If You Are Somewhere Else Located Than In The USA The Trevor Project Is Not 100% Accessible To You, However

Cursed or Blessed

Summary: Witches come to Hawkins from the power in the area due to everything with the Upside Down. The party gets in their way and Dustin ends up cursed to have a female body. When trying to get the curse removed, the same spell is directed at Steve, who doesn't find it such an issue.

Author's Note:

According to my Works page, this is my 500th Fic posted to AO3. I could do math to argue it cause there's some anonymous in collections and one fic that's actually a collection of others from when I started using the site, but still a brilliant milestone to have reached and I wanted to share that. Also yes, I am muddled over how to tag this fic cause of the curse shenanigans. If you wanna correct me, please do. I just had a day or two where the fics I was reading kept including a sex change curse where the person cursed hated it but was forced to conform to the gender presentations their new body made people expect of them and thought hell No, we've got trans care now, why wouldn't that get used? And then I got distracted entirely by Steve's gender euphoria when I started writing. She's cute.

~

Monsters and unethical experiments, Steve could get. He had even accepted a kid having superpowers and classing everyone from the lab she was tortured in as siblings. Magic however was taking longer to understand and he wasn’t happy about its presence at all.

The fact these so called magic users looked like Macbeth rejects wasn’t helping him believe a word they’d said either. He’d hated being forced to study that in English class.

“What tech do they have and can we steal it? Use it to fight them?” Dustin was questioning beside him, clearly also refusing to accept magic as an explanation.

“It’s magic, Dustin! There’s nothing to steal.” Mike snapped, which, given it was the fifth time the suggestion had been repeated, made sense.

~

The plan to try stealing the tech of the people claiming to be witches failed in its attempt. Dustin had been the one yelling about it, demanding to know where it was, so he was the one magic was directed at when the witches decided they’d had enough and were leaving.

He fell to the floor and half the group ran to him, while Nancy and Jonathan gave chase to the witches and Steve waited to see where he’d be most useful.

“What the hell? No, no, no, this is wrong. It’s not me. I am not comfortable!” Dustin woke up yelling from where he’d fallen during the confrontation.

“Guess we’re going dress shopping.” Mike stated, helping him up while looking him over an uncomfortable amount.

Steve tugged Dustin away from him, seeing the glower forming, “Are you fucking sick? No, he’s not happy about this and we’re not making it worse for him.”

“He can pretend he’s in fancy dress, a female NPC.” Lucas tried suggesting, only to have matching glares levelled at him.

“And you just volunteered to express order a binder and a few sets of men’s clothes in the sizes he’ll now need.”

Dustin blinked at Steve in something like awe at the words, “Genius? Thank you? That! Please, whatever you just spoke about, that. This feels so wrong.”

“But you look-” Nancy had turned back to the room but as she spoke Steve lifted his bat, clearly ready to attack her if the wrong thing was said. “Weapons down please?”

“Objectifying anyone is bad, forcing anyone to dress in a way they’re uncomfortable with is bad, especially towards Dustin who’s just been cursed. I’m taking him to mine and getting the numbers to order the stuff I mentioned.” Steve kept an arm on Dustin’s shoulder as he led them out, clearly ready to protect his brother from anyone, friends or not.

~

Tracking down the witches was relatively easy, and Steve had thought that getting the curse undone would be easy too. That was why only him, Robin and Nancy had come along to confront them now.

Looking at the gathered witches he was starting to doubt the logic in that decision but knew between the three of them, they could fight a lot of things. “Undo your curse on Dustin.”

“No. The little prick deserved it, keeping up from the power.” The central witch scoffed, glaring at him.

“I’m not asking. Remove the curse.” Steve raised his bat, knowing that behind him Nancy would be raising her gun and Robin keeping watch with golf balls in case one tried attacking before he noticed.

“No, in fact, I think you should see what it’s like.” The witch started gesturing, muttering too quiet to be heard but Steve wasn’t trying to hear anyway.

As soon as the gestures began he was attacking, his bat making contact with at least two of the witches there before it dropped and he fell soon after, the magic overtaking him.

Robin had started throwing but as he fell darted to grab the bat to keep fighting, trusting Nancy’s aim wouldn’t stray to her even as gun shots sounded behind her.

