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[pinch_hitter]

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@howandwhen

[pinch_hitter]

[ooc|from here]


No, it's, uh.

[Kinda damning and he's not panicking he's just sitting. Just sitting. Might be sitting on his kitchen floor.

Joey Warner, that sonofabitch.]

It's cool.

[howandwhen]

Are you sure? You don't have to be alone for this.

[ There's no more wheezing, that's a good sign. ]

Is it cool or have you switched to freaking out in your head?

@polemical

[pinch_hitter]

[The Hideout is... yeah. Not anyplace that Steve would generally go. Not to be a dick but he feels like he should park the Beamer somewhere else and walk in. He doesn't but he feels like he should.

So in jeans and a light pullover sweater (hey, autumn, there you are), Steve leaves the Beamer next to a station wagon painted in a very hand-done camouflage design, classy, and Camry without a front fender.

Super.

Eddie was right-- mostly-- about Mike. Steve only gets pat-down twice while a couple of meatheads look on and laugh. By the time he shoves his way into the bar he's feeling a little cheap and is seriously reconsidering the merits of muppets and having to listen to Henderson go on about practical effects for an hour and a half.

Where the hell is Munson? Steve really hopes she was telling the truth about the bartender serving anyone. He's going to need a lot of help to get through this.]

[polemical]

[ Time is a social construct, as Jeff likes to say, which means to say that while their slot on stage technically starts at 8 o'clock, Corroded Coffin usually gets around to playing around 8:15-8:20. So if Steve shows up early or even just on time, he's going to be met with just the standard bar-sounds, overlapping chatter, the sound of bottles clinking against hard wood, a TV in the corner playing low-volume sports highlights.

It's not a big venue, but big enough for a stage on one end, a proper one that's not just a slightly-raised lip but the kind that brings the performers well above the heads of the crowd. The floor in front has a bunch of high-tops scattered around, three or four chairs ringing each one, and a fair number have at least one person sitting at them.

This isn't the worst crowd Eddie's played for, so she's feeling pretty pleased as the night ramps up, and definitely doesn't spend a few seconds every trip out on stage to schlep equipment looking through the room to find Steve's famous mop of hair.

She's hauling one of Carl's amps out when she spots him, dressed in pale denim and a paler sweater, sticking out like a sore, extremely preppy thumb. It's a good thing she has her arms full, because she has to fucking focus on what she's doing or she'll drop this heavy-ass speaker on her foot and she can't let herself linger on the way her stomach swoops alarmingly to see that he actually came. Not that the Steve she's come to know doesn't keep his word, but...

She nods at him in case he's watching and then sets the amp down and crouches to hook it up properly before grabbing Jeff's sleeve to let him know she'll be back in a second. Jumping down from the stage, forgoing the stairs, she weaves her way through the tables to intercept Steve, grinning broadly. Placing her hand low on his back, she presses in closer than she needs to, just because she's a little hyped up on the adrenaline of an impending performance and the beer she had before they started to set up and she wants to. ] Hey.

i'm your venus i'm your fire your desire

[polemical]

[ It's weird, that having sex with someone twice in relatively rapid succession can make you want to have sex with them even more, considering that one would assume it would be the other way around. Surely the novelty would wear off, right? They'd lose their secrets and the mundane would creep in and suddenly you'd look at them and realize that fire no longer sparked to life in your belly?

Devastatingly, it seems the exact opposite is true. She and Steve don't really hang out on their own all that much, considering he's got a real job and she's miraculously on track to graduate, but they see each other often enough through mutual friends and their co-parenting duties that she's constantly reminded of Steve's hands on her body, the way he looked on his knees in front of her, how fucking good it felt when he touched her. How sticky she was when she got home that Tuesday night, how she got herself off in her bed twice more before dragging herself off to the shower so she could sleep without a tacky film of come still clinging to the back of her thighs.

Maybe if they hadn't been fucking, she would have flat-out refused to come to Steve's house to hang out one afternoon, but she'd been told that Buckley would be there, and Wheeler too, and as little as they ever hung out at school before Spring Break, they've formed a close enough bond after all that shit they went through that the thought of spending time with some girls who get it was undoubtedly appealing. Plus, y'know. Steve.

Buckley and Wheeler aren't here. Eddie isn't entirely sure why, Steve had given her a very rambling and confusing answer for why Robin canceled, and Nancy is of course a law unto herself and therefore cannot be questioned for any reason, so once again, it's just him and her sitting out on his back patio, this time in the bright sunshine instead of beneath the stars.

She's mad.

Steve's over there in his swimsuit like some sort of svelte grecian statue, oiled up with sunscreen, looking like a slut. (He looks really fucking good, even with the scars on his sides and back on full display, the tank top he'd had on earlier abandoned when he dived into the pool. Eddie is resolutely Not Looking, because she's mad she's stuck out here in the sunshine, mad that she doesn't even own a swimsuit, mad that her only real experience with swimming happened on the night she nearly died. Mad that Steve has been acting like Buckley and Wheeler are actually with them, keeping a polite distance and not referencing the fact that he had his tongue shoved up her pussy and made her come so hard she soaked the front of his sweater as she screamed.)

She's taken her shoes and socks off, her jacket too, but refuses to take off her jeans. For one thing, she's going to get a sunburn. For another... She didn't know swimming was on the docket for today. She's not sure she's ready for that. To be that exposed. Steve may have no problem showing off his already-tanned body, but they're cut from different cloth. This sucks. She's not even high, doesn't even have her stuff with her, since she left it in the kitchen along with the two six-packs she brought with her when she thought they'd be a group, one pop and one beer. She's really tempted to go back inside and get herself something.

Standing up and crouching at the lip of the pool so that when Steve finishes his lap he'll surface right at her feet, she waits for him to emerge before calling out to him. ]

Hey, Aquaman. You want a drink or something?

