was being heard.

But it was empty. It had always been empty.

He had never been able to move on.

Not really.

And now… now he was here.

“Hey Buckley.” Eddie shot her a tight grin. “It’s been a while.”

And it had been. Because along with losing Steve, he’d also lost Robin.

It was understandable, really. 

Robin was Steve’s ride or die and though he’d heard she’d raised holy hell, trying to figure out why Steve had thrown his happiness away, as she herself had said, she was still, first and foremost, Steve’s soulmate.

She would be by his side come hell or high water and though she wasn’t happy with his decision, there was also nothing she could do about it.

Steve was a grown man and he’d made his choice.

“What are you doing here, Eds?” She asked again with so much concern, it was like she was worried Eddie was ripping out his own heart over again just by being here.

Maybe he was.

But he was here now.

He couldn’t leave until it was all over.

“Is he happy?” Eddie asked, rather than answer her question. They both knew why he was there anyway. “Is he happy with Miss… Whatever Her Name Is?”

Robin looked at him for a long time, eyes darting all over his face, chewing on her lip.

She took a big breath in. 

“He’s… content, I think. They both are. I think they’ve both… made themselves content with the situation.”

“Right.” Eddie nodded, tearing his gaze away and staring down at his hands.

He could feel Robin’s eyes boring into the side of his head.

“But not happy.” She said into the silence. “He’s not- I’ve never seen him as happy as he was when he was with you.”

Eddie tightened his jaw, tried to blink away the wetness in his eyes.

“Then why did he end it?”

“I think he was scared.” She almost whispered. “I think he didn’t know what to do with it all. There was no rule book to follow.”

“But that’s the best part, Rob.” Eddie sighed out. “There’s no rules for how we’re supposed to live our lives.”

He didn’t turn back to look at her, but he could see her nodding in agreement out of the corner of his eye.

“I think he’s started to realise that too, recently.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you here?” She asked again, no longer willing to put up with his avoidance.

“I don’t know.” He said, mostly honestly. “One last big romantic gesture?”

Robin sighed, a hand on the handle. “Okay, wait here.”

“Hadn’t planned on going anywhere.” He muttered but it was drowned out as she slammed the car door, speed walking her way back to the church where a crowd had begun to gather at the door.

He tried not to let anything like hope bloom in him, he tried to keep any kind of bubble build up and puff him out but it wasn’t that difficult.

Especially when Robin made her way back to the car only a few minutes later, looking far more stressed than she had before and notably, alone.

“So, slight bump in the big romantic gesture plans,” she said, opening the door again but not getting in. “They’re missing.”

“They? Who’s missing?”

“Rita apparently got a call at the hotel before she was supposed to come here and then just disappeared, leaving her engagement ring behind. And then Steve left sometime when we were talking-”

“Left to go where?”

“I don’t know, Edward.” Robin grit out, tensing her fingers around the roof lip but it was more worry than irritation.

“Okay.” Eddie said, shifting the car into gear. “Okay, get in, we’ll go-”

“No. I’m staying here, I need to keep his parents from calling in the National Guard to drag him back by the hair. You go. You know where he is, don’t you?”

Eddie stared at her, opening and closing his mouth until he could finally form his lips around the words “I think so.”

He knew so.

Or at least he hoped he did.

Robin gave him one sharp nod. “Okay.”

She slammed the door closed and turned back to the crowd.

Pulling out of the parking lot of the church, Eddie tried not to panic. 

There wasn’t much distance that Steve could have gone but the idea of him going missing still had his heart constricting, full of what if, what if, what if?

It wasn’t very far, but finding somewhere to pull over at the edge of the forest where his car wouldn’t be suspicious wasn’t the easiest thing to do.

Though it was probably easier now than it had been years ago, since he no longer had the van and his shiny, sleek and expensive car would be glanced over for any bored cop looking to bust someone for drugs.

Not so much of an easy target now, huh Callahan?

He had just pulled his car into a clearing that was somewhat hidden when he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket.

He switched the engine off and was halfway out of the car when he froze, finally seeing the number on screen.

It was Steve. It had to be Steve.

He’d recognise that number anywhere, he knew it off by heart but Eddie had changed numbers at least twice in the last three years.

He hadn’t bothered to add Steve back into his contacts, what would be the point?

It would have just been a temptation on drunken lonely nights.

How the fuck did Steve even have his number?

Eddie tapped the answer button before the call could ring out.

His mouth was dry and his heart was in his throat as he raised the phone to his ear.

“Stevie?” He practically breathed, gripping the door so tight he was surprised he didn't dent the metal.

There was a sound from the other end, like a sigh, like relief or a release of tension.

“Eddie.” Steve said and his voice, different as it was through the phone, was the most painful and comforting thing Eddie thought he’d ever heard. It was followed quickly by a sniffle and a quiet, “Hi.”

Eddie had so many things he wanted to ask.

Why are you calling now?

Where are you?

Why did you run?

How do you even have this number?

Instead he just slammed the car door closed and asked softly “What’s going on, sweetheart?”

A sound came down the line, one that sounded suspiciously like a sob, followed by another sniffle.

“Can’t- can’t I just call to see how you are?”

Eddie didn’t answer as he started to tromp his way through the forest, half worried anything he said would just end up with him begging Steve to call him again and again and again.

But Steve seemed to take his silence as stony.

“Yeah, I-” Steve sniffed. “I guess I deserved that.” 

Eddie could practically hear his lip wobbling through the phone and Steve broke down into sobs again.

“Where are you, Stevie?”

“The past.” He muttered out which was as good a confirmation as any that Eddie was heading in the right direction. “I’m- I… I’m sorry to call you right now and you’re out living your life-”

“Are you sober?”

Because it was high stakes at the moment but this was still a lot of emotion for noon.

“Unfortunately.” Steve sighed out and then quietly, so quietly Eddie could barely hear him. “I’m supposed to be getting married today.”

“So I heard.”

It sounded like the air had been punched out of Steve’s chest and the whine he let out after sounded like one of pure pain.

“I’m sorry.”

Eddie had to duck under a branch and as a result, nearly tripped over a root in the ground but managed to right himself.

“You’re sorry for supposed to be getting married?”

“I’m sorry you had to find out that way. From- from someone else.”

He came to a stop. 

“Oh.”

Not sorry I’m getting married.

Just sorry I’m not the one who told you I’m getting married.

Which, like, Steve didn’t need to apologise to him for getting married.

They weren’t together.

They weren’t a thing.

They didn’t even talk anymore.

Eddie had no right to that information.

Still.

Didn’t make it hurt any less.

“Eddie.” Steve whimpered out, kicking Eddie back into movement again. “I fucked up. I fucked up so bad.”

“You didn’t fuck up, Stevie, it’s fine.” He sighed, resigned to his fate now. “You can still go back-”

“No, no.” Steve took a large painful breath in. “You don’t understand. I fucked up. I left you. I made you go. How could I do that? Why did I do that? You were- you were the best thing that ever happened to me and I just-”

It sounded like Steve couldn’t speak anymore through hit tears, the raw anguish in his voice making it sound like he couldn’t breathe.

“I pushed you away. I pushed you away. I was so scared and I wanted- I wanted to take it back the second I did it. I wanted to but I couldn’t make myself do it and I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry about that, baby. You have to believe me, I’m so sorry.”

The sound of Steve’s sobs were no longer just coming through the phone but were now starting to echo around him from just up ahead and Eddie kept walking.

“I was such a coward. There was no precedent. Nothing in my life was like what I had with you, I didn’t see it anywhere else and I didn’t know what to do. There was just this big vast emptiness in front of me where before there had always been a path, it had always been mapped out, telling me where to go next and I didn’t know what to do about it, I didn’t think it was possible to have-”

Steve cut himself off with another sob and Eddie could see him now, sitting on the dirty forest floor in his brand new designer tux, head bowed into his knees and his back against Skull Rock.

“I’ve made such a mistake, Eddie. I’ve never fucked up like I did with you and if I could take it all back I would. I’d be brave for you, I swear-”

Eddie dropped to his knees in front of him.

“Do you still want to be?”

Steve’s head snapped up so fast he cracked himself hard against the giant rock they used to come to all the time when they were full of young love.

Eddie winced in sympathy but didn’t reach out while Steve stared at him wide eyed, even through the pain.

He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“Eddie.” He breathed out, completely disbelieving. “What- wh- what are you-”

“I was at the church.” Eddie said, sitting himself down fully and bringing his own knees up to his chest. “I was… I don’t know what I was doing there. I don’t know what I expected to happen.”

“You…” Steve blinked at him. His face was wet and blotchy and red, his eyes were raw and still swimming and he was still the most beautiful person Eddie had ever laid eyes on. And he was looking at Eddie like he was the most unbelievable thing in the world. “You were there the whole time?”

“Yeah.”

Steve’s hands were twitching around his knees, gripping into the fabric of his dress pants and Eddie could tell he wanted to reach out but he wasn’t sure he could handle that yet.

He needed to know.

He needed to be sure.

He didn’t think he’d survive it if he let hope back in only to have it pulled away again.

“What happened?”

Steve’s face scrunched up, like he was trying to push the tears back and he brought his hands up to his face, digging the heels into his eyes.

“I couldn’t… I couldn’t go through with it. Rita, she… she- she’s not you. I couldn’t let her live a life with me waiting for me to love her like I still love you because it’ll never happen. I could never love anyone like I still love you. And she… she’s the same, she didn’t want this, she never wanted this but it was what we’d been told to want for so long and… she couldn’t do it either. So we both- we both ran and I want… I want to be brave for you, baby.”

Eddie crossed his arms over his knees and pressed his lips into his skin, silent and thinking.

He couldn’t take it if Steve did what he did to him again.

He just couldn’t.

And why did it take Steve getting to this stage for him to decide on what he wanted?

Would it have still happened the same way if Eddie hadn’t come?

Would Steve have cried his heart out here in their spot until he was done talking to Eddie over the phone and gone about the rest of his life?

Would he have let the fear get to him again?

But could Eddie live with himself if he turned this chance down because of his own fear?

It wasn’t even a question.

He’d regret it for the rest of his life.

So he had to choose to be brave too.

He unwrapped his arms from around his knees and spread his legs wider, scooching forward until he had Steve’s curled up body cradled in his.

Steve all but stopped breathing with a dramatic hiccup when he felt Eddie’s legs against his own and when Eddie brought his hands up to encircle Steve’s wrists and pull them away from his face, his eyes were wide and disbelieving.

Eddie pulled Steve’s hands into his chest.

“I need to know you’re sure. I need to know you mean it, okay?”

“I do.” Steve nodded and his words were sure if a little breathy. “I do, Eddie. I promise you. I’ll show you every day. I’ll be brave for you I swear.”

“Because I won’t survive you doing what you did to me again. It nearly killed me the first time, Steve. I can’t go through that again. So you need to be sure.”

Where Steve’s hands were pressed flat against Eddie’s chest, his fingers curled in now, balling up the shirt underneath and holding on tight.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Eddie, I swear to you on… on… Dustin’s mom.”

Despite himself, Eddie felt his face crack into a smile.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Steve asked, though his own smile was slowly blooming, even as he started crying again.

“Yeah. Okay. Now kiss me like you mean it.”

AO3

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

#oh i love this so much #op i am actually crying

[giverobinagfbrigade]

so @steddielations mentioned that it was okay if i posted my lil fic inspired by their post separately so it wasn't buried in the reblogs or whatever. so i'm taking her advice and here it is in all it's standalone glory, i guess? anyway, originally when i stumbled across his post, i couldn't help myself, i absolutely go bonkers for kas!eddie and it was such a fucking cute idea i couldn't not write something about it. we see so much dark vampire!eddie and monster!eddie stuff, so i'm kinda here for the cute shit i guess?

this is wholly unedited, and it's my very first st fic ever, so i hope it's not shit. (y'all seemed to like it on the OG post anyway)

i also included a little extra treat (from my main tumblr account) tucked away at about the halfway mark, so enjoy i guess?

The world may be fucking ending, but goddamn it he’s never going to get over leaving Eddie’s body behind. Dustin is his brother, for fuckssake, he deserves some closure at the very least, and Mr. Munson ought to be able to say a proper goodbye to his nephew. Steve feels like shit— like he’s robbed the man of that simple right and watching Dustin and Mr. Munson in the aftermath, having driven the kid to the guy’s new Government-issued, post-“earthquake” relocation apartment a few times in the later weeks so Dustin can check on the guy? Absolutely gutting. Now, Steve knows he’s got a habit of taking on guilt that really isn’t his. Robin has smacked him around the head for weeks about this now, yelled at him about getting a goddamn therapist or something but. This? He feels responsible, somehow. If he’d only been stronger, he could have carried Eddie’s body out.

