#stranger things drabble

[mymagnets]

Jopper Week Day 2: Favorite Joyce Scene Drabble

It's too hard to nail down my favorite Joyce scene, but it's not this. This is one that makes me laugh! I wrote a little drabble from her perspective and from Hop's before including her quote from the show. I probably won't bring this one over to AO3, but it can live on here :)

[mymagnets]

Jopper Drabble

Sunlight was sneaking in through the slats between the blinds while the alarm clock shrieked out its pulsing ring. Assaulted on both fronts he felt like there was no choice but to rise. He waved his hand in the general direction of the offensive clock, dropping it down where he hoped the monstrosity was, willing himself to turn it off without actually getting up. Failure. He peeled his eyes open, barely, to complete the task.

He had a raging (and well-deserved) headache but knew that Flo would have his head if he showed up late to work. Again. So, groaning - because somehow that felt better, or at least more cathartic- he rolled out of bed, scratching at his bare chest, and padded to the kitchen.

A bit of coffee reheated in the microwave as it had been in the coffee pot since...yesterday? A bowl of corn flakes, slightly stale. He dumped the dishes unceremoniously into the sink. He could wash them later, when he got home from work. Or he could not. The main thing was getting to work, hopefully on time, and keeping it together. There was no reason to take on the role of homemaker. It was just him.

He put on his uniform, threading the belt through each loop, matching up buttons and holes on his shirt. Then he stalked to the bathroom, ran a toothbrush around his mouth, tossed back a couple of pills praying that they would help the pounding in his head, and grabbing his hat, he went to work.

It was a rather empty existence, the life that James Hopper, chief of police, was living. But empty was better than painful the way he figured it. He was fully aware that he should drink less. He didn’t need the pills. And he knew how to cook, it was just that tv dinners and takeout were easier. 

But since nobody needed him, empty and easier were the ways he chose to live.

[missceliaravens]

Stranger Things OC who’s Eddie’s younger half sister through their mother.

Who’s Dustin’s cousin through her dad being Claudia’s brother.

Who comes to live in Hawkins with the Henderson’s around Christmas after season 2.

Who’s an artist that becomes a safe place for Will.

Who’s in Steve’s grade.

And who graduates the year before Eddie despite being younger by a year.

Who’s in corroded coffin.

And Hellfire club.

Who’s a healthy older girl friend for El and Max.

Who befriends Robin in drama club.

And who becomes friends with Steve through Dustin, despite running in different social circles.

And slowly but surely their friendship starts to become something more.

Stranger Things OC who’s the softest person you’ve ever met while simultaneously being a complete badass.

And who has powers that will help save the day because I’m completely incapable of writing anything but Mary Sue self-inserts.

[girls2gods]

Hiii love 💕

Will you write a part 2 of Condition of the Heart???

I love it so much! One of the best fics for Mike!!

less a part 2 and more a small blurb i thought of setting in the same(ish) universe while i finish the full-fledged second part. feel free to send more asks related to writer!mike or other requests in general! check out part one

Raspberry Beret

Pairing: Writer!Mike Wheeler x Editor!Reader

Summary: Rainy days call for rundown cars, raspberry donuts, and Mike Wheeler to the rescue. Good thing you’ve already thrown professional etiquette out the window.

KNDD has failed Mike this morning, and he takes it as an omen of the day’s trajectory. Or maybe it’s an addition to his recent string of bad luck. Or both. Both feels correct. 

Mike doesn’t blame you, exactly, just the way you’ve wormed into his life and set off a domino effect of emotional missteps he thought he outgrew with puberty. Apparently he hasn’t. At all. There is only so much time can fix, and Mike’s inability to be totally casual and normal about things is not one of them. 

And listen, Mike tries. Really, he does! He tries to be normal about you and your smile and your newfound tendency to overshare details about your dating life because that’s what friends do. But the little person in his head runs a tight ship on all matters except where you’re involved. With you, the little person goes haywire, forgets the correct order of things, loses the reins entirely, which means Mike loses his reins entirely. 

When you argue about last minute changes he should make to the introduction, he concedes, then has to backtrack and remember he has principles of greater importance than whether you smile at him or not. Which is, evidently and unfortunately, very important to him. When you mention that the only donut shop with raspberry jam donuts is now half an hour away from you, Mike’s brain hones in on your distress—more dejection than real distress, but what does his brain know?—and he braces the wait on your behalf. And when you casually drop that your car is in the shop during a call to remind him of the meeting with your lead editor and his agent, Mike jumps at the chance to offer you a ride without processing the fact that he’s signed his soul away for the entire morning. 

Truth be told, past the inconvenience of tied tongues and misfortune, Mike likes being the person you depend on in ways that have nothing to do with blurred professionalism and friendship. He likes being needed, which is not at all unhealthy or concerning or something that requires deeper examination. It’s normal—necessary, even, Mike would argue—to want to be useful. He hasn’t been useful since…worse days. Much, much worse. Time can’t erase those days, either, and he doesn’t want it to. 

