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buryustogether · 2 years ago

Text

-> HEATSTROKES AND OTHER MEET CUTES

saul bright x f!reader (not v)

wc: 5.3k

summary: after suffering a severe heatstroke and the beatdown of your life, you stumble across a nomad camp in the badlands. their leader is willing to offer a helping hand.

warnings/tags: heatstrokes, getting mugged, guns, blood, swearing, vomiting, mentions of rape/noncon, undressing in front of a stranger, strangers to lovers, thigh riding, smut, use of good girl, running away

author’s note: come get y’all’s bullshit

You had heard the same phrase over and over again.

You’d heard it at bars from truckers who had driven through the deserts all day and all night to avoid stopping out in the open. Their eyes were stamped with purple half-moons, expressions slack with exhaustion and fatigue they barely fought off. Their clothes were dusty despite never once stepping out of their cabs, and they spoke as if they’d seen the rapture itself out in those barren wastelands.

You’d heard it from ex-nomads who had sought to give up their lives in the deserts, too scarred from what they’d seen and endured to carry on out in the open. Their hands were calloused and their lips dry, always carrying around bits and traces of their old life, no matter how far they ran or how hard they tried to scrub all the dust off.

You’d heard it from mercenaries who’d had the misfortune of working jobs out there in the flat, dry banks and plains. They shook their heads when asked about it, said that some things just needed to lay down and fuckin’ die. Their gazes danced with ravens and scavenger birds picking at something unseen in the brush, and their footsteps were a little lighter than they once had been, as if they were scared of leaving footprints in sand that wasn’t even there.

You had heard the same phrase over and over again.

“If you think Night City is bad, wait until you get out to the Badlands.”

You had always thought they were being dramatic. Silly. Ridiculous. It was all just a bunch of desert, nothing but rocky mountain ridges and a brutal, unforgiving sun that found a way through the clouds even if the heavens themselves refused to part.

You had been wrong. So very, horribly, awfully wrong.

Sand clinging to your pants, your hair, your shoes - everything - weighed you down as you slowly trudged your way through the nothingness of the Badlands back toward the city. The tops of the skyscrapers and the holo-ads just barely prodded at the horizon, teasing you in a mirage of sorts. Miles. Miles upon miles left until you reached salvation, safety, relief.

You couldn’t help but pant with parted lips as you feebly stepped up a ridge and forced your legs to move along - one after the other. That’s all. That’s all that it was. And yet, the simple act of walking felt as though it were the most impossible thing you’d ever done.

Nothing in your parched, sun-fried brain could tell you what the hell you had even been thinking coming all the way out here. You’d struck up a deal with a wastelander over the net abour buying a bike that looked preem enough to have come straight from the dealer’s website. Now, you were sure that’s where it had been from.

By the time you’d parked your car in the middle of the abandoned lot you and the seller had agreed to meet at, it had been too late. You’d been met with a tap on your window from the end of a pistol barrel, and on the other side had been a man wearing a mask over his face and goggles over his eyes to shield himself from the sand blowing in the breeze.

The was a blur in the forefront of your mind, too fast and miserable and beige-tinted to remember much.

The scavengers had pulled you from your car and stripped you of anything useful you had - your pieces, the tools from your trunk, hell - they’d even taken your belt buckle, thinking it to be worth anything more than a few dozen eddies. You had cried out, screamed for help as they backed you against your car and beat the living sense out of you, but of course no one had come. Your yells had been noting more than a few whispers on the wind, as far as anyone else was concerned. They had left you in that lot, staring up at the blinding sky, feeling blood slip from your mouth and trickle down the side of your face. Gasping for air in your bruised lungs.

Wondering how you had been so fucking stupid.

You’d been walking for what felt like hours now - the sun was beginning to set over the jagged tops of the mountains, threatening to drench you in the everlasting darkness of the Badlands. If you could get scammed, jacked, and hacked in broad daylight, you were terrified to think of what could happen when not even the light was there to guide you.

Water was merely a dream, an illusion, as was any hope of making it back to the city in one piece. Your feet dragged behind you and your heart thundered in your ears. A migraine like you’d never felt before was pounding like a jackhammer at the front of your skull, blurring your vision at the edges, and for every five steps you took forward, you stumbled back three to keep your balance. You knew if you fell to the grainy, unforgiving ground now, you’d never be getting back up again.

A low, exhausted moan escaped your lips as you half-collapsed, rocks and sharp-edged pebbles digging into your palms as you fought to keep yourself upright. You had no one back home - no significant other, no family, hardly many people you knew well enough to call friends. If you died out here, no one would come looking for you. You’d become another statistic of the missing persons files, forever lost out here to the uneven dunes and hungry landscape.

Just when you were about to finally keel over and call it quits, finally acknowledge that you weren’t going to ever touch the paved tarmac of the Night City streets again, you created a small ridge and laid eyes upon light. A small, grouped number of glowing lights, illuminating the faint shapes of trucks, and bikes, and makeshift tents and lean-tos.

Nomads.

It was a nomad camp.

Your heart surged in your hollow chest and you picked up your pace, ignoring the aching in your legs and the dry, grainy feeling scratching at your lungs.

“Hey,” you said softly, then covered your mouth with a fist as you coughed and hacked. Each spasm was as painful as pins dancing along your throat. You stumbled forward, approaching the camp slowly, watching as the shapes grew more clear and the lights became brighter. You could see the silhouettes of people wandering about their business, gathered around campfires and discussing lazy topics over bottles of beer. You ached for just a sip - just a single drop to roll down your tongue.

You had just reached the perimeter of the nomad camp when, like a star falling from the sky, a miniature explosion detonated just inches from your feet. As you helped and tipped sideways, collapsing in the sand, you realized it had not been an explosion, but a bullet landing before you in a warning. Your ears rang like bells as you feebly rolled onto all fours, your head spinning. The nomads were blurs of motion as they moved, shouting and calling commands, racing to and fro. They were preparing - for what? It was only you here.

Only parched, fried, dying you.

A croaked gasp was pulled from your cracked lips when a boot shoved you over, sending you onto your back. Not a moment later, the barrel of a rifle was shoved against your throat. The metal was cool. You fought against the instinct to wrap your hand around the barrel and pull it closer.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” spat the young woman at the other end of the rifle. “Pretty stupid to try and sneak up on us all by yourself. Tell me how many of you there are, and I might think about letting you keep your head.”

You blinked tiredly, the world going in and out of focus like a video with bad resolution, as two more men skidded to a stop beside the woman to peer down at you.

“Good shot, Panam,” said one.

“Mm,” agreed the other on her right. He brandished a slick pistol and aimed it at your middle, ignoring the way you gasped and cried silently for air, for water, for anything. “I wouldn’t have been so kind.”

You heaved in a dry breath, your tongue refusing to work. You would have cried out of pain, out of frustration and exasperation, but no tears were able to crawl into the corners of your eyes. You were sucked dry, with nothing left to give except the sweat rolling down your back and neck.

“How many of you are there?” the woman called Panam demanded again. She placed a heavy boot on your chest, restricting a bit of whatever airflow you had left, and your eyes widened. Scrabbling at her ankle, you kicked aimlessly as you battled to inhale. “Tell me!” The boot pressed further, and you sputtered out a dry squawk. You heard her pull the bolt of her rifle, felt the used cartridge bounce off your arm. “Last chance, you scav scum.”

“Panam!” There came a loud, booming voice that seemed to shake the ground beneath you, commanding respect and authority over all else surrounding you - even nature itself. The boot was lifted off your chest and you raised a trembling hand to your throat, taking a short, shaky breath in. Through the dizzying spinning of the world and the hammer-like thundering in your skull, you turned your head slightly and caught the hazy figure of a man striding toward the scene with broad, level shoulders and boots that were scuffed with years wear and tear. That was all you were able to catch before you covered your eyes with your hands and moaned for a breath, for a drink, for anything that would bring you from this dry hell.

“What was that shot?” asked the new man as he approached the others. “What’s going on here?”

“Stopped a scav from sneaking under our noses.” The toe of Panam’s boot nudged your leg. “Pretty lousy, scav, at that.”

You listened to that heavy pair of footsteps come closer until they were right beside your head. A hand, large and rough with calluses from hard work and manual labor, took your wrist and pulled it away from your face. Through your haze you could only just make out an arm lined with tattoos, a head full of hair like chestnut that draped over shoulders, and a well-kept beard. You opened your mouth to babble out an apology, to beg that they let you go, but all that came out was a raspy groan.

“Dammit, Panam, she’s not a scav.” The man released your arm, turned away from you. “She’s from the city. Look at her clothes. She’s not from out here.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know?” came the reply, almost childlike in its nature. “I see someone trying to get the jump on us, I take them out. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Protect each other?”

“Go back to your hut. No more guard duty for the rest of the night.”

“Saul-“

“Now, Panam.”

You listened to a hiss of fury and the sound of fading footsteps before slowly attempting to roll over onto your hands and knees. That unreasonable, delusional part of you was beginning to take over. Maybe if you were quick, you could sneak away…

Your feeble escape attempt was halted when that same hand as before grabbed your shoulder and rolled you back around onto your backside. You weren’t able to put up much of a fight, only gasp and paw at clothes and skin, as those hands wrapped under your shoulders to lift you up off the rocky, sweltering ground.

“Mitch,” said the man above you. Saul? “Grab her feet. Help me bring her up.”

Another pair of hands wrapped around your calves and suddenly you were lifted off the desert floor, being carried through the nomad camp like a prize from the latest hunt. You couldn’t do much but moan and gasp in short breaths, watching with dazed eyes as the sun finally disappeared behind the range.

“Where to? The doc’s?” said the man at your feet.

“My space,” said the other at your head. “She’s dehydrated to all hell and back. I’ve got the keys to our reserves in my truck.”

What could have been either seconds or hours later - you’d all but lost track of all meaning of time - the men carried you up a set of stairs leading into a hollowed-out semi truck. You saw the shapes and frames of a couch and a tool bench, a bed and a little folding table in the corner. They set you down on the bed, carefully lifting your feet comfortably out in front of you.

Then Saul, who had saved you from the young woman with a rifle, who had carried you all the way up into this truck, pulled a ring of keys from a space beneath the table and tossed them to his partner. “Go and fetch a whole jug,” he instructed, and within just a moment, Mitch was gone.

Saul disappeared, too. You watched as he exited the truck, shouting to his people, and attempted to sit up in the bed. You’d heard things about nomads - that they kidnapped people from the city and held them for ransom, that they ran with the coyotes and ate what they left behind. You’d never seen any evidence of these claims, but you weren’t about to find out.

You had just managed to swing one leg over the edge of the bed before Saul, hulking and sinewy in the doorway of the semi, reappeared. He gently, but firmly, pushed you back down onto the mattress and lifted your leg to where it had been.

“Easy, girl,” he said and leaned over you. You shut your eyes when he draped a cold, wet cloth over your forehead. “Keep still, hear? Don’t need you collapsing again on us.”

Mitch entered the truck lugging a large, clear jug of water at his side. At the sight of it, of what you’d been thinking of for hours, you pushed against Saul and attempted to tumble out of the bed yourself.

“Good to see she’s still got some fight in her,” Mitch joked as he popped the tab of the jug and handed it to Saul. “At least she ain’t gone mad to the heat.”

