#fili writes

[angelicknightwrites]

Tmi but when I went to the doctor for a nasty ingrown nail he told me

"I'm going to start and I'm going to finish in one sitting. I'm not gonna stop even if you beg me, even if you thrash around. I'm getting this done today"

And then he made me feel the worst pain I've felt in my life but I'm all better now

Anyway thought this bit of dialogue had whump potential

[fili-is-gone]

ao3 may be down but I humbly offer you some newtmas:

   “I love you,” Thomas said. His voice was raw, cracked open like a wound. “Newt, do you hear me? I love you.”    “I hear you,” Newt whispered, the words dragging like chains. “But I can’t believe you. You don’t love me. You love the version of me I let you see. You don’t love… me.”    “Then show me,” Thomas begged, desperation threading every syllable. “Show me the parts I’m missing, Newt. Please. Let me learn how to love them, too.” Newt said nothing. The silence pressed down until Thomas’ next words broke it like a bell tolling the end of everything.    “I’m scared too, Newt. But not of you. Never of you. The only thing that terrifies me—the only thing—is losing you.” The sound burrowed deep into Newt’s skull, reverberating through bone, through marrow. His body trembled. He couldn’t tell if it was the Flare hollowing him out or grief clawing at his insides. His skin felt thin, fragile, barely stretched over a heart that hammered too hard, too fast, desperate to burst free from a body that had already been condemned. He turned away. Looking at Thomas was unbearable. It was like staring into a future he could never touch, a life slipping through his fingers even as he tried to hold it.    “You will,” he rasped. The words were jagged, his voice cracking under the weight of despair. “You’ll lose me—sooner or later. Better it’s sooner. Better to spare yourself the rot, the ruin.” His hands curled into fists, nails digging until they broke skin. The sting was the only tether he had left. “It’s better to leave now than to stay and watch what I’ll become.” The words came faster then, pulled out of him like confession, trembling at the edge of a scream. “Because I’m terrified of losing myself, too. Not for me—not anymore. For you. Don’t you see? My greatest fear isn’t losing you, Tommy. My greatest fear is hurting you. Hurting the only bloody thing that still matters.” Silence fell, thick and suffocating, ash after fire. The air stank of damp stone and rust and decay, the world itself conspiring to echo his unravelling. Newt heard his own ragged breaths, uneven, too animal already, the Flare creeping closer with every sound. Thomas stepped nearer. Close enough that Newt felt the warmth radiating off him, a fragile proof of life. His voice shook, but beneath the fracture was a steel that cut straight through.    “But you are, Newt. You’re hurting me right now—asking me to walk away. Asking me to abandon you.” His throat bobbed, tears glinting in his eyes, but his gaze never faltered. “That’s worse than anything the Flare could do.” Newt’s chest seized, pain sharp enough to split him open. He wanted to shove Thomas back, to force him to see that this was mercy—that leaving was the only kindness left. But every fibre of him screamed the opposite, screamed to stay, to fold into Thomas’ arms and let the world end around them.  The war inside him roared louder than the Flare itself. It tore him in two. And he was weak. He was so bloody weak. His hand lifted before he could stop it, reaching for Thomas like a drowning man clutching air. Thomas caught it instantly, no hesitation, no restraint. Heat met cold, life met ruin. There was no pity in it, no strength meant to anchor. Only a quiet insistence that shattered every wall Newt had left. That touch was forgiveness. That embrace was love. That closeness was hope. And hope, Newt realised with a hollow shudder, was the cruellest thing of all.

[caesars-bubbles]

Price is the kind of guy that opens car doors, pulls the chair for you, all gentlemanly

Gaz always gets you a bouquet of roses for every date and he secretly saves a rose from each date and presses it in a book to keep it

Soap loves to tease, holding your keys above his head and watching you struggle to reach for them

Ghost greets you with a kiss every time you see him, especially when he gets home after deployment

[fili-the-jester]

"Are you going to disappear?"

Summary: Ao Lie’s descendant asks him a question after they finish watching a movie.

Based in: LMK AU - Spiritual Guardian AU

Ao Lie pauses and turns his head to look at the small child nestled against his side. She wasn’t looking at him, instead she was gazing rather intently at the screen of the TV, which was now showing the ending credits.

"What makes you think that?" He says after a moment.

