* AS ABOVE...

#𝐀𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐌       ind.  priv.  sem - sel.  STRANGER THINGS  multimuse ,  featuring canon  &  original characters .  penned by  murph  [   she  /  they ,  24  ] .  18+ ,  low - activity  +  plotting preferred .

                           muses   &   memes   &  guidelines.

“ y’know for only being two years older than me, you sure sound a hell of a lot wiser — guess that’s what parenting two - three teenagers will do for you. ” kath says, standing and placing her own empty wine glass in joyce’s kitchen sink. “ you’re right. is what i’m getting at. ” 

that was the whole point of wanting to talk to joyce in the first place. sure, she’d missed her, and she would’ve happily taken any information joyce would’ve given, but talking to someone who’d actually done this whole parenting thing ? that had been her real angle.

“ i don’t expect to be able to just show up and act like i’ve been here the whole time. i know it doesn’t work like that. i just…i wanna do right by him where my brother failed y’know ? that’s all. he deserves that. ”

“wisdom’s easy to bullshit.  just gotta talk with authority, like you know what you’re saying.  ask jim.”   joyce smirks to herself, looking out into the backyard again, gaze landing her on her husband’s broad back.  as though sensing he’s being watched, jim twists around, spots her watching and lifts a hand in a wave.  it’s horribly endearing, a smile to match his blooming on her face as she waves back.  “and i’m always right,”  she adds, turning back to kath with a chuckle,  “that hasn’t changed since we were kids.” 

“ i know you’re not a kid anymore henderson, ” steve sighs softly and kneels in front of the couch where he’d deposited dustin as gracefully as possible. “ i know, ” he hated it actually, hated that dustin and all the other kids had been forced to grow up so fast by something that was completely out of their control, something that they shouldn’t have even been involved in in the first place. “ but i need you to stay up here with robin so that i know you’re safe okay ? ”

he grits his teeth as he stands again, the reminder of what the upside down had left him with last time still twinging in pain. “ you’re the best little brother a guy could ever dream of having and i want you to stick around. ”

it didn’t feel right keeping such a major part of this mission with hopper a secret from dustin, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell him either. 

this was a recovery.

steve hadn’t been able to sleep more than a few hours at a time since it had all gone down the previous week, knowing that they’d left eddie down there. logically he knew there hadn’t been a way to get everyone out safely while also transporting his body, and yet he couldn’t bear the thought of him being down there anymore. that, and steve knew that eddie’s uncle deserved real closure.

“ and nancy showed me how to use her gun, so you don’t have to worry about that either. hopper and i will both have guns and i’ll have the bat. we’ll go in, check it out and come back. that’s all this is, promise. first sign of anything we’re turning around, ” the recently resurrected hopper hadn’t even wanted to let steve go through with this either, but both he and el had put their foot down the minute the former chief had even considered the idea of going by himself. steve had brought the concerns to him, like hell he was going to sit around and wait.

which, he knew made him a hypocrite when that was exactly what dustin was arguing against…but steve wouldn’t put him through seeing eddie’s body down there again. and he’d definitely considered the fact that since it had been a week already, there might not even be a body left to recover but that was by far the worst case scenario and not one that steve waned to think about for too long.

“ and i’ll have the walkie talkie the entire time, so will hop. we’ll check in every two minutes if that’s what it takes for you to stay here, okay ? ”

“you’re a dick.”   dustin breathes the words into the heavy silence that hangs between them for an instant after steve’s finished arguing his case  ---  though it’s less of a rebuttal this time, more of a closing statement.  he’s made his choice and now dustin’s the one who has to live with it.  but he’s glad, at least, that steve’s not pretending that dustin’s staying behind to protect robin, or some other bullshit little job that’ll make him feel useful.  he’d rather be told straight up that he’s being left behind because he’s a liability than have people dance around the bitter pill he’s already had to swallow.  “asshole.”  

lifting his head from where it had fallen into his hands, dustin fixes steve with a watery glare.  “if you die  ---  if you don’t come back?  i will never forgive you.”   it’s not an idle threat.  it’s a promise.  he hasn’t forgiven eddie.  he can’t forgive eddie.  he won’t forgive steve, either.  “and if anything happens to hopper el will never forgive you, so the two of you better watch each other’s asses down there.”  finally feeling the last of his fight leave him, the last of the anger he’d cleaved to so fiercely dissipate like smoke slipping through his fingers, dustin slumps against the couch, head falling back.

“i don’t want to lose another brother.”  

“ oh my god don’t give yourself a concussion please and thank you, ” robin chides, letting him take her hand in his. this was nice. she liked this friendship with eddie, even if it was only possible because the world had almost ended again. she’d never had a problem with eddie the way most of their peers at school did, but that still hadn’t meant she’d been brave enough to just walk up to him in the hall and strike up a conversation, or sit at his table at lunch. no, the few words they’d shared pre-vecnapocalypse had all been in the safety of the band room where eddie was quite possibly the most normal one there.

