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frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe · 1 year

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okok so i was listening to remains of the day and i could not stop thinking of corpsegroom!eddie and victor!steve from @undreaming-fanfiction's Corpse Groom AU

Aneta, ilysm!! i hope you don't mind me adding onto your au!!! 🫶

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Steve awoke slowly, blinking up at three (surprisingly) familiar faces.

His kids.

Okay, not actually his kids, but the ones he took care of not that long ago. They had the same sort of blue tinge to their skin as Eddie did, but it was still them.

Wait...Eddie!

Steve sat up, way too fast, causing his head to spin.

“Whoa, slow down Steve.”

“Dustin? Dustin, what’s happening? You died! Years ago!” Steve frantically looks over the round faced boy, looking for any indication that this really wasn’t Dustin, but nope. He still looks exactly the same from the top of his curly-haired head right down to his feet.

“Yeah, I did. It’s not that big of a deal.” Dustin waves his hand nonchalantly and sits back on his heels from where he’d been kneeling over Steve.

“Not that–Dusty, buddy, I was crushed when you died. When all three of you did.” Steve looks at the other two, a red-headed young girl named Max, and the tall, lanky, and kind, Will. “I couldn’t believe you were all gone..”

“Well, it’s not like we meant to.” Max gripes at him, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of…wherever this is.

She’s right, of course, the sickness that had shot through the kids of their small town had taken many under its cloak, but luckily only scurried away to the afterlife with a handful. Steve had found out half of his beloved group of kids (friends?) he’d watch over passed when he and his parents returned from holiday. Having skipped over the short-lived plague by happenstance.

He would’ve taken any of their places in a heartbeat.

“O-of course,” Steve stutters out, “I didn’t..”

“It’s okay Steve, we know you didn’t mean anything by it.” Will pats his leg and stands up, offers Steve a hand. “But the real question is, why did Eddie drag you down here.”

Steve lets Will pull him up, and he’s surprisingly strong, maybe it’s a symptom of being dead. Undead? Do you get stronger when you un-die?

“Eddie…Eddie! Where’s Eddie?” Steve looks around for the boy–nope, not really ‘boy’ any longer. The corpse that clawed itself out from under that tree definitely looked older than when Steve first knew him all those years ago.

Looking around the place, he meets the curious eyes and empty eye sockets of the other souls of this world. All those whose skin hadn’t quite gone had the same blue tinge as Eddie and the kids, and some still bore the marks of the events that’d taken them here. To this pub.

Is the afterlife only a run-down looking pub?

Dustin interrupts his scanning of the bar’s patrons. “We really need to play catch-up here, how do you know Eddie?”

“We–I–how do you know Eddie?” Steve retorts.

Max rolls her eyes. “Met him down here, of course.”

“He took us under his wing, helped us adjust…kept us out of too much trouble.” Will smiles.

“So, back to the original question, how do you know him? Dustin asks again.

Steve lets out a long breath. “I knew him when I was young. Younger than you lot. He taught me to play piano.” Steve smiles at the memories of Eddie humming and singing along to whatever tune Steve’d make up. “He was a very good friend to me, until I just…stopped seeing him around. Whatever happened to him?”

Dustin winces minutely. “It’s kind of a long story..”

“And what a story it is!” A booming voice calls out from behind them.

Steve whips around, finally laying eyes on Eddie again. His arms are held wide as he’d come through the doorway to the bar, but the dirty, rumpled suit he wore and his full head of curls, now filled with debris, did nothing to staunch the glow coming off him.

He’s so beautiful… and apparently just as much of a showman he’d been when Steve had known him, a fact that made him smile.

“It's a tragic tale of romance, passion, and a murder most foul.” Eddie continues, his low story-teller’s voice cutting through the background noise of the bar as he stalks toward them.

Max elbows Steve in the ribs and says, “This is gonna be good.” at the same time Steve catches Dustin grumbling, “..please don’t.”

Steve gulps. “Did he say ‘murder’?”

Max nods enthusiastically, obviously having heard this story before, while Dustin and Will grimace and nod unenthusiastically, also obviously having heard this story before.

“You all know how this begins, with little ol’ Eddie being cordoned off to his own side of town after getting caught befriending a Harrington.” Eddie begins his tale, speaking to and winding through the tables of patrons. “Can’t have us low-lifes on the ritzy side of Hawkins now, can we?”

Ouch. That stung a little.