Her grip on his sleeve tightened, not overly so, but enough that he felt it. She’d been holding onto his sleeve of his arm, which was tucked around her, for a duration of the movie.

“The turtle in the movie,” she was now holding onto his sleeve with both hands “he disappeared and” she was looking up at him now, with those bright jade eyes “he left everyone behind.”

Ao Lie smiled softly down at her. “You think I’m going to disappear in a cloud of peach blossom petals?”

“You could!” She protested.

He exhaled softly, still keeping a calm smile on his face.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to disappear.” He reached down with his other hand and gently ruffled her hair as he had done many times before.

"But what if you do disappear?"

If he was being completely honest, he had no idea whether if at some point in the future, if he would in fact disappear, leaving her alone without him. He wasn’t even entirely sure about what kept him here to begin with. He didn’t voice any of those thoughts though, those thoughts wouldn’t help the current situation nor would they make Xiaojiao feel better.

Instead, he picked up his descendant and placed her on his lap, securely wrapping his arms around her.

“I simply won’t allow it.”

“You won’t allow it?”

He tapped her gently on the nose, with a light bop.

“That’s right.”

“You can do that?”

“I am a fierce and noble dragon prince, third son of the Dragon King of the West Sea, and the mighty White Horse Dragon. I daresay that I can do what I want.”

Xiaojiao’s eyes searched his face, as if trying to find facial evidence that he was lying to her.

After a few seconds passed, she stuck out her left pinkie.

“Dragon’s honor?”

Her expression was a serious one, or as serious as a little kid’s face could be. Her eyes were looking directly into his own, jade green meeting jade green.

Ao Lie chuckled lightly, bringing up his own pinkie to link with hers.

“I swear on my honor as a dragon, I will never disappear and leave you behind.”

[camomills]

Title: Stars of Soot Relationships: Silica/Sinon Fandom: Sword Art Online Word Count: 3083 Summary: Sinon shows off GGO to Silica as a date, at Silica's request. As she experiences the different sensations of such a hardy world, Silica wonders why this world means so much to the other girl. Notes: Made for SAO Pride Week 2020 - Day 2: Stargazing. This one wasn't beta read because I was a bit pressed for time, so please forgive me for any glaring errors. It's been a while since I wrote Silica/Sinon! It was quite fun to revisit the ship. As per usual for me, this wound up as a weird mix of fluff and character study.

AO3 Link

-

The air in Gun Gale Online smells like gasoline and gunpowder, but Silica doesn’t mind… much. Not when she clings to Sinon’s back as they speed down the highway on a rental buggy, pigtails fluttering in the wind as her cheek finds rest in-between her girlfriend’s shoulder blades.

“I still can’t believe you want to try out this game,” Sinon says, the metallic hairpins on the sides of her face clinking lightly. She’s still not that used to driving, in the game or otherwise, so she keeps her eyes on the road instead of turning her head back as she talks. Vehicular collisions are not particularly romantic.

I just want to know what you see in it , Silica replies in her mind, raising her head.

She understands that, for all the time they spent together in ALO ’s fairy realm, that wasn’t Shino’s ‘world’, not in the way this place is. When she doesn’t bury herself in the curve of Sinon's back, the gas and soot is more apparent to all of her virtual senses, and even though it was her own proposition, she has to ask, why? Why choose colorless tiles and cracked pavement over the boundless hues of fantasy?

“I’d be lying if I said I… particularly get it,” Silica admits. “But this world is important to you, right?”

“Yeah,” Sinon replies. “ GGO might be an acquired taste, though. This game is gritty.”

She rolls her shoulders, leaning further back onto Silica.

Excluding Silica, Sinon has never been one for bubbly and cute, so GGO would always be a better fit for her. But this virtual world was made with inhospitality in mind, so not exactly the perfect dating spot. The fact that she’s here for one surprises her more than it does anyone else.

“Well,” Silica says, “good thing you’re here, then! Having a tour guide to show around should be a huge help.”

Sinon wheezes. “So I’m your tour guide, now?”

“Yes!” Silica proudly proclaims.

The sniper smirks. “Okay, then.”

Sinon twists the handlebars, and the bugey roars as it peels through the road. She can’t help but smile as Silica’s high-pitched yell reaches her ears, just barely audible over the revving of the engine.

*

The howling of gunfire can’t be heard as much within GGO ’s hub city, but the loud advertisements that echo from the bright signs serve as a fitting substitute, volume-wise.

