And as promised, the print I did for the Freaks and Fables Zine. This is one of my favorite pieces that I’ve done in a while! If you want a print, it is still available in the print pack!
Steve is ripped from sleep, heart hammering and chest heaving. He doesn't know what woke him, doesn't remember any bad dreams, doesn't think he heard any loud noises, but there is a feeling deep within him that is screaming that something's wrong.
He sits up, scanning the room for whatever has him feeling this way. The moon isn't full, but it's nearly there, and the bright light makes the room less dark than it normally is. There's nothing off in his room; no awkward or out-of-place shadows, no wayward noises, everything looking exactly as it had when he went to sleep, to the best of his memory.
The feeling that something is wrong doesn't ease, though.
He throws the blankets off and crawls from his bed. The summer night isn't too cool but the temperature change makes goosebumps raise on Steve's arms. The rug beneath his feet is rough from years of ware but allows him the kindness of putting on his boots without having to step on the cold stone of the barracks' flooring.
He dresses as quickly as he can, to not be indecent as he skulks about the castle searching for out-of-place things.
The door opens up to a much darker hall than his bedroom, and while that's not unusual, it spikes his unease. Stepping out the door, the floor falls out from under him.
His stomach churns as he somersaults in free fall. He can't tell up from down until his knees slam into solid stone and as abruptly as his fall started, it ends with him on his hands and knees. The stone beneath his fingers is cool and rough to the touch, and it's a grey so dark it's almost purple. It's certainly not the barracks floor, and stranger still is that he is not casting a shadow below him even though it is bright enough that he should be.
Steve lifts his head to take in his surroundings. He is on a slab of stone that is just floating in a darkness that is not dark. He can't make sense of it. His mind tell him he is surrounded by darkness, but he can see the stone, and further bits of stone that float out of reach. Light that isn't light makes him able to see these things. Looking around, he confirms can't find his shadow anywhere.
"What the fuck? Where am I?" Steve mutters as he pulls himself up from his knees to be standing.
"An interesting question with a complicated answer."
Steve gasps as a voice with no source speaks. He turns in a circle, searching for the source of the voice but he doesn't see anyone. He spins another circle once more, slower this time, and observes the distance. There isn't really anything to look at, though. A few more of the floating, grey-purple stones and an endless void of darkness that isn't dark.
The shriek Steve lets out when he completes his second spin and sees a figure, when previously there was not one, is far too high-pitched to be anything but embarrassing. "What the fuck! Who are you? Where did you come from?"
The stranger on the far end of the stone slab cocks his head to the side as he looks at Steve, hair of frazzled curls falling around his face, obscuring it slightly. The man is dressed... strange. In a simple trousers and tunic, both of dark colors, but made in a way Steve has never seen. He wears no shoes or stockings.
"I've been here the whole time," the stranger says, a slow smile spreading across his face in an expression Steve's very familiar with seeing. Not on this strangers face, but on everyone Steve knows thinks little of him. It's an expression that says 'I am amused, and it's at your expense'. "As for who I am, you know that. Everyone knows who I am. And knowing who I am means knowing where you are. More or less."
Steve furrows his brow, confused, but he takes in the sight of the man before him. He's looking for anything he'd recognize, to give the man away. It's not until the man straightens, hair moved from his face, and he looks directly at Steve that he makes the connection.
The man looking back at him has eyes that are fully black; as dark as the forest on a cloudy moonless night.
"The Outsider," Steve whispers, too afraid to say it louder, a panic slowly rising inside him. Steve's not a religious man, doesn't really follow the Abbey of the Everyman and their ways, but every man and their dog knows of The Outsider. He's the tale told to small children to keep them in line, the curse thrown when tempers rise, an oath and the hope of cultists and the downtrodden. He's a god and Steve isn't a follower, but he'd be an idiot to not be a believer.
The Outsider smiles at that, wide and a little sharp. It makes Steve feel like a prey animal. Then, instead of verbally answering, he bows to Steve at the waist and Steve's got no choice but to take that as confirmation.
