#ADHD Eddie Munson

[saquesha13]

Steve always keeps a pen on him.

Eddie is a fidgety jittery antsy guy, always tapping his knees, twisting his rings on his fingers, messing with the chain on his pants. But days when he doesn’t have built in fidget toys, Steve wordlessly hands him the black ink pen along with his arm and Eddie usually starts off with connecting all the dots, making a constellation out of Steve’s moles and freckles covering his tan skin on his forearm.

He’ll add doodles next. Every time there is always a heart with S+E in the middle, but he mostly gets swords, a penis and devils drawn on his skin, never admitting out loud to anyone just how nice it feels to have the pen trail along his arm. Always pretending to be annoyed when he isn’t.

One time at the Munson’s trailer they got so high off their asses, Eddie found the pen in Steve’s pocket which ended up with Steve shirtless laying on his belly on the living room carpet and Eddie doodling across his entire back, half straddling the back of Steve’s thighs with his crotch against Steve’s ass. It has Steve horny and nearly falling asleep at the same time. Probably because of the weed. Eddie took a polaroid picture of his work afterwords. There was the biggest heart shaped S+E so far across the back of his shoulder blade, the moles all connected together with a steady hand, a fire breathing dragon snakes across his entire back, it looked pretty damn cool. But what caught Steve’s eye the most was the fancy cursive writing under the dimples in his back that has Steve blushing. Eddie wrote Steve Munson.

They aren’t even dating yet.

[apuckishwit]

When Your Boyfriend's a Reformed Mean Girl

100 percent inspired by this tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR75sjkf/

Time seems to do wierd things for Eddie Munson.

It's something Steve has gotten used to, in the year they've been dating. Eddie is attentive and affectionate, always makes sure Steve needs are being met, always goes the extra mile to let Steve know how much he loves him, how much he cherishes their time together. In many ways, he's the best partner Steve's ever had.

Just...sometimes things like approaching deadlines and important dates seem to literally not register in his brain until it's almost too late. And not even then, sometimes.

Eddie acknowledges that it's a problem. He puts every effort into finding workarounds. There is a calendar hanging at both his (brand new, government-funded) trailer and Steve's house, hanging right by the door with color-coded schedules and a pack of Post-It notes and a cup of pens sitting on a little table below it in case something changes or comes up. Steve has a dedicated half hour every night where he's allowed to remind Eddie of things they have coming up, or ask if they've been added to the calendar and Eddie is one hundred percent not allowed to gripe about being nagged in that thirty minutes. Not that he would, because most of the time there's at least one, "Oh, shit, forgot about that." When something slips through the cracks, he apologizes promptly and sincerely if it's something that affects someone other than him and he is always trying to do better.

Steve understands. Hell, after as many concussions as he's had, details get away from him too sometimes. There's several color-coded blocks on the calendar for Steve, as well. Sometimes, Eddie just forgets things despite his best efforts.

But their anniversary? The date that Steve has been carefully planning for almost a month to celebrate their first (of hopefully, many) year together as a couple? Really?

Eddie is going to be horrified.

He is going to feel so bad, and so guilty, and he is absolutely going to go all out to make it up to Steve. Steve knows this. He knows Eddie loves him, and that Eddie was looking forward to tonight as much as he was, and that this is just an instance of Eddie's brain betraying him, and not him actively trying to hurt Steve, or be dismissive of him. Eddie is going to feel awful when he realizes that he stood Steve up on their one-year anniversary to fight imaginary dragons with the boys. Hell, the boys are probably going to feel awful when they realize they gave Eddie something else to focus on in the lead-up to his one-year anniversary.

Well. Dustin, Lucas, and Will are going to feel awful. Mike will probably think it's hilarious.

The point is, Steve knows Eddie didn't do this on purpose, and it's not that Eddie doesn't value his time with Steve enough to remember the date, and so he's merely irritated. Maybe a little exasperated. Not truly angry.

All he has to do is radio over to Wheeler's place and remind Eddie what the date is. His boyfriend will literally drop everything, will probably not even bother to pack up his precious miniatures and dice before he's tearing out of the driveway and breaking every traffic law imaginable to get to Steve's house. Steve doesn't actually want Eddie to get a ticket or anything, though. Besides.

He's feeling a little petty.

There's steaks waiting to be tossed on the grill, twice-baked potatoes in the oven, and a fucking homemade chiffon cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream chilling in the fridge. Eddie's gift is sitting on the counter, in an elegant little gift bag tied with black ribbon.

"Hey Rob, you wanna come over for dinner?" he says into his walkie, deciding to let Fate decide if his boyfriend is listening and catches a clue.

