Punk Princess
Ao3| Part 1| Part 2| Part 3| Part 4| Part 5 | Part 6| Part 7| Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10| Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 (Next Part)
Steve is still riding high on the win they got last night as him and Robin stumble towards the bleachers for free period. Gareth, Jeff and Mack hooting and hollering at them as they get closer.
“I get the old King Steve title now man, you fucking dominated on that court yesterday.” Jeff’s practically shouting and Steve beams, as Robin steals his vest to slip on, leaving him in his cut off cargos and ripped up shirt covered in enough holes you can see the long sleeved mesh shirt that’s under it. Despite his outward good mood, Steve’s deep black eyeshadow that’s smudged down his cheeks is a better representation of how he’s feeling deep down, where he pushed the pain he was still feeling about Eddie.
He’d spent an hour before the game just sitting in the back of his car crying into Robin's shoulder, where she passionately and repeatedly offered to go beat up Eddie. She never once made him feel like he was over reacting or acting stupid. She just told him it was okay to cry, and that he deserved good things, deserved friends who loved him for every part of him.
God he was so thankful for her.
He takes a seat on the end of the bleachers next to Robin, leaving no space next to him, with Gareth at his back who clapped him on the shoulder.
“That was such a good game man, I had no idea what was happening half the time, but you’re a natural.” Steve relishes in the compliment. Still trying to wrap his head around the face that the three guys had given up the night of their own beloved game to come watch Steve play. He felt a small sliver of warmth wrap around the hollow feeling Eddie had left him gutted with. These were his friends, these 4 people sitting with Steve cared about him and supported the things he liked, and he'd never experienced that kind of affection before. He was overwhelmed by it a bit.
Steve can feel Robin tense up next to him and he looks up, following her gaze to where Eddie is making his way over to them, he’s chewing on his thumb nail when he finally sits down on the other side of Jeff.
“Uh, hey guys.”
“Eddie.” Mack nods in greeting, shooting him a look that gets Eddie sighing as he turns and locks his eyes on Steve. “I over reacted, and I’m sorry.”
The apology feels hollow to Steve. Like Eddie means it but doesn’t fully understand what he’s apologizing for and Steve’s really just so tired and doesn’t want to stop hanging out with the friends sitting around him so he nods, accepting it at face value and offers Eddie a neutral smile. The skin between his eyebrows crease as he looks at Steve, but he nods in return and that’s that.
Steve doesn’t feel like anything was really resolved, but he’s not really sure how to bring up the fact that Eddie obviously doesn’t see him as anyone important, or as a friend even, so he just chews on his cheek and tunes into whatever Gareth and Robin have started talking about.
He still feels the lead brick sitting heavy in his stomach.
The weight stays with him all day, barely able to hold any eye contact with Eddie whenever they talk. And he’s pulling on everything he used to be to just pretend like he’s fine and everything’s good now, but he can’t stop feeling a little bit like his heart’s been pulverized.
Because really, when all is said and done, the love he feels for Eddie won’t just go away like he so wishes it would. It’s eating at him the same way his love for Nancy did and it’s taking all of his will power not to just ditch school and drive to Indy to get lost in alcohol for the weekend. But Hopper and Joyce are going out of town, and Steve's on big brother babysitting duty for El, so he’s stuck sober and actively present in his life.
Steve throws himself down on the couch when he gets home, El stampeding out of her bedroom to launch onto Steve's back with a happy giggle.
“Welcome home!” She’s always so excited when he comes home, no matter how long he’s been out and it makes Steve’s heart feel full and content most days. Today he just feels hollow.
“Hey love bug, how was your day?” He turns his face sideways so he’s not mumbling into the couch as she latches onto his back in a hug.
“A little boring, but Dad came home for lunch and we had Egos, so that made it a lot better.” Steve feels some of his hollowness fill as she rambles on. Her speech has gotten so much better over the last few months, and she seems to be having more good days than bad lately, and it makes everything feel just a little bit brighter.
“Why are you sad?” She pulls her face up closer to his ear to ask the question, running her hand through his hair the same way he’s seen Hopper do to her when she’s upset, and it fills his heart a little bit more. “I heard you crying last night, and you are still sad now.”
Steve feels a few cracks form in his heart. No one, besides Robin, has ever really asked him about how he’s feeling before. No one’s cared enough to take the time to learn what’s going on in his head, and El’s always surprising him with how fucking huge her heart is after everything she’s been through.
“Just… found out I wasn’t really friends with someone the way I thought we were.”
“That can happen?”
“Not with your friends El. The Party is way too loud about how they feel about things to ever pretend to be your friend if they didn’t care about you.” She frowns at him.
“But someone you are close to has done this?”
“Yeah, but I’ll be okay, Bug. Have you eaten dinner?” She shakes her head softly, carding her hands through his hair some more and Steve hums happily, muscles he didn’t even know were tense relaxing at the touch.