Two of the witches managed to escape through doors behind them but neither woman pursued them, hurrying instead to Steve’s side, already expecting for him to look different given the transformation Dustin had been cursed with the day before.

“The hell just-” Steve groaned, pushing himself to sit up, “Okay, that’s new.” He looked down at the breasts he now had before looking hopefully at Robin, “Does this mean we can have sleepovers at yours Rob? Can you braid my hair too?”

“Steve?” Robin asked, sounding a little confused by the reaction but nodded, “Yeah, I guess we can. Do you need clothes that’ll fit you?”

“Clothes shopping?” Steve grinned in excitement, “When I can actually try on all the skirts and dresses? Yes, we’re doing that right now!” He hurried to get up and was heading straight for the door they’d entered by.

Nancy groaned, shaking her head, “Can’t that wait until there’s not someone potentially wanting to kill us?”

Pouting at her, Steve nodded, now looking around the room they were stood in, “So are we trying to get any information on what they’re doing while we’re here then? Or just escaping in case some of them survived?”

“Look around quickly, but we know two escaped the room. I think we saw them all though so hopefully two will cause a lot less trouble now.” Nancy decided.

They didn’t find much, but when they left Steve was carrying an old handwritten book that the witch they’d thought was the leader had been holding. He could only hope it was useful since he couldn’t make out what the words written in it were in the poor lighting.

~

Much to Steve’s frustration, they didn’t let him stop at any of the clothes shops on the way back to the Wheeler’s. Nancy insisted that they should update everyone on what had happened instead, especially since Dustin was still hoping they’d have a reversing for his curse.

Steve did at least manage to convince her to let him get changed into one of her dresses before telling everyone else what had happened.

Nancy went straight to the basement with the book they’d found, saying she’d let Dustin start looking it over while Robin helped Steve.

“What?” Mike exclaimed first when Steve entered the basement.

Everyone turned at that, staring at Steve who smiled and did a twirl for them.

Robin glared from behind him, “What what, Michael? Never seen such a gorgeous woman before?”

“You yelled at me for saying Dustin needed dresses but have turned around and forced them on Steve?” He yelled back, gesturing to her forcefully.

Steve rolled his eyes, “Hey, shithead, I chose this. It’s like the best thing to me. Dustin hates it so he gets binders and help staying who he is, cursed or not. Capiche?”

“You want to be a girl?” Erica goaded, looking her over sceptically.

Steve fluffed her skirt out, smiling a little before raising an eyebrow at her, “What’s with the judgement, Erica?”

“Yeah! My sister is awesome.” Dustin called out, looking up from the book he’d been reading since taking a moment to stare at Steve’s change.

Steve moved over to ruffle his hair, smiling at the support and the way Dustin was still claiming them as siblings, whatever gender they had. “Thanks Dustin, you think you’ll find much in that book?”

“Witch’s handwriting is terrible. I think they failed to become doctors, it’s that bad. There’s probably something, but I’ve only found gruesome spells and power tracers so far.”

“We’ll keep looking. Together we’ll get it sorted, I know.” She reassured him.

~

After they’d all eaten, and confused Karen even more than she already was by the group calling two girls she’d never met Steve and Dustin , Steve started asking about going shopping again.

Robin leant on her shoulder, patting the opposite one comfortingly, “Stevie, we don’t have time for a shopping spree. They’ll all be shut now.”

“Okay, I guess that can be for after the witches are gone, but I need clothes now, soo-” He paused thinking for a moment before grinning, “Robin!”

“Yeah?” She glared from her shoulder since there had been no need to yell when they were cuddled up together.

Steve nudged her playfully, “I have a list of clothes you’ve got to lend me. Fashion show during our sleepover tonight?”

She squinted at her, “You’ve got an agenda for the night, haven’t you?”

“Fashion show, make-up, hair, nails, face masks, and gossip. We’re going it all!” Steve ticked off the activities she wanted to do on her fingers as she spoke.

“What fun.” Robin murmured tiredly, “Can I put on a movie while you do all that?”

Steve pouted, poking at her, “Robinnnnnnnn.”