He’s been going over it in his mind now for weeks. He probably could have managed if he’d dropped all his weapons, carried nothing else except for Eddie’s body. Steve’s strong, he knows this, it’s one of the few reasons the Party still keeps him around—he’s like a– a meat-shield or something. It’s his job to keep them safe, even though he’s failed spectacularly this time, with Max all but brain dead in a coma and Eddie actually dead and it’s all just… it’s all just bullshit. Steve feels like he’s at the end of his rope at this point, and it’s with that edge of mania, that taste of hysteria that he blurts out his half-cocked plan to Robin. He can’t let Eddie’s body rot down there any longer.

Of course he gets shut down almost immediately and Robin all but restrains him to the bedpost while she calls the cavalry—the cavalry being Nancy—but even with the two of them, he’s immovable. He can’t keep doing this, don’t they understand? And that’s just it: they don’t. No matter how many times he explains it, or tries to, they just tell him the same thing: it’s not his fault, it’s too dangerous. He doesn’t understand how they don’t see it. It’s Steve’s job to do this, it’s his purpose, he has to bring Eddie home safe because it means that Dustin will finally get some fucking peace and Mr. Munson will get the goddamn closure he deserves. Steve cries more than he has cried in years, probably scaring Robin and Nancy more than they let on, but he just can’t do it anymore.

In the end, it’s his warbled “Please” that gets them to crack, and they agree to head back down through the widest gate closest to the trailer park, the gate closest to where they left Eddie’s body to rot. He’s got his bat this time but not much else, although Nancy and Robin are armed to the teeth, and his walkie is in Nancy’s backpack along with a truly astounding amount of ammo for her shotgun. The drop into the Upside Down is disorienting as always and once they’re all present, he takes a moment to listen. He exhales, his breath clouding in front of him at the chill. There’s very little noise aside from the ambient sounds he remembers from the last time they’d all taken their waltz through Hell, but he freezes when his ears pick up the sound of chittering.

“What? Do you hear something?”

Steve shushes them, spinning his nail bat once, twice, before easing his way into the nightmare version of the trailer park. He walks softly, treading quietly like he remembers doing when his parents were home more often and he was afraid of disturbing them. Eggshells, he remembers hearing once—walking on eggshells. He catches a glimpse of what look like those fucking bat things hanging from the lip of the roof on one of the trailers they pass. He wonders what the kids would name them, if there’s some dungeons and dumbasses monster they’d pick like with Demogorgon or fucking Vecna—he wouldn’t put it past Dustin to just call them demobats, like he’d named the ugly baby things demodogs—but the bat fuckers don’t attack. If anything, Steve thinks they’re watching their group. Which, while creepy, is only mildly better than just outright attacking. He refocuses.

The deeper into the trailer park they go, the more and more of these bat things—screw it, Steve’s just gonna start calling the fuckers demobats—they start to see. It’s unnerving, being watched like this, and he’s definitely convinced they’re watching them. Nancy and Robin are murmuring behind him, probably talking about them too, but Steve is too focused on looking out for incoming threats to care about their conversation. He knows where the Munson’s trailer is, and if he can get there, he knows the direction in which Eddie’s body will be laying. He swallows down the nausea that rises in his throat. He’s not sure what he’s going to find, but he’s glad for the bandana he’s got tied around the lower half of his face—Nancy had insisted on face and eye coverings for this trip. Steve hadn’t argued.

Rounding the side of one of the other motor homes, Steve spots the Munson trailer and heaves out a groaning breath at the sight. The amps are still on the roof and not for the first time, he wishes he’d been able to see Eddie play at least once before he’d died. Dustin said it was the most metal concert he’s ever seen, and at this point, Steve is inclined to believe the little shit. He takes a breath, glancing over his shoulder at Robin and Nancy.

“There’s the trailer. Do… Do you think one of you could get his guitar, too?”

“Steve, are you serious right now?”

Robin’s tone is incredulous, and he can see by the set of Nancy’s jaw from beneath her own face coverings that she’s just as frustrated with him.

“Just… it meant a lot to him, okay? I’d. I’d rather at least try to get it back topside…”

“Fine.”

Nancy’s firm, but she’s agreeing and quite frankly that’s more than he’s expected. He fights back the tears that he feels building as he thanks her.

“Don’t thank me yet, Steve. We still have to see if we can even get his body out of here, okay?”

He nods and refocuses, stepping out from the shadowed shelter cast by the trailer they’re huddled behind. The sudden flap of wings in the air and the shrieking chittering is not welcomed.

“Fuck fuck fuck!”

Steve is angry a lot. He doesn’t usually let it show, just holds it in and puts on a smile to go about his day. It’s what makes all the Hawkins moms like him so much. He seems approachable, amiable. Likable. Below the surface, however, he’s a seething mass of old rage that he wishes he could truly get rid of. He doesn’t like being angry; it makes him uncomfortable, unsteady. He doesn’t like to fight like Billy did to quell the rage burbling inside his gut or like Tommy does, to satisfy a need to feel superior over those who are weaker than him. When he does fight, it’s to protect; to draw the attention away from those more vulnerable. He makes himself a target because he knows he can take it, and every blow that he blocks is a victory even at the cost of his own health.

In this moment, however, he can feel his pulse ringing in his ears, throbbing in his veins as he stares down the whirlwind of demon fucking bats darkening the hellish sky. The wood of his weapon creaks under the clench of his knuckles and he just… lets his vision go red.

Plant your feet, Harrington!

The first of the bats goes down with a sickening squelching noise, a savage sound tearing its way from his throat. He keeps moving, shifting with his own momentum and sweeping his nail bat to bludgeon anything within his range. He cuts a path easily through the dive-bombing swarm, his layers thicker than the last time he was here and offering much better protection. He still feels the teeth when one gets through his defensive arcing strikes, but it’s so muted beneath his rage that it’s insignificant. It’s easy to hook his fingers around its slimy rotten throat and use his own body mass and torque to rip the thing in half, acrid dark blood spraying in the air and staining his face, hair, and clothes as it settles. He can hear the shattering glass of Robin’s Molotovs and the gunfire from Nancy’s pistols behind him like distant echoes as he tears through another swooping demobat with a nail-ridden swing.

He hates these fucking things. He hates them. They took Eddie from Dustin. They took Eddie from Mr. Munson. They took Eddie from him. He’s closer to the trailer now, practically right next to it at this point, and he presses his back to it as he swings his bat in a long arc, slamming another fucking nasty bitch to the ground with a sickening squelch. It screeches when he presses a boot-clad foot on its writhing form and pries the nails out of its disgusting flesh before bringing the bat down again and again and again until finally, it stops moving. His chest is heaving and his outermost layer is nearly completely shredded. He’s got countless shallow wounds from where fangs have managed to penetrate his defenses but he hasn’t lost much blood yet. He can still fight.

He turns his attention to Nancy and Robin, and the two are holding their own exceptionally well. Robin is swinging her crowbar around and Nancy is firing off shotgun shells like a pro, having ditched the pistols at some point for more firepower. The swarm seems to be retreating now, called back by some force they’ve yet to see. He fucking hopes its not goddamn Vecna, because they sure as hell don’t have the time or the ammo to deal with his shit. Steve hauls himself fully upright as he makes his way back to his allies. He manages to kill a few more demobats on his way to them, watching as the rest fly off and disappear further into the trailer park. 

“Alright, I’m gonna check the roof, see if the guitar is up there. Can one of you check inside?”

“Got it.”

Steve nods at Robin and heads back over to the trailer, making his way up to the roof steadily. He hears the girls shut the front door so he knows they’re already inside by the time he manages to haul himself up to the top and he inhales sharply at the sight of Eddie’s guitar—a Warlock, he thinks it was called—left abandoned with the amps. His heart lurches in his chest as he approaches it, kneeling down and trailing his fingers across the dark, black angular surface. He chokes on a sob, hating that this very well may be one of the only things left of Eddie if they for some reason can’t bring back his body.

He’d known it was a possibility, but he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. With all the demobats they’ve just fought off, there’s just. There’s no way Eddie hasn’t been eaten at this point. Steve slips the handle of his nail bat through a loop on his jeans and gingerly, with reverence, he picks up the Warlock and slings it onto his back. He exhales shakily as the weight of it rests there, against his spine, and he finds himself clinging to the tiny shred of hope that still remains that Eddie’s body is still intact enough for them to carry back through the gate—back home.

Climbing back down isn’t too difficult, but it’s not necessarily easy either. Robin and Nancy look at him with sympathetic eyes but thankfully they don’t say anything. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle it if they tried to say something right now. He swallows back another sob, pretending like he’s not on the cusp of another breakdown and straightens his spine.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

They follow.

The walk is silent again, no demobats in sight which is concerning. Steve doesn’t understand where they all went. There were so many, and now they’re just… gone? It doesn’t make sense. He grits his teeth and flexes his grip on his nail bat, trying to ignore the weighty addition of the Warlock at his back. As they get closer to where they’d left Eddie’s body, dread begins to creep in, slithering through his veins like icy vines. The area is dark with old blood, the ground irreversibly stained by Eddie’s bravery and his sacrifice. But his body is not there. There are no vines holding anything down, no evidence of his clothing even, barring the shredded remnants of a leather jacket, some fabric scraps, and the skull-printed black handkerchief he’d worn around his head resting on the bloodstained ground. 

“What the fu–”

The screech is unexpected and at a pitch that sends all three of them stumbling, clutching at their ears. Steve recovers quickly, stepping in front of Robin and Nancy and planting his feet like a human shield, holding his nail bat out in front of him. His gaze darts back and forth, trying to find the source of the screech when it drops from the sky before him. His heart leaps to his throat, adrenaline surging through his veins, because he has never encountered this kind of Upside Down monster before.

It hisses and snarls at them, flashing deadly, long fangs. Steve can clearly see what looks like blood smeared across the white surface and around the things’ mouth. Its head is vaguely bat-like, with what appear to be four, overlarge ears pushing out from the sides and temples of its head, the origins hidden by dark, curled hair or perhaps fur that drapes across its forehead, shoulders, and down its back—something most of the monsters haven’t had. Unlike most of the monsters they’ve seen so far, this one has eyes, and they gleam dark red, furious in the hellish lighting of the Upside Down. It stands on two legs, bent backwards in an inhuman manner and tapered down to deadly talon-tipped toes. Dark fur or maybe fabric of some kind covers the upper portion of its legs, and a long, dark tail swishes behind it. It’s vaguely humanoid in shape but stands slightly hunched, spine arched and visible skin pale as death. Wings not unlike those he’s seen on the demobats, but much larger and darker are spread from the things’ back, wide and tipped with what look like deadly talons. Its arms are pale at the shoulders and eerily human, riddled with lithe muscle as they bleed into dark ink-black forearms, ending in strong hands with long, talon-tipped fingers curled into deadly looking claws. Everything about it screams predator—deadly, territorial predator.

Except for one thing. 

One thing that makes Steve pause.

Because he would recognize that t-shirt anywhere, even half-shredded as it is.

He slowly lowers his bat, causing Nancy and Robin to start hissing at him in a panic. He ignores them, tucking the weapon into his belt loop again. He pulls the goggles up to his forehead, pushing his sweaty hair off his forehead and pulls his bandana down to his throat, exposing his face. He gingerly slides the Warlock off his back, keeping his motions controlled and slow, like he would were he dealing with a spooked animal. The monster before him stops snarling, hissing instead, and Steve watches as its head tilts slightly to the side in a motion that has Steve’s heart lurching in his chest with recognition. He sets the Warlock on the ground gently, never tearing his gaze away from the monster. He swallows. Robin is going to be pissed at him if he’s wrong, but then at least his corpse will be a good distraction for when they can run away, right? He takes a step forward and the snarling starts up again. He holds out his hands in the universal gesture for “calm down” and inhales to settle his own racing heart.

“Ed… Eddie?”

The monster’s hackles drop almost immediately at his words and its hunched posture straightens, showing off how it towers over Steve. A slow blink causes the red, angry eyes to shift to a hickory color, rounding them to the point where it would be almost comical were Steve not utterly terrified that this could still backfire. He forces himself to smile without showing his teeth, wiggling his fingers in a little wave, unnerved at the way those huge, warm eyes are just. Staring at him now.

“Hey, man… It's uh. Steve.”