But now, on present days where the past can stay exactly where it is and Mike can try to let time do its job, you need him. For simpler things. Smaller favors with lesser stakes that are high in other ways. Because you need him. 

Mike can’t be normal about you. You’re a heavy-duty bandaid sealing a wound Mike thought impossible to heal, and he’s pretty sure he’ll bleed out if he attempts to remove you. 

So here Mike is, parked outside of your cobblestoned apartment building, twelve minutes early, which really translates to seven minutes. It’s less that you’re neurotic about punctuality and more about sticking to routine. Your routine is—for efficiency’s sake or irony’s, who knows? Mike does. It’s neither—being five minutes early to everything. 

He flips between stations—an unending loop of current events and weather forecasts, because apparently no one could have guessed rain in the middle of February—and is forced to succumb to his fate of a shitty morning radio experience. Car horns and rainfall, the symphony of his own personal purgatory. 

It’s not hell. Not yet. Hell is the twenty minute wait for two raspberry donuts on top of the thirty minute drive to get them. The looming monotonous monologues of your boss and his agent. The inevitable recounting of last night’s date, which you also casually mentioned on your phone call. Mike reacted as normally as could be expected. So, not at all. 

The car clock flashes 7:55am, and sure enough, Mike hears you knock on the passenger window. He presses the lock button on his armrest, realizes the door was already unlocked to begin with, and has to press the button again. Off to a great start. 

You plop your bag onto the floor and slide into your seat, biting back a smile like you’re resisting the urge to tease Mike. Wonderful. 

“Hi,” he says, fast and a little breathless, which is ridiculous because all he’s been doing for the last forty minutes is sitting in his car. 

“Hi,” you mimic, less nervous and awkward, because you do have the ability to be normal about things. Well…about this. And why wouldn’t you be? This is normal. Your friendship is normal. Why can’t Mike be? 

You buckle your seatbelt, and Mike takes that as a sign to start the car. Between locked door mishaps and the spiral of his internal monologue, you’ve lost a minute. You don’t seem obviously bothered by it, but he can tell by the way your nails scrape along the fabric of the seatbelt that you’re eager to be en route. And so is Mike. 

The shorter the car ride, the less he’ll have to hear about your date, which you’re probably gearing up to discuss any second now. On the flip side: the faster the car ride, the quicker Mike loses out on his one-on-one time with you. He can’t decide if the trade-off is worse. 

“Thanks again,” you say as Mike merges into the left lane. 

He braces himself for you to say more and relaxes mildly when you don’t. “It’s not a big deal. I had an errand to run in the area.” 

You snort. “No you didn’t.”

“No I didn’t,” relents Mike, wincing. Who needs a backbone anyway? He doesn’t. “But you, you know, mentioned your car and so—errand. Not that you’re an errand. You’re not—I mean, you’re more than a chore I don’t want to do. I want to do you.” Foot-in-mouth syndrome. Is it terminal? It should be. “Not like that. I just—”

The patter of rain is trampled under your laughter. Mike can’t decide between bristling at the scrutiny and preening at the sound. He chooses neither in favor of a more comfortable pastime: deflection. “I brought donuts.”

In an uncharacteristic display of mercy, you allow him to deflect. “How old are they?”

“I bought them this morning.” He motions to the back seat, currently home to the white bag with a smiley-faced donut logo plastered on the front. 

“You went to Jolly’s this morning?” It’s impossible to miss the way your tone perks up. Mike’s heart follows with a stupid little lurch. You lean over the armrest, stretching an arm out towards the bag and brushing against Mike’s shoulder in the process. He catches a whiff of your flower-scented shampoo. Jasmine, or chamomile, or some mix of the two. 

Put me out of my misery now. 

Mike glances at you through the corner of his eye. Beaming in direct contrast with the doom and gloom of the morning. “Mhm.”

“And lived to tell the tale?” you say into the bag, teasing. 

“I’m actively reliving the horrors.” 

You let out a hum, calculating whether the gesture should be broached as a larger topic of conversation. “If you’re trying to convince me to let you skip, it’s not working.”

“I wasn’t trying to do that.” He wasn’t, honestly. Mike figured the endurance of a two hour meeting about book launches and tours and marketing schemes required sustenance that only raspberry donuts could provide. Now that you mention it though… “So, hypothetically.”

“Mike.” 

“If my car were to break down,” he says, fingers flexing around the steering wheel, “that’d be reason enough not to show.” 

You sigh. “We could take the bus.” 

Mike clicks his tongue. “It left without us.” 

“We could walk,” you say, wavering between amused and annoyed. 

“In the rain?”

“I have an umbrella.” 

“Then we’d be late.” 

You scoff, and Mike knows he has you cornered. His head whirls on instinct. Your own is tilted forward slightly, and your fingers relax their grip on the bag. 

“Michael,” you say firmly, but the smile playing on your lips gives you away. “Keep your eyes on the road.” 