“Life moved on, Eddie grew into a dashing young man,” Eddie stands straight and flashes a charming smile over the bar, one hand comes up to his chest and the other flings half of his dark mane over his shoulder. “Dashing enough to even make a deal with a more well-off family perhaps?

“A deal was bartered with the Cunninghams, to wed their only daughter to the once-distinguished Munson family.”

Steve knew of the Cunninghams, their only daughter was shipped off years ago to be wedded to the Carver’s first-born son in the next town over. He’d never heard that she’d once been thought of for marriage to Eddie, though he had been forbidden from knowing anything of the long-haired boy he’d met after his father had found out.

“But alas, the lone Munson heir was not one to choose the company of ladies, as lovely as Christine was and likely still is. She was his best friend, and he would not put her through a loveless marriage. Especially not when he had a love of his own.

“SO!” Eddie jumps up onto a rickety-looking chair with the exclamation, “He did what he thought best and he planned to run away.” he steps up further, onto the small wooden table, much to the apparent excitement of the skeleton seated there. “He took what remained of his family’s money, leftover dowry from his mother’s marriage to his father, and fled.

“That was the plan,” Eddie continues, plodding across the closely placed tables as he went. “Take the money and run, elope with his beloved; they’d already picked a meeting place, so he asked Chrissy to send word to his lover to meet that night, in the graveyard by the old oak tree.”

Oh no. That’s where he first found Eddie.

The crowd reacted together in a combined wail of “Don’t go!” as if rehearsed, all of them hanging on his word.

“I must!” Eddie replied, as if this was a play and not the tale of his own murder. “My darling dear will wait for me and we will flee to my only remaining family!”

“No!” the patrons yell again.

“Yes! We will go to Uncle Wayne, we’ll elope, start anew…we’ll get to be together.” Steve’s chest starts to constrict hearing the story-telling tone leaving Eddie’s voice. This was real. This is what he’d actually thought back then, back when he was alive, still full of hope.

“Oh no..” comes Will’s whispered voice beside Steve.

There’s a single beat of silence where Eddie seems to collect himself at the same time the crowd waits on baited breath (at least they would be if they had any) for him to continue, knowing what happens next.

Eddie jumps from the table he’d been atop to the nearby stage, spins around, and starts again, voice fully back in story-mode, and many-times-repeated words spill from his mouth.

“So there I was, next to the graveyard by the old oak tree, on a dark foggy night at a quarter to three. Ready to go! But where was he?”

Another round of call-and-answer picked up across the dingy bar, the entire place calling out, “And then?”

“I waited…”

“And then?”

“There!” Eddie points off to the side of the stage, “In the shadows, was it him?!”

“And then?”

“My poor little heart beat sooo loud….” Eddie clasped both hands over his un-beating heart.

“And then?!”

Eddie’s chest was heaving.

Steve took a step forward on instinct, not knowing if the panic on Eddie’s face was just for show.

“And then…everything went black.” The crowd gasps at once, all still seeming to be horrified by the turn of events no matter how many times Eddie may’ve told this tale.

Eddie starts speaking again, gaze far away, back in time. “When I opened my eyes, I was dead as dust. The meager amount I had on me, gone, along with the sound of my heartbeat.”

He starts back across the tables toward their little group, voice gaining confidence again as he recites his story. “So I made a vow, lying under that tree, that I’d wait for my true love to come set me free. So long I’ve been waiting for someone to ask for my hand,” He quick-steps down to the floor from a chair so generously pulled out for him by a kind looking woman more skin-and-bone than flesh.

“Then out of the blue comes this beautiful young man,” Eddie’s directly in front of Steve now, and reaches for his hands. Steve lets him take them, takes in the man in front of him, every last detail he can.

He’s just as beautiful as Steve remembers, even through the lens of crushing on someone much older than you; his hair was just as wild, his eyes as fiery, his hands much colder than the ones that used to guide his fingers along piano keys, but just as soft, just as sure.

What had not been there before was the dark purple, crumpled looking gash on his forehead, just under his hairline. The sight of which had pure rage boiling in Steve’s gut at whoever decided it was his place to take such a soul from the world.

“He who vowed forever, to stay by my side.” Eddie all but whispers.

Steve looks down at their hands and his heart squeezes in his chest at the sight of his ring on Eddie’s finger. He looks up with a smile, squeezing Eddie’s fingers in his and suddenly, the panic is back on Eddie’s face. For a fraction of a second, then replaced by one fully-cocksure.

