Moth (he/it)

Have we as a society forgotten our roots?!? How is there not a single Steve Harrington Curse of Obedience/Ella Enchanted au on ao3!?!

I'm very sorry to everyone I also hate cops but I am genuinely like 60% convinced Steve is gonna become a cop in s5 of Stranger Things. He'll be nicer than Hopper but that boy has 'about to be deputised' written all over him.

if he survives, that is...

NSFW but for comedy reasons

Steve Harrington putting his sexual proclivities on his CV like "yeah I'm great at taking orders and I am very obedient to authority" and "I am very good under stress!" or possibly even "I have great leadership skills I'm good at giving orders and making people obey"...

RIP Stobin Buckington y'all would have loved saying "What the sigma" back and forth for hours on end while the party and your friends literally scream and beg you to stop...

NSFW Steddie

Steve who goes to Eddie for weed to help him sleep and pause for it with sex. Steve realising he slept better after Eddie fucked him than he ever did after smoking a joint.

Steve inviting Eddie to his place to "buy more weed" and telling Eddie when he arrived to forget the drugs and pound him into the mattress instead...

Happy pronouns day to Eddie 'it/its' Munson and Steve 'she/he/they' Harrington and Robin 'she/they' Buckley and Nancy 'she/her but in a sir kind of way' Wheeler and Barb 'any and/or no pronouns' Holland and Jonathan 'all the neos' Byers and and and and and

This is Steddie and Stranger Things just bear with me...

So, I've been watching Joey Graceffa's Escape The Night (excellent show would recommend even with the cancelled creator jumpscares from time to time)

And the start of season 2 where (spoiler alert) Joey's strung up by vampires who are draining his blood...

It got me thinking about that scene in Smallville where Clark is made into "the scarecrow"...

I got inspired.

~~~

So imagine, if you will, Steve Harrington.

Thank you for your time.

~~~

Okay but seriously, imagine Steve, disgraced king of Hawkins, maybe it's '85 a while after Starcourt, maybe before or right at the start of s4.

So (Spoiler Alert!!) Billy Hargrove is dead, Steve is a burnout working minimum wage at the video store.

Hawkins is prime for the taking for a new king.

Jason Carver desperately wants that throne.

But he needs to stake his claim to truly take it...

Maybe he's looking to the old Kings... Billy was the last one on the throne, but he's also dead so can't really be taken down any more pegs. Jason maybe took his little cronies down to the cemetery and pissed on his grave, made a real show of it, hurling abuse as if the guy could hear them, 6 feet under and several months rotted. Like he could prove himself by posturing and shouting at a corpse.

As if Billy would be the one to deal with the fallout, rather than his grieving kid sister with a bucket of soapy water and guilt like lead in her stomach.

One down, one to go.

Steve Harrington would take a little more planning, being still alive and all. Then again, the guy was a washed up nobody these days.

Everybody in Hawkins knows where the Harrington house is. Most of them have at least tried to sneak into a Steve Harrington Party at some point in time. So it's not all too difficult for Jason and his friends to show up one night, when they're sure any normal person would be in bed.

They sneak around the back of the house and are very excited to find the gate and patio door unlocked (of course they are, Steve has 7 children liable to show up at any time, it's easier to just leave it unlocked. Not like a latch is gonna stop any of the real dangers in Hawkins anyway).

The house is huge, but it's not hard to find their way upstairs to the last window they'd seen illuminated. And there they find King Steve, unconscious and drooling into his pillow, still in his day clothes, sprawled restlessly on top of his sheets.

Jason gives the signal and his boys grab Steve's limbs, dragging him out of bed.

Steve wakes up violently, thrashing and fighting and shouting. But despite the adrenaline he's sleep-weak and no match for a whole gang of teenage jocks, all of them younger and stronger than Steve.

They half-carry, half-drag him down the stairs and into the woods. He's shouting and struggling but it's the middle of the night and it's Loch Nora, soon to be Mirkwood. Nobody can hear him.

He feels his skin splitting as they drag him along the forest floor, sticks and stones digging into vulnerable flesh.

At some point they reach their intended destination, or maybe they're just satisfied with how far they've dragged him. Either way, they stop somewhere in the woods he doesn't recognise. It's cold out, and humid, but there's no precipitation.

They release his limbs, and he quickly attempts to get his legs back under him, only for a bright white sneaker to slam sharply into his stomach, stealing the breath from his lungs as he curls into himself, wheezing like a sick dog.

