*crawls out from under a rock after months of silence* anyway I really think you should check out a fic challenge I did with @vegasol
The year 1985 is going to be Eddie’s year.
“Weirdo,” Robin Buckley says under her breath once, a sense of bewilderment in her tone as she follows Steve Harrington with her eyes all the way across the gym on a Thursday. “I know, right?” Eddie says, sitting next to her. They sit and stare at the marvel that is Steve Harrington in silence. Gym, turns out, is not so bad when you have good company, and in yet another twist of events, Robin Buckley is exactly that.
Between Corroded Coffin’s jam sessions, D&D meet-ups and impromptu study sessions with Buckley, time flies by quickly.
It is Eddie's year. Time goes on and there’s an actual possibility of Eddie graduating. Spring Break is right around the corner, then graduation will follow — And then a kid starts floating into the air right in front of him.
Another AO3 thing I’m curious about, how do yall decide if something is good enough to read? Usually I follow a rule of 1 kudos for every 10 hits. One because it’s easy math and two it’s yet to fail me. Thoughts? Do you just go for it and pray it’s good?
Eddie wants to be suave one time and tries to push Steve onto the bed only to aim so badly that his boyfriend bounces off the edge of the mattress and hits the floor.
Summary: an AU where Eddie Munson is the one to find Eleven in the woods in 1983
wc: 830
Eddie feels his hands sweat.
“You can, uh, make yourself at home,” he says, gesturing to his cluttered mess of a room. “Mi casa es su casa and all that.”
The girl blinks, not a whiff of understanding crossing her face. She looks be around ten years old but he’s never been good with ages, especially for kids. She’s young and terrified, that much he is sure of.
“Do you want something to drink? Water?”
She nods and immediately curls onto herself. Eddie isn’t sure leaving her all alone in his room is a good idea but he doesn’t think there’s a set of rules to follow here. It’s not every day that he finds a scared child out in the woods, dressed only in a hospital gown, not even any shoes on. All he knows is that the look the kid wears on her face, the one she so desperately trying to mask, he recognizes all too well, has seen it in the mirror when Wayne first took him in five years ago.
He goes into the kitchen, eyes flickering to his bedroom all the time. It has never taken so long to fill a glass full of water but here he is, by the sink, counting away every second. His eyes linger on the phone. He should call the police, he knows that, but he doesn’t even know what to say.
She’s stood up from the bed by the time he returns, maybe finally taking his words to heart. That’s until the floor squeaks and her shoulders tense, and there’s a glare thrown his way yet again.
“Sorry. Just – here,” he offers her the glass and she takes it after a second, a huge goblet in a tiny hand looking terribly out of place. The kid turns back towards whatever peaked her interest while he was away. Eddie peers from behind her, not daring to come closer and spooking her further.
She’s looking at a photo. It’s an old one, taken right after he moved into the trailer. Wayne still had a full head of hair, not that it mattered because there’s a baseball cap hiding it all away. He has his arm swung loosely over Eddie’s tiny frame. But it’s not this that grabs the girl’s attention, Eddie thinks.
“My father shaved it,” he supplies with a waver to his voice that always comes whenever the man is involved. Young pimpled Eddie with a buzz cut peers back at him from the photo and both him and the kid can’t look away.
“Papa,” the girl finally says, barely anything louder than a whisper. It’s the first time she spoke as far as he knows.
“Did your father do this to you, too?” Eddie asks, trying to keep his voice as even and gentle as possible even though there’s a storm raging inside him.
“Bad men,” she informs him, not quite what he expected, but he’s finally getting somewhere, he thinks. She taps Wayne on the picture. “Bad men.”
“Oh!” Eddie swallows. “No, no, no. Wayne’s my uncle. He’s a good person. Kind.”
The girl looks confused, as if unfamiliar with the word. Maybe she is. Jesus Christ.
“He can help you. We can help you,” he insists, checking his tone immediately because the last thing he wants is to spook her when she’s finally opening up. “What’s your name?”
Eddie didn’t anticipate that a question this simple would be so problematic, but the girl clamps up, looks anywhere but at him. Her grip on the glass tightens and it’s only now that he notices a tattoo on her thin wrist. The number 011.
The sound of tires against gravel makes them both jump.
“Bad men,” the girl says again, eyes wide with fear.
“No, no. I’m sure it’s just a neighbor. Let me-“ and he sprints to the front of the trailer. Wayne’s not bound to be home until morning but it’s not unusual for a car to drive up at this time of night. Carl Sampson often comes back from his drunken adventures right around now.
But as Eddie peers from between blinds, he doesn’t recognize the car at all. It’s too expensive, too clean to be owned by someone living in the trailer park. The people that come out don’t seem familiar either. His heart stutters when he sees guns glint in the moonlight.