"Do I get a piece of that cake you made?" Robin replies immediately, amusement already dancing in her voice because she's his (platonic) soulmate and she can read his mind.

"You can take the leftovers home," he says.

And then his (romantic) soulmate, who can usually read his mind, comes over the channel as well. "Have fun, babe!" Eddie says brightly. "This is probably going to run later than I thought. I'll probably just pick you up for breakfast tomorrow, okay?"

Steve rolls his eyes fondly. "Okay."

"Love you!" Eddie says, and signs off.

Robin brings a bottle of wine she stole from her parents' pantry and they demolish the dinner and half the cake. Steve does get another package of steaks out to thaw in the fridge for tomorrow, though, and blows out the fancy candles he'd lit before they burn too low to be used again. Fuck if he's making another chiffon cake, though, persnickety little thing. He calls Enzo's and orders a chocolate marble cheesecake to be picked up tomorrow.

"So you gonna milk this for a nice present or what?" Robin asks as Steve is packing the remains of the cake for her to take home, as promised.

"Nah. He's fucking perfect like 90% of the time...I'm not gonna get mad at him for the other ten." Robin smiles at him, a little gooey-eyed. Steve returns it with a smirk. "But I'm not letting him off the hook entirely."

He has just finished putting the dishes away when he hears the rumble of Eddie's van in the driveway. He glances down at his watch, laughing to himself a little when he notes that while late, it is far, far too early for a gaming session to be done. He scoops his little gift bag off the counter and saunters to the front door just in time for a frantic knocking to sound. He schools his features and opens the door.

"Steve! Stevie, baby, I am so, so sorry. I swear to God, I had tonight written down in like five different places, but Dustin wanted to try a new character class and we haven't done this campaign yet, and I got so excited...I'm so sorry I forgot, but I'm here and I SWEAR I will make it up to you!" Eddie pauses for breath, wild-eyed and panting.

Steve holds the silence for a moment, and then shakes his head, leaning forward to drop a kiss on Eddie's cheek. "You're such a nerd," he says, affection dripping from his words. He sighs. "I hope you know, now I'm expecting flowers tomorrow. And I get to pick the movies for, like, two weeks with no complaints."

Eddie almost wilts in relief. "Absolutely none," he promises, reaching out to grip Steve's hand. "I will make tomorrow night AMAZING. I promise."

Steve smiles at him, his chest aching with the love he feels for this man. But he's still feeling just a little bit petty. He holds the bag out to Eddie, tilting his head coyly. "You can still open this tonight, though."

"Babe! I thought we said no gifts." He takes the bag in his hands, plucking at the ribbon.

Steve's smile turns just a little sharper. He worked fucking hard on that cake. "It's kind of for both of us, really. It's what I was gonna wear up to bed tonight."

Eddie peeks in the box, his brow furrowing. "Stevie...there's nothing but strawberry lip gloss and a bottle of lube in here." He looks up, and freezes as his brain catches up with what his mouth just said.

Steve leans forward and kisses him, hard, long, and absolutely filthy. "Suffer," he whispers against his boyfriend's lips.

Then he shuts the door in his face.

[cosmicrelease]

what if part of the reason eddie loves metal is bc he can openly stim and unmask while listening to it. like i know that dude loves going to shows and going absolutely wild in a circle pit 🏃💨👹🎵🎸

[beady-eyed-munson]

When Eddie first moved in, Wayne bought him a nightlight.

He still uses it occasionally when he gets sensory overload but for the most part it stays off.

after the upside down, its on every night

but Wayne doesnt say a word.

-

-

(I plan on making this a full fic eventually, im just too impatient and wanted to squeeze this concept out to everyone)

(I know its kind of choppy, ive been struggling with my mental health for a long time and it effects the way i write, but eat up)

[justrandomfandomstm]

Stranger things Not-Canon things that i believe are Canon (mostly steve and eddie bc i love them but the others are mentioned) (idc if some cancel eachother idcidcidc)

Steve has a Latin/Italian mom and speaks spanish/Italian

Eddie is southern and loves country music but especially Dolly Parton. (also has the accent slip out when hes mad)

Steve is hard of hearing/deaf

^most if not all of them know asl

Eddie feeds the trailer park cats and has an army of loyal cats

Steve knows how to bake really well

Steve knows a lot about flowers, like a lot. Like he has books and books of it

Max becomes blind and has trouble walking, but she got some powers from when El entered her mind

Steve is dislexic and autistic

Eddie is adhd and autistic

everyone is autistic, honestly. Not one of them is neurotypical

Steve taught Lucas how to play and play every Wednesday in the park

Max and Eddie go on walks to the park every wednesday coincidentaly

Eddie taught Max guitar

Steve and Eddie are daughter parents idc, i cant see them with a son

Nancy is a lesbian

The scoops troop all played dnd together to help Erica learn

Steve and Eddie met when they were much younger and dont remember, but Wayne does and tells the story at their wedding

Eddie or Steve are mechanics, both can be true. Not at the same time though, one is a mechanic and the other constantly need their car fixed. You choose who is who

[sky-neverending]

Neurodiverse and like Mental Health conditions are so coded into the Stranger Things characters. maybe that’s just me… but it makes sense, right?