Silica’s only knowledge of this game comes from watching Sinon and Kirito fight for their lives, real and virtual, through a tournament broadcast. The fact that Sinon still logs in daily to Gun Gale even after that incident would be odd to anyone other than people like the beast tamer and her friends, who are all VR addicts despite their time in Aincrad.

The two years in the floating castle, despite the pain it caused her, was where Silica grew the most. She’d never openly say that there’s a part of her that misses the days after the one year mark, when she’d settled into her reputation in those lower floors and tried to forget the outside world so much that she succeeded. None of her friends would. It’s a silent understanding and an untold promise; not to admit missing those days, so they don’t have to, either.

What does GGO, a medley of grit, greys and metal, mean to Sinon?

Their circumstances are different, but the scars they bear stain their skins in similar ways. The masks offered by virtual worlds, Silica knew, gave one the opportunity to confront themselves in ways one couldn’t anywhere else. There was something to the kind of place one chose to do so that Silica found important to know.

Sinon got to see New Aincrad, walk over the same plains wherein the beast tamer had met Pina, bask under the same electronic sunlight she experienced for two years.

It’s not fair if only one of them gets to do it, is it?

**

The sun sets while they stroll through the city, and Silica understands more of the acquired taste Sinon had mentioned. The approaching dusk was somewhat nice on itself, but the place was still a palette of monochrome then, all steel on sand, black on white. Once it’s officially night time in game, 6:00 PM sharp, however, everything changes. The dark of night makes the huge, floating billboards pop, neons of purple and blue scattered through the cyber landscape. The virtual city night lights become luminous streaks in her vision while they dash on the way here on the buggy, not unlike how she imagines speeding through one of Tokyo’s nightlife districts in a motorcycle would feel like. It’s movielike, but not fantastical or unreal, but maybe that’s the point; she doesn’t think she’d have the guts to go at such high speeds with her flesh-and-bone body, nor would Shino have the confidence Sinon presents.

There are things from real life that one can only do in a game like this.

***

They stop by an equipment shop at the center of the now-luminous city. Unlike the last time she was here with someone else, Sinon has no tournament sign-in to get to after shopping, so they can take their time.

Sinon is surprised when Silica picks an overall sensible combat outfit; a tactical green and black leather outfit with red accents, along with a dark, moss-colored poncho. We kind of match! Silica beams as she presents herself, pointing back and forth between her and Sinon’s outfit colors. She frames her face delicately and comically she does so, her eyes shining like a cartoon fawn’s. Sinon knows it’s on purpose, this over-the-top display of sweetness, but it makes her smile anyway.

Of course Silica found a way to make this cute.

It’s also cute, albeit in a different way, when Silica’s eyes look away from the armor section of the store and widen as she takes notice of a display of combat knives. They’re military-grade blades, absolutely indistinguishable from the real-world articles. Unlike just a moment ago, the shine in her eyes is unfeigned.

“Oh yeah, this game has these!” Silica exclaims.

Sinon turns to her with a quizzical look.

“... You’re interested in the knives?” That makes it two for two, the times she’s taken someone new here and they thoroughly ignored guns. Are all fantasy game players like this?

“Of course I do!” Silica exclaims, like it’s obvious. Her look all but says, I spent years fighting with daggers, remember?

Silica takes one of the knives from the demo display. It looks comically large in her hands, and yet it pales in comparison to the ones she’s grown used to in fantasy games. She spins the handle in-between her fingers, resting it on her knuckles. The hand flourish when she bumps the blade upwards, sending the knife spinning high, and then catches it from the air with her open palm is almost too fast to see. She gleefully changes the grip a few times before finally settling it in a simple reverse grip.

“They have such a better feel than those bulky daggers!” Silica exclaims in glee.

“ Impressive,” Sinon mutters under her breath. She can’t help but be hit with a sense of deja vu .

There’s a sensible distance one can gain when looking at someone brandishing a bright sword that looks more like a cosplay prop, or a fantasy dagger coated in filigrees. But there’s no distancing from seeing Silica, in all of her titanic five feet of height, doing knife tricks one would expect of a special forces soldier, or perhaps a movie greaser, when the blade is so realistic.

Sinon would be lying if she said she doesn’t find the display at least somewhat attractive.