Steve’s hands are suddenly empty, Eddie spinning around to the crowd, “That’s my story. The story of your resident corpse groom!”

Eddie flings his arms wide, like he had when he first returned to the bar, and gives the raucous crowd a low bow.

The muted claps of the corpses’ skin on skin, and the rattling ones of the skeletons around him are drowned out as Steve steps forward to place a hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Eddie, I–”

“No worries Stevie, I’ll get you back up to the surface again, no sweat.” Eddie takes a step backward, then another, his face under the grin falling sharply, “I gotta go find Elder Gutknecht, he’ll know how to get you back, no ties still tethered here.” then he turns and all but runs from the room.

———————-

ahhh!!! i couldnt get the idea of eddie, the story-teller he is, being the one telling his own story in remains of the day 🥺

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #st #st ficlet #st au #corpse bride #corpse bride au #dutin henderson #max mayfield #will byers #chrissy cunningham #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #steveddie #emily corpse bride #victor van dort #emily x victor #noelle writes

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love-toxin · 1 year

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remains of the day - e.m (corpse bride au)

a/n: trust me to tease this fic at halloween and not finish it until january LOL (also this is just vol I unless ppl want more!)

plot: the misfortune of Hawkins has left the town destitute, and your family in financial ruin. what better way to remedy that than to marry off their one and only daughter to the richest man in town? there's only one problem....your heart really isn't in it, and neither is your husband-to-be's. but a little practice of your vows to soothe those woes won't exactly give you the courage you were hoping for.

cws: corpse bride au, emily!eddie, victor!f!angelface, victoria!steve, major character death, descriptions of gore/rot, marriages and dowries, jealousy on both sides, a hint at eddie's abandonment issues/fears of rejection, premarital hand-holding, twinges of unrequited love.

word count: 2.4k

"With this hand, I will lift your sorrows.

Your cup will never empty, for I shall be your wine.

With this candle, I will light your way in darkness.

With this ring, I ask you to be mine."

How hard could those vows truly be? And yet you can't get your head around them–no matter how easily they come to mind, they won't fall from your lips properly, despite how many times you've tried.

And that rehearsal….abysmal. You're shocked that Steve even stuck around, that soft smile never leaving his face as he watched you butcher every word of every line of your vows. He deserves better than you, and considering what you've heard through the grapevine (and the town crier, of course) there's another woman that's held his attention for awhile now anyways. Maybe the only reason he stayed for you was because he was picturing her the whole time, and that thought itself makes you want to lie down in the snow under this tree and never get up.

Not that you wish his affections were turned towards you, instead–actually, you wish that she was in your place. Nancy would do better at this, the two of them would be happier, and you wouldn't have to suffer this horrible, continuous disappointment in yourself. It's only been going on for….well, for your whole life.

The wind whistling through the bare branches catches your ear, and almost sounds like the whisper of a voice, your head turning towards the sound but your eyes finding nothing but trees and snow. It's eerie out here; cold and dry, the breeze blowing wisps of your hair about your face, but the woods saying nothing more. It's too quiet, and those ill feelings draw up into your lungs until you manage to wave them away with a brush of your hand, your fingers coming to clasp around the collar of your dress. Too tight–it is all too suffocating. All of it. You dearly wish you could be left out of this whole affair, because you would much rather be a bystander than a participant.

"Oh, Lady Harrington!" You greet a tall, faceless tree trunk and tug on one of the branches, spindly and long in a way that much resembles your future mother-in-law's careful hand. "Call you mum? I'd be delighted to." Shake shake. The bark crackles under your fingertips and snaps, and you're left sighing and holding a twig in your palm that you quickly let drop to the ground.

"What's the point? I'll never be able to do this…" You wonder aloud, meandering about the roots of the massive tree you've taken up solace beneath, your mind wandering with an overflow of worries that all seem much less grand in the shadows of the forest. You find yourself humming the words of your vows to yourself, whispering them under your breath as if you weren't just talking to yourself loud enough for even the crier to hear. There's likely a running story about my madness by now, you think to yourself, the final words of your script coming out a bit louder as you kneel by one of the upturned roots of the tree, stretched out like a delicate finger on a thin hand. "With this ring…"

You produce the ring from the pocket of your dress, and smile somewhat depressedly as you slip it on to the mock hand of your lover.