“Well we are friends. And you’re my brother. I have not pretended about that.”
And if she sees a tear roll down his cheek she doesn’t say anything, just keeps running her hands through his hair and clinging tightly to his back.
~
It’s been awhile since Steve woke up screaming from a nightmare. Usually he can keep it to a swift jolt up in bed and heavy breathing. But the memory of Billy’s fists and the Demodogs in the tunnels is heavy in the front of his mind as he screams awake. El clamoring into his room with her arm outstretched ready to fight whatever was hurting Steve.
“I’m okay El, It was just a bad dream.” She crawls across his bed, gently pushing aside the guitar laying next to him to curl up into his side and wrap her arms around him.
“I have them too, sometimes.” Her words are quiet and she nuzzles in closer to him as his arm comes around to rest on her shoulder. “Dad told me that it’s normal after everything I have been through.”
“Yea kiddo it is.”
“Was it the Billy one again?” She’s hesitant when she asks the question, tilting her head up to look at his face.
“Again? You been checking on me in the mind place when I’m sleeping?” He makes sure to add a teasing tone to his voice, not wanting her to ever think he’s mad at her.
“I worry.”
Fuck what did Steve do to earn this precious girls love. The little sister he’s always wanted, found through trauma and an interdimensional monster. The him of a year and a half ago would have gone straight to the looney bin if you tried to tell him this was his life now.
“I’m lucky to call you my sister, El.” He whispers, squeezing her shoulder briefly before letting sleep take him again.
Ao3| Part 1| Part 2| Part 3| Part 4| Part 5 | Part 6| Part 7| Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10| Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 (Next Part)
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I'm sorry, but what's with all these anons that are convinced Buck and Eddie are gonna refer to each other as brothers? Lol. I'm not saying it's impossible, but after 5 seasons of carefully not defining what their relationship is—not even as best friends, aside from that one time Buck said it—why would they suddenly let go of all that valuable plausible deniability? Like, it just doesn't make sense to me, even if it is intended as part of a larger story arc, because people will stop taking it seriously the instant they say something like "brothers" (as opposed to, like, best friends)
I have no earthly idea. I just logged on this morning and saw anons fretting about it all over my dash. My best guess is someone on here said something, and now it's being parroted by fifty other people who took it as confirmed canon and worked themselves into a frenzy.
And even if they did, like, why would it... matter..?
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even if gege was nonbinary as you clam he still didn’t care or develop the female characters in his stories 🤷🏻♀️ they all died or were sidelined and only maki got some development and that’s disproportional compared to the male characters. being lgbt does not make an author less likely to be misogynistic, that’s a stupid take.
i'm not saying gege is nonbinary, you completely missed the point of my previous answer. saying gege is nonbinary is gendering them. nonbinary is a type of gender that some people have, there are various types of that kind of gender. you clearly don't understand basic gender related issues, idk how am i even supposed to respond to you.
from what i've seen, and i'm in no way a queer or gender researcher, just a casual observer, there are people who have one of the 2 binary genders, there are various flavours of nonbinary genders, there are people who are gender fluid or have multiple genders (and yes i've also seen both the takes that these kinds of genders fall under the nonbinary umbrella and the takes that say they don't and i will not under any circumstance take a stance on that) and there are people who are agender who reject the whole idea of gender, they have their own individual takes on it.
and the whole point with gege akutami is that officially gege didn't subscribe to any gender. they don't disclose their gender and the respectful thing to do is not to gender them. especially not to gender them as an excuse to dehumanise them.
please don't misrepresent or define for me what my takes are, don't do it to anyone actually. it's rude, for one, like gendering people who specifically don't provide their gender. but it actually makes you look bad in a discussion, it significantly weakens your point and makes you look silly because you're arguing against made up things. but also it's an abuse tactic and i have a history of abuse and it's actually slightly triggering to me. this last thing is actually crucial why you shouldn't put words in other people's mouth, you don't know what they've been through and how much something like that may affect them. so doing that just to "win" an internet argument is really inappropriate.
i have never implied that being part of a minority makes one immune to bigotry towards a different minority, or even their own. it's actually something i've talked about angainst before in the context of a hxh harassment campaign a few years ago where people said that they can't be racist because they are some kind of queer, or a different kind of poc than the person they targeted.
it seems to me that you take the zerosum attitude to feminism which is a choice. i think it's a very performative internet leftist choice but you do you.
if you're actually interested in what i think about jjk female characters, and why i think jjk is actually doing some stuff right regarding feminism and why calling it and especially the author misogynist is in bad faith read this. it's long, it's not perfect and replies to very particular statements made by someone i'm actually friends with rn, but it's pretty exhaustive. it also applies feminism in a way that isn't as simplistic as trying to count percentages of female character whatever to male character whatever.
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