Like Eddie. He deffo has some type of ADHD or Autism. both? maybe. hyperfixtated, fidgety, probably has trouble focusing, like all sorts of things make him scream those.

Steve is dyslexic. this doesn’t have any real reasoning behind it except i feel like he is. and I like the idea of people reading to him.

Dustin? ADHD.

Max? Bipolar? maybe? autistic maybe? definitely has depression. but like- idk.

Robin is autistic bc I said so. she also has anxiety maybe?

i could go on. and on and on and on. idk where i was going with this but yes ND party vibes fr. also they are all queer. which i’ve posted about already. all of my headcanons are queer and ND. so. fun!

[sapphirecobalt-1]

rip Eddie Munson, you would have loved fidget spinners 😔

[pullingyourstrings]

Headcanon: Eddie vocal stims A LOT. He will hear a funny word or a weird sentence and go around all day mumbling it to himself. He also sings all the time, from his favorite songs to silly songs he made up about daily tasks.

[kermit-the-hag]

Eddie: I want to get rid of my stuff, but all my stuff is really good and I just can't get rid of it.

Robin: Everything you own is trash.

Steve: You're basically a hoarder.

Eddie: Not true. Everything has meaning. Everything is connected to something else.

[his-strange-eyes]

Eddie: *singing the same line for the millionth time* He’s the one they call DoCtOR FeEl gOod!

Steve: Eddie! *throws an apple at him*

Eddie: What was that for?

Steve: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Eddie: What the heck are you talking about? *recoiling, rubbing his bruised arm*

Steve: You really didn’t know you were…? Never mind you dork. *leaves the room before Eddie’s verbal stimming drives him crazy*

[fics-n-stuff]

Random HCs about the older kids' handwriting

Steve's handwriting is atrocious. Like, so bad that he struggles to read it himself. If he absolutely has to write something down for someone he tries so hard to make it clear but then his letters just get all misshapen and the lines are super crooked

Nancy writes in a perfect cursive, neat and pretty but still perfectly legible. Her lines are always straight, her punctuation immaculate, and the looping letters have a beautiful slant that looks professional even on the most rushed notes

Robin's handwriting is readable but mediocre. She stopped writing in cursive almost right after being forced to learn it because it was too hard, and the separated letters could almost look typed if it weren't for the way they jump positions on the lines

Jonathan scrawls. His handwriting is a scribbled chicken scratch that looks inherently low effort. He regularly forgets to literally dot his 'i's and cross his 't's. It's never bothered him so he's never really bothered to fix it and the first time that the others see anything he's handwritten they are completely dumbfounded because it's not even that typically messy it's just really weird

Eddie's handwriting is all over the place. It changes depending in how he's feeling, how much he cares about what hes writing, how important it is that someone else is able to read it, etc... The differences can be so extreme that he has gotten in trouble at school several times for getting someone else to do his assignment when he did in fact do it himself

Argyle's handwriting is just chill. It loops and flows across the page in a way that makes you imagine that he was leaning back in his chair when he wrote it. It's not neat and not messy, just has personality

[livingmybestfictionallife]

The Geek and the Freak

To say Eddie Munson was unmotivated was a bit of an understatement. All of his teachers for the past five years of high school continually reported back to Wayne that, "Eddie is an incredibly gifted student, however he doesn't seem to apply himself in class." He would absorb those words and regurgitate them at Eddie the second he had the opportunity to, and after a while, Wayne began to see an improvement in Eddie's educational performance. Of course he didn't go from being a straight D student to a getting straight A's, but he was able to bump up his scores in History, English, and art to B's with the occasional A. However, not matter how much complaining from his teachers or pushing from his uncle, Eddie couldn't get his math scores to jump above a D.

Maybe it was something about the numbers, or maybe it was the lack of a creative outlet in the projects. He wasn't exactly sure, but the more he tried, the more he struggled, and the more he struggled, the more he was nagged to do better, which only perpetuated the cyclical downfall of disappointment he existed in.