Sinon heads over to a small menu in front of the knife section as she selects the same blade Silica had in hand. Soon after she goes through the proper transaction steps, holding Silica’s hand and laying it over the holographic display, one of the store robots scoots over to hand Silica her item.

Silica’s smile makes the credits Sinon spends all worth it.

… Is a knife a weird gift to give your girlfriend? Sinon thought, but that was a bridge already crossed. Then, she remembers the real reason they came here.

“I know you’re mostly here to look around, but you’ll still need some sort of main weapon if you’re to experience the game.  Pick whatever gun you’d like to test out and we can go to a shooting range.”

****

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am absolutely serious!”

Instead of the shooting range, the two find themselves by a station near the edge of the city, connected to the game’s starter fields.

The vehicle’s mounted weapon protrudes from a hatch on top. Its long, steely frame glimmers as it reflects the sun’s harsh light.  The heavy machine gun could be mistaken as some sort of cannon for the uninitiated in the ballistic arts, with its bulky, long barrel, but it’s a high-RPM, lightning-fast automatic weapon, nothing short of a reinforced harbinger of death.

“You said I could pick any weapon,” Silica reminded the other girl. “I’m picking this mounted gatling gun.”

Machine gun, actually, Sinon thought of correcting. Other than the regular shooting ranges in GGO, there were also training grounds for driving by the outskirts of the city, by the game’s starting area - it had been where Sinon had trained her bugey skills, in fact - but the knowledge of that, or of the existence of mounted weapons, is the sort of knowledge most newbies wouldn’t have.

Silica did her research for sure... and was probably planning this.

Sinon’s original plan was to simply show Silica around the game, so buying an expensive armored vehicle sounds unwise, especially when there’s only two people.

The sniper squints her eyes at the shorter girl.  Noticing Sinon’s glare, Silica fans her eyelashes pleadingly, and Sinon’s resolve falters.

… I guess I was thinking of getting everyone else to convert and help me out, anyway?

“... Fine,” Sinon concedes. “But you better help me convince everyone else to hop on here for the PKer problem, then.”

Silica immediately jumps in excitement. The humvee’s engine purrs to life as Sinon turns the engine key, and the newbie gunner excitedly hops to the top hatch.

*****

Silica is small, but she doesn’t feel so when she holds onto the trigger in the huge weapon’s handlebars, the generated mobs in the starting fields shattering into red sparks. She loudly laughs in excitement as the high speed vehicle traverses the shifting sands.

The ride is a feeling unlike her other experiences with virtual worlds. It might be due to what Sinon earlier described as a “commitment to grittiness,” but the game still replicates hints of discomfort; her small frame vibrates from the gun’s recoil, her fingertips feel a bit too warm, and she has to ask Sinon to stop every so often because of dizziness.

It’s annoying at first, but it grows on her.

Silica wonders if this is part of what draws Sinon to this world.

******

Silica finds the pink hue that covers GGO ’s desert sands endearing.

She gets a good vantage point to admire the landscape as she’s wrapped in one of Sinon’s arms and they zip up a rocky structure. The grappling hook’s line is taut with their combined weight.

Despite the pleasure found in their proximity, as her hand holds Silica’s body close to her by the waist, Sinon does so primarily out of practicality, as Silica doesn’t possess a grappling hook of her own.

Silica, however, finds herself smitten by the situation. Being carried in the arms of a cool girl as she takes in the sights of a foreign world, the warmth of her body providing solace in the cold, simulated night, is a scene befitting a dream she’d have long ago if she’d known she liked girls sooner.

Silica sighs in disappointment as they reach the summit, going from dream to simulated reality. As she looks at Sinon, she’s glad this reality, virtual as it is, is still dreamy aplenty.

The plateau atop the rock formations, where monsters couldn’t reach, was the perfect stargazing spot. It allows them to wind down after spending an entire day driving, shooting, and in Silica’s case, shouting in excitement. Sinon is not exactly the romantic type, far from it, but even she recognizes what the beauty of GGO’s night sky can do to one’s heart. She’s glad she gets to watch it with someone else now, instead of only her sniper rifle for company.

Sinon sits herself by a boulder on the plateau that she manages to find snug. The wordless invitation she gives Silica, as the spot to her side seems like it would fit her perfectly, beckons the younger girl, who hasn’t acquired the same grit to be truly comfortable on the hard surface. Thankfully, Sinon’s shoulder is softer than the rocks.

