#Stranger things Vol 2

[rokonrrc2]

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teacher steve harrington

[ryan-waddell11]

The same pictures strike again

[queenimmadolla]

𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐝

Summary: A glimpse into Eddie’s morning as a first time and young dad with his baby. Oh, and you’re there, too.

Warnings: allusions to sexy stuff, descriptions of breastfeeding (it’s natural—suck it up), and fluff.

a/n: pulled this one out of the vault for you guys, written last July. hope you like it!

Eddie’s up before you and surprised to see it’s light outside, a sight he hasn’t woken up to in the last couple of months. Two, to be exact.

  That’s when the two of you had brought Penny home.

  Eddie yawned, impressively loud before he slapped a hand over his mouth, gaze flickering to you but you were still asleep; on your stomach with your face partially hidden in your pillow. You’d successfully kicked the sheets off yourself in your sleep, leaving your legs bare and your top half covered with one of Eddie’s larger shirts. 

  One of your legs was bent at the knee and raised up near your elbow.

  God, you always looked so fucking delectable. All he’d have to do is rouse you with some kisses pressed to your neck, settle himself behind you, pull his boxers down and move your panties to the side and he could just—

  Eddie inhaled sharply, tearing his gaze away from your body before his blood could rush off to an area he didn’t have the time to acknowledge, as the very reason he couldn’t partake in his little fantasy cooed from her crib. 

  She’d been the result of a very similar event.

  He took a couple of moments to calm himself, squeezing his eyes shut as he promised, soon.

  Then he got out of bed, snagging a band t-shirt from the dresser as he walked to the crib on the other end of the room.

  Eddie yanked on the shirt—only briefly struggling with the arm holes—before he was peering into the crib, mouth breaking out in a megawatt grin.

  Penny was awake alright, big brown eyed stare focused on a sticker that had been plastered to the wall of his room long before she was even conceived. You’d swaddled her before putting her to bed last night, so she looked like an adorable, content burrito.

  Once she realized Eddie was hovering over her, the sticker lost her attention and those big beautiful eyes were on him, sparkling as her mouth parted in a gummy smile big enough to rival his own. 

  Daddy came to rescue her from confinement. 

  “Hi, baby, good morning!” Eddie cooed, trying his best to excitedly whisper so as to not disturb you, but he couldn’t help it. He was still so thrilled—and fucking terrified—to be a dad, to have that cute face peering up at him every morning and waiting for him when he got home from work. She always looked at him like he was the greatest thing to walk the earth, always so delighted to see her daddy.

  Even though she’d start crying for you the moment you came into view—but you had an advantage he lacked, you always had her food on you. Her walking meal ticket.

  And Eddie couldn’t even blame her, he was a huge fan of your boobs and he’d even bet he appreciated them more than Penny. 

  Eddie reached into the crib, tugging the tucked in corner of the blanket out and as the blanket around her loosened, Penny’s arms shot up near her head, her tiny body arching as she stretched for a comically long period of time. Eddie chuckled, using it to his advantage, he slipped an arm behind her back and head with the other supporting her bottom as he picked her up, pressing a kiss to her head (and giving her hair a secret little sniff to get a whiff of that baby scent of hers).

  “Did you sleep good, honey?” He cradled her in one arm, tucked close to his chest as he carried her out of the room to start on breakfast. 

  Penny obviously didn’t answer, head resting against his collarbone.

  “Heard you woke up mom last night—well, early this morning, I guess—with boobie demands.”

  Eddie pulled the fridge open, hovering in front of it as he debated on its contents before selecting the cartridge of eggs.

  He didn’t want to put Penny down, happy to have her curled up in his arms, so a simple breakfast would have to do. A pan was pulled out, so was a little bit of cooking oil and soon Eddie was breaking the eggs out of the shell—angling his body to the side so Penny wasn’t at risk of possible oil splash back—and letting them cook.

  “You like eggs?” Eddie asked, stepping a little ways from the stove as he hitched her higher on his chest and held the eggshells out for her to see.

  She kicked her legs, a roll covered arm shakily reaching out towards the shells but Eddie kept them out of her reach.

  “Uh-uh, no sticky fingers for you, young lady.”

  The shells were tossed in the trash can but Penny didn’t care, twisting her upper so her chest was pressed to his. She gripped his shirt loosely in her chunky fist as she leaned forward and mouthed at his shoulder, effectively soaking the area with her drool before she began to suckle.

  “Jesus, you act like we starve you.” Eddie chuckled, reaching for a recently washed pacifier to pop into her mouth.

  She seemed to prefer it over his shirt, doing a full body sigh once she was suckling on it, with her need partially sated (eddie knew he had about fifteen minutes to wrap up breakfast before she realized nothing was coming from it and would start crying), Penny went back to cuddling into his chest. 

  She was starting to be a little more active—not sleeping as much as she did this time last month but for the most part, her movements were still unstable. She had good neck control (you’d had to pin Eddie down to keep him from picking her up when she’d immediately cry upon being put down for tummy time), she liked to kick her legs like she was about to take off for a marathon, but she still couldn’t quite hold things for long (unless it was hair or fingers) and had yet to roll over without you cheating and nudging her the rest of the way.

  Speaking of making Penny do things…

  Eddie lost to his intrusive thought, rearranging his hold on Penny so he was gently grasping her sides as he placed her feet on the counter. Immediately, she popped down to squat before shooting up again. And then she did it once more, getting comfortable with using her legs.

  She didn’t even seem to wonder why Eddie was making her stand, she was more focused on staring intensely at her own feet.

  Then Eddie made her jump, lifted her up and down and up and down, and when that got her smiling wide enough for her pacifier to fall out of her mouth, Eddie moved onto the cabinets.

  “Go, baby, go!” He turned her on her side, miming the motions of her chunky legs running over the top cabinets like some baby ninja and laughing at how big her smile managed to keep getting, her big eyes squinting with it.

  “What are you doing to my baby?” You asked as you emerged from the bedroom, rubbing sleep from your eyes.

  “She’s gonna be the next Karate Ki—hello.”

  Eddie couldn’t help himself, dark gaze trailing over your figure as you stood there, hair a wreck, no pants, oversized t-shirt—ooh, and a leaking nipple. 

  Eddie’s favorite. Yum.

  You followed his gaze, scoffing at the dark stain growing over your left boob, hand pressing against it to stop it as if you were applying pressure to a wound.

  “It heard her,” You pouted, lip stuck out and wobbling at him as you referenced your body’s response to the sound of your baby. Crying, giggling, whimpering—didn’t matter, your milk ducts went into overdrive, aware that your baby was conscious and could need a feeding. Her baby noises were like a trigger sequence.

  Eddie lifted Penny to his face, pressing fervent kisses into the chub of her cheeks, “Score for you, babe!”

  You rolled your eyes, completely, utterly fond and smitten over the interaction. He briefly abandoned the kitchen to hand her to you after you’d made yourself comfortable on the couch, ready to fall to his knees in adoration.

  You pulled the shirt over your breast, and despite trying to place your nipple in her mouth for her, Penny struggled to find it, mouthing greedily at your boob, her little head turning this way and that way but always missing the peak. 

  “Girl, it’s right there.” You laughed. Penny gave it like four more seconds of trying before her whimpers kicked in and you hurriedly managed to get her to latch, stopping the outburst.

  And just like that, Penny was content, making satisfied little squeaks as she nursed and stared up at you, pretending like she hadn’t been moments away from screaming her lungs out.

  And Eddie was distracted, solely focused on the two of you and how he wanted to roll around on the carpet because the cuteness aggression was almost unbearable. If this was how he would be spending every work-free morning for the rest of his life, he was ready to convert to being a morning person.

  Especially if those big sparkly eyes and that gummy smile would be staring up at him. GOD-she was so stinking cute. He wanted to smother her in his affection, but she was growing annoyed with Eddie all up in her face and squishing the chub she was accumulating. She even cried if he faked chewed on her chunky cheeks for too long.

  “What’s that smell?” You asked, snapping him out of his love stupor as you sniffed loudly.

  “FUCK!” Eddie bolted back to the kitchen, smoke surrounding the pan and what had once been edible eggs, “Hey, honey, what’s your opinion on extra crispy eggs? You a risk taker?”

“The answer to that is hurting my nipple right now.”

“Valid. That was a very fun risk.”

divider ℗ cafekitsune ♡

[filmyocean]

Steve, in line at a coffee shop: Hi, can I get a venti vanilla latte with uhhh, seven shots of espresso? Eddie, right behind him: Jesus Christ, Harrington. Just do cocaine

[ectonurites]

these guys again

[hawkebuckley]

eddie munson and hopper core

[foreverautumn89]

I love all of the above so...

[16bruises]

Made something for the eddie munson stans

[deadboyfriendd]

𝙑𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙤 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡. E.M.

Summary: Eddie isn't in college, but he sells drugs at college parties. He usually isn't into these kinds of girls, cokeheads home for the long weekend, but what happens when he meets you?

Warnings: Fem!Reader, Eddie Munson x Reader, obvs a lil canon-divergent, fratboy adjacent!Steve, wingman!Robin, drug use, angst to fluff, smut included

My content is 18+ Minors DNI

Word Count: 9.1k

Author's Note: This is secretly based off of a Fall Out Boy song. Spear me please.

Also this is 100% for @dr-aculaaa , Drac helped me out with a TON of the dialogue and plot in this and she deserves 100% of the hype for this. PLEASE go read her work.

Eddie isn’t in college, but he sells drugs at college parties. 

He’s overstimulated. Both by the heat of the girl grasping and gripping his arm that was turning it unpleasantly raw and by the lack of anything substantial that he could focus his senses on. He can’t remember her name, and it wasn’t because of the seventeen other things distracting his senses, either. She was inherently unremarkable. Another cokehead from The Hideout. College girls home for the long weekend. Love does not occur in dive bar bathrooms, Eddie knew that much. 

He could tell her apart immediately, a Pamela Anderson wannabe with all of the intuition to sniff out anyone remotely Tommy Lee adjacent. The glorification of hard drugs and dysfunction. This would not go anywhere but possibly the bathroom, where she would emerge with a misty ring of powder white around her left nostril and blown pupils. He would taste the drip on her later that night when she would kiss him in a grotesque masquerade of her own cold comedown, denial dripping from her lips with a sticky sweetness disguised with L’Oreal Colour Riche Rich Brown. There were a thousand more like her, some here at home, others in Indianapolis, even more in Chicago. 

She was pretty for a cokehead, but not nearly as pretty as you. 

He spotted you through past the popcorn ceilings, under the fluorescent kitchen lights that were not particularly attractive for any given reason. You were the only girl here who didn’t know how he was. He had been stuck in the pipeline of town deviant to Indiana’s metal microcelebrity. His eyes locked on the kiss of your lashes as the aforementioned date dragged him through the density of other sweaty, coked-out bodies. You swung your legs back and forth as the scuffed rubber from the heels of your sneakers thudded against the hollow cabinet beneath you, rattling the pots behind it. 

She shrieks your name like a birdsong, and you whip around with wide eyes. She drags him along, pulling uncomfortably at his fingers. She bounces up and down in a way that she thinks is attractive, but to everyone else, the jingle of bangles and sequins and squealing is inherently annoying. 

You are not her friend. 

You had become acquainted with the girl before you in an entry-level introductory course for environmental design. It was offered as an elective across all majors but was also stupidly a requirement for all design-specific majors. And, even more unfortunately, the majority of the class was group work. This is how you met her. And she attached to you like a fungus— roots buried in branches that grasped your bones and made her impossible to remove without the inevitability of spawning again. She was a roach of a friend, not even nuclear warfare could rid you of her. But you were too nice to her, in fact, you were the only person that had given half a shit to include her. 

“Oh my God!” There’s a resonant tenor screech that reverberates off of the tile floors and pitches in your own ears so high that it could shatter any champagne flute within a ten mile radius. The guy— poor bastard– being dragged ruthlessly behind her like a content stray cat that had been claimed by a small child twitched an eye nearly shut at the pitchy shriek that plagues him as much as you. 

She explains how you met in an effortful, but drawn-out and utterly painful, story. It was a class. You were assigned a group project. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. 

But his hand was warm when it encased yours in an entirely professional handshake. You shook the thought from your head before it was even allowed to form. You desperately needed to kick the habit of falling in love with strangers in passing. You would not find the one at a party— at least not this one. 