Several more blows swiftly follow, and Steve just barely has the wherewithal to protect his head from any more trauma, the doctor's voice ringing in his head about further concussions and permanent brain damage.

He vaguely hears Jason fucking Carver's smug voice calling him pathetic, laughing about his fall from grace. Calling him the 'fallen king'.

Jason's still waffling on, laughing as he suggests giving him 'the Hargrove treatment'.

He doesn't hear the belt buckle, or the zipper. The first he's aware of what's about to happen, he's feeling a hot stream of fluid soaking into his muddy polo. He smells the rancid tang of ammonia and groans, realising just how humiliating a situation he's in.

He tries to roll away from the vile heat, only for a mud-caked boot to hook under his shirt and tug, dragging the foul garment over his face. He gags and retches, feeling the rapidly-cooling urine pressing on his lips, inhaling droplets of the stuff.

Suddenly, the shirt is pulled roughly over his head and off. He's almost grateful, until they go for the pants as well.

Hot, sweaty hands drag his jeans down his thighs. His bare feet kick out at any target he can reach, but it seems all too easy for his assailants to strip him down to just his briefs.

"Looks like his highness still has fight left in him after all. I guess we'll have to fix that." He hears Jason crack, voice filled with arrogance and vitriol.

The hands are back, more of them this time. He feels harsh ropes tied around him, feels himself hoisted off the ground.

Rough bark scrapes against his already-damaged back and he hisses in complaint.

When they're done, he cracks his eyes open. They've tied him to a tree, too far off the ground for even his toes to brush the roots.

Jason smiles cruelly and spits on him, grinning wider at his flinch of disgust.

"The King is dead." He announces, his predatory gaze finally leaving Steve as he turns back to his subjects. "Long live the King."

The sycophants laugh along, chanting "Long live the King" as the group walk off into the night, leaving Steve all alone, helplessly restrained in the woods of Hawkins in the dead of night.

"Wait!" He pleads, "You can't just leave me here!"

Not one person so much as glances back at him.

He struggles against the ropes, trying to find a way to cut or untie them, but only succeeds in rubbing his skin raw.

Okay... this is... fine......

What's the worst that could happen? Sure, he's tied up with no way of escaping by himself... in the middle of winter... with no clothes on... covered in piss... in the woods...

It's not like weird demon dogs with hundreds of teeth live in these woods or anything...

It's not as if he's tied at the perfect height for a demogorgon to just walk right up to him and bite into his bare, vulnerable midsection or anything...

He struggles harder but nothing gives.

He hears a stick break.

He tries to turn his head to look, but it came from too far behind him.

The gate is closed. There's nothing to worry about. It's probably just a deer or a rabbit. Just a fluffy little bunny. Nothing to be afraid of.

He's shivering. He can't tell if it's from being wet and naked or from fear. If he had to guess, he'd put his parents' house on both.

How long has he been up here?

He can't feel his fingers. Maybe it's from cold... or panic... or lack of circulation...

His nipples fucking HURT from how hard they are. His balls are probably up inside him. He's sure his cock is half the size it should be.

Another twig.

He can't hold back the sob that claws its way out of his throat. Funny, he thought something was gonna come claw its way into his throat instead.

He barely even registers the stench of piss anymore, he's pretty sure some of it is his by now.

He tries screaming again, his voice echoing into the darkness with no response. He jumps at the rustle of leaves, probably birds taking flight at his sudden outburst. Definitely... just birds...

He thinks he's stopped shivering.

He's not sure.

He's not sure of much of anything right now. He thinks he saw something moving in the dark, but he doesn't know if it was dog or gorgon, man or beast. Maybe it was the Russians again. He thinks he heard that Ozerov guy in the distance a minute ago and slurs out something about Scoops Ahoy, just to be on the safe side.

Maybe making noise is a bad idea. They'll find him if he's too loud.

But doesn't he want to be found?

He might be crying, or maybe someone's pissing on him again.

When did he stop feeling so cold?

No, he's freezing. He's hollow and frozen and... floating away...

He doesn't know how much time has passed or when it started getting light out.

He hears screaming. Is he screaming? He was screaming... down in the bunker... or was it the tunnels? Maybe it was at the Byers' house...

No, no. It's too distant to be him. It sounds almost tinny. Like it's coming through a speaker.