[pinch_hitter]

[God; shit is weird.

Having Dustin just as happy as a pig in shit over pizza at the Henderson's while Steve and Eddie looked at each other across the kitchen table and Ms Henderson sat on the couch watching Dragnet was freaking weird. Wild. He doesn't even know the right word for it.

Sometimes it feels good and kinda easy when they settle into their assigned roles and their Survivors Recovery Group and maybe they're all... kinda friends now. And Steve realizes that he likes being around Eddie, just-- being around her. It's an eerily similar to the feeling that he had with Robin, for Robin, before he found out that his equipment wasn't the kind she liked to play with. Eddie'll come into Family Video and just hang with them and it works. It's good.

And then sometimes he'll look at her and remember how he made her scream, or how she spit on her hand or straddled him on the concrete of his pool. Then it's less easy and more awkward but thankfully they seem to be the only ones who notice. He steals a kiss once-- when they take Dustin and the nerd crew to the movies and get abandoned together on the street for JoAnn Fabrics. She brushes against him a few times, too close, too slow, always with a move it, Harrington in a way that makes his mouth dry out.

He hauls air and raises eyebrows to find Eddie hunkered down at the edge of the pool when his hand hits the wall and he stops. Steve grabs the lip of the pool and pulls himself up to cross his arms on the concrete. It's too close to Eddie, almost under her knees, but that's alright.]

Are you not going to get in?

[Robin did cancel. But she'd canceled in order to hang out with Vickie, which led to a really made up and stupid excuse that only grew worse as Steve tried to make it more believable. Steve's sure that Robin's going to tell Eddie soon but she hasn't yet and it's not his to blurt out even if she left him hanging for boobs. Nancy, well. Nancy does what she wants. And listen, Steve is kinda weirded out by not having the buffer that he thought would be there so he reverts to good behavior. The first time he and Eddie had fooled around there'd been weed. The second time there'd been music.

Now? There's neither of those and Eddie is dressed like she's afraid the sun is literally going to turn her to ash and Steve doesn't really know how to act.]

i'm your venus i'm your fire your desire FOR REAL THIS TIME

[polemical]

[ Eddie isn't entirely sure when it became normal for her to just go to Steve's house after school, on the days he wasn't working or she didn't have Hellfire or band practice, when she stopped asking if he was home or if he was bored, when she'd just turn up and park down the street and walk in the front door like she had a standing invitation.

She kind of does, really, as bizarre as that might seem.

The even more bizarre thing is that she didn't always come over to get high, or to sell Steve things he could use to get high on his own, or even to have sex. She sometimes came over just to...hang out. Sometimes Steve would give her a beer and spend half an hour ranting about the idiot customers he had to deal with at work, sometimes he'd let her talk through a campaign using him as a sounding board, and sometimes they'd just sit side by side and get absolutely obliterated when the horrors of the Upside Down felt a little too close to the surface. Never before did Eddie think she'd get so used to Steve so close to her that she'd slump against his side without thinking about it, let him put his arm around her, use the sound of his heartbeat as something to ground herself while the TV droned on in the background and she tried not to shake apart.

It's gotten so bad that she'll even bring her homework over, ostensibly to get Steve to help her, though sometimes he's more hindrance than help. As demonstrated today, because she put her feet in his lap to see if he'd push them off or if he'd let her bully him into giving her a foot-rub, and he'd actually complied. Until, that is, he started rubbing her ankles too, shoving her jeans up a little to make room for his hand, and then he discovered that she doesn't shave her legs.

Eddie's first reaction had been the knee-jerk aggression she'd learned to display whenever anyone questioned her femininity, but Steve knows her well enough by now that things were able to simmer down without her getting up and storming out of the house in a huff, even if it was kind of close at one point. Eventually, she'd confessed that the main reason she doesn't shave isn't some political statement or whatever, it's that every time she's tried she's managed to fuck up so badly she cuts herself to ribbons, and it hurts to try and twist herself around in the trailer's little bathroom so she can reach, so she's just given up. It's not like anyone is seeing them, anyway. Well. Anyone but Steve.

Somehow, that brought them here: in Steve's giant private bathroom (his private bathroom) as he fills the tub and kneels down beside it, swishing his fingers in the water. He's even gone and pilfered something smelly and goopy from his parents' bathroom that he pours in the water, filling the room with sweet-smelling steam. Shifting a little nervously from foot to foot behind him, still marveling at the fact that Steve is fucking drawing her a bath, she watches the curve of his spine and thinks about asking him to get in with her. ]

You know, I'm starting to think you just don't know how to get a girl naked. First the pool, now this... you could just ask, Stevie.

[pinch_hitter]

[They are...

kinda comfortable. Steve and Eddie are such opposites but there's something about being shoulder to shoulder with her that's just familiar. They've been through the same shit, sometimes together, sometimes on opposing sides looking in. They do fight-- and Henderson will look at them like he understands the argument stems from something way too intimate to be passing friends-- but for the most part they keep themselves to themselves and coexist when others are around.

Totally friends with benefits, right? Both the friends now, and still the benefits.

Look Steve knew that she didn't shave her legs. It's not like Eddie ever gets in skirts and they still have done everything but fully unclothed sex (like what Steve considered sex before he met her), but... he doesn't even care. Still, there's no way he couldn't have noticed. He just didn't want to make her feel weird about it; for all Eddie's bluster she can get pissed and defensive and stubborn. Which she did tonight until pushing through her teeth the real reason she doesn't bother and being met with a uh, swim team? I used to shave all the time. It could be that it's not a normal dude thing that calms her down, who knows. But here they are.