“Not yet, anyway.” The muscles in his bare arms flexing beneath the ink of his tattoos, Saul lifted the jug’s tab to your lips and tipped it back. When you weren’t able to lift yourself to meet it, he nestled a hand beneath your sweaty head and raised it himself.

The moment the cool liquid hit your mouth, you almost moaned aloud at how sweet and wonderful it tasted. It felt even better going down your throat. You couldn’t ignore the fact that the hand cradling your head was sending butterflies through your veins at the same time, but your sole focus was on the water trickling down your chin and onto your shirt. Gulp after gulp, you drank, refusing to let the nomad pull the jug away, even when you felt your belly fill.

“Careful,” said Mitch as Saul again tried to pry the container from your lips. “Don’t drink it too fast or else -“

Before he could finish, you suddenly shoved the jug away and made to lean over the side of the bed. With the toe of his boot, Saul hooked a metal container beneath the bed and whisked it out onto the open floor. Not a moment later, you hung over the edge of the mattress and vomited water and bile into the pan. The retches heaved through your body in an uneven tempo, your systems overwhelmed from having been dry to the bone to suddenly flowing over with water.

When you finally returned to dry heaving, shaking as spit up ran down your chin and nose, Saul retrieved the wet cloth from where it had fallen on the bed and used it to gingerly wipe your face clean. Your chest, soaked through your shirt from the runoff water, heaved for breath as you let him settle you back down and offer a few chaser sips of water to your lips.

“You’re alright,” Mitch said as you felt your face heat upon the realization of what you’d just done - in front of strangers, no less. “We‘ve all been there. Can’t say you’re a nomad without suffering a few heatstrokes.” He picked up the pan as if it were nothing, then clambered down the steps into the open night. “I’ll get the air conditioning going,” he called back in, then heaved the semi’s door shut.

Slowly, as if you were surfacing from being held underwater, you began to regain your senses. Understand what was going on, where you were. You were in the middle of a nomad camp, in a truck, alone with a man called Saul. And he was pulling off your shoes. Blinking through tired eyes, you watched the ceiling of the truck as you felt him peel off your socks, as well. Then he began to fumble with the button of your pants.

Summoning every ounce of strength you had left to give, you thrashed like a cornered animal and cried out through your still-weary throat. Saul at once backed off, watching as you curled into yourself in the corner of the bed. Your eyelids were drooping, your arms and hands and fingers still shaking.

“Mmuh,” you mumbled over your dead tongue. You scooted further away when he took a step toward you. Fuck, the rumors had been true. They just wanted to use you and throw you back out into the desert when they were done. “Sta… sty’ back,” you warned, though you knew there was really nothing you would be able to do against him.

Saul raised a hand in a little surrender warning, keeping his short distance from your corner of the bed. “Easy, girl,” he said again. “Not going to hurt you.” He nodded with his head gingerly, a few strands of hair falling from his shoulder to his neck. “We need to get your clothes off. You’re not going to cool down any faster than spending a night out here in the Badlands. Your skin needs to breathe, get its bearings again.”

For a long while, you considered him. His eyes were dark and stormy, heavy with a thousand burdens and not enough solutions. His movements were authoritative and stern, yet mindful and careful all at once, like he knew the repercussions his very footsteps may leave behind.

He did not seem like the kind of man who would throw you to the jackals and vultures.

Slowly, tentatively, you unfurled yourself and eased across the bed. He took a few steps closer, gently easing you back onto your ass, and pulled your shirt over your head. He had been right, you found; the moment your shirt left your body, it felt as though you were able to breathe again. The sand prodding against your skin, the feeling of carrying around another ton - it all went away. Though your arms were shaking, you managed to lift up your hips so that he could slide your pants off your legs, leaving you in just your bra and panties.

It would have felt strange being practically naked in front of a man you’d never met before - in front of a man who was standing so close that you felt his breath on your shoulder - but something within you felt slightly at ease. This man was taking care of you, inspecting the bruises along your arms and middle with a touch that just only ghosted your skin, gave you tiny sips of water - just enough to keep you on the edge, leaning forward for more.

After Saul had helped you wrap up in a sheet and left a mug of water where you could reach it, he took a seat on the couch facing the bed. When he sat, he let out a deep sigh, and you noticed he let his left leg straighten and relax while his rig remained bent and stiff. A bad joint, perhaps?

For a while, a long, still silence filled the belly of the truck. You took little drinks from the mug, keeping it close to your chest, your eyes trained on Saul’s fingers. A couple of rings adorned his knuckles, glinting in the light from the lamp sat beside the couch. His fingers were long and thick, rough with scars and calluses, each with a story of their own. You shifted, slightly ashamed, when a short rush of arousal shot to your core.

What kinds of things, besides tune-ups, and feeding his people, and firing a gun could those hands do?

“Thank you,” you found yourself saying, finally able to gain control of your tongue again. You swallowed thick and hunched your shoulders. “For helping me. I’m… I’m sure you have lots of other people to keep well-taken care of.”

Saul released a groan from deep in his chest, sounding akin to some kind of agreement. “I do,” he said, rubbing at his temple. “But just because someone’s not my people doesn’t mean I turn them away when they’re in need.“

Outside, someone had begun to strum a melody on a guitar. A number of voices sang along to a song you didn’t know, a harmony of deep and light and wonderful and awful.

These people weren’t savages or plunderers. They were friends. They were a family.

Perhaps… perhaps the rumors had been wrong, after all.

You took another sip of water and reached up to wipe your lip with your thumb. You found him watching your movements. “Listen, I’ll be out of your hair in a while. I just… I just needed to rest a while.”

Saul hummed again. “No,” he said in such a commanding tone you were at once inclined to agree with him. “You’ll stay here for the night. If you’re feeling up to it tomorrow, we’ll take you back to town. We were heading there to stock up on supplies, anyhow.”

You said nothing at first. How incredibly scary this man had been at first, towering over you on the ground with those dark, broody eyes trained on your very soul. But now he was… rather charming. Dark and mysterious, sure, but no less attractive.

You realized you had been staring at him. And he had been staring at you.

Switching your gaze down to your mug of water, because you felt as though you’d blurt out all the filthy things you were thinking if you kept looking at him, you swallowed down the last few bits of sand sticking to your throat. “So, is that… Panam… is she your kid?”

The man before you gave a sort of scoff and a twitch of his lips - you’d hit a sore subject. “Something like that,” he answered shortly, then reached up and harrumphed as he flicked a piece of hair over his shoulder. “We picked her up years ago when she was young. Brought her up for a while. Recently, she’s started to push back. Question how things run around here.” He raised a hand and dropped it again, and it occurred to you that perhaps you were the first person he’d unloaded this burden on in a long time. “She doesn’t get that everything I do around here is for the best - for everyone. Even if it doesn’t align with her own morals.”

For a long while, silence enveloped the gutted belly of the truck. You set your mug down on the floor and hugged the sheet tighter around yourself. Outside, the song being played ended with a loud, overjoyed cheer from its singers. They all sounded so… happy. Content. At peace.

“Well,” you said slowly, hoping you weren’t crossing any lines, “I, uhm… I haven’t really been here lucid enough to think straight long, but… it seems like you’re doing something right.” When he settled his gaze upon you, you nodded to the door leading out into the night illuminated by song and campfire glow. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen so much… camaraderie before. This day and age, it’s kill or be killed, but you all…” You trailed off, shrugging your bare shoulders beneath the sheet. “You have each other. I can’t really talk much, but that seems like something to be proud of.”

Saul, for once in the short while you’d been sitting with him, seemed to be short of answers to your words.

Perhaps it was the adrenaline high that had been fueling your brain not too long ago, or maybe it was the feeling that spread throughout your abdomen when he looked at you, but something propelled you to scoot forward on the bed and try to rise to your feet.

Saul stood just as you climbed into a stand, reaching out to keep you down on the bed, but you reacted first. You stumbled forward on your still-wobbly feet and tumbled right into his broad chest. He exhaled a surprised grunt. You both landed back on the couch, only now you were straddling his thick, muscular thigh and your front was pressed against his without a sliver of space between you.

Your breaths each came out in puffs and pants, startled by the sudden fall. It wasn’t long before you each sprung into action.

He leaned forward to meet you halfway when you brought your lips toward his, locking your mouths together with the same kind of fervor you gave. His hands were firm but gentle all at once, mindful of the sore spots along your arms and middle, as if he’d memorized each and every place where a bruise blossomed. They eventually landed on your barely-clothed hips. While he busied himself, like an explorer mapping out new, unfamiliar terrain, you licked your tongue into his mouth and pulled him by his hair closer. He tasted of some musky liquor and a dense air you could not place. Rough and demanding, yet protective and heavy and like home - the way a leader should be.

When you finally pulled away from him to catch your breath, your chest now heaving and caving rapidly, Saul hummed lowly and nudged your forehead with his nose. “Ballsy, aren’t you, girl?” he said, and you shivered as you felt his hot breath fanning across your face. “Not a lot of people would shove their tongues down the throat of the leader of the Aldecados.” He took the point of your chin between his thumb and forefinger so that you peered up at him. “You’ve got courage. I admire that.”

By now, arousal had began to pool in the bottom of your belly like a coiled serpent, snapping and hissing to be set free. Your cunt ached, clenching around nothing, and you nearly moaned in relief when Saul shifted you over his thigh so that the rough material of his pants rubbed your clit through your panties just right. He noticed your reaction and hitched his leg slightly, causing you to bounce gently on his thigh. This time, a soft, quiet mewl did escape your throat.

Saul hummed and leaned forward to begin nipping and sucking love spots into the delicate skin of your neck. “Pretty girl likes getting off on my leg, doesn’t she?” he growled against the column of your throat. You gasped when he hitched his leg again, and a wonderful, delightful flood of leaden pleasure spread through your systems. “Do it, then. Show me just how tough you really are, baby.”

Who were you to object?

Clinging onto his muscular shoulders for support, you began rocking yourself against his clothed thigh, shifting and grinding so that your clit was stimulated in just the right way. Practically humping his hip, you let out soft, panting sighs and moans and mewls as you moved.

Saul’s hand moved around your back to unclasp your bra, moving you arms for just a fraction of a second so that he could pull it off and drop it to the floor. He pulled a long, high-pitched whimper from the bottom of your throat when he attached his lips to your nippe, beard scratching against the vulnerable skin of your chest. Pleasure like you weren’t sure you’d ever experienced coursed through you like fine whiskey or a static-infused drink from an overpriced club.

Fuck, this shouldn’t have felt this good.

But it did. It fucking did.

“Atta’ girl,” Saul muttered into the valley between your breasts when the rolls of your hips began to grow faster. He felt your arousal soaking through his pant leg, your panties completely ruined. You were chasing that high as your cunt clenched and you whined every time his lips pressed wet, open-mouthed kisses against your sternum. “Ride, cowgirl.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Saul,” you said, and repeated his name, that one word, that sounded like a chanted prayer now as you neared your end. That coil within you was tightening, that abused power source about to implode and take out everything with it. “Saul, Saul, Saul…!”

He pressed his lips flush against yours, hands splayed across the skin of your back, like he was shielding you from the rest of the world, claiming you. “Come on,” he breathed against your mouth. “Cum for me.”

You found you could not go against anything this man said.

With a shattered cry muffled by his shoulder, your hips stuttered and you hit your peak like a lone wanderer who never wanted to come down. You shoved your hips, your oversensitive clit, against his thigh, attempting to remain up in those clouds that felt you during your orgasm.

