Meow Meows

If there’s one thing I’m gonna do, it’s consume oddly similar pieces of media

don’t know why i made this but now it’s your problem

Steve is the Mom Friend™, officially the most reliable member of the Party; it would be Dustin, but Dustin insists that they'd be lost without Steve there to help them. Steve doesn't argue, but he disagrees. He thinks he's too volatile to really be considered for Most Reliable.

For most of his childhood, he was isolated from his peers, who he was Not Allowed To Talk To Because They Aren't Worth A Harrington's Time, Stephen. Steve is young and still wants his parents to love him, so he obeys. He's a good boy, if a little sensitive, and therein lies the problem: he feels so much, and he doesn't have a clue on how to express any of it. He can't process his feelings, they're too big to fit in his body. It overwhelms him easily and makes his throat tight- impossible to speak. His father scolds him when he has these overwhelmed episodes, as if Steve is purposely ruining his off time at home by crying; his mother ignores him if he acts childishly. There isn't really anyone who teaches Steve how to cope with being a human.

Steve remembers that he was always angry. It felt like an itch under his skin, a low but steady humming in his veins that could explode at anything, and even back then, he despised that feeling, scared that it meant he would end up a Bad Person. He'd started getting into fights (the first one he could remember was when he was eight and Keith pushed him to get to the playground faster. Keith got a bloody nose and Steve got detention for a week) and never really stopped. By twelve, his entire school is afraid of him, except for a select few kids: Tommy H, whose dad worked with Steve's dad, Barb Holland, who thought Steve was both a good person and a blockhead, and the new Munson boy, who didn't say much of anything, but especially nothing about the time he caught Steve crying in the woods in April after his parents missed the sixth birthday in a row.

It didn't really get better until high school, when his father demanded suggested he sign up for the basketball team; practice and drills helped diffuse a lot of that stifled anger, and for the first time, Steve feels like he can breathe. He doesn't have to be angry all the time anymore, even if most of his calm is just a lack of energy. That isn't to say the anger is gone; he still gets into fights often, but he manages to tone down the violence and rely more on a sharp tongue and a lazy confidence whenever fighting is brought up.

Cue season one! Steve, at the top of his game, the bloody, undisputed King of Hawkins High, is absolutely head over heels for sweet, shy Nancy Wheeler. He bares his soul to Nancy, who, after hearing what he has to say, promises that she'll be there for him. They're together now, they look after each other. It's everything Steve had ever wanted.

When he finds out about the creepy photos Jonathan took of them at Steve's pool on the night Barb went missing (and I love Jonathan, I really do, but what the hell man), he feels that anger starting to boil over again and panics. He was doing so well! Nancy would help, though, just hearing that find "You're an idiot, Steve Harrington" would cool him off. But it worsens when he tries to sneak in to Nancy's room and Jonathan is SLEEPING in Nancy's bed, half-curled around her. Steve doesn't want to get the cops called on him again, so he goes home.

The next day, it all boils over. He tried to stay calm, really, but it was like using a wine cork to stop a volcano; he stands by while Carol and Tommy spread rumors about Nancy, smirks cruelly while Carol spray paints the slur on the movie theater sign, and does not give an inch when Nancy calls him an ass, tears in her eyes and flanked by Jonathan. He's trying his damnedest to keep his hands to himself, though (his father wasn't happy the last time Steve got arrested, and somehow Steve knew that he wouldn't be happy if it happened again), so he's caught off guard when Jonathan starts throwing punches. (Later, Steve will admit that he doesn't really remember what he'd said to make Jonathan so angry that he'd actually try to fight Steve, but he'll apologize anyway. Jonathan is quick to forgive, and apologizes for starting the fight, as well). Steve's memory gets spotty around this time; he remembers a sharp pain in his head, just above his left ear, and being so dizzy that he struggles not to throw up, but he doesn't remember Jonathan landing any other hits (he has three bruises, two around his sternum and one under his eye, as well as a split lip), and he definitely does not remember running from the police trying to break up the fight.