Steve got some oil from his mom's bathroom, those little plastic-like balls that dissolve and sure, they aren't necessary but they're nice even if they smell a little girly. He took off his polo so he's just in his undershirt and his chinos, kneeling on the bathroom mat. It's only his private bathroom because his parents obviously decided that one Steve was enough and never gave him any siblings to fight for the shower. It's the hall bath, though he guess he does kinda think of it like his.]

You don't have to get naked, I told you. [Steve twists to look at Eddie.] But it sure sounds like you're looking for an excuse. [He gives her a toothy smile and raises an eyebrow.]

can't think of a clever title oop

[polemical]

[ It hasn't escaped Eddie's notice that she and Steve have a habit of arguing about things and never actually resolving them. She's no good at arguing — she's great at yelling, truly excellent at opening her mouth and letting a stream of hurtful bullshit spew out like barbed thorns aimed to hurt whoever is close to her — and Steve is clearly no better, because he always gets defensive and does that thing where he throws his hands up and yells in exasperation.

Broaching the topic of him having her climb out his window could have been done better, she knows that. She feels bad about it. He did apologize to her, though, and she tries to hold on to that when she thinks about everything else.

It's the last Saturday of the month, which means the kids all go to hang out at Henderson's, and, despite the fact that she saw them for a session the night before — she might have been a little distracted, trying to think of how to give Steve the most basic, least-confusing explanation of what's going on possible — when Dustin asked her to come along, she couldn't think of a reason to say no. Maybe she just wanted to see his mom again. Maybe she wanted to have that mom energy around her, someone to fuss over her and tell her that she's so skinny, she should have another slice, and oh, here's some mousse for your hair, sweetheart, ours is the same texture and if you tried this you'd probably get some really lovely curls to form.

She hasn't had a mom in a long time. It's kind of nice to sneak a few moments with one whenever possible.

She hadn't expected Steve to be there too. She hadn't expected them to avoid really speaking to each other, using the kids as a conduit, each of them on different piece of furniture like the space between them wasn't a yawning chasm that made her chest hurt. Being a Nice Boy, Steve volunteered to do the dishes after the horde of freshmen clattered up the stairs to Dustin's room, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. Eddie had sat Mrs Henderson down in front of the TV with a cocktail she probably shouldn't know how to mix and a promise to come bother her if they had any questions about where things went in her kitchen, and then she went to go help.

Plucking the dishtowel off of Steve's shoulder as she comes to stand beside him, she leans her hip on the counter and watches his hands move in the soapy water of the sink. ]

Are we good?

[pinch_hitter]

[Eddie's presence at the Henderson's is intermittent and Steve really thought that tonight she wouldn't show-- just like how he'd done exactly what she's accused him of and dropped Dustin off for the game the night before without coming in to say hi. He almost told Dustin to say he'd ridden his bike but there was obviously no bike and maybe he thought it but he's not actually that much of an asshole.

Tonight's been awkward. They're hardly looking at each other, he and Eddie, and the kids don't really seem to notice he thinks but they're hopped up on sugar and a heart-stoppingly cheesy casserole and a normal, easy Saturday night. The last texts are still on Steve's phone. I can drive myself and you obviously don't want to tell anyone. The truce they came to isn't really a truce at all when he looks at it after the fact, it feels more like they just both ran out of air.

He hasn't reached out to Eddie. Eddie hasn't bothered to call.

Could be he doesn't blame her.

Still; the days of silence feel so weird and so empty and even Robin jokes that it's strange that Eddie hasn't come around, maybe she's sick. Steve opens his mouth to say I need to tell you something but instead ends up shrugging. He doesn't think of himself as a coward so why does not calling Eddie feel so bad? He sits on the Henderson's couch next to Lucas and Max and looks at Eddie when she speaks and wonders if she's pregnant. She would have reached out, right, if things had changed? So each day that passes has been like a hand around his throat but also... something else. Something far less like panic. Which is way too big a thing to wrap his head around. He offers to do the dishes because he likes Ms Henderson and the Freshman won't do it, plus they probably want to talk nerd shit anyway. Steve's surprised, though, when the towel is pulled off his shoulder and he tips his head to find Eddie there in the quiet kitchen with him instead of with them, wetting themselves over dwarves or something.

He looks back down at the sink.] I don't know, are we?

[Crap, that's really defensive. Steve sighs and shakes his head.] Sorry. [He lifts his hands from the suds and shakes them off, turning so that his hip is on the counter too, facing Eddie.] I don't want to be not okay, if that's an answer.

such a funny thought to wrap you up in cloth

[elnett]

[ When she woke up, there was a steady stream of visitors darkening Chrissy's door. The girls from cheer, people from church, her neighbors. Jason's parents. Boys from the basketball team. People from school she barely ever spoke to before. Reporters. Eddie Munson.

The first time she sat beside Chrissy's bedside, the first time Chrissy was awake enough to realize what was happening, Eddie had burst into tears and hidden her face in her folded arms near Chrissy's hip. It had taken effort, but she was able to lift her hand and brush her fingers through Eddie's hair, doing her best to soothe her through the fog of pain medication that was being pumped through her veins. Eddie didn't cry for very long, or maybe Chrissy's memory is spotty, and they had managed to cobble together what happened and that Chrissy didn't blame her for anything and yes, of course, she wanted her to come again. She'd made a point to call in her nurses and demand they let Eddie come visit her again, threatened to sue the hospital if they kept her away, and maybe they believed her or maybe they just didn't care, but either way, Eddie kept coming to visit.

Everyone else slowly stopped, but Eddie didn't. Like clockwork, she'd turn up ever Monday and Thursday, bringing her homework or gossip from school, sneaking in gas-station snacks she really shouldn't be eating, letting Chrissy talk about anything she wanted and even agreeing to read her the books she liked.

