unfinishedslurs

[unfinishedslurs]

Nancy's GBF (ghost best friend)

IT'S OCTOBER QUICK POST GHOST BARB FIC

She dreams about Barb every night.

She’s dreamed about her before, of course, but ever since Vecna died it’s different. She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t cry. There’s no blame placed on Nancy’s shoulders, no shrieking accusations about how it should have been her instead. 

She’s a silent figure. Unmoving, unfeeling. No matter how far Nancy reaches, or how fast she runs, she can never get close. 

Eventually, she comes into focus, and it’s awful because she seems younger than she ever did in real life. Her best friend died a child, closer to her little brother’s age than Nancy’s own now. The red shade of her hair, the exact outfit she had on, it’s all things she forgets in the waking world. But for these few minutes she can have Barb back. Even if she can never hug her best friend again, or exchange secrets, or laugh together, she still has this.

When she wakes up, it’s with tears on her face.

“Nancy?” Jonathan asks groggily, still half asleep. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Later, when he tells her he was accepted to Lenora Hills, she’ll wonder if she could have saved their relationship if she hadn’t started lying too.

Two months after the dreams start, Barb speaks. 

“Nancy? Nancy, it’s so cold. I don’t like it here, Nancy, please–”

In that moment, Nancy can finally reach out and take her hand.

She wakes up shivering and automatically checks her surroundings. Mike bursts through her door when she shrieks, her mom not far behind him.

They both try to ask her what’s wrong, but she can’t answer, too busy staring at the dead girl in the corner.

“Nancy?” Barb asks, pool water dripping down her chin. “What’s wrong with me?”

She tries to ignore it.

She’s having a mental breakdown of some kind, that’s fine. It’s to be expected, really. She’s been struggling keeping up with school, and the end of the world, and breaking up with Jonathan. Of course she’d see Barb around every corner. Of course she’d be cold all the time. Of course. And everyone knows the first step of having a mental break is to not feed into the delusion. 

She checks with El and Will, just to be safe.

They both look confused when they open the door, which makes sense. She and Jonathan have been split up for a month, she hasn’t exactly been around. Still, they accept her inside without question.

“I need you to make sure Henry isn’t back,” she blurts out as soon as the door shuts behind her. Both of them rear back in tandem, and something clatters in the kitchen. 

“Nancy?” Jonathan pokes his head around the corner, bewildered. “Are you okay?”

“Jonathan!” She feels herself flush. Why didn’t she think he’d be home? She knows he doesn’t have a job anymore, and his friend Argyle went back to California a while ago. Where else would he be?

“Nance, you’re pale,” he says, like she hasn’t noticed. As if her mom hasn’t said the same thing a hundred times in the past few days. He reaches out to guide her to the couch, and flinches back as soon as he feels her bare skin. “You’re freezing. Let me get you a blanket.”

She turns and looks at the kids as soon as he’s out of sight, noticing the way Will is rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “I’m sorry, I’ve been having weird dreams for a while, and lately it’s gotten…worse, I guess, and I need to make sure it’s not him. It doesn’t feel like him, but I need…I can’t…”

El’s face turns into something determined, and oh, Nancy hates asking this of her. But if Vecna isn’t really dead, if they can get a headstart on his next plan, well. The sooner the better.

Ten minutes later the three siblings are sitting across from her, El tying a blindfold around her eyes as a blanket sits on Nancy’s shoulders. It doesn’t do anything to help, of course. It’s nothing like when Will was possessed but the mindflayer. The heat doesn’t bother her, no matter how many times she brings a spare blanket to add to the pile on her bed or turns the shower faucet to its highest setting. In fact, she can’t feel it at all.

“Close your eyes,” El commands. “Focus. I need to be able to see inside you.”

She grimaces, involuntarily glancing at Barb in the corner. The past few days she’s been weeping nonstop. More than a few times, Nancy has cried with her. Now, though, she looks around the Byers’s new place curiously.

Nancy shuts her eyes.

“Don’t shut me out,” El reminds her gently, and then light floods her vision. 

Barb, always Barb. When they were kids they would push each other on the swingset and dare each other to climb trees. The last time she saw her, reassuring her she’d be fine before following Steve upstairs. Vecna daring to taunt her, as if she could ever forget what she’d lost.

A million memories, some she’d almost forgotten. And then it’s over too soon.

El rips the blindfold off, breathing heavily. Jonathan hands her a tissue for her nose, looking at Nancy with so much concern it feels like it’s going to kill her.

“What did you see?” Will asks frantically. “Was it him?”

El shakes her head, confirming what Nancy already knew deep down. “It wasn’t him.”

“Then what was it?” Jonathan asks, eyes still on Nancy. She raises a shaking hand to her face, and it comes away wet.

“Nothingness,” El finally says. “And then sadness, and cold, and dark. And a light. There was a light, and a hand, and then there was warmth and feeling again. But the feelings are bad. They are not Henry, but they are not good.”

“So she’s real?” Nancy’s voice cracks.

“What? Who’s real? Nancy, what’s going on?” Jonathan asks. WIll just looks at her, concern in his big eyes.

El tilts her head. “I think so? But I do not know her. I can’t see her like you can.”

“Who is ‘she?’” Jonathan demands. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?”

“I actually have to go,” Nancy says, almost stumbling as she stands up. She takes a moment to fold the blanket Jonathan gave her so kindly. He’s still trying to get her attention, but she brushes him off as she heads out the door and to her car.

“Nance, please, I know we broke up but I still care–”

“I know!’ She says, whipping around. Barb watches curiously from the corner of her eye. “I know you do, and that’s great, really, but it’s none of your business. I didn’t even think you’d be here, so…”

“Where else would I be?”

“I don’t know, Jonathan, California?” She snaps. He rears back. “Isn’t that where you’re going anyway? Just– stop acting like this is any of your business! We broke up, we’re done, I don’t… I don’t want to talk, Jon! Just leave it alone.”

“Nancy…” he reaches out, and Nancy takes a step back. Barb appears between them in an instant, and his hand passes right through her. He jumps, swearing and turning pale. Nancy feels herself gasp, feeling warm for the first time in days in that split second before he pulls back.

He watches her silently, with those big eyes she’s always been weak to. She doesn’t have anything to say to him, or maybe she has too much to say. Either way, she gets in her car silently, driving off and leaving him standing in the rearview.

For once, she doesn’t startle when Barb jumps into existence in the front seat.

“Byers, huh?” She asks, something like humor in her voice. She always sounds distant now, like she’s underwater, or whispering from across a field. But Nancy understands what she’s saying. She always will. 

Barb sighs when she doesn’t answer. “At least his brother’s alive, I guess.”

That makes Nancy laugh, a harsh cackle that would make her jump if it came out of someone else. “Yeah,” she agrees, speaking to the ghost of her best friend for the first time, “At least Will’s alive.”

It’s not like having Barb back. Not really.

She’s bitter, and angry, and she screams and yells and cries all the time. Sweeps her arm across Nancy’s desk like she’s trying to break something, and only gets angrier when she can’t. Yells at Nancy sometimes, which she knows she deserves.

There’s the blame for her death of course, which is nothing new. She’s been having nightmares about that for years. But then there’s the other stuff. The weird questions, like, “Why did you bring me back? Why couldn’t you let it be?”

When she asks about it, all she gets is Barb turning away from her.

“Nancy? Naaaaaaancy. Nance, are you listening to me?”

She turns her head and almost shrieks to see Robin staring at her, almost nose to nose. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for, like, forever minutes,” she complains.

Nancy looks at Steve. “It was, like, forever,” he confirms, staring at her intensely. “You okay, Nance?”

 Eddie rolls his eyes. “It’s been thirty seconds,” he deadpans.

Robin flops onto the floor. “Forever.”

“I’m starting to think getting you guys high was a mistake.”

“You say that every time. It’s not even your weed.” Steve yanks the dying bud out of his hand, taking a drag that has to be mostly ash at this point and putting it out on the ashtray. They don’t do this often, or at least Nancy doesn’t join them often. She’s not fond of the floaty feeling the weed gives her, preferring alcohol if she’s not going to be sober. But Eddie asked her to come, and Steve and Robin prefer having more people around if they’re going to get high. Something about what the Russians gave them.

She hasn’t seen Jonathan here since they broke up, but she thinks that’s less about them not inviting him and more about everyone trying to give them both space. 

Nancy’s gaze has already wandered back to Barb. It’s been a quiet day today, which makes her nervous for tomorrow. But at least during quiet days she can seem semi-normal in front of her friends.

“Nancy? Seriously, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she tells Steve, not bothering to look away from Barb. She looks from Nancy to Steve, this new, older Steve she’s seeing for the first time, and pretends to gag herself on a finger. The pool water that never stops coming out of her mouth splatters silently on the floor. Nancy doesn’t laugh. 

“Hey.” Steve moves in front of her, slightly wobbly as he sits cross legged across from her. She can barely see Barb past his hair. “Yanno, Jonathan asked about you.”

“What?” That breaks her from her trance.

“Yeah, he said he was worried about you. I asked him why he was asking me and not you, but he said you didn’t want to talk about it. But he was, like, really worried Nance. So, like, is everything alright?”

“Do you ever dream about dead people?” She blurts out.

All three of them go completely silent, staring at her. She laughs nervously. “Never mind! Never mind, that’s weird. Wow, why did I ask that? I think I took too many hits. Where’s your bathroom?”

“I mean,” Eddie says, after Steve doesn’t answer, “I dream about Chrissy all the time. How could I not? Shit was a real life nightmare, of course it made its way into my dreams.”

Steve shakes himself. “I guess I dream about Billy, but that’s different. I mean, it’s still a nightmare, but it’s not like…” his hand drifts unconsciously to the faint scar on his forehead. “It’s not about the Upside-Down, I guess. It’s not the same as my other nightmares.”

“I have dreams where people die all the time,” Robin declares, scooching herself across the floor until she can lay in Steve’s lap. “They suck.”

“Yeah, but are any of the dreams ever…weird to you guys? Like they’re not normal nightmares? Like they’re there all the time, just staring at you, and you try to reach for them but you never can?” She asks desperately.

The three of them look at each other, and shake their heads.

“Cool,” Nancy says, palms sweating. “Me neither.”

It’s raining when Mike storms into her room while Nancy is trying (and failing) to do college prep. “What is wrong with you?”