She snorted, nuzzling him, “Fine, we’ll do it. Any other girls joining us? Also can we just like fetch whatever clothes you want to borrow and do the sleepover at your house?”

“But the fun is about getting to stay at someone else’s house.” Steve didn’t protest much, even if he looked a little disgruntled at the request.

El came to sit with them before the pair could debate which home to use. “If it’s okay.” She said seriously.

“Definitely in.” Max called from where she was currently leaning against Lucas.

“Sounds hilarious. I’m in.” Erica agreed too.

Nancy looked at Steve for a moment before shaking her head, “Never been my thing. I’ll skip it.”

Robin wanted to argue, but Steve pinched her side. He was fairly sure that sleepovers had been something Nancy had done with Barb and never since so didn’t want that subject bringing up when planning a pleasant evening.

“Maybe Dustin should-” Mike started in a goading tone, but Steve clicked at him.

“Thin ice, Wheeler,” She warned.

After taking a deep breath, Mike finished carefully, “Should DM a one shot and the rest of us stay at the Byers tonight to avoid explaining what’s going on to everyone if we’re going to reverse the curse soon enough.”

“Good idea to stay in bigger groups in case the witches come back too.” Steve agreed, glancing around at the group, “Whichever house we have our sleepover in, let’s catch up at my house tomorrow to try and get a plan to take on the witches properly.”

~

Robin hadn’t seen Steve so free with her emotions before, nor so excited to be doing things that seemed pretty normal. It had made the sleepover more fun for her, to see her best friend enjoying being a girl so much, even if it was tiring too.

El, Max and Erica had all drifted off to sleep a while back, and how Steve knew when to get the face masks washed off so it didn’t happen with them on felt like one of life’s great mysteries.

They were a different mystery of Steve that Robin wanted to ask about though, and the quiet of the night seemed like a safe time to ask it. “Hey Stevie?”

“Yeah Robs?” She sounded half asleep already.

“How’d you know how to help Dustin? With binding and all that?”

Steve made a thoughtful slow noise before replying, “Wandered away from my parents the last time I got dragged on one of their trips, asked some questions that got some guys trying to direct me back concerned and learnt a lot of weird stuff. Useful stuff too.”

Robin hummed, “Including how a woman can become a man?”

“Yeah, I’d actually been trying to ask if doing this was possible. They got confused by fourteen year old me.” He remembered after thinking for a while. “Realised pretty quickly my parents would have had horrible reactions if I’d got the actual answers or acted on them.”

“What’ll you do if this is temporary?” She asked after taking in the story for a moment.

Steve stretched. “Find answers to those questions now and take you to a city where I could actually do it.” She decided.

~

The next afternoon found everyone scattered around Steve’s home. Nancy had spent the morning looking for their own sources of information on magic and was currently going through them with Jonathan and a few of the kids.

Steve and Dustin were sat closely together reading from the witches book about transformations and speculating on whether the general transformation reversal spell would work for Dustin or not. The spell used on them hadn’t been found yet but Dustin needed a pause from deciphering the handwriting.

El and Robin were sat with them. They had been taking turns to write down what Dustin managed to read so they had an easier to read copy to keep. Now they were reading through their notes and wondering if magic was similar to El’s powers as well as if they were bothered about finding out.

“Give us our spell book back!” One of the two witches still alive demanding, slamming the doors to Steve’s home open, hands primed as if they’d start cursing any minute.

Steve and Dustin glanced at each other and the girls in front of them before jumping up and over the back of the sofa to face the witches, “You came to us? That’s-” Steve paused as if thinking, “Nice. Isn’t that nice of them, Dustin?”

“Dumb too, cause now they’re reversing the curse on me.” Dustin agreed.

“Why would we do that, little girl?” The second witch sneered.

Steve and Dustin shared a smirk before stepping away from each other, revealing El, already standing with her arm outstretched.

“Because I’ll make you.” She said, flinging the pair into the wall.

The display of power shocked the witches visibly and they were quick to beg forgiveness as well as that they’d reverse the spell as long as El didn’t do anything more to them.

Everyone else came through, having heard the commotion, and Nancy quickly picked up the spell book, levelling a stern glare at the witches. “I don’t think you should have this any more. Try being decent humans for a while.”