When you eventually came back around, you found Saul was pulling your hair from your sweaty face, whispering praise against the shell of your ear.

“Good girl,” he said in that low, husky tone of his that sent your stomach flipping. “My good girl. Tamed already, aren’t you?”

You gave a weak, half-hearted agreement. He shifted his weight so that he now lay across the couch with his feet propped against the opposite armrest and your limp form sprawled across his front. He squeezed your hips, fingertips playing with the hem of your soaked panties.

It seemed an eternity of still, peaceful quiet had passed when Saul spoke again. “You got anyone back home waiting for you?”

“No,” you answered at once. Perhaps too quickly, too eagerly. “It’s just me.”

“Hmm.” For a moment, he seemed to consider, his gaze - now simmering down from their previous state of lust-fueled frenzy - stuck to your head as he carded through your hair. “Didn’t make what I’d call a good first impression,” he said, “but I could convince the others to clear a seat for you around the fire. Scrounge up a spare motor. You know how to ride?”

It took your short-circuited brain a long minute to comprehend what he was saying. He was inviting you to join his family - the Aldecados.

You thought. You had nothing back in the city - just a cheap, shitty apartment, a dead end job, and a stack of bills only growing by the day. Chaos. Havoc. But out here… there was everything you didn’t know. The unknown of what might come the next day. Sandstorms, and bandits, and everything else in between… but a family. People willing to watch your back without expecting anything in return. Friends and cousins and brothers and sisters.

A man who had just fucked you senseless, and even still now, saw something within you he thought worthy enough to travel with him and his nomads.

The answer came out easier than expected. “Yeah,” you said and smiled up at him. “I can ride.”

#cyberpunk x reader #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 smut #cyberpunk #cyberpunk 2077 x reader #cbp 2077 #saul cyberpunk #cyberpunk saul #saul bright #saul bright cyberpunk 2077 #saul cyberpunk 2077 #panam palmer #cyberpunk panam #saul bright x reader #saul bright x you #cyberpunk 2077 x you

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storiesbyrhi · 2 years ago

Text

The Cabin in the Woods

Eddie Munson x Reader 11,339 words

Warnings: natural disasters, death/dying (no character death), medical gore, medicinal drug use, use of Y/N but VERY minimal, no beta.

Synopsis: Something is very wrong in Hawkins and Eddie isn’t answering the phone. A story featuring heavy metal concerts, medical attention, mutual pining, and a cabin in the woods.

Author's Note: Follows canon except they do defeat Vecna – whose final act is the ‘earthquake.’ Set primarily in Hopper’s cabin. I used this website��as a floorplan reference. We're pretending it's not as trashed as it is in the show.

Part One: Chrissy Cunningham was Dead

Chrissy Cunningham was dead. She was beautiful, with slightly crooked teeth and sparkly eyes. Her face was all over the news on Saturday morning. A small town golden girl was murdered overnight. Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.

The next day the news came straight from Hawkins again. Fred Benson wore glasses and worked on the high school’s newspaper. He was the sole survivor of a tragic car wreck only to die at the hands of, what the reporter called, a serial killer. Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.

On Monday you went to work and listened to people filter through gossip. The girl died at a trailer park. Some drug dealer’s house. Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.

On Tuesday your mother came home and said, “Did you hear? Turns out they found the boy on the road right near that trailer park.” Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.

He wasn’t answering the goddamn phone for four days straight and there were two dead kids from his town, maybe from his trailer park. Eddie was entirely M.I.A. while Fred Benson and Chrissy Cunningham were dead.

Part Two: In a Fairer World

In a fairer world, you would have grown up in the same shitty small town as Eddie Munson. Alas, you were banished to your own equally shitty and small Indianan town. It meant you didn’t have Eddie to keep you company during lunch periods or ask you to the school dance. It meant you remained lonely for most of your teen years. It meant that the only time you got to spend with Eddie was when your paths crossed at metal shows in Indianapolis or Chicago.

It was in the depths of a cold 1984 winter that you and Eddie first officially met. You had seen each other around, noting the presence of another teen that had snuck into the show or club, but you hadn’t ever spoken. Then, on a particularly bitter night, you and Eddie found yourselves in the same hiding spot.

You’d clocked the bouncers of the venue doing periodical laps inside, spot checking IDs. They only bothered when the air was stale and frozen like it was then. Annoyed, you swiped an open jar of maraschino cherries from behind the bar and ducked your way into a small storage room, no bigger than a broom closet.

It was dark but warm. You were pleasantly buzzed and snacking away when the door opened and another body jumped in, bumping into you with a yelp.

“Fuck! Sorry!” Eddie said but made no move to leave the cramped space. You listened to him feel around the door and wall, then the space was illuminated. He turned to look at you.

“Huh,” was all you said at the revelation of there being a light in the room.

“They’re checking IDs,”

“Yeah,” you replied. “That’s… why I’m in ‘ere,”

“Yeah… Um. You want me to go… or…?”

You shook your head no. “How old are you?” you asked.

“Seventeen. Just,” he answered honestly. “You?”

“Sixteen.”

You swapped names and hometowns, then when the coast was clear went your separate ways.

Between ’84 and ’85 you and Eddie danced around each other. Polite nods and manic grins when you slammed into each other in mosh pits. By March of ’85, you became friends. When there was a show, you’d call each other beforehand to plan the night. City meet ups before and 24/7 diner fries after. Something shifted by the end of ’85.

While you had graduated, Eddie was repeating again. He was still his usual self, but he had pulled away from you a little. It hurt, because you were desperate to see him. It was scary, finishing high school and tumbling into the adult world. You wanted the routine of Eddie and gigs. Also, somewhere along the line your feelings about Eddie had become different than platonic.

Between the hours of phone calls, the hand holding as you ran through crowds together, and the conversations had while sitting on the curb about all the things the future could hold, you fell in love.

You figured it was one sided. If Eddie loved you back, he would have kissed you. He would have said something, even by accident. He wouldn’t have pulled away at all.

By the spring of 1986 you hadn’t seen Eddie in a couple of months. In the rare phone call, he said he was trying his hardest to graduate. There was one class he had to get credits for, even a D would secure him the high school diploma that had alluded him. Like you always did, you offered to help with homework and edit essays and do anything for him, but like always he laughed the offer off, saying that the teachers would be able to tell his own scribblings from your intelligent words.

You hated when Eddie talked shit about himself. Luckily, it wasn’t too often; given his history and current status as his town’s resident freak, he did surprisingly well at the whole self-esteem thing. There were cracks in the facade though. Deep seated ideas about his worth. Self-deprecating jokes. It hurt to know things like that lived somewhere in him while he lived in a place determined to make his life shitty.

Despite knowing just how much Hawkins misunderstood Eddie, and despite hearing the rumours of a trailer park, you still couldn’t believe what you were seeing.

Hiding from parents who were asking when you were going to move out, you had been flicking through television channels on the couch in the basement. The couch was musty, with wet patches that never seemed to dry. The T.V. set was old and staticky. Still, it was better than being upstairs.

You stopped on the news to watch a segment on the violence in the Gulf of Sidra between the U.S. and Libya. There were no American casualties. While you were wondering if there were Libyan deaths, the news anchor was shuffling his papers.

“And now to local news. Small town Indiana has been rocked by another in a series of violent murders. Patrick McKinney brings the body count to three, and with rumours of Satanism, Hawkins, population 13,400, is once again in the spotlight.”

The story played out. A reporter in the field stood outside the boundary lines of Forest Hills Trailer Park. “This is a town all too familiar with murder and mystery,” she said. A photograph of a teenage girl named Barbara. Another of the missing child Will Byers. A mall fire. More deaths. More misery.

Frozen in place, your skin broke out in goosebumps and your mouth went dry. Tears pricked at the edges of your eyes and butterflies scraped their razorblade wings across the lining of your stomach.

“And now, three more deaths can be added to the tally, but what has profoundly shaken this quiet town is the thought of a murderer in their midst.”

It cut to a teenager in a green varsity jacket with a microphone held out to him. “We always knew he would do something like this. Guy’s a total freak,” the teen said.

“And the rumour of Satanism?” asked the reporter, aiming the mic back at the teen.

“Oh, yeah. He listens to that devil music and he’s the leader of a cult. They’re called Hellfire.”

Before your brain had a chance to connect the dots for itself, Eddie’s photo was on the screen. The reporter’s voice was steady and sure as she said, “Edward ‘Eddie’ Munson is a twenty-year-old who attends Hawkins High. He is law enforcement’s prime suspect. The first victim was located inside his residence here at Forest Hills Trailer Park, and a witness claims to have seen Munson in the vicinity of the third victim at the time of their death. Munson lives with his uncle, who has declined an interview.”

Wrapping your arms around yourself, you began to rock back and forth in an attempt to self-sooth. You didn’t register it, but you whimpered as you watched the closing of the news report.

“Are the people of Hawkins cursed? Has the occult been attracted to an already traumatised town? Or is this simply the work of a disturbed young man? Law enforcement is asking all residents of Hawkins and surrounding areas to remain vigilant. Do not approach any suspects. Call your local police department or Crime Stoppers with any information you may have. We will keep you updated on any developments.”

The screen cut back to the news anchor, who moved on to banter with the weatherman. It felt like all the air and sound in the basement had been sucked out in a vacuum. You couldn’t breathe. Your vision was blurry. You were going to puke.

Making it to your bedroom, you threw yourself into your small bathroom and curled up on the cool tiles. There were tears but you weren’t properly crying. Every tiny spark of energy in you was dedicated to figuring out what the absolute fuck you had just seen.

It wasn’t possible, you knew that. Eddie had been generous and sweet since you met him. He was respectful and got pissed when people didn’t observe metal gig etiquette. He pulled people out the mosh when they needed help. He’d bought you more bottles of water than you could count. Eddie was so deeply a lover, not a fighter.

So, no, there wasn’t even a split second where you thought he was guilty. It was simply instantaneous terror for where he was and what would happen once the pitchfork wielding townspeople or the trigger happy cops found him.

A knock on your bedroom door snapped you from your spiraling.

“What?” you yelled.

“What’s with all the door slamming?” your dad’s voice yelled back.

“Nothing. Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”

There was a pause. “You okay?”

You sat up and breathed out. “Yeah. Sorry,”

“Alright…”

It wasn’t until you heard his boots walk down the hall that you got up and moved to the telephone next to your bed. Eddie’s number was still connected, but it rang and rang like it had for days. You tried it all night, but there was no answer.

Sleep came in short restless bursts. The following day you got sent home from work early for crying in the bathroom. You apologised and made up a story about a death in the family, earning you a week off.

After another sleepless night, nobody picking up the phone, and all the catastrophising your brain could do, you thought it couldn’t get any worse.

When you emerged late in the morning for breakfast, you found your parents in the living room watching a breaking news story.

“There’s only twenty-two confirmed casualties so far but it’s… it’s bad here, John,” the corresponded said. They were crossing from what appeared to be some sort of natural disaster.

“Are we sure it was an earthquake?” John from the studio asked.

“That’s what the authorities are saying. Seismologists say 7.4. The townsfolk though, they seem to be asking questions.”

“What happened?” you asked your parents.

“Earthquake hit… Did you feel anything?” your mum replied.

“What do you mean?”

“It was here. Indiana.”

Somehow, you knew.

“I didn’t feel anything… Are we even on bloody tectonic plates?” your dad said.