“Shit,” he mutters. “Shit, shit, shit.”
He thinks about the girl in his room. A part of him, a cowardly part of him, thinks about turning her in, his survival instinct kicking in, but he catches himself – what is he even thinking? This is a child. He runs back into the bedroom. The child is looking at him, looking as lost as he feels. He shudders a breath. “Bad men.”
She nods, as simple as that. Eddie’s eyes roam around the room in rushed panic.
They just about hid her in the wardrobe when Eddie hears a knock on the door.
Eddie wants to be suave one time and tries to push Steve onto the bed only to aim so badly that his boyfriend bounces off the edge of the mattress and hits the floor.
It’s like Robin is determined to pry him open and apart and leave him destroyed. She looks ready to destroy herself along the way, too.
Eddie swallows. His eyes wander but never hit the target. There’s a crack on the table’s surface that he finds more interesting. ”What do you mean?”
“I- don’t know,” Robin admits and sighs. He hears the familiar clink of her bracelets, her chair squeaking when she shifts her weight. “I just- I don’t know.”
There’s pressure building behind his eyes and inside his skull. Part of him is angry, furious with Robin - why did she ask? Why are they talking about it at all? There’s a part of him that wants to bite and thrash like a wounded dog.
“Have you been seeing any clocks recently?” He indulges, for a second, that petty part of him, mock concern bleeding into his voice, and regrets it immediately, wishes the happy tunes from the dancefloor could drown it and erase it from existence.
“That’s not funny,” Robin snaps.
It’s not. It’s really not.
read the rest here
read from the beginning
huge thanks to @readerofportrait and @vthx for beta-reading!!
My second submission for the @strangerthingsreversebigbang event, and is finally complete!!! Art and banner made by my lovely friend @slavicviking @llamalpaca <3
Title: A Marty's Lullaby
Word Count: 26,028
Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence
Rating: Mature
Pairing(s): Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington (platonic), Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Character(s): Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Barb Holland, Henry Creel, Joyce Byers, Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington's Mother, Chief Hopper
Tags: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Soulmates Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Hunger Games, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Series Happy Ending, Angst, Protective Steve Harrington, Hurt Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has Bad Parents, Steve Harrington-centric, Mental Health Issues, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Eddie Munson is a Little Shit, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Are Best Friends, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Stranger Things Reverse Big Bang 2023-2024
Summary:
Steve Harrington will do anything in this world for Robin Buckley, and apparently, that includes dying for her.
~~~
Welcome to the 66th Annual Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor.
Beta Reader: @cranberrymoons
The amazing art can be found and given some love on this post by @llamalpaca (and can be found in my fic.)
the fic is linked here
thank you to everyone involved, and to the journey ahead of us. I hope you all enjoy.
Steve Harrington will do anything in this world for Robin Buckley, and apparently, that includes dying for her.
~~~
Welcome to the 66th Annual Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor.
My second contribution to the @strangerthingsreversebigbang that I had the lovely pleasure of working on with @slavicviking aka @llamalpaca (which is the art page).
This work was made with love, sweat and tears. I hope you enjoy.
The year 1991 was not Eddie’s year at all, a fact only further proven true by the New Year’s Eve celebration at the Buckley-Harrington’s. It’s a cozy apartment, all things considered, in downtown Chicago, in a neighborhood that would make Mama Harrington probably clutch her pearls at. Steve and Robin love it, though, which, by proxy, means Eddie loves it, too.
Not now, however. Not as he has to watch Harrington with a boy of his, standing so close that the walls around Eddie seem to cave in on him. The secret smiles, the hands on the elbow, the hip – it’s too much.
When Eddie slinks off onto the balcony, it’s when everyone is too drunk too notice.
“Eddie, hey.”
Well. Almost everyone.
“Steve. What brings you here?”
Harrington looks at him funny. Tilts his head to the side like a fucking Golden Retriever. “I live here, Munson, last time I checked.”
Eddie snorts and fishes out a pack of smokes, offering one to Steve. He declines, of course, because the wrath of Robin Buckley is not something Harrington is willing to evoke even after all these years.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks after a moment. His nose wrinkles at the smell. Or maybe at his choice of words.
“The party’s great, don’t you worry your pretty head.”
“Not what I asked,” Steve frowns, or so Eddie assumes since he’s not willing to check. One look at Steve and Eddie will surely crumble. There’s something about New Year’s Eve that makes people wonder.
“Remember,” Eddie starts but cuts himself off to take a long drag off his cigarette.
A pause. Rewind. Try again.
“Remember when you told me that if a guy swept you off your feet,” Eddie munches on his bottom lip. “You’d consider it.”