Is it chanting? It sounds kind of demonic. He wouldn't be surprised if some kind of cult had started up in Hawkins.

Is this how he dies? Is he gonna get sacrificed to the devil? Covered in piss and almost naked, trembling and terrified in the woods?

Would his parents mourn him? Would Robin? Maybe Nancy would take him on as another crusade, another Barb... he doesn't want to put her through that again.

The noise gets closer and he realises there's instruments... even some skeleton of a tune...

Music.

It's music. And it's coming closer to him.

"Help..." His voice cracks and squeaks, barely making a sound.

"Please... help me..." He tries again, a little louder. It's hoarse and pathetic, but he hears the music cut off.

He hopes that's a good sign.

"Help me, I'm over here, please," He calls out, sobbing weakly with fear and humiliation.

"Who's there?" A voice responds, from the same direction as the music. It sounds male and young, maybe Steve's age.

"It's Steve. Harrington." He croaks.

"This better not be a fucking joke, Harrington. If you're pranking me, I'm never selling to you or your prissy little princess squad ever again."

"It's not a prank. Please, just... let me down..."

His head is hanging low, chin resting on his chest, his neck too tired to hold it up any longer.

He watches scuffed white sneakers emerge from the trees, follows them up skinny legs clad in black denim, to a scrawny torso and wild black hair, and finally the face of the one and only Eddie 'the Freak' Munson.

He couldn't care less about who frees him at this point, so long as he can touch the ground again.

He really doesn't want to die here.

"Holy shit, Harrington!" Munson trips over his own feet as he finally lays eyes on Steve and the state he's in. "What the fuck happened?"

"Please," Steve whimpers, seemingly incapable of saying anything else.

Eddie quickly gets with the program, pulling out a pocket knife and rushing towards the tree.

Steve can't stop the flinch or the terrified sound he makes.

Eddie's eyes go somehow wider still and he apologizes, even as he gets to work sawing at the thick, rough ropes.

"What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck," Eddie mutters under his breath as he works.

When the rope finally gives, he stumbles in his rush to catch Steve's limp form, and they both crash to the unforgiving ground, the dirt halfway frozen in the Indiana winter air.

"Shit shit shit shit shit, you okay, man?" Eddie asks, quickly recovering and half-crawling over to Steve, who's still flat on his face.

Steve twitches, as if trying to push himself up, before he whimpers and stills once more.

Eddie rolls him over with warm, panicked hands. "I did not just kill Steve Harrington. I did not just kill Steve Harrington. You better be fucking alive, Asshole."

Steve groans and coughs, hazy eyes meeting Eddie's gaze.

"Okay, good. This is fine. Nothing weird about this fucking situation. Can you stand?" Eddie asks, babbling with his fear. He pre-empts any response. "What am I talking about? You can't even roll over on your own, why would you be able to stand? Shit."

"'M s'rry. Th'nks f'r th'... th'nks. C'n y'... c'n you t'ke m' h'me?" Steve slurs, barely awake.

'I'm sorry. Thanks for the... thanks. Can you... can you take me home?' Eddie takes a second to translate in his mind.

"Dude, I'm taking you to the hospital. You've probably got fucking hypothermia or something."

"NO!" Steve tries to sit up, gets about an inch off the ground, and collapses back down again. "No h'spit'l."

"No hospital?! You need medical attention, Harrington. 'No hospital'," Eddie sighs. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't drive you straight to Hawkins General."

"Please, Eddie..."

Eddie groans. "Alright, alright already. Turn off the fuckin cow eyes, Pretty Boy. I won't take you to hospital. I got a shower, blankets, and a med kit back home. But if you start turning fucking blue or something we're going to the ER."

Steve lets out a sigh of relief at that, and his body starts to go limp.

"No no no no no no no no no!! No sleeping Harrington! I don't know if you've noticed this, but those of us who don't spend 8 hours a day throwing balls into laundry baskets generally don't have the muscle mass to carry someone's dead-weight. You gotta help me out here, Big Boy." Eddie taps him on the cheek a few times as his eyes droop closed.

Finally, Steve starts to get with the program a little more. He gets his feet on the ground and lets Eddie leverage him off the ground. The pair sway dangerously before finding a tentative balance.

"No offense, but you really fucking stink, Harrington. All I'm saying, you're paying for the laundromat AND cleaning my van when this is all over."

Steve groans his acknowledgement, too relieved and exhausted to be embarrassed anymore. Everything hurts, he thinks he had at least four or five panic attacks back to back on that tree, and all he wants is to fall asleep.