“That poor town,”

“Something going on there, let me tell you. I was talking to Bill at work. He’s got a cousin out that way. Says the whole place has been swarming with feds, even before this,”

“Because of the murders?” she asked.

“That and everything else.”

The back and forth between your parents was making your blood run cold, you shushed them and turned up the television.

“We’re hearing now that a suspect is in custody for the recent string of murders, but it seems like Hawkins has bigger problems,”

“Yeah, John, the people are banding together to help neighbours out. We’ve seen federal support mobilise quickly. But nobody has forgotten about Eddie Munson and the occult murders,”

“He’s in custody?”

“We can’t confirm if it’s him, but we’ve been assured a suspect has been taken in,”

“Right, and the earthquake - what can people at home do to help?”

A phone number appeared on screen with a call to donate funds to help Hawkins rebuild. The sound of your parents discussing an appropriate amount to give, then finding their credit cards, then calling the number, then being annoyed at joining a queue, became white noise.

Whatever was happening in your brain was all happening on a subconscious level. You were standing still, not a single thought in your mind. Just a shell, waiting for something to come from deeper within yourself to move you.

Suddenly, “I… have to go. I have to go.”

Flying down the hall and into your bedroom, you were throwing random articles of clothing and toiletries into a bag while your parents were still on hold. When you ripped back through the house, your mum noticed the frenzy and started to trail you. Kitchen, fridge, apple, a couple of cans of Dr Pepper. Cupboard, chips. Hallway, keys. You only stopped when your mum yelled your name.

“What?!”

“What are you doing?!”

“I… I have a friend. In Hawkins. I have to go,”

“No, no you don’t. They’ve said not to go. It’s too dangerous. There’s a number you can call to find friends and family,”

“You don’t understand. I have to go. I have to.”

The expression on your mother’s face was fear. Your dad appeared and his was all confusion. For a second you considered saying that the friend was Eddie, but logic reasoned a second later.

“I’m going,” you asserted, holding the keys in your hand tighter and taking a step backwards toward the door. “I’m sorry.” And you bolted out the front door and into your car.

In a fairer world, you would have grown up in the same shitty town as Eddie. In a fairer world, whatever was haunting Hawkins would have never existed. In a fairer world, Eddie would have loved you like you loved him. Alas, the world was unfair in far more ways than you could have even begun to imagine.

Part Two: The Drive to Hawkins

The drive to Hawkins was long and lonely. The route bypassed Indianapolis and looped around to continue to the other side of the state. Despite the authority’s warning, it seemed like hundreds of people were lined up to get into the small town. The roads were at a standstill and you spent the night behind the wheel.

You caught a few hours of sleep before being woken by the horns of the cars behind you. That process repeated itself until almost midday the next day. By the time you hit Hawkins’ welcome sign, you were close to peeing yourself and exhausted beyond belief.

Parked at a playground and barbeque area, went to the toilet, and made an attempt to wash your face and armpits. It was when you were reading a tourist information board that it dawned on you that you had no idea where to start. Looking around, you felt like you were at the epicenter of chaos.

Smoke was still billowing in the sky on the horizon. The sound of sirens was constantly audible. There were cars and people everywhere. If you focused on the noise, you could hear crying. The news was right – Hawkins was a cursed place.

“Okay, okay,” you said to yourself. “Okay.”

If Eddie had been arrested, it was unlikely he would be allowed visitors. At the very least though, you may get some information. If he hadn’t been arrested, if justice had prevailed in the so-called-land of the free, then you could try Forest Hills after.

Normally, going anywhere near a cop shop was a hard no, but for Eddie, you’d do it.

When you got to the closest station, you realised how hard the task in front of you was going to be. You had to park blocks away, walking through crowds of people looking for missing loved ones, and past tents of what you feared were body bags.

“Sorry, excuse me?” you said to someone official-looking woman holding a clipboard. They were trying to answer multiple people’s questions. You waited patiently until it became clear that manners couldn’t co-exist with an environment like that. “I’m looking for someone,”

“Everyone is, honey. Check the board for names. Black one has photos of bodies. Red one is for missing people. You see someone you recognise, bring the photo to me. If they’re already on the red board, nothing more you can do.”

There was a third possibility that you legitimately hadn’t thought of, one worse than being wrongfully arrested. What if Eddie had died in the earthquake?

You started to cry, but you were just one person in a sea of misery. Nobody stopped to see if you were okay. Nobody looked at you like you were being weird in public. You were just another grief-stricken person.

After powerwalking back to your car and throwing yourself into the backseat to curl up, you sobbed for what felt like hours. When you calmed down and poke your head up, only minutes had been spent. Fifteen at most.

You climbed over the centre console to sit back in the driver’s seat. You wound your window down and rummaged through your bag for some tissues. Wetting some with the last of your bottled water, you washed your face.

There were still people everywhere, and you could make out a conversation happening close.

“What do we do now?” a small voice asked.

You glanced at your side mirror and watched as a man and woman embraced.

“I don’t know… They said search parties are being organised over at the school…” the man replied.

“I just want to find her,”

“I know… I know. Me too… Let’s just… Just go there. Heard it’s been set up with food and water too. You need to eat something,”

“I’m not hungry… I just want to find her.” The woman began to cry.

It felt wrong to be listening to their conversation, but there was nowhere to go. You saw the couple begin to walk. The woman seemed frail and the man had a scarf tied around his leg. Even through the mirror’s reflection you could tell he was injured.

“Excuse me!” you called after them, sticking half your body out the window. “Do you need a ride?”

Maybe manners couldn’t function, but humanity certainly could.

The man nodded and did not hesitate as he pulled the woman along and got her into the back seat. He slid in next to her.

“Thank you,”

“Yeah. No worries… Um, where do you need to go?” you asked, playing dumb.

The man directed you to the school. You dropped them off at the front door before driving back down the block in search of somewhere to park. The drive had been silent save for the directions. Every part of you was crying out to ask if they knew Eddie. Did they know where he was? Was he okay?

As you approached the school on foot, you read the signs someone had made out of pieces of plywood and a can of spray paint. Search parties and missing people information were inside the main building. First aid and immediate supplies were inside the gymnasium. Not knowing what to do, you flipped a coin in your head, and walked in the gym.

It felt calmer inside. Cots were set up for the injured. It seemed this was triage for the not mortally wounded. Nobody was screaming in agony. Volunteers were handing out cups of water and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Across the space more volunteers were sorting donations of blankets, toys, and other items. The room was lined with pinboards covered in missing people posters. There were people in fluorescent vests giving orders and answering questions. It had only been about 36-ish hours since the earthquake, but already the operation to help was well underway.

You made your way around to where the donations were being collated and organised. A girl looked up as you approached the table. “Hi! What do you need?” she asked. “We’ve got pillows and blankets. Jackets too?”

“Oh, ah, no. I’m okay… I was actually looking for a friend.” You saw her face drop and her mouth open as if she was trying to work out how to redirect you. Before she could, you said, “Not like, a missing friend. I don’t think he’s missing. I just, um, can’t get a hold of him… So, I was maybe looking for someone that knows him? Like a friend?”

“Oh… Well, it is a small town. Everyone knows everyone. What’s their name?”

You hated that you hesitated. “Eddie… Munson.”

The girl was startled at even his name. There were people around who looked over at the mention of Eddie too.

“Don’t you know what he did?”

“He didn’t hurt anyone,”

“That’s not what everyone says,” she replied, the earlier kindness in her voice entirely gone.

“They’re wrong.”

The girl’s expression fell neutral and she stared at you.

“Do you know where he is? Was he arrested?”

It was clear she was deciding if she wanted to give you the information or not. “No,” she eventually offered. “Everyone reckons he did some freak witchcraft shit to get out of it. Cops say they have the real killer and everything.”

You bit your tongue. Starting a fight in an earthquake crisis centre was not a good look. “Okay, so he should be at home?”

The girl shrugged. Despite her intentions, she had been helpful. You left her without a word more and headed for the exit.

You didn’t get far before someone was yelling after you. At first you didn’t respond, thinking they were calling for someone else. “Hey! Ah, hey, miss?!” But then they said, “You know Eddie?”

Spinning, you took a step towards the guy. He was around your age and had a pretty face. He wore a clean blue sweater and seemed relatively put together considering everything happening around him.

“Is he okay? Do you know where he is?”

The guy looked you up and down conspicuously. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?” you parroted immediately.

“Sorry… It’s just… There’s a lot of people looking for him… Not all, you know-” He shook his hands in a gesture that meant nothing to you. “Not all friendly,”

“Are you his friend? What’s your name,”

“Steve. I’m Steve… I guess, yeah… Yeah, I’d say we’re friends… New friends, but friends. Been through some… stuff together. Really bonds two guys. People! Two… People. Two separate people…”

“Steve? He’s never mentioned a Steve,”

“Yeah, ah, like I said – new friends,” Steve said tilting his head to the side. “You’re not from Hawkins, are you?”

You shook your head. “I see him in Indy. We go to shows together-”

“Oh! Yeah! No, he talked about you… Which, all things considered, it’s gotta mean something. Not a lot of casual conversation in the middle of all this,” he said, motioning to the surrounding chaos. Steve saw your sad eyes, the tiredness written all over your face. The pins on your jacket. The boots. He was sharper than people gave him credit for and was appropriately suspicious of things. There was a feeling though, a flutter of empathy. “Y/N, right?”

“Yes. Please. Is he okay? I need to see him.”

Steve folded his arms across his chest and nodded. “My shift here isn’t over, but I’ll call someone. They can take you to him,”

“Thank you. Yes. Thank you.” You jumped at Steve, holding him in a hug.

He was unprepared and slow to react. “Ah, yeah, yeah. You’re welcome. Just go sit over there somewhere.”

Saying nothing else, just nodding eagerly, you followed Steve’s instructions, walking down the sidewalk to sit near the school’s bike racks.

It took less than two minutes before the sounds of everything started to pin prick at your heart and lungs. Despair and desperation. You wished you had your headphones, a mixtape made by Eddie and sent through the mail to keep you company, but the batteries in your Walkman were long dead after the drive to Hawkins.

Part Three: “Are You Eddie’s Girlfriend?”

“Are you Eddie’s girlfriend?”

Dustin Henderson was exactly how Eddie described. You recognised the boy before he finished turning into the car park on his bike. Even under his Thinking Cap, his hair was trademark. He beamed at you as he came to a stop, asking the question like it wasn’t going to throw you into inner turmoil.

“Ah… We’re friends,”

“That’s what he says but…” He paused to wriggle his eyebrows.

You stood up and brushed grass off your pants. “Where is he?”

“You got a car? It’s too far to go with you on the handlebars.” Dustin smiled when you nodded. He got off his bike and took a long time trying to get it to fit in the back of your car.

As the kid directed you out of the heart of Hawkins, you were relieved that you didn’t have to think of things to say. Dustin had that covered. It started with a question, “So, earthquake, huh?” It was as if he was testing you.

“Yeah? I’m… uh, sorry? That how you hurt your leg? Is, is your house okay?” you replied.

“It wasn’t an earthquake…” He paused to gauge your reaction. You kept your eyes on the road and said nothing. “You know how people say Hawkins is cursed? They’re not entirely wrong.”

He told the story of three boys searching for their fourth. A story of monsters and heroes, love and hope.

“He was just with the wrong person at the wrong time,” Dustin told you, introducing Eddie into lore. “The first person that died, the one that started all this, was Chrissy. You probably saw her on the news. She went to Eddie’s to buy drugs and that’s when he got her.”