There’s a long, drawn out moment where the only sound is the ambient background noise of the Upside Down. Steve has a horrifying thought of, well shit this isn’t going to work, I’m definitely going to die, but then all of his doom and gloom thoughts are dispelled. With a flurry of movement, the monster lets out a loud chirrup and scampers on all fours at Steve with inhuman speeds. He can hear Robin and Nancy’s panic, the click of Nancy cocking her shotgun, but she isn’t fast enough. The monster hits him full on in the chest, knocking him to the ground—thankfully not crushing the Warlock, Jesus Christ, that would have been painful—and pinning him there for a long moment. He stops breathing, because fuck, this thing is so much bigger than Eddie was as a human, but it’s only for a second because the formerly terrifying monster jumps off of him, running in delighted circles and twirls around where Steve sits, sprawled, chirping and crooning at him like an overly excitable pet. 

Steve hates to admit it, but this is fucking cute as hell. It’s weird, but goddamn is he not utterly charmed. He laughs a little to himself.

“You’re like a nice, giant monster puppy, Eddie!”

The monster freezes where it’s circling him, turning huge, hickory goddamn Bambi eyes on Steve before letting out the absolute cutest chirrup noise Steve’s ever heard in his entire life, and throwing itself at Steve’s chest again. That long tail is wagging so hard its hips and ass are moving with the motion, and its wings are fluttering slightly where they’re pulled back against that bony, inhuman spine. It pushes its big head under one of Steve’s hands like a cat asking for pets and Steve can’t help but laugh out loud, slightly hysterical, sinking his fingers into the… Eddie-monster’s curls and scratching. The noise Steve’s rewarded with is wonderfully charming, somewhere between a chirring sound and a cooing sound. 

“Good boy..?”

Steve watches as the Eddie-monster’s wings all but vibrate in response, the sub-vocal chirring noise growing louder as he presses his head harder into Steve’s hands. Steve knows his grin has to be absolutely manic at this point, but he’s so beyond caring. Eddie is alive! He turns his head towards Robin and Nancy, shooting them his best “can we keep him?” expression, complete with a cheesing grin.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Oh my god is that really Eddie? What the fuck, Steve, he really likes you!?”

Robin is laughing her ass off, which is par for the course and Steve expected nothing less from his fucking soulmate—god, he loves her so much—but Nancy is looking less than pleased, and deeply unnerved. He can’t say he really blames her, but there’s no way this goofy ass, giant nerd puppy thing isn’t the same guy who liked to jump up on cafeteria tables and give speeches like the dramatic shit he remembers!

“There’s no way that this thing is Eddie, Steve.”

Nancy takes a step closer to Steve, hands still clenched on her shotgun, and the Eddie-monster reacts very poorly to her approach. It happens in milliseconds—one moment he’s happily in Steve’s arms, and then then next he’s shoved Steve down underneath his body, flaring his wings out as he hovers over top of Steve, eyes once again going red. He’s snarling and hissing, saliva dripping from those massive sharp fangs, flexing his talons in a threat display. Steve sighs and rolls his eyes, shifting his body weight to sit up, grabbing a fist-full of Eddie-monster’s hair-fur like he would scruff a cat,

“Bad Eddie. We don’t snarl at our friends,” 

And pulls. Hard.

The squeaking cry that Eddie-monster lets out at the sudden, harsh tug is high pitched and the physical reaction that goes with it is immediate. His wings fold in and his eyes shift back to hickory, huge and big and glassy as he melts down against Steve’s chest, legs seemingly turning to jelly beneath him. His head falls back, exposing the entirety of his throat and collarbones as he whines, clawed hands flailing out in front of him until they settle against Steve’s thigh, kneading gently like a cat. His tail wraps around Steve’s other boot-covered ankle, the tip of it slipping inside the top to brush against the bare skin of his calf. Eddie-monster keeps whining softly until Steve’s fingers slowly release their tight hold on his hair-fur, resuming their petting instead. His weird little sub-vocal chirring begins again.

Robin is absolutely losing her shit.

Steve just flashes her a smug look over his shoulder, sending her into another round of hysterics.

“I’ve got him under control, Nance.” He turns back to Nancy, jerking his head down in a quick motion at the content, basically-purring giant monster in his lap, snuggling up against him. He fights the urge to smile.

“It’s definitely Eddie, look, he’s still got the Hellfire shirt on. It’s gotta be him. I have no idea why he looks like this, but I mean. We can’t just leave him here!”

“And what exactly are you going to do with him, Steve?” Nancy sounds so exasperated, a hint of anger in her tone, “Just keep him as a fucked up pet forever?”

“I don’t know, okay? I just. I don’t want to leave him here! Dustin deserves to know he’s alive, and so does Mr. Munson.”

Eddie-monster perks up when Steve says Dustin’s name, pulling his head out from under Steve’s hand and making a low sound that comes across almost questioning. Steve looks down at him, those huge Bambi eyes blinking back– holy shit, does Eddie have two sets of eyelids? What the fuck–

“Yeah, Eds.” He replies softly, aggressively ignoring the way Robin mouths his words back at him in his peripheral vision, clearly questioning his sudden nickname for a guy he technically only knew for like. A week. God, she’s going to razz the shit out of him for this later… Steve fights back the embarrassed blush he feels climbing his throat.

“Dustin Henderson, you remember him? You saved his life.”

Eddie-monster coos loudly, letting out another chirrup before tucking his head under Steve’s jaw, nuzzling up against him and letting out a low, sub-vocal sound that reminds Steve of purring. It rumbles against Steve’s chest, vibrating through his rib-cage. He feels the flush fill his cheeks and he sighs, surrendering to the lost cause.

“Yeah, Eds. He misses you so much. And your Uncle, too. Wayne Munson? He, uh. He’d be so happy to know you aren’t dead, man.”

The screech that comes out of Eddie-monster’s throat is soft and absolutely heartbreaking when Steve mentions Mr. Munson. It completely settles the matter for him, because fuck! Eddie deserves to see his goddamn family again, regardless of whether or not he’s some weird giant monster… puppy thing. So even if it means Steve has to fucking, like. Hide Eddie in his basement for the rest of his life, he’s gonna fucking do it, he’s gonna get Eddie out of this hellhole. Because they deserve this.

“So you wanna come with us? Back topside? I’ll get you safe in my house and then I can go bring them to–”

The wail that leaves Eddie-monster is terrified and he scrambles in Steve’s lap as though he’s trying to put all of his bulk as close to Steve as possible; something that would be funny were his talons not really fucking painful oh my god ow Jesus Christ. Steve bites the inside of his cheek, glancing down at where this giant, nearly seven-foot monster is shaking and clinging to him like a terrified baby, talons sunken into his skin, even through the thick layers of his jeans and his jackets. He hisses out a sigh.

“Okay, okay! Okay, Eds, I won’t leave you alone, I promise. Shh, it’s okay,” he soothes, running his hands back through the hair-fur along Eddie-monster’s shoulders and his neck.

He can feel the way Eddie-monster is trembling in his hold, whining softly where those fangs are pressed against Steve’s throat. He should probably be utterly terrified of that fact, but he honestly can’t even consider it. Eddie is clearly hurting right now, scared of being alone. Steve’s heart is breaking all over again for him—he’s realizing now that Eddie had awoken here, alone, after being fucking dead. Did he remember dying? Does he remember his choice? The courage he had to have, to choose someone else’s life over his own? And then… find himself abandoned in hell. Maybe he hadn’t woken in this monstrous form, maybe he’d awakened as a human, but the isolation somehow drove him to become this, this… half-feral beast. Steve swallows back his tears, he can’t be crying right now. Eddie needs him to be strong, he needs him to keep his goddamn shit together so they can get him home. 

He takes a shuddering breath.

He gently pushes on Eddie-monster’s massive shoulders and surprisingly, he goes easily with the pressure. Those giant Bambi eyes blink up at Steve, glassy and smoky hickory as Eddie-monster’s giant mass hunches in on himself. Steve’s already fractured heart gains another crack at the sight. He smiles without teeth and pets the top of Eddie-monster’s head, gently disrupting those soft, dark curls.

“Okay, man. You’re gonna come with me, okay? We’re gonna get topside, and then we’re gonna go home where you’ll stay with me. How does that sound?”

Eddie-monster pulls back from Steve’s chest a bit more as he chitters wildly. His wings flutter at his back and his gaze flickers across Steve’s face rapidly like he’s looking for something in Steve’s expression before dropping to where his talons are stuck in Steve’s arms and legs. His ears actually droop and he lets out a mournful, apologetic sound that warbles out of his throat. Gently but quickly, he extracts his talons and immediately skitters backwards, curling into himself like he’s ashamed. He ducks his head, tilting it to the side so that some of his hair-fur falls away from his neck to expose the pale skin beneath and the sad-sounding crooning he’s making takes on more of a whimpering tone with the action. Steve doesn’t want to see him so sad like this, the talons were an accident, after all. Eddie hadn’t intended to hurt him. Steve chuckles and stands up, brushing the Upside Down grunge off his pants. Eddie-monster doesn’t move, although the mournful croons begin to take on more of a pitiful whine the longer Steve takes to acknowledge his apologetic stance. 

Steve sighs with a small smile, finally satisfied with the sad state of his jeans and stepping closer. Sinking his fingers into that untamable mass of hair-fur, he presses down against Eddie-monster’s scalp and cards his hand through the surprisingly soft curls. Eddie-monster melts into him, pressing into the touch. The sad, crooning whines turning into that deep, low sub-vocal rumbling that Steve is fast becoming all-too-fond of. Steve indulges both himself and his monster for a long minute before pulling his hand back, patting Eddie on the head.

“If you’re done taming your pet monster,” Robin teases, a grin in her voice, “we should probably try to get out of here.”

Steve rolls his eyes at her, “Yeah, yeah, I hear you.”

He steps away from Eddie-monster and reaches down to swing the Warlock onto his back, letting out a soft oof when it resettles against his spine. He turns, shifting the strap across his chest to offer another closed-mouth smile at the hulking form behind him still seated on his haunches, watching Steve with blinking eyes. He pulls his goggles down over his own eyes and tugs his bandana back up over his face, adjusting them both until the fit is right. Eddie-monster shifts forward onto all fours, stalking forward with gaze narrowed and his nose twitching. Steve stays as still as he can, holding out his hand and murmuring soft encouragement, letting Eddie-monster reacquaint himself with Steve’s covered appearance. He gets circled a few times by the hulking form before he settles in at Steve’s side, seemingly content to plod along on all fours, his wings folded neatly against his back. Eddie-monster’s shoulders come up to just above Steve’s waist height, and he reaches out and ruffles the soft hair-fur around Eddie-monster’s two sets of ears, eliciting a pleased-sounding chirring noise as he presses his head into the touch. Steve tilts his own head towards his two human companions, glancing between them.

“Shall we, ladies?”

The walk back through the Upside Down version of Forest Hills trailer park is just as cautious as their first venture, but having Eddie-monster at his side makes Steve feel infinitely safer. His heart feels settled, because even though the result isn’t exactly what he’d expected, it’s still a success. Eddie’s coming back with them through the gate, out of this hellhole. Steve glances down at the monster easily keeping pace with him, walking vigilantly at his side. Eddie-monster doesn’t radiate much heat, but the solid, large presence is a comfort nonetheless. Every few steps, Steve feels the sinuous touch of that long tail around one of his calves or behind his knees even through his thick denim jeans. It doesn’t inhibit his movement, so he assumes it’s a way for Eddie-monster to comfort himself with Steve's continued presence. He’s surprisingly tactile for a monster, but Steve certainly isn’t complaining. 

Steve’s not used to touch, himself. He spends so much time alone in his big, empty house—which, considering the whole shit happening in Hawkins at the moment, he’s pretty sure his parents have written off as a loss at this point. He loves his mom, she’s always tried, at the least. But while she’s a very supportive and loving person, she’s not exactly… maternal. If anything, she’s like a cool aunt who blows into town every so often and reassures him she loves him and then leaves. His dad? Grade A asshole. He’s never hit Steve or anything, but the man’s got a shitton of backwards-ass thinking and a lot of practice making Steve feel like the smallest thing in the room. Mom always hated that about him; after all, he was the one who’d really wanted kids in the first place, or so she’s said. Steve’s honestly still waiting for the day Mom finally serves his ass the divorce papers. So aside from Robin or Dustin, Steve doesn’t usually get touched very often, unless it’s with intent to hurt him. He’s pretty lonely, to be honest, so there’s a secret part of him that thrills at the idea of having a more permanent house guest in Eddie, even if he is more monster than human—possibly forever.

“Steve, we’ve got company.”

