Erm hellow…… heres my ck….. with @buggalog <-these peoples awesome cool amazing cookidd….. ok uh enjoy 👍 sorry abt the tag btw im too scared to send an ask
Person A is an accountant in a world where people’s money is time and they can extend their life if they so choose with it. Person B has a shocking amount of time, and Person A notices the discrepancies and isn’t sure where they’re getting the time they have accumulated, and decides to look into Person B. Then they uncover Person B’s secret - Person B is able to extract time from non-human things, like plants and so on, some of which have seemingly infinite time compared to humans. This could throw off the whole economy and Person A decides to help Person B hide their secret, even though Person B doesn’t seem too concerned about keeping it a secret.
[Overflow prompts for today's obscure holidays is available on Patreon!]
ok i had this idea for an au a while ago, but what if myne went back in time to the day after she told her family abt the devouring killing her WITH her schtappe and grutrissheit
maybe starts with her asking tuuli or lutz to get a shumil feystone that she uses to make a highbeast and either
Making clocks is a time-honored tradition passed down Character A’s family for generations upon generations. They were known as the premier clock-makers of the world; if anyone wanted to know the true time, they’d come to them. Character A loved the work they’d do as a part of the clock-makers; they’d always find something to tinker with, learn the tricks of the trade, and they always felt fulfilled in knowing that in some way, they were creating the future.
Then, everything went to shit.
Character A didn’t like to think of it as an apocalypse, but more like the dystopian future that never should have been. Slowly but surely, clocks were becoming more and more scarce, as was demand for them. This meant that Character A was slowly losing the will to continue their family’s legacy.
For one week, they decided to ignore family traditions and stop making clocks, instead tending to their home and family. In that week, they found that the remaining clocks in existence would simply...halt. They would cease to tick until Character A found themselves in the workshop making clocks once more.
TL;DR -- Character A’s family aren’t just clock-makers, but they make time itself; they almost act like the cogs of the universe to ensure time moves forward in a precise fashion. So, if Character A decides to stop time, would that mean they could try and help fix the mess that’s been created by time getting away from them?
wow I am SO excited about this!!! This spin off has been in the works for months, and while it def didnt need to take that long, I got a little too into creating the characters and world lol. this fic wouldnt be possible without @daddystevee help, so thank u for listening to my writing rants and helping me create things out of that madness! this will follow the events of time flies by, but based off the alternate ending rather than the original. weird, I know, but like, hey, im doing it anyways. im gonna make a post soon introducing all the characters, because we’ve got lots of new ones! the old crew will be in this fic, quite a bit, but it’ll also include their kids!
read time flies by here - find upcoming parts here - join the taglist
Summary: After the events of Time Flies By, the reader makes it back to 2019, with Steve in tow. But the Upside Down and the scientists trying to weaponize it aren’t finished, leading Steve and the reader to find allies in the original party, as well as their children, to stop them once and for all.
Word Count: 3.3k
Warnings: cursing
-
The world - your world - looks different after over a month in the past. Despite years of walking the path through the forest and guiding yourself by muscle memory, your time in the other Hawkins has affected you, and oddly enough, walking along the dirt path leading out of the woods feels more unfamiliar than walking the path behind Steve’s house, back in 1985.
You’ve been gone for six weeks, or thirty five years, depending on how you look at it.
You found your phone where you dropped it - six weeks or thirty five years ago - and though its dirty, half dead, and covered in scratches, it still works, and tucking the object into your pocket is an immediate relief borne out of years of carrying the thing.
Steve walks beside you, hesitating when you exit the trees and come onto your street, the new houses off-putting after the 80’s style. He stops at the edge of the grass, frowning, and you pause, turning to face him.
“You still sure about this?” You ask. His brows twitch, and a smile tugs up on his lips. He crosses the short distance between you, wrapping his arms around you.
“You kidding?” He asks. “I almost lost you today. Now, instead, I’m walking around town with you. I’m pretty damn sure.”
“I still can’t believe you did that,” you say, hands sliding up to settle against his chest. He shrugs, cocking his head.
“Me neither,” he says, grinning.
You smile, pulling out of his grip, reaching down to take his hand in yours. He threads your fingers together, and you squeeze.
“Seeing as I’ve been missing for weeks, my house is probably not a safe bet tonight.” You tug your phone out, tapping a few times before the screen lights up, damaged but not destroyed. Steve’s eyes widen, and he steps closer to you, peering over your shoulder.
“The hell is that?” He asks.
“It’s a cell phone,” you say. “Like, the landline in your house, except its right in my hand.” He nods, clearly still confused, but watching as you flip through apps and search bars.
“If we can’t go to your house, where can we go?”
“For tonight?” You ask. Your lips tug into a grin. “It’s time to find an old friend.”