There was a foreignness in how Dustin said ‘buy drugs,’ and even with all he had been through, that alone was a reminder of the fact he was just a kid.

“He?”

“Vecna. The bad guy. He killed her and Eddie was there,”

“Right. And everyone thought he did it,”

“Yeah,” Dustin nodded. “Turn left up here. All of this, the ‘earthquake’ and everything, is Vecna.”

You took the left and slowed down, the road unpaved and winding into a wooded area. As Dustin continued to give you directions, adding more fantastical details about Hawkins and his friends, you began to worry more and more.

“Wait, wait. So, if Vecna is, like, dead or whatever… and Eddie has been cleared, why are we driving into the middle of a forest? Why’s Eddie hiding?”

For the first time in the conversation, Dustin seemed like he didn’t want to speak.

“Dustin?”

“Ah…”

“What’s wrong? What happened to him?”

“Can I just say that you’re handling all this very well,”

“Dustin!”

“I mean, it’s a lot,”

“Dustin. What happened to Eddie?”

Dustin sighed, looking out the window and spotting the end of the road up ahead. “He tried to be a hero.”

You glanced at the kid, then rolled to a stop.

“Maybe he should tell you this part,” Dustin said.

When you looked at each other, you could see the trauma Dustin hid behind a quick wit and years of living in flight or fight mode. He deserved a break; you nodded.

“Yeah, alright,”

“He’s pretty beat up. He’s gotta be in more pain than he’ll admit. Maybe… maybe you can help with that,”

“Should he be in a hospital?”

“Yeah, definitely. He made up some crap about how someone more in need deserved the bed.” Dustin frowned.

Cutting the engine, you got out of the car. The sound of Dustin pulling his bike out drew your attention.

“What now?”

“The path is pretty clear. Just follow it up,”

“You’re not coming?”

“Nah. If I’m gone long, Mom will freak out,”

“Can’t blame her… You sure you should ride that far? With your leg, I mean,”

“I’m fine. Stronger than I look, you know. We’ll bring supplies tomorrow morning. Everyone will wanna meet you too.”

Did Eddie really talk about you that much?

“Okay,”

“See ya, Y/N.”

Dustin rode off back the way you’d come. You stood watching until he was completely out of sight and sound. It was eerily quiet in the woods then.

The walk was only a few minutes. The path led to a small structure that didn’t look like a place for a hero at all.

As you climbed the steps to the cabin, you noted all the missing nails and rotten wood. At the door you held a hand up to knock, then hesitated.

Fuck.

You breathed in deeply then knocked, calling out, “Eddie?” in a weird sort of yell-whisper. The sound cut through the serenity of nature, making you cringe. With a shaking hand, you opened the door, pushing it inward, grateful it didn’t squeak with rust.

The place was small. Directly to your left was a bathroom and to your right a kitchenette. A small living room was ahead, with a door open wide on the opposite wall; you could see it was a bedroom, the bed made and most of the floor space taken up by boxes. The final door, adjacent to the kitchen, moved; you watched it open slowly.

From the darkness, Eddie emerged to lean his weight on the doorframe. His hair was tied in a messy bun, and he wore track pants and a long-sleeved flannel shirt that was at least three times too big for him. Part of his face was covered with bandages, and he had deep lines under his eyes that you’d never seen him with, not even when he was his most hungover.

“Y/N?” Eddie’s voice was croaky, his throat dry. He looked confused and dazed. You were the last person he expected to see.

You were across the room and reaching out for him before he could warn you. As soon as you grabbed him, he winced and made the same sound a puppy does when you accidentally step on his tail.

“Sorry! I’m sorry! Sorry. Fuck. Are you okay? Sorry.”

Eddie tried to control the pain, but it kept hold, forcing a contorted expression to linger on his face. You stepped away from him.

“Eddie- I’m- Oh my god,” you breathed out. “What’s happening? What happened? Are you- Fuck.” You didn’t know where to start or what to say. Suddenly, your mouth was moving before you had a chance to censor or edit yourself. “I saw the news. I tried to call but when I couldn’t get a hold of you, I… I freaked out,”

“How-” Eddie tried to ask, but the pain was rolling down his spine.

“Dustin,” you replied. “Um, I was…” Totally and utterly terrified for Eddie. Unable to go on with life without knowing he was safe. No, not just knowing. Seeing him for yourself. “I went to the school, ‘cause it’s all set up as a crisis centre or whatever. I asked someone about you, and a guy named Steve heard. He called Dustin for me. He showed me the way here.”

Eddie managed a small nod. “He outside?”

“No. He had his bike when we met up. We had it in my car and he rode it home. Just us… Should you sit? Back to bed?” you asked, trying to look behind him into the room he’d come from.

Carefully, he turned around and retreated. You followed along behind him, turning the light on as you entered the room. Eddie stood over the bed, and before you could work out how to help, he just let himself fall onto the mattress. He hissed and clenched his teeth, screwing his eyes shut so tightly that it made you shudder.

The single bed was old, low to the ground. You knelt and gently took one of Eddie’s hands. Looking around the room, you began to understand the gravity of the situation.

On the bedside table was a mountain of different medications – antibiotics and painkillers and other things you didn’t recognise. There were bottles of water next to the bed, empty ones thrown about the room. Some evidence of food, but mostly unfinished packets of chips and cookies. Sitting on a table against the opposite wall was a box of medical supplies, and next to that a pile of bloody and gore covered bandages and tissues. The final piece of the puzzle was a bucket under the bed that you couldn’t see into but you guessed was for pee.

“Eddie… When did you last take anything for the pain?”

You thought about what Dustin had said. If Eddie was in more pain than he let on, he probably wasn’t taking a reasonable amount of painkillers.

His eyes fluttered open, and he slowly turned his head to face you. When he glanced at the bedside table, he pulled a face. “Dunno.”

You were confident that it was a significant time ago. “Okay, well, we’re taking some now,”

“M’fine,”

“No. No, you’re not. You’re the least fine I have ever seen anybody in my life. Eddie, whatever happened, this is… insanely fucked. Please, just take some of this and-” A shaky breath in. “And you can tell me what the hell is happening.”

You studied his face. The patch bandage on Eddie’s face wasn’t a clean white. You could see whatever wound was beneath it was still actively bleeding. He had dirt and grime around his hairline. His lips were chapped badly and now close to him, you could see knots in his hair were matted. Whatever happened forty-eight hours ago when the ‘earthquake’ happened, Eddie still wasn’t clean of it.

His big brown eyes met yours and he gave in, opening his mouth. You put two oxycodone tablets in his mouth. He swallowed them dry.

You sat with him, holding his hand for a little while longer. Eventually, when his breathing had settled into a healthier rhythm and it looked like he’d stopped clenching every muscle in his body, you said, “I’m going to, um, clean up a bit, then when those kick in I’m moving you to the couch out there, or the other bed. You need to get out of this room.”

Eddie made the smallest of nods, and you watched him close his eyes and zone out again.

Turning the light off and leaving the bedroom, you closed the door behind you and leaned your back against it, holding in a sob that was trying to claw its way out your chest. It hadn’t been the reunion you’d pictured. You had no idea what had happened to Eddie, or how hurt he was, but letting your mind try to fill in the blanks was a bad idea.

“Okay,” you said to yourself with a nod.

The cabin wasn’t as bad as you had initially thought. It was old and in need of updating and repairing, but it wasn’t leaking or covered in mould. Finding cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink, you wiped down surfaces and collected all the trash into a bag. It became clear that if Eddie was bedridden, other people were spending a lot of time there. The garbage, the blankets and pillows on the couches, and the dishes drying in a rack told you enough.

The sun was beginning to set as you cooked a vegetable stew. A lot of veggies were in their final days of edibleness, and that way you could put some in the freezer for easy meals later. Later? You caught yourself in the thought; how long did you think you were staying? Did Eddie even want you to be there at all?

You set a bowl of stew down on the old wooden chest that served as a coffee table in front of the couch.

“Eddie,” you called, going back into the bedroom. “I’m turning the light back on… Has the oxy kicked in?”

Eddie looked at you, more lucid than before. You could see his pupils were blown. He shrugged a little, trying to sit up.

“Okay. That’s better than no. Come on. Food’s ready.”

He looked at you like he wasn’t sure you were real. When you held your hands out to him, he took them and let you gently pull him up. He walked slowly, then sat on the couch at equal speed.

You moved the bowl from the table to his lap, checking it wasn’t hot to touch.

“You good?”

Eddie nodded as he looked at the stew, picking up the spoon.

The first thing you did in the bedroom was strip the bed. There was no washing machine in the cabin, so you balled all the linen up in another big garbage bag. Next went all the trash and the bucket under the bed. You swept the floor and wiped down the bedside table and the desk. All the medical supplies found new homes in the bathroom, and you went through the duffle bag of clothes to determine what needed washing and what could be folded neatly onto the desk.

The springtime air was crisp, but you opened the window anyway. With the room airing out, you closed the door to protect the rest of the cabin from the cold.

Eddie had eaten all the stew. It gave you an albeit small but no less real sense of peace. If he could eat, he’d be okay. As you took the bowl to fill again, you spoke.

“Dustin is exactly how you described him, by the way,”

“How was he?” Eddie asked.

“I mean, I don’t know him… but… he was weirdly… chipper? No boundaries? Inappropriate?”

“That’s him… He shouldn’t be riding his bike,”

“His leg?” you guessed.

Eddie nodded. “Yeah,”

“What happened?”

Eddie went quiet, took the second bowl of stew you handed him. He started to eat.

“He told me about everything. Well, not everything everything. Just everything before… Whatever happened to you… But about, um, Vecna? And the upside down. And Chrissy.”

Eddie’s eyes looked for anywhere that wasn’t where you were sat on the couch next to his.

When Eddie thought of you, he thought of heavy metal crowds and cheap beer and being the person he wanted to be. He thought of how you were escapism from the shitty life he had. How you thought he was cool and funny and good enough to be a friend. How you sounded over the phone late at night, all sleepy and cute. How you looked dressed for a gig. Eddie never wanted you to be in Hawkins. He never wanted you to see him in the context of his everyday life.

Of all the fucked up things that had happened over the past week, having that pure, beautiful, escapism taken away from him might be the worse.

“You don’t have to stay and… look after me or whatever,” Eddie said. Although there were some bitter tones in his voice, he mostly sounded sad.

He’d been in and out of consciousness for forty-eight hours. Things slipped from the dreaming into reality. Demobats in the corner of the bedroom. Lightning as the fridge opened. You, holding his hands and making him stew. But you were real, Eddie was only just fully becoming aware of it. He was confused by your presence, and ashamed of what you were seeing.

You were meant to know Eddie at his best and most beautiful. Not this. Not this broken and hollowed-out version.

“I know that… And, um, I know it’s kind of weird for me to just show up. Since we’re not like…”

Eddie looked up, afraid you were about to say that you weren’t friends at all. “It’s not weird.”

You smiled. “I’m just saying I know I don’t have to be here. I mean, we haven’t really talked heaps lately anyway.”

That was on Eddie. He didn’t know how to talk to someone he was falling in love with. Still didn’t.

“But I just… needed to know you were okay. And to tell you I know you’d never do the things the news said you did,” you continued.

He didn’t know what to say. “This is good,” he decided on, holding up the now-empty bowl.