"So, this is... the Void?" Steve asks because he's never been able to hold back any question that pops into his mind, even when he knows it'll make whoever he's talking to think he's stupid.
"Oh, fuck no. Could you imagine?" The Outsider cackles, like it's the funniest thing he's ever heard, his head thrown back. It's so human a thing to do that Steve is almost knocked out of his growing panic. "No, this is the Void but inside your dream. You're not really here. You're body is still safe and sound in your bed. For now."
"... What?" Steve whispers, though it is less a question and more a noise for his confusion.
"Never mind that," The Outsider says nonsensically, waving away Steve's question. "You're here for a reason. The reason being, of course, that I pulled you here. Summoned you. Forced your subconscious mind to bend to my will."
Steve takes a step back, horrified.
"Relax, I'm just kidding! I don't have the ability to bend your mind to my will. My life would be so different if I could do that. Better. Infinitely better," The Outsider says, sounding a bit wistful at the last bit before barreling on, "No, I did pull you here but rest assured that I did not want to. I am also here almost as involuntarily as you are.
"But it's that almost as that's important here. Because, unlike you, I did have a choice. I'm just at this weird crossroads where it didn't really feel like a choice, you see? I am in the habit of only giving my attention to people of interest. And you, Steve Harrington, are not particularly interesting."
Not particularly interesting.
Steve is many things at this moment, angry and hurt and, apparently, not interesting, but what he is not, in general, is stupid. So, despite the indignation running through him, he keeps his mouth shut about it.
"Maxine Mayfield, however, the future empress of Hawkins, a firecracker with a sour personality that doesn't truly endear her to her people? Now she's interesting. Dustin Henderson, a genius inventor of his own right. He's set to change the world forever with that new power source he's creating, isn't he? That's interesting. Nancy Wheeler, a firm denier of my very existence, despite all the evidence that lingers in the wake of my influence? She has an uncanny ability to pick up a trail gone cold; she's solved many a murder that the city watch floundered stupidly with. That's very interesting.
"But you? Son of a businessman, following the path laid out for you by other people with no original thought of your own? The most interesting thing about you is the people you have ended up surrounding yourself with. People who can -who should- shape the future of the Empire for the better.
"You aren't very interesting at all, but I have learned of plots that threaten all the interesting people around you. And I would very much like to avoid a future without them in it. Which brings me," a dramatic pause here as The Outsider draws his arms out wide and dips himself in the most sarcastic half-assed bow Steve's ever seen before ending with, "to you."
There's a lot that was just said. It's terrifying to learn just how much a god knows about you and your friends. Of course it's terrifying. But Steve is a prideful man. He'd spent his entire childhood being spoken down to, being told to shut up and obey, being told he was too stupid for business, but he might be able to make himself useful to his family by joining the city watch.
With each word spoken, he gets more angry. What the fuck does he truly know about Steve?
The Outsider isn't done, though. Steve's underlining fear kept him silent, and The Outsider takes that as a willingness to listen.
"I can't influence the world outside the Void. Not... directly," The Outsider says, "and I find for the first time that I am not satisfied with that. All your interesting friends are in danger, and you are their best hope. So, against all my better judgment and pride, I've come to offer you help. Accept my mark, and I can give you the power to save them all."
"No," Steve finds himself saying, firm and angry.
This baffles The Outsider, if the ridiculous look on his face is anything to go by. That makes something warm pool in Steve's chest, and his fear is melting away.
"No?" The Outsider parrots back.
"I don't need your fucking power," Steve spits back, that anger he tries so hard to hold back spilling out.
"You'd let your friends die for your pride?"
That pulls Steve up short. He's still angry, furious even, but the answer to The Outsider's question is an absolute and firm no. Steve's pride will never be as important as his friends.
"No, of course not. But I don't need your fucking power to keep them safe. I-" Steve growls, frustrated. He doesn't want The Outsiders help. He would very much like it if he would fuck off and go back to whatever it was he was doing before this dream. He certainly doesn't want whatever cursed power would be on offer. However, if his friends are truly in danger, if Steve is really the only hope they have, he has to give on something. "I don't need whatever power you think you can offer, but I'll take whatever information you can give."