“Fuck fuck fuck! I hate those things…”

Nancy and Robin’s shaky warning pulls him from his thoughts, prompting him to immediately draw his nail bat from where it’s been tucked through one of his belt loops. The familiar heft of the wood in his hands is soothing, grounding in a way that ought to be concerning. He spins it in his hands once, twice—eyes trained on the sky. He glances at Nancy, watching her load her shotgun with a proficiency that no woman of her age should have honed so sharply, before turning his gaze to where Robin has a Molotov clutched in one hand and her crowbar tucked under her armpit. A lighter is clutched in her opposite hand, her thumb against the spark wheel, shaking with adrenaline. He returns his attention to the dark cloud in the sky as they keep moving forward in a group, but soon enough they can all tell it’s not so much a cloud as it is a massive swarm of those goddamn demobats. Nancy barks orders for them all to spread out a little, and they try to take some strategic cover as they keep moving. He curses.

“I fucking hate these things so goddamn much.”

They press onward, keeping their eyes on the swarm and sticking to their cover as much as possible. Eddie-monster keeps making these soft, confused sounds at them as they keep weaving in and out between the trailers, but Steve doesn’t really have the capacity to explain the strategy or reasoning to him. Doesn’t Eddie remember these fucking things? They’d killed him, after all, and it wasn’t exactly a peaceful fucking death. Steve can see that Eddie-monster has the scars from his death, present and patchwork pink along his arms, legs, and torso. Patchy bite marks marring the surface of his throat and the edge of his jaw; the pale, healed-over wounds present and haunting in the memory they represent. Steve feels that familiar rage begin to bubble in his gut, the wood of his bat creaking under the increasing grip of his fingers. His knuckles sting with how taut his skin is pulled across them, and his jaw aches from how hard he’s clenched it, teeth nearly grinding against one another. The gentle nuzzle against his non-dominant arm pulls him from his single-minded, rage-fueled focus and his eyes dart down to Eddie-monster at his side. Those big eyes look up at him as Eddie-monster coos gently, obvious concern in the soft trill. Steve softens, a smile pulling at his lips from beneath his bandana. He takes a moment to ghost his fingers through the fluffy curls haloing Eddie-monster’s head, a gooey feeling overflowing inside his chest as his monster leans into his barest touch. It feels a lot like respite, a taste of something he doesn’t get much of these days, and it’s oh so welcome.

“Steve! Fuck! Steve!”

Robin’s panicked scream pulls him from his Eddie-shaped distraction and his body tenses as his eyes snap up toward the dive-bombing horde that’s somehow gotten on top of them. He curses himself, instinctively raising his nail bat and getting ready to start swinging to defend them both. He feels the rage burble up in his gut, rising to the surface and begging to be let out, that red haze teasing the edges of his vision but movement in his periphery makes him pause. Eddie-monster tilts his head, glancing up at the swarm and goes utterly still. There’s a long moment where the two of them turn to each other, staring into one another’s eyes. Steve watches as something solidifies in his monster’s mind and then those soft, warm eyes glow red.

Eddie-monster wrenches his gaze away from Steve, moving inhumanly fast on two legs again, not quite fully upright as his wings snap out, shielding Steve completely from the incoming swarm. The muscles in his legs are tense, flexing and matching with his dark-tipped arms. The talons on his hands gleam in the Upside Down haze and a glint catches the light as he moves them, drawing Steve’s eye. Absurdly, that he still has his rings makes Steve laugh quietly under his breath. He’s pulled from his thoughts as Eddie-monster’s tail wraps around Steve’s head, obscuring his vision and completely covering his ears, muffling his hearing almost completely when the swarm is nearly upon them.

He panics immediately. He’s back there again, being dragged down through Lover’s Lake, flung through a gate alone into hell to be eaten alive by monsters. He struggles to breathe, his heartbeat racing in his chest. He frantically reaches up to grab at the appendage, the memories of that demobat tail around his throat rising to the surface and drowning him in terror. He can still remember the pain, the squeeze as his air was cut off, the way his skin began to shred. His hands shake as he clutches at the shockingly strong muscle, fingers slipping around the edges, he can’t get a grip—he can’t go out like this, no, not again—but he freezes when he hears it.

The scream that comes out of Eddie-monster is loud and rings in his head, even through the impromptu protection the tail provides. And it is protection, he realizes. The understanding settles over him like a shroud, calming his racing heart and suddenly he can breathe again. Eddie-monster’s tail is gentle where it wraps around his head, not squeezing or intending to harm him. It’s simply there, blocking his ears and inadvertently his vision. It’s not choking him; it’s not stopping his breath in his throat or cutting off his blood supply. He reaches up and moves the tail slightly away from where it blocks his vision as his heart begins to calm. What he sees when it finally budges that singular inch makes his eyes widen in shock.

Eddie-monster is still making that horrible screaming sound, but nearly every demobat that gets within like, twenty or thirty feet in front of him (and also Steve) is being thrown back, convulsing or just straight up exploding. The ones that don’t get pushed back are torn to shreds by those ink-black talons, dark blood spraying absolutely everywhere. Eddie-monster’s wings shield him from the majority of the spatter, but Steve can imagine what kind of macabre display it would be were he in the midst of it all. Steve rests his hand against the tail, gently tracing his fingers over the surprisingly soft texture of it. The scream finally stops and Steve notices the way Eddie-monster’s wings suddenly ripple as his hunched posture straightens up. One blood red eye glances over a pale, hair-fur covered shoulder and Steve tilts his head in response, hoping that Eddie-monster can tell he’s grateful for the impromptu help. Another visible shudder flows through Eddie-monster’s body and that red gaze seems to gleam with a different emotion, although Steve can’t quite place it. Their locked eyes break apart and Eddie-monster seems to refocus.

This time, it isn’t a scream but a screech and Steve watches in wonder as the remainder of the swarm drops from the sky to fall to the ground with sickening, squelching thuds. Steve can see the way the air around the two of them seems to vibrate with force, the floating spore-like drifting debris of the Upside Down rippling in waves away from them like rocks skipping across the surface of a pond, their impact leaving behind echoes of concentric rings. The screech drags on for nearly a whole minute, and Steve finds himself deeply impressed with Eddie-monster’s lung capacity, wondering if that’s something that carried over from his human life. He’d been in a band, right? Did he sing, too? It would make sense, if his aptitude in his first lease on life translated over to the second. Selfishly, Steve wishes he could get a proper answer from Eddie on the matter, suddenly frustrated at the insurmountable language barrier that’s cropped up between them. He bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood, punishing himself for such thinking. This isn’t the time, after all.

With the vast majority of the swarm now either dead or debilitated, Steve pats Eddie-monster’s tail, trying to get his attention.

“Hey, Eds, we gotta get to the gate now, man. We need to run for it. The longer we stay here, the more of a target we make, okay? You with me?”

Eddie-monster’s wings resettle against his back and he slumps back to all fours, his tail loosening from around Steve’s head at his words. He turns and staggers against Steve’s side like he’s suddenly exhausted. Steve presses his forehead against Eddie-monster’s and sinks his hands into those soft curly masses of hair-fur, shutting his eyes.

“You did good, Eds. I’m so proud of you.”

The pleased croon Steve gets in reply makes his heart do some funny acrobatics in his chest, but now isn’t the time to examine that. Steve shelves it for later examination, when they’re safely out of the Upside Down.

“Steve!” Robin calls out, “We gotta go! Eddie saved our asses but now we gotta book it!”

“I’m aware, Buckley! C’mon, man, you good to keep moving?”

A determined chirp comes from Eddie-monster’s throat and Steve takes that as confirmation. He keeps his nail bat in hand as he moves quickly alongside Nancy and Robin back to the gate they slipped through. Steve smiles at the soft caress of Eddie-monster’s tail as it snakes its way around his wrist like a prehensile bracelet, holding snugly against the pulse that races beneath thin skin. They move as a group the rest of the way out of the Forest Hills trailer park with little incident, quickly managing to get back to the smaller gate they’d slipped through. Steve finally feels like he can breathe again, like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after so long in the dark. They’re going to be able to get Eddie out. He lets out a tired laugh, his shoulders sagging as the relief and elation washes over him like a tidal wave. He gets a questioning coo and a headbutt from his monster.

“You guys go ahead, okay? I’m gonna take a second with Eddie.”

Nancy clenches her jaw beneath her medical mask, but she nods and pulls herself through the glowing rift, vanishing from Steve’s eyes. Robin hesitates, eyeing Steve warily.

“You gonna be okay, Dingus? You sure you don’t want me to stay..?”

He smiles at her, loving his platonic with a capital P soulmate with his whole heart, “No, but thank you, Robin. Maybe just keep an eye out for us when we come through, okay?”

She softens at his gentle tone, nodding decisively and awkwardly spider climbing through the rift herself. Steve takes a deep breath and slumps against one of the spindly trees nearby to collect his thoughts and wildly swooping emotions. He shoves his goggles up onto his forehead, pressing his palms into his eyes and exhaling loudly. He’s feeling overwhelmed, all sorts of emotions he doesn’t really know what to do with. On one hand, he’s ecstatic because what started out as a body recovery mission has become a rescue, because Eddie is alive. But on the other hand, Eddie isn’t really human anymore. Eddie is, for all intents and purposes, a monster. He’s probably tied to this godforsaken place. He knows the kids and even Robin and Nancy call him an idiot, but Steve’s observant. He remembers what happened with the demodogs when El cut them off from the Upside Down– how they’d all just dropped dead. He’s terrified that might happen to Eddie when the time comes to close the gates for good. He doesn’t want to put more pressure on El by asking her to find a solution for Eddie when she’s already dedicating so much time to drawing Max out of her coma, but…

Steve can’t lose him again, not when he’s just gotten Eddie back.

He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he feels the press of something calloused against his face. He blinks his eyes open, coming face-to-face with Eddie-monster’s big hickory-colored eyes, those deadly, taloned thumbs curved down, the knuckles softly brushing away the tears on Steve’s face with a gentleness that makes Steve’s lip quiver and his resolve crumble, threatening to collapse in on itself. How could anyone ever think such a sweet, kind guy was ever capable of murder? Steve takes a trembling breath, squeezing his eyes shut as he fights back the overwhelmed sobs that desperately battle to escape his chest. 

He may have only gotten to truly know the guy for a week, but in that short time, Steve had observed enough about the guy to get a decent read on him. Eddie is brash, bold, in-your-face all the time, making himself the biggest target in the room. He wears his devil-may-care attitude like armor and his counterculture anarchist ideals as a shield, using the “Freak” moniker to arm himself while putting himself in the sights of perceived threats, to take the heat off of those he deems his “sheepies.” Eddie’s got a protective streak that runs almost as deeply as Steve’s own, but the borderline feral way he goes about defending those he considers his is wilder than the practiced, methodical way Steve tends to adopt. Eddie makes himself the threat by being unpredictable, by being wild and loud and impossible to ignore. Steve knows Eddie would go to bat for any of his people, his Hellfire crew and his band, (and now maybe even the Party) because on the inside he cares so deeply that it’s visible from fucking space.

Steve cannot allow him to have his life cut tragically short again. He won’t allow it. Eddie is such an inherently good person, he deserves to have a future– to have people who love him and care for him around him every day. He ought to have the world if he wants it, in Steve’s mind, because hasn’t the guy given enough? Hasn’t he earned the right to a little peace if he wants it? Eddie’s one of Steve’s now, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let Eddie be lost a second time. He’ll beg El on his knees if he has to, he’ll throw a wrench in the whole plans if the Party refuses to wait to find a solution to make sure Eds doesn’t just drop dead when they close the gates for good. Steve knows he’s not a good person; he’s petty and can be downright bitchy when push comes to shove, but the one thing he does have going for him is that he will never back down when it comes to protecting one of his people, even if it means going against his other people to do it.

Steve’s pulled from his musings by Eddie-monster’s concerned crooning noises, growing louder as his massive frame presses Steve further against the tree. In some ways, the weight of him is grounding, but Steve knows they really don’t have the time to explore that right now. Once he gets the guy home—and maybe into a bath, because Jesus Christ does he really deserve a nice bath after all the time he’s had to spend here in this absolute hellscape—maybe they can experiment on the couch how well Eddie-monster works as a blanket. Steve takes a deep breath, bringing his hands up to push gently against Eddie-monster’s chest, wood-calloused fingers brushing softly against the raggedly torn remnants of Eddie’s Hellfire shirt.

“I’m okay now, man… but thank you for caring,” Steve says softly, patting his hand against his monster’s chest, “we should get going now that I’m not falling apart like a loser.”