It takes him a few hours to calm down, but it's largely due to the gap in his memory keeping him confused and panicked; he can't remember what he said, and Jonathan Byers may be a girlfriend-stealer but Steve remembers that he's also the kid who held funerals for the mice caught in the traps behind the school gym. Whatever he said had to have been really, really messed up, and Steve genuinely hates that he gets angry, that it isn't uncommon for him to lose time to his anger, that his first response to anything is always anger. So he goes to apologize.

The loaded gun pointed at his face is somehow the least upsetting part of that night.

During season 2, there's a lot going on. Steve has been working so hard on his anger, on keeping a lid on it and actually processing his emotions (thank you, therapy that Hopper demanded Hawkins Lab provide), but it wasn't enough. Nancy resented him, had actually blamed him for Barb's death, and that bitterness came to a head on Halloween.

Without Nancy, Steve struggled a lot more. He had nothing, no one; he didn't have anyone to tell about his parents' death in early June, and he didn't like talking about his wealth. There was no support system- until Dustin decided that Steve was going to help him. The kid was relentless and demanding and trusted Steve to help him almost immediately. Steve could hardly keep up, but he loved the feeling. And, when they ended up in a junkyard bus surrounded by demon dogs, he had three people depending on him, and suddenly he had a way to channel his anger (Dr. Harris would be so proud when he told her). He had a bat and enough unresolved trauma to rival those people his dad used to talk about with shell shock, and by the gods he was going to use that. He went apeshit on some demodogs, saved the kid's lives, and apparently became a big brother to a genius boy and a little girl that could probably fight God and win. He also got his third concussion when Max's stepbrother threatened to kill Lucas, but the order of events for that night is skewed; he blames the concussion. The doctor Hopper forced him to go to after said that he may never hear out of his left side again.

Season 3 sees Steve with a little family that he built all on his own: there's Will (who's shy but has a smile like sunshine when Steve asks him about anything), Jonathan (who cried when Steve asks if they can be friends and then proceeds to infodump on musicians every time he hears Steve so much as hum in a mildly musical manner), Max (the girl with a keen sense and a quick wit, whose older brother terrifies Steve because that's exactly how he could have turned out had he not gotten help), Lucas (who treated Steve like the big brother he never had and often called him racist for trivial things ["Steve, can we order pizza?" No. "Is it because I'm black?"]) Erica (who just sorta showed up with Lucas on occasion and reminded Steve just how fun it could be to be That Bitch), Mike (who alternated between passive assholery and cartoon-esque assassination attempts), Nancy, shockingly (who sat Steve down soon after the massacre at the hospital and apologized for blaming him for- well, everything. They'd talked for a long time, hashing it out, and by the end of it, Steve felt like he had a friend), Eleven (who comes by every Wednesday and Saturday for homemade waffles and a secret knitting circle), and Dustin (who became like a real little brother in the span of three days and never looked back. Steve vowed to keep Dustin safe with everything in him that night in the tunnels.).

He meets Robin when he gets a job at Starcourt (he may be set for life but Hop had told him that hard work built character, and Hop was the kind of man Steve wanted to become). She's wary of him, at first, especially when she watches him break the ice cream machine in a (now rare) fit of anger after a customer blew up at him for their ice cream melting before they finished it. But then he stammers through an apology and brings her a batch of cookies the next day, and tries to explain that he's better now, really, and Robin decides that he's a good person deep down. Maybe not too deep down, though, because his cookies are the best she's ever had. Besides, watching his face turn cherry red as he hides behind the shelves to spy on the repair guy is the most entertaining thing she's seen all summer, possibly in her life.

("Steve, you're drooling," she warns, and Steve hurriedly checks his chin.

"I'm making sure he doesn't get his hair stuck in the machine!" He tries to defend.

"First, his hair is under that bandanna. Second, Eddie Munson would rather die than ruin his rockstar hair.")

Their ice cream machine breaks six more times before Dustin comes back from camp, and each time Steve is a flustered mess talking to Eddie Munson. To his credit, Eddie only gives Steve a half-fond, amused smile before chatting with him about nothing in particular. After the third time, Eddie starts calling Steve "big boy" and lightly teasing him over the fist-shaped dents in the side of the machine.