For a moment one of the witches glared, ready to argue, but stayed silent when El moved her arm.

Dustin hugged himself as soon as the curse was undone, laughing and hurrying up to one of the spare rooms Steve had kept a change of clothes for him in. “I’m me again! Couldn’t be happier to be in this body!”

Steve stepped back when the witches attention turned on him. “I’m getting the Hawkins lab to take the blame for this and give me new papers. You’re doing nothing except leaving this town!” She stated, pointing to the door of her home.

“It’s not meant to be permanent.” One of them muttered as they headed to the door.

Robin stepped in their way, looking them over carefully. “Not meant to be, but you had to do a reversal. Do you know how long it would last if you hadn’t?”

“Never tested it. Book doesn’t specify.” was the curt response.

“Then we will and since we have the book, we’ll find a way to renew it if it fails at some point.” She opened the door for them satisfied in their ignorance.

Marineford goes from extremely tragic to hilarious if you think of it like a DnD complain.

Ace’s player and Luffy’s player are actual brothers.

Ace started playing in late high school / freshman year of collage his first campaign was with the spade pirates but the group fell apart because the other players got job/ went to different schools / just life.

But Ace loved his character and wanted to keep playing. His friend, who played Masked Deuce, wanted to keep playing as well but wanted his character to be more combated focused. So he created the character of Marcos. (Both doctors and first mates, both friends with Ace) They got some new friends and kept playing in the same world just with a new crew

Whitebeard’s player is definitely Marco’s players actual dad. They need another player and Whitebeard loves his son and was like “I’ll play!” He either knows nothing about the game or has been playing since the 80’s and is the most knowledgeable person at the table. There is no in between.

The DM is probably Shanks or Rayleigh. I like to think it’s Shanks and his level 20 character he’s had for years just pops up occasionally to solve problem that the party needs help with.

Anyhow Luffy has heard Ace talk about DnD for years but he doesn’t have any friends to play with. So when he goes to college it’s like his number one goal.

Make friends,

make friends play DnD.

(We will talk about the Strawhats chaos later)

So everything’s going great. Ace visited Luffy and joined in on a few of their sessions. Still plays Ace, he loves this character, he’s played him for like four years now. But he gets to know Luffy’s friends and joins them for a bit in Alabasta.

He goes back to his complain and tells the whole group about Luffy (he has been for years but now he can talk about Luffy’s complain) and everyone wants him to bring Luffy around to play with them.

But then tragedy. The whitebeards have to disband, most of them are graduating, Marco’s player is going to med school it’s just going to be a long time before they can all sit down and play again.

So they decided to go out with a bang!

The Dm has Ace get captured and they plan this elaborate jail break for the party. But it just so happens Luffy is going to be on break at the same time as their last few sessions. And wouldn’t it be great if he joined them!

So the Dm (they are Dming both games god bless them) has the strawhats split up (they are all going on break and it’s a fun story reason for why they all won’t be together) then he pulls Luffy aside and is like, how do you feel about playing with your brother’s group? Luffy’s pumped he’s never been so excited.

So Luffy does all of impel down. Ace is there cheering him on and having fun role play at the same time. His friend Jinbei had wanted to try playing for a while so they gave him a character card and him and Luffy escaped Jail together.

But then we get to the actual Marineford season. It last for hours. There’s combat. There’s roll play. What none of the players knew, was that Whitebeard had approached the Dm about his character dying in combat protecting his kids. (He wanted this to be a memorable session for his son and his friends, they all cried, they loved it)

But then Ace get caught up in it all (this was not planed) and ends up getting his character killed. The table is in shock. There is no way that just happened!

Luffy is sobbing. His brother just sacrificed the character he had played for four years to save his character. He knows how much Ace means to his brother. He’s an actual reck. He had loved Ace to.

Ace’s player is upset, he did love that character, but it’s part of the game. It happens. He’s more upset about how hard Luffy’s taking it.

After the session the two brothers are hanging out. Luffy is apologizing for getting Ace killed and his brother, who’s played for years, and wants to make his brother laugh, says no worries want to help me make a new character?