Eddie-monster steps back obediently, but makes a low rumbling noise at Steve calling himself a loser and snapping his jaws at Steve’s hand in an empty warning, snorting in disdain.

“Okay, sassafras, yeesh! Can’t a guy be self-deprecating anymore without the peanut gallery chiming in? Fine, I won’t call myself a loser, are you happy now?”

Eddie-monster makes a self-satisfied sounding chirrup, dropping back down to all fours and spinning in a circle in front of Steve, staring up at him with wide hickory eyes like he’s waiting for praise. It’s alarmingly adorable and he doesn’t even try to quell the wave of fondness that rises in his chest. He can quite literally feel his expression melting as he gazes down at his sweet, gentle monster, but he finds that for once, he doesn’t care that he’s wearing his heart on his sleeve. If Eddie-monster figures out that Steve actually likes him– and even liked him as a human back then maybe a little more than was strictly normal between two straight dudes, then so be it. It’s not like Steve’s going to get any chances to act on it, not with Eddie more monster than human, and more than likely in that state permanently.

“Alright,” Steve takes a deep breath after running his fingers through Eddie-monster’s soft curls to bolster his courage, “you ready to get going, man?”

Eddie-monster blinks those double eyelids and flicks his tail, so Steve takes that as a confirmation. He takes another breath and eyes the rift he has to climb through, strengthening his resolve.

“Okay then. Once more unto the breach, or however that shit went…” Steve mutters, “Follow close, don’t lose sight of me! The gates are a lot bigger now!”

He climbs.

He doesn’t bother looking back, knowing that Eddie-monster is following him. Steve feels his presence like a balm on his soul, and it’s only when the gravity shift hits and he stumbles out into right-side-up Hawkins on his feet that he realizes he can’t feel it anymore. He’s dazed for a moment, unseeing and disoriented as he always is after coming through a gate, but the alarm from not feeling his monster’s presence shakes him out of it faster than usual. He whips back towards the gate, but freezes in place as he catches sight of someone in his periphery he didn’t expect to see. 

He turns guiltily, facing down a man he’s come to see as a surrogate father in recent weeks. 

“Uhh, hey there, Hop… fancy seeing you here?”

Nancy and Robin are standing guiltily behind the police chief, Ms. Byers staring him down with that awful I’m not mad I’m just disappointed look that some moms just seem to have down pat. He cringes.

“Harrington,” Hopper growls out, arching a shaggy brow, “Mind telling me what the hell you’re doing, going into the Upside Down with only those two as backup?”

“I–”

“Jim! There’s something in the gate!”

Steve’s body goes rigid with panic at Ms. Byers’ tone, the no-nonsense laced with fear immediately setting off Hopper, the man drawing his gun with speed that makes Steve’s legs tremble. His gut is telling him he needs to act, and act quickly or something very bad is going to happen very fast.

“Wait! No!” he shouts, whipping his head back toward the gate, where he sees the large, dark shape of Eddie-monster about to break through, “don’t shoot him!”

Steve plants his feet in front of Hopper, blocking his view of the gate so he can’t possibly get a shot off. The man all but growls at Steve, and for a moment Steve is worried Hopper is going to just grab him and throw him– he may have been in a Russian prison camp, but even emaciated, Jim Hopper is much larger and stronger than he is. Hopper moves towards Steve, gun still drawn but his finger nowhere near the trigger, and it’s clear he’s about to yell at Steve to get the hell out of the way, but with a sharp inhale, Steve is yanked back off his feet and thuds heavily against a soft-but-solid, lukewarm wall. He blinks as it vibrates and a deep, menacing rumble reverberates in the air around him.

He looks up.

Eddie-monster is curved defensively around him, one arm draped across Steve’s stomach, talons flexing in an aggressive position. He’s not clutching to Steve, like he knows Steve is more than capable of protecting himself but Eddie-monster feels better with him close, beneath his massive, mantled wings. The cold touch of that prehensile tail against his ankle is back, and Steve feels himself relax almost immediately, glancing up at the intimidating presence his monster makes. He smiles, patting Eddie-monster on the chest.

“Hey, hey, bud,” he soothes, “it’s okay, it’s just Hop. He thought something bad was coming through the gate, he didn’t know about you. Shh, c’mere.”

Steve can vaguely hear the indignant sputtering and yelling coming from where the others are standing, but all his focus is on getting his monster to calm down. Eddie-monster drops his red gaze to Steve, letting out a questioning croon as his wings slowly relax from their mantled position. Steve keeps stroking his monster’s chest, but reaches up with his other hand to card his fingers through some of the hair-fur around the sides of Eddie-monster’s face. Red eyes flutter shut and the crooning shifts over into that sub-vocal rumbling pseudo-purr as the giant form begins to melt into Steve’s touch. Within two minutes, Eddie-monster is docile as a contented kitten, his giant body plastered against Steve’s back, nose against his human’s neck, and rumbling away while Steve continues to lavish his monster with affection.

“So,” Steve starts, sheepishly addressing an exasperated Jim Hopper, a bemused Joyce Byers, a resigned Nancy Wheeler, and a cackling Robin Buckley, “um, Eddie’s alive? Surprise?”

i may or may not add on to this, but we'll have to see if there's any further interest. i have some ideas floating around but nothing solid, anyway. i hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading!

#AAAAAAAAAAAAA #I AM SCREAMING AND RUNNING IN CRICLES #PLEASE #THIS IS SO CUTE #please if you do decide to continue this I will be waiting very patiently like a well behaved dog

[giverobinagfbrigade]

I have no time right now to elaborate too deeply on this thought but I just had a brain worm and I need to write it down before I forget. Who knows, I may elaborate and make this a whole thing with dialogue tonight, we’ll see. TW for depictions of Steve’s injuries post s4, vomiting, gore(?)

Steve refuses medical treatment at the end of s4, they drop off Eddie and he hides in plain site until it’s time to take Dustin and Robin home.

They stop at Dustin’s first, both he and Robin getting out to get Claudia Hugs (I just know she gives INCREDIBLE hugs). He drops Robin off at home with her promising to keep her walkie on their frequency. And then he goes home alone.

He tries to shower, it hurts his feet and back too much. He tries to change the “bandage” but just gently tugging almost makes him black out from pain. So he collapses on his bed and passes out.

Days go by, he’s trying to act normal, like he isn’t always running a fever and his sides are itching and starting to smell under the cologne he practically bathes in. It works for a few days at least, but Claudia gets suspicious by day 3 post earthquake when Steve shows up for lunch with flushed cheeks. 2 days later he doesn’t show up.

She drives over alone, Dustin is at the Wheeler’s, and she lets herself in with the key Steve gave her and Dustin after last summer. She calls his name, doesn’t get an answer but something smells off. She’s a nurse, she recognizes the scent of disease.

She hurries upstairs and finds Steve in bed, only wearing boxers and the filthy scrap of cloth wrapped around his stomach. He’s sweating and has vomited on himself at least twice, recently too. She immediately knows that he is what smells, she can see the pus and blood on his abdomen. He’s delirious, mumbling to himself and part of her wants to shut down and cry, to go cradle this boy, her son in all ways but blood, but she can’t. She steels herself and walks to his bedside to feel his forehead, almost recoiling from how hot his skin is.

As she keeps checking him over, she grabs the phone on his bedside table and calls 911, cradling the phone between her ear and shoulder to keep working. When the operator answers she explains who she is, where she is and what’s happening.

It’s a blur after that until she’s sitting in the hospital waiting room and she realizes that 1. her shirt and her hands reek of Steve’s blood, and 2. she’s completely alone in the waiting room. Swallowing her tears, Claudia goes over to the payphone and fishes out some coins to call the Buckely’s. Robin’s father picks up but quickly hands it over when Claudia mentions Steve.

She will never forget the choked off sound of pure distress Robin makes when she hears what’s happening.

Hours pass, Robin had arrived shortly after the call and her and Claudia have been curled up together in the waiting room every since. They haven’t called anyone else, haven’t even thought about it, too worried about Steve. Later, Claudia will remember the other kids who adore Steve, Hopper who treats Steve like a son. But in that moment, still not knowing if her boy is okay, she can’t.

Finally, a doctor steps out, clearly fresh from surgery, to speak with them. She explains that Steve had a very severe infection in multiple wounds, especially the ones on his side. They had to debride the wounds, which is what took so long. He was lucky that she found him when he did and that he hadn’t picked up any truly terrible bacteria. He hadn’t gone septic, thankfully, but he was going to be on seriously strong antibiotics for a while. She explained that he was in the ICU and they aren’t supposed to let anyone but family see him.

Claudia wanted to scream and sob and go find the Harringtons and get them to come see their son, but before she even says anything Robin explains that Steve’s parents had all but disowned him and her and Claudia were both in his emergency contacts, not his parents.

The doctor lets them see him. They have to wear face masks and gloves, but they can see him. Claudia had never seen him look so small. And there, in that ICU room, her and Robin both broke and started crying. That was how Jim Hopper found them when he arrived shortly after, the nurses having called him. He’s wearing a mask and gloves but his eyes are wild and scared. He nearly falls over when he sees Steve.

Steve is unconscious for almost two weeks, though the first four or five days or so were due to sedatives - the doctor wanted him to rest and let the antibiotics work. After he was taken off the sedatives he was moved out of the ICU, to a regular room where other people could visit. The kids came and decorated his room, even brought something Eddie had “commissioned” from Will (it looked like Steve ripping one of those creepy things from that alien movie apart, which she really didn’t get). Joyce brought him the quilt from her couch that he always enjoyed at movie nights and Robin came in every other day with his shampoo and conditioner to wash his hair for him (on days she didn’t come to wash his hair, she would come do something else with him. One day Claudia walked in on her painting his nails and her heart felt like it was melting).

The day he finally woke up was the first day Robin hadn’t been able to come. Her parents had forced her to take a break and get some sleep, so Claudia was there on her own just reading a book. She was so engrossed in it that she dropped it in shock when she heard the person on the bed in front of her make noise. Her eyes instantly went to Steve and she could see him scrunching up his face and groaning.

Claudia was by his side in a heartbeat, gently grabbing his hand and brushing a hand over his cheek, speaking softly to let him know she was there. His eyes slowly squinted open, clearly struggling to get the energy to move at all. Their eyes locked and his mouth twitched, like he wanted to smile at her. Then, as she was watching him with tears in her eyes, he opened his mouth and spoke for the first time in weeks.

“Mom….”

#i am in TEARS #Claudia we love youuuu

[giverobinagfbrigade]

that old black magic

prompt: magic au (@steddieholidaydrabbles) word count: 1,000 rated: t tags: fortune telling, witch/appalachian eddie, post-season 2

welcome to Day 20 (!!!) of the fic advent calendar – bite-sized fics posting every day during the month of december. enjoy!

The cards don’t actually do anything.

See, he waves his hand around and says some fancy words over some very old looking cards with very old looking art on them, and people assume that’s where the magic is – and the cards are old! And so is the art! But they just don’t actually do anything.

No, the magic sits in him. It always has. That’s always been the secret.

His mother had it, and his grandmother before her and her father before that and on and on, all the way back as far as the eye can see, right up the family tree to that one person at the top who made a deal with something in the woods one night, something as old as the hills themselves, that lurks behind trees and makes offers to desperate passing travelers.

But all that was hundreds of years before Eddie’s time. 

These days, there are psychics on TV and people who do tarot readings in over-perfumed salons while they sit on a throne made of cheap velvet and clatter around with their bracelets and bangles and shawls. There are people who read palms and sell incense and run little bookshops that sell mass-produced spellbooks. Crystals and incense and moon charts, the whole world awash in fake magic. All of it, all of it, noise.

But Eddie’s one of the rare real ones. He doesn’t exactly go around advertising it, but give him a set of cards and enough money? Sure, he’ll do a little fake fortune telling for you, maybe even give you a real answer or two, nudge something in the right direction so you feel like you got your money’s worth.

All that to say, the first time Steve Harrington finds him after class, one day right before winter break, and takes a furtive look over his shoulder, Eddie’s fully prepared to do the usual song and dance.

“Um, hey man,” Steve says in a low voice. “I heard you uh –” He clears his throat, shuts his eyes like he can’t actually look at Eddie as he says it. “That you can sort of see the future? Or tell people what’s going to happen or whatever.”

He opens his eyes, and Eddie studies him for a moment, raising his eyebrows. 

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “And?”

Steve makes a face, hitching his bag higher on his shoulder. “There’s some really weird shit going on,” he says, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder. “It’s kind of hard to explain but basically… there’s something that I really hope is over, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to ask or whatever but –” He lets out a breath. “Is it actually over?”