“ and for the record, you and steve having sex is absolutely newsworthy, dingus. ” while it’s usually within her job description as best friend to push and pry until her friends tell her what she wants to know — this time, this time is different and she can tell that eddie doesn’t want to talk about it. so she won’t force the issue. 

what she will do, on the other hand, is whack steve harrington upside the head the next opportunity she gets. 

she can hear the sound of a car approaching meaning meaning steve and jonathan have finally finally decided to join the party — which also means she doesn’t want to go into detail about her sexcapade with nancy. “ that, my friend, you’ll just have to wait and find out about, because i don’t know about you but i don’t exactly want to share those details with not one but two of my girlfriend’s exes. ”

“oh, girlfriend! your girlfriend!”   he’s practically crowing, fit to bursting with pride, but the celebration is short-lived.  steve throws open the van’s doors, jonathan elbowing his way around him to clamber in first, to much protest from steve.  eddie rocks with the jostling as jonathan collapses beside him, looking flushed and far too pleased with himself.  his attention, of course, is immediately captured and kept by the stupidly hot figure steve cuts, leaned against the van in a lazy sprawl.  a few beats of heated eye contact too many  ---  it’s a real struggle to tear his gaze away.

it doesn’t take long for the van to fill with smoke, curling around the four of them in graceful tendrils, disturbed by the occasional burst of raucous laughter, or a failing limb as they readjust their positions or fling a hand out during an impassioned retelling of their latest retail nightmares. nancy admonishes them for it when she finally arrives, predictably, but soon enough she’s nestled against robin’s side, arguing fiercely with jonathan about... something to do with journalism, eddie stopped listening in favour of running his fingers slowly through steve’s hair a while ago.

“ that all i’m gonna get out of you ? ” kath pries. she’d known joyce would probably be a little more tight lipped about it all than wayne had been, but in truth she hadn’t expected wayne to spill quite so easily either. “ i mean, i get it. i know steve’s not actually my kid — but i’ll never forgive my brother and terri for leaving him the way they did, and i just want to be there for him because he’s family. and i can’t really be there for him in any way that matters unless i know the truth… ”

they’d been friends once, her and joyce. but that was more than twenty years ago now and kath hadn’t exactly tried to maintain that friendship when she’d run from hawkins, barely sparing a glance back over her shoulder. so sure, she could talk to joyce like they were still friends, but the other woman truly didn’t owe her anything.

“ i know he’s an adult now and he’s got you, and hop, hell he’s got wayne now too — but i just want that kid to know he’s not alone, and that his whole family didn’t turn their backs on him, y;know ? ”

“that’s all you’re getting.”   joyce delivers her closing statement on the matter bluntly, with a shrug, and finds she doesn’t regret it.  kath’s hands are clean of the stain that the upside down has left on the rest of them, and they’ll stay that way if she has anything to say about it.  which... she does.  “got nothin’ to do with you and steve  ---  that’s your business.  but if he doesn’t want to tell you what he went through, i’m gonna respect that.  and so should you.”   finding she’s got little taste for wine, now, joyce polishes off her glass with a grimace, before heading for the fridge to find a beer to wash it down.

robin shifts around on her half of the blanket to find a more comfortable position, finally ending up with her head resting against eddie’s thigh and her legs stuck up in the air, permanently scuffed up chucks resting against the felted side panel of the van, just shy of being pressed directly against the ceiling. perfect.

“ i’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours, ” she wagers, reaching backward, up up up over her head to twirl her fingers around one of eddie’s loose curls. “ because i do not have it in me to pretend i didn’t see the way you and steve were practically canoodling during movie night last week. ”

she’d been seated comfortably on the wheeler’s worn out basement couch, with nancy on the floor in front of her, and when she hadn’t been completely starstruck by the way nancy had rested her head back against her knees — she’d noticed eddie and steve sharing a patch of floor, fully engrossed in each other rather than what had been on the screen. 

“ but yeah maybe we did. make out. and do a little more than make out. but that’s all i’m going to say. ”

letting out what can really only be described as a hoot of laughter, eddie throws his head back, heedless of the very solid metal behind him, and gets his brain rattled in his skull for his trouble.  thankfully, his hair somewhat softens the blow, but he’s still blinking spots from his vision for a second there.  “ow---fuck---shit, shit, shit---”   ignoring his own discomfort, eddie leans down until to look robin in the eye, a shit-eating grin splitting his face.  “genuinely did not think you had it in you, buck.  way to prove me wrong!”  

he’s quick to dismiss her offer of an equivalent exchange with a scoff that catches in the back of his throat and a wave of his hand, reaching for the fingers she’d had his hair wrapped around to tangle them with his own.  “steve and i are just having sex, not exactly newsworthy.”   except it is, it absolutely is, it’s only what eddie’s been dreaming about since he was sixteen  ---  but it’s a sore spot, too tender to the touch to think about for too long.  it’s great, really, more than great  ---  mind-blowing, is probably the adjective.  it’s just...  not what he wants.  not what he won’t let himself want.  which makes him feel greedy, ungrateful.  sits heavy in the pit of his stomach and makes him want to curl up small as he can get.