-
Having the internet after six weeks of slaving around without it is like being handed the keys to the universe; it’s so ridiculously simple, after those weeks of trying to coordinate and navigate without it, that you almost feel like it’s too easy when you find the article about the music teacher Robin Buckley, with the photo of her standing outside a home that you recognize from your years biking and driving around the town.
Before, you didn’t know the woman who lived inside the big brick house. Now, though a little and a lot of time has passed - depending on how you look at it - that house contains one of your best friends. The Robin Buckley you and Steve remember has grown up, but you have to believe she’s still her, that she’ll still open the door for you.
The house is a short walk from the woods, and for the first few minutes, it feels like you’re out for an evening stroll with a boy, like the world is normal. Steve asks questions about the new technology he sees - cars and TV lights flashing through windows - and you feed him answers. It’s like that first day in Hawkins, back in 1985, except now, Steve is out of place, thrown into a world that is not his own.
This time, though, there will be no going back. When Steve jumped through that hole, you watched the gate close up behind him. You were the key, and with your exit, the door was locked. You just hope that Steve doesn’t come to regret it, to regret you.
“It’s so weird,” Steve says as he walks, shaking his head. “Like, Robin’s gonna be old. Dustin, Lucas, all the kids.”
“Time travel’s a bitch,” you say, and Steve snorts a laugh.
“It got me you,” he says.
“Cheeseball.”
He grins, swinging your hand with exaggeration as you head down the sidewalk. The brick house comes into view, two stories, covered in gnarled vines that climb up and down the walls. Two cars sit in the driveway, and a light on the porch beckons.
You both stop at the base of the driveway, staring up at the house.
“This is it?” Steve asks.
“This is it.”
He nods, taking a breath before tugging your hand, pulling you up the drive.
“Well,” he says, “guess it’s now or never.”
You stop before the door, and Steve reaches out, rapping his knuckles against the wood. He lets his hand drop, stepping back, shifting back and forth on his heels, the only indication that he’s nervous. You reach out to take his hand, squeezing, and he catches your gaze in his.
“It’s gonna be fine,” you say. “It’s not like she forgot us.”
He nods, but before he gets the chance to speak, the door swings open, and a girl around you and Steve’s age stands on the other side of the threshold. She’s beautiful, with shiny dark hair and curves, and her dark brows furrow at the sight of you.
“Can I help you?” She asks, propping a hand on her hip. Steve looks to you, dumbfounded, and you clear your throat.
“We’re looking for Robin Buckley. She lives here, right?”
The girl’s brows arch, and she nods, stepping back and turning toward a staircase stretching up and out of sight of the door.
“Mom!” She calls. “It’s for you!”
A moment later, a woman in her late forties comes down the stairs. She has dark hair and bangs, and light eyes, and though her initial expression is curious, it hardens the moment her eyes land on you.
“My god,” she says, coming to stand beside the girl. “It’s you.”
There’s something familiar about her, and though it takes a moment, old memories from the world before you went back in time flutter into your head. The woman standing before you is Reagan Ruthers, and she’s a member of the Hawkins Police Force.
Fucking hell.
“I-uh-we-” You stammer.
“Reagan? Kait? What are you two-” Another woman descends the stairs, but this one is familiar, recognizable, though older.
Robin Buckley, now 50 years old, but still resembling the 20 year old version of her that you remember. Dirty blonde hair, though now it’s longer, tucked back, and streaked with gray, piercing gaze, though with more lines on her face, and that expression she had reserved for Steve Harrington and his stupidity. It’s that expression that plays on her features, now.
A wide smile tugs on her lips, and she pushes past the two women onto the porch, wrapping you in a tight hug. You hug her back, burying your face in her hair, remembering the last time you hugged Robin Buckley. Not much time has passed for you or Steve, but for Robin, it’s been a lifetime.
Last you saw Robin Buckley, she was still figuring out who she was. Now, she’s concretely herself, with a wife and a daughter. As far as you can tell, she got everything she wanted; everything she deserved.
Maybe that means you did the right thing by coming back. Maybe that means you fixed the problems, that the gate and the Upside Down died when you left them behind.
She moves on to hug Steve next, and steps back, looking between you and shaking her head.
“Took you two long enough.”
“Mom?” The girl - Kaitlyn - asks, peering at you an Steve curiously. Reagan stands behind her, fully in cop mode, her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed. Robin turns to face them, giving them a soft smile.
“You owe me twenty bucks,” she says to Reagan. “I told you they were coming.”
Reagan shakes her head, eyes wide, lips parted. Her gaze stays on you, her brows furrowing.
“We’ve been looking for you for a month,” she says.