"I ask you to be mine."

What a silly thought. You could almost swear the hand twitched, shuddered in anticipation, but it must be the wind–and the crows, you've only just noticed, are cawing rather aggressively at your back. A slight twinge of anxiety gnaws at you, you turn to look and search the hills for some animal creeping up-

"Ah-!" But when you do, your wrist is grabbed by something stronger–something that wasn't there before, something with your golden band on its finger that digs into your skin, and yanks you down like it's pulling you into the earth itself. It tugs, and tugs, and finally with a breath of air pumped into your lungs you scream and tear yourself away, the disembodied hand coming with you to clench harder around your wrist. With a violent shake it comes off and skitters across the icy ground, but before you can get to your feet, something even more terrifying happens before your very eyes.

The dirt cracks and crumbles from the spot where that branch had sat, pieces shattering away and stray roots snapping as something, a person-like something, rises from beneath the earth and stands towering and tall above you.

Lush, curly brown hair fans out over his shoulders, and a pair of warm brown eyes devoid of light greet your own. Pale, corpse-like skin gleams under the moonlight, but the exposed bone of his arm, legs, and the side of his neck betray that he really is just that–something dead, heart rotted away with cavernous holes in his body to show it.

He kneels before you, so close your body warmth leaches into his touch, and his lips make way for a toothy smile down at you as he caresses your face. His fingers don't feel at all like they look, leathery and branch-like….they're cool, but incomparably soft.

"I do."

He leans in for a kiss, eyes half-lidded with glory-filled glee, and the world finally blots out into complete darkness as you faint from the shock.

................................

"A new arrival!"

"Darling...I think she fainted. Darling?"

A poking, prodding sensation at your side isn't what roused you, you're sure it's the soft sounds of music and the foul, sickly-sweet smell of rot–but when your eyelids flutter open, and you shriek at the sight of that same young man accompanied by a skeleton standing over you, the two of them share a relieved grin rather than step back. He touches your face again, gentler this time, and moves to cup both your cheeks as he whispers your name. "There you are! My angel."

Now that you've got a better look, somehow you're…not as frightened, but still somewhat. Maybe it's that the lighting is better than the dimly-lit woods, and you're warmer wherever you've been laid down, but the curly-haired man doesn't evoke that same sense of terror now that he's holding you.

"You're even prettier than I imagined." He strokes that velvety skin of your cheek with his thumb, the compliment falling on attentive ears and eyes that just can't look away. But where in the world is your sense? Aside from being a kept woman, he's quite clearly dead, and you stagger to your feet a little too quickly just to get back and find some space between you two. Upon doing so, though, you bump into something solid–a bar counter, the woman on the other side pouring drinks like you're not even there. She just shoots you a grin, and a few of her teeth fall from her mouth into the frothy stein.

They all are, you realize. Every single person here is in varying states of decay, the crowd surrounding you and milling about the bar with curious stares and whispers at the newcomer. And with only one of those corpses feeling somewhat familiar, you huddle up next to the man's side to his giggling glee, his hand coming down to rest on your arm as you clutch at his for safety in the face of the dead. Two of which are raising their pints, and clanking them together with booming cries on their cracked lips.

"A toast to the newlyweds!"

"Newlyweds?"

You gape in shock, and he nods down at you. A smile stretches wide across his ghastly white face, and he pats your hand affectionately.

"In the woods! You said your vows so perfectly." He shows off the gleam of the golden band of his finger with a flourish, looking on with pride both at it and you. It looks good, and you selfishly gulp back some triumphant feelings at realizing you did it right–but you shake them right back off as reality hits you even harder in the face.

"I did?" Your voice a careful whisper, you move to let go of his arm, only to be caught and held there a touch longer by his frozen hands. "Oh, God…I did."

Stupid, stupid! How could you be so stupid?! Yet you can't really be blamed for it, how could you even think about directing those vows at a corpse by accident? It's not like your parents ever warned you about that…and your heart races when you remember. Your parents, your soon-to-be husband, and everyone else in the wedding party are probably wondering where in the hell you've disappeared to.

"Y-You don't understand! I have a fiancé," You try to shuffle backwards, finally having wrenched your hands away from your undead partner, and he leans in close without a worry or care etched into his face. Steve must be worried, he must be…maybe. Or maybe he's forgotten about you already. Your shoulders fall a little, but your gaze is commanded back up by his hands on your shoulders.