It wasn’t long until she had gotten distracted, an old friend, as she had put it. There was no friend. Only powder on a mirror in the next room over. You questioned why she lied, because she wasn’t even discreet about it. 

“How can you be a nurse and do so much blow?” He asked, face twisted up in a sickening scowl. She had long forgotten about him and he tried his best to forget about her. 

“Girls like that usually are.” You deadpanned back, your face mirroring his own disgust. 

“Nursing majors?” He questioned, her major the only thing he could remember about her at this point. 

“Yeah. It’s the safest option. It keeps their parents happy while they put their financial aid up their noses.” You watched her try to discreetly gum some remnants off of the mirror sitting on the coffee table, pinkie finger dragging alongside the glass and disappearing behind her bottom lip. 

“I’ll bet she won’t finish off the semester.” You stated bluntly after a few seconds of spectating. 

“What about you?” He asked, in reference to your major. 

“Basket weaving. It’s really not much.” You didn’t want to come off as judgmental, or a prude. Especially not after admitting you were a design major. You cringed at how pretentious it sounded.  

“I like baskets.” He said, plopping himself down on the barstool across the island from you, toe thudding against the exterior to stop him from spinning too much. 

“Design.” You said, more of a mumble than a statement. You felt stupid. People usually thought you were stupid when you told them you dropped out of nursing school to be a design major. He didn’t need to know that part of you. After all, he was just some guy at a party and not the love of your life. 

“Of what nature?” He questioned, laying his head tiredly against his folded arm and looking up you you through thick lashes. 

“Of the graphic nature.” You were thoroughly surprised when he stuck around, head tilting to the side in curiosity — a stray curl bouncing from one side to the other. 

“What, like Chip Kidd?” Your head shot up. Sure, he was one of the hottest names in design this year, but who cared about design outside of designers? Next to no one. You forced yourself to play it cool. 

“More like a Stefan Sagmeister.” You grinned, bringing you knees to you chest and folding your arms over them. 

“You’re a Stones fan?” He questioned, brow cocked. 

“Who isn’t?“

“You’d be surprised.” 

“Well, surprise me, then.”

+

Eddie isn’t in college, but he knows a girl that frequents college parties.

This time it’s at some kickback in the woods, and this time it was to sell drugs— but seeing you was like a reward as you folded and contorted your own softness into comfort in the back compartment of his van, legs leaned against his side in search of warmth against the brisk nip of the reminiscence of winter. He draped his arm over your knees as he stood casually in wait, wondering how women could fold their bodies into strange statutes of comfort in only the ways they know how. 

You were good for business. Everyone and their mother seemed to know who you were. Probably because you were sweet. Especially to him. 

You’ve been casually sleeping with each other for a few weeks now, only when you can catch each other through hushed communal dorm phone-calls or whenever you come home for the weekend. No-strings attached, no commitment. But this outing sure felt like commitment, in the same way it felt like commitment when he held your hand earlier, and the same way it felt like commitment when he pressed his forehead against yours during your last entanglement. 

He leans over to you, alabaster skin of his neck stretching over bone and artery so he could whisper to you, 

“This is kind of lame. Let’s get out of here.”

You weren’t one to refuse him, especially not when he looked at you like that. 

“I’m not losing out on high school drama. I’m down.” You whisper back to him, pulling the end of an unruly curl just to watch it spring back up into place. 

While he’s watching the road, you’re memorizing the features of his face. If he could sparkle right now, he would be, even as the only light catching his face was from the too spaced-out street lamps. He drives in near-silence, whatever cassette buzzing hushedly over the radio but quiet enough that you could hear the vapid spinning of the tires and his occasional slow breath. 

You see the headstones before he has a chance to speak. 

“You’re gonna murder me.” You breathed out, joking mostly. 

“Yeah, right here, in the cemetery. Then I’m gonna bury you in a fresh grave.” He said to you, between eye rolls, getting out of the van to go pull the back doors open and straighten the woolen saddle blankets so you could sit. 

He pulls an acoustic guitar down from a makeshift bungee-cord rack fixed to the sidewall of the interior of the van, This Machine Slays Dragons crudely scrawled across the face to mimic Guthrie’s own. 

“I didn’t know that fascists breathed fire.” You said to him through a halfway-crooked sort of smile, pushing yourself up to lean against the sidewall of the van, facing him. You let one  leg swing back and forth, the rubber toe of your shoe tapping mindlessly against the seemingly useless tow hitch. 

“I knew you were more than just pretty.” He said, mouth turning up at the sides of his mouth. He was pretty, peering at you from beneath lashes before turning his attention back to the tuning knob. He strummed a calloused thumb across the tight string, listening to it upturn until he thought it sounded right.

It was a foreign ritual to you, his own prettiness being the catalyst for your own destruction before his vapid excuse at being a boyfriend ever could. . You watched silken curls slip over his shoulder and brush over the neck of his guitar. You watched as pretty deft fingers strummed a progression you would never understand. You desperately wished it was you, instead. 

It was like you were experiencing him through a macro lens, and it only made him more beautiful. His eyes came up to meet yours, dark and rich in the twilight that fell over you. You couldn’t have stared at him for more than a few seconds, but it was enough for your own giggles to bubble over. 

“Oh god.” You say through cupped hands, burying your face in your palms. You knew he was looking at you like you were crazy– all in good humor. 

“What?” He asked, unable to contain his own chuckle at this point. 

“You are literally the guy at the party that brings the guitar.” You managed through your bouts of giggles. 

“I don’t see much of a party here, sweetheart.” That smile curled again at his lips, this time with more teeth. You didn’t want to stare more, despite his fingers strumming the beginning cord of a song with all of the tenderness he could muster.

“Then who are you playing for? The ghosts?” You giggled again, looking around at the eeriness of the headstones. Had it been cooler, it would have been more off putting, but the swelling heat of summer that had settled over Indiana almost gave it some comfort. 

“You. Five regulars at The Hideout. Any ghost that wants to listen.” He laughed back, stopping his strumming to look back up at you. 

“Are you actually good?” You folded your knees upwards, turning yourself fully towards him. You rested your folded arms on top of them, pressing your chin against them to stare at him. 

“Would you just shut up and listen? I wrote a song about you.” It wasn’t hurtful, never was it hurtful. He said this towards you through pretty lips and even prettier winks. 

It wasn’t anything great. Three cords and two lines, but you wished you could record it and play it on a loop over and over again until your walkman caught fire. His voice wasn’t smooth, but it wrapped around you like a blanket, and, suddenly, it was your favorite sound. There was one thing you knew for certain, you wanted Eddie to sing to you every day for the rest of your life. 

“So you actually are good.” 

He rolled his eyes at you, casting the guitar aside as quickly as he had gotten it down. His lips met yours in a rapid staccato of haste kisses, first long, then followed by the plethora of short. You felt calloused fingers dig into the plush of your waist. 

It usually ended up like this. You’d laugh, you’d fall in love with him over and over and over again. You would have sex, and then it would be weeks. Weeks of trying to get your life back together and weeks of trying to remember yourself before him. But, God, when he kissed you over and over like that you would gladly break your heart for him. You wanted him to break it– if it meant that you could have him for this moment. 

“This technically is a party, you know?” You whispered a breathy giggle against his lips, peeling an eye open to peer at him. 

“What?” He asked, pulling back slightly. His lips were still glossy with the taste of you, but his eyes peered down at you in a way that made your stomach flip. You debated letting him take you in a cemetery. 

“Earlier, you said that you didn’t see much of a party. But we are here… at one, I mean?” Eddie looked around, eyebrow raised in utter confusion before clueing into what you had meant. 

“What with… them?” He asked you from behind the back of his hand, as if the bodies beneath you would be offended if they had heard. 

“Yeah. With all of the people buried here.” You stated, matter-of-factly. 

“I don’t think they’re much partying anymore.” Eddie explained to you, looking around the cemetery with raised eyebrows.

“Look… you know how the saying goes: one's company, two’s a crowd, and three’s a party? Well, this is a lot more than three. They don’t specify if they’re of the living disposition or not.” You argued back, trying your hardest to contain your own smile. 

“I’m saying no one here is having a good time.” He argued back in mock frustration, palms jutting out towards the headstones around you in confusion. 

“Besides us?” You asked him, with wide eyes. 

“Yes, besides us.” He said to you, reaching out to grip the opposite side of your waist and pull you into his side. 

“I can see it now. Here lies Edward— what’s your middle name?” 

“Not a chance.”

“Edward ‘Not a Chance’ Munson. He partied so hard he died.” You said, holding your hands out in a picturesque fashion. You couldn’t contain your own giggles. 

“Are you always a wise-ass?” He said, from behind a forward chuckle. 

“I don’t know, am I?” 

“Yes.” He looked down at you from beneath his shoulder, his eyes meeting your own endearingly. 

Eddie had a really bad habit of completely derailing your life with a single look. Once your eyes met the ambergris bourbon of his, you swore you could see the next ten years of your life. You swore you would ever be domesticated– at least not by any frat guy you met at a party. You hoped you were never domesticated. You hoped you never learned the subtlety of wifelyhood of motherhood. You never wanted to be reduced to that. But Eddie wasn’t in college, and Eddie could reduce you to that with one soft glance. 

“ –What about him?” You asked, averting your eyes from his. You would not let him derail your life again. Not tonight, at least. 

“Who?” He asked, genuine confusion registering across his once-soft features. 

“The guy buried there.” You specified. The headstone read a barely decipherable name, followed by 1902. 

“Was he a wise-ass?”

“No, stupid, how did he die? What kind of life did he live?” You said, bringing up your hand to deliver a soft slap to his chest. He wished you would do it again. 

“Tuberculosis.” You stated, bluntly, looking back down towards you with a smile. 

“Not everyone in 1902 died of tuberculosis.” You rolled your eyes. 

“Yeah, but a lot of them did.”

You figured he was right, your microbiology prerequisite failing to regurgitate within your brain. A silence settled over the back of the van, but it was comfortable. You allowed yourself the comfort of leaning your head against his chest, and rested his against your own. You tried to hear his heart from here, wondered if he had one at all. Surely he didn’t, if he could break your heart and put it back together all over again. Part of you hoped he did, and an even bigger part of you hoped that you had a place in it somewhere. You wouldn’t allow yourself to dwell on that fact for long. 

“Hey, Eddie?” You asked, barely above a whisper. Yet, breaking the silence felt like breaking glass. Had you been talking too much?

“Yeah?” He asked, in an equally quiet tone. You wonder if he felt it, too. 

“Why here?” You asked, without needing to elaborate further. 

He thinks about it, silent for a second, and then breaks the glass again. 

“I feel more like a ghost than anything– makes me feel less alone.” He says, finally. He refuses to let his eyes meet yours. It made sense. 

Some of the girls you went to school with still talked about it. Still talked about their friend, Chrissy. You understood that he had been a key suspect in a high-profile murder case. 

Well, as high-profile as Hawkins, Indiana, population: 2000, could get. 

They had found their suspect— apparent suicide. It happened all of the time. Kids try drugs, and drugs end badly. You had seen it before, and you’d see it again. It wasn’t Eddie, nor was it his Uncle– the man with the kind eyes and the gruff exterior that sometimes waved at you from outside Eddie’s van. You tried not to wonder if he thought you were a skank. You should introduce yourself, sometime.

A lot of people forgot about it after the Earthquake, their own lives crumbling enough to where they didn’t have to speculate the downfall of someone else. 

It made sense why he would think that. The same as the ghost that inhabited the loft above The Hideout where he played. 

It must have been exhausting having someone vilify and formulate your existence all the time.  

You decided not to pry. Instead, you read the headstones in front of you, children, the elderly. You focused on one elongated headstone fixated into the ground in front of you. William and Helen Lester. Born in 1910 and 1912, respectively. Died the same year as each other, 

“What about them?” You asked him.

“They were madly in love, they reserved their plots together before they died so when one joined the other they could take comfort in knowing that they would stay together.” He answered, without hesitation. You wondered if he knew them personally. 

“Do you believe that they did?” You asked, instead. 

“Stay together?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess that depends on what they believed.” He shrugged, rubbing his hand up and down your shoulder a little bit. 

“Well, what do you believe?” 

He lets out a long sigh, more joking then not.

