You know, that would be ANGSTY COMICAL if we mixed that in the aftermath of the reveal of who is the real creator, since it could be taken as the creator REPLACING characters who hurt them.
-🥘Stew
that was the intent!
i think diluc would have it easiest. red is from a hateful part of his past, and he knows that he’s grown beyond that stage. if it weren’t for red’s temperament, he’d want to try and connect, if only to gain his trust. it still hurts, knowing that even after all this time he still failed to be what you needed, but it burns him the least.
fischl would be worse. night is everything she tried so badly to be, down to her own oz. to make it worse, night couldn’t care less about fischl, ignoring her monologues about who’s the real princess. the only one she needs the approval of is you, and she’d gotten that the second she was first summoned. she does fischl the mercy of letting her keep her name, but even that is mostly at your discretion. ‘fischl,’ ‘night,’ whatever. she just needs to protect you where amy failed.
and kaeya… my poor beloved. if night is what fischl wanted to be, shade is what kaeya has to be. night is a persona that fischl copied, shade is the very mask kaeya had put on for all his life. he’d entirely remade himself, down to the name he used and the way he treated his fellow knights, and it still wasn’t enough. all of his effort was poured into making himself something that could be accepted, that could be good enough. he’d thought he’d done a good job when he was first marked as a vessel, but now in the hunt it’s clear that his palatability only ran skin deep. shade is what you need, shade is what you want, and he’s genuine about it. shade’s entire life is yours, and he was rewarded for that devotion with your affection, earning a place at your side. and kaeya had devoted himself to the hunt instead, was so blinded by his own desires that he’d ignored the resistance of his vision. diluc may hate his past and fischl may hate night, but kaeya can only really hate himself.
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strangers 1.3k words
inspired by ethel cain's song "strangers" and if you read this it is a requirement that you listen to it. (its linked at the bottom)
idk team I was just listening to this song for the millionth time and needed to get this out, so here's 1.3k words of Eddie experiencing life after death and Steve dealing with grief and guilt I guess
Eddie is a ghost.
He’s made his peace with that.
Some kind of Upside-Down ghost probably. He doesn’t really care.
The people of Hawkins don’t know that. They still believe, still fear that he’s out there somewhere. Everyone that cared about him knows better.
WIthout a proper grave he just kind of… drifts.
Into and out of spaces, he leaves behind no trace save for a soft breeze if someone’s really paying attention.
They usually aren’t.
He’s not really a physical being so much as a feeling. Still in his body but less aware of it than he ever was. He thinks he couldn’t explain it if he wanted to. Couldn’t explain the way that people can’t see him or hear him when he’s there, but later feel like they had, and feel crazy trying to explain it. He’s had to learn his way around his new consciousness in a way that lets him be near the ones he cares about without hurting them. It's an exhausting cycle, to feel out of your mind.
He can see it in the way dread and grief tug at the shoulders of the people he loved. He knows this because the more someone thinks of him, the closer he can get to them.
At first he was at home a lot.
Well, as at home as he could be in this new place they’ve got Wayne in. It’s nowhere Eddie’d ever been when he was living, but Wayne’s there so it's home nonetheless. But as weeks turn into months the closest he can get is just outside the door. He can’t get inside, can’t actually see Wayne anymore. Can’t see the way that loneliness weighs him down. The way he picks himself up every time.
So he lets himself drift to wherever he’s pulled next. A time or two it's been to Jeff’s garage while he’s practicing. Several times he’s gotten to see inside Dustin’s room late at night before the kid falls asleep.
But the place he’s finding himself more and more often, he didn’t recognize at first. He just knew it was a basement somewhere. Drafty, door locked tight, and with nothing but dusty tools to keep him company, he found comfort in knowing that someone was remembering him. Even if only a little. Even if it’s a stranger.
Eddie’s drifted in and out of whatever kind of consciousness he experiences for a while before his surroundings morph and change.
The kitchen of the Harrington house he would recognize anywhere.
He smiles as he takes in the new space and thinks that if he had a human body he’d be sat up on the counter just like he is now.
