The Beast That Bothers

Jayvik, the missing years 1\2

Creature girls :)

this is so cute, laios is such a good brother

y'all know those AUs that go something like hellfire makes eddie flirt with steve as a bet?

okay, here me out:

eddie tricks hellfire into betting he can't get steve to flirt back. he wants to flirt with steve and he's determined to get him to flirt back, so he decides to act coy, pretends he isn't absolutely obsessed with steve, makes some off-handed comments about being friends with him and one day manages to get the guys to make a bet with him. he wants to flirt with his dream guy and make some money. best of both worlds.

it's game on from then, he flirts like his life depends on it. he watches steve blush and stammer, because the guy has apparently lost all his game since high school, and revels in it. the problem is steve gets so flustered it seems like he wouldn't be able to flirt back even if he wanted to. eddie thinks he's unused to getting attention from guys, but he figures he'll get used to it.

and he does. he becomes more confident and eventually does start flirting back. but by that time eddie has sort of forgotten about the bet, he's on cloud nine from all the attention steve is giving him. it all comes to a head when hellfire witnesses them flirt.

and in his shock gareth shouts "why haven't you told us you've already won the bet?"

and steve is all confused, while eddie lights up "oh shit, yeah, give me all your money, guys!"

and when steve asks what the fuck is going on, eddie explains while he collects the money and steve looks absolutely crushed. he can barely get out a "so it was all a bet?" in a choked voice, all teary eyed.

eddie panics and realizes how the whole thing sounds and rushes to explain "no no no no, it wasn't! the bet was for the flirting, not the other way around! i tricked the guys into betting i couldn't get you to flirt back, so i could flirt with you and steal their money. two birds with one stone and all that. i did sort of forget about it until now, though. i'm sorry."

now it's the guys' turn to pipe up. "what do you mean tricked? we made the bet so you would finally do something about your pathetic crush??"

okay, so maybe eddie wasn't as slick as he thought. maybe he talked about steve a tad too much? or maybe he was too enthusiastic about the idea of the bet? he's not sure.

steve looks like he can't quite decide how to feel. but then he says, "well then, you better use that money to pay for our first date, asshole." eddie rushes to pepper his whole face in kisses. he was gonna do that anyway.

okay but a like post-series fic i want that's like: steve harrington being the only man left in hawkins fighting monsters

and not like a 'everyone died, last man standing' way but just. they beat it back, the story ends, nice little tie-up and neatly concluded, eleven loses her powers because their world is completely cut from the other. and life goes on. eddie (yes, eddie lives au don't fight me) goes off with his band, robin-nancy-jargyle off to separate cities for college. the kids go to high school, graduate high school, and scatter across the country. joyce and hop buy a beach house far-far-far away from goddamn hawkins indiana.

steve though. steve stays. he does it too without comment, takes all their calls telling him all these amazing things. the years pass. the calls are fewer and far between. he's mostly in contact with only dustin and robin. except robin's out of country doing some crazy temp job in some remote country, she never catches him at home right now so just leaves him messages. and it takes a couple of weeks for dustin to realize he hasn't gotten steve on the phone.

frantically he calls around "have you heard from steve???" except the most people talk to steve anymore is like phone calls during holidays and holy shit what could have happened??

and what if it's back?

cue everyone who can in that moment, rushing back. eddie hopping on a flight from fucking london direct to indianapolis somehow, heart in his throat. he manages to meet hopper in the airport and they pick up max and dustin at the bus station.

they get to hawkins that is even more different that what they left. a smaller town, a town that shuts down completely when the sun sets. it's creepy and deserted.

except for the fucking upside down monsters of course.

and they're in their stupid little rental in front of this demogorgon and they're screaming but then the thing just goes splat on the concrete and steve fucking harrington is blinking owlishly at them.