“Well, way back when my uncle first got custody of me, he thought it would be a good idea to start taking me to church. Save me before it was too late… or whatever.” He raked his hands through his hair, sitting up a little to look at you before continuing, 

“ -Wayne wasn’t much of a church guy, either, but the nice lady that lived next door to us was, so we started going to church with her. They told us that if we did everything we were supposed to do… tried to live by the book, and that we found our person, that it would be an eternal binding after marriage, or something like that.”

“Do you really believe that?” You questioned. 

“If there’s anything from my churchgoing days that I hoped would be real, I hope it’s that.” He sighed, pulling his arm off of you to lean back . 

“Why?”

“I don’t think I could ever stand to be alone like that again.” He shrugged, and you knew you had struck a nerve. 

“Well, what about us?” You questioned. 

“What about it?” 

“Do you think we’ll stay together?”

“We’re not really even together.” 

It was then that you realized that maybe he did have a heart, but you didn’t have a home within it. There was one thing for certain, however, and that was that he had made himself a home in yours like a fungus. It was then that the introductory biology courses you could never remember remained heavy on your brain. 

Mycelium

Mycelium are incredibly tiny threads of the greater fungal organism that wrap around or bore into tree roots. Taken together, mycelium composes what's called a “mycorrhizal network,” which connects individual plants together to transfer water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals—

Eddie was a fungus in dormancy. He had a mycelial network, and its threads had wrapped and wound their ways through the finest intimacies of your life. Their hairline structure filled their place between any gaps you weren’t careful enough to seal. Even when he wasn’t in your life, he was there. 

You can’t be heartbroken over him if you never had him. 

You know he is talking. You know he continued with a backstory in some form or another. Your guess would be something about spending every waking moment alone after the incident. How no one’s mothers who were kind enough to give him the benefit of the doubt in the first place would no longer let their children— his friends, around him. Something about how he wouldn’t blame them. 

“Hey, are you okay? You went all silent on me there.” He finally asked, tugging on a strand of your hair, playfully. You felt like crying, but you wouldn’t. Not until he was gone. 

“Yeah, just tired I guess.”

Tired of getting attached, tired of derailing your entire life for him. 

“Oh. I guess I should probably get you home, then.” He said, beginning to slide out of the van. 

You were thankful he didn’t pry, but a part of you wished that he would. You had him for weeks, it was commitment-adjacent at the very least. It felt like you had him tonight, and it felt like you had him in all of your spare time. It also felt like you had him in class, doodling his funny little devil horns all over your notes. It was the subtlety of this heartbreak that was the worst– or maybe the fact that it wasn’t really heartbreak in the first place. 

You still let him sleep in your bed. 

+

Robin is a textbook lesbian, which also makes her the best wingman on the face of planet earth. She assessed the situation over a pre-roll, as someone who was both a woman and someone who pleasured women. 

Steve isn’t a frat boy, but his relentless good looks and halfway dumb demeanor are wasted on that fact. He assessed the situation as such. 

Eddie swore they both only hung out with him for the pot. 

It had been weeks since your last call, in which you had mentioned something about a final or something before the line went dead. Maybe you were actually dead. Killed in some freak accident that the news didn’t even know how to cover so they just… didn’t. Eddie’s dignity thought it would be preferable if you were. 

“ — Boys are stupid. Hence why I date women.” Robin stated bluntly from Steve’s bedroom floor, between clumsy, fumbling lighter flicks. 

Eddie rolled his eyes, did he have to do everything? He plucked the lighter from her hands, lighting the pre-roll in one swift motion before looking back at her. 

“Some of us aren’t as lucky.” Eddie said, throwing his body back against the side of Steve’s bed, causing Robin to bounce alongside him. 

“To be of the homosexual disposition?” Robin questioned, turning to face him. 

“To understand women.”

“Again, you don’t need to understand them, You’re just stupid.” She waved her hand, dismissively. 

“God, I know I’m stupid, please just help me.” He said to her, dragging his hands down his face with a vigor. 

“Okay, run the cemetery scenario by me again. Word. For. Word.” She said back, joint tucked between her pointer finger and thumb, elbow rested atop the comforter. 

“Okay—”

Eddie can remember everything about that night. He remembered what you were wearing. He remembered seeing the smattering of new freckles across your shoulder as it peeked out from under your summer sweater– a reminder that the heat of summer was quickly settling over you. He remembered the rhythm that the rubber toe of your sneaker tapped out as he strummed against his guitar. He remembered how you knew Gutherie and batted your eyes at him in that pretty— so fucking pretty– way and how you batted your lashes at him when you asked too many questions that he was suddenly inclined to answer. 

Eddie remembered what he said. 

“And then I said, ‘well, we aren’t really even together-”

“There!” Robin shouted finally, hands splayed out, smoke continuing to roll from between her fingers, 

“What?!” Eddie jumped, running his hands from the crown of his head and down his t-shirt, in search of whatever bug Robin had screamed at him about. 

“That’s where you fucked up!” She clarified. 

“ — really fucked up.” Steve chimed in from his desk chair, sunglasses slipping low on his nose despite the approaching twilight, using the toe of his sneaker as traction in order to spin himself in half-circles from his corner. 

“How?” Eddie asked, raking his fingers through his hair and giving his roots a soft tug. 

“You totally took everything you had with her and threw it right in the dumpster.” Robin continued, fully ignoring him. 

“ — and lit it on fire!” Steve chimed over his shoulder, chair spun backwards towards the wall. 

“Shut up, Steve.”

“Just saying…”

“Anyways, you implied that you didn’t want a relationship with her.” Robin said, finally softening a bit. 

“No, I wanted her to say something like, ‘Well, then can we be?’”  He explained back to her, almost on the verge of tears. 

“That’s the problem, dingus.” She rolled her eyes, delivering a soft smack to the side of his head. 

“Ugh,” Eddie muffled out loudly from behind his palms. 

To him, you were pretty, and smart, and entirely too good for him. You were right for ghosting him, he would never blame you for that. You had all the reason in the world to hate him and you still didn’t— until he gave you one. 

 To you, he was just a boy– one who harbored too much heartbreak that makes him meaner than he anticipates. Eddie wasn’t mean by nature, but right now, he sure felt like it.

He pulls his temples back with the heels of his hands, “She’s just so smart and she has to think I’m the dumbest human being on planet Earth.”

“You are the dumbest human being on planet Earth.” She snuffed out the roach into the ashtray, twirling around for slightly too long. 

“Gee, thanks.”

“But not for that reason.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, turning to face Eddie, “You’re stupid because you expected her to read your mind. You had the upper hand. She was prompting the love confession from you and you probably shattered her heart into a million tiny pieces.”

“Can I even fix this?”

“I’m a wingman, not a miracle worker, dude.”

“Steve? Anything to chime in?”

“You fucked up.” 

“No shit.” 

+

Eddie isn’t in college, instead he plays guitar. 

In the midst of his own suffering, he still has to perform. He isn’t one to pass up the money or the attention— especially since they’re crowds now exceeded into the double digits. They had graduated from the Tuesday-night noisemakers, to the Friday-night headliner, a few people even making their way over to bar-crawl from the next town over. 

Eddie leaned his weight on the speaker, tuning and strumming in a half-assed, absent-minded routine. There was a decent group tonight, people grouped standing in the back once the tables and bartop had been promptly filled. 

Jeff approached him, bass slung heavy over him, “Don’t look now, but I think you might know someone here.” He peered at you over his shoulder. 

Eddie looks anyway, met with your eyes. 

You looked pretty tonight. You looked pretty always. 

You had your toes propped against the bottom rung of the barstool, knees pulled tight together, and a drink in hand. He didn’t recognize the people you were with, but he didn’t know very many people anyway. Not like you did. You were likable, and he liked you a lot. 

He didn’t know what he was expecting you to look like after a month, but he was stupid thinking you’d look dramatically different. You were still soft— still glowed even in this not-particularly-flattering light. You looked happy and he hated it. He hated that you could smile at a time like this. It was selfish, he knew it. He wanted you to be a wreck over him. He wanted the comfort in knowing that you were the same mess that he was in over you. 

Jeff gives him a nudge to say something into the mic once they got the go-ahead to play. He tells Jeff he can do it tonight. The tether that binds you together is made of water— the softest vibration would break the surface tension and it would splash on to the concrete. He wanted to watch you be pretty for just a few more seconds, even if it meant giving up his ego for tonight. He wanted to remain unseen on stage, but the pinch harmonic of his opening riff sent your head snapping towards him. 

Your look made him want to crawl beneath the floorboards. 

Your acquaintance, a girl that was a friend-of-a-roommate who had invited you out, placed a hand on your shoulder, warm and too-friendly,  “This band is really good!”

“I know!” You shouted over the music, too warm already. Maybe it was the bottom-shelf peach schnapps. It was most likely the bottom-shelf peach schnapps. 

“Oh, you’ve seen them before?” She asked, pulling her chair up closer to yours. 

“Something like that!” You had explained, pulling the strap of your purse from your neck where it dug in too harshly. 

You felt underdressed for the occasion. Despite definitely having people to impress, you didn’t feel the need. But now, with Eddie’s eyes that you tried desperately to avert yourself from, you’d felt your skin in a way that you never had before. Maybe you were drunk. 

You were most definitely drunk, enough so that it was teetering off the edge of pleasant and dipping into the waters of uncomfortable. The music was too loud and there were too many people and your purse strap kept digging into the crevice of your neck in a way that was both painful and overstimulating. 

You couldn’t remember how many songs Eddie’s band had played– fuck— you couldn’t remember what they were called. Had been playing for a while, enough for the lines between songs started to blur and it felt like forty-five minutes of continuous time signature. You couldn’t decipher a lot between the hum of the nearly-blown speaker anyways. 

Eddie’s eyes met yours, shiny beneath the bar stage lights. He looked angry. You couldn’t tell if it was because of the genre of his song or because of you. He isn’t insatiable or anything, and he had hoped to God that you were still paying attention. By the look on your face and the way you craned your neck to look at the girl next to you, you hadn’t been for a while now. Your nonchalance had poured the gasoline, your smile lit him ablaze. 

The next line of the song was about you, an ode to the women he’d loved before– which weren’t many– conveniently placed as the last song of the setlist. He wrote it with the fantasy that you would stroll through the doors and hear it, but now that you were here, he didn’t know if he had the heart to be mean to you. He didn’t want to be mean to you. It was vaguely written enough so that the other girls that looked up towards him would think it was about them, a heartbreak anthem, a sorry anthem. An ode to the cemetery and the ghost that he had become without you. 

You understood it, though you chose not to act like you had. You didn’t think you had been in his life for long enough to warrant a song– at least one with more than three cords and fifteen seconds of play-time. Why would he? You were never even together. Your ears rang with the remnants of sound, yet you watched your party— the greek bar-crawlers, get ready to head to the next location down the block. You couldn’t even remember what bar it was. 

The girl next to you– fuck— you couldn’t remember her name either, was leveling with your tipsiness. Maybe she hadn’t teetered over the edge of drunk like you had. You let her take your hand anyways, pushing through the double doors in your party of eight. 

The familiarity of the van backed in front of the entrance haunted you, like it had brought a ghost back with it from the cemetery. Maybe Eddie was the ghost. Maybe he was haunting you. Maybe you were haunting yourself. 

The party discussed some form of game plan. You thought it was stupid, hockey practice was over. Yet they were drunk, and they were rowdy, and they were a spectacle. Suddenly and all at once, unfamiliar lips were on yours, violent and sloppy. You tasted cherry, sticky against your own peppermint chapstick. Soft feminine hands gripped your jaw, pretty tuberose and jasmine on the girl from earlier filled your nostrils in a way that was not quite suffocating, but all encapsulating. It was an Estee Lauder Eau de Parfum. You recognized it from the yellow bottle you had gotten for your fifteenth birthday. 

Kissing a woman was a different ballpark, kissing a woman drunk was an entirely different sport. She was softer, less volatile. She had a languid softness to her waist where men were typically more solid. Her hands were more graceful. You relinquished it, both in the spectacle of the others in the group and the fact that she was what Eddie wasn’t.

From behind the van, Eddie watched you. The floral passion in which you sloppily tangled your manicured hand into the blonde mass of the girl in front of you. Isn’t it unfair? He desperately wished it was him. Wanted to be the reason for the surrounding wolf calls. Eddie wasn’t particularly introspective, but he was dying to be her. A notch in your bedpost, a one night stand, a lover. 

Eddie wanted to be her. 

+

Eddie isn’t in college, and it's mostly because he’s stupid. 