“Harrington, that’s –” Eddie shakes his head, running a hand back through his hair. “So fucking vague. How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

“Okay, just –” Steve lets out a breath. “If you could like… I don’t know, just give it a general look, see if I’m…”

As he continues rambling, Eddie tunes him out in favor of flipping through his timeline like a mental rolodex, just to see what he’s working with. Just to see what he can spin out of King Steve’s future, but –

“What the hell did you do?” he asks abruptly, cutting across Steve halfway through blabbering about something to do with someone named Justin or Dustin or – “There shouldn’t be blank spots, Harrington. Why do you have blank spots?”

Steve blinks at him. “I –” He frowns. “Blank spots?”

“Past and future, you’ve got these weird –” Eddie flaps a hand around in the air, lost for words, because – “Blank spots. I’ve never seen that before.”

Steve’s face goes blank with surprise. “Wait, like… you can actually see my future?” he asks. “Like right now, you’re seeing it? What are you seeing?”

“I’m… just –” 

Eddie shakes his head, shuts his eyes to block out the feedback loop his brain seems to be caught in, because alongside the blank spots – and there are blank spots; what the fuck – he keeps seeing himself standing with Steve, which must be his brain trying to fill in the weird gaps? 

Maybe? 

How the fuck is he supposed to know? He’s never seen anything like this before.

“Did something happen around Halloween?” he asks finally, letting out a sharp, frustrated breath. “That’s where the first gap is, and then the next one is in like… a year or two from now? It’s kind of hard to tell.”

Steve’s expression drops, and his shoulders slump. 

“The tunnels,” he says. “That’s – Halloween. I was in the tunnels at Halloween.” He says this as if it explains anything, but Eddie honestly feels twice as lost as he was thirty seconds ago. “So it’s going to happen again, then.”

Eddie makes a face, sort of aiming for – sympathetic? That seems like what Steve needs right now, probably.

“If it’s any consolation, you’re going to survive.” He shrugs. “There’s stuff after, a long life. I keep –” He takes a breath, considering not saying the rest, but Steve is going to ask for more details if he doesn’t. “I can’t really see a ton of it, because I think the blank spots are messing with me. I keep seeing myself there in your future stuff, but I’m sure my brain’s just filling in the gaps. It’s not like –”

“Like you’re part of my future.”

“Right,” Eddie says. He laughs. “Yeah, that would be –”

“Yeah.” Steve lets out a relieved little breath, and – sure. Fair enough. “Anyway, um – thanks, man. This is… not exactly good news, but I feel a little better, you know?”

“Yeah,” Eddie echoes. “Uh– anytime.”

Steve starts like he’s just remembered, and he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. “How much do I–”

“No, just–” Eddie shakes his head. “No charge. Just get home safe, okay?”

Steve nods, smiling a little. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

[also on ao3]

[giverobinagfbrigade]

Hi! Today is the day! Here is my part of the stranger things rare pair mini bang!! The beautiful artwork was done by @/jesterpeitro on Twitter and if you’re on there please go and give them a follow

It’s a fluffy little ElMax piece, and i may or may not have accidentally given myself California fever if that’s even a thing

I hope y’all enjoy <3

#elmax #el x max #elmax fanfic #elmax my beloved #st rarepairs

[giverobinagfbrigade]

"I thought I gave you enough hints, Buckley?"

[giverobinagfbrigade]

i read a fic yesterday (return of the king) where Steve swapped with Eddie at the last second at the end of s4 and ended up being the one who died and had to be left behind and then he came back as a vampire and it just got my brain TICKING.

So role-reversal AU where steve is the one who comes back basically kas-ified as is the common trope with eddie, but where eddie goes to steve, steve goes to robin.

lets say, for funsies, that they managed to kill vecna and max only ended up hospitalised for a broken elbow and a twisted ankle (from falling on it), so everyone has the time and space to grieve.

Steve’s death hits Robin the hardest because he was her person. He was her i-wish-we-could-just-merge-into-one-being. Her ride or die. Her soulmate. And he’d been taken from her, torn apart and left to rot in the very world he’d tried so hard to protect her from. 

The others give her space to let her mourn quietly in her bedroom, dressed in steve’s clothes and listening to his music like if she just tried hard enough she could still merge them together and let him use her lungs to breathe, her heart to pump his blood, her head to share his thoughts. that she could single handedly go from a me to a we.

And then, one day, Robin starts acting weird. She doesn’t know the Wheeler’s phone number and on her way to find it in the phone book, she found the Munson’s first, and when Eddie picks up it’s too a very chipper Robin asking for a lift to the shops where she proceeds to buy an alarming amount of red meat and refuses to answer any questions.

And she’s just- happy. She’s weird and happy and keeps calling Eddie to ask him about Dungeons and Dragons lore and if he can take her to the library or to the butcher and if he can let her borrow his jumper please? I get cold easily. And then she just keeps stealing clothes, from everyone. Sometimes she asks, sometimes she’ll just take a jacket off of the back of a chair and act like nothing happened, sometimes she just sneaks off to go rooting through washing baskets.

Then comes the day she invites Eddie over, probably a week or so after her initial journey into Weird-Ville, nervously rambling about nothing right up until she closes the front door behind them and runs into Eddie’s back because Eddie’s just spotted Steve-fucking-Harrington peering at him from around the corner. 

Apparently, a not-exactly-dead-anymore Steve crawled through Robin’s window one night and has since taken up residence underneath her bed. 

“He was kinda- not all there, at first.” She tells him, chopping a steak into cubes and dropping them into a blender. Steve, winged and fanged and tailed, leans against the counter and watches her with sleepy eyes. “But we’ve been working on it.”

After the initial pants-shitting shock of having her dead best friend re-appear as a creature of the upside down, Robin had simply accepted it and moved on. Happy to have Steve back no matter what it looked like. 

And what it looked like was blending raw meat, and reading together in the bathroom to bring back his ability to talk, and stealing clothes for the veritable nest Steve was building in her closet. The next step in her plan to re-domesticate her best friend, had been to introduce him to another person: Eddie, evidently. 

Steve promptly spends 5 minutes being a feral little creature, scenting Eddie within an inch of his life like he’d done to Robin, and then attempting to plant him in his nest like a little ornament. 

Just. idk. feral kas!steve seeking out robin for safety, who slowly re-introduces him to his humanity and then his future boyfriend.

#oh I love this #feral Steve my favourite #Robin thinks she’s doing such a good job of seeming normal #she is not

[giverobinagfbrigade]

I’m screaming, running up the walls, chewing through cables

God I fucking love Rocky horror

This took me way longer than it should’ve and it looks like dog shit but I figured I’d share it anyways - Eddie dressed as Dr. Frank N. Furter 🖤 I’ve read so many great fics where that’s who he is for Halloween and I just had to draw it.

Looks a little funky but I’m running on no sleep and I’ve been like physically assaulted at work all week so my brain is fried lmao. Hopefully this reaches the right crowd and I’ll try and compile a list of all the amazing fanfics with Eddie dressed like this: might even write one of my own!

Also somebody rp with me, I hate this dry spell rn 😭

[giverobinagfbrigade]

ftm trans Eddie Munson gets turned into a chew toy for hell bats and rescued in the 11th hour by his friends who don't know he's trans, who have to run some triage first aid and can hardly make sense of the blood and gore that used to be his body as they cut off his shirt and pants to get access to the worst of the wounds, who definitely aren't in their right minds well enough anyway to think of anything other than stopping the bleeding and getting him to a hospital, which they do, and miraculously Eddie finds himself blinking awake in a bright, fluorescent room feeling exactly like he imagines a chew toy for hell bats would feel in the aftermath which is to say: like shit. Even more miraculously, he finds hometown hero Steve Harrington posted up at his bedside with greasy hair (!!! Eddie never thought he'd see the day) and bags under his eyes.

The overwhelming relief on Steve's face when he sees Eddie is awake is touching, the misty eyes and cracking voice when he says god, i thought you were toast, man are downright flattering and, let's face it, giving Eddie all the wrong ideas that he figures he has an I-almost-died pass for at the moment so he rocks with it, let's himself indulge in the fantasy for a moment. Then, gradually, Steve's relief becomes more and more obviously some brand of deeply felt pity (or sympathy, but Eddie's never been good at distinguishing the two), which bursts his bubble enough to call him out.

"I know I look like what comes out the business end of a meat grinder, but I swear I'm good, dude. They definitely have me on the good shit, I hardly feel it. I'll be good as new in no time." Big fat fucking lie, by the way, but he'll say whatever if it gets that wounded puppy look out of Harrington's eyes.

"I...yeah, Eddie, I'm glad." And whatever it is he doesn't want to say, whatever is putting that you poor motherfucker look on his face, he's absolutely the opposite of subtle about it.

Eddie can hear the manifestation of his panic on the heart monitor.

"What? What is it? Is everyone- is Dustin-?" He can't say it, can't even think it, would rather be slowly torn to shreds all over again than know he failed at his one fucking task to keep the kid safe.

"No! I mean, yes, he's fine, they're all fine. Henderson's got a broken ankle and both of Max's arms are broken but the docs say they'll be fine in a few months with physical therapy."

The release of tension in Eddie's body hurts almost as much as the relief soothes him. "Okay then, what the fuck are you not telling me? It's fine, I'm a big boy, Harrington, I can take it."

He sighs, looking sick with it. "Eds...I don't know how to tell you this."

Oh god, what the fuck. Eddie's right back to freaking out because Steve looks inexplicably guilty, pained in the face like he's about to deliver the worst news he could imagine but if everyone's fine then-

"It's your dick, man. It's- it's gone. The bats-"

And Eddie laughs so hard he tears about a dozen stitches, immediately stops laughing, and throws up over the side of the bed and thankfully not all over his freshly reopened wounds as Steve shouts for help.

Eventually, when he's all stitched up again and barely hanging on to his hard earned lesson to not literally bust his gut laughing about the look on Steve's face (he has to force himself not to tell Wayne the specifics of how he ended up back in the OR, because he's absolutely gonna crack up and Eddie will definitely be unable to help himself from laughing with him), he realizes he's going to come out to all his friends in the very near future because holy shit, he has to tell everyone about Steve's utterly devastated expression at the news of Eddie's Ken doll-ification by way of demobat.

#I’m laughing so hard I’m actually crying #like if my nose piercing wasn’t grown into my face it would be on the floor #I fucking love it #kendollifciation I snorted

[giverobinagfbrigade]

steddie fake dating au that starts because robin’s mom keeps pushing for her and steve to get together and robin gets so fed up that she yells, “it’s not gonna happen because some people are gay, mom!”

and upon seeing the utter horror and fear on her face, steve swoops in and says he’s the one who’s gay. cue mr. and mrs. buckley, local hippies, attempting to show how supportive they are, and all the while steve gets eddie to agree to fake date to get the buckleys to prove they’re safe, so that robin will feel comfortable enough to come out to her parents.

[giverobinagfbrigade]

yknow we do a lot of like stevie realising she's transfem bc of a dare or like robin telling her about queer stuff and having a 'you can do that?' moment, but now im thinking of stevie who figures it out entirely on her own and doesn't know how to tell anyone. like she doesn't fully have the words and even with robin it's like. one thing to be gay but gender stuff is a whole other level and she has no idea where she stands on that

but like, stevie who used to play with his mothers makeup as a child, whose parents would laugh at his antics until he got too old to be so childish, time to act like a Real Boy. and every time he's supposed to act like One Of The Boys he thinks of how it felt when his mom would do his hair for him and comment on how alike they looked, and how much better that felt, and he knows that isn't normal, and he has to be normal

but after the upside down that really seems to matter less. nothings fucking normal anymore, why should steve be? so she starts branching out a little. breaks into her mothers closet again, tries on all the clothes she left behind when she went on her latest trip. slowly amasses a decent collection of makeup by going to several different stores over the course of months with the excuse of 'oh my mom/girlfriend sent me to pick up x'. she doesn't do the Whole Deal often, in case nancy comes over or later in case the kids suddenly ask her to drive them somewhere. doesn't do anything that can't be removed in like three seconds. and she's definitely never telling anyone about this. she doesn't know anyone who would understand.

after starcourt, she wonders about telling robin sometimes. like sure, stevie doesn't like men but she's still like. some kind of queer. robins the only other queer person she knows (and yeah, robin turning her down bc she was only into girls did sort of hurt, but it wasn't robins fault bc she didn't know, and also it turned out stevie just didn't understand what actual friendship felt like so it was for the best anyway), so if she can't tell robin who can she tell?

but something always stops her. robins technically never done anything that makes stevie think she'd be mean about it, but there's something like imposter syndrome keeping her mouth closed. like she's not the right kind of queer. like robins being queer the good and honest way and stevies just being some kind of freak. and yeah, she knows it's dumb to think like that and robin would call her a dingus if she said it out loud, but it sits pretty heavy in her heart

so it's not until after vecna, when stevies on the eddie shift in the hospital and eddie says, while high on possibly every drug in the world, 'man i spent all that time trying to grow my tits and bats ate an entire boob in under five minutes' and stevie goes ??? what???? and eddie, still too high to self-censor, makes some comment like yeah they weren't huge but that black market estrogen i got was finally working its magic, definitely had like an a-cup. rest in peace. and stevies like why were you growing boobs?? 'bc girls are supposed to have boobs, man, keep up'

and eddie passes out again like five seconds later, but stevie just sits there watching her snore with her heart about to beat out of her chest because. holy shit. she's not the only one. eddie might understand, might be able to help her, if she was able to grow her own boobs. stevie would love to grow her own boobs. she'd stuffed some socks down a bra once and they looked lumpy as hell but even just the suggestion of a bust had almost brought her to tears.

and suddenly, looking at the sleeping form of the first person stevie has ever met that she's ever had this so intrinsic thing in common with, everything doesn't seem so scary

#I’m running around like a little dog with the zoomies

[giverobinagfbrigade]

hey, yall like t4t lesbian steddie? how about transfem eddie beefing coming out to her girlfriend Real Hard?

also on ao3 here

--------------------------------------------------------------

Eddie has never been able to control her mouth. Honestly sometimes she wonders if she has some kind of medical condition that makes her incapable of saying normal things at the appropriate time. 