“So, what did you think?” Sinon asks. “Was I a good tour guide?”

“Yes,” Silica answers. “I give you five stars!” She nuzzles closer onto Sinon’s side.

They stare out at the sky. The moon is hidden behind drifting clouds.

“I have a confession to make,” Silica admits, in a tone that sits between jokey and serious. “I didn’t want to try this game only to shoot guns.”

“Oh?” Sinon’s surprise is clearly feigned. Even she would be able to understand that Silica’s request to see this game was a date proposition. There was a reason she decided to cap the night off with stargazing.

“Yeah. I guess I figured… playing this game would make me feel closer to you.”

“Oh.” Sinon’s surprise this time is genuine. “Well… do you?”

“Hmm.” Silica looks at them, sitting side by side, sharing warmth, and yes seems like the obvious answer here. “I mean, yes. But I suppose I was looking for an answer.”

“An answer… did you find it?”

“I’m not sure I did. I think I found… something,” Silica says. Her grip on Sinon’s arm tightens, a mix of affection and nervousness. “I think there is something important about virtual worlds, and why we’re drawn to them. I... now that I think about it, maybe I could’ve just asked you from the beginning.”

Her heels pitter-patter on the rocky surface.

“What does this… What does GGO mean to you?”

Sinon looks at Silica, a bit puzzled.

Silica doesn’t know how fair of a question it is, really. Could she explain what drew her to virtual worlds? Why thinking of Aincrad, her former prison, makes her feel homesick? But she’s nothing if not sincere, and she wants to know. She figures Sinon, introspective as she is, thinks about those things more than she does.

“GGO is, you know.” Sinon makes a meaningless hand gesture. She thought obsessively before about this question - her objective, her growth, her path towards becoming stronger , she called it. She doesn’t know how to distill it in a sensible way, is all.

A place to face my fears?  

Where I met Kirito, thus, how I met you?  

“ Home?” Sinon says without registering.

Oh.

It’s under this night sky, beneath a red moon, that Sinon realizes this is the first time she got to enjoy this world with someone she truly cared for, life-or-death situations notwithstanding. This place, with its odd smells, rattling sounds, and even unpleasant sensations, has been one of the few places of respite she had from… everything. Others. The world. Herself. It’s more evident now, with someone to share it.

“I came to this world because I wanted to surpass who I was. I wanted to become stronger,” Sinon explains, unsure of whether she sounds pretentious. Sinon’s jaw clenches, and Silica gives her a reassuring squeeze. “When I first came here, there was nothing I wanted more than to erase my real self with this- this stronger version of me. This better version of me.”

The image of Hecate II, her sniper rifle, her companion, comes to mind. She’d thought before, at times, what was she without its weight on her back, other than a fragile girl who can’t help but retch at the sight of gun replicas? Without burnt fingertips and trembling shoulders from gun recoil, how could she call the strength she built here real?

This place is home because it was under this same carmine moon that she realized Asada Shino, the high-schooler, was just as much of a warrior as Sinon, the elite sniper. Under this virtual sky, nothing but code threads woven into a reality, was where she accepted who she was.

She fidgets with her fingerless gloves as she continues. “It’s hard to give a simple answer,” she concedes. “But if I had to try, I’d say… this is the place that showed me it was okay for me to be myself. To recognize my strength, to connect with others. Back then, before this game, I never thought I’d get to have... this, I guess.”  Sinon nudges Silica’s shoulder with hers, playfully. “Who knows. Maybe I just wanted to be proven wrong.”

Silica’s heart tightens. She moves a hand to Sinon’s cheek.

“I’m glad you were proven wrong, then.”

In what Silica is pretty sure is the first time, Sinon is the one approaching her for a kiss.

It’s quick and sweet. Sinon’s thin lips press onto Silica’s lightly. It’s easy to forget they’re in the virtual world then, with their eyes closed the way they are, the waves of warmth  radiating through their faces as the only signal their AmuSpheres send to their brains.

*******

The night goes by quietly as they stare to the sky, save for the distant sounds of underground monsters shifting the sands and Silica’s occasional comment of how she’s sure she can tell the constellations even through the thick clouds. They have little time before GGO’s short day cycle robs them of this sight.