“There’s more. You should let that settle though,”

“When did you get all…” He was going to say ‘parental’ or even ‘maternal’ but had enough cognitive energy to stop. “Uh, good at playing nurse.”

Last time Eddie had seen you, you were shotgunning a warm beer handed to you by the singer of a local metal band in Indi. She had pulled you on stage, impressed to see a girl handling herself amongst the big guys. You’d shotgunned the beer, sprayed half back over the crowd like a fountain, then jumped with reckless abandon onto the pit. It was a far cry from the stew-brewing, soft voiced girl he was looking at.

“If you wanna see nurse, I can do nurse. When did you last shower?”

At the hospital, they gave him a sponge bath where it was necessary. Before that, well, Lovers Lake probably didn’t count. And after… Eddie had barely set foot in that bathroom. Bare fucking minimum. He picked at his nails, trying not to focus on the black underneath them.

“Not meant to get the bandages wet,”

“Right… Well, speaking of the bandages. When were they last changed?”

Fuck, Eddie thought. He walked right into that one. “Nancy came yesterday,”

“Is Nancy an actual nurse?”

“No. She’s just, like, really smart. Like… really smart.”

You folded your arms across the chest. “Remember when you said you were fine after you accidentally headbutted the barrier at Sabbath? Then your nose started to bleed later? And it turned out you had a full on concussion?”

Eddie laughed at the memory, but as soon as his chest started to shake, the pain flooded his entire body. He hunched over, whining. He hadn’t laughed since the upside down. It was the most he’d demanded of his body, even if indirectly.

He was incoherent with pain. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t make sense of his surroundings. Eddie didn’t register you rushing over to him and falling to your knees, hands framing him but not touching him.

“Eddie? Fuck, Eddie. What can I-”

His entire perception was clouded by agony. The tears streamed down his face and hit the wooden floor.

There was nothing you could do but wait. Carefully, you rested your hands on his knees and listened to him do his best to breathe through it.

“I’m going to get more oxy,” you said, standing.

“No!” His voice sounded desperate; desperate enough that you knelt back down. “Shit’s too addictive. I don’t wanna-”

“I know,” you interrupted. “I know. But there’s a big fucking difference between your asshole dad, and you needing to be able to function.”

Eddie tried to sit up straighter, but it hurt too much.

“Come on Teddy Bear.”

It worked. Eddie looked up at you through narrow eyes. Even in immense pain, he couldn’t let it slide. You grinned at him.

“Seriously though. Dustin said you should still be in the hospital. So… If that’s a no, then you’re stuck with me.”

You looked at each other for a moment. There was something in both your gazes that scared the other. Quickly, you moved to go get more painkillers. Eddie took what you gave him.

“So, are we gonna talk about why you won’t shower? ‘Cause you’re the cleanest metalhead I know. This isn’t very you.”

That’s the problem with you being there, Eddie thought. You knew him too well. His freshmen buddies only knew him as their over-the-top DM, a contextual friend. Nancy, Steve, and Robin, well they didn’t know him at all. He let all of them make assumptions to hide the truth. Maybe if Gareth, Jeff, or Gene were there, they’d see through it, but he’d been able to trick the rest of them.

“I… I tried… Soon as they left, soon as I was alone. All I fuckin’ wanted was a hot shower. But…” He took a shaky breath in and out. “Couldn’t stand for more than a minute without feeling like I was gonna pass out. And the water burns. I don’t know if it’s some fucking upside down bullshit magic that makes it hurt worse, but it’s not… not normal… And that fucking mirror. Not saying I was, you know, Adonis, but ah… The scars are gonna be… Gnarly.”

Trust Eddie to reference Greek mythology in the midst of a literal nightmare.

There was one other obvious option. “A bath then? Shallow? So the… ah, cuts? Whatever. So they aren’t submerged. Then a strategically placed washcloth?” It was more query than statement.

The image in his mind had Eddie sitting in the rusty old bathtub. The water would be lukewarm. His muscles wouldn’t let him maneuver enough to properly clean. He’d hardly be able to stretch his arms up to wash his hair.

“Eddie…”

He looked over at you. “Uh… I…”

“I’ll help,” you said then.

“I don’t-”

“You do. If you could do it yourself you would have… We can be adults about this.”

Eddie didn’t want to be an adult about this. He didn’t want to have to make decisions beyond what song to learn on guitar and how best to torture Hellfire Club. He was sick of life or death choices. Although letting you bathe him like a baby wasn’t really life or death, it kinda felt like it.

“Fine,” he resigned, leaning back on the couch and closing his eyes.

“Besides…” You stood up. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.”

God, he missed levity. You beamed when he grinned and snorted.

“That was this is? Miss me that much?” he joked.

A messy summer night in the city. Too many beers. Not enough weed to chill the buzz. The plan was to sleep in the back of the van, but it felt like an oven. Item by item, you ripped your clothes off in the darkness. It was entirely innocent and definitely because of the alcohol. When you woke up, you’d been only in underwear and Eddie was entirely naked. You couldn’t look each other in the eyes for an hour after.

The cabin’s bathroom was clean. You let the water go through the pipes and drain away for a couple of minutes. “Good enough,” you muttered to yourself when the water was mostly clear. There was no bubble bath or luxe body wash. You caught yourself looking before you realised it was a stupid act. There was a stack of washcloths, a bar of soap, and a bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. It was all brand new, still sealed, and sitting on the edge of the bath.

You frothed the soap under the running water, trying to create some modesty bubbles or milky-toned water. With only a little luck, you went back into the lounge.

“Do you want to wait for the pills to kick in?”

“Nah. They will. Let’s just get this done before Harrington or anyone shows up.”

Eddie took your held out hands and walked with you to the bathroom. He quickly sat on the toilet, not out of breath but something like that.

“Shirt,” you ordered.

The flannel was easy to unbutton. You were dismayed to find he was wearing a very fucking destroyed Hellfire shirt underneath.

When Eddie made a small yelping sound during his attempt to lift his arms. You stopped him.

“I’m just gonna cut it off,”

“No! Didn’t let Wheeler. Not letting you. Do you know how much these cost to print?!”

You huffed. “Who’s Wheeler?”

“Nancy,”

“New rule. Every time me and Nancy agree on something, it means it’s the right thing to do. Besides, it’s all ripped up and there’s blood and whatever fucking else on that. It’s never gonna be wearable,” you argued.

Eddie wasn’t sure why he was fighting so hard for the Hellfire shirt. Maybe something about surviving in it. Maybe something about trying desperately to claw a little of the past back.

“Fine,” he agreed through gritted teeth.

It took a little work with dull scissors, but you got there. Whatever you were expecting Eddie’s injuries to be, it wasn’t that. You were too slow to stop the gasp that escaped from you; Eddie looked up frowning.

“I’m sorry, I just… What the fuck happened?”

Like the patch on his face, the ones scattered across his torso were bleeding through. You sat on the edge of the bath and turned the water off, the bathroom suddenly quiet. Eddie said nothing. You nodded, accepting the silence.

“How’s the pain?” Your voice was barely above a whisper. “‘Cause I think it’s gonna hurt like a bitch to get these off. They look kinda melted to you,”

“Thanks,”

“Sorry! Fuck. Sorry. I just…”

“It’s fine,” Eddie said. “It’s bad. I know it’s bad. It’s whatever… Can you just… Don’t look at me like that?”

You knew what he meant. Eddie hated pity. He hated when people pitied him for his dead mother and shitty father. For living in a one bedroom trailer with his uncle. For repeating high school. For all the things that made the average folk feel awkward. Eddie fucking despised pity.

You nodded. “Yeah. I mean… I don’t feel bad for you at all. Like, Dustin said you tried to be a hero or something? Do some classic Edward Munson Dumb Shit and end up like this, yeah?”

Eddie smiled. “Something like that,”

“Exactly. See? No pity here. Toughen up, kid.”

God, he loved you.

The first bandage – the one across Eddie’s cheek and jaw – came off surprisingly well. You held your expression steady as you worked, absorbing the excess blood and fluid with cotton balls.

The second bandage was covering a neck wound. Your stomach flipped, sick with the thought that it could have killed him. A little deeper and Eddie would have died.

The third wound was collarbone based and the bandage was a lot harder to move. Eddie’s jaw clenched impossibly tight and he was holding his breath.

You remembered when he took you to get your first tattoo. “It helps if you have something to distract you. Music or talking to someone, you know?” Eddie had said.

“Are these… bites?” You’d been almost too afraid to ask, but your brain couldn’t come up with any alternative conversation topics.

“Yeah,” Eddie replied weakly.

Some of the bites were smaller, but most weren’t. Eddie’s chest was more broken skin than not. His left pec was destroyed, and all down his sides were eaten into. Across his stomach bloomed another wound. Even his arms and hands had not escaped the assault.

“Dustin said the plan was to distract the… bats?”

“Demobats,”

“Demobats,” you repeated, the word feeling alien on your tongue. “What went wrong?”

For a couple of seconds, you thought Eddie was going to stay silent, not answering the question. It would have been more than fair. But, he started to speak in a shaky voice.

“We… did… it… Did what we were meant to do, you know? The demobats were away from Creel House. We were on our way out of there. There were… just so many of them. Too many to distract. I went to climb… climb the rope… but…”

Even with a lot of the story filled in by Dustin, you didn’t quite understand the picture Eddie was painting. You had to assume a lot; the rope must have led out of danger? Out of the upside down? Creel House was where Vecna was? You didn’t stop Eddie to ask clarifying questions.

“I just kept seeing Chrissy. In my head. Nobody deserves what happened to her, but she… She came to me for help and I… I kept seeing her and I kept thinking that this was our one shot at killing Vecna. And what if my part was the part that fucked the plan… What if I could actually do more? So, I didn’t climb the rope.”

Eddie thought for a moment, deep in reflection. Had it been worth it?

“I… I went back out there. Figured I could distract them, the bats, some more. Kill some. And I did. Not enough… There was…” Eddie sharply took a gulp of air in. “There were more than before. They were everywhere. I couldn’t see anything, then I… I don’t know.”

He did know. Even running on adrenaline, he could feel each bite. Eddie had locked onto the memory now. It was so vivid in his mind still.

“All the things from there, from the upside down, they’ve got these teeth. Like, hundreds of them. Their faces aren’t faces, they’re just big mouths and the, the lips, or whatever, they open up in every direction, and there are just rows and rows of fucking teeth. Like… a black hole of teeth,”

“Like a lamprey?”

After one fishing trip, Wayne had come home and told Eddie about the ‘vampire tube’ fish – the lamprey. Eddie was obsessed with them for a while after that, finding a book in the school library with a photo, then telling you about them on the phone. Your own public library had the same book, and you could see why a weird little dude like Eddie was so into them.

Eddie looked at you. “Shit… Yeah… Fuck… That but like, a bat…”

“There were dog ones before, right? Dustin said a few years ago there were dog ones,”

“Apparently… and then the human one.”

You tried to imagine a human figure with no face, just flaps of flesh opening to reveal endless teeth. The imagination is powerful, but even yours couldn’t really conjure a picture. Maybe your brain was just trying to protect you from the pure nightmare fuel that description could produce.

“Then they got you?” you asked.

“They got me. But, ah, as they did, they all just fucking dropped from the sky. And it was so quiet until Henderson showed up. I told the little shit to stay where it was safe. But he was there… Did my whole goodbye speech to him, you know? I could… I could feel the blood pooling in all the wrong places. My lungs were swimming in it. I was coughing it up. No way was I gonna live.”