Barb starts laughing, a gurgling, chilling sound that Nancy heard once and made her summarily decide to never make a joke again. 

“What are you talking about?” She asks, eyes flitting between Mike and Barb. “Get out!”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” he accuses. “You’re not even looking at me!”

“Maybe I just don’t want to see your dumb face.”

“Fuck off!”

“Michael!” Their mother hollers. 

He rolls his eyes. “Ugh, sorry!”

#stranger things fanfic #nancy wheeler #barbara holland #ghost barbara holland #nancy's gbf au #barbs got JOKES in this frankly nancy should have laughed at them smh #the idea of barb coming back somehow to see how nancy has changed since she died is so intriguing to me #in my mind vecna dying released the spirits he was holding and somehow nancy's freshly reawakened regrets were so strong she like #summoned barb somehow instead of letting her rest or whatever #so thats what barb means when she asks nancy why she couldn't let her go #this doesn't happen with anyone else bc uhhhhh reasons. i am no longer taking questions at this time #or maybe max is going through the same thing #OHHHHH THAT WOUD BE SO FUN TO WRITE I LOVE NANCY AND MAX PARALLELS

[unfinishedslurs]

love that I posted this and then immediately forgot to switch to main again. do u still think I’m hot

sorry for getting bored at work and accidentally reblogging a bunch of shit to my writing account. it will happen again

#not writing

[unfinishedslurs]

sorry for getting bored at work and accidentally reblogging a bunch of shit to my writing account. it will happen again

#not writing

[unfinishedslurs]

ships passing in the night

Steve would love to introduce Robin to his boyfriend, if only he could get them in the same room.

At the rate he’s pulling his hair out, he’ll be bald before they ever meet.

#steddie #stobin #stranger things fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #i had fun with this one #even tho it physically pained me to write robin not knowing Steve is queer #but I had to do it. for the PLOT #two finished fics in the span of a week I am on a ROLL lately #(do not expect this to keep happening I will be back to my usual mojo) #FINISHEDslurs

[unfinishedslurs]

RIP Mike Wheeler’s heterosexuality

“Is being gay contagious?”

Steve stares at his phone groggily before putting it back against his ear. “…Mike?”

“Is it?”

“It’s three in the fuckin’ morning is what it is.” He rubs his nose, Mike’s words finally catching up to his brain. “Seriously, Mike? No it’s not fucking contagious, you’re not gonna get the gay disease or whatever from me. I promise you’ll keep liking girls.”

He’s a little hurt, even though he knows the question is innocent. They’ve been asking a lot of questions, like the inquisitive little assholes they are, but none of them had seemed like they weren’t okay with it. Until now.

“…that’s not what I meant,” Mike says. Steve realizes that his voice sounds shaky, even over the phone.

“Then what—“ he cuts himself off, realizing halfway through his bitching that there was only one reason Mike would call about this. “Oh.”

“Can you pick me up?”

“It’s three in the morning,” he repeats, even as he starts wondering where he left his keys. “Your mom…”

“Steve,” Mike pleads. “Please?”

He sighs. “I’m on my way.”

Mike is sitting on his doorstep when he pulls up, head in his hands. Steve doesn’t have to get out of the car, he stalks to the passenger door with all the vitriol of a boy with too many emotions to hold in, and wrenches the door open hard enough that Steve worries he’s going to break it.

“Watch it, noodle arms,” he says, trying to pretend this is normal. Maybe if he acts like it’s not well past midnight, Mike will relax.

It doesn’t work. Mike slumps in his seat, not bothering with the seatbelt. “Can you just drive?”

Steve drives. Doesn’t really know where they’re going, but it doesn’t matter. Just away seems to suffice.

He eventually pulls into a side road

“I’m scared to even touch another guy now! Because apparently hugging is gay when you’re older, and so is sleeping in the same bed, and telling your friends you love them, and…and I’m fucking scared all the time, ‘cause what if they’re right? How do they know? How can they tell by just fucking looking at me? It’s bullshit!”

“Shit, kid,” Steve says, heartbroken. “Shit. C’mere.”

He pulls him close, and Mike turns his face into the crook of his neck, shaking. His shirt collar starts to get damp.

“I don’t know what to do,” he cries. “I thought it was normal, I thought everyone was just…so scared all the time, and we just didn’t talk about it. But then you said that thing about being afraid and pushing it down, and I didn’t— I tried to ignore it. I tried so hard not to think about it, Steve, I swear I tried.”

“I know you did,” he says quietly. It hits him that he might be the only one who really gets it. Eddie gave up denying it long ago, deciding to evolve into something else for them to focus on. Robin’s a girl. Which doesn’t mean jack shit in most cases, because being a lesbian fucking sucks in a town like Hawkins, but girls aren’t as obsessive about it. Sometimes when they compare notes, Robin will just stare at him.

Mike shakes his head. “I don’t know what I did wrong,” he mumbles tearfully into his shoulder.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Steve says with a surprising amount of vehemence. He grabs Mike by his scrawny little shoulders, pulls him away so he can look directly into his bloodshot eyes. “Not a damn thing, do you hear me? There is nothing wrong with you, and anyone who tells you otherwise deserves a swift kick in the balls. Got it?”

Mike responds by bursting into loud, messy sobs.

Steve just keeps holding him, running a hand through his hair and soothing him gently, like he wishes someone had done for him or Robin or Eddie when they were young. Finally Mike pulls away, embarrassment starting to set in.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Steve asks instead of a meaningless platitude he knows Mike wouldn’t accept.

Mike gives him a suspicious look. “I guess.”

“I’m scared too. All the time.”

“No you’re not,” Mike snorts. “You don’t need to make me feel better just because I’m a pussy.”

“I’m not joking,” he says. “Why do you think I dated girls? Why do you think I went through so many lengths to hide it? It’s fucking terrifying, man. But you know what makes it less scary?”

“Dating girls? Marrying a woman?”

“No.” He pokes Mike’s chest, right over his heart. “People. Friends who love and accept you. Friends who know what you’re going through, even.”

“Do you…” Mike chews his lip. “Do you think Nancy would be okay with it? With me?”

“Absolutely I do. She was okay with me, wasn’t she? And I was her boyfriend.”

“Yeah, but it’s different when it’s your family, right? Sometimes people don’t care if someone is… people don’t care until it affects them. Do you think Nancy is like that?”

He knows Nancy isn’t like that, but that's a talk they’re going to have to have themselves. “I really don’t,” he encourages. “I think she’d be really glad to know this part of you, actually. She loves you.”

“…I know,” he says, shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t… we made this dumb no secrets pact the first time the Upside-Down happened, I don’t know why. It’s stupid. But…I don’t want to keep secrets from her anymore.”

#stranger things fanfic #steve harrington #mike wheeler #lavender overload au #this is part of my finished fic where Steve and Robin get married #Mike can be read as gay or bi here #Mike and Steve is an underrated dynamic and I love them being friends #‘oh but mike hates steve-‘ WRONG. mike hates that he wants his sisters dumb idiot ex boyfriends approval #like don’t get me wrong I do think he hated Steve at one point #but after he protected them from Billy I think it went out the window #and now he begrudgingly thinks steve is cool. and HATES it #the funniest moment in all of stranger things is when Steve called Mike Nancy while concussed #and Mike gave him the most disgusted insulted face imaginable #i laughed so hard

[unfinishedslurs]

Four months after he comes out on the floor of the Family Video bathroom, Robin sits him down on his bed.

“Okay, I’m gonna suggest something completely insane, but I’ve actually put a lot of thought and research into it and I need you to hear me out.”

Steve squints suspiciously at her, but shrugs agreeably. “Yeah, okay.”

“We should get married.”

I DID THE THING

Lavender marriage Stobin, steddie, and annoying as hell little brother Dustin Henderson. And being peer pressured into a wedding two months after you signed the certificate

#stranger things fanfic #steve harrington #robin buckley #stobin #steddie #eddie munson #gay steve harrington #i love lavender marriage stobin they are my everything #guys I have been working on this for MONTHS #i had most of it done but there was a SINGLE SCENE I couldn’t figure out how to end #AND I ENDED IT🥳🥳🥳 #this is not my longest work but it’s the longest one I’ve ever finished #FINISHEDslurs #lavender overload au

[unfinishedslurs]

Flip of a coin

(I got really into Richie and Patty fics for a while so this is based off all the ones I read. Which was every single one published before roughly halfway into 2021)

Patty remembers that Stan always had a strange obsession with Richie Tozier.

He kept up with the news around him, watched his specials even though he rarely laughed and hated them with a passion. I don’t know why, Babylove, he’d say, but I don’t think he writes his own stuff. Have you seen his interviews? They’re much funnier. It was one of his little oddities, like his need to buy every Bill Denbrough book ever published, or buy clothing from the Rogan&Marsh line, even though he’d never much cared for fashion. These obsessions made a lot more sense after Stan’s hastily scratched letter, detailing a clown and impossible things that Patty clung to in a desperate attempt to rationalize.

She knows, distantly, though gossip and magazines at the store, that he’d broken down on stage the same day Stan died. She knows he’d cancelled all his future events, made a serious video where he confessed the ghostwriters, came out as bisexual, and said he was going to take a break from comedy.

According to the internet, he’s currently on a cocaine binge in Guatemala. According to Patty’s eyes, he’s in Georgia, looking less like a man on cocaine and more like a man whose life had been steamrolled with no idea what to do with the empty space left behind.

“Patty Uris?”

She looks at him, and sees a tragedy told in three parts. A greeting, some growing, a goodbye. She looks at him, and sees a mirror.

She looks at him, and knows he sees her too.

“Blum-Uris, actually,” she says, and opens the door to let him inside.

—

“You could always try voice acting.”

“You sound like my manager. I came here to get away from my manager.”

—

Richie makes Patty laugh for the first time since Stan died

—

Richie has a nice chest for crying, she thinks, and hysterical laughter tumbles out with her tears.

—

“It’s just…I love them. I do. They’re my family, God, they deserve every happy ending they get, but I’m jealous. I’m jealous and angry and I don’t understand why they get to move on when...”

“Our happy ending was with them.”

“Yeah, that.”

