I've got brainrot about 2 idiots from the 80s

posted for @corrodedcoffinfest! Prompt Day 7: The California Rasins | Word Count: 572 | Rating: T | CW: None | POV: Jeff | Pairing(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington & Corroded Coffin | Tags: pool time fun, taking a swim fully clothed, idiot4idiot, talking shit about your besties (affectionate) If you can't talk about your friends' painful obliviousness of one another's stupidly obvious crushes, who else can? || ao3

“What’re you watching?” Jeff asked, taking a seat beside Freak at the glass table hugging the edge of the patio.

He took a drag from his cigarette before nodding towards the edge of the pool.

Jeff followed his gaze, scoffing when he noticed Eddie and Steve.

“This is different. It’s more intimate.”

“More intimate than sex?!”

But what nobody knows is Steve started it. And Steve keeps starting it. Because the first time Eddie got really mad like red faced, voice cracking, gesturing with those rings and hair all wild from running his hands through it Steve’s brain just short circuited. God, he’s so hot when he’s pissed. He would think to him self.

So now Steve has a system. He says something dumb about his music choice and Eddie explodes. Steve wins. Not the argument. But just to see him.

Eddie doesn’t get it at first. He just thinks Steve’s an asshole who peaked in high school and never learned to shut up. Until one night Steve’s baiting him about “real music” and Eddie shoves him hard against the brick wall outside the Hideout, and Steve smiles.

Oh.

“You absolute freak,” Eddie says realization dawning and devastating. “You like this. You like when I—”

id : a digital painting of eddie munson playing his guitar in a mucha-like style and background in mainly blue and red tones. the very background is covered in clouds in shades of grey, purple and red, withe the darkest at the top. directly behind eddie are two frames, the first is a circle, pinched at the bottom, in which silver letters spell "most metal concert in the upside down" on a dark blue background. the second frame is rectangular with a sort of hourglass shaped opening, the previous circle slotting into the upper part. this second frame, from top to bottom, is filled with swirls of nightshade flowers, dark brown bats, black thick vines, demodogs, and more nightshade. red lighting comes from the right./end id

i have fought and i have won! here is the best colour version of mucha eddie my little brain could create (with slight variations under the cut). thank you for the nice words during this whole process 👍 highly highly reccomend you zoom in if you have a small screen.

"I love you so much," Stephanie Harrington says, reaching out a hand to tuck some hair behind his ear. It's more an excuse to touch than to clear his face of hair. It's at a length now that will result in the tucked hair falling back into his face with barely a shake of his head.

Steve blinks up at her from where he's sat in her lap, his face far too serious for a toddler just a few hours shy of three years old.

"Your life is going to be so difficult and it's my fault. I'm so sorry," she whispers, sweeping him into a hug. He snuggles into her embrace instantly and it brings tears to her eyes. He should hate her for what she's done. Perhaps he will, once he's older and can understand what she's apologizing for.

"I'm going to tell you a story," she settles back into the chair, a big plush thing that she sits in every night to read a bedtime story to Steve, or tries too anyway. He's at the age where he's wiggly and full of energy until he drops.

"Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman. Husband and wife. And they loved each other very much," she starts, running one hand up and down on her baby's back, soothing, "and they wanted nothing more than to have a child.

"But try as they might, no child would come to them. And soon resentment began to grow. The wife, convinced that having a child would remove the resentment, set off to make a bargain with a witch, said to live deep in the woods.

"She told her husband she was going to visit her family so as not to arouse suspicion. Consorting with witches wasn't something that was done, you see."

This is the longest Steve has sat still in her lap in months. She thinks he might be asleep but continues the story anyway.

"It took her almost three weeks to find the witch, deep in the woods. Upon arrival, the witch had tried to turn away the wife. But the wife was persistent. 'Please,' she begged the witch, 'if we can have a child then my husband will love me again.'

"The witch was not moved by this plea. 'You would bring a child into a loveless marriage?' and the wife argued that once they had a child, their marriage would no longer be loveless. The witch disagreed but the wife would not be deterred.

"'What would you give up to have this child?' the witch asked after being pestered by the wife for almost a week. And the wife had said anything.

"'Anything is dangerous,' the witch said. 'I can give you the means to have a child, but the universe will decide the price.' And so, the wife agreed, and the witch pressed a folded piece of parchment into the wife's hand.

"When she finally returned home, she had been gone for eight long weeks. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, they say, and husband and wife reunited. Still, the wife waited three more months before preforming the ritual the witch had pressed into her palm.

"Soon, they had a child, a daughter. But with her arrival came the universe's price. A life blessing is not an easy thing to give, and the price for life is the highest to pay. Free Will was that price. And when the daughter turned three, she learned her daughter also paid the price. Her daughter, and her daughter's daughter, and her daughter's daughter's son. Forever more. The wife, now mother, was angry to learn this. Why should her child have to suffer for her own sins?

"She told her husband what she had done. She had to, you see, because how else could he be expected to raise a child that would do everything you told her to? Words would need to be picked carefully.

"It was years later before the mother could track the witch down again, to demand the witch undo the curse. 'I made the bargain, why must my child also suffer the consequences?'

"'You said anything,' the witch responded, 'and I told you that was dangerous. It was foolish of you to think your actions would not affect others. All actions do.'

"The mother said, 'can it not be undone?' and the witch said, 'All curses can be broken.' When the mother asked how, the witch just looked at her and said, 'go away, and do not seek me again.' And the mother had no choice but to obey."

Steve still has not stirred on her lap and when she looks down, she can see he is asleep. Even if Steve had stayed awake for the whole story, she knows she'll have to retell it to him when he's older. When he'll remember all of it. Perhaps she should write it down, too, just in case.

Steve dusts himself off, flips his collar up to hide Eddie's enthusiasm, and rounds the trailer where he runs directly into Wayne Munson.

There is a lot of things that Steve could've said to explain why he's luring behind this man's house. He could've been cool or smooth or honest, but no.

Nope.

Steve opened his mouth and asked, "Would you like to talk about our lord and savior, Jesus Christ?"

Wayne stares.

Wayne knows that this kid is full of shit because he knows this is the kid that's been leaving his muddy shoe prints all over the back of his house so...

He says, "Yeah, kid. Go ahead. Tell me about him."

Re-read chapter 14

Start from the beginning

Steve finds it easier to look down at the flower again. They’ve come so far in the past year. Explored the valley down below, and further, more remote parts of the kingdom. Rekindled their relationship with the neighboring countries. In a few days, they’re going to leave the borders of their kingdom for the first time and travel north, to visit Eddie’s mother’s home country.

But Steve has never told him about what happened in the in-between space. Eddie mentioned that he didn’t feel or see anything much. That it just felt like floating in the dark, with a warm, comforting presence keeping him safe. That, the longer he was there, the more he realized that he couldn’t stay forever. That he had almost decided to move on when he heard a voice, and felt a hand in his, and then the next thing he knows is waking up on the throne, with Steve clutching his shrouded body to his chest and the vines parting around them to set them free.

Steve thinks it’s unfair, that the magic allowed him to meet her when it’s so glaringly evident that Eddie would give everything to see her one final time. So he hasn’t said anything.

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