"Oh, hey guys!" he calls jogging up to the driver's side window. "Wow, what brought you back down this way? You should have told me, I would have told you about the curfew!"

turns out steve just forgot to pay his phone bill that month, didn't even realize he was missing calls and he's been fighting monsters the entire time because actually they WEREN'T cut off from the upside down at all and he's just been casually fighting monsters for the remaining hawkins residence—the whole town knows now and steve's the guy you call when you have a monster problem

sidebar: WAYNE still lives in hawkins, and he and steve are best friends, eddie munson you are gonna LOSE YOUR MIND

Zaun vik and Jayce

One day I will figure out how to read a library book without having to renew it.

Probably not soon, but one day.

Part one

Steve’s alone with fish guy, and it’s the perfect time to make his second attempt. For the first time Steve figures the guy must finally be relaxing, if only a tiny bit. The frozen peas were a massive hit, and maybe that’s helping. Being hungry like that must be really shitty, especially if it’s for a long time, like Steve suspects from the look of fish guy.

Maybe fish guy is starting to realize that this isn’t the labs under Starcourt any more. That Steve and his friends aren’t here to hurt fish guy.

Steve flicks another pea off into the water as he drinks his coffee; fish guy retrieves it in a flash, his eel like black tail easy to spot in the water, quickly coming back for more.

The kids keep calling him a merman - but he doesn't look like any cartoon or kids picture Steve's ever seen. His tail is too flat, for one, definitely more like an eel, plus there's no fins that Steve can see.

Steve offers him a handful of peas, carefully cupping them until fish guy has his hands cupped underneath, ready for them to be tipped in. They don’t touch, and Steve vaguely wonders if the guy will feel cold from the water. The skin of his fingers isn’t pruned like a regular persons would be, which makes sense since he’s a fish guy. Maybe he’ll feel clammy, or rubbery. Or scaly. Steve van very vaguely remember petting a stingray in a low tank at the aquarium once, surrounded by other kids. Might have been a field trip or something, but he can remember how surprised he was by the feeling of the mottled brown skin. Super rough, like sandpaper. Fish guy doesn’t look like he’ll feel like that either, though.

Fish guy eats his handful of peas and then looks back to Steve expectantly; or at least, that’s what he’d call it on a human person. It must be the same sort of thing though, right? The top half, at least, is built the same, right?

Steve’s down to his last handful of frozen peas; he’s already called Robin, she’s going to pick up a bunch of groceries of the green variety on her way over after her shift later. Also a few other bits, like carrots and bell peppers, to see if fish guy will try them.

Steve holds up a single pea between his thumb and pointer finger. Fish guy’s eyes track it from where he floats, a foot away from the ledge. Steve taps his chest, “Steve,” and then he points to fish guy.

Like last night, he comes a little closer, lifting out of the waster a little and then, cautiously points at Steve, he makes a noise that...kind of...sounds like ‘Steve’. His voice is raspy, and the word is kind of mangled, more of a sad ‘Steee,’ but near enough. It looks like he’s really trying, brow furrowed with concentration.

It’s not what Steve wanted, but Steve gives him the pea.

It’s overcast today, same as yesterday, and the day before. Blowy and cold. Steve doesn’t want to stay out here much longer, so he dumps the remaining peas into the water and then gets up and heads inside to wait for Robin.

Steve’s nearly at the door when he hears a splash and then a mournful, “Steeeeeeeeee.” and immediately regrets all of his life choices.

He sighs, and goes back to the pool, “yeah?”

Fish guy tilts his head, frowning, and then lifts his had out of the water, pointer finger and thumb a smidge apart...just like he’s holding an imaginary pea.

Well. Communication is definitely something they will be able to work on then. But Steve flaps the bag, showing the picture of the peas on the front, and the face that it’s very clearly empty, “all gone. Finished,” Steve makes a cutting motion in the air with the side of his hand, to indicate they’re done.

“Inied,” the fish guy manages cautiously.

“Yeah, finished.”

The fish guy watches him for a second, and then dips back down under the water, off too huddle in the bottom corner of the pool.

Steve wonders vaguely if he’s still hungry, but hopefully it won’t be that much longer before Robin gets here.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who really, genuinely likes celery.”

“Me neither, it’s like peppery water.”

“With hair in.”

Fish guy though, very clearly, likes the celery. He didn’t quibble over the cucumber either, that disappeared very quickly. He was cautious about the carrots, but with a little encouragement, and a lot of sniffing, he ate the bottom half of one, not seeming to like it so much at the thicker end.