Sometimes those days would be a little extra long, Eddie fumbling over some of the pages, but Chrissy never minded if she had to go back and re-read something, or if she got lost or frustrated. She's read all the books before, she knows what happens. And Eddie's style of story-telling is good enough that she makes up for any mistakes that way. Really, Chrissy just enjoys her company. Eddie's never made her feel like a disappointment for taking a while to heal, never made her feel like her future is lost to her now that any athletic scholarships are off the table and Jason is gone, never made her feel like everything that makes her who she is has been ripped away.

Eddie hasn't come to see her all week. It makes her anxious. Has something happened? She'd been promised that any investigations into Eddie had been dropped, that she'd been cleared of all charges, but she knows what this town is like. Suspicions linger, and Eddie is an outcast by choice. It's easier to pin the blame on someone on the fringes than accept that sometimes bad things happen through nobody's fault at all, just bad timing.

She's debating paging for a nurse and asking for a telephone when she hears a commotion down the hall; it sounds like a cacophony of sneakers, and sure enough, it doesn't take long before a small knot of gangly teenagers go careening past the open door to her room, a blur of graphic tees and spray deodorant, and then the noise is gone as quickly as it came. Following them, at a much slower pace, is... ]

Steve?

[pinch_hitter]

Hm?

[Steve actually looks around, stops and makes a circle; pulled from his thoughts he's unsure who would be calling his name aside from the kids who've already piled into Max's room at the end of the hall it takes a moment for him to see-- and recognize-- Chrissy Cunningham. He drifts toward her open door.

Jesus Christ she looks... Well. She looks about the same as Max but the first time seeing a survivor is always a shock and Max's legs are still in casts, whereas Chrissy... Chrissy's are in metal braces, which honestly, the monstrous frameworks don't look as jarring as the skin they're cradling, bruised and scarred from trauma and surgery. Someone's painted her toenails, though, a bubblegum pink that looks entirely out of place at the end of her mottled and swollen legs and the beige and sterile hospital room.] Chrissy, you look-- [Steve smiles, a King Steve smile that's been on his face a lot this week.] It's really good to see you.

[This week has been a blur and the last thing Steve wants to do is make small talk but Chrissy probably deserves more than him blowing her off; after all, not many people can help her fill in any of the blanks or questions she might have or be able to tell her with (almost a surety) that the nightmare is over. Steve glances down the hall and then steps inside her room, pulling his hands out of his pockets. The shoulders of his light jacket are wet and his hair is a little damp, but still well-styled. Early summer rains have set in and Steve won't let himself be idiot enough to call it karma. It's just that time of year-- no universal whatever is crying because he and Eddie decided that it was better not to keep fooling around.]

Looks like you're on the mend. Two down, two to go, huh?

but never have i been a blue calm sea

[polemical]

[ Maybe Eddie should feel worse raiding Steve's parents' bathroom. She's never met them, after all, and she'd feel incredibly weird about someone poking through her bathroom to find things like hair ties and the like, but since hearing the stories Steve has let slip about how his parents treat him, she's decided she doesn't care.

Fuck the Harringtons. The only good thing they've done, in her eyes, is pop out Steve. She refuses to feel guilty for stealing Q-tips and a scrunchie out of their bathroom. Not while they're off gallivanting on some sort of retreat while their only child battles the flu by himself.

Okay, he's not by himself. She hasn't left once since coming over in the middle of the night.

It's day three on Fever Watch™, and Steve is officially no longer in danger of cooking his brains in his skull, which is excellent, except that now he's just cranky and uncomfortable and coughing like crazy, which makes it hard for him to sleep. She's still been trying to coax him into taking the NyQuil at regular intervals, shamelessly abusing the fact that it makes him drowsy, although he seems to be fighting it more and more with each dose. Still, he sleeps the day away, and every time he wakes up, he seems better. She's pleased. Maybe she isn't the worst nursemaid known to man.

She's down in the kitchen making herself a cup of coffee, her hair piled up on her head in a pilfered scrunchie, wearing a pair of Steve's running shorts and an old band tee fished out of the back of his closet so she doesn't go flashing her tits to any of his neighbors that might look through the windows, when a noise behind her has her turning, automatically reaching for the nearest weapon to hand, which just so happens to be the pan she cooked them dinner in last night. She hasn't gotten around to washing it yet.

There's an older woman standing behind her, one of those smock aprons on that art teachers or the people at the hardware store wear, and for a truly bizarre moment, Eddie thinks she's looking at Steve's mom. Except that's totally not true, she's seen pictures of Steve's mom, and this woman looks nothing like her. ]

Jesus Christ! [ She lowers the pan, but not entirely, her heart still thundering in her chest. ] Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?

[ Belatedly, she sees the little organizer bucket at her feet with spray bottles and towels and stuff. A cleaner. Of fucking course the Harringtons have a cleaner that just lets herself in and tidies up after them. God. If she wasn't so stupidly in love with Steve she'd just walk out the door right now, fucking hell. ]

[pinch_hitter]

[Eddie might have been startled but the other woman obviously isn't. Finding a young woman in the Harrington household is not exactly a surprise, in her experience, though a young woman brandishing a frying pan is something new. Washed-out blue eyes flick to the pan-- dirty-- before coming back to Eddie herself. A set of keys is withdrawn from her apron and waggled, the metallic jingle of them loud in the silent house.]

Sadie Deale. I clean for the Harringtons. But I could ask you the same question, Miss. [Sadie's tone is bored, not threatening. She has seen this all before. Without waiting for the answer she hauls her bucket up onto the island before walking around and reaching for the pan in Eddie's hand.] If Steven told you to lock up, you don't need to bother. I'll take care of it when I go. [Pan in sink. Sadie opens the cabinets underneath and pulls out a few more things.]

they said the world does not belong to you

[polemical]

[ Steve hadn't been kidding when he said he'd just have to keep reminding her that he loved her, because he's taken to telling her frequently, and as much as she wants to find it obnoxious and cloying and kind of stupid, she gets all warm and squirmy inside every single time he presses his lips to her throat and murmurs in her ear so...