"Not a fiancé, silly. I'm your husband. Although…I guess we have yet to have the ceremony, so technically you're right." He cocks his head, hair swaying a little–you can spot a few spiders here and there, swinging from curl to curl as he speaks without taking notice to them.

"No, not–ugh, how can I explain this? I was just practicing! I-I didn't actually…I wasn't…" To push on his chest is like shoving a brick wall; he's unmoveable, his chest hollow but his bones strong as he stands over you. How can such lifeless brown eyes demand so much pity?

"But you…you said your vows? What's the problem?" You can't bear it, that well-meaning face falling into what is unmistakably a pained expression. His hurt feelings are betrayed by the crack in his voice, and if the circumstances weren't so strange, you'd be a bit miffed at having such a conversation in the midst of a nosy crowd. As if this were a normal situation, a marital squabble between the shoulders of bar patrons and not drunken cadavers. "...I thought you wanted to marry me?"

"You're dead," You say without thinking, and it cuts deep and harsh–shock and hurt flashes across his face, and he flinches back as if you had cut him with a knife. The bar, which once had been bustling with chatter and delight, grows quieter as their beloved friend whimpers with tears just about breaching his dead eyes.

"But I…we…you really don't want to marry me?"

"I don't even know your name." You mutter back, suddenly shy and quiet with an ill feeling churning about in your stomach. Guilt. This young….dead man has done nothing to you, and though neither have you to him, the unfortunate fact is that he is very clearly attached–even though you know next to nothing about one another.

"It's Eddie." He sniffles and drags his sleeve across his dripping nose, yet spits both syllables out as if it were a curse. Though, for most parts of the village, it is–you could recognize that name if it were said in your sleep, and had you not been clinging to him just a few minutes prior, it would rouse you from your slumber in panic and terror at the utterance of the most notoriously bloodthirsty psychopath of Hawkins.

"Eddie?" You blink owlishly at him. "Eddie from…from the accident?"

"I'm sure everyone's heard about me by now." He looks down, despondent. Unwell and miserable, resigned, not like the murderer you've heard whispering tales about in the alleyways and lifeless bars of your hometown….not like this lounge, that's speckled with colour and bursting at the seams with life long past lived. "But it's not true. I'm not like that. I'm not…"

"...Mean and scary?" As the words slip out, you tilt your head away to keep yourself from looking at him straight, though you can't avoid the gentle touches of Eddie's cool fingers as he splays them over the back of your hand. Holding it delicately like a paper fan, keeping it close to him but not indecently, he borrows it for a short while and perhaps it's merely to feel a bit of your human warmth. You'd like to think that, and yet the intensity of his gaze on your lips says otherwise.

"Do you think of me like that? You think I'm mean and scary?" Eddie leans on his side against the bartop, eyes never leaving you even though you struggle to pull your shoulders straight, as a lady should, and finally let his full form come into your vision instead of simply his feet.

"I…I'm frightened, yes. But not...of you."

Eddie sucks in a short, quiet breath, before letting it settle in a soft exhale as he pulls your hand towards him–a bit too excitedly, as it turns out, and he releases it with a lighthearted chuckle and scratches the back of his neck, his eyes widening for just a passing moment as he feels a bit of skin come loose and anxiously smoothes it back down before you notice. Sufficiently put back together as much as a corpse can be, Eddie takes a much more firm hold of your hand in his, and lets you feel the glimmering gold of the wedding band on his finger as he starts pulling you along away from the counter.

"Let's go somewhere we can be alone, then. I know a place." He says with a smile, and parts the crowd easily who are all too giddy to throw compliments and congratulations your way. They are….rather pleasant, for dead people.

However, you know you must grit your teeth and bear these niceties for the moment. Until you can find some path away from Eddie, and back up to the place where you belong, you will play along with his games. You will entertain him. Perhaps you may even earn his trust, and he will reveal to you a way out.

Above all, you will not be wed to a corpse, nor will you fall in love with one. That is part of your oath to Steve, and to your parents, and to everyone, to be faithful even when faced with such a morbid test of faith as this. You will do as you are told, all according to plan, whether or not Eddie makes this grim future seem more….palatable than the one that awaits you upstairs, the clock ticking away every second until the union you have been promised to.

#eddie munson #eddie's angelface #eddie munson x reader #corpse bride au #st 4 #stranger things #ellie writes #2k

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