Steve fights the Russians in the secret Starcourt base, not because they're coming at him, but because one of them reaches out for Dustin/Erica. The edges of his vision blurs, and distantly he knows that he's experiencing something like his childhood episodes: all his can feel is fire in his soul, burning straight through his body, and he has to get it out, he has to protect his brother-

"Wow, Steve won a fight!" Dustin crows as Steve is coming back to himself, his whole body trembling with leftover rage and no one to take it out on. Steve just clutches Dustin to him and tries to breathe. Dustin allows it for two minutes, then starts to squirm, but Steve doesn't release him until they hear footsteps.

With Dustin and Erica safe, Steve surrenders pretty easily- he needed to save his energy. But then they started the "interrogation," and Robin sounded so scared, and they hurt his hands and there were drugs-

Steve faintly remembers jumping onto a man (so tall and broad that Steve briefly felt like he was just a backpack) and biting him, locking his jaw and clawing like a feral cat. Robin remembers Steve promising to "smack the red right out of you commie assholes" while forcing his way through the tunnels, but she can't be sure if it was real or the drugs they were given. Dustin recalls Steve giggling at the movie they were hiding in, like a dork. Erica will never forget that Steve has a Berserker mode, or that he protected her even though she was in the process of blackmailing him for free ice cream.

In October of '85, Jason Carver catches him in the high school parking lot one night as he waits for Hellfire to get out. Steve denies all memories of what was said between them, but Jason walks away without need for an ambulance, so he counts it as a win.

In December of '85, the day that the kids all get out for Christmas Break, Chrissy Cunningham finds him in the parking lot and they sit for nearly an hour talking about projects for their secret knitting circle with the police chief's daughter. As hellfire let's out, Chrissy leaves, and Steve gets to watch as the older members walk his kids to his car, like awkward little nerdy gentlemen. Eddie always hands them off with a flourish and a wink. ("The children, Your Highness," he would say confidently, his three nerds behind him giving him nervous looks. "Perhaps you'll join us next week, my liege?" Steve pretends to be unamused by his theatrics, but Eddie has an infectious grin and a genuinely happy shine to his eyes.)

Season 4, Steve is definitely on edge, twitchy as they search for Eddie. He's worried for Dustin, who is attracted to trouble and smart enough to drag everyone else into it too, but also for Eddie, who occasionally popped by Family Video to talk with Robin. According to Eddie, he's allowed in the break room and behind the counter because he and Robin are "friends of Dorothy". Steve doesn't even know a Dorothy. (Eddie usually waits until Steve walks away in a flustered, confused huff before whispering to Robin, "Dorothy says: be gay, do crime.")

Eddie held a jagged glass bottle to his neck and Steve didn't feel anything. He wasn't scared for his life like the news promised he would be, nor was he angry like he'd expected he would be. Eddie shuffles around nervously, but the only thing Steve feels is concern for him.

He gets dragged through the Watergate and immediately attacked by those godawful bats- he was almost in the boat, they had to help Max, he would not lose his baby sister, and boom, he's back to fighting. He fends them off with the help of Eddie, Robin, and Nancy, all of whom he is furious with for following him into the Upside Down like idiots.

"Harrington's got her. Don't ya, big boy?" Eddie teased, and Steve felt electricity through his whole being. His face flushed red and he stammered an affirmative, not noticing Robin or Eddie as they grinned at each other. Eddie stuck close the entire time they were in the RV, and if Steve didn't know better, he'd say Eddie was flirting with him. But he did know better, there was no way Eddie was flirting. He was on the run and desperate for human interaction.

Separating for the plan was the hardest thing Steve had ever done. While Dustin was getting ready, Steve pulled Eddie aside. "Please keep him safe. I'll do anything you want, just please, don't let anything happen to him," he begged, desperately clutching Eddie's sleeves. "He's my brother, Eddie, I can't lose him-"

"I promise, Steve," Eddie had interrupted. "I'll guard him with my life."

"Guard him with mine," Steve insisted. Eddie didn't get it at first, but it would hit him later that Steve wanted Eddie to keep them both safe.

Steve would never tell a soul, but he liked confronting Vecna. Armed with chemical weapons, Robin stayed a bit behind, but Nancy emptied round after round into One, and Steve? Steve got to use his bat.