Eddie’s face was as animated as it always was. You weren’t used to it animating terror and agony though. This wasn’t the kind of story Eddie normally told you. Your eyes had welled up with tears and you’d stopped working on removing his bandages.

Eddie’s gaze was fixed on a spot on the bathroom floor. He stared as he spoke. “The others were still setting fire to Vecna. Dustin tried to get there, but he’d messed his leg up pretty good. They found him halfway there, carried him back. Dragged me back. Got me to a hospital,”

“Jesus, Eddie. Why aren’t you still there? It’s been what, a night? Two if you count that night?”

He nodded. “I woke up the next day. They’d given me blood and stitched up the worst of the bites.”

Everyone had tried to keep Eddie in the hospital, but he was refusing a lot of medical care. He hated the accusatory stares and whispers. He couldn’t stand the noise.

There was no point in asking why he wouldn’t stay there. No point in suggesting he went back. Eddie had looked up and seen both those thoughts cross your face.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “Just needed a little blood,”

“Aren’t there like, long-term effects? What about the blood in your lungs? And, like, did you actually die? What if you have brain damage?”

“Not like I was a genius with a 4.0,”

“Eddie,”

“Y/N.” It was quick. Snappy. Your name in a warning tone.

The remainder of the bandages came off, and you mopped up the carnage as best you could. When you were done, Eddie stood, empowered by the painkillers enough to take his own pants off. He stepped into the bath and lowered himself in. It was all somehow both benignly clinical and breathtakingly intimate.

The water came up to his waist, lapping at the lowest of the wounds. You waited until the waves had settled before speaking again.

“I’m gonna wash your hair first,” you told him. He nodded, seeming smaller in the bath. Childlike helplessness.

You left the bathroom briefly to look for tools. There wasn’t a single brush or comb to be found. Returning with only the largest cup you could find, you settled next to the tub.

Lathering Eddie’s hair with the 2-in-1, you tilted his head backwards and rinsed with the help of the cup. As the water ran down his back, Eddie shivered. You repeated the process two more times, the conversation pausing entirely.

When his wild mane is clean, you raked your fingers through it bit by bit, gently pulling knots out. It’s a somewhat successful method, although you’d have to go for rounds two and three when his hair was dry.

“Close your eyes,” you instructed. Eddie complied. “Keep them closed.”

A washcloth was soaked in slick soap and you covered Eddie’s face in the goo. With great delicateness, you cleaned his hair, face, ears, and neck. The soap didn’t burn the bites like you’d both expected, but the coarse washcloth wasn’t exactly pleasant either.

As you descended Eddie’s body, dirt and muck washing down and turning the bath water a hazy brown, you cleaned the wounds. They started to bleed again, not heavily, but enough that by the time you were at his waist, you needed to pull the plug out and re-fill the bath with clean water.

Eddie was acquiescent. The drugs had well and truly kicked in, building on the mild buzz of the first you’d made him take. Even with the washcloth pain, the experience wasn’t as horrific as it could have been, he decided.

When he was finally clean, you sat on the ground next to the tub. The water had a pink hue from the blood, but he’d stopped bleeding.

“You look like you now,”

“Who’d I look like before?” Eddie replied.

“I don’t know. You from a different dimension. A really, really fucking bad one,”

“Guess I kind of am now.”

You said nothing to that. Maybe he was. Maybe you wouldn’t know this Eddie like you knew yours.

Eddie looked down at his chest, then his legs beneath the water. They ached, despite being unharmed by the demobats. He thought about Dustin and his leg. How he jumped through the gate with such disregard for himself, to try to stop Eddie. Save Eddie. Dustin fucking Henderson, man. Suddenly, a new thought-

“What you said about Dustin. Inappropriate or whatever. Did he say something?”

“He said a lot,” you replied.

“But, ah, what exactly was it that-”

A small laugh escaped you, and Eddie’s sentence stopped dead in its tracks. He looked at you.

“You seem nervous,” you teased. “The kid know one too many secrets or something?” Eddie’s face was expressionless but you could see his mind working overtime to think of something to say. You put him out of his misery with, “He didn’t say anything. He asked something. Like, straight away. Before a ‘hello’ even,”

“Am I gonna have to give him the world’s worst wedgie?”

“I guess it depends on how embarrassed by the question you are.”

Eddie broke eye contact, looked back down at his body. The entire situation was radically out of his control. Might as well add more spice. “What’d he ask?”

“Kid rolls up. Toothy grin. Busted leg. Happy as fucking Larry. First thing out of his mouth – ‘Are you Eddie’s girlfriend?’”

Part Four: The Cabin in the Woods

The cabin in the woods held warmth better than you would have guessed. After letting the bathwater drain yet again, you left Eddie to sit in hot clean water for the third time, then started the fire in the corner of the living room.

“Whose cabin is this?” you called out.

The bathroom had no door, just a curtain to pull across the open frame. Eddie could hear you just fine.

“Hopper’s,”

“That’s… the Chief of Police, right? The one everyone thought was dead? But was in Russia or something?”

“Dustin really gave you the whole story, huh?”

“Kind of. Don’t know how or why he was there… But isn’t he meant to be dead? Nobody’s meant to know about him?”

It was the first time Eddie realised that you might now be in danger. Although not being privy to the truth about Hawkins wasn’t necessarily a guarantee of safety, being included in its secrets definitely bumped up the ‘likely to die a horrible death’ stats. At the very least, you’d be on someone’s watch list now.

“Yeah. He was gonna stay here, but too many people know about it.”

Made sense, you thought. “So, why are you here? The cops aren’t after you anymore. Don’t you want to be with your uncle? Or your friends?”

The small fire was burning bright and the flames licked around the chunk of wood. You stood up, satisfied with your work.

Eddie hadn’t answered, so you walked back to him.

“Think I should get out now,” he said when you appeared. “S’cold,”

“Yeah. Okay. Here.”

Like he had before, Eddie winced as he moved. He stood and helped you wrap a towel around his waist. You draped another over his head. With his fingers threaded through yours, you guided him out of the bath and back onto the couch.

“I’ll do the bandages before you get dressed,” you told him, going to retrieve what you needed.

Before you sat back down, you ruffled his hair in the towel, making sure it was dry enough not to drip everywhere. Taking parts of his hair in the towel and scrunching them, you worked like you’d done it all before.

Next, you coated cotton balls in antiseptic balm and dabbed at each of the wounds, and checked all the stitches. The bites had stopped freely bleeding, with only dots of red and some evidence of gooey serosanguinous drainage. After each was disinfected, you blew gently on the raw skin to cool it down. Goosebumps iced their way across Eddie’s body.

When the fresh bandages were applied, Eddie leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes.

“How do you feel?” you asked.

His immediate reaction was to be sarcastic. It was a defense mechanism, but Eddie reminded himself he didn’t need to defend against anything when he was with you. “Not… good… but, ah, a lot better than before,”

“I’ll take that… I’ll get some clean clothes.”

Eddie pulled on clean boxer shorts and sweatpants while you binned all the old bandages left in the bathroom. Once everything was clean, you returned to the couch. You helped him pull a t-shirt over his head, then sank down next to each other.

The soundscape consisted of the fire and the odd bird call coming from the woods outside. It was late, maybe even close to midnight. Not too far away, the rest of Hawkins was still assessing the damage and counting the dead. But there, in an off-the-grid cabin, the rest of Hawkins didn’t exist.

Eddie reached over and placed his hand palm-up on your leg. You took it and held it tight. All the emotion you’d swallowed since seeing him barely alive bubbled up your throat and out of your mouth in a small sob. Eddie rolled his head to look at you, expression sad.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

You choked out a laugh. “What are you sorry for?”

“I dunno. Making you worry.”

When you tried to let go of Eddie’s hand to clear your face of tears, he wouldn’t budge. You used your free hand, attempting to not let the soft crying turn into anything more.

“I was so worried.”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah… I’m…” As he searched for the words that felt right, his eyes stayed glued to your face. “I’m sorry about… not calling in a while. Not returning your calls,”

“S’okay. You’ve been busy with school and-”

“Nah. Well, yeah. Yeah… But, I…” Fuck it, Eddie thought. He still felt so close to death. He was scared it was something he’d never be able to shake. What did he possibly have to lose? “I got scared. About… you know… You. Like, how I feel about you. Just seemed easier to ignore it than have to… do anything about it… When I say it out loud, it sounds so fucking stupid but… Losing you ‘cause we lost touch would hurt less than if I lost you ‘cause I ruined it by… having a dumb crush or whatever.”

Dumb crush.

A portal between your world and another? Yeah, sure. A girl with superpowers? Yep. Demogorgons and secret armies and lifesaving songs and everything else that had been handed to you that day? Uh-huh, okay. Eddie having a crush on you? Liking you like you liked him? Well, that sounded impossible.

Unless… it didn’t. Unless it made total sense. Unless it explained so much. Unless it was one small thing the world could give you and Eddie to help balance the scales.

With those big brown eyes, Eddie was finally able to look at you with all the love he had. Warmth spread across his body and he took one step towards peace.

“It…” You shook your head. “It wouldn’t have ruined anything,”

“No?”

“No… ‘Cause…” Poetic was the aim, but exhaustion had steeped your brain in stupid juice. “I’ve got a dumb crush on you too.”

Eddie smiled, soft and kind, only a hint of mischief. “Cool,”

“Cool,”

“So, how much time have we wasted? Being dumb?” he asked.

“Um… Years, probably,”

“Well, fuck.”

You laughed together and sat watching the fire for a long time.

Eddie told you about how he was afraid to be in Hawkins. He was afraid that Wayne’s mates would treat him like the uncle of a killer. Afraid his friends would be hurt, like Gareth had been. Afraid that it wasn’t really, truly over.

You listened, letting him speak and not undermining the feelings with logic or counterarguments. When he was done, you said you understood.

“Can you stay? In Hawkins, I mean. When do you have to go back?” Eddie asked.

“Never, if I don’t want to. Mom and dad want me out. And, it’s not like I’m working a dream job. I could stay… If you wanted me to. To help. Or not. It’s, like… Totally fine-”

“Yes. Stay.”

Another step towards peace.

Maybe, in an unfair and cruel world, where Chrissy Cunningham was dead and you and Eddie had lived miles apart and the drive to Hawkins was long and solitary pain was all Eddie thought he deserved, maybe this – this mutual love, was what you got to make up for it. It wasn’t enough. Of course, it wasn’t. Chrissy and Fred and Patrick deserved to be alive. Steve shouldn’t have had to feel phantom vines around his neck for the rest of his life. Dustin was owed a childhood. Eddie should never have been witch hunted. But, if it had to be like that, then yeah… Maybe you could be Eddie’s girlfriend.

After creating a nest of pillows and blankets in front of the fire, you and Eddie laid down and curled your bodies around each other. He kissed you on the temple, and you listened to his steady heartbeat. For a few perfect hours, everything else faded away while you slept soundly in an ex-cop’s secret little cabin in the woods.

End Note: I hope you liked this little fix-it fic. Please, let me know what you think! Reblogs are especially appreciated.