Robin let him know it, too. 

There is an afterparty, or, at least, the loose adjacent to one. The band, some friends of the band, and communal alcohol strung loosely across the island at Gareth and Jeff’s condo. Donated pot courtesy of a combined effort of Rick and Eddie. He didn’t feel like partying, but he did feel like getting really, really drunk. Lecture be damned. 

MD 20/20 Red Grape Fortified Wine tasted a little like alcohol and a lot like feeling sorry for himself. 

The grave was already dug, all he had to do was sit in it and wait for someone to backfill. 

Robin stood, arms braced against the island across from Eddie. The fluorescents in Gareth’s unrenovated kitchen burned his eyes, “I can’t help you if you don’t want it.”

“I don’t want it,” He specified, pulling a long drink from the glass bottle, “ –but I have a feeling I’m gonna get it anyways.” 

“I thought you wanted her back, dude.” The fluorescent lights casted a downwards glow across her forehead. Eddie thought it gave her a Kubrick stare. 

“I don’t know what I want, I thought I did but then I got up there and I sang about her and she didn’t even care.”

In one swift motion, she hopped onto the counter, crossing her legs beneath her, “Well, obviously you care.” 

“I don’t care.” 

“If you don’t care about her then why do you lose your shit every time you see her?”

“Because, Robin, who the fuck else is gonna love me after all of the shit we’ve been though?” He slammed the bottle down on the table. It was enough to rattle the cabinets beneath it, “She was the one good thing that’s happened to me in a long fucking time and I couldn’t even let myself be just content with that.” 

He’s angry, suddenly. With himself, with the universe. The alcohol didn’t help. The feigning headache was more annoying than it was painful. Robin wanted to roll her eyes, to call him stupid and dramatic– but she figured he knew it already. It’s not like he wasn’t warranted in his anger, he was, but she wondered why he had been so pent-up lately. Maybe it’s because there was no Eddie way for Eddie to deal with this. After a bleating silence, she spoke:

“Have you even talked to her yet?” She asked.

“No, and I’m not planning on it.” 

“Why not?”

“Because, dude,” Eddie played himself out across the tile island, trying to ignore the way his t-shirt just mopped up the sticky sweet liquid on the counter, “ – you know why.”

Robin did know why. 

“And?” She asked. 

“They were all over each other, like, like…” He was getting frustrated now, unable to string words together in a cohesive sentence. 

Robin finished for him, “Like you were?”

“Yeah. Like she didn’t even care.” He leaned his head down on his folded arms, 

“Maybe she wanted you to think that.” Robin asked him. She thought she sounded more like his mother than a lesbian wingman. This is what he needed. “Maybe she wanted you to chase her.”

“I don’t understand why.” He groaned, “She’s unpredictable. And pretty. And smart. And fun. And everyone likes her. Do you know how many friends she has? How many people like her?”

“Because maybe you’re not as bad as you think you are.”

And he isn’t. Eddie isn’t inherently bad– albeit a little bit dumb. Maybe that just came with age, or the nature of him. Actually, behind the external composite disposition and his defensive nature, Eddie was the opposite of bad.

That first ‘surprise me’ reverberated in his mind like a crescendo. He was feeling brave that night. It was all ego, and most likely a touch of golden whiskey courage. He could still taste it on the back of his tongue when his mouth met yours in a clumsy, quick, spur-of-the-moment kiss. He didn’t have time to be insecure about it, the afterthoughts of gum or mints being pulled from his mind by your fingers as they combed through the soft curls at the nape of his neck. As he moved down to press pillowy-soft kisses in the soft of your throat, he took in your scent– like the citrus groves just outside of town in the spring, when the little white flowers covered the expanse of the rich green rows. 

It was fast and sweet, his hands pushing your summer cotton t-shirt up your waist with warm, rough hands– encasing the ribs where they curl to meet with your spine in a vice. You were eager, not that you were easy– you almost didn’t care if he thought of you that way– in the way you slid his vest off of him. He threw his arms back quickly, shaking it loose from his wrists as he came back up to meet you. The chain of his bracelet was cold against the plush of your stomach as he dragged it down towards the button of your denim shorts. 

“We don’t have to do this now,” He separated from you in hesitation, “I can take us back to my place, use my be—”

“No, ‘need you now.” You insisted, your kiss more pressing than before. You clung to him fervently. 

You aren’t confined to your softness. You are vocal, grip on his shoulders and his heart like a vice. You were soft in the right places though, in your waist and beneath his hands coming undone, soft in the way you spoke to him behind closed van doors. Pillows over sharp corners, a guard to balance your too-loud laugh or the frequency in which you found yourself too drunk. 

You were stone-cold sober that night, and he thanked whoever was up there looking out for him that you were. You wouldn’t have been here, otherwise. 

You were a painting, and not one of those stupid ones that he had to talk about in history class. Like a real, in-your-face, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Not quite like a centerfold, better than anything he’d counted pennies for at the drugstore, ethereal beyond words. Soft for him and only him, bumps and curves and dips and folds in places you didn’t see in those. Real, right in front of him. His for the taking. 

The night had turned already to that imperceptible pivot where midnight turned to early morning hours. This moment has come and gone, yet you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which is all gratuitous damage and the play of unraveled nerve endings. 

He plunged his middle and marriage fingers within you with a vapid expanse for pleasure, reaching in deep and curling upwards, gathering slick between fingers and back out again. You could feel every ridge within yourself, your softness pulling him back in once he had pulled out again. 

You allow him, no, encourage him to line himself up within you, and you are warm. Warmer than anything he has ever felt in his life. Tight like a hug. The flavor is vaguely tribal– pendulous guitar-pick necklaces and ritualistic moans of endearance. A gathering drum of heartbeats and a bonfire lit within your core. 

His chest is hard above you, expanding with deep breath and soft cries– the softest cries you had ever heard from a man in your existence. There is a small patch of hair in the center, that follows down his navel in a thin line. You tried to hold it together, but you loved it so much. You could love him, not like the novelty it was right now. Like, really love him. 

If he could tell you he loved you without scaring you away, he would have. Now, he wished he just did. 

Clumsily, almost enough for you to tell he was still new to this, whether the van or women in general, he thrust into you, chasing his own rhythm while still finding your own high. His wrists radiate heat where they brace him on either side of your head, caging you between them. 

“Fuck– I– I,” he begins, looking for his thoughts.

You look up at him through low, sultry eyes. Your own release nearing in moments. “Together.” was what you could manage. 

He cringed looking back, he probably looked like such a virgin. He had been so previously wound with the Pam Anderson wanna-be and the post-show adrenaline that his release was feigning. He took comfort in knowing that you would later find out that he is not that inexperienced. 

It was the after that he remembered. How your little manicured finger traced over the raised ink of the tattoo, now disfigured by the purple fibers of scarring. 

“They’re from the accident.” He explained to you, knowing you were wondering. Everyone wondered. You had been too afraid to ask. 

“The earthquake?” You specified, looking up at him. 

You watched the way his stomach flexed as he pushed himself up, taking your body with him, “Yeah, sorry they’re not pretty.” He sighed, holding out his arms to look at the ones there. 

“You are pretty.” You reiterated, and he chuckled, pressing a kiss to your lips. 

“You’re prettier.” 

“You wanna see mine?” 

“Your what?”

“Scars.” 

You were going to show him anyway. 

That patch where the hair grew wonky across your eyebrow from where you had fallen as a child. You cracked your eye socket and they had to reconstruct the tendons in your eyelid. 27 stitches including the internal ones. He laughed at how you claimed it like a trophy. 

The small white line on the side of your knee you got trying to pet a feral cat. You wanted to be it’s friend so bad and it didn’t return the sentiment. 

The blown out tattoo on your ankle, done by your friend who worked at the cafe with you. It was the second one she had ever done on another living person. Your mom had flipped when you came home from college that first weekend with it. If you weren’t too old to ground, she would have done it. 

Your stretch marks, in which you didn’t dwell too much on. They started happening the summer you turned thirteen and you remembered the palsy of lotions and topical ointments your mom made you smear over the expanse of your body in order to reverse them when you we’re too young to recognize that there were nothing wrong with them. The scars they left on your psyche. 

The ones on your hands and knuckles, burns from your barista days. He remembered your giggle as he pressed soft kisses to every burn scar. 

Eddie was not bad. 

+

Eddie isn’t in college, but, for you, he’d at least brave the college housing. 

This was also not Robin’s plan, instead devised by Steve while he was crossed— and at his most authentic self. Despite her best efforts, they persisted. You roomed in a smaller house with several other girls in Indianapolis— a three hour drive as the crow flies. All in their girlish forms, all soft skin and little shorts and effortless beauty. Sometimes you wondered if you looked the same way- or if they even knew what they looked like. 

All of whom were gathered out the window, ogling at a relic unknown to you. 

A familiar face, the hometown heartbreaker, Steve Harrington himself stood in your freshly mowed grass, boombox held over his head like an idiot. Slovenly waving at the girls through the window. You sighed, palming your face tiredly. You knew who he would have in tow. He is a shadow of either Eddie’s best self of his worst self, you couldn’t tell which quite yet. You are awed by his strict refusal to acknowledge any goal higher than the pursuit of his own pleasure, haphazardly balancing the expensive boombox blasting Head Over Heels on a loud, obnoxious loop. You wouldn’t have been more annoyed if Roland Orzabal was here playing the song himself. Robin stood at the entrance of the small white picket fence, face in hands. 

When you meet with the man that has not quite et. cetere’d you, you are slumming the door open, visiting your own 7:00 A.M Lower East Side with your soul on a lark. He is stepping nimbly around gardenia pots and little happy concrete garden gnomes as if they will bite his ankles if he gets too close– if only you’d trained them sooner. More un-nimbly, he trips up the stairs, and you’ve caught him red handed. He stands there wide-eyed and apologetic, a dog kicked. You lean against the frame, nonchalant, unimpressed, arms crossed. 

“Ew. You like Tears for Fears?” You speak before he can. He seems taken aback. 

“I should have played The Cure.” He speaks truthfully, rubbing the skin on the back of his neck where an itch did not occur. 

“That was my second choice!” Steve called from the one-man show happening on your lawn. You feared if it went on for longer, it would turn to a strip-club.

“Shut up, Steve.” Eddie barked towards him. 

The tension feels like being at the bottom of a swimming pool. Eddie’s drowning in the deep end but the bowl’s empty. He drained it himself. He doesn’t know quite what to say to you. He didn’t think it would get this far. 

“Come on, please just hear me out–” He starts, yet it’s overused. You decided then to drown him in the pool yourself. The door closes in his face. 

Almost immediately, the knocking persists. Your roommates watch from beside the door, half still fixated on Steve, the others watching you ascend the stairs towards your bedroom. You choked down your embarrassment, suffocated in it. You needed to be alone. 

“Ladies.” Steve nods from the front lawn, watching his friend scale the old lattice attached to the stucco on the front of your house. 

“Ladies.” Robin parrots, coming to watch with a hand shielding her eyes from the sun. 

There is a commotion down the stairs, a door opening and footsteps quick. You don’t get the chance to look because there is a body, an apparition of scarecrow limbs and embarrassment parallel with your second-story window. You might be mad, but you definitely aren’t heartless. 

This isn’t what he expected your room to look like. In his wet dreams, he pictured more pink. More coquette lace abundance and stuffed animals. Save for the raggedy menstrual bean-bag bear, it’s relatively neutral. In hindsight, every girl’s room is pink coquette in a wet dream. This felt more like you, the twinkle lights, stacks of old books holding plants, moroccan-patterned pillows lining the daybed. Plush, white bedding. It’s natural, like you. 

Your glare is like a mother’s reproach. He doesn’t know how to react. He didn’t have a mother. Only Wayne and only teachers, the latter of which he had a certain amount of push before they let him do whatever he wanted. You, he could not push further. 

“Please don’t kick me out,” He begs, hands together like a prayer. It’s cheesy, you avoid laughing. 

“I’m waiting.” You say. It’s rude. You sound like a bitch. He thinks you’re warranted. You try not to think of the ears against your bedroom door. 

“I love you.” He said it like a plea instead of a declaration. It was the first and only thing that came to his mind. 

Of course he did.

You rolled your eyes at him, folding your arms and jutting your hip, “You don’t love me.” You corrected, “You just think you do now that you’re lonely.” 