"You're really a bright kid, Eddie," his math teacher reassured him. "Trust me, we all want you to succeed. You deserve to graduate this year, especially after all the hard work you've put into raising your grades, we don't want this to be the thing that keeps you from getting your diploma."

"So you're going to sweep my math grades under the rug?" he suggested with a mildly sly smirk playing on his lips. His teacher laughed at Eddie's attempt to get the school to ignore his failing grade, but spoke to clear any confusion.

"How would you feel about getting a tutor?"

"I don't think my uncle can afford a tutor, Mr. Klein," Eddie said in a somewhat defeated tone. He'd heard the richer kids at school talk about how they had either a subject specific, or college-prep tutor come to their homes a few days a week to bring up their grades or to prepare for higher education. Never did he think someone would even confuse him for the type of person who would be able to obtain such a luxury. He knew he wasn't going to college unless he had a scholarship--which by his grades and lack of involvement in athletics seemed to be an impossibility. All he wanted was his damned diploma and to flip the bird to his principal one final time.

"I have a student in one of my advanced classes who has some free-time after school. If you're interested, I can arrange for you two to meet so you can work on the materials in one-on-one setting, perform some extra-credit work, and study for the last test of the year."

That's how Eddie Munson ended up at the library after school on a Friday sitting across the table from Helen McKillop. He'd known of Helen since kindergarten, but never spoke to her in their years of attending the same school. Part of it was that they never shared any classes--he was in all on-level courses while she was enrolled in every advanced course the school offered. The other reason he'd never spoken to her before was because it seemed as if she would run the other way if he so much as looked at her.

He'd always remembered her as this timid girl who avoided getting to know anyone outside of her immediate friend group. Barbra Holland and Nancy Wheeler were two of the only people in school Eddie ever remembered Helen interacting with, and after Barb's disappearance and death, she stopped talking to Nancy altogether. Her last two years of high school were spent in the background of everyone else's story. It was as if she were a non-player character that existed simply to further the plot of everyone else's high school life.

Eddie sat across from her, his metal rings clanking loudly on the table as he anxiously tapped to the drumming of his heart. His knee bounced impatiently as he waited for her to say something in regards to the notes he'd taken and the small assignment he completed in class that his teacher wanted her to look over before Eddie officially turned it in. However, her fingers continued to turn the paper over, and her eyes continued to scan his chicken-scratched writing from behind her glasses lenses.

Helen McKillop...the geek he thought to himself in a slight tone of either disgust or dread. Of course he knew that the social hierarchy of high school was bullshit, but it still existed, and people within varying stages of that hierarchy developed opinions of people in others. He knew his place among the hierarchy as a "freak" and he knew what others thought of him. He had mostly come to accept the bullshit stigma of being labeled a freak, and he embraced making the jocks feel uncomfortable. It was nice, in a weird way, having anyone be intimidated by the kid who, in elementary school, was teased for how often he cried. In hindsight, he shouldn't have believed the stereotypes and rumors that were spread about Helen, and he shouldn't have approached their first tutoring session with those in mind, but he did.

Helen had always been quiet, and she could tell her silence was beginning to drive Eddie Munson up a wall. She'd only known of Eddie in passing, but there was something about him that always made her feel uneasy in a good way. She couldn't describe it, but whenever she noticed him being his authentic self among his friends, she could pinpoint this desire and urge within herself to break out of her shell and participate in whatever shenanigans and tomfoolery he was getting into. To be honest, that urge scared her, and given the choice between fight and flight, her body would choose flight ten out of ten times. Helen McKillop didn't step out of her comfort zone. She kept her head down, didn't make a fuss, and avoided the whims of adolescence.

With a swift flick of her wrist, Helen pushed the paper back to Eddie after erasing every last pencil mark on the page.

"What was that for?" he asked abruptly as she handed him a blank page.

"I think it's better to start over with a clean slate," she admitted as a piece of her conscious mind recognized the sub-conscious decision to get over her, for lack of a better combination of words, enamored fear of the boy before her.

"Did you have to erase my name?" he grumbled under his breath as he printed E-d-d-i-e M-u-n-s-o-n back in the top right corner of the page.

With a great sense of apprehension, Helen opened Eddie's textbook to the section Mr. Klein told her Eddie's class was in. While Helen was in Pre-Calculus, Eddie was still in Algebra, so his homework was a breath of fresh air to her; however, within seconds of watching the boy before her shove his pencil into his hair and begin twirling it around a coiled lock, she quickly realized the difficulty Eddie was experiencing.

"Is it that you don't know how to do it, or is it that it seems like a lot to do and it's overwhelming to look at?" Helen asked as she studied the boy across from her.