They stumble and stagger their way back to Eddie's van, and Eddie gets Steve buckled into the passenger seat.

"You look like shit, Man. Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?"

Steve's head droops under its own weight, but he meets Eddie's eyes with a determined expression.

Eddie shouts his frustration into the woods behind them before shutting the door and hopping in the driver's side.

The drive back to his house is brief and quiet. He worries the whole way, knee bouncing as he misses the bite and stalls twice en-route.

He parks haphazardly in front of the trailer and turns to Steve.

"Harrington?" He tries, tapping him lightly on the face again.

Steve makes an offended grumbling noise, trying to roll away, then jolts awake when he registers the seatbelt.

"There you are. We have arrived, my liege, home sweet home." Eddie bows as best he can in the confined space of the vehicle, gesturing sweepingly at the trailer with his other hand.

"Ready for the home stretch?" He asks, unclipping both of their seatbelts.

Steve mumbles in what Eddie can only assume is agreement, and he hastily leaves the van and moves to help Steve do the same.

Eddie loops his arm under Steve's and helps him traverse the few steps to his front door. He lets them both in and, with barely a moments thought, guides Steve to the bathroom.

He dumps him in the bathtub, underwear and all, and immediately starts the water running. It comes out cold at first, warms up gradually, but Eddie plugs the drain anyway, figuring he should probably let Steve warm up slowly. Besides, the water heater normally has two settings: cold as balls or the devil's armpit. There is no middle ground. Might as well use the initial cold rather than wasting it, even if it does make Steve whimper until it starts to heat up.

"Easy there, Big Boy. You're lucky you don't have frostbite or something."

"Don't f-feel s-so luck-lucky right n-now." Steve responds through chattering teeth.

"Yeah, well." Eddie sighs. "Look, I'm gonna grab you a towel, maybe some clothes. Please don't drown in my bathtub while I'm gone."

Steve gives a lacklustre eye-roll in place of answer, hugging his knees to his chest over the rising water.

Tiredness washes over him as he begins to regain feeling in his extremities. He finds himself unable, or maybe just unwilling, to fight it, and barely notices as his head drops to rest on his battered arms.

Eddie returns to the bathroom, armed with clean towels, an old pair of sweatpants, a shirt that's just this side of baggy on him, and some thick socks he pinched from Wayne's drawers.

He immediately drops them on seeing the water rising dangerously close to the tub's rim, lunging for the tap to stop the flow.

Steve's fast asleep, but at least it seems his head hasn't dipped under the surface.

Sighing yet again, Eddie pulls the plug, letting the water out to a more manageable level. Once he's satisfied the tub won't overflow, he replaces the plug and shakes Steve's shoulder gently to wake him.

Steve startles, soaking Eddie's shirt and pants.

"Thanks(!)" Eddie grumbles sarcastically.

Steve hones in on him and finally a little bit of colour returns to his cheeks as he blushes with contrition. "Sorry."

"It's fine, just- here." Eddie grabs a half-empty bottle of unbranded 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. He hands it to Steve, who looks at in equal parts gratitude and disgust.

"Not all of us can afford Fabergé Organics, Princess. You reek. Wash."

"I don't use- I mean- I-" Steve stutters in denial. Eddie's eyes go wide.

"Wait..." A slow grin spreads across his face. "I was kidding, Harrington. You actually use that shit? Damn, no wonder you've got those Disney princess locks."

Steve groans and turns his attention to the soap he's holding. His clumsy fingers, still thawing and angry red, scrabble uselessly at the cap and he has to fight back mortified tears.

Eddie notices his struggle and snatches the bottle back almost aggressively in his awkwardness.

"Sorry, let me get that." He flips open the cap and goes to hand it back, only to catch sight of the shredded skin on Steve's palms.

"Ouch. Maybe I should- I mean- Can I wash your hair for you? I don't think this stuff is gonna feel too good in those battle wounds, my liege." He fumbles out, already reaching for a plastic cup by the sink.

Steve looks at his hands like he didn't even realise they were injured and huffs out a breath, nodding in agreement.

Eddie dumps the toothbrushes out of the cup onto the counter, quickly rinsing it under the sink.

He dips it into the bath by Steve's feet to fill it with warm water.

"Close your eyes." He instructs, voice gone soft.

Steve obeys, tilting his head back.