It was exhilarating; as much as he hated his anger problems, he could not deny that it felt good to attack the source of all their problems. His arms grew tired after a while, though, and Vecna seemed distracted, disoriented, so Steve resorted to his usual tactics. He never fought fair: biting, scratching, clawing his way to victory in everyday scuffles, there was no way he'd give up this opportunity.

Something in him twists suddenly. He feels sick to his stomach and scared, but he has no idea why. All he can think about is Eddie and Dustin- he's hurt he's hurt he'shurtheshurtheshurt. So he makes the decision to go back; Nancy and Robin technically have the injured Vecna under control. He runs.

Eddie is being swarmed when he makes it to the trailer. One minute, Steve watches as they descend on his friend(?), and the next, he's supporting an injured Eddie as they hobble together to Wayne Munson's truck, Wayne on Eddie's other side and rambling about "what the hell is going on" so similarly to Hop that Steve feels the hollow sting of loss. Later, as they rest in the living room of Steve's empty house, Dustin tells Steve about what he saw: Eddie, going to the ground, unable to fight them off any longer, hope lost and grief already tearing its claws into Dustin's chest, and then out of nowhere Steve appears, covered in bits of vine and rock. He tells Steve about the enraged roar he could hear from the trailer (ten feet behind Dustin as his hobbling came to a stop) and the nail bat that had yet to leave Steve's hand swinging at each assailant with such a precision that, for a brief moment in the chaos, Dusting could hear the sounds of an orchestra playing a symphony, Steve as their ragged, bloodied maestro. He tells Steve about the wild look in Steve's eyes as he carried a half-conscious Eddie into the trailer, snarling about how stupid and careless Eddie was, and how moronic Dustin was for jumping through a gate the way he did. He tells Steve about the stray demobat that burst through the door, how Steve grabbed it with his bare hands and ripped it in half- Dustin's got stars in his eyes as he relays this, even now, days later.

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This kinda got away from me I'm sorry

I'm still new to people wanting to read what I write so I'm just gonna tag the one person I know was also excited about steve being feral: @amoris-no-smut-allowed

Eddie’s doing some dumb trick with a couple of wooden spoons, clever hands making them move through the air in improbable ways, and Steve’s about to bite his whisk in half. 

He’d thought for sure that Eddie would be going home the first week; Edward Munson, 29, bartender/musician from Brighton with mismatched tattoos and wild hair, seemed like exactly the kind of pretentious asshole who would flame out early with some ill-advised hipster experimentation. If Steve (28, social worker from Indiana, USA) had been a complete asshole, he’d have said that Eddie didn’t have the fundamentals. That he was all sizzle, no steak. 

It’s a good thing Steve’s not a complete asshole, because Eddie’s been blowing the technicals out of the water so consistently it’s actually pretty fucking embarrassing. His signatures and showstoppers are making a very respectable showing too, except for the time he tried to incorporate some fresh pandan extract and fucked up the liquid ratio, leaving him with a dripping mess that Mary’d declined to even try. 

Afterwards, Steve had seen him leaning against a tree and struggling to light a cigarette. Steve went over for no particular reason, flicking on his lighter and holding it out like a peace offering. Eddie looked at him warily, but bent over the offered flame. 

“Can’t believe I made it through this one,” Eddie said after a moment, white smoke curling out of his mouth.

“Yeah, I feel like that every week.” Steve leaned against the tree next to Eddie. It was a big tree, the kind that’s probably been growing in this field since before England was even England. 

“Nah, but—c’mon, you know what I mean.”

“You had some bad luck with your showstopper. Happens to the best of us, man. Your signature hand pies looked sick as hell.” Steve’s own hand pies had turned out pretty well, so he was feeling generous. It had only been the third week; plenty of time for Steve to snag Star Baker, though even by that point, Steve had been getting the creeping feeling that he was being a little too American about the whole thing. Everyone else seemed to think competitiveness was some kind of deadly sin. It was—actually kind of nice, to get the same kind of nerves he’d always gotten before high school basketball games, but know that he wasn’t really fighting against anyone except himself in the tent.

Anyway, the very next week, Eddie had done some kind of kickass gothic castle with a shiny chocolate dragon and gotten Star Baker for the second time. Steve had clapped him on the back, appropriately manly. Eddie had pulled Steve into a real hug, arms tight around Steve’s shoulders and his whole lean body pressed up close and warm. It had only lasted a moment, and then Eddie had bounded over to Mel and Sue, both of whom he’s been thoroughly charming since the get-go. 