Steve walks into the kitchen with a furrow in his brow and Eddie takes the time to really look.
This is the first time he’s seen Steve since the last of his air left his lungs and he’s hit with a strange sense of longing.
Can see it in the bags under Steve’s eyes that, even now, say he’s still carrying everything on his own.
He’d always done that.
When Eddie had made that stupid, stupid decision, though he’d be loath to admit it alive, he’d wondered if Steve would've done the same thing.
He thinks they both knew the answer was yes and that that’s the reason Steve still looks like hell even months later.
He looks like hell but he’s still so handsome walking over toward Eddie now.
Eddie knows he can’t see him, doesn’t know he’s there. But he still finds himself longing for the closeness when Steve grabs a glass from the cabinet and leaves the room again.
In an instant Eddie’s back in the basement. Steve’s memory of him gone as quick as it came as Eddie is left with the question that followed him his whole life:
Am I no good?
As he wastes away in the drafty, cold he realizes that he doesn’t feel a pull anywhere else. He decides that seeing Steve once in a while, if only for a short time, is better than being forgotten.
It becomes a routine. Eddie’s hours will turn into days, and he’ll lose track of time. Then he’ll blink and he’s watching Steve stare at himself in the mirror. He looks like he’s been crying and like he’s going to be sick. Eddie wants nothing more than to be able to comfort him. But as quick as they come, they go, and Eddie begins to connect the dots.
Eddie’s memory, like everything else Steve seldom allows himself to feel, gets carried with him always. But he locks them away tight in his heart and only lets them out when he thinks no one is watching. When he thinks he’s allowed to miss Eddie.
So Eddie stays in the basement, stays in Steve’s heart, heavy, guilty, until Steve’s ready to face it again.
One day it catches Steve by surprise.
Eddie can tell because he’s in the middle of putting away groceries when Eddie gets there.
At first Eddie’s confused. But then he sees the milk carton in Steve’s hand with the big MISSING: EDDIE MUNSON and his photo on the side. There’s a sale sticker over his face in what was surely some angry grocer’s last ditch effort to sell milk with the Hawkins devil on the side.
Steve’s frozen just looking at it and honestly Eddie gets it.
After everything that was lost, this may very well be the only physical memory of him that’s left save for a polaroid photo in an evidence locker somewhere.
He’s able to drift close enough to hear the breath Steve lets out before he puts it in the fridge and finishes unpacking his bags.
From that point on Eddie’s no longer in the basement.
He’s able to drift all around Steve’s house and he learns that he can touch things.
He watches Steve’s smile come back when Robin’s over.
He flits his fingers across windchimes when the air is still and watches them take in the music.
He watches Steve crash after long days at work and drags a blanket up over his shoulder.
Sees his confused face when he wakes.
He looks on when Steve pours the milk down the drain and puts the empty carton right back in the fridge.
Even though this makes him sad, he makes a smiley face out of the magnets on the door. Hopes that Steve notices.
He sees him scream out his anger late into the night and wishes that he could touch Steve.
But as time goes on he’s able to witness the way that Steve learns to carry the guilt, but to also try to let himself breathe.
Eddie spends a lot of his time wishing he were alive so that he could tell Steve he’s proud of him. That he could tell him he’s surrounded by people who would help him carry it all if he would just put it down. Wishes he were alive for a lot more reasons than just that.
But the night he gets the closest is when he figures out that he can use the phone in the office to call the one in Steve’s room while he’s away.
He’d learned early on in this afterlife that if he spoke he wouldn’t be heard. But he has a hunch that this might be an Upside-Down loophole.
He’s sitting on the floor across from where Steve’s lying in bed, and he’s watching the stream of tears drip down his pretty, pretty face while he listens to the voicemail.
Hey Stevie.
Called you just to tell you that I made it real far, and that I never blamed you for loving the way that you do while you were torn apart.
I would still wait with you there.
Don’t think about it too hard or you’ll never sleep a wink at night again. Don’t worry about me, Stevie, just know that I loved you.
And I’ll see you when you get here.
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