“My eyes are on the road,” Mike defends. A weak defense since he’s still looking at you. “And we’re at a red light.”

It changes to green just to spite him. You and the street-light must be in cahoots. Mike’s foot lifts off the brake. 

“It’ll be quick and painless,” you say. 

“I don’t believe you,” he mumbles. “You don’t believe you.” 

“Not really, no,” you admit. "But I'll be there." You say it like that's enough to convince him playing hooky is the less appealing option. Mike hates that it is.

He steals another look at you, quick and subtle to keep from sounding the alarms in your head, but it’s enough time to notice you peeking into the donut bag again. “You can eat.” He adds, a little too matter-of-fact, “That’s why I bought them.”

“I wasn’t sure what your car rules were.” The bag rustles at the dip of your hand inside. 

“I don’t have rules.” He does. Unspoken, small, inconsequential rules that have less to do with organization or cleanliness and more with his own habits. They don’t apply to you. Anyway, since when do you care about rules? 

Donut in hand, you settle back into your seat. Mike tries to keep his heart from lurching again and fails when you chime, “Why is the radio off?” You reach forward with your free hand. 

His shoulders slump. “There’s nothing good…playing.”

Pearl Jam begs to differ, whirring to life on KNDD right as Mike pulls to a stop at another red light. He looks over at you, and this time, you don’t tease or force him to turn away when he is so-very-clearly not keeping his eyes on the road. You lift a brow and take an unassuming bite of your donut. 

Mike’s stomach clenches. 

How is it that you are the cause of and the solution to his bad luck? That you are both the affliction and the cure? The wound and the bandaid? You don’t even try. It’s worse that you don’t try and still manage to weasel past the walls that he’s spent years meticulously curating, thank you very much.

If you were less…you, Mike wouldn’t be helpless to the way his chest eases up every time you smile in his direction. He wouldn’t be a picture of his fourteen-year-old self where you’re concerned. He wouldn’t care about your dating habits for unknown and inexplicable reasons that have nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with the normalcy of your friendship. If you weren’t you, Mike wouldn’t be living through one giant emotional misstep. 

He also wouldn’t have you, and you wouldn’t need him. Trade-offs. So maybe it’s better to leave things as they are.

“Did your foot fall asleep?”

Mike blinks pathetically.

You nudge your head in the direction of the street-light, now green.  

Say something, say something, say anything. 

Mike blurts, “Do you want to tell me about your date?” 

Jesus Christ.

[girls2gods]

so basically i predicted when doves cry by prince in the finale

[robinjay-1]

field survey!! wow!!

if i wrote an injured in battle reader x character, which character would you prefer?

Joyce Byers

Karen Wheeler

Robin Buckley

Max Mayfield

Nancy Wheeler

Other (Comment, fem only)

Voting ended onJan 1

[corrodedheartsclub]

“I don’t know what to do. He’s just pushing me away- and being a real dick about it, if I might add.”

Steve pressed his forehead down to the steering wheel. It’d been months, and Steve could feel himself losing Dustin more each day.

“He’s getting hurt. I know those asshole are harassing him, but he keeping lying about it! I don’t know how to help if he won’t talk to me!” He slammed his palm down on the dash, sending a bang through the Beamer.

“I’m scared. I’m afraid one day they’re gonna… really hurt him, and I won’t even know where he is or that he’s in trouble until it’s too late.” Steve could feel the tremor in his throat. He clenched his jaw tighter.

“I was too late for you. I told you not to be the hero, but you went off on your own anyway. Now, Dustin wants to be just like you, and it’s going to get him killed.” Steve was so angry. Fucking useless, he thought.

“I wish you were here,” he sobbed, resolve crumbling alone in his car. “You would know how to reach him. God- he wouldn’t be doing any of this shit if you were still here. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to save him. He hates me because I couldn’t save you. I just know it. Carried your fucking body out of there… and it didn’t fix a damn thing. I can’t- I can’t do that with Dustin. He’s just a kid.” His shoulders shook with the force of everything the last months have piled onto him- the last few years really.

“Please… tell me what to do,” he gasped, voice coming out choked and muddled between sobs. “Don’t make me lose him.”

[icrytearsofsadness]

Birthdays are a funny thing.

It’s 9am and Billy’s sitting on the porch of the house on Cherry lane, smoking next to a few boxes. He’s got the Camaro keys in his hand, but he sits still for a moment.

Birthdays mean a lot when you’re a kid. A lot changes between four and five, five and six. Sports are divided down to the month. You get older and it starts to matter less. Billy started swimming with the 12-and-unders when he turned nine.

Then it starts to matter again and Billy’s getting his first job at fourteen. His license at sixteen. Now it’s a Friday morning and the morning is cold with dew and the law says Billy’s dad doesn’t need to keep him anymore.

It’s a funny thing too, the law. Drawing lines to make it easier to say what’s black and what’s white. According to the law, Billy’s 18 and his dad doesn’t need to be his dad anymore.

According to Billy’s watch, Billy won’t be alive for another four hours.