Steve thinks that when this season—or, uh, series—airs, no matter where Eddie places, the entire country is going to be just as charmed. Eddie’s going to get whatever kind of cookbook deal or streaming show he wants. Sponsors will take one look at that handsome face and charismatic grin, and a whole world of possibilities is going to open up for Eddie. 

Steve’s not in it for any of that, of course. He’s here kind of by accident, because Robin pushed him to apply, and it’s a goddamn miracle he’s been holding his own. Hell, it’s a miracle he’s in this country at all. When Robin had started looking at the Cambridge MPhil program in linguistics, she’d said wouldn’t it be great if and he’d snorted, yeah right, like I could ever get whatever job I’d need to move to another freaking country, but then—well. Things had happened the way they’d happened, and now Robin’s almost finished with her degree and Steve is taking time off from the London charity he works at in order to be on Bake Off. 

He’s told all this to the cameras, plus the stuff about how baking started as a way for him to connect with the kids he used to babysit in Indiana, blah blah blah. He thinks it’s probably too boring for them to air, but he gets that they have to try to get a story anyway. 

Eddie Munson, on the other hand, is probably going to be featured in all the series promos. Steve is rabidly curious about what Eddie’s story is, but he hasn’t worked up the nerve to just ask. It should be the easiest thing in the world. They’ve got kind of a camaraderie going, the two of them; a bit of a bromance, as Mel’s put it more than once. 

It’s true they get along pretty well, and the cameras have been picking up on it: on the way Eddie’ll wander over to Steve’s bench like a stray cat whenever they get some downtime, how they wind up horsing around sometimes, working off leftover adrenaline from the frantic rush of caramelization or whatever. There’s the time Eddie had hopped up on a stool to deliver some kind of speech from Macbeth, of all things, and overbalanced right onto Steve, who had barely managed to keep them both from careening into a stand mixer. Sue had patted Eddie on the shoulder and said, “Well, boys, that’ll be going in the episode for sure.”

They both get along with the other contestants just fine, of course, but they’re two guys of about the same age with no wife and kids waiting at home. It’s only natural that they’re gravitating together, becoming something like friends, Steve figures. It’s pretty great that he’s getting at least one real friend out of this whole thing.

It would be even greater if Steve could stop thinking about Eddie’s hands in decidedly non-friendly ways. With all the paperwork he’s signed, he can’t even complain to Robin about how Eddie looks with his sleeves pushed up to show off the tattoos on his forearms, kneading dough and grunting a little under his breath with effort. Steve had almost forgotten to pre-heat his oven that day. 

Two benches away, Eddie fumbles the spoons he’s been juggling with a clatter, and he bursts out laughing, glancing over at Steve like Steve’s in on the joke. Steve grins back, heart twanging painfully in his chest, and thinks: well, fuck. Guess this is happening.

its because youre always on that damn autopsy table

All my mind went to when he started texting mid-fight

I love stranger things I do, but sometimes I think about it and how it looks without cgi or background music and I can't help but laugh

i love the phrase "which could mean nothing" i think its my favorite thing to come out of the internet ever i love saying it. it could mean nothing but we all know better. we know the truth.

I now live in the Mulan au please forward all mail to this address

okay done crying my eyes out. btw have u ever thought about how dokja's trauma from his father carries through all of orv without ever being the main focus of it? it truly did all begin with a young boy being abused, but the story doesn't focus on the abuser. it focuses on love and sacrifice and the ways in which we survive and find others in a ruined world. even when the dokkaebi king takes on his father's shape, its short-lived - almost as a nod to what a reader would "expect" of the plot, to wrap everything up in a neat bow that calls back on the 'real' evil of the story. but the evil in orv is never any one being. its the world that made a young boy lose his mother to the prison system and that made him feel isolated and objectified by the media. the traumas that dokja actively struggles with are those tied in with love. his mother, his protagonist, his writer, his children- the point is that evil is boring and ordinary and always here, apocalypse or not. it's love and its flawed, human presentations that make us who we are and that permeate our every action and decision. and that's okay. that's love.