They stayed silent for a while, until Richie breaks it by taking a swig and saying, “Bev’s pregnant.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she’s freaking out about it. I don’t think they meant to have a baby this soon. Or ever. I don’t think they realized that with the clown gone they could have a baby. And she just got out of her shitty marriage after her childhood with a shitty dad, and…yeah, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. She’s had about five panic attacks since she found out.”

“When did she find out?”

“Yesterday.”

Patty isn’t resentful. She thinks of all the years she and Stan spent trying to conceive, and how they eventually decided they’d be better off waiting anyways. They’d looked up adoption agencies a few times, but ultimately agreed it wasn’t the right time. She isn’t sure whether she’s grateful they never got around to it, that she doesn’t have to be a parent all on her own on top of everything else, or if the fact that she could have a piece of Stan right now, a small, babbling infant with his eyes and blood, makes her want to cry. Probably both.

She isn’t resentful, but she is jealous. It doesn’t matter. She’s a big girl, she can handle it.

She is going to be the best aunt ever.

“Do you think she’d appreciate another girl talking her through it?”

“Probably. You should call her and see.” He takes another long pull. “They want to name it after one of them. Stan or Eddie. Maybe both. She asked me to ask you whether you’d be okay with that.”

It takes a minute for that to register, and another five to get around the ache in her throat. “That’s…he’d love that.” He would. He’d pretend it bothered him, or that he wouldn’t want it, but he’d probably cry the minute he heard it.

Traditional, too, to name the baby after him, though she wasn’t sure he’d care so much about that part. She doubted his friends even realized.

“That a yes?”

No. “Yes.”

—

“He said…Patty,” he sobs. “Patty, he loved me back. He loved me back, but it didn't matter because he died and he’s gone and I spent two months begging and praying and getting drunk off my ass and it didn’t matter because he’s fucking dead.”

“It mattered to him, Richie.”

“Not enough to survive. Not enough to fucking say it without choking on the fucking blood in his mouth just to say—” he chokes the words down.

She rubs his back. “Don’t let it fester,” she reminds him, and the dam breaks.

“Why the fuck didn’t I just say it?” He explodes. “Why the fuck did I spend my entire fucking childhood pining for his firey ass when we could have had some fucking time? Why didn’t he say something? If he’d just fucking said it sooner, said anything…he was always the brave one between us. And it ended up with him fucking dead, and me on this fucking couch with you crying over misssed opportunities like a fucking…I dunno, Pats.”

“I know.”

“I don’t mean I don’t like sitting here with you,” he adds unnecessarily. They both know it’s unnecessary. She lets him do it anyway. “I just wish we were bonding over fucking…wedding photos or some shit.”

If she lays her head back and closes her eyes, she can picture it.

—

Patty breaks her fist on the wall.

It was bound to happen eventually. She’s been cycling through the anger stage of her grief for a month. Something was going to give.

Not the wall, though.

Richie takes her to the hospital.

“Sorry,” she says on the way there. She thinks she may be crying. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, it just happened, I swear—”

“Patty.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again. She’s not talking to Richie anymore. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

She doesn’t realize that he’s pulled over until he’s grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her into his arms, both of them leaning uncomfortably over the gearshift. She doesn’t mind.

“I don’t understand,” she sobs into his chest. “I don’t know what I did wrong. Why couldn’t he just stay?

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Richie says. She thinks she can feel him shaking. “It…he made his choices.”

She pulls away, suddenly furious. “That’s the problem! He fucking made that choice! He deliberately decided to leave me! And everyone says that he must have been suffering, that he must have been secretly unhappy, but I know better. We were fucking happy! Life wasn’t fucking perfect, but it was good. And he threw it all away, for—for what? What the hell was it all for?”

“I dunno, Pats, I think it was to save me and my friends,” Richie says dryly, and she knows, okay, she knows she’s angry, she knows he uses humor as his coping mechanism, she knows those two things can make a deadly combination that will leave ash in her mouth for weeks.

She says it anyways. “And look how well that worked out.”

His face shutters, and the regret comes pouring in as he turns back to the steering wheel without saying anything else. “Richie…”

“I know,” he says, holding up a hand. “I know you didn’t mean it. Let's get you to the hospital already.”

The rest of the drive is silent.

—

“Richie, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Pattycakes. I forgive you.”

“I know, but I need to say it anyways, because I’m glad you’re here, Rich. I want you here. It’s just…”

I wish things were different.

“I get it.”

“Yeah.” He doesn’t, not really, but it’s the closest thing she has. Just like she’s the closest thing he has. They’re two sides of the same coin, aren’t they?

“I blame him sometimes, you know?” Richie admits quietly. “For Eddie. It was supposed to be the seven of us…sometimes I think we could have all made it out, if he hadn’t been such a fucking—” he breaks off, taking his glasses off to rub a hand over his face. “Sorry.”

“No, I get it.”

They smile at each other, bitter things in a bitter world, because she knows Richie’s thinking the same thing she just was. She doesn’t get it, not really, but she knows better than anyone the pain of loving and hating Stanley Blum-Uris.

Flip of the coin. Heads, a life together, tails, a life apart.

—

They’re not filling the holes in each other’s lives. They’re too…them for that. There’s nothing romantic about the way Patty will sometimes make Richie’s coffee with two sugars and no cream and break down, or the days Richie will get a far off look in his eye when she does, and then they’re both mourning two different kinds of loss. They’ll never know how Eddie liked his coffee, after all.

Nothing romantic about the nights Richie wakes up screaming Eddie’s name either. They both have nightmares, but Patty’s are quieter.

They’re not filling the holes, but they’re not not filling them either. Hole-adjacent. The ache in Richie’s voice when he says Pats instead of Eds, the equal aching in her chest when she wakes up to see a dark head that isn’t her husbands.

So, no, they’re not in love. She doesn’t feel that way about him. Doesn’t think she could, even without the dead hovering over their shoulders like shrouds. They’re too similar in their differences, not each other’s types, any number of reasons they could never fall in love.

Sometimes, though, she wishes they did. Wishes Richie were the one she met at that party, wishes Richie wore a matching wedding band to the one she’s moved to her right finger.

She knows it’s less about Richie, though, and more about not feeling like she’s being picked at from the inside out. The fantasies are there because he is, not of any actual desire for a romantic connection. Doesn’t stop her from dreaming.

She only voices it to him once.

“Do you think, if things were different, we would have made a good couple?” Patty doesn’t really think so, or want to think about it, but the wine is making her maudlin and she misses him. Misses Stan so much her insides feel like a bag of rocks that’s just waiting to split open and spill out every part of her. She hates it, the missing. More than anything.

Richie snorts.

“No, really.”

“Maybe, Batty-Patty,” he says, shooting her a grin that misses humor by a mile.

She laughs at that. “I am batty for asking, aren’t I?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.” He did, just through the name, but she won’t point it out.

“We’re not compatible.”

“Nope.” He punctuates it with a drink.

“I wish we were,” she says fiercely. “I wish I’d fallen in love with you instead.”

He lowers his glass, expression somber, and watches her for a minute. Whatever he sees in her face makes his mouth quirk.

“You don’t mean that,” he tells her.

“I want to.”

“And I want to have not wasted my career parroting other people's bullshit. It is what it is, Batsy.”

That makes her giggle, despite herself. “Batsy?”

“What, you don’t like it?”

“I love it,” she says. She does. It’s fitting. “Pour me another glass.”

He indulges her, then himself. “We never could have been a good couple,” he says, trying and failing to seem flippant, “but, you know, my mom always wanted me to have a sister.”

“A sister, huh?” She stares at him, considering. “Is that what we are? Siblings?”

“Well, no,” he shrugs, “but I think it fits better than anything else.”

—

They make a chore chart.

It’s kind of dumb, Patty thinks. Objectively. They’re not college kids, they should be able to do housework on their own, without prompting.

She and Stan had never needed one.

But that’s the whole problem, isn’t it? Stan’s gone, and Richie’s here, and they both have days where they can’t even get out of bed, much less remember to make dinner or wash the dishes. The chart helps. It helps a lot.

—

Patty doesn’t sing much anymore.

—

She and Richie both have a four drink limit, established sometime between the third time Richie finds her sobbing in the bathtub, and the seventh time Patty finds him comatose on the floor. They pretend not to notice when the other breaks it.

#it fanfic #patty blum uris #richie tozier #THIS ONE IS A BUMMER GUYS #mourning #alcoholism #suicide mention #uhhhh I think that’s all the trigger wanrnings if I left any out lmk #i wish we’d gotten more patty bc I love her #Patty and Richie having a qpr after the loves of their lives die and helping each other learn to heal is something that can be so personal #that’s it that’s the fic

[unfinishedslurs]

FUCK IT POSTING MY NOTES FOR THIS FIC

Bill as Luther

Writes books with bad endings that are really just poorly fabricated versions of themselves

Not so much “how dare you spill all the family secrets” (antagonistic) as “how dare you kill me in this book” (affectionate)

Mayyybe he writes about his childhood, but. Idk

He could write about their childhood but it’s like. Them against their father/the world instead of them against each other

He could have still lost Georgie, but instead of a little brother he’s his son??? Or maybe he’s got Allison’s storyline and lost custody in the divorce. Hmmmmm I don’t like the idea of it fitting in with his powers though because he’s got super strength and Bill would never. Hmmm. Fuck

I’m an idiot it could not be more obvious that Georgie dies and then Bill and Audra divorce because that happens to a lot of couples. Sorry Georgie :/

Mike as Diego

Instead of policeman/vigilante he becomes a HISTORIAN vigilante. Or he teaches at a school. I think teaching would be good for Mike. Actually yeah I’m gonna make him a teacher

Well no because he stays in the house

He could be staying in the house but still teaching at the nearby high school that's a possibility

Come up with a reason for Mike to stay in the house????????

Or I guess he doesn’t actually have to stay in the house

Actually he could still be The One Who Stayed In Derry

OH THEY COULD STILL BE IN DERRY AKA THE MOST CRIME RIDDEN CITY IN THE USA

GREAT

GLAD WE SOLVED THIS

Ok Mike stayed because Someone Has To Stay And Help

Or maybe it’s the same city as in TUA and he stays in the house continuing to be a superhero

Does he still go to the moon???

Librarian by day, vigilante by night

Someone get this man some sleep

Ben as Allison

Instead of the “I’ve lost custody of my daughter and I miss her and I’m trying to be a better person for her” storyline Ben can have his alcoholism from the book

He’s an architect

He’s used his powers to design a building that looks like a penis I will not be taking criticism

Built the attic fort for all the losers instead of Allison building the fort for Luther

Or did Luther build it for Allison??????