“Eddie-“
“And I was a fool that thought that maybe I could be that guy.”
Eddie remembers. It would be impossible not to when it’s been burned into his mind ever since.
I’m sorry, Steve will say. I don’t feel about you that way. And Eddie will have to grit his teeth through it and nod and smile. Hope they can still be friends at the end of the day.
“I didn’t know that was an option,” says a quiet voice to his left.
“What?”
This time Eddie does turn his head and Steve’s there, eyes on the ground. Eddie balks. “But you-“
“You said ‘good luck’,” Steve snaps his head back up. “And shut down on me. How was I supposed to know that you-“
“How could I not?” Eddie throws back. “You’re easy to love.”
Steve pauses. “Love?”
“Yeah,” Eddie slumps against the wall. “Love.”
Warm fingers intertwine with his. “Let me love you, too.”
Large text below the cut. The final chapter is up now!
Summary: Welcome to the apocalypse. The demo-infection has taken hold of the world, and humans are a rare thing these days. Still, people hang on to civilization in pockets across North America and beyond. Hawkins is one such place.
Steve Harrington is a scout who runs missions for Hawkins, and on one of those missions, he becomes separated from his scouting partner, Robin. He has to find his way across Indianapolis in an infected world, meeting one very important individual on the way, Eddie. The two of them must trust one another in order to journey across Indiana, while perhaps finding something softer to nurture with one another along the way.
The journey is full of romance, death, action, and suspense. A true slow-burn with over 52k words in total. This is a "The Last of Us" alternate universe. Enjoy this Steddie, and Platonic Stobin piece I've been pouring my heart into for ages. Make sure you check out the art, too!
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley
Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Nancy Wheeler, Joyce Byers, Jim "Hop" Hopper, Eddie Munson's Dad
Additional Tags: action, romance, hurt/comfort, alternate universe, The Last of Us AU, canon divergence, apocalypse, apocalypse au, body horror, gore, blood, animal and human death, excessive force (weapons), level of violence and graphic nature of imagery that aligns with Stranger Things, dead dove don’t read, dead dove don’t eat, smut, nsfw, frotting, handjob, happy ending, zombies, zombie apocalypse, steddie, stobin, platonic stobin, Steve and Robin are best friends, Steve and Robin are platonic soulmates, slow burn, emotional hurt/comfort, angst, miscommunication, misunderstanding, Steve Harrington loves Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson loves Steve Harrington, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Bisexual Eddie Munson, betrayal
Art credit: @llamalpaca || Link to art piece here
Fic credit: @skepsiss
Beta Reader: @knormalizeknitting
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley
Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Nancy Wheeler, Joyce Byers, Jim "Hop" Hopper, Eddie Munson's Dad
Additional Tags: action, romance, hurt/comfort, alternate universe, The Last of Us AU, canon divergence, apocalypse, apocalypse au, body horror, gore, blood, animal and human death, excessive force (weapons), level of violence and graphic nature of imagery that aligns with Stranger Things, dead dove don’t read, dead dove don’t eat, smut, nsfw, frotting, handjob, happy ending, zombies, zombie apocalypse, steddie, stobin, platonic stobin, Steve and Robin are best friends, Steve and Robin are platonic soulmates, slow burn, emotional hurt/comfort, angst, miscommunication, misunderstanding, Steve Harrington loves Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson loves Steve Harrington, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Bisexual Eddie Munson, betrayal, suggested parallels to child soldiers, nihilistic depictions of society similar to The Last of Us, including fighting and killing, parallels to animal abuse/animal deaths, more specific and trigger worthy tags at the end of every chapter to avoid spoilers
Fires broke out across Hawkins as Steve stared on in horror. They had made it to the ridge, and he could see emergency pyres starting to light along the wall. All you could hear were screams and the twang of weapons as muffled orders were shouted down the line.
“They’re not going to get there in time…” Robin said in horror, standing beside Steve as they both looked at their home. She was right. Protocol indicated that all personnel would be at the gate where the Red Saints were, and only a small crew would be at the other entrances. The whole point of a wall was to ring the alarm, not to take on a swarm of infected who came out of nowhere. None of them had ever seen demo-bats either, they’d never had enemies that could just fly over the wall—Hawkins was totally unprepared.
“We have to get in there…” Steve said, in a daze, as his feet started moving toward the town.
“We need a plan, Steve!” Nancy yelled, following after him anyway.
Steve wasn’t thinking about a plan. All he was thinking about were all those people locked inside the walls with nothing to protect themselves with. The kids, Robin’s mom, Nancy’s family, Hopper, Joyce, Dustin—you weren’t allowed weapons inside the walls.
my piece for @strangerthingsreversebigbang's The Last Strange Thing, a story by the wonderful @skepsiss