He takes a few more pacing steps towards you, frantic and panicking “Jesus Christ– Yes, I do. I could’ve slipped and broke my neck trying to climb up here for you.”

“Well, I didn’t tell you to climb up here,” You placed your hand over your chest, then turned your finger towards him, “You don’t love me, you love this version of me that thought Tears for Fears would work.”

He stared at you with wide eyes, pleading and sad. 

“ —For once in your life think, idiot. What song would I have really liked?” 

“I– I don’t know.” He said. It came out like a whimper. He was more broken now, softer, yet still desperate. 

“Exactly. You don’t love me.”

“You know what? You’re right.” He stood, closing the gap between your bodies in a few strides. He wanted to touch you, but was too afraid to ask, “I don’t love you.“ 

“I hate all of your stupid questions.” He started, and you didn’t speak, “I hate how all of my clientele comes from you now. I hate that I only get you when you’re home for the weekend. I hate that stupid little scar on your eyebrow. I hate the way your hair gets in your mouth when you laugh. I hate that dumb little scar on your forehead. I hate that you’re so goddamn perfect for me and I hate myself for letting you walk away like that.” He finished, breath heaving. 

You felt the tears pull at the corners of your eyes, but you didn’t warrant them to spill. 

“I hate that you’re a grown man with fucking bangs.” You said, unable to finish. You felt stupid, two stupid little tears slipping from your eyes and streaking down your face.

He opened his arms to you, prompting, and you took it. Part of it so he couldn’t see you crying, the second part of you desperately needing to feel him. 

“I’m so mean.” You wailed into his chest. You felt the rumble of the laugh he couldn’t suppress. 

“I know, so mean.” He said, not as an insult or an agreement, but in endearment. He pressed a sympathy kiss to your crown. His hand was warm as it pulled up the expanse of your back. 

“I’m sorry.” You pulled away, wiping your face furiously with the heels of your palms. 

“No- no. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to get caught up in my hot and cold like that.”

Your feverance prevails, “I should have asked what happened.”

“I should have asked you out.” He counteracts, pulling back to smooth down the wiry hairs at your crown, his hand heavy against your skull. 

“Can you do it now?” You plead, and he laughs. 

“Will you stop crying?”

“Yeah.” 

He pulls away from you for a second, you want to whine at the loss of contact. He crouches down on one knee, keeping your hands squeezed tightly in his calloused palms. 

“Then will you do me the tremendous honor of being my girl?” He runs his hand up the back of yours, trying to feel for an electric pulse of an answer. The seconds that you take nearly kill him. 

You stare down at him, eyes still red and puffy, but wide, “And not just like at parties?” 

“No, like the full weekday thing.” His smile is warm. You take great comfort in it. 

“Yeah.”

You think you look stupid, crying in your bedroom while he holds you like this. But he burns this memory in his mind. Even when you’re crying, you’re still the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. 

[daydreamingfuel]

Freak Like Me

Chapter 2

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

AO3 // previous // next

Y/N has just moved to Hawkins from England with her parents and is starting at the high school in the final term of her senior year. Eddie immediately takes a liking to her and they become fast friends, deciding to take her under his wing and falling to her charms. This is Hawkins however and things are never quite as they seem...

WHOLE FIC TAGS & WARNINGS: gratuitous use of Y/N (I'm not sorry), friends to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, eventual smut, semi-fix-it-fic, angst, injury, canon dialogue and events used, canon graphic violence, no main character death :)

Chapter Tags & Warnings: daddy issues, panic attack description, use of misogynistic language in a nightmare, heavy flirting, Jason, Chrissy makes an appearance, slight cliff-hanger?

Chapter Word Count: 6.4k

A/N - yes I know it's been 7 months but a lot of shit happened and I had writers block, so sue me

As Eddie walked away, Y/N felt their heart feel slightly fuller knowing her life wasn't going to go completely fall apart in Hawkins. She had a friend. And the possibility of more friends in the form of Hellfire. Maybe, just maybe things wouldn't go up in flames this time. Plopping down on the sofa next to her mother, she noticed her mum smiling to herself. Y/N quickly realised that her mother had heard everything that had happened in the kitchen and was forming her own opinion on what had happened.

"Don't" Y/N, said looking at her mother, who hadn't stopped looking at the book she was reading, avoiding eye contact.

Mrs Y/L/N just smiled more, "I'm not saying anything."

"Good. Because it's not what you think." Y/N settled back into the sofa, and Mrs Y/L/N only responded with a small 'Mm'hm'. Y/N cocked her head slightly with a scoff, about to argue her case when they bit their tongue as both women heard the front door opening. Mr Y/L/N was home.

Y/N and her mother looked at each other, enjoying the calm before the inevitable storm. They both knew that he would not be in a good mood, he rarely was anymore. Y/N couldn't remember the last time she had seen her father genuinely happy; she only ever saw stress, anger, and frustration. And drunk.

"How was work dear?" Mrs Y/L/N said, placing her book on the coffee table and standing to greet her husband in the kitchen, Y/N following behind. 'Here we go…'

"You know I can't talk about it, the project I'm working on is confidential." The man said dropping into a chair at the table with a thumb and a finger on his temples. "Y/N, how was your first day? You didn't get into any trouble, did you?"

"No dad I didn't, just bombarded with ridiculous questions…but it was actually okay, I made a friend." Y/N smiled to herself, and her mother winked behind her father's head as she caught her eye, making them glare playfully at each other. Mr Y/L/N missed the whole interaction, eyes still shut as he tried to massage away the headache. Without really thinking, the words tumbled out of her mouth, "As a matter of fact, he's picking me up for school tomorrow morning, he left his van here after dinner." This made her mother tense and Mr Y/L/N's eyes snap open.

"He?" the man questioned, stifling his growing anger, "Dinner?" He turned to look at his wife, whose eyes were only on her daughter, before he turned back to Y/N, "Is that whose van is outside? Y/N, I told you not to do this-"

"I know dad." Y/N cut him off, as Mrs Y/L/N laid a hand on her husband's shoulder, giving a warning squeeze. "But nothing is going to happen."

His voice raised a little, "It'd better not otherwise I'll-"

"You'll what dad? What would you do?" Y/N bit back, louder.

"Okay let's all calm down." Mrs Y/L/N finally got a word in, but it was fruitless as Mr Y/L/N stood up and raised his voice further. It was nowhere near the first time this had happened and both women of the household knew it wouldn't be the last.

Y/N didn't react, and Mrs Y/L/N didn't try to step in again, they just listened to the man rant and watched as he paced the kitchen, seething at the prospect of Y/N causing any more trouble. Y/N couldn't remember when he had grown so cold towards her but over the years learnt that it was just better to take it than argue. When he finally ran out of words to target Y/N and sat back down, she silently turned and walked to her room, not letting him see the effect he had on her. He didn't need to see her to know she was sufficiently scolded, and wouldn't talk back for the foreseeable future. She could hear parents muffled talking, knowing not another word would be said about what had just happened and squeezed her eyes shut tight willing tears not to fall.  A pointless pursuit as the tears fell regardless.

Of course, this is how the day ends.

Ruined.

Because you couldn't hold your tongue.

You knew he would react like this.

How stupid can you get?

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Y/N slid down the door, hands pressed over her ears to drown out the thoughts. Once she was sat she let out a choked sob and let all the tears out, holding her body together with arms wrapped tight. She cried and cried until her body physically couldn't and all that came out was heaving, shaky breaths. Wiping her eyes on her sleeve and taking a deep breath she finally relaxed a little. Exhausted, she pulled herself off the floor and started slogging over to the bed until she stood on something small and pointy.

Dice.

"Fuck!" She cursed under her breath and looked down. All of the things Eddie had brought were still scattered all over Y/N's floor. Her lip trembled slightly, remembering how nice the night had been, as she kneeled and put all the things away in the bag he had also left. She would give it to him in the morning. Checking the clock, and seeing it was well past midnight, she groaned. Having vaguely heard her parents go to bed a while ago she knew it was late, but time had escaped her. She needed to sleep. Collapsing onto the bed, and staring at the ceiling, Y/N tried to forget about the sour turn of events and focus on all the good things that were to come. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep.

Y/N walked down the corridor, anxiously pulling at her school jumper, and keeping her eyes cast down, avoiding all the stares of her peers. Rounding the corner, she ran straight into the last person she wanted to see.

"You should really watch where you're going." He spoke flatly, eyes looking straight through her. The same eyes that had once gazed at her like she hung all the stars in the sky. Not a hint of malice or judgement. Now she saw only disinterest and resentment. He had gotten what he wanted.

Y/N said nothing and tried to push past but he caught her wrist tightly and pulled her back, "Got nothing to say now?" He spat viciously, "After running that dirty mouth of yours you'd think you'd at the very least be able to say something."

As she went to turn and hit him, she found herself surrounded.

Slut. Whore. Greedy bitch. Disgusting. Dirty. Pervert. Freak.

The words echoed around her. Growing louder and louder and louder until-

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Y/N groaned as she sat up and reached to shut up her alarm clock. Blinking slowly and softly shaking her head, Y/N tried to shake off the dream. The memory had been warped over time, but the feeling remained the same. All she felt was shame as she climbed out of bed and got ready for the day. Pulling open the curtains, the sun blazed through and made her squint, shielding her eyes as her body was instantly warmed despite it being February. After changing into something weather appropriate, she collected everything she needed and headed to the bathroom to freshen up. Y/N pulled her hair off her face and secured it as best she could then looked herself dead in the eye in the mirror.

"You can do this, it's a fresh start, and you're already doing better than you thought…just breathe…" The pep talk was unconvincing but somehow managed to force Y/N's head a little higher.

Breakfast was silent, Mr Y/L/N had already left for work and Mrs Y/L/N was lost in thought staring into her mug of tea. She knew her mother meant well, but the silence was killing her. Before she could muster up the courage to say something, the honk of a horn sounded from outside. Eddie. With a sigh, Y/N pushed off from where she leant against the counter and gave her mother a chaste kiss on the cheek as she picked up her things, and Eddie's bag of D&D paraphernalia, before heading outside to see Eddie sat in his van, passenger door open and waiting for Y/N, A cheeky grin on his face.

"Morning, Y/L/N." The sound of his voice instantly soothed her and made an unconscious smile appear on her tired face.

"Morning, Munson. I have the stuff you left at mine last night." Y/N said whilst buckling her seatbelt and nodding her head to the bag.

"Goddamn it, now I don't have a reason to come by after school with the excuse of getting my shit." He said playfully as he started the engine, pulled out of the spot in front of the house, and turned on a mixtape – Black Sabbath pouring out through the speakers. Y/N chuckled slightly at the predictable choice and watched him drive for a while, taking in how the sunlight made his skin glow and highlighted the soft curls of his wild hair. His hands gripping the steering wheel accentuating the lean muscles in his forearm, the bat tattoo rippling slightly making the wings look like they were moving with each subtle flex. Having felt her eyes on him for minutes uninterrupted, he smirked cheekily and said, "Stop staring, you're gonna burn a hole straight through me."

"Shut up." He laughed as she rolled her eyes, "As if I would actively stare at you Eddie, you flatter yourself."

"Yeah sure, you definitely weren't checking out my sick tattoos." He pushed back and glanced at her, with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

If she was bolder, and more truthful, she would have said "I really love your tattoos and was completely fascinated by the way the bats look like they're flying as you drive," but she wasn't that bold so, Y/N scoffed and moved her eyes to the horizon, and instead said, "You wish."

The conversation stopped for a good few minutes before either spoke again, just enjoying the music and each other's company, Y/N breaking their silence with, "Do you think we could do a one-on-one, private D&D game?"

"Sorry, what?" Eddie had to blink a few times to fully register what she had said, "Can you say that again, I zoned out listening to the music."

"I said," Y/N chuckled, "Do you think we could do a one-on-one, private D&D game? I was thinking just a little homebrew- is that the right word? Just so I can fully get used to the mechanics and maybe level up if you're feeling generous before my first game with the party…I don't want to embarrass myself in front of them, especially if you're all experienced players…I understand if you can't it was just a passing thought. I'll shut up now."

Once Y/N's short ramble had stopped, she took notice of Eddie's reaction and couldn't help but smile. The man was practically buzzing in his seat, wide grin and fingers drumming excitedly against the steering wheel, eyes sparkling a little at the mere thought. She hadn't realised how close they were to the school, so when he parked the car and fully turned to face her, Y/N was startled a little.