So they spend the break writing a new character and working them into Ace and Luffy’s back story.

Later when the strawhats are all back together (breaking the news to them that Ace’s character had died was wild!) they are playing and making their way to Dressrosa. A new friend, Law, has joined them. And he is being so serious about his character’s serious back story.

Then Ace’s player roles in like “can I join for a session or two?” All the Strawhats are thrilled, they had a great time playing with him during the Alabasta arc. The Dm says sure and asks about his character.

The two brother’s just smirk at each other and the player introduces his new character: Sabo

They explain the back story, this is Luffy’s OTHER big brother. The strawhats are dying. Law is over them, this is serious! The Dm is just exasperated “you don’t have the Mera Mera fruit.” He’s trying to drive home that this is a different character. Ace/Sabo’s player agrees and they start playing.

Except the Dm loves to troll and brings in the Mera Mera fruit. And everyone already knows what’s about to happen.

Sabo eats the fruit and his player yells “thank god” throws Sabo character sheet to the side. And before anyone can ask why he pulls back out Ace’s character sheet crosses off Ace’s name and writes Sabo next to it (he also raises his intelligence stat)

Character name: Ace Sabo

“I’m back baby!”

I just love that anytime he pops in him and Luffy just say the most ridiculous things about their back stories.

“Remember how Ace had a tattoo of his name spelled wrong to show that he’s not book smart. Well that was a lie. He did it to represent Ace, Sabo, Crybaby, and Edward Newgate.” Ace/Sabo’s player says with Luffy nodding aggressively besides him.

Whitebeard player find out. Finds it all hilarious and is flattered Ace/Sabo’s player brought his character into their nonsense.

Every now and then Marco and Ace/Sabo will come play at the same time and Marco always ends up calling Sabo Ace for the whole session.

I have no explanation for this one

Fuck it, the Steve is bisexual because he ran out of women joke. Flip it. Steve fucked his way through the male population before he ever made it to women.

It was disguised as ‘getting ready for girlfriends’ but Steve was a majority of the boy’s first kisses.

Eddie, who came to the party late, had no idea about Steve’s queer past and assumes he is straight.

Hilarity ensues where Steve does not realize that nobody knows he’s not straight.

He’s flirting with Eddie and Robin is giving him the stink eye because she thinks Steve is playing with Eddie’s feelings.

Tommy, being Steve’s childhood friend, clocks the pathetic pining after being in family video for five minutes. He gives Munson the shovel talk because Steve was his best friend. Eddie on the other hand is just puzzled.

“But Steve is straight?”

“He did not seem that way when my dick was in his mouth.”

Eddie just stares at Tommy, slack jawed.

“Look, I was just experimenting. I don’t actually like men like that, Steve does and he’s all yours. But, you better treat him well, or else.”

Eddie nods, and Tommy leaves.

Eddie enters the empty family video again and screeches like a fucking hyena before jumping onto Steve. They both fall to the ground and just start making out on the floor.

Robin is horrified.

The first time Wayne meets Steve Harrington, he is nine years old and it's Career Day.

Every year a bunch of people crowd into the gym to tell the kids what they do for a living. This year, Wayne drew the short straw and was sent to represent the plant he works at.

He wasn't expecting his measly poster board to attract a lot of attention compared to the other booths with their models and hangouts. So, it's a little surprising when a kid with big eyes and wild hair marches straight up to him and asks, "What do you do?"

"Plant work."

The kid tilted his head, "Like a gardener?"

"More like an electrician."

The kid stood up a little straighter. His eyes went a little wider the way that his nephew's eyes do when he was interested in something, "Like lightbulbs and wires?"

"Yeah," Wayne answered, and then was immediately assaulted by a series of questions.

The questions were specific like the kid had read a book on electrical work but hadn't quite wrapped his head around it. It made Wayne think of Eddie, many miles away with Al, and all his many weird special interests. He smiled but then the kid asked, "But what if you can't turn the electricity off first? Will you die? I'm Steve, by the way."

"Hi, Steve," Wayne said and then made it very clear, "You should not be messing with any wires without adult supervision. It's very dangerous and you can get hurt."