Fine. She gets it now. Fine.

It's only the constant litanies of I love you that prevent her from shrieking in horror when she comes home after leaving Steve to his own devices so she can lead this week's D&D session to find him sprawled on the couch with a book in his hands, apparently thoroughly engrossed in what he's reading. Normally, she'd be thrilled. He's wearing his glasses again, which is unfairly hot, and he's reading something she likes, which is also incredibly appealing, but this time, it's not The Hobbit. It's one of the other books she threw in her bag haphazardly when she was packing in a panic to come over to be his nursemaid, one she forgot was down in the bottom under the last can of soup that she wound up not needing.

It's one of her...fantasy books. It looks like he's a good ways into it, too, not just near the beginning where things are generally pretty tame. Christ. She forgot she put that in there. Why did she put that in there? He's going to think she's a freak.

Clearing her throat, she twists her fingers in the plastic handles of the shopping bag in her hands, the snacks and condoms and beer she grabbed on her way back from dropping off Dustin and the Sinclairs suddenly feeling very heavy. ]

Uh, hey Steve. Watcha doing?

[pinch_hitter]

[It's not the real world. Not yet. Steve knows they're in a bubble and every day he gets better and Eddie needs to get back to school is one less day that they get to spend in it. Playing house, playing truth-and-no-consequence.

Which-- is what his brain swirled around while he puttered through the house during Club time, bored, the place too quiet without Eddie's big mouth around to fill it up. Steve showered. He ate. He texted with Robin. He threw a tennis ball against the wall for awhile, what a blast. There was nothing on tv. He was so bored, god, Steve almost wished he was at the game just to have something to pay attention to.

Which-- is how he got to thinking maybe it wouldn't be awful, or it would make Eddie happy, if he bothered to learn a little bit about Dungeons and Dragons. He was really bad at picking anything up even the few times he had attended, everyone talking over each other.

Which-- is why he was shuffling through Eddie's backpack. He wasn't prying. But listen, that cover isn't just something that you pass by and don't look at, not a manual but a sort of warm watercolor acid trip with the word FLESH printed in bold black.

So Steve got his glasses (which feel less like an absolute burden when they seem to wind Eddie up so good) and took it to the couch. The Hobbit had been fine but mostly he'd just enjoyed her reading it to him. It was a bit much. Fun, but yanno. Weird.

Fortunately for him, then, Flesh was really nothing like that at all. The secret of Steve Harrington is that he's a good reader. His comprehension is on the low side because he's usually bored to tears by the shit he was assigned and honestly, as he does in life, Steve takes everything at face value and completely ignores subtext. These things make him a terrible academic but a very fast reader.

He looks up at Eddie in the doorway to the family room, baggie in hand, and raises the book to tap the back against his mouth so she can a good view of the cover.

Absolutely does it because she's already blushing.

Then he opens it back up the worn paperback and reads:] Stagg was so shocked that he couldn’t react. All he could do was try to open his mouth wider so that the creature wouldn’t choke him. It was so big, so hard-- seemed to be pulsating, throbbing-- as he shoved it into Stagg's mouth. Claws dug into his head as the monster held him in place, the pain a blessing he could focus on until the little grunts began as it forced that foul cock into his mouth...

my biggest fear ain't no red devil

[polemical]

IMG.jpg

the hickey you gave me is gone :(

[pinch_hitter]

jfcedith

i was happy in the haze of a drunken hour

[polemical]

stevie? you awake?

[pinch_hitter]

Whats up

we can take forever just a minute at a time

[polemical]

[ Eddie's been a senior three years in a row and not once has she ever gone to prom. Not once has she ever even wanted to go, thought seriously about going, none of that.

And yet, somehow, she's found herself nevertheless piling into a car with Nancy Wheeler and Chrissy Cunningham, a trio she never would have dreamed up even just six months ago, the three of them driving all the way to the mall in Muncie so that she could go dress shopping, struggling in and out of what felt like hundreds of choices before she found something that she could tolerate long enough that she decided it would do. (Mostly, she'd been fucking done with shopping, but also, the dress was kind of nice.)

Nancy drove the three of them back to the trailer and they'd spent all day getting her ready, deciding to break into the pot brownies she'd made the other day instead of smoking up so she wouldn't reek of smoke but would still be buzzed enough that she'd be able to handle being poked and prodded by two sets of skinny little fingers without wanting to snap.

Chrissy and Nancy even split half a brownie, which Eddie was really touched to see. She ate the entire second half herself, but she'd a lot bigger than both of them and has a higher tolerance.

Examining her reflection in the mirror once her friends had deemed her ready, Eddie had to admit... all the times Steve's called her beautiful, told her she didn't look like a man, even Nancy's you're really pretty finally make more sense. She doesn't look like herself, with her lashes thick and dark and the shadow sparkling on her lids just drawing attention to the deep brown of her eyes, the red stain on her lips matching the deep red velvet of the dress that somehow manages to cover all her tattoos and her scars while also making her look...

She looks hot. She can admit that. She looks like maybe she could be on the front of a magazine.

Chrissy let her borrow a pair of sparkling earrings that could be cut glass or could be real diamonds, Eddie refuses to ask, and she's forgone any of her usual rings which makes her hands look a lot more delicate, an impression helped a lot by the work Chrissy did on her nails with a collection of emery boards and bottles of polish. Nancy had somehow managed to twist up her hair into a tuck on the back of her head that looks incredibly fragile and effortless but uses what feels like an entire porcupine's worth of pins, a few loose tendrils framing her face beside her bangs. She'd shaved her own legs but she wouldn't have been surprised if they would have tried to do that for her too, considering the bag Chrissy let her haul out of the back of Nancy's car when they got back to town.