"First of all, yes homebrew is the correct term, well done, and second - that sounds like a great idea, I'm annoyed that I didn't think of it first." Eddie finally answered, the excitement practically dripping od his tongue at the prospect, "I'm going to spend the rest of today thinking of a small campaign we can start and finish before Hellfire, do you want to do something classic or a little darker, or we can do something a little more whimsical if that's more your speed or-"

"Remember to breathe, Munson." Y/N giggled, cutting off his run-on sentence, his arms that were flailing in front of his face as he spoke froze as she interrupted his flow, "I'll be happy with anything, I'm excited to see what you come up with."

He was completely bewildered by her, nobody had ever been this interested not only in D&D but also in wanting to spend so much time with him, except for maybe Dustin. Beaming as he spoke, Eddie replied, "This is just so great, I'm so glad you are into this. If I'm being honest, I was kind of worried that I'd scared you off a little, you seemed a little disgruntled when I picked you up."

"Oh," Y/N scratched the side of her neck slightly, resisting the urge to just tell him everything, "I just didn't sleep very well, nothing to do with you."

He nodded, and though he was unconvinced, he didn't push. Eddie wanted to ask her what was actually wrong, sensing there was something but chose to let it go, she would tell him when she was ready, he hoped. As they hopped out of the van and shut the doors behind them, Y/N tried to shake off the growing nausea in the pit of her stomach, suddenly being hit with vivid memories of the night before and the nightmare that woke her up. Eddie rounded the front of the vehicle and met her at the passenger door, leaning against it slightly. He stood close, looking at her intensely, as though trying to read her mind. Her eyes were shut tight, and her bottom lip caught within her teeth, her knuckles cracking between her palms.

"Hey, you okay?" Eddie eventually asked and stepped a little closer, concern knitting in his brow, before he jumped back a little when her eyes popped open with a fluttering blink and locked gaze with him.

"Yeah, sorry. Just lost in thought." Y/N tried to laugh it off, but he just raised an eyebrow at her odd behaviour. Not wanting to linger on the topic, she quickly asked, as she pushed off from the van and headed towards the school, turning to face him and walking backwards a little as she asked, "Can we do yours tonight?"

"Umm, yeah I guess, my place is a bit messy but I don't really see an issue," Eddie replied, following after her and quickly catching up.

As she turned to face front again when he was by her side again, she smiled at him over her shoulder and commented, "I don't mind a little mess."

He smiled back, dimples poking out a little, "We can do it straight after school if you want? I'll make you dinner this time, though it'll be nowhere near as good as your mom's cooking, I apologize in advance."

"You're forgiven," her laughter rang through the air, as they pushed through the doors of the school.

The day ran smoother than the previous, most people no longer cared that there was a new girl now that she had chosen to associate with the nerds and freaks of the school. She managed to slide right past any of their gazes as she walked through the corridors, waving briefly at Dustin, Mike and a friend of theirs she didn't know as the pair passed them. Dustin grinned and gave a quick "Hi, Y/N", and Mike gave a tight-lipped smile, their friend giving an acknowledging nod. Although there were still a few that didn't want to leave her alone, Jason being one. As soon as Y/N and Eddie walked into homeroom together, laughing at a story Eddie was telling, he scowled and stared with a slack jaw.

"You should close your mouth, you're gonna catch flies," Y/N said in passing, patting his shoulder firmly to shake him out of his stupor. His jaw quickly snapped shut as Eddie laughed at her snide remark. Jason turned in his chair to make a comment back but the bell rang and Mrs O'Donnell walked in right as he opened his mouth. No other incidents happened for the rest of the morning, and by lunch, she had all but forgotten about why she woke up in a bad mood.

Dustin and Mike's friend from that morning, Lucas Sinclair, had joined them for lunch, Y/N quickly learned that they had been friends for years along with their other friend Will Byers who had moved to California along with his older brother – who was dating Mikes sister - and adoptive sister of the same age Jane, who they affectionately call El – who was dating Mike, his eyes lighting up at the mention of them, talking animatedly. Dustin's eyes crinkle with a grin as he adds details and Lucas smiles as he nods along to the stories of their childhood. They didn't need to say it, but they had formed a bond as close as family, and quite clearly deeply cared for one another. As adorable as she found them reminiscing about their friend, Y/N was caught up on one detail.

"You have a girlfriend?" Y/N interrupted, unable to stop the words from coming out and shutting up the boys instantly, and she backtracked seeing their furrowed eyebrows "That came out ruder than intended, sorry."

"It's okay," Mike reassured before adding, "we've been dating for almost a year, but we've known each other for 3 years. She's pretty cool." He says with a knowing smile and the other boys agree. "Dustin's got a girlfriend too though, they met at nerd camp."

"Camp Know Where." Dustin corrected before grinning with pride, "Suzie's awesome, she's a genius."

Lucas then added, "And I did have a girlfriend, Max, who's amazing, but she broke up with me before school started and kinda stopped talking to me…she kinda stopped talking to everyone actually…but she's great. A total badass." He still adored her.

"So you're telling me, that all three of you have girls that you like and they like you, and you obviously have a solid friend group and yet you still get labelled as outcasts and nerds?"

"Yup."

"Pretty much."

Dustin giggled at Y/N's disbelief, "But we are nerds. They're not exactly wrong."

"Is that why Lucas here joined the basketball team?" Y/N raised an eyebrow at the boy, who bristled at the accusation but didn't deny it. "Look, if you honestly enjoy it and it makes you happy then I'm all for it, but if you're just doing it to try to gain some popularity and status…" she bit her tongue, it wasn't her place, so she finished by saying "just don't sell out, cause from the sounds of things you're pretty popular in your own right." He sits back in his chair and mulls it over in silence.

Eddie whistles lowly, having listened in. "Damn."

Y/N feels her cheeks heat up, the gaggle of boys all processing her words. They had all been listening in. "I'm sorry, you don't need to hear my opinion on it…"

"Don't be," Lucas immediately pipes up and his warm brown eyes reassure her that she didn't overstep, "You've just given me some stuff to think about."

"Well, Y/L/N, if you've done interrogating my disciples," Eddie cuts in with a lazy smile, leaning back in his chair, and the freshmen scoff, making Y/N snicker, "do you wanna go for a quick smoke before class?"

"Where? Smoking isn't allowed on school property." She leans back, challenging him and he doesn't back down.

"I know a place." He says it flippantly as he pulls out a cigarette and places it behind his ear and pulls out a second for her.

"Well, that isn't ominous at all."

"Don't you trust me?"

She smiles. His eyes twinkle. "I probably shouldn't but I do."

Eddie stands and holds out his hand. "Then follow me."

Without a second thought, she takes his hand and picks up her stuff with the other before he leads her out of the rooms and away from his gawking friends. His grip on her hand dropped, only to gently place it on the small of her back to guide her through the corridors and out the back of the school towards the tree line. Confidently striding through the greenery, Eddie eventually stopped at a small clearing in the tall trees, a lone picnic bench sitting in the middle, paint peeling away and the wood splintering, but appearing sturdy as it blended into the darkness of the bark, grass growing around the foot of the benches. Eddie turned to face Y/N and gestured to the table with a 'ta-da'-like flourish, a wide grin on his face, a dimple popping out.

The table creaked slightly beneath them as they sat opposite each other, Y/N leaned across the table as Eddie lit his cigarette and stole it from his lips before he could take a drag. His eyes widened at the nerve of her, his eyebrows raised incredulously as she laughs behind a cloud of smoke. "You little shit..." he mutters which only makes her laugh more before she takes another drag and places the cigarette back between his lips, her fingertips brushing them slightly. She stays leaned in towards him, face resting on her hands as he shakes his head at her before he blows smoke in her face, making her nose crinkle. "Should I light the other or…?"

"Save it for later," she answers, and he furrows his brow as he places it back in the packet.

"You don't want one?" he asks in rebuttal, and she shakes her head between her hands, and he matches her stance leaning in towards her on one hand, cigarette hanging from his ringed fingers. "Then why did you follow me out here?"

"You asked me to."

His confused gaze softens into one of awe before quickly turning smug, "You really do like me, don't you?"

"Meh." She replies with a cheeky grin and a tilt of the head as he pretends to be shot in the chest, having mildly bruised his ego. "Well, if I'm being completely honest Munson, you've charmed me and it annoys me to no end. But don't let it get to your head."

"No promises." He grins widely, the contagion of his joy forcing a grin onto her face. "You know, most people are scared of me. Think I'm a satanist cult leader or something I don't know." They laugh at the ridiculousness, "And yet you, after one day, you trust me for whatever reason, probably a terrible idea by the way I'm a horrible influence-"

"Eddie, are you trying to tell me not to be your friend?" Y/N interrupts, her eyes dropping from his gaze and her heartbeat picking up a little, mind racing with questions of if she's come on too strong.

So desperate for people to like you, you cling to the first person who shows you kindness? How pathetic.

"No! God no!" He answers just a bit too loudly, scaring her out of her train of thought a little and looking back at his slightly wild eyes. "I'm just not used to people wanting to be my friend, especially pretty girls."

"Pretty?" She sees the panic in his eyes as he registered what he'd said and tries to ignore the incessant fluttering in her stomach, "You flatter me, Munson, you should see yourself."

He blushes. She thinks he's pretty.

She pushes the thought away.

"I erm-" he clears his throat, and regains some of his composure, "I don't want you to not be my friend."

"Good." They lock eyes for a lingering moment before he takes a drag of his cigarette, flicking off the ash and placing it in between her lips again. She gulps as his hand brushes the skin of her face gently before pulling away and leaning against his hands again. Smoke surrounds them as she talks but he isn't deterred in the slightest. "So, any ideas for tonight? Or is it a surprise?"

"Well, I was thinking, 'cause it'd be your first time, we do something special," Eddie says, faking a sweet smile but a smirk can't help but creep up onto his face at the insinuation.

"Ha ha." She deadpans in response, trying and failing to stop a smile from gracing her lips, Eddie instantly noticing and allowing the wry smile to stay.

"Seriously though, I want you to enjoy it so I've created something small, heavily influenced by Hobbiton, where you can learn the mechanics without any real threat." The smile turns genuine as he talks, watching her get more and more excited as she thinks about the possibilities.

"That sounds amazing! God I can't wait, I'll spend the rest of the day noting down little character traits for my one-shot halfling and-" she interrupted herself, "-wait, I don't have any dice."

He seems unbothered by the thought, and waves the thought away as though it was a fly getting too close to his face, "Don't worry about it, I got you covered."

Y/N didn't have any time to think about it further before they heard the bell signalling the end of lunch in the distance, and groaned in unison, neither of them wanting to go back to being around other people so soon. Eddie took a long drag of the cigarette, smoke filling his lungs and blowing it into the air before passing it to Y/N to finish. Once she had, she stubbed it out on the table, the little black ring joining the collection that Eddie had left over the years. Wandering back towards the school, a sneaky thought crept into her head – was this a kind of…date? Did he share his cigarettes with everyone? Or was she somehow special to him? Her head was already filled with him after only 36 hours of knowing him, but she never wanted him to escape her mind.

The day passed smoothly after their impromptu escape into the woods but her stomach fluttered with anticipation of what the evening would bring. By the time their last period literature class rolled around she was practically buzzing in her seat but tried their hardest to keep it contained. However, the pretty blonde cheerleader next to her took notice and giggled to herself. Y/N was about to say something snarky but the girl spoke before she could.

"I don't think ever seen someone so excited for school to be over," she said in a saccharine tone that on anyone else would seem fake but on this girl, it seemed to be genuine. "You must have after-school plans!"

"Actually yeah, I do." The girl grinned and looked at her expectantly, "You don't wanna know, it's pretty nerdy."

"Yeah, I gathered, since you and Eddie Munson have basically been attached at the hip since lunch yesterday." There was an underlying edge to her voice, but it was surprisingly non-judgemental. "Jason thinks he's a complete freak but all his friends still go to him for deals. It makes no sense to me!"

She did not need to explain what she meant by 'deals', Y/N understood immediately, connecting the dots to his 'meeting' before he went to her house the previous night. "Hypocrites."

The girl laughs, and Y/N could swear the room got a little brighter, "Exactly! I'm Chrissy by the way."