Steve hands him an entire bell pepper, watches as fish guy takes a bite. He seems to like it, but then pulls a face, scraping desperately at the seeds on his tongue and spitting the whole mess out into the water. Steve can’t help laughing. Fish guy looks affronted. The look of genuine distaste and irritation on his face is very human and also hilariously funny.

“Oh Steve, I think you offended him,” Steve wipes the tears away to see that Robin is right, and fish guy has gone to huddle in the far corner of the pool, only his eyes peeking out. That’s got to suck, having no where to go. No where to hide; no privacy at all.

“This has got to suck for him; he’s stuck in an empty box,” Steve tries to imagine living his entire existence in a completely empty room; he can’t, not really.

“Well what can we even do with him? He seems to be freshwater, so the oceans are out. Even if we let him go in a lake, we don’t know what he understands about people, if he got caught…” she trails off. Steve doesn’t need any help imagining what could happen.

“I don’t know but...we need a plan...and he needs something to do.”

“What like, enrichment for his enclosure?”

It’s the first sunny day for a while. Steve had been getting resentful about it but a bit of warm sunshine is starting to make up for it already.

Steve looks uncertainly down at the bucket of dollar store toys he’s paid for. Doesn’t matter that the kids picked them all out, apparently Steve is still the money in this operation.

Plus gas; they had to travel further since the mall is now a fenced off ruin.

All the kids are on their knees at one end of the pool; all of them holding something. There’s a slinky (he can play with it along the edge), a Rubik’s cube (water proof, and we might be able to figure out if he can see color), a bucket, a plastic dog bowl (it’ll float, you can fill it with peas), a rubber duck, and a ball.

Fish guy, on the other hand, had retreated to the furthest corner he could, curled up into a ball, and stayed there.

Steve’s starting to suspect that the noise of the kids constant chatter and bickering is actually a bit too much for fish guy to handle, from the way he either hides or watches them wearily from the other end of the pool. If they move, he moves.

“Maybe if we spread out, then one of use will be close enough because he won’t have anywhere to go-”

“Absolutely not,” Steve tells Dustin, “that’s cruel, if he’s hiding it’s for a reason. Just let the stuff be and he will deal with it when he’s ready.”

He gets a little bit of whining from them, mostly Will and Dustin, if he’s honest, all the other kids seem to be really understanding.

The ball and the bucket they let go to float around in the water, and the kids soon loose interest and head off to cause trouble elsewhere.

Steve desperately wants to dip his feet in the pool, same as he would on any other day, but since there’s someone living in it, it feels kind of rude. Like he’d be knowingly walking mud into someone's house, or something.

Steve kneels at the same end of the pool the kids were at, he doesn’t want to startle fish guy by appearing right above him. If he comes to Steve or not should be his choice, but Steve has two bunches of celery and a dog food bowl filled to the brim with frozen peas, so he thinks his chances are pretty good right now.

He’s right, fish guy does come over, but his whole face is scrunched up and he misses the celery on the first try; it takes Steve an embarrassingly long amount of time to figure it out, even with the guy eating with his eyes pretty much closed.

It’s the first fully sunny day they’ve had, and the guy had been in a shitty artificially lit lab, and before that, presumably the Upside Down for his whole life.

It’s fucking bright out here.

And even as he takes his sunglasses off, Steve has no idea how to communicate this with fish guy.

Steve has the bowl of peas for leverage, but still. He shows them to fish guy, who, squinting, does come closer. And then Steve hands over the glasses. Fish guy, face all scrunched up, tilts his head, looking at them.

Steve takes them back, put them on, takes the off, and offers them again. Ever so carefully and slowly, fish guy takes the glasses. Steve knows fish guy is at least kind of smart; he’s confident he will figure this out. He’s proved correct pretty fast when fish guy holds them up so he can blink up through the lenses.

And then he...very carefully, almost comically carefully, slides them on.

He grins up at Steve, and Steve floats the dog bowl in the water, giving it a nudge.

Fish guy looks delighted.