That sky, this world, are virtual, and they know that. It’s hard to tell, though, when it shares stars with the real one, when it shares warmth with the real one, when the strength they gain, the bonds they deepen, the sights they see, carry over to the real one.

The air in Gun Gale Online smells like gasoline and gunpowder, but Silica doesn’t mind… at all, really, when it grants them the opportunity to be so frank and close, so near when they’re so far.

When it grants them the opportunity to be themselves more than anywhere else.

[fili-is-gone]

It took all of Newt’s will not to yield to the familiar demons clawing at the frayed edges of his mind, urging him to end it then and there. Since learning he wasn’t immune, those whispers had grown bolder, darker, slipping like poison into the cracks left by exhaustion and fear. At times, he wondered whether this was already the Flare threading its way through him—warping instinct, staining thought, drawing him ever closer to the abyss with each passing day.

He knew better than that. Those self‑destructive shadows had stalked him long before the virus had a name. And apart from the treacherous murmur of his mind, his body showed no hint of progression—no fever, no tremor, no fracturing of self. That alone suggested a different truth: the darkness was no handiwork of the Flare, but something older, a gnarled root burrowed deep within him, a relentless weed of despair that would not be purged, a bleak inheritance that had always clung to his marrow, entwining itself with the light of his mind and bending him toward the void.

And yet— Thomas.

Newt felt that if anyone could guide him through the Stygian currents of his mind—the shadowed, treacherous waters he had so recklessly courted—it would be him: Thomas, the antidote to the venomous bite of his depression, drawing him from the underworld of despair. He was unsure whether to be grateful—or to despise himself for needing such a thing—but he trusted that Thomas would not falter, would not turn, even as Newt’s own feelings remained unspoken, unrequited, trailing silently behind, bound by hope and shackled to the certainty of his own devotion. For this moment, relief suffused him—a grim, tenuous comfort that he could still feel anything at all.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[fili-is-gone]

Thomas rose, lifting the hem of his shirt, brushing away not merely sweat and dust, but the oppressive burden of the day, as though trying to erase its memory from his flesh. The gesture bared the curve of his stomach, the faint hollows and subtle tension of muscle; he was not sculpted like Minho, yet every sinew, every quiet tremor of motion, held Newt in thrall—a soundless undertow that drew and unmade him all at once. His gaze lingered on the dark trail that disappeared beneath Thomas’ waistband, his chest tightening with an ungovernable want, shot through with guilt and something perilously close to—

He only recognised the spell’s hold when Frypan leaned in, a roughened finger beneath his chin, nudging his gaze elsewhere. There was a flicker of mischief in Frypan’s dark eyes—muted, but undeniable. A small ember of humanity kindling amid the world’s indifference.

Newt cleared his throat, ashamed of the lapse, of the quiet treachery of it. That he could feel tenderness—desire—amid the struggle for survival seemed incongruous, almost illicit. Yet it consumed him regardless.

“Bugger off,” he muttered.

Frypan grinned, a rasp of laughter escaping him despite everything. “Didn’t say a word, shank,” he said, and returned to his meal.

Minho ordered them to rest and wait until the elements themselves chose to relent—whether the sun, in its tyrannous zenith, would abate, or the sand-storm, in its thin and ruthless rage, would tire first; in that suspended interval they were prisoners beneath a narrow strip of shade, poised between the slow unravelling of their limbs and the world’s broader dissolution.

But Thomas could not sit still. He paced the scant patch of ground like some ill-caged creature, his steps abrupt, his shoulders sharp with an inner motion that was not exhaustion alone; even sullied and worn by the heat, something in him kept kindling—an energy Newt could not name and would not have tried to command away. To bid him be still would have been as reasonable as to bid the earth herself to cease her circling of the sun.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[fili-is-gone]

Will take me some more time to finish chapter 3 of Do Your Demons, Do They Ever Let You Go? but I really like this part I just wrote and need to share with the class:

The next words slipped from Steve before he could intercept them.

   “What do you care, man? You didn’t even know him.”

He heard it the instant it left him—that old, tinny edge in his voice. Defensive. Territorial. A relic he had thought long buried. Jonathan just had a way of dragging King Steve out of retirement.

Jonathan’s gaze narrowed, a flicker of surprise crossing his face before it shuttered. His shoulders drew up, chin tucking in slightly—guarded, almost. Like a turtle easing back into its shell, Steve thought, and hated himself a little for it.