There's a heavy silence that falls for one beat, two beats, three beats. The Outside stands before him, as still as a painting, before a wide grin splits his face. "Maybe I was wrong about you, Steeeeeeve Harrington. You might be just a little bit interesting."
Eddie Munson, who looks feral enough some days that you’d believe he chomps down on rare beef without chewing, is actually only still alive because of sweet potatoes.
When he'd first arrived on his doorstep, three foster families in and nearly silent, Wayne had been pretty focused on just keeping him alive. There wasn’t a lot of extra cash floating around most weeks, but what he had, he spent on random treats he assumed kids liked. Colourful packages of cookies, cereal boxes with insanely dressed cartoons on them, and pastries that somehow tasted decent from the toaster.
Eddie wouldn’t eat any of them.
Wayne was at a loss. He’d thought, at 40, that he was never gonna be a father. Hadn’t prepared his life for the care and feeding of another living being. He didn’t even have a cat. There were things that people…like him. Well, they just weren’t meant to have families of their own. It was fine. He’d filled his life differently. But it meant that when his idiot kid brother fucked up once again, and his son had started floating around the universe, well. It didn't matter that he wasn't really ready. Wayne was hardly going to let that stand.
And Eddie wasn’t weak. He was hilarious and caring, a little firecracker of a kid who knew what he liked and wasn’t afraid to tell you. Wayne was enamoured; every day with an eight-year-old was an adventure he’d never anticipated having.
But he could not get the kid to eat.
He’d pick at anything Wayne handed him, politely taking bites every now and again. He was obviously eating enough to stay alive, but there was no excitement about food. None of the kid staples seemed to work.
Finally, in desperation, he just sets Eddie loose in the grocery store and tells him to pick whatever he wants. He anticipates regretting this choice. But Eddie, who is never shy, comes back with a single produce bag of lumpy, small sweet potatoes.
“These are my favourites,” he says quietly, placing them in Wayne’s basket. “Orange taters. Don’t know how to make ‘em, though.”
“No problem, kid,” Wayne says, baffled. “I’ll show you. We can make them together. Want anything else?”
“Nah, you cook good. Just missed orange taters.”
This is how Wayne discovers that his sister-in-law had never cooked anything that wasn’t frozen or from a box. A tiny detail, but it explained so much about Eddie’s relationship with food.
“Orange taters it is,” Wayne said, grabbing a few more.
That night, Wayne sliced up the sweet potatoes, tossed them with a little oil and salt, and roasted them until the edges caramelized. Eddie’s eyes lit up when Wayne set the plate in front of him. The kid devoured them, asking for seconds before Wayne had even sat down with his own portion.
After that, sweet potatoes became a staple. Wayne learned every possible way to prepare them; mashed with a little cinnamon, cut into fries, baked whole with butter melting into their centers. Eddie would eat anything if sweet potatoes were involved. Wayne started sneaking other vegetables alongside them, watching as Eddie’s hollow cheeks filled. Watching as Eddie opened up, taught Wayne how to freely be exactly who you were. Watching as Eddie took over cooking, preparing more vegetables than Wayne had ever known were available, like a five-star chef, dragging home library books of new information.
Seventeen years later, he can’t help but remember that little boy in the grocery store as he watches Eddie nervously fly around the kitchen of their little townhouse. It’s home now; now that his son had come back to him, now that he knew life was even more complicated than he’d thought. It was nice. Big enough for a family of two.
“You know he already likes you, right?” he teases, grabbing a second mug of coffee as Eddie flourishes a towel.
“Unc. Please. Not now. This is the most important meal I have ever cooked.”
“Sure,” he snorts. “Cuz that kid ain’t gonna say yes if he doesn’t like the pot roast. He already lives here.”
“Wayne,” Eddie says seriously, freezing.
Wayne raises his hands. “Sweet potatoes are burning.”
He dips out of the kitchen before the tea towel hits him in the back. He knows that everything will be fine. He’s excited, actually, to have both his kids in the same place. Cuz Steve Harrington, who’d never had much of a family of his own either? Yeah.
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