Either way Ben built the fort and also always loved architecture

He’s the Momma’s boy

Richie as Klaus

uwu fandom gayboys

No I swear I have reasoning past this

1) comedic relief 2) I’m equating the deadlights to time travel and he and Bev are the ones who go through them in just like Klaus and Five are the ones who have time traveled in season one 3) Klaus’s fashion sense vs Richie’s fucking shirts

Still a comedian???? I don’t want to take away from Klaus’s homelessness because it’s such a big part of his storyline but like,,,,I like the idea of Richie still being a comedian in LA and still having the fear of coming out of the closet because of It but then again maybe he’s just fucking out and proud I like that more. Will think about it

Yeah I like the idea of him being out better, since there’s no forgetting

Goes back in time to Vietnam and meets either Connor Bowers or Steve The Manager. No incest in my story sorry reddie

Incorporate his suicidal tendencies from the book and then he and Stan have a whole language of horrible fucked up jokes good for them

Richie dies and meets Maturin the benevolent turtle god who sends him back <3

Has a drug addiction still bc like. A lot of celebrities do anyways and also I’m pretty sure it’s canon somewhere that Richie did coke in his 20’s. He’ll get over it eventually <3

Bev as Five

BEV AS FIVE BEV GOING FORWARD IN TIME AS 13 TO SEE HER FAMILY DEAD THE PARALLELS THERE I LITERALLY REFUSE TO HAVE IT BE ANYONE ELSE EVEN WHEN THEIR PERSONALITIES CLASH

Delores is Kay I love her with all my heart

Bev gives Richie the $20

Bev compliments Richie’s horrible clothing choices and Richie says “that’s right, you wanted to be a fashion designer”

The deadlights = the commission

She’s a lot nicer than Five but like. Still willing to kill people to stop the apocalypse

The cycle of abuse Bev falls into vs Five’s addiction to the apocalypse???? How to frame it hmmmm

Stan as Ben

Commits suicide at age 17 sorry bro

Like I said he and Richie have a whole thing of jokes and shit that are in very bad taste but alas,,,they’ve both died they get to make whatever jokes they want about it

Eddie as Vanya

Oooh I love this

Eddie not only thinking himself powerless but sick. He gets Vanya’s trauma and Klaus’s drug addiction but it’s like,,,,prescribed shit. Actually both Vanya and Klaus have a pill addiction.

Myra as Harold not only emptying out his pills but filling them back up with placebos to make him dependent on her and the powers are an unexpected side effect

Eddie not feeling abandoned or left out by his siblings (well yes a little bit but not the way Vanya is) but instead smothered by their overprotection of him which is the main reason he’s angry when he gets left out of family discussions and shit. He thinks they think he’s weak because he’s sick and doesn’t have powers and his siblings don’t exactly think it in the way he thinks they do but they’re still very much Must Protect Our Sick Powerless Baby Brother

So he tries avoiding the feeling and when Ben meets Myra and he’s like “uh Eddie,,,,she’s got Bad Vibes” and he’s like actually Myra is my friend and she doesn’t treat me like I’m helpless

When his powers blow up he still destroys the mansion just like Neibolt is destroyed when It dies

Minor Characters

Pennywise (Robert Gray) as Reginald

Like who else could it be

Is named Robert Gray but has his name in the comics and action figures and shit be Pennywise

The Losers still call him “It” because the funniest thing to do when you hate your dad is just not call him anything

Sonia as Pogo

I have thought about this and yes it’s the only possible explanation

Sonia as the one who keeps supplying Eddie with pills. Sonia as the one who enables It’s abuse. Sonia who spends the most time with Eddie. Sonia who calls Pennywise a great man at the funeral and everyone’s like actually fuck you

Eddie’s the closest with her, because Of Course

Eddie still kills her ofc

Myra as Harold

Her job is at a pharmacy

Or maybe as a nurse?

Replaces Eddie’s pills with placebos to make him dependent on her

What’s her motivation? Idk yet

[blank] as Hazel

Bowers as Cha-Cha

I mean really who else could it be

Maggie Tozier as Grace

In the book she’s like the perfect 50’s housewife she’s really the best candidate

Very sweet. Curly black hair, blue eyes, wide smile.

[blank] as Agnes

I swear I had the perfect fucking idea for the Hazel/Agnes storyline last night. Motherfuck

Tom as the Handler

FUCK THE HANDLER AND FUCK TOM’S NASTY ASS

Story Details

Ok so they actually get along ok they just like. Don't talk??? I guess????? Or maybe they kept in touch minimally I literally cannot bear a world where the losers remember each other and aren’t in touch

But like. They’ve still got a lot of trauma and they’re still!!! Fucked!!! Up!!!!!

They’re in Derry because it’s the most crime ridden city in the state, Gotham style

Pussywide dies and they’re all like “damn that’s fucked up. I guess it’s time to see my siblings and laugh over his grave”

No one likes their dad. Especially not Mike

The whole thing with the courtyard except when Bill dumps out the ashes and it’s awkward Richie’s just like. Did anyone else ever expect to find out he was an evil alien and everyone’s like beep beep Richie but half of them are laughing and the other half are trying not to. Or maybe there’s just more awkward silence and then Bill says “yeah”

Sonia: your father was a complicated man- Everyone: he was an asshole, Sonia

They all have the last name Gray because Pennywise was Robert Gray

Richie said he saw Stan once when he was fucked up and his family was like “I’m sure you do, Richie” but didn’t believe him and then when he kept insisting on it Bill snapped “Beep beep” and the way he said it made Richie go quiet and he doesn’t try to convince them anymore

Ends at season 1 because they’re more competent than the Hargreeves

Umbrella Academy Losers

Bill takes a deep breath, twists the cap off the urn, and dumps the ashes out. They fall into an inelegant heap. It would have hated that.

“M-might have been b-b-better with some wind,” he mutters. Everyone stays silent.

Finally, Richie breaks the silence. “Did anyone else ever expect him to turn into some weird alien…clown…spider…thing?”

No one replies, until Bill toes the ashes. “Yeah.”

“Well,” Richie says, lighting a cigarette, “good to know I’m not completely crazy.”

“I don't think that Bill being on your side points to your favor,” Eddie replies.

Bill frowns down at the small pile by his feet. “I used t-t-to th-think he was i-i-immortal. I g-guess I s-st-still thought th-that.”

“He was always good at making us think he was the biggest threat we’d ever face,” Mike says.

“He was wrong,” Bev replies, and glances at the ashes one last time before light flashes and she’s gone.

Richie’s sitting upside down on the couch, much to Eddie’s chagrin. Sucks for him, but there’s plenty of couches to choose from. He didn’t have to sit next to him. He pulls a joint out of his pocket and lights it. Hopefully having lungs upwards for a change doesn’t make him choke.

Bill sighs. “Richie.”

“Sorry, Big Bill, but if you think I’m going to be sober enough to chance seeing It’s ghost, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”

They all wince in sympathy.

“Yeah, okay,” Eddie says, “but can you at least not smoke with the asthmatic in the room?”

Richie squints, trying to make sense of Eddie’s upside-down face. “Do you have asthma? I don’t remember you having asthma.”

“Were you there for most of our childhood?”

“Physically or mentally?” He asks, but gets up and moves to the bar. Close enough to hear, far enough to not aggravate Eddie’s lungs. Bev and Ben follow him.

“Got a smoke?” Bev asks, leaning against the bar, and Ben falters, accidentally turning his two fingers of whiskey into three.

“You—you’re thirteen,” he says, at the same time Richie asks, “Aren’t you an infant now?”

“I’m forty years old,” she says, fixing them with the second most deadpan stare he’s ever seen. “I’m in the body of my thirteen year old self, which is enough torture. Besides, these lungs are already ruined. Give me a damn cigarette.”

Can’t argue with that. He gives her a damn cigarette.

Ben sighs and adds another finger.

“Richie,” Bill calls, because he has some kind of Big Brother instinct that Richie secretly thinks of as his second power, “you better not be giving drugs to the baby.”

“Fuck you, Bill,” Bev snorts, and Richie follows up with, “Yeah, fuck you! The ‘baby’ gave me cigarettes first.”

“Why’d you stay, Mikey?” Bill asks. “You hated it here more than any of us.”

“Actually I think that was Richie.”

“Hell yeah it was!” Richie calls.

#it fanfic #suicide mention #the notes are in the same doc as the parts of the fic I had written I couldn’t resist posting them #plus it gives a more complete look at my thought process 🥳🥳

[unfinishedslurs]

Umbrella Academy Losers

Bill takes a deep breath, twists the cap off the urn, and dumps the ashes out. They fall into an inelegant heap. It would have hated that.

“M-might have been b-b-better with some wind,” he mutters. Everyone stays silent.

Finally, Richie breaks the silence. “Did anyone else ever expect him to turn into some weird alien…clown…spider…thing?”

No one replies, until Bill toes the ashes. “Yeah.”

“Well,” Richie says, lighting a cigarette, “good to know I’m not completely crazy.”

“I don't think that Bill being on your side points to your favor,” Eddie replies.

Bill frowns down at the small pile by his feet. “I used t-t-to th-think he was i-i-immortal. I g-guess I s-st-still thought th-that.”

“He was always good at making us think he was the biggest threat we’d ever face,” Mike says.

“He was wrong,” Bev replies, and glances at the ashes one last time before light flashes and she’s gone.

Richie’s sitting upside down on the couch, much to Eddie’s chagrin. Sucks for him, but there’s plenty of couches to choose from. He didn’t have to sit next to him. He pulls a joint out of his pocket and lights it. Hopefully having lungs upwards for a change doesn’t make him choke.

Bill sighs. “Richie.”

“Sorry, Big Bill, but if you think I’m going to be sober enough to chance seeing It’s ghost, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”

They all wince in sympathy.

“Yeah, okay,” Eddie says, “but can you at least not smoke with the asthmatic in the room?”

Richie squints, trying to make sense of Eddie’s upside-down face. “Do you have asthma? I don’t remember you having asthma.”

“Were you there for most of our childhood?”

“Physically or mentally?” He asks, but gets up and moves to the bar. Close enough to hear, far enough to not aggravate Eddie’s lungs. Bev and Ben follow him.