   “Ah,” Jonathan said, a single, taut sound that set his expression like stone. “You do realise that’s a pretty ignorant assumption—coming from you of all people.”

The hurt surfaced belatedly, unfolding like heat from a hidden coal. Steve blinked at him.

   “Just because you didn’t talk to anyone at school you decided was beneath you doesn’t mean the rest of us didn’t have lives there.” Jonathan held his gaze without wavering. “I stood on the wrong side of that hierarchy. Same as Eddie.”

Steve opened his mouth, searching for something that wasn’t brittle or barbed. He found nothing that wouldn’t cut, and let it close again.

   “He was peculiar,” Jonathan continued after a moment, and there was no malice in his words. “Loud. A little theatrical. But where it counted, he was decent.”

He shifted, drawing one knee up, forearms resting loosely across it. “We weren’t close. Not really. But we got paired on a couple of projects. He complained the entire time. Said school was ‘a machine designed to extinguish the sacred flame of personal sovereignty’.” Jonathan’s mouth twitched. “Or something equally dramatic.”

A faint, reluctant smile surfaced.

   “But he liked English. Even if he tried to play it off. You could tell when he forgot to look bored—when he started dissecting a poem like it was a crime scene.”

The smile lingered, then gentled. “He sold me weed sometimes. I auditioned for his band once. Didn’t make the cut.” A small shrug. “Not exactly my genre.”

He kept speaking—not to wound, not to win, but as though he’d sensed the fracture Steve had opened and chose to shore it up with something sturdier than accusation. A recollection. A small mercy. Evidence.

Proof that Eddie had existed in rooms Steve had never entered. That he had occupied dimensions beyond the narrow hallway of Steve’s knowing.

His gaze drifted past Jonathan’s shoulder to the cinderblock wall, mottled and unremarkable. Eddie’s name turned over and over in his mind like a cassette caught in a stubborn loop—the melody warping, bending where the tape had thinned from too many rewinds.

He thought of the Upside Down—of a sky split by red lightning, flickering like a broken marquee gasping against an endless night. He had never been good at summoning noise against the dark. He defaulted to it anyway, sarcasm and volume and motion, as if distortion alone could hold back the end of the world.

He was even worse at sorting feelings that refused to file themselves neatly. Hand him a bat and something with too many teeth and he was solid. Reliable. Hand him grief braided tight with guilt and contradiction, and he felt suddenly unequipped.

The basement seemed to constrict around him. The ceiling lower. The air thinner.

He swallowed.

Maybe this was what growing up actually meant—the understanding that people could be irreconcilable and still be worthy. That someone could bruise you and shield you in the same breath. That harm and kindness could share a body.

   That Steve Harrington was actually… a good dude.

Eddie’s voice rose in his mind unprompted, as if he were leaning back in a chair across the room, boots hooked on a table.

Steve had once believed redemption followed a straight road. You screwed up. You paid. You improved. Roll credits. Cue the triumphant synth as the hero drove into a well-lit future, windows down, no rearview mirror required.

But nothing in Hawkins obeyed a clean arc. Not the fractures webbing beneath its soil. Not the friendships that bent and re-formed under pressure. Not him.

And certainly not Eddie Munson.

He glanced once more at the staircase, at the absence Dustin had carved into the room, and felt the familiar pull—the instinct to follow, to fix, to press gauze over whatever had split open.

He stayed where he was.

He let his silence remain where it had fallen and turned his attention back to Jonathan instead. The earlier flare of irritation drained from him as quietly as it had arrived, leaving behind a contemplative ache that pressed along his ribs and would not be shrugged off. He found himself wondering—again, as he had in the sleepless hours since Eddie’s death—how many iterations of Eddie Munson had existed beyond the fractured glimpses Steve had known, and how many of them were gone now, sealed inside stories he would never be invited to hear.

   “Okay,” Robin announced suddenly, clapping her hands once. “Pivot. Hard pivot. New topic before we all sink into the emotional tar pit.”

Steve glanced at her, gratitude settling bone-deep, too large and unwieldy to articulate. She caught the look. Something quick and fluent passed between them, a current as instinctive as breath. Steve had the uneasy intuition that Robin—despite her constant protests of social ineptitude—possessed an uncanny attunement to his moods. It was disquieting, even a little terrifying, and yet, in its own strange way, quietly reassuring.