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wynnyfryd · 1 month

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Trailer park Steve AU part 59

part 1 | part 58 | ao3

cw: canon-typical horror/gore (like for real this time), emetophobia, reference to minor character death. ty to @thisapplepielife for indulging my weirdly specific research about headstones

Steve tries to follow her — gets shot down before he even gets within speaking range, Max shouting at him to give her a minute the second she spots him coming over the hill. He backs off, hands raised in surrender, and then…

Well, then he’s already out of the car.

Well then his feet know where to take him.

His dad’s grave isn’t far. Maybe a football field away, close enough that he’ll be able to hear it if Max calls for help. He moves toward it without thought, his legs carrying him past simple overgrown markers in the oldest part of the park — crumbling remnants of civil war soldiers, farmers and shopkeepers and factory workers, people who worked the mines, people who died before his grandfather was born. People who might have been loved once, before time and moss and water stripped their names off of the stones.

Up the next slope, the markers get more elaborate, shift from bronze to granite to marble, to monuments and mausoleums and a fucking obelisk; ostentatious displays of the town’s oldest money. The coal barons, the oil tycoons. Rotten bastards, Wayne might say.

The Harringtons aren't that rich. They're further down the hill in a neatly manicured row of Indiana limestone; fresh flowers on each grave, the weeds plucked, the grass trimmed.

Dad's buried right next to Grandpa Otis.

It almost looks nice.

Crisp, clean, dry. Nothing to suggest the messy wet red of his father's demise. Steve shoves his hands in his front pockets and steps up to his dad's plot, toes the edge of it, the rounded lump of earth, sparse grass and loose soil where his father's bones are laid. The ground gives a little under his weight, the dirt compacting. Could he dig this up with just his hands? Could he claw through until he reached the bottom, pry open the box and peer inside? Unbidden, the image forms in his mind: worm food and rot, half a man left inside, somehow still frowning in disappointment with his jaw bone shining clean.

Steve's stomach turns. A sick shiver runs through him, saliva flooding his mouth, sweat beading at his hair line.

This isn't right.

Something's not right.

There's a sudden chill in the air, frigid wind carrying a smell like roadkill in the summer — heat wafting from the pavement, death clogging up his throat. Steve covers his nose and wills his shoulders down from his ears; tries to mutter words of comfort to himself under his breath. “Just a graveyard, Steve. Just a totally… normal…”

Ice on the back of his neck. Steve tenses every muscle, turns his good ear toward the sound of whatever's creeping up on him; something taller than him, something slithering and wet, its rasping rattles of frozen breath sending goosebumps down Steve's arms. His hands twitch inside his pockets.

Then, a voice — a voice that isn’t his, that can’t be anyone’s, because the man it belonged to is dead. “That Munson boy was right about you."

Steve can't fucking breathe. Dark clouds roll in around him, violent as a blooming bruise, and that voice behind him echoes — distorted, vicious; hungry.

"You are a black hole."

Steve grabs two fistfuls of his own hair and tugs; wills the pain to dispel the nightmare, his eyes swimming from the sting.

The thing behind him laughs. "Look how you ruined your mother," it snarls. "Look how you tore her apart.”

"Shut up!" Steve barks with his hands over his ears.

“Steve…” The voice deepens, beckons, thick with malice and rot. Steve slowly turns to face it, trembling all over, pulse thudding in his ears, and his shoes squelch in the dirt, and when he looks down he sees that the dirt has turned to mud that now turns to oozing red, a viscous river beneath his feet, flowing up over his ankles, pouring from his father's grave. And there, in front of him, a mangled remnant stands. The ruined corpse of Richard Harrington, his skin shriveled and gray, the torn parts of him held together by his clothes. There’s a hole in his torso where the exposed ribs glint like knives.

Steve throws up on himself.

The ground gives way beneath him, goes spongy like rotting meat, and the thing wearing his dad's face cackles as Steve sinks into the earth, the grave swallowing him whole, up to his calves, his knees, his thighs. "Join me," it offers, lipless smile full of teeth.

The glamor peels back to reveal a monster underneath, its scarred skin crawling in mucus-coated vines; naked, long-limbed, stitched together with burnt flesh.