“Got a smoke?” Bev asks, leaning against the bar, and Ben falters, accidentally turning his two fingers of whiskey into three.

“You—you’re thirteen,” he says, at the same time Richie asks, “Aren’t you an infant now?”

“I’m forty years old,” she says, fixing them with the second most deadpan stare he’s ever seen. “I’m in the body of my thirteen year old self, which is enough torture. Besides, these lungs are already ruined. Give me a damn cigarette.”

Can’t argue with that. He gives her a damn cigarette.

Ben sighs and adds another finger.

“Richie,” Bill calls, because he has some kind of Big Brother instinct that Richie secretly thinks of as his second power, “you better not be giving drugs to the baby.”

“Fuck you, Bill,” Bev snorts, and Richie follows up with, “Yeah, fuck you! The ‘baby’ gave me cigarettes first.”

“Why’d you stay, Mikey?” Bill asks. “You hated it here more than any of us.”

“Actually I think that was Richie.”

“Hell yeah it was!” Richie calls.

#IT fanfic #guys my internet is shit and my phone keyboard keeps going #out so if this looks like shit. no it doesn’t. I’ll fix it later #ok so the lineup is probably pretty obvious here #bill as luther #mike as diego #ben as allison #richie as klaus #bev as five #stan as ben #and Eddie as victor #i had SO many thoughts about the deadlights and time travel and bev and #richie being the ones to time travel bc in the movies they’re the ones who go through the deadlights #so many thoughts guys #i had other characters picked out and everything too #but I didn’t write them lol #i also changed up a lot of storylines from the show to this so they’d fit the cusr #characters better #like bill having Allison’s divorce plot and Mike being the one who stayed #etc

[unfinishedslurs]

guys I’m doing it. I’m posting something other than stranger things

#this was never actually supposed to be a st blog ahfkshfjd #it just happened to be what I’m fixated on #and to be clear what I’m currently writing is still stranger things #this is from like 3 years ago #on GOD I am going to finish this stobin fic #I’m so fucking close #but in the meantime. I want to post some other stuff #like I said I’m still writing st lol so everyone who follows me for that dw ab it #ANYWAYS

[unfinishedslurs]

Whoopsie!! I totally killed Steve. My bad guys

Steve is batted away like a rag doll, and goes flying into a tree. The sickening crack leaves Dustin stunned, and he stops in his tracks, staring. Waiting for Steve to get back up, like he always does. 

He doesn’t.

Okay, so he’s passed out. Bad timing, but it’ll be like when Billy beat him up. He’ll probably have a nasty concussion, and a broken bone, but it’s fine. He’s fine. He’s always fine. It’s Steve. 

“Steve!” Robin cries. She starts to run to him, but a monster gets in her way and she has to defend herself. One rushes at him, too, and Dustin goes back to the fight. 

As soon as it’s over, Robin is hurtling towards the tree that Steve is still lying at the base of. Bile rises in Dustin’s throat as he follows her. He shouldn’t be passed out this long, it’s a sure sign of severe brain damage. He shouldn’t be laying this still. 

When he catches up, Robin is already shaking him. “Steve,” she pleads as the others come to see what’s going on. “Steve, c’mon, wake up. We gotta get you to a hospital. Hear that? It’s your least favorite word! I’m going to stick you in a hospital for life if you don’t wake up right now—“

“We should check his pulse,” Dustin says distantly. “Make sure his heartbeat’s steady.” He drops to his knees to do just that. Just as quick, Jonathan nudges him away. 

“I’ll do it,” he says, in a voice Dustin’s only heard him use on Will. “I’ve got some first aid training under my belt.”

He doesn’t reply, just takes the hand Robin’s not clutching and stays still, staring at Steve. He can’t stop feeling like something’s off about the way he’s laying there, completely motionless—

His heart stutters in his chest. Steve’s completely motionless. He’s usually so bad at staying still, always running his hands through his hair, or flicking his lighter, or tapping a beat against the steering wheel. Now, he’s not doing any of that. He’s not moving at all. There’s not even a rise and fall of his chest. 

Dustin stares uncomprehendingly. He has the puzzle pieces, he knows he does, but he can’t make them come together. It’s like his brain is rejecting the picture it makes. 

Jonathan pulls his fingers away from Steve’s throat, brow furrowed, anxiety pulling at his features. He starts to take Steve’s hand, but Dustin can’t make himself let go. 

Gently, ever so gently, Jonathan pries his fingers off the limp wrist in his grasp. Dustin lets it happen, silent.

Robin hasn’t stopped talking, quiet murmurs replacing the panicked concern from before. He can’t understand the words through the roaring in his ears. 

Jonathan has turned white as a sheet, frozen with his fingers looped around Steve’s wrist. He thinks he might know what it means. He thinks he’s wrong, he’s wrong, he’s got to be wrong—

Robin shifts to lie perpendicular to Steve, and lays her head on his chest. Quiet, like she’s listening for something. 

She doesn’t find it. 

It’s been three weeks, but Dustin can still hear Robin’s anguished howl ringing in his ears. 

They had to pull her off of him, needed Hopper and Murray both because she fought. Kicked and scratched and screamed when they took her. Kept calling out for Steve to wake up between it all, escaped twice so she could go back and hold him. Hopper was grim, face open and awful, Murray pale and swearing as they wrestled her away. 

Dustin hadn’t moved, still in shock. Jonathan and Argyle had to practically carry him out, because he couldn’t make his limbs work. He couldn’t make himself leave Steve’s side. 

He realized what they were doing halfway to the car. 

“Wait,” he said, twisting, “wait, what are we doing? We can’t leave him there. We can’t leave him alone, he hates being alone. We can’t—“

Jonathan and Argyle exchanged a look over his head. 

“I’ve got him, man,” Argyle said quietly. Jonathan gave a sharp nod before moving in front of Dustin, ducking down to meet his eye. Tears were streaming down his face. 

“I’ll sit with him,” he promised. “Go ahead and go with Argyle, okay? I’ve got him. He won’t be alone.”

“But I—“

“I’ve got it,” Jonathan repeated, voice cracking. Dustin nodded and fell limp against Argyle’s side. He trusted Jonathan. Steve did too. 

When they got to the car, Robin was still thrashing. Murray was practically sitting on her, a bruise forming over his eye. 

“Where’s Jonathan?” Hooper asks sharply when he sees them. 

Argyle gestured helplessly. “Sitting with him. Dustin said…he didn’t want to leave him alone.”

Hopper's eyes were defeated, and he swiped a hand across his face before getting up and heading towards Steve and Jonathan without another word. 

Dustin climbed into the backseat, where Murray finally had Robin pinned. She was yelling herself hoarse. 

“You—you asshole, get the hell off of me, you can’t just fucking—you don’t get it, he needs me, he hates being alone, he hates it, he fucking hates it and he’s never alone. As long as I’m here he’s never fucking alone so let me go—“

“Robin,” he croaked, holding her arm. She whipped her head towards him immediately, eyes wide. 

“Henderson. Dustin, tell this asshole to let me go. I need to go to Steve. We can’t—I can’t leave him alone, please, he needs me there—“

“He’s not alone,” Dustin promised around the lump in his throat. “Jonathan’s with him. Jonathan’s gonna stay with him, he won’t be alone.”

She shook her head. “No, he needs me—“

“Jonathan will take care of him,” he repeated. “He’s Will’s big brother, he’s good at taking care of people.”

She finally stilled, eyes on Dustin. “Jonathan has him?”

He nodded, face wet, and she finally relaxed.

“Jonathan’s good,” she said. “Steve…Steve likes Jonathan.” She laughed, sharp enough to make him flinch. “He’s a sucker for pretty boys.”

Argyle made a low, hurt sound, like he’d been punched. Murray moved to the middle seat, relieved that he no longer had to pin her down.

In a move that they should have seen coming, she opened the door and bolted. 

“Shit!” Murray barked, and ran after her. 

#stranger things fanfic #Whoopsie!! I totally killed Steve. My bad guys au #dustin henderson #robin buckley #jonathan byers #Argyle #dead steve harrington #there’s a HINT of stonathan there because if you know me you know I am a stonathan girlie first and a human being second #Even when I’m not writing it. Even when I’m intentionally trying not to write it. It will appear #Stobin #Robin girlie I am so sorry a bitch like me would do this to u. You deserve better than this #The stonathan in this is not established I have to say. It’s something they’ve tabled for later. It’s something they agreed could wait #It’s something they want to try when the world isn’t falling apart around them because they both have too many responsibilities #In the here and now #And now they never will #This is post s4 btw. Dustin gets to lose TWO brothers!!!!! #….don’t kill me?

[unfinishedslurs]

do u love the colors of the comphet

When it’s over, when Henry Creel is dead and dust and they’ve emerged battered and triumphant. When she and Jonathan have ended things. When there is no more fighting to be done, she and Steve give it another go. 

She knows he’s going to ask the same way she knew in ‘83. There’s no waiting this time, no need to wonder if Jonathan might want her too. They gave it the old college try (He lied to her. He was lying to her for months, and she knew something was wrong before that. She thought they could work it out. She’s so fucking sick of lying to herself being lied to). 

He asks with wide, hopeful eyes, running a nervous hand through his hair. He doesn’t have anything to be nervous about. She made up her mind before he even asked. 

She can do it right this time. She can love this boy the way she wants to. The way he wants her to. They’ve both grown in the years since. She’s going to do this right. 

That’s the mantra she keeps in her head when he picks her up and spins her. I can do this. 

She can’t do this. 

It’s somehow the same and different from when they dated the first time. They’re going through the same motions, but there’s something lacking. They’re both older, more jaded. They’re not kids anymore, and it shows. 

They rarely kiss. He hesitates now in a way he didn’t before. Sex is something they don’t bring up at all. Eddie makes a crude joke once, something or other about what Nancy is like in bed, and she and Steve make eye contact. There’s something there, something like mutual understanding, before Robin smacks Eddie upside the back of the head and the moment breaks. She keeps thinking about it long after. Whatever it is that they shared, they don’t talk about it. 

Maybe they’re lying to themselves, both of them. Puppets going through the motions, too stubborn to admit they’re play acting as real people. Still, she can’t give this up. She can’t make the same mistakes all over again. 