All Eddie Taglist: @solomons-finest-rum @ruinedbythehobbit @munsonlives @sweetpeapod @depressooo-expressooo-blog @thorfemmes @hawkins-high @corrodedhawkins @grungegrrrl @lilzabob @mymoonisalways-in-scorpio @averagemisfit03 @ches-86 @ilovecupcakesandtea @onehotgreasymechanic @hazydespair @lacrymosa-24 @mel-the-fangirl

#Mine #Eddie Munson #Eddie Munson Fanfic #Eddie Munson Fanfiction #Eddie Munson/You #Eddie Munson x You #Eddie Munson/Reader #Eddie Munson x Reader

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things-about-cars-in-posts · 1 year ago

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So, there's many of you now. I know we're in the How Sweet It Is Not To Know Follower Counts website and I do cherish that, but still, more people than ever in my life clicked a button that in some capacity says "I care what this dork has to tell me" and I want to acknowledge and celebrate that - especially now that this growth seems to have settled into its rhythm.

Spot when @identifying-cars-in-posts reblogged my pinned, lol.

So, for my 100th post, I felt like celebrating our love for reaching round numbers. And little in the automotive world represents it more iconically than what reigned supreme above all cars in the 1980s.

Porsche started out as an engineering firm, whose most notable contract was what would become known as the Volkswagen Beetle (and boy what a story that is). The first car of its own was the 356 seen below - a sporty body laid over Beetle underpinnings and thus still mostly made by Volkswagen. But by God, they were going to run with that recipe and perfect it 'til the sun burst.

Meanwhile, in England, a chap called Colin Chapman decides the next of his company's track cars will actually be drivable on the street, to need no trailer to go race. Thus the Lotus Seven is born and sold in kit, which avoids high taxes on the exporting of cars to the US (but those taxes would have remained had they been sold with assembly manuals… so they were sold with disassembly manuals for you to read backwards. No, seriously.).

The Porsche 356 kept getting less and less Volkswagen and more and more Porsche until in 1964, the year of the Beatles, the year of the Stones, the stone-age Beetle was left behind for good with the Porsche 911 (seen below), a blank-canvas take on the same recipe of an air-cooled rear boxer engine powering the rear wheels of a squished-Beetle-shaped sportscar. 'Twas good.

In 1973, Lotus was doing pretty well for itself. The Seven's whole 2500 sales had carried it through producing a number of other models, and a few were even in production concurrently - a lineup! Exciting stuff! Well, that and an F1 team so successful its Wikipedia page features the section "Domination in the 60s and '70s". The exciting opportunity to move upmarket, with bigger models with AC and automatics and all that bougie shit, pushed them to move away from the image of scruffy old kit car makers, ceding the Seven's production to the last two dealers that sold it, main one being Caterham Cars.

The 911 headed into the 80s old enough to drive, and Porsche's plans considered it at the end of the line, with staff already mourning it. But then the yankee at his third week as CEO saw those plans (which to Germans are basically scripture), said "to hell with that" and extended that line off the chart. Literally. He went to the lead engineer's office and physically took a marker at a development chart. They all secretly liked that.

Still, it was clear the game was changing - intercoolers, all wheel drive, active suspension... how hard could the 911 layout go if it didn't stick to its simple air-cooled roots? Well, Porsche resolved to find out by filling it with the cusp of automotive advancements and then some. And I do mean filling - a chassis that didn't even need space for a radiator was suddenly tasked with storing it, two turbos, two intercoolers, and a good half dozen oil pumps.

Yeah good luck with that, buddy. Oh, and materials? The body was kevlar, the frame was aluminium, the floor was Nomex (ever even heard of Nomex???), the wheels were magnesium and the spokes were hollow!!!! You could blow into the spokes!!! And don't get me started on the technology! Variable height, an all-wheel-drive system that distributed torque at will, electronics galore... As you may be able to guess, development was… complex.

At one point a test driver was doing 180km/h (112mph) to go get the car un-on-fire-d, and that's just one of the plenty horror stories. Hell, work started in 1983 to create a car for Group B and took so long that when said rally series died in 1986, production was just starting. Not that development would stop at the start of production, either - the first cars just got updated when the owners took them in for their service. (Can't blame them, I fix wording in weeks-old posts...) But however long it took, the resulting Porsche 959 answered the originating question "How hard can this chassis go?" with a resounding "Hard and then some".

It was comfortable and refined enough to be driven every day, but so capable it extended the limits of the concept of production car. Put it this way: it reached car people's favorite round number, 100km/h (to yankee doodles, 60mph) in 3.6 seconds. The second fastest production car did so in 4.6. That's one second of margin in a race that ends in five. Oh, and if you want to put it another way: the 959 was the first production car to ever surpass 300km/h, let alone come 1 shy of the mythical 200mph (322km/h).

Meanwhile, the handful of chaps at Caterham was still producing the Caterham Seven. It's the Lotus Seven (specifically the third revision, from 1968), but I guess in '83 the engine changed. We were saying?

They couldn't sell the 959 stateside for lack of crash test data, and America's ban on importing foreign cars under 25 years of age had no exception. That is, until Bill Gates wanted a 959 so bad he spent 13 years getting an exception passed. That's how hot this car is.

And yet, this record-breaking, boundary-pushing, master-of-all-trades hypercar sits atop the 80s automotive landscape engulfed in shadow. But how? Why? Because it failed to contend with the greatest automotive headache: humans. It was planted, practical, reliable, predictable - docile, domesticated, amicable. Perfect. But these are not meant to be cars, they're meant to be posters. And you don't get posters of what is perfect, but of what excites you. And what excites us is the visceral, the raw, the uncompromising - the wild, the feral, the dangerous. And, of course, reaching round numbers. What excites us is a lot more like the first production car to break 200mph, the Ferrari F40.

Remember how the 959 was being developed for Group B racing and then the series died? Well, Ferrari got screwed over too, with the 288 GTO Evoluzione they were developing (seen here to the right of the base 288 GTO) suddenly having no reason to be.

The lead engineer then asked Enzo Ferrari to let him turn that weekend project (literally, they couldn't spend work week time on it) into a road car to celebrate their 40 years. Enzo, nearing the end of his days, thought "Ah, what the hell, let's leave with a bang", so they set off to build what would become the anti-959. Not anti as in response, but as in antithesis. Where the 959 was an attempt to modernize the noisy, unrefined, old-school 911 -to make a supercar "tested for everyday usability to the most strenuous standards", by Porsche's words- the F40 was a reaction to, per Ferrari's words, "customers saying Ferraris were becoming too plush and comfortable": "nothing but sheer performance. Not a laboratory for the future, as the 959 is. Not Star Wars."

To exemplify: left is the 959 - note the leather and electric seats, right is the F40, note the string you open the door with.

The F40 was noisy, crashy, torrid, and the turbo lag painstakingly smoothed out in the 959 here kicked you in the back like a locked door. It would rip your head off the moment it sensed you didn't know what you were doing. But it was more exciting - to look at, to hear, to drive. And that's what won people over - including the buyers, which were near four times as many as Porsche's despite the price tag being double.

Had the 959 lost then? Well, not quite. Enter the 959 S. Doing away with much of the 959's luxuries, like adjustable suspension, electric windows, AC, central locking, and even backsea- wait, the 959 had BACKSEATS???? Holy FUCK why does no one talk about that??? Take the family on a trip to 300kphville! I was saying. They schlapped some bigger turbos on too and power went from 444hp right past the F40's 470hp to a healthy 508, that propelled it over what any roadgoing F40 ever managed at 211mph, or 339km/h. Presumably for bragging rights.

And I want to stress, these were titans clashing here. This was leagues beyond what other production cars could even comprehend. Again, the 959 hit 100km/h in 3.6 seconds. The F40 held a record by taking less than 16 seconds to go from 0 to 160km/h(100mph) and back to 0. This was witnessing superhumans fighting through the clouds.

And then in 1992, the two chaps that 'developed' Caterhams (i.e. banged new ones together in the shed) told the chap they worked for "Hey, let's make one that's really barebones and fast", rang up their ol' mate (and ex-F1 racer) Jonathan Palmer to ask to lend a hand, and bought some of the 250hp engine that powered the Vauxhall (British for Opel) Cavalier GSi in the British Touring Car Championship.

Thus, the Caterham Seven Jonathan Palmer Evolution - a raw, uncomfortable, uncompromising beast that went fast as all fuck. Now, if you don't know Sevens you may think "Ah, so just like the F40, what with its handcrank windows and the string to open the doorlatch and all". And to illustrate how far off that is: in the Seven the windows were sown on and you latched the door yourself with a press button.

And that's the standard version which had windows and doors. The JPE didn't.

The JPE had a carbon tub you were meant to call a seat, the controls, a rev counter and a tach that didn't even bother reading until 30mph, and fuck you. And this one is not even as barebones as the JPE got: this one is painted.

So while the F40 went from 1,250kg (2760lb) to 1370kg (3020lb) when adjusted to comply with US regulations and the 959 went from 1450kg (3200lb) to the lightweight S version's 1350kg (2975lb), the Seven JPE weighed 1170. As in 1170lb. 530kg. Read that again if you need to, but it had about half the power of those two and considerably less than half the car to move. And so, in January 1993, this thing -this '50s coffin with a Vauxhall engine banged together by one guy in a shed- took the Guinness World Record for fastest car to 100km/h with a time of 3.46 seconds - and the 0-160km/h-0 record with 13.1 seconds. Close your eyes and picture that.

Yet the Seven JPE is hardly known to anyone but the most hardcore of enthusiasts, and owned by barely four dozens of 'em. So did it, perhaps, ultimately lose? Not at all. In fact, none of these cars did.

Every 959 cost Porsche twice what they sold it for, but the project proved the 911's layout could stand the test of time, and its development gave Porsche technologies it gradually infused into the 911 keeping it relevant, competitive, and most importantly alive to this day.

And I think we can safely say that when Enzo Ferrari died in 1988, a year after the F40's launch, his wish to leave with a bang was perfectly fulfilled - so much so that the F40 is commonly regarded as the peak of his legacy.

And the JPE was simply the greatest Seven ever - the most raw, thrilling, pure automotive experience the streets had ever witnessed. If driving a fast car was like biking down a hill, the Seven JPE was skydiving. Hell, it was the cover car of éX-Driver, an anime about a team using old-school sportscars to rescue haywire autonomous vehicles!

Not that culturally relevant but MAN was it cool as a kid. I need to hang those damn posters one of these days. I was saying.

These are three success stories in three radically different ways. Because, as much as I've made this post all about the numbers, sometimes it's not about that. Sometimes it's about making a show, leaving a mark, being spectacular. Sometimes it's about pushing yourself to achievements you can take pride and inspiration from. Sometimes it's simply about having fun seeing just how far you can really go. Sometimes it's about deciding what you want to be and make a new favorite version of yourself, that is the best it can be at what you care the most about. And for some that may result in less popularity or success or impact or legacy than others, but those are just some of the things you can work towards. It can be okay to just work towards having a blast. Hell, those madmen at Caterham used to stay after work to build themselves track cars, race them the next day and put ‘em back in the workshop after racing them, and the company survived to this day. Because, yes, they're still around - and their new lineup topper gets to 100 in 2.8. Windshield still optional. Well, at least there's headrests now. And a wider version, for the concrete possibility that you physically don't fit.

Never change, Caterham, because you certainly never have.

Links in blue are posts of mine explaining the words in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

#this was meant to also celebrate 300 followers #i am just that slow at writing stuff #porsche 356 #porsche 911 #porsche 959 s #ferrari 288 evoluzione #ferrari f40 #lotus seven #caterham seven jpe #vauxhall cavalier gsi #round numbers

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