Robin scans the driveway and street, and thought quiet and dark, she frowns, gesturing for you and Steve to go inside. You do so, and she follows you in, tugging the door shut behind her. She leads you, Steve, Reagan, and Kaitlyn through the main entrance down a hall opening to a big living room with big, comfy couches and a flat screen propped on the wall.
Robin, Reagan, Kaitlyn, and you immediately settle on the couches, but Steve hesitates, clearly trying to take in the room and getting overwhelmed by it all. You reach out, touching his hand with yours, and he meets your gaze. You give him a reassuring nod, hoping the message of ‘ill answers any questions later’ is conveyed. He nods back, some of the tension leaking out of him, and comes to sit beside you.
Robin stares at you both, a hint of a smile on her lips.
“Sorry,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s just…it’s weird. I haven’t seen you in over thirty years, and now, here you are, exactly the way you looked the day you left.”
“You really did it, then?” Reagan asks, sitting beside Robin, her brows furrowed. “You went back in time, and jumped forward again.” Robin’s eyes widen, and she pushes off the couch, crossing the room to the fireplace the TV rests atop. There are photographs in frames along the ledge, and a small stack of pictures near one corner. Robin grabs it, thumbs through it, and pulls out a photo, coming back to the couch. She stretches across the coffee table to hand it to you, and you take it, sitting back to show Steve.
You don’t remember the photo being taken, but it must have been done by Jonathan. It’s old, faded with time, but the photograph clearly shows you standing in the Wheeler’s basement with Robin, Steve, Nancy, El, and Max, all of your heads tipped back and eyes closed as you laugh about something.
Your heart twinges, an ache for the world - the time - you left behind and found a home in. That place is gone, and all of those people, with the exception of you and Steve, are grown up. Life never affords us the opportunity to go back, but in this case, that inability feels heavier than you expected.
Robin has a family. The rest of the kids are grown up, likely with their own lives and families, too. And yet, you and Steve are still at the beginning of your journeys. You’re standing on blank slates, and will find others to walk the paths with. It’s a little sad, but hopeful, too.
“Hold on,” says Kaitlyn. “They’re the Steve and the Y/N from the stories.” She looks to you and Steve, one side of her mouth quirking up. “You guys were my bedtime stories. I grew up hearing about how Steve Harrington and Y/N Y/L/N closed the gate and saved Hawkins.”
“You know about us?” You ask. She nods, smile widening.
“Of course. All of us do. I mean, Steve was named after you,” she says gesturing at Steve. Steve stiffens, gaze snapping to Robin in a silent question. Robin grins, shrugging.
“That’s Dustin and Luna’s son. One of their twins is named Steve,” Robin says.
“After…after me?” Steve asks, sounding a little breathless. Robin nods. Steve shakes his head, sitting back against the couch. “We missed so much.”
Your stomach twists, and you take Steve’s hand. He squeezes, but keeps his eyes on Robin.
“The others. They’re all okay? After we left, nothing…I don’t know, happened?”
Robin nods again, leaning into Reagan, who wraps an arm around her wife.
“It went silent after that. The hole you came through disappeared, and we went on with our lives,” she says, though there’s a little sadness to her voice. You realize that, while you’ve only spent a few hours in this time, missing the time you lost, Robin and the others mourned you and Steve. You weren’t dead, but you weren’t alive, either; you were out of time, and all they could do was wait, and wonder; wonder if you would pop back up eventually. “I graduated. Then the kids. Lucas and Max were in California for a while, and Will went to school in Washington, but they’ve been back for about ten years.” She presses her lips together, inclining her head. “We all knew that, if you two were coming back, it would be around 2019. No one knew when, so we made sure everyone was here.”
“And they’re all…” You flick a glance at Kaitlyn. She may have heard the stories, but she didn’t live through the bloodshed, and you’re not sure how much of the darkness Robin and Reagan let slip into the tales. “Alive?”
“They are,” Robin says, smiling. “And they’ll be thrilled to see you two. If you’d come back twenty years ago, you likely would have gotten punched out by Dustin, but thirty five years is a good buffer period.”
“Can we…see them?” Steve asks.
It’s Reagan’s turn to speak now, and she straightens, nodding.
“For right now, you both should stay here. Steve, because you technically died in 1985, and Y/N, because this entire town has been looking for you. Tomorrow I can take you into the station,” Reagan says, looking at you, “and we’ll contact your parents. Steve, you’re damn lucky Lucas and I are officers. We should be able to make you official again soon enough.”
Robin pulls out her phone, tapping away for a moment before looking up.
“I let the others know that the package arrived. I imagine they’ll start showing up as soon as its socially acceptable.”
“Which, if the kids are involved, will be around 4 AM,” Kaitlyn says. Robin and Reagan smile.
“They’re just like their parents,” Robin says. “Luckily, their parents grew up, and won’t bug us until at least ten.”