Eddie's breath catches a little at the long line of his throat, examining delicate features beginning to bruise like peach-flesh. He swallows and cups a hand over Steve's forehead, diverting any wayward dribbles as he begins to pour the water over his scalp. He repeats the process, wetting his dirty hair until the lions mane King Steve has always worn like armour is flat against his head, limp and lifeless.

He squeezes a generous amount of soap into his hand, putting the container back on the side before working up a lather between his hands. He brings his fingers to Steve's hair, reverent. He feels him shudder as he starts to work the suds into his scalp. Feels the tension slowly drain from his neck and shoulders as he massages the grime and tangles away.

He's hit by a wave of disappointment when it's finally time to rinse it out again. It's not exactly surprising, he's wanted to put his hands on Steve Harrington since he first saw his smug little face in middle school.

Still, he washes out the soap and steps back. He almost falls into the tub when he sees tear tracks running down Steve's heat-reddened cheeks.

"I- uhh... How do you wanna do the rest of this? Your hair isn't exactly the only problem area, but I doubt you want me grabbing your junk or anything..." Eddie's own cheeks start turning pink.

Steve seems to snap out of some kind of trance and he quickly scoops water over his face.

"I got it. Thanks, Man." Steve's voice cracks, dangerously close to tearful, and he clears his throat.

Eddie stares at him for a moment before he catches himself, turning dramatically towards the door. "Right. I'll just- I'll be in the front room. Don't pass out again. Or drown. Or... I'll be in the front."

He makes a hasty exit.

Taking a few deep breaths, he makes a detour to change into some dry clothes before collapsing heavily on the sofa.

He's starting to get worried when he hears a commotion in the bathroom, followed by a loud 'thud' and a small voice announcing "I'm okay."

Steve stumbles out a few minutes later, hair still dripping wet.

He looks kind of pathetic in the threadbare t-shirt, sweatpants that are more patches than original fabric, and droopy woollen socks so large the heel sat halfway up his ankle.

Eddie's heart clenches at the sight.

"Dry your hair, Harrington. I don't think there's any way you're getting out of this without a cold but don't make it worse than it already is."

As soon as Steve joins him on the couch, he lifts the towel slung around his neck and drops it on top of his head, beginning to gently squeeze and ruffle the hair underneath.

Steve practically melts into the contact, not complaining one iota as he shuts his eyes and hums in contentment.

Once he deems Steve suitably dry, Eddie nudges him until he's lying down. He plops a fleece and a heavy afghan over him and watches him finally get some proper rest.

"You're explaining everything to me when you wake up. No getting out of it."

Steve huffs out a contented sigh and Eddie knows he's done for.

Steve Harrington takes up journaling.

Look, he's a very traumatised teenager in the 80s. He's got barely any friends, essentially no family worth a damn, and he's definitely not getting a therapist any time soon.

He remembered asking Nancy once, while they were still dating, why girls keep diaries. Why they write shit in them if they don't want anybody to read it.

She told him she likes it because it's like having a friend who can't give you advice you don't want, who won't give you their opinion or judgement on things they don't know enough about.

A diary can't betray your trust the way a human can, so long as you hide it well enough, and if you write something in it that you're not allowed to talk about, you can always tear out the page and throw it in a fire. It's how she compartmentalises. It's a release.

Steve honestly thought it was dumb at first. Leaving all of your secrets conveniently together in one place. If you invited friends over or threw a party and someone found it you'd be socially ruined before you even knew it was gone.

Still, after everything goes down... Steve has no friends his own age, he's sort of responsible for a bunch of traumatised kids, he's for all intents and purposes alone. He feels like he's going to pop if he doesn't tell someone something.

~

He's throwing another tantrum, as his mom would call it. Tearing up and throwing anything he can find, uncaring of the mess he'll have to clean up later. He just can't cope, and it's not like anybody's stopping him.

He turns his attention to a bookshelf, starts tearing pages out of paperbacks and launching them across the room. He picks up an old notebook, probably a spare he got for school and never got round to using.

It makes him pause, remembering an old, old conversation with somebody he used to love.

He figures, what harm could it do to try? It's not like destroying the house for the third time this week is helping much, nor did climbing into his dad's liquor cabinet and falling to the bottom of a bottle of barrel-aged whiskey.

He grabs a cracked biro off the floor, ignoring the way the plastic crunches a little in his too-firm grip.

He opens the book to the first page and begins to write.