And this is a real problem when trying to figure out how to tell her girlfriend that she might kinda wanna be a girl too maybe. Because instead of sitting the love of her life down and calmly explaining that she’s been doing some thinking and might want to experiment with her gender more, Eddie just holds it all in until she projectile vomits the information at the worst possible time.

They’re snuggled in bed, hazy in post-coital bliss, Stevie burying her face in Eddie’s neck and nuzzling in with her nose like a kitten looking for milk. It’s adorable. Eddie half expects her to start making biscuits on her stomach.

And so when Stevie sighs contentedly, hums a little, “My boy,” with so much love in her voice Eddie kind of wants to cry, she’s not ready for the wave of wrongness that crashes over her, smashing the cozy, contented vibe in the room like it’s an actual tidal wave ripping the trailer to shreds.

So she does what she always does. Fucks it up.

“No I’m not,” she says, voice choked with panic.

Stevie stiffens against her. “What?” she asks.

“I’m not your boy,” Eddie says. “It’s not- I-”

Stevie draws away from her, and Eddie already misses the warmth. She keeps her eyes screwed shut, doesn’t want to see Stevie’s reaction to the information that her boyfriend is actually her girlfriend. And yeah, the logical part of her brain knows that it absolutely is not an issue. Stevie’s a lot of things (beautiful, wonderful, perfect, a teensy bit of a bitch but just enough to keep things interesting-), but she’s not a hypocrite, so the trans thing is obviously fine. And Stevie was well known for making her way through most of the female population of Hawkins High before she came out, so the girl thing is also obviously a non-issue.

But. That mean little voice in the back of Eddie’s head. The one that listened carefully to every bad thing anyone ever said about her- freak, monster, trash- and quietly stored them away just to take them out again when she’s alone at night. That voice is real loud right now. 

It tells her she’s imagining things, that she’s just looking for another way to be different. That Stevie will just think she’s trying to copy her, and worse than that, she’s copying her badly. It whispers that sure, Stevie liked her as a guy, thought she was attractive then, but she’s probably going to be so ugly as a girl that any attraction Stevie’s managed to muster for her weird lanky man-body is gonna just shrivel up and die. And she doesn’t even really like girly things, which she knows because she dressed up as Frank N Furter that one time they all went to see Rocky Horror, and the makeup had felt gross on her skin and the corset had been too tight and the heels had hurt- and if she’s not gonna commit to femininity what’s even the point of trying to tell people she’s a girl?

Eddie is so lost in her own head that it takes her a second to realise that Stevie has gotten out of bed. Eddie sits up, watching in confusion as her girlfriend flits around the room in search of her clothes. 

“Stevie?” Eddie asks, her voice small. “Wh- what are you doing?”

Stevie sighs, shakes her head a little. “What does it look like I’m doing, Eddie?” Her voice sounds watery, and she won’t look Eddie in the eyes, using her voluminous hair as a shield as she pulls up her jeans with shaking hands.

Eddie’s heart breaks. She doesn’t think she ever expected this, that Stevie would just leave, even on her darkest nights alone. “But- why?”

Stevie finally looks at her then, her face incredulous even as it’s streaked with tears. “Why? Why would I stay, Eddie, if this- what, was it just- just bullshit?” she says, getting more heated as she speaks, hands flying in that way Eddie usually loves because it means her girl is really getting riled up. Now it feels terrible to see, like the final nail in Eddie’s coffin. 

“I can’t believe- fuck- this is the second time I thought- I mean it’s gotta be me at this point, right? Like, fool me once-” Stevie cuts herself off with a sob, before scrubbing her face furiously and looking around the room. “Where the fuck is my jacket???”

“I don’t- what do you mean, second time-”

Stevie scoffs. “I mean, sure, you didn’t actually say the word ‘bullshit’ but that’s- you see how it’s the same right? Like, even if you didn’t- if you didn’t want me anymore, how could you-? You knew about Nancy, Eddie, and you still just-” She scrubs her face again and heads to the door. “You know what, fuck my jacket.”

And Eddie is not the smartest. Her three senior years can attest to this. But she can tell she’s missing something here, because what the hell does Nancy have to do with anything? So Eddie goes over the last couple of minutes, everything Stevie said, everything she said, and- oh. Fuck.

“I forgot the second part of that sentence.” 

She literally cannot believe how stupid she is. Stevie’s already out the bedroom door, and Eddie prays to every god who’s never believed in her that she hasn’t left the trailer entirely, because fuck knows if she has Eddie will probably never see her again. At least not for several months, and even then, only with Robin standing off to the side trying to kill her with her mind.

“Stevie!” She calls, running through the trailer at a speed she frankly didn’t think herself capable of. “Stevie, please wait! I didn’t mean to- I forgot the rest of the sentence!”

Stevie stops at the door of the trailer, turns around with an eyebrow raised in the kind of ‘I’m waiting, make it good’ expression she uses whenever the kids try to explain why they were acting like little shits this time. It’s ruined a bit, by the tears still streaming down her face and the tremble in her disapproving frown, but she’s trying. 

“Baby, I’m so sorry, that’s not what I was trying to say- I didn’t even realise how it sounded- I love you so much and I’m sorry I made you doubt that for even a second,” Eddie pleads, her own tears running down her face.

Something in Stevie’s posture seems to soften a little, but her hand stays on the doorknob. “What- what else would you be trying to say there, Eddie?”

“I-” Eddie can’t look at her, so she looks at her own feet. “I’m not your boy, I’m your- I don’t really know. Girl? Something? Uh. If you still want me to be.”

It’s quiet for a moment. Eddie doesn’t look away from her feet.

But then, strong, warm arms wrap around her. A hand gently pushes her head into a neck. A pair of lips press into the top of her head.

“Oh E- baby,” Stevie says, softly. “I love you so much, no matter what. Of course you can be my girl, if you want.”

Eddie nods into Stevie’s neck, holding her so tight she’d be a little worried about hurting her if she wasn’t well aware Stevie was way stronger than she’d ever be. “Yes please,” she says, voice small.

Stevie presses another kiss to the top of Eddie’s head, pulls back to hold her face gently in her hands. “Love you so much, baby. And it’s with love that I have to ask- what the hell is wrong with you.” Eddie snorts, and Stevie smiles like that’s what she was aiming for. “That was the worst coming-out I’ve ever seen. And I’m including the way I came out to Dustin.”

Eddie fully laughs then, and Stevie smiles too. That really had been awful. Dustin had found Stevie’s collection of feminine clothes and underwear and had taken it upon himself to lecture her on how weird it was to keep ‘souvenirs’, until eventually Stevie had been so mortified by the picture he was painting that she had to come out just to get him to shut up. He’d since made up for it by being her staunchest defender (Eddie and Robin notwithstanding), but the whole thing was still painful enough that whenever he was being annoying Stevie could now get him to shut up with just a particularly pointed look.

“I know, it was- I got all up in my head,” Eddie says. She places her hand over Stevie’s, gently turns her head to place an apologetic kiss on her wrist, right against her pulse point. “I really am sorry. I love you.”

“I know. Now, at least. Although I hope you realise I’m gonna be using this against you for like, the rest of our lives. Good luck trying to get me to turn off the ABBA, considering you very briefly broke my heart.”

Eddie groans, just like Stevie wanted her too, but honestly ‘the rest of our lives’ sounds pretty good to her.

#just completely fumbling the wholeass bag #please though it’s so on brand #i love them so much #these two hold permanent residence in my mind

[giverobinagfbrigade]

AU-gust, Day One: Sculpture Artist

I saw the prompts and this grabbed me by the throat! I wrote it in about an hour, so my apologies if it's not up to my normal quality.

Steve wasn’t good at a lot of things.

He wasn’t very intelligent; while everyone else in town eagerly devoured the latest books delivered monthly by Murray, the traveling librarian, Steve struggled to make it through the first few pages. (He thought it might have been a curse at first, the way that the letters and words moved all over the page. When he had asked Madam Byers, the town witch, she had just smiled sadly at him and, well, he already knew everyone thought he was an idiot. He should really be used to it by now.)

He wasn’t the strongest or most athletic either; that honor belonged to Sir Hargrove and his knights. (Once upon a time Steve had been the one the town was counting on for protection. He was the one getting parades in the streets, catching handkerchiefs thrown by all of the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes. He was the son of Sir Harrington, after all.

But when the darkness came, when he took his stand against the creatures that appeared like smoke out of the great forest, his knights – his friends – abandoned him.

All except for Sir Hargrove, for Billy, his – well, it doesn’t matter anymore now, does it? All that matters is that Billy stuck his own sword into Steve’s back and left him to the creatures, only “rescuing” him once the damage had been done. And it did not matter what Steve said, or that there was a mark that clearly belonged to a sword on his spine; Billy, who was shortly knighted by Steve’s own father soon after, emerged the victor, flawless and golden.)

He was no longer the handsomest man in town (not next to Billy, not with scars all over his body.) He did not know a useful trade, given that he was not trained to have such. If he was the best at anything, it was at being a disappointment. An embarrassment. So much for the Harrington name, people still said on his infrequent ventures into town. Such a shame, such a waste.

So no, Steve formerly-of-House-Harrington was not particularly special in any way. If he had had some wit, or maintained some beauty, or was able to discuss the latest tales from court, perhaps things would be different. Perhaps he would have been accepted by the town. Instead, he lived in a small thatched cottage a morning’s ride away from the rest of Hawkins (the only thing his father gave him before taking his name, his money and his protection) and spent his days working in his garden, caring for his few elderly animals, and entertaining the children of the neighboring shepherds.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true; he did also work on his sculpting.

(The stone was from Robin, a traveling student. She had run into some trouble with her horse while passing through and Steve might not have been a knight anymore, but he still knew how to care for horses. Robin had offered to pay him for his help, but he would not accept it. It was payment enough to have someone his age to talk to. It was nice, to spend time with someone who did not know him as the former knight of Hawkins, as the disgraced noble he truly was; she just knew him as Steve and she saw a potential in him that he didn’t see in himself.

You are good with your hands, she had written in the note that had accompanied the massive piles of stone, delivered straight from the royal quarry. And you have much love in your heart. May this inspire you to see your own strength and beauty once again.)

She had probably expected him to use it to build a well, or perhaps some sort of fence for his small piece of land. But when he looked at the stone – a beautiful, shining white, the likes of which seemed far too grand for his small corner of the world – he could not see it serving such a purpose. No; this was made for something more.

He had never studied the arts; why would he, Steve of House Harrington, future knight of the realm, have had any need to learn what his father believed was woman’s work? Formal training, then, was something he did not have. But he did have fine tools, given to him by Madam Byers; he had a pair of crystal glasses, lent to him by Dustin, his favorite shepherd; and he had ample amounts of time to go slow, to focus on the task at hand. (Not that he really knew what he was creating, just that he was creating something.)

And so the months flew by: summer turned to fall and fall turned to winter, and when Steve was not doing his chores or tending to the young, he was slowly and patiently chipping away at the block of stone that he kept safely sheltered inside his small home, next to the worn-down hearth.