Steve screams as he scrambles for purchase, up to his hips now in the muck, his feet on the lid of his dad's casket. He claws blindly at the loose ground but it’s all thick and wet with red, and the air itself is red; blood in the sky, in his eyes, in his lungs. He's going to die here. The voice tells him so. It's in his head now, a bellowing echo as the monster draws near, one hideous hand outstretched, an all-consuming join me, join me, JOIN ME—

“HEY!!!”

Max shouts directly in his face, shaking him hard by both shoulders where they're crouched on the cool ground, Kate Bush leaking from the headphones slung around her neck. Steve gives a startled shout and jerks back out of her grip, falling hard on his ass, landing harder on his elbows.

The world shifts back to blue. To dry, clean grass. To breathable air.

Steve pants up at the sky. His shirt clings to him where he's soaked it through with sweat. When Max offers him a hand, he stands on shaky legs, looks at the ground beneath his feet and screams again, scurrying back until his ass hits a stranger's headstone.

There’s a dent in the earth where he was standing. A smudge of packed dirt where he really did sink in. Steve stares at it; feels it reaching out for him, the dark patch thudding like a heart beat, spreading out like snaking vines.

He clutches at his heaving chest. Max’s eyes are huge on him.

"Okay, what the fuck?" she begs.

"What the fuck yourself!"

No heat behind the words, but they burn him, anyway, pushed out on a weak gasp. Is this what she was talking about? Is this what she calls nothing?

This doesn't feel like fucking nothing.

“Shit," she says, and her eyes go even wider. Steve can see the veins in them. "Shit, Steve, your nose…”

He swipes his arm across his face.

It comes back red.

—

part 60

tag list in separate reblogs under '#trailer park steve au taglist' if you'd like to filter that content. if you want to be added please comment and let me know (must be over 21; please either verify in the comment or have your age visible on your blog)

#trailer park steve au #steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #max mayfield #vecna

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ladykailitha · 2 months

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The Harrington Pattern Part 9

As you guys wanted, here's me doubling up on posting days. It will (hopefully) be twelve hours apart so that each chapter can get some love.

In this chapter we have a lot of flirting between Eddie and Steve. The Party being "meh" *shrugs shoulders* at Steve being bi. And Robin being the most soulmate a guy could ask for.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

MY TAG LIST FOR THIS STORY IS CLOSED!!!!

@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @emly03

****

That night they were all gathered to watch the amateur theatrical society put on Much Ado About Nothing.

Even the ones who had been reluctant to join in were doubled over in laughter at the trick the Prince pulled on Beatrice and Benedict. The way they cried when Hero was accused of cheated on Claudio. And cheered when it was resolved happily ever after.

Mike complained about it all the way to the car. “We were forced to read this play in eighth grade and I hated it. I never knew it was funny.”

Eddie put his arm around his shoulder. “That is the unfortunate side effect of the education system. They suck the joy out of all of everything.”

“Normally I’m rolling my eyes at Eddie’s rants,” Robin said, “but I’m going to have to agree with him on this one. They just want sanitized versions of everything.”

Steve nodded. “Like what’s with the jump in American history when we stop in eighth grade at the Civil War and then all the way to WWII in eleventh grade, with only a brief mention of WWI as it related to WWII. Are they really trying to tell us that nothing happened in those eighty years of note? Like the fuck?”

Mike blinked at him. “Holy shit, I never even realized.”

The kids looked around at each other in shock.

“They push math and science,” Eddie continued, “but shit on everything else, except sports.”

He winced when realized what he had said. He looked over at Steve with an apology on his lips, but Steve was nodding.

“And they have to be the right sports, too,” Steve agreed. “Wrestling, swimming, soccer...anything outside the big three baseball, football, or basketball. Trust me, I got a lot of flack on being on the swim team. It was ‘gay’.”

“What?” Will squawked. “Why?”

Eddie licked his lips. “Little, teeny, tiny uniforms.” He emphasized the point holding his fingers not that far apart.

Dustin snorted. “Can’t be any worse than the basketball shorts.”

Steve looked upwards as he chewed on the bottom of his lip.

Dustin’s eyes bulged out of his head. “How much worse are we talking about here?”

“Speedo.”

Lucas frowned. “What the fuck is a Speedo?”