He doesn't really know what he's doing, so he just starts putting his stream of consciousness onto the page. At first it's barely coherent scribblings, but once he starts, he finds there's things he wants to say, things he's been desperate to tell someone just to get them out of his head. He couldn't tell the kids, couldn't tell Nancy or his parents, definitely couldn't tell Tommy and Carol, so he tells the book, instead.

He pours out his darkest thoughts, writes things he would never say out loud, about how sometimes he wishes the demogorgon had taken him out, wishes Billy had killed him, how maybe the kids would be better off that way.

He writes about how exhausted he is, how much he hates his friends and the government and everybody who dragged him to this point and then left him hanging. Left him to drown.

Like Barb drowned. When he killed her. When stupid Nancy invited her stupid friend to his stupid party because stupid Tommy and stupid Carol wanted to play in his stupid pool at his stupid house because his stupid parents were on a stupid business trip.

He presses too hard and the paper tears under his pen. He realises he's crying when he tries to put the paper back together and the ink smudges on his fingers.

He writes and writes until he feels empty inside, then he puts it in a shoebox and stuffs it back under his bed, along with all of those feelings and fears and traumas. With his absent parents and miserable little life and everything that he can never show to the rest of the world.

He starts cleaning up in a haze, forgetting all about his diary for the time being. He's got responsibilities, after all. Who else is gonna step up, if not him?

~

End for now, but this could go a number of ways feel free to add on. Maybe someone finds the journal. Maybe they get upset by what they see. Maybe they're insulted, or scared, or worried and horrified about Steve's inner monologue.

Maybe some kind of magic happens and the book is actually connected to someone else in some way, and they're seeing everything he's writing and start writing back soulmates-style.

Maybe the book is someone, and they materialise from it having been created by Steve's thoughts or just summoned to 'fix' him.

Idk, as I said there's a lot of directions this could take.

Stealth hyperfemme transgirl Stevie Harrington who deep down really loves some traditionally masculine stuff (like cars maybe? video games?) but would never openly admit it.

She gets hit on at a club one night by a total creep and she's terrified because if she rejects him he might attack her, if he finds out she's trans he might attack her (and his hands are trying to wander places she does not want them to wander)

Enter leather genderfuck transgirl Eddy Munson, who first asks the creep to "unhand the lady" and then, when the guy won't budge, pulls out the deepest boymode voice she can muster to tell him to fuck off before she makes him.

Stevie is heart-eyes smitten, especially when Eddy wipes a tear from her cheek with a deep red lipsticked smile and calls her a "pretty little thing"...

Also something something Eddy helping Stevie cope with her internalised transphobia and such and Stevie learns to accept that she doesn't have to be the perfect hyperfemme tradwife to be a valid woman etc etc

Sat bolt upright in bed at 3am with the need to bestow this idea upon ye.

Stranger Things but Billy Hargrove is Bill Cipher from gravity falls...

Stobin as Dipper and Mabel...

Okay but fr a gravity falls au would go HARD

Maybe One/Henry/Vecna could be Cipher or maybe even Time Baby...

There's a lot of thoughts to be thunk...

The kid who threw Mike off a cliff is probably lil' Gideon though.

I've been spending time on Reddit lately and... Steddie prompt?

Steve Harrington is lost. He's trapped in the upside down. Alone. Because of fucking course he is. Why wouldn't he be? Still, at least it's not one of the kids or something.

Then again...

At least the kids know shit like morse code, and they're smart enough to figure out how to communicate topside. Steve's just sitting here, miserably staring at the vines with his plank (he misses his baseball bat, this rotting old timber was all he could find on short notice).

Sometimes he hears little bursts of voices from the real world. Hears fucking Munson and his godawful noise-music that gave Steve headaches BEFORE all of the head trauma. And actual trauma.

But all he can find in this dump is a walkman and a two-way radio. He's tried talking into the radio an embarrassing number of times, to no avail. He doesn't know if the damned thing even has batteries in it.

He can't communicate. He can't get back home. He's just... stuck.

He's just about given up on ever getting home; ever even seeing another living person again.

When he hears Munson again.

He's just talking to himself, muttering about his latest campaign or something. Steve doesn't really care, he's just grateful to hear someone's voice other than his own.

He tries recording it, so he can listen to human speech whenever he wants, but he grabs the radio by mistake.

Munson stops talking. The air becomes thicker, somehow tension seeps across the dimensions.