It wasn’t until he had knocked away the final chip of stone, until his bones had rattled with knowing that it was done, it was finally done, that Steve had finally realized just what he’d created.

It was a man, one near his age. He had the long hair of nobility, curled tresses that cascaded down his bare shoulders; he was clad in a simple robe much like the masters of old; large rings adorned his fingers, rings that proclaimed the man in front of him to be of royal blood. His feet were bare, as were his legs, and they were strong; he felt that if he looked closely enough, Steve would be able to see defined muscles underneath skin.

But the most striking part of the statute – aside from his royal dress and stature – was his face: a royal, aquiline nose above lips that were flushed with life and there, nestled under a noble brow, a pair of large, soulful eyes. The eyes were the same color as the rest of the statue, of course, but Steve found that the longer he stared into them, the more he felt that this statue, this man was staring back.

It didn’t seem possible, the longer Steve looked at it – at him. It didn’t seem possible that someone like Steve – the disgrace of Hawkins – could create something so beautiful, so ethereal, so entirely arresting as the man in front of him, because this man was the most beautiful man – human or statue – that Steve had ever seen.

And suddenly, Steve couldn’t bear to look at it. Couldn’t bear to live in a world where the thing that he was most proud of, that he had poured all of his time and attention and love into, was something that could never possibly return it. And even if the statue came alive, somehow, even if this perfect man was human, what would he possibly see in someone like Steve when there was a world of better, smarter, handsomer men out there?

Steve turned and reached for his hammer, the one blunt instrument that remained unused from Madam Byers' gift. He turned back around and, with a mighty cry, swung the hammer at the statue and sent it shattering into a thousand different pieces.

He expected that he would have to spend the rest of the night cleaning up the ruins of the one wonderful thing he had ever done.

He did not expect the stone to shatter and reveal a flesh and blood man standing before him.

The last of the stone fell to the ground and the man took a deep breath. He blinked once, twice, and then his eyes alighted on Steve. The moment their eyes met, the man’s formerly taciturn expression transformed into the brightest smile Steve had ever seen.

And it was a smile that was aimed at him.

“There you are,” the man said. He stepped forward and took Steve’s hand in his own. “I have been waiting a long time for you.”

Steve cleared his throat and looked down, unable to bear the enduring warmth in the man’s eyes. “I – I am sorry to disappoint you, my lord.”

“No,” the man chastened him, and a warm hand tucked itself under his cheek, pulling Steve’s eyes back to meet his. “You are everything I have been waiting for.”

“I'm afraid you must be mistaken, for I am just Steve. I can offer you nothing.”

“And I am just Eddie, and you are not just Steve,” the man – Eddie – replied firmly. “You are a kind man with a good heart. You care for other people and expect nothing in return. And most importantly of all, you dedicate your time and your love to everything, even things that cannot love you in return. Those are qualities sorely lacking in this world, and that makes them all the more valuable.

“I foresaw you long, long ago Steve of House Harrington,” the man finished quietly, a small smile now on his face. “And I would consign myself to thousands more years behind stone if it meant that one day I would find you.”

Steve did not know when he started to cry, he just knew that he had tears in his eyes. “You do me great honor, my lord.” Reaching for Eddie’s hands, the hands that oh-so-gently held Steve’s face, Steve drew them to his mouth and pressed watery kisses against his rings. “I will spend my life to be worthy of that. To be worthy of you.”

“Dear one,” Eddie said, and he laid his forehead against Steve. “You already are.”

Steve knew that he wasn’t good at a lot of things. He would never be the smartest, or the strongest, or the handsomest, or the most clever man in the world, or maybe even in Hawkins. But as Steve kissed his Eddie – his Eddie, who had travelled across time and magic to reach him – none of that mattered anymore. Because he might not have all of those things, but he did have love. 

And what could possibly be more important than that?

#I am a sniffling pile on the floor #op i am actually crying #i’m kissing you on the forehead ( platonicly ) #this is so so beautiful #I’m just going to lau here on the floor and let this soak in

[giverobinagfbrigade]

This is so fucking stupid and I'm not sorry. Inspired by this video of the two guitarists from DragonForce taking the piss out of Sabaton(affectionately).

Jeffington: Just ended your whole career on live 😘

Eddie scrunched his eyes closed then wrenched them open again, trying to make sense of what he was seeing on his screen. It was too early in the fucking morning for this shit. 

Whatever.

He buried his face back in between Steve’s shoulders and allowed himself to fall asleep once more.

Corroded Coffin had only started making it big in the early 90’s when they split right down the middle. As time went on they started to drift towards different subgenres. Jeff and Grant had wanted to explore a more international sound, while Gareth and Eddie were happy to stay in the power metal scene with just a touch of neoclassical. 

They had tried to make it work, but the sounds were just too different and while Eddie and Grant wanted to continue on with lyrics full of fantasy and gothic romance, Jeff and Grant had wanted to focus more on ‘the human condition’.

So they separated. Eddie and Gareth had kept the Corroded Coffin name while Jeff and Grant travelled, exploring their sound.

There was no animosity. They were all still the best of friends. Even as Jeff and Grant had settled in Stockholm, where they had quickly shot to stardom with their new band members, Eddie and Gareth made their home in California enjoying their own success. They met up as often as they could, whenever tour dates aligned or they were booked into the same festivals.

Eddie and Steve were godfathers to Grant’s youngest daughter.

He and Gareth had been groomsmen in Jeff’s wedding.

They were solid.

Which was why the text from Jeff was more exasperating than worrying. 

Plus it was like… nine in the morning which, granted, wasn't early, early but Eddie was a damn rockstar.

And he might have lost track of time reading last night and stayed up until four but that's besides the point. 

But then Steve was handing him his morning coffee with a kiss, saying Robin had sent him a link to something and fine. He’d go watch whatever stupid shit Jeff pulled.

Eddie settled back into bed because he could and it was a Sunday.

Sue him.

But he couldn’t decide if he should be fake-mad or wildly entertained because the link Robin had sent opened the VOD about an hour into the stream, just in time for Grant to say “Should we do Corroded Coffin?”

Both Jeff and Grant were sitting in Jeff’s studio space in front of Jeff’s computer with a range of instruments behind them, grinning at each other.

“Oh shit, definitely!” Jeff stood and seemed to think about it for a second before picking up one of his guitars, a bright acid green with black tendrils running throughout. “The most dramatic of the bunch,” he leaned into the mic, gesturing at the guitar before taking his seat again, “just like their frontman.”

Eddie rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless. 

“You think you can shred like Munson?” Grant asked, leaning forward and starting to tap out drum beats on the laptop.

Jeff scoffed. “Yeah right. Let me just play at five-fucking-thousand bpm and sing at the same time. It’s gonna be an approximation at best.”

Surprisingly enough the music they came up with did sound very close to Corroded Coffin’s sound. Grant relied heavily on the kick-drum and high hat to a ridiculous degree for Gareth's part and yeah, fair.

Gareth did love his high hat.

Jeff played the fastest guitar riff he could muster which honestly wasn’t that bad. He couldn’t go quite as hard as Eddie could but guitar was always Eddie’s first love and he was a master at his craft. Jeff gave the camera a cheeky wink as he used the computer to speed the guitar solo up, making it sound far more complex.

“I swear to god,” Eddie muttered to himself, “if they insinuate that I do that, I’ll fucking-”

“Eddie would never.” Jeff said, responding to someone in the chat who’d asked that very question.

Grant looked up with a sly smile. “Oh, god no. He’d never. He’s too proud for that.”

Cheeky bastards.

“You know what this needs?”

“Female backing vocals?”

“Yes!" Jeff snapped his fingers. "Exactly. Like something pulled from Jackson’s Lord of the Rings!”

“Oh come on!” Eddie pouted, but even still he could tell they weren’t actually making fun.

A notification popped up on Eddie’s phone.

Gare-Bear: Have you watched the stream?

Eddie: Watching right now. They’re starting on the lyrics.

Gare-Bear: Did Robin send you the link?

Eddie: Yeah.

Gare-Bear: Okay, keep watching.

Eddie: 👍

By the time the guys had hashed the lyrics out, punctuating them with high falsetto points that freaked Jeff’s cats out, Eddie was giggling into his coffee. The lyrics were so comically bad but they were so Corroded Coffin at the same time.

I wear armour and I am sad. I'm all alone and I am sad.  Such a lone wolf am I.  Except I'm not because here comes this hot man who's totally not my husband. Bats and demons and darkness and death. Bow down to me.  Kneel before me.  I am your master.  This is about sex. Oh, look, a dragon! I'll suck your blood then I'll fuck you through the wall. Except I won't because you're an allegory for my husband again. I'll fuck him instead. Every song involves him in some way. Because I'm a big fucking sap.

And then it happened. That crafty wench.

A message popped up in the chat.

BuckyBirdie: Needs more dick sucking lyrics.

“Holy shit.” Grant whipped out his phone. “R- Birdie? Is that you? Stay right there, hold on.”

While Jeff continued to play through the guitar, Grant disappeared, raising the phone to his ear before coming back a few minutes later and whispering something to Jeff.

Jeff’s whole face split into the most mischievous of smiles and Eddie only had time to think oh no before Robin’s face appeared, joining the stream with a tired if not slightly manic expression, all topped off by her yummy sushi pyjamas.

The first thing Grant said to her was “What fucking time is it over there, Birdie?” 

“I dunno.” She shrugged, looking down at her watch. “Like half six in the morning?”

“Oh. Could be worse then.”

“I haven’t slept yet.” She said with a bright smile.

“Dude! Why not?”

“I got into cryptography again last night and I haven’t stopped. Don’t tell Steve.”

Oh, I am so telling Steve. Eddie thought to himself.

“God. What a fuckin’ nerd.” Jeff punctuated his statement with a loud strum of his guitar.

Robin stuck her tongue out. “Takes one to know one.”

“Ouch. Right in my middle schooler heart.”

“Anyway, a little birdie told me you boys need some backing vocals?”

Eddie didn’t know how he was going to get her back for this, but he was sure he’d be able to figure something out eventually.

Like banging pots and pans in her hallway while she slept off her cryptography binge.

Though it was almost worth the hilarity because noted lesbian Robin Buckley happily sat there, singing about dick and tongues and assholes in a high ethereal voice that was then layered behind Jeff's.

By the end, the chat was going wild asking when it was going to be available to stream because even though it was a parody song, it was annoyingly catchy. Just before they signed off, Jeff and Grant let their audience know they’d ask Eddie and Gareth for permission before they’d do anything.

Eddie minimised the video and opened up his chat with Gareth.

Eddie: You wanna let them release it?

Gare-Bear: Fuck yeah!

Eddie: Awesome.

#yes #this is exactly the kind of shenanigans I think they would get up to #the calling Eddie out for bringing his husband into everything lmaooo

[giverobinagfbrigade]

ooo i'd love to know more about thinking straight 💕💕💕

aaand welcome back janai lol!

this one i do have a whole outline for, the words just aren't wording but i really hope i get back in the zone soon because ohohohho it's a DOOZY! it's a classic friends with benefits au tbh but with eddie as the questioning one instead of steve!

quick summary: eddie and steve are college roommates and eddie is 100% convinced that he's straight. he's had girlfriends a plenty, girls are amazing, he's very much straight. steve, on the other hand, is a very confident and very slutty bisexual, and eddie is totally cool with that. maybe he's a little too cool with that because after one night of walking into steve making out with some other guy, he keeps having these thoughts and feelings about steve. after much debating, he asks steve if they can experiment, because y'know it's college, when else are you gonna do it? plus, eddie's totally straight. it's not like he's gonna fall in love, right?

and a snippet:

That should be Eddie’s first clue to turn on his heel and quietly back away. Actually, there should’ve been another clue that should’ve warned him to not open the door in the first place. He and Steve have had this cliché yet almost foolproof system ever since they became roommates: a sock on the door means a date is over, please do not enter. But this time there was no sock. Not that Eddie can remember. Or maybe… no, no he distinctively remembers hearing the cold metal of the door handle clinking against his rings because it was less than a goddamn minute ago. So, actually, this is all Steve’s fault. He should’ve done the honorable thing and upheld their agreement. It’s definitely not Eddie’s fault that his eyes are glued at where Marcus’ hands are trailing up and down Steve’s back, fingers dancing between his moles in a pattern that makes it nearly impossible to look away. Why the fuck can’t Eddie look away?

#ohOHOH #i am frothing at the mouth #please I love Eddie getting to have the sexuality crisis #it’s my favorite