Eddie was practically vibrating in his skin. “Can I tell them, Stevie? Can I please?”

Steve let out a little sigh. The sigh the Party lovingly called his mom sigh. It was the sound he made when he knew no mater what he did it was going to end badly for him, so he just...let it happen.

He waved at Eddie to go ahead.

“Instead of swim trunks, that have a leg on them,” Eddie crowed, “Speedos are swim underpants. They cover the junk, the ass, and that’s it.”

“And you deliberately wore these things?” Max asked in interest. More interest than Lucas or any of the guys were comfortable with.

“I’m good at it,” Steve said, blush creeping up his ears and down his throat from the stain on his cheeks. “The uniform wasn’t as bad Eddie’s making it out to be.”

Gareth snorted. “Nope, they really are that bad. There was a period of time where–”

Eddie slammed his hand over Gareth’s mouth. “There’s no need to tell them about that, Gare.”

Steve looked over at Brian.

“Your senior year Eddie forced all of Hellfire to watch your meets.”

“Bri!” Eddie protested.

Steve looked over at Eddie and raised an eyebrow. “You like the...what was you it called it,” he said tapping his finger on his lips, “the ‘little, teeny, tiny’ uniform, Eds?”

Eddie threw his arms in the air. “I am but a gay man in a small town, so sue me!”

“I always preferred the lifeguard uniforms at the community pool,” Steve said. “Less wedgies.”

“Babe,” Eddie scoffed, “those shorts and tank left very little to the imagination. At least with the Speedo you knew what you were getting. With the lifeguard uniform it was all fantasy.”

Steve laughed. “I bet you were the kind who faked drowning to get CPR from their favorite lifeguard.”

“I can honestly say, I’ve never done that.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked all smiles. “Can you prove that?”

Eddie got up close to him and whispered, “Yeah, darlin’. I think I would have remembered you rescuing me before the Upside Down.” He winked at him and sauntered off. The rest of the band hastily said their goodbyes and hurried after their ride home.

Steve’s face was as red as his old life guard uniform. “Right. Let’s get home, yeah?”

Dustin eye’s narrowed at him for a moment. “Steve Harrington, are you crushing on my DM?”

The remaining eight looked at Dustin in shock.

“Dude!” Will hissed. “You can’t just ask that in public! What if someone overheard you?”

Dustin looked around and waved his hand around him. “There is literally no one here. I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t think it was a safe time to ask. But I’m going home with my mom as soon as she gets here and I will not be stymied.”

Steve ducked his head. “And if I did like boys, that would be okay with everyone?”

Everyone just looked around at each other and there was this collective shrug.

“Do you still like girls?” Max asked, genuinely curious.

Steve nodded shyly.

Lucas frowned. “You can like both?”

“Like David Bowie!” El said with her serene smile. “He likes both. Freddie Mercury from Queen, too.”

Steve snapped his fingers. “Exactly like that, El!”

Her smile grew.

“It’s okay if you like Eddie that way,” Mike said softly.

All the heads snapped to look at him.

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, okay. I have a lot to work on regarding the whole Lucas thing, but I’m not a complete ass.”

“Thank you,” El said and kissed his cheek. “You just have a lot growing up to do. We all do. We just need to give each other the chances to do so safely. Or at least that’s what Joyce keeps telling me.”

Steve gave her a hug. “Thanks, Supergirl.”

He looked out at all his friends. The people who were more his family then his own parents.

“I might have a small...” he raised his finger and thumb, “crush on a certain metalhead DM who recently joined the Party in March...”

Robin scoffed. “And by little he means huge!” She spread out her arms all the way out.

Dustin’s head snapped around to Steve. “If you two get together, he better treat you right. You deserve it.”

Steve blinked. Considering how Dustin had worded his original question, he had been sure that Dustin was going to him not to break Eddie’s heart.

He gave Dustin a hug and kissed the top of his head.

He really shouldn’t have doubted this kid.

Just then, Claudia pulled up in her station wagon and Dustin, El, Will and Mike all piled in after saying their goodbyes.

“He totally has the hots for you, by the way,” Max said dryly.

Steve blinked at her for a moment. “How do you know that? Does he spend all his days learning alt rock on his guitar or something for me?”

Max just blinked at him. “Huh. You aren’t as stupid as I thought.” And then she just started walking toward the car.