Robin corners her two months into the relationship. Part of Nancy is surprised it took her this long. The rest of her is angry she brings it up at all. 

Saying she’s cornered might be doing her a disservice. They’re having a sleepover, painting their nails and talking about boys. Everything a girl is supposed to do. Except Robin is awkward and fumbling, and every name she brings up sounds like a question. Nancy only has Steve to talk about, and barely talks about him at all. 

Finally Robin sighs and puts down the nail polish. “I feel like this subject is making us both miserable,” she declares. “I don’t want to talk about boys, I was just doing it because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do at girl sleepovers. I haven’t actually been to a sleepover since I was in middle school and the other girls decided I was weird, but I’m pretty sure the point is to have fun. This is not fun. This is agonizing. We should talk about something else.”

“Steve isn’t making me miserable!” She snaps, before realizing she sounds way too defensive. 

Robin peers at her. “Yeah, see, that’s not what I said. That’s not even a little bit close to what I said. Maybe we should talk about this instead. What’s the deal with you and Steve?”

“What deal? There’s no deal.” She turns around and rummages through the nail polish selection. Robin doesn’t exactly have a variety. Her options are red, dark red, and black. She chooses the brighter red with the absent thought that the black would look good on Robin, with her long fingers and dark eyeliner. Then she banishes that thought away. 

“There’s definitely some kind of deal.”

“There isn’t.”

“Nance.” 

She can’t help but turn around then, drawn in by the tone of her voice. There’s a glass wall inside of her, and someone is pounding on it, trying to get out. She wants Robin to see it. She wants someone to see behind the glass. There’s something in her trying to get out. 

“Nancy,” she says again, eyes searing into her soul, “are you happy?”

She smiles, fake and fixed on her face. The glass stays firmly in place.  “Of course I am,” she replies. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

The next time Robin wants to hang out, she’s busy with college preparations. 

It’s not just Robin. She thinks everyone can tell something’s wrong with her. Eddie gives her these looks every time she and Steve are in front of him, like he’s putting together a puzzle. Her mom keeps trying to talk to her. Jonathan keeps trying to talk to her. 

They know, she thinks wildly, every time. She doesn’t know what it is they know. She doesn’t want to find out. 

She avoids them all. 

When she and Steve go to dinner, the waitress captivates her. 

Long, dark hair in braids. Long fingers tapping against the notepad. Dark eyes in a dark face. She’s always loved brown eyes. Nancy has never been one to be jealous of other girls (lie, lie, lie), but suddenly heat floods her body. She wants to be as gorgeous as this woman. She wants her full lips, popping gum. She wants the woman’s swaying hips as she turns and leaves their table. She wants— she wants—

She tears her gaze away to find Steve already looking at her. 

The heat is dosed by the ice that fills her veins. All her senses go on high alert until she realizes he’s actually staring past her. She turns around to see the bartender. He’s handsome, she thinks, tall with tan skin and brown hair carefully styled. He’s talking to a customer, teeth shining as he laughs. 

When she turns back, Steve has firmly fixed his eyes on her. She could almost believe he’d never been staring at the bartender at all. 

There’s something there. Something just out of reach, something she could put a finger out and touch if she were braver. She doesn’t. There’s no gun in her hand here, no adrenaline to keep her going after it all falls apart. 

“What did your dumb boyfriend do this time?” Mike demands, storming in her room. Nancy has half a mind to yell at him to knock first before she registers his words. 

“Steve is- Steve is fine,” she says, startled. “He’s great, actually. Nothings wrong.“

“Then why are you so miserable all the time?” Mike accuses. 

“I am not miserable!”

“You are! You both are, and neither of you will tell anyone what’s wrong, or why-“

“I don’t know why!” She shrieks. Mike falls silent, eyes wide, and Nancy suddenly realizes she’s crying. 

“I don’t know why,” she repeats. “Everything is fine. He’s like, the perfect fucking boyfriend. It’s me, I’m the problem. There’s something wrong with me. There’s a beautiful boy who loves me, and I’m- I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to love him back, but I can’t. I can’t. There’s something wrong with me.” She’s desperate now, wiping away tears as she curls into a ball. She feels pathetic, crying in front of her little brother. She’s the oldest, she should be keeping it together, she shouldn’t let him see her like this. But she can’t help it. There’s something in her screaming to get out. 

Mike, with all the grace and bewilderment of a newborn deer, gingerly pats her shoulder. 

“Have you…talked to Steve about it?”

She gives him a cutting look. It’s probably not as effective as she wants it to be, with her red eyes and tear streaked face. Mike holds his hands up. 

“I’m just saying! He’s your boyfriend, you should talk to him. And if you don’t want him to be your boyfriend, you should really talk to him.”

“I want him to be my boyfriend, I just need to get past whatever this is—“

“Nancy,” Mike says. “It’s not just you. He’s miserable too.”

“Because of me. I just need to—“

Mike shakes his head. “I don’t think it is. If it were because of you, he’d be acting different. More…kicked puppy, or whatever. He’s just being weird,  and won’t tell anyone why. Dustin said he asked Robin, and she doesn’t even know.”

Nancy doesn’t have anything to say to that. 

“I think you need to talk to him,” he says again. “I think you need to talk to each other.”

“When did you get so smart?” She asks, instead of crying again. 

“I’ve always been smarter than you.”

She kicks him for that blatant lie.

“Are we holding onto a dead thing?” She asks out loud. 

He rolls over and looks at her. She’s worried she’s hurt his feelings, broken his heart again, killed any chance they have at a relationship, romantic or not. Then he snorts. 

“Robin got to you too, huh?” He asks, flopping back onto his back to look up at the sky. 

“Mike, actually.”

“Mike? That shithead? What does he know about relationship problems?”

“Are we having relationship problems?”

“I mean,” he says, wry twist to his mouth, “we haven’t had any arguments.”

“Nope.”

“Or general drama.”

“That might be debatable.”

“There’s no need to spice up our sex life.”

She snacks him for that one, and he laughs. She props herself up to look him in the eye. His face is more open than she’s seen it the entire time they’ve been dating. 

“I think you have to be in a relationship to have ‘relationship problems,’” she tells him. “Are we in a relationship?”

He visibly considers this. “I mean, I asked you out, and you said yes. And we never broke up.”

“We haven’t kissed in at least two weeks.”

“Did you want to?”

She takes a moment to think about it. “Not really,” she admits, and his face splits into a grin. 

“Not that you’re not still wonderful, Nancy Wheeler,” he says, teeth shining, “but I don’t think I want to kiss you either. Isn’t that weird?”

When they dated in high school, it was like he couldn’t stand being away from her. He spent every moment he could kissing her, wherever he could. Sometimes it felt almost like a performance he put on for the people around them, lifting her up and spinning her just so everyone would know how in love they were. It was stifling at times, feeling like something to prove. Still, it was how he was, so in love he could burst with it. 

Now, she wonders if it was always a performance. Maybe they’ve both been on a stage, and neither of them noticed the lights blinding them until now. 

“It is a little weird,” she says finally.

“Right?!”

He holds out a hand to shake, the other one firmly in his pocket. God, she wishes she could love him. “Good go, eh Wheeler?” He asks, smile crooked and shaky. 

She snorts. “We made ourselves and everyone around us miserable,” she points out. But she takes his hand. 

#do u love the colors of the comphet au #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #steve harrington #lesbian Nancy Wheeler #gay steve harrington #stranger things fanfic #stancy but make it the most tense awkward awful decision these two have possibly ever made. out of a lot of awful decisions #blah blah blah smth ab growing up and growing older and wanting a redo for your past mistakes #and wanting to feel the way you did before it all went wrong #but you realize that maybe you were idolizing that past version of yourself that never really existed #and maybe you never wanted it in the first place. maybe you only told yourself you did #maybe it would have gone wrong anyway #i don’t outright say Steve or Nancy are gay in this but it’s HEAVILY hinted at #they’re not ready to admit it to themselves yet. and that’s okay. the world isn’t ending. they have time #*slaps roof of nancy wheeler* this baby can fit so much projection in it #i feel like I need to say I’m not anti-stancy. i actually do like stancy when it’s done well. HOWEVER #i don’t think bringing it back two seasons later in one of the weirdest ways possible is doing it well I’m sorry #Maybe if we get a stoncy make out sesh in s5 I’ll change my mind #*crossing my fingers for a post-monster killing stoncy make out sesh in s5* #the ONLY ship I want to be canon. and the one least likely to happen. it’s so hard shipping polyamory I should watch sense8 #why did I go on this rant. idk. enjoy <333

[unfinishedslurs]

Jonathan Byers This Is An Intervention

“You’re not happy here.”

Jonathan looks up, startled. Will stands in the doorway with his arms crossed. They’re alone in the house, El hanging out with Max and their mom on a date with Hopper. They had to practically shove her out the door before she’d leave, rambling a list of phone numbers and where to find them, as well as reminding them where the leftovers were. 

“We know, Mom,” he and Will had chorused, and permitted her to pull them down for one last kiss on the cheek before closing the door on her. Hopper just watched in amusement. 

He and Will had eaten dinner before separating to work on their projects, Will with a dnd campaign idea and Jonathan cleaning his camera out. It has more dust than it should, having been sitting in his closet unused for too long. It makes something in him ache, but he can’t make himself pick it up again. There’s something blocking him. 

“What?” 

“You’re not happy here,” Will repeats. “In Hawkins.”

“It’s Hawkins,” he points out. Being unhappy is a given. He’s always known it sucks here, from the way people treated his mom to the rumors that always flew around when he made his way through the halls. The way they’ve treated Will. He hated this town long before interdimensional monsters factored in. 

Will’s frown gets deeper. “I’m happy,” he points out. “Mom’s happy. El and Hopper are happy. We actually have friends here.”

“I have friends,” Jonathan protests, slightly offended. He and Argyle call multiple times a week. He and Nancy are still good friends, and Steve and Robin are slowly growing on him. In a surprising turn of events, Eddie is the person his age he talks to the least, but it makes sense when he thinks about it. Eddie’s brand of freak has always been loud and dramatic, half relying on shock value. Jonathan prefers the quiet. 

“When was the last time you actually hung out with someone that wasn’t me?”

Is that what this is about? Something in his heart sinks at the idea that Will doesn’t think he’s enough. “I like hanging out with you. You’re the coolest person I know,” he says, shifting over and patting the bed next to him. 

