Initiative: After by glasscoffin
After the bats, after the Upside Down, and after being the town's most wanted, Eddie Munson is left with a lot of silence and a body full of scars. Sitting by the dark waters of Lovers' Lake, he's forced to wonder if there's a version of him that exists outside of being a "freak" or a "hero."
But Steve Harrington has a habit of showing up exactly when the silence gets too loud. From a quiet, smoke-filled night of contemplation to the electric, chaotic adrenaline of graduation night, Eddie realizes that while he doesn't have a stat block for the future, he's finally done running. As it turns out, the "after" is a lot less lonely when you've got a co-pilot in the passenger seat.
come lie with me and let silence treat us kindly by flowercrowngods
Eddie learns that sometimes Steve will just lie down on the floor and simply exist while the world around him continues. The Party know that, call it "floor time", and generally leave him be until Steve is ready to be back. Eddie doesn't mind, because it offers him even more opportunities to just look at him. To watch him.
That is, until Eddie himself is in dire need of just lying down and letting the floor work its apparent magic. It's a good thing, he finds, that Steve understands him without as many words and is very ready to just take care of him. Eddie might be a little bit in love, actually.
Or: In which they lie on the floor and take care of each other, falling in love somewhere along the way between music and silence.
Seems to Satisfy by peevee
“I can’t like… get hard. At all. Since, uhhh -” he trailed off awkwardly.
There was silence, for a second. Steve’s fingers dug into his thighs.
“You… what?” said Eddie, finally.
i'll kiss your mouth, and you'll be better for it by cpressmn
“Why didn’t either of you tell us you were dating?”
He looks so hurt and indignant in the way only Dustin can, and maybe it’s not too late to run out after Steve and make their case for the beers again if it means the kid’ll stop frowning and looking at Eddie like that. It takes a minute for his words to sink in.
“What do you mean, what? You kissed!”
“No, we didn’t,” Eddie scoffs.
Except, yes, they did. Realization crashes over him, the force of it stunning him into silence.
Steve kissed him. On the lips. Like it was nothing, like it was something they did every day.
And Eddie hadn’t even blinked or shoved him away or registered it at all, just returned the kiss and went right back to bossing Steve around, as if the whole fucking thing was the most natural thing in the world.
i follow where my mind goes by anonymous
After a moment of this - Eddie, looking, touching, and Steve, melting into an embarrassed puddle - Eddie jerks upwards, abruptly breaking the weird tension (that he didn't even seem aware of) and tumbling off of the bed. He lands on the floor in a pile of limbs with a solid thump. Steve's too baffled to be concerned, and even if he wasn't, this is pretty par for the course for Eddie. It'd be weirder if he went ten minutes without doing something physical and dramatic.
"You good in there?" Robin calls from the room adjacent.
Steve snorts, and he sees Eddie crack a smile against the carpet, breaking character for a moment. "Yeah, Eddie just died."
There's a beat of silence on Robin's end, and then: "Again?"
And Eddie starts cackling.
When everyone survives and the world is no longer ending, there's not much to do but get to know each other.
what doesn't kill you (makes you wish you were dead) by sourw0lfs
(16/16 I 58,999 I Mature)
Silence stretches out in from of Steve as he stares, trying to quell thoughts of why there’s a seemingly hollowed out metal box at the bottom of the lake. None of his thoughts are connecting anywhere solid when there’s another clang through the water, but this time it’s not Steve making it. It’s coming from inside the box and fuck, he realizes with a startled shout, bubbles escaping to the surface from the breath he’s holding in his lungs. It’s an impossibility, but… He hits the box again, tapping a pattern into the metal and waiting even if he knows he needs to surface again soon. There’s an answer in the same pattern.
The only Morse code Eddie Munson knows.
OR: The one in which Eddie gets trapped at the bottom of Lover's Lake for two years following Vecna and the aftermath.
songs that voices never share by hairstevington
(21/21 I 70,286 I Not Rated)
Everything's felt a little off since the Fourth of July, and no one's talking about it. Of course, one part of Steve's summer is a bit hard to ignore - he's losing his hearing. As luck would have it, a friend of Dustin's ends up playing a key role in Steve's adjustment to his new normal.
Something Lost, Something Found by novemberthorne
(12/12 I 93,416 I Explicit)
"I'm…" Steve starts, like he's actually about to tell him.
Oh God. He's about to tell him.
Eddie's staring, and Steve sees how his hand is searching the seat behind himself for the remote, probably to kill the movie, because Steve's being so weird it's making him worried.
He sighs again, breath trembling from stress and he buries his face in his hands. Leg still bouncing in place.
The TV gets turned off and the room fills with silence, and he hears Eddie shuffling around next to him.
germansingergirl
annaxmalina
ellievsbear
2087
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