Is this what getting ready for prom is like when you have Girl Friends? It was fun, but it was also frightening, and Eddie's kind of relieved when she hears Steve's car pulling up in front of the trailer with a familiar purr.

Chrissy had asked her if she wanted a purse so she could bring the essentials that girls are apparently supposed to carry, but Eddie had refused. She's never carried a purse before, and she knows trying to carry one now would be a disaster. If she has anything she needs to carry, she'll just give it to Steve instead. Honestly, the only thing she can think that she'd need would be cigarettes, and Steve has those anyway, so she's fine.

Chrissy kisses her on the cheek as she makes her way to the door, and even Nancy comes in close to give her a hug. It's a little overwhelming, honestly, having that sort of support when she's not used to it, which is why she's not really paying attention when she opens the door and sees Steve standing on the other side looking fucking incredible. ]

Holy shit, Steve. [ She can't help gaping at him when it does finally register, the way he looks in his suit, the slim lines that skim down his body and just draw her attention to the breadth of his shoulders and the neat nip of his waist. She wants to put her hands all over him. She wants to grab him by his lapels and drag him into her room and rip all the tiny buttons off his stupid clothes so she can shove him naked into the tangle of blankets on her bed and climb on top of him. She can't with an audience, though, so she forces herself to behave. ] Chrissy, can I kiss him with this lipstick on?

[pinch_hitter]

Nope!

[It's a giggle and Nancy looks at Chrissy before swallowing a smile.] Not unless you want to reapply it, [Nancy adds, more reasonably.

Steve, by the way, looks like he's been slapped.

Or kicked.

Or maybe just that his heart is being suddenly squeezed.]

You look...

[Amazing. Gorgeous. Far too good to waste on his parents and his parents' lame friends and Steve almost suggests that they just go into her room so he can tear her out of that velvet so he can shove her down naked (but with her hair up) onto the bed and climb on top of her. Too bad he can hear a peanut gallery even without being able to take his eyes from Eddie.]

Beautiful.

[Steve finally wrenches his eyes from Eddie and looks further into the trailer. Seeing Chrissy isn't a surprise, but Nancy-- it prickles at the back of his neck but she gives a little wave at waist level and he nods. Smiles.] Promise to have her home by midnight, girls. Way before she turns into a pumpkin.

[When did he reach out to take Eddie's hand? To slip his fingers around hers and rub a thumb over her bare knuckles? Steve's attention comes back to Eddie.

Jesus Christ. He takes in her hair, the small perfect curls, the long line of her neck. How dark and big her eyes look. Earrings? Steve didn't even realize her ears were pierced? And for a moment, a heartbeat, his dick steps out of the way and Steve stops thinking that he wants to lay her down and instead thinks I love her. I really freaking love her. And it's not that Eddie's gorgeous-- he already knew that-- it's that she's done this, for him.

He drops his voice for Eddie:] Unless you wanna stay with me longer. I dig pumpkins.

living on love and pale moonlight

[polemical]

[ There's a lot to be said for dating a boy like Steve Harrington. Like, a lot.

There are some things about the experience that aren't great, things like how often she's thrust up against the realization that they come from essentially different planets, monetarily, or that he fucking loves sports and she finds them so boring, but for the most part, things are good. Things are better than good.

Things are great.

He kept his promise, taking her home and spreading her out on her bed, made her come in that red dress he loves and then helped her out of it, picked all the pins out of her hair and put his mouth on every inch of her he could touch, helped her wash her hair in her tiny bathroom and then did it all over again. They fell asleep, wrung-out and exhausted, sometime well after midnight. Eddie's not entirely sure what time it was, because she'd been so worked-over that she wasn't even sure what day it was any more, and she also very much did not care. Not when she could tuck her head into Steve's chest and let him drape his arm over her, when she could drift off to the sound of his heart beating steadily beneath her ear, the smell of his sweat in her nose and the taste of his skin on her tongue.

It's even later when she wakes, not quite tipping into early, still in that limbo of nighttime where it feels like reality doesn't exist.

At first, she's not sure what woke her. The park is silent, no dogs barking of muffled music drifting on the air, and it's dark in her room even with the curtains still open. She lies awake for a moment, trying to get her brain to turn on long enough that she can process thoughts, and then she feels Steve shift against her again, and that whimpering murmur she heard before comes up from his throat and she knows exactly what happened. ]

Steve. [ Carefully, she puts her hand on his back, feeling his skin twitch beneath her hand like he's trying to buck off a fly. ] Stevie, baby.

[ Should she shake him? She wants to lean forward and kiss his skin, to soothe him as best she can, but she's also a little bit afraid he might try to elbow her in the face if she does. She's woken up from her own nightmares swinging often enough to be well aware that it's a possibility, and if Steve sees her with a shiner he gave her, even if he was sleeping when it happened, she knows he'll never forgive himself. ]

cw for suicide

[pinch_hitter]

[Eddie's voice isn't going to be enough to wake Steve, not deep in a dream, not sleeping on his right ear.

He hasn't spent the night somewhere other than his own room (or house, when the sound of the pool water is too much) in a very long time. Maybe since dating Nance. Steve always goes home at the end of the night, always checks all the doors even though a lock won't keep out what lives at the edges of his consciousness, always grabs a cup from the kitchen to fill with water, always brushes his teeth standing on a maroon bathmat. There's a crowbar in his desk drawer and a very small acetylene torch in his closet that he took from the tool collection in the garage that his dad never touches. Steve doesn't think he'll ever touch it either but he knows how to light it and being able to toss his shirt in the hamper and see it in the corner before closing his closet for the night makes him feel better. They're all little habits that Steve performs without thought. Just like he doesn't generally think about the black stain that surely lives under the fresh coat of paint on the trailer's ceiling. He hadn't tonight; every single bit of his focus had been on Eddie. By the time they managed to get enough of each other in and out of clothes to relax Steve didn't even remember falling asleep.