"Y/N," she replied with a smile right as the teacher walked in and they both turned to face the board to pay attention. The class dragged after that, time mocking her as she waited for the final bell to ring. Although, she and Chrissy did exchange thoughts on the book they were analysing and discovered that they both found it exhausting, sparking a brief, joined rant over the dubious morality of the author. When the bell did finally ring, Y/N all but threw her books and pencil case into her backpack, forcing another giggle to sound beside her.

"You're gonna break your bag at that rate!" Chrissy commented through giggles as she packed up her own stuff. "You know you never did tell me what you two had planned for tonight…?"

"Oh," Y/N let out an awkward half-laugh-half-cough, then perched on the edge of her desk facing the blonde who mimicked her, "we're just doing some D&D stuff, and he's gonna cook, nothing that special really."

Chrissy didn't seem to think so, a wide grin spreading across her face, "He's taking you back to the trailer?!"

"Yeah?"

"Oh, he likes you." Y/N blanched, words caught in her throat, as Chrissy continued, "Nobody ever really goes to the trailer, even his deals are out in the woods somewhere apparently. He doesn't trust easily, and honestly, I don't blame him, with the way he's treated by-"

An arm suddenly draped around Chrissy's shoulders as Jason appeared next to her, "What are we talking about over here, ladies?" Chrissy shrinks into him but still smiles at Y/N, giving her a small wink.

"Nothing that concerns you," Y/N answers smoothly, despite the flurry of emotions running through her. "Ladies have their secrets, you know? Do you tell Chrissy what you and your boys talk about, hmm?"

His eyes narrow as he glances between his girlfriend and apparent new annoyance in his well-crafted life, "You two have secrets?"

"Of course!" Chrissy interjects, placing a delicate hand on Jason's. "All friends have secrets."

Friends.

Chrissy had claimed her as a friend.

Y/N had somehow managed to weasel her way into being friends with not only the school outcasts but also managed to charm the school golden girl, much to the chagrin of her boyfriend. Despite everything that Chrissy represented, a deep-rooted part of Y/N genuinely liked the girl, recognising an old part of herself in the perfectly styled, candy-coated haze of a blonde in front of her. Y/N raised an eyebrow at the jock, daring him to say another word but he plastered on a smile and held Chrissy tighter, biting his tongue.

"Chrissy, let me walk you to practice," Jason redirected his girlfriend towards the door gently, before glancing back towards Y/N, "head of the team can't be late."

"See you tomorrow Y/N, have fun tonight!" Chrissy called over her shoulder as the couple left the room, leaving Y/N alone with her thoughts. Snapping herself back to her senses, she quickly grabbed her things and all but ran out the door, making a beeline towards the car park.

Eddie, paced back and forth next to his van, kicking around a rock, whilst he waited for Y/N. Part of him believed that this was all one elaborate joke she was playing on him, that she couldn't possibly have any interest in him. But then he felt a tap on his shoulder and whirled around to see her leaning against the van, smiling at him, and all those pesky thoughts vanished.

"Ready to go? Or do you want to play with yourself a little longer?" Y/N quirked her head at him a little and watched as a blush grew on his cheeks slightly and kicked the rock out of sight before rounding the van to get in the driver's seat.

Fifteen minutes later they arrived at the trailer park and Eddie shut off the engine of his van but didn't hop out of the car, instead, he simply turned in his seat to face Y/N. He licked his lips and fiddled with his rings in his lap, leg bouncing where he sat. Y/N scanned him, then reached out a hand to rest on the skin of his knee poking through his jeans, "What's wrong?"

Eddie swallowed and glanced down at her hand on his knee before meeting her gaze, "I just- it's ridiculous, you've been nothing but kind to me and I selfishly don't want to believe that you're anything like anyone else in this fucking town, but- I just-" he closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the seat, "I don't want you to judge me on where and how I live. God knows I want out of here, 'much as the next person-"

"Eddie…"

"-I know it's nothing compared to where you live but I was raised here and-"

"Eddie."

"-It's my home and God I-"

"Eddie, oh my God, shut up!" Y/N finally managed to stop his rambling to make him look at her, eyes wide like a scolded puppy, but it softened when he saw not a single trace of judgement on her face, "I don't give a fuck where you live, or what state it's in – as long as it's not making you ill," he chuckled and she continued, "point is, I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be, so shut your ass up and let's go play D&D."

"Point well taken." Eddie unlocked the door and ran around to open the door for Y/N, giving her a hand as she hopped out of the van, squeezing it slightly as he led her up the doors to the trailer and let her in.

"What do you mean I died?!" Y/N was exasperated as Eddie rolled over with a fit of loud laughter. The hours had flown by as Eddie guided her through her first game, gifting her a set of his old dice for her to use until she got her own, the gesture making her stomach knot. The dice were simple black acrylic with white numbers but Y/N immediately promised herself to cherish them like gold.

"You failed your acrobatics check jumping off a table and took too much damage cause you're a level 1, then rolled a crit.1 on your last death saving roll, you're dead - them's the rules, honey!" Eddie managed to choke out through his raucous laughter.

"I blame the dice..." Y/N muttered with a pout, arms folded across her chest, glaring at the little acrylic demons.

"Aww, don't pout honey, it's not the dice's fault you're comically shit at this." He mocked, leaning on his arm with a dopey grin, earning him a gentle push so he laid flat. "Hey! No violence towards the Dungeon Master!"

"Oh shut up!" she nudged him again but he caught her wrist and locked his eyes on her, a single eyebrow raised.

"I didn't take you for a sore loser." He sat up, her wrist still caught in his grasp, his voice dropping to a low timbre, sending shivers down her spine. If he kept looking at her like this, she thought she might explode. "Now, because I'm having too much fun watching you get all...passionate, let's say, about the game, I'll let it slide, just this once, and bring you back to life."

She grinned and went to speak but he held a finger to her lips to stop her, before adding, "Just don't tell the others, can't have them thinking I've gone soft as DM. It's our little secret."

She silently held up her pinkie for him to take as a promise and he snickered but locked it in with his pinkie. With his face this close to hers, she could see all of the little details on his skin and ultimately got lost looking into those deep brown of his eyes. Feeling her heartbeat skip, she knew she was fucked.

"I should probably call my mum; tell her I'm not coming home for dinner…"

"Yeah probably."

Nobody moved an inch. Eyes and pinkies locked.

"Eddie?"

"Yeah?"

"You need to let go of my hand."

Eddie cursed under his breath and let her hand go, "Sorry,"

"Don't be," Y/N smiled and left the room to phone home, whilst Eddie collapsed back on the bed, running a hand across his face with a frustrated groan.

Outside the room, Y/N was leaning back on the wall, mind racing, trying to figure out what had just happened. Somehow, they had immediately fallen into a natural flirtation and it confused them both, but neither wanted it to end. It just felt so right, but so utterly terrifying. Pulling herself off the wall by his door, she quickly located the phone and dialled home, the phone barely ringing once before being answered, as though her mum had been sat by the phone, waiting.

"Y/N please tell me this is you. I've been worried sick." Mrs Y/L/N frantically said, the distress clear in her voice.

"Mum calm down, please, I'm fine, really I'm fine," Y/N twisted the cable around her fingers as she spoke, brows creased.

Her reassurance did extraordinarily little to calm her mother, "Then where the bloody hell are you?!"

"With Eddie." Silence. Y/N continued, "I'm at his trailer, we've been going over some D&D stuff, lost track of time I guess."

"Well, I'm relieved you're safe at least, I take it you won't be home for dinner?" Her mother sounded a little less tense, but it was strained, trying not to let Y/N know just how stressed she was. Y/N replied with a hum of acknowledgement before letting her mother continue, "Just make sure you're home before your dad, we don't need a repeat of last night." The thought sent an anxious chill down Y/N's spine, nodding subconsciously even though her mum couldn't see it. "Have fun, I love you."

"I love you too, mum. See you later." Y/N hung up and took a few deep breaths.

She needed to shake off this feeling before going back to Eddie, not wanting to ruin another perfectly good night. Once she felt a little more stable, she willed a small smile back onto her face and re-entered Eddie's room to find him playing absentmindedly with the dice, peering up through a curtain of hair as he heard the door move.

"So she knows, but we should probably get a move on, I need to be home before my dad otherwise he'll flip," Y/N said as casually as she could whilst leaning back on his door, arms folded across her chest.

He nodded in understanding whilst making his way over to her, crowding her personal space again, as he leaned in with one hand in his pocket and the other on the door by her head, "So dinner, are you prepared for a wonderful gourmet meal of canned soup and a bottle of beer?"

"And dessert?" Y/N asked looking up into his eyes with a quirk of her eyebrow.

If he was nervous he didn't let it show as he mirrored her expression and poked his tongue out in thought, before answering, "Well that depends, sweetheart," her heart skipped at the pet name, "What's your preferred popcorn flavouring?"

"Sweet and salty."

Why is he so close to me? Fuck, I want to kiss him.

"Excellent."

He suddenly pulls away and she has to blink quickly to readjust and shake the inappropriate thoughts away that had started to creep in again from him being so close.

Just friends, that's all we are, idiot.

previous // next

[hypezombies]

SEASON ONE POSSIBLY FORESHADOWED THE ENTIRE SHOW

I don't know if this has been talked about before, sorry if it has.

I believe the whole story was potentially foreshadowed in the first season, in the form of D&D campaigns and fireballs.

Specifically we see fireballs being mentioned three times over the course of the season:

1.In episode one when the party is playing D&D.

Will has to take action against the Demogorgon but he’s indecisive on what to do, so he asks for advice.

Lucas and Dustin have different opinions on what to do: Lucas says “fireball him!” while Dustin says “Cast protection”. The party isn’t united on what to do. Will chooses the risky option in a hurry, knowing he would have to roll thirteen or higher to win. He rolls a seven and ends up losing. 

As we already know, after that Will got transported to the Upside Down by the Demogorgon and remained stuck there for a week.

This loss marked the beginning of everything.

2. In episode five, when we see a flashback of Joyce and Will having a conversation in the kitchen.

Will is drawing the party in the middle of a fight, with Will the Wise in the front, shooting fireballs from his cane. 

The conversation between Joyce and Will goes like this:

J: What’s that shooting out of his cane?

W: Fireballs. I couldn’t find the red crayon, so that’s why it’s green.

J: If he’s so wise why does he need fireballs? Why can’t he just outsmart the bad guys?

W: Most of the time, yeah, totally. But sometimes the bad guys are smart too.

This in my opinion was foreshadowing of Vecna. 

Over the course of seasons two and three, we were able to see that the evils that were tormenting Will weren’t just some weird interdimensional animals who just wanted to feed and happened to stumble upon him, they had a plan far more complex. And in season four, Henry was revealed as the big bad guy behind everything, confirming that yes, sometimes the bad guys are smart too. 

So just like in the drawing, the party has to fight against an enemy whose intelligence is alike theirs, because Henry is human too and not some unknown entity.

3. In episode eight, after Will is back from the Upside Down and the party reunite to play D&D again. 

It’s once more Will’s turn to take action, this time against the Thessalhydra, which I believe to be a new enemy (maybe a weapon for Henry?) that will be revealed in season five and will play a big role, due to the many many times it has been hinted at. 

Will is once again indecisive on what to do and asks advice. This time Lucas and Dustin agree on what the right move is, the party is united on one decision. Will follows their advice, chooses to fireball him, rolls a thirteen and defeats the Thessalhydra, rendering the party finally victorious, after losing the previous time.

As we all know, the show focuses heavily on people coming together, whether that is to fight against evil or to find love, comfort and safety in each other. The main characters are outcasts and people who have found themselves lonely and struggling to conform and fit in throughout their lives. 

Unity, friendships and found families are core elements of the story, that’s why each season ends with everyone coming together in order to defeat the enemies.

That’s why in season four they weren’t able to succeed. Aside from not being all reunited in the same place, which isn’t necessarily the problem, many of them weren’t united emotionally either. 

Furthermore the plan they had come up with wasn’t something they had all agreed on. Two of the three groups found themselves helping from a distance without having a say on what the right thing to do was. And as we’ve seen in the D&D campaigns in season one, it is fundamental that all of them are united in the battle, physically and emotionally. All of them need to be on the same page in order to succeed. 

Let’s go back to fireballs for a moment. 

Since season one, we see fire is the optimal weapon against the Upside Down’s hive mind, and it’s used multiple times, like with flamethrowers, fireworks etc. 