Steve just huffed at that and then ran off when he saw Mr. Hagan at his booth. He was giving out toothbrushes.

Wayne doesn't think much of that kid after he leaves the school. He doesn't have much reason to until there's a loud insistent knocking on his front door an hour after he got off shift a couple days later.

"...What are you doing here?"

"Hi, I'm Steve. We met before..." The kid said, fidgeting when Wayne just stared at him bewildered. "I asked Mrs. Byers at Melvards where you live. I see you there sometimes."

Wayne raised an eyebrow and Steve rushed, "I need a grown up with super-vision."

This was how Wayne found himself on Saturday morning in the front hall of the painfully empty Harrington household. Steve was beckoning him along and showing him a burnt outlet. He gave Wayne a very serious look, "I need help fixing it."

"Why don't you wait until your parents get back from...?"

"No!" Steve snapped at him. "I'm in charge! Dad said that I have to take care of the house and, and-"

"I don't think he was referring to something like this, kid."

"Yes, he was!" Steve insisted. "Cause I - 'Cause I told him that the lights were flickering when Mama called and he said to figure it out so. So, I got you. That's deli-gate-tion."

And that was how Wayne found himself standing in the Harrington basement with a flashlight and a kid with a death grip on his pant leg. Wayne was looking at the marks on the breaker box where the kid clearly tried to pry it open with a screwdriver when Steve tugged on his leg, "Can you see inside it with your super vision?"

Jesus, Wayne thought and then dedicated the rest of his day to showing this kid exactly why he should not be messing around with electrical wires and maybe. Just maybe, inspiring a future electrician. 

Steve will drop lore on Eddie in this ‘everybody knows this, catch up’ kinda way when it painfully clear that everybody absolutely did not know this.

Like, Eddie asks Steve to move his chair so he can slide passed him like three time in the middle of a party at the Byers and is being ignored. Finally, he’s like, “Ground control to Major Asshole. Can you hear me?”

Steve’s only notices him because he kicks his chair in the process and is like, “Oh, sorry, man. Gotta talk on my other side. I lost my hearing on this side.”

Which, great.

Eddie feels like an asshole but he can actually put that to the side because the whole table is just like, “…what? Since when?”

“Um…” Steve says, like. Yeah. This is common knowledge. “Two years ago?”

One time in the middle of the summer, Eddie is ogling the freckles across Steve’s shoulders at a pool party when Steve yawns. Eddie jokingly asks if teaching Robin to drive tired him out that much and Steve’s like, “Nah, I had a seizure this morning. Those tire me out for days. It’s so annoying.”

“Woah,” because Eddie didn’t even know that was something on their radar. Neither did Nancy judging by the whole plate of hotdogs she just dropped on the ground.

Steve causally mentioned that he didn’t have his appendix anymore a couple weeks after they closed the gate officially. Eddie asked when he had the surgery expecting an answer to be when he was a kid, but Steve gives him a weird look like, “Uh, couple weeks ago.”

“A couple - what?” Jonathan sputtered from across the room. “A couple weeks ago, we killed Vecna.”

“Yeahh???” Steve rolled his eyes. “And then I had my appendix taken out. That’s what happens when you’re stabbed.”

“You were stabbed?!?”

“C’mon, man. You were there. Keep up.”

Eddie is shut up mid-sentence by lips against his and, wow. Whoa. Steve Harrington kissing him right now and Eddie should definitely kiss back but, “You like guys? I’ve had a chance this whole time?”

“I’m literally bisexual.”

one piece saved my life man

😂 taking the pie AND booking it. I truly have the Headcanon that Munson style for Wayne and Eddie is more about taking the pie than running away 😂

When Eddie gets his wisdom teeth removed, Wayne already makes plans to toss him to Steve. It isn't because he doesn't want to take care of his boy, it's just because he knows Eddie's filter - however low it is - would practically be nonexistent and he'll hear things about Steve everyone in a ten mile radius would take damage over hearing.

So he takes Eddie to the appointment, nods at Steve when they see each other in the waiting lounge with a near delirious nephew, takes the apple pie the other man baked, and books it. Munson style.

You know, the funniest implication in Stranger Things is that Dustin swears so much because his mom does.