Exhausted, sated, but sleeping near enough to underneath an old hellmouth, no doors locked or corners with weapons that he knows of. Maybe that's the reason for the nightmares. Or not. Who knows. They seem to leak up whenever they want anyway. The bats, the demogorgons, even Vecna-- none of those monsters by themselves are as scary as they used to be. Steve's beaten all of them, after all, and the confidence to swing a bat extends even into his dreams. The real nightmares are different.

They're Eddie and Dustin being torn apart by bats while Steve can't reach them, can only scream and know, know that it's his fault and he should have been with them he should have saved them, what good is he if he lets down the people who actually give a shit about him?

They're Nancy, telling him that six kids is ridiculous and it's unfair of him to have spoken up the way he did, when he did. She never loved him in the first place and he's not enough for her, he'll never be enough and she's never planning on coming back from Boston anyway.

They're Robin being targeted by Vecna, pulling on her insecurities until Steve finds her in a bathtub with her wrists red and skin paler than normal and Steve can't breathe. His hands slide over her, sticky, tacky with her still-warm blood as he tries to put pressure on her wrists, tears hot on his cheeks and smearing his sight. "Robin, no nono, Robin, c'mon Robin--" He's got to get her to a hospital but someone took his keys, christ. Steve pulls her into his arms on the side of his tub and smacks her face, trying to get a response. "You aren't allowed to leave," Steve barks at her, shaking, trying to gather up her flopping limbs, "you aren't allowed to leave me."

In Eddie's small bed he moans again, eyes shifting back and forth behind his lids. His fingers twitch like they're trying to clutch something. His breath is sharp and shallow.]

i feel like a chain reaction

[polemical]

[ Ever since she got old enough to keep a diary, to understand the concept of keeping a diary, to feel safe enough to keep a diary, Eddie has done so. Well. Sort of. Her diary is just a collection of composition notebooks that she keeps beside her bed, and sometimes when she's high she'll sit down and pour out every single thought in her head onto the page in front of her. When she wakes up restless and antsy, she writes. When she's angry, when she's upset, when she's feeling mellow and good. She just puts down all her thoughts as quickly as possible, not caring if they're jumbled or contradictory, because what's more important is that she gets them down.

The refining of them comes later. Usually she'll sit on the edge of her bed with Wayne's old guitar in her lap, the one he gave her when she was thirteen and scared, freshly moved in with a man she'd only met a few times before in her life, a man who looked like her father but acted nothing like him.

Some songs she writes come together quickly. She'll go from nebulous idea to something performable in a day. Some of them take weeks, months, even years before she's happy enough with them to bring them out into the light of day to let even the rest of the band see. Some of them never leave the pages of book.

She's written a lot of songs lately. Like, a lot of them.

Most of them are still in the rehearsal stage, but they've worked through one of them enough that she feels like it's time to debut it to an audience that isn't Gareth's sainted parents, which is why she's bouncing on her toes tonight, halfway through their set one Tuesday night, already feeling antsy even as she starts the intro riff, four bars of just her guitar starting soft and subtle before Gareth joins in with a steady tapping on the edge of his snare, Carl's bass joining in after, and then finally Jeff rounding them out, propping her up as she starts to sing.

I like to sit around fires and catch the embers on my tongue, she starts, mellower than some of their other songs, her voice a sharp contrast to the driving rhythm of the instruments beneath her. Listening to a church choir sing about someone, segues into a crescendo culminating in her crooning, I never wanted anything and I never got it four times before the instruments drown her out and she steps back from the mic so she can focus on the way her fingers slide down the neck of her guitar. She's spent the past month fretting over this solo, picking it apart and putting it back together again, changing something, changing it back, recording herself and listening to it before starting fresh because she hated every note. At this point, she could play it with her eyes closed, which she does for a moment before something has her opening her eyes and scanning the crowd in front of them, their usual regulars plus a few stragglers from out of town, a few college kids home on break, strangers in a sea of familiar faces.

I never wanted anything and— she starts, and it feels like kismet that her eyes land on a table she hadn't really noticed before, a table with only one occupant, golden brown hair lit up by the neon signs behind the bar —now look, I got it.

It's Steve. Of course it's Steve. Who else could look at her with such weight that she can feel it all the way across the room?

Now look, I got it. ]

[pinch_hitter]

[A force of nature.

Eddie never seems to understand. Steve could cite personal life or Her Life According To Henderson (or, whatever, Hellfire), but nothing else speaks to it as clearly as Eddie on stage. She's... everything. Steve still doesn't quite get metal but he gets Eddie being up there, hunched over her guitar, curls sticking to her neck. The crooning scrawl of her voice. The truth behind her lyrics.

She's amazing.

He sits at a table tucked into the corner. He can't look away from Eddie. She's going to get out of this shithole town one day and someone is going to find her; Steve knows it. Everyone's going to be looking at her-- and for all the right reasons.

Maybe he'd reached out to Gareth. After the double date at the diner had gone... surprisingly well? Gareth and Chrissy were grossly, awkwardly cute and Steve had never gotten around to fingering Eddie under the table. To his ultimate disappointment they'd all had a good time.

So Gareth freaking owed him.

The dude made good. He had come over and gone through Steve's closet. He'd brought of few things of his own. He'd made Steve a shopping list. Enter Steve Harrington, metalhead. Well. Sorta.

His jeans are black and uncomfortably tight. Sheared a bit at the knee and thigh even though Steve definitely doesn't understand paying money for crap that's already torn up. His belt is black. The Corroded Coffin shirt he's wearing he is pretty sure Gareth gave him in a size too small on purpose? It's snug. Steve still tucks in the front. Instead of his normal Members Only jacket he's got a red and grey flannel that might be Gareth's but no one is going to know the sleeves are too short because Steve's got them cuffed up to his elbows. He's wearing the boots he got from the War Zone and never threw away because maybe they reminded him that of what they'd accomplished.