“The package?” Steve asks, cocking a brow. Robin grins.
“You’ve been gone thirty five years,” she says. “We had to have some fun with it.”
-
Robin directs you and Steve to a guest bedroom for the night, though it will likely become Steve’s room, as he can’t exactly go after his parents, if they’re even still in Hawkins, or alive. You mentioned it once, and he shot it down quickly, saying he didn’t jump through time just to move back in with his shitty parents. So, for the time being, he’s the Buckley-Ruthers household’s fourth occupant.
The house quiets quickly, Robin, Reagan, and Kaitlyn heading to bed. You and Steve borrow pajamas, but you’ll need to take Steve shopping; just thinking about that reminds you of the mall, all that time ago - six weeks or thirty five years, depending on your preference - when you still had no idea where your path would lead.
You certainly didn’t expect this, to be laying in a bed in 2019 with a boy from 1985 beside you.
“How are you holding up?” You ask, rolling so that your head is on the same pillow as Steve’s your faces inches apart.
“I’m okay,” he says. His brows twitch. “I guess I know how you felt, now.”
“Weird, isn’t it?”
“Did you get used to it?”
You purse your lips, and say, “In some ways. In others, though, I always knew it was…off, if that makes any sense.”
He nods, shifting, gaze moving to the popcorn ceiling above you. He’s quiet for a long moment before he speaks again.
“I always felt, like, out of place there. Like I was on the wrong step, or I was missing something. And then you showed up, and I felt like I was halfway there. I thought that coming here would…I don’t know, throw me even more off step, but…” He shakes his head, gaze slipping back to yours. “It doesn’t make any sense, but the minute I came through that hole, I felt like, for the first time, I was in the right place.” He shakes his head. “How is it possible that the only place I’ve ever felt right isn’t even mine?”
Your stomach tumbles, and you shift closer to him, slipping an arm around his waist, curling the fingers on your free hand around the fabric of his shirt, knuckles against his chest.
“Maybe it is yours,” you say. “Maybe it was always supposed to be yours.”
A tiny smile tugs on his lips, and his eyes flutter shut.
“So…you don’t…I don’t know-”
“Regret it?” He asks, opening his eyes. He lets out a breath, and says, “No. Not even for a second.”
You smile, and he ducks his chin, pressing a kiss to your forehead. You sink into him for a long moment before pulling away, tugging the blankets up. You reach over to grab your phone off the nightstand - an old but familiar habit - and open it, the screen lighting up. Steve stills, gaze snapping to the phone, curiosity weaving itself into his features.
He doesn’t say anything, so you let him watch as you go through the old motions, checking social media - not the best idea, seeing as everyone thinks you’re missing. You end up on google, and type in a few keywords, just to see what comes up: Hawkins Starcourt Mall Explosion & Deaths.
The article, old, tells the story of the explosion, and just as expected it’s as cleaned up as it was in 1985. The cover up was successful, and from what you can tell, the Russians and the Americans working in the lab halted their operations after Starcourt; or, at the very least, halted them in Hawkins.
“So…it’s really over, then?” Steve asks, reading along with you. He’s shifted, has his head pillowed on your chest and an arm across your waist, the weight comfortable against your side. You smile, nodding.
“It’s really over,” you say.
“Good fucking riddance,” Steve says. You laugh, turning off your phone and setting it aside.
“You can say that again.”
“What do we do now?”
“We live, Steve Harrington,” you say. “We live.”
-
SOMEWHERE IN HAWKINS
The control room is full of desks and computers, each with a man or woman sitting behind it. They all wear headphones, listening to radio broadcasts and snippets of phone calls. The computers run on their own, working through algorithms, plucking out information deemed relevant.
In the back of the room, a man in a suit stands overlooking. He’s young, new to his position and eager to follow in his predecessors footsteps. He’s confident that he will be the one to complete the work started, and destroyed, here so long ago.
Behind him, taped to the wall, are a handful of photos. A few headshots - three teenage girls, two Wheeler’s and one Byers’ - and a few of people in action, walking through town or leaving the high school or heading into Melvald’s general store. At the top of the photos is a copy of a polaroid taken in a basement.
A few teenagers stand in the shot, and though the photo itself was already old and faded before the copy was made, the faces are clear. The names are scrawled at the bottom - Robin Buckley, Eleven Hopper, Nancy Wheeler, and Max Mayfield - but two are missing: the names of boy in the middle and the person beside them. The boy has an arm around them, and they’re all laughing with their eyes closed and their heads tipped back.
There is no label for the boy, only a question mark; they have no name for him, as his very existence cannot be verified. He’s a ghost, just like his partner.
As for the other person in the photo, the monicker simply reads: the Key.