Will sits down with a huff that sounds very fifteen-year-old of him. He’s glad he’s getting to be a kid. “You’re not listening to me,” he complains. 

“Then what are you trying to say?”

Will won’t meet his eye, suddenly nervous. “Everyone your age here is leaving,” he says quietly. “Nancy is going to Emerson soon, Steve and Robin are going to Chicago, and Eddie…uh, I don’t know his plans, exactly, he might be going with them. He’s not staying here, anyway. And Argyle is on the other side of the country. So all the people you’re friends with are leaving.”

“They are,” he agrees, laying what he hopes is a soothing hand on Will’s shoulder, “but you know I’m not leaving you, right? I’m not leaving you and Mom.”

Will squeezes his eyes shut. “Maybe you should.”

It feels like ice water being poured over his head. 

Something in his stomach twists uncomfortably at the idea of calling Hopper his dad. He doesn’t know if he’s ever going to. He doesn’t even know if Hopper would want him to. But “dad” is always a word he’s associated with bruises and yelling, the stink of whiskey and a gun in his small, shaking hands. Jim Hopper, with his gruff, fumbling way affection and sweet smiles at his daughter will never fit his version of the word. 

“You’re not my dad,” Will says. “You’re my older brother, you should be my brother. You should be moving away and going to college and living your life! You shouldn’t be stuck here because of me.” He seems near tears now, and Jonathan flounders. He’s always been pretty good at making Will feel better, but now it’s different. Now it’s him making his little brother upset.

Will takes a deep, stabilizing breath.

“You’re not my dad,” he says again. “You shouldn’t have to be my dad.”

“I wasn’t trying to be,” he says weakly.

“You’re doing a better job than he ever did.”

“Okay, then how should we start?”

“You could tell me why we’re always running out of tylenol.”

He didn’t even realize anyone noticed that. He’s been replacing it before it was even empty.

The words stick in his throat, reluctant to come out. But he promised. He promised he’d tell him, and he hates to break a promise to Will.

“It’s my back,” he admits. “My boss hit me with a chair, and it hurts all the time now. I used to smoke it away, but…”

He smoked a little too much. He was too reliant on it. He was being neglectful. The reasons stay on the tip of his tongue, unable to admit his shortcomings. 

Unfortunately, Will takes it another way. “You stopped because of me.”

“No!” 

“Why didn’t you tell me? Or Mom? We can go to the doctor now, we have insurance.”

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you go? Why can’t you just take care of yourself?”

“It’s just a little back pain,” he defends, “it’s not a big deal.”

It’s really not. It’s practically nothing compared to what some of their friends ended up with. Will has respiratory problems, Eddie uses a cane now, Max is in a wheelchair and her eyes might never work again. Not to mention Steve’s mix of migraines, glasses, hearing loss, and scars he’s accumulated over the years that put Jonathan’s to shame. His issues pale in comparison.

“It is when you take as many painkillers as you do! You’re going to eat holes in your stomach.”

“If I get an ulcer, it’ll be because I know there’s another world out there full of things that want to kill us,” he says, poking Will in the stomach. He giggles, and then looks mad about it. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you actually happy. I feel like it’s my fault.”

What does he say to that? It can’t be your fault, because I don’t remember the last time I was happy like that? I felt like this long before you went missing? Anything he says will make him worry more. 

“It’s not your fault,” he finally settles on. 

“But if I hadn’t disappeared—“

“I would still feel like this,” he says, because he has to. He can’t stand the idea of Will thinking it’s his fault when the truth is that something has been wrong with Jonathan for a long, long time. “It’s not because of the Upside-Down, bud. It’s not something you can fix. I’m pretty sure I’m just…like this.”

He’s had moments of happiness, obviously. Sometimes he’ll get days, or even weeks, where he genuinely looks forward to the future. When he was in California with Argyle, he felt even better. But eventually, the heaviness in his chest always comes back. It’s just something he knows how to live with now. 

Will sits up, glaring at him. “That’s bullshit!”

“It’s just how it is.”

He squares his shoulders, a telltale sign that Jonathan isn’t going to like whatever he says next. “Mom and I think you should see a therapist.”

Jonathan really doesn’t like that. “You’ve been talking to Mom about this?”

“She’s worried about you!”

“She shouldn’t be!” He’s almost offended. He’s been taking care of himself for years. He was taking care of her for years. “I’m fine! I know how to live with it!” 

“I haven’t seen you smile for real in two months!”

“I’m fine!” He snaps again, and immediately regrets it. Will’s lower lip trembles. 

“You’re not fine,” he says. “You’re not. Don’t lie to me, Jonathan. You just said you weren’t going to lie to me.”

#Jonathan byers this is an intervention au #stranger things fanfic #jonathan byers #Will Byers #depression boy go brrr #YES I am posting my two favorite characters in the show being tragic back to back. What about it #Jonathan Byers definitely has chronic pain and depression that he is 100% using weed to self medicate with. He told me himself #His parentification and loserboy personality have captivated me #I know we all joke about Steve being the kid’s mom or dad or whatever but he’s not. He is NOT #he’s an older brother figure to Dustin Lucas and maybe Max in my brain but Will??? #Will HAS a big brother and he’s the best big brother in the world and I love him so much he’s literally my wife #Did I mention he’s autistic? He’s autistic #This isn’t meant to bash anyone btw I enjoy a lot of “mom steve” content and shit. It’s just the difference between canon and fanon to me #And I’m not bashing on fanon god knows I indulge in it plenty

[unfinishedslurs]

burning house inside my heart

The first time she tries to talk to Steve about it, he cuts her off with a smile. 

“It’s over, Nance,” he assures. “They killed that thing, didn’t they? It was weird, and like, way fucked up, but it’s over. It’s not gonna come back.”

You don’t know that, she wants to scream. That’s not what this is about. 

Her best friend is dead. She can hear her little brother crying himself to sleep at night. There was a lab full of people doing experiments on children in their town, under everyone’s noses. There’s a whole world waiting on the other side of something, probably filled with awful creatures like the one they fought. There’s no moving on, not for her. Not when Barb’s parents still tell her to have hope. 

He says the same thing the next time she brings it up. And the next. And when she brings up Barb’s parents. Every time, he reassures her with a smile and a kiss. Every time, the fear behind his eyes grows. Every time, Nancy gets a little angrier. 

Sometimes, she wonders why he’s still here, if all he’s ever going to do is try to soothe her fears. 

It’s good, is the thing. When it’s good, it’s so good. But when it’s bad…

Well, Steve doesn’t know when it’s bad. She knows it’s unfair to him. He wouldn’t even know about any of this if he wasn’t trying to apologize that night. 

He wouldn’t have had to apologize if he hadn’t called you a slut for the whole town to see, or insulted Jonathan’s family. 

She pushes that down, too. 

She would try to talk to Jonathan about it, but he barely even looks at her. He won’t return her waves in the hallways, keeps his answers short when she asks about Will. It stings. The three of them went through something big together, something life changing, and they’re both pretending it didn’t even happen. It makes her want to shoot something. 

(She keeps going to the place Jonathan took her. Sets up bottles and watches them shatter one by one. No one ever comes around to question her. Gunshots are a dime a dozen in Indiana.)

“Can you talk to him?” She asked Steve once, watching Jonathan walk away from them for the upteenth time. 

“Byers?” He scoffs. Not maliciously, but in a way that’s almost self-deprecating. “I don’t think he wants anything to do with me. I tried to redo my apology since I got…interrupted the first time and he practically ran away.”

There’s a hint of bitter wistfulness in his tone. Steve doesn’t have many friends either, since he left Tommy and Carol behind. She wonders if the two of them were hoping for the same thing, deep down.

 

She stays with Steve because…because why? Because he’s sweet? Because he’s safe? Because Barb died so she could fuck him? She doesn’t know, but she thinks she could love him if she tries. 

She really, really tries. 

The second time she and Steve have sex, he seems even more nervous than she is. 

“I know it didn’t…end well, last time,” he says, skittering around the chasm in her chest like he always does. “I just want it to be good for you.”

“Then make it good for me,” she responds, and pulls him into her. She tries her best to enjoy it, fakes an orgasm while he fucks her. Has a real one when he eats her out after. 

They lay there together, naked and sweaty. Bundled up in his arms, she’s never felt further from her body. She enjoys sex, is the thing. If she didn’t want it, it would be easier to put it off. To say no and wait until she was ready. It would be easier if she didn’t want it anymore, but she does. She wanted it then, when she wore her favorite bra to a pool party in the hopes that he would take it off her, and she wants it now, after she’s learned what his head feels like between her legs. It just also happens to be the reason Barb died alone. 

Exposure therapy it is. 

Steve’s hand twitches in her hair, and she waits for him to say something. He never does. 

After she sleeps with Jonathan, she expects to feel different. 

She didn’t feel different after Steve, but she thought that was because she was focused on Barb. Now that she’s slept with someone else, surely something will click into place. Surely the strange, hollow thing in her chest when she has sex will leave. 

It doesn’t. 

That’s not to say it’s not good. It’s so good. When she and Steve fucked, he was the one with more experience, and took over more often than not. Here, she is. She seizes that control with both hands, uses them to hold Jonathan down and ride him into the mattress. He makes these punched out whines, and she tells him where to touch her, how to get her close. 

“Nance— Nancy, I’m gonna—“

She pulls off and finishes him with her hand, riding his thigh as she does it. 

In the aftermath, he slings an arm over her stomach and spoons her. She tries not to picture the blue water of a pool when she closes her eyes. 

It gets easier, with time. With Jonathan. Once Barb is put to rest. She can enjoy sex without the guilt taking away her pleasure. 

After Vecna, that progress disappears. 