In season four Nancy, Robin and Steve use Molotovs to fight against Vecna, which look a lot like fireballs.

Yet they aren’t able to defeat him, for the reasons said above and because the key is missing: Will. The one who had to take the final action in the campaigns, the one with whom everything started and the one with whom everything will come to an end.

[adankrivervalleynearyou]

fruity four as texts w me and my friends

[ryan-waddell11]

spot the difference game: level impossible

[queenimmadolla]

a little something from the vault. enjoy a little dad!eddie munson x mom!reader and their baby who knows her parents aren’t slick. from the pennyverse, of course. hope you like it :) ♡

You’re peaking your head out of the small kitchen, watching with a fond smile and a full heart as Eddie stretches out on the couch. In his arms, resting on his chest, is your angel of a baby girl. A few months old and developing a funny little personality. That personality does not enjoy napping. 

Penny’s got an extreme case of FOMO; can’t shut those big beautiful, brown eyes of hers if anyone else is awake or existing without her. Hence why your husband is pretending to sleep, though his hand maintains a steady patting rhythm on the baby’s back.

You can tell Penny is tired, rubbing her face with her balled up hands and into Eddie’s shirt out of frustration. Her curls all mussed up from the displays of agitation and from her dad’s fingers combing through the soft tufts over and over again (he can’t help himself, she’s much too cute and her hair is ridiculously soft). After every single little wiggle she does to fight off sleep, she goes real still and cranes her head up to stare at Eddie, who immediately drops his head back onto the pillow, eyelids flying shut. 

Eddie even adds in a few loud, cartoon snores and memememes which have you fighting to control your giggles.

Penny’s stare is unwavering though and you can’t prove it, but you’re positive that even as a baby—she does not trust either you or Eddie to actually be sleeping while putting her down for her naps (you’ve caved a few times—it wasn’t your fault though, whenever you tried the fake sleeping bit, she’d cry to purposely ‘wake’ you up).

Her stare lasts a few moments longer and you can see the twitch of Eddie’s lips, he’s fighting not to smile. Luck is on his side, Penny’s head lulls and then shakes as she once more tries to keep sleep at bay, rubbing her cute little face and those chubby cheeks into her daddy’s shirt.

Eddie makes the mistake of peaking an eye open too early—Penny stills and her head snaps up to catch him and you don’t bother to hide your laugh at his groan as she begins to whimper, having caught on to her daddy’s trick.

“Shhh, sweet pea, please. Close those pretty eyes.” He begs, fingers gently stroking over Penny’s eyelids to close them, and Eddie holds his fingers in place, hoping when he retracts them, her lids will stay closed.

Her eyes snap open the moment he pulls his fingers away and Eddie repeats the gesture, gently dragging her eyelids closed again as she whimpers, “No, you keep those watery eyes closed and to yourself, young lady.”

It’s an empty threat, Eddie’s already readjusting her as he sits up, shooting you a playful glare as he spots you. His next sentence is still directed at the baby in his arms, “You can’t keep getting away with this.”

Penny just whimpers and whines louder as she becomes more fussy, wiggling in her dad’s arms.

“Oh, yeah. You’re not getting out of this one, you are in desperate need of a na-AAHHH! AHHH! HELP! HELP!” Eddie yelps as Penny grasps onto his hair, pulling it with all her might. She can’t even crawl yet, and somehow, she’s got the strength of Hercules in that chunky, dimpled little fist. Eddie’s head is yanked to the side and he’s positive some of his hair will remain in her fist after he gets her to release him.

“Ow, ow—little help here, baby!” He calls out to you and you’re laughing the entire time as you pad over, taking her wrist into one hand as you gently pry her little fingers open. It’s a bit of a challenge, you get one little piggy to release its ironhold, and the moment you move onto the next, she clenches it back into place. 

When you’re down to her pinky, Penny immediately lunges for the curls dangling over Eddie’s other shoulder, and he doesn't grab her other wrist quick enough to stop her, “OH MY GOD, YOU CUTE LITTLE DEMON! Stop it! Release me at once!”

“Hey—she was part of your sperm count.” You can’t stop giggling and Eddie doesn’t look all that amused as he winces when Penny gives a particularly harsh tug on the hair in her other fist, still whimpering.

“I’m acutely aware—ow—that’s why I called her a cute demon—ahah, get it?—OW. Insider knowledge—ow! Okay, that’s it. You are taking this nap whether you like it or not now, you’ve just made this personal.”

[puppy-steve]

you know what im really missing this morning? june 2022 when we were all still in pre-vol 2 bliss

[lostdemidog]

DAILY WRITING PROMPT

You are in love with your best friend, but she has no clue. You have suffered in silence as you have watched her fall for the wrong guys over and over again. Graduation is coming up, and you are running out of time to tell her how you feel. Will she finally see that it should have been you all along, or will she break your heart forever?

you’re joking. - eddie munson x reader

MASTERLIST pairing: eddie munson x f!reader (a/n): requests are open! honestly just enjoy the ride. if you like this i’ll throw in a NSFW part two. CW: weed, smoking, suggestive content toward the end. all notes are appreciated. words: 1.5k

Since we came to this hellscape we call Hawkins High School, Eddie's life has been loveless regarding human-to-human attraction. He was utterly zoned in, drawn into his passion for Dungeons and Dragons that he had no time for anyone. 

That is until he saw her.

There was something he found mesmerizing about how she presented herself. Her outfits, her hip sway when she walks, how she tilts her head back when she laughs, and how she grins at him across the lunchroom when he's staring with a sly grin. It had his heart dancing around in circles. And she had no problem talking to him while other people threw labels on him. Weirdly enough, she motivated him to do better in his classes, though the efforts were to no avail, and his grades still hammered into the ground. It's the thought that counts. 

It wasn't that he was particularly nervous around her, more so that he didn't see the appeal of approaching her. If she returned any feelings, then she could be the one to make a move. That is until graduation grew closer and closer.

They were seniors. The likelihood they'd talk once they graduated was thin, and he needed to make his move as soon as possible. Those idle chitchats and this mutuality of loveless chatter they've developed won't work. Not for him, and little does he know it won't work for her, either.

That's when he makes his move.

Lunch had come around, and she was sitting with her friends, grinning at one of them as they held an open conversation that was easily forgettable and only filled the quiet air to refrain from awkwardness. Suddenly, one of her friends speaks up in a mild panic.

"Shit! Freak alert!" They whisper, her eyes glancing to the side where Eddie strides toward their table. Honestly, she can't hold back her grin as he pushes his way between the two jocks in front of her. "You got a problem, Munson? What's your fuckin deal, freak!" Eddie ignores them with a sly Cheshire Cat-like smile, sitting between the group who glare him down but seem unnerved and afraid to act on their frustrations.

"(Y/N)," Eddie greets, resulting in her raising her brow as she watches him take a fry from one of the lunch trays, popping it into his mouth, ignoring his bothersome protests. He chuckles, then slams his hands on the table, leaning forward in her face. "Come over? After school?" his voice is a bit more hushed. His brows raise momentarily in a suggestive tone, making her laugh.

"Alright, freak," she bites back, leaning in as well, the tension between them prominent. It takes everything out of her not to glance at Eddie's lips. "Why not? See ya soon." Eddie bounces on his heels, laughing as he moves away and jumps over the seat he was previously placed in, seeming giddy and cheerful.

"You won't regret it!" he shouts, taking his lower lip between his teeth as he bounds off to his table. She playfully rolls her eyes, cheeks growing rosy as her friends complain and try to change her mind, which she ignores. It's something she's grown accustomed to, blocking out these annoyingly judgmental pricks she forces herself to be surrounded by.

After long agonizing hours of classes and pointless conversation, the final bell rang to dismiss those inside this prison. It was a few minutes walk to Eddie's place, but he'd offered her a ride. Pulling up in his run-down smogging van, he halts to an intense stop, almost hitting her.

"Get in!" Eddie shouts, loud music blasting from his van. She laughs, throwing her bag through the window, then opening the passenger door, hopping inside, and slamming the door. She barely gets time to react as he hits the gas with full force and try jerk forward. The song that's playing is one she actually recognizes.

"Wild Child?" She shouts over the loud music, Eddie looking over to her and cackling with pure joy that she knows what he is playing. He hits the steering wheel to the drum beat as he drives, nodding his upper body to the guitar riff.

"Cultured are we, prep?" Eddie laughs, raising a brow at her as the words pick back up after the bass. He sings with no shame to the tune, the thrill of it all making her cheeks redden as she sings with him, murmuring the words she doesn't know. Eddie then reaches over and opens the glove box, album discs inside. "Go on, look through." He grins, giving her a nudge with his hand on her arm. Per his request, she looks through the different albums with curiosity. Then, she finds one labeled Iron Maiden, popping out the W.A.S.P. disc and slipping in this one. It takes a moment to register, but then The Trooper blasts in her ears, Eddie looking at her with a laugh and shaking his steering wheel. "Fuck yeah!"

It goes on like this for a good few minutes, though it gradually calms as he pulls up to his trailer, stopping his van with a rev of his engine, key clicking as he slips out of the vehicle, grabbing her bag and beelining to the door, opening the door with an excruciatingly extra bow.

"After you, m'lady," he says in a low voice, making her gently push his head with a chuckle, walking inside. The smell of cigarettes, weed, and last night's dinner hit her in a wave. She isn't repulsed, merely mildly surprised by such a new scent. Eddie tosses their bags to the floor, sighing softly. The question he asks next is so abrupt it almost makes her gasp audibly. "You smoke? Weed?" his voice is curious as he stalks to his bedroom, urging her to follow.

"Once, it was at a party," she laughs awkwardly, making him turn his head over his shoulder and look at her. She can't help but notice his beautiful curls and large puppy-dog eyes. Something about him charmed her despite his quirks, and she didn't fight back the grin as he grabbed a box, pulled out a joint, and kicked off his shoes, flopping onto his bed and lighting it with a cheeky grin. Eddie pats the empty area beside him, stretching like a lazed cat. Hesitantly, she follows and sits across from him.

"You know, Teddy," she starts, Eddie's eyes widening. "I'm curious. Why did you invite me?" she cocks her head to the side, Eddie biting back a sly and devious smile.

"Oh, no reason, just to kill you," he says casually, watching her face contort into confusion. He scans her face carefully, a pink tent coming to his face as he takes a drag from the roll, holding the smoke in his mouth before he speaks. "Chill, I'm joking." his reassurance is abrupt and monotone, but he obviously is sincere. 

Well, as open as Eddie Munson can get.

"No, I was just hoping we could talk about sum' is all," he starts, eyes glancing away. He wasn't ready to talk about it yet, but he dug into this hole; he had to explain. "Look. I'm gonna lay this out as clearly as I can." Eddie inhales a deep breath of smoke, looking into her eyes and then coughing out the smoke. "Fuck!" he balls his hand into a fist over his mouth, trying to catch his breath. "I'm not high enough for this..."

Eddie's eyes meet hers again when he surfaces, concern and confusion prominent on her features. Eddie's gaze softens for the first time, and a genuinely gentle smile comes to his lips as he stares at her beauty. "I like you," his words are abrupt as he sits up, keeping eye contact. She laughs at first, taking it as one of his jokes, but realizing quickly he means his words. Her eyes widen, and she blinks a few times as if he'd disappear if she did it enough.

"You're serious?" she suddenly asks, brows furrowed. Eddie seems anxious for the first time in a while, his breath hitching briefly.

"Absolutely," he affirms, making her cheeks redden. Obviously, she's surprised, but then she speaks up before he can make a joke to cover this.

"THE Eddie Munson likes M.E.?" she laughs, dragging her hands down her face. "Holy shit!" Eddie seems confused now, but she moves forward, placing her hand on his free one. "You don't know how fuckin' long I've waited to hear that, freak." her tone is soft, eyes glossy with affections held back for ages. Then, before he can react, she moves in and kisses him. Hesitation washes over him at first, but then he wraps his free hand around her waist, tugging her unto his lap. A soft groan escapes his lips, the kiss deepening with long-awaited passions. Her tongue traces his bottom lip, but he pulls back.

"Wait a minute, sweetheart," he chuckles, biting her lip playfully. Then, he draws in a large puff of smoke, moving in and kissing her with the same passion as before. The smoke dances between their lips, his tongue tangoing with hers as his hand trails down her pants, grabbing her ass, loving how his fingers seep into the skin.

They were surely going to make this a night to remember.