Eddie's bottom lip was pinched between his teeth, his narrowed eyes peered vengefully down at the paper before him, and his nose was ever so lightly scrunched that it would have been impossible to make out had she not been searching for it. She recognized the look on his face--hell, she'd worn that look a number of times herself--and immediately knew the answer to her question.

"I can do it!" Eddie retorted a little too loudly and ended up being shushed by some nearby middle schoolers.

"I didn't say you couldn't," Helen quickly responded in a shy and reserved tone. She took a deep breath and found herself letting it out abruptly in frustration at Eddie's defiance. "You're a musician, right?" she pressed in hopes he'd stop being so closed off and defensive around her. He nodded in response as he continued to absentmindedly stare at the numbers and letters on the page before him. "What do you play?" her voice was what he'd expected based on the type of girl he thought Helen to be--soft and light, like a feather drifting in the wind.

"Guitar mostly."

"I take it the guitar didn't just come to you super easily, right?"

"No, things don't come easily to me," Eddie nearly hissed in frustration. Here was this girl--this nerdy, goody-two-shoes, teacher's pet girl--who probably has never had to struggle for a descent grade in her whole life, trying to talk to him about what comes easy?

"All I'm saying is, like with music and learning an instrument, things take practice. It's okay to not know where to start."

"The thing is, I know what to do, I just don't know how to make it through these damn questions without wanting to fall asleep. Learning guitar was easy because it was something that was interesting to me. I'm just taking this class because I have to."

Understanding the root of the problem, Helen silently began digging around in her bag until she found a d20. The di certainly caught Eddie's attention since Helen McKillop was the last person he'd expect to play Dungeons and Dragons.

"The good thing is, we don't have to start at the beginning and work our way to the end," she said as she rolled the di and noticed the number 12 appear right side up. "Sometimes I don't know where to start with things either, so I leave it up to chance. Chance says we start at question number twelve," she said and turned his homework over. "Focusing is hard for me, so I have to make little games of things to hold my attention."

"And so you use DND dice to decide how to do your homework?" Eddie asked with a slight laugh as he began to work through the problem.

"My parents took me to be evaluated for ADD in middle school. I've had a few years to find things that work for me. DND dice keeps school a bit more interesting, however I've found them to be more effective to add a few incentives though."

"You had problems in school?" The shock in his voice was evident as Helen anxiously bit at her lower lip.

"I never had to try on assignments," she admitted, only to have the looming judgement of Eddie Munson's words 'things don't come easily for me' echo in her ears. "When I did struggle with something I took it out on myself and thought I was just too stupid or lazy to grasp it. Knowing how to motivate myself to do the things I don't want to do helped me with my boring subjects, but also made me even stronger in the ones I liked."

"So you also just didn't try to do things you thought were too complicated to just start doing?" Eddie's voice was now gentle as he realized he couldn't have been more wrong about Helen.

"Correct," she said as her gaze lifted from where she'd been staring at where his ring clad fingers rested upon the paper in order to meet his eyes. "I promise that if you find ways to keep your brain engaged in what you're doing, you'll find it easier to get things you don't want to do done."

"You promise?" Eddie repeated her words hesitantly as he playfully yet skeptically raised an eyebrow at the girl before him.

"I do," she assured him with what had to be the sweetest, most wholesome smiles he'd seen grace another person's face.

"Well then, I guess I'll keep at it," he said with a joyful grin landing on his lips until it faltered into a coy smirk. "After all, I want to know more about those incentives you were talking about." With a curt wink, he could see her cheeks begin to flush and could feel the heat rising into his own ears. And so the freak began to fall for the geek.

[jetdarklore]

Okay… hear me out… I saw a clip and was reminded of the song 30/90 from Tick, Tick… Boom! And who do we know that would turn 30 in the 90s? And now I NEEEED an AU of struggling artist Eddie and his lover Steve in NYC in the 90s.

[beady-eyed-munson]

Eddie or reader having a habit of preferring to sit on the floor instead of the sofa/couch and sometimes falling asleep there so they get them a dog bed

This isnt a kink thing, i just want a dog bed

[disheveledwizard]

I feel like Eddie wears the plectrum necklace for any of three reasons:

1. It has some sentimental value

2. He thinks it looks cool

3. He will lose every pick he owns unless it is physically strapped to his person

[sky-neverending]

Eddie is such an adhd nerd like you cannot tell me he doesn’t have adhd or autism. he hyperfocus’ on things, he never stops fucking moving, and he just gives the vibes. i love him for it, honestly.

also steve is dyslexic that’s my big headcanon for him. is it because i want people to read to him? yes, yes it is. but also bc idk i just see it.