"Hello?" Munson sounds concerned - afraid, even.

Steve's eyes snap wide open.

"Hello?! Hey, Munson? Can you hear me?" He shouts into the musty air, careless of the monsters waiting outside the paper-thin walls of his hideout.

"Fucking losing it, Munson." Eddie mutters to himself, seemingly without hearing the call.

Steve tries the radio again, shouting into it, begging to be heard. No luck.

He sighs, assuming some miserable coincidence gave him a tiny crumb of false hope, and drops to the floor.

He grabs the walkman, resigning himself to listening to faint recordings of Eddie fucking Munson's voice for the rest of his short, sad life. He hits record and lays in silence, listening to Eddie until he falls silent.

Steve winds back the tape, listening for whatever he's captured. It's bad quality, but that's certainly Munson's voice, raving about dragons and other nerd shit. He'll take it.

Some time passes and Steve's got the tape playing aloud while he's toying with the radio again. This time, Eddie hears it.

He reacts with surprise and fear and confusion. He's hearing his own voice, distant and crackling, coming from nowhere in particular. Of course he's fucking terrified that's some mimic ass shit.

Some sort of monster, lurking in the dark, trying to lure him to it with his own voice.

Steve, of course, realises that for some fucked-up reason, the radio works to connect him to the other side, but it only hears the fucking walkman.

Steve spends weeks trying to communicate with Eddie by playing his own speech back to him, writing a full glossary of words he's got at his disposal with time stamps for where on the cassette he needs to play to express them.

He finally convinces Eddie to listen by playing "help" "me" "it's" "big" "boy" any time he hears Eddie's presence.

He sometimes catches snippets of Wayne, too, and throws some of his words into the mix as well.

Just the innate horror of being able to communicate but only through another's words, of hearing something strange and other speak to you with your own voice, cut and clipped and tonally all wrong for the context.

Something uncanny. Something familiar yet not. Something dark and serious and frightening.

The nature of danger and bravery and fear and innovation.

They muddle through together, and when Steve is finally, FINALLY rescued he ofc holds Eddie so tight the poor boy can't BREATHE but he doesn't care because it's over and they're both safe.

Eddie holding him in return because it's REAL and he thought he might be losing his mind for a hot minute there.

Kas Eddie is the monster, Stevie is the girl, maybe Steve never went through The Horrors...

Inspired by Chapter 1 of Visible Ink by writersagainstwritersblock on ao3 (archiveofourown.org/works/52224421)

Where Wayne is telling Steve about how Eddie's mom died from ovarian cancer, and how his dad crumbled afterwards, and how Eddie is just like her...

What if Eddie died from the same thing his mom did... he went the same way, the same story, that megawatt grin flickering and going dull...

What if Steve crumbled, when that day came? He promised Eddie he wouldn't become bitter or cruel, but he couldn't cope when it happened. He falls apart, locks himself away, maybe even ends up a criminal.

What if he pushed everybody away, didn't want to be saved because what use was it, saving him, when nobody could save Eddie?

Maybe Wayne finally steps in, when even Robin couldn't get through to him, and he just... starts talking. About Eddie. His mom. His dad.

Steve thinks Eddie would cry, to see him now. He would turn away in disgust. Wayne says different. He knew his boy. Still knows his boy.

Eddie would see through Steve in an instant. Sure, he'd spit and yell and fight him over it. But when it counted, he'd fight for him. He'd always been a runner, but for this... for Steve... he would stand and fight, no matter what.

Wayne lost one son, and he couldn't do anything to save him. He wouldn't lose another.

Steve getting kicked out with nothing but the money he had on him and the clothes on his back...

He goes to the thrift store to get some more clothes and days later Eddie's heart stops when he sees Steve Harrington walking around in a Corroded Coffin T-Shirt...

Steve, Eddie and Robin trying to make their own pickles...

Eddie's pickles are full of botulinum toxin (they're very lucky they also tasted awful so nobody swallowed any) (it still makes them sick)

Robin's jars explode (Steve is roped into cleaning up the glass)

Steve's are eaten by the kids before they have the slightest chance of even starting to ferment. He tries three times before giving up.

PSA idak if you can get botulism poisoning from pickles but if you do ever get botulism symptoms or think you might have consumed contaminated food go to hospital it is very dangerous

I also have no idea how you make pickles I might be thinking of a different food item but hush I doubt these three have any idea how to make pickles either