#stranger things fanfic #nancy wheeler #i love you miss survivors guilt <3 #Some stancy and jancy but it ain’t about them #Except for the part where it does circle around her relationship with sex after the shitshow that was losing her virginity #Do I tag this as nsfw? #Nsfw #Vaguely #cannot emphasize enough that she is my favorite character I don’t give a FUCK if I ever see Nancy hate it’s block on sight #I feel like Nancy and Steve’s relationship can be easily summarized if you just think about how neither of them are communicating #Love the messiness of being in ur first relationship and not knowing how to talk to your boyfriend. So glad I’m not there #Burning house inside my heart au #I didn’t know what to name this bc it’s too serious to give it a name that follows my usual quick summary pattern #I’m not naming it ‘Nancy Wheeler’s sexual trauma’ #so I named it half after burning house by cam which is a beautiful song that makes me cry a lot

[unfinishedslurs]

if you guys saw me repeatedly accidentally reblogging toh posts to my writing blog and then deleting them no you didn’t. Don’t worry about it

#not writing #SORRY GUYS #sorry my little brother and I watched it together and I became captivated by all the necromancy and trauma. as if it’s my fault

[unfinishedslurs]

“I don’t want to hear it, Jonathan,” Nancy says, still staring out Steve's front window like old Mr. Hays getting his lawn mowed is the most fascinating thing she’s seen all day. He makes a buzzer noise, and she nearly falls over with how quickly she spins around. “Wrong guy.” He gives her a sympathetic grin. “Better luck next time.”

(Eddie knew he was going to do something stupid the minute Steve took off his shirt. He just didn't know what he was in for.)

FIRST FINISHED FIC EVERYONE AND IT'S HORNY JEALOUS EDNANCY FUCKING. ARE YOU EXCITED I'M EXCITED

this is inspired by a comment on my stonathan fwb fic that made me so excited i immediately wrote most of it and then procrastinated on the fucking. thank you tumblr user nottobehornyonthemain for making me horny on the main this is for u <3

this can be set in my stonathan fwb universe, a stonathan fwb where they start dating universe, or just stonathan dating. up to you

#stranger things fanfic #FINISHEDslurs #ednancy #horniest thing i've written unless you count the sexual tension in my jockvsjock stommy fic #i literally giggled while writing this #sometimes a dyke and a fag are bisexual. and they fuck about it #that's it thats the fic

[unfinishedslurs]

prank gone wrong (viral!) (steddie)

Eddie’s been someone’s dirty little secret before.

He’s got a type, okay? Unfortunately hot jocks are often the type of asshole to get sucked off behind the bleacher and then turn around and spit in his face about it. Going right back to their friends to talk shit about what a freak Eddie is, never mind the fact that his mouth still tastes like their nasty fucking jizz. He’s used to it by now. Used to people who pretend they barely know each other. He’s not asking they parade their relationship for the whole town to see, just someone who doesn’t pretend they’re strangers. Is that too much to ask? 

He’s so fucking stupid. He really thought this time would be different.

Steve Harrington barreled into his life like a goddamn train and Eddie’s been derailed ever since.

The first time he met Steve he was six. Eddie still lived with his mom, and she took him to the park, where he met a little boy who wrinkled his nose and told him he smelled bad. Steve does not remember this, and turned red with mortification the first time Eddie told him

After that incredible hit to baby Eddie’s self-esteem, they didn’t interact much, existing on the periphery of each others lives. He figured it didn’t matter. Harrington was a year under him, and a douche besides. Was ready to leave town from the moment he learned to walk. As soon as he graduated, he could finally get the hell out of this place and never think about the assholes he went to school with again.

His mom leaves. His dad gets arrested. He moves in with his Uncle Wayne, who only has one bedroom in his trailer and won’t take no for an answer when he gives it to Eddie. 

Eddie doesn’t graduate.

(Harrington comes back to school different after Byers beats him up. Eddie doesn’t notice. He’s got bigger things to worry about.)

They don’t talk in Eddie’s second run of senior year either. He hears the gossip, sees him come to school with stitches in his forehead and no girlfriend. Still, it’s none of his damn business. He rolls his eyes at the rumors and stays far away from Billy Hargrove.

Steve Harrington graduates. Eddie doesn’t.

And this is where his careful distance falls apart.

It’s the mall’s fault of course. What isn’t? Businesses closing down, rent going up, his resolve crumbling. All over some fucking ice cream. God, Eddie should have just turned around. Left the store and the mall and the entire damn town behind. 

He’s aware he’s being melodramatic, but in his defense he’s queer in Indiana. He has a right to be. 

Anyways, the point is that Eddie saw Harrington’s little blue shorts and red lips and cannot be held responsible for what happened after. 

(They fucked. That’s what happened. They fucked, and kept fucking, and then after the mall burned down Steve showed up on his doorstep with suspiciously placed bruises and his coworker and looked at Eddie with pleading eyes. He didn’t even bring Robin home to her parents like a sensible person, just insisted on having her there because they were a package deal now and couldn’t be separated. Like puppies, Robin said when he looked at her. Last he checked, she wanted to bite Steve’s head off, and now they were attached at the hip?

He got used to it quickly. He had to. She comes on half their dates. Steve’s lucky he’s so cute.)

Now, nearly five months after Steve served him ice cream for the first time, he feels his heart shatter in the Hawkins High parking lot. 

“Harrington,” Dustin shouts, and it carries across the empty lot. Steve’s head jerks up and he waves, Robin standing beside him. “Steve, c’mere!”

Steve tilts his head. “What?”

“Come. Here.” Dustin repeats, enunciating clearly. Mike and Lucas look at him like he’s insane. So do Gareth, Jeff, and Chuck. 

Steve, who is standing a mere 20 feet away, turns to Robin and says something that makes her snort. Eddie can practically hear his bitchy murmur. 

“Is that Harrington’s girlfriend?” He hears Gareth ask. He has to swallow his laughter. 

“Yes,” Dustin says.

“No,” Mike corrects. 

“He won’t admit anything, but he always has a bunch of hickies and stuff after hanging out with her,” Lucas clarifies, because half the time when Steve says he’s hanging out with Robin he's actually with Eddie. The fact that Robin is usually still there is irrelevant. Marking up his boyfriend is one of his favorite pastimes. He refuses to let his boyfriend’s “soulmate” get in the way just because she refuses to sleep in one of the Harrington’s fancy guest rooms like a normal person unless he kicks her out. The way they both pout at him for it is fucking ridiculous. He ends up giving in half the time, and then lies awake and cold on the very edge of the bed because Robin starfishes her way across the rest and Steve is a blanket hog. 

The first time he tried giving Steve a hickey as some kind of dominance move for privacy, Robin stared him dead in the eye and didn’t back down. 

“I can do that too,” she said, and promptly bit Steve on the shoulder. Steve, who was shirtless and already slightly dazed from Eddie’s ministrations, let out an honest to God squeak. Like a dog toy. Eddie and Robin both stared at him before breaking into loud cackles that had a blushing Steve yelling at them before finally burrowing under the covers and refusing to come out. Needless to say, Eddie didn’t get laid that night. 

“Harring-ton,” Dustin whines. 

“I’m literally right here. You come here.”

He did, if only to grab Steve by the wrist and drag him to where everyone else was standing. Steve squawks. “When we’re late for dinner with Ma, I’m telling her it was your fault—“

“I want you to meet everyone!”

“I went to school with them!”

“Yeah, but they think you’re still a dick,” he says, as if they’re not standing right there. Steve is similarly engrossed in their conversation, not even noticing that Dustin’s stopped walking. 

“They can think whatever—“ he walks right into Eddie and lets out a startled oof. Eddie, who let it happen, catches him as he flails. 

“Well hello to you too,” he says, not bothering to hide his amusement. 

Steve looks at him with wide eyes, gaze dropping down to his lips before whirling around and snapping, “Henderson!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“I didn’t do anything,” Lucas mimics under his breath, ducking behind Steve when Dustin turns around with the fury of a thousand suns in his eyes. 

He just stands there, hands on his hips as the kids bicker around him. 

“Oh, so now we can talk?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asks, brow furrowed like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s talking about. 

Eddie can’t help but laugh, a sharp sound that makes Steve jump. “What do you think it means, Harrington? You never want to talk to me in front of the kids! Don’t want to dirty your hands with the Freak in public, I guess.”

“I…what are you talking about?”

[no talkie henderosn]

“What?” His eyes get wide, panicked, as he reaches for Eddie. “Eddie, that’s not—you have to know that’s not what I meant by that. I never meant it like that!”

“Then how did you mean it?”

Steve mumbles something he can’t make out. 

“Speak up, sweetheart.” It comes out mean, he knows it does, but he’s feeling a little mean right now. Lashing out like a wounded animal just because his boyfriend didn’t want to talk to him in public. 

Actually, when he puts it that way, he remembers he’s justified. 

Steve says something again, still incomprehensible. Eddie rolls his eyes. “If you can’t stop mumbling, I’ll just leave.”

That does the trick. “I thought we were playing a prank on Henderson together!” 

Eddie gapes at him. “What?”

“I thought,” he repeats, running an anxious hand through his hair, “we were pretending not to know each other to mess with the kid. Eddie, baby, you’ve gotta know I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known you were hurting. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t I…” This can’t be real. He’s been agonizing for months, and for what? A prank? Just some stupid, shitty prank Steve thought he was in on? He’s going to jump off the quarry. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have had so much fun with that!”

“I thought you knew!”

“How would I have known? I can’t read your mind!”

“You can sometimes,” he says, pouting. Eddie wishes they weren’t in the middle of an argument, he wants to kiss those lips so bad. 

He groans into his hands. “It’s significantly easier to tell when your boyfriend wants to fuck than it is to read ‘Hey, let’s play a prank on this twelve year old,’ on someone’s face, sweetheart.”

“I guess,” Steve huffs. Then his face softens. Eddie lets himself be drawn in by the wrist, helpless in the face of his sweet smile. “We can stop,” he promises, swaying in close enough for his breath to ghost across Eddie’s lips. “We could walk into Hellfire tomorrow holding hands, if you wanted to. Anything you want, just say the word.”

“How would we walk into Hellfire? It’s at your house.”

Steve pinches him for that. 

#prank gone wrong (viral!) au #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things fanfic #steddie #i Did not end up writing the actual scene where Steve decides to prank Dustin by pretending to hate eddie #But just so you know he looks at Eddie and raises his eyebrows and in Eddie’s mind he’s asking how they should play this #in Steve’s mind he’s asking a series of convoluted questions that end ideally end with Dustin ripping his hair out in frustration #Steve I’m sorry but you need to use your WORDS your boyfriend things you HATE HIM #this goes from pre-s4 to post-s4 btw #Featuring stobin being weird as fuck friends bc I feel like they would Not Be Separated for the first couple of months after Starcourt #Eddie just has to deal with that #He’s also being dramatic they eased up eventually. enough for Robin to give them space to get their rocks off anyway