Gareth also shoved a blue bandana in his back pocket. Steve has no idea why because it doesn't match the rest of his outfit but whatever.

His hair's the same. Of course.

When Eddie's attention falls on him, Steve grins.]

i was so discontent to wear that heavy load

[polemical]

[ One thing about growing up in the trailer park is that most people have developed a certain level of practical skills, either through trial and error or through knowledge passed down from one resident to another. Technically Eddie didn't grow up here so much as move here in the middle of the school year when she was in middle school, but it's close enough, and she comes from strong trailer park stock regardless, so she counts it.

All of that is to say that, since it's not like she can afford to take her van to the mechanic's unless something goes catastrophically wrong, whenever she needs to do any maintenance on it she just does it herself.

Her dad may have been a complete piece of shit in almost all other aspects of their lives, but at least he taught her everything he knew about cars. Mostly how to steal them, sure, but also how to fix them. Mostly.

Dustin had had a point when he said she needed to just figure it out, and so here she is, fucking just figuring it out. At first she'd been trying to show Dustin what to do, conscripting him into holding the flashlight for her so she could see what the hell she was doing under the hood, but he grew bored quickly and she'd been having so much trouble that she eventually just told him to go sit down on the porch and read or something, handing him one of her (completely safe and tame) books and the boombox with her collection of tapes, a sweating can of pop at his elbow. He's been silent for a while, which she's choosing to interpret as a good thing, because she's up to her elbows in engine grease, she's managed to pinch more than one finger more than once, and she's sweating worse than a whore in church.

Swearing as she manages to smack her head on the hood as she stands, managing to hit the clip she stole from Steve's house dead center so it digs as sharply as possible into her scalp, she uses her forearm to push her bangs out of her face and whistles to get Dustin's attention. ]

Hey, Henderson. Go grab me a beer?

[hamshack]

[ As cocky as he's gotten in the last couple years--as pushy as he's gotten, it's hard for him not to take Eddie seriously when she's at work. Something about their formative relationship building being in a context where she literally held his imaginary life in her hands, who knows. But it makes it hard for him to directly contradict her, especially when it's her area of expertise. 

[ Expertise being a relative term, of course. But she knows a hell of a lot more about cars than Dustin does. So...so he does his best not to mouth off while she's working. Turns out, tapping his fingers, grinding his heel into the dirt-and-gravel, and popping his tongue doesn't exactly read as paying attention and open to learn. He's more than a little embarrassed when Eddie puts him in the kiddie corner. 

[ By the time she comes up spitting and cursing, Dustin has snooped back into the house for a less-than-safe book about vampires (which sits next to the cranking radio) and a GMC repair manual that's about fifteen years out of date (open in his lap). He's stuck to the pop, though. He looks up with a jerk when her head smashes against the hood, stretches to turn the radio down. ] 

You sure? Sounds like you're drunk out there already. 

now you hang from my lips like the gardens of babylon

[polemical]

[ Even though they've made every effort to cock-block Steve ever since they were introduced to her, there comes a time when Steve's parents have to go out of town again. What for? She has no idea. She also, coincidentally, doesn't fucking care. Any time they're not around, she's over at Steve's, and tonight is absolutely no exception.

It's a little later than she'd like, because she couldn't justify cancelling Hellfire this close to the end of the campaign — and she promised Dustin she wouldn't blow him off or anything like that just to fuck around with Steve, that she wouldn't be one of those girls who dumped all their friends the second they got a boyfriend — and honestly, she wanted to be there because her DM-ing days are coming to an end and she wanted to savor them.

Still, it's not too late when she pulls up in front of Steve's house, not bothering to park down the street like she has before, hopping out of the van with a pep in her step and a pizza box in her hands, loping up his drive before banging her rings into his front door in lieu of ringing the bell or using the knocker bolted onto the wood. She doesn't care if she dents the paint. It's not Steve's paint anyway, it's his parents, and as she said before: she does not care.

The pizza's a little cold by the time they get around to eating it, mostly because she can't stop herself from making out with Steve in the kitchen when she gets the chance, but eventually they're just licking grease from their fingers and finishing their beers, and it seems like the perfect opportunity to push up from her seat and take the two steps that separate them so she can settle herself down in Steve's lap instead, curling her arm around his neck. ]

Close your eyes and hold out your hands, [ she commands, smoothing her hand over his hair. ] I have a present for you.

[pinch_hitter]

[His hands slide up her legs to her hips as Eddie settles in his lap, fingers scratching at the side seam of her jeans as he laughs. Pizza is good and he's always grateful for the food but Eddie is better.] 's that so? [Steve raises his head into the draw of her touch and sighs but does as she asks, squeezing Eddie's hips once before letting go and holding his hands palm up between them.

He closes his eyes.]

I swear to god, Munson, if you put something gross in my hands I will karate chop you. Don't ruin the moment, okay? I want to go back to kissing you.

[howandwhen]

what are we doing for Halloween?

[pinch_hitter]

Too soon to say Vecna?

post s3, let's goooooo

[otherbitches]

[ Is it weird to text a guy you — don't text? When you have as much history as these two do? Yes. It is.

But also consider: painkillers. ]

who the fuck has chain saw massacre rented out?

[pinch_hitter]

[Jesus Christ Steve types out your mom before he realizes who the hell is texting him; he'd never saved Billy's number as a contact before things had... well.

Delete, delete, delete.]

Two people who aren't you I guess.

tfln overflow 12/2

[polemical]

[ from here ]

what do you mean they never did that? i thought everybody had to deal with that!

[pinch_hitter]

I've never heard of that before.
Like ever.