Steve scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “So to make sure I got this right, Max is saying Eddie has the hots for me because he’s been learning my favorite songs for me on his guitar?”

“That’s what it sounded like to me, man,” Lucas said with a half shrug.

“I’m with Lucas on this one,” Robin agreed. “So maybe you should do what I’ve been suggesting for the last three weeks and you know ASK HIM OUT!”

Lucas giggled.

“Shush you,” Steve admonished. “Get to the car.” He pointed at Robin. “You are spending the night with me to help plan out something cool.”

Robin saluted and Lucas just rolled his eyes and they all walked to the car to end another great night at the fair.

****

“Let’s play to your strengths,” Robin said, sitting cross-legged on Steve’s bed.

“Sports, sewing, and history,” Steve said, ticking them off on his fingers. “Fat lot of good that’s going to do me. It’s not as though I can whip out something overnight as a token of my affection.”

She rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t have to be something fancy. You could do something small. Like maybe use that fancy red thread you got at the weavers yesterday.”

He blushed. “I wouldn’t know where to start. Everything I know how to make is either winter stuff or something he’d never use.”

“He uses that handkerchief all the time,” Robin pointed out. “You could do something like that.”

Steve flopped dramatically on his back. “Not if he knew it was made from that fancy thread I got. He’d want to protect it.”

Robin had to give him that one. Because that would be an Eddie thing to do. And while the sentiment was sweet it would make Steve sad that he never used it.

Suddenly Steve sat up. “Oh!”

She blinked at him. “What’s ‘oh’?”

“He was telling me just last week,” he explained, “that the bag he used to hold all his dice for their game got a hole in it and it kept spilling the dice all over the inside of his backpack!”

Robin grinned. “Let’s pick out the best material to match that pretty thread.”

Steve nodded. “I just have to make a quick phone call to find out how big the bag should be and I can have this done in no time at all.”

He called Dustin and told him his idea. Dustin was ecstatic and told him everything he needed to know.

Robin and Steve then dug into his material stores and picked out a nice black felt and a satin red lining to make doubly sure Eddie wouldn’t lose the dice down the gaping maw that was his backpack.

He then showed Robin how to make patterns and cut them. Then he got to work.

Even with how easily Robin got bored, she watched the whole time with fascination. How he embroidered his pattern into what would be the front of the bag. How quickly and evenly Steve stitched the pieces of cloth together. He explained the process every step of the way and her eyes just lit up.

He turned the bag right side out and fitted it with silver draw string. He pulled it taut and held it up to Robin to see.

She reached out and gently took it from him. “That’s so cool. You do a bunch of these at work and send them to Katie as way to gauge reactions to your work, while you make bigger pieces.”

Steve licked his lips. “You really think these would sell?”

“And I think Eddie would be pleased as punch that he got the first official Harrington Pattern design.”

Steve took it back from her and smiled. “That would make it even more special, wouldn’t it?”

Robin grinned. “Yes, yes it would.”

He threw his arms around her. “You’re the best soulmate anyone could possibly ask for.”

She blushed but held him tight. “You too, Stevie.”

When Steve finally pulled back he tapped his finger on his lips. “Now what to make you.”

Robin squealed. “But you already made something awesome. The pirate costume was amazing, you don’t have to do more just because you made Eddie something.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yes, but I just tailored the clothes. I didn’t make them. I want to make you something.”

She scoffed. “Like the only thing I need are gloves for marching band. Since I have to have hand-me-downs, they are either too tight or way too big.”

His eyes lit up. “I’ve never made gloves before. That would be fun and interesting to try.”

“How would you even measure something like that?” Robin asked, a small amount of hope creeping into her voice.

Steve grinned. “Do you remember those ugly ass hand turkeys they made us draw in elementary school?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Just. Like. That.”

Her eyes went wide. “Wait are you serious?”

Steve just grinned.

****

Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13

I'm not 100% sure my history experience in school is universal in the US, but in order to bridge the gap you actually had to an elective history class called Twentieth Century. Like it was straight up bullshit. And before you ask, you can bet your ass I took that class. It was taught by my favorite teacher. Of course I took that class.

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#my writing #stranger things #steddie #ladykailtiha writes #steve is a history nerd

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